#*through gritted teeth* solidarity. forever. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

untaemedqueen · 4 years

Text

The Lions Den

Mafia!Jiminx Wife!Reader

Genre: Mafia!AU, Smut, Fluff, Angst

Chapter 15.

Warnings: Smut, Blood, Guns, Knives, Excessive Cursing, Excessive Alcohol Intake, Smoking (Cigarettes and Cigars), Mental Health Issues

Warnings In This Chapter: Fighting, A Health Scare

A/N: Listen to me when I say, please DO NOT HATE ME! NO BABIES OR CHILDREN WERE HARMED IN THE MAKING OF THIS CHAPTER! Shout out to my forever squad @ppersonna, @xjoonchildx, @ladyartemesia.The champs!

TagList- @ayyyocee, @mysugabear03, @wisebtsgot7prune, @imaforeigner, @yeonkiminnie, @stories1907, @ppersonna, @brilee64, @gooplibrary, @vivpurple7, @xjoonchildx, @brightwingr5, @yaniposts22, @rjsmochii, @taeslittletiger, @pjmcth, @bts-chub, @kpoppingthempills, @kim-ji-hyeons-world, @jikooksgirl19, @yoong-i, @ruinsofangels, @absolutefantrash, @chiminies-noona, @eclectically-esoteric, @simplybree

There's something soothing about the sound of crickets.

It usually brings one peace and calm.

Tonight, the sound is like grating nails against a chalkboard. It sets you on edge. To distract yourself you’ve taken to digging non-existent dirt out from underneath your fingernails. You don’t want to look up, to look at anyone because to do that you would have to truly take in the reality.

And, the reality is that you’re all fucked. Not a single one of you was safe. This family you’ve grown into, became a part of something with this amazing man who saved you from the treacherous slave circle you were sold into- you are all doomed.

For the first time, the meeting is taking place outside of the room you all convene in on the third floor.

All seven mafia men, their women- apart from your sister, and you were sitting in the sitting room.

You can hear the wooden boards of the floor creaking behind you as your husband paces back and forth. His hand is tucked beneath his chin as he stares off into the far distance.

Digging your toes into the Persian rug you bought not too long ago, you tilt your head back to the lip of the couch to watch him in his constant struggle. It’s heartbreaking to watch, to see him so stressed and know there is nothing you can do.

Even if you could do something, he wouldn’t want you to.

“What are you moping about?” Jeongguk slurs as he looks everyone over.

Your eyes flicker to him as he leans back against the base of the couch.

“What do you mean moping? We’re all in fucking danger.” You hear Taehyung mutter as he rubs his wife's stomach.

“Oh boo hoo. Danger. This is nothing. Like ducks off a water's back or whatever.” Jeongguk scoffs as he lifts his hood up.

You cringe at his words and cringe even harder as Tae sits up straighter.

“Yes. Jeongguk, danger. My pregnant wife is in fucking danger. Jimin’s pregnant wife is in danger. We all have someone we fucking care about who is in danger.” Taehyung says loudly, his hands turning into fists as he tilts his head to the younger man sat on the floor.

“Come talk to me when they die.” Jeongguk says, his voice uncaring and distant.

“What did you say?” Tae asks quickly as he stands up.

You press your hand hard to the youngest’s shoulder as he goes to stand up. He falters with a groan as the men around the room begin to creep closer to the action.

“I said come talk to me when they die.” Jeongguk says before chuckling to himself and looking over at you.

You grit your teeth before slapping the back of his head.

“I’ll fucking kill you. You hear me? Don’t you dare ever-” Taehyung barks out as he steps onto the coffee table.

“Oh, big man coming over here. Look at him. Y/N do you think he’ll really do it, noona? Will Kim Taehyung kill me?” Guk asks, cutting off his older brother.

Pulling out his knife, Taehyung begins to advance on Guk before being pulled back by Jin and Namjoon.

“That’s enough, don’t listen to him.” Jin tells the younger man before narrowing his eyes at Guk and pointing his finger at him. Jeongguk covers his face with his hood before snorting. A noise only you could hear and it infuriates you to no end.

“Shut the fuck up.” You seethe quietly through your teeth as he throws his arm over your thigh.

“Whatever.” He mumbles.

Although the silence is terrible, fighting amongst the family is worse.

“We just all need to think of someone who would do this an-” Namjoon begins to say before being cut off by Jin.

“But it doesn’t matter, does it? Because, whoever it is still has the upper hand. Sure we can think of a person who would do this to us but there are still a million questions. Why would it be us? What have we done to piss off another family? What the fuck does Kyul being on our payroll have to do with them?” He rambles and you stare at the polished glass of the coffee table as he speaks.

You look at your family as they begin to fight with one another. Watching them dog at each other like it was one of them that’s done it.

All the women are silent, visibly nervous and you can’t do anything. You are physically at a loss. Nothing you can say will help the situation, nothing that you do will help either.

As for your husband, he’s still pacing in lalaland. He could give a pacemaker a run for its money.

Eyeing Hyejin, you take in the way her hands are balled up into fists. The way she takes deep breaths as she looks at the ceiling. She’s about to pop a gasket.

“Hye.” You call to her as Taehyung fights with Yoongi.

Her eyes snap to yours and you can see them becoming glassy as the seconds tick on.

It makes you snap. Your best friend, in emotional turmoil and all this screaming isn’t helping.

“HEY!” You bellow at the top of your lungs.

Hyunah looks over, pursing her lips impressed before lighting her cigarette.

“That’s enough! You’re fighting amongst your family, don’t you realize that?!” You yell as everyone gets quiet.

Jimin’s head whips over to your screams before putting his head back to look at the ceiling.

“We are not the enemy! You yelling at one another, making small little digs and comments against your brothers is the absolute worst thing you could be doing right now. We need fucking solidarity! Not bitching and fucking fighting like you’ve stolen each others toys!” You tell them as they slowly sit back into their chairs.

Hyejin busts out into tears and her husband shuts his eyes before hugging her tightly to his body. With a thick swallow, you look them all over before standing.

“It could be a bunch of fucking families. It could be the Im’s. It could be the Kim’s. The Bangs. The fucking Yakuza from Japan- I don’t care. I need you all to get it the fuck together. Immediately.” You say as you slam your hand on the coffee table.

Yoongi clears his throat before wrapping his arm around his wife's shoulder.

“Hyejin, Jenny and Three. Go in the kitchen.” You point to the open door and without a second glance they’re off.

Pressing your hands together, you press them to your lips before turning to your husband.

He’s still contemplating, still muddling over what must be done. And, in the meantime, you need to get everyone on the same page.

“Are you all here? Mentally? Are we able to carry on without throwing toys out the fucking pram?” You ask them all.

Hyunah gives a gentle snort as she pulls from her cigarette.

“We received body parts of someone who was on our payroll. Now that’s a message. They could have come to the front door and written ‘You’re Next’ in lions blood and it still would have been as clear. Someone is against us and this isn’t the time to be yelling and screaming at each other. In fact, they’d probably like that. They’d love to see us fall apart. Whoever it is, they know about us. They know that we have families that we care about, people that we adore and they’re targeting us. We cannot- I’ll repeat that in case you’ve fallen deaf. We CANNOT fall apart.” You tell them as you pull your hands away from your face.

“Do we all understand?” Hyunah asks the boys as they all hum in agreement.

You walk over to the golden caddy, feeling all eyes on your back as you pour a glass of whisky.

“Well what do you want us to d-” Hoseok’s voice goes silent as Namjoon shakes his index finger wildly in his direction.

Your feet pad gently over your husband before extending the glass of liquor in his face. His eyes slowly move to you and in his irises you can see every stunted and wild emotion in them. He runs his hand lovingly over your cheek as he grabs the glass of whisky. You both stare at one another for a minute, his back deliberately to the guys as he bites his bottom lip nervously.

Your face never changes. You know they can see you and even if you have all these feelings fluttering inside of you, you have to stay strong. But, you let him go through his emotions freely.

He wants to cry. To scream. To run. But, you’re here. Keeping him tethered to this earth.

He takes a large gulp of the liquor as he stares at you, his thumb constantly caressing the apple of his cheek.

There’s this non-verbal conversation you’ve gotten into as you look upon one another. You’re drinking in his dread, pulling his fears from his heart. Just the sight of you calms him, brings him this gumption and drive to do what’s right.

Family is family.

You fight for it.

He finishes off his whisky before kissing your forehead.

Turning around to the guys, he takes in their hunched backs and their forms that are wrought with nerves.

Jimin holds his hand out to you and you take it willingly as he walks you both over to the couch. With a huff, he sits himself down on the couch before pulling you into his lap. His lips traipse over your bare shoulder for a minute before he leans back.

“We’re going to have Casino Night.” He finally says.

Not the first sentence that you thought you’d hear out of his mouth but, you’re intrigued to know where he’s going with this.

Everyone gives him their full attention as his hand lands on your flat stomach.

“We’re not giving in. We’re not showing weakness. And, I bet you that at Casino Night, we will see the family who is holding Kyul over our heads. It has to be someone in the Seoul circuit, they knew Kyul was working under our pay band- we will find them. And, we will make them pay. We live under the same roof, same neighborhood. We’ll call in some lions to come and stay at the house to make sure we’re feeling very safe. We will get through this, like everything- with guns and knives and give hell to pay.” Your husband says, his hand caressing at your stomach as he looks around at the other members of his group that he holds dear.

“No one is going to get the best of us because we are the best. We’re not going to let some small time pricks come into our house and tell us how to fucking cook. We’re going to do what we always do- Win.” He says as the front door opens.

Your sister and three little munchkins come waltzing in and it’s a sight for sore eyes.

You take in your daughter, chocolate ice cream smudged around her lips and cheeks. You melt at the sheer sight.

Wrinkling your nose, you stand up as she runs over to you.

“Watch the baby.” Jimin calls to her as she hugs you tightly.

“Did you have fun, buddy?” Jin asks his son as he pulls him onto his lap.

Jisuk nods happily as he hugs his father around the neck.

“What do you have in your hand there, Won?” Hoseok asks sweetly to your daughter as you wipe her face of the ice cream remnants.

Your sister tilts her head seemingly confused as she sets Minseok down on his feet. He takes small steps towards his father, earning bright smiles from Jimin and the others.

“Man gave me a paper, said it was for mommy and daddy!” Hawon cheers as you stop wiping her face.

Your eyes land on your sister who widens her eyes, “I didn’t- I didn’t see anyone give her anything!” She says.

Taehyung stands up before kneeling in front of Hawon.

“Give Uncle Tae the letter.” He says calmly.

She smiles wider before shaking her head and clutching her fist tighter.

“Oh Jesus.” Jimin mumbles as he hands Minseok over to Namjoon.

He darts over to his daughter before kneeling beside his best friend.

“Give daddy the letter please, Hawon.” She giggles loudly before shaking her head and running around the room.

“Hawon, this isn’t a game baby, please give daddy the letter!” You call to her, your voice peaking with nervousness as she opens the letter.

White powder falls onto her as Jimin grabs the letter from her hand.

The gasp inside of the room is audible, everyone scrambles to stand up and the two kids are out of the room with your sister in a flash.

“Oh my God!” You cry out as Jimin tugs off your daughters clothes.

“Is it anthrax?!” Hyunah calls as she stands up.

Your heart is beating so voraciously, you can barely hear her.

Like time is moving in slow motion, you pull your powder covered daughter into your arms knocking your husband out of the wag before dashing into the kitchen and turning the water on.

Tears brim in your eyes as you sit Hawon down into the sink. She can feel your nervousness, see your tears and she begins to get frightened herself.

“Mommy?” She whimpers as you douse her in the lukewarm water.

“It’s baby powder.” Yoongi calls from the living room as Jimin runs his hands over her small limbs. You can't even remember him following behind you.

He breathes a sigh of relief and you crumple to your knees before wailing loudly.

You feel arms wrapping around your body in an instant and you know it’s Hyejin from the feeling of her skinny arms.

“Shhhh.” She shushes you as she combs your hair behind your ear.

“I’m going to fucking kill them.” You cry out feebly as you press your hand to your heart.

Hawon begins to cry as Jimin kisses the top of her head multiple times.

“It’s okay. Mommy was just scared.” He whispers, his voice cracking as he holds her tightly.

Burying your face in your knees, your nails begin to dig into the flesh of your palms. No one would be getting away with this.

No one.

#the lions den #mafia!au #thebtswritersclub #btscreatorscorner #btswritingcafe #mafia!jimin #jimin x reader #mafia!jimin x reader #bts story #bts series #bts smut

220 notes · View notes

dragon-grunkle · 4 years

Text

impearl

So uh. This is the Jedi dragon story I keep mentioning. It’s uh, large. If anyone reads this the whole way through, I’ll probably cry, or something.

What do you need to know about Star Wars to understand this? Not a whole lot. If you know who the Jedi are you’re already halfway there. Get a quick synopsis of Order 66 and you should be set. There’s a lot of pearlcatcher lore worked into this, on the Flight Rising side of stuff.

Content Warnings: General Star Wars levels of violence, Order 66-related deaths, panic attacks, and repeated use of imagery relating to throwing up.

Final Word Count: 10,651

A snippet to hopefully catch interest:

She drifts.

Her dreams are chaotic and fragmented. She drowns in black tar, sinks in it, all the way up to her neck, all the way until her feet no longer touch the bottom, all the way until she's pulled under and it's like she's swimming in a sea of memories.

Her own memories. Those of others. Memories that have yet to be had.

Someone calls her name. No - not her name, Her name. Lightweaver.

She remembers things she'd thought lost. Sornieth. Sore-nee-eth. Her homeworld. Was that it? No, she...elsewhere. Flashes of light. Flashes of flight. Pearls...pearl-something. Pearl-eater? No. Pearlescent. Pearlite. Pearlize. Impearl.

Imperial.

She wakes.

For the past few months, she's heard whisperings around the temple. More and more apprentices are being knighted, and she thinks she might be next.

She's not ready. She's certain of it, but everyone else seems to think otherwise. Some of the newer knights - those she used to train with as younglings - clasp her on the shoulder as they pass by, a moment of solidarity in the tumbling chaos of war. But their eyes always hold something else within them, something that tastes like a warning. Even her master looks at her differently now, with eyes tinged with sadness, like every time he looks at her might be the very last time he sees her. It's unsettling, not the least of which because he has never seemed so attached to her before.

Many years ago he'd been preparing to become a temple guard. Something changed between then and now that ended with him at the rank of master rather than sentinel, but he'd never lost the sense of ultimate detachment he learned in those years. For as long as she'd known him, he held her at arm's length. She respected him, and he her in return, but she had always known he was not one to turn to for comfort. For that she could talk to fellow padawans and other masters, and he knew about this, but direct involvement in personal affairs was not his way, and so he stayed at a distance and kept it that way for as long as she'd been his apprentice.

It's never strained their relationship as master and padawan until now.

Now he's starting to say things like "I have nothing more to teach you," and "You have done well," and worst of all, "I am proud of you," and it's confusing her, it's getting in her head and she's certain he can feel it boiling off her but he won't say anything, never has and never will, but she can feel his sense of sorrow-regret-fear and she shouldn't, shouldn't be able to feel that from him not because she's incapable of sensing the emotions of others through the Force but because he has never made himself open to her like that, and it's scaring her and she hates it. The more she worries about it, the more often she wakes to little dribbles of blackened spit on her chin and tiny shards of glass in her pillow, so she takes to avoiding him, because she knows what's coming and she doesn't want to hear it, even if she doesn't want to know why she doesn't want to other than that it’s stressing her out and she's afraid that one day she won't wake up and they'll find her with midnight-colored gunk clogging her airway. But that's not the real reason and she knows it. It's about why she doesn't feel ready when she's trained for this her entire life, when there are younger knights than her running around right now saving the galaxy, why she feels incapable when -

She's not. She's not incapable. She knows that. She knows. Doesn’t she?

So why is she so afraid?

---

Everything changes on the eve of her twentieth birthday - or hatchday, as it were.

She feels her master reach out to her through the Force and hears him whisper, It is time, and a deep thread of panic needles its way through her gut, because she knows it's not time and she knows she's not ready and this isn't right.

At that exact moment, a great swell of horror-despair-pain lances through the Force, so overwhelming in its power that it causes her to double over and retch, oily black ooze crawling its way up her throat as it always does in moments like these. For a half second she thinks it's her own fear doing this. Then the static in her ears dissipates and she hears the sirens - and the screams.

Her head pounds and her jaw aches from how hard she's clenching it, and she needs to clean her face off or the substance will crystallize and she'll never be able to get it off, but she ignores all of it and forces herself up off her bunk and through the corridors, her feet taking her where she needs to go.

This morning she expected to be called to the High Council Chamber to be knighted. This is not that. As much as she's dreaded being knighted, she knows that this is much, much worse - whatever ‘this’ is. The closer she gets, the stronger the sense of dread becomes, until it feels like something is physically reaching inside of her and rending her organs by hand, and she has to stop and lean up against a wall to steady herself.

It's a good thing she does. A moment later a tidal wave of unfiltered terror comes crashing down on her and she sinks to her knees, wanting to mash her head into the wall beside her just to make it stop. But it's not her head - it's her heart that's twisting, and she can do nothing to stop it except grit her teeth harder, until she swears her fangs must be nothing but blunt little nubs, and that's when she sees him.

Up ahead around the bend - not far, but far enough that he doesn't see her - the Chamber doors slide open and a figure wrapped in black steps out. She feels acid in her throat at the sight of him, and at the despicable things she knows that blisteringly blue saber of his has done, and at the horror that this day has become. Suddenly she can't breathe, she's choking, this is it, her nightmare has come true and she's coughing up more black than she's ever seen before, black black black until it consumes her vision and -

Her arms fail her. They can no longer hold the weight of her body and her mind and her heart breaking all at once, and she collapses in a puddle of ink. The temple burns around her, but she wakes for none of it, feeling too much of everything for any physical sensation to reach her.

---

Sometime later she wakes, and night has fallen on Coruscant. It's as close to dark as this planet can approximate, which isn't very dark at all.

Her unease is so infinite that the pit of her stomach feels like it's fallen out from beneath her. She works her jaw and finds it sticky. If she doesn't get this gunk off soon her mouth will be sealed shut forever, and then she won't be able to ask what happened and she'll starve to death - if she isn't killed before then. The clones or the fire will reach her at some point, and she suspects it'll be the latter first, based on how warm it is in here and how cloying the smell of smoke is even now, after the worst of the flames have burnt out. Her hands are difficult to peel off the floor. From the consistency of the sludge coating them, she surmises she's been laying here for quite some time. A few hours, at least. The sleeves of her robes aren't clean at this point, but they're better than nothing, so she uses them to clean as much black off her mouth as she can. It's not great, but it'll do for now.

She's stalling and she knows it. Finally she forces herself to redirect her eyes from the cracked and burnt window she's been staring out of and back into the corridor where she'd collapsed, and swallows quietly, pinching her eyes shut almost as soon as they land.

There are bodies scattered around the chamber doors.

Masters, apprentices, younglings alike - all of them slain with the same brutal efficiency. She hopes that, if their deaths were inevitable, then they were at least quick.

She can't process it. All this loss - the sadness, the pure and unabating anguish that now taints the very temple itself - it's too much for her. She wants to go back to sleep, to wake up as if this were some horrific nightmare, but the slick burn of tar crawling up her throat forces her to acknowledge that it is not, that this is real and she cannot stay here, lest she would like to join the others with this hallway as her final resting place.

She considers it for a moment. Resting forever sounds nice.

It sounds like giving in.

She gets up.

---

She hadn't noticed it before, but somewhere along the way she must've twisted or sprained or even broken her ankle. It forces her to limp now, and maybe that's a good thing because it makes her move slow and cautious when all she wants to do is run, run, run until she can't anymore, but she needs to be careful if she wants to get out of here alive.

She's still considering if that's what she wants - to be alive. Is it worth it, now? Is it worth it at this point, with so many lost forever? Half of her thinks that she should let this place become her tomb, like it has for so many others. Her other half - the half from the waist down - disagrees, if the way her legs keep moving in spite of her mind and her pain is any indication.

She makes it two thirds of the way to the hangar bay before she comes across a single clone. He seems strangely mindless, wandering about bumping into walls like a headless tip-yip, and she knocks him out without hesitation, slamming him with a quick and judicious Force push. For a moment he hangs there, up against the wall, and she considers keeping him there just a little longer, just until his airway constricts and the light in him gives out, just to make sure he really won’t be coming back -

A bone-deep chill runs through her. It's not a physical sensation. Though it's something she's only experienced a few times before, the memory of what it does to a person is enough to shake her out of it and make her let go. A thin line of black spit drips onto the cool marble floor, and she pushes onward.

There are a few more clones patrolling the area, more awake than their wayward brother, but these too she dispatches with ease - except she doesn't manage to get the last one before he comms in for backup. She's surprised at how little resistance she's encountered so far, but she supposes the rest of them must've moved on, gone to find more Jedi to kill, and they'd left only a few to guard this now-forsaken place. They must've missed her in the thick of things, seen her lying prone on the ground and counted her among the dead.

It's the last turn before the hangar now, and she hears the uniform click-clack-clicking of trooper boots on their way.

A day ago, the sound wouldn’t have been anything worth noticing. It might even have been comforting - familiar, if nothing else. Now it signals her doom.

She slips out into the hangar and hides behind a metal support structure, counting the seconds until the troopers arrive. Her fingers brush against the hilt of her lightsaber hanging at her belt. The Force is in such disarray around her that she fears she may not be able to wield it effectively now.

Before, when she reached out with the Force, the temple blazed with life. When she does so now, all she feels is emptiness. There is still life if she reaches out beyond the temple walls, of course, but the Force doesn't flow with them as it does the Jedi. If the Force is as a river then the citizens of Coruscant are like stones sitting at the bottom: it flows through them, guides them, yes, but they have no say in the matter, and many never realize it is even happening. But inside the temple, the Force always eddied and twisted in different ways, creating subtly different currents with each individual Jedi. Now there is nothing. It's as if...no, the river is still there, it hasn't dried up. It feels stagnant, a polluted feeling clinging to its depths, but at the same time it is roiling under the surface, uneven with no one left to guide it.

Except her.

Except her, and the twenty or more clone troopers headed directly for her.

Their presence in the Force is muted at the best of times, as it is with all those who are not Force-sensitive. Doubly so for clones, who leave a signature so faint as to be almost unnoticeable when not actively sought out. Now the rock analogy is more fitting than ever; she can barely sense them at all, despite stretching her awareness as far as it'll go. It's hard to tell exactly how many are approaching like this, but it's a lot.

Twenty is more than she was expecting, and that's being optimistic. She can't take them all, and she curses herself for not moving further from the door when she had the chance. All the ships in the hangar are either gone or too badly ruined to be of use to her, but she could've at least used the opportunity to get a little further away. Except she didn't, and now the troopers are almost upon her. She doesn't need the Force to be able to locate them now; they're so close that she can hear them talking to one another.

She doesn't think about it. She knows this is going to give her position away, but she does it regardless, hoping that it might buy her some time. The golden blade of her lightsaber springs from its hilt. Immediately, the clones' chatter increases and their footsteps pick up, but only one blaster bolt makes it through the doorway before it slides shut, the mechanisms that hold it open failing. It won't be long before they blast through, though, so she wrenches the blade from the ruined access panel and begins to climb.

She has never flown under her own power before. Her wings are useless for full-on flight, but they're perfect for helping her climb up this support beam. A few pushes here and there help keep weight off her injured ankle, and occasionally she even hooks her thumb-claws into the beam and uses her wings to pull herself up. It looks frantic and uncoordinated, but it's efficient, and soon she's pulling herself up onto the catwalk. The ladder to this section has already been blown out, so the clones can't get to her here unless they climb. In theory, with the advantage of the high ground, she might be able to stop them before they ever reach her by cutting off their access point - but that’s in theory. The clones are far, far smarter than most people think. They're inventive, and will no doubt find a way to either get themselves up or get her down. They also almost certainly have backup, and she can't stay here for long. Whatever and whoever they send to catch her will no doubt be worse than clone troopers.

She races across the platform to where it connects to another, higher catwalk and begins to climb that too. There's a ladder this time, which she's grateful for in her ascent, but it can't stay. She takes the time to slash with her lightsaber before moving on.

And just in time, too - the clones have arrived. Had she not ignited her blade when she did, she might not have been able to deflect the first few bolts. Even with their minds numbed over like this, the clones are still terrifyingly accurate. As hard as she tries, she can't deflect all of them. A few of her redirects land solid hits, but eventually a lucky bolt catches her in the wing, scoring a hole straight through the membrane. She cries out and stumbles backwards, tripping over her own tail and landing directly on her injured foot. It crunches. If it wasn't broken before, it is now. Her lightsaber flies out of her hand too, tumbling off the catwalk onto the ground below, and a harsh jolt courses through her upon its landing. She can feel the crystal inside dislodge from its matrix. Even if she were to summon it back, it would be useless, and she doesn't have time to fix the alignment.

The clones are still shooting at her. Somehow, aside from the initial shot to the wing, she hasn't been struck yet, but that won't last forever. In fact, if she strains her ears - over the sound of blaster bolts screaming past, over her own breathing - she can hear the beeping of a detonator. She risks a look over the edge of the catwalk. Keeping herself as flat to the grating as possible isn't enough to prevent a stray bolt from singing her hair, but a quick glance is all she needs to confirm where they've planted the bomb: on the pillar directly below her.

---

It's a bad idea.

It's a horrible, idiotic, stupid idea, but what choice does she have?

When that beam blows out - and it will, she doesn't doubt that, it won't take much more than one good hit - she'll go crashing down with it. If the fall doesn't kill her, or the explosion doesn't catch her, the clones will. There's no guarantee that this won't kill her either, but it's the best chance she's got, and it'll at least take out a few troopers with her.

There's only a split second left before the detonator's timer runs out. A split second is all she needs. She pulls through the Force and slides her lightsaber over, right next to the pillar that she knows is about to explode.

The bomb goes off. The platform lurches and begins to lilt forward. Heat seeps upward through the corrugated metal grating she's sitting on, which becomes unbearably hot. Then the fireball abruptly turns inward on itself, and she knows what's coming. It worked. Her satisfaction is grim with the knowledge that this will be her downfall too.

It's difficult to stand on her one working foot, what with the way the platform is leaning, but she pushes herself up and braces. The explosion leaps out again, concentrated and amplified by the kyber crystal in her saber until it's a pure white wave of blistering heat that catches all the troopers below within its circumference.

It's more than she hoped for - and it's rushing towards her too.

---

Fly.

The voice startles her into action. Without hesitation, she snaps open her wings and leaps off the edge. For one horrible moment she sinks, feeling the air catch on that stupid new hole in her wing, and she wonders why he told her to jump. She wonders why she listened.

Then a scorching updraft catches her and rockets her forward and up, up and over the wreckage below. The speed is too much for her. At the last second, she manages to angle herself towards one of the open landing platforms, narrowly avoiding the wall. At first she thinks this is where she's going to have to land, but as she passes the threshold and shoots out into the open air, she realizes her momentum is too great and if she tries to angle herself down now, she'll crash and break even more bones than she already has. Her shoulders scream as she pulls against the wind, angling her wings so that the air catches under them more and sends her careening upward. She's used her wings to glide many times before, but never like this. Never so fast, so freely, so urgently. They are always a last resort, but never like this.

There's a whistling coming from her right. It's the hole in her wing. It's still searing with pain, especially now with the tension in her wings pulling it wider, but it'll hold. Probably, anyway. It's not as bad as her foot, at least, and it's not as bad as she thinks her back might be tomorrow - if she lives that long.

She risks one last glance behind her as she glides away from the temple, and her heart skips at the sight of it up in smoke. There is a distinct lack of speeders flying by. Were the citizens told to stay away, or did they feel it too? Did they feel the cold radiating off this structure even as it burned? Did they feel the pain, the terror, the rage and the suffering? Even someone as Force-sensitive as a rock must've felt something, she thinks, if it was strong enough to put her out like that.

Her glance turns into a look turns into staring, and it takes her a moment to realize the sensation of her stomach hollowing out isn't just because she feels like her soul has left her body but because she is quite literally falling, her left wing dipping down and her right angling up after spending too long looking behind her instead of watching where she's going. The wind no longer catches under her wings, and she's pitching down while panic rises in her throat, and she's about to fall into an active speeder lane and she has no idea what to do and -

Her body moves ahead of her sluggish, lagging, overtaxed mind. Her wings beat hard, either of their own accord or perhaps by instinct, at first frantic and trying too hard to compensate for her utter lack of a brain, and then too little as her thoughts catch up and she overcorrects. Finally she figures it out - exactly how often she needs to push her wings down in order to keep flying - flying, not gliding, flying - at the same height she is now. Every time she sinks far enough she gives a swift downstroke and levels out again. Counting the seconds between strokes gives her something to focus her mind on and she sinks into the rhythm of it, feeling down two three four five push and down two three... It's sloppy and she has no finer control over where she's going but oh - she never imagined her wings would take her anywhere but down.

It'd be exhilarating if not for the ominous sense of being watched that keeps her moving forward.

She's leveled out enough now that she thinks she can glide for a few minutes without having to use her wings again, but she's too exposed here, so she leans carefully to the left and pitches into a controlled turn that brings her wingtip less than a foot from the building beside her. Flying may be new to her, but gliding is not, and as long as she doesn't move her wings the controls are the same, so slipping under the cover of the building is easy for her. Fewer speeders can see her here, and well - how often do the drivers look where they're going anyway? How often do they expect to see a person flying alone, under their own power, passing silently above them? Never, that's how often. A few police speeders pass by, lights and sirens on. She holds her breath, but they don't see her either, obscured by the shadows of the night and the building's overhang.

By now the temple has disappeared into the distance, obscured by thick smog and endless highrises, and though she still sees the temple's image on billboards throughout the city, these don't make her start heaving midair like the sight of the real thing would do. Images are comfortably null in the Force, if still unpleasant to look at with the knowledge of what they represent.

She knows she can't count on it now, and soon the events of today are going to catch up to her and she'll probably break down and come back with black oil gumming up her maw, but for now she's starting to feel a glimmer of hope. For now, she lets her mind drift, feeling more than thinking what she needs to do to keep aloft. For now, she is safe.

---

It's not until she wakes up that she realizes she ever fell asleep.

And that she fell asleep while flying.

She doesn't remember if she crashed or if she glided to safety. Is she safe? Her brain registers information in pieces, and the last ones it picks up are what her senses tell her about the location. White. Sterile. Her nose catches bacta. Her ears sense monitors beeping. A droid, softly clicking and whirring. She's laying down in...a bed? Medbay. Hospital.

Hopefully they don't know who she is. News coverage of the event was scattered from what she could glean off the holoscreens she flew by, so she doesn't have a solid grasp on what the citizens of Coruscant do or don't know regarding the attack. If her identity, her chain code was scanned, then it could easily be looked up by - the Republic. The Republic could look her up and track her here and she'd be dead.

It's getting hard to breathe, and she does what she can to keep from coughing tar up onto the sheets until she sees the trash receptacle next to her bed. Her movements are clumsy and jerk at the line inserted at her elbow, which she hadn't even noticed before now, but she manages to grab the bin before her mouth inevitably opens and gunk spews out of her. Someone had wiped her face off before this, and she's undoing all their hard work. Pity.

It's a long minute before she stops, and the sides of the can are completely coated in sludge by the end of it. Her breaths come uneven and ragged. It's only after she lifts her head that she begins to notice other details about the room: the way the walls aren't perfectly white but have dirt and grime settled into the corners, the way the screen displaying her vitals fritzes out every few seconds, and the way the dented medical droid's wheel creaks every third turn as it approaches her.

"Are you alright?" it asks, pausing at the foot of the bed. It's carrying a tray with what she assumes is water and some ration bars.

No, she wants to say. I just watched my entire society burn, felt every single one of them die, betrayed by those we trusted, and I am being hunted. I am the furthest thing from alright.

She doesn't say it. "I'm better," she says instead, which seems true enough. Her back and shoulders are sore, as expected, but her foot doesn't feel like it's about to explode and her wing feels alright too. "Who are you?"

"I am PT-2901," the droid titters in response, dipping its head. She notes the slight bobble in its movement, like the axle there hasn't been greased for a long time. "You may call me Peetee." It wheels over to her and sets the tray down on the table beside her.

"Thanks...Peetee."

"You are welcome. May I ask who you are?"

Her jaw locks up. Her fingers tighten on the trash can, threatening to tear the plastic liner. How much do they already know?

She must be taking too long, because Peetee speaks up first, its voice a rough approximation of soothing. "That's alright. We don't need your true name. At least an alias, so that we have something to call you." It pauses. "And pronouns, please."

She relaxes slightly. That's...reassuring, maybe. Polite droids mean...well. It could mean anything. She's probably not in police custody, anyway. The few times she's come across them, police droids have been business-like and efficient, verging on rude, and leave no room for pleasantries. She's never met a police medical droid before, but she can imagine it'd be much the same with those as well; she's pretty sure they wouldn't ask for her pronouns.

She racks her brain, trying to think of an alias she can use that won't link her back to the Jedi. For a moment she considers using her master's name, but the second it gets entered in any system, they'll know who she is.

Unbidden, a moment returns to her.

---

She sat on her father's lap, huddled into his tunic. A loud boom echoed through the sky and shook the windows of their house. She shrieked and burrowed further into his clothes.

"Shhh, it's alright," he soothed. "Don't worry. The gods will protect us."

"Who are they?" she asked between sobs, too afraid to open her eyes.

"They are the Eleven. They watch over our world and protect it from all manner of evil."

"Eleven? That's so many."

"I know. Would you like to hear about just one for now?"

"Will it help?"

"I hope so."

"Okay."

Father began his tale. He told her of the Beginning, the First Age, and the nothing that was Before. He told her how the gods came to be, briefly touching on the names of the other ten before telling her about the one they serve - the one who granted them yellow eyes like the color of the sky at dawn, and magic like glistening sunlight.

He told her of the god's brilliant light, of Her shining courage in battle, of Her splendor and Her beauty. He told her about the Shade - not enough to frighten her, but enough to color the story - and likened the storm to it. Then he told her that after every storm, an arc holding every shade of Her light burst across the heavens, to remind them that She is still with them and watching over. He told her that Light always reigns supreme over the Darkness, and to always look for it even when all hope seems lost.

"Look," he said, and at first she thought he was still telling a story. Then he nudged her shoulder, and she turned to look out the window. The sky was still dark, but not as much as before, and the rain and thunder was abating. It was less frightening like this, especially now that she knew about Her.

At that very moment, things changed. Golden skies burst from behind gray clouds, revealing the sun in shades of orange and yellow, and just as Father said, a beam of light containing every color imaginable sprung forth, reaching from one end of the sky to the other.

She gasped and turned to face him. "Papa - it's Her! Just like you said, it's Her!"

He chuckled and nuzzled her fondly. "I know. Beautiful, isn't it? Just like you.

"My little Lightweaver..."

---

It's been a long time since she thought about this memory, one from before the temple. How many years has it been since she last thought of her father and the planet she came from? She doesn't remember its name now, if she ever knew it, and had never known his. He was always just Father to her. She barely even remembers what he looked like, just that he looked like her. She thinks he might have had golden hair, but she's not certain. It doesn't matter. What she does remember is the story, and it's enough to give her what she needs.

The name doesn’t translate well into Basic, so she does her best to approximate. "Sunspinner," she decides. "And uh. She and her, please."

Peetee dips its head again and wheels backwards towards the door. "Thank you. I will inform Kaaduu that you are awake. Please wait here, ma'am."

She doesn't get a chance to ask who Kaaduu is before it rolls out the exit. She'd assume a doctor, but why leave out the title if that's the case? Whoever it is, hopefully they'll let her go without trouble. As nice as it is that they've patched her up, she needs to be on the move again soon, and fighting her way out isn't an appealing prospect. Her bones itch beneath her skin, both from lingering pain and general unease. She reaches for the water and takes a sip. It helps with the acidic feeling biting at her throat, and then she registers that she's hungry too, so she eats one of the ration bars. It's as bland as it looks and a little stale, so she sips more water to help soften it. It still doesn't taste very good, but it does help, and by the time she's done she feels a little more settled.

There's a knocking at the door frame. It's open - was never closed to begin with - but the person waiting there waits for her to look at them before entering.

It's a trandoshan, with patterned orange scales and a simple white tunic. "Greetings, Sunspinner. I'm Kaaduu. They and them."

"Are you a doctor?"

Kaaduu shakes their head. "No. But I am a healer." As if sensing her next question before she says it, they add, "You're in our clinic on Level 4302."

Her eyes bug out. That...was almost a thousand levels down. How had she gotten here? Had she fallen this whole way? How had she survived? Had she been taken? What happened?

Out of nowhere, Kaaduu is at her side and gripping her hands, counting and telling her to breathe. She must've lost a few seconds. Black threatens to crawl up her throat again, and she fumbles for the bin. Predicting her needs, Kaaduu hands it to her. Though she doesn't hack anything up, the feeling still takes a minute to go away.

"Easy there. What happened, if you don't mind me asking? What level are you from?"

She weighs her options. If she gives away something Kaaduu doesn't already know, she could be turned over. They seem kind, but she can't afford to trust freely. "Farther up," she decides. "How did you find me?"

Kaaduu shakes their head. "I didn't. My assistant did. I sent him out to bring back supplies and he came back with you. He said he saw someone carrying you, but they disappeared. I can't make sense of it."

"...Can I speak to him? Your assistant."

Kaaduu nods and taps a button on their wrist gauntlet. A light flashes. Moments later, a young human boy, probably around thirteen or so, sticks his head around the corner. "You needed me?" he asks, holding up his wrist to show the matching light on his gauntlet.

"Yes. Vestan, this is Sunspinner. She was hoping to ask you some questions about how she got here."

"Oh. I...don't know how much help I'll be," he says, rubbing the back of his neck as he steps fully into the room. "I just...I turned a corner and there you were. There was...a figure. Almost glowing, kinda transparent. It's like they weren't really there. I blinked and they were gone. You looked hurt and you didn't wake up so I…" He motions with his arms, indicating that he'd picked her up and placed her on something - a transport cart. She could piece together the rest.

"Sorry. That's all there is to tell."

"Is that enough?" Kaaduu asks her. She nods and they dismiss the boy, who offers a sheepish grin and disappears around the corner again.

"So? Anything useful?"

Her silence is enough of an answer for Kaaduu. They press a button on their gauntlet and the door slides shut. She tenses momentarily, eyes automatically scanning for escape routes, but there are none.

"You're from - you're one of them, right? I can help you get out of here. Vestan still needs to pick up supplies tomorrow. There'll be a cargo ship leaving from the dockyards that you can slip aboard."

Startled, she furrows her brows. Kaaduu knows, and they're...helping her? She gapes at them. "Why?"

The trandoshan's eyes flick towards the door. "The boy. He's like you."

She reaches out - and immediately pulls back when she feels her presence brush up on another's. It's true. "But - why wasn't he…?"

They offer a wan smile. "The galaxy is large. Your Order is few. There are trillions of beings on this planet alone - is it really so unbelievable that one small child would slip past them?"

Elsewhere, maybe. On Coruscant, the very home of the Jedi, not so much. She tells them this. Kaaduu only shakes their head.

"It's my understanding that there are certain...requirements a child must meet to be trained as a Jedi," they say. "Age and ability, mostly, from what I've heard. Vestan...didn't meet those standards."

She can only look away. She remembers this from when the Jedi came for her. They tested her ability to lift a few stones, then told her to say goodbye to her father. Her response to that had been measured too. That was the last she ever saw of him, and the pain of leaving faded along with her memory of him.

Reminding herself to unclench her jaw, she looks at them. "How did you know?"

"Well, Vestan could tell, but he's a bit dense sometimes. I don't think he's realized exactly why it is he was drawn to you. As for me…" They gesture to her robes, which she belatedly realizes have been folded at the foot of her bed this entire time. Well - folded is a generous word for it. The nacre-coated sleeves are calcified and stiff to the point of being unbending; it's no wonder they took them off her. Instead she's dressed in a white cotton shirt and soft pants, not unlike what Kaaduu themself wears, which makes her think the clothes might belong to them. Special slits have been cut into the sides of the shirt for her wings - a courtesy she hadn’t been expecting.

"That and the whole…you know." They point to a spot by their cheek. Her hands trace a path to the corresponding spot on her own face. Fingers land in the fur lining her cheeks - and her padawan braid. Heat floods her face. How had she missed that? At least Kaaduu can't see her blushing, since her scales give nothing away.

They give her a warm smile and a light clap on the shoulder. She tenses again at the touch, but relaxes quicker this time, which Kaaduu seems to appreciate. "It's late. You should rest," they say. "There's a sink here if you need it. Fresher across the hall, but try not to get up if you can avoid it. You're quite dehydrated and we'd like to keep that drip in you if we can. Tap this button if you need help. Peetee will check on you through the night, but he won't wake you."

The door opens and closes, and then she's alone in the dark. To no one in particular, she says, "Thank you."

---

She drifts.

Her own memories. Those of others. Memories that have yet to be had.

Someone calls her name. No - not her name, Her name. Lightweaver.

Imperial.

She wakes.

---

The room is dim. She takes in long, gasping breaths, trying to remember what her master taught her about meditation and failing terribly. She thinks of Kaaduu and their technique, and fails at this too. She reaches for the water by her side, but her shaking hand hits the call button instead and knocks the glass over too, spilling water across the floor. It's enough to snap her out of it.

She's cursing her incompetence when the door opens, but it's not Kaaduu who enters. Vestan steps in instead.

"What's wrong? Are you okay?" he asks. Concern broadcasts off him like a generator. She clamps down on her connection to the Force, because she knows he doesn't realize he's even doing this and if she doesn't do something to stop feeling it so much it'll overwhelm her. To have this boy, this stranger feel so deeply concerned over her well-being - it's a lot, right now.

"I'm fine. Just hit the button on accident. Don't worry about it."

"If you say so," he says, unconvinced. He checks the monitor just long enough to know that her vitals are still okay, then moves to step out of the room, but he pauses in the entryway.

He crosses over to her in a few quick steps, places something soft in her lap, and backs off again. In the dark, she can't quite make out what it is. A plush toy, of a sort, but what creature it represents she can't tell.

"It's a bantha," Vestan says. "They're from Tatooine."

Maybe he's younger than she thought, if he still has one of these and carries it with him out of bed. It's clear that giving it to her was unplanned: an afterthought, but not one he regrets. Or maybe he just doesn't care what others his age would say about it. He's not embarrassed. In fact, he's very certain this will help her.

"Thank you," she says, unsure of what she's supposed to say to that.

"You're welcome," he says, and then disappears with the hallway light.

---

Somehow, the stuffed bantha helps. She wakes several more times throughout the night, plagued by disjointed dreams and visions, but every time she does she remembers the toy and clutches it until the lingering memories peter off and she can rest again. Each time, she's able to fall asleep again quicker. Sometimes Peetee is there when she wakes, sometimes not, but true to Kaaduu's word, he never interacts with her, and, crucially, he never mentions the toy either.

It's not very Jedi of her to allow a physical object to calm her like this. She should meditate or center herself or use any one of the multitude of techniques she's learned over the years to ground herself. Without fail, however, the Jedi methods don't work and she resorts to the bantha every time.

As long as she doesn't think about why that is, it's fine. She can allow herself one night of lapsing. If it helps her sleep and recover, it's fine.

It's fine. It's not, but it's fine.

At some point, she wakes and doesn't fall back asleep. She stares into the darkness, fingers falling into the repetitive motion of stroking the bantha's synthetic fur, until she registers that the room is gradually getting brighter. Simulated sunrise, she thinks. Does it match with the actual time on Coruscant, or is it the middle of the night on the surface? Down here, without any viewscreens of the surface, she'd never know, and it wouldn't matter. Coruscant never sleeps; there's always someone awake.

After some time of doing this - sitting and watching the lights turn on - Peetee rolls in and announces that it is oh-six hundred hours. He informs her that Kaaduu will be by shortly, and that she and Vestan will need to leave at seven if she wants to catch that cargo ship. Maybe it is morning after all. He gives her a tray with fresh water and a nutrient packet this time, instead of the ration bars, and then retreats, allowing her to eat in private.

The nutrient packet is somewhat better than the ration bars. At least the soupy mash inside isn't dry, and it tastes like something too, even if that something is only the vaguest hint of imitation meiloorun. It's still disgusting though, and she chases it down with water.

After, Kaaduu enters, holding a cloth bag. "This is for you. It's got some ration bars and extra clothes, plus a few other things. Toiletries, for the most part." They pause and glance to the door. It seems they don't want Vestan listening in. They continue in a quieter voice. "There's a blaster at the bottom. It's not very powerful and it doesn't have many charges, but it should get you out of a tight spot. There's a knife too just in case."

In spite of the fact that she just drank a full glass of water, her mouth runs dry. This is too much kindness. "How can I repay you?" she asks, knowing full well that she has nothing to offer.

"You don't need to. Just stay safe. You'll be off in a few minutes. Stay sharp," they say.

---

She could just untie it.

She could wet it down, comb it out with her fingers and make it lie somewhat flat with the rest of her hair. That would be easier, she thinks, than getting rid of it entirely. But she digs the knife out of the bag anyway and holds it as close to her cheek as she dares. It's going to look uneven, but it's for the best. This way, she won't be tempted to rebraid it, and no one will see the telltale signs of where it had been either. True, she could braid another section, after she's safe, but she won't. It wouldn't be right. Not that this is either - she hasn't been knighted, still doesn't feel ready to be, but her master is dead along with everyone else, and that's reason enough for her to do this. There's no one left to knight her even if that's what she wanted - which it isn't. She just can't bear the thought of being a padawan still. Not after everything.

Before she can doubt herself any further, she yanks. The knife slides through her hair like bantha butter, and the braid rests in her hand.

She shoves it into the trash receptacle, the sides of which are now encrusted with shimmering opalescence, and drowns it under a fresh layer of tar.

---

She takes the pistol out of the bag before they leave and tucks it inside her robes, which remain at the end of the bed.

It's hard for her to leave the clothing behind, but she has to do it in order to retain her anonymity. Giving up parts of her Jedi identity is a necessity at this point, like removing the braid. That, at least, is easy to rationalize, even if her doubts about the way she went about doing it are resurfacing.

The blaster causes much less internal strife. Although she appreciates the thought, it isn't something she's willing to compromise on. With no lightsaber and only a knife to defend herself, it would be a good idea to take it, but... she's already given up enough of herself today.

Renouncing the Jedi entirely is not something she intends to do.

The weapon stays at the clinic on Level 4302.

---

It’s a long way up to the docking bay. A lift takes them most of the way there, and when they arrive, it’s nearly empty. No one asks why the tiny medical clinic a thousand levels down has an extra helper today. Vestan tells her that they do this fairly often - find strangers in need of a way out, take them in, and send them on their way in the back of a cargo freighter. He says they never get caught, youthful idealism making him certain, but he has no way of knowing what happens once the ships leave. She tries not to let it bother her.

They enter and exit several times with various supply crates, and on the last trip she just...doesn't come back out. Vestan is long gone by the time the ramp closes, and no one bothered to interact with them earlier, so the crew is none the wiser that she didn't leave with him. She hides behind some other crates, but no one comes to check.

She has no idea where this freighter is headed and she doesn't care so long as it's not here. After a long while, the ship lurches and moves into orbit, awaiting permission to leave. It's as if nothing has happened for these people - which she supposes is true. Like Kaaduu said, the Jedi numbered in the mere thousands compared to the trillions who inhabit this planet alone, and the chances that the events of yesterday have affected this cargo pilot in any tangible way are slim. Another indeterminate period of time passes - shorter than the first, but still long enough to set her on edge - and then the world lurches, the telltale jerk of a ship entering hyperspace.

At last.

At last she's on her way out of this nightmare.

At last her memories catch up to her mind, and she breaks.

She keeps her sobbing as quiet as she can. It's a good thing she's had practice. Occasionally a sound slips out, but it's always masked by the sound of crates shifting in the hull, and isn't enough to draw anyone out of the crew compartment.

She's crying and she can't stop. There's no stuffed bantha to sink her fingers in. Kaaduu isn't here to steady her breathing. Her master can't distract her with training exercises. There's no end in sight. Not to her tears, not to her sorrow, not to this horrible awful insane sequence of events. It's still happening and she can do nothing, has no say in any of it, and she has never felt more incapable in her life.

Feeling incapable is nothing new to her. Feeling it to this degree is - unusual.

If she was faster, she could've protected the younglings. If she'd paid more attention, she could've reached her master, wherever he was. If she was smarter, she could've thought of a better way out of the Temple. If she was better, she could've stopped herself from even thinking about choking that clone to death. If she was stronger, she could've…

Could've what?

Done something. Done anything.

She's weak. She's incapable. She'll get caught. She'll be turned in for the bounty she knows is on her head and that of every other Jedi who escaped. She'll be tortured and imprisoned and killed and there'll be nothing she can do because she's a slow, absentminded, stupid little wretch.

No wonder her master never told her he was proud of her. Why would he be? He must've been embarrassed to have such a terrible padawan. Except for that one time that he did say he was proud of her, which must've been a mistake.

To think - Master Kanda Ibora, bastion of Jedi non-attachment principles, who walked the line between sentinel and soldier, and his disappointing little padawan who let physical items soothe her to sleep. She cries harder at that, at the thought that she's letting him down and breaking all of his expectations. All the lessons, the training, the wisdom he'd impressed upon her - wasted on her worthless, incompetent brain.

Her throat burns.

A sharp wedge of anxiety drives itself into her stomach. If she leaks black sludge now, it will get everywhere. The pilots and workers will see when they land and look for the cause. They’ll be able to track her. She thinks about getting up and finding someplace to dump it - an empty crate, perhaps - but her legs are too weak to stand and she's too scared to leave her hiding place. She considers the bag. It's cloth. It will leak, and the rest of her things, the very nice things she was gifted, will be ruined. There's nowhere else. She's out of options and out of time.

She tries to swallow it down, as she has many times before, knowing that it won't work, that it has never worked before, and yet still hoping that it will this time.

The oil recedes. Her head spins. She's never been able to swallow it before. Why now? She pants hard. Her head spins. The ship spins. Are they spinning? No. Her eyes. Her eyes are spinning in their sockets. Her head spins.

She closes her eyes.

---

Okeli.

Master?

Yes.

I'm sorry.

What for?

Everything.

Why?

I wasn't enough.

Then I am the one who is sorry.

But...why?

Because it was never my intention to make you feel that you are not enough.

No - no you didn't, you didn't, it's me, it's my fault, you didn't -

But I did.

Not on purpose!

No. Never. But I did, and I am sorry.

No, no no no no, it's not - you shouldn't - I can't -

Be at ease, young one. You did exactly as you were supposed to. What more could any of us have done?

Something. Anything.

You survived. That is enough.

I lost my lightsaber. I lost you. I lost - everything.

As did we all. But you gained something as well. You flew.

I...yes. I did.

So fly now, and make your own way.

I don't want to forget what you taught me.

You will not. But...my apprentice, some of what I taught you...some of it was not right.

You taught me to be a Jedi.

I did. But I also taught you that you could not rely on me. That you were inadequate, that you were unprepared, that you were too sentimental. Intentionally or not, that is what I taught you: if not through lessons, then through my words and actions. If anything, padawan, it is I who was not enough.

You were, though. Enough, I mean.

And I am proud of you.

You mean that?

Always.

Thank you, Master.

And thank you, apprentice, for teaching me as well.

Me? What could I have taught you?

…

Master?

…

...Master…?

---

The ship exits hyperspace, and she wakes.

The world around her shifts from the strange weightless not-weightless moving not-moving half-state of hyperspace to the sudden realness of actual space. Traveling through the inertia of not-quite-reality always makes her feel off-kilter. She doesn't remember the dream encounter at first; having to adjust muddles her already fatigued mind, and as she wakes, splinters of a conversation start to return.

Master -

...but survive...

So fly now...

...own way - enough -

She rubs at her aching skull, at a pressure point just behind her eyes. Remembering is...difficult, but not impossible. It just takes time. It will come to her, as it always does, but not right away.

They're still flying, approaching orbit. That means there should be plenty of time to adjust and prepare for her escape before they descend into the atmosphere. She reaches over to double-check her bag and stops with her hand hovering over the strap.

Force visions always end with her waking in a puddle of sticky black dribble. One as intense as that should've left a veritable ocean of mire beneath her, coating every nearby surface and all her limbs. But her fingers aren't stained with black - there's not a hint of it anywhere. Her matte brown scales are as clean as ever. With her other hand, she reaches up and feels at her face. Nothing there either, not even a little bit speckling her mouth.

A second realization hits her. Usually she has trouble breathing afterwards, a thick syrupy feeling preventing her from getting enough air. There's a prickling sensation at the back of her throat, but it's dry as bone, and breathing is easy.

The prickling increases as she focuses on it. Something - something is stuck there, lodged in her windpipe like a bad piece of food, like a - a croaker in her throat, where had she heard that expression before? Not the Jedi. Not Coruscant. Nowhere she's familiar with - anymore, at least. The prickling turns into stinging turns into biting and tearing and stabbing. Her throat feels like it's being ripped apart from the inside out. Whatever it is that's stuck there, she needs to get it out now, it hurts so much. It's burning, it's burning and she wants to cough, but if she does she'll alert the crew.

Her heart races. Tears obscure her vision. As quietly as she can, she tries clearing her throat, and the object inside her moves the tiniest bit. The pain abates just a pinch. Little by little, bit by bit, she repeats the process. Over and over again she flexes her throat and coughs into her hand and huffs and pants and it's exhausting her, but she has to do it to get it out. It's almost loose, almost unstuck.

One final push and it's free. Her throat feels raw but it's done. It rests on her tongue now, a tiny sharp object she estimates is just over two inches long. She's careful to breathe through her nose so she doesn't inhale it by accident and start the whole thing over again. Its edges are uneven and the ends of it sharp enough to draw blood when she probes it with her tongue. She's shaking still, and afraid to draw it out of her mouth.

What is it? How did it end up in her throat? She'd trusted Kaaduu, hadn't noticed anything unusual in the ration bars, but what if they'd slipped something in her while she was asleep? No, impossible. She feels guilty for thinking it. And anyway, this item is rough and definitely not man-made. Her best guess is that it's a piece of debris she swallowed somehow - maybe when she fell from the sky.

It's not debris. Whatever it is, it's more significant than that. She tries to convince herself otherwise and, as usual, fails.

Her curiosity overcomes her trepidation. She reaches up and takes the item from her mouth.

---

In her hand rests a crystal.

A thousand pastel colors dance inside the vaguely oblong, opaque white stone as she turns it over in her hand, letting its edges catch the low light of the cargo hold. It is beautiful, but she knows what it is. Something cold and dreadful sinks into her gut.

It's not just that it's the same material the black gunk she hacks up hardens into. Worse is the fact that it sings to her.

It calls to her through the Force, a million moments of her life sealed within the gemstone before her. How long has it been in her throat, incubating like some sort of memory parasite? Except it's not that, it's not a parasite, it's her and it's the Force and it's everything she's ever known or will know. It's the culmination of all her knowledge and experiences, up to and beyond the events of the last twenty-four hours. It resonates with her in a way that her previous kyber crystal never did, like it's a part of her very soul.

Maybe it is.

Her whole life, she's never known what the stuff her body produces after intense emotions is. Multiple doctors have looked into it, both Force-sensitive and not, and none of them had any insight on the matter. Without knowing more about her species, they couldn't be certain if this was a defect or something typical for all of them. Some theorized it was a defense mechanism. Others said it was a holdover from those days long past, in which her species might’ve built nests by hand. Whatever the case, they all concluded that she produced it naturally, and that it wasn't harmful outside of some mild discomfort and the mess it made. Officially, it was entered as a chronic condition in her medical files, so that whoever treated her knew what to expect.

Her whole life, she's simply dealt with it, preferring to ignore it where she can and move past it when she can't. Sometimes she goes months without incident, if she's lucky, but it always comes back and she always wipes it up and moves on.

This time is different. This isn't something she can just pretend doesn't exist. She doesn't want it, but she can't get rid of it either. She sighs and slips it into her pocket for safekeeping.

It's over. All she can do now is wait for the ship to land.

---

Getting out is simple compared to the way the last few days have gone. It's almost too easy to slip past the dockworkers and crewmen, but she's not about to look a gift fathier in the mouth. Some other catastrophe will come her way soon, she's sure of it, so she'll take what little reprieve she can get.

The area is bustling, and going unnoticed among the crowd is easy too. A civilian transport lands at the same time as the freighter, so all she has to do is pretend to be awestruck and she fits right in. It isn't hard - from what she sees already, the planet is breathtaking. Two celestial objects hung overhead when she emerged from the dim interior of the ship; the smaller of the two is setting now, casting odd double-angled shadows drenched in orange and pink across the shipyards. She learns from listening to chatter that this system is called Ubasi III, that it is a popular tourist destination in the winter, and that the second object is a moon rather than a sun, as most of the tourists assume. It catches the light of the real star so strongly that its name in the native tongue of this world means 'little sun'. It reminds her of what her father used to call her - his Little Lightweaver.

Acting on impulse, she reaches into her pocket and pulls out the crystal. Pulling it out in the middle of a crowd feels almost sacrilegious, now that the overwhelming wrongness of the initial discovery has faded and she understands a little better what this is. She doesn’t dwell on it. Overall she feels better, lighter, and that extends to this strange little gemstone she's somehow created. That feeling won't last, she knows - she's expecting ups and downs, but for now she can honestly say she's doing alright.

She holds it up to the sky, so that it reflects and refracts the golden light of the little sun as it sets. Infinite colors spring from the crystal's heart, a miniature self-contained prism. It's just like he said: after every storm, a rainbow.

A devaronian man approaches her, interrupting her musings. Ornate silver rings encircle his hand-shaped horns, matching the delicate filigree interwoven between the fibers of his silken robes. "That gemstone is exquisite," he marvels, "How much for it, miss?"

She laughs. "For this? You could never afford it."

The sharpness of the words leaving her mouth startle her, but it's true. Nothing could convince her to hand this over - not wealth or weapons or worlds. He's affronted, looking her up and down and scowling at her peasant's clothing. All it does is make her laugh harder, until she's almost doubled over and interrupting the foot traffic around them. The man scoffs and moves on, muttering something in another language that she's pretty sure is meant to insult her intelligence.

It's not funny. It isn't. But the idea of someone offering her riches in exchange for something she coughed up after a panic attack and a conversation with a ghost, something that is all but worthless to anyone who isn't her - it's funny. After everything, she needs this.

Breathing comes easier than it has in months - years - after she finishes laughing. She can't remember the last time she found something this amusing.

Her back still aches. Her ankle still twinges with every step she takes. She can feel a strange breeze that wasn't there before through the new hole in her wing. She's still hollow inside, but she feels less lost - less like she's stumbling.

She flexes her wings. Feels the warmth of the sunlight, breathes the freshness of unfiltered air. It smells - well, terrible, but real. She feels real.

Finally, she feels ready.

#flight rising #star wars #fr lore #my writing #flight rising lore #rip i had to go back and add all the italics by hand because they didn't transfer over #uhhhhh guess i'm establishing a writing tag now uhhhh i'll make it uhhhhh #stanley writes stuff #stanley's lore #stan clan #okeli #PLEASE if you have questions abt anything going on here ask me i will talk your ear off about this #again if anyone even so much as reads the first paragraph i will be happy. if you read it all i will be supremely honored #i PROMISE you this is cool and interesting please to the three people who look at my star wars brainrot posts. you should read this #please excuse the boring title i could not for the life of me think of anything fitting so #also i'll mirror this to ao3 in case it's easier to read on that site but i have to wait for an invite to get signed up n whatnot #OKAY okay. i will stop talking now

15 notes · View notes

semperama · 4 years

Note

Pinto: shiver

It was a stupid idea, filming in Vancouver in the winter. Chris would like to find the person who picked these dates and this location and give them a piece of his mind. He has a feeling it might be the guy standing behind the camera, but he's pretending it isn't, because it's easier to imagine sending a strongly worded letter than it is to imagine himself marching up the the director and wagging a finger in his face, scolding him as if it won't probably come back to bite him later. Actors have shot in worse situations than this, he thinks. The thought isn't comforting.

Zach, for the most part, looks fine. It might be the makeup, but his nose isn't even red, and his hands seem to be steady. He keeps tucking them into his armpits between takes, but that's the only sign that he's less than perfectly comfortable. Chris, on the other hand, must be obvious, because every time they get a break, Zach asks him fifty times if he's doing okay. Zoe too, from her position just off-camera, wrapped in a heavy coat as she waits for her entrance.

"Why can't we have fucking coats?" Chris mutters under his breath after what feels like the fiftieth take. "If the crew knew they were beaming down to a freezing-ass planet, wouldn't they have brought coats?"

"That's a question for the writers," Zach says, as if Chris doesn't already know that. Chris is looking for solidarity, not a refresher on the way movies work.

"The writers can go fuck themselves," Chris says, quieter still. He may be having a bad day, but he knows the best way to make it worse would be to piss off the people who could decide whether this movie needs a scene where Kirk strips naked and makes snow angels.

Pine trees stand in straight lines all around them, continuing forever in every direction. They only walked a few minutes from the road, but Chris has fully bought into the illusion that they are on a deserted planet, looking for a life form that may or may not exist. In post, CGI will turn the reddish tree trunks navy blue, and the pine needles a dull maroon. While they wait for the crew to set up the next shot, Chris closes his eyes and tries to imagine it. But he can't. All he can picture is a roaring fireplace, a mug of coffee, a pot of stew bubbling in the other room. Boeuf Bourguignon. Heavy on the boeuf.

"Chris," Zach says, shaking his shoulder until he opens his eyes again. "Chris? You aren't getting hypothermia on us, are you?"

"Are you getting hypothermia?" Chris asks testily. Because Zach interrupted his fantasy, and because Zach seems fine, and that's just not fair. Sure, Chris is a California boy at heart, while Zach lives in the northeast and is used to this kind of weather, but still. This isn't fair. If he has to suffer, Zach should have to suffer too. Maybe Spock is the one who needs to strip naked. Maybe Chris will be having a talk with the writers after all.

"Seriously," Zach says, curling both hands around Chris's biceps and then giving them an awkward little rub. "Why don't I ask if we can go hang out in a trailer until they're finished setting up?"

"I'm f-fine, Zach." Chris's vehemence is somewhat diminished by the fact that he can't make his teeth stop chattering.

Zach raises an eyebrow. "Okay, new plan. I'm not even asking."

Before Chris can protest, Zach has grabbed hold of his elbow and is dragging him away with a surprising amount of force. Chris stumbles over his own feet in his hurry to follow and almost ends up taking them both to the ground before Zach gets an arm around his waist and hauls him close. Zach barks something at a PA, and then Chris is being hauled up a couple steps and pushed through the door of a trailer. His and Zach's. On location like this, they don't each get their own, and it's only because this is the fourth movie that he and Zach don't have to share one with the rest of the actors.

"I told you I'm fine!" Chris says, finally gathering himself enough to jerk out of Zach's grasp. It isn't that he hated the contact--not at all--but he feels weak and silly, and he doesn't want Zach to mother him, because the mothering means Zach sees him as a child.

"Your lips are almost purple, Chris!" Zach says, angrier than Chris expected. He looks angry too, his fists clenched and a muscle in his jaw jumping.

Chris rubs his hands on his pants, vigorously, until the feeling starts to come back into his fingertips. This is stupid. He's cold; he's not dying. This pales in comparison to that day in the rickety boat off the coast of Scotland, fearing for the life of his fellow actors and ripping the director a new one the first chance he got. He was probably colder that day than he is now, come to think of it.

"I just don't do well in the cold," he says, gritting his teeth. "It's my Achilles' heel. Doesn't mean I needed you to drag me off set like I can't take care of myself!"

Zach scowls at him, like all of this is his fault. Like there's even a reason to be angry. "Excuse me for being a good friend," he says. "Excuse me for trying to make sure you're comfortable."

"Everyone else has to stand out there in the cold!" Chris says.

"Everyone else has a coat!"

They stand there for several moments, staring each other down, breathing harder than they should need to. Zach's cheeks are splotchy red, and Chris doesn't think it's from the cold.

Suddenly, Zach crosses the space between them. He puts a hand to Chris's face, and his palm is far warmer than it should be, so hot it makes his skin sting. Zach's thumb strokes across his cheek, and then the other hand comes up to join it, so he's framing Chris's face, holding him still, spiking his heart rate.

"I'm just trying to take care of you," Zach says. His breath is hot too, and Chris finds himself leaning in involuntarily. "Let me take care of you."

"I don't need you to," Chris insists. He isn't sure when he got so close that his lips brush Zach's. He isn't sure when his hands wrapped themselves around Zach's waist either, or if he's trying to steady himself or holding onto Zach because it feels good, feels right to touch him. "I don't need it," he insists. But just before their mouths touch, he relents. "Okay. If you want to."

#wordplay as foreplay #pinto #my writing #ficlet #is this even coherent?#my brain is all over the place and i'm sorry #seepunkrun

19 notes · View notes

nikkzwrites · 4 years

Text

Yesterday Once More | Dark Fix-It Fic Series | Chapter 6

A/N: This fic is one that I started with my OC because honestly, I personally didn’t like how season 3 ended. So I am rewriting all of Dark with my OC Annalise Dahlheim. I hope you all like it. Some things will be expanded more on just for more depth to Dark that season 3 kinda skipped over so…. yeah.

CW: Canon Typical Triggers: Smoking, Sex, Language, Drugs, Drinking, Death, Violence, Suicide Mentions, Cutting, Violence.

Word Count: 5.6k

[First Chapter] [Previous Chapter] [Next Chapter]

The next morning, Annalise groaned as she woke up. She hazily tried to walk out to go take a shower only to bump into a dresser. She cried out in pain. She woke up fully then started to panic. Where was she? She held her head. What was the last thing she remembered? There was a bearded man who bought her alcohol. She closed her eyes trying to think. He reminded her of someone… She remembered mistaking him for someone...Who was it?

“Hey, you’re awake,” Franziska pulled the girl away from her thoughts.

Annalise’s face scrunched in confusion, “How did I get here?” Her head was pounding with a headache, “Can I get some water?”

Franziska nodded and lead Annalise into the kitchen. She folded her arms as she came up with a quick lie, “Oh, you know, Jonas brought you.”

“Jonas,” Annalise asked more confused, “What? No…He...”

Franziska realized her mistake quickly, “Oh well, you know, he apologized and thought it would be best if you stayed here to have some space.”

Annalise nodded as she filled a glass of water and started to drink. “Okay,” she nodded. She didn’t one hundred percent believe it, but she wasn’t exactly in a place to argue. Plus, she had a weird instinct that he was involved last night after she ran from him. That she had seen him again that night. There was a knock on the door. Annalise quickly turned her head.

“Oh you’re awake,” Magnus chuckled, “Have fun with Bar-”

Franziska quickly hit his side and grit her teeth, “That’s not very nice to make fun of her Magnus.” She looked towards Annalise and faked an explantation, “Jonas found you at a bar last night. Magnus helped drag you out. Right, Magnus?”

Magnus got the picture and nodded, “Yeah. That’s what happened.”

Annalise nodded. The girl excused the slip up as a language barrier. She took her phone out of her pocket and said, “I’ll text him a thank you then. I’ll probably head home too.” She placed the empty glass in the sink and walked out. She texted Jonas knowing that he would more than likely tell her if this wasn’t the truth, ‘Thanks for dragging me out of the bar and giving me space. I really appreciate it. Franziska and Magnus told me everything.’

Jonas quickly grabbed his phone hoping that it was Annalise. After everything that had happened, he needed his lifeline. His confusion spread to his face as he read her text. He blinked and wondered what had happened to her. He didn’t want to think about it too hard. He was just grateful she was talking to him. Jonas asked, ‘Are you coming home?’

‘Yeah,’ Annalise texted him back.

With this, Jonas knew he had limited time to actually talk to his mother about his father. He walked downstairs to find his mother already at the table. He sat down with Hannah and asked, “Mom, can I ask you a few things?”

Hannah nodded. She honestly thought maybe it had something to do with Annalise not coming home last night. “Yeah,” she said, “You can ask me anything.”

“How’d you and dad meet,” Jonas asked.

Hannah looked at him then blinked. This was not what she was expecting. Maybe he was trying a roundabout way of asking about romance, “In the hospital.” She answered honestly, “I was 14. Your father had a broken leg. And I was in a bad mood.”

“What was he like,” Jonas pried hoping that maybe all that letter was a lie, “Earlier. Before he got sick.”

This was definitely a weird talk. She shook her head. “He was…” Hannah explained, “different. You never knew if he meant something seriously or not.”

Jonas looked down trying to put the pieces together, “Mom…” He trailed off.

“Yes,” Hannah asked.

Jonas thought for a second. He had no idea what to do. He shook his head and responded with, “Nothing.”

After Magnus had snuck back into the house, he walked downstairs with his sister in solidarity. He followed behind Martha hoping that what Martha was expecting wasn’t actually going to happen. He also wanted to let Martha know that Annalise was safe, awake, and okay. Martha just headed down the stairs behind her brother.

Katharina threw down the remote and went to scold her children, “No, you aren’t going anywhere.”

“Is this supposed to go on forever?” Martha asked, “Keeping us locked up here?”

Katharina offendedly explained, “Locked up? Your brother has only been missing four days.”

“He’s not going to come back just because we’re sitting around,” Martha argued. She honestly was also trying to tell that to her brain that was just trying to make her stay and wait for Annalise to text her back. She tried to push past Magnus.

Katharina yelled at her daughter, “Come back here and talk to me!”

Martha walked into the same room as her mother, “I can’t let the others down. They need me.” She tried to convince both her mother and herself.

“Who needs you,” Katharina asked.

“The play…” Martha replied.

Katharina shook her head, “I thought the play was canceled.”

“No,” Martha explained, “Mr. Mienel said it’d be better t give people a break, so they can think about something else.” Honestly, Martha believed in that cause. She just wanted to use the play to be able to be someone, anyone, else for any duration of time. She cheated on her boyfriend, her brother was missing, and she broke her best friend’s heart by kissing the boy that she definitely had feelings for.

Katharina gave up with people, “Great.” Her voice growing more annoyed, “So everyone is just thinking of themselves.”

“You’re no different,” Martha yelled getting defensive, “Did you once think about us these last few days?”

“That’s enough,” Katharina yelled back.

Martha huffed. She looked around and spotted the posters. She walked over to the and pushed them down, “And how many more of these damned things will you put up?”

Magnus shook his head and tried to excuse Martha’s behavior, “She didn’t mean it like that.”

“Yes, I did,” Martha screamed, “I meant it like that. This is so fucked up! Everyone’s waiting for Mikkel to come back through that door as if nothing happened. Dad doesn’t even dare come home anymore! And no one gives a shit about us.”

“That’s not true,” Katharina retorted, “But for once, this isn’t about you, Martha!”

“You are so blind,” Martha spat venom at her mother, “Everyone’s thinking it, but no one dares say it. Mikkel is dead!”

Katharina slapped her daughter. Martha stared at her and then ran out of the house. Magnus took a deep breath. He walked over to his mourning mother and held her close.

Annalise walked back into the Kahnwald house. Right when she entered the door, the worried boy sprinted over to her. He wrapped his arms around her. He held her close. Jonas’s eyes started to tear up. He buried his face into her neck. He couldn’t believe how easy it was for her to come back. She truly was an angel. Annalise stood there confused. She reached up to pet his head, “Jon-”

The boy quickly intercepted her question with a kiss. Both of his hands cupping her cheeks to keep her with him. He ignored the screaming in his head about something about her seemed off, different. He was so terrified. His lips trembled against hers. All he needed was for her to be there with him. He clung to her as if she was the only thing keeping him there in that world. She was his tether, his serene in the storm. Everything was okay when she was around. Everything was normal when she was there. If he could perfectly encapsulate her to keep as a charm forever, he would. Jonas would do anything to keep her with him, even if it was just to prevent anything else from going wrong. He pulled away only to place his forehead against hers, “Lise, I’m-”

Annalise started to wipe his tears away, “Jonas, it’s okay.” She smiled gently at him, “it’s okay. Everything is fine.” The girl was reminded of having a similar feeling last night. There was something that happened the previous night. Annalise could remember the feeling of having been kissed. Was that… Annalise needed to get back out of her own head about this. She laughed a little bit at the boy’s reaction to her, “You need to calm down Jonas. Take some deep breaths with me and we can go upsta-” She simply had no idea what he was babbling on about. They had cleared everything up last night. Obviously, if they had kissed twice in such a short frame of time, then everything was okay. They were fine now, right?

Jonas shook his head. He dared not to open his eyes fearing that if he were, she would disappear again and this time never come back. “I promise I will make this right,” He vowed. He tore their foreheads away from each other to press his lips against her forehead, “I’ll make it up to you. I promise.” He walked his way upstairs with his hand grasped around her wrist. He looked at her seriously and said, “I have to do something and you cannot follow me. You have to listen to me about this. You can’t get wrapped up in this too. Please just wait for me to get back. I will fix everything.”

Annalise stood there confused as he went into his room. She could hear scrambling around. He was acting erratically. The girl swallowed hard. How could she try to comfort him? There was something that everyone in their circumstances faced when feeling guilt fo something. Sometimes it was best to let them do what they thought they needed to do. Other times, it was best to stop them, ut even in that case sometimes they would spiral worse. She stood there, so close to where he was, yet so far from where his heart and mind were.

Bartosz walked backstage of the play to go talk to his girlfriend. He knew what he had to do now. He wanted Annalise happy. The best thing he could do with that was to take people out of the equation so that way she and the boy she loved could finally only focus on each other. His chest tightened at the thought of her with his best friend, but Bartosz knew that he could never make her happy. She was always going to love Jonas. She always had loved Jonas in some way. He would only be fooling himself into thinking Annalise would ever love himself back. The best he could do is convince himself and Martha that they were in love and leave those two alone. Sure he had to lie, omit truths, but it was all to make her happy. If he could do that, he would be satisfied for the rest of his life. “Hey,” He finally addressed Martha.

She turned to face him, “Hey.”

Bartosz strolled over to his girlfriend and placed a kiss against her lips with his hands cupping her face. This definitely was different. He pulled away quickly trying to not focus on it. He asked, “How are you?” He wondered if she was going to confess to him.

Martha just nodded and walked back to her vanity to reapply her lipstick, “Good.” She knew she was lying to him, but what was she going to tell him? Was she going to tell him that she kissed his best friend in front of her best friend who for all she knew had gone missing? Was she going to tell him about the guilt gnawing at her insides?

Bartosz shifted. He walked closer to her. Was she really going to keep lying to him? He couldn’t blame her though, as much as this was hurting his empty chest, this was all a lie too. His heart wasn’t with them in that room. It was where ever the sunset girl was. “You didn’t call me back,” was all he could muster up to say, “I was getting worried.” He looked down guilty. What he was about to say was the absolute truth. He started with, “I’m so sorry about everything. It’s all my fault.” He thought to himself about if he would have just stayed away from Martha and instead focused his energy on Annalise, how could all of this be different. Everyone would be happy. “I shouldn’t have had that stupid idea with the caves,” He continued to speak his thoughts aloud. When she didn’t reply, he asked, “Hey. Say something. Are you angry with me?”

Martha looked up at him. She felt horrible. Here this boy was putting himself through the wringer all because she didn’t know how to tell him her feelings. She shook her head, “No. Why would I be angry?” She asked that question honestly. She pitied him. He was such a good boyfriend and here she was. Bartosz walked closer. He leaned down to kiss her only to be pushed away. Martha told him, “I can’t do this right now.”

Bartosz stared at her. He swallowed hard. Why couldn’t this just be easy for him? Why could she have the easiest time with what was going on and he felt like his world was ending? He stared at her and asked, “Do you want to leave?” This was his last-ditch effort. He needed her to say yes. He wanted her to say yes so that everything could go back to normal. He wanted so badly to leave this God-forsaken town. “I’ll run away with you,” he offered. He should have done this earlier. Before Mikkel, Before Annalise, Before Jonas. “Honestly.”

Martha shook her head and gave him a small shrug, “The play is about to start.”

Bartosz’s lips thinned into a line as he accepted the news. He turned to leave then asked, “Have you seen Jonas?” He mainly was wondering if they had talked since he had found Annalise. He had forgotten to ask Franziska to text him to let him know Annalise woke up the next morning safe. Plus he wondered if Martha was holding anything more from him.

Martha looked down. Did he really have to ask this? Did he know? Did Annalise tell him? Martha shook her head. No, Annalise wouldn’t. The girl never once actually cared for Bartosz. They were constantly fighting like cats and dogs. But the guilt continued to eat at her. She wished she had the strength to tell him the truth, but instead, she asked, “Why?”

Bartosz shrugged and turned away from her so that she couldn’t read on his face that he was only telling her the half-truth, “No reason. The jerk stood me up yesterday. But… Whatever. I’m sure he’ll come later.” Bartosz left.

Martha stood there looking up towards the ceiling trying not to cry.

Jonas stood in front of the caves. He was finally going to conquer thins and bring Mikkel home. He was going to have everything go back to normal. It was the least he could do for Martha and Annalise. With Mikkel home, they would both forget about what happened the previous night. They would be happy and go back to being friends. He could look Bartosz in the face again. He could be happy with the girl who put the work in to make him feel at home again. He could properly move on from the girl he slept with once who later dated his best friend since he wasn’t home. He crossed the line to walk inside.

Katharina stormed into her house from putting up posters about Mikkel. She tried to make herself a cup of coffee. She started to look at what else was on the table. She found an itemized bill for Ulrich’s cellphone. There was a number she didn’t immediately recognize on there that seemed to be a regular caller. She called the number only to be greeted with Hannah’s voice.

Annalise had changed and hopped into the shower. While she was there, she looked at Jonas’s products. A curiosity arose from her. She picked up his body wash and sniffed it. It was familiar and reminded her of the boy, but something ate at her. After her shower, she walked to her dirty clothes from the night before and this morning. She picked it up and smelled it. It smelled like a cologne had rubbed off on it. She placed it into the basket and went to the cabinet. She opened it to try and find if Jonas even had any. She found his deodorant. She took it out and smelled it just to check. No. That wasn’t a match either. Annalise shook her head. Now she was being weird with paranoia. She could just ask Jonas when he got back. Annalise slipped into her pajamas and walked into Jonas’s room. She sat on his bed and turned on his television to try and find something to pass the time until he got home. Annalise was initially supposed to see Martha’s play. But with the way things were now, she really didn’t feel like going to support her friend.

Jonas walked deeper into the cave. The deeper he went, the farther from his reality he felt. He took out his map and looked more at it before making his way into the dark.

Regina looked over her information with her hotel as she waited for someone, anyone, to come in. She closed her records upon seeing Ulrich. She asked him, “What are you doing here?”

Ulrich just stared at her then said, “1986. The night my brother went missing. What really happened?”

Regina squinted, “That was over 30 years ago.”

“You were the last one to see him that night,” Ulrich explained, “Did you notice anything unusual that day? Did he say something? Something strange? Anything at all?”

Regina shook her head.

Ulrich then asked, “Did you know they were having an affair? Your mother and my father.”

Regina made a face and nodded, “Mads was the only person I knew who never said a bad word about anyone. I’ve always asked myself, why him, of all people? I always thought it should have happened to you instead of him. But there’s no justice in this world. And the absurd thing is… had it not been for you and Katharina maybe Mads wouldn’t have disappeared. Mads knew I was afraid to walk home alone because of you two. Because of what you did to me. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have gone with me and returned through the forest and the whole thing would have never happened.”

“What happened in the forest back then,” Ulrich tried to defend himself, “It was a game. We wee children. We all made mistakes back then.”

Regina spoke up, “And still you never apologized for it.”

Ulrich sneered, “So this is about an apology for you? So that’s how you see yourself. A victim? Poor innocent Regina. You’re so fake it makes me sick! You told your drunken, good for nothing, grandpa that I raped Katharina.”

Regina gasped, “That’s what you thought?” Her face furrowed with confusion.

Ulrich took a deep breath. He looked at her concerned and confused, “Hannah saw you back then. At the police station.”

“Hannah,” Regina asked, “The same Hannah who at 14 was so in love with you that she would have done anything to have you?” Regina laughed, “But I guess that hasn’t really changed. So that’s what you thought all these years? That I spread that story?” Her face dropped, “Why would I do something like that? I’m not half as bad as you are.”

Just as Ulrich turned to walk out, Regina finally started to allow herself to cry. She finally understood why all of this torment had started for her.

As Martha got ready for her play, she looked out into the crowd. Her heart sank as she didn’t see her friend or Jonas there. Only Bartosz. She wondered if she should try texting Annalise again. The girl had left her on read for a while now. She grabbed her phone quickly and texted, ‘your ticket should be at will call with my family. You are still coming, right? I really want to talk this out. Please.’

Jonas squeezed his way through the tunnels following the guidance of the map. It wasn’t long before he noticed a string. It was very similar to the one that was on his bike the last time.

Back at the Kahnwald’s, there was loud banging at the door. It sounded as if an animal wanted to burst in. Hannah called Annalise that she would get it and hurried down the stairs to open the door. Right when she opened the door, Ulrich burst in. He stormed through the home at Hannah. “What are you doing here, I thought…”

Ulrich interrupted the woman, “What do you want from me?”

“What,” Hannah asked confused.

Hearing the commotion, Annalise snuck downstairs just enough to be there if Hannah needed her. Her heart raced. She could feel her chest start to close around itself. It was so hard to breathe.

“What do you want from me,” Ulrich repeated. When Hannah didn’t reply, he grabbed her neck and pushed her into the wall. “It was you in 1986,” he growled, “You gave a statement against me in the rape case. How sick are you?”

Hannah pulled at his hand, she could barely make out, “You’re hurting me.”

Annalise sat. She was frozen. She was terrified. She had never seen Ulrich that angry before. She squeezed her eyes shut and started to sneak her way down the stairs.

“Are you trying to ruin me,” Ulrich asked, “Do you want to destroy my family? Is that what you want? What do you want?”

Annalise stood behind the man and asked him with a face drenched in tears and terror, “Ulrich?”

The man quickly let go of Hannah and turned to her. His heart sank. He started to tremble. Was this also in Hannah’s plan? To use a girl that she knew had become like a daughter to him? Ulrich wanted to hurt Hannah just as much as she hurt him. He had a hunger for revenge. He turned back to Hannah, “You know what? You’re poison. You snuggle up close like you’re honey. But it’s just poison. How did your husband put up with you for so long? No wonder he couldn’t take it anymore, in the end.”

Hannah slapped the man hard across the face. Anger boiled within her.

Ulrich sneered. He started to leave, “I thought I knew you.” He stopped in the doorway and said, “How easily one can be deceived by people.” He took a look back at Annalise. He waited to hide his tears from her. Then he walked outside to head home after slamming the door.

Just as the door slammed shut, Annalise ran to Hannah and held her. The teen crying from terror. She clung onto Hannah. Hannah breathed hard then looked down at the woeful girl clutching her. She pet the young girl’s head. She leaned down and kissed it gently. “I’m okay,” Hannah whispered, “I’m okay.”

Bartosz sat and watched as Killian gave his speech during the play, “Now you have heard of her, the daughter of Minos. You think you know her. Is she not beautiful and good? You have let yourself be enchanted. By her words. By her pretty gaze. But, believe me. Everyone, whether the daughter of a king or not, has one foot in the shadow and only the other in the light.”

Jonas followed the tread. He kept his hand on the string. He knew that he could trust it. It would show him the way.

Aleksander called his wife. He had just found Regina’s letter about her cancer and had called the doctor to confirmed her diagnosis. He just straight asked her, “When are you coming home?”

Regina sat in the car as it poured outside. She explained, “Soon. I’m just picking up Bartosz from school. He insisted on going to this play.”

Aleksander sighed. He really didn’t want to talk about it while his son was going to be home. There was no need to worry him right now. The man simply stated, “I am here for you. You know that. No matter what. Don’t be late.”

Regina started to panic. He must have found the results. She didn’t know what to do. She loved her husband so much. She didn’t want him to think she was hiding it from him out of malice. It was just easier for her to forget if she didn’t tell anyone. As they hung up, they both exchanged their ‘I love yous.’

Martha sat with her classmate on the floor of the stage. She handed him a ball of red yarn and said, “Take this. It will guide you. You have to go deep inside, to the center. He’s waiting there in the shadows. Half human, half beast. You must be quick. Aim straight for the heart.”

“But is he not your brother,” the fellow teen in the play asked in character.

“It’s all the same to me,” Martha explained. Katharina slowly snuck in and found a seat in the back. “This bond we tie now, promise me you will never sever it.”

“I promise,” the boy said.

Soon, Jonas ended up at the midpoint. He, then, took out his geiger counter to follow the signal just like the not in red marker told him. He ended up finding himself to a coffin-sized tunnel. He took a deep breath and crawled inside.

“Nothing but darkness surrounds me,” Martha’s play continued, “Eternally lurking in shadows. I have not eaten in days. My eyes are turning black. The end is nearing. Just as he once descended into the maze, I now descend into the mine.”

Annalise lay in Hannah’s bed with her. Both of them still shaken from Ulrich, well mainly Annalise. The girl didn’t want to leave the woman’s side just in case he came back. Lise had seen intent in his eyes. He was a man on the edge and he could really have done anything. With Jonas gone as well, Annalise just felt safer staying with Hannah.

Hannah stared at the ceiling. She sighed gently. Her head turned to study the girl next to her. She reached out gently and started to pet her head. Her lips trembled. Was this what it felt like to have someone else other than family care about you. Was this how Ines felt when she came into Michael’s life? It was such a strange feeling. Hannah never had a daughter herself nor had she ever really wanted one before this moment.

Jonas crawled to an elegant door. It was so intricate. There was a triquetra in a circle on it with the words, ‘Sic Mundus Creatus Est.’ Jonas looked at the door before opening it and crawling through.

“So now I stand before you. No king’s daughter. No man’s wife. No brother’s sister. A loose end in time,” Martha steadied on, “And so we all die alike. No matter into which house we are born. No matter which grown. Whether we grace the earth briefly or for a long time. I alone tie my bonds. Whether I have extended hands or slapped them. We all face the same end.” Martha started to cry, “Those above have long forgotten us. They do not judge us. In death, I am all alone and my only judge is me.” Martha actually started to let it out. All the tears and pain she was feeling. All the guilt wept from her.

Katharina, realizing this was not part of the play, ran to her daughter. She gently took hold of her daughter and held her. She cooed in Martha’s ears, “Everything’s okay. I’m here.” She rocked her daughter gently.

As Jonas passed through the tunnel, every electrical device started to flicker. Katharina took this time to get Martha off the stage. Hannah reached out and pulled Lise into her arms so that way Annalise could stay next to her. The mother just hoping to see her son soon.” Charlotte still tried to investigate but was running around in circles as Peter and Tronte sat in the bunker. It was right on schedule of what the book told them.

Katharina walked her daughter out as Regina walked in trying to get her son. “Is the play over,” Regina asked, “You did you drag your daughter off the stage to save her from the sick people in this town? If you can’t stand living here… Why don’t you just leave?”

Katharina turned and just started to wail on Regina angrily. She was so frustrated and angry. How dare anyone speak about her or her daughter in such a manner?

Magnus luckily was walking inside from spending time with Franziska. He quickly pulled his mother away from the other woman and Martha stood frozen in the doorway.

Jonas just crawled his way to another door. He was able to open it with his one hand. A large gust of wind pushed against him as if telling him to g back. Then it suddenly stopped.

“Did you see that,” Regina tormented, “That is who your mother really is. You and Ulrich, you truly deserve each other.” Magnus walked his mother back to her bag until she pulled away from him. Regina plead, “Tell them what happened back then! Tell them who their mother really is.”

Katharina nodded her head out the door, “Let’s go.” Her two children scrambled through the doorway and followed her to the car.

Ulrich sat in his car staring at his photo album. They were filled with pictures of him, Mads, and his own children as babies. It wasn’t until one picture caught his eye and he realised the boy they had found, was Mads.

Bloodied and bruised, Regina walked into the arms of Aleksander who was awaiting her. He wrapped himself around her as she cried into him.

The rest of the Nielsen’s made their way home hand in hand with the others. Magnus and Martha climbed the stairs. It wasn’t long before she knocked on her brother’s door. She complained that she couldn’t sleep.

“Go away,” Magnus instinctively commented.

Martha leaned against his door frame, “Can we talk?”

“Yeah.” Martha walked in and laid now next to Magnus. Her head on his shoulder. Magnus then asked, “What the fuck was all that back at school?”

Martha answered honestly, “I don’t know.” They stayed in silence for a moment before she asked him, “Do you think things will ever be the same again? You know what I find weird? You don’t actually know your parents, do you? What they were like as kids or teenagers. You’re family, but you don’t really know anything about each other. Can I sleep here tonight?”

“Okay,” Magnus told her, “but keep those cold feet of yours on your side.”

Martha giggled, “You know who had the coldest feet?”

“Mikkel,” they said in unison. They laughed for a second.

Magnus smiled, “I don’t know how any of us dealt with that. He also would just put them on you if he knew it would bother you.”

Martha smiled, “Annalise used to just put socks and slippers on him before he was allowed in.”

Magnus laughed, “Yeah well when she got woken up by his kicking, she would come over here with me then sneak back in in the morning.”

“You never told me that,” Martha looked at him, “Why didn’t she just stay in my bed?”

“She said you talked too much when you two were supposed to be sleeping,” Magnus smiled.

Martha raised her brow but nodded. That was true. They never knew how to shut up when they were close. The would stay up all night reading scary storied or playing truth games or would you rather.

Jonas slowly made his way out of the cave. As he made his way to the bus stop, it started to rain. He slowly pulled up his hood and stared at the missing posters of Mads. As he stood there a truck stopped by.

A small girl lowered the window and her father called to him, “can we give you a lift? A bit late to be walking around alone.”

Jonas stared at the man. He recognized both of them almost instantly, that was his grandfather and his mother.

Hannah called to him, “You shouldn’t stay out in the rain so long.”

“Why not,” Jonas asked.

Hannah rolled her eyes then replied, “Because it’s acid. Chernobyl? People say it’s not in the rain anymore, but I don’t believe it.”

His grandfather told Hannah, “Hannah, move over. Come on, hop in. I’ll drive you home.” Hannah opened the door to welcome him inside.

In 2019, Hannah listened to the soft breathing of the girl asleep next to her. Hannah sneakily stole the girl’s phone and started to look through the pictures. There were a lot of her and the Nielsen’s, but before that, there were just some with her, her mother, and a man that looked to be her father. There was one of all three of them laughing while her father took a selfie of them. It was around Christmas time. They had matching pajamas on with giant smiles and laughter laying in bed together. Hannah smiled. Tears gently rolled down her cheeks as she was reminded of her own family.

Back with Jonas, he was actually fully processing what it meant if that girl was indeed Hannah, his mother. “Thanks,” Jonas said, “I’m okay.”

The two drove away from the boy confused at what just happened not realizing that the boy was their next of kin.

#yesterday once more fanfic #dark fanfic #dark netflix #dark netflix fanfic #dark (netflix)#dark (netflix) fanfiction #fix it fic #break it differently

6 notes · View notes

babbushka · 5 years

Text

Two Doves (3/6)

Drafted into a war he didn’t want to fight, Flip Zimmerman comes home to a country that doesn’t want him. With your help, he works through it all.

Flip Zimmerman x Reader

(Word count: 6k Warnings: War, gun violence, angst, ptsd, blood, graphic descriptions of death, graphic descriptions of violence)

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

After our war, the dismembered bits

—all those pierced eyes, ear slivers, jaw splinters,

gouged lips, odd tibias, skin flaps, and toes—

came squinting, wobbling, jabbering back.

- John Balaban

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

After weeks of trudging through the water, the rivers and marshes of the dense thick jungle, they’re in the sky. It’s an altogether different type of being vulnerable, Flip thinks.

They’re up in the helicopters, for whatever fucking reason. There’s solidarity in numbers, about a dozen helicopters flying next to them, all in a formation Flip doesn’t know, wasn’t told.

He wonders what it looks like, down on the ground. How it must look to see a dozen metal birds crossing the horizon. Flip clenches his fist around his gun, he sweats.

He hates this.

All he wants is to listen to your tape, but he’s got big ear-muffs on, they all do. Pilots said best to wear them so they don’t get their eardrums blown out, best to avoid the tinnitus.

You might survive the war, they said, but the tinnitus would drive you crazy.

As much as he wants to listen to the tapes, he doesn’t want to risk it.

It’s loud, so loud, and the world below them is so small, green as far as the eye can see. It’s like some hell, some tropical hell made just for him. Even up in the sky it’s hot, humid. How the fuck did that work? The engine and the blades of the helicopter drown everything out, every thought that Flip might have had is reduced down to it’s so fucking loud.

There’s five guys crammed into the back of one Huey along with Flip, but none of them are really doing anything. The pilots don’t tell them what was going on, they just hover, hover and fly around and around, searching for something.

“What are we looking for?” Eric shouts over all the noise, is the first one to dare ask, because surely they can’t be looking for people.

They’re too high up for that, can’t see past the thick canopy of green green trees, palms blowing around from the wind generated by their own machine.

“Shut the fuck up!” One of the pilots shouts, and Flip grits his teeth.

“He only asked a fucking question.” Flip shouts back, voice hoarse.

There’s no reason to be jack asses, Flip thinks.

Everyone pretends they didn’t hear him, which was probably for the better. He doesn’t need getting into a fistfight, not on top of everything else.

In the distance, one of the helicopters drops a bomb and there’s a great plume of smoke.

The jungle cracks in half, orange litters the sky, and Eric has his answer.

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

Flip doesn’t sleep that night.

You don’t sleep either, instead content to curl up against your husband on the couch as he shivers from cold that isn’t there. You make him hot chocolate, you put extra marshmallows in it and extra whipped cream and Flip drinks it even though he’s afraid it’ll make him sick.

So much sugar after none at all can’t be good, he thinks, but you made it for him, so it has to be good, he reasons.

It coats his throat and the roof of his mouth and it makes him calm in a way that makes him anxious.

When was the last time he didn’t have to worry? When was the last time he didn’t have to be so fucking on edge? It’s strange, not keeping one eye open, not looking over your shoulder, searching for enemies that are eight thousand miles away.

Is it going to be like this forever?

It’s pitch black outside and you’re both still awake, still on the couch as even the crickets have gone to sleep.

Flip sees the way you’re looking at him, but he can’t place the expression. It’s fear, it’s worry, it’s relief all in one, he doesn’t know how you do it. He can barely process one emotion, one feeling, one mindset – let alone three. He feels like he’s never had a very strong emotional threshold, but now…now it’s even more frayed, seams struggling around the edges.

He wants to tell you everything, wants to talk to you, wants to get it out.

He needs to get it out, he needs to.

He doesn’t know how.

“The brown walls look nice.” He says instead, says as you’re pressed so close against him, so close under the quilt his mother made, that he can feel the shudders that wrack through your body, “Lighter than I was thinking.”

You look to the dining room, to the brown walls. They’re the color of coffee diluted with cream, and Flip finds himself craving caffeine, real stuff, brewed stuff, not the instant shit he drank.

You look at the walls and you look at him, and Flip looks at nothing in particular.

“Do you want them darker? I’ll make them darker I was just – ” You start, but Flip shakes his head, pulls you impossibly closer, wants to crawl inside your skin and live there, he wants to live in you where he’s safe and warm.

He can’t, so he tries his best to get close, as close as possible, impossibly close.

“They’re perfect, really. They’re perfect.” He assures you, reassures you, and his heart breaks when even now there are tears in your eyes.

Your hand reaches up tentatively to caress his cheek, like he’s a dream, a ghost, something you’ve invented after so many nights alone.

You’re both so fucked, he thinks, fucked by this war in more ways than one.

“Kiss me?” You ask, you beg, desperate, and Flip accidentally jabs you in the face with his nose from how fast he ducks to capture your lips.

He sets the mug of cocoa down on the table, careful to place it on a coaster, careful not to fuck up the table like he’s fucked up everything else, and cups your face in his scarred hands. He pulls you into his lap and the two of you wetly cry against one another, kiss and kiss and kiss until your lips are puffy, swollen from it.

He kisses your lips, your cheeks, your eyelids. He kisses your nose and your forehead and your jaw and your neck, kisses every part of you that he can reach and hopes the kisses travel to the parts that he can’t; your heart, your lungs, your soul.

“I can’t…even start to explain how much I love you.” Flip is all choked up, he’s swallowing around hard lumps in his throat that have lived there for years, needing to try and unpack at least this small part of his brain, needing to at least get this part out of the dark pit in his mind.

“You don’t have to.” You rush to say, not wanting to force him, not wanting to make him do anything he doesn’t want to. He had been ordered around enough, you thought, “You don’t have to say anything Phil, you know I’m yours.”

He pinches his eyes shut, hot wet tears stinging stinging stinging, like acid and acrid smoke from fires that only exist in his head.

“I was worried…” He starts, but can’t finish, too afraid to speak the words, too afraid to confirm or deny.

That’s what he struggles with the most, he thinks, as he’s got you in his lap clinging to him, to every word he says, if he speaks the things on his mind they’ll become real, they’ll become things he has to confront. He doesn’t know if he has the strength to confront anyone, anything.

“What?” You ask, prompt him gently, not overbearing or forceful.

Flip wants to scream, but it’s too quiet, and he’ll scare you if he does, and the absolute last fucking thing he wants to do is scare you, now or ever.

“I was worried you wouldn’t want me – that you’d moved on.” And his pulse is racing racing racing, and he wants to run because you’re looking at him and he doesn’t know what you’re going to say, doesn’t know what you’re thinking, and the silence is palpable in the living room then.

You look at the brown walls of the dining room, look down at the scar along his palm, pink and shiny, freshly healed.

“You know, every night I would wait for you to come through the front door?” You say softly, so softly, and Flip can hear that you’ve got lumps in your throat too, you’ve got ghosts in your mind too.

“I’d lie awake in bed and listen for the front lock to unlatch, for you to drop your keys in the little dish in the hallway and then come up to bed and fall onto the mattress in all your clothes like you do sometimes when a case is long. Every single night, I’d wait, until I couldn’t wait any more and I’d fall asleep in your clothes.” You say, looking at him, really looking at him.

Flip looks back, sees the age in your eyes from being apart, sees how the two years have treated you.

He hates that they’ve not been kind, hates that they’ve treated you poorly.

“I played all your records and watched your favorite shows and I imagined you laughing along to them or singing terribly – ”

“Hey.” He interrupts with a soft laugh, and you laugh too just because you can, just because you can.

But then the laugh fades away and the softness around your eyes returns, and Flip’s stomach is twisted and churning because he’s terrified of the way your smile drops.

“…And then I’d cry because I didn’t know what you were doing, where you were, if you were alright. Jimmy came over like you told him to, came over every Tuesday and Thursday to help me with the house and my sanity, but then he would leave and I’d be sitting in this house alone, left with the ghost of you everywhere I looked. I’d think of something funny to tell you, and you wouldn’t be there, wouldn’t be coming home. I wrote them down, thinking I’d save them for when you got here, but then the first year came and you still weren’t.”

And you’re holding it together, but just barely, because if you lose it he’ll lose it, and then you’ll both be lost and neither of you can handle that right now, not right now, not so soon. He sees you shaking, and he’s shaking, and all you have is each other, and it’s more than enough; it’s more than enough but it can’t stop the shakes, the shivers.

“Can you tell me now?” He asks, and you smile at him sadly, shrug with one shoulder.

“I don’t think they’ll be funny now.” You reply, and for a moment, Flip wonders if anything will be funny again.

He can hear the same thought in your head.

“Tell me anyway?” Flip asks, begs, grasps your hands in his and brings them back to his cheeks, holding you, holding you as you’re holding him.

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

They’re dropping bombs, on the jungle.

Flip doesn’t know why, it doesn’t look like there’s anything there, just trees.

Birds fly frantically, try not to get consumed by the flames or the smoke, and most of them fail. Flip watches as the thick dark plumes envelop them, hears the horrific squawking of terrified creatures. He doesn’t know if he actually can hear them, or if he’s imagining it.

“Zimmerman! Start firing!” Someone barks an order at him, and he hates it, hates that he has to obey.

There are machine guns mounted to the sides of the Huey, and Flip’s stomach swoops when he’s told to man one. Wasn’t it enough to drop bombs like rain? Wasn’t it enough to incinerate the jungle – they had to shoot at it too?

Flip was getting so fucking tired of shooting.

He’s the oldest in the platoon, oldest one in the helicopter. These fresh-faced kids have no idea what they’re doing, there was never any time to teach them. He has experience, so he’s the one who has to do it. It’s his second time in Vietnam, and between that and the work he did with the CSPD before coming back to this hell, he’s the man most qualified for the job – no matter how badly he doesn’t want to be.

He’s just thankful he’s not the one dropping the bombs.

“Now, Zimmerman!” They shout, and he grinds his jaw, thinks that if he’s going to have to do this, he’s going to do it his way.

Fuck it, he thinks as he puts the tape in anyway, slides it into the small cassette player in his pocket. He’s about to stick the earbuds in his ears when he sees Eric steeling himself, like he’s going to throw up.

It’s the kid’s first helicopter ride, and he’s terrified, Flip can see it in his face.

After thinking about it for a minute, he silently hands the kid the cassette player, shoves it against his chest. He’s heard your voice a million times, and this kid doesn’t have anyone. Not a single person back home, no one except his mother. If your voice can give him comfort for ten fucking minutes, he’ll be glad.

Flip puts the earmuffs back on his head, and fires into the blaze as the helicopter whips up the flames.

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

You tell him as the sun starts to rise, as the purple light of dawn makes way for pinks and oranges and red. He listens and despite himself, he laughs, despite everything, it’s funny.

The way you tell the stories are funnier than the stories themselves, most of them belonging to the world of you had to be there. He tries not to dwell on the fact that he wasn’t – he wasn’t there.

He wasn’t there.

But you tell him, and he listens, and he laughs, laughs like he hasn’t laughed in a long time, and suddenly it’s the next day wholly and completely. The birds chirp and that’s how Flip knows he’s home without a doubt, resolutely – Vietnam didn’t have these birds.

“I was thinking,” You say, pressed so close to him on the couch, cheeks hurting from laughing like you haven’t done in a long time, “Of visiting the station today. Letting the guys know you’re home.”

“Yes.” Flip responds right away, the realization of his friends hitting him like a ton of bricks. “Yes, I want to see them.”

“Can I make you breakfast?” You ask, and his stomach growls, grumbles and groans, and you smile, take that for a yes.

When you sit him at the table he feels like he’s in limbo, like he’s never left and has been gone for a hundred years. The table is the same as it’s always been, the counters and the fridge and the stove and the oven all the same. The sink is the same and the walls are the same and the window is the same.

So why does it feel so different?

He catches his reflection in the glass of a vase filled with fresh flowers, wildflowers from the garden.

He doesn’t like what he sees. He feels old.

His facial hair has kind of gotten out of control, he thinks, staring at his reflection, trying to avert his eyes from his own judgmental gaze. It’s wild, wiry, it’s not terribly attractive. He doesn’t know how you can look at him so lovingly, so happily, when he looks like a man crazed.

“Ketsl?” He asks, and you rush to face him, rush to give him whatever he might want, might need.

“Yeah honey?” You respond, abandoning the pan on the stovetop to kneel at his feet, not wanting to overwhelm him.

He’s already overwhelmed.

“Before we go to the station, could you clean me up?” He asks, runs a hand over his goatee and sighs real deep. “I’d do it but…”

He doesn’t need to tell you that he’s afraid of his hands shaking while he holds the razor, afraid of accidentally cutting himself and losing it. He’s so afraid of losing it.

Has he already lost?

“Of course I’ll do it.” You say, sincere and so in love, eager to help. “After breakfast, we’ll shower and I’ll trim you right up.”

He blushes, holds your hand, kisses the fingertips there, and you playfully scratch under his chin, playfully tug on his ears.

“Thank you.” He smiles softly, suddenly shy, but you’re not having it.

You kiss him all over, smooch the sides of his nose, big smacks that have him laughing.

“Of course,” You say over and over again, “Of course.”

Because it’s not something you would even think twice about doing, and he knows this. It’s second nature to you, wanting to be there for him.

His heart soars.

“I love you.” He says, can’t get enough of saying it, can’t can’t can’t, so he says it again.

“I love you more, my handsome man.” You tug on his ear and he blushes, “Even when you’re scruffy, you’re my handsome man.”

He smiles and you smile back, until the smell of something on the stovetop burning reaches his nostrils.

“What’s that smell?” He asks, before things go dark.

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

Eric calms at the sound of your voice, and Flip wonders what you’re saying, what you’re talking about. The kid stares out into the jungle, has to squint from the heat of the fire.

Flip wonders. He knows he’ll listen later, listen as soon as they land – but then anxiety spikes.

What if he doesn’t land?

What if they’re another sitting duck in the sky, another bird that comes crashing down? So many helicopters have been shot down.

Flip has to resist the urge the rip the earbuds out of Eric’s head, suddenly so possessive of you – he doesn’t think he can bear it if he dies, and someone else gets to hear your voice.

But he doesn’t, he fires.

And the bombs drop, and the jungle burns.

A kid named Sam is the first one to notice it, the smell.

“Someone cookin’ bacon down there?” He asks in his thick Southern drawl, from Arkansas or Alabama, one of those. Flip didn’t bother keeping track anymore, so many kids kept coming and going.

He can’t possibly keep track, not with all of them dying.

Was it even worth getting attached, getting invested in any of them? He didn’t know.

But through all those thoughts Flip frowns, because he’s right, it does smell like bacon, like it’s been left on the stove too long, like it’s burning.

He looks in horror down at the bright orange sea beneath him, if he looks hard enough, he thinks he can see the tops of houses, straw things burned down to a crisp. If he looks hard enough, if he looks through the trees and the blazing roaring fires, he can see people running for their lives, can see them tiny like ants as he shoots and shoots the machine gun like he’s been told.

And dread washes down the back of his neck, freezes him, finger squeezed tight on the trigger when he realizes, when he figures it out.

If he looks hard enough, he can hear the screams of men and women and children burned alive. Scorched flesh and agony, smoke stinging, smell turning all of their stomachs at the abject horror of what they’re doing.

The smell hits their noses all at once as the helicopters pass by, and no amount of your soothing words can stop Eric from throwing up over the side of the Huey.

He’s not alone, they’re all like that, all except Flip, who doesn’t have the luxury of leaving the gun.

He hates himself for firing, hates the government for making him do it.

He has to close his eyes, screams too loud, too loud.

He can’t tell if they’re his or not.

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

He’s out of his seat, bolting for the bathroom before you know what’s happening.

It’s too much, it’s all at once, it’s all-consuming, the stench. That familiar stench, he’s sick, he’s retching into the toilet, heaving up nothing. He’s crying, all of a sudden he’s crying, and he wants to scream – he wants to scream and rage and throw a fucking fit as that smell curls into the back of his throat and stings his eyes and he’s surrounded by fire and rage and pain again.

You’re running in after him, latching yourself to his back, trying to ground him, trying to bring him off a brink of something, not knowing what. You didn’t know, didn’t know what went wrong, Flip isn’t telling you. He’s just hoarse and coughing and retching into the toilet, knees shattering underneath his frame as he clings to the porcelain bowl for dear life, as you cling to him.

There’s no words for this, to describe this, you don’t know, it kills you that you don’t know. It kills Flip that he can’t explain it, not when napalm explosions burn behind his eyelids, not when he’s coughing on smoke that isn’t there, not when he’s breathing in that smell that smell that smell.

“You’re okay, you’re safe.” You tell him, trying your best to remain calm, knowing he can’t handle any outbursts right now, knowing he can’t, “You’re home. You’re home with me, you’re safe.”

Maybe if you say it enough, he’ll believe it.

Everything is spinning, he can’t tell, doesn’t know where he is. He sees tile flooring and ferns at the same time, why is everything so green? He feels your hands on him and he knows that’s what’s real – but is it?

“I – I’m – ” Flip’s hyperventilating, and he’s crying, tears staining his face, staining the bowl of the toilet, and you hold him tight, wrap your arms around him.

He panics for a moment, afraid you’re the enemy, afraid you’re going to kill him, but the kisses on his back that you put there bring him back, pull him out. You’re the only one who would kiss his back, you’re the only one.

“You’re home. You’re not in the jungle, you’re in the bathroom. Our bathroom. You’re safe. You have to breathe.” You chant like it’s a prayer, repeat it over and over in a gentle tone, so gentle with him. “You have to breathe.”

He feels like he’s going to shatter, feels like he’s going to explode, like he’s going to burn burn burn. What’s that smell?

He knows that smell.

“I’m sorry,” He sobs, over and over, and you kiss his back now drenched with sweat. “I’m so sorry.”

He doesn’t know what he apologizes for, if it’s the killing, the burning, the fires, the destruction, or if it’s the fear can’t place, the outburst he can’t control. It’s got its claws in him deep, so deep.

You hold him tight, and bring him out. Pull him back out.

“You’re okay, you’re safe with me I promise. I promise.” You say, a steady anchor even though you’re scared shitless.

You can’t let him know that, can’t let him see how scared you are – you don’t want him to think you’re scared of him. You’re not, you’re not scared of him, you’re terrified for him.

He wipes his mouth with his sleeve and turns to face you, buries his face in your neck.

You hold him and kiss his forehead, he’s drenched in sweat.

“We’re going to shower, okay? You need to shower.” You can’t have him sitting in his own sweat and sick, you won’t.

Flip nods, tries to get himself under control, tries tries tries.

When he nods, you nod too, stand up and turn the faucet on, pull the tab so the water sprays from the showerhead above. You open the window, turn on the exhaust fan, try to air out the room.

As he stands up on shaky legs and the water warms, you bolt into the kitchen, grab the pan that had the forgotten crisps of breakfast burning, the bacon and eggs and hashbrowns. That’s the smell, you realize, and suddenly you hate it, you hate the kitchen, hate yourself for being so stupid. You fling open the windows, take the whole pan and run it to the garbage outside, throw the whole fucking thing away.

You’ll buy a new pan, new spatula, you don’t give a shit. You never want to see that again, you’ll never cook bacon again.

Not if it does this to your man, to your Flip.

When you come back inside, Flip’s naked, has his clothes folded on the counter. He reaches for you but you hesitate, you pull your clothes off first and throw them in the corner of the room, afraid the smell has lingered on the fabric, has stained the fibers.

Only once you’re naked you embrace him, let him yank you into his arms. The water from the shower is steaming up the bathroom, and you reach over to draw a heart on the mirror, right around the reflection of Flip’s face.

“You’re safe.” You tell him one more time, and he nods, he believes you.

You search his eyes and you find them clear, he’s there, he believes you.

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

The helicopters begin to descend, and Flip can’t help but think they’re crazy. They’re fucking crazy for going there, for being in this country.

The kids are all sitting down, legs swinging over the side of the helicopter as they fire their own machine guns unto the village below them, because it is a village, not just a jungle. It’s never just the jungle, it would seem.

They don’t belong here, how can they be winning? They can’t be, not like this.

You don’t fight wars like this.

The men in the platoon all get themselves ready to land. They load and reload their guns. Some pray out loud, some sit silently and stare at the sky. Everyone has their hand over their mouth, everyone is gagging at the stench.

The wind whips it up, carries it up into their faces, and Flip thinks he’s going to hell for this, they all are.

Eric sees, just as Flip saw. Eric can tell he’s losing his nerve, so he gives him an earbud.

He hands it to Flip with wide eyes, terrified eyes, eyes that ask questions Flip doesn’t have answers for.

Flip accepts it, his heart thudding wildly, and tries his best to block out everything but the sound of your voice. It’s soft and sweet and gentle and not at all like the chaos around him not at all like the death and destruction he causes, he takes part in. You’re so much more gentle and human than half these monsters, the pilots who laugh at the explosions, the ones who give the orders with glee in their smiles.

Flip doesn’t know how anyone can smile, like this.

Everyone is shouting, but no one can hear, not over all the noise, not through the roar of the engine and machine gun fire, not through the screams and the explosions and the sounds of trees cracking, bending over backwards too far until they snap.

He doesn’t even know what you’re saying, can’t really process the meaning of the words you’re speaking, even though they’re right in his ear.

He thinks he catches something, a fragment, through the chaos before they’re landing, thinks he hears an

‘I love you.’

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

The shower is a blessing, hot water, scalding hot, scrubbing away the last legs of his fear.

“Come on, let’s clean up.” You say, and he feels like he could cry from the way you speak to him, the way you talk to him like he’s normal, like he’s not crazy. He didn’t know what he would do if you thought he was crazy, after everything else if you thought he had lost it.

It’s purifying, the water. He sighs as it darkens his hair, as it loosens the muscles in his shoulder.

When the water runs down his legs, it runs down clear. No pink, no red, no black of soot or brown dirt. No green.

Clear.

He now knows why so many faiths, religions, creeds all use water. He knows now.

He can’t remember the last time he showered in something other than a river, water that was truly clean, not just fresh.

Suddenly, it seems like the most important thing in the world to touch you, to cleanse you of his nightmares, of the tears he pressed into your skin. He washes your hair, takes his time. He did this for you every day, once upon a time. He did this for you now, and it was just like then.

His hands didn’t even shake, for once. The relief in his chest was almost enough to make him dizzy, when he realized his hands weren’t shaking.

He scrubs your scalp with shampoo, lathers and foams it up, laughs to himself about how you look. He breaths deeply, breaths in the orange and bergamot, a smell that is uniquely you. The perfume of it fills his lungs and he’s at peace again completely, once he has you rinse your hair.

You in turn, wash his body.

He lets his eyes close, lets himself simply feel the way your hands glide over his skin, the way the bath brush makes soothing circles across his chest and his back. He feels more and more like himself with every circle of the bristly brush, with every foamy sudsy pass of your hands.

He ducks to kiss you right under the spray, because he has to, has to show his thanks somehow.

You kiss him back, in in that kiss you tell him of course, of course you’ll do this for him.

You’ll do anything for him.

When the hot water has run out and the shower is over, the two of you wrap yourselves in soft white towels. The fabric is soothing on his skin, and Flip revels in it.

You sit on the counter, spread your legs enough that he can stand in between them as you search the medicine cabinet for the shaving kit.

He only wants a trim, so that’s what he’ll get, you think with a smile as you fish out the small scissors and the tweezers. Flip’s goatee had a habit of growing kind of erratically, it always made you huff out a little laugh, random hairs popping up nowhere near the rest of them.

Flip’s mesmerized by the way you look, the light coming in from the bathroom window that’s still open from earlier. It’s late enough in the morning now that the sky is a beautiful blue filled with white fluffy clouds. The light is buttery and warm, and catches on your skin making you glow in a way he was sure only existed in dreams.

When you pluck one of his hairs and he winces, he knows it’s real.

The thought makes him smile, which makes you smile.

“You gotta be careful,” You tell him with a grin as you pluck another one, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You’re so beautiful.” Flip sighs, and you blush.

God, how he missed that blush.

But it’s true, you’re gorgeous sitting there on the counter, your hair wrapped up in a towel in a way that Flip still doesn’t really understand. You’re gorgeous with those little silver scissors in your hand as you wait for him to relax his mouth so you can clip away some of the length of his mustache.

The corner of his mouth twitches from how it tickles, and you grin.

“You’re my favorite person, you know that?” You tell him, and he nods, crinkles his nose as you pluck another hair. “I’m sorry, I won’t ever make that again.”

He knows what you mean, and he nods. He sighs.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me.” he admits, and that truth scares him, makes him angry. “It’s frustrating, I don’t know what that was, what happened.”

You’re quiet for a little while as you trim the goatee, as you comb through the mustache and the beard, as you smooth in some oil so it doesn’t go all frizzy.

“I know you don’t want to tell me about it, but do you think maybe you might be comfortable talking to someone else?” You ask softly, carefully, not wanting to upset him.

He frowns, but you don’t see it because you’re putting the shaving kit away, rinsing the stuff down the sink.

“That’s not true.” He shakes his head, and you look at him with soft eyes.

“Hm?” You ask, lost in thought as water goes down the drain.

“I don’t not want to tell you.” He explains, fiddles with the star around your neck, “I want to tell you everything. I just don’t have the words, not right now. I don’t know how to say it, there’s so much.”

You’re thoughtful for a moment, always so thoughtful, and he looks just past you to the sight of him in the mirror.

Cleaned up and showered like this, he recognizes himself. Your hands did that to him, and he finds he just has to kiss them again, shower them with love and gratitude.

If he had the energy to sink to his knees then and there, he would, but he doesn’t, so he can’t.

He’s so exhausted, all of a sudden. A whole night of no sleep, and the smell of burnt bacon makes him exhausted. Go fucking figure.

“You don’t have to tell me anything all at once.” You say, reading his mind, because you have to be some kind of mind reader, he thinks, “But I need to know how to help you, how to avoid things like that. I don’t want you to ever have that again, if I can help it.”

“I don’t know what else there is, I don’t know.” He whispers, hating that he has to admit it, hating that he doesn’t know how to make this easier for either of you.

“Okay.” You nod, understanding, always so understanding. You let him kiss your fingertips and he could almost weep against them. He doesn’t, he doesn’t have any more tears, but you feel it anyway. “We don’t have to go to the station, if you don’t want. We can just stay in bed.”

“No, no I want to. I want to see everyone.” Flip says, and you smile, proud of him.

His heart soars at that smile.

“Let me remake breakfast? We’ll have something simple, cereal. I got the cereal you like, I’ve been eating it.” You blush, and Flip can’t help but tease you.

“Oh yeah?” He had always been fighting with you about his cereal, and you roll your eyes, already ready for an ‘I told you so.’

“Yeah – I have to add sugar though, it’s so bland!” You defend your tastes and he laughs, and you laugh, and he picks you off the counter and walks the both of you to the bedroom.

It doesn’t matter that his entire body is sore or that his legs are jello, it doesn’t matter. He’s got you in his arms, he’s going to visit his friends at his job that’s all still there, all waiting for him. Nothing matters anymore, at least he tries to tell himself that.

“It’s delicious just the way it is.” Flip says, and you throw a pair of underwear at him, blush crimson as he tosses it aside and tackles you instead.

“Gimme a kiss?” You ask, and this one is different, this one is hot and slow as he licks into your mouth, as he lets a hand sneak down between your legs.

You fall apart for him, and he takes everything you give him, gives it right back.

When you gasp into his mouth, he forgets about everything, just for a while.

But a while is enough, when it’s with you.

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

Thank you all for reading! Tagging some pals (if you’d like to be added to the tag list or taken off of it, please just let me know! @adamsnackdriver @dreamboatdriver @kylo-renne @callmehopeless @kyloxfem @formerly-anonhamster @thepilotanon @solotriplets @fullofbees @spinebarrel @bourbonboredom @driverficarchive @rosalynbair @redhairedfeistynerd @glitzescape @adamsnacc-kler @ladygrey03 @venusianmaiden marvelous-blog-221 @edwardseyelashes @softcrybabykid @tinyplanet-explorers

#reader insert #flip zimmerman x reader #flip x reader #blackkklansman #my writing #two doves #vietnam war #vietnam au

122 notes · View notes

shadows-echoes · 6 years

Text

Of Blood and Biocomponents - Pt. 2

Pairing: Ruthless!Connor x reader

Summary: A soulmate AU where injuries from one person appear on the body of the other.

Warnings: various injuries.

Word Count: 3.2k

Masterlist // Part 1 // Part 3 // Part 4 // Part 5 // Part 6 // Part 7 // Part 8 (epilogue)

You waited for hours, that night, but just like every other time you’d attempted to communicate, there was no answer.

Words were etched into the skin of your arms, and when you reached your shoulders and ran out of space, you moved on to your legs. Sometimes it would be another question or a prompt, other times it would be demands for an explanation.

In a moment of weakness and with gritted teeth, you even wrote:

I thought you didn’t exist.

It was a confession, but it was also meant to drag something out of your soulmate: shock, guilt, a mutuality, something.

Something to get them to respond. Anything.

Writing into one’s skin wasn’t an uncommon occurrence among soulmates, a lot of the time it helps them find each other. In most instances, however, the letters were hardly deep enough to even be classified as cuts. In most instances, the light scratchings would only leave a faint imprint of letters in the skin and would fade within minutes.

You weren’t that careful. The words which passed through your skin were not pleasant. The seemingly bottomless well of frustration masked the pain, however, and the odd tear diluted any dotting blood.

It quickly became clear that your soulmate had no intention of answering. They had no desire to have anything to do with you. So, with your body littered with red, unacknowledged words, you gave up.

You would’ve liked to say that it was easy since you had so much experience with solidarity, but it wasn’t. It was worse. It was far worse knowing your soulmate existed and just… didn’t care.

Your heart still plummeted.

You tried your damnedest to ignore it, to push all of it down and away and out of your mind, to move on with your life. And you did... for the most part.

The weeks which passed were filled with silence.

Well, silence and pain.

Whoever your soulmate was, they would unquestionably be the death of you. It was like they’d saved up a lifetime’s worth of brutal injuries to transfer to you within a handful of weeks. And they were brutal. You were spared papercuts, stubbed toes, and small bruises. Instead, you received bullet wounds, fractured ribs, and broken appendages. You were in and out of the hospital frequently enough that you knew most of the staff by name now. Hell, you even knew the names of a few of their kids by this point.

When a soul-wound appeared, it, by nature, fell somewhere between uncomfortable and deadly depending on the damage inflicted. If one’s arm suddenly breaks with no apparent cause, one is bound to freak out a bit. It is natural. Expected.

Never personally having had to deal with this problem before, you were decidedly not accustomed to the amount of attention it brought you. Perhaps the nature of your injuries had something to do with it, but the gazes cast your way felt heavier than they had any right to be. Whenever a short shriek of surprise or pain escaped you in public, a soul-wound manifesting somewhere on your body, people looked at you with surprise, fear, and frustration.

One of your professors even crossed himself when you started gushing blood halfway through his lecture.

You almost preferred those reactions though, the looks of undiluted fear and the tired, half-smiles of sympathy before people quickly carried on with their day. Because the people who stopped to help you, as wonderful and life-saving as they were, always asked variations of the same question and you always had the same answer: you didn’t know.

You didn’t know who your soulmate was, what they did for a living, or what they had gotten themselves into.

Those who stopped to help were nearly worse because their helping hands always turned into pity-filled eyes.

The exception to this rule seemed to be your boss. She would help, to an extent, but after your fourth bad injury at work she took you aside and suggested that you figure things out- figure things out and not come back until you did.

How you were supposed to do such a thing was a mystery to you, and you had half a mind to tell her to shove it where the sun didn’t shine. The only clues you had to your soulmate’s identity was that they lacked the skill of communication, they got into a whole heck of a lot of fights, and must have access to some fan-freaking-tastic medical equipment because you hadn’t the faintest idea how they could get hurt so much without taking a breather to heal. Well, it was that or they were actively trying to die in the slowest, most creative way possible.

None of it particularly helped you sort out their identity.

But there were plenty of bills that needed to be paid. So, naturally, you went back to work a few days later and told your boss with your most convincing smile, as you lied through your teeth, that you had figured it all out. She bought it.

It was only six days after that, when you were helping a couple friends move into their new place, that everything shifted.

You carried what could only be a box full of lead up a set of stairs when someone struck you. Of course, no one actually hit you, but that didn’t prevent you from flinching. And that was precisely your mistake: flinching.

You jerked enough at the pain blossoming over your left cheekbone that you lost your balance and went right back down the stairs. The box you carried tumbled down right alongside you, leaving hard-cover books strewn across the stairs and the landing, as a throbbing pain of your own to shot through your ankle.

The blow, the landing, and the newest pain leave you wheezing. You still find enough reserved air in your lungs, however, to cry out as a large burn appears across your palm and the pads of your fingers not moments later.

Three and a half hours after that, you sit sprawled across your couch with your sprained ankle atop an armrest and your burned hand wrapped in gauze.

As irritated as you already were, you seethed as another injury began forming on your arm. Except... the steady stream of curses spewing from your lips died as soon as you glanced down.

Your jaw dropped too.

It wasn’t a bruise or a burn or a cut.

It was multiple cuts.

They formed words.

In clear, perfect script neatly etched into your forearm, read:

Your injuries are highly inconveniencing. Prevent them.

The words were not inscribed deeply enough to hit anything important, but they were deep. Blood crawled from the incisions and collected on the underside of your arm, rolling down to meet your elbow.

And all you could do was stare.

Inconveniencing.

You just received your first and only words from your soulmate and it was an insult? A goddamn reprimand? And an incorrect reprimand at that? The pure audacity made you bristle.

Sure, you might’ve drawn some blood here and there, but you hadn’t hospitalized them! You were most certainly not the inconveniencing one in this relationship, and every part of you yearned to tell them that.

But you didn’t.

Call it reciprocity or pettiness or shock, but you didn’t reply. Because even if you did, even if you repeated all your previous questions or told off your soulmate, you had a sinking, suffocating feeling this was all you’d ever get from them. Apathy and misdirected instructions.

They gave you no reason to expect otherwise.

It took you forever to fall asleep that night, and when you finally did, it was with a heavy heart and a hollow feeling consuming your chest.

It was a peculiarity that you saw the news the following night. You only turned on the television for some background noise, it’s not like you intended on paying attention to the reruns of previously aired clips from recent stories.

It was a fluke of nature that you looked up when you did.

It was nothing short of an anomaly for your notice to catch on the man in the background of one of the clips. He was only in frame for about two seconds before he, with an imperfect gait, brushed passed and disappeared behind some police officers. Perhaps the impartial universe was simply feeling generous in that moment, but the man was in focus and for just long enough to distinguish the faint smear of blueblood just above his cheekbone.

Exactly where your own blood had spilled.

Exactly where the bruise still sat.

And all you can think is:

Android.

It took you five days, countless calls, a few accidental meltdowns, cashing in on three different favors, asking for two other favors, and some, uh, slight impersonation to get all the necessary information. But, at the very least, no one could claim you weren’t determined.

Connor.

The man you saw on the news was named Connor.

He’s an RK800 prototype recently developed by Cyberlife. Forty-eight days ago, while on his second mission, he was shot in the shoulder. It coincided with your first soul-wound perfectly. Time, placement, the extent of the damage, all of it. It all matched. He had had plenty of missions since then -all successful- and, from what you could gather, all of his wounds perfectly matched with yours.

It explained everything.

He explained everything.

The guy didn’t have great medical insurance; he swapped out any and all damaged parts. He didn’t have a death-wish; he couldn’t die. He wasn’t, entirely, a masochist, he just couldn’t feel pain.

In recent years, plenty of androids have been discovered to have soulmates. Most often, androids had soulmates who were also androids, other times… It wasn’t the easiest thing for you to accept but it was hardly the most difficult. After going through life thinking you were destined to be alone and then finally discovering that you did have a soulmate only to learn of his apathy… Accepting that he was an android was something that happened in under a minute and over a half a cup of coffee.

You cared less about what color his blood was and more about how much of a jerk he seemed to be. You cared less about spending the rest of your life with him and more about staying alive for the foreseeable future.

Connor?

After learning his name you’d scratched it into your arm for… confirmation? To show that you knew? Regardless of the reasoning, you’d be lying if you said you had expected him to respond. You’d also be lying if you said his lack of response wasn’t disappointing.

But, then again, no one could claim you weren’t determined.

Connor. It sounded strange in your thoughts and stranger on your lips.

He looked different in person.

Not bad, not by a long shot, but different. Much to your mounting dismay, he had a face you could stare at for hours. At least, that’s your conclusion from the few glances you had been able to steal of it. It was rather difficult to judge when all you got a good look at was the back of him.

Tall. Broad, set shoulders. A fitted android jacket. Long, determined strides. That much was abundantly clear to you even from the slight distance.

It took you a couple of shots to catch up with him, but once you finally did it was unnervingly easy to follow him. You wanted to chalk it up to your amazing super-spy skills but were wary to jump to that conclusion. Perhaps he simply wasn’t aware of anyone following him or, more likely, just didn’t care.

All three notions were dashed the second you followed him around a corner and down a side hallway, however.

You’re silently pinned against a wall before you can blink, a hand resting above your collarbone and around your throat.

“Is there any reason in particular you’re following me?”

His grip was undeniably strong, but he wasn’t exerting enough pressure for it to hurt. It was to hold you in place. Though the lack of excessive force may have had something to do with your lack of resistance- you were too stunned. Angry and indignant and defensive immediately wanting to punch him for jumping you, but stunned.

You had intended on talking to him but... this wasn’t exactly what you had in mind.

Glancing sideways, you realize both of you are entirely out of sight of the offices -and people- not twenty feet away.

Connor stares down at you flatly, expectantly, but it’s his calmness that strikes you more than anything. More than your current position. More than him, right here, in front of you.

There’s an ease to his hostility, an underlying layer of confidence to his actions that’s worn like a second layer of synthetic skin.

Confidence. That’s what you need right now, and despite everything, it is surprisingly easy to channel. You may be a lot of things as you stare up at the sharp lines of his face, but intimidated isn’t, for some reason, one of them.

“Unfortunately, yes,” you reply, dryly.

He waits for you to elaborate, dark, coffee-brown eyes analyzing you as much as you were analyzing him.

Neat is one word that pops into your mind as you stare up at him. Unbridled is another.

He doesn’t worry you nearly as much as he should; the grin tugging at your lips worries you. Because you know something he doesn’t, and that feels good. It gives you power. A much different kind of power considering you are still pinned to a wall, granted, but it is there. You know as much about Connor as anyone outside of Cyberlife possibly could -and then some-. The most he could know about you are basic facts.

The pressure around your throat increases.

“Easy with that grip, Connor, you might hurt yourself.” The words are slightly breathy, but the smirk in them -and the one on your face- is blatant.

His eyes narrow at your remark and you can’t help but agree. Behind your smirk, you are kicking yourself, and behind the mental beratement, you’re cackling.

Soulmate or not, it was positively delightful to finally, after all this time, meet this guy and have something over him. Even if it is only for a moment. Even if you aren’t sure you’d ever see him again after this.

“It is in your best interest to answer the question within the next five seconds.”

The commanding tone in his voice isn’t subtle, but it is smooth. And, ohh, how you want to wait. You itch to wait seven long seconds before answering, to mess with him, to push his buttons just because you can.

It‘s undoubtedly foolish to think so given your current predicament, but you don’t think he will actually hurt you. However, you did know enough about Connor to know precisely how… lethal he is, and you don’t particularly feel like testing your hypothesis.

Slowly holding up your hand, you showcase the faded, nearly-healed burn marks that trailed across your skin.

Connor might’ve grabbed a gun just after it had been fired or he might’ve high-fived a campfire for all you knew. The point was that even with the advanced medical care in this day and age, it couldn’t quite keep up with your growing collection of injuries.

His hard gaze slides from yours to your hand and back again, unfazed. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“Well, it should since you’re the one who gave it to me.”

For a moment, he only stares.

For a moment, you watch him processing your words.

Then, realization flashes in his eyes and he recoils.

His hand flies from your skin as though you burned him; he practically jumps in his haste to get away from you. His LED indicator is a whirlwind of reds and yellows-

But it settles on blue.

He recovers swiftly enough, but he stays a few feet away, glaring at you like you’re carrying some kind of virus. The ease, the confidence… it was all still there, but it’s now mixed with a layer of tension.

He looks you over with nothing short of disdain, and it’s the most emotion you have seen him emit as of yet.

You lower your hand, closing it into a loose fist by your side to keep from rubbing at your throat.

The reaction stung, you couldn’t lie about that even to yourself. It was practically the polar opposite of the reaction you’d dreamed of getting when you were younger. You hadn’t come here with much hope -you had no idea what to expect-, but he had just shot down whatever was left of it, dousing the remains in gasoline and setting it aflame.

But you’d be damned if you let him see it- see how much affected you. You could still do what you came here for; all you really wanted was to not have a blood transfusion every other week.

“Easy,” you grind out, a small sneer meeting your expression. “I’m not here with a declaration of love, don’t get your programming in a bunch.”

Perhaps you are evenly suited for each other after all -something you’d avoided thinking about- because just as you use your emotions to steel your resolve, Connor seems to use your bristling to cement his freezing impartiality.

His head tilts ever so slightly to the side. “Tell me, are you ever straightforward or are you always this irritating?”

You’re only partially successful at wrestling back your sigh. “Listen, dude, if you’re not digging me an early grave, you’re burying me under medical debt,” you explain.

“And?”

You squint at him. “And do you have any idea how expensive that shit is? You might be able to get repaired for free and in under five minutes, but I can’t. Do you mind, you know, getting hurt less?”

“I do whatever it takes to accomplish my mission,” he informs, as though you weren’t already keenly aware of that fact.

“Even if it goes against your programming by creating unnecessary damage and a potential casualty?” you fire back, raising your brows at him.

“Yes,” he states so lowly it’s nearly a growl. He takes a step towards you too, something dangerous tempering his eyes. “Even then.”

He was trying to prove something to you, that much was obvious, but you wondered if he was also trying to prove to himself what a good plastic soldier he is. After all, Cyberlife hasn’t had the best time marketing their “merchandise” when the whole soulmate thing trashed the Machine versus Alive debate.

Through your research, you’d gotten the impression that Connor was supposed to fix that little problem of theirs. He wasn’t supposed to have a soulmate -not that Cyberlife could control any of that stuff as much as they like to pretend otherwise.

At the moment you’re far too frustrated to feel any sympathy for him though.

“Gees, just try not to die, alright? That shouldn’t be beyond your capabilities,” you sneer. You move to leave but stop yourself short. “Oh, and if you do end up killing me, I’m going to haunt your ass out of spite and you’ll never be rid of me.”

Then, after flashing him a barbed smile, you turn on your heel and head for the exit.

The derision positively seeps from his voice as he calls at your back, “ghosts don’t exist.”

“Oh, but they will,” you promise, not breaking your stride.

You spent a good portion of your life looking for your soulmate, and the rest of it thinking you didn’t have one. If he was anyone else, if you were anyone else, this meeting may have gone entirely differently, but alas...

You just officially met your soulmate, and he’s an ass.

A/N: You can’t tell me Ruthless!Connor wouldn’t think of soulmates in general as a weakness. And his soulmate? When what happens to one happens to the other? The boi would be low-key pissed.

And oh my god. I legit didn’t think anyone would be interested in this so I’m super glad you are!! I hope you guys like it!

Let me know what you think?

Tags: @aya-fay @syrinxgm @aeryntheofficial @nissistylinson @theoraekensnotsosecretlover @the-smol-onion @adaydreaminganon @silverconduit @warriorqueennorthlotus @swordsandserpents @deviantsupporter @iamthunderstorm18 @quartetstarheaven @goddessofthegeeks

#ruthless!connor x reader #connor rk800 x reader #connor rk800 x gender neutral reader #connor dbh x reader #dbh connor x reader #connor x reader #ruthless!connor #detroit: become human #soulmate au #connor rk800 #connor dbh #dbh connor #dbh

371 notes · View notes

macdvnald · 6 years

Text

[ CHRISTIAN SERRATOS ] • [ SHE/HER ] | is that [ MARY MACDONALD ] , the [ NINETEEN ] year/s old [ GRYFFINDOR ] alumnus , walking down diagon alley ? I heard that the last time they had their fortune read, they drew the [ HIEROPHANT REVERSED ] , which seems [ UNLUCKY ] . hopefully they won’t come to any harm, considering their recent choice to ally themselves with [ THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX ] . they’ll probably be fine - I know they’re [ PERSISTENT ] , though apparently they can also be [ RUTHLESS ] . what’s the worst that could happen ? |

LINKS: stats, pinboard, playlist PARALLELS: johanna mason ( the hunger games ), jessica jones ( jessica jones ), raven reyes ( the 100 ), ellie ( the last of us ), rosa diaz ( brooklyn 99 ), nancy wheeler ( stranger things ), kat edison ( the bold type ), sarah manning ( orphan black ) HELLO and welcome to the mess that is this intro!! on the bottom are some plot ideas & besides that its a big old mess! but we love disorganisation! hit this up with a like if u want me to hit u up for plots and i sure as hell will <333

history

mary had a little lamb? WRONG. mary had a little calf. because she was born on a dairy farm in the highlands of scotland ( laugh at my joke pls i worked hard on it ). she was born third to two muggles – a scottish father and a mexican mother, who loved each other deeply – and would eventually become their middle child. she could have become overlooked, but mary never felt discounted at home: while her parents were very often busy with the cows, their love ran deep.

her youth consisted of this: running through fields of grass, attending a muggle elementary where people sang songs at her ( old macdonald had a farm and mary had a little lamb ), playing with the animals, building tree houses with her brothers and sister and playing football every spare moment she got. it was good and simple and wholesome.

of course, strange things happened, as they tend to with muggleborns: she’d explode her brother’s toy when she got angry, or let things fly around the room when she was laughing. when she found out she was a witch at age eleven, things fell in its place. and the macdonalds, while traditional catholics, accepted mary, which is the most important thing of it all. her parents were shocked, yes, but they squeezed her shoulder and promised to discover this all together.

which?? very much influenced mary greatly? because it went against a lot of things they – and she, too – believed in? this has allowed her to have a faith in people, and while she may be cynical and bitter at times, that faith is still there.

hogwarts was as chaotic as home, and mary settled in quite nicely. sorted into gryffindor ( she guessed it was for her rambunctious nature, but who knew ), she found herself a second home and loved it. as it turned out, she was rather good with a wand as well – she didn’t do so good at essays, though – and genuinely liked learning ( except for history of magic. fuck that. ).

being a muggleborn had its downsides, of course, but mary never really allowed herself to feel discouraged. hurt? yes, definitely, but never discouraged. she wasn’t going to let it get to her, she told herself, but it did, especially when the harsh words turned into something more. it was during her confrontation with mulciber that mary felt true, harsh fear for the first time. she felt shut down, paralysed, depressed —– but then, after a while, she got up and took some important steps. she reported mulciber, which led to nothing, which caused her to feel angry, which in turn caused her to feel determination. if the system wasn’t going to be on her side, she’d just have to fucking change it, right? mary started throwing herself in her schoolwork, determined to join the dmle – hopefully as an auror, but any position would do. she suppressed her fear and the trauma that was there, and kept her chin up.

the entire mulciber situation is up for change, should we get a mulciber, or if it doesn’t correspondent with the plot/rp canon!

graduation rolled around and mary got the five required NEWTs to even apply. it was a nervewracking process, but once she got into auror training, she cried. like. for a year. she was so proud of herself and she felt so determined and !! man. it was such a good, defining moment. around the same time, mary joined the order; she knew the ministry was corrupt, and that it’d not allow her to do everything she wanted to, when the order DID. mary had too much anger, too much determination to fight this bullshit to just stick with the ministry, and so the order seemed like the right place.

right now, she’s fighting. she’s gritting her teeth and keeping her goals in the back in her mind and is focusing. and she does not always feel brave or confident or self assured, but that does not matter: mary macdonald always gets the fuck back up, and that’s what she will keep doing until she’s completely knocked down.

personality & tidbits

mary is a human espresso. she’s so. damn. bitter?? despite the fact that she keeps on going and that she’s fighting her ass off, she’s tired and angry that things don’t seem to be moving in the right direction, she’s feeling bitter about the fact that this kind of discrimination is happening right in front of her eyes and that she does not have enough power to stop it. she feels powerless, which makes her feel bitter, which makes her cynical.

still! mary is not necessarily a debbie downer to be around. she keeps her bitterness ( and hopelessness, even ) carefully hidden in boxes in her mind. on the outside, she’s filled with quips and smiles and quick comments! just a sociable bean, but just a bitter one.

is a dog person and will fight anyone who prefers cats. has a cairn terrier called bowie. she loves him more than anyone.

obsessed with tea, tbh. her ma always said that ‘there’s nothing a cuppa can’t fix’ and mary definitely agrees with this statement.

though is also a ‘whiskey in a teacup’ kinda gal

can be spotted wearing either a rly nice ass blazer or a jean jacket, no inbetween. either office-fancy or farmer-chique

fucking loves muggle culture and loves fellow muggleborns and !!!!!! she loves it!!!

very much in a take-no-prisoners mindset at this point re: death eaters. it kind of scares her, tbh, but mary is very much capable of murdering a death eater, even if she could stun them — she’s just done. she’s very. done. with them. and this whole shbang? will only feed into this.

mary is ruthless, that’s what it boils down to. she’s a lot more than that, of course, but i chose that trait for her app because she is --- in small things ( football matches & boardgames ) but also in bigger ones, and of course the war is the main way it shows. mary is so angry. she’s so angry and scared and tired of feeling that way and tired of being scared to lose people and herself and of death and she’s so angry that people really are this way and that they really do these things --- she wants it to stop. she wants the world to be right. and sometimes she thinks the ends do justify the means.

this is why she’s chaotic neutral and not chaotic good.

like ive had her turned to dark arts before just bc she’s so desperate to. fucking win.

and she’s also like --- mary doesnt care if she ruins herself? if she becomes a bad person who’s unable to live with the shit she’s done? as long as the world is better for it, as long as kids can go to hogwarts and feel safe and the world is a safe place for everyone. what does her soul matter in the grand scheme of things? she’d burn in hell forever if it meant the rest of the world changed for the better.

emotionally driven mess of a being

is catholic but struggles a lot with religion and feeling faithful, but she does still identify is a catholic, it’s just? complicated. it’s rly complicated and she hates it.

is a bit flighty when it comes to romance, def has a lot of one night stands/fwb situations though??? she’s just like??? i dont have time for romance its a WAR

has been trying to stop smoking for five years, but alas

mary also works part time at quality quidditch supplies because the girl loves quidditch ---- though not as much as she loves football.

a proud scot. probably lives in scotland, but i’m ... going to keep her living situaiton open and segue into Wanted Plots!

plot ideas

roomies ----- so mary is not Earning A Whole Lot Right Now but does not want to live at home any more because 1. its in the middle of nowhere and 2. most importantly, she’s afraid of endangering her family. she needs roomies! i’d love for her to live in glasgow/edinburgh/london/idk a city!!!

hook ups/fwb’s/etc ----- mary is what the old ppl call promiscuous and she sleeps around. so ! let’s talk! former hook ups! booty calls! friends with benefits! etc etc etc!

party pals ---- mary likes going to pubs and clubs in the muggle part of town bc it is a LIT way to escape the reality of the wizarding world and also, muggle clubs have better music. come party w her!!!!

in the dragon’s den together ---- fellow ministry employees who side eye the ministry and whom mary can sip tea and judge their colleagues with

mudbloods club ---- mary loves her fellow muggleborns and i would love some muggleborn friends that she can be buds with. ranting about dumb pureblood names and traditions and the fact that wizards dont have movies

general friendship ideas ---- im just going to a bunch of ideas here: hogwarts friends, ride or dies, order pals, friendly exes, fellow tea drinkers that she can go on coffee/tea dates with, friends who are growing apart bc of the war (my fave), etc.

etc ---- some other ideas i want to spitball: purists who h8 on mary’s life, fellow diagon alley employees, fellow order members, Annoyances, there is solidarity in being scottish, ministry connections, etc etc etc HIT ME UP

#ootp.intro

7 notes · View notes

dust2dust34 · 7 years

Text

Pieces of Always: May 10, 2022 (FICoN ‘verse)

Life continues after Forever is Composed of Nows.

by @so-caffeinated (and @dust2dust34)

Summary: Ellie's fourth birthday brings along with it more than some members of her family had considered.

An ongoing non-linear collection of family moments for the Queens. (You do not need to have read FiCoN to enjoy this, but it will spoil the end. Please see the first installment for additional author notes. Thank you @jsevick and @alizziebyanyothername for the amazing beta!)

A/N: Please see the first chapter for an important Author’s Note, as well as under the cut for an additional one.

A/N: The effervescent @so-caffeinated is fully in the driver’s seat and she’s kicking all the ass, so please go send her your love!

(read on AO3)

May 10, 2022

The first thing that strikes Will as strange is that his mom intends to stick around. That’s unusual. She and his dad get along okay, but it’s not like they spend time together except for his sake. The second thing is the grim, anxious press of his father’s smile when he answers the door. That’s enough to set off alarms in Will’s head and make him a whole lot more alert of what’s going on around him.

But, Ellie is clearly, blissfully unaware.

“It’s my birthday!” she announces, barrelling through the room and launching herself at him when she gets close. Luckily, he’s well prepared and scoops her up from mid-air, leaving a loud, wet smack of a kiss on his newly-four-year-old sister’s cheek.

“Happy birthday, Ellie-bug!” he tells her. Her answering smile is blinding.

“I’m four, Will! Four whole years old,” she reminds him.

“I know,” Will laughs. “I remember when you were born. You were early. You scared your mom.”

“Well, we had it on pretty good authority what day she’d arrive on,” Oliver points out. His voice is grumbly and tight. Will’s a touch surprised to see his mom grip his dad’s shoulder in a quick moment of solidarity. They aren’t close, after all, but his father glances back with a grateful look on his face. Will holds Ellie a little tighter at that, because what exactly is going on?

“Is everything okay?” he asks, looking between his parents.

“Of course it is, silly!” Ellie declares. “It’s my birthday!”

That’s not an answer, of course, as much as she might think that it is, and Will is hyperaware of the hesitant glances between his mom and dad. But, ultimately, distraction comes honestly.

And loudly.

“Oh thank god,” Felicity announces, hand to her chest as she pushes down obvious panic. She’s enormous these days, less than a month away from giving birth to Will’s baby brother, and he’s kind of amazed that she was able to waddle into the room as quickly as she does. But he’s also got far too much sense to say that aloud. “Ellie, baby,” she says sternly. “You can’t run off like that.”

Ellie’s head quirks to the side and her brow furrows in clear confusion. “We’re at home…” she replies, looking from her mother to her father like none of this makes sense at all to her. That’s fair because it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to Will either.

At least, not right away.

“Just for today, Ellie-bug,” his dad says, brushing his fingers through the little girl’s curls. It’s the motion of his dad’s hands that draw’s Will’s attention, but that’s not what keeps it. No, what keeps it is a brand new, shiny necklace his little sister’s wearing.

Will’s heart drops to the floor at the sight and his head spins with the implications, but Ellie’s grinning widely, holding it out for him to see, clearly having caught on to what he was looking at.

“Isn’t it pretty?” she asks, her eyes bright and innocent. “It’s all shiny! Cisco made it for me. He came for my party, too. So did Barry and Caitlin and Iris and everybody’s here.”

“Yeah,” Will says dimly, forcing a smile a moment later as he swallows and meets Ellie’s eyes. “Yeah, I bet they are.”

“Will…” his father says slowly, obviously realizing that his eldest has caught on to exactly what his littlest sister is wearing and what it means.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Ellie says seriously, kissing Will’s cheek. “I gotta get down, though. Barry said he was super hungry from running here and I need to protect my cake because you know how he gets.”

“Barry is not going to eat your cake,” Felicity huffs, rolling her eyes and holding out her hand for her younger daughter as Will puts her down. “But let’s go make sure he doesn’t go through the rest of the snacks on his own, okay?”

Even at not-quite-fourteen, Will’s incredibly aware of what’s going on with the people around him. That’s doubly true when it’s his family. And he doesn’t miss when Felicity grips Ellie’s hand tightly enough that her knuckles lose some color and her thumb soothes over the back of the little girl’s hand like she’s trying to prove to herself that her daughter is still there.

Will waits for his stepmother and sister to leave the room before turning to look at his dad. “You could’ve told me. I’m not an idiot, you know.”

Annoyance creeps up quickly. He’s a teenager, damn it. Practically an adult. This is his family. If his baby sister might be in danger, he ought to know about it.

“We didn’t want to worry you, honey,” his mom says, butting in. And that tells him a whole lot right there. It’d been his mom’s decision to keep him out of the loop and his dad had gone along with it. He wonders what his father would have chosen if he’d had his way.

“I’m not a little kid!” he insists, hating that it sounds petulant and a little whiny, completely contradicting his point. He takes a deep breath and looks back to his dad, making an effort to keep his voice serious and level. Adult. “I’m not. I deserve to know things, too.”

Hesitance greets him in response. His dad takes a slow breath and licks his lips, casting his eyes briefly toward Will’s mom. Will’s pretty sure she’s not gonna cave, so he pushes whatever advantage he’s got.

“Dad,” he stresses. “You wanna tell me if Zoom’s showed up or am I gonna have to find out when time rips in half right in front of me.”

It’s a low blow - but an accurate one - and Will feels more than a little bad when his father flinches and blinks too hard, too fast, like he’s trying to banish an image imprinted on his mind’s eye.

“No,” his father replies. “There’s been nothing, but-”

“But today’s the day the other Ellie got sent back in time,” Will finishes for him.

It is.

He knows that.

But it still feels like a punch to the gut when he watches his father nod slowly in reply. “Better safe than sorry,” he notes.

“And that’s why you’re staying, right Mom?” Will demands, turning to face her.

“I didn’t want you here at all,” she replies. Will wants to protest immediately, but keeps quiet, tightening his jaw and gritting his teeth as she continues. “Your sister’s birthday or not, I wanted you far away from all of this. But your father pointed out enough has changed that we can’t know who, if anyone, will be in danger. You’re safer here where there are a lot of people to protect you, too.”

“I can protect myself,” Will answers, unable to hold his tongue any more. He’s so indignant right now. His mom is treating him like a baby - like he’s the one turning four instead of Ellie - and it makes him so angry because that’s just unfair. “I can protect myself and Ellie. I’m her big brother. It’s my job to help keep her safe.”

“Will...” his dad says slowly, putting a hand on his shoulder. It’s not without sympathy, but Will’s not satisfied by unspoken support.

“No,” Will insists, stepping back and crossing his arms in defiance. “You’d have wanted to protect Aunt Thea when you were a teenager, if she was in danger.”

His dad winces at the mention and Will feels a touch guilty about bringing up Aunt Thea, but his point is completely valid and he knows it.

“I still want to protect your Aunt Thea,” his father says solemnly. His face is grave at the words and he looks so much older for a moment that it’s startling. “I get where you’re at, Will. I do. But you’re our son. The view looks different from our perspective than it did when I was your age. Maybe you’ll understand that one day.”

“That’s not fair,” Will protests, thoroughly unsatisfied with the answer. “You know if you were in my shoes, you’d-” But anything else he’d been about to add gets left unsaid when Jules steps into the room.

Everyone freezes.

“What’s going on?” she asks, a suspicious line to her brow as her eyes dart between the three of them.

“Nothing, honey,” her father tells her. “Nothing you need to worry about.” The qualification means he’s not lying, exactly. He definitely thinks it’s nothing she needs to know about, but Will is positive that his seven-year-old sister won’t see it that way at all. She’s been more vocal these past few months about her thoughts, but she’s also lashed out a lot more. Not at him, though. He’s been lucky. Some days it feels like she’s got a chip on her shoulder toward everyone but him, and Will’s both grateful for that and wishes he knew a way to help her. Jules has a tendency to see slights against her where none are intended.

“Sure,” she says dryly, clearly not buying her father’s denial in the least. Their dad looks hurt at the response and Will knows full well that he’s mentally scrambling to try and repair things with Jules as best he can.

“I promise, Julie-bug,” Oliver says heavily, watching his older daughter. “It’s grown up Arrow stuff, okay? Nothing I want you worried about. I want you to have fun and enjoy the party.”

“Is that why Barry’s here and Uncle Digg has a gun?” she asks, cocking her head to the side and raising an eyebrow at her father. She’s perceptive to a fault, sometimes. And when she latches on to something, she’s unlikely to let go.

“We’re just being careful,” he replies, which is sort of confirmation but also a dismissal of the conversation. “Why don’t you go show your brother the decorations out back?”

“Sure,” she replies sharply. “Maybe I’ll show him the best places to play hide and seek, while I’m at it.”

Lord, she sounds childish right now. She’s being petulant and difficult on purpose - fully aware that the adults are hovering like something might strike and put them in danger at any moment - and Will can read the frustration on his father’s face like it’s spelled out in words. Jules voicing her mistrust of her place in the family a few months ago had thrown him and Felicity for a loop. They’ve been walking on eggshells ever since, trying to repair what they didn’t even know was broken. Sometimes Will thinks that does more harm than good. But, then, he’s never been in their shoes. Jules seems to trust him, to lump him into a different category than the rest of her family.

“You like making Dad and Felicity panic, don’t you?” Will asks her.

“It’s a hobby,” she replies, offering him a smile.

“Come on, Brat,” he says affectionately, walking over and ruffling her hair. “Hey!” she protests loudly. But it’s half-hearted at best and he keeps his hand atop her head as he says, “Lead me to the food. I’m starving.”

“You’re always hungry,” she counters as they head through the kitchen. He drums his fingers along the top of her skull just to annoy her. It works, of course, and she swats at his hand with a, “Quit it, dorkbrain!” after a moment.

“Dorkbrain?” he asks with a laugh, letting his hand fall away. She just shrugs and sticks her tongue out at him as a reply. He laughs harder at the sight. “We need to work on your insults, Brat.”

“I’m not a brat,” she insists, pushing open the back door. He blinks as sunlight invades his eyes, momentarily blinding him.

“All evidence to the contrary,” he quips. But he puts an arm around her and tugs her close in stark contradiction to their banter. He loves the hell out of his sister, but she accepts that best with a bit of snark attached to it. And he’s happy to provide that. “Wow, so… like everyone is here,” he adds, slowing his gait to a stop as he steps into the yard.

It’s true. Practically everyone ever associated with Team Arrow is on hand, filling the backyard of the brownstone. And, in spite of the balloons and streamers and pin-the-tail-on-Rascal-the-Racoon, he can sense the uneasiness of the space. Everyone is alert and, even though it’s more obvious with some than others, everyone is armed. Ellie doesn’t seem to notice - she’s too wrapped up in the joys of turning four, twirling in circles in front of Aunt Thea so that her party dress billows out - but it’s not going to escape Jules or Little Sara.

“So… this is a fun party, right?” Little Sara asks. Her tone is insincere and she trades knowing looks with Jules. While the two aren’t especially close, in spite of being the same age, when they are in sync it’s like they’re two-of-a-kind.

“I really like how Dad’s bow is leaning up against the house,” Jules agrees. Her voice is all sass. “Very festive.”

“My favorite might be how Big Sara’s twirling the stick for the pinata like it’s her bo,” Little Sara adds.

“It’s multipurpose,” Jules muses. It’s like she’s trying to sound older than she is and her voice makes Will shake his head in disbelief. She’s seven. What the hell is she doing using words like ‘multipurpose?’

“So, you’re going to tell us what’s going on, right?” Little Sara asks, suddenly drawing his attention back to the girl.

It’s only when Will takes a moment to look between the two girls that he realizes he’s been played. By two first graders. When, exactly, they decided he was the weakest link in the information chain, he’s not sure, but they definitely did. They look at him with twin expectant gazes awaiting an explanation and all Will can do is laugh nervously.

“We’re not babies,” Jules points out, crossing her arms in front of her and cocking her head to the side. “We deserve to know.”

It does not escape Will that her rationalization sounds a whole lot like his and realizing that is a bit jarring. But, in his mind, he’d very much had a point - he’s a teenager after all - where the girls are just a bit deluded about how ready they are for the realities of the world around them.

“It’s, uh… it’s Ellie’s fourth birthday,” Will tells them, sort of hoping they’ll do the math themselves and figure things out without him saying anything that implicates him of clueing in his baby sister on information their dad and Felicity had obviously kept from her intentionally.

“So that’s a reason to hit DEFCON two?” Jules asks, looking up at him in disbelief, clearly not buying his words in the least.

“Where did you get the term DEFCON from?” WiIl questions, blinking back at her.

“I watched movies with Uncle Roy last weekend,” Jules informs him, which thoroughly explains that, anyhow. “Don’t dodge the question, Will.”

“We are not at DEFCON two,” Will tells her firmly. Surely it’s no worse than three, right? It’s not that bad. It’s not like…

“Nyssa is in full League armor and hasn’t taken her hand off of her sword since she got here,” Little Sara deadpans.

Will looks across the yard to find that’s true. The assassin currently eyes the pinata like either she can’t figure out what it is or possibly it might attack at any moment, but she’s on high alert, too, and it’s very obvious that she’s highly aware of everything going on around her.

“You… might have a point,” Will allows with a wince.

“So, are you gonna tell us or are you gonna be like the adults and treat us like we’re toddlers?” Jules demands. It’s a test. She’s asking Will if she can trust him or if she should lump him into the same group she’s relegated everyone else. Will can’t tell her everything. He can’t. But he also can’t tell her nothing and he knows it.

“I’m going to tell you that it’s Ellie’s fourth birthday. It is May tenth of 2022. And because of that, everyone is here,” Will tells her. His voice is pointed and his eyes intense, like he’s trying to drive that point home without saying anything at all.

Jules’ brow furrows at that, clearly trying to interpret what he’s trying to tell her without telling her, but missing the significance of the date. Sara’s clearly at a loss too and Will’s hard pressed to decide who amongst the three of them is the most frustrated.

“What’s with the grouchy faces? You’d think you were Oliver’s kids or something.”

All three of them turn to Roy at the same time.

“Hilarious, Uncle Roy,” Jules says with an unimpressed air.

“Thanks,” he smiles. “I thought so. But, seriously, what’s up? Did Felicity cut you off from fruit juice already?”

“Well.. yes, actually,” Jules grumbles. “She said there’d be enough sugar with the cake later.”

“I’ll sneak you some,” Roy tells her, risking a glance in Felicity’s direction before winking at Jules. Will’s eyebrows shoot up at that as he gives his uncle a wary look. He considers himself a brave guy, but he’s not foolhardy and he’s not about to go up against Felicity’s rules. Not ever, but especially not when she’s eight months pregnant and he saw her cry over dropping a strawberry on the floor by mistake last week. Pregnancy makes women crazy, Will’s decided.

“This is why I love you, Uncle Roy,” Jules says sweetly. Sara’s wearing the same exact look. They might as well have identical fake halos hanging above their heads. It’s obvious to Will that they’ve redirected their focus on Roy to pry information out of, but his uncle has no clue what’s coming.

“I got your back, kid,” he promises with a grin.

“I know,” Jules agrees. “You always do.” Her eyes are huge, adoring, and while some of that is honest, a much bigger part of it is Jules playing her advantage to get what she wants. Roy is unsuspecting enough that Will sighs and shakes his head. So, that, of course, is exactly when Jules strikes. “That’s why you’ll tell me what’s going on today. Right, Uncle Roy?”

Roy freezes. Nothing moves at all except for his eyes, which dart back and forth warily between Jules and Sara, who have him absolutely pinned with their expectant gazes. Really, he should have seen this coming, in Will’s opinion. But, it’s clear that he’s completely unprepared.

“A… uh… a birthday party,” Roy tries lamely. Will actually covers his face with his hands so he doesn’t have to look at the completely disbelieving look on Jules’ face that he knows has taken it over.

“Only in my family does a party mean all the adults carry around weapons,” Jules huffs out in frustration. “Come on, Uncle Roy. Don’t lie to me. Everyone keeps things from me or lies to me, but you don’t.”

“Hey!” Will protests, letting his hands fall away as he looks at Jules. She seems a little abashed by her words when confronted with his annoyance.

“Okay, not everyone,” she amends, tilting her head to acknowledge her big brother.

“Your parents don’t lie to you, Jules,” Roy counters, looking a whole lot more serious than he usually does. “They don’t even keep much of anything from you. They never hid that your dad was The Arrow from you. They never lied about the first Ellie coming back in time. That’s why this is bothering you so much today. Because they don’t lie and they don’t keep things from you. Give them some credit. They deserve it.”

Sometimes Uncle Roy seems like an overgrown teenager. He’s fun and lighthearted, someone Will wishes he had more of a chance to see because he seems like the kind of person he could just goof off with. But then there’s moments like this one - or moments where the weight of Thea’s medical problems weighs down on them all - and he’s suddenly serious, focused, entirely an adult, and it gives Will a bit of whiplash because he never expects it.

“Give them a break, Jules,” Roy orders. “Today isn’t easy for them. They’re terrified and putting on a happy face for your little sister, so lay off them today, would you?”

That snags Jules’ attention and something about the wording clearly tickles at the edges of her understanding. She quirks her head to the side and her brow pinches as she mulls things over.

But, in the end, it’s Sara who catches on first.

“The first Ellie,” she realizes aloud, grabbing onto Jules’ elbow. “This is the day she went back in time, in her timeline.” Jules says nothing, but that’s typical when she’s deep in thought. She worries at her bottom lip with her teeth and her eyes turn guarded. Sara, in turn, is the exact opposite. “They’re worried it’ll happen here, too,” Sara realizes aloud. “They’re afraid Zoom is gonna pop up and grab Ellie.”

It’s not Roy or Sara that Jules turns to, seeking confirmation; it’s Will. Because she always turns to him first. Most of the time, that’s a point of pride for the teenager. He loves that his sister knows she can rely on him. But today it just hurts because she’s as closed off as he’s ever seen her and he can see shades of the same fear that lives in her parents’ eyes living in her own. Jules, however, is not about to acknowledge that.

“She’ll be fine,” Will promises, resting a hand on Jules’ back. “The yard is overflowing with assassins and metahumans and vigilantes ready to protect her, but there’s nothing to worry about because nothing bad is gonna happen, anyhow. This isn’t the other timeline.”

He can practically see her force down her worry and hone in on her snark. It’s easier for her. A defensive Jules is a difficult one. It’s so much easier for her to pretend she doesn’t care, that nothing can hurt her. But Will knows that’s only because she feels everything so deeply.

“Whatever,” she says after a minute, folding her arms in front of herself and hunching her shoulders. Suddenly, Will wonders if they hadn’t told Jules what was going on because it would have been too much for her. “Of course they’re making a big deal out of Ellie. I’m gonna go get some food.”

She’s gone before Will has a chance to even sigh in frustration, making her way across the yard to a big table with an impressive spread of food laid out atop it. She grabs a plate right away, but makes no move to fill it up. Instead, she stares at Ellie who laughs unreservedly a few feet away as her Aunt Thea blows bubbles that she tries to catch. Each and every one pops the instant her fingers touch them, but that doesn’t seem to bother her at all. The sisters are like night and day, sometimes.

“I’m gonna stick with Ellie,” Sara decides aloud, suddenly drawing Will’s attention back to the girl. “You know, just in case.”

“Don’t tell her anything,” Roy tells her. “She won’t understand. She’s too little for that and it would ruin her birthday. You got me, little Diggle?”

“I got you,” Sara confirms with a firm nod before heading over to join Ellie. She tries to help catch the bubbles and Ellie is obviously delighted to have her best friend playing alongside her, but Will can easily see how much more alert the seven-year-old is than usual. Just like the many adults in the yard, she’s keyed up for something to happen, for anything to go wrong.

Jules is, too, he realizes. She’s just a whole lot more subtle about it. She hovers nearby under the shade of the big tree that houses their fairy castle, not joining in. Everything about her projects that she wants to be left alone, but she’s as aware of her surroundings as can be and she rarely lets her gaze drift from Ellie. Jules cares. She cares so much that she doesn’t know what to do with it sometimes and a big part of Will wants to go hug his sister and tease her until she smiles and rolls her eyes at him.

But this isn’t the time for that. Sometimes Jules needs space, time to process, and he’s learned to read her well enough to know that this is definitely one of those times.

“Should I have lied to them?” Roy’s voice is unsure and when Will turns to his uncle, the other man is still looking at the girls with a furrowed brow. “I know your dad didn’t want Jules to know, but she’s got more figured out than her parents wanna realize.”

“Lying just makes things worse,” Will tells him. Roy looks at him expectantly, waiting for more. That his uncle has never treated him like he was a little kid whose opinion doesn’t deserve consideration is one of Will’s very favorite things about him. And, that’s on full display right now. The older man is clearly not just hearing him, but also listening to him. Will likes that. A lot. “Jules’ trust isn’t easily earned and it doesn’t take much to break it. She’s… she’s got a lot going on in that head of hers right now. She needs to know there are people who have her back who she can turn to. That’s you and that’s me. It needs to stay that way.”

Roy thinks about that for a minute before nodding and looking back to his niece. “I love that kid… and not just ‘cause she’s making her dad’s hair turn gray, but that’s a big plus, too.”

“It’s pretty funny when she makes his eye twitch, too,” Will agrees with a grin. Sometimes Jules’ sass is a lot more palatable than others.

Roy doesn’t say anything to that, but the grin on his face and the way his eyes light up absolutely say that he agrees completely. Will doesn’t linger on the sight, though, because something catches his eye from behind his uncle.

“Hey, do me a favor and keep an eye on Jules?” Will asks. “I’ve got something I need to do real quick.”

“Yeah,” Roy agrees, giving him a guarded look. “Everything okay?”

“It’s fine,” Will tells him. “I’ll be back in just a few and I’m just stepping inside. Just… if Jules needs anything or if she’s looking for me, let me know?”

“You got it,” Roy agrees before clapping him on the shoulder and making his way over to Jules’ side, sitting next to her on the grass and stealing a piece of fruit from her plate. She scowls at him and gives him a hard time about getting his own food, but it’s half-hearted at best and Will feels a lot better about stepping away after seeing it.

Which is good, because someone else in his family needs him right now.

While pretty much everyone is mingling outside, there is one person who’s wound up back in the kitchen. Will steps into the room, quietly shuts the door behind him and stops, not entirely sure what to do next.

Felicity is one of the strongest people he’s ever known. She is fiercely protective and loyal, endlessly accepting and loving. But, through some combination of pregnancy hormones and stress, today has clearly overwhelmed her. She’s standing near the sink, close enough to the party outside that she can watch Ellie through the window, but far enough away that she can let herself be a wreck without anyone noticing. She grips the edge of the countertop with one hand and presses the palm of her other to her mouth as she sucks down a ragged sob.

Even though he knows what this is about, Will’s instinct is to ask her what’s wrong. He doesn’t though.

Instead he crosses the room toward her. She spots him, jolting in surprise when he’s about halfway there, and she goes to say something, but he doesn’t slow his stride at all. Instead, he closes in on her and pulls her into a tight hug.

She sags against him almost immediately, holding on like he’s the only thing keeping her upright. He’s nearly as tall as her now and her faded blonde hair tickles his nose when she rests her chin on his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she sniffles. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“It’s okay to be scared anyhow,” he says. “You’re a good mom. You’re gonna worry.”

The noise she makes in response is somewhere between a laugh and a cry, but she loosens her hold on him and pulls back until she’s looking him in the face. She cups his cheeks and kisses his forehead. She has to push up slightly on her tiptoes to do it, these days, and the baby bump housing his little brother makes everything awkward, but that doesn’t matter so much.

“You’re the best, kiddo,” she tells him when she sets back down on her heels.

“I know,” he says with a cheeky grin, just to make her smile. “So… are you really okay? Did you need me to get Dad?”

“No,” she says immediately. “God, no. He needs to be completely focused on Ellie today. That’s why…” She stops and shakes her head, like she’s trying to rid the thought from her mind, but Will knows the rest of what she didn’t say. That’s why she’s in here. That’s why she’s stepped away. That’s why when she got overwhelmed, she disappeared but kept everyone in sight. “Today’s just hard,” she continues, taking a deep breath. “I keep remembering… I keep seeing… and it’s not just her, you know. It’s the other Ellie, too, because today was…”

She can’t even quite finish a thought. She’s that overwhelmed right now and it leaves Will just wanting to protect her more, to make things better.

“Our Ellie is fine,” Will reminds her, tilting his head toward the yard where Ellie is pelting adults with exceedingly well-aimed water balloons. “And it’s okay to miss the other Ellie, still.”

“I do,” Felicity admits. “Not like I used to. And I know she’s where she belongs. But that’s not quite what I meant.” Will waits, watches, gives a little nod to prompt her to continue. “It’s the other Felicity,” she confesses. “That first Ellie’s actual mom. If I’m this much of a mess when nothing’s even happened, what was it like for her? And, God, to have had her missing for the next month? To give birth to Nate without knowing where my little girl is? To not even know if she’s safe or if I’d ever see her again? I can’t even imagine it. I don’t want to. But, back then, I wanted to keep her, Will. How could I think that way? I didn’t want to give her back.”

“You did, though,” Will points out immediately, even if he’s a bit uncertain he’s saying the right thing. It feels right. But he’s only thirteen, after all, and his understanding of how his stepmother feels is theoretical at best. “And that other Felicity was so lucky to have someone who loved her Ellie so much taking care of her, right?”

Felicity must pick up on his hesitance because she sighs hard and kisses his cheek before stroking the hair back from his brow. “You’re such a good kid, Will. I love you. You shouldn’t have to deal with this. I’m sorry, honey. You should go back and enjoy the party.”

“No!” he protests immediately. His voice squeaks a little and he flushes as he clears his throat. It’s incredibly annoying how that seems to happen whenever he really, really doesn’t want to seem like a little kid to someone. “No,” he says again. “I came in here because I saw you through the window and I knew you were upset. No one should be alone when they’re upset… unless they really wanna be, anyhow, but especially not you.”

“You’re such a sweetheart,” she sniffles. It’s probably the pregnancy, for the most part, but Will’s pretty sure she’s about to burst into tears again. “How did I get so lucky?”

“Karma,” Will grins brightly at her. She hiccups a laugh through a little muted sob and nods her head. “You feel a little better?”

“Maybe a bit,” she agrees. “Thanks, kiddo. I… am gonna go pee for the fourteenth time this hour since your little brother has decided my bladder makes an amazing thing to bounce on. And I’m gonna splash some water on my face so I don’t look like the crying preggo that I am. How about you head back outside and look after your sister.”

“I’ll keep her safe,” Will vows immediately.

“Oh, honey…” Felicity smiles, shaking her head at him. “Will, every person here can do that. You can make sure she has fun, make sure that turning four isn’t about heavily armed vigilantes surrounding her. I want her to have the best party ever, even if… even if something does happen, even if he…” She can’t finish the thought, pinching her eyes shut and turning her face to the side as she exhales out a long, steadying breath. “Well, I still want her to have this, you know?” she finishes a moment later.

“Yeah…” Will agrees, glancing toward the yard where he can see Ellie looking curiously at Nyssa - who showed up with a stern face in full assassin gear. “Yeah I can do that.”

And he does.

When his stepmother winds up back in the yard a few minutes after him, he’s already making crowns out of balloons for his little sisters and Ellie is giggling, declaring herself the ‘birthday fairy princess president.’

It’s a nervous afternoon and evening for all of the adults, but Will concentrates on what he does best - keeping his siblings happy and entertained. And when the clock strikes midnight many hours later, with Ellie and Jules and Sara all fast asleep in a pillow castle in the living room, all of the adults sag with relief. But Will smiles through a yawn, fully aware that what Ellie will remember from today isn’t the fear that had surrounded her, but the fun she’d had. And he knows, without a doubt, that today he made a difference.

Reviews literally feed the soul and muse, so go send some love to @so-caffeinated!

#olicity #forever is composed of nows #ficon #pieces of always #william queen #oliver queen #felicity smoak #julianna queen #roy harper #sara diggle #arrow #fanfiction #my fics #my fics: cowritten #(sort of but not really)#so-caffeinated #dust2dust34

39 notes · View notes

dust2dust34 · 7 years

Text

Pieces of Always: May 2018 (FICoN ‘verse)

Life continues after Forever is Composed of Nows.

by @so-caffeinated and @dust2dust34

Summary: Ellie's birth changes a lot of things for Felicity, but not in the way she'd thought it would.

A/N: Please see the first chapter for an important Author’s Note, as well as under the cut for an additional one.

A/N: The effervescent @so-caffeinated is fully in the driver’s seat and she’s kicking all the ass, so please go send her your love!

PLEASE READ THE READ THE AUTHOR’S NOTE UNDER THE CUT.

Excerpt:

She’s not sad. Sad would be better. Sad would be… Well, it would be something.

(read on AO3)

Author’s Note:

TRIGGER WARNING - Postpartum depression

I put off writing this oneshot for more than half a year. This has been my headcanon for Felicity since we started Pieces of Always, but it’s not an easy thing to write and I was wary of how it would be received. Postpartum depression is a mental illness and it’s common in new mothers (and sometimes fathers). I was never diagnosed with it, but I think by reading this you’ll see it’s pretty clear I’ve got some firsthand experience with it anyhow. I know my mother did, too. I’ve talked with her and some friends about their experiences and I researched symptoms online to make sure everything fit. I’ll be quite honest - I left out the worst of my own symptoms (hallucinations made worse by a reaction to medication I was on) because this was already hard to handle writing and reading. I hope for some of you, you can look at this and see solidarity in your own experiences. If you can’t relate, that’s even better and I’m very glad for you, but please keep in mind that mental illness changes how you think and any blame toward Felicity for how she’s processing things here would be misplaced.

May 2018 - In Restless Dreams

She’s not sad. Sad would be better. Sad would be… Well, it would be something.

Right now, Felicity feels nothing.

There’s a gaping hole in her chest, a vacuum where everything that makes her her should be. She’s broken, shattered into tiny bits and she doesn’t know where all the pieces went or how it happened. She knows there’s a way to find them, to collect them again, to put herself back together, but it’s just so daunting, so overwhelming.

Like everything else is these days.

Ellie is just over two weeks old.

She’s a good baby. A great baby. She’s everything that Felicity has always known she’d be. Everything she’s wanted for years, since that little girl with blonde curls had reached for her from Barry’s arms and called her ‘Momma,’ since she’d woken up to a pillow fort in Oliver’s bedroom at the Manor, since she scaled the ladder to an otherworldly fairy kingdom in the trees. She wants this. She knows she does.

But she doesn’t feel it.

The newborn is sprawled across her lap, utterly passed out after a feeding. She’s in that dazed, happy, sleepy place that Felicity’s mom has always called a ‘milk coma.’ Even fast asleep, her little lips are turned upwards in a contented smile, tiny puffs of air slipping through her lips, her eyes darting about under closed lids.

It should be endearing. It should be heart-wrenchingly beautiful. Instead, Felicity feels like she’s separated from the moment, like there’s a giant chasm between her and the baby. Ellie doesn’t even feel like hers, doesn’t even feel real. Everything around her is just mimicking life, like she’s watching someone else’s reality play out in front her, like she doesn’t actually belong, and it leaves her wondering what the hell she’s even doing.

One tear slips down her cheek and then another. Burning sears her eyes, turning Ellie into an indistinct blur.

They deserve better than this, than her. Ellie is beautiful, perfect. And Jules, God, but Jules deserves a mom who can do things for her, who can connect and not have to fake her smiles. And Oliver? Oliver’s the best husband and father in the entire world. He deserves a wife who’s happy, who feels. He shouldn’t have to wonder if he’s done something wrong. He shouldn’t have to pick up the slack while she flounders and fails on every possible level.

Maybe she should just go. Maybe they’d be better without her. Maybe she’s just dragging them all down. Maybe…

“Hey.”

Felicity squeezes her eyes shut, willing the tears away before looking up.

Oliver leans against the doorframe, arms folded casually across his broad chest as he watches her.

How long has he been there? She has no idea. She doesn’t even know how long she’s been sitting here herself. She’d been going through the motions earlier, doing what was required, what she needed to, and then…

She swallows past the lump in her throat and sits up a bit, adjusting Ellie like she should have been.

If she’d seen him earlier she’d have put up a better front, tried to seem more normal, more okay.

He’s not the only one who can wear masks.

“Hey,” she echoes. It feels like she waited too long to respond. She forces a smile onto her face. It’s unnatural, ill-fitting and she has to fight to keep it there.

“She’s really out,” he notes, gazing down at Ellie’s prone form sprawled across her lap. The grin on his face doesn’t just pull at his lips, it lights up his eyes, crinkles the edges of them with happy adoration of their little girl. That’s a thing Felicity knows full well she can’t fake. He pushes off the doorframe. “Let’s get her to bed for a bit.”

Oliver crosses the room before crouching down to gently lift the newborn into his arms. Ellie makes a little noise and her arms jolt like she’s grappling for stability, but she doesn’t wake, instead turning toward the warmth of her father’s chest with a contented, sleepy sigh.

They look right. They look suited, like a picture you might find on Pinterest of some beautiful little perfect family moment that people pin with notes that say ‘goals for someday!’

Felicity doesn’t fit that and she knows it. She’s as far from put together as someone can get and no one’s goal for their future right now. Makeup feels pointless and she can’t remember the last time she bothered with more than a messy ponytail for her hair or clothes beyond sweatpants and Oliver’s shirts. It’ll be nearly another month before the bleeding that follows birth finally stops. She’s carrying excess weight that makes her feel like she’s somehow slipped into someone else’s body. Her breasts ache, and they’re leaking. It won’t stop until she’s done nursing and the smell of breast milk constantly follows her. Dark circles beneath her eyes are well earned, but they leave her feeling hollow, emptied out, like she has nothing left to give and nothing to keep for herself either.

She watches Oliver with their daughter, feeling like a stranger in someone else’s house.

Ellie doesn’t wake when he places her gently into her crib. He leans over to kiss her forehead, brushing his fingers through the blonde wispy curls at her temple before stepping back. And then he turns all his attention back to his wife.

Felicity can’t help it - she shifts, wrapping her arms around herself, shrinking back into the rocking chair. His gaze doesn’t waver an inch. She’s not sure what to do with that. She doesn’t really want to be seen right now. There’s too much she’d prefer went unnoticed.

“Come on,” Oliver says, offering her his hand. “I made us lunch.”

She hesitates before placing her fingers in his and he helps her stand.

The second she’s up, an irrational bolt of annoyance surges through her. She doesn’t need his help, she wants to bite out. She can stand on her own, thanks. Except… except this isn’t new and he’s not saying that at all. He’s always offered her his hand and it’s never once meant he thought her incapable of doing things herself. So maybe her irritation is because she’s not sure how long she’d have sat without his help. Her limbs feel heavy, sluggish, like there’s weights attached to all of them.

Even moving seems like a chore.

Felicity sighs, one she feels to her bones. “I think I’d just like a nap,” she says, letting go of his hand to run her fingers through her hair.

Oliver tries to hide his reaction, but she knows him too well. He doesn’t like her answer. She can tell from the way his face tightens in a grimace and she’s pretty sure she can see him physically biting his tongue in an effort to think through his words before letting them out.

It only annoys her more.

“Just say it!” she wants to yell at him. “Stop walking on fucking eggshells. I’m weak. I’m not good enough. I know that. I know you know that. So just fucking say it!”

But she is weak and she is broken.

Felicity looks to the side, gritting her teeth. A cheerful cartoon elephant wall decal stares back at her. She wants to peel it right off just to get it to stop smiling at her.

“When was the last time you ate a meal, Felicity?” Oliver asks her. She hates the hesitation in his voice almost as much as she hates the question.

“What does it matter?” she snaps, turning back to him with a sharp glare.

It’s enough that he flinches and that gaping hole where her heart feels like it should be drops further. He doesn’t deserve this. He just cares about her. God, how can she be so horrible to him? She should just leave, just go. He wouldn’t understand, but it would be better. He’d be happier without her, eventually. They all would. But the idea of going makes an echo of sorrow slice through her. How horrible is it that the feeling actually comes as a relief? It’s something. It’s an emotion, a resonance of sensation that feels like the tingle of a missing limb. And she just wants… she just wants…

“I’m sorry,” Felicity whispers, her voice choking, energy draining from her with each word. “I’m just so tired. That’s all. I just… I just need some sleep. I’m just tired.”

“No,” he says quietly. He rests a hand on her elbow, a ghostly touch, like he’s afraid she’s going to scatter. She hates it. “You’re not.”

“I am,” she counters, pulling away from him. She rubs the spot on her arm where he’d touched her. “I have a two week old and a three year old. I’m exhausted. Of course I am.”

“Sure.” Oliver presses his lips together into a thin line. “But that’s not all this is. I know better this time. And so do you.”

Felicity blinks hard, refusing to look away for a long moment because no, no, that is all, but it’s too much and she bows her head. She doesn’t even realize she’s crying until she sees the drop slide down her nose and plop down onto her bare foot. She cries so much these days. You’d think she’d feel it, that it would seem cleansing or at least emotionally charged, but it’s more like a compulsive reaction, something she has to do. And it means so very little.

“It’s all in my head, Oliver,” she says. “It’s fine.”

“No, Felicity, it’s really not,” he replies firmly. She scowls through the tears, looking up at him, annoyance suddenly overtaking the emptiness again, but he doesn’t back down. “You need help. And that’s okay.”

“No,” Felicity snaps. It’s too loud and she glances toward Ellie to make sure she hasn’t accidentally woken the newborn. But the baby sleeps soundly, unaware of everything going on just a few feet away from her. “No,” she repeats in an intense but quieter voice. “It’s not okay. I just need to… I just need to push myself more. I’m sorry, okay? It’ll be fine. I just need to find a new routine and it’ll be alright.”

Oliver watches her, seeing right through her.

She hates the sudden wash of vulnerability that runs through her.

“You aren’t alone, Felicity,” he says, stepping forward and taking her hand in his. She tries to tug it away - she’s fine, she will be fine - but his grip tells her that he’s not letting go, not giving her an avenue of escape. When the realization hits her, it almost comes as a relief. “I already called your doctor.”

Felicity’s jaw drops. “You called my doctor?” she demands. “Did you have a nice chat about the crazy new mom who’s just a little overwhelmed and just needs a damned nap?”

“No,” he counters, shaking his head. “I told him how worried I am about my wife and asked what I could do to help.”

Well… shit. That saps the fight right out of her.

“I love you more than anything, Felicity. You’re sick. And you’re hiding how much you hurt. Everyone wants to help you, honey. But you’ve got to let us.”

“Who is ‘everyone?’” she asks warily.

“Your mom,” he replies before letting out a hard sigh. “Me. My mom. Your doctor. Thea, Digg… Will.”

Felicity starts. “Will?”

��He asked me why you were sad today,” Oliver tells her. “He wanted to know what he could do to cheer you up.”

She shakes her head, turning to the door before looking at Oliver again. “He’s here?”

“Felicity…” Oliver pauses, frowning. “You said hi to him when he got here an hour ago. He’s playing with Jules out back right now because he thought if you saw her happy it might make you happy, too.”

Oh God.

Felicity sags at that, her free hand pressing against her mouth trying to cage in the welling sound of sorrow that suddenly feels like it might drown her. “He noticed?” she asks, horrified by the idea.

“He’s almost ten,” Oliver says, stepping closer. He knows, now, that it’s easier to let her come to him. He doesn’t grab her like he would have a few weeks ago. Now he just skates his hand up her arm, brushing it over her cheek, his touch so soft she barely feels it. “And he loves you. Of course he noticed.”

“I’m so sorry,” she breathes out against her hand. She’s nauseous. She could throw up right now if there were anything at all in her stomach. “I didn’t mean to hurt him, Oliver. I promise. I’m so sorry.”

“He’s not hurt, honey,” Oliver instantly replies. “He’s fine.” This time he does pull her into his arms as he talks. Felicity tenses, because she doesn’t deserve this at all. She shouldn’t be comforted right now. This is all her fault. And, honestly, she doesn’t feel a whole lot better, even with his arms around her. But she does feel like a bit of the weight slides off her shoulders. She’s still hollow. Still empty. But she’s a bit less pulled down and for the first time in days she feels like she can breathe. Oliver’s voice is just as gentle, just as soft as he continues, “He’s just worried about you. Just like the rest of us.”

“I’ll try harder,” Felicity promises. “I will.”

“Wanting to get better is the first step,” he agrees, kissing her forehead the same way he’d kissed Ellie’s a bit ago. She wants to shake her head and wipe it away, because she doesn’t deserve something so tender. “But you can’t do it alone. You need medication and you need therapy. Just like you did after Jules was born. Suffering in silence isn’t doing you any favors, Felicity. It’s not doing anyone any favors.”

“You all deserve someone better than me,” she tells him in the quietest voice imaginable. “What kind of mother looks at her baby and doesn’t feel anything? What kind of wife just gets pissed off when her husband tries to help her?”

“The kind who’s fighting a battle no one else can even see,” Oliver says. “None of this is your fault.”

“But it is!” she argues. “It is. It’s in my head. It’s how I think and how I feel. Of course that’s my fault. How could that not be my fault?”

“You’re a smart woman,” Oliver reminds her. “You know better than that.”

She does. Some part of her knows he’s right. She did research after this happened with Jules, after months of suffering in silence, completely unaware of what was going on with her mind and her body. Once she’d started feeling better, more like herself, she’d read up as much as she could. She knows something like one-in-five mothers wind up with postpartum depression. She knows the sudden drop in hormones in her body have probably set her emotions in a tailspin of hopelessness and anxiety, that she wouldn’t feel this sense of worthlessness or total lack of joy if she were in her right mind.

But knowing that and feeling it are two different things entirely and with an illness in her head, it’s her head telling her she should be able to fix it on her own.

She should have to fix it on her own.

“I made a phone appointment for you with your doctor,” Oliver says. She jerks at that, but he’s not done. “It’s in half an hour. If you’re okay with it, I’d like to be on the call, too. If you tell him what you’re going through, he’ll call you in a prescription right away and we can start fighting this.”

No. It’s her gut reaction. It’s her only reaction. But… she hesitates. She wants to push back, to swear she’ll be fine, that she can handle this on her own. But… but can she? And should she have to? Especially if everyone around her is noticing it in spite of her efforts, if even Will is seeing it… God, has Jules picked up on anything? She can’t even imagine how unfair that would be to the toddler.

“Asking for help doesn’t make you weak, Felicity,” Oliver says. “It means you’re strong enough and smart enough to admit when it’s too much for you.”

“It is,” she whispers before she even realizes she’s speaking. “God, it really is too much, Oliver. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“No one’s blaming you and there’s nothing to be sorry for,” Oliver tells her. He looks relieved as he pulls her closer, holding her. He kisses her forehead again, and this time he lingers. “I’m proud of you. I can’t understand what you’re going through, but I get that it’s hard and I know it’s not easy to ask for help.”

“Took being shot by your mother for you to ask for help,” she points out.

It almost sounds normal, almost seems like her usual self and the grin on Oliver’s face makes her so very happy that she voiced the thought.

“Imagine if I’d asked for help earlier,” he points out.

Felicity scoffs. “You didn’t need me earlier. Not really.”

“Felicity… I’ve always needed you,” Oliver tells her, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Even when I didn’t know it yet, I needed you.” Just the thought of that makes her want to cry again, even if she can’t quite pinpoint why. “Come on,” he urges. “Let’s get a quick bite to eat before that call and then I’ll have your mom pick up the prescription while we sit out back and watch the kids play. You can take a nap on the lawn chair, if you need to.”

“That sounds pretty good,” she allows. She closes her eyes, her shoulders falling. “Especially the nap part.”

He pulls her along, leading her from the room, grabbing the baby monitor as they go.

It feels good, honestly, letting him take charge and giving herself permission to show everything she’s feeling - and everything she’s not. They talk about it over tuna sandwiches as Will and Jules laugh together out back and Ellie sleeps. Oliver doesn’t judge, doesn’t hold anything against her, instead wanting only to understand and help her. He keeps hold of her hand as she talks, sliding his thumb against her skin when she cries for no apparent reason. The relief of that is monumental.

Oliver can’t fix her. That’s not how this works. But he’ll help her pick up the pieces as she fixes herself.

And that, in the end, is exactly what she needs.

Reviews literally feed the soul and muse, please go send some to @so-caffeinated!

And please mind the author’s note, which I’m reposting here:

Author’s Notes:

TRIGGER WARNING - Postpartum depression

#olicity #olicity fic #olicity fanfic #olicity fanfiction #olicitysquee #oliver queen #felicity smoak #forever is composed of nows #ficon #pieces of always #trigger warning #postpartum depression #arrow #arrow fanfiction #fanfiction #my fics #my fics: cowritten #so-caffeinated #dust2dust34

43 notes · View notes