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shadowgeist-stars · 3 years

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Ren x Gakushu: Nightmares

Ren was standing in the Chairman's office, watching the man pace around him, Araki, Seo, and Koyama with practiced, measured steps. His words were almost entirely unintelligible, but his voice was just like always. The same eerie, low tenor that made his skin try to crawl off his body, like he suddenly had some kind of flesh-eating disease.

Suddenly the monster struck. A huge fleshy mass with eyes so big that they overlapped one another on its face. A mouth so wide and sharply fanged that it could swallow anyone whole and shred them apart in its jaws anyway. Before he knew it, there was an agonizing sting at the back of his head and the better part of his back. Ren was somehow thrown against the wall, pain tearing against his sternum and surrounding ligaments making it nearly impossible to breathe. The others were no different, as if they were flung just as woefully unprepared into the same MMA fight that he was in.

Then he realized all of their bodies hadn't even moved.

For all intents and purposes, their minds had been violently punted from each of their bodies, leaving them as empty shells that did nothing but chant an insatiable desire to kill E-Class. If Ren didn't have trouble breathing before, he was all but suffocating now. It only got worse when Gakushu reentered the room, only to call out to Ren and the others in horror. The mix of anger, disgust, and outright fear with which he stared at his father and his pet beast nearly wrenched his racing heart clear out of his chest.

“Gakushu, please… I'm right here…”

He forced his ghostly form to stand up. Dizziness spun his vision every which way. His shaking feet didn't feel anything close to steady as he tried to stumble toward his friend. The monster over the principal's shoulder only pounced again, painfully crushing his throat in its clawed grip as he could only face that menacing, unnatural grin. Darkness was beginning to dot his vision as it blurred with tears. He reached helplessly for his best friend with whatever vanishing strength he had left, as it all went cold and dark and --

Ren's eyes shot open with a gasp, heart pounding and breathing as if he'd just endured one of Gakushu's soccer games. He lay frozen and tense in his bed, clutching his bed covers and staring at nothing but his own bedroom floor as he slowly willed himself to calm down.

After he finally deemed himself calmed from the nightmare, (and telling himself that No, panic-brain, my blazer that I keep hung on my door is not a monster that's here to kill me) he sat up in his bed and checked the time on his alarm clock.

Only a few minutes after 3 o’clock, in the morning.

Ren grimaced to himself, running a hand through his stupid bedhead. Either Seo or Koyama would probably laugh about some kind of joke related to the time that he’s almost certain he’d rather not hear. However, he just thought it was too darn early to be up, even with something like a very graphic memory/nightmare to blame.

The principal monster from his nightmare flashed behind his eyes, in its own twisted "speak of the devil." What better way of being told by one's own brain that going back to sleep at that moment was not an option?

…Maybe a cup of tea or something warm (and uncaffeinated) would settle him down enough to help.

With a sigh, he got out of bed, pulled on a shirt, and headed to the kitchen.

He knew the house well enough that he didn't have to turn on the lights. He knew every place where the floors creaked, exactly where to stick to the walls and where to simply keep a light foot. The tiny nightlights in the halls kept it just visible enough that one didn't have to stumble around in complete darkness.

Many years ago, traversing his house at night was a game to Ren. One where his eyes sported beams of light to help him see. A game in which the dark wasn’t a monster to fear, but his playmate.

When he reached the kitchen, he breathed a soft sigh of relief. He grabbed a mug from the dish cabinet, but before he could do anything else, he noticed a light.

Light that was coming from the living room TV, partly shadowed by a figure on the couch.

Ren had a feeling he knew who that was. Guess I’m not the only one having a rough night.

With that in mind, he grabbed a second mug before pulling the jar of dried chamomile from the back of a different cabinet, fixing some tea with it.

The person on the couch didn’t respond to any noise he made, which meant one of two things: he was either quite aware of his presence and simply waiting for Ren to reveal himself, or he was out of it to the point of somehow not noticing the brunette was even there.

With someone like Gakushu Asano, there was no in-between with those two possibilities.

The moment the tea was ready, Ren poured it into the two mugs, a small voice in the back of his mind reminding him to put some sugar in Gakushu’s mug. He likes his tea sweetened a little. It’ll help him calm down more easily if he’s tense or had a nightmare, and right now he's possibly both.

He glanced at whatever he was watching on TV, which was turned down so low he couldn’t quite hear it. A documentary: his go-to for calming down from a bad dream. Crime or historic ones usually mean something relatively tame. But this one’s a nature documentary; he only goes to those things when it’s really bad.

The taller boy took a deep breath before heading over, humming a familiar tune and making sure to seek out the one floorboard he knew would creak. A word of advice from a friend, so as to not scare him once in his line of sight.

The redhead made an almost unnoticeable jolt before bright purple eyes met his. (So he really was out of it to a point he didn't know I was there, or at least hyperfixating on the TV.) He was wrapped in a throw blanket and had his legs laid across the length of the couch; he was probably planning on sleeping there if he was able to calm down enough.

“Ren… How long have you been up?” he asked, shifting around to sit properly on the sofa.

He chuckled, setting down the mugs on the coffee table until he was sitting down beside his boyfriend. “Obviously not as long as you.” His smile became a frown when he got no snarky response. “Nightmares keeping you up, too, huh?”

The shorter boy only nodded once, taking his mug when it was offered. “I hoped to be able to sleep again, after getting my mind off of it… And I didn’t expect to be discovered."

Ren hummed, sipping his own beverage. "…It was the brainwashing incident on my end… Araki saying it felt like an out-of-body experience was pretty accurate."

The ginger didn't seem too surprised. "…It was partially that exact incident for myself… and also the immediate aftermath of the pole-toppling match. I still find it hard to forget how badly Kevin and the other exchange students were injured, because of him… it was so severe that they all had to return to their home countries, once they'd recovered enough to do so."

The others didn’t hear much of that when it happened beyond when the paramedics showed up at the school. At the time, they all knew better than to ask while the wound was still fresh. Then again, it wasn’t like he would’ve been coherent enough to elaborate on the situation anyway, given how he fell asleep on the ride home.

"Least they don't have to worry about him hurting them again now…" he replied finally, "or anyone, to be honest. Especially not you." He pulled the strawberry blond boy into his side. "I think you remember well enough… how worried I was when he hit you in front of everybody."

The shorter boy’s exhale reverberated with exhaustion as his head drooped on his lover’s shoulder, followed by the sound of him emptying his mug. “Not as much as I wish I did… but at the same time more than I care to admit. It’s exhausting just thinking about it.”

The brunette smiled sadly at the sheer amount of fatigue in his tone, giving his shoulder a squeeze before finishing his own drink. "All the same, we can say that we're safe from him, and that in itself means a lot… By the way, I would've been alright with you coming over to my room after you woke up from your nightmare."

That only earned him a sleepy, yet sour look. "Why would I do that? I'm not a toddler, Ren."

The brunette snickered, using a thumb and index finger to get the other to face him. "Maybe not, but it's not childish to be afraid or need someone else, even for just a little company. Haven't you felt any better since I came out here?"

Gakushu tried to avert his face. "I suppose you could say that…"

Begrudging victory; I'll take it.

He smiled as he leaned in to kiss the shorter boy. He slipped his tongue in easily, tasting the chamomile's aftermath and practically feeling the remnants of Gakushu's tension and traces of his own nightmare disappear into the documentary's white noise. The ginger all but melted into his arms, the long and lazy kiss bearing down on his eyelids with sleep in a wave of honeyed warmth. Pulling away showed a pair of hazy purple eyes struggling to open again, on an adorable, blushing face.

“I love you, Gakushu; sweet dreams.”

The shorter boy gave a slow, cat-like blink, snuggling further against the taller boy. “Hmm… love you too… Ren…”

Ren chuckled at his slurred speech as he took Gakushu's empty mug from his hands, placing it and his own mug on the coffee table. Afterwards he turned off the TV, pulling Gakushu along as he shifted them around, until they were now both laying sideways on the couch, with a red-haired head on his chest. He managed to resituate the throw blanket over them both, draping long arms over his beloved; one settling across his waist, the other scratching his scalp in rhythmic circles.

He leaned into the crevice between the couch cushion and backrest with a contented sigh. With the weight and warmth of his boyfriend in his arms and the steady whispering breeze of breath in his ears and over his chest, the image of the former principal and the big-eyed monster was nothing more than a fading memory. They were both safe here, in this homey little bubble. Pressing a final kiss to his boyfriend's crown, he laid his own head down and closed his eyes, letting sleep carry him away on a far more welcoming cloud.

It wasn’t the first time they had such nightmares, and it may well be far from the last, but for now, they could sleep without fear, and that was enough.

#assassination classroom #gakushu asano #ren sakakibara #ren x gakushu #rengaku #asaren #asano gakushu #sakakibara ren #ansatsu kyoushitsu #i like rarepairs okay?

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moonah-rose · 3 years

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King Takes Knight

A quick Michael whump drabble mini-fic, written for catharsis sake. I’ve had a rough week.

TW: Captivity, torture, impaling.

His wrists are bound together behind his back, chains clamping tight around his skin, looped to a stake on the stage. He’s constantly hanging forward, feet impaled into the wood by rusty nails. The laughter had rippled around him when those had been hammered in, slow as fork, half a minute between each pound to give Michael a chance to appreciate the pain. Enough time for everyone to enjoy his groans.

At first he’d done his best not to give them the satisfaction. Demons fed off the sounds of misery. No, seriously, it’s like a vampire feeding off blood. It’s like their own crack cocaine. Michael had grown tired of the ‘kick’ many centuries ago. Why him? Why none of the others? Oh, right, of course. That’s the whole reason he’s here. It’s why he’s now the main, impromptu, attraction at this DemonCon.

He’s a freak.

That was always a fact, as much as he had tried to hide from it. Demons don’t collect human objects for a hobby unless its teeth or kidneys. Demons don’t binge watch human TV shows to help them fantasise about what it would be like to live the way they do, up above on Earth in the fresh air, with dating and parties and their own laugh track. Demons don’t get tired of what they were designed for; torture, maiming, eviscerating. For so long he told himself, It’s just a phase, a hyperfix, it will be pass, I just need something new....

The psychological experiment had worked. Until it hadn’t.

Now here he was. Still a freak, to them, more so than ever. He has no intention of running from it anymore. Not that he’ll be able to run or walk for a while now.

Sometimes they loosen the chain and one of them will yank it, making him crawl. Typically after they’ve smashed a broken bottle on the floor, open palms falling onto the scattered shards, trousers tearing at the knee as they cut in deep.

He’d barely felt anything the first time he’d noticed the crimson pooling beneath him. He had already worked out that they’d done something to heighten the pain receptors in his skin suit. But how could he have blood?

“Just an illusion, you tuft of pubic hair.” Shawn had snarled at him, disgusted at the curios look on his prisoner’s face; “You don’t get to have blue goo like a true demon. You’re an abomination. A holy spawn of Nothing.”

He’d have tried to give a snappy comeback, had they not threaded a steel wire through his lips. Michael almost took it with pride; as if Shawn was afraid to hear him talk after he’d given his speech before. Clearly it had him worried that he was losing control, that there may have been demons listening who agreed with him, who were believed it was time to change. Maybe Michael wasn’t the only freak. A small, foolish part of him held out hope it would be one of them who would try to free him.

Nothing yet. Maybe all his words fell on deaf, wicked ears. Maybe they had considered it, for a moment, before distracted by the new attraction of a Michael piñata to play with.

The remainders of his suit stick to burned, bruised and bloodied skin. His jacket is gone, one of the Trolls borrowed his bow-tie to use as a handkerchief so he doesn’t expect to see that again given their snot is acidic. He knows they’re working their way up to the penis flattener. Just his luck, he was just starting to get used to the weird hanging bits, even having the odd fantasy of how he might be able to use them...and now it seems the first bit of action they’re going to get is being slammed with a mallet. If given a choice, he might prefer to try the butthole spiders.

His vision fades in and out after taking several punches to the head from one of the Rock Giants. He’s sure his eye nearly popped out of its socket and his jaw is broken, barely held together by the metal in his lips. They all chant their names at him. Not just freak. Traitor. Weakling. Disgrace. Failure. Hopeless. Loser.

They want tears. They want him to break.

But he’s never felt more strong in his life...at least, for now.

He closes his eyes, swaying in his bonds, head rolling as the pain thumps through his skull. He can still hear Janet screaming his name. Her magnet-bound hands reaching out for him. Jason’s hands on her arms, his distraught face looking past his not-a-girlfriend as Michael shoved the handcart away as soon as the guards caught up with them.

“GO! NOW! DON’T COME BACK! DON’T RESET! JUST GET OUT!”

It was one of them or all of them. It had to be him.

This was all his fault, after all. Janet had been taken because he’d been foolish enough to underestimate his former colleagues. They’d failed to notice the imposter among them because Michael was too busy keeping all his anxieties over his own potential double to himself. Had he just told Eleanor and the others the truth about Shawn’s call from before the experiment, the reason for his ‘breakdown’ from the start, they might have known something was up. They might have known better than to let Janet get on that train alone.

He might not have let everyone down.

Her hand grabs his wrist as they leave Mindy’s. He says nothing as Tahani and Jason continue to walk on ahead.

He turns around.

“Listen...about last night.” Eleanor looks up at him, taking a deep breath. He can see that she’s slept very little between the few hours they took to rest up and prepare for this journey, “The whole....trust issue dealy. I just wanted to say-.”

“It’s okay.” He raises his hand; “You don’t have to apologise.”

She blinks at him.

“Uhmm...Good, because I wasn’t gonna.”

Michael’s mouth forms a silent ‘Oh’. Why had he been expecting that?

“I meant what I said, dude. I don’t know if I can ever trust you.” She tells him, straight; “I believe that you’re Michael and not Vicky, you proved that much. But, like I told Tahani, even if it is you, I don’t fully trust you. You know why right?”

He swallows, looking down at his shoes; “The lying...I know.”

He doesn’t try to excuse himself anymore. It was bad. That’s all there is.

“Not just the lying but the lying about the lying!” She berates him; “It has to stop! And don’t get me wrong, the whole offering to sacrifice yourself thing, that’s done you credit. I need you to keep that shirt up. I need to be sure that you understand how important this whole show we got going on is. Whole of humanity is riding on us beating Shawn and those goons. It’s more important for us to win this than worrying about just any one of us. Got it?”

He nods. Of course he’s got it. Does she still consider him a liability? Would she have preferred it if Jason hadn’t interrupted his attempt earlier?

No, he tries to reassure himself. She’s not being mean. She’s being a leader.

And she’s right.

“Got it, Boss.” He tells her, quietly, the shame still burrowing deep in his chest.

She gives him a small smile and bumps his arm with her first; “There! Glad we got that settled. Look, I just want my partner in running-fake-Heaven back at my side is all. Not hiding things from me or putting me through crab like you did last night.”

“I understand. I’m sorry.” Was he unreasonable to hope for an apology back?

He’ll never understand what it means to be human, he realises sadly.

“Apology accepted. Now go bring back our favorite not-a-robot or I’ll be demoting you to my personal shrimp-serving butler.” She teases with a twinkle in her eye as they continue their walk to the train station.

Michael laughs to himself, spluttering droplets of blood from his encased tongue, as her words ring in his ears. He hopes they win. He hopes he gets to see his friends one last time before they go to the Good Place, the real one, and he’s sent to...wherever. Hopefully somewhere nicer than here.

The more time passes, the more he’s beaten and scalded and whipped, the more he knows Janet has obeyed his request. They haven’t gone to the Judge. They’re carrying on the experiment, best as they can, with Chidi as their best chance to succeed as one of the subjects. He hears Shawn muttering one time about the train tunnel having mysteriously caved in.

Well done, Janet, old friend. Or was it Jason with his last molotov?

He knows they can do it without him. He believes in nothing else in this world except his incredible friends and their ability to save the forking world.

They don’t need him...They have each other. And Eleanor.

His girl from Arizona. The only one who can take charge of this. The one who knows what is at stake and what needs to be done. There’s an odd tightness in his chest, which may be from where his fake ribs were crushed earlier, but may be something else. He can’t deny it...He misses being at her side, he misses watching her take charge, of being on her ‘team’, her...partner. Fork it, he doesn’t want to be sad about it. He doesn’t want to...

It’s his own fault that’s over. You ruined everything, y’know that?

“You’re thinking of her, aren’t you? Your favorite yellow cockroach.” Shawn whispers, appearing as a blur in the corner of his distorted eyesight; “Funny how they haven’t come for you. You and that idiot came for your Good Janet. But their own pet demon? So much for human friendship, huh.”

He closes his eyes tight. He doesn’t...want them to come.

His hair is grabbed, head pulled back, a small block of freezing ice pressed against his stomach. He moans into the wires. His natural fire-element essence is violently reacting to the cold. It’s worse than a thousand volts of electricity.

“They left you, Mikey. They abandoned you to us.”

N-no...He chose to stay....He made them g-g-go...

“And don’t get me wrong, the whole offering to sacrifice yourself thing, that’s done you credit. I need you to keep that shirt up...”

And he did.

“It’s more important for us to win this than having to worry about just any one of us. Got it?”

Got it.

That’s why they haven’t come. They can’t throw away the progress they’ve made just to save him. They need to see it through till the end now. That’s all it is. Eleanor understands, he’s sure of it...It’s not because they don’t care...

The chill seeps into him. He feels parts of his goo crystalize sharply.

“I don’t think I can ever trust you.”

“Why don’t we just lock you up in Janet’s void?”

“Get out of here. You don’t get to be part of this.”

As the agony shoots through him, he blinks and he sees her. Staring at him. Uncertain, afraid, but silent. Complicit in his fate, if it’s for the greater good. No longer hers to worry about. No longer a distraction from what’s truly important - would she react the same if it was Chi-? No, stop it! Don’t!

Shawn moves away with the ice block and Michael sags against the stake.

“Ahh...Would you look at that.”

A finger reaches out to graze Michael’s cheek, picking off a tiny frozen droplet on his cheek. Fork. How long had he been crying? He didn’t want to give them that satisfaction!

Shawn puts it between his lips and smiles; “Mmmm, not bad. Not as salty as human tears. Let’s see if I can get you to fill my glass.”

Michael glares at him now, shaking roughly. Shame quickly simmers into a flash of rage before his old boss slams the ice block against him again. He screams.

Fork, fork, fork. This has to be worth it.

If it’s the only way he can prove, without a doubt, he’s on their side...That he wants nothing but to be worthy to be her ‘partner’ again...To be wanted...Forgiven?

Win, you guys. If he can ask for nothing else, do this for him. Please, damn it...Win.

#tgp fanfic #angst #whump fic #no comfort #if someone wants to write comfort go for it #im not there right now #i just needed hurt

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talyn-the-warlock · 4 years

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(Hey, Guardians! Ready for some angst? I wrote this some time ago when I was very, very upset as a vent piece, but now that I read it, I think it's good enough to post!

Also, for flavor- this is fanonically what happens in this scene for Talyn. Soooo..keep that in mind going forward.

Trigger warnings included for gun violence and canon character death.)

Nothing Left to Say

“The line between Light and Dark is so very thin…do you know which side you’re on?”

The forsaken Prince leered defiance through his wounds, glaring mad hatred into the Guardian before him. Talyn Maj caught his eyes only through the sights of her lost friend’s gun. They didn’t intimidate her. There was no way this shadow of a man could have made her back down now. Not after what he’d done. Not after all he’d stolen from her. Even without his sins considered, Uldren was on his last legs. With the state he was in, staggering and bleeding and wasting his fading strength on soliloquy, he certainly couldn’t fight back. If she left him, he wouldn’t last more than a few minutes. He would be refused the honor of a duel, or the mercy of her Light. Rage churned through her mind in words left unspoken. Murdering bastard. Deranged psycho. Self-righteous prick. This bitterness was her truth as much as it was the woman to her left. Petra’s sidearm was trained on Uldren the same as Cayde’s cannon, her drawn face reserving all the same disdain her friend was unabashedly radiating. If the Guardian didn’t end this herself, his sins would be repaid by the Queen’s Wrath. It wouldn’t come to that. The choice had been made the moment this would-be Prince turned the Ace of Spades on its rightful owner. Anger so vitriolic poised on the tip of Talyn’s tongue felt like a mouthful of acid. With a deep gulp, she swallowed it and ignored how it burned her throat. He wasn’t worth acknowledging, let alone debating. A bullet would be the only repartee that mattered now. The Ace of Spades felt so heavy, so full of a symmetrically horrid emotion. Vengeance sat chambered in steel, waiting to be unleashed. This half-baked conversation was over.

Talyn had nothing left to say.

She closed the distance until she was almost on top of him, slow strides quaking with an unrelenting fury. What had happened to Cayde replayed in the Warlock’s mind ad nauseum as she scoured the Tangled Shore for mark after mark. One after another, unmatched bloodlust had broken them. It was savagery she didn’t know she was capable of, furious violence that made even her best friends slink back in surprise and fear. Slaughtering Uldren’s pawns hadn’t sated her. Painting the Reef in Scorn blood wasn’t enough. Talyn knew she’d never be satisfied until the man who stole from her knew what it felt like to be destroyed from the inside out. It was no secret Mara’s sacrifice had driven him to this, turned him from dutiful brother to unhinged menace. He thought he knew loss. He thought he understood pain. Talyn’s jaw clenched at the mere thought, the barrel of that borrowed cannon trembling in time with her arm. Uldren didn’t know a damn thing about what it meant to suffer. Not yet. It would be no cut to black that put the exclamation point on his story, no ambiguous gunshot that sent him tumbling into the void. This moment would be hers alone, hanging suspended in her racing, fury-addled mind. Cayde’s last breath flashed across her imagination again, encouraging her to make the final push. Talyn didn’t hesitate. She couldn’t.

The instant she stopped, Talyn let her finger close in a white-knuckled fist. The Ace of Spades bucked in her hand, barked its rage in lead and fire where her tongue couldn’t. She’d hovered the dot sight directly over Uldren’s creased forehead, right between his furious, exhaustion-ringed eyes. At point-blank, it was impossible to miss. His head snapping backward spared her a good look at the wound, the way he sprawled across the polished floor uncanny and wrong. Crimson pooled beneath him in the same shade as his killer’s vision. She was still infuriated beyond her ability to express, still wired with homicidal lust alien to her. Taking his life wasn’t enough. Talyn thought this would be what calmed her, but it wasn’t enough. The gun shook so hard she almost couldn’t aim it anymore. It was making her arm hurt to hold it aloft like this, a steady ache forming in her bicep and her tightly-clenched hand. It was still so damned heavy, just as unsatisfied as the heart threatening to pound through her chest. Letting herself of this boiling blood was the only thing that could help her now, but she couldn’t have known. The fire overcame her all at once, a hiss passing her teeth as her face twisted in unbridled emotion. He deserved worse. He deserved more. There was no convincing her not to see the debt repaid in full.

Cayde’s gun screamed itself hoarse. High-caliber bullets embedded themselves one after another in Uldren's chest, making his lifeless body jerk from the repeated impacts. Blood blossomed from the Prince anew, holes punched in his tattered garbs staining the floor with yet more red. It wasn’t as cathartic as it should’ve been. All it did was stoke the feelings inside her, coax them into new disgusting shapes. A tornado-force maelstrom of darkness tore her insides to pieces, threatening to consume her in its unstoppable wake. Her rage was a spigot that could never be dammed, gushing fountains of cold brutality that made her sick to drink from. It was seductive. Painful. Infinite. A hand cannon’s magazine wasn’t. The Ace of Spades said all it had to and went silent, save for the rhythmic click of it’s hammer striking nothing. It was satisfied, more than content with the display it had shown this worthless murderer. A terrible jealousy rose in Talyn when she couldn’t find that peace herself. Her mind hadn’t quieted an iota, the violence in her still roiling like a storm-tossed sea. Freezing salt-water overtook her prow again and again as the waves crested all the higher. No, damnit, no! There must be more ammunition, there had to be new ways to tear his broken body asunder. Talyn searched for them with every futile pull of a useless trigger. The dull report of an empty chamber begged to differ. No, no, no. It wasn’t fair. She wasn’t done killing this son of a bitch, and it wasn’t fair.

The Warlock’s breath came heavier as panic dug talons into her neck. Revenge was all she had, her sole motivation to carry on as grief laid her low. Finally sighting the bastard up and snuffing him had become her hyperfixation, and she’d done much to convince herself it was her only reason to fight anymore. This was supposed to make her whole again. Wasted and pathetic, a gun she hadn’t earned balled in her fist, Talyn could only feel more broken. Why hadn’t it worked? Why hadn’t her heart changed? Why was the night inside her no less implacable and asphyxiating? There was no delusion that could have convinced her this would bring Cayde back, but it should have at least laid him to rest. It should have mattered as much as she wished it could. As her epiphanies filled the Awoken’s most sacred halls, Talyn wished like a child that she hadn’t killed Uldren for nothing. She begged the stars for something, anything to assure her this was the right path. That wherever Cayde was, he was proud of all she’d done. That this outburst was warranted, and her wrath was for once directed as it should be. In spite of all her wishing, no answer came to her. No being heard what she so deeply desired. Nobody cared. The silence of this sleeping place was an insult beyond any she could abide.

Shrieking her discontent, Talyn stalked away from the lifeless Prince and snapped her cramping gun-arm to the side. Heat behind her eyes clouded her vision just as it did her judgment. It seemed she’d never be finished making mistakes. As she whirled on the spot, petulance twisted her actions into those of a reverent yet again. She felt the Ace of Spades leave her hand, heard it clatter across marble and ding unceremoniously into a pillar. The noise drew her eyes just as they widened with regret. Even through a mist of tears, Talyn could see the worn frame of the precious revolver discarded like an empty bottle, spinning lazily in place as the kinetic force of her blind rage ebbed from it. She hadn’t meant to throw it. She wasn’t thinking. There was no way Talyn would have consciously disregarded her only memento mori of her dear lost friend. Intention didn’t matter. Not to her. Not to Cayde. No share of guilt would absolve her from the act itself. This was the highest disrespect, wrought solely by the hand of someone who claimed to love all the Ace of Spades now represented. How could she? Why was she yet still incapable of staying her fury? Of preventing all she cherished from becoming detritus in a gutter? Of being normal? The weight of these questions brought Talyn to her knees, arms wrapping around herself in some simulacrum of a friend’s comfort. The clouds in her starlight eyes gathered tightly, a storm choking the whole world before her. Now-quiet halls were the amphitheater in which sorrow was to be spoken, and with no reservations a Guardian made her choked anguish heard. It rained in the Dreaming City. Torrential. Unending. A flood that would sweep away all things, a disaster that would spell the doom of everything she thought she believed in. Nothing could save her from drowning now. Nothing, except-

“Talyn…?”

She didn’t lift her head to acknowledge the voice, but it was enough to mute her broken sobbing. There was no mistaking it. Petra. She’d faded into the background as Talyn’s vision tunneled, her friend secondary to the righteous murder unfolding before her. Now there was no ignoring the Queen’s Wrath, all her own opinions and emotions brought back into sharp focus as Talyn cried the red away. Petra must hate her now. The Warlock’s true colors had been painted in fat, uncoordinated strokes across the whole of her queenless domain. Destruction following the wake of a hot-blooded feud dropped squarely in her lap. She couldn’t have believed Talyn wanted to help, not after watching her butcher a man for the sin of slighting her. Like so many friends before her, Petra must be afraid. Shocked that such a display could come from a woman like her, that she was even capable of this bestial horror. Surely she would never see her the same. The world continued to turn around her as she tortured herself with the thinking. No matter how Talyn had convinced herself, reality was so much kinder. Petra proved her wrong.

Dropped on one knee, pistol holstered, she braved a hand on the Guardian’s slumped shoulder. An even squeeze debunked every anxiety. She couldn’t possibly understand, but she was there regardless. Reliable as always, courageous in spite of it all. A pillar, just as undeserved as the hand cannon she’d tossed aside. Talyn didn’t consider how little she’d done to earn it. She leaned on her friend, face buried in fieldweave as her lamentations redoubled. Petra couldn’t fix her. She didn’t have to. She would consolidate the pieces with her steady arms, gently gathering a broken woman into a dustpan with a whisper on her lips. It wasn’t enough. But for now, it was what Talyn needed.

“It’s over,” she candidly said. “Let’s get you home.”

#destiny 2 #destiny oc #fanfiction #uldren sov #petra venj #talyn maj #tw: gun violence #tw: character death

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pigeoncheeks-archive · 7 years

Text

sooooo i’ve been holding this p close to the chest for a while just because it’s kind of mmmm nonsensical?? i’ve just been kinda hyperfixated on @thearcanagame lately and just wanted more interactions with Muriel and to write some stuff with my apprentice, Trill, and @gooddoctorjules encouraged me to post this. i imagine this takes place sometime between the hunt scene and the most recent romance scenes!

One of Trill’s many, many faults is his inability to think things through when put under pressure. He has a tendency to panic, and lose most, if not all, of his critical thinking and reasoning skills. He goes into a frantic animal haze of fright and becomes incapable of thinking of anything beyond how to escape the situation as quickly as possible.

And that’s what has him half-dragging a heavily bleeding mammoth of a man through the palace gardens well past midnight, trying to keep one hand clamped over the gash laying open the stranger’s ribcage.

He should have taken him to the shop, he thinks frantically. But he panicked and headed towards the palace instead-- the heavily-guarded palace.

No, no, the shop would have been worse. Trill wouldn't be able to help him there, not for long, when he’s expected to stay at the palace. No, he reasons, breathing heavily under the weight of the stranger, this is better.

He guides the massive man through the seldom-used hallways he’s come to frequent, if only to avoid servants who either try to bully him into being pampered, or who pointedly ignore him or sneer at his simple clothes. By the time they reach his rooms, the man is leaning upon him so heavily his legs are trembling, and it takes all the meager strength he has left just to haul the stranger to his bed and roll him onto his back.

He’s nearly unconscious, eyes rolling frantically, deliriously in their sockets, before fixing upon Trill’s face. He reaches out and cups his cheek, and Trill’s breath hitches, before the man finally succumbs to his wounds and slumps in a heap upon the ruinously lush sheets-- which are rapidly turning red beneath him. For just a moment, Trill allows himself to really panic, complete with mild hyperventilation and the vague and ominous threat of vomiting that he forces down.

Then he gets to work.

He doesn’t have access to his shop or garden and their stock of herbs and remedies, but he rarely leaves home without the basics tucked away in his satchel. A styptic powder first, to stop the bleeding. He draws out a small jar and dumps a handful into his palm, slapping it over the bleeding wound as gently as possible. Then, while the blood begins to clot, he has a bit more time to think. Comfrey, to promote the healing and prevent infection, and then… bandages, bandages….

Trill sighs heartily and hauls the sheet out from underneath the strange giant’s bulk as gently as he can, and starts the busy work of cutting the unbloodied parts of it into strips with his tiny sewing scissors for makeshift bandages. The bedding has assuredly been changed since he left early in the morning, so it should be clean enough. He sets to making the poultices before he finds a basin and water and begins to daub delicately at the wound.

It’s not nearly so bad as he thought at first, but it’s definitely going to need stitches, and he’s very, very glad his, well, patient is unconscious, because he’s not sure he has any sort of topical anesthetic.

He gets to work with a heated needle and some twine, and frowns deeply as the stranger offers nothing more than a reflexive twitch when he first punctures his skin.

And then he eyes the numerous scars scattered across the man’s torso and grits his teeth. He has work to do.

It takes what feels like hours, and when Trill is done he is sweaty and his hands are covered in a mixture of blood and a slew of strong-smelling tinctures and ointments, but the wound is closed, heavily slathered in a thick paste to prevent infection and promote fast healing, and wrapped summarily, and after that all Trill needs to do is clean up the mess he’s made in his frantic work.

That goes quickly, because Trill is an incredibly efficient cleaner in a crisis, and his patient is resting soundly in his massive bed with the curtains drawn. Once he’s washed up himself, he scurries to the door, pokes his head out, and peers around for a servant.

“Excuse me!” he calls gently when he sees one, a slim young man in bright livery, who stops and turns to him with that familiar expression of vague, plastered-on patience.

“How may I help you, sir?” he asks, smiling thinly.

“I, um, I just wanted to let you know, I prefer to clean my own chambers, if you don’t mind?” Trill wrings his hands, returning the smile as convincingly as he can considering his rattled nerves. “I’m, well, I’m a simpler sort, you know, and cleaning is, ah… is somewhat therapeutic for me? Especially in times of high stress, much like, well, much like now?”

His words come in a near-frantic rush, and though he’s not lying, per se, he still feels a hot guilty flush working its way down his neck. Luckily for him, he can see the feigned interest in the servant’s eyes slowly start to fade. Trill seizes the opportunity and keeps right on chattering, “And, you know, I know it’s your job and all, but I’m sure you all have so much more to do, that not having to bother with even one of these rooms will be something of a relief, at least for someone, so if you would just like to leave some linens outside my door every few days, that would be just lovely and--” The servant holds up a polite hand and offers that same bland smile. “Say no more, sir. I’ll let the others know posthaste.” “Oh, thank you so much!” Trill exclaims, beaming. He tries to dial it back a bit so it doesn’t seem suspicious, “Really, I’m a simple person, I don’t like all this fuss.”

He fusses and frets just a bit more just to nail it home, until the servant’s eyes are nearly glazed over with sheer boredom, but he certainly won’t forget the fledgeling magician’s request. When Trill finally releases the young man, he looks so fiercely relieved to simply be done with the conversation, Trill would almost feel hurt were that not exactly what he wanted. He returns to his room quickly, closes and bolts the door, and leans against it with a hearty, relieved sigh.

The stranger sleeps soundly upon the bed, and in place of the deathly silence of before, there now come low, deep snores of a man who seems to be getting the first good rest of a long, long while. Trill wonders with no small amount of worry what sort of life he’s led that it took a near-mortal injury for him to rest so deeply.

~*~

Trill sends Adagio to his shop that evening to pick up a few more things. Asra’s been teaching him to strengthen his relationship with the pigeon, to slowly ease her from simple pet to familiar, but with Asra gone, well… He’s not sure if the training has begun to take. She obeys simple commands now, but little more than that, and doesn’t feel quite as… cognizant as Faust just yet. He wonders if she’ll ever get there, and if he should have perhaps chosen one of his grandmother’s crows as a familiar instead.

He immediately feels guilty, and banishes the thought. It wasn’t he that chose Adagio, but Adagio that chose him, and he is lucky to have such a relationship with the flighty little creature.

He kisses the top of her head and sends her off, urging her with his heart and mind to find the things he needs in his garden, and he will reward her with the pocket full of fancy birdseed he’s pilfered from the garden feeders. He stresses, too, that she not eat any of it, and hopes she heeds the warning this time. Regurgitated lavender doesn’t smell nearly so nice as the fresh variety.

He sits by the window and awaits her return, and hopes the Countess doesn’t have need of him at least until his patient is awake. He worries, too, if Portia is wondering at his absence, but he figures he has earned some time to himself after his days of tireless poring over Julian’s notes for some clue, some hint of his innocence.

Innocence, hm? He wonders how he can be so sure, with no new evidence to speak of, but having met the man, he can’t recall feeling any sort of malice from him, beyond the weak facade he affects when he needs to.

Perhaps Trill’s too much of a romantic, and the thought alone is enough to make his cheeks flush hot. And from there, his mind strays to his errant master, and the flush spreads down his neck.

He slaps his palms down on the windowsill and shakes his head until he’s dizzy and his hair is a wild cloud around his face, pursing his lips and puffing down his cheeks and forcing the silly, childish thoughts of romance from his mind. He has a man to prove innocent, a mystery, if not several, to solve, and in the more immediate future, a towering stranger in his bed to ensure doesn’t die. He has far too much to worry about at the moment, can’t spare a thought to his foolish little lonely heart when there’s so much to be done.

~*~

His patient stirs in the early morning hours, and were it not for Adagio, Trill’s not sure he would have woken from his place slumped over the windowsill, staring out into the gardens. There’s a warm weight on the back of his neck, the familiar prick of warm little claws, and when he sits up, he’s rewarded with an offended squawk and the beating of wings against the back of his head.

“Adagio!” he exclaims, catching her out of the air and soothing her ire. “What have I told you about nesting in my hair, you silly thing?” She calms her ruffled feathers and settles onto his shoulder instead, looking quite pleased. Piled upon the windowsill is a small, messy stack of various herbs and leaves and flowers, each one only mildly squashed and/or nibbled. “Oh! Good girl!” He roots around in his pocket and comes up with a handful of birdseed, and Adagio croons happily. He dumps it on the sill in place of his herbs, and the pigeon flutters over and begins pecking away happily. He takes the time to sort through his new supplies, and as he does so, there is a sound behind him like a mountain shifting, a groan so deep he feels it rumble in his bones.

“Oh!” he cries, standing up and whirling around. The strange man is shifting upright in the bed, bleary eyes blinking in confusion and brow creasing with pain. Trill rushes over. “Oh, no, no, no, don’t sit up, careful of your stitches!” He puts his hand on the man’s chest, warm and faintly sweaty, but not in the way that would indicate any sort of fever. In a tizzy, Trill brushes his hands along his shoulder, his face, making absolutely sure. “How are you feeling? Sore, I’d imagine!” He laughs nervously, and makes himself busy fluffing pillows and pushing the man’s chest to get him to lie down.

It’s like trying to move a stone wall.

“I-if you could just lie back…” he mumbles timidly, peering cautiously upwards.

The man blinks at him, still groggy and probably quite confused, and Trill is finally stricken with the realization that he has hauled a gigantic, scarred, injured stranger into his chambers in secret, and pointedly told the servants that he does not want to be bothered. He swallows hard, and only hopes that this stranger's “warning” before he’d nearly collapsed from blood loss means he does not want Trill to come to harm.

He pushes gently on the man’s chest once again, and this time, he goes, with all the speed of tectonic plates shifting until he is reclining against the mounds of absurdly lush pillows. His hair is tangled around his eyes, which are suddenly much more bright and alert, watching Trill warily, with all the caution of a cornered animal.

Trill has dealt with his fair share of cornered animals (mostly rabbits and the like, or cats with their heads stuck in flowerpots) so he keeps his movements slow, methodical, as he gently probes around the makeshift bandages. There’s a bit of blood seeping through, they’ll have to be changed, and he only wishes he had something more than torn-up sheets (however fine they are) to work with.

“I’m going to need to change these,” he murmurs, peeking up into the stranger’s ever-watchful eyes for a breathless second. He sees the barest hint of a nod, and sets to work unraveling the miles of cloth it took him to bind the wound the night before.

He pours a bowl of clean water from the pitcher left by the bedside the night before, and cleans the wound as gently as he can, though he’s certain he could rip the stitches out with his bare hands and the strange man wouldn’t flinch. It’s both an impressive thought and a terribly sad one, so he keeps it to himself.

He has questions, of course, but he can’t seem to find the words, or the courage, to ask them. The only one he thinks it may be safe to ask is the stranger’s name, so he does.

“What, um… Pardon my asking, but what should I call you?”

There’s a flicker of something across the stranger’s face, something almost sad, and Trill wishes he knew what caused it.

When the man speaks, it feels like distant thunder echoing in Trill’s ribs. “Muriel.”

Trill swallows whatever silly words were going to burble up out of him, and smiles thinly. “That’s good to know. Thank you. I’m Trill, if you were wondering. Suppose I should have introduced myself earlier, but, well, things were a bit touch and go last night…” He laughs, sharp and nervous, and ducks his head, pinching his lips into a thin line and leaning into his work, checking that the stitches aren’t pulling, that his salves are evenly applied, and then working to wind the bandages carefully around his patient’s tree trunk of a torso. Once or twice, he finds his face pressed against a broad chest, and he flushes and his heart thuds furiously against his ribcage, but he staunchly ignores it.

“You… helped me.”

At first, Trill is not quite sure Muriel has said anything at all, his voice is so soft. But the rumble is there, and he turns his eyes instinctively towards him and takes a moment to parse what he’s said. “I… yes? Yes, I did,” he admits, and he’s not sure why he feels so strange admitting it. “Is there a reason I wouldn’t?”

“You don’t know me,” he says it starkly, matter-of-factly, but Trill feels like it’s not quite a “people don’t usually help suspicious injured strangers” implication, but something else. Something far more.. Forlorn?

“I know you needed help,” is all Trill can think to say. “So I helped.”

“Hmmm,” is all the stranger-- Muriel-- offers in return, and remains quiet while Trill finishes up his work, knots of the bandages and hums.

“I’ll have to see about going to my shop tonight,” he says, mostly to himself, “see if I can’t get a little more than field materials. I’ve got some tinctures that help prevent scarring. Old recipe. My grandmother’s. A very jealously guarded secret-- she left it in a journal and said only I’d be allowed to know it. Locked the journal full of recipes-- not just medical ones, mind you-- and hid the key in a magical box that would only open for me.” He knows he’s rambling, but with all the nerves jangling around in his chest it’s all he can do to keep himself calm while he smoothes the blankets around Muriel’s hips.

He pokes his head out the door to call for a serving tray with a kettle and plenty to eat, offering the weak excuse that he’s feeling a bit peaky and would like to take supper in his rooms. The servant tells him the Countess is having quite a headache this evening anyway, and he breathes a sigh of relief that he won’t be missed.

He doesn’t believe the Countess to be cruel or callous, just… intimidating. Focused. Intense. Trill is far too soft and timid to be anything but cowed by her very presence. Sitting at the lavish dining table while she stares him down does little for his appetite, and he often leaves hungrier than when he arrived simply because his nerves don’t allow him to do much more than nibble.

While they fetch the cart, he prepares his tea sachets from the herbs Adagio brought him, carefully portioning out the herbs and bits of dried fruit into neat little bundles for steeping.

He chatters as he works, and when he looks up, he expects to see the glazed-over look of false interest plastered on Muriel’s face, but he sees only moss-green eyes, focused on him with such intensity that he feels stripped bare. His breath catches and he stumbles over his words, something about finding Adagio with her head stuck in a discarded ale bottle, and swallows hard.

“I-I’m sorry, but I… That is to say, you… You do seem terribly familiar,” he murmurs, feeling a frown pull at his lips, and a vague foggy memory pull at his chest. “I… I’ve seen you before, haven’t I? Before… all of this?”

Muriel goes strangely still, and he’s so massive, it’s painfully obvious. He’s tense from top to tail, and even his mouth has stopped moving, though just a few seconds ago he was eating like he hadn’t had a proper meal in weeks. It makes Trill’s skin prickle with hot nervous tension.

“Yes,” is all he says, and he looks as if he is very carefully considering what to say next. “Many… many times.” And then he resumes eating, and Trill doesn’t bother trying to get anymore information out of him.

He settles in for a long night of quiet contemplation and periodically tending to his patient’s injury, and hopes that the Countess doesn’t summon him for at least another day or so. He has so much to consider, and only wishes Asra were there to help him. What have I gotten myself into?

#the cream puff writes #the arcana game #the arcana #arcana apprentice #fan apprentice #his name is trill and he's a gay disaster who dont know what to do about all these pretty boys #i ship him with all of them #pls help me #uhhhh for a lil more set dressing he did try to escape the palace #so he's done julian's lil bar scene #and he's also been in love with asra for ages #and thinks its unrequited #which after the recent romance scenes hurts SO BAD #but at this point he's trying his best not to let his myriad gay feelings be the cause of muriel's death so he puts them aside #i need to stop talking now #i dont have a title for this but atm the google doc title is 'big boi is back in town'#fair warning this is like 3k words #bc i cant fuckin do short for my life

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