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ouyangzizhensdad · 3 years

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Do you think that making Chinese food is cultural appropriation? I'm white and started making some of the foods I saw in the shows I've watched since the untamed, but now I'm worried I'm appropriating the culture.

Hi anon,

As a fellow white person, I am also someone who needs to critically reflect on how I engage with different cultures. I can't give you the definitive answer you seek, the clear absolution from any potential wrongdoings; in its stead, I can only offer to share my current thought process on this topic. I’d still encourage you to seek other perspectives, and many people have written or spoken on this topic.

I believe we must first acknowledge that, on the terrain of the internet, discussions regarding cultural appropriation have reached a certain... extreme where some people view all forms of cultural exchanges as inherently suspect. They purport that so long as you stay within the bounds of ‘your’ culture, you will problematic behaviours. That perspective is inherent flawed. That is, it relies on a vision of culture as ‘bounded entities’ that exist in themselves. In reality, the ‘stuff’ that makes culture is emergent, existing only relationally, dialectically--it is a not a ‘thing’ that moves through time but an idea which is constantly negotiated and reproduced in relation to power and changing material realities to remain relevant and intelligible. The boundaries of cultural and ethnic groups are fuzzy, overlapping, and constantly being reworked and made meaningful. As an illustration, many of the food I grew up eating was influenced by ingredients and recipes immigrants brought in the 19th and 20th centuries, yet these dishes were understood as 'typically ours’. And it needs to be acknowledged that most of what is currently considered ‘white people food’ relies on ingredients that were introduced to our diet through colonialism and the violent dispossession of indigenous peoples (and, often, the current day exploitation of workers in the South and of migrant workers). No food can be truly ‘traditionally ours’, whatever the purported ‘we’ ends up being brought into the equation, and no eating behaviours can avoid the historical legacy and continuity of violence and power.

Of course, as people who exist in the world, we know that there are cultural differences. Bakhtin’s insights on language through the tensions between centripedal (ie towards uniformity, a common meaning) and centrifugal (toward diversity and change) forces can be expanded to help us conceptualise how we make sense of the way a ‘culture’ is perpetuated through time as something meaningful in our daily lives. Uniformity allows intelligibility, sense-making, but diversity and change are inescapable by-products of individuals and groups repeatedly going through life, meeting and trying to create intelligibility and sense together in a world that cannot stay the same. It is at the intersection of these two conflicting forces that something can be different yet considered the same--that we can create continuity out of change. But something perhaps less emphasized in Bakhtin’s discussions is how much power and material realities work on these forces. Power influences both centripedal and centrifugal forces, if only in orchestrating circumstances that shape how one encounters ‘different cultures’ or reproduces their 'own' culture.

We live at a moment where the world seems to have reached an apex of connectivity--where goods, people, ideas (and viruses) move across distance and borders at speeds that defy comprehension. Yet the way goods, people and ideas move (through which canals and systems? in which direction? to the benefits of whom? at the expense of whom? to what reception or use? in the service of which institutions and ideologies?) or are, inversely, incapable or unwilling to move, is influenced by power and material realities. It is inescapable.

In a roundabout way, what I’m trying to say is that it's useless to try to live life in 'your lane' by turning to a baseline 'culture' because we simply do not have a baseline culture to return to that is 'safe' from the influences of other cultures or the taint of the historical legacy and continuity of violence. So how do I personally reconcile that with how I engage with content that is produced from different cultural contexts, and how I engage with cooking food that is influenced by different cultural contexts? For me the guidelines I take into consideration are respect, attribution and avoiding forms of dehumanisation. These emerged out of witnessing how other white people have acted as well as critically reflecting on how I have acted in the past, and trying to do better (including of course, by listening to different perspectives on the topic). [just in case, warning for examples of racism/micro-agressions] I've been in China with white people who would praise the cooking we were eating in the same breath they were making jokes about dog meat. I've witnessed in Japan a dude decide not to come to an izakaya with Japanese colleagues, fucking off on his own to Akihabara instead, because he was disappointed he couldn’t talk about anime with them--too obsessed with the idealised version of Japan he’d created in his head to treat the Japanese people he met as people. The internet is full of white people telling you how to cook food from places they've never been and taking credit for 'popularising' that dish or 'making it better'. That's not even talking about the tendency for food to become a mark of a cosmopolitan, metropolitan identity in the West--the open-minded, the liberal, the traveler, the hip white person up with the times and beyond the mainstream. Hell, I've even seen people who act as if eating ‘ethnic’ food prepared by immigrants is the singular proof that they were people who cared about immigrants' well-being.

Food is rarely just about food, even when consumed at home. At the same time, we’d be remiss in all these discussions of power to dismiss how food is also one of oldest things we, as humans, want to share with others--including strangers. Feeding is nourishing and giving, eating is accepting into ourselves something made by others. Most people appreciate it when the value of a dish that holds importance for them is recognised by others--although, of course, many might understandably also resent that they have been discriminated against or mocked for eating that same food. Every time I’ve been invited in an immigrant household or at events with mostly immigrants, I’ve felt this sense of almost trepidation emanating from them, waiting for my reaction, and satisfaction once I was seen eating and appreciating the food they had served me--as if the acceptance of the food that was tied to their identity was a form of acceptance of who they were. Of course this can’t be disentangled from past experiences where other people might have been disrespectful, dismissive or outright racist: but the excitement they had in sharing food that had meaning to them and seeing others appreciate it was genuine.

Beyond situations of clear cultural sharing, where we get closer to what appears to be ‘cultural appropriation’, I believe that we cannot act as if there is something inherently sacrilegious in the idea of adapting recipes or using a specific ingredients in new ways--that’s centrifugal forces at play, and they have provided us with many dishes we love today: from immigrant creations like butter chicken to things like spicy kimchi. We cannot work with the assumption that people will only react with hostility at the idea of other people cooking the food they grew with, even in ways that are different from how they’re traditionally used and are thus “not authentic”. I still remember an interaction I had in a Korean grocery store, once upon a time when I lived in a metropolitan city. A man in front of me at the cash register who had been buying snacks and chatting with the employee in Korean looked at my stuff and suddenly asked me if I knew the name of the leafy green I was buying. I wasn’t necessarily surprised because I had overheard in the past customers and employees commenting in Korean about being surprised about the ingredients I, a white person, was purchasing, thinking I couldn’t understand them. I confirmed to him that I knew I was buying mustard greens. He then asked me what I was planning to do with them, and I explained that while I didn’t think it’s a traditional or common way of using it, I personally liked to add them to kimchi jjigae because it compliments their bitter/strong taste and I like leafy greens in my soups and stews. He said it was interesting, and that he was kind of impressed. The employee chimed to tell me I should be honoured at the compliment because the man was actually a chef who owned famous Korean fusion restaurants in the city. That was clearly someone who took Korean food very seriously and clearly had a certain degree of suspicion regarding how white people interacted with it, but he was also curious and interested in seeing how I approached ingredients without having grown up eating them.

Another point of contention is also that we cannot ignore that food is a sensual experience and that, while tastes are greatly influenced by our environment, they are not solely so. I grew up hating most of the food my parents would serve me, and started cooking in my early teens to avoid having to eat it. Before I started cooking, I would often just eat rice with (in hindsight horrible) western-brand soy sauce instead of the meal my mom had made. When I ate Indian food for the first time during a trip at the ripe age of 16, it blew my mind that food could taste like this. Of course I never wanted to look back, and with each years I discovered that a lot of Asian cuisines fit my palate better than what I grew up eating or other cuisines I had tried. When I was a teenager we visited my mom’s friend in France and I hated what she served us so much I’d simply choose to nibble on bread, prompting her to try to stage an intervention for my ‘obvious’ anorexia. Yet, being in China made me realise ingredients I thought I hated had just been cooked in ways I disliked. Do my taste buds absolve me from any need to think critically about how I interact with food? Of course not. But sometimes the reason we want to cook certain recipes and foods is just that it tastes great to us, and we want to reproduce the recipes we enjoyed with the ingredients and the skills we have. Or, really, sometimes we just want to try new tastes because we do a lot of eating throughout our lives, and it seems a waste to limit ourselves to a narrow number of dishes for decades to come.

So that’s where I currently am in my thinking about this topic, as a white person who cooks dishes influenced by a number of different places but who is also not trying to cook in a way that is necessarily authentic. Some things that I keep in mind that you can ask yourself now that cdramas and cnovels have made you interested in Chinese cooking is: are you taking this as an opportunity to support immigrant businesses when getting your ingredients? are you supporting white creators when looking for chinese recipes (some suggestion of youtube channels: Made with Lau, Chinese cooking Demystified, Family in Northwest China, 西北小强 Xibeixiaoqiang, 小高姐的 Magic Ingredients)? are you being respectful (not reproducing harmful stereotypes in how you talk about chinese food and the people who eat it)? do you use your interest in Chinese food to create a narrative about China and Chinese people that denies them, in some way, of their complexity and humanity? are you using your interest in Chinese food to create a narrative about yourself?

In conclusion I will leave you with a picture of some misshapen baozi I’ve made.

#anon ask #caution: word vomit ahead

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butterflydm · 3 years

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Wheel of Time S1E2: shadow’s waiting

The first episode was good. This episode, things got even better, though the body horror quotient also goes up as well.

(Side note: I do want to mention how much I love the costuming, especially the pants-with-divided-skirts-on-top, which I really like, and that whoever did the location scouting was amazing, because everywhere is gorgeous.)

Shadar Logoth, in the books, is one of the big things early on that really hooked me into the series. Obviously, they are able to go into more detail about the story in the books, but the whole idea of this different kind of evil that the Trollocs are afraid to deal with was fascinating to me. It made the world more complicated and interesting. It gets shortened in the series, which I was expecting, but the creepiness of it is still there.

But first, we are on the road! (as a reminder, this is my rewatch that I’m doing my best to keep future-spoilers free, so I’ll only mention the books if what they’ve dealt with has already been shown in this or a previous episode and even then, I will avoid details)

I love what they did with the Whitecloaks. They made them creepy and scary and actually a danger right away! The story of Shadar Logoth may have been compressed but the main theme of it is right here -- that evil doesn’t only come from the Dark One, that suspicion and paranoia can make monsters out of men. Again, there’s definitely some grusomeness/gore -- seeing the Yellow sister’s hands was pretty brutal -- and we also see Valda’s self-righteousness in killing someone horrifically and calling it ‘mercy’.

The intro is so pretty! I’ve rewatched the first three episodes all through now and this is my third viewing of the second episode, and I’ve not skipped the intro once. I am very curious to see if it will change over time, while still using the same concept of the pattern being weaved.

The crossing at Taren Ferry is really the first thing in the series that shows us why everyday folk might fear Aes Sedai, as Moiraine's determination can come across as cold-blooded here (and certainly does to Hightower). Yes, she didn’t kill him, but watching someone die like that because of a choice that Moiraine made would still be a shock to our Two Rivers kids. Also, this would only be the second time that Rand would have seen her channel, I believe, as he missed her throwing fireballs and rocks during the big fight. He’s had less exposure to her risking herself for others than the the rest of the group.

During the campsite, which is kinda a compressed version of all of the wilderness traveling that happens in the book in this section, I love that we get to actively see the process of the Two Rivers kids processing their shock and grief over what happened at Bel Tine and Moiraine asking them to leave their homes. They had to skip over them challenging her more at the time of leaving, because there just wasn’t time to deal with it (and I agree that, pacing-wise, they really needed to leave at the end of episode one and not drag it out), so we get to hash it out here and it’s a good conversation and I feel like we get to see a lot about the character and relationship dynamics.

Egwene is the most inclined to trust Moiraine; Rand is the least inclined -- not only does that make sense for their characters, but it also sets up yet another tension point in their already frayed relationship. Mat does his best to break the tension of the moment while Perrin is lost in his own head.

The scene with Moiraine showing Egwene that she can touch the Source hews pretty closely to the book, from what I recall, and it’s just as lovely here as I remember it being. A world of possibilities is opening up for Egwene -- again, this stands as a strong contrast to how Rand is feeling like they’re being controlled until they can be used and potentially discarded. ‘What place does a man have at the White Tower?’ indeed.

Apart from Egwene being the most inclined to trust Moiraine, I think a key element of that is that when Egwene challenges Moiraine, Moiraine actually explains to her exactly the details of what happened. Egwene does get special treatment here, in being taken aside and having her fears get taken seriously in a one-on-one setting, which is naturally going to make a huge difference in how she feels about Moiraine. Now, Moiraine’s behavior does make a lot of sense given the history of the world and the society that Moiraine comes from but we can see the difference that it makes that Moiraine is already treating Egwene like she’s on the road to becoming part of the Aes Sedai; teaching her, guiding her, and behaving more like a mentor.

To contrast, when the kids wake up in the morning from their nightmare, Moiraine is in full ‘no time for explanations; go go go’ mode. Rand doesn’t get any of his fears talked through the way that Egwene did. He’s basically just told to suck it up and get moving. Of course that makes him balk. And we can see that the other two boys also have their doubts, but they’re just wary enough of Moiraine that they aren’t going to challenge her decisions at this point.

So, the Whitecloaks scene... brief but impactful. We set up an internal conflict that is clearly brewing in the ranks, get to see Moiraine dance around the truth, and then it leads to another scene where Moiraine instructs Egwene in the nature of the Aes Sedai.

Love the broken, ancient bridge (overpass, maybe?) in the background of one of the traveling scenes.

Glad that Rafe fought to keep that Manetheren scene in the show! I love it. The bit of song is great and I’m glad we got to hear the story. Especially since the history of the Two Rivers is important when thinking about the way that shaped the way their local society developed, even if the details were lost to the locals themselves as time passed.

Perrin and wolves! I will not go into details because the show hasn’t given us too much yet, but... wolves! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 I like the music playing here; I assume it’s probably Perrin’s theme?

Anyway, then we are finally entering Shadar Logoth! Creepy vibes! Story is much abridged but that’s to be expected. Shadar Logoth accomplishes what it needs to:

a. splits the party

b. scares the Trollocs

c. Mat finds the dagger

And the show did it with a wonderful atmosphere. The emptiness! How quiet it all is when they enter, except for the actual sounds that our group makes. I liked the soft moments that Mat & Perrin, and Egwene & Rand share. Especially since, due to the party split, those pairs won’t be getting to spend time together in the near future.

Some of the other stuff that happened in Shadar Logoth, I kinda feel like I can’t talk about without going into book spoilers, so I will end there, lol. For now, I’ll just be excited about Nynaeve showing up at the end! <3

Looking forward to the new episode this week! My initial reaction to that will likely be full of book-related spoilers, but I’ll try to do a book-spoiler-free rewatch for 1x03 this weekend.

#wheel of time #wot #wot spoilers #wot show spoilers #wot on prime #wot meta #wot personal meta #wot prime spoilers #butterfly watches wot

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damnusillygoose · 4 years

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Somebody is jealous( jellal’s edition)

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13786166/2/somebody-is-jealous

for erza’s edition:

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13786166/1/somebody-is-jealous

Thank you sapphireblue2007 for suggesting me to write jellal's version.

Disclaimer: these characters are rightfully owned by hiro sensei.

Somebody is Jealous (Jellal's edition)

Well, Jellal perceives himself as a very liberal and progressive person.

He wasn't a possessive person. No, not at all- Even in his relationship with Erza, he believed in giving ample space for growth and self-introspection to each other. He certainly didn't believe in getting jealous when one's partner gets some excessive attention from the opposite gender. Nope, not at all, he was a progressive person, wasn't he? He didn't want to smother her with suffocation. Jellal was aware of the fact that his woman was a strong person who didn't need anyone to save her. She was her own person and stood up for what she believed in. That's how he viewed relationships- a sweet added bonus to one's life, separate from a person's purpose in life.

Yet,

He felt horrified, as he realised, he was shamelessly contradicting his very own beliefs. His eyes twitched in mild irritation, well not exactly mild- only slight, that's how he soothed his not so jealous soul, as he watched the scene before him unfold.

His beloved was sitting comfortably on one of the chairs kept near the bar, eating her sweet dessert in contentment, oblivious to the lusty stares that eyed her glorious exposed thighs and cleavage. There were men hovering around her, drooling repugnantly.

Erza was a beautiful woman. It was an established fact. Not only did she win various beauty pageants, but she also attracted scores of men who simped after her and bolstered her as their 'waifu'!

Jellal was fucking replete with fury when he came to learn about this obnoxious verbiage. What a derogatory term! He opined. How dare they lust after Erza and claim her as their 'waifu'?! well, typically he was doing the same. But he was her partner and it's pretty healthy in a relationship to be intimately attracted to your partner! Yep, he reasoned with his conscience.

It was no secret that men secretly/openly lusted after females who were fairly popular. Given fairy tail's reputation, they were inglorious for being rambunctious all over the continent. This shouldn't come as a surprise to Jellal that Erza was kind of a national crush of Fiore. She even got disgusting offer letters from rich officials asking her to be their mistress. Every single person, be it a man or a woman, acknowledged her regal presence. Wherever they went, people were in awe of her. She was a beautiful woman, confident and sassy, along with a splendid personality. Who wouldn't be attracted to such an amazing person?

Analysing her fan following, he was sure of the fact that Erza must have dated some men in the past. However, He gasped in utter disbelief when he got to know that despite of the attention she received; she never laid her eyes on another man. They were reserved for him. Always.

He was her first man, the first man who held her hand, the first man who witnessed her vulnerable side, her first kiss, the one who took her virginity, the one she would like to start a family with and the only one who she would devote her heart to.

Forever.

That gave him a superior complex over all those degenerates who hated him for stealing their waifu.

Her devotion made him feel extremely fortunate, to get a woman who would choose him over everything else.

But that didn't mean that he couldn't get jealous.

'Oi chad, snap out from your murderous intent, will ya?'

'Laxus.'

'What happened? Why are you in such a bad mood?', Laxus raised his eyebrows in amusement. It was fun teasing Jellal especially when he was in a foul mood.

'Jelly-chan is jealous because other men in the party are eyeing Erza ravenously!', Meredy chimed in the scene, humming a tune under her breath almost nonchalantly.

Laxus let out a nasty cackle as he smashed his beer pint against the wooden table they currently occupied. Meredy joined in with her sniggers; annoying Jellal in his misery.

'Cheer up Jelly chan, if you brood so much, you will end up getting wrinkles quickly and look almost 20 years elder to Erza!'

'Stop calling me Jelly chan, Meredy!'

'Why? I think that name suits you a lot Jellal.'

Oh no.

The trio turned around to acknowledge the owner of this sardonic comment.

Erik approached the group with a wide smirk plastered on his face, much to Jellal's discontentment.

What a great timing. Now they will gang up to bully me.

'Say Jellal, want to murder those assholes? I could feel your malignity from the far end of the hall, reverberating louder than Gajeel's singing shit'

'I wouldn't go that far, they are just harmless flies'

Actually, he could.

'Then why are you getting so hot-headed over those harmless flies?', Meredy smiled knowingly.

'I am not.'

'oh boss! Stop lying with your pathetic ass!'

'I am not lying Erik!'

Erik scoffed at his reply. He didn't even try to hide it.

'Then what do you plan on doing chad boy? Just sit in a corner like a lost puppy and watch as those men eye your woman?', laxus joined in the conversation, adding oil to the fuming spark.

'I can't pause to throw a stone at every dog that barks. Plus, Erza is a strong woman. I shouldn't stick my nose where it isn't needed. I think she is capable of handling this herself.'

But actually, he was trying his best not to jump in the scene and take her away from those bastards but he didn't want to appear as a jealous freak who had no control over his irrational aspect.

'of course, she is Jellal', Meredy reasoned,' but a woman, no matter how strong she is, would love to be spoiled by her man and feel protected. That doesn't mean you are undermining her strength. It's called chivalry.'

'…'

'What about ramming some hot iron rods up in their assholes?', laxus had no chill at all.

'Laxus your speech is so vulgar', Jellal cringed.

'Not as vulgar as your mind, boss'

'Erik, listen up- '

'it's okay Jellal', Meredy patted his back sympathetically, 'You are always harsh on yourself. You don't have to berate yourself so much. Being jealous is a sign of affection after all.'

'Really?', he raised his eyebrows in suspicion.

'Well, when exercised in moderation. Don't become Juvia though.', Laxus grimaced in exasperation.

'I just-I can't handle those people who eye her like she is their personal property!'

'Oohoohoo, finally the lover boy is being honest!', laxus slapped his hand against jellal's back harshly.

Jellal ignored his remark and chose to focus upon what Erza was doing.

Erza, unfortunately, was already surrounded by random men drooling over her assets while he was busy merry making with his guild mates.

He was pissed. He was fucking pissed.

He clenched his fist in impuissance until his knuckles turned white. He let out a shaky breath, biting his lips, trying his best not to eradicate their existence by casting sema right at this moment

'Erza-sama, I know this beautiful villa by the country side that I can rent for you. Would you like to witness that scenic beauty? I can make the arrangement just for the two of us.'

'uh, no thank you. I am not interested, I am busy at the moment with my ongoing missions but I would certainly take-out time to visit this said place with my friends and my boyfriend', Erza exaggerated the last part to make this pathetic pervert clear of the fact that she wasn't interested in his offer.

'He doesn't need to know'

'When I said I won't go, I won't go. Please learn to respect a woman.'

She was already seething at this moment, ready to requip in her armour to beat the shit out of these perverts but she held herself back. This was an important party for her guild as many magic council officials appeared to discuss some important matters with master Makarov.

'Erza-sama!', another pervert chimed in, 'what about-!

'My honeyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!'

Erza felt a shiver travelling down her spine even before she could react from the horror of hearing his voice. She didn't need to see who this abhorrent creature was. She didn't even acknowledge him as a person. Ichiya had already latched himself around her leg giving it a wild sniff, trespassing all boundaries of her private space.

This is it. This was her limit.

She was shaking wild. Her fingers were itching from wrath as she tried to remove him from her. These men latched themselves upon her despite being firmly rejected by her. She was being polite and considerate of her guild. That's the only reason she somehow tolerated their creepy remarks. She desperately searched for familiar eyes through the crowd that was bustling from the onset of vibrant ebullience. She grew impatient by every single moment when she failed in her search to find them. That's when she felt a presence behind her. The eyes she was searching for were already looking down from their vantage but not at her. She followed his eyes to find them glued on Ichiya.

Jellal got hold of Ichiya's hand and ruthlessly broke him apart from Erza's legs, not caring for a single second where his poor ass landed.

'Ichiya-san, that's a unique way of greeting someone. It could very well qualify as harassment you know', Jellal hissed menacingly, walking in front of Erza to make a defensive guard around her.

Jellal was a master at hiding his emotions and maintaining a stoic demeanour but Erza could still look beyond that very well.

He appeared perfectly placid but he wasn't.

His eyes bellowed bloodlust. He was growling with belligerence.

He was not going to let these repulsive hands touch the body that he revered so much.

The rest of the crowd started to disperse, succumbing to the impingement Jellal displayed, while laxus, Meredy and Erik watched the scene in awe. That's the impact Jellal's presence wielded.

There was a limit to which this man could tolerate bullshit after all. This was Jellal, who was fiercely protective of the woman he loved.

Erza snickered to herself smugly seeing the crowd become frail upon his arrival. These were some spineless cowards who weren't even half the man her Jellal was.

Jellal blissfully ignored the crowd that was whispering his name with resentment, something along the lines of 'their waifu'

He looked at Erza, taking in a deep breath of relief as he put his hands over her shoulders securely.

'Well gentlemen, I just remembered that my boyfriend and I have some work to do, if you will excuse us.' Erza stood up from her chair and bowed her head signalling her departure as she grabbed hold of jellal's hands, leading them across the hall through the exit door. Jellal looked at his guild mates who were giving him smug smiles and thumbs ups.

After exiting the guild, Jellal let out a sigh as they strode further away from that crowd. He still was shaking, his hysteria urging him to go back and beat the shit out of those bastards. He tore his thoughts away from the former events and looked sideways at the enchanting woman walking by his side.

'This dress really looks nice on you.'

'Thank you, sweetheart', Erza smiled and turned her face to give him a chaste peck on his cheeks. 'But I think I will opt for a less revealing outfit next time for a formal party like this'

'Why?'

'tch, didn't you see for yourself what happened today?'

'Don't fret about those assholes, just wear what you want', he snaked his arm around her waist protectively to pull her closer to him.

Jellal rarely cursed, that meant he was infuriated right now.

'Jellal', she whispered lovingly, taking his face in her hands, 'look at me'

He locked his gaze with her, facing her completely. His arms gently fondled her waist, pulling her entirely towards himself.

She leaned into him, melting like butter.

'I love you Jellal.' She brought his face towards hers until their foreheads were touching each other, 'Thank you for helping me back then. I was really helpless'.

They closed their eyes and sighed in synchronisation. She felt his arms locking her into a tight embrace, clutching the fabric of her dress.

'I just…..couldn't help myself when I saw them degrading you like that.' He felt the weight of her hands shifting down towards his neck, near his sensitive spot which only she knew about, caressing it to calm him down.

'Thank you love, but don't over-exert yourself over this issue, this isn't worth your time and effort', she looked at him tenderly. Jellal was such a worrywart but she loved him the same.

'yeah…you are right', he leaned into her, nuzzling his nose with hers, her sweet scent taming his raging heartbeat down, 'I love you too'

It's almost been a year since they started dating and obviously they never hesitated to show their love to each other- verbally, physically or emotionally, but Erza would never get tired of Jellal saying 'I love you' to her. She had dreamed about it so long, she yearned about it ever since she realised her feelings for him, she would never take his confessions for granted. It still had the same impact on her as the first time he poured his heart out to her.

Such was their affection for each other-always raging against the odds.

The hooting of the owls could be heard in the depth of the night. A sudden breeze struck her form as she shivered from the lack of her clothing, she had worn a simple flowy dress, not deemed to be fit in a chilly weather.

'it's getting cold Erza', Jellal pointed out as he draped his coated over her shoulders, 'let's go home'.

She hummed lightly in solace as she felt his lips softly touch her forehead. She entwined her hand with his as they started treading towards the path that led to their small cottage, their personal heaven.

'Can you make me a strawberry smoothie with vanilla ice cream?', she asked him tentatively, testing her waters.

'I thought you wanted to curb your midnight snacking'

'But jelllaaaaaaaaaaaal!', she wailed in desperation, 'dealing with those perverts drained my energy!'

'I can always make a bowl of fruits oats for you.'

'Noooooooo! That's way too heathy!'

'Okay how about this?', he tried to reason with her, 'I'll make milk oats for you with honey and loads of freshly cut strawberries. Sounds like a good deal to me, what do you think?'

She thought about the offer for a moment. It did actually sound like a good deal. She knew she kind of gave in to her midnight sugar cravings. Milk oats were a heathier option.

She pouted and tried to act a little spoiled, 'only if you bribe me.'

'What a scandal! The great titania is asking for a bribe!', he nudged her shoulder playfully and she huffed in response to his actions, 'what are your demands?'

'You need to pepper me with as many kisses as I ask you for!'

' My, My, I was already planning on giving you a thousand kisses when we reach home, don't worry about that', he replied as he gave her a wink making her blush profusely.

If anyone heard them conversing in this manner, their eyeballs would pop out from their eye sockets. They were incredible mages, well versed with the ethics of professionalism. They completed their tasks seriously but when they were alone, it becomes a different story.

A/N: if you liked my story please leave a review and do check out my works as well.

Constructive criticism is appreciated.

Keep loving Jerza!

#jerza #fairy tail #fairy tail jerza #jellal fernandez #jellal x erza #erza scarlet #crime sorciere #fairy tail laxus #Meredy

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wkemeup · 5 years

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Guiding Light (8)

summary: It was supposed to be a simple mission. Get the intel and go home. Until everything goes wrong and you’re taken captive by Hydra and now, Bucky can’t breathe without you. Not until he brings you home. If he even can. pairing: bucky x reader chapter word count: 8.1k warnings: angst™, cannon violence, mild reference to passive suicidal thoughts, description of a panic attack 🖤series masterlist // series playlist

Bucky took in a steady breath; a cold, calculated inhale as he focused his scope on a target sitting at a table outside a quaint café in Brussels. A light breeze filtered through his hair, enough for him to adjust the positioning of the rifle a few millimeters to the left before he took his shot. The man, dressed in a navy suit and dark tinted glasses, took a sip of coffee from the mug on the table, steam visible through the end of Bucky’s scope.

He positioned his finger on the trigger, the soft click of the safety as it released, and Bucky narrowed in his aim, ready to make that final pull, the difference between life and death with a single flinch of his finger.

“Busy, Barnes?”

Natasha’s voice chimed from behind him and his positioning faltered as he swung back an angry glare in her direction. Wearing her leather jacket hung over her shoulders and red hair worn up away from her face, she sat on the edge of the rooftop, back to the café and legs swinging aimlessly beneath her. She raised an eyebrow, searching for an answer to her question and Bucky rolled his eyes. He didn’t have time for her antics.

He turned back to his scope to find the target missing from the table. Gritting his teeth, he searched for the man amongst the crowd, only to find a short glimpse of him before he disappeared inside of the restaurant. Bucky sat back against his heels with an aggravated grunt.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Who’s the target?” Natasha countered, knowing eyes upon him and he knew she didn’t need the answer to confirm her suspicions.

“Not your business,” he replied shortly, unscrewing the end of his rifle and carefully placing the pieces back in the case. He’d have to take out the target on foot; up close, personal. It would be a welcomed change, could give him a chance to make sure that asshole knew exactly who was draining the life from his pathetic, feeble existence.

“Think it might be actually,” Natasha shrugged, jumping down from the lip of the roof, “since you’ve gone rouge and all.”

Bucky paused before he slammed the case shut, locking the rifle away. He stood to his feet; case gripped tightly in the palm of his left hand. Natasha watched him, studied him, because while he was still getting to know her again, she knew him better than most, knew the tells he didn’t realize he had. But Natasha had known the soldier, he reminded himself. It wasn’t the same.

“I’m not rouge,” Bucky grunted, shoving past her as he headed for the stairwell. “Steve knows where I am.”

Bucky’s hand grasped onto the door knob, warm from the beam of the sunlight and he turned it sharply before Natasha’s voice called out again.

“He also know you’re taking out Hydra agents on a hitlist without SHIELD jurisdiction?”

Bucky froze. He had told Steve he was taking time for himself, traveling for bit, because being in the compound a second longer was going to destroy him. Steve had seen him take the weapons with him, caught him as he loaded a rifle into his bag and about four different hand guns and a series of knives, but he didn’t say anything, didn’t question it. Bucky assumed Steve had his suspicions, but no one, not even the Captain, was going to challenge him after what happened in Times Square.

No one except Natasha, apparently.

“Go home, Natalia,” Bucky urged, keeping his back to her as she approached him.

“Can’t do that,” she retorted with a purse of her lips, arms folded over her chest, “not when you’re gonna get yourself killed.”

“I’m doing just fine.”

“Are you?” Nat accused, standing in his way as he attempted to pull the door open to escape this conversation. She pressed her hand against the door and slammed it shut. “If you were okay, you wouldn’t be out here killing off Hydra agents like it’s a damn hobby. Y/n wouldn’t want—”

“Don’t,” Bucky snapped, dropping the case and shoving Nat hard against the door. His forearm draped over her collarbone, pressing her securely in place.

If she was afraid, she didn’t show it. Always so calm, collected. Unaffected. She watched him carefully like she was searching his face for something he’d never say aloud. He hardened his features, unwilling to give her the satisfaction and pulled away, releasing her from his grasp.

“Y/n doesn’t want anything for me,” Bucky growled, voice low and unforgiving. “She’s dead.”

Natasha flinched, losing her cool demeanor for only a second but it was long enough for Bucky to notice, to feel a sting of guilt pierce through the impenetrable exterior he built around himself.

He hadn’t let himself think of you in the two months since you died. It wasn’t just because it was too painful; the mere memory of you cutting and ripping at the hole in his chest until he was broken and empty. It had become survival instinct.

In the days after the events in Times Square, he had been a mess. It took hours before anyone could convince him to leave the open streets, even as camera vans pulled in and reporters shot their footage of the winter soldier sobbing on his knees, frozen, paralyzed, as the rest of the world continued on, as pedestrians moved about their day. His legs grew stiff and numb from how long he stayed there, knees digging into the pavement and unable to catch his breath.

He couldn’t seem to get away from the nonstop coverage of the event. It was on every news network, every late-night show, in every newspaper. He was plastered across the cover of TIME magazine; an image of him kneeling in the open streets, Times Square brought to an agonizing stop, devastation on his face and images of the man in the black mask covering every screen in sight. He couldn’t escape the reminders of what happened to you.

He holed himself up in his room; didn’t eat or sleep for days, and only found rest when he wondered into Dr. Cho’s office and begged her on hands and knees to sedate him, because the thought of seeing you in his dreams was more than he could handle and the need for sleep was crippling his body at the seams.

Bucky wasn’t the only one suffering. He knew that. The whole team had loved and cared for you and they lost a member of their family, but for Bucky, it was more than that. You were the light in his life, his reason to get up in the morning, the crutch that held him up when his body ached. He put too much on you, put his recovery and the darkest parts of his mind for you to hold, but you made it too easy, always asking for his burdens to share, always wanting to hold his hand in the dead of night, always curling up against him when the nightmares pulled him under.

Bucky didn’t know how to be the man you loved anymore.

Somewhere along the line, he decided that the man you knew him to be wasn’t strong enough to survive this. The Bucky you loved was too soft, too weak to have protected you that day, to have saved you in that Hydra facility before you were even taken, to have rescued you before you were executed on the live television for the world to see. That version of Bucky broke on 7th Avenue.

The day he finally emerged from his room again, after he’d lost nearly fifteen pounds of muscle and dark bags hung heavy under his eyes, his beard unkempt and hair grown long and unwashed, he’d told Steve he was going to Spain for a while, said he would take some time away to find himself again; a bullshit excuse to fuel the rage and vengeance stirring in his chest and Steve agreed with little persuasion.

Only one month after your death and Bucky regained the weight he lost, packed on muscle and lived behind the scope of his rifle. He found a reason to live again and it was killing every son of bitch that was remotely rumored to have had any contact with you in your time in Hydra’s captivity. He didn’t care about trial and justice, or whether the rumors were true. He’d take out every Hydra agent he could find and it would ease the suffering in his chest. Every kill would make it just a little bit easier to breathe.

It was what he told himself anyway.

It was also how he ended up on a rooftop in Brussels two months later. He came back to the compound intermittently, feeding Steve lies of what he’d been up to, though he could tell Steve was more than aware of what Bucky was doing than he let on. He didn’t say anything, didn’t challenge him on it, and Bucky was thankful for that, at least. It seemed he wasn’t the only one hell bent on revenge.

“Bucky,” Natasha started, breaking through his train of thought, voice softer now as he reached out and put her hand on his shoulder. He stiffened under her touch. “You should come back with me. Don’t put yourself through this. You don’t have to be alone.”

Bucky clenched his jaw, teeth pressed so tight that it ached in his muscles. He yanked his arm out from Natasha’s reach and grabbed the case from the ground. He didn’t say another word, didn’t offer an excuse, as he shoved his way through the door, leaving Natasha on the rooftop alone.

***

Hours later, once the sun had gone down and Bucky tracked his target to a laundromat on the outskirts of the city, he grabbed his bag of weaponry from the trunk of his car. The soft chirps of crickets in the background in stark contrast to the hustle of the inner city, and Bucky pulled a handgun from his bag and slipped it into the holster at his side. He grabbed two knives and set them in place on his jacket before closing the trunk securely.

He had a job to do, one he would thoroughly enjoy.

“Whatcha got there, Barnes?”

“Goddamn it, Romanoff,” Bucky grumbled as red hair emerged from behind the shadows.

She was one of a very few number of people who could sneak up on him. Hands tucked into her pockets, her eyes glimpsed at the silver reflection of the knives strapped to Bucky’s chest before she turned back to the window of the laundromat where the man from the café was loading clothes into a washer inside.

Bucky gritted his teeth, shoving past her as he made his way to the door. “I thought I told you to go home.”

“Don’t think I ever agreed to that,” she responded flatly, following him. “What exactly are you planning on doing?”

“Go. Home. Natalia.”

There was a short pause that followed, one a lifetime could have sat between. He was nearly to the door when Natasha’s voice called out after him; softer, aching.

“Y/n was my friend too, you know.”

Bucky stopped dead in his tracks, breath caught in his lungs. His hands clenched into fists at his side, nails of his right hand puncturing his palms. The pain wasn’t nearly enough to distract him.

“Don’t say her name to me.”

“You don’t get to capitalize on grief, Barnes, and you sure as hell don’t get to control how the rest of us mourn!” Natasha shot back. “You don’t get to use her as an excuse to pursue a vengeance she never would have wanted for you! This doesn’t have to be who you are anymore. It was Y/n that showed you that, don’t you remember? You don’t have to be this.”

The Winter Soldier. Cold. Ruthless. Vindictive.

Bucky closed his eyes, unwilling to turn around and allow Natasha to see the painful clench of his jaw, the burn in the back of his throat, the red in the whites of his eyes. It had been so long since he’d heard your name, since he let himself even remember who he had been when he was with you, and it was all rushing back. He couldn’t let that happen.

He couldn’t let himself be weak again.

Bucky took a step forward but Natasha rushed around him, placing a hand on his chest and planting herself to the ground.

“Get out of my way.”

She shook her head and Bucky grabbed firm hold of her arm, metal gripping flesh and shoved her aside until she slammed against the trunk of the car with a grunt. Bucky was halfway to the door when she spotted her reflection charging at him through the window of the store. He spun on his heels to catch her leg in time before she kicked it against his side. He swung himself around, sending an elbow to her back. She retaliated with a punch to the side of his face though he barely felt it, even as blood gushed from his lip.

They went back and forth, Avengers fighting in the alley under the mask of darkness, evenly matched, until Bucky yanked the handgun from the holster on his thigh and aimed it straight at her chest.

Natasha’s eyes widened, flickering between the barrel of the gun and Bucky’s face. She was panting, heavy breaths in her chest as he stared at Bucky in disbelief.

But she’d never understand. Bucky knew with certainty that no one would. It was why Steve never asked questions when he saw the weapons in his bag. Bucky only knew how to fill the void inside of him with violence and vengeance. It was all he knew before you and now that you were gone, it seemed like it was all he could physically muster just to stay alive.

He looked at Natasha, red hair clinging to the sides of her face in sweat. He knew how much you cared for her, how she had been the one who trained you, who taught you that you could have more in your life than just missions and SHIELD. She was your closest friend and Bucky had been cruel to her, tossing her aside like her own grief meant nothing in comparison to his, but he needed to be selfish, needed to protect himself because if he didn’t, he’d drown.

“Y/n wouldn’t recognize you right now,” Nat exhaled. Her tone was lacking the malicious intent he deserved, only filled with a devastation he couldn’t quite understand.

Bucky lowered his gun and set it back in the holster.

“Go home, Natalia.”

With that, he turned on his heels in search of the next man on a list of names whose blood would find its way to his hands. She didn’t follow him.

***

A few weeks later and Bucky found himself in Bratislava at the center of a Hydra base. Blood coated his hands, dripping in clumps down his sleeves and soaking into the fabric of his jacket. Bodies lined the hallway from where he came, dozens of men who dared block his path. His escape plan had been thrown out the window the moment he stepped foot in the building because at the end of the long hallway, he spotted one of the men at the top of his hitlist, a low-level agent named Brent Murkowski.

Murkowski had been one of the men who had dragged you away from him all those months ago. Harsh hands wrapped around your arms as you kicked and screamed as Bucky tried to punch his way through the barrier with no avail. Murkowski had the nerve to smile at him, taunting him as they took you away, and Bucky was determined to cut the man’s lips from his mouth if that was what it took to ease the sharp pain that had taken residency in his chest

No man would stand in his way.

And no man did.

He killed every last one of them. The floors were red with blood. Murkowski was bent over the table, throat slashed, and Bucky felt no relief. Being numb would be better than this.

Feet sticking to the tiles from the blood under his boot, Bucky carefully moved to the doorway, only to find Steve standing it’s his frame, a strange mixture of shock, anger, and disbelief on his features as his eyes trailed over the series of bodies, the blood, until they landed on Bucky.

“Jesus, Buck,” he gaped, shaking his head, “this what you’ve been doing the last few months?”

Bucky shrugged, brushing his knife off on his pants. “Usually it’s cleaner than this. Been sniping ‘em from a mile away,” he said casually. He grabbed a hold of Murkowski’s hair, lifting his face for Steve to see and blood gushed from his neck. Steve winced. “This one deserved something more personal.”

Steve shook his head, hand brushing over his lips as he took in the scene. “This is insane, Buck. It’s not you.”

“You don’t know what’s me anymore, Steve.”

“Like hell I don’t!” Steve crossed the room in a span of a few paces and grabbed a hold of Bucky’s arm, dragging him out to the hallway. “You’re acting like you’re the only one who lost her! Like you’re the only one that’s affected by what happened! Nat was right. You’ve gone too far and I’m putting a stop to this. Now.”

“Oh, so now you have a problem with me killing off Hydra agents now that you’ve seen my work?” Bucky scoffed, ripping his arm from Steve’s grasp. “Or is it because your little girlfriend thinks I’m out of control?”

“Watch yourself, Buck.”

Bucky shook his head, clenching his jaw to hold the anger boiling in his veins in.

Steve sighed, gesturing to the far end of the hallway. “Get to the jet. I’m taking you home.”

“I’m not a child—”

“You’re sure as hell acting like one!” Steve shot back. “You’re throwing a temper tantrum with knives and guns and taking out your anger and your grief on any Hydra agent you can find! They deserve that. Hell, they deserve worse! But you don’t have to be the instrument to do it! It’s the last thing Y/n would want and you know that!”

“Will you people stop fucking saying her name to me!”

Bucky’s chest was panting heavily; the rise and fall heavy in his lungs, anger left unclaimed and unrestrained setting him ablaze. Steve shook his head, sadder now, as if seeing his brother this way, this lost and helpless, drained the frustration from him.

“She’s not just something you can push aside and forget about, Buck,” Steve said, his voice considerably softer now and his shoulders began to slump. “She was real and alive and she changed you. You can’t erase her from your life like she never existed. You can’t pretend didn’t love her.”

“I’m—” Bucky exhaled through his teeth, “I’m not. I’m taking down the people who killed her, Steve. She’d want that. We’re Avengers, aren’t we? It’s in the fucking title! I’m trying to avenge her since none of you will!”

“Look around you! All this blood and violence… You’re going to get yourself killed, Buck!” Steve shouted, slamming his hand against the wall enough to make Bucky jump. “Don’t you care at all?!”

“Yeah, well, maybe I don’t!”

The words slipped out before Bucky could stop them and wished for a moment that he could reach out a grab them from the air before they fell on Steve’s ears because the absolute look of devastation upon his friend’s face was worse than he could have prepared for. His name came out in stuttered consonants from Steve’s lips but he pushed past him before anything could be said, walking down the hall towards the jet.

He couldn’t talk about it. Not now. Not with fresh blood coating his hands and the stench of death in the air. Bucky couldn’t face another conversation about how he was throwing his life away, how he was being too reckless in his hunt to destroy Hydra, how he waited patiently for each of these self-destructive missions to be his last and relieve him from the burden of this never-ending pain in his chest.

Bucky had lived through so much in his life, too much for any one man to take on alone, and for a while he didn’t have to. For a while, he had you to lighten his load, to give him something to look forward to each day and for the first time in very long time, he started to think about days further out than the next, started to wonder if you’d like to go apple picking in the fall or Coney Island in the summer.

He had started to let himself fantasize about what a life would be like with you if he ever worked up the courage to tell you how he felt. His nightmares started to be replaced with pleasant dreams and his trainings in the gym were sparring at your side instead of beating a punching bag until his knuckles bled. He started running around the compound instead of running for his life. He was free.

But you were gone and any progress he made left with you. Though, if he was honest with himself, he was worse now than before he met you. At least then, he had been convinced he would never find something to live for, something that made his days on this Earth worth dealing with the torment he had survived.

Now, he knew there was. He had it in the palm of his hand and it was ripped from him, violently and without remorse.

He stalked up the quinjet and took a seat in his usual spot. Steve didn’t say a word as he filed into the pilot’s seat. It was a quiet flight back home.

***

It was easier out on the road where he could push you from his mind, where he wasn’t constantly reminded of you everywhere he turned.

He saw you stretching by the fridge in the kitchen wearing your workout gear and the smile that made him want to come out from the darkness. He saw you in the gym, on the sparring ring, heard your soft grunts and the laugh that echoed through the raptures when you’d finally get him on his back. He saw you down by the lake, by the bench you’d read on as he’d sit in the grass at your feet, your hand casually carding through his hair like it didn’t mean more than just innocent touches.

You were everywhere and Bucky couldn’t breathe.

So, he started spending most of his time in the east wing of the compound. It was largely unfinished, with exposed beaming and dry wall, wooden frames of the foundation peaking through. It was the only place that wasn’t haunted by you.

Tony had put the project on hold after you were taken, so it was empty, quiet, and Bucky could find sanctuary somewhere no one would bother him, where no one would ask how he’s doing or if he was willing to see his therapist yet because the answers were always ‘fine’ and ‘no’.

One day, he found a spare pair of gloves in the corner of one of the rooms and picked up a hammer. He was always good with his hands, so he started to follow the plans the builders had laid out. It gave his mind something else to focus on besides the cruel voices in his head.

It was where he went first thing in the morning and didn’t return back to his room until long after the sun set. Sometimes, Sam would bring him some food he’d leave by the door, hoping Bucky would try and eat something, and every once in a while, he brought it back with a few bites missing. It was improvement, at least.

Two weeks in to his new routine, he brought his laptop with him, in need of something other than the sharp sound of the hammer to distract his thoughts, and reflexively opened up to one of the many playlists you made for him. It hadn’t been his intention, didn’t even consider that this would be the first place he’d go for music, to the tracks you strung together at the foot of your bed. His hand hovered over the cursor, shaking, unable to even press play before he broke down in tears. It was the first time he cried in months and once he started, he couldn’t stop.

It was Sam that eventually found him, after he’d been sent to bring Bucky dinner, curled up on the floor, hyperventilating and tears streaming down his face. Sam had rushed towards him, dropping the plate as glass shattered on the expose wood. He skidded on his knees and wrapped his arms tightly around Bucky, urging him to find five things he could see.

“C-can’t,” Bucky gasped, clinging onto Sam’s arms.

“Yes, you can, Barnes,” Sam had replied sternly, squeezing his shoulders a little tighter. “Five things you can see. Do it now.”

Bucky looked around the room, though it was blurry and tunneled and losing focus, he caught sight of a pair of gloves on the floor.

“G-gloves,”

“Good. Four more.”

“Ha-hammer,”

“Keep going,”

Bucky nodded, doing as Sam instructed until he named all five items he struggled to focus his blurring vision on.

Then, Sam asked him for four things he could feel. Shaking hands dug into the fabric of his jacket, felt the way Sam’s arms restricted around him, felt the hard of the wooden floors under him, the muggy heat of the air. He told Sam so.

“Three things you can hear,” Sam continued, “Come on, man, do you’re almost there.”

Bucky nodded, telling Sam he could hear his own heavy breaths, agents talking down the hall, Sam’s stupid, irritating voice. Sam laughed slightly at that and Bucky told him he heard that, too. It was getting easier to breath but his head was feeling numb.

Sam asked for two things he could smell.

Bucky took a minute, forced in a harsh, shaken breath through his nose and reported back, “f-fresh wood and leather, from your jacket.”

“One thing you can taste,”

It was the last step. He didn’t want to say it aloud. It was too embarrassing, though, he supposed Sam had already seen the worst of it.

“Salt.” From his tears.

It took him a while to come back down from the haze, so long that his head was pounding and his arm felt numb by the end of it, but his heart rate did go down again, and he caught his breath.

He pulled away from Sam slowly, swallowing thickly and avoiding his eyes. Sam helped Bucky back up to his feet and offered him a short smile.

They never spoke of it again, but Sam started showing up to help Bucky with the renovations the next day, no matter how many times Bucky pushed him away.

Sam would hum to himself in the corner of the room, asking dumb questions, and undoing all of Bucky’s hard work and it drove him insane. But he found that he laughed when Sam caught his thumb under the head of the hammer and he started to tap his foot to the music Sam put on.

The days weren’t as long now with someone to talk to.

***

Bucky had been assigned for lunch duty, much to his reluctance. He left Sam behind in the east wing and jogged his way back to their kitchen. His own stomach was growling, which was new for him, and he wondered if it was part of the progress Sam talked about. He was starting to feel normal again, less of a machine, more like the man he was supposed to be, and he supposed that maybe eating meals three times a day was something he should be doing.

He pulled open the fridge, digging through the back to find the sandwiches Nat had put together for them this morning. He sighed, removing the bags and setting them on the counter as he noticed their names written in her handwriting, signaling who’s had mayonnaise on it. He wanted to apologize to her for how he’d treated her in Brussels but she wouldn’t hear it. Not because she didn’t accept it, but because she claimed it wasn’t necessary. He disagreed.

After grabbing a few water bottles, Bucky turned to head back to the east wing when he heard Steve’s voice from down the hall.

“Tony, you’re seeing things,” Steve said, voice strained, followed by a few drawn out footsteps. He was pacing. Bucky narrowed his eyes, leaving the sandwiches behind and following Steve’s voice down the hall.

“I’m telling you, Rogers, there’s something wrong here,” Tony replied, just as Bucky turned the corner to find the two of them standing at the end of the conference room.

Bucky’s heart nearly leapt from his chest when he saw what they were huddled around; an image of you on the television, tape pressed over your mouth, tears down your face. It was the video from the worst day of his life.

“Look at it,” Tony urged, pointing his finger at the TV. “There’s a fleck of gold in her eye in this frame. It’s subtle but it’s there. Go on, look!”

Steve looked closer, leaning into the television to get a better look, but his arms were crossed. He pulled away with a shake of his head. “Tony, I think you’re grasping at straws here. It’s probably the lighting.”

“You’re not listening to me,” Tony grunted, picking up the remote and zooming in until the entire TV displayed your eyes. Bucky grabbed onto the wall for support. “Look!”

“What am I supposed to be seeing here Tony…”

“Those aren’t Y/n’s eyes!” Tony shouted, almost gleefully, “That’s not Y/n!”

“Stop,” Bucky exhaled from the doorway, and though his voice was quiet, barely above a whisper, it instantly grabbed the attention of the two men as they turned around sharply, surprised to see him standing behind him. Bucky’s grip on the wall was so tight it started to warp under his grip. “Don’t do this, Stark.”

Tony stepped forward, quickly turning the TV off and your eyes faded away from the screen. “Barnes, I’m– I’m sorry. You weren’t supposed to see that.”

“Y/n’s dead,” Bucky gritted out, the words never any easier as they fell from his tongue. They tasted like poison in his mouth. “She’s gone, Tony. We all saw it happen.”

Tony paused, clenching his jaw like he was trying to keep quiet. It didn’t last long. “But what if we didn’t? What if it wasn’t her?”

“Tony, stop,” Steve warned. “There is nothing worse than false hope.”

“Then I’ll find proof,” Tony conceded as he exited the room.

Steve pinched the bridge of his nose, glancing over at Bucky nervously. “I’m sorry you had to see that, Buck. We all grieve in different ways and I think it’s just hitting Tony, you know? Think he’s struggling to believe it’s real.”

Bucky nodded, he knew the feeling well. “It’s okay. I get it.”

Steve smiled softly, putting a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “I know how hard this is but it feels like you’re starting to find yourself again. Y/n would be really proud of you.”

It was the first time he heard your name without wanting to scream and yell and throw himself into the dark embrace of the soldier. For the first time, he felt a sense of calm. Still, hurt in his chest, but it was a deep kind of longing he didn’t think would ever go away. It was something he could survive though, he thought.

“I feel like I owe it to her,” Bucky confessed carefully, voicing thoughts aloud he struggled to let himself process on his own, “to be the man she knew. I think… I think she’d want me to be okay. I’m not there. Hell, I’m really far from it, but it’s something I can work towards.”

“Something to keep you going?” Steve asked slowly.

It was only three weeks since Steve found him in Bratislava and brought him home, since Bucky had all but admitted to Steve he lost his will to live when you died. It was the reason he was asking now and Bucky nodded sincerely, sorry that he had scared Steve enough for him to still be questioning it.

“Besides, I gotta fix all the shit work Sam did in the east wing,” Bucky shrugged, a light hearted tone in his voice for the first time in months.

Steve snorted back a laugh. “Better get back to work then.”

***

Nights were still hard but he was getting better with them since he started going back to see his therapist. Steve’s jaw nearly hit the floor the day Bucky had asked him for a ride. It wasn’t easy and he certainly wasn’t ready to talk about you, but he learned new skills for evading the nightmares in his sleep, for controlling the panic attacks when they came. Turned out Sam’s method for counting the senses was legit and he figured he should thank him again for that if he got the courage.

He realized with the help of his therapist that you were his main coping skill. It was you that talked him down after his nightmares, that held him when he struggled to find reality when he opened his eyes again. It was you who coaxed him down when he struggled to breathe, when he couldn’t catch his breath and he was too lightheaded to stand. You were the glue that held him together and now he needed to learn how to pick up the pieces himself.

So, when he woke in the middle of the night with sweat on his skin and his heart pounding painfully in his chest, he immediately threw his jacket over his shoulders, tugged on a pair of jeans and sneakers and tried something new for a change.

Instead of stalking off to the gym to beat his knuckles raw on a punching bag, he decided to borrow one of Tony’s cars and head into the city. It wasn’t usually something he did alone; too afraid of the stares and the chaos, the unpredictability, but it was a place that reminded him of you and he wondered, for the first time, if maybe it was okay to follow your ghost.

Hands tucked tight into the pockets of his bomber and a baseball cap over his hair to obscure his eyes, he made his way through Brooklyn. The breeze was cool on his back, the city much quieter at this time of night, and there was an era of peace to it he didn’t expect to find.

Without realizing where he was going, he found himself in front of the bookshop you had dragged him to in his first trip back into the city since before the war. It was closed for the night, but something in the window caught his attention. It was a poster, hung on the door behind the glass, an image of your face upon it, smiling, almost mid laugh. Above it, in clear font, it read, ‘New York Does Not Forget.’ Below, it the bottom corner of the page, scribbles of messy handwriting wrote, ‘even if she was a pain in my ass. RIP’.

Bucky couldn’t help the laugh that escaped him as he brushed his fingers over the glass, like touching it would bring him just a little closer to you. He could still see you arguing with the shop owner over when the building was built and the gleeful smile on your face when he conceded the argument. You still purchased all of your books here and Bucky knew it was a lot. Your feud with the owner was only in jest.

With a heavy sigh, Bucky let his hand fall away from the glass and back into his pocket. He shuffled back onto the sidewalk and followed the path wherever it led him.

Eventually he came upon a street with more people than he’d seen in a while. They huddled together at the crosswalk, waiting for the light to change, and then as one, they all crossed the street heading down towards something beyond what Bucky could see. He narrowed his eyes, watching as people from every corner of the block seemed to be heading in the same direction. They were all going somewhere together.

Curiosity getting the better of him, Bucky jogged across the crosswalk with a few seconds to spare. He followed the crowd down several blocks until he came upon a massive crowd, all gathered at the center of an open park. Signs in their hands, candles illuminating the darkness.

“Five months to the day,” a speaker said from behind a microphone, though her voice was soft, reserved. The crowd was silent as they listened. “Five months since we lost one of our beloved heroes.”

Bucky sucked in a harsh breath, jaw clenching on reflex.

“Nearly seven since she was captured while on duty with the Avengers, doing her part, behind the scenes, to keep the people of this country safe from threat,” the woman continued and Bucky was frozen in his spot. “We are gathered tonight to remember her sacrifice.”

Bucky couldn’t move. He was frozen on the sidewalk, staring into the gathering like an outsider. He didn’t belong here. Shouldn’t be a part of something like this. He struggled every day trying to convince himself it wasn’t his fault, tried to hear it in your voice because he knew it would be what you’d say, but it was a constant fight, one he rarely won.

He turned to escape when he felt a tug on his jacket. No one ahead of him, he narrowed his eyes suspiciously until he felt the tug again. Looking down, he saw a girl no older than seven staring up at him; big dark eyes and curly brown hair pulled up in a large bun at the crown of her head. She smiled up at him like he wasn’t something to be feared.

“You need a candle?” she asked sweetly.

“I—I um,” he gaped nervously, eyes darting down the street to somewhere empty, quiet, and he turned back to the little girl who was holding a candle up for him, waiting patiently for him to take it. He swallowed despite the dryness in his throat. “Thanks.”

She grinned, smile beaming, and that was when Bucky noticed she was wearing a shirt with your insignia on it. He let out a heavy sigh and watched as the girl skipped back over to her mom as she stood at the edge of the parking passing out candles to those who entered.

Trying to get a hold of himself, Bucky tilted the brim of his cap down to shield his eyes and he made his way into the park. He kept a careful distance from the others the best he could, but soon the small greenery was filled with people.

“Agent Y/l/n was more than just an Avenger,” the woman’s voice carried through the crowd, “she was a New Yorker. She was one of us.”

Murmurs of agreement followed, people whispering to one another and raising their candles.

“If you saw her on the streets, she’d greet you like an old friend. She was exceptionally kind and cared more about her city and the people in it than anyone knew,” the woman said as the crowd nodded in response. The woman let out a heavy sigh. “She was lost to us too soon. Taken by the evil she worked so vigilantly to protect us all from.”

Bucky clenched his jaw and he looked down to find the candle snapped in his hand. Panic shook him from his trance and he glanced nervously around to see if anyone noticed. He couldn’t afford to stand out, couldn’t have people looking at him, knowing he was there. He was certain he’d be chased out.

“Hey,” a voice said beside him and Bucky’s whole body clenched up. He turned to find a kid who looked about the age he was when he was drafted; young and in a NYU hoodie. He pressed his lips out into a thin line and extended his candle to Bucky. “Take mine.”

Bucky stared at the candle for a moment before he turned to the young man. He recognized Bucky, that he was sure of, but there wasn’t a trace of fear in his eye, or a disdain he was so certain he would find. Instead, there was only condolence, a sad smile as he gestured for Bucky to take the candle.

“Thank you,” he muttered and the kid nodded, giving him a reassuring smile.

Bucky felt a little less out of place after that.

He stood there for hours, listening to the woman at the microphone he’d come to find out was named Maddie. She worked down at the Boys and Girls Club and knew you personally. Bucky learned for the first time that you spent a Saturday afternoon there once a month visiting the kids, playing games, and teaching self-defense. He hadn’t known that and it made him smile; the idea that he could still learn new things about you even after you’d gone.

He listened as Maddie passed the mic off to people as they lined up on the stage of the small, makeshift stage, and they told stories of the short encounters they had with you. He listened as a young, college aged woman told the crowd about when she accidentally spilled coffee on you in that café you’d brought Bucky to once, and how you had been nothing but kind and laughed it off easily, even offered to buy her a fresh cup.

Then, a teenage boy came to the stage, fumbling and nervous, but he grabbed the mic with as much courage as he could muster. He talked about the day Hydra agents had flooded the streets and he had been separated from his father when he was just ten years old. It was before your days as an Avenger, back when you were on a SHIELD ops team, and he was proud to have a story about you from that time.

He spoke about how you had swept him out of the way of an oncoming vehicle caught in the crossfire of an attack in mid-town, how you held his hand for the two hours it took to help locate his father, and you never once complained, never tried to pass him off to an officer because he was just so damn afraid of anyone but you.

Bucky’s heart swelled with pride and he barely noticed the tear that brushed down his cheek.

It was story after story, strangers recalling the absolute best of you and it was more than Bucky had allowed himself to indulge in your memory for months. It was a breath of air and it was suffocating. It was relief and burden all at once.

As a middle-aged woman took the stage and recalled the day she was visiting Times Sqaure with her daughter, the day your face appeared on every billboard for a mile long, Bucky swore his heart stopped. He pinched at the bridge of his nose, desperate to hide his face because tears had welled up in his eyes, a sob creeping its way through his spine.

He gasped against the lump in his throat, trying to stifle his cries before anyone could notice and he almost turned to leave when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Wide eyes snapped to his right and he was met with a familiar face, a comforting one, who only offered him a soft, sad smile before he took his place next to him, carrying a candle of his own.

Steve.

He stared up at the speaker, listening intently and Bucky couldn’t take his eyes off of his friend.

“How did you–”

“FRIDAY,” he responded in a light whisper. He gestured to the back gate. “Once we figured out where you went, the whole team wanted to come.”

Sure enough, as Bucky glanced back at the gate, Natasha was gathering a few candles from the greeter. Sam was shortly behind her, talking with a young boy wearing a Falcon t-shirt, while Tony and Pepper walked hand in hand towards them.

Bucky nodded, a little overwhelmed as he turned back to the front. Steve’s hand gripped at his shoulder, firm squeezes in an effort to remind him he was there, that he wasn’t alone in his grief. The tears didn’t stop as he continued listening to the speakers, but they didn’t hurt as much after that, didn’t feel like shameful burns on his skin, but instead, like they were healing.

***

It was nearly dawn by the time the team made their way back to the compound. Climbing out of the cars, Steve’s arm was thrown around Bucky’s shoulders, laughing about some story Sam had told about the time you had nearly convinced Thor that you were the Queen of New York. For the first time in months, Bucky had tears in his eyes from something other than heartbreak, cheeks burning with laughter.

The sun was rising in the distance, casting a stunning reflection of pale oranges and pinks and yellows over the tree line, and Bucky stopped for a moment, just letting himself take it in, to see something of beauty again. Steve clapped his hand against Bucky’s back, giving him a smile that was filled with of pride and relief.

Bucky wondered then if maybe he could find a way back to the light.

But then, a scream pierced through the grounds and Bucky’s heart stopped hard in his chest. It echoed and broke through the tree lines, surging birds in flight through the morning sky. Broken and fearful and full of a devastation Bucky didn’t even know how to place, he stumbled back out of Steve’s grip.

Steve sprinted towards the scream and Bucky quickly realized it was Natasha who had voiced such a sound. Shaking himself from his stupor, Bucky chased after Steve, running as fast as his feet could carry him because if anything was to scare Natasha like that, it had to be some awful, something truly terrifying and she’d need the entire team on alert.

It was only a few seconds before Bucky approached the rest of the team to find them gathered around something on the floor. Natasha was on her knees, gathering something up in her arms, though she was blocked from his view by the rustling crowd approaching. Tony was barking orders at agents as they approached with a kind of panic in his voice Bucky hadn’t heard before.

“Someone call Cho, now!”

Cho? Why would they need to call Cho, Bucky wondered as he glanced at Steve’s back only to find his muscles stiff, clenched.

“How the hell is this possible?” Sam gaped; his hands clasped on his head as he stared down in disbelief.

Bucky still couldn’t get a good look of whatever they were gawking at, but as Steve turned to face him, an unreadable expression on his face, his eyes wide and his lips parted in a loss of words, speechless in a way Steve Rogers never was, Bucky shoved his way forward until he caught sight of what laid at their feet.

Heart plummeting to the depths of the planet itself, knees weak and he nearly collapsed if it wasn’t for Steve’s sudden hold on him. Barely able to stand on his own feet, leaning heavily on the super soldier behind him, Bucky couldn’t find his voice, couldn’t even find it in him to scream or cry or speak a single word.

It was the culmination of months of heartbreak and anger and pain all shoved back into the span of a few seconds. Nothing he had experienced in the last seven months came anywhere close to this, to what he saw wrapped in Natasha’s arms, bloodied and scarred and teetering on the edge of consciousness, but so incredibly alive.

You.

—-

This was one of my favorite chapters to write. idk why that says about me but I loved writing Bucky in so much pain and going through stages of healing lol

Your feedback has been so wonderful and encouraging and I cant tell you how much every comment and reblog means to me so thank you! We clearly have more to go so hold on tight my friends 💕

tags 🕯@musiclover1263 / @pies-wands-and-more / @buckygrantbarnes / @mywinterwolf / @breatheeagainnnn / @jewelofwinter / @panic-naran / @fairislesheets / @kaliforniacoastalteens / @captain-hammer-of-asgard / @daydreamsquad / @deanssweetheart / @maybesomedaytho / @montypythonsholysnail / @saharzek / @jillybeaner13 / @chubby-dumplin / @searchingforbucky / @alohafromhell1 / @tabalugax / @shesalatesh / @whyamidoingthistomyselfhelp / @aliensbecameourstyle / @bucksgoat / @serpensortiaaa / @trash-rats-unite / @hungry-pasta / @nervosaa / @lbuck121/ @get0verit / @obama-mia / @imsoft-barnes / @this-broken-band-girl / @michelehansel / @itz-kira / @forever157 / @grey-water-colors / @sebastianstan-posts / @sarcastic-and-cool / @no-clue-whats-happenin / @capsgrl / @happyeyesandsunshine / @slithredn / @13sunken-ships13 / @thefandomplace / @wxstedhexrt / @jennmurawski13 / @galaxkay / @moonlessnight14/ @kittybritty7 / @sweetheartbarnes

#bucky barnes #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x you #marvel #bucky barnes x female reader #guiding light

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fuckingfinwions · 3 years

Note

About the guards: Maedhros chose people who he knew wouldn’t make a fuss about Fingon’s treatment, so in a way, yes, he did select guards with sadistic impulses, though he wouldn’t put it that way. He’d say he chose reliable people. They are pissed because 1) Fingon came for Maedhros but no one came for them, 2) Maedhros killed their friend because Fingon lied about him. Neither is exactly Fingon’s fault, but who cares?

Maedhros would never admit it, but sometimes he pretends not to notice the unnecessary cruelty of the guards because then he can appear kinder to Fingon and condition him to develop a dependency from Maedhros (poor Fingon does need to google how not to develop Stockholm Syndrome). Fingon is smart enough to realize this, but it doesn’t help him at all. Not when he’s lying frozen and in pain after a rough treatment from the guards, who tell Maedhros that Fingon was misbehaving and that’s why they did that, and Fingon is terrified that Maedhros will punish him too as he usually does and repeats over and over again that he didn’t do it, then Maedhros tells him ‘I know’, treats his wounds, wraps him up in warm furs and blankets and holds him in a way he knows makes Fingon feel comforted and safe. (And then fucks him gently, which Fingon doesn’t want, of course, but also doesn’t protest because he’s afraid to anger Maedhros and end the pretense of kindness.)

Things will definitely keep getting worse for Fingon. After another escape attempt, Maedhros may decide that Fingon can live with a broken leg or two. If he tries to hit Maedhros or to fight back, he will have a broken finger, then two, then his hand may be broken. If he’s strong enough to fight, maybe he’s getting more food and water than he needs? Maybe he has no need to lie down when Maedhros isn’t there to fuck him and instead should be chained to the wall the whole time? If only he was good, Maedhros would be kinder to him, but Fingon is doing this all to himself by not obeying Maedhros’s every whim and not being grateful enough that Maedhros treats him the way he does. Maedhros would have killed for someone to treat him the way he treats Fingon when he was Morgoth’s prisoner. Clearly, Fingon is just spoiled.

I imagine him finally escaping and running through wilderness, covered in nothing but a blanket, constantly terrified that he will be found and dragged back again. Then he finally reaches Dorthonion, where he’s treated like a person, where he gets to wear clothes and sleep in a warm bed for the first time in decades. But he still doesn’t feel safe, he still feels like any minute the door will open and Maedhros will come in. And then imagine the huge relief he feels when he finally sees his father.

Omg, Fingon thinking that Fingolfin might send him back! Ouch, that’s painful! I don’t think Fingolfin would ever do that, but realistically he might be forced to let Maedhros go unpunished because they still have Morgoth to fight and he can’t afford to lose a huge chunk of his forces. So they can’t even tell anyone what Maedhros has done because it would still create a divide. So what are they going to do? The most believable version is that Fingon has been captured by Morgoth and escaped, but then he is going to be distrusted and ostracized as a former thrall. People are going to demand to remove him from the line of succession, maybe even lock him up. Fingolfin won’t do it, but the threat is still there.

Maedhros would have to sit at war councils and Fingon would have to bear his presence and pretend (probably very badly) everything’s fine. And if Maedhros slips into his chamber one night, Fingon can’t make a fuss, he doesn’t want to divide the Noldor again, does he? Though Fingolfin probably wouldn’t hold back from killing Maedhros this time if he knew he raped his son under his own roof. (A slightly darker and more coldly pragmatic Fingolfin would tell Fingon to endure it for the sake of the Noldor. He isn’t going to send Fingon back to Maedhros, so Fingon can do him a favor and shut up and take it once in a while.)

You’re right, Fingon isn’t the type to stay in his place while others are fighting for him, so he might very well be at the siege of Himring. Him trapped in the fortress with Maedhros is the stuff of nightmares! He will be very well-protected, of course, Fingolfin won’t want him alone even for a second, but he would still feel exposed and Maedhros would still try to corner him alone.

Maedhros’s brothers would certainly come to his aid against Fingolfin. Even if they found out what Maedhros did, they would at best be like ‘what the fuck, man, that’s fucked up’, but still support him.

Outofangband’s dark Turgon AU sounds super interesting. He already dislikes the Feanorians in canon, make him slightly darker and he could do monstrous things to them.

Thank you so much for letting me ramble. If you want me to stop, just tell me and I will. No hard feelings.

This is just amazing, nonny. I've been trying all week to think of as good a reply as it deserves.

I'm not surprised that selecting for guards who will keep a sex slave secret also ends up selecting sadistic assholes. Them using Fingon's accusation and the other guard's death as a justification for their actions (including possibly retroactively, I doubt they were kind before that) is great.

Oh wow, the list of "privileges" Maedhros thinks Fingon can do without. Presumably he'll let Fingon's leg heal, if Fingon behaves. If Fingon doesn't behave, I wonder if he could be tied up such that his leg heals crooked and he can't run fast. (Downside: that would make him less pretty.)

The thing about not needing so much energy if he's going to use it to fight is also great. Maybe he's fed just enough to stay alive most days. But when the guards see a rider approaching from Himring, that's their cue to give Fingon a bit more food, especially simple carbs that will give him energy quickly. That way he can be more "enthusiastic" during sex rather than just lying there limply. (To be clear, the guards aren't hiding their neglect from Maedhros. He totally ordered them to do this.) Most days though, he has just enough energy to stay upright, and not choke in his collar that's chained to the wall. (Maedhros learned the lesson from his own rescue, of don't chain them by a body part whose loss is survivable.)

On the days Maedhros visits, Fingon has enough energy to move around, and to talk, and to think about something other than how hungry he is. Maedhros has him in a bed, with soft blankets, and cuddles him so they're both warm. It's the best part of Fingon's - week? month? he has no way of keeping track of days - even with the unwanted sex. Fingon knows it's rape, but Maedhros is gentle, and makes sure it's pleasurable for them both, and over time such a harsh word doesn't seem to fit.

The escape! Traveling for miles wrapped in nothing but a blanket, his feet getting torn up, only focused on that he needs to go West. And wow, yeah, not feeling safe until he sees his father, and he can relax and know that someone will take care of him and mean it this time.

Also, all the healers who have the most expertise with injuries from captivity are the ones who helped when Maedhros was rescued. If they get the "escaped from Morgoth" story, they might reassure Fingon with telling him how his friend Maedhros was able to make a full recovery, isn't that good? That Fingon will be so physically strong? (arms pinning him down, a hand around his throat-) That Fingon is no more corrupted than Maedhros is?

I bet after the former thrall story gets out, someone sympathetic to Fingon pulls him aside after a court session. "I obviously don't believe the rumors about you being controlled. But they might die down if you let town for a while, let everyone find something new to gossip about. They say Himring welcomes former thralls, you wouldn't have to deal with all this suspicion there." Fingon just barely avoids vomiting at the suggestion.

I think Maedhros would be too smart to rape Fingon under Fingolfin's roof? He might act like they just had an argument and are on a break, but he wouldn't physically force Fingon when he knows Fingon could get away. He wouldn't be above bribing one of the servants to let him in to Fingon's room for a private discussion though, and kissing Fingon while Fingon is still too shocked to react. (although that coldly pragmatic Fingolfin would be so terrible for Fingon. Maybe he heard that Fingon had been raped in his room, and said "You can move to a different room if you think that will keep him from finding you, but please come up with a good excuse for why you're doing so."

I'm picturing Fingolfin and Fingon going to attack Maedhros. Then they're attacked by Morogth and has to retreat into Himring. Things are tense, but Fingolfin makes it clear to Fingon that any judgement against Maedhros is only delayed, not avoided.

Then word comes that there's the banners of another elven host on the far side of the besieging orcs. And it's Himlad, with Clegorm and Curufin.

Fingolfin stops talking about bringing Maedhros to justice. He still reassures Fingon that he'll be safe, Fingolin won't let anyone touch him, there's guards loyal only to Fingolfin on his door at all times. They'll be able to leave Himring soon, and Fingon will never have to see Maedhros again, or come back to this corrupted place.

But they both know that killing Maedhros is not likely to happen, no matter how much he deserves it.

#fucking finwions answers #fingon/maedhros strangulation au

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lordbloodysoul · 3 years

Text

Name:

Rift Doorman

Title:

“The Layer Breaker” – “Usurper” – “Ever Hunger”

Nicknames:

Rifty / Riff Raff / Tele-Broski (Fresh)

Freak of Nature / Parasite / Anomaly Animus (Error Sans)

Paperworm / Layer Breaker / Clown Vomit (Ink)

Age:

[REDACTED]

Height / Weight:

Varies

Soul Type

“Collective Soul”

// - A Collective Soul shows trades of all known Soul Types and is shielded by a thin membrane of Void. It looks like a blank Soul with a black outline, that has a small pitch dot in its center from which a vibration rolls across the surface of the Soul. Those waves appear in different colors and strokes. To those who are very sensible to Soul Energy, the vibration will sound like an endless army of different voices breathing simultaneously in sync. The rhythm changes with Rift’s state of emotion. It has an aroma/flavour that could be described as “Retro and vibrant”. The feeling it would induces is more reminiscent of Allure and vivid Chaos. Like a puzzle started, but left unsolved. With every piece just raining passed fields of endless colors, trapped within a pool of blackness. - //

STATS:

[REDACTED] // It will show the “ : P “ Emoji //

[REDACTED] // It will show the “ >:] “ Emoji //

ATTACK

[REDACTED] // Just spells out “YOLO” in painfully bright colors //

DEFENSE

[REDACTED] // Just spells out “LMAO” in painfully bright colors//

Doorman-Tier:

Tier A—Strength Level is not readable, due to its current activity behavior.

History:

Rift Doorman was born outside a Universe of the Undertale Multiverse. Its behavior is unusual compared to other Doorman. Rift traverses the Layers of the Timelines in search of something, but without a Universe to akin to, both its Power and Ambition were altered in a dangerous manner. Throughout its travels, this Doorman has eaten itself through various Timelines and Multiverses. However, these places didn’t just disappear, like usually when things are being destroyed through Outcodes or beings from the Anti-Void. They stay mostly intact. Broken like shattered glass, but still existing. Each piece would then connect with another part. A puzzle, that was willingly done wrong, with Timelines and places in Space just overlapping in chaotic patterns. Strings missing, but not forgotten, rules shifted, players removed and entire areas shifted incoherently.

When Rift gained conscious it felt nothing. Devoid of anything, it just drifted. This state changed when it fell into a Genocide Timeline by accident. Within it, Rift faced the Fallen Human in the Judgment Hall together with Sans. As it wasn’t able to feel pain, watching Sans Dust became its first experience with Death. It amused it. Thus it smashed the human child. Seeing as the child’s death was different from Sans’s, curiosity began building up. More so as Sans returned from the dead when the Timeline reset. The battle broke apart, literally, when Rift tried mimicking voices and speech patterns, causing a ear ripping shriek that splintered the very fabric and Layers of the Universe it was visiting. Sans, slain once more begged the creature to stop the child’s madness. Still incapable of understanding why, it understood that this Fallen Human had caused the Skeleton grievance. He understood the visualization of agony and hopelessness, but couldn’t comprehend the feeling itself. Amused by the concept of FIGHT and MERCY, they decided to experiment with it in this broken place. Trapping the Human Child in a never-ending loop of Resets they had no control over. Dying as plaything to the anomalous creature. Rift bored itself over the course of 17.589 Resets, ending the Human Child by eating first their upper body and disintegrating their Soul for absorption. This act loaded the Fallen Human’s Timeline Data Layers into its own being, giving it a broader view on what’s been happening. Still not able to comprehend things, however, Rift left the splintered Timeline and returned to the Layers between.

More travels were its answer. Further down its path, this Doorman entered a Rampage, experiencing many Emotions from interacting with various worlds in different ways. However, it couldn’t feel them at all. It understood. It could see them. Could comprehend what actions would lead to what reaction, but not why it was necessary. Hollow. It was hollow. Like a Black Hole. Just ripping everything apart and consuming it, but nothing could look back or return it. Within it grew a terrible Hunger, which it satisfied by devouring various portions of the visited Timelines and Multiverses. Places, Sections, Memories, People. All fell to its strife to understand. To engage. To be part of something. It began building a sort of pocket dimension in the Layers between the Multiverse, where it gathered things from various Timelines that kept intriguing it. In one already destroyed Universe, Rift recovered a monitor of round shape, still functional. It had the shape of a face, much like all the other creatures it met had. Thus it connected with the screen and used it as a makeshift face-mask, ensuring its actual form wouldn’t freak out too many people.

While striding through the Timelines, absorbing information, energy, magic and various other stimuli into its form, Rift discovered that it was possible to READ these Data and use it. Shaping its attacks in combat into Patterns and Styles unlike anything this Multiverse had ever witnessed. But not only that, it began to hunt and kill other Doorman instinctively, absorbing them into its form as well, leaving their Timelines defenseless. Rift became a true threat to many, just through its curiosity and yearning for understanding. It also began leaving pieces of itself behind in various distorted Worlds, hidden from view. Small Homunculi, holding enough Data and energy to reincarnate it. Rift slowly devolved into a Parasite that endangered the delicate balance of the Multiverse. A thorn in the side of both the protectors of the Multiverse as well as the Vanguards of the Anti-Void. As its shattering of Timelines caused multiple Universes to intertwine with one another. Rift became a target for eradication, even though no one knew about its existence yet.

It was during another stride into another Timeline that it encountered the parasitic entity known as “Fresh”. Their interaction was quite different than what it was used to. And something began to stir within it. Rift felt something. Something that was unfamiliar and strong. It played with Fresh, before that one disappeared to safety, as the creature seemingly grew too attached to them. That escape started it all. A chase that both were not prepared for nor understood. Rift’s conscious was completely fixated on Fresh. It didn’t understand why, but knew it was important. For days, weeks and months it kept chasing them. However, the Parasite didn’t need or wants anyone following them, so they kept fleeing and hiding. Despite their best efforts, though, Rift finds them every single time.

[!!!SPOILERS WARNING!!! - for those who wish to Read the FanFiction or wait till I get around to making the Comic, since the LITERATURE SUBMIT on DA doesn’t allow much creative Freedom, so I have to do a lot of Re-Spacing and Editing on those Parts. This Section will spoil some of the Plot in exchange for Character Build - If you don't want that spoiled, please proceed to the APPEARANCE Section - !!!SPOILER WARNING!!!]

Fresh found himself in a skirmish with Error and Ink, as they both tried tracking him down. They misjudged and thought they were responsible for several Holes within the Multiverse. With no secure escape Route, they were forced into battle, holding their own well. Up until the Anti-Void’s Enforcer, C0D35 Doorman, stepped onto the field. His entire presence alone began to erase the Universe he’s chosen as a battleground. Manipulating Space was practically useless against this foe, as one of C0D35 special abilities was to block all types of magics. Before the fight could harm Fresh, however, Rift shattered the Universe into several pieces. It took Fresh with it and delved through several Layers of broken Code, Timelines and hid them in a small Space it had created from the leftover scraps of Multiverses long forgotten. A Null Space of sorts. Due to the strenuous battle with Error and Ink, the body Fresh had chosen was slowly failing. They had to let go of the host body and seek out another. Rift, even though unable to talk and acting more like an excited puppy, willingly helped the Parasite. It took them to another Timeline to gain a new host body. Fresh, unable to understand or comprehend the motivation of this anomalous creature, decided to experiment how far its warped sense of loyalty would go. Curiosity getting the better of them. Since they couldn’t escape from it for long anyway. Thus the duo began their journey to try and understand what this drive was, where it was coming from and what it all meant. But Fresh already has the slight suspicion that something was off with Rift. Something huge was brewing.

Appearance:

Rift Doorman has no corporeal form. It’s a mass of black noise, free floating energy and magic. The almost cloud-like, dense column attached itself to an egg-shaped monitor. A remnant of a long forgotten Timeline. Due to the vapor form of its body, Rift can change its density and size at will, ranging from grasp-less like fog and air to solid and unmovable like a wall of steel and stone. This Doorman is holding its form together through sound wave. The magic and energy flooding its form gives these waves color and form, embracing its shape and fueling every movement of the mass. This special way of mass control makes it possible for Rift to even split itself into multiple smaller versions of itself. The Energy and Magic coursing through its vapor shape glows in various colors, like a swarm of bugs and fireflies. The ones that are mostly present range from neon-pinkish to eye-stinging green lights. The color of the Emoji faces on its screen are similarly bright and colorful, while the biggest mass of the body is a pitch-black buzzing fog.

Rift uses the screen it found as a makeshift face. By sending energy and magic through it, it channels different words and expressive Emojis, which it uses for communication, since it cannot speak. It developed this form of talking, which is accented with Retro musical tunes and sound effects, due to its own lack of actual vocal cords. Rift can only mimic various words through pitching and dipping sounds and tunes.

Underneath the screen is a distorted black orb-shaped head, with a bright, monstrous white jaw and eyes. The magic, energy and sound waves, which course through the body are accentuated here, pulsing through the big eyes that stare empty into the world. As the delight of murder and fighting was presented with a smile by both his first encountered Sans and Fallen Child, Rift has adopted that same expression into its own. Empty of empathy, reason or guilt. Hollow.

Personality:

Rift is a peculiar Doorman. Even though highly intelligent and fast learning, it prefers to act like an excited puppy or curious child. Devoid of any real emotion to drive its actions, it only acts upon what other people think is the “good thing” to do in a situation. Leaving trails of Chaos and destruction in its wake. Rift’s first real emotion was “a sense of joy” which emerged from killing the Fallen Human in their first ever visited Timeline. After loosing that, it was filled with a Hunger to learn more, experience more and discover why it was unable to understand or hold emotions like other beings do. It likes being lout and giddy, causing confusion and messes all around.

Rift learned from its travels that violence is considered bad, thus it only acts upon it when given a cause or being asked of. Through Fresh’s company, it grew found of their way of speaking, censoring and general demeanor, which they try to imitate. Not always successful. Rift lacks empathy and basic moralities. Doing the right things as much as they can, but never getting appreciation, feelings of guilt or delight out of any of its actions.

It is a slight hoarder, liking to collect various things from visited Timelines and just storing them in their own little Null Space.

Likes:

Fresh

Eating

making music through its distorted Retro Voice (which would probably sound much like the music you can hear in the “Just Shapes & Beats” Video Game – example here )

helping people

playing with Fresh

exploring and learning / education

collecting stuff for its Null Space

cuddling and hugs

dancing

Fighting, when allowed to do so

people laughing and smiling

inducing Fear into ‘evil’ people (it doesn’t understand it, but their expressions give it a sense of ‘delight’, which it can’t comprehend)

Dislikes:

pointless violence

swearing

anyone who tries to harm Fresh

disrespectful and rude behavior

the other Parasites spawned from Fresh

seeing other people go through loss, sadness and hopelessness (it doesn’t understand, but it dislikes their expressions during these moments)

Capabilities:

Rift is a special Doorman. Unlike any other it can and can’t do various things that are unlike its species. Since Doorman are shaped by what their Timeline / Universe needs, their abilities will be manifested into something they can use as an exploit to reach their goal. Rift, however, has neither a goal nor a world for that to work. Being born outside the Multiverse, Void and such, beneath the Layers of the In between, corrupted its whole existence. Thus it learned an ability so variable, loose and dangerous, that Rift managed to break its own power limitations. That ability is ADAPTATION. Through it, the anomalous entity can learn anything that it finds. This ability is limited only by its corrupted special skill, ARCHIVE, which extents its own Data Volume by absorbing that of other objects, Worlds and people. Through these two abilities, Rift extended its repertoire of skills by taking those of others into its own. By devouring other Timeline versions of Sans, Papyrus, Undyne, Mettaton, Napstablook and various other monsters, it learned their magics, attack patterns, strengths and weaknesses, accumulating them into its own form and using them against various aggressors along the way. Taking the Souls of the Fallen Children, it enhanced its own Soul Power, HP and influence over various aspects within the Timeline Layers. Even though unable to cause REWRITE or OVERWRITE, its Determination rivals the power output of such abilities, nullifying their affects on its own self. By devouring various Doormen, Rift added their special abilities into its own arsenal. But not only these are something to worry about, since they also absorbed the (apparently) infamous “COLOR PUZZLE”, which appeared in various Timelines. Through absorption of its information, Rift learned to utilize the principle in its own combat patterns, making for, probably, the worst experience of a FIGHT for any genocidal maniac. During a FIGHT Rift delights itself by causing its opponent as much headache and frustration as possible. All its patterns are a mix of things it accumulated from various Timelines, objects and people. The difference to its style is that every pattern follows a rhythm it deliberately switches to cause as much distress as it can. Their own original patterns appears as orbs, bars and string lines, which move in a sort of symphonic flow. It likes to abuse the rules of the infamous “COLOR PUZZLE” into each of their attacks. Goal during these fights are to keep itself busy till its bored. It will reset its opponent back into battle till it can’t get enjoyment out of it anymore. Than the most common outcome is for Rift to grab its foe and devour it (or part of it), just to satisfy its hunger for a bit.

// Attack Patterns for this Character would look like a mix between Undertale and “Just Shapes & Beats Style //

Rift’s voice is a powerful instrument of destruction, as its wavelength and pitch can shatter and fragment entire worlds, when threatened. Most of the time, though its a tool for amusement and distraction as they can’t use it to speak, but make totes rad Retro music and sounds with it.

Due to their body being so fluid, Rift tends to shape-shift a lot. Switching sizes being one of the more common transformations, however, it is capable of turning into practically anything it has a rough understanding off. From people to buildings and even entire landscapes. The greater the scope, thought, the higher the risk of its Soul overloading and damaging it. This skill it uses often to entertain Fresh’s curiosity and help them fight their boredom.

The Doorman is capable of using the Data collected to create completely new Multiverses out of them, which it does by filtering the most intriguing information into its “Null Space”. A collective widespread anomalous space in the Layers in between. Much like the Core Universe, it is a hidden pocket dimension that is unreachable unless you’ve been there once or are aware of its existence. As the Null Space grows, so does Rift’s power, which is connected to it. Would this secluded fragment in the Layers in between be destroyed, the damage to Rift itself would be tremendous. Rift is capable of creating “BACK UP FILES” for itself. So called Homunculi, which it scatters across the various splintered Timelines, hiding them in various objects. Through those Back up Data pieces, killing the Doorman has become nearly impossible. For its adversaries it is even unclear if this anomaly can ever truly be completely killed, since normal, widespread magic and fighting abilities are completely wasted on it. However, Rift is not completely invulnerable. All of its outstanding skills require huge amounts of magic, which it needs to store by devouring and absorbing Energy, Magic and Entities from other Timelines. Starvation is a realistic issue to it, since their moral compass started to change with the appearance of Fresh. Survival becoming an “optional goal” to its primary instinct fixating on the Parasite and its well-being. Rift can be harmed by beings from the Anti-Void as well as Ink, which is why it tries to stay hundreds of paces away from them. Especially C0D35, as his ability, ANNIHILATION, exceeds its coded protection by a margin. When Rift’s Soul reaches critical its body becomes fully corporeal and eats at its own mass till burn-out. The energy and magic from its body will slowly dissolve the very fabric of Reality, Time and Space as it goes on, till everything just becomes absolute Chaos. This meltdown can cause any nearby organism to be entrapped in a cascade of pain and maddening delirium, slowly eating at their very existence. It would cause an unseen apocalypse of shier Madness, but also cause the very Death of Rift, if the burn-out isn’t stopped.

Relations:

Rift has no great attachment to anyone besides Fresh. And even that “affection” is a level of understanding it can’t comprehend. For it, its something that it was born for, but doesn’t know why or what it is supposed to do with it. Finding the answer to this riddle is the only ‘purpose’ it got and after wandering aimless for so long, it decided not to let go of it till it knows.

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

Trivia:

The first word Rift ever spoke was “YOLO”, when it read the glasses of Fresh at their first meeting.

There is a Momma CQ version of Rift.

Kid!Rift entire backstory is goign to make people wanna stab me to death. I am sure of that.

Rift’s musical Battle Patterns are inspired by the game “Just Shapes and Beats”

Yes, I am aware that I messed up the Color Patterns of both of my Fresh Designs there. They were both drawn separately before placed in the same picture together. It has bugged me to no end!

Yes, there will be a Momma CQ version of this one coming (probably soon, since I don’t want to loose my shin. It’s not worth making Rifty mad)

Fresh Sans belongs to @loverofpiggies

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#Rift #Doorman #LordBloodySoul #Horrorpuppets #Darktale #Undertale #Underfresh #Fresh #Sans

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smiles4voltron · 4 years

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I have finally finished my RWBY OC’s!!! For those confused, they are team RAIN. Nyx is the N

And Nicole is the I (For her last name XD. I just forgot to put it on her page) But yessss here is my team. I want to make a fanfic of them cause I’ve put so much work and passion into them. I love RWBY so much, even despite it’s flaws, and will continue to support it until it comes to its closure :3

For those who might be interested I’ll put the characters info down below

The concept of their story is four people from Earth, being reincarnated into the RWBY Universe after their death. They are aware of each other and that in their old lives “RWBY” was just a show. Knowing what is to come they set out to change and hopefully save as many people as they can.

Rayne Darl:

She is a quiet and loving person, yet is very quick on her feet when needed. She is a person who wishes to spend most of her time helping children. Wanting all children to be happy, warm, and well fed. She even goes through her life adopting many when she finds them on the streets. While she trains and joins her teams on missions, her normal occupation is Farming.

Her Semblance is : BARRIER. Allowing her to make a barrier around herself and others until enough force manages to break it down. If Rayne is without injury herself, her barrier can even slowly heal those within.

She lives in Mistral just outside of Haven.

Her Fairy Tale used to be “THE OLD WOMAN WHO LIVED IN THE SHOE” (I’m aware that belongs to Caroline Cordovin XD) So I was lost for a while on who she should be. I’m tempted to have her be “Mary Poppins” instead XD

Her weapon is a Spear that is also the mix of a Sniper Rifle.

Due to her silver eyes she keeps herself secluded, living out in the middle of nowhere most of the time

Allie Jenzie:

Often referring to herself in third person Allie lives in Vacuo, caring for her very own Bee farm called BB (Bee Buddies). She often brings a lot of trade through Vacuo due to this, considering Vacuo itself it very barren.

She is massively strong, despite her small size and childish demeanor. The Tank of the team.

She is often lost when having conversations involving big words, and struggles to see social cues.

As a Faunus she resembles a small bear, her body partially covered in yellow fur, with a small round tail, and two bear ears on top of her head.

Her Semblance: Flower Growth. No matter the climate, flowers grow around her, sometimes without her even meaning too. While this isn’t something she uses in combat, it helps her with her Bee farm immensely.

Her inspiration comes from : Winnie the Pooh~

And yes, she loves honey~ :3

Her weapon is a large War Hammer that mixes with a Machine gun. She even added a chain to one end to give it a quick swing around her.

She has no fear in being hunted down for her silver eyes, often even forgetting there is a threat to begin with. Her head often in the clouds

Nicole Ironwood:

The brains of their group, Nicole is vastly skilled in anything metal and machine. Even in her previous life she was a well known engineer and inventor.

In this life she was lucky enough to be born within Atlas and able to get an early start to work on their forms of technology. Another shocking twist was being born into the IRONWOOD family line.

Being the Cousin (or sister? adopted? I dunno...) of James Ironwood himself she finds herself able to step right into the events of RWBY without too much suspicion. Due to both being involved with James and her own Silver eyes, however, Nicole was attacked as a young child.

This attack resulted in the lost of both her arms and one of her eyes. She often hides her single silver eye with her hair.

Her Semblance is Combustion. (Her first use of this Semblance lost her both of her arms in a desperate attempt to save herself). This Semblance makes large explosions appear from her hands. Conducting heavy heat and if she isn’t careful she will get severe burns of lost of limbs. (The best way to think of it is Bakugo’s quirk from MHA, just no nitro glycerin sweat) She must be very careful to hold back with this Semblance otherwise she will blow away both her Robotic arms with every use.

Her inspiration comes from : The Ugly Duckling (Often called ugly as a child yet grew into quite the beauty as an adult)

Her weapon of choice is both the use of her own robotic arms, and Chakram Blades. To enhance these further she carries dust around in her belt, spreading it over the blades before each battle.

Nyx Port:

Nyx is a quiet and reserved man, hiding away an easily frightened and anxious man within. He spends most of his time in his occupation as a Hunter, traveling around the world. After a mishap with his friends at Vale, who suspect him of ill intentions due to his Semblance, he kept to himself, only relying on his main team (RAIN)

He is the Strategist of the team, often taking charge as the leader from time to time.

He lives a quiet life in Vale, finding himself being born as the younger brother of the Hunter Peter Port. This in turns involves him in a lot of the early history of RWBY’s show.

His Semblance: Shape Shifting. Similar to the summoning of Winter Shnee, when Nyx has defeated a Grimm, giving the killing blow, he can take the form of that creature! This wildly eats away at his emotions however when he does this, fueled heavily by Nyx’s fears. To separate him from a normal Grimm his body is a glittering Gray, while the armored plates are pure uncracked white. (Like A Pokemon Shiny version XD Just for Grimm)

His Inspiration: The Big Bad Wolf (I’m aware the Grimm are mostly suppose to fill in that role, but hey... he can shape into that so... it works XD)

His weapons are small daggers and a Large blade. This blade in turn can turn into a Bow of sorts, which he then uses to fire the Daggers as if they were arrows.

To fix the problem of often sending his own weapons flying, he covers himself in Gravity manipulation dust. (all the Purple on his outfit) This dust pulls his daggers and sword back to his body should he lose them.

He keeps himself moving due to fear of being hunted down or caught by Salem herself. Knowing both his silver eyes and his Semblance make him a big target.

And there we are. Those are my, and my sister’s, Oc’s :3

#rwby #rwby fanart #rwby ocs #rwby RAIN #rwby Nicole #Rwby Rayne #Rwby Nyx #Rwby Allie #my ocs art #rwby inspiration

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twicelit-a · 4 years

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wanted plots, relationships & threads :

pre - hill house.

supernatural encounters : a. your muse is not human. most likely a ghost, or a spirit or demon, a creature of some kind, something not human. olivia’s sensitivity draws you to her, or vice versa. ( the same thing could happen post - hill house, where olivia herself is dead. ) && b. i have a wishlist plot where a spirit or demon meets olivia when she is a child and will visit her sporadically over the years, becoming something like an imaginary friend and / or almost guardian. ( or developing a bit of an obsession with her. ) they visit her less and less as she gets older and her family grows, until hill house. && c. your muse is dead. they find olivia, who can see them, and she acts as an anchor, helping guide them through limbo to what lies beyond.

teen - young adult : a. your muse and olivia went to the same school / college and became friends. ( maybe your muse has or had a crush on olivia and although she had her suspicions, olivia never brought it up. ) && b. your muse comes across olivia as she is sleep walking. they stay with her until she wakes up.

family orientated : a. literally anything with the kids or hugh prior to them moving to hill house for the summer of ‘92. cute things, sick things, soft things, angst. give me anything and everything. && b. interactions with olivia while she’s pregnant with any of her kids. her sensitivity is heightened ( or when pregnant with steve, negated ) when she’s pregnant. all of her senses are so much stronger.

ship specific : a. liv and hugh things. all the things. everything and anything. i love them. && b. au where liv and hugh never met, your muse is in a relationship with olivia. i’d really love to actually explore what that might be like. liv and hugh are so perfect for each other, i’d love to develop a ship outside of them. && c. before liv and hugh started dating, your muse and olivia dated. they would’ve been young, probably first relationship type of dynamic, during high school.

hill house.

supernatural encounters : a. your muse is a spirit trapped in hill house. they interact with olivia ( either they try to warn her away from hill house, or they help to lure her further in to it’s grasp. )

family oriented : a. olivia’s migraines are getting worse and one of the kids or hugh finds her in the midst of a really bad episode.

pre - death : a. your muse befriends olivia, not knowing that she and her family have moved in to hill house. when you find out, you try to warn her about the rumours but the house has already sunk it’s teeth in to her.

post - death : a. your muse moves in to hill house years after olivia’s death. either hugh has lost ownership of the house or it’s set years after the events of hill house. depending on the timeline, olivia is either still under the house’s influence, or she’s clear headed and tries to warn them away. && b. you muse breaks in to hill house following the news coverage of olivia’s death or after the release of steven’s book. they don’t expect to find anything but they end up coming face to face with hill house! olivia. && c. ghost!mom haunting her family. could be malicious, the hill house version attempting to lure the crain’s back home, or could be comforting. olivia coming to her family when they need her the most. ( there’s also the figment of their imagination version of olivia, who hugh interacts with the most. the kids could possibly see this version of her depending on the occasion. )

alternate arcs.

olivia survives : a. when hugh returns to hill house, olivia is still unconcious in the red room. the deal with the dudley’s is still struck, and they urge him to get olivia as far away from the house as possible. in the months following, olivia is still under the house’s influence but the more time she spends away from it, the more she becomes herself again. there’s still something that calls to her but she learns to ignore it. && b. olivia is alive when nell goes back to hill house and dies. the same events transpire but when luke goes to hill house, olivia offers the house her life in exchange for theirs, and hugh dies with her. && c. fun happy good soft things because there’s enough angst in this show and i think they deserve it.

crossover arcs.

bly manor : a. hill house and bly manor are sister estates. the red room and the lake are connected. not everyone trapped in either are capable of travelling between the two, but olivia learns over time. she can be found wandering the grounds of bly manor. && b. the crain’s move in to bly manor in ‘92 instead of hill house. this is set after the wingrave’s have left it, but the dead there don’t disappear. viola’s influence starts to affect olivia in the same way hill house affected her. && c. using plot b, olivia encounters peter quint’s spirit and she mistakes him for a vision of an older luke. he uses that to manipulate her in to helping him tuck away luke.

apocalypse : a. your muse encounters olivia surrounded by the dead, but they seem to be almost afraid of her, or outright ignoring her. && b. before the outbreak, olivia starts to experience the symptoms of turning. your muse is tending to her when she starts to have a very vivid and intense episode, waking herself from an almost prophetic dream.

harry potter : a. marauders era, your muse and olivia are good friends. house rivalry doesn’t exist for liv, so it doesn’t matter what house you’re in. it’s common knowledge that olivia is a very powerful seer and your muse is with her when she has a vision. && b. post first war era, olivia went in to hiding with hugh after trelawney’s prophecy. as it’s well known that liv is a true seer, voldemort attempts to find her in order to either finish what he didn’t hear or use her to further his agenda. && c. trio era, dumbledore reaches out to olivia requesting that she replace trelawney as the divination professor during harry potter’s fifth year.

doctor who : a. olivia meets the doctor when she’s a child. they are interested in her sensitivity and will occasionally cross paths with her over the years as she gets older. the tardis brings the doctor to hill house where they find olivia either before or after her death. && b. companion!olivia. because i said so.

twilight / vampire : a. your muse, a vampire, comes across hill house the night olivia dies. they find her at the foot of the spiral staircase before hugh comes back for her, and they turn her. && b. the first thing happens, but it wasn’t your muse who turned her. olivia is a nomad vampire who crosses path with yours. && c. your muse is a vampire and the meet olivia before hill house. she is still a human, but her "gift” has already manifested and is incredibly strong.

american horror story : a. the crain’s buy “murder house” in ‘92 after it has been repossessed from constance langdon. after several weeks, the kids start to have nightmares and olivia starts to sleep walk. one night, she wakes up on the roof to a voice telling her to jump, with the twins each holding a hand. she jumps, but she lets go of the twins and hugh can only hold on to two : he saves the twins, and olivia dies. && b. olivia is a witch. she is very strong with precognition and clairvoyance and it was almost believed, in her youth, that she could have been the supreme. she never wanted that, and luckily for her, it wasn’t meant to be. ( this can still follow hill house canon, in that she dies in hill house. )

i will likely add to this over time but for now this is what i’ve got. it’s quite long and there’s a lot to pick from. if literally anything on this list at all interests you, please let me know.

#. ‵ out. important ‚#. ‵ out. post ‚#long post.#jeez this took longer than i thought it would.#i want a lot of things ok.#let me live.#i should really do an info doc or carrd.#bc i literally still have nothing set up.#why do you even follow me jesus christ.

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ladyseaheart1668 · 4 years

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Endless Summer Book 4: Daughter of Vaanu (Chapter 51)

Description: Jailbreak!

Tagging: @endlesshero1122 @mysteli @feartheendlesssummer @whatmcsaid @xo-endlessmayhem-xo @tigerbryn11

Chapter 51: The Midwife

Alodia

My first instinct is to be relieved at the sight of a face that in my experience has always been friendly. But caution overpowers relief pretty quickly, especially as the questions start flooding through my brain.

“...How...? What are you doing here?”

“The long and short of it is that I am here to help you. My ability is fairly limited, but I will do what I can.”

“I don't understand,” Diego says. “No one has seen or heard from the Anachronists in five years. We thought you guys vanished when the timelines merged.”

Clockmaker sighs. “As Anachronists, we made time and space into toys within the island's bubble. The crystals were our playthings. The Endless made many mistakes, but she at least learned from her errors. She worked with a singular purpose, reset the game board each time she lost. ...We were more careless. We counted on Vaanu and the Endless to be responsible so we did not have to be. We didn't really know what would happen to us when Vaanu departed. I think most of us assumed it would be the end of our world and we would move into the afterlife. But it didn't quite happen like that.”

“...What did happen?” I ask, dreading the answer.

“We were alone. We were alone in Quarr'tel, and Quarr'tel was hidden from the world. Or at least, our version of it was hidden. Vaanti from Elyys'tel came to seek us out, and they walked around the burned-out husk of our city, but they couldn't see us. They couldn't hear us. They seemed to pass through us. We were like ghosts, trapped together, unable to roam beyond our city.”

“But...why would...?”

Clockmaker shrugs. “I don't know. I could not tell you why that was our fate. What I can tell you is that your return brought us back to the world of the living—and that with your return, time crystals have begun to turn up on the island again.” She pauses for a moment, tipping her head at me. “You know...I am actually qualified to examine you. My methods are a little bit old-school by your standards since I trained in midwifery the 1960's, but they were still scientific enough to be trusted with a routine prenatal visit.”

“...This is hardly routine...” I mutter dazedly, but as she gestures invitingly at the exam table, I nod. Diego obligingly turns away as I take off my pants and underwear to climb onto the table. I lie back and Clockmaker covers my exposed lower body with a sheet.

“I won't insist that Diego leave the room. In the 60's, the culture was still very much that men had no place in the act of childbirth, but I think we've moved past such silly gender stereotypes, don't you?”

“I hope so,” I mutter, stretching out a hand to Diego. He comes to take it between his palms, his gaze never leaving Clockmaker. If she notices, she doesn't let on as she guides my legs apart.

“The crystals have begun to turn up again on the island. However, they are not plentiful. Nor are they as powerful as before. It seems the majority of my brothers and sisters went mad during our five years in limbo. When they began to get a picture of what had happened since Vaanu's departure and your return, they turned their hostility onto you. I tried to tell them that you were clearly not omnipotent, and you couldn't have known what would happen, but...well, you try reasoning someone who has lost all reason.”

She slips her fingers into me, and I suck in a sharp breath at the intrusion, squeezing Diego's hand. She squeezes my knee reassuringly with her free hand, but otherwise continues without comment.

“The crystals allowed them to track the energy of the Prism Crystal to Northbridge. They were hoping to find you directly, but instead they found the Prism Gate—and Everett Rourke, apparently. As well as Dax Darcisse's disguise technology. It was one of them who abducted you, Diego, wearing a hologram disguise.”

“That...makes sense. ...So...is that how Rourke managed to fake his death? With some help from the Anachronists and the crystals?”

“Precisely. It's also how the Liquid Prism was stolen, and probably a number of other things I have not been able to be witness to since the other Anachronists banished me.”

“They banished you?!”

“Yes.” She removes her hand and slips off the used gloves. “I'm fortunate I managed to get my hands on one of the disguise earrings before they did. They intended to send me into the far future, but instead I ended up in 1958. I was already aware of your pregnancy at that point, and I thought it might make sense to study midwifery in case I managed to get back to you somehow.”

“...How did you manage to get back?”

Clockmaker shrugs, wrapping a blood pressure cuff around my upper arm and grabbing a stethoscope off the wall. “The extended lifespan of a Vaanti, nothing more. I have lived the last sixty-six years in the United States of America, and I simply avoided returning to the island in order to avoid a paradox. When the other Anachronists joined with Rourke, I spied. Miraculously, I managed to stay out of their way enough that Rourke didn't realize who I was, and simply took me for another Anachronist ally. It was easy to convince him to let me meet up with Fiddler here to act as your midwife.”

“So, he does want my baby. ...What for?”

“That I do not know just yet. But yes, he does want her alive and well. Quiet for a moment please, I need to take your blood pressure.”

I obligingly clam up while she takes blood pressure and pulse, though my lips are practically itching with more questions. When she takes back the stethoscope and gives me a nod, I think it's the most important question that leaps to my tongue first.

“How do we get out of here?”

Clockmaker places a hand on my arm, meeting my gaze. “You have a little patience, and give me three days.”

“Why three days?”

“Because in three days, you will be close enough to Northbridge that I will feel more comfortable releasing you. Plus, at the next rest stop, I will be able to acquire the last piece of the device I need to remove that chip in your neck that's keeping you from contacting Varyyn.”

Diego gasps softly at the mention of his husband, his fingers tightening subtly around my hand. His reaction makes his next question a little jarring.

“Close to Northbridge? Where are we now?”

“Manitoba, Canada. Not far from Winnipeg.”

“Canada!” I repeat incredulously. “Could...is it possible to travel from Riverside to Winnipeg in...however much time we've been traveling?”

“Not by natural means, no. Your captors have been helped along by the crystals. Do you recall how my brothers and sisters and I were able to transport you through space and time with crystal fragments back on the island?”

“Yeah, kind of.”

“They crystals they are collecting now are weaker, but they still have enough power to transport any vehicle containing you short spatial distances. ...And distances over time, but Rourke was strictly against subjecting you to that in your present condition as it may have led to your pregnancy advancing the way Quinn's illness did when you leaped forward six months.” She guides me to lie back, lifting my shirt just enough to expose my belly. “Quiet again, please, while I listen for the heartbeat.”

She takes an instrument out of the drawer that looks like a small silver trumpet minus the pipes and valves, and places the bell end against my belly, lowering her head to press her ear to the flat end. After adjusting it a few times, she smiles.

“Ahh, there it is. Good and strong. But a little high-placed. I don't think baby has turned yet.”

“No, she hasn't. Or she hadn't last I knew. We tried EVC, but it didn't take. I've been preparing myself for a likely breech delivery—and possibly a C-section.”

Clockmaker frowns. “...The sooner we get you out of their hands, the better. Any complications in labor would likely go very badly for you if you're still a captive.”

“Why can't you just teleport us out of here with the crystals?” Diego asks.

“If I had access to the crystals myself, I would not have gotten stuck in the 1950's,” she replies ruefully. “I would be performing an ultrasound on you instead of using a pinard, and I would likely be qualified to perform a C-section myself.”

“You never decided to update your skills?”

“Records became much more difficult to forge as technology advanced. I read what books I could, but it seemed safer not to attempt formal study again. In any case, if you go into labor within the next three days, I will take what risks are necessary to get you out of here. But the safest option is going to be to wait, since the safest option will also require me to stay behind and throw them off the scent while they attempt to hunt you down.”

I nod slowly. I won't say I feel like I completely understand what is happening here, but I still feel like I can trust Clockmaker. Diego seems a little bit more skeptical.

“But why help us like this? Why not tip off the authorities that you know where we are?”

“For one thing, I believe the authorities would have a harder time getting you out than I will. For another...I still care about what might happen to the Vaanti if the authorities turn their suspicions toward the island.” She hesitates a moment. “...When we reach the next stopping point, I intend to drug their food to knock them out long enough that you can escape. ...I could poison them. Kill them. But if their bodies are revealed in an investigation, that will come back to you.

“Which is why, Diego, when eventually questioned on how you escaped, you are going to tell them that in this very room, you discovered a bottle of rohypnol abandoned in one of these cabinets, and smuggled the pills in your sock.”

“I see. And...what will...'I' do with these pills?”

“Well, at the next safehouse, you will drug their water supply, of course. You've had your eye out for an opportunity since you discovered the pills.”

“...No one will stop 'me'?”

“Once the deed is done, I will show you how 'you' did it, and I'll make sure to set it up to look plausible. Of course, it may be rearranged when your captors take off, but I don't believe that would strike anyone as very odd, either.”

“And what should I tell them about who kidnapped us?”

“You know Fiddler. You know she was a rival of Jake's. Tell them you don't know the others. It will be true. Tell them you don't know why you were abducted. That will be a lie, but it will be a lie that protects the Vaanti.”

“It will also be a lie that protects Rourke,” I point out.

“It will also protect you,” Clockmaker counters. “And your baby. ...I will not let Rourke escape justice, Alodia. I promise you that. But sometimes winning the war means losing the battle, and right now, it is more important that you and Diego are safely returned to your families before the baby arrives, and that the Vaanti's secrets are kept as long as possible.”

“As long as possible. ...You make it sound as if you don't think they can be kept indefinitely.”

“I don't,” she admits. “But if I can help it, I won't have them turned into laboratory experiments like Rourke tried to do. ...I believe there is a way that the truth can be safely revealed. But it must be done carefully and there are many unknowns to be considered.”

“What unknowns?”

She sighs a little, shaking her head, but there is a slight smile on her lips. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Alodia, than I could have ever perceived from my vantage point within Vaanu's time bubble. ...You can probably start getting dressed now. They're going to start wondering what we're doing in here.”

I sit up slowly. My head is spinning a little, probably with all this new information. But there is one more thing I feel I should know.

“...Where are they actually taking us? Where is Rourke waiting?”

“The exact location appears to be on a need-to-know basis. But I have reason to suspect he is making his base somewhere in the Greek isles.”

“Well, I won't ask why there. I'm sure finding the answer to that can wait.”

“Absolutely. The important thing now is getting you someplace where you can have your baby safely.”

I nod. “...Thank you, Clockmaker. Thank you for coming to my rescue.”

She smiles sadly. “I suppose I ought to tell you not to call me that anymore. The Anachronists have appointed a new Clockmaker.”

“Do you want a new name?” I ask.

She shrugs. “It was never really a name, was it. It was a title of sorts, though Anachronists are not really supposed to have titles. ...I suppose I would like for you to call me the Midwife now. It seems appropriate.”

“Midwife, then. Thank you, Midwife.”

Kenji

It's been quiet for the last few days while Tahira has been off tracking Alodia. Just the occasional petty crooks hopped up on weak street-cut doses of Liquid Prism that have actually become weirdly routine. Just as well, considering we're down our leader, but I can't help feeling kinda twitchy. So when my phone chimes while I'm working out in my home gym and the screen shows an unfamiliar number, I am immediately on edge. But I pick up because I'm not about to ignore it, either.

“This is Kenji.”

“Katsaros. What's the word in Northbridge?”

I could be mistaken, but I think I can hear a slight tremor in Caleb's voice. I feel my forehead crease.

“Uh, not much happening here at the moment. Why? Where are you?”

“You swear the Prism Crystal's secure? Maybe you should check on it.”

“Yes, Caleb. It's secure. You're gonna have to trust me on that.”

“When was the last time you checked? When was the last time you saw it with your own eyes?”

“Man, seriously. I'd say you sound like you're trying to get its location out of me for some nefarious purpose, but I don't actually think you're dumb enough to be so transparent. It's secure. I promise. Getting at it right now would be way more complicated than either of your former bosses could pull off. ...Where are you?”

“I'm at Gigi's squat.”

“What?! What are you doing there?!”

He hesitates. “...Not really important. Had a dumb idea that isn't gonna pan out anyway, because the place is completely deserted.”

“Is that unusual? It was deserted when we found you there.”

“Yeah, that was the gang away on a day mission. This is...different. I been here two days with no trace of anyone, and most everything's gone.”

“Did they maybe move on from that squat? Set up a new base?”

“Maybe. 'Cept they didn't take entirely everything. There's still mattresses and linens, a generator, a minifridge, space heaters...”

“Well, those are heavy. Probably thought it more worthwhile to acquire new ones.”

“I'd buy that...except that they also left a supply of food and bottled water. Water and canned goods may be heavy, but you can pack 'em in backpacks and carry 'em easy enough. And packs of ramen noodles weigh next to nothing.”

“So what do you think is going on?”

“No idea. I just know it's probably not good.”

I consider this for a moment. “Maybe you should come back to Northbridge.”

“Yeah...I don't know. Got some things to take care of.”

“Well, I'm not gonna twist your arm.”

“How is Tahira?”

“Oh, right. You probably haven't heard yet. She's okay. She woke up, and she's out of the hospital.”

“Well. Good to know.”

Before I can reply, the call cuts off. I wait a minute or two to see if he's going to call back. I even take a chance on calling back the number he called from, but no luck.

...Guess that might be the reformed criminal for you. I wonder if I'm ever actually going to know what to make of him.

Alodia

Midwife stays with us over the next few days while we're held in what I have concluded is probably an abandoned hospital. She's there when we're bound and blindfolded again and loaded into another vehicle. This time, though, they cut our bonds once we're in the van, and we're permitted to take our blindfolds off. I realize why once we do.

We're inside what can only be the trailer of a semi. No windows to the outside. Separated from the drivers in the cab. Only a few hanging work lights to illuminate our steel and aluminum prison. But it has been fitted with car seats, and the car seats have seatbelts. We fasten ourselves in and settle in for the journey, however long it will take.

“You should both try to rest as much as you can,” Midwife tells us. “Now, and when we arrive. You'll both need your energy very soon.”

Jake

It's early morning, and my turn holding the Prism Crystal while Sean drives. I really ought to stay awake. Be a decent navigator. But my head still isn't fully healed, and Michelle encourages me to sleep when I need to as long as I keep a hand on the Crystal. So when I feel myself start to drift off, I grab a handkerchief out of the glove compartment and wrap it around my hand and the Crystal. The top of the gleaming Crystal is still visible, and it feels secure enough that I don't think it will fall. I prop my head on a travel pillow against the passenger-side window, and let myself drift off.

I come around again slowly. The sunlight makes my eyes water as voices buzz around me. There are no words just yet, but the atmosphere is tense. I claw my way back to full consciousness just as the tension starts to ebb away.

“Wha...? Wha's goin' on...” I manage to form the question, but the words feel like mush coming out of my mouth at first.

“It's okay,” Sean assures me. “We lost the trail for a minute, but we've got it back.”

I frown, turning to study his profile, even as the glare from the sun obscures my vision at first. He still looks concerned. I look down at the Crystal tied to my hand. It's glowing bright as it was when I fell asleep. A glance in the rearview mirror reveals the others still following us in the other car. But I look at the clock on the dashboard, and I look at the sun, and I immediately understand what's different.

We're not heading northwest anymore. We've turned entirely around.

Alodia

Our new prison is another farmhouse. Or cabin. Or cottage. Whatever. We're blindfolded again once we arrive, and I only see the inside of the room we're locked in, but it definitely has wood floors and wood-paneled walls. As usual, we're supplied with food when we arrive. Nothing gourmet, of course, but nutritious. I eat valiantly for my baby's sake, and Diego eats for mine, but I can tell he's struggling to find an appetite. I reach out to place a hand on his arm.

“You okay?”

“I'm just...anxious. Do you think we can trust Midwife?”

I sigh, turning my attention back to my meal. “I think we probably don't have much of a choice. I think if it turns out she can't be trusted, we won't be much worse for it.”

“I don't know. It's not like there need to be only two sides in this conflict, us and Rourke. If the Anachronists have gone as crazy as she implies, they might just be out to hurt you themselves...”

“I won't say the possibility didn't occur to me. But given the choice between taking a risk trusting her and risking my baby falling into Rourke's hands...I'll take the choice that presents a possibility of freedom.”

“It does seem like a better choice than waiting to be delivered to Rourke,” he concedes.

“We should rest if we can. If Midwife can be trusted, we're apparently going to need it.”

* * *

I'm not sure how deeply I actually manage to sleep. At nine months pregnant, I haven't really slept soundly in weeks. But it does feel as if some time has passed when I open my eyes to see Midwife leaning over me and realize that she was gently shaking me awake.

“Your enemies are sound asleep,” she says softly. “Drugged. It's time to get you both out of here.” I sit up carefully. Midwife puts a hand on my shoulder, preventing me from standing. “Stay seated for a moment. First things first, we need to get that chip out of your neck to reopen a line of communication with Varyyn. Diego, help me out here, okay?”

“What do you need me to do?”

“Sit down there and hold her steady. This will be quick, but it will be painful for as long as it lasts. Alodia, try not to make too much noise. I don't expect anyone to wake up in any state to chase you, but I would rather not take chances.”

Diego sits beside me on the cot and draws me into his arms. I grip him back, pressing my face into his shoulder, bracing myself. I feel Midwife gather up my hair and twist it up off my neck.

“The effects of this chip are likely to last beyond its removal, but they will wear off in time. Unfortunately, I cannot say precisely how much time it will take.” As she speaks, I feel pain go through me like a full-body electric shock. I gasp sharply, digging my fingertips into Diego's back, but I manage not to cry out. “But I do promise you that it will wear off. ...All done.”

I sit up shakily, my stomach quivering. Diego squeezes my hand, rubbing my back. “All good now?”

I manage to nod. “Yeah. All good. Just a little woozy.”

“I advise Diego to take the first shift driving. There's a jeep outside for you. Full tank, spare tire, and three cans of gas. Northbridge is about two-hundred miles away. I have programmed the fastest route into the GPS for you. The whole trip should take around three hours.”

“...Couldn't we just go to the nearest town and call the police?” Diego asks.

“Once you have driven off, I can't stop you from doing whatever you see fit. But I highly recommend putting as much distance between yourselves and your captors as possible before putting yourselves in the authorities' hands. Particularly because I cannot assure you that there are no Anachronist spies in holographic disguises along the road to Northbridge.”

“I know I would rather get back to the other Catalysts before we try to send anyone out after Arachnid,” I murmur. “I have more faith in them and the Supers to protect us than the authorities. Especially with the threat of Anachronist spies.”

“Just think the police might wonder why we drove two-hundred miles instead of getting them involved sooner.”

“Like Midwife said. We wanted to put as much distance between us and them as possible. Besides, I'm pregnant and scared and I probably pushed you to get us to Northbridge once I saw how close we were. If nothing else, we can blame it on my hormones.”

“That feels sexist.”

“I am willing to exploit sexism when it suits,” I reply, smirking a little. “But...there is another problem I can see with driving almost non-stop to Northbridge: I am nine months pregnant, and I have to pee constantly. I've been able to hold it when they move us, but I'm usually in agony by the time we arrive. And the thought of going three hours without a rest stop...”

“I have a solution for that, too,” Midwife says almost proudly. “Frankly, I am annoyed they never provided you with a portable female urinal before. But you will find one under the seat in the jeep. It's actually designed with pregnant women in mind. Specifically, pregnant women who have to spend a great deal of time in cars. Now, Diego. Pay attention.”

“Hmm? What?” Diego snaps to attention, his eyes widening slightly.

“I'm going to tell you how 'you' managed to drug your kidnappers.” She taps at the handle of a locked closet that we made a cursory attempt to open when we were first left alone in the room. “When you arrived here, they took a water cooler jug out of here and left it with you. Before they locked the closet, you saw that there were other jugs inside. When they left you alone, you tried the closet door and found that the locking mechanism was clearly broken, because in spite of the knob not turning, the door opened. You took a chance, and emptied the six pills from the bottle you found at the doctor's office into an almost-full jug that had already been opened. By the way, you'll find said bottle in the glove compartment of the jeep. Make sure to get your fingerprints on it before you let the authorities have it as evidence.”

“...Should we tell them that there was a gynecologist at the abandoned doctor's office?”

“Of course. Don't worry. There's no reason to believe you will harm me by doing so. As long as you keep my description vague.”

“So...once they were drugged, how did we get out?”

“Through a window in the back of the closet. This room is actually underground, and there is a window at the top of the wall at ground level. In fact, Diego, come with me. I'm going to direct you through your escape path. Alodia, there's no way you could climb through that window in your condition, but Diego, you should follow the plausible path and leave your traces where you can.”

I notice that Midwife uses a key to unlock the closet, but I assume she is going to do something to break the lock mechanism after we leave. She takes him into the closet, and I hear them talking for a minute or two before she comes out alone.

“...Where's Diego?”

“Walking around with the key to unlock the door. I can't leave my traces all over the grounds. Not when you're supposed to be escaping without my help.”

I want to protest. I can't keep back a nagging fear that something is going to go wrong here, that maybe one of the guards wasn't as drugged as Midwife perceived. But I hold my tongue. Midwife has always given me the impression she knows more than she lets on in any given situation. Trusting her pays off. Within five minutes, I hear the key turn in the lock, and the door opens. Diego beams at me from across the threshold.

“Time for a jailbreak, Allie. The coast is clear.”

Diego

I'm honestly a little surprised at how anxious I feel leaving Midwife behind as Allie and I drive off in our stolen jeep. But then again, maybe it's not leaving her behind that's making me anxious. I mean, after all, my best friend and I are running for our lives right now, leaving behind a bunch of hostile ex-military goons with sinister designs on an unborn baby girl. They're drugged, giving us a good amount of time to make a head start, but I know I'm not going to feel safe until we're among friends in Northbridge. Even as I speed through the night, going as much over the speed limit as I dare on the silent country roads, I can feel them lurking over my shoulder like ghosts.

“This thing have a radio?” Allie mutters after a few minutes.

I take a quick glance at the dash. “Satellite. You think we should...?”

She shrugs. “Don't see how it could hurt. And it might calm us down. ...And River, if we can find the right station.” She rubs her belly pointedly. “I think she's picking up on how nervous I am.”

“It does feel like we're driving with a target on our backs,” I concede as she starts flipping through the stations.

“I keep looking in the back seat, like one of them might have snuck in and is lying in wait back there.”

“We checked it thoroughly before we left, remember? We even looked underneath.”

“Of course I remember.” She settles on a station playing electronic music and leans back in her seat. “Doesn't stop it from feeling like they could be right behind us.”

“Yeah, you're right.” I chuckle a little. “Know what this feeling reminds me of? Being in high school, watching gay porn on the computer with the door locked and my headphones on and my parents out of the house and still being terrified that I'd get caught. I used incognito mode, did virus scans afterward, checked about fifty times that my headphones were on, and I would still be terrified of my parents coming home early, or something showing up on the search history days later and I would get caught...”

“You were more careful than I was. I did get caught once.”

“Yeah, but all your aunt and uncle were ever going to do was give you a lecture about privacy. Embarrassing, sure, but not life-altering.”

“True. ...I think if we're going to compare this situation to pre-adult anxieties, mine would be being inside or anywhere near the garage when Aunt Molly or Uncle Rob was out. When I was four or five, I had a nightmare about being trapped in the garage with a sentient killer car, and I have hated the sound of the garage opening ever since.”

I take my eyes off the road just long enough to glance at her in surprise. “You have?”

“Yup. I don't mind it so much from my room. Or any room where I can't see the door from the garage into the house. But if I'm in that hallway when I hear the garage door open, I bolt.”

“Huh...” I think back, trying to recall if I had ever noticed her doing that when we were kids, but I guess it's never stood out to me. She was a high-energy kid, and good at masking her distress when she wanted to. I probably put it down to her getting a new fun idea and running off to make it happen. “Funny how you can know a person all of your life and theirs, and still not know everything about them.”

“I should hope I still have a little mystery to me,” she replies, chuckling. “Even from you.”

The truth is that I am glad she does. In another timeline, she was a figment of my imagination. Everything she was, I made her. All her secrets were mine. The woman sitting next to me is real enough to surprise me with a strange, irrational fear left over from childhood. I don't express any of that, not wanting to remind her of a timeline I know she doesn't like to think about. But I do spare a glance to smile at her. Though not enough to make me forget what we're running from, that happy thought is enough to ease me a little, and as we continue on our journey, I hum along with the music on the radio.

Jake

We're not robots. We can't travel indefinitely. We have to stop occasionally to piss and shit and get food and fill our cars with gas. I take care of my essential bodily functions and lean against the car's rear door while I gulp down a protein bar that tastes vaguely like vanilla-flavored newspaper. Tahira leans beside me, working her way through a take-out chicken sandwich. She stares straight ahead while she eats, taking each bite with an expression that suggests she's getting it down through sheer willpower. The Prism Crystal winks at the top of her pocket. She's facing vaguely southwest, and the Crystal is gleaming in response.

“...Why did it change?”

I ask the question before I realize I did it. Tahira looks sidelong at me, and her expression is hard to read.

“What do you mean?”

“Don't be coy. I mean the Crystal. It turned us around. Why?”

“...We passed her. Somewhere on our journey, we passed by her and we had to turn around.”

“If that's the case, shouldn't we have intersected her by now? Or at least turned right or left, or...?”

“I don't know, Jake. This is hardly an exact science. We're flying almost blind.”

“...Are we sure it's even her we're tracking with the Crystal?”

“Who or what else could it be?”

“...I don't know. It ain't an exact science.”

“But there is an objective reality to it,” she murmurs, sounding thoughtful. After a moment's hesitation, she adds, “It's her, Jake. I can't totally explain how I'm sure it's her, but I know it's her.”

“Well, I guess you'd know.”

But I'm not comforted. Following the Prism Crystal might make me feel less like I'm spinning my wheels, but the pit in my stomach's not gonna go away until she's safe in my arms again. In my world, nothing's right without her. I lived that reality for five years. I can't face it again.

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chrysalispen · 4 years

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Prompt #19 - Where the Heart Is

i’m playing catchup since brain went “no thoughts head empty” this weekend

AO3 Link HERE

===========

"What's he doing?"

G'raha blinked. "What's who doing?"

She pointed at the tall, wiry Garlean man currently presiding over what passed for Saint Coinach's cookfire.

"I do believe that's called 'cooking,' Aurelia."

Aurelia resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at him.

"I can see that for myself. Whose idea was it to stick him in front of a cookstove?"

"Rammbroes, I assume." At the sight of her narrowed eyes, the Sharlayan laughed. "You could just ask him yourself. He's coming this way."

And so he was, with a bowl in each hand. It was strange enough to see Nero tol Scaeva without his heavy traveling coat, even stranger to see the man with his sleeves rolled up and a linen apron over his shirt and trousers. She was used to thinking of him as a threat, the conniving schemer he'd made of himself in the XIVth Legion, but right now he looked positively domestic, with his normally neat blond hair mussed and what looked like a dab of flour on one cheek.

"Tribunus," she said, coolly.

"Good evening, Nero," the Miqo'te at her side echoed, with a bright smile and far more warmth in his own voice- rather than harbor suspicions of Scaeva's motives he actually seemed to like the man, much to her surprise and Cid's. "Did they put you on mess hall duty tonight?"

"Actually, I volunteered myself."

"Oh? That's a surprise," G'raha said. "No offence intended, but I wouldn't have thought you the culinarian sort."

Nero positively preened at the compliment. "Yes, well. Culinary skill itself is naught but a science, one not unlike engineering. My true calling is of course the latter, but I never gave up the former. It has its uses. One must needs nourish the mind to use it."

"I quite agree! I think you have the right of it. Although I am also surprised that Ryssrael would have let anyone else near the food."

"I admit, it did take some fast talking on my part to get her to agree to a change to the menu for the night," the Garlean said dryly.

"Is this one of your own recipes?"

"So it is. Try it for yourself," Nero urged, passing a small bowl in the scholar's direction, then held one out to Aurelia. He rolled his eyes at her blank stare with a loud and exasperated sigh. "Come now, don't tell me your ladyship's adventurous streak begins and ends at the dining table."

"What is it?"

"Just a little taste of home. Far better than what's been passing for camp rations here, I should wager." She cautiously sniffed at it, squinting at its contents. He scoffed. "...If I wanted you to have some comeuppance, eikon-slayer, it would surely be more elegant than putting poison in your food. Go on."

Even G'raha looked faintly reproachful, and Aurelia supposed that if her new friend who seemed to have good instincts about people trusted him, she could at least humor him by following suit. Wordlessly she took the bowl and helped herself to a mouthful. She recognized a rough-cut pasta with a creamy, earthy taste that was surprisingly delicate; she thought she tasted just a hint of wine, along with--

"This is pasta alla boscaiola, isn't it?" She took another, much larger mouthful and added: "This is quite good. My compliments to the chef."

"I... ah. So it is." The tribunus cleared his throat; to Aurelia's surprise, the man looked something approaching self-conscious. "One of the very first dishes I ever learned to make, as it happens. I'm quite surprised to hear you've had it."

She shook her head.

"I've heard of it," she clarified, "but I've never eaten it before."

"Boscaiola would be considered rather too rustic for a noblewoman's palate, I imagine," the engineer drawled, but he was offering a cautious smile back. "You'd not have seen it at table at your home in the capitol. It's peasant food. Something we eat in autumn, near the end of harvest season before the first snow."

The three sat in silence for a time and in short order both Aurelia and G'raha had cleaned their bowls. Nero seemed content enough to remain, scribbling something down in a small pocket journal and putting it away when he saw she was watching him.

"So," she said, deciding to pick up the stray thread of conversation, "did you learn to cook while you were in the army?"

"Oh, no. I learned to cook long before I came to the capitol." He smiled into the fire, and Aurelia was taken aback by the sight of it. She'd seen him smile countless times before, but those were sardonic and mocking things, meant to generate a reaction rather than to signify any strong emotion. This one softened his features and made him appear, for just a moment, younger than Aurelia herself. "My grandmother helped to raise me and my sisters. I used to assist her in the kitchen quite often, so she passed along many of her recipes to me."

It was difficult to imagine Nero tol Scaeva as an innocent, wide-eyed boy standing in a kitchen cutting vegetables, but then she supposed most people would have had the same difficulty picturing her as a child.

"This recipe seems very dear to you."

"One of my earliest memories is going mushroom-picking with her." He shrugged, a nonchalant gesture that seemed rather deliberate. "This is her version of a common dish. I imagine it varies wildly."

"At any rate, I find people who can cook very impressive," she said. "I've never been able to manage to make more than one or two things myself."

Nero's expression, when he pressed a hand to his chest, was one of exaggerated shock. "Goodness, have I finally chanced upon something the vaunted champion of Eorzea can't do? If I wore pearls, I daresay I'd be clutching them."

Completely unbidden, Aurelia found herself cackling.

"Don't be an arse, I just wanted to thank you," she held out the empty bowl, "for sharing your food with us."

"Indeed," G'raha said. His two-toned eyes had settled on Nero's face, his smile unwavering. "My grandfather once told me that in many of the provinces in Ilsabard, when you share a family meal with strangers it's the highest form of hospitality. Most folk there have little to eat. So when they offer a stranger to partake of their meal, that person becomes part of the family as long as they're at the table."

Curiously, Nero wouldn't look at either of them. He stared at the bowls stacked in his hands as if they were subjects of fascinating study. After a moment, he stood quite abruptly, brushing gravel from his coat.

"Mistress Ryssrael will want help scouring the pot," he said. "A good evening to you both."

And with three brisk strides the two were alone once again. G'raha's eyes lingered upon that retreating back, the tilt to his lips rueful- but when he looked at her again his usual grin was firmly back in place. Aurelia frowned.

"What was that all about?"

"Not the faintest idea," the Miqo'te said cheerfully, though the look in his eyes marked him a liar. "Let's take another look at that tomestone you found, shall we?"

#ffxivwrite2020 #prompt 19: where the heart is #i love the idea of food as love language #also raha and nero being friends is something i never knew i needed

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melancholydreadfuldream · 5 years

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Alternative Dream Part One

Fandom: Doctor Who

Summary: Doctor Who AU where the Doctor as a war Doctor use the moment and managed to defeat the Daleks without destroying Gallifrey. He is seen as a war hero and is given new regeneration as reward. He was given a place in the government. He was never able to travel again so he never met Rose Tyler or any of his companion. He remained on Gallifrey and has regenerated into a version of Thirteenth Doctor where she continue to work for glory of Gallifrey. Until she met you, a time sensitive she was assigned to capture at any cost.

Pairing: Thirteenth Doctor x Reader, Yaz x Reader and Jack Harkness x Reader

Warning: angst, mention of use of violence, forced relationship, ooc.

A/N: I’m bullshitting my way with this particular fanfiction. So Pardon the mess.

PART TWO is here

Time sensitive.

I hated that word.

Time sensitive is a being that is able to see both past and future timeline. Sometimes, if the Time sensitive person is of strong line, he or she would be able to see alternate timelines. Time sensitive person were deemed too fragile and dangerous to be left on their own. Most time sensitive are human and they are not meant to see time like that. Not many can cope with seeing through the fabric of time and most of the time, they went insane or burn out from the outside and inside. It will be a painful death.

My name is (name) and I am a time sensitive. Unfortunately.

Because of my nature, my family is hunted by a race called the Time Lord. They have a very firm law regarding a time sensitive person, they are to be taken to their home planet, Gallifrey, where the person will be chosen as a bride for some pompous Time Lord. Once they are bonded, the time sensitive person will have a stable mind and their power will be attune more to those of the past and the future of his or her bonded Time Lord.

Most of time sensitive have no choice and are forced to bond with a Time Lord, willing or not. I will not have that as my fate. So I ran, as far away as possible. I'm one of the oldest of age for someone who is a time sensitive. Most younger time sensitive are unable to hid very well and thus was taken to Gallifrey.

Time sensitive is originally supposed to be rare and yet these past years there are lot of people born with the time sensitive potential. I heard rumor it was because something that originated from Gallifrey. They said time sensitivity is a virus that plaque the human and the forced bond is some kind a cover up by the Time Lord. No one know for sure. The Time Lord are not very forthcoming about it. They never saw the human as equal in the first place, it's beneath them to even be with human, and yet they forced a bond with time sensitive person. They never treated time sensitive well, just another pawn for their own gain.

The Time Lord decided to take over the Earth so they can keep track and control all born time sensitive. Of course, the people of Earth refused and fought but it was useless. The Time Lord is superior compare to us, human.

I have motivation to continue evade those pompous time jackass. The Time Lord who found me is a bastard that didn't even respect me and only saw me as a means to an end. He caused the death of my parents. I was able to trick him and trap him inside a prison he prepared for me and I escaped his rage. I never saw him again. I hope he never able to escape that cage, it would serve him right to spend the rest of his immortal life imprisoned.

I have been joining a human resistance against the Time Lord on some corner of the Earth. With my time sensitivity, I become useful in the resistance to evade those time jackass. Though lately, I have been feeling sickly every time I peek on the fabric of time. I knew I was running out of time. I have to bond with a Time Lord (over my dead body) or really dies. I choose to die but I will use my time sensitivity as long as I can to help the resistance.

&&&&

On the Gallifrey, the Time Lord officials are having a meeting regarding the resistance.

"They have a time sensitive on their side. That's the only possible way they could ever hope to evade us."

"Have we locate this time sensitive traitor?"

"They have hidden him or her very well. We think the time sensitive has got a bio damper to hide their signature."

"How is that even possible? Find him or her immediately!"

"This particular time sensitive person seemed stronger than most. He or she will be valuable."

"If they help the human, it's unlikely they will pledge loyalty to us. Too dangerous. I voted we find them and execute them as a warning to those against us."

"What a waste. We could force a bond and they would have no choice but to serve whoever Time Lord they are bonded to."

"They have been out there for too long. Their mind is probably unstable. It would only be a matter of time before they dies. But considering how they have been using their power, they are too dangerous to be left alive. I voted we kill them on sight."

The Doctor never like these meeting and despite being a celebrated war hero, no one seemed to want her opinion. She never approved of the Time Lords' decision to take over the Earth or the forcing of bond for those poor time sensitive people. But she also knew they have no choice but to bond with time sensitive or they will die. She hated that the Time Lords are forcing a bond, not because they care for the human, but because they want to exploit their power.

The Doctor raised her hand much to annoyance of the other. "I voted we capture them alive and then we will monitor their state of mind before we do anything harsh."

"Noted, Doctor." But it was clear to the Doctor, they didn't care. "So who will go to earth and find them?"

"I volunteer." The Doctor said as she raised her hand again eagerly.

&&&&

The Doctor stroke her Tardis longingly. "It's been a while, old girl. Let's have an adventure together, eh?" she said. "We have to help the human and the poor time sensitive person on their side. Do you have any idea where they are?"

The Tardis hummed gently inside the Doctor's mind and she grinned. "Then, shall we go?"

&&&&

I woke up in sweat. My eyes widened.

Yaz rushed toward me. "Are you okay, (name)? What is it?"

"Someone is coming...someone dangerous..."

Yaz looked worried. "Do you know when?"

I furrowed my eyebrows. "Don't know. I can't see it clearly."

"It's getting worst, isn't it, for you, I mean, to see the future?" Yaz asked sadly.

"I'm fine, Yaz. Just needed more rest and I will be good as new." I lied.

She didn't believe me of course but she didn't argue. She knew better. Everyone knew I have an expired date.

&&&&

"Who the hell are you? You are trespassing here!"

The Doctor raised both hands in surrender. "I'm human, like you, I come in peace. I'm just looking for asylum here."

Jack stared at him in suspicion. "Scan her!" he ordered his soldiers.

The Doctor remained calm as a soldier approached her with a scanning machine to determine her species.

"Confirmed, human." the soldier replied.

The Doctor hummed. She is glad that her hunch is correct that the human has got their hands on the species scanner machine. The Doctor has put an upgraded bio damper on herself. "See? My name is Jane Smith. Now, may I get some rest? Been walking around for long and I'm tired."

Jack narrowed his eyes at the Doctor. "Fine. Let her get back to the bunker to see Martha. Tell her to keep an eyes on her."

The Doctor sighed in relief. She is in. Now she has to figure out which one of the human is the time sensitive.

&&&&

The Doctor got along well with Martha. Martha is a doctor who is in charge to keep everyone in good fit. She has checked the Doctor and cleared her.

Martha introduced her to Donna who is in charge of assigning new people to their quarter and duty.

The Doctor stared at Donna's ginger hair longingly. "I never get to be ginger..." she murmured.

Donna is loud and a bit intimidating, the Doctor found, but she likes her enough.

Strange, how most of the people here in resistance are likeable to the Doctor, even though some of them, are soldier like Rose, Amy and Clara. For some reason, the Doctor felt like she knew them like they were old friends. But that's not possible as she never seen them before.

It was dinner time and everyone, in the bunker, have dinner together. Despite their situation, they are having a good laugh with each other. The Doctor admired them. She watched Rose and Clara having a laugh together at Jack's expense. Martha is seated with her boyfriend, Mickey, whispering at each other. Amy is with a soldier called Rory whom the Doctor learned is also her husband. A woman named Bill and Heather are distributing food for everyone. Everyone is having a good time.

The Doctor's eyes widened when she saw her former companion, Sarah Jane Smith. She was on the other side of the room, talking with Donna. She had no idea that Sarah Jane is part of the resistance. She smiled fondly. Of course, Sarah Jane will be a defender of the earth.

The Doctor took a seat with Rose and her friends.

"Hey, new girl, Jane, right?" Rose asked with a friendly smile.

Clara grinned as she look her up and down in appreciation which make the Doctor blushed red. "Looking good, Jane..."

"Down, girl." Rose said with a grin.

They soon involved with a friendly conversation with each other.

"So, how do you lot meet each other?" the Doctor asked curiously.

"Well, we all have our reason to join resistance... Mine is because of our daughter..." Amy said with a sad smile. "But we are actually recruited by..."

Rose suddenly shushed her. "No one is to mention him, remember?"

"Ah, right, he-who-shall-not-be-named."

"He's not Voldemort, Amy."

Everyone laughed at the running joke between them.

The Doctor observed everyone's interaction and realized that they must have been recruited by the time sensitive. But why? What makes them so special? Also now she knew the time sensitive is a man. She will have to look around for a male fit the description of a time sensitive.

&&&&

"You need to eat, (name)." Yaz tried to persuade me to have dinner.

"Not hungry..." I said softly as I laid on my bed and stared at the ceiling.

Jack entered the room without knocking. The former time agent always annoyed me since I always reprimanded him about his manner. "Hey, how is my Voldemort doing today?"

I scoffed at the nickname. "Shouldn't I be the boy who lives?"

"Nah, too heroic." Jack said with a grin.

It was a secret within our circle that the time sensitive is actually me and that I am a female. It was Clara's idea to throw the Time Lord off my scent. That's why they spread a rumour that the time sensitive is actually male just in case there are mole within the resistance. It annoyed me that the team I put out nicknamed me Voldemort or he-who-shall-not-be-named.

"Did you see anymore about our hostile visitor?" Jack asked. He is worried after Yaz told him about my vision.

I shook my head. "Nope. But whoever it is coming and we have to be on alert."

"There a few new people coming in to join us. I already scanned them and they passed all the tests." Jack said.

I hummed. "Don't forget the Time Lord is a smarter race than us. They have plenty time to upgrade everything in their disposal. Ours are a bit outdated."

"Haven't you see anything that could help in that regard?"

"Think the Time Lords are on me and my tricks. I think they put precaution to put shadow around Gallifrey. Can't see them clearly."

"Well that is a bummer."

"Jack!" Yaz glared at him.

"Sorry, (name), you did good work." Jack said with a sad smile.

"I hate that I can't be much help." I said. "I have to prepare Melody for when the time come for me to die..."

Melody is the seven years old daughter of Amy and Rory and she is a time sensitive like me. I have been training her to hide herself from the prying us of other time sensitives and the time lords. She is the whole reason I recruited the parents. She will be my replacement in the future.

But that's not the only reason, I knew her parents are a potential defenders of earth. I saw it in my vision. most people I recruited personally are because of my vision. I knew that in another timeline they were defenders of earth alongside someone called the storm? I never find out about the storm person and I never told any of them about him. At least I think it's a him.

Jack and Yaz winced every time I mentioned about my being dying. They hated how helpless they are regarding my situation. It is not like they could get their hand on a decent time lord to bond with me. I told them plenty of time there are not one decent time lord in existence.

Sarah Jane disagreed though. She mentioned a man called the Doctor who always defended the earth. But she think that man has died because otherwise she believed that the Doctor would join our cause. I never believe her. I didn't recruit her but I sense she is a good person as she joined the resistance on her own free will.

&&&&

The Doctor has been with the resistance for a week now and hasn't gotten any closer in figuring which male is the time sensitive. The said time sensitive indeed have been using a bio damper to hide his signature. The Doctor is worried the other Time Lords will be impatient and will declare wars on earth to force the time sensitive out.

The Doctor suspected a soft-spoken Ryan, who is not a soldier, is the time sensitive but she hasn't got any proof. Ryan is always with Graham, his grandfather, working on fixing damaged machinery within the bunker.

She hasn't formally talk to Sarah Jane either. She is unsure whether she should revealed her identity to her former companion. She is unsure that Sarah Jane would help her in tracking down the time sensitive.

She noticed a young woman sitting on library all by her lonesome.

"Hello there, I'm Jane, who are you? Never seen you before and I have been in the bunker for a week." the Doctor asked.

&&&&

I was minding my own business, drawing a doodle on my sketch book, when a young woman approached me. I glanced at her. One of the new people Jack mentioned then. I ponder whether I should talk to her or be rude so she left me alone. I closed down my sketch book and said, "I have been ill so I haven't gotten out of my room. Doctor's order."

Without invitation, Jane took a seat beside me. I tried to push down my annoyance. "You shouldn't sit with me. I'm still ill. Wouldn't want to get you ill too..." I said, hoping to scare her away.

Jane didn't look bothered. "I'm not worried. I'm always healthy all my life. My mother said that germs are afraid of me." she said as she moved closer to me.

"Look, Jane, do you mind? I would rather be alone." I said rudely.

"You haven't tell me your name yet..."

"Why? Do you already know the name of everyone in the bunker?!" I asked angrily.

"Well, I meet with everyone already, I think, except those who are on mission." she said. "As for their name, sure, I do, I'm good with names, you see..." Then she started rattle on some name that I recognized and some that I didn't.

"Alright, I get it, It's (name), okay?" I said in annoyance and a bit impressed.

"See, that wasn't so hard, was it? Let's be friend, shall we?"

"I don't do friend." I said immediately.

"How can you do not do friend? That's impossible!"

Jane's behaviour started to annoy me so much.

At the times, Yaz entered the library. When she saw me and Jane, she schooled her expression in a firm manner. "(Name), are you ditching your duty again?" she asked. She was saving me from having to interact with Jane. She knew how much I hated interaction.

"And who are you?" Jane asked with a tone that almost flirty which make Yaz blushed, which amused me. "Never see you either before. Hello there."

"I'm Yaz." she introduced herself. "You are Jane, right? Everyone talk about you. You are really famous with the children."

"I try..." Jane said with a grin.

"Sorry, Jane, we got to go to, duty call." I said as I grabbed Yaz away from her.

"Can I go with...?"

Before she could finish, I pulled Yaz quickly and out of the way.

"That was mean, (name)." Yaz said as she saw Jane has this sort of kicked puppy look on her face.

"She is too cheerful, I hated it." I said.

Yaz sighed.

&&&&

The Doctor meet Melody and she realized almost immediately that she is a time sensitive. So there are more than one time sensitive within the resistance, the Doctor concluded. She realized someone has been training little Melody to utilize her power. But Melody is still a child and she slipped out which caused the Doctor to catch on her signature.

She remembered what Amy said about her reason to join the resistance is for her daughter's sake. The Doctor felt sadness for the whole affair. She wishes she could fix the time sensitive problem. But she is helpless. The Doctor really fond of little Melody for some reason. She had no idea why.

She has to report to Gallifrey soon and she is unsure whether she should inform them about little Melody. Melody would be safer in Gallifrey. But the Doctor know it is not quite true. She shuddered at the thought someone might try to claim Melody too early. Also if she informed about Melody, she will be ripped away from her parents and that's something the Doctor can't accept. She loves Amy and Rory, they are now her friends. She had managed to make friends here and she knew she would have to betray them eventually.

#thirteenth doctor x reader #13th doctor x reader #thirteenth doctor imagine #doctor who fanfiction #doctor who imagine #shiefenwrites

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mcalhenwrites · 4 years

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I’ll be taking a hiatus from social media aside from a few exceptions, but I had a sudden KH theory come to mind involving Roxas and the MoM! I’m going to be 100% wrong, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to theorize. Theory: the Master of Masters looks like an older version of Ventus (and Roxas looks like Ven). Roxas duel-wields because of being a combination of Ven and Sora, but iirc, Nomura said there are some huge reveals about Roxas later, and we saw Roxas' symbol on multiple worlds in KH3 (Which is the "4" in KH numerals) as well as the "7" in worlds within KH3 (on the Leviathan and in Scala), which I think pertains to the "7 lights" theme in the series. Not only that, but the credits of Back Cover play “The Other Promise” and “Another Side, Another Story” - which also plays during the secret Yozora ending of KH3. I’ve noticed other instances where the music is relevant, and I’m wondering if this is no coincidence. I have some weird “what if Ven’s like a clone of MoM” theory that branches off of this, but there might be another explanation. MoM is still his own character, but he’s older in every way, including his appearance. And maybe Ven, Roxas, and the box, are all parts of some way he returns. I also still believe there’s more to Naminé, including how she obtained the power she has with memories. I think the Darkness still hiding in Ven that Sora encounters in the DLC has leaked into her, too, and she’s not just the nobody that came from Kairi’s heart when Sora became a Heartless, but she and Roxas also have been influenced by that hidden Darkness. I theorized the bit about Naminé before the last KHUX update, and that update may have contradicted or strengthened my suspicions either way. Ven might just have lost bits of memories from trauma, but it’s also possible that Darkness didn’t just fool Ven by appearing as Ava, they may have altered some of his memories. Maybe it stored them in a separate “compartment” of the heart, and that compartment later transferred to Vanitas, who cannot fully access it. (I’ve heard that in one of the KH3 novels, Vanitas apparently has vague memories of KHUX but can’t really identify what they are?) Maybe the box contains MoM’s heart, and the MoM we see in some scenes (including the one Xehanort meets) is nothing more than a glamour meant to carry out certain acts before disappearing. When the box, Luxu, and the Foretellers (minus Ava) reunite, their memories are what are needed to bring him back. You need a heart and those who remember you to bring you to that time, right? Listen, my brain doesn’t grasp time travel very well, so I have to confirm that’s what’s going on here.

Maybe the box also contains specific memories MoM has, a way he’s compartmentalized them. Perhaps Ven was a decoy for Darkness, and he needed to look convincing, because MoM poses a great threat to Darkness, but MoM wasn’t quite strong enough for him yet. Keyblade wielders during the keyblade war during Chi were “weeded out”, the Dandelions were supposed to bring about a greater age of those who held and maintained the light. Everyone was too weak during the Age of Fairy Tales, including the Master himself, and he had to hide away and wait for generations to pass before there would be enough guardians of light strong enough... and Roxas is one of them. Enough to defeat Darkness for good. And maybe MoM wasn’t being silly when he said he was too afraid to take off the coat that protects him from darkness, even if that MoM is just a glamour echoing what the real MoM would say. He can’t afford to take it off. Even his glamour has to be undetectable to the Darkness for now. ...This sounds stupid now that I type it out, but I can’t wait for more updates on story to strengthen or weaken or totally annhilate my theories and give me fodder for new ones.

#okay now back to that hiatus

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sparklyjojos · 4 years

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CARNIVAL recaps [8/13]

Today’s recap: Murder on the Trans-Siberian Express, or Yaiba having a Very Bad Very Not Good Time.

[tw: a lot of mental illness, suicide, implied csa mention]

SIXTEEN

05 Oct 1996 — 11 Oct 1996

TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY

[First person narration from Yaiba, here presented in lazy third person.]

It’s the fifth night since Yaiba has left Japan. He stares into the frosty Russian night while the Trans-Siberian Express has a brief stop in Vladivostok. Over nine thousand kilometers more until Moscow.

He walks back inside the train, on the way greeting the two female conductors of his car (Masha and Faina). In his four-person couchette with two bunk beds he rejoins a fellow passenger called Natalia, who’s getting ready to sleep. The boy Yaiba’s travelling with has already fallen asleep on the top bed.

It’s surprisingly easy to move between countries using the new IDID card, probably because everyone is so shaken by the Crime Olympics that any seemingly busy detective wouldn’t be held up at the border longer than necessary. They will make it, he just needs to continue to pretend Amano is his son and make sure to buy only necessary items.

Sitting in the dark compartment, looking at the moving scenery outside, Yaiba has a feeling that no matter what they do, whether they’re sleeping or awake, moving or not, the ever-changing world mercilessly carries them into the future. He can’t sleep, ends up just lying motionlessly in his blue polka dot pajamas and staring into the darkness. After a while he decides to make his favorite hot cocoa and read instead.

He’s reminded of that time three years ago when Hikimiya, a detective novel fan, borrowed him an anthology that had a Russian-themed story in it. Around that time Yaiba was busy with a case surrounding murders in the north of Russia, so it seemed oddly fitting. Things have changed so much since that time. JDC blew up, Ajiro went missing, Suzukaze Unomaru sunk with a ship… everyone kept dying. It just seemed so random that Yaiba was still alive. This terrifying randomness of fate he couldn’t deal with.

Before Yaiba fled hospital, he’d gotten a call from Hyouma, who announced that he was quitting JDC and wanted to start a new life wandering around America. Hard to blame him; JDC without Ajiro, without Juku around, and with Dokuson in charge didn’t feel like JDC at all.

As if that wasn’t enough change for the worse, everyone around Yaiba read Cosmic and Joker. Everyone learned about what he would rather keep secret about his childhood. Everyone asked questions. He told them that the books were fictional and nobody should worry about the literary version of the events too much, but they didn’t seem to believe him. Yaiba could feel the door to madness opening within him.

Everyone now knew about what that woman had done to him. About how their child was declared to be a serial killer—when Yaiba first heard about that event a few years ago, he couldn’t help but think that the hereditary psychiatric problems that plagued his family had reared its head once more.

But even Cosmic and Joker didn’t know the truth that only Yaiba knew—the truth about his younger brother Amato’s suicide many years ago.

The truth being that Yaiba was the one to kill him.

Amano looks a lot like Amato did at that time. Yaiba doesn’t regret kidnapping him. They are so similar. In a way, Amano is that already non-existing person. What is Yaiba going to do now? Kill Amano—Amato, kill him again to escape his curse? Perhaps. After all, he has already broken down inside

[There’s a switch to second person, still from Yaiba, and again I’m just writing in third.]

When he wakes up in the morning, Natalia has already gone off somewhere. The white-haired boy on the bed above his own, Amato, is busy with his gameboy. Walking down the train aisle Yaiba hears a few Russians mention the killer Amur Tiger, but judging from the laughter they’re just making a joke. The two conductors are chatting in their room. Yaiba feels like everyone is observing him suspiciously. He gets tea and goes back to their compartment to give it to Amato, who as a recently hospitalized child can’t really handle a lot of solid food. Amato has four months to live, maybe less. Yaiba wonders if it’s possible to show him the northern lights before his death.

On the next stop they stand aside as the electric train engine is switched out for a diesel, which Amato compares to Galaxy Express 999, the flying space train. Yaiba realizes they are being observed from afar by another passenger, who after being spotted quickly boards the train again.

Later Yaiba meets a few travel mates from the neighboring compartment: a young couple of Pyotr and Shaina, and a strong guy with sideburns called Ivan. Yaiba thinks they’re looking at Amato’s white hair strangely, so he quickly explains that “his son” is ill. While everyone is having a nice conversation, a few cans get loose from the couple’s baggage, which they regard with laughter as their “super secret stuff”. It’s clearly a joke, considering the cans seem to have plain corned beef inside.

When Yaiba is sitting in the dining car later, that passenger who seemed to be observing them earlier introduces comes up and introduces himself as Drexel Uryakov. Uryakov turns out to be a fellow A-rank detective, who knows very well who Yaiba is and what he’s doing here, but has more pressing matters to attend to—namely the cases of the Amur Tiger and Pogrom. He asks Yaiba for help with the investigation.

The Amur Tiger is a serial killer whose hundreds of victims all had their heads cut off, and who is most infamous for disguising a bunch of corpses as mannequins in Moscow’s GUM. Pogrom similarly likes to decapitate his victims, but specifically targets the detectives of DOLL’s Russian branch and steals their IDID cards from the scene. (Uryakov makes an interesting comment on how these nicknames alone shape people’s understanding: an Amur Tiger brings to mind a mindless animal, while Pogrom has Connotations and implies a much scarier enemy that is a cruel human—or perhaps, an unfeeling beast wearing the mask of a human.)

Uryakov thinks these two cases are connected. He managed to get a hold of secret KGB files which show the Amur Tiger murders go back to at least the times of Ivan the Terrible, but the public never learned about it before now. All of Pogrom’s victims were detectives who tried to shed more light on the Amur Tiger. Uryakov himself is also pursuing the Amur Tiger, and revealed a few case details to his twin brother Aleksandr, a private detective. Aleksandr attempted to stealthily investigate on his own and was murdered for his curiosity. But before his death, he managed to tell what he had discovered to Drexel...

In the afternoon, the train has to temporarily stop in Khabarovsk because of something unprecised happening to the west. Pyotr claims he heard that the overhead line supports had been knocked over in places too strategic to be a random event, and on a stretch of over three thousand kilometers of tracks to boot. It can’t be the Billion Killer, they still have two days until Saturday.

Yaiba uses the break to call Hikimiya and ask him to confirm Uryakov’s story by checking his entry in DOLL’s database. There is indeed a Drexel Uryakov registered, and he did have a private detective brother who died in the Amur Tiger case two weeks ago. Drexel hasn’t been in contact with the Russian DOLL branch at all in those two weeks, but he does work alone a lot, so it’s expected (kinda like Hyouma wanders off a lot).

After confirming that, Hikimiya asks what on earth Yaiba is even thinking, grabbing a child and running away. Yaiba isn’t really pursued by the police, who think this is JDC’s own problem to fix (and there’s no definite proof it was him who kidnapped the boy), but it’s just a matter of time until he gets caught during a search. Hikimiya asks him to please give himself up before that so he doesn’t get into even more trouble.

Nemu has already boarded the Trans-Siberian Express going the other direction, so that she will be able to catch him halfway. Maybe that power outage that bought Yaiba some time was a godsend after all. Nemu may be kind, but she always gets spirited when facing criminals, so Yaiba would hate to meet her when being one. Then again, he prefers that to meeting someone like Jounosuke. He can deal with Nemu’s harshness, but wouldn’t be able to keep a hold of himself if Jounosuke looked at him with that compassionate smile and kindness.

Yaiba knew all along that any escape would be impossible in the long term—but perhaps it was this awareness of entrapment that paradoxically made him want to run.

Since the train won’t move until morning, Yaiba is invited to hit the town with Pyotr and the rest. Uryakov warns him that it might not be the best idea—what if Pyotr is Pogrom?—but it’s not like anyone else here knows that Yaiba is a detective, he’s not pursuing the Amur Tiger, and besides, Pyotr is only as suspicious as Uryakov himself.

Yaiba asks if Uryakov’s brother also had a mark on his cheek. Uryakov jokes about it (“what, are you implying we switched?”) then shares his own surprising suspicion: he thinks Yaiba is actually being manipulated by the boy he’s with. He questions Yaiba’s motive for the kidnapping—did he want a kid this badly or what?—but the answer “he’s my dead brother” is enough to end the conversation.

Yaiba takes Amato to the nearest town with the others. They ask him where he’s travelling, so he says that he and Amato are going to Murmansk to see the northern lights, but since it’s too early in the year for that, they’re going to go see Moscow first. Pyotr jokes that Yaiba’s tone makes it sound like a suicide trip. Amato gets a little pale.

When they get back to their empty compartment, Amato asks if he’s going to be killed under the northern lights in Murmansk. Yaiba replies that they probably won’t make it to Murmansk, as his coworkers are too smart to just let him go.

“Then you could kill them too,” Amato says. “Just like you killed me. It’s fine if everyone else dies.”

“You will never let me go, will you? I was young, didn’t know anything…”

“You can’t change the past. No one can change it, even if they may forget about it. Don’t deny my existence.”

“Please forgive me, I’m just so tired…”

“Then die and come here already. The world of the dead is nice. If you kill yourself, I’ll forgive you.”

“Amato, please, stop talking.”

“You will never escape from me.”

Darkness envelops him.

[Narration swaps to third person.]

That same evening, Yaiba and the others drink vodka in the neighboring compartment. The Russians tend to forget his first name and call him Somanovich instead of Somahito. After a few drinks Yaiba admits that he’s quite weak-headed nowadays, but he spent his teenage years drinking a lot as a means of distracting himself after his brother’s suicide. He was the one to discover the body.

His brother used to say that they were inescapably fated to commit suicide. He repeated it no matter how many times Yaiba scolded him for saying things like that, no matter how much he argued that it’s perfectly possible to avoid the curse of one’s bloodline. Yaiba loved him, but he too had a point of snapping and one day yelled, “If you want to die so much, then go ahead and die! Do as you wish. But I would never do a stupid thing like that.” Later that day he found Amato dead in the bathroom. To Yaiba, it was clear who caused this death, and guilt drove him to drink. He would probably end up the same way as his brother. On the other hand, the events made him feel drawn to study the darkness in people’s hearts, and that caused him to become a detective, which gave his life new meaning… but that's all in the past now.

Yaiba wakes up with a hangover in his own compartment. Someone’s knocking at the door and Amato is asking him from the upper bed to open it already. Yaiba complies and unlocks the door, briefly wondering why the floor has a dark stain on it. The one knocking is completely pale Pyotr, who informs him that the two conductors have been murdered—while the bodies are nowhere to be found, their room is covered in blood, and the red stains lead to Yaiba’s compartment door. Yaiba notices that Natalia is not with them, but Pyotr informs him that she just switched compartments last night, since she didn’t like being unable to lock the door for the sake of her companions.

They call over Uryakov from another car to help with investigation. There’s a lot of blood in the compartment and on the train aisle floor, but the outside of the compartment door is clean, so Uryakov believes the victims were attacked inside. However, Yaiba was in no shape to attack anyone, and the only other person inside was a child. When Yaiba woke up, the door had been locked from the inside, so nobody could budge them unless they had the master key belonging to the conductors. It’s possible that obtaining that key was the motive for murder. It’s also very possible that the murderer actually wanted to kill Yaiba, but the conductors walked in during the act and had to be taken care of. Uryakov suspects Pyotr, but Yaiba thinks he’s innocent.

Natalia shows up and claims that Yaiba is the murderer. Earlier she heard the conductors arguing with someone, then a sound like something fell over and was being dragged towards the conductor room. When she worked up the courage to check that room, she saw two headless bodies and sprinted back to her compartment, afraid of coming out until now.

Uryakov listens to her testimony and has her return to her room. He doesn’t believe Yaiba did it, but they only have an hour left to solve the case before they arrive at the next station and will potentially be in big trouble.

They investigate. The conductor room toilet is unusually unlocked. One of the empty compartments is locked, but Uryakov doesn’t think the bodies are in there (probably were thrown out the train window instead). In a baggage storage under Yaiba’s bed they find a bloodied axe.

Yaiba remembers what Uryakov told him about the Amur Tiger. The motive for the murders is obtaining human heads, retrieving brain tissue and selling it as a delicacy on the black market, camouflaged as ordinary canned food. Considering the scope of the entire scheme, it has to be the work of an organization that Pogrom must be related to as well. The vital clue that Aleksandr Uryakov told his brother before death was that Pogrom was likely Pyotr, and so Drexel decided to tail the man.

Yaiba thinks it’s strange. If Pyotr was Pogrom, why would he try to kill Yaiba instead of the more immediate threat that was Uryakov, and why would he fail? If those corned beef cans contained human brain tissue, why would Pyotr want to murder someone right there in their train car, considering the police would probably look through the passengers’ belongings? And why was the door closed?

They make a rough timeline of events.

00:00 — Natalia asks to switch compartments. The conductors help her move baggage.

00:30 — Pyotr and Amato drag passed out Yaiba to his compartment, meeting both conductors on the way. One of the conductors returns to their room. Natalia explains the switch to Amato. The boy locks the door to Yaiba’s compartment from the inside and goes to sleep. Pyotr goes back to his own bed.

04:25 — The train gets moving again and leaves Khabarovsk.

05:00 — Natalia hears the suspicious noises. Around ten minutes later she discovers the two bodies and hides in her compartment.

05:30 — Pyotr sees the bloody scene (but no bodies) and knocks on Yaiba’s door.

Uryakov thinks that the murderer waited until one conductor was using the bathroom, killed the other one, snatched the master key, attempted to kill Yaiba, but was discovered by the other conductor and had to kill her too. Yaiba points out that it would be weird to not just kill both women first to be safe. Maybe the suspect they’re searching for is in fact one of the conductors? But then who killed her in turn?

Yaiba theorizes that maybe the murderer wasn’t targeting him at all, but the two women—after all, the Amur Tiger just wants some random heads. He attacked them in their room, got the master key, and then arranged things to look like they were killed in Yaiba’s compartment to pin the guilt on him. This could mean that the murderer was traveling in the same car… or just wanted them to think that way. It could even be someone from outside—it would be impossible not to get one’s clothes stained with this much blood flying around, yet none of the passengers they talked to seemed to have changed their clothing since yesterday. The fact that the murder occured after the train resumed movement also seems quite suspicious, almost as if done intentionally to make them think the culprit was still on the train.

Uryakov adds that the murderer has to be someone who knew that Yaiba wouldn’t wake up anytime soon and that Natalia had moved to another compartment. Aside from Amato and Natalia herself, this only leaves Pyotr as the suspect.

Yaiba notices that Uryakov really wants to pin the guilt on Pyotr, but he thinks he has already found another solution. The real murderer was someone from outside who cooperated with Natalia to create an alibi for himself. First the real murderer killed the conductors at night and left the train, then in the morning Natalia pushed the bodies outside.

They approach the next station quickly, so Uryakov promises to take care of the rest.

Natalia admits her guilt and reveals that Pyotr, Shaina and Ivan were all in on it. Ivan told Natalia he was with the Amur Tiger group and threatened her into compliance. Then he left the train at night in Khabarovsk, bought an axe, checked in a local hotel, then claiming he forgot something returned to the train, killed both conductors and took their heads with him. Natalia took care of the bodies later.

Thankfully the police seems satisfied with this and the train continues on its way. Yaiba evaded being searched, but he doesn’t have a lot of time before his and Nemu’s trains stop at the same station. He’s not sure what to do now, so he passes the time talking with Uryakov.

Yaiba notices that despite the case being over, something still doesn’t fit into his reasoning. If Ivan really was the murderer, why would he buy a murder weapon in a store, considering how easy it would be to track it back to him? Revealing himself as part of the Amur Tiger to another person and trying to put the blame on an A-detective seemed too risky. Yaiba thinks it’s more probable that the real murderer actually forced Natalia to accuse Ivan.

And when you take all the circumstances into account, the only person who can be the murderer—who traveled outside their car, and who knew that Yaiba would be drinking—is actually Uryakov.

Uryakov asks why Yaiba covered for him in front of the police. Yaiba answers that he’s not in a position to be getting himself involved into cases, and besides, it’s only a matter of time until the truth is discovered. Uryakov can’t escape anymore.

The deciding evidence was Amato’s testimony. The boy actually told Yaiba that he had been only pretending to be asleep at night, so he saw Uryakov entering their compartment and killing a conductor who walked in on him. The intended target really was Yaiba. The motive is easy to guess: Uryakov himself is Pogrom. He was the one to kill his own brother.

Uryakov admits to everything, but adds that no matter how good of a detective Yaiba is, he has one weakness: he cannot put his thinking to reason out his own problems. And because Uryakov knows that they’re both going to die on this train anyway, he may as well tell him the truth about the boy he’s traveling with.

“That boy over there is Amano, not Amato. Wake up, Somanovich—no, Yaiba Somahito! That ‘Amato’ only exists within you!”

Yaiba slowly stands up and looks at the boy on the top bed. An unfamiliar face looks back at him. It’s not his brother Amato at all.

Yaiba runs out of the compartment and realizes that the train seems to be climbing a steep hill that shouldn’t be there, and that the hour is almost 1 PM on a Saturday—and then the train shots out of the broken tracks and starts falling straight towards Lake Baikal.

[>>>NEXT PART>>>]

#sparkly reads carnival #maijo and jdc stuff

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opulentcherries · 5 years

Text

hey there, eddie [reddie au] 1/3

pairings: reddie, stenbrough,

warnings: fuckton of cursing, angst, lots of sad shit, underage drinking,

words: 1.7k

extra: this is a playlist fic. each part is based on a different song, and the fic as a whole is based on the song hey there delilah by the plain white t's.

song of the chapter: no idea by all time low

synopsis: the losers are off to college and richie is inexplicably upset that he’s staying in derry. with his best friend and secret love of his life moving to new york, richie can’t help but dwell on the fact that his life is not at all moving in the right direction. so richie does the only thing he knows how, he writes it all down and picks up his guitar.

please don’t hesitate to send me an ask or leave some feedback in the comments <3 it motivates me to write and makes me feel like i’m not totally terrible so enjoy!

richie felt alone.

it was unusual for him to feel like this while he was with the others, but the heavy feeling in his heart was too strong to ignore.

the losers all sat in their typical hangout of the quarry, hair wet from swimming, voices hoarse from screaming. they sat on logs around a campfire, roasting marshmallows and telling stories of old adventures, smiles littering their faces.

richie sat on a lone log, watching all the others with hooded eyes. he coasted over them sadly, knowing that soon, none of this would be here.

graduation was in a measly three weeks and within a month they'd all be scattered about the map; bill and stan in boston, mike in new jersey, bev in philadelphia, ben traveling a ways away to toronto, eddie in new york and richie, well richie was gonna be stuck in derry.

the thought rested heavily in richie's mind as he twirled the marshmallow clad stick lazily in the fire, eyes set on his group. it had been the seven of them always, ever since they banded together in the seventh grade. best friends forever and ever is what they promised, but richie knew better. he knew that people never stay.

as this particular thought weighed in his mind, richie's dark eyes settled on his favorite loser, who was lost in a story that beverly and mike were reciting animately.

eddie kaspbrak, the boy that managed to steal his heart with a single look. the boy he annoyed constantly with the crude comments falling off his chapped lips. the boy who meant more to him than anyone in the entire world.

richie heaved a sigh, knowing that he'd never be able to tell eddie how he really felt. in four weeks time eddie would be in a big city with so many different people that eddie would soon forget about his old best friend in his childhood town.

you see, richie tozier knew he wasn't special. he knew he wasn't smart, and he knew that he would be stuck in derry for the rest of his life, in a dead end job that he hated. he wasn't nearly good enough for eddie kaspbrak, no, not even close. this richie knew.

eddie was someone so special, so extraordinary. he knew that the small, snarky boy would grow up to do great things, and if richie was truly the best friend eddie believed he was, he couldn't bring himself to hold him back.

richie wasn't sure what hurt more, knowing that he wasn't good enough for the boy he was so desperately in love with or knowing that in order to let him be the happy he deserved, he had to let him go.

"richie!" the lanky boy's thoughts were interrupted by the very boy always clouding them. "are you trying to get yourself killed?"

"what?"

bev looked him over in suspicion and confusion. "your marshmallow is completely fried, rich. the stick is nearly blazing.”

richie looked down at the charred marshmellow and shook the fire out. "oh. sorry."

the group stilled at the feeble apology, looking at their friend with confused eyes. this wasn't the richie they knew. no, their richie made the most disgusting comments at the worst possible times. their richie never shut his mouth, and their richie made them laugh like no other ever could.

this version of richie looked down at his shoes like they were the most interesting thing he'd ever seen. he was quiet and sad, and it didn't sit right with any of them.

stan cleared his throat, "richie? what's wrong? find out your iq is the same as your age again?"

richie knew it was a joke, and he knew that stan was baiting him so they could have their usual snippy banter, but all richie could think of was how far away he'd be from them all because he wasn't smart enough to go anywhere else.

they'll forget you in no time, his subconscious reminded him cruelly. you're nothing compared to them.

when it seemed like his sad expression only deepened, mike spoke. "you know you can always talk to us, rich. we're here for you, always."

always.

richie shook his head and plastered a much too fake smile on his lips. "I'm fine, really you losers. jeez, you'd think I died or something the way you all look."

from across the small fire, eddie kaspbrak glanced over his best friend with worried eyes. this wasn't his richie, the boy that annoyed him at all times. he didn't like that richie was quiet and seemingly sullen, it was unnatural.

he also knew, that there was way more to richie's feelings than he was letting on. he was lying, and eddie knew he'd never let his guard down in front of the others. for this reason alone eddie waited for richie to look up, because no matter how much the troubled boy his feelings from the group, he could never hide them from eddie.

like expected, richie looked up when feeling eyes on him, and fell into the trap of eddie's chocolate colored eyes. eddie raised an eyebrow, question in his eyes. richie only shook his slightly in response, and eddie stared harder, almost daring him to lie.

beverly had been watching the encounter between eddie and richie, and she noticed how he was keeping his feelings from not only the group, but even eddie. it was unusual, because no one in the world was closer than eddie and richie.

she realized there must have been way more to the story than she knew, so she decided to jump in and save him.

"hey rich," the dark eyes slid from eddie to her. "you have your guitar right? why don't you play us something?"

richie breathed a laugh, "oh god no,” he says. “i'll probably fuck up your ears.”

ben snorted, "richie tozier being modest? never thought i'd see the day."

richie rolled his eyes. "i'm not being modest, I'm just not that good.”

eddie rolled his eyes then. "you're the best that i know, rich."

richie's heart could have melted right then and there, and all of a sudden, the overwhelming need to get his feelings out seemed to take him over. he nodded, and bev clapped, bill, stan, ben and mike smiling. eddie let his lips turn up slightly, but just simply watched as richie reached behind him and grabbed the guitar case.

"um..." richie paused, wondering what to play. he wanted something that would make him feel better, but he didn't want to give anything away. he couldn't afford for someone to catch onto his feelings. "okay."

richie lined up his fingers up to the correct chords and let his fingers do the rest, his voice coming out soft and small.

I was dreaming we were running

from a city burning down,

down, down, down

eddie felt his heart flutter at richie's deep, calming voice singing the familiar song, and he instantly sat up straighter in his seat.

richie continued to sing, letting his emotions pour into the lyrics, voice growing stronger.

now there's a piece of me

tells me I shouldn't leave

everytime I see your face

as if he was being compelled to do so, richie looked up at eddie, only to find the other boy already looking at him. their eyes connected and while richie knew the smile on eddie's face was purely platonic, his heart began to pound anyway.

because everytime

you come around

love, you take my breath away and i just wanna breathe until,

i take you in

i never want you to leave until

i take you in

but the truth is,

richie felt like his heart was being torn in two as he sang, the words hitting far too close to home. when he felt the tears start to build he looked down, hand still strumming away to the song.

she has no idea, no idea

that I'm even here

she has no idea, no idea

that I'm even here

the remaining losers somehow felt, looking between eddie and richie that they were intruding on an intimate moment. regardless of how much richie buried his feelings, his love for eddie was too strong. they all knew how deeply richie felt for the other, and they hated that he did nothing.

some of them weren't sure if eddie felt the same and the others were convinced that he did, but either way, richie had the potential to be happy and he was denying himself the opportunity because he didn't feel like he deserved it.

she's so close when i'm so far away

when i'm so far away

let me dream

let me stay

she's so close when i'm so far away

when i'm so far away

i can sleep

i can dream

i can change

richie slowed his movements as he neared the end of the song, his voice slurring slightly as he placed more emphasis on each lyric. he looked up at eddie once more as he sang.

she has no idea, no idea

that i'm even here

she has no idea, no idea

that i'm even here

she has no idea, no idea

that i'm even here

he has no idea

that i'm even here...

then suddenly it was quiet. richie could feel his heart pound in his ears and no one said anything. he fucked up, god, he fucked up. he had changed the pronoun without even realizing, while singing to eddie.

eddie felt his face warm as the word dropped from richie's mouth. he. was it supposed to mean eddie? was richie trying to tell him something?

his mind spun with questions and he wanted so badly to talk to richie, but the boy was already up and moving.

"richie-" bill tried to stop him, but richie rushed away, mumbling a half assed excuse of needing to get home, not sparing even the slightest glance to any of them.

especially eddie.

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