#last time i went underwater in sky i got blinded | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

shinkimarbles · 1 year

Text

Narrative

Alas how Doe's bucketlist came and went

Warnings: Might be angsty, with a tint of comfort ❤️ OCs + OC backstory cause I finally got an normal idea?? mentions of death and murder and all that unpleasant COD related stuff 🌹💛

Doe sat by a large log, sunrays dancing above the water's surface - dazzling and blinding as the sky finally stopped pouring rain on tired combatants down bellow. She has been deployed with the War Hounds for over five years now. Her reddish brown hair, softly lit by the yellowish rays shone like snakes on her dark gear. Around her shoulders, simple shawl in the same dark color as the rest of her gear, while she took a breather to journual. In fact, all of them were dressed quite differently, despite falling under the same captain. It was only as the battle for Caldera progressed that they lost more men and women in the bloodshed, thus so many lives passed by that they forgot how to grieve properly. Instead of immense sadness, guilt of a survivor and anger - just a mandatory prayer and another cross on her arm remained. It wasn't the matter of not caring enough, as they captain said, it was simply the trigger in their brains supressing it for the wellbeing of them all.

Doe looked away from yellowing pages as someone briskly walked and stopped right next to her. Giving herself a soft smile, as she by now recognized those war ridden combat boots with neatly tied laces. "Going for a stroll, Cap?" Doe asked curiously, closing the journal. Afterall it was her superior's idea to write down as much as possible - death seemed more likely than ever, altought she remained optimistic that it might end someday soon - so they have something to hand off to the remaining family. "I think i'll take a swim." Captain answered. Captain Palmer, tall and calm, with demeanor of seasoned veteran - yet she barely crossed the age of 35 just recently. Spoke, fought and planned with deadly accuracy - truly a war hero many of them looked up to. But underneath her war image, there was an unexplained beauty - she had strikingly Beautiful golden locks of hair, always in precise braids, twirled into a small shape on the back of her head, tall with broad yet feminine curves, toned arms and sunburned cheeks. She wasn't always their captain, however as time passed, it fell onto her shoulders - two years ago, Doe was sure. Palmer was friendly, protective - yet also witholded many informations she deemed unecessary. All of them spent years together, all sense of privacy or shame dissipated as she took of her tactical gear to go for a swim. Nobody dared to watch her anyway, until her shoulders dissapeared underwater.

Doe had told her all her woes, nothing she'd never hear before - an orphan, ptsd ridden prisoner of war with no family nor close ones to delegate the news or the journal to. Concerned, she might dissapoint her new hero, Palmer asked her about enemies. Everyone was an enemy in Caldera, obviously. However then the question fell and silence befallen her ears as she stared blankly at Palmer's lips. "What about a bucketlist then?" And so she begun.

Creating an ultimate journal a complete map of remaining family of those she killed. Was it during her times with 141 or during her solo career as a killer for hire. Entrusting Palmer will live to see the end of the war, she dedicated all the info to her - with silent plea that she'd take care of it for her. Doe didn't like to think about the worst, but as she gazed to the boundless haze of water, she felt this might be the last time she goes to sleep. Last battle was before them - crucial one. It will probably decide the fate of them all. Looking over her shoulder, she hazily watched the rookies as they joked carelessly about, somewhere deep hoping, that the dead zone stranding ends by tommorow's dusk - for them at least. To her? Caldera might be her last resting place. "Hey, Lt. Wanna go play Poker?" One of the younglings called out to her. She snorted. "Hawkins, if you loose you're gonna go fight in your underwear tommorow!" Hawkins had a pregnant wife at home. It was his first child, first love - they met at junior high and were inseparable since, he always busted his chest so proudly, showing everyone her photo. He loved her so much, didn't he? When he showed Doe the first ultrasound, she started crying - even thou she couldn't make heads nor tails from it. "Don't start without me!" Palmer yelled, running barefoot to them, waving her hands.

That night, they spent it around dimming fire, singing songs and playing guitar that missed strings. Kowalska found it in abandoned storage building, thinking nobody might need it right now. "Well, we all know just one song." Hawkins sighed, staring up at the stars. "You're missing her, aren't you?" Doe asked, not looking up from her mug. "Yeah." He snorted, but he seemed lost. "I am afraid I won't come back. Or... In time. I think father should be present at the D day, no?" Looking for answer in her scarred face, he soundly knew that she had no clue. Her life was war. And she didn't know how to live outside of it. Still, she somehow became valiant and important part of his experience, of his survival in Caldera. "We didn't even pay off our student loan completely. Is it foolish, that I don't want to die?" This 21 year old man with dark hair and black eyes stared at her, his beard went unshaven, but it didn't grow back in properly. "It's not foolish, not at all." Doe held his shoulder, but he hugged her. He hugged her, trying to find any sense of resemblance to embrace he missed so much. "Hold onto the tought. And you will carry thru." She whispered. Doe felt Palmer watching her from the distance, and somehow she knew that her smile wasn't just so absent. It was real, and warm. Hawkins was the only surviving member of a Squad that deployed in Caldera six months ago. They wiped. Caught in a crossfire he was rescued by Doe and Palmer. Kowalska joined them with Cameron and sergeant Sarutobi later on, being stranded after their heli crashed. Guillard, Evans and Phillips survived from original War Hounds, while fairy like Rush was a nurse also a survivor from squad that deployed four years ago. Ten of them somehow stuck together thru thick and thin. "Thanks Lt." He drew a smile. "No worries, hit the hay early, eh?" Doe stood up. She knew that she needed to talk to Palmer, she'd regret if not.

"They love you," Palmer said, poking her neck a little. Doe puffered her cheeks and smiled. "I think they won't want to hear about me and my pestering once we go home." Leaning against a tree, she felt the tense question coming up. Was captain going to ask if There's a home for Doe Sullivan? "You can come to US with me, how bout that?" Doe staggered to speak. "What?" Palmer threw her hand over her shoulder, grinning. "Well when the war ends and if we live, why not go together? You're like my little sister." Was Palmer smoking weed or drinking? Neither. Suddenly her face turned dark again. "Doe, if I die tommorow, you're getting them home." She ordered. "Cap, they're getting home. But I feel this strange sensation... The tingling..." Her lips were covered. "You're getting home together with us."

*6 Years ago, Liverpool*

It was a dark day, rain poured and wind howled. And Doe Sullivan sat among all of that in the soil of cementery. It was such a strange experience, to buy herself her own tombstone, to avoid somebody having troubles with organizing funeral. All documents were signed, handed off to her attorney. Hoping somebody wouldn't mind the call So he knows she's gone and it's time to do what she paid him for. There was an one time payment on her account that would be paid to the attorney precisely the day she's oficially proclaimed dead, so he has no troubles with doing the bare minimum she asked for. Even in the loud banging created by the rainfall, she recognized the steps. It were high heels for sure. That was the day she met Palmer for the first time. At that time, she came dressed in white, as if she ran away from her wedding. Long, blonde hair neatly over her shoulder and umbrella that came into contrast with her outfit. Back then, she walked all the way to Doe, sat next to her without speaking a word at first. "I heard you quit you job at 141." She begun, gaining her attention. "You Are?" Doe asked, bluntly, not having marbles to deal with weirdos at the same time. Palmer smiled, not batting an eye. "I came to get you out of here. War Hounds need soldiers, and you are our ticket to get them home. You dont need to win, we need a saviour not glory." Doe turned to her. She had nothing to loose anyway. "You sure have screws loose, ma'am."

Caldera was hell set loose. But it felt like home to her, when their general at a time, handed out prospects and told them to get their things in order. It was the same scenario she experienced way too often before. Palmer was an enigma to her, she was rather beautiful, stunning even. Her morning hair wacky, but as general said - She could be a pornstar if She desired. However the truth behind her contract was much darker than some failed business ordeal. Her deployment was a result of a grief that came with loss - only later on did Doe hear the whole story. She married a man of her dreams, sweethearts from back home. He was sucessful businessman, she was housewife that knew how to make her lover happy. Always cleaned, always cooked, always ready to please him. And that made her happy, she was happy. Not long after she gave him what he desired the most - a son. Beautiful, talented baby boy that was supposed to be their pride and joy, until the accident that tore them apart took place. They were coming home late at night when they car got into a wreck - they both died. When She regained councioussness, She had two choices - to live lonely and depressed life or dedicate her life to something more meaningful. Having passed the entrance exams for US military, She pursued the only passion that was left inside of her - guns, cigarettes and bloodshed.

*The day of the final battle*

It was crazy. Bullets flew thru the air, Palmer in the head of attack as they tried to snatch the last point for themselves. The plan was simple - go for the tower, call for exfill and get back home. Whoever gains the tower, wins the air support. Ends the battle. Doe became their Angel of hope. Their beacon, as no bullet could ever reach her.

She pulled away from Palmer's grasp. Ignoring the blonde's pleas. "Don't go out there! You will get killed!" She yapped at her. Doe smiled. "Don't worry, I never get killed, right? He can't do it alone so- So cover me this once!" At that moment, she just did something she didn't believe. Jumped over the corner of shaking cover, trying to bolt for the staircase. Hawkins was crazy for going there alone.

It could be the end of hers, but what was the end afterall?

Was it a garden? Garden that started growing when you were born so you can rest in it when you're gone? Was it a house, with familiar fireplace and bedroom you loved? Was it a person you miss, that you'll see again? Where do the people with none of those things go? Maybe it's just a dark, soothing place, where all the pain gets washed away. All the dried blood dissipates into nothingness - you're free. She remembered when they sat on their first encampment and Palmer asked her. "Why do we fight? What are wars for?" And she couldn't answer, while it's not that hard. Everyone fights for their own reasons, be it 141 that became found family to each other. Be it War Hounds that are strangers that fight each for their own individual goals. Be it Palmer that wanted to make world better place for children in orphanage She visited or Hawkins that did it for his wife. Be it Doe, that'd fight the devil to get those guys home.

Home, right where they belong....

Shot ricochetted thru out the construction, digging into her flesh on her tigh as she let out a sickening gasp. It was for the first time in six years that she got shot. She crouched, looking for the source. While most of the fighting took place on ground level, with explosions threathening to put mission in jeopardy, that one man stood on high place. The sniper that took lives of many of Hounds, even of their own. She knew Hawkins was amazing marine, fast, strong and precise in close range, with guns and battle rifles. But when it came to sniping, he was a terrible shot. "No..." She gasped. "Palmer! We have a sniper on field!" She shrieked into the comm, only static coming back in response. "Fuck-!" There wasn't much of a choice. "Fuck... Fuck fuck!" Taking a deep breath, she made a choice. Rash, stupid even. But they already had minor injuries, in terms of numbers - they were winning. There were still 10 of them and 6 of the enemies. However the inuries rendered most of their team incapable of fight. With enemy sniper on board, there was very little they could do. Choking in tears she draped her gun to her shoulder, stood steady and begun running. Up and thru sickening pain, that made her stomach turn and twist.

It took two more shots - to her side and to her hand, to get up to the top. Hawkins sat there, mortified as he held onto the sniper rifle. His hands were shaking. "I don't wanna die. I don't..." He choked in. "What..." She fell to her knees next to him. They had one last stim. Everyone spent theirs thru out the years, except her - as she truly got badly Hurt just now. She was planning to inject herself upstairs. But staring into the eyes of a young man bleeding out, in front of her, she couldn't. She saw his eyes and couldn't. "Hawkins... Hey." She smiled as she reached towards the rifle. He was terrified. "I- I can't leave her alone... Please." He whimpered. "You won't." Doe was loosing a lot of blood. Drenched in hers and her enemies. She took the stim out of her pocket. "No... You're Hurt. Doe please. Not this way. You have to Finish the mission-" he panicked, but the blood loss made him weak, easy to overpower, as the thick needle pierced his skin and soon after, the bleeding stopped, his blood cells at work to close up the wound. His lungs relaxed. "Why...?" He asked. Doe smiled. "Because I promised to get you home. Stay put." She took the sniper rifle, swinging it up. Clear shot. The same way he had at her. He was alone, Palmer had upper hand at ground. They both fired at the same time. It was as if time stopped, as everything became slow motion.

What is war? What is the just and what is not?

Palmer's scream was terrifying, as it echoed thru construction. It was half sad, half grieving and the other half? She felt like god. Sniper was dead on impact, headshot. His shaking hands managed to land a shot on her as well. Chest, left lung. Her shoulders hunched as she staggered back. Hawkins caught her. Voices blasting thru her brain as sharp lights blinded her. All pain was gone, was this all that awaits them at the end?

"Doe hang in there!"

*5 months later*

Airport hall was calm, just families laughing and going about their day. So many stories coming thru these halls every single day. Big, spacious windows letting in just right amount of light, and of course, to keep the children entertained. And thru it, just another soul that passed by the countless other stories, walked to her gate. Long, blonde hair crawling on her back, with tight white jacket and pants of the same color. "Plane imbound from Liverpool to Dallas leaving shortly, you can now board the plane at Gate B."

,,Oh? Please, let me hear her!" Palmer laughed into the phone as she walked thru check in on airport. She was going to visit Hawkins in Dallas. "Haha okay Okay, let her know auntie is bringing her gifts!" She smiled to herself. "Miss Palmer?" Man spoke to her as she was ending the call. He was drssed nicely, in a suit and thick framed glasses. "I am sorry, I am on a hurry my plane is taking off.." Trying to be as polite as she could, the man nodded. "I know, I won't take long. I was asked to hand you this." He handed her a neatly signed envelope. ,,Ida Palmer." Palmer gave him a confused stare. "Have a pleasant flight, miss." He nodded his head and as fast as he came, he dissapeared in the crowd. It took another call from the announcer to snap her out of it. She refused to be late for Hawkin's birthday. Sitting down in a plane's business class, she smiled at attendant passing by as she looked down to the envelope. With a staggered breath she opened it.

"Dear Ida, I believe there's no real reason for formalities anymore. I have gathered these letter for all of you, just in case I don't come back from the mission. If I did, then you wouldn't be reading this.

I am not a big talker or thinker, I am a child born of war and blood and warfare is my life. However as I spent time in Caldera, I realized that there's so much to life than war. I learned, I grew, I cried with each new and old member that went thru our hands. Slipped thru my fingers. I wonder how afterlife is, sadly I cannot really tell you. But don't you dare come back to me there until your time's up!

Ida, you survived unimaginable. War Is one thing, sadness and desperation of loosing child and husband some other. I hope even with Caldera long gone behind you, you found new pourpose in life. I hope your adoption papers get thru to those up there so you can give home to some child that really needs it. You're good mother, it's time you forgive yourself. You told me you've dug two graves for us, I am glad you didn't have to sleep in one of them. If this letter reached you, thank you - for being there with me and for giving my attorney the call. He's a funny Guy, but gets the job done. Even to you, I am leaving enough money to start a new life with you baby. Somewhere far away. No need to bring me flowers or candles, but know that with first dandelions - I am there And I am proud.

Gosh this letter is sappy!

I hope Hawkins didn't name his child after me, i'd choke him! Haha, I am running out of space... I have one last thing to ask of. If you're still in posession of my journal, burn it. Burn it at dawn, and watch it fade away as every tragedy should. I hope there will be someone to lift you into their arms like you did to all of us. If somebody deserves happiness it's you, War Hounds.

Tell me, did they all make it out?

- With love, your War Hound Doe."

For the first time in years, she found the cycle of broken emotions end. Tears fell onto the alabastre paper with blue ink, blurring some of the words out. "Yes... We all made it out alright Doe."

In Dallas, they celebrated. Only when it was almost morning, she pulled out the journal. Hawkins' wife nodded. "I'll go check on her, take your time." She gave him a soft kiss and Went back to the house. Wrap around porch, pickup truck in the driveway. Heaven is a place on earth.

The fire was still going. "She wanted me to burn it." Ida whispered. David Hawkins looked to the side. It was no more Palmer, no more Hawkins. They were Ida and David, And they were friends. She became godmother to his firstborn. "It's the last memory we have of her." He said quietly. "She wanted private funeral service, with no honors." Ida replied, her hands shaking. "Do we have to do it?" David murmured, staring into the flames. "I am afraid yes. It's the very least we can do now. To give her a rest."

David wiped his cheeks. "Have somebody informed 141 of this? Don't they have a say in it?" Ida shook her head. "No, she was a War Hound and died as one. She dedicated this journal to two of us." His hand grabbed that of Ida's. "It's almost dawn." She continued. David swallowed his tears. "Then, we shall do it." They nodded as they stood up, both their hands letting go simultaneously, the same movement of letting the last memorial of fallen soldier go. The fire cracked and spat as it swallowed yellowing pages and flowers. They stared at the stars.

"Farewell, Lt."

The curtains fell goodnight

Now every good story needs a sending

It's not that I want to watch you leave

But it's all ending now

I have to let you go

I hope you find

What you're looking for

I hope he makes you happy

The way you need

No, I won't look back

No, can't look back

We're done

This is the end

At least it all was fun

The end 🌹

#Spotify

2 notes · View notes

nyx3927 · 3 years

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@musicfeedsmysoul12 and @lurking96 this is both of y’all’s fault with that thread about how too many fics where Izuku jumps, gets a quirk and just make Bakugo regret it without any actual character change. Just: Izuku goes splat, and now Bakugo is an uwu soft boy who’s really sorry but had no character development visible.

Y’all both get some of the blame for this fic outline I created after a bang, chocolate, and on 2 hours of sleep. It’s still a really rough outline and I don’t have time to polish it up into an actual outline, draft, then fic with my summer classes and job right now. Enjoy my stream of thought with no filter

The Ripple

Izuku has a concussion from Bakugo attacking him at school so his eyesight is off. Everything else is the same up to when All Might leaves him on the roof.

The concussion fucked with his vision, balance, and depth perception. So he ended up accidentally stepping off the side of the building. (Hush, I know that there’s a railing. We’re pretending that when All Might jumped away from Izuku on the roof, he accidentally took like half of it with him.)

Crash, boom, blood. Ambulance carted him off to the hospital and that’s the last we see of Izuku for a while.

They don’t know that All Might was the one who got him up to the rooftop because the notebook with the signature was blown off the roof and into the river. By the time that it was found, it was nothing but mush and the writing was illegible, all runny and blurry. They also just assumed that a villain ripped the railing off in a previous battle and the owner hadn’t gotten it fixed yet.

Inko tells Mitsuki that they think it was suicide because he couldn’t have accidentally gotten up on the roof (No evidence of All Might). Katsuki hears that but refuses to tell anyone that he told Izuku to jump off a roof because that could hurt his chances of being a hero.

Entrance Exam

Fast-forward to the entrance exam, everything proceeds as canon except for the bits with Izuku, which never happened.

Uraraka is stuck under the boulder with the zero pointer bearing down on her. Canon shows no evidence of any pro except Present Mic at the site, and he was last seen at the gates so he isn’t close by to Uraraka.

Uraraka couldn’t escape from the boulder in time and the kill switch takes up to 30 seconds to receive and process. So, the robot steps on the boulder and crushes her leg. She’s rushed to Recovery Girl but the damage is so severe that they have to amputate a leg.

As compensation, UA takes care of all the medical bills and offers her a spot in the Hero Course at UA with her entire tuition paid for all 3 years. Uraraka accepts to make it easier financially on her parents, so she shows up to the first day of classes with a prosthetic leg that she painted pink in an effort to make it less sad.

Quirk Assessment

A random extra is put into 1-A, but they and Mineta are promptly expelled. The extra just didn’t try at all, relying upon the idea that the teacher wouldn’t actually expel anyone on the first day. Mineta was just too pervy/not heroic enough so he got the boot.

Aizawa was reminded of the death of Oboro when Uraraka nearly got crushed, so he’s on high alert to expel those that he believes would never be good at heroics/ would just get themselves killed. Extra not trying and Mineta just focusing on being a perv, made him convinced they would get killed so he just expelled them straight away [No readmission for them]

This shocked Momo who thought he was bluffing and made her more cognizant of the fact that not everyone plays by the same rules as her.

Battle Trial

Battle trials happen. Momo and Uraraka are paired up together and fight twice in the trials. They won both times because Uraraka floated the bomb and Momo in the fight against Todoroki so that it was impossible for Todoroki to capture them. They win against Iida and Bakugo because Uraraka takes advantage of Iida’s unwillingness to hurt someone he views as disabled/helpless and knocks him out with a bat from Momo, then touches the bomb, Momo just created water and soaked Bakugo so he couldn’t use his Quirk and then ran from him.

All other trials proceeded as in canon.

USJ

Since Tsuyu is the only one in the Water Zone [Midoriya not in the story and Mineta expelled], she just went straight for the shore and got back to the entry area via the river. She witnesses the entire beatdown of Aizawa and his fighting, so she’s very traumatized. But because she’s amphibious and is completely underwater [In my hcs, she can breathe underwater as long as water can access most of her skin. So her suit is very permeable and water can get through it], Shigaraki never sees her and so he doesn’t try to kill her.

Rest of the USJ goes as canon dictates including Aizawa getting his head smashed by the Nomu

Sports Festival

Because 1-A has 2 less students, only the first 40 to get to the finish line can pass on. Todoroki ended up getting first place by icing over Bakugo’s legs at the tunnel entrance. Everyone else that originally passed in canon, also passed.

All the teams are the same, except for Uraraka’s team which doesn’t have Midoriya, and Shoji’s who doesn’t have Mineta.

Bakugo is going after Todoroki instead of Uraraka’s team because he’s focused on snagging the winning headband.

Uraraka uses her Quirk on her team and they just hang out in the sky for awhile, since after the boulder, she practiced to be able to lift more weight so that never happens again.

Shoji’s team is the same as canon, especially because Mineta never actually did anything important to the team.

Todoroki never uses his fire because he used his ice to create a dome that kept everyone else away from his team. Bakugo runs around stealing other headbands since he can’t get to Todoroki.

At the end of the round, Todoroki is in first, Bakugo is second, Uraraka is third and Shinso is fourth.

Ojiro and Shoda both drop out citing the fact that they couldn’t remember the event as the reason. Shiozaki Ibara and Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu replace them

So now we have the 1v1 battles with the following students.

Uraraka Ochako

Tokoyami Fumikage

Hatsume Mei

Bakugo Katsuki

Kirishima Eijiro

Ashido Mina

Sero Hanta

Todoroki Shoto

Iida Tenya

Yaoyorozu Momo

Kaminari Denki

Shinso Hitoshi

Aoyama Yuga

Shiozaki Ibara

Tetsutetsu Tetsutestu

Shinso gets a free pass onto the next round because he is a gen ed student so they wanted to allow him the best chance possible and it’s better for the optics of UA for watchers to see a hero student beating up another hero student instead of a gen ed kid.

Todoroki v. Sero -Todoroki won ala iceberg

Kaminari v. Shiozaki -Kaminari won by sending electricity through her hair and knocking her out because Aizawa forced him to start thinking outside of the box after he nearly died during the USJ [shiozaki has to have nerves to control her vines and nerves have electricity traveling through them. So they’re a conductor and Kaminari can send his electricity down them]

Iida v. Hatsume -He doesn’t accept her gadgets and just pushes her out of bounds. After the Uraraka debacle in his battle trial, he realizes that he can’t just go off his perceptions and has to be wary of them.

Ashido v. Aoyama - Ashido won

Tokoyami v. Yaoyorozu - Yaoyorozu won by creating an explosion of light and blinding them, then pushing them out of the ring. Uraraka taught her to take advantage of what she can do and Aizawa forced her to realize that others don’t have the same rules.

Tetsutetsu v. Kirishima - Kirishima won by charging Tetsutetsu and knocking him out of the ring. Again Aizawa forced him to not just behave as a shield because of the USJ

Uraraka v. Bakugo -Uraraka won by taking off her prosthetic, leaving it as a decoy and floating herself so that he couldn’t hear her coming, and the dust from his explosions had blinded him. She tackled him from above and hurled him out of bounds. He got a concussion and Recovery Girl forced him to stay in the infirmary.

Todoroki v. Shinso -Shinso won by coming after Todoroki’s weak spot and making him talk

Iida v. Kaminari -Kaminari won by shocking Iida’s engines when he tried to grab him. Made him collapse, and then just dragged him out of bounds.

Tokoyami v. Ashido- Tokoyami won by Dark Shadow kicking her out of bounds

Uraraka v. Kirishima -Uraraka won by preying on Kirishima’s desire for manliness and to not hurt a girl. Got close enough to float him and then just push him out of bounds. Aizawa has plans to lecture Kirishima about when to be manly and when to not be.

Shinso v. Kaminari -Shinso won. He could tell that Kaminari was a memelord, so he just took advantage of that and said a meme that Kaminari couldn’t resist completing. [Don’t know what yet, I’ll figure it out later]

Tokoyami v. Uraraka -Tokoyami won. Uraraka lost because she couldn’t use her Quirk on Dark Shadow and Dark Shadow was the one to attack her. [See doc of quirk analysis for more in depth in case we forget]

Shinso v. Tokoyami -Shinso won by mirroring Tokoyami’s speech patterns which knocked him off guard and got him caught into Shinso’s Quirk.

Shinso got first place, Tokoyami got second, Uraraka and Kaminari shared third place.

Hero names

Todoroki -Shoto

Bakugo -King Explosion

Iida -Tenya

Uraraka -Weightless [As a pun on weigh less because of her amputation and her quirk. She’s not quite as bubbly and didn’t feel like uravity reflected her anymore]

Tsuyu -Froppy

Kirishima -Red Riot

Yaoyorozu -Creati [I really want to change this but I don’t know to whaaaat!!! I’ll come back to it later]

Tokoyami -Tsukuyomi

Jiro -EarJack

Shinso -Silencer [Stupid but his quirk makes people silent plus I love MLB silencer design of the , not the helmet tho that is ugly looking and the coloring needs to be more muted imo]

Internships

Shinso gets an internship with Aizawa to assess whether or not he’s fit for heroics. Aizawa also prescreens all of his students' internships to make sure that it’s a good fit for them. [He’s a lot more protective of where they because he wants them to be actually learning useful heroics not shit like how to clean and pose for a camera.]

Mirko offers an internship to Uraraka because she wanted to teach a fighting girl that was perceived as helpless by society. [Society views disabled as helpless, a girl is also viewed as helpless, both is bad combination. Mirko wants to prove anyone can be badass with the right training]

Yaoyorozu gets put with Fatgum because Aizawa sees that she’s struggling with the fat part of her Quirk and knows that if she went with Uwabami, she’d develop more insecurities. [Uwabami is a TV actress/model. She’ll pass on weight/beauty related insecurities because that’s what a lot of actresses have and she seems focused more on a fanbase]

Kirishima goes with Rock Lock to be faced with the blunt truth that ideals are nice, but you can’t have them rule your life as a hero. [Canonly, he’s very blunt and pragmatic, so he’d believe that trying to be manly is fine, but there is a time and place for it.]

Everyone else goes with their canon internships.

The Nomus attack Hosu. Because Gran Torino isn’t there, the Nomus are more dangerous and more civilians die. All the heroes are focused exclusively on managing the Nomus and the interns kinda fall to the wayside since they can’t do anything.

Iida slips away and Manual is too busy putting out fires to notice.

Iida runs off and finds Stain. Battle commences and Iida loses.

Stain calls him and Native fake heroes. Native gets a sliced throat. Stain is a little more lenient with Iida because he is a kid. He goes through the fabric pants and slices the femoral artery to the bone. [Femoral artery cuts can lead to death within minutes especially with Iida running on adrenaline which kicks up the blood pressure and rate of bleeding.]

Endeavour comes through with Shoto burning all the nomus and destroying them. Finally the city is quiet and the search for the dead begins.

Every hero in Hosu grid searched the entire city to retrieve the dead and bring them to the morgue for claiming.

Manual was the one to find his dead intern and Native. He had to call UA and tell them that he got a student killed while under his supervision. He gets blacklisted by UA and Aizawa puts out a warning on the Underground network that if others are under his care, that he might lose track of them.

Once everyone returned from their internships, they left red spider lilies on his desk as a way to guide him to the afterlife.

Training Camp

The villains still want Bakugo because they saw his aggression, violence, and determination to be the best during the sports festival and the internships. So they think he’d be an easy switch to flip.

This time, Aizawa doesn’t dump them out in the middle of the forest because he’s focusing on forcing his students to interact and bond with each other instead of doing their own thing. So they all stay on the bus and Aizawa makes them talk about something semi-important with a seat partner for 10 minutes before switching so that everyone talks to more than just their friend groups.

When they arrive, Kota is his bratty self and Aizawa shuts that down fast. He tells him that he has two options, one: stay with his aunts and uncle or two: stay with Aizawa. Aizawa can’t have an itty-bitty child running around loose in the forest when 17 hormonal teenagers are letting off their Quirks which are dangerous. [it was an awful idea in canon to let Kota hide in his treehouse. Imagine if one of the kids near the mountain lost control of their quirk.] Kota chooses to stay with his aunts and uncle at all times because Aizawa is scary.

Once the training starts, he pairs everyone up with different partners to force their Quirks to improve.

Ashido-Kirishima to strengthen her acid and his hardening by hurling acid at him

Tokoyami-Kaminari-Aoyama to force Aoyama to maintain his laser beam for longer, Tokoyami to force him to strengthen Dark Shadow against light, Kaminari to power multiple light sources without burning them out and not going into whee mode so he can avoid the laser beam and Dark Shadow

Ojiro-Koda to force Koda to vary the animals that he calls and Ojiro to give him experience with fending off multiple opponents of varying sizes and skill levels without seriously injuring them.

Todoroki-Bakugo-Tsuyu to force Todoroki to be able to control both sides of his quirks and switch them easily, Tsuyu to force her to get accustomed to varying temperatures and making sure they don’t knock her out, Bakugo to force him to sweat more in both cold and hot temperatures so that he’s more versatile.

Jiro-Shoji-Hagakure to force Hagakure to improve her stealth and fighting, Jiro to make her be able to detect people sneaking up on her, and Shoji to improve his locating skills and stealth. [Shoji is a big boy and needs to work on stealth]

Sero-Sato to help Sero with his dodging and speed, and Sato to help him retain more of his planning and forethought while his Quirk is activated

Uraraka-Yaoyorozu to make Uraraka work on her sickness and weight limits and Yaoyorozu to adapt to planning on the fly and create items quickly.

Aizawa forces them to break away from their training partners when it’s time to make dinner and everyone is required to help in some way during the meal. The help can be gathering the ingredients, preparing them, doing the actual cooking, plating, setting the table, cleaning up after, anything as long as they contributed.

Repeat until the trial of courage.

Vlad wants to do the trial and Aizawa refuses to do it. Aizawa is actively trying to squash out the competitiveness of his students in order to make them work together and ask for help so that they’ll survive longer in the hero society. Uraraka lost a leg because people wouldn’t cooperate to help her in the entrance exam and Iida died because he was too focused on himself and didn’t ask for help. The trial would just reignite the competitiveness and ruin his progress.

1-B does the trial on their own while 1-A is given a maze they have to navigate.

The maze is created by Pixie Bob and is huge. It’s large enough that the students on the ground can’t peek over the walls to see the path. There are two students on the ground, the leader and the guide. The leader can see the walls and the turns but has earplugs in so they can’t hear the guide if the guide tries to talk. The guide can hear the directions from the person who sees the entire maze but is blindfolded and has to guide through tapping the shoulders of the leader. The person outside and looking down has to direct their team through the maze quickly without crashing into other teams. The leader can’t just guess a direction because Pixiebob will shift the maze if they try to do that so they can’t backtrack. It’s in teams of three so Aizawa is directing the last team. [Kinda inspired by survivor but with my own twist]

All of them rotate through each position with different teams each go round to impress on them the importance of all the roles.

In the last round, Bakugo was the person issuing instructions, cursing and screaming through the mic the entire time.

That’s when the villains attacked. But there were a few changes in the lineup.

Toga wasn’t there because the police picked her up and Inko got her case taken on to get her on parole and took her into her home when she saw her at the station while continuing with the criminal charges levied against the owner of the building that Izuku had fallen off of. The appearance of a girl bullied and ostracized for her Quirk, who was going down the path of no return, Inko saw Izuku in her. As such, she wanted to care for her and show her that villainy wasn’t the answer and that there are people who cared for her in spite of her blood Quirk. [Toga is stuck with Inko at this point in time and has a tracking anklet to make sure that she’s behaving. Rehab is going really well with the unconditional care that Inko is providing.]

Dabi got an infection and landed in the hospital ER as an unknown patient and wound up in a coma while his body was busy trying to fight the infection of his staples. [The man’s a walking open wound. You can sneeze in his general vicinity and have a high chance of taking him down in a couple weeks. Haven’t decided if I want to wake him up or not. Depends on my feelings]

Mustard joined the attack via Toga due to them being closer in age and talking. No Toga, no Mustard. [He’s sulking in detention right now.]

So the only ones left are Mr. Compress, Magne, Spinner, Muscular, Moonfish, Twice and the Nomu. Much smaller and no long-range attacks.

Their mission is to get in, extract Bakugo and get out with minimal damage. That’s what happened.

Muscular, Moonfish, and the Nomu all rampage on the opposite side of the mountain to draw attention to them. Magne and Spinner break up the 1-A class and drive them apart. Twice and Mr. Compress work together to snatch up Bakugo in a marble and then they all book it. Muscular and Moonfish are both left behind to keep the heroes distracted long enough for them to get back to Kurogiri and through the portal. Nomu ended up buried in a mountain via a very anger Tiger at the disruption of his naps. The students all worked together to try and bring down the villain to retrieve their classmate, but when that failed, Yaoyorozu managed to attach a tracker to the villains top hat.

Injuries were minimal and the three heavy hitting villains were arrested and locked up. The only casualty was Bakugo being kidnapped.

Kidnapping Arc

Blah, blah, join us you can be stronger and win a villain-Shigaraki

No, fuck off, go fuck yourselves-Bakugo

Repeat until All Might shows up

Then AfO activates goop Quirk [really need a better name for that. better than vomit transport quirk at least. That was my first thought], drags the league and Bakugo to him. Bakugo is held by him, hand on his temple ready to crush him.

Rest of Heroes all show up on the battlefield but aren’t moving so that Bakugo doesn’t get hurt. Essentially a stand off.

You know, you can tell whether or not someone has the potential for villainy by their greatest regret -AfO

AfO has a quirk that allows the user to see someone’s greatest regret, with more details the longer that the quirk is activated. He also has a quirk that allows him to project whatever he’s thinking about in a video format for everyone to see. [the man is old. he probably had a habit of taking whatever quirk he wanted when he was younger before all might turned him into a very ugly potato/alternate darth vader]

Quirks activate and it’s the scene of Bakugo telling Izuku to get jump off a building spliced with the news from Inko that Izuku was suspected of jumping off a building

Interesting. Why is that your greatest regret?-AfO

Quirk gives him more details.

Bakugo only regrets saying that because if it ever became public, he'd never reach the spot of number one hero which is his only goal in life.

Guess you are nothing but a villain after all. Too obsessed with yourself to see the damage you caused.-Afo

Afo shoved the boy away from him and forcibly activated Kurogiri’s Quirk to allow the league to escape.

Every hero on site is frozen in shock at the reveal of what a hero student of UA, the most prestigious hero school that graduated most of the top heroes in Japan, actually believed.

At that point, AfO flips All Might the finger and just goes through the portal because the news would shake society’s faith in UA which is really good. He can kill All Might later. [or just wait for any infection to take the man out. He lost his stomach so he probably lost his spleen too which is kinda important for the immune system.]

Fallout

Bakugo is booted to gen ed because Aizawa refused to teach someone that was just going to end up hurting someone later in life. Because Aizawa is an Underground Hero who specializes in information and predication, schools tend to believe in what he says about the potential/future of heroes in training especially when he has evidence to back up his beliefs. So no other school will take him on as a hero student.

Bakugo is essentially blacklisted from heroics because everyone wants to believe that a hero is good and just. And when the illusion is broken before it has a chance to solidify, they have no chance of becoming a hero.

Aizawa goes and apologizes in person to Inko. Because even though he had no way of knowing, he feels like he should have recognized the abusive tendencies and/or egocentrism of Bakugo earlier. So, allowing it to continue was a slap in the face to his victims.

Inko accepts his apology because she didn’t know about it either so how could she blame him when she was closer and still missed all the signs. She offers to let Aizawa visit Izuku because Eraserhead was one of his favorite heroes because of how much skill he had. But because Eraserhead was underground, he didn’t have any merch or enough information to write about him.

*Split path here depending on the angst level I want

1. Izuku is in a coma, all healed up, just hasn’t woken up. When they came, Izuku had just woken up a half hour ago so the doctors were busy checking all his vitals, memory, joints, etc. Inko cries, Aizawa stands away because he’s allergic to emotions, and Izuku is just silently fanboying because he sees one of his favorite heroes.

2.Izuku is in a coma and doesn’t wake up. Inko introduces Aizawa to him and tells Aizawa about his dreams and his story. Aizawa makes sure that at least once a week, he comes and visits to talk to him. He also brings other heroes to introduce to Midoriya to make sure that others know about him.

3.Aizawa and Inko go to a graveyard and the name Midoriya Izuku is carved into a family grave marker with flowers and an All Might figure in front of it. Inko tells Aizawa that Izuku died from falling from the building. They thought he jumped randomly, but with the new info, Inko is thinking that Bakugo might’ve pushed him verbally over the edge. Aizawa promises to investigate more.

#boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bnha #mha #fic outline #fic ideas #anti bakugou #consequence #cw suicide attempt #doesn’t actually happen #but characters think it did #aizawa shōta #alternate universe #canon divergence

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keewriting · 3 years

Text

Cove x MC - One Shot #7 (request)

[Read on google docs to insert your MC's name]

CONTENT WARNING: mild spooky imagery in the beginning!

The cobblestone stairs twisted up the spiral tower endlessly. Your breath was short as you struggled to navigate each gnarled step. You couldn’t see your legs, but they felt gelatinous. As much as you tried, you couldn't push your body to move faster.

The tumultuous sky loomed overhead and shifted unnaturally. Green light stretched upward from the base of the tower. The blinding rays were lifelike in their movement. You frantically turned around and caught a glimpse of the horrid Thing. It moved slowly.

The shadowy form clung to the wall of the tower. Bony, black protrusions jutted into the stone from its body. The hollow cracking sound made you nauseous. A sheer membrane shielded its face. You whipped back around to focus on climbing the tower.

The steps in front of you crumbled. The hollow cracking rang in your ears. The Thing rose from the misplaced steps. Dark clouds tumbled around your body. The membrane peeled back, revealing pale skin that clung to a contorted expression. Its mouth hung agape, allowing you to peer into the void of its maw. The hollow eye sockets began to glow green. The ghastly Thing lunged forward as the ground beneath you collapsed. You opened your mouth to scream, but you couldn’t hear your own voice.

You jolted awake in a tangle of bedsheets. Your chest felt tight and your limbs were immobile. The darkness felt heavy on your wide eyes. You heard a shuffling sound from the floor. Your heart pounded, the reality of the situation had not yet settled in. Still reeling from the nightmare, you prepared for the worst. Instead, a mess of green hair popped into view.

Cove stood up and walked to your bedside. Your heart rate slowed, but your limbs still felt stiff.

Cove: What was that?

Cove’s voice was low and hoarse.

Y/N: What?

Cove: You screamed, Y/N. Are you okay?

You blinked heavily. Your mind still felt fuzzy.

Y/N: I’m sorry… I had a nightmare.

The moonlight leaking in through your window lit up Cove’s face. His expression was soft and concerned. He placed his weight on your bed. You didn’t object, so he lifted the blanket and settled in next to you.

Body still rigid, you couldn’t scoot over to make more room for Cove. His options were to hang precariously off the edge of your bed or close the gap between your bodies. He hesitated for a moment before sliding his body closer. He propped his elbow on your pillow and tucked his other hand close to his chest.

Cove: Can I do anything to help?

Y/N: Stay here with me.

Your heart rate leveled with Cove’s presence, but you still felt shaken. You squeezed your fists, finally in control of your body. You brought your palms to your eyes and rubbed them with a low groan.

Y/N: It felt so real, Cove.

Your throat tightened while remembering the nightmare. Images of the Thing flooded your mind. Tears pricked behind your eyelids as you tried to regain control of your thoughts. You lowered your hands to your chest and took a deep breath.

Cove: Y/N…

Hearing Cove’s soft voice broke you. Your lip quivered as tears rushed down your cheeks. Cove gasped beside you. He tentatively placed his hand on yours. His palm felt hot.

Cove: I’m here, please don’t cry.

You turned toward Cove and nuzzled your face into his chest. He raised a shaky arm to cradle it behind your head.

Cove: Do you want to talk about your nightmare?

Your strained vocal cords could barely utter a reply. They faltered under your sobs, but Cove got the message. He held you in silence for a few minutes. His body felt tense. You tried to calm your breathing and relax but it was futile. Cove realized the situation was not improving.

Cove: I’ll tell you a story to distract you.

Cove waited for your nod of approval. He settled his arm under you and rested his head on your pillow. The other arm still cradled your head. He stroked your hair as he spun the tale.

Cove: This is a true story. It happened long ago, only a few miles out from this very coast. Deep under the ocean, in a bustling underwater mecca.

You closed your eyes to imagine the story, but the gaping mouth of the Thing appeared instead. Your eyes snapped open. You opted to focus on the junction between Cove’s neck and chest. The shallow dip above his clavicle rose and fell with his breathing.

Cove: The most beautiful merperson lived in an extravagant coral castle at the heart of the city. Their shining smile warmed the hearts of every fish they met.

Cove described the merperson. Every detail seemed to match your appearance and demeanor perfectly. He spoke casually, almost as if he was hoping you wouldn't catch on.

Cove: There was one lucky merman who—

You absentmindedly traced your finger over Cove's chest, causing him to stumble over his words.

Cove: The uh— the merman. He was lucky. Lucky…

Cove was flustered, but he took a deep breath and powered through. You caressed the soft, warm skin. It vibrated under his low voice.

Cove: This merman got to spend every day with his beautiful friend. Basking in the warmth of their sunny smile. He knew he was lucky, but there was always something picking at his heart.

Your face felt hot. Butterflies dancing in your stomach replaced the tightness in your chest.

Cove: The problem was, the merman didn’t know if their friend felt the same about… how much he cared for them.

Your heart lunged into your throat. The heat from your face traveled throughout your entire body. Cove’s voice continued shakily throughout his tale. The merman and his beautiful merperson went on adventures across the sea. They had an unbreakable bond even through uncertainty and adversity.

Cove’s storytelling immersed you in a fantastical realm. You listened intently and your nerves settled. Soon, your eyelids felt heavy.

Cove: In the end, the merman realized that it wasn’t simply luck. It was an indescribable magic. The most magnificent treasure in the sea.

You submitted to your sleepiness and allowed your eyelids to fall. Your mind clouded with ethereal images of a sweet love between two merpeople. As your consciousness faded, you felt Cove push the hair from your face and delicately kiss your forehead.

Cove: Sleep well, Y/N.

You blinked your eyes open to bright light and warmth. You stretched your arms and knocked into Cove’s face. You didn’t realize he fell asleep in your bed with you.

Cove: Oww…

He grumbled and swatted at you gently. His arm fell and dangled off the side of your bed. You sat up to get a better look at his face. It was rare for Cove to sleep in longer than you.

Y/N: Cooove…

You crooned, hoping to wake him. He mumbled incoherently. You extended your finger and poked his cheek. His eyes fluttered open and focused on your face. They snapped open wide.

Cove: Oh, shit—

Cove’s hand clamped over his mouth. He scurried to sit upward. You couldn’t hold in your laughter. He smiled sheepishly but maintained his distance.

Y/N: Good morning, sleeping beauty.

Cove: I’m glad to see you’re in a better mood.

His eyes softened and his body relaxed. The spot next to him looked inviting. You shifted your position and rested your head on his shoulder.

Y/N: I feel a lot better thanks to you.

Cove’s hands fidgeted in his lap. He gnawed on his lip, lost in his thoughts.

Y/N: Cove?

You moved your hand next to his and nudged his pinky with yours. He lifted it and allowed them to hook together.

Cove: I’m sorry I slept in your bed. I didn’t ask. I was going to get up but you fell asleep and then I fell asleep.

Y/N: I wanted you there.

Cove: Oh. Then... I’m not sorry.

A goofy grin spread across his red face. Your heart overflowed with affection for Cove.

Y/N: You know, I was thinking about the story you told me last night. To me, the beautiful merperson is the truly lucky one.

You sat up straight to face Cove. His eyebrows rose quizzically.

Y/N: I know from experience that having someone willing to swim across the sea for you is the best feeling in the world.

Cove’s cheeks flushed red. He leaned forward, then hesitated. Your heart swelled.

Cove: I um—

His words got cut off by your mom calling your name loudly from downstairs. You stared at each other in shock. This was one of those unapproved, in through the window sleepovers.

Y/N: Window!

You hissed urgently under your breath. Cove was already scrambling to the window when you heard footsteps climbing the stairs. You followed Cove to see him off on his journey. The footsteps grew louder. You whipped your head towards the door, then back to the window.

To your surprise, Cove’s face was inches from yours. His eyes met yours before he leaned in for a kiss. It was quick, barely a peck. He ducked out the window and made his exit without another word or glance in your direction.

You shut the window and turned around in time for your mom to knock on the door. She invited you down for breakfast. You grabbed your phone from the desk and followed. You were stuck in a daze with the feeling of Cove lingering on your lips. You worried that Cove would regret the kiss.

The phone vibrated in your hand, breaking your trance.

Cove 8:27 AM: See you later?

Y/N 8:28 AM: You know it.

You clutched the phone to your fluttering chest. Only Cove could so effortlessly ameliorate that dreadful night. The memory of the nightmare felt so small compared to the story and the kiss.

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petite-ely · 3 years

Text

Afraid // JJ Maybank

five - but what if?

Pairing: JJ Maybank x fem routledge! reader

Warnings: bad language (don’t swear kids), mention of drowning, mention of death, nightmares, mention of guns, mention of fight, did I miss something.

Description: after his reckless actions at the party, JJ is unable to sleep but he isn’t the only one still awake.

A/n : I don’t want to make this longer than it already is, I think I’ve talked enough lol. If for some reason you want to know why I’ve been gone for so long I’ve written a post regarding it. Sorry again for not posting in so long. If you want to chat, feel free to reach out. I’m friendly. :) please kindly tell me if I’ve made some mistakes, I’ve reread this like a hundred times but its possible some mistakes slipped.

Previously next

Afraid masterlist

Gif by @cobrazkai

Song recommendation

JJ Maybank was 14 years old when he first realized that he had feelings for one of his best friends. The thing is he didn’t know what the hell those feelings were. He had always thought that y/n was really pretty and he considered her to be one of her closest friends and that was it. Friends- that’s what they were.

But after years of friendship and wild adventures and basically hanging out 24/7, something felt different. And boy, did that scare him.

JJ was not the kind of person to be really in touch with his emotions. Being abandoned by his own mother and living with an abusive alcoholic father didn’t really help either. If anything, his past traumas only made him more disconnected from his emotions and feelings.

He might’ve been hot headed and impulsive but that didn’t stop him from feeling things, often even too deeply. The issue was naming the emotions he was feeling. He didn’t know what he was feeling like half of the time. So when it came to y/n, his feelings for her were so intense and unknown. He had never felt this way for anyone before. He was so confused.

Being around her felt weirdly homely and yet, he never really had a real home to come to. For him, it was only a house. It was a building with things he wasn’t really attached to and a man he couldn’t really call a father, despite DNA saying otherwise. Being with her felt warm and golden and it was like a drug he couldn’t say no to. He was constantly looking for ways to feel this specific way. It was euphoric. But he only felt this way when he was around her. And it felt like home.

She was the home he wanted to come to every freaking night. And he wanted to dance with her and have night long discussion and caress her cheeks tenderly. He wanted to kiss her more than anything else, his lips on hers staying that way until one of them needed to take a breath - oh what heavenly feeling that must be. He wanted to proclaim his feelings to the entire island - the entire world even.

Only he couldn’t. There was this rule, and he couldn’t break it. Usually, he wasn’t the kind of person to let rules determine what he should and shouldn’t do. But it was the pogue rules, he couldn’t break them. He couldn’t do that to his friends, regardless of his own feelings.

Love. That’s what his feelings were. It took him some time to realize it, but yeah, it was love. He was certain of it (which was rare for JJ). A first love, innocent, deep and one sided. At least that’s what he thought. How could she love him? How could anyone love him when even his own father didn’t? Who would want him?

Now, JJ had messed, big time.

He was sitting beneath a tree, at the edge of the yard whims the château, a few feet away from where the water started. His gaze was turned towards the sunrise though he wasn’t really looking at the magnificent show of colours that nature was offering him. He was thinking or more like regretting.

He kept replaying the event that had happened just a few hours ago on the boneyard again and again in his mind. The arrogance on John B’s face while he taunted the kooks, the empty, psychotic look on Topper’s face while he was holding J.B’s head underwater, his own hand holding the gun against Topper’s head. It felt so powerful at the moment and yet in retrospect he felt so stupid. What would he have done if something had actually happened, if someone had gotten hurt because of him?

In the spur of the moment, he hadn’t thought about it really much. How crazy it actually was. He saw his friend in a situation where he could actually die and only thought about helping him. He had this thing with him that could help save him, an object that take could take someone’s life in the matter of seconds. So he used it at his advantage. He had only wanted to help, but at what cost.

He kept picturing the expression on y/n’s face when he got the gun out. It wasn’t anger, no it was much worse, she was terrified. She had actually been scared of him. How could he ever make up for that. How he could he ever admit what he was feeling for her after he had brought her such terror. He had ruined everything.

What if she never forgot that moment? What if she never forgave him?

A branch cracked somewhere in the distance, and JJ turned to face whoever, or whatever, was lurking in the dark. He was blinded by the bright artificial light of a flashlight. “JJ?” A voice spoke and the blond immediately recognized it. Y/n.

“Can you please turn it off, I don’t think it’s necessary,” he responded, motioning to the clarity that brought the sunrise. It was light enough for them to fully see one another.

“Oh, yeah, sorry, “-she sat down beside him- “Couldn’t sleep?” JJ stared at her for a moment before taking his eyes away.

“Yeah, you could say that. What about you? John B snoring too loud?” Y/n gave a small laugh.

“Um, no, not this time.” Her smile went down. “I had a nightmare.” JJ’s brows furrowed.

“Not about um, not about tonight right?” He asked, guilt hidden in the tremors of his voice.

Images of the past night filled y/n’s mind. Her brother being held under water, JJ pulling the gun out, the loud echoing sound of the firearm as it shot in the air. She could still hear it ringing slightly in her ears.

A small moment went by before she finally shook her head in denial, earning a small sigh of relief from the blond (at least that wasn’t his fault, he already felt guilty for so many things). “No, uh, no it wasn’t that,” she said, her voice barely audible.

JJ stared at her face in the golden light of this early morning. He noticed the blank stare in her eyes and frowned. Nightmares, although worrying for most people, were pretty common for y/n. JJ of course knew this, yet something felt odd.

He rested his hand on the small part of her back between her shoulder blades. “Do you want to talk about it?” She turned her head to meet his eyes, the feeling of his skin, warm and soft against hers sending small tingles at the base of her neck.

She didn’t want to bother him with her problems, she knew how horrible his home life was compared to what she was living. She didn’t want to remind him of this not make him feel bad about her small problems when he was facing such violence on a daily basis. Still, she knew JJ and talking about his dad was the last thing he wanted to do. And his eyes, his beautiful ocean blue eyes, it’s like they could see through her. How could she lie to him?

“I, uh I-I-“ his hand went to her shoulder and he squeezed it reassuringly. “You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to.” Y/n felt her cheeks burning (hopefully he didn’t notice it). She took a moment to breathe in deeply the fresh air, calming herself slightly before putting her hand on his.

“No, I-I want to. I think it’ll help, in a way.” JJ cracked a sweet smile. “Alright then.”

“I keep having this one dream about my dad and I see him on his boat wandering. He’s lost in the middle of the ocean and he’s calling my name.” Saying those words, she really felt as though she could hear her father calling her name in the far distance, as if he was right beside her. Sadly, it was only her imagination playing tricks on her.

“And it keeps turning to this nightmare, where he dies in various horrible ways. Either drowned or starved or eaten by sharks.” JJ’s gaze softened, his eyes admiring her lips forming each words one after the other. “But tonight-“ she let go of his hand, shifting her body to face him completely, “-tonight, for a reason, I didn’t see him.”

“The boat was empty.”

Flashes of her nightmare came back to her like waves crashing on the beach. Her dad on his boat, a smile sketched on his lips. The sky is clear blue, not a cloud is in sight. There’s a warm breeze, she can almost feel it on her skin, and the sun is shining. It’s almost utopian, the perfect day to spend out in the sea.

Then the scene changes. The sky darkens to a deeper shade of blue, grey clouds towering the ocean. The wind is stronger, much stronger. It whistles as it makes its way in the crevices between each tree and threatens to tear the sails down. And the boat, she can see it floating hauntingly on the wild waves the same way a ghost would in abandoned castle. And there’s no trace of her father. Not even a feeling, that would tell her he’s there, trying to survive this storm.

“What if he really is gone J? What if my dad-“ she stopped her sentence to look at the horizon, somehow hoping to see a sign that would prove she was wrong. “I’m trying so hard to be positive and optimistic, but it’s been so long. What if he never comes back?”

The look in her eyes was heart-wrenching. JJ didn’t know what to say or do. He never really thought about it. What would happen if Big John was gone. To be honest he didn’t want to, that man was more of father to him than his own ever was. And losing him would be... he preferred not to think about it.

“I disagree,” he finally said. “What?” “Your dad is like one of the smartest person I’ve ever known. I think that, he, of all people would know how to get out of any situation, especially if it seems impossible to everyone else. I don’t think that you should give up on him yet.”

“You really think so?”

“Yes, I do,” he smiled. “So fuck everyone who tells you otherwise,“ y/n giggled. “Fuck all of them! You’re allowed to have hope, y/n, even after this much time. They can’t take that from you.”

“In the meantime, we’ll there’s us,” us, “the pogues, our own family. We can get through anything, right?”

“Yeah, we can.” Y/n’s head fell on his shoulder. “We’re the pogues.”

JJ admired her carefully. How her face looked, basked in the golden rays of the sun, looking so terribly tired and yet so beautiful. He could stay like this forever, losing himself completely in her smile. God she was so wonderful.

“Hey y/n/n?” “Yeah?” “Are you mad at me?” “Huh?”

“Why would I be ma- oh, oh.” The gun. He thought she was mad at him for what he did. Though he saved her brother, didn’t he? So, she didn’t understand why he would think she could hate him.

“It’s just that you looked so terrified when-” “You saved him JJ, that’s what matters most.” Y/n interrupted the boy mid sentence, placing her hand on his arm in gratitude. “If you hadn’t done anything, he could have...” she didn’t finish her sentence.

When she saw JJ holding the firearm against Topper’s head just a few hours ago, she had first been incredibly shocked. She didn’t recognize the JJ she knew. But now, she completely understood. It was his way of protecting his friends, his way of showing he cared. And that, she admired him for it. Though he could’ve shown it in a less dangerous way.

“I admit,” she added, “it was dangerous and a bit scary to see and we’re probably gonna get some kind of revenge from the kooks soon, but no one got hurt. And J.B, well he’s okay! We’re all okay!”

“Also, I’m pretty sure I did some very, very stupid things last night, so I can’t really be mad at you,” she cringed remembering the amount of alcohol influenced things she had said and done during the party. “God, I must have looked so ridiculous.”

JJ laughed at her comment. “Yes, yes you did.” “Man, John B was right, I can’t believe I’m saying this.”

“Can you just promise me something?” Asked y/n, once their laughter had died. “Depends what?”

“Promise me you’ll never hurt yourself with that thing, or anyone else for that matter.”

“I promise, y/n. ”

“Thank you.”

Taglist

@deionswannabegirl @kaelyn-lobrutto24 @poguestyle17 @im-a-stranger-thing @lasnaro @thoughtsofthestars @briandaflores19 @lunaposey @allycat449-blog @ifilwtmfc @kitty084 @coloradogirl07 @ponyboys-sunsets @chaoticbisous @p0gue420 @sloaneemily

If I forgot you or if you wanna be added/removed just tell me! Also I’m sorry if your name didn’t work :/

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sugarmaplewings-fics · 3 years

Text

Not All Treasure is Silver and Gold (Part One)

Pairing: Pirate!Bakugou x mermaid!reader

Warnings: Ehh, this portion is gender neutral but from here on out the reader is referred to as female. This does work as a stand alone story, though. Otherwise no warnings from this one.

{Pt. 1} {Pt. 2} {Pt. 3} {Pt. 4}

Author's Note:

Sooo, I know I said I probably wouldn't have this out for another while, buuuttt, I didn't have anything for today and this one was just staring at me 🥺. I don't quite have a concrete plan for the full thing, and there's no guarantees for when part two is going to come out. Also I might draw something like last time to use as a banner. The one that's down there is a placeholder.

Anyhoo, I hope you enjoy this! I've been wanting to write this story for almost a year now, and I finally have the chance! If you'd like to be part of the taglist for this story, please message me!

I think that's it. Love you!!

-Sugar

⊱ ──── 《∘🕱∘》 ──── ⊰

A shadow slid across the ocean floor.

Basking in the warmth of the sun, it truly made for an unwelcome interruption. You'd been partaking in a nap only moments prior, mind slowly shifting through half-baked thoughts as the sun shone down onto the sand beneath you. Prompted by the change of brightness and temperature, you blinked your eyes open, rolling over to your back with a lethargic stretch of your arms. Squinting, you frowned up at the surface rippling a considerable distance above you.

There you saw it, some strange shape making its way over the water above. It seemed to be some kind of brownish color, wide and tapered to a point at each end.

Your annoyance faded as curiosity struck you. You didn’t think you’d ever seen anything like it before. You studied it from your vantage point on the ocean floor even as the sunlight reappeared on your relaxed body. It wasn’t as though you were doing anything important right now, you figured. Maybe it was something worth investigating, at least for a short time.

Rousing yourself from the sand, you flicked your tail to propel yourself up in the direction of the object.

You poked your head out of the water, body bobbing up and down with the motions of the waves. You blinked, bringing a hand out of the water in an attempt to shield your vision from the blinding sun. How did anything live up here? It felt as though your eyes were going to dry up and incinerate to nothing.

There it was, the strange object that had cast such a shadow. It was even bigger above water. Mahogany planks shaped it into that odd form, making it float on the ocean, cutting through waves as though they were nothing. Large masts seemed to sprout up from the center like kelp in a forest, sporting billowing white cloths rippling in the air currents.

Ah, yes, it was a boat, and an impressive one at that. You suddenly remembered seeing the ones just like this that couldn’t float anymore, having swum past the ruined, swollen wood during your time in this part of the sea. They were ominous, sitting still on the ocean floor, carrying a dark, somber aura about them as they laid dead where they’d never move again.

But this ship was every meaning of the word alive, shining in the midday sun and skimming dutifully over the bright blue water. Its size might have looked intimidating, but the thing itself was also very intriguing.

Naturally, you swam closer.

The thing was fast, but luckily, so were you. You dived back down, your powerful tail bringing you a few body lengths up to the submerged bottom of the ship. Popping out of the water again, you looked all the way up its side.

Now that you were closer, you thought you heard something. The sounds were new to you, similar to whalesong. But this was deeper, choppier, and somehow harsher. You frowned in the direction of the noises. What was on this boat?

You circled it underwater—careful not to get too close—coming back up a few times to get another look from a different angle.

You had to admit, it carried an odd beauty about it. Something like this must have been built, but the craftsmanship was so intricate, and it was massive . . . .

You sprung up above water again some ways away from it. Perhaps this thing wasn’t as exciting as you’d initially thought. It was a pain to keep up with and the noises coming from it kept hurting your ears.

Just as you turned to leave, a movement caught your eye. There it was, a flash of gold just at the side of the ship. It looked vaguely . . . familiar.

You went closer again to get a better look, and it was then that you met a pair of golden eyes, looking much like those of your people of the sea.

The figure startled as soon as he saw you, blinking and squinting in your direction. He made more of those strange chattering sounds you’d kept hearing, looking behind him and frantically pointing at you with his outstretched hand.

Rude, you thought, but what was a merman doing all the way up there?

A second head appeared next to the first, this one with vibrant, spiky red hair. You experimentally waved at them in greeting, wondering why you couldn’t understand them. Maybe they were from a different ocean you'd never seen.

They both leaned over the side. It looked like they were trying to communicate something to you, but whatever it was, you didn’t get it.

The red haired one turned and left, but was quick to come back with a weird circular object. It was attached to a rope and had an open circle in the middle, just big enough to put the top third of your body through.

To your mild surprise, he tossed it over the side at you, and it landed with surprising accuracy only a tail length away. You swam over to it, picking it up out of the water. It was oddly light—which probably explained why it floated so easily on the waves—and was made out of some strange material.

You glanced dubiously back up at the faces on the side of the ship. They were looking at you with . . . distress? What was this thing? Was it some kind of gift? What were you supposed to do with it? You couldn’t hold it down under the waves, so how were you supposed to bring it back underwater with you?

Either way, you thought it would be rude to decline. You grabbed the rope that was tied to it. It looked as though they were still holding on to the other end. You really wouldn’t be able to take it anywhere if it was still attached to the ship.

You grabbed the rope and tugged. They held onto it. Frustrated, you tugged again. Looking up at their faces, you matched their expressions of confusion. What were you missing here?

Perhaps they were only trying to show it to you. You decided to follow through with your initial idea of putting it around the upper portion of your body. You lifted it over your head—you fit through it okay, at least—and soon it reached the submerged base of your tail.

You floated there for a second. Was this all it was good for? Kind of useless if you asked yourself. Again, you made up your mind to leave. You had better things to do than play silly games with the weirdos in the sky.

Before you could slip back out under the object, you felt yourself being pulled closer to the boat. Now what were they doing?

You frowned up the side again, but this time you couldn’t really see them. They must have stepped back further onto the boat. Intrigued, you let them pull you along with them. You got closer and closer to the side, and finally the rope connecting you to the other end slanted completely vertical. You adjusted yourself so you wouldn’t slide out. Perhaps they were trying to bring you up so they could meet you. You weren’t sure what they’d gain by that, seeing as you couldn’t understand them. Heck, they probably wouldn’t be able to understand you either. But you were still curious. What did the boat look like from up there? It wasn’t all that interesting from the underside, but maybe if you were able to see it from the top . . . .

The two strangers began to haul you out of the water. It was a little scary, you had to admit. Slowly, your body was extracted from the water. Waves slapped against your tail ever lower, and eventually you were fully suspended in midair. You clung tightly to the rope. Glancing back at the sea below, you realized it was a long way down, and the higher you went, the less you were comfortable with the idea of falling.

You'd never been all the way out of the water like this, and it almost felt as though you were flying like those seabirds you'd see living on islands. Except this wasn't as fun. You were meant to swim in the water, not get dragged through the air.

Finally you saw the rim of the ship, and you picked up on the grunting and labored breaths from the two weirdlings you’d seen earlier. You reached up and grabbed onto the side, hoisting your body up. Then you saw them.

These weren’t quite the mermen you were used to. The things that were pulling you up had legs.

You stared at them for a moment, watching fascinated as they walked towards you. Tearing your eyes away from their tailless, split bodies, you glanced back at their faces. Why did they look so concerned? Did they always look like that?

The blond one was the first to reach you. He was quick to grab your hand to help you over the railing, chattering something at you. You let him pull your body up a little higher, and then he froze. To your surprise, he let go of your hand, dropping your bodyweight and causing you to pitch forward. You slid gracelessly to the dry floor of the ship like some kind of overgrown eel, fins and tail meeting the floor of the boat with a wet thud.

You spluttered, annoyed, curling your scaled appendage closer into yourself. “What is this?!” you finally asked.

The blond one had run back to the redhead, pointing frantically and clearly panicked. The red haired one also looked shaken, but otherwise seemed somewhat more collected as he studied you.

“Whatever,” you mumbled, sliding the flotation object off of yourself. “I don’t want this thing anyway.”

You glanced around, taking in the ship up close. It was pretty cool, but in hindsight, it probably wasn’t worth the whole fiasco you’d gone through to get here. The floor was mostly bare, give or take a few stacked boxes here and there. You recognized a net hanging from a pole, one of which you’d seen countless before. Was this where they came from?

“Those things are dangerous,” you said, pointing at it. “I’ve had to cut a lot of animals out of them.”

It was then that the red haired one stepped closer to you. You drew back just a bit, suspicious.

Examining him, you took in the mismatched rings that adorned his ears, and the billowy off-white covering he wore over his chest. The front was open, exposing the tanned skin of his torso. Darker brown fabric covered his lower half, tucked into clunky coverings at the very bottom. Another strip of cloth was tied around his head, making his vibrant hair stick up in odd directions.

He crouched down so you wouldn’t have to crane your neck up to look at him. He tried to say something to you again, but this time his voice wasn’t so loud. It was still foreign to your ears, but it was low and smooth.

You gave him an apologetic expression. “Listen,” you said. “This was fun and all, but I should probably get going.”

You turned and tried to slide yourself closer to the side you’d come from. Much to your annoyance, your tail hindered your movements. You were used to the grace of the water, but now you felt heavy and clunky. Scowling, you tried to pull yourself to the railing with your arms, but nothing was cooperating with you. The boat swayed with the motion of the waves down below, and as soon as you figured you’d made progress, you’d have to fight even harder against the force pulling you back.

You felt something touch your tail, and you whipped around with a threatening hiss, baring your teeth. It was the redhead again, and apparently he’d been the first to notice the rope that had gotten tangled around the fins and scales of your tail. Maybe he was trying to help, but he was touching your tail. You could do it yourself.

Jerking the lower portion of your appendage, you were able to smack him away with your fins. Feelings hurt, he stepped back.

You grabbed at the rope, cursing the fact that you’d ever gotten up from your nap in the first place as you struggled to untangle yourself from the device that had brought you up here. You wondered how you had gotten stuck so bad as you tugged at the coarse material. Seriously, you were so done with this today. You vowed to never go up to another boat again in your life if you could only get off this one—

And then you saw him.

The blond must have left a while ago but now you saw who he’d come back with. It was another being like the other two. He was blond like the first one, but his hair was shorter, spikier, and reminded you of the pale yellow of the sun. He was bigger than the other blond, but smaller than the redhead. You didn’t think you’d ever seen a face so handsome, even among the mermen back where you lived. He bore a scowl on his face, similar to the one you’d been sporting seconds earlier. Strength and authority rolled off him in waves, not only in the way he carried himself but also in the respect he garnered from the others around him.

He was tall, he was hot, and now you were just staring.

The sexy weirdling grumbled something, and you honestly weren’t sure to whom it was intended for until he stepped forward. You were slower to pull away as he approached, almost drawn to him in a strange way.

He knelt in front of you, pulling out a sharp object from a hidden pouch on his hip. Your heart fluttered in momentary fear as he brought it closer to your tail, but soon you saw the way he reached for the rope. Without scarcely touching your scales, he pulled on the material and sliced through it, cutting you free in a few fluid motions. You were caught up in watching him work, silently in awe as his rough hands delicately moved over your body.

Soon, you were able to move again, but before you could, he straightened and lifted your body from the floor. You gasped, clutching at his broad shoulders as you were once again suspended in midair. But this time you felt secure; his arms supporting the weight of your body. He met your eyes for a split second, and you became lost in the pools of orangey-red. They were deep, and bright, and you felt as though you could gaze into them forever.

Then you were hauled above the railing and tossed over the side.

Weightless, you fell back to the sea from which you came. It was surreal, watching his pale face grow smaller and smaller as wind rushed around you and gravity pulled you further away.

No, you thought, still in a daze. You wanted to stay with him, to keep looking at him, to know his name—

But all too quick, your back hit the cold water of the sea, skin stinging from the impact. With an impressive splash, you sank down again to the place you called home.

You didn’t know how to feel now, watching from below as the ship surged on without you. You were astonished and confused, lost and frozen in the deep blue world that surrounded you.

It was then that you vowed to see him again, no matter what.

You were warm—a little giddy—and you were determined.

You were in love.

…

To be continued . . . .

[Part Two]

⊱ ──── 《∘🕱∘》 ──── ⊰

Taglist: @aahilovetheatre @basicalyrandom @bumbyslair @f0leysgurl @hyunmin-1404 @kqtsukii @nabo39 @pyrofanatic @rainy-skys-and-bright-stars @sendhelpimstupid @ure-a-sunflower @xoxopam4 @deltajay @sillygoof @whipped-cream-writings

#bakugou #katsuki bakugou #bakugou katsuki #bakugou bnha #katsuki bakugou bnha #bakugou katsuki bnha #bakugou imagine #katsuki bakugou imagine #bakugou katsuki imagine #bakugou x reader #katsuki bakugou x reader #bakugou katsuki x reader #bakugou x you #bnha x reader #mha x reader #NATiSaG #reader insert #sugar fics

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sockablock · 4 years

Text

The fires dance and shimmer over Vo, but only on the beaches, and not with any fear.

Instead, there is laughter singing through the trees. There is singing, too, warm and bright, the sound of two dozen amateur dancers cheering in the moonlight.

Somewhere, Yasha is helping a hunter cut logs for the blaze. Somewhere, Jester is telling stories to children about an unknown world. Somewhere, Beau is criticizing a cask of island-wine, and getting very drunk. Somewhere, Veth and Caleb are helping a very old woman fix a watch.

Fjord straightens up and sticks his poker into the sand, watching the embers go out with a little hiss. He stretches, loosening his neck and wincing when his bruises argue back. He’d gotten thrashed around Vokodo’s cavern pretty hard at the end, there, but most of the firebloom burns are gone now, and between two clerics and a vengeful druid, he doesn’t have much to complain about.

He glances around the beach and can smell the first sizzle of cooking meat. Something fruity hovers past, and he can hear Beau’s singing growing louder.

And then, he notices something else, in the corner of his vision. Past the celebration, farther down the shore, sitting on the sand with his knees against his chest—

It’s Caduceus. His outline is purple in the twilight.

Fjord considers the fire. The music, and then he leaves the poker to finish smoldering by itself.

By the time he’s nearly reached Caduceus, the merriment of the bonfire is barely a hum amid the turning tides. Light carries farther, though, and here it reflects an orange sea across the starry waves. It would be beautiful, it is beautiful, although it reminds Fjord a little too much of their last fight. He ignores it, instead focusing on the seated shape in front of him.

“Caduceus, you’re going to miss the food at this rate."

There is no immediate answer. Fjord stops, and raises his brow.

"Caduceus? Oh, shit, is this a vegetarian thing? We should’ve said something earli...er...”

In this light, his friend is mostly shadow, but for a second it almost looks as if Caduceus raises an arm, wipes his face...

Fjord stops. He dares himself to have seen it wrong, and blinks.

"...Caduceus?!” This time, he is shouting. “Cad, is...everything alright?!”

It could be the waves, but for a second, a sniffle, and then—

“Oh, Mister Fjord, I didn’t hear you c—”

“Are you crying?”

Fjord clears the distance in a second, scattering sand everywhere. A part of him instantly curses the decision, why in the world would you rush at him—but another part, the honest part, the deeply confused part, is too worried to do anything else.

But Caduceus...laughs. It’s more stilted than it should be, though then again, Cad’s always been a weird one, in a special way—

Until Fjord sees the tears. There are two streaks of dampness matting Cad’s fur.

“Oh,” he says, before he can stop himself.

There is a flash in Caduceus’s eyes. It is so small, so brief, so hidden away, that if Fjord had not been staring at him, he would have missed it entirely.

It’s panic. Caduceus says, “No, don’t mind me, Mister Fjord, I think I might’ve gotten carried away.”

Fjord’s mouth opens. It closes. It opens again.

“Carried away?”

“Just a bit.”

Fjord manages to stop gawking on the third try. He drops down, wincing a little at the sharp movement but ending in a determined, eye-level squat.

“Carried away,” he repeats.

Caduceus does not meet his gaze. His voice, when it finally does comes, is more unsteady than Fjord has ever heard.

“I, ah, I think...today was just a lot. It was...there was a lot.”

“Yes, well...yeah,” Fjord says, and tries to shuffle his back into Cad’s face. More sand kicks up around his ankles. “We did fight a fake fire god and nearly set off a volcano. Then again, that sort of thing feels somewhat standard for us.”

Caduceus coughs, and only after a second does Fjord realize it’s a laugh.

“We, we do certainly get into all sorts of trouble.”

“Right,” says Fjord, still slightly mystified. He glances around the beach, sees Caduceus still avoiding him, hears the raucous melody of cheering far behind.

He looks up. He looks down. Then:

“...can I sit?”

There’s a vague gesture in response. Fjord accepts this as an answer.

The sand is cool. The wind sweeps across his hair.

“I’m...not very...I think I might have a reputation for being somewhat unobservant,” he says, after a pause. “Sometimes. But...I don’t think I’m a fool, Caduceus. Though even a fool could see that you’re upset.”

“I’m n—”

“I’m not done.” He looks up. Far, far above them, the stars glimmer bright. “I think...I think...that although I wasn’t there to see it initially, I believe that ever since you came to join our little troupe, your presence has been very good for us. I worry that...maybe, we haven’t returned the favor.”

“Favor?” Caduceus chuckles. “There’s no favor to return.”

There is a weight to Fjord’s silence.

“Hm. I wonder about that.”

Caduceus feels his brow furrow. He tries to stop it, but it does.

“Mister Fjord,” he says softly, “I don’t expect anything from you.”

“Right,” Fjord nods. “In that case...it’s a failing on our part.”

The waves ebb and flow on the shore. They are far away enough not to fear getting wet, but close enough still to taste the salt breeze.

“Why are you upset?” Fjord murmurs. “Is it...was it the fight? Are you hurt, or—”

“Oh, no. Not me.”

He glances over.

“Then...?”

Caduceus stares at the ground. His boots are off, and little grains of sand cling to his armor.

“Do you...ever feel...frustrated, Fjord?”

“Hah! Is that really your question?”

When the pause carries on, Fjord clears his throat.

“Er...yes, Caduceus. I do.”

“What about guilty? Very guilty.”

“Uh...sure, I think so. Maybe not...I’m not so sure to what degree you’re talking, here, but I’ve definitely had regrets.”

“And...what about feeling like you’re a burden?”

Fjord leans back on his palms. “Caduceus, are we just going down the list of how I go about my day?”

“No,” and when Caduceus chuckles, Fjord can see a little gleam of moonlight against his fur. “I’m, ah, I’m going down mine.”

“Oh.”

“It’s...it was bad on this island. It was...I felt those things...a lot. And, well,” he gives another laugh, “well, it sort of came to a head down in that tunnel.”

Fjord considers this.

“The...”

“The underwater one,” Caduceus says. “When the...the fireblooms opened all around us and I...lost to Vokodo.”

Fjord blinks. “You mean...oh, well...plenty of us had fallen to him at that point, didn’t we? I mean, Yasha forgot the name of her wife and Jester lost her beard oil, er, my beard oil, and I forgot Vandren, and...”

He trails off, when he sees Cad look up.

“Right,” says Caduceus, “I forgot things too. But...I did something worse. I hurt you.”

Fjord hesitates. “You...didn’t really—”

“I did,” says Caduceus. “I fought against you. I blinded you. And you spent all your spells on me, and when the fight started, you couldn’t defend yourself, and got even more injured.”

“Well,” says Fjord, with as much certainty as he can muster, “I don’t know if...three spells would’ve really changed much.” Then he pauses again, and adds, “Not, uh, not that the gifts of the Wildmother are anything to scoff at. You know.”

Behind them, smoke pours up into the sky. They can’t smell it from here, but the feast is beginning, all joining in together to celebrate, save for two.

“They aren’t,” Caduceus says slowly, “but...do you want to know something, Fjord?”

“Er...of course.”

He also leans back. Also takes a second to breathe deep by the sea.

“In that moment, when I...fell to Vokodo. It was...exhilarating. It...it felt...it felt like...well,” he murmurs a laugh. “It felt like, for a second I had a purpose again.”

Foam dissolves into the sand. Far, far away, a hermit crab surfaces.

“A...purpose?”

“A mission. A goal, a journey, a...a divine reassurance that I was on the right path. It’s something that I...haven’t had since I saw my family.”

“You...wait, really? Why?”

“Well,” Caduceus gives a shrug. “Well, I suppose it’s because I did fulfill that purpose. We got the green glass. We visited the Dusts, and then the Stones, and my family went home to save the Grove. That was all I dreamed about, all that I knew I had to accomplish for...for decades. And we...did it. I did it. And now...it’s over.”

He takes a deep breath.

“And now...I’m just here. I have faith that she’s guiding me to where I need to go, but...where? Why? And...sometimes, even that is...even that feels...”

Fjord turns, and sees Caduceus staring at him. His hair is a tangle tripping down his back. His eyes are hesitant, shining in the moonlight.

“Sometimes...when I am with you all,” he says quietly, “sometimes I just feel...free.”

The waves come and go. The tiny hermit crab faces down an endless, churning, ever-flowing sea.

“She likes freedom, doesn’t she?” Fjord murmurs. “Isn’t that...I mean...that’s what she’s meant to me.”

Caduceus smiles. It’s a half-risen thing. “She meant duty to the Clays. A legacy to fulfill. A home to tend to, a garden to grow, people and family to take care of.”

Fjord meets his gaze. “Is that what you want?”

Caduceus doesn’t answer right away. When he does:

“...I don’t know anymore. Sometimes...I think I want to tend to our friends. Take care of them. Help you all grow to where you can be.”

“You’ve got your work cut out for you.”

“Oh, don’t I know it.”

They are quiet for a moment. Then:

“What about other times?” Fjord murmurs. “What about then?”

Caduceus glances up. He takes in the thousands of stars above him, watches a thousand lights fade and glow.

“It can be scary to not have a purpose.”

“I managed. I managed for...oof, maybe thirty years?”

“Did you like it?”

Fjord shrugs. “I didn’t know anything else. Then, for a while, I thought my purpose was to fill a role. Be a captain. Become powerful. But...I didn’t much like that.”

“No,” Caduceus chuckles. “I didn’t think you did.”

“In a way, though,” Fjord sighs, “I mean...I don’t really know if I have a purpose either. Most of the time...I’m just here. I’m just...doing my thing. As a member of the Mighty Nein. I’m helping our friends as much as I can, and I’m getting to see the world. And learn new things. And...in doing so, I...well, I think maybe I’ve been more free than I ever had been. Maybe that’s a purpose. Even if it doesn’t feel like, I dunno, divine providence, or whatever, I’m...I’m still happy doing it. I love our friends. I think that’s enough.”

“Yes,” Caduceus says quietly. “I...I’m happy with them too.”

“Well, there you go, then!” Fjord taps him on the arm. “Maybe that’s all you really need. And I’m sorry it doesn’t feel...feel like a godly mission, but it still should be worth hanging onto, no?”

When he glances back, Caduceus is still looking at him.

“Right,” he echoes. “I think it is.”

Maybe it’s the beach, or the heat from the bonfire, but Fjord can feel his face getting a little warm. He coughs.

“I hope, er, that helped. I don’t know if that’s...good advice, to turn other people into your purpose. Because now that I think about it, it does still sort of sound like that whole garden-tending thing, which is a little contradictory—”

“Fjord?”

“Um, yes?”

“It helped.”

“Oh, good.”

“Fjord?”

“...um. Yes?”

Caduceus’s eyes are turned to the sky.

“I want to be free, too. But...I would like to be free with everyone else. And with you.”

Fjord coughs again. Though it isn’t as sharp. And the warmness is nice.

“I’d like that too.”

They sit there on the beach for a while after that. Later, perhaps, their friends will realize that they are missing, and come calling for them. Later, perhaps, there will be food to share and island-wine to drink and songs to sing. Later, they will sleep in huts beneath the stars and even after that, much, much later, perhaps there will even be a new path, a new journey, a new mission to follow and a new purpose to chase.

But all that will happen later. For now, all there is, is the sound of the waves, the brush of wind, and freedom, together.

— — —

✨ Ko-Fi Link in Bio! ✨ | Requests are OPEN

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steve0discusses · 3 years

Text

Yugioh S5 Ep 18: A Series of Ecological Disasters

Booting up ye old Yugioh, booting up a new aesthetic playlist to type to. (today’s playlist is webcore, which would feel like such a damn fake aesthetic, if it weren’t that every single one of these -core aesthetics are pretty damn fake and everyone knows it.)

Anyway, it’s been so long that, I’ll be honest, I thought I booted up the wrong episode:

I usually skip the anime intro, but I try to watch it once each arc, cuz the intros change, and this arc was like “screw it, here’s all the other villains, just pretend this arc isn’t happening.” They had Pegasus, they had Marik, they have Bakura (who is kind of in this shot as well, you can see him phasing in there.) And like...I guess they’re hiding the villain of this arc or something because that was it. Alexander the Great got just nixed from this villain list and that’s a shame.

Just a real weird choice, but since apparently this arc didn’t air in Japan they probably had to outsource this anime intro and whatever studio in charge of it just cobbled together stuff from every other season and then a couple of shots of capsule stuff.

Speaking of capsule stuff: get a load of how many freakin lines the animators have to deal with every time they draw Grandpa.

Bro saw this and was like “oh yeah, this is a Shonen Jump” and yeah. The hair does give those vibes. We got a good look at what Vegeta would look like if he really let himself go.

(read more under the cut)

Sorry, my playlist started playing a song where every single line of the song is “Adrien Brody” and it took me like a few minutes to realize I was listening to “Brodyquest” completely seriously.

Damn it, webcore, don’t betray me like this.

Anyway, this arc does something super surprising: Yugi actually hugs somebody and doesn’t look like he’s going to pass out standing up.

It is pretty fitting that the good Yugi hug would go to Grandpa.

And, as night falls, Joey Wheeler has gotten hungry, and there is nothing to eat but his new best friend and spirit animal, baby dragon. Unfortunately he shares life points with the dragon, and I think if you eat it that just instakills you.

And directly underneath him--since this world is like 100 feet wide and things just conveniently happen--Tea has told everyone that they needed to stop worrying about Joey. Which is a lot coming from Tea, because her worrying about Yugi/Yami getting hurt is most of what occupies her headspace in this series.

But even Tea was like, screw Joey, I guess.

Who kinda just falls directly into them upside down, and shows us what Joey’s hair looks like when it’s sticking straight up.

For reals, admire how long Joey Wheeler’s hair is. If Tea were upside down, she would have the same length of hair.

Also speaking of Vegeta, I am low key concerned that Joey has what appears to be a significant amount of male pattern balding going on for a teenager.

Apparently getting set on fire many, many times did have an effect on Joey, and this massive pompadour he wears is a combover. Poor baby.

Holy crap, if this is what card stress and getting killed multiple times did to Joey Wheeler, can you imagine what’s going on under Seto’s bangs? That’s probably why his bangs ride so low, Seto likely wears a freakin toupee.

Guys, Joey’s gonna lose his hair at 25 at this rate. Those locks just aren’t long for this world. Poor baby.

After Joey rejoins the party, he immediately eats all of their food. Not sure why they can’t just have Baby Dragon eat like...whatever Baby Dragon naturally eats...and then transform that into shared Joey Wheeler life points, but it’s not clear exactly how much of a life-connection they have with their Yugioh monsters. Not like it matters because Joey Wheeler is default starving all the time anyway.

Tristan has decided we should start laying blame, I guess because Duke Devlin isn’t here anymore to be the local kill joy. This doesn’t seem to be important at any point, and most of the characters are just ignoring Tristan because like...once you’re in the haunted game in a haunted tomb in a random part of India--it’s kind of moot to argue about who’s fault that is, youknow?

Joey reminds us that he found this quest item in a treasure chest under a secret waterfall. No one says “that was convenient that you landed there after getting chased through a ravine by man-eating birds after you got your dragon from when you got your crotch injury from getting spliced by that tree.”

Which is when Tea says “Wait! We haven’t had a plot thing happen in like 4 seconds! Wait!”

Hey what degree of “I don’t trust nature” do you have to be to assume that all the flowers are trying to eat you?

Like what level of anxiety is Tea where she not only is like “pretty sure the flowers are going to destroy us?” but also...she’s correct? Like she’s not wrong.

They set the dog flowers on fire, but unlike the Jungle Book this doesn’t solve any problems (which apparently got taken off the Disney+ kid’s menu so...yet again, I make a Disney reference in these recaps that future generations will not understand because so much of the Disney library has been banned from the vault. It’s almost like Disney should let go of that copyright they held on for like a hundred years, because what they’re holding on to is only going to get more racist with time. But nah. Gotta hold on with their greedy mickey mouse gloves.)

So instead of using fire, Tristan used his monster to electrocute the air (?) and blind the dogs. Wisely, the animators quickly jumped to this other scene so we wouldn’t have to analyze why it’s suddenly daytime or why that plan would even work.

Joey and Tristan do a lot of buddy buddy stuff this arc. Usually we see a lot of Joey and Yugi’s bottomless friendship, but we don’t get this much Tristan/Joey love. So shippers rejoice, these two seem to have several coordinated dances and songs...and I’d say that teens don’t typically do that, but I went to summer camp, there are situational places where teens will sing the entire vacation and make coordinated dances.

Weirdly, since Joey and Tristan share so much time together, this also means Tea and Yugi actually sit next to eachother for a lot of this arc, almost as if they were a couple. Mind you, they’re chaperoned closely by Grandpa, but youknow...that’s a different energy than I’m used to seeing.

That and like, they can’t have Tea dance with them because last time she did a dance, it was like a DDR fight and she elbowed some guy like it was a fisticuffs situation. Like there was some sort of dance war going on behind the scenes of Yugioh’s card war, and it came up once and I guess Tea resolved it and the dance fights haven’t come back since.

Overall, if they did a dance with Tea, they would get kneed in the face, so that’s probably why they insist on doing cancans as a duet and not a trio.

After Joey and Tristan freak out over having no food, Tea decides to just start eating in front of them.

and like...didn’t Joey eat that food yesterday? Like last night? The short term memory loss on all these fools.

Immediately after this we realize something weird in the water. That’s right, it’s a massive head.

Yugi seems to have forgotten they lit this turtle on fire and electrocuted the entire sky the night before. Not that it mattered.

There were like...nesting birds on those trees on that island. What the hell? They just killed so MANY of those man-eating dogs that are flowers.

Seriously are land turtles allowed to just...dive underwater for long periods of time? How does that ecosystem even work? It’s like...That’s wild to think about.

Inside the temple, they have to fight a genie or something.

In case you were wondering, the only reason Tea and Grandpa got iced is because they were the closest to the door. The two who were actually standing out of harms way were the closest to harm the whole time.

Bro tells me this is also what will happen to you if you are in the front or the back of the party while playing Cthulu D&D

Anyway, Pharaoh decides to disclose that his big problem of feeling guilty all the time and taking all the blame, which he did all of last season...is still a huge problem he will probably never tackle.

Straight up, don’t be fooled by my caps, everyone else has completely forgotten about Alex, who is still running around that temple up there. They haven’t even asked Grandpa “hey is this your protege? Is this your mentee you never told us about?” Nah. They already forgot.

How wild is it that Pharaoh thinks this is all his fault when he was the only one who was like “YUGI IT’S A TRAP DON’T GO IN THE- well...OK I guess we’re doing this, fine.” Is he upset he didn’t take control from Yugi and walk back to the plane? Because that’s the only way he could even be partially responsible, He was the only guy who was like “I see the end from the beginning on this y’all, and it’s the massive pyramid in India.”

Speaking of forgetting, they came across this language Pharaoh has decided to have nothing to do with.

This was actually a riddle and it was like...it was a riddle, sure, I guess.

And so Joey Wheeler does not hallucinate his dead wife from a previous incarnation and get on the back of his Baby Dragon to sail away into the sunset. Instead they’re just gonna walk.

Too bad Tea’s orb covered in wings only seems to hover a bit. Every single wing on that weird orb is absolutely useless.

And then Pharaoh’s pokemon is just a fire--which is hard to sit on--and Celtic Guardian...who would allow it, sure, but probably doesn’t fly (I think. He might fly)

And then Tristan’s Pokemon kinda seems like if you sit on it, you will get electrocuted. It can probably fly though. It’s very round. Seems like an anime thing that the more round your mascot character is, the more likely it can at least bounce a good distance.

So, next time, I’m just going to assume that we are going to do even more camping. And youknow, if you told me exactly HOW MUCH CAMPING was in this card game show with super future tech, I would not have believed you. But like...a lot of this series is set in the woods right? Like a lot a lot? I have grown to appreciate the woods.

Anyway, as always, if you just got here, this is a link to read these in chrono order:

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

See you next time!

#yugioh #yu-gi-oh #recap #photo recap #S5 #Yugi muto #yami muto #grandpa muto #tea gardner #joey wheeler #tristan taylor #baby dragon #Ep18

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gumnut-logic · 3 years

Text

Callisto (Part Six - Rescue Site)

This fic seems to be taking forever, but I hope it isn’t reading that way. I had so much fun over the weekend and I still have some fun ahead of me writing one of the core scenes I had planned. I hope you are enjoying reading this.

As always, many thanks to the amazing @tsarinatorment @scribbles97 @janetm74 and @vegetacide as well for all the read throughs and support. Wonderful science officer @onereyofstarlight this bit has one of the places we talked about extensively and wouldn’t exist without your help :D

Again, thank you to all the wonderful peeps who have been reading along and commenting despite the once a week posting schedule. You help keep my enthusiasm alive and you have no idea how much I appreciate every word of encouragement ::hugs you all::

Have a Tracy boy or two on the job :D

-o-o-o-

Scott rolled his shoulders and tried to stretch out the tension that was slowly giving him a headache.

At least now they were moving. This rescue felt like it was taking forever.

Hell, it was the same with most space recues, if even more with this one. The distances involved just went on and on and no matter how fast the Thunderbird, it was slow.

It rankled Scott just a little. The fact that the environment could not be influenced by his impatience.

And Dad…

He shunted the thought aside. Perhaps that was why he scorned the time needed. It gave him far too much time to think.

The tunnel stretched out before him as it had for some time now. The life signs were nearly seven hundred kilometres away from Callisto Base. Usually, this was not a problem. There wasn’t a Thunderbird that couldn’t cover that distance in a short period of time. Even Four could do it at velocities no other underwater craft had ever managed.

But this location was at least two kilometres underground, and while the molepod was always an option, Virgil had vetoed it with the option of travelling via dragonfly through the tunnels. Scott had to agree. They needed far more information before barrelling into an unknown situation, not to mention the difficulties of deploying the molepod in these conditions.

But by this point he was almost ready to jump out and blast a hole in the damned moon to get where they needed to go.

Time. So much damned time.

Too much to think.

His hands shifted on the Dragonfly’s controls spinning her into a dive as the tunnel dipped suddenly. The brilliance of the pod’s forward lights lit up the never-ending cave as clear as daylight.

It sparkled back at him in sharp, stabbing needle-like reflections off the walls that did nothing to improve his headache. He had already set his helmet to shade to protect himself. It was ridiculous to be needing sunglasses this far underground.

Behind him, Virgil was following him at a short distance in Dragonfly Two, his lights just bright enough to light up the red of Scott’s pod.

For some irrational reason Scott wanted his pod to be blue.

The blue of the sky he was currently missing.

He sighed.

Again, too much time to think.

“Another five hundred metres.” Alan’s voice from behind him was the reassurance it always was. Why he felt comforted when his littlest brother was nearby and within reach was something he did not want to examine too much.

A twist of his wrists as the tunnel backed around on itself in a hairpin of a turn and he had to dodge another nest of those weird deformed ice stalactite formations sticking out into their path. “What are we looking at?”

“Looks like another cavern. A big one.”

They had flown through several of those enormous caverns on the way out here already. They acted like junctions, some having multiple tunnels converging on them, every single one a home for more ice formations and that damned reflective rock. It had taken John to get them out of the last one. This place was a damned maze.

Virgil had fortunately come prepared, as always. He was leaving a trail of comms-support beacons behind them as a clear path to return to Callisto Base.

Scott fought the urge to duck as the tunnel suddenly shrunk by several metres and took another swerving turn. Scott spun the pod over one-eighty degrees on her longitudinal axis as her wings nearly scraped the ceiling.

Righting them finally, he couldn’t help but check his monitor to make sure Virgil took the turn safely.

He almost smiled as the green pod behind them flipped in a manoeuvre that no doubt had Gordon yelping in the back seat. He couldn’t help but be proud for just a self-indulgent moment.

But his attention was torn away as his pod suddenly shot into a large open space and the light reflecting off the walls suddenly blinded him.

Alan’s gasp behind him only echoed his own.

Their forward lights were being shot at them in blinding brilliance off the ceiling of the new cave.

That brightness only increased as Virgil’s pod spun into a hover beside them.

Oh god.

Whatever had been in the walls of the tunnels was obviously concentrated here.

He redirected the lamps away from the ceiling only to have the brilliance follow them all the way down the closest wall until he was able to turn the pod towards the most distant wall.

Crystal.

There was crystal everywhere.

The cave walls were covered in spikes of the stuff as it they were inside a giant geode. He had to acknowledge that it was stunningly amazing when it wasn’t ripping his eyeballs out.

But that wasn’t what took his breath away.

As their lamps lowered, they caught the edges of something else.

He turned the lights down towards the floor only to discover he couldn’t see it.

Because it was covered in water.

Fluid, liquid water, the dragonflies causing the faintest of ripples to dance across its surface.

A lake.

Scott’s jaw dropped as he tipped the pod to peer down into the dark water only to have more crystal attempt to stab him in the eye from the depths.

“What the hell?”

Water wasn’t supposed to be able to exist in this environment. He poked at his scanners. Atmospheric levels were the same, ever so thin, providing little to no air pressure or heat to keep the water in this state.

“John? What am I seeing?”

Thunderbird Five did not answer immediately, but the data transmission rate on comms doubled as his space brother reached his fingers into the cave through the pod’s sensors.

“Impossible.”

“That was my thought. Virgil?”

“It’s beautiful.”

Scott’s lips thinned. “Scientific explanation? Gordon?”

“You got me here, bro. But I’m more concerned about those lifesigns.”

Scott frowned and double checked his readout. The two dots registered, glowing strongly at him.

From under the water.

-o-o-o-

Virgil frowned as Scott spun his dragonfly around and returned to the entrance of the cavern. His forward lights lit up only what could be considered a beach where the original tunnel swooped in and connected with the crystal cave. At the base there was only a few scattered crystal formations and Virgil watched as his brother expertly put down without touching a single one.

“Are we going to take a look at the lake?”

Typical. Nearby water body and his fish brother wanted in it.

But Virgil needed more reconnaissance.

And if he was honest with himself, there was just a dash of sightseeing involved. Not much, because of the urgency of the mission, but enough curiosity to send him off on a scout around the cavern.

Crystals that had to be the length of an arm or a leg stuck out from the walls in haphazard directions. Most reflected back clear, but in streaks, as if seeping up a localised mineral, there were ribbons of colour in places – reds, greys, golds, pinks. His scanners spat back that it was simply quartz, silicon dioxide, but he had never seen a formation like this.

Which was understandable as this was an alien landscape with vastly different environs to those of Earth. The artist in him was literally stunned, while the scientist valiantly fought for a reason.

He swooped around the edges of the cavern, his lamps lighting up brilliance as he went. The cave proved to be roughly circular, approximately four hundred metres in diameter and about a hundred metres high. He came across two more tunnels leading off it, but all were as dry as the one they had used to enter the cave. Towards the centre, but not quite, the ceiling arched down and what appeared to be a stalactite met a stalagmite to form a column of swirling crystal that looked like something straight out of an art glass exhibition. The ribbons of colour were here too, but this time mostly in a rose pink and a startling blue.

Virgil didn’t have words.

The light playing among the crystals just touched every artistic sense he had and froze them solid.

But there was a mission and those two glowing red dots glared at him from beneath the surface of the lake.

He ran scans of the water. For it was water, mostly, though, certainly not any he would want to drink.

For one thing it was salty, a definite brine solution with a number of minerals including silica in concentrations that defied as much logic as the water’s existence did in the first place.

The difficulty was that the lifesigns weren’t clear. They were in the water, but resolution faded at a very shallow depth and there was a lot of deep depth in places.

“John, can you get any more resolution on these scans? I can’t pinpoint the lifesigns.”

There was a muttered curse on comms that had Virgil arching an eyebrow. “No, I’m sorry, Virgil. Interference is particularly strong in that cavern. We’re working on it, but I don’t have any great hopes.”

“What about a probe? Would that improve the signal?” Virgil blinked as his headache suddenly flared. Ow. Damn. The controls in front of him blurred a moment. Shit!

But then everything righted itself, just leaving an echo of the pain in his head as the headache droned on as it had before.

Maybe his painkillers were wearing off. A glance at the time proved that was far from the case.

He dreaded to think what that would have felt like without them.

“Virg?”

“What?!” Okay, so he was abrupt, but he was busy.

“Hey, hey, calm down. You didn’t answer John. Just checking on you.”

“Virgil, you there?” John’s voice dripped concern.

Shit.

“Sorry. Just got a headache. Need some sleep.”

“I feel you, bro. Want me to pilot?”

“No. No. I’m fine.” He swallowed bile and mentally shook himself. “John, you were saying?”

He could feel Gordon’s eyes on the back of his neck.

“Probe deployed. Target is Burr Crater, which you are directly under at the moment.”

Virgil’s display reported the probe entering Callisto’s atmosphere. He hoped it would give them enough information to act.

Time was ticking.

He spun the pod around and tried to ignore the rainbow of light that was his forward lamps. The flicker, while beautiful, was doing nothing good for his headache at all.

“You sure you’re okay, Virg?”

He pressed his lips together and considered ignoring the question from Gordon. But he knew if he did, his brother would only worry more.

It was a Tracy trait.

“Let’s just get this mission done. We have people who need saving.”

Gordon’s grunt wasn’t a happy one and the chances of Scott being called in on his headache were increasing by the moment.

“I’m fine, Gordon.” He cut the conversation off by dropping the pod rapidly towards the beach where Scott had climbed out and was walking to the water’s edge. Another spin mid-air and Virgil lowered into a rather delicate landing, keeping the pod’s feet away from the crystal formations sticking out of the rock.

Virgil swallowed again before climbing out of the pod. His boots hit solid but glittering rock, damp in the darkness.

Scott and Alan were standing at the water’s edge staring out at the spectacle that the pod lights lit up.

Gordon clambered out behind Virgil and together they both walked over to stand beside their brothers.

“This is so cool!” Alan was obviously excited.

He said it on external comms and the sound travelled across the cavern only to bounce back in so many perfect ‘ool’s Virgil’s eyes widened.

On the spur of that, as the ‘ool’s slowly faded away, he activated his own external comm and sung a single pure C note.

It came back at him from so many different directions it was like a chorus.

“Oh, wow.”

‘Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow…’ It went on, the faint atmosphere sporting just enough density to carry the sound waves.

“That is something, isn’t it?” Scott’s voice was quiet. “The dragonflies made one hell of a racket. We’re going to have to be careful. Wouldn’t want to set up a harmonic that could bring the roof down on us.”

Virgil was still processing. The thought of playing his piano in this cave was just mind boggling.

“Dad says the Base scientists are having some kind of scientific fit over this place.” A grunt. “I’m more concerned about those two lifesigns.” He paused. “John, any luck with the probe?”

“Unfortunately, no. The interference is just too thick. I can read the water, but very little in it or below it. I’ll keep trying.”

Scott sighed. “Keep us updated. Looks like this will have to be more hands on.” He turned to Gordon. “We need Thunderbird Four.”

-o-o-o-

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction #Scott Tracy #Virgil Tracy #John Tracy #Gordon Tracy #Alan Tracy #callisto

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dracoyoflam · 3 years

Text

TT Chapter 3: Survival Instincts

They were both sitting outside by a small fire that was already burning when they exited the tent. They were holding hands and trying to relax as much as possible considering they had been cursed again somehow. The weather there was nice at least and if things were the same as last time, then they were pretty much safe at the tent. If they didn’t think about it too hard, it almost felt like a little vacation.

Neither of them wanted to break the peaceful silence between them but they had important things to discuss and deal with. This time they knew that there was a real world to get back to.

“I don’t know who is doing this to us, but they were smarter this time.” Hermione said.

“Why do you say that?” He responded.

Hermione shrugged and sighed. “We don’t have our wands this time. If there’s any danger, we are going to have to deal with it like muggles.”

“I noticed that too. I guess they didn’t want us to have an advantage this time.”

He squeezed her hand to try and reassure her that they would be okay.

She squeezed back but she couldn’t help the shiver that ran up her spine.

“What if that’s not the only change? Everything could be different.” Her eyes burned as she held back tears. She didn’t want to cry in front of him.

Draco wrapped his arms around her to warm her and comfort her. He rubbed a hand across her back and placed a small quick kiss on her cheek.

“Whatever it is. We will be okay because we have each other. That is all that matters.” He whispered to her.

As soon as he got the thought out, the world shifted.

It felt like the ground beneath them began to spin and disappear. There was a blinding white light and suddenly they felt each other being ripped out of each other’s arms. They scrambled to hold on, but the force was stronger than they were, especially with them being so surprised at the new turn of events.

“No! Draco!” Hermione screamed as her hand started to pull away from his grip.

“Hermione!! I… can’t… hold… on…” He was holding to her with everything he had but she was still slipping away.

Their hands finally pulled apart and they both went flying in opposite directions. The light was still blinding, and they lost sight of each other. Then just as suddenly as the light had appeared, it disappeared again.

Everything stopped spinning and got darker. Then they both felt themselves land hard in cold water. The light faded completely, and they were left in a dark open abyss of water and nothing in sight.

Hermione was shocked by the cold water and sudden darkness. She could hear waves and smell the salty ocean. She could see a small amount of light reflecting off the water from the half moon hanging high in the sky.

She felt around in the water but all she felt was the dark cold ocean. She couldn’t see or hear Draco anywhere. The thought of being completely alone and stranded in the ocean made her swell up with fear and panic. She could feel herself losing control of her emotions and her body started shivering from the cold.

“Draco!” She yelled as loud as she could.

He had to be there somewhere. They were both in this together. That’s what he had said, and she hoped beyond hope that he was right.

She started screaming again, “Draco! Where are you?!”

She heard water splash off to her left and sobbed despite herself in fear. She was absolutely petrified. In the darkness, she couldn’t see anything, but she heard the water move again.

She wanted Draco there with her so badly but now she was too afraid to yell out again. She didn’t want to catch the attention of whatever was moving around out there.

“Hermione!” she suddenly jolted in the water.

She felt strong hands grab her arm and pull her back. Draco had found her somehow and she could barely see him in the dim light, but she thought he looked scared too.

“Draco.” She cried.

She got as close to him as she could while keeping her head above water. They were both treading water and shivering in the cold. Things went from comfortable and warm to an icy bath from hell in about five minutes. Draco wished so badly that they were back in that warm tent but no matter how much he wished for it, they were trapped there and needed to figure something out quick.

“Hermione. I am so sorry. I tried to hold on. I thought I lost you…”

She could have sworn that she heard him crying but she couldn’t be sure. Their bodies were shaking, and their teeth were chattering. As her eyes adjusted a bit, she thought she could see land not too far from where they were. She could hear waves that sounded like they were hitting shore. She hoped and prayed that she was right because if they swam the wrong way and didn’t get out of this cold water soon… they wouldn’t make it.

“SShhh.” She shushed him gently as she tried to stop crying and ignore her fears.

“It’s not… your fault…” She tried to speak through her chattering teeth.

She pulled gently on his arm and started swimming towards land or what she hoped was land.

“Come on… we have… to get… out of… this water… now.”

He swam up beside her and they swam together in the direction she pulled him in. They swam as calmly as they could to avoid attracting any underwater attentions, but they also swam with determination. The strength it took to swim so far seemed to be keeping them from totally surrendering to the cold, but Hermione could still feel her body shaking violently and her limbs were numb.

It took them a while, but they finally reached the shore. They couldn’t see much and wherever they were didn’t seem to have any inhabitants. All they could see were trees and rocks.

They got themselves out of the water and hugged each other tight. Without speaking, Hermione grabbed his arm and started to walk down the beach.

“Where… are you… going?” He asked through blue shivering lips.

She tripped a couple times, her legs were completely numb, but kept a tight grip on his arm. She seemed very focused and took a minute before she responded.

“We… have to… find shelter… there should… be a cave… or something.”

She was wishing so badly for a wand to use. It would be so easy to fix their situation with a couple quick spells. They would be warmed up and protected but unfortunately, the world had better ideas.

Hermione tripped a couple more times and almost fell. Draco stopped her and pulled her tight against his body.

“Draco… we can’t… stop.” She shivered against him.

He nodded his head. Then he swooped her up into his arms and started walking inland. He never said a word, but she could see the determined look in his eyes.

After they got a few feet in, she was able to make out the shape of a dark cave. Somehow, he saw it when she hadn’t thankfully. Now they just needed to get inside and get warmed up.

Draco kept a brisk pace even though she could feel his legs start to give out a couple times. Their bodies were weak and numb from the cold and it was making them both very clumsy but eventually he reached the opening to the cave and slowly stepped inside.

The moonlight was barely shining inside but it was enough for them to see that it was a very small cave that only went about 20 feet deep. He carried her inside and gently set her down on the ground.

“I’ll… be right… back.” He spoke softly.

Then he turned around and walked out of the cave, but she could hear him moving around outside. She knew he was still close.

The inside of the cave felt considerably warmer than outside in the wind, but she could still feel herself shivering. She started to pull her clothes off. She knew that the best way to warm up was to remove the wet freezing clothes.

Draco was only gone for a few minutes and when he came back, he had managed to pull a bunch of branches and leaves against the opening of the cave to block it off. It was a smart move which would keep the cold air out and trap any warm air in with them.

He walked to the back of the cave where Hermione was waiting for him. She was fully naked, and she had pulled as many leaves as she could onto herself to make a sort of makeshift blanket, but it wasn’t working all that well.

“Take your… clothes off.” She told him.

Shivering and exhausted, he did what she told him without hesitation. He started pulling his cold wet clothes off and set them next to hers. He then slowly laid down next to her on the leaf pile and pulled her against his body.

For the first time, they were naked and not thinking about sex. They both knew that they needed to try and warm each other up with whatever body heat they could muster. They held each other close and covered their bodies with all the leaves they could find… not that it helped all that much.

Draco had his arms wrapped around her body and they were pressed as close together as two people could possibly be. Draco could feel his body warming a little. He had worked to gather the branches to cover the entrance which had started to warm him and then the cave was considerably warmer than he expected it to be by now.

Hermione however didn’t seem to be warming up as quickly as he was. She was still shivering, and she tried to nuzzle her face into the crook of his neck to warm her nose and mouth.

“I feel like I’m dying.” She whispered.

“I’m so cold.”

Draco tried to pull her tighter against him if that was possible.

“Don’t say that. You’re going to be fine, and we will get out of her together.” He whispered back to her.

‘Who knew I would end up being the positive one.’ He thought.

He pulled her hands up to his mouth and started blowing hot air on them. He also pulled all the leaves off his body and put them on her. He covered as much of her as he could with his own body to give her as much of his body heat as he could.

What they really needed right now was a fire but without wands, that could prove a very difficult task. He had no idea how to make one from scratch and she was in no position to be trying even if she knew how to.

He wished in that moment that their roles were reversed and that he was the one who needed her help and not the other way around. He hated to be in that kind of position, but he would trade places with her in a heartbeat.

“Hermione, do you know how to start a fire without wands?” He figured it couldn’t hurt to ask.

She nodded her head against him and started to speak softly. She was barely shivering now, and she thankfully seemed to be warming up, but he knew that a fire would be the most helpful thing for both of them right now.

He listened closely and took in everything she was saying so she wouldn’t have to repeat any of it. Apparently, she did know how or at least in theory.

Thankfully, all the supplies they needed were right there in the cave with them. He slowly pulled away from her and covered her as much as he could with the leaves. Then, he started to gather some twigs and leaves from around the cave.

He made a pile of dry leaves and twigs and it basically looked like a small bird’s nest. He was currently hitting two rocks together to create a spark and thankfully it only took a few tries. A small spark hit the nest and he carefully picked it up and started to gently blow on the small burning area. As he did this, the whole nest started to light up and he quickly but carefully set it back down. He grabbed more leaves and twigs and added them to the flame.

It was actually working; he couldn’t believe it. He broke some pieces of the branches and set them in the fire. It was growing now but he didn’t want it to go out too soon. He made sure he had enough twigs and branches nearby to add more as needed.

The fire wasn’t huge, but it was enough. He helped Hermione move next to it and he got behind her to wrap his arms around her body to help warm her up. She held her hands to the fire to warm them and she felt her body relaxing as she felt less and less cold and more relaxed.

“Good job.” She whispered to him with a small smile.

She was so exhausted now that she could hardly keep her eyes open. Draco kissed her neck and smiled against her. He felt so relieved to feel her body relax, and the shivering stopped completely.

Her lips were back to a pretty pink and she looked relieved to not be shaking anymore. As much as he hated to let her go for even a second, he got up and walked to the entrance of the cave. He moved some of the large branches out of the way and made sure there was enough space to let the smoke from the fire escape. It would be dumb to finally get warm but die from smoke inhalation.

He hurried back to Hermione, and he added a few more small twigs and branches to the fire to keep it going. Then, he sat down and pulled her over to lay on the ground next to him.

They made it. He couldn’t believe that they actually managed to make it through this mess. Finding the cave was pure luck. Thankfully, they were both very smart and had a somewhat clear understanding of basic survival.

‘How the hell do muggles survive anything without magic?’ He thought to himself.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

They slept as much as they could during the night and thankfully the fire kept burning which kept them reasonably warm overall. They laid their clothes out next to the fire before falling asleep in hopes of them drying overnight. The ground was hard, and they didn’t have any of the normal comforts of a bed, like a pillow or blanket. It made for a very restless night.

Draco was awoken by bright sunlight shining through the opening of the cave and hitting him in the face. His entire body ached but otherwise he felt fine and happy to be alive.

He slowly sat up and added a few more twigs to the fire to keep it from burning out completely. He shifted their clothes around so the damper areas were closer to the fire. Thankfully, they were mostly dry and almost ready for them to put back on.

Draco looked down at Hermione sleeping peacefully next to him and he couldn’t help but smile. He could feel his heart beating faster and butterflies swarmed in his belly. He knew that he loved her more than anything.

“You’re staring.” She said softly, startling him slightly from his thoughts.

A small grin spread on her lips.

“Can you blame me?” He responded.

He smirked down at her, and he gently brushed her hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear. He softly rubbed her ear and slowly moved his hand down to her cheek. Then, he slowly leaned down and kissed her.

It was soft and quick but filled with feeling. Hermione felt surprised at his loving gestures as she kissed him back.

He sat up and let her go. He went to get up, but she grabbed his arm and pulled him back down. She pulled him down next to her on the ground and they laid facing each other. They were looking in each other’s eyes, sparkling brown meeting stormy gray.

She leaned closer and started kissing him. She moved her body closer until they were pressed tight against each other.

He pulled back a little.

“I wasn’t trying to start anything with that kiss but I’m not complaining.”

She smiled at him and almost giggled out loud at him.

“I know. Now come here.” She whispered back.

Then, she pulled him back into a passionate kiss. They were slowly moving their hands over each other’s bodies and rubbing all the right places. Everything in the world felt right. They were together and in each other’s arms.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A/N: Sorry it's been so long between chapters. These medical issues and new meds are hitting me a lot harder than anticipated.

I hope that I can get back to a normal posting schedule soon, please be patient and hopefully, the new chapters will be worth the wait.

#trials and tribulations #tt3 #hdthsequel #dramione #romance #fanfiction #sequel #draco malfoy #hermione granger #tt #adventure #survival

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ezrasarm · 4 years

Note

For the requests 23. “Shh, it was just a bad dream. Just a dream, okay? None of it was real.” From the prompt list? Doesn't have to be the exact quote I just like the concept. Any character you want!

The Weight Of It All

Pairing: Din Djarin x Reader

Word count: 2.3K

Warnings: Angst (oops 🤭), mentions of violence and death, my failed attempt at redeeming it with fluff, severe lack of proofreading because I’m lazy

A/N: This was meant to be mindless fluff and cuddles and then whatever this is happened and I wound up accidentally incorporating @wille-zarr’s request too (I don’t know how this keeps happening). A huge thank you to @chaotic-noceur for beta reading most of this bad boy and of course for providing moral support, ideas and probably my favourite line in the whole damn thing and to @din-damn-djarin not only for providing the prompt (or at least one of them) but also for providing ideas for her own request cause I know that kinda takes the magic out of it.

gif by @lucy-sky

Din noticed something had shifted recently. You had been distant. More withdrawn. You thought you were being discrete but he had heard you rattling around the old ship in the early hours of the morning to quell your busy mind. You had been losing sleep, there was no question of that. But over what was still a mystery to him. He kept his inquiries to himself for the most part. Opting to observe your new habits and see what he could extrapolate on his own. He didn’t want to hit a nerve by asking you the wrong question.

Travelling alone for so long before he met you meant he wasn’t well versed in this kind of interaction. The kind that involved prying into another’s mind and picking apart their thought processes to try and understand their emotions. It all seemed too complicated. He knew how uncomfortable it could be when others tried to do it to him. Yet when you asked, it came so naturally. Like you could sense just when he was ready to broach those heavy topics that had been weighing on his mind for too long.

As little as he expressed it, it always made him feel better once he got it out in the open. It was small things. A simple “You alright?” Or “What’s on your mind?”. Just a reminder that someone- you- were there. He wished he could do the same for you. Say a few words and make all your worries and problems disappear but he didn’t know how. The words never sounded right coming out of his mouth. And the longer he danced around the subject trying to figure it out, the longer you suffered on your own.

It was sudden when a jolt ran through the ship. Din had only excused himself for a few moments to go and check on the kid, leaving you at the controls. Lately, it was like the little green creature could sense your weariness and it was making him restless too. He kept acting up when you tried to put him to bed. Wailing when either of you left the room for more than ten seconds. It was as though he thought you were never going to come back. When a second jolt shuddered through the hull causing the entire ship to begin quaking violently Din was sure you were under siege or had entered some kind of asteroid field. He came scrambling up the ladder and into the cockpit as fast as he could but when he got there he found no such thing.

It was like muscle memory had taken over entirely as he flicked switches and pressed buttons frantically to get the craft back under control. His heart was pounding in his ears from the sudden kick of adrenaline when he turned to ask what the hell had just happened. There was actually a hint of anger that had swirled amongst his panic. He couldn’t believe you would be so irresponsible as to put all of you at risk- the child at risk- yourself at risk. But when his gaze fell on you, out cold in the captain’s seat, all those thoughts sublimated. There was a brief moment that he thought you had hurt yourself. That you’d hit your head in all the commotion and got a concussion. But when he was finally able to turn his full attention to you, he quickly came to the realization that that was not the case at all. You were asleep. For what he was sure was the first time in a long time. It suddenly dawned on him just how deprived you had to have been.

As mesmerizing as the view was, the Razor Crest’s cockpit was not a quiet place. He himself had troubles nodding off there if he willed it upon himself. He thought about how overwhelming the exhaustion must have been for you to fall asleep in the middle of all that and now all he could do was curse himself for not knowing what it was that kept you up at night. He considered moving you to his own bed where it was warmer and quiet and you could rest more comfortably but he also knew he couldn’t live with himself if he were the one to disturb your much-needed repose. Instead, he opted for tucking a spare blanket over your crumpled form and sitting himself down in the copilot’s seat to avoid a repeat offence of the crest’s most recent blunders.

Rolling his head against the headrest Din had just flicked the ship into autopilot and leaned back to try and get a moment of shut-eye for himself. He let his half-lidded gaze fall on your peaceful features, the soft curve of the junction between your neck and shoulder and the slight parting of your lips as your jaw hung open lazily. He focused on the subtle rise and fall to your chest as you breathed in and out each breath. He thought he was just on the edge of sleep when you shot upright. A sudden gasp escaped you as your eyes flung wide open. It was like your head had been held underwater for far too long by some invisible force and this was your first fighting breath for air. “Din,” you sputtered out in your terror, blinded by the sting of tears in your eyes. He didn’t have time to notice it was his name that slipped off your tongue subconsciously as you grasped for any semblance of safety you could get before he was kneeled in front of you, gloved hands gripping either side of your face, brushing the hair out of your line of sight so the only place your gaze could land was on him.

“Shh, it was just a bad dream.” He hushes in an attempt to soothe you despite his heart hammering against his ribcage. “Just a dream, okay? I’m right here.” He repeats quietly, raking his gloved fingers through your hair in an action that he wasn’t sure was more comforting to you or himself. “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.” He hummed through the static of his modulator when your stuttering breaths finally began to settle, resting the cool beskar of his helmet against your worried brow in what he hoped was an act of reassurance. He was just getting ready to open his mouth and ask what was troubling you when you beat him to it.

“I can’t make it stop.” You whispered through a shuddering breath, still clutched to the fabric that was peeking out from beneath his beskar for dear life when he pulled back to study your face. It suddenly dawned on him that it wasn’t that you couldn’t sleep. It’s that you were avoiding it. “Every time I close my eyes I see him and I-” Another sob cuts you off but Din’s mind is already racing with the possibilities. Questions of who this man was- what he had done to you- when he had even gotten the chance, were all swirling around his head twisting into a blind rage he didn’t know how to exert.

“Who?” He asks, disliking the way the urgency in his voice made you flinch slightly as a glint of a tear breached your waterline.

“The man on Jakku.” His heart dropped at that. He hadn’t even considered it. Last month the two of you had been on the desert planet for what was meant to be a simple job. Things went south and before you knew it a man was dead at your feet, a blaster trembling in your hand. Din had admired you for it. He had sung you praise over the way you handled it with such composure. But that didn’t help the fact that every time you let your eyes slip shut you were met with the cold dead gaze of your victim staring back at you. It hadn’t even occurred to him the kind mental toll it would take on you.

“You did what you had to-”

“I’m a killer, Din.” He didn’t miss the disdain laced in your voice at the mention of the word and he couldn’t help but wonder if you held that same contempt for him given the way he made his living.

“He didn’t give you any options, cyare.” He tries to reason with you but you’re too caught up in your own flurry of emotions for his words to reach you.

“He could have had a life- a wife to go home to- a family who depended on him-”

“And he was trying to kill yours!” He pleaded. It was the loudest you had ever heard him raise his voice before. He had regretted it the moment the words passed his lips but he needed you to hear him, to listen, to understand you weren’t in the wrong.

“I know, Din!” You cried back, your volume matching his own before he can even stammer out an apology. “I know.” You whispered once again. “But I’m not… like you.” There were so many things you admired about the man you loved and the way his dedication to his religion had shaped him. You adored his selflessness to do what was right for his people and to carry their name with honor and dignity. You cherished his devotion to provide for you and protect you by any means necessary with a reverence you weren’t sure he truly grasped and you understood that killing was a part of that. You would never ask him to stop but you knew you could never justify ending someone’s life in the way he did with such ease. “I wasn’t taught how to take a life and treat it like it means nothing.” The words held no malice and rationally he knew you meant no offence in saying them but they stung him just the same.

“Is that how little you think of me?” A soft croak to his voice that contradicted the empty visor gazing up at you unshakably.

“Din, that’s not what I meant.” You sighed. You could see the hint of a nod in understanding but it did nothing to quell the guilt swirling in your stomach. “I just… how do you make it go away?” You ask after a few more moments of deafening silence, your words weak and tired as you looked as they left your mouth. At that he lets out a heavy breath, rolls back on his heels and pushes himself into a standing position. For a heartbeat you think he might leave you here, alone to the thoughts you’d been so frantically trying to avoid but instead he takes your hands in his and pulls you up before turning the two of you around and dragging you down by the hips to sit on his lap. You don’t say anything for a while, too scared you’ll screw up like you did just a minute ago.

“After my first kill, I threw up.” He speaks eventually, securing his arms a little tighter around your waist. He had never told anyone that before. While he had been embarrassed by it for so long and feared what it implied about him as a member of his faith now he looked back on it with a kind of pride he hadn’t taken the time to fully consider before. “It was a rabbit. I had to snap its neck.” He explained, his voice now even but not empty of emotion. “I can still hear the bones cracking to this day.” He says. “These things don’t just go away, cyare. They stay with us. They keep us grounded.” Din explains just as his buir had when he had asked a very similar question as a child. He hated that he didn’t know how to protect you from this. From your own mind. He wished he could have shielded you from the whole ordeal in the first place but he couldn’t deny how much mandokar he saw in you now despite it. Your worries now only proved as more evidence of that. “I wish I could tell you it gets easier.” He says, brushing a stray strand of hair out of your face. “But I don’t think you would like the person you had become if it did.” He says with a hint of certitude to his voice that manages to assuage your grief more than you had been able to in the months since the incident had occurred. If nothing else now you were sure you weren’t alone. That the very feeling you thought set you apart most from your mandalorian turned out to be the one that coalesced you the most.

“Din?” You murmur wrapping an arm over his shoulder as you nuzzle your face into his neck and inhale a heavy breath of a scent you can only define as him.

“Mhmm?” He hums in return, his fingertips running up and down your spine gently when he tilts his head down to look at you.

With the way you were being crushed under the weight of your own guilt you couldn’t believe the amount of strength it took for him to carry not only his own burden but some of yours too. You don’t even know how to begin thanking him. So that’s where you start. With a quiet whisper of a ‘thank you’ and a kiss pressed to his shoulder. “I don’t know how you live with this everyday.” You mumble against the thick fabric, your voice still fragile as your eyes slip shut and you grip onto him just a little bit tighter.

“It helps having you here with me.” He goes to say, dipping his forehead to press against yours only to realize your breaths had evened out to a gentle snore and you had finally drifted off to what he hoped was a restful sleep.

•••

Cyare - my love

Buir - parental figure

Mandokar - the *right stuff*, the epitome of Mando virtue - a blend of aggression, tenacity, loyalty and a lust for life

Masterlist

Taglist: @agirllovespasta @chaoticspaceidiot @engineeredfiction @pedropascalito @dreamgirl-67 @wickedfrsgrl @hillarymurray4 @din-damn-djarin @yespolkadotkitty @wille-zarr @chaotic-noceur @oloreaa @this-cat-is-dea @marydjarin @roxypeanut @opheliaelysia @cryptkeepersoul

#din djarin #the mandalorian #din djarin x reader #the mandalorian x reader #oneshot #and once again i apologize for the authors note from hell

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yokelish · 4 years

Text

Worth millions.

Remember that? Back by popular demand. Reworked, improved, but only miserly so. And with chapter two coming soon~

✏ Fandom: Bungou Stray Dogs ✏ Characters: Nakahara Chūya, Dazai Osamu ✏ Word count: 3,650 ✏ Warnings: swearing, smoking. ✏ Part I; Part II

Worth millions.

Chūya narrowed his eyes at the figure near on the pier. It was close to midnight and no sane or law-abiding citizen would wonder around those docks alone. He did not expect a fight tonight but would be willing if it come to that. It was, after all, his mess to deal with. And whoever was standing in the way would be crashed by gravity. Chūya took a minute to observe what the person on the pier was doing. If it was some vagabond scaring them away wouldn’t be an issue. At first glance it seemed the figure wondered around the pier aimlessly — looking around to satisfy their curiosity or satiate the desire to observe small beauty of the world, —but only at first. Nakahara didn’t have to waste another minute to understand the person on the pier was looking for clues, evidence. And that was Chūya’s job. Then, it wasn’t a simple-minded wanderer or a drunk wondering in the moonless night. This person had a purpose to be here.

“You better know how to swim,” Nakahara said with a dangerous cadence. With his silhouette shrouded in darkness, he knew and meant the danger emitted. There was no escape from the pier unless they wanted to swim. Or face him. He had no issues with either option.

“Shiiiiit,” the voice uncertain echoed. “I’m taking too long.”

Chūya smirked and moved closer, slowly, biding his time. There was no need to be hasty with this interesting encounter. It was rare for something interesting happening on the job in the dead of the night. Someone else was here with the same purpose. It couldn’t be boring. But he wasn’t planning to let them go. If they were a part of those thugs that dared to challenge Port Mafia, there was only one way out for them.

“Port Mafia, right?” the voice asked, refusing to move, standing their ground. Intimidation was only present in their voice, and Chūya wondered if he was carefully toyed with. Pretending to be frightened before making a move.

The stranger raised their hands in surrender. “I am not looking for a fight,” they continued talking to him confident that they were listened to. The pier wasn’t enough for the two of them. Nakahara came closer, close enough to recognize their features in the moonless dark.

“That’s unfortunate,” Chūya said, smirking. “I might be.”

The person didn’t say anything, didn’t back away from him or step close as if kept there by stubbornness, ignorance, or blind bravery. Instead, they reached inside their pocket. And if this stranger thought a gun could scare Port Mafia, they were both wrong and stupid. A figure dressed in black and wrapped in deep-red glow, For the Tainted Sorrow. Suddenly, the dark space between them brightened. It wasn’t a gun they were reaching for but a torchlight. The light was aimed at the sky enlightening them about this encounter. They didn’t even use it to blind the mafioso and make a run for it. Even more stupid than he gave them credit for.

“Well, damn,” they said with a bright and irritatingly unafraid smile on their face. “Nakahara Chūya, the gravity-manipulator and martial artist. I am not buying lottery tickets this month.”

Chūya tilted his head in question. A very well-informed enemy or… simpleton Dazai never failed to open his big mouth. “Dear Detective Agency,” he sighed with irritation. “Suicidal moron can’t shut up about me.”

“That’s where you’re right,” they confirmed, straightforward and facile.

“What do you want?” Nakahara asked, crossing his arms. The Agency was an enemy; however, fighting them here and now would do nothing for the greater conflict. Boss, too, proclaimed temporary ceasefire. Acting against Boss’ orders was equal to betrayal. Also, they didn’t look like a challenge or threat in any way with that too eager to please and appease attitude.

“Just looking for something stolen,” they replied, nonchalant. “My guess is that you are here for the same reason.” This openness of theirs was getting on mafioso’s nerves. He wasn’t known for a patient temper. The Agency member could have tried to dance around his questions, run or offer a trade-off. But it seemed like they were trying to work out some semblance of functional cooperation. As long as it went within the lines of his loyalty to Port Mafia, he could match this pace.

The smile grew on their face before they turned off the light. It was bright.

“We can help each other!” Agency’s detective offered in a chirpy manner.

“Can we now?” Chūya scoffed, amused. “Just say you need my help.”

“I don’t,” they shook their head. It wasn’t spoken in mockery or false confidence. While the darkness blurred their features, he still heard the smile on their lips. “But you need mine.”

Nakahara raised a brow, antagonized. Dazai must have been giving out lessons. Bandaged freak had an unmatched skill, but they were gravelling him fairly fast too. Chūya didn’t need help, especially from a detective of the Agency. Nakahara was a Port Mafia Executive; he was the merge of a human and a god Arahabaki. Help was the last thing he needed. He expected them to prove the point, but his patience was running dangerously thin each second.

“The smugglers,” the person started talking quickly as if sensing the heat, “didn’t finish their transaction. What did they do with the merchandise? It’s a pier. Not many places to hide things.”

“If they had half-a-brain, an airtight aluminum case would take a day or two underwater,” Chūya shrugged.

“I bet you don’t want to swim tonight, it’s cold, brrrr,” they rubbed their shoulders, mimicking the experience. “So, I will graciously save you from that.”

Mafioso crossed arms on his chest and smirked. There was no way of impressing him, less so of doing him any favours. But he was allowing for this to happen simply because it was quite fun. It didn’t last long, however. Soon, the sound of moving water filled the dark and silence around them. And something rectangular came from the water and floated into their hands effortlessly. It was the case, unmistakably, it couldn’t be anything else.

“I can beckon objects towards myself if I know what they are,” they succinctly explained. “Since I know yours, it’s fair that you know mine.”

Chūya didn’t ask but was given an answer. Perhaps, by some strange morality it was fairer for him to know their ability since they knew about his. But this wasn’t the world that cared about fairness. They were coming from two different worlds, opposing views. They were enemies. It wasn’t personal. From the wrong side, one of them for sure was, had to be. Yet the Agency’s detective continued with the task as if nothing were amiss. Chūya watched them take out a lock-picker’s set. He chuckled, amused. All that talk about morality…

“You are probably here for the valuables,” they continued to talk, unbothered, while trying to pick the lock. “Allow me take one thing. Our client has sentimental value attached to one of the objects inside.”

“They stole more than just valuables,” Nakahara replied. Wittingly or not, he almost said more than needed. Chūya had to hold his tongue from saying anything more. Speaking more than needed would be more than just unwise.

“Ah, is that an invitation to take everything else but what you need?”

“No.”

“Kidding, kidding.”

The case opened with a distinct click. A sound of a skilful lock-picking. From the Armed Detective Agency, indeed. But, true to their word, only one thing was taken. Nakahara had no clue why that would be an object of sentimental value, however, but Lady Luck was on their side. He didn’t need that.

“Thank you for your cooperation,” they said, standing up, and offering a polite and reserved smile.

“That’s it?” mafioso asked, unimpressed. There were a few things he could imagine being spoken, tastefully mixed into the conversation, to make a little sharper, a little more dangerous. “Nothing else to add, dear Detective Agency?”

“Gimme a sec.” There was a theatrical pause perfectly executed. Acting worthy of the effect it produced, with a finger to tier mouth and a thoughtful expression on their face. “Oh, no, Port Mafia! How could you! That’s not right, Port Mafia!”

Chūya shook his head. It was amusing it its twisted, overly dramatic way, but the comedy was too close to reality to be truly funny.

Their act was quickly dropped, switched for a more serious expression and tone. “You could have thrown me into the water the moment you saw me or a moment after when you realized who I was. But you didn’t. And agreed to cooperate.”

“That’s—”

“Hm?”

“Never mind,” Nakahara dismissed the protest. For one, defending his perfectly logical actions seemed foolish. Second, and most importantly, there was no need for him to voice it and neither it seemed to be heard. If that’s gratitude they were offering — to hell with it.

“Scatter,” Chūya commanded in slight jest. “I have work to do.”

The detective bowed to him in jest, most graciously bowing out of their encounter. He let them go and afterwards sighed. There was much a lot of work left to do.

One would safely and reasonably assume this one chance of an encounter was the only time he’d meet someone from the Agency outside of conflict. It wasn’t so. Sometime later he got to see them again. It wasn’t anything related to a job and happened in the light of day. He saw them with jinko and young murderess approaching the local shopping centre. At the entrance, however, they stopped and waved goodbye. The kids proceeded on their own inside. That would have been it: Chūya saw them, they didn’t see him. Such was his conviction, until they waved at him. From afar, sure, and it could have been anyone else who was in his general direction. But somehow, he had a feeling it was aimed at him and no one else. He didn’t acknowledge them in any way.

“C’mon out anyone who’s still alive,” he grinned maliciously into the camera. Chūya was having a bit too much enjoyment with this. After all, it was about time he’d get to play cat and mouse with the Agency. Ceasefire wasn’t much fun.

In the dark tunnel, finally echoed footsteps other than his. Playing the messenger was a boring beat, but a brawl wasn’t completely out of the question, ever.

“Just two of you? What an insult,” Chūya sighed. Just two enemies and not even the most intriguing ones. It all unfolded just the Boss’ predicted. The Agency cannot help itself but to be predictable this way. A confrontation was started to make the blood run hotter. He wasn’t a good match for a messenger job anyway. Everything was working out splendidly. Except for when the voice came from the speakers. The voice belonged to an enemy, the other side that Port Mafia will never reconcile with. He knew the voice — knew exactly who it belonged to — but still hearing it here and now was somewhat unexpected. Something he couldn’t even explain to himself.

“President, with all due respect, I’d like to say something,” came from the speakers. Nakahara stilled the moment he heard it coming from the speakers, he wanted to hear everything.

“I believe in the Agency’s strength just as much as you do, you know it. But we cannot take on the Guild alone. There’s one thing Nakahara was right about: we are short staffed,” the voice on the other side spoke with underlined worry. Mafioso wondered how it felt to speak rather defensively of your enemy. What he’d like to know even more is why even speak in defence of an enemy. But since it was serving Port Mafia’s purpose…

“But if you think such crude tactics would work on us, then Mafia is unfit for waging war,” the President’s voice spoke.

“Veiled threat from the enemy leader himself? Such an honour,” Chūya mocked.

“What are you hiding?”

“Not a thing.”

“He is not lying,” familiar voice interfered. The gravity wielder grinned devilishly. He wasn’t lying, they were correct in that assessment. But it was no good news for them. A shame, truly. For them. So bravely and insistently speak in the enemy’s support. That was the luxury or stupidity few could afford. He couldn’t.

“Why would we need to move?” Nakahara asked with the same smile on his face.

“Alright, fancy hat,” another voice spoke up. And then there was a snicker. Chūya never heard them snicker before but had no doubts it was them. Otherwise, it was the enemy leader and that was a far less appealing thought. Fancy hat?

It wasn’t because he had any doubts about Boss’ plan or because he didn’t trust in the abilities of his fellow comrades. It was because he hated Dazai. Because he wanted to see what was going to happen, what that schemer had pulled this time. And because deep inside Nakahara already knew what sort of deal the Boss would make given the chance. Mori wanted Dazai back in the Mafia, and while Chūya was perfectly content without the failed suicide around, it wasn’t for him to say so. Whatever cliché game he was asked to play, he’d play it till the end.

From up here he could witness the whole thing and, if something were to go terribly wrong, he’d be down there in seconds. But he had unwavering faith in Boss’ planning. Still, the cigarette in his mouth was burning. It was boredom. From up here, he could see everything but not hear it or be entertained by any other means. One, two, three, four…Number four is deadly, according to superstitions.

“Fancy seeing you here!” said the voice from behind. Familiar voice, sure, but it was not supposed to be heard here. Chūya turned his head. That very same detective of the Agency coming to him at such convenient time? It couldn’t be a coincidence. What a cliché, Dazai, especially for you.

A huff, a puff. The cigarette started to taste a lot better now. “What are you doing here?” It wasn’t a question but a warning.

“Don’t worry, no one knows I am here. If you throw me off this roof, it’s a perfect crime,” they quickly assured. And while there was a small laugh at the end of that sentence, he could hear it was filled with anxious tension. “I wasn’t invited for the meeting either but still came to watch. It’s not as concealed up here as you’d think.”

Mafioso kept quiet, feeling annoyed, feeling played for a fool. But before the right words to scare them off came to mind, the voice spoke once again.

“Here,” there was a nudge on his shoulder, “it’s a far better thing to put in your mouth.”

Nakahara looked at what was offered. Goddamn ice-cream? He raised a brow in question. This was more than just a little strange. This was getting a little ridiculous. And the idea of throwing them off the roof didn’t seem as alien as before. Nonetheless, under his murderous gaze, they didn’t relent, continuing to hold up the ice-cream in stubborn generosity.

He had to look away from them. “Damn it.” Agitated, he still begrudgingly put out the cigarette and accepted the ice-cream. The packaging wasn’t messed with, with drops of water from being in the freezer just recently. They, too, had one. An ice-cream for themselves with the packaging matching. Mafioso tore it open. Damnit. It was cold and sweet, vanilla flavour hidden underneath dark chocolate.

“See? I was right. It is a better thing to put in your mouth,” they grinned at him. Not malicious, not mocking, it was a cheerful, kind smile of a friend. They were enemies, people from different sides, fighting for different things. Reconciliation was not an acceptance — a strategy.

“Choose your words better,” Nakahara scoffed.

“Sorry, sor—"

“Or I will throw you off the roof.”

“I said sorry. So, um, what do you think? It’s going fine, right? Even if it’s just to defeat the Guild, we can come to an agreement of sorts? You’d help, right?”

“What are you getting at?”

“I am… worried.”

“About?” he asked without any interest whatsoever. But since this was a conversation — a very used play at social norms and small talk — he would indulge them only for the duration of this ice-cream. A shame to let a good thing go to waste.

“My…comrades,” the enemy answered. That was a delicate answer. Too delicate for such situation. Even Chūya could understand the worry one would have for one’s friends and comrades. Yet something didn’t sit right with him as if a gut feeling telling something he couldn’t yet understand.

“So, if you are fighting alongside one of them, would you help them?” they asked. It sounded so naïve and genuine. Terribly sweet, just like this ice-cream. Underneath the dark chocolate, something awfully sweet and innocent white in colour.

“Is that what their life if worth?” Chūya asked, thoroughly amused. Quite a conversation maker this one. “An ice-cream?”

“Nah, a life is invaluable. And smoking kills. Take care of yourself.”

Chūya laughed. Loudly, thunderously, profoundly regaled. He was pillorying them and their ideas. But, still a nudge on his shoulder, playful in its manner.

“I am counting on you, Nakahara Chūya!”

This was getting too ridiculous for Nakahara to comprehend as a sane person. “Scatter.” He didn’t even mean it maliciously or as a sincere threat. It was a reminiscent jest. And like before, they bowed to him and offered a polite smile, graciously leaving the situation.

Chūya hated Dazai. He hated all the faces Dazai had: arrogant kid, suicidal failure, scheming bastard, traitor, liar, and womanizer. It wasn’t even all the list of masks his ex-partner had. But Chūya would take out the trash once they were done here. The reunion was a temporary arrangement. After, he would be free to deal with Dazai as he wished. What else he hated? The number of body bags his people came back in. All at the fault of a child whose ability was abhorrent.

“Do it,” Chūya said with certainty. He would remember that number for a good while after this is all over and is but a history.

“Oh yeah?” Dazai sounded too chirpy for himself. “Well, in that case…” The knife Dazai conveniently snitched slashed the wooden cage Q was trapped in. Nakahara watched, and the mafia-black blood boiled inside him.

“Your hypocrisy makes me want to vomit,” he stated with sincere spite. The knife stopped chipping at wood as Dazai started to explain such hypocritical act. Excuses, excuses, that was the core of this traitor. Chūya knew for a fact what his ex-partner thought of Q’s ability. What a pathetic, lying bastard.

“It’s a logical decision,” Dazai excused his actions. “Plus, I don’t know how I would look them in the eye.”

“The Agency?” Nakahara shrugged, uninterested.

“Aren’t you curious, Chūya?” It was taunting. “Nosy about my personal life?”

“Personal life? You don’t have such a thing, womanizer.”

“People change, Chūya,” Dazai replied with a sickeningly familiar smile. The bastard meant what he said. Gravity manipulator hated him all the more for it.

Nakahara crossed his arms. “People? Maybe. What do you have to do with them?”

His ex-partner pretentiously pouted. “You know, Chūya, I know your moves down to pacing and breathing.” Dazai stood up. The knife remained plunged into the wood. “But I never knew you liked ice-cream.”

“Bastard, I knew it was your scheme!”

“What? No.” Ex-mafia shook his head. “What would be in it for me? But relationships are built on trust and honesty. So, naturally, I came to know of it. I was as just as surprised as you were.”

That sickening smile, that arrogant tone! Chūya had Dazai pinned down as well. The assortment of face masks of his once-partner…and the appalling pleasure to study them all. But the most abhorrent thing was that the hypocrite wasn’t lying. The bandaged bastard was taking pleasure in speaking the truth.

Dazai was slowly shortening the distance between them. “So, why did you behave like an obedient dog, Chūya?” The languid steps forward, putting them dangerously close together. The shorter mafioso pressed his fingers into a tight fist. The leather gloves squeaked.

“Answer me, Chūya, for old times’ sake,” Dazai continued to provoke. “I don’t think it’s because of ice-cream, was it? Could it be…? Oh.”

You are on thin fucking ice, Dazai. It wasn’t for any other reason than killing time. It wasn’t because he found them strangely intriguing in their passive acceptance of him being from Mafia. And it wasn’t because they spoke in his defence. To speak in your enemy’s benefit was the luxury or stupidity few could afford. He wasn’t impressed by their stubborn kindness despite knowing that he was stronger than them. That he could kill them. That he was an enemy.

“You never could hide your emotions, Chūya. Your face does say it for you,” Dazai was now grinning viciously. “You like them, don’t you? You like them.”

Chūya pushed forward, angry, provoked, with all the spite he could muster. The fist landed hard. The force of his punch sent Dazai stumbling backwards. But there was glee in those dark eyes. The delight Chūya rarely witnessed, but it wasn’t totally alien. It felt good for him too — to punch Dazai in the face like that. Yet his blood was still boiling hot. And there was a bitter and tight feeling in his throat, tasting of sweet vanilla ice-cream.

“Oh, the look on your face, Chūya,” Dazai mumbled, mocking, gleeful, and seeming to ignore the swelling on his face and the pain that came with it. “How did you say it before? “Better than a masterpiece worth millions”?”

#yokelishtorturesenglish #bsd fanfic #bsd scenarios #bsd imagines #nakahara chuuya x reader #chuuya x reader #dazai osamu x reader #dazai x reader #chuuya x reader x dazai #will it show in the tags a second time?

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kessielrg · 3 years

Text

[Kingdom Hearts] Overboard

Summary: In which Riku has to play with his annoying younger cousin, and they both nearly drown. Sorta. [modern AU]

Rating: K

Word Count: 2,249 words

If you liked this story, please reblog!

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Riku honestly did not like spending time with Sabrina. The only girl he could possibly tolerate was Kairi, a girl from his class. Sabrina was Riku’s cousin; which meant that she had to join him. Her being a year younger didn’t really help much either. Unlike him, who was a well sophisticated 6 and a half year old, Sabrina was still 5, and that meant she was still boring.

But he had to play with her today. He promised.

“Are we ready to set sail yet?” Sabrina whined. She was already sitting on their raft.

“Almost,” Riku sighed, gathering their oars. He had to be careful not to drop them as he walked over to her. “Here,” he said once he was close enough, “Take one.”

Sabrina gave the oar a rather disinterested stare. She only took it after quirking an eyebrow at him. Riku had to do his best not to let out a sigh of relief. The last time he told her that they were going to sail the ocean, she had a fit. Uncle Oswald really spoiled her. If it wasn’t for how cool Blaine was, Riku would never want to see his cousins, aunt, and uncle.

With Sabrina with her oar, Riku carefully placed his on the raft before pushing it into the ocean. He quickly got on, and was even more quick in making sure they didn’t immediately capsize. After he was adjusted, the duo started to row further out.

“Where we goin’ this time, Riku?” Sabrina casually asked. She wasn’t very good at rowing at the same pace he had, but it managed for now.

“Dunno about you…” the boy hummed. “But I am going to explore every world in the world.”

“Oh…” Sabrina mused. “Well if that’s the case, I’m going to find my true love.”

Sabrina let out a wistful sigh as she flopped back on the raft. The raft rocked violently for a moment at the shift. Riku just stared at her in annoyance. It didn’t help that she spread out more too. Her feet nudged at Riku just slightly, which only served to annoy him more. Sabrina didn’t seem to notice as she went on to wistfully ramble, “He’s gonna be funny, and cute, and looks at me like how Papa looks at Mama.”

Riku looked off to the side just to gag. Sabrina wasn’t blind to this. She sat back up (again, rocking the raft slightly) to fold her arms and pout at him.

“It’s a better thing than whatever you said.” she told him. To emphasize her point, she even razzed her tongue at him. “You’ll be all alone, and I’ll have a boyfriend.”

“Don’t think Blaine wants you to do that.” Riku told her with a click of his tongue. He tried to start rowing again, but they only moved in a lazy circle because Sabrina was refusing to help at the moment. The temptation to ‘accidentally’ bonk her with the oar was a strong one. Unfortunately, he held back; they were going into deeper waters now, and Sabrina was not the strongest swimmer.

“Blaine can kiss my big toe,” the girl declared, even placing her hands on her hips and leaning forward a bit for emphasis. Riku honestly expected her to fall over. She -unfortunately- didn’t and eased her way back into a proper position so she could help row some more. Riku still wished that he had anyone but her with him. Sora at school also liked sailing out into the ocean. In fact, Riku was very sure that Sora wanted to be a pirate, so the idea of rowing into the ocean really put the other boy in a good mood. But Sabrina? Still bad at rowing in time with Riku. Really bad.

To his surprise, it was Sabrina who noted someone coming up to them. The two stopped rowing as the newcomer came closer. Riku’s heart pounded when he realized it was Blaine. Was he in trouble for taking Sabrina into the deeper water? Was Blaine going to watch them? What did his cousin want?!

“Hey you kids,” Blaine called out, “Aunt Minnie says dinner’s gonna be ready soon. Pack it up.”

Oh.

Blaine had been sent by the adults to collect the younger duo. It was also their ploy to talk about him while he wasn’t there- not that he didn’t know their talks by heart. Always ‘it’s so nice that Riku and Sabrina are close in age so they can play’ and ‘Blaine must always feel left out because he’s so much older than them.’ Quite naturally, not having to deal with his feisty little sister was a treat. The 10 year old casually took a nibble out of his pretzel stick as Riku and Sabrina turned to him. Their raft was nothing more than an inflatable pool lounger, and their ocean was the in ground pool at Mickey and Minnie’s house. Blaine’s favorite part was that it looked like the kids were using pool noodles to row the poor lounger along; must have been Riku’s idea. Smart kid, that Riku.

“Go away Blaine!” his baby sister was the first to shout. “We’re finding adventure and you’re not invited!”

“Blaine is invited.” Riku immediately refuted, almost horrified at the idea Blaine couldn’t join them.

“No he’s not.”

“Yes he is.”

“Nu-uh.”

“Yeah-uh.”

“As entertaining as this all is,” Blaine loudly told them, netting their attention again, “My mission is to tell you two to dock it and get inside. Hurry up, before Ortensia comes out.”

“Yes sir.” the two kids grumbled with their own level of respect. It was enough to amuse Blaine into leaving for now. Riku was more than willing to head back, however Sabrina was a wee bit bitter.

“Brothers.” the girl whispered darkly under her breath. She turned to Riku just to say, “Don’t have any.”

“I don’t think that’s my choice.” he said right back. “Come on, Mom’s been working on dinner all day.”

“Aunt Minnie can wait.”

Riku looked at Sabrina like she had gained another head.

“But Blaine said-”

“I don’t care what Blaine said. I want to find my true love.”

“Sabrina, we’re going inside now.”

“No! I don’t wanna!”

“This is why I don't like playing with you,” Riku hissed. “You always make it about you!”

“Do not!” “Do too!”

“Do NOT!” Sabrina shouted just before hitting him over the head with her pool noodle.

Riku had not been expecting that whack at all. Even if there wasn’t much force to it (it was a pool noodle, after all), Riku found himself tumbling sideways and into the pool water. Sabrina let out a surprised shout as his head dipped underwater. When he didn’t immediately come back up, she started to panic.

“Riku!” she called out to him. Not long after, Riku’s head came back up, but she didn’t feel any better. If anything, she leaned over the edge of the lounger a bit more to really make sure he was alright.

“I’m fine.” Riku grumbled, using a hand to wipe his face off. He looked up at her and realized something before quickly telling her, “Sabrina, watch it! We’re at the deep end and you can’t-”

He didn’t have time to finish because Sabrina fell over the lounger as well. It didn’t take long for her to realize they were at the deep end. It took even less time to realize the lounger had drifted a good distance away from them. Panic overwhelmed her when her feet didn’t touch the floor, and it didn’t matter how fast she kicked her feet, her head kept dipping under the water. Riku rolled his eyes -very sure that she was just being over dramatic- before swimming over to her. Her thrashing made it hard to get very close.

“Sabrina,” Riku tried to tell her, hoping she could hear him over her splashing, “Hold on to me, and I’ll get us to the edge.”

Sabrina nodded, ceasing some of her desperation as she tried to move close to Riku. She blindly moved over to him, immediately clasping her hands around his neck when she was close enough. The sudden addition of her weight made Riku go underwater as well. The things he did for his stupid cousin.

Inwardly grumbling, Riku adjusted his body to help guide them to shore. He really hoped Sabrina would get the hint and help pedal them over, but she never did. When they got to the edge, Sabrina didn’t waste any time using his shoulders to hoist herself out of the water enough to crawl back onto the brick deck. Thankfully, with her weight gone, Riku bobbed back up in record time. He got out of the water as well, sitting on the warm brick to catch his breath for all that hard work. Sabrina herself had flopped down like a starfish to catch her breath. She stared up at the sky with a look that illustrated she thought herself lucky to still be alive. Riku looked at her and grimaced.

“Are you alright?” he questioned with a tone that didn’t care if she actually was or not.

Sabrina didn’t seem to pick up on it. Instead she gave a little nod of her head and gave a breathless, “Yeah, I think so.”

“Good.” Riku nodded. “Because I’m going to kill you!”

“No!” Sabrina shrieked as her cousin lunged at her. The girl was quick to scramble to her feet and book it back to the house.

“Get back here!” Riku demanded as he started after her.

“No, you’re going to kill me!” Sabrina yelled back, almost losing her balance as she tried to look back at him.

“For trying to kill me!”

For a moment, Sabrina straight up turned around to run backwards- almost falling over herself at least twice as she informed Riku in a prudent tone, “I actually could have killed both of us. Duh.”

Riku snarled as he reached his hand out at her. Sabrina yelped before turning back around again and running away even faster. Riku’s expression hardened as he went after her. He wasn’t surprised in the slightest that she was heading straight for the adults- that spoiled little snitch.

Sabrina managed to stay just out of his range as they got closer to the adults. When they were within earshot, Sabrina immediately shouted, “Daddy! Riku’s going to murder me!”

“What’d you do to Riku?” Oswald questioned without so much looking up.

Sabrina immediately stopped in her tracks, letting out a shocked -and completely over dramatic- gasp. Riku, who had just caught up, let out a few breaths before letting out a satisfied, “Ha!” at her.

“Riku, what happened?” Mickey asked while Minnie next to him opened her arms for the boy to hug her. Riku gladly took the offer- which led to Sabrina letting out another loud, offended gasp.

“Riku tried to drown me!” Sabrina blurted in absolute fury.

“After you hit me with the pool noodle.” Riku refuted as he got quite comfy sitting next to Minnie, even placing his head against hers. “I was actually trying to save you.”

“Were not!”

“Were too.”

“As riveting as this is,” Blaine declared as he came up as well, casually placing a hand on top of Sabrina’s head, “Everything’s all ready now. We can eat whenever.” He took a look down at Sabrina -who immediately took a hold of his hand to get it off her head- before smirking, and adding on a bemused, “Maybe now.”

“Thank you Blaine.” Minnie happily chirped. Blaine grinned at her, ignoring his little sister’s rude faces, before leaving again.

“I don’t know about you guys, but I am starving!” Oswald happily said as he got up.

“But Daddy!” Sabrina whined, stomping her foot on the ground. “What about Riku?!”

“Riku can make his own plate.” came the rather callous answer. This not being the resolution Sabrina wanted, she gasped again.

“I am so mad right now!” she declared. “I am crutching my pearls!”

“Clutching, sweetie.” Minnie gently corrected her. “You are clutching your pearls.”

“That’s what I said!” the spirited girl insisted, stomping her foot on the ground. But the moment to try to rat Riku out had passed. The adults all filed out to get something to eat, leaving Riku and Sabrina behind. Sabrina refused to look at Riku as he stood quite close to her. A wide smirk was well written on his face.

“You’re so cute.” Riku coddled as he patted her on the head.

“You can’t pat my head.” the girl spat, trying to swat his hand away from her. “That’s illegal.”

“Oh?” Riku happily mused. “You let Blaine do it.”

“Blaine is my brother,” came the rather exact answer. “He does things that cousins can’t. Especially cousins named Riku.”

Riku smirked. “Fine,” he then declared, even throwing his hands in the air. “You win. How about I make it up to you? I’ll give you my cookie.”

Sabrina glared at him. She folded her arms before asking, “Any cookie?”

“Any cookie,” he agreed.

“Including Mama’s peanut butter cookies?”

“Including Aunt Ortensia’s peanut butter cookies.”

Sabrina looked Riku over with a critical eye. She stood a bit straighter as she came to her choice.

“Alright.” she agreed. “I agree. But no raisins!”

“Sure, sure.” Riku agreed with a little wave of his hand. Together the two went to get something to eat as well. All was forgiven between the two of them.

For now.

#kingdom hearts #kh riku #riku #kingdom hearts oc #kh oc #kingdom hearts fanfiction #kh fanfiction #kh fan fic #fanfiction #fanfic #fan fiction #fan fic #happily adopted #mickey mouse #kh mickey #kh minnie #minnie mouse #oswald the lucky rabbit #writers on tumblr

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pjo-whore · 3 years

Text

Percy In Tartarus

Chapter 1: The Fall, And Gone

ao3 link. if anyone wants to be tagged for future updates please comment!

Annabeth had seen some strange things before, having been privy to the mythological world since she was only seven years old.

Several things she could name off the top of her head was her first time at Camp Half-Blood when she witnessed her best friend die in cold blood, then proceed to be turned into a pine tree; witnessing the Stoll brothers pull of pranks that increasingly defied the laws of physics; and when she had even seen her boyfriend turned into a guinea pig by a vengeful sorceress.

And that wasn’t even half of the craziest stuff she had to deal with on the daily.

But if there was one thing she had never witnessed before, it was cars raining from the sky. If she was being honest, it wasn’t as cool as it sounded.

Like, three out of ten.

Would not recommend.

As the roof of the cavern collapsed, beams of sunlight came through from above, blinding Annabeth. Briefly, she caught a glimpse of the Argo II.

It had used its ballistae to blast a hole straight through the ground.

Giants chunks of asphalt tumbled down, along with six or seven Italian cars. One would have crushed the Athena Parthenos, but luckily the statue’s glowing aura acted as a force field, and the car bounced off.

Unfortunately, that car fell toward Annabeth.

Annabeth launched herself to the side to avoid it and accidentally rolled her bad ankle. Pain washed through her, making her lightheaded. She was only just able to flip onto her back in time to see a bright red Fiat 500 slam straight into Arachne’s silk trap, punching through the cavern floor and disappearing with the Chinese spider-cuffs.

As Arachne fell, she screamed like a freight train on collision course.

More chunks of debris slammed through the floor, riddling it with holes.

The Athena Parthenos remained undamaged, thankfully, but the marble under its pedestal was a starburst of fractures.

When everything settled and debris stopped falling, Annabeth was finally able to calm down and take stock. She was covered with cobwebs. She trailed the strands of leftover spider silk from her arms and legs like the strings of a marionette, but somehow none of the debris had hit her.

Annabeth wanted to believe that it had been the statue of her mother that had protected her, but bitterly, she suspected it may have been nothing but luck.

Around her, the army of spiders had disappeared.

Either they had fled back into the shadows, or they had fallen into the chasm along with Arachne, and there was no lost love from Annabeth for either option.

As natural light flooded the cavern, Arachne’s silk tapestries along the wall crumbled to dust. Annabeth could hardly bear to watch it, especially when the tapestry depicting Percy and her kissing underwater turned to nothing.

But none of it mattered the moment Annabeth heard her boyfriend calling from above.

“Annabeth!”

“Here!” She sobbed. It hurt to yell. “Over here!”

Her terror left her in one massive wave of relief. As the Argo II descended, she could see Percy leaning over the railing, waving to her. Black hair whipping in the wind, smile crooked, he appeared like a god sent from Elysium. His smile was better than any tapestry Annabeth had ever seen.

The room kept shaking, and with no lack of difficulty, Annabeth pulled herself to her feet. Her backpack was missing, along with Daedalus’ laptop.

Her celestial bronze knife, which she’d had since she was seven, was also gone.

Annabeth wanted to cry. It felt like she had lost a part of herself.

Above her, the Argo II came to a stop about forty feet from the floor. A rope ladder was lowered, but Annabeth ignored it as she stood in a daze, head still heavy.

Percy appeared at her side, lacing his fingers with hers.

He gently turned Annabeth away from the pit and wrapped his arms around her in a tight embrace. Annabeth buried her face in his chest and finally broke down in tears.

“It’s okay,” he said. “We’re together.”

Percy didn’t say “you’re okay” or “we’re alive.” After all the two had been through, he knew the most important thing was that they were together. Annabeth felt fit to bursting for the love she held for him, and she hugged him tighter.

Around them their friends gathered. Nico was there, but Annabeth’s head felt so fuzzy that it didn’t even surprise her. It only seemed right for him to be there.

“Your leg!” Piper exclaimed. She kneeled next to Annabeth and examined the Bubble Wrap cast, fretting over her friend’s injury. “Oh, Annabeth, what happened?”

Annabeth wanted to explain, but when she opened her mouth to speak, nothing came out. She felt so light-headed, and her tongue felt swollen. Her throat was parched. Percy seemed to know what she needed and called for a water bottle, which Leo grabbed from his utility bet and quickly handed over to her.

As she started, it became easier.

Percy didn’t let go of her hand either, which helped to motivate her.

When she finished, everyone was staring at her in disbelief.

“Gods of Olympus,” Jason said. “You did all that alone – and with a broken ankle!”

“Well, some of it with a broken ankle,” Annabeth said weakly.

Percy broke out in a grin. “But you made Arachne weave her own trap? I knew you were good, but by the gods – generations of Athena kids tried and failed, but you did it! You found the Athena Parthenos!”

Attention switched to the statue.

“So … what do we do with her?” Frank asked. “She’s huge.”

“We have to take her with us to Greece,” Annabeth said. “She’s powerful. Something about her will help us stop the giants’ rise.”

“The giants’ bane stands gold and pale, won with pain from a woven jail,” Hazel said, quoting the prophecy. Her expression gained a hint of admiration. “It was Arachne’s jail. You tricked her into weaving it.”

With a lot of pain, Annabeth thought humorlessly.

Leo raised his hands in a mock framing, trying to measure the Athena Parthenos. “Well, it might take some rearranging, but I think we can fit her through the bay doors in the stables. If she sticks out at the end, I might have to wrap a flag around her feet … or something.”

Annabeth shuddered at the image. She imagined the Athena Parthenos jutting out from the trireme with a sign across its pedestal that read “WIDE LOAD.”

Then she remembered the other lines the prophecy: “the twins snuff out the angel’s breath, who holds the key to endless death.”

“What … what about you guys?” Annabeth said. “What happened with the giants?”

Percy told her about rescuing Nico and the surprise appearance of Bacchus, along with the fight with the twin giants in the Colosseum.

Nico didn’t say much. He didn’t say anything at all. The poor guy looked like he had been wandering through a frozen wasteland for a week. Percy shared what Nico had learned about the Doors of Death, and that to properly close them, they had to be shut on both sides.

Overworld and Underworld.

Even with the sunlight from above, Percy’s news made the cavern seem dark again.

“So, the mortal side is in Epirus.” The gears in Annabeth’s head begun to turn. “I mean … at least that’s somewhere we can reach.”

Nico grimaced. “But it’s the other side that’s the problem – Tartarus.”

The word seemed to echo eerily through the chamber.

The pit behind the group of demigods exhaled a cold blast of air, causing Annabeth to shiver. The shadows got darker, the pit echoed, and an icy feeling crept up Annabeth’s spine. Annabeth knew with certainty that the chasm went straight to the Underworld.

Percy must have felt it too because he guided Annabeth away from the edge.

Slowly and carefully, the group migrated back to the Argo II.

Annabeth’s arms and legs trailed spider silk like a bridal train, and she wished that she had something to cut the silk off. She almost asked Percy to do the honours, but he leaned in and began talking. He frowned. “You know, Bacchus mentioned something about my voyage being harder than I expected. Not sure why he –”

Suddenly, the chamber groaned, making the Athena Parthenos tilt violently to the side. Its head caught on one of Arachne’s support cables, but the marble foundation beneath the pedestal was crumbling quickly.

For a horrible moment, Annabeth thought the statue was going to fall.

Her stomach dropped.

“Secure it!” She cried out.

Thankfully, her friends understood what she meant almost immediately.

“Zhang!” Leo called, already running. “Get me to the helm, quick! The coach is up there alone!”

Frank shifted into a giant eagle, pausing only for a moment to allow Leo to jump onto his back, and the two of them soared toward the Argo II.

“Don’t worry about running, I’ll be back for you guys in just a second. Just don’t reinjure Annabeth’s ankle,” Jason said to Percy and Annabeth. Then he turned and wrapped his arms around Piper, and he summoned the winds and shot into the air.

“There’s no time, this floor won’t last!” Hazel warned, but Jason didn’t hear her. She turned to the others. “The rest of us need to get to the ladder as quick as possible!”

The group started making their way to the Argo II less carefully, speed the only thing on their minds.

Plumes of dust and cobwebs blasted from the holes in the floor, causing the demigods to inhale the dust and choke. The spider’s silk support cables trembled like massive guitar strings and began to snap. The floor lurched and crumbled.

When they reached the ship, Annabeth watched anxiously as Hazel lunged for the bottom of the rope ladder, which was swaying wildly with the shaking of the cavern. Hazel gestured for her brother to follow. Nico was in no condition to pull himself up, still sickly pale and thin and limping. Hazel had to grab him from beneath the armpits to hoist him up.

Percy held onto Annabeth tighter, shifting on his feet worriedly.

“It’ll be fine,” he muttered. “It has to be fine – we’re so close.”

Annabeth wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince.

Above, grappling lines shot from the Argo II and wrapped around the Athena Parthenos. One lassoed Athena’s neck like a noose. Leo was shouting orders from the helm as Jason and Frank flew frantically from line to line, trying to secure them.

Nico had managed to climb a quarter the way up when a sudden sharp pain shot up Annabeth’s bad leg, causing her to cry out and stumble.

“What is it?” Percy asked.

Annabeth didn’t have an answer.

Everything was in a haze and her head felt heavy. Confused, she staggered toward the ladder again, only to find that she could not. Instead, she was moving backward. And then her legs were swept out from beneath her in one pull, and she fell on her hands and knees. There was a hollow sound as her head bounced off the ground, and Annabeth saw stars.

“Her ankle!” Hazel screamed from the ladder. “Guys, quickly! Cut it! Cut it!”

Annabeth didn’t understand. Cut her ankle?

Apparently, Percy didn’t understand what Hazel meant, either. He grabbed Annabeth’s hands and tried to pull her back to her feet, but it caused more pain and he stopped when Annabeth began to cry. Then, suddenly, an invisible force yanked Annabeth backward and dragged her toward the pit with the force of Heracles.

Percy yelled out in fear. He lunged for Annabeth, grabbing her arms, digging his heels into the ground. Unfortunately, the momentum still carried him along with her.

“Help them!” Hazel yelled.

Nico jumped down from the ladder, headless of his injured state, and began hobbling in the direction of the pit as Hazel tried to disentangle her cavalry sword from the rope. The others were still focused on the Athena Parthenos and Hazel’s cry was lost in the general chaos.

Annabeth’s stomach dropped when she was yanked back another few feet.

She was terrified.

Now that Annabeth realized what was happening, it was too late. She was tangled in Arachne’s spider silk. She had assumed it was all loose lines, but with the entire floor covered in cobwebs, she hadn’t noticed that one of the strands was wrapped around her foot – and the other end went straight into the pit. It was attached to something heavy down in the darkness. Something was pulling her in.

Percy continued to pull uselessly on her, until something popped in her right shoulder, making her scream in pain. Startled, Percy slipped and fell past Annabeth. A large chunk of marble was upended behind them, granting them momentary pause from falling.

Percy finally seemed to get his wits about him and pulled out Riptide.

Annabeth couldn’t see it from where she was scrabbling for purchase against the marble floor, but she heard the blade hiss as it cut through the air.

With a snap, a wave of relief crashed through Annabeth once the pressure was released on her ankle. She tried pulling herself up, but the ground trembled as the marble cracked further, and the chunk behind them dropped into the looming chasm. Percy, who was behind her, tumbled down the sudden incline and, in a panic, reached out for something to grab – which happened to be Annabeth’s good ankle.

Together, they slipped further from the pull of Percy’s weight.

Terrified, Annabeth screamed and kicked him away. “Let go of me!”

“Fuck!”

Percy disappeared over the edge.

She scrambled backward as Nico hobbled past her and leaned over the edge, eyes wet.

“Annabeth help!” Percy cried. Annabeth crawled back in fear as the floor cracked further. Nico either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

Percy was partway into the pit and dangling over the void. He had managed to catch a ledge almost fifteen feet below, but that wasn’t going to help him. He was holding on with one hand, struggling to get a drip with his other, which was bleeding profusely from a large gash across his palm. Several feet away from the hole sat Riptide, blood staining its blade.

No escape.

Annabeth jerked back.

She could have sworn a voice echoed from the pit, mocking her. Bile rose in her throat.

I go to Tartarus, and your loved one will come, too.

The pit shook violently, as if it were eagerly anticipating its next meal – its next victim.

Nico leaned over the edge of the chasm, hopelessly thrusting out his hand to help. But he was too far away. Nico knew it, Annabeth knew it – and Percy knew it, too.

“Percy,” Nico said, “grab my hand!”

Percy’s face was almost white with effort.

Hazel was still yelling for help from the others.

Even if they did hear her over the chaos, they would never make it in time.

Annabeth felt like her whole world was crashing down around her. She couldn’t comprehend that Percy was going to die. Even from a few feet away, she could feel the pull of the pit. She could see the darkness slowly rising, trying to claim Percy.

Percy gasped when the ledge shuddered and shifted. He looked up at Nico fifteen feet above, hand still extended. Percy’s face twisted as something final crossed his expression.

“The other side, Nico.”

Annabeth didn’t understand right away, but Nico did. He shook his head violently. “No, Percy –”

“The other side! I’ll see you there. Understand?”

Nico’s expression turned pained. “But –”

“Lead them there!” Percy said. “Promise me! Please!”

It suddenly struck Annabeth that Percy couldn’t see her. He had his eyes locked on Nico. Beside her, Nico looked lost. He stuttered. “I – I will.”

Below Percy, somewhere from the endless void, a voice laughed in the darkness.

Ice crawled up Annabeth’s spine.

A sacrifice. Such a beautiful sacrifice to wake the goddess.

It finally clicked in Annabeth’s mind.

A one-way trip.

A very hard fall.

And Percy looked scared.

Annabeth couldn’t bring herself to watch anymore.

She looked away, and Percy was gone.

#pjo #percy jackson #annabeth chase #nico di angelo #house of hades #tartarus #percy in tartarus #percy alone in tartarus #house of hades rewrite #most of this was lifted from the og book #angst #heroes of olympus

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thecatprince · 4 years

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Luckier Than Most

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Summary: A death, a wish, a promise. When Virgil Sanders dies, everyone is distraught. It seems like all of the colour and joy has been stripped from the world. Roman will do anything to get his friend back and heal the pain inside him. When he makes a wish upon a star, he had no idea it would come true. Now, as everyone grieves, Virgil is there making faces at Roman at the most inappropriate times. They are luckier than most.

Warnings: Detailed description of drowning and mentions of death and negative thoughts about death.

Reblogs > Likes!!

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Chapter Three - Seeing Ghosts

Virgil hadn’t meant to die.

He had only wanted to swim to take a bit of a break from the chaos, which was a bit difficult to do when you were friends with Remus. When he left them Patton, Remus and Roman were all chasing each other around in circles, splashing each other with water and Logan and Janus were sitting in the shallows discussing politics or philosophy or some nerdy shit like that. Virgil had been floating on his back for a few minutes, just looking up at the cloudless blue sky. He couldn’t recall what had prompted him to swim around underwater, but he did anyway, exploring the quiet world of the lake. All external sounds were dulled and the cool water was nice after being in the sun. He hadn’t realised how far away from the others he had swam until he came up for air and saw the others on the other side of the lake.

There was a reason not many people swam in this side of the lake. The water was quite a bit deeper, and there were several plants at the bottom that were perfectly capable of ensnaring feet. Virgil had intended to go back to the others as soon as he saw how far away from them he was, but a small part of him just wanted to stay where he was, for it was a lot quieter over on this side than where the others were. Virgil ducked back underwater and just stayed there for a bit, swimming around in circles, enjoying the serenity. He knew the moment he felt his foot get caught in the plants that he was screwed. No matter how much he pulled the plant would not let go, and in trying to kick his way out his other foot got caught, wrapped up in the ferns.

It only took a couple of seconds for his lungs to start hurting. At first it was a gentle ache, but it built quickly and soon it was almost too painful to bear. Virgil’s mind went into panic, thoughts racing through his head, mostly surrounding the fact that he was drowning and all of the things he hadn’t done and never said. He kept struggling, trying to pull his feet from the foliage, but he only succeeded in tangling them more. Virgil could feel his time ticking away, the pain in his lungs building and it was growing harder and harder to stay conscious. Virgil had once heard that drowning was a painless as falling asleep, but now he knew that was complete bullshit. Drowning was the most painful thing in the world. He could feel his body fighting to stay alive, for him to hold his breath, to stay conscious and he knew that with every second that passed that his body was failing. His last thought before he blacked out was that he never got to say goodbye…

When he awoke he found himself in a white hallway. He was wearing his signature black hoodie with purple patches, the one that Patton and Roman had made him for his birthday several years ago, his purple long sleeve shirt and ripped skinny jeans, although he had no idea how he could be wearing them given that he died in his shorts and nothing else. That was, given he was actually dead. Virgil stood up and took in his surroundings and himself. He was in a blinding white hallway, on one end there was a blank wall, and on the other end there was a blinding light. He somehow knew he should go through the light.

Suddenly, Virgil was terrified. He felt so alone, surrounding by nothing but white. He wanted someone to hold his hand, or hug him, or even just be there with him, to reassure him. He didn’t want to be dead. He wanted to be back with his friends, wanted to see Remus, Roman or Patton do or say something ridiculous or stupid and just share a look of ‘you have got to be kidding me’ with Logan or Janus. He wanted Patton to give him a hug and a cookie (he always seemed to have cookies on him, and Virgil had no idea why, but they helped a lot whenever he was stressed or anxious or just needed comforting) and tell him it will all be okay. He wanted Logan to break down the situation, to offer a reassuring smile or give him a fun fact to take his mind away from the situation. He wanted Roman to give him a dramatic smile, probably accompanied with a stupid nickname, and maybe take his hand or give him a hug or just make him smile. He wanted Janus to give him a snarky comment, or to tell him that it would be okay, that he was safe. He wanted Remus to tell him some morbid fact, or to reassure him in the way only Remus could, by exclaiming some chaotic shit loudly and running around and yelling and just being Remus. He wanted his parents to be by his side, telling him it will be alright, and that he wasn’t alone. He didn’t want to be dead.

It hit him that he would never see his friends again. Never see the way Logan will roll his eyes fondly whenever Patton made a pun, never see the way Roman’s auburn hair glowed red in the sunlight, never see Janus smirk the smirk that he had spent hours in front of the mirror perfecting, never see Remus’ chaotic grin or the glint he got in his eye whenever he thought of something that delighted him. Tears filled his eyes, for even though he was the dead one, he wanted nothing more than to be alive again. He collapsed onto the ground and sobbed.

He didn’t know how long he cried for, but he cried until he had no more tears left. He then lay in the silence, tired and pained from the situation he was in. He felt scared and small and his heart ached with longing to return to the land of the living. He never meant to die, he never wanted to die, he never even got to say goodbye. He lay there alone with his thoughts.

After what felt like hours (and it probably was hours, but Virgil had no way of telling the time) he felt a pull. He couldn’t tell exactly what was pulling him, but it felt like he was being pulled towards the floor. The light grew brighter, and Virgil had to shield his eyes for a moment. Then the light faded, and Virgil found himself in a very familiar place. He could hardly believe his eyes, and a wave of joy and relief washed over him as he took in his surroundings. Roman’s bedroom had never looked so beautiful.

“Virgil?” Roman asked. Virgil turned around and looked at his friend. He could see his friend!! Joy overwhelmed him, and he could feel tears prick his eyes. Happy tears. Roman looked like he normally did, if more dishevelled than normal, and he had a look of disbelief and joy on his face.

“Roman?” Virgil responded, hardly believing that he was in the room of his friend.

“Virgil!” Roman shouted in joy, launching himself towards Virgil with the intent of hugging him, but he ended up going straight through Virgil and crashing into the wall behind him. Virgil half wanted to laugh and half wanted to sob. He put his arms out in front of him in disbelief, examining himself. He looked pretty solid, not translucent like ghosts were supposed to be. Was he a ghost? Or something else? He was distracted by Roman’s arm appearing through his torso.

“You’re a ghost!” Roman exclaimed. “What? How? Why? What??”

Virgil finally broke and collapsed into hysterical laughter. He was so relieved and happy to see his friend again, to be back in the land of the living, to just be here again, back in familiarity. Roman looked him in slight confusion as Virgil rolled around on the floor, tears of laughter streaming down his face. “What’s so funny?” Roman asked, giving an uncertain laugh himself.

“I don’t know! I’m just so happy, so ridiculously happy, to see you again.” Virgil slowly calmed down, and then just lay there on the floor, looking up at Roman. Roman had the biggest smile on his face, and he looked close to tears as he looked at Virgil.

“I’m really happy to see you too Virge.” Roman stepped over Virgil and made his way to his bed. Virgil sat up and stared around the room in wonder.

“How am I here? What?? How?” Virgil looked at Roman for answers but Roman shrugged. The thought that maybe he had forced Virgil to come here, and maybe now Virgil would be stuck here forever and it was all his fault crossed his mind, making him feel guilty and anxious. But looking at Virgil made it all worth it.

Virgil looked like he always did, if slightly paler. His hair was still purple, his eyes were decorated with purple and black eyeshadow and eyeliner and foundation hid his freckles. He was wearing a very Virgil outfit, with the signature hoodie, purple shirt and black jeans. He looked every bit as alive as he did when he was living, even though he seemed a bit paler. Roman just stared at Virgil for what seemed like forever, just taking in the fact that his friend who had died earlier today was sitting on his bedroom floor, talking to him! Roman was reeling slightly from the absurdity of it all, and the joy that he felt at seeing Virgil again.

Roman yawned suddenly, and the overwhelming feeling of tiredness and exhaustion he felt before washed over him. “Go to sleep, Princey. You must be exhausted,” Virgil said with an indignant look. Roman nodded, and was about to start getting ready, when the thought suddenly occurred to him that this might be it and he might never see Virgil again if he went to sleep.

“Will you still be here in the morning?” Roman asked, trying to sound like he wasn’t terrified of the thought of never seeing Virgil again after just seeing him again after he had died and Roman had thought he had lost him forever and failing miserably.

“I don’t know, but I have no wishes to leave,” Virgil said, looking slightly anxious at the thought of leaving the land of the living. They would have to drag him kicking and screaming if they ever wanted him to go back so soon. Whoever or whatever they were.

Roman gave a small nod, not completely comforted by this statement, but knowing that it was an honest one. Virgil tended to be pretty honest when he could, stating what was true to him, which was sometimes distorted by his anxiety or was a more pessimistic view on things. As Roman got ready for bed, Virgil made himself comfortable on the beanbag. He had no idea whether ghosts could sleep or needed sleep or whatever, but regardless he wanted to be comfortable, and here he could see the sky. He remembered that Roman had once compared his freckles to constellations and that compliment had meant more to Virgil than he would ever care to admit. He had always been a bit self-conscious of his freckles. They really suited some people, like Patton, whose face was covered in light freckles, but Virgil never thought they looked good on him, or fit his personality or aesthetic.

Virgil lay back on the beanbag and stared up at the sky as Roman turned off the light and fell asleep.

Thanks to everyone for reading!!! Comments are greatly appreciated!

#cat writes #luckier than most au #tw death #tw mentions of death #tw drowning #sanders sides fanfiction #ts virgil #ts roman #ts patton #ts logan #ts janus #ts remus

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shadestoryofficial · 4 years

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Chapter 5 - Class in Session

I was back in the flowery meadow again, the pitch-black sky still looming overhead. There seemed to be more flowers than before, each different than the last. Fire surrounded the clearing, but I wasn’t worried for some reason. It was calming now, like I was sitting next to a fireplace, drinking cocoa in the middle of a snowstorm.

I heard a voice, muffled as if she was speaking underwater. I tried to ask who she was, but no sound came from my throat. I heard a pensive hum as if the voice were deciding what to do.

Before anything more could happen, the flames began to die down and the flowers began to retreat into the ground. I was waking up. We were not able to speak this time, a calm voice echoed. But we will soon.

* * * * *

I woke up, stretched out on a soft couch, the light of dawn streaming directly into my eyes. In front of me were two boys. One was the blacksmith from earlier. He was in what looked like a kitchen, making a drink with his back to me. He had his jacket on, the fur lining almost up to his ears, and he had taken his gloves off. He turned around, his eyes revealed to me. His left eye was a flame-like scarlet, his right eye a steel-grey.

“Tea’s done,” he said, handing a mug to the other boy, who was lazily strewn sideways across a chair.

The other boy had quite an odd look to him. His pale skin was nearly transparent. He had shaggy, dark purple hair, a platinum-blond streak fully covering his right eye. His left eye, which was visible, was blood red and had deep bags beneath it. He didn’t look too old, maybe 19, but his eyes looked like they had seen the beginnings of days, the middles of dynasties, and the ends of lifetimes. The boy seemed rather lean and bony, like a flexible skeleton, and was shorter than both me and the blacksmith. He seemed vaguely familiar.

Balanced on the bridge of his nose was a pair of black, bottom-rimmed glasses, partially concealed beneath his hair. He wore a dark-green trench coat over a thin, cool-grey shirt. A glove that seemed to be made from the same material covered his right hand. Rust-colored sweat-pants stretched over his legs, and black leather shoes kicked idly. A mauve scarf wrapped around his neck and mouth.

He had been watching me with mild interest but turned his head to accept the cup from the blacksmith. As the blacksmith handed off the tea, I caught a glimpse of his left palm, a Token glowing faintly.

This Token was a common one, “fire”. Anyone with it could create bursts of flames, heat objects just by holding them, and even sometimes control fire into swirling shapes.

The boy took the cup, moved his scarf down to take a sip, then turned back to me. “Welcome back to the world of the living,” he said. I wasn’t focused on his words, but his voice, his voice was tired, as if he didn’t have any energy left in his body. A slight, unrecognizable but old accent, tinged in his words. It had taken me until I had heard his voice to realize two things:

1: This was the boy who I had seen just before falling.

2: He was identical to Zack.

I remember watching cartoons as a kid. Every episode, the villains would show up in a wacky costume to fool the hero. The hero never saw through it until the end, but I would shout at my screen, seeing through the shoddy disguise. Surely, anyone watching me had been shouting much the same.

I hadn’t noticed until just now because most of his face was obscured. The voice was the same, though. He may have been missing the mischievous glee, and his voice was slightly deeper, but it was definitely the same as Zack’s.

Was this some weird disguise? He had escaped due to an explosion. Was the blacksmith the one who had caused it? Why bring me here then, and have me wake up to them in disguise? Were they toying with me?

I shot up from the sofa and reached above my head to ready my HALO, but I only grasped air. Zack had repositioned himself in the chair to be sitting straight. He was watching me with interest in his eyes, and, from the way his cheek tugged slightly upwards, a smirk on his face.

“I’d recommend you calm down,” he said. “You might break something.”

I glanced around the room, looking for an exit. Through the kitchen was a door, but I would have to make it past the blacksmith. Zack was still calmly drinking his tea. I pushed off with my legs, sprinting towards the door. I ducked under the blacksmith’s arm, now ablaze, and thought I was out. Then, a frying pan knocked my legs out from under me.

“Sorry, man, but you gotta calm down,” the blacksmith was looking down at me on the floor. “We just need to talk.” He lifted me bridal-style and plopped me on the sofa.

“Talk?” I was woozy from my head hitting the tiled kitchen floor. “What?”

Zack was still examining me from behind his asinine disguise. “Let’s start with introductions. I’m Xavier, but you can call me X. Who are you?”

I scoffed. “Xavier? Do you think I’m blind? I know that’s you, Zack.”

His eyes narrowed, his voice becoming more serious, “Zack is my twin brother, and despite our being identical twins, I assure you that we couldn’t be more different.”

“Yeah, right. And I’m the king of the lily pads.”

“You can check my upper back if you like. You won’t find the Beneluct no matter how hard you look,” He seemed mildly irritated, and I was skeptical, but I still got up to check his back. I had no clue what a “Beneluct” was, but I was sure that if I checked his back, I would find his Token.

He pulled his coat off from around his shoulders, revealing that his t-shirt was asymmetrical; the right sleeve longer than the left. I tugged the collar of his shirt down, examining his back just below his neck. No Token.

“You really are Zack’s twin brother?” I was bewildered. I went back to sit on the sofa as he nodded. “So what do you want with me?”

Xavier put his coat back on. “I should be asking you that. You’re the one who-”

“Hey! I didn’t get to introduce myself yet,” the blacksmith interrupted. I had already forgotten he was here. “I’m Blaise, Blaise Fierro, nice to meet you. And sorry again for hitting you with the frying pan,” He reached out to shake my hand, revealing the Token on his right palm.

It was another common Token, “metal”, but how did he have two? That isn’t possible. He shook my hand with a strong grip, shaking my arm up and down like cooked spaghetti.

“Ahem,” X cleared his throat. “As I was saying, what do you want with us?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you followed me home after asking everyone in town about X,” Blaise sat in a beanbag chair to the right of me.

“Wait. You’re the Shadow?” I shot up again. “So you are working with Zack!”

“Sit down. No, I’m not,” Xavier waved his hand at me. “I would never work with my brother.”

“But, you worked with him in the Dirillian agency, and you were at the destruction of the embassy that reignited a war!”

“I did work with him before he betrayed me. As for participating in the cataclysm at the embassy, I tried to contain the blast from causing any damage to the surrounding cities,” he replied. Then, in a barely audible whisper, “It wasn’t enough, though…”

“Oh…” I was disappointed, this was the only lead I had on finding Zack. I had failed. I may find him eventually, but not before he caused more mayhem. But then, I realized something. “Wait. If you worked with him, then you might know where he’ll go!”

Blaise made a noise, a confused expression painted across his face. “What do you mean ‘where he’ll go’? He’s been locked up in Prism for centuries.”

X’s eyes widened. “No. He escaped? How?”

“I was there when it happened. One minute I was talking to him in his cell, the next there was a flash of light and I was knocked out.”

“That’s not possible, he had a Blocker! He shouldn’t have been able to use that much power at once!”

“He probably just overpowered it,” I responded.

Xavier looked at me disappointedly. “How much do you know about Tokens and Blockers?”

I thought for a moment. “Well, Tokens were created by ancients who intertwined their souls with the innate magic of the world. After millennia of evolution, the Tokens just kind of became a rare genetic trait. As for Blockers, they interrupt that connection between the Tokened and the world’s magic.”

“That’s an oversimplification,” Xavier said, shaking his head. “You got most of the stuff about Tokens right, but they aren’t wholly genetic. Sure, anyone with a Token can trace their lineage back to that first society of ancients, but the ancients didn’t harness the magic into their souls. It was already there. They just found a way to activate a gene that enables Tokens to be used.

“As for Blockers, they don’t interrupt the connection between a Tokened and magic because it doesn’t exist. Blockers were made to hinder the soul of a Tokened, and therefore any Blocker needs to be custom-made to the Tokened. That’s why Blockers are known to fail; most that are being used are mass-produced instead of being tailored to the Tokened.”

“So, Zack’s Blocker was tailor-made? Then how did he break through it?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” X frowned, seemingly frustrated to have to say that. “He may have been able to emit some light on his own, but not enough to cause damage of any kind.”

“We can worry about how he escaped later!” Blaise shouted. “We should be focusing on finding him!”

“I agree, but speaking with you two has raised more questions than answers,” I said.

“Yes, I understand. ANGEL has gone downhill in the last century,” Xavier responded. “Very well, I’ll answer what I can. I’ll need as much help as I can get to recapture Zack, and it’s better that the questions be answered now than in the middle of a battle.”

Bewildered once again, I stared at him. “Uh, okay. Let’s start with how you know I’m from ANGEL.”

“I was there when it was founded,” He said simply.

“What does that mean? And how are you and your brother alive and young today, but were both involved in a war centuries ago?”

“Ah, our Tokens are responsible for that. Beneluct and Malescambre.”

“What do those mean? Can you please speak Common?”

Xavier sighed. “As I said, ANGEL has gone downhill education-wise the last century. I assume you know that each Token has a name? ‘Fire’, ‘Silence’, ‘Strength’, etcetera? Well, those are all translations, and simple ones at that. The symbols that Tokens manifest in were used as the written language of the ancients.”

He pointed to Blaise, who held out his hands and revealed both his Tokens. “Blaise’s Tokens are ‘fire’ and ‘metal’, but those are just the Common translations of the ancient language. In reality, they are ‘Fign’ and ‘Alfeucre’. Those two translate easily to Common, but others, such as mine and my brother’s, don’t.”

He pushed his hair up, revealing his right eye. It was pitch black, a void of emptiness with a purple symbol appearing to float in the middle.

He moved his hair back over his eye. “My Token, ‘Malescambre’, would likely be translated as ‘shadow’ by most. But in truth, it is a more complex word in ancient: ‘cursed’. Likewise, while most would translate Zack’s Token, ‘Beneluct’ as ‘light’, it is more literally translated to ‘blessed’.”

My head was spinning. I was so confused. “That doesn’t explain how you’ve been alive for so long.”

“Yes, it does. Just think for a moment.”

I shook my head and took a deep breath. “Whatever,” I said. “I’ve only got one question left. Why does he have two Tokens?” I pointed to Blaise, who shrugged.

“Family thing,” he replied. “I don’t pretend to know more than that.”

I looked at X, but he didn’t seem to want to answer. “If that’s all you have, then we should start working on finding Zack,” Xavier interjected. He stood up and began walking towards the other end of the house. Blaise got up and motioned for me to follow.

“How do you propose we do that?” I asked. “You were my last lead. We’d need a psychic to find him.”

X opened a door that led into a greenhouse. He picked up a pot with an odd-looking flower and turned to me and Blaise. “It’s a good thing we have four.”

#shade #shadestory #shade story #ShadeChapter #ShadeChapterFive #original story #fantasy

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