#which she demonstrates by easily throwing him across the room | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mike-haters-dni · 1 year

Text

Cool Buffs El Should Get in the Next Stranger Things Patch (Season 5)

Also a discussion of how El's powers work, because they're really fun to think about. If any of these actually happen in the show I will spontaneously combust. Anyway, here are my ideas:

Learning hand-to-hand combat/martial arts and incorporating it into her powers.Ok, so the theory goes like this: what is El’s most consistent weakness when it comes to combat? Overtaxing herself and then being unable to continue fighting—barring some intense surge of emotions to act as an emergency energy burst, which is neither a dependable nor healthy thing to rely on in the long term. No, what El needs to do to mitigate this weakness as much as possible is learn to be more economical with her psychic attacks and incorporate more physicality into her moveset. Think of it as having both a mental and physical battery. So far in the show, she has pretty much exclusively utilized her mental battery when doing anything. I mean, she literally stances up to stand completely still while using her powers most of the time, which works if she can take every enemy out at once, but every other time it ends either badly or extremely badly. The worst example of this is during the cabin mindflayer fight where she just stands still after fucking up a couple tendrils (which took like, waay to much effort btw), and then gets grabbed very easily due to her legs being completely stationary along with her subpar reaction time (probably not helped by being overexerted). She then panics and doesn’t do anything to try to free herself from its grasp, which is fair enough, but still. There’s room for improvement here. Of course, this is good storytelling because it would be really boring if she was super op, flicking every threat out of the way, but I think s5 should get to be the late-game, full-build, onslaught arena season. El (and everyone else) is at full power but so are her enemies, who attack in hoards. Anyway, this is all to justify the first powerpoint that I will be giving to the Duffers: Reasons why El should learn hand-to-hand combat and also incorporate physical movements into her powers Avatar:TLA-style:

1. She’ll get tired less easily. Being economical with attacks means instead of squeezing a dude’s body to death for like 5 seconds, maybe just snap his neck? Or throw a sharp object at him? Or break his kneecap? She could break a lot more kneecaps in a row than she could squeeze dudes to death, and if she had a weapon to throw around? Forget it. And that’s not even bringing the combat training into the mix. She could throw a knife across the room into a guy’s neck, while ducking under another guy’s attack, kick him in the knee (with a little extra psychic force), and then call the knife back in time to stab him on the way to the floor. If she fights half-physical half-psychic that means neither battery gets depleted too quickly, and she could take down an entire squad of npcs and walk away with nothing but a light nosebleed. Also, 2. It would look really cool. Like really super fucking cool. Go ahead and imagine how cool it would be. Listen, the stand-still hhnng-ing really hard psychic fights are cool and all but I mean, we can do better than that. She does already do the hand thing most of the time, but I want like full-body motions here. Big dramatic sweeping martial arts motions that perfectly match the force she’s applying to objects. Her powers are clearly emotion/perception-based, so by that logic, anything she does to make it feel like her attack should be stronger will actually make it stronger. i.e. she should swing her body around harder, and coincidentally land in really cool anime poses while doing it. 3. It would demonstrate mastery over her powers. Having to stand still to concentrate is really giving training wheels vibes. Although, I do have a theory on why she does that: I imagine her powers require her to use either her whole body or a part of it as a sort of anchor that she moves the thing she’s telekinesis-ing in relation to. Or alternatively, she can apply more force to an object the more of her body she’s using as a conduit for her powers. So like, standing still to concentrate while moving a heavy object is still easier, especially if we aren’t using the physical motion augmentation method. When she’s got her arm outstretched she’s directing the power from her brain down through her arm, making it stronger and easier to direct, which make it actually feel like the power is flowing out through down her chest into her arm vs if she uses her powers without conducting them it feels like they flow straight out of her brain, which is harder to control because it's completely thought based. When she really has to use 100% power it fills up her entire body, which makes it harder to her move in any way that isn’t related to whatever she’s doing with her powers. Does that make sense? Let me know if that makes sense. Anyway, I don’t think she would ever stop needing to stay kind of still to use her powers, especially while expending huge amounts of energy, but that urge could be mitigated as much as possible to allow for her to dodge a little while in combat.

Learning to move herself with her powers, in order to do things like jump really far or dodge out of the way really fast, or break her fall from a really high jump.If my power anchor theory makes any sense (or even if it doesn’t because whatever), El could learn to direct her powers back towards herself by using something solid in the area as an an anchor and then instead of moving that thing, pulling herself towards or away from it. This might lowkey be canon already since that seems like what was happening when she started levitating while closing the gate in s2, also s4 did mention her having to learn to fly so...I guess we'll see 👀.

Gaining/honing the ability to sense things within a radius through passive diffusion of her powers. So, in the show its demonstrated many times that El can move/feel things she can’t see with her powers, like in all the times she unlocks doors from the outside. So I’m thinking, we take that ability, amplify it, and make it a passive thing that only requires a very small use of energy that she can keep it up to feel everything that's going on around her in a room-sized radius. It wouldn’t be something that she can do permanently—like it would still take some degree of concentration to keep up, but her powers could become strong enough that some part of her is always feeling around just a little. Like regular human perception, she could be more likely to notice any sudden movements when not concentrating at all. Basically, she would become immune to being snuck up on, and she could also specifically train to get good at stopping any projectiles (or otherwise) that enter a 3-foot or so radius around her. She could also use the power to see in complete darkness or into rooms from the outside, and not have to rely on sight or hearing to locate any threats in fights, allowing her to attack enemies behind her without having to turn around, anticipate attacks, etc (in my mind, there's a scene where El practices this blind-fighting by sparring all the boys at once, who only have the goal of hitting her once with any attack, which they fail spectacularly after she takes them all down in like 5 seconds lmao). She could also specifically use proficiency in her voidwalking ability to passively sense any humans in an even larger radius, without knowing what they are doing exactly but maybe being able to vaguely sense whatever emotion their feeling. Also, speaking of sensing emotions: it’s just canon that El can feel/manipulate people’s organs, so she could totally sense when people suddenly get nervous in a conversation…or literally anything else physical going on in someone’s body. Kind of a disturbing thought, actually. It’s shit like that that makes me want her to lose her powers at the end of the show lol.

Gaining the ability to perfect parry. Alright we’re entering pure self-indulgent gamer ideas now but—While practicing her projectile catching and throwing one day (with a pitching machine), she accidentally deflects a ball so precisely that it goes flying back in the opposite direction without losing any force, with the deflection itself taking almost no mental energy at all. She’s surprised by this, and then spends a couple scenes trying to do it again, but can't figure it out. Until, of course, the climatic scene where she manages to do it again in a last act of desperation and is able to save the day against impossible odds. Or something something.

Getting a bunch of knives. If I could make Duffers do one thing in s5, it would be to give El a bunch of knives that she floats around to fight with Irelia League of Legends-style. This is a fantastic idea ok listen. As I mentioned already, they would take minimal effort to fight with, and also be super deadly, work against the demogorgons, look cool as hell, and also they could make menacing halos behind her head when she gets angry at people. Is this too anime of an idea for the 80s monster show? Who cares, give El a bunch of knives. Other random cool shit she should do:

Matrix a bunch of machine gun fire from a bunch of soldiers that were finally ordered to just kill her before she takes down the entire government (or whatever other reason), creating a giant cloud of bullets around her and pushing her back from the sheer force of the momentum she's countering. Then when they finally empty their magazines she sends all the bullets back in an epic display of raw power, fucking murdering every solider at once and emerging unscathed and unbothered. I just think that would be cool.

She hasn’t done the psychic power cyclone thing yet. There’s still time to fix that.

I think it would really enhance her powers if she had some kind of like dirty, smudged eyeliner look going on. You know like its makeup irl, but styled to kinda look like its apocalypse grime, but it still looks really cool and menacing. idk it's an idea. character design.

Insane this hasn't happened yet but she should at some point like absent-mindedly spin something above her hand with her powers. Like a bunch of marbles or pen or something. Just to flex a little.

Anyway hope you enjoyed reading leave a comment and make sure to like and subscribe for more s5 pipe dreams :)

#sorry for being so gamer coded #but that's the vibe #stranger things #el hopper #stranger things analysis #st5 headcanon

14 notes · View notes

valdomarxxx · 3 years

Text

There was only one bed? Well, @whataboutthebard, I know just the story. Forgive me if it's one you've heard before.

We are invited to court, and begged to perform. Some cousin of a cousin of the king, a far-flung royal offshoot with more money than he knows what to do with and more pretension than he’s earnt. In truth, he’s hired more than just the two bards who orbit the centre of this story; musicians and dancers and an orchestra, singers from far-flung climes to demonstrate how worldly and knowledgeable he is.

(It does not matter that the cousin-of-a-cousin has never stepped foot out of Verden. It is the appearance that counts.)

He has chosen us, he claims, because we are the most recent and second-most-recent winners of the Oxenfurt Bardic Competition. This will demonstrate how entrenched he is in the community, and how much he supports the arts.

We are led upstairs to the less fine wing of the keep, and I realise that he could have supported the arts more effectively by paying us a good wage, and - more to the point - supplying us with decent sleeping accommodations.

There is only one bed.

We look at each other. We look at the servant who has escorted us here.

“There appears to be some mistake,” I say, just as you speak - “And where is the other room?”

The servant raises her eyebrows at us. “No mistake,” she says. “You can take it or leave it. He won’t be granting you better.” She pauses, watching us, weighing us up. “Count yourselves lucky,” she says. “The flutist from Ebbing is sleeping on the floor with the servants. The group from Vicovaro are in the barn. The only place not teeming with musicians is the pig sty. But by all means, feel free to take it up with his Lordship if it displeases you.”

I peer at you. It could displease me more. It’s been some time since friendship became something slightly spikier, since those long sleepless nights at the academy. But I hesitate to call us rivals or enemies; the animosity between us is all for show.

At least, I think it is all for show.

(Later, I cannot be so sure.)

And… I look away from you, looking to the floor, looking to the single bed placed in the centre of the room like a steel-jawed trap. There are worse places to be.

Like the pig sty, for example. We thank the servant, who purses her lips and leaves.

“So,” you say. You throw your things to the bed.

“So.” I agree. I place my things beside yours.

It promises to be a long night.

The performance goes well. Even the most boorish employer can be tolerated when you have a captive audience and talented accompaniment, and it’s clear that the musicians gathered for the event are of the highest calibre. It’s been some time since we performed together, and we slip into the duet surprisingly easily, sliding back into two harmonising halves of a whole.

We close our set to applause and cheering, and - to both of our surprise - are led into a side chamber where we are given the real payment for our labours: food and wine. It is by no means as fine as the feast currently being served in the adjacent hall, but it’s better than I can expect in the Academy or you can expect on the road, and we settle into a long evening celebrating a successful performance.

That damned bed settles in the back of my mind like a ghost, like an itch I cannot scratch. Even when we laugh over old memories or bicker over which bottle to open next, I am thinking about what awaits us up the flight of servants’ stairs.

I am catastrophizing, I know. It is just a bed. Two nights - for we have been asked to perform tomorrow, too - and sweet sleep. Or not so sweet: as I have already mentioned, you snore, and I am not relishing the idea of those snorting grunts pressed so closely against my ear.

Yet—

No. I push down the thought, and return to the celebration, all the while waiting for the world to quietly end.

And it does, eventually. The food cleared away and the wine passed along to the next group of troubadours, we make our way up the stairs towards the room. Towards our room. We shuffle inside in silence, and before the door has shut you’re already stripping from your performance finery. You don’t even hesitate, and I suppose this is what travelling with a companion for so many years does to you; although you were never shy about your body in the same way I am.

I tug away my doublet hastily yet carefully, followed by my breeches - together they cost more than the pay we’re due to receive for tonight’s work. You are already in the bed, and for a moment I hesitate. I could sleep on the floor. It would not be a comfortable night, but the wine has made my bones feel soft and I have, after all, slept in worse places. It would be no hardship to pillow my clothes, however expensive they are, beneath my head and lie upon the wooden boards to—

“Valdo.” Your voice is sure in the dark. “Get in the bed.”

I do as you ask. The sheets are already body-warm, the mattress sagging where you lay just half a foot away. I lower myself to the edge, opening the space between us, muscles stiffening as I petrify, my body melding into immovable stone.

But not immovable enough. I feel you twist beside me, hear you sigh, can tell that even now you’re rolling your eyes at me. My senses, already heightened, light up, and then—

Your hand on my arm. You do not pull me closer, you do not tug or claw or grab or demand. You barely brush my skin. But still I move, still I follow that touch, still I turn onto my side until I’m facing you. You’re facing me, too.

“You get used to sharing a bed on the road,” you say, like we were halfway through another conversation. “It barely feels odd anymore when I and—”

“Please.” I cut you off. I try to sound biting instead of sad. “I do not need to hear about your witcher this evening.”

“No,” you reply. “I… I don’t think I want to talk about him, either.”

You move closer. Our ankles touch, of all things, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. My heartbeat quickens; I pray for it to still and quieten. You yawn, and the gape cracks into a sleepy smile.

It’s easier, suddenly. Your hand is still upon my arm, and your skin is warm, and the bed is soft despite the cramped space. I turn onto my back, and feel your arm snake its way across my chest, towards my shoulder. I pull you close; I couldn’t do anything else but wrap my arms around you.

I expect to lie awake for hours, the lavender and chamomile scent of your hair filling my nose, muddling my mind. But you're warm, and soft, and gentle, and soon I feel myself drifting away, the pressure of your head against my chest making me painfully aware of every breath I take.

I sleep, and dream of—

I dream of you.

The next morning we wake slowly, dress slowly, eat slowly. We perform quick and fast and turbulent, garnering even louder applause, even greater accolades. It passes in a blur.

That night, we fall back into our shared bed. That night, we do not sleep at all.

#what about the bard #jaskier #there was only one bed

68 notes · View notes

downtonabbeyrevisited · 3 years

Text

Season Two Episode Four

A 1918 timestamp ushers us into one of Downton’s more slow moving episodes where three parts painful banality has been mixed with one part life-or-death peril.

Providing more interesting political and cultural conflict than WW1 (at least at Downton) is Isobel’s ongoing grating at Cora’s very soul. Cora has had the temerity to ensure that the staff don’t collapse on their feet and has done something with the linen that I can’t quite fathom which, of course, Isobel takes as a slight upon her medical knowledge. Isobel makes the fatal error of calling Cora’s bluff threatening to ‘seek some other place’ if she is not appreciated at Downton. Major Clarkson also takes sides with Cora and Isobel now has no choice but to throw herself and her messiah complex upon the Red Cross in Northern France. I am sure they will be thrilled.

With Isobel’s departure, Moseley and Mrs Bird find themselves at a loss having deep cleaned the house and moaned about their employer’s eating habits. Turns out that one thing they forgot to do was deploy any semblance of a security system as a random man with a drama school limp wanders into the house looking for food. In a manner that would make the current Conservative front bench recoil with horror, Mrs Bird starts up a soup kitchen out of her own (presumably rather small) pocket. In her latest attempt to not do her job, Mrs Patmore drags Daisy out for some fresh air and in the process uncovers this particular bit of well meaning but financially unsustainable charity. Mrs Patmore scales up the operation, creating a “special storage area” to squirrel away surplus from the army’s stock, which O’Brien conveniently overhears (but to be honest, it’s not that much of a coincidence. I imagine most of the kitchen heard it considering that Mrs Patmore practically yelled it). In an effort to try and inject a bit of actual drama into this episode, O’Brien reports this to Mrs Hughes but (un)fortunately, Mrs Hughes could not care less. But after watching the world’s most appalling secret handover of goods in the village, O’Brien rallies and this time is successful in bringing Cora to the nefariously compassionate Bird-Patmore coalition. To absolutely everyone’s surprise (viewers included) Cora orders food to be taken from the house stock rather than army and with all the over-confidence of a consultant sets about re-arranging tables and streamlining the workflow.

Feeling much less charitable than Mrs Bird, Moseley heads to the Abbey and attempts to make himself indispensable and reach the dizzying heights of ‘Valet to the Earl of Grantham’. But not long after the peels of laughter that such a notion invites have died down, Bates returns and takes Mr Molesley’s shoehorn which one can’t help but think is emblematic of something. The return of Mr Bates is, naturally, a painfully protracted process that involves key protagonists not talking to each other, Thomas smoking on a wall, and the obligatory invocation of Kamal Pamuk. Robert invites Bates back to help him through the ‘veil of shadow’ and as such I was intrigued to learn that he is a World of Warcraft devotee. Bates reappearance downstairs also allows for the return of two other key Downton Abbey tropes: Anna and (John)Bates having a heart to heart under the cover of darkness, and Thomas and O’Brien’s irrational loathing/scapegoating of Britain’s most infuriatingly lovelorn character (outside of Thomas Thorne) to resume with aplomb.

Less happy to be within the confines of the Abbey is Edith who continues to signal that all of this is really a bit beneath her (certain elements quite literally). Ever the teacher’s pet, Mr Molesley reports the sighting of an Officer by the maid’s staircase to Mrs Hughes who hears that there have been lots of rumours on the timeline tonight and comes out to say that she does not live in a sack. Unfortunately, Major Bryant does not live in one but definitely frequents one and, as such, it is of course Ethel is dismissed. As she rapidly packs all her belongings, Anna pleas to Mrs Hughes on her behalf confirming that she is indeed the friend we all want but probably don’t deserve. But Mrs Hughes can’t get rid of her that easily as Edith (and passenger) skulk back to liven up the end of the episode with news of an oncoming baby *Eastenders drums intensify*.

Talking of undeserving relationships, Sybil and Branson receive more air-time than usual, providing the latter the opportunity to demonstrate that at times he really can be a muppet. And a slightly malevolent one at that. Sybil is firmly under the cosh this week with Violet making thinly veiled references to inappropriate alliances and Mary asking probing questions whilst she tries to get on with her job. Mary thinks that she has spotted her sister and Branson having some kind of romantic exchange but in reality, all that she has seen from afar is Branson telling Sybil that she is in love with him which when you think about it, is all kinds of awful and hardly the basis for a healthy relationship. After a long walk through the grounds where I am half expecting Branson to appear on a horse Willoughby-style, Sybil eventually caves and confesses to Mary that she doesn’t know if she likes Branson despite his eminently creepy voice over. Sybil then relays her sororal confidence and rather than taking this as an opportunity to ingratiate himself, Branson for whatever reason attempts to coerce Sybil into a relationship but not before he belittles her job. Sybil looks rightfully outraged as some equally emotionally manipulative strings wail in the background in an attempt to try and make us think that anything that has just happened was evenly slightly dreamy.

Threaded through this glacially paced episode has been the looming threat of a both a concert and the death of Matthew and (to a much lesser extent because that is how class works) William. In an effort to break the monotony of walking around the exact same bit of French trench (see previous re-caps for further details), William and Matthew take to wandering across some largely unadulterated land and into the path of some nonchalant Germans. Daisy’s lack of (presumably fawning) letters from William starts off a chain of enquiry which confirms that the War Office has declared Matthew and William missing enabling Mary to once again deploy her signature move: weeping into her gloves. But only one hand this time because she needs to keep a bit of composure for the show must go on! Apparently. Following some abysmal piano playing (I grew up in an appallingly musical household and we all had to endure the torture of other people at the early stages of learning an instrument. It was of course blissful when we got good but, heck, I was thrown straight back to the horror of it all with that ‘accompaniment’ and had an odd sort of stress response which I won’t describe here), Mary and Edith do a rendition of If You Were the Only Girl (In the World) as everyone looks on stony-faced before participating in the millenia’s most morose sing-a-long. With a very good sense of drama, Matthew and (to a much lesser extent) William make their return. Matthew takes his place at Mary’s side and joins in the signing to what is now presumably quite a bewildered audience. Ah, Downton.

Romantic declaration of the moment

Violet raises reasonable concerns about Richard Carlisle but Mary is more interested in expanding her real estate portfolio and agrees to throw her lot in with a fiscal agreement disguised as a marriage. Upon his ‘miraculous’ return, Matthew gives the union his blessing on the condition that Richard remains deserving. Not that he ever really was. But the sentiment is what matters here and what is more loving* than putting another’s presumed happiness before your own.

*there are actually a lot of other more loving things but in the interest of formatting, we’re going to sweep those under a very large rug for now.

Expressive eyebrow of the week

Rather than training as a nurse or being actually pretty useful in a convalescent home, Mary’s contribution to the war effort is being amicable with Edith. Violet declares that she has now “seen everything” as the spirit of Mrs Adelman moves on.

Wait, what?

“I wish we had a man” Presented without comment

“If I am not appreciated here, I will seek some other place” Yes. PLEASE.

“What must he do to persuade you he is in love with Lavinia? Open his chest and carve her name on his heart” No, Mary. Matthew merely needs to carve her name with a compass on his forehead to prove that…

undefined

youtube

“I hate the word ‘missing’. It leaves so much room for optimism.” Robert is a bit emotionally weird isn’t he?

“We haven't kissed or anything. I don't think we've shaken hands. I'm not even sure if I like him like that. He says I do, but I'm still not sure.” And lo, another red flag is raised. But because Branson is Downton’s version of a Bolshevik, both Mary and Sybil view this not as a warning about the boy’s behaviour but rather a symbol of his political leanings and such signals are duly ignored.

“He always seems a romantic figure to me” Daisy Robinson writes fanfic. Pass it on.

“Sometimes in war, one can make friendships that aren't quite…appropriate. And can be awkward, you know, later on. I mean, we've all done it.” Once again, Violet, tell us more!

Bates says that he has returned to “Downton at war” which sounds like a lucrative exhibition name if I ever did hear one.

Despite Mary’s most valiant efforts, no musical performance had ever gone out to such an impassive audience until Rosalind came along

undefined

youtube

Matthew of course is used to a much better quality sing-, sorry, song-a-long

undefined

youtube

#Downton #downton abbey #downton rewatch #Mary Crawley #Matthew Crawley #thomas barrow #thomas branson #mrs o'brien #Mrs Patmore #daisy mason #william mason #Cora Crawley #Lady Grantham #lord grantham #john bates #Joseph Molseley #anna bates #Youtube

69 notes · View notes

is-it-art-tho · 3 years

Link

Summary: A mission gone awry, too many memories, too much blood, and not enough time. Bruce races to save a son he couldn't save before.

Prologue, Ch. 2, Ch. 3, Ch. 4, Ch. 5, Ch. 6, Ch. 7, Ch. 8

_________

Then.

“Who’s the bat now?” a young voice shouted.

Bruce paused halfway through the foyer and looked up. “Get down before you hurt yourself,” he called back.

Twelve-year-old Jason was hanging from the second-floor banister with his legs curled around the handrail, grinning impishly. “You sound like Alfred. We do way more dangerous stuff than this like every night.”

“That’s not the—” Bruce began, but the boy’s eyes zeroed in on the bowl of chocolates he was holding under his arm.

“Are those truffles?!” Jason stuck out his hands and grasped at the air between them. “Gimme gimme gimme!”

“You can have as many as you want once you get down.”

This, of course, was a lie. The first and last time Bruce had made a promise like this had involved a three-tiered cake left mostly untouched after a company party. He had been expecting Jason to have maybe three slices, max. The kid had instead eaten almost half of it, then proceeded to spend the rest of the night gagging and moaning over the toilet. (Alfred had laid into Bruce for that one: “What sort of promise is that to make to a child? Honestly!”)

A bright smile flashed across Jason’s face as he started to sit up before pausing then letting himself flop back upside down again with an accusatory frown. “Wait a second. You did that thing.”

“What thing?

“That thing with your eyebrows that you do whenever you’re makin’ stuff up.” Jason tried to demonstrate, scrunching his face around cartoonishly. “Liar.”

“All right, all right. Fair enough,” Bruce conceded, making a mental note to work on that particular tell. “But the point still stands. Leave that stuff for the practice mats and patrol.”

“Okayyy. But can you just throw one in my mouth? Please?”

Despite trying to maintain some semblance of sternness, a small grin tugged at the corner of Bruce’s mouth as he took in Jason’s pathetic excuse for puppy dog eyes. “Jason…”

“Just one?”

With a resigned sigh, Bruce plucked a single truffle from the bowl. “Alright. Just—”

***************************

Now.

“—one,” Bruce grunted over the pouring rain, adjusting the weight of Jason’s arm slung across his shoulders. When had he gotten so big? “C’mon, Jay. One step. There you go. One foot in front of the other.”

Jason’s head lolled forward as he struggled to remain upright, dragging a boot forward, then the other, his feet barely leaving the slick cobblestones. “I…hate Germany.”

“I know. We’ll be home soon.”

“Liar,” the young man rasped. He lifted his head enough to grin at Bruce, and it was a gruesome sight—his helmet was long gone, and now long trails of blood hung from his nose and mouth, his teeth a row of red—but it was somehow encouraging all the same.

“You can’t even see my eyebrows.”

“Don’t have to.”

Bruce feigned alarm. “Don’t tell me I have another tell.”

“Loads of ‘em.”

“Now who’s the lia—" he started then stopped abruptly.

The two of them heard it at the same time, muted in the downpour, but distinct—a series of quick and careful steps rushing up from behind.

Jason’s head swiveled first, and his eye that wasn’t swollen shut flew wide. Before Bruce had time to react, he was being shoved out of the way, stumbling on wet stones and falling hard as Jason spun to face the man in the balaclava that was charging towards them.

The assassin’s black uniform was barely visible in the shimmering dark of the rain, but as lightning tore through the clouds, he was lit in blinding relief, as was the ornate dagger in his hand.

And Bruce watched Jason spot the weapon too, but the young man's body was in no state to react the way it needed to, and in the span of a single breath, the dagger was gone, plunged deep into the young man’s abdomen.

The following crack of thunder was rivaled only by Bruce’s own roar.

***************************

Then.

“You didn’t have to do that, you know.” Bruce stepped aside to let Jason shuffle past him and into Bruce’s personal quarters on the Watchtower, noting with a small pang of sympathy how the young boy started to limp as soon as the door closed behind them and there was no chance of one of the others seeing.

The boy flopped onto the bed with his face flat against the sheets. “Do what?”

“Go through all those drills with us,” he said, tugging off his shirt with some difficulty—already he was beginning to get sore. “It’s not an easy training routine. Even some of us tap out sometimes.”

“Wanted to.”

“Hm.” Bruce glanced at his bare torso in the mirror where bruises were already beginning to form. “Can I ask why?”

When Jason didn’t answer, he glanced at the boy in the mirror. “Jay.”

Still nothing. Had he passed out? Bruce turned, ready to rush him to the infirmary, only to find Jason perfectly awake and apparently furious. He was glaring at the ceiling with such an intensity Bruce had no doubt it would have melted if he’d had heat vision.

“This is about what Diana said,” he surmised, leaning back against the dresser. “You’re aware she wasn’t trying to offend you.”

“She said I wasn’t good enough.”

“No,” Bruce corrected patiently.

“She said I wasn’t as good as him.”

“She also said you had heart, which is something she doesn’t throw around lightly.” Bruce bent to pull a water bottle from the mini fridge and tossed it onto the bed beside Jason who made no move to grab it. “And you have to keep in mind Dick was almost sixteen the first time they met. He had a lot of experience under his belt by then. You just turned thirteen.”

“But it’s not just that,” Jason explained, openly exasperated. He sat up and pulled his domino off to cradle it in his hands like a living thing. “It’s everybody. Everybody thinks he was better than me. He’s the real Robin and I’m just…the replacement. I wanna show them that I’m the real thing, too. And that you didn’t make a mistake when you…”

He stopped short, but the rest of the sentence rang in the air anyway as if he had shouted it: You didn’t make a mistake when you chose me.

Bruce struggled to find the right words to say, to find that balance between sincerity and what Jason would certainly read as coddling. It was a fine line, and one he often stumbled over, and precious seconds ticked by in silence until at last Jason’s demeanor shifted.

The young boy’s face twisted into a stubborn smile, and Bruce knew instantly that the window of opportunity had passed.

“But who cares what they think anyway?” Jason smirked. “I know who I am so whatever.”

Another moment fumbled due to Bruce’s own ineptitude. He was no good at these conversations—not the way Clark and Alfred and even Dick were—and he cursed himself for it.

“Okay if I shower first?” the boy asked, scooting to the edge of the bed where he started unlacing his boots.

“Sure,” Bruce sighed. “Towels are in the drawer.”

Jason was nearly to the bathroom with a towel in hand when a knock came at the door and Bruce called, “Come in.”

The door slid open, and Clark stepped in, already showered and changed. In his hand was a pair of clippers.

“Thanks for letting me borrow these. Hey!” he beamed, turning to Jason. “Well, look at you!”

“What?” Jason shot back defensively, looking himself over. “What?”

“Nothing. Just happy to see you up and around so fast. You know, the first time we trained together as a team, this guy,” Clark held up a hand to block the fact that he was pointing directly at Bruce—Bruce saw it anyway—“came back here and slept for about eight hours. Everyone thought he was dead.”

“Seriously?!”

“No,” Bruce interjected.

“Alright. Five,” Clark allowed.

Bruce’s voice dipped threateningly. “Clark.”

“Did I mention he puked?”

By the time the deodorant left Bruce’s hand and exploded against the wall, Clark was already grinning mischievously from the other side of the room, his cape settling back around him.

Meanwhile, Jason was bent double, laughing harder than Bruce had seen in a long time. “You puked?” he wheezed.

“Like a fire hydrant,” Clark chimed, eliciting another roar of laughter. It was as innocent and contagious and perfect a sound as Bruce had ever heard, filling the small space easily.

The two men exchanged a quick knowing glance while Jason laughed, confirming what Bruce had suspected from the moment the other man had arrived—one way or another, Clark noticed that something was wrong.

Clark raised an eyebrow—a question—and Bruce nodded: He’ll be okay and Thank you packed into the quick dip of his chin. Clark smiled.

Setting aside the clippers, the Kryptonian crossed the room to pat Jason on the back, saying earnestly, “Good work today. Really.”

“Thanks,” Jason said, and this time the smile that slid across his face was genuine.

After Clark had gone, Jason whispered, “Did you really do all that stuff?”

“He exaggerated.”

“But?”

“Yes, I vomited,” Bruce offered at last, more than willing to fall on this sword if it meant hearing that sound again. After a moment’s consideration he added, “Flash slipped in it.”

And again, Jason was howling, letting himself fall back against the wall and as he gripped his ribs. “I can’t breathe!” he gasped between peals of laughter. “I—"

#a little bit louder now #batman fanfic #batman fic #batman fanfiction #batfam fic #batfam fanfic #whump #jason todd whump #hurt/comfort #whump fic #batman #red hood #bruce wayne

42 notes · View notes

linsallyworld · 3 years

Text

So I'm sorry for taking so long but uni is truly getting on my nerves. But here we are hope you like it.

Chapter 3

The Iron Lady

Chapter 4

Words: 3600

"I hate that woman." That's what you say when you sit next to Asami and Korra on one of the sofas in the library. Most of the school was in class at the time, you were supposed to be studying for Professor Tenzin's history test, but you couldn't stop thinking in those eyes and those words. She seemed to have been teasing you for the entire reading of the play and now there was the iron lady again.

"Oh, you're doing a great job demonstrating that." Asami murmurs under her breath and your eyes go straight to her, who was actually reading her notes.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Asami just shrugs, but there is a small mocking smile in the corner of her mouth that makes you narrow your eyes.

"What was the year of the French revolution again?" Korra inquires, clearly bored as she flipped through a book with a cover that clearly said "Ancient History".

"1789." You answer without taking your eyes off the window. That was the kind of information your brain easily retained.

"So ... About what happened today ..." You glance at Korra again, only to notice the mischievous smile she has in her mouth as she places the book on the table in front of you. "I would say Professor Beifong is at the very least trying to provoke you and I don't even need Asami's great perception skills to realize this." A sigh leaves your mouth while you roll your eyes. Resentment starts bubbling up in your blood just remembering how suddenly she was all indifferent and bitter again. What was the problem with this woman being at least cordial?

"I have my own assumptions, but I will keep them to myself until further notice." Asami murmured again under her breath and you decided you truly needed some air.

"I'm going outside." You announce and Asami just nods, but Korra gets up.

"I'm not going to read anything before the day before the test, I don't even know why I keep fooling myself." You smile sideways and Korra puts an arm around your shoulder as you go out into the courtyard. There is a nice smell in the air, there were people mowing the football field and the moist smell that comes to your nostrils is pleasant, it calms your brain. "Oh don't fuck with me." You turn to Korra with a frown, but she's not looking at you. She's looking across the courtyard where a girl in a green blouse and a huge braid is heading to the building where the art classroom was seated. It takes you a second to realize who it was ... Kuvira.

"No ..." You start murmuring, trying to put a slight judgment on Korra's head. But she's already smiling from ear to ear, taking you by the hand. You know this is a stupid idea, you would end up screwing yourselves even more. Yet Korra never cared about that, which is why she has spent so many hours in detention.

She's already running and it's extremely hard to follow her pace as she grabs your hand. There is no one in the building. You should know there wouldn't be. Most of the classes here were before the break and now that most of the seniors were having some free time, there was no reason to be in the furthest part of the school. It was the perfect strategy, you had to admit that.

Korra crouches as soon as you reach the corridor that leads to the art room. You imitate her gesture, even if it's so stupid you don't know why you just didn't run the other way when she started pulling you.

You lean against the wall, the door to the art classroom is right next you. Korra gets a little closer and your heart starts beating clearly fast. This could end incredibly badly if Professor Su saw you and even worse if Kuvira saw you. Korra leans over, just enough to be able to look through the window glass.

She quickly comes back, covering her mouth to avoid laughing. Her blue eyes are twinkling with amusement.

"They are making out!" She announces in a completely nonstandard and extremely hoarse whisper. You don't want to see. But at the same time you are already here. Then you lean over Korra to look out the window, just enough for your eyes get a view.

Kuvira's sitting at Professor Su's desk at the back of the room, where she usually kept the paints for painting lessons. Professor Su's between her open legs, her hands so firm on Kuvira's hips you are sure she's leaving marks. You can see how her head is moving and how the kiss seemed to be the beginning of something else.

"I thought Kuvira was a top." You whisper when you crouch next to Korra again and she has to cover her mouth to keep from laughing.

It's at that moment you hear footsteps.

The sounds of heels hitting rhythmically on the floor. The panic begins to materialize in you. It could be any teacher ... Or worse ... It could be Professor Beifong.

You stare at Korra in panic and she widen her eyes the same way in your direction. What were you going to do? If it were another teacher, the chances of Professor Su and Kuvira get screwed were certain ... But if it were Miss Beifong ... She would know exactly what you were doing there.

There was nowhere to run. This was the corridor that led to the art classroom, the other rooms were distant. Either you would get into the art classroom or you would run towards whoever was there.

"Come with me." Korra gets up and you don't hesitate to take her hand, because you have no idea what to do. She pulls you up and then towards one of the corners of the wall. You are about to ask what the fuck is she going to do when Korra grabs your wrists, getting them around her neck and then wrapping her hands around your waist. You widen your eyes and she does the same in warning before leaning over to put her mouth on your neck. She doesn't kiss your skin, but that doesn't vanish the shiver running through your body. Korra giggles and you hit her on the back of the head, finally realizing what she just did.

When the footsteps approach you throw your head back, an Oscar-worthy performance that makes Korra giggle softly once again.

"But what ... WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?" The voice made you freeze in place while Korra jumped away from you. You can hear some sounds that sounded a lot like cursing from inside the art classroom.

Professor Beifong has both hands resting on her waist, her posture so harsh she could break a wall. You swallow. Oh it wouldn’t end well.

"Forgive me, Miss Beifong ... I couldn't help myself." You look from the corner of your eye to Korra. She was walking on thin ice here and knew it well. The teacher's face looked hard enough for your legs begin shaking.

But it is gratifying to make her so mad. Taste a little bit of her poison herself.

"This is a school not a brothel." She announces each word so slowly, almost as if she's trying to control herself so as not to grab your neck and suffocate.

"We are aware of that, Professor Beifong, we're sorry." Korra tilts her head in such false regret you would be really surprised if Miss Beifong believed. But her eyes were not on Korra, they were on you. The same look from the play. Why? You ask yourself and have to avoid the urge to raise an eyebrow in defiance.

She was about to say something. Probably "detention until the end of the semester", but then ... Kuvira walked out the door, looking pretty well fucked. Her braid was messy and her clothes were wrinkled. Professor Beifong's gaze seemed to pierce a hole directly in the girl's shirt.

"Get out of my sight. THE THREE OF YOU." She screamed the last part and you didn't hesitate before taking Korra's hand and running down the corridor, deciding she might as well take out all that anger on Professor Su.

When you told the whole story to Asami she wasn't angry ... No, she laughed out loud at the whole situation and kissed your cheek when she noticed the worried look on your face.

"It's okay, Y/L/N." She looked at you for a moment and you frowned. "I wouldn't even object if you ever want to try." You widen your eyes in her direction and Asami lets out another chuckle before settling on the couch with the book she was reading. "Jinora's going to love this one." You sit next to Korra and together you wait for a moment just to reflect on everything.

"We really should be going home." You mumble and Korra chuckles before pushing your shoulders gently.

"You guys can go ... I have to stay for training today, Coach Bumi is picking on us because college evaluators are going to start coming to watch." You nod and feel pure pride resting on your chest. Your friend could be extremely stubborn and end up putting you in a lot of trouble, but she was good at what she did, the best you've ever seen and deserved that scholarship more than anyone else.

"I'm going to study some more, I think I can go back with you." Korra nods to her girlfriend and then looks at you. A new sigh leaves your mouth. You could not study particularly well in the library, so it was better to find Jinora, Mako and Bolin to go home.

"See you two tomorrow." You kiss the girls' cheeks and then grab your backpack.

Jinora, Mako and Bolin were at the school gate, waiting for you. You grinned and explained Asami and Korra would stay. So you started walking.

You had never noticed how therapeutic this way home was for you. Just walking with the people you liked, sometimes rubbing your hand in Jinora's hand, watching the sun go down over the horizon and feeling the light fresh wind. Summer was almost here, summer vacation ... It was your last year at school, the last year of studying things you didn't like just trying to get into college.

"Have you decided what you're going to do when you finish school?" You ask Jinora. Mako and Bolin's house was already down the street, so they waved and smiled at you before they left. Jinora shrugged for a moment.

"Daddy wants me to be a teacher like him. In fact he's already infecting Ikki with this idea and since she's the little girl in daddy's eyes she is already wanting to go on a preparatory course to teach in high school." You frown at the thought. You were lucky to have comprehending parents. When you finally told them you liked girls, mom hugged you so hard you thought you could suffocate and dad chuckled because he already knew. You had amazing parents and they would always support you, even if you wanted to go to college in drama and cinema.

"What do you want?" You correct the question and Jinora grins at you with the corner of her lips. She looks so beautiful when she smiles like that.

"I have been thinking a lot about psychology or medicine. I want to help people." It's noble of her and Jinora was exactly the type of person who would do that. She looks up and her short hair falls down the back of her neck, locks of hair with chocolate color. "Can you imagine that we will probably never have moments like this again?" A lump forms in your throat at the thought. You grew up with these people. Professor Kya healed your first scratches. You used to have dinner at each other's house every weekend when you were kids. And then the second year came. Korra got tired of flirting and kissed Asami on the Fourth of July holiday. Bolin started dating Opal, Jinora started dating Kai and little by little some things disappeared. You grew up, that was the truth you often tried to ignore. You guys grew up. "Sorry ... I didn't want it to sound like that." You sniff, feeling some tears have accumulated in your eyes. How are you supposed to hear Jinora give a speech on graduation night without bursting into tears if you could barely think about it all ending without your heart squeezing to the point of leaving you breathless? "Hey." Jinora holds your hand in hers. Her hand's hot and seems to scare away any bad thoughts. You take a deep breath and look at your friend. Her eyes are warm too, so sweet.

"I think I will be your first appointment." You joke and she chuckles, squeezing your fingers one last time before releasing your hand. You notice her cheeks look a little flushed.

You frown. No. Korra was imagining things for sure.

You guys talked a little more and she laughed a lot at the whole story about the fake kiss with Korra. You were already thinking about faking an illness tomorrow just so you wouldn't have to face Professor Beifong.

You kissed Jinora on the cheek before leaving and she smiled brightly at you before following the path to her home alone. You still watched her go, her hair shining in almost the same shade as the sunset.

You didn't want to have one last time. High school could suck sometimes. But you loved your friends and the thought of losing them made you want to throw up.

(...)

"Hey, muscles." You greeted Korra with a smile when she stopped next to you in your locker. She leaned over to put a kiss on your cheek and you yawned right away. You hadn't slept very well last night, thoughts about the end of the school year, college, your friends, and certain green eyes did not leave your head. It wouldn't be surprising if it simply exploded at some point in the near future.

"What class are you having now?" Korra asked as she stuffed the geometry book into her backpack. You forced your head a little sleepy to think straight.

"Biology." With Professor Kya. You liked her a lot, she was one of your favorite teachers, she was cheerful, but not the silly type who doesn't develop the topics and just moved everyone to the next grade. She knew how to be strict as well and lectured about marine biology like no one else.

The buzzer sounds in the distance and you close your eyes for a brief moment, wanting to the damn person who created that shit to be dead. Your head started to throb. It's not like you're worried, Professor Kya was relatively relaxed with schedules, she was late sometimes. So you take your time getting what you need for the next classes. Korra doesn't look incredibly excited for the geometry class and looks at you with exhausted eyes. Coach Bumi certainly made her work out like crazy yesterday, he could never leave the star of the team with a poor improvement.

You pull the last book into the backpack and then throw it on your back, ready to face the day as best you can.

That meant you would probably sleep in some class, perhaps Professor Su's who didn't care greatly about it.

"Hey, you two!" Your tired head takes a few seconds to realize whose voice it is and when you do, your eyes widen, just like Korra's. You turn back almost at the same moment to face Professor Beifong.

God. She was deadly beautiful that day. Heels, tailored pants, a belt with a golden buckle, and that black silk shirt with the first two buttons open. Why did you have to be so weak for a woman so stupidly thick and cruel?

"The buzzer rang. Are you deaf?" You bite your lower lip hard enough to draw blood in order not to roll your eyes. She was on a bad day, you could tell by the heavy steps and the way she crosses her arms under her chest while facing you and Korra. Her eyes seem to shine, seem to ask for defiance. You were so tired and honestly, you were not in the mood for this little superiority game Professor Beifong seemed to appreciate playing so bad.

"We're on our way, you don't have to be all cranky pants on that, professor." Your eyes spot on Korra and the tiny smile she has in the corner of her mouth. Oh shit. You had extremely stupid friends. This was not the fucking time to tease Professor Beifong's humor, perhaps someday she didn't seem to break a wall with her shoulders it might work.

Professor Beifong looked at Korra for a moment, from the shabby shoes she liked to wear to the tip of her dark hair. A predator analyzing the prey. It takes everything in you to just not get in front of Korra.

"It looks like you're trying to get detention during the team's training for the rest of the semester." Your eyes widen. And you don't have to look at Korra to know hers are the same. This was real thin ice. Korra couldn't miss the team's training sessions, that was the college scholarship you were talking about ... You think she is probably bluffing because ... Who would leave the quarterback out of training? The director herself would not allow it. However ... When you look at Professor Beifong's eyes it's pure defiance you see shine there. If anyone could do that kind of thing at this school, it was her.

“Hey, she just made a little joke. There is no need for all of this. ” The woman's head turns slowly towards you as if she remembers your existence only at that moment. It's so evident when her eyes narrow, calculating, watching. You may feel your heart rate increasing, but for some reason, you aren't holding it back. You look back at her, because...Man, she is a teacher. She can't kill you in the middle of the corridor and if she wants to take that shit out of that temper...She can do that on you and not on Korra.

"Do not provoke me, Ms. Y / L / N." The way she says those words. It's calculated, like everything she says. She knows perfectly well what she is doing to you. The breath catches in your throat for a moment. Because her jaw is firm as a rock, you are sure she could cut your finger if you tried to run your hand over there. Even if you were never going to do that. You don't remember seeing that expression on Professor Beifong's face directly at you and you would lie if you said that it doesn't scare you.

Because she still looks like a high school teacher. But the way she tilts her head and her eyes shine in your direction makes a shiver swing your spine. She could break your neck with just that look. So easily.

You swallow. And it looks extremely dry.

You were a true brat with authority issues.

Because what comes to your head next... It's just that expression of indifference. That damn indifference after she got her face flushed reading a play with you.

Fuck that she was pissed. She could get mad and walk around this school as if she were the worst thing that ever came upon earth, but you knew she wasn't.Because she smirked at you. Because she had that sparkle in her eyes when she did. Because she got flushed when she read that play.Because she had feelings.

You just want to stop pretending you don't realize that.

Fuck. You shouldn't.

"Or what?" As soon as the words leave your mouth you regret it. When Professor Beifong swallows you are sure she will actually break your neck and you can’t even say you don't deserve it. You believe you can hear her teeth gnashing inside her mouth as if she is holding it up so as not to do anything worse than just scream. Oh you were so fucked up.

You're a stupid brat. Because your next thought it's about how sexy she looked when her lips were pressed like that.

"Detention." She growled. Professor Beifong ... She growled. An eyebrow raised towards you almost like a spasm of anger. Your fingers are shaking. Why do you want to touch that scar so badly? "Only. You." Each word was said separately, while the breath came out very weakly through the teacher's nostrils. She was pretty mad. The color started to appear on her face, a red shade you don't know if you've seen on her. She points her finger at the school corridor and it's Korra's turn to grab your elbow and pull you hard away from Professor Beifong. Her grip is difficult, but you can still turn your face to see Professor Beifong's fingers tremble as they point where you are supposed to go.

You have never seen her so pissed off. Not even when half of the class cheated on the English test last year.

That was what you would have to deal with after class.

It would be better to just have a stroke. But perhaps even that wouldn't spare you from Miss Beifong's fury or you own hots.

#avatar the legend of korra #tlok #lin beifong #fanfic #high school fanfiction #lin beifongxreader #fanfiction #high school #korra #jinora #asami sato #kuvira #su beifong

134 notes · View notes

whump-town · 3 years

Text

The Paths to Revenge

Warnings: same old, same old... just some stabbing

Pairing: Hotch/Morgan

Summary: Doyle nonsense but make it Hotch/Morgan for the fun of it.

Clyde goes first.

“No one else can know,” JJ had whispered feverishly. She’d looked nearly insane, had come unattached in her months away from them and now pulled back into the whirling black hole of the mess he created by force, cruelly unnatural. “He will kill her. If he—” she’d choked on the words, tears starting to fall down her face. She had looked up at him with a wordless inquiry, sadness and disappointment laced in the fingers she wove into his. If this wouldn’t break him, what would? If he couldn’t cry now, for his best friend, would he ever cry again?

“You can’t tell Derek.”

It’s not their first secret. Hotch severely doubts it's their last.

The grace with which Derek Morgan seems to live has always bewildered Aaron. There is something about the way that Derek breathes gentleness, cupped hands so gentle his fingers could pry apart and life would still be captured in his hands. The fluttering of delicate butterfly wings twitching in his warm palms. Torn between desires, Aaron could never understand if he wished for those palms to close around his throat. To solidify him as something wretched, so undeserving of Derek’s endless, gentle love that he might stifle it once and for all. In another breath, he wishes he could curl himself up to be something so small and so delicate that Derek might hold him like that. Like something worth preserving, worth loving.

Those hands do not wrap around his throat, applying crushing pressure until Aaron is no more. They come to frame Aaron’s face, their warmth seeping into the bone chill of his body. Thumb stroking along a worry line stretched wide by his deep frown. “Tell me what you’re thinking,” Derek whispers, he’s desperate to be them again. For Aaron to settle back down and find him, to lean into his touch. Hotch’s weary but tense with panic and restlessness. Not sleeping. Hardly eating. Derek can’t keep watching this and he’s not sure how much longer Aaron can keep it up. “I can see it in your eyes, I can always tell.”

Before their relationship, Derek had been jealous of everything that Emily and Aaron had. At the time he hadn’t known it for what it was, his unrequited love making him bitter. He had just seen the way they looked at one another, the way they worked and he’d wanted to be that person for Aaron too. Emily’s intuition had lead her to find Aaron after Foyet’s attack, all based on nothing more than a feeling. While Derek had felt boiling rage and the inability to so much as look at Aaron while he suffered alone in that hospital bed. Derek had been jealous of how easily they spoke with one another, in a language no one else really understood. How Emily could comfort Hotch — she was allowed to touch him and hug him and press a kiss to his cheek or even drag him down several steps by the ear to reprimand him like a child. While even comforting gestures Derek attempted seemed to piss Hotch off.

But now Emily’s dead and Derek wishes she was here. So that he can hear Aaron laugh again. To argue loudly and pointless about Sean Connery vs Daniel Craig — how Aaron’s never cared about either but he gets all soft around the edges listening to Emily and Derek bicker more and more as the night goes on. To be happy and close.

And, maybe, Derek just misses his best friend too.

Both of them.

It starts with Clyde. National television doesn’t pick it up, it’s the sort of affair that’s quickly suffocated to prevent mass media from getting word. It reaks with the proper stench of death, Clyde Easter bound to a chair in his London flat. His own blood in a pool at his feet, head hung in the final submission of death. Severally tortured. The strain of an entire week of torture, hunger, and exhaustion taking its toll. Died of a heart attack. Aaron doesn’t need to be told what’s happening, he couldn’t even talk about it if he wanted to. He’s only given what he’s needed, a warning that he’s next and to watch out.

Aaron just prays Derek isn’t there when it happens. He’s allowed this one small grace.

“Ice cream,” Derek says more to the room than to Aaron, the idea had dawned on him so suddenly he’d spoken it out loud. Having spent another weekend inside, moping from their bed to the couch to the kitchen back to their bed, Derek is buzzing with energy he needs to do something with. Grief and this lie Aaron holds sucks him rather dry of the will to do anything. It seems the energy he’s supposed to have has gone to Derek, makes him worse. “Ice cream,” Derek repeats with a clap of his hand. “I’m going to get ice cream and you don’t have to come with me but I’d really like you to.”

Aaron looks up, hair a mess on the top of his head and shoulders sinking impossibly low in their joints as exhaustion sweeps over him. He’s incapable of so much as looking at Derek, having to see how hopeful and how loving he’s being looked at. All he’s ever wanted was to be loved and now he’s got it and he can’t face the vulnerability that cracks through his sternum every time Derek touches him. How every demonstration of love is such debilitating proof of how broken he is. How hopeless.

“I’ll bring you back a tub of Rocky Road.” Derek slides his jacket on, he’s not annoyed. No matter how convinced Hotch is, Derek isn’t even bothered. He knew he was going to get ice cream alone and, though he’d rather not do it alone, that’s okay.

Once his feet are shoved into his sneakers he comes back around the side of the couch and kisses the top of Hotch’s head, messing further with his hair. “I love you.”

Derek couldn’t remember what the last thing he said to Emily was. It kept him up at night trying to piece together every last second he had before she was taken from him before the nurses pulled them in opposite directions. Did she know he loved her? How glad he was that she was someone that not only he could trust but that Aaron had too? It’s the sort of thing that weighs down heavily on him. Now he can’t leave anyone without saying it.

Aaron has the opposite problem. Pulls away so that in case this happens again he won’t get hurt.

“I love you too,” he answers but hoarsely and to the sound of Derek walking away.

Jack is with Jessica. She takes Hotch’s emotional distance with grace, allows him this little period of reprieve while he tries to get back into the swing of things. He’s lost both of his best friends in a year’s span of time and is still really struggling to understand how to integrate himself fully into his relationship with Derek.

Life, it seems, has been throwing hard balls and it’s not getting any easier.

Derek kicks his shoes off at the door, more Aaron’s habit than his but he’s learning to uphold it. “I got rainbow sprinkles,” he calls out. “I know you have a reputation to uphold but I also know you love them—” Derek tosses the bags up onto the counter, smirking even in his slight confusion. He’d figured Aaron would have come looking for him once the front door opened. He’s vigilant about that sort of stuff. Even if he does know logically it’s just Derek. “Hey—” he’s greeted by the dark living room. It’s undeniably odd. “Where’d you—” Derek smirks when he sees Aaron’s back, even bowed and distressed it’s still undeniably him. “Aaron?”

A gun cocks at his head and Derek freezes, eyes never leaving Aaron’s. “Sit down.” Derek opens his mouth, going to argue or fight but Aaron looks away. Gaze sinking to the floor as his head rolls down, chin on his chest. “Sit down!” Derek listens, not out of fear of the gun just in his line of sight but because he can’t think past the sight of blood smeared across the side of Aaron’s face. The way his right eye is red with blood, his temple drooling angrily down his cheek. “I have to admit,” the dark of the room caves to what little light is in the house, and Derek tenses. Recognizes him immediately.

“You fucker—”

The gun is moved, away from his head and to Aaron’s bowed temple. “Sit. Down.”

Derek hadn’t even realized it, he’d just stood like he could do something in the face of a gun. Now he certainly can’t, being the cause of his own life’s end is one thing but to hurt Aaron is another. He sits back down, eases his way back to a sitting position with his hands on the table. He won’t do anything fast.

“You know what I want.” Ian Doyle stands in their house, smirking at the wet sound of Aaron’s blood dripping on the floor. “Tell me where she is.”

Derek opens his mouth to answer, a snippy — “she’s dead” — but Aaron looks up at him. The look they share is laced with mixed truths and the bold lie woven between the three men. His bloody eye, pupil blown wide staring back at Derek with all the answers he needs. Emily had died for them. She’d chased down her past and fought it all alone for them. Derek wondered if that meant she didn’t trust them, didn’t think they were capable of undertaking this threat with them. Looking at Aaron, watching his chest rise and fall in choking breathes, Derek wishes he couldn’t understand the solemn warrior trope. That he didn’t know the truth.

“She’s dead,” Derek mumbles but he’s not so sure about that anymore.

Ian smirks, unfooled. “See,” he clicks his tongue, “that’s what your friend here keeps telling me.” Ian shakes his head, taking the muzzle of the gun and grazing it across Hotch’s head. Trailing it through his hair. “I remain unconvinced.”

Aaron looks hopelessly up at Derek, a tear sliding down through the blood on his cheek. Caught on his eyelash, trailing over the duct tape on his mouth.

The knife comes out of nowhere. Slammed down into Aaron’s thigh with no warning. The duct tape obstructs his breathing, leaves Aaron gasping, struggling to breathe. He groans, sucking in air through his nose but it’s not enough. Aaron’s eyelids flutter, his head tilted back as he trembles. Face drained of color, his breathing getting worse. More strained, shallow.

Derek jerks his head away, clenching his teeth when Doyle jerks the knife back out of the wound. Aaron makes an awful sound, pained and unconscious.

“Tell me!” Doyle slams his fist down on the table. Completely ignores Aaron’s noises, his pained cries as he wheezes around the ducktape. “Tell me or I’ll kill him.”

Derek shakes his head, “no, no—”

“It’s not that hard,” Doyle sneers, patience is gone. “Her for him, choose!”

Derek shakes his head again, his own tear falling down. “I don’t know,” he whispers. Derek starts to tremble, rage replacing hopelessness. Angered to the point of tears. “She’s dead! We buried her!”

Doyle shouts, “fine! You want to keep playing games?” Doyle raises the knife up between them, letting the blade punctuate the question. “You will always lose Agent Morgan. Always—”

“No!”

Aaron’s eyes fly back open, a scream muffled by the duct tape. “I’ll find her,” Doyle promises. “It doesn’t matter what you do.” Aaron’s head falls down to chest, eyes falling shut. “And when I find her, there’s nothing that you’ll be able to do to stop me.” Doyle reaches down, fingers slick with Aaron’s blood, and pulls the knife from Aaron’s chest. “Last chance,” Doyle whispers with a grin. He steps back, “last game, last question: me or Agent Hotchner?”

Derek doesn’t wait for Doyle to get out of sight, he moves immediately to the other side of the room. He steps behind the chair Hotch is tied to, seeing for the first time the ropes wrapped around his arms. The way he’s constrained to the chair, unable to move. “Aaron,” Derek lifts his head up, his fingers under Aaron’s chin. His skin is clammy, cold against Derek’s palm. “Aaron, hey! Look at me, keep your eyes open. Aaron?” His head is heavy, limp in Derek’s hold. “Aaron, please. Stay with me.”

He stops breathing in the ambulance, airway preserved by the tracheal tube bulged in his throat. His heart beats too quickly, pounding away in his ribcage. Derek feels like just yesterday he was living this exact horror movie, Emily’s cold hand unresponsive in his. Dark hair a crown on poignant contrast. Life held in the balance, raw existence. Again, Derek feels the pitter of a heartbeat against his fingertips. Again his breath is held as nurses pull him one way and his heart is torn from his chest.

What will JJ have to say this time?

Will the same tears shine in her eyes? The same trepidation? Their lie is bleeding out on a stretcher being pushed down a luminescent hallway. As pale as the death they created. Perhaps this is the price one pays when meddling with things beyond control. Things that are not to be messed with. The evil Derek’s mother forbade him from playing with. Worse than the handmade ouija board under his bed, death’s creator laying on his chest.

Lying dead in his arms.

Derek Morgan sits for six hours, entirely alone in the waiting room. Each breath could be the last he shares with Aaron and he won’t know for several more to come. They labor on, Aaron’s controlled by machines and Derek’s by the flood of emotions weighing him down. He can only control himself for so long, holding down the bitter failures of the last few days. His anger is intense, uncontrollable.

“You lied.” It’s the middle of the night, Garcia’s hair still pulled back in pigtails and JJ’s in a clip at the back of her head. The waiting room isn’t full of special agents, dressed to the nines ready for a fight. Derek sees only their family, leggings, and sweatpants, and he can’t take it.

“You lied,” Derek repeats to the floor. “She’s not dead and now Aaron—” his voice catches. Derek rubs his hands down his eyes, looks up at them unashamed of the tears falling down his face. Her fault. JJ and her stupid lie. “I’ll never forgive you. If he dies… If he dies because of this stupid shit, I’ll never forgive you.”

“Derek—”

“Not now.”

Sixty-two hours. Over two days of sitting and measuring machine regulated breathes. Three nights of sleeping in a chair, falling asleep to the sounds of machines and thin blankets pulled to his chin. Aaron twitches and each time Derek thinks he’s going to wake up but his pleas are meant with more silence.

It’s sitting. Waiting. Watching. The waiting room has become his third home, where he’s kicked to when Aaron’s getting another test or scan. He’s left with only the anxieties of the unknown. He spends hours just drumming his knee, head in his hands. That’s a long time to sit and think about all things you’ve said in the past.

They hunt him down, attempting to softly fill in the holes with medical jargon. Stammering and averting his gaze to the tiled floor under his feet. “Uhm,” he rubs at his eyes. “I--I don’t want to know.” He doesn’t care that the doctor looks stunned, entirely caught off guard. “Someone else,” he mumbles, head still ducked as he steps into the room. Leaving the doctor in the hall. “Tell someone else when they arrive.” He just can’t do it. He can’t hear all that medical bullshit and still have this blind hope that everything will turn out.

He grabs a chair from the ones lining the wall across from Hotch’s bed, pulling it right up to Hotch’s side and throwing himself into it unceremoniously. Derek looks everywhere but Hotch. He got a glance in and he knows what there is to see. Tape twisting Hotch’s lips around the tube down his throat. All pale skin, still hands, and machines. Derek huffs, shaking his head, and picks at his cuticles. They’ve all been through so much but Hotch…

They never really get a break, do they?

He wishes he could go back to when it was just the three of them. Hotch, Gideon, and himself against the world. When it was Hotch’s desk he kicked his feet up on, watching him eat his lunch or snack in a certain order. Thirty years old and still saving his dessert for after his sandwich and carrots. The only person Derek’s ever met that cared or noticed the apparent lack of yellow and green M&Ms compared to the other colors. Also, the only person Derek knows who sits and sorts them out. Putting them in a neat line and two of each color-- one M&M for each side of his mouth.

Derek’s eyes sting and he rubs them roughly, shaking his head and forcing himself to pull it together. He’s not going to cry over Hotch sharing those odd M&Ms with him. Not going to think about how close they used to be, how things have changed for the better and the worse. He’s not going to die, so there’s no need to think like that.

They’ll be fine.

Everything is fine.

Garcia finds Ian Doyle, he never left Virginia.

Emily’s already on a plane coming over.

Killing Clyde Easter was revenge. It had been personal. For creating Lauren Reynolds and then for taking her away. Hurting Aaron was just convenience. Doyle knew Clyde’s death would sting but it would be no reason to come home, no reason to bring Emily home. There would be nothing she could do about the affair by the time she got word of his death. Hurting Aaron, though. Hurting one of the people Emily had supposedly died to protect, would work like a charm. It would draw her out.

Ian Doyle hadn’t planned for Derek Morgan. Not fully. He knew Derek would arrive when he needed him to, with enough time to keep Agent Hotchner sparingly alive. To make sure Doyle made it clear he knew Emily Prentiss is alive, to stir the team. Pin them against one another. Even against their downed leader. Take out the strongest first -- and that’s where Doyle hadn’t really known them. Aaron is fearless, he’s stupidly brave, but he’s not stupid. He won’t be blinded by his feelings. What Doyle did was stifle their logic, he disabled the one person who would have allowed Doyle to escape. What Doyle did was piss off five agents tired of losing the people they love.

Aaron gets worse on his own.

Garcia stays home, someone needs to be there in case Hotch wakes up. It’s not hard to figure out why they’d want to leave her behind. She’s stronger at home, has what she needs. And Derek’s terrified something will happen.

Ian Doyle finds Declan, it’s all the same story. Confused children and manipulative adults. There are no bittersweet reunions -- not between biological father and son and not between Emily and the others. Doyle and Emily have set fire to the families they had. Held a lighter over the portrait and watched the color melt to grey and then to black. Piercing a hole in the heart.

The airstrip lights up in heavy gunfire.

Derek doesn’t fire a shot. He wishes he had, for his own selfish fire starving out. He doesn’t shoot for Aaron. This isn’t what he’d want. This mess that they’ve all made. Aaron’s morals are always getting in the way of things but as Derek lowers his gun he’s flooded with relief. His anger abating, exhaustion seeping in. Ian Doyle dies on the tarmac. Spread out on his back and choking on blood. It takes four minutes.

It doesn’t feel long enough.

Not after everything he’s taken.

“Derek?”

He can hear it in her voice.

“I think-- Oh God, I think something is wrong.”

Emily had died. Derek had watched the monitor run-flat.

She’s a ghost and Aaron’s dying. This time no matador’s cape will dance, shaking free the threat with deadly precision. No magician to pull up the curtain, to show them the trap door.

“How is he?” Emily asks

“Alive,” JJ mumbles. “They’re not sure for how long--” she shrugs and Reid makes a choked sound, blushing and wiping his face clean of the tears still dry on his cheek. JJ just glances at him. “He’s holding on, Morgan’s with him.” The dismissiveness in her tone is not a reflection of how she feels, truly. It’s just a protective measure to ensure she doesn’t break. If she stops for even a moment she will cry and she’s still trying to convince herself that this is going to work out.

Aaron can’t die now. He’s laced hesitation into Derek’s logic. Changed too many things about him -- taught him the magic of rainbow sprinkles and how to cut hair with nothing but kitchen scissors and the bathroom mirror. Derek’s learned the magic of loving his best friend. Hating the person he shares a bed with. Being unable to sleep without the heat of Aaron’s body close by, no more than a breath away.

With those gentle hands, meant to capture thrashing wild things, Derek Morgan cups Aaron’s face. “I can see what you’re thinking,” he whispers. The intubation machines are gone, one step forward. Aaron lays flat on his back, an oxygen mask over his face. Across his bare chest are machine leads, pads left stuck to his chest. His heart is giving out. “Don’t--” Derek shakes his head, clearing his throat. He uses the back of his hand to push away a tear. “Don’t leave me, Aaron. Not now.”

Every muscle in Aaron’s body is stiff with pain untouchable by the maxed-out morphine. Cold sweat streaks across his body, makes him shiver, and clench his teeth down when the small movements spike worse pain. The thin sheet across his hips does nothing. It feels colder than the rest of the room, not even the reassuring pressure of it seems to help. His muscles ache from the tension. From the rounds he’s lost against the crash cart.

If he could force his jaw open, unclench it from the pain, he’d beg Derek for a blanket. Something warm or comforting. For relief. Anything.

He wakes to movement. It takes him too long to realize it’s his body being moved. “Easy.” Aaron looks up, confused by the sight of Emily and Derek standing side-by-side. “Here--” They work together, moving his body slowly. They try not to hurt him but he feels lit up inside. A pyre in his chest set ablaze with a match. Agonizing. He closes his eyes tight, detached enough to lose focus of where their hands are on his body.

“Aaron?”

When he can open his eyes again, he’s looking up at the ceiling.

“Hey, there sleeping beauty.”

There are pillows under one of his sides, another tucked under his thigh.

“Don’t--” He’s not even aware he’s doing it, not until he’s looking at the hand Emily’s just smacked. “Are you an actual child? Stop touching everything.” She stands and he watches in amazement as she bends over him and fixes the oxygen canal under his nose. Her hand grazes his cheek and she’s real. She’s here. When she notices his confusion she smirks, “seeing a ghost, Hotch?”

“Emily.” Oh, Derek. Hotch looks over at him, a dopey smirk he’s not even aware of spreading across his face. When Derek sees it, he loses his tension. The sting of his reprimand, who still thinks it’s too soon for Emily’s dead jokes, is gone. “How do you feel?” he asks even though he’s not sure Hotch has managed to find his words. His answer is that smile, growing wider as Derek kisses his cheek.

Aaron closes his eyes the second he sees Derek freeing his hands, sighing contently before Derek can even lean over and cup his face in his hands. They’re warm from the coffee he went to get, familiar in all the safest ways. “I missed you,” Derek whispers. Derek kisses him again, on his smiling lips. Unbothered that Aaron’s too out of his mind to work his mouth, just hums back, turns further into Derek’s touch.

Recovery will not be fun. Aaron got his wish. His best friend and his boyfriend back and it hardly cost him a thing. They'll both smother him, taking turns bossing him around.

He's never been so relieved to hear them arguing this early in the morning.

#criminal minds #criminal minds fanficiton #aaron hotchner #derek morgan #emily prentiss #ian doyle #hotchgan #mortch

38 notes · View notes

hufflepuffhermione · 3 years

Note

from the drabble list 23 “I immediately regret this decision.” if you feel like it!!

This got LONG. I know that’s what happens with everything I ever write, but this got long even for me. But I hope you enjoy it. It’s set in the summer between S3 and S4.

The Oval Office is a dangerous place. Life or death decisions are made in the room every day, and a briefly floated idea can quickly become policy before all of the words are even out. One the President has an idea set in his head, it’s difficult to talk him out of it.

Unfortunately for everyone, Toby and Josh fail to recognize the present dangers.

It’s a staff meeting outlining upcoming campaign events and the changes to the policy calendar; nothing out of the ordinary or particularly monumental, but when there’s something to do with national parks, there is always an element of risk.

“Will someone tell me why I’m going to Montana in a few weeks? If I know my electoral math, and I think I do, they’ve got all of three votes and they usually go to the other guy,” President Bartlet says, looking up from behind his reading glasses.

There’s a look exchanged between the senior staff, but Josh swallows and answers. “Sir, it’s the… the opening of Big Sky National Park.”

The President pauses. “That’s not a national park. I would know, I’ve been to all of them.”

Again, more glances. Josh clears his throat awkwardly and continues. “Yes sir, but this is the one that you signed an order to establish a few years ago. In Montana. They’re finally opening it to the public, and you’re going to be there at the opening with the Secretary of the Interior.”

“Ah, right, I did do that,” Bartlet says, smiling. “You know, I do love national parks.”

“We’re aware, sir,” Toby says dryly.

President Bartlet puts down the schedule he’s been looking at and meets Toby’s iron gaze. “Well Toby, tell me? What’s the best national park you’ve been to?”

Toby mutters something under his breath, and when he’s asked to repeat it, his voice takes on an edge. “I’ve never been to one,” he admits.

Mistake number one.

“You’re telling me you’re about to write a speech for me about the glories of the national park system, and you’ve never even been to one?” the President asks incredulously.

“Well, I was going to make Sam do it,” Toby admits.

“What, is this below your pay grade?”

Toby would be rolling his eyes if he weren’t in the Oval Office. “No, sir, but I figured California boy here has been outside a few more times in his life than I have.”

“Is this true, Sam?”

Sam shrugs. “I guess. My parents weren’t really outdoorsy types, but we went to the Grand Canyon once. So I guess I’m ahead of Toby on that score.”

“And the rest of you? Have you all had the opportunity to experience the wonder that is American national parks?”

Josh and CJ glance at each other warily. Leo volunteers the information of a few he’s had a chance to visit, but when the President’s gaze rests on CJ, she stammers, “I made plans to go to Yosemite when I was in grad school, but I… I don’t think I made it there.”

Before the President can comment on CJ’s admission, Josh chimes in. “Frankly, sir, there aren’t any national parks easily accessible from where I’ve lived, so…”

This is mistake number two.

“Nonsense,” the President exclaims. “Shenandoah is just an hour and a half from here! You’ve lived in DC how long and you still haven’t…” He breaks off, and a dangerous smile spreads across his face. “Josh, do you remember when I suggested we take a staff field trip to Shenandoah?”

“I didn’t think you were serious, sir,” Josh replies, gulping.

“I wasn’t then, but if Toby and Sam are going to be writing a speech for me about the wonders of national parks, on the anniversary of the day which, by the way, the National Park Service was established, you really ought to have some experience visiting national parks,” the President says. “Do you all have anything going on this weekend? Doesn’t matter, I can raise it to the level of an executive order and everyone you have to cancel on will just have to deal with it. We’re going on a field trip.”

The door opens behind them, and it’s Donna standing there. “I’m sorry sir, am I interrupting something?”

“Not at all,” Josh answers with relief.

“I just needed Josh for…”

“Donnatella,” the President interrupts, smiling at her. “How would you like to go on a national park expedition?”

Donna looks at him, wide-eyed. “Well, sir, I do appreciate a good national park. I’m not sure I can say no… can I say no?”

And there’s the third mistake.

“Well, Donna, pack your outdoor things, because you’re going camping this weekend,” the President says gleefully. “I’ll get my guys to arrange all of this.”

“Do you need Josh? He’s needed in a meeting with legislative affairs right now,” Donna says. “They only have twenty minutes before the vote.”

Josh immediately stands up as the President waves him off. “You shouldn’t have come in,” he hisses to Donna, as they walk down the hallway towards his office. “You should have just called. You might have avoided getting roped into this nonsense.

“Well, I immediately regret this decision, but… is he serious?”

“He’s started making plans and everything,” Josh says. “But hey, if I’m forced to go camping, at least you’ll be forced to go too.”

Donna rolls her eyes. “You’re a horrible, horrible man.”

“Yeah, but I sign your paychecks.”

“I had plans!” she whines.

Josh laughs as he turns towards his office to pick up a file. “Haven’t you learned never to make weekend plans? And never to indulge the President when he’s in one of these moods?”

“Believe me, I’m regretting all of this.”

—

“As it turns out,” the President says on a Friday morning staff meeting, “I can’t go to Shenandoah. That would require the Secret Service to shut down the whole park, and even then, there’s nothing they can do about the bears.”

An audible sigh of relief falls across the staff, but it doesn’t last long when he continues, “I’ve arranged transportation and reserved a couple of cabins for you all. You’re leaving at 6am sharp tomorrow morning, and they’ll have you back by Sunday night.”

“Sir… is this… serious?” Sam hazards.

“Serious as the deficit,” the President replies with a grin. “You’re going to experience a real national park.”

“And if we just… happened to be sick tomorrow?” Josh asks.

President Bartlet shakes his head and laughs. “I wouldn’t believe you, since you’ve never taken a sick day you weren’t forced to take. I’d send my guys over to your apartment and have them throw you in the van. Face it, Josh, you’re going to see the great outdoors.”

Toby rests his head in his hands. “Please someone just kill me now.”

“Come on, Toby, you’ll love it!”

“Sir, I’m pretty sure I have to brief this weekend, so I think…” CJ begins to argue.

“You have highly competent deputies, let them handle it,” the President deflects. “6am sharp. Be here, or the Secret Service will be making visits to your places. And they do know where you live.”

—

After a two-hour drive which everyone spent asleep, they are unceremoniously deposited at a campsite with a fire pit and two cabins which might generously be described as ‘rustic’. The August heat that has settled over DC is only marginally lessened by elevation.

“Well this is… something,” Sam remarks, taking a peek inside one of the spartan cabins, which contains nothing but wooden bunks and an ancient-looking table.

“There aren’t any bathrooms,” Toby comments with barely restrained fury. “What are we supposed to do, go in the woods?”

Donna shrugs, wondering, once again, how she got roped into this. “That’s how we usually do it when I went camping as a kid. Sometimes they had a bathroom at the site, but it doesn’t look like they do at this one.”

“You’ve been camping?” Josh asks incredulously.

“Yeah. We’d go camping in the Wisconsin Dells most years, and once in a while we’d go to Minnesota or the UP,” Donna replies offhandedly.

“The UP?” Toby asks.

“Upper Peninsula of Michigan,” Sam corrects, always glad to make a geographic contribution.

Josh picks up a large plastic tub that was left with them, filled with camping food, and begins to walk toward one of the cabins. “Well, at least Donna knows what we’re doing.”

“Didn’t you claim to be an outdoorsman?” CJ asks, quirking an eyebrow. “I’d like to see you prove it.”

He drops the tub and rubs his eye. “I mean… I was on some drugs then, so I’m not sure I can be held liable…”

“You were not on any drugs, Josh, or else I wouldn’t have let you have alcohol,” Donna corrects.

“I was on the drug that was being outside after three months of miserable confinement!”

Donna and CJ share a glance. “Well, I think this is the perfect opportunity for you to demonstrate your outdoorsy prowess. You can lead our hike.”

“Hey, no one said anything about hiking!” Josh completely ignores the tub and stalks over to where CJ and Donna are standing with the rest of the supplies, almost tripping over a branch as he does so.

“It’s in the President’s executive order. He set us an agenda,” Donna declares, waving around a piece of paper that does, in fact, include the presidential seal.

“There’s no way he used an actual executive…”

Josh is cut off by Sam, who snatches the paper out of Donna’s hands with a “Let me see that!” He reads the paper quickly, frowning as he does. “Yeah, he wants us to take three different hikes. There are maps attached to it. Also, he’s set some time aside for Toby and I to… extol the virtues of nature and apply it to our speechwriting?”

“And we wonder why nothing gets done in this country!” Toby throws his hands in the air. “I can extol the virtues of nature perfectly well without having to actually…you know… go out in nature!”

Josh takes a look at the schedule over Sam’s shoulder. “He’s really given us specific times to start each hike?”

“Including one at 5:30 in the morning so we can catch the sunrise over the mountains,” Donna notes.

“Well I’d like to catch a few hours of sleep for once.” CJ rolls her eyes and picks up her duffel bag. “Think we can blow this off?”

Sam presses his lips together. “Um… he’s going to know if we do.”

“Why?”

“Because he left the Secret Service agents here to ‘keep an eye on us’,” Sam says, jerking his head toward the van which they came in, which is parked in a clearing in the woods. “Ostensibly it’s so we don’t die when Josh forgets he’s not actually an outdoorsman, but he’s definitely spying on us.”

Josh rubs his forehead and sighs heavily. “You couldn’t have just lied and said you have a great appreciation for national parks, Toby?”

“If I said I’d been to one, he would have interrogated me about it!” Toby shouts. “I was cornered!”

“You were the one who came up with the idea to establish this new national park,” CJ says, nudging Josh’s side, “so I hold you responsible.”

“God help me for winning a political battle and doing some good for the country at the same time,” Josh replies, rolling his eyes. “That was almost three years ago! Why should I have known it would backfire like this?”

Donna sighs heavily and picks up her bag. “I’m seriously regretting coming out here with any of you.”

“If you had just called the Oval instead of coming in…”

“Yeah, yeah,” she says. “CJ, what do you say to the cabin on the right? I looked inside and I think there are fewer bugs in that one.”

“Please,” CJ says. “I’m grateful I have at least one other member of the Sisterhood here.”

Sam and Josh give each other a look. “I guess we’d better move into the bug-infested cabin,” Sam remarks.

“They’re both bug-infested, but the one on the right is just… less bug-infested,” Donna shouts back, as she heads into the small cabin.

“Well, Mr. Outdoorsman,” Sam says to Josh, “what now?”

Josh rubs the bridge of his nose. “If I wasn’t on drugs, I was under the influence of alcohol—which I hadn’t had in three months—so you know, I can’t be held liable for what I said then.”

Sam quirks an eyebrow as he picks up his duffel bag. “You do have a law degree, don’t you?”

“Don’t remind me.”

—

It’s another hour before all of the stuff in moved into cabins and everyone is seated on logs around the unlit fire pit, unsure of what to do next. It’s Donna, naturally, who has a handle on the schedule.

“Now, the President has recommended we do a short hike before the heat of the day really kicks in, and that one takes off from that trailhead over there.” She points toward a small clearing in the woods with a ragged wood sign marking the head. “It leads to a lake, so he suggests taking a dip to cool off before heading back, so maybe put something to swim in here in your daypack.”

Josh furrows his brow. “Wait, wait, wait. We’re not really doing this, are we? Following this ridiculous schedule, doing all these…”

“Just because you can’t follow a schedule doesn’t mean we shouldn’t,” Donna replies. “And do you really want to defy the President of the United States?”

“Well, if he’s making us go hiking… and swimming,” Toby growls. “I told him, I have a healthy appreciation for the outdoors, but I prefer to be far, far away from them.”

Donna stands up. “Well I, for one, am not going to defy the President, and I think when he asks you very specific details about the hikes, you might want to have some answers for him. Come on, the sooner we get started the less heat we’ll have to deal with.”

“Because this isn’t bad enough?” CJ asks, wiping her brow. The humidity is already oppressive even at nine in the morning.

“Come on California girl,” Toby teases, “aren’t you used to this?”

In unison, Sam and CJ respond with, “It’s a dry heat!”

Josh pulls several files out of his backpack, carries them back to the cabin, and sighs. “It’s going to be a long day.”

—

Donna isn’t sure who does the most complaining in the mile and a half hike. Josh probably complains the most audibly, but there’s something to be said for Toby’s constant glares at everything that constitutes nature and Sam’s intentional, hefty sighs at every single step. CJ is quiet about her discontent, but she doesn’t seem particularly happy either.

Perhaps they really did need an opportunity to learn how to appreciate nature.

The hike isn’t all too steep, although you wouldn’t know that from the way Josh and Toby are panting when they finally reach the swimming hole the President indicated in his instructions.

“Here it is,” Donna says with a smile. The water is set up against a cliff edge, and there are thin streams falling over the edge. It’s really an idyllic place, but none of the staffers seem particularly enthralled.

Still, they’re all hot and sweaty, and so Sam pulls off his shirt and wades into the water, and CJ follows. Toby grumbles, but the prospect of cooling off is too great for him to resist.

Donna is about to take a dip when she notices Josh’s hesitation to go in. He sits at the edge, dipping his toes in, but not looking as if he will go any further.

“Don’t want to swim?”

He shrugs. “Someone has to watch our stuff. You know, because of the bears. Or the tourists. They’re probably Republican tourists, in this part of Virginia.”

She looks at him critically. “Josh… Do you know how to swim?”

“I grew up in Connecticut, of course I know how to swim!” he snaps. “I just don’t want to!” There’s sweat beading on his forehead. There’s no way he doesn’t want to swim.

Donna frowns and takes a seat next to him, dipping her toes in as well. “Why not?”

Josh looks straight ahead at his own soaking feet. “I don’t have another shirt in my pack,” he says quietly.

“Well then, take it…” she begins, and then she sees something in his eyes. He’s still self-conscious about his bare chest. She grabs his hand and smiles at him. “It’s fine. I’ve seen it before.”

Josh shakes his head. “They haven’t.”

“They’re not going to care,” Donna assures him. “They were all there. They don’t need an explanation.” She briefly wonders if he ever had to explain it to Amy.

“Yeah,” he says, his face still grim.

She tugs on his sleeve gently. “Anyway, you’re going to be neck-deep in there anyway, so if you dive in fast, no one will even see anything.”

“I guess,” Josh says.

“I’m not going to go in if you don’t, and I really want to go in, so I’ll be rather upset with you if you don’t go in,” Donna threatens.

He lifts an eyebrow. “So this is on me now?”

“It’s your call,” she challenges.

In one smooth motion, he tears off his shirt and pulls Donna up into his arms, holding her against his chest and taking a few steps into the water. She shrieks as he drops her in a deeper part of the swimming hole. “That good enough for you?” he asks with a grin.

“You shouldn’t be doing that,” she chides, although there’s a smile on her face too. “You’re a cruel man.”

He splashes her with quite a bit of force. “You asked for it. I’m just trying to be an outdoorsman.”

Sam practically has to be dragged out of the water, but as the sun nears its high point, everyone agrees that they sooner they get back to the camp, the better. They manage to make it back faster, thanks to the downhill slope and Toby’s urgency to get back to something even slightly resembling civilization.

“What’s on the schedule now?” CJ asks through a bite of the pre-packed sandwiches that the President sent with them. A good thing, too, since none of them are fantastic cooks even in normal circumstances, and certainly none of them know how to cook over a fire.

Donna pulls the piece of paper out of her daypack and skims it. “Well, there’s a couple choices until our second hike at 6. Either working on the speech, or as he puts it, taking a Thoreau-like approach to extolling the virtues of nature…”

“He’s really going to put me through all of this and then tell me to emulate Thoreau?” Toby interrupts indignantly. “That pretentious mother—“

Josh raises an eyebrow and cuts Toby off with a, “So how about those of us who are under any circumstances not allowed to touch the President’s speeches?”

“We ask for your input when we need it, Josh, it’s just… you’re not the most eloquent of writers,” Sam tries to say diplomatically. Toby, still fuming, nods in agreement.

Josh rolls his eyes. “I like to be direct. Sue me.”

“See, that kind of attitude in speechwriting is what gets the President sued,” Toby shoots back.

Donna clears her throat, giving a barely concealed glare to the staffers before her. “Anyway, Josh, in answer to your question, he suggested you could take a nap.”

His brow furrowed, Josh lets out a little snort. “A nap? What is this, kindergarten?”

“Sometimes I think so.” This from CJ, who hasn’t managed to get her head out of her hands in several minutes.

“I remember a time when you were extolling the virtues of naps to me,” Donna says sweetly, folding up the schedule and putting it back in her bag.

Josh sighs and leans back into the log he’s sitting against dramatically. “Can everyone please stop using the things I said while I was on many, many drugs that made me kind of loopy against me?”

“Never, mi amor,” CJ says, standing up and patting his shoulder. “I’m going to take advantage of the once chance I’ll ever get in this administration to take a nap. Any interest in joining me, Tobias?” she asks with a smirk.

Toby raises an eyebrow. “No, because I have to emulate a pretentious dick who thought he knew everything about nature because he was living in the backyard of his in-laws.”

“I quite enjoy Thoreau, actually,” Sam begins to interrupt.

“Of course you do,” Toby says with a sigh, pulling out a legal pad and a pen. “Come on, let’s get to writing this. Anybody know anything about national parks?”

“No,” Josh says. “I think that’s why we’re here.”

—

The afternoon passes rather pleasantly to everyone’s surprise. CJ takes her nap, Josh reads through all of the briefing memos he managed to smuggle in, and Toby and Sam bicker over the speech, but there are several pages filled by the time Donna comes out of the cabin, fresh from her own nap, and calls out that it’s almost time for their next hike.

“You’re kidding me, right?” Josh says. “One isn’t enough?”

“There are three, remember. The next one is very early tomorrow morning so we can catch the sunrise. This one is so we can catch the sunset,” Donna replies, thrusting the schedule at him.

Josh shakes his head as he looks it over. “I’m kind of regretting getting this man elected.”

Still, everyone, even Toby manages to traipse through the woods and up get another mountain to get to a west-facing lookout, where the sun is just starting to dip behind the mountains.

“Is this inspiring you?” CJ teases, stretched out on one of the benches at the lookout. The sky really is turning very pretty, the sunset a fiery orange with hints of pink.

Toby shrugs. “I don’t think the colors of a sunset are relevant to this speech, but sure.”

“I have to say, I think the Midwest does sunsets better. All that open sky…” Donna says. She’s seating on the other bench, and Josh is next to her, his arm stretched around the back of the bench and his fingers just barely grazing the top of her shoulder. The distance between them is acceptable, but only just.

“Do you miss it? Wisconsin?”

Donna bites her lip. “Sometimes? Sometimes I’ll think about a walk I used to take, or about the ice cream shop I would always go to with my friends, or about the view from my dorm when I lived on the top floor, and I feel a little bit of homesickness. But then I think about how amazing it is to live here, and how much I’ve accomplished since I left, and well… I can’t say I regret leaving.”

Josh chuckles. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Donna turns back to look at the sunset and hopes that no one notices that her eyes are beginning to water with what could be tears.

—

“Okay, dinner now? I”m starving.” Sam says, when they come back from their sunset expedition to the camp. Darkness is beginning to settle, so they’ve set up a few lanterns, but it still feels incomplete.

“We have hot dogs for roasting,” Donna says. “You know, good camp food.”

“That means we need a fire,” Sam says, exchanging a glance with Josh. “We can do that.”

CJ and Donna share a look of concern. “Last time you tried to start a fire, you almost set the White House ablaze,” CJ says cautiously.

“But we successfully started a fire,” Josh points out. “And if it wasn’t indoors in a fireplace with the flue welded shut, we would have been successful.”

Donna has to give them this. “Okay. Go find some firewood and get it started. I think we’re all starting to get hungry.”

Josh grabs a lantern and gives Donna a grin. “Let’s go, Sam.”

While Donna unpacks the food they were sent for dinner, Josh and Sam come back with arms full of wood, Sam looking the worse for wear with several scratches all over his body and what looks like it could be blood.

“Sam! What happened?” CJ exclaims, looking him over.

“I got into a fight with a blackberry bush,” Sam mutters. So not blood, at least, CJ thinks with a sigh of relief.

Josh drops his armful of wood by the pit. “The bush won.”

“Do you need any bandages or anything? They sent us an extensive first aid kid, because I’m sure they know how clumsy you are.” CJ takes Sam’s armful of wood and kneels down next to Josh. “Show me, how do we do this?”

While Sam washes himself off with a water bottle and pulls out the last few thorns, Josh manages to get a fairly impressive fire going. Donna passes around hot dogs and everyone begins to roast theirs, although Sam drops at least two in the fire. Josh intentionally sets his on fire, charring it until anyone else would regard it as inedible.

Perhaps, they all begin to think as they laugh around the fire, for once able to focus on something besides work, this camping thing isn’t so bad. The stress of the election has been weighing heavily on all of them, but they’ve spent almost a whole day without pondering electoral math or congressional seats.

The fire slowly dies, and once it’s down to only the embers, everyone slowly begins to peel off and say good night.

CJ blinks and lets her eyes adjust to the dark before picking up her lantern and padding softly out of the cabin. She would blame her inability to sleep on the nap she took earlier in the day throwing off her schedule, but she knows that’s not the entirety of it.

To her surprise, the fire is still going when she emerges, and there’s someone still seated on a log by it.

“Josh?” she whispers softly, and he turns to face her with the barest trace of a smile.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asks.

“No. You?”

He shrugs and pokes at the fire with a stick. “Didn’t want to,” he says. “Toby snores.”

“And so you’re just going to spend the whole night out here?”

“Probably.”

“Just because Toby snores?”

Josh doesn’t answer, but CJ turns to look at him and can see the set of his jaw and the tension in his face. And she has an idea of what might be going on.

“Josh, have you been having nightmares lately?” she asks, her voice soft.

She didn’t think his body could show any more tension, but he immediately tenses up even more at her question. “Why would you think that?”

“Because I have, too,” she admits. She can see some of the tension fall away from his shoulders, although he still seems guarded.

“About what?”

CJ bites her lip. “Simon, mostly. Which is ridiculous, I mean, I wasn’t there. And that was three months ago, and I wasn’t even there.”

He reaches out and grabs her hand, squeezing it. “You can easily imagine it though, because you know what it’s like to be shot at,” he concludes.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t. I don’t even remember it, really, and I still have nightmares,” he tells her. “It’s not ridiculous, CJ. Believe me.”

She sighs. “I just… they went away for a while. I thought I was doing better, I thought I was over my grief, and then this last week… well, let’s just say my nap this afternoon as the only time this week I woke up from something other than a nightmare.”

“Well, it was two years to the day a few days ago when we got shot at,” Josh says. “Because I haven’t slept much this week either.”

CJ takes a look at him, his tired eyes and the vulnerability present on his face that so few get to see. She feels privileged to see it. “I hadn’t even thought of that,” she admits, “but I’m sure that doesn’t help.”

“It’ll get better again,” Josh says. “You’ll notice that you’ve gone weeks, even months, without something. The grief never quite goes away, but the fear does.”

“Okay,” she replies, her voice choked up a little. If it were anyone else saying this to her, she’d probably be annoyed, but she knows that Josh speaks from experience and is telling the truth. “So you and I, it’s going to be a sleepless night for the two of us?”

He smiles at her and leans further back against the log. “Claudia Jean, are you propositioning me?”

“Only if you want it,” she teases.

—

Donna doesn’t end up needing the alarm she set on her watch because her internal clock is set to absurdly early mornings anyway. It’s mostly still dark when she gets up, but as she emerges from the cabin, she can see that there’s still a fire going, and that CJ and Josh are in front of it, seating against a log. CJ’s head is resting on Josh’s shoulder. If Donna didn’t know the completely platonic nature of their relationship, she would have been jealous, and even though she knows Josh and CJ see each other as siblings, she still has to bite back a bit of jealousy as she approaches them.

“Hey,” she says, “you two slept out here?”

Josh blinks and looks up at her. “I guess we did sleep,” he says. “I didn’t think we’d manage.”

CJ smiles. “Who knew your shoulder made such a nice pillow?”

He tries to push himself up from the ground and winces. “Well, this log did not,” he says. “Is it really time to get started already?”

“Our sunrise hike awaits,” Donna says, with a look on her face that’s somewhere between a smile and a grimace. “Who’s going to have to wake up Toby and Sam?”

“I say we wake up Sam, and then make him wake up Toby,” Josh says. “I didn’t bring my full-body armor with me.”

—

As it turns out, the sunrise hike is an eight-mile loop, with east-facing lookout about two miles into the trek. Toby, already furious about being woken up, is absolutely fuming at the fact that there are six more miles to go after the sunrise stop. “What kind of a man makes you go on a hike at five in the morning, and then extends It so you’re going to be on this trail all day?”

“I’m finding I don’t hate hiking as much as I thought I did,” Josh says. “But I’m sleep-deprived, so don’t hold that against me.”

“Josh, if you used sleep deprivation as an excuse every time, we’d never be able to call you out for anything you’ve ever said,” CJ points out.

Sam sighs. He’s looking much better now that he’s not covered in blackberry juice, but his arm and leg and the side of his face are still very scratched up. “I just want to take a shower.”

“Ten more hours until they’ll take us home,” Donna says. She doesn’t even have to look at the schedule anymore; her memory is freakishly good sometimes.

They reach a clearing near the top of one of the mountains that has some large rocks and a few benches. They’re above most of the other elevations around them, so they have a clear view of the sun beginning to peek out over the hills before them.

“We never see sunrises or sunsets,” Donna notes. “I think it’s usually dark when I get to the White House and dark when I leave.”

CJ lets out a laugh and perches on a rock. “That’s when we actually manage to leave.”

Donna reaches into her backpack and hands out granola bars. “Breakfast, anyone?”

“Any coffee?” Josh asks.

“There’s a pot to boil water back at camp and a thing of instant coffee,” Donna says.

He groans. “So none here?”

“You should really try to become a less caffeinated life form.”

“Tried that for three months. Worst three months of my life.”

“Just because of the coffee?”

Josh grabs a granola bar from her and takes a seat on one of the benches. “Because of the gunshot wound, but you know, the lack of coffee didn’t help.”

“Will you just shut up and enjoy the sunrise?” CJ asks. “Because I’m not going to see one for another four years.”

Josh clears his throat after a bite of the granola bar. “You really believe that? We’ve got another four years left in us?”

“The President’s in fighting mode. He won’t back down,” CJ says. “And we’re not going to let him, are we?”

Sam smiles. “Absolutely not.”

Through a bite of his granola bar, Toby mumbles, “Careful about tempting fate.”

“We’re not tempting fate,” CJ says, “but we’re renewing our fight. We’ve been so bogged down in reelection struggles that it feels like we’ve lost sight of what we’re fighting for. But you know what Richie wants to do for places like this?”

“Tear them down,” Toby mutters.

“But Jed Bartlet wants to build them up. Build more of them. Let people come to appreciate the outdoors, to see the sunrise, to protect the natural treasures of this country. If we never get to see the sunrise, we should make sure it’s because we’re working long and hard to ensure that other people have that chance here, and at places like this.” Her voice is beginning to get excited. “And that’s only one of the many reasons we’re fighting to show the voters our vision of America. The one that protects the treasures we have, and seeks to provide the best for our citizens. That’s why we’re fighting from before sunrise to after sunset. So what do we say? Four more years?”

Josh grins and holds up the remaining half of his granola bar in a sort of toast. “Four more years!” he shouts out over the mountains.

There’s a chorus of exclamations that no one but them will ever hear, but as the sun rises, there’s a bit of weariness lifted off of each of them. The last four years have been interminably long and difficult, but they are all instilled with a sense of new energy for what they do.

“So that’s what you’re like on sleep deprivation?” Josh teases CJ, as they leave the clearing and set out on the next part of their hike.

“See why that excuse will never work?”

“Fine, but I still stand by the fact that I said a lot of things on heavy drugs that I didn’t mean.”

“Such as being an outdoorsman?” Donna pipes up.

“See, after this weekend, I think I stand by that one.”

——

The Secret Service takes them all back to the White House, rather than to their apartments, and they’re all directed to the Oval Office, where President Bartlet sits behind the desk expectantly.

“You all made it back in one piece!” he says with delight. “I was sure a bear was going to eat one of you; my money was on Toby.” He takes in Sam’s scratched up face. “Except for you, Sam. What happened there?”

“I fought a blackberry bush, and the bush won,” Sam mumbles.

“You did all the hikes?” the President asks.

Toby grimaces. “Donna forced us to.”

“I knew she’d keep you on track,” he says, and Donna beams in response. “And the speech?”

“Needs revision and typing up, but it’s quite good, if I do say so myself,” Sam says, although Toby shoots him a glare, clearly not as pleased with the quality of writing.

“Excellent, excellent. And you two,” the President says, looking at Josh and CJ, “how did you find it?”

CJ smiles. “Quite enlightening, sir. I’m instilled with a new sense of energy. That said, I’d like to go home and get some sleep.” Josh nods in agreement.

“Yes, yes, of course,” the President says. “But senior staff tomorrow, I’m going to have to hear more. God, I can’t wait to open this new national park.”

They all file out of the Oval Office, but Josh hangs back behind the others and grabs Donna’s arm. “Do you have a ride home?”

“I was going to take the metro,” Donna says. “My car’s on the fritz again.”

He shakes his head. “No, don’t. Not will all that stuff. I’ll give you a ride.”

Donna’s about to protest, especially since he definitely seems too tired to be driving, but she considers it and nods in agreement. At least she can make sure he doesn’t fall asleep at the wheel.

“I’m glad you were there,” he says. “I don’t know if I would have made it through this weekend without you.”

She blushes at the compliment. “I’m sure you would have been fine. After all, you proved that you are, in fact, an outdoorsman.”

“Still,” he says, with a surprising amount of sincerity, “the outdoors is so much more fun with you there.”

#donnaamoss #asks #the west wing #josh lyman #donna moss #josh x donna #sort of?#it’s mostly senior staff + donna friendship fic #but it’s 6k words of it lol #this is maybe a weird direction to go with this prompt but i just wanted to write the senior staff camping okay #i really did this instead of working on my final projects go figure

37 notes · View notes

veorlian · 3 years

Text

spinning blades

for @kanejweek day 1: mythology (gods & saints).

read it on ao3 here!

pairing: Kaz Brekker x Inej Ghafa

rated t for stabbing and past abuse mention

Inej hadn’t known how to fight when she’d joined the Dregs — Kaz had taught her. First it was throwing a punch, before they moved onto blades. Training knives at first. I don't want you ruining my suit, he’d said. You can have a proper knife when I know you won’t trip and fall on it. She'd wanted to hit them, then. She suspected that that was why he'd said it.

He was a strange boy, Kaz Brekker. She didn't trust him. She’d told him so, and he'd only said: Good, you're a quick learner.

They practiced in an alley behind the Slat. The others largely left them alone, save for the boy named Jesper’s occasional visits to offer encouragement. But mostly it was just her, Kaz, and whatever crows and stray cats wandered by.

"I heard once that there was an honour code for fighting," she said during their second makeshift lesson. She shifted the unfamiliar weight of the knife in her hand and lunged forward. Kaz stepped back, deftly avoiding her attack. She turned around to face him just a fraction too late.

Before she fully registered it, Kaz swept his cane forward, hooking it behind her legs and knocking her off balance. But she was most at home in the air and she easily flipped around, using the momentum to push herself back up on her feet.

"Rules are for the merchers and the aristocracy. Barrel gangs fight dirty," he replied.

"I'm not that," she said. Kaz shrugged nonchalantly.

"If you want to fight fair, it's your funeral," he said.

"Or maybe yours."

Inej nimbly launched herself forward, feet first. Her intention was to hit Kaz square in the chest, but he stepped to the side a second before she would've connected. She landed neatly, rolling into a somersault and back onto her feet in an instant. They circled one another warily.

"Better," he said. "But too slow. Don't waste time talking. You'd be dead before you landed."

"Most people don’t see me coming," she pointed out.

"Surprise is good, but it won’t save you if you're cornered by a dozen thugs with rifles."

Inej raised an eyebrow. "If I have to fight that many, then it can only mean one of your plans has gone wrong."

It didn't provoke the reaction she'd wanted. His expression didn't change, still that infuriatingly bored look.

"There are dozens of spiders in the Barrel that could take that many," he said. The rest of the sentence was left hanging in the air between them. If you can't, then I don't need you.

The world slowed around her. Sudden panic clawed at her throat, white-hot, at the thought that she might be sent back to the Menagerie. Brekker wouldn’t do that, would he?

She looked at his eyes, so dark they were almost black in the growing shadows. She knew his reputation. Greed was his god, it was said, and cruelty was his creed. He wouldn’t hesitate to get rid of her if she didn’t make herself useful.

Alright, Kaz Brekker, she thought bitterly, it’s your funeral.

She held herself very still, in the way that she used to before putting her first foot on the wire. She could feel his eyes on her. Good. She was at her best with an audience.

Watch closely, ladies and gentlemen.

Inej turned her gaze to Kaz. Looked at him the way she assumed he looked at the world — checking for weaknesses. Not the leg; she’d tried that before. Her wrist was still sore from where his cane had hit her. She’d had cause to learn that there was a knife up both of his sleeves, and another in his shoe. Best to go for the face. It felt as though she was seeing herself from a long way away, as though she wasn't in her body anymore.

Prepare yourself for a sight unlike any you've seen before.

She launched into a handstand, grabbing dirt from the ground as she went. Like at home, covering her hands in chalk before sailing from rung to rung. She vaulted over Kaz's head, spraying the dirt into his eyes. He raised a hand to block it, but she'd already landed behind him, the flat of her knife against his throat.

There was a wild, dizzying moment where she considered stabbing him. She’d only been in the Dregs a few weeks, she hadn’t seriously hurt anyone before. But her blood was still roaring in her ears, the acrid tang of copper lingering on her tongue.

I’m not this, she thought. She forced herself to relax and step back. She needed space to think. She needed to pray.

"It's a start," Brekker said, entirely unruffled.

Inej stayed on the roof of the Slat that night, her eyes fixed on the harbour. She thought of what she was working towards. Leaving Ketterdam. Finding her family. Just this once, she thought, the ends justified the means. She stayed up on the roof till the sun rose, glinting pale pink along the horizon.

She'd fallen into the habit of visiting Kaz’s office first thing in the morning. She'd always been up with the sun, and she didn’t allow herself to sleep in. Not anymore. Her first week at the Slat she’d tried going down to the main room, but it was generally filled with snoring teenagers sprawled along the tables and floor. So, she went to Kaz’s office to get her daily assignments. From what she could tell, Brekker didn’t sleep at all. He was certainly always awake when she arrived, drinking his horrible bitter coffee. This morning was no exception.

“Hello, Wraith,” he said when she entered. She was certain she hadn’t made a sound. On her first visit to the office she’d made a note of which floorboards creaked, which hinges squeaked. That didn’t seem to matter to Brekker.

He didn’t look up at her, only motioned to the knife on the desk. It gleamed in the morning sun, refracting light across the room. She reached for it, wrapping her hand around the handle. It felt unnervingly right, in a way that the training knives hadn’t. The metal was cool against her palms — like the rungs of the ladder leading to the wire.

“Maybe I’ll use it on you,” she said, turning it over in her hands.

He sighed. “If only you were that bloodthirsty.”

Sankt Petyr, she called the blade. She prayed her Saints would understand the things she did to stay alive.

Inej had never learned how to fight with knives. But she had, on slow afternoons, learned to throw them. It was part of the act; throwing the blades at a moving target, deftly avoiding the person tied to the board.

"I'm nervous," Inej had admitted, before her first time assisting. Her aunt had offered to show her how it was done, to help her feel more safe. Inej had accepted. She’d learned to throw knives from the very best. She could hit a target at 80 paces on a rainy day. And it was always rainy in Ketterdam.

She hadn't mentioned this to Kaz.

He pulled a dagger from his sleeve and demonstrated how to hold it, how to use its weight to throw it. Inej could imagine her aunt kindly critiquing his shoddy technique. There was no showmanship to Kaz’s throw, only grim determination.

Inej nodded and stepped forward. One moment, Sankt Petyr was in her hand, and the next it was embedded in the wooden pole Kaz had set up, immediately next to where his own knife had landed.

"Like that?" she asked politely. The change in his face was almost imperceptible. She might've missed it. She didn't.

"If you're expecting applause you're going to be sorely disappointed, Wraith," was all he said. She still wasn't used to the name. It felt like stepping into dark water; one wrong move and it would drown her.

Inej retrieved her knife, and threw it again. And again. And again. The pole was entirely intact, save for one specific spot, slowly whittled away. The same spot every time. She could almost imagine that she was back at home, practicing with her family. The worn-down alley behind the Slat, the look in Kaz’s eyes, everything seemed to just fall away. There was just Inej, and her dagger, and her Saints. It was as though Sankt Petyr was guiding her hand, reminding her of who she had been. Of who she was.

"Warn me next time before you plan to waste my time," Kaz said after the sixth throw.

“Would you have trusted me if I told you I could throw a blade?” she asked, wiping wood shavings from her knife.

“What information is relevant is up to me to decide,” he said. Everything sounded like a threat, in his voice like scraping stone. “Are we understood?”

“Fine,” she said, after a moment. The ends justified the means. “I’m going to need more knives.”

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” He turned on his heel and left.

She stole her second knife, the one she called Sankta Lizabeta. Too recognizable to fence, but right at home strapped to her thigh. Her third was a gift from Jesper, on one of the very rare occasions that he had cash. The rest were stolen and given and earned, one by one.

She collected her blades and wrapped them around herself like you might wrap a blanket. Each night she cleaned and sharpened them until they were shining. A ritual, of sorts, something familiar amidst the chaotic mess that her life had become. She listed their names as she raced across the rooftops. Her Saints, protecting her.

Kaz had taught her how to fight, but she'd made it her own. She was light on her feet from years in the air, and deceptively strong. Ketterdam was just another wire, and she walked it with ease.

Barrel gangs fight dirty, Kaz had said, and that was true. The gangs of the Barrel were unscrupulous and ruthless, taking any opportunity to rig a fight. But they lacked imagination. There was no finesse, no art to their combat. They could never anticipate her moves. Surprise, Inej learned, goes a very long way in a fight. She’d always been a fast learner.

She didn't fight Kaz again. At least, not with blades.

#kanej week 2021 #six of crows #kanej fics #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #finished prompts

24 notes · View notes

one-boring-person · 3 years

Text

Who's Side Are You On? Final Part.

Terminator (1984) reader insert

Warnings: detailed injury, major character death, blood, bad language

Context: The T-800 chases them into the factory.

A/N: This marks the end of my first Terminator fic! I know it hasn't been particularly popular with the majority of my followers, but I've had a blast writing it, and it is definetly not the end of me writing for this fandom! I'm sorry this is a bit sad, but that's just how these films are 😅

Masterlist

A hoarse cry of desperation escapes Sarah as Kyle hastily pulls her to her feet again, the two of them scrambling to get away from the towering silver skeletal-figure, the crimson eyes boring into them from where the grey ones were before, the oddly human, yet markedly different, skull rotating slightly to properly focus on its targets. It's movements are disjointed and jerky, the metal joints still adjusting to the lack of cushioning they received from the muscle previously surrounding them, though it is still inhumanely strong, which it demonstrates as it throws aside a large piece of debris, lifting it as if it is nothing. Eyes wide with terror, Sarah gives the advancing cyborg one last look, before she runs after Kyle, aiming for a small backdoor a little way away, breathing ragged due to her lungs still trying to recover from the smoke intake from before, the skin inside it raw and painful.

Behind them, the skeletal cyborg easily keeps pace, it's towering figure striding along with clear intent, the whirring of metallic joints and pneumatic configurations of limbs audible over the crackling of the roaring flames still surrounding the wreck of the tanker a little way away. It remains only a metre or so away from them, only just missing them as they finally throw open the steel door and burst through it, slamming it after them as they sprint down the revealed corridor, Kyle falling behind slightly as his wound continues to give him trouble, blood now pouring out from his fingers, which he has clasped tightly over the area to staunch the flow. Sarah lends him her shoulder, but this only serves to slow them both down, the cyborg easily managing to catch back up to them once it has smashed in the door, following them both as they limp away. It is limping as well, more noticeably as it drags one foot across the floor, the metal scraping harshly on the surface, creating a screeching sound that is entirely unpleasant to the ears, alerting them to the killer's proximity. Another door comes into view around the corner, giving them something to aim for as they struggle on towards it, Sarah now pulling Kyle along, the soldier's pain keeping him slow and uncoordinated.

...splitting pain…_ERROR_SYSTEM_COMPROMISED_...bright, burning flames..._MISSION_FAILED_...have to find..._PRIMARY_TARGET_LOST_...need to get up..._SECONDARY_TARGET_TERMINATED_...get up!

Thankfully, Sarah and Kyle reach the door before the terminator can reach them, slamming it closed behind them as they throw themselves into the room, only now realising that they're in a manufacturing factory until they catch sight of the machinery filling the spacious hall. Securing the iron doors, Kyle and Sarah move into the room, the former going to the switchboard directly in front of them before he follows the latter, flicking as many switches as he can, activating as much of the machinery as he can.

"What are you doing?!" Sarah exclaims, fearfully glancing at the doors, where the cyborg is now smashing into them, the metal denting and bending under the sheer impact, a shrill squealing sound coming from where it's being reformed and split apart.

"This...Will make it…harder for it...to find us…" As Kyle responds, his voice becomes ever quieter, his breathing going laboured and ragged, his eyes rolling back into his head. With a groan of agony, he falls to the floor.

_SYSTEM_FAILURE_...follow the trail..._AWAIT_NEW_COMMAND_...so much pain..._AWAITING_NEW_COMMAND_ where are they..._ERROR_ SYSTEM_COMPROMISED_...need to find them...

Sarah drops to Kyle's side, trying to have him up onto her shoulder, glancing at the door as the cyborg continues to beat against it, the glowing eyes now visible through the cracked metal, it's movements becoming more frenzied as it catches sight of its primary targets.

"Come on, Kyle, come on!" She pleads, pulling at the limp soldier in her arms, dragging him towards the steps leading down into the labyrinth of machinery.

A splitting crash echoes suddenly around the room as the cyborg manages to thrust it's arm through the metal, the limb flailing slightly to try and find the bar holding the obstruction in place, it's fist closing around it easily.

"Come on, Kyle! On your feet, Soldier!" Sarah commands him, using this last tactic to properly draw him to his feet, sighing in momentary relief when he responds and starts walking shakily after her, his eyes fixed on her.

..._SYSTEM_SHUT_DOWN_IMMINENT_...need to find them..._SYSTEM_SHUT_DOWN_OCCURING_IN_:_00:09:34:12_...need more time…

All around them, the machines whine and growl quietly, pneumatic groans echoing loudly around the room as Kyle and Sarah navigate the makeshift hallways created by the towering structures, doing their best to lose the killer on their tail. Neither of them say a word to each other, both too caught up in trying to survive that they seem to start working of their own accord, instinctually following each other through the maze, avoiding the particularly heavy machinery in favour of finding a way out, needing to find some way of stopping the metal skeleton from pursuing them. Biting her lip, Sarah moves to turn a corner, dragging Kyle with her, only for him to trip slightly and lean his weight onto her, causing her to stumble into a nearby beam, which she grabs hold of to stop herself from falling to the floor. As her hand closes around it, her fingers make contact with a button, the circular object depressing and activating a hydraulic press beside them, the sound wailing loudly around the room, drawing immediate attention to where they are.

Cursing, Sarah starts moving away from this spot as quickly as she can, pulling Kyle with her, aware of the suddenly loud scraping sound approaching them, the cyborg having heard and processed the noise. They round another corner and come across some stairs, which Kyle looks at hesitantly, muttering something about turning back. Spinning on her heel, Sarah goes to move back down the way they came, only to stop when she catches sight of the red-eyed endoskeleton ahead of them, it's unintentionally leering grin unnerving and sinister as it limps forwards.

_SYSTEM_SHUT_DOWN_OCCURRING_IN_:_00:04:12:45_...go towards the noise…_VISUAL_PROCESSOR_COMPROMISED_...find targets..._IMMEDIATE_ASSISSTANCE_REQUIRED_

Slowly, they back away from the nearing machine, neither of them moving their eyes from it until their ankles hit the stairs behind them, at which point they both turn and race (as best they can) up onto the walkway overhead, using their somewhat stilted agility to out-manoeuvre it. Before doing so, however, Kyle grabs a nearby pole, wielding it like a weapon as they reach the top, aware now of the approaching consequences of the wound on his chest, his grip weak and feeble from the blood loss.

Behind them, the terminator easily steps up onto the walkway, nearing with more speed at the proximity of its targets, crimson eyes boring into them, it's skeletal arm reaching out towards them as Kyle turns to face it, shoving Sarah behind him.

"Run, Sarah!" He orders her, not glancing at her at all.

"What? No!" She stutters, only to stumble backwards when he turns and pushes her away, eyes filled with a grief and guilt she's only now come to know.

"Run!" He screams at her, before lunging at the machine with his pole, smashing it across its face, the skull snapping round sharply. Gasping, Sarah drops down the nearest set of stairs and watches Kyle attack the terminator, only now realising that a third figure has dragged itself into the equation, the features bloodied, disfigured and burnt, but still recognisable to her.

_SYSTEM_SHUT_DOWN_OCCURRING_IN_:_00:01:04:21_...unclear images..._ASSAULT_MODE_ENGAGED_...need to find them..._PRIMARY_TARGET_LOCATED_…

"(Y/n)?!" Sarah exclaims, looking up at the mangled soldier in fear, the expression on her face contorting and distorting every few seconds, going between blank and agonized, determination setting her pace as she limps into the fight, throwing herself onto the back of the terminator, taking hold of its skull and pulling it backwards, jerking as hard as she can. Without pausing, the cyborg lifts an arm and grasps (Y/n)'s shoulder, gripping it tightly as it pulls her around to its front, using her beaten body to deflect a blow from Kyle's pole, a strangled scream of pain falling from her lips as her ribs shatter even further, the sound audible even from where Sarah is standing. Dropping the body, the terminator steps over her and advances on Kyle, who has stopped with a horrified expression on his face, only now realising that he just hit his sister, and that she is alive, barely, only looking up again when the cyborg backhands him across the cheek. His head snaps round, his body following the motion as he falls so that he's partially over the steps Sarah descended down.

Bleeding heavily from the face, the soldier takes out the last explosive from his pocket, fumbling to light it as the machine moves on him one last time, finally managing to get it to catch. With one last effort, he leans up and goes to thrust the bomb into the cyborg's abdomen, only for it to fall to the floor again as he stumbles slightly. Crying out in frustration, he goes to move away again, feeling entirely hopeless and desperate, until he catches sight of his sister moving up behind the killer. She grabs the bomb and holds it under what would be the Terminator's ribcage, grasping it around the middle to stop it from moving.

"Go!" She screams hoarsely at her brother, pulling the cyborg back harshly, the fuse on the explosive finally reaching its end.

_SYSTEM_SHUT_DOWN_OCCURRING_IN_:_00:00:12:54_...Kyle is safe...Sarah is sa-

The explosion is deafening despite its markedly small scale radius.

It throws Kyle backwards, the soldier falling down the stairs awkwardly, his head connecting with the floor harshly as he lands, Sarah dropping to the floor as metal scraps fly out everywhere, a sharp pain suddenly breaking out in her upper thigh as a piece of shrapnel embeds itself there. Screaming, she covers her head with her hands until the falling metal has settled, an eerie silence descending on her despite the whirring machinery around her.

Hesitantly, she lifts her head, glancing around her as she takes in the debris scattered on the floor, only now seeing the body a little way away from her, a robotic leg lying just next to it, a second, more mangled, body a bit past that. Dreading what she's going to see, she yanks out the piece of metal in her leg with a strangled scream before crawling over to the first body, her heart dropping as she sees who it is.

"No, no, no, no...please, no!" She whimpers, too tired to properly express the grief and horror that has flooded her, tears forcing their way out of the corners of her eyes as she grabs at Kyle's torn, bloodied shirt, his lifeless corpse still warm to the touch, his eyes staring blindly up towards the ceiling. Looking over, she tries not to grimace as she takes in what is left of (Y/n)'s body.

Her features are now almost completely burnt away, revealing the metal plate that covers part of her skull, the silver orb that was behind her right eye now dull and lifeless, the skin and flesh around it no longer able to cover it. The bloodied surface of her real skull is visible through the melted tissue of the other side of her face, the pale bone blackened and charred, mirroring the grisly mess of the rest of her body, which is a tangle of bone, smoking cloth, stained skin and exposed insides. A milky white eye stares at her from underneath a torn eyelid, the surface blinded by the blast from before.

Entirely caught up in the sight of the woman who was sent back to protect her, Sarah doesn't notice the rustle of movement to her left until a hand has batted at her, a scream of horror escaping her as her eyes snap back to the source of this attack. Eyes widening in pure terror, Sarah can only scramble backwards as the torso of the terminator drags itself forwards, it's arm reaching for her as it awkwardly moves itself along, crimson eyes focused solely on her. Gasping in pain, the girl crawls off in the opposite direction, moving as fast as she can to avoid this threat, blood trailing on the floor behind her from the rapidly bleeding wound on her thigh. She ignores this and carries on, dropping onto a conveyor belt as a plan starts to form in her head.

Moving quickly, she crawls with the direction of the belt, going much faster now as she locates the hydraulic press from before, kicking out at the cyborg as it suddenly takes hold of her ankle. She dislodges it, throwing herself to the side as she spots the press, holding herself low to the ground. In this position, she pulls herself along, using the smooth surface to her advantage as the fabric of her shirt moves smoothly over it, allowing her to slide to the other end of the press before the terminator can catch her. Dropping out of it, she falls to the floor, just making it before the grill that surrounds it slides up, trapping the cyborg underneath the huge metal plate. It thrusts its arm through, grabbing at Sarah's throat in desperation, it's red eyes dilating slightly.

Sarah scrambles with the beam behind her, locating the button pad from before with ease, struggling to compress the correct one as she avoids the metal hand scratching at her neck, eventually finding the right one. Pressing her finger down on it lightly, she stares at the terminator venomously, opening her mouth to speak to it for the first and last time.

"You're terminated, fucker."

With a final push, she presses the button, activating the hydraulic press, the heavy metal plate lowering itself onto the helpless cyborg, crushing it ruthlessly.

A dull sense of relief fills Sarah as the light finally fades from the silver eyes, crimson light dying out as the last evidence of a ruined future is destroyed beyond repair.

Sarah tries not to watch as the medics zip up the black body bags, hiding Kyle and (Y/n) from the world, the two soldiers being carted away to the morgue, where they will be examined to help provide information about their killer. A bitter amusement wavers briefly at the edge of her conscience at this thought. They'll never know the person they're looking for was crushed in the hydraulic press they didn't think to check over. An attendant comes over to her, a clipboard in hand.

"Hello, you must be Sarah? Sarah Connor?" She questions politely, checking the papers in front of her.

She says nothing, just nodding briefly in response.

"I was wondering if you wouldn't mind telling me what the name of the two victims were? Only one of them is...unrecognizable…" The attendant trails off again, realising how sensitive her words may be.

Sarah looks over at the black body bags on the pavement, swallowing as she rubs a finger over the cool metal in her hands, the object hidden by the blanket thrown over her shoulders.

"I-I can...could you...could you give me a minute?" She responds, fixing the attendant with a shaky stare, pleading with her eyes for her to leave her alone.

"Err, yes, yes, I can do that. Sorry." The attendant steps away, not noticing as Sarah looks down into her lap.

Once more, she runs a thumb over the cheekbone of the metal face plate in her hands, feeling the uneven surface of the probes on the underside under the pads of her fingers, acting as a constant reminder of the events that happened these past few nights.

A reminder of the future.

#terminator imagine #terminator 1984 #terminator #arnold schwarzenegger #linda hamilton #michael biehn

21 notes · View notes

tabbyrp · 3 years

Text

@brooklynislandgirl @tarnishedhalo

{Tropes in the Wild West, part 2} {Cont from [x]

The Colton Brothers’ General Goods Store prided itself on quality. Buckets of nails able to pierce the hardest of wood. No finer tobacco this side of the state line. And their prices, well, the Colton Brothers considered them fair, considering a lack of competition within the town and the surrounding miles. Tabby held differing opinions while handing over a goodly sum of coins and receiving a meagre bag of pecans in return.

Above the saloon were lodgings for the women who worked there. Four apiece to each room, with simple wooden bunks wedged nose-to-tail against the walls. Three were still occupied when Tabby crept back in with expensive provisions in hand. Her bed lay pressed beneath the window, and when the nights were cool, she cursed the draft prone position. This, however, was morning and she used her access to ease one wooden shutter open before scattering a few pecans over the windowsill. Complaints often came from the other girls that she was encouraging rats to loiter. Tabby ignored them, convinced that something else entirely came to devour each last morsel before a new dawn broke.

“C’mon, Miss Tab. Dance with me.” Persistent as he was cheerful from the half-drunk bottle in his grip, Old Butch’s mottled red veins left spiderwebs over skin tanned by endless years beneath the sun. “They say them Indians have a dance that will make the rain fall.” He attempted a demonstration, the wild flailing reminiscent of desperate efforts to stamp out rogue sparks from a campfire.

“Are we in India? I thought this was Texas.” After making her point with an arched brow, she softened, for Butch was a grizzled, yet harmless, widower stuck in his ways. “And the only result of you and me dancing would be stepping on toes for both of us.” It was a lie. In those younger years when she sold dances with lonely men for a dollar a spin, Tabby was all lightness and grace. She had stopped that route for coin though, now preferring to simply sell drinks and weave flowers like sunsets into her hair.

Butch took the rejection in stride and melded into the group observing a raucous game of dice. The click-clack of boots announced another group of patrons arriving. Readying more bottles in preparation, Tabby ignored a flicker of chagrin which she could never entirely extinguish. It was foolish to wish for one particular man to come striding in, instead of an endless rotation of the local townsfolk. The sun was long set and Riley never visited after dark.

A new day came. Then another, and another more. Gifted flowers wilted into loose petals, and the bag of pecans she continued to dole out over the windowsill was half spent. All anyone could talk of was the drought. Two grey clouds took shape in the sky, giving false hope before dissipating into familiar swathes of blue. Come evening, disappointment had turned folks waspish. Two local cowboys chose to turn their emotions into a fist fight at the saloon, leaving blood on the floor and whiskey spilled everywhere else, including down Tabby’s skirt.

Retiring to the rooms to change, Tabby was half-way dry when an unfamiliar item on her bedding caught her attention. A single envelope nestled upon her pillow, a firewheel bloom laying across atop it. She tucked the bloom behind one ear, smiling, before investigating further. Easing back the flap revealed a piece of paper folded once down the middle. Tabby pulled a lantern closer to examine the words neatly inked upon the page.

Meet me outside, behind the saloon, as soon as you can. AR.

She was almost to the rear door before hesitation slowed Tabby’s eager step. It was the first time Riley had written her this way. The first surreptitious meeting he had requested. Hope warred with caution, curiosity weaving its way into the mix before Tabby made compromise with them all. Lantern in one hand and an iron poker stick appropriated from the fireplace in the other, she slid out to the rear of the building. Little existed there beyond dirt that rolled into patchy grassland, and one long rail for horses to be tied to when the street became overly crowded.

The rail was where Tabby stopped, holding her light aloft to peer deeper into the shadows. “Riley?” A whisper carrying her fading confidence and growing certainty this was all some cruel prank. Her eyes had begun to adjust when a blinding pain exploded across the back of her head. The poker fell from limp hands, the lantern following soon after, with no witness other than a creature perched upon a windowsill, gnawing shards of nut between sharp, pointed teeth.

Riley awoke with a start. Half upright in his bed, it took a blink and shedding of slumber to identify what had woken him from troubled dreams. Scritch. Scratch. Scritch. Scratch. His first thought a bold rodent had chosen to skitter across the floorboard. Except his bedroom only stretched so far and unless the rat was engaged in an endless circuit, it should have finished its route already. Scritch. Scratch. Scritch. Scratch. The sound growing more frenzied with each passing second. Pushing blankets free, he rose and stepped first onto his good leg, the other needing longer to gain mobility. With a hop and a drag, he tracked the noise to the window. Yanking open the shutters, Riley looked out, then down, where nothing sat except a smattering of half-eaten pecans.

Her cheek. Something was touching her cheek. Dry. Rough. Tabby blinked, winced, resurrected from her torpor with painful alacrity. The ground hard beneath her back and she rolled blindly, certain a snake was slithering over face. No reptile emerged but she did land on something softer. A rug. Fur that she could grip with her fingertips. Furnishings meant she must be inside. Shapes came into focus. A bed. A wooden table with two chairs tucked beneath the edges. Uneven wooden walls lit by an iron stove, the fire within burning so hot that sweat broke out upon Tabby’s brow.

Hands took her by the arms. Pulled by a strength that defied normally, Tabby became dragged upright. She kicked wildly. Yelled obscenities no lady should be familiar with. Then her captor took form and panic froze a scream in her throat. The husk that had once been Old Butch rasped and wheezed, sucking on the air. More corpse than man, desiccated skin clinging to gaunt bone, his swollen tongue licked over flaking lips and fetid breath expelled into a hiss of words. “Dance with me, Tabitha.”

The house began to blur as Butch swung her round and around. “Dance with me.” Acrid scent filled the air as her sleeves dissolved first, then flesh turning an angry pink where the monster trapped her into this deadly waltz. Worse than the desert at high noon mid-summer, the air grew too dry, stealing the beading sweat from Tabby’s skin and the moisture from her mouth.

“Let me go,” she croaked out.

“You heard the lady.” An explosion of gunfire and Butch’s skull cracked open, dust bursting from the seams instead of blood. Bony fingers released their captive, and strong, warm, human hands took their place, Riley scooping her into his arms. “I’ve got you, Tabs.” His promise the last thing she heard, and yellow rings in his eyes the last sight she saw, before sinking into unconsciousness once more.

“How is she?” Riley made his inquiry from the safety of the hallway. Beth’s ministrations had required stripping Tabby down to the chemise and her brother remained averse to seeing women disrobed without their permission granted in advance. Drawing the sheet higher over their resting guest, Beth thought to answer in her natural tongue, then chose the language which grated familial nerves the least. There had been enough torment for one night.

“Come see for yourself.” Beth lingered while Riley stepped inside. If the sight of Miss Tabby bothered him, wan and sleeping, Riley hid it from his sister. Still, when he dragged a wooden chair next to the bed, sitting down as if preparing for a long watch, Beth rested a soothing hand upon his shoulder. Mending bodies was her domain, and perhaps she preferred that burden, compared to the questions that would inevitably want answers once Tabby was awake.

Leaving Riley to his vigil, Beth was of mind to return to the soft nest of her bedding. Light was yet to creep around the edges of their sealed windows, and she could regain a few hours of lost slumber before dawn began to break. There was only one matter to attend to first. In the kitchen, she rummaged around through cupboards until a glass jar packed with peppermint sticks revealed itself. Beth liberated one, paused, and then a second.

She could not bring herself to throw open a shutter, not when night still gripped the lands, so instead Beth slid the confectioned treats through a gap beneath the front door. They had barely disappeared from sight when came the quick-snap crunching sound of sharp teeth finding their quarry. Clearly her impropriety for using the porch was forgiven. A relief, considering how fickle those creatures could be. A bowl of cream left upon the windowsill used to be the tradition. Now it was pecans and peppermint sticks.

If only other forces could be so easily appeased. Poor Old Butch. Beth spared a thought of pity for the man, and more for the lives that the drought was yet to claim.

#brooklynislandgirl #tarnishedhalo #meme reply #cut for length

2 notes · View notes

gayregis · 4 years

Note

Do you have any thoughts on TWN using non polish actors to portray characters from polish fantasy book with dense polish culture and roots? And on how most of the cast apperereance are drastically different than in the books? Like Foltest, Renfri, Fringilla or Calanthe? (Sorry this is the correct one, i forgot to add Fringilla on my previous question.)

i feel like the witcher should not be handled by a large american company like netflix. it is clear that a lot of decisions were made to “dumb the series down” in a manner that would make it more of a pop culture phenomenon that could be used to profit off of from viewership, subscriptions, social buzz, and merchandise, instead of an opportunity to demonstrate actual artistry, storytelling, character depth, and poignant messages. the company that handles it CAN be american or another nationality besides polish, but it shouldn’t be a huge one focused on making as much money and social sharability as possible, that will ruin things. (i also feel like the witcher should not be a live-action adaptation, but this is kind of besides the point... to better gauge how i think the feel of a visual-audial witcher adaptation should look, my dream adaptation would be that of a more “adult version” (”adult” meaning in themes like war and despair) studio ghibli or laika).

in regards to casting, i feel like it’s fine to not use an all polish cast as long as they fit the character description in a way that is actually relevant to the plot. so many people in response to people of color being cast in the witcher were volalitely racist and demanded a “polish cast” - as if polish MUST = white. even though poland is not as ethically diverse as some other european countries, people of color do exist in poland, as they/we exist everywhere. if you want an “all-polish cast and production,” that’s fine to me, i don’t think it’s inherently necessary, but i think if one is doing so, that doesn’t mean that it would be wrong to cast actors of color in roles.

i think the issue lies more with storytellng, for two reasons. one is that eastern european people involved on set seem to actually understand the witcher and what it’s about way better than any of the british cast, and by that i mean sakharov and baginski, who have demonstrated more understanding of like, the style of storytelling (not every scene needs to be jammed with action, drama, sex, gore), what the characters actually mean to each other, and the lore in general. this makes sense because i have read some articles and such before about how the witcher was and is important to its fans in poland and eastern europe because very little “slavic fantasy” ever gets exported and represented internationally, and of course sapkowski involved many cultural references in the series, so it’s recognizable to people from those regions (or are diaspora from those regions) who grew up hearing these fairytales, etc. it’s more of a meaningful callback and less of a “foreign curiosity,” if that makes sense. so for those reasons, i think it’s important to have a majority polish and/or slavic writing room/directors/etc, people behind the story and how the story is told - but that doesn’t mean the writer’s room should be all white men, though. diversity in gender, race, etc should be considered.

the other reason is that the casting for the netflix is inaccurate, but not for reasons of race. the issue with anya chalotra as yennefer isn’t that she is indian, it’s that her hair is incredibly straight and flat and not like yennefer’s curly stormy hair at all, and that her face is so soft and childlike, she doesn’t look stern and cold like yennefer at all. there are many casting issues amongst the white members of cast, such as henry cavill, who doesn’t fit the description of geralt at all because geralt looks like he’s starved constantly, and joey batey, who ... well, dandelion is supposed to be blonde and curly long-haired... but of course, these are the appearances which don’t really “matter” in regards to the story. except i think geralt’s build, as well as yennefer and ciri’s proximity in age, which makes me nauseous to think about how they only have a 6 year age difference

one physical description which does actually matter to the plot/lore is that of calanthe, pavetta, and ciri, as they are a matrelineal line, but in netflix, they don’t look related at all. i saw so many people complaining that they should have chosen a white actress for calanthe, but why is she the problem? why not cast people of color for calanthe, pavetta, and ciri altogether? they should look related and have the ashen grey hair/green eyes, but that doesn’t mean they have to be white. it’s a similar issue with yennefer and fringilla. they are supposed to look similar, and i saw many people complaining that they chose mimi who is black to be fringilla, they are just using “they need to look similar” as an excuse to hide their racism and anti-blackness, because anya is more white-passing than mimi is. from my perspective, why not then cast a black actress who looks similar to mimi as yennefer, then? “they need to look similar” again does not mean “they need to all be white or white-passing.”

we should have cast actors that both fit the descriptions of the characters in the books AND are diverse, without it being “random diversity to appeal to a diverse audience.” lauren thought she was so clever by throwing the actors of color in the roles of background characters, stereotypes, forgettable and disposable aides to the white leads, or super evil villains... i see what you did... why not center actors of color in an actually proud and leading light, with lead roles, where the casting makes sense and isn’t there for tokenization that does nothing to empower people of color? actually incorporate people of color into your artistic projects in a way that respects them and makes sense and not just so you can get more views to make more money

other divergences from canon like foltest were just piss-poor and demonstrated the lack of understanding about the messages of the story. foltest was supposed to be handsome, elegant, and as a refined a king as any, to show how those in power are actually corrupt and as prone to disgusting acts as any other human being, that foltest is not a better man than geralt because he is beautiful and sits on a throne. by making him disgusting on the outside, they totally missed the point that he is supposed to mask his disgustingness on the inside with beauty on the outside. also i feel like (maybe related) twn really made a whole joke out of foltest and his relationship to his sister because in one of the flashbacks (in the sorcerer? gala? party?) foltest is shown as a kid with his sister and his mom grabs his arm or whatever and is like “foltest stop bothering your sister” as like some kind of fucking joke... literally they made a “funny ahaha incest joke” like seriously wtf. the story of the striga in particular should be taken seriously imo because of how rawly the tragedy is depicted... this is probably why it’s one of my least favorite short stories... its so sad and also incest disgusts me horribly

for renfri i feel like she was just sooooo ... more “likable” as a character, a lot like how yennefer’s character was changed. you feel feelings of pity and curiosity towards her rather than actually being intimidated by her. renfri in the books actually made me so mad because i think she represents something like what ciri goes through across the saga, just how when you have the choice on how to respond to your abuse, you can easily become consumed with revenge, and i think renfri made me think of myself in that way so i really disliked it when they changed this terrifying raw aspect of her anguish and hunger for retrubution that made her lose her humanity into like, more of a palatable manner of killing... it really was just “girl with sword” and it was so boring. the lesser evil literally makes my stomach turn and that’s why i only read the story like once as well...

also to return to fringilla, i liked mimi and i thought she should have been cast for yennefer instead maybe.... i just was really upset at how much they changed fringilla’s character in the writing to be a “generic evil villain” when in the series she actually is kind of unique in my opinion. she is like, not allied at all with the main characters, but ends up saving both yennefer and geralt’s lives. she’s not good or bad, she’s not super loyal to the empire but she is still nilfgaardian/beauclairoise, and she just exists as a character and that’s why i actually like her in the books (asides from all of the unnecessary library nonsense). i thought mimi could have handled that complex role really well but they totally took that away from her and just made her a flat boring forgettable “evil” character that does “forbidden black magic” and is super loyal to an empire that brought her purpose because yennefer was mean to her once or smth ig... yeah ok. also i fucking hate how they had cahir of all fucking people order her around. idk how old cahir is supposed to be in netflix because he’s obviously not like 16-20 as he would be in canon during this time period, but to have him be the boss of fringilla... that is dumb as hell. i just try and think about that ever occuring with books verse cahir and fringilla and i think she would smack him off of his horse and into the mud. she’d tell assire and assire would get mawr to drag him off by his ear as he tries not to cry. also of course i hate cahir’s casting and the fact that they showed his face. why. it ruins like every message that his character had...

oh also because i HAVE to talk about it. i hate how they tried to make jaskier more masculine/boyish with not giving joey a wig or flamboyant setting-appropriate garb, i think they are allergic to men with long hair that’s not a grime, dirt-covered mess... literally just give half of the production wigs or better wigs i swear to god ... also like this is totally for another post but i don’t think making jaskier a flirt is inherently misogynistic like he acts in the books at times. like just write the misogynistic bits out and it’s fine... flirtatiousness is not evil when it’s consensual and appreciated ... i think they just really wanted geralt to be the one that gets large amounts of p*ssy because he’s muscular or w/e and jaskier became this sort of helpless annoying barnacle on his side instead of a real character and friend to him. and to bring this point back to the main point , i think character appearance really affects their characterization: jaskier in twn has short, boyish hair with no facial hair, which makes him look kind of juvenile, jaskier in the books has curly long hair with some light facial hair, which kind of brings up ehhh what would you call it... 70s casanova energies maybe, a man that puts oils in his hair and such, male thottery...

#the witcher netflix #anon #ask

27 notes · View notes

undertaker1827 · 4 years

Note

Hi! Can I request a Sebastian Michaelis story with his s/o for valentine's day?

Of course!

“Young Master?” The earl didn’t look up from his paperwork. “You are, of course, aware as to what day it is?” Ciel’s hand stilled as he went to grasp a pen.

“It is a Friday. Why on Earth would you ask me such a ridiculous question?” For the very reason you’ve just demonstrated.

“Because whilst it is a Friday, it is also February 14th, or Valentine’s Day.” Ciel’s single eye widened. He had been so incredibly caught up in his latest case for the Queen that Valentine’s and getting something for Elizabeth had slipped his mind.

“No need to concern yourself, Young Master, it is already taken care of. You simply need to write in the card. Ciel finally looked across the room at his butler, who gave a bow in response. “Everything is already prepared in the drawing room, though I suggest you hurry with the card - she is already on her way.”

By the time Elizabeth had arrived, Paula in tow, Ciel had changed into a fine suit and the drawing room was decorated with several hearts and roses, the centrepiece being the large and exquisitely wrapped gift, in front of which stood a proud card. Sebastian watched from the front door as Elizabeth smiled and laughed upon seeing it, Ciel following closely behind. Paula’s gaze flickered between Elizabeth and the butler for a moment, until he asked if she would be able to bring up the tea he had prepared in the kitchen as he had some errands to run. When she agrees and started making her way down, and after the door to the drawing room had been closed, the butler quietly left through the front door.

It was not a few moments later that he arrived at a house much smaller than the Phantomhive manor, but no less tasteful. It had no cleaning staff or the like and looked across a hazy field which tapered into woodland. When you heard the knock at your front door, you honestly weren’t sure who you were expecting, but it wasn’t him.

“Good morning, my love,” he murmured, sunlight glinting off of his black hair and eyes positively glowing. You grinned so widely that it was almost impossible before throwing yourself into his arms.

“Sebastian!” He caught you easily and crushed your body to his in a strong hug, pulling back only far enough to warrant seeing your face before he leaned in to kiss you. You stood on your toes to reach as he bent down to you, a hand massaging your lower back and the second carding through your hair. You were panting lightly as you paused for air; Sebastian, of course, was as perfect as ever. He smiled at you as tried to catch your breath and decided that the best way to do so was to lean your head against his chest. He allowed you to stay like that for a few moments, lulling you into a false sense of security, before you suddenly felt a pressure behind your legs. You squealed as your feet left the floor, being brought nose-to-nose with the demon not a second later.

“Well? Shall we?” You smiled warmly again as he carried you inside bridal style, your arms looping around his neck as you kissed him quietly on the cheek.

Sebastian sat down on one of two armchairs in the sitting room, positioning you across his lap and guiding your head to rest on his shoulder. He then produced, seemingly from thin air, a box of chocolates with a beautiful red ribbon on the front and an ornately designed card to go with it. You thanked him for the gift several times over then reached across to the table behind you to give him your gift. He was honoured that you had taken the time to go and get him something so fabulous.

Whilst Sebastian knew he had to keep half an eye on his pocket watch to ensure nothing happened with the Young Master or other servants, he was still able to stay with you for a long time (perhaps even longer than he should have been away from the manor) given that it was Valentine’s Day.

#black butler reader inserts #black butler x reader #sebastian michaelis x reader #valentine’s day #black butler #sebastian michaelis

281 notes · View notes

the-power-of-stuff · 4 years

Text

I present to you: the foundation of a perfect relationship, or Sokka falling in love with a woman who can beat him up. a.k.a. Suki roughing up Sokka every single time she sees him.

The meet-cute:

Sokka gets taken down a peg (or several):

↑ just wanted to highlight the sassy fan action in this scene; Suki is such an icon

Sokka starts to get cocky again so he has to be taken down yet another peg:

Now he knows not to underestimate women:

Whoops, he underestimated women a little bit:

↑ y’all they shared a passionate kiss right after after this moment, he wasn’t even kinda bothered about this; Sokka loves himself a woman who can throw him across the room

Image descriptions below.

The meet-cute:

[Id: GIF from “The Warriors of Kyoshi”, after Sokka claims that a bunch of women couldn’t have ambushed them. In the image Sokka is tied to a post with his hands restrained. Suki approaches and grabs him by the collar of his jacket, pulling him towards her in a threatening manner. Sokka looks off to the side while Suki verbally challenges him.]

Sokka gets taken down a peg (or several):

[Id: A series of GIFs from “The Warriors of Kyoshi”, from the scene where Sokka attempts to demonstrate what a talented warrior he is. In the first gif, Sokka rushes at Suki with his arm raised, and Suki easily stops him by simply lifting her fan so it hits him in the shoulder. Sokka reels backwards, holding his injured shoulder. In the second gif, Sokka attempts to rush Suki again with his leg raised, and Suki leans into a lunge, positioning her body underneath Sokka’s leg and sweeping upward to knock him off his feet. He goes flying and lands heavily on his back, and Suki opens her fan and fans herself with it while she watches him fall. In the third image, Suki has Sokka by one forearm and she spins him around and around her body, first clockwise, then stopping to shove at his shoulder to spin him the opposite direction. In the last gif, Suki holds Sokka by the forearm and uses the leverage to tilt him forward so his upper body is almost parallel to the ground and one of his legs is up in the air. She pulls the belt from his tunic and wraps it around his wrist and ankle. Once he’s bound, she releases him, and he hops forward on one foot, losing his balance until he crashes face-first into the ground.]

Sokka starts to get cocky again so he has to be taken down yet another peg:

[Id: GIF from “The Warriors of Kyoshi”, after Sokka has asked Suki to train him. He’s in full Kyoshi Warrior attire, including makeup, and he and Suki are standing facing each other. Suki is gripping one of Sokka’s fingers, and she bends it backwards while taunting him. The pain has Sokka’s knees buckling, and he bends backwards, flailing his other arm.]

Now he knows not to underestimate women:

[Id: Two GIFs from “The Serpent’s Pass”, after the Gaang have gotten their ferry tickets. In the first gift, Sokka is walking with Toph, Katara, and Aang in front of him in a line. Suki comes up behind him and grabs him by the collar of his tunic, jerking him to a stop. He turns, and Suki holds out her hand (asking to see tickets and passport), and Sokka looks at her outstretched hand with wide eyes. In the second gif, Suki grabs Sokka by the front of his tunic threateningly and pulls his face close to hers. Her other hand is fisted by her side and she raises it until her elbow is bent at a right angle. Sokka’s eyes are wide with shock.]

Whoops, he underestimated women a little bit:

[Id: GIF from “The Boiling Rock”, after Sokka breaks into Suki’s jail cell. Sokka is in his prison guard disguise. He leans in to kiss her, and the camera is zoomed in on an exaggerated image of him pursing his lips. Suki grabs his face with one hand and lifts him away from her. The camera zooms out quickly to show Suki thrusting her open hand into Sokka’s chest, which launches him to the other side of the cell, where he crashes into the door. The helmet from his disguise is knocked off from the impact as he falls to the floor.]

#sukka #sokka x suki #suki x sokka #my gifs

44 notes · View notes

ash-rabbit · 3 years

Text

Abitc: Chapter 9 cuts

Before I go into why what's below was cut, I'm going to preface this by saying that due to how I write:

This is not beta read, I send the chapter their way when it's done. And I haven't given this my own layer of gratuitous edits. I edit as I write, usually tweaking lines and moments to better flow to where I want to go, sometimes this includes gouging out 2.5 pages of writing.

Anyway here's why I cut 2.5 pages.

It simply took too long, chapter 9 is already 15 pages (7650 words). This would come in around pg 9, and I don't think I could have concluded it in any satisfying or timely way. I'm not going to have a 10,000 word chapter unless it's the ending of an Arc, ala ch 6&7 which was split into something more easily digestible. And my intentions went off the rails by Elias electing to make an especially stupid decision. It halts the progression of events, and doesn't tell us anything that's pertinent. It feels like filler, especially if I followed this thread to it's end.

And most important of all I don't like it.

He skulks into his dark office, slips his throw over his head and tosses his blazer to his right. No use putting this off, but a harmless Leitner was a rarity in itself. Though, there was a copy of ‘Goodnight Moon’ that was liable to be harmless. So long as it didn’t blow up the moon it should be fine.

He walks back out and ignores their raised eyebrows as he tugs the blanket tighter. “A copy of ‘Goodnight Moon’ will be our choice of reading, I’d recommend that three of us should hold an artefact that can counter a theorised side effect of the book.” He pauses, waiting for any sort of reply.

“The children’s book?” Sarah exclaims, followed shortly by a yelp as someone, likely Rosie jabs her. Michael’s much too polite for assault.

“I don’t- I can handle a proper demonstration.” He can hear Michael’s frown, but Elias doesn’t care for any larger risks then necessary.

“It was at the top of my list for Rosie’s training.” Elias scans the shelf for the slim volume, it sits beside Jon’s ‘Mr. Spider’ which is as poor an omen as any. “Leitner’s are something of a different animal, and if any of you would like to guess what wild effects the book can have, please go ahead.”

“What is the Moon’s destruction?” Sarah’s amusement sits thick in her voice, coating her words in a playful lilt.

“We don’t have an artefact for that.” Elias laughs. Saying goodnight was a form of goodbye, that would be loneliness? Or maybe he was overthinking it and it would simply turn off all the lights. It’s been awhile, and he can’t just run off to a bookstore to check. “I’ll mark you down for the removal of light sources.” A ‘Hand of Glory’ or other objects that dealt with sight, Beholding as Mikaele and Jon preferred to call it, seemed an easy counter. Though would any fire starter suffice? Hm, best to pull one of those down as well in case they needed to dispose of the book. Reality warping was a possibility, the pseudo erasure of things could be untwisted? If anything it would act as an interesting third control, though perhaps, the reader would be a separate subject, and they’d need a pure control for the best observable results.

He grabs the book and doubles back to the table, scratching out his theories on a scrap of paper.

“Fine- um- it’s a children's book, and those are uh fantasies.” Michael starts, and while he’s on the right track, ‘Goodnight Moon’ is hardly a fantasy. “So I guess that if it does do something it would be drawing the fantasy out here?”

“Reality warping.” Elias nods, seems there’s a general consensus on this at least.

“There’s no guarantee that it’ll be anything like the original, we’ve had cases where whole sections were rewritten in a gruesome parody.” Rosie says, and that’s a fair point as well. “For all we know it could be a- I don’t know a way of disappearing someone.”

“I’ll mark that down as carnivorous literature.” Elias sighs, before holding the page out towards Rosie. “Do you think there are other types of artefacts that could counteract any of our theories?”

“What if the reader is stuck? Do we have a magical bucket of water, or do we just slap them in hopes of breaking the effect?” Rosie asks, though she knows the standard protocol, passing the paper to Sarah. Right of course, the Archives crew wouldn’t know.

“We remove the book while wearing gloves, or set it on fire.” Arson tended to solve most problems, not all of them unfortunately, but enough to be an easy fallback.

“And in the worst case scenario?” Rosie presses, slipping between the shelves, her movements are purposeful, her two weeks alone must have been productive.

“I suppose we can give Gertrude a warning, just a ‘If you don’t hear anything from us in, say twenty minutes, assume the worst.’” He shrugs, before frowning, right then. “Not it.” He’s had enough of management for one day, and if he’s lucky a large enough mess can be a tidy excuse to escape Wright later.

“Not it!” Michael and Sarah chime.

“I- how old are you people?” Rosie huffs, stepping back into the open research area, arms full of misc objects that Elias only vaguely remembers. Hng, he’ll probably just use the monocle in his office, it was dependable and the side effects weren’t any different then his normal brand of paranoia. Assumedly of course, it’s been a while since he was without a buffer, supernatural or otherwise.

Rosie grumbles as she kicks off her heels, pulling out another set of shoes, black and lowheeled with little bows on the toes. Another set of shoes? Where on Earth? Why?

“I’ll be back, don’t start without me.” And she flits off towards the Archives.

“Right then, we can parse out who does what.” He drags the blanket further over his head as they turn towards him. “I need to fetch something from the office but I’m sure you can decide between the two of you who’s better suited to reading or acting as an observer.”

He traces his eyes over the small office, now where did he put- Ah, there it is, wedged under his desk. He pulls out the damaged monocle and watches as it swings like a pendulum, the cracks catching the light with a peculiar shine.

He hasn’t tested the object since, hasn’t had the occasion or much cared to. Would the effects be amplified or would it be rendered completely null from damage and what he can only assume was something amounting to overuse? Only one way to find out. He wedges it into place, slipping his blazer back on so he can safely notch the chain through the lapel hole. Elias keeps the blanket on as he shuffles back out.

Michael and Sarah seem to have come to a conclusion and it would seem the power of the lens was only magnified by the incident. He sways under the sight of it all, there’s a sort of afterimage of thousands of eyes winking in and out of existence across the room. Bile rises in the acrid tangs of burnt coffee and curdled cream, this was unexpected.

He needs to sit down. Now.

So he does. Practically collapsing on the spot as he gathers himself beneath the throw, dragging it over his eyes. The world goes dark and he breathes, short and quick, a cold sharp breath that mingles with the burbling nausea.

He wraps his fingers around the chain, and tugs. Once, short and light, it doesn’t budge. Twice, more forcefully, a stern yank, nothing. His breath quickens. He grabs the frame of it and tries to pry it away with trembling hands.

It doesn’t budge.

Fuck.

Right then.

“Good news everyone,” he says, swallowing his tremors the best he can, hardly a waver apparent as he digs his nails into his thighs. “We don’t need to test the Leitner.”

“Are you, er alright?” Sarah asks.

“The bad news is, we have a different artefact issue.” he tugs the blanket down and regrets it immediately as a thousand eyes bore into him and find him wanting.

Don’t get sick, don’t get sick, don’t look them in the eye and- he fumbles for a cigarette.

The nicotine does nothing and he finds the sick rising faster.

#abitc #my writing #ehh ://

3 notes · View notes