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thewatsonbeekeepers · 4 years

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Chapter 4 – It is always 1895 [TAB 1/1]

TAB is my favourite episode of Sherlock. It is a masterpiece that investigates queerness, the canon and the psyche all within an hour and a half. Huge amounts of work has been done on this episode, however, so I’m not going to do a line by line breakdown – that could fill a small book. A great starting point for understanding the myriad of references in TAB is Rebekah’s three part video series on the episode, of which the first instalment can be found here X. I broadly agree with this analysis; what I’m going to do here, though, is place that analysis within the framework of EMP theory. As a result, as much as it pains me, this chapter won’t give a breakdown of carnation wallpaper or glass houses or any of those quietly woven references – we’re simply going in to how it plays into EMP theory.

Before digging into the episode, I want to take a brief diversion to talk about one of my favourite films, Mulholland Drive (2001).

If you haven’t seen Mulholland Drive, I really recommend it – it’s often cited as the best film of the last 20 years, and watching it really helps to see where TAB came from and the genre it’s operating in. David Lynch is one of the only directors to do the dream-exploration-of-the-psyche well, and I maintain that a lot of the fuckiness in the fourth series draws on Lynch. However, what I actually want to point out about Mulholland Drive is the structure of it, because I think it will help us understand TAB a little better. [If you don’t want spoilers for Mulholland Drive, skip the next paragraph.]

The similarities between these two are pretty straightforward; the most common reading of Mulholland Drive is that an actress commits suicide by overdose after causing the death of her ex-girlfriend, who has left her for a man, and that the first two-thirds of the film are her dream of an alternate scenario in which her girlfriend is saved. The last third of the film zooms in and out of ‘real life’, but at the end we see a surreal version of the actual overdose which suggests that this ‘real life’, too, has just been in her psyche. Sherlock dying and recognising that this may kill John is an integral part of TAB, and the relationships have clear parallels, but what is most interesting here is the structural similarity; two-thirds of the way through TAB, give or take, we have the jolt into reality, zoom in and out of it for a while and then have a fucky scene to finish with that suggests that everything is, in fact, still in our dying protagonist’s brain. Mulholland Drive’s ending is a lot sadder than TAB’s – the fact that, unlike Sherlock, there is no sequel can lead us to assume that Diane dies – and it’s also a lot more confusing; it’s often cited as one of the most complicated films ever made even just in terms of surface level plot, before getting into anything else, and it certainly took me a huge amount of time on Google before I could approach anything like a resolution on it!

Mulholland Drive is the defining film in terms of the navigating-the-surreal-psyche subgenre, and so the structural parallels between the two are significant – and definitely point to the idea that Sherlock hasn’t woken up at the end of TAB, which is important. But we don’t need to take this parallel as evidence; there’s plenty of that in the episode itself. Let’s jump in.

Emelia as Eurus

When we first meet Eurus in TST, she calls herself E; this initialism is a link to Moriarty, but it’s also a convenient link to other ‘E’ names. Lots of people have already commented on the aural echo of ‘Eros’ in ‘Eurus’, which is undeniable; the idea that there is something sexual hidden inside her name chimes beautifully with her representation of a sexual repression. The other important character to begin with E, however, is Emelia Ricoletti. The name ‘Emelia’ doesn’t come from ACD canon, and it’s an unorthodox spelling (Amelia would be far more common), suggesting that starting with an ‘E’ is a considered choice.

When TAB aired, we were preoccupied with Emelia as a Sherlock mirror, and it’s easy to see why; the visual parallels (curly black hair, pale skin) plus the parallel faked death down to the replacement body, which Mofftiss explicitly acknowledge in the episode. However, I don’t think that this reading is complete; rather, she foreshadows the Eurus that we meet in s4. The theme of ghosts links TAB with s4 very cleanly; TAB is about Emelia, but there is also a suggestion of the ghosts of one’s past with Sir Eustace as well as Sherlock’s own claims (‘the shadows that define our every sunny day’). Compare this to s4 – ‘ghosts from the past’ appears on pretty much every promotional blurb, and the word is used several times in relation to Eurus. If Eurus is the ghost from Sherlock’s past, the repressive part of his psyche that keeps popping back, Emelia is a lovely metaphor for this; she is quite literally the ghost version of Sherlock who won’t die.

What does it mean, then, when Jim and Emelia become one and the same in the scene where Jim wears the bride’s dress? We initially read this as Jim being the foil to Sherlock, his dark side, but I think it’s more complicated than this. Sherlock’s brain is using Emelia as a means of understanding Jim, but when we watch the episode it seems that they’ve actually merged. Jim wearing the veil of the bride is a good example of this, but I also invite you to rewatch the moment when John is spooked by the bride the night that Eustace dies; the do not forget me song has an undeniable South Dublin accent.* This is quite possibly Yasmine Akram [Janine] rather than Andrew Scott, of course, but let’s not forget that these characters are resolutely similar, and hearing Jim’s accent in a genderless whisper is a pretty clear way of inflecting him into the image of the bride. In addition to this, Eustace then has ‘Miss Me?’ written on his corpse, cementing the link to Moriarty.

[*the South Dublin accent is my accent, so although we hear a half-whispered song for all of five seconds, I’m pretty certain about this]

Jim’s merging with Emelia calls to mind for me what I think might be the most important visual of all of series 4 – Eurus and Jim’s Christmas meeting, where they dance in circles with the glass between them and seem to merge into each other. I do talk about this in a later chapter, but TLDR – if Jim represents John being in danger and Eurus represents decades of repressed gay trauma, this merging is what draws the trauma to the surface just as Jim’s help is what suddenly makes Eurus a problem. It is John’s being in danger which makes Sherlock’s trauma suddenly spike and rise – he has to confront this for the first time – just like Emelia Ricoletti’s case from 1895 only needs solving for the first time now that Jim is back.

At some point I want to do a drag in Sherlock meta, because I think there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye, but Jim in a bride’s dress does draw one obvious drag parallel for me.

If you haven’t seen the music video for I Want to Break Free, it’s 3 minutes long and glorious – and also, I think, reaps dividends when seen in terms of Sherlock. You can watch it here: X

Not only is it a great video, but for British people of Mofftiss’s age, it’s culturally iconic and not something that would be forgotten when choosing that song for Jim. Queen were intending to lampoon Coronation Street, a British soap, and already on the wrong side of America for Freddie Mercury’s unapologetic queerness, found themselves under fire from the American censors. Brian May says that no matter how many times he tried to explain Coronation Street to the Americans, they just didn’t get it. This was huge controversy at the time, but the video and the controversy around it also managed to cement I Want to Break Free as Queen’s most iconic queer number – despite not even being one of Mercury’s songs. There is no way that Steven Moffat, and even more so Mark Gatiss would not have an awareness of this in choosing this song for Moriarty. Applying any visual to this song is going to invite comparisons to the video – and inflecting a sense of drag here is far from inappropriate. Moriarty has been subsumed into Eurus in Sherlock’s brain – the male and the female are fused into an androgynous and implicitly therefore all-encompassing being. I’m not necessarily comfortable with the gendered aspect of this – genderbending is something we really only see in our villains here – but given this is about queer trauma, deliberately queering its form in this way is making what we’re seeing much more explicit.

Nothing new under the sun

“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun” (Ecclesiastes)

"Read it up -- you really should. There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before." (A Study in Scarlet, Sherlock Holmes)

“Hasn’t this all happened before? There’s nothing new under the sun.” (The Abominable Bride, Jim Moriarty)

This is arguably the key to spotting that TAB is a dream long before they tell us – when TAB’s case is early revealed to be a mixture between TRF (Emelia’s suicide) and TGG (the five pips), and we see the opening of ASiP repeated, we should be questioning what on earth is going on. This can also help us to recognise s4 as being EMP as well though – old motifs from the previous series keep repeating through the cases, like alarm bells ringing. Moriarty telling Sherlock that there is nothing new under the sun is his key to understanding that the Emelia case is meant to help him understand what happened to Jim, that it’s a mental allegory or mirror to help him parse it. This doesn’t go away when TAB ends! Moving into TST, one of the striking things is that cases are still repeating! The Six Thatchers appeared on John’s blog way back, before the fall – you can read it here: X. It’s about a gay love affair that ends in one participant killing the other. Take from that what you will, when John’s extramarital affection is making him suicidal and Sherlock comatose. Meanwhile, the title of The Final Problem refers to the story that was already covered in TRF and the phone situation with the girl on the plane references both ASiB and TGG, and the ending of TST is close to a rerun of HLV. It’s pretty much impossible to escape echoes of previous series in a way that is almost creepy, but we’ve already had this explained to us in TAB – none of this is real. It’s supposed to be explaining what is happening in the real world – and Mofftiss realised that this was going to be difficult to stomach, and so they included TAB as a kind of key to the rest of the EMP, which becomes much more complex.

However, if we want to go deeper we should look at where that quote comes from. I’ve given a few epigraphs to this section to show where the quote comes from – first the book of Ecclesiastes, then A Study in Scarlet. It’s one of the first things Holmes says and it is during his first deduction in Lauriston Gardens. This is where I’m going to dive pretty deep into the metatextual side of things, so bear with the weirdness.

[we’re going deeper]

Holmes’s first deduction from A Study in Scarlet shows that he’s no great innovator – he simply notices things and spots patterns from things he has seen before. This is highlighted by the fact that he even makes this claim by quoting someone before him. If our Sherlock also makes deductions based on patterns from the past, extensive dream sequences where he works through past cases as mirrors for present ones makes perfect sense and draws very cleverly on canon. However, I think his spotting of patterns goes deeper than that. Sherlock Holmes has been repressed since the publication of A Study in Scarlet, through countless adaptations in literature and film. Plenty of these adaptations as well as the original stories are referenced in the EMP, not least by going back to 1895, the year that symbolises the era in which most of these adaptations are set. (If you don’t already know it, check out the poem 221B by Vincent Starrett, one of the myriad of reasons why the year 1895 is so significant.) My feeling is that these adaptations, which have layered on top of each other in the public consciousness to cement the image of Sherlock Holmes the deductive machine [which he’s not, sorry Conan Doyle estate] come to symbolise the 100+ years of repression that Sherlock himself has to fight through to come out of the EMP as his queer self.

This is one of the reasons that the year 1895 is so important; it was the year of Oscar Wilde’s trial and imprisonment for gross indecency, and this is clearly a preoccupation of Sherlock’s consciousness in TFP with its constant Wilde references, suggesting that his MP’s choice of 1895 wasn’t coincidental. Much was made during TAB setlock of a newspaper that said ‘Heimish The Ideal Husband’, Hamish being John’s middle name and An Ideal Husband being one of Wilde’s plays. But the Vincent Starrett poem, although nostalgic and ostensibly lovely, for tjlcers and it seems for Sherlock himself symbolises something much more troubling. Do search up the full poem, but for now let’s look at the final couplet.

Here, though the world explode, these two survive

And it is always 1895

‘Though the world explode’ is a reference to WW1, which is coming in the final Sherlock Holmes story, and which is symbolised by Eurus – in other chapters, I explain why Eurus and WW1 are united under the concept of ‘winds of change’ in this show. Sherlock and John survive the winds of change – except they don’t move with them. Instead, they stay stuck in 1895, the year of ultimate repression. 2014!Sherlock going back in his head to 1895 and repeating how he met John suggests exactly that, that nothing has changed but the superficial, and that emotionally, he is still stuck in 1895.

Others have pulled out similar references to Holmes adaptations he has to push through in TAB – look at the way he talks in sign language to Wilder, which can only be a reference to Billy Wilder, director of TPLoSH, the only queer Holmes film, and a film which was forced to speak through coding because of the Conan Doyle estate. That film is also referenced by Eurus giving Sherlock a Stradivarius, which is a gift given to him in TPLoSH in exchange for feigning heterosexuality. Eurus is coded as Sherlock’s repression, and citing a repressive moment in a queer film as her first action when she meets Sherlock is another engagement by Sherlock’s psyche with his own cinematic history. My favourite metatextual moment of this nature, however, is the final scene of TFP which sees John and Sherlock running out of a building called Rathbone Place.

Basil Rathbone is one of the most iconic Sherlock Holmes actors on film, and Benedict’s costume in TAB and in particular the big overcoat look are very reminiscent of Rathbone.

Others have discussed (X) how the Victorian costume and the continued use of the deerstalker in the present day are images of Sherlock’s public façade and exclusion of queerness from his identity. It’s true that pretty much every Holmes adaptation has used the deerstalker, but the strong Rathbone vibes that come from Ben’s TAB costume ties the 1895 vibe very strongly into Rathbone. To have the final scene – and hopefully exit from the EMP – tie in with Sherlock and John running out of Rathbone Place tells us that, just as Sherlock cast off the deerstalker at the end of TAB (!), he has also cast off the iconic filmic Holmes persona which has never been true to his actual identity.

Waterfall scene

The symbol of water runs through TAB as well as s4 – others have written fantastic meta on why water represents Sherlock’s subconscious (X), but I want to give a brief outline. It first appears with the word ‘deeper’ which keeps reappearing, which then reaches a climax in the waterfall scene. The idea that Sherlock could drown in the waters of his mind is something that Moriarty explicitly references, suggesting that Sherlock could be ‘buried in his own Mind Palace’. The ‘deep waters’ line keeps repeating through series 4, and I just want to give the notorious promo photo from s4 which confirms the significance of the motif.

This is purely symbolic – it never happens in the show. Water increases in significance throughout – think of Sherlock thinking he’s going mad in his mind as he is suspended over the Thames, or the utterly nonsensical placement of Sherrinford in the middle of the ocean – the deepest waters of Sherlock’s mind. Much like the repetition of cases hinting that EMP continues, the use of water is something that appears in the MP, and it sticks around from TAB onwards, a real sign that we’re going deeper and deeper. I talk about this more in the bit on TFP, but the good news is that Sherrinford is the most remote place they could find in the ocean – that’s the deepest we’re going. After that, we’re coming out (of the mind).

Shortly after TAB aired, I wrote a meta about the waterfall scene, some of which I now disagree with, but the core framework still stands – it did not, of course, bank on EMP theory. You can find it here (X), but I want to reiterate the basic framework, because it still makes a lot of sense. Jim represents the fear of John’s suicide, and Jim can only be defeated by Sherlock and John together, not one alone – and crucially, calling each other by first names, which would have been very intimate in the Victorian era. After Jim is “killed”, we have Sherlock’s fall. The concept of a fall (as in IOU a fall) has long been linked with falling in love in tjlc. Sherlock tells John that it’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the landing, something that Jim has been suggesting to him for a while. What is the landing, then? Well, Sherlock Holmes fell in love back in the Victorian era, symbolised by the ultra repressive 1895, and that’s where he jumps from – but he lands in the 21st century. Falling in love won’t kill him in the modern day. What I missed that time around, of course, was that despite breaking through the initial Victorian layers of repression, he still dives into more water, and when the plane lands, it still lands in his MP, just in a mental state where the punishment his psyche deals him for homosexuality is less severe. This also sets up s4 as specifically dealing with the problem of the fall – Sherlock jumps to the 21st century specifically to deal with the consequences of his romantic and sexual feelings. There’s a parallel here with Mofftiss time jumping; back when they made A Study in Twink in 2009, there was a reason they made the time jump. Having Sherlock’s psyche have that touch of self-awareness helps to illustrate why they made a similar jump, also dealing with the weight of previous adaptations.

Women

I preface this by saying how incredibly uncomfortable I find the positioning of women as the KKK in TAB. It’s a parallel which is unforgivable; frankly, invoking the KKK without interrogating the whiteness of the show or even mentioning race is unacceptable. Steven Moffat’s ability to write women has consistently been proven to be nil, but this is a new low. However, the presence of women in TAB is vital, so on we go.

TAB specifically deals with the question of those excluded from a Victorian narrative. This is specifically tied into to those who are excluded from the stories, such as Jane and Mrs. Hudson. Mrs. Hudson’s complaint is in the same scene as John telling her and Sherlock to blame the problems on the illustrator. This ties back to the deerstalker metaphor which is so prevalent in this episode; something that’s not in the stories at all, but a façade by which Holmes is universally recognised and which as previously referenced masks his queerness. Women, then, are not the only people being excluded from the narrative. When Mycroft tells us that the women have to win, he’s also talking about queer people. This is a war that we must lose.

I don’t think the importance of Molly in particular here has been mentioned before, but forgive me if I’m retreading old ground. However, Molly always has importance in Sherlock as a John mirror, and just because she is dressed as a man here doesn’t mean we should disregard this. If anything, her ridiculous moustache is as silly as John’s here! Molly, although really a member of the resistance, is able to pass in the world she moves in in 1895, but only by masking her own identity. This is exactly what happens to John in the Victorian era – as a bisexual man married to a woman, he is able to pass, but it is not his true identity. More than that, Molly is a member of the resistance, suggesting not just that John is queer but that he’s aware of it and actively looking for it to change.

I know I was joking about Molly and John’s moustaches, but putting such a silly moustache on Molly links to the silliness of John’s moustaches, which only appear when he’s engaged to a woman and in the Victorian era. He has also grown the moustache just so the illustrator will recognise him, and Molly has grown her moustache so that she will be recognised as a man. In this case, Molly is here to demonstrate the fact that John is passing, but only ever passing. Furthermore, Molly, who is normally the kindest person in the whole show, is bitter and angry throughout TAB – it’s not difficult to see then how hiding one’s identity can affect one’s mental health. I really do think that John is a lot more abrasive in TAB than he is in the rest of the show, but that’s not the whole story. Showing how repression can completely impair one’s personality also points to the suicidal impulses that are lurking just out of sight throughout TAB – this is what Sherlock is terrified of, and again his brain is warning him just what it is that is causing John this much pain and uncharacteristic distress.

This is just about the loosest sketch of TAB that could exist! But TAB meta has been so extensive that going over it seems futile, or else too grand a project within a short chapter. Certain theories are still formulating, and may appear at a later date! But what this chapter (I hope) has achieved has set up the patterns that we’re going to see play out in s4 – between the metatextuality, the waters of the mind and the role of Moriarty in the psyche, we can use TAB as a key with which to read s4. I like to think of it as a gift from Mofftiss, knowing just how cryptic s4 would be – and these are the basic clues with which to solve it.

That’s it for TAB, at least in this series – next up we’re going ever deeper, to find out exactly who is Eurus. See you then?

#tjlc #emp theory #thewatsonbeekeepers #my meta #meta #mine #chapter four: it is always 1895 #vincent starrett #mofftiss #1895 #bbc sherlock #johnlock #tjlc is real

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revchainsaw · 3 years

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An American Werewolf in London (1981)

Welcome to the Cult of Cult! I am Reverend Chainsaw and Today we read from the book of 1st Lycanthropy and indulge in a truly impactful cult film; John Landis' An American Werewolf in London. As far back as I can remember I thought that being a Werewolf would be nothing short of bad ass, but An American Werewolf in London totally delivers in the horror of the affliction, a task all to often ignored by werewolf films.

The Message

An American Werewolf in London tells the story of an American Werewolf in London. The name is a quite apt plot summary in the way of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. You will know exactly what you're getting with this movie. Two young American men known as Jack and David are backpacking across Europe and they find themselves on foot travelling across the moors of Yorkshire. They discover an unwelcoming pub known as the Slaughtered Lamb. They quickly put off the patrons and are ominously warned about beasts that are out on the moors, but are ultimately made to leave the pub. While out in the moors the two boys are viciously attacked by a mysterious creature.

David wakes up in a London hospital and learns that his friend and Travel companion Jack was killed by the beast. David is held by the hospital and begins a romance with a nurse named Alex. Alex eventually lets David crash at her place and things get spicy. But the whole time David is beset by dreams and visions of violence, and wakes up in strange places like the London Zoo. One of his most recurring visions is the phantasmagoric image of his dead friend Jack providing macabre warnings and exposition about exactly what David is going through. Jack urges David to kill himself before he fully succumbs to his lycanthropic curse.

David's budding romance with Nurse Alex, and medical professionals insistence that he's just a little twisted in the head from his trauma leads him to ignore these prophecies and he eventually undergoes one of the best looking werewolf transformations ever put to screen. David eventually does try to off himself but it's too late and as a wolf he terrorizes the streets of London until Alex is forced to witness him mowed down by a shower of police bullets.

The Benediction

Best Aspect: The Horror! The Horror!

As I mentioned earlier many Werewolf movies simply insist that being a werewolf is a scary thing, but they play the 'curse' like a superpower. The monster doesn't attack anybody who doesn't deserve it or something. In An American Werewolf in London the curse of Lycanthropy feels constantly dangerous for both David and the people around him. There is always a tension that the next person he hurts will be someone he loves. The other downside that just ups the misery of the werewolf experience is the painful transformation, the social stigma of being a maniac who thinks he transforms into a wolf, and the mental torture of your victims ghosts haunting your waking hours. It's a truly terrible fate that has never been portrayed as powerfully before or since. Werewolves are often badass but they are rarely scary. This is not a problem for this film.

Worst Aspect: Comedy?

An American Werewolf in London is often touted as a great example of Horror Comedy. But here's the thing, the comedy is not very comedic. I've never watched this movie for a laugh. As mentioned above the overall tone of this film is bleak and nihilistic. It's a miserable fate and the film doesn't play it for laughs. It's a horror movie with effective levity, but it is not at all a comedy, I don't care what John Landis thinks. If this is a comedy, it's a piss poor one. That's not really a problem for me though, the horror is good enough.

Best Dialogue: Bedside Manner

In one of the above mentioned moments of levity that might actually qualify as the only joke that lands is when Nurse Alex is dealing with a little boy who's staying at the hospital. This precocious runt is giving her a difficult time by playfully responding "NO" to everything she asks of him. She then asks if he's "ever been severely beaten about the face and neck?" and it's pretty freaking funny. But it doesn't play as a gag, as much as a little insight into the wit of Nurse Alex's Character.

Best Effect: Obvious Winner is Obvious

Google "Best Werewolf Transformation" and I'm sure you will see this exact scene. If you have never seen An American Werewolf in London I am certain you've seen this sequence. If you haven't then you are severely missing out. Stop reading this right now and look it up. This transformation sequence alone is worth watching this film for, the good news is that there is a pretty great horror flick on both ends as well.

Best Sequence: Nightmarapalooza

The best sequence of An American Werewolf in London is another absolutely overplayed and obvious answer. The Nightmare that David has in the hospital that features a violent invasion of gun toting, dog faced Nazis blowing the place to hell is pretty much a weird ass 80s metal music video in the middle of a werewolf movie and it provides just enough novelty to this film to set it apart from your typical full moon fare.

Honorable Mention: Moon's Out

There's full on butt in this movie. So if you like butt's. It's full of butt.

Summary

An American Werewolf In London falls into the category of movies that it almost feels like a waste of time to review, but it also falls squarely into the category of movies that are the whole reason that I do this for myself. This is a personal project of getting my feelings about these kinds of spooks out.

An American Werewolf in London is on an objective level the best Werewolf movie out there for your money. It's honestly a shame we don't have more, but we'd need about a hundred more before we can beat this picture. On a subjective level American Werewolf is still not my favorite. The carnage is slow to arrive, but when it finally does it is well worth the wait. The characters are not particularly charming or engaging. I spend a lot of time waiting for my favorite parts to happen and not particularly enjoying the spaces in between. Some horror flicks set up an atmosphere that just makes the whole film feel like a part of the cohesive horror experience and this movie doesn't. It has too much of a love story between two not particularly loveable characters. It's never a bad time to watch, it's just not as fun as you'd expect the "best horror comedy ever' to be.

To keep it short, An American Werewolf in London is a bleak and frightening monster movie with positively impressive special effects that hold up 40 years later. You have to see it.

Overall Grade: A

#A #Grade: A #Grade A #Werewolf #John Landis #Horror #Creature Feature #werewolf #wolf #80s #1981 #An American Werewolf in London #(A)

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p-artsypants · 4 years

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Perfect, No Matter What

In which Gabriel sets the bar even lower for himself, a reveal happens because of pain medication, and the new guardian actually goes to Chloé for advice.

At least Adrien gets some kisses out of it.

I’ve been watching ‘Botched’ while I work remotely and it took me to dangerous places.

Ao3 | FF.net

—

You know the phrase, ‘beauty is pain’? Well, some people knew that better than others.

Especially Adrien Agreste.

Diets, rigorous exercise, intense skin care routine including microdermabrasion, UV treatment, and teeth whitening.

Perfection.

And he hated it.

At this point in his life, he feared that his slew of doctors thought he was horribly vain.

Really, he was just the victim of a highly critical father.

On a Friday, Adrien prepared for school as usual. He dressed casually, lightly styled his hair, and ate breakfast.

As he came back down the stairs after grabbing his bag, his father was waiting for him.

“Father?”

“Just here to see you off to school.”

That was new, and concerning, to say the least. “Oh…thanks?”

“Hmm,” Gabriel hummed, stepping into his personal space. Without another word, he hooked his thumb around Adrien’s chin, manipulating his head in different directions.

“What?”

“Hush.”

Adrien just waited in fear as his father examined him, turning his face this way and that, and a look of displeasure was growing on his face, stronger and stronger.

Finally, blessedly, he pulled away. “That will be all. Get off to school.”

“Uh…okay.”

With confusion and paranoia, Adrien went to school.

—

The day continued on as normal. No akumas, no unnecessary drama, easy homework, nothing to stress about.

And nothing to bring Adrien’s attention away from his father’s strange behavior this morning.

The class before lunch, his paranoia picked up when Nathalie interrupted the lesson.

“Pardon the intrusion, Adrien has a doctor’s appointment, and will be out for the rest of the day.”

This was news to him, and he could only gape.

“Come on Adrien, get your stuff. Is one of your friends willing to take notes?”

“Marinette will!” Alya volunteered.

“Y-yeah! Of course I will!”

“See to it that you drop it off at the mansion after school.”

“I have fencing after school, we have a tournament tomorrow.” Adrien pointed out, while still shoveling his books into his bag.

“I’m afraid you won’t be participating in the tournament, or any other weekend activities.”

“What? Why?”

“I’ll explain in the car, please now, hurry.”

Adrien did as told, not before casting a fearful look to his friends.

—

Marinette couldn’t stop thinking about Adrien.

Not that it was any different than usual, but that look on his face…

It was haunting.

The look of complete horror and loss. To be fair, if she had received the same news he had, she probably would have been blindsided as well.

The reaction at the house when she brought his homework wasn’t insightful either. Just like every time she brought something for him, the camera came out, the drawer opened, and that was it. No communication, no nothing.

“I don’t know Tikki, should I text him? Or would that be weird? Does he know I have his number?”

“Marinette, I’m sure he’d love to get a text from you. Just ask him if he got the notes.”

“Great idea! Simple! I can’t butcher it!” She took out her phone and read aloud as she typed. “Hey Adrien…it’s Marinette. Alya gave me your number…did you get the homework? Let me know if anything is unclear, or if you need anything else.”

“Good!”

“Would a heart be too much?”

“It might be a comfort for him? Sending him love in his isolation.”

“Okay. Heart. And send!” She hit the button and nearly threw her phone in anxiety.

Then she waited.

And waited.

An hour or so passed as she tapped her foot with tense energy.

“Whatever he was pulled for is probably still going on. I wouldn’t worry about it, Marinette. Adrien isn't the type to leave someone on read.”

Taking a calming breath, Marinette nodded in agreement. “You’re right, I’ll just suck it up! I might hear from him tonight.”

So she spent the day doing homework, and a bit of various projects to stay busy.

Nearing patrol time, Plagg showed up on her desk, spooking her. “Hey pigtails.”

“Ah! Plagg! What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be with Chat? It’s almost time for patrol.”

“Nah, not for him!”

“This is joint patrol. It’s Friday night.”

“Yeah, well I’m here to let you know that he won’t be joining you tonight, and I left him because I knew he was going to try to transform, and he’s in no shape to!”

“Is he sick? Injured?”

“Injured.” Plagg confirmed. “Not dire, and he’s already been treated…though there was no reason to be hurt in the first place.” He muttered that last part to himself.

��Is he okay?”

The little cat shrugged. “Eh, probably. Little trauma never hurt anyone. It’s over now.”

“What happened?”

“That, I can’t tell you. Though I’m sure you’ll see it eventually. I’d just prefer to let this play out naturally and see what happens.”

“You really are chaotic, aren’t you?”

He beamed. “Only the most chaotic. Well, I’m here to join you, so you aren’t patrolling alone. That way he’ll be happy, and you’ll be happy that he’s not out with an injury.”

“That’s bizarrely considerate of you.” She snorted.

“I know, aren’t I the best?”

She scratched him between the ears. “The best. Now let’s go!”

—

Monday morning finally came. Marinette had finally received a response from Adrien on Saturday, which was just ‘yes I did, thank you!’ with a little heart as well.

It melted her a little.

But Adrien didn’t elaborate any more. It was complete radio silence from him, both to her, and to Nino, who had also tried to reach out.

But now it was Monday, and hopefully he would be here.

“Chloe,” Nino asked. “Did you hear anything from Adrien this weekend?”

“No!” She exasperated. “I called him like nine times, and not once did he answer! Nathalie said he was sleeping when I called her. And Gabriel didn’t answer either. It was ridiculous, utterly ridiculous!”

“He confirmed that he got my notes, but didn’t say anything else to me.” Marinette added. “I’m kinda worried.”

“Me too. He should be here by now.”

Luckily, the tension didn’t last long, as Adrien’s extremely tired voice spoke from the doorway. “Hi guys…”

Record scratch.

He looked hideous.

Both eyes were black, with huge purple swollen bags on each cheek. It was swollen so bad, his eyes were half shut. A thick bandage rested on the top of his nose, and over the nostrils, leaving just the little pink tip poking out.

“Dude!”

“Hey…” He couldn’t even smile, and looked to be in a lot of pain. He shuffled to his seat and sat down.

“What happened bro? You look like you got hit by a bus!”

“You really shouldn’t even be here.” Alya added. “That looks really bad.”

“My dad didn’t want me to come, but I begged him. I already missed half of Friday. I didn’t want to fall behind.”

“Yeah, but like, what happened?”

Adrien hesitated a moment, and then admitted, “I ran into a wall.”

Chloe scoffed, glaring at him with an absolutely disgusted look on her face. “Sure, right.”

“You broke your nose?”

“Yeah, really badly. Doctor got me all fixed up though. I’ll be fine!”

Marinette wasn’t convinced, however. It was weird that he had been pulled out of school for some sudden weekend event, only to show up on Monday with a broken nose.

Unless Adrien, in a desperate move to get out of the weekend plans, ran headfirst into a wall, which was admittedly kind of funny.

Or something more sinister was going on instead.

Nino and Alya continued to badger him about it, but Adrien just reassured them that he was fine.

But Marinette took notice of the bandage on the inside of his right ear too. How does one damage an ear when running headlong into a wall?

Marinette’s phone buzzed, a message from Chloe, of all people.

Chloe: I can see that look on your face. Adrien is lying. I want you to get the truth out of him.

That was surprising!

Marinette: What? Why me?

Chloe: Because if this is what I think it is, he’ll never admit it to me. And I need to know if I need to be disappointed in him or Gabriel.

Marinette: What are you talking about? And why me?

Chloe: It’s not my place to say, okay? You’re the class rep, and his friend. You’re good at coaxing people to open up. Do this for me and I’ll buy you some fabric or something. Don’t make me beg.

Marinette considered it. Seeing Adrien look like this quieted that part in her brain that just shouted ‘Adrien Adrien Adrien!’ And brought out ‘He’s hurt, he’s vulnerable, protect him!’

Marinette: You don’t need to buy me anything. I’ll try to talk to him, for his sake. I won’t mention you at all.

Chloe: Good. Let me know the details, alright? I’m very concerned.

Marinette: Obviously, if you’re asking for my help.

Chloe: Don’t get used to it.

Marinette: I won’t. :)

Turns out, Marinette didn’t even need to plan out how she was going to approach Adrien. He made it easy for her. At lunch, he approached her.

“Hey Marinette, can I talk to you for a sec?” His voice was nasally and groggy.

“Sure thing!” She chirped, leading him to a quiet corner. Her blood pressure spiked. Did he find out that Chloe had talked to her? Was he about to tell her to mind her own business??

“I have a really big favor to ask, and you can say no, but I just thought...”

“Whatever you need,” she laid a hand on his arm. “Just say the word.” Okay, maybe she was coming on too strong, but that nose…

He kind of smiled, though it looked painful. “Sorry, I’m not supposed to smile.”

“Gotcha. We’re serious here.” She steeled her mouth into a neutral grimace.

“I begged my dad to let me come back to school, but I didn’t realize how tired the...pain meds were making me. Do you think your parents would mind if I crashed on your couch until the end of the day? You’re just so close to school and—“

“I understand completely!” She smiled at him, only to make that neutral face a minute later. “I mean, yes. I’m sure it’ll be okay with them. You okay to come now?”

“Yeah, my chef sent me with some soup in a thermos.”

“Alright, then let’s go.”

Over at the bakery, which was blessedly not busy for lunchtime, Sabine noticed Adrien and gasped.

“Oh honey! What happened?!”

He winced. “I Uh...I ran into a wall.”

“He’s already been to the doctor.” Marinette clarified. “He was just wondering if he could nap on the couch for a few hours. The painkillers are making him groggy.”

Tom came into the room at his wife’s exclamation. “I bet it’s hard to sleep with that too.”

“Yes, exactly.” Adrien breathed.

“Of course you can nap upstairs. You’re always welcome whenever!”

“Thank you. I really appreciate it.”

“You might be better off in Marinette’s room so we don’t disturb you.”

“Is that okay with you, Marinette?” He asked.

“Oh! Yes! Of course! Wherever you want! Umm I’ll show you upstairs!” And she gestured him onward.

In her room, Adrien looked around as he sat his bag down. “You still have the pictures of me.” He said fondly.

She had forgotten about them in her worry. “Oh! Yep! I like to look at them for inspiration, and to support you, you know?”

He walked over to her wall and stopped to look at one. “And...if I didn’t look like this anymore? Would you still like them? Like me?”

What an odd thing to wonder. “Of course. Are you worried that you’re going to look different now because you broke your nose?”

He was quiet for a moment, then admitted. “Yeah.”

“Don’t worry, Adrien. I’m sure it’ll heal just fine.”

“Yeah, I trust you.”

She awkwardly patted her hands against her thighs. “So...you can use my bed, or you can just use the chaise...”

“Can I steal that big cat pillow? I’m supposed to sleep sitting up.”

“Oh yes! Of course!” She scrambled up to grab it for him. “Anything else I can get you? Where’s your soup? I’ll warm it up for you.”

He gave her that warm and tender smile that made her heart swell. “You’re the best, Marinette.” He took out the thermos from his bag. “Could I also have some water? I’m going to take some more drugs.”

She giggled, “sure thing. I’ll be back in a sec.”

She took the soup downstairs and poured it into a bowl, then popped it in the microwave. Then she got a glass of water and a bag of frozen peas and went back upstairs.

Adrien was reclining on the chaise with his head back, resting.

“Here’s your water,” she announced, sitting by his side.

“Ugh, thank you. My face is killing me.”

She snickered at him. “There’s a mean joke here, but I won’t say it.”

“You’re not supposed to make me laugh, remember?”

“Oh right, sorry.”

He took the water and popped a few pills. “Fair warning, this medicine makes me a wee loopy, so...”

“Well, I’ll be going back after lunch, so you probably won’t embarrass yourself too badly.”

“Mmm, I trust you won’t tell anyone if I confess my undying love for fried chicken.”

“Your secrets are safe with me.”

The microwave dinged and she excused herself to get it. The bowl was too hot to take out, or even hold to eat out of. So she took the time to make a sandwich for her own lunch, and grabbed an extra slice of fresh bread for Adrien.

Returning upstairs, Adrien was reclined again, with the frozen peas on his face.

“Soups on.”

“Feed me...” he begged weakly.

She almost dropped the tray she was carrying. “What? I mean, are you sure? I uh...”

He made a grabby hand toward her. “Soup soup...”

“Oh,” she breathed out. “The medicine kicked in fast.”

“Me want soooooup.” He moaned, absolutely miserable.

Seeing him so vulnerable and slightly childish was so sad.

And kinda cute.

“Okay, I’ve got it, but you have to sit up first. I don’t want you to spill on yourself.”

He moaned and groaned as he shimmied up. “Otay?”

Marinette giggled, “Otay.” She set the tray on his lap. “I’m not used to high Adrien.”

“Hi Marinette.”

She giggled again, “no, I meant you’re being goofy.”

“H-yuck.”

She shook her head. “Eat your soup, Adrien.”

“Yes mom.” He slowly spooned up his soup. He was quiet as he did so, looking like he was focusing hard on it. His eyes blinked slowly, like he was going to fall asleep at any second. Finally, he pulled away a half empty bowl and held it out to her.

“You done?”

He nodded.

“Okay.” She placed the bowl on the tray and stood. “Let’s get you a blanket.”

His eyes closed as he settled back down.

She grabbed a fuzzy blanket from her bed and draped it over him, which he immediately snuggled into.

“Alright, you rest as long as you need to. I’ll rush back here at the end of school to wake you up.”

He took her hand. “Mari?”

“Hmm?”

“I didn’t run into a wall.” He confessed in a whisper, tears gathering in his eyes.

Immediately, she sat by his side and grasped his hand. “What happened?”

“I got a nose job.”

Her jaw dropped. She never imagined Adrien as a vain person, so unless this was for his health, it kind of changed her entire perception of him.

“I didn’t want to.” A tear streaked down his cheek. “My dad made me. He pulled me out of school and took me to the doctor. They said my cartilage was shattered, probably from all the hits I take as Chat Noir…”

“They said that?” Her mouth was dry.

“They don’t know I’m Chat…no one does. You won’t tell, right Mari? Fried chicken?”

She nodded fervently. “Of course Adrien. My lips are sealed.”

He nodded slowly, starting to relax more. “They had to rebuild my nose. They took cartilage from my rib, and skin from my ear. It hurts all over.”

“Even with the medication?”

“I’ll never be good enough.” Another tear rolled down his cheek. “Not for him, not for her…no one.”

Marinette was torn between the fear of him remembering and forgetting what she was about to do. Nonetheless, she cupped his very bruised cheek. “Adrien. Even if your nose fell right off your face, I…I love you. I think you’re perfect.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Remember when we first met? When I yelled at you over the gum?”

“Dumb gum…”

“Yeah, I thought you were just like Chloe. Just a spoiled, pretty, rich kid.”

“But I am, I’m such a brat.” He nuzzled his face gently into her hand.

“No you’re not. It was never your looks that made me like you. It was your kindness. Okay?”

He slowly blinked at her. “My face hurts.”

Very gently, she leaned in and kissed the very tip of his nose. “All better.”

“Mari lucky kiss. Just like lucky charm.” His eyes fell closed. “Don’t tell anyone about nose job, ‘kay? Dad’s not bad, he’s just grieving…”

Marinette gave a long exhale. Being distant and withdrawn from society? Grieving. Forcing his son to get a nose job at 15? Insane.

There was just a lot in this conversation that was too much to unpack in the first place.

File the whole ‘Adrien is Chat Noir’ thing away to freak out about later.

“I promised, I won’t tell a soul.” Except Chloe, because it seemed like she had guessed it already.

“Night night…” He mumbled, letting the drugs pass him into the world of slumber.

She petted his head. “Night kitty.”

He didn’t say anything else after that, so she safely assumed he finally fell asleep.

With the calmness that only comes to someone in shock, Marinette collected the dishes and took them downstairs, placing them in the sink.

Plagg and Tikki quietly followed behind, watching her with concern.

When the dishes were safe, she slowly turned around, spotting them floating there, gazing at her.

“I…” She began. “Where to start?”

“Well, for one thing,” Plagg began. “He hasn’t been that talkative to anyone else all weekend, so he must really trust you.”

“A nose job! A freaking—plastic surgery! He’s 15! What the hell—who does that!? To their kid!”

“Oh good,” said Plagg. “She’s not freaking out about the other thing yet.”

“I mean, if it was a medical thing, like a deviated septum or something, I’d understand, but it didn’t seem like that all! Was it like that? Is he just delusional? Tell me he’s delusional, Plagg.”

“Well…he is delusional. But his dad said his nose was developing an ‘unsightly hump’ to it.”

“A hump! A HUMP!!? What if this surgery is botched!? What then, Gabriel!?” She gasped and grabbed Plagg. “PLAGG!”

“Yes?”

“YOU’RE HERE!”

“Yes?”

“HE REALLY IS CHAT NOIR!?”

“Shout a little louder, I don’t think they heard you in Los Angeles.”

“Ohmygodohmygodohmygod—“

Tikki flew up in front of her face. “Marinette, you’re the guardian now. You had to find out eventually.”

“Yeah, but not while he’s high on painkillers! He’s already had his nose ripped away from him! He didn’t need to lose his identity too!”

Plagg phased out of her hands. “Why don’t you take a nice calming breath.”

“I AM CALM!”

“Yeah, I like to scream when I’m calm too.”

She sunk to the floor, hyperventilating.

“What’s the big deal anyway?” Plagg asked, lounging on her thigh.

“What’s the big deal? What’s the big deal!?”

“Repeating my question is not an answer.”

“The ‘big deal’ is that Chat Noir and Adrien are the same person! The love of my life, and my partner! The same!”

“So this is a happy freak out?”

“No! Yes! I don’t know!” She slapped her hands over her face. “I’m confused.”

“Obviously.”

“Okay Plagg, lay off. This is a lot of information to deal with.” Tikki pacified. “It’s a good thing, Marinette. You know, it might be a good idea if he knows who you are. Once he feels better though.”

“I think my brain is about to explode.”

“Join the club. Man, you got a set of pipes.”

Marinette took a shaky breath. “Okay, okay, I’m calm. I’m cool! Just…I’ll worry about Chat Noir later. What should I do about Adrien?”

“Stutter like a moron?”

“Plagg, seriously, stop.”

“Killjoy.”

“What about Adrien?” Tikki urged.

“Should I call the police or something? Is it legal for a 15 year old to get a nose job?”

Plagg got up and started to float around the kitchen. “It is for the right price.”

“Chloe wanted to know who she was supposed to be disappointed with. Should I tell her? Do you think she would know what to do?”

“You really want to ask Chloe for advice?”

“This is so out of the realm of what I know!” She threw her hands up. “I know superhero and Miraculous stuff, and designing and fashion, and you know, normal teenage stuff! I don’t know anything about the legal ramifications about illegal nose jobs on minors!”

Tikki patted her hand. “I think you should talk it over with Chloe. I know you’re pretty disappointed in her because of Miracle Queen, but Adrien is really her only friend. She might be respectful of him. Either way, someone needs to know about it. It’s not okay.”

Marinette nodded. “Yeah, I suppose she is the best to talk to right now.” She winced. “I can’t believe I’m going to Chloe.”

“I’ll stay behind with Adrien,” Plagg assured. “Not that I’d want to be anywhere else.”

“I wouldn’t want you to be anywhere else either. Thankfully my parents are home. I’m sure they’ll check on him periodically.”

“Then all that’s left to do is to go back to school and act like you only got one piece of life changing information instead of two.” Tikki grinned.

“And who’s better at fibbing than me?” Marinette put her hands on her hips.

“Ummm, everyone else in the world? Is that a trick question?”

Marinette groaned. “Just get in the bag.”

—

Back at school, as soon as she walked in the door, Marinette was grabbed by the wrist and yanked off into a solitary corner. She had expected to be shanghaied by Chloe, but not quite so violently.

“Soooo?” She asked, once they were alone. “Where’s Adrien? I saw you guys leaving together!”

“Relax,” Marinette hushed. “He needed a place to lie down for a while and didn’t want to go home. Also, he didn’t want to go far.”

Chloe pursed her lips. “I suppose that makes sense. So? Did you get it out of him?”

“Look Chloe, he did tell me what happened, but he asked me not to tell anyone. So I will not confirm that his father made him get a nose job.”

Chloe grunted, balling up her fists. “That piece of—“ a string of swears came out of her mouth that were completely unladylike. “Alright, what are we going to do?”

“I was hoping you had something in mind. I’m not sure what we even can do.”

“I know Gabriel will weasel his way out of it if we go to the authorities. And even if we did, Adrien would hate us for getting his father in trouble.”

“Yeah...” Marinette sighed. “Is it Stockholm syndrome?”

“What?”

“When you’re locked up for so long you start to care for your warden instead of waiting to leave? Or else Gabriel is secretly affectionate and we never see it.”

“He changed a lot. He used to be...at least a little warmer. Gentler. But I’d never call him a good dad.”

Marinette frowned. “I...have an idea. It’s not a good idea. In fact, it’s a really really bad idea.”

“Let me hear it.”

“What if...” she scrunched her lips. “We’d have to convince Adrien, but what if we botched the surgery?”

Chloe’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?”

“Like...we fiddled with the recovery, and made it look like the surgeon did a bad job? Then the surgeon who operated on a minor would get in trouble, and Gabriel would be forced to recognize that his meddling ruined Adrien’s nose.”

Chloe grimaced. “That’s pretty devious, even for you Dupain-Cheng.”

“It’s all I got at this very second.”

“Isn’t that dangerous too?”

“Look, I said it was a bad idea.”

“But...”

“But...?”

“It would get Adrikins out of modeling for a little while. At least until it heals. Then Gabriel will be forced to shell out more to get it properly fixed...”

“Forget it, this is a bad idea.”

“No no,” Chloe insisted, a malicious smile in her face that only came with her dastardly ideas. “This could work. You mention it to Adrien. Caution all the dangers and what not, but if you plant that seed in his head...we can go from there.”

“Why don’t you do it?”

“Because I’m not supposed to know about the nose job, duh!”

She had a point.

“Now let’s get to class before anyone thinks we’re friends or something.”

—

After school, Marinette rushed out of the building to get to Adrien before his driver came.

But it was no use, the Gorilla was already waiting in front of the school.

Dare she even attempt to sneak Adrien back over? Or should she just let the man in on the secret?

Believing that honesty was the best policy, Marinette approached the sedan and knocked on the window.

The gorilla rolled it down, giving her a patient look.

“Hi! Um, Adrien is at my house.” She pointed to the bakery. “At lunch, he got drowsy from the painkillers and asked if he could nap on my couch. I don’t think he wanted to go home—“

But the bodyguard understood, and beckoned her on, then started the car.

Marinette hurried back to the bakery. Inside, she greeted her mother with a kiss.

“I checked on him an hour ago,” said Sabine. “He was still sleeping.”

“Thanks Maman!” She called as she was already halfway up the stairs.

In the apartment, a little voice in her head reminded her gently, “Adrien is Chat Noir,” as she started up the stairs to her room.

She did a u-turn and came back down. “Oh I’m not ready...” she lamented.

“You don’t have to be right now,” Tikki provided. “You just have to wake him up so he goes home.”

“Yeah, yeah okay. I can...how am I supposed to wake him up?”

“With a kiss?” Tikki batted her eyes, mocking her.

“What! No! No I can’t!” She covered her red face. “I’ll just—shake him!”

And she trudged up the stairs.

Seeing sleeping Adrien, however, melted her heart. He was propped up, though slightly leaning towards the trap door. At some point during his nap, he (or Plagg) had snagged the Ladybug plush from the box in the corner, and he was now cuddling it. His mouth was open to breathe and he snored ever so gently.

He was precious.

Pushing away all hesitation, Marinette stepped forward and swept the bangs from his forehead. His eyes twitched at the touch, though he continued to sleep.

Daintily, she pressed a kiss to his forehead, lingering for just a moment.

“Wakey wakey, my Prince.” She said fondly.

Adrien’s face screwed up, and then he moaned in pain from moving his nose. “Huh?”

“Adrien?”

“My Lady?”

“It’s Marinette.”

He opened his eyes, blinking rapidly to focus them. “Oh…Marinette?”

“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty.”

“How long was I out?”

“Well, schools over. So about three hours.”

He shut his eyes. “It feels like it was only 15 minutes.”

“Well, I explained everything to your driver and he’s waiting outside. You can go home and go back to sleep.”

He opened his eyes again, and looked at her. “Not gonna lie, I really liked sleeping here. It was…warmer. Cozier.”

“Well, if you decide to try to go to school again tomorrow, you can nap here again…or anytime you’d like to. If you need to. You’re welcome whenever, that is.”

He sat up and stretched, his shirt riding up and revealing his tummy.

She did not look.

(Yes she did.)

“Hmm…I think I’ll try out your bed next.”

Her eyes blew wide. “Wh-what?”

“This was comfortable, don’t get me wrong. But the bed would probably be better.” Then his sleepy words finally clicked into place. “For a nap! By myself! But the chaise is fine! I should be lucky you let me over here at all! It’s the drugs!”

Seeing him flustered was new, but very fun. She smiled at him. “I know what you meant. I was just…not expecting it is all.”

“Right, so…”

“So…”

“I should probably get going…”

“Right. Don’t want to make your driver wait.”

“Right…” He rubbed his hands together, then fidgeted with his ring. “Listen, Marinette?”

“Yes Adrien?”

“Um…about earlier…when I told you I was Chat Noir?”

“You remember that? I thought you were completely strung out on meds.”

“I mean, I was, a little. It’s a little fuzzy, but still…can you keep that a secret?”

“What, that you said it in your pain med haze? Of course.”

“No I mean—“ He bit his lip, looking at her earnestly.

“Wait, are you really—?” She had given him an out, and he hadn’t taken it. He could still back track though!

“Marinette, I…” He closed his eyes, his brow furrowing in thought. Finally, he opened them again, tears gathering at the corners. He whispered, “Lying to you would just hurt worse. I can’t, not to you. I’m sick of lying. I’m sick of secrets. Please don’t tell…please don’t tell…”

“I won’t,” she assured. “I won’t.” Marinette rested a hand on his forehead, worried that he might be getting a fever by how vulnerable he was speaking.

He felt fine, but pressed his head into her hand, seeking out contact.

“I’m scared.” He whispered.

“Of what?”

“Of him…my father.” He drew a shaky breath. “I’ve been meaning to tell Ladybug…but I know how protective she is of our secret identities. She’s right, of course…but…”

“You should tell her anyway. Make her listen. If she cares about you, she will.” She hadn’t even noticed she was still touching his head until he leaned away. She lowered her hand, only for him to grasp both of hers.

“Thank you, everyday Ladybug. I owe you big time.”

She shrugged. “Just talk to Ladybug, and we’ll call it even.”

“Okay,” he smiled weakly and pulled her into a hug.

It was strong and firm, even a little painful with how tight he hugged her. A hug that drew strength, that was trying to savor a feeling.

That they both hoped would last.

“I’ll see you later, okay?” He asked when he finally pulled away.

“Sure. You know where I live. I’ll leave the trap door unlocked.”

He breathed a relieved sigh. “Just having the option is the best news I’ve gotten all day.” He stood. “I really do have to go now though. He’ll get suspicious. I’m not going to practice after all.”

“Go, I don’t want you to get in trouble. And make sure to talk to Ladybug at patrol tonight!”

“I will!” He assured, hooking his bag over his shoulder. “Thanks a ton, Marinette!”

It was only after he left that Marinette realized he had never told her he had patrol tonight.

Maybe he wouldn’t notice.

—

Marinette had the volume on her phone turned up all day. She didn’t want to miss anything from Adrien. Whether it was him noticing her slip up, or just needing someone to talk to.

She supposed, now that she knew how mischievous he could be, he might just drop in from the trap door.

But given the pain and exhaustion from his nose, he might not be so willing to transform.

After she had dinner, but still a few hours before patrol, her phone dinged.

She swiped it up.

Adrien: I was thinking about it all day. I’m really happy that you know my secret. Secrets are funner between two people. :3

Marinette: You mean three right? You’re going to tell Ladybug, right?

Adrien: Of course. I will tonight. But for right now, it’s just you and me. Adrienette secret.

Marinette: Are you high on meds again?

Adrien: No. I took some more after I came home, and then took another nap. Nathalie woke me for dinner. I think I’m going to stay awake and do some homework/look over your notes before patrol

Adrien: Why did you ask if I was high?

Marinette: I just thought you were being goofy

Adrien: That's my secret cap. I’m always goofy.

Marinette: XD

Marinette: hey does Kagami know?

Adrien: That I’m goofy?

Marinette: Lol no that you’re cat boy

She doubted it, since it had taken him getting high to admit it at all. But she did wonder where he drew the line. Chat was always more relaxed when it came to Identities. Did he want to tell Kagami? Should she tell him about Ryuko?

Adrien: no, why would she?

Marinette: she’s your girlfriend?

Adrien started and stopped typing a few times, the little bubbles popping up over and over.

Finally, he just called her.

Which was just great. She wanted to stutter like a moron today. She had missed not doing so earlier! “Adrien?”

“Hey, hi, sorry, umm...it's kinda complicated. So I didn’t want to text it out.”

“Oh, sure. I understand.”

“Are you busy?”

“No. Just sketching.”

“Do you mind if I rant a little?”

“My ears are yours.” What a weird thing to say. He was going to hang up now.

Or giggle, that was fine too. “So...Kagami and I never actually started dating. She thought we did, and when I said we weren’t she got really mad and we argued about semantics…She said I was leading her on, and I said I was just being nice, and she said I was being a people pleaser and fake…I said she was jumping to conclusions. She said it was implicit permission and I said I needed to give explicit permission…”

Marinette winced. “Yikes.”

“Yeah, um, don’t tell her I said this, but I’m pretty glad it didn’t work out.”

“Really?” She dared not to hope.

“Yeah. We both had expectations that the other couldn’t meet. I wanted someone who was willing to just listen to my problems and show me affection. Kagami grabs the bull by the horns and she’s not a hugger. She wanted me to solve her problems with her mom and to be an escape…but with my dad, it was the same exact problem.”

“Oh, I see what you mean. That is hard.”

“And also…being with her was…really boring.”

“Boring? Kagami?”

“We have the same life experiences. Allowed to watch the same movies, read the same books. There was nothing to add. We’re too alike.”

“Huh.”

“And truth be told…” he winced, hesitating, but then admitted, “I’m still desperately in love with Ladybug.”

Desperately. Desperately!

“I know she doesn’t feel the same way about me. So I tried to move on. I know it’s not healthy to date someone else to get over someone, but Kagami was just so…insistent. And I don’t know, it made me feel awkward.” He sighed. “I’m really tired of girls fighting for attention, when the one girl I want brushes me off.”

Marinette clenched her fists.

I have messed this all up.

Oblivious to her pain, he continued. “I wanted to give Kagami a chance because she’s my friend and she’s nice. Every other girl who’s wanted me has just wanted ‘Adrien, teen idol’ not ‘Adrien the boy with thoughts and feelings’. They just talk at me, and cling to me. Like Lila…and Chloe, unfortunately.”

“You deserve someone who listens to you.” She assured, swallowing her sorrows.

“That’s why I like hanging out with Ladybug. She’s so cool and kind! But we have some really deep conversations. As Chat Noir, I’m not ‘Adrien, teen idol.’ I’m just me. She sees me as an equal. She’s my best friend, Marinette. I can just talk to her, you know?”

“Yeah.” She whispered.

“I—I’m sorry.” He suddenly cut himself off. “It’s pretty unfair to you to hear my woes about my love life.”

“No, it’s okay. I promised to be a pair of ears to listen.”

“I know but…earlier today…” He paused. “Didn’t you say you loved me?”

Bad. Bad. Awkward. Oops oops. Abort!

“I—I did.”

“Did you mean it like…?”

“Like however hopes the most.”

“Uh huh. Please be honest with me, Marinette. Please.”

How to play this? He had just gotten over a rant about girls fawning over him. Wouldn’t it be awful to lump herself in with them?

Especially since she hadn’t revealed herself yet. What if she doomed herself now, and then later doomed Ladybug?

“I…I love you. Adrien. I enjoy spending time with you. I love your laugh, and my day is brighter with you in it. You’re my favorite person. It doesn’t have to be romantic. I just want you in my life.”

Marinette held her breath before a pleasant hum came from his side of the phone.

“Then I think…I love you too.”

She tried not to scream.

But she did mime the action to Tikki, who responded in kind.

“Would you still love me with my old janky nose?” The question was sad, but his tone was light.

“Your nose was perfect! I think your old man just needs new glasses!”

“No way, if he gets new glasses, he’ll just find something else to fix. ‘These cheekbones aren’t sharp enough! Nathalie, bring me the cheese grater!’”

“Nooo! Stay away from Adrien’s cherubic cheeks!”

“Cherubic?!”

“Like a newborn baby!”

His wonderful sunshine laughter burst from the speaker before it broke off in a moan. “Ughh you’re not supposed to make me laugh!”

“Oh, sorry. I forgot.”

“You just like to see me suffer.”

“Absolutely not, Adrien. You’re baby.”

“You heard it from her, folks. I’m baby.”

“And don’t forget it.”

They talked for a while longer before Adrien relented to do his homework.

“Are you going to try to come to school again tomorrow?”

“Yeah. I know I can crash at your place again, so I’ll try to make it through the morning classes.”

“Good. Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Bye Marinette, love you.”

“I love you too.”

And he hung up.

And Marinette fell off her chair with a scream. “Tikki! He loves me! He loves me! Both of me! He’s desperately in love with Ladybug! And he wants Marinette in his life! He loves me!!!”

“And you’re going to return the favor tonight during patrol?”

“Can I?”

“It’s up to you. There’s always the threat of secret identity mishaps, but personally, I think you’ll be stronger together if you reveal yourself. He obviously needs you. Especially if things like this nose job are going to become a recurring problem.”

“God, I hope not.”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

“Besides revealing myself? I don’t know. I still have that awful idea that Chloe and I had. I just worry about how deep that problem could become.”

“Well, you’ve got a little time before patrol starts.”

“Yeah, I guess I’ll brainstorm.”

—

Despite her best efforts, the only other options included calling in an adult. And if Gabriel was deranged enough to force a nose job on Adrien, then he would surely blame him for getting busted.

Maybe talking with Adrien would prove fruitful.

And with that, she left to meet with him.

Chat Noir, that is.

She arrived first. The high rooftop offered a full view of nighttime in Paris in all its splendor, without being visible to civilians.

A perfect meeting place if she said so herself.

The minutes ticked on, and Adrien was still AWOL. Was he that nervous? Or maybe he fell asleep. Or maybe his nose was hurting too much?

Would Plagg know where to find her?

She took out her yo-yo and flipped open the screen, his paw print appearing on the grid. He was transformed and out and about. She watched as the paw print bounced around from block to block. He was not heading towards her. What was he doing?

It took a while, but eventually he started making his way towards her. This gave her a few minutes to get her story straight.

Then he arrived, holding onto the top of the staff and riding it to the roof like an elevator.

“Evening my lady,” he greeted, lacking any flirtatious tone and scarily neutral. “Sorry I’m late...I needed to clear my head.”

“Hey kitty. How are you feeling?”

“Um...I’ve been better...” the mask formed over the bandages, but did nothing to hide the shape or the bandages over his nostrils.

“Broke your nose?”

“...yeah, something like that.”

She waited. Normally Ladybug would jump right into patrol, but she knew they had to talk. She was just trying to give him the right moment. “Do you...want to talk about it?”

He gripped his arm and looked away from her. He was still out of arm's reach and only felt farther as the time stretched on.

“I...something happened. And I need to tell you but...I don’t want you to be disappointed with me.”

She sat, leaning her back against the lip of the roof. “I could never be disappointed in you kitty. Let’s talk.”

He didn’t look so sure, but sat next to her regardless. He pulled up his legs and rested his forearms on his knees.

She waited.

“I um...I messed up. I told someone my identity.”

She kept her face neutral, allowing him to continue.

“I was really scared and in pain...she let me nap at her house and she made me feel safe. I had some pain meds, but I let it slip that I was Chat Noir. Later, she gave me an out, saying she assumed I was just loopy from the meds but I couldn’t deny it. I had to tell her the truth. She’s one of my best friends, and she’s so trustworthy! I’m so sorry Ladybug...I just...it just came out...” He trembled as a tear rolled down his cheek. “I don’t regret it. But...I know I have to give up my ring. I’m...I’m so sorry.” He covered his face with his hand. “I wanted to be there for you while you were the guardian, but I already blew it. I’m such a mess...”

Ladybug wrapped an arm around him and pulled him into a side hug. “Chat, I’m not going to take your ring. You’re still my partner, and I want no one else.”

Chat shuddered and began to cry in earnest, letting out all that he was trying to conceal.

Ladybug tried not to cry too. After all, there was more talking to be had. She rubbed his back and across his shoulders.

“Marinette told me everything.” She whispered.

Chat’s eyes blew wide as he whipped his head to look at her. “No...no no she promised...she promised she wouldn’t tell!”

“Shh, hey hey, it’s okay.”

“No! She gave me her word she wouldn’t tell! I told her everything! I trusted her!” The absolute betrayal in his voice broke her, and she found her eyes stinging with tears.

“Chat...she told me it was an accident. She begged me not to take your Miraculous away. She said you needed me. You needed a friend. She was concerned, Chat. She loves you.”

He hiccuped and sobbed.

“She told me about your injury, and that you don’t feel safe at home. She told me that you’re still in love with me...and she said she couldn’t ask for a more perfect partner.”

His haggard breathing stuttered at that. “W-what?”

“She said your puns are hilarious, just ill timed. Your fighting skills are second to none. And that despite all that you go through everyday, Adrien, that you still continue to be an encouraging anchor to her. And most importantly, as the guardian, she says she can not pick a better Chat Noir.”

He swallowed harshly. “My...my lady?”

“Yes kitty.”

“Marinette?”

She nodded. “I didn’t break my promise. Mums the word.”

The next moment, Ladybug was on her back, as Chat had thrown himself at her, his arms tightly wound around her. “My lady!” He sobbed. “My beautiful lady!”

Ladybug just patted his head and pressed a warm kiss to his forehead. “Yes kitty. I’m here. I’m here and you’re safe. I’ll keep you safe.”

“I knew it was you.” He breathed. He leaned away to look down at her, affection pouring from his eyes. “I don’t know how, but my heart knew. You wonderful girl. I wouldn’t want anyone else.”

“Chat...”

“I love you, Marinette. You’re everything I ever wanted.”

Her face burned as a few happy tears leaked out. “I love you so much Adrien...but...”

“But?” He asked, voice small.

“Don’t put me on a pedestal. I’m not perfect.”

He scoffed. “No one is. But you’re perfect to me.”

She smiled sadly. “I meant, there’s something else we need to talk about.”

“What? I get to stay Chat Noir, you love me, you’re the most amazing, kindest, sweetest, trustworthy girl—“

“I kept my mouth shut about nearly all your secrets. All but one.”

He furrowed his eyes. “Wait what? To who? Tikki? She doesn’t count!”

“No, not Tikki.” Ladybug pushed off the ground so they could sit and talk again. “Listen. Chloe cornered me when I came back to school. She already had a hunch, but...I confirmed the truth about your nose.”

Chat didn’t respond, just stared at her.

“I’m sorry. I know that was the thing you specifically told me not to tell about, but...it’s just not right, Adrien. This is wrong. Like, really really wrong.”

He frowned at her slightly and turned away. “I kind of figured Chloe had me figured out. She’s seen her mom get enough rhinoplasties to know what it looks like.” He scratched the back of his head. “But like...just because you’re not used to it doesn’t mean it’s wrong. My dad is just a little more critical of me. That’s our normal.”

“No no no no no! Bad kitty!” She grabbed his hand tightly. “Never ever, for any reason, is it okay for an adult to force their child to have elective surgery. You said you were scared earlier! Don’t try to justify that behavior!”

“Well...it’s not great, but he’s my dad and he’s grieving...”

“Adrien Arthur Alphonso Andrew Absolon Athanese Agreste, you know better than that.”

Chat gawked at her.

She held his cheeks in her hands and forced him to look at her. “This stopped being a grieving process. It’s abuse.”

“...I just didn’t want to have an abusive father.”

“No one does, kitty cat.” She whispered, rubbing her thumb over his cheek, careful not to bump his nose. “But justifying his behavior isn’t going to help. It’s just going to make it worse.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

Ladybug screwed up her lips. “Chloe and I...may have come up with a horrible idea. I wanted to talk to you about it to workshop it.”

“Okay. I’m listening.”

She bit her lip and answered haltingly. “We could...purposefully...botch your nose.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Botch my nose...? Why would we do that?”

“If your bandages come off and your nose is ‘worse’ than it was before, your dad will take it out on a doctor that was willing to operate on a minor, and your dad will have to realize it was his fault this happened.”

“You don’t think he’d suspect me of tampering with it?”

“Would he? Knowing that it’s your nose on your face that you’d have to live with?”

“I don’t know...”

“Like I said, it’s a terrible, awful idea. A huge risk. But it’s all I got right now.”

Chat frowned, bringing his hand to his chin. As he considered this, his brows twitched and his lips screwed up. Then, his whole face relaxed and a smile slowly overtook it. “The surgeon said it would take a few weeks for it to heal on the surface, but a year or two to heal on the inside before it would be safe to operate on it again. If it’s botched…I could get out of modeling for at least a year.”

“Is that what you want?”

“To not have to miss class for photoshoots? To not wake up early, or have my free days taken? To have to say no to hangouts? To not have a rigid diet? To not have my flaws pointed out by my father, makeup artists, and photographers? Gee, how will I survive?”

She smiled a little at that. “I can’t emphasize how dangerous messing with this is. You could have breathing problems, headaches…”

“With my crippling anxiety and self-doubt, I already have breathing problems.”

It probably meant it as a joke, since he said it so casually. But there was just so much weight to it that he couldn’t be lying.

“Adrien, do you need to see a therapist?”

“Eh, probably.”

“Did you see any therapists after your mom disappeared?”

“No, father said it wasn’t anyone’s business what happened to our family.”

“Christ on a motorbike…okay, once your nose gets revealed, I want you to act as traumatized as you can and demand that you see a therapist. I really think it’d be good for you. Does that sound fair?”

“Yeah…I think you’re right. It might be weird though…”

“Sure. But I just want you to be happy, okay?” She rested a hand on his cheek. “I’m asking you to do this not because it’s what I want. I’m asking you to put your mental health first.”

He shimmied over so he could hold her, and rest his head on her chest. “I believe you. I love you.”

“I love you too, Adrien.” She whispered, her lips caressing his forehead. “Oh should I say, ‘other boy’?”

He looked up at her. “Really? Me?”

“Since the moment you gave me your umbrella.”

“Aw Bugaboo! That was the day I fell in love with you too!”

For a long time, they stayed just like that. Embraced, safe, content, and basking in the affection they’d been denying for so long. Broken hearts mending, battered souls finding reprieve.

“So,” Chat began. “How are we going to bust my nose?”

“Wait, you’re serious?”

“Unfortunately, it makes a lot of sense.” He pulled away from her, begrudgingly, and stood. “I’ll stand here, and you go to the other end, and then just chuck your yo-yo at my face as hard as you can.”

“I can’t do that!”

“It’ll be fine, my lady.”

“No it won’t! There’s no way to control it! What if I cave your nose in completely!?”

“You won’t. I have silicone braces in the nostrils. If you shatter the cartilage, it should stay in place. The doctor took cartilage from my rib and rebuilt my nose. We need to break that.”

“Or just dislodge it.” She suggested. “Wait, I’ll try for a clean snap in the middle.”

“You can try,” he chuckled.

Ladybug hopped to her feet and took her place a good twenty feet away.

“I’m going to close my eyes. Don’t tell me when you’re throwing it so I won’t flinch.”

“Okay!”

Then silence.

He waited with bated breath, flexing his fingers.

Then there was a whistle and he turned his face reflexively, taking the impact to the side of his nose.

CRUNCH

And he hit the ground.

“Chat!” Ladybug rushed over to him.

He gave her a weak thumbs up.

“I’m so sorry! That looked so painful!”

“You held back.” He teased.

“Because I didn’t want to kill you! I know it was my idea, but that was terrible!”

The bandages under his nose were nearly soaked with blood already. “It didn’t hurt that badly…”

“Let’s take you home and redress your nose. Okay kitty?”

“Only if you do it for me, My Lady.”

“What do I look like, a nurse?”

“No, but you are the one that broke my nose.”

“Oh great. Now you’re going to lord that over me?”

“Always, my darling bug.”

—

Back at Adrien’s room, he dropped his transformation and turned to look at Ladybug.

“What’s with that look?”

“I just…it’s one thing to hear it, and another to see it.” She also dropped her mask.

“Oh…I see what you mean. Despite the pain in my nose, I’m just…really happy to see it’s you.”

Smiling gently, Marinette took his hand and guided him into the bathroom. “I’d say we’re pretty lucky.”

“Well, I hit the jackpot.” He joked. “I think you just got the consolation prize.”

“Nonsense. You’re the perfect trophy husband.” She reached up and gently removed the tape holding the bandage in place, and then eased it off.

Adrien watched her reaction, his heartbeat quickening when her eyes widened in horror and her jaw dropped.

“Is it bad?”

She nodded. “Can you breathe okay?”

“It’s hard with the splints, but it doesn’t feel any different from before.”

“Okay. Well, that’s...good? Um..go ahead and look.”

Adrien turned to face the mirror, and tears sprang to his eyes. His face, his nose, what he was familiar with, was wrong. The bridge was broken, and very visibly bent like a parenthesis mark. No doubt about it, the surgery was botched.

But he wasn’t expecting to be so startled by it.

Marinette’s arms wrapped around him from behind. “It’s okay kitty. It’s alright.”

Adrien nodded, his nose throbbing. “I should probably redress it.”

“Do you want help?”

“It’s alright my lady, I’ve been doing this all weekend.”

Very gently, she turned his face toward her. Then she kissed the corner of his lips to avoid bumping his nose. “Roman statue, Pinocchio, Jimmy Durante, no matter what your nose looks like, it’s perfect to me, and to Nino and Chloe and all of your friends. Because it’s yours.”

He embraced her, leaning his cheek on top of her head. “Thank you, Marinette. That means a lot to me.”

“Of course kitty. Anything for you.”

There was no talk of what came next for them. Adrien redressed his wounds and took some pain medication. Then Marinette tucked him into bed before transforming and going home to sleep herself.

—

The bruising was even worse the next day. He looked like he got stung by a bee, he was so swollen.

“Dude...” Nino whistled lowly.

But Adrien ignored him in favor of Marinette’s shoulder. He snuck up from behind and dropped his chin on her, embracing her around the waist at the same time.

“Oh! Adrien!” She squeaked, unprepared for the hug. “How do you feel today?”

“Like Ladybug hit me with her yo-yo.”

Marinette chuckled despite herself. “I’m sure she’d never do a thing like that. She’s far too nice, and I think she has a crush on you.”

“That’s good,” stated Nino, eavesdropping. “Adrien’s got a mongo crush on her too.”

“Hugh Mongo?”

“Hugmongus Dungous.”

Alya was alert the second Adrien dropped his chin on Marinette. “Okay, well for someone crushing on Ladybug and dating Kagami, you’re certainly chummy with Marinette.”

“Kagami and I aren’t dating. We never did. And Ladybug is better off with Chat Noir.”

Marinette patted his hands in mock consolation.

“That still doesn’t explain why you’ve decided to use Marinette as a pillow.”

“She let me crash on her couch yesterday at lunch. After she left, I found her diary and read the whole thing. I found out all about her gigantic crush on me.”

Nino let out a violent sigh of relief. “You mean we don’t have to hide it anymore?! Finally!! Dude, it was getting so embarrassing!”

“Completely unbearable!” Agreed Alya. “Did you see the calendar?”

“Calendar?”

“Alya...” Marinette warned, her face turning red.

“Yeah! She has your whole schedule written out! It’s adorable!” Then she added under her breath, “and borderline creepy.”

Adrien hummed and hugged Marinette a little tighter. “That’s nice. You’ll have to share that with me. I’m so bad at time management.”

Chloe had been listening for a while as well, but decided that this was a good time to interrupt. “Adrikins? Can I borrow Marinette for a moment please?” Her voice was so sickeningly sweet, as if she were asking daddy for a pony.

Adrien sighed and released Marinette. “Be nice,” he warned.

“Of course!” She beamed, before grabbing Marinette’s wrist and hauling her off to a corner of the courtyard again. “You two are awfully close this morning! What gives?”

“Well...last night he called me and we had a good talk. Then I told him of the idea we had. He wasn’t thrilled initially, but the more he thought about it, the more he came around. He eventually agreed.”

“And then?”

“And then I went to sit on my balcony, and saw Ladybug and Chat Noir patrolling. So I flagged them down and told them the whole sad story. As Adrien told me, they showed up at his house and Ladybug broke his nose with her yo-yo.”

Chloe screwed up her face. “Ladybug, Huh?”

It was obvious she was still having some reservations of the hero ever since Miracle Queen. Maybe Marinette shouldn’t have mentioned Ladybug in the first place.

“Did she mention me at all?” Chloé asked.

“I said you and I came up with the idea to botch Adrien’s surgery. She kind of laughed and said we were crazy, but she respected how much we both cared for Adrien.”

“She didn’t say she was disappointed with me?”

“No, should she?” After all, Marinette wasn’t supposed to know about Miracle Queen.

Chloe was quiet then shrugged. “Maybe. Not your business though.”

“That’s fair.” Marinette amended.

“So she broke his nose?”

“Yeah. But she said we’re not allowed to tell people she’s responsible for it. Adrien doesn’t even want people to know it was a nose job.”

“Here’s a bit of inside information from the world of the rich and famous. No one ever wants people to know they’ve gotten a rhinoplasty. If they have surgery, they disappear until it’s healed. Then they emerge and all the rich and famous friends so “oh wow, did you get a haircut?” But never, never, is it talked about with men. You see?”

“Huh. So if anyone notices he has a crooked nose?”

“Gabriel will probably make up a story about him being in an accident, to drive up the tragedy.”

“He’s a real piece of work.”

“That is something we can agree on.”

—

Adrien stayed until lunch again, before going to crash on Marinette’s bed. The next day was much the same, and the day after that. By Friday, the swelling had gone down significantly.

“I’m not going to have to crash at your place today, My Lady.” Adrien said by way of greeting.

“Oh, do you feel better now?”

“No, I have an appointment at lunch. One week post op. Fingers crossed.”

“Let me know how it goes, okay?”

“Absolutely!”

And so at lunch, he pressed a kiss to her cheek and left with his driver.

It was less than an hour later when her phone buzzed with a message from Adrien.

Adrien: going in. I’m about to destroy this man’s whole career

She burst out laughing, startling Alya and Nino who were eating lunch with her at her house.

About 15 minutes after that, her phone dinged again.

Adrien: where are you?

Marinette: At my house. Lunch is almost over. Why?

Adrien: we’re going to a different doctor and I need an ‘emotional support friend’ with me. Can we pick you up?

Marinette: Absolutely! I’ll be right down!

Marinette explained the situation to her parents, Alya, and Nino, and prepared to meet the sedan outside the bakery.

The car pulled up and she wasted no time getting inside and sliding right in beside Adrien.

“I apologize for asking you along on such short notice, Miss Dupain-Cheng.” Said Gabriel from the passenger seat. “The reveal of Adrien’s nose was understandably quite upsetting to him. It appears the doctor who did the first corrective surgery did so poorly, and Adrien’s nose is ruined. We will be going to a new doctor to see what our options are. He’s requested someone come along to comfort him. I don’t blame him, I’m extremely upset myself.”

Marinette turned her attention to Adrien, seeing his eyes red from tears. He may have gotten actually emotional, or just from watching his father get angry.

“I understand, Mr. Agreste. It’s really no problem. I want the best for Adrien.”

“You’re an artist with a keen eye. His nose is clearly crooked, right? That foolish quack had the audacity to say that it was fine! Swelling he said!”

Marinette turned Adrien’s face toward her to get a better look.

His nose was even worse, if that was possible. It might have been swelling, but no doubt about it, the bridge was pointing left.

“It’s...it’s a little off...” she said sheepishly.

Boy, she did a number on him.

Adrien simply took her hand and squeezed.

Soon they arrived at the new doctor’s office. A plastic surgeon, specializing in rhinoplasty. The office was emasculate, marble flooring, chandeliers, it looked more like a hotel than a doctor's office.

Gabriel strode right up to the front desk. “Gabriel Agreste. I called a little bit ago about an emergency consultation with Dr. Nosestiff for my son.”

Adrien and Marinette looked at each other. Nosestiff? There’s no way that was a real person.

“Of course. He was able to squeeze you in. He’ll be with you in a moment. Please take a seat.”

They sat down in the empty waiting room, Gabriel tapping his foot impatiently.

“I hope that the other doctor loses his license.” Said Gabriel, to no one in particular. “It was supposed to be a simple surgery. That’s what he promised. I paid 100,000 euros for my son to look like a boxer. Unbelievable.”

Adrien had not yet let go of Marinette’s hand, and he trembled at his father’s anger.

Marinette rubbed a hand down his arm soothingly. “It’s going to be alright.” She whispered.

“Alright? Alright?!” Gabriel barked at her. “No it’s not alright! Adrien’s future as a model is ruined! That’s not alright! And all because—“ he stopped and hung his head.

All because of me. Is what he didn’t say.

“Agreste?” Called the nurse.

The group was led back to an examination room where two doctors were waiting. Adrien was urged into a chair.

“Hello, I’m Doctor Nosestiff, and yes, that is my real name.” He shook everyone’s hands. “This is my colleague Dr. Zasio.”

“Gabriel Agreste. This is my son Adrien, and his friend Marinette.”

“From what I heard on the phone, Adrien has had...an accident?”

“As you can see,” Gabriel gestured to his face. “The doctor was supposed to be performing a rhinoplasty, but instead decided to turn my son into a rhino!”

Adrien turned his face from side to side.

“Yes, that is a severe complication. He still has a lot of bruising and swelling, did you just come from the other doctor?”

“The one week follow up, yes.”

“What doctor did you go to? Was it a plastic surgeon?”

“Yes, a cosmetic surgeon.”

“Well, a cosmetic surgeon and plastic surgeon are not the same thing. Cosmetics can do lip fillers, Botox, and rhinoplasties, but they should not be doing septoplasties, which obviously happened to Adrien. Rhinoplasty is surface level. Nostrils and the tip. But a septoplasty deals with the septum and the bridge. That doctor shouldn’t have even touched Adrien’s bridge.”

“He said his cartilage had been shattered and that it needed to be rebuilt.”

“Again, not in his area of expertise. Adrien, did you have some sort of face trauma?”

“Uh—“ Adrien started, but Gabriel interrupted.

“No. It must have happened when he was born. Adrien hasn’t even been in any situations where he could get hit in the face.”

The doctor frowned at this.

Dr. Zasio spoke up. “What was the goal of the first surgery? Surely you didn’t know about the shattered cartilage?”

“Adrien developed a bump on his nose that was unsightly and uneven. Here’s a photo from his last photoshoot.” He handed over his phone.

The doctors both stared at it in shock. “Oh my god!” Exclaimed Dr. Nosestiff.

“See? It’s quite distracting—“

“That’s a perfect nose! Absolutely gorgeous! People would pay millions of euros for this nose! Why on Earth did you want to change it?”

“I uh…” Started Adrien, yet again, Gabriel interrupted.

“This bump, right here.” He pointed to the screen.

Dr. Nosestiff pinched his own nose and frowned at Gabriel. “Look Mr. Agreste. I’m going to have to ask you to sit in the waiting room.”

“Excuse me?”

“It's obvious that you’re upset about this, rightfully so. But I need to speak to Adrien, and you haven’t let him have a word edgewise. I think you might be a little hysterical right now.”

No, that’s just how he always is, Adrien thought.

Gabriel balled up his fists and jutted out his jaw, the impending explosion gaining pressure. But instead he huffed and raised his chin. “Fine. I will go wait out in the lobby.” He snapped, and walked out.

Dr. Nosestiff exhaled once he left. “Wow.”

Adrien and Marinette exhaled too.

“So what’s really going on?” asked Dr. Zasio. “I’ve seen your ads. They’re everywhere. I’ve had patients bring in your picture asking for your nose. What gives man?”

Adrien swallowed. “I didn’t want surgery. I liked my nose. I didn’t know there was anything wrong with it.”

The two doctors sighed dejectedly. “Disgusting. your father put you up to this?”

“Yes.” He confessed, sheepishly.

“What did the doctor say to you at your consultation? Did he ask what you thought?”

“I never talked to the doctor before the surgery. I was pulled out of class without warning, driven to the operating room, and put to sleep. When I woke up, my face was totally swollen, and the nurse said I was ‘all better.’”

“Yeah, all better,” scoffed Dr. Zasio. “Who was this doctor? Picasso? No one should operate on a minor unless it’s an emergency. You weren’t having any difficulty breathing, were you?”

“No.”

“Thought so. Well, he messed you up real good.”

“Um,” Marinette spoke up for the first time. “There’s something else you should know.”

They both looked at her, listening.

“Adrien confessed to me what happened, and we…well, I had…a really terrible idea.”

“Which was…?”

“I’m the one that screwed up his nose. I hit him. We purposefully botched the surgery to make Gabriel feel guilty.”

Dr. Zasio buried his face in his hands as Dr. Nosestiff just stared.

After a long beat of silence, Dr. Zasio finally just chuckled. “I mean…I guess you accomplished your goal? Waste his money, and make him live with the fact that his risk put Adrien in jeopardy. Honestly, it’s better that you did that this time instead of seven surgeries down the line when he starts to look like a ken doll.”

“What you did was extremely stupid and risky.” Scolded Dr. Nosestiff. “But, it was clever. This isn’t the first time a narcissistic parent has forced cosmetic surgery on a child. But I have a feeling it will be the last for Adrien.”

Adrien smiled a little at that.

“Now, let’s talk about fixing that nose. How’s your breathing?”

“It doesn’t feel any worse than before.”

Dr. Nosestiff tilted his chin up and shined a line in his nasal cavity. He poked and prodded with a long q-tip. Then he gently felt the bridge of his nose.

Adrien winced.

“That hurt?”

“Yeah.”

“Still broken, of course. I’m actually optimistic about this. The skin of your nose is thick, so breaking the cartilage and resetting it should solve most of the problems. If the other doctor had to reconstruct it, that probably means he took out all the old cartilage to begin with. Now, the golden question: Are you planning on continuing whatever activity it is that shattered the cartilage in the first place?”

Adrien and Marinette shared a look.

“I kind of have too.”

“Okay. Well, try to be a little more careful?”

“I’ve been telling him that for a while.” Teased Marinette.

Adrien just fondly rolled his eyes.

“Now for the news that’s going to make your dad really mad. I don’t operate on minors without due cause. Since you can breathe fine, I don’t see a need to get you in here as soon as possible. How old are you?”

“I just turned sixteen.”

“Perfect. In two years, come back, and we’ll fix this. I’ll tell your father too. You need to fully heal before any more surgery happens. If anyone goes digging in there, the risky for a horrible, life threatening complication goes up. Gabriel Agreste will just have to deal with having an attractive son with a slightly bent nose, over having a son with no nose.”

Gabriel was brought back into the examination room to hear all this himself while Marinette and Adrien waited in the lobby.

Adrien just sat with a fond smile on his face. “You know what? I’m also okay with a slightly crooked nose.”

“I think it’s cute.”

“I think you’re cute.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “Hey, I was thinking…next weekend, if you’re feeling better, do you want to go on a date with me? Maybe get some ice cream?”

“Oh my lady, I’d love to…but I have to check my schedule. I might have a photoshoot—JUST KIDDING I’M FREE!”

#miraculous ladybug #adrien agreste #marinette dupain cheng #adrinette #ladynoir #chat noir #ladybug #gabriel agreste #identity reveal

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spencers-dria · 3 years

Text

Meet Me in the Woods

Someone To Stay Ch. 7

Spencer x fem reader

After dinner, the guys and girls split up into their separate rooms, taking turns in the showers. After you finished washing up, you put on some red, plaid pajama pants, a black tank top, and a pair of slippers that looked like bear paws. You made your way into the kitchen, where Rossi was cleaning up.

"You didn't happen to bring marshmallows, did you?" You ask, eyebrows raised.

"You read my mind, kid." Rossi gives you a wink as he hands you a bag, already full of everything you need.

While he finishes, cleaning you make your way outside. All you can hear is the sound of crickets and the wind in the trees. It's like music to your ears, so peaceful. You walk across the back patio that overlooks the lake, heading towards the fire pit. Sitting on one of the log benches, you start to pull out all the supplies you need. After gathering some kindling, you start a fire in the stone fire pit, giving it a poke here and there to help get it going. Within a few minutes, the fire has grown to a decent size, and you can feel it's warmth from your seat.

It's not long before the doors open and the rest of the group joins you, gathering around the fire. Everyone grabs a skewer and starts roasting their marshmallows. Derek gets a little over eager with the fire and keeps burning his, so JJ has to help him out. The chocolate Rossi brought to use isn't plain Hershey's, but instead it's Ghirardli chocolate with different fillings like caramel or raspberry! These have to be some of the best s'mores you've ever tasted.

Once everyone is snacking on their s'mores, you hear Spencer speak up. "Alright! Who wants to hear a ghost story?"

The group lets out some claps and cheers for him.

You watch as his face changes and he lets the group get quiet as he sets the mood for the story. He pulls a candle out from somewhere behind his seat and lights it in the fire. He holds it in front of his face as he begins to speak, but stops when he hears a snicker. He turns and gives you a serious look.

"I'm so sorry!" You and JJ both giggle, trying to pull yourselves together. "It's just really funny watching you take this so seriously."

He rolls his eyes at you, but you swear you almost see a smile. He tries to get back in character before starting.

"In Fredericksburg, Virginia...there is a hospital that would seem completely normal to most people. But to anyone who has been a patient on the 4th floor, they know better." He uses overly dramatic inflection in his voice, which only makes it more humorous.

"Really Spencer...the hospital where I work?"

He stops again, turning to you. "You know what ghosts really hate? People who interrupt. That's right! And they're coming for you next." He gives you a shove, and neither of you can keep a straight face anymore. You're both laughing, trying to catch your breath.

"Hey! I want to hear the rest of the story!" Penelope pipes up.

"Oh please he's just making it up as he goes along. It's not even that scary." You joke, playfully.

"I'm gonna pretend I didn't hear that, but I think we all know who did hear it..." he says in his spookiest voice. "Anyways! Like I said, the 4th floor is haunted. Patients who stay in rooms 26 and 27 have reported seeing a young boy and young girl. They say the girl always asks them if they want to play with her ball. Other patients have said they can hear a ball bouncing in the hallway in the latest hours of the night."

You shift, a bit uneasy in your seat. This was starting to sound familiar. It reminded you of stories you had heard from coworkers...but how would he know about this? You normally aren't spooked easily, but as Spencer continues, the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

He continues the story. "They say the only people they really go after are the staff. They wait until their guard is down, the sneak up behind them, and..."

"GOTCHA!" You jump up from your seat as someone grabs you from behind.

You look down to see Derek Morgan, bent over with laughter, tears in his eyes. Spencer is laughing just as hard, if not harder. The rest of the team joins in, and after your nerves settle, so do you.

"You planned this didn't you?!" You yell at the two of them, trying to stifle a laugh and be serious.

The pair of them still laughing too hard to even speak. You have your answer.

"Well that's enough fun for me. I'm headed to bed, anyone else?" Rossi gets up and everyone else joins him, heading inside.

When you step inside, you grab your green, plaid, wool blanket off the couch and carry it back out to the patio. Everyone is already getting ready for bed, so no one notices. You spread it out on the deck and turn off the porch light. You finally lay down on your back, looking straight up at the night sky. You could see a few stars from where you live, but out here there are more than you could ever count. It looks like pixie dust, spread across a deep abyss of black. You take a deep breath in, smelling the forest. For you, it doesn't get any better than this.

You soon hear the patio door open and close, followed by footsteps. You see Spencer standing over you, looking down at you with curiosity. He's changed into purple PJ pants and a Star Wars shirt.

"Whatcha doin?"

"Taking it all in." You smile up at him.

"Mind if I join?"

You scoot over, making extra room as you pat the spot next to you on the blanket.

You let out a long sigh, feeling completely content and relaxed. "I don't know what it is, about space, the stars, the galaxy...but I have always been so mesmerized by all of it. Part of me just appreciates how beautiful it is and part of me appreciates how it is all so much bigger than me. It's beyond what I can ever wrap my head around. There's nothing I wouldn't do to one day take a trip up there."

"Do you know the story of Perseus?" Spencer asks before explaining. He's learned not to underestimate your random knowledge as well.

"Believe it or not, I do actually."

Spencer smiles to himself. "I'm not surprised. Anyways, so there is Cephus at the top, Cassiopeia below him to the right, then Andromeda, and finally Perseus at the bottom left."

Your face twist in confusion. You don't see any of it, but you're too embarrassed to admit this, so you nod as if you see them. You sometimes forget what Spencer does for his job. He scoots closer to you to share your line of vision. He then looks at you and smiles before grabbing your hand and directing your pointer finger along the path of each constellation.

"It's beautiful isn't it?" You ask him.

"What is?"

"All of it. The stars, the trees, the sounds, the smells...it's perfect." You close your eyes feeling completely at peace in this moment.

You don't see Spencer roll his head to look at you.

"Yeah, really beautiful." He responds.

You feel your body relaxing and slipping away from the moment as you fall closer towards sleep. The next thing you know you feel arms slipping underneath you and lifting you from the ground. Mostly asleep, you absent-mindedly wrap your arms around the figure carrying you. You feel your body being carried up and then tucked underneath you bed comforter. Your eyes flit open for only a moment. Through the thick darkness you barely make out Spencer's outline climbing back down the ladder and quietly slipping out of the room. This is the last thing you see before you are awoken by the scent of smokey bacon.

You open your eyes and look around the room to see all three other ladies are still fast asleep. Sunlight is dripping into the room from between the curtains. You carefully make your way down from your top bunk and tip toe out of the room, trying to avoid any squeaky wooden floorboards.

When you finally reach the kitchen, you are surprised to see Hotch cooking breakfast. He's smiling and flipping pancakes at the stove. You haven't known him very long, but this is still not something you would have expected from him.

"Goodmorning" you yawn, rubbing your eyes and adjusting to the sunlight flooding in from the large kitchen windows.

"Morning!" he beamed. "Care for some pancakes?"

"Pancakes sound wonderful, thanks! Need any help?"

"You can set the table if you don't mind."

"Not at all! Happy to help," You give him a smile as you start to pull place settings out from the cabinets.

"So, pancakes from scratch...where did you learn that?"

He lets out a small chuckle. "Rossi's not the only one who can cook ya know. Truthfull though, I learned a lot from my wife Haley. She was a great mom, and a wonderful cook." He smiles as he seems to get caught up in a memory, but you can here the sadness lacing his tone.

You can't help but inquire. "Was?"

He looks down at the bacon he is now grilling, avoiding eye contact as he continues.

"She was my ex wife for only a little while before she was killed. It was a serial killer that the team should have...that I should have caught." He has stopped cooking and is now gripping the counter infant of him, as though he was trying to keep himself from falling over.

You may not know him well, but your job had made you fairly comfortable with talking to people dealing with situations such as this, so you decide to approach him. You place a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"I'm so sorry, that you and your son have had to go through that. No one should ever be put through that much trauma. But I can tell its made you really strong. And your son, he's lucky to have a dad who cares so much about him and keeps him safe."

Hotch takes a deep breath before continuing his cooking as he flips a few pieces of bacon and pours another pancake. He then turns to you and gives a warm genuine smile.

"Thank you, Y/N. I really appreciate it, truly. We have all been through a lot. And I'm not the only one who's lost someone because of this job..."

He trails off when you expected him to continue. There was something about the way he said that last part that made you believe he wanted to say more. Could he be talking about Spencer? Who did he lose? What happened to them? When did it happen?

Questions start to flood your mind but are quickly pushed to the back as the rest of the team starts to make their way into the kitchen for breakfast.

Everyone is talking about their plans for the day. So you turn to Spencer.

"I have something fun planned, if you're willing to trust me."

He raises his eyebrows, intrigued.

"Well I trusted you yesterday and I turned out okay" he laughs.

"Well it's definitely more laid back, even relaxing. If you want you can even bring a book."

He puts his elbows on the table and leans forward on his hands. You've clearly peaked his interest.

"Ok you've won me over. What is it?"

"A surprise." You smile as you grab both of your empty plates and bring them to the sink to wash them off.

"Well can you at least tell me what I need to wear for this?"

You take a minute to think.

"Definitely sun screen and probably something can get a little bit wet or dirty and also some sturdy shoes."

You both make your way to your rooms to get ready. You find the other three ladies already getting dressed and packed for their planned activities.

Alex is getting ready to go on a hike with Rossi and Hotch. JJ and Morgan are taking some rental jet skis out on the lake. Penny will be relaxing on her float again.

You put on a grey tank with an open, oversized navy flannel, some grey khaki shorts, and chacos . You grab your north face backpack and head to the kitchen to sort through the snacks. The backpack gets filled with granola bars, fresh fruit, cashews, and water bottles.

As you are finishing up, Spencer makes his way out of his room. He's in a half zip grey long sleeve, khaki shorts and tennis shoes. It doesn't look ah all like something he'd usually wear.

"Nice outfit" you smile at him.

"Oh uhh thanks, I borrowed the shirt from Hotch and the shorts aren't something I usually wear, but I brought them on the trip just in case." He seems to be blushing a bit. You feel bad, thinking you've must have embarrassed him.

"No really though, the outdoors look, it works for you." You elbow him as you giggle. The blush on his face turns a dark shade of red. Maybe he's really not used to getting told he looks good. This seems a bit crazy to you. He's ridiculously attractive. So much so that you brushed off any possibility of anything happening the night you met him. Spencer was just a friend, and that's exactly what you needed.

You throw on your back pack and lead the two of you out the glass doors and down the patio steps. You make your way further away from the cabin until the only thing left surrounding the two of you are trees.

The two of you walk for a couple minutes in a comfortable silence. You take in the sound of leaves crunching under your feet, wind in the trees, birds chirping. You look up to see sunlight streaming through the leaves of the trees above you. The path is covered by a canopy of green and gold. It's almost magical. You finally look over to see Spencer with a big smile on his face. He's looking around in awe. You have a feeling he doesn't do this sort of thing often.

"Wow" he breathes out. "It's so beautiful and calm. It's almost a bit..."

"Magical?" You interject. He looks down at you in surprise to see you smiling back up at him. He just smiles and nods.

You finally make your way to dock at the edge of the lake. You toss your back back into a red canoe tied up on the dock.

"We're going out on the lake?" He questions.

"Yeah is that okay?"

"Yeah that's ok. I've never actually been in a canoe before, I'm not sure how much help I'll be rowing."

"That's ok, Spencer. We're just here to relax and have fun" you reassure him.

You motion for him to step in first. You untie the boat from the dock push it off into the water as you jump in at the other end. You instruct him to turn around and face the front and hand him one paddle. You call out instructions to help him with pace and directions. After a couple minutes, he starts to get the hang of it. I mean, he has a PhD in engineering, you're not surprised.

Eventually, the boat is fairly far from shore and you both put down your paddles as he turns to face you. You reach into your backpack and pull out blankets to lay across the seats. Then you pull out the snacks and the water.

"A picnic on the lake, huh?" He gives a slight chuckle.

"Yeah" you shrug. "A bit cheesy, I know."

"It's perfect." He glances up at you with a genuine toothy grin on his face. He looks really happy. When you see this you can't help the ever growing smile on your face.

"What gave you this idea?" he asks as he starts munching on some cashews and grapes.

"Well, I love hiking, I love the water, and you already know I love food. So why not combine all three? Plus, there's just something really therapeutic about being in a boat out on the water, rowing, the only sound is your paddle in the water."

"Well I hope you don't mind, I brought something. I didn't know what we'd be doing, but I thought it might come in handy. Um it's not mine and Derek had to show me how to set it up. It's probably stupid anyways."

"I wanna see!" You give him a light shove on the shoulder.

He reaches into the backpack he brought and pulls out a Bluetooth speaker. Next he pulls out his phone and you hear the beep as it connects. You're incredibly intrigued at this point. The next thing you know, you hear the hear the gentle harmonica and acoustic guitar as "Ghost on the Shore" by Lord Huron fills the air around you.

You lean back on your hands, tears threaten to fill the brims of your eyes.

"Spencer... this is really, really sweet. How did you even find this song?"

"I noticed you looking at some of their music in that coffee shop with the music store. I listened to a little bit, and I really liked this song. I figured you would too."

"It's one of my favorites."

The two of you spend more time listening to music,

snacking, and just taking in the beauty of the nature around you. Way off in the distance you hear laughter and can see JJ and Derek racing around on their jet skis. You decide to head back and join the others, music still sounding from the speaker tucked into a side pocket of his backpack. "Meet Me in the Woods" echoes through the trees as you hike back towards the cabin together. Today had turned out even better than you ever could have planned.

#Spotify

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highladyluck · 3 years

Note

For the fic title meme: Lay Down Your Crown and Sword

So, I was thinking maybe this is about Aviendha's feelings about Rand when they're in the Aiel Waste... just kidding, I know what the people want from me.

Wheel of Time, Mat/Tuon, post-canon, ANGST. This is one take on a scenario where Mat attempts to achieve his stated relationship goal, which is convincing Tuon to abdicate and run away with him.

(This sucker is LONG and SPOILERY so I’m putting it under a cut.)

It's ~2 months after the Last Battle. There's growing danger to Tuon- an almost-successful assassination attempt (my money's on Moghedien) that scares Mat, Selucia, the Deathwatch, and maybe even Tuon herself, just a little. The sul'dam secret is leaking out and emboldening the faction that wants to kill her, there's worry it'll lead to local rebellion, plus there's still the Seanchan homeland power struggle. Mat uses all this to convince Tuon that she needs to lie low for a while. His idea is for her to fake her own death, install a puppet successor secretly loyal to her, and go hide out with him in a place no one will be able to find them for a few months.

She's not thrilled about it initially, but it's not like she hasn't faked her own death before (love that about her!) so she agrees to Mat's plan, which is 'hang out in a Portal Stone alternate timeline'. (Mat would not come up with this on his own, Mat does not like Portal Stones, but Min suggested it and he eventually agreed it would suit their needs.) Tuon would prefer something where she could keep an eye on political conditions more easily, but she feels safe with Mat & appreciates that this is definitely a secure option, and she's been out of contact with home base before for a while and been fine. Selucia stays in the palace, to keep an eye on things and do intrigue (and also give Mat and Tuon actual alone time- I am entertained by the grudging truce between Mat and Selucia, but her chaperone services are not needed this time around.)

They've got an official pickup scheduled in a few months, about a month before Tuon's due; Mat thought about waiting more time to go back but he'd rather have the option to call in trusted medical help for the birth and he wants to leave a wide margin of error for the actual due date. He intends to rope in Nyneave if it seems necessary, although he doubts he'll be lucky enough that Nyneave would help Tuon out of the goodness of her heart or even as a favor to him. More likely Nyneave's help would cost Tuon in political concessions, which he will have to either convince Tuon to accept- assuming she's in a position to make that kind of choice- or negotiate on her behalf, if she's in too much immediate danger. Either scenario keeps him up at night, but the alternative is worse. Also, he hasn't run this contingency plan by Tuon yet- likely because he isn't totally against the idea of extracting political concessions from Tuon, so there's guilt as well as fear of how she'd react. The other thing Tuon doesn't realize about this vacation plan is that Mat is hoping to convince her to move there forever- if it's nice- or at least to keep faking her death and start a new life with him somewhere in disguise in their reality.

The Portal Stone world is one that's relatively close to their world, so it has people and feels fairly familiar, but the apocalypse hasn't happened yet and doesn't appear to be doing so in the near future. (For fun let's say the obvious divergence is Damodred-related; maybe the non-asshole Damodred branch is in charge, so you don't get Laman's Sin and/or Tigrane is actually happy in her political marriage, so the Dragon hasn't been reborn yet.) Tuon's ok with the 'vacation' vibe at first, we get some cute romantic bonding moments between her and Mat as they do normal people things, they have some cute dates in taverns or whatever. But Tuon becomes increasingly bored and anxious and frustrated about not being able to keep tabs on what's happening- probably some residual trauma from the last time she went AWOL with Mat, and came back to find her homeland in shambles and her family dead. So that's a source of conflict, especially since she doesn't actually confide that in Mat. She also keeps wanting to hash out political/military plans for when they get back, but Mat keeps trying to distract her, or makes arguments she doesn't like (re: Seanchan policy reform). Maybe Mat brings up the Nyneave contingency plan because he got worried about her health, and Tuon's like 'uh how long have you been sitting on this idea, when the fuck were you going to run it past me, the person it most concerns?'

Their relationship has always had an element of conflict in it, but back then they were strangers, had rules of engagement constraining them, and a kind of shared purpose. Their conflict was a kind of game that they played together, and it drew them closer. Now they know how to get under each other's skin and aren't constrained by witnesses or promises, and they have a shared mission (keeping Tuon safe) but don't agree on who is in charge of it. What's holding them together still is their own compassion and affection for each other, but they're not great at communicating it with words and now they're using words as weapons sometimes, so most of the reconciling is with gestures/gifts/actions. In general, things are tense and there's not much going on outside of their own interactions to distract them; Tuon's temper is flaring, she's feeling powerless and like her personal integrity is being attacked sometimes; Mat's being propelled around by his gut reactions and he's scared of losing her (and the baby), in any number of ways, and mad that she doesn't want what he thinks is best.

Finally the scheduled transit date arrives and they pop back to their original universe and get caught up on the news (maybe from Min?) Over in Seanchan, possibly emboldened by news of Tuon's 'death', a warlord has consolidated most of the warring factions. Now they know who to go after, and a war in Seanchan would help unify the Seanchan in the westlands; the Seanchan military-industrial complex loves a good patriotic war. Things domestically are a little better than before they left. Selucia flushed out the network from the earlier assassination attempt and is generally keeping things running and the puppet ruler honest.

Tuon's relieved; she was really worried that everything was going to fall apart when she was gone and now she's kind of grateful for the break. She tries to tell Mat this without actually admitting that she's got trauma around it, because the Empress doesn't admit weakness and Tuon the person is extremely bad at talking about feelings anyway; she's like "Ah, that's much better news than I came back to last time you kidnapped me. I'm glad to be back to work again, let's get to it." Mat's irritable, not catching on that she was actually really worried about it based on her previous experience, and thinking she didn't appreciate the break, and also worried that his plans to convince her to leave with him aren't going to work. Tuon catches that he's cagey and unhappy and not getting her jokes, and she remembers that this was what he seemed like when she first saw him in the Tarasin Palace. Mat argues that they should at least wait until the baby comes, that the person she put in charge is doing well, they can certainly let them rule a while longer. He says he's not sure it's the right time to attack Seanchan, he'd need to check the troops out, sniff out local sentiment. He's not decisive or commanding or focused when he says these things- it's stalling, it's bravado covering panic. It dawns on her- oh shit, he's gonna run.

Tuon's spooked. She KNOWS Mat now, but that doesn't mean she knows what to do to hang on to him. She doesn't know how to deal with a loss of control in her personal life, so she turns to what she knows she can control- the empire, her role, her property. She takes refuge in past promises. She tells him they will discuss the disposition of the army and the prosecution of the war in Seanchan once her heir is born and she's officially 'off the hook'. Mat looks grim.

Tuon wanted to announce that she's back immediately, but she starts having contractions and Mat's like 'you are absolutely not going to return from the dead right this second, you're super vulnerable right now.' They stay in a relatively secret spot in Tuon's territory with a small coterie of loyal retainers until the baby is born; it goes fine. There is one (1) cute bonding moment between Tuon and the baby and Mat; then the baby vanishes. Mat was on guard along with the usual people you'd expect to be on guard (not Karede, Selucia, or Min though). Tuon FUCKING KNOWS Mat did it with Aes Sedai help, she's initially furious and betrayed, but Mat isn't admitting it and within the extremely tight circle of people who know about the vanished baby, he's doing a reasonably convincing job looking as freaked out and upset as everyone else, and she's still hoping she can resolve this privately without any drastic public actions.

She takes Mat to a private place and she tells him that she has always, always been able to trust him. She trusts him so much it terrifies her. She does not know if this is what love is, but it is what she feels for him. She asks him to honor that, to honor himself, and not to lie to her. She then asks him why he kidnapped their child. Mat staggers, and blurts out that he can't bear the thought of their children constantly at risk of assassination, from strangers or their own siblings. He has nightmares about their child beginning to channel, or being able to learn, and what that means for them in the Empire. Tuon's made her choice and he'll respect that, though he hates the risks to her, and what the Empire does to her and others. But their child deserves the choice Tuon didn't have. He loves Tuon, but he cannot love the Empire, and he will not fight in the Empire's wars, and he will not let the Empire own his children, whether that's as royalty, sul'dam, or damane. He says he trusts she'll come to the right decision about what to do with this information.

The next scene has Tuon in mourning white. It's neither Tuon's nor Mat's POV- probably Karede, or maybe Min. In front of the whole court Tuon, as Empress back from the dead, bestows the Bloodknives ring and blessing on Knotai, and orders him to take a few members of the Deathwatch (the ones on watch the night the baby vanished, our observer notes) and assassinate the warlord in Seanchan on her behalf. She says she trusts he will succeed. They stare inscrutably at each other. The court is shocked into silence at first, but the whispers rise behind Mat as he straightens from his extraordinarily polite leg and heads out of the chamber. It is left up to the reader to decide if this is an elaborate plan to fake Mat's death and set him free, or his execution.

--- You may notice this is suspiciously fleshed out for a prompt I received this afternoon. XD I've been kicking around some of this premise for a while, though this ask made me finally come up with the circumstances that get Tuon to actually agree to temporarily leave her job, as well as most of the details. The main emotional beats came from stringing together several Mountain Goats songs, because of course it did. The whole sequence is Twin Human Highway Flares, Riches and Wonders (Eliza Rickman cover), Alpha Incipiens, Fault Lines, New Britain, Family Happiness. I’m not sure if I’ll actually turn this into a finished story with description and dialogue and everything, but it’s possible. This is also not the only Mat/Tuon post-canon idea I have kicking around! It’s not my ideal scenario for them for sure, but it’s a lot easier to write a ‘bad ending’ for them than to work on my ‘good ending’, because I have a lot more emotional investment in the ‘good ending’... perfectionist problems. :/

#wheel of time #fic title meme #livlepretre #mat/tuon #wheel of time fanfic #problematic fave tuon

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energyanon · 3 years

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FAQ Energy Readings

I am well aware that I cannot stop anyone when it comes to doing their own readings even if they are not experienced. by now, I hope that you have read this post and are at the very least following the guidelines. If you have done so, I applaud you, thank you for taking this seriously. If you have read the post, and you still want to go ahead i’ve decided to give some background information for you to consider in your readings while you practice. I will not be discussing HOW to do things, as, if you are doing these readings you should know this already, but this is some extra study just so it can help you in them. (If you arent interested in doing ER’s yourself, some of the information in here will give you some insight into your own energy, feel free to read that but otherwise, please do scroll down to where the quotes are, as they help everyone in understanding their own family dynamic/trauma.) I do think it will help everyone. I will continue to add to this with anything that I find would help you make better decisions when conducting a reading.

1. Before doing readings you need to work on yourself. There are things that can come up in a reading that are extraordinarily triggering, and you will never know that it’s coming up. Sexual abuse, attempted suicide, death.. nothing that wants to come into light gives two shits about you being triggered, and so you need to have done the work to be able to step out and stop without becoming consumed by it. You need to then be able to also have enough strength to close off the reading. If you are too fractured from the trigger in order to do so, you’ve just fucked it up for the person you’re reading. Not good. Do not attempt readings if you have triggers you have not worked on that are either a) going to cause you distress or b) do not allow you to be objective in the reading.

2. Second to this. Being objective in the reading: One of the messages I got last night mentioned that the person who was doing the reading was upset that the person in the reading was not listening to them. You cannot get your own feelings involved. You can merely understand. That’s it. if you are getting upset or feel queezy by what is happening, that is your own energy coming into the reading, and it is not permitted. Get out, shut it down, do not continue. That person does not need your added energy to take care of when they didn’t ask for it themselves, You are only there to observe unless you are doing a constellation in which you are there to guide, but even then you never get your own feelings on the situation involved.

Eg. In constellations, alot of the time we’re talking about sexual abuse or just straight up physical abuse. It does not help the client if you’re there getting your feelings on those things involved in the constellation and telling them that their father is an absolute shit and he deserves to die for what he did. They are trying to heal their past, that is not helping. You can get the child to say what they want to say eg. “What you did was wrong, it hurt me.” But that is only if they need to be guided to say it, they agree that that is what they want to say, or if they say it organically themselves, which we always try to get them to do first. and the most important thing

On this - you can’t say what is good or bad in a reading, it merely IS. The universe always knows what it’s doing, it is putting everyone through trials for them to grow. The very thing that you think is bad, may be the very thing that helps them grow into the best person they can be. You never tell someone what to do, you never force them on a different path if they have not accepted that. If they are on a current lesson, it is not up to you to force them off that lesson before they have learnt from it.

eg. (and this is NOT what I got at all in the reading, this is just an example) Lets say that Ale IS bad for SS, Lets say shes going to absolutely destroy him. Lets say you SEE that. You are not to do absolutely anything with that situation except accept and understand it with love unless that person has asked you to help them otherwise. You don’t tell them something they don’t already know, you don’t ask a question that says “Seb do you know that Ale is trying to sabotage you?” You don’t do shit. Seb would have been given that lesson in the form of Ale for a reason. Seb’s higher self before coming into this body would have asked for that lesson. You have absolutely 0 authority to tell him to do anything that would halt his learning of this lesson. Every person has the right to their own anatomy, it is your duty to have them keep that right.

Reiterating: If you cannot get out of your own feelings, thoughts and ego - do not do the reading. You need to practice this above all else - how to remain detached. There is no judgement when it comes to these. You enter with love,

3. Bringing love into the reading:

No one deserves a reading regardless of if it is a constellation or just an observation where you are bringing shitty energy with you. You come into the constellation/reading with love and understanding only. If the client doesn’t know what they’re doing, if they dont know how to feel, if they are making the wrong decisions, you understand. I understand how you feel. Do you want to move past it? No? I understand with love, lets move you where YOU want to go then. If they want to move past it that requires a constellation and I know none of you are trained in that DO NOT MOVE THEM. DO NOT TELL THEM HOW OR WHERE THEY SHOULD MOVE UNLESS YOU ARE A CERTIFIED FACILITATOR. No ands if or buts, you are not experienced. Do not move them. Observing the energy, following THEM, never changing the energy FOR them unless asked by them.

4. If the topic of grief comes up like that of Seb’s reading where they have fallen into a depression, you leave that reading. The only reason i continued was because whatever spirit it was that showed up felt like it came for a reason and made itself known to me in a way that couldn't be denied, and asked for assistance. And I knew how to deal with moving through grief. That barely ever happens, and the energy was good and true so i followed it (I was spooked initially i hate all things ghosts). I didnt offer anything up to Sebastian in that moment than for a way for him to connect with that grief and the person who had died. I could have left him there, but If i can help someone with that grief and the permission has been given, then I will do so. I didn’t do a huge constellation, just a mini one, just got him back in touch and feeling ok again, and he did. Those two had a chat with each other, there was no advice given, it was just one soul giving love to another soul and reminding them how loved they are. It wasnt me saying this to seb, it was me representing the soul who was saying it through me. Do you notice the difference? I’m telling you this only to know what happens, but do not do it yourself. Unless you are experienced with this, because they can also not find comfort in this, they can fall even further down the hole and then you’ve messed up that person. One more time: Don’t touch it, unless you can get them out of it. And you can’t get them out, unless you are experienced. Observe. Only.

5. It’s important to understand psychology before jumping into someone’s energy. Otherwise you’re understanding only the very basics of said person. There’s many underlying reasons as to why someone is the way that they are. Saying they’re a drug addict will help you very little, but understanding how that addiction came to be in the first place can help you understand and guide them.

Here are some tools to help understand (Reading these does not substitute practicing energy reading, these are only a tool to understand trauma, addiction, and psychology):

It Didn’t Start With You - Mark Wolynn

The Body Keeps Score - Bessel Van Der Kolk

When the Body says No - Gabor Mate

In the realm of Hungry Ghosts - Gabor Mate

If you can’t be bothered to read them (I would advise it if you are doing energy work), here are some of the best sections:

[Keep in mind when “Addiction” is referenced, it does not always mean drug or alcohol abuse, you can be addicted to anything, from being addicted to companionship, to being addicted to cleaning]

“Perhaps your mother carried a wound from her mother and was unable to give you what she didn’t get. Her parenting skills would be limited by what she did not receive from her parents.”

― Mark Wolynn,

It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle

“Cutting off can make you feel free at first, but it’s the false freedom of a childhood defense. Ultimately, it will limit your life experience.”

― Mark Wolynn,

It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle

When the family has been brought into its natural order, the individual can leave it behind him while still feeling the strength of his family supporting him. Only when the connection to his family is acknowledged, and the person's responsibility seen clearly and then distributed, can the individual feel unburdened and go about his personal affairs without anything from the past weighing him down or holding him back. - Bert Hellinger (Psychologist, created Family Constellations)

“It is impossible to understand addiction without asking what relief the addict finds, or hopes to find, in the drug or the addictive behaviour.”

― Gabor Mate,

In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction

“to suffer is alot easier than change. in order to be happy one needs to have courage.“ - Bert Hellinger

“Until we uncover the actual triggering event in our family history, we can relive fears and feelings that don’t belong to us—unconscious fragments of a trauma—and we will think they’re ours.”

― Mark Wolynn,

It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle

“when a couple has children, parenting often consumes all the partners' energies and they have little time left over for their relationship with each other. But the love the parents have their children is nourished by the love in their relationship with each other and is a result of that love. Often, if the couple relationship is restored to first priority, the parenting improves aswell. Above all, children feel happy when they have the experience of having parents who love each other." - Bert Hellinger

“It’s important to restate: not all behaviors expressed by us actually originate from us. They can easily belong to family members who came before us. We can merely be carrying the feelings for them or sharing them. We call these “identification feelings.”

― Mark Wolynn,

It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle

"You don't truly love someone until you love their fate, too." - Bert Hellinger

“Not every story has a happy ending, ... but the discoveries of science, the teachings of the heart, and the revelations of the soul all assure us that no human being is ever beyond redemption. The possibility of renewal exists so long as life exists. How to support that possibility in others and in ourselves is the ultimate question.” ― Gabor Maté, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction “When an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside as fate. —Carl Jung, Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self” ― Mark Wolynn, It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle

“The greatest damage done by neglect, trauma or emotional loss is not the immediate pain they inflict but the long-term distortions they induce in the way a developing child will continue to interpret the world and her situation in it. All too often these ill-conditioned implicit beliefs become self-fulfilling prophecies in our lives. We create meanings from our unconscious interpretation of early events, and then we forge our present experiences from the meaning we’ve created. Unwittingly, we write the story of our future from narratives based on the past...Mindful awareness can bring into consciousness those hidden, past-based perspectives so that they no longer frame our worldview.’Choice begins the moment you disidentify from the mind and its conditioned patterns, the moment you become present…Until you reach that point, you are unconscious.’ …In present awareness we are liberated from the past.” ― Gabor Maté, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction “Once key connections are made, and we practice focusing on our healing images and experiences, we lay the groundwork for new neural pathways. Healing can then be surprisingly efficient.” ― Mark Wolynn, It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle

“Not why the addiction but why the pain.” ― Gabor Maté “When I am sharply judgmental of any other person, it's because I sense or see reflected in them some aspect of myself that I don't want to acknowledge.” ― Gabor Maté, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction

“If people are addicted to self-soothing behaviours, it's only because in their formative years they did not receive the soothing they needed. Such understanding helps delete toxic self-judgment on the past and supports responsibility for the now. Hence the need for compassionate self-inquiry.” ― Gabor Maté, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction

“Emotional competence requires the capacity to feel our emotions, so that we are aware when we are experiencing stress; the ability to express our emotions effectively and thereby to assert our needs and to maintain the integrity of our emotional boundaries; the facility to distinguish between psychological reactions that are pertinent to the present situation and those that represent residue from the past. What we want and demand from the world needs to conform to our present needs, not to unconscious, unsatisfied needs from childhood. If distinctions between past and present blur, we will perceive loss or the threat of loss where none exists; and the awareness of those genuine needs that do require satisfaction, rather than their repression for the sake of gaining the acceptance or approval of others. Stress occurs in the absence of these criteria, and it leads to the disruption of homeostasis.”

― Gabor Maté, When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress “All of the diagnoses that you deal with - depression, anxiety, ADHD, bipolar illness, post traumatic stress disorder, even psychosis, are significantly rooted in trauma. They are manifestations of trauma. Therefore the diagnoses don't explain anything. The problem in the medical world is that we diagnose somebody and we think that is the explanation. He's behaving that way because he is psychotic. She's behaving that way because she has ADHD. Nobody has ADHD, nobody has psychosis - these are processes within the individual. It's not a thing that you have. This is a process that expresses your life experience. It has meaning in every single case.” Vulnerability is our susceptibility to be wounded. This fragility is part of our nature and cannot be escaped. The best the brain can do is to shut down conscious awareness of it when pain becomes so vast or unbearable that it threatens our ability to function. The automatic repression of painful emotion is a helpful child's prime defence mechanism and can enable the child to endure trauma otherwise be catastrophic. The unfortunate consequence is a wholesale dulling of emotional awareness.” ― Gabor Maté, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction Here are also the QNA’s I have done that are in relation to how Energy works (This is not a replacement for actual practice, knowing this is NOT ENOUGH) I will continue to add to this with anything that I find would help. I’m hoping you guys take this seriously, and don’t attempt anything that could potentially harm yourself or others in a reading.

#QNA #FAQ

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tactyl-ymon · 3 years

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DnD session recap - Acceptance and Agony

So we left off after a very emotional moment between Sutha and Eridol where she realised he couldn't be what she needed at the moment and then Veiraen hugged Eridol and Eridol hugged him back for the first time since they’ve known each other

After some light preparations, the group sets off with Eridol's cleric mentor Bradul and they're still very busted carriage towards the holy city of Varildesh, with the carriage all busted it'll take about 4-5 days travel with a quick stop over in a nearby town

The first few hours go smoothly despite everyone being on guard the whole time and them all slam dunking Eridol into the cushions in the back because tiny baby man's been through a lot and he needs a nap. After sunset, he's joined in the back by Septima, Donnatello our new barbarian and Whisky

Not wanting to be rude, Eridol starts a conversation with Whisky in gnomish because he knows she speaks it, he tiredly asks what actually happened with Sutha and after several half truths and abysmal deception checks he realises Donnatello also speaks gnomish and Septima cast comprehend languages so now everyone can hear what's going on. someone just says "Well why don't you just message Sutha if you trust her so much"

And he does.

“Sutha, you said you nearly killed my ... companions, I need to know what happened. They're being obtuse.” And after several tense minutes, the magic flares to life and in him mind he hears “They questioned whether or not I would want you to come back for me. They refused to leave me be after 2 warnings. I'm sorry”

so Eridol rightfully furious that they'd say that but also understanding that he was still technically in the wrong for leaving decides to drop the subject. Septima had goodish intentions despite his complete lack of social awareness and Whisky straight up thought she was asking a friendly question because she believes that everyone wants to be her friend all the time

So he moves on and asks whisky about how he noticed she seemed a bit distracted during their last fight with the hydras and she didn't seem to want to go near the water, she mentions a very bad history with water and asks if Eridol remembers the last time they were in the water and because he was very drunk and just got a lifetime of trauma back absolutely doesn't remember

She mentions being on the beach after the dragon fight and having to swim back and her nearly drowning and Eridol saving her. Eridol feels very bad about nearly letting her drown and begins rummaging through his bag for some potions of waterbreathing he's got and gives them to her. All in all a very nice moment between them

It's just then that everyone can begin this very faint buzz in the air, slowly getting closer and closer along with the sound of old rusted carriage wheels, the buzzing whine getting louder and louder every second until it's deafening and not wanting to get caught in whatever this is unaware, Eridol orders everyone out of the cart as a precaution. In their haste, everyone fails dex checks and tumbles into SWARMS OF BEES

like tens of thousands of bees

we see a small procession of carts coming our way, each with several old timey bee keepers and many a swarm

Eridol having a general dislike of bees and knowing that he just got stung a good 70 times in an instant decides thats enough of that and moves off to the side of the road and casts spirit guardians so it'll encompase our cart and horses and still leave enough room for the carts to get by

Weirdly the beekeepers are not exactly happy about Eridol killing thousands upon thousands of bees and begin shouting at him to turn whatever this is off, he refuses because one round in that took of a third of his health and he has people to protect. It's on the third cart that one of them pipes up and politely asks if he can remove the spell, he politely declines because his people are a priority for him and he does apologise. Suddenly the beekeeper casts a spell and everyone gets encompassed in a tight dome of earth and rock.

Eridol drops the spell because hey safety is safety and he isn't cruel

A good 10 minutes later the spell drops and everyone gets back on their way, slightly swollen and pincushiony. a few hours later they see slight firelight up ahead and what sounds like muffled discussions, with Septima's god like perception he can see it's 4 eladrin ladies discussion things and the group all being tired and weary decide to try and see if they could pursuade the eladrin to let them stay at their camp for the night and wanting to make a good first impression decide someone should go talk to them first. But who would be the most innocent and unassuming of them all I wonder?

Eridol gets yeeted out of the cart with veiraen being shadow backup in the woods in case anything happens and Eridol begins walking slowly and unarmedly up the road towards them. Casting light on himself so they can definitely see him coming. After a ... rocky introduction where one of them got spooked and accidentally shot their crossbow at the tiny man. Septima and Whisky do a septima and whisky and begin yelling innapropriate questions from the darkness, with Whisky asking what booze they have and Septima just answering their questions because the man has observant and is a terrible person

Then after confirming that we mean them no harm and could help with securing the camp because of our numbers We get given the ok to come forward and Veiraen just skulks out of the bush behind them which gets Eridol nearly shot again

The eladrin introduce themselves as Summer, Spring, WInter and Fall and say they often travel to the material plane to discuss which season is best and ask the group their opinions. Septima says spring because nature boy go woo, Whisky says winter because she loves just stretching out in front of a cozy fire on cold nights, Eridol says summer because Falthresh being entirely a western hemisphere country tends to have wonderful sunsets and Veiraen was too busy looking for trinkets to answer

Most of the group goes off with the eladrin to drink and swap stories and be merry with Eridol and Septima taking watches in the camp itself and the surrounding forest.

After Eridols shift, nobody really comes to relieve him and he basically just nods off from exhaustion and then the dream happens

Eridol finds himself alone in a grey foggy void, the faint whislte of wind the only thing outside of his breathing and the blood thrumming in his ears. Armor and weapons as new as the day he got them and he begins to feel a burning on his right side, as blindingly painful as when the brand was first applied and tar like ooze begins cascading out of his side. Every beat of his heart causing more and more to flow out into the void

As Eridol is left close to vomiting and doubled over the goo begins to take form and Eridol begins to fear the worst that this is Bane himself and Eridol will never see his friends again

The goo crawls up itself into an imperfect mirror of the gnome, with crazed anger filled eyes and clawed hands balled into fists but otherwise it mirrored every twitch and heave of breath and I have to roll initiative to fight myself

Eridol's first thought is of course violence and both Eridol and Miradol cast spirit guardians at the same time as they rush into melee, each taking blow after shattering blow and Eridol coming out slightly worse each time.

Then he tries to get rid of it, both casting Banishment on their worse half. Then he tries to cast silence on it, his mirror self doing the same and in the silence they each drop their hammers and continue trading blows, Eridol swaying and practically dead on his feet as the pantomime boxers become more and more exhausted.

Eridol stops and breathes. dropping silence and trying to open up his connection to tyr, casting channel divinity, not to fight, not to win, but just to forgive, to understand and to find balance and Tyr responds, not a booming voice or a solitary judgmental eye but a feeling like a calming whisper and Eridol looks at his counterpart, nearly as dead as he is, but still standing defiantly almost goading him into another attack

Eridol breathes and casts healing word on his other self and begins apologising to the embodiment of all his negative emotions. “I have hurt so many people trying to deny what you represent, I let this fester and rot and I can’t let that happen anymore. I have so much to rightly be angry over, but anger alone isn’t what needs to happen anymore. So, together then, hopefully in balance, to serve Tyr and protect those who need it" and it fades away. Eridol is left in the empty expanse. A single blue light flickering in the distance like the first rays of dawn as it grows warmer and brighter until it is almost blinding and Eridol accepts it

He wakes up before dawn, to a very worried Veiraen holding a damp cloth to his forehead, pain everywhere and a small lightness in his chest that wasn't there previously. Like it's almost slightly easier to breathe all of a sudden. He asks Veiraen if he can help him get out of his armor and he checks the brand on his side, still there as it always was unfortunately.

He gets his armor back on and a vaguely worried Whisky comes up and hugs Eridol and after a second, he shrugs and hugs her back. Whispering "Nobody will believe you if you tell them I did this"

Unfortunately, Septima sees all and Eridol forgot how quick whisky can be so she locked him in the hug, shouting to get everyones attention and not letting go until everybody mentions that yes they see Eridol hugging her back and we ended the session

#dnd #DnD Recap #Tactyl Ymon

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365days365movies · 3 years

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January 4, 2021: First Blood (1982) (Part II)

Quick Recap before we go on. Oh, and SPOILERS right up top!

John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) is a Vietnam vet wandering through Washington State, until coming upon the town of Hope, run by the Sheriff Will Teasle (Brian Dennehy).

Sheriff Will Teasle is an absolute dick who arrests Rambo for no real reason; just for being a “drifter.” His police force, which includes the sadistic Galt (Jack Starrett) and sympathetic Mitch (David Caruso, AKA Horatio Caine from CSI: Miami), beats John Rambo, and post-2020 me is UNCOMFORTABLE!!!!!!!

Rambo has Vietnam flashbacks (like you do) and escapes the prison, pursued by the obsessive and dickish Sheriff and his equally dickish men (except for Horatio, maybe).

Galt tries to shoot Rambo, and karma bitch-slaps him RIGHT in the face, holy shit. He dies, and Rambo is blamed and shot at, escaping into the forest.

OK?

OK. On with the recap!

At this point, all of Rambo’s actions are in self-defense. In truth, it’s been self-defense since the beginning. However, he does kill two dogs, so...yeah, can’t really justify that. That sucks. The dog’s handler gets shot by Rambo, who now has a gun, and we also see that Galt’s certified sociopathy has leaked into everybody else but Horatio upon his death, including the dog guy, who tells his dogs to straight up kill Rambo. But, as previously stated...that’s not what happens.

At this point, I should introduce the amemedala.

The amemedala is a portion of the mesencephalon (or midbrain) discovered in the brains of millennials and younger individuals, recently discovered, named, and made up by yours truly. This area, attached to the thalamus, acts as a relay center between the cerebrum and the various sensory receptors of the body, similar to the function of the thalamus. However, while the thalamus governs the broad relay of senses to the appropriate areas of the brain for analysis, the amemedala relays appropriate sensory signals to the frontal lobes, where catalogs of shared sociological trends, or memes, are housed. This relay and association generates connections between extrenal stimuli, and entries in the meme catalog of the frontal lobes. While this is technically an autonomic process, it can be suppressed with enough willpower.

Why am I ringing this up in the middle of First Blood? Because EVERY. SINGLE. CELL of my brain is working to suppress the amemedala right now. Why? BECAUSE OF THE LORAX, AND FOR WHOM HE SPEAKS.

Is it an outdated meme? Very much so. BUT I CANNOT GET IT OUT OF MY GODDAMN HEAD AS I WATCH THIS MOVIE.

OK. That is now out of my system. Anyway, Rambo continues to speak for the trees, which is understandably starting to spook the smalltown cops. This leads to the VERY surprising moment where a camouflaged Rambo appears OUT OF NOWHERE and stabs Horatio in the goddamn leg! Like, wow, he was invisible! I had to rewind the film to see where he was. This is tense...and awesome, not gonna lie. This is awesome.

And then, he gets another cop by JUMPING FROM A TREE. Well, a tree stump, BUT STILL. After he takes him out, he stands in plain sight in front of an approaching cop. That cop, subscribing once again to the shoot-first-ask-questions-later policy, fires. And I SWEAR, Rambo is FASTER THAN THOSE SPEEDING BULLETS, as he dodges out of the way, and the bullets HIT THE COP HE JUST TOOK OUT!

And then, when I didn’t think this could get any more intense, that cop triggers a booby trap, and A STICK WITH WOODEN SPIKES GOES THROUGH THIS MAN’S LEGS, AND HE’S SPEARED LIKE A KEBAB OH MY GOD

The asshole sheriff runs to the NEW set of panicked screams, and his compatriot is just Batman-ed away by Rambo. It’s just the sheriff, now. The storm is building, and the forest is getting darker. The sheriff frees leg-spike cop, and goes to find the other cop, who’s been PINNED TO A TREE LIKE A BUTTERFLY IN A DISPLAY CASE. See, look!

HOLY SHIT IT’S RAMBO WITH A KNIFE IN THE FOREST. He pins the sheriff up to a tree, then with some legitimately badass lines, threatens with the sheriff with “a war [he] wouldn’t believe,” and telling him to make like Elsa and…

I love this sequence. It is the most intense, crazy, holy shit sequence I’ve seen so far this month. Wow. I understand why people talk about this movie. Man, that was a hell of a ride! Good movie, though. All right, so, time for the final sco-

Oh. Oh, my God. I’m only HALFWAY INTO THE MOVIE?

...Wow. OK, then.

We now meet Colonel Sam Trautman, Rambo’s commander in the Green Berets. He’s come to “get his boy.” He says that he came to rescue the Sheriff’s dumb ass from Rambo, rather than the other way around. And the Sheriff is...an idiot. He’s an ass, he’s a maniac, and he’s a stubborn idiot. Even after learning that Rambo is the best, he’s unwilling to back down, the dummkopf.

Rambo kills a wild boar in the woods, which makes no sense for Washington State, but whatever, sure. Anyway, they try to get the colonel to lure Rambo out, even though that’s obviously gonna make his PTSD, just...SO much worse. Especially as he starts using Vietnam parlance in contacting him. Not gonna end well, guys. But it’s then that we learn that Rambo is now the last surviving member of his unit, contributing to his trauma. Rambo’s also been trying to get in contact with the Colonel, winding up here because he has no place to go. He says that there are no friendly civilians, and the trouble’s been caused by that “king-shit” cop. I will be using this term from now on.

Wow. Damn. Hell of a reason for that title. And I think I love this movie. Seriously, I’m having a good time.

King-Shit Cop keeps going ahead with his absolute idiocy, despite all warnings to the contrary. So, a bunch of troops now converge upon Rambo’s place, but he naturally opens fire on them, without killing a single person. In fact, he hasn’t killed anyone this whole movie, and they make a point of saying that he’s been holding back the whole time. So, they decide to use the next, most logical course of action. They FIRE A ROCKET AT HIM.

Afterwards, the Colonel and King Shit Cop catch up at a bar, where the latter exposes his full sociopathy, commenting that he just wanted to kill Rambo. This is opposed to the Colonel, who doesn’t really know what he’d do if Rambo survived.

Which, of course, he did. C’mon, you think a little military-grade propelled explosive is gonna kill John Rambo? Nah. He’s the best there ever was, and he’s gonna prove it now. He jumps into a military vehicle holding an M-60, and hijacks it. Doesn’t take long for the news to break that Rambo’s still kicking, and he’s quickly intercepted by King Shit Cop, who JUST. DOESN’T. KNOW. WHEN. TO QUIT. And I’d admire his tenacity if he wasn’t SUCH AN ASSHOLE.

The cops try to run Rambo and the truck of the road, and he plays the UNO Reverse Card on them instead. And I’m pretty sure at this point…

...that old Johnny boy’s just killed some cops. So, yeah, now there’s a bigger problem. He powers through the State Police blockade like it was a banner blocking a football team, stops at a gas station, grabs the gun from the car, and LIGHTS ALL OF THAT SHIT ON FIRE! Destroying the livelihood of an individual who had nothing to do with this.

Yeah, Rambo’s starting to turn from innocent acting in self-defense to public menace REAL quick. And yeah, it’s King Shit Cop’s fault entirely...but, yeah, Johnny needs some help, because he’s losing the train at this point. But, not to be outdone, King Shit Cop is also beginning to lose it, and it’s definitely beginning to seem like only one of them is going to come out of this alive. And the Colonel tries to give him an out, but King Shit Cop’s prepared to go down with the ship that he blew a hole in in the first place. Like an asshole.

But here we go, the finale. John Rambo vs. King Shit Cop (whose name, by the way, is Will Teasle. I just like Rambo’s name for him better). KSC’s on the roof, Rambo’s on the street. Rambo causes more property damage, possibly because banks also give him PTSD (I joke, but PTSD is no laughing matter, John clearly needs help), and then finds his way to a store that has just all of the ammo a psychologically-damaged Vietnam War veteran on a revenge quest could ever need.

And then he BLOWS. THAT. SHIT. UP.

And he does this...ALL of this...just to lure KSC out of hiding. This man DESTROYS A TOWN because this idiot, sociopathic, unhinged, King Shit Cop, won’t just STAND. THE FUCK. DOWN ALREADY.

Rambo enters the police station, where KSC is on the roof. And, like the Colonel and the rest of us guessed, KSC gets shot in the process. And as Rambo stands over KSC, the Colonel finally shows up and does what literally everybody else should have done.

Talk. He just...talks to Rambo. He talks to this mentally ill man, and that mentally ill man responds, espousing his pure anger at the war, the public, protesters, work, the country, the town, himself...everyone. And goddamn, is that shit palpable.

youtube

This man can no longer fit in the world that he was forced to leave, and forced to return to. This poor, poor, poor man. It hurts. And it sucks. And he pours his heart out to the Colonel, and to us, and...you feel it. You feel his trauma, you feel his pain. You feel the aftermath of war. And it’s been seven years at this point for the Colonel, but no time for John. Not Rambo. John. And it’s just...never over.

Damn. Goddamn.

This...this is one hell of a good movie. And not just a good action movie, either. A damn good movie.

And that’s it. That’s First Blood.

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ranposlittle · 4 years

Note

um pleeeease dazai scenario with s/o having a panic attack 🥺🥺🥺

A/N: ((TW: Panic attack, mentions of violence)) Another lengthy scenario! My gosh ahaha but its bcos I really wanted to depict what it feels to have a panic attack accurately so I tried my best to describe it. I also find it fascinating how panic attacks can happen out of the blue. The plot is kinda inspired from my own experience and I tried to make it as fluffy as I can. I hope you enjoy this~ (ㆁωㆁ) I also took some lines from “Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You” by Cigarettes After Sex ehehe

***

You plopped down on one of the pillows laying on the floor while the bowl of warm popcorn is snugged tightly in the crook of your arm. It’s movie night and you can finally spend a quiet night together with your boyfriend after you survived one of the most distressful time to occur in Yokohama, your final exams.

“Don’t you mean the war between the ability users that turned people into savages and could’ve destroyed the whole city before your heroic of a boyfriend came swooping in and saved the day?” Dazai asked ever so smugly. He obviously had his hands full as of lately too, that’s why you nearly haven’t seen each other for almost a month.

“Yes, that was stressful too but that still wouldn’t have excused me for not taking the exams. Trust me, our math teacher would’ve killed us twice if he finds out we skipped the tests and we’re still breathing. College is just as deadly, you know?” You retorted and shove a handful of popcorn in your mouth.

Dazai just chuckled and snatched the bowl out of your arm before giving you a quick peck on the lips as if to console you, “Alright, don’t eat it all. The movie hasn’t even started yet.”

You let out a small whine and slumped on your position. You decided to find a comfortable spot as Dazai reached over to feed the CD into the player. He rented a movie before coming over and you set up your entire room to be the coziest it can ever be.

The lights are all turned off and the only light source is the one coming from your TV. There are pillows everywhere and you whipped out your oversized wool blanket for the both of you to share. You snuggled close to him and rested your head on his chest. The movie of the night is a horror-thriller type. You’ve always enjoyed these kind of movies ever since you’re little and Dazai purposely chose this because of that reason. You’ve watched countless of movies like this before so you’re not worried about getting spooked in one bit. Dazai wrapped his arms around you and relaxed his body against yours.

The movie started as one usually does, introducing characters and setting up the plot. This one is about a mysterious serial killer roaming around an otherwise peaceful town. A cliche plot, you thought. Although, its predictability is perfect to rest your mind from all that thinking and just mindlessly enjoy it. Both you and Dazai just sat in silence, watching the TV blankly until it’s time for the first kill.

It’s pretty obvious that that’s what going to happen next but for some reason, you feel a light clutch on your chest. You ignored it. It’s been a while since you’ve watched any movies so maybe you’re just getting anxious with the suspense of it all. You shift on your position as you feel your heart starts to rapidly pulsate against your ribcages almost in sync with the climatic background music from the scene playing in front of you. As a result, your breath started to become shallower and quicker. You don’t understand. The movie isn’t even scaring you one bit, but why is your body reacting this way?

You pulled the blanket closer to your chest and you squeezed it tightly. You kept your eyes on the screen in hopes that the feeling will just go away once the scene is over. You can already tell what’s about to happen and you just have watch it unfold in front of you.

One guy decided to check out the weird noises coming from the dark basement; he didn’t even try to turn on any of the lights thinking that it’s probably just a cat making a fuss. He slowly descended down the stairs as the music picks up its pace even more and it’s starting to flood your head with each grating note. He shrugged his shoulders and started to head back upstairs. The knife-wielding killer emerged from the dark and slowly moved towards him, the music notched a note higher to accompany the suspenseful scene and the pressure on your chest progressively tightened.

Your head started to feel light and heavy at the same time and your surroundings began to warp into a blur. All you can think about is the shrill noise from the TV and the undeniable fact that you can’t breathe. And almost at the same time that the killer plunged his knife into the guy’s stomach, the seams of your mind seemingly broke.

You gasped loudly as your body started to shiver uncontrollably. The sounds emitting from the TV has now reached it’s highest peak as the movie continued and you feel like your head is about to burst from the screeching noises. You wanted to scream but your throat closed up, your lungs are burning and all that you can do is gasp for air erratically as tears runs from your eyes like a waterfall.

Dazai sprung from his position to hold on to your shoulders as you begin to shrivel on the floor. You can feel him shaking you while he calls your name over and over again.

“Hey, hey. What’s wrong, huh? What’s wrong?” He palmed the hairs that have fallen on your face to check on your state, “C'mon, baby. Please tell me.”

You can hear the panic over his voice but you can’t stop shaking. You can’t stop the sobs and the flowing of your tears. You feel like your heart is about to stop at any given moment with the speed it’s going right now and your mind is just completely absorbed in the thought that you’re about to die, in which just resulted into more frantic breathing and trembling.

Dazai is, to say the least, shocked to see how this instantaneously took over your whole being. His mind raced as to what might’ve caused this but more importantly, how can he save you from this.

He has seen this before. His line of work made it possible for him to see people in different state of minds. He has witnessed people getting a panic attack even if a few hours have already passed since the actual trauma had happened and even if your attack was unprovoked and there’s no real danger around, he knows that the best course of action is to let you ride this out.

He calmed himself with a sigh and pulled you closer. Hugging you tight enough for you to feel his comforting warmth while still offering you space to breathe. You grabbed the back of his shirt harshly as you continue to violently gulp for air like a fish out of water. He started to stroke your hair gently, letting his shirt get soaked from your tears in the process.

“Shhh,” he cooed at you, “I’m here, baby. It’s okay. You’re perfectly safe in my arms. I got you. Just let it all out.”

Dazai’s gentle reassurance gave you a grasp of safety somehow and you shut your eyes tightly, letting yourself sob loudly on his chest; tears pouring down like never before. With every heave of your breath, you push out the heavy weight pressuring down on your chest.

“That’s it. You’re going to be okay. Just let it go. Nothing’s gonna hurt you, okay, baby? As long as I’m here, you’ll be just fine. Nothing’s going to take you from my side, okay? You’re safe here with me.” Dazai pressed a kiss on the top of your head and rubbed your back. Ever so often, he would squeeze your arm lightly as if to remind you that your reality is here; the one where you’re protected between his arms.

Dazai kept on repeating these assuring words and shushing your quiet cries until the contraction on your chest seems to have been unknotted. Your breathing has now returned to a deeper and calmer one with just the a few instances of quivering sobs. Your eyes are swollen and tired, your throat stings with all the cries ripped from it, and your mind blanked from the sudden trauma.

Dazai pulled up the blanket up to your shoulders that fell off of you when the attack happened. He carefully cupped your face and lifted it, making sure he won’t shock you if you’re still in the state of panic. He sweetly smiled at you when your eyes met his and he rubbed the stain of your tears from your cheeks with his thumbs. Dazai proceeded to pepper your face with small loving kisses and placed a longer one on your swollen lips.

“You’re okay. You did good,” he once again affirmed you and tucked in a loose hair behind your ear.

“Dazai, I… I’m sorry. I don’t know why it happened. This hasn’t happened before and I-”

He kissed you again before you can finish blabbing out an unnecessary apology, “Hey, don’t worry about it, okay? It’s alright.”

“The movie wasn’t scary or anything. I seriously don’t know why it affected me this way,” you explained as you don’t want him to think he can’t bring horror movies anymore in your next movie nights.

Dazai chuckled, “I know. Panic attacks can happen to anyone, in any give time, without an actual trigger or real danger present. Your stress might’ve just increased your risk of having one but that’s about it. I’m just glad I’m here to take care of you when it did hit.”

You’re speechless as you revel on Dazai’s affection. You just smiled at him warmly and hope that it would somehow let him know that you are truly thankful for him. He truly is the heroic boyfriend he boasts to be. You lay your head on that comfortable spot between his neck and shoulder and closed your eyes. You wanted to know what you did to win this jackpot in life but you’ve decided that maybe every once in a while, you just get really lucky.

The movie is still playing faintly on the TV and you peeped on one eye to see that the killer’s been killed by the only character that survived.

“Such a cliche,” you mumbled which made Dazai laughed. He better start looking for a more exciting movie to impress you on your next date. On second thought though, he might just bring over some family friendly comedies for a while.

The credits rolled as you drifted off to sleep. Your body and mind very much exhausted from the whole ordeal, you feel like you can sleep for a whole day. You can softly feel Dazai’s fingers running through your hair and another tender kiss on the crown of your head.

“I love you.”

Those words danced around your fleeting consciousness and you’re not quite sure if you’ve really heard it or you’re already dreaming. Either way, you answered.

“I love you, too.”

#bsd hcs #bungou stray dogs imagines #bsd headcanons #bungo stray dogs #bsd dazai #bsd x reader #osamu dazai #dazai osamu #bungou stray dogs scenarios #bungou stray dogs imagine #bungou stray dogs #bsd scenarios #dazaimw

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queenof-literature · 4 years

Text

A Sick Wild Child - Chapter 2

Time was extremely frustrated, and he knew the other boys could tell. The pup’s protege hid an injury from all of them and suffered because of it. An infection was now coursing through his body and while he would make it to the other end, the recovery process would be painful and longer than the average sickness. Time had seen infections such as this one. They caused severe illness, stabbing pain, and horrifying delusions in extreme cases, and Time wasn’t ready to see one of his boys in that state. But he was the unofficial leader of these boys and he would make damn sure they were all alright in the end, no matter what it took.

Time looked at Wild’s face, squinted in pain in his sleep, and sighed. He had sighed a lot with these boys around, mainly in exasperation. Wild was a work in progress but no one minded, they all had their traumas. But Wild couldn’t seem to understand that he had people to care about him deeply all in their own ways. And that saddened all of them.

Time took one last look at Wild’s pained and scarred face, and turned his attention to the boys around their brother-in-arms.

“We’ll stay here for today. It’s not the best decision, but Wild needs rest and is in no condition to travel. We’ll do as Hyrule said and take turns keeping watch over him. This infection is bad and he will need help getting through it. Four I’m trusting you with cooking something edible. Sky, you’re in charge of keeping Hyrule away from the cooking pot.” Time held back a smirk at Hyrule’s noise of indignation. “Twilight you can keep an eye on the cub for a while but I expect you to rest and eat. We do not need another man down if we hope to make any progress tomorrow. Let’s get Wild into his bedroll and we’ll go from there.” As Time said his last sentence, he gently scooped up Wild in his arms, one around his shoulder and the other behind his knees. Wild let out a groan and Time felt a stab of guilt for being part of the reason behind his pain. Wild seemed to instinctively curl further into Time, most likely because Time was wearing his armor which was cooled with the morning breeze. Time smiled slightly at the childlike actions of the young hero.

Once Wild was situated in his arms, he started to head towards Wild’s bedroll, with the rest of the group trailing like lost puppies, all trying to think of something to do to help. ~ Wind was worried. All of his band of heroes felt like the older siblings Wind never had. He resented being treated as the youngest and therefore most delicate, but the group had let up after a small amount of time when they realized how much their babying bothered him sometimes. But Wind appreciated how much they cared for him. He loved all of his brothers and bonded with them over different things. With Wild, he bonded over the sea and coasts of different Hyrules. Wild couldn’t sail like he could, but he did have some funny stories and experiences. Like how he electrocuted himself trying to fish (How?). Wild didn’t talk to anyone at first, so when he finally had a conversation with Wind, although short, Wind was ecstatic. Asking question after question about his journey that Wild patiently answered with his limited usage of his voice at the time. What was his favorite color? Where did he get his tunic? It’s blue like his present from his grandma! Why did he keep his hair that long? Does he just like it that way? Eventually, Warriors had to step in and tell Wind to let Wild breath when he saw the shy teen becoming slightly uncomfortable with the attention, but their relationship was close after that. Wild would always let Wind braid his long hair as he cooked and always listened to his stories about the Great Sea and Tetra and her pirate gang. It was really nice. And now he looked on the brink of death!

When Wind found out from Hyrule that Wild was hiding an infection, Wind was sad. Wild could have told anyone! Wind wouldn’t have made fun of him! He knows what it’s like to be babied and if it bothered Wild that much they could tell Time together! Wind knew he shouldn’t be offended, Wild was just starting to get used to touches and talking for long amounts of time in their small group. He still had a ways to go with teamwork and they all knew that. But Wind just wanted Wild to be okay. And he would be. Wind would make sure of it. Aryll still needed to meet all of her new older brothers, and he had enough knowledge of his grandmother’s soup recipe to assault Wild with bowl after bowl until he felt better. ~ As Sky watched Wild being carried in Time’s arms, he felt disheartened. Wild was one of the last people in Hyrule to deserve to be in the amount of pain he was clearly in. Sky looked at Wild leaning into Time’s hold and smiled, at least slightly, at the sight. It took a team effort, but Sky was the person who first touched Wild without a flinch. When it happened Sky kept calm and smiled on the outside, but on the inside he was screaming with joy. It was a simple hand to the shoulder but it was one of the biggest steps Wild had taken so far. Time had been the first person to touch him out of the group in the beginning. Trying to put his hand on Wild’s shoulder as a welcoming gesture after he joined, only to have the poor teen jump away like he had been burned before Time even made solid contact. He then quietly excused himself and went to the back of the traveling group. Anytime anyone would touch Wild in a friendly manner, he would bolt. It took Sky a while after that to attempt contact, he didn’t want the poor guy to be terrified of him! One night while they were having a conversation around the campfire, the subject of Wild’s past came up. He looked like he was trying not to shake while he told the horrifying story of Guardian lasers, memory loss, and loneliness even before Ganon. He kept looking to Twilight, who would give him encouraging smiles, and Sky assumed Twilight had tried to get Wild to open up a little, and the main story all just spilled out. He could see the look of horror and sympathy on his fellow traveler's faces, and Twilight looked like he wanted to reach out but was scared of Wild’s reaction. So Sky made a terrifying decision. If this didn’t work Wild would most likely flee into the forest for hours so he had to be cautious.

Sky made eye contact first with Wild first, so that it wouldn’t be a surprise, He then slowly lifted his hand, not above his face in case it looked in Wild’s mind he wanted to hit him. And slowly Sky brought his hand down on Wild’s shoulder. He didn’t flinch! Oh, thank Hylia he didn’t flinch! Sky would relive that terrifying moment over and over again if it meant he would get to see the precious ways Wild’s eyes lit up when he too realized he didn’t shield away. ~ Wild was the craziest motherfucker Warriors had ever met. He had seen that kid hop on a Lynal's like a horse and ride it for as long as possible. He had watched him light forests ablaze, ride bears in his underwear and jump off the highest cliffs into the water below. So watching that same feral gremlin being so still except for the occasional wince and whimper was like a blow to the chest. Warriors really enjoyed the company of the kid when he wasn’t being batshit insane… well even then, it was fun to watch. Legend and Warriors may bicker at least 3 times a day, but when it comes to the safety of one of the younglings in their group, they might as well have been telepathic. The second Hyrule asked for potions Legend and Warriors knew what to do. Warriors knew he probably shouldn’t have taken Wild from his mentor when they returned with the potions, but he wasn’t thinking about anything except making sure Wild got better. Although Warriors would never admit it, this was the kid that taught him to properly tame a horse.

He was used to the castle steeds for the most part, or horses that were at least slightly domesticated. But everything in Wild’s Hyrule lived up to its namesake. So when Warriors and Wild were alone one afternoon passing time near a stable, Wild offered to teach him. Warriors wasn’t necessarily scared of the wild horses but he didn’t feel like getting a kick to the chest and end up with a few broken ribs to end the evening. When he told Wild as such, Wild simply laughed and told him to pick one. He picked a horse that looked pink in the sunlight, and Wild ran off to tame it. She was a stubborn one but after many falls to the ground and giving Warriors about five heart attacks, Wild brought him the horse. She was then named Bella and Warriors fell in love with her gentle but stubborn personality. Wild taught him to train a wild horse to stay on the paths around his Hyrule and to adjust them to wearing a saddle. All the while Warriors couldn’t help but marvel at the pyromaniac Hero of Wild being the most gentle being in Hyrule and cooing at the horse to calm it down when she was spooked. It made Warriors feel an odd sense of pride. And from the moment Wild registered Bella in the stable for him to visit whenever they returned, Warriors knew they were brothers. ~ Wild once told Four that he was a calming presence in a group full of chaos, which was funny coming from the God of chaos himself. While Four’s eyes sometimes twitch involuntarily at Hyrule and Wild’s antics, he didn’t try to stop them unless it was terribly dangerous. Four knew Wild was called that for a reason, he needed to be free to an extent. Four enjoyed talking to Wild. They didn’t need to talk about the past, or the present, or the future, they could talk about anything they wanted. It could be somewhere about their adventures or the weapons they liked. Well, Wild’s favorites before they broke on him. That’s one of the things that worried Four the most, Wild breaking weapons, bows, and shields. He could tell from the way Wild fought Guardians that at least one scar was from his shield breaking at the wrong moment, forcing him to take the Guardian’s laser head-on. And Hylia above wasn’t that how he died in the first place? Every time something broke on Wild, it sent a spike of paralyzing fear shooting through his heart. Once a sword broke on him right as he was making a risky move to attack a bokoblin from Warriors' Hyrule. He almost didn’t make it out of that one.

Four decided then and there that he would make something to last. The next time he had access to a forge he spent days crammed within, not letting anyone in except Time and Legend to get their opinions. He wanted it to be one of the best swords he had ever made. Finally, when it was finished, he surprised Wild. He presented it to Wild when he walked with him at the back of the group on a clear day to not overwhelm him with other eyes on him. Wild was doing better at socializing and chatting at the front of the group, but sometimes he got overwhelmed and lipped to the back. The others would check-in by simply asking how he liked his surroundings or something simple, but didn’t crowd him. Four presented the sword a little awkwardly, just now realizing how slightly out of the blue it was. It was a sword that had a sky blue tint to it, similar to the color of Wild’s tunic, and Sky had helped him paint the flower, Wild had called it the Silent Princess, going up along the blade of the sword. Four knew the paint would be chipped but he wanted it to at least be beautiful when it was presented. When Wild saw it, and then realized it was for him, Four could have sworn he saw tears gathering at the corners of Wild’s eyes. Without thinking Wild jumped on Four in a hug and murmured thank you’s over and over until his voice was slightly hoarse. At first, Four didn’t know how to respond. Twilight hugged Wild more and more now that he was getting used to touches, but he had never seen Wild jump into one so enthusiastically. Four gladly returned it after a moment of shock.

Except when Wild didn’t use it, he was worried he had made a mistake. He asked Wild about him not using the sword he made. He assured Wild he wasn’t offended, but he needed to know if something was wrong, like if the balance was wrong. Wild blushed a deep red and stumbled through an explanation, that he was terrified he would break the blade Four made specifically for him like he breaks everything else. Four had to assure him a million times that using it was what it was there for and he could forge another, but Wild still rarely used it. But Four made him promise he would use it if he needed it and Wild agreed. As far as Four knew, it was still in peacefully tucked in his slate. ~ Hyrule didn’t know how he had become the unofficial medic for the team of heroes. He supposed it was because of his healing magic, but still, it was a stressful job when someone was seriously injured. This job got ten times more stressful when it was his best friend, who was more stubborn about “being fine” than even Twilight and Time, which was quite impressive.

Hyrule had bonded sooner with Wild than most of the others except Twilight and Sky. Hyrule believed that as wanderers, they were both just drawn to each other, like they knew what the other had experienced. Both felt at home off of the main roads, running around the forest among the mushrooms and trees. They were mildly responsible at first until Hyrule learned of a beautiful art called Shield Surfing, then it all went downhill, literally. Wild taught Hyrule the perfect hills to use this ancient technique passed down from the Gods themselves. It was hard to find his balance at first, but once he did they spent the afternoon crashing into each other and giggling like madmen. Until Wolfie finally found them and dragged their asses back to camp.

After that, they always snuck away when Hyrule was antsy or Wild was overwhelmed. Sometimes Hyrule would use Wild’s slate to take dumb pictures like when Wild surfed right onto a Lynal. Or other times, they would just lay among the fireflies and look at the stars and talk, or sit in comfortable silence. No matter what, it helped them cope with the changing worlds around them. After all, the stars still existed in every Hyrule. ~ When Wild was better Legend was going to kill him. The idiot had hidden a stab wound from them, and then gone and had let it get infected. Now he was in pain and whimpering and there was nothing Legend could do. Legend had made the promise that he wouldn’t get attached to any of these so-called heroes when they first all came together. Their jobs were dangerous and caring was a liability. But as time went on and more Links joined their little ensemble, or band as Wind called them, that got harder to do. Now Legend had to grudgingly admit that he cared for all of his brothers-in-arms, even Warriors he supposed.

And now one of them had gone and gotten himself sick and infected. It wasn’t fair, Wild didn’t deserve this. But life wasn’t fair, Legend had learned that very quickly. Legend had to admit he really loved this dumb fucking kid. He was fun and loving and had overcome so much. Legend was wary of him at first. He had been completely silent, barley even signing when they first met. But Sky, Twilight, and Hyrule slowly coaxed him out of his shell, and one night they both couldn’t sleep, so they both happened to be at the fire. Wild had been scrolling through his slate, and Legend had asked how much it could hold. So what? Curiosity got the best of him. Wild quietly answered his questions and showed him his armor. Legend and Wild talked for hours about the fascinating things they collected (not hoarded like Warriors would say), and how they were of use. Wild seemed scared of his reaction to all of his jewelry and what he called the Gerudo vai outfit. When Legend asked to see one outside the slate since it seemed so finely made, Wild’s shoulder seemed to lose some tension and he brought out his Sapphire Circlet. The two simply talked for the rest of the night, and some more serious topics were brought out, such as Wild’s fear of crowds and strangers. It was sometimes hard to tell when a Yiga Clan member was ready to jump out and attack him if he didn’t talk to them first. Legend told him vaguely of some adventures and how he didn’t like falling asleep because he didn’t want to dream anymore. He didn’t elaborate far, but Wild understood after the Shrine of Resurrection. After that night the two began to interact more, and enjoy each other's company. And if anyone else saw their bedrolls closer some nights, or Wild shuffling closer to Legend in Castle Town, no one said anything. ~ Once again his cub was suffering, and once again there was nothing Twilight could do. As he watched Time carry his cub away, he felt sick himself. He would never regret taking on Wild as his protege, not for a single second. He loved that kid like he loved the kids in Ordon. He was his little brother and he deserved the world. But all he got was pain. Twilight was frustrated, of course, Wild hid an infected injury from them for Hylia’s sake. Wild was getting better about trust and coming forward with problems, but he still had a hell of a way to go.

Twilight flashed back to a night some time ago. When Twilight was on watch one night, he heard shuffling and quiet murmuring. He turned to see Wild in the midst of what looked to be another nightmare of his death. He was already a wolf, using his heightened senses for hearing monsters, and raced over, careful not to wake anyone. He nudged Wild with his snout as Wild jumped up with a strangled scream. His haunted eyes turned to Twilight and latched onto him and sobbed into his fur within a matter of seconds.

“I-I’m so-sorry Twi I-I-didn’t mean to bother you. B-b-but this one was so so bad Twi.” Wild sobbed as his voice cracked. Twilight took a risk and shifted back to his human form to talk to him. If Wild wanted him in his wolf form he would shift back instantly. Anything to make him feel better. Wild continued to murmur apologies and Twilight's heart broke. Wild could never bother Twilight with his problems. Hylia knows he has far too many for his age. Twilight lifted the cub into his lap and hugged him fiercely as he rocked back and forth. He ran one hand through Wild’s disheveled hair as he whispered soothing words into his ear. Telling him to never be sorry for feeling things. It wasn’t healthy to keep them bottled. Wild’s hands clutched Twilight’s pelt as his sobs slowly turned into soft hiccups.

“Do you need to talk about it?” Twilight whispered as he still rocked Wild. When he received no answer, he looked down as far as he could to find his cub fast asleep, tucked in the crook of Twilight's neck, hands still clutched in his pelt. Twilight let out a small chuckle and stayed like that for the rest of his watch, throwing a rock at Warriors’ leg to wake him up for his turn. Warriors was about to yell at him, but then noticed the small teen in Twilight’s arms. He gave Twilight an understanding smile and took his watch without protest. No one knew who took the picture on Wild’s slate the next day of Twilight and Wild curled up under Time’s cloak, and Wild never had the heart to delete it even if it made him slightly embarrassed. Even if he did, Wind had an extra pictograph. ~ Twilight smiled slightly at the memory. He calmed down slightly when remembering how many people cared for their Wild Child.

#Twilight #Wild #Legend #Sky #Hyrule #Warriors #Time #Four #Wind #linked universe #LinkedUniverse #Link #breath of the wild #fluff #Sickfic #Nightmares #A Sick Wild Child #queenof-literature story #QoL Story

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bubonickitten · 4 years

Text

TMA fic: where there’s a will, we make a way

Decided to start writing a multi-chapter time travel AU fic to get me through S5, lmao.

Cross-posted to AO3 here.

ETA: Chapter 2 is up. (tumblr // AO3)

Summary:

"So, what does happen if an Eye learns to See within itself? What happens is this: the Archive Beholds the Watcher – and the Watcher blinks first." Or: Jon goes back to before the world ended and tries to forge a different path.

CWs for Chapter 1: canon-typical horror & sadness; canon-typical spiders; mentions of canon-typical trauma (including being held captive by the Circus); (temporary) major character death/absence; spoilers up to and including MAG 169.

And, a couple things from the top:

For this chapter and the next, Jon's dialogue will consist entirely of statements from the episodes (cited in the end notes), but he'll have original dialogue at some point (probably by chapter 3).

TEMPORARY CHARACTER DEATH/ABSENCE: Martin's absence is left intentionally vague (and there are moments in the first couple chapters of Jon grieving for him), BUT I promise Martin will be back (probably by chapter 3 or 4 once I figure out how I want to pace things). Time travel is great like that.

The first couple chapters will be rough but I promise it won't be all bummers going forward.

___________________________________________

Chapter 1: Hubris

At the end of the world, as a tape recorder clicks on, uncountable eyes open wide and the Archive begins to speak.

“There is a tower at the center of creation.

"It juts up from the scorched earth, casting its oppressive shadow over all, so certain of its rightful place in this world. But although it may appear sturdy and eternal, it is, like everything else in this place, decaying – more slowly than the rest, but moving inexorably toward its own extinction all the same.

“In the dying light of a ruined world, it Watches over all that crawls and chokes and blinds and falls and twists and leaves and hides and weaves and burns and hunts and rips and leads and dies. For now, it is sated and gorged on the fear permeating its perfect world – but what happens when the fear runs out? There will come a time when each pinprick of life blinks out around it, one by one, taunting it with the dreadful knowledge of its ultimate, encroaching fate: a slow, agonizing death of boredom and isolation and starvation.

“And it will hurt.

"Nothing lasts forever, but rest assured: the tower will be the last thing standing, wilting alone in a barren and desiccated realm of its own making.

“It will be outlived only by death itself, and even then, only for the briefest of moments.

“The tower is a monument to hubris, and as such, it is destined to collapse.”

The recorder clicks off and Jonathan Sims comes back to himself, standing alone before the menacing bulk of the Panopticon.

The statement was shorter than he's used to, but it isn't surprising – he can't See much here, in the Watcher's domain. Still, it took a lot out of him. He barely has time to take a breath, though, before a familiar door opens up in the ground just in front of him, its yellow paint chipped and faded. The Distortion’s ringing laughter ripples up from the ground and Jon closes his eyes, sighs heavily, and counts to ten.

“No ‘hello’ for me, Archivist?” Helen pulls herself up and out of her door to loom over him. “You’ve become quite rude these past few… how long has it been?”

Shaking his head, Jon readjusts the straps of his backpack and starts to walk. Helen, of course, prowls after him. Her gait seems different, Jon realizes, and when he trains his sight on her – yes, apparently she’s added an extra kneecap to her left leg. She watches him with a mischievous sparkle in her eyes, daring him to comment on her latest modification, but he’s learned by now that it’s best not to encourage the Distortion.

“That was a rather short monologue for you. I very much doubt your patron will be satiated.”

“Oh, how I wish he’d go away,” Jon mutters under his breath. The pronoun is wrong, but it still gets the point across, and Helen is familiar enough with his current mode of communication to catch his meaning.

“Still voiceless, are we? It must be very frustrating for you. Reduced to rifling through others’ trauma, forced to appropriate someone else’s terror any time you want to talk. It really is a shame your lexicon is so… limited. You’ve always had such a lovely voice. It seems a waste to deny it any novelty.”

Ignore her. Count to ten. Breathe.

“Silent treatment?” Helen pouts. “Well, that’s fine. I can speak enough for the both of us.”

Jon wishes he could comment on the irony of It Is Lies telling the truth, but the Archive doesn’t offer up any fitting statements. Probably for the best, really; as a rule, he tries not to let Helen rile him. Tries being the key word.

“Off to see the Watcher? I do wonder how our dear Jonah is doing these days. You’re curious too, aren’t you? You can’t See anything in there. You have no idea what you’re walking into.” Helen’s lips curl in a too-wide smile. “That must drive you mad.”

Jon ignores her. Even if he had something to say, he expects he would be speechless at the moment, beholding the Panopticon. The tower bears no resemblance to the Magnus Institute he remembers. It’s the tallest thing left in the wasteland, now; standing at its base and looking up, it’s impossible to estimate exactly how high it stretches. He could Know, but he doesn’t care to. (The Eye bristles at his refusal to ask the question; Jon dismisses it with an almost childish defiance.)

All of the surrounding buildings have been reduced to dust and rubble, and there is no remaining evidence of there ever having been a street. The composition of the tower's walls is entirely obscured by a viscous coating of –

…aqueous humor, grave dirt, assorted viscera, sawdust, flensed dermis, dental pulp, spider silk…

– Jon closes his eyes and shoves the Knowledge away with a practiced resolve. Its content is no more unsettling than anything else he’s encountered, but even after all this time, having the Beholding hijack his thoughts is still nauseating. He had experienced intrusive thoughts long before becoming the Archivist, but Knowing takes the experience to an entirely different level.

After the moment has passed, Jon opens his eyes again. He can’t tell if the tower no longer has windows, or if they’re just hidden by the horror cocktail smothering its exterior. He supposes it doesn’t really matter either way; the Watcher doesn’t need windows to See outside.

The staircase stretching to the entrance is impossibly long, and the stairs are of the narrow, shallow variety that never accommodate anyone’s stride. Jon sighs as he places one foot on the bottom step.

“That looks like an awfully long climb,” Helen observes. “And a tripping hazard. I would offer you a shortcut, but… well, you know.” She winks and flashes him a wicked grin just as her door materializes beneath her feet, dropping her down into a vertical corridor. “See you at the top, Archivist,” she calls cheerfully, her door slamming behind her and vanishing.

Jon rolls his eyes and ascends the stairs.

___________________________________________

The enormous doors to the tower are already open when Jon reaches the top of the steps. The moment he crosses the threshold, he is bathed in a blinding white light and every one of his eyes reflexively snaps shut. One by one, the extra eyes he has grown so accustomed to wink out of existence until finally, for the first time in forever, he has just the two he was born with. It’s jarring, having his hundredfold, 360-degree sight so suddenly reduced back to a binocular field of vision, but it feels oddly freeing.

At the same time, he doesn’t quite know what to make of it. Does the Watcher want him at a disadvantage? Is there something inherent to the Panopticon that allows only the Ceaseless Watcher itself to See, rendering all others – even its Archive – effectively blind? What if -

“Look at you!” Helen chirps directly into his ear, cackling when he startles. “My, you spook easily, Archivist. Not very becoming for one who Sees all and revels in the terror he has wrought –”

Jon is already walking away. The light isn’t as overwhelming as it was before, but he still has to squint against it. As far as he can see, the interior of the tower is a flat expanse of white. He can't perceive any walls, ceiling, even a floor, making it impossible to guess the size of the place – or if it has an end at all.

“Do you actually Know where you’re going?”

“I was finding it really hard to get a solid idea on where we were,” Jon admits.

“Yes. It’s quite like the tunnels, isn’t it? You never could See down there, either. What did you call it – ‘a universal blind spot’? Strange, how your voyeurism touches everything except your own domain.”

“I come to you not to wallow in my condition – but to request your assistance.” Helen hasn’t been any help in ages, but Jon figures it’s worth a try.

Helen simply laughs. “What assistance could I possibly offer? You are the most powerful thing the apocalypse has to offer, Archivist. Aside from the Entities themselves, that is. I’m certain you can figure it out on your own. As I’ve told you so many times, all you have to do is embrace it.” Jon glares at her. “Now, as much as I would love to stay and watch you get terribly lost, I believe there are more interesting things going on in the world.”

With that, her door swings open on the ground in front of her.

“I thanked them as they left, even though they had been of no help whatsoever,” Jon grumbles to himself.

“You are tetchy today,” Helen teases. “Well, I’ll check back in with you later.”

She steps off the ledge and plummets down through her door again, pulling it shut after her.

Jon pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. It’s incredible how after all this time, even a short encounter with the Distortion leaves him feeling drained.

But she did have a point. He never could See in the tunnels, but that was before he became the Archive. As he is now, he probably has a better chance of finding his way than Helen would. It’s just that doing so is bound to be… unpleasant. No use putting it off, though.

He closes his eyes, looks inward, opens the door, and –

A churning deluge of information crashes into him, sweeping him along in its undertow, and all at once, he’s drowning.

…the equatorial circumference of Jupiter was 439,263.8 kilometres before it was devoured by the ravenous Falling Titan…

…Mr. Spider has taken up residence behind innumerable doors – not every door, but any door. It has an average of one guest for dinner every 39 minutes and still it is hungry…

…the Sandman and the Buried wage war over scraps within the catacombs of Paris, now located approximately 6,294.2 kilometres below creation and sinking…

…as of 23.8 seconds ago, the Crawling Rot and the Lightless Flame have completed their race to consume the endless apartment block located at the corner of Nowhere and –

Jon shakes his head and tries to refine his search.

Tell me about Jonah Magnus.

…Jonah Magnus was born in –

Tell me where I can find Jonah Magnus.

…Jonah Magnus is –

A wave of force crashes into Jon like a freight train and then he’s back in the white space, eyes open, gasping for air and struggling to fill his aching lungs.

It comes as no surprise that the Ceaseless Watcher doesn’t want him to Know the way, but if the Eye didn’t want to be Seen, it should have picked someone less inquisitive. Or less stubborn.

He takes a deep breath, steels himself, and dives back in.

…in a hollowed-out sanctuary of bone and gristle, the Boneturner scavenges uselessly for –

Tell me where to find Jonah Magnus.

A harsh buzz of static starts to ring in his ears.

…the Distortion in its corridors waits for –

Show me how to reach Jonah Magnus.

The static pitches up into a shrill whine.

…Martin Blackwood’s last –

A̵N̴S̸W̴E̸R̶ ̷M̷E̷.̷

The noise reaches an earsplitting crescendo, then cuts out abruptly and –

When the Archive opens its myriad eyes, it Knows the way.

___________________________________________

Once the Knowledge settles in his mind, it's as if a veil has been lifted; the empty, directionless white void resolves itself into perceptible details. Jon finds himself standing in a cavernous, cylindrical space. Countless iron-barred prison cells are recessed into weathered red-brick walls, stacked vertically one on top of the other and stretching all the way up to an impossibly high vaulted ceiling covered in… cobwebs.

Of course. It figures the Web would have infiltrated this place. In fact, it had probably staked out its territory when the initial foundations for Millbank Prison were laid and had simply never left.

Jon shudders and looks away. Or tries to, anyway – there are always a few recalcitrant eyes that linger on the things he does not want to See.

He turns his attention to the observation tower. Its looming presence seems to take up the entire room, radiating a palpable sense of dread. There is nowhere in this world that its gaze cannot reach, but being this close to it is nearly unbearable.

It hurts.

Jon forces himself to stand there, to experience and endure the sheer weight of its omniscient scrutiny concentrated wholly on him. This is what it’s like to be Seen by the Archive, and Jon needs to Know how it feels – how it felt when he turned the Ceaseless Watcher’s gaze upon the monsters he met on the journey to the Panopticon.

And it hurts.

It’s like having his consciousness torn to shreds, every memory and thought and experience comprising his existence ripped out of him, pinned under a microscope, dissected with precision, classified and then hoarded away by a dispassionate curator. It’s sharp angles and blinding lights and throat-rending screams and scalding heat; it’s burrowing worms and scalpel blades and crushing earth and cold plastic hands; it’s fear and pain and love and loss and it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts –

Jon’s knees give out and he crumples to the floor, panting, resting his head in his twitching hands as the aftershocks of white-hot pain ripple through him. He lets himself roll over onto his side and curl into a fetal position while he waits for the tremors to stop.

Martin wouldn’t have approved, but Jon had to Know. He had to Know what it was like, if the monsters he killed deserved it, if the punishment was proportionate to the crime, and –

They did and it was. He can confidently say that each sentence he handed out was justified, and it’s somewhat of a relief.

Beyond that, though, experiencing it firsthand was the best way he could think to fully appreciate the consequences of allowing his potential to go unchallenged and unrestrained, and to make clearer the distinction between Jonathan Sims, the Watched and the Archive, the Watcher – or conduit of the Watcher, at least. If nothing else, the memory of it will be an anchor going forward – a searing reminder of how much is at stake and the ultimate cost should his plan fail.

And, of course, it was also an effective way to assess the power he has at his disposal, to determine whether he’s strong enough for his plan to work. He did survive it, at least, which seems like a good sign. Hopefully it's a good sign.

As the pain fades to a dull ache, he pushes himself to his feet and takes a minute to compose himself before entering the observation tower. He has not come eye to eye with Jonah Magnus since before the world ended, before he forced himself through the domains of each and every fear that marked him, before he completed his metamorphosis. That was the point of the journey, he realizes now: reliving the terror and retracing every mark was necessary for him to emerge as the fully-fledged Archive.

He hopes it was all worth it.

Jon takes a deep breath, braces himself, and crosses the threshold.

___________________________________________

Jonah Magnus is a pitiful sight.

He sits slumped on the Watcher’s throne within his lonely observation tower, ropes of spider silk binding him in place. The look in his eyes when he beholds his Archive is entirely unreadable, and Jon doesn’t care to Know.

Well – his two original eyes, in any case. The other eyes bulging through Jonah’s skin – bloodshot, rolling and twitching in all directions, and glowing a repellent shade of green – belong to the Watcher, and all they contain is a cold, measured fascination. Jon wonders absently whether they might cluster beneath the skin as well, a fitting mirror of Albrecht von Closen’s gruesome fate. Martin would have appreciated the poetic justice of that thought.

Jon takes a step forward.

“I don’t think I’ll ever know what they expected to happen.”

The Archive’s voice rips through the silence like a clap of thunder on a clear day. There is something of a command threaded through the words, a power that brooks no argument and permits no lies. Jonah flinches at the force of it, and Jon takes that as his cue to continue; he has Jonah’s full attention now.

“It’s weird, isn’t it, the things that can change your life?” Jon wonders, briefly, how Tim would feel about his statement being repurposed like this. Hopefully he would approve, seeing the way Elias – Jonah – is rendered silent and cowed in its wake, even if Jon’s voice is the vehicle. Either way, stolen words are Jon’s only option, and so he presses on: “You can plan for all the devastating, terrible possibilities you can imagine, and it’ll always be those tiny, unexpected things that get you. You know, the things that you never even noticed as they were happening, just… just nudging everything into motion. But even if there was a way I could have known, I really don’t think I’d be able to have stopped him.”

When Jonah opens his mouth as if to speak, Jon catches a glimpse of a roving eye sprouting from Jonah’s tongue. What comes out is not words, but a small spider, creeping languidly over his lip and up his cheek, as if summoned by the Archive’s mere mention of manipulation. Even from a distance, Jon can See all eight of its eyes focus on him.

The Spider perches there, patient and waiting. Whether she is issuing an invitation, a challenge, or simple, curious observation, the Archive does not know, and Jon will not waste his energy searching for the answer.

Curiosity always was Jonathan Sims’ fatal flaw. It can be an asset in small doses, but Jon habitually took it to endangering and self-destructive extremes. By now he has learned how to wield that curiosity with precision, patience, and careful calculation. It was a lesson hard won and at great cost, but now he knows: there is a difference between a constructive avenue of inquiry and a dead end. One leads to answers that need knowing; the other only sates the Eye’s voracious appetite and leaves Jon adrift and wanting. The trick is to prioritize – which means accepting the existence of questions that aren’t worth asking.

The Eye balks at an unsolved mystery, and the Archive’s every instinct drives Jon to seek, to ask, to know at any and all costs – but this is not the first time he has weathered the dueling instincts of Archive, Archivist, and human, and it will not be the last. If he stands in the crossfire long enough, breathes through the dissonance, and allows himself to simply exist as the strange, contradictory gestalt his apotheosis has made him… eventually, he can find the quiet.

In any case, the Archive’s eyes outnumber the Spider’s by far, and Jon meets her gaze with a resolve that still feels new and untested, but unyielding nonetheless. Neither of them blink, but the Spider does eventually – slowly, so slowly – crawl away and out of sight.

A stalemate. Jon expected nothing more or less; these confrontations with the Web never have a satisfying conclusion, only a protracted, stop-and-start hiatus.

When Jon feels the Spider’s presence fade away, he lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. For all his bravado, the fear never has gone away. He suspects that the Eye would never give him the choice in the first place. It isn’t enough to Know or See the contents of his library – he has to live them, feel them, share in them, or else the knowledge is not comprehensive. The Beholding requires more than facts and words and retellings. It demands the insight and dread that comes only from lived experience, and it has no use for an Archive that cannot fully experience its own catalog.

If Jon was given the choice, though, he still wouldn’t give up the fear. It’s the fabric of this world, which makes it a reliable anchor as long as it exists. It tethers him to his humanity; it reminds him of his reason; it keeps him moving forward.

And so, he approaches the Watcher’s throne, and the Archive resumes its recitation:

“I continue to see in you the reflection of my own past hubris.”

It’s a nice touch, Jon thinks, using Robert Smirke’s dying words to rub salt in the wound, and the surge of stunned outrage on Jonah’s face confirms that for him.

“Why does a man seek to destroy the world?"

Jonah’s human eyes widen ever so slightly as he recognizes his own words.

“…you would quite willingly doom that world and confine the billions in it to an eternity of terror and suffering, all to ensure your own happiness, to place yourself beyond pain and death and fear.”

Jon kneels before the throne, a mocking gesture of fealty to a man who so arrogantly believed that he was to be –

“…a king of a ruined world” – he pauses, fast-forwarding the statement in his mind, picking through disparate fragments to cobble together something that can convey his intended meaning – “had miscalculated.” Another pause, and then: “The ritual failed."

Jonah squirms against his bindings, though whether it is in fear or frustration or anger, Jon does not know. He does not need to know, and he strangles that alien part of him that wants to taste exactly what flavor of distress struggles in front of him. He refuses to feed the Eye, even if it is at Jonah’s expense.

“…as much a victim as any” – Jon gives a curt nod to indicate Jonah – “trapped in the nightmare landscape of a twisted world.”

When he sees the glint of the knife, Jonah’s eyes widen further and he redoubles his thrashing. Jon is flooded with memories of his month held captive by the Circus – rough ropes chafing at his bare skin; cold, plastic hands slathering him in strong-smelling lotions; the bruises that lingered long after he escaped through the Spiral’s door. Part of him wishes that he could enjoy seeing Jonah like this – the one who orchestrated that trauma and so many others – but all he feels is that familiar revulsion that rises up in him any time he catches a whiff of shea butter.

Another, louder part of him is relieved to find that even after everything, he still can’t quite bring himself to find pleasure in torture.

Taking revenge on Jude Perry, obliterating the NotThem – it felt good in the immediate aftermath, to make them appreciate the terror and pain they had wrought, to stand in their presence not as a victim but as a long-overdue consequence. As soon as the adrenaline wore off, though, he would always crash. Whether or not they deserved their fates was never what haunted him the most. It was the simple act of using the same power that destroyed the world that always left him feeling sick, guilty, divorced from what remained of his humanity, and terrified of what he could become if he embraced his role as the Archive. It felt good in the same way that stealing live statements used to, and that terrified him.

Still, Jon has a point to make. He draws the knife to Jonah’s face and holds the tip mere centimetres from his right eye, poised to strike. Jonah freezes and Jon stares him down. The Archive’s uncountable eyes open wide and focus laser-like on a single point, and he waits for the would-be king to blink first.

And he does.

With that, Jon stands and drops the knife. As it clatters to the floor, Jonah opens his human eyes ever so slightly, looking at the discarded weapon and then back to his Archive with uncertainty etched onto his face.

“…didn’t even have the decency to kill me,” the Archive says. Jon swallows down a reflexive wave of revulsion at the memory of Peter Lukas’ voice, but he needs Jonah to understand this choice his Archivist has made, to truly appreciate the fate to which he is being condemned.

The Archive reaches for Gertrude next:“They might even stop death entirely, deny us the one last escape, keeping us alive and afraid – forever.”

It takes a moment for the words to sink in, but slowly, ever so slowly, the existential terror dawns in Jonah’s eyes. His greatest fear may have always been mortality, but faced with the reality of what an immortal existence could actually entail, well…

“You’ll get used to it here, in the world that we have made."

Jonah Magnus’ own triumphant declaration reverberates through the space in the voice of the Archive he forced into being. The words sound as smug and gleeful as they did the first time the Archivist read them to an empty room, on the day he opened the door.

Behind it all, though, is Jonathan Sims. Not the Archive, not the Archivist, just… Jon. He feels no catharsis, no gratification, no closure. He just feels tired.

But he didn’t come all this way to the Panopticon just to monologue at Jonah Magnus. This is the stronghold of the Eye, and that makes it Jon’s best chance of actually communing with the Beholding.

He places the tape recorder on the floor next to the knife and turns his back on the man who sought to reign over a desolated world. As Jon walks away, the recorder clicks on, and the Archive’s final statement begins to play:

“There is a tower at the center of creation…”

__________________________________

End notes:

- Jon’s dialogue is taken from the statements in the following episodes, in order: MAG 85; MAG 149; MAG 098; MAG 027; MAG 137; MAG 104; MAG 138; MAG 160 (x4); MAG 159; MAG 162; MAG 160 (again).

#the magnus archives #tma fic #tma #tma spoilers #long post

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mileycyprus-hill · 5 years

Text

Mistakes: Part 3

A RDR2 Fanfic

Summary: Starts right after chapter 2, Arthur and reader have a chat. She goes to the doctor.

Warnings: descriptions of female anatomy (your body’s going through changes, hun. But nothing super graphic)

Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 here.

“Talk ‘bout what?” Arthur asks, stepping past you and into his open tent. You turn to follow right behind him, making sure to stand in the entryway. If he wants to leave, he’d have to walk right through you. Your talk with Hosea had finally given you the bravery needed to confront this issue head-on.

“I think you know what.” You reply, arms straight and hands fidgeting the fabric of your skirt.

With his back still to you, Arthur stiffens. You see a hand curl into a tight fist, his fingers immediately unbend and relax at his side. You try to silence the pounding in your chest, pounding so loud like the war drum of an approaching battalion. Worry seeps through your thoughts while your body steels.

Arthur turns only slightly, his body unmoved while his head slowly veers to look at you over his shoulder. From the side, you can clearly see his eyes make contact with you, normally hidden beneath his father’s hat when he looks straight on. It felt likes ages since you looked into those eyes. Those eyes made from crushed sapphires and emeralds, sprinkled with subtle hints of amber that shine in the light.

Letting out a heavy sigh, he abruptly turns his gaze away, “Ain’t nothin’ to talk about.”

Taking a step—nay, a leap forward, you gently protest, “Arthur...what’s wrong? I—I know it has something to do with that night.”

As you step over to look at him directly, Arthur counters by turning away and avoiding your stare. He mentally curls within himself like a scared, wounded animal.

“I want—I want you to know that...I don’t regret what we did. And—goddammit, will you just look at me?!”

You feel the other members darting their attention to you throughout the camp.

At that, Arthur reluctantly turns to face you, like a scolded child. You can’t tell if he’s nervous or annoyed by the look on his face: the tight pursing of his lips, the furrow of his brow.

“I’m sorry if I pushed you into it,” you continue. “It wasn’t right of me to take advantage of you.”

A moment passes in agonizing silence, and Arthur looks into your eyes.

“I’m sorry, Arthur,” you repeat, this time you avert your gaze and look down to your hands, wringing them nervously. “I just want things to go back to the way they were...but if it can’t, then I understand.”

Without hesitation, you move out of his tent and quickly march to your own with your head held low. You try not to look at the other camp members so they can’t see the tears welling in your eyes. It took so much strength to speak to Arthur, and you feel as if you’re a second away from collapsing.

Approaching your tent, you realize there's no privacy for you to cry in peace. Anyone could hear you and ask, and you have no desire to speak to anyone else tonight. Looking to the horizon, you see the sun set. The dry dirt of New Austin glows red like the embers of a fire. The long, thin clouds cut through the indigo sky in a mix of orange and pink.

You decide to walk to the edge of camp, to a lone tree standing high above the shrubs. Gently falling to your knees, you lean yourself against it and let go. The tears trickle down your cheeks like heavy rain on a window pane. You struggle to take deep breaths with your lungs constricting and heart hammering away.

You weren’t even there for a full minute before you hear footsteps coming from behind you.

“Go away,” you seethe through your teeth in aggravation, not bothering to look at who’s coming. But the footsteps don’t falter, continuing to stamp through the dirt towards you.

Turning towards the sound you nearly shout, “I said, GO AW—”

You’re stopped short. It’s Arthur, raising his hands slightly as if he’s trying not to spook you.

“I’m sorry, just...gimme a minute?” he asks.

You hesitate, quickly wiping the tears from your face.

“Sure,” you turn back around, leaning back against the tree, feet crossed and your knees held up your chest. Arthur steps up near you, leaning his shoulder against the thick trunk.

There’s an uncomfortable silence between you that seems to last forever until Arthur finally speaks.

“I wasn’t lying that night when I said that... what we did was the best I had,” he confesses, scratching the back of his neck. “I guess I—well, I dunno,”

He sits himself down next to you, viewing the beautiful sun disappearing below the horizon. The sky gradually darkens to a deep blue, the evening stars shining brightly.

Looking over at you, he continues, “I guess I was afraid.”

You turn to him, eyes scanning his face, unblemished except for the scar on his chin, a reminder of life's harsh gifts.

“Afraid of what?” you ask.

He shrugs, “ ‘fraid of losing’ you, I guess. I thought you only did it ‘cause you felt sorry for me.”

You cock your head to the side, raising an eyebrow at him, “What?”

Arthur looks back at the horizon and continues his confession.

“I-I know. It’s silly now that I think about it. Hell, I weren’t even sure if you remembered anythin.”

He lets out a deep sigh, “I wanted to give you space...thought you regretted it the way you looked at me—or I should say, didn’t look at me.” He chuckles dryly.

A tiny chuckle rises out of you behind your dried tears.

“I’m sorry.” you say.

“ ‘m sorry, too.” He responds, looking back over to you with a symptathic smile. You catch his eyes studying your face.

“Does this mean we can be friends again?” You inquire.

His eyes squint while a big grin forms on his lips, “Yeah, if you wanna be.”

Taking him by surprise, you embrace him in a hug.

“I do.”

He returns the hug by squeezing his arms around you. You feel safe in his burly arms, the feeling of his warm, bare neck against yours calms you. You take in the scent of his thick hair while he rubs his bulky hands across your back.

—————

Another week goes by and things seem to return to normal. The friendship between you is rekindled, though deep down you secretly crave more. But you refuse to push further. You don’t want to mess things up again.

You almost forget one thing.

Your period still hasn’t shown up. No spotting, no subtle dots on your undergarments, nothing.

And now, you begin to notice other symptoms. At first, you thought they were signs of your upcoming period. But these were different. You couldn’t eat, yet you were starving. Your breasts were tender, your nipples began to darken, and you swore they felt a little bigger than before. Have your breasts swelled before on your periods?

Everything you ate from Pearson gave you intense heartburn. It didn’t matter what it was, your chest felt like it was on fire and you were belching lava.

You were constantly tired from the most menial activities. You tried blaming it on the heat, but it’s October, and the weather is mild. The nights were cold and yet you’d wake up in a sweat. There was no denying it now. You had to go to the doctor to be sure.

But how? It’s not like you could convince Dutch and Hosea to let you go see the doctor when visually, you don’t seem sick.

After your morning chores, you see Arthur sitting in his tent. Unbeknownst to you, he watches you from below his hat, sketching you in his journal. The past few days, he has been capturing the worried look on your face, transferring it to the pages of his book.

If only you had seen the written entries of his journal, then you could see his growing feelings for you. He could be honest to himself in his journal, explaining the conflict within himself. His heart still felt loyal to Mary, as the wounds were still fresh. However, being with you helped patch the trauma of heartbreak. Was he only trying to find a substitute for Mary? Or were these feelings towards you genuine?

He closes his book as you approach his tent.

“Hey Arthur?” you greet him with a nervous tone.

“Yeah?” He replies, the sound of his voice soothing you only minutely.

“If you’ve got a minute, would you mind going into town with me? I uh, heard about some rich newlyweds moving into a homestead not far from here. I’d like to check it out, but Dutch wants me to get the mail first...wanna come with?”

He stares at you for a second, eyes squinting in confusion.

“Funny, I didn’t hear anything about this. Usually Hosea finds out ‘bout these.” He replies.

Your mind scrambles as you to try to convince him to escort you without giving yourself away. Normally, you go into town by yourself. But you’re too scared to enter the doctor’s office on your own and you desperately need someone there with you.

Someone you can trust.

“Yeah uh, he actually told me about it and said I should look into it,” you state. You shove your hands into the pockets of your trousers to stop your fingers from twitching and fidgeting.

“So what’dya need me for?”

Struggling to hold back a frustrated groan, you blurt, “I dunno! Willyoujustcomewithme?”

You’d be surprised if he could even understand that sudden outburst of words.

The both of you stare at each other with wide eyes until you plead softly, “Please?”

With a suspicious look, Arthur sets his journal down on his cot beside him.

“Okay,” he croaks slowly. “Just gimme a minute and I’ll meet’cha over there.” He points over to the horses.

Leaving Arthur, you jog over to Dutch’s tent. You’re only there for a quick second as you poke your head in.

“Arthur and I are going to town, we’ll be back tonight.” You rapidly state, not even giving Dutch a moment to process what you just said before you pop your head back out. You swear you saw him jump with a startled look, nearly dropping the book in his hand.

What you didn’t see was Hosea standing in the tent across from him, leaning back against a table.

Dutch looks to him with his mouth agape and forehead wrinkles creased, “What the hell was that about?”

Hosea shrugs his shoulders, “I don’t know...” he looks over to the closed flaps of the tent. “But I’m sure it’s fine.”

“You haven’t been noticing that something is up between those two?” Dutch asks lowly.

Hosea is well aware, but he knows better than to indulge in Dutch’s skepticism so as to not let him worry any more than he should.

“They’re fine, Dutch,” he responds, stepping forward from the table and placing a hand on his shoulder. “If you’re so worried about them, I’ll go and talk to them tomorrow.”

“Perhaps we both should. Find out what’s going on...I don’t like not knowing.” Dutch closes his book.

Hosea chuckles, “I know.” He pats Dutch’s shoulder once more before leaving the large tent. He watches you and Arthur mount your horses before cantering off into the distance.

Dutch is right, there is something going on between you two. Whatever it may be, Hosea only hopes both of you are being safe, especially you.

——————

The pair of you make it into town fairly quickly. Mainly because of you pushing your steed to a full gallop, almost leaving Arthur behind. His mare can hardly keep up with your thoroughbred.

“Y/N! Slow the hell down!” Arthur yells as you reach the outskirts of the town.

You were in such a daze, you didn’t realize how hard you were pushing the horses. You just wanted to get to the doctor fast, prove to yourself that you’re not pregnant. The thought had been gnawing at you like a dog on a bone. You don’t even recall if Arthur said anything to you on this trip. You had tuned the whole world out.

Pulling on the reigns, you slow König to a walk to let him catch his breath.

“Sorry,” you call behind you as Arthur catches up to you.

“Why you in such a damn hurry? Not like the mail’s goin’ anywhere.” He trots his horse up beside yours and you both ease your way into the streets of town.

Going into town has always made you nervous, as you’re unsure if someone will recognize you as part of the Van der Linde gang. Luckily, the gang’s presence is not that well known in these parts of the country. But you never know what could happen, so you always watch your back.

“I’m not in a hurry, I just—I remembered I got some other things I need to get while we’re here.” You reply to him.

“Mhmm,” Arthur hums, eyeing you suspiciously from his horse.

The two of you reach a hitching post nearby the post office, dismounting your horses and continuing on foot.

“And uh, what ‘other things’ did you suddenly need to get?” He teases.

You blank. Do you persuade him to go with you to the doctor? Or should you distract him? Keep him in the dark until you know your condition for sure?

“Y/N?”

You jolt as Arthur is suddenly by your side, lightly grabbing your elbow to get your attention. He drops his head to look at your eyes, staring at you with slight concern. You’re trembling in fear. Fear of telling him the truth. Fear of the unknown.

You finally look into his eyes, clearing your throat of the growing lump in your throat.

“I uh, need to pick something up at the doctor’s office.”

He straightens up immediately like a spooked horse, but before he open his mouth to ask, you stop him.

“It’s for Miss Grimshaw. It’s...y’know.” You wave your hand. “Lady stuff.”

Arthur makes a disgusted face at which you laugh.

“Tell you what. I’ll get the mail and you go to the doctor, and uh, I’ll meet you up later,” he says.

You nod to him and walk over to the doctor’s. The walk is short, but feels like it’s miles long. With each hurried step, it’s as if you’re further away.

You finally reach the storefront of the building. Looking up at the painted lettering, your heart beats even faster.

Dr. Thomas Birner, M.D.

General health, surgeries, pharmaceuticals

Taking a deep breath, you step inside. You nearly jump at the sound of the bell on the doorframe. You catch the attention of a young woman, slightly older than you, sitting at the front desk. Her tiny spectacles sit on the edge of her nose.

“Hello, may I help you?” She asks kindly. Her delicate fingers organizing the papers littering her desk.

Your mouth feels dry as you step forward and lay your hands on her high desk.

“Um, is...is the doctor in?” You ask meekly.

“Why of course,” she answers. “Lucky for you, he’s only got one patient ahead of you. So you shouldn’t have to wait long. May I get your name?”

Rapping your fingers nervously at the edge of her desk, you give her a false name.

“Y/N...Y/N Dougall.”

“Ok, Miss Dougall. Just follow me.” The young woman stands up and leads you down the hallway.

“Take a seat in here and Dr. Birner will be with you shortly,” she says, holding her arm out in the doorway to invite you to the room.

She shuts the door behind you as you step inside. Sitting down on the cold chair, you look around to see pictures on the walls. Drawn images of organs and human bodies with descriptions are hung up by thumbtacks.

Suddenly, you feel nauseous. You jerk your head over to the door as you hear it click open.

A tall, young man enters the room. He looks too young to be a doctor, in fact. You discreetly examine his long legs and slender torso, moving up to his face. He’s nearly masked by a dark, thick beard, trimmed short to his jawline. His hair is so dark, it almost looks like it’s painted on him. His nose is long and upturned, and the attention of his doe-like eyes move from his hands to you. He pulls out a cigarette and lights it, taking a deep drag before finally speaking.

“Miss Dougall, is it?” He asks. His deep tone is a mix of authority and kindness.

Swallowing your nausea, you answer. “Yes.”

“No need to be afraid Miss. I can see you’re nervous...” he pulls up a rolling chair and squats in front of you. His chair is lowered so that you’re looking down at him, instead of eye-level. The way his knees bend as he sits makes him look like he’s part grasshopper.

“...I’m here to help. So, what seems to be troubling you?” He asks, looking up at you. The cigarette burning slowly in his mouth. His pale, lengthy fingers remove it from his thin lips and places it on the ashtray near.

“Um...well. I, uh, think I may be um...” you gesture with your hands as you can’t bring yourself to say it. You run your hands over your lower stomach.

Dr. Birner’s eyes dart to your stomach. He pauses before finishing your sentence, tilting his head at you.

“Pregnant?” He asks. The timbre of his voice is oddly soothing, as you fail to detect any hint of judgment. You expected the doctor to be an old man who’d give you a lecture about the dangers of sex and pregnancy, how you should have been more responsible, blah, blah, blah. But Dr. Birner seemed to be understanding, like he already knew your life story just by looking at you.

You nod your head while maintaining eye contact.

He rubs his hands in his lap, “And I take it that this was not planned?”

Pursing your lips tightly and wringing your hands, you silently shake your head.

You hear him breathe a small sigh through his nose while he looks up to you again with those big eyes.

“I see...Well, nothing to fear, Miss Dougall. We’ll soon find out. If you don’t mind...” he stands and beckons you to a nearby table.

“Just lay on this table here and relax for me.”

You do as he asks and lie flat on your back on the cold, metal table.

He gently pushes down near your groin with the pads of his fingers, pressing in small areas around your lower stomach. You feel a slight discomfort at this feeling, but surprisingly relaxed by his touch. You watch him narrow his eyes as he focuses.

“When was your last menstruation?” He asks softly while still pushing down.

You try to count the weeks back, “Um, I’m not sure. About two months, at least.”

“Hmm...and uh, do you—well, how do I phrase this? Would you consider yourself...romantically active?”

You furrow your brow at him, “Romantically active? You mean, do I have sex often?”

He lets out an embarrassed chuckle and nods his head, “Yes, to put it mildly.”

His light-hearted chuckle brings a small smile to your lips, easing your nervousness.

“Well, I wouldn’t say I am. The last time I had...relations, was several weeks ago...with a friend.”

“And is he aware of this?” He asks, straightening up and moving over to a nearby cabinet. You hear him rifling through items before pulling out what looks like a horn connected to a tube.

You shake your head, tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear, “Not yet.”

Dr. Birner hums again. “If I may, could you untuck your shirt and unbutton your trousers for me?”

You squint your eyes at him. Any man who would ask that would only want one thing. You’ve been tricked and used so many times before, it’s the only thing you expect of men.

He senses your tension and reassures you, “I just need to listen. See this here?” He lifts up the instrument, the horn in one hand and the two odd, silver prongs in the other, “I can listen to your body and the little one inside you...if there’s one in there.”

Nodding your head, you slightly pull your shirt from your trousers, only exposing a small amount of skin. Next, you undo the top two buttons of your pants and go no further.

Dr. Birner pulls your shirt up only a tad and touches your bare skin, his fingers feel ice-cold to the touch. But they’re not as cold as his instrument, causing you to draw in a sharp breath through your nose. He places the horn on various areas of your groin, much like what he was doing earlier. The two silver prongs are now in each ear. He looks straight ahead as he tries to listen.

Removing the prongs from his ears, he straightens himself up and smooths out his shirt sleeves.

“Well, Miss Dougall, it may be too early to know for sure. If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like a more thorough examination.” He says.

“More thorough than this?” You ask.

“Yes. Don’t worry, my wife is at the front desk and she has experience with this. I’ll ask her to come in and help you.” With his long strides, he steps over to the door and leaves the room.

Oh, how you wish Arthur was here with you in this room. The doctor’s uncertainty made your paranoia increase tenfold. You laid on the cold table, shivering violently as you swallow the lump in your throat. You wrap your arms around yourself in your own embrace, wishing it was Arthur’s warm body holding you right now.

———————

Arthur struts out of the post office, stepping into the warm midday sun. The number of people on the streets grows as they go about their day, completing their errands. Arthur begins sorting through the mail letters, leaning against a tall gaslight pole. His heart twinges in disappointment as he sees there are no letters for him. He still carries a small shred of hope that the woman he once loved will change her mind; send a letter to him asking to run away together. But as the weeks rolled by, it became apparent that their relationship is truly over.

The memory of that night with you is triggered as he remembers the heartbreak that lead to it. It seems that you and Mary are tethered in his thoughts, he cannot envision one without the other slipping into vision. While the thought of Mary brings him pain, you bring him pleasure. Your friendly affection towards him is the soothing balm he needs to heal the scarring burn on his heart.

He takes his time walking towards the doctor’s office, as it took him only a minute to retrieve the mail. He has no intention of rushing you, since you’re only picking up an item or two. It shouldn’t take long. So he slows his stride, stopping every once in a while to peer into the glass windows of the stores and boutiques: a cobbler shop with hand-made leather boots and satin slippers set on a display shelf, a toy store with wooden figurines and cotton dolls, and a gun shop showcasing the latest models of rifles and revolvers that have just come out.

As Arthur checks the stores, he regularly looks over to the doctor’s office to see you waiting there. But you have yet to come out.

Curious.

He continues walking over to the office and halts in front of the small steps. Raising his chin, peering here and there, he tries to get a good look inside. Unfortunately, the glare of the sun is making it difficult to view inside the dim office.

The bell rings as he steps inside, his heavy boots landing with dull thumps. Two people down a hallway turn to look at who’s entering the door: a tall young man and a petite young woman.

“Good afternoon. Just take a seat over there and we’ll be with you shortly.” The woman says, pointing to a chair near the front desk.

“Uh, actually. I’m lookin’ for a friend o’ mine,” Arthur steps forward. “She came in here a lil while ago.”

“Oh, Miss Dougall?” Dr. Birner asks. He beckons for the young woman to enter the room off the hallway. She enters, carrying a white sheet or gown of some kind, leaving only him and Arthur.

“She won’t be long. I’ll be finished with her shortly.” He states.

Arthur stammers, taken aback, “Wha—Is...is she alright?”

Dr. Birner senses Arthur’s worry and gives him a reassuring smile.

“Of course. Just an examination.” He steps back and turns to enter the room, closing the door behind him.

Arthur’s left alone at the front of the office. He takes off his hat, running his fingers through his hair and fumbles with the brim of his hat. Shifting his weight from one leg to the other, he stands there, waiting.

—————

You lay on the cold table as you hear the door click open again. This time, it’s the woman entering the room. She tells you to strip your trousers and undergarments off and she lays a white sheet over your lower body.

“It’s all right,” she assures you. “It’s a routine examination. Nothing to worry about. I’ll be right here next to you if you should ever feel uncomfortable.” She looks to you with soft eyes, her blonde hair glowing in the light of the room.

The corner of your lip upturns to a small smile at her reassurance.

“Dr. Birner says uh, you’re his wife?” You ask.

She responds with a warm smile, “That’s right. My father was a medical man and he trained my husband as an apprentice while he was studying.”

She fixes the sheet that’s laid across your legs.

“That’s how we met,” she remembers fondly. Her eyes unfixed as she becomes lost in thought. “We both have a passion for medicine. I studied to become a midwife. We both taught each other everything we knew.”

“A what?” You ask. You never heard that word before.

“A midwife,” she repeats. “Someone who helps the mother with childbirth, so to speak.”

Suddenly, the door opens again and Dr. Birner steps in, walking over to the sink and scrubbing his hands.

“Are we ready, ladies?” He asks softly.

The two of you nod as the doctor sits in his stool again, now at your feet at the end of the table. He holds a small tin in his hand and rubs his fingers with the oily balm that’s inside.

“My name’s Christine, by the way,” she whispers to you, holding your hand. You smile and nod to her. Even if Arthur isn’t here with you, you’re glad to have Christine by your side.

“Christine, if I could have you stand over here, please.” The doctor asks. She obeys and stands as close to him as possible, the two of them facing you.

“And Y/N, if you could bring your knees up for me.” He doesn’t order you. Instead it feels like he’s asking for permission, and you consent.

You feel them lift the sheet up to your knees, and the cold air hitting your bare regions. You nervously fidget with the hem of the sheet as you feel him touch you. You can barely make out what they’re muttering to each other behind the sheet. He presses here and there on your groin while inserting two fingers into your vaginal opening.

Christine looks up and senses your discomfort.

“You ok, Y/N?” She asks, reaching for your hand to calm your fidgeting. Her warmth is a wonderful change from the doctor’s ice-cold fingers. It’s like wrapping your fingers around a warm cup of coffee.

You quickly nod while scrunching your eyes, wanting to get this ordeal over with quickly. The doctor continues to poke and feel around with intense focus in his glare. The two of them continue to whisper to each other, you’re too focused on the feeling inside you to listen.

Finally, the doctor straightens up and slides his fingers out of you. Christine takes her cue and rolls the sheet back down to cover you. Dr. Birner steps back to the sink to wash his hands, shaking them dry. Turning back to you, he catches your stare with a forlorn gaze.

“Well, Miss Dougall, I’m afraid to tell you this but...”

Your breathing quickens to a near panic, leaning up on your elbows in anticipation.

“It does appear you’re pregnant. All the signs point to it.” He wipes his hands with a clean cloth, leaning against the counter.

Your eyes dart back and forth in panic. Your chin quivers as you hold back a scream. You look away from the both of them as you suck in a deep, shaky breath. The pair of them stay absolutely still as they watch.

Sitting up, you move your legs to the edge of the tall table, still covered with the sheet. You can hardly contain yourself anymore as you clasp a hand over your mouth and cry, wrapping an arm around your midsection. You feel Christine’s sympathetic hand rub across your back. Ashamed at your outburst of tears, you drop your head in your hand and hide your eyes in your palm, continuing to shake as each sob rolls out of your chest.

“What’do I do now?” You cry softly into your hand.

Dr. Birner shifts his weight as he answers, “The best thing you can do now is keep yourself healthy. Eat more, drink lots of water, and try not to overwork yourself.”

Stepping forward towards you on the table, he continues, staring at you with those big, brown eyes. “If it’s at all possible, I’d like to see you again in a month.”

With a wet sniffle, you gaze at him with confusion.

“The early stages of pregnancy are the most important,” he explains. “And I’d—we’d like to make sure everything’s going smoothly. For you and the baby.” He and Christine look to each other with fondness.

“I dunno if I can afford that mister.” You confess.

“Don’t worry,” he consoles. “We’ll only charge you what you can afford. Even if it’s just a penny.”

“No offense but, why do you care so much?” You ask.

The two of them turn their heads to each other, the fondness now replaced with melancholy. Dr. Birner looks like he wants to answer, but continues to look into Christine’s eyes as if he’s asking for approval.

Christine turns to you and answers, “To be honest...we can’t have children.” She looks back to Dr. Birner, “No matter how hard we try, it’s just not possible.” She reaches a hand to him and he grasps it, squeezing it gently.

“So, we want to help you. To make sure your baby makes it into this world safely...We realize that it’s God’s plan for us to use our gifts and help others give birth to His children.”

Never have you met such kindness from strangers before. The only instance was Dutch and Hosea taking you under their wings. You instilled your trust in so few people. And here you are, with a young couple offering their charity to you. Do you take it?

If it meant for the safety of your unborn child, then yes.

“Thank you.” You cry, sniffling and wiping away the tears.

A few more minutes go by as the doctor gives you instructions on taking care of yourself during your pregnancy. He steps out of the room while Christine helps you back into your clothes. Your hands tremble as you try to button your pants and tuck in your shirt. Your whole body feels exhausted as you shake like a beaten dog.

How do I tell Arthur?

Christine leads you to the door and opens it for you. You step out with your head held down, watching your feet walk you forward down the hallway. You wipe at your nose with the back of your hand and look up.

Shit.

Arthur is leaning on the front desk, his leg bouncing impatiently and his forearms resting on the countertop. His hat lays on the counter as he turns his head over to you. His eyebrows are upturned in worry, his forehead wrinkling. He stands up straight but doesn’t move.

And neither do you. You stop dead in your tracks.

“Arthur? What’r’you doing here?”

He swings his arms heavily in uncertainty, “You told me you were just pickin’ somethin’ up...You were in here a long time.” He tenses his shoulders up. “Is evertythin’ alright?”

You bite your lower lip, “Sort of.” You step forward to the desk while Christine follows behind you and returns to her seat.

“How much do I owe ya?” You ask.

Christine distractedly glances at Arthur, then to you, “Um, ten dollars.”

You scramble through your satchel and find you only have seven dollars in your bag. Sighing, you take out the crumpled wad of cash and hand it to her.

“This is all I got, I’m sorry.” You state with embarrassment.

“Here,” you hear Arthur’s gruff voice beside you. He pulls out a neat stack of cash and slides out three extra dollars, placing it on your stack.

“Arthur, no. You don’t have to.” You protest.

“Don’t worry about it,” he counters, placing the stack of bills back in his bag.

You thank him softly.

“Should we expect you back in a month?” Christine inquires, causing Arthur to lean and peer at you.

Quickly nodding your head you let out a small croak, “Yes.” You immediately turn to leave the awkward situation and walk out the door. Arthur steps right behind you.

Walking briskly, you nearly jog back to your horses tied at the post office. You avoid looking back at Arthur who doesn’t struggle to keep up your pace with his long strides. You feel him staring at you. Neither of you speak a word as you near the horses.

You’re about to untie König from the post when Arthur finally speaks up.

“Y/N?”

You stand still with your back to him, shoulders tensing.

“You wanna tell me what happened back there?” He asks.

Tremors shake through your body. You gnaw at your lower lip, nearly drawing blood from the constant biting. You hear him step towards you and place a hand on your shoulder. You tense up at his touch and turn to him, causing him to release his hand as if he’s been burned.

He notices your bloodshot eyes. Your face is paled, and you let out a shaky breath.

“I’m pregnant.”

#damn text block limit got me again #working on chapter 4 now!#mistakes #arthur morgan #arthur morgan x reader #arthur morgan x female reader #rdr2 #red dead redemption 2 #fan fic

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