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#hes refuted someone claiming there is something Wrong With Him at least twice in the game
haunted-xander · 1 year
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Hes such a weirdo. love him
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gallavictorious · 3 years
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I really wish people would stop excusing their favorite character's actions with convoluted theories instead of just accepting that their faves aren't perfect. Ian should not be comparing Terry and Frank. Full stop. Especially not to Mickey's face, when Mickey is in the middle of trying to deal with the complicated feelings he has about the father that raped him by proxy and tried to actually murder him. It's ok to say "yeah you're right I don't know what you're going through but I'm here" and not make it into a shitty father competition.
And I really wish people would refrain from making groundless assumptions and recognize that trying to understand a character's motivation for doing something does not equal taking a stance on whether or not the action discussed is morally sound but alas, nonnie, we live in an imperfect world.
For those just turning in, this ask was received in response to my addition to this post.
Now, nonnie, if I understand you correctly, you disapprove of what I wrote because you see it as 1, an attempt to excuse Ian's behavior because 2, he's my favourite character and 3, therefore I can't stand to have him do something wrong. You also think that, no matter his motivations, Ian shouldn't be comparing Frank to Terry. Below, I'll quickly refutate points 2 and 3, as well as detail the difference between explanations and excuses and – hopefully – demonstrate why you can't with any sort of certainty claim that the offending post is an example of the latter. I will not really engage with the question of whether or not Ian was wrong for saying what he did, because (as we shall return to forthwith) that was not the issue originally discussed, it doesn't actually interest me, and as you do not offer any sort of reasoning for your moral judgment there really isn't anything for me to work with there anyway.
Strap in, kids; it's another long one.
Let's start with your claim that Ian is my favourite. I'm not actually going to spell it out there, but instead direct you to paragraphs 3-7 of this post. A little lazy, perhaps, but I'm sure you can appreciate why I have limited time to point out the same basic flaws twice in a fairly short period of time. (Should I pin a pic of me holding up a little sign reading ”Actually, Mickey is my favourite, even though I love Ian too” to the top of my blog? Would that be helpful?)
Moving on to point 3, I do agree with the general notion that it's fine to accept that the characters we love (no matter who that character is) are flawed and make mistakes! If you had taken the time to familiarize yourself with my thoughts on Ian and Mickey – or if you had, you know, just asked – instead of jumping to completely unsubstantiated conclusions based on a single post, you might even have realized that them being fucked up and making fucked up choices from time to time is one of the things I find most compelling about them. They are messy and complicated and human, and I love that. I neither think nor want either of them to perfect, because perfection is unrealistic is static is boring.
With that out of the way, let's get to excuses versus explanations. If one confuses the two, any attempt to discuss or explain a persons behavior will be construed as an attempt to excuse it, but to understand something and to condone it are actually two different things.
For instance, I can explain and understand why Mickey acted the way he did in 3x09, but still think kicking Ian in the face was wrong. I can explain and understand why Ian called Mickey a coward and a pussy in 4x11 but still think he was wrong for doing so. Do you see? Understanding – or trying to understand – why someone did something is not the same as saying that what they did was okay. Understanding the reasons for someone's actions might lessen the severity of our condemnation (for instance, stealing is generally considered wrong, but most of use would agree that stealing bread to feed your kid is less wrong than stealing bread because you're too stingy to pay for it) or might remove condemnation entirely (hitting someone because you are angry with them is wrong, hitting someone as part of consensual BDSM sex is fine), but understanding an action does not automatically lead to declaring said action morally correct. In short, ”why did X do Y” and ”was X right or wrong do to Y” are two different questions, and the fact that our answer to the second question often is at least partly dependent on our understanding of the first does not change that.
So explanations and excuses are not the same. And yet, sometimes the reasons for doing something (or failing to do something) are offered up as an excuse; as a reason why someone should not be held responsible for their actions, or why they were correct in performing/not performing them in the first place. That neatly leads us to the question of whether or not that's what's actually happening in the post you took exception to. And the answer to that is... you can't know. What boys-night and I discuss in the post is what Ian is actually doing (is he trying to compare trauma och convince Mickey he had it worse) and why he is doing it; that is, we are trying to understand and explain his behavior. Neither of us make any sort of statement on whether or not he was right or wrong for saying or doing what he did: that's just not the topic of conversation. Now, maybe I do think his motivations means that he's morally justified in what he said; maybe I don't. My point is that you can't know that just from what you've read in the post. You might draw some tentative conclusions, and they may be correct, but you don't know, and the reasonable and responsible way to go from there is to seek clarification by asking (polite) questions, not aggressively throwing around accusations about others grasping for straws in a despertae attempt to exonerate their favorites from wrongdoing.
(And just to remind you, even if I were making excuses for Ian, it wouldn't be because he's my favourite or becuase I can't bear to have him do wrong.)
You are perfectly free to disagree with any of the points made in the post, by the way, but you need to recognize that what we're disagreeing on then is motivation, not morality.
And, oh, of course it would have been okay to say "yeah you're right I don't know what you're going through but I'm here", but that's not what Ian did. Now, if you are happy to go ”ah, Ian fucked up, he's not perfect” and move on, that's fine. You do you, nonnie, and if analysis and discussion of character motivations isn't your jam then it isn't and I'm sure no one is going to force you to engage in it. (And if they try to, you can simply say ”I don't care” and walk away.) However, to be perfectly honest I am a bit perplexed that you should be so indignant over other fans trying to make sense of his actions. Do you still feel that way now that you – hopefully – understand that trying to explain a characters' behavior doesn't necessarily mean trying to excuse it? I mean, surely you are aware of the fact that people usually have reasons for acting the way they do, even if the way they act is shitty or misguided? (Note that I'm not saying that Ian's actions were shitty and misguided. That is not the discussion we're having.) I am rather curious, actually, as to what you think Ian's motivations were? Do you imagine he was deliberatedly diminishing Mickey's trauma? Why, if so? Do you perhaps think that he is obsessed with being The Most Victim and thus takes every opportunity to list all the ways Frank sucked? Or maybe that his mouth just moves without any thought or reason and the words just randomly happened?
To be fair, it seems that Ian's motivations is not something you consider relevant: you write that ”Ian should not be comparing Terry and Frank. Full stop.” And that's absolutely a moral stance you can take, albeit certainly not the only one. Maybe Ian shouldn't have said what he said Had you given any reasons for this verdict, I might even have agreed with you because I can think of several reasons why it might be better if Ian refrained from comparing Terry and Frank, no matter his motivations. (And I might not, because I can also think of several reasons why such a comparision might be justified, even though Terry is clearly the more evil of the two.) However, we shall never know, because you fail to back up your claim. I guess that's because you deem it self-evident? It is not, and until you provide any sort of reasoning for your grand proclamation, I won't engage with the question. Not going to shadow-box with you, nonnie, or do your work for you; if you want a discussion, make your case properly. Though maybe make it elsewhere – as previously noted, passing judgement on the characters is not my primary interest when discussing them. I am much more intrigued by trying to understand why characters do and say what they do and say.
Phew. Okay, that's me done, I think. I realize that you might not be very impressed with this answer, nonnie, but I hope it may to some degree reassure you that no sneaky attempt to excuse my favourite character's actions with convoluted theories was made by this humble blogger. Not this time, at least.
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zi-i-think · 4 years
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7 | Bridge of No Return
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Pairing: Zuko x Ama (OC)
Word Count: 7000+
.☽☼☾.
         It was the first time that Ama was going back home to the South Pole since after the war. Despite her break up with a certain Fire Lord, Ama tried to enter her homeland with a positive attitude. Not for herself, but for her dad and for her siblings.
         "Hey, Ama!" Aang called for her excitedly. He was currently sitting on Appa's head while the waterbender laid on his back, looking up at the night sky. "We're here!"
         She jumped up quickly and looked over, seeing the snow covered ground getting closer. The city looked so different. There were actual buildings, some fountains, shops. By the looks of it, there was a festival going on, based on the fancy lights, games and food booths.
         "Wow." She marveled at the lights and the large buildings close by. "The South Pole looks really different."
         "Yea, well it has been a while." Aang chuckled and the sky bison landed on the ground.
         Aang and Ama jumped out the moment they could. Aang ran to Katara for a hug while Ama ran to her father and he engulfed his daughter in a hug.
         "Dad!" She exclaimed.
         "My goodness." His father chuckled, pulling away to look at his daughter. "I didn't think you could grow up any more." Ama grinned. Hakoda was right. Since the last time he had seen her, she had matured a little more, having recently turned 18. "Now, where is that young man that had stolen my daughter from our tribe." He teased. Ama just gave him an awkward smile.
         How do I tell my family that I broke up with the Fire Lord? And that it wasn't a good breakup?
         "Yeah, I thought Zuko was supposed to come visit with you." Katara piped in, joining the conversation.
         "Things are getting a little rough in the Fire Nation. He's really busy." Ama opt out of telling them in the moment. She nervously rubbed her arm and looked over at Aang. He looked confused as to why she didn't say anything.
         "And the spirits?" Katara wondered.
         "Actually, it wasn't spirits at all. It was Azula." Aang informed.
         "At least the Kyoshi warriors are there to help out." Ama shrugged.
         "Avatar Aang." Hadoka greeted Aang formally with a bow.
         "Good to see you Chief Hadoka." Aang greeted back.
         "It's actually Head Chieftain Hadoka now." Katara corrected.
         "Really? Wow! Congratulations, Head Chieftain Hadoka, sir." Aang congratulated.
         "Yeah, congrats dad." Ama grinned.
         "You can just call me Hadoka, Aang." Ama and Katara's father said. "But, thank you."
         "What's going on? How come you guys are out here?" Aang realized that they were outside of the city walls instead of in the city, enjoying the festival.
         "Just playing it safe. Don't worry, it's nothing my officers and I can't handle." Hakoda told him. "Why don't you three enjoy the festival?"
         "Thanks, dad." Katara replied as she and Aang were starting to head to the festival.
         "You sure you don't want company?" Ama wondered. Sure the festival seemed fun, but it's been awhile since seeing her dad.
         Ama always had a strong relationship with her father, more so than her mom. She got his humor. She'd go out hunting with him. And when she was 14, the girl was able to easily convince him to take her ice dodging, despite it being more traditional for the young boys. Many of her qualities came from him.
         "Actually, I'd like to talk to you about something before Katara and Sokka tell you." He said, and they two started to walk the perimeter of the festival to make sure everything was safe. "I've been seeing someone." He told her nervously.
         "Dad, that's great." The waterbender grinned. It was about time that her dad found love again.
         "Her name is Malina. She's from the Northern Tribe and is here to help the South Pole progress."
         "I'm happy for you." Ama pulled her dad in for a hug. "Things are really starting to look up."
         "Not really." Her father said regrettably. "Gilak and some other southerners believe that the North is here to mock us and only want our oil. He wants them all out."
         "That's terrible."
         "That's why many of us are posted out here instead of enjoying the festivities." Hakoda gestured around them. "We fear Gilak could attack tonight."
         "Well if he does, he's in for quite a fight." Ama smirked and punched her palm while her father chuckled.
         But she spoke too soon. There was a loud ruckus from inside the festival and the booming voice of a man.
         "Hakoda-" A soldier ran over to them.
         "I hear it. Gilak got past us somehow!" Hakoda interrupted him. "Hurry." With that the warriors and Ama sprinted to the festival. They were met with Galik's warriors throwing punches and weapons. Ama did the best she could to not hurt them, using her waterbending to freeze them in place or to cover them in snow.
         "Ama!" Katara shouted with Aang following. The battle had died down and Ama was looking around. She hadn't even realized that she got separated from her dad. "Have you seen-"
         "Dad?" Ama finished. "Not since this started."
         The three of them ran to the entrance where there were a couple of soldiers standing around a woman and a man, both from the North, trapped under a net. Her father was speaking to Galik close by. But just as the three had got there, Galik took his knife and plunged it into Hakoda's gut.
         "Dad!" Katara shouted.
         "What did you do to him?!" Ama manipulated the water to ice to form around Galik, entrapping him. Aang bent the snow so that the rest of Galik's people wouldn't escape.
         Katara was the one to run to Hakoda to heal him best she could. "I'm here, dad, stay with me." She whispered. "Stay with me."
         They took him to Gran-gran's hut so that he could heal and rest. Hadoka's three children sat by the bed, hoping and waiting for him to wake up.
         "Katara." His weak voice spoke.
         "Dad!" The three kids exclaimed.
         "You saved my life." He thanked his youngest before turning to see the rest of his children. "Thank you for being here kids."
         "You had us scared for a bit, dad." Sokka smiled.
         "Alright guys, we should let him rest." Ama told her siblings and they stood up to leave.
         "Don't you worry. Pakku and I will take good care of him." Gran-gran assures them. "Let him rest, you can come see him in the morning. You know this isn't good. You coming to visit my hut twice in two days. This isn't good at all." She was obviously speaking to Katara and Sokka since the oldest sibling had only just arrived. "Wounds flow from wrong actions. Wrong actions flow from wrong beliefs. Someone needs to re-examine their beliefs."
         "Yeah and that someone is Galik!" Sokka claimed, crossing his arms over his chest and grimacing. "Hope that's what he's doing while he sits in jail tonight!"
         "You mean, those someones are Malina and Maliq!" Katara refuted. The two siblings then entered a fight about who was in the wrong. Ama didn't want to get involved in the argument, despite siding more with Sokka that the oil could bring more opportunities for the Southern Water Tribe. Instead, she led the way outside where Aang and Toph were waiting.
         The siblings filled Ama in on everything. How the North was essentially taking Southern Oil for themselves. How they were planning to make the South a colony of the North. Ama didn't think the North had any right to Southern property, but she also knew that they needed something in order to improve as a tribe.
         "Sweetie, how is he?" Aang asked Katara when she stepped out of the igloo.
         "He woke up." The girl answered him.
         "Then he'll be alright?" Toph wondered.
         "He'll be fine." Ama responded and pulled Toph into a hug. "Been a while Toph." The young earthbender was there as a representative for the Earthen Fire Refineries, constructing homes and other buildings.
         "It's only been a few weeks." Toph chuckled and returned the hug.
         "Hey." A new feminine voice spoke somberly. She wore lavender clothing, her skin tanned and her light brown hair was short. She was the same woman who Gilak attempted to capture before in the net.
        "What are you doing here?" Venom came from Katara's voice.
        "I swear to you all those things my brother said, I don't believe them." The woman said.
        "Anymore." Katara refuted.
        "What do you mean?" The woman asked.
        "You don't believe them anymore." Katara argued. "Not after you 'fell in love' with my dad. But what happens when you fall out of love, Malina."
        "Oh, so this is dad's girlfriend?" Ama whispered to Sokka who responded with a dry "yep".
        "Katara, it goes deeper than that." Malina claimed.
        "I'm going to ask you again." Katara said. "What are you doing here?"
        "My brother and the rest of my crew were released from custody on the condition that we leave tomorrow." Malina told her. "I came to say goodbye to your father." Ama's heart broke when hearing that.
        "You don't deserve to say goodbye." Katara said rudely.
        "Katara!" Ama angrily scolded her sister.
        "No, no. I get it." The woman said and started to walk away.
        "Malina." Gran-gran called at the door, getting the woman to stop in her tracks. "Hakoda wants to see you." Malina kept her head down as she walked into the hut to talk to Hakoda while Katara stared daggers into the woman's back.
        "Katara, that was a little rude!" Ama crossed her arms and frowned at her sister..
        "What's it to you?" The other waterbender got defensive.
        "Can't you see that Dad and Malina are in love!" The girl fought. "You have no right to get in the way of that."
        "All she wants is to take our oil and make us a colony of the North!" Katara pointed at the hut, or rather she was pointing at Malina.
        "Okay, so that's not great." She mumbled. When she was being filled in about everything, Ama was also told that Malina was under the impression that they changed the plan so that the South had property over their oil. "But you can't just get mad at her for something she doesn't exactly have complete authority over."
        "I know you just got here, sis, but she was acting against the South." Katara scoffed.
        "I don't have the energy to argue, Katara." Ama sighed, the exhaustion of traveling and then fighting, then waiting for her dad to wake up, was finally getting to her. "Can we just go- wait. Where are we staying?"
        "Dad has a house not far from here." Sokka wrapped his arm around his sister's shoulder, leading her down the snowy road. "But, soon enough. He's gonna have his own palace."
        "A palace?" Ama chuckled. "That doesn't seem like dad."
.☽☼☾.
         Hakoda had told Malina that she was allowed to stay, but the others didn't have that exception. Ama had offered Malina to stay with her as the construction for the building was still in process.
         "I should leave, Ama" the woman said with guilt. "My presence is causing tension."
         "Malina, you're the only person who knows the plans from beginning to end. If we're gonna do this, we need you here." Ama rebutled. "And besides, my dad got most of the southerners on board with the project."
         "Then what about-"
         "The folks outside the gate?" The two looked over to the gate where there were protestors were chanting and holding signs for foreigners to leave the South. "Once they see that this would benefit the whole tribe, they'll come around."
         "I hope you're right." Malina sighed. Ama saw the sad look on Malina's face and tried to cheer her up.
         "These won't last that long." She shrugged, looking over at the protestors. "I think it was a little over a year ago that these types of protests would happen everyday in front of the Fire Nation palace. They die out."
         "Right, you're with the Fire Lord." Malina remembered.
         "Not anymore." Ama sighed. This was only the second time that she's admitted that outloud.
         "Oh, I'm sorry." Malina frowned.
"It was bound to happen." The young woman shrugged, acting like she wasn't saddened. But it was almost like she was trying to convince herself that. "I mean, a fire bender and a water bender? Not a great combination."
         "Everything happens for a reason." Malina put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
         "I guess you're right." Ama gave her a thin smile. "Just do me a favour and keep this between us. Aang is the only one who knows."
         "My lips are sealed." Malina swiped her index and thumb across her lips like she was zipping her mouth.
.☽☼☾.
         Later that evening, the Gaang sat around a roaring fire in Hakoda's living room. Hot cocoa in their hands as they laughed and talked. Katara sat on the couch cuddling into Aang.
         "Honestly, how much closer can the two of you get." Sokka messed with them. The two blushed deeply.
        "Let's just be glad that Zuko isn't here." Toph laughed. "He and Ama would be all over each other."
        The oldest water tribe sibling shifted uncomfortably and her smile disappeared. Aang also looked a little uncomfortable with the comment, being the only other person there who knew about the breakup.
        "Ama, Aang. Are you guys okay?" Sokka noticed their shift in demeanor. "You usually throw a snowball at me or stick up your middle finger when I tease you, sis."
        Ama cleared her throat. "Zuko and I broke up."
        "Woah." Toph said in shock
        "Ama, I'm so sorry." Katara immediately left her boyfriend's arms and sat by her sister. "What happened."
        "Zuko was terrible at communicating. At letting me in." Ama shook her head, the reality of it hitting her. "I couldn't take it anymore. But it wasn't just him." Everyone was quiet, letting her talk.
        "In the month that the two of us didn't talk, I realized that I couldn't be with him. We're in two completely different situations. He's the damn Fire Lord. He has responsibilities. I felt so tired in that palace. I need to do things and he was too scared to worry me. I'm in no way the 'Fire Queen' type."
        "Then when I was you guys again, going from town to town. I felt... more satisfied with myself." She continued. "Like I was starting to understand myself. I can't learn about myself in a damn palace all day. So, I broke up with him... And it didn't go well."
        Ama rested her head on Katara's shoulder. Her chest tightened, the tears were threatening to spill and her voice started to break while she spoke. "He thought I was jealous of Mai. He used my own insecurities against me." Katara put her arms around her sister, pulling her closer. "He barely even raised his voice, but he wouldn't even let me speak and I yelled at him."
        "Do you still love him?" Katara asked softly.
        "I always will." Ama answered truthfully. That's when the waterworks started. Ama gripped Katara's clothes and sobbed. "I broke his heart. He's in a tough position. Always having to worry about his nation, his family. And he broke mine by not even hearing me out."
        Katara stroked her sister's hair, letting her cry it out. "Need me to beat him up?" Sokka tried to sound sincere, but his jokingly, Sokka tone was still there, making his sister smile slightly. Ama was there for him when Yue turned into the moon. He'd be damned if he wasn't there for her.
        "I'm not even going to ask. As soon as I see that guy, he's got a date with my fist." Toph punched the palm of her hand.
        "Maybe, not as soon as you see him." Aang nervously rubbed the back of his neck.
         "Why not? He won't even see it coming." Sokka waved his arms, ready for a fight.
         "Zuko and King Kuei are coming over in a few days." Katara sighed. "Dad needs to discuss how the Southern Water Tribe can contribute in trade and things of that sort."
         "Perfect." Toph gave a sinister smile. "There won't be a lot of Fire Nation soldiers to protect him. That boy's gonna get it."
         Ama chuckled. She knew that Toph was more serious than Sokka. And as much as it amused her, she couldn't let them attack the Fire Lord. "You guys are the best, but don't hold anything against him. If you weren't listening to me, both him and I were in the wrong. Plus I already threw pond water at him."
         The others chuckled at the thought of Ama chucking water at Zuko in his royal robes and all. "Maybe him coming is a good thing. I'll try talking to him again."
         "Fine." Toph sighed. "But if you're still sad after your little talk, boy's going to pound town."
.☽☼☾.
        In three days time, the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation blimps were arriving. Sokka volunteered to greet the two leaders while the others stayed at the town hall making preparations and awaiting their arrival.
        Ama set a pitcher of water on the meeting table while Katara set cups by every seat. "So did you tell dad?" Katara wondered. Ama knew just what she was talking about.
        "Well I don't want him to say anything and make everyone feel awkward." Ama shrugged. "But I didn't tell him everything. Just that I broke up with him and that's that."
        "Hopefully, everything goes well." Katara said. Just then they two girls heard Sokka's voice. They're here. Katara and Ama stole a quick glance and headed into the hall where everyone was standing already to greet each other. Ama and Zuko's eyes locked. It was awkward and different, for obvious reasons. Zuko broke the eye contact first and focused on Head Chieftain Hakoda.
        "Welcome." Hakoda greeted them. "It's an honor to have you here."
        "It's an honor to be here, Head Chieftain Hakoda." Zuko bowed respectively.
        "Yes." Earth King Kuei agreed. "I'm glad to be inside now, though. I didn't expect it to be so cold."
        "We'll try to keep everyone warm." Hakoda chuckled. "Please follow me so that we can begin our meeting."
        The meeting went smoothly. Ama's father explained the plans for the south well and articulated everything expertly. "... A modernized harbor would not only give the world access to our tribe, but also our tribe access to the world. And finally we would like to establish embassies in both of your nations. We, of course, invite you to do the same. And that my friends is our vision for the future of the Southern Water Tribe." He wrapped up.
        "Here, here! Here, here!" Sokka cheered before Katara made him sit down and they whispered to each other. Katara was till convinced that all of this was going to change the Southern Water Tribe's traditions and destroy the things they loved about it, but Sokka was more than excited.
        "As I'm sure you can imagine, the Southern Water Tribe's economy has been - how should I put this - under extreme duress for the last century." Hakoda continued. "We don't have the proper resources to make this vision a reality. And that's why we're asking for your partnership."
        "You can count the Fire Nation in, Head Chieftain Hakoda." Zuko already agreed. "Your people have suffered so much destruction at our hands. We are grateful for this opportunity to help you rebuild."
        "I'm sorry that the Earth Kingdom cannot offer our support so readily. We have so many of our own needs back home." King Kuei spoke. "But if I could show my advisors that the Souther Water Tribe is going to make measurable, concrete progress towards civilization."
        "Excuse me?" Katara jumped in defensively. Even Ama looked at him with her mouth agape, being somewhat offended by what he said.
        "Oh, dear, please excuse the clumsiness of my words, Katara." King Kuei realized his slip up. "Of course what you already have here is a form of civilization. We would simply want you to achieve a high form." Katara and Ama's expression of being offended was clear. They knew that King Kuei wasn't a well-articulated person, but that didn't hide the fact that what he said was an offense to them. "In fact, we'd be honored to help the Southern Water Tribe develop into a cleaner, safer place. And perhaps warmer, too."
        "With all due respect, your majesty, compared to the outer ring of Ba Sing Se, the South Pole is-" Katara started before being interrupted by one of the guards.
        "Head Chieftain Hakoda!" The guard ran in. "We've just received an alert from the prison! Gilak and his army-" But then a boomerang flew by, knocking the guard out.
        "Are here." Gilak himself finished at the door and his boomerang flew back into his hand. Everyone at the table jumped up from their seats, expecting a fight. "Look at you, 'Head Chieftain' Hadoka! So eager to sell out your tribe to foreign masters."
        "Officer Liren, you're with them?!" Hakoda asked one of the women officers with Gilak.
        "I'm sorry, but Gilak is right about our tribe. We're in terrible danger and you're too blind to see it!" Officer Liren spoke.
        "Don't you hear the cry of your people, Hakoda?!" Gilak shouted. "Foreigners out!" And with that, Gilak and his multiple fighters began to attack.
        "Stay back!" Zuko shot flames at the feet of two who were charging at him.
        "Ash maker!" Gilak yelled, swinging his sword at Zuko.
        "Whoa!" Zuko dodged quick enough so the sword fell onto the table.
        "That's not very nice, fuck face!" Ama defended her ex, bending the water from the table to smack him on the floor.
        "You have betrayed the Southern Tribe, Ama." The man grumbled, looking at her from the floor.
        Team Avatar fought to keep the attackers separated from Hakoda, the Earth King and Malina. After all, they were the ones that Gilak was after. Then his warriors smashed in through the windows.
        "If you want to get to them, you have to go through me!" Hakoda warned, standing between Gilak and the two they were protecting.
        "You think I came for the foreigners? No, Hakoda. I'm here for the real enemy" Gilak grumbled. "You!" He swung his sword, but Hadoka blocked the attack with his own weapon. "My stay in prison gave me time to ponder all that's happened 'brother.' I realized that you are the root of our problems! You're too weak to lead us"
        Both of them lost their weapons from the tension. "The Southern Water Tribe needs a leader who's strong. A leader who won't betray his people. A leader like me!" Gilak threw a punch at Hakoda, making him fall to the ground and pass out.
        "Dad!" "Hakoda!" Ama and Malina shouted at the same time.
        Galik threw Hakoda over his shoulder and ran to the door. "Let's go! We got what we came for!"
        "Stop him!" Katara yelled desperately.
        "For the tribe!" Galik called and ran out with the other behind him.
        Katara was quick to bend water and shoot it at the warriors retreating. "Monkey feathers! He's moving too fast!" Called Aang.
        "Dad!" Ama yelled as team Avatar ran out into the hall, where Gilak's fighters were standing to keep them from passing.
        "He's almost at the door!" Zuko pointed.
        "Too many dunderheads in the way." Toph also noted.
        "Aang, he's gone!" Katara said.
       "No he's not! Hang on!" With that, Aang picked up Katara and they flew over the warriors to catch up with Galik.
       "Alright pricks, out of the way!" Ama demanded, bending water to make the ground icy and slippery. In the middle she expanded it like a ramp, making the attackers slip and crash into the wall. Ama turned the ice in the middle to water and then froze the attackers feat to the ground so that the group could run past them. They ran till the city entrance where Katara and Aang had already gotten Hakoda from Gilak, and the coward ran off.
       "He got away." Katara noted regrettably.
       "We saved dad, Katara. That's what counts." The older sister reminded her.
       Ama and Sokka held up their dad as they headed back to the City Hall. As they got closer, Malina was waiting and ran to Hakoda.
       "Malina...?" Hakoda started.
       "Thank heavens you're okay!" Malina breathed out in relief.
       "Never thought city politics would be so rough." Hakoda grumbled while they went inside.
       "Where...?" Zuko realized something. He ran to the double doors for the meeting room and looked around. "No!"
       "What is it?" Toph asked.
       "They took Earth King Kuei." He told them.
       "We really can't catch a break can we?" Sokka grumbled as he and Ama helped their dad onto a couch to rest.
       "We need to go look for him." Aang started to lead. "Hakoda and Malina, stay here. The rest of us will try to look for him."
       "Please be careful." Hakoda grunted as he got comfortable on the chair.
       "I can stay with you." Said Ama, putting a pillow under his head.
       "I'll be fine, Ama. Malina is here with me." Hakoda grunted as he allowed his body to rest. He stole a loving glance with Malina. Ama gave him a thin smile and left with the group outside.
       "Look, they left footprints." Sokka pointed out. And sure enough there were footprints embedded in the snow. "Let's see where they lead." The footprints led them to a series of underground tunnels. Tunnels that stretched for miles and miles. In defeat, the team trudged back to the city.
       The walk was gloomy and everyone was exhausted. Ama could feel the glances Zuko took at her. And she glanced back, but never at the same time. This entire meeting was going terribly, leaving no time for the two to talk. It'd have to wait.
       "Any progress?" Hakoda asked as the group entered.
       "I'm afraid not." Replied Aang with disappointment.
       "Thod and his crew left footprints, but they lead into a maze of underground tunnels." Katara added.
       "Tunnels that go on for miles and miles. I could feel them." Toph informed.
       "It'll take us days to search through them all." Sokka slouched on an armchair.
       "Maybe weeks." Zuko added.
       "Not to mention they'll be moving from one corner to another all the time." Ama finished.
       "We came to check on you guys." Aang told the adults.
       "And on Bosco. Look what we brought you, buddy." Katara spoke to King Kuei's bear while Momo held up half a fish. "Some yummy dried fish. You want some fish?" The bear roared and gladly took the fish.
       "Listen, team. We'll rest for a little bit, but we need to get back out there as soon as we can." Aang instructed.
       "Yeah, no disrespect to the Earth King, but that guy won't last long in a freezing tunnel." Sokka said.
       Just then a messenger hawk crowed and flew to the window. "A message!" Hakoda realized and took the paper .
       "What is it?" Wondered Katara.
       "It's from Gilak." Her father grimaced. "He wants to make an exchange. The Earth King's life for mine."
       "Can I see it?" Sokka asked and his father handed it to him. "Gilak wants to meet at the bridge of no return."
       "The bridge of no return?" Toph asked.
       "An old rope bridge up in the mountains not far from here." Ama responded.
       "Supposedly, the bridge was how to deal with our criminals." Sokka continued.
       "If you did something really bad, the tribe would make you walk across and then make sure you never ever came back." Katara added in.
       Ama chuckled lightly, thinking back to her childhood. "My friends and I always dared each other to walk across when we were kids." Then her smile faded. "I can't imagine how steep that drop is."
       "Not to mention the terrain on the other side. It's the most treacherous in the entire South Pole. Nothing stays alive there for very long." Sokka finished describing it.
       "Yikes." Aang commented.
       "So Gilak wants to meet at the bridge." Sokka told them about the message. "Him and his army on one side, dad on the other. He'll send Thod and a couple of his disciples over. We have to allow them to chi block all of our benders."
       "What?!" Toph obviously wasn't fond of the idea.
       "Makes sense. They know we can easily overpower them otherwise." Zuko said. "They're essentially asking us to lay down our weapons."
       "Then as soon as dad starts across, Gilak will send Earth King Kuei over." Sokka continued. "Any funny business and Gilak cuts the bridge."
       "You know he's going to cut the bridge no matter what, right?" Zuko grumbled like it was common knowledge and crossed his arms. "Even if we give in to all of his demands. No way Gilak's going to pass up the opportunity to get rid of two of his enemies at once."
       "Zuko's that's so cheaty." Aang argued against it.
       "Not just cheaty. Evil." Katara added.
       "I used to be a bad guy. I know how bad guys think." Zuko reminded them.
       "I can't believe that gasbag has the gall to think we'd agree to this!" Toph punched her palm.
       "He has all the leverage." Ama shrugged.
       "That's right. He knows that if anything happens to the Earth King, the Earth Kingdom is liable to start a new war." Zuko said.
       "Kids, I can't let you go through with this!" Hakoda refused. "Getting chi blocked would leave you vulnerable to who knows what!"
       "It's an impossible situation." Malina added.
       "Nothing's ever impossible. We'll come up with something!" Aang told them and then turned to look at Sokka. "So what's the something we're gonna come up with, planner guy?"
       "I thought you'd never ask." Sokka cheerfully said with a plan mind.
.☽☼☾.
       The plan was to take place that next night. Once Sokka came up with the plan, explained it and prepared, everything seemed to be in order. And they went to the Bridge of No Return.
       "Everything in place?" Sokka asked once last time.
       "All according to plan, planner guy." Aang confirmed.
       "I hope this works." Ama crossed her arms and looked across the deep chasm. "The bridge looks so much scarier than it did when I was little."
       "Cause there's a lot at stake today." Sokka stood next to her and looked in the same direction as her. "How come you never let me come with you and your friends?" Sokka then remembered how Ama always refused to let Sokka hang out with her and her friends.
       The older sister chuckled, wrapping her arm around his neck and pulling him into a side hug. "Sorry, little brother, you weren't cool enough for us."
       Sokka frowned at that while Ama laughed. Then the two looked over at Katara who was worrying about something. "Sis. You okay?" Sokka asked, and they walked over to her.
       "This isn't how I imagined our trip back home." Katara said somberly. "I always assumed that once we defeated Fire Lord Ozai, the South Pole would go back to the way it was supposed to be. Our lives would go back to the way they're supposed to be. But with Galik and those protestors and all the unrest and now this whole thing... Like I said, it's not what I imagined."
       "Katara, I get what you're saying." Sokka started. "But none of us have an actual idea of what things were like before the war. Nobody alive does, not even Gran-Gran."
       "Katara," Ama was careful not to anger her sister. "What if the South Pole you're imagining, the one where everything's how it's supposed to be, never actually existed?"
       Before Katara could respond, Aang called. "Heads up, guys! Gilak's here!" On the other side of the bridge stood Gilak, Thod, their soldiers, and as promised, Earth King Kuei.
       "We ready to do this team?" Sokka got into a warrior stance.
       "We better be." Aang said. Thod and two young Water Tribe members walked across the shaky bridge with smug looks on their faces. "Here come the chi blockers."
       After chi blocking Katara, the black-haired girl went over to Ama. "We haven't really met yet, but just so you know. I hate you, traitor." The girl told Ama before chi blocking her and she fell to the ground.
       "Good to know." Ama said sarcastically on the ground.
       "I must confess, I'm going to enjoy this, ash maker!" The old man grumbled happily. "After all the despair you and your people have caused, I can't believe Hakoda let you set foot in our land." Moments after, Zuko fell next to his ex-girlfriend.
       "Hi. You new 'round here?" Ama couldn't help making a quip. Even with the awkward tension between them, the nerves made her tell a joke to anyone.
       Zuko looked away from her and mumbled. "Let's just hope this goes according to plan."
       "That's all of them." Thod said, proud that the benders were helpless.
       "Kids! You're not hurt are you?" Hakoda concerned as he turned her head to look at them.
       "We're fine, dad. Good thing the snow's so soft." Sokka called to him.
       "Go on now Hakoda." Thod urged Hakoda to cross the bridge just as King Kuei started to go across.
       Once the king and the Head Chieftain were halfway across the bridge, Gilak took his sword and started to cut through the rope. But just as planned, Malina and Toph's metal bending students jumped in to stop him.
       "Malina and the metal bender have come out of hiding!" Sokka announced.
       "Our turn." Toph said with a challenging tone.
       Aang reacted first, engulfing Thod in ice. "What is this trickery?!" The old man cried out.
       "I think you should apologize to my friend for calling him an ash maker." Aang told him. "It's not polite to use slurs like that, you know."
       Ama and Katara bent that water to freeze the one girl and Toph used her earthbending to get the girl's brother. "What'd you dunderheads say this was?" Toph asked.
       "I remember, Toph!" Katara responded. "Payback."
       "How?" Thod wondered how they had passed the chi blocks.
       "Check out this chainmail armor. Pretty slick right?" Sokka said proudly revealing the armor under his shirt. "Designed by me and made by the students of the Beifong Metalbending Academy."
       Galik didn't seem to like that he was up-handed and started to cross the bridge to take care of it himself with his sword and a torch, lighting the bridge on fire. Malina ran behind him to stop him.
       "Zuko-!" Ama pointed at the fire. Even in their delicate relationship, he was still the fist person Ama thought of to take care of the situation.
       "I got this!" The firebender replied, running across the bridge to put out the fire. At first, everyone thought that he got there in time, but then the rope snapped.
       "No!" Ama shouted.
       "Dad!" Katara called out. Everyone else was shocked and angry.
       Luckily, everyone was holding onto the boards. And Zuko was able to use firebending to fly his way up with the Earth King.
       "Oh thank heavens! Thank heavens!" The king thanked, happy to be on the ground.
       "One down, three to go." Zuko said, ready to go back down and get the others.
       "Don't go back down there, Zuko!" Sokka called and Zuko stopped right on his tracks. "That bridge isn't going to hold for long! Your weight will only make things worse!"
       "I'm gonna try to buy us some time, but you guys have to figure out a way to rescue them!" Toph bent some rocks on the unstable boulders used to tie the ropes.
       "Come one, sweetie!" We'll climb down this way!" Katara shouted to Aang and she made an ice ladder. The two started to climb down in order to get the remainder of the people stranded on the ladder.
       "Okay, that nickname was cute at first, but now it's getting annoying." Ama muttered to herself.
       Aang took his airbending staff and flew down, grabbing Hakoda's hand to lead them up. But Gilak was struggling, making it harder for Aang. And not long after Gilak fell, purposefully. Refusing to let Hakoda "win."
       "Hakoda, the two of us are too much weight for the Avatar." Malina said with a shaky, terrified voice. But she gave Hakoda a loving smile.
       "Hang on for a little longer, Malina." Hakoda begged.
       "Then all three of us will die." She said. Aang was having more and more trouble getting them up. "Goodbye, Hakoda."
       "No! No!" Hakoda yelled as his love's hand slipped from his.
       Katara was quick to make an ice slide, grabbing Malina and getting her to safety. Ama smiled in relief. She let herself sit into the snow, feeling it's cold through her thick clothing.
.☽☼☾.
       The next day was calm. The siblings went to mom's grave, a rock with flowers and a circle of rocks around it. It was mainly Katara who needed to be there and speak to mom, in a sense. Sokka and Ama were there for emotional support.
       "Go on, sis. Say what you need to say." Sokka placed a supporting hand on his little sister's back.
       "You know, when Sokka and I finally came back, I was hoping to find a home where everything's how it's supposed to be." Katara started, he head hanging low. "But I realize now, that just isn't possible. Because a home where everything's how it's supposed to be is a home with you still in it, mom."
       "Yesterday, I had to save this woman named Malina. You've never met her. She's different from you - really different - but I have a feeling you would've liked her." Katara smiled. "When I saved her, I felt a courage deep inside, a familiar sort of courage. I'd felt it when I saved Aang as we left the crystal catacombs. And when Admiral Zhao killed the moon spirit and we had to bring it back."
       Her hand lightly touched her necklace, thinking back at the memories. "That was your courage, mom. The courage you passed on to me. Things are still changing here. I haven't yet convinced dad and Malina to not build that oil refinery. And the protestors haven't gone away. But through it all, I don't have to keep hoping for what's 'supposed to be' because you've been with me all along."
       Katara had a sad smile on her face and she leaned into her older sister, who comforted her with a hug. Then they had to pull away when two young girls and Aang ran over.
       "Hey, Ama. Zuko is almost done going over some thing with Hakoda if you still want to talk to him." Aang told her, his thumb pointing in the direction on the village.
       Ama gave him a thankful smile. "Time to smooth things over with my ex." Ama fiddled with her fingernails as she walked away.
       "If it doesn't go well, we'll take care of business." Called out Sokka. Ama laughed at him nervously.
       She arrived at Town Hall just as Zuko was leaving. When Zuko saw the waterbender, he sighed and walked down the white steps while Ama waited at the bottom.
       "We need to talk." Zuko said. Those four words that must have been spoken thousands of times at this point.
       Ama nodded in agreement. "There's a cliff not far from here with the most incredible view. Plus there won't be anyone there to stare." The two looked over at the town square. It was a busy area so they were some giggling girls and older people glancing over at the two.
       "As long as you won't throw me off." Zuko chuckled.
       "I make no promises." Ama quipped with a shrug and walked past his toward the cliff. Zuko huffed a laugh and walked beside her.
       "The South has changed a lot since I've last been here." Zuko said to make light conversation till they got to the cliff and to avoid the awkward silence.
       "It has." Ama agreed, looking at some of the booths for food and some for jewelry. "I forgot that the last time you were here you kinda destroyed the village."
       "Sorry about that." Zuko nervously rubbed his neck.
       "Well, I guess you're making up for it now. With the partnership and everything."
       "It's the least we could do." Zuko sounded like he was holding himself responsible for a century worth of destruction by the Fire Nation. And as Fire Lord, it was up to him to fix it. "The whole world is changing, and I'm supposed to react reasonably to all of it."
       "Well I can tell you right now that you're doing great." Ama assured him, placing a hand on his shoulder. Zuko couldn't help but take a sharp breath in. They had just broken up, and she was acting... normal. Like nothing had changed between them. It made Zuko feel uneasy.
       "Here it is." Ama said, removing her hand and stopping a few feet from the edge of the cliff.
       "It's an incredible view." Zuko noted. The sky was a light blue and the icy deep blue water looked like there were crystals reflecting from it. Ama took a moment to take the view in. It's been years since seeing it.
       "Look, about the break up..." Zuko started and Ama tore her eyes from the ocean to him. "I need to apologize. It's just that, you've been with me through so much, and just the thought of not having you with me made me feel lost. I resorted to trying to use your own weaknesses against you."
       "I also need to apologize." Ama sighed. "I felt unheard, so I yelled. That wasn't okay of me to do."
       "We both reacted terribly." Zuko crossed his arms. "This time, I'm ready to hear you and respect what you have to say."
       "Thank you." Ama gave him a soft smile and thought for a moment about how she should start off. "I think, we're both just too young. We're only 18. Before you, I've never even been in a real relationship." Ama pointed out. "I need to learn more about myself before I can fully commit to someone. And I think you need some more time being the Fire Lord and with your family before you do the same."
       "So what's your plan?" Zuko wondered. "How do you plan to learn more about yourself."
       "Well, I really missed traveling. The thrill of going to a new city and not knowing what you're going to come across and experience, I love it. And there's still so much that I haven't seen." Ama felt excited just talking about traveling again. "I'm staying here for a few weeks, then there's a whole world for me to explore."
       "And after that?" Zuko looked over at her with sadness in his eye. "Do you think we'll be able to be together again?"
       Ama gave him a flat smile. "I don't know." She whispered, leaning toward him to place a soft kiss on his cheek. "But what I do know, is that you will always be my first love, Zuko."
       The firebender wrapped his arms around Ama, and she wrapped her arms around him. It wasn't that loving, couple type of hug, but a bittersweet one. "If you travel through the Fire Nation, feel free to drop by"
       Ama smiled. He'd always care for her no matter what. This wasn't an end to their friendship, not in the slightest. Just an end of a chapter. One that neither of them would trade for anything.
.☽☼☾.
So? What'd ya think? While editing I realized that I misspelled Hakoda's name like 50 times to Hadoka.
This isn't the end please keep that in mind. I still have a whole plot planned out so stay tuned.
But please keep interacting! I love all the support and reads I've been getting. I know my writing isn't great, but I just want to write a story that others can enjoy reading. Hang loose, amigos 🤙🏼
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sleepykalena · 6 years
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Summary:
Jyn and Cassian have been together for three years, but now that Cassian is on his third deployment, Jyn has to deal with the fact that she has to spend yet another Christmas alone.
For @carr-crashh-heartss, my Rebelcaptain Secret Santa giftee, whose prompt was “All I want for Christmas is you”! I hope this was an angsty enough read with a fluffy ending! <3
[AO3 Link]
Alternatively, you can read more under the cut!
“Are you seriously not going to do anything for Christmas?”
“Curling up on the couch with a glass of wine and Netflix is something, Leia!”
“No, it is not!” Leia insisted. “Jyn, Christmas is in three days; why aren’t you doing anything for it?”
Jyn shot her a look, and Leia’s face softened slightly when she saw the hint of sadness forming at the edges of her eyes.
“Right…sorry,” Leia whispered.
Jyn traced a finger around the rim of her glass and the ice clinked. The bar table they sat in was isolated, but the ambiance around them bustled in the holiday cheer. She loathed it. She wanted to roll her eyes at it. And the only reason why she dragged herself out of her office was because Leia stormed right in and refused to leave until she looked up from her computer and went to lunch with her.
“So how’s Han? And Ben?” Jyn asked, trying to change the subject.
Leia shrugged. “Han’s been busy as usual. Luckily I was allowed to use up some of my leave, so I can watch over Ben while Han finally gets some time to himself.”
“Does he still have temper tantrums?”
“Who, Han or Ben?”
“Han,” Jyn said before sticking her tongue out.
Leia rolled her eyes as Jyn cackled at the accomplishment of her own joke. “You know I meant Ben,” Jyn finally said as she came down from her laughter.
“They’re called Terrible Two’s for a reason,” Leia joked. “Honestly it’s a process to try and understand him.”
There was a contemplative silence between the two after the waitress came back to refill their glasses of water. Jyn continued to trace a finger along the rim of the glass while Leia took a sip out of her own.
“It’s always a bit of a process, isn’t it?” Jyn asked quietly.
Leia nodded. She knew. Jyn was confident that she knew. Being enlisted and married can be taxing in a relationship. Not that she and Cassian were married. But they may as well have been.
Or so she’d like to think.
Jyn sat back and slumped against the tall chair. “I mean, really, me being miserable by all this? I should’ve seen it coming. I don’t know what I was thinking. I even had a rule about it.” Don’t date a man who’s just going to be constantly sent on deployment. It was a rule she broke and, three deployments later, she’s been feeling emotionally drained about Cassian constantly being gone during times when people were just expected to be together.
“You know how it goes,” Cassian attempted to explain. “This is my job, please try to understand.”
She remembered nodding at him. “I understand.”
“I’m hoping I’ll be back within 6 months; at least, that’s what I’ve been told,” he said as he packed his duffle.
Jyn could only nod. She knew just as well as he did that the chain of command was never going to tell him exactly how long his deployment would be; why would they? The fewer the people in the know, the better. That sort of intel was above Cassian’s pay grade. Chances were good that she’d have to go through yet another Christmas without him, and the tone in his voice betrayed the hope he tried to exhibit to ease her.
Cassian stood up and took her face in his hands. “Please say you understand and mean it,” he pleaded, his eyes searching hers for some level of understanding.
Instead of looking him straight in the eye, Jyn had shut herself back into her memories as her eyes were downcast; she remembered the face of her father, and their final exchange before he was practically ripped away from him, her family torn apart and broken.
She opened her mouth, took a breath, and looked up at Cassian’s eyes. “I understand,” she said again, but the words felt hollower in her head as she recited them. The corners of her lips flicked upwards into a smile, an attempt to hide the loneliness she was already pre-emptively feeling.
Cassian smiled back, warm and loving as ever, and pulled her into a hug.
Jyn claimed she understood, but just like with her 8-year old self, saying that she understood was wildly different from actually understanding it. She so badly wanted to, but she just couldn’t, not this time. It chipped away at her with every passing week since.
It took her two weeks to learn that if she buried herself in her work, she could make herself so tired that she’d pass out on the couch and not think too hard about how cold their bed had become since his deployment.
“I’m sure Cassian’s trying his best,” Leia reached out to put a hand on Jyn’s. It twitched under her touch, as if it reviled the contact.
“He is. I know he is.” Jyn sighed. “But that doesn’t change the missed anniversaries, the missed parties, the constant stress of wondering when he’ll come back, assuming he comes back at all, and…”
Jyn couldn’t finish her sentence. No additional words were needed, however. Leia knew; she just came back from deployment herself.
“Are you sure you don’t want to spend Christmas with us? I’ve got my yearly Christmas party, and you can just save your Netflix binge for later that night,” Leia offered.
She nodded. “Kes and Shara already tried to invite me to their place, but honestly you guys are both married and have families to go to for the holidays. I’m used to being alone. It’s probably for the best, anyway- I’d rather not drag a holiday party down just because I miss him.” Because seeing the rest of you together is a reminder of what I can’t have right now.
Leia tried to open her mouth to make a counterargument, but she looked at Jyn from across their table, looking so drained from her crammed holiday work hours, that she thought better of it and shut her mouth. Instead, she closed her fingers around Jyn’s hand and squeezed them gently.
Jyn rolled her eyes, but then looked away shyly with a small chuckle. “That’s too much sentiment, Leia.”
“Alright, well,” Leia lifted her hand off Jyn’s and clasped it with her own in excitement. “Can I interest you in a good bottle of wine for Christmas to go with your Netflix binge-watching instead?”
She turned her head to gaze back at her with a wide grin. “Now we’re talking.”
Cassian sighed as he lay back on his bed and ran his thumb over a picture of him and Jyn at the beach. His skin had tanned a little more easily than Jyn, and he had turned a warm, golden tan as he wrapped his arms around Jyn’s chest from behind. Her pale arms, turning a bit pinkish from the intensity of the sunlight, were outstretched past the picture’s boundaries as she held her phone up for the selfie.
They were wet, sandy, and squinty from the sun. But they looked happy- the wide grin on her face and crinkled eyes paired well with his own soft, gentle smile.
It was one of the few photos they ever managed to take.
It seemed a bit asinine to print a physical picture when everyone had electronic devices. But Cassian learned that it was a lot better to brush a thumb over Jyn’s lips in the picture and not have to worry about swiping to the next photo in his album in the process.
He missed her lips; they made smiles that caused him to melt, they’d part ways as she exhaled in amusement at whatever dumb joke he had to make, and they pouted in such an adorable way whenever he had to go to work on Mondays, when he was back at his duty station.
There was a pang in his heart when he saw those same lips turned slightly downward as she saw him off so many months ago.
He’d been nearing the end of his 8th month of deployment; he wasn’t sure exactly when he’d return at this point. Another missed Christmas at this rate, he lamented.
It started to hurt to look at this beach photo. It was taken on a random date when they went out to the beach, a spur-of-the-moment day that should be cherished, surely, but…
The longer he was away from home, the more the picture became a reminder that this was all he could bring because there weren’t many occasions for them to take pictures in the first place.
“How much longer do you plan on staring at that picture, Cassian?” someone asked, entering the shared quarters he was in.
Cassian looked up. A dark-skinned man with an equally shaved head as his own towered over him, looking down at him quizzically.
“For as long as we’re still out here, Kay; I thought you knew that,” he responded with a chuckle.
Kay took a seat on his own cot across from Cassian. “Have you told her when we’re coming back yet?”
He shook his head slightly. “I’ve tried calling her twice, but she hasn’t picked up.”
“Is she avoiding you?”
“I’m sure she’s just busy at work.”
“To avoid you.”
“Kay,” Cassian reprimanded.
“Tell me how I’m wrong,” Kay challenged. “I’ll even bet she hasn’t responded to your bi-weekly email updates.”
Cassian refused to answer.
Kay hummed in response to the silence.
It was hard to refute that.
On Cassian’s first deployment, the first thing he did was leave an email for Jyn once he had access to WiFi. Her responses were rather quick. The honeymoon phase didn’t last that long, however, and Jyn started to sound more and more dispirited with time. After a few weeks, however, her responses were curt, and came at a much slower rate than before.
Hey Jyn,
We had to deal with some IEDs, but it wasn’t anything we couldn’t handle. Just a minor convenience. I miss you, though. Tell me about your day? It’s been pretty boring here for the past week. How have you been?
Love,
Cassian
Her response?
Hey,
Things are fine. Busy at work, though. Haven’t been getting much sleep. I miss you too.
Jyn
On one hand, this wasn’t a surprise. He found out eventually that Jyn threw herself in her work whenever he left, signing up for back-to-back projects as lead programmer to fill in the time gaps. He was happy to see her do great things for SPAWAR’s software development division, especially as Saw’s right-hand woman, so he beamed with pride when Jyn’s email messages were short and didn’t reveal much about her day. A lack of words meant she was working hard on major projects, as even civilian contractors in the military are bound by stricter non-disclosure agreements.
About a month ago, Cassian missed her more and more, and wrote a longer email:
Jyn,
It’s been getting pretty chilly here. Reminds me of the times we’d cuddle on the couch while watching stupid shit on Amazon or Netflix. Hopefully you haven’t seen anything off our list yet! We still need to see Stranger Things. Please don’t watch it without me? I’ll know you cheated because you always make those cringey faces when you try to act like you don’t know what’s going to happen next. I don’t want a repeat of Kimmy Schmidt, haha
Cassian
Jyn’s response was short, as usual:
No guarantees, Andor. Get home sooner, or get better WiFi so we can binge-watch something again together. Otherwise you’ll have to eat my dust :P
It wasn’t as full of affection as he was hoping for, but perhaps she was busy with work again. Saw seemed like the type of person to push Jyn to her limits, and she wasn’t the type to back down from a challenge. He loved that about her.
But then came the bad news he had to convey to her just over a month ago:
Jyn,
Bad news. I don’t think I can make it in time for Christmas. I know I said this tour was supposed to take about 6 months (obviously, it’s month #7 now), but…you know how it is. They never tell us when we can come back.
I know we made plans to just veg out and maybe have a nice romantic meal together, and I’m really sorry that it’s come to this (again), but I really hope you understand. In fact, I’ll understand if you don’t answer back for a while- I’m sure you’ll need the space. I really am sorry. I don’t know what else I can do about it.
I miss you. I love you.
Cassian
She had yet to respond to that email.
The lack of a response entirely started to worry him. Surely, she would’ve found some time to talk about her free time with Leia and Shara? A complete lack of a response might be exactly as Kay described- an avoidance of him entirely. Have tensions ramped up that much between them because of his absence?
He sat up and buried his face in his hands. “I just want to go home,” he sighed.
“This is what you signed up for, Cassian,” Kay reminded him. “We all want to go home. I imagine you understood this, but surely you knew upon enlistment that you’d spend a chunk of your career being sent to different countries?”
“You know I didn’t really have a choice, Kay.”
“Indeed,” Kay answered. “When money is tight and career options in your hometown are shit, enlistment is a viable ticket out of your situation.”
Cassian’s voice lowered as he said, “The cost of that ticket is proving itself to be a lot higher than I anticipated,” more to himself than to his partner in crime.
There was a contemplative silence from Kay, then, “Your relationship seems a bit ironic though, doesn’t it?”
“I…what? What?” Cassian asked with an incredulous look.
Kay tilted his head inquisitively and said, “Your enlistment was a choice, and yet you knew that Jyn, a civilian, would have to be left behind during your inevitable deployments, even though you kept saying you wouldn’t leave her behind. Going on deployment means getting left behind a lot, no?”
The unusual heat wave today was already suffocating enough, but Kay’s inquisitiveness choked him outright.
“Are you coming home soon?” Jyn asked over the phone a few weeks ago.
“Jyn, you know I don’t know the answer to that.” He ran his palm across his buzz-cut hair as he sighed. If only he had his old hair length back before his enlistment- it was a lot easier to grab onto hair when he was feeling tense.
There was silence- a long silence, actually- made even longer by the satphone’s natural delay. Finally, before Cassian could dare to speak up and ask if she’s still there, there was a resigned sigh on Jyn’s end. “I don’t think you’ll ever be home for Christmas now that your job’s been bringing you out on tours to the Middle East as much as they are.”
“Jyn-“
“But it’s okay, really, I understand,” she said, talking over him though that damned delay. He shut his mouth to let her keep talking before anything broke her focus. “Your job comes first. It’s important to you. The guys in your unit are important to you,” Jyn tried to explain, but there was a pain and loneliness that lingered. “I couldn’t forgive you if you dropped everything like that just for me anyway.”
There was a pregnant silence, and Cassian could sense that she had more to say, but hesitation prevented her from continuing. He remained quiet, hopeful that she was still on the line and just needed time to get her point across.
“I just miss you, is all.” he finally heard her admit, more quietly than she had before, but it was a little hard to hear in the din of tank movement and machine operation happening just several yards away from him. “It’s not the same as hanging out with Leia or Shara. And even they have to be shipped off to other places.”
“People keep asking me what I want for Christmas,” she continued after another pause, “and honestly, all I want is you. I never got to have you for Christmas, or Thanksgiving, or New Year’s. We’ve gone on one Valentine’s date. We’ve only celebrated your birthday together once. And I don’t think we ever got around to doing something for mine.”
“But Jyn, you do know that this isn’t what I want out of us, right? I wish I could have every single one of those occasions with you; you know that, right?”
“I know, I know,” she responded, her voice still quiet, searching for strength, “I’m just…tired. Of a lot of this.”
The statement struck Cassian the wrong way. “What is that supposed to mean?” he asked immediately after she finished speaking in order to get an answer out of her sooner than later.
“Don’t worry about it. This is my problem, I think. This is what I signed up for when we started dating. I should know better. I’ll try harder to get over this, though, and then we can stop talking about it and move on to other things.”
“I don’t think framing it like that is healthy, Jyn.”
“What part of this whole thing is healthy right now?” she snapped, and he could hear her voice quiver at the word “healthy”.
His heart dropped. How could anyone respond to that?
There was a sounding BOOM in the distance, followed by gunfire.
“Jyn, I have to go. I’ll be home soon. I just don’t know exactly when. Hopefully I can call you again soon with better news,” Cassian said hurriedly, searching and reaching around him for his helmet and rifle. “I love you.”
“Please be sa-“
He inadvertently hung up on her as he dropped the satphone trying to grab the rest of his gear when the sounds of gunfire became more frequent. The phone lay on the ground as he ran out to join Kay and the others on the field.
“Jyn had a rough upbringing. She was orphaned, and then bounced around the system a lot. She used to say to me, ’they all leave, eventually’,” Cassian murmured, fiddling with his photo.
They sat in silence, accompanied only by the overlapping sounds of bootsteps outside their room. Kay tried to pat him on the shoulders to ease his tension a bit, but there still felt a heavy weight that Cassian was having a hard time bearing.
“I thought we could have both the job and the relationship,” Cassian said eventually, staring at the ground, his eyes glazed over. “We’re strong people; we’re supposed to be able to handle it. She’s one of the strongest people I know.”
“I believe it was Rook who once said that loneliness can weaken even the strongest of hearts.” Kay’s voice quieted as he continued, “I imagine Jyn surrounds herself with so many servicemembers in her day-to-day because of work that it gets lonely for her if everyone is gone a lot.”
Cassian lay back on his cot and groaned. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Kay fiddling with something in his hands. He tossed his photo aside and turned over in bed. There really wasn’t much he could do but try and get over his moping for a while longer before heading out for lunch.
“Cassian…?”
“What now, Kay?” he sighed.
“Since Christmas is coming up, would you like a Christmas present?”
Cassian turned his head to face Kay, who handed him an envelope.
It was unusual at best and suspicious at worst. Kay never gives Christmas presents. This has got to be a prank, Cassian thought. He propped himself back up to a sitting position and carefully opened the envelope, eyeing Kay with suspicion all the while.
A demure smile played on Kay’s lips, which concerned Cassian even further as he took the papers out. His eyes scrolled through the documents and they widened the further down his eyes scanned. He quickly snapped up to look at Kay. “Kay…” he started.
Kay’s smile morphed into a huge grin. “Merry Christmas, Cassian.”
Cassian felt Kay try to brace himself as he flung across the gap between their cots and pulled his friend into a tight embrace.
Kay merely patted him twice on Cassian’s back and rubbed his upper back briefly with the flat of his palm. It was probably the most amount of affection he could afford to give in one go, but Cassian was thankful nonetheless.
“I’ve learned over the three years of your relationship that her happiness is your happiness. I may be a pain in the ass, but I’d still hate to see my best friend unhappy.”
Cassian pulled back with a bright smile. “’Best friend’? You’re finally going to call me that?”
“Aaaaaaand, that’s enough affection for the rest of the year,” Kay declared as he brushed his shoulders off to scoot Cassian’s hands away.
Cassian was having a hard time trying to find the right words to describe his utmost gratitude towards his rather robotic friend. Instead, he responded with a simple “Thank you so much,” and decided that was more than enough for him.
Suddenly, he had a thought.
Cassian jumped up to his feet and scrambled to open up his laptop.
“Is something wrong, Cassian?” asked Kay.
“Not at all. I need to make a Skype call.”
“To Jyn?”
“No,” he responded with a wide grin. “To Leia.”
Jyn felt a blast of Christmas spirit hit her in the face as she opened the front door to Leia’s house on Christmas day. The air was thick with the smell of a holiday roast, combined with the heat from her fireplace and obnoxious vanilla and gingerbread air fresheners dotted throughout the home. Ben stood at the other side of the front door rug, staring up at Jyn. She couldn’t figure out if Ben was staring in adoration or scrutiny, but she didn’t want to stick around long enough to find out. So she dusted her boots off at the rug, shut the door, and patted Ben’s head a couple of times as she walked past him to head closer to the source of the typical Christmas music playing ahead of her.
“Jyn! Good to see you’ve rolled out of bed to join us!” Leia beamed as she saw Jyn enter the kitchen. She pulled Jyn into a tight bear hug.
“You wouldn’t stop calling me to come over,” Jyn grumbled, her arms pinned down at her sides from the aggressive embrace.
“I had to insist on it- at least come and help us eat all this food before you pass out drunk on your couch!”
“Well, I won’t say no to free food,” Jyn smirked as she handed Leia a bottle of champagne. “Can I leave your presents under the tree?”
Leia was in the middle of admiring the fact that Jyn bought her favorite brand. “Hmm? Yes, of course, thank you!”
Jyn headed over to the tree, where Ben stood yet again, eyeing her.
They engaged in a stare-down as she clutched her five presents- one for each Organa, followed by a present each for Luke and Han’s rather shaggy-haired best friend, Chuy.
“Ben,” she said in a curt greeting.
“Auntie Jyn,” Ben replied, still staring.
She slowly lowered herself to place the presents underneath the tree, not breaking eye contact with Ben. He used to be such a sweet child- the sudden animosity unnerved her.
“I’m leaving these here, but don’t touch them until your mom says you can,” she instructed.
Ben was unresponsive- instead he continued to stare at her as she slowly stood back up.
“Alright, Merry Christmas,” she said hesitantly as she backed away.
At the table, Ben’s mood seemed to have eased significantly as he sat on his dad’s lap, eating mashed potatoes.
“Shame Cassian can’t come home for Christmas,” Han said, taking a sip of his favorite whiskey on the rocks.
Jyn shrugged. “It is what it is. I’d rather not talk about it.”
Han chuckled. “Yeah, just stuff your face and drink with us at the very least- Leia outdid herself and made way too much food.”
She looked up at the spread of food across the elongated table. There was an assortment of hors d'oeuvres on one end, followed by roasted turkey, honey-baked ham, mashed potatoes, and roasted vegetables, which were then padded on the other side by an array of pies, cakes, puddings, and other desserts.
Leia had made all this?
“I mean, I know Luke brought some of the deviled eggs, and you brought the champagne, and Chuy brought the best cake in the table, but…yeah, the second Leia came back from deployment she went to town on her recipe book trying to come up with things to make for Christmas. Eventually she couldn’t narrow it down so she decided to just make ‘em all.”
She gawked. “Honestly, there’s so much food here I feel like I could get into a food coma.”
“Where do you think Luke and Chuy are right now?” Han said with a grin.
Jyn snorted into her glass as she took a sip. She started to feel like less of an intrusion at Leia’s party.
“Hey, Jyn?”
“Yeah?” she responded in between bites of turkey.
“You ever get those problems with internet connections on Skype?”
She thought back to her last Skype call with Cassian. It had been a while…about 6 months now? She felt a little guilty by that realization, but she smiled fondly at the memory. “Yeah, Cassian’s internet was so spotty for a while on-base that he nearly threw his laptop to the wall. It took him 5 tries just to say, ‘I love you’ without the call cutting off.”
Han laughed as he fed Ben a spoonful of ripped up turkey. “Yeah, once I tried to tell Leia that Ben had started to learn his ABCs for the first time, but she demanded proof on Skype, so I put him in front of the camera, but Ben refused to do it at first…When he finally got around to it, the video call kept cutting out.”
“Hah! Did she scream at her laptop?”
“Yeah! but because the video call was spotty, it turned into intermittent screeching that terrified Ben and he wouldn’t stop crying.”
Jyn had to put her fork and knife down to cover her mouth as her shoulders shook with laughter. “You should’ve just sent her a video!”
“I tried! But she demanded to see it live. Like hell that was gonna work with her internet connection.”
“Better than satphone calls, though!”
“Don’t even get me started on those. I swear those delays make up a bulk of our fights while she’s away! It’s a shocker that news anchors don’t blow up when they have a delay in talking to someone broadcasting live from ‘out on the field’.”
They kept swapping stories about the communication mishaps they experienced when their significant others were out on deployment. Jyn knew it was a deliberate attempt on Han’s part to try and cheer her up- as if to say, “you and I are on the same boat!”- and while she knew her circumstances weren’t quite the same, she appreciated the effort. So, she continued to play along with it; at least it gave her something to laugh about.
She and Han kept up their “dependent banter” for a while until Leia showed up with another casserole dish, this time with cheesy scalloped potatoes.
“Before I forget,” Leia started, placing the dish down in front of her on the table, “I do have your present, but it’s too big to fit under the tree, so I left it in my room. You can grab it when you’re done eating.”
“At the end of the hall, right?”
“Yeap! Han, Ben, Kay, and I worked really hard on it, so consider it a mega-present from the four of us.”
Jyn arched an eyebrow. “Kay is in on this present, too?”
Leia flashed a playful smile as she handed Jyn a glass of the champagne she brought.
“I’m afraid to go in your room now,” she said. “Kay doesn’t do Christmas…what the he-“ She paused to look down at Ben, his wide eyes fixated on Jyn, as if he were daring her to get the next word out.
Jyn backtracked. “Double-you-tee-eff are you guys plotting if Kay is in on this, Leia?”
“I promise it’s not a prank, just trust me on this one,” Leia said simply before setting out to hoard Luke’s deviled eggs. “Oh, but if you’re going to get your present, I’ll need to wake up Luke and Chuy- they’ll want to witness this.”
“Okay, now I’m convinced this is a prank. I’m not going to go in your room.”
“Alright,” Leia said with feigned disappointment as she slapped a scoop of the scalloped potatoes onto Jyn’s plate. “Eat that first, have a slice of cake, then go to my room and get your present. I’m not letting you leave without it.”
Jyn sighed as she took a mouthful of creamy, hot potatoes. Leia outdid herself this time, she had to admit- the food was delicious.
But soon enough, her meal was over and Jyn couldn’t eat another bite.
Leia pulled her up and pushed her in the direction of the hallway.
Jyn gulped. The master bedroom door was closed.
Whatever the present was, it was on the other side.
If a clown was somehow hiding on the other side of that door, she resolved to punch the clown, then punch Leia immediately after.
She padded towards the door with extreme caution, carefully listening to any sounds, any ruffles, any…balloon-rubbing or nose-squeaks.
No such sounds were detected when she finally got face-to-face with the door.
She gripped the doorknob gingerly, twisted it slowly, and pushed the door open before flicking on the lights.
There was someone on the other side of that door, indeed, but it was no clown.
“Hey.”
Jyn’s eyes widened.
In front of her stood Cassian, still in uniform, his luggage on the floor. His arms were loosely and playfully wrapped in wrapping paper, and a bright red bow was stuck on the top of his head.
He smiled shyly. “I’m home.”
Jyn stood frozen at the doorway.
She took a breath, then quickly stormed out of the room.
“Wait, Jyn!” Cassian yelled out, waddling at first from the limitations of the wrapping paper. Upon realizing how absurd it was to let himself be held back by the paper, he spread his arms open to free himself and ran after her.
Jyn had slid along the hardwood floor and glared at Leia, who had her phone already poised to film all this.
“WHAT THE FUCK, LEIA?!” Jyn yelled.
Han pressed his hands over Ben’s ears. “Language!”
She pointed at Han accusingly. “NO. YOU SHUT YOUR FACE. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!”
Cassian walked out of the hallway and approached Jyn cautiously. “Should I…not have come back?”
She whipped around to look at Cassian. “You said it would still be a few months. I…” her shoulders sank. “I thought I was going to have to spend another Christmas without you. I spent so much time just trying to forget you for the holidays, just to make it easier on me…”
“You did say that all you wanted for Christmas was me, no?”
He wasn’t wrong, but Jyn found herself at a loss for words. “Yeah but…but how?”
Cassian smiled. “Kay pulled some strings- got me a flight home and a week’s worth of leave.”
She turned to Leia again. “Is this what you meant when you said Kay helped out?”
Leia nodded, the phone still up. “Then Cassian Skyped me to help plan the surprise. Han picked him up from the airport and wrapped him up in paper, and Ben put on the bow.”
Jyn looked at Cassian again, the red bow still adhered to the top of his head. Her vision started to cloud- she just couldn’t believe it.
“I thought I’d never get to spend any holidays with you, ever,” she said, her voice cracking.
Cassian stepped even closer to her, his voice gentle. “I worried about that too. When Kay gave me the plane ticket, I realized I should’ve been trying harder to ease your stress while I’m gone. I don’t want you to keep thinking that I wouldn’t be around when it mattered.”
Jyn didn’t hesitate to run and jump up into his arms.
She was overwhelmed by it all. Her body trembled the more she thought about it, and she clung onto Cassian as if her life depended on it. Her face streamed with tears, and a part of her prayed that Leia wouldn’t use this moment of weakness against her in the future.
Another part of her didn’t care, however, because Cassian- her Cassian- was back home for Christmas for the first time in the three years they’d been dating.
She opened an eye and saw Leia in the corner, her phone aimed at the couple, no doubt still recording this reunion. Their eyes met and she winked.
Merry Christmas, the wink seemed to say.
Jyn nodded subtly at her. Thank you.
Cassian finally managed to pull away just enough so that they could look at each other face-to-face. “I’m sorry I kept making you feel abandoned,” he whispered. “But believe me when I say this: when it comes to deployment, yes, I have to leave…but I will always come back.”
Jyn sniffed and shook her head, “I’m sorry I kept expecting the worst out of you,” she answered back quietly, not wanting to reveal too much to the small group of people still applauding around them.
He kissed her forehead before resting his forehead on hers to nuzzle her nose. It made Jyn warm up a little more, a welcome feeling given her frustration with how cold it’s been. She let herself sink into his embrace a little bit more to bask in the warmth.
She took a deep breath to take in his scent for the first time in several months, and sighed contentedly. “Our bed was cold without you around,” she mumbled into his uniform.
He caressed her jawline and traced his fingers down to her chin to lift her head up. The look in his eyes was loving with a hint of playfulness as his other hand rested at her hips, squeezing gently with desire. Cassian then smirked and licked his lips briefly. “Let’s warm it up tonight, then.”
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hotarubi-e · 7 years
Text
You are, you are, all the wonder in the world
Request: College klance where Keith is like bullied or something in some way gets incredibly hurt and acts like nothing is wrong but it keeps getting worse and worse and Well my boy lance is super worried
Summary: Keith keeps getting hurt. And every time he does he insists the same thing: ‘I’m fine.’ ‘It’s nothing I swear, Lance.’ ‘I can handle this myself.’ But how many times is Lance supposed to accept the lie? Brush off his worries and patch up Keith’s wounds? How many times does he have left before Keith gets so hurt he can never stand back up again?
P.S. I finally discovered how to make words italic after two goddamn years on this website.
The first time, Lance let it drop. Chose to believe Keith’s words and bury his worry, whittle away the time until Keith was willing to talk. He wasn’t badly injured. Lance was safe to wait a while.
‘Hey, Keith? That you, babe? I thought you were gonna be back an hour..-‘ Lance paused, head hanging around the doorframe, eyes popped and mouth drawn wide. ‘-…ago..’
Keith was limping. One foot steady, the other hobbled, he inched his way through the door with a face like thunder and a greeting to match.
‘Don’t ask, not talking,’
‘..Okay,’ Lance sung, spinning his heels to follow Keith’s figure as it passed towards the bathroom. Lance’s eyebrows raised in question as he noticed the backpack usually slung haphazard across Keith’s back, now clutched tight to his chest, protected. ‘Well.. when you get done with whatever emo shit you’re doing in there, I’m ordering pizza,’
Keith’s voice clamoured around the clang of the door in the frame. ‘Not hungry - order without me,’
‘What?! Keith - you’ve been looking forwards to pizza night all week!’
‘Have not.. Still not talking, Lance,’
‘You said - and I quote - ‘I would die before I miss pizza night, these midterms are kicking my ass, and I need the cheesy sustenance to live’,’
A grinding crash echoed from the closed bathroom door, eliciting a yelp from Lance’s lips. Twisting the knob, he pushed into the room, eyes scanning the entrance in search of the source, and found to his horror, Keith splayed out on the floor in a pile of books, muddied beyond all saving or repair.
‘Keith!’ he yelled, down on one knee by his side the moment his shock would allow. ‘Are you alright?!’
Keith, head hung, palm covering his eyes, nodded tersely through the wave of dizziness that that bought him to the ground. ‘I’m.. I’m fine..’ he mumbled through tight lips, righting himself against the toilet seat he had been using as a make-shift tabletop. But Lance’s hands did not leave him, rather clung like a wave, dragging him backwards again. ‘Lance.. honestly, I’m fine, you can let go now,’
‘But -!’ Lance breathed deep, readying himself for the onslaught of defence he knew was coming, but when nothing more than a tired sigh left Keith’s mouth, Lance sank, worry prickling like buds in his gut. ‘..Keith..?’
‘Long day, sorry.. I don’t really have the energy for an argument right now, even one of our usual ones..’
‘Alright, well.. why don’t you just tell me what happened to all your stuff?’ His eyes glanced down at the disarray around them, books and pads all coated in dirt, pages ripped and writing running from the paper in thick, inky rolls. Keith’s hum returned him to reality, and he met his eyes with a worried frown.
’N-nothing.. I just - I tripped, okay?’
But ever fibre of Lance’s body refuted Keith’s account, denying the plausibility of a simple fall. ‘You tripped?’ he asked, voice digging for the grains of truth hiding behind Keith’s eyes. ‘And everything in your bag just happened to fall out in a puddle, and you happened to end up with a limp, and like, hit your head or something?’
Keith’s grumble was ostentatious at best. ‘I didn’t hit my head, I just.. might have gone down a little heavier than I would have liked,’
‘But you are limping, babe, and like it or not, you did end up on the floor,’ but Lance knew a beat beast when he saw one, and the fire in Keith’s eyes was gone. A push was a push, and shove was just as hard, and both would close him off to the world if he dared give Keith either before the spark of life had come back around. And so he let it drop, cast the worry away, and picking up a book from where it sat swimming on the floor, smiled warm and wide.
They spent the rest of the night re-writing notes and whispering words no other would ever hear, Lance content in Keith’s unbound attention that whatever woe had befallen him was nothing more than a one-time deal.
The second time, they lay in bed together, wrapped around themselves in a world private, and wonderful, and all of their own. Missives soft and soothing were spoken into the space between them, careful and quiet under the fading light of day.
At least until Lance, rolling onto his chest with arms held out, rubbed his fingers across Keith’s skin, just below the ribs and to the right. A wince, and a flinch so hard it broke Keith from his grip, paused Lance’s hands, shaking them both from the twilight world they had occupied.
‘Babe? What’s wrong?’ Lance asked, tone tentative and mind flashing, worry sparking like a flame inside his breast. Keith’s face turned away from him, body angling against the bed to shield himself from Lance’s prying eyes.
‘Nothing, Lance - I’m fine,’ he said, but more to the pillow than the body next to him. And Lance again knew better than to push, but fingers brushed the hem of his shirt all the same, pulling it away from the muscles laid flush beneath.
A whistle of air, tight and tense, rang through Lance’s teeth at the bruises he found, coating Keith’s body from sternum to hip, thick and dark, and purple and blue, all mottled together and too painful to see.
‘What-?! Oh my God.. fine my ass, Keith! What the hell happened to you?!’ he demanded, rolling Keith over and onto his back, eyes searching for something to cling to. Something to make the sight of the mess of bruises even just a little bit better. But Keith could give him nothing, no words of comfort, no lie to soothe the ache. Just a small, sad smile and a gentle touch to his face.
‘It’s nothing I can’t handle, baby,’ he told him. ‘nothing a few days won’t sort out,’
‘..How did this even happen?’
‘A couple guys were kicking a ball about on the quad and I walked by at a really bad time. I got booted by it, right in the gut. Knocked me on my ass,’ he laughed, but even he could hear the note of contention, the subtle shake of the lie. For a ball to do such damage to him, to form the bruises in perfect moults, small and round and ever so perfectly placed, like someone had purpose picked the spots to bruise. And he knew without needing to see, that Lance didn’t believe a word.
The third time, Keith came home with a split lip and bloody face, ripe red tendrils of rain running down his chin from where they escaped his nose, swollen and bruised, and plugged with a tissue held in stubborn hands. The third time, Lance swore inside his mind that this was not right, that no matter how clumsy Keith had claimed to have become, no matter how terrible his luck may be, there was no plausible way for that to be an accident.
In a moment he was off the couch, note books and pencils forgotten, his hands wrapping around Keith’s face in such a show of affection that Keith reeled back.
‘Keith, what the fuck?! Who did this to you?!’ he asked, face fallen and voice lilting so dangerously towards tears that Keith could do nothing but stare for the longest time.
‘Lance.. You - you weren’t meant to be home. I-it’s -‘
‘I swear to God, Keith, if you say this is nothing, I’m gonna drop kick you outta this appartment so fast you won’t know what hit you, so just tell me the truth, okay?’
Keith paused, mind whirring as feeble lie after lie swum through his brain, testing themselves against each other for one with the most validity. But nothing made itself known, nothing came to the front as something Lance might believe. And so he sighed, levering himself from Lance’s grip and sinking down into the couch with a weight in his limbs that felt like all the worlds in all of the galaxies were sitting down with him.
‘Lance, you can’t worry about this, baby, I swear I’m fine,’ he told him instead, in lieu of better words more equipped at calming his lover’s heart. ‘It was just.. it was an accident,’
‘Keith.. why are you lying to me? Seriously, what’s going on that’s so bad you can’t talk to me about it?’ It came out as more of a beg than Lance had intended, but it brought a rise of Keith’s head and a look so wounded that Lance thought it might have worked all the same. Might have pulled the truth from his better half’s eyes with nothing more than the sheer desperation of it. But as most hopes, it stayed short lived, as Keith cut himself off and turned away, a thick sniffle of blood slipping into the silence. ‘Keith, please..’
‘I can’t, Lance! I just..- can’t, okay..? Look, my face really hurts, can you just let it drop?’
They spent the remainder of the evening alone, each swallowed up in their independent thoughts, nothing but awkward, half angry moments shared between them.
The fourth time, Keith was meant to meet Lance for coffee. They had arranged, per Lance’s request, to meet after Keith’s morning lecture and spend the afternoon in each other’s company. But as Lance arrived at the shop and saw with a sinking heart no sign of Keith, he felt the bubbling dread of worry building in his gut.
For ten minutes he sat, back to the wall, eyes on the door, waiting for Keith with his phone in his hand. He had called him twice and texted a dozen more, but every message pinged back to his own phone, Keith’s answer machine message the only sound connecting from the other end. He might have turned it off, stowed it away quietly for his class, but Lance had never known him do that before, and the pointlessness the new habit struck him as odd.
But if he hadn’t turned it off, then why was there no reply? Why did not even a single message make it through? The thought spurred in him movement, and with a restless jerk he stood, coffee forgotten.
Keith’s lecture hall was across the quad, and it took Lance less than five minutes getting there, sparking yet another burst of anxious energy within him. He was nearing twenty minutes late when only five away - what could have happened to delay him so? He brushed the thought away, praying there would be no need for worry when Keith would surely be okay. He was strong and capable, a temper like a storm brewing beneath the surface of the calm outer shell. Nothing could endanger him enough to warrant the fear spreading like a plague through Lance..
A quick examination of the building proved it empty - all lectures had ended at twelve, and no others scheduled till one, so with a shake of his head and a clench of his fists, he stepped out to the street and cast an eye across the green. He searched for a mullet, dark black and mussed in all the right ways. But, killing the hope he hadn’t realised was welling in his heart, he saw nothing, not a damn thing. No Keith, no nothing, not a single sign of the man he loved.
Another phone call proved yet again fruitless, until with a sinking thought he chose to check the alley hiding behind the hall, feet carrying him like lead, only stopping at the sight of a bundle of black slumped in shadow against the wall. A cursory call left his throat, checking - when he did not really want to know - that it was the one he thought, he feared, lay unmoving by the dumpster giving off noxious fumes.
‘Keith!’ His feet took him to his side in a moment, no care given to the state of his knees as he fell heavy and hard to the ground beside him. ‘Oh God.. Keith..’
Keith’s body did not move, no muscles containing the strength to even look up at the sad little sound of his name. A beat passed, and then another before finally he opened his eyes, slow little flutters of his lids, fighting the crack of half dried blood.
‘Baby.. I keep asking this, and you’re scaring the goddamned hell out of me - what the fuck happened?’
But once again, and with a well of self hate Keith had never known, he could give no reply. So he simply shook his head, turning his face away with softly closing eyes. It made Lance want to cry, to cry and scream and burn the whole world down, but he pushed it deep, right down to the bottom of his feet, electing to seek revenge another time.
‘..Okay.. Keith, baby, can you stand?’ he whispered, mind weak and heart so heavy he thought it might hold him down. ‘You need a doctor,’
Keith couldn’t stand, they found, when once he was on his feet his body pitched forwards with such intensity it sent him reeling. If it hadn’t been for the wonderfully waiting arms wrapped like pillars of stone around his chest, he feared he might never have returned from the ground again. But there they were - the hands he loved, and they kept him steady all the way back, and for every moment after as his body recovered from just one more half remembered nightmare.
The fifth time - the fifth time, Lance had learned the pattern. Every other week on Wednesday afternoons, Keith would wander in bloodied and bruised, and brushing off any concern Lance could throw his way. The fifth time, Lance lied in order to save him from whatever demons were dancing their way around his head.
He told Keith he was working a shift at the Student Union store until evening, and with a nod and a kiss, bid Keith goodbye as he left for his day. But Lance, rather than walk to work and the relative safety of the denial he so wished to remain hidden within, followed Keith’s path to the lecture hall across from the quad. And there he stood, cold and guilty for so long he thought he would go numb, until with a hiss of air he watched as Keith once again made his way out onto the street.
And he followed him again, back round into the alley he had found him in two weeks before, eyes not noticing anything except the gentle sway of the bag by his hips. But he stayed back, not wishing to disrupt, to break whatever concentration he could see building under Keith’s skin, the strange, stark stare somehow both full of allure and terrifying at the same time.
It was when the voice broke the silence, foreign and faceless as it was to Lance, that he finally moved his eyes from where they rested on Keith. Only to find a group of four others circling close around his love, hands wound like springs, fingers cracking in tension held tight.
‘If it isn’t little Kogane, back for more, eh?’
‘Who’d have guessed you liked our company this much - maybe you want another makeover, make you look more like a man, after all?’
But above it all, Keith’s voice rose, with a confidence, stoic and strong that Lance had never heard.
‘Why don’t we just get on with this alright? I’ve got shit to do, and every time I see you guys, you waste my time with your stupid talk. Just hit me and get it over with already,’
And Lance was not fast enough to spare Keith the first hit - a knee to the gut so sharp it had him doubled over with a cry - and nor was he fast enough to spare him the second either. His head, grabbed in hands that Lance vowed to break the fingers from one by one, was smashed against the dumpster so hard it left him lain across the floor.
But Lance was fast enough to bring his bag down upon their head, startling the group into a collective run, leaving behind the alley and Lance and silence, as he knelt down next to Keith. The words he wanted to speak were so well worn by then that he didn’t even dare - knew they would get no answer - and so with a gentleness that surprised even him, he rolled Keith onto his side and up onto his own knee.
‘I got you, baby. You’re okay now. Can you talk to me? Are you awake?’
Keith could only give him a nod, and a wide-eyes stare once his lids were working well enough to open under his command.
‘Good. I swear to God, Keith - don’t you dare ever lie to me about this shit again, okay? I can help you.. It’s my job,’
‘…I wanted.. I wanted you to be proud of me…’ they were barely words, the waves of air that Keith sent out for Lance to grasp. But grasp them he did, and spun them around in his mind until confusion clouded his face.
‘What? Keith, what are you talking about?’
‘I didn’t.. I didn’t fight back. I didn’t fight, Lance. You said you hated it when I fight, so I didn’t.. I was brave for once,’
‘Oh, baby..’ the heart that broke and made its way into Lance’s throat was one that he thought he might never see fixed again, but with a gentle kiss placed to Keith’s now bloody forehead, he vowed to do his best all the same. ‘I’m always proud of you, idiot, and you’re always brave, and when you’re better I’m gonna make sure to show you everyday. But honey.. I don’t ever want to see you hurt again, so next time those assholes try something like this, you kick their asses and then send them to me for more, got it?’
Keith’s small nod drew a smile, wry and soft from Lance’s lips.
‘Lance?’ he asked, tucked safely into Lance’s side. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.. but I really do love you, okay?’
‘I know you do - I’ve never questioned that, not even for a minute. And bad communication skills aside, I love you too. More than anything,’
After head scans and five stitches in his forehead, Keith spent the remainder of his night curled into Lance’s warmth, thinking not for the first time that the hands carding through his hair were his favourite thing in all the world.
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vigilante-rpg · 6 years
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Welcome 1anc3a10t! We’re pleased to announce your audition for Dimetre Evans Darc / The Peacock has been accepted! Please send your account into the main within the next 24 hours. We can’t wait to have you join us!
{ PLAYER INFORMATION }}
NAME: 1anc3a10t
AGE: 19
TIMEZONE: PST
PRONOUNS: She/Her
ACTIVITY LEVEL: Fairly active, my most active times will be after 5:30 PST. I am on Tumblr quite often, I check the app at least twice a day. ((Now that it’s summer my schedule will be much more open, I’ll be available starting after noon.))
PREVIOUS ROLEPLAY EXPERIENCE:  I’ve been roleplaying on a more active level for about 5 years. While I have participated in a few Tumblr rps the bulk of my writing has been done over discord type apps, Amino, and google docs.
PERSONAL TUMBLR CONTACT: removed for privacy
TRIGGERS: Nope! :)
{{ CHARACTER INFORMATION }}
CHARACTER NAME: Dimetre Evans Darc.
((He prefers to be called Evans, but will answer to Dimetre if called by someone he knows.))
PRONOUNS: He/Him
AGE: 28
ORIGIN: The Peacock
FACE CLAIM: (First Choice) Godfrey Gao  
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(Second Choice) Harry Shum Jr
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QUOTE: “I prance and preen for them, but not everyone knows that yet.”
OCCUPATION: Newhaven’s most famous vigilante! ;)
((When he was younger he used to be a rather famous singer, but stopped when his agent pointed him towards a more…heroic life.))
PERSONALITY:
Caring: Growing up in such a large family and having a job that created connections with many different people in their walks of life had taught Dimetre to understand that not everyone has gone through the same relatively good life he has. He always keeps his arms stretched out and door wide open if he runs into someone that’s down on their luck, perhaps the pick-me-up from him is what could help get their life on the track they envisioned it to be? He’s rather perceptive of others feelings and will act accordingly on them. If someone wants to rant he’ll sit there and listen, and if someone needs a shoulder to cry on he’ll be that stable rock.
Sarcastic: Dimetre has a sharp tongue. Don’t expect him to fight back with his fists when he’s been wronged, but rather by throwing out nasty sarcastic comments that cut through a person’s self esteem. Sarcasm is his way of getting his angry point across without needing to yell or knock someone’s lights out. A sadistic side of him likes to watch how criminals huff and puff when they can’t think of a comeback to his witty remark.
Petty: This applies more to his non-heroic life, since there is no time to be petty in a life or death situation. Dimetre loves people and he’ll remember any extraordinary meeting that happens with them, though not all talks go the same, and he does hold petty grudges over the people that assume he’s a bad person just because he likes attention. (This may also be applied to other vigilantes if he meets them outside of battle.) While he won’t outrightly talk bad about them, since he understands the power of the media and paparazzi, he’ll just reply with an ugly look on his face. It’s a bit difficult to repair a relationship with Dimetre since the pettiness runs deep.
Persistent: Dimetre is not one to give up, this is mostly because he hates losing, and a little because he doesn’t like to disappoint people. He is the epitome of ‘try, try again’! Fighting a villain doesn’t go well the first time? Dust yourself off and try again. Buzznews writes a bad gossip article on you? Refute the points and show the city your the vigilante they deserve. Puppy pees on the carpet? Just restart the potty training regimine.
Excellent Public Speaker: Dimetre has always had the ability to captivate a crowd with his words. Whether that’s through singing or just simply by telling a story. As popular as he is amongst the city of Newhaven he finds himself addressing large crowds about some matter or another quite often, so this skill of his is continuously exercised. Some may address him as a smooth talker, and he doesn’t deny that, though through the perfect balance of opinion and facts Dimetre is able to convince anyone of anything without needing to schmooze them over.
Clumsy: Dimetre could trip on thin air or a grain of rice, and he has tripped over the later before. Its something he is always constantly worrying about since it makes him look incapable of doing a proper job as a vigilante, and it really hurts. Though it does make for interesting conversation starters if he happens to fall into a stranger. This isn’t something that was caused by an injury or infection, he’s just naturally a klutz.
BIOGRAPHY:
Water is everywhere. In the sky, in the earth, running through the pipes beneath the cities cement, coursing through the human body, and Dimetre had always been aware of all of it. The presence of water has an odd feeling, almost like a wave but deeper and deadly. Sometimes his body would move along with the invisible flow of the current, taking him places and making him lead lives he never thought he would. Water is impulsive and reckless. It slams against the shore to get the world’s attention and erodes the rocky path that was paved for him by the heroes he admired. While water provides for countless people they only notice its beauty and loud noise. Despite that, water never ceases to flow, a steady stream that the city of Newhaven can rely on.
In an affluent neighborhood tucked cosley somewhere in Downtown Newhaven lives the Darc family. With five boys and one girl the family is always bustling. Through some form of odd luck the father had created a rather successful business and the mother became a brilliant brain surgeon, allowing their family to live a lavish lifestyle. Having been born into a large family that all exhibited some sort of miraculous power, it wasn’t odd when Dimetre’s control over water manifested at a rather young age. At first his ability only appeared during strong bouts of emotion, generally temper tantrums or fits of uncontrollable giggles- even now his ability is at its strongest when he is in an emotional state- wanting their child to feel in control of his power and not fear what it could become, his parents slowly began training. It had always been simple exercises that became more tedious and time consuming as the years passed by. Dimetre learned rather quickly that water is used for everything. Fill the tub Dimetre, water the garden Dimetre, wash the car Dimetre…on and on. They were incredibly boring tasks which he thought were a lot like the movie Karate Kid, but you don’t actually get karate skills by washing a car, so there was no way he’d be able to harness his ability by doing chores- Well damn, he was wrong. It actually worked! When he turned double digits the ‘training’ stopped, he was able to manipulate water to his will and his parents were content enough with his progress that they stopped asking favors. They had other children to ensure a life of control and safety for. Although he understood that his parents had other siblings and jobs to attend to, he had gotten used to the constant attention, and being apart of such a large family would mean he’d have to put up a good fight to receive it once again. He learned rather quickly that acting out wasn’t the solution. Perhaps, he could receive positive attention from those other than his family?
At the age of fifteen he had a new ability, although not heroic still useful in his quest, his voice was something to be envied. Though the road to angelic singing was not something easy to accomplish, he would lock himself in his room and sing for hours till his throat was raw. He was absolutely thrilled when he won his first local singing competition during the winter of his fifteenth year. Riding on that high he tried out for a talent company, and perhaps it was the luck of his family that he was chosen. Recording companies and a rather terrifying manager scooped up Dimetre in a 10 year long whirlwind of showbiz. While he missed his slow but comfortable life with his parents and endless amounts of siblings in Downtown Newhaven, he blossomed under the constant adoring cheers of thousands. Hydrokinesis was useful as interesting stage effects that made him stand out from other young pop stars. If fans would ask to see his ability he would oblige, slowly he made it seem as though powers were something unique but not terrifying or supernatural. He enjoyed making that difference but knew the life of a singer had its expiration date.
He was around twenty-five when his singing career came to an end. It wasn’t abrupt or surprising, he understood there were other younger, more talented individuals who would easily slip into his place. It was a bit disappointing realizing that he wouldn’t be able to face adoring fans on the stage, but he was slowly coming to terms with the change and was ready to pursue a much more modest career in law. His manager had different future plans envisioned for him and pointed Dimetre towards a life as a vigilante. At first he wanted nothing to do with fighting criminals, it was a dangerous and thankless job and he had no plans to die anytime soon. He thought he could be more help to the city alive. Though, all his manager had to do was mention ‘becoming like Spectrum’ and Dimetre hopped onto the vigilante train faster than lightning. While his control over water worked well to quell villains, his charisma and smooth talking nature turned his hero persona into something more akin to a pop culture icon. But he doesn’t complain, the money and attention is really nice.
{{ VIGILANTE INFORMATION }}
VIGILANTE NAME: Caspian
PRONOUNS: He/Him
APPEARANCE: Dimetre debated for a long time on what Caspian should wear. He knew it had to be practical in battle and have a sort of appeal, but also simple enough to be made into Halloween costumes for kids. He jumped back and forth between a bodysuit with a cape or a bodysuit with no cape, but ultimately decided on a biker theme a bit like x-men’s Quicksilver. (I have a thing for motorcycles.) He adorns an off-white leather jacket with baby blue cuffs, and his sigil beautifully hand painted on the back. He wears a pair of dark blue skinny jeans and hightop sneakers that match the color of his jacket. To pull the outfit together he wears light blue fingerless gloves and a wavy eye mask to match. It doesn’t do much to hide his identity, but that doesn’t quite matter when everyone already knows who you are. He rides a white and blue bike into battle mostly because it alerts the press and citizens to where he is, but also slightly because he thinks motorcycles are cool.
Dimetre paid to have most of his vigilante costume tailored and engineered to boost his performance in battle. While they couldn’t make his suit as flashy or powerful as Spectrums, like he requested multiple times, the fabric is thick enough to sustain quite a few blows. With ample space for arm and leg movement, it is perfect to wear during hand to hand combat if Dimetre were to ever find himself in such a situation. While the jacket, gloves, mask, and shoes are waterproof the jeans are not so Dimetre keeps a large stash of them at his apartment just in case.
SIGIL: A simple blue wave pattern in a circular shape, making it easy to put on merchandise and to create backpack patches of.
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COLOUR SCHEME:
-#0C3D51 (Dark Blue)
-#53A5C6 (Light Blue)
-#EDFAFF (White Blue)
FIGHTING STYLE: He’s a long range fighter, preferring to let others get up close and personal.
CLASS TYPE: Defensive
MORAL ALIGNMENT:  Neutral Good
POWER:
Caspian has the ability to control and manipulate some forms of water. While he is able to control liquid and gas, he does not have mastery over ice, that is beyond his capabilities. He can draw water from the atmosphere, large lakes or oceans, and pipes. While he can attempt to handle the water in an individual’s body, it is much more difficult for him than say moving a visible puddle. He cannot control any liquid he pleases, only water, though he is able to separate the water from say a soft drink, only leaving the coloring and sugar left in the can.
Other than the normal applications of Hydrokinesis such as manipulating the properties of water, water attacks, and hydrokinetic surfing, Caspian is able to generate or increase the water pressure of the liquid he has control of. He generally uses this by creating a sphere around an enemy and using the pressure to crush them while inside the water, or create air embolism inside their veins, though that’s a matter of chance not skill. Other uses of manipulating water pressure would be Caspian’s ability to make pillars or objects made of water that other vigilantes and civilians can stand upon without sinking through.
He is naturally weak against Electrokinesis since he’s an excellent conductor of electricity, and gravity manipulation since that can reverse the effects of his water pressure. Large fires would render his ability useless but he isn’t naturally weak against flames.
{{ STATS }}
OBSCURITY: 1/5
CONTROL: 4/5
LUCK:  3/5
STRENGTH: 3/5
SPEED: 4/5
CHARISMA: 5/5
INTUITION: 4/5
AGILITY: 2/5
STAMINA: 3/5
INTELLIGENCE: 4/5
DURABILITY: 4/5
{{ EXTRAS }}
HEADCANONS:
-Being raised in such a large family he has a soft spot for children and he tends to win their favor rather quickly.
-He has always had a backup plan just incase this whole ‘famous’ thing didn’t work out. He has a degree in law and takes the bar exam each time it expires.
-He is such a nerd. Other than loving anime and cartoons, he probably has every piece of Spectrum merchandise known to man.
-He loves people and is upset that his lifestyle makes him almost unapproachable. Though, he understands that not everyone wants to be apart of next week’s news story.
-He has a giant Alaskan Malamute puppy named Harrison and an Akita named Oscor.
-He has a guest bedroom that is always kept prepped and tighty just incase he meets someone that needs a place to stay. Which tends to be the people the media calls his “one night stands”.
-He had his heart broken when he was rather young and has yet to recover from it. Despite that, he is still accepting of love to a degree.
-He has such a sad sense of humor, he’ll laugh at like anything.
-He doesn’t get mad, he gets sassy.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
Songs:
On my own- Les Mis: https://youtu.be/aQnJ4mIfT0c
Starlight- Muse: https://youtu.be/3J1YBu0gpJY
High Hopes- Panic! At the Disco: https://youtu.be/UKserM-i0_A
Blossom- Kerli: https://youtu.be/Fhu2G-207Ko
Cry me a River- Michael Buble: https://youtu.be/nh_pYXnj248
Master of Tides- Lindsey Stirling: https://youtu.be/GX9o9yqYcaM
Popular- Wicked: https://youtu.be/IXzFOHrycHg
One Knight- Wonderland: https://youtu.be/byJBNtJgiVE
This is the Best Burrito I’ve Ever Eaten- Parry Gripp: https://youtu.be/–bqFOdb6_g (I’m sorry.)
Desired Plots:
-Dimetre would like to find someone that immediately looks past the whole ‘famous’ thing, and wants to be his friend not because of his money or fame, but rather because of his personality.
-((This would entirely depend on if someone wants to play such a roll.)) A protégée perhaps? Another vigilante who wouldn’t mind sharing the limelight with Caspian and become some sort of pseudo-partner. Since everything looks better in pairs
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