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thankskenpenders · 4 years

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And so that’s it... nearly 200 issues deep, we’re done with the contributions of original writer Michael Gallagher. I’ve been asked in the past about the possibility of writing an article going over Gallagher’s run, like what I did with Penders. And I might still do that. But for now, here’s a shorter postmortem summarizing my feelings on the work of the original writer for history’s longest-running video game comic

I think it’s easy to look back on Gallagher’s silly old stories with a lot of nostalgia, especially after seeing what the series would become in its Dark Age. I can’t blame anyone who feels this way. I feel that way sometimes, too. It was a simpler time, with short, self-contained stories and a ton of puns, and it was a lot more easily digestible than a lot of the teen melodrama and half-baked sci-fi that followed. But the thing is... that doesn’t mean that Gallagher’s writing was good

Gallagher was always an odd fit for Sonic. I can’t really blame the man for introducing lame concepts like Cal and Al that didn’t fit in with Sonic early on because it’s not like he had much to work with in the early days. The guy was expected to write a monthly comic series based on a couple 16-bit platformers with very little story and some snippets from a cartoon that wasn’t out yet. He also had no way of knowing that his work here would lay the foundation for the longest video game comic ever made. I don’t envy his job. Of course he’d do a goofball story where Sonic travels back to caveman times. It’s not like he had much else to do

But as the series progressed and the cartoons and games gave the comic writers more material to work with, Gallagher didn’t really play along. He gave us a few solid, fun stories like Mecha Madness, but for the most part he was off in his own world, trying to sell us on shoehorned characters like the Forty Fathom Freedom Fighters or the Downunda Freedom Fighters who existed almost exclusively to deliver new flavors of lame pun. One time he even worked with Jim Valentino to make a naval-gazing parody of classic Guardians of the Galaxy so they could make lame puns about a comic they used to write (that very few children in 2001 reading Archie Sonic would be familiar with)

People generally pinpoint Penders as the guy who became obsessed with his own pet characters over the main cast as time went on, but really, Gallagher was just as guilty. And honestly, sometimes Gallagher doing it bugged me more. At least Penders had some prominent characters people actually liked, like Elias, Lara-Su, and Julie-Su, as well as some semblance of an overarching plot to work with. Meanwhile Gallagher was over here trying desperately to get people to care about a group of characters he had created exclusively as a vehicle for trite Australia jokes

Gallagher did introduce a few characters who stuck around, but he doesn’t really deserve much of the credit for that. Most notable would probably be Fiona Fox, who would become a major recurring character under later writers... except Gallagher only really invented her robotic doppelganger that Robotnik tricked Tails into falling in love with that one time. He created Knuckles’ grandfather Athair, the one comic character to somehow make it into a cartoon, but Penders helped out with that lore and did more with the character, meaning most people just assume he’s another Penders echidna. He created Tails’ parents, but Karl and Ian were the ones who actually did stuff with them. And he created the Ancient Walkers, who were kind of neat at first but quickly devolved into a tired plot device, only to be killed off by Ian almost immediately to cut down on the deus ex machinas. If you look at the list of characters Gallagher created, it’s mostly just randos he created for the sake of puns

And that’s really what most of it comes down to. Lame puns. I’m totally down for Sonic stories that go for a silly tone. I love Sonic Boom as much as the next fan, and I’ve been having a blast with the extremely goofy Sonic X comics. I’m not a cartoon snob who won’t watch a show that doesn’t have action and drama and lore, I’m out here watching shows like Apple & Onion. But while Gallagher could write good jokes sometimes, he mostly relied on groanworthy newspaper strip-level puns. (I guess it’s fitting, considering he’s related to both the guy who created Heathcliff AND his successor who makes those comics about the Garbage Ape.) I love me a good pun from time to time, and a lot of Gallagher’s are funnier when shared out of context, but when a story is just wall to wall puns it becomes agonizing. Puns should be a spice, not a main ingredient. And when Gallagher got a chance to follow an ACTUAL newspaper comic strip format in the Off Panel, he fared even worse. It was so rare for the Off Panels he wrote to actually be any funny

He WAS genuinely funny at times, though. I’ll give him credit for that. I don’t want it to seem like I hated ALL of his stories. (He did impress me with at least one political joke that’s sadly still relevant today, and in hindsight there’s something really funny on a meta level about the dark and gritty return of Cal and Al.) I think his best work came when he was paired with better artists. Scott Shaw’s more energetic Sonics really helped sell the cartoony comedy in the original miniseries, and obviously Spaziante’s work on Mecha Madness made that story legendary. When he was stuck with the less exciting Manak or Mawhinney, though, not so much

Beyond the puns, there was also this undercurrent of nastiness, meanness, and general grossness in his stories that I don’t see as many fans pick up on. This was mainly evident in the many odd decisions he made with the female cast

We had his take on Sally, who was treated as little more than Sonic’s annoying, moody, bossy girlfriend who bickered with him, sat on a big throne, and occasionally got to be a damsel in distress. He added Bunnie to the cast early on, but it felt like he didn’t have many ideas for what to do with her except make her the butt of jokes about her being a southern belle, including literally making her say “the South shall rise again!” We had Barby Koala’s extremely creepy flirting with Tails, who was half her age. We had that tone deaf Off-Panel joke about turning the special dedicated to the female readers into a swimsuit special (which isn’t far off from what everyone else actually did). And we also had that baffling story where Dulcy killed her mother. I have NO idea what the fuck he thought he was going for with that one.

It wasn’t just the girls, though--Antoine was somehow even more of a punching bag in Gallagher’s early stories than he was on SatAM. At least in the cartoon Sonic was responding to Antoine’s’ massive ego when he poked fun at him. In the early comics, Sonic would constantly rag on Antoine at any opportunity he got. It was VERY distracting in the early issues, and it made his Sonic come off as way more of a jerk

Later writers would often talk about needing to fix certain characters. Penders, for all his countless insufferable faults, used his early stories to steer Sally towards the version of the character fans knew from SatAM. (He then ruined Sally in his own special way, but, you know.) Just about every writer who touched him spent years and years trying to fix Antoine and make readers stop hating him. The unspoken part here is that the original incarnations of these characters that everyone had to work so hard to fix... were Gallagher’s

Again, Gallagher didn’t have an easy job as the first writer on this series, and most of his stories were... fine. Nothing I’d recommend to non-fans, but they had their moments. They make for an amusing read for their sheer absurdity. But a lot of it ranged from not very good to outright bad. We’ll always cut him some slack for having so little to work off of when he started and for writing stories that were, in hindsight, better (or at least less grating) than a lot of the melodramatic schlock that came later. I’ll always have some nostalgia for those simpler times. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that Gallagher’s stuff was ever all that good

But I can’t hate the guy too much, because he gave me the greatest Sonic character of all time

#StH 185 #tkp post

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migleefulmoments · 5 years

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CrissColfer Strategy #2

This piece was posted on 2/19/20 but it is originally from 2018 prior to LM/DC. It’s always amusing to read their theories about big upcoming changes in Darren’s love life in light of the fact that Mia has been a steady force in Darren’s life for 10 years.

Here they are debating whether Lea will be Darren’s new beard- a theory that required them to ignore both Mia and Zandy. In this post we see justcantgetenoughcc using the “trust me I know more than you do but I can’t share it” strategy. Honestly, this is the one that baffles me the most. While I can see the slow-motion gifs for what they are- pure manipulation, I know that TLOS isn’t the Klaine bible they want it to be and I can understand how other’s can be conned with that evidence. What I can’t understand is why anyone would trust someone who continues to say “I know more than you do but I can’t share it with you...just trust me”. Those very words are literally the exact words that should raise one’s caution flag. Mommas, the one thing you should teach your children is to never trust someone who claims to know the truth but can’t share any evidence. Especially if that story goes on for 5 or 10 years.

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ilikesomedistance There was a discussion many years ago, that they (PR and F/ox) wanted to bring Lea and Darren together. But it never worked out for many reasons.

Guess it’s happening now.

stopandimaginelove But whyyyyyyyyyyyyy 🤐

justcantgetenoughcc Interesting question.

The primary reason was always to break Chris and Darren up.

RM/Ricky all playing together. AB imo not that invested but to a degree (at least initially). Even beard (she realized what she can have by getting rid of Chris and why she too is very much part of the game now). Each had their own reason for being invested, as Chris and Darren in love and united as a team, made it difficult to manipulate Darren. In a way, that - Darren and Chris in love - was also their Achilles heel. Each put the other ones’ interest first - and got manipulated in giving up their autonomy. Chris had nothing to hide as he was already out. Why would he even need a beard? They were so young and so naïve to Hollywood’s manipulation tactics. I don’t think they had anyone with industry experience, with their interests at heart, to advise them or look out for them. It was too late and they were in too deep, by the time they realized what they had agreed to. They still tried to back out of some of their worst mistakes. Some day… they will tell those stories or it will turn up in Chris’s books.

Initially people assumed that all that proximity and playing boyfriends onscreen - and no doubt their amazing chemistry - must be why they were together. I am sure they thought it will never last or they will get over it or get tired of it and move on to others once the itch was scratched. Like most young guys (as young gay guys - not my opinion at all - but a lot of people believe that).

But it didn’t happen that way. They didn’t break up. Instead they went and got engaged over Dec 2012/NYE 2013 (that was from when we have the pic of Chris looking at his ring standing next to his suitcase at an airport). They were serious from the get-go. They were ‘IT’ for each other. They were even living together (even before Glee Live 2011 - in Chris’s first rented apartment in LA). I think it was Joey who once commented that he saw Darren only when he needed more clothes (Don’t quote me on it though. Ha). When Chris bought his first home in Laurel Canyon, guess who moved in there with him? It wasn’t W as most of the fandom was led to believe. There’s enough proof in their own words and since this is going to be a long post, I am going to leave some of those details out of this. And some I can’t reveal.

Why do you think LU Tour happened? It was another attempt to break them up and also to get Darren to declare his longtime gf of a hundred years. There was no way Darren would agree to it when Chris and Darren are together. And so his team came up with the clever “DIVIDE and CONQUER” tactic. Get Darren away from Chris and break him down.

Nothing ELSE came out of LU tour and so I am right in my assumption here.

A Darren who missed Chris on the road, who was mentally and physically exhausted from his days on the tour… gave in… WITH TEARS… a heartbroken Darren was FORCED to declare a gf - reading from a script, answering questions from a script, at the Toronto Radio Interview - WHILE he was already ENGAGED to CHRIS. There are many ways I can cement the claims I am making. But they are NOT mine to share.

If you doubt me, that the intent ALWAYS was to break them up (come on guys! connect the dots!), so much has been exposed in the last two years, especially in the last six months.

Why were they forced to have beards? It wasn’t FOX (in fact there's a story not known to many that FOX was going to let Chris and Darren come out (heck they even knew of their engagement - again stories that I cannot reveal) but others disagreed/disapproved of that move and stopped it). Some of the old fandom crowd know of this. Why were their beards ALONE always allowed access to the glee set? Why were M and W paraded so much on the sets? Why was the beard woman given a job at FSO (where she did nothing really but was given free credit for work others did). Chris was already OUT. He was a grown up guy who always took care of himself even when he was much younger.

During 5.14 filming in NYC, it was clear that the film crew took care of Chris and Darren. All their needs on the set was met along with the rest of the cast present (Amber, Chord, Kevin, Lea and Darren). Even holding up their winter coats for them to slip their arms through. W didn’t do anything other than obstruct the filming (and there were a lot of complaints about W and he had to be told many times to move out of the crews way). Do you think Chris paid for W to accompany him to NYC where he wasn’t needed at all? Who had the most to gain from that decision to have W there?

The beards were ALWAYS meant to WEAR THE GUYS DOWN. To create discord between them. To grate on their nerves. To be a thorn in their side. You get the drift. It still didn’t work. Those two guys still stayed strong.

Yes, there was an attempt to END KLAINE early in S6 and use Darren/Blaine as Lea/Rachel’s LI and have them be the prime couple who got married to each other (instead of a Finchel wedding that RM always talked about) at the SERIES Finale. That didn’t work either. That story is known to many in the fandom. But is not mine to tell.

Look at all the attempts made to prevent Darren and Chris coming out. Since 2015.

I have repeated this so many times since 2015 and am going to repeat it ONE LAST TIME for the people who have joined the fandom since 2015.

Glee was filming the last season. Beards were barely on the set even with all the heavy make-out scenes (heavier Kliss scenes, emotional scenes, the elevator scene, the wedding, future Klaine etc). Guess everyone felt bearding was ending too as Glee only had a few more months left. We got the NOW FAMOUS BTS interview from the ranch - the day the Klaine wedding was being filmed - where Chris and Darren were interviewed by Leanne Aguilera (and not M). Where they admitted so much and looked radiant and vibrant. Best of all they admitted to being good friends in real life.

Then we got the Ellen Show where Darren and Chris interacted and wrote each others names (not to mention the incident where Chord slipped up and mentioned meeting Chris and Darren. Nothing dramatic happened by way of reaction or retaliation from PR). Then came the Paleyfest and the Mario Lopez radio Interview - where Chris was present with Darren and Mario in the recording room. We counted Chris’s laughter interspersed - at least five times. It wasn’t edited out. We rioted over all of those events repeatedly. It was like the CC drought was finally over. They were allowed to breathe free. And acknowledge each other. Say they were good friends with each other.

[We have proof on several claims I make here and are known to a lot of people but we can’t share them yet].

We knew they went on a European vacation that ended in Paris where Darren had to attend the CON with a few other Glee cast. Darren alone didn’t stay at the hotel where the CON was held, where the rest of the cast stayed. Ask yourself why. Darren returns to NYC and starts rehearsing for Hedwig Broadway that starts mid-April. Everyone was happy and there were several SM follows of both Darren and Chris back to back by Hedwig Crew and BTS crowd. Lot of happy tweets and fun stuff.

It felt like Darren had a few more months left to freedom. Chris plans his TLOS4 book tour around Darren’s closing show at Belasco - so that he can sit in the audience and not watch from the shadows as he did during the first 119 days of the run. Alla Plotkin, Chris’s publicist, allowed it and supported it (if there were any known contracts or clauses that prohibited Chris’s presence at the closing show, Alla wouldn’t have /couldn’t have allowed it) and planned the whole tour accordingly with Chris.

So close to freedom and to coming out… and then out of the blue, Darren’s perfectly written Broadway BIO was edited to a mess of a BIO and ‘xos to mia’ was included. Overnight Darren’s personal life got hijacked by a scheming woman and Darren’s manager. Eleni who was a longtime good friend of Jeff Jernigan, was appointed as Darren’s assistant (watchdog) at Belasco. Darren who hadn’t even seen or heard from the beard for many months, and Darren who had never displayed any real closeness to the woman - posts a dressing room kiss (long story about that too. (Read mleigh69’s post on how the Belasco kiss was staged).

From there on, everything went to hell in a hand basket. All their hopes and plans were dashed.

From that time to the present, how closely Darren is monitored and watched and babysat…is ridiculous. Darren has more people on his secret service detail, sometimes more than even the President himself (it feels like). He sang 4 songs in Utah recently and he had Ricky, AB, Jeff Jernigan, Eleni, beard and Ken Sunshine (the boss of Sunshine Sachs) with him in Utah.

All their attempts to coming out was thwarted. Chris wasn’t allowed to attend the Hedwig closing show even though he had timed it to end the day before, giving him time enough to fly to NYC from LA. Chris who had never made a career misstep, chose to put his reputation as a children’s book author on the line by acting drunk - just so he could get on a plane to NYC. He had to watch the closing show from the shadows but am sure that was preferable to being beaten or giving in to two conniving people.

Even the ENCAGE was partially to stop CrissColfer from coming out. See what the encage did. All of Darren’s commitments and obligations were OVER AND DONE with by then… except for the NOOSE called the encage now. That was pretty timely, wasn’t it?

Why is Darren going on a tour with Lea Michele when Lea’s album was poorly received and didn’t do well at all? All her shows failed. She really has nothing much going on. Hmmmm…

If am guessing, let me be wrong for one last time… WHAT IF IT IS TO KEEP CHRIS AND DARREN APART? As all their attempts and excuses to prevent Chris and Darren FROM COMING OUT ARE EXHAUSTED?

So now there are tours and MORE TOURS… where Darren's TEAM THINKS he has to remain NO HOMO for the tours to sell. They quickly got him committed to a LONDON concert while ACS was still airing.

Now ACS is over.

And sure enough, just as the ENCAGE IS COMING APART AT THE SEAMS… we have THE LM/DC TOUR!!!!

tahtah678

#crisscolfer #debunking cc lies #Lea as the new beard

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uchiuzus · 7 years

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the lengths you’re willing to go to

Naruto... does not want to live forever. (1,862 words, naruto-centric introspection, sad fluff sns)

It's within natural disposition as a jinchuuriki to question one's mortality. This, Naruto knows, and every time he's been injured, he's thought: How far is too far?

There aren't exactly scores of people he can discuss this with. Even if she were alive, he's not sure his mom could give him an answer. He considers all the other jinchuuriki family, but they're always too far apart for any kind of good discussion to be held about it. The only person he can consider reliable for the topic is Gaara, and even he can't come around much (being Kazekage and all).

During one of his visits, Gaara had been very candid about it all. They're two very different people on the outside and while they'd grown up similarly, Naruto can't say he can put himself in Gaara's shoes well.

"When I was very young, I learned there was no way out."

He'd meant, they were trapped in this existence until death naturally took them or someone took the bijuu out of them. Before coming to terms with what they were, it was an exhausting, pointless existence. Gaara had explained how he thought there was no reason that someone like him should be alive. To be a cage for a weapon to a village that didn't care for him? What a nightmare.

Naruto still can't say he disagreed.

After his initial showdown with Naruto and returning to the Sand, Gaara had considered what it meant to be Kazekage. For someone like him, he'd explained, it seemed impossible; the people were terrified of him, he could just barely control Shukaku inside of him, and the legacy of his father... was a burden on him.

Gaara is extensively self-taught in self-love, and after all those years of it, he hadn't known how to love anyone else, or how to protect anyone else.

"The answer was simple after that. I didn't have to protect because of love. I could protect for protection's sake."

The rest had followed.

While Gaara had lived for himself, and then learned to live for other people, Naruto had always lived for the sake of others. He'd considered how this lead up to his current life and found that there were few things—though they were heavy enough—he regretted. Living for others had never betrayed him. He'd never even considered trying to live selfishly like Gaara had, no matter the pain others put him through.

Naruto can't remember when it was that he realized just how powerful he is. That if he wants to, he can level the entirety of the Leaf and not break a sweat. He passes people in the streets and in their faces, finds awe, reverence—and fear. He's not the only one aware of his capabilities.

But for all that he's a weapon of mass destruction, he's also just a man—boy. It still baffles him sometimes how people can't understand that; that he sheds tears and bleeds just like they do, that he hurts and fears like they do. He isn't... not human. Maybe he's not entirely human, but he definitely isn't not one. There's a middle ground for him to share with them.

The question of it all is, even though he's maybe-not-entirely-human-but-still-not-not-a-human, how much can he really be hurt? By someone else. There's been mortal injuries before—mostly by exactly one person's hand—but Naruto's walked away with nothing to show for it mere days later, with his emotional scars tucked away deeply under his skin.

He's got absolutely nothing to show for all the battles and torment he's been through: Every inch of his skin is pristine, scar free, without mar.

Is he upset about it? He's not sure. He's not mad at least, and he's grateful to Kurama for his life many times over, even if the fox only saved it out of self-preservation nine times out of ten. The problem is, it's brought about all this confusion.

Can jinchuuriki die? Yes. The answer is yes, because Gaara had died once, because other jinchuuriki had died. Naruto, though...

Naruto has never died, not even once. Not even near it. Every time he's been close, Kurama had cloaked him in blood red and took care of the rest, and after that, even when his virulent chakra had scalded Naruto's skin, there was nothing to indicate the meltdown had ever happened at all. His life is Kurama's, and Kurama isn't ready to die—Naruto's not sure he ever will be.

It's not like there are many examples to go off of: Mito Uzumaki had died of old age, and Kushina Uzumaki... Well.

So now there's Naruto Uzumaki, a boy who can be hurt, but seems invincible. Kurama likes him, so if he wanted, could he stop Naruto from dying entirely? The thought is alarming, earth-shaking. He isn't about to ask him about such a heinous thing.

Naruto... does not want to live forever. He's already lived enough for a hundred people, and to want more would be like asking for a life sentence in the most torturous part of hell. He wants...

What does he want?

He does not want to die right now because there are still too many things to do, too many jobs to finish. There's the chair of Hokage, there's the corruption of the system that produces child soldiers and carelessly leaves too many bodies behind, there's... Sasuke. And Gaara. Sakura, and Granny Tsunade. Kakashi-sensei. All of his friends.

No, it's not time to die, and it won't be for a while yet.

Naruto wants to live long enough to figure out what he truly wants out of life, and then live long enough to see those goals through. He wants to find peace as a human, as a jinchuuriki, and as a leader. He wants to live long enough to make his forebears proud, to make those who will follow proud, and to make his most important people proud. He'll have help, of course. He's never alone now, and even if, someday, everyone turns their backs on him, he knows at least one person will still stay by his side.

Now it's a matter of what'll happen after that. What will happen to this unscathed body when he's too tired to carry on? Will Kurama let him go? There's no such thing as true immortality, but if anyone could achieve it, it'd definitely be the giant, orange demon fox sealed to Naruto's insides. Gaara may think the same thing about Shukaku.

…He'd have to ask someday.

Naruto supposes it's not entirely true that he's walked away from every fight scotfree. In fact, he was very certain that all of his worrying is for no good reason—after all, Kurama could never give him his arm back. It's not like he wanted it, but doesn't that prove that when he's too tired to go on, he'll be alright? He'll be able to go free?

It's a breath of fresh air, that promise of freedom.

He closes his eyes and thinks of the one person who could give it to him. The person who saved him.

"Say, Sasuke," Naruto murmurs when they're laying on the floor in the dark. The window is open because it's hot and the curtains undulate with the night breeze.

"What is it?" Sasuke's voice comes from close next to him, and it fills the space around them and ricochets in Naruto's head. He feels dizzy.

"If I asked you to kill me, would you?"

Kurama's interest perks inside his head and he can feel it pushing against every one of his muscles. Sasuke tenses next to him, only for a moment.

"Yes." he answers moments later. The crickets are getting louder outside.

"Then I suppose you'd kill yourself, huh?" Naruto asks. Where it's supposed to be amusing, it's only pathetic and rueful instead.

"Why do you think you're so important?"

He knows Sasuke thinks the same of the question and its obvious answer: pathetic and heartbreaking.

"I wanna hear your answer." he insists. He's laying to Sasuke's left and neither of them have arms right now, so he can't hold Sasuke's hand like he wants to. "Tell me."

"...Yes." he finally responds. Naruto's heart breaks, of course.

"You shouldn't, bastard."

Sasuke snorts. "You can't ask me to live in this world without you, moron."

Kurama hates the both of them and Naruto can feel it running through every vein in his body.

"Guess not." he breathes, and wishes sweat didn't stick his shirt to his skin so uncomfortably.

"Would yo—"

"No."

"...Thought not."

"You could never ask that of me, bastard."

"Everyone thinks you're such a selfless savior, but you're actually a selfish little shit, aren't you?"

"Oh, fuck off."

Ah, he wants to hold Sasuke's hand so bad.

"You need to move to my other side, dammit."

Sasuke snorts again. "I don't want to hold your hand. It's too hot."

"Now who's the selfish one?"

"At least I'd kill you."

"You say it like it's a bad thing that I wouldn't do the same."

This kind of topic agitates Sasuke and Naruto knows it. Just as much as he can't fathom living without Sasuke, Sasuke could never live without him either. It's a... mutual fucking mess, that's what it is.

Kurama insists he'll kill both of them and be done with it. (It's a farce; Kurama would never put his life in danger—Naruto is his only lifeline at the moment.)

"The fox might not let me die, y'know."

"I'm sure I could find a way around that." Sasuke says smartly. "He has to give in eventually."

Naruto thinks on that for a moment. He does, doesn't he?

"Who would wanna live forever anyway..." he mumbles, wiping stinging sweat from his face.

There is silence for too long.

Then, Sasuke says, very quietly, "You're not ready now, are you?"

The question isn't surprising because this kind of talk isn't the norm for Naruto. He's actually very uncomfortable about it, but Sasuke is Sasuke, and if Naruto can't talk to him about it, then who?

"Nah. Not yet. Don't worry."

The floorboards shift with how Sasuke relaxes all at once, and guilt swaths through Naruto.

He rolls over and flops onto his face, groaning at the pain and how his nose bends awkwardly. His hand blindly pats around for Sasuke's torso, and when he finds it, he drags their bodies closer together.

"I swear dead last, I'll kill you right now because it's too hot for this shit."

"Sasuke," Naruto whines, tucking his face into Sasuke's shoulder, "I wanna live. Live with me."

Sasuke's chakra crackles irritably in the air, and Naruto figures maybe he does have a death wish. Sasuke's body fits nicely under his arm though, so it's worth it.

"I do live with you, moron."

"No." Naruto murmurs, and his lips move against Sasuke's skin. "Live with me."

There's no immediate reply. Then, Sasuke's hand slides over Naruto's, up his arm, and grips at his elbow, letting their bodies slot even more snugly against each other.

"So long as you'll live, I will too."

And Naruto breathes out something like respite.

I'm so fucking sick of you two. Kurama thinks.

#sasunaru #sasunarusasu #Naruto Uzumaki #Sasuke Uchiha #Naruto #Sasuke #Gaara #Kurama #miel writes

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sapphyrelily · 7 years

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vista

The humidity is a blanket you wear unwillingly, draped across your shoulders, hanging down and covering your body. Beads of sweat crown you, dotting temple to temple, across your forehead; some drops trickle from beneath your hair, sliding down your nape.

Your fingers dig into the tough, hairy bough beneath you; you grit your teeth as you find a foothold, haul yourself up.

Hot palms press against your skin, helping you, aiding you, pulling you up on the oversized vine until you squeeze the bough between your knees, trembling from the exertion. You slump forward, resting your cheek against the plant material – warm, from the heat of the day.

A careful hand brushes the hair out of your face – you are grateful. Still, you are tired, but you don’t really want to complain–

Are we there yet?

Ah, now you don’t have to. He’s done it for you.

You turn your head the other way, tilted up. You want to watch the confrontation, because it’s always amusing.

Almost, the silver-haired man says, arms folded. His gaze softens at the sight of you, sprawled across the vine. We can fly the rest of the way, if you want.

Oh, do you want.

Not fair, the blond complains. He’s seated on the vine, legs hanging, swinging in the air, finger pulling at the neck of his shirt. We can’t fly.

Nor do we ever want you to. The mutter comes from your least favourite hawk – never mind that you only know one hawk – where he stands, peering out from behind the silver-haired man. You’re enough trouble on fours, imagine if you had wings.

You can’t help it; you snort, smiling sheepishly at them when they look over at you. He does have a point, you tell them, and the blond looks so crestfallen for a second that you giggle.

I still love you.

He perks up at that, and then there’s a red-gold fox trotting over, nudging at your sweat-damp hair, poking your cheek with his nose. It’s cold and damp, and you startle a little at the feeling, before you smile.

You both hear the growl, but the fox’s tail only twitches – almost dismissive, in the way that he never looks back.

You push yourself upright, quickly. It’s better not to let them start a fight, especially when you’re so high up. You dare not look down. The forest floor is too far away – you’d rather not test the boundaries of your limited ability to withstand heights. You look up, meet the eyes of your most dedicated protector. His cocoa eyes are still hard with irritation.

Lead the way.

The silver-haired man blinks, irritation fading. He reaches for your hand, and the red-gold fox trots away, sitting and looking on sourly. The brunet takes your hand as well – the three of you stand, balancing on the uneven surface of the vine. It feels smaller than it did before.

See you at the top. It’s the grey-haired man who speaks, a hand clamped on the fox-form of his brother – holding him back? We’ll find a way up.

The silver-haired man nods, and then the two hands you were holding on to slide out from between your fingers, leaving you with a whisper in your ears. You close your eyes – against the height, but also to focus on their words.

Feel the wind catch you, lift you up.

Beat your wings, open your eyes.

See what we see.

You feel them leave you, hear the swoop and flap of wings. You jump off in a dive–

And lift your arms, catching wind. It knocks the breath from you, and you move your arms instinctively, beating the air, soaring up. Your eyes open, taking in the emerald spread of the jungle below, the gold beams called sunlight cutting through the foliage, the painted shadows deepening in contrast to the light.

You can feel it now, the wind slipping through feathers, and you wonder how those got there. It’s a thought immediately pushed aside for later, as your eyes dart, seeking the backs of those who will guide you.

There’s a screech from above and ahead, but this time you hear clearly, and you move your wings, hurrying to join them.

Come. Follow us.

Your eyes find them – an eagle with black-tipped wings, a smaller hawk with plumage the colour of sand. Or perhaps, that’s just the sunlight reflecting off him. You beat your wings – such an odd sensation, to be so powerful, so strong. Yet it feels so natural, and you rise to follow them.

They move swiftly, dodging through small gaps, rising above and above. It’s your first time, but you feel as if you’ve been doing it forever – your eyes spot their formation, the route they take – your muscles mimic and follow. It’s almost natural, how you find and forge your own path, how you dodge obstacles and roll out of the way. You feel as if you will never tire, exhilarated as you are – the wind feels so good, and everything is sharp and clear.

But you spot the plateau they are flying towards, and as you tuck your wings to dive, you feel almost disappointed. That your first flight is over. That you wouldn’t feel that rush of adrenaline again.

How is it that you can fly, anyway?

You want to land, but hit the ground and skid, roll, a gasp tearing out. The pain is sharp, fleeting. Then the shout comes, followed by footsteps thundering, hands brushing over your skin and helping you to sit.

Are you alright? What happened?

You look down at your arms, at the dirt and leaves smeared on them. The pain is gone, now, and you look back to them, smiling wryly. I thought about why it was I could fly.

There’s a huff of exasperation, and hands on your face, in your hair. Picking out bits of broken foliage, smoothing over skin, checking, probing for injuries. The more you think about it, the silver-haired man says, the less likely you are to succeed.

Your lips quirk up. Don’t think, just do?

Precisely.

There’s another cry behind you, and you turn to see your foxes – in human form – pulling themselves through a white tear, tripping and spilling and stumbling over to you. You barely have time to realise that they cheated when they arrive, words tumbling out.

What happened? Are you okay?

You laugh a little, at how their concern mirrors that of your birds of prey. Yes, yes. It doesn’t hurt at all.

Four pairs of eyes look at you, unbelieving. You roll your eyes. I’m fine.

They don’t seem convinced. The grey-haired man sits, reaching over – he pulls more foliage from your hair. The brunet joins him; there must be half the forest tangled in the nest on your head, if they are doing this. You are left staring up at the blond and the silver-haired man – they are having a staring match.

It was your responsibility to make sure nothing happened. The blond jabs the silver-haired man in the chest, his face contorted with a snarl. Look what happened!

You see red, eyes honing in on the offending digit pressed into the silver-haired man’s chest. But you can be reasonable. You can discuss this calmly. So you speak. It’s not his fau–

Your words are brushed away, spoken over. The blond goes on, ranting about how irresponsible and careless the silver-haired man is, to let such a thing happen to you. The other stares at him, mildly baffled – as if in shock that the other is scolding him. The look of confusion enrages the blond further, and he jabs him several more times, the force behind each jab – stab – growing and growing. If I was in charge, I wouldn’t have allowed this–

Stop it! You jump at him. Your irritation at being ignored and indignation for the silver-haired man has boiled over – it manifests as snaps at the blond’s finger. You miss, land effortlessly and turn to face him, hackles raised. A growl works its way out of your throat, your ears are pressed back against your skull – you realise what has happened.

Huh. First an eagle, then a fox. Today is full of new things.

You feel everyone staring at you – in shock? It’s the blond who speaks first, an indescribable look on his face as he examines his finger.

Huh. Kinky.

You think you hear the silver-haired man growl as you leap at the blond again – does his idiocy know no bounds? – but he steps back, and the red-gold fox faces you instead. He puts his head down on his paws, looking up at you, eyes wide. He lets out a small yip.

I’m not really sorry.

You rush him, snapping at his neck, but he skips away, steps light. His tail wags, and you can’t believe it – he’s having fun, after having the audacity to insult your fiercest guardian. For a mistake that you made, not that he knows that. He refused to listen to your explanation.

Come back here.

Why? You can play with me!

You leap at him again; he dodges. But a flying blur knocks him down, pins him, and you trot up to red-gold smothered by grey-brown, staring at his upside-down muzzle.

You bare your teeth. Don’t touch my eagle.

A confused sound slips out of him. I didn’t even get to.

You jabbed him!

Bah. A small act.

Your jaws close around his neck to shake him. The scent and taste of fur choke you, but you won’t let go. You won’t, until he listens. I made the mistake, don’t you dare take it out on him.

He let you hurt yourself!

We were almost there! So I turned back a little early because I was thinking too much – it’s not his fault!

He grumbles, a deep rumble that resonates through you. You still haven’t let go of his throat. He still should’ve protected you.

You couldn’t have done better, so shut up. It’s his brother who speaks – you see his muzzle lift, out of the corner of your eye. Your jaw clamps down a little more tightly as you feel the complaint about to be made, and it turns into a whine instead.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, geez! Let me go already.

You’re not very sorry.

No.

You let go of his neck to snarl at him, batting his nose. He whines and bucks his brother off, flattening himself to the ground to look up at you. I’m never really gonna be sorry, so what’re you gonna do?

Kick you off the plateau. Surprise overshadows anger and you blink. Look down at your hands. Back to the flat fox, who had perked up at your transformation but shrinks back under your gaze. Maybe a little free fall–

Nooo. The blond jumps up, grabs your hands. His expression pleads as his words do. Mercy!

You frown at him, but the anger has ebbed away. You likely do not look as fierce as you wish. Maybe I won’t.

His face brightens. Bless you, oh sweet and merciful friend–

You’re not off the hook, you warn. We look out for each other and we don’t throw false accusations. Get along, you hear?

Yes, yes, yes, he mutters, yelping when you pinch his hands. Ow! I get it, I do! Stop looking at me like that!

Can I throw him off anyway?

Your lips twitch at the corners when you pick up the silver-haired man's murmur. Maybe later. Let’s look at the view first.

I want to help throw him off, you hear the brunet say, even as you rise and follow them to the edge of the cliff. I have grievances with him.

Get along, you remind as you pass by. You don’t look back, but you know the scowl he wears. It’s no secret that he doesn’t like the blond.

The grey-haired man offers his hand; you take it, stepping over small rocks to the edge of the plateau. You stop and squint – where did that mist come from? – trying to make out what lies beneath the veil.

Hands are on your shoulders, one pair, two – no, four. It’s almost unbearably warm – the heat of their bodies combined with the humidity. But you hear them whisper, and you think you might be able to bear it, if only for a few minutes.

See what we see.

And you do.

Your vision expands, taking in the larger picture. Lush emerald treetops, speckled with varying shades of green. Sunlight sparkling as it reflects off leaves, as it trickles between layers of densely packed branches. Oversized and overgrown foliage twist on and around each other; stretching to the sky, crawling across the ground. Scenes you do not dare to believe – thick vines, like the beanstalk of yore; crumbling architecture from civilizations long dead. So much, in so small a space.

You see how widely the forest reaches, the never-ending horizon of jade. You see the life buzzing in each tier of the jungle – birds soaring, insects fluttering between boughs, animals chittering as they clamber up and down. You gasp aloud as you dive, your vision taking in everything that the wild expanse has to offer. Shadows deep, highlighted by sharp spears of light. The wild breath of the forest – the aged spirits that dwell in each perennial, glittering in the edges of your vision, looking on curiously before they fade. So much life, so much coexistence; layers upon layers of sights and wonders, all bundled in one place.

And suddenly you are snapped back into your body, watching the mist clear from the canopy. Feel the weight on your shoulders lift as the hands pull back.

You exhale softly, wondrously. Wow.

Was it worth it? The voices of two, the duo who get to witness such sights all the time, they echo in your ears. You turn back to face them, smiling, smiling – hoping your amazement and gratitude and awe can be communicated in one gesture.

(But you think you know; nothing you say or do could be enough. How could it be, when there is no name for what you feel – this expanding joy?)

(It’s so much, too much.)

Yes, you say. In the end, it is all you can say. Yes, yes, yes.

You hold out your arms, but before you can move forward, you are swept up – caught around the waist, spun round and round, laughter echoing in your ears. Your own? His? You do not know.

You are set down; you have barely a second of reprieve before you are rushed – arms and bodies and a cocoon of sweltering heat as everyone joins the celebratory pile. What you are celebrating, you know not.

But still you laugh and laugh, giddy over the thought that everyone is here, enjoying this moment together. Witnessing the magnificent view together. Sharing this instance of pure bliss. Unending, unadulterated joy.

Perhaps then you open your eyes to meet cocoa, scrunched with adoration. Perhaps you lean in a little, brush your noses together, press your lips together lightly. A smile stretches across your face at how soft and sweet and heart-meltingly warm you feel.

And even after, you get tugged back to meet gold eyes, a pout under a blond fringe. Perhaps again, you give in, and lean in to extract a kiss there. Perhaps you feel him press harder, tugging at your lower lip, nibbling and teasing and begging for more.

Perhaps, perhaps, and maybe. Though there is so much more to explore, right now you’re drunk on happiness and the dizziness that comes with too much laughter. Caught up in the moment, like amber trapping fossils.

Perhaps after, there would be more outings to mimic this one; climbing ridiculously tall trees and vines, exploring other swathes of jungle; finding increasingly breath-taking views to see and share.

And of course: ever more moments to be experienced and treasured, as you make more memories with the people you care about.

A prickle across your back; your body complaining about the heat. You sigh a little.

Perhaps the day will always be too warm, but you know yourself.

You’d rather be warm than cold.

#atsumu x reader #semi x reader #semi eita #miya atsumu #shirabu kenjirou #miya osamu #my writing #they go exploring in the jungle!!!

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the-whump-files · 7 years

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fic: “in the wee, small hours”

TITLE: “in the wee, small hours” FANDOM: X-Files CHARACTERS: Dana Scully, Fox Mulder AUTHORS: the-whump-files {my girlfriend beta’d, but since she’s not part of this community {{she just loves me a lot}} her identity is staying anonymous} RATING: Teen {some very mild sexual innuendo and language} TAGS: whump, hurt/comfort, sneezefic, x files, msr AUTHORS’ NOTES: look, there is not NEARLY enough Scully-centric whump fic out there, and I consider it my life’s mission to change that sad fact. SUMMARY: In which Scully is sick during a stakeout and Mulder is teasing and there's lots of bantering because what else do you do on stakeouts, right? {Also lots of comforting and snuggles, because of course there are.} SPOILERS: None! A few references to the show, but nothing major. FEEDBACK: Always gratefully accepted and appreciated!

“Goddammit,” she hisses.

She should’ve thought this through.

She’s just barely, finally gotten the glove compartment to shut--and stay shut--when Mulder opens the driver's side door. A blast of frigid air follows him in, and she shivers as it dissipates around her already well-chilled form. More cold air shoots out of the vents as Mulder turns the key in the ignition; in typical federal government fashion, their FBI-leased rental is a shitty mid-80s Taurus with a moody heating system. Mulder seems content, though, even pleased: smiling and very slightly vibrating the way he always is when they’re en route to their latest X-File. Scully often finds it charming (she’d never in a million years tell him that) but tonight it strikes her primarily as smug and annoying, and she huffs impatiently from the passenger seat. His eyebrows raise and he casts her an irritatingly cheery sideways glance, which only annoys Scully further.

“What are you so smiley about?” It has been silent but for the pathetic chugging of the engine for the first few minutes of their drive, and when she hears her words hit the air they have more of an edge than she’d intended.

He doesn’t rise to the bait. Instead he hums along to the CD (Tom Waits--he does have good taste; she’s regularly grateful that their musical interests are so closely aligned) for a few minutes, pretending not to hear her, and at first she thinks he really hasn’t. As the song finishes, he answers: “Nothing like a good stakeout to keep life interesting.”

Scully rolls her eyes. “I can think of fifty other things I’d rather be doing tonight,” she says.

“Such as?”

“I don’t know. Watching Law and Order. Sleeping. Cleaning my oven. Shoving bamboo shoots under my nails. Committing hara-kiri. Literally anything else.”

He turns to her, and he still seems amused, but there’s confusion mixed in there now, too; this isn’t quite her thing in the way that it’s his, but she’s not usually quite this violently opposed to it, either.

“Someone’s in a mood tonight,” he comments softly.

Scully sighs. “Sorry,” she says. “Just tired, I guess.” She shivers again, then sticks her hands out towards the vents--cold air is still rushing out of them, even though the engine should be more than warmed up by now. “Mulder, do you have the heat turned on?”

He glances at the dials, then frowns. “Yeah,” he says. “I do. Weird.” He fidgets with them a little, but nothing changes. He shrugs, and turns them off completely. “I guess it’s broken.”

Scully shuts her eyes and resists the urge to groan. Of course it’s broken. She wraps her arms tighter around her chest and pulls her legs in closer to her body. She considers delving into her hastily packed glove box of rations, but decides against it for reasons of personal dignity. “How long until we get there?” she asks.

“Fifteen minutes,” Mulder answers. “Maybe twenty.”

Scully leans her head against the window. “Great,” she mumbles. “Just great.”

Mulder stops suddenly at a newly red traffic light, and the glove box pops comically open; it bangs against Scully’s knees and she hisses in pain. “Don’t tell me that’s broken, too,” Mulder says, but frowns when he realizes it opened because it was full to bursting. “Did someone leave all their stuff in here?”

“No,” Scully says, grunting slightly as she unsuccessfully tries to shut it again but it just won’t fucking CLICK. “It’s mine.”

“Blankets?” Mulder asks, grinning and waggling his eyebrows. “You brought blankets? Scully, did you have something in mind?”

“Oh, my God.”

“Because though we don’t have a hotel room at the moment, that can easily be arranged.”

“Mulder.”

“And is that a flask?” he exclaims, utterly delighted. “Agent Doctor Dana Straightlaced Scully, I’m shocked. Did you bring enough to share with the class?”

“It’s hot chocolate,” she says grumpily.

“My question still stands.”

“Trust me, you don’t want to share this with me.”

Mulder scoffs. “Yeah, I think I’ll make that decision for myself.”

Scully exhales with practiced patience. “Let me rephrase,” she says. “You can’t share this with me.”

“I don’t see why I can’t--tissues? Why do you have three whole boxes of--? Oh,” Scully can almost see the light bulb appear and flash on over Mulder’s head. “Oh.”

“Shut up, Mulder,” Scully says with a tired little sniffle.

“I didn’t say anything,” Mulder says, and if he weren’t driving, Scully knows both hands would be up in the air in mock surrender.

“Yeah,” she grumbles, “but I heard you thinking it.”

Mulder just laughs.

* * *

It’s sleeting and all of 38 degrees outside, and they’ve been sitting in an empty parking lot for close to an hour now. Mulder can feel the rash of tiredness and boredom beginning to scratch at the backs of his eyes; Scully is faring far worse. She hasn’t stopped shivering since they left, and she occasionally sniffles into the cuff of her blazer. Mulder can’t quite tell if it’s from the cold outside or from the cold she likely has; Scully hasn’t said anything, but he suspects it’s a mix of the two. Though, of course, as she has been known to remind him, he isn’t a medical doctor.

Another shiver wracks through Scully, and finally Mulder asks, “You cold over there?”

“No,” Scully says firmly, holding very still as she tries to control her chills. Blue-lipped and pale, she looks like a child who leapt fully clothed into the creek and is being forced to serve her due time-out in a belligerent, adorable caricature of misery.

“You know,” Mulder says, “I seem to recall there being some blankets in that glove box. Just throwing that out there.”

“How very observant of you, Mulder.”

“Blankets are very warm.”

The corners of Scully’s mouth twitch, but she doesn’t smile. “Right again, Sherlock.”

Slowly, very slowly, Mulder opens the glove box and retrieves a purple and especially cozy fleece blanket. Unfolding it halfway--it’s made for a queen bed, but Dana Scully isn’t quite a queen-bed-sized human--he drapes it over Scully’s legs and lap and pats it gently a few times, like it’s a sleepy kitten. The shivering she’d been trying so valiantly to suppress begins to slow almost immediately. “Well,” Mulder says, “would you look at that.”

Scully pointedly ignores him and instead plays absently with the delicate gold crucifix hanging around her neck (it’s one of her tells; Scully is a remarkably cool-headed human being, but even she has them). If Mulder had a betting partner, he’d place money that it’ll take Scully at least ten minutes to make any more use of the blanket, assuming she even chooses to do so at all. Mulder checks the clock: 11:06. He decides to give it until 11:17.

They sit in a silence that’s become comfortable after so many stakeouts in their years together, and 11:17 comes and goes. Scully hasn’t even glanced at the blanket, and Mulder is long past the point of knowing whether or not her stubbornness is endearing or frustrating as hell or some baffling combination of both; all he knows is that Scully isn’t going to fully use it willingly and that he can’t stand to see her shiver one more time. He takes the blanket and unfolds it completely, then drapes it over Scully’s shoulders; she moves almost imperceptibly to allow him to wrap her more closely into it. Once she’s been properly tucked in, Mulder rubs her arms vigorously a few times. He grips each of her small hands in his larger ones; they’re like ice, and he wishes they had a pair of gloves. This will have to do. Not that I mind...

Scully doesn’t look pleased, but she doesn’t shrug the blanket off, either. Mulder considers that progress.

* * *

“Strip poker.”

“No.”

“Come on, Scully.”

“Mulder,” Scully says, “it is freezing outside-”

“Six degrees above freezing, actually,” Mulder points out.

Scully makes a growly sound through her teeth. “It’s six degrees above freezing outside,” she amends. “I’m not stripping out of anything.” She’d wordlessly added a second blanket to her purple fleece one around 12:15, and to underscore her point she pulls both of them more snugly around her. Only her face is visible, really: the pinkened tip of her nose, her freckled cheeks that are flushed in the way they always get when she’s sick. Mulder bites back a smirk.

“That’s it?” he says. “That’s the only reason we can’t play strip poker? Because it’s too cold outside?” He leans back in his seat. “Man,” he continues. “I’m gonna remind you that you said that when we’re on a stakeout in August.”

Scully makes a small sound in the back of her throat that could be from illness, or expressing irritation, or both. Likely both. “Never Have I Ever?” Mulder suggests, but Scully shakes her head.

“I’m not playing a game that involves making personal confessions,” she says.

“Do you really think there are any deep dark things I don’t already know about you, Scully?”

Scully raises her chin a few notches. “I,” she says, her small voice going theatrically deep and haughty, “am a woman of mystery.” Mulder laughs out loud. She smiles a bit--the first time that night--pleased with herself and with her partner’s reaction.

“Okay, okay,” he says. “Twenty Questions?” It’s a pretty harmless game, he figures, one not even Scully can find fault with.

He’s right.

“Fine,” she acquiesces with a yawn that turns into a sneeze. “Hehhh-mptchh! Twenty Questions is fine. Do you want to go first, or shall I?”

“You think of something,” Mulder instructs. “I’ll guess.”

Scully pauses for a moment, and Mulder knows she’s running through various options in her head; she’s wearing her thinking expression, her pensive expression--her mouth set primly and her eyes staring blank--which is just something anyone would come to recognize after working this closely with a person for so long, Mulder tells himself.

“Okay,” Scully says. “Go.”

“Animal, vegetable, or mineral?”

“Well,” Scully says, smiling slightly, “technically it’s none of those.”

Mulder stares at her. “You can’t make anything easy, can you?”

“Never.” There’s a little glimmer of impishness in her light eyes when she says it, and it’s equal parts relieving and--okay, fine--and adorable.

He gets eight questions in and he knows for a fact that it’s a TV show, and by question nine he’s pretty sure it’s The West Wing (he is a trained profiler and Scully is sometimes hilariously transparent; it’s her favorite show as of late), and he’s about to ask question ten when he gets an idea. “Does this thing,” he says slowly, as if he’s deliberating it, “have… a stuffy nose?”

Scully makes her patented what-in-God’s-name-are-you-talking-about-Mulder face and says, “Mulder, we’ve established that it’s a television show.”

“Does it have a stuffy nose?” he repeats obstinately.

“Mulder,” Scully says (her consonants are warped and dull, the m in Mulder especially, and while it may not have a stuffy nose, Mulder notes, she absolutely does), “the thing in question isn’t me. And even if it were, the answer would still be no.”

Undeterred, he regroups. "Does this show have an ensemble cast?"

Scully looks at him suspiciously, unsure of why he's suddenly willing to play along again, but simply says: "yes."

"Is this show airing on TV now?" He fires off the next question without pausing, and Scully blinks sleepily as she tries to adjust her groggy mind to his fast pace.

"Yes."

"Does it have a sore throat?"

Yes, so sore, she thinks. She swallows hard and tries not to visibly wince. "TV show, Mulder."

"Is it a drama?"

"Yes."

"Do I like it?"

"Not really, but you watch it with me because I do."

"Is it feverish?" She doesn't even bother gracing that one with a response.

Mulder gets to question seventeen and decides that he’s done being subtle: “Does this thing feel awful?”

“Possibly,” Scully sighs, surprising him. “Slightly.”

“Was that an affirmative answer?” Mulder asks. “It’s supposed to be yes or no, Scully, but I can make an exception.”

Scully blinks, caught in his trap, then scowls. “I just wanted to get the damn game over with,” she huffs. Mulder catches a whiff of her breath--is that… alcohol?

“You sure that flask only had hot chocolate in it, Scully?” he asks. (She’d opened it around the same time she’d gotten her second blanket, and true to her word has not shared a sip.)

“What do you mean?”

“No peppermint schnapps?”

“What?--no, I have not been drinking schnapps.” Scully looks scandalized at the very thought.

“But your breath--” Mulder murmurs, then it occurs to him. “Cough drops.” He offers her a knowing, sideways glance. Scully frowns, but pulls the little package of Ricola lemon throat lozenges out of her pocket, confirming his guess without meeting his eyes. “I take it the thing really does feel awful?” Mulder says, nudging her slightly.

Possibly. Slightly. “Nope,” Scully says, and pops a lozenge in her mouth. “Just have to get my kicks however I can, Mulder.”

Mulder rolls his eyes; Scully must rubbing off on him. “You were thinking of The West Wing,” he says petulantly, too frustrated to let her have her last few questions.

“You knew the whole time,” Scully says. “Didn’t you?”

“Not the whole time,” Mulder says. “Maybe around question three.” It was pretty obvious, he thinks, but doesn’t say.

“Shut up, Mulder.”

* * *

It’s nearing 2:00 and Scully has spent the better part of the last hour trying to sniffle her increasingly runny nose back to composure. They're all out of games; it’s becoming abundantly clear that the stakeout is a total bust. Scully is pale and drawn and shivering again, even cocooned in her blankets. She also keeps having sneezing fits, irrepressible ones, that leave her worryingly wheezy; Mulder has taken to counting during them to hide just how nervous they make him. "It happens when I gehh--hit'chiiEEEww! G-get chilly," she explains during a particularly bad one. "My nose s-starts to run and...and...ahhh...ah'Nngsh! And then I can't st-stop...oh, my Gohhh...God...hihh'hitchiEEw! "

"Sneezing? That one was nine, by the way."

She nods blearily. "Yeah," she says. "That."

"Probably doesn't help that you're sick," Mulder says in an off-hand voice.

Scully isn't fooled. She scowls and tentatively sniffles, mindful of setting her nose off again. "Mulder, for the hundredth time," she says. "Not sick."

He bats at her nose. "Yeah," he says as she halfheartedly bats his hand away, "healthy people are always all...drippy here."

She pouts and looks ready to argue, but Mulder keeps going. "You've been coughing, too."

"It's post-nasal drip, Mulder. That's all."

"And where's that coming from, hmm?"

"Where's it--? Mulder, it's coming from my nose."

"So your nose is runny."

"Mulder!" Scully snaps. "It's cold outside and it's cold in this car; of course my nose is runny. That's a natural bodily response to near-freezing temperatures."

“You know what?” Mulder says. “You're right. About the nose thing." He gives an exaggerated sniff. “Mine is starting to get a bit drippy, too.” He opens the glove box and pulls what might be close to twenty tissues out; he loudly fake-blows his nose on one of them, and then opens the window and throws the rest out into the parking lot. “That’s better.”

Scully gasps. “Mulder!” she exclaims. “What did you do that for? We might need those!”

“Need them?” Mulder says, playing at confusion. “What ever for?” She huffs and rolls her eyes; he isn’t looking at her, but he can feel it. “You haven’t been putting them to much use tonight, Scull.”

She looks slightly flustered and she stares longingly out the window, where the once-good tissues are going to waste on the cold, dark asphalt. “Well,” she says, “anyway, you just littered, which is illegal. You rebel.” If she were in a much better mood and/or vaguely inebriated, she might have punctuated that statement with a punch to his arm. Mulder grins at the thought.

“Covering up government conspiracies is illegal, too, Scully; but that doesn’t seem to stop anyone, now does it?”

Scully sneezes quietly, twice, in response. "Hih'chshh! H'ngsht!"

“There are still some tissues left,” Mulder says, but Scully merely repeats her customary cuff-sniffle and shrugs.

“I’m fine, Mulder,” she says flatly.

“Scully,” Mulder says, wholly exasperated now, “you’re the one who brought them in the first place.”

She sneezes again. “Bless you,” Mulder offers, which only earns him a glare.

“Shut up, Mulder.”

“I was being nice!”

“Well, don’t,” Scully says.

“Fine, I won't.”

They grow quiet again, and this time it’s for so long that Mulder wonders if Scully’s maybe fallen asleep; he almost hopes she has, sleep would be good for her. He worries that she doesn’t get enough of it. He knows he doesn’t. After all the things that they’ve seen, all the things that they’ve done, it’s not surprising. Unpleasant, sure, but not surprising.

It is at that moment that Scully inhales sharply and just barely manages to catch three surprisingly violent, loud sneezes in her cupped hands. "Hep-TSSCH'ooo! Hehh...hetchiiieeeEEEw! Huh-ISCHIIIEEEW!

Startled, Mulder turns to look at her; a few seconds pass and she still hasn’t taken her hands down from her face. If it weren’t for the garish melon glow of the nearest streetlamp--or, more honestly, if he didn’t have such wildly accurate Scully-senses and a detailed mental schematic of her facial features--Mulder would never have been so lucky as to see what he’s pretty sure he is in fact seeing: Dana Scully blushing.

“Mulder?” she says, her voice muffled.

“Yeah?” He does a surprisingly good job keeping the amused/self-satisfied smirk out of his voice for the entire monosyllabic word.

“Could I maybe have some of those remaining tissues now?”

“Feeling a little under the weather, are we, Scull? Gesundheit, by the way."

Scully mumbles something unintelligible into her hands, and as he pulls a handful of tissues out for her, Mulder says, “Yeah, yeah, I know: shut up, Mulder.”

"Actually," Scully says between nose-blows, with a small but genuine half smile, "I was going to say thank you."

* * *

It’s 3:45 and Mulder has reached the point where he’s too tired to even feel tired anymore; instead, he’s weirdly nervy and wired and running on nothing but caffeinated iced tea and adrenaline reserves. Scully nodded off around 3:00, and though he misses her company, he doesn’t have the heart to wake her. Her head is resting on his shoulder and she’s snoring slightly through her congested nose; at one point, she whimpers and shivers slightly, and Mulder takes off his jacket and adds it to the blankets she’s already using. It dwarfs her, but the shivering stops, and that makes him smile.

He loves her. He thinks of that often when they’re out on a case together: on long watches like this one, in the cloying dark of a million different drab motel rooms, under blankets of stars as they race through the night--trying their damndest to solve the unsolvable. It’s never some silly, Victorian declaration of affection, never oh, Scully, my dearest darling, every moment I spend without you near me is well-nigh unbearable. His mind wanders to C.S. Lewis, to The Four Loves. Storge--empathy bond. Philia--friend bond. Eros--erotic bond. And Agape--unconditional love. God love. He doesn’t know that he buys into all this, doesn’t know that he trusts someone as religious as Lewis, doesn’t even know if one can actually experience all four kinds for the same person at the same time, if all that love could even fit into any one person… especially when said person is so very small.

And yet. Still.

He loves her. I love you. Neither of them ever say that aloud; that would be crossing a boundary that’s invisible yet still very, very present. And anyway, that would feel far too easy, too predictable, too trite. In so many ways, their relationship defies words, platitudes, logic. It is infuriating. It is impossible. It is terrifying. It is all-encompassing. It is theirs. He’s hers, and she’s his. They don’t need to say anything for that to be true. It’s always been true. It’s been true ever since a rainy graveyard in Bellefleur, Oregon, where she stood in front of him and laughed, dizzy and thrilled, because she believed.

He doesn’t know if she loves him in the same way; he suspects it, sometimes even lets himself hope it, but this is an area where Scully is all but unreadable. But it’s alright. Being present with her, close to her--that’s enough, for now.

Next to him, Scully stirs, blinks her eyes open, coughs. Mulder very nearly takes a hand and smooths an errant lovelock behind her small ear, but decides against it. The hand drops heavily down onto the car seat. “I think you drooled on me,” he says.

She quickly wipes a hand over the corner of her mouth, a gesture that makes her look about twelve years old. “Sorry,” she says, her voice little and raspy, which makes hersound about twelve years old, too. Mulder is more charmed than he’d like to admit.

“Any updates?” Scully asks, dabbing delicately at her nose with a tissue.

(TissueGate 1999 ended not too long ago and Scully’s already used up over half a box. With what he considers to be an impressive amount of self-control, Mulder has restrained himself from saying I told you so. Thank you very much.)

“Nope.”

Scully’s face works itself into a funny, exaggerated pout. “I could’ve been in bed hours ago,” she whines.

“And missed all this?!” Mulder exclaims, gesturing at the sad expanse of abandoned shopping center parking lot.

Scully giggles tiredly. “Oh, you’re right,” she says mock-seriously. “Missing out on the empty parking lot show would’ve been a veritable tragedy.”

She blows her nose, and this time Mulder actually does tuck the hair behind her ear. Scully looks up in surprise. “Mulder--” she says, half-touched, half-warning.

“I’m just sorry you had to do this when you don’t feel well. That’s all,” he says, hoping it’s a good enough explanation.

She shrugs. “I told you, Mulder,” she says. “I’m fine.”

He narrows his eyes. “You,” he says, “are the opposite of fine, Scully.”

As if to prove his point, Scully opens her mouth to retort and sneezes instead. She shivers, and finally (finally) leans into him, shamelessly greedy for the warmth his body offers. “Okay,” she says. “I may have a little cold.” Now Mulder is this close to saying I told you so, he can’t help it, when Scully holds up a hand. “Just a little one,” she says firmly. “A slight cold. A minuscule one, even.”

“A minute cold,” he repeats, deadpan.

Scully slumps down further, until her head is almost in his lap (which is how he knows she truly is sick and exhausted; someone walking by would automatically assume something much dirtier was going on, and Healthy Scully would never allow that risk). She’s so short that she can easily tuck her legs underneath herself and fit comfortably on the two seats. She shuts her eyes, and when Mulder ghosts a tentative hand over her back, her happy sigh is confirmation enough that it’s okay.

“A minuscule cold,” she confirms, sweet and drowsy.

“Whatever you say, Scully.”

“You’re damn right,” she murmurs, and before Mulder has even finished laughing, she’s already fallen back to sleep.

Mulder glances at the clock. 4:19. If they wait long enough they might even get to watch the sunrise.

#x files #msr #whump!fic #sneeze!fic #hurtcomfort #scully #mulder #fic

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theredwallrecorder · 8 years

Text

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) pt 2

Huh. For the first time in forever I don’t actually know what to say here. I guess... stuff goes down? Martin and company find out that Hellgates isn’t all sand and brimstone. It’s a fox-eat-woodlander kind of place, where nothing is as it seems. I hear the god of that realm has it in for Martin. Really bad blood, you get me? I’m surprised Vulpuz hasn’t shattered the gates of Dark Forest just to get at him.

And let me tell you, the Great Vulpuz goes for the jugular.

Please enjoy Redwall Hell: The Anime pt 2, this time featuring Martin sass, a little magic, totes foreshadowing, and madness. Vulpuz has that in droves, see. He can’t help but share. They say sharing is caring, but there is such a thing as too much. All that sharing will attract her attention.

Here’s part 1 for those who have no idea what’s going on.

Also I oughta mention that I can’t take credit for all of Redwall Hell’s awesomeness. @raphcrow pretty much started this, and @thegoldensoundtwice is my partner in Redwall Hell crime. Bless you mateys for keepin’ the fires burning. <3

@fuzzhugs Martin vs. Hell, huh? Hell is a fox, mate, and that fox is REAL.

- - - - - -

Martin and his friends were speechless. The white fox remained seated upon Badrang’s old throne, watching them with an intense, almost unnerving curiosity. He flexed first one paw and then the other, each of his movements oddly erratic, as though he had been sitting waiting for them here for an age and a day, and since they had finally arrived, every last vestige of his pent-up energy could now be focused upon them. His gaze was sharp but distracted, constantly shifting from one of the company to another, and he seemed unable to sit still in his seat. Despite the constant fidgeting, he remained silent.

Confused by the fox’s baffling behavior, Martin struggled to find his voice. A feeling of mighty dread gripped his heart within his chest, and he suddenly became intimately aware of the fact that his best friends stood just behind him. Steeling himself, Martin locked eyes with the reclining vermin.

“I—”

A bemused giggle cut off the warrior mouse’s comment. The white fox shifted his weight to one side, his tail flicking dismissively. “Oh, do forgive me, mouse,” he quipped, unable to mask the dripping sarcasm in his tone. “Sometimes I find my merriment too difficult to contain! Pray, continue.”

His brow furrowed, Martin attempted to speak once more.

“Who—”

This time the fox guffawed aloud, only managing to halt his laughter by clamping both paws firmly around his mouth. It took a few moments for him to regain control of himself. Martin and his companions shifted uneasily.

“Goodness me, what trouble this gaiety has caused!” the fox declared to himself after he had relinquished his grip on his snout. His expressive voice danced across the ocean breeze, each syllable over-emphasized with curious whimsy. “I actually do care to hear what you have to say, Martin, so if you would grant me a second forgiveness, I promise you I will do all in my power to listen with grave reverence.”

Martin sensed the fox was mocking him, but he tried a third time all the same.

“Who are—”

The fox burst into uncontrollable laughter, echoes of gleeful insanity ringing out into the salty air. Lacking any sort of restraint, he gave full vent to his rude humor, bending forward in his seat and slapping his thigh repeatedly. Martin and his friends had no idea what to do. They waited in awkward silence until the fox’s merriment subsided. He dabbed at his eyes with a corner of his cloak, his chest heaving with exertion.

“Ah, bless me. This is more than I could ever had conjured, even if I had spent an age and a day building the perfect scheme.” The fox was all smiles as he gestured to Martin and his company. “Greetings and welcome! Come closer now, and make yourselves comfortable. I have so much I’ve been wanting to tell you!”

The six friends hesitated. Out of the corner of his mouth Gonff muttered, “Ah, don’t anybeast step backwards now, mates. The passage we just came out of is gone, and it’s a sheer drop to the channel below!” The abrupt news that their only escape route had vanished was startling, but the fox spoke again before any of them could react further.

“It is rude to whisper in company before a stranger, Prince of Mousethieves,” he chastised, eyes glittering with contained malice. “Of course the passage is gone. You cannot leave this place unless I will it.”

“Tell us who you are, fox,” Felldoh challenged, “before you attempt to amuse us with empty threats.”

The white fox rested his head in one paw, pinning the warrior squirrel in place with his intense gaze. “Felldoh the Wrestler. Oh, pardon, it’s just Felldoh isn’t it,” he admonished, lip curling upwards in a scornful sneer. “You see before you a vermin, but this one is far more than a mere beast.” The fox leaned forward upon his throne like a maniacal despot surveying his subjects. He spoke slowly, accentuating each word with deadly precision, his voice as cold as midwinter’s frost.

“I am the Claw that Drags the Corpses of your enemies into the bowels of the earth. I am the Eye in the Night, a fountain of obscuring mist, perpetuating and piercing the darkness. I am the gnashing of teeth, the splintering of bone, the crack of the whip, the shriek of the chain, the squeal of drawn steel. I am the Prophet of Abominations. Haha! I am the bosom containing the void of solitude. And yet, I am the emaciated shadow that lingers on the eve of war, rising to become the Insatiable Great Maw that follows behind and swallows all you hold dear.” He paused to lick his lips, as if to blissfully sample the infernal rust left behind by his last spoken syllable. He offered Rose a cheeky wink before continuing. “But perhaps my names are too much for you to comprehend. Very well. To borrow the tongues of the living, I am… the Great Vulpuz.”

In one regal movement he rose from his seat, throwing his arms out to either side, indicating the blue sky, the quarry, and the expanse of rocky coastline below them. “Behold! One of my many domains. Such fond memories you have of this place, warrior,” he mused, turning to look at Martin with profound pity, his head shaking in disgust. “Though it was not the first stage of your many failures, I must assert that it was the most glorious. Ha ha! A kingdom for a rose! What a pleasure to delight in the folly of a warrior’s youth. Tell me, how is it that you can even find the strength to look upon her?”

A low rumble issued from deep within Dinny’s chest. The normally peaceable mole flexed his digging claws aggressively as he and Gonff drew up behind Martin. A scowl wreathed the mousethief’s face, the sunlight reflecting off the knife he had just drawn playing across his brow. “That’s mighty low, even for a fox,” he muttered dangerously. “Do you always insult the creatures you’ve just met?”

Laterose moved to respond in kind, but Martin stopped her with the gentle touch of his paw. He flashed the three of them a grateful smile before turning to face Vulpuz squarely, his voice as steady and strong as sandstone.

“There was a time I would have been baited by your words, but now I simply find them annoying. Release us to go our own way.”

“’Release us to go our own way!’” Vulpuz repeated in a mocking tone. “Hmph, what a contemptuous bundle of useless words! My answer to them is ‘no’, since I’ve only experienced a measly shred of the entertainment I intend to glean from you.” The fox drew himself up, steepling his claws together in front of his face. “Allow me to state my objectives plainly. You will never leave this place. The very instant you entered my realm, you gave up the ability to go your own way. You are now part of my collection, an object that I will toy with as I see fit. Clear your mind of all you knew of Dark Forest, for Hellgates is your new dwelling place.”

“You can’t stop us from leaving,” Laterose declared, her clear voice overflowing with confidence. “Being in your realm does not give you power over us!”

“Oh you miserable little maiden, how deeply you’re mistaken.”

With a derisive flourish Vulpuz vanished. His voice continued to issue from seemingly everywhere, eerie echoes bouncing off the quarried fragments of stone as Martin and his comrades formed up in a loose defensive circle, each of them straining to catch sight of the fox.

“I can only guess that you weren’t listening during my eloquent explanation. Very well, I’ll go over it once more. Picture this: There was a band of foolish woodlanders who traipsed into Hellgates. The Great Vulpuz made himself known to them, and because they were utterly ignorant, he chose to teach them according to his principles. His lessons were brief and highly effective, as demonstrated hence.”

An enormous slab of stone close to Gonff shuddered suddenly to life, hurling itself with brutal accuracy upon the unsuspecting mousethief. Gonff hardly had time to utter a muffled shout of surprise, for in the blink of an eye both stone and thief had disappeared into thin air. In the same moment there was a low rumbling sound, and the sand beneath Dinny and Grumm started to churn and heave violently. With breathless speed, the ground began to devour the two moles, their bass voices crying out in terror.

“Ee gurt sands, oh, burr no!”

“Miz Roser, Marthen, help!”

Rose caught hold of Grumm’s ladle, her footpaws scrabbling to find a suitable foothold against which she could brace herself. Without warning she sat down hard, Grumm’s ladle still clutched in one paw. The two moles had been completely swallowed, buried beneath unyielding stone and sand. Rose glanced up at Martin, her mouth wide open in shock. Quickly Martin helped her back onto her footpaws, Felldoh warily circling the area behind them.

The warrior squirrel was furious at having been caught unprepared. Gritting his teeth, Felldoh dropped his sling upon the ground. He hefted his spear in both paws and shouted into the sky.

“Coward! Show yourself!”

In an instant Vulpuz was standing before him. Laughing maniacally, the white fox struck Felldoh in the face with a fierce backpawed slap, causing the squirrel to lose his balance. He toppled backwards over the edge of the cliff, followed by the echoes of a terrible scream that slowly faded into horrified silence. His chilling deeds accomplished, Vulpuz sniffed disdainfully, bending to retrieve Felldoh’s spear from where it lay on the path. Effortlessly he snapped it in two. He flung the broken pieces over the cliff edge before turning to face Martin and Rose.

“I don’t always take care of the rubbish, but I’m very methodical when I do, wouldn’t you agree?” he inquired, a nasty sneer contorting his beautiful face.

“What did you do with my friends?” Martin growled. He maneuvered himself in front of Rose and brandished his sword. Behind him, Rose fitted a rock to her sling and began swinging it in steady arcs, her eyes trained on Vulpuz.

The ruler of Hellgates smote his forehead with an open paw. “And we are still not listening! No matter, I’ll be able to fix that for you. I took your friends out. Not for a stroll through Mossflower Woods, mind you. Can’t you see?” The fox cleared his throat forcefully. “Entering my realm was a poor leadership decision, mouse. You brought your friends into a trap. All the signs of a trap were there. Hahaha, but what does Martin the Warrior do? He ignores them! He takes note of the possibility of danger and he charges full tilt into it, dragging all those he loves along with him.” Vulpuz stalked regally towards the two mice, the brisk wind whipping his cloak about like a torn sail caught in a storm. The timbre of his voice rose to a maddening scream as the skies above them began to darken.

“You can’t escape what you’ve been, warrior! Even now, the wraith who has frolicked through the mists of your slain foes’ nightmares lingers in your shadow!”

Martin had heard enough. He shifted his weight, readying himself to strike. The white fox was laughing again, the air around him popping and fizzing, blurring the edges of his form. His arms were outstretched, taunting the warrior mouse, inviting him to attack. Martin exhaled and raised his blade, his field of vision narrowing as the whirring of Rose’s sling intensified behind him. Time seemed to stretch itself thin just as Martin leaned into his charge.

Then, a voice like steel striking stone carved a rift through the ecstatic tension.

“Enough, Vulpuz.”

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