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chickycherrycola · 2 months

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hollow moon

A gift fic for @blackbloodteeth, written for the Grigori Wings server Valentine's Day fic exchange event! (a few days after the posting date, buuuut better late than never!) This one is a horror? romance? horror-romance??? 5k words of Soul Evans slowly turning into a werewolf and generally having the worst time ever 🐺 You can read all the lycanthropic-black-blooded-body horror goodness below, or on Ao3.

thank you to @amberlehcar for hosting the event, and to @moriohpissky for the beta-read!

Rating: M (for aforementioned blood and body horror)

Word count: a little less than 5k; written in second-person perspective and told in a non-linear narrative format

Enjoy!

It's there one moment, and the next, it's gone - winked out of existence in the blink of an eye. ‘What the hell is a rabbit doing in my bathroom?!’ You stand in the doorway, mouth hanging open and eyes glued to the spot where it'd been– it had only been a glimpse, but it was a rabbit, you're absolutely sure– long, twitching ears, soft, sand-colored fur, a prim, pink little nose. Several long, incredulous moments of stillness pass, the faint electrical buzz of the bathroom fan the only sound permeating the silence. The rabbit fails to re-appear, so the shock of seeing it starts to slowly seep from your psyche. And probably, you hadn't even seen it at all. Probably, you'd just imagined it. Probably, you're just tired and need sleep.

So you step into the bathroom with a shake of your head and an exasperated sigh, even as a creeping feeling of unease crawls up the back of your neck; you try to will it away by shifting your focus to your surroundings, by grounding yourself in the present moment one sensation at a time.

The cold tile beneath your bare feet.

The harsh, flickering yellow light overhead, how it casts the small room into severe shadow.

The familiar feeling of worn plastic between your fingers as you reach for your toothbrush.

Your own haggard reflection staring back at you, the darkness within your eyes rivaling the darkness staining the sallow skin below them.

Slowly, your heart rate returns to normal; slowly, it resumes its steady rhythm within your chest, and you breathe a sigh of relief as you apply toothpaste to brush bristles.

You just need a good night's sleep.

Your eyelids start to droop, the pull of gravity and the allure of sweet slumber an irresistible siren song. You try to keep your focus trained upon the reflected image of your face, on the red of your eyes and the pale mess of your hair, on the mechanical back-and-forth motions of brushing your teeth.

But you're just… so tired.

Your eyes slide shut and your grip on the toothbrush falters despite your best efforts, and you slip into blissful unconsciousness.

But only for a moment.

There is the sound of plastic clattering loudly against the porcelain and a splash, and your eyes snap open. You're disoriented, dizzy from the lull of sleep; you stumble forward and grasp at the sides of the sink to steady yourself. Your fingers are sluggish and heavy as they fumble for the fallen toothbrush, as they slosh around in the tepid sink water to fish it out.

Out of the corner of your eye, you swear you detect a flicker of–

Movement?

You blink your eyes back up to the mirror and–

The rabbit.

Sitting in the middle of the tiled floor, its reflection staring back at you, green eyes unblinking and button nose twitching.

Its long ears held tall and upright, insides pink and lined with feathery soft fuzz.

Its fur the color of desert sand, the color of a sun-drenched afternoon.

It's hot blood coursing through its veins, tiny heart pumping the viscous liquid with a steady drone of thump-thumps, and your own ears perk as they strain to listen for the faint heartbeat with the precision of a hunter.

A predator.

Your teeth hurt.

An ache blooms deep within them, starting at the base, in your gums, and burning all the way down to the very tips of your sharp fangs.

And you want to bite.

The rabbit tilts its head, its endlessly green eyes shining with innocence as it regards you.

If you didn't know any better, you'd swear it was something like… like trust shining up at you in those eyes.

Your mouth starts to water.

Before you know it, you're stepping forward, inclining your body towards your prey, muscles tensing and–

Wait.

What are you doing? You don't eat rabbits.

This is absurd, this rabbit isn't even real, it's just a figment of your imagination, a hallucination–

You pull away, start to turn around and–

It isn't your own face staring back at you in the mirror.

It's a beast, a great white wolf with pale, shaggy fur cascading down over a long, well-muscled neck, with tall, pointed ears and an elongated snout, with blood-red eyes and a gaping maw full of razor sharp teeth.

You stumble and stagger backward, bringing your hands up to your face in disbelief, only to discover they're covered in fine white fur and tipped with long black claws.

‘What is this what is happening this can't be real I'm not a–’

The rabbit squeaks in alarm.

The sound reverberates in your ears and refocuses your attention, starts you salivating all over again. You close your eyes and inhale and–

You can smell it now.

The metallic scent of blood, flowing hot and thick in the little creature's veins.

And that's when you realize– you're hungry.

You're starving.

You spring forward, bounding over the tile floor to close in on your prey.

You unhinge your jaws with a snarl, and in the seconds before they meet their mark, time seems to slow, and that's when you see it.

The fear in the rabbit's eyes, the very moment in which trust transforms into terror.

Its ears droop and its green eyes grow wide, it lets out a horrible screech, a shrill scream as your teeth sink into its flesh.

It thrashes in your jaws, kicks its tiny little legs helplessly, and the futile attempt at escape sends a rush coursing through every cell in your body. You bite down harder, hear a crunch and the sinewy snap of tendons breaking, and–

“Soul…”

Its–

It can't be.

Maka.

Its the voice of your meister, feeble and frail and fraught with despair, and it's coming from–

You swivel around to face the mirror and–

You scream.

It isn't a rabbit hanging from between your fangs.

It's Maka.

It's Maka, her body limp and lifeless, dangling from your jaws like a great rag doll. Her head lolls heavily with each movement of your body, and when her face rolls into view, those impossibly green eyes of hers are dull, the light in them utterly extinguished.

You scream.

You drop your meister’s body from your mouth; she hits the tile with a heavy thud, and you scream.

You scream and you scream, every fiber of your being horrified, until your throat feels raw and your vocal cords give out.

It isn't until you're completely out of breath, body convulsing uncontrollably and hands fisting in the bedsheets, that you realize you've woken up.

—

You remember so little from that night.

It’s a black hole in your memory, a gaping stretch of empty abyss with only shadowy fragments of recollection, only flickers here and there of anything concrete. When you try to focus on any one fleeting glimpse of memory for too long, pain throbs in your temples, razor sharp and digging deep into your skull.

You remember a church. You remember streams of crimson ooze dripping from the moon, branding the night sky as if it had been slashed open. You remember the stench of death and you remember blood.

Black blood.

Blood blacker than the inky darkness of the night, blood blacker and thicker than anything you’d seen before in your life.

Black, black, so much black, sticking to your shoes and staining your fingers. Stinging the insides of your nostrils with its potent, metallic smell.

And a flash of pink.

Pink fur and long, glistening fangs, a flash of murderous gray eyes gleaming in the velvet darkness. The shiver of terror that trickled along the resonance link you’d shared with your meister, how her courage and her stubborn resolve had drained away into utter desperation.

The solid weight of the doors, the futile sound of Maka’s back repeatedly slamming against their heft.

The glint of long, black-blood stained claws hovering in the air before you.

And a choice. A choice that wasn’t really a choice - you didn’t even think twice about what you were about to do.

Sudden, impossibly fast movement as those horrid, needle-like claws finally strike, and then–

Pain.

Followed by blackness, emptiness.

And one final, enduring thought ringing in your fleeting consciousness:

‘Maka… run.’

—

‘Run.’

A single command, repeating over and over again in your head.

Cool, desert night air on your face, hard, unforgiving ground beneath your feet. Wind rushing at your back.

And one directive echoing in your mind above all else.

‘Run.’

‘Run, to the very ends of the earth, if I must.’

You do not think of the look on her face– not the way her eyes had widened or the way her soul wavelength had spasmed in terror. Not the way she’d screamed your name, her voice shattered, utterly broken.

You don’t think about how you could feel it– the very moment you sensed it in her soul, the moment you’d realized– she was afraid of you.

You don’t think about how powerless you’d felt, how the power coursing through your body was not the kind you’d known all these years. You don’t think about her hand grasped within your own, how small and insignificant it had felt as you’d changed– not into the cold, heavy steel that you know so well, but into something else entirely.

You do not think of these things, because all you can think about is how close you had come to doing the unthinkable.

Hurting your meister.

The one person you’d sworn to protect at all costs, even if it would mean your own oblivion.

How claws had sprouted from your fingernails as your hand wrapped around her skinny, bony wrist, how you’d tried to call out her name but the only sound that had come out was a vicious snarl.

How the seams on that jacket of yours, the yellow-and-black one you’re so fond of, ripped and popped as your body transformed, how you could hear the fabric tear as it came apart.

How your mouth had watered when you looked down and saw how small she was, how you’d towered over her and you could hear her heartbeat and smell the sweat on her skin as you’d contemplated how easy it would be to tear into her soft, warm flesh.

You don’t think about how close you’d come to giving in to that hunger, that urge to devour and consume that which you hold most dear. You don’t think about whether these thoughts, these urges, are your own, or whether they belong to someone–something–else entirely.

‘Run.’

All that matters now is that you run, as far as possible. Put as much distance between you, whatever it is you’re becoming, and her as possible.

Even if it means you never see her again.

—

“I’ve been having strange dreams,” you’d said.

You’d been sitting on an examination table, or maybe it was an office chair–you’d just woken up, and you’d been in the infirmary for so long the days, weeks, nights, had all begun to blend together, and the dreams made it even harder for you to tell the waking hours from the sleeping hours, so who cares whether it was an exam table or a blasted rolly chair.

“Oh dear,” the nurse had said, in that honeyed tone of voice that never quite manages to sound genuine. The voice that makes your skin crawl. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

She presses a stethoscope, cold and metal and sterile, against your bare chest, against the long, patchwork scar, still pink and puckering at the edges, that now runs like a fissure across your skin. After a pause, she says, in a nauseatingly sweet voice:

“What kind of dreams?”

The memory of the rabbit rushes to the forefront of your mind–visceral and vivid in its intensity. It’s terrible, blood-curdling scream rings in your ears, the phantom sensation of tender flesh fills your mouth, the way it had felt as your teeth sank into its helpless little body.

And then, the eyes of your meister–that damn girl of yours–dull and lifeless in the mirror. The broken way she’d sobbed your name with her very last breath.

Bile rises in your throat as your tongue turns to lead. You can’t bear to even think it, to re-visit the images from the dreams in your mind, let alone speak them aloud.

For what if doing so only serves to make them more real?

“Soul?”

The nurse says your name, and it pulls you out of your own head.

“N-nightmares,” you manage to grit out. Your voice is a bitter, hollow thing, spat between your teeth as if the words tasted vile on your tongue. “Nightmares of… of blood and darkness and all that junk. Standard bad dream stuff.”

She gives you a serene smile, but it only manages to deepen your unease. She removes the stethoscope from your skin, pops the earpieces out and levels you with what you guess is supposed to be a reassuring look.

“It’s perfectly normal to experience some unpleasant dreams after a traumatic encounter,” she tells you, though her voice is careful and guarded. You scoff internally at the use of the word ‘traumatic’.

‘No shit it was a traumatic encounter,’ you think, but you keep the words to yourself.

(You’re a sarcastic little shit, I’m slowly realizing. It’s amusing to say the very least.)

“But the good news is, your physical body is showing some truly remarkable healing progress,” the nurse continues, and for some reason, the phrase ‘physical body’ snags in your mind like a beast in a snare trap. “So if some bad dreams are the worst thing you’re dealing with in recovery, I think you're doing just fine.”

She sends you off, back to your hospital bed with a bottle of sleeping pills and a clean bill of health. When you settle in for the night a few hours later, it doesn’t even occur to you that more sleep probably just means more nightmares, and you take the pills without questioning it.

Three days later, you are discharged from the school infirmary–that girl of yours smiles so big it makes your heart clench in your chest. You really are such a sap for her, aren’t you? She throws you a party and all your little friends show up, and you can’t bear to tell her about the nightmares.

You have that same dream the night you come home, and the night after that. And the night after that.

A week after you arrive home, you’re cleared for field missions, for combat.

And that, my dear boy, is when everything falls apart.

—

You wake up in a patch of scraggy brush, your head pounding and your stomach churning, surrounded by tufts of bone-white fur and no clue how many hours you’d been unconscious.

And hardly any memory from before, from when you were conscious.

You push yourself up with a groan, and your entire body screeches in protest. Your bones creak and your muscles ache with the effort of moving, and your entire being feels wrong; your arms feel like they’ve been forced into too-small shoulder sockets, your knee joints feel like they’ve been ripped out and put back into place backwards.

And your head.

The ache in your head is a living thing, the way it writhes and throbs, the way it claws at the insides of your temples and behind your eyes with hot, stabbing pain. It hurts, it hurts, so much so that you’re tempted to split your head open on a nearby rock, just to see if that would hurt less.

But then, that would be merciful, and you’d decided a long time ago that you aren’t worthy of mercy. You’d sealed that fate when you ran away.

You sit up, and there are rivulets of dried blood crusted on your arms and also, you slowly realize, on your face–though whether it’s your blood, or something else’s blood, you don’t know.

Upon closer examination, you discover that the crusted old blood is a deep shade of crimson.

Not yours.

I try to tell you that it doesn't have to be like this– that there is another way. You don't have to wake up in the haze of shrouded memories, with no recollection of events prior. You don't have to wake up feeling like a foreigner in your own body, like you're a slave to forces you don't understand. I keep trying to tell you– you can have power, Soul. Power beyond your wildest dreams.

But you won't listen to me. You never do.

If you did, though– oh, it would be glorious. My power, combined with that weapon blood of yours– it would be truly magnificent. You wouldn't have to run anymore, wouldn't have to eke out this miserable existence in the barren wilderness. You wouldn't have to live in fear–of yourself or anyone else.

And you'd be able to protect her, too– that green-eyed girl.

Maka.

Yes, I know you remember her name. It's about the only morsel of knowledge you've held onto from your previous life, though I can't honestly fathom why. If it weren't for her, and your borderline suicidal obsession with protecting her, you wouldn't even be in this mess in the first place.

Perhaps you grow tired of my monologuing, or perhaps there's another catalyst, because finally, you push yourself to your feet. You're naked, every inch of your skin exposed to the elements, to the harsh desert scrubland, but this fact stopped bothering you a long time ago. After so many months out here in the arid mountains, the wildlife have accepted you as one of their own– the creatures either squeal and flee from you in terror, or pay you no mind, depending on their relative size and rank in the food chain.

You strain your ears and concentrate; after a moment, you hear it– the babble of a brook, the rush of moving water. It's the little creek that runs nearby, and while it isn't much, it'll be enough to cleanse your aching body of the dirt and grime, of the crusted blood upon your skin. You set off into the darkening twilight in the direction of the noise.

You make it perhaps a few yards before a horrible pain seizes you in the pit of your stomach. It's a new pain, so sudden and severe that you double over. You fall to your knees as your body begins to convulse, as your mouth reflexively falls open and you start to heave.

For many long, awful moments, nothing comes up. Nothing expels itself from the depths of your gullet, and it's all you can do to hack and cough and wheeze with each of your body's futile attempts to purge itself of whatever undesirable thing has entered it. Your throat burns and your eyes water and the ache in your stomach steals the very breath from your lungs, the pain is so suffocating. You wonder fleetingly if this is where it all ends.

And then, finally– something long and thin and almost scaly in texture rises up your esophagus and onto your tongue, accompanied by several knobby, fleshy little lumps, covered in fuzz and coated in stomach bile. You grind your fist into the dry earth and spit.

A rat tail and four tiny, undigested little rat feet fall from your mouth.

—-

It's a dark, moonless night, and as you gaze skyward at the impossibly starry heavens, you know the next transformation is near.

You can feel it in your bones–the other presence inside you–clawing its way out, threatening to rip you apart in the process. The bubbling, surging, tearing sensation, and the knowledge that whatever it is you've been turning into, you won't be able to hold it off for much longer.

You crash into a copse of trees–ponderosa pine, if their scent is anything to go by–as you feel the last of your resolve evaporate.

You've held the beast at bay for as long as you possibly can.

And now, it's my turn.

You collapse into a dense carpet of pine needles on the forest floor as a shudder courses through your body. Your muscles ripple and pulse, your skin starts to rearrange itself to make room for your shifting bones, and you groan in utter agony at the sensation. When you un-fist your hands, you watch as fine white fur erupts along your knuckles, as your fingernails lengthen and sharpen into points, into needle-like claws.

And then, a horrible sound– the crrrr-accck! of the bones in your neck as they expand in size, the agonizing creak as your jaws unhinge and elongate, the burning ache of your teeth growing, of additional fangs erupting from your gums.

With a final, desperate push– a gnash of your teeth and a snarl in your new voice, the swish of a long, bushy tail now protruding from the end of your spine– the transformation is complete.

And with it, your conscious thoughts and human memories fade, replaced by primal animal instinct and a ravenous, all-consuming hunger.

You lift your head, sniff at the crisp, decadent night air tentatively, before throwing your head back with a howl. It’s a long, plangent sound, echoing hauntingly in the vast, lonesome desert.

Your final thought before charging off into the abyssal night is a memory, one as distant as it is achingly familiar – a flash of green eyes.

—-

The moon hangs hollow and lifeless in the sky on the night you finally speak to me.

You say, “What would I have to do?”

It’s the first time you’ve fully acknowledged me in these months that we’ve been together, and you sound more like yourself than I’ve ever heard from you. Your voice is steady, calm, and assured. You don’t stumble over the words.

I don’t have a physical body of my own, but if I did, I would grin–wide and toothy and full.

“Easy,” I reply. “Just let me lead.”

“Let you lead,” you scoff, and I realize I’d missed that snark of yours–had grown quite fond of it in these months I’ve spent with you. “Isn’t that what you’ve been doing this whole time?”

“Not at all,” I say, because I have no reason to lie to you. Our relationship may be many things, but I’ve never once lied to you, and I don’t intend to start now. “You haven’t allowed it. You’ve been resisting me at every turn.”

For a long moment, you’re silent. I watch your gaze tilt upward, to the dull yellow glow of the moon. It’s a husk of its former self, an ugly, hollowed out gash in an otherwise velvety black night sky.

“I’ve been afraid to face you,” you confess, but there isn’t the faintest echo of fear in your voice now. “And afraid of what would happen if I stopped fighting you.”

“Ah.” I pause, feeling the need to choose my words carefully. “So you’ve decided that this is a better alternative, then? A lonely life out in the woods, away from all you hold dear?”

You say nothing. Your throat works as you swallow.

“I just didn’t want to hurt her.”

“Soul,” I say. “You don’t think you’re hurting her now?”

Your heart twists inside your chest as that question sinks in, and even if I weren’t deeply ingrained within you, even if I weren’t completely, intrinsically a part of you, I’d be able to feel the impact of those words. The way your face pinches and your eyes fill with moisture, the way your hands curl into fists at your sides.

“Fuck.” Your voice is breathless and exasperated. “Fuck, you’re right. I–” You pause, suck in a deep breath. “I messed up.”

“Afraid of me or not, the simple, undeniable truth is that I am a part of you now. Nothing will change this fact. And the sooner you accept it–the sooner you accept me–the sooner we can put an end to all of this.”

You stand, then, rising from the ground with renewed purpose. Your face hardens with resolve, and you nod solemnly.

“All right,” you announce with something almost like relief in your voice. “I’m ready.”

This time–this time, the transformation is seamless.

You let me in, let my power wash over you and overtake you and–

It’s simply glorious.

How your skin ripples, bare, naked flesh one moment, then thick, beautiful white fur the next. How your ears and tail and claws and teeth burst from your body with an almost practiced ease, how your silhouette changes shape from boy to wolf so effortlessly.

How the howl that looses from your throat is no longer a despondent sound, no longer fraught with despair–but instead, triumph. How this sound is almost jovial, as if you’re howling in celebration.

And when our union is complete, you run. You charge through the night with the boundless elation that self-acceptance brings, the kind of joy that can only come from full, unflinching acceptance of your entire self.

Darkness and all.

—

When I open my eyes, it takes me a minute to realize where I am.

There’s the glare of fluorescent white light above me, the soft rustle of cottony fabric beneath me. The steady beep-beep-beep of an electronic device somewhere next to me, and–

Warmth.

A hand, small and warm and familiar, clasped within my own.

Maka.

“Shhh…” The grip of her hand tightens as her face comes into view. “I’m here, Soul. Right here.”

I don’t realize that I’m saying her name out loud until I’m repeating it, over and over again like a desperate prayer.

Even as I gaze up at her, I can’t quite believe that this is real. That she is real.

The overhead lights cast a glowing halo around her flaxen head; her eyes are puffy and red, laden with dark circles underneath, and her lower lip quivers undeniably as she regards me, but it’s her, she’s here, and most importantly, she’s safe.

I reach for her.

“Maka, I–” The words come out broken and ragged, but I have to say this. “Gods, Maka, I’m so–I’m so sorry–”

She shakes her head, squeezes my hand. Leans into my touch when my other palm comes to rest on her cheek.

“No. Don’t,” she says, and fuck, did I miss the sound of her voice. “Don’t start.”

Sniffly and wobbly though her words are, she still manages to lace plenty of warning into the command, and as a result, all the apologies, everything I’d wanted to tell her if I ever saw her again–all of it withers away into nothing.

“I’m just so glad I finally found you.”

I realize all at once, then, that I’m back in the infirmary, laying on a hospital bed, and the rhythmic beeping next to me is the sound of a machine tracking my own erratic heart rate.

“H-How did I… get back–”

“I found you,” Maka repeats, bringing her other hand to rest over where mine still cups her cheek. “About a mile outside of Death City. Unconscious. Dirty. Bleeding from your hands and feet. I had been trying to sense your soul wavelength for so long…” she trails off, and I realize her eyes, those endlessly green eyes that lingered in my memory even when I’d utterly lost myself, are brimming with tears. A single bead of moisture slips from the corner of her eye, and without even thinking, my thumb moves to brush it away.

“You didn’t have to run, Soul.”

There are so many things I could say–so much I want to say, but I just can’t find the words.

That I did it all for her, that all I wanted was to keep her safe. That I couldn’t bear the thought of bringing harm to her. That it didn’t feel fair to expect her to understand what had been happening to me, if I could hardly understand it myself.

Instead, all I manage are two whispered words:

“I’m changed.”

Maka’s eyes soften.

“I know.”

“I don’t know what it means for my future. For us. For our partnership.”

“I don’t either.” Her voice is low as she leans forward, as she moves her hand from atop mine and places it on my chest, right above my heart. Above the scar I now bear on my skin, forever brandished on my body as a stark reminder of the lengths I’m willing to go to for her. “But… we’ll figure it out together. Like we always have.”

She smiles then, and it's like the dawn breaking after a long, impossibly dark night. I feel her soul wavelength reach out to entwine with mine–a feeling I hadn’t felt in so long, one I never thought I’d ever feel again.

And I know in that moment that she’s right.

“Yeah.” I can hear the smile in my own voice as I lean forward, as I press my forehead tenderly against hers. I breathe in her familiar, comforting scent–the scent of home–and it grounds me and soothes me in a way that nothing else can. I know without a shadow of a doubt that I’ll never leave her again, that I’ll be by her side until my dying day. “We sure will.”

#soul eater #soul eater fanfiction #soul eater evans #maka albarn #soma #soul x maka #cherry writes #werewolves #horror writing #horror fiction #lycanthropy #soul eater gift exchange #grigori wings #baby's first horror fic please be gentle

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clonecyare · 3 years

Text

I Can Handle Myself

Summary: You were perfectly capable of handling yourself when it came to matters of your safety. But that would never stop Fox from doing his part.

Pairing: Commander Fox x senator!reader

Tags: assination attempts, protective fox, senator!reader, republic gala, canon typical violence/shenanigans, banter, secret relationship, kissing, suggestive ending,

Word Count: 1.8k

A/N: The 2nd instalment of my outfit series. This one is based on this outfit submitted by @murdertoothpick for Fox. Each fic in the series can be read as stand-alone fics.

1st instalment: Playing a Dangerous Game - Captain Rex x medic/!reader

|| Masterlist || Tag list ||

----

“I am going to say this one more time, Commander. I do not need a babysitter for this Gala, I am more than capable of handling myself.” You said matter-of-factly as you walked through the halls of the senate, datapad in hand, tapping perhaps a little passive-aggressively on the screen.

Commander Fox chuckled under his bucket, and you narrowed your eyes at him.

“With all due respect, Senator, you were the target of an assassination attempt 4 days ago.”

“And I survived. Nobody would be stupid enough to try a second attempt at Republic Gala, not with the Senate present.”

Fox chuckled and fell in step with you, bumping shoulders with you as you walked. “Maybe so, but it’s the wishes of the Chancellor that you have a member of the Guard escort you, while the rest patrol the Gala.”

You stopped outside the entryway to your office and put one hand on your hip, datapad and a stack of flimsi files clutched under one arm and pointing accusingly at Fox with the other from behind the death grip you had on your caf. “You’re enjoying this.”

You nodded politely to Hound who had been standing guard at your office, and he saluted with a polite, “Ma’am.” He took his leave as Fox took his place, leaning against the doorway with his head tilted as you punched in the keycode. The doors slid open, and he followed you inside, removing his bucket with a gentle hiss and holding it under his arm against his hip.

You couldn’t help but stare a little, just briefly. He was sporting a few soft grey hairs at the sides of his neatly trimmed hair. It made him appear just a slight bit older and more sophisticated, the neat locks of loose hair framing his handsome face.

“Perhaps a little. I do get quite the kick of you not getting your own way.”

His smug comment brought your attention back to the present and you muttered something in response with narrowed eyes. Dropping the stack of files and the datapad on your desk, you hopped up to sit on the edge and crossed one knee over the other. The lightweight fabric of your skirt sported a high slit, exposing the skin of your legs and upper thigh.

You sighed, resigned to your fate and leaned back on one palm, swirling the steaming caf in your paper takeaway cup.

“Who will be my knight in shining red armour, then?”

You asked as you blew on the hot caf and took a sip.

Fox, whose eyes has been previously occupied following the slit of your skirt up to your thigh, snapped out of his daydream and plastered a handsome smirk on his face.

“Oh, that would be me. I’ll pick you up at 7 sharp, mesh’la.”

“Wha-” You did a rather ungracious spit take withyour coffee, as the Commander slid his helmet back on and moved through your office doors with one final look back at you.

“Oh, and don’t be late.”

----

Leaning into the mirror you carefully applied the deep crimson red lipstick, treating the task with the utmost delicacy, lest you waste your look entirely. You stepped back once you were through and took a moment to admire your handiwork.

Dressed head to toe in deep, rich red tones and soft fabrics, you felt you had outdone yourself this time. If you were to be on your Commander’s arm all evening, the least you could do was make an effort, right?

You smirked softly, tilting your head in the mirror. Yeah, this would show him.

You had decided to go for an elegant gown for this evening, floor-length and a deep wine red in colour. The upper portion was a bodice lined with velvet and fitted to your body, with sleek black linear detailing down the front. Around the upper edge and over the shape of your chest was lined with intricate gold detailing.

In the centre of your chest, just under the hollow of your throat, sat a delicate golden brooch, which held from each side 2 long strips of the same wine-red material from your dress, draped prettily back over your shoulders, accentuating your chest and neck.

You had chosen several simple gold jewellery items, and tied your hair up into an intricate bun, completing your look and signature red lip. You were just touching up the corners of your lipstick when there was a firm knock at your door.

You headed for the door, opening it with a smile.

“Good evening, Commander.”

You smiled, voice sweet like honey. Your Commander, to your delight, was stood frozen in the doorway looking at you. In one hand he held the cap of his dress greys and in the other, a bouquet of Queen’s Heart flowers.

“Fox?”

You smiled softly and reach a hand out to touch his forearm. The gentle touch broke him from his stare and he quickly cleared his throat, offering you the bouquet with a bow. “For you.”

You smiled and took them with a courtesy, “they’re beautiful, come in, let me find a spot for them.” You stepped aside to let him in, finding the perfect spot for the flowers on your table.

When you turned back, Fox was watching you again, though this time he was smiling handsomely. You smiled back, “well, how do I look?”

“Mesh’la. Truly mesh’la.” He smiled as he offered his arm. Your cheeks flamed a pretty pink, bringing a satisfied smirk to the Commander’s face as you slid your arm through his own.

You locked up the apartment and made your way strangely quiet Senate District. The air was crisp against your skin, cooling the warmth you felt where you were brushing arms with the soldier lightly.

“You know, you clean up pretty well outside of all that plastoid.”

You smiled playfully, looking up at him. He smiled back, chuckling and shaking his head lightly, hair bouncing lightly in the gentle breeze. “Is that so?”

“Mhmm. I would go so far as to say a 10/10.”

Fox groaned deeply in his chest, head hanging sightly. You swore it was to hide his smile.

“I hate you.”

You smiled fondly and pressed into his side, free hand resting on his arm that was holding yours.

“No, you don’t.”

----

Perhaps you may have been wrong about the Gala. Fox had his reputation for being a little… prickly, at the best of times. But, as the over the top affairs go, the Commander had proven himself quite the charmer.

He has stayed dutifully by your side most of the evening, So, having a bodyguard was, as it turned out, a blessing in disguise - though you would never admit as much to anyone else. Far fewer senatorial aides tried to approach you upon spotting the head of the Coruscant Guard on your arm. Even several of the more conservative senators passed you by upon receiving his death glare.

At one point, towards the end of the evening, you had even managed to convince the stoic Commander to join you on the ballroom floor to dance. Well, sway, would be more accurate. The two of you moved around the room in a gentle sway, you humming softly along to the tune while Fox rested his cheek atop your head.

You raised your glass of Algarine wine to your lips in an almost mini toast, “Well Commander, it seems we had noth-”

Your words died in your throat as the glass suddenly shattered in your hand. The blaster bolt that has cause it clipped your right cheek, leaving a trail of blood in its wake. A roar of commotion suddenly filled the room, with several masked individuals pushing through the crowd. Most of the shots were trained on you, but you now noticed a group of them firing off into the guests as a distraction.

“Get down. Now!”

Fox barked, crowding you to the floor. Thire and Thorn were already pushing through the crowds, firing at 2 of the intruders and calling in backup.

“Commander!”

Hound threw Fox’s blasters towards him and took off after one of the assailants, Stone calling for backup. The leader of the group was faster, though, taking another shot that you managed to dodge as Fox tackled him, throwing himself between you and the hitman, and knocking his blaster from his hands. The pair wrestled for the single DC-17 that had fallen between them, each landing several punches.

In the end, the hitman got the upper hand. Blood rushed to your ears, cancelling out the commotion behind you. As soon as he pulled the pistol on the Commander, you were behind him, panting heavily, pistol to the back of his head.

“Drop it. Now. I promise I’m faster.”

Fox looked at you with wide eyes, before the dropped to your exposed thigh and the small holster secured around your upper thigh, soft brown irises slowly darkening. Discreet, made for a small pistol like an ELG-3A.

The man dropped the blaster and Fox grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, binding his wrists and looking over his shoulder at you with a chuckle as he pushed the man towards one of the Corries that had arrived.

The room was emptying now, only a few shaken aides left milling around, and few vod who were cleaning up and securing the room. Fox lifted a hand to brush a few hairs back behind your ear, and you smiled.

“I told you I could handle myself.”

Fox laughed, holding your cheek as his calloused thumb swiped over your cheek, wiping away the trail of blood. “Yes, you most certainly did, cyar’ika.”

You turned your cheek into his palm and pressed a light kiss, looking up at him.

Fox took one precursory look around the ballroom and bent down, kissing you hard. It wasn’t soft or sweet like you knew they could be. It wasn’t careful and quick, like so many of your kisses had to be in order to remain a secret.

It was rushed, and desperate. You could practically feel the adrenalin rolling off him in waves. It was an oddly comforting feeling, one you had grown to know only too well. The kind Fox radiated after gruelling sessions guarding the Senate. Or after the occasional run-in with the cesspool of Coruscant’s underworld.

But it was most notable in these moments. When you had found a way to put yourself in the firing line again. When he couldn’t let his mask slip, when he couldn’t treat you as more than a senator under his protection. When all he could do was his job.

It was these moments afterwards that he needed you the most, that you needed him. It was in these moments, you knew exactly what you both needed.

You broke away, eyes never leaving his own as you took his arm.

“Take me home, Fox.”

----

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@captainrexsfuturewife

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grind-pantera · 3 years

Note

*chanting* ms em give us your first kiss interpretation with the 10th doctor

You know what this would have been fine if i wanted to write fics when i first watched doctor who but no now i gotta do it like 15 years LATER. Reblogs and likes are totally appreciated, as is feedback! Thanks guys.

Title: Diamonds in the Sky. Pairing: Reader x 10th Doctor. Fandom: Doctor Who. Words: ~ 2.5 K. Summary: What does a first experience feel like for a man who’s lived so many lives and has seen so many firsts? Rating: K. ( Super fluffy, some angst lol so be ready. )

Tagging: @ok-anon

You could see him through the semi-transparent middle of the TARDIS. Through the churning of the engine, through the time that was bent around you, through the space that was almost smothering. Though the box was bigger on the inside, at times for you, it felt as if you were crammed chest to chest with him, unable to breathe, excitement running through your veins at the idea of what your next adventure with the Doctor would be. Admittedly, you had gotten quite accustomed to the lifestyle. To the sounds coming out of his mouth as he swirled around the console, mumbling incoherence in a fashion that was purely Time Lord. From the way that his trench coat fluttered behind him as he pulled a lever, feeling in his bones the very movements of the TARDIS, the way that his fingers lingered for a second too long out of instinct before he tapped away to do something on the other side of the console, now right before your eyes with his back towards you. The Doctor’s face was easy to imagine. Eyebrows pressed together in complete focus, lips split apart, tongue occasionally coming out in some sort of brilliance as he said something directed in your direction.

“Where do you feel like? Bitter freezing world, mounds of snow and giant snow castles or perhaps a bit more sunny--- A bit more like an actual holiday with the family-- Like---”

“Florida?” You suggested with a laugh, finally tugging yourself out of a strange linear space that you were placed into more and more often whenever you found yourself admiring him. You stood up and glanced upwards at him. The Doctor found himself stopping in his tracks looking at you though the pause in his actions was hardly noticeable to anyone but himself. The way you looked at him at times, like right now, with innocence swirling rampant between the two of you, uncovered emotions not willing to be said, he felt like melting on the spot. He popped his mouth and turned away from you for a second, swallowing what he wanted like he so often did and collected focus.

You saw his shoulders slump forward almost comically, his lips pursing together as your joke sunk into his mind before he twirled around quickly, nearly enough to send you flying back into your seat once again like the TARDIS did when first shifting into flight. The smile was still plastered on your face as he pointed at you, flipping one more shift on the console. She almost purred at being touched by him, not that you could blame the machine. From the way he finessed the TARDIS, it wasn’t an unexpected reaction. You were sure if you were in its place, you’d give an even more exaggerated reaction.

“What’s so wrong with Florida? Y’know, for a human place, it is quite nice. That got that family oriented spot, with the mouse and the duck... What’s it called?”

“Disney World?” You offered, holding one of your hands out metaphorically.

Snapping his fingers, he almost danced towards you, the Converse on his feet clanking against the metallic flooring. Excitedly, he grabbed your shoulder with one hand, the other gripping around your open hand and for a split moment, you thought he was going to pick you up and twirl you. But the simple grazing against your shirt clad arms was enough for you as you tossed your head back in laughter at his happiness. Had your eyes been open as you laughed, you’d have been face to face with the look he gave you. Melting again… Soft brown eyes melting as he stared at the subtle lines on your face as you grinned, grabbing hold of his hands on your body, leaning towards him to keep him near.

“Yes! That’s the place. Disney!” The two of you were so near one another, it was a natural reaction to smile at the feeling of his rapid breath against your face. A smile different than the one plastered on your face before. This one was soft and sweet, reserved specifically for the moments you knew the Doctor wasn’t paying attention to your expression but you longed for him to just so he could know how you were feeling towards him. But alas, it wasn’t meant to be as he let go of you to walk around the TARDIS, opting to lean against the wall, “You do know that man froze himself years ago, his body is kept under lock in key, some weird base on Earth. Weird, humans and wanting to live for years beyond needed.” He paused, looking down at his own hand in thought. “Trust me, living more than what was intended is a bitter sign indeed. No one's meant to live forever, if they were, imagine the turmoil you’d lot’o’humans would put yourselves in. Pokin’ your heads into all sorts of cans. ”

The Doctor clicked his tongue and you were nearly mesmerized watching that action as he slid the appendage across his sharp teeth before turning towards the main console of the TARDIS. That was the end of that side of the conversation, but the longing in his voice put it on hold for now. Another pin in a topic that was skimmed upon every once and a while that left you longing to touch him in reassurance. Just to touch him, not physically but maybe emotionally to calm down the raging storm that seemed to be brewing beneath his skin. There was a reason why the Daleks called him what they did. The Oncoming storm. But what if the storm had been there for years? Just simmering? Lonely, afraid, growing into something uncontainable? There was something there that you feared but it was often forgotten when he’d hold your hand running down a street, when he’d press his pointer finger to your lips to hush you in the excitement of a moment… Your fingers twitched. There it was! The feeling of shifting with him, never quite knowing where you were going to land, and even if you did have a slight idea of where you were going to vacation next, it was short lived as history liked to follow where you tread. The TARDIS made her whirl of sounds, but not the clunk that came along with landing.

“Where are we going?” The question hung in the air for a few seconds longer than the Doctor intended just to see if the familiar sound of landing was just delayed or---

“We haven’t landed,” He murmured, whether to himself or to you as he reached for the screen to look out. “Still sort of just driftin’.” His brows furrowed once again as he plucked his glasses out of the chest pocket of his pin-stripe suit with some sort of strange elegance that you found almost entrancing. “In space.”

“Well, we are in a spaceship-”

Your comment was put on pause as the doors of the TARDIS swung open, the Doctor freely popping his head out to see where. The screen was helpful but right now, his eyes needed to see what was going on. He was quick- you hadn’t even noticed him running towards the door until you felt the brush of air against your bare arms which yearned you towards the Universe that was just a step outside the door. He plopped himself down, sitting on the edge of his ship with his long legs dangling carelessly out into space. You could see the pout on his face without even looking straight at his face, the tilt of his head sparking curiosity within your own mind as you waltzed towards him and sat down behind him, gazing over his shoulder as your head rested in the crook of his neck. “Tell me Doctor, where’ve we ended up this time?”

That was merely a whisper in his ear as he took his glasses off, pressing part of the frames against his lips. “Seems to be a dead star,” you hummed in response to that, “But at this stage in its life, this type of star…. Becomes so compressed that it essentially becomes a diamond.” He turned towards you, faces centimetres apart now. “No idea why we’ve stopped here.”

“No complaints from me,” You admitted, glancing at the colors. There was mainly blues and purples, swirling in a dust of clouds around a dense object that you had deduced was the diamond the doctor had mentioned. Or at one time in its life, it was a star. You found it easy to imagine, having spent so much time with the man you were travelling with. Your imagination wandered farther than it ever had before. “It’s beautiful.”

“To think that something so miraculous becomes even more amazing after death---” He started speaking and turned his attention to what was happening outside. “Fantastic. Even after all this time, the Universe still finds a way of surprising me in unexpected ways.”

Settling down next to him, you crossed your legs and lightly leaned against him. “Imagine how I feel.”

The Doctor smiled softly at that and chuckled. He liked to do that on his own time- imagining how you must have felt, how your train of thought trailed… But now, unexpectedly, he was thinking about it and he answered truthfully, “I don’t think I can--- it’s been much too long for me to remember how first moments felt, they’re dim in my mind now, many things are forgotten over the hundreds of years and I often don’t feel it until the moment happen again. What I imagine it feeling like for you is…” His hand rested upon yours in your lap as if he were empathetically reaching out to you, something common that you had seen him do a handful of times. “Pure happiness- maybe fear and nerves at times, like now---” He swallowed and smacked his lips dismissively, trying to ignore the fluttering he so viciously felt within his own hearts syncing with yours, “It’s fleeting for me now, I’ve been alive for so long, (Name). Now imagine how I feel.”

You knew how he felt--- you could almost absorb what he was experiencing, his hand now grasping yours a bit tighter than before, like his emotions were sinking so deeply into your fingertips. He was laying bare to you--- a strange sensation. You shut your eyes and took a deep breath in. What you felt was--- Was… “I know.” You whispered to him, “You needn’t worry about being alone anymore, Doctor.”

“It’s inevitable,” He replied back to you, a bitter tone behind his usually chipper voice. “There will come a time, (Name), when you’ll get old and I won’t… Even having you now, I feel so alone because I know what is happening. What will happen. There’s so many things I can stop, but this...” There was a vague gesture between the two of you that he made with his free hand.

Things got quiet between the two of you quickly. The only sound that was apparent was coming from the TARDIS and yet it seemed to deafen you. The sleepless space that was staring at you, the warmth of his hand still clinging to yours desperately. Hold me, it said, forever. It was wishful thinking on the Doctor’s side, this was something he was also consciously aware of. Forever would always happen for him but it was never meant to be between the two of you. Drawing your attention from the scenes of the galaxy in front of you, you let your eyes fall on him beside you. Shadows played on his sunken cheeks, against his face giving the illusion that he was in some sort of strange blue firelight. He was handsome and with his hand still on yours, you knew that what you were feeling was evident in his own mind. That your ambitions in the moment were coinciding with his.

“There is---”

“A first you’d like to have?” He murmured quietly, squeezing your hand before letting it go.

“With you.” To say that the voice you used was reassuring would be an understatement. You were soft spoken in the moment, reaching with the hand he had been holding so tightly to cup the side of his face. Instantaneously, a rush of emotion ran into you. Not all were yours, not all were his. Some were entwined in some strange dance that could only assimilate upon being your thoughts, together, as one.

“With you.” He repeated your statement, letting his hand come up to grasp the side of your face to mimic your own actions. With hooded eyes, the Doctor gazed down at you, letting it flutter between your eyes and your lips. He’d been close to you like this before, in fact, being this near felt good to him, it felt close to ecstasy to know that after what he had done with his own hands, with his own thoughts, that someone would still want him the way that you did right now. “Right now, seems like a good time---”

You were the one to hush him this time around as you closed that small gap between the two of you. It was a barely there sort of touch at first, lips holding in an awkward dance before the Doctor pulled away with hard pressed together lips and an even harder swallow, his Adam’s apple bobbing with that action. That’s all it was, just a peck but he was left feeling this sort of churning in his stomach. He wanted to do it again, and looking at you through a flush of eyelashes, he could tell that you wanted the same thing. And so, the gap disappeared once again as he took initiative and allowed his mouth to form against yours properly, your hand reaching to tangle in the hair and the back of his head while he held the side of your face, still swallowing in large sumps the emotions that were tangled in your mind. Everything you were feeling, have felt about him were strewn on the table like a deck of cards at a Poker table. And in return, you received the same thing. It felt like a burning in your throat as if you had just guzzled down an entire shot of whiskey.

“Right then.” The brown haired Time Lord muttered against your lips and continued to caress your face with a gentle graze. “Florida it is…”

#doctor who #10th doctor #david tennant #10th doctor x reader #fanfiction #fanfic #emmy writes

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novantinuum · 4 years

Text

Contact (ch. 1/4)

Fandom: Steven Universe

Rating: T (TW: depiction of vomiting, this first chapter is pretty whump-esque)

Words: 3.0K~

Summary: The first (and with any luck, only) time it happens, he’s almost 16.

So this fic is Steven and Amethyst centric, set during the 2 year time skip. It’s also kinda in conversation with An Indirect Kiss, and explores the idea of what could happen to a hybrid with a cracked gem. Do note the warnings above. The first chapter is the only one that’s especially whumpy. It will be exactly 4 parts.

AO3 link can be found in the reblogs! Support there or here (via reblogs) is very much appreciated! <3

____

Chapter 1: The Mission

The first (and with any luck, only) time it happens, he’s almost 16.

His birthday’s only half a week out. Exciting as always, or at least it would be in other circumstances. Unfortunately, the Diamonds are breathing down his neck for him to celebrate his sweet sixteen (not that they understand what that is) on Homeworld. Even unfortunatelier, (is that a word?? He has a gut feeling Connie would tell him no, but oh well), the last time he saw Blue Diamond face-to-face, she mentioned wanting to personally throw a huge planet-wide ball in his honor.

And yeah, maybe he’s a little selfish for spurning their desire to spend more time with him, but truth be told, the center of attention is the last place he wants to be right now. He’s already spent so much time in their company over the past year, being carted around from planet to planet, formerly introduced in front of thousands of Gems on those outer colony worlds, tirelessly working to spread the news of the empire’s dissolution day in and day out. He’s tired. He misses his friends. He craves the privacy of his home, where he’s not constantly flanked by the volunteer guard when he so much as moves to fetch a midnight snack. More than anything, he needs familiarity. He wants to celebrate his birthday on Earth— like he always has— guilt-free.

Which is why it sucks that Blue didn’t take his gentle turn-down well.

“Seriously, and then she made you cry again?!” Amethyst spits out, kicking a rock as they tromp through the dense woods. “I thought you said she was getting better with that!”

“She is,” he says, and ducks to clear a low branch. “This is the first time she’s done it in like, five months. Growth isn’t always linear, y’know? And I get it, I do. They just wanna spend time with me, wanna learn more about all the human stuff that makes me who I am. That’s fine! I just...”

Steven sighs softly and pauses to lean against a sturdy tree trunk, puffy moss coating its entire diameter. The blistering summer heat coaxes droplets of sweat from his brow, which roll across cheekbones and towards his jaw. (And in the wake of this, he can’t help but be reminded of that bizarrely foreign feeling, of crying tears that aren’t his own, without consent, without resolve...)

“Wish it didn’t happen right before your birthday?” she tentatively completes, tone softer.

He shrugs, expression guarded.

Her lips purse as she regards him, and she goes silent. For a split second he wonders if maybe she heard something stalking around nearby— perhaps one of the straggling corrupted Gems they‘re trying to track down today? But no, more than likely, she’s probably lost in thought. That’s not uncommon for her, outside the heat of the moment. Even though she has the reputation of being the most impulsive of the four of them, there’s a clear deliberateness about her nature that often goes unstated. Her actions and words may be blunt, but when it really matters she does stack a lot of intent behind them.

Heh. She’s the mature one, alright.

“What did you tell her? Specifically?” she asks after a brief pause, peering at him with a careful eye.

He squints, grasping to remember the fine details of what he said. “Just... that I normally spend my birthday with all of you here on Earth, and after all the nonstop planet touring kinda, maybe wanted to take some time alone?”

Amethyst nods, giving a sharp bark of laughter at this.

“Hah! Then don’t worry about it, m’dude! Sounds to me like you stood your ground and spoke your mind. Don’t be guilty about that for even a second.”

“But- it’s not like her wanting me to spend time with them is wrong, so by turning her down, wasn’t I being kinda ru—“

His rapidly spiraling thoughts are cut off at the root by a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

“Okay, listen,” she says in that unmistakable ‘Serious Amethyst’ voice of hers, which of course means that she’s— well... that she‘s absolutely 100% being serious. “One thing ya’ gotta learn is that some people are just super tiring to deal with 24/7. It’s not wrong to set boundaries with them. All this junk? With Blue D? Far as I’m concerned, you handled it perfectly! And if she wants to cry about it, then that’s her problem.” Smiling, she reaches over to playfully muss his hair. “I’m super proud of you, ‘kay?”

He responds with a weak grin. Inwardly he still has his doubts, but he knows all too well that trying to argue against her when she’s in ‘Serious Amethyst’ mode is like standing on the shore trying to single handedly hold back the tides of the sea. Even a powerful terraforming Gem like Lapis would eventually be worn down by the ocean’s ceaseless tenacity. It’s best, then, to keep one’s objection silent.

So he’ll just stew in guilt quietly, no problem. Absolutely no problem here, no siree!

Before he can let that stew churn in the pot any longer however, a tree crashes to the forest floor with a colossal rumble nearby. A cluster of unsettled birds shoot into the sky from the boughs. Ground shaking under the unrest, the two of them dart to cling upon anything they can— bark covered trunks, each other— for balance. Thankfully it’s over in a few seconds, the local ecosystem quickly rebounding to its usual chittering atmosphere. But there’s now a lingering unease hanging like a curtain over this forest, a physical aura of dread, and despite his best efforts it’s one he can’t manage to ignore. He lets out a still breath. The back of his neck prickles. Geeze, just how big is this corrupted Gem they’re after?

Instinctively, he summons his shield, brings it in front of his torso. Pearl’s training echoing like a catchy earworm in his mind, he steps one foot back to widen his stance. Truth be told, with all of his political service on Homeworld it’s been a while (easily half a year!) since he’s actually used his shield in active combat— but he’s sure muscle memory will carry him through. It’s fine. He’ll be fine. It’s gotta be like riding a bicycle, right?

“You see something?” she whispers, lowering on her haunches. Her fingers twitch with anticipation at her side.

His brow furrows tight, eyes skittering through the visible tree line. “Not yet, but...”

Then, in a resolute answer to the question of the hairs raised at the nape of his neck, a skinny blur of steely blue and moss green suddenly swipes down from the branches at breakneck speed. He jerks his shield over his head in a flash.

Clang. Perfect timing.

(The force of the collision against reinforced hard light sends vibrations up his arms.)

Meanwhile, Amethyst yelps, only barely ducking from the spiked tail in time. She somersaults forward and immediately summons her whip as she regains her footing. In one fluid motion she snaps it at the rapidly moving blur. He grins at the sight.

Contact!

The corrupted Gem— her body long and willowy, able to skitter between limbs and leaves with zero effort whatsoever— screeches at the assault. All four of her beady eyes hone in on the pair of them.

They square up for battle, standing back to back.

“Here we go,” Amethyst says, flicking her wrist to switch the weapon’s tri-ended tip into its spiked counterpart. “Keep me covered. Whatever you do, don’t take your eyes off the trees.”

With a mighty yell, she moves to attack again. However, the creature anticipates it this time... and dodges.

Once. Twice. Thrice...

Every single lash she tries to land fares the same, with the Gem perfectly zig-zagging out of range at the last second. Even when Steven hurls his shield in coordination with her offensive strikes. Even when the quartz brings out a second whip to the party. It’s like trying to desperately keep hold of a wet bar of soap. The very moment you think you have it secure in your grasp, it slips away once more. Weird... he swears that thing is predicting their every move. What kind of Gem is she? A sapphire, maybe? Surely there had to have been a few other sapphires on Earth at the time of corruption. They’re a rare sort, but it’s certainly not impossible. Not at all.

They’ll know when they poof her, of course. No sense fixating on it in the heat of battle.

In the corner of his eye he catches that barbed tail swing from above, vying to surprise them from their blind spot, and summons his bubble around them. Its surface ripples upon impact, but holds strong. His fellow battle partner follows the creature’s erratic movements rapturously as she recovers.

“Tell me when,” he huffs for breath, watching the Gem circle around them and slash at the surrounding trees in a vain attempt at intimidation.

“Drop on three,” she says. “Your call.”

“Okay...”

Steven steels his nerves, inhaling deep, and focusing on the reliable hum of hard light running from his core outwards. Just relax. It’s all training. All stuff you’ve done a million times before. You’ve got this.

Working off the emerging rhythm of the creature’s strikes, he begins his count.

“One—“

Amethyst’s fists clench tighter.

“Two...”

The creature’s tail slams against the bubble and rebounds once again.

“Three!” he shouts, and throws his arms out, popping the bubble in a startling explosion of glittering pink.

The Gem howls. She’s thrown against a cluster of trees by the force of his magic’s kickback. Amethyst throws all of her energy into her spin-dash, and surges towards her with all the strength of a typhoon.

He summons two shields in turn, working light on his feet as he hurls them full force one after the other, desperately hoping to poof this poor creature as quickly and painlessly as he can manage. She’s strong, though. Incredibly strong— which gives more credence to his theory of this Gem being aristocratic in origin. Before Era 3, Homeworld used to endow the most ‘important’ Gems with greater durability. If she were a corrupted quartz or ruby, both easily poofed Gems, they’d have finished the fight by now.

“Hey!” Amethyst calls as she continues on the offensive, finally looping the Gem’s torso. “All this?” She gives a mighty battle cry, and swings her slender, scaly body over her head. Screeching, the corruption crashes headfirst into the dirt a good twenty feet away. “Is starting to get way too annoying. Ya’ wanna let Smoky take this one?”

Steven gives a playful laugh, averting his normally watchful gaze from the creature for a split second to face her. “You bet I do!”

And that’s when what should have been an incredibly straightforward mission goes very, very wrong.

All because he forgot to be careful. For one tiny, should’ve-been-insignificant moment.

He’s reaching out for a high five, fingers splayed outwards. His gem glows, the two of them so intrinsically in sync by now that he’s already anticipating their fusion.

But his hand never finds its match.

Instead, the end of the corrupted Gem’s mace-like tail swings back around and slams into his gut with the force of a freight train, knocking the wind clear out of him.

Contact.

Following momentum, his body spins a good hundred feet away from Amethyst before she can ever try to catch him with her whip... and he crashes headfirst into a startlingly solid tree trunk. He falls to the forest floor like nothing more than an abandoned rag doll.

“Steven!!” she shrieks from afar.

Ears ringing. Head pounding. Heart throbbing. Veins pumped full of static.

(Inhale.)

H-he- surely he‘s not—!

(Just inhale!)

Black feathers the edges of his vision, looming like a reaper. It’s wrong. It’s real, but it’s all so distant, so wrong. Stubbornly, he gasps for breath. Refusing to let himself go unconscious. Not here, not now. But it’s so tempting, gosh is it tempting. His whole body feels numb and battered, his whole body feels...

There’s a twisting in his gut. His eyes shoot wide.

Oh...

The sensation (again, wrong, sickly and wrong) rises in his throat faster than he can identify it by name, and it’s then that he’s thrown back into sobering reality. Arms quivering to hold up his weight, he pushes his upper body up off the dirt just before he retches. Once, twice, three times- all on quick succession. Ugh. So much for breakfast. His muscles ache as he desperately attempts to recover, attempts to shift his view away from the appalling sight of his own vomit. Everything is woozy, blurred, spinning around him. His- oh stars, his head is suddenly as heavy as lead...! Where’s Amethyst?? Why do his arms and legs feel all tingly and faint? Why can he only barely lift himself up? He gives a keening cry as a pulsing throb of static shoots in staccato bolts like lightning from his very core, his center, h-his— he can’t think, he can’t think, he can’t—

Breathing ragged, he collapses onto his side and rides through the spasms, his every muscle jerking against his command. His cheek sags against the ground once the fit reaches its end.

He lays there in a daze for a good long while, letting his vision grow unfocused and blurred in his exhaustion. From his creased brow, sweat drips in the sweltering August heat, staining the soil below. Conflict rages on in the distant background— Amethyst running solo?— yet he can’t keep track of the action by sound alone. It’s... too much sensory input. More than he can handle, by a long shot. Every bit of his universe now is faint and weak and pain pain pain pain pain, but he manages to shift his arm just enough to slip his hand under his shirt, blindly grasping for his gem... working off a terrible, horrifying hunch.

Shaking fingers find their way to warm crystal, tracing the outer edges, and then—

He traces a deep gouge, running diagonal clear across the center facet.

Cracked.

And with that realization, any remnant of calm he had left flies straight out the window. Another spike of static rips through his body (fuzzy images of Amethyst, 100% hard light body glitching out and unable to hold its shape, pervade his mind) as he makes rapid shallow gasps for air and seizes, trying in vain not to think too hard about what’s physically happening to him.

(I’m cracked I’m cracked I’m cracked I’m—)

“Steven!” Amethyst shouts, diving to his side in an instant. “I’m here, I’m here, I’m so sorry, it wasn’t safe, an’ I knew I had to bubble her before I- ‘fore I could—“

His wide eyed fear silences her even faster than his words. “H- Amethyst,” he rasps, voice hoarse. He blinks as tears begin to slip from between his lashes.

Near indistinguishable blurs of purple and black are his only metric for her movement now. He’s rolled onto his back. A hand moves under his head, stabilizing it.

“Whoa, dude, you’re like, pale as milk! What’s wrong? Did you get hurt?? Can’t you heal it?”

He somehow manages to push coherent words through his warbling cries. “I, I- I dunno, I’m c- cracked, I’m—“

“Wait, wait, wait, you’re WHAT?”

Giving no thought to courtesy in light of the situation, she yanks his shirt up to see for herself.

He hears her inhale as her fingers delicately brush against the gouge marring the center facet of his gem. It’s sharp, sympathetic. The kind of reaction only a Gem who’s lived this horror could offer him. Ever so slight, her hand recoils upon the no-doubt triggering sight. He— stars, he doesn’t wanna... doesn’t want to have to make her remember that, remember that awful time she herself got cracked, but here he is, so clumsy, s-so useless, an—

His chest trembles with every pitiful, bubbling gasp as he succumbs to the terror of the situation and begins to openly sob. Hot, fat tears pour in rivulets down his cheeks, but he knows instinctively there‘s no magic within them. Not today. Not when h-he’s... when he’s like this.

What’s even gonna happen to him now? How’s he gonna— Deep breath. This time, he feels it coming. Every muscle in his body contracts on automatic as that awful, awful static tears through his nerves like an arc of electric current.

It hurts it hurts it hurts ithurtshurtshurtshurtshurtshurts—

Amethyst does her best to lightly hold him as he seizes, cradling his head to ensure no more damage is done. When he stills this time the fight’s practically draining from his body. The boughs of the trees above him pirouette like dancers. Oh stars, everything’s... so... woozy...

“Aw, geeze,” she mutters, and reaches to her gem to pull out an object, thin and rectangular, too blurry in his view for him to make out with much detail. “I, uh... listen. I’m gonna call up Pearl, and we’re gonna fix you up, okay?? We’re gonna take you to the fountain, an’ then...” Her words (reassurance, but for who?) grow thick as her glance flicks downward at his stomach again. “An’ then you’re gonna be fine...”

“B-b-but... I don’t think— I can’t walk,” he blubbers.

“Then I’ll carry you.”

“Am- hnng- Amethyst—“

“Shh-shh, don’t talk, bud. Save your energy.”

“I- I’m so scared,” he blurts.

And it’s so true. Because everything is becoming so blurry and indistinguishable, and the more his body seizes the more fractured he feels, and he’s so close to closing his eyes and drifting off now, he’s sure he is, he’s gotta be—

“Steven,” she says, voice firm yet soft. “Steven, common’, look at me.”

Serious Amethyst. He recognizes the tone. No arguing now.

So slowly but surely— knowing there’s no sense in fighting back oceans when he can barely stay afloat amidst the shallows of this river— his weary, tear stained eyes meet with hers. They’re blown wide with fear, with genuine concern, but between the swirls of black and indigo blue stirs a deeper courage: the unwavering gaze of someone who will have his back to the end of the line.

Amethyst clasps her palm against his shoulder, solid and reassuring.

“Whatever it takes, I promise you... I’m gonna get you there.”

#su #steven universe #amethyst #su fanfiction #my writing stuff

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loganscanons · 3 years

Text

a second chance at goodbye

Context: Cas time travels into the past to ask their mother for guidance.

Cas shouldn’t be here.

The wind whispers to them, warns them that they’re tugging at the threads of time in a dangerous way, begs them to go elsewhere. Any other place, any other time. Leaves and branches tremble around them, hundreds of pleading voices. The fair hairs on Cas’s arms stand on end, and their muscles tense with their body pressed up against the rough bark of an old tree. They ignore the wind’s begging. Leaning against the tree, they watch three figures drift through the clearing. Two women and a child search through the grasses and tree roots, foraging for herbs and mushrooms. Pale clouds create a low ceiling above them, and stark against the clouds, the dark figure of a buzzard circles.

The oldest of the three, an aged woman in dark clothes, with her white hair pulled into a tight braid, wanders at the far end of the clearing among the tree line. A woven basket hangs from her forearm. She leans down and claws at the dirt beneath an alder tree, then tosses something into her basket.

Not far from her, the child, a small girl with ratty strawberry-blonde hair crouches in the dirt, the long grasses tickling her knees as she roots through the dirt. The buzzard above them lets out a chilling and piercing caw. The girl, without looking up from her foraging, mimics the cry with eerie accuracy. The buzzard circles lower. With dirt-caked fingers, the child tugs at the ends of her hair, a loose and tangled mess, for she won’t let her mother brush it. That night, or perhaps the next night, the old woman, the child’s grandmother, will force the girl to sit still while she tears a comb through the tangles, ignoring her cries as the comb rips through the knots.

The third figure in the clearing stands apart from the other two, moving with easy grace, seeming to float through the grass as she nears Cas’s hiding spot among the trees. Though she moves like a gliding spirit, she struggles beneath an invisible weight. Her shoulders sag, and her head hangs low and heavy. She’s barely thirty, but in the thin sunlight filtering through the clouds, she looks a decade older, tired and worn. A shock of white marks her hair, and the skin beneath her eyes is puffy, purpled, and dark. Her gaze sweeps over the surrounding trees, moving from tree trunk to tree trunk, but she sees nothing. Her eyes are far away and blank.

Cas scrapes their fingertips against the bark of the tree, using the pain to distract from the deep ache in their heart. The woman looks so broken. She has mere weeks left of her life, and no one in the clearing knows that. None of them know that the child is going to witness the murder of her mother and grandmother. That she’ll watch them burn. That the smell and the screams will haunt the child’s nightmares. That the strangled, pained cries of their familiars will ring in the child’s ears for years to come.

The woman, unaware of her fate, glances back at the child, who is running through the grasses, shrieking with laughter as the buzzard dives at her. A deep sorrow fills her eyes, and she lets out a shaky breath. Cas doesn’t remember her ever looking so sad and exhausted. They want to run into the clearing and throw their arms around the woman, both for her comfort and for their own.

But they know better.

They crouch low near the earth, leaning against the tree. Keeping their eyes on the woman, they take a deep breath and let out a few musical whistles. It’s a short song that their mother and grandmother would use to call to each other. A way to find each other in the woods.

The woman’s body goes rigid. The pained and faraway look in her eyes snaps and her gaze sharpens. She looks to the old woman across the clearing.

Cas whistles again. This time the old woman hears it too, and both she and the woman turn to look for the source. As the woman’s eyes flick across the tree line, Cas ducks lower. She and the older woman exchange a glance and a wordless conversation passes between them.

“Moncha,” the old woman calls. At the sound of the name, Cas’s cheeks flush, and a chill runs through them. The girl looks at her grandmother, tilting her head with a questioning look.

“Come,” she says. As Moncha runs up to her grandmother, her bare feet dirtied by the cool soil, the old woman says in a chiding tone, “Child, you hardly have anything in your basket.”

“Look at this shiny rock I found!” Moncha says, as her grandmother leads her away from the clearing. The two women share another look, and the buzzard flies higher.

When the child and her grandmother have disappeared into the trees across the clearing, the woman turns a sharp gaze toward Cas, searching for the source of the whistle. Cas wets their lips and whistles again, quieter this time. The buzzard caws.

“Who is there?” the woman asks. Somewhere nearby, Cas hears the thudding of hooves against the forest floor.

Their body trembling, Cas steps out from behind the tree and reveals themself to her. The wind picks up its whispering plea. Mucc bumps his head against the back of Cas’s knee.

“Who are you?” she asks, frowning.

Cas clutches their hand against their chest as their throat tightens. That question shouldn’t hurt as much as it does. There’s no reason she should recognize Cas. The last time she saw them, Cas was her ratty-haired daughter with bright eyes and a goofy smile. They were a child. Not yet forced to grow up in a single moment as they watched fire consume the only connections they had in the world. A child. Unbroken.

And yet, the pain is visceral. It claws at their insides, tears their heart apart. They’d tried to prepare themself for this. For the pain of being a stranger to their mother, to the last person who’d held them, to their protector.

But they’d hoped she would recognize them.

“Mama,” Cas says in a small voice, taking a hesitant step forward. Mucc nudges their heels with his snout, a silent encouragement. The thudding hooves come nearer.

The woman, Cas’s mother, Fianait, blanches. The color drains from her already pale cheeks and her brown eyes widen as recognition hits her. She clutches her hand against her chest, and she looks Cas up and down, taking them in. Cas tries not to shrink beneath her gaze and forces themself to keep eye contact. Though they’ve had connections with other people since their mother and grandmother died, they’d spent so long with only Mucc, the two of them feral children untamed and nurtured by the forest that Cas had made their home. They had grown unaccustomed to the gazes of other people.

Behind Fianait, an albino deer crashes through the underbrush and bursts into the clearing. Cas gasps. The deer snorts, lowering his head and showing off an impressive rack of antlers. Perhaps Cas should be afraid, but they want nothing more than to throw their arms around the deer, to cling to his back like they did as a child.

“Moncha?” Fianait breathes.

The name sends a shock through Cas. A name so foreign, yet so familiar. They haven’t worn that name in a decade. It’s like a warm blanket that smells like home and holds fond memories of nights by a fire with loved ones, but makes their nose twitch and itches and irritates their skin even through a layer of clothing.

Cas nods. Lachtnán, the deer that stands beside Fianait, raises his head.

Her eyes never leaving Cas, Fianait places her woven basket on the ground and takes a few steps toward them. Cas is still trembling as they watch their mother approach. The linear laws of time are screaming at them to run. This is an interaction that shouldn’t be happening. Especially with Moncha, Cas as a child, so close by. Cas wants to run, to tug on the knots on their belt and find themself in a different time period. And they want to bound forward and throw their arms around their mother’s neck, to breathe in her scent one more time. They can’t make themself do either, so instead, they tremble in place.

Fianait stops an arm’s breadth from them. The air is still and dense. The tree branches and grasses have stilled their swaying. With a heavy breath, she slowly holds her arms out to Cas, an invitation to close the gap that time has built between them. A few seconds of hesitation pass.

Then Cas falls into their mother’s embrace, and buries their face against her neck, their arms clutched to their chest. Fianait’s arms wrap around them in a firm, loving grip. They feel like a child again. A child who hasn’t grown accustomed to being alone and crying herself to sleep every night. A child who is safe in her mother’s arms and will fall asleep to a lullaby sung off-tune.

With their face pressed to her neck, they can feel the blood pumping through their mother’s throat. They inhale the familiar scent of earth, herbs, spices, and sweat, and for once it isn’t just a fleeting olfactory memory. Their mother is here. She’s alive and tangible. Cas can’t hold back the tears that well up in their chest and throat, and their body begins to shake as sobs rack through them. They knew that they missed their mother. Of course they did. But they hadn’t realized how much they missed being held by her. As long as Fianait is holding onto them, everything will be okay. They wind their arms around her and cling to her. If they hold on tight enough, maybe they can save her this time.

For a time that is too short, but long enough that the wind begins to plead again, Fianait holds her child, mumbling to them in a language lost to time. Cas clings to her, desperate to hold onto this moment forever.

Their heart rips apart again as Fianait pulls back. They both know that time is fleeting and unforgiving, and they don’t have much of it to spare.

“Moncha, my love,” Fianait says. She places her hands on Cas’s cheeks, holding their face in her palms. Her eyes search Cas’s expression as she wipes away the tears streaming down their ruddy cheeks. “You’re grown. A young woman.”

This isn’t the time for Cas to explain to their mother that they’re not a woman. That the word doesn’t fit them. There will never be time for that.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she says, her tone gentle.

“Mama, I—” Cas says, trying to explain. “I don’t—”

Understanding passes over her. The deep sadness Cas had seen when Fianait thought no one was looking returns. Another whimpering cry tears from Cas’s throat.

“We didn’t get to tell you what you need to know,” she says.

Cas shakes their head.

“Oh, Moncha,” Fianait says. Her voice shakes and tears well up in her eyes. Cas can’t remember ever seeing their mother cry. She takes a deep, calming breath.

“I don’t have much time left,” she says. It’s not a question. She knows. Cas wouldn’t be here otherwise.

“I want to save you, Mama,” Cas gasps through their tears. “I want to tell you not to go.”

“You can’t,” Fianait says gently.

“I know.” They wipe their face with their sleeve and sniffle.

Behind Fianait, Mucc lets out a squeal. He’s wandered from Cas’s side and darts through the grasses on his short legs as Lachtnán bows to him with curiosity. Raising her eyebrows, Fianait turns to look at the two creatures introducing themselves.

“Who is this? Your familiar?” she asks. Her voice is raspy and strained.

“His name is Mucc,” Cas says, choking out another sob. They’ve wanted their mother to meet Mucc since he became their familiar. To have Mucc meet Lachtnán too is overwhelming. It’s a dream they never thought could be real.

Fianait smiles. She looks so tired. Beyond tired. How did Cas not see that as a child?

“A fitting name,” she says. “Hello, Mucc.”

She kneels in the grass and holds a hand out to the feral pig. Fearlessly, Mucc trots up to her, then flops on his side, demanding tummy scritches from the woman that Cas clearly trusts so much.

While Fianait rubs Mucc’s belly, Cas slowly approaches Lachtnán. He holds his head high as his pale eyes follow them. They gently put their palm on his nose, and he leans into their touch, recognizing the child that used to ride on his back like he was a pony. Cas gasps another sob and throws their arms around him, clinging to another part of their childhood that they’ll never see again after today. They bury their face in his white fur and try not to remember how Lachtnán screamed in fear and pain as he and Fianait died together.

The buzzard that’s circled above the clearing since before Cas arrived flies lower and lands deftly on Lachtnán’s antlers. He caws and Cas looks up.

“Uallgarg,” they say. They reach up and Lachtnán bends his head so Cas can run their fingers over the bird’s soft feathers.

Uallgarg caws and Cas responds with the same sound, like a recording played back. He ruffles his feathers, then takes to the skies again.

Cas turns to face Fianait, who is standing now. In her hand she holds a woven necklace, strung with wooden beads carved with runes. A flat, round stone hangs from the center of the necklace, inlaid with a dark gem. Small gilt carvings in the otherwise smooth stone circle the gem.

“Moncha,” she says. “There’s too much for me to explain. We were supposed to spend years teaching you, not minutes.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Cas asks, their voice breaking.

“Take this,” she says and holds out the necklace. “You’ll have to find your…father.” Her expression is perturbed as she searches for the word father. “He knows what we were doing. He can explain at least some of it and lead you to witches who can give you more answers.” The composure Fianait had been holding breaks. Her voice cracks on the final word.

She pushes the necklace into Cas’s palm and pulls them into another hug, gripping them as tightly as they had clung to her. They feel her body shake as she cries.

“I’m so sorry,” she says. “I’m so sorry I can’t do more for you, my love. We were supposed to—” her words are strained, and a sob cuts her off.

Cas hasn’t stopped crying since they started when Fianait first hugged them. Through tears, they say, “I’ll never see you again.”

“You are so brave, Mon,” Fianait takes Cas’s face in her hands again, and presses a kiss to their forehead. Her voice tight, she says, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I leave you. I’m sorry I don’t get to watch you grow up.”

This is goodbye. It’s the last time they’ll touch their mother. Cas closes their eyes, and more tears spill over their cheeks. They place their hands on top of their mother’s.

“I want to see Grandma,” Cas says hoarsely.

“Moncha…”

They know they can’t. They can’t risk spending too much time here. If they’re not careful, they’ll change their own history. Or they’ll interact with themself as a child. And time can only take so much strain.

“Tell her I love her,” Cas gasps through a sob. “Please. I love you both so much. I can’t—I can’t put into words, Mama. I love you both so much.”

“I know, Mon. We love you, too. I love you. I’m so proud of you.” She kisses their forehead again, then pulls them into another tight embrace.

Uallgarg cries out above them, an alarm telling them they’re pushing their limit. The wind blows harder, pulling at Cas’s clothes and hair, begging them to leave.

“I love you, Mama,” Cas says. They kiss Fianait’s cheek. With all the willpower they have, they pull away from their mother’s grasp, tears streaming down their cheeks.

“I love you too, Mon,” she says.

“Cas,” they say, impulsively. They look at her with wide, pleading eyes. They want to hear their mother say their name, just once. “M-my name is Cas now.”

Fianait frowns, but quietly says, “I love you too…Cas. I’m so proud of you.”

Cas looks down at their frayed belt made up of dozens of knots and strings. Their fingers flit over the strings, adjusting them for their forest in the 21st century. They look up at their mother one last time, taking in her tired eyes and loving smile.

And then they’re back in their woods, over a millennium in the future. They collapse onto the forest floor and curl into a fetal position. Mucc curls up beside them.

It’s just the two of them. Alone again.

#Cas the witch #fianait the witch #grainne the witch #my writing #urban fantasy #uf

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blackmissfrizzle · 4 years

Text

Unveiled

Summary: They boys find out about the reader’s true lineage. Based on episodes 2x21 & 22

Characters: Dean Winchester x black!reader

A/N: So, I’m basically doing a series rewrite of my favorite episodes. This is is based on the the reader’s and Dean’s relationship through the years. Its based on A Match Made in Hell Series. I’m not doing this in a linear order, but I’ll make a separate masterlist for this series and put the fics in order

One minute you were in a diner with Sam, grabbing Dean a pie and the next you and Sam were in some ghost town with the other psychics like Sam. Most of them were freaking out and getting on your nerves. One even died because of her stupidity. She tried leaving and a demon killed her for it. Now you were stuck with Ava, the girl who had similar powers to Sam and been missing for weeks; Jake, the super strong dude; and Andy, the pothead who could control people with his mind.

Finally, you were able to find a house and set up camp there. To make it easier, you and Sam decided to switch off on keeping watch. So, while he and Jake were on the lookout, you took a little nap.

“Wake up, sleepy head.” You heard. Opening your eyes, you saw yellow eyes staring back at you. Immediately, you called for Sam, but when he didn’t come running to help.

“This is a dream, isn’t it?” You asked. Your dad would do this all the time with you. He knew if he talked to you in person you would attack him, so visiting you in your dreams was the safest option.

Yellow Eyes or Azazel as you knew him outstretched his hand to help you get up, but you slap it instead and got up on your own. “Oh, look at Ms. Independent.”

“What do you want Azazel?”

“Uncle Azazel,” he corrected you.

“I’m not calling you that.” You brushed past him, going outside for some much-needed air.

Azazel followed you outside mumbling about how disrespectful this new generation is. “How’s our boy, Sammy doing?”

Giving him the evil eye, you replied, “Fine, despite being kidnapped!”

“Kidnapped? Sweetheart, this is a competition!”

“For what?”

Yellow Eyes turned to dramatically and waved some jazz hands. “For the best and brightest soldier!” He continued to tell you that he just needed one of these psychic kids to lead his demon army not multiple like you and the boys thought. And to top it off, he was rooting for Sam. The demon went as far as killing sweet Jessica because Sam was getting soft.

“Okay, only the strongest win. You know if I really wanted to, I could kill all of them, so what am I doing here?” To you it made no sense for you to be there. Sam and the others may have demon blood in them, but you were half-demon and much more powerful.

“My sweet girl, you’re not here to compete. You’ll work with the winner. That’s why I’m going for Sam. You two are a well-oiled machine. Both of you have the brains and the brawn.” In the middle of cussing him out, Sam woke you up, telling you that Ava was missing.

Eventually, her screams alerted you and you and Sam found a dead Andy, but something wasn’t right. Why did Ava go out of the house? Why was the salt line by the window broken?

Ava tried her white woman tears, but they weren’t working on you and Sam. Soon, as she stopped the fake crying, she admitted everything. She wasn’t missing for 5 months; she was here the whole time killing others. What a fucking psycho!

Jake snapped her neck just as she was conjuring a demon to kill you and Sam. But now he was tripping as well. Azazel got to him and told him only one of them could get out and for some strange reason, he believed he was the one.

“Listen dumbass, Yellow Eyes is not to be trusted. Come with me and Sam, and all three of us can kill him!” Behind you Sam put his knife on the ground as a sign of good faith and never in your life had you wanted to slap Sam silly before this. In your gut, you knew you couldn’t trust Jake and here goes Sam being all kind-hearted. “Sam, don’t,” you cautioned him.

“Its all good, Y/N/N. Look,” he pointed to a Jake putting down his own weapon. But as fast as he put down the weapon was as fast as he knocked you and Sam across the yard. Damn, that nigga really was strong.

Luckily, for Sam he wasn’t as hurt as you and was able to fight off Jake. You on the other hand got a piece of the broken fence piercing your side.

The fight didn’t sound like it was going too well. Bones were cracking and they weren’t Sam’s. You got up in time to see Sam standing over a knocked out Jake. He had the crowbar in his hand, ready to deliver a fatal blow, but he decided to let him live.

Sam walked to you and let you lean on him even though he was injured as well. “You good, Y/N.”

You lifted your shirt to show him your wound. “It’ll be a bitch to pull out the splinters and I’ll probably need stiches, but other than that I should be good.”

“Sam!!! Y/N!!!!” Dean’s voice called out to you. Sam and you traded looks, and hobbled towards the sound of Dean’s voice.

There he was with Bobby. Both looked ragged, but happy to see you and Sam. “Dean,” Sam said with a sigh of relief.

“Sam, Y/N, look out!” Dean warned, but it was too late. Jake stabbed Sam in the back and by the sound of it, it was fatal.

Surprisingly, Jake didn’t try to fight you. He threw you over shoulder and ran, and in your state and his super strength you couldn’t fight him off.

The last thing you saw was Bobby running after you and behind him your dead best friend being held by his heartbroken brother.

—

My eyes never left the colt since Azazel gave it to Jake. The very moment he said it could kill him, you had to restrain yourself because Azazel threatened to kill Jake’s family. Even if you hated him, you couldn’t endanger his family.

The whole walk to the middle of cemetery was Jake practicing his powers, which he was picking up incredibly fast. Ava was right the learning curve is insane.

Clicking of guns caught your attention when you and Jake reached the crypt. Finally, the cavalry was here.

“Sam,” you questioned. It was impossible for him to be alive…unless Dean did the unthinkable. One look at him and you knew he made a crossroads deal. Fucking idiot! This family doesn’t know when to stop sacrificing themselves for each other.

Being too focused on Sam’s resurrection left you unaware of the conversation going on around you. Jake was prattling on about how Ava was right, but you couldn’t focus once again because your eyes caught the crypt.

Almost instantly you knew what it was. A damn gate to hell and the colt was the key. Luck wasn’t on your side, but when was it ever? Jake forced Ellen to put the gun to the side of your head while he ran to unlock the gate.

“Forget about me! He’s opening a damn hellgate!” Dean and Bobby wrestled the gun out of Ellen’s hands while Sam went after Jake.

Sam was able to kill Jake, but not before the gate opened. Though with Jake dead, you, Bobby, Ellen, and Sam were able to close it.

—

*Dean’s POV*

He’s here and so is the colt. I may be going to hell but imma take that yellow-eyed some of bitch with me.

“I got to thank you. You see, demons can’t resurrect people unless a deal is made. I know- red tape, it’ll make you nuts. Right, Y/N/N?” With a snap of his fingers, Y/N was beside him.

Thing is she didn’t look even one bit afraid and seemed too familiar with the demon. “Thanks to you Dean, I got the perfect pair.”

“What in the hell are you talking about?” I yelled at him. He put his dirty hands on Y/N, who was begging him ‘please don’t.’

“Sweetie, you didn’t tell him?” He asked her, almost as if he cared. “Well, Dean-o, thanks to you I couldn’t have done it without your self-loathing, self-destructive desire to sacrifice yourself for your family! But I also, many years ago I have to thank the beautiful conception of a lovely human woman and one of the best damn demons to make this beauty.” His hands framed a Y/N’s face.

The tears on her face confirmed it was true. “You lying bitch!” I couldn’t believe I trusted her.

My thoughts on how Y/N betrayed us overcame and I didn’t notice that Yellow-Eyes was about to kill me, but Y/N stopped him. He slammed her to the ground, before he could incapacitate her further, a soul from hell grabbed him. Not just any soul, dad.

Dad gave me the jump I needed. Yellow-Eyes was distracted enough for me to put a bullet in him. It was finally over; we got the demon that ruined our family. Now I just gotta deal with one more demon bitch.

—

*Reader’s POV*

You were fucked. Dean had to have told Sam the truth about you. You slipped away while they reveled in killing the monster that took away their family.

“Where you going, bitch?” The rage in Dean’s voice made no effort to hide.

“Dean,” Sam tried to reprimand him. He knew in his hearts of hearts that you had a good explanation. Yeah, it hurt that kept a secret and lied, but none of your behavior ever hinted to you being a danger to the brothers.

Lifting your hands in surrender, you turned around to face the boys. “I know you’re pissed, but this is the last time that I will allow you to call me a bitch.” Dean could be mad all he wanted to, but you refused to be disrespected. Especially, when he didn’t know the whole story.

Sam made an effort to get closer to you, but Dean pulled him back, as if you were a danger to him. “Y/N/N, why? Why lie to us?”

“Doesn’t matter why. She still lied.” You tried pleading to Dean with your eyes, but it wasn’t working. His anger blinding him from listening to you. “The only reason, I’m giving you a head start is because you tried to warn us about the gate and helped with Yellow-Eyes. You got to the count of 3 and if you’re still here I’m putting a bullet through you.”

Dean didn’t give empty threats, but you tested him anyway. Standing there firmly until he pulled the trigger of his gun on 3. In the nick of time, you teleported back home before the bullet could pierce you.

In the comfort of your solitude, you broke down and cried, letting a crowd of emotions run through. In a day, you found your best friend alive only for your other friend to make a deal; the hellgate opened releasing a slew of demons; Azazel revealed your secret and died; and probably the most heartbreaking you lost your best friends.

Tags: @titty-teetee @cocooned-butterfly @nervouspetsonanime @thefaithfulwriter @meishaabae @dannixchristian @blacknthemix @mml232

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stusbunker · 4 years

Text

The Crumbling Difference Between Wrong and Right

A Supernatural Fan-fiction

Featuring: Sam Winchester x Reader/ Unnamed Female Character

Word Count: 2085

Summary: Sam looks back over their time together only to find more questions than answers.

Warnings: Grief, character death, mental illness, assumed suicidal recklessness, smut adjacent, show level violence, letting go. Flashbacks in italics.

Beta-work and Beautiful aesthetic from @thoughtslikeaminefield

Title from Round Here by Counting Crows

^*^*^*^

She left him often. In big ways and small. He didn’t always notice, and she never really meant to, but it stung all the same. Sam had grown from instability, on resourcefulness and strategy. She grew like a wildflower in a manicured lawn, beautiful in an out-of-place kind of way; defiant in her radiance. He didn’t know if she was coming home until she did. Then, she didn’t.

Dean watched Sam watch the pyre, the flames reflecting in his eyes as tears dribbled out, heavy with the unsaid.

They found her two days too late, the rancid den caked in filth as they dragged her away from what remained of the ghouls. She always had a knack for finding hideouts, it would have been helpful if they’d known she’d been on the case. She wasn’t one to hunt alone.

Dean stood in the beating wind as long as Sam needed, watching the fire take her away for good. He almost hated her in that moment, seeing what she did to Sam--- what she always did to him.

^*^*^

Sam found her at the bathroom mirror, making faces at herself, teeth bared and eyes aghast, barefoot in yesterday’s shirt. He always seemed to breathe deeper with her around and he took a few hollowing ones before he asked when she got in.

She giggled once she realized he was there, feigning a casual demeanor as she answered softly. He met her at the sink, arms reaching around her for his toothbrush and paste, working through her space instead of moving her, comfortable without being cumbersome. Physically, they had always existed like a Venn diagram, if not touching, overlapping to the point where they were hard to differentiate.

She played with his hair as he went through his routine, emphasizing his rolling eyes before he pinned her to his chest, freshly shaved chin wedging between her shoulder and neck. She stayed for three months after that morning, almost long enough for it to feel real.

^*^*^

Donna’s laugh broke through the conversation, another round of beers passed between them as she told Jody and Donna about their last case, mocking Dean’s angry eyes and keeping her hand snugly in Sam’s back pocket. Sam loved to listen to her stories, even if he had lived them, she never failed to put on a show. It was safe here, with friends, because she didn’t feel the pressure to perform, to entertain, to earn her space. Here they all shared smiles, those that weren’t a currency.

On the back porch, Sam felt Jody sigh at them in a nostalgic and approving sort of way. It filled him with a warmth that Dean’s appraising glances had sapped. He nodded back through the kitchen window before settling in on the old picnic table beside her.

Eyes drifting to the stark winter sky, two borrowed blankets tight over her shoulders, she shivered and shined into the dark. That was the night he decided he’d wait for her forever. If she left for twenty years, he’d be there when she wandered home. If it was love, it was one that could only exist between two broken hunters who, at their cores, were optimists.

Sam left her to her stargazing, rejoining the dwindling post hunt ruckus. Dean half expected her to set up camp in Jody’s backyard; she’d gotten so comfortable with their friends. Even Claire seemed to tolerate her. He didn’t quite get it, but he kept that to himself. They left with the sun and were back in the bunker by lunchtime.

^*^*^

On one of her sudden appearances, she showed up just to shut down for a week.

She wouldn’t go outside, barely leaving their bedroom. She hummed to herself when she thought no one was within earshot. Sam found her on the fourth day, crying in frustration from crying.

Silently, he picked her up, laid her on the bed and curled around her until she quieted. Once she had control of her breathing, he started talking about his dad--- about the dozens of schools, the motels and the countless boxes of macaroni.

He told her about Dean and how his every good memory always trailed back to his big brother bearing more than any kid should. He talked about how he had accepted himself as a freak before he understood what was truly wrong with him. He whispered about regret and vice and promises of better days.

She listened, his voice her anchor in the abyss, but she couldn’t or wouldn’t offer him anything in return. Inside, she knew her stories didn’t matter, because she was defective. The bad things that had happened to her were not centuries in the making, weren’t earth shattering or soul crushing. Her weaknesses could be boiled down to a simple inaptitude for life in the linear. No one said it out loud, but even by hunters’ standards, she was a mess. It took two long cases and a salt and burn before Sam caught her true smile again. It felt like a secret honor to know which of her faces were genuine, which ones only shone in his presence.

Relief was good for dreaming.

^*^*^

Sam didn’t know who to call. He scrolled through her phone searching for names that struck something in his memory. So many had cities for last names he wasn’t sure he should try so hard. Then he worried there were others like him somewhere, and he would want to know, if he hadn’t been there to find her. Even if it was another guy’s voice breaking the news. Eventually he worked out how to add on to her outgoing message, letting whoever called know that she was gone. Never to be sure that there weren’t any others. That his name was the only one in three blaring capitals, a beacon and a prayer in her mind.

Dean watched him keep the thing charged, a new routine to cling to. Dean didn’t care how he managed it as long as he was staying above the breakers. Sam was a tough son-of-a-bitch, they both should have been used to this by now.

^*^*^

She stretched over his torso, slamming the alarm clock with a finality much heavier than five more minutes. Her breasts pillowed her collapse onto his ribs, settling in, mumbling through her pout.

He’d been awake, counting her breaths, allowing his own to overpower his need to move. Her legs tangled around his, a welcomed trap. They lingered in the lazy kisses, teasing and priming and tickling until lines were drawn and eyes snapped open. Dimples and teeth, breaking her down just to coax a certain grin from her pleading lips.

Once he was done with her, she fell back asleep stubbornly with only the pillows to cling to. Sam had stolen the blankets, another demand left unfulfilled. Of course, he’d rather keep her in his bed than not, asleep or otherwise. The pillowcases would keep her scent for him long enough to stave off the usual melancholy of missing her.

^*^*^

Dean wasn’t expecting her to show up, but it happened to be one of the times he underestimated her. She hugged him, long and tight, longer when he tried to pull away.

Sam almost laughed at the look on his brother’s face, until he remembered what brought her back this time. Their mom was dead, even if Dean wasn’t talking about it.

She didn’t hug Sam like she did Dean, instead she cupped his jaw and stared into his eyes, helping him allow himself to be seen. He sniffed against the onslaught, shaking his head as she softened further, leaning up to kiss his forehead. He dropped his face to her shoulder and cried, hands at her shoulders, bracing himself against her, his long-weathered rock.

She always knew Dean didn’t trust her, but she never blamed him; after all, she didn’t trust herself. They let Sam organize the tribute to Mary, she sensed whenever a new group of hunters showed up to pay their respects, their presence only added to Dean’s annoyance.

�� She had met Mary in passing, not long enough an acquaintance to have something to add to the stories. But she got to experience Mary’s strongest legacy each time she caught Dean checking on Sam, when Sam chided Dean’s eating habits. These boys existed because a hunter tried to live a normal, safe life and died in the process. Even eventually accepting her family’s calling, led Mary to another early death.

Fair had never been in their vocabulary.

As fast as they gathered, the hunters dispersed, leaving the Bunker to the boys and their sometimes roommate. That night Sam told her about seeing his mom as a ghost and again as a young woman, but nothing had prepared him for her return.

She felt the slightly bitter tone as he explained how Dean was Mary’s favorite, saw how he tried to bury that truth with logic and grace. At least she was with John now, they agreed. Uncertain what afterlife meant for them, both with pieces of their hearts already waiting for them in the beyond.

Sam felt her leave on the third morning, quick and quiet, no ceremony or farewell. It was the last time he’d see her alive.

If she’d known, would she have broken the pattern and stayed? Would she have come back at all?

^*^*^

The bodies were few and far between, teasing her resolve as she stumbled on the remains during an entirely different hunt. She hated a mystery, and this one kept her awake, a puzzle with an unseen timer. A different victim, a different deadline.

She didn’t have enough to bring it to Sam and Dean, though she did have a gnawing uncertainty and a four-county-wide dumpsite. One of the burdens and blessings of a mind like hers was its ability to focus on a task and ignore all others. Unchecked, she’d tread the gap between obsessed and consumed.

They drained her slowly, in turns. Fresh wounds against old scars, she watched them enjoy her bounty. Eventually she made her peace and stopped searching for spite or regrets or something to hold onto.

Instead she thought about Sam, somewhere safe. Head propped up on his hand at the library table, laptop open and a book in his lap; the way he could sleep sitting up; his big hand that was always warm. How lucky she was for knowing him, how much she hoped for him, and even some soft afterthoughts for Dean.

She let go thinking about the greens and browns of the earth and the blues and blacks of the sky--- eyes up and smile on.

^*^*^

The ghoul had lured him in with her face, but it couldn’t mimic her light.

Sam swung first, causing Dean to nearly fall on his ass in shock. The partner took the opening and got a solid elbow to Dean’s neck. It was over before Sam could make it worth it, before Dean found her, cold and empty.

The desperation surged through Sam, denial numbing his hands to the stiffness of her body, covering the stench of decay. He cradled her to his chest, impossibly smaller than ever before. A shell of her larger than life soul.

At the pyre, Sam felt Dean’s silent suspicions, but he wouldn’t entertain it. It was so vapidly inappropriate that it churned his stomach to try to reason with it.

Instead, he watched the fire burn, slow to tear into her, knowing its own and acknowledging the loss, before calling her back from whence she came: energy and ether.

^*^*^

The visions had grown more gruesome, the taste of demon blood stuck on his tongue.

Sam felt Chuck’s revisions without calculating their weight. His mind had enough to process. When she started toeing in their periphery, he wouldn’t look back at her. He refused to even acknowledge her presence. It was only in his head.

Her timing was better than this. Sam let her remain in the audience, let Chuck taunt him without overwhelming him. It was time she got to see his demons. He had juggled enough of hers.

When Chuck was finally finished and Sam felt himself slipping away, her voice carried him over the final barrier, to where Jess and Bobby, Mary and John were waiting for him. Of course, Dean brought her up, asking if Sam had seen her since they arrived. Sam sighed and shook his head at Dean, content and reassuring, “Can’t keep what doesn’t want to stay.”

^*^*^*^

#sam winchester fanfiction #sam angst #sam/reader #character death #grief #sam x reader #sam x unnamed female #Stu's 5 Fic Fridays #new fic

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themurphyzone · 4 years

Text

PatB Oneshot: We’re Just Mice

A/N: This is my first time writing for Pinky and the Brain! I was inspired after reading skimmingsurface’s and SylviaW1991’s fics because their characterizations are just phenomenal. Hope you enjoy!

FFN, A03

They liked torturing him with aggravating experiments. Another insipid maze that Brain could navigate with his eyes closed. The only deviation from the norm was that a normal mouse had been selected to run the maze with him instead of Pinky.

There wasn’t much of a difference between Pinky and a normal mouse’s usual finishing times though.

The lab tech roughly deposited Brain and the other mouse at the start of the maze, then rushed off to chat with a female coworker. Several mounted video cameras were stationed at the junctions, but the lights along their sides remained off.

They weren’t being observed and there would be no proper recordings either. The tech would have to falsify his results. It was unprofessionalism to the highest degree.

“A complete waste of time,” Brain grumbled. He itched to double-check his calculations in time for tonight’s plan. His estimations needed to be flawless, otherwise it could prove to be their downfall when he used humanity’s desire to protect endangered species against them.

“Come, Pinky,” he called out of habit, not fully expecting Pinky to follow him. His wayward associate would inevitably find the ceiling fascinating and stray off the correct path.

His words were met with a feeble squeak, and Brain suddenly found it disconcerting to be in a maze where he wouldn’t hear Pinky’s strange verbal patterns. Perhaps he was relying too much on muscle memory. The other mouse sniffed the air and shuffled away, disappearing around a corner.

Brain headed in the opposite direction. He knew better than to rely on the cheese scent, which would disappear in a few minutes once his nose became desensitized to it. If Pinky were here, he’d be able to identify the type of cheese by smell alone. Brain only knew how to scent rotten cheese because Pinky would ingest it without regard for potential food poisoning.

Pinky, Pinky, Pinky. He still managed to be an annoyance even without his physical presence!

“Out of sight, out of mind,” Brain muttered, though the phrase didn’t seem applicable when Pinky was involved. “Concentrate on the plan.”

First, the emotional story. He and Pinky would appeal to the National Wildlife Federation and present themselves as the last of the mus musculus intelligentus subspecies. They’d narrowly escaped being crushed under a bulldozer tearing down the forests of Northern California at ages too young to be separated from their parents. Banding together to survive, they taught themselves how to forage until a scientist caught them in a trap for research. They were taken to ACME Labs and genetically enhanced after enduring numerous cruel experiments. Finally, they decided to use their newfound ability to communicate with humans and share their story.

Once those seeds were planted, he’d allow their story to be circulated across The New York Times, National Geographic, and all the other major news and magazine organizations. Humans would be on their knees, begging to see the famous mus musculus intelligentus duo!

Then Brain would reveal the final stage: demand justice from the United Nations for the wrongs done to their species. And the only justice he’d accept was in the form of being crowned world leader. He wouldn’t settle for anything less.

Perhaps he’d create a labyrinth designed to stimulate people’s minds once he was ruler. He could easily create a far better maze than the ones he was forced to endure.

The pathways were predictable as always. It only took one left turn and two more rights before he reached the end of the maze. The two cheese balls weren’t attached to any electrical wires this time, but Brain disliked eating food used as an incentive for completing a task. He was a sentient creature and would never lower himself to baser instincts.

He couldn’t help but entertain the idea of smuggling one of the cheese balls back to the cage. Pinky would be exuberant and prattle on about how it was the best cheese he’d eaten in his life even though he ate cheese whenever it was available to him.

Brain quickly pushed that image out of his mind. Normal food pellets didn’t have much nutritional value. Pinky was just eating an adequate source of calcium. It was vital to keep his energy level up so he could participate in their quests for world domination.

He settled against the cardboard wall, resigning himself to being stuck until the scientists clocked out for the day. Assuming someone bothered to remove him from the maze, of course. Not that he’d have any trouble finding his own way out.

“Hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium,” Brain recited. He had to occupy his mind somehow. His current environment was unsuitable for inspiring plans.

He’d just gotten to bismuth on his second recitation of the periodic table when he heard the angry footfalls. A livid red face loomed above him, and Brain only had a split second to recognize the incompetent lab tech before a sweaty hand seized his entire head and jerked him upward.

Brain twisted in the man’s vicegrip, attempting to bite the thumb so he could make his displeasure known. But his teeth snapped at empty air instead, his body slamming into a hard counter. Slightly dazed, Brain took a moment to rub his temples, clearing the black spots in his peripheral vision.

An irritatingly familiar cry of “narf” brought his senses back completely, just in time to see the normal mouse dangling by its tail, oddly limp and quiet in the lab tech’s hand.

The lab tech stomped over to a wastebasket and dropped the mouse into the plastic lining below. The mouse’s head flopped at an angle that shouldn’t have been possible with its anatomy.

Brain gripped the edge of the countertop as the lab tech threw scrap paper over the mouse’s unmoving body.

It was dead from a broken neck, a barbaric and senseless murder that would receive no justice.

The lab tech retreated into a different section of the lab, as if he hadn’t just committed an act of animal cruelty.

And a heartbroken sob from across the room told Brain he hadn’t been the only witness.

O – O – O – O – O

“Don’t get too attached. That one’s getting inoculated with a virus tomorrow.”

“Useful as snake food, not much else.”

“They’re just mice. We can always get more.”

The murderer had gone home. The other scientists had clocked out hours ago, unaware of the dead mouse buried in a heap of scrap paper without a shred of dignity.

Brain clutched the pencil, writing out a series of linear equations and engrossing himself in the familiar letters and numbers.

Equations were simple. Logical questions with logical solutions. Patterns that were set, established, and unable to be proven wrong.

Numbers didn’t have emotions.

Which was precisely the reason Brain wanted to deal with numbers before he had to deal with the living antithesis to logic and objectivity.

But nightfall was approaching fast, the last of the sun’s rays disappearing over the horizon. He couldn’t waste more time thinking about the corpse of a rodent he never knew.

Unlock the cage. Collect Pinky. Review plan. Bop Pinky for interrupting explanation. Implement plan.

Brain mentally repeated the simple steps as he retrieved his notebook and a paperclip, ignoring how he couldn’t hear his cagemate running on the squeaky wheel. He usually told Pinky to be quiet several times by now. But there hadn’t been a reason to say it once tonight.

He was annoyed by both the presence and absence of Pinky’s background noise, and the paradox confused and bothered him.

Brain approached the cage with his paperclip. Pinky’s ear twitched, but his gaze remained on the small garbage bin.

Pinky had the perfect vantage point to see everything in the room. His posture was hunched, his usual cheer replaced by an unnatural melancholic demeanor.

Brain was supposed to be the melancholy one. Never Pinky. That wasn’t how their friend…ahem, associative relationship worked.

Forcing himself to think about the plan, Brain straightened one end of the paperclip and jammed it into the keyhole, carefully listening for the soft click.

“Pinky,” Brain called as the cage door swung open. “It’s time to go over tonight’s plan.”

Pinky jumped, a hand thrown over his chest in shock. His blue eyes were round and shiny with tears, the fur around his cheeks damp.

His appearance took Brain aback too, and they stared at each other for an excruciatingly long time.

After what seemed like an eternity, Pinky finally broke the silence with an agonizing wail, throwing himself at Brain at a speed that even light would’ve envied.

“Ba-Brain! I thought you were a goner!” Pinky cried, winding his lanky body around Brain and clinging so tightly that it felt like he was being crushed by a furry boa constrictor. Tears spilled onto Brain’s head, and he quickly flattened his ears so the moisture didn’t slide into his auditory canals. “That…that mean ol’ techie was super mad and it wasn’t the fun fun silly-willy type of mad either! Layla told him no, and he said she owed him cause he helped her carry stuff and then the girls walked out all huffy. Then he stomped around for a while and plucked you and the other mouse up like spring chickens. The other mouse’s head flip-flopped all over the place. Poit, if my head did that I would be dizzier than a whirlywind!”

Pinky’s ramble dissolved into syllables one could only find in a Scrabble dictionary. Realizing Pinky had a sort of loose grasp on the situation but was barely coherent, Brain decided he needed to take control now before the blubbering proved too much.

He glanced at his notebook, the numbered steps open and inviting, but he’d never hammer his plan through Pinky’s genetically modified skull in his current emotional state.

“Pinky, cease your babbling this instant or I shall be forced to hurt you,” Brain managed to choke out despite Pinky’s iron grip on his entire body. Slowly, Pinky released him, but kept close. Brain inhaled deeply, his lungs screaming for precious oxygen. “Just for the record, your head can’t reproduce those motions and should never be capable of it while you breathe.”

Pinky blinked. “Were we recording?”

Brain sighed, grabbing Pinky’s nose and tugging him down so that they were eye level. “I was preoccupied in the maze and my surroundings prevented me from having the perspective you had. I want you to start from the top. And please try to be more coherent this time.”

“More confetti this time, got it,” Pinky nodded. “Well, the techie plopped you in the maze with the other mouse and zoomed right outta there when Layla walked by.”

“The new hire?” Brain asked. It was rare for seasoned employees to take interest in rookies, which contributed to the lab’s high turnover rate.

“Narf, that’s her! It’s so lovely of her to clean out our cage!” Pinky exclaimed. And it was even rarer to find employees who had a tiny notion for a lab animal’s living conditions. Most people just wanted their paychecks.

“At the cost of our sleep and my plans,” Brain muttered. Layla didn’t pick them up by their tails, an unusual trait for an ACME employee, but he still disliked how she came in early and disrupted his sleep and brainstorming sessions for new plans. Besides, Pinky did a perfectly adequate job of keeping their cage tidy. He didn’t require assistance from humans. “Continue.”

“He gave her a rose, but it was smooshy and plastic-y,” Pinky’s nose wrinkled. “Must’ve sat down on it too. Said he liked her and wanted a date. Bit old for her if you ask me.”

Brain turned away from Pinky, fixing his gaze on the wall above that accursed wastebasket. “And she said no. Then he lost his temper,” he finished, his own anger threatening to spill over. But he pushed it back. Not yet. Put the events in chronological order first.

“They yelled an awful lot, Brain,” Pinky whimpered. “I could hear them over here, clear as egg yolk. I couldn’t hear my wheel squeak, and you know how loud my wheel squeaks. Layla was crying awfully hard and a bunch of the women had to help her leave. Didn’t you hear them?”

It was an honest question, but Brain didn’t want to answer. Had he really been so focused on taking over the world that he never noticed how this entire mess built up in the first place?

“He snapped that mouse’s neck,” Brain said, his voice sounding strange to his own ears. “And killed him. Because he couldn’t accept her refusal.”

By some stroke of dumb luck, Pinky made it out unscathed.

But it could’ve been Pinky…

It could’ve easily been Pinky.

“Layla’s favorite mouse in the whole wide lab,” Pinky whispered, his voice breaking. “She called him Basil. And she doesn’t know he’s…you know.”

Brain didn’t reply, turning his attention to his notebook instead. He had to focus on the plan now. And when he ruled the world, he’d have the power to enact laws and reform entire systems to prevent further desecrations and injustices from ever happening again.

And then he remembered the entire foundation for the plan.

Step One: Send message to the National Wildlife Federation. Appeal to pathos. Example opening statement: “We’re just mice. The last of the mus musculus intelligentus subspecies. We watched our brethren die because of human activity.”

Revise as needed.

Brain’s vision blurred, the paper crinkling in his hands. Someone’s voice called to him, but they would’ve had better luck speaking through a soundless vacuum.

We’re just mice.

Disposable living models to humans. Cosmic playthings to the universe.

We’re just mice.

Given sentience and no chance to make a difference in the world.

We’re just mice.

Whose minds and hearts would waste away, as if they never existed at all.

O – O – O – O – O

Brain didn’t remember what happened next. One moment he was reading the plan, the next he was in Pinky’s warm embrace, surrounded by a pile of shredded paper.

One of Pinky’s hands pressed Brain’s head to his heart, the fast yet strong thump-thump-thump resounding and soothing to his desperate mind. The other hand rubbed gentle circles into Brain’s back.

Pinky’s chest was damp, but he didn’t seem to care. He hummed a little tune, keeping his eyes tilted up to prevent his own glistening tears from falling.

“Poit. You ripped up your own plan thingy,” Pinky said, his voice trembling. “And you were angry crying. That mean techie hurt you, Brain. You can get madsad all you want. I’ll be here.”

Brain pressed his face into Pinky’s chest, an act he would consider mortifying under normal circumstances, yet his irrational side won out. “We’re just mice,” he said, pointedly ignoring Pinky’s uncomfortable observations on his emotions. “We hardly matter in the grand scheme of things.”

Pinky’s mouth curled into an obstinate pout. “You matter to me. You’re the smartest mouse I know. The smartest smartie candy ever.”

The words were oddly phrased, but sincere. Brain began to feel uncomfortably warm, and he stepped away before his emotions started making his body react in strange ways.

“I…appreciate your assistance, Pinky,” Brain admitted. “But tonight’s plan isn’t feasible. Humans don’t care enough to preserve our species’ dignity, last living individuals or not.”

“Layla cares,” Pinky replied. “She’ll cry when she finds Basil tomorrow morning. And she won’t stop being sad. I wish we could help her not be sad anymore, Brain.”

Brain shook his head. “There’s only so much you’re capable of, Pinky. She might reconsider her employment here because of the lab tech’s actions. There’s a high probability we may never see her again.”

He wouldn’t be accomplishing much tonight. But Brain didn’t want to sleep yet. Instead he gathered the shredded paper, keeping the written words face down so he didn’t have to see the heavy reminders of his mortality.

He was almost through with his self-appointed task when he spotted Pinky drawing closer to the wastebasket. There was a reverence in Pinky’s movements as he balanced on his toes, long arms reaching towards the rim. Crumpled paper spilled out as Pinky carefully tipped over the wastebasket.

Brain dropped the scraps of his plan, not caring if he kicked them off the counter as he rushed over to Pinky. Only Pinky would be stupid enough to believe there was something they could do in this awful mess.

Pinky tossed aside a forgotten report, uncovering the corpse, which somehow seemed bigger when he’d run the maze alongside Brain.

The dead mouse was named Basil, according to Pinky. Not a letter and number designation, or a colorful string of profanity when someone tried to use uncooperative animals in their experiments, but a real name.

Pinky dragged the lower half of Basil’s body out of the wastebasket, panting heavily since Basil’s stiffened paws scraped against the floor and required more exertion to move. Basil’s neck wasn’t flopping anymore, but it was locked into a crooked, unnatural angle.

“He’s stiff, Brain,” Pinky said, his voice hitching as he tried to move one paw into a more comfortable position. “How do we help him relax?”

Unwilling to explain the concept of rigor mortis to Pinky, Brain decided to change the subject. “What are you doing, Pinky?”

“He oughta be comfy,” Pinky said, a tear slipping down his face. A silent sob wracked his body, but Pinky somehow held on. “The bin isn’t a nice place to rest. It’s too prickly. And he’ll wind up in the big stinky trash mountain. He should sleep somewhere nice.”

Brain didn’t want to admit it, but Pinky was right. Basil would be thrown into a garbage truck and taken to a landfill to rot in the next few days if they left his body here. Or someone who took contamination procedures seriously would find Basil and throw him into a biohazard bag, like he was just another leftover bacteria culture.

Both disposal methods were unsettling, to say the least.

“There’s a beautiful tree outside,” Pinky continued. “With roots big enough to play hide and seek under. Do you think he’d like that, Brain?”

Basil wouldn’t like anything anymore. He was dead.

But Brain’s curt reply died on his tongue when he found his companion watching him with hopeful eyes, looking at him like he held all of life’s answers in his hands.

“He’d appreciate it very much, Pinky.”

O – O – O – O – O

Basil was laid to rest in a cushioned jewelry box. Pinky wrote the name on the lid in permanent Sharpie. He insisted on it. Brain let him, though it resulted in the top being covered in misspellings. But Pinky’s determination shone through.

They sealed the box shut with tape, protecting the body from predators and other forms of harm. Brain made sure to wind the tape around several times, knowing Pinky would be distraught if something managed to pry it open and damage Basil.

Pinky cried during the entire journey to the tree, but he refused to relinquish his hold on the box.

There was a hollow where the trunk connected to the roots. Large enough for Pinky to squeeze himself and the box through, but small enough that nobody else would be able to disturb Basil’s final resting place. They’d have to cut down the tree for that, which hopefully wouldn’t happen for a very long time.

Brain waited outside the hollow, underneath the vast canopy of the night sky. He didn’t look to the stars, as he was prone to do on some nights when he needed to think for a while. There would be plenty of opportunities for him to contemplate his existence in the future.

Pinky crawled out of the hollow, his fur caked with dirt, leaves, and tears. Brain brushed a few leaves off Pinky’s fur, letting them flutter gently to the ground.

“Don’t worry, Brain,” Pinky said, as if Brain was the emotional wreck who required comforting. “The streets are paved with cheese in heaven.”

“How unsanitary,” Brain muttered.

Pinky giggled, a tiny one that was probably inappropriate for the occasion, but it was enough. He wanted to stay out for a while longer, but Brain had something else he wanted to do before the night was over.

They cleaned themselves in the sink, then Pinky left to make tea with honey and lemon. After an emotional trainwreck of the day and night, Brain was looking forward to a thimble to settle his nerves.

In the meantime, he drew up the termination papers.

Aggression not conducive for safe workplace.

The humans would believe it was for harassment, which suited Brain just fine. He refused to let that neanderthal of a lab tech anywhere near Pinky.

He rejoined Pinky on the counter. There were two steaming hot thimbles and several torn sticky notes next to him.

“Layla should know,” Pinky said, tongue sticking out as he attempted to spell ‘tree’.

“Keep it anonymous,” Brain replied.

But he transcribed the message between sips of tea anyway.

Pinky didn’t know Layla on a personal level. He would gain no reward, reap no benefits from his actions, yet her feelings mattered to him.

Pinky never shared a cage with Basil, never knew him when he was alive either. Even deceased, Basil’s comfort mattered to him.

And Pinky had proven time and time again that Brain mattered to him. Brain could forget, but Pinky never would.

Just a mouse, but an important mouse who deserved the world.

A/N: When I was in middle school, I went to a summer camp. At some point, the boys’ cabin decided to stuff a dead mouse into one of those long Pringles cans and leave it outside of the girls’ cabin. I was the first to find it, though I think I just left the can where I found it. I felt pretty bad for the mouse though.

I was almost tempted to use that in the story, but poor little Basil suffered enough.

Can you tell I love these two by how much I make them cry?

#pinky and the brain #fanfiction #oneshot

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thebargainingchip · 5 years

Text

Blood Colors - Chapter 15

-Masterlist

Pairing: Roan x Reader

Warnings: None

Previous Chapter

Chapter 1

***Super Long Chapter Warning***

“What happened?” Roan was there when you burst into the front doors, of course, Roan would have had reports from Guards as soon as you were in the line of sight of the Palace.

“Lay him down, we don’t have time to wait for the healers,” you ordered to whom the guards quickly obeyed as Cedree quickly explained. He was already dead, blue and pale.

“(Y/n)?” The King asked, you only shook your head. Nymph didn’t respond, still in a state of shock.

“Are you alright?” Roan asked her, she only nodded.

“Let's go, my Lady,” You said softly, recognizing that look in her eye a little.

“You two, come see me after you’ve cleaned up,” Roan said.

The walk to her rooms was silent and slow but soon you reached it, Cedree had come along. He opened the door for the two of you. “We will give you some time.” You said curtly but before you and Cedree could leave, she stopped you.

“(Y/n), stay a moment,” You nodded to Cedree who was clearly offering to stay. “I don’t know who you think you are but I must warn you that the King will be choosing me in five days and when he does, there will be less place for you here,” She said it so casually when you were finally alone as if she was only noting the weather. You were a little stunned. You opened your mouth to say something and decided against it. “I didn’t dismiss you,” Was her last thing she said to you but you weren’t going to stop on account of her. You had so many bigger fish to fry

You walked to your rooms quickly and washed your face, also changing your clothes, everything was spattered in blood. When you had finally finished you walked to Roan’s quarters, you were bristling by now but tried your best to suppress it down when the guards opened the doors.

"Are you okay?” Roan asked when you entered stepping closer. You paused wanting to tell him everything at the forefront of your mind. You nodded, Roan gave you a disapproving look but before he could say anything, Cedree cleared his throat. “I shouldn’t have taken them, I knew it was dangerous.” You start

“You warned them,” Cedree piped in.

“I will make this right with Lady Nymph, and we need to somehow remedy the cause,” Roan said. “And then there’s the matter of Izobel.”

“Do you still insist on these... lighthearted matters when there is so much unrest around us?” You questioned.

“I have to,” You tried your best to hide your severe disappointment.

“What are we going to do about Aleksondria, everything she does has no signs of her involvement?”

“We need to wait until the slip-up,” Roan answered and you gave an exasperated sigh. “Thank you for your service today, Cedree. I would ask that you further lookout for (Y/n).” For the first time in your life, you didn’t object, even when Roan asked so openly, to your embarrassment. But you knew what was lying ahead, Nire would be here tomorrow. Cedree left then.

“We need to talk about the scars on your back,” Roan said. You hated that it had come to this, you wanted it to be so much different, you wanted to know yourself. “It means you are to be an Azgedan Queen.” You were completely stunned.

“I don’t understand, how would-“ you paused, too many questions at once “why would-“

“Nire has predicted this in your future which unless you believe in some unknown higher power, it means he intends to use you to get the things that he wants,” Roan explained. “(Y/n) if anyone knew then it would mean this all becomes true,” Roan emphasised.

“But Izobel already knew and we don’t know who-“ you hate how anxious your voice sound.

“That's in the past now, but no one else can know. We need to hope she told no one.”

“What would it mean?”

“It would destabilise my reign,” Roan was plain and simple in his explanation. “Get some rest, tomorrow will be a big day,” Roan bid you.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

You wake up and its pitch black, the moon shines through the window to give the only very limited elimination to the room. There’s a movement, a small shuffle and you immediately tense but as you din yourself wanting to draw the knife from under your pillow you find yourself unable to move.

The panic sets in then. Laboured breathing and you can’t even scream for a guard even though you try.

The bed dips but all you can do is lie there, a hand guides you to roll onto your back. A scrapping feeling slides itself into your gut as you beheld the intruder’s face.

Nire places his hand on the inside of your thigh as it slides up ever so slowly. You can’t move, you can’t cry out but inside you are trying to fight so hard, paralysed you stare up at him in horror as his hand reaches-

You scream yourself awake. Eyes full of tears, you quickly sit up to scope the room. You move back against the headrest as if Nire would be hiding somewhere, and wrap your arms around your knees. There’s a knock at the door which startles you/

“Yu laik ait, Jus Gona (Are you alright)?” You relax when it’s just the guard.

“Sha. (Yes)” You say but you must have said it too softly.

“Jus Gona?” He asks again.

“Sha.” You say, this time raising your voice. When there’s no other question you determine that he heard this time.

You can’t go back to sleep now, the fear of lying down completely overtakes your thoughts and actions, so you sit upright, even though it’s pitch dark and dawn is far off.

The first hour of staying awake came easily enough but as time went by, it weighs on you like carrying a bucket of water around. Eyes burning from soreness, you try to shake yourself awake. In the moment between the waking world and sleep, your thoughts mingle into a non-sensical, non-linear thought and just as you fade into the darkness, a hand grabs your neck.

You sit up again and to shake the feeling off, it felt so real, even though it’s just imaginative, you wrap your hand around the same spot. Your fingers are warm and familiar, not like Nire’s which is harsh and thick, you shudder violently. Harassed by your thoughts and dreams you feel awake enough to stay awake.

When you finally do fall asleep, birds have been chirping outside, the light easing through the window, in the light you feel safe to dose off. It doesn’t take long before you are rudely awakened by the closing of the door and still on edge you sit bolt upright. Sighing you get up, on the table laid out is your armour again, Nire must be here, you swallow the bile rising in your throat.

When you step outside your rooms, you spot Roan walking towards your quarters, clearly coming to fetch you, Cedree beside him, also dressed up for the glum occasion. “You look like you were the sheep being counted all night.” Cedree commented, his accent always present as he rolls his ‘r’s deep.

“Thanks, I feel beautiful too.” Your words drip with sarcasm.

“Right, let’s get this done with.” Roan declares and you're glad to oblige, the sooner this passes the sooner you can relax your erratic heart rate.

The throne room is packed with people as you stand on the dais beside Cedree, a new unknown.

“Would you standstill.” He whispers as Roan talks to a few of his men for a moment. It's only at the comment that you notice you are indeed frantically fidgeting, so you fold your hands to keep them occupied.

The King sits on his throne, and you can feel Cedree shuffle closer, his shoulder coming to brush up against your own.

“Today we welcome back, the greatest surprise of the past few weeks,” Though Roan’s words were positive his features and his tone had never been so grave. “Please Welcome, Lord Nire.” The doors swing open in a disgustingly dramatic entrance. Everyone’s clapping dissolves, upon seeing his face your body screams run to you and you have half the mind to do so, but Cedree bumps his shoulder against yours and it grounds you once more. Nire’s stark eyes catch yours and the smirk on his face remains, maybe even widening. You feel your face flush and your stomach turn. His head is shaved and you can see up until where the trauma you inflicted stretches with evidence of some form of stitching that was present, the wound is still pink but it has closed. You remember the sound and the feel. You quickly rush out of the room.

You make outside, the closest place and there you wretch up the contents from whenever last you had eaten, you couldn’t even remember.

"Pregnant?" Cedree asks firstly, you give him a weird look.

"No." You deny harshly.

"Just asking." He raises his hands in surrender. Cedree is contempt to simply stand beside you as you take a few deep breaths when you feel exceedingly ill.

“Faya Gona,” The voice rolls of you like you’ve been flung with the most horrible feeling you could ever experience, your neck hairs stand on end as you and Cedree both turn to face the owner of the voice. “That is what they call you now, isn’t it?” His grin widens as he comes to stand only meters away. “You look pale,” He comments, his face forming into a worried frown and you can’t help but pull a disgusted face.

“Right, that’s enough, maybe you should take yourself elsewhere,” Cedree says stepping in.

“Or what?” Nire challenges, there’s a long pause. “Fine, but I will say this. I hear the king is looking for a queen, I look forward to seeing you celebrating the same fate soon.” He leaves then, Cedree’s head snaps yo you.

“What does he mean?”

“Nothing good.” You answer.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

She was quiet, too quiet and if you stare too long at her, she got anxious and started fidgeting with anything she could get her hands on. Roan had chosen the gardens to have a small luncheon with his newest date, of course, fall had started and the garden already had less colour. Roan asked her a question, you weren’t particularly listening to the question as you observed her. She was pretty, but to think that this could be Azgeda’s queen, hell you could do a better job. Reluctant to answer her eyes fretted up to you, Roan shot you a look and you turned away with a sigh. Spoilsport, you liked making the girl squirm, you knew Roan wouldn’t pick her anyway. The two were feasting on some of the most delicious fruits you had seen in your life, and you had missed your lunch, needless to say, you were very hungry. The girl barely ate, and when she did she chewed as if she was afraid for someone to notice. It seemed as if she was only able to answer questions, she’d barely ever started a conversation, so when Roan let the conversation die it was filled with long silences as he tried to give her chance to lead but she never came up. Eventually, she asked to be dismissed.

“That was the hardest half hour of my life,” You plucked up a plum from the table.

“I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t watch the girl like you plan to kill her in her sleep,”

“You’re not going to choose her anyway,” You shrugged as you bit into the plum, juice running down your chin, you were momentarily stunned into silence at the taste.

“Maybe I should, I’d certainly have a lot more quiet time, You glared at him.

“Is that some sort of comment about me?” You questioned.

“I mean I didn’t compare you to her,” He pointed out, you’re cheeks burned slightly.

“She will be devoured by her people, you’ll be a widower within a year,” Roan didn’t answer but you could see he saw the truth in that.

“May I be dismissed?” You questioned feigning the girl’s meek manner earlier.

“No,” Roan stands from the table, “My sister Elodi is arriving soon, her governess is sick and will need to rest when she arrives. I have sent for other governess but they might only arrive within a fortnight. With Nire and Aleksondria here, I don’t want to trust her with anyone else.”

“Chaperone, Baby sitter, clearly I am expanding my job description,” Roan roles his eyes. “It’s fine, I’ll do it but kids really don’t like me.”

“I’ll introduce you too, again, I’m sure she has forgotten you.”

Roan walks with you to the stables, you don’t wait long before a horse trots up to the courtyard, the woman on it looks pale but the girl in her lap seems quite the opposite. She squeals when she sees her brother. And all that Roan can do is catch her as she almost flings herself off the horse into Roan’s arms, Roan laughs though the governess scolds the child for her reckless behaviour. You stand back observing the precious moment, Elodi has grown since you last saw her. She’s gotten taller and her wavy brown hair reaches her waist. “I’ve missed you,” Roan says when he puts her down on the ground bending to her height to talk to her. “Galia, you may go to your rooms and rest,” Roan said to the woman who had dismounted.

“Mochof, Haihefa Roan (Thank you, King Roan).” She says before she disappears. Roan picks up his little sister and walks closer to you.

“Elodi, dison laik (y/n), ai lukot (Elodi, this is (y/n), my friend),” Roan introduces

“Meika's slak (Nice to meet you).”

“Heya (Hello).” She says very quietly, there’s a smile on her face but you can see she’s shy.

“Em na gifa in kom yu kom taim Gaya ge fis op (She will take care of you until Gaya is better),” Elodi glances at you then back at Roan, clearly upset.

“Chomouda ai nou na set ruan gon yu (Why can’t I stay with you)?” She questions.

“Elodi, Ai laik Haihefa, ai laik honsen (Elodi, I am King, I am busy),” She looked dejected as Roan paused. “Ai na choj op gon yu nat (Elodi, I am King, I am busy. I will eat with you tonight),” He added, she only nodded a little solemn.

Roan places her on the ground and you outstretch your hand to her, she hesitates but decides to take it.

“Weron emo osir gon (Where are we going)?” She asks when you lead her away.

“We need to find my friend and scare him,” You smile down at her, she smiles a little.

“Skai drag em (Goddamit)!” Cedree exclaims as Elodi lets out a laugh. “Of course your up to no good. And influencing the poor young one's mind. Who is this by the way?” Cedree questions, going down onto his haunches.

“Elodi,” She says softly.

“King Roan’s sister,” You add, as he shakes her hand softly.

“Babysitting are we?” Cedree questions when he straightens.

“Better than whatever the hell you’re doing.”

“Looking handsome? I would say it is a fine job that I seem to excel at,” He jokes, you roll your eyes.

“Right. Save me a seat at dinner,” You ask, he nods as you leave with Elodi.

You take Elodi to her room where all her belongings are kept, ready for her return. She decides to play with one of her toys so you simply sit and watch her. You know the type, the shy reserved child, eager to entertain themselves. Worryingly you notice a few times that Elodi has a cough.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Cedree has saved you a seat as promised, you collapse onto the bench next to him after taking Elodi to dinner with Roan who had kindly invited you to join them but you declined, seeing as Elodi would be grateful for the time spent alone with her brother.

“Babysitting duties done for the day?”

“Children require twenty four hour care, they don’t become adults when the full moon’s rise like some twisted werewolf curse.” You state.

You had barely finished eating your food when I guard stood at attention by your table. “Haihefa don konge Jus Gona (The King has summoned the Blood Warrior),” He states then leaves.

“Babysitting continuous,” Cedree stated as you stood.

When you reached Roan’s rooms he was pacing, you first noted Elodi asleep on the bed, considerably paler then she was when you left her.

“I’m sorry to ask this of you but will you tend to her? I know this is a lot ask but I have business to attend to.”

“I won’t pretend I’m a doctor or healer like Abby but I can at least try.” You answer.

“Thank you, I owe you.”

“And I’ll be sure to collect.” You said, you picked up Elodi from the bed, she only stirred but didn’t wake. You could feel her fever ignited skin against you. “I’ll see you tomorrow after breakfast.”

“(Y/n) you don’t have to-“

“Cedree can watch Elodi for the hour if that long. And you need my opinion, how else will you navigate this sea of women.” You didn’t leave room for argument as you left.

Never in your life had you ever tended to a sick child but here you were. It was harder than expected, though equally tired, you tried to get her fever to break with a moist cloth, she was coughing but there was nothing you could do but give her tea mixed with honey and lemon to help soothe her throat. Elodi although awake, was in a sour mood undoubtedly she felt worse than she looked. Finally, by early morning she showed sign of tiring so you swayed her in her arms, her head pressed into your shoulder. Her fever seemed like it was breaking finally. You were almost whisking yourself to sleep with swaying.

There was a quiet knock at the door that caught your attention and luckily not Elodi’s as she dosed peacefully. You lay her down in your bed. “I came to see how she was doing?” Roan asked, whispering softly. “Better, I think the worst has passed but she might not be feeling well for a while.”

“That’s good, thank you again, (y/n). Well, I’ll leave you to get some rest.” Roan left again, you nodded.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

You kept your distance well when Roan had taken his next date through a stroll in the woods. Tayla was her name, unlike her previous two competitors, she was not of noble birth but raised her status by becoming a warrior. And she was beautiful too, maybe a little serious but no less expected from someone who has spent her life, fighting others. She seemed respectful and proper and truly you could see the next Queen in her. Which is why you felt guilty when your stomach twisted into a hot flare of anger when she touched him. Tayla had one quirk that ceased to annoy you but Roan didn’t seem to notice, she was too touchy. But she was a good leader and well-liked which is why it made all the harder not think the thought you were currently going through right now. But you kept your emotions in checked and simply observed.

Tayla and Roan clicked well, she was well versed in how to have a decent conversation and she was pleasant to be around.

Soon enough it came to an end, and when you reached the Palace again Elodi and Cedree came to meet you in the courtyard. You took Elodi back to your rooms after hearing Cedree had brought her down for breakfast. At least she was eating.

When the doors to your room swung open, however, you stared at the chaos, papers were strewn across the floor in front of your desk where it seemed as if every drawer had been turned out onto the table. The person didn’t even seem to hide it. They wanted you to know they had taken something, after putting Elodi down to allow her to rest you rummaged through the mess to try and see if what you suspected was taken and after a brief panic you hands brushed over something cold. Your bother’s necklace was still here thankfully, you clutched it tightly for a moment to allow your anxiety to dissipate. When it did, you were left clueless as to what had been taken, so you shuffled through the papers in an attempt to reorganise while still trying to account for the lost item. At last, you gave up and went to have a little nap to soothe your own tiredness.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

It’s quite late when you are in the bath, simply trying to relax, you had woken Elodi up to eat and bathe herself before she had asked to go to bed again no doubt she would be up early tomorrow. The doors to your room swing open to reveal Roan and Cedree, both men pause when noticing you, luckily the bathtub is milky with soap, still, you curl up a little. “Cedree take Elodi to her rooms, I have sent for someone to look after her for tonight,” Roan said, Cedree immediately springing to action.

“Why?” You question after Cedree has left and the doors behind him close, Roan stands, pacing. “What happened?” Something tells you that something isn’t right. Roan digs something out of his pocket as he steps a little closer to the tub, avoiding your gaze.

“Nire produced this in the council meeting today,” Roan said as he holds the page out for you to see. You reach out but you don’t grab it as your hands are wet, though you instantly recognise it. It was the page you drew the scars on your back on

“That’s what they took,” You mumble more to yourself.

“What?” Roan questions, alarmed.

“Roan will you please just turn around so I can get out?” He does so even though you can see his impatient to hear what you have to say.

Hesitantly you rise, as if testing whether he would turn back around, but he doesn’t, you step out and wrap your self in a patchwork towel.

“Someone had gotten into my room when we were out with Tayla today when I came back my desk was in chaos but I couldn’t figure out what was taken.” You say, Roan turning around at the sound of your voice, seemingly relieved that he can look you in the eyes again. “What did the council say?”

“I was dismissed, they must first think of what is to be gained from my options. No doubt Nire and Aleksondria are poisoning the minds of the council.”

“I thought you could choose who you want to wed? And how did Nire get into the meeting?” You question.

“Yes I could choose from the options given to me but if they insist your carved fate to be true, then there will be no choice,” Roan explained, “As for Nire, he had produced another paper to say he would be representing one of the council members who is said to be ill.”

“Slythering slimy snake, I should have sliced his throat open when I had the chance,” You fume, then a thought struck you. “What does it mean if they don’t accept it?”

“It means you will be seen as an imposter and a threat to the throne,” Roan folded his arms.

“Meaning I will be executed,” You supply when Roan seemed unwilling to.

“Which would lead to all-out war not only against Skaikru but every clan in the coalition,” Roan reminded.

“You would lose your crown.”

“And my head with it,” Roan pointed out.

“So what our only options is to hope that we are allowed to get hitched or we both die?” You ask, Roan only nods. “If they choose that we marry, which is highly unlikely, what do they stand to gain by it?”

“Manipulation, the favour of the people,” Roan supplied.

“How would it inspire favour, when most believe me a murderer?” You ask, Roan doesn’t answer, you see the hesitation even though he knows the answer. “Roan?”

“If they were to remove you from rule after, people would feel joined again, like their voices are heard.”

“You mean killed?” Roan sighs. That was it, either you die or you die, there was no other way.

“How do we continue?” You ask finally.

“As normal. After breakfast I will be meeting with the second final contender, I have arranged to have someone else take care of Elodi for the time being, I knew you might want some time to think,” Roan said, you nodded. “We’ll talk in the morning,” Roan was about to leave when he paused. “It seems all I can give you is grave news in Azgeda, I’m sorry.” You still had no words as he left.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

It went down exactly as Roan said, you met Roan in the foyer the next morning after breakfast. “Anything?” You asked, Roan’s face looked grim.

“Nothing,” As the two of you walked outside into the courtyard.

“How can you just continue after you’ve heard this?” You question, trying to stay quiet, you were rudely interrupted when you Roan came to a sudden halt. You looked at who he was staring at. Nire bowed before the King, the grin on his face was clear that he was mocking Roan.

“Haihefa,” Roan took a few angry steps forward he didn’t need provocation to grip Nire by the lapels.

“You. I know what you did and what you are doing and you will pay for it in the dearest way possible,” Roan grit out, guards rushed up but Roan waved them off. Nire was cool and calm in his reaction as he glanced over at you with a cold look.

“Threaten me again, and much worse will ensue,” Nire said quietly, but you could hear it. You followed Roan as he rudely brushed past Nire.

“Roan, you can’t just-“

“My hands might be tied in some cases but no one, and I mean no one questions it, I am king,” Roan said turning on you, a little taken aback by the fierceness of his outburst.

“Fine, I didn’t mean-“

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to turn on you,” Roan apologised softly as he came to a standstill with you beside him.

“It’s fine, we all know why we are so on edge,” You dismissed. Roan put on his best smile as his date appeared. “Olena,” He took her hand as she came to stand before him and kissed it. She didn’t react, only looked over at you. “This is (y/n), known as the Jus Gona, she will be accompanying us for our own safety.”

She managed a slight reaction as she regarded you for a while longer, “Is the rumours true have you also earned the title, Faya Gona?” She questioned.

“Though I’m not proud to admit it, yes I did,” You say curtly not in the mood to discuss your past failings when your certain doom was not far.

“Did you not kill rioters and revolutionaries?”

“I did but lives are lives, even when they are not exactly our friends,” You answered with a tight-lipped smile awaiting the backlash or insult but it never came, she nodded.

“What is our plans?” She asked Roan.

“I thought a game of chest might do,” Roan informed.

“Very well.”

You followed the two to the entertainment room and although there were guards outside you hung in a corner of a room. Barely listening.

“What do you say Jus Gona?” It was Olena that interrupted your thoughts after they had packed out the chess pieces. You looked to Roan for help but he gave you none.

“I’m sorry I was not listening,” You could see she was a little surprised.

“There must be serious unrest, I heard what had happened to Nymph.”

“Yes, unfortunately, we had felt the anger of the people through one casualty, there would have been more if Cedree and I hadn’t been there.”

“Oh I have no doubt and you think by marrying this might be remedied?” She turned to Roan.

“I believe what the people seek is security, to know that there King still has Azgeda and only Azgeda in mind, if I make the right choice and follow traditions it might ease some of the unrest,” Roan explained. That was another thing, if they decided that you would marry Roan, you would be stirring up more trouble, alienating him to his people. Why was there so much at stake?

There was a knock at the door momentarily interrupting the conversation until you stepped up and slightly opened the door. “What?” You asked Cedree, maybe a little harsher than he deserved.

“Letter for you.”

“Cedree why the hell do you tell me about a letter when I am currently busy, there are more important things,” You scolded him, trying to keep your voice down as possible.

“It's from your people,” He said softly as if he knew how important that would be. “It’s fine, I’ll tend here, you go,” He said before you think of words to form, you nodded.

“Haihefa, Olena, I have some urgent business to attend to but Cedree will be here in my stead,” You bid them. Roan simply nodded though you could see he was curious about what exactly you were off to do.

In your rooms, you find the letter on the desk and hastily tore it open.

Polis is in complete unrest, we fear for the safety of Skaikru in Polis but also fear that the alliance keeping the plans together might soon be failing.

If the circumstances were different I’d ask you to return, we could use your help but as it’s not, I just want you to be safe.

Marcus

The first person you thought to was Clarke, but then your worry dissipated, not only did she have Bellamy but also Lexa, even if one would be injured or worse, the other would protect Clarke with their life. You still wanted nothing more than to be there and especially with everything that was happening, you felt like you it would be the best option. It took everything in you to stop yourself from walking out those doors and out the palace and never come back but your first thought was that you would probably never see Roan again. It affected you more than you thought possible. So you sat down at your desk and began writing back. Not necessarily a reply but maybe something you would instruct Cedree to send should anything happen to you.

When Roan finds you later, the sun was starting to set and you sat with a massive headache because of staring at the letters too long. You were almost done, but your letter to Marcus might need to be rewritten since the words began to swim as you were writing the last few sentences. “What happened now?” He asked, clearly not ready for bad news but who would be? This must be placing a lot of stress on his shoulders.

“It was Marcus, he says there is a lot of unrest in Polis.”

“I also heard, what else did he want?” Roan asked, he always knew that there was something more.

You hesitated, “He wanted me to come to their aid.” You said at last.

“And you want to.” He added, certain.

“Roan, please. I know it’s not possible.”

“Yes but knowing what can’t be done and what one wants to do, doesn’t have to match, (y/n) you are only human.” Roan offered kindly, you sighed.

“How did it go? The date.” You inquired for a change of topic, Roan came to lean up against the desk.

“Fine, any idea who I should choose?” He asked.

“Nymph you’d known for a while, I guess you can easier judge her character. It’s a no on the shy girl, whatever her name is. Olena is very serious but sensible and to the point, she seems like she could be valuable in making a decision.”

“And Tayla?”

“Tayla seems like a good warrior, a good symbol for Azgeda,” You stated even though you were trying to avoid the enquiry.

“But?” Roan questioned, eyebrows raised.

“But she’s too pretty, too perfect,” You said.

“Those don’t seem like bad qualities,” Roan pointed out.

“No, I guess not,” You didn’t want to continue for fear of it looking suspicious, “There is also one more,” Roan shook his head. “Not?”

“No, Danik sends her regards, her mother died and she is in mourning,” Roan said.

“So she’s not an option?” He shook his head. “Do you still have to make a decision?” Roan nodded.

“It will be tomorrow night, then there will be an engagement feast after.”

“So many choices so little time,” You shrugged.

“Or it could be that this is all ripped from my hands. So I have one last question for you, how do you think (y/n) would fair?” He questioned.

“Don’t joke,” You scolded as you stood and drew the curtains on your windows.

“I’m serious,” He said even though he didn’t look it.

“Reckless, foolish, too young, impulsive, a bad example and not of Azgeda,” Roan gave you an incredulous look.

“Do you seriously think so little of yourself?” He asked, his words kind and gentle but you weren’t going to beat around the bush.

“Roan this isn’t just marriage, this is so much more, I’ve not been raised for this. I was meant to die as a nobody on a ship for something I did wrong.”

“So why are you here?” Roan questioned. “I believe it’s much more than a coincidence,” You don’t say anything even though you don’t agree.

“What’s this?” Roan asks plucking up the letter you wrote to Marcus Kane.

“Roan don’t-“ You jumped up suddenly to grab the letter from him, but he evades you quickly.

“Why did you write this?” You finally snatch it out of his hand and the other one, stowing it away in a drawer.

“You know why.” You give him a look.

“Really have you already decided your fate?” He questions.

“No but I’m not exactly the optimist here and it’s just in case I don’t get a chance to say goodbye.” You say, Roan nods, accepting your answer.

“Anyway, I need to check up on Elodi.” Roan says before he turns to leave. “(Y/n).” He turns around to you as you listen intently. “Say I can’t protect you but someone else might be able to, would you do it?”

“Do what, Roan? What could possibly offer me that kind of protection?"

“Marriage. If you are married then you can’t be seen as a threat to the throne.”

“Married? Roan to who?” You question a little shocked at his suggestion.

“Someone you choose, you don’t have to choose now, but I won’t marry you off to someone whom you don’t know.” Roan states.

“Roan this is… crazy-“

“Think about it, if anything.” He says before he leaves.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Its absolute chaos when you step outside your room. Cedree is there to give you the news that caused all this. “Lexa kom Trikru steduan (Lexa of the Tree clan is dead,” You are a little stunned by it as the two of you make it down for breakfast. “Did you know her?” He asks when you look a little devastated.

“I guess so. Didn’t think it would- Shit Clarke.” You panic a little.

“Who’s Clarke? Someone you knew?” Cedree ask as he watches you, you take a quick turn down a different hall and it’s as if Cedree knows exactly whats happening. Cedree grabs your hand and pulls you into a little a clove in the wall.

“Listen, you can’t do that. I know what you’re thinking, believe me, I know.” Cedree says as he presses your shoulders into the wall, your worry is quickly replaced by anger.

“Cedree I swear to fucking God-“ You struggle against your grip but he effectively keeps you pinned against the wall.

“Keep quiet.” He shushes you as people pass. “This is not a decision you want to make lightly, what about Roan? You would forever be hunted? Where would you go looking like Azgeda?” All the questions were starting to make sense and you stopped struggling but it didn’t mean your anger had disappeared. When Cedree was convinced you wouldn’t bolt to the stables when he let go, you shrugged off his hands and felt like kicking something with your frustration.

“I need to go talk to Roan.” You say but Cedree stops you again, he wraps an arm around your shoulders.

“I’m sure with the news, Roan is very busy, maybe let’s have breakfast first.” He guides you towards the dining hall and you oblige even though you felt upset, even more so when you knew it was true.

You couldn’t eat with the news, you wanted to know what it meant, you wanted to know if Clarke was okay, you didn’t want to sit here and listen to everyone gossip about what might be coming.

“You not gonna eat?” Cedree asks, you shake your head. So Cedree picks up your plate and scrapes the food onto his empty plate. “What? A mans gotta eat.” He says when you stare at him.

So you gave it some time until lunch came and gone and decided that surely Roan must have been finished by now. You made your way to Roan’s quarters, the first place you’d look for him but what you found instead was Echo waiting outside for him.

“The King is busy,” Was the first thing she declared.

“You came back, when did you arrive?” You ask a little confused.

“In the morning, the King can’t see anyone now,” She said again, always friendly, you thought.

“Echo, it’s urgent.”

“Not as urgent as what he’s attending to now, so move along, I’ll tell him you were here,” Echo said.

“Seeing as you weren’t getting through to her you turned around to leave.”

“(Y/n), he will probably want to see you later in the afternoon, before the announcement,” Echo informed, you nodded, thankful for the bit of information.

You slumped next to Cedree, where he sat watching the guards and soldiers spar, he was eating, again, of course.

“What now?”

“Roan’s still busy.”

“Aye, he is and he will be until he’s not, nothing you can do about that, sweetheart,” Cedree informed.

“Cedree where the hell are you from?” You question.

“It's a long story but I guess you have time.” He says rubbing your frustration in a little. “These aren’t the only people who survived prime faya. Many others on lands far away. Although there it's very different from here, we didn’t have anything to bind a band of people together, it has always been each man for himself.”

“More savage?”

“Say what you will about all the other clans, but Azgeda has formed its own society though war and fighting at it’s principle, there are the gentler folk, and the people who choose not and could not participate in what everyone thinks all Azgedans do,” Cedree explained, you saw his point. Azgeda was complicated more than Trikru, you had indeed noticed.

“That’s not my question.”

“You shush and listen to my story.” He chides playfully, trying to sound dramatic. “Well there’s lots of killing there, and we speak the same as you do still maybe the slang is different and the accents and you sometimes here a language that has not been heard in a while. I’m from what people use to call Ireland.”

“Why did you come here?”

Cedree’s look turned a little more solemn, “I was never meant to stay in one place and it became all the clearer when I lost my family. Only what they don’t tell you is that when you join Azgeda there is no leaving this place.”

“Would you leave if you could?”

“I’ve been here for so long I don’t think I would leave even if I could. I mean sure everyone leaves people behind but Azgeda changes a person and I wasn’t sure that those people would want what I brought anymore.” Cedree explains.

“It’s why you knew this morning?”

“You and I are much more alike than you may think.” Cedree remarks, it was clear to you as well. “Well I’d hate to leave you while you wait by yourself but I need to prepare for tonight. You should do the same, I’ll save you a seat (y/n).”

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

After doing and re-doing your braids, you finally brushed your hair through once more before you decided you were done, you were far too early for the whole idea but you couldn’t sit still. The knock at your door drew you away from the mirror as Echo stepped inside.

“Now?” She simply nodded and you al but rushed past her.

Roan was getting ready when you found him in his rooms, his armour being strapped on by an assistant, he dismissed the servant and you stepped closer to help him, fasten the straps.

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t see you earlier, the news of Lexa caused utter chaos.”

“But the announcement is still on? No news from the Council?” You questioned, Roan shook his head.

“For now, at least, everything continues. You’ll be glad to hear that I received new that Wanheda is alive and well.” Roan said as you were stunned into silence, finally relieved.

“Can this news change anything?”

“It could, the fact that the coalition has shattered can work either in our favour or against us. It means my people will be looking for me to act and if I do it could strengthen my position with them.”

“Would it be against Skaikru?” You ask.

“Clarke is as much my friend as she is yours.” He answers.

“But this also means that if I die that I don’t become a martyr to my people or under Lexa’s rule.”

“You mean Skaikru.” Roan raises a brow.

“Yes, I mean Skaikru.” You correct quickly.

“(Y/n) you can’t make these slips around others, if you are to be safe here, you need to be careful that you don’t look to be a sympathiser.”

“I thought Skaikru wasn’t our enemy?” You question, confused.

“Not in everyone’s eyes.” Roan reminded. “But yes this could mean that there is less meaning if you die, which would give them less cause to try and kill you.”

“Could they simply dismiss it?”

“They could,” Roan said.

“So you’re getting married.” You stated, you couldn’t help but feel something at the thought, not anything good.

“I have to be engaged first.” Roan shrugged but it meant nothing to you.

“I thought about it,” You say, Roan looked confused for a moment, “And I thought about it and I thought about it and then I thought about it some more. If it can’t be helped, if it is my last option, I will marry Cedree but only if you trust him.”

“I’m sure, Cedree would be delighted at your intention to make him your last resort.” Roan joked.

“Roan this is serious. Would he even-?”

“You would be making a good choice and Cedree would accept, he likes you.”

“I’ve known him less than a week and I plan on marrying him.” You state.

“Welcome to the club.”

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

It was done, the announcement was made. Roan had chosen Tyla and you couldn’t deny it, it hurt to look at them. Echo glanced at you as you sat at the table, Cedree on your other side with a few other warriors littered around. All you could do was stare at the Tyla’s glee as she stood beside him on the dais. “Oooh must hurt.” Echo was never really one to keep her mouth shut.

“Shut up,” You say taking a big swallow of the sour alcohol that Azgeda claimed to be experts in.

“What?” Cedree always curious quickly chimed in.

“Let's just say there might be an extra reason why the Tyla and buttercup over here wouldn’t get along, at least not after tonight,” Echo said a smile on her face.

“Less talking, more drinking,” You say sliding both Cedree and Echo’s cups closer to them.

“Now that is something I can get behind,” Cedree declared before finishing his cup.

The food was good but by the amount that everyone at the table was drinking, no one would actually be able to taste the food. It was so easy to get shamelessly drunk when that was what everyone did, even though it might not be for the same reason. You had avoided looking at the King and the queen-to-be the whole evening but now when the was no coherent conversation between anyone, did you glance up. Roan’s eyes met yours as if he knew you was looking but before he could hold your gaze a moment longer, Nymph drew his attention back. It was almost painful to watch, you stood up suddenly not really in control of your own actions as you walked out of the hall into the open courtyard. A steady snow had started to drift down, a reminder that summer didn’t ever last.

You’re not outside alone for long before you almost jump out of your skin when a cloak is wrapped around your shoulders. “What the hell?” You snap turning to face Cedree.

“Sorry, it’s a habit to keep quiet,” He shrugged.

“I don’t need it anyway,” You say a little stubbornly.

“Of course you do, it’s too cold out here for Skaikru,”

“Speak for yourself,” You shot back though a playful grin now etching itself on your face.

“What are you doing out here anyway?”

“I’m too sober for how drunk everyone else in there is,” You comment watching the guards pace the walls of the fortress.

“I get that,” Cedree was content to keep quiet after that, standing next to you and watching the guards too. You glanced at him, and suddenly all the hurt poured into your chest. You were going to move on in any way you could, the only way you knew how to, you had to marry this guy anyway.

You turned to Cedree and quickly cupped his cheeks, his soft beard rustling through your fingers, he didn’t react only watched you as you inched up slowly onto your toes and captured his lips between yours. He immediately returned the kiss, spinning you around until the wall hit your back. “Not to be a spoilsport,” Cedree said in between kisses, “But I have my boundaries, I don’t do drunken mistakes.”

“Do I look drunk to you?”

“Well no, I would say you could use a couple more drinks before you reach that point.” You kissed him again, and he chased after your lips but broke the kiss anyway. Movement caught your eye, and there pausing as he talked to a guard, was Roan, he saw. Sudden shame-filled you until Cedree drew you back again, you were going to marry him anyway, you reminded yourself again.

“Well Echo said-“

“Cedree, this is my offer take it or leave it.” You interrupted him, a little anger flared up within you.

Cedree stepped closer and this time cupped your cheeks. The cool air made your breaths visible as they collided, “I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time,” He whispered before his lips could reach yours you placed your hands gently on his shoulders.

“Somewhere a little more private, please?” You asked sweetly.

Next Chapter

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hystericalcherries · 5 years

Text

aeon (4/6)

Pairing: Keith/Lance Words: 12k Rating: M Warnings: mild violence Tags: Post-Season/Series 07, quantum abyss, Flashbacks, Flashforwards, Prophetic Visions, Visions in dreams, Mind Control, Dimension Travel, Boys Being Boys, Falling In Love, Mutual Pining, Gay Keith (Voltron), Bisexual Lance (Voltron) when the going gets tough... the tough write fix-it fics, Allura (Voltron) Lives, because fuck you jds and lm

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Summary:

Keith does not leave the quantum abyss untouched.

“Home can be anything, you know,” Lance says in lieu of a conversation starter.

Slivers of moonlight filter through the blinds above their heads, casting lines of truth across the sheets. Lance tilts his head forward and a band slides over his eyes, catching the ocean in them and drawing Keith into their rolling tides. And as distracted as he is, he doesn't put up a fight when a hand clasps his own, reeling them heartward.

“Home is just something you can come back to.” His knuckles brush against the soft fabric of a nightshirt, the v-neckline falling loose to reveal a sharp collarbone, and Keith feels his breath hitching. “Something that keeps you grounded.”

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The astral plane is a cosmic burn against his skin. Fragile and composed, it breathes a cloud of thought and intent, shining from point to celestial point. Pulsating like something living, it beckons.

In time with the universe, he wakes. A breath, stolen from his concaved chest, shudders at the thrill of slipping past a cage of muscle and bone. Stagnant freedom, watched from eyes already opened and barely aware. A trickle of feeling, counting down the notches of his spine with aching precision until he remembers that the body is his to control.

Then, without prompting, he moves. His hand rises, pressing flat to the mirror of his own existence, trying to find himself. Time cracks and splits and he sees beyond what is linear. Cause and effect, a wave upon space itself, asking who are you? Years regress and years progress, eternal, and he, only a footnote in this bigger story, is unsure of which direction to go. For there are a million paths and a million more endings, a finite choice within infinite possibilities.

At the end of the universe, he stands, wondering. Wondering of what he left behind and if maybe — just maybe, he could go back.

But something stops him from turning. A force, omniscient, slipping past his guard and suspending him upon a cross weaved from thorns. It pushes and a third eye opens, tattooed with the glowing marks of a dead culture, waiting to claim what doesn’t belong. Powerless to the touch that drags over him, he cries out; from navel to heart, it cuts, tearing him wide open and letting the fears crawl out. From his body, a chasm forms, and it slithers in, sinking claws into his consciousness with a raspy croon.

Submit, it demands. Submit to me.

A silent cry strikes the barrier of thought as the force presses upon him, a shattering presence. Broken glass punctures, sinking into his flesh; it liquifies and percolates, filling his veins until they burst. All his scars bleed golden, oozing in kindle for the fire that consumes him, burning until he tastes his own ashes. Lightning travels up his legs, straightening his spine with pure electricity that revives the burnt crisp of flesh and mind he has become. His head snaps back, eyes wide and sightless in the feeling, and he lets loose a noise somewhere between a whine and a yell.

He is fire and magma splattered across a dark canvas, specks of gold and white flaring like a string of city lights around his neck. A firestorm, wild and explosive. Embers pop and sizzle, arching high in the swing of a blade, landing with the intent to consume. Distorted and warped, the Red Lion stares from underneath his skin, hot thunder for blood and suns for pupils.

Anger, once dormant in his chest, wakes.

His reality cracks like radio static, getting louder and louder until it consumes. A canon, booming, sounds off at the end of a funeral march, leaving only the sizzling ruins of self, corrupted by dark magic and an unforgivable science. He is less than what he was, hollow and despondent and mindless, following the strings that bind him. Transparent and tight, the strings go taut. He flexes.

A sword held in his grasp sings, deadly and craving action.

Something cold touches him and he hisses in surprise. Forced to pull back or suffer frostbite, he stares down the silhouette that shines bright in his split vision, outlined hand still hovering between them. The sight has the strings pulling tighter.

Kill, the voice inside his head says and he feels the desire burn in his chest. Feels it stain his hands a bloody red with intent, wrapped around the throat of mercy and squeezing until it is no more. The violent thought drives away his sense, making him something wild; a wolf, foaming at the mouth, with slits for eyes and fangs bared. A monster, through and through.

The silhouette stumbles away, dodging the swing of his sword with a cry of distress.

But he doesn’t stop— can’t stop, prowling forward and leaving scorched earth in his wake. Another swing, arc wider and accompanied by his own yell, barely missing its mark when his opponent ducks to the left. Step, swipe and stab. It is the mantra of his existence, the only thing worth knowing, fury condensed along the edge of his sword and the blood rushing through his veins. Carnage in the making.

Schwing.

—the blade in his hand is parried.

A sword, accented red, glinting in the cosmic light. It is a threat previously unseen, held in the grip of someone who knows how to use it. Longer than his own blade, its tip skims the ground as its wielder straightens into a fighting stance. A challenge.

Sparks erupt when they clash, metallic tongues hissing, only to quiet again when they separate; choreographed by the notes of war, they dance to its solemn tune. Every step is calculated, careful and precise. One wrong move and the curtain will fall, hefty in the sound of thunderous applause, draped ostentatiously over shut coffins. Falling into each other and in range, they pivot and deflect, graceful only as dancers are, light-footed and sure.

Their swords bisect, sliding until cross-guards meet.

This close he can see his own reflection in the other’s eyes— dark hair curling around a snarling face, a shadow of self shrinking within in a dilating pupil. The sight strums at the strings that guide him, letting out a confusing twang, reminiscent of a time before. It’s not a good feeling, churning uncomfortably at the bottom of his stomach; he wants it gone.

A twist of his wrist and it has the other’s sword flying.

He kicks out, watching as his opponent’s body falls and rolls across the ground with the force of it. And that should be the last of it, submission given to the victor, but it’s not. For armored arms go to lift themselves up, head rising so clear eyes can look up at him through sweaty bangs, jaw clenched with a stubbornness that has the fire inside him flaring up.

Angry, he stalks forward and stabs the point of his sword into the jut between breastplate and shoulder pad. It draws out a scream of pain, gutted and raw, and he pushes it deeper. Deeper until blood trickles over shining armor and onto the ground, causing red to ripple across its once pristine surface. Deeper still when those eyes look to his, clouded with pain, unbudging as he looms and goes for a chokehold.

Fingers scramble for purchase, weakening as the moments drag on and he exerts more pressure, twitching in time to the wheeze of air stolen from lungs.

A leg wraps around him and they roll over, a tangle of limbs. The ground is hard against their backs as they fight for the upper hand, his sword and helmet discarded somewhere along the way, leaving him with nothing but the dirt underneath his nails and the taste of rust in his mouth. They are evenly matched like this, stripped of their names and drenched in their own desperation. It’s a struggle that’s been a long time coming, though he does not know how he knows that, but it sits heavy at the base of his chest.

Clear gems dislodged from the ground follow them in their struggle, cutting into skin left unprotected. One must get underneath them and dig into the other’s wounded shoulder because he shudders violently, losing his grip and surrendering the leverage he held. Victory taken and victory given.

Kill, the voice in his head repeats when he’s got the other pinned down, breathing hard and once again looking at his own image splattered across the canvas of a pupil. His blade is back in his hand, poised at the ready. Kill him.

His world flickers as gloved fingers brush against his ear, making him recoil instinctively, thinking it another attack. Still, it persists, moving until it curls at the back of his neck. Gentler than any of its predecessors, it vibrates with the heavy pound of his heartbeat, taming the monster into a lull of compliance. Small pricks of pressure guide his head down, down, down, until foreheads meet. Then, softly, words he cannot hear are whispered into the sliver of space between them just as a muzzle of a gun is pressed into his stomach.

Seams splitting, he falls apart, the world folding in on itself. It pulls, bends—

To the end of the universe and back.

—and breaks.

Transparent daggers rake against the sheet of ultramarine that makes up this plane, ripping claws of red across a celestial sky. It coerces the fear in his chest to slip out, dripping toxic black through the gap of his ribs. Feeling returns in the form of bruises spanning the entirety of his body and more than one gash peeking out from behind cut cloth and discarded armor. Blood, which had been rushing through his veins with the kick of adrenaline only moments ago, is weeping from wounds sustained, sluggish and steady.

Underneath him, a body shivers, going limp with exhaustion.

It comes to him then, what he’s done— what he nearly did— and a different kind of pain develops. The shock has him dropping his bayard, watching the heat of his fingerprints fade from the hilt as it clatters to the ground, soundless. Something loosens inside him and, suddenly, everything is too much. The air is too thick, time too slow, his suit too tight and the universe too vast; he is a speck, insignificant and powerless, and it is just too much.

He flings himself back, away from the corpse that almost was and the murderer he almost became, and starts shaking his head. It doesn’t help and he is left there, fists clenched and mind battered, suffocating in silence. For there is something stuck in his chest, a tumbleweed whose thorns pierce and shred and destroy. Like the brittle wood of a dead tree, he snaps and breaks under the pressure, knees failing and leaving him a heap of kindle on the floor. He takes a labored breath and it attempts to spark a dead fire.

“Keith.”

But there is nothing left to burn. Only smoke and ash.

“Keith, look at me.” A touch to the back of his hand and he flinches. “Keith, please.”

A shudder and charred woods crumbles. He follows the line of ash as it scatters in the wind, dark gaze meeting that of blue.

Lance is nearly transparent, a mirror of water that glistens. Shooting stars fly through his veins, pulsing with every heartbeat; they die just as quickly as they are born, dreaming of adventure even as they fall. A look down and he can see beads of constellations knit around his ankles, twinkling like chimes.

A smile, honest and hesitant. “Hey, buddy.”

He makes to move away.

“Wait, no. Don’t do— come back.” Weak willed and feeling numb, Keith lets himself be pulled in. His body falls into the curve of the other boy’s arms; he doesn’t phase through like he imagines he would, but stays firm, properly cradled. His temple is pressed against the cool material of a breastplate and his hand trails down to fall, limp, in his lap. “You’re okay. It’s over now and you’re okay.”

Listeless, he speaks, “I… I almost…”

“Hey, no, no, no. That’s not— you stopped, okay?” Lance shifts awkwardly, shoulder slumped at an odd angle, and then there’s an arm wrapped around him and a hand taking his, soothing the burning touch of corruption. Planet rings circle thin wrists like bangles, matter vibrating when they divided and merged back into one another lazily. “I’m fine, see? Fine and still breathing, all because of you.”

“I didn’t mean to…”

Their faces are close enough that Keith can see the exact moment Lance cracks; the slight tremble of a lower lip, translating in the wobble of his next words. “I know you didn’t. I know you would never— not now, not after everything. We’re a team, remember? And I’m still here— always gonna be here.”

The words are from a long, lost dream and Keith jolts at the memory of them. It causes him to lift his head and stare up at the boy who holds him, to take in everything all at once: the gash that cuts through his left eyebrow, the pinpricks of tears at the corner of his eyes, the way his lips part when he breathes. It is a mural of a future passing him by, honest like the flashes promised.

“Oh,” he breathes out in understanding. Relief rushes through him, almost immediately followed by frustration. “Allura was right. I should’ve just let them come.”

The abrupt change in mood startles Lance, tears chased away before they can properly settle. “What?”

“Nothing. I…” To think, that he would have foreseen all this if he had just taken the time to properly dissect his flashes rather than throw them aside out of misguided cynicism. So focused on the future he didn’t believe he deserved, he had forgotten about the present that might become it. “I’m just so dumb. Dumb to think I could…” He sits up and runs a hand through his hair, putting it into disarray. “God, it’s all a mess and I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“Not everyone has the answers.”

“Well, I’m—”

“Yeah, you’re not everyone. I know. I’m sure everyone and their mom knows who you are. Keith Kogane. Flying protégée, golden boy of the Garrison and pilot of the Black Lion.” Words go unspoken, an echo of a past they share; two boys, one with a head in the clouds and another with his heart on his sleeve. They lie dormant between the lines, waiting to be heard. “But just because you’ve got all that under your belt doesn’t mean you’re immune to life, and sometimes life is confusing. Sometimes you don’t know what to do or where you fit. It happens, okay? All this just makes you…” Lance pauses. “Makes you human.”

Something new and unfamiliar coils in his chest.

“And that’s fine. You’re allowed to not know,” Lance continues, taking a deep breath. His eyes are clear now, staring intently at Keith. “It sucks— trust me, I know, but life’s like that sometimes. We just gotta push through and hope we find what we’re looking for.”

Keith blinks. “That was— wow, um, pretty wise.”

Lance looks away and down, readjusting the bend of his knees. “Yeah, well, I had a lot of time to think about this. Life’s kinda slow when you’re stuck in space.”

“Well, thanks… It’s nice to hear, that I’m not alone in all this.”

“No problem, man.”

He frowns at the response. It’s hard to place, but the words, though casual in delivery, seem almost dismissive in nature. As if what Keith said is merely obligation and not fact. “Seriously,” he says, willing him to understand. “I wouldn’t know what I’d do without you. I’d probably be rotting in some alien jail cell halfway across the galaxy if it wasn’t for you.” “I’m sure you would’ve gotten yourself out eventually.”

“Maybe, but I wouldn’t need to with you there. I wouldn’t even be in that situation in the first place. You keep me in check when I get out of hand. I have never been… the most logical of people, especially when I get stuck in my head, but you always bring me back to what’s important. So, thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me for that. That’s just what friends do.” Lance smiles. “And we’re friends.”

Keith smiles back. “Yeah, we are.”

Their surroundings have finally settled into something more tranquil, receding from the violent reds and disturbed yellows into a more manageable spectrum. It soothes the nerves that had been previously fried, realigning synapses and extending sheaths, making every sensation new and goosebump inducing. He tilts his head back, watching the distant skyline sink under the surface of this plane. Up above, two adjacent stars stare back.

His hands fall to his sides and curl into the seam of his undersuit, feeling the patterns of the stockinette. Slowly, he breathes out.

Next to him, Lance does the same and says, “This place is crazy, right?”

Keith turns just in time to see his fellow paladin wiggle his fingers in front of his face, eternally fascinated at the way the gesture slows down and leaves a stop-motion shadow trailing after it. Further intrigued, he reaches out to touch Keith; the boy holds himself stone still, lips parting in a sun flare of surprise. Sparks erupt from the place where the pads of his fingers brushed along the crest of a cheek, a blotch of violet.

“Yeah, it’s… it’s something else. Different than when we project from the lions.” Keith inhales sharply. “I wonder what brought us here.”

“Well, if I had to guess, I’d guess that.”

Keith angles himself to where he points, jerking in surprising when he spots a ball of… something floating in the air a few feet away from them. It’s pitch black, fuzzy at the edges, with tendrils of violet lightning striking the air around it every few seconds. It makes no noise, silent as it bobs between this universe and the next in everlasting limbo, but the way it quivers makes Keith think it’s holding in a scream.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know.” Lance shifts close enough that their shoulders brush when he shrugs. “It just— came out of you. One minute you were all crazy and attacking me, and the next, this thing popped right out of your chest and you were fine. I’m kinda afraid to touch it. Like, what if it infects me or whatever? I’d rather not fight you again. That was a bit too intense for my tastes.”

Only remembering certain snippets of feelings, albeit in gruesome detail, Keith nods.

Lance continues, talking through his thoughts. “Maybe this has something to do with the colony and why they’re apples and bananas for Honerva. It could be that they’re brainwashed, like you were. Though if that’s the case, then we should bring it back to the Atlas as a sample. Allura would want to analyze it, to see if it could be reversed.” The boy hums, looking behind and at the great expanse of nothing around them, tapping his fingers against his knee. “We’d have to get out of this place first. Usually, the lions would just bring us back, but I don’t think this place is where we usually go when we connect in Voltron. Maybe it’s a copy that Haggar made.”

“Maybe,” Keith agrees, unconsciously picking at his lip as he thinks it over. “But it won’t be safe on the Atlas, not with it traveling across the universe. Earth won’t be good either, not after the war. Kolivan might have a place for it— an old base possibly, or even one of Lotor’s abandoned labs. I can take it with me when I go.”

A pause, long and stagnant. Then—

“What.” Lance’s voice is flat.

Keith looks up, confused. “What?”

“You’re… leaving?”

“I mean, yeah. Not now, but someday. Soon, maybe— I don’t know.” It’s been the topic of a few late night talks with his mother, vague as most things dealing with the future are, gaining shape as more time passes. Faster even, when the flashes had intensified and he hadn’t wanted to be taunted by them any longer. “When this war is finally over, someone is going to have to help put the universe back together. And with no leader, the galra are going to need someone to take charge and get them on the right track. A new planet and a new ruling system.”

“And what? That’s gonna be you?”

“No, of course not. I’m just gonna help them get back on their feet. They have to change if they want to be part of Coalition and, well, I was talking with Acxa and—”

“Acxa? You’re gonna run off with Acxa? The girl who tried to kill you— all of us, on more than one occasion? A girl you and Hunk found in some space worm’s stomach? Your ditching us for her? You don’t even know her!”

“I know her enough,” he bites back. “And she’s helped me— us, out. She’s changed. And I’m not ditching you guys for her, okay? I just think that I’ll be more useful out there. It’s not like you guys are gonna need me on Earth once everything is finished. There’s nothing left for me there.”

“Useful? Nothing left? What are you even talking about?”

Not wanting to continue the conversation, Keith makes to get up and stalk away, hissing quietly when his injuries cry out. Lance ignores the implications of the action and follows after him.

“You’re just gonna leave it. Just like that? But Earth… it’s our home— your home.”

He scoffs. “Earth has never been my home. Not like it is to you.”

“So… so you’re running away?”

That has him turning back. “I— that’s not— I’m not running away.”

“Yes, you are. You’re running. Just like you always do. Were you even gonna say goodbye when you left? Or were you just going to leave and maybe see us in a few years?” Keith opens his mouth in rebuttal, but Lance doesn’t let him. The words come pouring out of his mouth, saturating the air between them with wild honesty. “You’re always pulling away, like you’re afraid— and don’t say you aren’t, because you are! And that’s fine, you know? Cause everyone gets scared. But, man, you’ve got to stop letting it decide everything for you.”

A bitter taste enters his mouth, thick enough to lodge his throat when he swallows. Bitter because Keith has never been one to allow fear to rule him. Even from a young age he had learned that the world doesn’t care about boys who are afraid of the dark, for night still falls regardless on whether he wants it to or not, and that if he wanted to get anywhere in life then was going to have to learn to sleep with one eye open.

Lance plants an uninjured hand on his shoulder, trailing high to palm the slope of his neck, and it’s a contradicting action; his fingers are transparent, made up of the stars that surround them, but they feel solid and real, staining his existence a deep purple when he moves the other to hover hesitantly under a padded elbow. “You can try all you want, okay? Put an ocean between us— an universe even— but it won’t work. Won’t work because no matter what you do or think, we’ll be here. Earth… it doesn’t have to mean anything to you, but we— me and the team, we should. Home is what you make it.” Thin brows furrow as blue eyes flicker away, hesitation clear in the way his lower lip is sucked under his front teeth. “You can have your place with us, but I can’t make you want it.”

You can’t give up on yourself, whispers a memory, bruised but hopeful.

“A—And I can’t force you to stay, but I can say that I’d be sad if you don’t. I would miss you.” The fingers at his throat twitch. “We all would.”

Something gets stuck in his throat. “I would miss you too.”

“Then don’t go. Stay, please. Promise you’ll come back home.”

He’s run all his life. It started when he stepped away from the graveyard where his father lies six feet under and he had never stopped. For he makes loneliness into something that can be achieved rather than forced. A self-inflicted exile.

But lions are meant to be in prides.

The thought has tears springing to his eyes. Unheralded, they come, slipping past the slope of his cheek until they bead together at the point of his chin, dripping when his emotions become too heavy. He sniffles and the sudden sound has Lance’s gaze snapping back to his face, eyes going wide with surprise as he takes in Keith’s blotchy skin and scrunched up nose.

It’s been years since the last time he had let himself cry. Not even when Shiro had first gone missing had Keith wept, merely going hollow when Adam had been presented with the notice by an impartial field officer, crumbling the envelope in misguided anger when he had read the words assumed dead and sorry for your loss. Stone-like, he had become, chipped where the Garrison had stabbed a knife into his back. For there was no kindness spared for little boys who cried or the men they grew up to be.

Lance’s own chin wobbles. “Keith, no, don’t… don’t cry. You never cry… and, and if you cry then I’m gonna cry. I didn’t mean to make you— and oh god, there I go.” He blinks rapidly and takes some deep, erratic breaths. “It’s okay. We’re good. We’re fine. Just— just let it out.”

So Keith does. He cries for his father, his mother, his brother, and his friends. Cries for himself— both the nine-year old sitting outside of child services as his first foster parents rage about broken windows and the sixteen-year old stumbling through a desert after being kicked out the one place he thought he belonged— for what was and what could have been. Cries for today and the tomorrow he wants after.

The feeling bursts from his chest like a monsoon in a jar, glass cracked and glass shattered. He stands in the middle of it, letting the high winds take him to the distant cliffside with its crumbling rock and rogue waves, looking to the lighthouse that sits atop its crest. A shining beacon, guiding just as a hand curls around his own, tugging to a place just beyond due north.

Eventually, his tears slow down and he shifts out of his bowed posture, blinking away the salt and noticing that his nose is pressed against the sharp turn of a jaw. Brown hair tickles the bridge of his nose, moving away when Lance does, and suddenly he’s looking straight into red-rimmed eyes. A thought, fleeting and inexplicable, crosses his mind, profound in how such a soft oh can have his heart missing a beat. It’s weird and Keith clears his throat awkwardly, knowing that the moment has branded him— them, different than what they were.

Lance blows a raspberry. “Wow, that was intense.”

Keith wipes the fresh tears from his eyes, chuckling weakly. “Yeah… It kinda was.”

“It fine, right? We just had a lot of feelings to let out. Nothing wrong with two dudes crying over some feelings. Totally natural.”

“It’s— yeah, we’re fine. Better than fine, thanks to you.”

This time Lance doesn’t shrug off the praise. Merely nods and watches as Keith attempts to compose himself, shameless of the tear stains that track his own face. It’s an open expression, devoid of the boy’s usual carefully sculpted mask of confidence and revealing the things that lie underneath— a quiet conviction and compassion that melts even the coldest of hearts, alluring in the light of sincerity. Even now as he purses his lips, looking for all he is someone trying to decode a puzzle, face just shy of impassive even as blood drips sluggishly from the cut above his eye.

“You’re hurt,” Keith says stupidly, watching the blood smear when his companion absently goes to wipe it away and blinks in surprise when it comes back stained red. It’s nothing compared to the mess that his shoulder has become, hunched over itself and twitching with every muscle spasm. “You must’ve gotten that when we were…”

“One of the rocks must have nicked it,” Lance finishes, studiously ignoring how that was most definitely not what Keith was going to say. “It’s fine, though. Doesn’t even hurt.”

He bites his lip. “Looks like it’ll scar.”

Lance gives a small shrug with his uninjured shoulder, as if he doesn’t go to great lengths to keep his skin absolutely flawless with his many moisturizers and exfoliators. As if the new scar and how he got it is inconsequential. As if him and the team don’t notice the way he tenses whenever the gaze of someone snags too long onto the discolored skin of his back. As if it is really all fine, cast aside with a lopsided smile and the words, “I don’t mind. Plus, now we match.”

Keith starts and then settles. He side eyes the other boy, hand automatically coming up to brush against the puckered skin that cuts across his right cheek. “Yeah, I guess we do.”

And then the blue paladin is moving on, doing what he does best— talk. “But you know Hunk is gonna have a field day over this. Encountering a druid and getting trapped in some knock-off astral plane was so not part of the plan— he’s gonna take one look at us and then the next thing you know, we’ll be drowning in I told you so’s. Gosh, it almost makes me not wanna go back."

“I’m not even sure we can go back,” he murmurs truthfully.

“Yeah, if our usual mumbo jumbo with the lions was gonna work, we’d be out of here already.” He combs through the hair at the back of his head. “We might have to wait for the rest of the team. I hope they’re alright. Who know what they’re going through right now, who they’re up against. At least Hunk and Pidge have each other, but Allura went off by herself.”

Just as the words leave his mouth, there’s a mighty tremble that goes through the ground beneath them. It shakes Keith to his core, separating soul from body for a frightening second, and it’s only because the two are already holding each other that they don’t fall over. He looks up, trying to pinpoint the danger, and feels the breath leave his lungs.

Above them are celestial hands, reaching out.

They part the clouds like some second coming, ripping the heavens apart with divine rule and showering judgement upon that which lies in the face of its power. It is a saving grace, worshipped just as is feared, and Keith likens the image to those seen in stained glass and carved marble, untouchable in every sense.

“Allura,” Lance whispers and there is a reverence in the name.

But the hands stop just shy of them, hanging as if they’ve reached the end of their string and can go no further. A bridge of space lies between them and salvation, ominous in how it grows dark and empty, stark against the bright sheen of altean magic. A pulse ripples across cosmic skin and then fingers are curling, pushing against the force that keeps them at bay. But there should be nothing capable of such a feat, the plane empty save for the two paladins and—

“The orb,” Keith declares once it connects, already halfway to turning around and forcing Lance to do the same. “It’s stopping her. We’ve gotta get rid of it.”

True to his suspicions, the dark orb has gotten closer during their time of inattentiveness. Shaking like a diseased animal, it floats mere feet away from them, hiding in a nest of dark matter. Desperate, it swallows itself whole, birthing anew from the remains only to fall prey to its own hunger again in an endless cycle of greed.

Almost immediately, he draws his bayard.

“Wait,” Lance says before he can even begin to think about starting an assault, the pressure at his elbow keeping him in place long enough to catch the look in the boy’s eye. Clear and determined. “Together.”

Another stolen heart beat and Keith is nodding.

Lance moves in closer until their breast plates scrape against one another, sliding his hand over Keith’s on the grip of the weapon. Almost immediately, it glows. Glows as its shape changes, molding around their intertwined hands and shifting into something that makes them both draw in a deep breath. A gun, accented black and larger than anything Keith has ever wielded before, activated with a simple touch. Lance’s touch.

It means something, he knows it does.

“Ready?” Lance asks.

“Ready,” Keith answers.

Together they lift the weapon, aiming its wide barrel at the ball of energy. As if sensing their intent and it’s impending doom, the thing starts pulsating. Crackles of black lightning claw at the air, growing berserk even as plasma builds up and light begins to illuminating their profiles. Keith almost shuts his eyes when their fingers squeeze over the trigger and the shot is made, powerful enough that it has their bones vibrating.

But they stand their ground as the shot makes it mark. Dark matter screams as its engulfed, ripped apart piece by piece, until it is no more.

Then Keith knows no more.

Ready?

Eyes meeting across a room, catching, tugging until there is no space between them. Golden lanterns burn, casting a spell that turns porcelain into shining bronze. It embellishes just as it emboldens, issuing a challenge that new hearts seldom refuse; nerves spark when his hand braces at the dip of a spine, giving it weight with a languid roll. A siren’s song, quiet and alluring, grazes the shell of his ear.

Ready.

When consciousness returns to him, it is a fleeting affliction.

Cold air pricks his skin; dry, crisp, and filtered enough that it leaves his sinuses stinging. For a wild moment he thinks he’s back on the castleship, with its high ceilings and sloping archways, swathed in brocades and regal paintings, but stumbles back into reality when a delicate hand pushes his hair back and away from his face. He blinks rapidly, mind foggy and lagging, unable to determine his exact whereabouts; his body rebels, heart rate skyrocketing and muscles seizing in a panic just as blind as his eyes. There’s a quiet murmur from somewhere to his right and then the lights piercing his retinas dim, allowing room for his senses to readjust and notice the touch of strong hands to his biceps. The buzz in his head clears incrementally and he blinks Shiro into sight.

Relief settles in the curl of his smile when he sees Keith is awake. “Hey there, bud. You feeling okay?”

“Head hurts,” he answers automatically, mouth numb and slurring the words.

“Yeah, getting mind controlled by a space witch will do that to you.”

For a moment, Keith doesn’t understand; blissfully ignorant, he squints at his friend, until, finally, it comes to him. Time catches up and fills in the space left empty from exhaustion and morphine, dragging him into the present by the chains of the past. The feel of falling, glowing eyes set in a shadowed face, blood dripping down steel and, finally, a mouth forming his own name.

Alarmed, he sits up straight. “Lance. Where is he?” he demands, voice rising enough to have a nurse pop her head in the doorway. But he refuses to acknowledge the stranger, mind focusing on one fact and one fact only. “We were stuck in the astral plane together, and— we have to go back for him. He’s hurt— I hurt him and… and I need to know that— he, he is… Where is he?”

“Relax,” Shiro soothes, shooing away the nurse with a wave of his robotic arm. “He’s safe— you both are. See for yourself.”

Keith follows the direction of the finger pointing toward his right and feels his body exhale in relief. There, slumped in the seat closest to his bedside, is Lance. Dressed in a standard hospital robe and looking a little worse for wear, the boy is sound asleep, head settled in the crook of one elbow and just barely grazing the edge of Keith’s pillow. Bandages peek out from the collar of his rumpled shirt, disappearing over one shoulder and spotted a faint pink. Three stitches break the streak of his left eyebrow, a permanent reminder.

Movement by his legs catch his attention and Keith looks down only to see Pidge curling tighter against his hip atop of the blankets. Her glasses are skewed and there’s drool clinging to the corner of her mouth, giving her kittenish snores a nasal quality. One of her legs hangs off the edge of the bed where he can just see the back of Hunk’s head, lolled and dead to the world.

Shiro follows his line of sight, sighing out in exasperation and fondness. “Those two been here since you were allowed visitors five days ago. Lance has been off bed rest since yesterday, but he joined the camp out almost immediately. They’ve been driving the staff nuts— Allura too.” He nods to the chairs lining the wall where Allura and Romelle lean against each other, sharing a thin blanket as they sleep. “Still, no one’s willing to say no to the defenders of the universe. Not after they saved all of existence.”

His gaze snaps back to his mentor. Breathless, he asks, “We did it?”

Shiro smiles and it’s like the olden days, carefree and hopeful. “Yeah, we did.”

An exhilarated laugh leaves his lips and he flops back down, careful not to disrupt Pidge as he sinks into the cool comfort of the pillow. He looks at the unassuming ceiling, gray and tiled, and lets himself feel. Feel the relief and the fortune and the euphoria, because, wow, they did it. They really did it. It’s all over, the war is won and they’re still here, alive and together.

The sun sets today, only to rise again tomorrow.

“Get some rest,” Shiro orders in that brotherly tone of his, chuckling when Romelle lets out a loud snore and Hunk grumbles something incoherent when Pidge accidentally kicks him in her sleep. He pulls the blanket higher over his chest, tucking him in just like his dad used to do. “We’ll all be here when you wake up. I promise.”

Keith believes him. Trusts him so fully that he lets his head tilt to the side and his eyelids slip shut without hesitation. Trusts in the thought of after so much that he lets his fingers uncurl and smooth over the sheets, finding a home under Lance’s slack hand.

He dips back to sleep to the sound of Shiro’s thoughtful hum and the deep breathing of his teammates.

It takes the IGF-Atlas two months to make it back to Earth and Keith spends a majority of the time bedridden. He’s prodded and poked by the medical staff, psychoanalyzed by more than one on-call therapist until any remnant of Honerva’s dark touch is brought to light. It’s a necessity that Keith wholly supports, not wanting to lose the control he had fought so hard to reclaim, but as the days turn into weeks and Keith, now coherent and able to stand on his own without getting dizzy, is still prohibited to leave his room in the hospital ward despite no lingering effects being found, it becomes considerably less tolerable.

Left to only his thoughts and the obscure flashes that come and go when they please, things come to a head when Keith decides he can’t take it anymore and just rips out the IVs connecting him to the machines around him. More than one alarm goes off as he stumbles into some scrubs, getting only as far as the hallway before nurses and doctors alike rush him, fussing over his person like he is something fragile and on the verge of collapse. It only serves to frustrate him more. Overly helpful hands try to steer him back to the bed-turned-prison and he fights them the whole way, causing such a scene that it summons Lance from his own room. The boy huffs like a mother hen and Keith huffs right back, their bickering only ending when his legs suddenly give out and he has to be carried back to bed.

His saving grace is his team, who take it upon themselves to ensure that Keith is almost never left alone. Pidge lugs her laptop over and they laugh over the dumb Voltron show, arguing loudly over whose character is more inaccurate. Hunk sneaks in home-cooked food whenever he visits, looking overly suspicious when he dramatically checks the room for bugs before unearthing the tubberware from underneath his shirt. Lance brings sketchbooks and colored pencils, shoving Keith playfully as they play tic-tac-toe and compete in who can draw the other the ugliest. Allura comes bearing news of the ship’s going-ons, braiding his hair in styles he’s assured are peak altean fashion but mostly just look like something a third-graded might do. Shiro comes around with a book or two, teasing him about how easily he melts over the romance subplots. And someone must comm his mother because a few days after he wakes, she’s also there, arms wrapping protectively around him as Kosmo knocks things over in his eagerness to get up on the bed.

It’s then that Keith hears secondhand what happened while he and Lance were trapped in the astral plane.

Pidge and Hunk tell the story, complete with exaggerated gestures and loud gun noises, of how Team Punk shut down all of Oriande; how the two had found themselves on the temple-ship’s lower deck with a battalion of altean soldiers guarding a crystal-based powerhouse, Hunk keeping them at bay while Pidge snuck by and hacked into the tempe-ship’s mainframe. There’s more to what they tell him, but it includes technological jargon that would only have Keith’s brain splitting open, so he’s happy enough to let them playfully argue over things like, “neuro-headsets” and “Lorenz attractor.”

Then comes Allura’s part.

Legs crossed and hands clasped in her lap, the princess speaks of encountering Honerva at the ship’s nav deck. Her words are tentative when recounting the scene she had stumbled upon: the bodies of misguided alteans sprawled across the floor, drained of life at the expense of the witch’s endeavours, and Honerva herself, crazed and weakened from mind-controlling Keith, standing at the helm as if the dead were wilting flowers in a garden. She tries her best to describe the moment the older altean had split open the world and transported them to the point of existence, struggling to find words when talking about how Honerva had carelessly destroyed universe after universe.

“It was awful,” she tells him. “I could feel them all— so many lives, lost.”

“What happened then?” he asks. “Did you…?”

“No.” She looks off to the side. “She did not die from my hand.”

“Then, how?”

Finally, a smile. “I had help. My father and the paladins of old, trapped within Honerva’s mind but freed once we were beyond the limits of our universe. We attempted to reason with her and we nearly succeeded, but she was so overcome with grief that she would not listen. Not until…” She swallows and the smile is more brittle, but still very much real. “It wasn’t until Lotor, called from Oriande’s core, showed up that she stopped. He convinced her destroying all of existence wouldn’t take away the pain— and that they had not lost each other, not entirely, and could start again.”

Allura absently brushes her lips and Keith can only wonder on what else Lotor had said.

She shakes herself from whatever memory had brought on the wistful moment, reaching out to adjust Lance’s homemade Get Well card and the vase of flowers sitting on his bedside table. A present from Coleen Holt, they look to be a cross between sunflowers and tulips, glittering a fiery orange when the light hits them just so. “None of them could return with me to this universe and I could not ascend with them in good faith, not when I have so much to do here. I had promised to bring peace to this universe and I intend to see it through. My father understood, so we restored what we could and said our goodbyes.”

Sensing there was more left unsaid, Keith sets his hand atop hers. “You’ll see them again.”

Her eyes water a bit as she takes a deep breath and gives him a thankful smile, exhaling a soft, “I will, and I’ll have so much to tell them when I do.”

In the days following Allura makes good on her promise. For as soon as she is able, she takes the restoration effort into her capable hands, spearheading the movement with steely-eyed determination and the hulking figure of Voltron at her back; it is slow progress, carried on the backs of the survivors, but eventually the Coalition expands into a living, breathing network of change. Dignitaries come together, treaties are signed and planets restored. By the time Keith is finally discharged from the hospital ward the gears are already set in motion and he’s left to bask in awe of what she’s done.

But the biggest shock hadn’t come until he turned down one of the ship’s many hallways and had run straight into the princess’s new entourage.

Allura had talked of the colony quite extensively, disclosing her relief when the survivors had stumbled out of Oriande following the fight, shaken from their Honerva-induced haze, and had come to her seeking answers. Answers that led them to follow her aboard the IGF-Atlas, meek-like as they circulate around the very people they had once tried to destroy. course set to the newly reborn planet of Altea, of which was waiting for its lost children and princess to return. A dead civilization, resurrected by magic and shaped by the memories of those who once knew it.

It is for that fact that Coran becomes so important in the time after the fight. He is the last of his kind, a remnant of an old age, and those from the colony hang him among the stars because of it. A treasure cove of knowledge, they flock to him, eager to hear every word, song and anecdote— immortalized with each captivated listener. Never before had Keith seen the older altean so happy, so hopeful.

Even Romelle, once ostracized, becomes an integral part of the species’ rehabilitation. The universe is different than what it was when the colony first went into hiding hundreds of years ago and she makes it her mission to better accumulate the colony to the changes. She gives them a tour of the ship, starting with a stop at the catrine to try one of Hunk’s many culinary delights; introduces them to the crew, to Acxa and the MFE pilots; sits them down and discloses the fate of planet Olkarion; talks of her adventures with team Voltron and nearly being crushed by a rampaging yalmor; laments about her lost family and gushes about what’s planned for New Altea. Slowly but surely, they find their place.

The alteans recovery brings into glaring detail Keith’s own miscalculation. For in all the time spent thinking about after and how much he wants it, not once had he considered his actual part in it.

(Late at night he lays in bed, listening to the quiet hum of the ship and his own steady heartbeat, lost in half-formed thoughts of tomorrow. The clock reads late but his mind will not rest, unaccustomed to the stillness of peace and unsure what will become of things if it lasts.

“What do I do now?” he asks the world at large, expecting no answer but frustrated all the same when it doesn’t come.)

The next chapter of his life is coming and coming fast, and so far Keith is stuck looking at a blank page. It’s a problem that his friends don’t seem to have, falling into niches the world has made specifically for them. The alteans have a culture to revive and Shiro has an entire crew to lead, while Hunk, Pidge and Lance have families waiting for them. It makes Keith nervous watching them move on from Voltron so effortlessly, mostly because they had been brought together by a war and had forged something real in the wake of trauma shared, but now that that variable is taken away— what’s to keep them from drifting apart?

It’s that alarming thought that has him relishing the time spent aboard the Atlas those final weeks, knowing that their time together might come to a close soon and greedily taking all they can give in the time left. Days are spent glued to his friends’ sides, absorbing everything their company can offer, micro-expressions and quirks and all. He commits to memory Pidge’s high-pitched cackle and Hunk’s dubious side-eye, Allura’s luscious hair and Lance’s obnoxious smirk. His friends don’t seem to mind, more than happy to stick around when he asks; Lance in particular seems to enjoy the extended hang outs, smiling whenever he sees him and always with an idea of how to spend the day, like racing their lions to the nearest gas giant of whatever galaxy they reside in or setting up in one of the many observation decks to stargaze.

He must not be as subtle as he thinks he is because the day before they’re scheduled to reach Earth he returns to the compound he shares with his mother and Shiro, and finds them waiting for him.

“Keith,” Shiro greets and he knows that tone. It’s the we need to talk tone. “Come sit down with us.”

He sits and immediately his mother is leaning over and combing through his hair, clawed hands light in how they detangle and smooth over black strands, pushing it out of his face. It’s one of the few things concerning physical contact that Krolia indulges in, making up for all the years she lost, and Keith lets himself enjoy the gesture.

The two don’t say anything, waiting for Keith to start. He knows it’s pointless to try and deny anything, so he doesn’t. Just gets straight to and ventures a gruff, “You know I love you, right?”

The sentiment is easily returned, no hesitation in breathing love back into his cold body. Simple as shifting to press himself into the crook of his mother’s arm, a shape that is distinctively Keith in nature, and feeling Shiro’s calloused hand rubbing soothing circles over the hunch of his back. It’s a needed reminder of the fact that no matter where he goes, to the farthest corners of the universe and back a million times over, he will always have a place here, with them. Always.

It's this understanding that brings his thoughts back to the place he had just spent the last few hours trying to expel from his mind. It makes him frown into the folds of his mother's jacket. “I…” he starts, his voice a notch above a whisper, “don’t know what to do.”

They keep quiet, letting him piece together his thoughts, and for that, he’s grateful.

“I’ve never actually thought of what would happen after the war was over. Just kinda assumed that I would move on to the next fight— ‘cause it’s what I’m good at, you know? I mean, I’ve been trying to get as far away from here since I was a kid, looking for answers…” He bites his lip. “Never thought I’d want to stay.”

“Oh, Keith.” Krolia sighs and it doesn't erase the ache of his invisible scars, but it soothes their phantom touch into something more bearable. If there’s anyone who would understand, it was her. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to remain close to those you love. I would’ve given anything to stay with you and your father all those years ago.”

Shiro’s touches the back of his arm. “No one’s forcing you to leave either. And of course all of us want to remain as close as possible, and we will. We can travel halfway across the galaxy and still come back to each other.”

He inhales deeply, shoving his face further in his mother’s warm embrace. “Lance said something like that too.”

“Lance is a smart guy.”

“Yeah… he is.”

Something touches his ankle and he peers down to see Kosmo shuffling closer, back legs dragging on the ground as he pushes his snout under the buckle of his boots insistently; when the wolf sees Keith looking, he whines and wags his tail. The boy can’t help but smile at his furry friend. A quick pat and the animal is jumping into his lap, shoving his big head under Keith’s chin and forcing both Krolia and Shiro to lean away with a chuckle. And just like that, his stormy disposition is cleared and he’s left to enjoy the sunshine.

The cushions shift as Krolia asks, “What’s got you worrying over this? Did someone say something to you?”

Knowing how overprotective the two can be and to what lengths they would go to keep him happy, Keith hurries to clarify, “No one said anything. It’s me. I’m the one that’s being weird. Please don’t try and strong-arm some poor corporal.”

While Shiro opens his mouth to probably say how he would never do a thing like that, Krolia just shrugs and scratches Kosmo under his chin. The wolf enjoys the attention and closes his eyes in pleasure.

“I’m not sure what exactly happened, but it just hit me— everyone will be going their separate ways. Hunk’s been talking about opening an intergalactic culinary school alongside the coalition, and already has a line of people ready to sign up. The Holts are literally on their way in creating the next generation of defenders. And Lance, Lance could do anything he wanted— the alteans love him and want him as Earth’s ambassador, the Garrison’s practically begging him to teach the new batch of recruits, the Olkari offered him one of their ships to help search for a new planet— whatever he wants.” He takes a breath. “And I know I want to go with the Blades, to help fix what the empire broke. But now… it’s not the only thing I want.”

They lapse into silence again, processing what he said and what he’s left unsaid.

“I know what I want, but I don’t know… how do I get it?” His heart beats fast and if there was any confusion on what exactly they’re talking about before, it’s dispelled by what he says next, “And what if he doesn’t want it too?”

Neither of them seem surprised at his words regardless of the fact he’s never mentioned anything on the topic before. They take it in stride, blinking in unison as he sinks deeper into the couch and tries to hide his face in fluff of Kosmo’s mane.

Eventually, Shiro clears his throat. “Have you tried telling him what you want?”

“No,” he mumbles.

“Well, that might be the first step. You’ll never know if it’s… mutual, not if you don’t try.”

He sighs and clings to blue fur. “It might make things weird.”

“Maybe,” Shiro acquiesce. “Or maybe it’ll make it better.”

“Keith, if this is something you really want, then you should seek it out.” His mother’s gaze is unwavering, intense as it usually is concerning him. “You deserve love as much as anyone else and I know there is a limit to what I can provide for you, but this boy… he would be lucky to have someone as amazing as you as a partner.”

None of them have spoken his name and Keith’s not sure what that means, or if he’s ready to say it into existence yet. All he knows is that it’s real and his.

“There is nothing to fear in this,” Krolia continues to assure, Shiro nodding along, and there’s no reason not to believe them. Because he knows their history, has seen it— the throes of love, breathtaking and dangerous, whittling to a tragic end before it has even begun— how it took and took and took, and still they survived. “It is a new chapter. One that our time in the abyss foretold and that is something to be celebrated.”

He can see Shiro’s brows furrow in puzzlement and quickly stutters out a, “N-no, no, mom. I don’t think— don’t think that’s it.”

Thankfully, his mother decides not to elaborate and Keith is spared the act of having to explain anything more; he’s already contemplated the flashes and their connection to this new development on more than one occasion, and he’s not about to hash it out now with an audience. One heart-to-heart is enough and they don’t need a round two on this emotional rollercoaster.

“Thanks for listening though.” He snuggles closer to Kosmo, enduring the wet lick to his jaw. “I appreciate you— both of you.”

Shiro and Krolia smile. “We’ll always be here for you. Whenever you need, whatever you need.”

And Keith knows it’s true.

That night, while he sleeps, a flash hits him.

Bedded in an hourglass cradle, time sifts through his fingers and on the wind; it’s the veil of transparent impression following the fall of a blink, infinite as he lets the feeling of it overtake him. Deeper and deeper it takes him, sinking into the unconscious, to a place where he keeps all he holds dear, unlocked and open for the taking.

There, a light. He follows it and walks through the door to a room he doesn’t yet recognize, lit up by the warm glow of a table lamp. Boots lay at the foot of a bed, hidden under the lazy sweep of a shirt hastily thrown, and a flashing tablet sits precariously on the edge of the queen bed. But he ignores it, for something more compelling is spread over gray sheets.

Two bodies, entangled in a private moment. One of which he recognizes.

It's Keith and it isn’t Keith.

This version of himself doesn't balk at the contact, but, rather, shifts closer. His hands smooth over a naked chest and broad shoulders, one curling at the nape of his partner’s neck while the other flutters down to reposition a tan arm more securely around his waist. Space between them dwindles into nothing as their lips connect, igniting a fire so bright that Keith feels as if he is embracing the sun.

He watches himself sigh, eyelashes fluttering and softening the once sharp angles of his face, jaw and neck; a stretch and a flower blooms in an ode of love, pale fingers climbing the vine of a muscled back and pressing the blunt of his nails there to keep from falling from that shakespearean balcony.

Hips arch and bow in an impossibly slow rhythm, rolling to a melody Keith has never danced to before— has only seen on tv or in dark hallways, hidden away from his flushed gaze. But this is different, different than anything he’s ever known. Different because he can feel it, the pressure to his pelvis and mattress against his heels. Different because it’s his body and his moans and his desire painted on the landscape of sheets before him.

It’s different and he’s mesmerized, stepping closer and watching how hands— his hands, gloveless and callused and purposeful— reach down to cup his future lover’s backside, spreading wide to squeeze as much as possible through tight denim and bearing down just as hips twist. A flash of yellow sclera, pupils dilated in primordial arousal, and a bite to brown flesh.

“Keith,” he hears, causing a shiver to slip down his spine. No one has ever said his name like that. “Keith.” Never like that. “Keith.”

The body above his moves, coiling in such a way that tells of a soldier’s dedication and a lover’s experience, muscles twitching as the grinding becomes more profound. A grunt and the rustling of fabric, loud in the wake of a tanned hand sneaking down his front, exploring, searching and— oh.

Heat travels up his spine, flooding his veins and curling his toes. It collects at his chest and rises up, crawling the tendons of his neck and finding a place at the tip of his ears and apples of his cheeks. Bubbles of magma fill the cage of his ribs and he squirms, trying to pop them. They burst and he burns anew.

His earlier dream-memories had all been nondescript, vague scenes of a movie he doesn’t recall watching, viewed through a smudged screen in slow motion. They leave room for the mind to wander, filling in the blanks as he sees fit, and so far Keith has had no problem in leaving it well enough alone.

Because love had always been something of a fantasy for Keith, a boy who grew up running in the hopes someone might catch him, but still too afraid to slow down. It had been his father’s coat, slung over his tiny shoulders just hours before a kitchen fire burnt it to crisps. It had been his mother’s knife, bandaged to hide the truth about his own abandonment. It had been in the eyes of a fellow foster boy, olive green shining emerald when he waved Keith goodbye as he left with his new family. It had been the light laugh of his mentor turned brother, fading away as he joined the stars. It had been a dream better left forgotten.

But not anymore.

For he recognizes the face belonging to the body pressed flush against his. It’s a face that skims the surface of a great many memories. Past, present, and future. It’s pudgy cheeks slimming to sharp edges, glinting in the sun after a hard battle won and a ridiculous challenge issued. It’s the face of a friend.

The confirmation comes in the form of his own mouth parting open, red-kissed and curved in passion, uttering a single word. A single name.

A voice spears through the air and he looks up into dark eyes centered in an angular face; they are dark blue and clash with Keith’s almost immediately, tacking onto him with such vigor that it makes his skin itch.

“Uh, the name’s Lance,” the boy says when questioned, head tilted and eyebrow arched high.

Finally, his heart says, cradled in the hands of another.

“Hey man,” Lance greets when he opens the door at around one in the morning, casual where Keith is tense. The moment is preceded only by an impromptu text sent fifteen minutes prior when he had had enough of the silence of his empty room, thrown one of Adam’s hand-me-down jackets over his shoulders and had made the journey to the blue paladin’s living quarters. “What’s up?”

“Can I come in?”

A silent nod and he’s stepping through the threshold. The compound is similar to the one he shares with his mother and Shiro, but not. There are personal touches that he does not recognize, jars and potted plants from a place he has never been. There’s a bow window that takes up the entirety of a single wall to his right, framing the sight of infinite space and twin moons, a nest of cushions that looks recently sat upon settled on the ledge there. A couch and two armchairs take up the majority of the main room, worn and angled to face the television sat atop a stand stuffed full with DVDs and books, some with english covers and others with alien ones. Two doors cut into the remaining walls, one leading into a dimly lit hallway and the other into what he believes to be a kitchen. A table already cluttered with paper and odd knick-knacks stands to their far left, chairs pushed out from its undercage; photos span the bulletin board above it, overlapping and showcasing smiling faces in their polarized frames. His own closed-mouth smile peers back at him, framed by his team and the lions in a worn picture pinned right next to a family portrait.

Even this space, so newly made, has the sense of coziness. It reminds him of the glimpses of the house he sees in his flashes and the thought makes his skin buzz because people call this place home and mean it. It’s a reflection of what he has always wanted, authentic and steadfast, a place to belong. To want and be wanted in return.

“Keith,” Lance says at the prolonged silence, gaze steady and clear where the world is not. “Is something going on?”

“No” he says immediately. The lie is bitter and Keith grimaces at the taste of it, feeling foolish for even thinking that this was a good idea. The feeling twists unpleasantly in his stomach and he, in an effort to remedy this, immediately turns to shoulder his way back outside, to leave before being sent away.

“Hey now.” Lance’s voice is soft, contradicting to the solid grip that catches his wrist, effectively stopping his departure; it brings to mind the feeling of a sea breeze, uplifting the spread of a bird’s wingspan as it takes flight. It suits the boy, ever earnest and agreeable. “Let’s not— you obviously didn’t just wake me in the middle of the night to say hi. If something is bothering you—”

“I just,” he interrupts, frustrated over what is and what could be, and how he doesn’t know how to ask for it, “wanted to tell you that I think— that you— that we make a good team.”

The boy blinks, visibly caught off guard. “You came here… to say that you think… we make a good team?”

His heart beats fast. “Yeah.”

“Oh, um.” And for the first time in a long time, Lance doesn’t seem to know what to do. He wets his lips, gaze flickering to the side and then back to Keith’s face, confused but determined. “Okay, well, I think we make a good team too.”

“You do?”

“Uh, yeah, I, uh, I do.”

Hearing those words makes something inside him burst, undoubtedly shining through in the look he gives the boy. Lance blinks again before offering a bashful smile and Keth would be foolish not to return it.

They stare at each other and Keith can feel strips of reality peeling away, leaving behind something entirely too raw. It is personal and frighteningly intimate, new like the uncharted belt of galaxies yet to be discovered. It is a trust fall, a dive into the deep abyss of suppressed feeling and incomprehensible thoughts.

But Keith has always been a bit adventurous, boldly stepping forward where others would balk. It has always given him this edge on others, constantly pushing forward with the simple intent of experiencing life and then rolling with the punches that were swung his way when the world rebelled against his aspirations. Like a rubber band, he snaps back after every impossible twist and bend, ready to stand at the very edge and dare the world to take him on.

Maybe that's why he doesn't hesitate to take this plunge.

“Can I stay here tonight… with you?”

“Okay,” Lance says, no hesitation.

Then a hand, palm heavenward and fingers curled, is offered. And Keith, hanging between misguided trepidation and desperate longing, grabs onto it like a sinner to a cross; redemption comes in the form of skin on skin, solemn and genuine, like only things in the AM can be.

Lance takes a step back and Keith follows. Past the photographs and discarded shoes and closed doors. The heavy footsteps of his combat boots are displaced in the quiet, clumsy and rigid, nothing like Lance’s barefooted grace; it’s almost like a flash, the subdued ambiance of the moment vast enough to sink into, but rather than being pulled into its depths, he willingly dives into it. The hallway ends and they reach a door, half open, and Lance guides him through it.

There are no words as they enter Lance’s room or when he’s pushed to sit atop a bed with rumpled sheets. No words, just the lull of night filling the space between them as the blue paladin tugs off his jacket and kneels to relieve him of his shoes; it’s unnervingly intimate, socked feet wiggling against the chilled surface of the tiled floor, privy to this alcove away from the world. A cuban flag clings to the wall, surrounded by maps of the world and constellations he grew up with peeling at the corners. A gaming console collects dust next to a small tv, cartridge of some obscure video game still inserted and waiting to be resumed. The small desk pushed to the corner is crammed with figurines and unfinished books and paper airplanes alike, an organized mess that remains in an odd shrine of Lance-ness.

The boy who calls it his is crawling over the bedspread, tugging at Keith’s shirt until he follows his lead and tucks himself under the covers. They lay on their sides, facing each other, staring— waiting.

“What did you mean,” Keith asks, voice just below a whisper as he indulges in a stray thought, “when you said a home is what you make it?”

Just as the words leave his mouth, a waking flash hits. Transparent hands frame his face in the stillness of night, growing more real as the moments pass. Sleep is a missing lover but these hands try their best to fill the void, thumb brushing over the discolored skin on his cheek, careful, like he is a constellation newly discovered. Like he is something to be cherished, invaluable despite the scars that mark him.

(Like someone worthy of being loved.)

“Home can be anything, you know,” Lance says in lieu of a conversation starter.

A symphony erupts from his breastbone, piano notes curling around their bodies in an ode to the feeling. It surrounds him— blue, blue, blue.

“A place.”

It could be an empty shack in the middle of the desert or a grand castle floating amidst the stars. It could even be the mystery home in his dreams, with its creaky floorboards and happy atmosphere.

“A moment.”

It could be now, their voices mere whispers in the silent night.

“An object.”

It could be the braided thread wrapped around Lance’s left ankle, beads of white and silver making indents in skin where it presses against Keith's lower calf. It could be the borrowed shirt he's wearing, the sleeves just a smidge too big and smelling of detergent.

“A person.”

It could be the body next to him, familiar and lean and warm. It could be the sound of a heart beating in tandem with his own, a beacon to the life they live even in the suffocating silence of the dead of night. It could be the words that pulls answers from him, voice light just as it can be sharp. It could be the arm thrown over his shoulder during movies or the playful scuffle of feet under the dinner table. It could be the back pressed to his in the heat of battle or the relieved smile that greets him as he stumbles out of a healing pod.

“Home is whatever you make it to be.”

It could be him.

#voltron #dreamworks #vld #Voltron legendary defender #vld lance #vld keith #voltron lance #voltron keith #keith kogane #keith mcclain #klance #laith #aeon #chomp chomp goes the raptor #writing

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strangewhitegirl321 · 5 years

Text

Pay No Mind (12th)

{Not my gif}

Words: 4315

Originally posted to my Wattpad account.

The car bumped and jostled (Y/n) about, causing her to groan and shove the suitcase that stabbed her in the ribs down the seat. Her favourite quilt wrapped around her legs suddenly turned into a tedious task as she began unwinding it from her legs, glancing to her parents' GPS and realising they were almost to their destination.

The building was humongous, and she had been able to see it for the last thirty minutes as they drove. At first it had simply peaked over the horizon, and was excitedly pointed out by (Y/n)'s mother.

The building was almost like a child's building blocks made out of a shiny blue glass. The lower level stood on stilts and was larger than the rest, and a giant stairway leading up to the open doors of the hotel seemed to sprout from the bottom of the building. Sleek, white metal bordered the windows that seemed to resemble portals to another world from the outside were clear in view. The second story was also on stilts, held up high above the first and you could spy at least three glass elevators constantly travelling up and down to no end.

The top level was the tallest, it had a flat roof and stretched high enough to be out of the way for the palm trees growing on the second level's balcony. (Y/n)'s eyes wandered once again down to the second level, taking in the different, private wave pools that somehow never managed to splash over the edge of the building.

(Y/n) snapped back into reality just as her father pulled into the parking lot, heading straight for the VIP section as he hollered excitedly about practically being a celebrity. Just as they passed through security from the stuffed parking lot into the almost empty section for VIPs she spied a peculiar box out of place next to the modern, expensive building. Before she could clearly observe anything other than its fine wood and lovely blue colour, they turned a corner and parked just out of view.

Almost immediately, the family was met with three employees who quickly got to work helping unpack and carry luggage up to the hotel. Everything seemed to happen in a blur, and poor (Y/n) barely noticed when her Aunt and Uncle, the owners of the expensive establishment, came to greet them. Hugs and greetings flew through the air, and other customers gawked at the family hugging the rich owners as they passed.

"So, how are you doing?" Aunt Stella asked after giving a tight (and frankly uncomfortable) hug to (Y/n). The girl shuffled on her feet, frowning as she thought of an answer.

"Stiff," She finally replied, rolling her neck and cringing as it popped. Aunt Stella let out a loud, obnoxious laugh and grinned.

"Well, I guess we should get going then," She turned towards her husband, Uncle Louis, who grinned and nodded.

"We have a big tour to get over with before we can sit down and eat," He explained, taking a bag from (Y/n)'s father and turning around as he marched away. For a moment, (Y/n) thought they would be heading for the large, circular elevators already jam packed with people, but they veered off course and headed for a more private looking corner of the building.

Deciding not to worry about it until later, (Y/n) took in the inside of the first level. Looking around, it was themed off of a jungle. She was able to glance into different rooms based on the glass walls, and notice that each room looked a little different.

Upon noticing her curious gaze, Uncle Louis began to explain: "Each level has a different theme: The first is the rainforests of the world; second is the beaches of the Earth; and the third the great forests of big ol' Blue. That's part of the main attraction of our hotel. However, even more interestingly, each hotel room isn't quite a room itself. Instead, we designed it to be more of a house. We frequently get people who come and will stay for months at a time, some people even jump from level to level to experiment. And, each "room" is themed off of a different area of Earth."

He stopped to point into a room where a family of six seemed to be playing Wii inside a room that was strange in the fact that it had kangaroos hidden in the painted and real brush growing on the walls, "That one is themed off the wild jungles of Papua New Guinea."

Gesturing to another room, all of them with trees seeming to grow up the sides and different types of waterfalls attached to the walls seemed to glimmer in their own magnificent fashion, "That one is the Ancient Waipoua forest in New Zealand."

Uncle Louis continued to point out different rooms, naming them in order, "The Amazon. That's the most popular, obviously. Cloud Forest of Peru; the Jungles of Borneo; the Jungles of Kipling in India. All very different, very interesting. Certain rooms, such as the Amazon and Borneo rooms, customers have to sign contracts to stay in because there are living animals in the room. We have caretakers hired, and a customer has to allow a caretaker to enter the room and give the animal its daily needs at least once a day. Children love the toucan, Huracan. He's a real laugh."

Finally, they continued on to a private elevator for VIPS. (Y/n) about slapped herself. She honestly should have guessed.

On the way up, they stopped at the second floor. The employees who seemed to trudge along behind the family like shadows were released upon being instructed to continue and drop off the luggage at the required room. They immediately zipped off, not wasting anytime.

"How do you get them to-" (Y/n)'s father hesitated, waiting till he could figure the correct way to phrase his question. "How do you get such great service from your employees?"

With a laugh, Aunt Stella was quick to answer, "Oh, well this is a high paying job. And, we try and make it as comfortable a job as possible. Loyal employees are the best employees. You can't expect people to stay devoted to their job if their job is horrible."

(Y/n) immediately nodded, agreeing with the policy, "Sounds like a good deal to me."

"Well, I would hope so," Aunt Stella chuckled. She reached up and fixed her hair, before turning around and taking the lead of the group.

Unfortunately, Uncle Louis hadn't thought to hand off his bag to an employee, and because he tends to talk with his hands he kept quiet and allowed his wife to show off her favourite floor.

"The beach level!" She exclaimed with joy. "Just breathe it in!"

(Y/n) cringed as her whole family took a deep breath in through their noses, rolling her eyes at their actions.

"It smells salty! Like an actual ocean is near!" Her mother beamed. Suddenly, she waltzed away from the group, stopping to admire a flower bed accompanied with a hibiscus tree behind it. Paintings of crabs; sea birds; pirate ships; and mermaids lined the clean and crisp white walls, and against the largest wall stood three aquariums.

The middle, the largest immediately drew (Y/n) to it. It was large enough to house a little shark, which her uncle pointed out was a bamboo shark dubbed Stitch. There were also millions of other fish, including a small school of blue tangs. (Y/n) didn't need any sort of explanation to know at least one of them was named Dory.

The other two, were large and round. Jellyfish bounced around the tank, lights changing colour to keep the decoration-vacant tank interesting for those who viewed it. It was beautiful, in (Y/n)'s eyes.

"Every Wednesday and Saturday, we get a mermaid performer into the large tank," Uncle Louis told (Y/n). He glanced back to his wife, who was excitedly chattering with (Y/n)'s mother about all the different species of tropical flowers in the room. The two women darted around, looking at all the different types. Each time they stumbled upon a new one, an excited squeal left their lips.

Suddenly realising her father was nowhere to be seen, (Y/n) turned on her heel to search for him. She spotted him talking to an older man who seemed to almost permanently frown. He carried a mop with him, but no bucket or tray to accompany the object.

"Dad?" (Y/n) asked as she approached the two men. The custodian's eyes caught her attention, they seemed level and firm as they scanned her up and down.

"This is your daughter, I assume," He stated, offering (Y/n) his hand. She slowly reached forward and shook it hesitantly, glancing at her father. He seemed unconcerned, and continued to carry out his conversation with the man.

"So, what were you saying about the wave pools?" He inquired, eyes never leaving the water that splashed back and forth in the back of the hotel room he looked into. Once (Y/n)'s eyes landed on them, she could truly see why her father became so curious. The waves seemed so natural, it was unlike anything she had seen.

"Ah, yes," The man began. "I was saying how they were obviously built by the same company who designed the wave pool located in central California, the Kelly Slater Wave Company. Also obviously, the company was made by Kelly Slater, a world champion surfer. But it was also a collaboration between him and the fluid mechanics specialist Adam Fincham. It's truly impressive. Once it opens, you should at least see it. It won't be beautiful for long-"

Quickly, (Y/n) cut him off at his strange words, "What? Why? Have you seen it?" His brows raised, and he glanced at her curiously.

"Yes. And, you humans always have the ability to quickly trash anything beautiful. It's remarkable, really," He stated, earning a scoff from the girl.

With a roll of her eyes, she muttered, "Yeah, alright. What are you then, a merman?"

"Oh! No, no, no!" The man replied. "Definitely not a merman."

Suddenly, he turned away from her to continue watching the pool and he began to explain the mechanics and history, "Based on this year, 2018, wave pools have been around for over fifty years. However, it's easy to calculate how to predictably model a wave a few centimetres tall. All it takes is a few linear equations, and you've got yourself a nice small wave. In the natural oceans, however, the three creating factors are the sun, moon, and Earth itself. The moon is the strongest, however. It exerts about 2.2 times more power than the sun does. The water, being a liquid, is literally pulled up towards the moon. Probably why clothes aren't liquid. That would be a bit horrific. But this-"

He gestured to the wave at least a metre tall that came crashing down on the artificial sand of the room, "-takes a lot more than that. There are several other factors, from turbulence to oscillations of the entire body of water- which is called seiching. Very interesting topic if you ever want to write a paper to impress your elementary school teacher."

The man ignored her protest, as well as the chuckle of her father and continued on, "But the first model was gigantic. Seven hundred metres long and one hundred fifty metres wide. So, the fact that they were able to reduce that and make it around 8.75 metres long by 7.5 metres wide is remarkable. They also brilliantly covered the hydrofoil used to actually create the waves, I can't tell where they've hidden it- the left or the right side. I'd be impressed, but I'm mostly suspicious."

"Suspicious?" (Y/n) tried to stop him to get an answer, but once again he simply continued on.

"I can however see the gutter off to the right side used to prevent seiching like a damper. It also is what's limiting the bounce-back from the pool walls. So, this makes it seem possible to me that the hydrofoil is on the left side. And then the bottom of the pool- the artificial reefs are what changes the shape of the wave. However, no matter what these waves resemble more of neap tides normally found during quarter moons. Actually, no- they seem more like small tidal waves, don't they? Like a teeny tiny earthquake is occurring beneath the floor." The man suddenly stopped himself, groaning as he reached up and rubbed his brows.

"Giving yourself a headache there, mate?" (Y/n)'s father asked. The girl however reached forward, patting the man on the shoulder as if to comfort him. At first, he jumped at her touch but calmed once he realised it was a harmless act.

Just as she was about to speak, the sound of Uncle Louis calling drew both her and her father away, "Hey! Should we get on to your room, now?"

With a huff, (Y/n) turned to give her uncle a glare before turning back to the man, "I thought it was interesting." She said, before darting off in the direction of her family who were forming a group again.

The man stared after her curiously, before giving a small nod to the world and turning on his heel, marching down the hall with new passion.

Upon reaching the third floor, (Y/n)'s face was struck with the fresh scent of the outdoors when walking out the elevator.

"Wow," She breathed. "It even feels like we're in a real forest." Beneath her feet, she noticed grass and squatted down, picking and playing with it.

"Ah, the grass is artificial, but the trees standing in the middle of each room and in the hallways are real and living. The rest along the walls and lining the ceiling are fake-ish, however. They were real, were alive. But, you could refer to them as taxidermy trees," Uncle Louis explained. The tall man reached up to brush the leaves hanging from the ceiling, a victorious grin painted on his face.

"You did a simply spectacular job with this place," His sister, (Y/n)'s mother, complimented. Not-so-humbly, he accepted the praise.

Small talk began to fill the room, and finding it dull (Y/n) wandered off through the room. She admired the deer painted hiding between the trees, and the circling vultures painted on a sunny day between the tree limbs on the ceiling.

For a moment, jealousy filled her. She found herself wishing she had invented the hotel, made something so wonderful and creative that everyone wished to see it. With a sigh, she walked around a corner and spotted the balcony. A small running stream swept through it, stones she realised were glued in place lining it. Quickly, she glanced around and took off her shoes before stepping in. The water was cool, but something unnatural caused her to jump out.

Her feet were dyed a light shade of blue, and they prickled as if they had fallen asleep. Brows furrowed, she reached down to massage them before glancing off to the edge of the "yard." Sighing as she spotted a sign requesting visitors keep out of the water, she quickly slipped her shoes back on.

Soon after, (Y/n) went to track down her family. She discovered them just as they seated themselves around a feast. The amount of the food on the table caused her feet to falter as she scanned it all. A roasted turkey; lobster; jello; ambrosia salad; sushi; and all sorts of foods set perfectly on the table.

"There she is!" (Y/n)'s mother cried excitedly. "We were going to begin without you!"

With a frown, (Y/n) replied, "You definitely can. I'm not hungry."

"Why not?" Aunt Stella seemed to pounce. Her gaze was suddenly sharp and suspicious, and her expression could only be described as offence. The quick question caused both of (Y/n)'s parents to glance worriedly at the woman, whose eyes were glued to the young girl before her.

"Relax," (Y/n) began. "I snacked a little too hard on the way here. I'll definitely be hungry enough for breakfast in the morning."

Slowly, Aunt Stella seemed to physically relax. However, her eyes narrowed and she tilted her head in question.

"Are you sure?" Her face suddenly burst into a grin, and (Y/n) rolled her eyes.

"Yes, Aunt Stella," She answered with ease. Then, without a second to waste she began to wander off through the hotel room.

Just as she was about to turn a corner, she heard her father yell, "(Y/n)! Your room is down the hall, very end on the right!" Hollering that she got what he said, she changed course towards her room.

Sauntering down the hall, she watched the ceiling as the blue of the painted sky began to shift to hues of orange and pink, purple and then to a midnight blue. A sunset seemed to take place down the course of the hall, and the birds in the trees were replaced with a single owl with piercing eyes.

For a moment, (Y/n) stopped to try and recognise the species. It took her a moment, but she quickly realised it was just an awkwardly painted barn owl.

Finally she reached her room and with no hesitation busted in with a sigh. Closing the door behind her, she observed the room. Instead of the blue sky or the sunset in the hallway, the room was painted like the night. Except, it wasn't a regular night with regular stars. Instead a nebula swirling with colour took its place. The picture seemed to reach out and grasp at the air, and the different coloured stars almost twinkled between the fake tree branches as (Y/n) turned her head.

The bed was a queen, the headboard resting against a glass wall that overlooked the city outside. It was strange to see the fake forestry suddenly open up to the buzzing city below and around the hotel.

Throwing herself onto the bed, it bounced up and down. Grabbing one of the pillows, (Y/n) dragged it over to herself and shoved her face into it. It was so nice and soft, and just the thought of waking up to grass between her toes and no possibility of bugs joining it excited her.

"Oh," She gasped as she spotted a strange lamp in a niche to her left. Two large taxidermy trees seemed to frame the opening, and (Y/n) hopped off the bed to get a closer look.

The lamp looked like the solar system. The sun was smack in the middle, glowing and giving (Y/n) a nice warm feeling. Then the planets were suspended in the air around it, each on the correct placement and orbit.

Reaching forward, (Y/n) pressed a button that shut off the light of the lamp. Immediately, she switched it back on. A second button caught her attention, and without a second thought she smacked it and hoped the planets around the sun would begin to rotate.

However, they only seemed to shift before getting caught, and an estranged buzzing filled the room. Disappointed, (Y/n) flicked it off.

"That sucks," She muttered to herself. "Where's a phone..."

Planning to call the front desk and ask for a repairman, she turned in a slow circle trying to spot the item needed. Not finding one, she frowned before digging out her own phone.

(Y/n) spent the rest of the evening trying to avoid asking anyone for help as she attempted to track down the office phone number. She groaned and mumbled curses under her breath as she searched the whole of the hotel room. Not a single phone, or phone number, in sight.

"(Y/n), dear?" A voice startled her. Jumping and turning around, she stumbled and just barely caught herself as she tripped and nearly fell.

"Yes?" She inquired, meeting eyes with her Aunt Stella. Once again, the woman was looking suspicious of everything (Y/n) was doing.

Offering a cursory smile, her Aunt asked, "May I ask what you're doing?"

With a slight shrug of her shoulders, (Y/n) replied, "I was looking to call the front office. The lamp in my room is broken, I really wanted to see it work."

Nodding slowly, her Aunt began to herd her back to her room, "It's getting late. I'll call someone in the morning, don't worry-"

"Are you feeling okay?" (Y/n) suddenly asked, cutting her off.

With a frustrated groan, Aunt Stella hissed, "Yes! I'm doing great, actually. Now please, just get to bed. Your parents have already retired for the night."

"It's just-" (Y/n) began to insist. "You keep talking weird. Formal, and the like. I wouldn't even be able to tell you grew up in Texas, at this point."

Pausing, Aunt Stella took a moment before she rolled her eyes, "Yes, well that is the point. I've been working on it for awhile now. Thank you for noticing."

Without anything else being said between the two, (Y/n) allowed her to shove her into her room just as Uncle Louis walked out and gave her a cheesy smile.

"I just dropped off your suitcase, you're all ready to go," He explained. "And, I presume you already discovered the bathroom's location?" (Y/n) nodded, and he clapped his hands together with glee. Then, he wrapped his arm around his wife's shoulders and lead her down the hall and out of sight.

Shaking her head, (Y/n) retreated to her room and got ready to go to bed. Sleeping in the bed was comfortable, but something about the hotel seemed to be constantly jolting her mind awake. Every hour she was disappointed to wake up after a magnificent, yet short dream.

Finally she refused to allow her mind to lull back into a false sense of security. Instead, she stayed wrapped up in her blankets and watched the city below her. The floor was so high up, she couldn't hear any of the obnoxious honks or sirens that usually laboured the city. It appeared so quiet, so peaceful and relaxed without all the noise.

Checking her phone, (Y/n) groaned as she realised it was only midnight. At least seven hours to go before she could rightfully be up and wandering, lost in her thoughts.

However, she found herself panicking at the sounds of voices hovering outside her door. She laid herself out in a comfortable sleeping position; buried her head in her pillow; opened her mouth slightly to make it seem even more like she was sleeping; and then shut her eyes and relaxed her whole body.

Tuning in to the endings of the conversation, she recognised two masculine voices. One of her father, and one she had yet to pinpoint.

With an angry groan, her father whispered, "Look, dude, it's the middle of the night. She's fast asleep, every hotel we've ever stayed in has always put her in some sort of trance."

"Then, you'll realise that with my super quiet mechanical skills, and her "hotel-trance," that I won't wake her up," The other voice argued lowly.

"No! That wasn't my point. Look, if you go in there and wake her up, anything that may or may not happen to your face is definitely your fault," (Y/n)'s father claimed.

She could practically hear the man on the other side of the door roll his eyes, "Just let me fix the lamp. Seriously, it won't take long."

A few seconds passed, and shuffling feet could be heard. Then the door slowly peeled open, and (Y/n) heard her father sigh as he glanced in.

"Well, we haven't woken her yet," He seemed to decide quietly. "Fine. But you do anything to her, I'm right next door."

"Yes yes, next door. Blah blah," The other man grumbled. His feet shuffled across the floor, and (Y/n) could hear as he seemed to come right up beside the bed. Rustles and rattles, as well as a few bumps seemed to tell her that he must have picked up the lamp.

A second sound followed, a weird whirring that seemed to be accompanied by a low, blue, pulsing light that still caused (Y/n) to hold back a flinch.

She heard her father close the door, and listened to make sure he wasn't still in the room. Then, slowly, (Y/n) peeled open her eyes. Once she was sure the man, who she now recognised as the guy at the wave-pool, was facing away from her, she slowly shifted to where she could see him better.

(Y/n) watched as he held a strange tool that seemed to be making the funny whirring sound. He held it up to the lamp he balanced on one arm, and moved it up and down both below and over it. She wanted to ask him so many questions towards what he was doing, but instead opted to stay quiet and watch.

A second later, he put the tool in a pocket and flicked a button after placing it back in the niche it came from. The planets began to rotate calmly around the light. Even the sun changed, it seemed to glow brighter, even shimmer and pulse with warmth.

A small grin grew on (Y/n)'s face, and she couldn't help it as she muttered, "I've always wanted to see the stars and planets up close."

The man froze, slowly turning to her. A hint of amusement covered his face, and his eyes seemed to shine.

"Now, how am I supposed to ignore that?" He squatted down beside the bed, so he was eye level with (Y/n) as she lie in the bed. Getting a good look at her eyes, he nodded in acceptance before standing.

The man stuck out his hand, and she took it gratefully as he introduced himself, "I'm the Doctor."

The girl graced him with a smile, and she replied, "And I'm (Y/n). Nice to meet you, Doctor." He never released her hand, but instead yanked her out of bed and dragged her out of the room and over to the balcony. Her eyes widened at the sight of a strange blue box, before the Doctor gave her a slight shove towards it. From there, he opened the door, stepped aside, and let her peak in.

(Y/n)'s life was never quite the same.

149 notes · View notes

swyllh · 6 years

Text

i. only then i am human

title: only then i am human

premise: [spy au] an extension of odds and ends; you are a spy, and jeonghan is your quartermaster.

pairing: jeonghan x reader, side!minghao x reader, side!mingyu x reader

genre: thriller, angst, non-linear

warning: violence, though minimal and non-graphic.

word count: 3845

part one | part two | part three | part four (soon)

1 2 3 4

BUDAPEST, HUNGARY, DECEMBER 20XX-1: fingers brush carelessly against the canvas of your vest, searching. you fire a shot, or three, at an ornate pillar. somewhere in the abyss of your gear, ammunition lingers - you remember stuffing a magazine in the back pocket, dropping to a roll behind the podium when they fired.

or not. you duck down, assessing the rubble beside you. the frequency of shots point toward two, possibly three, shooters. unprofessional - or brutal, if the storm of gunshots is anything to go by.

"trouble, agent?" Q mutters in your ear.

you bite back a snarl; he knows you've been compromised, and still took a nap. god knows if you had your way with M, or at least human resource, you'd never have to hear that drawl ever again. at this rate, making it to china would be a miracle.

a lull in the blitz has you firing a quick, heady shot in the general direction of a figure. you slump back down. a strangled yell - thud - and then heavier gunfire.

bullseye.

"where were you?" you snap over the erratic shower of bullets, thumbing for a grenade instead.

"i knew you could handle yourself," he teases. "save the ball for the ride back to the safehouse, will you?"

you curse, an inch away from unleashing the explosive - an intent away from throttling Q. stuffing the grenade back in your pocket, you tighten your grasp on your revolver.

"get me out of here," you say.

a stray bullet pierces past you, another shattering the table into splinters. swallowing hard, you aim for a chandelier -

Q hums. "14th century, worth 600 million, possibly-"

"shut up," you grit, holding down the trigger.

the chandelier rocks from side to side, falling to the cue of your bated breath. glass, gems and shards of bronze crash to the ground. a cloud of smoke and dust rises. you dodge, rolling over to the walls. the second shooter couldn’t, not in time.

for a moment, your sharp, controlled pants are the only thing you hear. a powdered, bleeding hand strains from under the chandelier, futile.

"sapphires," Q, or jeonghan now, sighs wistfully. "anyway, you'll find another door to your left.”

you nod, even if he can't see it, and make to move. Q logs off, evidently assured of your ability to handle yourself from here on. you think about switching off the visor, but accounting for the blackout will cost you more paperwork than you'd ever need.

what the hell, you think, doubling back and snagging a glittering blue jewel.

the dead man's skull is crushed - blood, thick and red, oozing from the dent in his temple. his partner's crumpled in on himself a few feet away.

death is no stranger, but it doesn’t get easier. something morbid, something misplaced swells like a conscience. leaning down, you lift his mask up. it's sticky, wet, and you think jeonghan will never forgive you for the laundry afterwards.

a line of stitches trail up from his chin, up the sides of his jaw, ending abruptly where viscous black liquid begins to stream down. you let go, wincing as the mask snaps back wetly.

if anyone saw, they might assume a failed robbery perhaps. you hesitate, thinking back to Q's advice, and hastily ruffle through his pockets for spare ammunition. his vest yields several silver bullets. you grab them, uttering a small prayer before sprinting haphazardly through the chaos.

BARCELONA, SPAIN, FEBRUARY 20XX-4: the receptionist is a mousy lady with a tamed nude lip and a short, clipped voice. her smiles are perfunctory, halting just before the point of courteous. she points you towards a hallway, reciting a number of clear, crisp directions before returning to her work. you nod, and try to walk with purpose as you sieve out the operatives in her words: left, left, right, two down.

if you were surprised by the minimalism of the room - white, half the size of your dorm, a large mirror hanging off the side, a table and two chairs - you don’t show it. steeling yourself - is that a two-way mirror? - you step in, evaluating.

“oh, there are people behind there, alright,” comes an amused voice behind you.

you jump, turning to see a smirking man half-hidden behind the door. he’s lanky, tall, and pushing the door shut with too much force. you try to remember the face of the man who’d approached you in your dorm room. it doesn’t work.

this one, however, you don’t think you’ll forget.

it also helps the way he’s got an orange mullet and fashionably ancient glasses hanging off his nose. in fact, he’s the only pop of colour here - electric reds and yellows sagging artfully around his arms and torso in awful mimicry of a jacket. you try not to read too much into it.

he senses your careful assessment, and quirks an eyebrow. when you glance back at the table, the man swaggers over, guides you by the shoulder and seats you down. the absurdity of the situation doesn’t escape you; your neck is still warm from where his fingers had brushed past.

“hey, so we’ll just talk for a bit, yeah?” he says, tilting his head and capturing your gaze.

you nod. “sure.”

“i’m minghao,” he says quickly, tugging out his phone and jabbing into it. “so, just a couple of quick questions - where are you studying?”

“uic barcelona,” you say.

he pauses, head still bowed. “well, what’re you majoring in?”

“east asian studies and philosophy.”

he whistles, low. “how many siblings do you have?”

“two - an older and a younger sister.”

minghao hums, resuming his tapping under the table. “so what about them now?”

“the older’s in tokyo for a conference now, the younger’s in rehab for depression.”

minghao shrugs, lips quirking up to mimic a smirk. it gets wider as you answer each question. for a moment, there’s a lull in the conversation. he looks up, places his phone on the table and tilts it in your direction.

there’s a chart of several crooked, though stable lines. the numbers don’t seem to jump. you turn your gaze back to him, even and measured.

“remind me again,” minghao says, leaning back in his seat and looking at you curiously. “how many siblings do you have?”

“i’m an only child.”

you don’t have to look at the chart to know that the numbers are still the same, that the line, though jagged, runs steadily in across the screen.

minghao smirks. “you’ve been lying to me all this time, haven’t you?”

you press a hand to your neck, peeling off the thin, sheer layer of a dotted patch. impressive, you think, cataloguing its flexibility and adhesion. the numbers blink into a single dash. neatly, you fold it into a small rectangle and place it next to his phone. without much fuss, you step out of your seat.

unknown. undetected.

you smile, irresistible. “no.”

minghao stares at you, awed and severe all the same. finally, he drags a hand across his bangs, exhaling noisily. he turns round to face the two-way mirror, shrugging.

the lights in the room never go out. you watch on, curious as minghao starts to gesture with his hands. the interaction, or so you assume, continues for a few moments. then he turns back to you, cautious with a wry smile.

“welcome, agent. i’ll be your Q from here on.”

UNREGISTERED, HUNGARY, DECEMBER 20XX-1: jeonghan's sprawled on the bed, pink fluffy rabbit slippers dangling off his toes. you roll your eyes, tugging off your dusty coat and beanie.

"you're late," jeonghan quips.

you shrug, tossing him a shard of sapphire. "someone wanted toys."

he catches it easily, twisting his neck over to examine it carefully. it must please him, you think, folding your coat deliberately over the loveseat, when the corner of his lips quirk upwards. jeonghan tilts his head back again, shooting you a teasing look.

you try to salvage whatever anger you had for being compromised. "a fair bit of warning next time before going offline would be nice, Q."

he scoffs, fingering the pendant, raising it high above his head against the light. as you pinch your crusty gloves off, sliding it surreptitiously towards your coat, jeonghan rolls over the bed and stretches, a sliver of skin visible under his knitted pullover. he picks up a pair of glasses from the bedside table, pushes it up his nose and hums. like a cat.

"not bad," he yawns.

you say, "you said it was worth 600 million."

"did i?" he laughs, replacing the sapphire down on the covers.

jeonghan swipes a briefcase from under the bed, unlocking it with a touch. he sits up, face transforming into that of Q's. you reluctantly let him inspect your gear, hoping he wouldn't notice the damage done to your gloves.

he does. "blood?"

jeonghan's eyes snap to you in a once-over. you shake your head - save for the scrape on your cheek, you've managed to escape unscathed. the glove is tucked into a bag, sealed and placed back into the case.

"your vest," Q says pointedly.

you shrug out of it. "could be lighter."

Q doesn't bite the bait, choosing to unhook your gun holster from your waist instead. his fingers make quick work of leather, unburdened by the shaky bumbling of your exhausted arms.

"almost all out," he sighs, unlatching the revolver. "wasteful."

you grimace. "if someone weren't busy taking a nap-"

he cuts you off with a tug to your waist, jerking you closer. "put on a show next time, will you?"

a surge of heat rises up your chest. you strap your vest back on, petulant and indignant. Q doesn't glance up even as your elbows pop with exertion. he lets you go, zooming in on the revolver instead. he turns it over in his hands, wiping a thumb over the battered surface of its handle.

"a stronger grip for you," he mutters, hopping off the bed, twirling the gun along.

you follow him to the side panel. "less reloading would be nice."

he snorts. "don't blame me for your butter fingers."

you raise a brow, smearing said butter fingers over the pristine gloss of his desk. he smacks your hand away, just as the panel flares up unbearably hot. you stare down, watch as Q sucks in a deep breath and press his palm into the steaming wood. it swells uncomfortably under his hand, and even at this distance you feel the urge to run. maybe that’s not wood at all.

“jesus,” you whisper - a sheen of sweat covers his forehead. beyond that, nothing more.

Q fixes you with a severe look. “nope, just me.”

you resist the urge to shove that caricature of nonchalance out of him. instead, you turn to see that the table is no longer steaming, no longer pulsing.

“did i trigger some-” you begin to say.

Q’s tone is clipped and brusque. “best not touch anything carelessly, agent.”

you suppose you deserve that. the panels on the wall unsheathe to reveal an assortment of weaponry. revolvers, rifles and even grenades are mapped out through rays of light, spinning in and out of focus as Q swipes past them. this time, you make a show of securing your hands behind your back, jutting your chin out to indicate any one of them.

“a good Q never reveals his trade,” he says instead when you ask about the oddity in the collection - a simple, cylindrical barrel with a sloping bottom.

“and yet you’re showing them to me,” you say blandly. something bitter rises up the valley of your throat.

Q glances at you from the periphery of his vision. “it’s not anything you’d understand.”

you don’t reply. he’s struck something, and he knows it. you turn away, make towards the windows as he begins to measure and repurpose your revolver on the grid. Q sighs, but you’re already lost, fingers splayed against cool glass as you stare down into rows and rows of sunflowers blazing relentlessly in the summer sun. there’s a glint in the fields, stinging, a man passing by leisurely, and

he stares up at you.

the face turns away, shielded by the shadow of an overhead arm, or a straw hat. something rings, loud and warning, sinks its fangs into the back of your mind. you could never forget that look. not like that - no, not like that. those aren’t his eyes - the defiance, perhaps, but trained, maybe, but.

the man wades through the fields, his weathered straw hat bobbing along with the breeze.

dash - legs stumbling in need, you crash into the door, yank it open, clamber down the stairs. jeonghan yells after you, then there are thudding steps hot after your own. you jump over the railing, elbows brushing against the rough carpeting before pushing yourself up. you have to get to him - this time, this time, not again. his gaze, resolute and grim, haunts you still.

the front door swings open on its hinges, a burst of heat and brightness slamming into you.

mingyu, tanned and oppressive in a hawaiian shirt, steps into view. “heya.”

ABU DHABI, UAE, JULY 20XX-2: your second day sober, and you’re already using an expired passport from an old case. the picture’s a blonde bombshell, and here you are with greasy black hair, lips cracked and pale. you’re pretty sure you don’t even look alive. customs lets you through anyway - maybe it’s the drone of passengers waddling on behind you, all jet-lagged and unappreciative.

“what’s your purpose of visit?”

“holiday.”

“okay. have a good trip.”

you press on into the stark, dry summer, eyes weary and wet with sweat behind sunglasses. shoving the passport into your bag, you dig around for a bottle. you wonder if minghao’s laughing at your petty intolerance to heat, then promptly realise you might still be drunk, or delusional. the incessant buzz at your ears don’t disapprove of the theory. your clammy fingers find their way to a plastic, ridged cap. pulling it out, you realise it’s empty after all - airline protocols.

you shove it back in.

it takes you a moment too long to realise that someone’s already in front of you, proffering a cool, blue bottle of mineral water. bronze fingers twist the cap open with a clear snap - a peace offering - and the man with his eyes shaded by a cap smiles at you.

“you must be mingyu,” you say, throat parched. and then, coyly, “soonyoung said he told you to find me.”

the man doesn’t move. his eyes, however, meet yours directly in guarded confusion.

doubt, perhaps.

you sigh, impatient. “i need a new pair of shoes.”

mingyu breaks into a wide, childish grin. he leans down, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “i’m your cobbler, agent.”

mingyu straightens himself. drawn to his full height, you think he might almost be threatening. his boyish grin and wriggling toes (unhindered by white thin sandals) don’t attest to much.

satisfied, he chugs down half of the water, exclaims loudly about the weather, and drags you out into a beaten silver nissan. you drop into the backseat unceremoniously, releasing yourself from the cutting straps of your backpack. the leather stings under your thighs. mingyu whistles off-key, breaking into a carefree but ghastly rendition of mariah carey’s christmas jingles.

“so, what brings you here to abu dhabi?” he chatters, revving the engine.

you accept his half-empty bottle. “holiday.”

he meets your gaze in the rearview mirror. “are you serious?”

you press your cheek against the upholstery, eyes wandering to the bleached vastness. “i need to get to cuba. i don’t have a lot of time.”

mingyu hums. “minghao was right; you are good.”

you lean back in your seat, close your eyes and wrap both hands round the comparative chill of a plastic bottle. the radio spikes to life, before mellowing down quickly into a nondescript, restless murmur. you shuffle, head twisting against patched leather and uneven bumps. without much thought, a quote - or two, tangled recklessly in a fervour - wafts to mind (the hard-fired earth… all the rules change.) trailing off under muted heat.

how strange, how fitting. a peek at the dashboard tells the time in waning green digits. you catalogue the receipts stuffed hastily in compartments, the layer of dust swiveling languidly under a cone of sunlight, the orange, beaded fox winking from the rearview mirror…

“hey, who was that soonyoung anyhow,” mingyu asks, voice tight. his hands are unhurried on the steering wheel as he continues, “he’s not that guy trailing us from behind, is he?”

a black mercedes benz lingers cautiously behind your beat-up ride. you smile. “soonyoung wouldn’t settle for anything beneath a porsche.”

“well, i wouldn’t know that,” mingyu says. “so. not a friend?”

“no,” you say, dissecting your backpack for a couple of spare parts. “how much straight road do we have?”

mingyu blinks. “four hundred? i’m not sure-”

you force yourself to focus, jamming minghao’s last gift together. “think you can keep us steady at eighty?”

he snorts. “you’re gonna shoot?”

“i need to get to cuba,” you say, unlocking the safety. “preferably in one piece. rev up a bit.”

he does. the mercedes needles in on you, aggressive. someone from the passenger’s seat takes aim - an arm arrogantly sticking out from the window. a couple of shots are fired - stray and unclean. this isn’t one of yours - but who, then? mingyu ducks, but his grip never wavers. it’s a wonder how he hasn’t been scouted yet.

“two hundred,” he warns.

you hook your legs to the straps of your backpack, and shove the side door open. mingyu curses, and the whiplash pierces into your skin, harsh. with a hand on the car door, you take aim at the tires. breathe.

and fire.

one shot is all you get before the car hits a curve, swerving sharply to the right. you’re knocked windless into the other side of the car, rammed hard against the door. there’s a blunt bruising pain in your back from where the clutch has punched a fist into, and a horribly loud clatter where his previously open door now slams shut.

mingyu gasps, half an intent to accelerate.

“stop,” you say, “stop!”

he gives you a look, and complies. the car screeches to a halt, throwing you down below the seats. you scramble up, revolver in hand, and watch as the mercedes benz skids from side to side before crashing into the curb.

the shooter in the passenger’s side is wiped out, head lolling to the side. his gun slips out of his grip and onto gravel beneath. the driver slumps into view, bleeding profusely too. you get out of the car, gun poised at the ready, and walk towards them. the brightness of the sun stuns you for a moment, but when you get a better glimpse -

it can’t be. even at this angle, obscured partially by the shadows or light, or tinted glass - you know it’s him. minghao’s face, stretched wide into a square, bleeding, is poised at the driver’s seat. there’s a bit of fuzz on his chin, you know how long it takes him to grow a beard, but it’s barely been a year, and -

it’s not him. it’s not him, it’s not him - but why? your hands are wet, unnaturally cold.

a disconcerted beeping registers vaguely in your ears. then there’s a grip on your arm, yanking you back and down crashing against the fuming grounds. the mercedes explodes, a blinding stream of light tearing and burning the car to smithereens. the fire bleeds, smoke heaving against the grey landscape, warping and furious. glass, paint, crust, or whatever rains down, blackened and seething.

the noise trickles back in, then gushes over you in full as mingyu shakes you.

he licks his lips, eyes wide with shock. “c’mon. let’s go.”

in two days, he crafts a completely new and impossibly perfect identity for you. medical certifications for your bad back and knee scrapes, too.

by friday, you’re in cuba.

on sunday, the organisation takes you off mandatory leave three months early.

you don’t forget what you saw. you don’t know what you saw.

UNREGISTERED, HUNGARY, DECEMBER 20XX-1: the vein in jeonghan’s neck threatens to pop - mingyu’s casual, offending fashion has him jarring in contrast to the articulate design of jeonghan’s work rooms. you hide a smile, leaning back against the table (a common, untinkered furniture, such luxury) that mingyu’s working on.

“who are you?” jeonghan says, arms crossed.

mingyu grins, twisting his monocle with a satisfying click. “call me sir mingyu.”

jeonghan eyes you, then mingyu’s back, noting how easy you stand next to him. he presses his lips in a straight line, then unfolds his arms.

you tangle your fingers together, decide that you’ve had enough of toying with jeonghan. “just mingyu. he’s the best forger in the world - we’ll be in china in time.”

jeonghan holds your gaze, nothing escaping him. “i’ve never heard of him.”

“that means i’m real good,” mingyu teases, turning round to waggle his eyebrows suggestively. you shove at him, unable to hide the grin on your face.

jeonghan clicks his tongue, walking up to you and pulling you out of the room. he doesn’t let go of your wrist even in the hallway, fixing you against the wall. you stare over his crouching figure, past the tensed crook of his shoulder and neck to the picture opposite - richard long, a line made by walking. 1967, if you’re not wrong. how typical of jeonghan.

“he’s not from the org,” jeonghan says, glaring.

you nod. “no. he saved my life.”

jeonghan pauses, giving you leave to trace along the edges of his jaw, up the angular sides of his face to the tilt of his lashes. he blinks, just as you hop over to the rounded browns of his irises. if you stare long enough, you can see yourself reflected in them - a tinted figure, interspersed with flecks of lighter brown or white.

his fingers dig into your wrist. you wonder if he’s trying to tell if you’re lying. for some reason, that wrings your insides into a helpless, bitter curse.

“when was that,” jeonghan finally says. “was it a year ago, when the previous Q-?”

you jerk your hand away from him, knee kicking up and into his stomach, only to be blocked by another palm. he stands his ground, something like pity ill-disguised flitting across his face. his adam’s apple bobs, and you set your feet back on the ground.

the air quakes, shudders imperceptibly with the force of reckoning. jeonghan feels it too. he steps away, lets you breathe, and for that you hate him so, so much. there’s a reluctant but eager exhale from him, his hand riding up to brush his bangs away.

“the Q before me, mi-”

your voice drops several degrees colder. “best not touch anything carelessly, Q.”

you don’t wait for him to reply, turning on your heel and marching back to the room. behind you, jeonghan’s exasperated sigh is minute, telling.

#seventeen #seventeen fanfic #jeonghan x reader #jeonghan imagines #minghao x reader #minghao imagines #mingyu #jeonghan #minghao #spy au #seventeen scenarios #only then i am human

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