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likeinit · 1 month ago

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right now i only care about one person

#root x shaw #person of interest

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likeinit · 1 month ago

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S A U C E

THE ONLY FAILSAFE YOU EVER NEED IS YOU

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

“She’ll come back.”

Keyla barely finds it in her to turn her head sideways, the promise puffing weakly through Rhys’ lips. She’s not sure whether he’s saying it for their sake or for hers personally, but regardless of its intention, it does nothing to quell the pressure in her chest that mounts with each passing second.

Ironic, really -- the more she bursts with to say, the less oxygen she has with which to say it. Save your oxygen, Tilly’d said early on, words strained in the thinning atmosphere of the hallway, but to Keyla, it hadn’t mattered much whether she’d had oxygen to save. Not when her last breath had disappeared up with the ladder with her unsaid goodbyes.

The whole situation makes her want to laugh, if such an action was in her lung capacity; she’d been planning to ask Joann out later that night once they were off shift, worries for the day discarded on their floor with their uniforms. Jo, she would’ve said, easy head tilt and all, if the universe set you up to deal with me, do you think it could be because it wanted me to take you out?

What? Joann would’ve asked in that comfortingly teasing way Keyla’d come to memorize. What do you mean?

And Keyla, fearless pilot of the first ship at the Battle of the Binary Stars, would’ve squared her shoulders, told herself to be kind, and tried not to smile too hard. To take you out, she would’ve said simply, and waited with bated breath for what she hoped would be the favorable outcome. How’s a dinner date at the holodeck Friday sound?

Instead, the words she’s worked so hard to perfect were snatched from her with nothing more than a whoopsie-daisies and a phaser to her head, stolen from her in a future breath she’ll never get to take. “She’ll come back,” Rhys promises again, and this time, the look in his eyes suggests he knows exactly what’s churning through her thoughts.

“She will,” Bryce chimes in, and around her, Keyla can hear the sounds of her friends’ weak chiming in. She’s not sure when her feelings about Joann became bridge crew knowledge (Georgiou had even threatened her, once or twice before she’d left, homicidal pain in the ass), but in her possible last moments, if she couldn’t have had her beloved ops partner by her side, it was some small comfort to at least have those that knew Keyla treasured her.

A soft thump. “She’ll come back,” Tilly rasps, and the blackness is beginning to creep into the edges of Keyla’s vision. This is it, then -- this is how she goes, 930 years into the future surrounded by the only family she’s got left and in the name of a shell of the organization she’d originally signed on to serve. Another exhale, and the blackness increases another inch. “She’ll come back ‘cause she loves you.”

She does? Keyla wants to ask, but her brain is already starving for oxygen, every remaining molecule dedicated to clouding the rest of her vision and making sure that her eyes are at least shut for the grand finale called death. She does. At least if she’s going out, she’s answered all of the immediate questions in life.

She does, and that’s all I needed to know.

The next time her eyes shoot open, it’s to the soft fluorescent lighting assigned to all science vessels, the floor hard and unforgiving against her back. If this is heaven, it’s not a very nice introduction. (Also, Keyla thinks, heaven would ideally have Joann curled into her, so the fact that neither of those factors are present is a pretty good indicator that she hasn’t died.)

But, that’s her brain, always a traitor to optimism, just because you’re alive doesn’t necessarily mean everyone else is, too. She’s not sure whether to look around -- despite its violent reintroduction into society, Keyla’s brain has already done the math, and the probability that everyone’s survived is lower than their beginning assumptions that they’d be able to take back Discovery.

Still, it’s something she has to face. If she faced something, she’d beat it. Besides, it wasn’t like she could lie like this forever. Slowly, Keyla turns her head in the last known direction of Rhys and Bryce, breath whooshing out of her lungs when she sees the both of them, a little groggy but no worse for wear. Down the corridor, Ina is the same, shakily getting to her feet to join the rest of them; Tilly, bless her heart, is scrubbing the curls out of her face with no visible distress --

“You pulled me out of there.” Keyla’s heart does an almost painful lurch in her chest, it can’t be, she needs to be able to sit up right the fuck now -- “Thank you.”

Brain and body, both of them traitors: the cough that expels itself from Keyla’s chest is not how she’d wanted to announce herself, but it seems to do the trick, and as she finally manages to roll over to her side, her eyes meet Joann’s, flecked with gold and wider than the hole that should currently be in their nacelle. “You’re alive,” she whispers, because it’s just about all she can process right now.

Joann Owosekun is alive. Joann Owosekun is alive, and unharmed, and maybe looking at Keyla like she’d believed she’d never lay eyes on her again, but above all, Joann is alive.

Joann is alive, and Joann is here, and god, if Keyla’s heart doesn’t stop doing donuts anytime soon she’s pretty sure she’s going to go into cardiac arrest. (Joann. Is. Alive.)

“So are you,” the other woman finally whispers back, her awed expression shifting to one more suited for general company as she looks around at the rest of the crew. “All of you.”

“You did it?” Tilly asks, finally managing to make it to her feet; in no time, the rest of the crew is in somewhat similar positions, if not a little unsteady. Keyla still can’t stop staring at Joann -- it’s like she’s seen the rebirth of the sun, every fiber of her being yearning to reach out and simply hold her, ensure that what she’s seeing is real and not some horrific figment of her imagination.

“We did it,” Joann answers, and it’s so her, so Joann to share the victory with those around her that it makes Keyla want to weep in relief. There’s no way she can be dreaming this up, no way this can be faked, not even the best of holoprograms could make up Joann’s nature.

Next to them, Tilly laughs. “Let’s go to the bridge, then,” she says, the rest of the crew moving to follow. It’s then that Joann’s eyes turn back to Keyla’s, still wide, still drinking the pilot in with a stifled sort of disbelief. Her arms seem to unfold with an almost unconscious movement, and the same autopilot in Keyla’s brain shuffles her two steps forward and into Joann’s arms, the solidity of her touch activating an octopus embrace of her own.

You almost died, she wants to whisper, eyes shutting tightly at Joann’s arms wrapped around hers. You almost died, and I never got to tell you I love you. You almost died, and you almost took me with you. “I knew you could do it,” she whispers instead, because it’s better than chastising Joann for things she couldn’t control. “I always knew you could do it.”

She’ll ask Joann out later -- and even later down the line, Keyla will tell her she loves her -- but right now, in the sweet, sweet relief of a defeated Emerald Chain, there is nothing better than the simple knowledge that they are both alive.

#star trek: discovery #keyla detmer #joann owosekun

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likeinit · 1 month ago

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the people's favorite* character /category #3: Bess Turani Marvin + text posts (1/♥︎)

*based on the results of my super-scientific and definitely accurate tumblr poll about characters from CW's Nancy Drew.

[aka, it's been a very long hiatus and I just wanna have fun and post something even if it's stuff I already made remixed into new posts. More to follow soon! 😁]

#bess marvin #nancy drew

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likeinit · 1 month ago

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