#fic: succumb | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

asirensrage · 2 years

Text

Succumb - Steve Rogers x OC

Title: Succumb Fandom: MCU Pairing: Steve Rogers x OC Word count: 4210 Warnings: torture, forced pregnancy, kidnapping, isolation, swearing, illness, biological warfare, dubious-consent, coercion. Also available on Ao3

Summary: Steve Rogers is betrayed. He's not the only one.

Notes: shout out to @vixenofcourse who indulged me as I delved into this idea after I read Flowers in the Attic. All of my thanks to her for editing it for me. The sketch used in the banner above is gorgeous and for sale. Check it out here. Also, please let me know what you think. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this (and not just because I have ideas of what happens after...)

This is a darker fic. Heed the warnings.

Steve Rogers is betrayed.

He’s led down into this place he doesn’t recognize by Sitwell. He’s been back in the world for only a few months, barely long enough to start figuring out the way things work. He’s not entirely sure he likes the people he’s surrounded by but aside from their initial deception after he thawed, SHIELD has tried to help guide him…even though they keep assuming he can’t adapt.

He hears a woman calling out for help and with a quick glance at Sitwell who doesn’t seem concerned, Steve picks up the pace. He’s locked in with her before he can stop it. Confused, he demands to be released only to be told to think of it as a vacation. One with a willing, warm body for his needs. The woman cries harder at that and all Steve can think about is how fucking stupid he is in this moment. He didn’t even suspect the trap or question the directive that no weapons were allowed past the stairs.

He tries to break open the door, the walls, anything to be released. Nothing moves. Seems they’ve learned their lesson from his first awakening on their turf. Eventually, he slumps down and looks at the woman who’s been ‘given’ to him. She looks like she just got off work at an office.

“I’m sorry,” he says. He means it too.

“It’s not your fault,” she replies, wiping her face free of tears. “You didn’t put me here. Fucking SHIELD did.”

Days pass.

The room they have been forced into is small, especially for two people. Barely long enough to lie down with his feet planted against one wall and stretch his arms over his head to brush the opposite wall with his fingertips . There’s a bare foam pad for a mattress on the floor in the corner and a washroom with a toilet securely fastened down, same with the shower head over the drain in the floor. There’s no shower curtain or partition for privacy, only a missing door. He’s seen better conditions during the war.

Steve learns her name, Eurydice, and that she had just recently started working in the Human Resources department of the agency. An agent had asked for her assistance…before throwing her in here a couple days ago, she thinks. They didn’t tell her why. They didn’t speak to her at all until he came.

Food is delivered only during the night and rationed throughout the day. He tries, over and over, to grab whoever is delivering it. He somehow never manages as it’s shoved through an opening in the door. He spends a couple of days trying to break it but when he attempts it, they’re not fed. He abandons this venture only once his vision is blurring and his hands begin to shake while the woman he’s with is curled in the corner, trying to quell the misery of her hunger. Food begins to arrive again after he stops.

Finally, they are told why they’re there. Why they won’t be released any time soon.

“You are a rare specimen, captain,” an anonymous voice says. The speaker is buried in the wall. “We were not able to procure a sample of your semen while you were emerging from the ice, so we’ll do this the old-fashioned way. You’ll sleep with the girl, Captain and give us the child.”

There have been few moments where Steve has actually been overcome with rage. This is one of them. But it is nothing compared to her.

He‘s never heard some of her swears before, even from the men he’s spent time with in the forties.

“It’s okay,” he says. “I promise. No matter what. I won’t touch you, okay? It won’t happen. I’ll get us out of this. Now we know what they want so we just don’t give it to them. We’ve got this.”

He does not have this.

Neither of them do. He realizes, likely too late, that he should have tried to actually build relationships with the people he’s met. How many of them are wondering where he is? Is anyone? Or has SHIELD spun a story addressing his disappearance? What about hers?

There’s nothing to do but talk or draw on the walls with the pen and charcoal he had stashed in one of his pockets that would have held his sketchbook. She is a terrible artist but she fills the silence as he draws.

Eurydice (“Dizzy to my friends”) is 29 and named after the Greek myth. Her father was a classics professor, her mother an accountant. She‘s new to the city and only joined SHIELD because she needed a job, not out of some patriotic duty. She likes spicy food and tacos and green tea. She prefers comedies over action and she misses listening to her father’s voice reading to her. Her voice breaks at that.

Steve tells her about his mother, about Bucky and even about Peggy.

She scoffs at that last relationship, with one of the founders of SHIELD, and they fight. It ends with her retreating to the bathroom and Steve nearly breaking his own hand punching the wall. She’s wrong. He wants her to be wrong but part of him worries she’s not.

Then the music starts.

It blares from the speakers, causing Eurydice to curl up, covering her ears. Steve tries to find the speakers, to break them, but it’s so loud that he can’t hear where it’s coming from. It lasts for hours and when it finally stops, when they finally have silence after curling into each other trying to help cover their ears, the fight is long forgotten.

It doesn’t stop there.

They don’t get a change of clothes. The temperature seems to drop with no pattern. He offers his warmth, promising to be respectful and not touch her any more than necessary, but they go from trying to huddle together to her choosing to lean against him constantly. She shivers in the dark and it’s all Steve can do to try to keep either of them from freezing. It’s only when they’re curled up together, when her teeth stop chattering as her head rests against his chest, that the cold seems to ease.

Despite everything, despite being used as an experiment and being seen as a paragon of virtue, Steve is human. He’s a man. In the weeks that pass, filled with mindless boredom and conversation about anything possible, he finds himself entranced.

She’s quick-witted, funny and while she’s a bit of a pessimist, she’s trying. That means a lot to Steve. Especially when she tries to cheer him up.

She’s also gorgeous in an old-fashioned way. She reminds him of the faded photographs his mother kept of family and friends gone or left behind. It’s subtle, and he thinks in this time maybe she’s overlooked. He can’t help but watch her and not because she’s the only other person here rarely more than arm’s length away. Eurydice is all soft curves and bright eyes and sharp tongue. He thinks if they had met some other way, he would have been tempted to ask her out. Considered leaving the memory of Peggy in the past to get to know her.

He wants and wants and wants. But Steve made her a promise. He won’t touch her. He’s not even going to let her know how he yearns.

“SHIELD can’t be good,” she tells him one day. “Not when they’re doing this.”

She’s leaning against him, beyond exhausted. He’s always trying to hide her behind his bulk, away from the door. Away from anything that could hurt her.

“I know,” he says. He’s been thinking of it since the day they locked them in. The Peggy he knew wouldn’t have accepted this but he’s wondered if he ever really knew her, how early the rot set in, how she and others could have missed it. A romance on and off a battlefield didn’t actually mean they knew every facet of each other. All the good and the bad and what might be seen as an acceptable compromise to secure something that looks like peace and security. After all, history is full of them.

In the time he’s been here, he thinks he’s seen every side of Eurydice. He’s held her as she cried in despair or raged against their captivity. Slept with her pulled against him, trying to share his body heat. Shared every meal. He’s been subject to her anger even her pain when she menstruated. She’s seen every part of him in return. His anger, his sarcasm, the way he likes to pretend to be the version the public expects and the real him. She’s heard all of his hopes and dreams and frustrations. She knows how he hasn’t fully trusted anyone since Bucky.

“I wish I could draw you,” he tells her when she’s falling asleep. “I wish—” He stops himself and looks at the walls around them. He’s covered them in landscapes and memories of New York. He’s drawn everything he could think of, anything to keep him from reaching out to her. Even when she’s the one who moves closer, who tries to comfort him. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Only have a pencil but I’m trying to give you the world. However I can.”

“Thank you, Steve,” she murmurs back. He feels her relax further into him and he closes his eyes, trying to focus on the sound of her breathing.

So of course the music starts again.

He feels her eyes on him almost constantly, though it’s long ago become a comforting weight. But lately, she looks away every time he tries to meet her gaze, to figure out what she’s thinking. It’s the only thing she really hides from him. He hates it. He wants her to tell him, to admit it. He wants to know that he’s not alone in feeling like this.

So he relishes the moments she gives. The way she talks to him when she tries to sooth his anger, how she’s always the first to reach out to him, to tuck herself against his side. She’s the one who moves closer because he swore he wouldn’t and it takes everything in him not to pull her tighter against him and not let her go.

The soap they share lingers on her skin and he breathes it in every chance he gets. It’s better on her but mainly because there’s some part of him that enjoys her having his scent, as though he can claim her in any way possible without actually crossing the boundary he placed between them. It makes him feel like this is all welcomed. That if he closes his eyes, he can pretend that they’re somewhere warm. That they chose to be together instead of forced. He thinks he’d choose her now over anyone.

He doesn’t want to scare her.

It’s been weeks. Months? He should know but when he’s not thinking about how they’re going to escape, he’s thinking about her.

Maybe it’s the sleep deprivation. They haven’t been able to grab even a full hour anymore. Any time they get close to falling asleep, the music starts or the temperature drops and they’re forced back to alertness. It doesn’t matter if it’s only one of them or both, they’re not allowed to rest. He can’t help it though.

He thinks about how she sometimes smiles and how it feels like it lights the whole place up. He thinks about what it would be like to touch her, to have her relax against him completely. He thinks about the way she sometimes holds her breath, the soft sounds she tries not to make when she's in the shower and he pretends he doesn’t hear. He wants to know if she thinks of him then, like he does her.

He thinks about how she’s starting to thin out, that the curves he first noticed are beginning to shrink. He doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like how she’s not moving as fast as she used to, that her quick-witted responses aren’t happening as much. Apathy is setting in.

He thinks about what it would be like if they weren’t here, if they were in some apartment with the sun shining in through the windows and he tries to ignore the itch to draw her.

He needs to get them out of here. If only so they can have a real chance.

The sleep torture stops as suddenly as it started and Steve has no idea how long they sleep in the ringing quiet.

Something is wrong.

It starts with a cough. Dizzy tells him that it’s nothing, the air is dry and she’s prone to allergies. He believes her. Until it doesn’t fade. He asks their captors for another blanket, something to help her, but they don’t respond and the cough continues to linger.

He hears it constantly. It does not ease and Dizzy starts running a fever. She won’t eat and while he should be grateful that they finally get to sleep, she’s sleeping longer and longer. As if it’s getting harder to be awake.

Then it turns from a mild persistent cough into long barking hacks. He doesn’t need to see the blood speckled in her palm to know that it’s the same thief that took his Ma.

Steve rages.

She would have needed to be infected and since he has been her only companion, he knows who’s responsible.

“God fucking damn it!” he screams at the ceiling. “Heal her!”

There is silence in return until finally the air crackles. “Comply,” the voice says around him. He shakes his head, but fear settles in his chest as Dizzy starts coughing again.

Steve breaks.

“Fine,” he swallows and prays she forgives him. He can’t lose her. “Heal her and I’ll do it.”

Silence answers again.

“Fuck!” He punches the door. It dents slightly but does not budge and Steve breaks at least one knuckle.

He hears a noise as the slot where their food is delivered opens. He turns towards it, waiting for it to open.

“Place your arm through the hole, Captain.”

“What?”

“Present your arm for injection.”

He clenches his jaw, trying to quell the desire to refuse. To reach out and break whoever is there but then Dizzy coughs again, her body wracking with it. He kneels at the door and shoves his arm through the hole. He turns to stare at Dizzy as he waits until he feels the needle.

When he wakes up, she’s gone.

It takes three days.

They torture him in her absence, filling the silence with sounds of her coughing and wheezing. Sounds of her hacking up blood. He doesn’t sleep and he almost imagines he hears his mother, as though he’s back there in the hospital helplessly watching her die.

Finally, the door slot opens again.

“Present your arm for injection.”

“Tell me she’s okay.”

“Your arm, Captain.”

“Is she okay?”

He almost hears a sigh. “If you want her to return, you will present your arm.” He does.

This time when he wakes up, his head is in her lap. She’s humming softly as she strokes back his hair. It’s almost as though she’s bathed in light but they don’t have any windows. Maybe he’s hallucinating.

“You’re okay,” he breathes.

“Yeah,” she says softly. “They healed me.”

He sits up and cups her cheek softly, looking over her face, trying to memorize every feature. She looks better. She looks alive but he can see the impact that this last attempt to force their compliance has had on her.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her softly. He's sorry that she's been drawn into this mess. Sorry that they've almost killed her over and over in attempts to get them to comply and he's sorry...that part of him isn't because god, he just wants to touch her and if this is the only way, he'll take it.

She gives forgiveness in two words. “It’s okay.”

They demand compliance immediately. He begs them for a reprieve. They are granted three days before they promise to replace her.

Steve sits on the foam pad, his back pressed against the wall. He’s already confessed to her, told her what he promised in exchange for her life.

Dizzy moves, throwing a leg over him before she settles, straddling his lap. His hands come up to her waist automatically. He’s so used to touching her now, even just casually. He didn’t realize how much he missed it until she went out of her way to reach for him. Even when it wasn’t completely out of survival.

“I don’t want to die,” she breathes. “If we…they’re going to kill me either way. I have no value to them except for this. If we don’t, they’ll bring someone new but if…if I get pregnant they’re going to tear the kid out of me and I’ll die knowing I lost them to-” she cuts herself off, closing her eyes and trying to bury her face in his chest. He tries to hold her closer, as though he can protect her from these fears. They’d been here too long.

“I won’t let them.” He forces himself to sound assured, even though they’ve been trying to find an escape since they’ve been locked in. He won’t let anything happen to her. Ever. “This might look like an unwinnable fight, but I’m not gonna give up. I don’t know how. So I’m with you ‘til the end of the line, and that’s not coming any time soon.” He pauses slightly before he tells her, “you’re mine. I’ll kill them if they touch you.”

He says it like a promise but they both know promises can be broken. They were strangers when they met, when they were forced into this place and no matter what he’s tried, their captors have always been able to outmaneuver him.

“I can’t stop thinking about you.” She shudders against him when he whispers it, his mouth by her ear. “What you feel like. What you taste like. I want to know every sound, every expression, every shiver.”

His thumb is rubbing soft circles against the skin of her back. She shifts slightly, trying to get closer and he tries not to buck up against her. He’s relished the feel of her before but this is different. This is a chance to gain everything he’s been dreaming about.

“Tell me what you want,” he says, his voice low. “What you like.”

“I don’t know.”

“You do. You’re just too afraid to say it.” He moves so that his face is inches from hers. “If you want me to stop, tell me.” She doesn’t. His gaze darts to her lips before searching hers. All he sees is the same hunger he feels for her. He kisses her. Softly, at first, until she moves her mouth against his and his grip tightens. His kiss deepens and she arches against him. He pulls at the slip she’s wearing, desperate to get closer, to feel anything but the fear and anger and helplessness that has saturated them.

How long have they been fighting this? How long…how long have they been here? The kisses turn frantic as she rocks against him.

It doesn’t matter. Not anymore.

They make her take a pregnancy test. Every morning. The only blessing this offers is that it gives them a way to track the days.

Steve finds he can’t stop touching her. Now that he knows what she feels like, some of the sounds she makes though she tries desperately to be quiet because they’re watched, he can’t resist. They are commanded to fuck at least once a day, to fulfil their end of the bargain they were forced into. He does his best to hide her, to cover her as completely as he can so that he can grant her some small mercy.

It is destroyed with the tests.

Negative test after negative test. Both of them try to hide their relief. They’ve given in, but they’ll do anything they can to keep a child from being born into this torment. Neither of them will give it up to whatever god forsaken plans their captors have.

But their luck can’t hold out forever and eventually their fears are confirmed. One morning the test is positive.

“Stay here,” he tells her. He has spent weeks trying to work his way out and now? Now something is happening and the door…the door is ajar.

“Absolutely not,” she says. “What if it closes again and then I’m just stuck here. Alone.”

He swallows tightly. They’re both dehydrated, both hungry but he has to take this chance. He just needs her safe. And safe is with him, he reminds himself. He can’t trust anyone else with her.

“Okay,” he nods. “But follow me and listen to exactly what I say, okay?”

“Sir, yes sir,” she says dryly. He shoves down the way it makes his cock twitch.

“Come on.” He grabs her hand and angles them so that she’s hidden behind him as they leave. She’s small enough now that he’s certain no one would see her. He could block any attacks.

The hall is deserted.

Eurydice stays quiet behind him and if it wasn’t for the fact that he can feel her hand in his, he’d almost think she wasn’t there.

He remembers the way. It’s been etched into his head since that door slammed shut behind him. Since he first saw her, tears in her eyes as she looked at him with hope and then fear.

They don’t come across anyone for several nerve wracking minutes. It’s odd and alarming enough that he pulls her closer. He doesn’t relax, even when he feels her other hand dig into the back of his shirt. He only prys her fingers off of him, ushering her to stand against the wall as he moves forward to the first guard they come across. It’s luck that keeps the man from turning around too soon. It’s Steve who swiftly disarms him and slams the man’s head into the wall, over and over until there’s a bloody smear when he finally lets the body fall. It does nothing to ebb his anger and he looks back for Dizzy. She’s already moving forward, reaching for him again. She doesn’t even spare the body a glance.

He takes their gun and radio, which he keeps, and strips them of the bulletproof vest which he quickly puts on Dizzy. Nothing is going to stop them from leaving this place.

He hears her breath hitch as they pass a window. It had been months, possibly a year, since they even saw sunlight. Since they’ve seen anything except four walls and each other.

“We’re almost there,” he says softly. “I got you.”

“I know,” she whispers back. It strengthens his resolve.

He leads her up a flight of stairs before he forces her back against the wall, shielding her body with his. There’s noise at the door and he raises the gun, ready to shoot.

The door opens and he catches sight of a familiar face before it pulls back faster than it appeared. The next thing he sees is an arrow directed at him.

“Stand down!”

“No.”

“Cap?” The archer peers at him as he moves into view. “Holy shit.” Steve does not lower his weapon. SHIELD forced them into that room. Everyone he’s known has been SHIELD. Eurydice not included. She was betrayed as he was. She was the only one he could trust.

“Cap, it’s me. Hawkeye.”

“What are you doing here?” Steve demands.

“What–we’ve been looking for you. Have you…have you been here the whole time?” Clint lowers the bow, loosening his hold on the arrow. It would be so easy for Steve to shoot him. Even he wouldn’t be fast enough and Steve…he needs to get them out of here. “Holy shit,” he says again. “We were told you were on a mission but La–Nat thought something was wrong.”

Steve forces himself to relax. He steps towards Clint who’s staring at him like he’s never seen him before. It’s likely the facial hair. They never gave them anything that might be turned into a weapon or used to hurt themselves.

“We have to go,” he tells his former teammate.

“Yeah, come on. I know a way. There’s a blind spot on the left side–”

Clint falls. His distraction in pointing the way gives Steve the moment he needs to knock the man out. He’s not taking any chances.

He gets them out.

They don’t stay in the city. They don’t stay still. When they’re finally free, when they’re out of the city and alone, they stand outside in the sun. They breathe. And if Steve takes the chance to kiss her again, to press her against the car and fuck her, all that matters is the fact that she wants him just as bad. That she begs him for more.

“They’re not going to let you go,” Eurydice says. She touches the lower part of her stomach. “They won’t let any of us go.”

“Then I’ll burn it down,” he promises. “They won’t get another chance.”

taglist: @raith-way @arrthurpendragon @zeleniafic @jvstjewels @veetlegeuse @chickensarentcheap @booty-boggins @residentdormouse @delicateblackrose @stanshollaand @cantfighthemoonknight @wordspin-shares @chrissymunson

#steve rogers x oc #fic: succumb #oc: eurydice #darker!steve rogers #steve rogers fic #mcu fic #in which bad things happen #steve rogers/oc #darker fic #dark!fic

67 notes · View notes

druidonity2 · 9 months

Text

You stumble across a sha with a unique appearance. It looks like it's struggling to keep it's original form. What do you do?

#world of warcraft #anduin wrynn #warcraft #mists of pandaria #yet again another idea i want to write a fic for but i just aggghh #Okay so listen #Anduins gone missing in Pandaria yadda yadda but no one finds him at all #Researchers are trying to find a way to revert sha into the people they used to be and in doing so capture a powerful sha wondering the lan #they attract the attention of Varian who is shown their research and they perform a test with him witness on said powerful Sha #only for the test to prove successful and the Sha reverting to its original form #The missing prince Anduin #and no one fucking knew it was Anduin that was just a very lucky pick of Sha monsters #I dont remember Sha all being ppl turned by their emotions but i like that idea alot for this fic and i played ffxiv endwalker not long ago #so just people succumbing to their emotions and turned into unrecognizable monsters is like a story theme i like #so anyway what would you do if you saw this poor struggling sha

161 notes · View notes

radioactivepeasant · 7 days

Text

Free Day Friday: untitled Jak oneshot/ Daxter Snaps And It Doesn't Go Well

(This takes place right after Jak finally gets to return to Spargus in Jak 3, because I had some Feelings about the Dark Eco Oracle and its well-loved shrine having been either moved or destroyed in Haven. Also for reference: since the original Jak concept art was a cat/foxlike alien child, hence the ears being set so high on his head in TPL, I'm hereby deciding that their species can purr. Because I said so.)

This is Quite Long, so I'll probably crosspost to AO3 later.

TW: panic attack

Jak hadn't been surprised by the summons when he'd returned from Haven. He knew he was in for it. Damas had started trusting him with more and more responsibilities and then Jak had screwed it all up. Running off to Haven and then getting stuck there immediately after? Not a good look.

Honestly, Jak was just grateful he wasn't being "escorted" up by city guards.

Part of him wanted to go in fighting. That's all Damas cares about, right? a small, bitter corner of his heart muttered.

The rest of him was too afraid. He finally knew better than to look to anyone in Haven for affirmation or examples. Damas had been the closest he'd ever come to an authority figure he trusted. What if he lost that, too?

The second his and Daxter's heads were visible in the elevator shaft, Damas was already raising his voice. Perhaps he was simply projecting his voice to reach them, but Jak's stomach twisted into knots regardless, and his breathing became quick and shallow.

"Where have you been?" Damas demanded, rising from his throne. "It's been a month!"

The elevator locked, and Jak crept out onto the pathway like a skittish animal. He didn't meet Damas’s eyes. The confused anger and hurt he'd seen in them the last time flashed in his memory, and he winced. An oppressive silence fell for a few unnaturally long seconds, punctuated by the creak of the water wheel. Damas was waiting for an answer.

It's not our fault, Jak tried to reassure himself, Just another betrayal. We didn't do anything wrong.

When he didn't answer Damas, the king’s expression twisted between outrage and disbelief and-

And disappointment.

"Nothing? Really, Jak?" He took one step down from the dais, clenching his fist at his side. "Why didn't you tell anyone where you were going?"

Daxter took it upon himself to answer when Jak wouldn't -- or couldn't.

"Oh lay off!" he hissed, puffing himself up to look bigger, "Don't you have friends to kill in your gladiator ring?"

"Dax!" Jak gasped. Too late.

The words were already out and a black look fell across Damas’s face. His entire posture went rigid.

"Excuse me?" he asked in a frightful facsimile of calm.

"Daxter, don't," Jak pleaded, but it was far too late for that. When Daxter got this mad, he didn't even hear Jak.

"You heard me!"

Daxter leapt off Jak's shoulder and stood on the first stepping stone as if blocking the way between them.

"You tried to make us kill one of our only real friends, and threw a tantrum when we wouldn't! And if you think I'd trust you with Jak's location after that, those spikes must be diggin' into your brain!"

Jak couldn't breathe.

Either Damas was going to cut them off, or Daxter was going to get hurt, and either way everything was going to crumble. He'd finally escaped Haven and there was going to be nothing to escape to.

His core pulsed, obeying signals he didn't even know his brain was sending. It tried to respond to the fight-or-flight instincts quickening his pulse and shortening his breath. In Haven, he would have gone Dark in response. But he'd used all the dark eco. There was nothing left. Nothing but adrenaline and panic.

A strange, almost echoing sensation pushed at the inside of his skull, and the room spun. He couldn't breathe. His lungs felt like they'd been fused shut. He couldn't breathe!

"Jak!"

Between blurs of brown and green, Damas -- or an unfocused and staticy version of him -- approached rapidly.

As if from another room, Jak heard Daxter snarl, "Stay back! If you hurt him, I'll rip your spikes out!"

"I wouldn't hurt him!"

"You already did!"

It was too much. He couldn't- he couldn't focus. He couldn't find the light eco. Jak's knees gave, and it was a struggle to stay upright. Hands caught his upper arms, preventing him from collapsing entirely.

"Breathe, Jak!"

Damas sounded worried this time.

"You have to breathe!"

"Can't-!" Jak gasped, breath squeaking.

Then the world turned sideways and he was in the water. Or partly in the water.

His legs twitched with the shock of the new sensation, surprising him enough to suck in a deep breath. A compressing sensation against his chest and arms tightened in response.

"Focus on the water. Find your feet."

It took four tries to get his boots on the rocky bottom of the pool. His chest hurt, but he managed another deep breath.

"That's it. You can do this."

A small hand took his, pulling against the pressure around his shoulders, and pressed it against a narrow chest.

"L- like we practiced, bud-"

Oh. There's Daxter.

"Just breathe when I breathe, remember?"

Distantly, he heard Damas ask Daxter, "Has this happened before? In- in Spargus, I mean."

"Don't think about it, warrior," the other voice encouraged -- Damas? Is that Damas? But he's mad at us! -- "Just do as your friend does."

"If Jak wants to tell ya, he'll tell ya," Daxter said sourly. "You and I are not on speaking terms right now."

"...that is understandable."

One by one, his muscles relaxed. His breathing was much too fast, but it was easier to get full breaths at least.

When the ringing in Jak’s ears at last began to subside, he picked up a new sound. It was faint, barely audible at all, but he could just make out a nervous rumble. A laryngeal vibration he could feel through the back of his shirt. With conscious thought on standby mode, Jak's body responded to long-forgotten cues unbidden. His glottis rapidly dilated and constricted with his breathing, creating its own vibrations in a bid to self-soothe. It was how he'd learned not to cry out loud as a young child -- although blessedly, he would never remember that.

It wasn't the first time Damas had walked one of his people through a panic attack in the throne room, and it wouldn't be the last. But this one hurt.

"You're safe. There is no danger here. This is a safe place."

Shame raked its claws down his chest and Pain reached through the incision, grasping at organs and prying bones out of the way.

Jak didn't trust him.

And it was his fault.

"I'm sorry," he whispered- to Jak, to Daxter, to either-

A memory loomed damningly before his eyes. Mar had just started walking, and nearly toppled into the pools. Damas had yelled at him to get away from the edge, and the baby had burst into a loud, terrified wail.

"I'm- was it the shouting? I-"

"I'm sorry, it's okay, it's okay now- I know, I used the Big Voice, Daddy's sorry! You scared me, Bug!"

He hadn't gotten any better after losing Mar, had he? He still shouted when he was afraid. And look how that had turned out.

Damas tightened his hold on Jak and rested his chin on the crown of the boy's head. The apologies were bitter on his tongue, but necessary.

"I...I triggered this, didn't I? I'm sorry- gods, I'm sorry, Jak. I'm- you scared me. I couldn't find you! No one could!"

"You...thought we defected?" he asked through numbed lips.

The panic was slow to fade, still muddling Jak's mind. He couldn't quite make sense of what he was hearing.

"I thought the Marauders had taken you! Or you'd collapsed somewhere in the Wastes where we couldn't find you!" Damas answered. The dregs of that old fear still stained the edges of his voice. He shuddered.

He swallowed hard, interrupting the agitated purring for a moment. "I...did not handle the...situation as I should have. I damaged your trust. And I deserved worse than the silent treatment. I understand that. But to keep it from Sig, too?"

"You can't just run away like that! I- I understand why you didn't tell me-"

Painfully slowly, Jak drew his legs back out of the water and onto the rocks.

"They wouldn't let me," he mumbled. "They didn't let us leave."

Damas shot a concerned look at Daxter, who shrugged and looked away.

Shifting his grip to have one arm around the boy's waist, Damas heaved himself to his feet, taking Jak with him.

This promised to be a very unpleasant conversation, the least he could do was find them somewhere more comfortable to sit.

They were silent for a time, each processing the whirlwind of events. Jak was deeply, thoroughly, confused. No one had ever apologized like that before. Acknowledging his pain and the specific way their actions had caused it? It would be a cold day in hell before Samos ever did anything like that.

He didn't understand.

They'd defied Damas, then run from him. Daxter had just challenged him to his face.

Yet he spoke like a man anxiously awaiting the return of a prodigal son.

"Who wouldn't let you leave, Jak?" Damas asked him, far too gently.

Jak shut his eyes. "Haven."

"Haven?!" Damas sounded horrified. "What were you doing there?! Is that where you've been this whole time?"

Miserably, Jak nodded. "I was just- we were just scouting. Just- it wasn't supposed to be-"

He gritted his teeth.

"They locked down the air trains," he croaked. "And- and there's force fields blocking off the city exits. The only way they'd let us go was if I fought on the frontlines for three weeks first."

Fighting down his anger lest he trigger Jak's panic again, Damas forced himself to ask, "What made you go back to that city in the first place?"

A hostage. His boy- The boy had been a bloody hostage, and he'd had no idea! Damas felt something dark and dense fluttering between his ribs. If he found the person who ordered this, he would drown them in the sands.

Jak winced and passed several looks back and forth with Daxter.

"Ashelin...called me to the oasis," he said at last.

Damas stiffened beside him.

"She want- she wanted me to come back to Haven. After everything they did to me, she wanted me to come back."

He felt the hints of the anxiety returning, and wrapped his arms around himself for comfort.

"Ashelin Praxis?" Damas demanded. He curled his lip. "I might have known. I hope you told her where to shove that offer."

Daxter scoffed. "Oh, he did. Even told her "I have new friends now", which was a little too generous considering what you said to my pal."

Jak gave the ottsel a weary look, and Daxter grudgingly subsided.

"I told her to leave. She- she wouldn't drop it. Said the friends we still had were going to die. That it was my responsibility because of-"

He flipped a hand in the air in frustration.

"I don't know! Dead people I share some common blood with!"

"Pal, I'm pretty sure that common blood stopped bein' responsible for that dump when Princess Scribbleface's darling pappy took over," Daxter grumbled.

"Common blood?!" Damas startled, but Jak had already moved on, hastily trying to explain himself.

"We didn't believe her -- I- I mean, why would we? But when I asked the Oracle in the temple-"

"How did you find the Oracle?!" Damas spluttered.

"The stupid thing called me," Jak growled. He leaned forward and pressed his face into his hands. "Said the whole planet was in danger and my friends would die if I didn't find the catacombs."

He muffled a snarl in his palms.

"I hate them. I hate those rottin' things. They don't tell me when something is a trap. They only tell me what fits their agenda."

Jak could speak to Precursor Oracles.

Only monks were supposed to still be able to do that.

Monks, or Heirs of Mar taking the Trials.

"And...was it a trap?" Damas asked, fearing he already knew the answer.

A painful, wishful image of Jak in the Tomb of Mar wormed through Damas’s thoughts. If life had any semblance of fairness, or restitution, it would have been reality. It was not what he deserved, not after how many times he'd failed the people he cared about. But Jak deserved it. He'd been isolated enough.

Jak's face was like stone.

"All they cared about was getting me into Haven to find the catacombs before that nutcase Veger could. And all Haven cared about was keeping us there."

A deep, ominous creaking filled the room. Harsh shadows stretched and yawned as the terrible old statue beside the dais flickered, then lit up. A suffocating sense of dread filled Damas as he beheld the monolith. It wasn't a real Oracle. It was a shell, made to hold pieces of the water wheel. It wasn't made to have any kind of lights.

Daxter yelped and scurried up to Jak’s shoulder as the water wheel ground to a halt.

The silence was unnatural.

Jak's chest heaved, and Damas feared for a moment that he was going to panic again. But an answering light flickered in the boy's eyes. White, incandescent rage.

"What do you want now? You're not welcome here!" Jak snarled, standing up with a jerk.

"Angry one-"

It said in warning, a rolling, ancient voice that echoed off the stones and twisted in their eardrums.

Jak clenched his fists.

"No! I'm not afraid of you! You're no "holier" than Onin. You aren't even a Precursor!"

A sense of fury shook the room, and the water trembled.

Jak held his ground though his legs shook.

"You can't do anything to punish me," he challenged, angry tears glowing in his eyes. "The worst you can do is withhold information that would protect me, and you do that anyway! If- if you had power at all, you wouldn't have let Veger destroy Crius!"

Crius? Damas vaguely remembered that name. Hadn't he been one of the Bonekeeper's heralds? The memories were fuzzy at best. Father forbade Mother from speaking of the Bonekeeper when they married. Any communing with the patron of dark eco was done in secret, and as a child Damas had only caught her once.

"The dark shrine was all those people had!" the anger was slipping away from Jak now, replaced by something closer to grief. "He gave them hope! He gave- he gave me hope! And you couldn't save him. So what makes you think you can scare me now? Hu'mens are worse than you."

And the Oracle, miraculously, quieted. The waters stilled, and some of the dread receded. Jak fell back to the steps, having exhausted the last reserves of his emotions.

"Yeah! You tell him, Jak!" Daxter cheered, breaking the silence, "About time you put Sparky in his place!"

He ruffled Jak's hair -- the hair he could reach at least -- and leaned against his arm comfortingly.

"Next, we get Loghead!"

The Oracle remained lit, but speechless. All this time, had rebuking the heralds really been an option? Ever the pragmatist, Damas decided to follow Jak's example.

"As the boy said." His voice was quiet at first, but gained courage with each new word.

"This is not a place of seers and soothsayers. Respectfully: we do not require your guidance at this time."

"Heir of Mar-"

the Oracle began, almost wheedling.

Rage loosened his lips and he lost the last shred of reverence he'd held for the messenger.

Jak went rigid and Damas felt an anger of his own. How dare this entity try to leverage his bloodline when the Precursors had turned their backs on him!

"Hold your tongue! Unless you can comprehend the trouble you have caused, keep your counsel to yourself."

Resentfully, the Oracle's eyes flashed.

And with that, the lights were gone. The water wheel resumed its gloomy rhythm. The statue was hollow once more.

"So be it. You wish to hear no truth from me? Then you, Damas of the Wastes, shall hear no truth from me."

Something about the acquiescence -- or threat -- made Damas uneasy. Withholding information again, just as Jak had said. But he had the feeling it was hinting at something important. Taunting him.

Bloody seven hells.

He'd sooner cast the bones himself and call upon the Dark Lady directly as his mother once had than ever deal with that thing again.

"Little wonder you're always so on edge, dealing with that," he said; a poor attempt at a joke.

Jak dropped his face back into his hands.

"I'm so sick of them. Jak do this. Jak go there. Suffer for us, Jak! It's Fate!"

Damas scoffed. "Fate, eh? Wastelanders make their own fate. If this is who my monks consult, it's no surprise that they believe the world is coming to an end."

"They are pretty worried about the creatures in that space ship," Jak admitted reluctantly.

"Bah."

Damas waved it off.

"When the metalheads invaded our world, we survived with or without the Precursors they hunted. We will do the same if these creatures land."

He jostled Jak's shoulder -- shaking Daxter by proxy.

"Ey! No manhandling!"

Daxter slithered away down the steps and into the water. He glared up over the step like a little croc.

"You keep your emotionally constipated hands away from me!"

Damas let out a startled laugh, and Jak shook his head and grinned.

"I...guess you're right. Spargus is pretty tough."

"We are Wastelanders, boy," Damas declared, "We carved out a home in the places where nothing else survives. We'll carve out our fate the same way, with the same tools our ancestors used."

"...with eco," Jak said quietly, as if experiencing a revelation.

"Our minds think alike."

Damas’s wry grin faded.

"Jak...I'm...sorry. That I made you feel you couldn't contact me for help. If I had known you were being held in Haven against your will, I would have come for you."

The boy fixed him with a bewildered expression.

"You would have?" Jak asked, "You're serious. You. Leaving your people to come after me?"

The king met his stare evenly.

"Yes."

"After the- the thing, with the Arena-?"

Damas winced and looked away.

"I. I did not warn you, I was not permitted to. But the final trial of a Spargan is one they are supposed to lose."

Jak bristled. "What?!"

"It's a test of whether they can put loyalty to their city over the commands of a tyrant. Sig wasn't supposed to throw down his gun, he was supposed to goad you into a sparring match." Damas ran his hand over his shaved head. "I should have told him before he went in that it was you. I didn't know that you knew each other, but- maybe he wouldn't have panicked if he'd known it was a Final Trial. Maybe I wouldn't have panicked."

Jak stared at him in disbelief for several seconds. For reasons he couldn't quite explain, he blurted out an accusation with no bite to it.

"What, did you forget I didn't grow up here?"

When he was met with chagrined silence, his eyes widened.

"Oh my gods you did. How?! You're the one that found me out there!"

Clearly embarrassed, Damas shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know what to tell you. There are days when it just...seems as though I have known you for much longer than seven months."

Jak took that statement, turned it over in his mind. The version of Damas in his head wasn't quite matching the one in front of him. Even before things had become strained between them, he hadn't had the context to understand the way Damas saw him. He still didn't- not completely.

"Sorry," he said suddenly, and gestured to the soaked trousers. "I um. I don't usually...not in front of people, I mean-"

He leaned back against the stairs and stretched his legs out before him. The linen stuck to his legs in sodden wrinkles and folds, nearly transparent against his calves. It would dry quickly once he stepped outside again -- and the evaporating water would serve to cool his skin nicely. But for now, it drew his mind to his panic attack.

"Don't apologize." Damas laced his fingers together loosely and leaned his elbows against his knees. "May...may I ask what it was that sparked that kind of fear?"

Jak met Daxter's eyes, down in the water. The ottsel winced. He knew he'd taken it too far. He was just so sick of people acting like Jak was a trained dog with no autonomy of his own. And sometimes his desire to protect Jak’s emotions didn't mesh completely with what Jak needed at the moment.

Jak broke their gaze and began to pick at a scar on his elbow.

"...thought I was going to have to choose sides. Between you and Dax."

"Why would supporting Daxter cause you to panic?" Damas pressed.

"Because," he muttered with a shrug.

He'd assumed without question that Jak would take Daxter's side. Jak didn't know whether to be amused or grateful or just tired.

"Because?"

"Because I- I wanted this to still be home." Jak made a vague gesture encompassing the room, and its occupants.

"This is your home," Damas insisted. He glanced to the empty Oracle with a thoughtful frown.

Something lingered in the corners of Jak's eyes. A concern he wasn't voicing. Did he still believe he could be so easily forsaken?

"If this is where the desert brought you, then this is where the desert meant you to thrive."

But then, he had been cast out of Haven on the flimsiest of pretenses. His faith in hu'menity was shaken. For a moment, Damas considered changing the subject. He could talk about the coming trials, give Jak something else to think about.

Or he could meet him on his level. Show him the same vulnerability he'd so unwillingly displayed.

The words stuck to his tongue, stabbed like needles into the roof of his mouth as he forced them through his teeth.

"I...had a son. Some years ago."

"Had". Was there ever such a horrible word?

"He was like you -- or, he would have been, when he was older."

Under his breath he added, "if he ever got the chance to get older."

Jak's brows knit together, then went slack. From tiny pinpricks in the centers of his eyes, horror flooded out to the rest of his face.

"You have a child?"

After a moment to collect himself, the king nodded.

His head dipped lower, nearly brushing the steeple of his fingertips.

"I did. He was taken from me, by some of the same people who seem to have orchestrated your own suffering."

"I pray that my son still lives but- he was so young. So small. So-"

Damas’s voice cracked.

"So very small."

Guilt played across Jak's face for a moment, then was swallowed up by a deep sadness that welled up from within. Haven was a city of devils. He wondered if Damas’s child had been taken during the time when Praxis was snatching children en masse in his search for Jak's childhood self.

Did that make it his fault that Damas was so bereaved?

"That's-"

That's not fair. It's an abomination. Hurting a kid should be enough to make the Precursors strike you dead on the spot. Errol should've died the first time he put me in the Chair-

Jak's thoughts spiraled out of control, and he had to fight to return his focus to the moment.

"That's terrible."

Inhaling sharply, Damas raised his head and straightened his spine. One warm, callused hand found its way to Jak’s shoulder and squeezed.

He felt his throat closing up, snapping his voice into grating pieces.

"The reason I tell you this is so that you will understand this: It would take more than a little teenaged defiance to make me turn my back on you."

"I lost my son, Jak," he croaked, "I cannot lose you, too."

The laryngeal vibration began again -- from Jak, this time. The nearly autonomous response was as much a subconscious desire to comfort Damas as it was self-soothing. Even so, his chest ached dully. How old, he wondered, had Damas’s son been when he was taken? He must have been so scared! Did he call out for his father? Did Damas call out for him?

"In...war," Damas said hesitantly, "Sacrifices are sometimes required of us. In my case, I had to stay and rebuild the part of the wall the attackers destroyed. To protect thousands from the storms and the Marauders. I knew that, but it still took days for Sig to convince me to send him to Haven in my place."

"Yeah," Jak muttered, "I know about sacrfices."

But Damas shook his head. "It's hardly a sacrifice if someone else chose it for you out of convenience. That's just betrayal."

Silence fell again, but there was no tension to it. A sense of introspection lingered between them, each consumed with his own thoughts. Even Daxter's anger had muted itself -- now overlayed with guilt, berating himself for jumping to fight Jak's battles without bothering to see what Jak himself wanted.

The moment of quiet ended with a crackling of the city radio from which Damas monitored all official channels.

"Oh not now," the man groaned with a most unkingly attitude. "Can I have a moment of peace?"

"No way," Jak scoffed, finding a glimmer of humor in the situation, "You jinxed it by letting us take a break. Now something crazy is going to happen."

Damas narrowed his eyes. "Boy, if you will that into reality-" he warned, with no real way to finish the threat.

The second he picked up the receiver, he knew it was going to be a headache.

"Sire! We've got three different Marauder patrols converging on the city gates! There's a fourth on the radar crossing the river now!"

Daxter pulled himself out of the water and cringed. "How many cars is that?"

"Twelve, at least," Jak gulped.

Damas did not take this information the way he normally would have. He seemed to be fuming as he stood up and stomped up the stairs to retrieve his staff. Jak could hear him muttering under his breath.

His voice rose to something more audible. "I'm not in the mood for this, Egil," he snapped, addressing the thane of the Marauders as if he were present.

"Not the time, Egil, this is not the time to test me! Just got my kid back, got threatened by a bloody Oracle-"

Jak decided, for the sake of being able to focus during a fight, to just pretend he hadn't heard Damas referring to him as his own kid. He could come back to that and freak out later. Right now, there was a fight to be had. He held an arm down for Daxter to use as a ramp, then stood.

"Where do you need me?" he asked.

Damas gave him a searching look. For an instant, his gaze flicked to the lifeless Oracle. That seemed to reinforce his resolve.

"With me," he said shortly. "We're taking the Dozer. You're on the turret gun."

The way Jak's -- and even Daxter's -- eyes lit up almost made up for the hassle Damas knew this skirmish was going to be. He cast one last look at the Oracle before shepherding them to the lift.

Keep your counsel, he thought, and I will keep mine. I don't need your permission to add a son to my House. What of that, eh? The Heir and your renegade Pawn allied against you!

"Hey, maybe I should drive," Jak suggested as the lift began to move."

"Hm." Damas pretended to consider it. "No."

"Why not?!"

"You can't reach the pedals yet."

He could have simply explained that he preferred to drive his favorite vehicle himself. But, the slightest bit giddy at the thought of open rebellion against fate, Damas instead bent slightly to offer a teasing grin.

"What?! Oh come on!"

The elevator sank out of sight, and the water wheel trembled. The statue vibrated and the pools bubbled and boiled with the helpless fury of a falconer whose birds had long since slipped the jesses to fly free. But the boy had not spoken falsley: it was not a Precursor, merely the echo of one's memory. In the face of hu'men defiance, it was helpless to retaliate in any meaningful way. Even withholding the truth of the Hero's identity had been robbed of its intended effect, considering the Fallen Heir and the Hero had gone ahead and reformed the broken bond between them anyway!

The Oracle could not comprehend their motives, nor could it ever hope to understand the complexities of the hu'men mind.

It could only watch and seethe.

#fic prompts #writing prompts #free day friday #jak and daxter #dadmas #king damas #jak and daxter au #headcanon that the final arena battle is a Kobayashi Maru and Jak pulled a Kirk #i named the Dark Oracle after one of the mythological Titans #sneaky reference to sparguscituangel canon where Mictecacíhuatl is the patron of dark eco #tw panic attack #daxter was fully ready to End Damas right there 😂#Jak's species can purr now because the concept art started out vaguely feline #eldritch abomination oracle time!#except instead of humans being unable to comprehend the lovecraftian monster #its the lovecraftian monster that is wholly incapable of understanding humans without succumbing to madness #long post #oneshot

37 notes · View notes

nani-nonny · 2 months

Text

I did a bad thing… I don’t regret the thing I did. If you’re wondering what I did, I’ll tell you what I did.

I did a bad thing… vvvvv (check a short snippet of what I did)

Hope, happiness, excitement, relief. His heart burst with utmost joy that he couldn’t even fathom the mystery of how Splinter was back from the dead. He didn’t care. Splinter’s back!

“Father!” Leonardo called out and ran at the mutant rat and threw himself to embrace his father.

“Whoa—gotta say, I wasn’t expecting you!”

Leonardo pushed away from the mutant he was hugging, appalled by the voice. That’s not Splinter. That’s not his father. Did he—?

The young mutant looks up, his hope crumbling to pieces the second he sees his elder counterpart. How could he have been so stupid? How could he have mistaken Lee as Splinter? Is he so distraught by his father’s death that any adult mutant standing in this dojo could pass as Splinter?

Leonardo backs up, rubbing his upper arm nervously as he apologizes. “I’m sorry, I thought—you know. No, you don’t know—uh, geez. I didn’t mean to confuse you. —and hug you. —and call you my dad.”

Lee doesn’t look at all affected by Leonardo’s mistake. Instead, the elder smiles down at him, a smile that is near pitying. “Don’t worry about it. I thought you were someone else for a second too. I didn’t think I’d hear someone call me that here.”

#I’m in the wrong au #rottmnt #tmnt crossover #tmnt 2012 #rottmnt fanfiction #tmnt 12 leo #rottmnt future leo #future leo is Uncle Lee haha #I thought a lot about this au that was supposed to be a joke #but imagine future rise leo wearing 2012 splinter’s robes because no clothes fit other than splinter’s #future rise leo wearing the robe and sweatpants and succumbing to couch dad life #I’m not even sure I actually want to dive into this fic idea #but I know for sure it’ll take place after 2012 splinter death #cries at the family loss on both sides

22 notes · View notes

godsfavoritescientist · 9 months

Text

Building off of what I wrote in my fic "Sparks," I'm really compelled by the idea of Ford genuinely no longer being interested in sailing around in a boat with Stan by the time they were seniors in high school.

I like the idea of it not being just a symptom of the resentment that had been building between them, nor it being a dream of Ford's that only paled in comparison to west coast tech, but it being a genuine loss of interest on Ford's end. I think it complicates things even further in some really juicy ways.

Like, imagine going through high school slowly losing more and more interest in the dream you've shared with your twin and only friend ever since you were little kids. How do you break it to him? How do you explain it to him without making it sound like a rejection of him? Without it making him hate you?

How do you explain it without it feeling like a spit in the face to all the hard work he's put into a plan that started out as a way of him comforting you by telling you "it doesn't matter what people say about you, you're going to be an adventurer who sails away into the sunset and never has to hear their mockery ever again, and there will be babes and treasure and heroism, and then they'll all see how cool you really are!"

And all through high school you think to yourself, "he's going to move on to more realistic dreams any day now, and then I won't have to say anything about it!" But no matter how many times you mention something else he could do with his life that he seems interested in, or bring up the challenging logistics of traveling around long-term in a boat, he sounds just as committed to the childhood dream as ever, and completely oblivious to how apprehensive you sound.

So resentment grows, little by little. Because that's easier than confronting the soul-crushing levels of guilt that are building up inside of you, every time you don't take an opportunity to tell him you don't want to do the plan anymore. You don't have a single person in your life who modeled how to have difficult conversations for you. As far as you know, having this conversation with Stan would crush him into tiny little pieces and then he would hate you forever, and you can't stand the idea of losing the only friend you've ever had.

So tensions grow. A lack of interest turns into a bitter resentment that, if you were really being honest with yourself, is directed more at yourself than it is at Stan.

And then the falling-out happens, and it seems like you were proven right. Stan hates you now, and he's never going to forgive you for giving up on his dream. But two can play that game, so you try to hate him too. Because if you hate him too, then maybe it won't hurt as much that he never came back. That he never even turned up at school, or by the boat, or in through your bedroom window in the middle of the night. He knows what dad's like, and how he says impulsive exaggerated things when he's angry, and haven't you both dealt with his harsh words countless times before and been able to dust yourselves off and joke about it later? So why isn't he back at home, joking with you about how absurd your dad acted that night, being impossible and belligerent about ruining your dream, but at least now you're even, because you've ruined his dream too.

And now imagine you find out he risked the lives of everyone in existence to bring you back, right after you had accepted your fate was to die killing Bill. It would be terrifying and confusing and infuriating. If he cared so much, why didn't he do something to reconnect with you sooner? Why did he ignore you in favor of trying to make it big without you? Why didn't he take the infinitely safer and simpler action of reaching out to you without you having to track down his address and send a desperate plea for help? You were convinced that he didn't care enough to bother with you unless you had an important enough reason for him to come. But even then, he thought your plans were stupid. He didn't want anything to do with you, not even with the world at stake.

Did he save your life out of guilt? Does he pity you that much? It doesn't add up with what he did in the decade leading up to shoving you into the portal. And the dissonance between the version of him in your head that hates you, and the man who held out his arms to welcome you back to your home dimension, is so strong that you feel like you're being lied to again, like you're back in the depths of gaslighting and manipulation that Bill put you through, even though there's no way that's what Stan is trying to do... right? You can't figure it out, so you run away from it. You don't want to know the answer to whether or not Stan hates you, because you don't know which answer would hurt more, so you try to make him hate you more than ever, because at least then you would know for sure how he feels.

And in the end, after he sacrifices his memories for you, and for the world, things seem clearer. The layers upon layers of confusion and anger and hurt seem to have washed away like drawings in the sand, leaving behind the simple truth: that you two had an argument, and didn't move past it for forty years, and despite everything you put each other through, you both still want to re-connect.

So you sail away in a boat together.

And at first, it's wonderful. It's exactly what you want. It feels like an apology to Stan, and a thank-you for saving the world, and a once-in-a-lifetime chance to heal the rift between you two, and it's good to be back on earth, and you wonder why you ever doubted the dream you two once had.

But then, after the first long journey you spend on the sea together, when you get back home to dry land, Stan is already talking about planning your next adventure out on the open sea. He recaps every adventure you had on the first trip, over and over again, and he wants to chat with you all through the morning and long into the night, and you don't have the words to explain to yourself that you don't have enough social battery for this, and suddenly you're slipping back into the horrifyingly familiar feeling of Stan being overbearing and needing space from him and how could you think that? How could you think that about him after everything he's done for you and everything he's forgiven you for? But the longer this goes on, the more you realize that you still don't want to spend the rest of your life sailing around with Stan. It's great fun in moderation, but the idea of your whole life revolving around Stan and going on adventures with Stan and being in a boat with Stan with no time to be by yourself thinking about your own things and figuring out your own dreams makes your skin crawl with a claustrophobic kind of panic that you still don't know how to put into words forty years after the first time this feeling grabbed you by the throat and ruined your friendship with Stanley.

But the first time this happened, it nearly ruined his life forever. You can't let yourself feel this. You don't feel this. You're happy to spend the rest of your life fulfilling Stan's lifelong dream, and making up for the time you crushed his dream, and sure, maybe he crushed your dream once too, and maybe it would be nice for him to support your dreams like you're now doing for him, but you can't say that. He saved the universe, and it would be horrible and ungrateful and cruel for you to try to voice these feelings, especially when you don't know how to voice your feelings without it making other people feel like you twisted a knife into their gut. So you try to pretend the feeling isn't there.

You go out on a boat with Stan again. You planned out another incredible journey together, and this should be fun, and you should be happy about this, but the unspoken feeling you shoved as far down in yourself as it could possibly go is eating you alive. The worst part? Stan is starting to notice. You have never been good at hiding your emotions. The trick to it has always been to convince yourself you don't feel it at all, and not think about it, and that has always worked like a charm. But whenever the emotion claws its way back up to the forefront of your mind, you can tell Stan knows something is wrong. So you can't even give him the happy ending he deserves. You can't even convince him that you want to be here on the open seas forever with him, like he deserves. And you keep trying and trying to hide it, but Stan keeps asking in roundabout ways, like "You're being awfully quiet, sixer," and "whats that look on your face?" and eventually it comes exploding out of you like a shaken-up soda bottle dropped on its cap.

And then it's like you're back at home in New Jersey again, standing in the living room while dad grabs Stanley by the shirt. It all comes pouring out of you, in the worst possible way, with the worst possible phrasing, like a pandora's box of monstrousness, and Stan tries to fight back against the sting of your words, but you're made out of acid and you're burning through him and you can see it on his face, and there's never any coming back from this, not this time, you'll just have to either jump into the ocean or become a monster forever, so Stan can hate you more easily again, and-

-and at the end of the outburst, you're still on a boat in the middle of nowhere in the ocean with your brother, in dangerous waters, and you have things to do to keep the boat running smoothly.

You can't run away from him. He can't run away from you. You're stuck here for at least a couple more weeks, even if you turned around and sailed back towards shore right away.

And the thing that compels me so much here, despite how unbelievably angsty it all is, is that it sets up a situation wherein the Stans might end up forced to actually address the decades of resentment and confusion and wanting-to-reconnect-throughout-it-all that they thought they could gloss over and heal with enough time spent adventuring together on a boat. They might end up forced to actually address the crux of the issue that drove them apart in the first place: Ford wanting a little more space to feel like his own person, and to feel like he's able to have his own dreams, too.

It wouldn't happen easily, nor right away, but if they were stuck together on a little boat in the middle of nowhere surrounded by magical creatures they have to protect each other from in order to make it back home alive, then after they had one fight where they brought up all the things they silently agreed to never bring up again, it would probably happen many more times, and each time it would leave them both angrier at each other than ever, until eventually something honest slipped through amidst all the saying-anything-except-what-they-mean bickering. And once enough of these honest moments slipped through, then they would have a thread to tug on to start to unravel the gargantuan knot of their decades of unresolved conflicts.

And then, eventually, maybe Stan could learn that he can have a good friendship with his brother without needing to be glued to him at the hip, and Ford needing a certain amount of alone time doesn't mean he dislikes him or wants to abandon him, and Ford could learn that he can be honest and have a meaningful connection with someone without it driving them away and making them hate him.

#succumbed to the stan twins angst visions and wrote 2000 words about this #ford pines #ford meta #this turned into a character analysis that almost reads like a fic #godswriting #<- i need to change my writing tag to this #something bothers me a little bit about the solution to their conflict being 'ford appreciates stan more now so he is now fine with-#-boat adventures with stan'. to me it leaves the initial conflict of 'he doesnt want to do that anymore' unresolved #obviously you could easily argue that ford never stopped wanting to go on boat adventures with stan and he just couldnt justify it to-#-himself when compared to the opportunity at west coast tech. but that has one less layer of conflict #compared to the possibility that he truly was not interested in boat adventures anymore. ESPECIALLY if its a manifestation of him #feeling suffocated by the whole dynamic-twins-duo thing #its normal to start wanting a little bit more space especially at that age. to want to have space to figure out who you are #the healthy thing would have been them talking about it and figuring out a compromise. like 'when ford needs space he can spend a few hours #-alone without stan being worried the whole time that it means ford hates him' and 'we still spend x amount of time working on the boat and #-we still chat on the way to and from school every day and hang out at the beach on weekends'#like of fucking course it was never about hating stan or about wanting to get away from him because of who he is as a person!#he literally just wanted to have a little bit of breathing room to be his own separate person. he just didn't know how to put it into words #I really think the crux of it all was them not knowing how to navigate that balance between independence and identity while staying close #so ford misattributing/reducing that feeling to 'I dont have the exact same dream as stan anymore. why does he still have that dream. oh no #feels like a good way of giving that conflict a tangible aspect to it thats easy for the stans to point at and talk about as a way of-#-alluding to the REAL core of the conflict between them.#and of course the show never says 'they sail around the world for the rest of their lives 24/7' so it's not like it Actually Conflicts with #-my interpretation of the conflict and how it should be resolved. but since its the last thing we see happen between them when theyre given #their happy ending. I feel compelled to say 'hey I know them living in the shack together and traveling in a boat every single year sounds-#-really fun and like a satisfying ending but I think they should have a Little Bit more space from eachother than that. Hanging out almost-#-daily but not literally being in the same house and same boat for the rest of their lives. bc if stan was ok with ford asking for that-#-little bit of space and if ford didnt panic and isolate himself from everyone whenever he needs like one hour of alone time? that would-#-feel like a big piece of the puzzle fitting into place for their conflict resolution and growth as characters. to me #and I think they deserve to have all the tied-up-loose-ends and resolved-conflicts and character-growth in the world.

69 notes · View notes