#all spindly and wobbly and unsteady

[genderqueerpond]

I don't think loomlings emerge fully grown adults, but I don't think they're anywhere near human babies either. I think they're like horses

[windsweptinred]

The White Horse

(Inspired by this post by @morbegs) 

June 7th, Fiddlers Green. The Dreaming

Two figures sat, contentedly huddled together. About them, sprawled green fields, a wash with early June flora. The air heady with the scent of blooms, the breeze warm and fresh, slightly wafting the light shirt of one and the fine, dark robe of the other. The very picture of Spring lovers. 

Before them, a little white foal, more spindly long legs then horse, barreled towards them at full tilt, with an enthusiastic, if somewhat unsteady gait. A breeze ladened with petals playfully flitted about him, inspiring then occasional joyful buck. One particularly enthusiastic leap, sent legs all askew upon landing, causing little hooves, then feet, to wobble precariously. And a little white haired boy tumbled into a pair of waiting arms. 

"Uff, got you!" Gathering his barings, Daniel stared up into the warm, honeyed  eyes of his Papa from his somewhat upside down position. Head lodged in his lap and legs splayed about his shoulders. His back cushioned against his front with strong arms protectively cradling his body. 

"I fell down again." He admitted, disheartenedly.

Hob smiled warmly. Gently adjusting the boy so he was right way up again, nestled against him. "So I see. Never mind ey, you just get back up and try again."

Dream hovered, poorly attempting to conceal his concern. Running his hands over Daniel's head and body. As if to seek out hidden bruises and breaks. Noticing his partners fretting, Hob smiled in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. Seeking to dissuade some of his panicking. "It's alright love, just a little tumble. He's fine." 

Daniel pouted sulkily up at Dream, looking for all the world like a pale, petite version of the Lord of the Dreaming.  "Daddy, my knees went all wobbly."

Dream smiled adoringly at him, running a tender hand over his cheek. "It will come easier with practice, my Son. I promise."

Hob smirked impishly, playfully jostling Daniel. "Ah, rebellious knees, is it? Well there's only one thing for it…They'll have to come off!" With that, he swept the boy down, attempting to blow a raspberry through the fine, white cloth covering his stomach. Narrowly avoiding flailing arms and producing an excited shriek from his son.

"Noooo!! Daddy!! Papa wants to steal my knees! Save meeee!" 

Arms and legs thrust out in every direction as the child clambered from one lap to the other. Shrieking with delight each time Hob's pursuing fingers managed to recapture him with a brief attack of well aimed tickles. Finally, securing his arms about Dream's neck, he pulled himself into the waiting embrace of his Daddy. Nestling into his vast, dark robes. Resting his head against his breast as a hand came up to lovingly cradle his head. 

Hob rose, sweeping into a dramatic bow before the pair. " I shall capture them my liege, and put them on trial! High treason against the little Prince of the Dreaming. For inspiring insurrection in the legs and feet!" 

Daniel scrunched up his face, tugging at the neckline of Dream's robe imploringly. "Noooo Papa. That's silly! Daddy, tell Papa that's silly!" He turned back to Hob challengingly, attempting to copy the regal ease of his father. Two sets of imperious, starry eyes stared down Hob. The overall affect, somewhat ruined by the obvious mirth of one. And the regular bouts of giggles coming from the other. 

"Indeed consort. It is a most foolish endeavour to seek conflict with the knees."

Daniel squirmed, sending his small, boney elbow straight into Dream's stomach."The elbows however.." 

"Noooo!"

Daniel leapt out of Dream's arms, attempting to call forth his sands for a hasty retreat, just as Daddy had taught him. It fluttered about him momentarily, before descending gracefully to the floor like an artful cascade of glitter. He glared at it with absolute betrayal, before his mood shifted, in the way only a child's can. And launched himself back at Dream, all laughter and play. Sand haphazardly danced about them. Swaying from one to the other, as if unsure which master to aid in this mock battle for dominance. Before Daniel felt himself being hefted into the air by his waist, good humoured bounced and balanced upon the hip of his Papa. 

"I have saved you from this rogue of elbows and mutinous knees, my fairest love." 

Hob offered his spare hand to Dream. Who took it and rose gracefully to stand beside them. Sending his husband a coy glance. 

"If he is indeed a rogue at the tender age of six. He has most certainly learnt that from you, my scoundrel."

Hob smirked, "Don't pretend you don't like it". He stated assuredly. As he leant in for a shared kiss, amused by the affronted "Ewwwwww!" that Daniel let out at the sight. "Hey, one day this will be you my lad. When you've found someone who loves you just as much as you love them."

Daniel pondered on this for a moment, before nodding understandingly. "OK Papa, so when I'm older…I'll marry Uncle Cori."

He missed the look of abject horror that crossed both his father's faces. 

Dream tucked an errant hair behind his son's ear. "If you do that my son, for the good of my realm, I may hold off my abdication indefinitely."

Daniel nodded approvingly. "Yes Daddy. Then you, me, Papa and Cori can all rule the Dreaming together. Like Narnia."

Dream looked like he would smite that mental image, if it dared to materialise in his consciousness. 

"Right!" Hob stated, eager to change the subject, setting Daniel back down on the grass. Regarding the Dreaming's darkening skies. "It's getting early. One last play then home for some breakfast, yes?" 

Daniel brightened immediately at the prospect. "Can we watch My Little Pony?" 

Hob ruffled the white mass of hair that his boy was growing into. Like an exact  miniature, inverted version of Dream's. 

"We can definitely watch My Little Pony." 

"With snuggly blankie?" 

"With snuggly blankies for you and Daddy. While I rustle us up some pancakes."

Daniel cheerily jigged in place. Before he eagerly grasped Dream's hand, his eyes seeking his pleadingly. "Come run with me Daddy?"

Dream looked to his son, regarding him almost reverently, then nodded in silent agreement. 

With that, the child was foal once more. Pristine white coat painted in the rosy hue of the dusk. Little mane twinkling back at the awakening stars. He pranced about his parents for a moment before taking off at a wobbly canter down the open fields. 

Hob watched him contemplatively, before smiling serenely. "What fate taketh away, fate giveth." 

An arm wound its way around his waist, as Dream leant into his side. "I believe you have upended that saying my love."

"Well it's true isn't it? For us… In more ways than one." 

They both watched as Daniel pranced about the flowers, the occasional wobble in his step as he familiarised himself with his horse legs. Elatedly neighing as a butterfly breezed past him. 

"We have been most fortunate." Dream agreed. Before giving Hob a mischievous, inquiring look. "Will you be joining us too? Would you like a ride my husband?" 

Hob smirked, his hand discreetly descending down his partner's lithe back. Running a gentle, barely there touch over the curve of his rump. "Oh I certainly would." He said, wiggling his eyebrows provocatively. "Later perhaps?" He leaned in, placing a demure kiss to his partner's pale neck. Pulling back to be met with the most intense smoulder he'd seen in just shy of 300 years. He smiled, roguishly. Giving his ear a pull for good measure. Before leaning in and resting his forehead against Dream's. 

"Happy Anniversary love."

The moment was broken by an excited whinny in the distance. As the little colt bucked and kicked with impatience.

Breaking apart, he pushed the small of Dream's back encouragingly. "Go on then, I haven't seen Nacht Mare in a while."

As with any form his lover took, the horse before him stood sleek and majestic. It's fur, a lustrous coal black that shimmered like the gleaming ripples of a lake. A mane speckled with stardust. This was Night-Mare, The Night Doom. A creature of infinite dread. At his mighty hooves, the  feverish fires of terror lept. His bray, thousands of lost screams cried out in despair. But here, on this day, basking in the hues of reds and purples, mottled with the petals of meadow, Hob had never in all his years seen a more beautiful horse, earth born or supernatural. 

Dream nuzzled into Hob's hand, nipping gently at his fingers before letting out a nicker and setting off at a powerful gallop toward Daniel. 

Hob watched as Dream slowed to a canter to allow his son to keep pace. Daniel enthusiastically galloped along, little white tail and mane like a spectral cloud as he forgot himself entirely to the Dreaming. Sparks of aurora borealis flickering on the ground with each footfall. Pushing ahead of his father in an overjoyed burst of confidence. 

"Let's see what you have in store for us, White Horse."

(This all came from a spontaneous thought that Daniel would turn into a white horse. And isn't that ironic! In this, Daniel would be about six and is definitely going through the, I want a pony stage. Or rather for him… I want to be a pony stage. He takes on more of his Dream!Daniel look in the Dreaming. Reverting back to a more human one in the Waking.) 

If you too are a  suker for a Dream gets to raise Daniel story. Try Endless Heirs AU by @ibrithir-was-here . And awake, awake, you children bold by @mashumaru. If you know of others. Please do pop me a fic rec! 

[whirlybirbs]

✶  ———  TO KNOW, DESPERATELY  ;  thrawn

summary: arranged unions aren’t as popular as they once were within the ascendency, but the mitth are keen on anchoring mitth’raw’nuruodo to the lower political rankings of the family. they arrange vows with you, a member of the komisi family and recently scandalized member of csaplar's aristocran security force. the courting rites begin. set after book one of thrawn’s trilogy.

pairing: thrawn / female chiss!reader

word count: 6.9k

soundtrack: listen here

a/n: this is literally me roleplaying as timothy zahn for six thousand words and i cannot even apologize. there’s a whole pinterest board of locations. i’ve been drawing outfits. enjoy what will inevitably be a bunch of slowburn drabbles as i am gutted by the rest of the thrawn trilogy this month. this pretty gif is by @cloudxstrife​ from this set here.

The word comes at the beckoned call of your family's Patriel.

Komisi'dao'moradus is a short man, well into his eighties, who somehow makes even the worst news seem as if it is laden with all the peace, prosperity, and joy in Chiss Ascendency.

His assistant, Komisi'fa'nomo, follows his elder's coattails with three questises juggled in unsteady hands. Sifan is a young and nervous academic, someone who is constantly pushing a rather cumbersome pair of perpetually-too-big, rounded spectacles up his long, sloped nose. As if on cue, he does just that as he scrambles to offer the correct questis queued up with Patriel Idaomo's needed notes.

The Patriel's murky, pink eyes crinkle around the edges as he smiles at you. His vision has worsened in recent months, Siama had explained prior. Idaomo's intricately carved Naporarian birchwood cane wobbles a bit as he bears his weight down onto it.

As you sit beside the current Councilor of the Komisi family — your dear family — and offer the Patriel and his assistant an obligatory smile, you reckon there's something respectable about Idaomo's unwavering service well into his older years. 

Even when he seems as if he's a heartbeat from keeling over any second, lights above—!

"Please," comes the urged voice of Councilor Komisi'am'alo as Idaomo wavers on his feet; there's a panicked shuffle from some of the other high-ranking family members in the room. You note a particularly twisted grimace on the face of one of the House's guards. She watches the unsteady bow with elevated amounts of anxiety and shifts at her post, "Take a seat, Patriel."

"—Oh, oh, yes, thank you."

Lest you'll keel over, you think to yourself, and Sifan lets it happen.

Councilor Siama visibly relaxes in his spot on a long, pale emerald sofa once Idaomo heeds his suggestion. The Councilor — a man who you've come to admire greatly in your unexpected time at the estate — gestures quickly to the intricately carved chair adjacent to his own, beside you. The lines of worry in his brow are nearly comical.

Siama can be a rather dramatic man when it benefits him — such is the life of a politician. Even still, you're slowly beginning to wonder if perhaps this grandiosely cynical disposition is simply how he is.

The sitting room to the Komisi's main estate on Rentor is rather nice — though, admittedly as a cousin of the family, it wasn't often you found yourself here. Up until recently, that is. Now, with your earlier-than-planned retirement... well, Rentor's capital city was nice enough. Warm, even. Quite the adjustment from Csilla.

High windows cast streams of warm light as Patriel Idaomo lowers himself — and his heap of official Aristocran regalia — into the chair beneath him with a creak. Beautiful crimson linens with gold embroidery pool around his spindly wrists. His voice — no matter how kind — quivers with age, and his papery blue hands remain knotted in his robes as he smiles.

"I bring good news."

Sifan offers the questis from over Idaomo's shoulder.

Somehow you suspect he does not bring good news.

You learned quickly in your time at the Ascendency's capital that when word trickled down from Syndics to Patriels to Councilors there was most likely a catch. A political one, certainly. And with everything that had gone on in the last few months surrounding the attack on Csilla and conflict with the Nikardun, the impacted supply lines to Kinoss have been a spot of continuing political strain between the Komisis and several families — mostly the Mitths.

For as long as you can remember, the Komisis have always been a family built upon their pivotal contributions to Chiss arts and finery — silks, embroidery, jewelry, and the gem trade would be nothing without the Komisian hand. Paying ode to craftsmanship, as much mining and refinery, was a poignant part of carrying this family name.

The planet Kinoss, far to the Galactic East and on the outskirts of the Ascendency's core territory, plays a pivotal role in the family's attributed reputation. After all, the planet's pyroclastic caverns yield a wide array of gems used in day-to-day Chiss fashion. Owning something like a Komisian hand-carved periquartzen bracelet is seen as a flagrant display of status. It's the societal desire of those very baubles that cements the Komisis position amongst the Great Families.

Hells, everyone in this room was gilded with Komisi finery. You weren't exempt. Your crystalline pink teardrop earrings sway as you bow your head slightly. There is a necklace beneath your collar of matching pink quartz. Even your traditional dress was overlaid with familial touch. The silks were embroidered with spring scenery — specific to the family's homeworld of Rentor. The telltale jade-green of the family is intertwined in nearly every piece you wear.

The collar was a bit itchy. But on-trend. And, you suppose, rather pretty. Even you could admit that much, even if the layers of silks will stifle your freedom at the behest of expectations of you, a Komisi cousin. Blood, but not so coveted as a true son or daughter.

The Mitth were busy with the Usfa, vying for rights to mine Thearterra — pinching the supply to their main inner-Ascendency export on Kinoss was becoming a sore spot. The truth was that, despite their reputation, the Komisi relied heavily on the larger ruling family to fund their mining operations. Travel, freighter transport, and operations came at no small cost.

Talks of barter between the Mitth and the Komisi families have been rumored for nearly a month now. It seems like your well-timed leave from the Csilla's capital Security Force was enough of a push to get those talks going.

When Patriel Idaomo speaks, the entire room listens.

"The matter of union has been proposed as a mutually beneficial arrangement."

Ah.

There it is.

Councilor Siama has to hand it to you. He expected some sort of reaction at the suggestion. After all, arranged unions were gradually becoming less common Ascendency practice. At one time, they were as ordinary as snowfall. Siama and his husband had been arranged — and his mother before him. In fact, the sitting Councilor knew the history of the Komisi family well enough to rattle off eight generations worth of notable matches — each bringing in powerful allies from other Great Families. Even some from the previous Ruling Twelve.

This newer generation of Chiss is less interested, really. Often, the more vocal a blood-born or cousin was about matched marriage, the less likely it was to happen. As helpful as an arranged match could be, a messy severance of vows was nearly twice as troublesome.

And — in the current political climate between the Komisi and the Mitth — the suggestion bears more weight than usual.

Weighty. But, not entirely unexpected.

Siama finds his inky, blue-black brows lifting at Partiel Idaomo's words as he processes them.

Certainly, it would reinvigorate a sense of comradery between both parties. A union of such is a metaphorical peace offering, after all. For the Mitth to propose such an arrangement meant they were willing to bring in a Komisi into their family ranks.

Quite the compliment.

You're apprehensive.

You level your gaze with Siama's, then incline your head to the Patriel.

The delicate beading of your headdress tinkers as you do. "With respect, may I ask who the proposed union is with, Patriel Idaomo?"

Immediately, you find yourself wishing you could swallow the question back up. You know that the answer doesn't matter, truthfully — you will do whatever the family decides in line with your status as a cousin. You hold a unique position of power in the House of Komisi. One that can be kept or traded. Your name and your life, now, are one to barter with for the betterment of the family.

The person matters not. Whatever Chiss they've betrothed you to, so be it. You find yourself scowling at the girlish request to know their name.

"They propose Senior Captain Mitth'raw'nuruodo."

...Oh.

Your head snaps up. All girlish demure melts away and shifts to a glacier-like sense of disbelief.

Siama mutters a curse in Cheunh.

Where he saw a levelheaded young woman, he now sees the other half of you — a warrior who has just been ordered down from war.

You clench your jaw so tight your teeth ache. It's all you can really do to keep your mouth from falling open.

The clear joy with which Idaomo speaks the name is as if he has no idea who the Senior Captain in question is. None, none whatsoever. There simply isn't any way that's the case — after all, Idaomo was present in the ongoing proceedings around Yiv the Benevolent's arrest.

Idaomo is smiling. Grinning!

He's as affable as ever, even when a cough resounds from one of the sitting room's guards. Even Sifan winces at the delivery of news and moves to push his glasses up hurriedly. Gods, all of this is completely uncomfortable, you decide.

The eyes of a few other high-ranking family members in attendance are now stuck to you with a mixture of bitterness and pity.

All you can do is try not to gawk.

In the corner of your eye, you spot Siama dropping his head into a leaned hand. He rubs his brow with ringed fingers and then pinches the bridge of his nose. Again, another quiet curse is wrung out of him in Cheunh. He crosses his legs, creasing the well-starched blue slacks as his intricate, Komisi-family robes swim around him. He leans his elbow on the arm of the sofa.

He looks as if he'd like to squirm out of his skin.

He's covering his mouth. Hell, he has to. This is — he hadn't expected this. No, no, at first he'd expected the word of a re-matching when Patriel Idaomo had arranged this meeting. A proposed union was a surprise, but not entirely unwelcome.

But this?

... This is disastrous.

This was Thurfian.

"Mitth'raw'nuruodo." 

You say it slowly, looking to confirm the blatant fact.

His name is one you've heard plenty in your time as a silent, faceless Sentry in the inner halls of the Syndicure's main governmental building in the center of Csaplar. You've heard it whispered in hurried tones by passing Syndics or boomed off the walls by bitter Mitth leaders. You were privy to a world of information as a Sentry — that's why the job held a high expectation of anonymity and confidentiality within its ranks.

...The very expectation you'd broken when you'd learned of a high-ranking officer spilling family secrets back to her homestead.

Perhaps you did earn your permanent leave for your post. And the knife in your back mid-confrontation.

"Senior Captain Mitth'raw'nuruodo," Idaomo corrects with a well-natured waggle of his finger, "A rather accomplished member of the Chiss Expansionary Defense Fleet from the word of Syndic Thurfian."

...Thurfian.

You can't place his face, but you're sure you know the name. Siama — on the other hand — knows is oh-so-well.

"I must say 'accomplished' would not be my sought-after definition of Senior Captain Thrawn," comes Siama's pained voice, muffled into his hand as he bows his head. He looks as if he'll wind himself into a knot on the couch out of sheer frustration.

And there's Patriel Idaomo, as happy as ever, speaking candidly. "Ah, so you have heard of him?"

Heard of him?

What politically-minded Chiss hadn't?

Now, it was all beginning to make sense. The Mitth weren't offering this union as a means of agreeance, of comradery. No, they were attempting to keep their family's black-bantha from rising the ranks. Marriage to a lower-ranking member of one lesser, Great Family would certainly cement his status — at least politically — as defunct.

Suddenly, a rush of full offense blossoms at the double-edged implication of the union.

So that was just it: you were seen as an amenable option to keep the orchestrator of the Vagaari pirate incident, Mitth'raw'nuruodo, anchored to the lower political caste of his family. You, with your own sorted and blemished reputation in the eyes of the Ascendency. Even still, you can't help but feel it was hardly worth the sort of punishment being given.

Your leave from Csaplar's Security Force had been on necessary terms. You did the right thing. You had caused a stir, certainly, when one loose thread lead to a pull a parsec long. Bribery and blackmail were certainly expected of the Syndicure, but their security force? Unimaginable. And you'd been the one to unabashedly draw all attention to it. You were, in a way, lucky the attack on Csilla came a week after the wave of turmoil came crashing down — it preoccupied the frenzy.

It clearly didn't stifle it enough, however.

You have to fight a sneer at the thought of some Mitth Syndic casting judgment upon your now tarnished reputation. Thurfian, you remember.

The most difficult part of all this is that House Komisi will see a union to a Mitth as a move towards greater political power — in the fallout, and in the wake of the Kinoss mining tensions, this will be a well-sought gesture in the eyes of the public. After all, if one of the Great Nine was to choose a cousin to marry into their family, the House was worth renown. There was no possible way the Komisi would say no to this purposed union. In the grand scheme of the Family's best interest, the pros outweighed the cons.

All in all, a rather daring play by the Mitth.

One that leaves your hands completely tied.

"Yes, Idaomo, we've heard of him," Siama says, still as pained as before.

You reach up to press a well-manicured hand to the curve of your brow. Once again, the delicate beadwork sewn along the headdress jingles and sways. Your hair is wound up and back, hidden beneath the traditional Komisian piece of apparel. You'd always admired your mother in this set of robes, in the blues and greens of House Komisi. Now, you feel the part of a girl playing dress-up. The truth is, you're far from it. But, uncertainty creeps in to weigh you down just as the layers and layers of handsomely embroidered silks do.

You'd thought you knew the right thing to do all those months ago. You were confident then, leading the charge to stamp out the corruption — and it lost you your respected title as Sentry and earned you a vibroblade to the back. Even now, as you cross your legs, the healing wound aches.

Eugh.

You can feel a headache coming on.

Perhaps your headdress is too tight. If you're lucky, this is all some ridiculous dream.

"What do you say, then?" Idaomo asks you, leaning forward a bit as he hands off his questis to Sifan and smiles, "We can propose a chaperoned visit — perhaps to belay the anxieties of the courting rites? I see no reason why the Mitth would oppose."

Siama slides you a look.

You slide it right back.

"All due respect, Councilor, Patriel," you bow your head to both men respectively, "My thoughts on the matter bear no weight on the determination of this offered union. I extend myself as a hand for us Komisis. If this union will cement a further friendship with the Mitth, then I abide."

Siama hasn't known you long. Surely he's known of you — a cousin who spent her years training to acquire a coveted position in the Csaplar's Security Force. Though the positions were bided in secrecy, he knew you to be a reputable woman. To serve the Syndicure meant to be privy to the sort of secrets families would kill over. And now, stripped of your title, you still maintain the sense of dignity that earned you that position of Sentry.

Siama feels a pang of guilt in his chest. There are members of the family that resented you, surely, as any sort of scandal was a sure promise of disappointment. To some Chiss, a good life meant wading through the water so slow as to barely cause a ripple. But, you did a good thing — and here you are, falling victim to the bewildering game of politics you sought to protect.

The Councilor draws in a deep inhale through his nose. He claps his hands to his knees and tries to shake his evident anxieties away — for now, a union was something to celebrate. And, if the Mitth saw the Komisi excited over this probable union, then maybe it would knock some damn sense into them.

"Then, I believe we best contact the Mitth family's representatives," he says, "As we have a union to prepare."

You try your best to smile. It comes off pained. Idaomo doesn't mind. He wouldn't be able to see the exhausted look in your eyes, anyways. He laughs brightly as he rings those weathered, blue hands together.

"Isn't this exciting?"

✶  ———  ✶  ———  ✶  ———  ✶ 

"Isn't this exciting..."

Ar'alani has no idea how to react. Truth be told, the late-night interruption to her usual wind-down routine wasn't all that unwelcome. After all, it was Thrawn who came knocking on the door to her quarters well past the implemented CEDF curfew.

He is — as odd as it feels to admit — one of her closest friends.

I mean, people like her and Thrawn don't have friends. They have higher-ups, co-commanding officers, and warriors under their command. They sit neatly in a well-balanced military hierarchy that isn't built for friendships, even when they pack them into the barracks like a bunch of Sorgan salt-water sardines. Or, better yet, a bunch of first-year academics finally getting a taste of freedom.

...Well, Wutroow is a friend. Thalias, too. Even Samakro could be considered if she squinted hard enough.

The whole lot of them were unofficially grounded — at least while the majority of the fallout from their little incident with dearly beloved Yiv the Benevolent unrolled in the trials and courts of the Aristocra. General Ba'kif had called it a vacation of sorts, though Ar'alani isn't sure how much one could truly relax on Naporar. While the planet is home to the Chiss Expansionary Defense Fleet, it isn't exactly quiet.

Naporar is a densely urbanized planet, laying directly on some of the most vital hyperlanes within the Ascendency. Spaceports, shipyards, docking and repairs stations... Not to mention sky-creeping complexes of barracks, training grounds, and educational buildings as far as the eye can see. And that was only the Fleet District. Outside of that, the bustle and burn of life in the city rolled on.

Some of the best starcherry puff bread came from a bakery on the outskirts of the Fleet District. An entire loaf of her favorite guilty pleasure is sitting on the small counter across the room. That was certainly a plus to being planet-side. Wutroow would agree.

... The point is, friends are rare. All the more reason Ar'alani let him in, despite her barely awake state. She was in bed with her tea and slice of puff-bread, parsing a handful of old academy flight tactics when he knocked.

Light reading material. And a snack to boot.

Thrawn's quarters were across the esplanade — smaller at the behest of his rank, but accommodating all the same. He'd known those walls for a handful of years now. To pry him from the quiet calm on a rainy evening, when he himself could be reading about the mid-to-late century analytical cubist movement that gripped Mandalorian painters at the tail end of one of their civil wars?

He'd nearly thrown himself from his cot when the notification had lit up his desk questis, painting his face a stark — and rare — look of confusion.

The moment Ar'alani's door slid open, she saw the out-of-character stare on his face and knew that this interruption would most likely be important, if not well worth it.

What she wasn't expecting was a burning bright questis page being shoved her way, bearing the title:

[IMPORTANT] UPON IMMEDIATE REQUEST — UNION RITES

She almost laughed. Then, she saw the twisted corner of Thrawn's frown and realized he had not been expecting this either.

No, not at all.

"I don't understand."

"I am afraid it's exactly what it says," she says slowly.

Ar'alani tries not to sound as if she just sucked on a sour citra wedge. Marriage? Really? What sort of half-cocked idea was this? No doubt Thurfian had a hand in this. When they'd landed back in Ascendency space the waves of uproar were nearly immediate. One particular Syndic seemed particularly interested in keeping Thrawn out of the fray... as long as possible.

But, marriage? A proposed union, of all things?

Hell, they must be desperate.

But, they were Expansionary Defense Fleet officers. No doubt Thrawn will soon be earning flag rank — and he will give up the Mitth family name just as she did when she first took the post as Commodore. A proposed union meant little with no family to tie your power down to one nexus.

Furthermore, marriage wasn't often explored by active members of the CEDF — not until retirement when re-admittance to a family was sought or permitted. Be it proposed union or desired union, Chiss courting rituals alone sometimes proved lengthy and time-consuming, all dependant on the families involved and their respective traditions.

Ar'alani can remember a particular Irizi cousin who spent three whole months locked in courtship practice with her soon-to-be partner. And the Irizi weren't even considered a particularly devout family to traditional Ascendency courting rites.

The wedding itself, however, was rather fun. She remembers that much... and she doubts that would come as any consolation to Thrawn.

Ar'alani's words come out more pitied, and half-winced. She's trying to make a joke. "I take it you would have told me if you'd met someone nice—"

Thrawn wants to laugh.

But, he's too preoccupied with reading the debriefing note over and over — so preoccupied, he's hardly noticed he's begun to pace as Ar'alani settles down on the edge of her mid-sized cot and crosses both her legs and arms. She winds herself tightly, feeling a sudden edge of guilt creep into her heart.

In truth, she never considered marriage. Her career is the most important thing to her — and she held not a single doubt that Thrawn felt the exact same way. Now, be it by Thurfian's hand or some other power-that-be, that path he'd spent carving out for himself was changing.

Not at all lost but changing. Whether he likes it or not, it seems.

"The only logical answer I can glean from this," he says finally as he lifts his gaze and levels it with Ar'alani's, "Is that our little... conflict with Yiv alarmed those above us more than we realized."

Ar'alani lifts a brow. "You believe this is retaliatory?"

"Perhaps," he's regained some of his cool edge. Even still, he doesn't seem completely convinced, "Though I am struggling to understand it with clarity."

"It would make sense," she explains slowly, measuring his reaction, "Proposed unions are usually built with political goals in mind. Let me see the note. Did it say anything about your match?"

Thrawn hands the questis over once more. The bite of anxiousness is an unsettling feeling in his chest. It's the prospect of becoming a pawn once more in a political game — one he had ever hardly understood — that has him pinned with discomfort now.

Even worse is the fact the Kivu family rarely dealt in proposed unions. They were by no means lower caste, but... Union to a Kivu dealt no winning cards. It was power lost to induct one into a Greater Family. The only unions Thrawn knew of were desired ones.

The most secretive part of himself, one he keeps well tucked away, pangs at the thought — those unions, like that of his mother and father, were born out of love. Respect, care, and adoration. Foundationally speaking, those were things that, yes, Thrawn looked forward to — because love could only be witnessed so many ways through the brushstrokes of a Nabiran pasture in spring. To see the petal-mouthed kiss of lovers in a Bespin sky was one thing.

Thrawn hesitated to admit he yearned to know the feel of it.

And here he is, pacing across the confines of Ar'alani's apartment with not a single idea of who you are.

Ar'alani scrolls. "No indication of gender—"

"Hardly a concern."

"Ah, it says here they're a Komisi," Ar'alani notes with a reflective tone of approval, "Surely you'll both have plenty to talk about."

"Meaning?" Thrawn inquires, tilting his head minutely.

Ar'alani flicks her eyes over him. Dark lashes narrow in thought. "The Komisi are a family dedicated to the arts — Chiss finery, really. Gems, silks, those itchy, traditional collared jackets that are back in style. You know the ones."

The inky-haired woman waves a hand to dismiss her own off-hand comment and returns to skimming the query. Not important. The Admiral continues as Thrawn lifts a hand and thumbs the curve of his lower lip in thought.

That is some small comfort.

"And — if I am caught up on recent political drama — the Mitth and the Komisi are vying for a return to equal footing following the interruption of Kinoss supply lines."

"You're suggesting it's purely political, then."

"There was never any doubt about that," she corrects lightly, "Though what the end game is, I cannot be too sure."

Lovely.

Thrawn's expression is rather flat. Ar'alani offers the questis back. The Senior Captain decidedly clicks it shut and tucks it beneath his arm. There's a momentary pause, and then in a rare show of frayed composure, he bows his head and pinches the long, straight bridge of his nose.

The Admiral watches her friend with an apologetic look.

"You could always say no, you know," she proposes slowly.

Then, Thrawn looks up at her like she's just said the most blasphemous thing in a thousand years of Ascendency history. His own dark, crimson eyes narrow critically. He almost rolls his eyes. But, he doesn't. And that's enough for Ar'alani to quirk a brow at his reaction.

"Please, I never took you for the sentimental type, Thrawn."

"It's not sentimentality," he explains curtly, "It's..."

Her smile is slow. Not at all unkind, Thrawn realizes. But gentle and apologetic. "A bit daunting?"

"It's politics, Ar'alani," he says slowly as he knocks the questis with gloved knuckles. In comparison to her white uniform, the one Thrawn wears is as black as the Chaos outside, "Interpersonal politics, now. Try as I might — and fail as I often do — I attempt to give topics as such a wide breadth."

Ar'alani sees a twitch in his fingers as he straightens his posture. He's nervous. A rare sight — coming from the man who usually could be presumed to know everything.

Thrawn sought comfort in knowing. In... In understanding what came next. If he's able to parse the tactics, he can understand the intentions. Life is easier that way — when he knows how everything fits together before he finds himself hip-deep in the middle of it all.

"You plan on agreeing to the proposal, then?"

"I don't believe I have much choice in the matter," he breathes, "I hesitate to disrupt the Syndicure's plans with little understanding of their goals. That would be... unwise."

"It wouldn't be out of character for Thurfian and his ilk to be hoping you'll deny the inquest, either."

"Precisely," he nods, "So, I will act in agreeance for now."

"Let us hope they are kind, then," Ar'alani hums as she leans back and twists her mouth into a frown, "And patient. That is all people like us can ask for, after all."

He mulls on that for a while, on the slow walk back to his designated barracks.

And, back in the quiet and comfort of his quarters, he digs into the Komisi family name.

✶  ———  ✶  ———  ✶  ———  ✶ 

"Are you nervous?"

You hadn't expected such a question to come from Councilor Siama, of all people — but you find comfort in knowing he cared enough to ask. Across from you in the land speeder, he crosses his legs and tilts his head. He looks apathetic, and the gilded lines of the Komisi family's traditional make-up sharpen his already angular face.

You bear a mirrored composition — formulated of oil harvested and ground from the homestead's own skylily patch and a heaping pile of gilded mineral dusts — that runs up the length of your nose and splits into two archs above each brow. It's itchy, and it feels like it cracks when you worry your brows together.

Immediately, you smooth your expression. You huff.

Was that the original purpose of this face paint? To remind the Chiss that wears it to mind your countenances?

The heavy, albeit beautiful, silks of the Komisi's traditional union garments feel like they're wrapping their little hands around your neck and wringing you to death. Two sashes are family heirlooms, gifted as guidance — how kind. The pale, white qartzen earrings that hang low along your throat are your mother's, and the headdress you're wearing keeps your hair back and well out of the way.

That was a gift from Patriel Idaomo himself.

There are other parting gifts from the family woven into the outfit, as it usually goes in the case of Komisi family nuptial traditions. A delicate bracelet, the Cheunh invocation embroidered into the hem of a duracotton sock, three rings for mother, wife, and child.

All in all, you feel like a walking green, gold, and white advert for the family's craftsmanship — and you find yourself wishing to be back in that ridiculous, well-starched, high and tight Security Force uniform. Hell, you'll even throw on the boots that give you blisters no matter how many times you break them in, and thirty pounds worth of your usual polycarbonite armor. Then, at least, you'd be comfortable — emotionally speaking.

The find yourself laying a hand flat to the thin white band of embroidered silk secured around your waist.

Mitth'raw'nuruodo will be wearing a similar piece of apparel — this chord was a common tradition among the Chiss. Worn around waists, it was indicative of courting phases. Later on, it will be a signature of newlyweds. Some families insisted on keeping the sashes on nearly a year following the union. Something about preserving luck. In that case, the white sashes are traded in for woven chords — to be worn around wrists or off of jackets.

You exhale, your puffed cheeks deflating as you do so.

"I don't know if nervous is the right word."

"—Perhaps you ought to be," comes Siama's catty reply, "Seeing as I may just gut Thurfian where he stands—"

The speeder shifts over one of the traffic speed-runs as he speaks. You both list side to side. You laugh. Again, you smooth your brow as to not crinkle your makeup. You clear your throat.

"It's fine, Siama—"

"A right bastard he is. Never listens. He'd burn the Ascendency to the ground if he thought it means of bettering it," Siama snaps as he leans forward and waves a gilded hand, "I don't like him using you as a pawn."

Your brow quirks. "I'm shocked you're this upset."

"Of course I am," he lays a hand flat to his chest; the speeder rocks again, "Look at you. The family ought to be hailing you as Hero of the Security Force's Confidence. Instead, here we are — marrying you off to Mitth'raw'nuruodo."

Your scoff is bitter. 

You turn your eyes out the window and watch Rentor's capital roll by. The grand architecture and winding canals are framed by bustling crowds. Academics and politicians and vacationers... All mingling along the main stretch of Philon's governmental district. Though the Aristocra has no formal footing here, the capital still possesses the space for members to convene and converse. Surrounding the capital building — that looms in the high distance — are various religious buildings and public spaces. Libraries, colleges, markets.

It's almost sunset. Everything is bathed in warm light.

"Maybe it's for the best."

Siama frowns. He casts a slow look over your expression — and he notes the touch of melancholy there. You've done a mighty job hiding it, through all the forced merriments and weighty family dinners that have led up to this catalytic conference.

It's tradition for the parties of arranged unions to be introduced with family representatives present — the high gardens in Philon frequently operated as a place to do so. Propositioned families frequently hosted the first meeting. While representatives converse over the political exchange, the courted are expected to walk the gardens. All of these moving pieces. It's a simple enough duty.

Though, the buzzing swarm that overwhelms you the moment you step from the stopped speeder would have you believe otherwise.

You inhale tightly as Siama closes the door behind you. You try to ignore the chatter of Cheunh that flies around you as two of the family's attendants make work on touching up your make-up and adjusting your robes. They're experts in their application, and the two older women seem vested in the perfection of your appearance. They aren't exactly gentle, but their looks are fond when they step back to admire their handiwork.

As you're pulled and prodded and poked, Idaomo and Sifan emerge from their vehicle — behind them, a train of Komisi advocates and Aristocran constituents gathers. They meander along, keen to hinge their actions on that of the Patriel and Councilor Siama. You are completely secondary to this exchange, it seems.

Idaomo is... as wavering as always.

Gods — can someone help him?

A chatter of members rush up with guided palms when he sways backward a bit too much, and both you and Siama go tense at the display of geriatric concern. But, the Patriel is still smiling. Laughing, even.

You blink away your moment of fear, square your shoulders, and inhale.

Siama slips you a look.

"Are you ready?"

The entrance to the gardens is just ahead — with swelling fountains and intricate bricklay. Ivy vines are climbing the walls, kissing the electric lamplights that grow brighter with every inch of the sun that dips below the horizon line. You can see a gathered crowd at the South entrance, no doubt the Mitth family organizing their own procession.

Patriel Idaomo greets you with a grand smile — those pink, cloudy eyes of his wrinkling with joy.

"You look beautiful, my starlight."

Even though he can't see you — even though you're simply a blurry little figment of the Komisis future — you believe him.

"Thank you, Patriel Idaomo."

You mean it.

The compliment is enough to spur you onward. Siama, as your main representative, matches your pace with ease. Each stride is easy, carrying your forward as you clasp your hands before you and keep your shoulders back. You cast a look behind you, marveling at the long train of the family that's come to engage in the transactional quality of this meeting. It's certainly something.

When you turn your gaze forward, you see that the Mitth have begun to enter the garden as well.

Up until this point, you realize, you never considered what Mitth'raw'nuruodo might look like.

You've heard his name plenty of time. And still, you never bothered to match his name to his face.

You've been so difficult with yourself. You'd sworn away any fantastical romantic thoughts. After all, this was a duty. There would be time, well down the road, to consider the romantic implications. For now, this was a trade. A display of vested interest in the Komisis success. You had a role to play and you intended to play it well, well enough that perhaps the scrutinizing gazes of these very Komisi family members would miss you.

...Doubtful. But, you'd try your damnedest.

But, as you enter the maze-like center of the garden, you realize that the man beside Thurfian must be him.

You're pleasantly shocked.

Nowhere in the winding gossip of Senior Captain Thrawn's exploits was there a detailed note of his looks. No, no one ever mentioned he was handsome. Tall — very tall — with a striking profile and strong posture. His void-black CEDF dress uniform is perfectly set; it seems like he was born to wear it. There's a decorum of gilded little pins along his chest. Along his shoulder, there's a skylily-white chord that matches the one across your waist.

The Mitth are more practical. Less obsessed with the theatrics and fashion associated with a monumental moment such as this. Their garb is simple, lacking in comparison to the silks and paints and gems of the Komisi.

"No one said he was handsome," you mutter tightly as you walk alongside Siama.

"His accomplishments overshadow any conversation about his looks," the lanky Councilor offers slowly. He was just thinking the same thing — lights alive, that man is tall. He scoffs cattily, swaggering along. His voice is low. "Besides, anyone looks good next to Thurfian."

You choke on a laugh.

You swallow it down and try to remember your posture.

When you lift your eyes once more, you find that Thrawn is looking right at you.

After all, you're beautiful — delicately pieced together in traditional family details relevant to the event at hand. You carry the weight well, and Thrawn can see that there's an undercurrent there. Perhaps a dancer? Or a warrior? He isn't sure. A better look at your hands will prove worthy.

Thurfian is tense beside him.

Thrawn tries his best to ignore the stares being burned into the back of his uniform as he steps up into the center of the garden, beneath the blue-glass of the belvedere. The space will serve as a negotiation zone. The families will mingle while he and you take your time about the garden.

The Mitth and the Komisi aren't the only families present tonight, it seems.

Across the way, in another arbor, there is a meeting between the Styblas and the Drocs. They've begun introductions, it seems, and a nervous half of the union seems keen on fainting. He looks rather pale. Shakey.

Another couple is wandering the aisles. Thrawn isn't sure what families they belong to, but he catches a snippet of the conversation as they pass — something about traversing the plain of Chaos' quantum sub-space depending on a multitude of mathematical factors. Interesting enough. Academics they both are.

Thrawn's eyes dart back to you.

In the center of the greenery, he settles neatly with his hands clasped behind his back. Not necessarily at ease. He watches you — sees the way you mind your step and level your head. It's graceful. Easy. The intricate coronet atop your head stays steady. You seem... confident. Placid. Calm. Thrawn even thinks he catches a dash of humor in your expression when you mutter something to the man beside you.

Your words pause. Siama looks up then, noting Thrawn's evident attention on you.

The Councilor smirks.

Komisi finery indeed. Not only in their wares, but in their members as well. Lest any of the Mitth forget, Siama chides to himself, And he's damn proud of it.

While Siama isn't, you are certainly surprised to find Thrawn staring.

Thrawn is wholly convinced your beauty amplifies with every step nearer you take.

There's a bit of confidence that suddenly comes with this territory, you realize. You're not sure you've ever been looked at like this.

This mythic warrior — a steadfast symbol of the Chiss Expansionary Defense Force. A man scandalously invested in the nature of the Ascendency's future. Senior Captain Mitth'raw'nuruodo.

And here he is, bowing low to you.

Here the entirety of the Mitth are, their gesture of welcome rippling through their gathered crowd like a wave. To you.

The Komisi do the same.

At the center of this political cosmos, you stand mere feet from Thrawn. Surrounded by a laurel of advocates and Aristocra, you seem cooly calm. Your expression is set in something that lays between stern and receptive. Your hands still lay entwined before you.

You offer him a well-hidden smile — so subtle as he nearly misses the lifting corners of your painted lips.

"House Mitth," Siama greets, "We excitedly assemble to discuss the arrangements of this prosperous union."

"That we do," Thurfian parrots — the two hold gazes for a tense moment — before he continues, "As the... appropriate parties seemed to be gathered, may we begin?"

You slide your eyes over Thurfian. Siama catches your look. Thrawn notes the glare. Thurfian ignores it in favor of scowling at Siama.

...Already, it's wholly too much for Thrawn.

"We may," Siama grits out, trying his best to play his zealous part.

There's a bated bit of silence as Siama and Thurfian turn to the two of you.

"Then let us allow for our union to walk," comes the excitably weathered voice of Patriel Idaomo, "Go on, as we have done for ages — walk, and know one another."

Easier said than done.

But, with that, you and Thrawn are shooed from the glass-roofed pavilion and into the setting sun. The garden is hailed in pinks and oranges. The path is clear, winding, and long, and as your boots touch the gravel you have a sneaking feeling that this will be a longer night than you anticipated.

If the sudden, terse exchange of informalities between Siama and Thurfian are any indication, you're sure of it.

Thrawn clears his throat.

And so the night begins.

[whirlybirdwhat]

crown the king (with bloody flowers) - chapter 37

Hanahaki au drabble series, in which Luffy is in love with the sea.

(Warning for Wano Spoilers before chapter 950!)

Kidd remembers Straw Hat. He had been a brat back then, at Sabaody all those years ago, not even coming up to Kidd’s shoulder and still having baby fat lining his cheeks. The youngest Supernova, the rumors had whispered, only fourteen. 

Kidd hadn’t cared about that back then. Why would he, when the rumors - when the entire world - knew that Straw Hat was a crazy bastard that had taken on the world government and won. What’s an age to a reputation like that? To a power like that? Then - then all Kidd cared about was seeing Straw Hat do some crazy shit. 

When Straw Hat crashed down the ceiling of that auction, not even breaking in his stride as he smashed his fist into the face of a celestial dragon twice his height, Kidd had gotten his wish.

And yet - he had seen, then, the way flower petals stuck in the brat’s lips as grinned. He had seen the way his lips were bloody without a hit on him, and the way he had spat onto the ground after, leaving an entire flower bud in his wake. The rumors hadn’t talked about that. 

Even after the war, with the image of Straw Hat holding his dead brother plastered about the world, petals in his wake, the rumors hadn’t talked about it.

Looking at him now, older but with lips still just as bloodied, Kidd wonders if they do now. It’s a surprise to see him here, in the midst of Wano’s prison camps, but then again - it’s Straw Hat. After two years of absence only to awake to challenge an emperor, Kidd shouldn’t be surprised at where the kid shows up. 

He’s still short. His robes sag a bit too big on him, smothering the muscle Kidd knows still must be underneath. His hands hang in front of him, bloody and scratched and sticky with petals as the sea stone drapes around them, and his feet are unsteady as he walks. Even from his cell, Kidd can see it - the gait that sways from side to side, the shakiness of his step,  the stumbling click-clack of his sandals and the clink of his chains as the guards pull him along - they’re making a spectacle of it.

Pathetic, Kidd thinks, and doesn’t quite know who he’s directing it at, bastards. 

And then - 

Then they throw Straw Hat into his fucking cell as they all cackle so loudly, and it’s all Kidd can do to not break their necks with his bare fists. Annoying bastards. He liked his solitary cell - and now he has Straw Hat to deal with? 

Hell-fucking-no - Kidd needs out of this dump not for Straw Hat to drag him down into another admiral-level mess. 

(His crew isn’t here, his crew is alone, and Killer is out there somewhere, captured just like him. His crew is strong, but they aren’t as strong as Kidd or Killer, and damn if he’ll let them get hurt because some straw hatted nuisance stirred up trouble.

(Or… at least more hurt than Kidd had let them get. What a shit captain he is, dragging them into an alliance like that.))

“DAMN YOU KAIDO!” Straw Hat screams, swears, and it’s muffled by the bandages wrapped around his face and a gurgling in his throat. “DAMN YOU!”  He stumbles to his feet, shoulders hunched, glare bright - the seas stone is dragging at his body, but even Kidd has to respect how the fire in his eye doesn’t seem to burn out even trapped like this.  “COME BACK AND FIGHT ME! BASTARDS!” 

Straw Hat’s chains clink against the prison cell. The wardens just laugh, waving him off, and suddenly, there is darkness again as they shut the cell door. 

Still, Straw Hat continues screaming, raging, an edge of desperation in his tone. He’s angry in a way Kidd has never seen him before - though, truth be told, he’s only seen him once. But if the anger he has now doesn’t top his anger when fighting a celestial dragon of all things - 

Kidd doesn’t know what could set him off.

(Or, perhaps, he does. That anger rides deep in his belly now, after all, days past when his crew was destroyed. Kidd is a pirate. Straw Hat is a pirate. 

Some things don’t change, between men like them.) 

Straw Hat smashes his cuffs against the iron bars - against the sea stone bars, Kidd’s tried to fight against them more than he would admit - but it does nothing but make more blood drip out of his robes and down his face. He starts screaming again but - 

“BASTA-ACK!” He coughs, wet and ragged in the middle of his words, and doesn’t stop. It’s a hacking cough, once that seems to drag at his throat, and he keeps coughing, over and over till it’s almost like he’s choking one it. Blood spills over his lips and onto the floor as his legs - those weak, trembling legs that Kidd already saw - give out from underneath him. He doesn’t stop coughing even then, his entire body hunched to the ground. 

He’s trying to brace himself, trying to hold his chest, but he can’t do both at once. 

Straw Hat wobbles.

Finally, Kidd finds the voice to speak. “Oi.”

Straw Hat keeps coughing.

“Oi!”

Straw Hat keeps coughing.

“OI!” Kidd snarls, and reaches a limb over to smack his back. 

Straw Hat chokes for one, horrible moment, and then blood splatters on the ground as flowers begin pouring out his mouth as ripped bandages dangle around. Beautiful ones, like marigolds and hyacinths and other flowers of all colors that Kidd will never know the name of. They stick to his bruised cheeks, his hands, the floor, his manacles, but - 

He’s finally, finally stopped coughing. 

The choking and the flowers stop too, eventually, leaving Straw Hat gasping for breath on the floor, looking small and huh - beneath the bandages, baby fat still clings to his cheeks.

He’s sixteen, Kidd recalls, a whole seven years younger than himself. 

Pathetic, he wants to think, but can’t quite make himself do so. Straw Hat walked here after all, with bandages choking his mouth and sea stone laid across his hands, and was still fierce enough that most of the guards backed off. Straw Hat has guts. 

And - Kidd realizes, surely and absolutely as Straw Hat drags himself up to sit on his heels - he’s got hanahaki. 

(He’s the first-person Kidd’s ever met that has the disease. He never quite thought it’d be like this.)

“Jaggy,” Straw hat murmurs out, the word scratching at his throat. “You’re here?”

“Tch.” Kidd snorts, not energized enough to snarl against the nickname, and settles back against the wall. “Obviously, brat.”

Straw Hat heaves out again, in and out. “… Thanks.” He murmurs again, voice still ragged. 

To this, Kidd shrugs. He didn’t - he didn’t do it to be kind. “The coughing was a bit annoying.” 

Straw Hat doesn’t say anything to that. He just keeps looking at the small window of light they have, back turned to Kidd and body still - stiller than Kidd had ever seen him. Even in his wanted posters the kid always seemed to be moving.  It unnerves him, ever so slightly.

But - whatever. Straw Hat is being quiet, not coughing, and they’ll be enough nuisances tomorrow. He can ignore the brat’s despondent look till tomorrow, and catch some sleep now.

He’s not in the mood to fight, or puff up his feathers like he would do for his rivals typically. He’s just… tired. And hurt. And he misses his crew.

(Straw Hat is alone now. He’s in the same boat.)

Kidd uses his one hand to pull his coat tighter to himself, and rests back against the wall, determinedly shutting out the world and Straw Hat’s to desperate gasps from the front of the cell. It’s… it’s fine. 

Fine.

Fine.

-

Whatever it is, it’s not fine because Kidd wakes up hours later to near-entire darkness in his cell and a shuffling, hacking in his corner. He has half a mind to lash out, because he’s alone in his cell, and noises in the dark have never meant anything good but - 

Then he remembers earlier today. He remembers Straw Hat being thrown in the cell. So, no lashing out but - 

“Damnit.” Straw Hat is whispering, cursing in his corner, and Kidd doesn’t think it’s out of any consideration for him but rather the hoarseness of his own voice. “Fuck.”

His voice cracks a bit. 

(He’s sixteen and he’s been in more wars and fought more emperors than Kidd can claim to. His own weakness burns at him.)

Kidd turns his head. There, struggling in the corner, is Straw Hat. The bandages have all been torn from his face and now lay in his hands, considerably more bloody than the last time Kidd saw them. Flowers lay scattered about Straw Hat’s entire body, and it seems he’s trying to do something with the bandages and his sea stone cuffs. 

Whatever it is, it’s not working because even in the dim moonlight Straw Hat’s eyes have lost some of their fire. Some of their rage. 

He looks… exhausted. 

(His eyes are rimmed red. Kidd doesn’t look too closely.)

He starts hacking again, not as harsh as earlier but seemingly because he doesn’t have the energy to do so harsher. The purple flowers from before - the spindly kind - fall from his lips and the sight of them makes Straw Hat grow - grow more something. Something like desperation and rage and grief but also not quite. It’s not a sight Kidd thinks he should be privy too, but prison does that to a man. It breaks down the barriers in all the wrong ways and it hurts. 

So, Kidd does something about it. 

“Oi.” He says again, like he did earlier, and yet this time Straw Hat’s response is immediate. His head snaps up, eyes flying wide, his entire body shifting into the defense. It’s easy to tell how the chains wear at him, how red his chest is from that scar, how he halfheartedly used his robes to wipe away the blood, when he’s like this. “The hell you doing, Straw Hat?”

Straw Hat just stares at him, reminiscent of a child caught doing something he shouldn’t. Kidd raises an eyebrow, and Luffy shrugs, stubbornly avoiding Kidd’s eyes as he puffs up his shoulders. “Trying to get the cuffs off.” 

Yeah, right. The brat’s a terrible liar even under the exhaustion. 

“With the bandages?” Kidd prompts, irritated, because he did not get woken up to get lied too. Luffy shrugs again, but this time holds out his hands, cuffs and bandages and all. His shoulders lilt with some unbidden weight. 

“I was trying to stuff the bandages under the cuffs so that it wouldn’t touch me.” Straw Hat says simply. “But I can’t do it like this.”

Huh. That’s… not a bad idea. If the sea stone isn’t touching him, Straw Hat can use his powers. It’s not a bad idea, yeah, except for the fact that the manacles are so skin tight it’s hard to get anything under them, and the fact that the sea-stone would be in such close proximity to the skin that even the tiniest shift would have you back where it started. 

Still, Kidd takes a look at what Straw Hat has done. It’s not much - his manacles are tighter than the others Kidd has seen around here, included his one-cuff manacles. Straw Hat’s are more like stockades, binding his wrists so close that they’re almost touching and giving him very little room to even move his elbows. He’s managed to get the tail end of a bloody bandage under his manacle, but nothing more than that.

It’s futile, and Kidd tells him as much. “It won’t work, brat. Too tight, and you’ll still feel the effects. Sides - they’ll switch ‘em out tomorrow morning with the chain ones so you can do their dirty work for them.” He dangles his own, singular chain and cuff as an example.

Straw Hat stares at him with wide, wide eyes, and then goes back to his hands. “That doesn’t matter. Chopper says I shouldn’t let Sea Stone touch me, or things will get worse. So I have to try or he’ll be mad at me. .”

Chopper - isn’t that his pet reindeer? The tiny guy? Kidd shakes his head, dispersing the thought. Who cares about that, when the brat is still trying to get the bandages under the manacles. He’s letting out noisy grunt as he does so, and it’s clear the manacles are pulling at his skin, leaving it bloody and raw with the skin peeled and everything. It doesn’t even deter the brat - he just keeps on going.

That doesn’t answer Kidd’s questions though. “What will get worse?”

(Sue him for sounding like he cares. He’s bored and Straw Hat is noisy, so obviously he has to do something.)

Straw Hat just gives him a dry look, and heaves into another coughing fit. There’s no blood this time, but it does leave Straw Hat looking even more worse for wear, tired and exhausted . He starts to lean against the wall of their little prison, his hands shaky and his head tilting gently as he still - still - goes to mess with the bandages.

Oh, Kidd realizes with a soft murmur. Oh. 

The hanahaki. The killing disease. The killing love. It gets worse with the sea stone? 

The rumors didn’t say anything about that - but then again, they didn’t talk about it at all when Straw Hat Luffy was the topic. 

Before Kidd knows it, the words are spilling out of his mouth. “Give me that, brat,”

“Wha - I’m not a brat!” Straw Hat says indignantly in that hoarse voice of his. “And no!”

“You just now noticed that I’ve been calling you a brat, brat?”

“Oi-“

“And get over yourself. The sooner you stop coughing the sooner I get to sleep, so get over here and give me that.” Kidd waits a beat. “Brat.”

Straw Hat fumes but its only for a moment before he’s scooting along the wall, too tired to get up properly, until he’s right next to Kidd. He holds out his hands and bandages petulantly, almost skeptically, his eyes piercing Kidd’s own.

Damn the brat has a glare. 

Kidd ignores this, ignores how he’s helping his rival, and grabs the brat’s tiny wrist. It isn’t gentle, isn’t kind, but it lets him see what the brat has been trying to do. Straw Hat doesn’t flinch. Just sits there, wide eyed and covered in blood and muck. 

(It’s harder to avoid the redness of his eyes this way, but Kidd forges on.) 

He’s careful as he starts using his hand to push the bandages through. The brat’s manacles make this act easier at least, a little looser than Kidd’s own cuffs, and Straw hat manages to hold still despite his trembling and shaky breaths. It takes a bit of maneuvering, a little bit of teeth, and more than a few trade backs of Stop moving, brat, and Shut it Jaggy, but eventually - eventually Straw Hat’s manacles aren’t touching his skin any more. He’s breathing easier, skin a little warmer, and there’s something Kidd doesn’t want to name in his eyes.

“That better, brat?!” Kidd bites out, trying to regain some of his image despite the way his hand is twisting the kid’s wrists around, double checking. 

“Shishishi!” Straw Hat laughs, the first real sign of whatever the fuck kind of joy is going on in his wanted poster showing its face. “Yep! Thanks Jaggy!” 

“Whatever.” Kidd settles back into the wall,  bringing a knee up and hugging it in lieu of crossing arms he doesn’t have. “Be quiet now - I want some fucking sleep in this hell hole.”

Straw Hat doesn’t respond. Kidd glances over.

That fucking asshole - he - 

He’s already sleeping on the ends of Kidd’s ratty coat, head nestled one the fabric and too-thin limbs splayed out in front of him.  Sleeping. On Kidd’s coat. The only one who was ballsy enough to do that before was - 

(An emperor, taking his crew away, a blue and white mask falling-)

-is still here, somewhere. 

Kidd has half a mind to shake him off, but - didn’t he say, all those years ago, that he wanted to see Straw Hat do something bat-shit insane? 

This has to count. He’s quiet now, at least. 

Kidd tucks his head down, and copies him, ignoring the blood staining his coat and the ground, and the ghosting flower petals stirred up by the wind. 

(The next day sees Kidd watching Luffy shake as his manacles are interchanged with cuffs that touch his skin. It has Kidd seeing Straw Hat tremble in his cell as Kidd helps him like he did this night, and days later - It seems the tiny reindeer give him a small, thankful nod as he inspects the bandages still wrapped around Straw Hats wrists. There’s an understanding there, a respect that Kidd can’t help but bristle at. 

He - He didn’t - whatever this was, it remains here, in Udon, because Kidd is a pirate and so is Straw Hat. The past remains there, and alliances are doomed to falter and fail. This wasn’t an alliance. Not even close. This was….

Whatever.

(And if there are still immortal flowers, purple and tall, stuck in the pockets of Kidd’s coat, then no one has to fucking know.)) 

[magicianapprenticelyra]

Day IX & X: Memory & Familiar

Featuring Apprentice!Lyra Nguyen, the Aster-Nguyen family, Asra, Faust, and Nook the Book Mimic.

Timeline: Five years ago [takes place a few months before Accidental Sprain]

It started off as a night that was slightly off kilter.

Walterine went home a touch early to look after her family. Neha had caught the flu first, which now has James and Bảo in a strangle-hold. This leaves Walterine and Lyra as the only ones left standing within the Aster-Nguyen household.

Asra decided to stay far, far away from them all in the meantime. Walterine completely understood, though was confused when he offered to get her some of the rarer items of The Shop’s inventory while he waited it out.

“Asra, the places where these things are from . . . you’re going to be looking down, down almost to the very borders of the South,” Walt reminded him. James was the one that took on that endeavor, having been a former resident himself. “You sure you wanna do this?”

Asra confirmed as such, and Walt helped him to prepare for the journey. The task was estimated to take about a month, going both ways. This, of course, worried everyone but Asra.

Before he left, with Faust cleverly wrapped around is scarf-covered shoulders, Lyra gifted him a new necklace. The pendant’s a bright blue, teardrop-shaped thing on a decently sized cord.

“For luck and protection,” Lyra said.

When Asra accepted the gift, his hands decided to start shaking. As he fumbled with putting it on, Walt struggled to not laugh.

In the end, Lyra assisted her friend to put it on, but not before she gave him an eye-roll. As she did, Faust decided to be extra cheeky: the blue-lavender morph looped around both of their shoulders.

While this meant Faust wouldn’t be completely in the way, this drew the two young adults very close to each other.

Asra swears in a language Lyra doesn’t know, almost breaking away from her in a sprint once she had the necklace properly clasped. Walt caught him before he was out the door, handing him his pack for the journey. With that and friendly farewells to the women, he left.

That was two days ago now, leaving Lyra to guard The Shop.

The light of lamp above the front door is out, and she already performed the ��Cross-Me-Not’ spell over the wood grains. Despite there being a bedroom up the stairs, Lyra opted to sleep downstairs. There is a precious amount of merchandise on the shelf behind the counter, after all.

To her reasoning, so long as she was within reach of a broom or the empty bottle on the counter, whatever intruder that wanted to rob the shop was in for a bruised head.

She’s setting up her sleeping arrangements on the floor when she hears a racket outside. It’s coming from the back alley.

For the past week, the alley cats had been arguing with one another more heatedly. According to Faust, she said they weren’t always fighting each other. Whatever that meant, they couldn’t figure it out.

Asra himself didn’t see much of note when he checked around, but he placed more protection spells into the walls of The Shop.

Nonetheless, Lyra herself needed to see what’s going on . . .

. . . and damn it she was terrified.

Why didn’t Walt leave Bruno with me? Lyra thinks to herself. The faerie dragon, Walt’s familiar, is a pint-sized deterrent to mosquitoes and thieves alike. He and the Stove Salamander are the best of friends, often on the brink of making a bonfire of The Shop if they laughed too much.

She grabs a hefty broom. Armed with it, Lyra reaches for the door. Her hand’s unsteady, but manages to set her hand on the handle. Pressing down on it, the door lets out a gods-awful creaking noise. The woman peers out of the doorway, squinting into the dark night.

Thanks to some lit lamps from the neighbors, Lyra can make out the silhouettes of several alley cats, digging into rubbish piles. For a few minutes, she keeps watch. After a longer while, she resolves to scoot back into The Shop. Before she could close the door however, all of the alley cats started to yowl and hiss, spitting at something from the other end of the alley.

Lyra presses herself against the door, squinting as the cats start to attack whatever’s intruding on their territory.

The sounds coming from the cats’ target however, made all her hairs stand up on end. It sounded like another animal, fighting for its life!

Lyra doesn’t know why, but she rushes from the safety of The Shop, shouting at the cats to leave whatever they’re mauling, alone! She used the brush side of the broom to sweep away the cats. When the cats round on her, Lyra summons a ball of light. Shutting her eyes, the magician turns the sphere into a starburst, effectively stunning and/or scaring away the alley cats.

Lyra opens her eyes, picking up whatever the cats left behind. In her hand, it felt like a carapace of sorts. The texture of this creature’s topside was not unlike the shell of a crab, though from what she could tell, it was very flexible.

Quickly closing the door behind her, Lyra swears under her breath, unable to see in the darkness of The Shop. The draft from the doorway must have blown out the candles . . . great.

“Hang on little buddy,” Lyra soothes as she sets down the creature on a low stool. The animal let out a wheezing, gurgling sound.

Lyra hadn’t felt blood on her hands, nor smelt it, so she hopes the poor thing will survive . . .

Upon finding a candle and lighting it, she exhales, relieved.

“Alright little one,” Lyra addresses the creature, turning around to face it. “Let's get a look at—” Lyra stops in place, unsure of what she was seeing was right. To her utter confusion, the space where she left the creature is now occupied by . . . a book?

Lyra gapes at the space. She’s soon turning around and round, searching for the creature. The magician racks her brain, trying to figure out whether or not she did place the critter on the table in the first place.

As she’s looking around on the floor, Lyra can hear movement on the table she had taken her eyes off of. Slowly, still acting as if she’s searching the floor, Lyra peers around the corner of a chair.

On the table, right where the book was, she witnesses it sprout four eyes . . . and ten spindly legs. Lyra bites her lower lip, preventing herself from screaming in terror as the . . . the thing wobbles on its appendages.

It’s then that she notices that several of said legs are severely mangled. The poor creature barely stands, almost immediately flopping back onto the table. The sound of impact is a heavy thud, and the creature, as far as Lyra can tell, has no energy to hide themself any longer.

Slowly, carefully, Lyra stands up, looking on at the pitiful thing. She summons a few orbs of light, sending them to various parts of the room to illuminate the area. With the added radiance, she can see how badly hurt the creature was.

Their injured legs are beginning to leak a strange, blue-colored blood. One of them is bent in a very painful way, which makes her heart go out to them. Lyra carefully approaches the creature, murmuring, “Hi . . . may I take a look at you?”

The creature looks up at her, eyes big and scared.

“Okay . . . do you want to eat?” Lyra asks, looking around for any possible snacks for this one. The creature has a massive set of teeth. It seems to be more teeth than anything else, to be honest. “Do you just eat meat? Well, I have some scrap vegetables and . . .” she rushes up to the kitchenette, bringing down a small metal bowl of berries.

Lyra places an orange rind, a wrinkly raisin, and a speckled, beige shell of a longan in front of the creature. They sniff the provided offerings. Lyra cannot help but note they did that without any obvious nose.

Seeing that they aren’t moving with her so close, Lyra decides to clean up a bit. As she retrieves some towels to wipe up the blood on the table, she wonders what the creature is. A sort of shapeshifter for sure, but it makes her wonder: where did they come from?

For now at least, Lyra would have a fun story to tell Walt, Asra, and the others when they got back.

[octothorpetopus]

Ten Minutes

minnesotamemelord on AO3

The first time Klaus Hargreeves overdosed, he was fifteen and a half years old. One of his best friends was dead. The other, gone. Disappeared into oblivion. Which fate was worse, he hadn't quite decided.

The year was 2005, and his world was condensing around him, getting smaller and smaller. First it was down to 8 people. Then 7. He knew nothing outside of his adopted family, and now even they were leaving him. He knew that wasn't really what was happening, but he couldn't help but feel that it was. And it certainly didn't help that Ben kept popping up everywhere he looked. Despite his father's attempts, he'd never quite gotten over his fear of the dead, which was unfortunate given that the one thing he'd always known made him special was his ability to commune with them. His life was a series of ticking time bombs, only he couldn't hear the beeps or see the timers. The only thing he had to go off of was the gnawing feeling in his gut that told him, This? It's all going away. It won't last. All he wanted was to disarm the bombs and get rid of the anxiety that followed him everywhere. But there was no way to do that. Well, there was one. But that was a last resort.

And yet, when all was said and done, all he seemed to have left were last resorts.

The Academy, despite being an enormous mansion, was not in a particularly nice area of town, so the third alleyway Klaus checked had exactly what he was looking for. He forked out a roll of cash, for which he had exchanged one of his father's gold plaques. It was for some humanitarian award or another that he didn't deserve, just one out of a dozen, so Klaus didn't think he'd mind. Or notice.

Klaus found himself sitting on the toilet lid, a tiny plastic bag in his hand, and in the bag were three tiny, white pills. He heard a voice in his head saying, No, Klaus. Don't be an idiot. Except it wasn't in his head. It was directly to the left of his head. Ben. Again. Klaus clenched his eyes shut, refusing to look.

"Go away, go away, go away, go-"

"Saying it isn't going to make me do anything, Klaus."

"-away, go away, go away, go aw-"

"Klaus, listen to me!" The volume raised.

"GO AWAY, GO AWAY, GO AWAY!" With an abrupt scream, Ben vanished and Klaus was once again left sitting alone in the bathroom, staring at the drugs in his hand. One swallow. That's all it would take. Just one.

And just like that, the decision was made. Klaus had never been good at dry-swallowing pills, so he struggled to his feet, suddenly unsteady, and filled the glass on the edge of the sink. One, two, three, he felt the pills slide down his throat. On wobbly legs, he lowered himself into the empty bathtub, stretching his lanky legs out as far as he could, up onto the opposite edge of the tub. He slipped his Walkman on and hit play. The song that came on was that atrocious disco song that Luther loved. It could be heard throughout the house during leisure hours, much to everyone but Luther and Allison's chagrin. And perhaps Grace's.

It didn't make much sense to change it now. Klaus closed his eyes, fell further into the tub, and let himself glide away into limbo.

Before the fog of death and drugs had fully disappeared from Klaus's eyes, before he even recognized where he was, he saw someone sitting next to his bed.

"Ben?" He groaned. It hadn't worked. Or maybe it had, because it wasn't Ben. It was Diego, face solemn and sober (the irony of that word was not lost on Klaus), his eyes downcast. When Klaus moved to prop himself up on his elbows, Diego's head popped up. Without saying a word, he reached over to the table beside him and poured a glass of water. He wrapped Klaus's spindly fingers around it, along with another pair of white pills. "What- what are these?" Klaus coughed twice, his mouth drier than the Sahara.

"Aspirin. Not whatever crap you took that did this to you." Diego's voice seemed to clear some of the cotton stuffing in Klaus's head. He was in the infirmary at the Academy, and he wasn't dead. Those seemed to be the clearest two ideas in his head. Klaus knocked back the drugs and let himself fall backwards on the bed. They sat quietly for a moment.

"What... what happened?"

"You overdosed. Probably would've died if n-n-" Diego groaned, his frustration evident in his every motion as he dragged his hand through his hair and steeled himself. "If not for Mom and Dad."

"But- but I should've-"

"Died? Yeah. You probably should have. But Luther saw you go into the bathroom. Once you'd been in there awhile, he decided to bust down the door. Ripped it off its hinges, really. Saw you, picked you up, and brought you down here. Mom and Dad fixed you up." Diego folded his arms. "What the hell, Klaus? Dad's gonna lose his shit when he sees you. Seriously, I don't know what you were thinking."

"I was thinking that I can't..." Tears rose in Klaus's eyes as he tried his best to fight them down. "I can't deal with this! All these ghosts, everywhere, all the time, I just... can't."

"Hey, hey, I- I'm sorry." Diego had a tendency to be abrasive, but the thing that always endeared him to Klaus was that he knew when to back off. He always did. "Look, don't worry, okay? Dad'll calm down eventually. And in the meantime-" Diego shrugged. "I'll protect you." Klaus grinned, the blinding headache behind his eyes dampening just a bit.

"You're a good brother, Diego. Really."

"Come on, Klaus." Diego rolled his eyes, but he reached over, squeezing Klaus's bony hand. "I should call Dad. Let him know you're up."

"Can you- can you wait? Just five more minutes? I'd really prefer this headache to go down before I get screamed at." Diego nodded.

"Five more minutes." And so they sat, in almost total silence, for five more minutes. They didn't talk, they just sat, Diego's rough hands, scarred from years of knife training, wrapped tightly around Klaus's, as pale as the ghosts he talked to. And when the five minutes were up and Diego called Reginald down to the infirmary, and they got the veritable ball of rage they'd expected, they didn't let go. They were two ships passing in the night, holding on for dear life.

It went pretty much the same way for the next two and a half years. Every six months or so, Klaus would try a new drug, or a little too much of an old one, and he'd wake up in the first floor infirmary. And every time, Diego handed him water and aspirin, and they sat together. Ten minutes, every time, and Diego would tell Klaus who found him, in a way that sort of sounded like they were playing Clue. It was Pogo in the attic, or Allison in the courtyard, or Vanya in the kitchen. More often than not, though, it was the same as the first time. Luther found him in the bathroom, his headphones slipped low over his ears, his legs splayed over the rim of the tub, by a few more inches every time.

And every time, Diego held his hand as Reginald tore Klaus a new one. He couldn't kick Klaus out, he couldn't lose a member of the Academy, but he could make his life hell. Even more hellish than it already was. Klaus's outings were limited to just the block, then just the Academy, until he was confined to his room unless he was on a mission. And yet, he still found his way out, got high, and nearly died, leaving his limp and weak body for one of his siblings to find. Diego never left his side, through all of it, though. Their friendship grew, little by little, starting with sitting together at dinner, to reading together in the library, to doing homework side-by-side at Klaus's desk (Diego always let Klaus copy his math, and Klaus always let Diego copy his English), to Diego nearly being shot while watching Klaus's back on a mission. They were attached at the hip, more brothers than any real brothers they had ever seen. One was rarely without the other.

So it was earth-shattering when Klaus woke up two weeks after his 18th birthday in the infirmary, and nobody was sitting in the chair next to him. The light streaming in through the window clouded his vision, so he squinted, trying to see through the haze, wondering if his vision had failed him after all. But no, it hadn't, and he found himself all alone.

"Diego?" No response. After a moment, he remembered. Diego had been gone for exactly one month, two days, and six hours. He had offered, begged Klaus to come with him, to escape the Academy once and for all. And to be quite honest, Klaus could no longer remember why he'd said no. His best friend in the world was gone, and here he was, in pain, powerless, and virtually alone. It was another half an hour before Reginald came down and berated him again, for the last time. And this time, Klaus had no hand to hold. He clung to himself, trying to block out the wrath directed at him. When the storm ended and the raging sea calmed, Klaus's mind was made up. Diego was gone. So was Vanya. And tomorrow, Klaus would join them. Out in the real world, there might be no one to hold his hand, but there wasn't anyone to keep pushing him back either. So he packed a bag and left. The next morning, he found himself in county jail and he laughed, because this was the first time in three years he'd woken up from a drug-induced coma to nobody screaming.

The year was 2019, and Klaus Hargreeves woke up with a pounding head and sore limbs in the same hospital bed he'd woken up in twice a year when he was a teenager. A glass of water was poured and someone wrapped his weak, bony fingers around it, pressing a pair of pills into his other palm. The haze of light and pain faded out, and déjà vu swept over him.

"Ben?" A low, bitter chuckle.

"Nope." Klaus sighed with relief as he felt a familiar hand, albeit much larger, close around his own. "Take the aspirin, Klaus." With a groan, Klaus tossed back the pills and water and flopped back.

"It's been awhile." Diego nodded.

"Twelve years. Fitting that the first time I'd see you again would be like this." Diego paused, then punched Klaus in the shoulder, hard.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"You're an idiot, Klaus. I thought maybe you'd get your shit together, but you really haven't, have you?"

"Nope. I haven't." Klaus grinned, a broad, shit-eating grin. "Welcome back, D." Diego slid his hand into Klaus's and squeezed. "So, who found me this time?"

"Mom, actually. In the kitchen."

"Shit."

"Yeah." They looked at each other silently. "Dad's not here to yell at you anymore."

"Nope." Klaus looked down. "The bastard's dead."

"Yep. I should probably go tell the others you're okay."

"Right. Of course." Neither one let go.

"Ten more minutes?" Diego kicked his feet up on the edge of the bed.

"Ten more minutes."

[wilsonsnest]

winter, Sweetheart

un-beta’d, like to the extreme

just a plotbunny i had while driving from work today that i couldn’t resist writing. it’s an au where both bucky and sam are hydra assets and its hella sad. 

warnings: dehumanization, angst, hurt and very little comfort, hydra awfulness

It’s always the same whenever they bring him out of cryo. The Soldier gets this impatient rolling in his gut that is usually reserved for his pitiful back-up on missions where Hydra really can’t afford things to go wrong. He has to tamp it down here, bury it deep so that nothing shows on his face. He remains impassive in the wake of the commotion of them waking him from his deep sleep.

Sleep. He shouldn’t think of it that way. It's more like being shut off, like a power-line being snipped or a phone hanging up abruptly. It's startling, uncomfortable and cold.

He stands stock still, arms at his sides, face impassive as the smoke pours from the tube only a few feet in front of him. He isn’t sure whether its a blessing or a curse that they want him to be the first thing he sees when he awakens.

“Soldat, grab him.” One of the higher-ups orders, as the techs and doctors scramble out of the way.

He marches forward, just as the Falcon starts to fall, stumbling like a newborn calf just dropped from the womb. It was an apt description of how this went every time.

He catches the slightly smaller man, tries to maintain an impersonal facade, though his instinct tells him to wrap his arms around the other man. His skin his ice cold, prickly with goosebumps.  He isn’t shivering though, his body is probably to use to this at this point.

The techs gather, checking the metal casings grafted into the mans back. The Sldier will check again later, just because he knows they aren’t nearly as thorough as they should be. It's the wings that give The Falcon the most trouble when he gets pulled out of storage for a mission.

“You have 36 hours, Soldat.” The same higher-up who spoke to him earlier instructs, barely looking at the two of them. “Get him in working condition, and then we’ll have a mission briefing, Understood?”

He nods slightly, they don’t expect words from him which is a relief. He lets his  flesh arm squeeze The Falcon gently before he pushes him away to create distance. The other man stumbles a little, blinking owlishly before he steadies himself. It takes a moment before deep brown eyes lock on the Winter Soldier, sharp and inquisitive.

He internally grimaces, it's like this every time. From what he gleaned, they spent so much timing grafting the wings, replacing his bones and generally fucking up The Falcon’s body that they didn’t want to mess around with his brain nearly as much as they had the Soldier’s. He has words, ones that can reset him and put him back on track. But there are things he needs to know, and they try not to mess with his head too often.

Falcon though. They’ll wipe Falcon as soon as he’s done helping with a mission. He’s another weapon in the Winter Soldier’s arsenal.

Wordlessly, he raised his hand, uses to fingers to gesture and waits. It takes a moment, but something registers in the Falcon’s eyes and he follows along after the Soldier, unsteady like a spindly legged fawn.

It takes all of the Soldier’s restraint not to reach out and steady him.

xxx

He knows that Hydra monitors these little training exercises, though they like to set the illusion that they are letting their two biggest assets out on their own to re-familiarize with one another. Theres a tin shed, big enough for the both of them to hunker down in for one night. An open field, surrounded by tall trees. Beyond those trees, the Soldier knows there are fences, invisible, but highly dangerous.

Still, he feels more at ease when they aren’t surrounded by high-ranking officials and doctors calculating their every move. He’s learned that the process of wiping the Falcon isn’t 100 percent still, and he can bring him back little by little.

The first task though, is getting him stable - walking, running and flying. The slim, but powerful wings they have grafted to the man are a technological wonder. They fit inside two rectangle metal casings attached to his back. The scaring is horrendous, worse than the Soldier’s arm considering the amount of skin and muscle they had to rearrange to make it work.

The Soldier watches as the other man stretches his arms toward the sky, going up on his tip toes for a brief second before wobbling and catching himself. He waits, arms folded over his chest as the Falcon begins his own curious rehabilitation of his body.

If the cold air bothers him, he certainly doesn’t act like it. He’s shirtless, wearing thin linen pants and no shoes. The Soldier frowns, his hair is buzzed short and his face is clean-shaven, they always do it before putting him into cryo. It makes something sick twist in his stomach, and his next kill always feels particularly vicious. He can’t articulate why it angers him, but it does. He likes when eventually his hair grows out a little, and he starts getting a mustache.

Eventually, the casings on his back begin to slide open and closed, as the Falcon seems to realize he control those too. The wing cases are about 12 inches long, two inches wide and stick out from his back about three inches. They’re made from a light metal, but they’re strong to protect the delicate wires inside. His own arm is heavy, and after long bouts of downtime even he has to get used to the weight.It’s crucial that Falcon’s wings are light though.

As the Falcon begins to experiment with releasing his wings, the Soldier can’t help but stare in rapt attention. It's almost hauntingly beautiful, despite how many times he’s seen it before. When the wings finally all slot out, perfectly aligned their huge and almost overwhelming. His wingspan is impressive for such a small space, and their elegance, while not a priority is necessitated by how the have to be stored.

But it's not just the wings. There’s something that the Soldier craves more, it feeds an ache in his chest. A clawing hunger for something that he rarely experiences.

The Falcon moves his wings, a few times experimentally. Stumbles along, unsure and then begins a light jog. The first leap, he always looks surprised when his wings managed to hold him up. But then - oh - he relaxes what is happening and the Falcon soars.

The Soldier doesn’t have much of a concept of beauty anymore, but he knows that the empty space inside him fills up whenever he sees that first smile appear on the Falcon’s face. He watches, getting his fill for as long as he can before-

He watches, eyes dimming as the Falcon suddenly seizes up, his face stricken and he falls to the ground. The Soldier waits for a minute before jogging over. The first time it happened he was alarmed, but now he knows to expect it. The Falcon sits up easily, he can take a hit with the best of them.

But his free time was up. Hydra only wants him in the air for so long when they aren’t on missions. On base, the Falcon’s programming only allows him ten minutes of airtime before pain sensors engage, and make him seize up. The Soldier won’t bother to explain, after a few tries he’ll figure it out. He doesn’t want to be the one take the light from his eyes so soon.

“Soldat?” The Falcon’s voice is rough with disuse. He rubbed at his neck, and squinted up at the sky as though it had somehow betrayed him. “Is there something wrong with me?”

The Soldier grimaced, hating the question. Hating that he went through this every single time. “No.” He answered shortly. He helped the Falcon to his feet, gentle this time. The grainy cameras wouldn’t be able to tell the different. “And you don’t call me that.”

“No?” The Falcon tilted his head, surprised. “What do I call you?”

“Winter.” He offered shortly, and then started toward the tin shack, knowing the other would follow. There were some ragged blankets inside that he could use to warm the other up, and he knew that the guards got lax once they were inside.

“And what do you call me?” The question was always so charming. Somewhere in his head, the Falcon knew they had a different repertoire. If he could, the Soldier would have smiled bitterly.

Instead, he just looked over his shoulder, face stony and unmoved even as he answered. “Sweetheart.”

[ckret2]

Tedium

Fandom: Borderlands, pre-canon Characters: Zer0, an OC invented to play off Zer0, and a smidge of Mordecai at the end. Words: 5600 Summary: Blue Collar said he called him "Seventeen" because of his little speech quirk, expressing himself in exactly seventeen syllables at a time. But the other reason was that Blue Collar had the deeply uncomfortable sense that the spindly amateur killer in front of him was just some kid, around seventeen years old, in deep over his head without even understanding how fast he was sinking. "Don't know about other planets, but that's how hitmen work around here: we don't interfere with each other, we don't hunt each other, but we don't help each other, either. It's a lonely profession. I don't want it to be lonely for you." Notes: Zer0's called "he" when the narration is from the perspective of someone who would make that assumption and hasn't been told otherwise, and "they" when the narration is from their own perspective. Warnings: Canon-typical violence & character death.

###

"Don't listen to anyone who tries to hype up Dahl. They're amateurs who like to think carrying a gun with camo on it makes them a soldier instead of a thug. A real professional hitman uses Tediore." Waving his hot sauce-coated chopsticks at Seventeen as he spoke, Blue Collar leaned across the sticky fast food restaurant table, warming up to the topic. "Quietest guns on the market. Easy to make impossible to trace. Break the gun's digistruct chip and toss your pistol in a trash can and boom, the murder weapon no longer exists. There's a hundred places on the ECHOnet that'll teach you how to corrupt a Tediore gun's serial number so it isn't printed on the bullets, in case you're worried the cops'll use it to track down the gun's registered owner—which probably won't be you anyway, since they're a dime a dozen to get second-hand. If you really wanna go incognito, get a five-dollar digistruct chip from the nearest corner store and pirate a Tediore gun. You can even download some with Maliwan barrels if you wanna shock a shield off someone."

Seventeen shifted on the cheap vinyl seat, as if to speak, and Blue Collar lifted a hand placatingly. "I know, you're not a fan of Maliwan, I'm just saying. Now, the only exception to Tediore is rifles. That's when you wanna go Dahl."

Seventeen snorted derisively. "For sniper rifles? That's a waste of good ammo. One bullet, one death."

Sarcastically, Blue Collar asked, "Oh, and I suppose you get a lot of jobs that pay so bad you can't afford to buy four bullets?"

"Yeah."

Blue Collar had no idea if that was supposed to be a joke, but he went for it like it was serious. "Then you're taking the wrong jobs. No wonder you're so scrawny." He jabbed a meaty finger in the direction of Seventeen's chest. Seventeen swirled a straw in a cup of bubble tea in feigned indifference.

"What you call a 'waste of ammo,' a smart killer calls 'double tapping to be sure.' There's a reason a snake has two fangs. You know how many stories there are about freak cases of people surviving a bullet through the heart? There's a lot less about people surviving two bullets." Blue Collar sat back, scooped up some fried rice, and talked through the mouthful. "Your pride at taking some sap out with one bullet isn't half as important as the assurance that he's dead. That's what being a professional is about. You double tap; you hit 'em while they're unaware; and you don't waste a second between kills. Dahl for rifles, and Tediore for everything else."

"But I like Jakobs," Seventeen protested. "I like the way firing feels—"

"That's called 'recoil' and it's a con, not a pro."

Seventeen flicked a balled-up straw wrapper at Blue Collar. "—and I like headshots." Hands pressed to masked head, then expanding outward, pantomiming a brain exploding from a smashed skull: "Pshoooo."

Blue Collar shook his head, equal parts exasperated and charmed. "Yeah, yeah. I know you do. Damn."

They were an odd pair, sitting together with a couple plates of fried rice and egg rolls between them. Blue Collar was a grizzled, heavyset man, dressed like he could be anything from a factory worker to a mechanic to a janitor, depending on what tool belt he slapped on; hence his professional name. He dressed to blend in with a crowd, hid his gun in a tool bag slung over a shoulder or in a pocket if the pistol was small enough, and was never noticed.

Seventeen didn't blend in. Gangly, spindly; perpetually dressed in all black; combat boots and gloves; ski mask and goggles with reflective red lenses. If Blue Collar had said it once, he'd said it a hundred times: stealth wasn't about dressing like some kinda wannabe urban ninja. It was about dressing like the most uninteresting person on the street. His advice went in one ear and out the other—assuming Seventeen had ears.

What Seventeen didn't have was an identity. Never offered a name, not even a professional name—never so much as offered a gender, although Seventeen used a voice modulator set to such a hilariously low pitch that Blue Collar couldn't help but read it as cartoonishly masculine. Calling Seventeen a "he" was only an educated guess, although a guess that Seventeen himself didn't dispute; just like he didn't dispute when Blue Collar started calling him "Seventeen," just to have something to call him.

Blue Collar told Seventeen that it was because of his little speech quirk, expressing himself in exactly seventeen syllables at a time. That was part of the reason, sure.

The rest of it was that Blue Collar had the deeply uncomfortable sense that the spindly amateur killer in front of him—sticking the straw of his bubble tea under a bandana around his face and noisily slurping up the boba left at the bottom—was just some kid, around seventeen years old, in deep over his head without even understanding how fast he was sinking.

He rarely had more than thirty bucks at any given time—and Blue Collar knew he wasn't squirreling away savings anywhere. He slept on couches, benches, and homeless shelters, where anyone trying to track him down after a job would easily be able to identify the tall scrawny kid covered head to toe in black and kill him in his sleep. He didn't know how to market himself, how to make his name known—didn't have a name to make known—didn't know how to make one successful job lead to another, better one. He wasn't building a career, just doing one lousy bloody job after another. Sometimes, Blue Collar saw him wobbling on his feet, like a skyscraper swaying in an earthquake, unsteady with hunger.

And still—still—he talked about challenging, interesting, fun kills; about how burst fire made things "too easy"; about how he thought, if he was missing half of his shots at 200 meters, then he should be trying to shoot from 200 meters more often, not moving to 100 meters where he knew he could hit the target. He was still a cocky kid who didn't get it. Wetwork wasn't about being cool, about making the most impressive trick shots: it was about paying the bills and buying the groceries.

Blue Collar really got the feeling that Seventeen thought, if he got deep enough into the bloody underworld of assassins, normal people problems like taxes and hunger would just disappear.

"What?" Seventeen said, defensively.

Blue Collar looked down at his food, and scooped up a final decent mouthful of fried rice. He'd been staring at the kid, worriedly, a moment too long—trying to figure out if he'd put on any weight at all under that baggy windbreaker in the few months since Blue Collar had taken him under his wing. "Nothing. Just marveling at how you get that straw under your baby bib."

Seventeen huffed and tugged at his bandana self-consciously.

"Jakobs is fine," Blue Collar said, grudgingly. "And it's important that whatever guns you use feel natural to you. But they're a lot harder to work with. High recoil, low firing speed, incredibly noisy..."

"Kills in one shot."

"When you're lucky. And when you aren't, it's that much harder to get the second shot off." Seventeen moved as if to retort, and Blue Collar waved him off. "But if you're committed, you're committed. I get it—some guns feel right. Just know that it's gonna make some jobs harder than they have to be—and be ready to compensate for that."

"I like a challenge." Seventeen picked up an egg roll in one hand and used it to point. "You know I do, Blue Collar. I'm gonna be fine." He held the tip of his bandana out of the way with his free hand, and took a bite.

Blue Collar shook his head. "Edgy little shit," he said affectionately. Seventeen flipped him off.

Blue Collar reached into one of his many pockets, tossed a few bucks on the table, and pulled out a pen. "Listen, I know you don't have your own ECHO unit." He smoothed out his discarded chopsticks wrapper and scribbled a frequency along the length of it. "But if anything happens to you, you find one, and you call me, all right?" He pushes the wrapper over. "This isn't normal in our line, I want you to know. Don't know about other planets, but that's how hitmen work around here: we don't interfere with each other, we don't hunt each other, but we don't help each other, either. It's a lonely profession."

Seventeen picked up the wrapper and looked at it.

"I don't want it to be lonely for you."

Seventeen looked up at him.

"Listen." Blue Collar leaned forward, voice hushed, looking Seventeen in the goggles. "You're new at this. And I like you. I kinda see you like a..." He wrestled with whether "little brother" was fitting, decided "little sister" was straight out, and settled on "... a younger sibling, to me. I wanna help you out when I can." He smiled tiredly. "I'm not gonna be in this business much longer—might be nice to pass on what I know before I quit."

Seventeen looked down at the wrapper again. And then said, so quietly and low that his voice modulator almost distorted the words out of recognition, "Thank you."

###

It was about one in the morning when Blue Collar was stirred by his ECHO unit's buzzing. He groaned, slapped at his bedside table until he picked it up, and stared at it.

Unknown number, no name, just a one word text message:

«Run.»

He stared at it, tried and failed to recognize the number, then let his head drop back on his pillow.

Then bolted out of bed. You work in a dangerous business, somebody you don't know tells you to run, you do it. He had on his coveralls, a work boot, and a random tool belt before he even thought to wonder who'd messaged him.

It was probably Seventeen. Not many other people had his private frequency, and all of them he knew the numbers of. (Didn't have them saved in his ECHO unit—didn't want somebody to get a hold of it and start hunting down the few people he liked—but he'd recognize the numbers by sight.) Seventeen was the only one who might call him from an unknown frequency.

Even though Blue Collar had given him the number in case of emergency, all these weeks he'd expected that if he got a call, it'd be because Seventeen was the one in trouble. Not that he minded the head's up. He was gonna have to thank the kid, once he shook whatever was coming for him.

With a small Tediore pistol in one of his larger pockets and a Pangolin shield weighing heavily on his back, he climbed out the window onto the fire escape with a grunt of exertion and started climbing down.

It was raining heavily. Some high-end Pangolins could keep the rain out along with the bullets. Blue Collar could afford one, but hadn't wanted to make himself so conspicuous, with each raindrop bouncing off and illuminating the invisible shield in electric blue snowflake patterns, so he used a cheaper model. He was glad he had, now, with who-knew-who—police? a corporate assassin?—hunting him in the dark; but he was already soaked and cold by the time he reached the ground. One way, towards a main street, he could see huge sprays of water being kicked up in the lamplight by nighttime truckers. He went the other way, deeper into the darkness.

He felt like he was being followed. Was he, or was that just paranoia? How close was whatever he was supposed to be running from? He checked his ECHO unit, but there was no new info. Just Seventeen's warning. Damn, where was Seventeen? Was he okay?

He'd prepared his escape routes years ago, as soon as he'd moved into this apartment. It's harder to kill in a crowd; harder to find your target, harder to separate and eliminate them. A couple blocks away was a dance club, near it was a bus stop; if he could get into the club, he could stay there until it closed, then slip onto the three a.m. bus with the other tired clubbers going home. The bus would take him to a hub where he could grab a train heading out of town in a random direction.

The ATM near the club only let him take out $1500. That and the hundred bucks in his pocket would have to hold him; he didn't know how sophisticated the people after him were, whether they could track his spending or withdrawals. He'd be working in cash for a while.

There was a short line to get into the club, huddled up against the front wall for the meager shelter of the roof's slight overhang. Cargo trucks came down this street less often than the street in front of Blue Collar's apartment, but every time they did, a pair of kids in a miniskirt and skintight pleather jeans squealed as they were sprayed with water. Blue Collar just shuddered with cold. He kept his back to the club's front wall, squinting, looking for any odd shapes moving in the night shadows.

A thick door opened for the pair in front, and Blue Collar caught a few seconds of throbbing dubstep before it swung shut. Sounded like a remix of a lawnmower. He stepped up to the bouncer.

The bouncer was a massive muscled man dressed in the same mix of matte black and slick neon as the clubbers coming in, but his hair was thinning and he looked closer to Blue Collar's age than to the pleather-clad kids who went in before him. He looked Blue Collar's soggy work clothes up and down, clasped his hands together in front of his belt, and said, "I'm not sure this place is your scene, man."

"I just need a roof over my head for a few minutes," he said, smiling a well-practiced smile, like a mild-mannered salt-of-the-earth construction-and/or-factory worker. "It's pouring out here."

"There's a cover."

"I know, that's fine," Blue Collar said; and then, when the bouncer still looked skeptical, he lowered his voice. "Listen. I'm being followed. I just need to get out of the open."

The bouncer tipped his head up slightly in understanding; then unfolded one of his hands, palm up. Blue Collar shoved fifty dollars in. "I'll give you another if I get out of here alive." Just to head off anyone else trying to bribe the bouncer.

"No worries. It's my job to stop fights." He stuffed the money in one pocket and pushed open the door. "Come on in." His words were almost lost under the thudding bass.

Blue Collar paid his cover and wandered into the darkness and flashing colored lights. A few strobe lights pointed straight in his face, and he blinked hard, trying to clear the spots from his eyes so he could see in the club.

His dark brown coveralls and salt-and-pepper hair didn't exactly fit in with the crowd; but they didn't stand out across the room, either. The crowd was made up of rainbow neon hair—every hue from pitch black to lightning white. Dark clothes with colorful strips designed to reflect the lights and dazzle the eye. Flashing LED-like pictures blinked on and off in front of the faces and over the heads of the dancers, :) and <3 and ☆ and 愛, in green and red and blue, courtesy of prosthetic optical implants or temporary body mods stickers that could be slapped on your forehead. Anyone who wasn't making an effort to stand out would blend into the shadows. Blue Collar waded onto the dance floor, found a narrow gap between a few clustered circles of dancers where he wouldn't get in their way but wouldn't visibly stand out as on his own, and grit his teeth against the garbage disposal roar of music as he tried to figure out what to do next.

It would help if he had the slightest idea what was after him. If it was somebody pissed over a kill, someone's grieving family, he might need to move a town over—or maybe only get a hotel out of town for a few days until the funeral was over. If somebody was getting paid to find him, though, they'd keep coming; he might need to get off planet. If only Seventeen had sent him more info...

One song ended, and the next began: something with a light drum machine and synthesized instruments and an artificially high-pitched singer, repetitive but much easier to think through. Dammit, Seventeen—that was a factor Blue Collar hadn't even considered. He was probably tangled up in this somehow—how had he found out there was something Blue Collar needed to run from? What if they'd taken him hostage? Or were trying to get info out of him? He couldn't leave town without making sure Seventeen was okay. How was he going to check Seventeen's usual haunts while avoiding being seen by anyone expecting him to do just that?

Blue Collar didn't consciously notice that the music sounded like it was building toward something, the singing halting and the drums speeding up, until suddenly it paused and the whole club seemed to hang in anticipation; and then the bass slammed down like a bomb dropping. Something whizzed through the air beside Blue Collar's temple. In front of him, he saw the back of a dancer's head explode, and the body pitched forward.

He'd automatically crouched down before he figured out what he'd seen. Shit! They were audacious, whoever they were. He turned, peering between backs and upper arms in search of anyone who stood out, looking up at the crowds at the bar and tables that circled the room a few steps higher than the dance floor. The bouncer wouldn't have let someone in who looked suspicious, right? Or maybe they'd offered the bouncer more than fifty bucks. Or maybe the bouncer was dead. The first screams started up behind Blue Collar, where the dancer had been shot. He zigzagged through the crowd, heading toward the front, unwilling to exit through a back door and risk getting trapped in a dead end, hoping he could escape ahead of the crowd and the hitman.

He wasn't the first out the door, but he was close. He glanced back as people trickled and then poured screaming out of the club, looking for anyone who stood out—fingering the pistol in his pocket as he did. Nothing but kids in black clothes and flashes of color. He backed away from the door, watching as he went, heading toward the safe shadows of another alleyway.

Blue Collar had scanned over the same figure in the crowd three times, before recognition hit him: he knew those reflective red goggles, and the ski mask around them, and the black windbreaker beneath. His heart leaped into his throat and his stomach dropped. Oh, please no. Not Seventeen.

He was looking at Blue Collar. He flipped up his windbreaker's hood against the rain, and stalked through the panicked crowd, unnoticed, toward Blue Collar.

Blue Collar turned and ran.

Hitmen don't hunt hitmen. Not on this planet, anyway—not unless they're in a corporation's pocket. Had Seventeen gotten a job with a big biz? Even now, running panting through the pouring rain, Blue Collar hoped for Seventeen that he had—corporate assassination was steady work, the kind that came with benefits and could carry you through to retirement if you weren't executed during a merger—but why would they send him after Blue Collar? He made a point to only take personal jobs, rarely political ones; he never messed with business. Why—?

A midnight trucker with a malfunctioning muffler roared past, thunderously loud; a bullet slammed into the back of his head, pounding on his shield. The shield spread the shock of the impact across his entire upper back, but it was enough to bring him to his knees, one hand landing just past the curb in wrist-deep water. He couldn't get up before a heavy combat boot kicked his back, knocking him to the ground as it ripped his shield off. The Pangolin clattered into the road.

"Disappointing."

Blue Collar rolled onto his back, huffing, and looked up at Seventeen. "What the hell are you doing?"

"My job." He pulled out a Jakobs revolver, a cheap thing with the faux wood paneling on the barrel already rubbing off the corners.

"Who?" Blue Collar demanded. "Who hired you, kid? How much?"

He jerked one shoulder in a shrug. "Somebody's cousin. Job you did a month ago. Couple hundred bucks?"

That was all Blue Collar's life was worth to Seventeen? He laughed wheezily. "Damn, kid, you're never gonna make it big taking high-risk low-pay jobs like that. Lord..." He reached slowly into a pocket; Seventeen's aim jerked to follow his hand, but Blue Collar waved him off, grumbling, "You know that's my wallet pocket." Seventeen lowered the Jakobs, but only slightly. Blue Collar pulled out his wallet, pushed himself up with one hand, and held the wallet up to Seventeen. "Here. Damn. I've got fifteen hundred on me."

Seventeen made a disgusted noise. He'd set his dumb voice modulator so low it sounded like a dog growling. "I don't want money."

"No, I know you don't, but you need it." Seventeen didn't move. Blue Collar shook the wallet. "Take it even if you're gonna shoot me. What am I gonna do with it?"

Seventeen hesitated. Then crouched down, snatched the wallet angrily from Blue Collar, and stuffed it in his back pocket. "Moron."

Blue Collar sank back to the wet concrete, holding himself up with both elbows, fingers of one hand dragging in the water below the curb. "You don't wanna do this."

"I do," Seventeen said, sullenly.

"You don't. I know you don't. You wouldn't have sent me that text if you really wanted to finish the job," Blue Collar said. "You couldn't bring yourself to turn down the job but you couldn't bring yourself to do it clean and quick like you should." He smiled shakily. "Don't do something you're gonna regret. You want me to escape."

"I want a challenge." He snarled it so emphatically that he lurched forward with the word. "I wanted to make this hard! I wanted a hunt!"

Blue Collar's stomach dropped again, the way it had when he'd first seen Seventeen in the crowd. Suddenly, sinkingly, he felt like he'd deeply misunderstood his gaunt young protégé. "Wha—Why? Why?"

"Because you're a pro, you're supposed to be badass. You should be a threat!" Anguished, desperate, water flying off the barrel of his revolver as he waved it, vocal modulator fritzing with static, Seventeen cried, "I'm bored, Blue Collar! Every job's so damn easy! I need a challenge!"

Blue Collar had misjudged him. Seventeen wasn't out there making tricky one shot kills out of pride, taking high-risk jobs out of arrogance; he was a junkie. He had the skinniness of a guy who gave up on food in search of a fix; he was trembling, right now, in front of Blue Collar, like he was going into withdrawal without enough stimulation to get his adrenaline pumping.

No wonder all Blue Collar's talk of Tediore, talk of safe and stable and secure, had flown right over him. He didn't want any of that. He didn't want the money. He didn't want to make a living. He wanted all the jobs he could get.

Blue Collar could hear a truck approaching from behind him. Seventeen glanced at it, then held up the Jakobs again, pointed it at Blue Collar's head. Seventeen had taken his advice, about how damn loud those Jakobs guns were; he was using the noise around him to cover up his shots.

"I'm really sorry." Seventeen's eyes weren't on Blue Collar as he prepared to kill him. Blue Collar saw the reflection of the truck's headlights in his goggles. "This was supposed to be hard. You should've fought back."

A moment before the truck passed, Blue Collar swept his hand through the water beside the curb, sending a spray into Seventeen's face. Seventeen reeled back, sputtering and rubbing his goggles on one sleeve; Blue Collar kicked one of Seventeen's feet out from under him, knocking him sprawling headfirst in the street. Blue Collar rolled over, stood, and ran as the truck honked and swerved. He didn't stop to see whether it hit Seventeen.

He crossed the street, waved at another cargo truck coming his way, standing directly in its path; it slammed the breaks, but kept skidding in the rain, and Blue Collar had to dive to the sidewalk to avoid being hit. The driver banged the cab door open and circled around the truck. "The hell do you think you're doing?!" she bellowed. She was waving a knife, a four-inch glowing blue digistructed blade extending from a solid handle, that sizzled where the rain hit it.  "Middle of the night, pouring rain, I coulda—" Blue Collar pointed his Tediore at her before he'd even gotten to his feet. She stopped in the middle of the street. "Whoa—okay, buddy, look—I didn't mean to almost hit you, let's be..."

"Back in the truck," he said hoarsely. With some difficulty, he got to his feet. "I need a ride."

He didn't say another word except "Knife, down," until the truck was moving again, heading down the street and picking up speed. "I'm sorry about this, ma'am," he said tersely. "There's a guy back there trying to kill me. Didn't have time to call a cab."

Her gaze flicked to a side mirror, then back to Blue Collar's gun, then forward again. "Would this have to do with the truck that was stopped in the middle of the road back there?"

Blue Collar nodded grimly. "With any luck, he's under its tires." It stung his heart to say that.

She nodded. "Okay. I get it. I'm sympathetic to that." She glanced at Blue Collar. "Now that we're all on the same side—do you mind pointing that somewhere else?"

He hesitated. "You're not going to go for that knife?" Its handle was in a cup holder in the center console between their seats.

"I'm not stupid."

He lowered the gun to point at his footwell. "Yeah. All right." He flopped his head back against his seat, and sighed.

Something crashed into the truck from the driver's side. The trucker swore and swerved.

Blue Collar fell sideways over the cup holder. "What the hell—" 

A second impact. Blue Collar braced one arm against the driver's seat, the other hand fumbled on the center console for something to grab onto, and he looked out her window. "Oh, my god." Slowly pulling level with them was another truck—with Seventeen crouched on the hood, one hand on the roof of the cab and the other pointing his revolver through the window. 

Blue Collar didn't have time to warn the trucker, didn't have time to do anything but gasp. The first bullet hit his shoulder, and the arm supporting him collapsed; two more shots, a pained scream; the truck veered off the road. When it crashed, Blue Collar's back slammed into the windshield, shattering it, and he tumbled down the hood to land on the ground. The rain poured on his face. He heard the other truck skid and crash a moment later.

He could hear Seventeen laugh—harsh, breathless, exhilarated.

Seventeen took his time coming to Blue Collar's side. When he was in view, Blue Collar could see why; he was limping, one arm wrapped tight around his chest, moving gingerly with pain. "Five shots on one job." He checked the ammo in his cylinder, then clicked it back in place. "Only one left for your head." He dropped uncoordinatedly to his knees and held the revolver to Blue Collar's forehead, apparently too unsteady to feel confident of making the shot from a distance. "Can one-fanged snakes kill?"

With a roar, Blue Collar lunged up, activated the trucker's digistruct knife, and slammed the blade through Seventeen's left goggle lens.

He didn't scream when he fell back. He just sucked in a breath, like he was shocked—maybe scared. Blue Collar hated the sound of it. Damn stupid, ungrateful, self-destructive kid. If Blue Collar had realized sooner what it was he was looking for, what desperation was gripping him—maybe he could've helped him out better, maybe they could have found a way to get him whatever it was he needed.

Voice tight with pain, Seventeen croaked, "Well-fought, badass." He raised his revolver one last time.

The Jakobs was the loudest thing Blue Collar had ever heard.

###

"God, no, I don't actually enjoy Maliwan snipers." Mordecai waved off the suggestion with one arm, briefly startling Talon off his perch on his shoulder. "Sorry." He waved at Talon, calling him back down, then settled back slouching in his rickety folding chair overlooking the rolling Highlands below. "I just like 'em for the utility. There's nothing more satisfying than a headshot with a Jakobs—"

"Yes," Zer0 said emphatically, their back ramrod straight where they sat on the ground beside Mordecai. "Exactly."

"See, you get it!" Mordecai laughed. "But when you're working fast—and me, Lil, and Brick, sometimes we've gotta work fast—most efficient thing to do is have a guy out of the line of fire to slag targets as fast as possible so the guys on the ground can pick them off. And the only guy in our group with that skill..." He pointed a thumb at himself. "Seen you hauling around some Maliwan rifles, too. Same reason?"

Zer0 sighed in frustratin, nodding. "Our skills are wasted," they said. "Anyone can slag and spray. One shot kills are art."

"Yeah?" Mordecai grinned crookedly. "You think so? Me, an artist, huh."

"Mm." Zer0 nodded, inordinately pleased to have gotten that smile out of the more experienced sniper.

They'd been told, years and years ago, that assassination was a lonely profession. Blue Collar had been right. Small interludes like this, when Zer0 could get out of their own head—break the monotonous cycle of long waits and unsatisfying jobs between the rare real thrill kills—were a blessing and a relief. Almost enough to keep them sane.

"Hey, we should hang more," Mordecai said, clapping a hand on Zer0's shoulder. Zer0 stiffened, but found they minded the uninvited contact much less than they expected to. "Don't get a lot of other good snipers around here—or even folks that appreciate me as a sniper instead of just 'the support guy with the slag.' What do you think? I know some good spires in the Dust that let you see for miles around. We can pick off spiderants—I wanna see how far you can really shoot."

An LED red smiley flashed out of their prosthetic left eye. "Sounds fun."

Mordecai got to his feet, considered the folding chair, then decided either nobody would steal it or it wasn't worth preserving. "I'm heading back to Sanctuary. You coming?"

"Later," Zer0 said. "Gotta drive around."

###

Once every few days, when they didn't have enough to shoot and found themself walking along the roofs of Sanctuary on windy days just for the meager thrill of trying not to fall, Zer0 took their technical on a long circuit through Pandora, checking out every single bounty board they could find. They bounced over hard tundra roads and unevenly packed sandy highways so fast it physically hurt, using the speed to distract them from the itch for something to do.

They were bored, god they were bored. It was the kind of boredom that crushed you, suffocated you, like a heavy weight pinning down your chest while you writhed and clawed at the dirt trying to get out from under it. They could feel the boredom sucking on the inside of their chest, threatening to form a black hole in the pit of their abdomen. Their hands shook and their feet bounced, trying to shake off the boredom. It didn't abate. In their heart, Zer0 knew that this boredom was going to kill them someday.

They circled from one bounty board to the next, like a junkie looking for a dealer, looking for a fix to stave off the boredom. Anything, anything—exterminate a skag den, deliver a package, go to a birthday party—anything. 

Finally, at the Happy Pig bounty board, Zer0 found an illuminated yellow sign. They pushed down the gas, although they were already going as fast as they could, and leaped out of the technical before it stopped rolling. It crashed into the motel room with the weird altar for human sacrifices. The cultists would have to set up a new firepit.

They flipped through the offered jobs—package delivery, package pickup, take down a local bandit—and then stopped. And they stared.

They felt cold.

«Reward for anybody who brings down the cheating S.O.B. known as Mordecai. Originally from Artemis, last seen with a pack of vault-hunting bandits on Pandora...»

They couldn't move. They re-read the bounty, hoping that the name would change.

It didn't.

They thought of shooting contests in the desert, of long debates about rifle features and sniping techniques, of how the hours melted by comfortably and steadily in friendly company. They thought of Mordecai's breathtakingly infallible aim. They thought of their modest home in Sanctuary—and of Sanctuary's defenses. They thought of the people they considered mutual friends—the powerful people, so very powerful, who would come to Mordecai's defense. They thought of what it would be like to lose those friends—they thought of what it would be like to gain them as opponents.

They thought about the boredom sucking them inside out.

They stared hard at the bounty, until the letters swam together and the reward was a string of digits.

Then they turned to look at Sanctuary.

###

Comments/reblogs are welcome! If you want to leave a tip or like the fic on AO3, the links are in my description!

[dirthara-an]

@sunfirst ⫸

GODLINGS WERE EASILY MISTAKEN TO BE OTHER SPIRITS . so at first , the father god figured it was simply a spirit too curious of his antics first & foremost . then the stare got too long , as if it was only keeping watch so that it would be eventually acknowledged . Elgar'nan turns around , a flicker of emotion glinted in deep brown eyes but soon gone out like a wisp . ah ... it was just simply Dirthamen , a new child that the primordial forces had decided to spit out from the Earth .

though this child usually was attached to the hip with his twin , the All-Father wonders where the loud-mouthed Falon'din could have slinkered off to this time . or had Dirthamen the courage enough to come wandering off on his own ?

" it's rather late , don't you think little bear ? " arms behind his back , Elgar'nan approaches the boy & kneels down to Dirthamen's level . " rarely you'd be without Falon'din , but you must really want something from me if you're here by yourself . " he gently lifts a hand to pat Dirthamen softly on the top of his head . of course , Elgar'nan remembers the boy's tendency to remain mute --- an unfortunate effect of being so sensitive to hearing so many secrets each passing minute .

he'll learn to manage it & grow stronger , it is the process of growing up after all . " do you want to tell me what is it you're here for , da'len ? "

As soon, as he got the father's acknowledgement, the silent boy stepped further into the room, eagerly lifting his head higher to receive the expected pat on the head. When Elgar'nan noted the absence of his twin soul Dirthamen merely shrugged. He had spend the day cooped up in his rooms and Falon'Din soon found himself bored and declared he was going to the forest.

'do you want to tell me what is it you're here for , da'len ?'

Dirthamen immediately raised his clasped hands at that, almost butting the father in the face with the back of his hollowed fist. Once he was sure Elgar'nan was looking, Dirthamen slowly opened his palms, careful as if he was afraid what was inside would startle and escape.

What was inside seemed to be just a simple rock at first glance. But after a beat the small rock began to shake a little and then one by one eight thin legs unfurled from where they had curled around the underside of the rock. At last the rock itself seemed to unfold, revealing a long pointed tail on one and a scrawny torso with a blind head and spindly arms on the other end. The ugly creature stood unsteady despite its many legs, wobbling about like a newborn fowl. It sniffed the air and as soon as it picked up the unfamiliar scent of the Allfather it opened it's maw, revealing tiny razor sharp teeth and then it screeched with a voice like claws on marble floor.

Despite its incessant noise, Dirthamen looked at the creature with unbridled excitement using the hand that wasn't holding the creature up to steady it by holding it's tail between thumb and index finger. Looking back up at his father, Dirthamen whispered what was possibly bis first word ever spoken to the Allfather.

"Varterral." Despite being nothing more, but a sigh on the wind, warm pride was vibrating in every syllable of the word.

[theshopislocal]

corinth rains

New and improved Heaven may well be the Happiest Place (not) on Earth. But Dean, it turns out, is still Dean.

(also on AO3)

chapter eleven

Shaded and cool, the little forest in the field is a half-lit oasis on the shining plain. 

Though there’s only a smattering of trees, they’re densely packed around the old barn, the canopy stippling strange shadows onto the muddied ground. Dean’s eyes trace them as he trudges the pitted path, stepping over errant roots and brittle fallen branches. 

Dean had pulled up maybe ten minutes ago. He’d idled a few moments, as always, letting Baby’s rumbling purr soothe the tension across his back. When he was certain his legs would hold him, he’d cut the ignition and hoisted himself up, striding towards the barn with all the gusto of a man walking the plank. 

As he’d approached, he’d noticed an odd stillness in the structure - a hollow sort of silence, stilted and uncharged. A quick peek inside had confirmed what he’d already surmised: empty. 

Dean had stood there, arms stiff and hands fisted, irritation warring with a swell of dread. Then he’d shaken himself, straightened his spine, and set off down the narrow dirt path amongst the trees. 

Something small and shiny whizzes past Dean’s ear, and he leans to the side in a flinch. 

While the little forest has ample flora - sprawling ferns and squat bushes, green hellebores and dangling bluebells - it’s oddly without much fauna. Dean’s grown rather accustomed to the substratum of birdsong and jumping fish at his inlet; here though, there’s only the occasional rustling of what might be a small rodent, and the buzz of - apparently - bumblebees. 

The little bee circles around Dean, slightly too close for comfort, and he waves a hand to shoo it away. He watches its flight, lazy and seemingly directionless, until it comes upon the back of the old barn. There’s a shining wind chime hung from a flickering sconce lamp, its long Corinthian bells silent in the still air. The bee hovers over it for a moment, then dances off toward a figure at the other side. 

Cas stands at the foot of a spindly oak tree, head craned back to stare up at the canopy. 

Dean stares at his back, watching his shoulder blades shift under his trench coat. He wonders if Cas can feel the weight of his new wings, feel them tugging at his spine even while they’re hidden. 

Dean’s pretty sure Cas knows he’s there. Back when they’d first met, Cas could teleport directly to Dean from a thousand miles away - could find Dean in the dark and cold, endless expanse of Hell. Even powerless and human in an alternate universe, Cas had known Dean nearly the instant he saw him. 

Cas has always known him. Always found him. 

“Would you have ever told me,” Dean murmurs, voice just loud enough to carry. Oddly enough, it’s precisely what he meant to say, what he came here to ask - but the words taste like ash in his mouth. 

Cas’ head tips forward and to the side. His shoulders rise in a deep breath. “I did tell you.”

Dean huffs a laugh at that, face splitting in a wretched smile. It’s a cop-out, and they both know it. Dean’s said enough last words to know they’re inherently selfish - a balm for the dying, not the survivors. 

Cas’ shoulders sag on a sigh, and he glances back up at the tree. There’s a large beehive hanging from a crooked branch overhead. 

“No,” Cas murmurs. 

Dean’s stomach clenches, eyes tracing over Cas’ low-lit form. In the liminal space between the shadows of the trees, his body looks strange - more like a bending of light than a corporeal figure. It occurs to Dean that Cas has no need of a vessel in Heaven, that he has likely restructured his true form for the sole purpose of looking as Dean remembers him. 

Dean bites the inside of his cheek, fingernails digging into his palms. “Why,” he whispers. 

Cas is silent for a moment, still like a statue. The breeze picks up, tinkling the wind chimes at Dean’s side. 

“It wasn’t your burden to bear,” Cas says finally. He takes a diagonal step around the tree, careful to keep his back to Dean. 

Dean resists an almost overwhelming urge to step forward. “Burden?” he calls out, just as the wind dies down. 

Cas halts and glances back up at the tree. Dean follows his eyes to the beehive. It hangs near the end, its weight pulling the narrow branch downward. There’s a knot at the place where the branch meets the trunk, with a wide crack running through it. 

“Yes,” Cas says as he steps further away. “Burden.”

Dean watches him disappear into the thicket, the gnarled trees painting him in shadow, swallowing him up. Dean turns away from the quiet chimes, the buzzing hive, the creaking branch, and backtracks his route along the tortuous path. 

His boots trample hellebores and bluebells alike. 

~*~

When he arrives at the inlet, John is sitting on the bench at the end of the pier. 

Dean halts his stride, one foot dangling uselessly in the air. He doesn’t remember the drive from the hayfield, doesn’t know why he’s here, rather than alone in his dark little bunker, rather than floating in the endless abyss of the Empty. He doesn’t know why the sun beats down on his back, why the eden that surrounds him feels like a wasteland. 

He doesn’t know, he doesn’t know. 

John peeks over his shoulder and gives Dean a tiny crooked smile. He juts his chin toward a lonesome rod - Dean’s own - propped against the empty side of the bench. 

Dean breathes out a sigh and approaches, grabbing the rod as he sidles onto the seat. He hunches forward and clutches at the grip, thumb fiddling with the reel. His stinging eyes trace the line up the pole and back down, the weight of John’s stare pressing on his shoulders. 

Silence descends on him, in him, and he feels like he had just after Mary had burned - like he’s standing on a snowy slope in the imminence of an avalanche, like the softest spoken word will bury him in debris. 

John makes a little sound in the back of his throat and leans away, rustling in the bag at his side. He comes back upright, shoulder bumping against Dean’s, and holds out a bottle of El Sol. 

Dean eyes the bottle and the wrinkled hand offering it, then he follows the line of the leather-clad arm to John’s face. He’s looking away, squinted eyes watching the play of ripples in the water. His brow is a straight smooth line, his mouth soft. He looks calm and at ease, spine curved and shoulders loose. 

Dean gets the strangest feeling that, for the first time, John expects nothing of him.

Dean stares at him for a moment longer, considering, then takes the beer from John’s outstretched hand. He flicks off the cap with his thumbnail and takes a long pull. It’s sour and hoppy, bitter as always. 

Dean casts his line. 

He knows he won’t make a catch, and that the sun won’t set. He knows he won’t speak a word, and neither will John. He knows the dregs of his beer will be warm and flat. And he knows the fish in the inlet don’t know that they’re wet. 

~*~

“‘The other angel.’”

Cas turns sharply, and his book drops onto the table with a dull thud. Dean’s caught him by surprise, he realizes; though he supposes that makes sense - he’s caught himself by surprise as well. Not a moment ago he’d been stood in his modest kitchen, rifling through the cabinets in search of something he can’t remember, when a thought occurred. 

A thought that, apparently, brought him here. 

Cas frowns and shakes his head, eyebrows dropping low. “What?” he grumbles. 

Dean clenches his jaw and takes an unsteady step forward. “‘The other angel,’” he repeats. “‘The one in the dirty trench coat who’s—’” Dean’s jaw clamps shut, teeth digging into his tongue, but he presses onwards, “... ‘who’s in love with you.’ That’s—” he runs his tongue over his lips, though his mouth has gone dry, “—that’s how Balthazar described you to me.”

Cas’ frown persists for an instant, before it smoothes into weary resignation. He turns back toward the table, bagged eyes dropping. 

“Well,” he murmurs. “Subtlety was never Balthazar’s strong s—”

Dean shakes his head. “He knew.”

Cas stills, the hand reaching toward his book freezing in the air. 

Dean isn’t sure where the realization had come from, but it had hit him like a damned freight train. And on its heels had come the urgent, almost desperate need to hear Cas deny it. 

Not that Cas had ever been much of a liar. 

An image floats to the surface of Dean’s mind: a pretty brunette with ice blue eyes, offering Cas an army and a shining pointed blade. We gave you our trust, she’d said. Don’t lose it over one man.

“Hannah knew, too,” Dean grits out, taking another step forward. “Didn’t she.”

Tell me I’m wrong, Dean thinks. Aren’t I always?

Cas sighs and hunches forward, pressing his hands flat against the tabletop. “Dean...”

“Naomi,” Dean interjects. I admire your loyalty, she’d said to Dean, lying through her teeth. I only wish Castiel felt the same way.

Dean takes another step, blossoming rage steadying his motion. “Uriel,” he spits. You see, he has this weakness; he likes you. “Hester.” When Castiel first laid a hand on you in Hell, he was lost! “Ishim.” So now, I’m gonna help you. I’m gonna cure you of your human weakness. 

That last one carves a fault through Dean’s mind. Ishim had nearly killed Cas, had him supine and bloodied on the cold floor. Dean’s hand had hovered over a banishing sigil, a plea in Cas’ eyes begging him to use it, to smear his grace across the cosmos if only to save Dean’s life. 

Cas’ head tips forward, posture sagging over the table, as he whispers, “Dean—”

“Everyone knew,” Dean says, and his voice has dropped to a scratchy, untouched octave. “Didn’t they.”

Tell me I’m wrong.

Castiel sighs, head tipping back like he’s looking to the heavens. Dean wants to laugh at the irony, but there’s something sharp caught in his throat. 

“Many of the Host,” Cas intones, “my... my brethren.” He peers down at his hands, mouth a straight, firm line. “They knew.”

Dean’s eyes squeeze shut, and his head falls forward. His spine feels loose, wobbly like a Jenga tower. 

“They didn’t—” Cas shakes his head, and a muscle in his jaw twitches. “They didn’t understand,” he murmurs. “But...” he pulls his lips through his teeth, giving a slow, weary nod. “They knew.”

You’re just sad, Ishim says to Cas in the cathedral in Dean’s head. Pathetically weak. 

Human weakness. 

Human weakness. 

Dean sucks in a sharp breath, his hand settling over his roiling stomach. “It’s the reason they hated you, isn’t it,” he whispers, and his voice cracks. “I’m...” he swallows around the lump in his throat and nods sharply. “I’m the reason.”

Tell me I’m wrong.

Cas turns toward Dean, his eyebrows arching toward the center of his forehead. His eyes have gone shiny and pink-rimmed. 

“They didn’t hate me, Dean,” he murmurs, and his tone is chiding and pleading at once. “They—”

He cuts himself off, and his eyes flick side to side. Dean can tell he’s searching for a better word - something softer than the barbed, stinging one he’d just barely swallowed down. 

Dean had heard it anyway. 

“Pity,” Dean grunts, and he doesn’t bother hoping he’s wrong. He knows better now. “They pitied you.”

Cas holds Dean’s gaze for all of five seconds, before his eyes cut away. 

Dean’s lungs contract, expelling all his breath, and he takes a step backwards, nearly overbalancing in his haste to get out, get gone, get away. Cas’ brow furrows, and he takes an abortive step forward, reaching out a hand. 

His right hand. 

“Dean—” he says sharply, but Dean isn’t listening any more. 

He’d borne Cas’ handprint on his arm like a war wound - had worn it on his sleeve like some people wore their hearts. Through all the years they’d known one another, all the foiled apocalypses and paradises lost, it had never occurred to Dean that he might’ve left a mark on Cas, too - that the very touch that gave Dean a reddened handprint, might have given Cas a red right hand. 

Dean spins on his heel in a swift volte face, and marches towards the door, tottery but unfaltering. He crosses the threshold and steps into the garish sunlight. 

He thinks Cas might be calling his name, but it’s muted and distant, garbled like he’s underwater.

chapter ten | chapter twelve

table of contents

[delusion-of-negation]

Don't ask me why I wrote this, I don't know, I have no idea, it just happened, cartoons fucked me up as a kid, they fucked me up. Anyway, here's a quickly written, first draft, absolute garbage, weird story about a trans person getting a new body from the fellows at the baby factory.

At precisely 16:00, the time of my appointment, I arrived at the fabled building. After a moment of adjusting to the cold air and low pressure, I turned to thank my lift, but only a couple of feathers and a small hole in the clouds remained as evidence that there had even been anyone there at all.

I made my way up the marble steps and through the golden doors, into a room that I could only describe as resembling a large, dystopian, London bank. Windows and statues of birds lined the walls to the right and left of me at even intervals, with carved patterns and gold plating on almost every surface, contrasting unpleasantly against the sleek marble. The echoes of nearby chatter and pleading, and the gentle rocking of the wind beating against the cloud that the building stood upon, made the room feel like an unpleasant fairground ride.

My shoes tapped an unsteady rhythm on the shimmering tiles, as I made my way towards the largest window, which stood proudly opposite the main entrance and thankfully had less gold and artwork to distract from its simple majesty. There were no other patrons waiting to be served, so I leant forwards, tilting my mouth towards the tiny black microphone that stuck out from the small ledge, and coughed to get the attention of the staff member.

There was a grunt in response, and I felt beady eyes drilling into my skull, like they were anticipating someone annoying to end their already long day.

"I have an appointment," I stuttered into the microphone, "With customer services."

I heard the tap of a beak bumping into the glass as the tall creature on the other side leant forwards to their microphone, "What for?"

"Repairs and replacements," I said, wracking my brain for all of the numbers and referrals that I'd gone through on the phone earlier that week.

The creature shuffled in their seat, feathers scratching against leather - they were a good half metre taller than me while sitting down.

"Your warranty expired," the creature mumbled, and I glanced up to see the light of a computer screen reflected on their long beak and in their black eyes. The white feathers on their face and neck were tinted slightly blue by the glow.

"I purchased-"

"Yes, our care package," they interrupted nonchalantly, "I see it now. Through the door on the left."

They lifted a wing lazily to gesture in the direction of a simple, wooden door at the end of a path dictated by posts linked by golden rope - likely put there in anticipation of a queue that never formed.

I nodded in gratitude and then made my way between the rows of posts, silently cursing the part of myself that was too polite to simply duck under the rope and make a beeline for the end, until I was through the door and into a long, empty corridor. Concerned about looking out of place or stupid - not that I wasn't aware that I already looked both out of place and stupid being so tiny in a building designed for much larger creatures - I kept walking.

After a sharp right, I found myself face to face with another of the giant storks, but this time there was no glass between us. They were hunched over, fumbling to pick up some papers and books that had somehow become strewn across the floor in disarray.

I bent down and scooped up a few bits and bobs, and then slipped them into the material sling that hung around the stork's neck.

"Thank you, thank you!" they repeated, each time I dropped an item into the makeshift bag, "I really must watch where I'm going. I'm so sorry for the inconvenience- Oh! I know who you are!"

My eyes darted up at the sudden change of tone, "You do?"

The stork stood up to their full height and their head almost brushed the ceiling - I never expected to be able to relate to a fish facing certain death, but standing in the shadow of an eight foot bird sent a chill up my spine.

"Well, you were just a wee little thing when I last saw you, but I'd recognize that hideous mole anywhere!"

I placed a hand over my cheek instinctively, "Umm, you're the one who delivered me?"

"That's me! Storkington Copperfield!" The bird bowed low as they said their name, and the sling tilted dangerously, threatening to throw all of the documents out for a second time, "And may I be the first to say that I am so sorry for the error. The XX and XY models are always getting mixed up; I've complained to HR but they don't listen to us, we're just the delivery guys..."

The bird trailed off and began mumbling in anagrams and company policy that I didn't understand, and it took over a minute of gobbledygook for them to realize that I wasn't following at all.

"Yes!" they exclaimed in answer to a question that I hadn't yet plucked up the courage to ask, cutting off their own rant, "I'm who your appointment is with today. Sorry, I'm a little flustered - bird-brained, as your kind would say!"

The squawk that followed, which I assumed was either how their kind laughed or the equivalent of snorting in humans, was nearly enough to make me jump out of my skin.

"Anyway!" Storkington cawed, "Follow me!"

They led me further down the corridor and into a small office, prancing along effortlessly on spindly legs that didn't look nearly thick enough to hold up the rounded body, huge wingspan, downy neck and long beak.

I cannot stress enough how big the bird really was up close, it was like seeing a moose for the first time - except, I'd seen storks before, at least, the ones we had miles below in the normal world. The workers and owners of this huge corporation weren't the same as our storks - they were taller, bulkier, and looked more like someone had poured glue over a skinny dinosaur and then thrown it into a pile of feathers, before taping a sword to its face.

Actually, that mental image was a lot more amusing than watching Storkington's legs bend backwards with each step, as their head bobbed up and down above me.

They clicked the sign on the outside of the office door into the "In Use" position, before nudging the door itself closed and turning to face me. Smaller black feathers surrounded Storkington's eyes, giving the illusion that they were bigger than the other stork's, which was oddly calming.

"We won't be in here long, just need a couple of details before we decide the best way to resolve your case."

I nodded, eager to hurry things along and not be enclosed in a dimly lit room with a creature that could impale me with its mouth for any longer than was absolutely necessary.

"So, your new care package covers all of this - you and Storkney Wellington sorted all of the financial stuff out on the phone, so that's..." they trailed off as they thumbed- winged? -their way through a few pages, "Yes, that's all good."

I nodded again, slightly more forcefully.

"So, I guess all that's left is to establish if we want to repair or replace..?" they said, looking up.

I had been thinking about this for days. I'd weighed up the options and the possibilities. But I had one question before I made my final call...

"Where do you get the replacements?"

The stork let out another squawk-laugh, "Don't humans have factories too?" They wobbled their head from side to side, and their neck weaved like a dangling string that had been lightly shaken, "We are a manufacturer, we make a surplus."

I gawked for a second, "What do you do with them? I mean, who raises them?"

"Raises them?" Storkington lowered their head until the tip of their beak was an inch from my face, and I thought back to the sound of the other stork bumping into the glass, hoping that this one had better spacial awareness. "We don't add the consciousness until they're ready to be delivered, that'd be a waste of valuable resources."

"So there's just a bunch of baby bodies in boxes?"

"They still grow," Storkington explained, pulling his head back, "Would you like to see so that you can pick out a fitting model?"

I nodded in excitement before my thoughts had even had a chance to make sense of what I had heard and what I was agreeing to. Almost immediately, a wing was wrapped around my shoulder, whisking me back out into the corridor and deeper into the innards of the building.

The further we went, the less decorative and majestic the halls became, and the more it resembled a factory or the back of a supermarket, with boxes stacked here and there, scattered footsteps, and the sounds of machinery. I only saw two other birds along the journey, both shorter than Storkington and too busy at work to bother looking up at us as we passed.

It wasn't long after passing the second stork that we stepped through an archway and into a huge, dark chamber. From ceiling to floor it seemed to be occupied by nothing other than rows and rows of thick, metal pillars, darkened with age and wear, with just enough space between them for two of the giant storks to pass through together. The columns looked mechanical, but old, rusted in some places.

Then there was a click, and I looked back to see Storkington with one wing against the wall where I'd expect a lightswitch to be.

The columns began whirring, clunking, moving in sync - as the metal pulled away from itself, blue lights began to shine through the gaps.

The outershell of the pillars disappeared into the ceiling and floor, section by section, revealing glass cylinder upon glass cylinder, each glowing blue and holding a human form within it.

I took a step towards the closest one and stared into the empty, grey eyes of an elderly woman. She looked like a corpse, hairless, lifeless, dead-eyed, just a shell - there was no character in her face, no wrinkles formed by laughter, no scars or stretch marks anywhere to be seen. It was so chillingly clear that she had never even been alive, but it all combined to make it impossible to place her age - that is, until I glanced at a little white sticker, about chest height and on the left side of the container.

"Manufactured March 4th 1867."

If it wasn't for the fact that her lifeless eyes and flawless skin were haunting to the point of feeling inhuman, I'd have said that she looked bloody good for 150.

"Row G7 has the age and sex that you're looking for," Storkington said cheerily, "Follow me!"