#(!! they aren’t the sort who lived beneath the ground themself but this is still very Them)

[whump-a-la-mode]

Hi! Sorry to be annoying but its been a worm in my brain about what's going to happen to the nauseous villain. Whats going to be their reaction with the villains? Are they going to just insist that they want to go home and the villains won't understand that they want to go to the facility they were trained into nauseousness in? Again sorry for being annoying!

Sorry this took so long! I tried a little bit of a new storytelling device in here-- a frame story. I really hope you enjoy! This series is so so fun, and so very whumpy.

Continued from here, first part can be found here.

CW//Emetophobia, restraints, sedation, insults and swearing, mentions of poisoning, muzzles

“They’re sleeping.”

Doctor’s tone was quiet enough to nearly be described as a whisper, words barely audible above the background noise of the base’s medical wing. Based simply upon their facial expression, it seemed as though they, too, would very much like to be asleep as well-- lines of fatigue were carved deep under their eyes, showing that they’d been awake for far, far too long.

The bandage wrapped tightly about their forearm displayed an entirely different issue, but it seemed to be one that they were far too exhausted to pay much mind to.

“They’re sleeping?” Supervillain echoed. Fatigue crept, too, at their bones, yet it was not an exhaustion wrought by work. Rather, it had been brought on by worry.

“Mhm.” The doctor spoke with a nod. “For now.”

“They’re... They’re okay, then?”

“They’re...” They bit their lower lip. “They’ve calmed down.”

“Are they themself again?” Supervillain’s voice turned to the epitome of eagerness, almost childish in their excitement. “Are they acting- They’re acting normal?”

A moment of tense, sorrowful silence.

“No.” Doctor shook their head after a long pause. “No, they aren’t. I’m sorry. We had to sedate them.”

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry.” They repeated. “They were getting worse.”

“It’s okay. I trust your judgement. You did what you had to.” The supervillain murmured in a low voice. “Can I see them? Is... Is that okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Thank you.”

Supervillain couldn’t ignore the way that sickness threatened to boil within their chest at the words. They could see them. They could see their friend, their ward, their kid. And, now that they were asleep, they couldn’t be terrified.

They couldn’t be terrified of their own friend. Not while they were unconscious.

There was a horribly sorrowful air to the way that Doctor moved, turning back towards the hospital room door, as though they were leading their boss to a morgue. The knob clicked as it was turned, and the room beyond was unveiled.

Villain was sleeping. At long last, their eyes were closed-- the slightest peace visible there, even as it was buried beneath tension and twitching eyelids.

And, yet, the remnants of their terror could be seen clear as day. The restraints made sure of that. There was almost more leather, metal, and fabric upon their body than there was skin.

The muzzle was what drew their attention the quickest. A contraption of black mesh, held in place by leather straps-- straps that danced in tandem with those holding an oversized pair of headphones to their skull. Similar lines of leather criss-crossed the rest of their body in an elaborate pattern, holding down their wrists, their ankles, their midsection, their limbs, and even their head, eliminating all by the slightest of movements. Odd, leather pieces had been fastened over their hands: Mitt cuffs, keeping their fingers curled and hands useless.

A particularly odd restraint had been placed upon their upper arm and wrist-- a sort of flat, plastic, white-stained board, with straps to hold their wrist and elbow in place. Between the straps, an IV line ran, fastened down with all manner of surgical tape.

“I’m sorry.” It seemed as though Doctor couldn’t stop themself from repeating the phrase. “I’m so sorry. I know they’re- They’re our friend. I didn’t want to have to tie them down like this...”

Supervillain understood. They did, really, even as they felt as though their heartstrings were being played with a violin’s bow. Villain was their friend, they saw them as almost their child, in some ways, even as they would never admit to. They had once been the kindest, the youngest among them, and now...

“I trust your judgement.” They spoke, voice nearly quivering with a whimper. “I know you would only do what you have to.”

Doctor nodded somberly.

“They... They were really scared. We don’t know what was wrong with them. We still don’t.”

“Are you they going to be okay?” Supervillain couldn’t help themself from wandering nearer to the bedside. Staring down at their friend, shackled like a wild beast. “They look...” They trailed off.

“We’re doing everything we can.” Of course they were, but would it be enough? “We don’t know what’s wrong. I’m really sorry.”

“You did what you had to.” They truly wished that the medic would cease their apologies. They had only helped.  They had spent so long in their own quarters, worrying and pacing until they wore through their socks.

“Do you know what happened? Before we arrived? No one has had a clear story.”

“Well...”

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“They’re going to be scared.” Supervillain’s voice was marked by the slightest of nervous prickles as they moved around their vehicle, from driver’s seat to rear doors. It was a van of considerable size and white bulk. They had taken it for a reason, had intended for Villain to ride in the back, since the beginning. For their own safety. So they wouldn’t be seen. As it had turned out, however, there was another benefit to that fact.

So it seemed, every villain in the base had gathered in the underground garage. Some of them, they noted, didn’t even live within its walls-- someone had invited friends for this occasion. They had specifically been told not to do that.

But, they were here, now, and there was little to be done about that fact. A crowd of twenty-five, bustling with excitement like grade schoolers.

“Everybody back up!” The supervillain called, order ringing out in concrete walls. With just how uncommon their use of commands was, those they spoke to followed their words in an instant, spreading out into a sort of semi-circle formation. “Villain is terrified, right now. Give them space. They’re going right to the medical wing.”

Words in a half-dozen languages buzzed through the gathered crowd.

“Do you get that? Are you guys going to be chill?”

Twenty-five pairs of eyes shot to them, and twenty-five heads nodded.

“Okay. Try to- Just try not to scare them, okay? Please.”

With a nervous gait, Supervillain turned towards their vehicle. Why were they so frightened? This was their friend, after all. Their teammate. They weren’t dangerous-- of course they weren’t, even though the bar holding the van’s rear doors closed may have indicated otherwise to some. It was only for safety reasons, that was all.

They knocked on the doors once, then twice, then slowly, ever so slowly, slid the bar away.

From the back of the van, Villain erupted, as though a wild animal. Had they been waiting at the doors? Struggling at them? Fighting? Certainly they had been, or there would have been no way that they could have leapt with such speed.

The villain crashed to the ground, onto their knees. In an instant, every single person under Supervillain’s orders immediately violated everything they had told them.

‘Swarming’ was the only verb that would be accurate to what occurred in that moment. Nearly every single member of the crowd rushed forth. Some kept at least a foot or two of distance, while more than one crashed right into their toppled-over comrade.

“Villain!”

“You’re okay!”

“I missed you so much!”

“What happened?”

“Where were you?”

“What did they do to you?”

“Are you alright?”

All the concerns, the joys, and the cries raised in volume until they could be described only as a cacophony, a cluster of noise.

The voices were broken only by a scream. A pained scream, and a flash of red. Villain moved nigh-impossibly quickly, teeth gripping around the arm of one who had once been their friend. They tore, leaving great, bloody marks in their wake, as they reared back their head to scream:

“You fucking pieces of shit! Scum! I hate you all! Get away from me, get away from me! I’ll kill you all, I hate-”

Their tirade was ceased only as their body heaved forward, a dribble of bile exploding from their lips, dripping to the floor.

In an instant, the excitement of the scene was gone. The heaving continued, dry gagging spitting out less and less green each time Villain’s body was wracked. By the end, they could only expel air.

When at last they ceased, once more they struck out, teeth hardly missing the neck of another target who seemed to have been selected at random.

“Hold them down. Hold them down!” The cry came from someone in the crowd, someone Supervillain couldn’t identify in their panic. Yet, it was echoed, rippling through those who seemed as though they had been stricken by an odd sort of grief.

“Hold them down!”

“Hold them down!”

And such was done. Four villains moved to hold their hands against Villain’s back, keeping them against the floor, even as they writhed and spat like a beast.

It was then that the medical team arrived. It was then that Supervillain watched their friend, their ward, dragged away, all the while spitting their name as though it was an obscenity.

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“We thought they were sick.” Doctor admitted with a bowed head. “Their behavior seemed consistent with delirium, or some kind of hallucinogen. Between vomiting and confused behavior...”

“Did you find it?” Somehow, the words brought a burgeoning hope to Supervillain’s chest, replacing, in some capacity, the dread that their own story had brought on. “The drug? The- The poison? Or is it a disease? A fever?”

The silence that hung between the two was heavier than lead. At last, the doctor shook their head.

“We don’t know what’s wrong. We did everything we could. The symptoms were consistent with poisoning, and there was no time to test for that, so we acted as though it was.”

“Did you ask them?”

“We did but... They seemed a lot more intent on insulting us than answering any questions.”

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry. We pumped their stomach, and flushed it with charcoal, just for good measure. But... It didn’t help.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that if it was a poison, it wasn’t one that was ingested by mouth.”

“But it was a poison?”

“We don’t know that. I’m sorry. A certain time after ingestion, it’s hard to tell. We- We drew some blood. It tested negative for all common narcotics and poisons, but it could be something less common. It’s in the lab, now.”

“When will we know? A few hours?”

“A few weeks.”

“Weeks?”

“I’m sorry. It’s slow, I’m so sorry. Until then...”

“What?”

“Until then we’ll manage them, as best as we can. It was like a game of cat and mouse, Supervillain. I’m really sorry. We had to muzzle them. They bit me.” The doctor raised a hand, showing off the bandage they now wore.

“But what if they wanted to talk?”

“It’s only mesh. Stops biting, but not talking. Then, they tried to scratch at us, so we cuffed them. That made them scratch at themself, so, the mitts.”

“And you had to strap them down?”

“When we put in the IV, yes. There was no other way. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. It’s just... Weird.”

“To see them tied up like this?”

“Yeah.”

“It is for me, too. I know. But it’s not them.” Doctor looked up, meeting the eyes of their commander. “You need to remember that, yeah? We all do. It’s not really Villain. Whatever is doing this to them, it’s not them.”

“I know. I- I just need to convince myself that that’s true.” Supervillain straightened themself, standing up taller. “What do you recommend? For their care going forward?”

The doctor seemed to sense the change in professionalism, and assumed a similar stance.

“We’ll continue to look into what’s causing their sickness. Until we can find a source, I’m advising nothing ingested by mouth, except for moderate amounts of water.”

“But- What if they get hungry?” And there went all that posturing, gone in an instant. “Won’t they get hungry?”

“We’re already giving them fluids and nutrients by IV. They’ll have all they need to survive.”

“But what if they get hungry?”

“We can give appetite suppressants if needed.” Doctor conceded. “Alongside fluids, I’m advising a constant drip of anti-nausea medication. With how much they were vomiting, choking is a real risk.”

“Okay. Granted, for both. What about... You said they were sedated?”

“That’s your choice, Sir. We sedated them in order to take samples. It’s less distressing for them, to take blood and the like while they’re asleep. The current dosage should wear off in four or so hours, giving them at least some sleep.”

“They need it.”

“They do. They may be unable to fall asleep at night on their own, and we may need to use sedatives to allow them to rest. As for during the day... That’s up to you.”

“What are my options?”

“We can forgo sedation altogether. It isn’t necessary medically, especially now that they have an IV placed. But in that case, they’re likely to be aggressive, and I can’t guarantee that they won’t present harm to themself or to others.

Or, we can provide a small, consistent level of sedative through an IV drip. Enough to keep them calm, and hopefully to quell any aggression. But that may also cause them some distress.”

“I don’t want to sedate them.” Supervillain admitted, after a terribly long pause. “No sedatives. Please.”

“Okay.”

They moved to the bedside, gripping the bedrails with their hands until their knuckles turned white. They were crying, oh, god, they were crying in front of their own medical staff.

“Villain.” They whispered. “Villain, I’m so, so sorry.”

And, in their sleep, Villain begun to dry heave.

[sabraeal]

Sic Semper Monstrum, Chapter 5

[Read on AO3]

Written for @vfordii​‘s birthday which was....five months ago. BUT LISTEN, it’s still better than last year’s six months so like...improvement. IMPROVEMENT.

“You know why I called you here.” The Marshal’s voice is soft, barely louder than the hum of the fluorescents. “I presume.”

Shirayuki catches herself at the edge of her seat, chest pitched forward, neck craning to decipher every word and--

She settles back with a frown. Even a PhD isn’t a defense to the cheapest tactic on the pop-psych bookstore self-help shelf, it seems. Worse, Izana knows it, his mouth tipped so subtly toward a smile. And now he knows she knows it, and--

Her mug has gone cool, but it’s at least a credible distraction, a convenient way to buy some time and save face. Not something she ever expected she’d care about. Doesn’t mean she won’t take the opportunity.

“Zen.” The ceramic clacks like a shot as she sets it down. “You want to talk about the drift.”

“Yes.” He breathes, long and labored. “And no. I want him back in the cockpit.”

Come see me at your earliest convenience, his email had said, practically polite by PPDC standards. Manners atrophied when a body spent so much time in the higher altitudes of the chain of command.  I’d like to discuss a few things with you.

She’d known what this would be about. What it was always going to be about. And still--

Shirayuki is still disappointed. “You have to be joking. It took him three years to get him into a jaeger at all, and you want to just...push him right back in.”

“No,” he hums, fingers still and steepled over his desk. “I want you to do it.”

There are rules of engagement for tangling with the Marshal. Voices are to be kept low, steady. Think before speaking. Don’t react. Showing an emotion in front of Izana Wisteria would be as good as handing him a rope to hang her with. “I’m not his commander.”

His fingers knit, knuckles popping in the silence-- “I know that, Doctor.”

Her own are curled into fists; at least then he can’t see them shaking. “Then I don’t know what you expect me to do.”

“I wouldn’t presume to tell you how to do your job,” he tells her, with only a pause for breath before he does. “I am merely suggesting that it is far past time to remove the kid gloves you have been handling him with.”

Her fists clench, hard enough to leave vivid crescents in the meat of her palms. “I believe I’m the judge of that.”

“Of course.” Every word drips with insincerity. “But I’m sure a little encouragement from you would--”

“I’ll do what’s necessary for the health of my patient,” she informs him, words clipped. “You’re not my commander.”

Izana stills, gaze riveted to her. “I am well aware of that, doctor. But I need him in a jaeger yesterday.”

“You’ve needed him in a jaeger for the past three years.” Shirayuki bolts to her feet, and oh, if only she could locate at least another foot of height, she might be able to finally have the high ground in one of these arguments. “I don’t see what the rush is now.”

His voice doesn’t raise above a pleasant chat, but bitterness weighs down every word. “You should.”

Shirayuki doesn’t believe in violence. Or rather, violence is a choice, and she doesn’t believe in choosing it unless no other option remains that causes less harm, but, well--

She’s got a very short list of people who deserved a black eye, and Izana Wisteria sorely tempts her to put his name on it. “What do you mean by that?”

The Marshall is all tense lines behind the battlement of his desk, a buttress against the fall. “Aren’t you a part of K-Science?”

The only distinction that mattered in the dome was between combatants and non; that a licensed therapist fell more into the ‘administration’ box rather than ‘research scientist’ was the least of their concerns. At least as far as the placement of her office. “Tangentially.”

“Well then.” His tension washes away like debris after the storm. “It’s all in the numbers.”

Shirayuki has been trained extensively in conflict resolution, in effective communication, in managerial manipulation, and still, still-- annoyance dogs her every step, nipping at her heels as she loses herself in the dome’s labyrinth of corridors. For once it would be nice to leave the Marshal’s office with something more like a sense of purpose and less like a reprieve in shoving boulders up a muddy hill in Tartarus, but this far into her tenure with the PPDC, she knows better than to hope for impossible asks. It’s not a new feeling by any means-- there’s certainly a hole worn in her heart for just this sort of fruitless anger and a monkey on her back with Izana Wisteria’s face, but he’s certainly devised an entirely new way to get her hackles up today.

Long limbs insinuate themself next to hers, a white-clad arm weaving its way around her elbow. She looks up-- not far-- into a pearl white, movie star grin.

“Well, well,” Yuzuri lilts, halfway between a drawl and singsong. “Someone’s looking stormy.”

Shirayuki doesn’t know how tall a person has to be to be considered thunderous, but if the crinkle to Yuzuri’s eyes are any indication, she’s well below the mark. “I was meeting with the Marshal.”

Yuzuri swings a single, impressed note. “Yeah, that’d do it. Or, I’d imagine it would. Not like he asks to see many of us in K-Science.”

Funny, she doesn’t say, since he’s so comfortable quoting your data. “You should probably count yourself lucky on that one.”

“Oh, yeah.” Yuzuri waves a hand, bangles jangling down her wrist. “Garrack handles him. Honestly, I think she enjoys the aggravation.”

Knowing Garrack like she does, Shirayuki certainly wouldn’t discount it.

Slender fingers flick out a sharp snap. “Hey, maybe you can send her the next time you need to deal with His Majesty. I’m sure she’d kill for a distraction just about now.”

“Oh, no! I’m-- I don’t need any help, it’s just...” She frowns, rifling through the satchel slung over her shoulder. She hardly has anything in it-- lip balm, her notes, a pack of tissues, her civilian identification, her wallet-- but still, her keys are shifted underneath the whole of her life, jingling just out of her reach.

It’s a metaphor, probably, but her love affair with literature is at too much of a standstill these days for her to bother unpacking it. Not when it’s probably going to end in her storming back into the Marshal’s office and demanding he show her some form of respect if he expects her to do her job.

Yuzuri’s mouth curls into a sly smile. “He’s top brass that’s used to having full grown adults ask how high rather than why?”

“That’s part of it,” she admits begrudgingly. “But it would also be nice if he could say what he means, instead of--youch!”

Metal teeth digging painfully into her palm, but she holds on anyway, dragging the ring right out, hair ties and all.

“Instead of...?” Yuzuri prompts, far too amused.

She heaves a sigh, plucking rubber bands off her hand. “Making it all some sort of...logic block word puzzle.”

Blonde brows slant skeptically. “I thought you loved those things.”

“For fun. Not for...” She waves a hand, keys jingling and brightly as Yuzuri’s bangles. “...Professional conversations. I’m not here for his entertainment. I don’t have time for-- for games!” 

“Not when you could be doing your actual job.”

“Right.” Her actual job, which has almost exclusively been managing Zen’s feelings regarding Izana for months now. “And now he wants me to...“

She hesitates, teeth sinking into her lip. Outside the dome, patient confidentiality is the backbone of her profession, but here, when everyone eats and breathes and lives on top of one another--

“Lemme guess,” Yuzuri drawls, “get that boy in a pilot seat?”

-- it’s impossible. “I just wish he would show some faith.”

“In you?”

“No.” That’s asking far too much from a man who has only ever trusted as far as the drift could take him. She heaves a sigh, flyaways fluttering in her peripherals. “In Zen.”

A laugh huffs out of Yuzuri. “That’s asking a bit much from an older brother, don’t you think?”

Shirayuki has never, strictly, had a sibling. Ryuu certainly straddles the line between friend, colleague, and family, but she’s never doubted his drive, or the rigorous course of his research. He wouldn’t be her first choice to stand in front of the PPDC committee and defend her findings, but in a pinch, she would trust him wholeheartedly, with no reservations, to do the job.

That does not seem to be the unifying sibling experience. “Is it?”

Yuzuri grins. “You are definitely an only child.”

She restrains her scowl to a disapproving frown. “Maybe, in this case, that’s a good thing.”

They turn down a corridor, and relief floods into her-- this is it, the hall that holds her office at the end. She takes a step forward, but Yuzuri holds her back, gaze fixed leagues away.

“Do you really think he’ll do it?” She blinks, eyes finally focusing down on Shirayuki. “You really think he’ll get back in that jeager?”

“Yes.”

Yuzuri recoils, blinking. “Wow, no hesitation on that one, huh?”

“None,” she agrees, a smile lingering at the edge of her lips. “I know Zen might be hurting right now after--” the most disastrous drift she’s witnessed in her entire career-- “everything, but he...”

She takes in a breath, putting her back to her door. “No matter what happens, Zen always does the right thing.” It’d been that unwavering moral compass that had drawn her to him, a shining bright light among the downtrodden heart of the dome. “He may need a little time to pick himself back up, dust himself back off, but he knows that one day, he’ll have to sit down and talk this out, not run--”

“But not today, it looks like.” Yuzuri’s hand darts right over her shoulder, plucking something off her door.

Shirayuki blinks, letting the yellowed square of paper come into focus.

Something came up. Rain check ~Z

She stares, fingers numb as she swipes the scrap out of Yuzuri’s hands.

“That sunovabitch,” she grits out, paper dinting beneath her grip. “He’s avoiding me.”

“So.” Yuzuri cocks her head, mouth stretching wide. “Wanna grab some grub?”

“I’m just saying.” Suzu’s hand scribbles across a napkin, dropping symbols more arcane than any rift. “If I could just get any of the brass to take a good look at this, things would be different.”

“Different how?” Kazaha drawls, accusation dripping from every word. At least, that’s how it sounds-- it hadn’t taken Shirayuki long to realize that’s just how the man speaks, every phoneme meant to cut glass. The asshole accent, Yuzuri calls it. “Does this somehow improve the quality of life in the dome? The world? The--?”

“It’ll certainly improve my quality of life if I don’t have to hear about it,” Yuzuri deadpans. “C’mon, we’re eating dinner. Let’s put the toys away.”

“It’s not a toy, it’s a tool,” Suzu grumbles, finishing it with a flourish. “And if we used it, we’d know when the kaiju would show up, instead of just waiting for them to wade into the Sea of China or whatever.”

That, at least, gets the team to bow their heads over it, passing around frowns and furrows alike.

“If that was the case,” Kazaha sniffs, pushing it away. “Garrack Gazelt would have already put this in front of the Marshal.”

Suzu scowls, yanking it back. “You know that none of those jarheads appreciate good science! Until I get this paired up with some pretty little graphs, I might as well be speaking Japanese.”

Izuru perks up at that. “Doesn’t the Marshal speak Japanese?”

“That’s besides the point.”

“Hm.” Ryuu squirms next to her, craning his head over the napkin. “I think you’re missing a variable.”

“Impossible.” Suzu stares down at it. “Just look here--”

Shirayuki glances down, letters and numbers do-si-doing between roots and over fractions. Izana might shove her office all the way down in K-Science, but that certainly didn’t give her the training to decipher this little bit of mathematical prognostication.

Suzu pitches forward, felt-tip pen rolling across his knuckles in a bit of sleight-of-hand she would have never thought him capable of. “--you’ll see that by putting ‘a’ over ‘n’ squared--” 

“All right.” Yuzuri’s fingers knit in the cotton of his button-down, dragging him back down onto the bench with a thump. “I think we’ve had quite enough of that.”

With a lift of his brows, Suzu’s face shifts from fox to puppy in eight muscles flat. “But, Yuzuri--”

“No buts.” Her fingers pluck the pen out of his, dropping it back into a pocket with a firm, warning pat. “Now, as I was trying to say: His Highness is avoiding you.”

Shirayuki blinks, gaze dragging up to where Yuzuri waits with an impatient smirk. “N-no! That’s not it at all. Something probably came up--”

“Izana’s avoiding you?” Suzu swings a wide, gaping stare at her. “Didn’t you just have a meeting today? What did you do to him?”

Her hands fly up, waving off the accusation. “Ah, no, I didn’t--”

“No, not His Majesty, His Highness,” Yuzuri corrects, blowing on a spoonful of the mess’s finest chicken noodle. “And he is avoiding you, which is bullshit.”

She has to bite her cheeks to keep her lips from peeling back into a grimace. “Zen has lots of work to keep him busy--”

“What work?” Kazaha scoffs, meticulously cutting his chicken into bite-sized pieces. “He’s a ranger without a co-pilot. It’s not like he can just jump into a jaeger and fight kaiju with half a working mecha.”

Yuzuri swivels toward him, hands held out with a level of emphasis Shirayuki can’t help but feel is more than the situation truly deserves. Especially since some of the rangers are starting to peer over their way. “See, even Kazaha knows it’s bullshit.”

His mouth purses into a tight frown. “I don’t know why it’s even Kazaha--”

Yuzuri’s brows make a dubious stretch toward her hairline. “I’m pretty sure you do.”

“--I’m very socially astute, even Shidan--”

“--just because he lets you out of the lab doesn’t mean you don’t offend people by breathing--”

“I dunno.” Suzu’s forehead furrows, tapping a spoon on each of his oyster crackers, drowning them in broth. “Zen seems like a real upright guy, you know? Forthright. If he had a problem, he’d say something, not just ghost you.”

Yuzuri stares at him. “He buys you one bubble tea, and now he can do no wrong.”

“Do you know how hard those are to get out here? He had to go all the way out to--”

Whatever else Suzu means to say, it’s lost in the siren.

This isn’t Shirayuki’s first time in the dome-- far from it-- but it’s never easy.

The siren’s moan shivers through the air, something she feels rather than hears. Her teeth rattle in her mouth, and there’s nothing she wants to do more than curl up beneath the table and ride it out, eyes squeezed shut and hands over her ears. She wouldn’t be the only one; already half of K-Science is on the ground, tears streaming down more than one ashen face.

Man’s worst enemy is fear. Grandpa had told her that, letting her dip her toes into the bay. She’d been small, young enough that she still wondered if kaiju might lurk under the surface, waiting to pull tasty little girls beneath the depths. Kaiju can only kill you once, but fear kills a hundred times. His hand sits heavy on her shoulder, a comfort, a cage; and she--

She gets up.

Pilots and personnel scramble; one tech stands up too fast, boot hooking on the bench’s edge and sprawling face-first into the floor. It’s only ranger reflexes that keep her from getting trampled, dodging around the splay of her fingers with a dexterity that would make Shirayuki’s jaw drop if she wasn’t trying to keep all her molars from jittering out of their sockets.

There’s a hand on her shoulder. She hadn’t just imagined it, a goad to get her standing. She traces the hand back, up ranger fatigues to dark hair, brows raised, and beneath them--

It’s violet eyes, not gold. Not Obi, but a ranger she’s never seen before, his mouth quirked with cold consideration.

“It would be safer,” he says, voice somehow Altantic-crisp over the cacophony, “if you stayed in your seat.”

Her mouth opens, working around the sounds to thank him, but he’s already gone, disappeared into the crowd of PPDC personnel around her. Shirayuki’s eyes shift over the mob, trying to-- to find him, maybe, or at least a face she knew, someone that she could talk to, someone to memorize one last time--

She finds one, silver-blond hair shimmering at the door, too pale to be anyone else. Zen. It’s Zen looking right at her, those deep blue eyes inscrutable, mouth carved into a line more grim than he’s ever shown her.

He turns away.

“It’s too soon, though,” Suzu murmurs, staring down at his napkin. The screens are on now, muted by the siren’s wails, and there’s a Kaiju on it, frill rigid around its reptilian face as it tears a city to twisted metal ribbons. It’s just buildings, streets, impossible to tell which one, but all that matters right now is not here.

“As I said,” Ryuu says, only just audible over the drone. “You dropped a variable.”

What hurts most, once her teeth stop rattling and her heart ceases to pound in her chest, is that Yuzuri is right-- Zen is avoiding her.

“The sessions are his choice.” Labeling tubes isn’t quite how Shirayuki had envisioned her evening going, especially with her mind half-away, pondering over the Pacific, but it’s something to do. “No one can force him to come.”

“Sounds like that’s half the problem,” Garrack mutters, forehead pressed to the hood, leaving a faint, oily smear across the glass. “Free will. Foils gods and men alike, doesn’t it?”

Her mouth pulls down at the corners, a bow stretched too tight, just like her patience. “I don’t want him to be forced. Therapy only works if the patient wants to change.”

Which, by Zen’s conspicuous absence, tells her he doesn’t. He’s happy as he is, wearing the fatigues but never getting in the cockpit, waiting for a copilot that’s already shown how little he cares about anything but lining his own pocket.

“Of course. You can lead a horse to water, but you’ll never make it drink.” It’s impressive to watch Garrack work; even in rubber sleeves, her grip never trembles, never slips. In the same position, Shirayuki can barely close a fist, but Garrack’s got the same dexterity in the hood as she does out of it. “Good thing you get paid regardless.”

Shirayuki flushes, heat pricking at her pride. “I’m not worried about that.”

“No, I wouldn’t think you are,” Garrack murmurs. “I’m just saying it’s nice. Salaried, with room and board to boot.”

Her frown falls further, flirting with a glower. “I’m aware that I’m in the unique position of not having to care in an official capacity if he bothers to come back. But personally--” her breath catches, stomach doing one, solid somersault-- “I do. I want him to want this.”

Garrack hums, not an agreement or judgement, but an acknowledgement. Tactic permission to proceed.

“Izana wants me to tells him to climb into a jeager, to use my-- our personal connection to manipulate him into the cockpit, regardless of what his personal feelings are.” Her breath rushes from her lungs, suddenly ragged, frayed at either end. “No, encourage. That’s what he told me. That it’s my job to do it for humanity.”

One thick eyebrow arches under Garrack’s cap, her eyes bright with interest. “And how do you feel about that?”

It’s strange being on the other side of this question, to be the analyzed instead of the analyzer. She squirms, teeth worrying at her lip, mind racing with possibilities.

“C’mon now,” Garrack chides, mouth hooking into a smirk. She picks up her rack, rattling the small tubes in their holes. “I gave you those for a reason. Idle hands are the devil’s playground, you know-- at least, that’s what people say when they’re afraid of what you’ll get up to if you start thinking.”

She tosses her a wink, ejecting the tip of her pipette into the trash before fitting on another. “Too bad they don’t know that drudgery clears your mind. Have all my best ideas when I’ve got a sharpie and a hundred two-mils to get through. So come on--” she grins, all conspiracy-- “tell me. What do you think of our illustrious leader’s idea?”

Her teeth click shut around her first opinion-- saying Izana Wisteria should go suck eggs would not only please Garrack far too much, but would be around the rest of the base by morning. The last thing she needs is the Marshal inviting her into his office and reading that off one of his hundreds of emails. “...Think that’s beyond my professional scope to comment on.”

“Oh please.” Garrack waves her off, one rubber arm flailing behind the glass. “I’m not asking you to issue a formal complaint about the marshal’s policies. I want to know if you think that kid should get in that steel coffin and kick the closest kaiju in whatever passes for their balls. If throwing another body at the breach is what’s best for humanity.”

“I...”

It shouldn’t be. There’s more rangers on this base than jaegers to fit them; one career pilot pulling back to fill the ranks shouldn’t be more than a drop in the bucket, a chair to fill. But this is no ordinary jaeger-- this is Rex Tyrannous, the most advanced piece of machinery to roll out of a PPDC facility before or since. Rebuilt from the same blueprint as the Mark I, reconfigured with the best technology the Mark III could offer, the Mark IV’s older, more deadly brother, and--

And the money for it hadn’t come out of Defense Corps coffers. No matter how many hopefuls washed up at the dome, the King of Kaijus wouldn’t come out of its box for anyone less than a Wisteria, not as long as at least one was still standing.

“Yes.” She spits the word out like poison, but still she feels unclean. “There’s no one else that can do what he needs to.”

Garrack’s mouth twists in a wry curve. “Then there you go.”

“It’s a conflict of interest!” Shirayuki insists, the sharpie in her hand shaking as she tries to form a 4. “If there was anyone on this base that had the credentials, I’d-- I’d put in the referral myself. He deserves someone that’s impartial--”

“Shirayuki.” With exaggerated care, Garrack pulls her arms from the hood, letting her hands fall down to her lap. “Do you think there is a single soul in this dome who could do the math you did and not be partial?”

Her mouth works, opening once, twice, before settling shut with a snick.

“I didn’t hire you because you lacked bias.” Garrack’s voice pitches low, softer than she’s ever heard her, knuckles white where they clasp her knees . “You wrote a paper about PTSD in rangers that lost a partner in the drift. A paper, might I add, that showed a great deal of knowledge in jaeger production and use. The sort of thing no one learns unless they’ve been locked up under a dome for years before being released in the wild.”

It’s not an accusation, not yet, but Shirayuki’s hands still anyway, clammy beneath latex.

“Because of that useless wall, we’re years behind in jaeger production.  We need new mechs, and Rex Tyrannous is the best model we got left, whether it’s been sitting in its box for half a decade or not. ” She settles back, brow arched. “But I don’t need to tell you that, now do I?”

No. Her fingers clench hard around the sharpie. She doesn’t.

“Shirayuki, I know you’re a good kid, but you do get to be selfish sometimes.” Garrack grins, too pleased at the prospect. “You’re human, just like the rest of us. There’s no one who doesn’t have skin in this game.”

“I know,” she murmurs. “But it’s my job to do what’s best for him as my patient, not just--”

Garrack snorts. “Oh, is the discontinuation of the human race not going to affect him?”

Shirayuki frowns, opening her mouth to-- well, to say something quelling, no doubt. But-- “Oh.”

Garrack hunches over her lap, forearms braced on her thighs. “I know the Wisterias put on a good show of being gods, but they’re flesh and blood like the rest of us. It doesn’t do anyone good for them to sit out the apocalypse. Not even themselves.”

“But, I...” She sets the tubes down, gloves crinkling into fists. “I don’t know what happened in the drift, just what the readouts said. It could have been a failure on Obi’s side just as much as his, and if they’re not compatible--”

“Then just ask him,” Garrack sighs, swiveling back toward the hood. “You don’t need to try to read minds.”

“But he’s not talking--”

“Not that Wisteria prick.” She chucks her chin toward the door, toward the vague direction of the dome beyond. “The other one. Seems like the real problem there might be getting him to stop talking.”

“Obi?” She blinks. He’s friendly, sure, but she wouldn’t say he’s been one to volunteer information.

“If that’s the one that’s down here every other day, talking my ears off with Suzu, then yes.” One rubber arm flails at her through the glass. “Now get out of here, and get those two little shits inside their tuna can before a Cat 5 can make it down the coast and make us regret it.”

When she steps into the hall, Shirayuki has every intention of following Garrack’s advice. It’s solid, after all; in a two-sided problem where one solution makes itself unavailable, the obvious answer is the best approach-- especially when in this labyrinth of a dome, there’s only so many places where he can hide.

She stops by the mess for a peace offering. Obi might be disposed to be friendly toward her at the moment, but she knows all too well how far good will will get her if she’s going to start rummaging around in things he’d rather keep cooped up behind that smile. Quality coffee and some contraband cookies might not mend the bridges she burns, but it’ll at least keep them standing while she’s walking over it.

It’s a good plan, a solid plan; she just doesn’t anticipate the company.

“Shirayuki.” Dark circles ring dark eyes, but Mitsuhide smiles just as warm as he always does, sprawled stiffly on the bench. “It’s good to see you.”

“I should be saying the same thing!” she gasps, her and her tea sliding in across from him at the formica table. “I thought you’d be out...” in your tuna can.

She bites her cheek, just hard enough to keep the words from spilling out. Sometimes she really, truly wishes she didn’t listen to Garrack quite as much; her mouth and Garrack’s words made a volatile mix. The sort that would get her a dishonorable discharge, if she weren’t a civilian-- or careful.

“We were. I mean, I was. Both Kiki and myself.” His body twists with a good, solid shake, eyes clearing. “Sorry, just had to exorcise the ghost. You know how it is.”

She doesn’t, but she does. There’s papers on the subject; reams of them-- Longevity of neural imprints in active rangers had been a favorite when she’d been in undergrad, as well as the far more entertaining, Ghost Drifting: How does one leave a ghost while still alive? It’s still novel to witness it, to see that spectral presence cling to the neural stem so long after--

“We just got back a little while ago.” He shifts, his right leg stretching long across the floor, knee bucking stiffly. “Kiki hit the rack, but I needed to, ah, take a walk.”

That’s his-- his good leg, as Kiki likes to call it, the half of him that becomes Redwood Dancer to pair with her left. That’s what makes them first line defense, even in an older Mark III; Kiki’s a real lefty, not one made by the drift. When Dancer throws a punch, both sides come full powered.

That’s what you get being the best of the best, Zen would say, envy and wistfulness thickening his voice, everyone knows they can count on you to serve.

That seems less like a good thing as Shirayuki sits across from it, watching the shadows shift in Mitsuhide’s eyes.

“Did you see it?” she asks, voice a whisper in the cavernous lair of the mess. “The kaiju?”

Mitsuhide grunts, shaking his head. “No, we were kept on standby. Got there after some of the boys in Hong Kong did, and they handled it.”

He doesn’t offer how well; she doesn’t ask.

“Ah,” she hums instead, hunching over her mug. “So it was out that way?”

“When they get that far down, yeah.” One of his large fingers wraps around the handle of his mug, bringing it to his mouth for a long, steady drag. “Not many wander out this way.”

“Alaska--”

“Yeah, there’s a few up north, and I think Seattle always has a good sweat when that happens, but...” His brows furrow, just a small wrinkle in the center of his forehead. “Not so much down here. Not anymore.”

Her palms press against warm ceramic, lips curling into a thin smile. “I guess we don’t have what they want. Whatever that is.”

His mouth gives a wryly twitch. “Thank God for small blessings.”

It would be nice to let the silence between them mellow, to allow herself a companionable respite after swallowing around her heart for half a day, but--

But there are things that won’t keep, no matter how much she’d like to set them aside, set them down even for just a moment. “Mitsuhide...”

He stiffens, the way a dog does when it hears its name shouted in the key of trouble. There’s two ways to respond to conflict, they used to say, fight or flight; years later they added freeze with as begrudging a reception as any change to common wisdom was given. But Mitsuhide does none of those; he just hunkers, eyes warm and dark and wary when they meet hers, hedged by hunched shoulders. The sort of man who grew up in a place where natural disasters are weathered in bathtubs and basements, or else watched from afar on front porches.

“I meant to talk to you.” Her fingers knit into the natural ridges of her mug; the only way to keep them from trembling. “After...after. I mean, not this, but before. The, um...”

It’s ridiculous how many calamities can cluster in a few hours. She’ll need to start numbering them to keep them all straight.

“The drift,” he rasps wearily. “Zen's talked about it with you, hasn’t he?”

Her mouth works; her duty to her profession says to keep it shut, to keep her patient’s business confidential, but her duty as a member of the human race, of a species that is growing more endangered by the year-- “He skipped his session.”

Shirayuki couldn’t have moved him if she hit him, but this rocks him back in his seat. “I’d been hoping...” He shakes his head, mouth curling into a rueful smile. “I thought I’d be the one trying to work something out of you.”

“Ah.” She bows her head, watching the leaves swirl in her tea. “So you haven’t had any luck either?”

Her shakes his head, disappointment stark in every sway. “He won’t talk about it. After he got out of the hanger he went and locked himself in his rack. He only agreed to come to the mess if we promised to drop the whole thing.”

Shirayuki winces. “I’d normally never ask, but when he didn’t show up to our usual appointment...”

Mitsuhide lets out a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. “I don’t know why he’d do that. I’d give some of my teeth to let someone else listen to my head sometimes.”

She blinks. “You’re always welcome, if you wanted to.”

“No.” His mouth rucks up in a rueful curve. “I really couldn’t.”

“But--”

“The thing they don’t tell you before you get into that cockpit is--” he takes a deep breath, the air emptying out the tension in his shoulders-- “is that the second you hit the drift, all your secrets aren’t your own anymore.”

“Oh.” The drift is two minds laid bare to one another, the deepest form of trust, but in all her studies, she’d never thought what that meant. How tangled and deep a mind could become in things that weren’t theirs to know, weren’t their secrets to carry. “Can I ask you something?”

His eyebrows ruffle up an inch, curious. “Of course. Anything I can answer.”

“When you first came to the dome, you were...” Shirayuki bites her lips, considering. “You were Zen’s copilot. But then Kiki came...”

The PPDC might be the one that’s stamped on the letterhead, but the Wisterias are the spine of the jeager project as well as its face. Their neural net stretches far and wide through the Corp’s hierarchies, fingers in every pie, and although Zen might not be in the upper echelons of leadership, the sort of state secrets someone might glean from the casual details rattling around in his head...

Well, it’s a good thing the Seirans were just as entrenched.

“Why did you do it?” she asks finally, though it’s miles away from what she means. “Why change when you already...?”

“Ah, well...” Mitsuhide’s shoulders heave awkwardly. “It was an emergency, at first, and then...I don’t know how to explain it. We just fit. Not that I didn’t with Zen, but this was...”

He hesitates, smile edging towards a kind of self-deprecation that doesn’t quite fit him. “It was different. If that makes sense.”

“It doesn’t,” she admits. Not to her, at least, someone who has never been in a cockpit, who has never drifted over a set of pons and tried to make a connection. But to someone who has, who has spent the last half decade rotating through a list of hopefuls and throwing them all in the trash-- “But I think...maybe it could.”

Shirayuki would love to say that she’s experienced a perception shift, that a few words with Mitsuhide gave her a clarity that she needs to pore over before acting on, but the fact of it is-- she’s too anxious to approach Obi, pure and simple.

Not that he’s given her much cause; he’s scarce after that failure of a drift, but his absence lacks the marked purpose of Zen’s. It’s hard to find anyone after an attack; everyone’s on high alert, hypervigilant, waiting for another call to come like an aftershock. It’s never happened before, but to assume that means a double event is out of the question--

Well, humanity stopped making assumptions about what lurked beneath the Pacific the day Trespasser ripped the Golden Gate off its moorings.

She catches a glimpse of him every once and a while, always going the wrong way but with a smile to share before he disappears. He’s not avoiding her, he’s avoiding everyone else, and she’s just too much of a cog in the dome’s machinery to not be a casualty of it. It’s nothing personal, she’s sure, but with all the people giving her a wide berth lately, it’s hard not to feel that his absence is pointed.

Still, there are things that just won’t keep. She can’t just keep avoiding this because she’s afraid of one more rejection.

And that’s how she finds herself in the middle of the dome’s combat room, on the business end of Obi’s smirk.

“Doc,” he hums, kicking the end of his staff up to yoke his neck. He makes it look easy, like the jo is an extension of him rather than a separate piece. She can’t help but think of what he might do with a hundred tons of jeager strapped to him, how easy he might make it move. “Funny seeing you here.”

She nods, rocking on her toes. “It’s been a while.”

He swaggers toward her, stopping barely an arm’s length away, hip cocked. Sweat dews along every inch of him, his tank damp and clinging to the hard planes of his stomach, tighter than the lycra in her own gear. His pants swing low, leaving a sliver of skin between it and his shirt, and she--

She should really be looking elsewhere. He’s not a giant, not like Mitsuhide, but when she looks up, it’s a long way to meet his eyes. They’re laughing at her when she does.

“You’re not gonna get anything out of me, you know,” he says as if he’d like to see her try; a challenge rather than a defense. “What happens in the drift stays in the drift.”

Her mouth works; this time stuck less on the sweat crawling over his skin and more on how quickly she’s been made. “I didn’t say I was going to.”

“You had the look.” He shifts, hips drawing her gaze with them. When she glances back up, he seems to find that funny too. “Besides, why else would you come in here? Most shrinks I meet aren’t, hm, combat ready.”

“I-I work out!”

His eyebrows raise, mouth following suit. “That so?”

She flexes arm, baring what, in her humble opinion, is no small bicep. Kiki might have her beat, but in K-science terms she’s practically buff. “See?”

Obi slinks close, hunching over, jo and all, to give her offering a good squint. With a hum she’d like to think is at least mildly impressed, he straightens, suddenly so close she can smell the sweat on him and the faint whiff of his deodorant.

“Well then, I stand corrected.” His smile stretches Cheshire-wide as he steps aside, sweeping out a hand. “Don’t let me stop you.”

Shirayuki peers past him, fighting to keep the grimace from her face. She works out, sure, but more along the lines of slow and low. Yoga. Tai chi. Pilates. Things that promote mind and body balance. But even in the gym, all the equipment is meant for bulking muscle, for building the sort of bodies that can bear up a skyscraper. And the combat room...

Well the only equipment here is the jo in their rack and the tatami on the floor. This isn’t for people looking to do a pull up, it’s for rangers looking to spar.

“Tell you what, Doc,” Obi says, no small amount of amusement or pity in his voice. “I could use a cool down.”

His jo whips down from his shoulders, lightning fast, hands thrusting out in the air, and she--

Her hand rises to match, catching the jo mid-air. She sags under it, a little heavier than she expected from a stick that size, but keeps her feet under her. She glances back at Obi, wide-eyed, but he just lifts his brows, impressed. “How about we go a round, you and me?”

It’s a normal request-- maybe not to her, but the rangers certainly aren’t shy about taking conversations to the tatami. But Obi’s voice does something with it, pushes it down into a register that feels more mattress than mat, and she shivers as she lets the jo drop more naturally into her grip. “Me?”

“Well, I really thought you wouldn’t catch it.” His chin juts toward her staff. “But it looks like you at least know how to hold it.”

Her finger flex around the wood, settling against its smooth surface. “I’ve done it once or twice.”

A half dozen years ago, but he doesn’t need to know that.

His mouth twitches. “Great.”

Obi’s not a mountain of a man, not like Mitsuhide, but when he falls into stance, he could make himself one. It would take an earthquake to move him, and she has the world’s smallest lever. “Come at me.”

Shirayuki shuffles awkwardly on the mat, twisting the jo to rest on both her hands. It feels like she’s got two left ones holding it-- neither one of them are as good as Kiki’s-- but muscle serves her better than memory. Center yourself, Grampa told her, yanking her chest above her hips, feel the earth come to meet you. You’ll be part of it one day, and it’s ready.

Morbid, but it works. Her spine jolts into a straight line, weight teetering between her feet, and she takes her swing.

Obi doesn’t try to dodge. He could-- even in that split second, his muscles twitch, goading him to flee-- but he just raises his staff, a jolt she feels right down to her shoulders. The puny clack echoes in her ears. It’s nothing even close to how him and Zen were sparring.

“Go ahead.” He shifts his weight as she recovers, bracing himself. “Again.”

Right. Her feet flatten against the mat-- or at least they try to, pressing instead against the foam of her sneakers. Her sneakers that she’s still wearing, since she came in here thinking there would be an elliptical, or weights, or not this.

That won’t do at all. She toes them off, setting them at the edge of the tatami, the only spectators to her impending humiliation.

She hesitates, fingers peeling socks over her heels. Obi’s already said she won’t get any information out of him; she doesn’t need to do this. She could walk away right now, and the only consequence would be his teasing. And yet--

And yet, Shirayuki walks back, feet grounding against the weave beneath them. The jo settles between her hands. Obi grins.

When she moves again, it’s with more confidence, memory fueling her strike. He catches it again, but this time it doesn’t rattle her. At least, not until he moves too, viper fast, and then she’s scrambling again. She’s no noodle-armed K-science geek, no matter what Obi might say, but when she thrusts her staff up overhead to meet his swing, her arms tremble, teeth jangling in her mouth.

Obi retreats, amusement clinging to his lips, and she huffs. Maybe she can’t take the same sort of beating Kiki can, but she isn’t about to be some pushover.

She comes at him again, lower this time, on the outside. He’s not prepared-- she can tell the way his eyes widen-- but reflexes smooth his response, drawing her back with a few of his own strikes, and then--

Then it’s just trading blows. Not like his spar with Zen; he’s too skilled and she’s too inexperienced for this to be anything but a planned draw, for him to do anything but go easy on her. But still, still-- there’s a strange electricity every time they meet, more than just their jo rising to meet each other, an anticipation--

Obi steps back, brow furrowed. “Hm.”

Shirayuki’s panting, drenched, and he’s barely broken a sweat. “Is something wrong?”

It certainly doesn’t feel wrong to her.

“N-no.” He plucks her jo from her grip, the swagger gone from his hips as he mounts it on the wall beside his. “Just. Interesting.”

“Interesting?” she prompts hopefully.

Obi shrugs, like there’s an itch between his shoulders. “Did you need anything else, Doc?”

“I...” She bites down on the impulse to ask, to demand to know if he felt it too. “No. I should, um. Get going.”

“Nowhere to go but people to see, huh?” he laughs, but it’s weaker than his usual, stilted.

“Yeah,” she breathes, turning away. “Something like that.”

We just fit, Mitsuhide said with that strange look on his face, a yearning she knows now. If that makes sense.

“Obi?” Even to her own ears, her voice sounds distant, like it’s coming from another mouth, not her own. Maybe it’s just because she’s bent in half, working cotton over sweaty toes. Maybe it’s because it feels like she’s only working with half a body.

His head swivels, chin peeking over his shoulder. “Yeah, Doc?”

“It wasn’t you, was it?” He blinks, head tilting with confusion, and she clarifies, “It wasn’t your failure.”

His breath tumbles from his like wind over water; she swears she can feel the ripples of it even where she stands. “No,” he says, so soft it’s nearly lost over the rattle of the vents. “Not yet.”

The static fizzles on her skin, belly rocking as she bends to slip on her sneakers, and oh, Mitsuhide’s words might not have made sense before, but--

But she’s worried they’re starting to now.

[official-alex-cyprin]

Ring, Ring

Summary: MC feels the call to Olympus deep in her blood, not understanding what it means for her and her fate. (An AU where MC is Hera’s true reincarnation.) || AO3 A/N: A lot of this is based off different pieces of the Astoria lore all jumbled together! Also the title is a sort of pun : )

_____________________

The throne calls to her, sings to her blood and watches it dance beneath her skin.

It promises so much: immortality, power, respect.

But for all that it whispers in her ear, for all that it will give, she knows it would take away so much more. It would steal her very life, smother her soul, snuff out her light.

So in spite of the slivers of divinity that course through her body, the thrum of aura that waits to burst out... she turns her back on the throne and leaves.

(The song follows her well outside the throne room, and no amount of covered ears shakes it from her.)

-

She’s in the throne room again.

A few other gods mill about, waiting for Zeus to come and start their meeting. Something about stepping up security on Olympus, she thinks, but she can hardly get her thoughts in order to remember if she’s right or not.

Against her instinct to look away, the covered throne pulls her gaze to it. There’s familiarity there, arms that would welcome her home if she would only uncover it and sit.

Her legs almost walk her over, and she has to make a conscious effort to remain where she is. It takes so much more for her to tear her gaze away when Zeus finally does arrive, but still it calls to her. She doesn’t hear a word the gods say, watches their lips move but finds their voices drowned out by the hum of something more that fills her veins.

When the meeting adjourns, she only realizes she should go when a passing god accidentally jostles her. She mutters some quick apology- a god would never apologize to a human, of course- and makes her exit.

The singing follows her down the golden elevator, finally stopping when she gets on a train.

(She’s lived in New York her entire life, and she’s never hopped on the wrong train until then- it takes her an extra half hour to get home.)

-

She hasn’t been on Olympus in weeks, and that’s how she knows it’s getting worse.

The lines written across her screen have been up there for hours, and she’s tried to get through them, absorb what they’re telling her, but it’s fruitless. Nothing sticks, no matter how hard she concentrates.

The allure of the throne is too strong, tugging at an invisible string that leads directly to her soul.

Someone says her name but she can’t focus enough to tell who, can’t look away from her screen that she isn’t really seeing as images of the throne fill her head. Its sweet whispers weave around her, and whatever reasons she’d built to fight against them begin to crumble.

Why was she fighting, anyways? She could go up to Olympus right then and-

A hand clamps down on her shoulder, shaking her out of her reverie. Cyprin looks down at her with concern in their eyes, and she strains to hear what they say.

They’re sending her home for the day.

She frowns but doesn’t argue, and maybe that’s the biggest sign yet that something isn’t quite right. She packs her things and leaves the office, and the further she gets, the more it feels like she’s losing a piece of herself.

(The song follows her home, now; she hums along with it as she stares up at the ceiling of her room.)

-

When she wakes up the next day, it’s not to her alarm, or her neighbors being a little too loud. It’s to the startling sight of the abandoned throne, not even a step away from her. The cover rests in her hands now, and the tightness that built up in her chest when she left H.E.R.A. the day before is nothing but a memory.

The pink robe falls to the ground at her feet and she finally, finally looks upon Hera’s throne, in all its glory.

She finally feels like she’s where she’s meant to be.

All the pieces slide into place and she reaches forward, a lightness carrying her into the throne- her throne.

A shout sounds behind her alongside frantic shuffling that gets closer and closer, but her aura springs to life then. Gold seeps from her ring, pouring out in droves and dripping from her skin like molten metal. It forms a wall, intricate and beautiful and unbreakable, cutting her off from whoever wanted to sway her from her calling.

Time slows around her as she takes her seat, a jolt running through her when she touches the strong marble of the throne. Her vision blurs, or maybe everything is sharper than it’s ever been before, but then it’s gone, and the dark surrounds her.

(There’s only the song now, attached to nothing, blotting out everything else, and she wonders for the first time, however briefly, why it sounds so terribly sad.)

-

Slowly, she opens her eyes again, and takes in the world around her. Her shield still stands, but her head is clearer than it’s been in a long while, and she can see who stands on the other side.

It’s a plethora of gods, all watching her with shock- awe?- and then it hits heer, what she’s done.

She tries to stand, apologies filling her throat and tripping over each other trying to get out- but none come, and she’s still sitting, she realizes.

Her shield comes down in a rain of golden peacock feathers, settling on the ground before turning to dust.

And then she speaks- or someone speaks through her, because it isn’t her voice, they aren’t her words, and it definitely isn’t what she wants to say.

“I’m back,” her body says, a strange voice in a familiar body. But not so strange that it doesn’t strike a chord with her. And it sounds so full of sorrow, the ache in the voice pulling at her heartstrings .

The gods all cheer for her and she can only wonder why.

Didn’t they hear the pain? The resignation, the... the fear? 

It was clear as day to her, and maybe that was just a side effect of whatever had happened, but it felt like so much more than that. How could understand so deeply the anguish of one she’s never even met?

(Though, a part of her whispers, perhaps it’s been someone she’s known all along. A strange familiarity that pulls at her seams and pushes the truth: she was never alone there, in her skin.)

-

A grand celebration is held for her return- Hera’s, that is. Most everyone is drunk in minutes when Dionysus breaks out his most sacred wines, though Hera refuses to drink.

And she’s grateful for that, because living in her own head and taking the backseat to her body made her somewhat fearful for what a hangover would be like. Would her little world waver and crumble and slip away?

She shook her head (no she didn’t), trying to focus on something else. I nthe corner of the goddess’ vision, she sees Aphrodite and Hades, engaged in private conversation. Except, they keep looking over at her, and it’s an odd feeling to see how sadness and joy war on both their faces.

Then Hera turns, and they’re thrust out of sight... only for Cyprin to come into view instead.

They hang back against the wall, a drink in their hand. It looks like they’ve already had a few, but it’s not enough to shake the frown loose from their lips. They’re watching her, and what must be the phantom feeling of her heart aches.

Hera watches them too, for a short moment, but it’s too much. She turns and leaves, and both are somehow sure that the gods wouldn’t miss her.

(In the midst of their quiet walk- past Zeus’ estate, she notes- she wonders if this is what it’d felt like for Hera for the past 25 years.)

-

“I’m sorry,” the goddess whispers.

It takes a moment before she realizes who Hera was speaking to, since no other soul was around.

The goddess was speaking to her. 

“I didn’t want this, not for you, not for me.” Hera heaves a sigh, and suddenly it feels like she’s taken Atlas’ place in holding the sky, her remorse crushing down on them both. “But I couldn’t resist Olympus’ call after all. The call is easy as breathing, so when I tried to stop...”

She remembers when she left H.E.R.A., and it was harder to breathe. She knew what the goddess was trying to say- ignoring the call was on the same line as trying not to breathe. You had to give in, eventually.

She tries to convey her understanding, and she’s not quite sure it gets through to the goddess, but she tries.

(It’s a constant struggle against the current of the goddess’ power, one she can’t seem to win. She begins to wonder if giving up is her only option to end whatever state she’s in- if it’s an option at all.)

-

Everything grows unbearable.

Hera is distant from the gods, and her loneliness speaks volumes. There’s a constant, lingering pain in the goddess’ heart that afflicts her own, one that runs so deep she isn’t sure the goddess could ever recover from such a thing. 

They see Cyprin, from time to time, but they can’t even stand to look at her. The few times they’ve been forced to speak to the goddess resulted in more hurt on all sides than anything else- they could never stop from slipping up and using her name; they could never bring themself to correct it. 

The goddess never punished them for it.

And then there was Aphrodite, who was once the goddess’ best friend. Now she only ever had sad smiles and haunted eyes when she looked upon them. Sometimes it felt like she stared so deeply into Hera’s eyes that she pierced the veil that isolated the body’s true owner. But nothing ever came of that.

Hades was just as bad. He could be civil, and he often wore his untouchable mask, but Hera saw right through him each time. Which, of course, meant she did too. She could see the guilt in the god’s eyes, the regret. 

All of it was too much.

And to top it all off... Zeus. He’d thrown himself at Hera, praised her, tried to love her, but everything he did made the goddess feel sick. It got so bad that she stopped leaving her own estate at all.

In the back of her own mind, she watched the goddess waste away, waste the life she’d given up, waste her body. No matter how she yelled, or how she tried to do anything, nothing ever happened.

It drove her mad. Angry, yes, but she’s known anger before. Madness was a whole other thing, one that sometimes lead her to letting her conscience slip away. In those moments, she felt like she was drowning, pulled this way and that in an ocean of souls that had been washed away, overcome by the goddess’ own.

(She wasn’t ready to let go, but there was some comfort, she realized, in knowing that she could let go.)

-

Hera’s first trip to Earth is what ruins her.

She hardly thought anything of it as the goddess stepped into the elevator. She’d been on Olympus for so long- too long- that what lived on the Earth’s surface almost slipped her mind. Or, rather, who. 

It was a punch in the metaphysical gut when those doors opened to May. May, her best friend, who’d wished her well on her way home the night before everything got turned on its head. May, who loved her, and who looked so utterly broken and betrayed at her appearance.

She whispers her name, and the goddess shakes her head sadly.

“Not anymore,” Hera says.

It breaks more heart than one.

The goddess leaves after that, quick, wanting to limit the pain as much as possible.

Her head is left swimming and everything hurts, but she’s strong. She’s made it this far, bearing the sorrow of Hades and Aphrodite, the heartbreak of Cyprin. She could bear a little more- she could hold onto May’s grief, too.

And then it all shatters- her resolve, her heart, her world.

Because, against all odds, fate wasn’t done with its twisted form of torture. It had thrown everything else at her- it wasn’t going to stop just to spare the heart of her brother.

Her brother, her Josh who’d watched her grow up and loved her enough to let the gods into his life, just a little bit, so he could understand her. Who always let her vent to him, and always knew the right thing to say to make the world seem okay again. Josh, who stood in front of her now, shock plain on his face.

It tears something out of her when he says her name, sounding more lost than she’s ever heard. The hope she hears lacing through his words is another blow to her heart and she almost lets herself drift away right then.

But she needs to see what happened- if not for her own sanity, than for Josh’s sake. It's her turn to listen.

Except he doesn’t say anything else. He backs away from her, tears streaming down his face. His breath hitches and there’s a haunted look in his eyes that she hadn’t seen since their mother died. She never wanted to see that look on him again, and yet there it was... because of her.

Everything blends and blurs together when he finally turns around and runs. She barely notices when the goddess uses her aura to teleport them back to Olympus, though it’s no relief to either of them. 

The darkness that’s threatened to pull her in before, the sea of souls that cry a melancholy wail she recognizes as the song that pulled her to the throne- it ebbs away at her.

And this time she doesn’t resist it, doesn’t step out.

She allows herself to be washed away, her vision fading quickly. All of her senses become dull, a ghost of their former selves, and it’s easy again.

(She’s Hera, and that’s that.)

[haberdashing]

Spider-Void: Tragic Backstory

Exactly what it says on the tin. (Don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

on AO3

A Beginning / on AO3

Adaptation / on AO3

Note: This chapter includes a detailed account of a fictional mass shooting incident. If that may be a problem for you, I would recommend that you skip this chapter.

Adrian didn’t have too many options when it came to sharing information about their newfound superpowers with people.

They had lost track of all their friends from high school and college, which Adrian liked to think was for a number of complicated reasons, but really, in the end, it all boiled down to them not putting in the effort to maintain those relationships, and one by one their old friends stopped reaching out to them in turn.

They had some friends on the Internet, which was great- really, it was great, they were great- but they were hesitant to talk about something so big with those friends, unsure how much their Internet friends could help from states or countries or continents away, worried that one way or another anything they said on the Internet would get shared and traced back to them.

Their extended family had basically turned their backs on them entirely the moment they came out as agender, which, honestly, fuck them. If they couldn’t accept Adrian for who they really were, then who gave a shit about them, really?

(Adrian tried not to think about how they had been so close to a number of those same relatives during their childhood and adolescence, about exactly how many budding familial relationships had been completely and utterly destroyed by one uncomfortable truth.)

Adrian was an only child, so there were no siblings for them to reach out to or lean on in this time of need.

And their mother wasn’t around anymore. She had died in a car accident when Adrian was fourteen. It wasn’t pretty. (Even after years of therapy, Adrian still had never been able to bring themself to get behind the wheel. Which, they supposed, was now suddenly a non-issue. One small upside there.)

Which left... their father.

Their father, who Adrian’s phone showed was calling them now, a little over a week after their unexpected overnight transformation.

Adrian hesitated for a moment before taking the phone call.

“Adrian?”

Adrian let out a soft laugh, and then wondered as their laughter faded if their voice had always sounded so high-pitched and childish.

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“I just thought I’d check up on you. It’s been a while, you know.” Adrian’s father didn’t say that he wished Adrian had thought to call him rather than vice versa. Adrian’s father didn’t have to say it; Adrian knew just the same.

“I know, I’m sorry, I’ve just been caught up with work.” Not a lie, exactly. They weren’t good with lies, and they certainly knew better than to try lying to their father, who might as well have been a living lie detector. But they had been caught up with work, had buried themself in projects so they had something on their mind besides the whole superpower transformation weirdness, and thus minutes had turned to days with them barely noticing.

“My dear child, always the busy little worker bee.”

Adrian couldn’t quite tell if that was sarcasm on their father’s part.

“I’ve been busy too, actually,” he continued. “I’ve been working a big case the last few weeks, but it finally wrapped up today.”

“Uh, that’s good, I guess.”

Adrian knew what their father was going to request before the words could leave his lips.

“Hey, Adrian, can we meet up after I finish work tonight?”

Knowing in advance didn’t make the blow any softer.

Because Adrian wanted to meet their father, they really did, but...

But going out like this wasn’t an option.

And meeting their father like this definitely wasn’t an option.

“Uh, I don’t know...”

“Come on, it’ll be fun! We can go to that cafe you like so much, the one with the chocolate croissants, I always forget the name-”

“Cafe Amito.” Adrian answered reflexively.

“That’s the one! I’ll swing by around six, get two croissants- one for me, one for you- and you can drop by when you finish up with your work, how about it?”

“Uh.” The silence hung in the air uncomfortably, almost tangibly. “I’m not sure if I can-”

That was a lie, of course. They were sure. Sure that they couldn’t meet up, as much as they wished they could.

“Sure you can! Aren’t you always saying how flexible your work schedule is? Can’t you make a little room in it for your dear old dad?”

Adrian’s insides tensed up. “It’s not that, it’s just, uh, well, it’s complicated- wait, aren’t you supposed to be cutting back on your sugar?”

Their father laughed a little. “You’re right, I am. I guess you’d better get there before I eat your croissant, too, then.”

“Wait, Dad, I-”

“See you there!”

Click.

Adrian let out a long sigh as they stared at their phone, the call over, hoping that their relationship with their father wasn’t over along with it.

As they sat there and stared, however, they began to form an idea.

They couldn’t actually meet their father at the cafe, but maybe, if they did everything just right, they would get the chance to see him all the same.

Adrian pulled together an outfit made entirely of black clothing, including that ski mask they’d bought on a whim months ago and never actually wore, even in the depths of winter. Their skin blended in with their clothing, making their appearance look significantly less, well, freakish. Good. Between the black clothing and the evening sky growing darker and darker, maybe nobody would give them a second look.

Next, they opened one of their windows.

And looked down.

And gulped.

Part of them suspected that this wasn’t actually that good of a plan after all; part of them was determined to follow through with it nonetheless.

And sure, their spider webbing had held out firmly enough when they were swinging from room to room earlier.

But it was one thing to jump into the air and swing from the top of a doorframe, and it was an entirely different thing to jump from their fourth-story apartment and hope that they would manage to swing to safety before hitting the ground.

They thought about what a bad idea this whole plan was.

They wondered if they could stick to the side of their apartment building like they had stuck to their ceiling before, if that might be a way to save themself if their webbing failed them.

They were pretty sure that even if that didn’t pan out, either, falling four stories wouldn’t kill them. Probably. And hey, they had super-healing, right? What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and all that?

They closed their eyes and let out a long breath before jumping.

They looked at the closest building that wasn’t their own and focused really, really hard on getting their spider webbing to shoot out towards it.

And so it did.

Their heart raced as they spun web after web and flew from skyscraper to skyscraper, moving fast enough that they never came too close to hitting the ground. Their arms were shaking. Their adrenaline was racing. Their legs felt a little weak and their stomach was a bit queasy and they were sweating bullets- wearing all black in the dead of summer, while necessary under the circumstances, wasn’t exactly the best choice when it came to beating the heat- but they felt strangely alive in a way they couldn’t remember feeling before.

Luckily, Cafe Amito was a straight shot from their apartment building, only a few short blocks away. (The part of Adrian that hadn’t completely freaked out by this point was quietly glad that they wouldn’t have to figure out how to navigate turns; web-slinging from building to building was hard enough as it was.) Adrian started directing their webs further and further up as they approached the cafe before climbing onto an adjacent rooftop and staring down at the cafe below.

They couldn’t really see that much from all the way up there. Adrian considered testing their theory about clinging to the sides of buildings as a way to get closer to the cafe, but even though they were pretty sure by now that they could web themself to safety if they failed, a person standing on the side of a building without falling seemed like the sort of thing that might get people’s attention, and the last thing they wanted to do right now was draw attention to their presence.

But even though they couldn’t see too many details from the top of the nearest building, they could still tell that, a few minutes before six, their father dutifully sat himself down at one of Cafe Amito’s outside tables. He was wearing that one brown striped suit that he’d owned ever since Adrian could remember, one that Adrian sometimes gently teased him about, saying how old it was or how it didn’t flatter him.

Adrian couldn’t tell from this high up if the plate their father had put on the table held croissants, let alone whether there were one or two sitting there.

For a brief moment, Adrian thought of how some scientists would say that their world was just one of a great number of universes in existence. Adrian wondered if, in one of those other universes, they were sitting down there right now, teasing their father about that old striped suit in between bites of chocolate croissant.

They stood there for a few long minutes, watching their father sit outside waiting in vain for their arrival, but soon enough, they decided to turn back and head home. Watching their father from afar wasn’t really accomplishing anything; all it did was make them miss him all the more, made them feel that much further from him, the distance between them vast and overwhelming even though he was just a building over and a few dozen stories beneath their feet.

After they got home, they took a moment to catch their breath, took off most of their too-hot clothes (that ski mask was positively filthy now, and practically dripping with sweat, sticky to the touch as they pulled it off of their face), and sat back down next to their computer and went back to work as if nothing had happened. In a way, perhaps nothing had happened, really.

But then one of their Internet friends pulled their attention away from their work.

Adrian, are you okay?

Adrian stared at the words on the screen, blinking a few times, as if that would answer the half-formed questions in their head for them.

Yeah, I’m okay.

After a moment’s consideration, Adrian sent another message.

Why? Did something happen?

Their friend responded almost immediately.

You didn’t hear?

Adrian’s hands were shaking as they typed their response, but this time, it wasn’t because of an adrenaline rush.

I guess not. Hear what?

The seconds seemed to go by so slowly, time trickling by as their friend typed up their response.

Someone shot up a cafe in New York. A couple people died, a few more are in the hospital now... I’m glad to hear that you’re safe and sound, at least.

Oh.

Oh shit.

It didn’t take them long to connect the dots, even though the logical part of them was screaming that there had to be thousands of cafes in New York, that the odds of the one in question being Cafe Amito were slim to none, that they were jumping to conclusions as recklessly as they had jumped from their apartment building not too long ago...

But it seemed that today, at least, luck wasn’t on their side.

One glance at Twitter revealed that #CafeAmito was trending. (As was #NewYorkStrong, and #ThoughtsAndPrayers, and half a dozen other hashtags related to the shooting besides.)

Adrian looked to the news articles and scanned them for references to the victims, hoping against hope that they wouldn’t see their father’s name among them, that he had left before the bloodshed started, that this tragedy would be just another senseless shooting that happened to take place in their hometown, rather than... than...

The victims included Savannah Connor, the gap-toothed blonde second-grader who loved math and unicorns and the color yellow and would never grow up to be a doctor as she had dreamed of doing. And Mr. and Mrs. Park, newlyweds on their honeymoon, exploring New York City together for the first time; Mr. Park was killed in the shooting, while Mrs. Park was still fighting for her life from a hospital bed. And Daniel “Danny” Riley, his middle school’s star quarterback, who survived the shooting, but was told by doctors that he would never walk again. And Jackson Hunt, a bright young man who survived a childhood bout with leukemia and was headed to MIT in the fall for a degree in Computer Science, who had been injured by the first bullet that hit him and killed by the second.

And Anthony “Tony” Ragno, a local attorney and widower, who had been pronounced dead on arrival at the nearest hospital, and whose adult child, not present at the shooting, could not be reached for comment.

Tony was one of the first to be shot and killed on the scene, Adrian read on as they fought off tears. The gunman had pointed his gun at Savannah Connor, and Tony Ragno had gotten up from his seat and tried to wrestle the gun away from the shooter before little Savannah could get hurt.

It had almost worked, too.

Almost.

(None of the news articles made any mention of whether Tony Ragno had been eating a chocolate croissant at the time.)

As they read article after article, they learned not only about the victims of the Cafe Amito shooting but about its instigator. Some part of Adrian knew, from the moment that they read the shooter’s name, that they would never be able to forget it for as long as they lived. They saw pictures of him smiling at his college graduation, saw a less-flattering mugshot from when he had been taken into custody a few months prior for a domestic violence charge that never got prosecuted. They learned that he had lost his job two weeks beforehand, and that he had been living with his girlfriend, who he had shot and killed in their shared apartment before heading to Cafe Amito. Nobody had a good answer for why he had chosen Cafe Amito as the site of so much violence, and it seemed likely that nobody would ever know the truth, as the gunman had shot himself in the head as the police were closing in on him, choosing death over a probable lifetime of imprisonment.

Adrian turned their phone on silent and let it ring and ring and ring, let the missed calls pile up and their voicemail inbox fill without giving it so much as a second glance. They checked their Facebook early the next morning and decided to delete their account altogether rather than dealing with the outpouring of messages directed their way.

Adrian couldn’t go to their father’s funeral, much as they wanted to be there, much as they wanted to get the kind of closure that that might bring. But their relatives (who had consistently misgendered and deadnamed them in interviews with the press, to the point where half the news outlets were referring to them by their deadname, even though they had been officially named Adrian for over four years now, thank you very much) already thought they were a freak, and they weren’t going to show up with pitch-black skin and prove them right.

They sent flowers, though.

Actually, they sent flowers to all the victims of the Cafe Amito shooting, sent a large arrangement of spider lilies to the living and the dead alike, to funeral beds and to hospital rooms. The bouquets were all sent anonymously, with a note that read simply, You deserved better.

Adrian knew, logically, that the shooting wasn’t really their fault, that this blood wasn’t on their hands. But they also knew that they had superpowers, that they had been near Cafe Amito only a few short minutes before the shooting began, and some part of them couldn’t help but wonder if maybe, if they had stuck around, if they had joined their father at the cafe after all... maybe they could have prevented it.

But they would never really know for sure, they supposed.

That wasn’t the universe they were living in. That wasn’t the way things had played out. Anything else was nothing more than baseless speculation.

That’s what they tried to tell themself, anyway.

Cafe Amito hadn’t accepted orders for delivery before the shooting, but a lot had changed since then, and when they were facing bankruptcy and received a sizable anonymous donation requesting that they do deliveries, well, the cafe’s owner wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

The majority of orders were still placed by people wanting to eat in or around the cafe itself, but they gained a fair amount of delivery customers as well once the option was available. Most were one-off orders, but soon enough they developed a handful of regular customers who, for one reason or another, preferred to have the cafe’s food delivered to them.

One of those regulars lived in a fourth-floor apartment only a few blocks down the street from Cafe Amito, who once a month, like clockwork, would place an order for two chocolate croissants, to be delivered right to their door.