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rambleonwaywardson · 2 months

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Clegan Astronaut AU - Part 13

Masterpost Read on AO3

AU Summary: the boys as modern day NASA astronauts. Taking place in 2025, Bucky is about to head to the moon as mission commander of Artemis III while Buck is CAPCOM at NASA. Established relationship (obnoxiously in love).

Author's Note: Every week I think "this chapter will be shorter," and every week it is longer. There was a time when I would have looked at 11k words and split it in two, but now is not that time. You get it all in one go. Plan your time accordingly.

---

November 21 Lunar South Pole, Starship

It might have been better if Bucky didn’t dream. More merciful. A blissful unawareness, nothing but a deep, uninterrupted sleep full of nothing and no one and nowhere. Maybe he wouldn’t feel so afraid, if he didn’t dream. Or maybe dreams are the only thing keeping him from drifting away forever.

He dreams about the moon a lot. Bounding across that wide open nothing, staring up at a never-ending universe full of stars. The stuff of his childhood fantasies. We’re all made of stardust, Gale likes to say.

He dreams about the rover crashing down on him, smashing him into the ground as they both skid down a sandy slope. He dreams about the sudden inability to breathe, the explosion of pain in his leg. He dreams about Benny’s voice in his ear before everything went dark. If he could wake up, it would be one of those dreams where your eyes shoot open at the end, the breath pressed in a rush out of your chest.

He dreams the most about Gale.

Gale’s smile, his laughter, his voice. He dreams about pulling into their driveway and seeing Gale through the window, dancing with the dog. He dreams about Gale throwing the bouquet at their wedding, grinning in exasperation as he covers his eyes. He dreams about Gale looking over at him as they fly their plane out over the water. He dreams about Gale handing him coffee in the morning when they’re both only half dressed and half dead to the world.

And he dreams about Gale, his face worried, looking down at him with tears in his eyes. He looks scared, and Bucky doesn’t even know why. He wants to know why. Needs to know why so he can make it go away. He wants to reach out, to say something, anything to make it go away, whatever it is. He wants to brush Gale’s messy hair back away from his face and hold his hand against his cheek and tell him that everything is alright. He wants to take away all of the pain.

But he can’t.

He can’t move a muscle.

—

“Rosie? Are you awake?”

Curt lays in his hammock in the middle of the Starship cabin, looking out the window at the star-filled sky beyond. He is the epitome of alone. The moon is not a different planet, it’s just a moon. One lonely moon orbiting the little miracle that is planet Earth. But the moon itself is 2,160 miles wide at its equator. It is 6,786 miles in circumference. A vast expanse of dust and rubble marked by impact basins billions of years old. 260 degrees Fahrenheit in full sun and -280 in the darkness. Nothing about this place is welcoming. An astronaut’s Everest. And yet it is peaceful in the strangest of ways.

Empty. Imposing. Beautiful.

Lifeless.

Except for him.

Scattered across the lunar surface are the remnants of the few voyages half a century ago that dared to step foot on this alien terrain. A flag here. A camera there. Another era. Another age. The same dream.

And even still, Curt is but an invisible, lonely speck at the southern pole, existing along a boundary of dark and light that parallels this strange liminal limbo of life vs. death. Just him and the stars and a world that wants to kill him with every heartbeat, nothing but a fancy tin can separating him from an end that would claim him in a single breath.

He supposes that being alone, the only conscious human being on an entire planet, would make most people feel lonely. It doesn’t, though. He doesn’t feel lonely up here. It’s not the being alone, really, that has lodged this tense, shuddering ball of anxiety in his chest. It’s the fact that he isn’t. The fact that there is someone else beside him fighting for breath, and he doesn’t have a say in whether or not that breath is drawn.

He doesn’t expect an answer when he reaches out into the radio silence. He doesn’t know what time it is, but Helen’s been on shift for a while now, so he’d guess around 12am GMT. He’s surprised when there’s a soft crackle on the other side of the radio transmission, and Rosie says, “Yeah, Curt. I’m awake. So’s Alex.”

Curt throws his legs over the side of the hammock and climbs out, turns the music back on – Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day – because he can’t stand the silence all around him. Maybe it’s the quiet that makes it hard to sleep. The quiet that’s too loud. Or maybe it’s the loudness inside his head that keeps him up. He wishes he could turn down the volume on his own thoughts, turn those off instead. He feels crazy. Like maybe this is all just a weird fever dream. But he’s experiencing all of it in frightening technicolor, and even though he doesn’t feel lonely, he is so, so alone.

I walk a lonely road, the only one that I have ever known.

He wanders over to Bucky, who is laying still and quiet on his cot. He opened his eyes for just a moment sometime after that seizure, when Curt had to adjust the IV in his arm and accidentally let it tug at the sensitive skin. But not again since.

“What are the odds of another seizure?” Curt asks now.

Rosie is quiet. Curt can imagine him rubbing the back of his neck as he thinks about what to say and how best to say it. How to let Curt down gently.

My shallow heart’s the only thing that’s beating.

Curt strokes a wayward curl away from Bucky’s forehead, hating the way Bucky feels clammy beneath his touch. Then he rifles through their med bay supplies while he waits, looking through the medications they have packed away.

“I don’t know, Curt,” Rosie finally says before going into what Curt calls his doctor voice. “Sometimes, traumatic brain injuries can cause seizures. It just… happens. It doesn’t mean he’ll have another. It doesn’t mean he won’t. Since it’s only been a day or two, it was an early seizure. They’re less likely to indicate long-term epilepsy. If he has another, the odds of him developing epilepsy increase. If he has one over a week from now, it’s almost guaranteed.”

He sighs. “So, I don’t know. All we can do is take this one step at a time.”

Curt looks over at Bucky again, at the bandage around his head, the splint on his leg, the shallow rise and fall of his chest. He thinks about how unfair it is that Bucky has to rely on him to keep him alive. Curt took the same medical training as all the other non-physician astronauts, but he’d hardly trust a single one of them, much less himself, in this type of emergency.

It’s not fair.

“I wish you were here Rosie,” he confides. He hates the way his voice sounds thick and strained. “I don’t… I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.”

“You’re doing great, Curt. Really.”

Curt frowns, takes a deep breath. He looks down at his hands and shuffles through the medications he has available once again, skimming over their names. The lead weight in his chest rests heavy on his lungs when his fears are confirmed: the one he’s looking for isn’t there.

Curt: “Rosie?”

Rosie: “I’m still here.”

Curt: “We had anti-seizure medication on ISS. I’m not seeing it here.”

Silence.

Rosie: “I advocated for it to be included on Artemis. It was a whole debate. You’ll have to ask Houston.”

Curt doesn’t like the sound of that at all. Another score for NASA’s backpack problem: medications. They have a far lower mass restriction and far less storage capacity on Orion and Starship than they do on the station, and therefore they could bring far fewer supplies. Rosie was involved in the task force that determined which medical supplies were necessary for a lunar exploration mission, but he was only one person among many. And many of the others had never even been to space. In the end, did anyone really think an astronaut was likely to have a seizure during a mission that lasts only a month or less?

Curt rubs a hand over his face, dreading the answer.

Curt: “Helen?”

Helen: “Working on it.”

They wait, Curt fidgeting impatiently, his frustration building up again.

Far From Here by Marianas Trench is playing in the background. It feels alright but that’s a lie that’s always near, sit around and blame the one that put you here.

Helen: “We do not have anti-seizure medication on board Orion or Starship.” She sighs, and she sounds like she hates to be telling them this. “It was decided that a seizure was not a likely complication on a short-term lunar sortie.”

Bingo.

Rosie: “Fuck.”

A disbelieving laugh pops out of Curt’s mouth. He can’t help it. Because what the fuck?

Helen: “I’m sorry, Curt.”

Curt: “So… if he has another seizure. If he keeps havin’ seizures. We can’t do anything?”

Rosie: “No.”

Curt: “That’s… that’s… Yikes.” Curt laughs again, shaking his head. “That’s a fuckin’ yikes.”

His mouth twists into a sour, resentful smile as he holds an arrangement of fucking useless medications in his hands. His laugh turns from shocked to bitter as he lets the meds tumble carelessly back into their storage box, and he runs a hand through his hair. He hasn’t slept in… he doesn’t know how long. The flight surgeon probably knows, but Curt doesn’t give a damn. He’s felt this feeling of dread weighing him down ever since that seizure.

And now he’s told that it’s something that could happen again. Could happen multiple times. And if it does, he can do nothing. All he can do is hold Bucky down, make sure he doesn’t choke, and hope for the fucking best.

Laughter just keeps bubbling up out of his chest in an angry, sordid, deranged sort of noise.

Helen: “Curt? Are you okay?”

Curt shakes his head, rubbing his eyes. He can’t stop laughing.

“Yikes,” he says again. “Yikes yikes yikes yikes yikes.” He claps his hands together as he says it, and he leans over, hands on his knees. Slowly, he eases himself to the floor, so he’s sitting with his head leaning back against the cot. He presses his fingers to his mouth and chuckles into his hand. “Fuckin’ yikes, guys.”

Helen: “Curt?”

He doesn’t care what Mission Control has to say. This whole situation is a mess. A mess that could’ve been avoided, even if it couldn’t have been planned for. He’s exhausted, he’s angry, and this is absurd.

Helen: “Curt, do you copy?”

Curt: “What the fuck? What the fuck NASA? What the fuck!”

—

Nassau Bay, TX

Gale hasn’t checked his email since before John’s accident. He knows it will be filled with “thoughts and prayers” and questions from the media even though they know they should be contacting Marge. He knows reading a single email with the words “We’re praying for you and John” or “What does this mean for the Artemis program” will be enough to make him scream and throw his laptop across the room. And anything else, any other email about literally anything else, he can’t think about right now. Because he still can’t accept the fact that the world continues to turn.

Anyone who really needs him has his number. And anyone else can cut him some damn slack.

He managed a few hours of sleep after his home emptied out last night and left him alone again. Except for Marge, who has, without asking, taken up residence in his guest room until further notice to make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid or generally stop breathing since he can’t seem to remember to do that on his own.

He didn’t manage to fall asleep until around 11pm, and his eyes shot open again, jostling him out of a nightmare he can’t remember, at 2am. Vague visions of a mangled body, a casket, the expression of pain stretched uncomfortably across his husband’s face flashing in his mind. Bucky’s pained scream in his ears. Or was that him?

He’s sleeping in the living room again, on the couch that he’s nearly too tall to fit on. He tried to go back into the bedroom, but he couldn’t. The bed is too big, the blankets not warm enough, the memories too painful even as they drift away. He tried to sleep again, too, he really did. He tossed and turned and squeezed his eyes closed and tried to remember to breathe. In, out, in, out… in. in. in. in. out.

He buried his nose into the pillow case that mercifully still smells like John. He thought about their wedding, about strong arms wrapping around him, a soft smile, gentle lips, bright eyes crinkled at the corners with all the joy that John carries through their life.

But he couldn’t do it. He’s exhausted, and yet he feels wide awake. He wonders if he’ll ever sleep again. If he’ll carry on like this, plagued by a nightmare he can’t navigate his way out of, or if one day his body will simply collapse under the weight of this grief that he can’t control.

It’s all too much.

So he turns on the light, grabs his laptop off the coffee table, and he opens his email for the first time in over two days. He stares at his inbox numbly, and he presses his wedding ring to his lips as he fights the urge to slam the laptop closed again. He scrolls through uncountable messages, deleting most of them on the spot regardless of who they’re from or what they want. There’s one, though, from yesterday afternoon, that stops him cold.

When he sees the sender’s name, he does slam the laptop closed. His heart rate skyrockets, his whole body going stiff. He looks around the room at just how alone he is. It’s dark outside. Marge is asleep. Benny is on shift. The dogs, even, are asleep.

He takes a deep breath and squeezes his eyes shut before slowly opening the laptop again. With shaking fingers, he clicks on the email.

Gale,

I know these may be hard to look at right now, but I do hope, if you choose to let them, they can make you smile.

I’m thinking of you, and I pray that John makes it home.

XO.

His fingers are trembling so bad that he can barely click the link at the bottom of the email. But he swallows thickly and fights to breathe, blinking the tears out of his eyes when the page opens.

Their wedding photos.

It feels so long ago now, the way Gale struggles to remember parts of it. Like his mind simply won’t allow him to find comfort in the memories of the best day of his life.

How has it only been a month, and already the world threatens to take his husband away from him? He feels sick. Sick at the thought that this life can be so cruel. Wondering what he did to deserve this. He feels sick at the memory of the day he proposed. The very reason that drove him to spit out the words he’d been kicking around for years already.

We should get married, he said, all that time ago. We should get married, he said, terrified that something would happen. If they were bound by law rather than just by name, he would get a say in John’s fate, should John have no say himself. He would get a key to the room where NASA keeps their secrets from the world, even if he got himself booted from Mission Control. He would be guaranteed a place at the table of John’s life if his life came under threat somewhere up there, too far away.

We should get married, he said, praying to God that nothing would happen.

But here they are. Something’s happened.

You knew the risks, he thinks to himself, biting down too hard on his lower lip.

You always knew the damn risks. You knew the risks of space travel. And you knew the risks of John Egan. Don’t act for a second like you didn’t.

He wouldn’t trade it, though. He wouldn’t change a thing. If he could go back a thousand times, he would still attach himself at the hip to John fucking Egan. He would still fall for that smile and that laugh and those wild curls. He would still follow him to the ends of the Earth. He would marry him a million times over. No matter how it ends.

He blinks rapidly as he stares at the computer screen.

The cover photo is the one taken right after their kiss. Gale, in bright white, is leaning back in John’s arms, laughing in a way that makes his nose scrunch and his cheeks turn pink. John, in his black tux, is grinning from ear to ear as he holds Gale by the waist, eyes locked on his new husband. Pepper and Meatball are at their feet, Pepper standing with her front paws on Gale’s thigh, wanting to join in, as Curt tries to keep Meatball from knocking John over.

God, did he ever feel that happy? It seems too far away now.

He hovers his mouse over the button to enter the gallery, but the thought makes his head spin and he can’t bring himself to do it. He glances around again at the empty, lonely room. He’s never had so much trouble with being alone before. Now it makes nausea rise up in his stomach, makes a fearful feeling settle over him, He rubs a hand over his eyes and picks up the laptop, padding quietly down the hall.

He hesitates outside the door, one hand holding the laptop and the other raised to knock. He feels like a little kid who can’t sleep, going to his parents because he had a nightmare. He only made that mistake once or twice, quickly learning that all he could expect was his father yelling at him to get back in bed.

Maybe he shouldn’t.

None of them are getting much sleep right now; it’s not just him. If Marge is asleep, he shouldn’t wake her. She has no obligation to chase away the monsters under his bed.

He drops his fist and takes a step back, wincing when the corner of his laptop bumps quietly against the wall behind him. He’s a grown man. If he can’t sleep, that’s his problem. If he feels like his chest is too tight and he can’t breathe and his hands are shaking and his head is spinning just because he got back the wedding photos he paid for… well, that’s his problem, too.

But it’s Marge. Marge, who has always been there for him. Marge, who let him hide in her bedroom when they were just kids because he was too afraid to go home. Marge, who would hold him close and try to make him laugh and tell him everything would be alright even when they were both too young to know. Marge, who has gone out of her way for 20 plus years to make sure he knows he is never, ever alone.

He steps forward again and raises his hand to knock. Lays his hand flat against the door instead. Takes a deep breath. Closes his eyes.

No. No. She deserves to sleep. He shouldn’t worry her. He should-

“Gale?” Marge asks softly. “I know you’re out there, darling. Don’t act like you’re not.”

Warily, Gale opens the door, unsure if he feels guilty that he woke Marge or relieved that she woke up before he could talk himself out of it. He stands in the doorway, unsure of why exactly he came here, what he’s supposed to do now, what he expects her to do. But Marge sits up and turns on the bedside lamp. She takes one look at Gale’s face, and she frowns before forcing a weak smile. “Come here,” she says.

He walks further into the room to sit down on the bed. He hears paws click-clacking down the hall, and Pepper wanders in, followed by Meatball. Marge urges him to scoot back to lean against the headboard next to her, and the dogs hop up onto the foot of the bed. Meatball crawls up to rest his head on Gale’s leg. Pepper whines quietly as she watches him, forlorn. Meatball is familiar with them leaving. Buck, Bucky, Benny. They’ve all been on the station for months at a time. Pepper, though. Pepper’s just a baby, really. She’s only been part of their family for a matter of months. This is strange, for her, having one of her dads gone for so long. She knows something is wrong, but she doesn’t know why he isn’t coming home.

Gale’s heart breaks that little bit more every time she stares at him with those sad, confused eyes.

Marge presses herself against Gale’s side and leans her head on his shoulder. “Couldn’t sleep?”

Gale shakes his head. “It’s not…” he sighs. “It’s not fair.” And damn does he feel like a whiny child. But it’s not. It’s not fair.

He opens his laptop again and turns it back on, handing it over to Marge. She looks at the screen. “Your wedding photos.”

“Mmm.”

“Have you looked at them?”

Gale bites nervously at his thumbnail and shakes his head.

“Do you want to?” Marge asks. They’re both just staring at the screen, at the beautiful, beautiful photograph inviting them to look at the rest.

Gale’s breath stutters before he says “I don’t know.”

“Can I…?”

He hesitates. Then he nods.

Marge raises an eyebrow in question, but she clicks the button. When the page loads, the screen is filled with a gallery of vibrant, fairy-tale-esque photographs that make Marge gasp. Gale holds his breath.

“These are gorgeous,” Marge says. “Look at you!” The first set of photos are of Gale and his attendants getting ready in the bridal suite. Bright whites and navy blues. Sunlight streaming through the windows. Gale looking at himself in the mirror, running a hand through his hair or nervously adjusting the sleeves of his tux. The girls with their perfect flower bouquets. Gale and Marge sharing a moment in front of the mirror. His attendants raising a glass to him as he smiles, ready to marry the love of his life.

There are photos of the groomsmen going on a wild goose chase, sprinting down the hall after Pepper when she stole the rings. A picture of Marge stepping out of the bridal suite and looking horrified. A picture of Brady tackling Pepper in a heap on the floor, the others trailing breathlessly behind them.

Then there’s photos of the groom’s suite. “Oh, look at John,” Marge sighs, a soft smile on her face as they reach the first row of pictures of him. But when she looks at Gale, his brow is wrinkled as he bites at his lower lip.

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “No.”

He can’t do it. He can’t sit here and look at these. Not now.

Marge puts her hand on his. “Okay,” she says. “It’s okay. We don’t have to.”

“I can’t.” Tears are welling up at the corners of his eyes, his whole body still and on guard for the next thing that tries to tear out his heart.

Marge closes the laptop and sets it on the bedside table, and then she pulls him into a tight side hug. “It’s alright, honey.”

“I can’t,” he says again, choking on the breath that won’t fill his lungs. Can’t what, he doesn’t know. But he can’t.

“Just breathe, Gale. You don’t have to. You don’t have to.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, hating the way his throat feels tight, the shakiness of his voice. He’s so tired of crying. He’s so tired of trying not to cry. He’s so tired. He’s shaking so bad. He can’t stop.

“Breathe, honey,” Marge says, stroking his hair. “In and out. Come on.”

Gale tries to match his breathing to hers as she guides him gently through it, but he keeps choking on air, rogue sobs breaking through and wracking his bones.

Marge shushes him and holds him close. She’s been holding him up for the last two days. Listening to him fight against his own emotions, on the constant verge of breaking down, toeing the line until he can no longer stop himself from tipping over. As if he thinks he isn’t allowed to feel these things. As if he thinks feeling them is a last resort that he’s being continually driven to, every loss of control a mark of some sort of failure that no one else can see.

“You shouldn’t hold it all in, Gale,” she tells him. He thinks about the fact that he fell apart in her arms that first night after the accident, in front of the TV with Maggie’s drawing in his hands. And he crumbled in her arms yesterday, after the seizure. She continually pulls him back from some sort of edge, keeping the pieces of him held together with scotch tape and a determined kind of love. Isn’t that enough?

As if she can read his mind, she says, “It doesn’t matter how much you think you’re allowed to hurt. You need to let yourself feel all of it, hon. You can’t hold it in forever.”

But it hurts so much. It hurts just as much to let it out as it does to hold it in. He presses the ring to his lips and bites at his knuckle until it hurts and now that he’s crying again he can’t fucking stop. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever stop. He can’t breathe. Doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to breathe again.

But John needs him to keep breathing. He has to keep breathing. He has no choice.

Marge holds him and rocks him and presses her lips to his hair. She doesn’t let go even when it feels like they’ve been wrapped up like this forever. But finally, he settles again.

“I’ll have to look at them eventually,” he mumbles, sniffing quietly as he feels tears drying on his face. “I… I wish I could…”

“It’s alright,” Marge says again. “Maybe tomorrow.”

Maybe tomorrow, things will be better.

John has been unconscious for 2 days. 48 hours. 2,880 minutes. 172,800 seconds. It feels like so much longer.

172,800 seconds that Gale hasn’t felt whole.

But.

Maybe tomorrow.

—

Benny looks at the list of songs he’s been provided. Among them, So Far Away by Avenged Sevenfold, What a Catch Donnie by Fall Out Boy, Gun Dogs by TOVA, Therapy by All Time Low, Before You Go by Lewis Capaldi, PIECES by Daughtry, Miserable at Best by Mayday Parade.

Now Buck by nothing, nowhere.

“I’m not okay, I’m not alright, I need a break, I need a light,” Curt is singing. “I gotta keep it a buck, keep it a buck.”

The singing has become increasingly angry over the last couple of hours. Helen warned him that Curt was getting agitated.

“Buck, Curt, really?” Benny asks.

“Didn’t really think of it like that,” Curt admits before he continues on. Feel like this every day, shit kinda suck.

“Curt, we’d really like you to get some sleep.” Benny runs a hand through his hair, fighting back his own yawn. Smokey has been relentless in pointing out that Curt has basically not slept in 48 hours, and the effects are becoming obvious. “We’re concerned-”

“Oh you’re concerned, are you?” Curt scoffs.

“Yes, Curt. You need to sleep.”

Curt changes the song to Fuck You by Lily Allen and lets it play for a while before turning off his coms without another word.

—

Curt kneels next to Bucky’s cot, resting his forehead on the thin mattress. He squeezes his eyes shut against the dizzy feeling in his head and tries to catch his breath.

He knows Benny is right. He needs to sleep. He’s driving himself crazy up here. He has half a mind to turn his coms back on and apologize to him, but he’s just so goddamn angry. Not at Benny. Just at NASA. Just at the world. Just at everyone who gave Bucky shit and hoped he’d die up here. Just at himself.

Not your fault, he tries to remind himself. Not your fault.

He pulls himself to his feet and walks back over to the console, picks up his tablet. Having a playlist running through his head and assaulting his ears at all times is what’s keeping Curt from thinking about his situation on a constant loop. It’s the only thing keeping him from crumbling to pieces. But he can’t think at all. He feels all sorts of mixed up, like he’s somewhere between tipsy and a panic attack but not quite veering towards either one.

Chasing Cars is playing. If I lay here, If I just lay here, would you lie with me and just forget the world.

For once, he needs the quiet. He turns off the music. He turns on his coms.

“What if he dies in my sleep?” he asks. It makes sense and yet it doesn’t, and his head feels fuzzy, everything coming at him just a little too slow and a little too fast all at once.

“He won’t,” Benny says.

“You’ll wake me up if anything changes?”

“Yes.”

Curt knows, if nothing else, he can take Benny at his word. “Fine.”

He ensures he isn’t on VOX but keeps his coms on just in case. He looks over at Bucky, and for a second he’s unable to look away. He can see the rise and fall of his chest, knows his heart is still beating. He knows his friend is somewhere in there.

“Stay alive for me, okay?”

—

He wakes two hours later to a master alarm and just about falls out of his hammock, tumbling to the floor on his hands and knees. He feels around for the push to talk button on his coms. “Benny?”

The alarm turns off. Curt slowly rises to his feet, glancing around the dark cabin in terrified confusion.

Benny: “Sorry Curt. You weren’t waking up to our transmissions.”

Curt: “So you decided to give me a heart attack?”

Benny: “Worked, didn’t it?”

Curt: “Fuck you.”

Benny: “We think he’s awake.”

Curt freezes, trying to comprehend that statement.

Benny: “Can you check?”

Curt isn’t sure if he responds, maybe giving some sort of noncommittal noise of acknowledgement as he fumbles around to get the cabin lights turned on. He approaches Bucky’s cot slowly.

“Bucky?” he says, almost scared to look. But he stands over the cot and grips the edge of the mattress between white-knuckled fingers.

Bucky is looking at him. His breathing is irregular, eyes wide. His fingers twitch.

“Eyes open, Benny,” Curt says.

Rosie must have woken up, too, because his groggy voice comes over the coms in response. “Heart rate?”

“Elevated,” Benny replies. “He seems to be under stress.”

No fucking shit, Curt thinks. He realizes he’s still white-knuckling the cot.

Rosie: “Try talking to him, Curt.”

Usually, when he talks to Bucky, he keeps his coms off, feeling that NASA – the whole world – doesn’t deserve to listen in. But now he knows they need to hear. He switches his coms to VOX.

Curt: “Hey, Bucky. It’s, uh, it’s about 9am GMT, up here on the moon. November 21st. Surface Mission day six. 4am Houston time.”

He doesn’t know what the hell he’s supposed to say. He’s been talking to Bucky offhand over the past day or so, but suddenly he feels all out of conversation starters. He sighs and takes Bucky’s hand in his own, nodding at the fact that it feels warm.

Rosie: “Keep going, Curt.”

Curt rubs his thumb over Bucky’s knuckles. He looks at Bucky’s wide blue eyes. Wonders what they see. He forces himself to smile.

Curt: “You scared the shit out of us yesterday. God, John. Not cool. If you could, like, not do that again, that would be great. We all took it pretty hard… Buck took it pretty hard. Don’t worry too much about him, though. We’re all worried about him. That’s for damn sure. But he has a family down there. He has Marge, and Benny, and Pepper and Meatball. Harding, Dr. Huston, Croz. We’ve got eyes on your boy, don’t worry. They’re tryin’ their best to take care of him while you’re gone.”

Benny: “Heart rate is stabilizing. It’s working, Curt.”

Curt: “Our uh… our plants are doin’ good, too. I haven’t checked on them or nothin’ – they got me locked up in here lookin’ after your ass. But they’re growin’. We’re growin’ plants on the moon. If you wake up, I might even get to go harvest some of them before we go. But… well, it’s alright if I can’t.” His throat is starting to feel tight, and it’s getting harder to keep his voice steady. He takes a shaky breath.

Curt: “It’s alright if you need… All that matters... Fuck. You just keep pushing through, alright? Just… yeah. Whatever you need to do, Bucky. It’s alright. You do whatever you need to do. I-I’m here. I’m here.”

Suddenly Curt can’t keep the tears out of his eyes and he reaches his free hand up to wipe at them. “I’m here,” he whispers.

When he drops his hand again, though, he notices the way Bucky’s eyes flick down, tracking the movement. Curt raises his hand, and Bucky’s eyes follow slowly.

Curt: “He’s uh… he’s tracking my hand motion?”

Rosie: “That’s good, Curt. How’s his motor response?”

Curt cocks his head. “Sorry I have to do this,” he mutters to Bucky. Then he presses down hard on the nail bed of Bucky’s middle finger. Bucky twitches, pulling his hand backwards the littlest bit. A small grunting noise grates its way out of his chest. Curt repeats with Bucky’s forefinger and gets the same result.

Curt: “Responsive to pain. He flinched away and kinda grunted a bit.”

Rosie: “Try asking him to squeeze your hand.”

Curt takes Bucky’s hand in his again. “Can you squeeze my hand?”

Nothing.

Curt: “Go on. Think about all those times you’ve wanted to sock me in the face and put it into this, okay? Squeeze my hand.”

Nothing.

Curt: “Not responsive.”

Benny: “That’s alright. This is good. This is progress.”

Rosie: “How are his vitals?”

Benny: “Staying stable.”

Curt didn’t have a chance to turn any music on after Mission Control scared him awake. The silence filling the cabin feels so loud, and it weighs on Curt, but he lets it wash over him. He stands there watching Bucky until his eyes close again. But he wonders if he imagines the feeling of Bucky’s hand ever so lightly squeezing his own.

—

Within Gale’s first hour of Red Shift, Bucky starts seizing again. He feels like his own heart has stopped, his own lungs, his own muscles. His own nervous system is shot as he listens to Dr. Huston count the seconds. Ten. Twenty.

“Just hold him steady, Curt,” Gale says. Because it doesn’t matter how he feels. He has a job to do, and his job is to keep this crew alive. His job is to work them through this. His job is to be okay even when nothing is okay.

It doesn’t matter that he wants to jump right off the face of the Earth at the mere prospect of John not coming home. He can do that on his free time, if Marge will take her eyes off him for more than ten seconds (she won’t). Sometimes, though, in the last 24 hours, he’s wondered to himself if it would be worse for John not to come home, or for him to come home in a body that will never again do what he wants it to do. If it’s between death, and living a life that is so limited compared to the way Bucky Egan has always thrown himself at the world, what would he choose? If he was given the choice.

A second seizure. Dr. Huston warned Gale that if John had another seizure, it may not stop at two, or three, or four. It may not stop, ever. Not to mention the fact that the longer he takes to regain full consciousness, the more likely it is that there will be more damage than they can even anticipate. He warned Gale that, while they are seeing promising signs of him waking up, there are plenty of cases where a patient never recovers past this minimally conscious state. Open eyes and a pain response bring hope, but not enough to stand on.

He’s trying to prepare Gale.

No longer is he preparing him for the potential of Bucky not returning home. Instead, he’s preparing him for the potential that if he comes home, he may never be the same John Egan that he was.

Gale will love him anyway. He will never stop loving him. Bucky could push him away, spit in his face, shove him off the face of the Earth himself. It doesn’t matter. Gale is incapable of not loving him.

So if he comes home, he’ll take what he can get. He won’t complain. He won’t wish for better or for more. He will hold John together himself if he has to. He will pick up the pieces no matter how badly his own hands shake. He will grieve the loss of who John was before, but then he will wrap his arms around his husband and cry into his shoulder, and he will have to be dragged away if anyone ever tells him he has to let go.

It’s not himself that he’s worried about. He will love his husband in any shape or form.

Today, he’s grieving more for the pain that John will feel if he comes home and can no longer live the life he’s spent his whole life chasing. No one knows what that will look like.

Gale worries that, at minimum, it’ll mean no more flying. And for John, no more flying is like no more breathing. He needs to be up in a plane or on a spacecraft in the same way that he needs oxygen in his lungs, iron in his blood, Gale in his arms.

Gale is still grasping at the wispy tendrils of hope that dare to believe that John will wake up, but simple consciousness is a far cry from the whirlwind that is John.

If he surpasses minimal consciousness, if he wakes up and walks and talks on his own, it’s still not a guarantee. If his leg doesn’t heal right, he may never be cleared to fly. If the seizures don’t stop, he will not be cleared to fly. If he has lasting impairment to any part of his brain or his nervous system or his body, he will not be cleared to fly. And even if he walks away with none of that, if he develops any post-traumatic stress, he will not be cleared to fly.

And if he walks away with none of that, it will be nothing short of a miracle.

Gale isn’t so naive as to believe that he alone will ever be enough of a reason for John Egan. He knows his husband. He knows Bucky’s restless soul, never satisfied to sit by while the world turns around him. He knows Bucky was not born to keep his feet on the ground, because Gale wasn’t either.

So if Bucky did have a choice, what would he choose?

Thirty. Forty.

It doesn’t matter. None of them have a choice. Gale is going to bring his husband home if it fucking kills him. So when Curt tells him that Bucky is seizing, he works him through it. He keeps his voice as measured as he can even when he feels the way his heart is fighting not to tear away the stitches that keep trying to mend it back together. He presses his wedding ring to his lips and forces himself to breathe, and he works through it.

Fifty.

Sixty.

Gale: “You’re doing alright, Curt. You’re doing alright.”

Curt: “He won’t stop.”

Gale hears the panic rising in Curt’s voice. The very reason he can’t afford to panic himself. Curt’s on VOX so he doesn’t have to worry about turning his coms on and off while his hands are busy keeping Bucky in place, and in Mission Control they can faintly hear See You Again playing in the background. It’s been a long day without you my friend, and I’ll tell you all about it when I see you again. .

Gale: “It’s gonna be okay. It’s normal for a seizure to last a couple minutes.”

Curt: “Seizures are not fuckin’ normal, Buck.”

Gale: “You got me there.”

Curt: “How long has it been?”

Gale: “Seventy-two seconds.”

Curt: “Fuck.”

Gale: “Take a breath, Curt.” Ironic. Hypocritical.

Curt: “We don’t have anything stronger than water to drink up here, do we?”

Gale: “That’s a negative, Curt.”

Curt: “Double fuck.”

Gale: “I’ll buy you all the beers you want when you bring my husband home.”

Please. Bring him home. I don’t care if he’s different. I don’t care how hard our life could be. I don’t care. Just please.

Bring him home.

Curt: “Yes you fuckin’ will.” Gale barely has time to laugh and wonder if he should be laughing when Curt’s voice comes through again. “He stopped.”

Ninety.

Gale: “That’s ninety seconds.”

Curt: “Felt a hell of a lot longer.”

—

Curt wants nothing more than to collapse on the ground, his own body tense and sore from holding Bucky on the cot. But he doesn’t have that luxury. He sets to work settling Bucky into a more comfortable position. He cleans him up, checks his IV, checks his head wound, checks the splint on his leg. Check check check.

He’s shoving a spare pillow beneath Bucky’s foot in a pathetic attempt at elevation when he hears it. He stops, one hand on Bucky’s wrapped ankle and the other holding the pillow too tight. He wonders if he imagined it. But then he hears it again.

A weak, gravelly voice trying its damnedest to get his attention.

He looks up at Bucky’s face and finds those blue eyes staring back at him. He watches Bucky’s lips try to move, try to shove out whatever it is he needs to say. His eyes are wide, his brow scrunched in discomfort. Curt wonders how much pain he feels. How much fear. He wonders if any of this makes sense. If he remembers. If he sees Curt when he looks at him, or if Curt’s no more than a stranger.

Bucky’s fingers twitch where they’re curled limply against his lower belly. Then his wrist. His whole arm. Curt worries for a second that he might start seizing again. Bucky’s head jerks to the side the tiniest bit. He blinks, looks Curt right in the eye.

“Fuck.”

That Curt can make out, even if Bucky’s voice won’t quite work with his brain. He can’t stop the amused raise of his eyebrow, the way the corner of his mouth quirks up the littlest bit, the way his voice comes out as a relieved laugh. Because that’s John. That’s John fucking Egan.

“Yeah, bud,” Curt agrees. “Fuck.”

—

Gale is sitting on a chair in Marge’s office, waiting for her to finish kindly yelling at someone over the phone about waiting to release the planned magazine article about his and John’s wedding until the other groom is home safely.

“I don’t care what your deadline was. No. No. I’m talking, sir. I don’t care what your deadline was. How will it look to publish an article about their wedding when one of them is in critical condition? To publish that article while one of the grooms is grieving over his husband.” There’s a brief silence. “No. No sir, that is not a good look for you.”

Gale bites his lip against a laugh as he stares blankly down at his phone. Everything about him is exhausted. He feels like he can barely move or think. But at the same time, if he doesn’t occupy himself with something, he feels the anxiety rising up and up and up.

After the seizure, John had wanted to speak. He wasn’t quite there, but he tried. It made Gale’s heart do all sorts of weird things. John woke up two more times after that. Once, he stayed awake for almost 20 minutes and seemed alert, though agitated. Curt had to gently hold him down when he tried, albeit weakly, to lash out with his right arm, jostling the IV. His heart rate had spiked, his breathing irregular, and Curt noted that he looked “terrified.”

But once Curt started talking to him again, he started to calm down. He was able to blink on command and even weakly squeeze Curt’s hand when asked, but Curt couldn’t tell how aware he was.

He woke for the third time of the day just about an hour ago, managed to mutter the word “fuck” again, and passed out after just two minutes.

Gale rubs a hand over his eyes and bites his lip as he thinks about it. Thinks about his husband confused and in pain.

“Okay, sorry about that,” Marge says as she stands up from her desk chair, still typing something on her laptop. “I got them to hold it until we know John is home safe. Honestly, it’s better for them anyways. Then they can include something about the trials and tribulations of marriage, for better or for worse, whatever.”

She aggressively taps the send button on one last email and slams her laptop closed, looking up at Gale. He’s still staring down at his phone, chewing on his lip. “You’re gonna break skin again if you don’t stop that,” she warns him. By the time his shift was over, his lower lip was red and bloody from how much he’d worried it. But he just shrugs. He absently flexes his bad hand, letting the tight skin pull at the scabs over his knuckles, as if to drive home the point. I don’t care.

Marge walks around her desk and swats gently at his hand, a silent cut it out. Then she looks at his phone screen.

“You made it further.”

He’s still at the beginning of the photo set, hasn’t even made it to their first look, much less the ceremony or the reception. He’s been looking at this single photograph for what feels like hours, but really was only about half the time Marge was on that call. It’s a candid photo of John in the groom’s suite. He’s looking in the mirror, a nervous smile on his face as Rosie secures one of his cufflinks. That wayward curl is hanging over his forehead, his cheeks a little pink and his blue eyes wide as he looks at himself.

Gale wants to stroke his thumb over the photo, but knows that will only make the page scroll on, and he’s not ready to see another one yet.

“He was so nervous,” Marge chuckles. “Rosie told me he kept dropping the cufflinks because his hands were shaking so bad.”

“Really?” Gale asks. Bucky? Nervous? About marrying Gale.

He finally releases his lower lip and runs his tongue over it. He can taste blood.

Marge nods and puts a hand on his shoulder. “He loves you so much, Gale. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if, somehow, that alone brings him home.”

Gale squeezes his eyes shut and turns off his phone. He can see the photograph in his mind, and he wants to burn that image of John into his memory. When he opens his eyes, he looks up at Marge, and she offers her hand. He takes it and lets her lead him out to the car.

—

Jackie has closed the Hundred Proof for the night, kicking out any and all paying and non-paying customers who are not affiliated with the Artemis 3 mission, no matter how many scowls and curses it got her. It’s nearing 6pm, so it’s early to be closing a bar, but anyone who takes issue with it can kindly fuck off.

Tonight, the Hundred Proof is a gathering place for the weary NASA crew just trying to bring their men home. It’s an open bar. The TVs are pointedly tuned to anything but the news, which can’t get enough of John Egan and the fight for his life. Exhausted men and women gather around the pool table or the dart board or sit, huddled together, around tables, conversation levels varying from loud and boisterous to quiet and somber.

When Marge opens the door and Gale trails in behind her, he feels dizzy, on edge, but he follows Marge to a table, where Croz, Bubbles, and Sandra are already nursing beers. He nods to them, mutters something by way of greeting, and stands beside the table, his hand clutching the back of a chair. All around him are the people he works with every day. Much of Red Shift is already here. Some of Blue shift is filing in. People are talking and playing and drinking, snacking on bar food.

His eyes dart around the room as he tries to remind himself to breathe, locking on the smallest details. The sounds and the visuals assault his senses, overwhelming him. Too loud. Too bright.

A beer here, a cocktail there. A glass of wine.

The condensation on the outside of Croz’s beer can, drops of water rolling down the side onto the wood tabletop.

Clark taking aim with his pool cue, the sound of a clean break, heavy resin balls clacking against each other with a loud crack that rings in Gale’s ears.

The sound of laughter. The sound of silence. People sipping on their drinks.

One of the Blue Shift flight controllers that he doesn’t know all that well flirting with Jackie across the bar, leaning lazily on the bartop with a lazy grin, in the same way Bucky used to do to him in college, when he was still trying to convince Gale to go out with him.

Behind the bar, astronaut portraits arranged across the wall. Buck and Bucky. Bucky and Buck. Wide grins, American flags in the background, space helmets tucked under their arms. Side by side. Always side by side.

Gale feels bereft, missing a part of himself.

Music plays over the speakers. Elvis. A little less conversation and a little more action please…

Gale can remember Bucky obnoxiously singing that song when he wanted Gale’s attention, grabbing his hand and dropping to his knees like he was begging. Gale would roll his eyes and try to shake him off, but in the end, when Bucky got back to his feet, he’d pull Gale into his arms. And Gale would fall right into him. Again and again.

Gale is so tired. His mind is fuzzy and his heart is breaking and his phone weighs heavy in his pocket, taunting him with those wedding photos. It’s warm in here, and it’s noisy, and God he could use a fucking drink.

He hasn’t slept. He’s barely been eating. He’s living off coffee and granola bars and pure adrenaline and grief. He can’t think straight. There’s so many people everywhere and they’re laughing and they’re talking and he can’t imagine how that must feel.

Gale doesn’t drink. Everyone knows that. Some champagne on his wedding night. An occasional glass of wine. A sip from John’s cocktail. He comes to this bar and he drinks water or soda or some virgin thing Jackie concocts for him. The thought of drinking usually makes him feel sick.

It doesn’t make a lot of sense. Bucky gets drunk. Marge gets drunk. Benny gets drunk. And really he doesn’t give a damn. He’s never been worried a day in his life that Bucky would raise a hand against him. Bucky, like his father in so many ways. But not a thing like him in the ways that count.

But when it comes to Gale, himself? He can’t stand the idea. He can’t stand the idea that he could be just like his dad. He can’t stand the idea of losing control, of taking out his anger and misery on someone who doesn’t deserve it. But damn does he understand the need… he wishes he could get drunk, just so he didn’t have to feel like this anymore.

Gale Cleven has only been drunk a handful of times, and the truth is, he’s nothing like his father at all. Gale is a happy drunk, if anything. He’s affectionate. Bucky told him once that he was a cute drunk, and it made Gale blush even as he reprimanded himself for drinking in the first place.

One time in college, he woke up after a party only for his friends to present him with a notebook chock full of detailed sketches of a fighter jet. And not just any fighter jet, but one that didn’t exist. And not just any fighter jet that didn’t exist, but one that was physically and technically viable, complete with almost all necessary design specifications to build a sky-worthy aircraft.

Yep. Gale Cleven is the type of drunk that lays across his boyfriend’s lap with an engineering notebook and designs a whole-ass functional airplane that could very well be submitted to the Air Force for review.

Gale drinking is about the least dangerous thing in the whole world. But it doesn’t matter. The thought still makes him sick. And the screaming thoughts clanging around in his head are compounding on one another. The noise and the people and the need for a drink and the disgust at himself for wanting a drink and the sadness and the fear and the exhaustion and the lack of food and…

“Gale?”

There’s a hand on his arm.

“Gale?”

“Buck?”

“Take a breath, hon.”

Oh. Right.

Gale suddenly becomes aware that his chest is burning, his face hot. He wonders how long he’s been standing here, not breathing. Drawing oxygen into his lungs, he blinks and tries to come back into himself. Marge is staring at him with unfiltered concern. Croz, Bubbles, and Sandra are watching him. Benny is watching him. When had he gotten here?

He reaches a hand out to rest on Gale’s other shoulder, but Gale steps back, causing both Benny’s hand and Marge’s to drop limply away.

“You good?” Benny asks.

No. They all know he’s not good. But he could also be worse, at this point. He could be worse. Things could be worse.

So Gale nods.

“We don’t have to stay,” Marge tells him. “We can go home.”

Gale shakes his head, looking around at the flight controllers crowding the bar. Friends. The same people who were in his home last night. The same people he trusts, quite literally, with his life. He should be able to handle being here.

“Just…” he grits his teeth, flexes his bad hand, feeling the sting that’s fading but still undoubtedly there, grounding him. “Someone get me a soda so I don’t order something I’ll regret.”

Marge nods and heads off to the bar, and Gale finally takes a seat beside Croz. Only belatedly does he realize that Benny, who is about to trail after Marge, isn’t alone.

“You brought the dogs?” Gale asks. He means to laugh a little when he says it, but he just sounds tired.

“Yep,” Benny says.

“Are you allowed to do that?”

Benny looks down at the dogs and then over at the bar. “Jackie! Can I have Pepper and Meatball here?”

“Do they like beer?” Jackie asks.

Benny shrugs dramatically. “Why don’t you ask ‘em?”

“Don’t give my baby girl beer,” Gale warns him.

Jackie gives Benny a look, but rolls her eyes fondly. “Just don’t let them on the furniture.”

Benny smiles at Gale, eyebrow raised, and holds his hands out as if to say there we go.

Gale does laugh this time and shakes his head, reaching out to scratch Pepper’s ears, then Meatball’s when he inevitably shoves his way in between. “You two are lucky dogs, you know that?”

—

How Do I Live Without You is playing. How do I live without you? I want to know.

Curt is singing along dramatically, sliding his way around the cabin in his socks, using his glorified capri-sun of a water packet as a microphone. He slides over to Bucky’s cot and points at him, moving his shoulders in slow motion to the beat. How do I breathe without you, if you ever go?

Bucky’s eyes are closed, his breathing slow and shallow again. He hasn’t woken up again as long as Gale’s been off shift. Curt managed another hour of sleep here and there throughout the day and is feeling slightly less deranged, but only slightly. He’s still mad as hell, but got tired of being mad as hell. So he’s back to rocking out alone on the moon.

As the song comes to an end, he stops and stands at the end of Bucky’s cot, sipping at his water packet. “Gonna make me dance on my own, Bucky?”

Rosie: “Hey Curt, Alex has an idea.”

Curt jumps at the sound of Rosie’s voice. He’d forgotten he left his coms on VOX for the express reason of annoying Mission Control, so Rosie and Alex can also hear him if they bother to tune in.

Curt: “Oh yeah? What’s that?” He sips his water again, thinking about how it’s a lot more fun in zero gravity, when he can make the droplets float like bubbles.

Alex: “Play Can’t Help Falling In Love.”

Curt pauses mid-sip, the little straw pressed between his lips. He looks at Bucky’s face, soft in sleep, and thinks about how agitated he’s been every single time he’s woken up.

He thinks about Buck and Bucky, holding each other close alone on a dance floor, Gale beautiful in white. Bucky singing along, spinning Gale around before kissing him softly.

He wonders if that “uck” noise Bucky has been making was “fuck” after all.

—

Gale is leaning his hip against the side of the pool table, watching Sandra beat the shit out of Benny at eight ball, the dogs laying at his feet, when his phone rings. He sets his glass of coke down on the edge of the pool table. Marge has been checking in on him throughout the night and has continued to go to the bar for him any time he needs a refill so that he isn’t tempted to order anything stronger.

When he shoves his hand into his pants pocket to grab his phone, one of the bandaids across his knuckles rips off, causing him to grimace as a scab breaks free and specks of blood well up on the skin. He frowns when he sees the contact on his phone screen – Helen.

“Helen?” He says, pressing his phone to his ear with his right hand while he tries to re-stick the bandage across his knuckles with his left. He can’t keep the edge of panic from bleeding into his voice, and everyone around the pool table freezes. Sandra and Benny rest their cues on the floor, and Bubbles, Marge, and Croz stop laughing at whatever joke Croz had been telling. They’re all staring at him.

“Buck?” Helen doesn’t sound panicked. She doesn’t sound worried. She doesn’t sound sad. But the deep pit of anxiety doesn’t lift from Gale’s chest. “I need you to come back to Mission Control.”

“Why?” Gale worries his lip, ignoring Marge when she smacks him lightly on the shoulder in admonishment. With his left hand, he’s rubbing his thumb absently over the surface of the silver wedding band.

“Just come,” Helen insists. “Now.”

—

When he shows up at JSC, barging through the door of Mission Control, he’s not alone. Trailing behind him is Marge, Benny, and two huskies. Harding is there, standing next to the Flight Director, and he looks up in alarm when he notices the two dogs.

Gale is still in the same clothes he wore to work, slacks and a white button down. The top two buttons of his shirt are undone, the tie lost somewhere in Benny’s car after he couldn’t stop pulling at it in worry. His hair is a limp mess from running his hand through it all day, and he knows he has dark circles under his eyes from a lack of sleep and proper nutrition.

He knows he looks crazy.

He feels crazy. He’d been putting the pieces of himself back together ever so slowly tonight, trying his damn best to feel some semblance of normal, and Helen’s call had shattered all of that. His breathing is unreliable at best. His heart rate is erratic. His body is tense at the same time that he feels weak. And he can’t keep the threatening tremor out of his voice when he stares back at Harding and motions to the dogs.

“You told me to come immediately,” he says, even though Chick hadn’t said a word. He runs a hand through his hair again. “I was out. I was with Benny. I’m not allowed to go anywhere myself ‘cause they’re worried I’m gonna get in an accident or hurt myself or somethin’.”

Gale knows he looks just about distraught at this point. He’s losing energy. He’s so fucking tired. Tired of it all. “We had the damn dogs,” he concludes, motioning dramatically with his hand. This is, perhaps, the most animated anyone in this room has ever seen him. “So. Now I have the damn dogs.”

Harding blinks before raising his hands up in surrender. “Fine. A happy welcome to the damn dogs.” Then he points to Helen.

Gale turns on his heel and marches past a slew of startled flight controllers until he gets to the CAPCOM console.

Helen is smiling at him. Smiling.

Gale feels tears welling up and he doesn’t even know why yet. It’s all too much. Whatever it is, it’s too much. Today is too much. Marge, standing behind him, flicks him on the shoulder to remind him to breathe.

“He’s asking for you,” Helen says.

The whole world spins, the ringing in his ears fading in and out. He opens his mouth to say something, but he isn’t sure what.

Helen hands him a headset. “Curt put a comcap on him. He can’t really say anything yet, but he’s awake. He’s been saying your name. He got pretty agitated about it, really. We thought maybe you’d like to just talk to him, though. Let him know you’re here.”

Gale’s heart isn’t beating right. He takes the headset carefully, putting it over his ear. He looks at Benny and Marge behind him. At the dogs settling quietly on the floor at his feet. Pepper nudges at his left hand, as if she’s telling him to go on. As if she finally understands where John is and that Gale needs him.

“He needs his husband, Buck,” Helen says.

—

Bucky worries that he’s dreaming. He’s been thinking that a lot recently. Whatever recently is. He doesn’t know how long it’s been. Curt told him it’s surface mission day six. He doesn’t know if it’s still day six.

His leg is enough to make him want to close his eyes and go back to sleep. He’s in excruciating pain, and he can barely even make a sound to express that. He can’t tell anyone. He can’t formulate the words in his brain. He can’t make his lips move. He can’t make his throat work.

Pain. That’s all. Pain.

Curt’s here. Bucky isn’t alone. Curt said he’d be here.

He keeps talking about Gale.

Bucky wants Gale. He needs Gale.

“Hey darling.”

Bucky’s breath catches, making a weird choking, gurgling noise in his dry throat. He knows Curt is standing somewhere next to him, but he can’t quite turn his head enough to see. His head hurts.

“They tell me you’re awake up there. I’m not on shift now, it’s about 9pm here in Houston. So it’s 2am your time. But they thought maybe you’d like to hear my voice. Said you’ve been askin’ for me. So I’m here. With Marge and Benny. Even the dogs. You should’ve seen Harding’s face when I walked into Mission Control with a dog on either side.”

Pepper. Meatball. Pepper. Meatball.

“They miss you, you know. I miss you. I miss you so much, John.”

Don’t cry, angel. Don’t cry.

He can hear the tears in Gale’s voice, though. He thinks about Gale’s tendency to hold his breath when he’s upset. Breathe, baby. Breathe for me.

He hears Gale take a deep breath. Good.

“Y’know, I got our wedding photos back last night. I can’t bring myself to look at ‘em. Every time I reach the pictures of you in the groom’s suite, I just… I can’t. I don’t know if I should without you… But it’s alright. We’re, uh, we’re gonna get you home, okay, darlin’? You’re gonna be alright. It’ll be alright. You just gotta stick with us.”

Gale is drifting into his western drawl, the way he does when he lets his guard down. Bucky wants to reach out to him somehow. Reach across the moon and the stars, hold Gale close, tell him it’s all gonna be okay. Tell him not to be scared.

His lips move, but he can’t make the sounds.

Don’t be scared, angel. Just breathe. I’ll see you soon. I’ll see you soon.

“Please, John,” Gale whispers. “I love you. I love you to the moon and back. So just, make sure you come home.”

Bucky thinks he smiles. He feels like he is, but he doesn’t know if his mouth is doing the right thing. His eyes close. He can’t keep them open anymore.

And all of a sudden, he’s back to not knowing if he’s dreaming or not. The last thing he hears is Gale saying “I love you” over and over again, trying not to cry. But Bucky is drifting somewhere far away.

I love you, he thinks. I love you.

…

Part 14

#“fuck”#I love you to the moon and back #Gale “I’m fine” Cleven #spoiler: Gale is not fine #no one is fine #but they are doing their best #clegan astronaut au #clegan #mota #masters of the air #gale cleven #john egan #buck x bucky #bucky egan #buck cleven #clegan fic #mota fic #gale buck cleven #john bucky egan

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waterfire1848 · 25 days

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AU where instead of a war, there's a World Tournament where all Four Nations send their strongest benders to compete to be crowned champion. This year, Azula and Katara are old enough to compete.

Hello, @wingchunwaterbender !!!!

1. The World Tournament is a series of games and challenges against the four strongest benders in the world. It’s always a bit of a toss up as to who will win because sometimes the winner has a special trick up their sleeve (like the year a firebender was also a lightning bender) or they work smarter (like the year an earthbender used seismic sense to figure out what position everyone was getting in before they attacked), etc. Basically, it’s never set in stone as to what nation will win but the four competitors are always announced in the dead of winter because the tournament takes place year long (so as not to give firebenders or waterbenders an unfair advantage). This year the competitors are: Toph Beifong for earthbending (who might have fudged a little paperwork and said she was old enough to fight), some guy for airbending, Katara for waterbending, and Azula for firebending (making her to first of the royal family to go to the tournament).

2. Katara being chosen doesn’t sit right with the North Pole, seeing as how they think a man should be competing but Katara did prove herself as the best waterbending(having trained under the best masters in the south and north including Hama). She wants to win to show the North Pole that women can fight and to show the world that the South Pole matters since someone from the South Pole has never won. Azula entered the race to be picked in secret because there’s a good chance that competitors get seriously hurt or killed. She won (because of course she did) and her parents agreed to let her go. However, her father made a deal with her. If she wins then she doesn’t have to go into her arranged marriage but if she loses then she’ll go right into wedding planning when she returns. Needless to say, both really want to win.

3. The tournament consists of twenty different events and a tiebreaker if needed starting in winter and ending right before winter begins. The events are held in the Earth Kingdom. When Katara and Azula arrive, they arrive very differently. Katara comes in with her mom and brother but no one else. Azula arrives with the Fire Nation royal precession making Katara instantly assumes she’s some bratty princess. (Katara: How is she supposed to fight? Isn’t she worried she’ll break a finger nail. Sokka: At least you don’t have to worry about princess over there.). Azula and Katara don’t talk until after the first event when Azula grabs Katara’s leg with a fire whip and tosses her. Katara gets mad because she says it’s a fowl but Azula argues that it’s just a creative style of bending and it’s ruled that way by the referee. Katara and Azula’s rivalry begins then.

4. Azula and Katara start competing personally at every event. It gets so intense that people are making bets between the two of them as opposed to all four competitors. By spring, the airbender is eliminated. By summer, Toph is eliminated but with Toph being eliminated comes Azula being suspended because she burned Toph’s feet. Toph is unable to play but Azula’s maneuver was against the rules. Katara gains the ability to pulls ahead and win but the day after the incident, she hears Azula and Zuko arguing and Azula angrily yelling about how she’ll have to get married to some old guy now and live her life on some remote island as his wife and nothing more. Katara finds Azula later and talks to her. While Azula doesn’t want pity, Katara does give her some kindness and comfort which does make Azula feel a bit better. Katara agrees that she’ll leave the match open which basically means that both of them still have a good chance to win.

5. Katara and Azula continue competing and by the final event its neck and neck. Throughout this time, they’ve also grown closer and became good friends. The night before the final event, Katara kisses Azula which makes the following day very awkward because Katara doesn’t want to beat Azula and make her marry someone else and Azula doesn’t want to beat Katara and keep her from bringing respect to her nation and showing up the Northern Water Tribe. In the final event, Katara has the opportunity to win but as she’s doing it she finds that she can’t take the final shot and Azula wins. After the event, Azula tries to say that she should be the winner because she had the shot but Katara argues against her. Katara knows she brought respect to the South Pole by making it this far and showed up the North Pole’s sexism. She didn’t need the champion title. (Katara: Now that the games are over and you don’t have a wedding to get to, how about we head the South Pole for a few days? Azula: Excellent choice. I hear it’s the home of almost champion of the World Tournament Master Katara. Katara: 😊)

#ask #send me an au and I’ll write five headcanons for it #azula #katara #azutara #kazula #avatar the last airbender #atla #no war au

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nonsensicalramblings79 · 1 year

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The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and parallels in OFMD

2.7k word meta

If you haven’t read my other post about why I’m talking about albatrosses in the first place, read the first part of this and come back! All of this will make the most sense if you read all of the parts I’ve written – I’ve split them up for ease of reading, because holy shit this is long.

TWs: animal death, blood, eating animals, starvation, emotional abuse, physical abuse, gunshot injuries, suicidal ideation, canon-typical mental health problems

MAJOR OFMD SPOILERS THROUGH S2E03

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Let me start out by saying that yes, this is anachronistic – this poem wasn’t written until 1798. I also don’t care: Oluwande is wearing crocs, Stede’s “corpse” is crushed by a piano whose maker won’t exist until 1863, Blackbeard’s got his whole leather-daddy getup, Zheng Yi Sao won’t be born until 1775 – OFMD plays fast and loose with historical accuracy, and I am never going to dismiss an OFMD theory because the timeline doesn’t match up :P

Now that that’s out of the way, a little bit of background information. Long summary incoming.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a poem written by English poet Samuel Coleridge. The story is told through the words of the mariner, who has recently survived some horrifying ordeals, soon to be told to a poor unsuspecting stranger who just wants to attend a wedding. As the story goes, the mariner set out with his crew of 200-some-odd men, and everything’s going just peachy until some storms pick up and drive them toward the South Pole. Stranded and lost, the crew fear for their lives, until an albatross appears. At the same time that the albatross appears, the storms clear, the helmsman is able to make their way through the ice of the South Pole, and a southern wind picks up, pushing them back north. The albatross follows the ship, but the mariner believes that it is somehow responsible for the mists and fog that now surround the ship, so he shoots the bird with his crossbow. At that point, the fog and mists actually do clear up (by coincidence or otherwise) – and the crew praise the captain for taking down the bird.

But it’s a fickle crowd – soon the wind stops blowing, and the ship is becalmed; the crew blame the Mariner for killing the bird that had been their good luck. They sit in the middle of the ocean for days or weeks, dying of thirst. They cannot even speak, they’re so thirsty – but they make sure that the Mariner knows that he is to blame for this by tying the albatross’s body around his neck and forcing him to wear it like a grotesque necklace. Eventually, everyone on the ship except the Mariner dies (there’s a bit here about Death and Life-in-Death rolling dice to see who lives and who dies – the important part is that none of the crew survives).

Finally, the Mariner is left alone on his ship of corpses, which strangely do not smell or rot. He wishes he could die, but he doesn’t. During this time, he begins to appreciate what there is left to appreciate – the life around him in the ocean, in the air, “all things both great and small” – and the curse is lifted from him. The albatross detaches from around his neck and sinks into the ocean.

From this point on, the story goes about as you’d expect – the curse being lifted, the wind picks up again, setting the Mariner speeding back home (though, perhaps unexpectedly, his crew gets to come back as zombies for a short while to man the ship until it reaches land again, at which point they die again. RIP). As the ship is coming upon the Mariner’s homeland, it sinks like a rock to the bottom of the ocean – a hermit happens to see the Mariner floating out there and comes to pick him up, thinking he’s dead. When the Mariner opens his eyes, the hermit believes him to be the Devil himself (I mention this only because I think the wording of “Demon? I’m the fuckin’ Devil” lines up perfectly with this).

As penance for shooting the albatross (as if all of this so far wasn’t enough), the Mariner spends the rest of his days wandering the earth, telling his story and making random wedding-goers sad.

HOO BOY, that was a lot. (A whopper, one might say.) Thanks for sticking with me so far.

Now, some of the parallels between this poem and the events of OFMD are more neat and tidy than others are. The biggest parallel, obviously, is the link between the albatross and the “impossible birds” that Ed references in S2E01 – the entire reason I started reading this poem to begin with. The links between the show and the poem are not ones that I think the characters in the show (Ed) are consciously making. I think these allusions more reflect the themes and symbols that the writers and directors want us as the audience to pick up on. Therefore, the “impossible birds” conversation in canon is not talking about albatrosses in the sense that they are commonly referenced in literature, as the proverbial weight around one’s neck that represents guilt – but we can still talk about that symbolism outside of canon.

And talk about it I will.

For those of us who have watched the show, it probably goes without saying that Ed’s got a fair amount of guilt, shame, psychological trauma, etc. that he carries around with him. So if we’re going to invoke the albatross metaphor following S2E3, what specifically can we say is Ed’s “albatross?” There are a few candidates that immediately come to mind. It could be his guilt surrounding a) his father’s murder; b) Lucius’s attempted murder; c) the abusive, toxic relationship that he carried on with Izzy; or maybe even d) himself.

That last one is a little esoteric, so let me explain. Ed hates himself – aside from all the self-destructive tendencies as evidence, he admits it out loud in his dream with Hornigold in S2E03. I wonder if the albatross that is hanging around Blackbeard’s neck is Edward – the real Edward, the one that is more than just his fame, his terrifying persona, his violence-as-a-form-of-love tendencies – the Edward that Stede fell in love with. I wonder whether Ed’s guilt surrounds more than just how he’s hurt others, but how he feels he has killed a truer, better version of himself, and that he can never regain it. In line with The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, killing this “albatross” of a better Edward didn’t just kill him – it killed everyone around him as well. And now, after he has borne the blame of others for having gotten them into this situation, he is forced to wear…himself. The guilt that weighs him down is the knowledge that there is a version of him that was loved, that Stede loved, and in his eyes, he has killed that version of himself.

I want to take a moment to acknowledge a post (or several posts) that I saw several months back in relation to season 1. In these posts [Link1, Link2], smarter people than me drew a connection between a metaphorical albatross and the black cravat that Stede gives to Ed – and that Ed continues to wear until he and Stede change into their privateering academy garb. Something both of those posts touch on is how the cravat represents Stede, and I think that is completely true; however, I posit that the cravat represents the fact that Ed is lovable.

Something that’s been pointed out in the past 48 hours since these episodes dropped is that Ed is not wearing the cravat during the first parts of season 2. Only when he essentially decides to kill himself via storm do we see him once again wearing the cravat (the cravat is also noticeably absent from the purgatory dream sequence).

What exactly this means is still shaky to me – in my mind, Ed does canonically see the cravat as a reminder of his “real” self, and he puts it away and tries to hide it while he’s still…well, functioning is far too strong of a word, but at least not actively suicidal like we see at the end of episode 2. I think hearing Izzy supposedly shoot himself is what pushes Ed over the edge into being actively suicidal; perhaps at this point, some part of Ed is still hoping against hope that he can convince himself not to do it, to wait for Stede. Alternatively, it may be that if he dies here, he wants to take the idea of a “better him” with him.

In the sense of the cravat representing the albatross (meaning the cravat presence is not a choice of the characters, but of costume design), the cravat being missing during the batshit-insane-high-on-rhino-horn Kraken era may represent him not actually feeling the guilt of losing himself during this time. He may have actually convinced himself that a lovable version of himself never existed, and he’s living guilt-free. The guilt comes back when he hears Izzy shoot himself – he’s reminded that he caused this by killing a version of himself that Izzy trusted and even loved, in his own fucked-up way. From then on, the cravat is back on – the guilt is back, and it’s strong enough to induce the kamikaze-type rage we see in the storm.

(Important to note here that while I stand by this interpretation, I’m not sure how it fits with the fact that Ed is wearing the cravat just after the Krakening – the moment when he’s looking back on the island that he just abandoned the Revenge crew on in S1E10.)

I’m leaving this one for myself to come back to later on the off-chance I have some sort of epiphany.

Oh wow, you’re still here?? Probably time for a water break. Go on, the rest will be here when you get back. And there’s unfortunately quite a lot more that still needs to move from my brain to this Word doc.

Ready? Ok.

So that’s one possible interpretation of what Ed’s “albatross” is – I won’t spend time on other possibilities because what I’ve laid out here is the interpretation that I most strongly subscribe to. But all that is only really addressing one part of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Granted, it’s the most important part, symbolically, but there are some other parallels that I want to address that together convince me that the writers of OFMD are actually, specifically referencing this poem.

Obviously, there’s a parallel in that both the happenings of the poem and OFMD occur on actual, physical ships, captained by the man who ends up “shooting the albatross” and being rightfully blamed for it. Both of these ships suffer because of the dead albatross – physically, both ships are taken through devastating storms, and both ships are falling apart. The ship in the poem stops moving indefinitely because of a becalming (all wind and ocean currents stopped); the Revenge stops moving indefinitely because Ed removes the wheel. Both ships suffer casualties – in the poem, everyone dies, and on the Revenge, those crew members may be physically alive, but they are haunted by it. The poem makes note of the fact that the crew died of thirst – while this doesn’t seem to be a main concern on the Revenge, the show does show us, rather graphically, that they were beginning to starve, having to catch and eat raw seagulls to survive (note that dead birds are also a recurring theme in OFMD, leading me to believe even more that albatross references are intentional).

There’s an interesting pattern in the poem concerning dead people – specifically, how they don’t seem to be entirely dead at first. Firstly, the crew that die of thirst drop dead, one by one, on the deck of the Mariner’s ship. However, the poet notes that the bodies did not decompose or smell. Later, these bodies are resurrected by whatever sea spirit chooses to spare the Mariner’s life, using the bodies to man the ship and sail it back to shore. When they are done with this, they drop dead once more, staying on the ship as it sinks to the bottom of the ocean. When the hermit finds the Mariner floating in the ocean, he thinks him dead, before the Mariner’s eyes shoot open (similar to a certain someone at the end of S2E03).

In season 1, I can’t think of any instances wherein someone was presumed to be dead, but actually wasn’t, aside from Stede’s fuckery. However, this theme has come up at least 3 times in season 2 so far: Lucius being the obvious one, then Izzy, and finally Ed himself (and if I’m understanding correctly, Ed was actually, literally, cold-in-the-ground physically dead, not just “presumed dead.” This might be clarified in a future episode). That seems…intentional.

Side note: how long was Ed supposed to have been dead? Days? Didn’t anyone notice that he wasn’t, like, rotting? Especially when “the smell of rot” has been something that very consistently shows up in the show when it’s relevant (see: Lucius’s finger infection, Ed being able to smell Izzy through the walls of the ship).

One more thing: the last thing that the Mariner sees when leaving the shore, and the first thing he sees when he gets back? A lighthouse. Now, could that just be a coincidence, with lighthouses being a very common image in sea-based stories? Sure. But I’m choosing to believe that this poem was chosen (and yes, I say chosen – as in the writers took inspiration from this poem) specifically because it has so much imagery in common with OFMD.

These are admittedly tenuous links between the poem and the show, but they are links, so I’m including them.

The last thing I want to mention about this poem is how its “moral,” if it can be said to have one, is to treat living things with respect – you as a person do not live in a vacuum, and your actions have consequences for others, not just yourself. And I think this sentiment lines up incredibly well with a line that Jim has in S2E02:

…

There was a time when life meant something on this ship. When we lived for each other.

…

According to Jim (and according to literally everything the show has been telling us), the ship was a safe place when the people onboard cared about each other. Fang mentions that Blackbeard didn’t even react when Ivan died; Blackbeard callously shoots his first mate, with the intent of having him killed; he doesn’t even care about his own life and whether he lives or dies. Just like in the poem, this is the issue that needs to be resolved in order for the curse to be lifted – the Mariner (Ed) needs to rekindle an appreciation for life. In the poem, this is a simple “every living thing is special” kind of epiphany – I get the feeling it’s going to be a much more complicated journey in OFMD, especially since the show as a whole is somewhat irreverent concerning the deaths of non-recurring characters. For Ed, I imagine it’s going to be more of an appreciation for his own life – not the value of life on the whole, but the value that his life holds.

So. That’s a lot of words that I just typed – I’m hoping at least some of them made sense. Huge thank you to anyone who made it this far! This is all I’ve got on this particular poem, but I’ve still got more things I want to say about another poem called L’albatros (Charles Baudelaire) and how it relates to Ed and his perception of himself. It’s a huge stretch to say that this poem exists in-universe and Ed has read it, but it makes sense to me and I want to get my thoughts down on (virtual) paper – I’ll link to it in the original introductory post (link to that at the top of this post!).

Let me know what you think!! This silly, stupid pirate show will be consuming my thoughts for at least the next several months, and I’m dying for some reciprocal opinion/info-dumping. Inbox is open!

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youbegintofeellikehome · 7 months

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I need help finding a Zutara fanfic I read years ago. I remember some specific details. It took place after the war ended, I'm pretty sure cause they're adults at this point, and they established all the characters are doing their own thing, and Aang and Katara parted ways on good terms. Zuko joins the southern water tribe and marries Katara. I don't remember any of the other characters being in the fanfic, maybe briefly. From what I remember, the beginnings fuzzy of how zuko ended up at the South pole. I think he was found injured or something happened, and Katara found him along the shore where his ship landed, and the tribe welcomed him and nursed him back to health, developing their relationship from an already established friendship and leading to marriage. Some scenes I remember there's some sort of moon festival that makes Katara feral for her man😏, there's a spicy bathtub scene, there's an embarrassing wedding night scene with a "baby maker" blanket that Gran gran gives them exactly like that one scene in The Proposal movie😂, and I think they have two children together by the end of the story. Please, if anyone knows the title, I would be forever grateful. I feel like I've been going crazy over this for years, like it doesn't actually exist, and I made it up because I can't find it anywhere.

#zutara #avatar the last airbender #zuko #katara #zuko x katara #katara x zuko #atla #zutara fanfiction #zutara forever #zutara fandom #zuko and katara #katara and zuko

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darklinaforever · 10 months

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Wedding present/ gift for after she becomes queen zuko gives katara, zuko manages to find more dragon eggs, this time blue dragons. He gives one to Katara. Yes I want this mostly because imagine when (a better written) legend of korra comes around and ambassador/queen mother katara comes to teach Korra water bending and she comes to the south pole on the back of her big blue dragon all badass looking and queenly.

And the dragon is so sweet and nice, and loves Korra and Naga, but if you hurt his queen he cooks you alive. Basically Katara's dragon is a protective zuko but sweeter.

Oh my God ! A blue dragon for Katara given by Zuko as a wedding gift ?! I would love it ! Even only within the framework of their great friendship! I'm literally working on the concept of a story based on a romance / fantasy, coded Zutara, and the girl with water summoning powers actually has a dragon. But a water dragon, precisely, to correspond to Asian mythology. While the boy will have a phoenix. I really like imagining this alternate universe where Zutara took place ! Especially when we have ideas like that !

#zutara #zuko x katara #katara x zuko #zuko and katara #katara and zuko #zuko #katara #atla #avatar the last airbender #avatar : the last airbender #anti bryke #anti tlok #anti the legend of korra #dragons

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crab-milk · 10 months

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What is lion dancing? You've mentioned it before, but I don't think I've seen it before

I'm particularly new to the world of lion dancing myself, but I hope this could also help! Lion dancing is a Asian tradition that blends puppetry, martial arts, and dancing that has been around 206 BC. Although it originated from China, countries like Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and South-East Asian countries have their own respective forms of lion dancing. There's actually quite a few types out there, but they can be identified by their martial art forms, lion heads, or nationalities. I'm probably going to info dump now so I'll cut it here for others to read if they'd like.

Before we get into that, I have to clear some common misconceptions. Lions are NOT dragons. Dragons are puppets that generally have 6 or 9 people holding it up on poles and are long (龙 lóng - do you get the joke lol). Foo dogs are technically lions, but the terminology was derived from white people who mistook lions as chow chow dogs.

To clear further confusion, the reason they're called lions is because allegedly, when China started trading with the western world, lions and their pelts were only reserved for the wealthy. Poor people spread word about what lions looked like, and it somehow turned out that way. There's a lot of mythology surrounding why people do lion dances, but the shorter version is that the lion scares off demons and ill-intentioned spirits from villages. It's now a tradition at openings of businesses, weddings, funerals, and festivities.

Most people are generally used to seeing southern Chinese or Cantonese lions. Traditionally, all of these lions are male and have different variations, again based on nationality or style of martial arts that it's derived from. There are northern lions, which have a male and female (red and green bows respectively), as well as Japanese and Korean lions, which are mostly comprised of wooden masks and long fur.

I'll mostly focus on southern Chinese lions, but they're all pretty neat! I mostly practice Fut-San lion dancing, which is a pretty common form. They notably have a ":3" face and the style of martial arts (wushu) is considered a very common standard for southern Chinese lions. Recent variations of these lion heads also have pom-poms as they are derived from Beijing opera costumes. Each lion also has a pointed horn on the top. They can also have fluffy or wiry fur for its eyelids and mouth, but there exists variations with bristles instead, which may signify that the lion is based on a historical military figure (kind of similar to how Beijing opera singers do specific makeup for specific characters).

These are generally more common in other countries. South-east Asian versions of the lions are extremely decorated, intricate, and distinct.

Hok-San lions are also pretty common. They are distinguished by having a "snake" horn which means the horn curls into a circle at the end and a ":)" face.

Despite their differences, all southern lions have a mirror in the front to ward off evil spirits, some horn with a bow attached, and a beard. Traditionally, the mirror is there to scare off spirits who look into it. The horn is generally added after the lion is almost finished being made, and the bow on the horn is added ceremoniously to bless the lion and honor the gods. It is highly recommended people don't touch them, save for the practical reasons of dirtying the mirror or tearing off the delicate horn, but also to avoid getting bad luck from ill-intentioned spirits.

That aside, I'd like to finally to talk about what to do when you see lions! If you have red pockets of money, the lion eats them up (and the performer in the head puts everything in their sweaty shirt). Sometimes, lions go and play with the audience, so feel more than welcome to pet them or play fight with them! Each performer has their own distinct personality that they play in the lion and as a result, have a lot to share with the audience!

I could go on and on, but I'm afraid this is really long for no reason. I hope this info dump helped!

#i saw an opportunity to info dump and took it #sorry lol #lion dancing #info dump #silence crab

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candiedspit · 10 months

Text

Gorilla Mask

As Nina does my makeup–swivels the contour and punches the blush onto my cheeks, a star, she says, I’m gonna make you a star, don’t you worry baby you’ll knock ‘em dead, you see–I smoke a cigarette and check the time. I’ve got half an hour before the curtains split apart like the legs of a wonderful, beautiful slut. I imagine the audience packed into velvet seats, dressed in cocktail dresses and the suit he plans to be buried in. A Tuesday evening. While my manager insisted on Friday night, I insisted on the opposite. When is the best time to be transported? When you least expect it. After an eight-hour shift at some metal box downtown, moving papers and pushing phone calls. I know my people. I know what they need.

Nervous? Nina asks, meeting my gaze in the vanity. You’re quiet.

I shake my head.

I fuck up, I go home, I say. And that’s the end of it.

This is my first show in twenty three years. Last time I was on a stage, I was a young golden cat that people rubbed for luck. I could sing God to sleep. I feared nothing and wanted everything. Once, I kissed a girl for the first time twice.

But that’s the hard part, right? Nina asks. Going home?

I laugh a dry laugh.

That is true. That is always true.

At the height of what you could call my career–that never ending totem pole, that white flash of light in which I saw nothing but mercury and moon shrapnel, I wrapped my limo around a city block. And that began the descent into capsules and deadbeat girlfriends. I broke my neck in the accident. Then, the pain pills began to taste like dust. And I needed something stronger to tether myself to the earth.

It was always a good day when I was high. I could spend seven hours staring at the ceiling and it would feel as though I’d gone on Space Mountain a billion times. I had a sitting heart rate of one hundred and twenty three. I still did shows though they were more like human zoo exhibits. The public came to watch me die. I slurred through old gospels. I fainted during an encore. Once, I gave up. I sat on the stage unmoving and someone had to come remove me. After I went to rehab for the first time, I stopped doing shows. It was only supposed to be a year off. But I couldn’t stop going back. I got into all sorts of things. I huffed paint to watch the wall turn blue. I did coke off of someone’s wedding ring during the wedding recital. I chased some kids down the block for ten dollars.

Elaine left. And I moved to Memphis. I sat on the back porch smoking heroin, noticing the light ooze through the leaves and feeling every breath in my chest. And I tried again. And tried three more times. I went to a rehab in California where they served lobster rolls and where you had to soak in a hot tub for forty five minutes each evening. I went to a rehab in New York where you could see the skyline pressed against the dark coils of night and the nurses wore short skirts. I went to a rehab in Paris where I beat a lawyer at connect four three times in a row and couldn’t figure out the shower head. Then, I overdosed in South Dakota while visiting some cousins; thin, bare chested men who shoot pistols with one eye closed and drink moonshine for lunch. I died for an hour; saw nothing but a few abstract, pink lines. The rehab I was sent to there was the one that did it. Nothing glamorous. A cold turkey sandwich at noon. Librium in the mornings. After detox, you’re on your own. Gotta change the sheets. Gotta clean the bathrooms. Gotta set the tables. No television after nine. No phone calls in the morning. I was already old by then. And nobody knew my name anymore. What the hell is following the rules for a while? I called my mother halfway through my stay there, after a lunch of fried chicken with plenty of nerve and gallons of black tea. I told her where I was, and what happened. How I couldn’t apologize.

Are you sorry? She asked.

I could see her standing in the kitchen, backed into a slant of light, arms crossed.

If you’re sorry, you won’t do it again. When you get out, you’ll know. So, we’ll see.

Mama, I can’t do it again.

We’ll see, she said.

And hung up. I knew she was right. I had to be good. It wasn’t enough to want to be good. I had to be out there, doing good in the daylight. When I got out, I didn’t go back to the cousins. I went to Memphis and started going to meetings and church. I didn’t know what to believe but it needed to be huge, crucial. A giant cock to rub. A pleasure to be had. I read scripture on nights I couldn’t sleep. After months of this safety walk, the songs came. I was with my sister Diana; a spoiled eggnog of a girl, ten years younger than I am but we’re wired in the same ways. I can read her mind. I’d know her heart from look alone. It was summertime and we were at the fair together. It was the first time since getting out that I felt safe to be among the others, the extraterrestrials made of crazy glue and fireworks.

And we were on the Ferris wheel, a thousand feet above the ground, everybody like throngs of specks of dirt below us, the stars as close as they’d ever been. I got a melody in my head like a buzzing gnat. And started singing. Diana stared as I sang, the words mush but the melody there. And we celebrated when I quieted down. I didn’t think I’d ever write another song again.

But there it was–the massive, throbbing thing to believe in.

#my poetry #new story!!!!#not super happy w ending but i can always fix it

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pompomqt · 1 year

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Journey to the West Chapter 9

Tang Sanzang's mom this whole chapter:

No wonder Tang Sanzang is going to almost die so many times in this book.

Ah man, my man Tang Sanzang's backstory has it all- gods disguised as fish, getting moses'ed, and bandits. A fitting backstory for a chosen one. So let's get into this chapter of Journey to the West with @journeythroughjourneytothewest

So we start off with the new emperor setting up examinations where any worthy scholar can try their hand and possibly earn a place to work in administration or government. One person who decides to try their hand and take such an exam is Chen E also known as Guangrui- or perhaps even better known as- Tang Sanzang's father.

So Guangrui takes the exam and passes with flying colors and is awarded the title 'Zhuangyuan'. During the celebratory procession, one Wenjio Yin (The Chief Minister's daughter) was about to throw down an embroidered ball from her tower in order to select a spouse. Which... beats tinder I guess? Anyways she spots Guangrui getting paraded around below her tower, and thinks he's cute, as well as recognizing that he was the one who passed the examinations- so she drops the ball onto his head. Anyways all the servants of the house swarm the guy and bring him before the chief minister and his wife and they are wedded at once, which Guangrui seems pretty cool with. Anyways, so life seems to be going pretty well for Guangrui. The emperor has appointed him the governor of Jiangzhou, he has a new wife, and he's bringing her and his mother along with him to his new post. Unfortunately things don't stay peachy for long as they are only a few days out on their journey when his mother gets sick, and they have to stop at an in. The next day Guangrui heads down to the market, and buys a big golden carp. Who seems to be blinking at him in Morse code. Deciding that a fish that blinks that much can't be a normal creature he asks the fisherman where it was caught and returns it to the Hong river. Anyways he tells his mother about what happened with the fish, but also tells her that he has to leave tomorrow to make it to his new job. She says she isn't well enough to travel and instead suggests he rent a house and leave her some money, so he can come back for her later when the weather is better for travel. He agrees, and he and his wife take their leave.

Since they have to cross the Hong River, they hire two boatmen, Liu Hong and Li Biao to take them across. But since these are the parents of our 'Chosen One Protagonist' of course something terrible happens to them. Liu Hong gets the hots for Wenjio, so he beats Guangrui to death and throws his body into the river. Wenjio tries to dive in after him, but is caught and threatened at knife point. So she yields to him for now. Anyways Liu Hong steels Guangrui's credentials and proceeds with the kidnapped Wenjio to the post in Jiangzhou. Anyways Guangrui's body floats to the bottom of the river and is rushed to the Dragon King, who recognizes him as the man that freed him while he as disguised as a golden carp. In return for saving him, the Dragon King decides to save Guangrui, so he has his soul brought back from the underworld. Guangrui tells the dragon king about what happened, and the Dragon King instead of just sending him back immediately preserves his body and lets him be an officer for a while.

Anyways- back with Sanzang's mom, she passes out and gives birth to him while Liu Hong is away on business. During this time she received a message from the Star Spirit of the South Pole, that her son will one day be known far and wide for he can not be compared to an ordinary mortal, but that she has to protect him from the Liu Hong. He also tells her that her husband has been rescued by the dragon king and that they will all be reunited one day.

Liu Hong returns and immediately wants to drown him, but she manages to delay it, and when he is called away on business once again she decides to take her chances with the river. She writes a letter with blood stating the the parents names and their family history as well as the current situation. Then she bites off his little toe from his left foot to be able to identify him in the future. With that she ties him to a plank that had conveniently floated by and sends him off.

Anyways our newly abandoned hero makes his way to the temple of Gold Mountain where he is picked up by the Monk Farming. Monk Farming reads the letter and stashes it in a safe place and names the baby 'River Float' and has him raised at the temple. When River Float turned 18 he was given the religious Xuanzang.

Anyways one day a fellow monk, angry that Xuanzang had outwitted them during their discussion, yells at him that Xuanzang doesn't even know his own name or have parents. At this Xuanzang goes to his master crying (bringing his cry count to 1) about how there can be a person with no parents. The Monk then shows him the letter written in blood that arrived with him, and Xuanzang bursts into tears yet again at learning what happened to his parents. Xuanzang begs his master to let him go and find his mother. The Monk agree's and tells him to go the to the governor's mansion of Jiangzhou, and so Xuanzang immediately departs and heads straight for the private quarters at the governor's mansion.

Luckily his mother was in a way more or less expecting him, since she had had yet another strange dream, and figured that if her son was still alive he would be 18 by now, and that perhaps the dream was an omen that they would meet today.

Anways, she let's him inside and they start talking and she notices that he bears a strong resemblance to her husband. So she asks him about his family and he tells her that his father was murdered and his mother taken. He also reveals that his mothers name was Wenjio Yin and his father's name is Guangrui Chen, and that his name is River Float, but his religious name is Xuanzang.

Wenjio says she is Wenjio Yin, but asks him to prove his identity. Xuanzang cries again that she doesn't believe him and shows her the letter of blood. And then the two hug each other and cry for a while. Before Wenjio tells him he has to leave before the bandit Liu Hong returns to kill him. She says that she will tell him she made a vow to donate a hundred monk shoes so they can talk again then.

So Wenjio plays sick and tells Liu Hong that she has to go to a temple to donate some monk shoes. After gathering the shoes she heads off for the Temple of Gold Mountain to meet with Xuanzang again. Wenjio asks Xuanzang to remove his shoes and when she see's that he is missing his left little toe the two once again hug and cry it out. And I'm starting to see which parent Xuanzang got his crying habit from...

Sadly the two are still short on time before Liu Hong starts to get suspicious, so Wenjio gives him an incense ring and sends him out to find his paternal grandmother where they left her at that inn. She also gives him a letter to give to her father, his maternal grandfather, to have the emperor send some men to have the bandit arrested and executed to avenge his father. And with that she takes her leave again while Xuangzang goes crying back to the temple and tells his master everything before heading to the Inn as instructed.

Once Xuanzang arrives at the Inn he asks the Innkeeper about the status of his grandmother, only for it to be revealed that she went blind and became a street begger once the money ran out. So Xuanzang immediately seeks her out and explains that he is her grandson and that the reason his father and mother never came back for her was because he was murdered and she was captured. Xuanzang then also cures her blindness for her and pays for her to stay at the Inn again.

Taking leave of his paternal grandparent, he goes off to find his maternal one. Luckily his grandmother had also received a dream about their daughter finally coming home so they let him in. Xuanzang starts crying upon seeing them and gives them letter his mother asked for him to pass on.

The next morning his grandfather sends a note to the emperor explaining what happened, so the emperor sends sixty thousand imperial soldiers to apprehend Liu Hong. Which sounds like overkill for a simple boatman/bandit to me. I mean- it's not like they are trying to arrest Sun Wukong. Either way though- the mission is a success and Liu Hong is captured.

Wenjio Yin meanwhile is to ashamed to face her father and tries to hang herself, but is stopped by Xuanzang. Wenjio explains her shame in yielding to the bandit while his father explains it wasn't her fault. And the two embrace and cry it out- which Xuanzang also joins in of course- because our boy would never miss out on a cry fest.

Anyways Liu Hong and his accomplice Li Biao are both violently executed and Xuanzang and Wenjio Yin offer the liver and heart of Liu Hong as sacrifices at the Hong River. And of course the family once again cry's it out at the river.

The word manages to make it back to the Dragon King who tells Guangrui the good news that he has been avenged so he's sending him back to life along with some sweet gifts. So the dragon king has his body sent to the mouth of the river to have his soul returned there. While his body is floating by, Wenjio is once again trying to kill herself while Xuanzang is holding her back. Recognizing the body of her husband she starts crying even harder. And Guangrui wakes up to find his wife, father in law and son all crying over him.

Anyways, husband and wife both explain what happened on each of their ends. A banquet is held, the troops head home, Guangrui finally goes back for his mother, who had recieved yet another prophetic dream, Guangrui is promoted to Subchancellor of the Grand Secretariat, Xuanzang heads out to practice zen at the temple of Infinite Blessing before heading back to the temple of Gold Mountin to repay his master- and Wenjio commits suicide the second he's out of sight. And with that we finally have our propagandist's backstory all sorted out.

Current Tang Sanzang stats: Names/Titles: River Float, Xuanzang Abilities: Curing Blindness Cry Count: 9 Bandit Problems: 1

#jttw #journey to the west #journeythroughjourneytothewest #jttw read through #tang sanzang #In one chapter Xuanzang has already managed to cry three times as much as sun wukong. I'm strangely proud.

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nightimecoyote · 3 months

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Kupala Night

Welcome to my first post on the sabbats I celebrate as a pagan. I practice various forms of paganism from different cultures and one of those that has influenced my practice has been Eastern European Paganism.

The word Kupala means roughly to bathe. This celebration has to do with celebrating water! It was said that water on Kupala night held magical properties of protection.

Banya

traditionally it would be held with the first ritual bath of the year in the Banya, a Russian steam bath. The use of special herb extracts and beer was common in these baths and Wormwood was hung over walls as well. The Banya besom was a collection of branches and dried bark (most commonly eucalypts, oak, and white birch.)

"After the first sweat is induced, it is customary to cool off in the breeze outdoors or splash around in cold water in a lake or river. In the winter, people may roll in the snow with no clothes on or dip in lakes where holes have been cut into the ice. Then the banya is re-entered and small amounts of water are splashed on the rocks. If too much water is used at once, the steam will be cool with a clammy feel. A small amount of water on sufficiently hot rocks will evaporate quickly, producing a steam consisting of small vapor particles. Waving the venik causes convective heat. The second sweat is commonly the first time venik is used, but some people wait until the third session.

After each sweat, cooling off is repeated and patrons use the break to drink beer, tea, or other beverages, play games or relax in good company in an antechamber to the steam room. Banyas might have a bar for people to have drinks and sometimes light meals afterwards." - Wikipedia, Banya.

It is said in mythology that a spirit called a Bannik lives in the Banya, he is said to present as an old wizened man with long claws and furry hands, he has the capacity to be malicious and beneficial to bathers, i would recommend an offering to him before bathing.

Depiction in the mid-1920s of a rural banya by Russian artist Boris Kustodiev: Russian Venus (armed with birch besom)

In Russia, it was common for people to bathe in Banyas on Kupala night and in the south, in rivers and lakes. It was recommended the bathe before sunset as the ritual commences at night.

Activities

On high ground, closer to the sunset, large bonfires were lit in the traditional way of rubbing wood against wood. It was said on Kupala night that water and fire could get along and the bonfire was a representation of this. A pole would be placed in the centre with a wheel on the top or sometimes a horse or cow skull/vid'ma, then thrown into the fire to burn. This may symbolize the world tree. Afterward, the youth would run around the fire and dance, play, and sing in a Khorovod.

Children would make wreaths of poisonous herbs and roots and dress them in their clothes before throwing them into the fire as well, followed by a green branch.

weddings would sometimes take place on this sacred pagan night and couples would jump over the fire for good luck.

Ukrainians and Belarusians believed you should only sing vesnianky after Kupala night, Eastern and western slavs believed you should not eat cherries before Kupala. Eastern slavs specifically believed if a woman were to eat cherries before Kupala their children would die.

"According to Hutsuls beliefs, after Kupala come the "rowan nights", when thunders and lightnings are common. These are days when thunderous spirits walk around, sending lightning bolts to the earth. "And then between the dark sky and the tops of the mountains and fire trees grow."" - Wikipedia, Kupala night.

Wreaths were also very important and were often made of periwinkle, blackberries, roses, oak and birch branches. Their round shape of them was considered magical. During the festival, the wreath was usually destroyed in either the fire or water.

Peasants would also choose the prettiest girl, strip her naked and dress her in flowers and herbs, then bring her out into the forest where the "dzevko-kupalo" (girl-kupalo – as the chosen girl was called) would hand her girlfriends previously prepared wreaths and they would dance.

"The garland that someone received was used to foretell future fate: a fresh garland meant a rich and happy marriage, a dry garland meant poverty and an unhappy marriage: "she will not have happiness, she will live in misery."" - Wikpedia, kupala night.

A tree was also chosen for Kupala night, usually a fruit or edible tree, and decorated. Sometimes young boys would attempt to steal it as a game. At the end of the night it was drowned int he water or burnt in the fire.

Picking herbs was especially popular on this night and those collected by the old or very young were seen as the most special. It was said that a magical fern sprouted this night and if one were to find and pick it they would be granted magical powers.

Ways to celebrate

Rituals baths, even if you can't go to a Banya you can still have a nice herb bath!

Go foraging, search for the magical fern or even just collect some needed herbs.

Get married!

Go swimming, I like to swim in lakes or springs during this time.

Make a Kupala wreath.

Have a feast.

Drink wine, beer or other sacred drinks.

Play traditional Slavic games.

Dance in a circle around the fire

Give offerings to water and Cthonic spirits.

Of course, light a bonfire!

#sabbats #wheel of the year #russian paganism #slavic paganism #paganism #witchcraft #polytheism #pagan holidays #sabbaths #traditional witchcraft #folk witchcraft #My wheel of the year

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typingtess · 9 months

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After three-days at Camp Pendleton running down a pair of ex-Marines who were working with a washed out SDSU chemistry professor selling synthetic steroids on and off-base, Sam decided to spend the weekend in San Diego. Aiden was in town and a weekend with his son was exactly what Sam needed.

Callen wanted to go home. After a life of living alone, playing good husband to Anna stopped being playing about a month after being married. She was great. He felt better when she was around. And for the first time in his life, he was happy, truly happy.

Walking into the house just after 10PM, he found Anna on the couch watching “Die Hard” – her favorite Christmas movie. He was a little stunned she wasn’t watching “Dr. Zhivago” since their home looked like a Russian Christmas card.

“I can explain,” she started.

“I’m guessing it is a one-word explanation,” Callen looked at the six foot tree with lights, ornaments on every branch and a red and gold ribbon wrapped from the tree-top to the base. The green star on the top of the tree looked like it was frosted on the star’s points. “Arkady.”

“He dropped by last weekend while you were jogging and was unhappy that we didn’t have a tree yet.”

“So he brought this one over.”

“And there is one in the backyard. And one in the guest bedroom that faces the street.”

“Three trees.”

“I made him take down the ten-foot pole with lights that made a tree. He put it up on the front lawn.”

“Thank you for that,” Callen looked at the tree. It was beautiful, just an awful lot for their small living room. Same with the holiday knick-knacks that covered every flat space in the living room.

“He wants us to come by on Christmas Eve.”

“When did he become so ….Christmas-y. A couple of years ago I saw him on Christmas. He was smoking a cigar on a float in his pool, drinking some tequila, calling in NBA bets to his bookie. Spoke about making new holiday traditions in his new home country.”

“He said the wedding was so understated that he wanted to do up our first holiday together.”

“We got married in May,” Callen was shaking his head. “Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day and Thanksgiving are all holidays.”

“He saw Christmas as more a holiday the whole world shares. So, Christmas Eve?”

As if he would ever say no. “Sure, of course.”

“If you think this is a lot, wait until you see his place.”

“Again, he was on a float in his pool, smoking a cigar, drinking tequila and taking the under on a Lakers-Clippers game a few Christmases ago.”

“You remember Carmen?”

Callen thought for a second. “The housekeeper.”

“Her husband is Arkady’s groundskeeper. He also has a side-business decorating homes for holidays. Arkady hired Jose to make the place festive and then sent Jose here.”

“Are we going to have to buy him a gift?”

“I’ve already taken care of it.”

She really was the perfect wife for Callen. “Tell me.”

“Joelle did me a favor.”

“Joelle, Joelle?”

Laughing, Anna said, “I know her by one name but yes, Joelle is back with the CIA. She’s riding a desk, coordinating travel for agents in the Caribbean, South and Central America.”

“She never struck me as a travel agent.”

“The CIA wants her under their watchful eye, she knows she has to play good company officer to keep her career.”

“So if she’s moving people in and out of the Caribbean, that includes Cuba.”

“And sitting in Don Medina’s Cigar Lounge humidor is a box of Montecristo No. 2 and a box of Cohiba Behike 52. I’m picking them up on the 24th at 4PM before we show up for dinner.”

“The Russians were always big on Cuba.”

“And I picked up some Don Julio 1942 so when we leave, he can sit on a float in his pool, smoke an expensive Cuban cigar and bet on the Celtics-Lakers game Christmas Day.”

“How do you know about the Celtics-Lakers game?”

“Merry Christmas,” she said with a smile.

#NCIS: Los Angeles #NCIS: LA #head canon #g callen #anna kolcheck #NCIS Los Angeles #ncis la #arkady kolcheck

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somepsychopomp · 11 months

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its avatar time

lol i was trapped on a commute that was like 2 hours longer than expected today and drafted up the start to an ATLA fic I've been wanting to write. There's definitely bits I want to expand on but I'm posting it now just to share for fun

the actual fic will be a very zuko-centric AU, but somehow I ended up writing a hearty prelude (featuring Ursa's POV as she has her first child)

Ig the only warning is that this does feature some old timey women-not-having-it-good themes. Like there's discussions of child bearing and bodily autonomy but it's not too heavy imo. But i absolutely loved writing from Ursa's POV and hope to do more with this AU soon

(also- if u have any idea what's up with baby zuko, i wanna hear what your guess is!)

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Excerpt:

The sages and midwives cleansed the babe and swaddled him, as well as dabbed Ursa’s own tear-streaked face with a cool cloth, before finally permitting her to hold her own child.

Ozai already had a name picked out for him.

“Hello, Zuko.” Ursa said. After the day she had, her voice was little more than a hoarse rasp.

Her son opened his eyes and cried.

Ursa’s stomach plummeted.

Her child was wrong.

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Word count: ~2,900

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Lady Ursa came into her new family with much fanfare, as was expected of a royal wedding. Her new husband insisted upon her superb beauty to all that would hear and lavished her with gifts of fine silk and golden adornments. Spoils of war, as well. Their marriage bed was crafted from highly polished dark wood, inlaid with pearls from the South Pole and abalone imported from the coasts of the Earth Kingdom.

But what her nation did not know as well as she did, was that her husband was not a patient man. Not at all.

Ozai was a man of great elegance, yes. He moved as though no man could best him, as though he were a greater being from another realm. But he possessed a terribly watchful eye. And what he wanted more than Ursa’s beauty or her love was her body. He wanted an heir.

First, he wasted no time consummating their marriage. The man seemed determined to appease his father by getting Ursa pregnant before she could fully remove her wedding gown.

The heat that came off his skin as he held her close was enough to suffocate her.

Ursa did her damndest to satisfy him. She let herself be followed every moment of every day by a legion of medical experts, sages, and attendants who instructed her how to best have her first child. They dictated when she woke up, the temperature of her baths, her food, her dress, her exposure to sunlight, the bitter teas meant to influence her body’s moods, and when she went to bed every night.

They were at their most insistent in the early months of her marriage. She didn’t even have both feet past the threshold of the palace, technically not even a wife yet, before she was whisked away to some private room, told to strip before all their eyes, and examined to a humiliating degree for any bodily deficiencies to be concerned over. They deemed her perfectly healthy and said that with the proper diet and tea, she’d be giving birth by next summer.

But that precious early stage of her marriage, those cool and gentle months between summer and winter, came and went without her menstrual cycle ceasing. Autumn was the most auspicious time for women in the Fire Nation to become with child, as it meant their babies would be born in the hottest months of the year under Agni’s brilliant eye.

But for all his determination, for all the efforts made, winter came in full and Ursa was still bleeding monthly.

That was when she began to pray. She prayed every morning at sunrise and every evening at sunset. In her bedroom, at the royal family’s personal shrine, in the capital’s grandest temple. Sometimes for hours at a time without rest. The sages approved greatly of her devotion. The doctors disapproved, as she could not partake in food or drink while in prayer.

Ursa begged Agni for a baby. She begged for Ozai’s furious advances to cease. Since her wedding night, she had crawled out of bed every morning sore and tender, made even more humiliating when her attendants slathered her most intimate parts with potent oils or creams to soothe the aching and chafe.

Her body was no longer hers, she knew that. But please, was she not devoted to her new husband and her country? Was she not healthy? Why was she being tested so?

Above all else, Ursa asked for something to hope for.

The new year came and went. The nation was alight with all sorts of colors in the sky and endless trails of beautiful lanterns, but it was a cold comfort for Ursa.

Both she and Ozai grew rather distant and demoralized as winter gave way to spring. Or rather, she grew demoralized as her husband grew distant. They sometimes went days without speaking to each other. Yet they retired to the same bed without fail every night. They had no choice.

Her husband began regarding her with this cruel tint to his eyes, as if she were to blame for his lack of progeny. Ursa was afraid of him.

Then, in that delicate time early in the year between late winter and young spring, she found her cycle late. The sages and doctors ran their tests. Ursa felt as if she couldn’t breathe. She almost dared not believe it could be true.

But it was. The palace was jubilant, ecstatic even. Lady Ursa was finally with child.

The sages brought this wonderful news to the Fire Lord, presenting Ursa and Ozai as if they were mere trinkets, more spoils of war. It was a less ideal time of the year to have a baby, yes. This did not go unnoticed by Ozai or his father, the two of them so alike in their dispassionate eyes. But the sages spun a tale of how, as the new year emerges from the ashes of the past, much like the great phoenix, so did Fire Lord Azulon’s great and prosperous bloodline.

His newest grandchild was a symbol of vitality, of hope.

Ursa straightened her back, as did her husband.

And Fire Lord Azulon seemed pleased. He even gazed upon Ursa directly and congratulated her on her first child, implying he’d expect more in the future.

A hand touched her belly and Ursa was surprised to find it wasn’t her own. Ozai caressed her gently, though there was no bump to be had. Not yet. He smiled at her and she could feel the heat from his palm seeping through her clothes and soaking into her skin.

Her child would likely be born in the densest portion of winter, when the days were short and the nights were so very long. They would be a strong child, the sages said, as any creature must be to weather out those dark, bitter months.

There was only one problem. Two, even.

One, Ursa went into labor the night before the winter solstice. For first time mothers, they sometimes went several days before properly giving birth. She almost hoped this would be the case, but Ursa was not so fortunate. Why would she be?

Amongst her tears and fervent screaming, her first child was born after sunset on the shortest day of the entire year. As if Agni himself deigned to fit her with as many ill omens as possible. At least the birth itself was without complications.

Oh, and it was a boy. Not that female heirs were unheard of, nor would it be a travesty for Ozai, who was himself only second in line to inherit the throne. But who would want to disrupt the current dynasty’s male-dominated line of succession after so long?

Ozai would be quite pleased to know his firstborn was male.

The sages and midwives cleansed the babe and swaddled him, as well as dabbed Ursa’s own tear-streaked face with a cool cloth, before finally permitting her to hold her own child.

Ozai already had a name picked out for him.

“Hello, Zuko.” Ursa said. After the day she had, her voice was little more than a hoarse rasp.

Her son opened his eyes and cried.

Ursa’s stomach plummeted.

Her child was wrong.

His skin was fair and pale, his downy baby hair dark and plentiful, his body healthy.

But his eyes…

They reminded Ursa of the beautiful gemstone pendant her mother once wore, a family heirloom from before the war. It was a precious stone more commonly found in the Earth Kingdom than the Fire Nation, a glowing and iridescent opal.

Her child had opal eyes. Half his irises were the rich, bright amber yellow of the royal family. It was undeniably the hue of Ozai’s own eyes. But dispersed throughout the baby’s irises were shards of bright, cerulean blue.

But there was nothing she could do or say. The midwife was letting her husband into the room to view his progeny. Everyone else was leaving to give them a brief moment of privacy, odd after the months of stealing every ounce of autonomy from her. Ursa prayed the baby would seal his eyes and hide his abnormality.

Ozai came upon the side of her bed, footsteps light and a bright smile upon his face. He peeled back a bit of the blanket for a better look.

“Wait-” Ursa said.

Ozai faltered. Not at her request, no. But because he felt the need to recoil from the sight of his child.

“Sages!” he called, not looking at her, “I want the head sage in here immediately!”

Ursa couldn’t say she remembered what happened after that. Only that she was afraid of the venom in Ozai’s voice.

He wanted them to take the baby and ensure that it was indeed his. Ursa didn’t know what kind of rituals they could enact, which spirits they could call upon, to prove that the child was indeed Ozai’s. All Ursa knew was that Zuko could belong to no other man, not that her word held much weight.

Ursa was kept isolated from the rest of the royal family, and her own child, with only a servant and her midwife for company and care. Half of her wanted her baby back. She needed the protection he offered her, where his living body would cease Ozai’s relentless assault upon her own. She could finally cease waking up throbbing every morning, cease the constant monitoring and control over her body, and enter the family as a proper princess.

Half of her was terrified of the baby, of what it could mean for them both if the sages found his lineage inconclusive.

Several days later, her husband entered her quarters with the head sage and the child.

“It is my great honor,” the old man said, “to confirm that this child is indeed the legitimate offspring of Prince Ozai.”

He came to Ursa and allowed her to hold her baby for the first time since his birth. Zuko was no longer crying, instead making these soft sounds from behind closed lips. It seemed to her that he was wanting something. Her touch or milk, perhaps?

When the old man and her attendants all left, when it was just husband, wife, and child in the room, Ozai did not approach her. He just stared at the small mass in her arms swaddled in silk.

“The sages could prove that boy might be mine, but we’ll be lucky if he lives to see his hundredth day.” Ozai said softly. He wrinkled his nose in displeasure, “I am no fool. All the omens indicate he will be weak. Cursed, even. If there is any fire in his blood, I know it will be weak and flickering.”

Perhaps she shouldn’t have, but Ursa couldn’t help but snap. She said, “Zuko is still yours, Ozai. His blood is your blood, and his fire will be your fire.”

He scoffed at her, turned his back, and left Ursa to tend to their child.

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Ursa knew most children weren’t able to bend until they were a few years old, or their bending was so weak that it was imperceivable. Sometimes it took even longer for them to realize their innate gift if both parents were nonbenders. Only rarely would very young children, tiny souls still mastering the art of walking and talking, display visible signs of bending.

Zuko’s family, however, were very much expecting it.

He really only got to be a baby for a few months before the weight of princely expectations were set upon him.

Ursa would watch as Ozai would ignite a fire at the tip of his finger, no bigger than that of a candle flame, and hold it over their child’s soft, clammy palm. Every time, their baby would recoil from the heat and cry. Zuko refused to take the flame. Ozai would sneer or grit his teeth every time, but he continued to try day after day to get his son to take the flame.

In those moments, it was hard to remember that this strange man was the boy’s father.

Ursa’s small solace came in the form of the sages’ wisdom. They spoke of well documented cases where children metamorphosed early in life, their hair or eyes changing in color before taking on their true hue within a year or so. Ursa didn’t need the explanation, she’d seen it herself. Or heard about it from her mother, at least. She herself had been born with eyes nearly brown in color before they lightened into a dull honey hue by her second birthday. But the explanation did give her hope, however small, that her child would grow to more closely resemble Ozai in the coming years. They just needed a little more time.

Which they would get, it seemed. Zuko lived to see his hundredth day, then first birthday. Ozai never said anything, but seemed to accept that Zuko was not only his child, but that he was also going to live.

And something seemed to change in him.

The summer after Zuko’s first birthday, they went to Ember Island together. No attendants, no guards. Just them as a family. Ozai brought Ursa to his family’s estate on the island, took her shopping, and went with her two nights in a row to the theater. The show they were putting on was such a touching drama that Ursa just had to see it twice, her husband obliging with a kind of abnormally fond patience. He even got up to walk around the empty halls with their little boy whenever Zuko grew restless, all so that Ursa wouldn’t have to miss a minute of the climax.

Baby Zuko, meanwhile, loved sitting in the sand beneath the sun. From morning to night, he relished soaking up the sunlight and the breeze coming off of the ocean. This seemed to please his father, who had a greater tolerance for the heat than Ursa ever could. The two of them would sit out in the sun while Ursa needed the shade provided by a lofty umbrella.

While on a pleasant walk along the shore, Zuko kept wandering toward the water with increasing tenacity. Ursa tried to interest him in the beautiful shells that washed upon the shore, but to no avail. Her son wanted to splash in the water that, while only ankle-deep for her and Ozai, was much more formidable for him. Such a brave, little thing. He did not yet know the dangers of the world, but Ursa was a fool for letting her own guard down.

A sudden swell crashed upon the shore and swept Zuko off his feet. In such a moment, his hand was ripped from hers.

Ursa dove for him, but he was already being pulled by the waves and was out of her reach before she could even utter his name.

She gasped, awestruck, as Ozai threw himself into the shallow water without a hint of grace. In hindsight, Zuko hadn’t really been pulled very far. But he was so small, so fragile. He could not swim. Ozai grabbed the boy and waded through the rough waves back to Ursa, using his body to shield their son from the spray.

Ursa took Zuko and patted him on his back. He wasn’t crying or coughing, he didn’t even seem to understand what had happened to him, but she soothed him all the same. That was when she noticed her husband was bleeding.

Ozai touched the scratch on his abdomen lined with tiny pearls of red blood. It must’ve been from a piece of broken shell, something not yet worn down by the relentless sea. He said it was hardly a cause for concern and in just a few minutes, it ceased bleeding.

Zuko gave thanks to his father by immediately trying to return to the water as soon as Ursa set him down. Ozai snatched him up, but didn’t reprimand his child. Perhaps he knew it’d do little good for a boy so small and curious. Zuko’s feet did not touch the sand for the remainder of their walk.

Thankfully, their vacation concluded without much fanfare.

On the boat ride home, as Ursa watched the clouds drift by with her son in her arms, she dared to believe that maybe, all would be well. That Ozai was merely a man under tremendous, inconceivable pressure to act as the ideal prince. After all, he’d been born into royalty and surely had to contend with things Ursa had not yet conceived of. Perhaps the first year of their marriage was only a rough start. That deep down, Ozai did care for her and Zuko not just as political power, but as his family. It’d just taken stepping away from his royal duties and endless obligations for his true nature to show.

Then there came the day when everything changed. When Ursa knew her life was not in her hands, nor in the hands of her husband, and not even in the hands of her Fire Lord. When she knew her life was dictated by the will of the spirits and theirs alone.

And that her son would never be safe in his father’s house.

#atla #zuko #atla ursa #atla ozai #some spirit chicanery afoot

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