#[not about anyone here even if it was a statement capable of aim--- just things i been thinking on in my YEAR | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rantrambles · 3 years

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Ever get so upset you make a Tumblr account to vent?

I haven’t even listened to The Penumbra Podcast yet but it’s on my list because it’s insanely popular and the cosplays I’ve seen are hot as hell (A+ to all the cosplayers I’ve seen you’ve done great work). Now, with the recent news surrounding the podcast, I’ll wait till it’s done if I ever do get into it. I’m Asian and part of the LGBT community but I’m not nonbinary so I can’t say much about the trans represention in the art but I wanted to add my two cents on the matter as a person of color and someone examining the situation from the outside. Also, before I get deeply into it, I’m not the only person of color with opinions on this matter so if people have their own frustrations and criticism with the racism in The Penumbra Podcast and/or the new artist they hired, definitely listen to them too. These are my own personal opinions, and I’m sure other people will disagree and that’s fine. We’re all going to have different views on this so bear that in mind. Also, feel free to correct me or add anything if I’ve missed some information. Here’s a great breakdown of the whole situation for those that don’t know what happened. Finally, I was very hesitant to post this, but I felt it was important because I make a statement at the end on how race should be presented in a podcast format so if you are interested in making a podcast and want to have a diverse range of characters, please skip to the end to read those thoughts.

I’ll start off by saying, I’m not even that upset with the new artist that The Penumbra Podcast hired. I know that statement alone is controversial but I don't personally know them, and I’m not going to judge who they are as a person by a few pieces of art they’ve made. They are the least of the problems that I have here. Since the announcement and the backlash, I’ve been scrolling through the artist’s Instagram account and I can tell why people find the designs offensive, but I’m also comparing the designs to the artist’s other work, and I honestly believe that’s just their style. They’ve exaggerated the features of just about every character they’ve made, regardless of race or gender. From what I’ve seen the sharp angles and overly round curves in the anatomy that make some of the character’s features more jarring are how they prefer to draw. I’m sure they’re capable of drawing more realistic proportions but for the most part they’re art aims to call attention, be bold, and create distinguished features. Not inherently a bad thing on its own.

And yeah I’d understand the issue if this were a scenario where the artist heard how these characters acted in the podcast and thought “hey, obviously this character is a black woman because they are super strong and therefore must have big muscles, no other woman could look like that” or “hey, this character has to be Asian because they act super seductive sometimes better draw them as such.” But from my understanding the race was already decided by previous official artists and a general description of the characters were already generated by the audience, similar to how The Magnus Archives leaned towards drawing scrawny Jon with black, greying hair and dark skin. The new artists couldn’t really change those features even if those features aren’t described in canon because a depiction that strayed too far from popular fandom interpretation would make the character’s unrecognizable to the fanbase.

I think the reason this became such a big issue for most people is because the new Penumbra artist used their exaggerated art style when making these characters and people of color and nonbinary folks already see themselves drawn as these exaggerated caricatures all the time (with those images being used to further discriminate against them). I’m sure the artist didn’t mean for their art to be offensive, but that of course doesn’t change how it was received.

According to some, the poses and expressions the artists chose did not fully represent the characters entirely and only served to further perpetuate harmful stereotypes, and I’ll have to take their word for it because I still haven’t listened to the podcast so I have no idea how the characters act. But again much of the criticism is based on the one line-up and doing a deeper dive into the artist’s work I managed to find artwork that was much less offensive. Here some art where Vespa is depicted in a non-violent pose and one where Vespa is in a threatening pose but not an overly violent one. Here is Peter drawn in a non-seductive pose. Hopefully, the artist truly does keep the criticisms in mind as they work on the new official art. I’m just not the type of person that wants to get the pitchforks out and cause this particular person to lose a job they seemed really excited about over their old character line-up, especially when that person is also part of a marginalized group.

Again, that’s just my opinion on that particular artist. Those who are offended by their art are still valid in how they feel, and the artist should absolutely take their criticism to heart to better how they represent the characters.

What I’m more upset about is that I think The Penumbra Podcast should never have released official art for their characters in the first place and that’s their mistake that they refuse to own up about. They have made it clear that the story was never meant to portray characters of colors, a fact emphasized by the fact they hired mostly white actors from the start. They only started releasing art of the characters to get a profit. And the thing is they know what they did was wrong. All I had to do was search Penumbra Podcast racism and there is a note on their website saying that they archived some old official art.

“We have discontinued all Penumbra merchandise that uses the original character designs, and in the meantime, any profits on the sales of that merchandise will go to the For The Gworls project. We also realize that the depiction of these characters as POC, while not appropriate for us to use in our marketing and merchandise, has nonetheless become personally meaningful to many POC listeners. For that reason, and because we do not wish to distance ourselves from our mistake, we are keeping these images on our website for archival purposes. Though we do want to make it clear that many of the main/featured voice actors are white and that we did not write the characters to represent any specific POC experience, you are, as always, free to imagine these characters in any way that you like.”

I went to their shop and they still sell posters and pins with the character’s faces on them, but they are donating it to a good cause so hopefully that stays the same. However, I still find it a little uncomfortable that they are still selling character merch and have plans to continue selling character merch. They have no right to dissuade the fans that already found representation in the characters, but they also have no right to profit off the representation that was built, regardless if they made the story.

Let’s compare this to another piece of popular media. I love Avatar the Last Airbender and, I liked the ATLA voice actors just fine but there should have been more people of color doing voice acting behind the screen too. The voice actors for that show were mainly white too, however, the creators knew that they would be making poc characters. That’s what makes the difference. Did they still choose to go with mostly white voice actors? Yes. Could they have done better and pay more people of color? Also yes. But I’m not as furious at them because they did their research on the cultures they were basing the ATLA world off of and intentionally gave us a show where Asians could see characters that looked like them represented on the screen. The Penumbra Podcast did not do any of that. Again, they openly admitted that it was never their intention to make the character’s people of color when they made the podcast so that goes to show no research was made to properly represent specific cultures. The color of the character’s skin in their official designs therefore became more of aesthetic choice rather than representation, and it wasn’t even their aesthetic choice to begin with!

Race isn’t a color you can just throw onto the character because you feel like it. So I want this to be a lesson to anyone that wants to make a podcast: if you want to include poc characters please do some research into the cultures you plan to represent the way you would with any other form of media. Just because the audience can’t see the characters and just because it’s harder to smoothly introduce the character’s appearance doesn’t mean you’re allowed to be lazy on how you present the characters. Do research before you start writing the first episode and take the time to hire poc actors. Hiring poc actors is actually the least that can be done to show representation. Also, since the audience cannot visually see the race of the characters on a podcast and it can’t typically be described the way you would in a book, you’ll have to be creative. It’s not my job to say how, but my suggestions would be, before the fans come up with their own image of the character, you need to establish race in the first few episodes or release character profiles on a website so that the fans know you canonically intended the characters to be of a certain race even if you aren’t able to mention it in the actual podcast. If you are unwilling to do any of these then the best route is to avoid stating race at all and allow the audience to build their own representation into your form of media. However, once this happens, you are not allowed to profit off popular fan interpretations. You lose all rights to create official art or images of the characters. You cannot use “we have a diverse cast of characters” when you market your story. It doesn’t matter whether you created the content or not, you did not create the representation for those minority groups.

It’s one thing for fans to build their own inclusivity into a form of art like a podcast, but it’s another thing for the creators who never worked to make the representation happen to take advantage of the representation that the listeners built for themselves. Thank you for attending my TedTalk.

#the penumbra podcast #podcast #race #the magnus archives #diversity in podcasts #diversity #tpp #tpp fanart

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anakinisvaderisanakin · 3 years

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Binary Sunset (AU post RotS, Beru Lars gets an unexpected visit and has to make a tough choice regarding her nephew)

“Who are you?”

Beru reared back, attempting to put as much distance as possible between herself whomever this thing was, staring her down with cold dead eyes.

“I have come for my son,” the figure said, its voice deep and monotone and distinctly male.

Glancing behind herself into the sleeping quarters of the homestead, she saw that the infant child was still asleep in his cradle. She made sure not to give away his location, but when she turned her attention back to the intruder, her heart was already sinking. He had not moved. In fact, he might have been taken for a statue, had it not been for the loud wheezing breaths of a respiratory device of some kind. The man bore a cape, as black as the uniform full body suit and armour covering him. It danced in the twilight wind, as the two suns glowed behind him like red orbs. Their intense heat seemed insignificant, compared to the burning hatred Beru could feel from the man’s covered eyes.

“I don’t know your son.”

“Is that so.”

His mask gave nothing away, stoic, resembling a human skull. His words seemed a statement, rather than a question, as if he was making a mental note of her defensiveness. Tall, broad shouldered, menacing. Beru hoped she came off as genuine, but when he took a step towards her, she felt the primal urge to run inside, grab the child and flee.

“There is a child in your sleeping quarters,” said the man, after a long, chilling silence despite the sunlight still spilling in orange hues over the sand dunes. “He is not yours.”

“He is!” Beru heard herself growl, shocked by how possessive she had become of the little one in such a short span of time. “He is mine!”

“He is not. You may have taken him in as next of kin, but he is not yours to claim.”

Beru clenched her jaw, throwing a quick glance over her shoulder at the cradle. He was still blissfully unaware, swept in a soft duvet as he cooed in his sleep. Even over the persisting hissing of the intruder’s breathing, she focused on the child.

Luke. Precious little Luke, destined for so much more than life as a poor moisture farmer. Face set hard, Beru made sure to place herself in the middle of the doorway, just outside the threshold. She would not back down, whatever that decision would entail. The ex-Jedi who had delivered him might have grander plans, plans this stranger might be involved with, but she wanted the boy safe. On Tatooine, if he was taught to fend for himself, to steer clear of Jawas, Tusken raiders and womp rats, he might become an ordinary young man some day. Without the mystical sorcery his father had fallen prey to luring him in.

“He is mine. We have adopted him, we are his only living relatives. He has no one else.”

Beru hoped she sounded genuine to the menace, hoped she was appealing to some sort of sympathy or compassion behind the threatening visage. When he spoke, his tone was even deeper than before, a rumble rivalling that of any fully grown krayt dragon.

“Do not lie to me,” he warned, and moved so suddenly Beru couldn’t help but gasp in mixed horror and startlement.

But all he did was raise one arm, letting the open palm hover midair, facing the woman’s face. She blinked, confusion seeping in - and then her head exploded from within. She flinched, as a sharp pain ground its way into her temples. The ache travelled down her spine, a loud ringing in her ears overpowering any senses as her vision went bright white - shutting out both the mysterious visitor and the binary sunset. She whimpered, her own hands flying up to cover her ears. She wanted to scream, tears prickling at the corners of her eyes as she thought what felt like an ice pick being drilled right through her brain.

And then, it was gone. As if it had never been there to begin with. Unable to control her sobs, her legs gave out beneath her and she sank to the ground. She panted, terrified of the man before her, of the agonizing headache returning. She could not explain it, but there was no doubt in her mind that the two were connected. The stranger had hurt her without laying a finger on her, if he was able to do that, what else was he capable of? If she had been wary before, now she was terrified.

“I - I am… not lying,” she managed to whisper, voice hoarse and unsteady.

“No. You are not.”

Surprisingly, the man agreed as he let his hand fall to his side. A wave of relief washed over Beru, but she was not prepared to build her hopes up that he may show her mercy and leave her and Luke alone. Luke needed to stay here, for his own safety. The Jedi had promised her he would keep them safe, and she had promised to love Luke as her own son. That meant defending him as if he were.

“You are not lying. You know only what Kenobi has taught you.”

Beru wiped her face with her sleeve as best she could, hoisting herself into an upright position with one hand pressed to the clay wall by her side. She clung to it for support, but through her watery eyes she saw that the stranger seemed more resolute, his stance more determined. She trembled, but stood her ground.

“I won’t speak of it. Not to you. Not to anyone. He warned us of strangers.”

“Kenobi is a liar and a traitor to the Empire, as are all Jedi. Would it be beneath an attempted murderer to lie?”

The stranger’s voice bore the same, mechanical character but it was sharper now, like a bark. Beru felt the hatred from before had returned, but didn’t seem to be directed at her. The way the man said ‘Kenobi’ revealed everything about whom the loathing was aimed at.

“I don’t understand,” the woman shook her head, cold sweat still soaking her forehead and she wiped her brow with her sleeve.

“He told you the child has no living relatives, did he not?”

Beru’s eyes widened, before suspicion crept back in. She swallowed hard against the lump in her throat, willing herself to restrain herself from shedding any more tears. Even though she was still breathless, still shivering, still afraid.

“I never said it was him,” she settled for, as her retort.

“I am warning you to play along, or I may need to apply different methods to assure your complacency,” was the reply, and the man raised his hand again.

The threat was enough, and Beru shook her head vehemently, arms coming up to shield herself from another head splitting, intrusive mental assault. What she had assumed before was true, he had been controlling whatever power had tormented her senses. How? Why? Nothing made sense, but she believed him and that was enough.

“You are wiser than most. Fetch the child.”

“What?” the woman croaked, all the blood draining from her face as the intent behind the demand hit her.

“Fetch. The. Child,” he repeated, this time using his raised arm to point his finger at the doorway.

Only a sliver of pink and orange sunlight remained on the horizon. Owen wouldn’t be back in several hours. Beru hesitated, unwilling to comply, but found she could not resist. She could either obey, or protest and get herself killed. The stranger would take Luke away either way, she already knew that.

Stubborn tears welled back up in her eyes, blurring her vision as she slipped back into the primary living area of their homestead. Passing through another low doorway, she approached the cradle cautiously. She didn’t want to wake the child, didn't want to frighten him. Hushing him, or perhaps herself and her own soft sniffles, she picked the little bundle up. Beru made sure Luke was neatly wrapped in his duvet as she cradled him to her chest, rocking her arms gently when it seemed he might wake up. She breathed a sigh of relief when he settled back down, cooing and letting out a soft snore. Swallowing hard, Beru kept her head low and kept her gaze steady on the blonde tuft of hair on Luke’s head where it stuck out from underneath his pajamas.

Not until she had crossed the threshold, relying solely on her periphery and memory, did she tear her eyes away from the infant. The intruder hadn’t moved an inch, the now chilly, crisp air biting at Beru’s tears streaked cheeks. When she spoke, her voice was soft but defiant.

“If you want him, you’ll have to go through me first.”

“It would be foolish of you to presume I wouldn’t,” he simply stated, his tone matter of fact.

“He’s my boy.”

Once again, Beru hoped he had a heart somewhere behind the exterior facade of menace. Beyond those strange, terrifying powers he had displayed.

“He is not. The child belongs with his father,” said the man.

“The child’s father is dead. So is his mother. I and Owen are the only family he has left, he has no one else. He means nothing to you, whoever you are. He means the world to me.”

“Then, we have something in common,” stated the stranger, and it took Beru a tad too long to understand what he meant.

“I… don’t understand. I don’t understand any of this. Not Kenobi, not you,” she felt the weight of realization as something began to dawn on her, but refused to voice it and see it confirmed.

The man shifted then, stalking closer with a couple of long strides. As he moved closer, Beru tipped her head back, staring up at his frightening stature but unwilling to turn away, for fear of what he might do if she lost an ounce of focus. He seemed much more focused on the bundle in her arms, however, and she instinctively held the child closer to her body for protection. The man was huge, towering over her, looming like a hungering predator ready to strike. The lenses of the mask he wore were a deep, crimson red, she noticed now. The colour filled her with dread, entrancing as she watched him peer in what could have come across as stunned silence at the peacefully slumbering infant. One the man’s large, gloved hands came up to reach for the boy, and Beru almost yelped in fear.

But instead of harming Luke with just a look, Beru was shocked to see the man touch the infant’s chubby little cheek with an unearned, unexpected tenderness. It was just a simple, gentle graze of fingertips, and a smile pulled at the corners of the child’s lips. He was still asleep, but he cooed something intelligible, one tiny hand reaching for the stranger’s index finger. The stranger seemed cautious, and Beru almost believed he was concerned, maybe even scared of accidentally hurting the boy.

“Kenobi would rather have you believe the child’s parents had perished,” said the stranger, but his attention was still single handedly on the infant.

“Where else would they be? Kenobi told us the Jedi order had been executed, framed for high treason. He told us Anakin Skywalker died with the rest of his kind.”

“They were not framed, they were the instigators. But I am not here to discuss politics that may result in your immediate execution, and neither should you.”

The threatening note to the man’s voice was back, and Beru pinched her lips tightly together. She knew by now that Luke’s life had never been on the line, not given how carefully the stranger was interacting with the sleeping form. Her life, however, was still in mortal peril - and perhaps Owen’s was, too.

“The fact still stands,” Beru dared to say, bracing herself. “That Anakin is dead, and Luke has no one but us.”

“Luke…”

The name was said so gently, so softly that Beru almost thought she had imagined it. Despite the harsh diction, the flat delivery seemed so genuine and heart felt. Gaze darting between the intruder’s mask, and Luke’s pleased expression as the man let him close his little fist around his finger, the suspicion only grew stronger in its persistence.

“Yes. Luke. His mother named him before she died, Kenobi said. Unless that was another lie,” the woman trailed off.

“She did believe you were a boy,” mused the man, almost wistful as he seemed to be speaking directly to the small child.

Still, the words left an impression. A cold, gnawing sensation settled at the pit of Beru’s belly; clawing its way up into her chest cavity where it remained, desperately grinding from the inside as if attempting to force itself out. There was something eerie and uncanny about the stranger, something distinctly familiar. Familiar, yet foreign. Known, yet unknown. She peered down at the infant in her arms, the love she had developed for the little boy overpowering, overwhelming her. Then, she ignored the alarm bells at the back of her mind, the voices screaming at her to resist the urge. Instead, she slowly held the baby out in front of her, face set hard and throat tight as a lump settled at the base. The ball of tears rose, until her eyes were once more brimming with tears.

The stranger eyed her with what could only be perplexed confusion, as if he was in disbelief that she would entrust him with the child. She remained motionless, as he seemed to be weighing his options. Then, with stilted, jerky motions, he lifted both arms. He reached for the bundle, and with caution as if the boy was made of glass, as if he were so fragile he might break at the simplest touch, the stranger accepted him. The scene was ridiculous; a man looking like the reaper himself had come straight from a galactic battlefield while shielding the very icon of innocence in his grasp.

“You said his Anakin isn’t dead. If he’s alive, then where is he?” Beru said, and the calm, collected manner in which she delivered those words surprised even her.

The stranger said nothing, but he did look at her.

A long, pregnant silence fell as the darkness of night finally settled over the farm, and the Lars’ homestead. Beru wrapped her arms around herself for warmth, blinking back the tears pooling in her eyes. She had wanted him to say it, to verbally verify and confirm what she suspected. It was impossible to deny, as she studied the wonder and amazement with which the stranger regarded Luke. What surprised her most, though, was when he hid the child close against his chest, and held her gaze. She felt his stare burning into her soul, his presence no less imposing than it had been when he first appeared.

Beru found she couldn’t speak. She had nothing to say, and even if she did, it would have made no difference. She understood, and took a step back as she nodded at him, encouraging him with a mournful smile. He was dangerous, that much she could tell. The stranger was vicious, ruthless, and cruel. But he held a tremendous fondness for this child, and in that, Beru could see herself. In that, Beru found the strength to acknowledge that the stranger was, in fact, no stranger at all. Even as he turned his back, cape billowing behind him while he began to trudge through the sand in a direction only he knew where it might lead, Beru was certain that the man would keep Luke safe.

As the man grew smaller in the distance, Beru allowed herself to weep again, watching her nephew disappear into the ice cold desert night. Still, something nagged at her compelled her to make a bargain in turn. Not that she had anything to offer, but she was convinced the man who was not a stranger would be inclined to agree.

“Promise me Luke will be safe with you!”

The intruder halted. Sand whirled around his boots, starlight bouncing off the man’s domed helmet as a gleaming beacon of hope in the darkness. She sensed an odd, reluctant sort of foreboding but stood her ground. He did not speak, but he didn’t have to. She knew the answer and she knew he would not have come this far if he didn’t have the intention to keep the boy out of harm’s way. She didn’t know the man well, never had, but she knew Luke. Shutting her eyes, Beru accepted the silence as the confirmation she had been looking for. She had been left alive, living to tell the tale. She knew he had come to kill her, she didn’t understand how, but somehow it was clear. Somehow, Luke would be okay. The man needed the infant, more than the infant needed him. It was the next right thing to do.

“Thank you, Anakin.”

Beru couldn’t be certain, but something told her Luke had a better chance at the kind of life he was meant for in the hands of his father.

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You all knew where this was going, haha. I did intend to post this as another installment of Mask of Death but I’m not sure I should throw a non-canon compliant chapter in there as all others have been as compliant as fanfics can be. Let me know whether I should make an exception for this one or not!

I’m a sucker for dad!Vader and baby!Luke.

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imagining-in-the-margins · 4 years

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Here to Misbehave (Pt. 23 | S.R.)

Summary: Spencer’s birthday plans get interrupted by a case. Frustrated by Reader’s busy schedule, Spencer finds a unique way to spend time with her. Couple: Spencer Reid/Fem!Reader Category: Smut (NSFW, 18+) Content Warning: Mild exhibitionism, fingering, penetrative sex, unprotected sex, Dom/sub, light choking, degradation/praise, sub space Word Count: 7.3k

MASTERLIST

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Waiting for Spencer Reid was an interesting position to be in. It was also, unfortunately, very, very common. You would think the IQ points would translate to efficiency, but you’d be very wrong. The only thing that boy does fast is read, and even that didn’t follow through to text messages, considering he’d read none of the six I’d sent him in the past hour.

So, naturally, as one does in an emergency, I called him. Unsurprisingly, the phone barely rang a second time before he picked up. Talking was, as we were both aware, his forte. Without even waiting for my greeting, his groggy voice came through the receiver with a song-like sound.

“Hello, little girl.”

But it wasn’t his turn to sing, and he knew damn well why I was calling. I could hear the smirk on his face so well that I could also envision exactly what he looked like in that moment, with his fluffy hair sticking up from constantly running his hands through it and his eyes only half-open as he tried to finish reading whatever horrible thing that he had in front of him.

It wasn’t how anyone should be spending their birthday. Especially not him. There wasn’t really anything I could do about it, though that didn’t make it any easier to hear the exhaustion and sadness behind that scratchy voice.

“What’re you doing up late? It’s past your bedtime, you know,” he chastised before I even had a chance to speak. He wasn’t wrong — It was 3AM where I was. But where he was, it’d just hit midnight.

“I just wanted to wish a happy birthday to my favorite old man,” I purred back once I’d managed to calm my fast-beating heart. I wondered if I’d ever get used to the brief rush of adrenaline and relief when I heard his voice for the first time after some time away.

I hoped not.

Spencer didn’t seem impressed by my reasoning, though. “You’re sweet. Go to sleep.”

“You’re up, too,” I whined, still picturing the way he would undoubtedly pull the phone further away to lessen the noise. I almost asked if he was also picturing me but stopped when I realized that whatever he had in mind was probably a lot more exciting than reality. Then again, he often told me that moments like this were his favorite. When we’re both too tired to keep our eyes open but too happy to be with each other to let them close all the way.

“Barely,” he corrected.

“Besides, I had to stay up. It’s your birthday.”

I’d meant to lift his spirits, but the long pause after I finished made it evident that my efforts were for naught. He almost seemed even more upset than when he’d answered, and I tried to convince myself that it had nothing to do with me. It wasn’t that hard, considering he was probably staring at images or words of dead people.

“Yeah, sure feels like it.”

His tone alone ensured me it was worse than my imagination.

“Put your work down and pay attention to me instead,” I suggested as softly as I could with the neediness bleeding through, “That’s the first part of your present.”

“You’re my present?” he asked through a gruff laugh that made my heart skip a beat, “I like that present.”

He was trying. I could feel it in his voice, and I wished more than anything that I could teleport to where he was and hold him until it was too difficult for his mouth to form a frown.

“You already have me. That’d be like regifting,” I pointed out with only a pinch of self-deprecation. It was still too much for Spencer, though, who swiftly shot back the ever cheesy, “Every day with you is a gift.”

“Gross, don’t get all sentimental with me,” I ordered playfully.

He returned the energy with all the sass I always knew he was capable of. Once his whining ceased, he mumbled, “Do you come with a gift receipt?”

“No returns or exchanges allowed, I’m afraid.”

Spencer just let out a strained sigh, and in my head, I imagined how it would feel to climb onto his lap as he leaned back in his chair. I could almost feel his arms wrapping around my waist and his lips peppering kisses wherever he could reach. I could feel his love for me flowing across the country, persisting past the cell tower obstacles to make its way back to me.

“I can’t wait to see you again,” he whispered, his first purely sincere statement of the night.

It was an unfortunate choice, too, because it also reminded me of the biggest bummer that I unfortunately had to share.

“Oh, I meant to tell you, it’s midterm season, so…”

He was, thankfully, not as bummed as I was expecting. He was almost certainly thrilled to have a chance to sleep spread out on his bed without having to satisfy the very needy girl beside him, but he still managed to come up with enough bratty energy to scoff, “Are you telling me that I don’t get my gift when I get home?”

“It’ll just be a few days. Promise,” I spoke through the biggest, cheesiest smile I’d had yet. “You’re very distracting, Dr. Reid.”

“When are your exams?” His enthusiasm gave away just how disappointed he was with the news, but any frustration was clearly aimed at my poor professors.

“My last one is on Wednesday.”

The gasp that left him was too funny not to laugh, followed by exasperated, blubbered nonsense that didn’t ever get much clearer. I barely managed to understand him when he cried, “Don’t they know Halloween should be a national holiday?!”

“You should call my professors and yell at them.”

He actually considered it for a moment, but then returned the same silly intonation, “Maybe I will.”

“Do it. You’re probably more qualified than them to teach me, anyway.”

After a short silence that was filled with more sexual tension than I’d expected considering how the phone call started, I heard Spencer gruffly comment, “You’re a cocky little brat tonight.”

It was so familiar to me that I jumped on the opportunity, giggling through my sleep deprived delirium, “I’m in rare form for your birthday.”

The explanation earned me a chuckle, but not much else. At least, not that I could see. The static on the other end of the phone sounded a lot like the way it looked when Spencer leaned his face against his palm and tried to see something that wasn’t there.

But I was there. Sort of. We’d done a lot more with a lot less, after all. So, that’s what I offered him.

“You know… we could have a redo of the last time I called you late at night on a case.”

“That did not end well for me last time,” he droned. I tried not to laugh at the manufactured memory of Spencer holed up in a hotel bathroom because he just had to have me in whatever way he could.

“Only happy endings for your birthday. I promise.”

But then, as it always did, work got in the way. Filled with only the greatest sadness and regret, Spencer quietly but honestly replied, “As much as I would love to, I don’t think it’ll be possible on this case.”

“Is it that bad?”

“Unfortunately.”

I bit my lip because there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t help Spencer with his work any more than I could fix the distance. All I could offer him was a safe home to return to. He would always find that with me.

“Well, in that case, I will be equipped with cartoons and kisses upon your return,” I offered with grace.

But I wasn’t the only one in rare form. Without skipping a beat, Spencer corrected with a smug sadness, “You mean your return. Considering you’re abandoning me on my birthday.”

“Oh my god, the drama!” I cried before remembering that it was, still, in fact, 3AM. The light grimace I gave after remembering would be the only apology my neighbors would get from me. I was too busy building a narrative happy enough to drown out the horrors in front of him. “You’d think I was the one who was away all the time.”

“I’m allowed to be selfish; it’s my birthday,” he sang, and I soaked in the sound, storing it away for any rainy days.

“Fine. What do you want, brat?” I asked in the worst attempt at an impression I’d ever given.

He was just waiting for the question. Drawing out the first couple of syllables, he laughed through the stupidest birthday wish of all time.

“I want… you to go to bed.”

“Ugh!” I yelled again, not even bothering to feel bad about it that time. My exasperation fell on deaf ears, both from a willful desire to ignore my suffering and a literal ringing from the constant yelling.

Still, that impossible man drummed up enough compassion to gloat with a simple, “I love you.”

“I love you, too, jerk,” I grumbled, only to be swiftly corrected with a playful, “Try that again.”

“I love you, too, old man.”

He was satisfied enough with that answer, despite the sarcasm dripping from it. He still knew that the words were true, and that was all that mattered. Any punishments that might be necessary for my broken promise to behave for his birthday could always be doled out later. When the distance between us was narrowed to inches and clothes could be removed like cheap wrapping paper.

“Thank you, little girl. Sweet dreams,” he whispered, reminding me once more of just how empty my bed felt without him. I stared at his pillow for just one second before I threw myself into it. He chuckled at the sound of rustling sheets over the receiver but said nothing else.

“You get some sleep tonight, too, okay?” I asked, uncharacteristically and openly vulnerable in a way that used to scare me.

Spencer’s voice was filled with pride and love as he answered, “You can’t see it, but I am giving you a pinky promise.”

“Good.” Burying my face in his pillow again made it easier to remember that it wouldn’t be forever when I said, “Bye, Spencer.”

“Goodnight, little girl.”

—————————————————

Autumn on campus felt pretty similar to the rest of the year. I wished that it were different, a little more exciting, to reflect how I felt about the impending holiday. But no, it was just students stumbling into their usual classes and hectically scheduled midterms with hangovers and a total lack of holiday cheer.

It was, in a few words, a complete bummer. The only thing that kept me going through the last of my exams was the knowledge that I’d be seeing Spencer. Unfortunately, he was still doing that rather annoying thing where he refused to answer my text messages. It wasn’t until he ignored even my most ridiculous threats that I realized something was going on.

The ‘Read’ notification sat menacingly on my screen, and I was so fixated on it that I almost didn’t notice the familiar mop of brown curls visible in the front row of the auditorium. But once I saw it, the phone was forgotten faster than ever before. I ran down the steps at a ridiculously dangerous pace, dodging the others still grumbling from their previous exams.

I landed in front of him with only enough breath left to sneer, “You’re in my seat.”

“Surprise,” he said with my favorite smug, self-assured smile.

“Adorable. Now move,” I ordered with a wave of my hand. As much as I loved the guy, I wasn’t about to change my seating arrangement for him. It was beginning to make sense, though, why my friend told me that she wouldn’t be sitting with me today.

“Fine,” he sighed, taking his sweet time moving seats and watching me happily bounce on my feet in the meantime. I snuck behind him into the seat before he’d even fully stood up. That little amount of friction between our bodies seemed to be enough to cause the tension to mount. It’d only been seconds, but I was already seriously considering abandoning the class. To hell with the professor who’d already seen me.

But Spencer’s eyes locked on mine, and he leaned onto the armrest with that same silly smirk.

“It’s a workday, Dr. Reid,” I whispered, forcing my arm next to his and watching the way his pupils grew as I came closer.

“I might have pulled a few strings,” he replied just as quietly, keeping the illusion of secrecy despite many prying eyes around us, “Might’ve told Hotch I was invited.”

“But you weren’t,” I snorted.

Spencer’s head hung in just a little bit of shame, but his wide smile never waned. It was still there, bright and pure in its simplicity as he softly admitted, “Yeah. I lied. But I’m here now.”

There were no complaints about that fact, either. His pinky reached out to mine, twining together in the dim light of the auditorium. Somehow, for a brief second, I forgot about everything else. The noisy chatter meant nothing to me, the two of us lost in some alternate pocket universe that felt safe and warm from the cold air outside.

But time resumed, and I watched as Spencer took his eyes off of me first, turning instead to the lecturer watching us with a knowing glint in his eyes.

“Good morning everyone! We have a special guest with us today.”

I wanted to pay attention to his little introduction, but I couldn’t. Every word that was said about him sounded so clinical. It felt so empty compared to the truth I knew about him. He was so much more than a collection of publications and PhDs.

He was… indescribable. Even as his mouth formed a flat line and his awkward handshake was granted to the crowds of disinterested students, all I saw was the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Even if it was only from the shadows of his greatness. Then again, I don’t think he’d ever let me feel that way.

Speaking of…

"Dr. Reid, the only thing I ask is for you to give these wonderful students a chance to show you what they know,” my professor started with a laugh before he so kindly continued, “So go easy on them."

In any other situation, I might have let it slide. I would have accepted the fact that Spencer was far beyond my intellect and not stand up for myself. But this time, Spencer was on my turf.

"All due respect to Dr. Reid, I don't think he needs to go easy on us,” I called from the front row, only audible to the other dutiful students that cared enough to sit up front. I heard Spencer laugh beside me, shaking his head just a little bit at the challenge. He didn’t say anything though, and I returned my eyes to the professor who was already familiar with my antics as I boasted, "At least not on me."

While Spencer caught on to the fairly obvious double entendre, shifting his crossed legs closer, the professor just wrote it off as my usual academic pride.

“I did try to warn you that that one might get competitive,” he commented. At this point, everyone had definitely figured out my relation to the man next to me. It was kind of hard to hide a bullet wound from your school. But again, I was so caught up in the man beside me that I didn’t even feel a little shame at their playful teasing.

Spencer’s commentary was the only thing that mattered, and he gave it with a dreamy sigh. "I'm not offended at all. I'm sure she's very clever."

The little bit of light left in the room started to fade, and once I was shrouded by the shadows, I felt confident enough in my plan to dig through the bag at my feet to pull out probably the nerdiest item in it.

A fucking back-up clicker. Which, I promptly handed to the man beside me.

“You’re in seat B4,” I whispered gruffly, earning yet another snarky chuckle from my boyfriend.

“Is that a challenge?”

I didn’t answer. Not him, anyway. What I did answer was the question that had appeared on the screen.

“Ms. (Y/n)?” My professor called, recognizing my seat number without even looking up.

Luckily for me, today was nothing but a review day of the midterm I’d already taken. While I knew all of the questions and, what I’d hoped were the right answers, Spencer had to read the questions from scratch. Really, it didn’t give me an edge. It just put us on equal playing ground.

As I gave my answer, I watched in my peripherals as Spencer’s eyes narrowed and tongue peeked out from lips that I still hadn’t gotten the chance to kiss today.

It was a bad thing to think about, because my brief reverie of the things that mouth was capable of reminded me of another one. I didn’t even notice another question had appeared on the screen, and when I heard the familiar buzz of an attempted answer, I shared my Professor’s temporary confusion.

“Ah, Dr. Reid,” he laughed, probably already regretting welcoming the bastard here, “Please explain the answer.”

But there was another thing working in my favor: My boyfriend’s giant fucking ego. Really, it should be impossible that someone who was normally super insecure could enjoy showing off as much as he did. My professor didn’t mind, because Spencer’s long-winded answer was a wonderful review of… basically the entire course, and I didn’t mind because it granted me the one thing I needed.

Time. Time to slowly remove my jacket and reveal the sweater underneath. Spencer’s eyes caught the motion, glancing over only a couple of times while he managed to give his answer. It wasn’t until I started to remove the sweater that he cut his answer short.

His throat clearing told me he wanted my attention, but I was still just too distracted for him. I fanned my chest that felt warm for reasons other than the temperature of the room, guaranteeing his eyes would stay there long enough for me to catch the next question before he had a chance.

Or so I thought. Because before the question appeared, I made the positively stupid mistake of meeting his gaze. As soon as I did, my mind was stuck there, drowning in molasses and honey and—

“Dr. Reid, please feel free to continue to do my job for me. Lord knows I would love a break,” the professor joked, and I almost felt guilty for just how genuine he sounded. Not like Spencer would have noticed passive aggression if it existed.

Not like either of us would have cared. Per usual, we were so lost in the space of B4 and B5 that we didn’t care about the rest of the alphabet. All we cared about was winning. It was growing more and more obvious to me, though, that I would have to become a little more ruthless if I wanted to bring down the bona fide genius.

The sound of his voice rang through the auditorium loud, clear, and confident. He didn’t need to worry if he was right or not, because he knew he was. The smugness was grating to my ears. I knew I couldn’t trick him into making a mistake, but there was one thing I could do.

I’d learned one thing very well in my time with Spencer, and that was how to manipulate that pretty little voice of his.

For example, if I wanted to hear it catch in his throat and come out a few pitches higher, all I would have to do is touch him. The riskier the touch, the higher his voice would go. Which was why I spread out the jacket over my lap, making sure that our legs were close enough that it covered him, too. Then I waited, calmly and kindly listening to him drone along until there was a natural enough inflection to hide evidence of any nefarious actions. Just as his voice started to rise, I slid my hand over his knee.

Spencer barely stuttered, just enough for me to know he was affected, but not enough for anyone else to notice. He took the loss with grace, quickly ending his answer with a summary that contained only half as many words as he would have normally provided.

He kept a few for me.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he hissed, shifting close enough to me that I could feel his breath on my ear.

“All’s fair in love and war,” I hummed. His breath caught again when I began stroking my thumb over his leg that had just started to bounce.

“This is wildly inappropriate.”

“How perceptive,” I returned with my own little smirk. The interaction caught us both, trapping us in the alternate dimension that existed when we held each other. His hand found its way to mine, and his thumb brushed over the back and sent goosebumps shooting over my skin.

I’d practically abandoned our pursuits altogether when I heard my friend’s voice as she took the question that we’d both missed. I should’ve been upset for losing after all that I’d gone through for my strategy to succeed, but it was hard to feel anything other than butterflies when Spencer was still looking at me like that.

Even when I looked away, he stayed, patiently waiting for me to take the final question in the review. I granted him a chance to take it, but he just shook his head, implicitly asking me to take the win for the both of us. Even when we were competing, we were always on the same team.

There were no more distractions as I explained the answer as simply as I could. I was positive the rest of the class was tired of hearing our voices, but Spencer never stopped smiling. I could feel the pride rolling off of him, his hand growing tighter around mine as he took in a deep breath.

“Very good, (y/n),” my professor announced, signaling the end and initiating a large sigh of relief from everyone else.

Spencer sighed too, although his was with a different kind of relief; a dreamy, soft sound as he muttered under his breath, “Just like I said. Very clever.”

The air felt positively electric, and I never hated my class more than I did in that moment. The rest of the period ticked by so slowly that I almost swore the clocks were broken. Once we were allowed to leave, Spencer insisted on sticking around to thank the professor for his hospitality.

I knew it was necessary, but that didn’t mean I had to like it. I tried to be as patient as possible, even though it seemed pointless. Spencer’s little grin told me he knew very well what he was doing. The conversation had dragged on for practically five minutes of agony while I idled by the door.

But then my professor passed, and I felt the adrenaline course through my veins in seconds. As anticipated, we didn’t even make it out of the building before the tension broke. We’d barely even made it down the goddamn hallway before I shoved his scrawny ass into the first empty classroom I found. Once the door clicked shut behind us, the roles were quickly reversed.

I hadn’t seen him that excited in so long that I’d almost forgotten how easy it was to get swept up in his undertow. I couldn’t keep track of his hands or his mouth as they marked any bare skin they could find. But no matter how frantic and uncoordinated the movements were, they never ceased to send chills down my spine.

“This is wildly inappropriate, Dr. Reid,” I managed to slur between sloppy, heated kisses. It was barely comprehensible through the pent-up lust that had driven us there in the first place, but it still felt worth saying.

Spencer, however, made his feelings very clear with a gruff, forceful, “I don’t care.”

His hands were already roaming over my hips, pulling me so close to the edge that I nearly fell off the counter entirely. While I was laughing at his haste, he was busy leaving angry marks on my collarbone, pulling the top of my shirt down to grant him more access. And despite how badly my body burned with desire and need, I drummed up just enough self-preservation to force out a few, regrettable words.

“Take me home.”

Even though I tried to make it sound more seductive than a normal request to stop, it brought the momentum to a halt. Spencer immediately stopped his kisses, but let his hands continue to stroke loving patterns over the sides of my thighs.

“Don’t you have other classes?” he asked. The feeling of his breath against my ears making me second-guess my already voiced decision. But as enticing as the idea was of having him now, having already waited over a week, I knew we could have so much more fun with a little bit of privacy.

“Don’t you have work?” I teased, hoping that it would spur him to take the action we both knew was safer. At the same time, I couldn’t stop myself from wanting to poke fun at the academic in him.

“Unless this is your way of telling me you've always wanted to fuck a girl in a lab because, I must admit I'd be more than happy to oblige."

Spencer’s whole body tensed as he imagined just what it would feel like to take me in such a public place. After a couple seconds that I can only imagine were filled with fantasies and a reasonable fear, he pulled me from my seat on the counter and placed me back on the ground.

“Let’s go,” he said, pulling me by my wrist towards the door.

I only barely managed to stop him with both hands on his arm. He turned back to look at me like I’d done some horrible thing, but I was too busy trying to stop the laughter that was spilling from my chest.

“You’re uh—” I cleared my throat, pointing to the very noticeable tent in his slacks before I keened through the giggles, “You’re gonna have to do something about that.”

With a quick glance down, Spencer remembered the very unfortunately obvious trait of the male anatomy. “Fuck,” he stated plainly.

I couldn’t resist.

“I mean, I’m down,” I joked one final time.

“Shut up!” Spencer laughed, too, trying and failing to adjust himself in his pants while I just enjoyed the show.

After all, we both knew that once we were alone, he would get a reprieve from my ridicule. He would get whatever he wanted.

—————————————————

The chaotic clashing of hands and mouths continued seconds after we’d reached our destination. The empty apartment had all of the sounds of our desperation echoing back to us, and after soaking in the melodious noise for a few seconds, I snapped back to reality.

“Okay, she doesn’t get home for another 30 minutes at the earliest so, we’d better hurry,” I urged, trying to shove Spencer off of me to convince him to move. It barely worked, with his arms clutching tighter the harder I struggled to get away.

Wrapped together just like that, the two of us barely made it a few feet before we almost tumbled to the ground. That was just enough of a reminder of our lack of coordination for Spencer to finally, begrudgingly, release me. Kind of. His hand still held tight to mine, and our laughter still combined the whole way to our bed.

From there, Spencer felt confident in our privacy to answer, “That’s fine. I usually tear open my gifts pretty quickly.”

It was a very good metaphor for the way his hands worked over my clothes. I didn’t even try to pinpoint the moment where being naked no longer made me feel nervous. I let the scar tissue show because neither of us were going to look at it, anyway. We were too caught up in the slight shifts and nuances of our faces as we rushed towards our one mutual goal.

“I missed you,” I mumbled, the words feeling as natural as breathing itself.

“I missed you, too,” he returned, and I felt the raw emotion, the sincerity and desire in every syllable. But once it was over and he had finally managed to remove everything but my underwear, all that was left was an all-encompassing, mind-altering level of lust.

“God, watching you in class was so fucking frustrating,” he strained, his upper lip curling with disdain as he watched my body squirm against the sheets.

“Why’s that?”

“I wanted you so badly.”

There was no denying that it was the honest truth, and I didn’t even want to try. I wanted to gloat and bask in the confirmation that his presence was dangerous for my academic career. Not to mention my sanity.

“Like I said. You’re very distracting.”

Then, to prove my point, that brilliant bastard shoved his hand under the band of my underwear. He only held me softly for one second before he slid his fingers through the slickness and thrust them roughly into me. It hadn’t been that long, but the emptiness I felt before was even more apparent now that I had any part of him inside of me again.

“Am I?” he chimed with a smile.

I wanted to be bratty, to fight the tension that was building and appear unfazed by his ministrations, but there was simply no pretending. Not when my body was already on the verge of spasming around his fingers that seemed to stroke the perfect place within me with every movement.

“Jesus Christ,” I sighed. I should’ve known better than to give him ammunition.

“You’ve resorted to blasphemy already?”

Spencer partnered the tease with a ruthless thrust, burying his fingers to the knuckle inside of me and holding them there. He waited until I ran out of breath and struggled to take another while also trying not to scream in a mixture of frustration and devastating need for more.

“I thought I told you we had to hurry?”

“We’ve got time,” he shot back without pause, “You’re just being a needy little brat.”

“Yes, I am,” I whined just as quickly, “I’m a fucking brat and I need you.”

He almost seemed disappointed in my compliance. His fingers began moving again, eliciting noises that were louder, higher, and sweeter after the anticipation. He tried to draw the attitude out of me by stopping again, waiting for a quip that didn’t come.

“Awww, no fight?” he cooed.

“I can’t. It’s your birthday,” I grumbled before biting my tongue. The pressure was becoming so unbearable I thought I might honestly draw blood. But after another few seconds of torture that felt like a lifetime, Spencer withdrew his hand completely.

He was testing the limits, watching how far I would let him go before begging. But even when he took the same soaked fingers and began rubbing me from the outside of my underwear, I only opened my mouth to steal quick, soft breaths and give pitiful whines.

“Oh, I like this…” he laughed, apparently having gotten past his concern about my sudden compliance, “I could get used to you behaving.”

The song-like cadence got to me, threatening to spark and ignite everything I was holding back. I almost bit back. I almost let the desire scorch my throat with a few choice words for the very rude genius, but I didn’t. The only thing that stopped me was the feel of cotton sliding down my thighs as he removed the final barrier between us.

“You’d miss my misbehaving,” I said with a chuckle. The sound mixed with another, a deep moan that filled my chest when I felt him press himself against my entrance. My back arched, causing him to slip inside of me just enough for us to both lose our words.

“I don’t know…”

If I’d wanted to say anything, my mouth wouldn’t have let me. It was too busy singing his praise while simultaneously begging him to silence it. My lips floundered for a kiss that he hung just far enough away from me to deny. Satisfaction was painted over every feature as he started to enter me, brushing his lips against my mouth every few seconds just to pull away before I was granted the intimacy I sought.

“You do look rather cute when you’re begging.”

It was strange, the way my body started to predict his movements. I met him in the middle of every motion, and I swore even our breath became synchronized in its rapid firing. It wasn’t until his hand rested over my throat we broke the rhythm. I wasn’t going to complain, letting the energy flow down my spine that arched towards him on instinct. His hips never stopped, and I could tell by the way his breath hitched and his fingers grew tighter around my neck that the new angle was as wonderful for him as it was for me.

“You look so sweet when you let go of every ounce of self-preservation and dignity you have and put your life in my hands,” he whispered with an affection that almost seemed odd considering the context. But then there was something else in his moans, a genuine gentleness that made my already arrhythmic heart beat faster.

“You know I’ll take care of you, don’t you?” he asked as his movements stayed calm and careful. Loving and safe.

I didn’t even notice my eyes had closed, but it ultimately didn’t matter. Because when I opened them, I saw the same man that existed in every image behind my eyelids. The only indication he got that I was still capable of communication was the gentle curve of my lips that dropped open in a pleased sigh as his hips continued a slow, tender pace.

It still felt like too much, but not in a bad way. It was too much in the sense that I was reminded once again just how ruined he’d made me. And the smug little shit knew it, too.

“You don’t have a single thought in that pretty little head, do you?” he cooed, dragging his hand up the column of my throat to force his fingers against my tongue. True to my word, I didn’t try to fight back. I soaked the digits that still tasted like me with my jaw left open. His pupils dilated as he watched the spit pool in my mouth that awaited his instruction.

“You just want to be used. Like the perfect little doll you are.”

Unlike my own, his smile was more of a smirk. A crooked, ever so slightly wicked quirk that made my muscles tense around him in their own version of an affirmative answer. He took it, happily. His body crashed into mine, but it merely felt like an extension of myself returning home like the waves meeting the shore. I could feel him claiming his rightful place at the deepest parts of me, making his home with every powerful motion of his hips.

I could hardly breathe, let alone think. I didn’t want to. It felt unnecessary.

“My sweet little girl,” he muttered with an unbelievably chaste kiss in the center of my forehead, “You’d do anything to make your daddy happy.”

I felt detached from myself in a way that didn’t feel me with fear or pain. I could feel myself through his hands, strong and working the pliable flesh of my thighs as he held them up so that he could drive into me harder.

His eyes, also only half open, burned with intensity. I could feel the determination, the undying desire to grant me a serenity that no one else could. His need for me to feel safe and loved with the seemingly contradictory brutality.

But it wasn’t contradictory. The power behind every movement, the insistence on being as close to me as he possibly could, might have caused some physical pain, but it was nothing compared to the pleasure of sharing this space with him. Of sharing my body with him just to see what he would do with it. I already knew, but I wanted to feel it again and again. Because with each stroke of his hand and thrust of his hips, I felt it.

Spencer had free rein to do whatever he wanted, and he chose to love me.

“I’m so close. You know what I want,” he pleaded despite holding all of the power. He handed it to me with a low groan, trying to kiss my lips while he commanded, “Do it. Come for me.”

My body obeyed his command, falling to pieces around him with shockwaves breaking over every inch of me. My vision went white, crafting a halo of light around him as he also found himself reaching a peak that seemed different than the times we’d shared before.

I tried to figure out what had changed, what about this time made it unique. But as the euphoria faded, all I saw staring back at me was the same face as always, radiating a joy and understanding that warmed damp, chilly skin. Spencer’s release provided a similar warmth within me, and my body clung to him even tighter despite the exhaustion.

My breathing took its time to even out, but I was in no rush to leave him. I would have stayed like that forever, with Spencer covering me like the silliest, boniest blanket. If it wasn’t for the dead weight he eventually dropped on me, we probably would’ve spent the whole day lost in the covers. But he could thank the scars for me being a little less forgiving.

Of course, thankful is not the word to describe him at all. Whiny was more like it. Even as I turned our bodies together so that I would still be sitting on his lap, he did nothing but groan and bitch about it. That is, until I silenced him with a kiss that barely brushed over his lips.

That was enough to turn his frown back to the dopey smile I loved so much.

“Happy birthday, old man,” I purred, enjoying the way his hands grabbed me tighter at the loving nickname. But age wasn’t what was on his mind. I could see it in the way his eyes tore past my defenses and he held me closer like we could actually become one if he tried hard enough.

“I’m so in love with you, it’s infuriating,” he whispered.

“I’ve heard that one before.”

Spencer wasn’t in a joking mood, though. All of his humor seemed to be expended earlier in the day, and now he was just left with all the mushy, romantic innards that I normally kept at bay.

It wasn’t that bad, though, I thought as his hands framed my face so our foreheads would touch. There were worse things to be trapped with.

“It’s true,” he mumbled with his voice still high and slurred together, “I look at you and there is just… nothing that can be said that would ever explain the way it feels.”

“Gross,” I joked.

“Get used to it,” he returned. And if that wasn’t enough to make me laugh, he stuck his tongue out in the most childish display I’d seen from him since he’d fucking licked my hand on our picnic. It was also just charming enough that I was willing to let the sappy stuff slide.

“I’ll be nice to you this time,” I grumbled. “But also, speaking of time, you’d better hurry up if you don’t want to do the walk of shame with an audience.”

Spencer’s arms fell limp with a dramatic cry before he used them to cover his face once more.

“Ugh. Go,” he ordered. Despite his words, he still made me fight against greedy hands to wrestle my way out of bed. It would have been smarter to let me go quickly. I really don’t know what he was thinking, but he would learn his mistake soon enough. Because as I was finishing up in the bathroom, I heard a very amused voice chiming down the hall on the other side of the door.

“Good afternoon, Spencer.”

I debated not opening the door and freeing Spencer from the unbelievably uncomfortable position he’d just found himself in, but ultimately decided it was too cruel. Still, the stalling had taken up enough time that the poor guy felt compelled to reply.

And, of course, the only thing he could think to say was a pathetic, high pitched, “Hi.”

Somehow managing to contain the absolutely riotous laughter I felt in my gut, I opened the door with the straightest face I could muster.

It wasn’t enough. Spencer saw the pleasure I took in his humiliation and practically shoved me out of the bathroom to take my place behind the doors. While I found the action endearing in the most awkward way, my roommate was mostly just confused about how the fuck I’d managed to find someone as stupid as me.

“I didn’t know he was coming,” she said once she managed to smile at the silly situation.

Clearing my throat, I tried to sound sincere in my bullshit apology. “Me either, sorry.”

In a way, I think the fact I couldn’t pull myself together worked in my favor. Normally, she would have scolded me (albeit playfully) for not alerting her of what she might be walking in on, but this time, she just tried to withhold the smile that still stretched over her cheeks despite her best efforts.

“You’re fine,” she sighed, giving in to the desire to go against her usual grumpy demeanor before retreating to her own room. “Have fun, you hooligans.”

Once her door clicked shut, I heard shuffling on the other side of the door next to me. Spencer’s shadow was visible from the light peeking out underneath, and I waited a few more restless seconds before I announced, “You can come out now, Spencer.”

Cautiously, the door creaked open just enough for his head to poke out and confirm that I wasn’t trying to trick him.

“I’ve never been a hooligan before,” he said with a bounce in his step and his eyebrows halfway up his face. To think that he was the same man who threatened to arrest me for existing at a nightclub was, in a word, hilarious.

“Well, good news for you,” I purred, and the sound must have reminded him of my more devilish nature, because his jubilance quickly shifted back to an obvious anxiety. I wrapped my arms around him even when it meant that his muscles tensed, dragging him down so I could whisper in his ear, “I was just about to ask if you wanted to help me play hooky.”

“And do what?”

It felt strange to say that I hadn’t really thought about it. That the second I’d seen him I knew that the day would be good and free and fun. That everything felt so perfectly fine that I didn’t even want to challenge it with a schedule.

Spencer looked at me, his answer apparent in the way he started to relax the longer we stayed wrapped up in a shitty apartment hallway. It didn’t matter what I said. Spencer would have followed me, just like I would have done for him.

And without the angst or uncertainty of what could go wrong, there was only one thing left for us to do. With a shrug and pout, I proposed the riskiest plan we’d had yet.

“Whatever we want.”

—————————————————

| Finale |

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dragon-kazansky · 3 years

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Til death do us part | Helmut Zemo

Bodyguard AU! 🕶

Gender neutral reader

Collage by @realremyd

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Part 5

Bucky got the Baron back to the hotel without issue. Well, no other issue than the Baron's complaints. Zemo insisted on several occasion that Bucky turn the car back around and they go get you.

Bucky didn't say a single thing to him. He just kept driving. When he pulled up outside of the hotel he climbed out and opened the back door. He grabbed the Baron by the arm, ignoring all his complaining as he escorted him into the building.

Zemo was promptly taken up to his room. He was going to push Bucky off of him, but Bucky had a tight hold on him. Zemo is pushed into his room and Bucky stands in the way of the door. He clasps his hands together in front of him and stands there stoically, facing the Baron.

Zemo glares at him.

"I hired you, you should do I say."

"Our duty is to protect you, and protect you we did."

"You let them behind."

"Our duty comes first," Bucky tells him.

"Your duty involves leaving your colleagues to fall at the hands of armed gangs?" Zemo is fuming.

Granted, Zemo didn't care much for you when you arrived at his home. You weren't the same as your colleagues. You didn't look like bodyguard material. He didn't think you were capable.

He was wrong.

You put your life before his to ensure your job was done. He disrupted that by climbing out of the car and checking on you.

Why had he checked on you?

"You left them to die."

Bucky doesn't say anything, but Helmut picks up on the slight shift of his stance. Bucky felt guilty, as he should, but he also carried out his duty.

Helmut watched as Bucky raised a hand to his ear to listen to whatever was being said.

Bucky lowered his hand and said nothing.

"Well?" Zemo asks.

"They got away. The others are returning here now."

"And Y/N?"

Bucky doesn't answer him. This infuriates the Baron more.

Zemo had been to war. He was Colonel once. He had his own squad. He had seen people die, but to think that someone he hired to protect him had died doing just that, it felt strange to him.

You had given your life for his.

Thirty minutes later, Steve and the other make it to the hotel. Steve knocks on the door, giving the code word they had agreed upon to let them know it was each other. Bucky let's them in.

Zemo stands from where he had been sitting in silence with his own dreaded thoughts.

His room is filled by the other bodyguards.

"Well?" He demands.

"They got away. We fear the will come after you again. I think we should bring your visit to London to an end and rearrange this meeting some other time. We will firmly get in touch with the representatives to discuss this for you. For now, until things cool down, we will keep you here for the reminder of your trip. We suggest you don't leave your hotel room until it's deemed safe again. They are still in the city," Steve says, standing in front of the Baron.

Zemo couldn't give a shit about the meeting.

"And your friend?"

Steve looks a lite taken back that the Baron was even asking. Zemo didn't like you. At least, he didn't before.

"They were escorted to the hospital immediately after the ambulance arrived. They passed out, but are stable."

Zemo's shoulder sink down from their tense position and he casts his eyes off to the side slightly. He sighs softly.

"Take me to them."

"No can do, sir. You are to remain here until the threat level diminishes, Steve replies sternly.

"I demand to see them."

"I'm sorry, sir. We can't allow that."

Zemo hates those words with a passion. He needed to know you were OK. He needed to see you with his own eyes.

He owed you an apology.

Helmut sinks back down into his seat and tilts his head back. He runs his hands down his face and sighs again.

You were stable. He'll take what he can for now, though he isn't happy about it.

"So, you're going to keep me locked in my room?"

"Yes."

That was aspect number two in which he hated. Zemo rises from his seat and makes his way over to the bedroom of his suite. He closes the door behind him.

Once he was gone, the band of bodyguard turn to each other.

"Is Y/N OK?" Clint asks.

"Do you have any idea how hard it was to leave them there and bring him back?" Bucky says.

"They're stable right?" Nat chimes in.

"That was insane," Sam remarks.

Steve holds his hands out in front of him and tries to get them to quiet down.

"Y/N is alright though, right?" Carol asks.

"They're stable. They were shot twice. Once in the shoulder, once in the hip. I don't think they were aiming to kill Y/N, just get them down," Steve says.

"That asshole got out of the car," Bucky tells them.

"He did?" Nat asked.

"Yeah, he went over to Y/N. He looked pretty damn worried too. Did we miss something?" Bucky asks.

"Maybe he feels guilty about being an asshole?" Clint suggests.

"I doubt that," Carol says.

"Whatever it is, don't worry about it. He's safe and Y/N will live. I have to make a call to Stark. Do not let him leave the room," Steve said, making his way outside into the hall.

Bucky stays planted by the door as the other scatter around and wait.

"Y/N was incredibly brave," Nat says, deep in thought.

"They're a brilliant bodyguard, we all know that," Sam says.

"Has Y/N ever been shot before?" Carol asks, trying to think back.

"Yeah, a while ago. It was years ago, back when they started," Sam answered.

"Damn, I remember that," she says, the memory coming back.

"It's going to take a lot more than that to bring our Y/N down," Bucky states.

They all agree.

In his room, Helmut was leaning against the door. He would hear them talking about you. He felt a fool for ever doubting your skills. To hear you had been shot at before made him wonder. You must really love your job if you could get shot at and carry on.

Then again, he should know how that feels.

Not only back in the army, but back on that day too. Walker had taken everything from him as a result of trying to get rid of him, only to fail. He paid the price that day.

He lived. They didn't.

He closes his eyes and tries to block out the horrid images which threatened to flood back into his mind. Sometimes he can see them when he closes his eyes.

You were in much the same position today. It was as if he was seeing it all over again.

Zemo pushes away from the door and falls onto the bed, trying to bury his face in his pillow.

"I don't want to remember," he mutters.

He falls asleep there, still dressed and disheveled. He sleeps right through dinner, which is left at his bedroom door untouched.

Most of the bodyguards had excused themselves from the room, returning to either their room or the hall.

Steve and Sam remained in Zemo's room.

It had been six hours since the shooting in central London. It was all over the news, which Steve had on, but kept the volume low.

There weren't any shots of the actual shooting, reporters only getting there after the event was over, but witness statements from people in the surrounding buildings gave a pretty good description of what went down there.

No one mentioned your sustained injury.

He was rather glad about that. You could recover in piece.

He hadn't told anyone yet about the phone call to Tony. He wasn't quite prepared to share the details until he had a chance to speak to you. He would do so in a couple of days. He had contacted the hospital and they agreed to call him when you were ready for visitors.

Sam looks a the untouched plate of food.

"You think he's going to eat that?"

The food had been brought up a short while ago. This would be the second meal they ordered that he hadn't touched.

"You can have it. I'll get him something when he comes out."

Sam picks up the plate.

"What do you think is wrong with him? He wasn't like this before."

Steve shrugs.

"I don't know. Something must have happened between them out there. Yesterday he couldn't understand what Y/N was even doing with us, today he's locked himself away because they saved him. I don't know what's going on."

Sam sighs softly.

"I'm at least glad he isn't hating them now though. Y/N is more than capable of protecting that asshsole. Hell, they proved it."

Steve just nods silently.

His phone begins to ring. Steve gets up and goes to answer it on the other side of the room.

Sam watches in interest.

Steve hangs up and turns back around to Sam.

"Y/N is awake. I'm going to go see them. Keep Zemo here. I'll call you later."

Sam nods and watches Steve go.

There were no words to describe how relieved Sam felt right now. You were going to be just fine. He knew you would be.

Probably best he didn't mention it to Zemo just yet.

@thesuitkovian @justfangirlthingies @belle82devart @zemosimp420 @anteroom-of-death @silverlambcaptain @that-stupid-head-tilt-thing @lieutenantn @daniielbruhl @awesomesauce-abbie @latenightartist-author @lazygurl05 @rumblelibrary @nonamec0s @shura-gorl @ginger-abreu @caligrl1992 @livvyshmiv @luciadiosa @vverliebt @tatooineisdry @charistory @somethingthatsaysbubbles @apparrio @alex-the-nb @thewrongkhristol

#marvel #zemo x reader #helmut zemo x reader #helmut zemo #au #baron helmut zemo #zemo #bodyguard au

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punkrockmads · 3 years

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Found Family

Abby x F! Reader Mini Series

Warnings: Small bit of angst, violence, this chapter is a little bit longer

Chapter Four; Light Of Our Lives

*A MONTH LATER*

Abby has been such a joy to have in my life. I've moved out of the guest room and into Abby's bedroom, the two of us rapidly growing closer over the past month. We've had a couple little bickering matches over whether I should be doing patrol at three months pregnant, but that's to be expected for any couple worried for their baby. She's been a huge help with the baby, always staying by my side during my bouts of morning sickness and my occasional nightmares. We still haven't told Lev, waiting for my baby bump to get a little bigger before telling him. Lev is such a sweet kid, always energetic and happy. He and Abby are always jabbing at each other with their sarcasm and jokes. I sometimes cut in with my own teasing remarks, usually teaming up with Lev to harass Abby. The other day, Lev and I got up early just to sneak downstairs and hit Abby with pillows while she was cooking. Scrambled eggs ended up all over the floor and she made us clean it up but we all thought it was hilarious.

I sit behind Abby on our bed, braiding her soft blonde hair back as she talks.

"So we fell like a thousand feet through a glass ceiling and into a fucking swimming pool." Abby chuckles, telling me the story of the sky bridges for the twentieth time. It's one of my favorites, I'm always asking her to tell it.

"It was not a thousand feet!" Lev yells from his bedroom across the hall. Abby and I burst into a fit of laughter. "It was like ten!"

"Okay well it FELT like a thousand!" Abby yells back between laughs. "Anyways." She sighs, feeling my fingertips brush the back of her neck lightly as I continue to braid her hair. "I crawl out of the pool and lay there sprawled out on my back and Lev looks at me like I'm crazy! He's just up and ready to keep moving as if we didn't just almost die!" The two of us laugh as I use a hair tie to hold the ends of her braid together. I lean forward, placing a kiss on the back of her neck.

"All done." I mumble against her freckled skin. Abby turns around, pressing a sweet kiss on my cheek.

"Thanks, babe." Abby smiles. "You ready to head out?" Abby and I have early patrol this morning. It's rare we get assigned together since Abby is much stronger so she's usually doing assignments that put her muscles to use. Things like helping out with construction, moving heavy equipment, sometimes even helping people move furniture in and out of homes. When Abby does go outside of the base, it's for a supply run that's in a more dangerous area. That part always scares me, knowing they intentionally send her places with unknown numbers of infected. I know why they do it, though. She's more than capable of protecting herself and her group.

"Yeah." I nod. "Just gotta get my boots on." I stand up, getting ready to leave the room when Abby grabs my wrist.

"Uh, babe?" I look back at her, confused. "What's goin' on with your buttons there?" She asks, referring to my black button-up shirt. I look down, noticing two of the top buttons were missing.

"Oh!" I laugh. "So THIS is the shirt with the missing buttons!" I shrug, searching through the clothes in our closet. I find a grey sleeveless shirt hanging up on Abby's side of the closet. I glance back, seeing her making the bed. I take off my button-up, letting it fall to the floor as I take the sleeveless shirt off of its hanger and pull it on. It's a little too big, but I tuck it into my jeans and it fits a lot better. I pick up the button-up, spinning around and tossing it at Abby. It hits her in the face.

"Hey!" Abby looks over at me with a playful glare before freezing. She points at me. "Is- is that my shirt?"

"Perhaps." I grin, doing a little pose with my hands on my hips. "New fashion statement?" I chuckle. Abby walks over to me, putting her hands on my hips. She pecks my lips lightly. I place my hands over hers.

"You're such a dork." She smiles. "C'mon. We gotta get going."

"Alriiiight." I groan. Abby grabs my hand, pulling me into the hall. "Lev, don't be late for school!" I yell from the stairs.

"I'm never late!" Lev yells back.

"Literally last week!" Abby reminds him.

"Fuck you!" Lev replies as Abby and I laugh. I kneel down by the door, putting my brown leather boots on and tying the laces. Abby watches with a playful smile. I grab my dark blue backpack and bow before looking up at her.

"What?" I question, standing back up.

"Nothing." Abby shrugs. She puts a hand on my stomach. "Pretty soon you won't even be able to tie your own shoes."

"Six more months!" I sigh. "And then this little bean will be the reason we don't get a good night's sleep for years."

"I can't wait." Abby chuckles, following me out the front door. The two of us head to the main gate, spotting a few people waiting around talking with each other. "Get us signed out?" Abby asks.

"If you grab us lunch." I reply,

"Deal." Abby agrees. She lets go of my hand, walking off to the right while I continue forward to the booth. A woman with long red hair and blue eyes looks up at me.

"Oh, hey Y/N!" She greets, setting down the clipboard she was holding. "How're you doing?"

"Hey, Kayla." I smile. "I'm doing pretty great! They've got you workin' at the booth instead of the farm?" I pick up the clipboard and pen, signing my name and Abby's on the sign out sheet.

"Yep." Kayla tsks. "Shawn's sick today so I said I'd fill in. Nice break from being covered in dirt all day."

"And the booth is always shady." I shrug. "I'd say Shawn's got us beat!"

"Got that right." Kayla laughs. I jump when I feel a hand on my lower back. Kayla laughs harder. I don't even have to turn around to know who the culprit is. "Hey, Abby!" Kayla greets.

"Hey there." Abby replies, looking at me with a mischievous grin. "I'd love to stay and talk but the rest of our group is here. We gotta head out." I reach up to fix a loose strand of Abby's hair that's fallen in front of her face. She's a couple inches taller than me so I stand on my toes to make to easier.

"Be safe out there, you two!" Kayla calls as I follow Abby toward the group.

"Will do!" Abby turns around to wave back. The two of us join the rest of the group, piling into the back of a military truck and heading out to the first checkpoint where we'll all split into pairs and take separate routes.

Ten minutes later, we get to the first checkpoint, an old bar. I hop out of the truck, Abby following close behind. We get inside, everyone double checking their gear and partnering up.

"Okay." I sigh, everyone looking to me for instructions. I'm not exactly sure why, but Abby says I'm a natural born leader and that they trust my judgement. I had taken on the role as unofficial team leader without even realizing till she had pointed it out to me a few weeks ago. "Our team's covering the north routes today. The northeast route's been a little more active lately so I want four people to take that one just in case things get hairy. Any volunteers?"

"Mike and I can do it." A woman with brown hair says.

I nod. "Alright. Who's going with Mike and Bonnie?"

"We are." A man in the back says, gesturing to him and his partner.

"Okay, Mike, Bonnie, Chris, and Eric on northeast. Hayley, I want you and Moira to take north, okay?" Moira nods and Hayley holds a thumbs up. "Abby and I will take northwest. Be safe out there, guys. Be smart." With that, we all head off on our routes. Abby follows me, making sure to keep an eye on the treeline. The woods around us are full of life. Birds, deer, squirrels, insects... they all create a beautiful melody; the song of nature.

"Y'know..." Abby starts, pulling me out of my thoughts. "It's pretty hot watching you boss people around."

I scoff, kicking the dirt on the path as I walk. "I don't boss anyone around!"

Abby walks beside me, a teasing smile playing on her lips. "You so do!"

"Shut up!" I shove her playfully. She laughs, lightly shoving me back.

"You love me." She hums, taking my hand and kissing my knuckles lightly.

"I do." I hum back. We walk for a bit longer before we reach the first lookout, a gas station attached to a mechanic's garage. We sit and talk for a few minutes, writing in the sign in notebook that there were no signs of infected. After dawdling long enough, the two of us make our way to the second lookout. Ten minutes into our journey, I spot something moving in the trees.

"To our right." I whisper, both Abby and I ducking behind a bush and aiming our guns toward the movement. Just as I'm about to move up closer to try and get an angle, I hear maniacal screaming. I spin around to see a runner charging at me. I have no time to react as I'm shoved violently to the ground with the runner pinning me down, using all of my strength to keep the runner from biting me.

"Y/N!!" Abby screams. Before she can shoot the runner, a second one comes out from the trees. Abby quickly shoots that one before rushing back to my side and ripping the runner off of me. "You motherfucker!" She growls, slamming the runner to the ground and crushing his skull with her boot, the blood splattering on her and me. I lay there frozen, feeling like the wind got knocked out of me. "Shit!" Abby whisper yells. She kneels down beside me as I gasp for air. "Are you okay? Did it bite you?" She's panicking, frantically searching for any sign of injury. I grab her forearms, keeping her from moving them.

"I'm okay, Abby." I assure her when I catch my breath. "I'm okay." Abby grabs my shoulders, helping me sit up.

"Oh shit, your head is bleeding." Abby says, seeing the blood drip down the back of my neck. I feel the warm, sticky crimson flow down the back of my shirt. "We gotta get you back."

"The baby." I whisper, feeling lightheaded as Abby hands me her bag and gets in front of me, helping me onto her back. "We gotta check on the baby."

"We will, sweet girl." Abby says, walking as fast as she can while I cling to her like a little backpack. "Just hang on." I rest my head on her shoulder, closing my eyes as she carries me all the way back to the checkpoint. From there, she uses the radio to call an emergency pickup. She leaves a note for the rest of the team before helping me into the car and telling the driver to get us back as fast as possible. The car ride is a blur. I lean against Abby while she presses her jacket against the back of my head to keep me from bleeding out. I keep my hand on my stomach the whole time. Finally, we get to the infirmary. A nurse cleans me up and stitches the back of my head, giving me water and crackers to help with the dizziness. When I tell her I'm pregnant, she immediately understands my concern and checks the baby's vitals and preps me for an ultrasound.

"Ultrasound?" I ask as the nurse moves the hem of my shirt up to the edge of my bra, exposing my tiny bump. I've never heard anything like that before.

Abby takes my left hand in hers, squeezing it lightly. "It's kinda like a camera." She explains. "It's so they can see the baby. I read about it in a book." As I'm looking at her, I feel something cold and sticky being rubbed lightly on my stomach. I flinch, looking back at the nurse who is applying a clear jelly-like liquid to my stomach. Abby immediately senses my panic, leaning down to press a kiss to my temple. The bed creaks beneath her as she moves. "It's okay." She mumbles against my temple. "It's just to help the camera." I take a deep breath, sighing as I nod, letting Abby know I'm okay. I peck her lips lightly before she sits back up.

"You two make a cute couple." The nurse says, reaching for what I assume is the camera. Abby thanks her as I laugh a little. "You ready to see your baby?" I nod eagerly, Abby doing the same. The nurse presses the camera against my stomach lightly, moving it around as what looks like static appears on the camera. "There." She says finally, holding the camera in one spot. "See that little blob that's kinda shaped like a bean? That's your baby." I gasp, suddenly feeling tears running down my cheeks.

"Abby." I whisper, staring at the little being on the monitor. "Are you seeing this?" I hear Abby sniffle, looking up to see her crying, too.

"That's our baby, honey." She sniffs. I take her other hand in mine, squeezing both of them. "That's our tiny human in there." She's just as amazed as I am.

"It's perfect." I say, laughing a bit at our reactions. The nurse simply gives a proud smile.

"The baby's perfectly healthy, no sign of injuries." The nurse says. Abby and I feel immediate relief. "If you want, I can print out a picture of it for you. This old equipment still works pretty well.

"Absolutely!" Abby says, barely waiting for the nurse to finish her sentence. The nurse cleans off the gel, prints out a photo of our baby, and hands it to me before Abby and I head out to go home. The entire walk home is spent gushing over the photo, feeling like a warm, beautiful light is shining down upon us. When the two of us get home, Abby closes the door before grabbing my face and kissing me hard. My hands instinctively move to her cheeks, my eyes closing as I feel Abby's lips on mine, curving into a smile. She pulls away, leaving me breathless. "You are incredible." She says, only loud enough for me to hear. She strokes my cheeks with the pads of her thumbs. "I love you... so fucking much."

"I love you too." I whisper, pressing my forehead against hers. She kisses me again, this time gently, as if I might break if she kisses too hard. She pulls away after a few seconds, taking my hand and guiding me into the living room. I sit beside her on the couch, my legs resting across her lap and my body leaning into hers. We sit there in peaceful silence, Abby and I staring at the photo of our baby while she rubs gentle circles on my stomach with her warm hand. Just as I'm about to fall asleep, the front door opens.

#the last of us #the last of us 2 #tlou2 #tlou #lgbtq #abby tlou #abby anderson #abby anderson x reader #lev tlou

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maddiwrites · 3 years

Text

Secrets of the Shore (Chapter 22)

Pairing: JJ x OC

Summary: This is just my rewrite of the show Outer Banks with my own twist by adding another main character which also happens to be John B’s twin sister.

Note: Happy Sunday (: Only two more chapters left and I’m sad about it.

Word Count: 6.8k

Chapter 21 Masterlist

My friends drag each other to Heyward's shed where he stores all his useless junk he'll probably never touch again. I always said Pope's dad was a borderline hoarder. But the clutter does nothing to distract me from what's happening to my brother.

I pace back and forth with my hands interlocked on the top of my head. As I move back and forth, my friends keep their eyes trained on me as if I might sprint back to the airstrip.

No one says anything. The four of us are try to defuse the ticking time bomb thats about to blow in all of our heads without actually losing our minds.

I freeze when I hear the familiar hum of a plane fly overhead. I feel my throat tighten and my face heat with frustration. And just like that, Ward Cameron wins again.

"There goes the gold," Pope says and throws his hat across the room.

"Shit!" JJ kicks the closest thing to him which happens to be a three legged wooden table.

"Fuck!" Pope picks up a metal trash bin and throws it across the room, just like his hat.

"Pope!" Kie yells.

"God damn it!" He continues to throw anything he can find. His bomb exploded and he's destroying anything in his path. "Shit! Fuck!" He finds a wooden baseball bat in the heap of the clutter and hits whatever he can find. Glass tables, wooden chairs, more trash bins. I'm almost mesmerized by his movements because I have never seen this side of Pope before. "Shit! Damn it!"

"Pope!" Kie's trying to clam him down while JJ and I just watch with open mouths and raised brows. However, Pope just ignores her and continues to yell and break shit. "Pope!" I can imagine the release Pope must be feeling from this. All my life, I've never seen him act like this. He's usually so composed, always the one to keep us from doing shit like this. I don't know how to react now that roles are reversed. "Pope!"

Pope eventually falls with exhaustion against the arm of a musty green couch and pants to catch his breath.

"Yeah, dude," JJ says slowly. He puts his hand on Pope's shoulder and squeezes. "I was wondering when this was gonna happen. Here you go, chief." JJ holds out his dab pen for Pope to take. Pope looks at it and for the first time, he actually considers it. "A little weed never hurt no one."

"JJ," Kie says, disapproving.

"Relax, Kie."

"You know he doesn't smoke."

Pope ignores both of them and takes the pen from JJ and inhales a large hit. As if this kid couldn't shock me more today.

"Well, maybe not until today."

"Pope."

"Yeah, what is that gonna help?" Pope says. "I lost my scholarship. Walked out in the middle of the interview. Every -" Pope inhales sharply and shakes his head. "It's gone. It's not gonna happen."

"You did that for us?" Kie asks.

"No, not for us. For nothing."

I never thought of silence as being physically heavy, but right now, I feel like I'm being weighed down by a thick fog that I can't swim out of. Pope's right. Despite everything we did right this summer to get something we all deserve, we ended up with nothing except for more problems.

"I'm here for you, Pope," JJ says. "Welcome to my world, okay?"

Kie looks at me for some kind of assistance, but I have nothing to offer. She sighs and looks back at the boys. "JJ -"

"What, Kie? He's right. It doesn't matter anymore."

"You don't have to do that," Kie tells Pope and motions to the weed.

"What do you care?" Pope snaps.

Before this can get any worse, I turn at the sound of footsteps approaching us. My jaw physically hits the ground, at least that's what it feels like, when I see John B.

His eyes are facing forward and his clothes are covered in blood. He looks like he's in some kind of state of shock and I am terrified to find out why.

But my sisterly instincts kick in first. I'm running to him before the others even see him and my hands are pulling his shirt up to make sure the blood isn't his. John B reacts as if I'm not even there and stares ahead.

"John B what happened?" My voice shakes as my eyes scan his body. There's not a even a scratch on him, but I almost wish there was. Because this means the blood belongs to someone else, and I don't want to think that my brother is the reason for it.

"Dude! Dude, you good?" JJ runs up behind me and looks over John B's body with big eyes.

"Oh, my God! John B!"

"Is this yours?"

"Whose blood is that?"

I cup John B's face in my hands and make him look at me. When his eyes finally find mine, I ask, "What happened?"

Before he can answer, cop cars with their sirens on pass us on the road behind us. John B grabs me by the arm and shoves us all back into the shed and we duck behind a wooden slack.

"Shit," Pope curses as his chest moves up and down heavily.

When the coast is clear, John B tells us what happened. Sheriff Peterkin showed up. At first Ward thought she was going to arrest John B for breaking into the airstrip and almost causing a catastrophic accident, but she was there to arrest Ward. Of course Ward wasn't going to go down without a fight and before Peterkin could react, she was shot in the chest. By none other than Rafe Cameron.

"Rafe shot Sheriff Peterkin?" I ask in disbelief.

I always thought Rafe was a lot of things, but I never had cop killer written down on my list. However, I do know that Rafe is the kind of kid who would do absolutely anything to impress his dad. He's been fighting for his attention since he was a tween. Maybe in his own sick way, he thought killing Peterkin was saving his dad.

John B nods. He tells us Peterkin told him to run. And as much as he didn't want to, he was better off with us than dead. Sarah even told him to go as she protected him with her own body while he ran away. Rafe tried to shoot him too but couldn't get his aim down as he sprinted through the woods to get to us.

"What?" I feel my blood turn ice cold when I think about Rafe trying to kill my brother. The one family member I have left. "Why would Rafe want to kill you too?"

John B shrugs. "Because I saw the whole thing."

"So did his sister," I say. "Do you think Sarah is okay?"

"Rafe wouldn't hurt her."

I scoff. "Yeah right."

Now I know that Rafe is pretty much capable of anything worthy to an eternity in hell. I don't think anyone is safe in his company. Not even Sarah. Maybe Ward.

"Kie, can you give me a ride somewhere?" John B asks.

We sneak through the back roads to get to Kie's house. When we get in her car, John B directs her to the police station. By the time we get there, the sun is completely set, blanketing the town in an eery indigo color.

Everything seems so silent to me now. The hum of Kie's radio, the shuffling of leaves brushing against each other, the bickering between my friends and brother. There's a ringing in my ear that won't go away until my hands are wrapped around Rafe's neck.

I feel like my brain as been replaced by a dark cloud. No ideas, no thoughts, no plans can make me feel any better or lighter. It's like an invisible hand has reached down my throat and twisted my heart right out of my chest.

Peterkin was the one and only person that actually helped John B and I. She kept DCS off our backs for as long as she could, she never rubbed it mine or John B's face that the whole island thought we were delusional when we said our dad was coming back, and she was even going to arrest Ward Cameron for my father's murder.

She didn't deserve to die. Although I wasn't the one who pulled the trigger, I can't help but think that her death is somehow my fault. It was my family she was protecting. She was doing her job, but she could have easily written my dad's death off as an accident like every other cop on this island.

"John B, what are we doing at the police station?" JJ asks when Kie parks the car right outside of the front entrance.

"Somebody's gotta tell them what happened." John B's voice is filled with sadness and guilt. I wish I could pull all this weight off his shoulders and add it to mine. He use to be so optimistic - always the one to cheer me up. Now that it's the other way around, I'm dumbfounded on what to do.

Pope takes another hit of JJ's juul and ends up coughing most of the hit up.

"Oh," JJ says from his seat behind Pope and pats his shoulder twice. "Easy there, chief. Damn."

I ignore the fact that Pope sounds like he's hacking up a lung and turn to look at my brother.

"Are you sure?" I ask him.

"All right. I'm just gonna be real with you right now," JJ says to my brother. "You might end up in the lion's den, but you don't go there on purpose. It's fundamental. Just like my old man always told me, you should never ever trust cops, no matter what the circumstance is."

I scoff at the idea of taking advice from JJ's dad.

"Your old man's an abusive liar," Kie says, looking through the rearview mirror with a scowl on her face.

"I agree with JJ," Pope says. "Fuck the police."

Kie turns to look at him. "You going dark side now?"

"When's the last time the police helped us?" Pope says.

"Peterkin looked out for me, all right?" John B says loud enough to grab everyone's attention. "Tried to, at least." He looks at me. "They need to know."

John B steps out of the car with his head hanging low on his shoulders. I bite down on my bottom lip, contemplating what our next move should be. All I know is that I can't let him do this by himself.

"Wait, John B!" I jump out of the car and follow him to the front door. "You're not going to do this alone."

I wait for John B to argue with me but he doesn't. Instead, he nods his head and leads me into the police station, a place I've been in a couple times by force. Never by choice.

There's a woman at the front desk who looks exhausted and busy. I can hear the mumbling of her radio on her desk and the static after each statement. I'm pretty sure I hear Peterkin's name but I don't know if it's my own head repeating her name over and over again.

"Um...excuse me, ma'am," John B says.

The woman barely looks up from her desk and writes something down on her pad of paper in front of her. "This is not a good time, kid." Had she just taken the time to look up, she would see the guy standing in front of her is covered in blood. Maybe then, she would be more worried. Instead, she focuses on her radio. "Adam, advise if you need air tran."

I open my mouth to give this woman a piece of my mind, but John B cuts me off. His voice soft and broken. "I know who shot the Sheriff."

I force myself to look up at him. He looks like he's trying his best to keep himself composed when all I know he wants to do is collapse on the nearest chair and just...breathe.

The woman freezes and finally takes in John B's appearance. She studies the stain on his shirt and the sweat on his skin, the hollowness behind his eyes and his shaky hands.

"You stay put," She says as she backs away. "I'll get a deputy."

I look around the station and feel an uneasy swirling motion in my stomach. It's unsettling. Like JJ's words are getting in my head. Maybe coming to the cops wasn't such a good idea.

My head snaps towards the radio when it statics to life again. "Central, three Vick. We have a suspect in our 31. John Routledge."

My blood runs cold and my eyes flash up to meet John B's. He's staring down at the radio like it's an actual person and he's frozen in shock.

Another woman's voice comes up on the radio. "Copy that. All units, be on the lookout for John B Routledge."

"Sixteen year old white male. Six foot. Last seen wearing board shorts, a 'Bad Brains' T shirt, and a faded red hoodie."

"Copy that."

My hands grab John B's to drag him out of here. My head scrambles to come up with our best plan, but I know staying here isn't it. Ward somehow managed to spin this around on my brother. I shouldn't be shocked, but I keep managing to be knocked out with more surprises right when I think things couldn't get any worse.

Just as I'm about to pull John B out of there, two cops come out from the back and stare at the two of us with big eyes. A man and woman dressed in their faded brown deputy uniforms. My eyes trail down to their hands that are both steady on the gun in their holster, ready to aim if they need to.

"Just...breathe. All right?" The woman cops holds out her hand as if to tell John B to stay calm.

The other officer nods. "John B. Do what she says."

"Look, I didn't...I didn't do it, okay?" John B tries to explain but his voice his shaky and lacks any sort of confidence.

"Dont...move."

"Go..." My voice is barely a hushed whisper but my tug on his arm is strong. "Go, go, go. Run!"

John B and I sprint out of the station before any officers can guard the door. I can barely hear them yelling after us through the drumming in my ears.

"Kie! Start the car!" John B yells as we basically body slam ourselves into her car. "Start the car, Kie!"

I basically rip the back door open and stumble into JJ's lap after tripping on my own feet. Everyone's yelling. The people in the car. The people running out of the police station.

"What? John B!" Kie yells as her hands shake. She tries putting the keys back into the ignition but her hands are trembling too much.

"The cops!"

"Shit!" JJ curses and looks over my shoulder at the cops who are sprinting towards us.

"Go!" John B yells at her. She turns the key but of course the car decides not to start. "Kie, drive! Go!"

"Go Kie!" Now I'm yelling at her.

"Stop the car!" One of the cops yell with her gun raised at the back window.

"I'm going! I'm sorry!" Kie says as anxiety cripples through her.

"Right now!" The woman cop from inside approaches the car. She tries to open it but the door is locked.

"What did you do?" Kie yells at us.

Kie moves the vehicle slowly out of the parking lot, but the woman is relentless. She runs with us side by side and hooks her fingers around the door handle.

"Open it!" JJ yells at John B.

John B opens the door to knock the cop off the car. The tactic works and she rolls on the ground. Only now we'll probably be written up for assault too.

I fall back into my seat and pant for breath. My head falls back against the cushioned seat and my eyes close. Okay, okay, think, Marleigh. Think.

Ward killed my dad. Ward stole my gold. Rafe killed Peterkin. And somehow, my brother is the one being framed for murder. Make it all make sense.

I hate them. The Camerons. Kooks. All entitled, greedy sons of bitches who don't know how to handle rejection or the word 'no.' They think all their meals should be served on a silver platter and kids like us are born for the sole purpose to serve them. They deserve to rot. They deserve to feel all the pain we do.

And yet, they don't. And they never will because that's the life we live. A life where people like Ward and Rafe Cameron can get a way with murder because no one would blink twice at their lame excuse of a story.

A lie.

It all boils down to money. Money we almost had right in our pockets. But now it's gone as is pretty much everything else in my life. My house. My dad. Maybe now my brother.

JJ laces his fingers with mine and gives my hand a gentle squeeze. I keep my eyes closed but let my head fall on his shoulder. I focus on his touch. How his thumb delicately rubs against my skin in a light up and down motion. How his lips are able to make my heart flutter when they kiss the top of my head. How his soft whispers, telling me everything is going to be okay, are sweet enough to make me melt into a buttery mess.

Maybe not everything's gone. I still have JJ. The constant in my life. The one who can always make me feel better even in the shittiest of situations. My sun on my darkest nights. My sight into the future when I can't even think of tomorrow.

I don't let JJ go. Even when Kie parks the car back at Heyward's shed under an open roof. We have literally nowhere else to go. The cops will undoubtedly check all of our homes, including Kie's. The Chateau is definitely surrounded by cops, waiting for John B and I to make the dumb move of going back there. And Tannyhill isn't an option anymore.

The sun is already poking out behind the trees as morning approaches. My body aches from sleeping in this cramped car, but I try to ignore the pain and focus on the fact that we're all still together. For now.

The five of us sit in silence. Some of us try to wrap our heads around what just happened and try to come up with another plan. The rest of us, like me, are so tired, they can't even remember what their middle name is.

The only noise in the car comes from Kie's radio. "...should be functional within twenty four hours." Meanwhile, another cop car with loud sirens pass us on the road without sparing this car a second glance. "And still, no arrest in the shooting death of Sheriff Susan Peterkin. The state police have issued a statement regarding a local person of interest, a juvenile from -"

Kie switches the radio off and glances back at John B and I. My brother has his seat reclined all the way back and is staring up the at the ceiling of the car. JJ has moved so his back is against the car door with one leg bent at the back of the seat and the other one on the floor. I sit between his legs and play with the necklace he gave me a couple days ago. Crazy enough, it feels like years since he gifted me this.

"Let's game this out," JJ is the first to speak. He looks at Kie and Pope in the front seat. "Maybe you guys can help, being the smart ones and all, but..." He sighs. "...who are the cops going to believe? Ward Cameron or us? So the accuser is a big shot developer, kind of lord of the island, got the governor on speed dial kind of person, and the accused...is John B, who is...pretty much a homeless sixteen year old boy at the moment."

"Thanks." John B deadpans.

"Okay, man. Yucatan, all right? I'm saying that's the only option." John B gives him a look to stop talking but of course JJ doesn't take the hint. "What other options do you have?"

"Enough with the Mexico bullshit," Kie says.

"Sarah will bail me out," John B says a lot more confidently than I feel about the situation.

"She did witness the whole thing," Kie says.

"Thank you."

"You really think she's going to pick you over her own family?" I can't help the attitude that drips off my tongue with each word. Sarah's a nice girl and I really liked her. But Rafe and Ward are her family. "No offense, but you've really only known each other for a few weeks."

"Not happening, bro. Okay?" JJ says, agreeing with me. "We gotta get you off the island."

"The ferry," Pope speaks up for the first time all morning. "It's the only way."

"Exit stage left while you still can. Before the entire island is on lockdown."

"Guys, just get down," Kie slumps further into her seat as another round of sirens pass us.

"Sarah's not a Pogue, John B," Pope says. He has a point. Sarah hasn't been friends with all of us for that long. I almost wouldn't even blame her if she took her family's side.

"Yeah. You can't stay here, man," JJ says, tightening his hold on me.

Another moment of silence passes through us and I wonder if JJ's right. Adrenaline on the island is at an all time high. No cop, no lawyer, no person is going to believe John B over Ward. Not without evidence. We need time to clear John B's name. So maybe getting him off the island would be best. Even if it's just temporary.

~ ~ ~

When Kie parks in front of the ferry, Pope hops out to buy the tickets and Kie moves to the passenger seat. I offered to go with him but JJ told me that was a bad idea because I would get recognized as John B's sister.

So here I am, useless and laying down as flat as I can next to John B to avoid being seen through the windows.

I look at John B. His eyes are closed and his chest moves heavily up and down. His fingers flex and clench into fists every couple of seconds. I wonder if his fractured hand is starting to hurt him.

"The first thing we're doing when we get off this stupid island is buying you a new outfit," I say. I cringe in disgust when I look at Peterkin's blood stain on his clothes. Another reminder that she's dead.

I look up to the front seat window when Pope comes back to the car. He's mumbling to himself and I think he has something in his hand.

"Okay. All right, no."

"Pope, can you act normal?" Kie says through clenched teeth and unlocks the door for Pope to get in.

"Okay, um...okay, so, bad news. The ferry's closed, and there is this."

Kie takes a piece of paper from his hand and looks at it. Her eyes close for half a second and she shakes her head. "Shit."

"What is that? What is this?" John B asks.

JJ snags the paper out of Kie's hand and looks at it. "Well, John B, uh...this is a good framer of you." He turns the paper over and shows my brother and I a picture of John B on a 'WANTED' sign with a cash reward of $25,000.

"Okay, so the whole island's looking for John B right now," Pope says.

"That's a lot of money," I can't help but laugh. "Gotta say, John B. Didn't think you would be worth that much. Hell, maybe I'll turn you in."

"Congratulations John B, you're famous," JJ says.

John B slaps the outside of my thigh with the back of his hand. I scoff and slap him back, which causes a strings of slaps and hits, though mostly playful, and some a little harder.

"Stop. Guys, stop!" Kie says loudly. JJ pulls my hands away from my brother and folds them in my lap. He gives me a warning look, like a teacher would their student, and it makes me want to laugh about how bizarre this whole thing is. "We got to get to the HMS. We need small, no running lights -"

"It's at the Chateau, Kie," John B says.

"And I wonder if the cops got the entire place taken out," JJ says sarcastically. "Let me think. Oh, yeah. No. they definitely have that place locked down."

"Let me think. Just give me a second," John B says frustratingly.

"JJ," Pope says.

"What?" He looks up.

"Does your dad still have the boat? The cigarette boat, the Phantom. The one he used to race."

I look up at JJ, but I can't read his emotions. He keeps his face unfazed. "Maybe."

"You could get right up the coast, no problem. Okay, look - "

"It won't be easy, Pope."

"The surf's running from three to four."

"I don't know where the keys are."

"Well, find them."

"I'm thinking," JJ snaps.

"Why is nobody moving forward?" Pope yells at the car in front of us and bangs the palm of his hand on the steering wheel.

I rub my fingers in a circular motion on my temples and close my eyes again. Words are being spat at about a million miles per hour. It's hard to keep up and my blood vessels twist with anxiety.

"Can you relax?" Kie hisses. "JJ, how much weed did you give him?"

"Guys," John B says. "Your car's on the poster."

Pope ignores everyone and hits his fist against the horn of the car. "Can we move it?"

"Pope!"

I'm going to puke.

"Come on!"

"Don't honk the horn!" Kie says, hitting Pope's arms away from the wheel.

"It's that guy. Right there!" I hear a voice outside our window say. The voice sounds young. Kid-like.

"Shit," John B tries pushing himself further into his seat. I didn't even realize he sat up in the first place.

"We got a snitch. Pope, turn the car on," JJ says, sitting up in his seat and leaning forward to hit Pope on the shoulder.

"We get $25,000 if we find him!" The kid says.

"Hey! He's right there!" Another voice. Manly. Great, we're drawing a crowd.

"Hey! We gotta go!" Kie yells.

"Pope, go!" I yell.

"Turn the car on!" JJ yells.

We're all yelling and I think my eardrums might burst.

"I found him first!" The kid says to the man.

"Hell you did, you little bastard!"

"Pope, turn the frickin' car on!" JJ yells.

The crowd starts growing around the car. John B turns into my side and pulls his hood up over his head.

"I am trying!" Pope yells back at us.

"Turn the car on!"

"Go, go, go!"

Pope jerks the car forward and hits the car in front of us. I jolt forward in the middle seat and stop myself from going through the windshield by pressing my two arms on the front two seats.

I hear the crowd gasp and move backwards to avoid the nutso in the front seat. Now that I think about it, who let Pope drive in the first place?

"Pope! Jeez!" JJ curses.

"Dude, back up!" Kie yells.

Pope puts the car in reverse and steps on the gas, but hits another car in the process.

"Hey!"

"The other way!"

JJ pats Pope's shoulder again. "It's okay! Pope, just go!"

Pope hits the corner of Kie's front bumper against the car in front of us again but continues to step on the gas until we're completely out of our spot.

"What are you doing?" Kie yells at him.

"We'll bump out!"

"Watch out!" I yell when I spot a couple of people crossing the street before Pope can kill them.

"Whoa! Whoa! Watch out!" Pope yells and swings his hands in front of him to motion for the people to jump out of the way. "Watch out!" My back hits the back of my seat, hard. Pope has the audacity to laugh. Head back and all. "Oh my god."

"Pope!" Kie yells. "What the fuck?"

"I'm living my best life right now," Pope says through laughter.

Kie slumps in her seat. "My mom's gonna kill me."

"I should be the last to say this, but you are not okay to drive," JJ says. I turn to glare at him and he puts his hands up in the air to surrender. He looks back out to the road and yells, "Stop!"

Pope stomps on the brakes and sends us skidding to a stop. JJ's arm whips out to the right to stop me from flying forward.

We're gonna die.

Pope looks over his shoulder at my brother. "John B, get out."

"What?" I glare.

"He's right," JJ says and my head snaps to him. He ignores me. "We'll draw the cops, you run."

"Shit," John B curses and unbuckles himself.

"I'll get the rig, and I'll meet you in the dump tomorrow, okay? Three o'clock, okay?"

"Wait, I'm coming with you," I say, but John B shakes his head.

"No. You stay here. Stay with them."

"I'm not leaving you!" I fight back and look at him like he has two heads. He must think I'm crazy if he thinks I'm going to let him run away by himself.

"JJ -" John B looks at him.

"On it. Go!" JJ's hands wrap around my waist, forcing me to stay in the car. I try prying his fingers off of me, but he's a lot stronger than I am. John B starts running off. "Three tomorrow at the dump!" When John B disappears behind the tree, JJ finally lets me go. I turn around and shove him back by his chest and slide over to the seat that John B was just in. JJ sighs and looks forward again. "Come on, go, go, go!"

Pope steps on the gas again and veers forward.

I look out the window and ignore the queasiness that has fully taken over my stomach. I know John B and JJ were right to keep me in the car. I would only slow John B down and get myself in trouble and therefore, be completely useless in helping my brother. But I can't shake the feeling that I'm abandoning him.

~ ~ ~

Pope, for some reason, is still driving. I don't know where he's going but it seems like we're on our way to Figure Eight. Pope turns on the radio, blasting one of North Carolina's hip hop stations.

JJ leans forward in the middle seat and pushes his head between Kie and Pope. He's managing to laugh like we're on some joy ride on Memorial Day weekend. "Pope, you clocked that car, man. Like that was so bad!" JJ shakes his head. "I'm just glad I'm not driving now."

" Pull over." Kie tells Pope. "JJ, it's not funny. He shouldn't be driving."

JJ grimaces. "Mama's mad."

Pope pulls the car over and switches seats with Kie. A delirious grin stays on the high boy's lips as he settles in the passenger seat.

"What are you -"

"Where are we going?" I ask Kie as she makes a familiar right turn.

"The last place they're gonna look." Kie says.

~ ~ ~

By the time Kie pulls up to Tannyhill, the sun has disappeared into the horizon and the pit of my stomach is the size of a category five hurricane. I can't remember the last time I ate or drank anything and the pounding in my head feels like a hundred bullets are penetrating my skull.

Kie's brilliant idea is to somehow get to Sarah and convince her to go to the police to confess what actually happened.

"Perfectly focused," Pope says to himself, which makes me glare at him. Pope is anything but focused.

"You sure this is a good idea?" JJ says.

"She's the only one who can clear John B," Kie says.

"Last place they'll look because of how stupid it is."

Kie ignores JJ and gets out of the car with Pope following right behind her. When I open the door, JJ pulls me back and closes the door again.

I look at him. My first reaction is to be concerned. Something in JJ's expression makes me fold. For a second I forget the mess we're in and I get lost in his blue eyes. It's just me and JJ and the world outside of this car no longer exists.

His warm hand wraps around my smaller one and he pulls me closer into him. His other hand cups my face, right underneath my jaw. My face feels like it's physically sparkling with the touch of his breath and forget butterflies - there is a zoo in the pit of my stomach. I glide into JJ like magnet.

His lips press into mine and I cave in. I pull him close enough to where I'm straddling him. Time stops as does my breathing. My fingers run through his blonde hair, tugging on the ends. He stifles back a moan and my face flushes pink.

I pull back for breath and rest my forehead against his. I don't know how many more times we're going to get to do that. And it hurts me thinking it might come to an end.

"I'm sorry," I say.

JJ ignores me. "When we get to Yucatan, we're getting a bungalow. We're going to live in bathing suits and get drunk off of pina coladas every day. Skinny dipping is going to be our main source of exercise - well, other than the hot dangerous sex we're gonna have every night. I'm never going to leave your side and I'm going to keep you safe until the day we die. In a few years, we'll get married. You're gonna wear that dress you wore to Midsummers and we're gonna have beautiful beach babies who will go on to win surfing championships by the time they're ten because they're going to be prodigies. Our prodigies. And John B is going to be there with us. Because he's not going to jail for a crime he didn't commit. Okay?"

I don't even realize tears are streaming down my face until he's wiping his thumb against my wet cheek.

"Promise?" My voice cracks and I really wish it didn't. But that's the life I want. That's the life I need. I don't care if it's in Yucatan or in the middle of a deserted island. I just need my boys, Kie, and Pope.

JJ kisses my left cheek. Then my right and my nose. "I promise."

"I love you, J."

"And I love you. Everything is going to be okay. I'm going to make sure you're okay."

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay."

JJ laughs. "Okay."

As much as I don't want to leave him, as much as I'd rather stay here with JJ and forget about all our problems, I know I can't. Because Kie is probably freaking out, waiting for me. Because John B is on the run somewhere and I need to do something, anything to help him.

"I should probably..."

JJ rolls his eyes playfully. "Yeah I know. Be quick. Okay?"

I nod and jump out of the car before my head or my heart can make me do otherwise. I push my legs, that feel like rubber, over the stone wall that lines the Cameron's property.

I stop in my tracks when I hear Pope and Kie in some kind of intense conversation...well as intense as Pope can handle right now. I think he's still super high.

"Pope! Pope! Pope! Sh!" Kie says in a hushed tone.

"Hey, I'm trying to tell you, I love you."

Oh shit. I look at the stone wall I just jumped over and consider jumping back over it to avoid eavesdropping on this conversation.

"First of all, I need you to be quiet," Kie says.

"Okay, yeah. Quiet, I mean -"

"No. Stop talking, like, now." Kie says. This time, Pope doesn't speak. "Second of all...thank you for saying that."

I can't help but physically cringe at that statement. Because I know what's coming next.

"Okay," Pope chuckles.

"Now, that's very sweet, but it's - look it's not gonna happen."

"Okay, well, why not?"

This is like a car wreck you can't look away from. I had a feeling Pope was in love with Kie for years now. But he never acted on it. Didn't even flirt with her the way JJ did before we were together. A part of me always hoped he did. Because I wanted to see how Kie would react. I think the two of them would be really cute together. Kie could teach Pope to take more risks and Pope could give her a beautiful life that didn't require her working for her parents forever. They compliment each other. Always have.

"Because Pogues can't mack on other Pogues."

Pope scoffs. "That rule doesn't make sense, and nobody follows it. I mean look at JJ and Marleigh -"

"Look, I - I want something different."

"Okay, I-"

"I - I wanna go to Antartica, and I wanna ride camels..."

"I want to do those things with you."

"No. Pope, it's not gonna work."

"I want to be that person!"

"No. It's not gonna happen," Kie shakes her head. God, this is brutal. I can't wait to tell JJ. "Do you understand what I'm saying? Like..." Kie sighs. "Look, I know that that's really hard to hear right now, but we don't have time for this, and this is a really bad place to do it." She pauses and Pope doesn't respond. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah..." He says, but his voice has completely changed. It's dark and cold and doesn't match my Pope's personality.

"Are you ready for the plan, or..."

"Yeah."

"Okay..." Kie says and this is when I decide to make my entrance. I can't help with the situation at hand but at least I can cause a distraction.

So I cough. "Sorry for the hold up. JJ and I were just fighting over who has to be look out. So..." I force myself to look between Pope and Kie as if I didn't just witness their whole conversation. I try not to focus on the tear streak down Pope's cheek and look at Kie. "Ready?"

Kie nods and leads us towards the Cameron's. A house I almost called my home.

Kie is in charge of getting to Sarah Cameron by her bedroom window while I stay with Pope and create a distraction. We decided it was best if one of us stayed with Pope so I offered myself, considering what I just watched.

Pope still seems to be upset. He's not exactly being quiet trying to stay hidden like we should be.

"Gotta stick to the plan," Pope mumbles to himself and plays with the grill. I find the closest pillow on their patio set and place it on top of it. "I like camels. I like Antartica."

"Pope..." I say softly. The last thing I want is to piss him off more but he's making me nervous.

He ignores me. "What's wrong with that plan?" He bends down and picks up a rubber duck in a paramedic costume and looks at it thoughtfully. "Same." I don't know exactly what that means but he throws the duck into the grill and finds the lighter fluid. When he saturates the pillow...and duck, he turns the grill on. The fluid quickly ignites and flames shoot out from the grill. Pope's head is close enough to the fire that his hat catches on fire. "Shit!"

"Holy shit," I throw my arm at his head and knock the hat off of him. I stomp on it until the flame dies under my sneakers and pull him behind the closest tree that can hide us both.

Less than a minute later, I hear two pairs of footsteps come out. I recognize Ward's voice as he curses at the destructed grill until he stops and mutters the name "Sarah" under his breath and makes a beeline back in side.

Taglist: @notyourcupofteax @acvross-the-universe @jjmaybankzz @moniamaybank @realistic-breadstick @urbinoutfiters @jeeperky @brebear121 @x-lulu @freddymaybank @jjpouggues @lemur46 @is-it-really-a-secret @kkmikayla @folkloverr @alexa-playafricabytoto @jjxrudy @migilini @stellarskys @rochyu @itsagurl @dazzlingnights

#jj maybank fic #outer banks rewrite #jj x oc

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wangxiandecoded · 4 years

Text

Episode 10

Previous Episode | Next Episode

(Spoilers for the whole show ahead!)

Going to draw a heart over Wangxian to keep track of every time the camera shows someone third wheeling them from now on.

Wei Ying uses his Binding/Bonding talisman on Xue Yang to show Lan Zhan it’s a dynamic tool that doesn’t deserve to be named “Boring”. Even though there’s a serial killer on the loose, Lan Zhan’s opinions on his inventions matter a lot to him. Standard Wei Ying stuff.

Wangxian’s Mirrors

At this point of the show, I could not believe there was a couple who directly mirrored Wangxian. And surprise! They were two men who dressed in black and white and came together for their common vision exactly like Wangxian did. Wei Ying cannot help but connect the dots and Lan Zhan is already aware of their eminence.

Xue Yang Fancies The Yiling Laozu

Xue Yang’s introduction makes the story take a darker turn but also a gayer one. The homoerotic subtext between him and Wei Ying literally jumps out of the screen.

(This episode had a lot of moments that were just begging for alternate dialogues to be written. I just wanted to have fun with the subtext that’s already present.)

Wei Ying doesn’t want Lan Zhan to waste his precious breath interrogating the bad guy. He protectively steps up (something he does quite a lot) and puts some distance between the both of them.

But he wants Lan Zhan to hold his sword while he does that.. and if that act wasn’t necessarily considered to be intimate or romantic before, it just became that after Lan Zhan refused to do it in front of everyone.

Wei Ying has uttered many conspicuously gay things on the show but most of them are with reference to Lan Zhan. Therefore, this is possibly the gayest dialogue he has ever said in a strictly non-Lan Zhan context.

His tone is all, “Honey, you've been existing for 5 minutes, I'm the queerest person the cultivation world has seen in a millennium. You think frisking a guy is going to make me feel scandalized?” This is nuts to me because Xue Yang is arguably the most blatantly coded gay character on the show.. and here is Wei Ying all but saying he can outgay him. That he shouldn’t come after his job. And Lan Zhan just looks like..

It is curious how Lan Zhan says no to something that would require Wei Ying to go near Xue Yang again.

We get it, Lan Zhan. It was hard to see your guy giving attention to someone who wasn’t you.

When Lan Zhan is unsure what's happening back home, the first person his eyes seek is Wei Ying, his source of strength and reassurance.

SongXiao Help WangXian Fall Deeper In Love

Wei Ying is euphoric to meet another pair of Soulmates™. (The same kind of glee that queer people feel when they meet a celebrity queer couple.) His relationship with Lan Zhan just gained supreme validation and a boost to the power of infinity!

He sees everything he has with Lan Zhan reflected in SongXiao’s relationship. He admires them and is delighted that people like them who aren’t concerned with clan drama can walk the wider path of justice, and also lead successful, honourable lives. He looks to Lan Zhan for confirmation but Lan Zhan doesn’t seem too eager to publicize the super sweet promise they made at the lantern ceremony or the fact that he’s been secretly enjoying Wei Ying’s companionship on this expedition. And let’s be honest, it would’ve been more shocking if Lan Zhan did confirm any of that here.

Cheer up, Wei Ying! Lan Zhan will get plenty more opportunities to prove his love for you and he'll ace every single one of them.

No one asked for this but thank you NHS for declaring your ideal type is beautiful gentlemen who fight crime together and unapologetically go their own way.

The parallels between the two pairs write themselves. More importantly, it is while watching SongXiao leave together that Lan Zhan stumbles onto an epiphany.

This is such an underrated moment in the show. The sorrowful music and slow-motion shot of Lan Zhan looking at Wei Ying with vulnerability all over his face once again drives it home that Wei Ying is The One for him, and he is his. He was already getting tired of denying that Wei Ying is his soulmate in every sense there is, and he feels his pain and sadness in this moment. It is enough for Jiang Cheng to feel sorry for him and move on but not for Lan Zhan who feels all that his soulmate feels.

It is overwhelming and brand new information to Lan Zhan himself that he can feel it because Wei Ying is not in impending danger right now, so this need he feels to protect him and be there for him can only mean that he loves him beyond the shadow of a doubt. Wei Ying seems upset thinking about his mother and Lan Zhan gets it, without Wei Ying having uttered a word the whole time. His face shows a kind of defeat in this scene; he surrenders to everything he has known and felt for some time now : He's in love with Wei Ying and would tear down the universe without a second thought if it means it would rid him of his unhappiness. And he isn't able to do that in this moment. But thanks to Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen, he’s found comfort in the truth they have each other at the end of the day, even if they have nothing left in this world. He cannot give back to Wei Ying what he has lost but he can accompany him in his sadness, and it will have to be enough. And it is, because Wei Ying can overcome just about everything as long as Lan Zhan walks by his side.

Wei Ying Says Lan Clan Deserves Rights

Wei Ying has many nice things to say about the Lan clan who he found exhausting a few months ago. Love brings about miraculous changes in a person, y’all.

Wei Ying gravitates towards Lan Zhan as if it's second nature to him and it really is.

Jiang Cheng spends a lot of time trying to get Wei Ying to spill the Top Secrets about the Yin Iron and Wei Ying is like, "Sorry, I’m bound by the Soulmate laws to tell you absolutely nothing."

Wei Ying is already embracing the idea of controlling the Yin Iron and people are rightfully getting offended by his suggestion.

What did you expect, Wei Ying? Not everyone is your lifetime confidant to give you the benefit of the doubt and reciprocate it with compassion, trust and open-mindedness.

Wangxian’s Temporary Separation

What was that, Wei Ying? Did we hear you admit that the Gusu Lan roof is softer than the one in Qinghe? Could this have anything to do with a certain law enforcer in Cloud Recesses you fell in love with at first sword fight?

There is a delicate, bittersweet air to this separation, and even the casual watcher is going to be wondering, “When did I get so invested in Wangxian that WuJi makes me want to cry?”

It's cute how Lan Zhan is like, “Okay, I’ve seen the love of my life for one last time, I’ll quietly take my leave so he doesn’t know I was waiting for him to come back.”

Turns out, "I'll sleep on your roof tonight," is one of the most romantic things we could tell the person we love. Isn't it brilliant that just few seconds ago Wei Ying had said he will take whatever ground he finds as his home for the night, and how utterly beautiful is it to have followed it up with this dialogue? “Lan Zhan, I'll sleep on your roof tonight.” Because the world is big but my home is wherever you are. That’s where I’m happiest, I'll sleep on this rugged roof and walk through thorns if it means I get to be by your side. I won't mind it at all. And how unbelievably romantic is it that Wei Ying makes a philosophical statement about life, which ends up being about Lan Zhan?

Lan Zhan hears the implications in his voice. And he openly yearns to stay behind a little longer and commit to his memory what Wei Ying looks like when he is drunkenly proclaiming his love for him under the moonlight. It is pleasantly surprising that Lan Zhan is willing to express his emotions when he knows he is safe from Wei Ying hearing them, that he doesn't mind telling him goodbye when he thinks Wei Ying won't remember it.

But the audience can hear his voice and we are going to remember it. How, "Wei Ying, I have to go," is uttered in a cadence so sweet we did not know Lan Zhan was capable of before this. And the choice of words do not simply mean that he’s going to leave, but that he has to, and most certainly not because he wants to. And how it really means, “I’m worried about everything, but especially you, and I'm sorry I have to go. I have to trust that we'll both be okay on this path. Please know that I don't wish to leave you, and forgive me for it. Wei Ying, I love you."

Even their temporary separation hurts so good. If they were meant to be best buddies, this scene wouldn't have been shot so poignantly. But we got used to seeing them together and every frame is designed to dig deeper into your heart and instil the fact that these soulmates are parting, and we don’t know when they’ll see each other again. This is the melancholy of a man who does not wish to be away from his lover but is forced to for the sake of the greater good. Anyone can see that.

The rooftop and moonlit night come as a callback to their first meeting, only Lan Zhan no longer wants to point the tip of his sword at Wei Ying, it gives him far greater satisfaction to place Wei Ying behind his sword.

I haven’t counted the number of times people acknowledge Wangxian’s relationship and/or know that they are inseparable, but it’s safe to say almost every character does that at some point. And some even know how to exploit their weakness, that in order to hurt one of them, the surefire way is to simply aim for the other like Wen Chao does here.

To summarize, Episode 10 saw Lan Zhan showing us his true colors : When he isn’t occupied with being the esteemed, intimidating Lan Wangji, he’s busy being a regular, sweet, romantic guy in love. And Wei Ying did that. He single-handedly exposes the soft side of Lan Zhan that nobody sees to the audience now and the world later on.

This episode also gave us this : Two soulmates chilling shoulder to shoulder zero feet apart because they’re falling in love.

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dinandgone · 4 years

Text

The Attack.

Part Four of the ‘Blood and Beskar’ series.

The Mandalorian x Fem!Reader (Eventually)

Word count: 4.2k

Warnings: Season 1 Spoilers- mostly follows canon, with a few little extra bits sprinkled in, Swearing, Violence (She’s an angsty one), injury/ trauma- blood, unrequited feelings(or are they?), Cara Dune (idk if she should be a warning but in this fic I like to think of her as more of an OC)

A/N~ Oof the reader goes through the works in this chapter. I am so grateful for every like, comment, follow or reblog. I know it’s not much but I started doing this because I was bored and didn’t expect anyone to read it let alone like it. So thank you, I hope you enjoy this chapter xxx Feedback is always welcome :)

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“Bad News. Can’t live here anymore,” Mando addresses the village people

You turned to look at the Mandalorian. Could he have been any blunter? When he doesn’t move to soften the blow of the statement the villagers burst out in cries of frustration and confusion. What’s and whys being thrown left right and centre.

“Nice bedside manner,” Cara comments, staring at Mando’s head.

“Think you can do better?” Mando sasses, gesturing for Cara to take the lead.

“Can’t do much worse,” she replies, sarcasm lacing her tone.

Smiling, and standing upright Cara walks forward to address the crowd of villagers, whilst, Mando leans against the wall in a huff like a child. Social skills weren’t really his strong suit, but in his own stubborn way, he had tried. You chuckled to yourself, this earned what you could have presumed was a glare from the Beskar helmet to your right, you didn’t respond, just turned back to focus your attention on Cara who was trying to keep the peace.

“I know this isn’t what you wanted to hear, but there are no other options,” Cara argues

“But you took the job,” Stoke shouts, rousing the crowd once again.

“That was before we knew about the AT-ST,” You shot back quickly, gathering the villager’s attention to you.

“What’s that?” Stoke asked

“The armoured walker with two enormous guns, that you knew about and didn’t tell us,” Cara replies sternly.

“Please, Help us!” The crowd erupts once more

“We hired you!”

“We have nowhere to go,” Omera states, bringing her daughter closer to her chest. Her statement yet again aimed at the Mandalorian lounging against the wall behind you. You watch as she continues to stare in his direction, the feeling that you had felt yesterday when she had shown you to your hut and completely ignored you bubbled in your chest. Were you jealous? No, she was just asking for help. You had no right for these feelings anyway, he wasn’t yours. You sighed and re-entered the conversation.

“Sure you do. This is a big planet, I’ve seen a lot smaller ” Cara reasons

“My grandparents seeded these ponds!” Caben argues and the crowd continues to shout.

You understood their frustrations, their home was being taken from them and you knew what that felt like. But you struggled to find a probable solution.

“I understand, I really do, but there’s only three of us,” Cara says. You smile at your inclusion, even though the circumstances were poor it was nice to be treated like something more than a babysitter.

“There’s at least 20 here!” Stoke counters gesturing to the rest of the adults in the group.

“We need fighters, let’s be realistic,” Cara exclaims

“We can learn!” Another voice shouts, followed by pleas.

“I’ve seen that thing take out entire companies of soldiers in a matter of minutes!” Cara yells, you could tell her resolve was wearing thin.

“We’re not leaving,” Omera states, eyes trained on Mando behind you.

“You cannot fight that thing.” You repeat sternly stepping forward, eyes on her.

“Unless we teach them,” Mando voices from behind you. You turn to look at him in disbelief, joined by Cara glaring at him angrily. She lets out an exasperated sigh and turns back to the crowd.

“We can discuss a plan in the morning,”

You don’t listen to the rest of the conversation, as you notice how Omera’s focus is on Mando, and how he’s staring in return. You roll your eyes, turning your attention to the child who’s playing in the dirt beside the hut. Picking him up you begin to follow the others who have started walking to the barn to discuss the plan further.

You sat on the floor with the kid in your lap, stroking his ears and letting him play with your shirt in hopes of getting him to fall asleep. His movements were slow, you could tell he was tired, but his babbling still continued at a normal rate. You were barely listening to the conversation, too focused on the kid snuggling in your lap when you heard your name mentioned.

“Will, Y/N help us fight?” Omera asks turning her attention to you.

Before either you or Cara could reply Mando steps in.

“No,” He replies gruffly

“Wait! Why not? I am more than capable,” you argued, your eyes shooting daggers at the dark visor of his helmet.

“I said no,” Mando counters roughly, holding your stare.

You open your mouth to reply, but your answer dies in your throat. Don’t say anything you will regret you thought to yourself. So you continued the staring competition you and the Mandalorian had started, refusing to back down.

“Please,” Omera sighs, placing her hand on Mando’s arm, looking up at him “We’re going to need all the help we can get,”

Mando glanced down at the hand on his arm and then back to Omera’s eyes, then back to yours. “You will stay, and take care of the children,”

Right. You huffed to yourself. Of course, you were the babysitter. Why would you be asked to be anything more? About to argue back, you looked at the kid, asleep in your arms, you’d promised yourself you would protect him no matter what, and you were going to do it. You glanced back to notice Omera’s hand was still on Mando’s arm, you didn’t like it. Not one bit. You stood and made your way to the barn door without looking back.

“Putting the kid to bed,” You grumbled, leaving the others.

Cara chuckles as you leave the barn. She’d been observing your actions, and how much your demeanour changed when the Mandalorian was around She’d noticed the way you tensed whenever Omera got close to him, and how that would set you up to be in a foul mood, which would usually end in you bickering with the Mandalorian. But she also noticed the way the Mandalorian would steal glances of you from time to time, like now as you walked away to your hut, he’d brushed Omera’s hand of his arm and the dark visor of his helmet trained to the door you had left not moments ago. She smirked, this was going to be fun to observe.

You walk back to your hut, the sleeping kid in your arms. Once you’d looked at him, all the anger and frustration you felt melted into the background. You had to protect him no matter what. Even though it was your job, it was something you felt you had to do, you’d break every rule and give your life to protect this kid. That much you were sure of.

You place the sleeping child in the cot and rock it gently making sure he stays asleep. Once you’re satisfied he was sound asleep you take off your thigh holster, and remove your blaster, placing the knife and the blaster on the pillow, you sit pulling off your shoes.

Your peace is squashed moments later by the familiar metallic sound outside the hut. The sour feeling you harboured from before returns, making your blood boil. You hear a soft goodnight from what you would assume was Omera, and you let out a scoff just as the Mandalorian enters the hut. He turns to you and you can tell that he’s analysing you the moment your eyes meet the dark visor.

“Goodnight,” You say bluntly only adding to the tension surrounding the both of you, you turned over in your cot to face the wall.

The Mandalorian is confused. He doesn’t understand why you were suddenly so off with him, he didn’t want you in front taking out the walker because he needed you to care for the child if something happened. He realised that he just wanted you to be safe. He sighs looking at your frame once more, then lies back into the cot, slowly falling into sleep.

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In the morning Cara and Mando explain to the villagers the plan. The two of them would draw out the raiders, whilst the rest of the village would defend the farms, and you would care for the children.

The village went straight to work preparing for the fight, half of the village worked on building barricades for the edge of the village whilst the other half worked on expanding the krill ponds, in order to get the AT-ST to fall into.

Each day you helped on both projects dividing your time, between chopping logs and digging trenches. At the end of each day Mando and Cara would train the villagers in close combat with sharpened branches. By the end of the week, the village was prepared.

The morning after, Mando and Cara stood in front of the group of farmers. You sat with the child on your knee, waiting for the chaos that was about to unravel.

“Okay, who knows how to shoot?” Mando asks the crowd.

Unsurprisingly, nobody in the crowd raised their hands, as the continued to look at each other nervously. That was until Omera raised her hand. Mando nodded his head and moved to the crates full of weapons, passing out blasters and a modified pulse rifle to Omera. Of course, she knew how to shoot, and of course, she’d get a more complicated weapon, you rolled your eyes. Shaking your head in the realisation of your petty thoughts.

The rest of the villagers aimed their blasters at the frying pans ahead and the blaster shots hit pretty much everywhere but the targets. You notice Omera hit the frying pan dead in the centre, causing Mando to look down at her, clearly appreciating her skills. Yet again you found jealousy bubbling away in your chest. Maker, this is pathetic you thought to yourself. You clenched your jaw and tore your gaze away from them. Jealousy wasn’t going to protect the kid, you needed to get over yourself and focus on your own plan. You turned away and walked towards your hut keeping the child at your side, placing him in his crib when you entered the hut.

“If it wasn’t for you kid, I’d be long gone,” you confessed, stroking his soft ears gently as you sat back against the cot looking out of the door.

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As the sun began to set, you knew it was time for the plan to be put into action. Mando and Cara would go and provoke the bandits bringing both them and the AT-ST to the village.

Cara had come to check on you, and make sure you knew the plan and what you had to do. You both walked to the middle of the village where the people were busy getting ready for the fight to come. You and Cara walked towards Mando, close enough to hear Omera talking to him.

“We’ll be ready for them,” you heard her say as you got closer.

And after that, they just stood there looking at each other. You took a deep shallow breath and looked away at the children playing to your left. Your breath caught Cara’s attention and she stopped walking to look at you. She saw a flash of hurt in your expression before it changed to a blank expression. She looked back to Mando, who was beginning to walk over to where you both stood.

“I’m going to round up the children,” you mumbled before Mando could reach where you stood.

As he watches you walk away, Mando looks to Cara, hopefully conveying the question he wanted to ask, she just shrugged, beginning to walk out towards the forest. He follows catching up to her when he reaches the treeline.

“Care to explain why she couldn’t come with us?” She asks referring to you.

“She needs to look after the kid,” Mando states plainly, walking through the bushes

“So, it’s got nothing to do with the fact that she’s the furthest away from the danger, when you know she can look after herself,” Cara inquires

Mando huffs in response. He was just making sure that the kid was safe, and he knew you would keep the kid safe. He trusted you, that’s all.

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After gathering all the children in one of the huts furthest away from the trenches, you wait, your heart in your throat. The children are huddled together, their faces show expressions of fear and your heart breaks. You know the feeling, it reminded you of the day the empire attacked your planet, and your family were killed, you weren’t much older than the eldest children there.

Your thoughts are interrupted, by the distant sounds of shouting and the deep thud of what you guessed was the AT-ST. The children become restless, some starting to cry at the noise of blasters and shouts. You move forward to soothe them.

“It’s going to be okay, I promise nothing is going to happen to you, I won’t let it, but I need you to keep quiet okay,” You say in a hushed tone bringing your finger to your lips to indicate the need to be quiet.

The low thud of the AT-ST stops but you don’t hear the explosion that was expected, the blaster fire continued piercing through the air. The sounds of foreign shouts were getting louder, nobody was supposed to get this close, they weren’t supposed to get past the barricades. You knew what you had to do. You turn to the children, placing the kid in one of the eldest’s lap.

“You look after him okay, I need you all to be super quiet for me, I promise I’ll come back,” You assure them, swiftly leaving the hut and guarding the door.

The outside air was foggy, the red shots of blaster fire blistering through the air in both directions. You notice the AT-ST still had to fall into the trench, it was so close just one more step.

Your focus is then brought to the shouts of raiders close to the hut. You pull out your blaster and knife preparing for the fight. The first raider that comes into sight you take out with a single shot, along with another to your left. The next raider charges at you, and you swiftly move out of the way slashing your knife at its head, you kick out catching the back of the raiders thigh, causing it to fall to one knee, you raise your blaster and shoot. Two more raiders appear from the fog charging at you, one lunges at you as the other moves forward, you manage to block one advance but not before the other slices your thigh. You cry out in pain, throwing your knife into your opponent’s chest, bringing your knee to the others face, landing a punch to its side. But it senses your weakness, and runs at you straight on, tackling you to the floor, losing your grip on your blaster you fall, the raider placing his hands around your neck choking you. You find it hard to focus, your vision becoming blurry, as the raider strangles you. But in the back of your mind, you remember your promise, to look after the kid no matter what. You regain your focus, your hand searching on the ground for your blaster, grabbing its handle and pulling it to the raider on top of you, pulling the trigger. His grip loosens, and you gasp for your breath, just as a large explosion erupts on the edge of the village. The walker had fallen. The village had won, the sound of cheering erupted through the air. You push the raider’s body off you and crawl your way back into the hut, collapsing against its wall trying to gain your breath back.

“It’s gonna be okay,” You reassured the children, closing your eyes, focussing on your breathing.

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

Mando’s immediate thoughts were you and the kid, he rushed to the hut where the children were. He noticed the bodies of five raiders outside the hut. Shit. They weren’t supposed to get this far. He walks over to the entrance of the hut noticing the trail of blood, he rushes through the door. The children are still huddled together, the child in one of the older one’s lap. Mando looks over to you, you’re propped against the wall, eyes closed, your breathing was rapid but shallow. His eyeline drops to the large gash in your thigh, blood pooling beneath your leg, his heart drops. You look up, your eyes meeting his through his visor.

“Oh hey Mando,” You chuckled, causing you to wheeze, then wince in pain.

He moves forward towards you, lifting you up bridal style carrying you towards your shared hut. Shouting to Cara that he needed a med pack, he places you on your cot, he uses his blade to cut the material surrounding your thigh, so he could assess the cut, it was deep, blood still trickling out onto your exposed thigh.

“Mando, you could at least buy me a drink first,” You chuckle gesturing to the torn fabric. You smiled deliriously from the blood loss.

“Maybe another time,”he laughs softly, as Cara arrives at the hut with some bacta patches and a syringe. He injects the bacta into your thigh, you hiss in pain but then calm as the cool solution runs through you bloodstream providing quick pain relief.

You manage to sit yourself up as Manda bandages your thigh, too high on the pain relief to acknowledge how close his hands were to your bare skin.

“Thanks,” You wheeze, coughing again. This draws Mando’s attention to your face, and then your neck where dark bruises were forming in the shape of fingers.

He points to your neck, ”What happened? Who did this?” he asks, his heart pounding out of his chest. They weren’t supposed to go anywhere near you, and now you could’ve died.

“It’s fine the other guy came out worse,” you chuckle, lying back down into the bed, your eyes feeling heavy.

The last thing Mando hears from you is the small whisper of “Did what I had to, to keep the kid safe.” you close your eyes, your breaths evening.

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You wake the sound of children playing outside the hut, your mouth was dry and your head a little fuzzy, as you try and piece together how you’d ended up in your hut. You groaned as you sat upright, a plate of food had been placed at the side of your bed. You smiled and picked it up, eating the contents quickly, as if you hadn’t eaten in weeks. You look to your thigh and see it perfectly bandaged, only the dull ache from the wound. Wow, bacta really does do wonders you thought to yourself. As you turn to assess your surroundings you notice a pile of folded clothes at the end of the bed, it was another one of Mando’s shirts and a pair of trousers. You smiled, taking a deep breath of the shirt as you placed it over your head, it smelt like him, it made you feel safe. You shimmied on the pants and pulled on your shoes and made your way to find the Mandalorian, to thank him.

The kid was sat surrounded by the village children, playing games and laughing. You smiled at the sight, he was safe. You see Mando talking to Omera, so you sit with the kid and wait for the right time, to thank him. You turn and start playing with the kid. Mando and Omera walk closer to where the children are playing, close enough so you can hear their conversation.

“He’s happy here,” Omera observes

“I’m leaving the kid here, the life I lead isn’t safe for him,” Mando responds

Your heart drops Was he leaving you here too? Or was he going to hand you in? Why had you expected any different? He’d found a place for the kid, and here there was no use for you, your job had been fulfilled. You’d go back to being alone, or half-dead in a cell in the middle of nowhere. Tears threatened to spill from your eyes, as you turn to stand, you look at Mando just as he turns to see you walk away from the village into the forest.

You find a quiet clearing near the edge of the woods and sit against the nearest tree. Tears were spilling down your face, and your mind moved as a sickening pace. You close your eyes, attempting to maintain a steady breathing pattern.

The sound of a twig snapping to the side of you causes you to open your eyes, looking that direction of the sound. Before you can stand a heavy fist meets the side of your face, you jerk to the side trying to keep your balance. You look over to see one of the bounty hunters from Nevarro, the beeping of a tracking fob resonating in your ears- he was here for the kid.

You raise your hands and call out to him, “Hey, look just take me I’ve got a bounty on me too, its a pretty big one, just leave the kid and the Mandalorian and take me okay,”

The bounty hunter doesn’t move just stares at you, hand moving to his holster. Okay, so we’ll do this the hard way you thought. Before, the bounty hunter can draw his blaster you move, ducking and extending your leg out kicking the bounty hunter from his feet. You run deeper into the forest, in the opposite direction to the village, if you give him a hard time maybe he’ll leave the kid and just take you. One payment is better than no payment right?

Before you can get any further the bounty hunter tackles you to the ground, you fall hard, the pressure excruciating on the wound on your leg. You cry out, thrashing against the bounty hunter as he cuffs you behind your back, hauling you up to your knees. You try to jerk backwards, in an attempt to knock the hunter off his feet but you’re not strong enough. The butt of the hunter’s rifle connects with your head, and he drags you to the edge of the forest, setting up his rifle.

“Please just take me, don’t hurt the kid, just take me, you can kill me and still get my bounty,” You plea, your eyes blurring from tears and what you were certain was a concussion.

The bounty hunter ignores your pleas and adjusts his scope and places a finger on the trigger, aiming at the child. You try to call out to warn them but your voice is broken and only a wheeze escapes. You look over to see the Mandalorian, with his helmet between Omera’s hands, slowly beginning to raise it off his head. You’re overwhelmed with sadness and regret, you’d failed at protecting the child and you’d failed at expressing your feelings. You close your eyes, expelling more tears down your face.

A single blaster shot rings through the air, and you hear the body drop beside you.

You look over to see the bounty hunter’s body a smoking pile on the ground. Cara stands above it with a hardened stare, which softens when it moves to you. She helps you up and just as she helps you out of the cuffs Mando appears from the treeline in front of you blaster raised. He looks at you, then Cara and then to the body on the floor. He kicks the body over to reveal the tracking fob, picking it up, he turns to face the village and the tracking fob blinks rapidly.

“They know you’re here,” Cara states, glancing at you

“Yes,”

“Then they’ll keep coming,”

“Yes,” Mando replies, placing the tracking fob on the ground and crushing it beneath your boot.

He turns to you. “Why did you run off?” He states roughly.

Your eyes widen. He didn’t ask if you were okay, he just cut straight to the direct questions. Anger bubbles in your chest.

“I overheard you talking to Omera, Mando, about leaving the kid here, and considering I’m such a big inconvenience to you I thought you’d be taking me back to collect your bounty or dropping me off on the nearest planet!” You yelled the tears starting to well in your eyes again.

He doesn’t respond. Unable to deal with his disappointment you walk back to the village, wiping away the tears on your face, and hissing when your thumb grazes against your split lip.

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The Mandalorian stands there silent staring at the empty space where you were just stood looking up to see you walking back to the village. He turns back to Cara, hoping she’ll answer some of his questions.

“She could’ve been killed why did she run away, reckless actions get people killed,” Mando gruffly complains.

“You really are as stupid as you look,” Cara scoffs, crossing her arms across her chest.

“What are you talking about?” Mando asks

“First of all, she could’ve died yesterday, she killed five raiders in order to save the kid, and just now she practically screamed at that hunter to take her instead of you and the kid, she was willing to die so that you could get away!” Cara yells pointing her finger into the Mandalorian’s chest, then walking away to the village

Instantly, regret fills his chest making it hard to breathe. You’d fought to keep him and the child safe and he hadn’t even asked if you were okay, only bombarded you with questions. How could he be so insensitive? You’d been hurt twice now and it was his fault.

He had to make this right.

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sainadazai · 3 years

Text

When your crush is angry all the time

Ch.6

"A red haired bitch that glows"

2nd person pov

°•○●○•°•○●○•°•○●○•°

You weren't sure how things could even possibly move so quick, but as fire burned and terrifying creatures tormented citizens, all You could do was stand. Nomus, is what endeavour called them. Some gross being that seemed to have multiple quirks, you'd never seen anything like them.

Even with all of the times you'd been beaten and interrogated and harassed by villains, nothing like this ever happened. It could have been the fact that you spent most of your young life hiding away in a castel in the middle of nowhere, but seeing all this destruction froze you in place.

"Kid, help get the citizens out of here! Do not engage in combat, understand? Hey! L/n!"

You broke the terrified stare that was burning into the ruined city streets to meet eyes with your boss. He seemed so calm, even though everything was going wrong. The world was quite literally burning. Those monsters were hurting people. There were screams of horror, and still his calm demeanor was all you could focus on. How was he so calm?

"Now!"

His yell broke You from your trance and you scrambled around, eyes searching for someone, anyone to get the hell out of here. However there wasn't just one, there were hundreds. Some under building scraps, trapped behind fire burning the streets. Too many people, too much noise, it was never this loud back home. Why could you just focus?!

One of those boys from earlier today let our scream. You only recognized it because it was the same as how he'd screamed at bakugou earlier. You whipped your head around looking for his sound, body, anything. Spinning in circles until you caught that little red shirt cowering beneath one of those things.

"Hold on, i'm coming!" You didn't know if he could hear you, the statement was more a confirmation to yourself. You wouldn't stand there cowering. You didnt wanna be the helpless princess waiting to be saved. You were going to save others, it was like an instinct, like you had to.

Being unsure of your abilities with vines and plants, you opted to use a power long ago mastered. Twirling your pointer finger in a circle to slowly collect wind into a tiny ciclone and build it up bigger and bigger. This action disrupted the wind in the area, some of the bystanders' hair began flowing with the force of it, getting shivers from the chill.

Then with all the focus you could muster you let your eyes bored right into the head of that nomu aiming with your mind and following the action with your finger. Then, with a snap, the ciclone flew off towards it, lifting it into the air and growing larger the more he struggled.

You felt the pressure of all that wind, and its body on your back. Hundreds of pounds of pressure on your spine, but adrenaline forced you forward. Sprinting to the boy in the red shirt, crouching down under all that weight to wipe away his tears. You completely ignored how underdressed you were and brought his small form into a tight embrace, whispering sweet nothings to which you didn't know you could say.

It all felt so wrong, so opposite to what you wanted, but you couldn't help it. Grazing the lasso on your thigh an idea sprouted in your mind as to how you could get this crushing weight off of your back. You let the boy down telling him to stay behind you.

Don't engage in combat.

Do not engage.

Get them out of here.

Ignoring your mentors words, you snatched the lasso off of your thigh, doing as you were taught and lighting it ablaze, if your mother was thinking straight, she'd have it made of mineral wool- fire retardant and easily manipulated. The flames would not be actually catching on anything but the air, therefore saving her from an uncontrollably fire.

As it lit up your hair not only changed, but shined a bright red. It was so brilliant that it lit up the area around you, the boy behind you shocked and the people in the vicinity scared.

However, you had a hero suit on. That meant to them, that you were trustworthy.

You swing the lasso all but twice above your head before releasing the ciclone, and the pressure on your back, and whipping it towards the monster.

It had activated some sort of electricity quirk once free from the wind and as the lasso made contact, rather than burning and bringing the nomu to the ground, it sent a high-powered electrical current through your already spent body.

You should have stopped there, tossed the kid out of the way and called for help. Yet, for some reason you couldn't. Being shocked only numbed the pain on your spine more, and upped your adrenaline. Bad news for mr.nomu, huh?

"Whew, that's one way to boost your energy huh, kid?"

You smirked back at the worried boy behind you, hoping a joke would lighting the mood now. Similar to how you would joke in class yo avoid any real emotions or connections.

Only, now, it held the benefit of an adorable smirk appearing on his face and a little giggle exciting his mouth.

"Watch this!"

Despite being electrocuted your lasso was still intact, so you took to attacking it around the monster's leg and pulling back towards you. Once it was too close for your liking, you shot a roundhouse kick into the empty space in front of you. It seemed like a fruitless action, until the surrounding citizens noticed how the wind around them mirrored your actions with equal force.

The nomu went flying out of the city, likely landing somewhere around hosu (😏Yes, hosu) and you released the pressure on your leg.

As soon as you took the time to inhale, your back gave out, and you fell to the ground.

However you hadn't given up, using the little burst you could make with your fingers, you shot several people away from the mess with winds. Then, after what you counted to be person number 34, you gave out and the world went black.

The heroes in the area who were not distracted by nomus had been paying close attention to your actions, surprised they haven't seen you in the sports festival, or anywhere for that matter.

Mr. Woods was disappointed at the initiative you took, knowing how injured you must be from being out of practice with most parts of your quirk. However when endeavour informed the other pros of some sort of incident in hosu, he was forced to leave you there. Limp body cold against the concrete.

When doctors and healers arrived, you were one of the first in an ambulance and on the road to the hospital, and the news reports of your body being wheeled off were matched with that of your battle with the nomu. Streaming across all platforms and displaying on one particular tv screen, in the hotel room of one fire quirked boy.

A boy who truly was noticing he had no idea what you were capable of. A boy who was angry you'd been holding it back in class. One who had been thinking of the way you spoke of fire to that little boy all day, and above all a boy who was entranced by the glow of your hair when it turned red.

Bakugou wasn't sure how to process these overwhelming feelings towards you, the stalker girl who said dumb shit about his eyes. Still, after seeing that video, the feeling your own eyes held, staring up at that devilish creature. He could no longer say he didn't know what you meant by being obsessed with the look in his eyes. He was now too.

A six year old girl struggled against her restraints tirelessly. She has a power that she doesn't know how to use, and yet these men want to take it from her. There is one door exit, it's blocked by tall men in black suits. The whole room echoes with screams from children. It crashes against the walls and her little ears, and she cant get it to stop.

Why was this happening to her? Why couldn't she do anything to stop it?

"Please, just let my brother go! Please I'll do anything. Im sorry. Im sorry. Plea-"

Her words are stopped by a suffocating hand, larger than her whole face, it reeks of bleach. Her little eyes can only release so many tears before they are running over the hands knuckles, wetting his skin with her despair. The man doesn't care, though. The men never seem to care.

Her brother, only two years old, cries in a stranger's arms. The stranger showed her how he could completely disassemble any object, or put it back together. What a horrible powerful quirk. With something like that, she really couldn't tell why he needed hers too. Still, he did.

So the tiny boy whined in his firm hold, terrified, but not sure why. They both just wanted their Mommy. Mommy always comes to save them, she and her friends will take them home. To the castle, with the comfy beds, the pillowy blankets that their small bodies float on like clouds.

Not this rough metal wall, with arms chained, and bruises forming from their so-called interrogation. Why didn't they understand?

She doesn't know how to give her quirk away. She is only six, after all.

Mommy told her that men are greedy. Men like these have all they want and still need more. They take things, without asking. They took her and her brother without asking, so where was Mommy? To tell these men that you aren't supposed to take things, or hit people.

Where are their mommies? Did no one tell them hitting people is bad? Especially smaller people. Is that why the men are bad? Because they didn't have a Mommy or daddy to tell them how to be good? The little girl is lost in a pit of sympathy. Sympathy that she does not owe these horrible men, yet she can't help it.

"I don't give a shit princess, your brother can go home when you give us the quirk."

"Mommy never told me how! I'm sorry míster that you don't have a mo-mommy!" She sobre through the rough palm over her mouth. At the response he removed his grip, though. Opting to allow the girl her voice.

"P-please. I'm sorry, I'm sorry no one told you not to be mean. It's okay though! My Mommy will come, she'll tell you, okay! Please j-just-" though her words held great meaning to those men in suits-bad men- she couldn't finish. Her sobs were too loud and violent. Her little arms shook, because though she was such a sweet little girl,she was terrified.

Her cheeks hurt from screaming and tensing to release tears. Her arms hurt from being suspended at her sides. Her little legs had lost all feeling, gone numb under the pressure of standing for so long. She just wanted to go home, to keep her brother safe.

Even being only six, she felt so stupid for being so helpless. It was her job to protect their family quirk, but she wanted to give it up. More so, even though she wanted to give it away, she didn't even know how.

A small, weak girl, helpless really. She never wanted to be helpless like that again.

"Now!" His hand collided with her cheek. Hard, swinging, jaw snapping pressure. It rang through her ears, like her baby brothers sobs, til she shot up from her bed.

Sweat covered by/ns face as she jolted awake in her bed. Around her were some unrecognizable faces, or that's what she thought at first. Except, in truth, they were simply blurred in her eyes.

As she was taught when she was little, she began recounting things to herself that might make her come back to reality. Might help ease the fear of her dream.

- I am not 6 years old

-my brother is at home in the castle

-im not in a warehouse

-those men are in prison

-i am alive

As she was repeating each of those truths in her head, her eyesight began to come back so that she could recognize the faces of those around her. Three boys: todoroki, midoriya, and iida.

Midoriya was furthest from her, as she now noticed she was on a bed. Then iida, and closest was todoroki. The familiarity of his stone face gave y/n great comfort. However, he looked troubled.

The three boys in the hospital room with her were truthfully at a loss. This girl who had been at their school for one week, had proved more honest and heroic than them. After being scolded by the chief of police, they were each confronting their own feelings about the events.

However, each came to the conclusion that y/n was the only participating hero-in-training that followed the rules and fought earnestly. Little did they know, she had been breaking rules too, except her wouldn't be hid so easily.

What were the police meant to do, a teenage girl-princess no less- save countless lives, that heroes were neglecting, and its broadcast all over japan. Unlike in the boys' case, where the media didn't even have to know, everyone had already seen her heroism, but they had no idea where she came from.

Some viewers pointed out her position as a princess, but no one expected to see her in a hero outfit anytime soon. They knew what happened was illegal, but what backlash would they face for arresting her. Could they even arrest her?

Still, all y/n knew was that she was scared, and she needed to hide it as deep within her as it could reach. No one likes a cry baby, anyway.

"Oh..uh, hey guys?"

The first to look up was the green haired, face widening in surprise and worry.

"Y/n! Y-you're up!? Wait, don't sit up yet..um they said your bac-"

"You left damage on all your thoracic vertebrae. You could have killed yourself with that amount of pressure!"

Todoroki interrupted. Face still void of emotion, but his voice held anger.

Making sure to agnowledged how touched she was that he cared at all, y/n then quickly brushed it off. In the mood for jokes, not fights. She just finished fighting, why would she wanna argue some more about it?

"Aww~todoroki, were you worried about me?"

"Yes. It was stupid of you to use your quirk like that, out of practice and such."

"Um-"

"There's no um. he is right y/n, i didn't know your quirk could do that, but you obviously haven't been keeping it in practice during class, that was really risky..." midoriya added on in a ramble.

Feeling a bit cornered she settled for sighing and staring up at the ceiling.

"Can I walk?"

"No"

"Why not?"

"Did you not here the whole vertebrae thing, i-"

"No, I did, but I don't feel any pain...is it not healed?"

"I'm not really sure, we can ask.."

So slowly but surely, the boys helped her sit up, and yes, she did feel an immense pain shoot through her. Additionally, she was compensated with shoto conspiracizing about his negativo afecta on peoples hands, getting to know these classmates better. They even let her in on why they were in the hospital to begin with.

She would have to admit, though these boys being around made her happy, she was still thinking about bakugou. Was he in the area during the fight? Is he okay? Why do I give a shit about that mean old fact face anyway? Oh, right. His eyes.

The rest of her time was spent ignoring the extreme trauma these events reminded her of, and fantasizing about those angry eyes.

Bakugou pov 😡

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There the bitch was, right on my hotel tv screen, fighting the same fight on replay. Those media bastards hasn't stopped talking about her all day. How even when she was barely alive on the ground, she kept saving people.

I know it wasn't about me, hell, I wasn't even there, but it feels like a taunt. Some karma cause I called her an entitled princess, or her purposefully saying "Look what I can do."

Well I fucking am. Looked like some sort of wind quirk, but I saw her use fire with those kids, and in class she makes that plant shit. So what the hell is she? She thinks having multiple quirks makes her better than me? Good enough she doesn't have to use them all just to beat me? Thats bullshit.

I'm just so fucking angry at her for it, but I have to be. Or else, the next time they show her shitty face on that shitty screen, looking

...shitty, i'll start to worry.

That maybe she has only been here for a week, but she is already gone. That the whole time at school she spent avoiding me, to make me happy. Worrying I'll never hear her say what she looks at in my eyes.

In her eyes, that night, I saw pure rage. It almost looked as if she couldn't control it. An impending anger that loomed over her, and controlled her; made her strong. Not stronger than me, but strong.

Still, I can't go "falling for'' every girl that I see with strength. If a dunce 's face hadn't told me that feeling I had at the festival was a crush, I could have spared myself a week worth of it, I don't even know what.

Stupid dunce face.

Now, though, that shitty princess, even if she is shitty. Well, she has at least my respect.

#mha bakugou #bakugou katsuki #bakusquad #mha fluff #fanfic #mha todoroki #bakugou x you #bakugou x reader #anime #romance #my hero acadamia #mha fanfiction

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thinkingisadangerouspastime · 4 years

Note

What your opinion on the Agni Kai was better then aang’s fight with ozai

I want to first say that “better” is a completely subjective statement. Both the final Agni Kai and Aang’s battle with Ozai have huge importance thematically, but are also demonstrative of different aspects of A:tLA, so comparing them in an attempt to determine the “better” battle is really an injustice to the show imo. That said, the final Agni Kai is certainly the more popular of the two big battles, and honestly I can break down its popularity into three main points. People tend to favor the final Agni Kai because:

They see the final Agni Kai as the reason Z.utara should have been canon (no, this is not the same as seeing the battle as crucial to Z.utara’s development; I mean they full-on think that the final Agni Kai matters largely if not entirely because of the brief ‘Z.utara’ moment.)

They recognize the significance of the Agni Kai being framed as a tragedy (specifically regarding Azula).

Their lack of understanding regarding Aang’s arc (or, to be kinder, their personal disinterest in Aang) prevents them from fully appreciating his battle with Ozai.

There are a few other reasons the final Agni Kai tends to be favored (e.g. it’s a much faster-paced battle action-wise; Aang’s battle with Ozai is over twice as long and because of how the show was structured is broken up into several sections and thus feels even longer), but I think those are the main three. So let’s take them one at a time!

First, I have to start with the obvious:

People favor the final Agni Kai because they interpret it as their holy grail of why Z.utara should have been canon.

Firstly, I am not getting into the K@taang vs Z.utara ship wars. I don’t have the time or the energy lmao. But there is a huge difference between shipping Z.utara based on the content provided in the show (because y’all know I love me some Zut@raang) compared to somehow thinking that Zuko and Katara were both ready to be and should have gotten together at the end of the series. In short, Z.utara would not have worked in canon based on where the series stood by the finale, and that’s okay! That fact does not negate the appeal of Z.utara nor does it mean Z.utara shippers should not be allowed to interpret the final Agni Kai as involving Z.utara content (they absolutely can and should! we love to see that!). But the final Agni Kai was not some secret sign that Z.utara was meant to be canon, and people who interpret it as such are sorely missing the point of the battle.

Here are a few metas discussing the final Agni Kai in regards to Z.utara’s importance within canon A:tLA, if you’d like to read some analysis going more in-depth than I intend to. My thoughts regarding Z.utara and the final Agni Kai are pretty simple:

Zuko catching/attempting to redirect the lightning aimed at Katara was not because he was in love with her. For him to sacrifice himself because he was “in love with her” would entirely undermine his redemption arc, which is learning to earn forgiveness and accept unconditional love from his family (both Iroh and the Gaang), not because of romantic interest. (Again, this does not mean someone shouldn’t ship Z.utara; if that’s what you’re taking away from this post, then you might as well stop reading, because I assure you that’s not even close to the point here.)

Katara is set up as Azula’s primary foil (e.g. by and large her relationship in canon with Zuko is aimed as a surrogate sibling); her saving Zuko parallels Azula’s attempts on his life (though her most important moment as Azula’s foil is arguably bringing Aang back to life after Azula kills him, but that’s a subject for another time lol), and Zuko catching the lightning for Katara demonstrates him saving the sister he can save versus Azula, the sister he cannot save (hence her breakdown at the end of the battle while Katara walks away largely unharmed; Zuko’s decision is also a direct parallel to him siding with Azula in “Crossroads of Destiny”, having first chosen the sister who harms him over Katara, the sister who ultimately heals him).

The significance of Zuko catching/attempting to redirect the lightning aimed at Katara is not because it was Katara he was saving; the viewer sees Zuko’s decision and recognizes that he would have done so for anyone. Anyone in the Gaang, plus Mai and Iroh, and possibly even Ty Lee (hell, he’d probably have taken the bolt for Appa and Momo). Zuko’s redemption arc is sealed by his selflessness, his willingness to sacrifice himself for the sake of someone else. While the moment is especially powerful because of Katara’s position as a foil to Azula, it is not the Z.utara holy grail I’ve seen it portrayed to be.

To be honest, the interpretation of the Agni Kai as some big Z.utara moment is both superficial and a massive disservice to Azula and the completion of her arc, which is the focal point of most if not all of the battle, and also entirely undermines the power of Zuko’s redemption (as I discussed). So moving on to the next point!

People favor the final Agni Kai because they recognize its importance to Azula and how the key element of the battle’s emotional weight is its framing as a tragic, heartbreaking moment.

I rewatched both the final Agni Kai and Aang’s battle with Ozai before I wrote this, and I had to try so hard to not cry at the end when Azula breaks down, sobbing openly for the first time in the entire series. It is a powerful, devastating moment, and it is so heartbreaking because of how fitting it is for her. Does she deserve redemption? Absolutely. But in the context of the series and how A:tLA played out, rock bottom is where Azula needs to be, and the audience recognizing that fact is what makes the scene so painful to watch (and also why you can’t take your eyes off the screen). For me, the power of the Agni Kai never came from Zuko’s sacrifice (although I understand why that part resonates with some people more); instead, it was always about Azula’s downfall, her descent, the straw the broke the camel’s back - whatever you want to call it. I’ll try to keep the essence of my feelings towards Azula and the Agni Kai and why this battle is preferred short:

Azula is a much more established antagonist than Ozai. We know from the beginning the Fire Lord is the big bad, but his presence in the show is relegated largely to flashbacks and to the second half of the final season. Azula is introduced in Book Two (technically she appears twice, I believe, in Book One, but she has no lines so I’m not counting those moments lol) and becomes the key antagonist throughout the final two books. The viewers admire her intelligence and strategic capabilities, appreciate her wit and ability to turn a person’s words around on them, and even feel sympathy and pity for her when her difficult relationship with her mother is revealed (in “The Beach”) and when Ozai’s conditional love is demonstrated to apply to her, too (“Sozin’s Comet Part 1: The Phoenix King”). Thus, the final Agni Kai has multitudes more emotional potency in terms of the antagonist, as Azula is more pitiable and developed than Ozai, so it’s understandable that feeling a greater connection to Azula might result in someone preferring the final Agni Kai over Aang’s battle with Ozai. (That said, I will be discussing more about the significance of Ozai as a character later.)

The tone of the Agni Kai is that of tragedy (verus the more action/intense battle of Aang vs Ozai). While the debate of drama vs action is largely related to personal preference, I think it’s worth noting that no other battle in A:tLA (that I can think of) has the slow, drawn-out, orchestral music that is present in the final Agni Kai. The viewers realize this battle may be about power on the surface, but in reality it is a painful, devastating moment about a family irreparably torn apart (at least in terms of the series run). For me, that has always been the captivating factor of the Agni Kai. The viewers mourn for Azula, who has lost herself. Yes, she did so partially in her quest for power, but more importantly in her search for love, as she did not have a support system in her life like her brother (Zuko always had Iroh), and the audience grieves for her. Her mother both feared her and was disgusted by her; her father loved no one (including her) and only valued her for what she could provide to him; she hurt her brother and her best friends to the point where they were forced to turn away from her; and her uncle, as far as what is shown, never extended a hand to her. Azula is a victim of abuse (though this does not excuse any of her actions; in fact, her role in A:tLA as a victim who was abandoned and lashes out before breaking down on the inside is just as important as Zuko’s role as a victim who was given support and was able to heal). Thus, to me, the power of the final Agni Kai is all from the tragic tone (hence why Azula’s heartbreaking end brings me close to tears every time).

Bonus: The way Katara takes out Azula is incredibly clever and badass. (I don’t think I need to expand this one. We all love narrative foils!)

For some people, they prefer the final Agni Kai because of the emotional weight of the conclusion of Azula’s arc; that weight combined with the conclusion of Zuko’s redemption, in my opinion, are pretty valid reasons to deem the final Agni Kai their favorite battle of the series. That said, there is one other important factor to consider in the question of the final Agni Kai vs Aang’s battle with Ozai:

People prefer the final Agni Kai because they blatantly misunderstand and/or misinterpret Aang’s arc of reconciling his being both the Avatar and the last airbender, thus preventing them from fully understanding and appreciating the weight of his battle with Ozai.

This point is more complex than the two I discussed previously, so I’m going to break this one down further to help simplify it. Let’s start with the most obvious thing:

“The lion turtle and energybending were cop-outs!”

I cringe whenever I see this; imagine admitting to the entire fandom how blind you were to the extensive foreshadowing about the lion turtle and energybending. Downright embarrassing. There are so many metas out there explaining how the lion turtle and energybending were not cop-outs and how A:tLA did foreshadow their influence (some people need to admit they just didn’t watch the show tbh). I’ll try to provide a quick summary:

Chiblocking demonstrated how chi/energy and bending were intrinsically linked from Day. One. Moreover, it did so numerous times; trying to claim that blatant foreshadowing is not there is… well, kind of embarrassing.

The lion turtle was foreshadowed in “The Library” (and moreover the lion turtle only appeared after Aang called out to the Spirit World; his meditation was an appropriate attempt to seek help from those wiser than him to resolve his dilemma, and thus his plea was answered).

If you’re gonna argue the lion turtle/energybending were convenient cop-outs, you better also critique how Suki conveniently was at the Boiling Rock/the ferry, Pakku conveniently had been arranged to marry Katara’s grandmother, Toph conveniently inventing metalbending, every other time a spirit showed up conveniently, etc. etc. etc. Don’t cherry-pick, hypocrites.

The lion turtle/energybending were not necessarily predictable, no, but they also were not meant to be. You’re not supposed to guess every detail of every finale of every show. So yes, the lion turtle/energybending were foreshadowed, and this foreshadowing done so in a way where after they were revealed it was intended to be an “oh my god, how did I not see that connection before?!” moment. (At least, so it was for me.)

Dismissing the lion turtle and energybending as a cop-out is an age-old, boring misinterpretation of Aang’s battle with Ozai, and by and large I think most of the fandom is tired of hearing it. Thus, if people don’t understand the lion turtle/energybending and their roles in the A:tLA finale, then they’re less likely to appreciate Aang’s battle with Ozai and therefore would prefer the final Agni Kai. Next common argument:

“Aang was able to re-enter the Avatar state because of a rock? Really? Another cop-out!”

Again, if you’re gonna criticize the rock, at least criticize every other plot device used in A:tLA. I mean come on. Some people will really just cherry-pick instances solely with Aang. How very convenient for them, huh?

But the fact of the matter is that the pointy rock is actually pretty important! No, it didn’t necessarily have to be a rock that allowed Aang to enter the Avatar state again, but it was necessary that the Avatar state was unblocked for him by a physical trigger. The Avatar state was removed from Aang by Azula’s lightning striking him (after he’d done the spiritual work to control it, too!), which is a physical block, thus requiring something to physically unblock it. By the end of Book Two, Aang is able to enter the Avatar state of his own accord (he successfully unlocked his chakras, after all) and had Azula not struck him in the back and killed him, he presumably would have been able to do so throughout Book Three. Did that physical item have to be a rock? Again, not necessarily, lmao, but where he and Ozai were fighting, well, there certainly were a lot of rocks, so it’s not like it didn’t make sense. (There’s a meta here that touches a bit on the necessity of the Aang needing the Avatar state physically unblocked, too.)

“Ozai was a stereotypical, boring villain! He was barely given any screen time!”

This isn’t entirely untrue. Everything viewers are told about Ozai is from other characters in the narrative; mostly Zuko, but also Azula and I’d argue Iroh, too. Ozai certainly was the big bad of the series, and little is provided regarding his personality beyond being power-hungry, racist, xenophobic, and abusive. But… that’s kind of the point. Ozai is written to have zero redeemable qualities. There is supposed to be zero sympathy for him. Hell, there’s arguably even zero reason for him to live on (which actually makes Aang’s decision to spare his life all the more powerful, but that’s for later). There’s one line in particular that really defines Ozai’s character to me:

“You’re [Aang is] weak, just like the rest of your people [the Air Nomads]! They did not deserve to exist in this world… in my [Ozai’s] world!”

Ozai is the epitome of fascism, imperialism, and a superiority complex if there ever was one in a cartoon. His words remind the audience that maybe he didn’t initiate the Air Nomad Genocide, but he continues to seek the same goal - obliteration of anyone he deems inferior (which is, well, every nation except his own). Aang’s battle with Ozai is literally a fight against fascism, and that’s a hell of a powerful metaphor. So while I understand leaning towards the Agni Kai in terms of familiarity with the antagonist (aka Azula), I do think some people gloss over Ozai too quickly. Yes, everyone knows that Ozai is a genocidal dictator, but I don’t think the implication of that position - especially what it means to Aang - really sinks in for everyone.

And now for the big one:

“Aang should have killed Ozai!”

If you are reading this and for some godforsaken reason think Aang should have killed Ozai, I beg of you: read these metas and analyses about Aang and his arc explaining exactly why that’s the wrong take. This point has been argued a million times over and the fact of the matter is that Aang choosing to spare Ozai’s life and thus uphold his beliefs as an Air Nomad is the ultimate triumph (a direct parallel to the Air Nomads being forced to fight back against the firebenders during Sozin’s attack and were thus not able to uphold their beliefs - the ultimate sacrifice). Furthermore, Aang choosing to spare Ozai’s life but take his bending is arguably a fate worse than death for Ozai. Ozai now lacks all of his power/prestige, will be forced to watch the son he despises rebuild his country, and any lingering supporters he may have can’t argue “oh well the Avatar had no reason to kill him!” because Aang didn’t kill him. He chose mercy. He proved himself better and stronger than Ozai could ever hope to be.

Furthermore, Aang staying true to his beliefs as an airbender is central to his character. The core belief of the Air Nomads was that all life was sacred (such was why they were all vegetarians). If he had killed Ozai, if he had been forced to betray his spiritual beliefs, then he would have completed the genocide of the Air Nomads that Sozin started a hundred years ago. Ozai’s death at Aang’s hands = the death of the airbenders’ culture. Full stop. How could he be expected to bring balance to the four nations if only three remained? Maybe this is just me, but the message of Aang being an airbender (the last airbender) and finding another way (e.g. energybending) to defeat Ozai in order to uphold the beliefs of his people is a much more powerful message than him having to kill Ozai (especially because no one else understood how important Aang’s spirituality was to him [not even the Gaang!]; Aang did what was right, even when the world insisted he was wrong).

(Sidenote: The previous Avatars did not tell Aang to kill Ozai. That’s right - not even Kyoshi. I believe she gave him this advice: “Only justice will bring peace.” Great news! Aang did exactly that. Why are some people still so pressed about it??)

Furthermore, if someone calls Aang’s beliefs and his decision not to kill Ozai childish (we’ve all seen those posts), I’m giving you permission to deck them, because so much of the roots of the Air Nomads’ spirituality is rooted in Buddhism, and like,, we know westerners struggle to comprehend any narrative that isn’t our own, but the dismissal of Aang’s beliefs without making the connection that they’re also dismissing the beliefs of many, many real people? Yeah, please sock those assholes in the jaw. Give them the finger. Glare at them. Whatever works for you. Those are the people with the most superficial opinions on A:tLA, and to be honest, it really shows. Please: make an effort to understand the eastern narratives at work within A:tLA. If you don’t, there are so many things you will miss out on, and you’ll also just look like a prick.

For me, Aang’s battle with Ozai is so powerful (and my favorite) because of the ending and its importance to Aang:

“I’m not gonna end it like this.”

Aang chooses mercy by taking Ozai’s bending instead of killing him.

Aang chooses to uphold the beliefs of his people and guarantee the Air Nomads live on in him.

Aang proves his soul is unbendable.

Aang enters and controls the Avatar of his own accord (not induced by trauma or a spirit).

Aang reconciles his being the Avatar with being the last airbender.

Aang is finally at peace with himself and the world around him.

In short, if a person doesn’t understand Aang and his character, then the significance of his final battle with Ozai will largely be lost, and thus it makes sense that they would gravitate more to the Agni Kai (which is arguably a less nuanced battle, as Azula’s position as a victim of abuse and Zuko’s tale of redemption are not exclusive to either western or eastern narratives, while Aang’s arc is largely more eastern in nature and thus something less familiar to western audiences).

I have no doubt that my personal bias influences my admiration of the final battle with Ozai, as Aang is my favorite character and his narrative is easily the most powerful to me (he is the sole survivor of genocide who still chooses to seek kindness in life instead of revenge), but regardless I’d argue the sheer thematic weight of Aang’s battle with Ozai outweighs that of the Agni Kai any day (although, to be fair, they are presenting different subjects, so take my feelings there with a grain of salt).

The Agni Kai is a tragedy. It is devastating. It makes you cry. Aang’s battle with Ozai is a triumph. It is hope. It makes you take a deep breath and look to tomorrow with a brave smile. And that is why it is the battle that concludes the series.

TL;DR - Both are fantastic battles in their own merit, but Aang’s battle with Ozai is underappreciated because of the fandom’s incomplete grasp on Aang’s arc and character while the final Agni Kai is often appreciated/hyped up for the wrong (*cough* shipping *cough*) reasons.

#IM GONNA ADD A LINE BREAK IN A HOT MINUTE IM ON MOBILE #amy answers #aang #atla #avatar the last airbender #azula #zuko #katara #ozai #final agni kai #atla meta #aang vs ozai #energybending #lion turtle #anon #air nomad genocide #air nomads #avatar the legend of aang #amy analyzes

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eleanorfenyxwrites · 4 years

Text

After Each Midnight Begins A New Day

[3zun fixit extra #2 - I have to stress right away that this has spoilers for upcoming plot points, as in you’ll be able to kind of know where I’m planning to go with at least one aspect of the story. If you want to avoid spoiling the main story for yourself, read part 9 before you read this extra.]

[Masterpost]

[Extra #1]

Nie Huaisang sweeps into Cloud Recesses with little fanfare.

He’s brought a few junior disciples with him who need to get used to traveling as well as two experienced, more seasoned cultivators as a sort of ‘guard’, but other than that he travels lightly. Times are peaceful, after all. He and his two guards can handle anything that might accost them on the way, and they have nothing to be wary of in Cloud Recesses proper.

They’re greeted at the gates by Wei Wuxian, looking cheerful as ever.

“Nie-xiong!” he cries, flinging his arms wide with a grin and Nie Huaisang is quick to snap his fan open to hide his pleased smile. The disciples he’s brought along haven’t yet had a chance to meet anyone who would treat him so flippantly - not that many exist - and he can feel their scandalized glares at Wei Wuxian over his shoulders.

“You can’t greet Sect leaders like that, Wei-gongzi,” Nie Sizhen sighs from her spot just behind his left shoulder, long-suffering as ever, and Wei Wuxian throws his head back to laugh, thoroughly undaunted by her looming presence despite the fact that she’s fully capable of snapping him in half without breaking a sweat.

“I can when your Sect leader is my childhood friend, don’t be so stuffy! Come in, come in! I’ve asked for the best guest rooms to be prepared for you. How was the trip?”

Nie Huaisang steps forward into Wei Wuxian’s one-armed embrace, the other Nie cultivators falling into step behind them as Nie Sizhen begins outlining the few interesting details of their trip. Nothing terribly alarming - reports of a yao, a few hauntings, a water ghoul that they were able to quickly dispatch of on their way; nothing that the Nie couldn’t handle - and Wei Wuxian nods along as he listens.

The conversation lasts them long enough that by the time the report is over and Wei Wuxian’s few questions for more details have been answered, they’re in position to disperse into their separate guest quarters and relax from the trip for the afternoon.

“Oh no no, not you Nie-xiong. You’re coming with me,” Wei Wuxian says easily enough when Nie Huaisang begins to pull away but there’s a glint in his eye hinting at something further below the surface.

“Aiyo Wei-xiong,” he whines - his first words since setting foot in Cloud Recesses. He would never admit to the cause being a desire to escape Wei Wuxian’s immediate attention, but, well...it wasn’t not that reason either. “I’m tired, can’t it wait until after I’ve had a nice nap?”

“Nope! Come on, come on,” Wei Wuxian teases, ushering him down the hall with ease. “I’ve got wine, you know, and some of those osthmanthus cakes you like.”

“Bribery,” Nie Huaisang replies in open approval with another smile behind his fan. “Alright fine, but you don’t get to eat any of the cakes.”

“We’ll see about that!” Wei Wuxian’s laugh rings through Cloud Recesses as they take the quickest path to the Jingshi, the one that cuts straight through the pavilions of classrooms full of students. None of the adults walking serenely through their home even flinch at the sudden disruption of the quiet atmosphere. Wei Wuxian babbles about nothing much at all as they walk through his home, his chatter loud and familiar.

Anyone who didn’t know him well would miss the edge of tension underneath it without missing a beat.

They reach the Jingshi but Wei Wuxian only stops to pick up a basket from the porch before gesturing for him to follow again to lead him to a path - the entrance of which is tucked away at the side of the house - that stretches back into the forest behind it. He eyes it a bit warily and distracts the eye away from studying his face too closely with an artful snap of his fan to shut it and gesture in the direction of the path.

“Does this go all the way to the back hill?” he asks, not really caring about the answer, just aiming to stall. What’s alarming is that a couple of days ago he had received a letter from Wei Wuxian entirely out of the blue. A letter full of thinly veiled threats, to his surprise, and now the author of said threatening letter is taking him into the woods while Nie Huaisang’s own cultivators are all the way back in the guest pavilion resting. Not that he can’t defend himself, of course, but Wei Wuxian is of a completely different caliber than...well, anybody but the Twin Jades. He feels it’s perfectly valid to feel a bit alarmed.

“Nah, just a little ways into the forest where we keep the rabbit hutches. A-Xiao is in bed with a bit of a fever going through the student dormitories and Lan Zhan and Madam Lan are tending to him, I don’t want to disturb his rest. Picnic?”

Nie Huaisang taps his fan once on his palm and then takes a confident step forward to fall into step next to his friend. The silence as they walk is all the more stark for Wei Wuxian’s talkativeness on the way to the Jingshi.

“This is supposed to be the part where you tell me why I’m here,” Nie Huaisang observes once they’re stepping into the little clearing teeming with soft white, black, and spotted rabbits. Wei Wuxian’s sharp look at him has him twitching his fan open again to wave it lazily under his own chin to add to his air of innocent nonchalance.

“I wanted to see you, do I need another reason?” Wei Wuxian asks with convincing sincerity.

“Your letter made it seem more urgent than an excuse to see my pretty face,” he teases with another flutter of the fan.

“How dare you accuse me of having ulterior motives, Nie-xiong.” Wei Wuxian’s pout as he steps further into the clearing to plop down with the basket and start pulling things out is almost believable. Nie Huaisang watches him out of the corner of his eye as he ostensibly looks around at the rabbits going about their little lives, hopping around and snuggling together, a few of them munching on grass.

“Come on, sit down. I know you’re tired,” Wei Wuxian calls once he has everything laid out and Nie Huaisang obliges with a quiet sigh behind his fan. At least they’ll be getting this out of the way soon, whatever it is.

“Do you really expect me to believe that you didn’t have a specific reason for wanting to see me, Wei-xiong?” He reaches his free hand out to pluck a cake off the dish and he hides the bite he takes behind his fan, eyes dark and wide as he watches Wei Wuxian over the edge of the silk. “You forget I know you so well.”

“So direct! Where’s the famed delicate touch of Nie-Zongzhu? Is this what you teach all your spies to do? For shame, Nie-xiong, if this is the best you can do it’s a wonder any of your cultivators can actually be at all sneaky.”

“Aiyo! Why shouldn’t I be direct? You know I don’t hide anything from you, Wei-xiong.”

“Don’t you?”

Even the rabbits go momentarily still as tension suddenly blankets the clearing. Nie Huaisang stops the gentle fluttering of his fan and his gaze goes equally sharp as the two childhood friends study each other across the hodge-podge picnic spread between them.

Wei Wuxian breaks it first, shaking out his shoulders a bit before lounging back in the grass to rest on one elbow, a jar of wine in his other hand.

“Er-ge’s not feeling well,” he says idly as if commenting on the weather, the seeming non-sequitur making Nie Huaisang frown ever so slightly.

“Did something happen? Da-ge and san-ge haven’t said anything.” Not that they’re his only sources of information on what’s going on in Cloud Recesses, of course, but they’re his most reliable sources for the relationship between the two of them and Lan Xichen.

“We’re keeping it pretty quiet. But this is where I think you can help.”

“Me? Lan Sect has the best healers out of all of us, and you’ve got Wen Qing near enough to send to for help as well. Why me?”

“He’s being treated by the healers too, don’t worry about that. You don’t even have to see him if you don’t want to, but I’ve got some questions for you. Actually -” Wei Wuxian’s gaze becomes, if possible, even sharper, “I’ll tell the story, and if it makes you recall something you can tell me.”

Nie Huaisang freezes. It’s been a long time since anyone has been able to make him feel like prey, and he certainly doesn’t appreciate the feeling now. But - what he considers one of his greatest virtues is to know when to accept defeat gracefully.

“Oh...I don’t know.” Despite the words and the way he’s ‘shyly’ ducking behind his fan, his tone is sly and he watches triumph flare, bright and hot, across his friend’s face. “I really don’t know.”

“I knew it,” Wei Wuxian breathes and then he laughs, loud and genuine with his head thrown back until his laughter echoes off the bamboo around them like the peals of a bell. It’s...a far cry from the reaction he had expected based on the tone of Wei Wuxian’s letter and his behavior leading up to this point, but he also knows his friend uncommonly well and he knows that there’s truly nothing else to be done in such a situation. So after a moment he joins in, laughing quietly as he collapses the fan to set it on his lap and then leans forward to snag another cake. He breaks a piece off just to have something else to do with his hands.

“Alright, you’ve finally caught me. Be open with me now Wei-xiong,” Nie Huaisang hedges when Wei Wuxian has calmed again and is back to watching him like a hawk. “What’s wrong with er-ge? Why are you so sure I can help?”

“He’s like us.”

Nie Huaisang snorts and makes a joke like he would have in their youth before the reality of that statement sinks in.

“Yeah that’s not news, we all like a good dicking down, what - oh! When did that happen? He certainly hasn’t been like us before now, I would have noticed while he was courting da-ge and san-ge. They’ve all three been blissfully unaware so far.”

“A couple of days before I wrote to you. I sent for you when he started feeling unwell. We can talk about it in a moment though, it’s not an emergency and he’s being very well attended. I want to know when you got here. You were a child when Lan Zhan and I got here, I met you. Even a skilled liar like you can’t pretend to be a four year old that convincingly.”

That draws him up short and he blinks for a long moment as he does the math.

“You came back when you were five? That must have been miserable. Dealing with puberty twice was enough for me, I didn’t need to relive my entire childhood.”

“So when exactly did you come back?”

“The summer we all studied here. I woke up in the middle of the night and I was just..here. 15 years old again, in the guest dormitories.”

“We had already been studying for a while? It was around this time of year?”

“Yes, we were well into our classes. You said er-ge began feeling unwell after a couple of days?” he suddenly asks - it’s been a while since he had ruminated on how his life had suddenly changed one night, or the weeks that had followed, but as he thinks on it it comes back all at once in a burst of clarity.

“Yes. Why?”

“Is he seeing things? Nightmares?”

“Okay, this is going to keep us going in circles. Why don’t you tell me the story and I’ll compare it to what I already know.”

It’s a fair enough request so Nie Huaisang nods and finishes off the little cake in his hands as he gathers his thoughts.

“Before, in our first life - your second life, I guess -, I came to Cloud Recesses to talk to Hanguang-Jun. I wanted...I wanted his advice on Sect business, and I wanted to see if I could see er-ge. I just wanted to talk to him, Wei-xiong, I swear. I knew he was still in seclusion and..not that I think I could have helped, but I figured if he’d been in seclusion for so long then I probably couldn’t hurt him any more than I already had, you know? And maybe I could have helped, I don’t know. Anyway - I was in Caiyi Town, I was going to come up the mountain the next day for my visit, but when I woke up in the middle of the night that night I was already here. It was so strange, but not as strange as waking again in the morning and watching you and Lan Zhan go walking by hand-in-hand as teenagers. I thought I was going mad - you were both so young but he wasn’t keeping you at a distance like when we were actually young, he was already letting you hang all over him. I watched you for half a day and it was like seeing you married as teenagers and I figured you had done...well I didn’t know what exactly, but clearly you had done something.”

“Why didn’t you say anything? This whole time and you’ve known Lan Zhan and I have been..as we are.”

Nie Huaisang picks up his fan again to flick it open to start fanning himself, leaning forward to rest his elbow on his knee as he watches Wei Wuxian.

“It’s not my business,” he replies and he has the pleasure of watching Wei Wuxian’s lips twist in the way that means he’s secretly annoyed but determined not to show it. “I wanted to watch and see what was going on, and after a few months it was clear you had it all well in hand. Though I do appreciate you letting me decide how to handle da-ge and my sect. That was thoughtful of you.”

Wei Wuxian snorts, shakes his head, and chugs a few more mouthfuls of wine.

“It was just supposed to be me and Lan Zhan. This is getting out of hand,” he mutters to himself and Nie Huaisang wonders - as he’s sure Wei Wuxian is wondering as well - if he and Lan Xichen have come along on this...whatever this is, how many others are there out there that they don’t know about yet? “Well go on then, keep going. Tell me what happened that means you know what er-ge is experiencing.”

“It started a few days in,” he says softly, his fan going still as he looks over Wei Wuxian’s shoulder towards the forest. “Nightmares from our old life. I kept dreaming of the night da-ge died. Everything I had to do to take Jin Guangyao down. The world turning on you. Watching A-Cheng become angry and bitter as he withdrew from everyone but Jin Ling. They were so vivid...they weren’t just idle dreams, Wei-xiong. They were memories, and I started having them while I was awake as well. Visions, I suppose. I looked at er-ge one morning at breakfast and he was fine one moment, a happy teenager..and then the next moment he had san-ge’s blood all over him and he was looking at me in horror, like at the temple. He was normal again a moment later and he wasn’t even looking at me but I couldn’t stop it, everything just kept flickering like that. This life, the old one, then back.”

“When did it stop?”

“I really don’t know. Genuinely!” he protests when Wei Wuxian gives him a skeptical look. “I don’t! It was slow, and gradual. I started getting flashes of memories of this life instead, things I had never seen before but they were vivid like the others. And then one day I realized I hadn’t had a vision of any kind in months, and then years, and then I realized when I needed to I could recall anything from this life, and anything from the other as well. It’s like I’ve lived twice, even from before I was 15, though both childhoods are still sort of..murky, I suppose. Equally so, though. I remember da-ge having to take over raising me, and take over the sect, all of that. But this time er-ge came to visit us a lot and he and da-ge would sit close together and flirt, and that didn’t happen last time. I remember both.”

Wei Wuxian takes a deep breath in and another long pull on his wine. “What a mess,” he mutters with a sigh once he’s finished, swiping his sleeve across his mouth.

“Wei-xiong?”

“Mhm?”

“Thank you.” Wei Wuxian looks up at him and Nie Huaisang drops his fan, his pretenses, his walls. He lets Wei Wuxian see the relief in his eyes, and the affection that he has for him as well, this dear friend of his that he’s lost and found again far too many times even for two lifetimes.

“Ah?”

“You gave me da-ge back. A chance to do it again. It might be a mess, but it’s the good kind, and we’ll get it figured it out. We’ve already cleaned up one much larger mess rather thoroughly together, haven’t we? We’ll clean this one up too, if it goes beyond me and er-ge. As it is, I’ve already long settled into it, and I did it without letting on to anybody. Er-ge will be alright.”

“He’s just..he’s been so lost.”

“And I wasn’t?” Nie Huaisang allows a bit of irritation to snap in the back of his voice and that makes Wei Wuxian pause, the jar of wine pressed against his lips for another sip he hasn’t taken yet. “Not all of us had the luxury of disappearing from the world after we all helped Jin Guangyao tear it down around our ears. Some of us were just as lost and alone we had to pick up and carry on anyway. Without revenge, without a target, knowing I’d been neglecting my people for years for a scheme, you think I wasn’t lost when it was all over? My...My brothers, Wei-xiong. I lost all three of my brothers, years apart in a slow torture that I forced myself to have a hand in. You never truly trusted me again. A-Cheng wouldn’t come near me. You think I wasn’t lost?”

“Okay thank gods, that’s better than being thanked,” Wei Wuxian chuckles around the mouth of the jar as he takes another sip. “I know you were lost, Nie-xiong. We all were to varying degrees, that’s why Lan Zhan and I did this in the first place. But you have to understand, we never expected anyone else to be part of it. The fact that you’re here, and Zewu-Jun…”

“Give him some credit. He’s stronger than he seems, and he has plenty of support. It’ll be better when he starts remembering this life, too, don’t forget. Things will settle.”

“Aiyah. Since when do you offer such good reassurance, Nie-xiong? You should visit more.” Wei Wuxian grumbles and Nie Huaisang has to laugh at that, snapping his fan up to cover his face as his eyes perhaps water quite a bit more than the situation outwardly calls for as relief floods through him. He composes himself quickly and lowers the fan again to stop hiding, though he keeps it open just in case.

“You should come see me, Wei-xiong. I do actually run a Sect this time you know, even if da-ge and san-ge help me. You can take some time off from terrorizing the Lans to come terrorize my disciples instead.”

“Hm...I think I’d like that,” Wei Wuxian muses with a bemused sort of smile as he looks up at the clouds scudding their way across the patch of sky visible amongst the bamboo. “The little ducklings you brought with you today looked as scandalized as Lans when I called you Nie-xiong. If they’re all that easy to tease I’ll have lots of fun with them.”

“It’s because they’re terrified of me,” Nie Huaisang says flippantly as he leans forward to take another cake and nibble on it as daintily as he can manage. “And even A-Cheng doesn’t call me anything so familiar in public, you know.”

“Well that’s just because he’s a coward who cares about propriety,” Wei Wuxian replies with a grin. “Not my fault your own husband can’t bear to call you anything but ‘Zhugong’ where others can hear. You’re my Nie-xiong, you always have been, and I’ll address you as such.”

Nie Huaisang has the urge to hide his pleased smile behind his hand, but instead he forces himself to let it show and in doing so earns himself a wink and a toast from Wei Wuxian in response.

#the untamed fanfic #3zun #background wangxian #background sangcheng #Wei Wuxian #Nie Huaisang #Once again - if you want to read this before I've posted part 9 please be prepared for mild spoilers #I'm working on part 9 right now and it's about half done but it's fighting me super hard haha #But I'm determined! It will get done #hopefully this weekend if my brain cooperates #Also - this fic now has a title! I'll be going through and editing all the old posts to have it once I'm ready to post part 9 #As always please let me know what you think or if you'd like to see anything specific in this universe in the future!#these extras are kind of my own little plot bunnies but I'm not opposed to getting ideas from elsewhere!

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aimeelouart · 4 years

Note

WHAT. oh my god diff anon but i loved the snippet with ur protag but also HOW CLD U THROW HER TO HOJO.. UR VERY OWN CHILD /j anyway very excited to see u talk abt ur setting and lora more i like the her

>:3c Shall we have a part two of this self-indulgent SSC crossover, then?

Lora wasn’t missing for long, but she was missing long enough. They found her in the labs, floating curled-up in an empty holding tank⁠. The glass and metal was all melted to slag around her, but she didn’t seem aware. Her whole body was glowing like liquid steel, eyes open wide and mouth slack as bluish-white light poured from the inside of her throat. The bodies of unlucky lab technicians littered the ground around the tank.

Science had finally tried to meddle in something truly beyond their grasp.

They found Hojo, too, burned to near unrecognizability and leaning up against a control panel. He was muttering deliriously to himself, breath rasping like sandpaper down his damaged throat. “Magnif...icent...like...the power...she’s…”

Sephiroth stared at him coldly. He couldn’t put Masamune through the wretch’s body without consequences⁠...but he could leave him to die. So he stepped over the body of his father and moved to the computer by the control panel, pulling up the information he needed.

The radiation pouring from the little outworlder child was frankly staggering. If it wasn’t for the protective shields around this section of the room, Hojo would have been long dead. More’s the pity, though the shields were also protecting the Firsts at the moment.

“What do we do?” Genesis asked as he looked at Lora’s glowing form. “What did he even do to get her in that state?”

“Is there anything we can do without getting burned to a crisp?” Angeal said, looking between the temperature readout and the molten state of the holding tank.

“At a distance, maybe” Sephiroth replied, leaning away from the screen and tilting his head a little. “Let us start with the obvious.” He flicked on the intercom. “Ameliora Octavia Perdel,” he said, enunciating each name clearly. “Do you remember my voice? It’s Sephiroth. Genesis, Angeal, and I are all here. You are safe now, but we can’t reach you until you calm down.”

The radiation levels dipped slightly.

Genesis bumped Sephiroth away with his shoulder. “Princess,” he crooned. “Princess, what mess did you get into, hmm? That all looks quite exhausting. Why don’t we tone it down a bit more?”

This time, she blinked and uncurled a little, legs dipping toward the floor.

Angeal went next. Maybe hearing all their voices individually was the key factor. “Just listen to my voice, Lora. Can you see where you are? I know it must be scary, but we can’t come get you until you calm down.”

The radiation levels fell rapidly, matched by the way her skin’s unnatural luminance dimmed. Her mouth was moving, eyes blinking rapidly. Steam hissed off her cheeks as she started to cry. Delicately, her feet touched the melted floor of the cage. The second the radiation levels had fallen enough to be safe (safe for a SOLDIER) they left the shielded vestibule behind and ran into the room.

The air was stiflingly hot, like an oven, and had an odd metallic tang to it. The hairs on their arms stood on end. Sephiroth darted forward as the last of the glow faded from Lora’s skin and quickly pulled her out of the molten tank. Her clothing was gone (taken or destroyed?) , and he wasn’t sure if her unprotected skin would burn against the metal. His boots left thin layers of melted rubber as he stepped quickly in and out.

Wordless, Genesis stripped off his coat and together they wrapped her in it. She still felt unnaturally hot, like a soldier pulled from the desert with heatstroke. Her eyes were wide and blank, irises glowing even when the rest of her didn’t. Odd green sparks danced within her pupils. Her lips were still moving as she murmured fretfully, but the language she spoke was incomprehensible to them.

Angeal glanced at the burned corpses. “Shhh, close your eyes for a minute, Lora.” When she didn’t respond, he frowned and held his hand over her eyes⁠, walking beside Sephiroth. He didn't cover them all the way⁠—didn’t block the light⁠—but he made sure she wouldn’t see the bodies.

And as they passed out of the room, Hojo’s rasping voice stuttered, stalled, and at last fell silent.

—

Cloud had fallen asleep almost as soon as the Firsts had gotten their hands on him again. He wasn’t too upset, actually—he’d accomplished all his goals this time around. But he was a bit miffed when he woke up with a little girl’s sleeping face just a few feet from his.

He sat up quickly, scooting backward a little. She didn’t wake, and after a few seconds he recognized her as the odd child who’d helped him escape. What the hell was she doing here in—he glanced around—Sephiroth’s bed?

Gaia, was she here because he’d accepted her ‘help?’ He’d assumed they would just get her back to her parents.

The door opened and Angeal poked his head in, one finger raised to his lips. He gestured to the girl, then motioned Cloud toward him. When they were out in the hallway, Cloud harshly whispered, “why’s she here?” with a suspicious glare.

Angeal rolled his eyes a little and herded him away from the door, not responding until they were in the kitchen. “Her name is Lora, and she’s here for much the same reason you are. No one else could safely keep her.”

“Okay, first off I don’t need to be kept,” he said, glaring as he took a chair. “You just think I do. Second off, why?”

Genesis sauntered in and answered for Angeal. “Because she has strange and frankly inconceivable abilities, Cloud. Beyond that, we are not keeping her forever, merely waiting for her parents to find her.”

“Theoretically,” Angeal muttered, tending to the food on the stove. It smelled like stir-fry.

Sephiroth arrived to join the conversation as well. “Given what we have seen, do you really find it so unlikely that her Grandfather would be capable of similar feats? I am inclined to doubt nothing, at this point.”

Cloud was baffled. Feats? Abilities? He’d given the kid a chunk of his hair in exchange for her providing a distraction—she’d claimed something about ‘needing it for the spell.’ Had she...meant something real by that?

Genesis noticed his baffled expression. “Lora doesn’t need materia to do magic,” he explained succinctly. “There are some other things too, but that’s the gist of it.”

Cloud paled. Alright, maybe it really was better if they kept her here. He didn’t even want to think about what would happen if Hojo got his hands on her.

Sephiroth was staring at him intently. “Hojo is dead.”

Every thought went right out the window. “What?”

“Hojo is dead. He’s never going to hurt anyone else again.”

How? His lips moved, but he made no sound. The damned Professor had been at the top of his list of things to take care of, what could possibly have taken him out before Cloud could even try?

Angeal lowered his voice enough that no one but a SOLDIER had any hope of making out his words. “Lora killed him, and we are not going to tell her that, understand?” For the first time, a very serious, protective look was aimed at Cloud for someone else’s sake. “She’s not like you, Cloud. She was protected from the whole world until she came to Midgar.”

“...right,” he said numbly. “I’d never hurt a kid.”

All three of them gave him Looks at that, but he was spared the commentary by a distressed, high-pitched whine from the direction of the bedroom. Genesis vanished from the kitchen in the space of a breath. When he came back, it was with the girl bundled up in a blanket, sniffling into his shoulder.

“It’s alright, darling,” Genesis was...crooning. Cloud was vaguely glad that particular tone (in that particular intensity) had never been aimed at him. He might have bitten the man’s fingers off. It seemed to be working on the actual seven-year-old though. “Shh...you’re fine. You’re safe. Don’t you want to come out and meet Cloud properly?”

Still sniffling, she raised her head and turned to Cloud. She looked groggy and miserable, eyes red-rimmed and teary, but when she saw him her face lit up.

“D’you do it?” She asked in a sleep-roughened voice, smiling. “Your task?”

“Uh,” he blinked. “Yeah. I did. Thanks for the help.”

She beamed, forgetting her tears entirely. “Welcome. It’s important to always follow your Virtue.”

He had a feeling he was missing a lot of the context of that statement, but he thought he’d gotten the gist. “Yeah.”

When they ate dinner she sat in Angeal's lap, still bundled up in the blanket. Half way through her plate⁠—her proportions were hilariously tiny compared to the four enhanced SOLDIERs⁠—she made a face and pushed it away.

“What’s wrong, Lora?” Genesis asked.

“Hurts,” she said, rubbing at the center of her chest. “Can’t eat any more.” She looked like she was on the verge of tears again.

“Okay, that’s alright. Do you want to go sit on the couch and watch something until we’re all done eating?”

“Yes please,” she said, sliding to the floor and taking Genesis’s hand.

Cloud frowned thoughtfully at his plate as he listened to her settle down on the couch as Genesis turned the tv to some inane children’s cartoon. When the redhead returned, Cloud quirked an eyebrow at him. “Is she okay?” he asked, too low for her to overhear.

His expression sobered. He shook his head. “What she did to...survive the lab...it damaged her in a manner we simply have no way of understanding. She thinks it won’t be permanent, and I suspect she may be right, but for now the pain comes and goes. It would hurt her enormously to use magic as well, though she has yet to slip up in that regard.”

“Poor kid,” Cloud murmured.

That earned him a bit of an eye-roll from Genesis before the man continued. “Healing energy does seem to help her, however. If she’s in pain and we’re unavailable, can I count on you to cast a Cure on her?”

Cloud frowned at him and crossed his arms over his chest. “Listen, I know I fight you guys a lot, but do you really think I’d hurt a kid? Or ignore one in pain?” It made him very uncomfortable that they seemed to think he would.

The Firsts exchanged a glance between themselves. “Cloud, you are absolutely unpredictable to us,” Angeal said eventually. “But you’re right, and I’m sorry we insulted you like that.”

Cloud sighed and went back to his food. “It’s whatever.”

Ugh. He’d been a kid for too long if he was starting to use phrases like that.

⁠—

They watched a movie after dinner, some mindless family film with a plot that was about as substantial as cotton candy. Cloud didn’t much care, but when Angeal said it would make Lora happy he sighed and relented. He absolutely refused to share the couch, though, claiming one of the armchairs before anyone else could ‘accidentally’ maneuver him into arms reach.

To be honest, he spent most of the movie’s run time watching Lora anyway. She was just so...weird. For one thing, she did everything in her power to make sure she was being held at all times. If one of the adults had to move, or got tired, she shamelessly transferred herself to someone else’s lap.

Sephiroth ended up with her for most of the night, looking about as content as Cloud had ever seen him as he let her snuggle close to his chest. They only had to pause the movie once as she whined and curled around her chest. All three of the Firsts had mastered Cures on them, and it wasn’t difficult to see why they needed them.

“Are most kids like that?” he ended up asking Angeal once the movie had ended. Lora was fast asleep, knuckles curled into her mouth, as Sephiroth got up off the couch and carried her to bed.

“Like what?” the dark-haired man asked, cocking a brow.

“...touchy?” Because he couldn’t remember Marlene ever being quite so demanding, and Denzel certainly wasn’t.

In the kitchen, Genesis stifled a laugh. Angeal looked amused as well. “Ah, no,” he said. “I wondered too, but after asking around a bit it turns out you and Lora are just on polar opposite ends of the spectrum.” He grinned a little. “You…avoid touch and distrust everyone; she demands touch and trusts implicitly.”

Cloud frowned. He could get away with being extreme because he wasn’t actually what he appeared, but the way Angeal described the kid’s tendencies sounded downright dangerous. “That’s not safe.”

Angeal sobered abruptly. “She’s starting to learn that too.”

Cloud winced. Yeah. Hojo would have that effect, wouldn’t he. Poor kiddo.

⁠—

Today was the first day since Cloud had gotten back that all three of the Firsts would be busy, which meant that he and their cross-dimensional princess house guest would be dropped off to be babysat (ugh) by the entire Turk department.

Yes, the entire department. That one was his own fault.

He wasn’t all that upset, actually. He had some snooping to do for his next task, and Veld was a very strange and accommodating person to Cloud’s...eccentric behavior. He swore the man was using him as a training program, but had yet to find definitive proof.

Lora, on the other hand…

Cloud walked straight into Tseng’s office and flopped down on the couch, pulling out his handheld gaming system. Sephiroth had to be well out of range before he could begin his kind-of-sort-of extended espionage battle with the Turks. Lora lingered half-behind the silver-haired man, clutching his hand with both of hers as she looked around nervously.

“Come on,” Sephiroth coaxed, looking down at her. “Don’t you want to go play with Cloud?”

“No,” she mumbled, pressing against his leg. She eyed Tseng, who was watching the proceedings with an expression of (to Cloud’s eyes) carefully curated warmth.

“Yes,” he countered. “Besides, you like Tseng. You’re going to have plenty of fun with him and the other Turks, and I promise they’ll keep you safe.”

She looked up at him and adopted puppy eyes that would have put Zack’s to shame, huge and pleading. “Can’t I just come with you? Please?”

Sephiroth visibly wavered, and Cloud had to press his lips together hard to keep from laughing outright. What was it about big, tough soldier-types being the weakest to little girls’ puppy eyes? He’d been an absolute sucker for Marlene’s before Barret had finally let him in on the secret to resisting (physically looking away, apparently).

But Sephiroth, to his credit, gathered his resolve and told her, “no, you can’t come with me on mission. It’s not safe.”

Her pleading stare turned to a pout. “But I have a lot of magic! I could help!”

“I’m sure you could,” he said, which was probably actually true though Cloud had yet to see a firsthand demonstration, “but your parents and grandfather would be very upset if they found out, wouldn’t they?”

She narrowed her eyes a little. “Papa’s taken me on campaign before.”

He arched his eyebrows. “On the front lines?”

Lora’s scowl was answer enough. Sephiroth released her hand and plucked her up off the floor, carrying her over to the couch. Very, very reluctantly, she released her grip from around his neck and let him put her down beside Cloud.

“You’ll be fine,” he promised, patting her head briefly. “Tell Tseng or Veld when your chest starts hurting, alright?”

She nodded sullenly, curling up into a ball on the couch, and he left. She huffed sulkily when he was out of sight. Eventually, she leaned over to watch Cloud play his game and he obligingly tilted the screen so she could see easier. He kept half an eye on her and half an eye on the clock.

Maybe thirty minutes after Sephiroth left, around the time Cloud was certain he had also left the Tower, Lora crossed her arms over her chest and hunched her shoulders up around her ears. He was familiar with that tell by now⁠—her chest was starting to hurt. But instead of asking Tseng for a Cure, she shot him a single nervous look and didn’t say anything.

Aw, kid, he thought.

Lucky Tseng wasn’t an idiot. “Lora,” he called with a deliberate gentleness.

She looked up, lips pressed into a wary line. “...yeah?”

“Does your chest hurt?”

“...no.” She curled up into a ball, mumbling the denial into her knees. “Doesn’t hurt.”

It was a bald-faced lie. Tseng looked, for a second, genuinely sad, then his expression shifted as he considered how to respond. Cloud paused his game, curious how this would play out. Would he call her on the lie? Trick her into being honest?

“Alright,” he said eventually, “tell me when it does.”

“‘Kay.”

Cloud scowled at him. Lora would have to say something eventually, once the pain grew too much, but that also meant letting her hurt until she caved. He would have accepted that tactic against himself, but Lora was little. She didn’t deserve that.

When Tseng quirked a brow at his glare, Cloud rolled his eyes and heaved an inaudible sigh. Why was it he had to do everything around here?

He switched the game off and set it aside, pulling his legs up so that his position mirrored Lora’s, then lowered his voice to a level that Tseng would still be able to hear, but Lora would think was too quiet. “Hey,” he said. “I know your chest hurts.”

“Doesn’t,” she said, raising her face just enough so that her eyes peeked over her knees.

“What are you scared of?” he asked. “Sephiroth said you could trust Tseng, right? And you trust Sephiroth. They wouldn’t hurt you. It’s safe to tell them.”

She narrowed her golden eyes a touch, spine straightening, and Cloud suddenly remembered youth and naivete were not the same as stupidity. “You don’t trust them,” she accused. “You don’t trust anyone.”

He bit back a groan. “I...don’t,” he agreed. “But you should.”

Lora looked outright irritated now, one hand rubbing absent-minded circles over her sternum. “Why? Why, if they wouldn’t hurt us?”

“You and I are...different,” he said slowly. Gaia, he very much regretted getting into this conversation, but it was too late now. "They wouldn't hurt me, but they don't understand what I am, and that means that even if they mean well...I can’t trust them to do what’s best for me.”

The look she gave him was highly skeptical, so he sighed and added, “I would definitely trust them to cast a Cure on me, okay? So you should too. Everyone is sad when you’re hurting.”

“What if I’d rather hurt?” she snapped. “This hurts less than⁠—” she cut off, blinking rapidly against sudden tears, and yeah, he knew that feeling. Poor kiddo. At least he’d been almost an adult when Hojo had gotten him into the lab.

“No one wants to hurt, Princess,” he said, patting her knee. “C’mon, it’s not that big a deal. I’d be right here the whole time.”

“You want to hurt,” she said, but it looked like he was finally starting to wear her down. “You hurt all the time and you never tell anyone.”

Cloud blinked at her in surprise. “What?”

Lora looked uncommonly serious in that moment. “You hurt all the time. I can tell. I can’t look at the Strings without hurting⁠—” she was still rubbing at her chest “—but my pa...passive? My passive sight still works and you’re like…” She brushed her fingers against just over his heart. “...jagged. Jagged black and purple thread, fraying all over.” Her voice dropped to barely a breath of sound. “It hurts to look at.”

Cloud jerked away, startled and alarmed, and brought his hands close to his chest. “I⁠—”

She sniffled, the pain finally getting to her. “If you get to hurt, I get to hurt,” she insisted stubbornly. He suspected it had more to do with sticking to her guns by this point than any actual desire to endure pain.

“I...Lora, you don’t...have to hurt. They can help you. That’s...that’s why you should ask.”

“But you do?” she fired back, swiping at her eyes. “You have to hurt? They can help you too!”

“No,” he whispered, briefly shutting his eyes against her innocent, righteous indignation. How had the argument shifted around on him, especially given that he was a twenty-three-year-old gown-ass man and she was seven? “No, Lora. They can’t help me.” He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. Too much dangerous information to be discussing while in Tseng’s office. He was stupid to have let it get this far. “Would you let me cast a Cure on you?”

She looked at Tseng, who was going his level best to fade into the paperwork and pretend he wasn’t even there. Then she looked back and narrowed her eyes at him. He recognized that look as the ‘I’m going to dig in my heels until you give in’ look that Marlene was so fond of. “No,” she said. “Not unless you stop hurting too.”

This time he did groan aloud. “I⁠—Princess, that’s not…” She folded her arms across her chest, knees shifting to sit criss-cross on the couch cushions. He tossed his hands up. “Fine, I’ll let Tseng cast a Cure on me too, okay? Would that make you happy?”

She offered him a watery, triumphant smile and immediately flopped over to curl up in a ball. “Yeah.”

He got up, jaw clenched, and stalked over to Tseng’s desk. The man looked up, expression betraying nothing. “What is it, Cloud?” he asked, as if he hadn’t heard every single word.

“Lora will let me cast on her if you cast on me first,” he ground out, irritated. “Not that it’ll do anything since I am fine.”

“Of course,” Tseng agreed, that lying motherfucker. He pulled a Cure out of his desk, then checked to make sure Lora was watching before casting...a full Curaga. Overkill. Cloud snatched the materia up and went back to the couch, irritation cooling as he saw the way the kid was shaking and trying in vain to blink back tears.

“Here,” he said, laying a hand on her head of wild red curls and casting a Curaga of his own. “Better?”

She rolled onto her back and smiled at him. “Yes. Thank you.” Then she frowned. “But...you’re still…?”

“I told you, kiddo,” he said with a shake of his head. “They can’t help me like they can help you.”

⁠—

Cloud got up shortly after that exchange and said “I’m going to the bathroom,” which everyone except Lora knew by now was the opening salvo of their espionage battle. He handed his gaming system to the Princess so that she’d be entertained and left, several Turks following after him.

Here we go, he thought, a little smirk curving his lips up.

Except, less than thirty minutes later, when he was squirming through the vents, he heard Reno yelling, which was...not usually part of their game. Puzzled, he stopped and listened.

“Hey! Cloud! Listen, I know you’re having fun, but little Princess is freaking out and you need to get to Tseng’s office ASAP! She’s⁠—listen, she thinks we did something to you and we’re all worried she might try to use her magic and hurt herself. Please.”

Cloud groaned and let his head thunk down onto the metal beneath him. He should have anticipated this. With a sigh, he squirmed around and quickly reversed course, popping out of a vent near but not right in front of where Reno had been shouting.

“Alright, I’m going” he called, loud enough for the redhead to hear, and ran for Tseng’s office.

He burst in to find Lora perched on the back of the couch, staring down Tseng, who was sitting on the floor trying to placate her. She gasped when she caught sight of him and promptly lost her balance, falling onto the cushions with an oof!

“You’re okay!” she said, scrambling up and launching herself at him.

“I’m fine,” he said, staggering a little as she cannonballed into his torso. “What, were you worried about me?”

“Yes!” she said, upset. “Where were you? I thought they’d...that they’d…”

Cloud sighed, unable to hold on to his irritation in the face of a little girl on the verge of tears. Damn his daddy instincts. He picked her up and carried her back to the couch, well aware of how ridiculous that must have looked. He had to deal with this now, for her sake and everyone else’s. Hopefully the conversation wouldn't veer into dangerously exposed territory this time.

“You were scared I’d been taken away, right? Lora, I’m...very hard to take. By anyone. I got away from Seph and Ange and Gen the first time you met me, remember?”

She looked uncertain, keeping hold of one of his wrists. “I...know,” she said. “Where were you?”

“I was⁠—” inspiration struck. He knew exactly how to fix this, or at least begin to fix it. “Well, I was breaking the rules.”

Lora’s eyes widened. For a second, he saw exactly what he was hoping for: curiosity and longing. A split second later it was eaten away by anxiety, but now that he knew it was there, he could draw it out again. “You shouldn’t break the rules,” she said. “What if they’d taken you?”

“I’m hard to take,” he repeated patiently. “And you know what? If you broke the rules, Lora, it would be okay, because you’re hard to take too.”

She blinked at him, uncomprehending. “But...no, he...it was easy to take me,” she whispered, trying to blink back tears.

“Only because you didn’t know you couldn’t trust him,” Cloud said. “Look, you trust Gen and Seph and Ange, right?” She nodded. “Okay, why?”

“Because...they got me out,” she said slowly, tense and miserable as she re-lived that memory.

“They saved you, which is proof that they don’t want you hurt and proof that you can trust them,” he summarized. She nodded again. “But they told you that you can trust Tseng, right? Why don’t you trust him too?”

Lora stared at him helplessly. He knew this was a lot to ask of a seven-year-old (a real one) but she was smart. She would get it if he helped her along a little bit.

“Is it because you don’t have any proof that they’re like our Firsts?”

“Yeah,” she whispered, throwing a glance at Tseng, who was holding absolutely still and carefully not looking at them.

“Do you want to trust them? Because Seph said so?” He suspected she did, at least. He suspected she wanted to go back to trusting everyone, but didn’t know how.

“...yeah.”

“Okay. You want to trust them, but you don’t have any proof, so you feel scared because they might try to take you. Lora, what if I told you that they couldn’t take you even if they tried?”

She blinked at him, head tilting in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“If you had known that the Frog-Faced Bastard⁠—” she cracked a little smile at that “—was going to take you, would you have gone with him?”

She recoiled. “No!”

“What would you have done?”

“I would have⁠— I would have frozen him solid and ran away!”

“That’s right. You would have defended yourself. So if Tseng tried to take you, would you defend yourself?”

The light of realization dawned in her eyes. “It...it would hurt,” she said, rubbing her chest with her free hand.

“But you would do it?” he prodded. “And you have a lot of magic, Princess. Magic that they don’t understand. Even if it hurt you could get away, couldn’t you? And then Seph and Gen and Ange would come kick Tseng’s butt, right?”

He smiled as he watched the anxiety drain out of her eyes, a kind of relieved joy taking its place. “Yeah,” she said, smiling back at him. “Yeah!”

“So you don’t have to trust the Turks yet,” he said. “You can just act like you do until they prove that you can trust them, because even if they tried to hurt you they couldn’t.”

⁠—

Angeal was the first back and thus the one to pick up Cloud and Lora from the Turks. He was directed to Veld’s office, which was something of a surprise, and was told that Cloud was currently out ‘playing’ with some of the others, which was not a surprise. Tseng had been keeping them all more or less abreast of the kids’ activities, including two very interesting and concerning conversations.

Despite hearing about the progress Cloud had made in teaching Lora about trust and self-defense, Angeal still found his eyebrows arching when he entered Veld’s office and found the little princess dozing in the Turk’s lap. That wasn’t just progress⁠—that was nearly a full recovery back to the fearless child they first met.

“Hewley,” Veld said without looking up from his work. He was writing with one hand, the other arm wrapped around Lora.

“Veld,” he said back, smiling. “I hope she wasn’t too much trouble?”

The Turk didn’t smile, but something in the corners of his eyes gave him away. He was pleased. Very pleased. “Oh, I’m afraid she was,” he said. “Very troublesome. She and Cloud raised quite a ruckus before he tricked her into coming here and pinning me down.”

Angeal laughed. “Did he? That does sound like Cloud.” He grinned, knowing that they⁠ (and the whole of the Turks, probably⁠) were both pleased by the knowledge that Lora had been a handful. Cloud was just...Cloud, and he would always do what he wanted.

He rounded the desk and Veld passed Lora off to him. Unsurprisingly, she didn’t wake⁠—the girl slept like a rock, even after the lab when her hours asleep far surpassed her hours awake. “How many times did she need a Cure.”

“Twice,” said Veld, looking at his PHS. “Cloud cast one this morning, I cast the other near lunch.” Which meant she would probably wake up hurting again before dinner. Angeal nodded, shifting her on his hip. “Cloud’s back with Tseng,” Veld added before he could ask, checking his PHS.

“Of course. Well, thank you.”

“My pleasure. Really.”

#ask #Tumblr exclusive writing #fic reply #aimee's self-indulgent crossovers #the royal house perdel #ameliora octavia perdel

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