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bonnymori · 3 years

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𝐌𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐦𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐲

Word count: 2760+ (i'll try to keep bigger lengths such as this one!)

Synopsis: You meet a new classmate who's working along Nanami, you think he's fun to be around, it stands the same to him about you. Later, feelings unravel.

Contents/Warnings: (1) Itadori Yuuji x gn!reader (2) FLUFF, TONS OF FLUFF - and some comfort (3) With the small participation of... Ino Takuma!! I really like him too, that's why <33333 (4) This is pretty platonic, but also not? (5) Ending turned sorta cliché... but I liked it u.u

A/N: This boy made me run rampant... to fhe point it's not single attraction anymore I just wish him happiness (smh if only my parents knew...) also next post will be Toji's fic pt. 2! Y'all see the first part is almost reaching 100 kudos????? I'M SO HAPPY EHSODJWKDKSJD- thanks for all the new followers and the support!! <33

Ever since his fake death, Itadori has been training alone with the help of Gojo - and now, he works along a freshly new face, who belongs to a senior, founds out ex-salaryman named Nanami Kento. He's far a thousand times more strict than Gojo. Itadori doesn't really likes the change, because Nanami is a person he can't get along. This whole guy's appearance scream "work 4 life"; he has proved different, now he screams "work is shit - but I gotta do it because others won't".

They've just finished cleansing the outside of a movie theater off a few curses, when Itadori hears shouting from far behind them. Two figures approach, waving excessively. He quickly picks on Nanami's tired sigh beside him.

"Nanami! We figured out you'd be here! Our mission has been finished and we wanted to catch up to have lunch together!" A male clad in a full black outfit shouts, he has brown hair and a beanie on top of his head, looking quite content.

The other person simply trots next to him in silence, approaching with a friendly smile. They notice Itadori faster than the male, smile widening and quickly waving hello, suddenly eager to reach up to them. The gesture makes the pink haired boy perk up, curious to why the other person looked so joyful. His question is easily answered, when they tug on the man's sleeve and motion to him.

"Ino, we have a third buddy!" The dude looks at him with widened eyes. "So nice to meet you, I'm Y/N L/N! It's great to see new faces around!"

Itadori smiles at your energy, knowing already he would click with you very well.

"I'm Ino Takuma, sorry for not noticing you before! Your uniform looks cool." Itadori exchanges a few compliments with Ino, before the man turns to talk with Nanami, leaving him and you together.

"Yes! I'm Sukuna's vessel, Itadori Yuuji-desu! My type of woman is Jenn-"

You turn to him. "So, are you a first year?"

"Geh? Weren't you dead though?!"

"I was!- I am!- Please keep secret."

"Okay!"

"Ahem." Nanami coughs, drawing attention. "I requested you two to not come after me today. Itadori here is the reason why."

"That's no problem, we're very capable of keeping secrets." You threw your arm over Itadori's shoulder, him nodding along with you.

"Oh really, then remember to keep quiet about it. I'll let this slide." The group of students nervously at Nanami's intimidating tone. "But, I'll get to have my break alone."

"Gah!" Ino exclaimed, watching Nanami walk away; he also left the responsability of taking care of Itadori for you two, leaving without a word. "It really had to be today, when Nanami would take us to his favorite bakery..."

"Crybaby." You teased. "Itadori here can't go outside where anyone can see him, he's dead. So, we were to order food either way because he shouldn't be left out."

"Augh okay, it would be unfair."

"So, where are you staying Itadori?"

"At Gojo's state!"

"Whoa, I've never been there before." Ino commented, waiting as you sent a message to Ijichi to pick them up.

"He's my teacher, a very cool one!"

"I imagine! Ooookay, once we get there I'll get the food."

Itadori felt as his chest would burst of excitement, finally there was people around him again, he couldn't be less happy about it.

"Sharing is caring!"

Itadori laughed as you wrestled with Takuma for some fries, netflix long forgotten in the background, as watching the banter was way more entertaining. Most of the time, Ino rambled a lot about Nanami, while he rambled a lot about Gojo. The guy even showed him the cool scar under his beanie. He felt kinda upset after explaining the exchange was just temporary, his stay under Nanami's wing wasn't decisive, and therefore, he was more like a classmate than a partner.

Itadori also learned a lot about you. He was surprised to find out that you, although energetic, was the one to speak the lesser in conversations. His surprisement grew even bigger when you told him you're a exchange student from Kyoto, arriving Tokyo about the same month as him - thankfully, you were to say for good.

Conversations flowed easily in the air, until a voice from the doorway barged in.

"Yuuji-kun! Don't forget about your lessons! Hi kids! Bye kids!" Gojo said playfully, throwing the familiar punching bear to Itadori before leaving.

"What's this thing?" Ino asked.

"It's to help me control my cursed energy. So while I watch the movies, if I don't charge it with cursed energy it punches me square in the face. I thought I had mastered this thing already, but he insist I keep training with it." Itadori grumbles.

"At least it's cute." You commented, taking a sip of your drink.

"Until it punches you in your face without warning!" The pink haired boy barks.

The talks died down, the three of you eating quietly when another movie is played on the screen. Itadori didn't bother reading the title, it was a plain one about a zombie apocalypse that got him extremely bored, yet he kept watching still so the plushie didn't punch him in the face again; he's been keeping a record since all his last cursed energy training lessons were a sucess to this day. When his head started nodding and eyelids dropping Itadori can't remember well, about fourty five minutes of movie perhaps? Make it fifty, the second slumber took over his body completely.

When he awoke once again, it was near midnight, the clock on the wall told him so. He also noticed a soft and warm surface supporting his head, figures, it's your shoulder he's resting into, he feels an arm around his own shoulders and your cheek placed upon his hair.

"Hey, it's late." You immediately notices he's awake, calling out softly. "You should sleep on your room, or something, better to your spine."

He chuckles when you poke his side. "But I'm comfortable here."

"I'm surprised, you just met me today, and now is sleeping on my shoulder."

"I'm not, that happens often to me."

"Sleeping on people's shoulders?"

"No! Making friends quickly." Itadori likes your gentle warmth, your hug, everything makes him feel at home. "I met two more people before you for two weeks, but they can't see me, because I'm dead."

"So I'll keep you company, that's my new mission."

His eyes widen at that, a oh so little blush covering the tip of his ears.

"For how many time I slept anyway?" He asks.

"About two- no, three hours. You missed two movies, and this one is about to end."

"And you stayed here the whole time?" He motions to your shoulder.

"Yep. That reminds me I gotta pee."

Itadori grumbles, but quickly lifts himself off you, respecting your needs. That gives him some time to look around, he notices Ino is gone, and the plushie sits quietly at the other side of the couch, unmoving.

"Y/N! How did you manage to make it quiet down?" He's beyond bafflet.

"...que."

"What!"

"I said!" You arrive quickly at the doorframe, hands still wet from when you washed them. "I used my innate technique."

"Oh! How is it like?"

"It's kinda funny, gimme a moment." You left to wipe off your hands, coming back in a second. "So, just like Shoko, I produce reverse curse energy, but it's quite different than hers, I can't heal people. That's why we often call it positive energy instead. I can use it to soothe off negative energy, so the bear has no cursed energy right now."

"How does it works on people?" He felt very curious about everything, asking away like a kid.

"Since everyone has negative energy, it just makes you sleepy really. But when it comes to curses it's really practical, I can either weaken it or, if the curse is like grade three or four, I can slap them off existence completely by wiping all their energy." You were naturally proud of having a such versatile power, your own energy swirling with pride around you.

"That sounds amazing! Is it why I fell asleep though?"

"Nah, only if I did it on purpose. I guess you were just tired, hope you don't mind I decided to let you rest today."

"No way, it was a good nap."

You nodded. "By the way, Ino left to attend to a drinking party, he paid for our food."

"Drinking? Is he old?"

"Yeah, he's twenty." You chuckled, already expecting that kind of reaction.

"No way! He looks young just like us!"

"That's totally my reaction after I learned he's twenty!"

After that day, you started visiting Itadori weekly to daily, after exchanging numbers he made a little group with you and Ino, naming it the "Nanami trio". But really, he exchanges more texts with you in private, be them memes, cool images he wish to share, etcetera. Although, Ino wasn't left excluded, he ofter brough his xbox to connect to Itadori's tv room and you all would spend hours playing together; he just didn't spend much time with both of you as much. And that was okay.

For a few days, your connection with Itadori died down when he didn't reply to your texts. They would remain unread for some time, the longest being half a day, until he would spam apologies then move on with the topic. That became a routine until one day when you came over to check on Itadori unnanounced, needin to ease off your worries about the boy, only to find him sobbing in the middle of a hallway, staring ahead and beyond, his back to you.

"Ita-?"

"Egh!" Startled, he scrambled to wipe his eyes, turning to you. "H-hey, um, hi."

"What happened?"

"I- he-" His eyes didn't met yours, knuckles white in a death grip. You notice he has a few bandages thrown over his face and arms. The way his shoulders are drawn, as if he wants to shrink into himself is something you've experienced before.

"Something hard to talk about?"

He nods almost immediately, head still facing down.

"It's alright, come with me." You reach for his hands, grimacing slightly when his forceful grip is now on your hand, yet you don't comment on it. He follows you through the state wordlessly.

You two stop on the same tv room, sitting down on the couch. You then guide his head to your shoulder, gently massaging his scalp with the free hand.

"It's alright."

Those two words are chanted like a prayer for the next half hour, at some point, Itadori twisted his body towards yours and unknowingly caged you between him and the sofa arm. He embraced you with a force you didn't have in you, like he didn't want to lose one another. Painful or not, not a muscle moved on your body. He needed a shoulder to cry on.

Thirty minutes passed like seconds, you peered down only to find the boy confortably napping against your bosom; at some point you just became the cold side of the pillow to him. That's alright. It brings you joy to be the mom friend anyways. So you decided to join the sleepland aswell, arms still secured around his shoulders and the back of his head.

It feels like the nap hasn't been long, though, because you can feel Itadori's grip loosening and therefore, you're awake.

"Sorry if I broke any bones, in advance."

"Wow, and you only warn me now."

He laughs at your comeback, hands still secured around your waist.

"I'm surprised you let me uh, cuddle you for comfort - and sleep. I don't understand it? You just make me sleepy." He rambled, keeping eye contact with you while his head still rests on your chest.

"That's a piece of cake when you have younger siblings who seek for you every night they get a nightmare."

"Does that mean I can come to you again if I have a nightmare?" There it is, his togepi-kirby cutesy face.

"Are you four?"

"That's mean!" Itadori blushed, squeezing you on his arms. "I like the contact. It puts me at ease."

"Mm, do you want to talk about it?"

He gulped. "No, not really."

Your peach haired friend remained silent, and so did you. It seems he doesn't intend in letting you go soon, or he just really forgot to mention it. It gives them time to think, your younger sisted used to do that sometimes, back in Kyoto.

"Y/N, wanna watch anything?"

"Sure, have you watched Parasyte before?"

"No, let's give it a try then!" Itadori glances at the remote, then back at you - making you confused over his hesitation to move. He notices you noticed it, chuckling nervously. "To be honest, I don't wanna let go."

"It's hurting my back."

"SORRY I'M SORRY!" He jumped away from you like a cat would jolt away from a cucumber, making you snicker.

"It's okay, I just wanted to change positions."

And to tease you, but he didn't need to know that part.

He glared at you with a small pout, typing the initials of Parasyte on the search bar. Outside his line of vision, you were grinning like a idiot, his sweeteness took a tow on you. All the people of Tokyo you met really held a way different spirit from your classmates in Kyoto, Itadori being the nicest of all. It's surprising him being Sukuna's vessel to begin with; being honest, you felt drawn by it.

"Y/N, it's startiiiiing." He cut your daydreaming short, slumping on your side and propping his head on your shoulder.

"This again?" You throw an arm around his shoulders, very much like the first time he cuddled himself on you.

"Don't blame me, you're the one who wanted to change positions. Guess I'll just make some alterations since I'm awake this time!" One of his arms went behind your back and circled your waist, hand resting at your hip.

"It's definely different, since the other time you drooled on me."

"Hhgh, okay okay! Let me enjoy this." For perhaps the actual first time, you're able to watch without exchanging words with one another.

And this time, it's you who's head loll to the side, nose buried on his soft rose perfumed hair. Itadori doesn't comment on it yet, his free hand moves under your legs to lift your whole body up efortlessly when he senses you have fallen asleep.

"I remember you said it's bad for my spine, I wouldn't mind it... yours however."

The boy makes a beeline to the guest room, he sighs when there is no choice but open the door with his foot. Inside, he places you carefully in the soft bed.

Before he could leave, a hand reaches up for his sleeve.

"Itadori," He turned, looking at you. "Make me company?"

He giggles softly - you think it sounds like a highschool girl. "You should start calling me by my first name!" Itadori rambles as he climbs on the bed, arms wrapping around your waist in a motion you're familiar with.

"Yuuji, I'm tired, let me sleep."

"But I wanna talk more..." He pouts. "Also, are we, um, dating?"

You wriggle around, bringing his head down to peck on his forehead, teasing. "Correction, I want to date you."

"Uh, oh." A blush coats his face so quickly, you'd say someone dumped a bucket of red paint on his face.

"Is that a no?"

"No!"

"So it is a no."

"Christ, will you stop teasing for a second, I'm trying to talk here." He makes an angry version of his togepi-kirby face, you can't help but grin.

"You amuse me, but okay. I'll do it for you."

"Thanks." He blinks, the blush slowly fading away. "You know, I lied, not about the contact, I like the contact nonetheless-"

His hand moves to play with yours, such as tapping his tips against yours, or meassuring the palms.

"-it's you who brings me comfort."

It's also your turn to blush, that line was seriously charming.

"Yeah."

"Yeah?"

"Yes, we're dating now." You respond, a little eagerly. "Can I kiss you?"

"Please."

This is the best person I could ask for, Itadori thinks, keeping his eyes open as yours shut during the kiss, whom I won't change for anything else in this world.

When you both separate, Itadori feels drowsy and sleepy. His face fits perfectly on your shoulder as always.

"Goodnight, my favorite person."

#itadori yuuji x reader #itadori x reader #itadori yuuji fluff #jjk x reader #jjk x y/n #jjk fluff #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen fanfic

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ziracona · 3 years

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[FGO AU -- The Kid (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, ?)

“…Still nothing?” Her hands are perfectly still, muscles tensed and brow furrowed with all the concentration I ever seen on any mage, but, I think she can tell the answer before I give her a sympathetic smile. “AUGH,” she exclaims, flinging herself back unhappily into her seat, “Why! I’m trying my hardest! I don’t understand what I’m doing wrong!”

The mage folds over like a camp chair and deflates with unhappy sounds, sliding back against her own seat.

“Hey, come on now,” I try reassuringly, “It’s not so bad. I don’t know any magic at all, but pretty much all skills take more than an hour to come together.”

She lets out another long sigh and blows some hair out of her face, then straightens up a little. “Yeah, I know,” she admits, “But it’s not like I only tried today. Actually, I’ve…been trying to practice it like all week. So I’d be ready…”

Whoa.

I…guess I shouldn’t be surprised—I keep underestimating her, and her level of plannin’. She strikes me as impulsive, and she is—to the core—but, she’s smart too, and reasonable. Knows how it works, and thinks, just, goes for the long shots anyway. It’s a combination of traits I both like and can relate to.

“Still,” I offer, “You ain’t got a teacher, ‘n mage stuff’s complicated to learn.” She still looks incredibly down, but she nods as she stares vacantly through the bed past me. “…’Sides,” I add, “That medicine you gave me’s helpin’ a lot already—I’m feelin quite a bit better. And you don’t need to worry about havin’ to heal me, sooner or later. I’m getting’ a steady supply of mana from you, even if it’s slow, so my spirit core’s rebuildin’. It’s just gonna take it a little time. It won’t be like a real—human—bullet wound would be to heal.”

“Really?” she asks, perking up immediately.

“…Yeah.” I’m kinda surprised she didn’t know that. Girl seems to have a roulette-wheel of a library about my kind in her head. “At this pace, I should be back on my feet by mornin’.” Crap, it is morning. I forgot. I give the blinds a glance. “Or, --I mean a few hours.”

“That fast?” she asks, eyes widening.

I shrug, which hurts. Ow. Why…do I keep doing that? OW. DAMN it, Bill. When I’m not moving, I forget how much the entire left side of my chest is in agony when I do. “Not back to normal, but, on my feet,” I manage with my teeth clenched, trying not to let on how much that hurt.

She nods, thinking that over. “Can I do anything to help speed it up?”

I still can’t get used to that.

Kid’s so….fervent, and sincere. And nice to me. I’ve been awake for maybe an hour with her now, and I’m still not remotely used to it.

I refocus quick, and give her a smile. “Not more than you already have.”

“I could get you more food,” she suggests eagerly.

That’s probably true, actually, and I could use it. Just. “…Well, if you got some,” I stutter out. I am not used to feeling flustered, but I am realizing quick I am even less used to people bein nice to me. The odd heroic spirit maybe, but humans? Feels totally off now. Like I’ve snuck in somewhere I’m not supposed to be.

Happy, the kid snags her tray, but before she can leave I say, “—Actually though, uh, --before you go—I’m realizin spectacularly late here you still haven’t told me your name.”

She freezes with her hand on the tray and her face turns red. “CRAP, YOU’RE RIGHT!” the mage whips around to face me and gives a distressed bow. “I’m so sorry—I can’t believe—”

“—I-It’s fine, really,” I assure her, “Just you got me at a little bit of a disadvantage right now-”

“—Right! I-I’m sorry. I totally forgot! I’m Ritsuka Fujimaru,” she says, offering me a hand. It takes me a second to get she wants me to shake it, and I awkwardly do.

“Ritsuka Fujimaru,” I echo, “Well, you already know my name, but seein’ as I got several to pick from, Billy’s good. –Oh, uhm—you got a name you prefer me to call you?”

“Uh.” She gives me a glazed stare like someone looking at an oncoming train. “My…friends in high school called me ‘Gudako’ sometimes.”

I stare right back and forget to take back my hand from our handshake. Damn!! “…Your friends weren’t too nice, huh?” I offer sympathetically.

Her face turns crimson and she gives me a look saying she was praying and expecting that I wouldn’t know what that meant and is crying on the inside that I do, and I feel real bad for her that we spirits get such decent language translation built into us on summon. “No,” she offers in a tiny, beaten voice, staring past me.

It’s real hard not to grin, but I beat the impulse down internally with a shovel and give a sympathetic smile instead. “Well, I really just meant ‘do you prefer ‘Ritsuka’ or ‘Fujimaru’,’” She turns a deeper shade and I see her wish for death a little. “But if it’s any consolation, I would definitely not describe you as boring.”

The kid finally looks me in the eye again, a bit like a kicked dog, but she smiles back after a second and seems to bounce back with it. We both remember we’re still holding hands then and let go.

“Well, thank you,” she says like she means that, “I guess I’m not this week anyway.”

“Hardly,” I agree with a smile.

She returns it and takes the tray and goes back into the kitchenette I gotta assume is back there somewhere, and I get another second to think alone.

I’m doin’ better—a lot, I think. So far I think I’ve been up something close to an hour. All this is very strange to me, and it’s not been a great couple of months, but I’m feelin’ less and less dead by the minute, and the answer to ‘does pain medication work on Heroic Spirits’ seems to be a solid ‘yes’—which—considerin alcohol still does and I knew that, in retrospect shouldn’t be such a surprise to me. A glad one though, for sure. Still.

What now? That’s the real question.

Kid says she just wants to help, and at this point I mostly believe that. There’s usually a catch somewhere down the line, but maybe not. I do think at the least she thinks she means it right now. …And…and. I wish that was all I had to worry about. But, the less pain I feel, the clearer I’m starting to think, and either way, she’s right; I can’t just go back to the throne, or I’ll get resummoned. I’m stuck here like this, tied to her right now. But I can’t stay here indefinitely, and neither can she—actually, come to think of it, if they got any kind of security at that workshop, she might be in danger now, for breaking me out. Mages are…known for their ruthlessness. There could be people already on the way to deal with her. Okay. Better find that out, and fast.

Then, third and last on the list of things for me to figure out and deal with is those mages themselves. And that’s the big one. I’m not the only one of us that’s gonna happen to, if it ain’t already happened to more of us, and I can’t leave the place like that. If they have more spirits already, I need to break them out. And either way, I need to destroy that research and probably the people in charge, so they don’t just rebuild, or they absolutely will. And fast. Not sure this new master is just gonna let me go on a wild murder tear either, though, no matter my motives. Which is a problem…

She’s back then, though, so I’m out of time to focus.

“More okayu, plus some chocolate, if you’re feeling good enough,” she offers hopefully, setting her tray back down, “and I brought you some tea too.”

See that’s the problem, I think mournfully at the sight, I can’t do nothin’, but I can’t just betray her after this either, even if I got a good reason! No one’s ever been this good to me—I can’t just go lie to her and then pull a bunch of bloodshed on her dime—even if she don’t sign off on it, she’ll find out, and she’ll feel responsible, and she’s a kid, I’ll have done that to her! I don’t wanna give some kid who saved me a bunch of guilt trauma! After all this? …Hell. I… But I can’t do nothin’ –I can’t. I got friends in the Throne, and even if I didn’t, I ain’t about to allow that to keep on goin’. We don’t deserve that; it ain’t right. But if I tell her what I got in mind, she might use a command spell and bind me, so. …But still. I can’t… I can’t…do either, but. …Maybe I could convince her to absolve the contract, and get it done after that and before I vanish, just, once I got more strength? I got my Independent Action that could keep me goin’ for a little—even Gunner, I got a lot of my Archer traits, so, once I’m healed, it might be enough to get- …No. Ain’t enough. She’d still see what happened, and know the only reason I got it done was her. Same problem as before. Shit. Shit, this sucks… I’ll be doing somethin terrible no matter what, then…

And I know myself. And that the thing I’m eventually gonna do is not leave that place standin’ with people like me trapped dyin’ inside it. As much regret and guilt as that’s gonna buy me too…

“What?”

I glance up, and she’s got her head cocked. I gotta stop bein’ an open book here. Let me think…

“About Ur-shanabi,” I start hesitantly, “Master, did—”

Her expression changes drastically to distress and she immediately cuts me off. “—Oh, please don’t call me that.”

I forgot I even said it, so it takes me a second to get what she means. “’Master’?”

“Please?” she says again, “I know you’re supposed to, and I’m supposed to call you my servant, but I really hate that.”

Everything else I’ve been thinkin’ about just kinda shuts off and I stare at her, blink. … Y…yeah, me too. Always…

“You’re all heroes, or famous artists, or explorers, or fighters, and we’re just mages. –I mean, even if it was different, I’m pretty sure I’d still hate it,” she continues with a sigh, somewhere deep in thought in her own head, but she comes back and meets my gaze, “But please don’t. I don’t want you to have to think of me that way either. I guess I don’t know how this all usually works in a lot of detail, and I know you’re stuck bound to me right now, but I don’t want you to worry I’m gonna try to make you obey me. I won’t! That’s not why I helped you!” She looks so intense. Leaned forward, one palm on the bed, look on her face that makes me believe she means it. “I want you to know I’m never gonna do that; I mean it. I won’t ever use a command spell on you to make you do something you don’t want to do, I promise.”

Her eyes are amber and bright like coals and full of intent. I find it impossible to look away.

“Not ever. I don’t want to try to use you or control you; I. …I’m…really just trying to help…” She finishes, pulling back once she’s made her statement and looking just a little embarrassed only now it’s done.

“…Well, good,” I finally find my voice, “Because I’ve never been much for the Master-Servant thing anyway. Can’t ever seem to stick to it, and it tends to cause problems down the road.”

She smiles back, happy with my answer and that I’ve accepted her proposal.

Some kind of a mage... This is…almost too much to really even understand right now, but I think she…meant it. She thinks she did. I’m beginin to think calling her a mage at all was plain off. She’s somethin’ else. I always think the kid’s thrown me for about as many loops as she can, and then I get knocked down again, and it’s been less than a day. Don’t bode well and really does for me at the same time.

“’Boss’ then?” I suggest, but I can instantly sense her dislike.

“’Partner?’” she counters hopefully.

That does have a much better ring to it, I gotta say. “Partner,” I concede with a wink, “If you’re sure that’s what you want.”

Never had a master that wanted me to un-know my place before.

“Well, you could also call me ‘Ritsuka’,” she says hopefully and then immediately becomes embarrassed. “Uhm,” she hurries, glancing away when I grin at her, “A-And you’re sure you prefer ‘Billy’? Not Henry?”

Lord it’s been a while since anyone called me that. Sends me a long, long way back. And not really in a good way. I appreciate the thought though.

“No,” I reply.

She seems surprised a little, but I can tell she’s not gonna press me, so, there’s really no reason to say this, but for some reason I want to tell her.

“That’s my middle name, actually,” I say.

“Huh?” says the girl.

“Henry,” I clarify, “Middle name. It’s William Henry McCarty, actually.”

Her brow furrows. “…But I thought…?”

“Step-dad had the same name, and it was too many for one household, so mine got shortened,” I gloss over, “Took it back when I picked my own name on the lamb.”

“So. …You outlaw-named yourself … ‘Your Name The Hot One’?”

It’s my turn to suffer nickname shame, though I’m not too ashamed of that, because it’s pretty funny. Does suckerpunch me a little to get called on it more than 100 years later.

“…I-I don’t know…” I answer automatically before thinking of what to say, “Maybe. …yeah.”

She almost chokes on a laugh. I grin.

“I mean, if you got the opportunity—wouldn’t you? I’m just sayin,” I say casually, past the slight amount of embarrassment I felt and pretty proud of myself again. It was a slick name.

“It’s got flair,” she says approvingly.

“Thank you,” I reply.

“So, what were you gonna ask—before I interrupted you?” she asks, picking up the cup of tea and offering it to me. I take it, feeling immense guilt as our hands touch for a second and I’m stuck thinkin about all the things she’s done for me for no reason other than bein’ kind, and the fact I’m definitely going to turn on that and her, and how awful that is.

I…wonder if it would make things some kind of right if I came back and let her kill me after? No. No, that’d make it worse. Mage or not, I don’t think this kid’s ever hurt anyone. I don’t know what I can do to soften taking this kind of kindness and drawing blood with it, but…

“Ur-shanabi,” I say quietly, working hard to pass off my internal distress as distraction as I hold the little clay cup and feel the warmth. It smells good. I know I have to drink it, and I’ll feel physically better, but everything nice I accept is piling on guilt.

…I wish. I wish I had a choice here, but I can’t let them keep this goin’. I wish I knew a way to make that right, or at least explain to you I’m sorry. And everything she says and does just makes this worse! I don’t want to hurt her. I really don’t. In any other situation, I wouldn’t, but I have to, and I hate it. I don’t want to betray her. I don’t want to make her regret showing me kindness. I don’t want her to feel the way it feels to not do something cold but safe, and then get shot for it.

Hot water slips over the top of my hand and I jerk back and just spill more of the tea, sucking in a sharp breath at the unexpected pain.

“Whoa! –Are you okay?” she asks worriedly, passing me a napkin and leaning over to catch onto my hand and help steady the cup and what’s left inside it, “What happened? Are you feeling worse again?”

Hell! My hands are shaking and I can’t quite get them to stop. Calm down. You don’t gotta do anything right now. You can feel bad later. Just think a second.

“Nah—s-sorry,” I manage, trying to smile at her and not quite sure how well I do, “I uh—I guess I’m just still a little weaker than I thought. I’m fine now.”

“Here,” she says, brow all scrunched up in concern, taking back the tea and passing me the ice pack to set on my hand.

I hate this. I’m terrible. It ain’t fair—it ain’t wrong for me to go back, I gotta, but. I hate this. I hate it.

I take the pack and try to look grateful. “Thanks.”

“Sorry about your hand,” she says.

I wave it off. “It’s already done hurting.”

“…” She waits a second, leaned a little forward expectantly, and I forget what for until she prompts me again. “What? About Ur-shanabi?”

“Oh,” I say. Right. “I was gonna ask how much you know about their operation. –How you even ended up in the right place at all.”

“Oh,” she says, and she loses some color.

Huh?

“Uhm,” she glances away, then back, and seems more herself, but I’m not sure I buy it this time. I don’t think she’s lyin’, per-se, but there’s something else she’s not saying. “Well. I’m from a mage family, but, not a ‘mage’ family—we know about magic, I did—growing up. But, I didn’t ever get any formal training, or anything. So I guess it was more like mage-adjacent in a lot of ways. There was this test I heard about from a friend—a research project on magical circuits, and I was curious.” She glances down at her legs again, but this time she looks far away and almost happy, like she’s revisiting a better moment in her head. “I’d always been curious about myself and magic, and I was excited, because if you participated in the research project, you got to know stuff they found out about your magical circuits—stuff you might be good at.” She glances up at me and gives me an embarrassed smile. “It sounded really cool. I had wanted to know for so long, and I thought—I still think—it would be really great to learn how to do more magic. So, I went.”

The girl—nope—Ritsuka, thinks for a second, then holds out her hand and looks at it. “Apparently I’ve got really unusual circuits.”

“Unusual?” I echo, kind of intrigued. I know jack-all about magic, but I am curious.

She glances over and nods. “Yeah. I thought I did really badly in the study, because I didn’t know any real spells at all, and everyone else did. They pulled me aside after and I thought they were just going to kick me out before we even got results, but, apparently my circuits were so unusual they wanted to do a case study. I’ve got ‘Almost no practical control or ability to utilize them, but possess a nearly inhuman amount of mana.’”

“Really?” I ask. I can’t feel that at all. I’m getting enough to keep me sustained, sure, but that’s it.

“I know, right?” she agrees, nodding and leaning forward, “That’s what I said! But apparently I do. They asked me if I’d come in to do more studies, and I said yes, because I was also curious. And that was Ur-shanabi. I’ve been going there for a while now,” she adds, then stops, gives me a guilty look, then looks away and keeps going in an almost dejected tone. “Uh. But I worked, or, was allowed in, I guess, a totally different part of the building. You were up on the 12th floor. I was on the 4th, R&D testing labs.”

“Oh,” I say, very confused by this reaction from her, and a little concerned by it too if I’m honest, “What brought you up to the 12th?”

“The mage I met with the most was named Nakata. He worked in a lot of projects more important than mine too. I think that was maybe the only time I was ever on the 12th floor,” she answers, “That day, I showed up and waited for a couple hours, and he never showed up in R&D. There were other people who wanted to use the room we usually used for another test, so I asked if I should go home, and the secretary said yes, but I bumped into Dr. Nakata in the elevator on my way out. He said he’d been swamped by a last-minute schedule change, and still wanted to do our test, but he’d be maybe another hour, and that I should just wait for him by his office. Which, is on the 12th floor. I was just standing there, and this big group of mages went into a large room at the end of the hall, so I was curious and watched them, and.” She shrugs.

Yeah, I can fill in the rest.

“I guess you don’t know a lot about what they were doing with me, then,” I say, a little disappointed. Any new information would have been useful. I don’t know that I expected another answer, though.

“…Actually, yes,” says Ritsuka, looking uncomfortable. I glance at her in surprise and she looks flustered and guilty and glances away again. “Uhm. After I saw you, I asked Dr. Nakata what was going on up here, and who you were.”

You coulda been killed, I think in a frozen kind of horror. What were you thinking?

“He told me,” she says simply, “You were a heroic spirit, and they were doing tests on things you could do using them. He even told me what the test was.”

I don’t know what to think or how to feel about that, so I just listen. I wonder why on earth he’d tell her?

She glances up and holds my gaze this time, an undercurrent of almost…incensed feeling somewhere deep in her eyes. “He said they had found a way to keep a summoned spirit away from the throne for a long time at low mana cost, and instead use the connection to their Saint Graph and essence as a fixed unit outside of time now, to generate a potentially limitless source of energy. To…make a heroic spirit into a battery.” I can tell while the rest of it was her echoing, the last statement is her own, and she’s bitter. “I asked how, and he told me,” she continues, “He said you had to trap one right between life and death, so they would give as little presence as possible to anything looking, and wouldn’t find a way to escape or retaliate on their own, but couldn’t actually vanish either. ‘An art and a science, to find the perfect thread to stop at, and keep them in place on the edge of death.’ Stuck. In pain, and too weak to fight back, but here.”

She lets out a long sigh and glances at me and says, “I said that sounded awful, and what about the spirits, and he told me a lot of stuff about heroic spirits being familiars that are meant to serve mankind in whatever way they’re summoned for, no matter how painful, and aren’t people anymore and that’s their intended use.”

Ow. I mean, it’s not new; I hear this from mages all the time, but it’s never fun to hear one say it right to your face. Fuckin mages…

“But, I think he could tell I didn’t like it, even though I was a little scared by then and trying not to seem as much like it,” she continues, glancing down at her hands, “And he told me ‘Don’t trouble yourself. You’re new to this, but it’s a normal part of being a mage. If it helps you rest easier, the one we summoned was Billy the Kid, an outlaw and a murderer from the old American west,’ a-and. That…” her voice gets quieter, like suddenly she thinks maybe she shouldn’t have said any of this, “…I could think of it as divine punishment, in a way. And not have to feel bad.”

…

That. It really shouldn’t bother me to hear. People always act like that to me. Even when I was alive. I think about being sent to hang for a murder I didn’t commit for a moment. I had so many murders on my record by the end of it, but I’ve never pulled a trigger that wasn’t in self-defense or a last resort. But it’s never mattered. You are what people make of you, in the public eye, and in history I guess, no matter what the truth is. And eventually that tends to push you to an ending written about the person you’re described as. I never thought of any of the fights I was in as murder. I guess it’s been a long time since I could even pretend that mattered to anyone but me, though.

…I still hate it.

It hurts. Not so much people sayin’ that—don’t care too much what people think; I know who I am. But, the fact that it just straight up don’t matter what’s true, at all. Even a little… I could have lived a completely different life and not been remembered as any worse at all.

“He thought I’d agree with that.” Her voice is angry. I glance back up, train of thought broken, and Ritsuka looks as mad as she sounded, somewhere else in her head too. It’s a quiet, deep anger. “I didn’t.”

There’s something about how she looks, like she’s an embodiment of what she’s saying, and again it becomes hard to look away if I’d wanted.

“He was wrong. I guess there are some people who deserve to die,” she continues, “I’ve thought about that. About if I think if…if someone killed my family or something, I’d want them to have to die too for it. If I think that’s fair, and right. But. …Even if some people probably deserve to die, nobody deserves to be just kept in pain forever. Even the worst people. I don’t know how anyone could think after more than a day anybody at all could possibly know it’s right to go on hurting someone. Not even the worst person.” She looks distressed by that for a moment, then glances back at me and smiles a little. “I decided that, and that I was going to try to do something, and then I went home and looked you up, and you didn’t even sound that bad.” Her eyes go big immediately and she looks mortified. “—Wait—That sounded bad! I’m sorry! I-I said that wrong. I—I meant—I didn’t—I just mean—he’d said—uh—a-and you didn’t sound like—it seemed like you weren’t so—like stuff went wrong for you more than you were a bad person actually, a-and you didn’t seem like you were really a murderer—"

The poor kid is sweating buckets now. I think she thinks she’ll have offended me sayin’ that, but it’s very much the opposite.

“—I should stop talking. I’m sorry. I-I just—uhm. You were different sounding than I thought before I looked you up is the only thing I was trying to say—I’m so sorry I don’t know why I said any of it at all!” She gives up and hunches over apologetically in shame.

“…I ain’t mad,” I try to assure her after a second.

Ritsuka glances up between her bangs and gives me a sorrowful, worried look.

“…I…think I actually appreciate that,” I continue after a second, figuring it out as I go and then giving her a smile, “I ain’t sure what you read about me, or how true it was, but I’ll take what goodwill I can get.” She raises her head a little more, but still looks worried, so I keep going. “Ain’t offended me—I get it. You were already thinkin of doin’ something dangerous. Gotta know what you’re in for best you can, with a heroic spirit. Only smart to try’n be prepared.”

Looking a little better, she cautiously un-hunches. “Yeah. …I really didn’t mean to say it how I did, though. I don’t think you’re bad! I mean, I know I don’t know you, but I-”

I hold up a hand. I feel like after all this, I really oughta let her off the hook.

“Don’t worry about it,” I say with a sure smile, “You don’t gotta explain yourself, or tell me what you thought, or what you think now. I don’t have to know. I’m aware you’re takin’ a risk on me, especially with my kind of record, and I appreciate it. Probably ain’t easy for you.”

Shit, haven’t thought about that before, but it’s true. Kid might have command seals, but I’m quick, and she’s not experienced. Pretty much any heroic spirit she summoned that wanted to could kill her easy. She didn’t think to use one immediately to order me to not. I’ve been so strung out and nervous of her, I haven’t thought for a second about the fact she’s probably scared of me.

“…Uhm. In light of that, Ma- Partner,” I correct, “I’d like to set a few things straight for you, if you don’t mind?”

She seems to recover a little, straightens up and gives me a very serious nod.

“If you’re worried about me, don’t be. Whatever you heard, truth is I never killed anybody except when it was them or me, or I was defendin’ someone else. I never was a fan of it, either. Only crimes I ever set out to commit were thefts, mostly outa need,” I say, “Where I grew up, once you had a reputation, that was all you had left. I stole food when I was on my own at sixteen, and there weren’t no turning back after that. ‘Bout that simple.”

The gal’s listening attentively, head cocked. Takin this serious. And I’m still thinkin over how this has probably been for her. Angering a group of powerful mages is scary enough. Now she’s contracted to an outlaw spirit, and she’s apparently a mage who’s got no real practice usin spells. She’s basically just a civilian. She’s all alone here too, and somethin like sixteen or seventeen, and she’s got no real idea what I’m gonna be like, or want, or do. I’m not in great shape, but I’m still a heroic spirit, and a lot more powerful than her, and I’ve killed people. That’s a pretty good reason to be scared. I don’t want her to be, though. At all.

“I know all you got’s my word on this,” I say, working hard to convey my sincerity, “But it is the truth. More importantly, you saved my life, and I owe you. I really am grateful. I got no plans to try and hurt you; I promise—you got nothing to worry about.”

FUCK. What I’ve just said hits me like a ton of bricks. Fuck, I should’ve phrased that differently!—no no no—damn it damn it; I should have thought about it first! Hell! I am gonna hurt her! Probably. Not physically, which is what I was thinkin’ about when I said that, and meant, but it’s not technically what I said, shit shit shit, I just promised her something I’m gonna break—oh great, and I must have some amount of that showin’ on my face because she actually does look nervous now. I lied and I actually made her more afraid of me. Great job! Damn it damn it damn it.

“I’m really not the kind of person to do that,” I add quickly, trying hard to save it. This is bad this is bad. “I wouldn’t have a reason to anyway, but you definitely don’t gotta worry about me—” Everything I am thinking to say is wrong. All of it. ‘turning on you’ – a lie. ‘repaying that by making you sorry’ – a bigger lie. Shit. And I feel like it now too, more than before. I’m the worst—I’m terrible. I know I don’t have an alternative, and I have to go back, but this is awful, and I feel very appropriate amounts of guilt about it. I deserve this. “attacking you or something,” I go with, even though it sounds weird in my ears, because I don’t want to outright lie again, and even this much is making me feel miserable. “after you’ve been good to me.”

I hate this. I hate myself. Maybe. …Maybe there’s another way, maybe I can… Can…

She smiles for a moment, happy I said that I think, then slowly looks worried. “You look worried.”

Oh. I guess I’m the one who looks worried.

I…

I can’t. There’s nothing I can do to work this out better than it’s gonna be. I just. …I just…

…Fuck it.

“I am,” I say honestly, turning my head to look at her. She’s so sincere, and so worried. She’s been so good to me. I just. … I just… “I’m worried about Ur-shanabi,” I say, so sure I’m going to regret this in seconds, but doing it anyway because of some deep inherent flaw in who I am, “I’m okay right now, but I figure with me gone, they’ll just take another one of us and do the same thing. If they haven’t already.”

I watch slow horror creep over her face as that clicks. “…I. Would…? Oh. They will. And it’ll be my fault.” she says, glazed-over expression on her face.

What? “No!” I say immediately, “That it’s someone else and not me? It ain’t your fault. It’s theirs—they’re the only ones doin’ it, aren’t they?”

She comes back to herself a little and looks at me, but her face is still drained of color.

“It won’t be your fault,” I say again, “That’s ridiculous, and you know it. …They will keep doin’ it, though. Probably to more and more of us, if they can. Probably they’ll sell the idea to other mages too.” I hesitate, give myself one last solid chance to reconsider this, and don’t. Just pray for luck. I’ve gotten a lot of it the last 24 hours—maybe I have a pinch left. “…Unless I find a way to go back and stop them pretty fast. It’s that, or this is gonna keep happening to us. And it’s only gonna get worse. …I got friends, in the throne. …I don’t want that to happen to any of them. Even for the ones I don’t know, even the ones I don’t like, it’s like you said: nobody deserves that. So. I think. …I gotta go back.”

Her eyes are huge and I can see her running what this means, trying to process it all. I’m praying she’ll agree with me, but it’s such a long shot to get from an idealistic teen.

“Please!” I try, going for the best pitch I can before she decides to force me not to, “I-I know you’ve met those people, and I’m askin’ a lot, but at least think about it. You helped me because you knew what they were doing was wrong—I know it too, and I’m the only one in a position to shut it down. I can’t do nothing, and this is the only way to end it. You don’t know what it’s like. We-“ I’m getting to desperate, and I know it, but I hold up a hand and plow on because so long as I keep talking, she isn’t, and I don’t know what else to try. “—Our bodies are pretty close to what they were before; we feel pain the same, we can just survive more of it. I-I’m lucky, I got shot—I’ve known spirits who were bled to death, or hung, or burned, or decapitated—you can’t imagine what it would be like to be stuck chained down forever with your head just not quite severed all the way enough to kill you. I know it’s not your fight, and it’s not fair for me to ask this, but I have to try and stop them. And I—can’t. Without an anchor. Please...”

Maybe this won’t be a terrible idea. Maybe it won’t backfire on me immediately. Maybe she’ll let me go. Maybe she’ll understand. Maybe I won’t have to—

For a moment, she stares at me, motionless. Then her eyes well up.

Damn it. Damn it; I knew! I knew she’d feel like she had to stop me, and I showed her my hand because I felt bad, and now promise or no, she—

“I’m so sorry…” she whispers, and I’m fully expecting the threat of a command spell to follow that, but instead she tucks her knees up to her chest and folds over into a little ball and starts crying again.

I don’t…rightly know what to do about that, so for a second I just stare at her like an idiot.

“I know it was bad,” I hear muffled and choked up from the little bundle she’s made herself into, “I. I don’t—don’t know how awful it was, I know, but I know it was—I know it was so bad. And it’s my fault it was you.”

What?

“You have to go back?” she asks pleadingly, looking up at me for a second from over her knees, like she’s asking me if I gotta go die in a war, “What if they catch you and put you back where you were? O-or kill you and just summon you into a trap again? I’ll never get back in if—”

“Wait, what do you mean ‘your fault’?” I ask, still stuck on that and very lost again. So much so she’s halfway through her next paragraph before I even clock that me potentially getting trapped again is the only thing she has immediately objected to.

Ritsuka looks at me with her big, tearful eyes, then looks defeatedly at her knees. “…I. One day, several months ago, I showed up for a research day and Doctor Nakata had these boxes on the table, and a bunch of papers.” The kid looks and sounds completely miserable, and exhausted. “I didn’t know what any of it was, so I asked him. He said it was for another project, and to just wait a few minutes while he packed it up. …And then he changed his mind, and said actually, would I come over? He told me they were deciding between a few candidates for a project, and at this point it didn’t really matter which one they started with, and would I like to pick one. I asked what the project was, and he said it was a secret. But, it looked so important, and cool, and I wanted to be involved, so I said yes please, and I went up and picked. I didn’t know what they were.”

Ritsuka grimaces and looks sadder, rests her chin on her knees and exhales slowly. “No, I think I did. I just didn’t know what they were for. I could sense they were all magical, and they were all odd, and specific. An old little clay vase. A shuriken. An earring. A coin. A letter. And a photograph.”

I stare. She makes herself look up at me, and I can see how sorry she feels. “I picked the photograph.”

Ah.

“He even told me later,” she adds quietly, all the spunk gone, “That I picked you. When I asked, after seeing—”

“Good.”

She looks up quickly, surprised.

“I appreciate you feelin’ bad for me,” I continue sympathetically, “But it ain’t your fault, what happened to me. You didn’t know what was goin’ on, and if it hadn’t been me, it’d have just been someone else. Luck of the draw; just how life happens. On top of that, they’d have gone after every one of us on that list eventually, and if I hadn’t been here and now with you, I might not have ever gotten out.” It’s true, and I give her a smile. “Also, this whole thing is a pretty big relief.”

“A relief?” she echoes, confused.

I nod. “You get summoned with a catalyst, ain’t much you can do but show up, like it or not, but I wanted to answer the call when I got it. Up till now I thought my sixth sense had plain stopped workin’ or something. I guess it was actually just because I thought I was answerin’ your call.”

She looks confused for a moment, then smiles slowly. “…Really?”

I give a little head tilt. “Best I can guess.” I honestly don’t know if a summon can work that way at all, but I’d like to think so, and why not? Makes us both feel better.

I meet her gaze and try and get her to smile back, and this time it works.

“I really am sorry,” she says, “even if you’re not mad.”

“Well thank you,” I say, accepting the apology, “But consider it behind us.”

Something she said earlier that I had running in the back of my head comes through hard, and I feel the bottom of my stomach drop out.

“…You said a coin?” I ask, really, really, really hoping my gut feeling is wrong for once.

She nods, catching my expression and getting sympathetically worried along with me.

“…Was it kinda silver, with a face on one side, and a short cross and some words on the back?” I ask.

“Uh. I only saw one side, but it did have a face,” she says nervously.

“Was there a scratch across it? Deep? Diagonal on the face?”

“Yeah,” she says, surprised, “How did you know? What is it?”

Oh no. Oh shit that’s bad. Okay. Okay, this is gonna be okay. I can figure this out. He might not even be here yet, and I can snag the coin and he’ll be fine. All this means for sure is that I have to figure this out, more than before now.

“A friend,” I answer when I remember I need to, “—a catalyst to summon one, I mean.”

“Oh,” she says in a voice like I feel.

For a moment, we look at each other in silence. I got no idea what she’s thinking, but my mind’s far away and frantic, trying to piece together some kind of plan.

“…What do we do?” she asks.

“Huh?”

“You said you gotta go back in,” says Ritsuka as I refocus on her, and I can see she’s come to some kind of decision, “And need me to help, and now you know they’re gonna hurt your friend unless we can stop them. I’ll help you, but I don’t know how. How do we go back and stop them?”

I gape.

“…You…want to help me?”

She gives a nod, looking confused that I’d ask her.

“You-? I mean—it might. …I might have to…shoot someone,” I say. Wow. Great job Billy you sure did sugar coat that and make it sound real fine. Nicely done.

Her eyes widen, and she glances away, hesitates. Then says slowly, “…But if we don’t, they’ll keep torturing heroic spirits for energy.” Working through it herself.

“That’s about it,” I agree sympathetically. It…can’t be easy for her. She’s a civilian, a kid. And she seems like a bleedin’ heart who doesn’t want to hurt anyone. She’s already been a lot more understanding towards my perspective than I expected.

“…So it’ll be bad either way,” she says finally, looking back and meeting my gaze.

I’m kind of taken aback that she’s put it into almost the same words I did to myself, but I nod.

“…That sucks,” she says to herself sadly.

“Yeah,” I agree quietly, looking at my own knees and thinking it over.

“…Is there a way to do it without killing anyone?” she asks after a second, hopeful.

Probably not. Even if I destroyed the whole building, there’s the people in charge who know how to do it, and can and will rebuild. I think she can see that on my face, because her expression falls.

“I…don’t know for sure,” I answer, “But. I think…probably not. … They’d rebuild. –Not all of them—not all of them would know how, but, at least a few will.”

She stares off at nothing, thinking.

I feel worse, somehow. Thought I was doing the nicer thing, basically giving her a chance to stop me, and risking my success. But. Now I think maybe I’ve accidentally been more heartless.

She shouldn’t have to carry a choice like this. Life ain’t fair, and I know that, but I’m finding I like being on the giving end of that even less than the receiving.

“…How old are you?”

The mage turns and looks at me, surprised, and flushes a little. “…I. S-seventeen?”

“Yeah?” I ask.

She nods.

Seventeen. She’s about the age I was when my life started really fallin apart. I hate being a part of that for someone else. I don’t want to.

“You don’t have to have anything to do with it,” I offer quietly, “You could dissolve our contract. Fifty-fifty chance I get the job done before I vanish, fifty—”

“—No!” she cuts in adamantly before I’m even halfway through my pitch, “No way! You’d get trapped there again! That’d be even worse! I made a deal with you to protect you if you trusted me! I’m not just gonna abandon you now.”

I blink. Tilt my head, taken aback by her fervor.

Did you? Is that what the contract was to her? I try to recall her words. ‘My soul becomes your will; your spirit becomes my destiny.’ Right, she said that wrong. But what I want to remember is before that. I try hard. “Please—If you die, they’ll summon you back! I-I can ground you! I can keep you here!” I can’t see much in the image in my head, but I can hear it, I can feel it—the pain and her hand on mine.

…I guess she did.

I don’t know how to respond to that. Look down at my own hand, playing it again in my head.

The kid is thinking still, her brow furrowed with worry. Taps the edge of the little bedside table agitatedly with a finger. “…So. Either we find a way to destroy their research, and get any other spirits they have out, and…maybe fight some of the people in charge,” she says finally, “…or they keep on doing this to you all, forever. There’s no other way things can go? You’re sure?”

I’ve already thought about it, but she’s so sincere and sad I think again, and then nod.

She sees that and glances at her hands and then back at me. “Then. …I guess we have to go back and stop them. You’re right.”

I stare at her. A-are you serious? Even as such a bleeding heart, you really—?

“But nobody gets hurt that doesn’t have to, okay?” she adds fervently, “And. I-I want to try to talk to the people in charge first! I know they won’t change their minds and it’s probably a waste, but.”

“—We can try,” I agree readily, overcome with relief, “Are you sure, though? You don’t have to stay contracted to me, and you sure as hell don’t have to come. You—you’ve already taken a lot of risks for me, big ones, and I know I’m basically returnin that favor by involving you in bloodshed. I don’t want to do that.”

It’s her turn to look surprised, and she blinks and tilts her head right back at me, and for some reason it makes me feel a whole lot better and a whole lot worse at the same time. But also more like I understand her.

“You’re not doing anything to me,” she says simply, “They’re the ones doing something that has to be stopped. It’s not your fault you’re the one who knows about it.”

I…guess that’s true. Feel like I’m getting my own words thrown back at me; maybe I am.

“It sucks,” she adds, “And I’m scared. I don’t want to hurt anybody, or get anyone else hurt. But. Mom and Dad always said it’s just as bad to stand by and let somebody be hurt as it is to hurt them yourself, if you could have done something about it. So. I want to help you, and I will.”

“You’re sure?” I ask again, “It’s…it’s a whole lot, and it ain’t gonna be easy, or safe, and you’re—” If I say ‘a kid’ I think she’s gonna get offended because I would have when I was seventeen. “Young. It shouldn’t be on you to fix.”

“Well, you’re young too,” she says.

Ow. I’m twenty-one. I know I’m short, but at least I’m an adult.

“And you’re mostly dead, so let’s just agree it’s unfair for both of us, but we’re partners, and someone has to do it, and we’re here, so that’s us,” she says very diplomatically.

I give up and sigh, then offer her a hand. “If you’re sure, Partner.”

She takes my hand and shakes it.

“So, what can I do?” she asks as she lets go.

“Well, anything you know about the building’s layout’ll help, and what defenses they might have. Mostly, I just need to get back to fighting shape,” I answer.

She nods. “Food, then?”

I give in again and smile. “Thanks.”

#fate grand order AU #fate series #fate fic #writing #billy the kid #ritsuka fujimaru #fate go #The Kid #The Kid (fic)#I wish I had as much time as my heart wants for writing :'-]#'Gudako' basically means 'boring girl'. and Billy called himself William Bonney which is Irish for 'William Attractive' more or less so they #deserve to both be roasted but in the most loving way possible also Ritsuka my dear I'm so sorry your friends suck

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bouwrites · 4 years

Text

Maribat March 2020 Prompt: Fake Dating

Week 4, Day 5.

Maribat March 2020 Calendar.

Day 1: Sweetheart’s Dance, Day 4: Roommates, Day 6: Time Travel.

Ao3.

1964 words. Story under read-more.

“Hey, Marinette! My beautiful, clever, resplendent bestest friend ever!” Jon grins as best he can into the camera, watching as Marinette’s face quickly morphs from happy to see him to exasperated. Of course, he knows he’s being obvious, and he can tell from the look on her face that she’s going to call him out on it. He hopes for just a little bit of time instead of jumping right into this as his greeting, but… well, he may as well get to business. “So… guess who’s dumb?”

Marinette arches her brow. “Damian?”

Jon can feel his cheeks warm as he reluctantly shakes his head.

“Oh, no, Jon. What did you do this time?”

He coughs awkwardly. “So, uh, I was like, flirting with Damian a bit an-”

“Excuse me. Why, exactly, would you flirt with Damian Wayne?”

“Because it’s fun!” Jon protests. Marinette’s expression tells him all he really needs to know about her position on the idea. “It’s not like he’s ever going to notice! He just gets confused and does that funny scrunching thing with his nose.” Jon scrunches up his nose, pointing to it as he makes a silly face.

Marinette starts cackling. “He does not do that!”

“Close enough! It’s funny! And his brothers think it’s funny, too, so they’re not going to tell him I’m doing it on purpose, so I’m safe! Or, I was, anyway.”

“Oh, dear, who caught you?”

“Dad.” Jon covers his face. “Honestly, I’m not sure if I’m more terrified of him finding out I’m bi, or of him being all for it and trying to set me up with Damian.” Marinette just continues cackling, like a traitor. “It’s not funny! Dad’s bad enough, but do you know what Bruce would do if he thought I liked Damian?!”

“Ahahaha! I’m sorry, Jon, but this so your own fault! What did you expect when you flirted with Damian Wayne?”

“I just thought I’d mess with him a bit! Just have a bit of fun at his expense after all the stuff he’s done to me! I didn’t think Dad was going to eavesdrop! Stop laughing!”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I just… that’s hilarious!”

“Marinette!!!” Jon whines. “Fine! Get your laughs. I may as well tell you how I made it worse, now, so you don’t have to stop before you start again.”

“Oh, heavens, there’s more?”

“I don’t need this!”

“Sorry! Sorry! Tell me! What’d you do?” Marinette is grinning ear to ear and on the edge of her seat. Jon tries not to take personally just how much she’s enjoying his suffering.

“So, uh Dad pulled me aside to ask about what I was saying to Damian, right? And I sort of panicked?”

“What did you say?”

“I, uh… I kind of blurted out that I have a girlfriend and ran away.”

Marinette honest to goodness snaps her knee. She’s wheezing by the time she finally says, “Jon, you didn’t.”

“Don’t judge me! I was panicking!”

“Isn’t being a superhero supposed to, I don’t know, teach you how to work under pressure?”

Jon covers his face. “Shut up! I’m seriously freaking out right now! He knows I lied. I’m sure Damian does, too.”

“Oh my god. Damian heard you? That’s even better! Ahahahaha!”

“Mari, please!”

Marinette valiantly fights her giggles, though her success leaves a bit to be desired. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. This is serious. Hilarious, but serious. I’ll try to contain myself.”

Jon slouches over, hanging his head. “I seriously don’t know what to do. I’m not ready to have that talk with Dad! And I definitely don’t want to talk to Damian about it.”

Marinette sighs the last of her giggles away. “Well, why not? What are you afraid of?”

“You mean, aside from coming out to my family? Maybe Damian or Dad or Bruce or, God forbid, Mom misinterpreting something and trying to play matchmaker?”

Marinette opens her mouth, shuts it, and then shrugs. “That’s fair. You know your parents are going to be cool about it, though, right?”

Jon fidgets nervously. “I mean, Dad was raised in rural Kansas, Marinette. I’m not really… confident.”

“Jon, your grandparents raised a literal alien. I guarantee you they won’t mind if you kiss some cute boys.”

“Those are completely unrelated, but thank you. That does make me feel a little better. I’ve just… never talked to them about it before. I mean, they seem okay with the other heroes and stuff but it never really gets brought up? I don’t know how they’d feel about someone in their family being bi.”

Marinette gets a sly grin on her face. “Aside from your dad’s obvious crush on Bruce, you mean?”

“Marinette! No!” Jon covers his face. “I was being serious!”

“Ahaha, sorry, sorry. I’m only teasing.” Marinette says. “But alright, so, what are you going to do about your dad?”

“Ugh, I don’t know! I was hoping you’d have some… ancient queer wisdom, or something?”

“Alright, let me think. Well, you told them you have a girlfriend, right?”

Jon frowns. “Yeah. But there’s no way Dad didn’t notice how I was freaking out, and even Damian isn’t that oblivious. They know I don’t.”

“Don’t you, though?” Marinette leans conspiratorially closer to the camera.

“Uh… no?”

“Don’t you?”

“Mari, I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me.”

Marinette giggles. “If it’s for you, I’ll be your beard. You can tell them I’m your girlfriend, then we can break up later.”

Jon surges up in his seat. “Seriously? You’d do that for me? Oh, Marinette, thank you so, so much! You’re the sweetest, awesomest, coolest, bestest… augh, I don’t know! You’re the best person in the world!”

“I’m aware.” Marinette chuckles. “But mostly, you deserve the chance to come out when you’re ready. I’ve got your back.”

There are few people in the world with the ability and courage to lie directly to Superman’s face. Jon is almost more terrified of Marinette than he is of the potential consequences of this going wrong when she proves that she is, without a doubt, one of those people.

He expects it, though Marinette doesn’t tell him exactly when she’s coming, when she appears in the watchtower, transformed as Ladybug, with half-amused fury. Some of the loitering heroes wisely move out of her path, and Jon blanches when she makes a beeline for him. “Seriously, Super Boy?” She stops in front of him, hip cocked an eyebrow raised as she looks at him with that scary, scary anger. “Not a week into it and you announce it to your dad? I thought we agreed not to tell anyone!”

Robin openly smirks at Jon. Despite not knowing the details, he can tell Jon is in trouble and that’s enough to laugh about. Jerk. And several other heroes are gathering around to watch, as well, including Superman. At least she has good timing. “I, uh…” Jon starts. “I’m sorry?”

“You should be! Ugh, you are so lucky I love you! I should’ve known you couldn’t keep it a secret.”

“I… well… it was only Dad!”

Ladybug rolls her eyes. “Well it’s too late now. May as well stop the charade.”

Jon carefully brightens up, an expression he practiced in the mirror a thousand times just for this. “Really? Just… open?”

“Yeah. We still on for tomorrow?”

Jon grins. “You bet!”

“Great.” Ladybug grabs his collar and pulls him down to quickly kiss his cheek. “Still mad at you, but I’ve got a lot of other stuff to deal with right now, so I’ll see you later.”

Despite himself, Jon feels his cheeks burn when she kisses him. “Y-yeah. Later.” Ladybug takes off, leaving the rest of the watchtower in her wake, including Jon staring after her, thinking, God, she is so cool.

He’s only broken out of his reverie by Robin’s comment. “Wait, so you were telling the truth about having a girlfriend? And it’s Ladybug?!”

Jon blushes but smiles smugly at his friend. “Yup. Why would I lie about that?”

Robin scowls and turns back to his work, leaving Jon to chuckle in relief. One down. Now, just… He turns hesitantly to face his dad. One to go.

It has to be believable, Marinette says, which is why they agree that they only started dating last week. No one will believe they can hide it long. Or, at least, that Jon could hide it long. It’s also why Marinette engineers this whole thing in the watchtower, right where Superman and Robin can both see, because if he wasn’t supposed to tell then he has reason for his panic when his dad asked him about flirting with Damian. Even if it does make him out to be a bit of a jerk.

He’ll take it, happily, if it makes the whole “flirting with Damian” thing ancient history.

The lecture his dad gives him about pissing off his secret girlfriend is totally worth it. And when Jon tells him the story Marinette came up with behind why she wanted it quiet in the first place, he buys it.

Jon leaves the watchtower that day feeling like a kid in a candy store.

Their first date is planned for appearances. Marinette is already one of Jon’s close friends, so it’s really not all that awkward. They just go out, eat lunch together, and hang out for the day. It’s a lot of fun!

The second date is planned knowing that Damian is stalking them. Damian has been giving him curious looks, recently, so maybe he’s trying to confirm that they’re actually going on dates. Jon is affectionate with Marinette, of course, but most of their time together in person is in the watchtower and he and Marinette both try to be more professional there, so Jon can see where the suspicion comes from.

Still, Jon doesn’t much appreciate being watched. Marinette whispers in his ear to remind him that they have to reinforce their ruse, and this will get Damian off their backs for at least a while, so Jon reluctantly agrees and pretends to not know his friend is there.

They hold hands, but past that for the most part they just keep doing what they always do. They joke and laugh and goof around. At one point, Marinette cuddles into his side and Jon can’t help the little stutter in his heart.

Little things like that – their fingers interlaced, her tucked under his arm, soft lips on his cheek for just a moment – it’s different. And it’s a lot. It makes his gut go sideways and upside down like he’s falling instead of flying. Jon returns the gestures, reminding himself that tricking Damian is worth any weird feelings in his chest.

Their third, fourth, and fifth dates they don’t bother wondering if someone is watching them. They’re pretty sure someone does at some point, but they don’t particularly care. They just act like they’ve got Damian on their tails regardless.

On the sixth date, they’re watching the stars from rural Kansas, not quite close enough to anywhere to have to worry about anyone catching them, not even the folks who live out here. There’s no need to keep up appearances – really, there’s no need to be out here at all – and yet some confusing part of him is telling him to make a show. He looks over at her, splayed out haphazardly, limbs crossed over his own, as the stars gaze into her eyes, and he wonders if he can convince either of them that they need to cuddle closer, that he needs to hold her hand to his lips or to sit up and lean in and…

He can’t. He can’t do that. But he can dream.

On the seventh date, he realizes he wants that dream.

#MaribatMarch2020 #Maribat March #Maribat #Event #Marijon #Miraculous Ladybug #Miraculous Ladybug Fanfiction #ML Fanfiction #ML x DC

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thegodshavehorns · 3 years

Text

Capture the Wind (2/5)

Chapter 2: Prophylaxis

The next week, you meet the Seer again. You’ve taken the bus home from school, skipping the weekly church group. You open your door, and there she is, smiling at you from the couch.

“Good afternoon, John,” she says. “Come have a seat.”

“Oh, hi,” you reply. “You came back.”

She smiles, and lifts a can of cherry coke in the air, as if toasting. You walk over to sit on the reclining chair, and you both sit there for several long moments, her sipping a coke and occasionally flipping a coin, and you twiddling your thumbs.

“So-” you start to speak, but she interrupts.

“John, you have never had any martial training, correct? Of course that's correct. The reason I’m here today is to address this lamentable gap in your education.”

You blink. “Martial training? You mean martial arts? Fighting?”

“Yes, John, that is what I mean.”

Your eyes widen. “You mean like The Karate Kid? That’s so sweet, so you’re going to be like Mr. Miyagi to my Ralph Macchio?”

“Like that, except real.” The goddess stands up and makes a motion that you can’t quite make out, and then there is a large duffel bag in her arms. It looks like something you could get at REI.

She puts it down and unzips it, and you see a sharp-looking metal edge.

“Because you have absolutely zero previous experience, I have selected a variety of potential weapons for you to take up.” She removes a sword from the bag and lays it down on the floor, then takes out an axe. “Of course, I know what you are going to choose. But the impression of free will is important.” She takes out several knives, then a long spear, then a heavy, spiked club, laying each one next to the other. “But keep in mind: you can only choose one. Just pick a weapon up, and it will be yours.” She reaches back in for another item and-

Oh shit. That’s a gun.

You’re staring. “You uh, want me to choose? Why? How do I know which would be best for me? Maybe I should try out a few first, to see what fits?”

“No, John. That’s not how we're doing this. Consider it a test of your resolve and perseverance.” She finishes arranging the weapons, straightens up, and steps back. “Now, choose wisely.”

You stare down at the assortment of deadly armaments. She said she already knew which one you’re going to choose, so why is she doing this? But she also said last time that you sometimes did unexpected things, so…

“Okay,” you say, after thinking a moment. “So whatever I pick up will be my weapon forever?”

The Seer smiles. “Yes, that is correct.”

You look at the vicious implements spread out on the floor, and then your eyes wander over to your dad’s toolkit. He must have left it out, after hanging up the latest clown painting. You take a step towards it. When the Seer doesn’t stop you, you close the distance and, with a broad grin, pluck the hammer out from the box.

You hold it up proudly at the Seer. “Ta da! There! I followed your instructions! You were not expecting that, huh?”

The Seer’s expression is impassive. “Very well, you have chosen your weapon.” She nonchalantly kicks the deadly weapons on the floor away, clearing a space. Then, she makes that motion again, and there is a long, tapering, wooden cane in her hand. “Time to see if you can use it.”

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

That night, you retire to your room early, avoiding your dad's questions and nursing the bruises on your back and sides. When you sit down at your computer, you wince.

That really smarts.

Land a hit on me, the Seer had said. Land a hit! As if you ever could, when she knows what you’re thinking of doing before you do it! By the end of the hour, you were absolutely sure that the Seer was attempting to sign her name onto your skin in bruises. Being taught martial arts by an ancient goddess isn’t nearly as awesome or non-painful as you would have expected.

You have a message on Pesterchum. It’s Anna.

-- harmoniusDithering [HD] began pestering ghostlyTrickster [GT] at 17:34 --

HD: sorry that you missed today's meeting, hope you're feeling well!

HD: and that you’re not sick or anything

HD: we signed up for the field trip today. I got a ticket! I’ll see if I can get the Sylph to autograph something for you.

HD: you like movies, right? I don’t have any movie posters, but if you bring me one at the next meeting I’ll see if she can autograph that!

HD: anyway I’ll see you next week. Take care.

You look at the messages for a long time, thinking of what to say.

-- ghostlyTrickster [GT] began pestering harmoniusDithering [HD] at 20:11 --

GT: i am sorry, but i can’t come to the youth group meetings anymore

GT: i told my dad about it and he said i can’t go at all

GT: i am grounded for life or something

You don’t feel good about this. This isn’t a joke. This is lying, to a friend, and you feel terrible.

She replies a few minutes later.

HD: oh that’s awful! I’m so sorry! Your dad is a jerk!

HD: you should call social services on him or something.

HD: I don’t know. I guess this isn’t illegal. But it’s so unfair.

HD: I can’t believe he’d do that.

GT: yes it is very dumb and lame

GT: i am not happy about it

HD: Well I’m angry about it!

GT: you don’t have to be angry

GT: he is my stupid dad

GT: i guess i will figure it out

GT: have a good time at the museum, i hope you meet lots of rad people

You sign off. You don’t like this at all, it makes you feel like you’re in the wrong. But you can’t be in the wrong if you’re doing what a goddess is telling you to do, right? Isn’t that kind of the definition of right and wrong?

You don’t know.

Bruises aching, you go to bed.

Next week, while practice-strifing in the living room, the Seer smacks your hand with her cane, and the hammer goes flying. You hear a crash, and you turn in horror to see pottery shards and Nanna’s ashes all over the mantelpiece and floor.

“Oh shit,” you say, and glance back at the goddess.

“John,” she says, and raises her cane. “Don’t turn your back on your opponent.”

“No, wait! Just wait,” you say. “Those are my Nanna’s ashes, I can’t just leave them there while we strife.”

And to your relief, she gives you a moment to get a dustpan and a broom and sweep up the ashes. Not knowing where else to put them, you get a mixing bowl from the kitchen and dump them in. “Augh,” you say. “How am I gonna explain this to my dad?”

The goddess takes a coin from nowhere and flips it. “You need to come clean and take responsibility.”

“But-”

“That is what is just, John. And if your father punishes you, that is also just.”

But it’s your fault, kind of, is what you want to say, but you don’t. You look at the bowl of ashes and pottery shards in your hands.

“John," she says again. “Learn from your mistakes. What have you learned?”

“Don’t strife inside the house?”

She smiles, and smacks her cane into her palm. “That, and protect your grip.”

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

“Son, I am disappointed in you.”

“I’m sorry,” you say. “It was an accident.” You do not look your dad in the face.

He sighs and adjusts his hat. “Sit and talk with me for a moment, Son.”

Oh gods, not a talk.

You sit, and your dad leans forward. “Is everything alright at school, Son?”

That’s not what you expected. “Huh? It’s fine. I’m fine.”

“You haven’t been getting into fights?”

You shoot a fearful glance in his direction. It hasn’t even been a month, this can’t be the reveal that the Seer mentioned…

“No.”

“Son,” your dad puts a very patriarchal hand on your shoulder, but you’re bruised there so you try not to wince. “What happened to your hand?”

“Oh, that was an accident,” you say, looking down at the swelling across your knuckles. Your dad would not be okay with ‘a living goddess hit me with a cane’ on several different levels.

You decide to go on the offensive. “It’s none of your business anyway, Dad. I’m fine.”

“Son, I only have your best interests at heart. You know that.”

“You don’t know what my best interests are! For, for all you know, I have some sort of destiny that’s completely different from what you think I should be!”

“Don’t give me that talkback, Son,” there is an edge to your dad’s voice now. “I can see you’ve been having a hard time lately, but don’t take it out on your old man!”

“You don’t see anything! You don’t know anything!” Your voice is rising high above your regular indoor volume. Your gambit at pretending to be angry has backfired, and you actually are angry now.

Your dad shakes his head. “I know some things, Son. Like the fact that you don’t actually go to bowling club after school.”

Your mouth goes dry, and you look away. “I- I quit.”

“Do you need more extracurriculars? I think piano lessons might not be enough.”

“Augh, gods, I can’t believe this!” you exclaim, and immediately regret it.

“Language, John,” says your dad, his voice low.

“Sorry, Dad, I’m fine,” you say, trying to calm down. You remember the breathing exercises you did in the youth group, and try to emulate those without the prayer part.

“Son,” your dad uses his patriarchal hand again. “I think more extracurricular activities would do you some good. Keep you out of trouble.” You are about to object, but he goes on.

“There are lots of good options, why don’t you look into it? Is there something you’d like to learn to do?”

“I’ll think about it,” you mumble.

“Good,” he continues. “Your chore load will also double for the next month.”

“Dad!”

He gives your shoulder a patriarchal squeeze, and you really do flinch this time. “You’ll survive, Son. What doesn’t kill you makes you a stronger man.”

You are not so sure you agree.

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

HD: and you won’t believe it, but this high school kid was totally flirting with me.

HD: I mean it.

HD: he was like sixteen or something

HD: so awkward.

GT: ok

HD: I dunno though, maybe I should have gone out with him?

HD: he was kind of cute

GT: ok

HD: or maybe I should have painted my face green and done the hokey pokey

GT: ok

HD: are you okay, john?

GT: huh?

GT: i am fine.

GT: if you had to learn some totally new skill, what would it be?

HD: inuit throat singing

GT: ha ha ha what?

HD: no it’s amazing.

HD: the inuit people can sing with like, their throats.

GT: what else would they sing with? their eyeballs?

HD: oh shut up

HD: i mean like, with their throat and their mouth separately. Two tones at once!

HD: isn’t that just amazing? I wish I could do that.

HD: well

HD: either that or something useful. Like computer programming.

GT: those are two very different things.

HD: so? People are allowed to have diverse interests.

GT: i guess so

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

“I would like to take a computer programming class,” you tell your dad. “And karate.”

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

The Seer of Mind cracks you over the back with her cane. You sprawl onto your belly on the ground, but manage to roll away before the second blow comes. You could swear the canes she uses are slightly harder and heavier each time. Thank goodness she never goes for your head.

The cane’s coming again, and you try to swipe with your hammer, but it’s really too short.

Her cane has a longer reach, and she can knock you four ways to Saturn before you’re close enough to even poke her with the hammer.

So she goes and knocks you four ways to Saturn, and while you’re gasping for air she flips you onto your back and points the tip of the cane at your throat.

“You’re dead again.”

“Augh,” you respond. “Can’t you use a shorter cane?”

“Your enemies will not use shorter canes just because you want them to, John.”

You sit up and push the cane away. “What enemies? I don’t have enemies!”

“John,” she says, her voice dead serious. “You have enemies you don’t even know about.”

You get to your feet. “Who, then?”

Her face is inscrutable. “You’ll know them when you see them.”

“Augh, this is so frustrating!” You are on the verge of tearing your hair out. She’s the Seer, she knows everything, so why isn’t she telling you anything? “I don’t even know what my ‘Grand Destiny’ is! You said I was going to save comedy, but all you do is strife with me!”

“John.” Her voice is incredibly condescending. “This is all an important part of your training.”

“But what am I training for?”

“You are training for your destiny, John. You will need these skills I am teaching you, in order to succeed.”

“What, ‘how to get beaten up 101’?”

She nods. “Endurance in the face of pain and damage will serve you well.”

You really want to know what you’ll be doing that requires you to be beat up so much, but then the Seer is swinging her cane at you again, and you have to pick up the hammer to block before she thwacks you in the stomach again.

“You must become hard and unyielding,” she says, and takes another swipe. “When I am through with you, John, you will be like steel.”

You have no idea what that means, but it sounds cool.

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

At school, in the gym’s locker room, the other boys notice your bruises. They whisper and gossip at the cane marks across your back and sides.

You’re a freak.

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

-- harmoniusDithering [HD] began pestering ghostlyTrickster [GT] at 18:54 --

HD: hey! I haven’t heard from you in a while!

HD: i thought you would ask about the museum trip.

HD: because that is a thing that happened.

HD: it was pretty awesome.

HD: they didn’t have any movie posters for sale.

HD: but I did think of you.

GT: what do you mean?

HD: what do you think I mean? :)

GT: i do not know what you are talking about

HD: you can be really thick sometimes

GT: that’s what she said!

HD: that is not a proper thing to say to a lady

GT: bluh

HD: kidding!

HD: so are you still grounded?

HD: John?

-- ghostlyTrickster [GT] has signed off --

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

It’s been a month now, and you think maybe you’re getting better. That you can maybe go 30 seconds now without getting whacked by the cane. You want to think it’s the karate lessons, but all your fellow students are like, eight, so it's not like you're a karate master yet.

The Seer has been coming more often, three times a week now at least. But at least her “lessons” are relatively short in duration.

“John,” she says, and her cane disappears into wherever the objects she carries always go. “Let’s take a break.”

You put down the hammer with a sigh of relief, then quickly shoot a look in the Seer’s direction to see if she heard you. But, of course she heard you.

She’s sitting down, and you wonder for a moment if you’re going to meditate, the way you did in Church. But instead, she takes out a chessboard.

“You know this game, John.” It’s not a question. “Play it with me.”

It’s less painful than the strife, but just as humiliating. She trounces you, then again and again. Of course she does. She can read your mind. This whole thing is an exercise in futility.

“Are you trying to teach me to give up?” you gripe, after the fifth defeat in a row. “This is not exactly great for my self-confidence.”

“You must learn to lose, before you can learn to win,” she says. “Learn when you are outclassed, and when you can turn your situation into an advantage.”

The Seer alternates your lessons between strifing and chess, and beats you every time. You play white. She plays black. After a few lessons this way, though, the playing gets… weird. The Seer seems to think that the pieces have their own personalities and motivations. She even names them.

“Watch out for the Black King, John. He is more powerful than you might think.”

“Take shelter in the castle, sure. But that rook is going to turn on you if you’re not careful.”

“This pawn is Jack. Don’t let him, or his allies, take your queen.”

The Seer changes the board up, when you play. Sometimes you play with nothing but queens and pawns, sometimes with nothing but rooks and knights. She sets up the board in specific arrangements, ahead of time, and makes you play.

“You can win,” she says. “But you must make no mistakes.”

You don’t know anything about chess. You look up strategies online. You still lose.

You can’t strategize against her, you can’t plan. So you move your pieces erratically, and lose every time.

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

About two months after meeting the Seer, you get a package in the mail. For you. You never get packages, unless you order something online. You don’t recognize the return address, but your name is on it. Handwritten.

It’s a long, skinny tube. Maybe it has a golf club in it or something. You wouldn’t put it past your dad, getting you a golf club even though you don’t play golf.

You open the tube, and there’s a paper roll. A poster. As you unroll it, you can see it’s some kind of abstract artsy print, with streaks of red and yellow paint over light brown. On the bottom, white text reads “Northwest Museum of Art and Culture.” You can only imagine that it’s some kind of famous painting, but you don’t recognize it.

And as you finish unrolling, you see in the upper corner, written in jade green ink:

To John,

Keep The Faith. We Are Here For You.

Kanaya Maryam

The Sylph of Space. You have the autograph of the Sylph of Space. Her true name and everything.

There’s a letter.

Dear John,

Surprise! Sorry it’s not a movie poster, they only had art prints for sale in the museum gift shop. This piece is called “Welcome to Denmother,” and it’s by an Enfleífrit artist from the Norma Arm of the Milky Way. I have no idea what it’s supposed to represent, but I think it's a really important piece in Enfleífrit culture? Like the Mona Lisa or something. Go figure. There’s more info about the picture on the back of the poster.

And I’m sure you’ve seen the signature already! She was really nice, said “what’s your friend’s name” and signed it! There were like a BAZILLION people, I was waiting in line for hours!

Did you know the Sylph really glows? You can’t see it so clearly in the daytime, but it makes Her shadows very weird.

Anyway, I hope you get un-grounded soon. I miss you seeing you in person! Let me know, and maybe we can hang out sometime? Like, not in church, I mean.

Best wishes, and Gods bless!

-Anna

Aw, crap.

You can’t keep this. If your dad found out, he’d FREAK. And if the Seer found it? She’d freak too. You have to throw it away.

It’ll be easy, just go up to the trash can and throw it out.

Just go.

John. Go.

You don’t go. You can’t. You look at the letter again.

Everyone else in the youth group forgot about you, but Anna still cares. Even though you barely talk to her anymore. You have a friend. You can’t just throw that away.

You don’t hang up the poster, but you don’t throw it away, either. You fold it up and tuck it, with the letter, under your mattress. It’s a perfect hiding place. No one will ever find it.

#revision #john egbert #dad egbert #terezi pyrope #godstuck #godstuck fic #capture the wind #homestuck #homestuck fanfiction #tw: abuse

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archmage--khadgar · 5 years

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(To explain some things! I’ve gotten a few messages of love in response to the most recent shenanigans. And also, of course, past messages of you guys throwing kindness at me and I internally 404 like woah. I rarely say nice things about myself. Partially because even though I’m heckin’ chatty once I get going. I feel really guilty and vain or like I’m oversharing or something, I dunno. The reasons why have kind of been danced around and ffwwuhhhh I might delete this post later or something who knows. A lot of this is stuff I haven’t shared at all or with most people. But I also don’t really like repeating myself too much with certain things so I’m just. Gonna do this. It’s 2:30 in the morning and I just woke up and can’t get back to sleep SO. Yeah. More under the cut. About why the “I love yous” and other nice things pretty much send me running. And make me really uncomfortable.)

I’m not looking for a pity party, just augh. I feel like it isn’t fair to keep hiding under blankets while calling myself trash and stuff without y’all knowing WHY. A lot of things are still going to be left out, either cause they’re hella buried or I still can’t talk about them yet. But uh. YEAH. Where to begin? The easiest thing to explain, I suppose, is to touch upon how I grew up in a single-parent household. Mom never said “I love you”, but she did yell, screech, and throw things at me and didn’t hold back on telling me how much I pissed her off, whenever she was home. I remember being locked and left alone in a hot car during the middle of summer when I was about 5, thankfully someone saw me crying and TO THIS DAY she’s still angry that I had cried. I’m 31. If I bring it up she immediately gets angry as if it had just happened and starts yelling how terrible I was for crying. As for my Dad, my earliest memory of him is of him telling me goodbye before walking out the door. He eventually came back Uhhhh...Sometime around 2nd grade. Did he and my mom get along at all? Nope! There’s a lot to unpack with that stuff that I won’t touch here. But I will say that it was the first case of me learning that people will say “I love you!” in hopes of swaying you to their side. My Grandparents loved me! And they showed it - shame my mom moved me away from them and OOPH I’m not going to get into that cause I’ll just start crying. :x Trying to talk while fighting off PTSD is a CHALLENGE but I am HERE FOR IT. Anywhoot. That ties heavily into the basis of why hearing someone say “I love you!” Sends me running. It sets off every red flag. “What do they want? Why are they saying that? They’re trying to get something from me. What are they trying to get from me?” I can think of how despite all the BS, I still tried to be nice even though I was really fucking weird and the poor kid at school in a time where living with a single parent meant something was wrong with you and all that shit. (Fuuuuuck the 90′s!) GOSH there really is a lot, it’s hard to pick and choose the right things to say. (For amusement: as a kid, I had a teacher who said that I was “cool as cucumber” and if that isn’t some fucking foreshadowing I don’t know what is. I also liked to collect rocks. And I read The Raven when I was like. 6 or 7 and memorized the fucking thing. Coincidence? I think NOT- yeah prolly just a coincidence.) It’s really hard to describe the bullying because it wasn’t all pulled hair and getting gum in it and I never got shoved into a locker. Others would lie, however, in order to get me in trouble. My clothes also would get pulled off. Belongings got stolen. Mom tried to spread a rumor that I fooling around with a new guy every week. Her excuse was.....”Well, you never tell me who you have a crush on or if you’re dating anyone at school, so what else am I supposed to think?” You know that scene in middle school/high school shows where the main kid gets tricked into thinking their crush was interested in them, and the crush was in on the joke? Yeah. Yeah. That fucking happened. I guess one of the best examples of “shit that happened that really fucked me up for life” Is.... Had a couple of, what I thought, were really good friends. Despite everything else that was bad I at least had them. We were a trio. It was amazing. I.... Was wrong. I got a message, on AIM one day from one of them. She said that the other one, my best friend, had committed suicide. And that her family didn’t want to talk to me. Don’t call them, never speak to them again, don’t go to the funeral..... I was crying. And called another friend of mine because I 100% didn’t know what to do. Was it real? Was it a joke that I somehow was misinterpreting? She told me to keep her updated; and that if I wanted to join her and her family at the mall I was more than welcome to. Mom comes home, sees that I’m crying. I tell her very quickly to keep her from getting angry. She thought I was lying at first for attention or some stupid shit until I showed her the chat log. She calls up the mom of my best friend and not only was it not true..... They were hanging out with each other at the other girl’s house. To this day, I have NO fucking clue if my best friend (at the time) was in on it or if it was done without her knowing. Either way, ANGRY MOM’S ALL AROUND, and my mom still questioned why I thought it was real cause hurr hurr I’m supposed to be smart. But also, I had already attempted suicide twice so OF. FUCKING. COURSE. I didn’t question the possibility. Anyways. I learned a big lesson about my worth that day, from people whom I was closest with. The people who would shout “WE LOVE YOU~!” From the bus window. They remained friends with each other. But not with me. The girl never spoke to me again and my BF quickly made it apparent that I was, and always had been an annoyance in her life. I was weird, stupid, whiney, 14-year-old acting like a 10-year-old, the list goes on. Could I have been a better friend? In some ways, yeah, maybe? Who knows. I don’t know. And then Highschool massively tanked after that. I failed assignments more than I passed them if it wasn’t for the creative projects and extra credit I would have completely flunked out. POTENTIAL TRIGGER WARNING for the next few lines paragraphs, I’m not going into too much detail but I just want to give a fair warning. Three male friends: Two online and one I knew in person cause he was a friend of a friend. All three of them were older, I was a minor and theeey...were not. One had just turned 18, one was 20, and I honestly don’t know how old the other guy was. O_o which is weird because I ended up being friends with him for years and I uh. Somehow never got his age. PROBABLY FOR THE BEST. :T The two online guys roped me into erp, knowing my age. Their reasoning? One of them told me I needed to learn to grow up, and how to be an adult. And that, also, as an artist, I needed to start drawing porn because otherwise, I’d never be good. He’d frequently send me NSFW art and shit and try to get me to find out what I liked, and yeah we all know what else he was doing. The other one? I don’t remember much but what I can remember strikes me as more subtle grooming than just rolling in with “WELL YER IN HIGH SCHOOL TIME TO GROW UP EVERYONE’S DOING THIS.” I HAD to deliver otherwise I was a shitty person, a disappointment. And then the guy I knew in person would frequently make sexual comments about me, either to my face or to our mutual friend (Which pissed her off cause she had a crush on him, she was only a year older than me). All of this was done under the guise of... We’re friends! We love and care about you! We’re doing/saying this because we want you to be happy! You’re such a nice person! You’re so pretty when you smile! “I’m just trying to get you out of your shell.” “It’s better to find out what you like now with a friend who cares.” So on, and so forth. Trigger warning over...ish?” There’s obviously a lot, and I mean a LOT of stuff I’m not saying. And before you yell THERAPY. Yeah, I’ve been. Yeeeeaaaah therapists never wanted to talk about any of this. I’d bring it up and they’d shut it down as “Unimportant” They’d open up trauma I’d forgotten about, realized they didn’t get paid enough to deal with my bullshit, and focus on other really random shit. BUT WHAT. I’m getting at is. Despite all this, I never got into drugs, or drinking, didn’t become a teenage parent, haven’t been arrested. It’s something I’m still processing and accepting. But like. Looking back on everything as a whole, for the most part, I just. Everything that I went through SHOULD have turned me into an awful person, I mean. A lot of people would say that I am and I wouldn’t argue it BUT. Like. The damage is there, the damage is done. Some of this might never heal or might take several more years to heal I honestly don’t know. I don’t understand how I am not. An awful person. Self-deprecating trash jokes aside. I was only good when I kept quiet. I was only good when I followed their directions. I was only loved when they needed something. I was only a good person with their approval, and I’d do anything to get it. I’d sacrifice my belongings, my food, my time, my energy, I’d run to the defense of shitty friends and to the people who’d physically and emotionally hurt me. I feel guilty for outing them even though they’re not here, will never see this, and I didn’t even name names or give details that would give me away. This stuff isn’t resigned to highschool, I’ve been through a LOT of shit since then but that’s a post for a different day. There was a time where I had started to feel proud that despite everything I didn’t fall into a hole of drug and alcohol addiction and who knows what else. And I got shot down. I got shot down SO HARD. I was a bully for being proud of that. I was a terrible person for recognizing my own strength. I was told I was actually weak, a coward, that I don’t know what true suffering is. And I am still frequently told that I need to start doing MJ or other drugs to “Finally loosen up and be cool.” hnngph. THERE’S STILL A lot more to unpack but I don’t really feel like it right now. But I can’t process being a good person. I can’t hear “I love you!” and not get scared that everything is going to happen again and that I won’t be strong enough, that I’ll prove to all my classmates and family once and for all that I’m the horrible, shitty monster they’re all waiting and expecting me to be. People say I’m a good person, and then I also frequently get lectured on how I need to toughen up and stop whining or get over myself or whatever. So I’m not...good..I can’t be good? I’m too selfish, weak and vain to be a good person. I should have known better, I should have been stronger, and I shouldn’t have given in to wanting to be validated, and loved. AND SO MANY PEOPLE HAVE IT worse than me I have no business thinking I’m a good person or strong or whatever. Absolutely none. I feel so manipulative for even saying any of this. Hnnpgh.

#ooc #long post #mun ramblings #FUCK this got long again I'm sorry

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iheartdirt · 7 years

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Dig Your Own Grave and Then Bury the Hatchet [5/6]

Fandom: Invader Zim

Pairing/Characters: ZaDr

Rating: M

Word Count: ~9,700

Notes: thx to my bffz5ever Mrs. mrsbigfoot.tumblr.com for beta-ing this for me. I bought the rights to invader zim for sixty-eight cents on ebay

Summary: Alternatively Titled: In Which Zim and Dib Makeout and it Upsets the Balance of the Entire Universe

Read it at AO3 or under the cut

“Stop messing with it,” Zim snaps without looking up. A long arm reaches out and over Zim from his PAK, holding a little curved laptop in its robot claw. Screens and graphs and letters flash by rapid-fire, which Dib can see reflected in reverse on Zim’s eyes. When the light hits them just right, Zim’s eyes look like wide mirrors. It’s creepy.

“You can’t even see me,” Dib says, but drops his hand. The mark immediately starts to itch.

“Zim sees all,” Zim says ominously. His eyes flash white as the computer screen loads- something.

“How come you don’t have a tattoo?” Dib asks. It can sense people talking about it, apparently, because the triangle starts to itch. Lightly, Dib scratches at it. He’s too afraid of it still to touch it any rougher. Lately he’s even tried to keep his shirt collars away from it if possible.

“What are you talking about?” Zim asks, distractedly waving him off. “Of course I do.”

“Oh,” Dib says. Goes back to tracing his finger along the raised outline of it. “Can I see?”

Now Zim does look up from the laptop. The top half of his eyes are focused on him, the bottom half the bright blue of the computer screen. Eyelids droop in irritation, making his whole eye seem blue and depthless.

“I will allow you a gracious view at my incredible neck if it’ll shut you up.”

The high pink collar strains against starched fabric as Zim tries to pull it all the way to his clavicle. But right there, in an exact mirror of Dib’s, is a little black triangle.

Seeing it on Zim affects him a lot more than he thought it would. A rush of absurd fondness runs through him. And desire. It’s like looking at the thing makes the bond snap in place again, trying to drive them back together to consummate it better than they did at the party.

God that seems like a hundred years ago.

Zim lets go of his collar and it snaps back into place. The fondness goes away, but, uncomfortably, the desire doesn’t.

“So, this bond. It is gonna affect how we-” Dib clears his throat. “It is gonna make me not hate you?”

With a sigh, Zim retracts his robot arm back into his PAK. He gives Dib an odd look.

“The only physical aspect is the mark. My translator comes up with ‘bond,’ although perhaps a closer approximation would be what you humans call 'marriage,’” Zim says.

Dib’s stomach hits his feet.

“Right,” he says. So it’s all on him to package up those weird horny fond feelings and bury them way, way deep down where no one can find them.

Except in the morning. And at night. But those kisses don’t count if Dib doesn’t think about them hard enough. Denial is more than just a river in Egypt if Dib makes himself a happy little home in it.

The following weeks haven’t brought better results for anyone on the brainwashing commercial front. It’s lunchtime on the fourth week or so of his time here (a lingering Earth anxiety, Dib thinks, that he feels the need to try to track the weeks he’s been gone) and he’s starving because control base has been forcing them to skip breakfasts to catch up on the schedule. Zim had been grumpy all morning from skipping breakfast, which ticks Dib off because he’s almost absolutely sure Zim doesn’t even need to eat.

Irritably, Dib prods his salad with his fork. Delegates a couple wilted looking plants to the upper right of the plate, and scoops grape tomatoes into a little colony, but doesn’t take a bite. Despite how hungry he is. It’s always been difficult for him to eat when he’s upset. Just another way Zim is ruining his day, he guesses. Shouldn’t be surprised at this point.

Earlier in the weeks the studio had given up on the luxury of one continuous shot. Having finished all the other sections to almost-satisfaction, though, they had spent a better part of the morning working on the kiss, of all things. Which, control insists, is incredibly important to get down properly. Dib thinks they’re lying, or that he died in space and he’s in Hell for his early-morning-late-night sins. The disgusting xenophilic ones. Actually, the amount of times he’s awkwardly shoved his face onto Zim’s tense, angry one is starting to turn him off to then too. Dib’s actually pretty sure he never wants to kiss anyone again ever. He just can’t figure out how to relax as soon as the camera comes on. Even when he thinks back to their alone-kisses, he just gets too embarrassed and overwhelmed with the feeling that he’s doing something wrong. Like, morally.

It occurs to him kind of belatedly that he could think of someone else. Some hot human girl, or boy, since that’s apparently what he’s doing lately, that he wouldn’t mind kissing in front of people.

It’s depressing to think that he wants to do that even less, though.

Dib spears a grape tomato with his fork. Someone’s gonna figure out they’re not actually together, eventually. Alright, yes, the triangle-shaped mark probably means they’re together—somehow. But not like that. Or, he guesses, only sort of like that. Sometimes He blushes at his salad.

“It’s not like that,” Dib tells himself.

“Being crazy again, sad little Dib?” Zim asks, gnawing loudly on an aluminum foil back. The bag is already open. Saliva drips from the corner of his mouth.

Dib buries his head in his hands. God, please don’t let it be like that.

He remembers their “homework,” though. (Which is hilarious. Dib would have graduated high school by now. College letters would already be in the mail, and Dib would be packing for dorm life.) Try to practice affection in public, they said. If you do it out there, we don’t have to waste film on it in here.

Dib sighs into his hands, and lets one fall next to him, keeping his head resting on the other. Calling upon some deep well of courage and strength, he lets his pinky finger lead his hand in a hesitant scoot across the table until it rests on top of Zim's— hand? Claw?

Of course, Zim conspicuously and instantly stops trying to eat the chip bag. He shoots a look at Dib, which is even more conspicuous and Dib thinks again to himself that there’s no way he could— that there’s no way they’re like that. Zim is too much of an idiot. Squeezing his hand tighter, Dib gives a significant look to their lunch mates as if to say don’t tip them off, you stupid lizard. Zim nods sagely, but moves his hand so that Dib is gripping his wrist instead. Dib rolls his eyes. Whatever.

“Hey,” someone says to him “are you listening to me, lovebird, or what?”

“Huh?” Oh jeez, is someone talking to him?

“We were talking about that new eyeball eating squid the armada has-,” Steven says, exasperated.

“Allegedly has,” Hegh interrupts.

Steven rolls his eyes. “Anyways, then you started mumbling to yourself and stared off into space for a bit.”

“Ha Ha,” Dib says, uncomfortably. “Sorry.”

Steven smiles knowingly at them. Blinks his eyes a couple times. “You don’t have to be embarrassed to hold hands around us, guys,”

Zim’s clicks a bright plastic smile on and Dib almost laughs at it. Gums are showing that smile is so wide.

“We just love to, eh,” Zim says “squeeze our love-tubes into-augh,”

The smell of burnt flesh rises before Dib sees the smoke. Zim hisses between his teeth, and yanks his hand back, and Dib loses sight of him for a split second in the haze.

When he can see, he sees a thin dark line wrapped around a wrist that Zim cradles to his chest.

“Curse you! Your filthy human sweat has poisoned my soft, advanced skin.”

Dib’s ears redden. “If your skin is so advanced, how did I burn it then, huh?”

“Be quiet!” Zim says, and makes a half-aborted little stomp on the ground. “There is no glue aboard this cursed ship.”

Dib’s stomach churns. This is it, he thinks. This is the moment where everyone’s gonna realize that they aren’t—you know—and that they’re stupid space bond is a stupid space-hate bond and he doesn’t like Zim at all—except for the alone-kisses which don’t count— and Zim’s thin, burnt bracelet is just glaring, smoking proof that they couldn’t get away with it.

“It’s adorable,” Hegh says, throwing his arms wide and narrowly avoiding hitting Boch in the face.

“I promise I didn’t—wait, what?”

Hegh laughs. “So nervous about husband in public, you sweat poison from your hand-skin.”

The rest of the table laughs and chatters in agreement. Dib breathes in deep, he didn’t know he was holding his breath, and is finally able to look away from Zim’s wrist. He looks up at Zim and, expecting him to still be pissy, is surprised when Zim looks almost contemplative. His eyes focus on Dib’s and holds them for one beat, then two, and then he purses his lips and shrugs. Lets his hand fall into his lap.

“I guess it could be called 'adorable’.” Zim motions one gloved hand with another. “It seems we will just have to get the Earth boy a pair of gloves. Or me some glue.”

Is Zim seriously the one recovering them from this? Dib feels still in shock from their close call. He looks at Zim’s face, and then his eyes drop down to Zim’s mouth which is still bunched up to one side. He could do it now, he thinks. With everyone at the table laughing at them and encouraging them and Zim agreeing that he’s—adorable?

Someone at the table tells a joke, because Hegh laughs uproariously and breaks the spell. Dib looks away. The moment between them is gone.

Once the table calms down, though, Dib scoots a little closer to Zim and resolves his unfortunate lingering mushy feelings by hooking his foot around Zim’s ankle. This time, neither of them flinch at the contact and Dib has to hide a smile.

Three notes sound, two up, one down, to signify the end of lunch.

“Oh, Dib,” says Steven as Dib unhooks his ankle from around Zim’s. “Can I talk to you, actually?” His gaze sweeps slowly over to Zim and he rephrases, pointing between Dib and himself. “mano a mano?”

Dib gives Zim a sidelong glance, and Zim raises his eyebrows. Or, well, the skin where his eyebrows should be. In a weird eyebrow-like skin formation. How many face muscles must an irken have to move their face like that? (File that for later, Dib.)

Dib shrugs. “Sure.”

Zim pulls a face at him, and Dib knows he’s going to have to deal with that later. Unfortunate mushy feelings gone.

“What is it you have to say to the salad boy that you cannot say to me?” Zim asks.

“Leave off, Zim,” Dib says, pulling a face back at him. “Why does it matter?”

Zim looks at Dib, and then back at Steven, and then back at Dib again before scoffing dramatically and turning on his heel.

Whatever. Let Zim be a drama queen if he wants. Just because Zim’s been inspiring frequent gross soft feelings doesn’t mean Dib’s going to change his life to revolve around what Zim wants. Stupid Zim. Not that Dib cares. Dib doesn’t care about anything Zims doing, obviously.

Steven grabs his shoulder interrupts Dib’s completely-fair fuming.

“Don’t worry about it, man,” he says. “I’ve got a surprise for you that’s gonna knock off your socks.”

Immediately, Dib perks up. “Oh?”

“Can you meet me right here in, like, two hours?” Dib notices that Steven is almost vibrating with excitement. Whatever surprise it is he has planned, Dib one-hundred-percent wants to be a part of it. Especially if it’s going to annoy Zim more. Obviously, not that he cares what Zim feels about stuff. It’s just an added bonus.

Dib quickly confirms their plans, and starts off for the bedroom with a light step.

Until he basically bodies a crouching Zim right as he turns around the corner.

“Oh my God, Zim, what is wrong with you?”

“Me?” Zim asks. “What is wrong with me?”

“Yes, what’s-”

“Me?” Zim asks, louder. “What is wrong with me?”

“Yes, that’s what-”

“Me?” Zim asks, flailing now, “What’s wrong with-”

“Oh my God, Zim, shut up,” Dib says, pushing Zim’s shoulders a little. “I think you’re just jealous because people actually like me here, unlike you.”

“Me?” Zim yells. “Jealous?”

“That’s right, I-”

“Me?” Zim yells louder. “Jealous?”

Okay, no actually, he’s done with this.

“Me?” Zim raises his arms in the air dramatically and pounds on hallway wall next to him with his tiny fists. “Jealous?”

People are starting to stop and stare at them openly. Blood rushes to Dib’s face.

“Zim, if you’d just shut up for a second!”

“I’ll kill you, dirt stench.” Zim says suddenly, withdrawing his arms into himself and eyeing him balefully. “I’ll have your blood on my hands.”

And, really, that’s the final straw. How many times do they have to go around in circles like this? Why does it always half to be one step forward and three steps back? The kissing, the talking, the arguments. Any feelings Dib had about Zim vanished. None of it ever matters because they both pretend it’s never happening anyways. It’s like he’s two different people, and Zims two different people, and Dib hates all four of them.

And, God, Dib’s tired of it.

Which is the best explanation for why he’s able to tug Zims chin between the cup of his hand and kiss him so hard his lips feel like they’re gonna bruise.

It doesn’t feel good at all, actually. It feels like they’re fighting, but it at least feels like winning the fight. Zim splutters against his mouth and strains hard against his hand but Dib has some unknown hand strength that keeps him in place. Or maybe Zims not struggling all that hard. Another layer of stupidity.

There’s a pregnant pause, and then Dib lets him go. Zim stumbles backwards with the force of wrenching his face away. They stare at each other for a moment. Zim’s mouth halfway in a snarl, eyes intent and focused, Dib panting and tired.

And then Zim hightails it.

And Dib turns around and doesn’t watch him go.

He’s five minutes early to his meeting with Steven. Honestly, for the last two hours, all Dib’s done is powerwalk angrily down the hallways around the meeting place and avoid talking to anyone, so he’s proud of himself for being only five minutes early.

When he sees Steven around the corner, Dib raises his hand to greet him and is quickly shut down by Steven bringing his finger to his lips in the universal sign for “shut the fuck up.”

Dib lets his hand fall. Okay, so it’s a super-secret mission. Maybe control is assigning him some other work, since Zim is so useless and stupid at everything. That’s probably it.

Steven motions with his hand for Dib to follow, and Dib does, keeping a couple yards behind him at all time just in case. Basic spy knowledge says never let the enemy know you’re involved. Or something.

They walk down to a hallway that only has one door at the very far end of it. Dib has never seen a hallway end, in a door or otherwise, and he tries to fit it into the map of the place he has in his head. (Another Earth anxiety, probably, Dib thinks. The need for things to be contained and finite, even in space.)

At the end of the hallway, Steven soundlessly waves the door open, and long row of mops lines the small room, side by side.

“I knew it! I knew it,” Dib shouts, and then covers his mouth to smother his volume. That doesn’t keep him from continuing to talk through his fingers though. “The mops have been the real secret weapon the whole time. They contain microorganisms on the fabric heads capable of creating temporal doom.”

“No,” Steven says slowly after a moment. “The mops are for cleaning.”

Steven places a hand on Dib’s shoulder, and motions again with the other hand. The far back wall of the mop-closet moves out, spins around, and then tilts upwards like a garage door opening.

“The guns are for temporal doom.”

And revealed on the other side is a massive room, walls stocked toe to tip with hundreds upon hundreds of weapons. Huge canon-guns the size of three Dib’s lie closer to the top, and a thousand tiny handguns on the bottom. Like a library, rows of wheeled ladders are scattered every hundred meters or so.

“You were telling me a couple weeks ago how you wish you could be more involved, and I didn’t get you that,” Steven says, hand squeezing Dib’s shoulder “But I did get you clearance to look at this neat weapons to maybe cheer you up. Shooting things always cheers me up.”

“Oh, man!” Dib says, taking off into the room. “Is that one over there a laser gun?”

Upon closer inspection, it is a laser gun. With like, three different dials and triggers despite being the size of the average human handgun. Does it shoot a continues stream of laser, or is it like short bullets? He could never tell with Zim’s guns because he was such a shitty inaccurate shooter anyways.

“Oh, man!” Dib says again, for like, the twentieth time. “Does this one have an auto-coolant re-firing system? I haven’t even seen these on paper.”

Steven smiles at him. “Yeah, my dude. We have them in the laser hand-canons too.”

“Wow!” Dib says. “Can I shoot this one?” Dib points to another gun, further up, about the size of an overweight toddler.

“Uh, sure. As long as you don’t shoot at the other guns, I guess.” Steven shrugs.

Carefully, Dib lifts the much heavier than it originally looked gun off of the wall. It’s the size of a toddler but the weight of ten toddlers. It comes away with a little click, and he drops it on the floor. Dib shoots an alarmed Steven a meek smile and hoists the much, much heavier than he maybe should be lifting gun up on his shoulder. The sharp dig of it into his neck meat where he has to place it is decidedly not comfy. But Dib can barely feel it because he’s holding a giant laser gun. How does he shoot it?

“This button?” Dib asks out loud and then presses a button like a trigger near where his hand is naturally resting. It kickbacks immediately, throwing Dib back a couple feet. The gun slides off his shoulder backwards and Dib falls to his knees with it. There’s a loud sucking noise, and a steady beam of light erupts out of the gun for a split second.

The beam, oddly, doesn’t throw Dib back again, and he’s able to watch as the beam cuts a hole out of the ceiling in a perfect, burning circle.

“Wow!” Dib says again. He relaxes his arm and tilts the gun over to get the weight off his shoulder.

“Like a duck to water.” Steven says politely, because it’s absolutely not true.

“What?” Dib turns around, tilting the gun precariously. ��Oh. Thanks.”

Steven picks the gun up, and it looks light as anything on Steven’ shoulder. Dib’s jealous.

"Sure,” Steven says, mounting the cannon back in the cannon-shaped-hole where it should be. “You’re really not that bad for a first-timer, especially off a planet without laser-weapon technology. Makes me wish we could actually join the foot-soldiers.”

“Hey,” Dib asks, just realizing “How come you’re so much better at talking Human than everyone else?”

Steven grabs a ladder around a rung and begins to walk it further down the aisle. “Don’t you know? Plookesians visit Earth all the time. I could probably even speak it decently without my translator.” He taps on the little Bluetooth-shaped device on his glass dome.

The new hole in the ceiling allows Dib to see a little square foot of space into the room above as they pass under it with the ladder. It looks to be a supply room in similar shape as this one, also fully stocked with weaponry. Isn’t everyone else issued a gun, no matter what they do? Dib thinks back to breakfast, and he definitely remembers seeing people with guns to their holsters. People that he’s pretty sure aren’t ground soldiers. It’s possible that big weapons like this are only handed out right before battle, or on special missions, but what about smaller guns. Shouldn’t he have one for like, safety?

Dib knows it doesn’t really make sense. He just really wants to have a laser gun.

Dib finds his mouth speaking before his brain can catch up.

“What if we join the foot-soldiers anyways?”

Steven shoots him a puzzled look. “What do you mean?”

But Dib’s voice is running ahead of him. Mouth moving before he really even realizes what he’s saying. “We could sneak in. You could get us disguisers. Those holographic kind. You can get us those, right? We can use those holographic disguisers, and sneak onto a mission. Who wouldn’t overlook two soldiers in a mess of like, what, ten thousand?”

Steven stares at Dib with saucer-round eyes. Again, Dib recalls that he doesn’t actually know what Steven does here. Maybe he’s already a soldier.

“I-I don’t know about that, Dib,” he says. “We could die. Worse, we could get ourselves fired.”

Those are sure some priorities.

“We could really do something to help the revolution. Isn’t that what matters most anyways, helping the effort?” Dib asks.

Steven doesn’t look convinced, but he also hasn’t said no. He hesitates, running his hand over the wood grain of the ladder. He traces his finger over the rung, thinking it over. Dib sees his window disappearing. He’s already committed himself to this plan. There’s no way he can make it happen without Steven’s access to clearance on things like the weapons room, and hopefully disguisers. If he can’t convince Steven to do this for him, he’ll never get another chance at all.

Dib smiles at Steven winningly. “There’s no other friend I’d rather come with me than you,” he says, putting an upwards tilt in tone on the last word to make it seem like a reminder.

Still not looking over at him, Steven fights a smile and Dib does an internal fist pump of success.

“Yeah,” he says softly, and then louder “Yeah, okay. There’s a group heading out in a half-sol. I can get disguisers before then.”

“That’s a lot sooner than I was expecting,” Dib admits “but I’m still totally down.”

In the corner of the weapons room, they spend the next several hours working out the details of their plan.

When Dib comes back to their room, Zim is loudly fake snoring. Dib knows its fake, less because he’s still pretty sure Irkens don’t sleep and more because Zim is just actually saying the word “snore” out loud several times a minute.

“C’mon, Zim, I know you’re not sleeping,” Dib says.

“Snore,” says Zim.

Dib rolls his eyes and climbs halfway up the ladder to the top bunk. Once he’s high enough to see Zim, he rests his head on the side of it. Zim’s back is to him, but he can see his body twitch with his ‘snoring.’

Dib doesn’t feel like what he did was wrong— after all it was Zim who antagonized him, as per usual— but he does want this fight to end. Picking his battles is the best thing when it comes to Zim, and with the actual battle imminent, this isn’t the one he wants to pick. The volume of Zim’s snores turns up a notch.

Better just tackle it head on. "Sorry about that kiss thing.”

Zim shuts up and turns over to meet his eyes. “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Dib rolls his eyes. “Sure, yeah, okay.” They sit in silence for a moment, and Dib stares aggressively at a spot on the bedsheets. “I don’t want to kiss you in front of people without like, your permission, I guess.”

For a second, Zim squints his eyes at Dib. And then he closes his eyes and turns back over.

“You have indefinite permission, or whatever.”

“Oh,” Dib says. His face heats up. This was much different than how he pictured this conversation going. “Okay.”

Not knowing what else to say, he spends a couple more minutes staring at Zim, watching the slowing rise and fall of his chest now that he’s stopped “snoring” and still wondering if Irkens really sleep?

Zim’s chest rises and he thinks about what he said, and the unfortunate mushy feelings he had, and the maybe-sort-of-like-that. Scrounges up his courage and thinks that he used to have more courage than this when he was a kid.

Dib takes a couple more steps up leans over Zim to kiss him halfway on the mouth. Like, spider-man style. Which is super cool and sexy. A sharp intake betrays Zim’s pretend sleep, but Dib ignores it so he can duck his head around the ladder and jump off.

Before he can realize his mistake, he heads straight for the door and Zim “wakes up” and asks him “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Uh,” Dib says, intelligently. “I have to pee?”

Zim cranes his neck around and narrows his eyes at him and Dib can feel himself starting to sweat under his collar. Why is he always so sweaty? Finally, Zim scoffs.

“Humans are so gross. I take it back, Earth-Beast, I don’t want your face anywhere near mine.”

Again, Dib rolls his eyes. “Whatever, space lizard,” Dib says. And “Don’t wait up for me.”

The door closing muffles the latter half of Zim’s “I won’t.”

They had agreed to meet again in the weapons locker (Steven assured him the foot-soldiers wouldn’t be in this locker tonight, as it was technically the “back-up” locker.)

In Steven’s hand, Dib saw, were two different Bluetooth headpiece shaped objects. They must be the disguisers. Dib reaches out for one, and Steven shows him how to fasten it to his ear.

“One tap on it to turn it on,” Steven says, demonstrating. It flickers, and then instead of a Plooknesian stood a short vortian, with circular curled horns and an overbite.

“Two taps to turn it back off.” Taps twice, and then Steven is back.

Dib taps the earpiece and, for lack of a mirror, looks at his hands, which are now green and stubby.

“Am I Irken?” Dib asks, twisting his arms out in front of him to get a look at his new skin.

“Yeah,” Steven says, tapping himself back vortian. “I thought it would be funny.”

A weird nauseous wave hits Dib when he goes to scratch his face, sees three fingers and feels five. Nervously, he agrees. Funny.

Both disguised and armed, they leave the locker, but pause at the end of the hallway. They wait, tense, listening. Apparently, Steven hears something because he herds them down the hallway right and end up behind a group of soldiers. An irken and two more species Dib doesn’t recognize.

Dib and Steven quickly fall into step behind them.

“Hey,” one of the aliens says, after a couple moments, jerking its hand towards Dib. “Were those guys here with us the whole time?”

"Oh. Yeah,” asks another.

Dib starts to panic. “Uh, yes?” he asks

The first alien hums, and scratches his chin. “Well, alright,” he says.

They follow the group into a room massive like Dib’s never seen. Can this really still be on the ship? It stretches infinitely in all directions, dotted in a crisscross pattern with even-still large black spaceships. Each ship can probably eat ten of Zim’s ship, easy. For breakfast. One side of each ship has a gaping maw which soldiers pour into like krill into a whale’s mouth. A huge loading dock. Dib and Steven, side by side, follow their group into one of the rushing currents of aliens marching into one ship’s mouth. The incline into the ship is steep, but surprisingly grippy for a metal surface. At the lip, though, Steven is pulled in a different direction from Dib to be strapped into the nearest available seating. Dib is ushered to the opposite side of the ship to strap himself in.

“We seem to have more soldiers than we were planning for,” says a uniformed vortian standing near him, scratching between his horns with a pen and looking perplexed at a clipboard. Dib throws Steven a sly wink, which Steven doesn’t get because he’s too far away to have heard the comment. Steven winks at him back anyways. Good friend.

For a reason Dib doesn’t know, they wait in the ships for a while. Every second makes Dib feels more anxious that they’re about to be caught before they can even fly off. Aliens around the ship are chatting in a low buzz, though, which reassures Dib that maybe the waiting is normal. No one’s looking his way, so Dib tries to keep his head down.

What looks to be the same vortian from earlier marches stiffy to the lip of the ship’s opening. It’s sans clipboard this time though, and reaches to adjust the collar of its uniform. Dib stifles a laugh at the resemblance to Zim. He’s so for sure gonna tell him about this when he gets back. If Zim ever stops being mad at him for this.

Eh, he’ll get over it. If they’re lucky, no one will even notice. Or they’ll be super famous and everyone will give them awards for how good they shoot.

The vortian clears its throat, and Dib sneaks Steven another look. Now he’s looking back at Dib queasily. Leave it to Steven to try and ruin his plans at the last second. Bad friend. Well, it’s too late, Steven. Still, Dib sends him a thumbs up, and is a little mollified to get Stevens weak return thumbs up.

The ship’s ramp starts to rise silently until it reaches the top of the opening and fastens itself into place with a rather jarring creaking noise. Wind blows past him and his ears pop as the airlock engages. Dib feels a little thrill through him. He did it. Well, they did it. Mostly with Dib’s motivation, without which they never would have even halfway made it. So mostly Dib did it.

The vortian clears its throat again, and the chatter in the room dies down this time.

“Why do we resist?” the vortian asks in the nasally voice typical to the species. It’s little head bobs as it surveys the room, but his voice sound strong and sure. “For those in the Resisty, we do not resist for power, or for monies. We do not resist, in the Resisty, for personal gain.”

That’s right, Dib thinks. We exist to kick entire alien butt. And get cool space medals like the scene in Star Wars. Steven is definitely Han though. Except Dib’s not gonna lose a hand.

It pauses, eyes resting in the middle of the room. “Does anyone know why we resist?”

The room is silent. Dib assumes this is a rhetorical question, of which the answer to is kicking entire alien butt and all that other stuff.

“We resist for love.”

Oh, wait. Oh, God, no. Please don’t let this be about what he thinks this is about. Underneath the hologram, Dib’s cheeks redden.

“As long as love can be found in the most selfish of races, and the most savage of planets, then we will resist,” the vortian continues. Its gaze seems to drift to Dib like a honing missile. Dib stares resolutely at the floor.

This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to him. When Tak said she was basing the recruitment theme around their “relationship,” or unfortunate lack therof, Dib hadn’t pictured it all weird and gross and stuff. Sure there’s selling love as an angle, but this is just stupid. All these aliens on this ship, and millions more, have seen him rubbery-mouth kiss Zim, and they just die over it?

Blushing furiously, Dib ignores a now-grinning Steven and stares hard at a chip in the floor tile. Stupid Steven. Just two seconds ago he was gonna barf it all over the floor ‘cause he’s scared of death or whatever and now everything’s comedy hour at the chuckle hut. Dib tries very very hard to block out the rest of the vortian’s speech. Very unfortunately, he hears his and Zim’s name several times. Sometimes even right next to each other. When the room erupts into cheers, Dib tunes back in and is relieved to find that the speech is over. Chancing a look at Steven, Dib finds he’s still grinning at him. Dib pretends he can’t see him.

Almost right after the speech ends there’s a sickening lurch which sends Dib’s stomach into his ears. The ship quickly gets its balance, though and glides smoothly off. Windows line the walls like teeth, and through them Dib watches spacetime smooth out to a faded grey as they reach max velocity. Just like in Star Wars. Neat. There’s a gentle buzzing from the turbine Dib’s closest to, but otherwise the ship is silent. Friends and coworkers that were talking earlier are quiet, as if the vacuum of space sucked up the noise. As if the heaviness of the air dampened everyone’s high spirits. In the silence, oxygen masks are handed out to creatures who need them. Keeping his face down, Dib snatches one and pulls it over his face.

For a second, Dib feels a genuine lick of fear in the raw pit of his stomach. It kinda feels like his heart and his lungs and his spleen got put into a blender and dumped back into him. And also like he’s about to go to war and die.

He thinks of Zim, back in their room, chest rising slowly and then falling like a tick-tick-tick, pretending to be asleep. Or maybe actually sleeping. He still doesn’t know. Waiting for him to come back from the bathroom when he won’t. And he feels- weird. Guilty? Why should he feel guilty? For saving the entire universe? And kicking massive alien butt?

He remembers flying through a different spaceship with Zim. Pointing at planets and stars and eating shitty granola bars on the floor. Looking at all of space fly by in a dull grey with a thousand different species feels lonelier, somehow.

Another lurch forward as they stop, and Dib’s spleen presses uncomfortably into the seatbelt. He doesn’t wanna be that guy who vomits on the ship before the mission. Plus he’s sure the guy who vomits is probably likely to be asked for I.D., and Dib doesn’t think they’ll get lucky twice if pressed.

After a couple seconds, the seatbelt gives way, like a themepark ride, and Dib stumbles forward a bit getting out of his seat. The wide door opens, and, unhitching his blaster from his belt, Dib jogs out with the crowd.

At first Dib doesn’t really understand where they are. It looks like a really old shopping mall. But like, huge. When Dib looks up, it resembles more a city bank in amount of floors than a mall. But the walls are decorated with little storefronts, giving off the general appearance of a termite hive. Along the general walkway are scattered waiting benches and fake plants. Dib notices stupidly that the plants don’t have any dust on them, despite the mall looking abandoned for at least decades.

The group moves forward in a unit that Dib tries to stay at the back of. If he stays at the back, they might not notice an extra person moving not quite along like the rest of them. The whole place is still. Even the leaves on the plastic bushes don’t seem to be swaying. Their steps sound so loud to Dib. Like little bombshells erupting in a uniform march. A glowing bit of neon sign pokes around the corner indicating the food court. Huh. Who would have turned the neon on? Who’s paying the bill for that electricity for the-

And then- Noise. A thousand life-size explosions in his ear. The lights are bright, bright, bright all of a sudden and he hears a gentle whine, like a mosquito. Pressure is on his eardrum. The mosquito is trying to bury itself in his ear and it hurts so badly. There’s an ambush happening from above. An ambush they didn’t anticipate. He hears someone shouting in his ear to move from underwater but he can’t figure out where and in which direction. He tries to follow someone, hide where they hide, but they get lost in the crowd almost instantly underfoot. Everyone is scrambling. He steps on something soft that crunches.

Dib mind clears for just long enough to understand that someone is shooting at him. The thrill of death tickles him and makes him duck low below everyone. He runs as fast as he can in one direction, hoping not to get stepped on, hoping he wouldn’t get caught by a stray bullet. Someone ahead of Dib falls and kicks him in the face on the upswing, smashing his glasses and digging the frame into his cheekbone. It doesn’t hurt, but Dib feels that his cheek is wet with- probably blood. His face feels prickly and numb.

Getting finally to a place where the crowd is thinner, Dib takes a run for it and hauls ass to a bench that he ducks behind.

Sitting down, Dib realizes that his mask is fogging up over his eyes with moist breath in a slowly inching-out circle, and now he can’t see out of the eye that has a glasses lens left. He knows he needs to control his breath, stop hyperventilating, but now he can’t see and the noise sounds closer, like it’s coming for him. If he could only stop hyperventilating.

He hears something that sounds like words out of the rising wall of screams and gunshots.

“Hey,” it says. “Dib, hey!”

Dib uses his cheek to wipe away some of the condensation on his mask, too scared to move his arms. Blood follows it, but it cleans off enough of a portion so he can see. He sees, twenty yards or so away, behind another bench, Steven. Oh, thank God. Somebody, anybody is alive. And here with him.

Dib motions with his hand that Steven should come over here to him. There’s safety in numbers, right? If Steven will just come over here, everything will be alright. Maybe he and Steven can stand back to back so Dib can block out this horrible growing feeling that’s been crawling up his spine that someone is right there, right there behind him. Steven doesn’t answer him. Dib motions harder, waving over to himself as frantically as he can. His mask isn’t gonna be clear for long. A gunshot flies down a few feet behind Dib, who feels the sharp whine in his molars more than hears it. It generates a loud explosion that sends concrete up in huge screaming chunks and rams Dib’s knee into his mouth. Dribbling out blood, Dib looks up to see Steven frantically shaking his head at him. Can’t he see that if he’d just get over there that everything would be alright? Dib swallows. There feels like there’s so much vomit in his stomach his organs are liquefying and melting in it. Into some sort of gross organ soup. A sharp pain hits Dib in the gut, like a stitch. Or maybe even an organ broth.

Steven shoots him a conflicted look, but, crouching onto the balls of his feet, makes a mad dash for Dib’s bench. He passes a pile of upturned stone and then a body, propped up against the stone walls by the force of the bullets before Dib sees a little red mark following behind him, like a baby duckling. Fear is choking him and when he screams nothing comes out. The bullet makes a visible screaming line through the top of Steven’s tank to the bottom. Cracks spiderweb through the holes in his tank, almost in slow motion, and the force of the liquid pressing on the glass cracks it into a thousand pieces. Shattered glass barely skitters across Dib’s feet. Steven ragdolls to the floor, his body suddenly dried up and noodle-like. Almost comically, he deflates, leaving a pastelike substance in a Steven-shape. Dib vomits up a thimble-full of stomach bile and then finds he has no more in his stomach and retches dryly.

A force knocks him to the ground and something else cracks- not his glasses this time- and pain blossoms on the side of his head so painful he retches again. Reaches up to feel it, out of habit, and comes away not only with blood but grasping a half a little bluetooth shaped plastic chip. The Disguiser. The green skin on his hand flickers once, and then fades to normal. God, oh fuck, no. He can’t die here. He’s gotta hide. Gotta find a way to hide his face, but his face just hurts so god damn bad. He heaves himself forward with one arm, not really knowing where he’s going, but knowing he needs to move. Sleepy, really sleepy, but you’re not supposed to sleep if you have a concussion? Right?

Someone’s saying his name but it sounds from far away, like someone’s shouting at him through a tunnel. The world kind of feels like it looks through a tunnel too, you know?

His last thought is on a little chest rising very slowly and falling with a tick-tick-tick.

And he’s back at it again in a tiny concrete box. Honestly, he thought he’d improved at least a little bit.

The box begins emanating a tinny voice. The intercom system, Dib realizes.

“Hello, prisoner! It seems that you’ve woken up.” A pause. “Good for you.” The voice is incredibly nasally, even through the shitty speakers. And also incredibly familiar.

A different voice speaks, deeper and equally familiar. “You’ve been imprisoned on the bestest ship to ever get all conquer-y up in here: The Massive!” This voice is somehow, even worse.

“Really? ‘Get all conquer-y?’” Dib asks.

Dib rolls over onto his side and grips his head. It feels like it’s splitting into three even pieces. All of his muscles ache because he’s been sent to space hell to be tortured by the recorded voices of Statler and Waldorf after a rhinoplasty for all of eternity.

“Congratulations for rotting on the best ship ever made!”

A ding finalizes the message and Dib is so, so grateful.

The Massive. Doesn’t he know that name? But, ugh, his face feels like someone’s pushing a needle through his left eye. Isn’t The Massive that big Empire ship? Dib feels a pang through his gut that has nothing to do with his injuries. A real soldier would know this.

A real soldier wouldn’t have got caught in the first place.

A real soldier wouldn’t have gotten his friend killed.

Dib bites his lip hard and forces himself to focus on where he’s heard of ‘The Massive.’ You can’t change the past.

The walls ding again to indicate a message and Dib calculates how long it would take to kill himself by smashing his head into the side wall.

This voice is different. “You’ve been chosen by the almighty Tallest as a special interest prisoner. Confetti,” it says.

“Did you just,” Dib forces out through ground teeth “Say the word confetti out loud.”

“The all-knowing Tallest have left you a prerecorded message.”

Lovely.

“Sorry we can’t meet you in person, Dib.” The nasally voice is back and no, oh no, that’s where he’s heard it before. Through brief interactions when Zim had called them. And hadn’t they video-chatted once, when he was like, twelve?

The Tallest snickers. Dib remembers that too, that they— snicker a lot.

“Yeah!” The other Tallest says “We don’t want to catch any of your ugly Earth diseases.”

The first one again. “Good one. Ugly diseases, can you imagine?”

They both laugh.

“Since you and your defective are so fond of television broadcasts, we’ve decided to send him a little broadcast of our own.”

“Tell him what it is. Oh, no, let me tell him what it is,” one of them pleads.

“We’re going to air your execution live to the entire universe!” The voice says this so loudly the speakers go out for a moment.

“Oh, Red, you’re no fun,” interrupts the other one.

The one who’s apparently ‘Red’ says “Well, maybe if you hadn’t messed up the first recording-”

The audio ends with a chime.

For the first time, Dib thinks to himself that this time he’s really done one doodle that can’t be un-did.

Even though he spends the night unable to sleep for the rotten pit of guilt and fear in the bottom of his organs, the night is the quickest night he’d ever spent. Just as he had started to steel himself for the possibility that he would die here, two irkens, bigger and beefier than he’s seen two irkens, corral him out of his cage and into another room with long tridents. The spears zap with electricity, and Dib tries to stay far ahead of them. They giggle amongst themselves, a poke to Dib in the back with sharp jabs whenever the laughter dies out, and then they explode into giggles again. Just like the stupid Tallest.

It takes several moments of giggling and cackling before Dib realizes that they’re not speaking in English at all. Or, laughing in English rather. In fact, they aren’t laughing at all. Dib sees that neither of them are wearing translators. This is what the Irken language must sound like raw. Like— giggling. Is it because Irkens have no reason for translators? Why would a genocidal species need to be able to understand anyone else? Or is it just to spite him? Try to psyche him out to feel lonelier, more confused?

Dib grunts at a sharp poking pain in his back and the laughter reaches a fever pitch. A headache starts to bloom behind Dib’s right eye, and he actually smiles wryly, remembering all the times Zim caused that same headache.

The thought causes his stomach to sink. He remembers the last time they talked. You have indefinite permission. A rising feeling in his throat, like he might vomit.

A third irken enters the room. Tall, and green eyed, only a few shades darker than his skin. He looks like he was molded out of one piece of clay, two shiny moving lumps of skin to designate sight. It puts Dib’s stomach into his lungs, somewhere below the vomit and the stomach bile eating away at him. For whatever reason, he feels like he’s looking at a walking irken corpse when he sees the green-eyed one. The cadaver grabs his arm, giggling at him, and injects him with a syringe drawn out of his jacket. It spreads a numbness up Dibs’s arm, and up into his chest and Dib thinks for a terrible moment oh, god, they just euthanized me. This is it. Pain follows the numbness. Worse than when he got that tetanus shot in the tenth grade because Zim nicked him with a rusty blade. The pain holds his chest, like a python squeezing, and then gently burns away.

The irkens face each other and laugh, full bellied. By all three of them, Dib is ushered through a maze of more rooms. This place seems almost the opposite of the endless hallways of the Resisty. Like a honeycomb of tiny rooms nestled right against each other.

He’s led into a room that looks different from the others in that it seems to be carved out of one continuous block of stone. The wall is smoothed up top like a cave and— oh, okay, Dib thinks as he sees a barred drawbridge at the end of it, it is a cave.

There is a low hum in the background that seems echo-y through the cave. One of the irkens chuckles darkly and stabs him hard in the back, sending his sprawling forward onto the rock. His muscles twitch painfully, contracting from the electricity. Looking up behind him, Dib sees the door has been closed and he’s left alone.

With nowhere else to go, Dib drags himself to the barred drawbridge. Through the bars, Dib sees what seems to be a huge Roman Colosseum. Except, not Roman at all, because it turns out the low hum was millions upon millions of little green irkens screaming. Large television screens, must be miles wide, float among the crowd showing close-up clips of irkens screaming, eating, or laughing. Above him is a bright orange sky, casting a dirty glow on the world. Like a night-mare realm.

Straight across from him was a barred drawbridge identical to his, a thousand times bigger in size. As soon as he notices it, his drawbridge begins to retract and Dib understands. They weren’t going to kill him outright. They’re going to make a show out of him first, watching him run for his life. Steadying himself on the wall, Dib stands himself up and limps into the Colosseum.

Well, fuck then. It’s time to give them a show.

Something charges out of the other drawbridge to the screams of the crowd.

The first thing that Dib notices about the monster is that it’s pink. Like really, really pink. Why is everything irkens own always pink? It’s also low to the ground and on all fours, so Dib’s mind immediately goes to dog. Dogs are good at running, and also hunting. What are dogs bad at? Nothing. Dib’s going to die. A large snout sniffs the air. Nuzzled at the base of the nose are two indented slits. Those are probably its eyes? It’s blind, then, Dib realizes. Patches of fur cling to its skin, but otherwise it seems to just be one giant flesh monster with no eyes.

Dib feels a moment of hope. If it’s blind, maybe he has a chance to outwit it. But why would they give him a monster he could outwit? What’s the point of trying to kill him if they’re going to give him a way out? If Zim can figure out where he’s gone—or if he cares—he may only have to outwit it for a bit before he figures out the Tallests’ games.

Apparently having found a smell that it liked, the creature rears back on its hind legs, showing a rope-scarred belly. The sound that comes out of its mouth sounds like nails on a chalkboard, and leaves Dib’s ears ringing. The noise of the crowd dulls. Dib notices a flash of something white in the dead center of its mouth that he doesn’t think are teeth. Too far in the center, almost at the back of its throat. Most of its teeth seem to be overhanging its lip like an overbite-underbite sort of deal. It opens its mouth again to scream, and there, at the very back of its throat, are two wildly spinning volley-ball sized eyeballs.

Ah. Eye-eating squid monster. At least part of the rumor was correct. There are eyes inside of its mouth.

One huge volleyball stops, pupil arrested on Dib. A beat, and then the other eye stops on Dib, and the monster is looking right at him. It’s then that Dib decides to vomit, and the monster’s cry is overwhelmed by the audience’s disgusted reaction. Now it smells awful, like the inside of his stupid rotten stomach, and he vomits again. Non-audience noise erupts from the far side of the stadium, and Dib doesn’t even bother to look up. He just runs. The shoes they put him in are wet with his vomit, and he almost slips before catching himself. He stays along the far edge of the colosseum to try to put as much distance as he can between him the monster. It’s turn speed is slow, Dib notices, like an alligator. Whenever he changes direction, he gains precious meters on it, but there’s no way he can outrun it when it has him dead on.

As quickly as the creature got itself reorientated, Dib switches himself in another direction, alluding it along the curve of the wall in a zig zag motion. A stitch starts to form in Dibs side. Weeks of life in zero g have seriously impacted his muscle density, as well as just being out of shape. There are serious downsides to a life where he isn’t physically fighting Zim anymore. Dib can’t do this avoiding game for long, and he suspects The Talllest will put something to his disadvantage soon if they get bored.

Dib turns another corner, and his feet get caught up under him. This time he stumbles, and the mistake costs him most of his lead. The ground starts to pitch and shake under him the closer the monster gets, and now Dib’s worried he’s going to fall again, this time directly underneath the monster’s huge foot. Clenching his eyes shut, Dib falls flat forward instead, hoping to roll himself under the worst of the creature’s attack.

The right foot narrowly misses Dibs stomach, as far as Dib can tell from the noise, but does graze his shoulder. Something snaps- so loudly he thinks it’s in his skull until pain paralyzes him from shoulder to elbow. His clavicle must have broken. That’s the only way to explain how much pain he’s in. There’s someone screaming really loudly right next to him, but Dib can’t see who it is because everything looks so dark suddenly. He thinks that he should scream because he heard it helps fight pain. He’s already screaming, though. He’s been screaming.

Something else is screaming too. The monster. Dib has to move or do something right now because in seconds he’s going to be dead. Fear jolts into his muscle like an electric shock, and he flings himself up and goes sprinting in a direction. A direction he hopes the monster isn’t in. The ground shakes again, but the creature’s scream doesn’t accompany it. Is he still screaming? Dib keeps running, his breath burns his throat as he swallows air hard. Each gulp feels like a pound of sand. Another shake, and a blue light, like real lightening and he’s thrown to the ground like it’s moved sideways to meet him. On his back, Dib sees the heavens crack open like an egg, revealing space to him as its split yoke.

People were on the field now. We’re people supposed to be on the field? He wonders if it’s because he’s dead now, and he gets to see the last seconds before they scrape his body off the concrete. The pain had spread in a slow burn up most the base of his head, and he can feel his pulse there. It’s like his whole skin pulses with it. And with every beat of it comes with a strong throb of pain. Did he already say that? Loud sounds. The sound of guns going off. Everything is much darker than before. It this hell? Dib glances behind him and sees a group of identical blue clothed toys on strings shooting at pink, entrapping it in a cage of blue light.

Someone grabs him. Another blue clothed alien. It takes off its head- a helmet, and green is below it. Green like Zim. Strong arms around his waist, and he’s hauled upwards. A part of his chest feels like it crunches, and he screams again.

His heart physically hurts, like it pulled itself up through the layers of bone and flesh to deliver its pulse right into the first layer of skin.

But the ground beneath him is suddenly cool, and the crunch in his chest lessens when he’s let go. The noise here is quieter, which is nice. He stops screaming. A voice he recognizes-Zim. Why would Zim be in hell with him? Did Zim die too? Zim comes near and grabs his shirt. It peels away from his skin which feels so good and so cool. And while Zim’s vice like grip on his chest hurts like a motherfucker, it also feels like a lifeline pumping directly into his veins. But the bond doesn’t have any physical affect? That’s right, he likes Zim. Zim is hissing something at him (hissing, not giggling) and Dib spends his energy to crack his eyes open and see Zim’s bleary green head.

Dib’s head lolls to the side, because it’s so heavy.

“I missed you,” he says inanely.

The hissing stops and Zim huffs at him. A little puff of breath on his face. Feels two hands cradle his head, and then none-too-gently pull forward.

“If you,” Zim says, slowly and carefully, and Dib can see him now that he’s up close. Dib thinks he might be crying, because his face is wet. Embarrassing. He hopes it’s blood. “ever scare me like that again, I will make your skin into beef jerky and I will eat it. And it will taste good. So good.”

And before Dib can say anything, Zim is kissing him. Which is great because it means he’s definitely not dead. And because his mouth is soft and warm and very nice. Zim’s hand is clutching desperately at him, but his mouth is paper-light, like he’s afraid Dib’s about to fall apart. Which he probably is. Regardless, Dib lifts a hand to Zim’s face, tilts him to the side and presses closer. He kisses him again, and again, and again until he hears someone say “please tell me you’re getting this on camera.”

#zadr #mine #my fics

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