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#closest crop I dare to post
carldangerous · 1 year
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Hey babes
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lieutenantfloyd · 7 months
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For better or worse Beau is, and always has been, a deeply prideful man. It’s often the first thing people learn about him. The following fact being that the closest he's ever come to an apology in his decades-long career is a curt head nod and an inexplicably soulful expression. But now, six days into his yearly two-week trip deep in the Alaskan wilderness, everything has come crashing down and he’s left fighting the urge to declare vanquishment. Simply because he asked his longtime crush to tag along. Crush. He's always hated that word. What a childish way to refer to feelings far deeper and more complex than he’d ever like to admit. Yet, that’s really all you were to him. That’s all he’ll let you be. He never lets himself feel, no, think deeper about you. Not about how you're each other's emergency contact, not about how he keeps a picture of your smiling face on his desk and in his wallet. And in his car visor. And on his bedside…, and definitely not about how you were one of the few people who didn’t run for the hills the first time you met him. Though on lonelier nights, he slips up and ponders why you chose to stick around or why you dared to dig deeper. The reality of the situation washes over him. His mind alternates between emotional panic and scanning the tree line in hopes that some beast will come and swallow him whole. You're here, with your head propped up on his right shoulder, and the intricacies of life that keep him up at night are suddenly neither here nor there. The sudden shift of your weight at his side abruptly pulls him back to reality. A comfortable silence hangs between you; and against his better judgment, he abandons those terribly interesting snow covered spruces to instead spare you a nervous glance. As if on cue, your eyes drop from the sky and meet his. Instinct screams at him to move, only it speaks just a second too late. Now you find yourselves completely frozen. Not unlike the lake on the outskirts of his family’s property. A million different emotions stir inside him while pure delight blooms on your features. A lazy smile hangs on your lips as your gaze bounces between his eyes and the powder that is now undoubtedly scattered in his short cropped hair. Last night's snow had returned. For the first time, he admits that; just like the early morning weather broadcast; he was wrong. Undeniably, wholeheartedly, and undoubtedly wrong.
Love is alive.
Not in fairy tale endings and Nicholas Sparks adaptations, but in drunken spur-of-the-moment invites because you can’t imagine being there without them. It's there when you’re rummaging through a dusty closet. search for your old winter coat even though you told them ten times to pack one. It’s in matching Adirondack chairs and locking eyes over a campfire. Love looks at him with a kindness he will never be able to award himself. Its home is just inches away.
Now all he needs to do is reach out and claim it.
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a/n: Firstly, thank you to @ahopelessromanticwritersworld for sending me this idea in the first place! I hope this lives up to what you imagined!! Another thank you to @bbooks-and-teas, @noxytopy, and @marchingicenotes7 for encouraging me to post this as well!
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What do the colours symbolise to the engines?
@togetherness23 posed this question some while ago. I hope my late response to the conversation can be excused as it took me a while to mull.
I think the tl;dr is that, interestingly, the colour symbolism on the NWR has some overlap, but also some divergence, with the usual associations we make with these colours.
But, as for what those associations are... well, for that you'll have to read.
BLUE: For all these colours, I think we have to take a good look at where they first cropped up on the railway. Because for later arrivals their choice of colour doesn't happen in a vacuum—the connotations have already been shaped.
So, from what we can tell, blue was the railway's original, standard color. Getting painted in it was a mark of favour (you weren't just some loaned engine—you were a North Western engine). It was also likely designed by FC1.
I'm sure for all three of the original blue bois it still holds that significance: acceptance, pride, memories. That said, each of them has their own twist on it.
I do think some of Gordon's snobbery is bound up in the colour. He's probably gotten over it now, but Gordon probably started the idea of "blue is the only color for a really useful engine," given that at first all the exceptions to the standard livery were all engines that he considered in some way to be... well... substandard. (Yes, two of the three of them were also his best friends?? Look, Gordon is weird and complex, all right. I don't know what you want me to say. I think he could consider them friends while also, compartmentalizing, be like "... there but for the grace of Gresley go I. Coming off the rails! Silly little saddletanks of questionable origins! Couldn't be me.") Thomas of course picked up on that idea. Probably he tried to resist it (sharing in a Gordon snobbery) up until the Alliance, but after that all bets were off. Now I'm thinking of it, Thomas getting the notion that blue signified his closest relationships (at that time) and therefore Gordon perhaps being right about the colour could have well be cemented when the three of them were assigned to be the royal visit dream team.
All this said, blue is also, in the books and magazines, the commonest colour for North Western engines. (TVS doesn't portray this at all; that'll be a different story.) Common. I think it speaks well of Gordon, who is so often flanderized as nothing but me! me! meeee! and who does in fact often consider himself a cut above the rest, that he also happily spent a century sporting the standard railway livery, shared by "proper" engines and little shunter tanks alike. There is a solidarity to the colour.
To a greater extent than Gordon (though it's not exactly non-existent with him), I think blue also represents for Thomas and Edward the history and origins of the railway they both helped to build "from the ground up." For all five of the blue engines, actually, blue seems to be associated with tradition and dare I say a sense of loyalty and collective identity. Donald and Douglas have been very explicit that blue represents their own origins on the Caledonian. It also however represents their own acceptance on the North Western, which is something that is very important to them.
This is speculation, but I would add that I think for Edward there is, in addition to the previous paragraphs, an association of blue with water and the sea, which (especially assuming his Furness shed was Barrow, which makes sense if he wound up sort of being shifted over to Sodor bit by bit) has been an important element of his entire life, both pre- and post-Sodor. So there is a parallel here to Donald and Douglas, where blue was not their original livery, but it has associations that resonate with their past even as it shows they are very much living in the present.
However, in TVS we strip Donald and Douglas off team blue and we also lack the assorted background characters who wear the livery. In that case it loses a bit of its association with humility but gains a certain distinction. There are then only three engines who wear it. And, to be sure, they all denote a certain leadership as well as just longevity. I've said it before but it's still true: if I live on North Western rails and I want something big to be done or changed, I probably am best advised to apply to Gordon, Edward, or Thomas. In roughly that order, though of course it depends on exactly what the matter is. And, if I can somehow manage to get the support of all three of them, then the matter's pretty much settled.
Keywords: traditions, collective identity, origins of the railway, loyalty; a slight emphasis on oneself as a company engine; (TVS only) leadership
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GREEN: For Henry and Percy, green represents individuality. It is definitely a soft opposite to the way that blue on this railway represents the collective.
Henry arrived in green, so it represented his origins and all his troubled early history. We saw that he rejected it for a while in his youth in favour of blue—explicitly in order to "be like Edward," and I don't doubt, it was (or became) an attempt to also get in on Gordon's and even Thomas's deal too, as favourites of the Fat Controller. It's interesting how in the books he realized—even before his whole physical rehabilitation thing—that there is no point in trying to be like someone else, no matter how much a sense of friendship or admiration (or envy?) you feel. It's incredibly cool how, even before he'd proven himself, he started being true to himself.
He had to be at least a little annoyed when Percy—cheeky little industrial—arrived in green, and stayed green. Before Percy, Henry appears to have been the only green engine so, like James, it was a special colour, you know. For a special engine. But with both Henry and Percy in green, there's no doubt that other engines pointed out quite explicitly that on the North Western green seemed to represent dubious, non-standard engines of no respectable origin!
It's also worth noting that Henry had to be repainted after his rebuild and so he had another chance to choose, and despite everything (because of everything?) he chose green again. For Henry green represents owning his whole history and being comfortable in his own... erm... paint I guess.
No doubt that Henry also has very positive associations of green with forests and nature. Not only is the colour the same, but in both cases he chose what was not at all an obvious thing for an engine in his position to like and made it his own.
I think for Percy it's all a little less complex, but similar. It represents his origins: "I've always been green!" Like Henry, he's comfortable with who he is. Also, to be frank, he thinks he looks good in it ("Excuse you????? Everyone says I'm handsome!") Let's not lie, he's right; he'd probably look very silly in any other colour. When Henry returned in his new shape and was oohed and aahed over, I reckon it would have cemented the association of green with handsome in Percy's mind.
FWIW it works for Rex too. Perfectly confident guy, nothing to prove.
What about Duck and Oliver? Well, what about them? They don't wear a colour; they wear another railway's livery. Like, I don't think green has quite the same associations for them as it does with Henry and Percy (also, I'm sure it's a different shade of green, so there's that). Interestingly, while for most of the engines I think we can assume the colour they wear is also their personal favourite, I don't think we can assume that for Duck and Oliver at all. My guess is the Duck's favorite is blue (color of the horizon and the sea) and Oliver's is red (or something else kind of badass or Aries or pulp-heroic-esque), but this is pure speculation.
Then there's Daisy and BoCo and Bear. And... it's tough to know whether their green is in the Henry&Percy category or the Duck&Oliver category. I do subscribe to the headcanon that Bear associates his green with Henry's green just because of the literary closure. And for what it's worth, I very much hope the diesels are in the lighter green of Bear's last illustration in EE and Daisy and BoCo's TVs models instead of BR green because they absolutely slay in the former. If so, it would suit, as I think all of them do in fact follow that established symbolism in the Henry&Percy green of individualism and being comfortable with yourself. 
Keywords: self-respect, self-esteem, self-confidence; individuality; wholeness; a slight emphasis on a sense of oneself as one's own engine
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RED: I mean, James has been pretty explicit about what red represents to him. Splendid. Admirable. Unique. Un-overlook-able. Beloved. Unique. Special.
I said green represented individuality, which may have occasioned surprise. But I don't think red represents individuality as much as it does aspiration and ambition.
This also holds true for other red characters in TVS, which is nice. Arthur seems worlds apart from James in personality and values, but like James he is ambitious. He wants to shine! A sort of perfectionism in them both, perhaps? James can't abide physical dirt, and Arthur can't abide a spot on his record.
When Rosie goes red, too, it can be seen as a sort of aspiration. She hasn't been taken seriously enough to suit her in the past, so (whether rightly or, as Moonie might argue, wrongly!) tries on red, which on this railway has become the colour of distinction. It's waving a flag: Take notice of me! I'm prepared to show my worth—bring it on!
It maybe works for Mike too?
Green is "i'm comfortable with myself, i don't have anything to prove." Red is "i have plenty to prove, there's something in particular i want to be known and recognised for."
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BROWN: I'm not sure what to make of this one because I feel like Toby might actually be a case similar to Duck and Oliver? Inasmuch as he wears brown because his livery is a callback (if, unlike the Great Western bois, not an exact reproduction) to his old LNER livery?
If Toby has any colour symbolism to go in for, it's probably in the one aspect of his (RWS) paintwork that is new—his sideplates and cowcatchers in the book are painted in blue, in fact what is probably the NWR's signature blue. This would in fact give him the similar associations of the blue boys, and, honestly? It would fit.
But, with both the brown and the blue alike, I think it's worth noting that in RWS we see the Fat Controller decide on Toby's new colours:
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It's a useful reminder that sometimes (most times) the engines appear to have chosen their colours, but that other times (and, perhaps, this was true for all of them early on, even if they could change in these times of more liberal management) their colours are chosen for them. And in those latter cases, their colour probably then takes on a significance for the engines because it is also a reminder of the director/controller* who cared enough about them to give it to them.
*or driver? heh. though i'm sure awdry, if asked, would have retconned the end of 'edward and gordon' such that a more likely person made the call about the paint job. though this also goes to the point—relevant also to the paragraph above—that awdry wavered wildly back and forth on how much agency he wanted to give the engines versus how much he wanted to be realistic, and that this probably accounts for the various ways in which they appear to acquire their colours in the books
Okay. But if brown does mean something to Toby because it's brown, and not just his old livery? It would represent his origins, of course, and probably the earth; he's always dealt in produce and farms and now quarries, so the earth is an important theme connecting his pre- and post-Sodor life.
Also... (sorry, Moonie)... I deeply dislike Murdoch's paintwork in TVS. So, let me unveil my personal headcanon, which is that he is in fact painted chocolate (because that would be scrumptious) and then, in this timeline, you'd start to have a vibe on this railway that brown is the colour of engines who are the earthy, strong, silent reliable, reserved type.
(Again, I know you like his paintwork a lot and I do not mean to bash that at all! That said, riddle me this: Would it even be possible to draw a line connecting the values of Murdoch, Nia, and Billy? I ask you.
Also—frankly, I feel we could definitely use more chocolate or umber-coloured engines on this railway! If not Murdoch, then someone—please! *mutters something about how useful and splendid engines can be brown, too*)
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Well, we've already started bleeding into TVS a bit. Let's continue venturing beyond RWS into the rather shakier grounds of TVS canon colour symbolism:
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BLACK: It's often observed that, while Donald and Douglas look better in black, it unfortunately misses the significance of blue representing both their past and present family bonds.
But maybe their TVS black is not devoid of symbolism? In RWS black does consistently seem to mean a sort of deadening corporate-ism; it's the colour of engines who are used but not particularly valued or appreciated. But that is a shame, considering that in real life black often completely slaps on an engine (especially if they are clean and matched with some colourful stock for contrast!)
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So it would be nice if in TVS black didn't carry those associations. And indeed, I think you could argue in that continuity that it shifts Donald and Douglas's characters slightly to have presumably chosen that colour but it does them no real disservice. I'd say it represents a certain toughness or scrappiness. They proved their worth on Sodor by doing a job no one else wanted (snow-ploughing) and going at it with a will. The black continues to represent that—although part of the NWR family—they are proud of their role of utility engines, somewhat in contrast to some of the silly showboats that surround them. It also might have a bit of a pirate vibe? It represents them embracing their appearance essentially as it was on arrival, when they spent some time as the bad boys of the Fat Controller's railway. Add to that Donald's slyness and Douglas's outright helping a fugitive escape the braying diesels, and yeah. C'mon. Black represents their indomitable, I-don't-give-a-shit badassery!
Some might observe that Donald and Douglas continue to wear BR Lined Black, not specifically the plainer CR goods livery, and does that make sense considering their history with BR? To which I'd argue it does. Continuing to wear it (and look great in it, tbh) is an act of defiance—which of course is another thing that this colour could be said to symbolise.
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EMERALD GREEN: Emily's colour, I feel, is pretty clear! She is the railway's own Stirling Single, and she has indeed made the dark emerald she wears the sterling colour of high value and of singularity.
It's utterly gorgeous, and it sets her apart while still being practical and in good taste (arguably, a lot of latter TVS liveries—some of which I like!—are rather bizarre designs for railway engines).
But with Emily's singularity does also come a sense of being just... single, too (small or large S). She seems to struggle throughout the show's run with feeling accepted or connecting to others on the level that she wants to. 💚🥺  This is all kinda similar to the red? But there's a distinction here, too, that I'm not sure I'm articulating. James does have a place. He does have friends who are like family. (We don't see as much of Arthur but I see no reason to believe he wouldn't.) James doesn't always get the recognition he wants but he has roots, a role, a clear identity.  Emily spends season after season either explicitly or implicitly searching for Her Place.
Anyway, her dark emerald is definitely a very royal colour, which comes with all the burdens as well as the prerogatives thereof.
It doesn't work for Peter Sam; if we must lump the narrow- and standard-gauge together then I'd put Peter Sam in the Henry&Percy green category for colour significance.
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YELLOW: Yes, while Molly's and Rebecca's liveries are rather different in design, I feel comfortable drawing some conclusions about their yellow. What's tougher is the relative paucity of material to work with re: Molly but let's give it a go.
Probably the typical associations of yellow are in play on the NWR, given Rebecca's sunny and optimistic personality. Molly is much shyer and more anxious but it's not at all a stretch to think that either she (or someone else, like TFC) chose yellow for her in that same spirit of hope. Given that they both seem to arrive on Sodor well past mainland dieselisation it's possible that they were both purchased from scrap and also (given Molly's greater age, and given how many seasons apparently pass before Rebecca's arrival) that they would have had to wait a very long time to be restored. So in their yellow colour there would be an element of a fresh start, a new life, and hope fulfilled.
I'd also hazard that (especially in TFC's mind, if he proposed this colour for them) that yellow represents renewal in another way. While to some degree probably all the TVS engines are acquired for their interest to steam enthusiasts, a Claude and a Light Pacific would probably be particular jewels in the NWR collection. I reckon the yellow literally highlights that status. It also gives a sense that, while they very much "fit in" on the Sodor fleet, that they are in some way a fresh, updated version of, say, long-standing stalwarts like Edward and Gordon. (I didn't say updated as in better but, c'mon. Think like you're the NWR promotional team, all right? And don't come after me.)
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PURPLE: Since in the books the non-NWR railways don't, like, really do anything but boring bog-standard liveries I've mostly been ignoring them and I will also be ignoring the Culdee Fell engines.
I think this leaves Charlie and Ryan. They seem very different sorts, but in both cases there is something rather... subordinate about them? They're both quite eager to be liked, and I'd say that this is what the colour symbolises on the NWR. Not the high-flown associations purple has for most of us, but a signifier that the engine in question just wants to be able to vibe and live in harmony. Charlie's idea of having a good time involves a lot of laughs and bonding, and Ryan's idea of having a good time revolves around being a Very Good Boi, but in both cases I really feel that their end goal is as simple as that. The simple life. Happiness. 
We don't know a single thing about Ivo Hugh's whole deal but honestly my gut tells me that this works as an element for him too (for the many people who headcanon him as purple in a television-flavoured SR).
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sylvaridreams · 6 months
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IM SO GLAD U REBOGGED THAT can i get 7 for whichever of them has the wildest answer
OH BOY a special ask just for me! :3
Commander love interest asks
7. What kind of dumb rumors pop up/would pop up about the relationship?
I'll go with Trammander for this, mostly because it's the only relationship Alba has ever had that he's been open about; everyone else is kept discrete and secret for safety and privacy, to the point that he doesn't even tell his friends or Dragon's Watch that he's dating Canach.
He and Trahearne stopped shyly flirting and tiptoeing around the issue after the cleansing of Orr, and were generally openly affectionate after that. They didn't let their relationship get in the way of work or vice versa, but it was usually clear to onlookers that they were a couple. Whenever problems arose within the Pact, and when people were dissatisfied with some choice Alba had made, there'd usually be someone there to point out that CLEARLY Alba was only made Commander in the first place because he was banging Trahearne; the ol' excuse of "you only got into a position of power via favoritism, not the merits of your work." At some point it expanded outside of the Pact; Tyrian tabloids for a while recycled stories like this, exclusive exposés via anonymous source revealing the "truth" of it all. Especially right after Trahearne’s death* there was a lot of this, a lot of panic and public questioning if Alba was fit to lead or if he would be Allowed to keep his job with his boyfriend dead-- a few groups were basically lobbying Almorra betwen HoT and Lws3 to get both a new Marshall and a different Commander enstated; she rejected all of this obviously and offered Alba the promotion. He had more reasons for leaving the Pact than just not wanting a hands-off desk job.
During the height of the post-Maguuma favoritism/unfit to lead panic, Alba spent the majority of his time mourning in the egg chamber. There was some silent agreement between his companions that nobody mentioned to him what kind of gossip was brewing in Tyrian society, even if he asked, because it was clear to the people closest to him that he wasn't in any condition to handle hearing what was being said about him and Trahearne.
*of course there was also a lot of criticism of how Trahearne had led the Pact in to fight the dragon, nevermind that he had no way of knowing what was going to happen. There was at least a bit of a respectful grace period after his death where no one really dared publish anything openly criticizing him for it, but within a year some publications started to crop up asking why Trahearne was allowed to lead such a charge, and of course it was soooo obvious that it would end up this way, etc. To this day I don't think Alba looks at stuff like that, newsprint or leaflets or anything, just out of habit now. If something important is happening in the world, someone will probably contact him outright.
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astradrifting · 3 years
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GRRM really created so many parallels and foreshadow using the DoD characters that honestly we could just figure the asoiaf ending by analyzing it. My favorite is the Aegon III-D@ny parallels, the fact that one of his closest allies was a face-scarred Master of coin Lannister who ended as Hand to Bran' parallel character just make it so obvious its funny.
Oh my god I didn’t even realise Tyland Lannister was initially on the greens’ side! I’m not super fond of Tyrion ending up as Hand, but you’re right that it’s so obviously meant to reference him. There’s so many parallels that it’s a little crazy. I don’t want to say that the second Dance will end exactly as the first did, it’d be a little too neat if history repeated entirely, but you can see so many echoes of it even in the show’s bastardised ending.
“The broken, shattered realm suffered for a while yet, but the Dance of the Dragons was done. Now what awaited the realm was the False Dawn, the Hour of the Wolf, the rule of the regents, and the Broken King.”
(TWOIAF, Aegon II)
I’m not sure what the False Dawn is going to parallel to, it refers to the period of time after Aegon II’s death but before Lord Stark got to King’s Landing, when people thought that peace had finally come. It kind of brings to mind the War for the Dawn, though personally I think that the threat of the Others will be resolved before the Dance is over. The Hour of the Wolf is obviously about House Stark’s rise back to power, and the Broken King is Bran - though if he actually becomes known as Bran the Broken I might end up committing violence ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. 
The parts about Lord Corlys Velaryon are why I’m so hopeful that Jon’s book ending will be completely different from the show’s. He’s arrested for Aegon II’s death by Cregan Stark, even though Cregan had previously declared for Rhaenyra, because as TWOIAF puts it, “to kill a cruel and unjust king in lawful battle was one thing. But foul murder, and the use of poison, was a betrayal against the very gods who had anointed him.”
Corlys didn’t deny his guilt, and expressed no regret. “What I did, I did for the good of the realm. I would do the same again. The madness had to end.”
Cregan Stark declared him to be guilty of murder, regicide, and high treason, and he was sentenced to execution. But many spoke in his defence, even people who had fought against him in the Dance. Baela and Rhaena Targaryen, Corlys’ granddaughters and Aegon III’s half-sisters, convinced Aegon to issue an edict pardoning Lord Velaryon, which Alysanne Blackwood then convinced Cregan to let stand. Lord Velaryon was pardoned and even restored to his offices and honours, made one of the king’s regents and given a place on the small council.
Corlys’ words definitely could be Jon’s as well, a much more in-character declaration post-D@ny’s death than the drivel GoT tried to feed us. I was worried for a bit that this would be how Tyrion is let off scot-free, but Baela and Rhaena, who were vital to his release, are such obvious Arya and Sansa stand-ins, and they’re certainly not going to expend any effort in helping Tyrion. So Corlys’ circumstances more likely lays the groundwork for how Jon will be freed and remain in political power, while Tyland frankly inexplicably becoming Aegon III’s Hand after he was in favour of brutally killing him parallels Tyrion managing to fail up, as a way of reconciling the old regime with the new one.
This makes Tyrion becoming Hand more palatable IMO. Either Jon and Tyrion both should have been punished or neither should have been punished, not the travesty where Tyrion gets everything he’s ever wanted while Jon is exiled to a Watch with no purpose and a Wall that’s already half-collapsed, so what exactly can it protect against? I suppose they were afraid of seemingly rewarding Jon for killing d@ny, especially if pol!Jon had been revealed, but most people noticed how nonsensical his ending was, and it just led to ‘Bloodraven/Bran is the real villain’ takes anyway.
(Side note: Asha/Yara basically still being loyal to D at the end annoys me so much, and made no sense. Jon did more to help save her by giving Theon that pep talk than D@ny did. Maybe it was a leftover from her taking Victarion’s role in the story, but in no reasonable world is anyone going to listen to the Ironborn who brought the Fire threat over in the first place.)
Of course Tyland Lannister isn’t actually Hand for long, given that he dies barely two years later from Winter Fever, feared and hated, alone except for a maester and King Aegon. It might be an indication that Tyrion will face a similar fate, that he’ll die after he’s seemingly won, exactly what he threatened Cersei with:
“A day will come when you think yourself safe and happy, and suddenly your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth, and you'll know the debt is paid."
(ACOK, Tyrion XII)
So that I can stop talking about Tyrion, here’s some facts about Rhaena and Baela that are obviously meant to reference Sansa and Arya, so much so that it feels a little bit like GRRM is winking and going “See what I did there? Huh? Huh? Did you see??”:
- their descriptions: “Rhaena was slender and graceful; Baela was lean and quick; Rhaena loved to dance; Baela lived to ride...” + “Baela was wild and willful”, “more boyish than ladylike”, and kept her hair cropped short as a boy’s
- Rhaena spent most of the Dance in the Vale, where she lived in relative comfort as the ward of Lady Jeyne Arryn. Baela was a dragonrider and so moved between Dragonstone and Driftmark, but was captured on Dragonstone when Aegon II descended upon it
- Rhaena was favoured to be queen after her brother, considered more qualified than her wild sister
- Baela liked to spend time with “unsuitable companions” she would bring to the Red Keep - including a comely juggler, a blacksmith’s apprentice whose muscles she admired (!!!), a legless beggar, a pair of twin girls from a brothel, an entire troupe of mummers once
- After her brother’s regents tried to marry her to a lord 40 years older than her, Baela escaped the Red Keep by climbing out of a window, trading clothes with a washerwoman, then walking right out of the front gate. She ran away to Driftmark and married her supposed cousin (though more likely he was her half-uncle), the legitimised bastard Alyn Velaryon, which might have had me worried about j0nrya if Alyn weren’t best known for being a daring sailor who went on many voyages, including sailing the Sunset Sea, until he was finally lost at sea during Aegon IV’s reign. Alyn’s mother was also called Mouse, for being “small, quick, and always underfoot.”
- another fun fact about Alyn: he’s a bad haggler, and had to agree to a high ransom and many concessions in order to get Prince Viserys returned to Westeros. This automatically disqualifies him as a Jon stand-in, because as we all know, Jon Snow can haggle like the best of fishwives.
- My absolutely favourite detail that has my jonsa heart singing - Rhaena was more dutiful than her sister and would have married a man that the king and council chose, saying that as long as he was “kind and gentle and noble, I know that I shall love him.” She was able to marry her first choice, whom the regents didn’t immediately approve of but that they ultimately accepted  - Ser Corwyn Corbray, the brother of the Lord Protector of the Realm, a second son (!) whose late father had gifted him the Valyrian steel sword Lady Forlorn (!!!)
And as a treat for @istumpysk, some similarities between Rickon and Viserys II!
- the youngest child of their family
- separated from their older brother after they were forced to flee their home, trying to get to safety while their other brothers and mother were at war
- worshipped their oldest (half-)brothers, but were closer to the brother nearest their age
- spends the war stuck on an island, populated by people closely linked to their family’s origins - Skagosi are descended mostly from the First Men, while Viserys was on Lys, where the blood of Old Valyria still runs strong
- sought by/held hostage by a powerful and wealthy family, who will treat them well but whose intentions are dubious
- will be brought back from exile by an upjumped bastard/commoner from a port town who was raised to lordship and became their monarch’s chief admiral
- after they are returned, long after the wars and crises, is happily welcomed as the heir to their older brother’s throne (shhhhh just let me have this, let the baby live)
Thanks for the ask!
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tangent101 · 3 years
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Max Caulfield and Post-Storm PTSD
One thing I find interesting (and have done so myself) is speculating on how broken Max will be in a Post-Storm (either Sacrifice Chloe or Sacrifice Arcadia Bay) setting. While some people (usually those who killed Chloe) like to say "she'd bounce back!" the predominant view is that we have a shattered Max after this who needs a lot of therapy. So I thought I'd unpack this and look at why I look at this this way.
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At this point I should add there is potential triggers here. I'll be examining my own PTSD and elements of Max's state of mind that may in fact result in her being in declining mental health in the wake of the events of Life is Strange.
First, let's consider what PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) is, and what causes it. And for this I'm going to start by sharing my own trauma. Because I have PTSD. I gained this after I saw a vehicle go out of control and hit two people and run over two others. The final person was trapped under the vehicle and they had to push the van at an angle to pull him out, do CPR, and... he was dead. Even if EMTs had been right there, he'd not have survived.
I suffer flashbacks thinking of this, though it's gotten better. I will flinch, visualize what happened, and feel nausea. I get tense over this and... well, it's not a happy experience to put it mildly. And I have what is likely a milder case of PTSD. I also developed it despite being in an environment that put me at a lower risk of developing it. And yes, I had minor twinges of PTSD writing this up. Two years ago I probably would have had an actual visualization and anxiety break. So you can get better with therapy and help.
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But what specifically is PTSD? According to the website for the National Institute of Mental Health, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) develops in some people who experience shocking or dangerous events, with people who have PTSD feeling stressed or frightened even when they are not in danger. PTSD can occur within 3 months of traumatic events or even have you be fine and then crop up *years* later. And symptoms include flashbacks where you relive the trauma, bad dreams, and frightening thoughts which can disrupt a person's everyday routine.
People with PTSD are easily startled, can feel "on edge," have angry outburst, and have difficulty sleeping. They could go through avoidance of staying away from reminders of the experience and avoiding thoughts or feelings related to the event. Further, cognitive and mood symptoms include problems remembering key features of the event, self-negativity, distorted guilt or blame feelings, and loss of interest in enjoyable activities.
Okay, so how can you avoid PTSD? And how could Max avoid this? Well, factors promoting recovery after trauma include seeking support from friends and family, finding a support group, learning to feel good about your own actions in the face of danger, positive coping strategies, and learning to act and respond effectively even when feeling fear.
And this is the kicker. This is why Max is likely screwed as a result of the events of Life is Strange, especially in a Sacrifice Chloe setting. Because Max blames herself and her time travel for the Storm and all the weird shit that happened. She may very well believe that if she uses time travel for any reason, it will result in the Storm and a lot more people dying. And this will get in the way of being in a healthy environment to avoid PTSD.
First, consider friends and family. Max can't tell them what happened because she has absolutely no proof of what she went through. She can't prove her time travel because if she does then she dooms wherever she is and a lot of people die. (It doesn't matter if this is the case or not, she assumes it is true.) So Max is not going to confide in Warren or Dana or Victoria or anyone. She can't. And she's quite likely going to isolate herself because we have already seen at the start of the game, Max is a bit of a loner who doesn't have many friends.
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In fact, her two "friends" are Warren (who she feels threatened by due to his attraction to her, as seen by his inclusion in her Nightmare sequence including learning he doctored photos of her to include himself in the picture, his peeping activities on the second day, and the honestly-creepy "Go Ape" thing), and Kate. Kate is going through her own shit and Max remembers Kate killing herself. Is Max going to unload her own issues on someone going through a lot of shit as well or is she going to swallow her problems so not to trouble her friend? And Warren is someone she feels nervous around and who has engaged in some activities that set up warning flags in her psyche. Further, when she told Warren the truth, he promptly blames her time travel on fucking everything up. In short, she trusted Warren and Warren said "you caused all this destruction." (Even if Max initially blames herself, he reinforces that point of view before Max jumps through the photo to save Chloe.)
Nor can I see her telling her parents. Again, she has no proof. Her parents are overprotective already. If she starts going off on this fanciful tale, are they going to believe her? Or are they going to assume their daughter is cracking and force her into therapy and possibly hospitalize her "for her own good" (and thus she ends up medicated and miserable, having lost her autonomy and agency)? It doesn't matter if they wouldn't as Max will worry this could happen. It is better to never say a thing. So Max internalizes everything. And we already see evidence that Max has done this sort of thing in the past. Max keeps her secrets close to her heart. She never told her parents of the time travel even when she could have had proof. So why tell them after Chloe died?
I have been overcoming my PTSD by revisiting it and working through it. Part of this was guided by therapy. Max would not be in a position to talk about this. And how could she? After all, she didn't find Rachel Amber's body (and we have no proof her body is uncovered in a Sacrifice Chloe setting). She didn't see the Storm. She didn't see most of the incidents. The closest that happened was being in the bathroom when Chloe was shot. And her story of what happened would change from the week that beta-Max was in charge and when Max Prime returned to the timeline. So even if she was talking to a school counselor? She'd quickly learn that her story changed and probably shut up and stop seeing them so not to give away her story.
Remember: Max cannot admit to the time travel because doing so means either killing hundreds of people due to the Storm or being locked away for being crazy because she has no proof.
Next, we have feeling good about her actions. For five days Max had hammered into her skull her actions have consequences. More, those consequences are predominantly bad. Far too often Max has to Rewind to fix things from her actions. If she can't Rewind? That means by acting, she's going to fuck things up. In fact, the fundamental aspect of Sacrifice Chloe states that her action to save Chloe caused all of this destruction. Max is going to second-guess herself constantly.
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I mean, if she sees Kate on the roof again at a later point (because women who are the victims of crimes are often blamed by society for the crimes inflicted against them as seen time and time again with how we blame victims of sexual harassment and rape for the crimes committed against them, so of course her church and mother and aunt will continue to blame Kate for what she went through), will Max dare to act? If she does, then she might cause another Storm. She might cause damage. If Kate is on that rooftop again, maybe she was supposed to die. Who does Max think she is by trying to stop Destiny?
So yeah. Max is not going to feel good about her actions. She is going to second-guess herself. She already had that tendency at the start of the game, and Sacrifice Chloe hammers down the truth that action is bad. Better to do nothing and not interact.
We end up with Avoidance. Well, what is the biggest Avoidance? Photography. Max already has a murderer who kidnapped her associated with photography. She remembers being in the Dark Room, being powerless in the face of the man who murdered her Chloe. (Just like she murdered her Chloe. She might not have pulled the trigger, but she caused Chloe's death.) She will see Chloe's death and Rachel's death and her own suffering each time she looks at a camera and remembers Mark Jefferson. More, she knows if she focuses on a photograph she could end up traveling through time and causing the Storm. So she can't even enjoy pictures anymore because they are a threat.
That's not to say that the Sacrifice Chloe setting is all dark and dire. She does have music. She loves music. So if she puts aside the camera she might pick up her guitar and embrace music. (Hannah Telle, Max's VA, once speculated that Max would enter a career in music, probably due partly to her own musical inclinations.) So while she might give up her greatest loves, she might eventually embrace a future in music. I doubt she'd ever play in public but... that might be an outlet for a hurting soul.
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Now, I've gone on at length about how dire things are for Max in a Sacrifice Chloe setting, but what about Sacrifice Arcadia Bay? Well, things end up a bit more positive in this setting because she can actually talk about going through some of these things. For instance, Max dug up a body with Chloe. She saw Chloe almost shot by Nathan in the bathroom. She saw Kate attempt suicide (whether or not she stopped it is immaterial to the suicide attempt). She learned that a trusted teacher and mentor was in fact a predator who was kidnapping young women, saw pictures of these crimes, and thus "suffers flashbacks visualizing herself in this setting." She can go to therapy and talk about many things she cannot in a Sacrifice Chloe setting and in doing so she can start to work through elements that could result in PTSD developing.
She can also talk to Chloe about what happened. Chloe knows about the time travel. She knows about almost dying (and Max witnessing Chloe's death multiple times). This gives Max a needed outlet for overcoming her own fears and concerns. But more importantly is this: Chloe is likely to tell Max to face down her fears. Chloe is the person who always pushed Max to try new things. And I honestly cannot see that changing as a result of what they went through.
Max also will learn to feel good about her actions. I mean, she chose Chloe over Arcadia Bay. This is the ultimate action, and while she may feel remorse for those deaths and that destruction... she also knows she saved Chloe and Chloe is by her side. She knows that her actions led to the capture and arrest of Mark Jefferson and saving Victoria Chase's life. Hell, it led to David Madsen (and probably a couple Arcadia Bay police officers) surviving the Storm because they were in the Dark Room at the time of the Storm. Her actions have consequences... and those consequences need not be dire. They can be beneficial.
So the Max of Sacrifice Arcadia Bay has a support group, she has access to therapy and can talk about some of the things she went through, she has someone she loves who believes her, she knows that her actions have benefit, she has someone who urges her to move forward. This isn't to say she won't have PTSD... but she is in a far better environment to overcome this to the point that in Life is Strange 2, we learn (in the Save Chloe timeline) that Max is submitting to galleries and that Chloe is still with her. So she's taking pictures and is in a good place in her life.
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Now, what about Chloe? After all, Chloe went through some truly horrific shit herself. Chloe was almost shot by Nathan, she almost got hit by a train, she was threatened by Frank, she dug up the body of a girl she truly cared for, dozens of yards from where she was hanging out regularly, she saw a huge-ass Tornado wipe out her home town and kill her mother... yeah, Chloe's been through some horrific stuff, about as horrific as Max. More, she is in an unhealthy position at the time of the game.
But much of what benefits Max in the Save Chloe timeline also benefits Chloe. She can talk to a therapist. She has Max by her side. She has Max by her side and Max out-and-out chose her over hundreds of people. Joyce chose David over her, and for four years Chloe was in an unsafe environment. Rachel was... Rachel, and she was cheating on Chloe anyway. But Max... Max comes back, she saves her life several times, she helps Chloe time and time again, and at the end she chose Chloe over Arcadia Bay. That is big. That is bigger than big, it is... for once, Chloe was told "you are important." I mean, I'm getting teary-eyed just thinking of how big this is. Chloe has realized just how much Max loves her.
So... Chloe might develop PTSD. She is at risk of it. I think her triggers might similar to Max's - both girls probably will freak over thunderstorms for a while, and both may develop an aversion toward guns... at first I thought they'd differ but really, they'd align fairly well. About the only trigger issue Max would have Chloe doesn't has to do with photography (which is why Chloe is the person who'd help Max overcome any such issues).
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rwby-echo · 2 years
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I mentioned posting the first chapter of ECHO for you guys to see, so here it is!
Please keep in mind that the final version that gets posted with the whole fic will probably be different as things get tweaked. Everything is gonna get tuning as writing progress continues.
Preparations
Patch, the Kingdom of Vale...
Summer’s Perch, they called it, back in the days when their mother still lived. Yang could still remember finding her here on many a clear afternoon when she was little, when Summer would kneel and wait for Yang to leap into her arms; in those days it was safe enough for a child to wander, for no Grimm dared to haunt these woods while her mother was here. Even now, on clear days she half-expected to find her mother standing on the overlook, miraculously alive and waiting with open arms after so many years.
“Guess this’ll be the last time we can visit for a while,” Ruby said, her tone somber as she stared out over the open expanse of sea beyond the cliff’s edge. She fidgeted and balanced briefly on one foot, rubbing the top of her shoe against the bare back of her calf to relieve an itch. She was dressed for the late summer heat today: a dusky orange t-shirt, dark green skirt, black ankle socks, and orange sneakers. Even the red hooded cloak she loved so dearly had been left behind, thanks to the heat. The only heavy piece of gear she kept on was her ammo belt with her compact-form scythe resting at the small of her back; Patch was a quiet little island, but Grimm still somehow managed to find their way into its wilds regardless.
Yang nodded in agreement as she knelt and placed the bundle of white roses before the memorial. ‘Thus Kindly, I Scatter’, said the words engraved below her mother’s name. Yang had always disliked that; she found no poetry in death and loss. A sharp pang of annoyance flared up at reading that again, given strength by the heat. It was getting to be a bit much, despite her being dressed for it in a green crop top, tan fingerless gloves, chocolate brown shorts, white ankle socks, and yellow sneakers. Even her long golden hair, normally left wild and free, was tied up in a loose bun at the back of her head to keep it off her neck and back. Ember Celica was already on her wrists; the set was compact enough in its collapsed form that she was able to wear it comfortably during day-to-day tasks.
The waves continued their relentless march against the base of the cliff far below, while seabirds wheeled and called far above. A breeze meandered between the two girls, providing only fleeting relief from the summer heat. This was their mother’s favorite place to sit and contemplate, back when she was still with them; now it served as the closest thing she had to a grave. That, at least, would change if the sisters got their way.
“You ready?” Yang stood and dusted her knees off.
“Yeah,” Ruby replied. “We’re on our way.”
“Still can’t believe you skipped two years,” Yang said, a chuckle bubbling just beneath her words. “You’re trying to make me look bad.”
“What? Noo!” Ruby gave Yang a playful shove and ended up almost knocking herself off her feet—pushing Yang was like trying to move a rock. “I only did it cause I had to catch up with you!”
“Yeah yeah,” Yang said, waving Ruby off with a playful smile. “That excuse won’t work forever.”
The two fell into mutual silence again as they stared out over the ocean.
“You think we’ll be able to do it?” Ruby asked after a while. “Dad and Uncle Qrow looked for years.”
“We’ll find a way,” was Yang’s simple, determined reply. “I don’t care how long it takes, we’ll find mom and bring her home.”
They watched the waves and the seabirds for a time, then Ruby lifted a hand to the sun and checked its progress through the sky. “Lunchtime already?” She turned to Yang. “Wanna head back?”
“Yeah, I’m getting hungry now that you mention it,” Yang replied. “Let’s go.”
The forest was cooler than the clifftop, with enough canopy above for adequate shade and enough space between trees to allow the breeze to enter. Verdant shadows pooled between roots and under particularly thick sections of canopy. Something hovered in one such thicket, flickering and shining silver-blue in the partial light.
Ruby whipped her head around to look, having caught sight of it out of the corner of her eye as she passed it by. She grabbed Yang by the arm and gave her a tug, pointing at it. “What’s that?” she whispered, keeping her eyes on the thing as she leaned a little closer to Yang.
“Whoa,” Yang said when she caught sight of it herself. “I’ve never seen fire in that color before.”
“Let’s check it out.” Ruby released Yang and was already away before she could say otherwise, moving at a jog just in case the fire decided to leave anytime soon.
“Ruby, wait!” Yang called as she ran after her.
The air seemed to grow colder as Ruby entered the thicket, but the fire remained where it was. Now that she was closer she could see that the flame itself wasn’t clearly defined—it was diffused, almost like morning mist—and at the heart of the thing burned a tiny brilliant white core.
“Don’t touch it!” Yang yelled as Ruby got within reaching distance.
“I wasn’t gonna touch it!” Ruby replied as she looked back at Yang, indignant. It was a half-lie, but she wasn’t about to admit that to Yang. “I just wanted a better look!”
Yang slowed to a walk and carefully stepped over the last large root that lay between herself and Ruby. “What is this thing?” she asked as she caught up. “Some kind of dust phenomenon?” Yang braced her hands on her hips and glared at the thing, as if doing so would intimidate it into revealing its secrets.
Ruby peered closer, with a bit of regret that she’d left her tinkerer’s goggles at home—the magnification options on those would’ve given her a closer look.
“Don’t get too close,” Yang cautioned.
“I know!” Ruby hissed, shooting a quick glare at Yang. She took a step back all the same. Now it was even harder to make out what was going on with this thing. If only she had her goggles. She paused, having hit on a realization. “Aha!” Ruby said as she took her scroll from a pocket hidden in the folds of her skirt and opened it up.
“Ooo, good idea,” Yang said as she got her scroll out as well. “Maybe Dad or Uncle Qrow will know what this thing is.”
“Yeah if I can get a good picture,” Ruby grumbled; capturing the thing on camera was proving more difficult than she expected. “Why won’t it focus?” she added as she gave the screen a few irate taps.
A twig snapped behind them, and they whirled to face the source of the sound: a sizable cluster of bushes that could hide a man-sized Grimm with ease. The two pocketed their scrolls and Ruby took Crescent Rose from its magnetic clasp while Yang deployed Ember Celica. The pair of them stood stock-still as they watched the cluster of bushes, weapons at the ready.
Tension drew taught in the air around them, seeming to crowd out the ambient sounds of the forest. Seconds crawled by, but nothing stirred within the stand of bushes. The pair were about to stand down when a howl rang out above and a small beowolf dropped down on them from the canopy.
“Hya!” Yang yelled as she punched the beowolf on the nose. 
The beowolf slammed into the ground, bounced twice, and landed in a heap some distance away.
“That’s it?” Ruby asked, after a few moments of puzzled silence.
“I was expecting something bigger,” Yang added as she straightened. “Anyway,” she said, turning to Ruby. “Let’s try getting pictures of that weird flame thing again.”
They turned to where the flame had been before, only to find it gone.
“Where’d it go?” Ruby said as she frantically searched the near side of the thicket.
Yang conducted a slower, more thorough search as Ruby darted around the other side and back.
“Aww, it’s gone,” Ruby said, still looking over her shoulder as she returned to Yang’s side.
“Did you get any good pictures?”
“Nah, they all came out blurry for some reason,” Ruby replied as she took her scroll from her pocket again and opened it. “See?” She turned it around to show Yang that, indeed, all the pictures she’d taken hadn’t focused properly.
Yang took out her scroll to compare. “Yeah, I wasn’t able to get anything better,” she said as they held their scrolls one over the other—the flame came out as nothing more than a pale misty blob against the green backdrop of the forest in every single picture. “Too bad, I wanted to know what it was.” She paused and looked around again, having noticed something. “Hey, did it get warmer all of a sudden?”
Ruby paused to note the temperature herself. “Huh... Maybe? It was almost chilly a minute ago...”
A grumbling growl interrupted any further discussion. They turned to find the beowolf starting to recover itself, scratching at its snout with one paw as it started to rise. 
“Wellp, better finish this thing off,” Yang said with a shrug as she pocketed her scroll. “Care to do the honors?” she asked, gesturing toward the Grimm with a grand wave of her hand.
“It’s only fair,” Ruby said with a gracious smirk as she pocketed her own scroll and deployed Crescent Rose’s scythe form. “You already got your hit in and this thing let the fire get away. Time for some payback!”
The beowolf was on its feet now, baring fangs in a snarl as it watched their approach. Now that it was standing still—and not actively being smacked around by Yang—the black empty sockets where its eyes should have been were clearly visible.
Ruby paused despite herself. “Great, it’s that freaky no-eyes beowulf again.”
“No kidding,” Yang said, looking at the beowulf with distaste. “Wait. Again? Like the same one?”
“Well yeah I—” Ruby stopped herself to consider the word choice she’d used. “Could it be the same one? I killed one exactly like it last week.”
“I killed one like this near the house just a couple days ago,” Yang said, frowning as she watched the snarling beowulf. Grimm were creepy enough as it was, but the empty sockets just made it look worse.
“Seriously?” Ruby asked, looking at Yang with surprise. “Wait so, does that mean this thing reincarnates?”
“Grimm can’t do that,” Yang replied, about to wave the suggestion off. Then she stopped herself. “At least I don’t think they do? I don’t remember learning that from combat school.”
The beowolf chose this moment to charge at them—and was swiftly dispatched by a single slash of Crescent Rose. It fell to the ground, its torso cut almost completely in two, and began to disintegrate into fine ash.
Ruby and Yang watched it eagerly, in case the resurrection took place before full disintegration could occur.
Soon nothing remained of the beowulf, not even the tiniest dusting of black ash.
“Hmm,” Ruby hummed, puffing her cheeks a little in annoyance. “Well I guess it’s still killable anyway.”
“Maybe it’s a new type of Grimm?” Yang offered.
“They’re kinda trash if that’s the case,” Ruby replied as she collapsed Crescent Rose and clipped it at her back.
“I mean, creeps are trash too, so?” Yang shrugged.
“Yeah, you got a point there,” Ruby admitted. “I just can’t shake the feeling that it was the same one as before...”
“We can always ask Dad about it when we get back,” Yang said, already turning back toward the path. “Let’s go, I’m starving.”
Ruby paused, casting a final reluctant glance over her shoulder before following Yang back to the path.
The walk back was pleasant enough, with no more Grimm or mystery flames to bother them. Birdsong and insect chatter filled the forest as they made their way through the trees, occasionally joined by the soft whisper of the summer breeze.
They entered through the back kitchen door and were immediately greeted by the flurried sound of Zwei’s feet against the floor upstairs. His barking soon followed, and within seconds he was down the stairs and into the kitchen where he ran excited circles around the two girls in his excitement.
“Hello you silly Zwei were you taking a nap while we were gone?” Ruby said in her doting talking-to-pet voice as she knelt and scratched Zwei’s back with both hands. “Do you want a little snackies after we make lunch?”
“Ask Dad first, he’s still on a diet,” Yang said as she too knelt and gave Zwei his scratches. “We can’t have you turning into too much of a chumby boy, no we can’t!”
Zwei plopped down on the floor and wriggled under their scratching fingers, yapping and panting happily all the while.
The two sisters withdrew, and Zwei lay there panting for a few more breaths before scrambling to his feet and giving them a begging whine; he knew what the word “snackies” meant.
“Only if Dad didn’t give you anything earlier,” Ruby said, waving a finger at him.
Yang went to the fridge while Ruby took the bread from the bread box and set it on the counter.
“Hey, did Dad say we would have guests today?”
Yang looked up from the sandwich meat, lettuce, and condiments that she’d crowded into her arms and toward the kitchen table; four empty glasses had been left there, the remnants of their ice still melting away. “He didn’t mention that,” she replied as she put her armload of sandwich makings on the counter. “Wonder who it was.”
“Maybe someone from Signal?”
“Yeah maybe,” Yang agreed as she went to the sink to wash her hands, removing her gloves and Ember Celica and setting them on the counter as she did so. “Fall semester does start in a few days.”
The front door opened and closed as the two put the finishing touches on their sandwiches. Zwei started up with the barking again and lost traction on the hardwood as he ran for the front door, getting giggles out of Yang and Ruby as they watched.
“We’re home, Dad!” Ruby called as she put the lid back on the mayo.
“Oh, good!” Tai called back. He appeared in the doorway soon enough with Zwei on his heels, grabbing two of the glasses from the table as he passed and taking them to the sink. “How was it out there?”
“Fine, pretty hot though,” Yang replied. She took a bite of her sandwich while Ruby continued the report.
“We found some weird stuff on the way back,” Ruby added, her excitement rising again.
“Weird how?” Tai asked slowly, worry beginning to gather on his brow as he watched them.
Ruby took her scroll from her pocket and opened it up with one hand, her sandwich still in the other. “We saw this cold flame thing in the woods and then a reincarnating no-eyes beowulf attacked us,” she said as she tapped through to her gallery with the pinky of her sandwich-bearing hand. “See?” She turned her scroll to show him the best picture she’d managed to get of the flame.
“Dangit, we should’ve taken pictures of the beowulf too just to be sure,” Yang said as she leaned against the counter.
Tai leaned down and squinted at the picture, obviously puzzled as to what he was looking at. “Some kind of weird mist ball?” he guessed.
“It looked like some kind of weird misty fire with a little glowy bit in the middle,” Ruby corrected him. “None of our pictures came out, though. Have you ever heard of something like that?”
“And it kinda felt like the air got colder when we were close to it,” Yang added.
“I can’t recall anything off the top of my head...” Tai said slowly, still squinting at the picture. “Some sort of ice dust phenomenon maybe? But why would it be out in the forest...” He straightened. “So what’s the other thing you mentioned? A reincarnating beowulf?”
“Okay so first off it has no eyes, just empty sockets where the eyes should be, and I killed it last week, then Yang killed it a couple days ago, and then I killed it again today,” Ruby explained, pointing to herself and Yang in turn as she spoke. “It keeps coming back!”
“You’re sure it’s not just three different beowulfs?” Tai asked, raising an eyebrow.
“It was small and I’ve never heard of any other Grimm having empty eye sockets like that,” Yang cut in. “Like, it’s either a new type or it’s one Grimm that keeps coming back.”
“So...?” Ruby looked up at Tai expectantly, as did Yang.
“Now that I think of it, I may have heard of something like that,” Tai replied. He paused, eyes closed as he sought the memory. “It might be a Nemesis Grimm, but I’m not sure,” he said, opening them again. “They were supposed to have stopped appearing a long time ago.”
“A Nemesis Grimm?” Yang pushed off the counter, her attention locked on Tai.
“They’re Grimm that somehow become attached to a specific person, and they do resurrect after being killed. Not much else is known about them, though.” Tai paused, brows drawn together with worry. “Definitely keep an eye out for that one, let me know if it pops up again. And you should ask Professor Ozpin about it once you get to Beacon, he’ll know more about it than I do.”
“So we can just walk up and ask him about stuff like that?” Ruby asked.
“He’ll want to hear about it, trust me,” Tai replied. Then his expression brightened, and he clapped his hands together. “So, are you guys all packed up? We’re leaving early tomorrow morning so make sure it’s all done by tonight.”
~~~
Ruby and Yang finished their packing later that night, just before bed. The new empty spaces on Ruby’s bookshelf gave the still-present books room to flop onto their sides, and one caught her eye as she righted them again: a thin hardback by the name of Urban Legends and Mysterious Happenings. She picked it up and opened it at random, flipping to and fro through the pages. It had been a while since she last read through it, and this would be her last chance if she didn’t bring it with her to Beacon.
One entry in particular stood out, of mysterious lights or flames seen out in the wilds that would drift away if someone got too close, eventually leading them into a mire or some other natural hazard. Some of them were even said to make their immediate surroundings colder than usual.
Ruby stood and hurried over to Yang’s room. “Hey Yang,” she said as she let herself in. “Look at this!” Ruby offered the book to her, still open on the entry about mysterious lights.
Yang stood from where she was packing clothes on the floor and accepted the book. “Huh,” she mumbled as she read through the entry. “Yeah that looks like what we saw.” Her eyes wandered to the end of the entry. “So top theories: some kind of ice dust phenomenon,” she said with a nod, as that had been her first guess earlier, “Someone playing tricks with their semblance, spontaneous combustion of swamp gas...” Yang skimmed a little more, then handed the book back to Ruby. “I’m guessing ice dust.”
“Maybe,” Ruby agreed reluctantly; something told her it wasn’t so simple, but she couldn’t put her finger on what. She returned to her room and, after a brief moment of consideration, tucked the book into her bags.
~~~
Schnee Manor, the Kingdom of Atlas...
“So explain again why Atlas Academy isn’t good enough?” Whitley asked. He was leaning against her open bedroom door with his arms crossed over his chest, yet again being a pest about her decision to leave. “It was good enough for Winter.”
Weiss rolled her eyes, the gesture hidden by the fact that she had her back turned to him. “You just don’t get it,” she said for what felt like the dozenth time as she carefully arranged and packed various dust cartridges into Mertynaster’s case. “I’m the Schnee heiress, Whitley. I have an illustrious legacy to live up to, and before I inherit the company I want to make a name for myself on my own merit. Beacon is far enough away to accomplish that without being totally backwards like Shade is.”
There was no immediate reply from Whitley. After a few moments of uncomfortable silence Weiss turned to him and found that he was glaring at the span of floor between them, his fists clenched at his sides. This gave her pause; it was a departure from his usual needling and standoffish attitude, more direct than she was used to.
“What’s this really about, Whitley?” Weiss asked, equal parts suspicion and concern in her voice. “Did father put you up to this?”
“Nevermind...” Whitley grumbled. He turned and left without another word.
Weiss let out a loud, exasperated sigh and returned to her packing.
The sound of someone else filling the doorway got her attention some time later, as she was closing Myrtenaster’s case. This time she turned and found her father standing there, as expected. Weiss took a deep breath and steeled herself for one final discussion on the present matter.
“All packed up?” he asked, hands clasped at his back as he watched Weiss.
“Almost.”
“Good.” Jacques stepped into the room and took a small stack of envelopes from an inner pocket of his jacket. “I have a few business associates that I’d like you to meet during your stay in Vale. All have been notified that you will be paying them a visit sometime in the future, so do be sure to call ahead of time before you drop in.” His tone had a finality about it that suggested this was not up for negotiation; Weiss would be going to Beacon as she wanted, but this arrangement would be part of the price.
“Very well.” Weiss strode over and accepted the envelopes from him. “And these?”
“Just a bit of correspondence, make sure you deliver them accordingly when you visit.”
Weiss kept a disinterested expression despite her annoyance. Her father just had to go and give her a little delivery quest to make sure she paid visits to all the associates she was supposed to. She would’ve done it regardless since it pertained to her eventual position in the Schnee Dust Company, but being directly strong-armed into it made things just a bit more insufferable. She flipped through the envelopes and glanced over the names: Aldwin, Lark, Rivenmire, Gerhart, Winchester, and a few others... None were familiar to her, but she would find and meet them soon enough once she arrived in Vale.
“I’ll see to it that they get these,” Weiss said as she straightened the stack of envelopes against the palm of her hand. “Anything else?”
“Conduct yourself with grace and poise,” Jacques replied with a flourish of his hand. “Make alliances accordingly and be on the lookout for new opportunities. And above all, do not do anything that would endanger our family’s reputation.”
“Of course.”
“Good. I will expect regular updates on your progress,” Jacques said, a hint of smugness to his smile. “Anyway, I’m off on business for the next few days so we should say our goodbyes now.”
“Did something happen?”
“No, just a few supply issues on the other continents, nothing major.”
~~~
Somewhere in the northern reaches of Forever Fall...
Blake removed the snarling chimera helmet and shook her hair out, happy to be free of its confines. The helmets were the latest tech, fully connected communications-wise and while hiding everything about the wearer’s face and head, but she would be the first to admit they were a tad stuffy at times.
“Glad we were able to pull off one last mission together,” Ilia said as she too removed her helmet and let her long curled ponytail unfurl.
“Did they give you a new partner yet?” Blake asked, looking at Ilia across the little mobile equipment room that served the Chimera Corps during away missions.
Ilia paused. “The Council’s new law goes into effect soon, so I won’t be able to sign up again until I’m twenty anyway.”
“Yeah but I’m sure General Kuvalaya could get them to make some sort of exception—”
“I’m gonna take a break for a while,” Ilia stated, before Blake could say anything more. “Work on myself, see what else I might be good at other than fighting.” She stared down at her own horned chimera mask for a few moments. “I think I have a right to that, especially now.”
Blake gave no reply, her mouth drawn into a tight line as she took off the bulky black outfit that served her during missions—high defense, equipped with smoke dischargers, and designed so that the form of the body underneath was hidden to further muddle any potential identification.
“You’re mad at me,” Ilia stated, no doubt having sensed the tension in the air.
“Just disappointed,” Blake admitted quietly. She put her helmet in its slot and started to do the same with the rest of her gear, now dressed only in the skin-tight undersuit that interfaced with the outer armor.
Ilia sighed, and Blake’s ears flattened at the sound. “Were you disappointed with Adam when he left too?”
Blake slammed her locker shut and let the question hang in the air between them, her heart pounding with rising anger; the sense of betrayal still lingered, even years later. “There are people out there who need our strength,” she began, struggling to keep her voice level at first. A few tattered pieces of that final, explosive argument with Adam tried to crawl to the front of her mind. She shoved them back. “I simply think it’s our duty to help them directly.”
“It’s harder to give aid when you’re suffering yourself,” Ilia said as she too closed her locker—quieter than Blake had, but with a bit more force than was required. “There are plenty of other agents to help the people out there. Older agents.” A pause, while Ilia took a deep breath and collected herself. “I can’t do this anymore, Blake. I’d rather come back in a better state than run myself into the ground like I have been all this time.”
The realization ran through Blake like a cold lance. “I didn’t—”
“I didn’t want to talk about it,” Ilia said quietly, cutting her off. “I neglected myself for too long after everything that happened, but now I’m going to fix that. Anyway...” She turned to Blake. “I know you don’t agree with your dad sending you to Beacon, but I think you’ll be able to make the best of it. Just give it a chance, yeah?”
“I’m sorry, Ilia.” Blake turned to face her, ears folded back in shame and her eyes downturned. “I don’t know how I missed—” She lifted her head to regard Ilia. “I shouldn’t have—”
Ilia gave her a small, if sad, smile. “It’s okay,” she said before Blake could finish. “I was ignoring it myself too, so...” Ilia trailed off. She sought the rest of the sentence in a corner of the room, failed to find it, and looked back to Blake. “I don’t know. You care so much for our people, and that’s so important, but sometimes your friends need you to listen too.” She fell silent for a few moments, then continued, “Just, keep that in mind, okay?”
“I will,” Blake replied. “I promise.”
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bioticgoddess · 3 years
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Summary: "Never said the plan wasn't complex, only that it'd work." - Nymue, a warlock, as she works on some paint touch ups to her ghost Merlin's shell.
Warlock Nymue, her Fire Team, and their friends within the Tower are several flavors of done with watching the slow and painfully awkward waltz that is Saint-14 and Osiris in a post-Sagira world. What else is there to do but hatch a plan...or several...to convince these (very) Old Men to do something other than continue on with their stumbling.
Pairings: Osiris/Saint-14 (O14) [Canon]
--
I. Outside the City, Mid-Afternoon:
She ambushed him. Dragging the senior Warlock out beyond the wall to a cliff overlook not far from the protection of the wall. It had served as an escape route for the then-lightless Guardians and civilians during the Red War. Despite being relatively unsheltered, it was- thanks to the patrol of her fire team - a safe place for now. Her ghost floated close enough that they could have rested on her shoulder. Voice filled with the smile it couldn't give, the ghost spoke, "Nymue, the others confirm, coast is clear."
"Thank you Merlin," she hadn't taken her glowing green eyes off the older Warlock. “Give Iothane and Verity my thanks.” The ghost bobbed like it was nodding at her. Iothane was a broad shoulder but bookish Awoken Titan. Their Hunter, Verity, had a penchant for getting into trouble - the kind that earned accolades and titles and an obscene amount of glimmer. Both had agreed without a second thought when the Warlock relayed her plan.
In his typically composed and regal way, the older Guardian didn’t balk beneath the younger woman’s glare. Behind the scarf that served as a facemask, he returns his own piercing glare. Golden-brown eyes locked with her own and were only visible beneath his Phoenix helm because of their height difference.
Her ghost dissolved away with the kind of groan that accompanied rolled eyes, disappearing for the time. Though they were likely gone to find Glint and Crow aboard the HELM. To warn them that one of the quiet Hunter’s favored Warlocks was going to be in a foul mood.
"I am going back to the City," Osiris snapped, breaking the tense silence that had fallen over them. He didn’t move or even pretend like he was going to. He remained rooted in place, challenging the younger Warlock to further explain herself. A challenge she’d expected.
“No, you’re going to hear what I have to say first,” she countered, arms folded over the black and violet of her robes. “Or I can get Iothane to come and set up a barrier until my persistence wears you down old man.” It wasn’t a threat, the gentle jibe at the end as glaring as the sunbeams that reflected off his helm.
Snorting he continued to glare, jaw tense. Nymue was certain that, if she squinted, she could see him grind his teeth. “Fine.”
“We’re worried about you. Saint, Zavala, Ikora, Crow, Amanda, our ghosts, all of us. Everyone whose lives you’ve touched is worried about you. None of us can even begin to imagine what you’re going through without,” she caught the narrowing of his gaze and the straightening of his shoulders before Sagira’s name left her lips but said it anyway. “Sagira. She was a part of you and there with you in a way that maybe Crow and Glint comprehend. But...you also broke every rule of temporal mechanics that I can think of in order to save Saint. I didn’t get to see you two together before losing her but...the way Verity describes it...well, she is fond of saying that she wants a partner who looks at her the way you and Saint looked at each other when no one was watching. Or at least when you thought no one would see.”
He swallowed and hung his head. Nymue persisted. “It’s not going to be easy, but...you can’t shut everyone out. It’s only going to hurt more in the long term. At least...don’t shut out Saint. No one can deny what and how deeply you feel for one another.”
The silence returned with the sun’s continued trek towards the horizon.
The Great Osiris stared down at his feet, presumably mulling over how to respond and if making good on his threat to storm off back to the Tower was the right plan all along. There was nothing she could do to stop him, not really, and the both knew it. Yet he stayed there, the focus of the younger Warlocks’ gaze while he (hopefully) thought further on what he could or would say and where to even begin.
Raptors called in the distance, hunting some rodent or warning other birds to stay out of their territory. He’d been doing that for months - posture and snapping at some of the other guardians in the tower. The Old Man’s way of pushing back those closest to him, keeping them away. Nymue had had enough after overhearing the conversation between Saint-14 and Osiris about the corruption that had seeped into the Trials. Sure, Saint had insisted that it wasn’t anything to be worried about but the way the Exo had shifted on his feet told another story. He was more upset, more concerned, than he dared share - with any of them.
Voice heavy and shaky enough that it sounded like he was crying or was about to cry, “I’m going to die Nymue. One day, I will die a final death and leave him alone. There is no Ghost in all the system who can bring me back when that day comes.” He toed the ground with his boot, “Saint is my everything. The only person who understood me half so well was Sagira. She kept me from despair during my exile and again when I did not think he could be saved and now…” He trailed off, hands floating up to hide his shaded face.
“Osiris,” this time the younger Awoken’s voice was gentle, “Talk to him. You know Saint better than any of us.” She rested a hand on one of his forearms, careful not to get caught in any of the wires on his gauntlets. “Let him be there for you. The both of you deserve the chance, no matter what the end may be.”
Head and eyes tilted up to her face. “When did you become so wise,” Osiris wondered. His brows relaxed and eyes, through red with tears that threatened to spill forth, no longer contained the storm that had been brewing for the last several months. It even looked as though he might have let a smile cross part way over his features behind that scarf of his.
“I had a good teacher.”
---
II. The Hangar Bay
He’d nodded. He’d agreed to be less closed off. Every time he looked in the hanger and saw Saint, however, his throat closed and heart hammered in his chest. It threatened to break free of his breast bone and ribs. How had Nymue convinced him to unburden himself out in the wilds? How? What damn fool sorcerery did the girl know that he’d missed in all his centuries!? Oh but she’d been right, damn her. He needed to talk to Saint, he owed him that much and more. No matter how long he had, he needed the Titan in his life. He always had. Then he caught his gaze, cheeks turning a deeper shade of brownish-red when his husband looked up in his general direction. Not for the last time was he thankful for the cover of his scarf.
Like a child caught in Ikora’s severe gaze, he gave a stiff about face and marched off back towards the market and his now Vanguard former pupil.
--
“Third time today; you owe me glimmer,” Verity grumbled from her perch atop her drop ship, watching Osiris scurry away regally. If he’d had a Hunter’s cloak to billow behind him it could have been comical. Instead his retreats bordered on depressing.
Turning her head up and to the left to see her team-leader, legs stretched out along the wing of the drop ship, the warlock grinned wryly, “Not yet. Crow and I have a plan.” Her Awoken skin sparkled with her air of confidence.
“You need to take your own advice when it comes to him,” the hunter rolled her eyes.
Iothane chuckled, raking a hand through his short cropped navy-blue hair, “She’s got a point. Talk to him.” The Titan was laid out on a work lift beneath the same wing serving as their Warlock’s chaise, fidgeting with a wiring harness.
Snorting and rolling her eyes, she glared, “First, shut up both of you. Second, I’ll think about it, after we fix this.” She waved her hand between where they could see Saint-14 and where Osiris had been.
Their ghosts floated overhead, looking between one another, shifting in what resembled shaking heads.
--
Crow and Nymue leaned conspiratorially against Amanda Holliday’s work station in the Hangar. The Hunter occasionally looked over his Warlock companion’s shoulder to see if Saint-14 had moved or if Osiris had returned to the Hanger Bay. “You sure this will work,” he asked the blonde shipwright.
She shook a hand dismissively, not looking up from the interface, “I don’t tell you how to fight, you don’t tell me how to reprogram the Transmat System. Alright?” Her tone was slightly indignant, offended even.
“Yes ma’am,” he stammered, elbowing Nymue when she laughed behind her hands.
After a few minutes of tapping and swiping her fingers across the screen, Amanda warned, “You two don’t want to be anywhere near the City when they get out of there y’know.”
“Got that covered,” the Warlock grinned. “We will be running a recon mission on Nessus with my Fire Team.” Crow nodded, straightening as he kept a vigil watch out for the two senior Guardians.
“And you’re sure Ikora and Zavala are okay with this,” the woman turned finally, rolling her shoulders several times to stretch back out from her stooped position over the console. A confirmation request screen glaring up at her, the work her co-conspirators had tasked her to complete not yet finished.
The Awoken woman rattled, hands waving as she recounted her last interaction with the Vanguard Warlock. “Zavala? No clue. Ikora, well, she said something about turning a blind eye before winking at me, which was weird, and going off to her Library with both Ophiucus and Geppetto.”
“Well, alright then,” Amanda chuckled, her attention returning to the screen. With a few final taps of the console, she finished her work. “We’re good to go. Good luck.”
--
III. The Tower Library: A Private Study
Saint-14 Pushed on the door again. It wouldn’t budge. His ghost Geppetto was nowhere to be found, he’d called for her several times in the hope that she could help them - Osiris and himself - find their way out of the room. To maybe go fetch Zavala or Ikora or anyone of the others and see if they could open it from the other side.
“It’s no use Saint, this room is like Ikora’s library - only one way in or out. Transmat,” Osiris sat with a huff in one of the plush chairs.
“Yes, Yes, but then surely we should be able to Transmat out of here,” the Titan countered. Then the it hit him, like an arc-grenade to the face, that was the problem. They couldn’t Transmat. “Oh no,” he whispered softly, raising one of his big hands to his face. Someone had set a trap and the two of them had walked right into it. He let silence fill the room, occasionally punctuated by a pensive huff or hum coming from his husband’s seat next to the tall skinny window - their primary source of light. It was, upon further assessment as he finally turned around, too skinner for either of them to hope to squeeze through.
Feet hitting the throw-rug laden floor heavily, Saint strode from the sealed mockery of a door to the chair opposite Osiris. Pulling off his helmet as he sat, the Exo asked, “So how were you lured into this trap?”
“Nymue,” The man groaned, his own helm perched like a bird on a stack of books to his left. Saint’s came to rest on the sad little window sill, half balanced on the table between them. “There was some text she and her Ghost were having difficulty with. One day,” he shook his head and sighed, “I’ll learn just how crafty my students can be.” It was applicable to Ikora as well, and every other warlock or Guardian he had mentored over the years.
“Her Titan friend Iothane,” he chuckled, recalling how the stocky Awoken man had come to him earlier in the day with a research request of great importance, or he speculated as such, to the City’s Titan. One that could only be filled by Saint, or so the younger Guardian had said before taking off at what was - in hindsight - a suspiciously brisk pace. How gullible he’d been, letting himself be pulled into such an obvious trap. “The boy has a silver tongue, convincing enough that I believed there to be something of great importance to Titans here.” He snorted.
Osiris laughed. It was a light laugh, not as sharp and dark as it had been of late. “I’m having a hard time picturing that,” he shook his head, “That boy is clever but he is not, as you said, silver-tongued.”
“He must have practiced then,” he was stroking his chin in thought, keeping his eyes on Osiris who sat at an angle that kept them from looking at one another. Some of the lines that had developed over the last many months were fading, thinning. He’d been furrowing his brow less and he seemed, from the other Old Man’s voice, that he wasn’t clenching his jaw so much. “Ay, not that it matters. We are still stuck here, the two of us.” Tentatively, his left hand slid across the table top, closing enough distance that if Osiris put his hand on the table they could meet half-way.
Nodding, his husband added, “Yes, I suspect we have to bide ourtime before the “children” are content to let us out.”
“You don’t think they did this on purpose do you?”
“Absolutely. Nymue ambushed me the -,” he stopped, voice knotting in his throat and body going rigid. Saint had felt the change in him before the Warlock’s shoulders squared and he knotted his hands in his lap.
To hell with this. If they were stuck in here then he was going to make the best of it.
The Titan stood, pivoting around the table so he could stand before Osiris. His shadow loomed over him, even without the cut of his helmet’s fin, he could be more imposing than Shaxx, Zavala, and Saladin combined. Despite his kindness, Saint-14 had earned a reputation on the battlefield. Shaxx’s nervousness over a decades old glint-debt hadn’t been without cause. His hands came to rest on the feathered pauldrons of the Warlock. “I should have been there,” voice soft, “Perhaps Sagira would still be with us.”
“It’s not your fault,” he repeated the well-worn refrain, “If you had been there it was just as likely we would have lost them both,” he spoke of Geppetto. Swallowing he shifted anxiously, pulling down the scarf so his closely shaven silver-white beard was visible. Brown eyes flitting up to meet Saint’s luminescent ones, “I told you, I am not willing to let time take you again.”
Giving a shrug of a nod he continued, “Very well, but you do not need to be an island my love. Is that not what you said to me once?” His head tilted to the left as he studied the other man’s face, making one of a hundred-thousand mental imprints of him. The sag of his face as grief that had been left to marinate pulled his lips into a sharp frown and attempted to drag his whole head so that he wasn’t able to meet the Exo’s intense gaze.
Still rigid, Osis nodded. The tightness of his body found its way into his voice, “But what if I do? What if I already am?”
“Then I will be the sea that surrounds and defends you and you will not be alone,” the Titan countered. Brows raised as he shook his head with a loving smile. In the time before Sagira’s loss, it would have made him laugh and earned the Titan a kiss from his husband. The kind that would have had both their Ghosts teasing them in the way that only they could. This time, all he caught was the briefest smile. It quickly disappeared and, voice sad but still kind, he implored, “Osiris, please, look at me.”
The Warlock slowly tilted his head up so his eyes were no longer locked on Saint-14’s chest. As if the movement had been his cue, the Exo’s palms skated across his shoulders and up his neck until they cupped Osiris’ cheeks and lower jaw. “You are not alone. How many times must I remind you of that? Or that I will always support you hmm? No matter how much time we have, you taught me that my Phoenix. And together, there is no obstacle we cannot overcome.”
Voice cracking, the tears he’d held back finally spilling over, Osiris asked, “Even when time takes it’s payment and I…”
“Especially then,” Saint was kneeling now, no matter what anyone ever said he was graceful when he wanted to be. Wedging himself between his husband’s knees so their foreheads could rest against one another he continued, “You will not lose me to time and I will not let you seal yourself away for grief. Sagira would never forgive us.” His nose bumped Osiris’ affectionately. “Besides, we should take advantage of what time is given to us.” He smiled broadly when the other guardians’ hands came to rest over the backs of his own.
The tears trailed down Osiris’ cheeks. His smile shaking as he spoke, “Then we do that. I will endeavor to be as strong a support to you as you have always been to me.”
“You do that every day,” Saint pressed a kiss to his nose, “We do this together then, hmm?”
“Together, habibi.”
17 notes · View notes
baby-grayson · 4 years
Text
Kind Stranger| GBD
Word Count: 2.8k (teeny tiny) Trigger Warning: quarantine talk A/N: This is my first fic post ever! Please let me know what you think about this little teaser. Please please give me feedback about if I should keep going or if I can improve at all!!
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The saltwater hit his tongue sharply. His body fell alongside his board in the water. While his feet met the ground again, he quickly scooped up the wayward board before it floated too far away. Arriving back on the shore, he dug the bottom of the board into the heavy, wet sand. He sat next to it, the tide kissing his feet and bare legs as it danced along the shore. He took a deep breath. He was at peace.
Grayson Dolan didn’t feel peace often: at least, not lately. The past two years had been one chaotic haze after another. Moving into a house in LA. Being on Fear Factor. Having his first stalker. Being there to watch his father pass. Starting a fragrance company. Erupting into a workaholic pattern of self-destruction to avoid dealing with the emotions of his father’s death. Announcing to his over 10million fans that he and Ethan had reached their last emotional string and needed to pursue a life that was happiest for them, including projects that pushed them as creators.
The creative projects were as scary and dizzying as they were exciting. He and Ethan traveled across the country in a custom van. They explored the Australian wilderness. They started a podcast with their friend, Ryan, to introduce the real, mature versions of themselves to the internet. Grayson had a small black notebook in his bottom left desk drawer with project ideas and timelines for the year.
But that notebook became pointless when the pandemic hit. He and Ethan were in the process of finding a new house after an incident with an unhealthily obsessed fan when the shelter in place orders hit. The first month was unstable; no one should have to move to a new house in the middle of a pandemic. But the craziness subsided eventually, Grayson and Ethan found a home to call their own for the first time in their lives. After living in close quarters during construction left them at each other’s throats, they found a rental in Malibu to live out the rest of their quarantine days. Periodically, the visited their mother in New Jersey.
Visiting New Jersey did not exactly follow the CDC guidelines. Grayson quelled the risk in his heart with the importance of his mother. If she wasn’t working and he and Ethan only ever saw each other, how dangerous could it really be? Besides, his mother needed him. After the death of his father, his mother was left alone in their house in rural New Jersey. She had nothing but the memories of buying the home, bringing home two twin baby boys, teaching her daughter how to ride a bike, and having tough conversations about her sons’ dreams… Yeah, she needed him. Grayson decided. Grayson still held guilt from not spending enough time with his mother after his father passed. He loved her more than anything, and in a deep place, a place so deep that he didn’t dare think on often, he would never forgive himself for not being there for her in the weeks following his father’s passing.
He thought of her often: like on this beach in Malibu. He thought of how she’d love to pull up a beach chair and enjoy a Mojito while soaking up the sun. The image almost made him chuckle. For a short second, he pictured Ethan and Cameron there with her. Cameron would pull up a beach chair next to their mother, blasting her latest musical obsession from a stereo. Ethan would try to surf, but eventually his more whimsical tendencies would give out and he’d try building the biggest sandcastle a 20-year-old man child could muster.
Grayson chuckled to himself, he buried his hands in the sand at his sides. He played with it in his palms, feeling the fine granules pass over his coarse skin. A thousand little diamonds slowly withering away at a firm and precise exterior. He was also reminded of his mother constantly telling him to exfoliate his callouses from building.
This was Grayson mid-pandemic. The mess of finding a house passed. The initial marvel of staying busy inside the house passed. Hell, even the wonder of cutting his home-grown mullet had passed. Now, he and Ethan traded turns being the more bored twin. Ethan had re-watched Stranger Things about 10 times by now. Grayson spent his days working out, following his regimented daily routine to soon reach a Planche Hold. Occasionally, one of them would reach a deeper state of boredom and go to bother the other twin. They would go to bed and rehearse the routine again the next day.
Unfortunately for Grayson, Ethan slept like the dead. His twin brother usually slept until 11:00 AM; the pandemic had pushed that to a firm 1:00PM. His brother’s sleeping beauty impression left Grayson with nearly half a day to himself. Grayson made a ritual out of going surfing. The beach was secluded enough to not require the precautionary thinking of masks and hygiene in a pandemic. It was just Grayson, his board, and the ocean. He spent his alone time thinking of the important people in his life. In some ways, this pandemic was almost a good thing for him. He spent last year moving too fast among emotions he was too immature to process on his own. This year the world forced him to move too slow in an attempt to let his mind and heart catch up to the rest of his life. His introspective moments on the sand and sea were his own to experience and process alone. Except today.
She looked down at him and smiled, “Good Morning”
His lips turned up softly, “Morning”
He watched as she walked away: a long, dark ponytail fluttering in the wind over a flowy, white sundress sundress with a small, leather purse hanging at her hip. Grayson leaned back on his palms when he noticed something. Her footprints weren’t even. In the sand, one foot was about two inches deeper than the other. He furrowed his brow, pondering it for a second before shaking his head. He dipped his hands in the water and wet his newly cropped haircut. He was seeing things, probably swallowing too much salt. He grabbed his board and headed up shore to his van.
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He wouldn’t have recognized her without the hair. The next day, he was paddling back to shore on his board when she walked by. He could make out her long, dark hair against the pale, sandy background. He squinted: not being able to tell if she was looking back at him. He smiled brightly and outwardly, just in case she could see him. His smile faded in a few seconds. what am I doing? He thought before padding back to shore to make his usually introspective campsite.
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The third day, he was firmly in deep thought about his next tattoo when she walked by. They made eye contact as they flashed each other warm, but polite, smiles. “Good Morning” “Good Morning”.
This secluded little beach not his own anymore. He shared it with a kind stranger. She was a silent reminder that the world continued to turn outside of his fast-paced, modern, social media based lifestyle. Okay he thought maybe I’m being a bit deep …but it’s nice to have someone else around I guess.  
Their routine played for two weeks. She would walk by Grayson, either as he was coming to land again or paddling his way back to shore. They exchanged greetings and smiles as they passed. By the time she turned around and walked back to her car again, Grayson was gone.  Sometimes she saw the imprint of him in the sand when he was gone and thought about him when he wasn’t there. For a few minutes, she would muse to herself about his name. Sterling? No too Disney. Lance? No too King Arthur. William? No too Royal Family.
Occasionally, Grayson would think back to her outside of his beach visits. Maybe he passed a girl with long, dark hair in the grocery store, or maybe he saw someone about her size on the other side of a parking lot, he would catch his breath quickly before realizing it wasn’t her. What would I even say? Are we friends? She probably doesn’t remember what I look like. Why do I care? That last one got him.
Why did he care? Sure, he thought, she was pretty. She seemed nice, well okay her Good Mornings sound nice…nicest he’d heard in a while considering the only other person who wished him a good morning was Ethan. Maybe that was just it, he was spending too much time by himself or with Ethan. Ethan and Grayson had been quarantined together for almost four months now. The only other people he had seen was his mother, sister, and friend Ryan. When you only speak to 4 other people face to face for four months, the girl on the beach was a contender for one of his closest friends. The thought settled well in his brain, rationalizing his anxieties about seeing her in public.
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About two weeks later, on a Tuesday morning, the sky was grey as the sun hid behind the clouds; the ocean water was unusually murky with dense foam. Grayson’s head must have been in the grey clouds because his usual surfing excursion left him tumbling around in the water more than usual. He started back for the shore earlier than usual, sensing that today was simply not his day. When the water reached his chest, Grayson started to walk upright in the water while dragging his board behind him. Not a few seconds later, he felt a sharp pain stab the outer edge of his left foot. “FUCK”, he swore out loud and gasped. The saltwater heightened the pain as he continued to trudge through the water.
He arrived on shore and noticed a jagged, long cut along the side of his right foot. The saltwater washed away the blood seeping through the wound: all that was left was a deep, slender slice taken out of the side of his foot. He tossed his board down, not bothering to dig it into the sand. He sat on the waters edge, trying to wash the sand out of the wound but wincing when the salt returned with its pointed sting. He groaned softly to himself.
I can’t walk back to the car like this, he thought to himself.
He threw his head back, frustrated with the situation. Frustrated with how he might have scratched his board on a rock from tossing it down. Frustrated from the deep wound spewing blood from his foot. Frustrated with his loneliness. Frustrated with the pandemic. Frustrated with his career. It all lead him here: sitting on a beach, more than half naked, with a bloody foot and a bruised ego. He sighed out loud and ran his fingers through his hair.
“Are you okay?”
Grayson nearly jumped, not because she was mean or aggressive but because he was having his internal meltdown under the impression that he was alone. He forgot about his little beach friend. Her brow furrowed softly, oh shit I should say something. 
“Yeah, I uhh I just got cut up is all” Grayson waived his injured foot softly from where it lay.
She hesitated for a second, neither of them was wearing a mask. Surely Dr. Fauci would approve of her helping a lone stranger who was in pain. She ignored the premonition, figuring that she wouldn’t be seeing anyone else soon anyway but remembering to put a mask in her purse for any future first aid incidents.
“Do you need a hand?” Her eyes were kind and caring, a deep brown that looked nearly gold in the grey light of that Tuesday morning. Grayson found himself looking at her, really looking at her for the first time since they started sharing the beach. She did not notice Grayson’s awkward gawk getting the best of him. She bent her head down, her eyes leaving Grayson’s gaze to search her purse for something. Grayson realized how small she was, probably only 5 feet tall and slender framed underneath her T-shirt and shorts. She unearthed a small, white package from within her purse. “Bandaid?” she offered, holding it out to him.
“Yeah that’d be great,” Grayson nodded softly and took the package from her. He looked from the white box to his cut and his muscles tensed up, unsure of where to start. He looked up at her, his brown eyes wide with uncertainty. She smiled softly at him, reassuring that frustrated place in his heart slightly. “Want some help?”, she was already kneeling down before he could start nodding.
Grayson slipped the white bandage box into her small palm as she started wiping away the larger pieces of sand around the cut. “You think it could get infected?” he asked, “By something in the water?”
She laid a piece of gauze over his cut as she shook her head. “No, the salt in the water would act as an electrolyte to dehydrate the phospholipid bilayer of any aquatic bacteria before it even got in.” He felt his eyebrows raise. She wrapped his foot in a larger bandage before adding, “uh I mean… it’s salt water, so you’ll be fine…..how did you do this anyway?”
“I must’ve stepped on a rock coming out of the water,” Grayson coolly forgot to mention his earlier debacle of looking like a Saint Bernard on a surfboard.
“If a big guy like you can get taken down by a rock, I have no chance in this world,” she remarked while standing up and putting the box back in her purse.  Grayson laughed out loud with a wide smile. Her joke wasn’t even that funny, but it had been so long since he heard someone make a joke besides Ethan.
She smiled down at him, “I like the band” she gestured toward the solid black tattoo on his right ankle. “I think I would go with an anklet though,” she added with a soft confidence.”
Grayson tried to stand on the freshly bandage foot, “True but this way I’ll never lose it in the ocean.”
It was her turn to laugh, she flashed a bright smile at him and let out a happy sound. Her laugh died down as Grayson stood up tall: a tanned, muscular Adonis standing before her. “Well um..I’m glad to see you’re doing okay,” she started to step away from him, “See you later.” She smiled before turning away.
“See you later,” Grayson waved goodbye as she turned her back and continued her walk. He stopped himself, why was a grown man waving goodbye in public like a kindergartener at school? He let his hand fall to his side before picking up his board and walking back to his van. He looked down at his foot, I guess Ethan is taking out the trash tonight..and making me dinner. 
On the other side of the beach, she drew in a breath and cursed to herself, shit..I didn’t get his name..
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Grayson returned to the beach the next morning without his board. He decided that getting his bandaged (freshly done and kissed with love by Ethan) foot was too much of a risk. Also, he feared cutting up his good foot with a matching gash. He couldn’t depend on pretty girls with nice eyes to always be there with bandaids.  Instead, he sat down on the sand, letting the water run over his right foot and leg. He held his injured leg in his bicep, folding his knee up to meet his chest. With his free arm, he tried to skip stones in the water from his position on the ground.
He tried his best to enjoy his introspective morning with the ocean, even though he wasn’t in the water.
“I almost didn’t recognize you without your board” she looked down at him from under the visor of a black baseball hat.
He chucked, “Boards don’t pair well with bandaged feet.” He smiled up at her, “Thank you, by the way, for yesterday. I really appreciate it… You didn’t have to do that.”
“It’s no problem….just being a kind stranger,” outwardly, she smiled gently but inwardly she cringed at the awkwardness of her own words. Grayson smiled gently back at her, she can’t have been too awkward if he’s still looking at her right?
“My names Kate”
“I’m Grayson”   A/N: THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING! This is the first thing I am ever posting and would really appreciate any feedback you have about whether or not I should keep going. <3 
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lizzie-boo · 3 years
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Trade Me No Lies I’ve Heard Before
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Sirius Black x Reader 
Requested: Nope 🙃
Words: 1,811
A/N: The title is based on lyrics from a song that I’ve been wanting to base a story on for a long time. If you can tell me what song it’s from I will literally be your best friend. Also do not worry more ships will be posted this weekend I’m just trying to get back in the grove of writing actual stuff. 
Warnings: None
Summary: After finding out that your boyfriend was cheating on you Sirius becomes your rock. The person who is always there for you when you’re feeling down, even if you refuse to admit it. So how will you deal with the developing feelings towards your support system? 
“He cheated on me,” you scream as you make your way into the Gryffindor common room. The portrait slamming shut behind you as you stomp through the opening.
Lily is the first off the couch to wrap you in a tight hug while everyone else watches, unable to process your words. The tears that had been held at bay due to the anger you felt finally come pouring down. At the sound of your sobs, Lily pulls back, wipes away your tears, and drags you over to the couch.
You take a seat between her and Sirius instinctively curling into Lily’s side to hide your tearstained face. She wraps an arm around your shoulder while shooting a glare at everyone else in the room. A very clear sign to watch what they say or to face her wrath. If there was one thing that Lily was it was protective of her friends, especially you.
Unlike everyone else in the common room you had met Lily long before you started attending Hogwarts. She was your closest friend, practically a sister. Knowing how upset Lily had been when Petunia disowned her you made sure that you were as much of a sister as possible. This is why Lily made it her mission to protect you and treat you just like she wished she could treat her own sister.
“What happened?” Sirius asks while placing a gentle hand on your shoulder.
You flinch at the touch but pull away from Lily just enough to speak, “I caught him snogging some Hufflepuff from the year below us.”
“Want me to fight him for you?” James asks, a fire burning in his eyes.
At his words, you finally turn to meet the gaze of the rest of your friends. Each of their faces painted with a variety of emotions ranging from anger to sadness, as if seeing you so emotional had upset them as well. Locking eyes with Remus you watch as he offers you a piece of chocolate. The gesture instantly warms your heart and you finally manage a small smile.
“No, it’s my fault I should have seen it coming,” you complain while taking the chocolate from Remus’ outstretched hand.
“There was no way to know he would’ve done that love, he seemed to fancy you so much,” Marlene reassures while squishing into the spot between you and Sirius.
“I should’ve known I thought he was acting weird and he fed me some bullshit lies about being busy with schoolwork and I believed him.” The words that drip from your mouth are laced with anger and it’s all it takes for Marlene to pull you into a hug.
“This can be a learning experience babe, if the next guy gives you some standard excuse you will know he’s a liar and to drop him before he gets the chance to break your heart.” Lily’s words were met with agreement from the rest of the group. In some sort of messed up way, it did make you feel better knowing that now you knew the warning signs of a cheating boyfriend and that maybe next time you wouldn’t be so blind to what was happening.
Over the next few weeks, you seemed to run into your cheating, lying, ex-boyfriend no matter where you went. Most of the time he was too busy locking lips with his Hufflepuff girlfriend to notice you passing by. However, Sirius seemed to always be by your side, there to catch you when your heart started to break all over again.
It wasn’t that you missed the git, it was that after everything he’d gone and left you feeling like you weren’t enough. All he’d left you with was the insecurities and doubts about if you were able to be loved and if you were good enough to land a boyfriend and keep him around this time.
Each time you caught a glimpse of him and the Hufflepuff girl it sunk in more that he truly did love her. The way he looked into her eyes was something you’d never been able to experience and you knew that their relationship wouldn’t endure the same fate. This only helped to worsen the insecurities chipping away at your confidence.
Day after day it got harder to believe that you were capable of being loved by another human in a romantic fashion. Yet, as these emotions ate away at you never once did you dare to tell Lily or Marlene. They had their own lives to deal with and the last thing you wanted to do was burden them with your issues and at the end of the day they wouldn’t be able to solve them, so what was the point.
Heading back towards the Gryffindor common room after dinner one night you trailed behind your friends. Unfortunately for you, the one couple in all of Hogwarts that you wanted to avoid happened to be snogging in the middle of the hallway. The same hallway you and your friends needed to traipse through to make it back to the common room.
Everyone passed them with ease as if not noticing it was the boy that had once broken your heart. Everyone but Sirius that is. Noticing the couple he falls back in step with you. The way your shoulders tense doesn’t go unnoticed by him and he takes your hand in his slightly larger one. A reassuring squeeze and a slight smile are all he gives but it helps to ease your shoulders at once.
While it might have felt like you were going through this alone he was always there for you when you needed it even when you never asked for it. The odd moments when you needed someone the most he was there by your side and it made you feel whole again. As if he was showing you that you always had someone on your side. Someone that would be there for you no matter what.
Soon enough you’d made it back to the common room and had perched yourself on the arm of the couch laughing at something James had said in an attempt to impress Lily. The events from just minutes ago are forgotten as you let the warmth of the fire and love from your friends wash over you.
You bent over clutching your stomach from laughter as the conversation grew weirder and louder the later it got. Leaning too far forward you felt yourself start to tip off the edge of the couch, only to be stopped by a long arm. Turning you caught the gaze of Sirius who gave you a smirk before pulling his arm back. Returning to his conversation with Remus you stared at him breathless wondering why all of the sudden your veins seemed to tingle.
You didn’t allow yourself to dwell on the reason behind the foreign sensation for too long. Yet, over the next few days, you noticed the newfangled feeling cropping up more often. Most notably whenever Sirius reached for your hand in the hallway. He may have made it into a friendly gesture but it was starting to confuse you. Making you wonder if there was a chance at something more between you if all the light touches were truly an indication of deeper feelings.
You spent countless nights contemplating what it could mean and wondering if he truly did long for something more to occur between you. Long nights thinking turned into sleep-deprived classes and drifting too far in thought when you were to be listening.
Sirius wasn’t blind, he saw the shift in your behavior and was growing concerned. You spent more time zoning out than taking notes in class, something completely unlike yourself. Which is why he decided that night he would confront you about why you weren’t getting enough sleep and what was so important that you weren’t paying attention to your lessons.
“I need to speak with you,” he whispered before his hand gently grasped your wrist. The same faraway look clouding your eyes as he maneuvered you towards the edge of the common room away from prying eyes.
“What’s wrong?” you ask looking into his concerned eyes.
“I should be the one asking that question darling.”
“What? There’s nothing wrong,” you protest as he finally moves to drop your wrist.
“I can tell that you haven’t been sleeping, please tell me what’s wrong. I want to be there for you,’ He pleads.
You huff unsure if you want to continue this conversation. “That right there is the problem.”
“Me trying to be nice to you is a problem?” he exclaims while running a hand through his hair.
“No, I love that you want to help me it’s just the little touches and the way you look at me, ugh I can’t even explain it.” You shove your hands into the pockets of your robe trying to figure out the right words.
“The way I look at you? What’s wrong with the way I look at you?”
“Nothing, everything, ugh I just don’t know. It makes my stomach do flips and I don’t like when it does that.”
It takes him a moment to process your words but when he does a grin spreads across his face. As if he is privy to a secret that the rest of the world has yet to learn.
“It sounds like you have a crush on me love,” he teases while reaching out to cup your cheek.
“As if, especially after my last lying cheating dick of a boyfriend,” you scoff trying to deny what you had already figured out for yourself.
“Well, darling would it help if I promise not to tell you any lies you’ve heard before. I’ll spice it up, keep you on your toes,” he jests.
“Shove off Black.” You push his hand away from your face not wanting to let the warmth seep into your bones more than it already had.
“I’m only joking, I would never lie to you, I like you too much for that.” His confession leaves you speechless. As if all the air had suddenly vanished from your body.
Eyes wide, you stare at him in shock, unsure if you had heard him correctly. His hand lands on your waist and he takes a hesitant step forward as if to ask for your permission to proceed. The next thing you know you’re leaning in and connecting your lips in a slow but passionate kiss.
Pulling away just far enough to lean your forehead against his you whisper, “Much better than the last bloke.”
He lets out a chuckle before pulling you back into him and for once you feel as if nothing could ever hurt you again. As if for the first time in a long time you weren’t overthinking your love life but instead living it.
Tip Jar <--- Only if you want to. 
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kookiebunnii · 4 years
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duty to the kingdom || choi youngjae
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→ summary: one of the things you hated the most was being looked down upon. unfortunately, as a princess, there were plenty of times where one of the royals would treat you as if you hadn’t a thought in that pretty head of yours. you absolutely despised it. imagine your outrage then, when the king picks your betrothed for you one fateful day. even if you rarely defy the king’s orders, this felt like a personal challenge to your independence and free choice. as you fight against your arranged marriage to prince youngjae, you eventually begin to wonder if your hardheadedness and anger are misplaced.  
→ pairing: prince!youngjae x princess!reader
→ genre: arranged marriage au, lots of self-reflection and fluff
→ word count: 5.4k
→ warnings: n/a
→ a/n: proud to make my 100th post about youngjae. slightly late birthday fic, but i hope y’all will continue to give him the love he deserves!
✧✧✧✧✧
The royal court is nothing if not prone to gossip. Every day, you’re forced to be in attendance despite every fiber of your being aching to be in bed instead with a good book. Not only would it be far more interesting, but you also wouldn’t have to worry so much about sitting prim and proper in front of the kingdom’s gaggle of royals.
Appearances were everything here.
Sitting beside the king, you chance a glance at him as you give up on following the topic of the current conversation. It feels like it is only yesterday that your father had laughed and played with you in the castle’s rose garden, your mother smiling through the windows as she watched the two of you. But now, his hair is streaked with grey and his face aged with wrinkles. You couldn’t remember the last time you heard his booming laugh; a rarity ever since the queen passed.
“Y/N, there is an important matter I must speak to you about.”
Not expecting him to address you like this, you hurriedly bow your head in acceptance. A soft ‘yes father’ escapes your parted lips, hoping that it does not catch the attention of any court ladies in the vicinity. They were like a fish to water with rumors, so you learned your lesson at an early age not to ever trust them with important issues.
The remainder of the discussion ends on a rather promising note, as the king gathers a lot of promising intel on his supporters’ current situations and his neighboring kingdom’s allegiances. Enduring the mindless chatter of the royal court was most definitely a chore, but it is also essential in maintaining power. The one with the most knowledge will always be one step ahead.
You rise alongside your father, watching as the owners of estates across your kingdom bow in reverence. Even if they were doing this out of fear for your father, and not you, the action motivates you to wield the same authority someday. When you are this kingdom’s ruler, you will not tolerate anything less that what your father achieves.
Following the king out of the throne room, you dismiss a servant as she rushes to follow after you. As she leaves after giving you a deep bow, you begin to feel the tingle of anticipation against your spine. You rarely held private conversations with your father, given how busy he has been managing his duties. The crops did not grow as well as anticipated this year and there have been plenty of potential threats against the kingdom, so to say he had his plate full would be an understatement.
He leads you into his study, and you take some time to briefly examine the bookshelves surrounding the room. Each row is neatly organized based on subject matter, from battle tactics to formal letter writing. There used to be an entire bookcase dedicated to children’s stories when you were young, since you loved hearing your father read to you before bed. You wonder momentarily where those books are now.
Breaking out of your stupor, you notice the king standing with his back facing to you as he observes the palace grounds from the large windows behind his desk. Closing the door behind you with a soft locking sound, you walk forward to stand beside him. The soldiers are making their rounds, following neatly divided paths leading to various areas of the palace. Their march is methodical and focused, and the rhythm is hypnotizing.
“How have you been faring?” the king finally asks, regarding you with his usual gaze.
“Well enough. The tutor has been doing great. He says I am improving very fast,” you note, pulling your eyes away from the window to meet your father’s.
“That is good to hear,” he says before adding, “You will make a great queen.”
The king’s praise is hard to come by, especially as he has grown more demanding of you as time passes. With each year, he expects you to become more informed about your role as a member of the royal family and more mature about your decision-making for the kingdom’s future. You do your best to hide your satisfaction, but it is difficult.
“Thank you, father.”
He makes a noise of affirmation before looking out the window again. You cannot pinpoint exactly what he is observing, so perhaps he is simply seeing something in his mind’s eye. The sigh that follows worries you, wondering if the news he wanted to speak to you about was actually a bad one.
“With every great ruler, is a great partner,” he states simply, and from his melancholy tone you sensed his continued sadness regarding your mother’s early death.
Your heart sinking to the pit of your stomach, you fold your hands and nod.
“I’m sure you are aware of our talks with the closest kingdom to our North. Alongside our treaty agreements to share grain stores and defend each other in the case of invasion, we have also discussed formally uniting outside of a contract.”
The puzzle pieces were slowly snapping together in your head, and the dismay traps itself within your vocal cords. You are afraid to speak, afraid that if you voiced your concerns, it meant that your father had truly used you as a bargaining chip.
“Prince Youngjae will make a good king. I’m sure the two of you will bring about a second Golden Age for our people.”
When you finally say something, the deathly monotonous sound of your words sounds like that of a stranger’s. Amid your disappointment in your father, you have become a stranger to yourself.
“No. I object to this union,” you grit, nails biting into your palm as you struggle to maintain the little power you thought you had. Yelling and crying would just expose your weakness and lose what credibility you had.
“It is not a suggestion, Y/N,” if it were possible for the king to look even more weary than he did earlier, than it surely accurately describes his current state.
“Father you cannot seriously hand me over to a complete stranger. A man I do not know, do not love.”
His silence just angers you further, as you begin to feel increasingly alone. Not only will you never be able to confide in your mother again, but now you have lost your worth to your remaining parent. If he truly wanted what’s best for you, he would not have added you to a bargain like a prized cattle for sale.
“I have done nothing but obey you, your majesty. Do not confine me to a future of unhappiness,” you warn, hoping that your anger masks the fear and hurt you feel at this development.
Instead, the man you once affectionately called father simply barks, “It is a command. The marriage will be held a month from now. I suggest you correct your attitude before then.”
You allow yourself to let the first tear fall when he finally leaves the room, leaving nothing but a swish of his robes and the loud slam of large oak doors.
✧✧✧✧✧
“You’ll sooner see me die than marry that man.”
To your servant’s credit, she does not acknowledge your angry words. Instead, she continues to help you get dressed for the day. While you continue to criticize the king for doing this to you, yourself for being too weak to defend your autonomy, and eventually your betrothed for even daring to be involved, she finally speaks.
“Your highness, you do not know if Prince Youngjae deserves the way you speak of him.”
You hesitate, acknowledging that she did bring up a good point. Arranged marriages in and of themselves are horrendous affairs in your mind, the lack of free will causing you to complete turn your nose up on the idea. The prince could be a decent individual, but he could also be a gruff man with zero awareness of your feelings. If he is anything like the dukes your father entertains daily, you would sooner escape for a life of exile than stay as a sitting duck.
“Perhaps not. But Luce, I’m being commanded to marry a man I’ve never met. Is that not, in and of itself, an injustice?” you inquire, watching as she gets on her knees to smooth out the remaining wrinkles at the hem of your dress.
When she finally stands, dusting off her apron as she does so, she gives you a small curtsy before replying, “Pardon me for my honesty, but there are far worse things in life. Perhaps for a royal, the loss of the ability to choose and make decisions for oneself is a terrible punishment. However, I advise you give the boy a chance. It is in your best interest to make this work.”
“Luce, we’ve grown up together. You’ve been my personal servant since we were both 13. You know that I cannot allow decisions affecting my future to be made for me. I have spent hours studying, confined to books when others play outside on sunny days. Am I not allowed to think for myself for a change, instead of the kingdom?” you want your closest friend to agree with you, if only to reassure you that you had a right to be outraged.
“Born to two of the king’s servants, my purpose is to serve the royal family until I die. Born to Utopia’s king and queen, your purpose is to serve Utopia’s people until your last breath,” Luce finally gives you a small smile as she pins the last gold leaf into your hair, “You will do the right thing. I know it.”
Brushing the wetness appearing in your eyes, she chastises you softly for ruining the makeup she used to try and get rid of the puffiness from yesterday’s bout of crying. You swallow thickly, thanking her for preparing you for the morning before getting ready to meet the king’s entourage for breakfast. When the door to your room opens, Luce returns to her demure position a few feet away from you, looking everything like the perfectly submissive servant castle etiquette instructs her to be.
Breakfast is a sordid ordeal. Stirring your porridge with distaste, you nibble on the freshly baked bread from the kitchens and think about your meeting with Prince Youngjae in a few hours. You originally considered openly refusing to go or disappearing conveniently as soon as you spot his carriage entering the castle walls, but after Luce’s words this morning, you’re forced to reconsider.
Picking apart the remainder of your honey bun, you realize that, regardless of whether this man assigned to you turns out to be decent person or not, you harbored no romantic feelings for him. Marrying him would then become nothing but an obligation, and you would be nothing but a task he completes for the sake of his kingdom. You did not want to share your bed with a stranger for the rest of your years, nor bear his children for the sake of duty. When would your royal duty end and your free will begin? It all seemed terrible.
When breakfast is finally removed and you have no choice but to meet the royals of the neighboring kingdom your father discussed yesterday, you regret eating that pastry. Even though you’d only had a few bites, the anxiety was causing you to grow nauseous.
Maybe if you threw up on the prince’s shoes, he’d cancel the engagement.
Hiding your smile behind a gloved hand, you do your best to keep up with the strong amble of the king before you. Servants bow at the two of you as you pass through the corridor, only continuing their work when they are out of your sight. These people depended on you completely for shelter, safety, and purpose. Luce’s earlier warning rings through your ears, and the heaviness of the responsibility of your birthright feels more stifling today than any other day.
When you enter the throne room, you notice that it looks shinier than it had yesterday. Perhaps for the sake of good first impressions, it was subjected to a thorough cleaning the night before. Your father returns to his seat on the throne, and you allow yourself to imagine yourself on that seat in a few years’ time. Would the throne feel heady with limitless power or cold with loneliness?
The seat you typically had next to the throne has been removed today, so you simply stand next to your father with your hands crossed over your abdomen. As soon as you’ve adjusted your skirts, the guards open the doors and you do your best to maintain the neutral expression on your features—regardless of who steps in through the entrance.
As the trio approaches the throne, they incline their heads in greeting to the king. Acknowledging Elysia’s king and queen, you return their gaze with a deep bow of your own. Pausing for a few long seconds, you finally straighten to immediately regard their son who was standing only a few paces away.
The first thing you notice, albeit with some shame, is that he is very good-looking. His locks are slightly tousled in a stylish way, and are as dark as his eyes that are openly observing you as well. A small smile graces his lips, a lightly pink contrast to the fairness of his skin. Briefly wondering how a man could look so calmly attractive, you only break your unabashed stare when your king speaks.
“Welcome to Utopia. The princess and I hope the travel was without issue,” your father says, giving your future in-laws their due respect.
“Elysia and Utopia have always been close neighbors. Visiting is no trouble to us,” Elysia’s king replies, and even through your first impressions, he seemed to be a kind yet commanding individual.
“We are honored to finally meet Princess Y/N, she is as lovely as they say,” the queen adds, and the way she openly beams reminds you too much of your own mother.
Heart stinging, you whisper, “You are too kind, your highness.”
The remainder of the discussion revolves mainly around the adults in the room, as you begin to feel like a toddler waiting for your parents to stop talking to the other adults. Doing everything you could to avoid looking at Prince Youngjae again, you could feel him taking short peeks at you, and it makes you oddly nervous. You wonder what his first impression of you could be.
As if that mattered. Your ultimate goal was to prevent yourself from being saddled to him.
When the conversation finally ends, you only let the sigh of relief escape when the royal family exits to have a tour of the palace grounds. Your father chuckles at your response, standing to rest a hand on your shoulder before asking, “Was that really so frightening?”
“My duty is cementing our treaty with Elysia. I still do not consent to marriage,” you reply, looking your father in his eyes in direct challenge.
Instead of striking fear into the old man, he simply gives you an amused smile before exiting. You are left standing alone, left behind to consider your next step.
✧✧✧✧✧
Turns out, Prince Youngjae would be staying for the next month within the castle. You wondered whether Elysia was foolishly trusting or rightfully confident in simply leaving their heir in the hands of another kingdom’s rulers. As you head to your room to retire for the night, you hesitate in front of one of the best guestrooms you had to offer. The man you were to wed was inside, miles away from the home he grew up in. You wonder if he is afraid.
Settling in your favorite chair by the fire, the pages of your newest novel feeling crisp against your fingertips, you fail to notice how quickly the night moves. You reckon it is fairly late when you finally finish, setting the book on your table. You used to play chess with your mother on this table. It is well worn with age, but you couldn’t throw anything away that held essences of your time with her.
If she were here, she’d never let this happen.
Stretching out your limbs, you rub your weary eyes and wonder if the kitchen would have leftover slices of the pumpkin pie from dinner earlier. It was extremely well-made tonight, perhaps due to the need to impress, but you only confined yourself to a single slice.
Slipping on a warm shawl, you open your bedroom door slightly to examine the hallway. Empty except for the pale moonlight slipping in from the giant windows, you tiptoe against the marble floors. Even in the middle of the night, you need not see clearly to find your way. You grew up within these walls, each nook and cranny familiar in a way that you knew them like the back of your hand.
You are only a few steps from your heavenly dessert, the creaminess of this year’s pumpkin crop on the tip of your tongue, when someone’s voice stops you in your tracks. Ducking your head around the corner, you notice an unfamiliar figure sitting within a small alcove, looking up at the stars outside the vaulted glass windows.
Draped in shadows and moonlight, he sings a bittersweet song. Even though you didn’t recognize the words, you are transfixed on the intricate melodies that are holding you in place. The singer is talented for sure, given the ease of each delivered note and the sugar hanging on his clear tone. It is like nothing you have ever experienced.
When the tune ends, you’re left with a sense of unexplainable emptiness. You have half the mind to demand an encore when the figure turns his head to acknowledge you for the first time.
“Princess, what are you doing up so late?” Youngjae asks, surprise shining in his eyes as he scrambles to his feet and gives you a bow. His slightly clumsy movements are a bit endearing, as you press your shawl to your mouth to cover the smile underneath.
“Ah, you know…just having a walk,” you grimace, wondering if he’ll judge you if you were telling him you were trying to have a second helping of dessert.
“Interesting choice,” he grins.
You wave him off, hoping he understood that he didn’t need to be so formal with you. He seems to understand your insinuation immediately, because he returns to his spot in the alcove before waving you over. You hesitate, wondering if you wanted to be caught in such a compromising way.
Screw it, you needed to figure out where he learned to sing so damned well.
Tucking your skirts underneath you, you take a look at the beautifully round full moon hanging in the sky before regarding Elysia’s prince for the second time today. If it were possible for someone to look better up close, this man would be the prime candidate. His eyes are shining with stars and kindness, and in his casually neat shirt, he is the epitome of a princely figure.
“What were you singing earlier?” you ask, fiddling with a stray thread on your shawl.
He pauses for a moment, as if wondering whether he should tell you, before he answers, “An Elysian lullaby. My mother used to sing to me as a child. This one was my favorite.”
“It’s beautiful. I don’t speak Elysian but, you sing really well—better than any performer I’ve ever heard,” you admit, hoping you weren’t putting a dent in your plans by complimenting the prince.
His singing ability had to be acknowledged, so you’ll give yourself a pass for now.
He blushes, and the way he shyly laughs is adorable. Your next breath lodges in your lungs as you try your best to stop the sudden increase in heart rate you experience. Maybe you should’ve just gotten your pie and returned to your room.
“Thank you, princess. That’ll be a source of great encouragement for me,” he says, giving you another interesting look before he returns his gaze to the night outside. You wonder if he’s homesick, and you figure that he probably is. As much as you hated having to spend the next month surrounded by the reminder of your impending marriage to a stranger, he probably had his own share of trouble. He was trapped within a foreign land, with no allies to his name. Completely and utterly alone, perhaps the least you could do was make him comfortable. Even if you didn’t love him, that didn’t mean you couldn’t at least treat him respectfully.
“Have you ever performed?” you inquire suddenly, and the suggestion seems to catch him off guard.
“No, it’s unheard of for a royal to perform. That is usually reserved for the court jesters.”
You laugh, imaging the prince in a jester’s costume and telling jokes in front of the royal crowd. It was certainly a funny thought, but you were also slightly disappointed that Prince Youngjae’s singing might never be shared beyond his intimate family. It truly is a tragedy for the world, not to hear such talent.
“Do you want anything from the kitchen? In case you haven’t had enough at dinner, I’m sure there’s plenty of leftovers,” you hint, hoping that he agrees so you can have your planned pastry.
“I’m quite alright princess, thank you.”
You try not to let the disappointment appear on your face, and even though you’re typically very good at hiding your emotions, Youngjae seems to catch on immediately. When he hums in acknowledgement, you hide your face when he asks, “Did you want something princess?”
You shake your head adamantly, “I’m quite alright as well, prince.”
A grin quickly appears on his face, as he teases you further, “Are you sure? I do remember someone finishing their slice of pumpkin pie in less than 10 seconds. Perhaps we should call one of the scribes to commemorate such a prestigious record.”
“Maybe we should call the scribe to commemorate the nosiest royal to be alive this century!” you quip, quickly clapping a hand over your mouth when you realize how disrespectfully you’ve spoken to Prince Youngjae. As you wonder how quickly the man would squeal to his parents, and realizing you could’ve completely ruined Utopia-Elysia relations, the sound of loud hearty laughter saves you from your thoughts.
You had thought someone had caught the two of you, but you quickly realize that the laughter is coming from the prince himself. He holds his stomach in laughter, mouth wide open as his eyes momentarily disappear with each laugh. You watch, completely mesmerized, as pure amusement pours from the boy. He suddenly seemed so much younger, laughing like this.
Beginning to giggle yourself, you quickly pressed your hands to his mouth when you see candlelight flickering in the hallway. Pulling him upright, you dash off to the bedrooms as quickly as you could without making too much noise. You hated to find what rumors would develop if the two of you were found together this late in the evening. To his credit, the prince mirrors your speed and silence all the way to the guest bedroom.
Checking to ensure you weren’t followed, you whip your head back towards him. He’s still hiding his grin behind his hand, and doing a poor job at it, when you glare at him.
“Did you really need to laugh that loudly?” you hiss, but the boy simply looks like he’s about to start laughing again.
You sigh, unable to hide how funny the situation is to you, so you just giggle and dart off with a wave. Pumpkin pie forgotten, when you finally return to the safety of your room, you stay up to stare at your ceiling. Turning over in your sheets, you wonder-- when was the last time you felt that much excitement?
✧✧✧✧✧
The next time you see him, Prince Youngjae is taking a stroll through the palace gardens. Even though the blooms aren’t as spectacular as they are in spring, your mother had chosen equally beautiful flowers that blossomed during the winter. You catch him admiring the cheerful winter jasmines lining each row, framed by snowdrop flowers. Considering whether approaching him would be the right move, you once again throw caution to the wind when Youngjae catches you staring and gives you a small wave.
“Do you have a favorite?” you ask once you’ve walked close enough for him to hear you.
“Not really,” he replies, letting go of the fallen petal in his hand, “It’s enough for me to admire the beauty each one offers.”
“Well said,” you say with a grin.
“We didn’t get your dessert that night. My apologies, princess,” he jokes, and it strikes you then that the prince is a cute but mischievous sort. He appeared to love riling you up, but only as far as you would allow him.
“Not a great first impression,” you admit, letting yourself fully appreciate his laughter now that the two of you were in a more proper environment.
Finding a place to sit and talk further, you allow yourself to acknowledge the truth that you really did enjoy this man’s presence. Even though you were holding onto the notion that you needed to prove that you weren’t just an airheaded princess waiting to be married off, perhaps under different circumstances, Youngjae could’ve been your friend. After all, it wasn’t everyday that you met a royal who wasn’t stuck-up or entitled. It seemed that this prince genuinely appreciates everything life has to offer, and he isn’t afraid of having fun with what he finds.
“Call me Y/N. I think after the trouble we went through, it seems fitting enough,” you say, once the conversation takes a short lull.
“You’ll have to call me Youngjae then,” he adds, and you show your agreement by repeating the new title he offers you. He seems to like the way it sounds on your tongue, because his eyes are aglow with delight.
“Do you miss home?” you ask afterwards, curious to see how your new friend is faring.
“Definitely. No matter how many times I’ve left Elysia, I always miss it with the same fervor,” he admits, and you appreciate the way he opens up to you. It was almost as if he were unafraid of appearances in front of you, and his abrupt honesty was completely foreign to you.
“You leave often then?”
“A few instances. I’ve had to be involved in some skirmishes at our borders recently,” he sighs, and it appears that Youngjae is also not a big fan of warfare. You note that as well, realizing how much you were growing to admire each of the characteristics of this new prince.
“I suppose that’s why all of this is happening…making alliances to appear strong,” you briefly relent, acknowledging that as much as this union would hurt your pride, it had its use. It was not a frivolous decision for either part, which only made your choice that much more difficult to execute.
“If it’s to protect my people, it’s a sacrifice to make,” he agrees, “I apologize that you will not be marrying for love, Y/N, but I promise I’ll do my best to not make it torturous.”
He tacks on a joke at the end to ease the tension, but it doesn’t hide the fact that his words make your heart waver. Youngjae recognizes what you were giving up and he sympathizes with you. Unlike you, however, he was accepting his fate. Even though he doesn’t mention it, you know that he is giving up his free will as well by agreeing to marry you. He would also be closing the door of “what if?” because he cared for the citizens under his protection.
You think back to the servants who never fail to curtsy in your presence, the cooks who always let you have a taste of whatever’s cooking because they didn’t stand a chance to your puppy-dog eyes, and your closest friend Luce who always takes care of you without a complaint. You remember how her worn hands glide across your skin with the finest skincare in the land, just to ensure that your skin stays youthful at the expense of hers. Your heart pounds with pain.
“I’m sorry,” you breathe, as you struggle not to cry in front of Youngjae.
He grasps your wrist in confusion, worried eyes seeking yours when he says, “Did I say something wrong?”
You pat the back of his hand and try to smile amidst your guilt. Nodding slowly, you say, “I thought that I deserved to fight against this marriage because without my autonomy, I’d be nothing. But your words, you made me realize that perhaps there are greater things.”
He looks at you with the utmost care and sympathy when he replies, “Agreeing to this doesn’t make you weak, Y/N. You will be the strongest queen Utopia has known because you sacrifice for your people.”
When he hugs you in a much-needed, warm embrace, you don’t stop him.
✧✧✧✧✧
The month passes by in the blink of an eye, and before long, you’ve let Youngjae into your life more than you’d like to admit. The boy made you much more playful, as you began skipping some of your studying to join him in playing outside. He seemed like an energetic individual, always wearing a smile and excited to see you. You did your best to keep your distance, but ever since he opened up to you it almost felt natural to do the same.
The day of the wedding rolls around, and even as Luce and a few other servants help you get dressed for the special occasion; you can’t help but doubt whether you were making the right decision. Of course, there would be worse men to be in an arranged marriage with, but ultimately this was a choice that would stick by your side for the rest of your reign. You shouldn’t tread lightly.
“Luce…” you mumble as soon as the other girls leave to let her braid your hair in an elegant bun in peace.
“Today is a special day in your life your highness…your life and Prince Youngjae’s,” Luce begins, giving you her reassuring smile as she braids silver flowers into your braid.
“I know that, I know this is important for our kingdoms, and yet I feel afraid.”
“Fear is understandable. It’s important to fear because it will push you to act. You are not just making a decision for yourself, but for thousands of people,” she finishes with your locks before finally giving your shaking hands a squeeze, “You have never let us down.”
You give Luce a grateful hug, thankful for her comforting words. When you stand, admiring the long train behind you, the reality of everything begins hitting you all at once. You were marrying Youngjae, the man that recently makes your stomach burst with butterflies and your palms sweaty just from looking at him. You were crazy enough to think that you could eventually love him, and you hoped to the heavens that he considered you in the same way.
“I’ve seen the way he looks at you. I wouldn’t worry,” Luce muses before opening the door as your entourage stands at the ready outside. You would fire back at her to say that you weren’t worried at all, but the sight of the dozen knights standing in full armor to escort you to the grand ballroom is enough to dry your mouth completely.
You knew that the ballroom would be transformed for the wedding, but you didn’t expect the beauty dazzling from the high ceilings. Each corner had a fresh bouquet, the beautiful pastel roses making your eyes widen with wonder. The guests consisted of the royals whom previously paid you no heed, but now are openly observing you with interest. You knew that they now respect your new position, and you would soon have to play palace politics. The dread paled in comparison to the surprise that catches in your throat when you see the groom standing at the altar.
Youngjae is dressed in a standard princely attire, but the sparkling crown atop his head and the big grin on his face make all the difference. Seeing him standing ahead of you, waiting for you to be by his side, force you to reconcile with your feelings once again. You were falling for him, from the moment he sang you his favorite song and laughed without a care in the world, you were smitten. He not only acknowledged your fears but reassured you through them, and for that, he was more than deserving to rule alongside you.
“Ready?” he whispers after receiving your hand from your father.
With one look at his deep brown eyes swirling with affection, you announce proudly, “I’m ready.”
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wordsablaze · 4 years
Text
we might be the outsiders (but the in-crowd is so out right now)
Geralt couldn't care less about the opinions of innkeepers but Jaskier won't hesitate to defend his witcher's honour with every fibre of his being, and it's always a bonus if it leads to improving said witcher's view of himself...
A/N: wrote this a week ago but forgot to crosspost so here it is in case anyone’s interested ^.^ title from outsiders by au/ra x
-
“I’m so ready for a bath, aren’t you?” Jaskier asks pointedly as he and Geralt return from ridding yet another town of yet another monster.
“Of course you are, you smell like the inside of a dead man’s liver,” Jaskier continues as Geralt sighs, almost entirely unbothered by the blood covering his clothes - he doesn’t think he smells much like a liver at all.
But at least Jaskier hadn’t used one of his more creative comparisons, those were usually reserved for swamp-dwelling creatures. Not that Jaskier was often accurate about where to find what in his ballads.
“What was this one called again? A nightwraith?”
At that, Geralt glances at him with a frown. “Does it look like night to you?”
Where most men would shrink away, Jaskier just grins and waves a hand. “Alright, alright, a noonwraith then. At least I got the wraith part right.”
Before Geralt can say anything else regarding Jaskier’s fluctuating knowledge of monsters, Jaskier gasps and all but sprints ahead, then stops and turns to Geralt with a wide smile, something bright in his eyes forcing Geralt to offer him a small smile in return.
“Do you see that, Geralt? The town! No more crops and fields and corpses, we can finally wash away the wraith business!”
“Hmm.”
Jaskier rolls his eyes. “Well, I’m going ahead and ordering us a bath, don’t dawdle!”
As if Geralt would be seen dead dawdling.
Roach is tired and slower than usual though, so he hangs back and walks with her as Jaskier speeds up and makes a beeline for the nearest inn, the smell of honey and lavender fading as Geralt watches him go.
It’s strange, Geralt takes a moment to think, how Jaskier had so quickly made it clear he was sticking around, and how Geralt had almost just as quickly come to accept it. What’s even stranger is how much Geralt finds himself liking it.
The town, as it turns out, is still just as friendly as when they’d begged him to save their farmers, which is to say it’s quite possibly the furthest thing from friendly to currently exist.
Geralt sighs as he leads Roach to the stables closest where he can smell Jaskier, tying her to a post himself and glaring at the stableboy who has the nerve to cross his arms. “Touch her and you lose those arms.”
Sure that nobody will bother Roach, Geralt heads towards the inn, where Jaskier is still talking to the innkeeper. Well, talking at the innkeeper. Actually, it can’t even be called talking .
“-and it’s utterly ridiculous that you would so heartlessly deny the man who just saved your harvest the right to a bath! A simple bath! What kind of establishment is this anyway?”
“We don’t deal with his kind,” the innkeeper all but hisses.
From his tone, Geralt guesses that their conversation, if it can even be called that, has been going on for a while in the same way, with Jaskier being his usual dramatic and defensive self.
Jaskier places his hands on his hips and Geralt can imagine his glare as he inhales sharply. “You, sir, are an absolute disgrace ! How dare you plead with a witcher to come to your aid at a moment’s notice and then act as if you’re any better than him!”
“I don’t need to act, we are better than him.”
The small smile that had started to form on Geralt’s face at Jaskier’s words fades as said bard abruptly launches himself at the innkeeper.
Geralt can hear his nose break.
The inn is frozen as the two men topple to the floor behind the counter Jaskier had thrown himself over. That is, until the innkeeper curses and barks an order that causes commotion in the form of other men diving to pull Jaskier back.
Geralt doesn’t move until Jaskier is hauled upright by the bruising grip of a man double his size. Only then does he move from the doorframe, ignoring the shocked stares and glares thrown his way, focusing on Jaskier and the way he looks ready to both cry and break someone’s teeth.
Geralt can’t blame him, really; he’s tempted to break the hand on Jaskier’s arm.
“Jaskier!”
Jaskier’s head snaps to him immediately, the tension in his shoulders melting away as he looks over Geralt as if checking he’s unhurt, as if there’s any reason for Geralt’s wellbeing to be his priority despite his current situation.
“Take your scum and leave, beast,” the man holding Jaskier snarls, throwing Jaskier forwards so roughly that he stumbles.
Geralt instinctively moves to steady him but he’s wholly unprepared for Jaskier to let out a quiet growl, turn on the spot, and launch a tightly clenched fist at the other man’s nose before anyone can blink.
“He is not a beast !”
And thus, a second nose ends up broken.
“You little-”
Geralt pulls and keeps Jaskier behind him before the other man can retaliate, pushing him aside as he turns to the innkeeper with a glare so powerful it causes the man to step back twice.
He's glad Jaskier had managed to break bones because if he hadn't, Geralt would have broken every single one of everyone's bones for daring to call Jaskier scum as if he isn't the exact opposite, as if he isn't the most precious man in all of existence.
“If I ever hear you or any of your men even thinking about insulting Jaskier again, I will rip your tongues from your mouths and feed them to you as your last meals in this world.”
And with that, Geralt grabs Jaskier’s wrist as gently as he can and leads the two of them out of the inn, back to where Roach is waiting patiently.
“We’re leaving, you can forget about your bath,” Geralt mutters as he unties the ropes, even though he knows Jaskier didn’t really want the bath for himself anyway.
He's beyond angry that they have to leave yet another town in such a way but Jaskier is the one who's slowly changing people's opinions and there's very little he can do to protect his bard from the reactions of those yet to accept witchers. Unfortunately for Jaskier, most people have yet to accept witchers.
Geralt isn't so blind as to say that Jaskier isn't changing opinions, but even his charm can't work on everyone. Not yet anyway.
When Jaskier doesn’t reply, Geralt turns to him in concern.
Jaskier’s seething fury seems to have washed away into a sour sadness.
“Jaskier?”
But Jaskier only shakes his head, gesturing for Geralt to start walking, which he does. They don’t stop until they’re past the gates and far enough along the path for the town to have vanished from view entirely.
Only then does Jaskier stop and fall to his knees, letting his head fall into his hands.
Alarmed, Geralt kneels beside him. “Jaskier? Are you hurt? I don’t smell blood but-”
“They called you a beast!” Jaskier just about whispers, and Geralt realises with a jolt that the salt he’s been smelling is Jaskier’s tears , not remnants of spilled ale.
“It doesn’t matter,” Geralt says, wishing he knew more about how to help because all he wants to do is kill the men who’d made Jaskier cry.
Jaskier lets out a choked noise that sounds suspiciously like a sob. “Of course it doesn’t! They’re all nothing but idiots who wouldn’t know how to recognise a good man if he punched them in the face!”
Geralt blinks. “Then why-”
“I swear to Meletite, if you ask me why I care that they insulted you, I will punch you too.”
Geralt blinks again.
Eventually, Jaskier looks up and exhales loudly, wiping away tears with the back of his hand. “Do you really not understand why I’m so angry?”
Reluctantly, feeling as though he’s somehow disappointing Jaskier, Geralt shakes his head.
He doesn’t have time to figure out an excuse before Jaskier lunges at him, not to punch him as he’d said but to wrap his arms around him and hug him.
“Oh, you beautiful fool of a man, why don’t you see ?” Jaskier asks in a tone that suggests he’s about to answer that himself.
Geralt makes sure the two of them aren’t about to overbalance as Jaskier tightens his grip, his previous concerns about the liver-scented blood seemingly forgotten in favour of erasing any distance between them.
“Don’t you see that people like them only continue to prove that they are never going to be even half as good of a man as you are? That you, dear witcher, are truly kind at heart, so far from the monster they claim you to be? Don’t you see that it hurts when they insult you because I know you and I know they are so very wrong? Because you, Geralt of Rivia, deserve everything they do and so, so much more? Oh, my darling wolf, why don’t you see all of this with those gorgeously enhanced eyes of yours? Why…?”
Yet again, Geralt just blinks.
When he doesn’t say anything else, Geralt lifts his arms from where he’d been using them to balance and wraps them around Jaskier, something fluttering in his chest when Jaskier sighs softly, happily.
He thinks he might prefer this to inns anyway, when it's just the two of them away from the crowds and the chaos, where he can hear the comforting reminder of Jaskier's heartbeat with no interruptions.
“I don’t particularly care what they think,” Geralt admits eventually, “but I do find myself caring what you think, so... if you wish for me to believe you, I’ll try.”
Jaskier lets out a small laugh that may or may not be a sob in disguise but Geralt doesn't comment on it. He lets Jaskier pull back so they’re face to face, surprised when he sees Jaskier beaming up at him through his tears.
“Promise me you’ll keep trying to believe me?”
Geralt isn’t a huge fan of commitments but this one is the easiest he knows.
“I promise.”
The shine in Jaskier’s eyes is worth all the trouble this promise will probably cause him.
Jaskier is worth the trouble.
“Thank you,” Jaskier murmurs with a grateful smile.
Geralt hums, his hand going to brush away Jaskier’s tears before he can stop himself. His chest tightens again at how easily Jaskier closes his eyes and lets the same hands that deal in slaughter touch him.
Something else inside his chest reminds him that really, Jaskier is the only reason he trusts himself to use the same hands that deal in slaughter to do something so gentle, so careful, so soft .
“Thank you,” Geralt murmurs back.
Jaskier’s eyes flutter open again as he hums, encasing Geralt’s hand in his own and squeezing gently.
In that moment, as with countless other moments involving Jaskier, Geralt finds himself seeing what Jaskier does, seeing the effortless trust and respect between them, the connection they share that he has to admit borders on everything he thought he’d never have, borders on love -
Without warning, Jaskier’s face scrunches up as he winces.
“Jaskier? What- Did I do something wrong?” Geralt may or may not panic at the pain he sees flashing in his favourite blue eyes.
He wonders if Jaskier is regretting it after all, if he is simply a brute made only for violence as opposed to something as delicate as caring for Jaskier. He wonders if this is the day Jaskier changes his mind and sees what Geralt sees, if this is the day that everything falls apart-
But Jaskier shakes his head, glancing down at their hands.
“I forgot to protect my thumb.”
-
seriously, this just kind of happened, turns out i’m just soft for these two...
-
thanks for reading! masterlist | witcher sideblog: @geraskifer
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Text
Modified ask game - here we go!
I hit a follower milestone a little while ago - number isn’t important, but THANK YOU ALL FOR FOLLOWING ME. There are a lot of you, and I’msure that the follows are all for very different reasons, but I VERY MUCH appreciate every one of you, even if we’ve never interacted. As a way for my new followers to get to know me (if they want) I’ve compiled a list of ask games / random questions and will be posting below the cut.  Send me as many as you want, or if there’s anything not listed that you’re interested in knowing, go ahead and ask. I’ll be answering these throughout the week.  Also in the interest of being friendly and proving that I’m a real live person, I’m publicly stating that in certain cases, I’m very open to becoming non-tumblr friends. This means using other social media to communicate - whatsapp, discord (I have an account but have never used it), instagram, that godawful bird app (which is almost exclusively filled with snarky tweets and baseball opinions) ... there are even a few people on here that have my phone number. 
Why do I say this? Because some of the people I’ve met on here have become very good, very close friends. Tumblr sucks a lot. The notifications are wonky, messages don’t send ... whatever it is, it’s unreliable. I know that people on here tend to be very wary about telling people *real* things about themselves, so I respect your privacy, but wanted to put that out there. I’m not just going to pass out my info to someone that messages me on anon and asks, or says hello for the first time, but if we’ve spoken before, and it’s something you’re interested in, let me know. I swear  that on my other social media you’ll see how boring I am; I just pretend to be cool and interesting on tumblr with my hot takes and gardening and pictures of Neptune.
apricot: opinion on 3 in 1 body wash/hair wash?
crop top: what is your least favorite word?
glow sticks: are you into witchcraft?
stereo: do you have a favorite drink?
holographic: indoor or outdoor malls?
silly string: do you play an instrument? is their anything you’d like to play?
blackberries: what’s your favorite album from the 2000s?
picnic baskets: what’s your favorite picture book?
bold: favorite font?
platform shoes: what would your dream roller coaster be?
paper crowns: if you were a color, what color would you be?
vinyl: what’s your favorite scent?
glitter: what’s a good memory from primary school?
silly bands: what’s your favorite plant?
neon: friendship bracelets?
loud: shells or sea glass?
sunflower: what makes you nostalgic?
boots: what was your favorite show as a kid?
springs: what’s your favorite material?
whiteboards: old book smell or new book smell?
pop tarts: what’s your favorite weird drink or food combo?
sequins: how do you name playlists?
lamps: what type of clothes do you like to wear?
old cars: what’s the most fun word you know?
hats: what do you like to do in cities?
Cats or dogs? Why?
Snakes or spiders? Why?
Baths or showers? Why?
Drink you order from the bar?
How do you like your meat cooked?
What is your go to karaoke song?
The beach or the snow?
House or apartment?
Do you get angry playing board games? Monopoly? Scrabble? Clue?
Would you play Russian Roulette?
Truth or dare?
Do you prefer pants or a dress? Either to wear or to see others wearing.
Coke or Pepsi?
Cigarettes or cigars?
How old were you when you learned how to ride a bike?
What is your earliest memory?
What was your first kiss like?
How do you feel about your mother?
How do you feel about your father?
When you picture home, what do you see?
What is your favorite fairytale?
Why is that your favorite fairytale?
What is your favorite song?
Why is that your favorite song?
What is your favorite sound?
Why is that your favorite sound?
Pens or pencils?
How do you feel about cheese?
What type of cheese if your favorite?
What would you wear to a funeral?
Do you wear pajamas to bed?
Coffee or tea? How do you take either? Two sugars? A bit of milk?
iPhone or Android?
What do you do when no one is looking?
Favorite flower?
Why is that your favorite flower?
Do you have any siblings?
Which sibling is your favorite?
Do you have any children?
Which child is your favorite?
What’s your favorite classic novel? 1984? Oliver Twist? Little Women?
Have you ever been in love?
Where do you go when you want to be alone?
What would be your super power?
What would be your ideal date?
What part of yourself do you wish you could change?
red: describe your favorite shirt
orange: if you could, would you change your eye color? why? to what color, if so?
yellow: name of an artist you think is underappreciated
green: do you have a favourite flower?
blue: preferred type of weather?
purple: a poem you think describes your closest friend
magenta: do you keep your fingernails long or short?
turquoise: favorite sea animal?
fuchsia: favorite land animal?
cyan: are you religious? spiritual?
sea green: can you fold a fitted sheet?
violet: are you a part of the lgbt+ community?
amber: what's saved as your phone's lockscreen?
aqua: do you thrift?
pink: what's your natural hair color?
beige: have any pets? what're their names?
black: would you ever try going vegetarian or vegan?
coral: an animal you wish hadn't gone extinct?
grey: how many languages do you speak? do you want to learn any more
maroon: do you care for clothing brands?
rose: favourite scent on a person?
charcoal: have you ever been camping?
claret: do you play an instrument? do you want to learn to play any?
copper: gold or silver jewelry?
cream: any piercings or tattoos? do you want any?
emerald: if you had the option, would you choose to move and live in another country? which one?
lavender: relationship status?
erin: what was/is your best school subject?
mauve: any unpopular opinions?
coconut: a subject you enjoy learning about?
frost: a -core you enjoy?
porcelain: an tv show you used to love?
gold: do you wear your socks mismatched?
honey: your thoughts on magic- does it exist?
rust: form of art you enjoy doing?
ginger: any sideblogs?
cherry: YouTubers you enjoy watching?
wine: do you have a 'type'?
mahogany: your sun, moon, and rising signs?
blood: twin beds, queen, or king?
hot pink: did you/do you had/have strong feelings against the color pink?
plum: a food you've never tried?
lilac: dogs, cats, or fish?
amethyst: do you collect anything?
mulberry: earbuds or headphones?
azure: jean jackets?
denim: kill the spider or take it outside?
sapphire: do you think you can sing well?
mint: favourite flavour of gum?
pecan: shuffle your playlist, what's the first song that comes up?
penny: ice cream or cake?
ash: can you do your own makeup?
jade: ever written fanfiction?
grape: how many blogs do you follow?
chestnut: type of phone you have?
prussian blue: what's your first choice at the vending machine?
aquamarine: beach or pool?
brass: least favorite food condiment?
mustard: how much sugar in your tea/coffee?
silver: ever broken a bone?
burgundy: ever ridden a motorcycle?
scarlet: favorite holiday?
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master-of-cosmos · 4 years
Text
Imprint [Ninjago Fic]
apparently some people are calling this ‘whumptober,’ so you know what that means! entersroomhoppingonmyhighheels.gif
it’s quick oneshot-inspired-by-@rinas-ninjas‘ palette-challenge-art time ❤️ that stuff is right up my alley y’all don’t even know. anyway, this is also a bit of a thank you gift to @lloydskywalkers for always being so supportive of this fandom’s writer community and such an inspiration in her own work! i absolutely do not deserve all the love you’ve given TMS, so you completely deserve some post-s4 brotherly bonding hun 💚💚
content warning: there’s lots of blood and a very likely upsetting way it’s taken care of because of the way it’s described, so please don’t read if you’re under 13 or sensitive to these things!
~~~~~
Kai wasn’t exactly expecting things to go back to normal right away. The team could still laugh with each other and band together against an enemy like nothing changed, but it’d be naive to think that, once everything settled down, there wouldn’t be some hitches.
He just didn’t think Lloyd would be one of them.
It’s three in the morning, and he’s already awake. Rolling over onto his back, he stares up at the ceiling in the guest room he’s been staying in since they got back from Chen’s outright lousy island. He blinks a few times, wondering what pulled his brain out of his coma so early.
Soft - slow - footsteps pad down the hall outside. Right, it’s time for Lloyd’s patrol. His actual one today, apparently. He’s been randomly stealing everyone’s shifts after Anacondrai gang wannabes started cropping up, inspired by Chen in spite of what happened to him.
In spite of what Sensei Garmadon sacrificed to stop him. Weeks ago.
A whole month has gone by, and Lloyd still won’t talk to anyone about it, least of all Kai. And Kai, in particular, has barely been able to have a conversation with him about anything without the kid stuttering and finding something else to do that cuts off the interaction like an axe to his neck.
He knows perfectly well why.
Kicking off the blanket, he drags himself out of bed and slips on his sandals.
He’s got no one else to blame but himself that Lloyd’s scared of him now, so he let this go on for too long. He’s not sure what’s come over him about it, but at some point in the last few days, he decided he’s putting a stop to it, any act he can do at a time.
He has to show Lloyd that he can still rely on him. That he’s trustworthy and useful and not a screw up and worth more to the team than the shattered bathroom mirror says.
His hurry down the hall causes a yawning audience to trail him, Jay mumbling, “Where’s the fire?”
Lloyd’s about to step out when he makes it to the foyer. “Hey,” he calls.
Freezing, Lloyd tilts his head back a little, answering with a hesitant, “Yeah?”
Ignoring Cole and Jay behind him, Kai moves further into the room, mustering his nerve to say, “I can take your shift. If you want.”
“It’s fine. I got it,” he responds quickly as he turns to Kai. He wavers a little bit, and the dark circles under his wide eyes stand out in Zane’s reading light.
Catching Kai’s drift, Cole gently suggests, “Lloyd, maybe it’s better for you to stay in.”
“I…appreciate the concern, but this is something I need to do,” Lloyd asserts back, his jaw locked from annoyance.
It’s clear to Kai that Lloyd’s been using the patrols to ignore what happened to his dad. Maybe he’s trying to put off sleep, too. Both worried about that and absorbing Lloyd’s aggravation like a sponge, Kai huffs, “Look, dude, it’s obvious you’re tired. Just let me cover you for one night.”
“I said it’s fine. You don’t want to be here anyway,” Lloyd bites, hardly even looking at the others when he says it, and storms out of the dojo so fast that Kai can only stare as the door slams shut.
Oh.
Kai braces himself on the front counter, squeezing his eyes shut. That’s what’s wrong. They - he - left Lloyd all alone. Of course he feels like he has to do everything like that now.
Jay humphs a little and rubs his eye, heading back upstairs as he tiredly jokes, “Well, my shift’s always open.”
Following him, Cole pats Kai’s shoulder. “Let the kid grieve in his own way. He’ll come around.”
Easy for you to say, Kai thinks. He has it on good authority that throwing yourself into work to avoid your feelings doesn’t help in the long run.
“Are you all right?” Zane asks from his chair on the other side of the room, the giant book he’s been chipping away at for three nights abandoned in his lap.
Straightening, Kai tightly answers, “Yep.”
“I am certain you will think of a way to help him,” he states, returning to his book.
Well, he already has. He races back up to his room and throws on his gi. With his comm-link in his ear, he doesn’t waste time running back downstairs. Instead, he leaps out the window as he summons his elemental dragon and takes off after his little brother.
He’s going to prove to Lloyd that he won’t just leave him on his own again.
~~~~~
A few miles out from his dad’s dojo, Lloyd rides his dragon along his patrol route and fights tears, scrubbing at his face every few moments. Stupid Kai, he thinks, but then he shakes his head, mumbling, “Stupid me.”
Somewhere inside, he’s happier than anything to have the team back together. He knew how much he missed them, but it feels a million times better actually being able to watch them work hard in the training yard, hearing them laugh at the breakfast table, everyone saying “good morning” and then “goodnight,” just like it used to be.
But he got used to his dad.
Lloyd can’t keep himself from running through scenarios that might have saved him, and some of those possibilities include things he would never voice, like not taking the challenge at all. But because he wouldn’t do something like that, Dad got to suffer the consequences.
A scream splits him from his thoughts.
“Where?” he asks the night, searching the ground. In a secluded alley, he spots what looks like three men corning a woman.
He sends his dragon into a dive for them, landing it between her and the attackers. It roars before he banishes it and readies his stance. “If you guys know what’s good for you, you’ll leave right now,” he threatens, lighting his power in his hands.
“It’s the Green Ninja,” one of them shouts to his buddies.
“Get him!”
The three drawing knives, they descend on him.
He cuts out the energy and dodges the closest man’s knife, noting the Anacondrai tattoo on his wrist. Grabbing the extended arm, Lloyd hurls the body at the next one. While they untangle themselves, he punches the third in the gut, grabbing his head when he doubles over and slamming his face on a nearby electrical unit.
The second kicks his kneecap from where he still lies on the ground, but Lloyd jumps back enough before the attack can fully connect. With a small yell, he blasts the man’s chest.
Left alone now, the first tries his luck again, charging at Lloyd with his knife held above his head. A high kick knocks it from his hand, and one more solid kick to his solar plexus takes him out.
With a stumble that he locks down on, Lloyd moves over to the woman crouched in the corner. “Hey, you’re safe now,” he says soothingly, extending his hand.
She looks up from her knees and stares at it before she takes it, her own hand trembling.
“It’s alright,” he consoles as he helps her stand. “Do you live around here?”
Wordlessly, she nods, clutching her purse close to her body.
He steps back to give her some space. “Do you need to call someone? Or, uh, I can take you there.” He accepts her careful step forward as an answer and turns around to leave the alley. Mostly to himself, he mutters, “I need to let the police know about these guys. Should’ve brought a rope or some―”
Normally, he’d never let anyone get the drop on him, especially not someone he could take without even looking, but Kai’s right. He’s tired. Distracted. Stressed and not keeping his guard up when he should, but how could he? She’s just an innocent person who needed help.
She’s not holding a switchblade, and that’s not his blood. It couldn’t be.
“It’s your fault,” she spits, circling around him. “You let those Anacondrai warriors attack my home. My children.”
Gasping, Lloyd backs against the wall the woman was just cowering against, his hand pressed to the throbbing fire in his side. “I-I’m sorry. We did―”
“Save it for your maker!” She steps over one of the men and kicks him, barking, “Get up.” The three of them groan as they comply. She hands her knife to the one who stands up first and orders, “Now finish it.”
Lloyd sucks in deeper breaths as he pushes himself to straighten. He can ignore the pain and pretend he doesn’t feel it long enough. With his teeth bared, he calls up another two energy orbs, warning, “Stay. Away.”
The man just smirks and keeps inching closer, so Lloyd pitches a sphere at him, knocking him clear out of the alley. Scrambling back to his feet, he squeaks, “Forget this,” and runs off.
Lloyd manages to re-energize his empty hand before the others get any more ideas, bending his knees and glaring, daring them.
“Yeah, I’m out. I didn’t sign up to kill him,” the second man says. The third follows after him.
The woman glowers at their retreat but makes no effort to stop them. Snapping her purse shut, she looks back at Lloyd, bitterly stating, “You may have this city worshiping you, but you don’t fool me.” And with that, she leaves him alone.
His energy orbs sputter out, taking his grip on equilibrium with them. The ground falls away like a tunnel as he staggers back a step, but he shuts his eyes and shakes his head sharply. He’ll be fine. He can get home and have this taken care of, no problem. He just needs his dragon.
Trying to summon it nearly sends him to the concrete. So he’s too freaked out to do that.
He can walk then. Find someone with a phone or something. The knife was pretty thin, wasn’t it? It can’t be bad enough that he won’t be able to walk.
One foot in front of the other. Not difficult. One step, next step, and then the next―
He gasps so hard he sees stars and has to catch himself on the wall. Restraining a scream in his throat doesn’t do much to chase away the incessant throb, but it helps the frustration building faster around his racing heart.
Flipping over, his back hits the wall. It’s practically the only thing holding him up, and that makes ice run down his spine.
He’s not as knowledgeable on anatomy as he should be, but he has a vague understanding that where she stabbed him is close to a cluster of nerves. On reflection, he instinctively twisted his torso just in time; she was probably going for his kidney or the giant artery beside it. A common target for someone who wants to cause pain.
Great, now he needs to know how bad it is.
He reaches around to touch the excruciating point under his ribs, hissing when his hand fumbles over it. Holding them up to the light of a distant streetlamp, he finds his fingers glazed in red, a mini pool of it in his palm.
A tremor’s already wracking his whole arm, and there’s warmth seeping across his lower back, stolen from his limbs.
He’s been injured and bled before, but this. It’s too much for him to deal with by himself. The pain, the fear, the knowledge of why all gather together behind his eyes and spill out as he murmurs, “Oh god.”
But there’s hope. He’s still got a spark of it. With the others home again, he has one last option.
Tapping his comm, he forces his voice to steadily enough ask, “K-Kai?”
His heart drops to his stomach when his brain promptly supplies, What if they  went back to sleep? Nobody’s listening. Even if he does hear you, the dojo’s miles away.
No one’s gonna be able to come for him. He’s in real trouble now, and it’s all because he was a jerk and didn’t let them be a team even though that’s the exact thing he wanted, and god, what’s Dad gonna think? Is he even in a real afterlife? Oh god, he’s never seeing him again. He’s gonna die out here, or some other day, and it won’t even matter―
“What’s up, Lloyd? You’re kind of staticky.”
He wants to laugh in relief, but the pain’s killing him enough, and as cloudy as it’s making his senses, he heard the worry in Kai’s voice despite the effort he used to hide it.
With his fleeting strength, he manages, “I-I need h-help.”
~~~~~
Ten minutes.
He was only ten minutes behind Lloyd.
Kai can’t hear anything outside his comm. He can barely see besides the blurry lines that are supposed to be streets he soars above. The only reason he knows Nya heard him when he told her to notify a hospital is because she commanded him to keep Lloyd talking.
“Yeah, and what’d he say to that?”
“Jeez. Gene was…s-so mad. Said..said he’d get me back f-for sure.”
“Tell me you got him first.”
“I-I tried, but I d-didn’t know where..to find…scor-scorpions.” He laughs at himself, but the sound chokes off with a gasp.
“Lloyd?”
“Are you close?”
“Yeah. Yeah, buddy, two minutes. Just sit tight.”
“A-awesome.”
“I know where we can get a couple.”
“What?”
“Scorpions. We can still get that jerk.”
“H-he’s nice…n-now…Remember? Don’t..be mean.”
“Right, yeah. We ruined a perfectly good bad boy, didn’t we? Too nice for your own good, Lloyd.”
Instead of answering, Kai just hears sniffling and measured groaning like Lloyd’s trying to control the pain.
He’s about to ask how he’s doing when Lloyd speaks up again. “Is…is that what’s…wrong with me?”
“Nothing’s wrong with you, man.”
“B-but if I was mean, then…then Dad might still―”
“Hey, hey, listen. None of that was your fault. Okay? Can you see me? I think I’m over the right street.”
It takes Lloyd a minute before he hums, “Mhm. F-fire…dragon.”
“Yeah, bud. I’m right here. You’re gonna be fine.” Kai doesn’t see him, though. It’s still pretty dark, and the alley’s crowded with junk.
A green orb floats up from beside a big power box.
Kai drops his dragon and banishes it just before they hit the ground, flipping off it to break the fall. He’s at Lloyd’s side in a near instant, looking him over where he sits against the square unit, one arm bent around his torso.
Bleary eyed, Lloyd smiles at him. “Y-you made it.”
“’Course I did.” He resists the urge to yank his hair out, sinking his tooth into his cheek instead. There’s blood all over the concrete, a smudged handprint on the brick wall. Lloyd moves his arm so Kai can see, and from what he can tell, the wound’s still bleeding. His gi has a jagged rip going down, like the attacker cut into him before she got the leverage needed to sink the knife in deep.
Immediately, he presses his hand to it, making Lloyd flinch. He tries so hard to be calm, but he can’t get the terror out of his voice when he demands, “God, Lloyd, why’d you leave it like this?”
“M’sorry,” Lloyd groans in a cracking voice, slumping forward.
Kai puts his other hand on his shoulder, noticing the abandoned hood and gi sash wadded in soaked piles. Swallowing his nausea, he alternates brushing Lloyd’s arm and hair, saying, “No, it’s alright, okay? It’s gonna be fine. Nya’s already got an ambulance on the way. They’ll be here any minute.”
Shaking his head, Lloyd gasps, “Too late. T-they’re gonna be―” Suddenly distressed, he huffs and whines, “Kai…”
Kai nudges him upright. “What? Tell me.”
Lloyd’s head lolls to the side and back against the metal box before he pushes himself to lean over on his elbow, grimacing. He tugs the end of his gi aside, exposing the injury. It’s the way he pinches his brows and further labors his breathing, his expression miserably expectant as his neck gives out on him, tears and beads of sweat bouncing off his face from the movement. It says enough.
“N-no,” Kai croaks. Stronger, he says, “Lloyd, no, I can’t do that to you,” standing as he recoils.
“I-I’m gonna…bleed―” He winces, raggedly continuing, “Bleed out..i-if you don’t.”
Kai yanks on his hair anyway, but he glances back at Lloyd.
His dark circles stand out worse, a sunken mask on his paling face, and his eyelids droop despite how he’s fighting to keep them open. With the arm he’s propped on trying to shake out from under him, he’s almost lying down, each shallow pant pushing him lower bit by bit.
And now that Kai can see it, he’s losing too much blood. It’s just leaving him in small yet constant pulses, four black rivulets dripping down his stomach and adding to the puddle on the ground.
He’s right. Why does he have to be right?
Kai takes Lloyd’s weight off his arm, wrapping his under it and along to his little brother’s back, and gathers the green cloth there in his fist to keep it out of the way. “Just― just hold onto me, alright? Don’t let go.”
Lloyd nods. His arms come up around Kai’s torso and across his shoulder blades, squeezing with all the strength he’s got.
His right hand free, Kai closes his eyes and ignites it.
Or, he tries to. It doesn’t respond instantly like it should, only giving off smoke. The consequence of his own reluctance.
Sensing the hangup, Lloyd mutters, “I can…handle it..pro-promise.”
Kai inhales, letting the air out slow. “You better.” He snaps his wrist again, the fire lighting up the alleyway. For a few extra seconds, he makes it burn hotter than he usually needs before he pulls the flames down to a dull orange smoulder in his palm. “Ready? On three.”
He’s not ready, and Lloyd tenses, burying his face in Kai’s shoulder.
“One. Two…T-three.”
For the second time, Kai presses his hand on the wound.
As promised, mostly, Lloyd toughs it out at first. He keeps the pain deep in his throat, but eventually the groan turns shrill, and then he’s screaming and struggling not to writhe.
Kai wants to scream with him, but he won’t. Maybe he can’t either. All he can do is hold onto Lloyd tighter as he tries to block out the sound under his hand.
He turns his focus to how the muscles in his back seize around Lloyd’s fists from the energy he’s started channeling on agonized reflex. He gets kneed in the ribs, too, and he’d lose his grip if the slick blood wasn’t burned away.
Burned. Burning. He’s burning his baby brother.
Why didn’t he think to heat up a knife or something instead? Why’s he using his hand for it? Why’d he let Lloyd convince him to do this at all? He should’ve just carried him to the hospital on his dragon, or better yet, he never should have let any of this happen.
“I’m sorry,” Kai yells, screwing his eyes shut. Just a few more seconds, just enough to make sure it’s cauterized fully. He can’t risk messing up because if Lloyd has to suffer for nothing, then he―
Kai’s gonna―
Lloyd loses his strength to keep screaming, and then Kai’s muscles relax only a fraction when the scrabbling limbs behind him fall slack.
Enough. It has to be enough.
Ripping his hand away, he crushes Lloyd in both arms, unable to stop rocking him or repeating apologies. Not just for this. He’s sorry for everything ― the betrayal, the staff, for leaving and allowing so much time to go by that it ended up leading to now.
Lloyd probably can’t understand any of it. He just hiccups while he cries, slowly quieting until he’s too limp in Kai’s hold.
The paramedics find them like that, but they’re all strangers, and one of them talks to Kai while another tries to pry Lloyd away from him. He’s gonna blast them in their throats if they don’t shut up and stop and get their hands away.
But then the Bounty’s sailing overhead, and Nya’s getting through to him as Lloyd’s taken to someone who can actually help a hell of a lot better.
He clenches his fists the entire flight over to the hospital, refusing to look at his own hands.
~~~~~
Kai gets an earful later about how ‘incorrectly’ he handled the situation, and Master Wu adds ‘proper field medicine’ to their training schedule, but ultimately, everyone hugs him and cries and are so thankful he’d at least ‘been there to do something,’ and he doesn’t remember a whole lot of it.
He knows the others have been worried for him now, too, though.
He hasn’t been able to eat anything cooked if he’s around while it’s being prepared. Zane picks up on that in record time and starts making oatmeal and cold-cut sandwiches for him instead.
Cole and Jay learn real quick that if they ask Kai for help with fire-related needs, then his powers won’t respond. Fighting is the only thing it’s felt like doing, and fight it does. They steer clear of him when he goes out to the training yard.
Nya keeps looking at him with a face that’s so sad, like she wants to help him but doesn’t know how, he can’t help it. He retreats to his room and hides under the blanket for hours until the world stops spinning and he can breathe without needing to think about it.
But Lloyd heals fast, so there’s that.
The cops want to track down the people who attacked him, but he refuses to help, muttering something like, “She’s a mom.”
That doesn’t stop Kai from trying to find the woman himself, but he has nothing to go on, and the cops have better resources. They catch her pretty soon after that.
He does have the power to scare other Anacondrai wannabes into never showing their faces again. He gets another earful for that, but it’s worth it to rest at least a little easier.
Things get better after Lloyd comes home, where Kai can see him and be reassured.
He seems better, too. He spends more time with everyone, participates in conversations, and doesn’t run away from Kai anymore.
The thing is, Kai thinks he should. Especially now.
The heat index today’s like a hundred and ten degrees. It doesn’t really bother Kai, but the others already went inside after training as much as they can stand. Lloyd’s not done sparring, though. Said he feels like he fell behind and wants to keep going for another half hour.
But it’s still really hot out for him, so he’s folding his shirt and setting it on one of the benches before he heads back over to Kai to resume their match.
And Kai isn’t sure what he thought would be there. He knew Lloyd had to have been scarred, but he didn’t know. It didn’t occur to him at all how it’d look.
Under Lloyd’s ribs, close to his lower back, it’s a reddened, indistinct patch of burned scarring surrounding a handprint.
It looks like a violation, like a betrayal of Lloyd’s trust and Kai’s job as the Green Ninja’s protector.
He practically collapses as he sits down on the packed dirt. He waves his hand dismissively and pants, “I’m done,” when Lloyd looks at him, confused.
His confusion shifts to narrowed worry as he glances towards the scar. Carefully, he says, “You saved my life.”
Kai pulls his legs in, one hand on his thigh while the other scrapes at his forehead. “I know…I know.” He ends up ripping at his hair, closing his eyes tight. “It’s just. Everything. All of it.”
After a second, Lloyd’s kneeling in front of him. He’s put his shirt back on and has that stupid, sad face that’s gonna send Kai packing. But he can’t leave because Lloyd catches onto his shoulder and says, “You can’t hurt me, Kai.”
“But I―” Kai’s already pounding heart speeds up, making him dizzy, because he did. He let them shackle Lloyd and steal his power and drop poison on him, and he’s alone. He’s bleeding. Kai’s burning him, so who’s to say he would have dropped the staff? “I’m―”
“Hey,” Lloyd interjects, shaking him once. “You. Can’t. Hurt me. Alright?” He harshly emphasizes the words, except they’re gentle, kind, more than Kai deserves, but if he can still have conviction like that, then Kai can try to accept it.
Eventually.
His head bows. He can’t get his heart to stop demanding to fly out of his chest. It hurts, it hurts, he’s sinking, and he wants to hide because this feeling won’t go away out in the open.
“Look at me,” Lloyd says, a beacon of calm. “Just breathe. In and out. Copy me, okay?”
He does. He feels completely stupid because whatever’s wrong with him is nothing compared to what he put his little brother through, but he looks up and matches Lloyd’s exaggerated breaths.
Minutes go by as the world melts away and rebuilds itself enough to steady him, Lloyd’s presence somehow a foundation for it.
Swiping at his eyes, Kai nods when he’s fine. He huffs out a short laugh, asking, “S-someone teach you that?”
Lloyd gives him a hand up and mumbles, “Yeah. Um, Dad did.”
“Oh.”
The floodgates open with that. Kai listens while Lloyd talks about Garmadon for the first time since his funeral, the conversation leading to shared stories and lessons the man taught them both and on to experiences the ninja had with him before Lloyd got to meet him.
He does mess up again, really soon actually, but at least this time Lloyd knows someone’s coming to save him.
~~~~~
overuse of adverbs and unbroken dialogue signals that this is a ‘doodle’ lol
and because it is, i didn’t feel up to writing much more – i just want to point out here that lloyd absolutely does internalize the fact that he traumatized kai, so jot that down
*pats their heads* these beans can fit so much angst in them!
133 notes · View notes
spacesnail3000 · 4 years
Text
Brooklyn’s Sweetheart Chapter 12: Crimson and Violet
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Pairing: Stucky x Reader
Chapter Summary: She gets by with a little help from her friends, and Wanda is the best friend a girl could have during a family crisis. Steve and Bucky don't share that sentiment, but let's see them do better.
Word Count: 5,026
Warnings: Language, underage drinking, mob activities
Masterlist / AO3
A/N: So I’ve only just posted this story on Tumblr although I’ve had it on AO3 for months, and I just wanted to say thank you to everyone for the great response I’ve gotten so far! I hope you enjoy this next chapter! Please send an ask to be added to the tag list!
ALSO, I want to say a special thanks to my beta reader Jessieray98, she's been a HUGE help with this chapter and with planning the overall story!! 🤗
For the next hour and a half after Steve left, Y/N paced around her room muttering to herself. Her sorrow and despair had been suddenly washed away like a riptide only to be replaced with outrage and utter indignance at what was happening to her.
How dare her mother and her supposed-father lie to her for her entire life? How dare they try and hide this from her, only to reveal it at the worst time? How dare her mother leave her behind in Brooklyn, while Obadiah rots in prison, leaving Y/N vulnerable to everyone the man had ever made an enemy of?
And then there was Steve and Bucky.
Steve certainly had some gall to treat her the way he had, and Bucky just sat around and let her have it. Bucky didn’t care enough to intervene or even try to stop Steve. What kind of friends were they? It was clear neither of them cared enough about her to even comfort her in her time of need. Would the mob always come before her, or just when it was convenient for them?
It didn’t help matters that almost immediately after they had left, two members of the mob barged into her house to “keep an eye on her”. Steve had sent them in to babysit her, and now she was confined to her room as they played cards and drank Obadiah’s liquor downstairs. 
She felt patronized, infantilized, and she just wanted some form of agency in all of this. Her rage was the only thing she had to herself anymore, the only thing she could control, and she wasn’t about to let that go.
What was worse was that she still wanted her boys to come back and comfort her in her time of need, but she stamped that thought down, clinging to her anger towards them instead.
She was so caught up in her emotions that she hadn’t heard her phone ringing, and it wasn’t until she picked up her cell phone to shoot Bucky and Steve a long, heated text message that she had been conducting in her mind, that she saw several missed calls and texts from Wanda.
Although she and Wanda were close friends in school, they hadn’t spoken much that summer aside from a few Snapchats and empty promises to get together soon. They had a blast together at her birthday party the previous month, but then she had gone off to Martha’s Vineyard and hasn’t spoken much to any of her friends since then.
Now she had five texts and three missed calls within the past half hour.
Wanda: Hey babe I just wanted to check in on you.
Wanda: Heard about your dad and I’m here if you wanna talk. You know I can relate.
Wanda: We should hang tonight to get your mind off things.
Wanda: I’ll take you out it’ll be fun!
Wanda: Call me!!
Just as she was reading the last text, her phone rang, Wanda’s picture appearing on the screen. She answered the phone, her voice small as she greeted her friend. “Hey Wanda, I just saw your—"
Wanda cut her off before she could finish. “Y/N! I’m so glad you finally answered! I was getting really worried about you.”
“Oh, I’m fine…”
Wanda snorted. “I doubt you’re fine. When Pietro got arrested, I was a mess.” Her brother had been arrested the spring before—right before their high school graduation—for charges related to their father’s bootlegging business. Somehow, Tony had gotten him off the hook, but she remembered the stress it had caused Wanda at the time.
“Wanda,” she sighed, reluctant to reveal how angry, sad, and conflicted she felt inside. In her case, it was more than her father being arrested—it was the fact that he wasn’t even her father, that her mother had dropped that on her and left, and that her two closest friends were doing nothing to help or support her in her time of need. Instead, they abandoned her to do God knows what with the mob—the very thing that had gotten her family into this mess in the first place.
But Wanda said her name gently, understanding and softness seeping through her tone. “You don’t have to lie to me. Really, you don’t.”
Y/N let out a shuddering breath and replied, “It’s just a lot happening all at once. And I don’t really have anyone to talk to about it… Steve and Bucky are being huge jerks.”
“Boys are dumb. They have the emotional capacity of a peanut.”
That made her laugh, and she wiped at the tears that had gathered in her eyes. “Thanks for calling…”
“Come hang out with me tonight! We can do whatever you want—it’ll get your mind off of everything.”
“I can’t. Steve has people here babysitting me.”
Wanda scoffed. “Well Steve didn’t count on me. My dad has people watching every time I’m grounded, but that’s never stopped me before.”
“What are you going to do, sneak me out?” Y/N asked incredulously.
“Yes,” Wanda answered matter-of-factly.
“How?”
“Your window is on the second story, right?”
“Yeah,” Y/N answered, crossing the room to look out her window. It was a straight drop to the garden down below, right into her mother’s prized hydrangeas. She had never tried to sneak out before, or even thought about it, but the logistics wouldn’t work. “But I don’t have anything to climb down.”
“Just trust me. I’ll be there in twenty minutes!”
 This time, trusting Wanda paid off beautifully. Wanda had shown up and snuck her out with a cleverly constructed rope made of bedsheets knotted together. Once Wanda had flung it up to Y/N’s window and she had caught it, it only took tying it to her bedframe and climbing down before she landed in the hydrangeas next to Wanda.
“Well if your mom’s not coming back, it shouldn’t be a big deal that her flower garden is ruined,” Wanda whispered, tugging on Y/N’s hand and quickly moving towards her car on the street.
As they buckled in and Wanda took off in the direction of her own house, Y/N asked, “How do you know my mom’s gone?”
“I was working at the Widow’s Web this afternoon and Bucky and Steve came in. They got the news about it and I overheard.”
“Oh.”
“I’m really sorry she left,” Wanda frowned and reached out a hand to take Y/N’s. “I can’t imagine how you must be feeling.”
“Yeah…”
“I’m here for you for whatever you need.”
Y/N nodded, mulling this over. After a few minutes, she said, “Tonight, I just want to forget about everything that’s happening.”
“Well I can definitely help you do that!” Wanda exclaimed, excitement coming over her face. “There’s a few parties tonight around the city. How does that sound?”
Y/N hadn’t been to that many parties, certainly never the crazy ones that Wanda always spoke about. The thought of it made her slightly nervous, but then she realized that Steve and Bucky definitely wouldn’t want her going to any parties. “That’s perfect,” Y/N answered confidently, a newfound urge to rebel against them surging through her.
“Great! But you can’t go to a party in that,” Wanda said, looking pointedly at her sweatshirt and leggings.
“I don’t have anything else…”
“You can borrow something of mine! We’ll go back to my place—my parents and Pietro are all gone tonight, so we can get ready in peace. I’ll do your hair and makeup, too!”
Y/N smiled. Maybe this was exactly what she needed—girl time with one of her best friends. “I really missed you this summer, Wanda.”
“Hey, don’t get sappy on me!” Wanda winked at her, then squeezed her hand. “I missed you too, babe.”
Once they arrived at Wanda’s house, Wanda put on Y/N’s favorite music and announced that they were going to pregame. Wanda made her a fruity drink with enough vodka to make her cringe with every sip, and they danced and laughed tried on clothes, and she easily forgot about how many tears she had spilled over the past 24 hours.
“That one looks so good on you!” Wanda squealed about a tight blue minidress that hugged every curve of her body.
“You can see my panty lines,” Y/N protested.
“You can borrow mine!”
“I’m not gonna wear your panties, Wanda!”
“Then go without.” 
Just the suggestion had Y/N bursting into giggles. “That’s out of the question!” 
“Ugh, spoilsport!” Wanda grunted and tossed her a black leather skirt. “Put that on. It’s thick enough that there won’t be panty lines.”
After stripping off the minidress and squeezing into the skirt, she looked expectantly at Wanda. “Well? Am I supposed to go to the party in my bra?”
“I mean, it wouldn’t look bad—”
“Wanda!”
“Here!” Wanda emerged from her closet with a black crop top with lace overlay. Once she slipped it on, Wanda smirked and nodded. “Yes, that’s the one. You look so hot!”
“Isn’t it a little too revealing?” she asked, tugging at the clothes on her body. The top’s neckline dipped low enough to reveal her ample cleavage, and it didn’t quite reach the high waist of the skirt, so a thin strip of her abdomen was revealed as well. The skirt reached her mid-thigh at least, but that was still more revealing than she usually wore.
“It’s perfect. I swear you look amazing!” Wanda rushed to get her strapped into a pair of stilettos, and then ushered her over to her vanity. “Now let me do your hair and makeup!”
After Wanda started curling her hair, they fell into conversation about Wanda’s new job, as well as her new romance.
“So you and Natasha are together?” Y/N asked in shock. She sat at the bench in front of the vanity, Wanda standing behind her curling her hair. Through the mirror, she could see how Wanda smiled excitedly at the mention of Natasha.
“Yeah, and it’s been really great!”
“But she’s so much older than us.” Although, Natasha was the same age as Bucky and Steve—and look at what they’ve been doing with Y/N. She supposed it was a bit hypocritical of her, but she had never considered their age difference, especially because they had been friends for so long.
“She’s not that much older than us! Besides, she’s so sweet and she buys me nice things. Like this, look,” Wanda pulled a silver chain out from under her shirt and revealed a big emerald pendant hanging from the end.
Y/N’s jaw dropped. “Oh my gosh, Wanda, that’s beautiful!”
“I asked her for diamonds but she said we had to be more committed first.”
She snorted. “That’s so typical of you.”
“What can I say? I have good taste and I know what I want.”
“Ouch!” Y/N hissed as the tip of the curling iron brushed against her ear. “Watch it with that thing!”
“Sorry!”
“You’re too drunk to be wielding a hot tool.” She numbed the pain by taking a large gulp of her drink, grimacing at the sourness of the cranberry juice and the aftertaste of vodka. “Natasha always seemed so intimidating to me. How did this thing between you even start?”
“Well, I interviewed for the waitress position at the Widow’s Web, and she was flirting with me all throughout the interview. Then after my first day on the job, she asked me out. What was I gonna do, say no to my boss?”
Y/N frowned. That arrangement didn’t sound exactly right, but she didn’t have enough relationship experience to know better.
Wanda started to brush out the curls, turning them into glamorous waves. “So what about you, huh?” she asked, “Any boys in your life?” The blush that spread over her face told Wanda everything she needed to know. “Oh my God! Who?”
Her blush only deepened as she shook her head, taking another big sip to avoid answering. Then she took a moment as Wanda locked in the curls with hair spray, closing her eyes and mouth tight, but after Wanda was done, she had no more excuses to stay silent. “It’s complicated!”
“Who is it?”
“It’s nobody you know!” Well, Y/N had never been great at lying to anyone, so Wanda could see through her lie like it was plastic wrap.
“Uh-huh, yeah. So who is it? Turn around, time for your makeup.”
“I won’t tell you!” However, she obliged in turning around on the vanity bench.
Wanda reached behind her for some face primer and got to work. “Then I’ll guess! Is it… Peter Parker? I know he likes you!”
“No, it’s not him! And he doesn’t like me!”
“Is it… Dave from French last year?”
“Ew, no, it isn’t Dave.” 
While Wanda guessed through every boy in their graduating class, she finished applying a light layer of blush and bronzer to Y/N’s face. As she swiped a golden-hued highlighter onto her cheekbones and down her nose, Wanda huffed. “Is it Pietro? If you’re fucking my brother, I’ll kill him.”
Y/N burst out laughing. “No, it’s not Pietro!”
“Good,” Wanda grumbled, reaching for a tube of eyeliner. “Close your eyes and don’t move a muscle.” Neither of the girls spoke as Wanda meticulously applied a perfect winged eyeliner to her eyelids. “There, perfect.”
Y/N turned to look in the mirror, and then took it upon herself to apply her own mascara. The end result was a glowing, sun-kissed look, perfect for the end of summer; the eyeliner and long lashes complimented the natural look perfectly with just enough of a dramatic flair for the party.
“I’m gonna get your secret romance out of you somehow,” Wanda said, and handed her a red liquid lipstick. “Here, this is perfect.”
“No way, the eyeliner is already dramatic enough.”
Wanda rolled her eyes. “Babe, winged eyeliner and red lips go together like Jay-Z and Beyoncé, please put on the damn lipstick.”
She conceded, applying the bright red lipstick carefully before blotting it on some tissue paper and moving aside so Wanda could do her own makeup. As soon as Wanda started on her eyeshadow, she started guessing again.
“Is it someone in the mob?”
“No…”
“That’s a yes,” Wanda rolled her eyes. “We really need to work on your lying skills.”
“I usually don’t need to lie.”
“Lying is a very useful skill. The trick is to not think about the fact that you’re lying.”
“That’s all I can think about when I lie.”
“Of course it is—you have too many morals to lie successfully. Don’t worry, I’ll break those down for you,” she smirked, sending her a sly wink through the mirror. Then she continued. “So it’s someone in the mob… One of Pietro’s friends?”
“No.”
“Someone way older than us?”
She hesitated. “Not that much older…”
A strange look crossed Wanda’s face that almost at once turned into realization. “Oh my God, you’re fucking Steve or Bucky! It has to be!”
“No!” But her voice was so high pitched, it gave her away immediately.
“It has to be!” Wanda repeated. “I’m so stupid—why didn’t I guess them before? You’ve been away with them for the past month at Martha’s Vineyard! Who else could you possibly be fucking other than them!” Y/N’s silence confirmed this. “Which one?” Wanda asked, pleading for the answer, desperation in her voice. “I have to know!”
“Neither!”
“Is it Bucky? It has to be Bucky, Steve’s still dating Peggy, right?”
A guilty look crossed her face. She had completely forgotten about Peggy, aside from Steve mentioning very briefly the previous day at dinner that Peggy wasn’t in the picture anymore. He had shut down any questions she had immediately.
“It’s Steve then?” Wanda asked, carefully reading her expressions. “Did Steve and Peggy break up?”
“I guess,” she shrugged. “I don’t know much about it.”
“So you’re with Steve now, then?”
“I don’t know, it’s complicated…”
Wanda hummed thoughtfully. “You know, I always pictured you with Bucky rather than Steve.” When Y/N didn’t answer, her eyes wide at the notion, Wanda’s sixth sense seemed to come into play again. “Oh my God, did you fuck him too?”
“No!”
Wanda squealed. “You did! Oh my God, you fucked both of them! I’m so proud of you,” she gushed, wiping a pretend tear from her eye. “I knew you had it in you!”
“Shut up!”
“Who did you fuck first?”
“Uhm… It’s complicated.”
Wanda’s excitement was palpable at this point. “I’m getting you so much drunker and you’re going to spill every detail to me!”
Two shots of vodka later, both of which burned going down and made her gag, Wanda was calling them an Uber to go to a party in Chelsea.
“I figure we’ll start with the one in Chelsea. Peter told me about it, and his friend MJ will be there too. Then we can skip down to Tribeca—my friend’s having a rager and I promised to stop by. Then we’ll see what happens from there!”
And although Y/N was apprehensive, nervous about the first real party she would be attending, the alcohol running through her system gave her courage, and Wanda’s excitement was so palpable that it rubbed off on her in all the best ways. She was buzzing for the night ahead, eager to see where it would take her, eager to forget about all of her troubles until the morning.
Sam: Past security. Going to find him now.
“They’re past security,” Steve sighed after he read the text message from Sam, leaning back against the wall outside the Metropolitan Correctional Center. He and Bucky were stationed outside the prison as security, while Clint and Sam were dressed as correctional officers in order to infiltrate inside, find Stane, and bring him down.
“Hopefully they take care of this quickly,” Bucky grumbled, pacing in front of Steve. Natasha was parked in front of the building in a white van, ready as their getaway. 
“Why’re you so antsy?” Steve asked, watching Bucky fidget with his security belt.
Bucky shrugged, wringing his hands, cracking his knuckles all at once. “I don’t like this, Steve. What if Y/N finds out it was us?”
Steve scowled. “We’re not the ones injecting him with that poison.”
“But we’re orchestrating it,” Bucky said. “We’re not innocent here.” Bucky looked at him with a gaze so full of fear and insecurity, Steve couldn’t help but get lost in it. Bucky’s emotions always tended to rub off on Steve at the worst of times, but it came over Steve like a spell now, the enormity of what they were doing, and how it would affect their girl.
Their girl. He kept thinking about her that way. In his heart, she was their girl, and now that her father would be out of the picture, she really could be. 
But he wasn’t acting like it, he realized. Not with how he had treated her earlier that day.
Steve shook his head, sighing, all of the tension releasing from his muscles. “She can’t know,” he answered, a warning and a plead all at once. “She would never forgive us.”
“Do you think she’ll forgive us for everything that’s already happened?”
“For keeping the secret about her father from her? She’ll have to. It wasn’t an option for us to tell her.” Stane would have killed them—he had done it before, after all. The man had never had any qualms about killing to keep his secrets.
“And for everything else?” Bucky asked. When Steve didn’t answer, only looked down at the ground, Bucky continued. “Stevie, we haven’t been good to her. You’ve been a real asshole to her these past few days. She just found out her dad isn’t her real dad, and you locked her in her room.”
Steve sighed, considering the situation. The concerned look on Bucky’s face told him that he truly may have gone overboard. In the stress from Stane’s arrest and planning his assassination, Steve lost control of himself, of his anger. This sort of thing had happened before, but he had never lashed out at Y/N so cruelly. Steve wasn’t above admitting to his mistakes—at least not to Bucky, his oldest and most understanding friend. 
“It’s been really stressful,” Steve said finally, taking a deep breath before continuing, “And I let it get the better of me. I was a real jerk about it.”
“Don’t tell me that, tell her.”
“I will, after this.” He couldn’t risk losing her, not when she was one of the only good things in his life. 
“Good.”
“We should probably bring her something to eat. She probably hasn’t eaten all day.”
“How about sandwiches and soup from the deli?” Bucky suggested.
“Perfect.” Steve cut the conversation off at that—they were still on a mission, after all, and they needed to focus, just in case anything went awry. 
The time passed dully as they alerted the others to guards entering and exiting the building. Sam and Clint had already locked onto Stane’s location in the prison and were on their way to him, and as soon as they injected him with the poison, they would be out of there. 
Steve was getting more antsy by the minute, eager to get back to their girl, to have this over and done with, ready to take care of her in the aftermath of Stane’s death. She would need their support then, more than ever.
Finally, a text message came through. 
Sam: Done. On our way out. Meet at van.
Less than a minute passed before they were all sitting in the white van, Natasha pulling onto Pearl Street and merging onto the Brooklyn Bridge. Sam and Clint quickly debriefed them.
“Got in and out without anyone seeing us,” Sam said. “Nobody even glanced our way.”
“Stane didn’t even notice us when we got him with the stuff. Stuck him right in the back of the neck,” Clint explained, lighting up a cigarette and rolling down the passenger side window.
Natasha accelerated the van to 15 miles past the speed limit. “The poison will mimic the effects of a heart attack. Nobody will know what hit him.”
“Good,” Steve muttered, lighting his own cigarette. “Because if any of us get caught, we’re all paying the price.”
“Jesus, Nat, slow down, will ya?” Bucky grumbled, “You tryin’ to draw attention to us? We’re right by the police department.”
“I’m eager to get back to the lounge,” she said flatly, “Some of us have obligations.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Steve snapped, on edge at her tone of voice, at the way she glared at him through the rearview mirror.
She shrugged, turned her gaze back to the road. “Just saying, you don’t seem to be too concerned about how a certain daughter of the mob is handling her parents abandoning her.”
Steve breathed out slowly through his nose, trying to control his temper. He wasn’t sure what Natasha was getting at or why she cared now. Plus, he had already realized he had fucked up, and he didn’t need her rubbing it in.
However, Bucky cut in before Steve could send any harsh words her way. “Cut the shit, Nat,” he said sharply, and when Steve glanced over at him, he saw an unusual expression of annoyance on Bucky’s face. Steve had never seen Bucky get cross with Natasha before. “What did you expect us to do? Disobey Stark’s orders to stay with her? She’s at the house, she’s perfectly fine there until we get back.”
Natasha didn’t respond, only accelerated faster. Steve spoke up, trying to keep his tone even. “We’re plenty concerned about her. Now we actually have the time to make sure she’s doing alright.”
The ride back to the Widow’s Web was tense and silent. Steve sent a text to Y/N that they would see her soon, hoping to butter her up a little and earn her forgiveness.
Steve: Sweetheart, we’re gonna pick up some dinner and head back to see you. You want your usual from the deli on Atlantic?
By the time they had gotten all the way to Bushwick, Steve had sent three more texts and still hadn’t gotten a reply, and he was starting to get worried that she was so angry to the point of ignoring him.
“Call her, would ya?” he directed to Bucky as they neared the Widow’s Web. “She’s not answering my texts.”
Bucky obliged, but his call went directly to voicemail. “Her phone must be dead,” he said, frowning. Natasha pulled up to the curb next to the lounge and stopped the car.
As they filed out of the car, Natasha cut into the conversation. “You can’t reach her?” When they confirmed this, she said, “Who do you have babysitting her?”
“Lang,” Steve answered, “I’ll text him about it.”
After sending Lang a text that instructed him to check on Y/N and ask her what she wanted for dinner, Steve followed Bucky to the back room of the lounge, where they all changed out of the uniforms that Sam had provided for them.
“Thanks for everything tonight, guys,” Steve said, shaking Sam’s and Clint’s hands. “I appreciate your help in this.”
“No problem, man,” Sam nodded, gathering up the uniforms. “If you need anything else, let me know. Hopefully the girl doesn’t give you too much trouble with all this,” he said with a wink. Somehow, Sam always seemed to see right through Steve.
Clint nodded. “I’m going back home after this, but Tony’ll give me a call if you guys need me.”
As they departed, Steve’s phone chimed. When he checked the message from Lang, his face fell. “Bucky,” he said sharply, “She’s not in her room—and her window’s open.”
“What?” Bucky asked, alarmed. “Where is she?”
“I have no fucking idea, but she’s not at the house.”
Bucky looked at Natasha, who had been lingering in the background. “Nat, did you ever send Wanda to go see her?”
“I told you not to,” Steve snapped, eyes flashing between Natasha and Bucky. A tense moment was shared between them, the vein in Steve’s temple jumping, Natasha’s fingers twitching almost imperceptibly, the only tell that she wasn’t as calm and collected as her expression would make it seem.
Her tone was cool as she spoke. “Yes, I did. I haven’t heard from her all night, though.”
Steve and Bucky exchanged a look, then focused their attention on Natasha. “Call Wanda,” Bucky commanded, “Find out where she is and if Y/N is with her.”
“I’m sure they’re fine,” Natasha drawled, but obeyed and stared at them with narrowed eyes and a scowl while the phone rang.
They could hear Wanda pick up the phone, her voice ringing through the speakers, music and voices loud in the background. “Hi, Nat!”
“Wanda,” Natasha said evenly. “Is Y/N with you?”
Wanda replied, “Yeah, we’re at a party right now! Why?”
Natasha sighed. “Where are you?”
“What? I can’t hear you, it’s so loud here!”
“Where are you?” Natasha repeated, louder.
“Manhattan!”
“Yeah, Manhattan’s a big place. Where specifically?”
“I can’t hear you! I’m gonna text you!” And with that, Wanda hung up the phone.
Steve glared at Natasha. His patience was wearing thinner and thinner with each passing second that he didn’t know his girl’s location. The city was dangerous, she could be anywhere, getting up to anything—how was he supposed to protect her if he didn’t even know where she was? “I told you not to send Wanda over. She’s nothing but trouble.”
Natasha rolled her eyes, tapping out a text to Wanda. Seconds later, a reply came through. “They’re at a house party in Tribeca. I’ll drive you guys there.”
“Don’t bother,” Bucky said, “Just send me the address. We’ll go to pick her up ourselves.”
Natasha frowned as they turned to leave. “Steve, James… I was just trying to help.”
Steve looked back at her with a cutting stare. “Next time, don’t.”
The lights flashed red and pink and purple in time with the bass of the electronic music blasting through the speakers, and Y/N had never felt more happy or dizzy or ecstatic in her life. She and Wanda had been at a more relaxed party in Chelsea first, and after spending a few hours there playing drinking games with Peter’s friends, they took an Uber to Tribeca. 
Now they were three Jell-O shots in, and she felt like she could burst out of her skin. She told Wanda as much, and Wanda just laughed. “I knew you’d love this! I just wish I had dragged you out to parties sooner!” The song changed to something full of synthetic chords and a heavy drum beat that vibrated the floor and walls around them. “I love this song! Let’s dance!”
She had no time to protest before Wanda was dragging her onto the dancefloor and grinding up against her. Y/N got lost in the feeling of her body moving, the way the bass thrummed up through her skin, made her heart pulse in time to the tempo. She didn’t even realize when someone pressed up behind her and started grinding on her. Not that she minded—she was too drunk to mind anything, too wrapped up in the sensations inside of her to even pay attention to her surroundings.
So that’s why she didn’t realize Steve or Bucky were there at the party, storming towards her, until a large hand gripped her around the upper arm and yanked her away from the dancefloor.
Her eyes flew open as her center of balance distorted, and Steve’s bruising grip on her arms kept her from falling, just like his cold blue eyes glowering into hers pinned her in place, his face flashing crimson and violet with the lights. She froze, her wildly beating heart the only part of her moving as she waited for her predator to strike.
He shook his head slowly, a sinister smile spreading over his face, the calm in his expression only a façade for the fury raging beneath. “You’re in so much fucking trouble, sweetheart.”
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skippyv20 · 4 years
Text
Have I missed any? The dates might be off; I tried to find the earliest post in Skippy’s archives and date from that.
Original Riddler
2nd April 2019
Hickory dickory dock, the mouse ran up the clock. The clock struck three, ‘twas time for tea, hickory dickory dock. Hickory dickory dock the mouse ran up the clock, he saw three dressed up in tweed, hickory dickory dock. Hickory dickory dock, the men came to a hault, oh yes indeed, some men in drab, took care of what was left at fault. -OR
26th March 2019
Hear ye, Hear ye, I decree the words spoken to me. The messenger went back and forth, searching for wisdom of what should be told. The seeds were planted purposefully, so not just one, but many could begin to see. The purpose lies within the lions teeth, only those who dare will oddly know, that we have eyes everywhere, and even that little birdie wasn’t the same bird to unfold of what they were told. OR
25 Feb 2019
IT Dollhouse Riddle #1 Farmer, Farmer in the dell. What is the crop that you do sell? Sleepers, creepers in the morning. Hush don’t wake them or send a warning. Farmer, farmer in the dell. How is the crop that you do sell? Dreamers, screamers, sun is high, on two they race, their end is nigh. Farmer, farmer in the dell. Where is the crop that you do sell? Lazy, hazy with sun setting. all on three so no upsetting. The dreamers who sleep should not be awakened. Puppet masters will not be forsaken.
28th December, 2018 (Two Riddles)
Riddle One
I hesitate to share the rumors heard, maybe they’re stories or simply old tales of how objectifying others can persuade you to do; crazy things, complete nasty things too, but if you write it off as a disorder, you’ll get free pills too. It plays with your mind, it rearranges your brain, without knowing it, you’ll be corned as crazy, and labeled; sincerely, ‘insane’.
Riddle Two
The supporting heads from a far all gathered in plainly tired, they were requested to give their take of who is what, and what’s to blame. “We want that out, We want it now, We refuse to bow down to a lowly cow.” The staff jolted at the end of their decree, because they knew many things that we couldn’t see. From the greatest to the small, they all believed, they bowed their heads, and all agreed. “Your word is the last take, sir. What ought we do?”
21 Dec 2018
Story time; there cometh a person and in their hand, carrying a letter of dreadful tales. They asketh permission for the news to leak, adding fire to that one started with. They got their answer directly from the Great, as they were told; ‘do as you wish, according to what you see fit.’ The letter was delivered, ‘twas signed and sealed, no matter the tears it may bring to one or two deers, there’s no stopping the motion of the Royal deal.
18th December 2018
Twiddle dee, twiddle dumb, I’m back on my thumbs! T’was a few hours before Christmas, and she barely couldn’t sip rum. The Harlot shook her fist so well, that His Royal Highness left a cold print in the sand. Bake for all we care, after all, is there even life in there? Death comes when you least expect it; just because you carry it doesn’t mean you won’t be rejected.
31 August 2018
What ought lovers do, when one was completely untrue? Doth love hide, and sweep the floors nightly, making sure to leave the backdoor cracked slightly? Treason maybe a reason, however there’s something more appealing than the Mary intake; oh, the games they play, thinking there’s a prize to be made.
Who is Robin? Or who is Rob’bin the Hood?
The first string to the fiddle has been caressed, assuring that those closest will talk at the highest expense. -OrgRiddler
29 August 2018 A little climatic those three agreed, Always in conflict and sometimes in tweed. They can’t seen to laugh, or genuinely cry; for ones not deserving, and the other overly relies. Ought time prove itself, as the body starts to ache, even if they had no heirs, there’d be nothing left for take. Ought we let them play the fiddle, and let them be? For if, and when they play so hard, only they have blame of tearing their own strings. -OrgRiddler
2 July 2018
Oh, Rumplestilskin, what have thou done? Are we on the same team? Or have thou taken my name out of vain? Oh, dearest Skip, it is I; the (orig) Riddle Anon, the new Riddle is not of mine, however I wish they mean well, but I’m sensing that somehow it was tweaked for someone’s gain to derail what we’ve accomplished thus far. Welcome new Riddle Anon. Sincerely, *Riddler of Old.
First Riddle
Hello Skip! A riddle: I have people in places, and places of people, many of whom I am related. In, and out the palace they go, one by one, we are loved by the Queen, you know. I can’t say much, because the world will soon find- I’m no ordinary joe, my family has their own crown. I stalk tumblr to laugh, and holler at the so called “wedding” for a wanna be baller. This isn’t to state; “look at me world!” However, this is to state that you have a fan behind someone’s palace walls.
Looks like them all....thank you so much....😊❤️❤️❤️❤️
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