#▌✦ ❝ a crew that needed him‚ so they could be great ➽ the dregs

[oatmilktruther]

okay so i wrote this little oneshot like a week ago and idk it's not going on ao3 but i like it a lot so if you would like some canon divergent post s2ep5 ed pov hurt/comfort during and after a storm with all of the canon typical agony a storm would mix up in our beloved ed check out under the cut

also i learned how to do a cut just for this post every day's a school day

it’s a storm.

all things considered, not even that big of a storm.

but when your captain is the one great love of your life that you just got back and then you just told him you needed to take it slow and so it’s been two whole days since you’ve kissed him and you tell him to get below where he’ll be safe and he squares his shoulders and puts on his captain voice and insists that no, he’ll stay above deck with the crew like a proper captain and so you won’t step away from the helm even after wee john offers, more and more aggressively, to take over, but no, you still won’t do it, because the only person you know for a fact can steer your captain through the storm is yours truly, but then the rain doesn’t stop coming and neither do the waves and neither do the memories and for a storm it’s a warm summer of a showing but you’re shivering down to your leathers, shaking in your boots, trembling with everything that you almost gave up the last time you sailed through a storm—

it ends up being a little more than a storm.

it ends up being a little more than thrashing waves. it ends up being a little more than stinging rain. it ends up being a little more than the burn in your arms as you wrestle the helm through every pitch of the bow. it ends up being a little more than the clench of your gut every time you see a body scrabble across the deck. it ends up lasting a little longer than the three or so hours of the actual storm. 

it ends up being the second you have the revenge safely tucked in the relative calm of a cove to wait out the last dregs of churning waves and drenching rain and ripping wind, firmly anchored and certain that she will ride it out, you collapse right where you’re stood by the helm. it ends up that your captain catches it with his eyes the second you start, catches you with his hands moments later, just barely saving you from a harsh landing against the deck. it ends up being your name, murmured into your ear more desperate than anything since come back to me, it ends up sounding just as much like a plea, and at this point you have no idea what you can do for your captain beyond what you've done, but the desperation to do it anyways is just as strong—

because you know—

you could steer his crew through a thousand storms, worse than this one, you could weather a course, steady and sharp for a thousand leagues, you could lead the charge on every raid until your captain was ready to retire, and it wouldn't mend the gaping hole that sits in your chest between the two of you, between you and him and the crew, between you and the rest of the world—

you know, slow or no, there’s something broken that not even you can teach yourself how to fix.

it ends up not mattering after all.

because what happens is your captain wrenching his arm up under yours, bracing against you, pulling you bodily across the deck and into his quarters, and you don’t even register the pulse in your heart that his quiet strength, he dedicated strength, his devoted strength stirs up in you, because in this moment all you are is cold, all you feel is quiet, not a calm but a devastating stillness. 

you are going to die. 

that’s what comes, when the storm winds down.

were—

you were going to die.

you’re not dying now, are you?

this feeling that’s creeping into your skin and tracing chilly fingers across your spine and twisting up your guts as your captain gets you, dutifully, out of your clothes, and into something dry and soft and gentle, as your captain settles you into a chair in front of the empty cavern of the fireplace, that feeling— 

you’re not dying.

it’s just the cold. 

the feeling isn’t creeping into your body, it’s creeping into your awareness, making itself known to you, absent pilot that you’ve been, it’s clawing for recognition when all you had sights for was escape on the horizon, isn’t it?

and the more it demands its recognition, the more your feeble body gives up the fight.

you’re cold.

you’re shiver the night through shatter your bones with chattering cold and your captain is making a fire in a fireplace you once used to burn up memories of him.

you’re cold and he is on his knees working to make you warm. 

it’s right that you can’t speak. you’d tell him to stop. he’d tell you he’s the captain and you can’t order him around. you’d fall more in love with him than you already are. 

falling. 

sorta sounds like a relief, sometimes, falling. not so much when you land, but before that, the moment suspended in air when you are not on the ground or of it, when there’s nothing you can do to prevent the inevitable, but it hasn’t quite happened yet. 

in another life, free fall would have sounded like freedom to you.

knowing now what it’s like, you wouldn’t take it back, but you couldn’t quite recommend it. 

the cold hole in your chest started to shrink as he built the fire and began to grow again as he stepped away, as he promised to be right back, but that hole in your chest was too hungry to care, the shiver in your bones too violent to be eased by any promise, but he’s a good captain now, and he’ll do right by you, so if he’s coming back, he must have a reason to go in the first place, and so you sink into the chair he put you in and you trust him to come back, because you can and because you need to. 

because he does come back, two big buckets of water in his solid hands, braced by solid arms, solid footsteps leading him into the bathroom and then right back over to you, because he said he would come back, and here he is, offering, in a way that’s an order, to bring you to the bath. 

and you go, on young legs that are just learning to walk with support, relearning after a lifetime of walking alone or not at all, and you go, and he goes with you, and he settles your body, carrying that big cold pit, into steaming water, steaming water and bath oil and salt, and you rest so carefully against the copper of the tub that you learn, relearn things about delicacy, about how your body can feel delicate and fragile and delicate and held. 

about how a touch can feel like a need and a want and a burn all at once as he scrubs heat and comfort into your hands, into your hair, into your shoulders, as the slide of soap and the scent of clean, washed clean, not stripped clean, not gutted clean, just good clean clean trickles into your awareness. 

how does he do that?

you wonder all the time, where it comes from, the part of him that can be terrified and fragile and broken and still resolutely do the job, with a soft sort of determination, a gentle sort of strength, you wonder all the time.

it reminds you of something, of the ceaseless urge onwards when everything else is falling apart in your hands, in your mind, the way they could throw your corpse on a sailboat and you’d still get it rigged before the squalls came. 

it reminds you of that.

but it’s not that.

yours is driven by memory in muscles that move limbs, in your arms and your legs and your back.

you know now, his muscle beats stronger ever than that.

it’s his heart. 

you know.

it’s his heart.

it’s his heartbeat in his hands as he holds you, it’s his heartbeat in his throat when he promises, again, to be right back, again, after a knock at the door, it’s his heart in his eyes when he comes right back, again.

it’s his heart in the crew when they came to the door to ask if you’re alright, if you are alright. 

when he tells you about it, as he dries your hair, as he braids it back for you, when he tells you about it like it’s not a revelation, like it’s not a redemption, to be asked if you are alright. 

well. 

something about him makes miracles happen quietly. 

something about him makes quiet miracle after quiet miracle happen not so quietly inside of you as he helps you out of the bath on legs that are returning to strength, as you go together into the cabin and you don’t need to bolt, as he offers you the bed, again like an order, and the quietest of miracles bubbles up out of your throat and you ask him to stay. 

you ask him to stay and you ask him to join you and you ask him to hold you and quietly, though it’s far from a miracle, he does. 

he does.

he holds you, and you shake and you shake, all over again you shake and it’s not from the cold, and he holds you and he knows.

he knows.

“you’re safe.”

you know.

[pixeldolly]

SWAT - Round 1 - Smith

The Sixamese being a telepathic species, a great deal of their technology was built around it. PT9′s ship, for example, did not have any manual controls for flying - it was piloted using one’s mind, and was the reason why no human had been able to get it up into the sky again. 

The ship was equipped with other devices too: reclamation vats that broke down waste matter and converted it into many things - food, fuel - “brain food” that the crew used to power their mental abilities via neural enhancers. 

Scavenged parts from several of these apparatuses were hidden in PT9′s shed, modified to serve a different purpose:  repairing the harmful effects of the planet’s sun on his physiology. The largest had originally been a stasis chamber, which could sustain a Pollination Technician or Colony Drone for centuries during the long interstellar voyages. 

The ship had its own, vast power core, but on Sim Earth, PT9 had needed to find an...alternative energy source.

Human beings fit the bill quite nicely - the young, healthy ones in particular. Their bodies were rendered down to the molecular level, and the energy was transmitted to an innocuous-looking device that plugged directly into the brain. Then, it relied on PT9′s psionic abilities to work its magic on the rest of his body.

The process was quite efficient, considering the machine was jury-rigged, highly experimental and practically held together with duct tape and string. Frankly, PT9 was amazed it still worked, even after all those years - very little waste matter was produced at all.

A rush of vigor and what could only be described as well-being flooded his body as the energy transfer was complete, a high like no other. He relished it like someone dying of thirst relishes a drink of water, or a drowning victim surfacing for a gulp of air to ease their burning lungs.

He felt younger, stronger, lighter, full of energy and zest for life. More like...his old self.

The dregs would be preserved, used for other purposes; nothing would be wasted. Everyone in Strangetown admired his award-winning roses and begonias, that grew lush and vital despite the desert climate, surrounded by a lawn so green, that at first glance it looked unnatural. 

Green, like the light seeping from the locked shed where none entered except him.

Well; none that ever came out again.

[pawnshopsouls]

Destiny Verse: SkiffLight!Salem

Tag: ¢::SkiffLight::¢ — New Light!Salem

Summary: Salem-217 is a new light, but he isn’t part of the vanguard. Instead, he could be found as part of an Eliksni skiff crew led by Evek, Captain of House Onyx (Fallen OC House by @aurea-fide​ ).

Skills: Arc & Void Light, Warlock Well+Melee, (super & grenade yet to be perfected), pole-arms proficiency, free-running/parkour climbing, skiff mending, sail mending, (useless with a cutlass), can speak Conversational Eliksni

History: Raised in the Cosmodrome by his ghost Chauncey, Salem began his life as many new lights did: in enemy territory with no memory and a little light telling you, “Eyes up guardian! Welcome to  the world! Grab a gun, hold onto your Light, and let’s go, the bad guys are coming!”

Rifle, Light, and a little orb who seemed to know what he’s doing was all he had as the young warlock made his way through his first journey. However, all similarities to other New Light’s journey ended when a tunnel collapsed and Salem helped a dreg survive the encounter. With a few set bones, a healing well, and a goodly amount of patience and gentleness, Salem managed to heal the injured dreg before its captain came to save it from the “lightbearing devil.”

Fortunately, the dreg intervened and the captain, who’s crew the dreg was a part of, barely agreed to spare the young warlock’s life—a payment for sparing one of his crew. Such encounters would not be the norm with other Fallen though, as remnants of the House of Devils still plagued the Cosmodrome, which would become a frequent haunt of the young warlock as he tried to find out why one fallen treated him so differently than the rest of its kind.

An answer would come during the heat of battle as a dreg would come while Salem was on guard duty, its arm bandaged in hopes that Salem would recognize it. The gambit worked and Salem allowed the dreg to approach and ask him for his help. Having already had a history with this dreg, Salem uneasily agreed and left his campsite to see what “great friend” of the dreg needed healing. Who should it be but the captain who had thrown him across the room to keep him from harming the very dreg he’d healed.

With much pleading from the dreg and a look at the rag-tag crew anxiously surrounding the captain, Salem agreed and set to work saving the Fallen’s life. It took some time and multiple wells, but eventually the young warlock managed to heal the Captain’s wounds before slumping exhaustedly against a wall of the crew’s skiff.

Realizing he’d been saved and examining the light-healed wounds, the captain acknowledged Salem’s skill and offered him a place on their ketch and crew. Whether it was out of fear of offending and getting killed; not having found a place within the vanguard; or to spite Chauncey who was against the idea, Salem agreed and joined the Eliksni crew.

Now he works as both a field and onboard medic, healing wounds as best he can with what little experience he has with the Light. Meanwhile, he is also learning the ways and culture of the Eliksni as he too must work his way up the ranks from the position of a lowly cabin dreg to a proper Wraith or Vandal.

However, that doesn’t mean he won’t go exploring for a bit~ Though he may want to change uniform before he does.