#assume this happens very soon after that cliffhanger ending i made in the fic i wrote btw!!! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cherryrogers · 4 years

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bittersweet {8}

pairing: boxer!bucky x rogers!reader

warnings: angst, mentions of death, very mild violence. sh*t is about to hit the fan guys.

synopsis: The world of boxing wasn’t something you knew much about, but after a certain boxer with blue eyes and an irresistible charm wove his way into your heart, you soon learned that it went far deeper than red gloves and gold medals. You thought that the boxer happening to be your brother’s best friend was bad enough, but unfortunately for everyone, the worst had yet to come.

a/n: hello, this fic isn’t dead !! i’ve shortened this part down; i was going to leave y’all on a cliffhanger but,,, since this chapter is like a million years overdue, i’ve been nice lmao. this part is also very steve heavy; bucky will have his time to shine soon guys !! 2/3 more chapters to go, hope you enjoy :)

Series Masterlist

“Oh, here comes your boyfriend.”

“Please don’t call him my boyfriend, Nat.”

Peter Quill was striding towards you after miraculously spotting you across the campus. With a bounce in his step, he shot you a shit-eating smile. You knew that this was coming, but that didn’t mean you were looking forward to it.

“Hey, girlfriend,” The boy slung an arm over your shoulder, glancing between you and Natasha. “(Y/N) and I are dating now, you know. She’s kinda always had a thing for me—”

The redhead narrowed her eyes at him, cutting him off. “I already know it’s just a cover up, Quill. Stop acting like an idiot.”

His smug expression fell along with the arm circling your shoulders. “Well, what’s the point of being your fake boyfriend if I don’t even get to act like it around other people?”

“The point is so that my brother doesn’t start asking questions.”

“So... you’re seeing someone else? I’m hurt, truly.”

“Peter—”

“Can’t you at least tell me who I’m covering for?” The boy whined. “What am I even getting out of this if you’re not properly playing the girlfriend part?”

You bit the inside of your cheek; you did feel a little bad, dragging him into a situation that he’d never asked to be in. There was no way you were letting him, well, get anywhere near you, even if you did end up seeing him in your brother’s presence. He was doing you a big favour though, you owed him something for that.

A knowing smile tugged at the corner of your lips as you pulled out your phone, flicking your eyes back up to Peter’s. “I can’t tell you who you’re covering for, but I can give you something else. You remember Mora, right?”

His eyes widened. “The hot girl from that frat party a few weeks back? Majors in astronomy?”

“That’s her,” You confirmed. “If you agree to stop asking questions and play the fake boyfriend part normally, I’ll give you her number right now.”

Outside of parties, you didn’t really see Mora that much. She was the whole package, though — smart, gorgeous, confident; anybody would be lucky to date her. You weren’t sure if Peter was necessarily her type, but he could be a nice enough guy at times. Perhaps they’d actually end up hitting it off.

It didn’t take long for the boy to shrug, muttering a ‘sounds good to me’ as he pulled his own phone from his pocket and punched in Mora’s number.

Natasha gave you a gentle nudge while Peter was distracted, nodding towards a car that’d just pulled up on the sidewalk not far from you. Your eyes widened at the sight of Bucky waiting for you, forgetting up until that moment that he picked you up from class on Monday mornings. Maybe you wouldn’t have forgotten if you’d actually heard from him after he left to see Steve the night before. You’d barely gotten a wink of sleep, not hearing from Bucky, not knowing if your brother was alright. Well, of course he wasn’t, but even a sugarcoated text from Bucky telling you he was ‘fine’ would’ve at least eased your anxiety a little.

“I’ve gotta go,” You shot Natasha a smile before turning your gaze to Peter, pointing a warning finger at him. “Don’t mess it up with Mora; use her number wisely. Don’t over-text, but don’t give half assed responses either—”

“I know, I know,” The boy cut you off. “Jeez, what do you take me for? An idiot?”

“Yes.” Natasha and you replied simultaneously, sharing a knowing grin while you backed away from your two friends before Peter could start an argument.

A pit formed in your stomach as you approached the car, feeling Bucky’s gaze on you as you climbed into the seat next to him. You didn’t like feeling that way around him, uncomfortably nervous. You’d trusted him when he said that everything was going to turn out okay, so why were you still so unsure that it would be?

Letting out a breath, you fiddled with your hands in your lap. “I didn’t think you were picking me up today.”

The boxer’s brows furrowed. “Why wouldn’t I? I always pick you up on Mondays.”

“Well, I didn’t hear from you last night, or this morning. I wasn’t sure that everything went okay with Steve...” You trailed off anxiously, not knowing what else to say.

Bucky bit his lip, suddenly feeling a wave of guilt wash over him. A lot of things had came to light when he talked with Steve. Why he was in so much trouble, his own involvement with the ring... it hadn’t even occurred to him to let you know your brother was alright once he’d left, since his mind was wizzing with so much new information that his first instinct when he got home was to sleep it off and think it through in the morning. He should’ve known you’d be worried sick, however. The whole situation would worry anybody sick, and it was his responsibility to make sure you felt as at ease as you possibly could, given the circumstances.

“No, no, it was fine,” He assured you. Of course, everything was not fine, but that wasn’t something you needed to hear from him. Since he’d convinced Steve to finally let you in on the ordeal, he figured it was better that you heard the whole story from him. “I should’ve called you though, I’m sorry. Steve... he’s going to tell you everything.”

Your eyes widened. “He is?”

“He thinks you deserve to know, which you do,” Bucky nodded, patting your hand. “I’m warning you, though, it might be a lot to take in. Steve’s kept a lot of stuff to himself to protect you, it’s alright if it’s hard for you to understand...”

“I’ll be fine,” You quickly cut him off. You didn’t quite believe you own words, but what other choice did you have? Whatever situation your brother was in, you could assume that it wasn’t going to be an easy one to get out of. “This will all be over soon though, right? The secrets, the trying to protect me, the staying out of danger... tell me it’ll all be fine, Bucky?”

To that, Bucky didn’t have a certain answer. He’d said it to you before, though — guys like Brock Rumlow never win. The boxer liked to believe he’d get what was coming to him eventually, preferably soon. At this point, however, he wasn’t so sure how possible that was.

But for you, he’d do what he could.

He brought your hand to his mouth, pressing a kiss reassuringly to the back of it. “It’ll all be alright, I promise.”

You were almost eager to challenge his words, to tell him that he shouldn’t make promises that can’t be kept, but you didn’t. You trusted Bucky, wholeheartedly. It was everyone else that you’d didn’t trust; Brock, his boxing gym, even Steve who’d managed to keep some massive secret from you for Lord knows how long. But Bucky... you believed he was the only one who wasn’t keeping something from you. He was the one who’d told you about Brock, about how Steve was in danger. Without him trusting you enough to tell you about everything, you’d probably be none the wiser.

Maybe it’d be more foolish to not trust him.

After picking you up, Bucky took you to get coffee from a small place only five minutes away from campus. While you sat together in a cozy booth in the corner of the cafe, the boxer was noticeably doing his best to try and ease your worries about your brother. He told you about the latest drama at the gym, which involved a new guy named Thor who was twice the size of every boxer there and seemingly had the most amazing blond locks that Bucky had ever seen — better than Steve’s, even. He did have one flaw, however; someone at the gym, after a good hour of social media stalking, found that Thor was having long distance relationship troubles with a ‘way out of his league’ girl at a college in Indiana.

You weren’t sure there was as much drama in all your years of high school compared to the scandalous affairs of boxers in Brooklyn. It took your mind off your brother for the time being, anyway.

An hour later, Bucky had dropped you back at your apartment. He offered to stay and keep you company, but you assured him that you’d be alright on your own. You assumed he was concerned that you were going to work yourself up over your brother all over again like the night you’d argued with him, and he had every reason to think that, because that’s exactly what you did around ten minutes after you’d been left alone at home.

Every passing moment without any word from him only made you more antsy. If you ever argued Steve, which was rare, it was usually resolved within a couple of hours. It’d been almost a whole day now, and the feeling of not knowing where you stood with him was slowly eating at you.

Before you knew it, you had impulsively hopped on a bus to the boxing gym.

Was Steve going to kill you for going there? Most likely. If he miraculously didn’t, would Bucky kill you once he’d found out you’d gone there? Definitely. But you were done waiting, done with being left in the dark for your own ‘protection’.

As you stepped off the bus, you couldn’t help but glance cautiously up and down the street, making sure Brock Rumlow wasn’t hiding somewhere, waiting to get inside your head again. Thankfully, you were able to get to the entrance of the gym without an issue, but that didn’t ease any your nerves about seeing Steve.

From the changing room on the left side of the corridor once you’d shut the door behind you, a familiar figure in his boxing gear came strolling out, and a wide smile set on his lips upon seeing you. God, not again.

“Hey, girlfriend,” Peter nudged your shoulder with his wrapped fist. “Just can’t get enough of me?”

“I’ve had more than enough of you today, Peter, which is why I’m not here to see you,” You narrowed your eyes playfully at him. “Do you know where Steve is?”

“Uh...”

On cue, a broad-shouldered blond pushed through the doors of the main gym, not exactly being as happy to see you as Peter was once he noticed your presence.

There was a scowl on his lips as he stalked over, and you could feel Peter tensing up from beside you. It’s not like the guy wasn’t almost the same size as your brother, but nobody liked being around Steve when he was angry. You could practically feel the holes he was burning into your skull with the way he was glaring at you.

He stopped just in front of you, completely disregarding the awkward smile Peter tried to greet him with. “What the hell are you doing here? You know you can’t be here, even if it’s to see your... boyfriend.”

“I’m here to talk to you, you jerk,” You stood your ground, crossing your arms over your chest. “It’s been a day, what the hell have you been doing?”

“I’m just... gonna go...” Peter laughed nervously, walking backwards slowly towards the main gym doors before spinning around and getting out of the situation as quick as possible.

Steve tried to stare you down, to get you to drop your guard and go home so that he could talk to you some other time, not in the one place you were meant to be staying clear of. When you refused to drop his gaze, he sighed heavily. Without another word, he nodded down the corridor and began pacing, motioning for you to follow him. He lead you down a few short corridors before entering an empty staff room, a small area with two leather couches facing opposite each other and divided by a wooden coffee table. There was a miniature kitchen area with a coffee machine and some cupboards, likely filled with old packets of cookies that’d expired long ago.

When he started training at the gym, his manager Tony offered him the job of cleaning the place some nights after hearing that he was strapped for cash. It was odd to you then; he was able to help pay your college tuition and get you your own apartment, but a few months later he was struggling to buy groceries? Where the initial money came from, you weren’t sure. Well, not yet.

Tentatively, you sat down on one of the couches, silently waiting for Steve to calm down and talk to you properly without that stupid crease between his brows and frown on his face. Back when he was in middle school and puberty hadn’t yet hit him like a truck, your mother was often called into school to collect your beaten and bruised brother after continuous incidents with bullies. He’d have on the same annoyed expression as he wore now, and your mother had to explain to him that being stubborn wasn’t the only option; he could get out of dangerous situations if he wanted to and that fighting back wasn’t always the answer. Ironically, he was too stubborn to ever listen to her advice.

When Steve finally let out a breath and sat down on the couch opposite you, you wondered if he’d pictured your mom telling him to wipe the sour look off his face. To talk things out and let go of his pride, because being too iron-willed never ended well. If Steve was really going to sit down and tell you everything, the dark parts, mistakes and all, you were sure she’d be proud of him.

“Look, I’m sorry for the way I acted last night, and just now.” He spoke, his tone a lot calmer than before which provided you with some relief.

You sighed, a small smile tugging at your lips. “I know you think I’m naive; you say that you don’t, but I’m your younger sister, of course you’re gonna think I don’t understand things the way that you do. But that doesn’t meant you can just shut me out, Steve.”

“I mean this when I say it, kid. I don’t think you’re naive; there’s just... there’s a lot of things you don’t know about the past few years...”

“You can tell me, all of it,” You assured him. “At the end of the day, I know you’re a good person. There’s not a lot of things you could say that’d make me not think that.”

The blond’s eyes stayed trained on the surface of the coffee table, almost unable to comprehend that he was actually going to do this — tell you what he’d been on the run from for so long, what he’d done and agreed to to give you the best chance of a good life after your mom passed. With a hesitant swallow, Steve finally met your eyes, and he began to explain everything.

Starting with his feelings after the death of your mother, he told you how torn up he was, like there was an anchor tied to his heart and pulling at it twenty-four-seven, barely giving him a moment of peace. Art as a way of coping wasn’t working for him anymore, his pain was too much of a weight for the delicacy of pencils and paintbrushes. It was then that he joined the boxing gym, which was where he met Bucky. He’d told Bucky about needing a release, needing something to punch the life out of because he couldn’t bare beating himself up anymore, and the brunet was able to help him help himself.

Bucky had also informed him of the gym across town. Vaguely, he’d explained to Steve that boxers there made unholy amounts of money for matches, but a lot more brutally and not at all legally. The blond didn’t listen to that part, however. Money, he needed money. At that time, you were set to graduate high school in a matter of months, and while you acted like it didn’t bother you, you were sure that getting to college by the fall wasn’t on the cards. After everything falling apart once your mom passed, Steve wasn’t going to let things get worse for you. He was your older brother, and you were only seventeen — it was his responsibility to take care of you. He was getting you to college and giving you the independence you needed after leaving high school, that was all he knew.

And that’s when he took a trip across town and met Brock Rumlow, and that’s when Alexander Pierce started having him properly trained and doing his dirty work.

As far as he knew, Steve was fighting men under other managements every other week for a large sum of cash split between him and the gym if he won. There was a feeling in his gut that there was more to the story, but he actively tried to ignore it, even while every match resulted in almost broken bones and being close to unconsciousness by the end of it. In a couple of months, he’d made more money than he’d ever gotten in pocket money as a kid. When would he ever have the opportunity to make cash like that again?

It wasn’t until a match that took place on a cold night in late December that he realised what he was involved in; what kind of people he was making money for. The match that night was horrific, he’d barely gotten a punch in against the burly, heavily tattooed man that’d came from Florida to fight. Bloody and battered, Steve had went looking for Rumlow after the match had ended, only wanting to ask if he could head home for the night. It took him five minutes to finally find the man in the parking lot behind the building, gripping a girl no older than twenty on her upper arm, her wrists tied behind her back with a thick rope. She was shoved in the back of a large black van with blacked out windows, and before Steve could even reach Rumlow, the van was gone along with the girl.

It was then he knew; he lost the match, and there was a price to pay for that. That price happened to be that girl, her freedom. No amount of money was worth hurting innocent people like that. The fighting wasn’t just about cash. It was about power, and greed, and reputation.

“Steve, you didn’t have to do that. You didn’t have to any of that for me. We could’ve worked things out together...”

“Maybe, but I wasn’t in a good headspace then, (Y/N). I thought ‘cause I was doing it to help you that what I was doing was for the best. I was the naive one.”

So, he told Rumlow he quit, and he was going to get the entire organisation shut down. The man only laughed in his face at that. Police could come in and out of the gym as much as they wanted, but they’d never find anything. That was the worst part; even if Steve left, there were people that didn’t get that option, that were trapped in the hands of the likes of Pierce to only be traded off for someone else to control.

The guilt would follow Steve like a shadow, but what use would it be to stay? Getting out of there looked like his only choice, and he was sure everyone that was part of the ring would get what was coming to them one day. He could only pray they did.

Then, the dreaded deal was made. Of course, they couldn’t just let Steve leave on his own accord. Rumlow wanted a match and he wanted a prize when he won, as he’d put it. Granted, Steve thought there was nothing he could give him that he didn’t already have, but accepted the deal anyway. It got Pierce and him off his back for the time being, and again, what could Rumlow possibly want that only Steve could provide him? The match seemed pretty pointless in his opinion.

The landslide of a story Steve was telling you already had your heart in your stomach. All you could do was sit stiffly and silently and hope that there was a happy ending to it all. It seemed as he explained the most recent addition to the whole ordeal, however, that the story wasn’t actually over.

Because then, he told you about the prize Rumlow wanted. You. If your brother lost, you were to become his property, like an object. That’s when you couldn’t stay quiet anymore.

“So they’ll just take me? I’ll have no choice other than to let them... do what they want with me?” Your bottom lip quivered as your hands gripped the leather of the couch next to your legs.

“Kid, you’re not going anwhere,” Steve said firmly.

“But—”

“No, listen to me,” He pressed, holding your glossy-eyed gaze. “You’re gonna walk away from all of this. They’ll have to kill me before they get to you—”

“Don’t even say that, Steve,” You jumped up from your seat, still unable to fully take in the gravity of the situation. How? How had all of this been going on in your brother’s life and you had no idea? You ran a shaky hand through your hair. “When? When’s the match?”

His voice was barely above a whisper. “Friday.”

“Oh my— shit,” You could barely believe what you were hearing. Four days. In four days you could possibly never see Steve again, or Natasha, or Bucky. You could be getting put in the back of a van, being taken to who knows where and never stepping foot in New York again. Shit. “Does anyone else know about... all of this?”

“Bucky, I told him the other night,” Steve responded, but you already knew that. Well, you knew he knew about the fighting ring, but not the fact that you were being used as a damn prize. “But I think he might be able to help us. I’m not sure how yet, but he used to be apart of the ring too...”

The remainder of Steve’s words didn’t register as you felt your heart clench. It didn’t feel real, none of it did.

Bucky, your Bucky, worked for Brock Rumlow? He was part of what Steve was desperately trying to run from, and he never told you? He never told you. Didn’t he trust you enough?

“You still with me, kid?”

Your brother’s voice startled you, but you nodded weakly, pushing Bucky out of your mind momentarily. “Isn’t there any way you can pull out of the deal? If— if you don’t wanna fight him, he can’t make you, right?”

A shaky sigh left Steve’s lips. “There’s something else I need to tell you. You should sit down, (Y/N).”

You did so reluctantly, wishing you could just suddenly wake up and learn that the last fifteen minutes had all been a dream. A horrible dream.

“If I don’t fight on Friday, or if I don’t follow their rules for the match, they’re gonna have me put behind bars for life.” The blond harshly bit down on the inside of his cheek, trying to keep his composure.

You shook your head in disbelief, brows crinkled. “But how? You haven’t done anything, they’re the ones breaking the law. They’re the ones with blood on their hands, Steve.”

“They’re not the only ones with blood on their hands,” He responded, eyes set hardly on the coffee table again. “For two years, the police have been looking for a missing man. John Preston; he was twenty one, had no immediate family alive, boxed at a gym in New Jersey. I saw it on the news when he first went missing, and I saw his picture. I knew him, and it took me a minute, but then I realised that I knew him because I’d fought him. He was one of the last guys I fought before I left the gym, and... it was an ugly match. It ended with him being knocked unconscious, and I wasn’t far off collapsing either. I never knew what happened to him until I ran into Rumlow outside of our gym; he told me John was dead. Killed the night after I’d knocked him out in the ring.”

“But that wasn’t you—”

“He needed to go to the hospital,” Steve interrupted, your argument being pointless. “But nobody would take him. There was too much of a risk that the police would get involved. So... they just killed him. Rumlow didn’t tell me what they did with his body, but he hasn’t been close to being found. The cops have probably deemed it a cold case by now, but... Pierce, the sick bastard, he likes to keep a video of all the fights. As proof of who won and lost, and probably for his own sick entertainment.”

You spoke up timidly; it was clear at this point what he was implying. “There’s a video of you knocking John unconscious, isn’t there? And they could use it to... to frame you for his murder.”

Whatever response Steve gave you, you didn’t at all catch it, your mind completely scrambled from what you’d just heard. You’d like to believe that there was some hope for the situation, that Steve would simply be able to win the match on Friday and finally cut ties with the ring and everything involved. But you doubted the odds would be in his favour, especially with Brock Rumlow controlling every aspect of the deal.

You needed to speak to Bucky. Perhaps he knew how to make things right. He said everything would be okay, and you wanted badly to believe him. Then again, what if he was in as much trouble as you and Steve were? Who knew what connection he still had with Pierce, what deal he had to agree to to get out of there.

And to think, a matter of months ago, you thought that Steve finding out about your relationship with Bucky was going to be your biggest problem. You’d truly been living in your own bubble then, utterly unaware of the darkness behind the most important people in your life.

From being distracted by an attractive boxer and being unwilling to let him go so easily, you’d somehow ended up needing a way to stop your brother being framed for murder and yourself being sold into the hands of criminals.

Yet amid the anxiety and the fear, there was still a part of you that hoped Bucky would know what to do. He swore to you that everything would be alright, that Rumlow wouldn’t win.

All you could do was trust that he didn’t make empty promises.

* * *

@kimvmarvel @printedpeterparker @buckyandsebastian @ilovesupersoldiers @asgcrds @bxrnsfeyson @peterparkerbabyyy @broco8 @hotheadbarnes @stormi-ames @founding-fuck-bois @fizzahocleirigh

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #bucky #bucky barnes #bucky barnes x you #bucky x you #bucky barnes reader insert #bucky barnes au #boxer!bucky

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gumnut-logic · 4 years

Text

Wings & Water (Part One)

Title: Wings & Water

Part One

Author: Gumnut

Feb 2020

Fandom: Thunderbirds Are Go 2015/ Thunderbirds TOS

Rating: Teen

Summary: “I needed to get your attention.”

Word count: 5451

Spoilers & warnings: Marks & Wings AU, Wing!fic, shapeshifting, Virgil/Kayo, Gordon/Penelope (eventually)

Timeline: Sometime post-‘John’. All the fics can be found on Ao3, the timeline order and artwork can be found on my website.

Author’s note: This is the universe I write when I’m feeling tired, off or unable to write anything else. It is little more than self-indulgence usually, an exercise to find my writing mojo, to play with sensation and description. So tired one night a few nights back I scribbled down what was supposed to be just a scene with Kay and Virgil on the beach. The characters apparently had other ideas and now I have another WIP ::headdesk:: Why do I even try? So, I’ve given up trying to write it in one go and now offer you Part One instead of a complete fic. Fortunately, it does not end on a cliffhanger or anything and could almost be considered complete except for one serious plot thread which is actually quite subtle anyway..

Many thanks to both @scribbles97 and @vegetacide for the read throughs and advice ::hugs you both:: I got wibbly and those who read my Tumblr may recall the ‘floppy’ Virgil post I made in the middle of writing this. Here be the Floppy Virgil I was talking about. I hope you enjoy it anyway.

Disclaimer: Mine? You’ve got to be kidding. Money? Don’t have any, don’t bother.

-o-o-o-

It had been a long mission.

Virgil hit the locker rooms with a drawn out sigh. The irrational part of him just wanted to shed uniform in a trail behind him, but his disciplined mind refused to let him. So his baldric was shed and stowed for cleaning and redeployment along with his tool kit and harness. His boots did get kicked under the bench and he would no doubt get words about it later, but at this point he didn’t care.

His mark ached.

And his mind was a battlefield for angry brothers.

He shed his uniform, draping the heavy material over the bench. His black undershirt quickly followed and the cool air of the room hit his skin causing it to goose pimple in response.

His groan as he bent over, stretching the dark lines sculpted into his back, came from somewhere deep inside. He needed to lift, but god, he was tired.

A glance at the shower stalls and he longed for the water drumming on his skin, but the cubicle was too small, too confining. He had to stretch out.

The smallest of groans.

It had been a rockslide. Steep mountain side. Small village.

Children.

He closed his eyes.

They didn’t often lift during rescues. The whole mystic behind their wings was something that either terrified the rescuees more or resulted in amazement and a hailstorm of questions, most of which none of them had time or care to answer.

And god forbid if the media was there.

Which in this day and age only had to be a phone.

A little boy had fallen from a height and Virgil had reacted on instinct. Lifting his massive eight metre span within an eye blink, he launched himself into the air just in time to save the toddler from the sharp rocks below.

The film was still showing on loop on CNN.

The questions of his heritage, their history, previous shots of the Tracy brothers flying...it all came up again.

None of them were happy.

John and Eos did their best to contain the outbreak, but there were limits.

Virgil just wanted to hide.

Kay was still inbound. Alan was up with John, and Scott was still on site at the rock slide. Gordon had come home with Virgil, but his brother had spent the whole trip mentally kicking himself and the aquanaut had promptly disappeared after the necessary post-flight tasks.

And was currently circling the Island waterbound.

Water.

A frown as he bent over to pick up his uniform. Perhaps Gordon had the right of it. A swim, to rinse the clammy feeling from his skin, to stretch out, to relax.

The uniform was chucked in the laundry chute and he grabbed a towel, throwing it over his shoulder. Deciding his undershorts satisfactory, he headed down to the lagoon.

-o-o-o-

Shadow was a beautiful ‘bird to fly. Kayo had flown all the Thunderbirds at one time or another, but Shadow was just elegance in the air, a ballerina up against the rest of the fleet’s brute strength.

Of course, this had its downsides. She was quiet, but not as strong as her sisters. More prone to engine damage under stress and she could carry much less. But these were small sacrifices to let her dance in the sky. More the bird of prey she emulated than should ever be possible.

Kayo flew out of the setting sun on approach to Tracy Island, killing her ‘bird’s forward momentum and activating the docking platform, ready to receive. As was her practise, she flew a standard sensory loop around the perimeter of the Island on approach. She took the opportunity to double check the Island’s security sensors with those highly sensitive scanners built into her ‘bird.

It was reassuring to see all the check sums add up nicely.

Particularly considering the media shit storm currently underway.

She had been on the other side of the planet, liaising with Penny. But the moment she saw Virgil on the nets...Penny had urged her to go. Kayo had no doubts the aristocrat would follow shortly as soon as she could tie up their business.

The Tracys hated what the media could do to them.

This wasn’t the first time. Probably not the last. But that didn’t stop it from hurting.

She knew Virgil. She knew it would get to him first.

Scott would rant and rave. John would steam in his station until Eos called for help. Fortunately Alan was already up there so would probably drag him down with the first excuse he could come up with. Gordon would disappear into the ocean.

Penny would have to go fishing, literally.

Alan, out of all of them, cared the least. She wasn’t sure why, but the youngest just turned a blind eye and shrugged the rest off. Though she did have some knowledge regarding an anonymous caller on a late night talk show the last time this had happened. It hadn’t sounded anything like Alan, but the presenter had been verbally shredded in a very exacting way.

Alan was a smart young man. He didn’t take well to his big brothers being compared to water fowl or chickens.

It was the chickens that probably did it.

But no one other than her and Eos knew he was responsible and she planned to keep it that way.

As Shadow banked she flew over one of the beaches and Kayo got a glimpse of a figure in the water. For a split second she assumed it was Gordon, but the more familiar and intimate profile sank into her mind as she turned back for docking.

It was Virgil.

Her heart tightened.

It had definitely gotten to him.

She hurried through docking procedures and post-flight, hitting the lockers and shedding her uniform as quickly as possible. She unpinned her hair, threw on a sports bra and shorts and darted through the house and out into the trail that led down to the beach.

It was the same beach where he did his regular workout. The same beach he had caught her out and kissed her silly so long ago.

It was a beach with wonderful memories. No doubt the reason why he had chosen to come here.

She wasn’t quiet on approach this time. Her flip flops cracked twig and gravel alike. She wanted him to know she was there.

She needn’t have bothered.

He was waist deep, staring out into the water. His whole upper torso was cast in the gold from the setting sun, leaving his mark an iridescent intricacy of a starry midnight of lines and swirls across his back, shoulders and biceps. The light couldn’t touch it and, as always, she found it mesmerising.

Her feet reached the edge of the water and the wavelets of the lagoon caressed her toes.

She opened her mouth to call his name, but he suddenly hunched a little and lifted.

Black feathers splashed into the water and he groaned aloud, startling her.

God, he was hurting.

But before she could say anything, his wings unfolded to their full span, flinging water in every direction.

They never failed to impress her. Black, iridescent and just huge. He stretched them out to their full extent and held them there. His arms appeared above his head and he stretched with another groan.

Kayo threw herself into the water, wading in behind him, reaching up to rest her hands on his shoulders, brush her cheek against his soft downy back feathers.

He tensed for just that second before recognition set in and he melted under her touch.

“Kay.” His voice was rough and ever so weary. His arms came down and his wings drooped slightly into the water.

Her hands slid from his shoulders, brushing gently across feathers enough to make him shiver, before slipping up under his wings and arms to curl around his chest where he caught them and held her close.

She exhaled amongst down. “I’m sorry, love.”

His breath came out as a soft sigh, his body wilting just a little more against her. “Had to do it. Had to save him.”

“I know.”

His head dropped a little more and she needed to see his expression.

Ducking, she dove under his wing and surfaced in front of him, pushing to her feet as water ran off her body.

His eyes were ever so sad.

Touching a finger to his cheek, she leant up and kissed him gently.

His response was immediate, drawing her in with his arms, his wings leaving wake as they skipped across the water surface to encircle her. His kiss drew her in, his passion feeding hers and for a moment there, it was just the two of them.

But reality quickly intruded at that thought because it never really was just the two of them.

She broke off the kiss, wrapping herself around him, drawing his forehead down to touch hers. “Tell me.”

Another soft groan and he looked down.

“C’mon, love.”

“Gordon blames himself. He feels he should have been in place to prevent the child from falling. John disagrees. I disagree. But he won’t listen. He’s hurting and I can’t help him.”

She had done her best to understand the three brothers and their connection. They could hear each other. Not words, just sensations, emotions. The impressions Virgil described were ever so visual, so tied into how her lover’s mind worked, they were quite frankly amazing. He spoke of starlit blues and magnesium bright golds when speaking of his brothers. But how he processed these into interpretations of what they were thinking, she did not know.”

“Can you tell where he is?”

“Circling the Island like a lost soul.”

“Penny will be here soon.”

“Thank god.”

She brushed the back of her fingers against his cheek, nails dancing over two days’ stubble. He was so tired. He needed sleep. But she knew he wouldn’t be able to until his brother found some peace.

A decision and she straightened slightly. “Swim with me?”

He leant in and kissed her forehead, her eyebrow, her temple, her cheek...he trailed his lips all the way down to her mouth and again took moments, his tongue slipping in between her teeth seeking hers. His arms tightened around her, lifting her in the water, almost clinging.

Her eyes closed and her only sensation was him.

-o-o-o-

Virgil sometimes wondered how he had survived before finding Kay’s love. Obviously, he had, and he had been happy as a member of an extraordinary family, but now her touch was capable of consuming him, blocking the world out and giving such comfort to his soul.

He broke off the kiss and ran his fingers through her wet hair. Her hands moved to his chest, brushing through fine feathers and hair alike.

The need to rest was aching in his bones, but the tired spark who was his younger brother was fizzling in the back of his mind and the silent fury of John so far above them was a burn that gave him no relief.

He didn’t blame them. No, there was no fault in this, either in the effect or the reason. All he wanted to do was reach out and reassure. But Gordon wasn’t listening, John was still juggling the after effects as he and Eos took out copies of that damned video and the commentary that came with it.

There were no fuzzy or poorly caught video files. Technology compensated for lighting and speed and the footage of himself running, his feathers sprouting through his uniform as he moved was ever so clear. His yell as he launched himself into the air, even the sound of straining wing beats as he took off almost vertically could be heard. He weighed more with all his kit strapped to his body and it had been hard work to get airborne at that angle and speed.

But he had managed it. Caught the screaming child mid air. He had been forced to gain more height to even out his flight before banking in an arc to land beside a screaming parent.

He didn’t speak her language, but the terror in her eyes as handed the boy over was not only for his safety, but for the man who had saved him.

There had been murmuring as he folded his wings and walked away. He had let his wings go and forced himself back into routine. Just another rescue. Just save as many as he could.

But the staring, the wide eyes, the touch of fear, the question of ‘what are you’ that hung in the air hovering over his bent back as he worked to save a young girl.

The whispering.

The remorse stirring in his younger brother.

He could feel Gordon on approach. He wasn’t far away, still looping the Island. Perhaps...

He shook himself and found Kay staring up at him, worry in her eyes. Her fingers, once again brushed his cheek and he kissed them. Hands on her waist, he turned in the water, taking her with him until he was facing the shore, his back to the horizon. He stepped back and let her go.

“Virgil?”

“I need...” He needed her. God, he longed for her touch. But he also needed his brothers. He needed rest.

He took another step back, moving deeper, his wingtips dragging against the swell.

She frowned at him in worry. “Virgil, what?”

A flash of midnight alarm and he let himself fall backwards into the water.

Virgil closed his eyes.

-o-o-o-

This was all his fault. The child had been part of a group of villagers whose homes were on the top of the cliff that had fractured, taking out the the rest of the village below. Virgil had identified the area unsafe with Two’s scanners while on approach and Gordon had been assigned to shore up the cliff edge with nanocrete. Which he had, using a pod. But he had returned on foot, not convinced it was fully secured and filled a few more cracks to make sure the cliff wasn’t about to collapse before Virgil could finish the evacuation below.

His back had been turned to the village behind him. He should have kept an eye out. Several families had refused to leave their homes no matter what John broadcast across Two’s external loudspeakers in any language.

He had seen the little boy out the corner of his eye and moved to stop him, but the toddler had taken a fright at the sight of Gordon dressed in his protective equipment and the long snake of delivery tube in his hands.

He had yelled in caution, but the child only startled more, a mother screaming somewhere off to the left. The little boy stepped backwards...and was gone.

Gordon’s shock screamed across to his brothers and Virgil responded.

As Gordon hurried to the edge, his brother was already airborne, great black wings beating hard to gain height and the intense concentration of he had to do, foremost.

Virgil caught the little boy, shooting up past the edge of the cliff and Gordon in a great black-blue-green streak.

The little boy was screaming.

His brother circled around and brought himself into land gracefully in front of a tearful mother.

She took her son, obviously terrified and hurried away.

Virgil’s shoulders dropped just enough for Gordon to notice before those wings folded and vanished.

People were talking. Muttering. Words of fear. At least one obvious obscenity despite the language barrier. As Virgil approached Gordon, the words grew louder.

Someone threw something.

Virgil helped him finish securing the cliff edge and then they had flown back down with the pod.

Scott was liaising with local emergency services, but the questions being flung at him when Gordon arrived to report, had nothing to do with the emergency.

“I’m sorry, what you are asking is our private business and I repeat we have no comment. Now can we please save these people.”

One emergency services officer was replaying Virgil’s flight on his phone with several of his buddies hovering around.

While Virgil had donned his exo-suit and was shifting rubble off a trapped family not twenty metres away.

Scott lost it in the calm and deadly way only Scott could two seconds later. Another two seconds and all those emergency personnel were fleeing from Commander Tracy whether they could understand him not.

“Is the cliff secure?” Those angry blue eyes were glaring at him.

“Yes.”

A swallow and a red flush to his cheeks. “Assist Virgil, deploy the pod for anything he can’t lift.”

“FAB.”

Gordon spent the next three hours doing exactly that.

Hardly a word was said between the brothers beyond the necessary. Virgil was very quiet and Gordon even more.

John, so far above them was spikes of anger as he wrestled with both the networks and the language on site. Gordon didn’t need a translation of what was being said with his brother so highly tuned to understanding.

And it was all Gordon’s fault.

If he had been paying more attention.

If he had been fast enough to stop the child.

If he hadn’t scared him further.

Gordon did not have wings. The world did not know of his ability and he was damn glad they didn’t. But his gentle brother had been cornered into lifting a handful of times on rescues and every time it was the same. Curiosity and terror.

Scott had lifted in public before as well, but Johnny hadn’t been seen since the attack and Alan had never been seen at all.

Of course, that didn’t stop the press. There was artwork out there guessing what colour both Gordon and Alan’s wings were, not to mention the conspiracy theories surrounding John’s absence.

If they knew Gordon grew fins instead...

They weren’t the only Aves out there, but the ability was so rare, it was a novelty.

The depressive and exhausted cloud hovering over Virgil just drove Gordon’s guilt deeper.

John instinctively tried to calm him, but the man wasn’t great himself, slowly approaching boiling point like a pot simmering on the stove. There was only so much his brother could tolerate and no doubt the slander was vile.

On the way back to the Island, Virgil had tried to talk to him, but by then Gordon was too angry with himself to respond intelligently. As soon as they landed, he was out the hatch and headed to the water where he shifted and let himself go.

He flew through the ocean, his wings those of his eagle ray form. His change muted his brothers somewhat, though not entirely and he had no doubt they could still feel him.

It was just stupid. He could have easily prevented it, yet he hadn’t and Virgil had been exposed again.

The water blurred around him as his thoughts took him in as many circles as those he made around the Island.

He knew the moment his brother stepped into the water.

Virg.

For god’s sake.

He just wanted to be alone. To think.

An emerald spark shot across the ocean at him. It was full of worry and love and so his big brother his heart clenched.

But he didn’t deserve it.

That didn’t stop Virgil.

A wave of exhaustion, fear for his safety and concern followed that spark.

Virgil was such a motherhen.

And he loved him for it.

But he didn’t deserve it. If anything, he should be apologising to his brother. It was all his fault!

Virgil’s mental sigh was almost a physical thing.

Gordon arced away from the Island and further out into the sea.

As he looped around the familiar beaches and outcrops, anger again sparked from far above and Gordon wondered what the hell his star brother had found now.

All his damn fault.

A spark of blue-grey suddenly radiated from Virgil’s direction followed by a wash of relief and desperate love.

Gordon mentally blinked and smiled. Tin had his brother.

Her touch was like fire to the gentle man. Gordon could not feel her at all, but Virgil’s reactions were enough to alert both John and himself to her presence...which led to interesting times...sometimes.

But for the moment, Gordon was only grateful she had his brother in hand. She would look after him.

Gordon dove deeper, revelling in the cool water streaming across his body.

Tin and Virgil had been a surprise to both John and Gordon. A spark of which neither of them had been aware, burst into flame and both of them reeled as their brother lit up.

Gordon felt it was truly something beautiful. Virgil deserved so much happiness and his sister blossomed as their relationship developed. Gordon wasn’t one to pry much beyond blackmail material, but his brother’s joy just overflowed into everything and everyone around him.

So it was with some shock that he received the first flickers of panic and a sensation of...drowning!

The eagle ray shifted mid beat and was replaced with a shark, the mako’s slim and speed-designed form throwing him through the water towards the beach where his brother was now struggling.

What the hell had happened?

It only took moments for Gordon to reach the waterlogged Ave, Tin struggling to pull Virgil out of the water, his fully spread wings hampering her efforts, his weight and drag formidable.

A leap and Gordon shifted mid-air, landing smoothly on his feet in the chest high water behind his brother and grabbing his feathered shoulders as Tin pulled desperately at his arms.

Between them, they got him upright, his wings still hanging in the water.

“What the hell, Virgil?!”

John was sparking all over the place, fear and fury, the astronaut was getting closer. No doubt, heading down on the elevator.

“What were you thinking?!”

They were both supporting him, one on each side, step by step dragging him towards shore.

“I needed to get your attention.”

“What the hell? By drowning yourself?!”

“I knew where you were. I was safe.”

Gordon stopped in the knee high water, waves muttering at his legs. “Why?!”

Tin’s expression was fast morphing from fear to rage and she yanked on her lover causing him to stumble.

Eight metres of black wings were dragged out of the water and onto the sand. The winged brothers were as nimble in the water with their wings spread as Gordon was in the sky in his ray form. In other words, not at all. They weren’t sea Aves. Their wings were not waterproof and while they did possess enough natural oils to prevent any damage to the feathers, they were extremely cumbersome underwater, heavy and that was why all the brothers let their wings go before diving into the ocean.

“Why didn’t you let them go?!” Tin was furious.

Gordon found it totally understandable since he shared the feeling.

A distant murmur off to the east suddenly swelled to a roar and Thunderbird One shot into the Island’s airspace, hovering a moment before rising up in preparation to dock.

John had obviously let the cat out of the bag. None of the three middle brothers could sense the eldest or the youngest.

But that was what comms were for.

As if to emphasise the point, the faint dot of the descending elevator appeared far above the volcanic peaks and made its way down between the jagged rocks.

A matter of minutes and they would be mobbed by brothers.

Gordon stood in front of his brother and glared. “Explain it to me now.”

Virgil’s whole posture was one of exhaustion. His eyes bloodshot, eyelids at half mast, his wings dragging on the sand. “I needed to break the cycle. you were so angry with yourself.” A hand reached out and landed on his shoulder. “It wasn’t your fault, Gordon. Let it rest. Let me rest.” Please. And Virgil was folding himself up, crouching down to sit on the sand his wings were covered in.

“Why didn’t you just call me?”

“I did. Again and again. You wouldn’t answer.” A sigh. “Too angry.”

Gordon opened his mouth to retort, but nothing came out. A pause. “You could have drowned!”

“No. It wouldn’t have gone that far.”

“How do you know?!” Tin was livid. “That was stupid, Virgil. You made me watch and I couldn’t pull you up-“ She broke off, struggling to compose herself.

Virgil reached up and pulled her to him. She resisted, but he insisted, and swearing through her teeth, she folded down beside him. He tucked her under his chin, muttering quiet apologies over and over again, his eyes closing.

Gordon took a step back, sensitive to what had suddenly become a private moment.

He looked up as his sense of John swelled above him, to see three brothers gliding over the palm trees. A rush of backwing breeze as six feet hit the sand.

Scott’s silver grey wings folded and vanished first, followed by Alan’s gold-blond flicker of feathers. John’s prosthetics whispered closed with just enough difference to the others to declare them artificial, ever reminding them of what had been done to their brother.

Gordon stepped in between Virgil and their brothers, holding up his hands.

Scott frowned, eyes barely leaving the pair curled up on the sand. “What happened?”

“He’s tired. Leave it. Probably my fault.”

That only served to narrow his older brother’s attention on Gordon. “What happened?”

John broke off with a flash of frustration and stormed past to crouch beside Virgil, his hand coming to rest on his brother’s shoulder. Murmured words Gordon couldn’t hear, but flashes of emotion danced around his head.

It was then Gordon realised that it wasn’t only Virgil who was exhausted.

“Scott, he did it to get my attention. He was successful, if overly dramatic. Blame it on the day if you have to. I’ll kick his ass later, I promise. If he survives Tin, that is.” Gordon eyed the pair. He knew his sister. This wasn’t over and he didn’t begrudge her at all. Of all the stupid things for his brother to do...

“Are you okay?” Alan’s voice sounded a little small.

Gordon sighed and strode over to his little brother who looked even smaller with the lack of shirt. His bro really needed more sun. Too much time spent in space. If he wasn’t careful, he’d end up glowing in the dark like Johnny.

He dropped a damp arm around Alan’s shoulders and grinned as his brother squirmed.

“You’re all cold and wet.”

“Comes with the territory, little bro.”

“Ergh.”

But he didn’t pull away.

Scott eyed the both of them, but his lips thinned anyway and he turned towards the huddle of brothers and sister on the ground.

“Scott?”

His brother turned to him.

“Be kind.”

The man frowned a little before nodding once and turning back, his silver mark glittering in the shadow of the vanishing sun.

-o-o-o-

Okay, it was a stupid thing to do.

John’s hand gripped his shoulder like a vice and the short sharp words cut at him. What had he been thinking?

“I don’t know, John. I just...don’t know.” He curled himself around Kay. His wings were sodden and covered in sand, he desperately need to preen them clean, but so, so tired.

He closed his eyes.

The midnight sun of his younger brother swelled and enveloped him. The intensity of worry, anger and love that came with it, his brother’s fingers on his feathered shoulder and two words.

It’s okay.

Virgil’s eyes shot open, seeking turquoise in the dimming light. “John?”

His brother’s eyes widened. Standing beside Alan, Gordon’s head shot up, a worried query thrown directly at the both of them.

But John still hadn’t answered him. John?

Oh, shit.

What the hell?

But Scott interrupted and John shook his head just enough to stop Virgil saying anything.

Kay was staring at the both of them.

The eldest was oblivious to the entire exchange, his focus still on a younger brother who had done something stupid.

“Virgil, I need to know what happened.” His big brother’s voice was calm, but demanding. “John said you were in some difficulty. That you were drowning. Why were you in the water with your wings lifted in the first place?”

“I...” Turquoise, blue, green and brown were all staring at him in the approaching darkness. “It was nothing.” He looked down shaking his head. Please, I just need sleep. God, please just let me rest.

John straightened, his hand still on Virgil’s shoulder. Voice quiet. “Scott, maybe later? We’re all exhausted. Virgil has been awake for almost thirty-six hours.”

Scott’s eyes glittered in the darkness for a moment as they darted to his middle brother. The commander’s lips thinned even further. “We debrief first thing in the morning.” Back to Virgil, his eyes softening with worry. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Virgil blinked, his tired mind frozen in shock. What? He didn’t have to explain?

Be thankful and move. John was lifting him under one shoulder while Kay had slid under his other one. Somewhat dazed, he found himself on his feet, turned around and led back into the water.

Suddenly Gordon was there with Kay. John stepped back and let Virgil go as they stepped into the waves. They went in deep enough for him to fully submerge his feathers, Kay and Gordon helping him wash off the sand.

They didn’t let go of him once.

God, these feathers are huge. Must be heavy. How the hell does he support them? Tank body, tank wings, I guess.

Virgil frowned and stared at Gordon. What?

They’re darker than night, yet catch the light. Gordon had one gentle hand on Virgil’s forewing and was combing ever so carefully through his flight feathers.

Stealth wings. The thought was humorous, but no smile appeared on his little brother’s face, his frown of concentration dominant.

Virgil continued to stare.

Gordon shook his feathers ever so gently. “Okay, bro, I think I’ve got most of it out. Tin, you’re side done?”

Virgil turned to find his beloved Kay finishing up, her touch soft and loving despite the anger on her face. “We’re good.”

“They’re all yours, Virg.” Gordon moved in closer and gently squeezed his shoulder. “Don’t drown yourself again.” A small smile and he walked back to shore.

Something slipped away with him.

Kay was less liking to let him go, scooting in and grabbing his hand, leading him back to shore. As they approached, the four brothers on shore stepped back and gave Virgil room.

The sand was firm under the soles of his feet.

Kay stepped out of reach and he was clear.

Bracing his feet, he expanded his wings fully, ignoring their tired complaint, and shook them. Leaning over slightly, he pushed them through the air, their huge beats threatening to lift him off the beach.

Water scattered everywhere. Wingdraft caught the tideline detritus and flung it across the beach. Two of his brother complained as sand was tossed with it.

Alan ended up with seaweed in his hair.

But god, it felt good.

He wanted to jump into the sky, to fully stretch himself out, the feel the wind in his face.

“Virgil!”

John and Gordon said his name together, both of them frowning as if twinned. It would have made a great photographic moment if they weren’t projecting so much worry.

Or if Kay wasn’t standing beside them, her expression even worse.

He didn’t need to look at Scott to know what he would be thinking, lack of mental connection or not.

Okay.

He slowed his wings, enjoying the feel of the air rifling through his drying feathers. As the draft lessened, Kay approached him, her hands landing on his bare chest, only to slide up to his shoulders and the back of his neck.

Her fingers climbed into his hair and she brought his forehead down to hers.

“Let them go, love.”

He closed his eyes, his hands landing at her waist. One more stretch of his wing muscles and he shook his feathers before folding them neatly across his back.

Then he let them go.

To say she kept him on his feet wouldn’t have been a lie.

So stupid.

So tired.

Kay slipped under one arm and he suddenly found Scott under his other.

Virgil frowned. “I’m fine. I’m not sick.”

“I’ll let the medscanner reassure me anyway.”

“Scott-“

“Virgil, home, medical scan, bed. That’s an order.”

Mumbled. “Not on duty.”

Kay poked him in the ribs. “Move your ass.”

“Well, in that case...”

Gordon snorted and his brothers and his Kay took him home.

-o-o-o-

End Part One

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction #Virgil Tracy #Gordon Tracy #John Tracy #marks and wings

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antichristsxbox · 4 years

Text

Knight in Shining Armor - Part Two

Read part one here!

Summary: Princess!Reader wakes up in Sir Langdon’s palace post-rescue.

From the writer: Hey guys, I’m so excited for this fic! I really enjoyed writing Michael like this— very sweet and caring. If you enjoyed this, all likes and reblogs are appreciated + check out my masterlist for more things like this! Thank you so much to @jocelynscloset for proofreading this for me. :) Update— here’s part one, here’s part three, and here’s part four + here’s my masterlist with more fics!

Word count: 2,665

A red room with a black ceiling and black crown molding— a cast-iron chandelier with no gems dangling, but nine black, lacy lamp shades. A black canopy above your black four-poster bed, with ornate fabric and ribbons hanging from the sides. Silky sheets run past your fingers as you pull the fabric from your body. The same silky material clings to your body as you stand, and you’re wearing a black nightgown that hits mid-thigh with red lace detailing. A strict, but visually pleasing theme, you think.

You cannot exactly recall how you ended up here, but you are assuming this is Michael’s palace. Opening the armoire, you search for something more appropriate to wear. Many dresses, exclusively black or red, and many more tiaras, all cast-iron with rubies. Plenty of options are available but you settle for a simple black linen dress— the temperature seems unusually high. Perhaps it’s the many candles burning, or the two fireplaces in your room. One across from your bed, and the other near the back of your room, connecting to what seemed to be an en suite bathroom. A simple tiara with one peak and a large ruby in the center is your accessory for today.

Exiting through the large, carved wood doors leads you to a long, arched hallway. Doors are shut until the hall reaches a dead end, and a wooden door is left ajar with a faint light fanning from the crack. Hesitant at first, but eager now as you push the door to reveal a floor-to-ceiling bookcase, and a focused Sir Langdon writing a letter, quill in hand and scroll on desk.

“You’re awake!” he says, standing up to greet you. A warm hug is graciously accepted and a soft smile is flashed— you hold Michael in your grasp before breaking the hug to look back up at him.

“Where are we?” you ask, looking around his grand office. A window gives a glimpse of what lies beyond the castle walls, but it’s a dark setting with a faint orange glow in the background and a reddish sky.

Michael motions for you to sit at a chair across from him, then makes his way to his seat across from you. He folds his hands and crosses his legs.

“Would you join me for dinner tonight? I must explain something to you,” he says.

His offer comes as a surprise, but you instantly accept. Curiosity begins to boil as he continues on, but his words are lost as your mind races with things that could be what he means to reveal later. It’s difficult when somebody says they would like to share something but leave it on a cliffhanger to reveal at a later date. Fortunately, Michael arranges dinner for tonight— your curiosity will soon be extinct.

As you open the doors to your room, a blonde woman is sitting near your fireplace flipping through a book and smoking a cigarette. She stands and outstretches her arm for you to shake her hand. Her name is Madison she introduces herself as your guide for anything you might need around the castle. Where the library is, kitchen, dining room, garden, you name it. There is another young woman, Zoe, who is busy right now but should soon be available.

Searching for something to wear seems harder than it actually is, given so many options in your seemingly endless wardrobe. Madison insists that a dark red, lacy gown would suit you for tonight as a darker look is more traditional for dinner. She leaves you to dress and get ready, but returns when accessories are needed to be chosen. A small, black evening bag and dark tiara highlight this as a true nighttime look. Realizing it’s almost time to meet Michael, Madison guides you towards the dining room and leads you to the door. She wishes you good luck, then leaves you at the threshold alone.

A nervous jitters type feeling stirs inside of you, but as that passes, you push the door handle down and enter the room. Sitting across an elongated table, Michael sits against a tall chair, parallel across the table to yours of equal height. In the middle of the table, a large feast awaits of ham and various other side dishes, vegetables, and salads. He stands and greets you, pulling out your chair for you to sit and lays a napkin across your lap. Retreating back to his chair, he stops to pour himself a glass of red wine, asking if you would like one as well. As much as you would like to partake, you realize you may want a clear head for what he would like to tell you, if it’s important.

“What is it?” you ask, looking across the long table, barely able to make out Michael’s expression, save for his light eyes being accentuated by the fire. He stands and approaches your side of the table.

“I would prefer to show you, if that’s alright,” he says, placing a hand next to yours. A small nod gives him permission to show you what he has in store. Without warning, the candles on the table burn out, then reignite with no match. Michael raises his hand, and an apple from the fruit bowl in the middle of the table makes its way to his palm. He must have the gift of the Light as well. How fun, you think. Not a better match could be made if your parents tried. Raising your hand up, the apple flies from his hand to yours. Candles go dark again at your will. The steamed broccoli sitting near your plate begins turning green and growing more stalks. Michael turns towards you as you take a bite from the apple you stole from him.

“I was never planning on telling you, but I’m glad we share the same abilities,” you say, waving to relight the candles on the table.

“You’re a warlock?” you ask, telekinetically pouring yourself a glass of wine from the other side of the table, then sending it over towards you.

“Much worse, Dear,” he says, swallowing hard enough it’s visible in his throat.

“I had to lure you to that Hellmouth, that well, if you can remember,” he goes on, recounting how he had led you into the woods. Those memories seemed distant and faded until he now brings then up.

“Because we’re in Hell, Dear,” he says bluntly. Peeking behind you to glimpse out the window, the same darkness is outside that was present when you woke up. It was easy to brush it off as a cloudy day then, but now it seems ominous and mysterious. For some reason, you never imagined Hell to be like this.

“You’re the Devil?” you ask, looking up at Michael after turning from the window.

“Close— I’m his son,” he replies.

Dinner is nice; the food is delicious. Being the Devil’s son obviously has its perks, especially in Hell. Now that you’re here, you may as well get comfortable and get used to this life with Michael. Truly, you are grateful he was the one that rescued you. Ending up with somebody that would never know about or understand your abilities seems boring. But, Michael’s analogous abilities to yours, drawn from the darkness, are more intriguing than anybody else’s powers ever seemed. A different route to the same result of having supernatural abilities.

After dessert is over, Michael stands to hug you, then holds the door for you that leads out to the hallway. To your surprise, he hasn’t tried to make a move yet. Sure, you’ve been locked in a tower for a few years prior to Michael, but boredom from living at your previous castle lead you to quite a few bedrooms over time. There have been a couple of knights and cute messenger boys. Even this beautiful palace of Hell would begin to seem dull without a refreshing touch once in a while.

“Would you join me for a cup of tea?” you ask as Michael begins walking the opposite direction, towards his room. He turns as he hears you speak, then comes closer towards you again. He insists to go back in the dining room and sit for tea there, the servants could prepare any kind you would like instantly.

“Michael, I have it in my room,” you say, looking up at him and smiling, then extending a hand for him to take. You wait for a moment but become disappointed when he lightly pushes your wrist down and does not take your hand.

“I will come talk with you, answer any questions you may have, nothing more,” he says, walking in the direction of your chamber.

The door flies open with no hands, and Michael walks in after you. After he quietly closes the door, you turn to him and grab the front of his dinner coat, pulling him towards you in a needy kiss. He reciprocates but breaks the kiss after a few seconds. You were hoping another tug on his dinner jacket would bring him closer again, but he walks away to sit on the couch near the fireplace. Quickly, you follow and sit next to him, placing a hand on his strong thigh. He crosses his legs, now out of reach for you.

“Why? You rescued me just so we could talk and eat dinner together?” you say, annoyed. Meeting his gaze, you could tell he now has a stern expression on his face. There is a serious and somber element to his presence now. It is surprising, however, that the son of Satan wouldn’t care to indulge in his own sinful nature.

“I will not do anything to compromise your honor, we will have plenty of time to do whatever you like after we are wed,” he says, conjuring a glass of red wine for himself and one for you, resting on the coffee table in front of you.

“That ‘honor’ you speak of— it’s gone, Michael, we’re fine,” you say, crossing your arms and sighing. If he’s upset, it’s his fault for rescuing you. You never know what you’re going to get when you decide to snatch random people from random towers.

“I never intended for it to come out like that; whatever has happened is fine by me, but I do not plan on compromising my own values,” he says, taking a long sip from his drink and setting the glass down. Interesting, you think. His values must be pretty uptight, but you’re charmed by his determination to meet his own high standards.

“May I ask what you value?” you say, picking up your glass from the table and steadying it on your bottom lip. Michael looks towards the front of the room and takes a moment to think. Dry, red wine flows past your lips. Candlelight reflects off of his shiny shoes and golden hair.

“Being the son of the Devil, people expect me to be evil, wild, indulgent, sinful, carnal, whatever you would call that. My father can control many aspects of my life, my purpose, what he intends for me to do. But, he can’t control all of me. I can be a good Antichrist and a good man.”

Michael is determined. He realizes his own destiny, yet still recognizes the aspects of where he can have free choice. You had very little doubts about him before, but the entirety of your worries wash away as you realize that Michael only seeks to honor you, and himself, in the best way he knows how. It seems he would like to prove that even being brought into the world by evil, there is pureness and redemption in the supposed worst people. This is an admirable statement and a job well done, for his example at least. He is responsible and recognizes the consequences of ‘behaving badly,’ as your parents put it. Michael is a very noble man considering his demonic lineage.

You would like to ask him more, but you wouldn’t like to pry into anything too personal to share. But, you think if you share about yourself, a good conversation should ensue. Half the battle of a good marriage is having good communication with your partner, right?

“I think people would expect a princess to be virtuous, but that’s boring,” you say, raising your glass to your lips again. It’s bittersweet, knowing that you have ended up with somebody who waited with the right intent in mind, but you wasted all your firsts when you were bored and tipsy, looking for entertainment around the castle.

“I don’t mean to be rude, but how many? Please don’t answer if you’re not comfortable, I’m only curious,” he says, looking towards you as long, blonde hair falls to frame his face.

A small chuckle escapes your mouth as you sit up, leveling your eyes with his. It’s actually not such a high number or bad at all, considering how spaced-out over time your encounters have been.

“You would make it five,” you say, breaking eye contact and looking down towards the floor. The expression on Michael’s face does not change, even when you look back up towards him.

“Have you ever, you know?” you ask, a small smile making its way across your face. Michael’s smile perks up and matches yours before he answers.

“No, Princess. I’m boring, I know.”

It amuses you how back home, Above, this conversation would likely be happening in the opposite direction— a prince or king who’s been around town paired with a naïve princess. Only this time, Michael is not naïve, not one bit. He recognizes what he is doing and the reasoning behind it. You hate to be thinking of this now, but the idea of him sticking to his resolutions and following through is very intriguing— captivating, even. His first time would be with you. Would he be a delicate lover, or a touch-starved man, ready to claim what he has rescued for himself? He must be big, he’s a very tall man. Your eyes wander down to his shoes, glancing down. His feet are almost double the size of yours. And, in your experience, the whole ‘men with big feet’ saying has been surprisingly accurate.

Again, you take Michael’s dinner jacket and draw him closer to you. A soft kiss is shared between the two of you, and the lingering taste of red wine is present on his lips. Oh, you wish you could throw him down on your bed and show him what he’s missed out on. But, you’re not going to be the one that deters him from his promise to himself. Breaking the kiss, you keep your eyes closed and lean in towards his shoulder. Your noble knight is not going to be deterred by your own bad intentions.

“When are we to be married?” you ask, voice muffled against Michael’s shoulder.

“We could begin to make the plans tomorrow if you’d like,” he says, resting an arm on your upper back. Planning seems like the boring part, but it’s one step closer to making Michael your husband.

“Could you stay? To cuddle?” you say, sitting up and giving your best puppy dog eyes towards Michael.

“One thing leads to another, Princess,” he says, standing up and gently removing his hand from your back. Now that it’s gone, the feeling of his pressure on your body is more present than if it were there. Before heading out, he takes your delicate hand in his palm and brings it to his lips, leaving you with a soft kiss and a warm, fuzzy feeling in your belly. He walks towards the door and quietly opens it, wishes you a good night, and heads back towards his room. You already miss him next to you, even if you were just chatting. Excited for tomorrow, you get changed quickly and go to bed early, eager to wake up and see Michael again.

///

Tag list: @langdonsoceaneyes @ms-mead @daydreamingofcody @psychobitchtess @swampwitchh13 @ahstmblrupdates @forgivemelucifer

#michael langdon #michael langdon x reader #michael langdon x you #michael langdon fanfiction #michael langdon fanfic #michael langdon imagine #michael langdon alternate universe #michael langdon au #michael langdon fluff #american horror story #ahs #american horror story apocalypse #ahs apocalypse #american horror story: apocalypse #ahs: apocalypse

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olivewritessometimes · 5 years

Text

Okay, so, I had to start my blog at some point...

and after procrastinating for around a month, I decided to release my first fic on Lance’s birthday. (Probably not the best idea since it’s filled with angst and is from Keith’s point of view.) Also, why not a bit of Klance to start us off, right?

Enjoy!

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2.7K Words

Warning: Mentions of Self-Harm, Swearing

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As a member of the Blade of Marmora, Keith was able to visit many places, even if he couldn't call any of them home.

His favourite places included Arus, where his adventure with Voltron and the Lions began.

It also included Olkaria, the new planet inhabited by the Olkari, after Olkarion was destroyed.

There was also the new Daibazaal and the new Altea, which had been recreated after the entire ‘Honerva’s realities’ ordeal a few years ago.

But his favourite place to visit, by far, had to be Earth.

He enjoyed visiting his old shack in the desert, the only place he knew for a very long time.

He liked to visit the Garrison, to see how the Holts and the rest of the staff were doing.

He would also drop in to see Shiro. He was like a brother to him, so he insisted that Keith should come over every time he came back to Earth.

And, although he would never admit it, he particularly liked going to see the McClain family farm, for reasons you can guess.

A knock on the door announced his arrival.

“Oh, good afternoon, Keith,” answered Mrs. McClain. “Lance is in his room. Please, come inside.”

Keith nodded, and stepped through the door.

This wasn’t any different from what normally happened when he came to visit, so he knew what to expect.

“Keith! Keith!” yelled the child stampede from down the hall.

As expected, they came roaring down the hall, jumping up and down, demanding to know what super-cool alien adventures he had been on since the last time he’d seen them.

“Not really anything exciting, unless you count the giant Weblum that tried to swallow us whole!” Keith said, in an attempt to tell a story to impress them.

“A Weblum?” “How’d you get away?” “Did he eat you?” came some questions from the kids.

Keith had gotten better at socializing with children since he started visiting the McClains more often.

There were only a few simple rules to it. One, don’t make them upset. Two, keep them happy and they’ll love you. Three, don’t reject that love.

“Yeah, it was no big deal. It only crushed about half the Marmoran fleets,” he continued, knowing that the cliffhanger would make them want to hear the whole story.

Obviously, there was no Weblum that tried to swallow them whole, or crushed half their fleets, but kids love a good story, so Keith sat down at the kitchen table and began his tale.

“So there I was, leaving a planet suffering from a drought after supplying them with enough water for a year, when all of a sudden, Wham! A Weblum comes out of nowhere, catches two ships in its mouth, and not three seconds later, they’re gone into the Weblum’s stomach.

“I yell at the other ships to get away as fast as possible, but it's already right in front of us, grabbing every one who came too close. I swerve left, then right, and then left again, to try to get away, but then it catches around five ships in its mouth, eats them, then bites down on the wing of my ship.

"I jiggle the controls to try to get away, but it's too late! The Weblum has me in its jaws, and it looks to be the end! I'm about to give up hope, when suddenly, the wing of my ship snaps off, so now at least I'm free from the Weblum, but I'm running out of oxygen in my ship."

As he continued to tell the story, making it as dramatic as possible, he was so caught up in the adventure that he didn't even notice when Lance emerged from his room, saw Keith, and leaned against the wall to listen in as well.

He was reaching the end of the story, where he ended up hitching a ride with another ship for transport back to Earth, when Lance finally spoke up.

"You know, I don't think Weblums are that vicious."

Lance stood up from the wall and walked into the kitchen, as he continued. "From what I remember, they would only do that if they didn't even know you were there."

"How do you know?" challenged Keith. "Did you ever have to collect scaultrite from its third stomach?"

“Well how do you know that it was attacking you when you went to collect it?” Lance retorted. “It could’ve just thought you were a piece of rubble or something.”

“Well how do you know that it didn’t know that I was a Paladin of Voltron, and that it wasn’t trying to kill me?”

This banter went on for a while, until Lance’s niece, Nadia, started a little game.

“Raaah! I’m a Weblum, and I’m going to eat you!” she yelled, chasing the other kids around.

As Mrs. McClain shooed them out of the house, in fear they would break something, Lance mentioned something about feeding the chickens and walked outside.

Keith let out a sigh of relief once Lance was out of earshot.

He had refused to let anyone know that his admiration for Lance was more than simply being proud of him for helping him save all of the possible realities.

Not even Lance himself.

Shiro has known that he had a crush on one of the Paladins, and encouraged him to try to talk to them about it, but Keith assumes that he guessed it was Allura, since he stopped after she'd gotten with Lance.

After that happened, Keith continued pining, but he'd started to lose hope, since Lance had been in love with Allura since they first met, and wouldn't be quick to break up with her.

Not that they would ever have broken up, Lance was a nice guy, and Allura would never have wanted to leave him.

After she died, part of Keith realized that Lance was now single, and for the taking, but he didn't act on it. That would be too cruel.

Instead, he chose to comfort him, and try not to let his feelings for him get in the way.

Which he was succeeding at, for the most part.

He was snapped from his thoughts when Mrs. McClain walked back inside.

“Would you like to stay the night? We live a while away from any hotels, and it’s getting late,” she offered.

Keith looked at the clock on the wall, and noticed that it was too late for him to start heading back.

He accepted, and she showed him the guest room, and let him know that dinner would be ready soon.

He walked outside, since it was still light out, and sat down by the roots of a large oak, enjoying the view.

He'd be lying if he said that he was looking at the rolling hills, and the flowers that cover them.

He also wouldn't really like to admit that the view he was enjoying involved Lance, the chickens, and the difference between him here and him on the battlefield.

The Lance he knew as a Paladin of Voltron was a ruthless, self-sacrificing, adrenaline-loving sharpshooter, a warrior in his own respects.

The Lance he saw here was a simple, kind man, who would maybe hurt a fly, but only if it was bothering him.

Lance's sister, Veronica, just so happened to notice the exact direction Keith's eyes were looking, and sat next to him.

"Lance, huh?"

Keith looked up, startled, then a confused look made its way onto his face.

“What do you mean, ‘Lance, huh?’” Keith asked.

“Well, I knew you weren’t coming just to say hi, you come over way too often for that. So I assumed you maybe like liked someone who lives here. I also guessed Lance, but it’s nice to have something to confirm it,” explained Veronica.

“So, you were just making sure that you were right about guessing which McClain I like.”

“Yep!” She exclaimed, popping the P.

He rolled his eyes, before realizing that Veronica was the exact person he did not want knowing about it.

“Oh my god, please don’t tell him. Quiznak, that’ll be awkward,” he pleaded, before realizing what he said.

“Christ, I’ve got to get out of the habit of saying that!” He laughed, and Veronica gave a small giggle as well.

She was about to continue when they heard Mrs. McClain yelling to anyone outside that dinner was ready, and to get it while it was hot.

Veronica stood up, and as she helped Keith up, said, “Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.”

They walked inside, and headed to the dining room, where Mrs. McClain offered Keith a chair almost at the end of the table, seated between Lance and Veronica.

Needless to say, it was a very awkward night for Keith.

Later that night, Keith woke up with a dry throat, so he got up to get a glass of water from the kitchen.

As he walked down the hallway of bedroom doors, he heard an odd noise coming from behind one.

Not wanting to wake whoever was inside, he put his ear to the door to see if he could hear it better.

It might have been the door muffling the sound, but Keith could have sworn that it sounded like someone crying.

He didn’t know who it was, because he’d never slept over before, and didn’t know whose bedroom was whose.

Keith then heard footsteps, accompanying the sobs, heading towards the door.

He hid behind the door as it opened, not wanting to be seen.

As the door closed, he could see that the one crying was Lance, but Keith didn’t stop him. He wanted to know why Lance was so upset at this time of night.

Lance shuffled into the kitchen, still sniffling, and opened a drawer.

Keith then knew that he had to do something when he realized that the object that Lance was pulling out was a knife.

As Lance set the blade to his wrist, Keith put his hand on his shoulder.

Lance gasped, dropped the knife onto the counter, and turned around, shocked.

“Oh, i-it’s only you,” he said between sniffles.

“You shouldn’t have seen that.”

He went to wipe away his tears, when Keith grabbed his wrist.

For the first time, he noticed the scars.

“Lance, it’s one in the morning. What’s wrong?” He asked.

Lance’s eyes welled up, and before he could stop himself, he burst into tears and collapsed in Keith’s arms.

Keith wasn’t expecting the added weight Lance was pushing onto him, so he ended up falling to the floor, not even minding the pain when he hit. Only taking caution that Lance didn’t hurt himself.

“I miss her. There was so much more she could’ve done for the universe,” he said through choked sobs.

It didn’t take much effort to tell he was talking about Allura.

“I just can’t help but think that there was another way,” he continued.

“So that she might be here today, and that we might have started a life together, and that we might even have had kids, who would have grown up safe and happy, with everything they’d ever need, but she’s not. She’s-” he cut himself off, and buried his face in Keith’s shirt, weeping.

Keith wasn’t really the kind of person who was best at this, but he was going to try his best for Lance.

He didn’t really know what to say, so he started by trying to calm him down by running his hand through his hair.

After a few minutes, Lance did start to calm down, and eventually started to lean into the touch.

“I know Allura’s not here now, but I think that what she did was very noble. She sacrificed her own life so all of humanity could live. So you could live,” he tried.

“She gave her Quintessence to bring the dead realities back to life, so if you think about it, her life force is inside every living creature in the universe, and even those in other realities. Including you.”

Lance looked up, and it was all Keith could do to focus on calming Lance and not lose himself in those adorable eyes of his.

“So when someone says that she’ll always be with you, they’re not wrong. Her life energy is what’s keeping us here today, so she’s technically still with us. Just not in the form of a body.”

Lance was considerably less upset now, and other than how his eyes were still red, you could hardly tell he was crying at all.

“Thanks, man.”

He got up and put the knife away, which reminded Keith of something else he was wondering.

“How long have you been doing that?” He asked as he stood. “Cutting yourself.”

Lance rubbed the back of his neck and shyly answered.

“I started doing it while I was in the Garrison. Sometimes, the shouting from Iverson, the teasing from the other kids, it was too much. Hunk was the one who helped me quit, after it became a habit.”

Keith was in awe at how young he must have been when he started.

Lance continued. “On the Castle of Lions, there were loads of missions that went wrong, and like half the time I thought it was because of me. Whenever I was yelled at because of it, add that to some self-esteem issues, and you get the urge to slice your skin open because that pain will distract you from the mental pain.”

He was about to go on when Keith interrupted.

“Woah, woah, woah, self-esteem issues? What else have you been going through?”

“Ah, well, there was the One Paladin Too Many issue, and it got me wondering, am I really needed on the team?” Lance explained.

“Just about anyone with good aim can use a gun, but you could probably find a more serious, sensible person to do it, rather than someone who’s just a goofball.

“I knew you could replace me just like that, so I thought it was only a matter of time until the title of Sharpshooter went to someone else.”

“Lance, no one ever thought that about you,” Keith reassured. “Your jokes were exactly what we needed to keep our spirits lifted, and we would be lost without you.”

“But was that all I was good for? Comedic relief?” Lance retorted, tears starting to fall down his cheeks again. “Did you only keep me on the team for my jokes? For someone to laugh at? It's kind of the only thing I'm good at, might as well have been useful for something."

"Lance-"

"I'm a shitty pilot, the only weapon I can use is the easiest one to use, and I only ended up dating Allura for a few months before she died, because my stupid ass couldn't make a fucking move! If I can't even ask a girl out over the span of a few fucking years, then what-"

He was cut off by Keith's lips on his own.

Lance didn't register what was happening at first, but once he did, he relaxed, and seemed to melt under him.

Keith pulled away with a soft smile, thinking of how long he'd been waiting to do that.

Keith knew his mind must be racing with anger, sadness, confusion, and everything in between, so he took Lance’s hand in his own.

“You need to stop. You’re hurting yourself, and you think that you’re fine on your own. Well, you’re not. You’re keeping this a secret from your family, your friends, everyone, when really, you should have come to us in the first place,” he explained.

“We’ll always be here for you. I’ll be here for you. Just talk to us, we’ll-”

He was cut off by Lance launching himself onto Keith, pressing their lips together.

Keith didn’t even realize what was happening until he felt Lance’s hand holding his, fingers intertwining like magic.

Instinctively, he wrapped his arm around him, finding a position in the small of his back.

They stood there for a few seconds, then Lance slowly pulled away.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

He rested his head on Keith's shoulder, and he started stroking his hair again.

At that moment, Keith finally knew where his home was.

#first fic #AAAAAA #klance #laith #vld #voltron #langst #fluff #first kiss #tbh i just LOVE me some keith and children bc its always so sweet #also LANGST

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five-wow · 5 years

Text

10.01 thoughts (or basically a rambly recap, very spoilery, with a lot of caps lock abuse) under the cut!!! :D

JERRY’S BEEN SHOT. that’s not actually a surprise at this point in any way, but oh gosh, poor guy. “it hurts more than i thought it would.” oh no. :c

i’m confused though - grover’s there calling an ambulance, jerry is bleeding, steve is keeping pressure on the wound, but where’s danny? clutching his heart out of frame? OH WAIT he could be arresting ezra hassan, i suppose?

on screen: 2 weeks later. jfdkfjdk they resolved that cliffhanger in like, under thirty seconds.

love jerry’s longer curly hair! REALLY LOVE that jerry and junior are playing battleship, omg.

jerry thought about HIS DND BUDDIES WHEN HE GOT SHOT. i love him. (i’m also both worried about his mental health and glad they’re showing him actually feeling some repercussions from getting shot, aside from the flesh wound.)

tani and junior!!! are going to the opera!!! wonderful, i’m into it.

AH. here we have steve on his date, omfg. it all looks so pretty - the background, the restaurant, the date, steve. REALLY AWKWARD conversation though, fjdkfd. steve’s been hanging with danny too much - as soon as someone asks “what are you thinking” he just opens up his heart.

“it’s just crazy, you know. things that happen at work.” FDJKFDJF i’m glad he’s seeing that AFTER NINE YEARS.

DANNY CALLS. i’ve seen the clips that were drifting around tumblr, so i knew it was going to happen, but still. DANNY CALLS. IN THE MIDDLE OF STEVE’S DATE.

“i think it’s best,” steve says, about taking a phone call from danny while he’s in the middle of a first date with a really pretty woman who seems very kind about his total awkwardness, oh BOY

the WAY danny says “hi” just already has me in stitches. i die. and then steve’s “dude! i don’t know.” he sounds so frustrated! poor guy.

“words are kinda just, they’re falling out of my mouth, i don’t know why.” OH STEVE. also: that’s 80% of all fic in which steve finally confesses his feelings to danny ever. thank you, canon, for giving us a steve who is canonically prone to this.

“do you have any game at all?” danny asks, of steve, WHO HE IS CALLING IN THE MIDDLE OF A DATE. the co-dependency here is HIGH and it’s probably unhealthy but i’m enjoying it a lot, truly.

okay so, steve says “you’ve called twice, we haven’t even ordered!” and then DANNY SAYS “if you answered my texts, i wouldn’t have to call” and that’s just ALL SO BAD. they are TERRIBLE together and that woman should probably run far away.

danny! way to build up steve’s confidence on this date by telling him his thing is awkward and messing things up, holy shit.

I’M SCREAMING. “that was danny. who i love. very much.” I AM YELLING. YES. GOOD. PREMIUM CONTENT.

just. i love “i love you”s, okay. i love them. we got one (1) in s9 at the end of 9.01, but we’re off to a good start now in 10.01, with steve telling his frigging date that he loves danny, oh my.

IT GOT WORSE. i paused like, in the middle of steve’s sentence, and then as soon as i hit play the date said “sounds like my ex” and steve says “you know, it’s funny that you say that, because it’s kind of like a marriage” and uh, hello steve, i made a gifset about that the day before yesterday, thank you for giving me an update, but also just. wtf. wtf holy shit

i. i just. this is supposedly steve on a date with a woman being all heterosexual, but it’s really an extremely mcdanno scene, like ten times more than i was prepared for, wow.

real talk though, i’m almost certain this relationship isn’t going anywhere, but this woman seems really cool!!! i love her so far.

tani is actually enjoying the opera and junior seems to be paying more attention to her than the stage and i have no idea if this is actually an officially official date between them or if they’re still “just friends”, but it’s all so cute. and then, of course, some anonymous guy shows up with a sketchy briefcase that’s inevitably going to contain weapons, but oh well, it was nice for how long it lasted.

a slightly updated intro!!! katrina law is already in it (which i like) and the new group shot is kind of crowded but really nice, but fjdkfdjkdf they chose a really awkward moment where adam is supposedly typing something on the tech table but he’s REALLY OBVIOUSLY just randomly tapping his fingers on it. that’s going to haunt me. oh dear show runners, why.

danny... says steve was blowing his date, as they arrive on the crime scene that junior and tani found, and steve says he has a second date and danny goes “you got a second date?” incredulously and almost dismayed and that just really sounds like he WANTED steve to blow it. what is this, danny, setting steve up with a pretty woman from steve’s school to test him? see if he’ll say no and fall in your arms instead, and when he doesn’t, you’re disappointed?

even the lighting in this random stairwell gun fight chase scene is kind of pretty! the blue and red? i like it.

oh NO, steve, you’re not even ten minutes into a new season and you’re chasing some suicidally parcouring bad guy across roof tops and into a jump that’s REALLY going to give danny a heart attack, jesus.

fdjkfd danny telling steve that ten years ago he would’ve made that jump? telling him he’s forty? i’m not sure if that’s kind of mean or really good, but it might be both.

plot stuff happens, but i keep getting distracted by all the grey in steve’s beard and his new, longer hair. it’s good.

i like quinn’s introduction!!! i really do, more than i’d expected. and honestly, that déjà vu thing lenkov was talking about is very faint to me, to the point where it’s mostly just there because danny says it out loud in the text and then forcibly makes it so. they’re not in steve’s garage, it’s the wrong car they’re standing next to, there are three people instead of two and there’s no “one, two, three” and showing badges, but steve yeets his badge over the windshield of the car in quinn’s direction. the similarity isn’t that strong.

danny going “i gotta follow him” about steve and “i don’t know [shrugs]” about where they’re going is beautiful.

i’m about halfway through the episode now and steve and danny have spent SO MUCH time together and it’s really good but also has me slightly worried that they’re pushing all the steve&danny content for the entire season in one episode, omg. it’s good, though. i’m happy for now.

adam is still doing yakuza stuff. i get it, because it’s the one big thing they’ve given his character, but i do get kind of tired of it. he’s supposedly out, but every time they need it for plot reasons, he still has connections somewhere that are willing to help him for whatever reason.

and then quinn shows up and pulls a gun on adam, fjdkfd. listen, i know i said i was getting tired of him doing the yakuza thing over and over, but shooting him would be a little drastic.

danny: “this is good, we’re chasing a monster truck. that’s totally normal, right?” how is it that NOW they’re both suddenly realizing their lives are kind of crazy? they weren’t crazy before, guys? guys??

HAH, the guy in the truck drives over a dozen cars. that’s ridiculous, but a lot of fun, omg.

danny, when he finds tani and quinn in the same room at hq: “oh good, you two have met.” YES. MY SENTIMENTS. except i’m perhaps a little more exuberant about it. TWO MAIN FEMALE CHARACTERS IN ONE SCENE YES GOOD I LIKE THIS. we haven’t had this since... season 4, maybe? when catherine was briefly part of the team?

oh SHIT. danny: “are you sure you’re not related to steve in any way?” okay SO. we’re all assuming quinn is steve’s new love interest, but quinn being steve’s secret half sister somehow? also nonsense, but nonsense i’d like. and i mean, they need to keep the mcgarrett family drama alive somehow, so this could be fun.

quinn: “can’t this thing go any faster? [steve looks at her weird] what?” steve: “nothing. just never had that complaint before.” that is a LIE. i know for a fact that that’s a lie, because i have a stupid amount of knowledge of h50 of the top of my head and one of the things i know is that in 8.01 tani pops up between steve and danny while she’s in the backseat of the camaro and ALSO asks if it doesn’t go any faster. i know what they’re going for here, setting quinn and steve up as equals, and i like what they’re trying to tell us about quinn as a character in theory but come on, if you’re trying to convince us steve is all impressed by this woman that you might be setting him up with romantically, at least do some continuity fact checking on your own show, guys.

anyway! i do like that it’s canon that all women in five-0 think the camaro isn’t fast enough. get wrecked, steve and danny, HA.

when steve said to the bad guy “my friend lou here is going to put some handcuffs on you” i thought at first that he said “liu”, as in quinn’s last name, and oh man, first they had tani and junior’s last names as rey and reigns, which was close enough, but now they have lou and liu, gosh.

!!! this talk between steve and quinn in front of kamekona’s?? i LIKE IT. A LOT. we get to know a little more about quinn and steve genuinely does treat her as an equal and a capable colleague and there’s nothing especially romantic about this, which is good this early on even if they’re doing that later because i do feel like it could possibly work but right now it would just be really weird and very forced and i’m just really relieved that’s the dynamic they’re going for. this, this is good.

OH BOY. “we’re breaking up with you, danny” steve says. i... wow.

FAIR THOUGH. it’s probably a REALLY GOOD idea of steve to maybe involve danny a little less in his dating life if he wants to, well, actually have one that’s viable for life, but oh GOSH. danny going “you can’t cut me out” when steve tells him this? danny is just. so interested in steve’s romantic life, damn.

tani: “mom and dad are fighting again.” fdjkfdjk YES. this time it’s not even junior saying this to eddie behind steve and danny’s back, it’s just tani saying it out loud to the entire group and nobody says anything about it so uhhh that’s accepted fact then, within the team. GOOD.

ohhhh jerry is leaving. also not a real surprise and it’s probably kind of good that the team doesn’t endlessly keep growing if quinn joins this season, but ahh, i’m sad, anyway.

GROUP HUG. i love EVERY SINGLE THING ABOUT THIS.

oh gooood, somebody put a bomb in the champ box in steve’s garage. that’s harsh.

final thoughts: i LIKED THIS. very much!!! i’m relieved about that, tbh, because at least i’m happy about the start of the season, which seems like a good sign, haha. i love quinn so far, there was REALLY GREAT mcdanno stuff in this, i love that steve is dating again, tani and junior seem to be dating, jerry is fairly healthy and happy - all around lots of good stuff.

i do kind of think that cliffhanger from last season got extremely little attention (we didn’t even see ezra hassan get arrested, and what happened to her kid? where was danny? idk it was weirdly short and quick), but it’s still possible they’re coming back to that in a later episode, idk.

#h50 #10.01 #h50 spoilers #episode rambles

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mild-lunacy · 7 years

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Angst and the Repetitive Narrative Syndrome

In retrospect, I think the real problem in that post on the issues with unrelenting angst in various shows is that many showrunners don't pace the plot properly, so it ends up looking haphazard rather than structured as an arc. More open-endedly, as @ivyblossom put it about Eurus in Series 4, it was 'limited planning'. In other words, when there aren't cohesive or diverse enough ideas, the writers may reach for the same tired solutions for generating drama on the cheap. Quite aside from an overarching plot arc (ie, even in episodic shows), what works once won't work so well the tenth or twentieth time. There's also definitely something to the idea that too many top TV writers (and Mofftiss in particular) are lazy and self-satisfied, or conservative with their ideas in the sense of their ideas growing stale once they find a formula that works. Essentially, in @plaidadder's opinion, the issue with many male TV showrunners is their self-indulgence, the tendency to repeatedly go for the wish-fulfillment as a priority over what the characters need. Obviously, the real problem most fans have with these male showrunners is that their 'insane wish-fulfillment' and the attendant character or genre-based expectations differ greatly from their younger, more female-skewed audiences. I mean, I think some of the fluffy situations fandom would most enjoy or prefer would never even occur to them.

I think the *underlying* reasons for this divergence are partly to do with social differences and partly structural. In other words, it's partly due to the way open-ended or incomplete series are differently made and produced (often haphazardly, with an eye to ratings and/or a certain kind of fan, rather than any interest in angst the way fanfic writers may 'love angst'). This structural difference in approach is pretty blatant when you compare genre shows with a series of separate but interconnected arcs (Buffy, Supernatural, Sherlock) to the rather more rare, shorter stories that have a unified, interwoven arc.

It's not that many fans don't get worn out by their favorite characters undergoing too much suffering; that definitely happens. But I think that's not what really disappointed most viewers in these shows overall. Basically, I think that the real problem isn't the constant, unbroken angst: that's more of a symptom. The cause is the lack of a continuous arc in most action dramas on TV. Creating a source for and then resolving the new source of angst acts like a shortcut to creating a short-term arc as well as infusing emotional meaning, because the alternative is creating a long-form plot that may not be conducive to the way multiple season-long series are run, particularly on TV.

In blaming angst fests for their dissatisfaction with the direction of many shows, two issues were being conflated: people's personal responses or preferences about angst in fandom, and the concerns and priorities in writing as a craft. That's not unusual; people often conflate preferences and narrative analysis. I'm just saying they're two separate things. In fandom, most people seem to expect and insist on relief or a happy ending for their favorites, also known as 'pay off' (sometimes taken deeper, often just on the level of fan-service). There's certainly a high tolerance and interest in psychological and 'domestic' reinterpretations of dramatic, actiony shows in fic. There's also a tendency to assume that this character-focused aspect of fanfic is somehow naturally superior or more interesting than the original plot-related focus in the original stories. I'm not here to argue against this; I'm just saying this is a very strong assumption or axiom in fandom discussions that leads to conflating good writing with fanfic-style writing. That much I do argue is simply demonstrably incorrect and unnecessary.

I certainly agree in that an endless procession of angsty plot-twists is wearying, even though I'm interested in both genre plot and twists much more than 90% of fandom seems to be. That's probably not atypical for casual viewers, which are the type of the audience that genre shows are directed at. I say this even though I'm a *heavily* character-centric writer and viewer. I just like things to *happen* to the characters I like, and I like those to be unusual or unexpected things rather than only stuff like lunch, sex, work, and meetings with one's parents or something. Not that I'm against any of that normal stuff. I just saying I'm a genre fiction fan for a reason.

Anyway, my point is that there no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Further, I think the usage of 'angst' isn't usually for its own sake in most genre shows. I think it's just that if dramatic, unexpected things keep happening (and as said, that is what you'd expect in a genre narrative), any sort of believable character would react by suffering or feeling emotional stress, because exciting and surprising drama is generally stressful and worrying. The alternative-- the characters being shown having a happy breakfast together *while* they're dealing with extreme danger of some kind-- is a lack of meaning for the characters. The problem is essentially pacing, as I said. I was just thinking about this in reading a fic that was really good and felt 'real' while the relationship growth coincided with a plot mini-arc that had a beginning, middle and end. As soon as that arc and relationship both resolved at the same time, the story essentially went into a holding pattern, exploring consequences and complications to the relationship as well as the plot. And those *were* important to address. It's just that having the characters face relationship angst and problems right after successfully saving each other and getting together after severe struggles-- while 'realistic'-- felt like a letdown. It's not that I wanted the fic to become *fluff*, or even that I felt it needed to have a fluffy interlude. I just wanted to sustain that dynamic intersection of relationship growth and linear plot development. Once that's lost, the story just felt... limp.

Basically, it's not about fluff vs angst: it's about pacing the action well and giving a long-running story an overarching structure. Many shows on TV (including Supernatural, Sherlock, and even Game of Thrones, in various ways and for various reasons) fail to execute a full, consistently paced plot arc. In such an arc, its action needs to rise and fall naturally, ideally in accordance to the characters' growth, rather than sporadically devolve or gain sudden speed due to implausible plot devices and deus ex machina twists. That's all right now and again-- like the villain being a perfect mirror for the protagonist's unique skill set, or cliffhangers being averted due to an unpredictable technicality, like on Sherlock-- but overused, it weakens the story significantly. When you have this weakness in planning, writers often fall back on obscuring the edges with the natural rise and fall of internal character drama, or angst. I've seen this in fics, too. The trope is just a bit different: when in doubt on what to do next, put the relationship in peril. After all, it really *can* always happen, and we will always find it believable on some level. It's just this is a surface continuity, and comes at the cost of the story feeling real as opposed to artificial after a while. This is what using classic 3 or 5-act structure avoids, although ironically, it's the open-ended repetition that's arguably more genuinely 'realistic'. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#fanfic meta #narrative #sherlock feels #reader response #writing

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