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randomnameless · 4 years

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What do you think about morally grey in three houses?

Hmm…

There has been several posts recently discussing this particular topic, which boiled down to “what is morally grey” and, well, this is an interesting question!

I’d say “grey” is when someone isn’t completely black or white, but has elements of both alignments.

The obvious having been stated, it makes me think about several other tropes, like the “pet the dog” trope or “morality pet”.

Does having good intentions but shit execution means you’re grey? It depends! What is the “shit execution”? Eating babies? Forgeting to put the lid on your pan full of boiling water because you were super busy to, idk, bring pregnant wife to the hospital, so when your old mom tried to add pasta to the pan she burnt herself and died?

I’d say it depends on what are your limits and what you deem acceptable or not and uh, apparently, killing people in prevention they might do something wrong isn’t black enough to dilute the pool into “too black you will need to add 5 liters of bleach to get a clearer result”…

I’ve said it before, but the purple giant deciding to snap his fingers to get rid of half of the population to save the world isn’t, to my tastes, morally grey. It’s still 50% of people dying because someone decided and they weren’t consulted.

If those 50% agreed to it though? It’s immediatly more complicated, not for them, but for the guy/woman holding the trigger - they want to die to save the world, but will you really kill them? (i think this had been adressed in Tales of the Abyss at one point).

Look at Quanism - it has both good and bad aspects.

Quan will cross a desert twice (even if the second time he kind of failed) to save and help his best friend Sigurd, because he might need help and will even accompany him during his various journeys in foreign states. Quan will defend his country (mmh) and his people against Thracian invasions. Quan’s people have Leonster’s best interests at heart.

Quan will also shit on Thracia, put outrageous prices on food exported there, act as the High King of what seems to be a federation of several sovereign kingdoms and often call Verdane people barbarians.

Was Quan a bad guy, or a good guy?

Ultimately, in FE5, Leif refuses Quanism. Given a crapton of circumstances, he finds his own doctrine (well the peninsula is united under his rule, like Quan would have wanted, but Thracians aren’t exiled or relegated to shit like Quan might have done if he had been in his son’s shiny boots).

The Hero ™ isn’t grey, or tries his hardest not to be. Sometimes he manages to do that by disgusting asspulls, sometimes he succeeds by thinking out of the box, sometimes he doesn’t and falls in the grey spectrum - where we can still ask ourselves, is he still the hero, or how does the fact that falling in the grey spectrum impacts him?

FE9 Naesala, and arguably in FE10, refuses to be called a good king or a good leader. He will prioritise his kingdom and his people first, but is perfectly aware that he is not The Hero ™ Tibarn represents. Naesala has good intentions at heart, shit execution and refuses to be called or even thought as heroic. It is heavily implied that he “atones” for the rest of his life, and is willing to be used as a punching ball by Tibarn because of what happened in Phoenicis.

Arvis might have had the best intention, he completely crossed the line. I personally don’t think he knew Manfroy and co would hunt children and go on a murder spree in the 1st gen, but, and this is what is truly fightening, I don’t know if Arvis would have stopped his association with Manfroy if he knew (maybe he would have tried to backstab him to prevent such a thing from happening, but it’s the same dilemna we had with Lyon in FE8, are you really going to work with evil forces to do something because you think you can control them? If you do, then what does that make you?)

Ultimately Arvis tries to redeem himself, by asspulling saving all children and dying by Seliph’s hands - does that make him grey if associating with Manfroy and conquering the continent turned his color spectrum to black? Or was Arvis “morally black” since the beginning?

On the other end of the spectrum, Sigurd’s invasion of Augstria (and Verdane but no one cares about barbarians) feels wrong (at least I felt so). Sigurd is even called on it by Eldingan, and FE4′s biased narrator says that during the occupation, Sigurd’s occupying forces did some shit.

Is his incompetence/reluctance/ignorance that his troops were “doing some shit” in Augstria dark enough to change his color spectrum? Can we hold the fact that he is a knight so he cannot disobey/doesn’t think about disobeying orders even if they are about subjugating a country and removing its king against him? Sigurd grows in Silesse, but then he dies :’(

But still, is Sigurd morally grey? I don’t think so. Maybe after his death he would have been, or he would have retained his knightly values, we will never know. Faced with Lewyn’s dilemna - continuing the fight that will kill many, or going home and letting many die - Sigurd doesn’t know how to answer. But this is a good thing, he might have turned into the Hero ™ who solves problems by thinking out of the box. Or he would have tried to, idk.

Sigurd isn’t loyal good, nope, he goes against orders to protect Shannan. I’d say chaotic good, but it ultimately doesn’t matter, imo, Sigurd’s pretty “morally white”.

This isn’t really on topic though, your question, and by extension the concept of morally grey is actually asking if said character is “moral” or “amoral” by your own standards!

On FE16 :

Boar!Dimitri is an interesting case. Boar!Dimitri wants and will, if Billy isn’t with him, fight until his last breath in a desperate attempt to kill Edelgard. In AM, where we see Boar!Dimitri and interact with him, it’s implied that Boar!Dimitri wants to be a boar and fight against Edel, but he will not force his former friends to join him in his quest. He tries to tell everyone off, saying “they’re too weak” or some liability, but we ultimately see it with Dedue and Rodrigue that despite his tuskers, Boar!Dimitri doesn’t want people to die for him.

Is Boar!Dimitri morally grey? He is driven by his revenge and yet, he will not do “everything” to get Edel’s head. He will not sacrifice his friends for Edel’s death (then of course comes the question “but they’re following him so if pulls a Leeroy Jenkins they will follow” which is right). Still, the fact that he prioritises his revenge and Edel over his people is pretty meh in my book especially since Rodrigue told him that they’re starving etc. Then there’s his useless cruelty dealing with Randolf which sucks. Everything taken into consideration I’d say that, imo, Dimitri’s a light shade of “morally grey”.

Claude isn’t morally grey at all. He desperatly wants to be, but imo, he reads more like Virion (and/or Innes, I totally forgot about him).

Given the dev’s interview and all, Claude will not sacrifice his friends, and puts survival as his top priority. He wants to look like a heartless schemer, ready to do anything to achieve his goals, but just like Virion, in a real life situation? Nope. Claude will escape, and find a way/lament if his friends fell because they weren’t supposed to. With the Innes comparison, I’d say Hilda might be his Gerik - he told/ordered her to get away and escape, she says fig it and stays until the end.

Claude might have been the Hero ™ who thinks out of the box, but there are no boxes in FE16…

Claude’s morally white, he has his ambitions but won’t cross his own thresholds to achieve them. Of course there’s the “it’d be nice if Rhea disappeared” at the end of VW, but, because the plot asked for it or not, Rhea dies at the end of VW. Claude doesn’t have to get rid of her, and even if she didn’t, would he truly do it or wasn’t it a Virion-boast? Would Claude kill the person who sacrificed herself twice to save them, or have her killed? I don’t know. I don’t think so.

Also, given from his Flayn’s supports and the scenes where he loses his calm, while he really wants to find answers to his questions and about the true history of Fodlan, Claude will not try to force them out of someone who’s reluctant to tell them. Yes he lost his shit with Rhea, and yet, he didn’t force her to reveal the truth, and even let her go to catch some much needed rest acknowledging she only told him a half-truth, or avoided his question.

Edel? I confess I had a very serious case of bias towards Arvis when I joined the Jugdral fandom and the “for the greater good” motto.

Allying with Thales and pals though, wait, i know I’ve said above that it wouldn’t have changed a thing about Arvis if he knew Manfroy’d hunt children - it wouldn’t have for the greater plot, but to me, Arvis would have fallen into the “morally black” pit way faster than he did. I like my Tumblr username, I like my mooks, I don’t like using them as war assets or the idea of even using them. FFS we’re using feral laguz randoms here, and even Miccy in her “i will do everything to protect Daien” didn’t use them.

She might have started a war, but shows regret for the bloodshed going as far as to lament at Dimitri’s death in CF despite the irony of that map - she knows that what she is doing is wrong, but thinks it needs to be done to build a better future. However, the “starting a war” + “Kostas in the prologue” look like Arvis in his best moments - and he is morally black - but “using beasts as backup” + “giving Emile hunting grounds” and everything about lizards and eradication sets her in the “morally black” spectrum.

Edel knows what are her limits between the “acceptable” and “not acceptable”, but for the sake of her goals, she will cross all of them. But she is no sociopath, or cruel person, she doesn’t enjoy crossing those lines and yet she feels it is compulsory to reach her goals.

i’d like to see an Arvis/Edel support convo

Rhea? I’d say grey, on the grounds of creating someone with the intent for it to be used as vessel is really creepy, but then, transmutation/alchemy/creating artificial sentient lives is creepy in itself and raises a ton of bioethical issues i’m not ready to deal with in this post because it’s already long as fuck and this is crossing beyond fandom discussion. Rhea knows that her experiments are questionable, and she’s ashamed of them but felt they were a necessity - pretty much like someone crossing their moral line and turning “morally black”.

This point is neutralised in game though, because Rhea succeeded and the side Sothis choose ultimately won the war - so yes, Fodlan needed Sothis and Rhea’s homonculi were ultimately key to bring peace/prosperity to Fodlan... IMO, it’s still questionable, even if the game rewards it.

Rhea will not cross all of her lines though, she said the church will go against anyone who targets the students and the monastery, and she means it going as far as to blow her cover twice turning into a dragon to protect the students/Billy and his pals in part 2.

Also, national bias at play, but rewritting history not to alienate thousands of supporters of the side who lost the war is pretty grey in itself. Slowing technological progress? We know the reasons, if the book in the DLC, despite Linhardt’s warnings has to be believed, since the devs said so. Is it something that would count as morally “black”? Idk, maybe? Or maybe i’ve read/watched too much sci-fi stuff where one of the most common plot point is “humanity isn’t advanced enough to know how to use this technology”. It is grey, but Rhea doesn’t fall in the “morally black” spectrum, she’s a darker shade of grey than Boar!Dimitri, for sure, but she’s still, IMO, grey.

This is not to say that Edel’s evil and Claude’s good/whatever the contrary adjective of evil is! Or to say X/Y/Z is a better character than A/B/C!

I love Arvis and Hilda (FE4!Hilda) to death, and I prefer them to Siggy and Eldie. But I also know that they’re not supposed to be liked because they were right or because what they did was the right thing, nope.

Tl;dr : Morally grey, black or white depends on who you’re talking to, and if FE16 brought us something new, it’s that not everyone thinks that doing a certain thing is evil, or, on the contrary, a good thing.

There’s no consensus on what is “good” or “wrong” which can be interpretated in all kinds of worrying (?) ways.

#anon #replies #all kinds of emblem #Jugdral #Tellius #Fodlan #even bits of Magvel #shit it's not legal theory anymore #but fandom theory??#it's interesting though #what makes someone grey?#Anonymous #morally grey this morally grey that #i used to loathe heroes who find solutions that fit with asspulls #i still do towards a certain someone wearing suspenders but i understand i'm not rational at this point #and yet heroes (tm) are the ones who can think out of the box and stop the cycle of choose between crap and shit #i love my trashy velthomers okay #FE16 #Innes values his friends even if he tries to play the jerkass part #Virion will never sacrifice anyone and acknowledges that his tactics suck #worrying ways : apparently preemptive strikes aren't so morally black anymore #I love several tropes like the found family one but also the Gandalf 'run i'm holding them back' trope #Boar!Dimitri is a tsundere?

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thisonesatellite · 3 years

Text

everybody knows -- CH 5

SUMMARY : In Killian’s world there are neither heroes nor villains.

There are only those who give and those who take, and you better not be the former.

He’s a taker, has spent his entire life being a taker, because if you’re a taker, there is never a price to pay.

Until there is.

AKA: The paths towards love and the meaning of life are twisted and tangled and full of detours, and some of those roads aren’t paved.

| AO3 | CH1 | CH2 | CH3 | CH4 |

A/N: Oh - my dears. This chapter. i tellya. This one nearly killed me.

i wrote the first half no less than three times, trying to get the plot AND the mood AND the character development right, wrote the rest of it, polished, excised, re-worked, rewrote, edited, wrote some more, and cut thousands of words along the way. Every time i thought i had a handle on it, something would feel off, and i'd pull a tiny little thread just to watch the whole damn thing unravel, and anyway, it was A Lot. 😂

So, guys - here is where you find out some Stuff(TM) and get some answers, wrapped up in a growing connection and a lot of softness and yes, all the bedsharing i teased you with (and more), so please enjoy. (Also, at nearly 6K - it's a beast. i hope it makes up for the endless waiting i put you through.)

Because if you listen real close you can hear a faint whistling in the air, such as heralds a falling object.

Like a hammer.

But not yet. Fluff and a bit of catharsis first, my loves. 💖

All the thanks MUST go to @profdanglaisstuff - who went through this FOUR TIMES, FOUR, including a lightning round today. Babe - you're my hero. HERO.

AND THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR YOUR PATIENCE AND ENCOURAGMENT. It means everything to me, everything.

i DO NOT DESERVE YOU GUYS.

(BUT i LOVE YOU A LOT. SERIOUSLY. SO MUCH. NO, i WILL NOT STOP YELLING. 💕💕💕)

i’m using the regular tag list. Please let me know if you want to be added or removed.

@mariakov81 @stahlop @thejollyroger-writer @captainsjedi @ohmightydevviepuu @toomanyfandomstochoosefrom @snowbellewells @xarandomdreamx @tiganasummertree @sals86 @karenfrommisthaven @kmomof4 @kday426 @superchocovian @jennjenn615 @facesiousbutton82 @suwya @spartanguard @capnjay21 @shardminds @carpedzem @girl-in-a-tiny-box @ilovemesomekillianjones @lfh1226-linda @artistic-writer @teamhook @katie-dub @shireness-says @qualitycoffeethings @cluttermind @fragilebeautifulchaos @optomisticgirl @klynn-stormz @winterbaby89 @etheral-madness @scientificapricot @anxioussquirrel @killianjones-twopointoh @captain-emmajones @xsajx

CHAPTER 5

Emma can’t sleep.

She can’t sleep and she can’t stop thinking of his face. She can’t tell what’s real and what’s contrived anymore, probably no more than he can. It’s hard to tell who is the frog and who is the scorpion. But when she left him in the living room he looked sad.

Purely and only sad. That she knows.

Somehow he has carved out a place in her life, within just these few days, and it’s not just the sumptuous food and the dry wit and the dancing eyebrows. He hasn’t changed from the slick hustler he was back at the bar and yet he is different. Or at the very least, he is more. There is a human being inside the persona after all, a person with a real past, and real emotions, and a real life, even if he keeps it under lock and key. A person who can feel pain.

She keeps seeing his face.

And then she makes a decision.

With a sigh she gets up and walks out into the living room. The lights are off, but the TV is running, muted, turned to the weather channel. It throws an eerie glow onto the couch where he sits, upright, curled up in a corner, under the blanket. His shoulders are rigid as he turns towards her and promptly reaches for the remote.

“I’m sorry Emma, is the TV keeping you---”

“No,” she says and sits down on the coffee table to face him. “No, Killian, the TV didn’t bother me at all.”

His hand lowers but his posture stays tense and guarded and Emma sighs. There is only one peace offering she can make here.

She takes a deep breath and looks at him, coiled like a spring, and dives into the deep end.

“When I was twelve I was placed with a foster family right outside of Boston,” she says, her voice quiet and low. “The mother was a bipolar alcoholic, but they fudged their application because they needed the money. As you know it’s not uncommon.”

“More like the rule.” His voice is a whisper.

“Yeah.” It’s a sigh into the past. She has to be careful. But he’s still sitting there, huddled, defensive, tension rolling off of him in waves, and he deserves a piece of something real as much as she did. “They had a closed off porch at the back of the house and they would lock us in for punishment. It was sweltering in the summer, so hot you couldn’t breathe, but in the winter---” She swallows hard. “Boston winters are nothing to scoff at.”

The way he looks at her. Like he knows cold.

“She used to drag us out there by the hair.” Emma can still feel it, the pull, the dull ache at the back of her skull, the frantic stumbling and trying to keep up with her steps, keep the pain down, keep the panic at bay while literally running towards your demise. Her eyes are fixed on the wall, but she doesn’t see it, can only see the hallway stretching to a dirty white back door. “It was her favorite method of punishment. Not her husband’s though. He preferred a belt.”

Killian gasps and Emma’s gaze snaps to his. His eyes are wide and shiny.

“One day though, the husband caught me sneaking a jar of peanut butter--- i used to keep peanut butter under my bed. I loved that shit.” She shakes her head, tries to keep the memory loose, impersonal. “Anyway, he caught me and started to drag me to the porch - by the hair, just like the wife - but he wasn’t used to it and I just--- I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t even scared, I was angry. Just--- furious, you know?” Her eyes are once again glued to the wall behind Killian’s left shoulder, but in her peripheral vision she can see him nod.

“Anyway, I punched him, and he went down, and the wife saw it and pulled me out to the porch and they left me there all night. In November.” I thought I was going to die out there, she doesn’t say. Fall asleep and wake up frozen solid. She takes a deep breath. “So that’s what I dreamt about. You know, earlier.” She shakes her head, straightens her spine, pulls back her shoulders. “It’s fine, by the way. This is all ancient history and I have dealt with it and put it to rest and it can’t hurt me anymore. I don’t dream of it often.”

He looks shellshocked. Shellshocked and yet entirely unsurprised.

“Scars?” he whispers. “Did they leave any scars?”

Oh god. He does know. She is sure of it now.

Scars are the measure of survival. They are the markers of endurance and perseverance. They are the signs of shame and failure and defiance, the badges of courage and the price of grit and mettle. It is important to remember them and even more important to forget. He knows.

“Some.” She nods. “Not all.”

“How do you mean?”

She takes another deep breath. “I don’t remember anything before that family. When I first got there I fell out of a top bunk and hit my head really hard on the concrete floor and they think that’s why I can’t remember.” She shrugs. “I don’t remember the fall either, so I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter anyway. And I know it’s not their fault - at least the fall isn’t. I know that. But I blame them. It’s like they took away a piece of me, the first piece of me, and I’ll never get it back and I---” she almost sobs, but swallows it down--- “I hate them so much for it.”

He’s silent for endless moments, his eyes large and immeasurably sad.

And then he sighs. “I’m so sorry, love.” His voice is low and raw. “So sorry.”

And he gets up and wraps his arms around her and she lets him.

Minutes later he pulls back and in the dim light of the television she watches him sit back down on the edge of the couch, their knees almost touching. Like he can’t bring himself to put distance between them. She is glad for it. It seems whoever they are during the day dissolves at night, like the darkness strips them down to their core, like they become versions of themselves they don’t even know. It’s enough to make her head hurt and her mind spin and she doesn’t want to think anymore.

“I don’t know what to do with you,” she whispers.

He leans forward and takes her hand. His fingers are warm. “Do with me?”

She laughs, helpless. “You just--- I know who you are. I know what you are. I should just kick you out and tell you not to come back and never think of you again.” His breath hitches and--- is that fear in his eyes? She shakes her head. “But I can’t.” It’s a whisper.

His breathing is ragged. It takes him a long time to get it under control enough to answer, and when he finally does, it sounds broken. Not like him at all.

“I know,” he says. “And I don’t understand it.” There are tears in his eyes. “You and I are---”

His voice cuts out and he squeezes her hand. She is holding her breath. The weather channel flickers light across his hopeless, defeated expression and it makes her ache.

She gets up and pulls him with her. And then she marches them towards her bedroom, their hands still entwined, and it takes him until they’re almost through the door to stop her.

“Emma, no,” he whispers. “This is not how I---”

“Shhhhhhh,” she says, turning around. “Please, Killian. Just lie down with me. I’m too tired to fight. I’m too tired to think.” She shrugs. “I just--- I just want to sleep.” I just want to lie down and not be alone for a night. She doesn’t say it, but he hears it anyway.

“OK,” he breathes. “I can do that.”

-/-

She wakes up with Killian’s arm heavy across her middle and his nose buried in the hair at her neck. He is making soft, sleepy sounds and his breathing is even and deep and she feels more peaceful and rested than she has in months. Years, possibly. He shifts his weight and his arm tightens for a moment, but he doesn’t wake up, and Emma doesn’t move.

It’s Saturday. There is no schedule on Saturdays. Nothing to do except that which you feel like. And Emma feels like lying here, in her warm, comfortable bed, with a warm, comfortable Killian at her back, not thinking about a damn thing, least of all the man in her bed.

She doesn’t have to analyse this.

She doesn’t have to pick the pieces of the previous night, of this morning, of them apart and examine them from all angles until they’re hopelessly distorted and impossible to fit back together.

She can just lie here, warm and comfortable, and enjoy it while it lasts.

She closes her eyes and puts her hand on Killian’s across her belly. His fingers tighten reflexively. She falls back asleep.

She wakes up a second time from a sudden influx of cold and the absence of weight next to her. He has gotten up. He walks around the bed as she blinks her eyes open and even half asleep she knows---

this is the moment.

This moment, the first moment they are both awake, will determine the rest of their interaction. Forever.

He looks at her, sleepy and disheveled, sees she is awake and kneels down next to her side of the bed.

“Hey,” he says. His voice is soft and there is no shame in it, no awkwardness. “Did you sleep OK?”

She smiles. She’s grateful. He sounds relaxed and at ease and she is just so grateful. A small voice at the back of her head is trying to ask how many women he has woken up next to, for him to be so at ease with the situation, and she silences it.

Because the smile he returns is languid and real.

“Better than I have in ages,” she says, and he nods.

“Yeah,” he whispers. “Me too.”

Then he gets up. “Coffee?”

She nods.

“Stay put,” he says. “I’ll call you when it’s ready.”

And Emma stretches and allows herself to imagine what it would be like if this were real.

-/-

“How on earth did you manage this?” He looks up at her over the rim of his cup while she shovels a truly gigantic piece of waffle into her mouth. God, his waffles are amazing. “I don’t have a waffle iron.”

He smiles that same languid, easy smile. “I brought mine.”

“From your place?”

His brow furrows. “I went home yesterday to check on my apartment. It will definitely take another week.” He looks up. “Is that still all right with you?”

Emma cuts off another enormous piece, dripping with syrup, and says, “How could I possibly say no to these? I need you to make these every morning. Actually, I’m fine if you make nothing but waffles for the entire rest of the time you stay here.”

“I cannot condone that. You will have to ingest the occasional vitamin.”

“Fine. I can snack on celery and peanut butter at work. Will that do?”

Killian rolls his eyes. “Absolutely not and you know it. Besides, there are several countries we have not yet explored. You know-- from a culinary standpoint.”

“Do those countries have waffles?”

“You’re impossible.”

Emma grins. “Don’t tell me you don’t love a challenge.”

And just like that his face falls, and for a moment he looks like he’s in pain. Actual pain. The silence that follows is heavy and sad. He shakes his head and looks down and Emma can’t think of a single thing to say to break them out of this moment.

“I’m sorry,” he finally says. “I didn’t mean to ruin the mood.”

Emma bites her lip. “Are you all right?”

“Am I----” He barks a laugh, bitter and helpless. “Am I all right? Yes, Emma. I am perfectly fine.” It’s a lie. It’s the first outright lie he has told her. “And yes. I do love a challenge.” That is not a lie. It is the absolute truth, and as heavy and sad as the silence that still lingers.

With an effort he straightens up and smiles a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Do you have any plans for today?”

“No,�� she says. “I don’t do field work, so I usually get the weekend.”

“Perfect,” he grins and oh--- the difference between that grin and all the empty smiles before it. “In that case, Emma Nolan, I think it is high time you realized that there is a farmer’s market less than two blocks from here every Saturday.”

“How do you know what goes on in my neighborhood on weekends?”

He looks at her gravely. “There is a new thing out now, called the internet.”

She grins. “Smartass. And how do you know I don’t already know about this market?”

He laughs out loud and looks at her in mock consternation until she rolls her eyes and concedes that she had no idea farmers markets were a thing at all.

“Would you like to accompany me?” His eyebrows dance. His eyes shine. He’s nearly bouncing on the balls of his feet. She laughs again and nods. He leans forward and gives her a smacking kiss on the cheek and then disappears into the kitchen to take stock of their supplies and make a list, and Emma leans back into the couch and just lets herself believe all of this is real.

-/-

The market is loud and crowded, two things Emma does not enjoy in abundance, but half an hour in even she concedes that this is the most fun she’s had in months. Not counting the pitch meeting at the café. Killian reminds her of an overexcited puppy, checking out the stalls, looking at fruit and vegetables and cheeses and jars of herbs and spices she has never heard of, and talking to all the vendors as if they were his best friends. A thought surfaces unbidden from their first night at the diner, about the nature of his line of work and the lack of friendship it brings, and this, here, these casual interactions with vendors who don’t know him and won’t remember him -- this is so obviously where he can connect with the world, if only for a moment, it makes something inside her hurt.

“Look, Emma--- they have girolles!” He points to a tub of yellow-brown mushrooms that look like trumpets and licks his lips. “Half a pound,” Killian says to the burly man behind the stand as he pulls out his wallet, “and at least six or seven shallots.” He turns to Emma. “Just you wait.”

Emma shakes her head to hide her grin and Killian pays the man and then says, “Coffee?”

And Emma sighs. “Oh god, yes. So much yes.”

He pulls her by the wrist to a stand with ‘the best coffee on the eastern seaboard’ and they settle on a bus bench. He puts the bags down with an audible exhale.

“Heavy?” She smiles sweetly.

“Not at all,” he says, rubbing his shoulder.

“Remember how I offered to help you carry and you scoffed?”

He rubs his shoulder again. “I am a stupid, stupid man. Misguided notions of chivalry and all that.”

“Yeah, well, turns out twelfth-century code of conduct will give you scoliosis.”

He laughs out loud. “You really are impossible.”

“It’s part of my charm.”

She smiles and he looks at her, with that open expression that has not left his face for days now. “It certainly is.” He loosely wraps an arm around her shoulders and that’s when she feels it.

It’s like an instinct of danger and foreboding, a frisson of fear and a spike of fight or flight. And then a shadow falls across her face and she hears his voice, cold and sharp, “Hello, Emma.”

Every muscle in her body tenses, coils like a spring. She can feel Killian next to her sit up straight and go on high alert.

“Emma,” he says. “Who is this?”

She tries to remember how to breathe. It takes her three failed attempts to get her voice to work before she rasps, “Someone who’s not allowed within 100 feet of me.”

Killian gets up and puts himself between Emma and the man in one swift, smooth motion. Emma stares up at Killian’s back, stiff and solid before her, and listens as he says, “I think you’d best be off. Mate.”

This must be another remnant of a childhood spent on another continent. The a in Mate is soft and stretched and entirely un-American, but more than that, it is menacing.

“It’s a public place,” the man says. “There was no way I could have known she was here.”

Emma can almost hear the answering glare Killian is giving him, and the man sighs like a put-upon diva.

“Fine,” he huffs. “I’ll go.” There’s a moment of silence and then the man’s voice rings out one more time, a little further away. “Good luck with that, by the way.” Everyone in a 10 foot radius knows who he means by ‘that’. “Fucking duckling.”

Emma just feels numb.

“Hey.” Killian’s voice is soft and very calm and Emma feels him take the paper cup from her hand. “Can you get up for me, love?”

She gets up slowly, because none of this is real, and feels him heft their bags on one shoulder. He wraps his other arm around her and steers her past laughing vendors and screaming children and animated conversation until they end up at Emma’s front door, and then there is an elevator, and a hallway, and her apartment door, and he simply leads her to the couch and sits down next to her.

He doesn’t ask if she’s all right.

He doesn’t talk at all.

He just sits there, next to her, holding her hand and softly rubbing his thumb across her knuckles.

Finally Emma shakes her head and looks up at him. His eyes are large and worried and still so blue and so close, she has to look away again.

“His name is Walsh,” she says. “And we are never talking about him. Ever.”

She looks up again and his brow is furrowed.

“Ever,” she repeats. “You know how we didn’t talk about your brother?”

He nods.

“That’s how much we’re not talking about Walsh.”

He nods again and squeezes her fingers and says, “Whatever you need, love.”

And Emma starts to cry.

She doesn’t even really know why. Tears just start to roll down her face like she’s a fucking kid whose bike got stolen. Not that Emma’s ever had a bike. She just sits there, drops running down her cheeks and she can’t stop it, can’t rein herself in, and worse-- she doesn’t want to, because he’s just sitting there in silence, completely without judgment, and it feels horribly, awfully, terrifyingly right.

Then he opens his arms and pulls her in and she starts to sob in earnest and he lets her, rubs her back and lets her be, and she cries and cries and cries until she falls asleep.

-/-

She wakes up lying on the couch, her head on Killian’s shoulder, his arm around her. He’s fast asleep, his breathing slow and easy, just like it was this morning, in her bed. It does seem like they sleep well in each other’s presence. She leans back a little and feels his hand tighten on her waist as his eyes flutter open.

“Hey.” It’s a whisper.

“Hey,” she whispers back.

He smiles at her, his thumb rubbing lazy circles across her hip bone, and then on impulse she simply leans forward and presses her lips to his. It’s the most natural move in the world. His mouth is soft and he kisses her back, languid and slow as his hand runs up her side, and then his breath catches and he pulls back.

“Emma,” he says, and then stops. Looks at her. His eyes are soft, and uncertain. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

She meets his gaze. “Do you?”

He barks a helpless laugh. “Not at all. You defy every rulebook.”

He’s looking at her, joy and apprehension warring on his face, like he doesn’t understand what is happening any more than she does. And she is so tired of second-guessing everything, of fighting herself, fighting him; of constantly feeling out of her depth.

It’s time to know.

“Killian,” she whispers. “Tell me if this is a game.” She props herself up on one elbow and swallows hard. “It’s OK if it is. I won’t turn you out. I will go back to my bedroom and you can stay the rest of the week and we can simply part ways, no hard feelings. But I need you to tell me.”

He closes his eyes. The hand on her hip shakes a bit and then tightens, almost painfully.

“You get one chance.” His eyes are still squeezed shut and he’s talking to himself, his voice so low she can barely hear it. “One chance if you’re lucky.” His voice trails off and he is silent for another long, long moment. Then his eyes open, and he looks at her. With longing.

Longing.

There are tears in his eyes.

He shakes his head and then sits up and pulls her with him, into his lap, his right hand anchoring her, holding on tightly, fingers digging into her skin. He cups her cheek with his left, sighs, and brushes his lips past hers. “You are not a trick, Emma. I swear. I swear on everything I have left to----”

His breath catches. He swallows hard, but doesn’t blink, and doesn’t look away. When he speaks again, his voice is quiet. And raw.

“I swear on my brother,” he says. His thumb brushes her jawline and his expression is naked and he’s not lying at all, so Emma leans forward and presses her lips to his and he kisses her back. With abandon. His arms wrap around her and hold on tight, so tight it’s almost getting hard to breathe, and he pulls back, leans their foreheads together, and exhales a shuddering breath.

“I didn’t plan any of this when I took you up on your offer to stay here, I swear,” he says. “I swear it just happened.” He lifts her chin, forces her to look at him. “Say you believe me. Promise me.”

How can she say no? How can she not believe him when he’s looking at her with this mess of confusion and hope and fear and dread all warring on his face? This new, exposed, open face of his?

She nods and he surges forward, kisses her fiercely, thoroughly, wraps his hand into the hair at the back of her neck and pulls her close,

closer

closer----

And then Emma moves. She can feel him as she straddles his lap, so hard against her, and she rocks her hips forward. He groans as if he’s in pain, breaks the kiss, breathless, and buries his face in her hair.

“Stop,” he rasps. “Just for a second.”

She looks at him, the red lips, the ragged breathing, and when he opens his eyes they’re blown black, his pupils big as saucers, and she grins an evil grin and rocks her hips again, right there.

“Emm-mm-a,” he stutters and then pushes himself off the couch with Emma wrapped around him like a vine and he nearly loses his balance, just manages to catch them against the backrest, and then his arm wraps around her waist like a band of iron and he nearly runs to the bedroom, harsh panting in her ear while she nips at his jaw, his ear, his pulse point---

his knees buckle for a moment and his hand wraps around the door frame, as he moans her name like a promise, a promise---

and then they fall onto her bed together, breathless, laughing, and Emma feels wild with something so good, so perfect, so right it takes her breath away and gives her superpowers

and makes her vulnerable

and invincible

and complete .

-/-

For the third time in a row Emma wakes up with Killian wrapped around her, but this time he’s awake. He’s just looking at her, his eyes soft. His smile is happy and a bit unsure until she smiles back at him and it becomes blinding. He pulls her close and buries his nose in her hair and holds her until she can feel his heartbeat.

“Good morning,” he whispers after long, long minutes of just nuzzling her hair and breathing her in, and his voice sounds gravelly and hungry and he’s not actually talking about the morning at all, good or otherwise. He shifts his weight, pushes a leg between hers, and Emma lets her hand wander down, feels him shudder and gasp and when she wraps her hand around him, harder than he was even last night, he rasps out an “oh god!” that goes straight to her core.

He wraps a hand around her neck and kisses her with ferocity, but then she strokes and his movements stutter as his hips buck and he whines low in his throat and closes his eyes and finally groans, “oh god, Emma---”, and then he flips them, looks at her, eyes wide as he scrambles to pull down her pajamas, his pajamas (still with those ridiculous anchors, he has a whole set of them), and stills for a moment.

She just stares at him.

His entire body is vibrating with the tension of keeping still, his expression open, hungry, needy---- needy for her, for her, Emma, not just because she is here, and they’re naked, and she’s available, convenient, next to him, but her, just her.

“Emma?” he breathes.

And then she nods and wraps her legs around his waist and pulls him in and he enters her in one long stroke, and she nearly sobs because she is so ready, for him, him, just him, and then it’s pushing and pulling and rhythm and motion and pressure

and pressure

and then

finally

release.

-/-

“Can I ask you a question, love?”

They’re sitting curled up on the couch, wrapped up in each other under a cosy blanket, their coffee mugs within easy reach, and she pulls back to look at him. His tone has become serious again, his eyes are somber. His hand is lazily rubbing the back of her neck, and he bends down to kiss her before he takes another sip of coffee.

“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

She nods. “What is it?”

“I know you said you won’t talk about that man back at the farmers market---” she stiffens and he squeezes her shoulder and pulls her close--- “and I respect that, love. You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to.” He waits for a moment, kisses her hair, rubs her back, and she tells herself to relax.

“Go on,” she says, but he waits until her shoulders unclench before he says, “What did he mean by ‘duckling’?”

Emma sighs.

“You don’t have to tell me,” he repeats, and she knows it’s true. She can just shut down the conversation right here, right now, and he’ll never bring it up again.

“I’ll make you a deal,” she says. “I’ll tell you this bit, and you tell me one thing about your brother.” It’s his turn to go rigid, and she kisses the underside of his jaw, before she pulls back and says, “Fair?”

He exhales slowly, lets some of the stiffness bleed out, and nods.

“Yes,” he says. “That’s more than fair.”

“OK.” Emma takes a deep breath, and his hand comes down, twines his fingers with hers, rubs his thumb across hers. “Honestly, there’s not that much to tell. Walsh is a mistake I wanted to make.”

She takes another deep breath. He remains perfectly still.

“I was always the ugly duckling, everywhere I went. Not just because I was a horribly late bloomer and spent my teenage years being ridiculously funny-looking.” His fingers squeeze hers once more, but he doesn’t say a word. “No, it’s true,” she goes on. “I was the ugly duckling. And then I had all those gaps in my memory, all those odd bits and pieces, places I could have sworn I’d seen before, things I knew I should know, but didn’t, and it made me the odd one out, even among foster kids. Like I was even more broken than they were. And you know how kids deal with those among them who are different.”

His grip on her fingers becomes almost painful. She is grateful for it, for the way it grounds her to the here and now. This Emma she is conjuring up from the past has no place in the present, and the pressure of Killian’s hand reminds her of that.

“So I kept hoping to ‘turn into the swan’, but of course I never did, and then I decided to make my own fate even if it meant making mistakes.” She sighs. It seems so foolish now, but it’s part of her journey, part of her, no matter what. “He first hit on me at a bar.” Killian gasps and Emma pats his shoulder. “Not like you at all, don’t worry. He made it very clear exactly what he wanted from me, right from the start. So I said, ‘why would you want the ugly duckling when you could have all this’ and pointed at the dozens of gorgeous women along the bar, and he said, ‘because you’re a sure thing’. And I was. I totally was. He started calling me duckling after that, just to remind me of my place, I think. He was a bastard, and I knew he was a bastard, and I did it anyway, because I was very busy punishing myself for my own shortcomings, see, and Walsh was a very efficient punishment.” Killian next to her has stopped breathing. Emma shoves the whole mess back into its box and her voice is perfectly neutral as she says, “Long story short, he finally allowed me to learn my lesson and I no longer need to punish myself and he doesn’t get to stand within a hundred feet of me.” She shrugs. “Thanks, by the way.” Her voice is still perfectly neutral and she is very proud of it. “For yesterday. Sometimes I lose my bearings.”

She looks up. There are tears in his eyes.

Tears.

And then he pulls her close, close, closer, hugs her hard and tight, with force, with conviction, and buries his nose in her hair, nuzzling her neck, and doesn’t let go for what feels like hours.

When he finally releases her she stays burrowed into his shoulder and he leans down to brush his lips gently across her cheek.

“I know you don’t need it,” he says. “I know you don’t need my empathy and certainly not my pity, but---”

He grasps her chin, forces Emma to look at him.

“For what it’s worth, I am sorry.”

And if there ever was a measure of ultimate, absolute truth, it is how Killian says the word am. He kisses her again, and takes a deep breath, and before she can brace herself it just bursts forth in one long rush.

“My mother died when I was nine,” he says.. “My dad moved us to Wilmington. He worked the docks, and it’s a large port city, and the company he worked for in Bristol actually facilitated the move. There was nothing for him back in England after my mother was gone, so we went.” He sits up straight, tension coils, and Emma puts her hand on his arm, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He’s staring at a spot on the wall behind her. “Turns out there was nothing for him in Wilmington either, because he managed to drink himself to death by the time I was twelve and my brother and I went into the system.” He breathes a long, shaky exhale. “They separated us right from the start. Said it was impossible to place two kids in the same household. But Liam was already sixteen and he would come find me, wherever I was. He’d find the schools I was at and just wait outside and take me away for the day. Once we ended up in a dive bar at the docks and nobody even cared that we were kids. Well, nobody at the bar cared. The system people cared a lot.”

Killian’s voice grows wistful and far away and Emma realizes that he is no longer in the room. He is a teenager on foreign ground and she knows the feeling like the back of her hand.

“Liam would tell me stories of how we’d beat the system, how he would start to make money the moment he aged out and come and get me away from all this and I believed him. And then he turned 18 and disappeared.” He snaps back to the present in a sudden, jerky movement, and adds, “He OD’d in Boston a few years later. My parole officer told me.” He shrugs. “As you can see I was already firmly on my way to a life outside the system at the time. Any system.” He looks at her, and his eyes go soft. “I realize I may have to change that, Emma Nolan.” His voice is a whisper. “But can my line of work please be a problem for another day?”

She laughs, and it feels good.

“Fuck yes,” she says with conviction, and smiles. “Aren’t we just the poster children for good adjustment. If we were superheroes these would be some fucking origin stories.”

He laughs out loud, releases all tension, and hugs her again.

“You’re impossible,” he says, and then pulls her up off the couch. “Screw this baggage. Let’s go get a drink.”

“It’s noon.”

“That means It’s five o’clock in Britain right now, and we have earned it.”

She can’t help but laugh and agree.

They find a dive bar of their own, dark and quiet and cosy, and have two beers and two shots of whisky each, and then go to the diner and devour a truly huge portion of grilled cheese and onion rings, and they laugh often, and touch often, and Killian holds her hand and sneaks kisses whenever he can and they don’t talk about their pasts at all.

When they get home Emma sinks down on the couch and Killian pulls off her shoes and throws her the comforter and kisses her thoroughly, and then asks which movie she wants to watch and Emma smiles and says Some Like It Hot, because it’s time to show him the best comedy in the history of ever.

And they laugh and cuddle and kiss more than they watch the movie and then they fall into bed and Killian wraps himself around Emma and everything is warm and languid and perfect and she falls asleep with a smile on her face.

And at 2:27 AM Killian’s phone beeps.

There’s a message.

One line. From Neal.

Meet now.

Thank you all for reading!

#cs fic #cs fic rec #thisonesatellite #everybody knows #fun and heartbreak and angst #bedsharing and softness and connection and catharsis #this is the calm before the storm darlings

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black-streak · 5 years

Text

Waiting for the Worms - Is There Anybody Out There?

Part 3

I promise this is the last horrifically depressing part in a row. Part four will lighten up a touch (though other parts will get pretty dark again)

All warnings from previous chapters should be kept in mind. I'm not going easy on us here.

Broken Hearts Club: @northernbluetongue @thethirdwheelfriend @shizukiryuu @theatreandcomicfreak @michellemagic @karategirl119 @moonlightstar64 @my-name-is-michell @mystery-5-5 @zalladane @queen-of-the-trash-planet-tm @wuvpancakes @dorkus-minimus @jardimazul @allthebooksandcrannies @g-arya @worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry @persephonescat @mycupisbroken @luciferge @18-fandoms-unite-08 @dawnwave16 @alwaysreblogneverpost @kris-pines04 @mysteriouslyswimmingfan-blo-blog @weird-pale-blonde-person @you-will-never-know-how-i-think @kokotaru @naclychilli @slytherinhquinn @clumsy-owl-4178 @ladybug-182 @darkthunder1589 @evil-elf16 @dast218 @lysslovsanime @emilytopaz @naoryllis @iloontjeboontje @thepeacetea @danielslilangel @finallyaniguana @i-like-fairytail-and-stuff @vixen-uchiha @yuulxd @bleeding-heart-romantic @magic-inthe-stars @st0rmy-w1th1n

~---~

When Marinette came to, she didn't.

She couldn't open her eyes or move her hand.

She couldn't move anything.

She tried to recall the last thing before this stillness. The Joker? Yes, the Joker had been beating Jason, or rather her, in Jason's body. She remembered pain and choking and fighting for control with Jason as a steel bar repeatedly slammed into her. She remembered falling asleep with Batman's rescue in mind. She remembered warmth everywhere and then nothing.

That must be it then. She was still Jason, as she had planned and probably couldn't move due to the recovery process.

With that in mind, she slipped away.

...

When she came to again, she still didn't.

Did she fall into a coma? That would explain the inability to even twitch. To open her (his) eyes after what surely had to be long enough. Now that she thought of it, she couldn't feel anything either. Not her(his?) eyelids, or fingers, or legs, or chest. Was this what a coma felt like? Or were the doses on the medication too high? Had she messed up so severely as to be paralyzed?

Fear and anxiety pricked at the edge of her mind, but she pushed it down. She needed more rest. Just to rest a while longer and it would all be fine. She'd wake up from this coma and recover and swap back to her original body, leaving Jason his healthy one. And so she slipped once more.

…

How long has she been out? Why won't she wake up? Nothing made sense anymore.

Her(...his?) body still remained unresponsive and unfeeling. The nerves were disconnected from her conscious and all was still.

She had read once that coma patients could hear things still. She heard nothing. That they could feel some things, even a brush through their hair. She felt nothing. That they could taste and smell the antiseptic in the air. She wasn't breathing.

She wasn't breathing and this body she was connected to but not had no pulse.

If there was a mental equivalent to hyperventilating, this would be it. Either way, as her distress rose, she found herself drifting back into the unknown.

…

Marinette was dead. Or at least Jason's old body that she was stuck in was. Of that, she was sure.

She couldn't help but wonder how long her spirit could live inside a hollowed out corpse. She hoped it wasn't forever. How long had it been, anyways?

Hours? Days? Weeks? More?

She couldn't say.

Maybe she should just disappear again. Was the place of drifting the afterlife? Who knew. She didn't.

…

She wanted to scream, to sob, to break down into a mess of tears and snot and gasping half breaths and she couldn't and it wasn't fair!

Jason didn't deserve this. She didn't deserve this. No one should be made to suffer like this. This endless loop of depression and loneliness and inability to express anything.

She thought she had her emotions on lock before death came for her and yet nothing would ever compare to this deep seeded, absolute need to force everything out, to express her every despair put into the open and be so utterly helpless and incapable to do so.

She wanted to rip at her own skin, to claw at her eyes, to tear into herself physically in any way she could, if just to feel again. Feel anything at all, even if it was the pain of that god forsaken crowbar in her throat again or the engulfing burn of the explosion after the fact. She'd take all the pain in the world if it meant she could feel again. Even for just a second.

Please?

Anything?

No?

Okay...

…

Was This the afterlife? When you died, did you just lay completely devoid of movement, spirit restless for the rest of time?

Maybe this was it for her. Maybe she would just stay here forever to ponder the life she lost. Forever waiting for the next slip into oblivion only to come to and stay here in this contemplative silence again. If so, she hoped Jason never died in her body. Became immortal and avoided this endless torture.

The thought hit her that she died in another's body and that the universe may lash out at her for her defiance. Jason remained living while against fate's wishes and she was to blame. So it crafted her a personal hell in the form of her soulmate's old form. The one she clung to so desperately moments before their demise.

If she was awake and alert in his dead body, what did that mean for the technically dead boy stuck in her living body? Did she condemn them both in her stubbornness?

She set her mind to determining all the possible outcomes of that possibility. She had plenty of time anyways.

…

Their funeral must have been nice. Adoptive son of billionaire, Bruce Wayne. She imagines it to be a grand affair. Everyone who's anyone, paying their respects to Bruce's kid.

Or maybe just a quiet morning; Alfred, Bruce, maybe Richard if he felt bad enough, all gathered around a grave in the family plot. Mourning together. Would the service be open or closed casket? Probably closed to hide the truth of what killed them.

Surely as Batman, Bruce had told the JL of his departure. Perhaps the heroes had given their condolences or shown up on their own to say goodbye to one of their own. Considering the encounters Jason and her had with them in the past, she doubted it, but it was a nice thought.

She imagines their coffin is beautiful. A gorgeous mahogany or cherry wood. Gold clasps and locks, the inner lining velvety soft and plush to cradle the body. She almost wants to feel the texture below their fingertips, but sends thanks to the mercy of not feeling the confinement of the enclosed space instead.

…

She was alive! She could breathe and move, if barely, but that was okay, because she's alive. Everything would be fine even if it wasn't good because she could escape this damnable hell and leave this grave finally.

She would hunt down Jason and throw her arms around him and never let go. She'd never tell him about her time down here, it didn't matter. All he needed to know was that she was alive and okay and so was he and everything would be better now. She promised, she just needed to get out of here first.

If she could sob in relief she would, because by some miracle she was alive.

…

She wasn't. She was delusional and dead.

...

Counting to a thousand doesn't take nearly as long as you think. Neither does counting down. Luckily she fades again before she can start a third time.

…

She's still sort of alive in here in her own way. And that was her living body out there. If she really tried, could she switch them back? Could she go back to living and return his dead body to him? Would he be delivered to a better afterlife once she appeased the universe?

No. No! What was wrong with her? She died for him for a reason. He deserved a better life. He had been through so damn much and deserved the reprieve away from Gotham. And no matter what, she would never choose to let him die. She would suffer in here for a millenia if it meant he was safe and happy. Even if it was without her. She felt betrayed by her own mind's musings.

That wasn't necessarily a new feeling.

…

She'd never see her parents again. Never hug them, never take in the warmth and strong scent of yeast and chocolate from her father and honeyed herbs from her mother.

Never wake up to Tikki snuggled into the pillow beside her, encouraging smiles and guiding words always at the tip of her tongue.

Never hold Chloe through her tears or fight by her side again. Finish the dress she was making her or Juleka. Help the shyer one come into her modeling career or guide her as a new miraculous holder. Guide the team.

Never become a designer or own a pet or get married or have children.

It was more than that though. She'd never train in the Batcave again or fight by his side or sit in the library window at the manor or sit in the calming aura of Alfred. Never see the one person who could always tell when they swapped. Alfred had become a second father to her. She missed helping him cook or clean up. Missed asking for his opinion and making little inside jokes about the others.

She'd never get to meet Jason.

…

She felt different. She felt wrong and confused and unsure and-

She felt…

She felt..

She felt?

Immense pain and overwhelming stiffness, but she felt!

Now. Now just to move. Please move. Let this not be another hallucination of her mind. Please? If she could move than she was alive, right?

A hand, their hand, twitched and shuddered and eventually dragged up their side. Up to their eye, the good one if she remembers correctly. She digs at the corners until eventually it squints open a touch. Pitch black.

Okay, that's not surprising. Probably another delusion, but she might as well see it through. She pushes her hand up through the dark until she meets wood. Soft wood. Barely there and slightly bowing beneath the weight of what she assumed was the earth above her. What, did they bury her in a plywood box?

Their chest shook almost in a jittery up/down dance and air wheezed between their teeth. She didn't dare believe it was real. She lifted the other hand and pushed with both, feeling it move beneath their fingers. The one arm was still broken and hurt immensely but she pushed anyway. The pain, real or not, felt amazing. She brought a leg up to push as well.

Lowering all their limbs, she took a false breath of stale air and made her decision. Attempt to escape until she came too again, if only for the entertainment of it. At least it was something new.

She brought their legs into her chest as best she could in the surprisingly roomy coffin and kicked up with all the strength she could manage. A splinter formed under foot and sparked a manic sort of determination.

She kicked and kicked at the splinter until dirt was raining down around her in the dark space and then she kicked some more. It felt amazing on her skin: the dirt pushing down, the ache in her chest, the throbbing in her throat of splintered bone, the wood pushing down against her feet, tearing at them. And then the world collapsed down onto her.

In the wonderful pressure and choking hold of Earth, she tore at the soil, dragging herself up further and further, feeling it shift across their skin in glorious relief. Please never let this delusion end.

And then, then! Light. Blinding, all encompassing light came into view and she was on ground. Not under it, but above it, laying on it, letting the wondrous light bathe her in its heated gaze. She choked out dirt and coughed and wanted to cry out in joy but no sound would come out of their bone dry body. No tears would spring from depleted eye sockets.

Eventually sight came back in a blurry daze of nonsense until the abandoned graveyard came into view. Turning, she saw a barely there grave marker and couldn't help but think her imagination cruel.

Pushing for more, she stood on wobbly, tattered feet and walked. Out of the tiny, forgotten field and into even more abandoned streets. She wasn't sure where her mind took her, but she kept walking in what looked like an early morning sunrise. She walked for what could've been hours, the sting and ache and tearing in their body spurring her on in a strangely gleeful manner.

Eventually she stopped in front of a hospital. The sun had moved and faceless people had started appearing at a distance as time moved on in her thoughts. She liked this pain but… maybe she should seek help? Maybe her brain was searching for something to make it better. Mentally shrugging and then perking at the feel of their real shoulders following suit, she wandered into the ER.

As people suddenly swarmed her, asking questions she couldn't process and grabbing her arms to drag her onto a gurney, reality kicked in harsh and fast.

She was actually alive. Everything was real and they could see and feel her and she could feel them too! Their body was alive and here. This was real.

And as relief swept into her veins and she collapsed down into the bed they provided, she felt such amazing peace that she didn't even notice as she fell asleep and straight into a coma.

...

When sounds filtered in around her and she smelt the antiseptic and felt the tubes running through their body but still couldn't move or see. She screamed and cried and sobbed in her mind for the loss, their body horrifically failing to follow suit once again. Why couldn't this torture ever end?

#WFTW #part 3 #jasonette #maribat #ml x dc

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aliwept · 6 years

Text

WARNING : MASSIVE TOKOYAMI HC DUMP AHEAD ! part one of ..... many sldkfjds i gotta transfer a lot from old blogs

triggers: body talk, religions mentions, mentions of binding, self hatred and transitioning.

BELIEFS / MOTIVATION:

tokoyami looks at becoming a hero the “wrong” way — or rather, in a way that cripples his success.he doesn’t want to become a hero in and of itself, but to help as many people as he can.

this is usually a good thing, but it is motivated by his extreme guilt and self doubt rather than pure desire, believing that that is the only way to pay for his “sins.” (i.e., the destruction or potential destruction his quirk as/could cause(d).)

he holds himself up to an extremely high standard, (it is impossible to have a totally “pure” motivation,) one of being perfect and disciplined in every way, but he consistently fails to reach that (as any human being would), making it so that he falls deeper into a circle of self-doubt and pity.

he also tends to idealize his friends for their faults, and when those difficult traits show up he gets extremely bothered, then angry at himself for his idealization, then angry for bothering them, & it escalates until he’s simply angry at himself for being what he believes to be a burden.

this is an extremely deeply rooted process, one that even daily actions contribute to, & while the source isn’t completely his parents, it is certainly reinforced by his mother’s abuse & his guilt relating to his father’s death.

PHYSICAL:

he’s not particularly muscled — well, compared to his more muscular classmates. most of his muscle is in his legs & stomach. he does not have a particular training regimen, typically unmotivated unless prompted.

unlike the majority of his classmates, because a lot of his fighting is done with dark shadow moving him (so that it’s harder to predict movements, as well as going from a large range), the majority of the time he’s not challenged physically.

against close attacks, both attacking which he uses his sword for (seen in his dorm room), when allowed. he inherited that sword from his father after his death. he also feels fatigue easily, not so much due to muscles but because of his exhaustion that is his “normal” state, given that dark shadow is nocturnal. (this & his low work ethic. he works a lot harder when training with friends.)

he doesn’t feel the need to bind more than not, given his skinny physique, with his hips being only a little bit wider than the average cis man’s.most of his scars are on his arms, self inflicted from his talons cutting into his skin. parts of his skin are covered in a gel like skin, clear to see the feathers that poke out from them, going much like arm hair down his sides. these are mostly around his shoulders.

most of the feather is underneath skin (though the skin & the feather both have no nerves), visible with the skin being mostly clear (no muscles adding color, only the natural dark pigment) with the rest of the feaher poking out at a low angle to his arm.

HABITS:

he has a diary that he writes in religiously. it’s kept in a hat box under his bed when he returns to the dorm, along with a collection he’s had since he had been able to write.

at times, in nostalgia, he’ll read through his earlier books. he also tends to doodle his classmates in them ! he’s an incredibly private person — especially because his mother ignored his privacy, refusing to let him keep secrets of any kind in ‘fear that he was hiding something’ — but also enjoys putting his thoughts into words.

PAST:

tokoyami was bullied due to his appearance / personality. for someone who was already uncomfortable with his body (not knowing what being trans was at that point) this became the root of deep insecurity regarding his appearance, whether it was as simple as hesitation.

he is autistic !! he stims a lot with his hands, though usually it’s in his hoodie / under his cloak, because he’s very self conscious about it. he also has adhd: inattentive type, bpd, depression & anxiety!

fantasy verse: he’s a witch & i will fight you on this fact. my boy loves the occult. he’s also. in generally he tends to be superstitious, & more than that enjoys different rituals! it probably won’t show up in my rp cause i honestly don’t know much about that type of thing but ! he absolutely adores things like that, not necessarily because he fully believes them but because they’re interesting & he believes that they probably stem if only in part from fact.

now im gonna add some notes here. while he is obviously pretty strong, he has problems with control, considering that not only does he have to react, he has to communicate those thoughts with dark shadow. speed / offense / defense obviously are enhanced w dark shadow, as well as his own abilities (he would still be able to hold his own if he couldn’t use his quirk).

as well, a lot of his stats are basically his stats + dark shadow, which obv makes them higher than they otherwise would be. he also has really high stamina and working out for a long time doesn’t really. make him tired, nor dark shadow, because dark shadow doesn’t get tired & he’s not the one doing a lot of the actual physical stuff. he’s not good w weapons tho in general. note that these are basically during the daytime w/o a huge light source so things change when it’s darker/lighter.

parents: tokoyami’s mother had the ability to call spirits of the dead to her and talk to them, & his father’s was to house things, as in objects, so he cld like. store things inside of his body. it’s real wild.

a quirk that combined with another in tokoyami’s lineage, so one of his ancestors had the ability to shapeshift, specifically with birds & banged w someone who has a quirk similar to aizawa’s, where it basically ‘stills’ the action of .someone’s quirk, if that makes sense? so down the line people wld inherit a birds’ features, but it would switch. in his dad’s case, he got a raptors ‘arms’ & eyes.

i am here to inform you that not only is he really short, he’s also chubby! espcially as a child. while he now has muscle! :tm: ive made earlier posts about how he doesn’t have a good. regimen & shit so. yeah. just like deku, while he may be muscled, (though he’s less muscled than. most of his classmates) he still is v chubby on other parts of his body.

also ! he’s trans & he has. a large bust, which he does not bind most of the time due to fear of asphyxiation. being demiboy, he is bothered at it at times, but dislikes tight clothes as a whole (like binders). this is because he is easily overstimulated by excessive contact with his body, causing sensory overload.the exception is his neck, which his choker is a source of comfort. (though, warning, there are scars underneath that the large choker hides!)

tokoyami. will say/do something & then become embarrassed by it, after the act has already been done. he’ll fuckin melt on the spot.

tokoyami is absolutely someone to leave ppl on read. or respond w several paragraphs w ‘K.’ like. that’s just how it is. he’s lowkey an asshole in that way but he just. he has to think a lot before having a response but he gets distracted & just leaves it.

he has dark fucking brown skin !!!!! people who draw tokoyami w light skin cause he’s a ‘pale goth uwu !!!!’ are weak & will be weeded out by natural selection.

people he trains with most are ,,, mostly kirishima, kaminari, aoyama and momo when they’re available

he’s mix of japanese, native american, and indian!

self knowledge questions: neediness, independence, shyness.

NEEDINESS: being affirmed & nurtured by others is a central requirement for you to feel safe. this means you can be slow to warm up to other people, which is difficult because what you most need from them is their warmth. yet you know how to be vulnerable: to let down your defenses and accept that you need another person. this lack of pretense is a valuable trait, and ultimately more endearing than the macho efforts others make to deny their childlike sides.

INDEPENDENCE: you don’t set out to be different for its own sake; you are more easily guided by what interests & moves you. you are more concerned about what is right for you than about the pressure to fit in. you know the value of selective irresponsibility, of forgetting occasionally about being ‘good’.

SHYNESS: part of you is gripped by the fear that you’ll launch into something and completely mess it up. the upside of this is wise caution: people are indeed often too rash, whereas you know, by instinct, that holding back can save you. probably, you feel shame and self-disgust a bit too much. but when you do feel in your element, you act with a wisdom and sensitivity never found in people with thicker skins.

there’s an au where he’s tamaki’s half brother tamakis hmu

more ramblings cause i lov him so anw. i figure that like. if he had to have a motivator it would be an outside force but basically he’s riding on the fact that he has more physical ability because he doesn’t perform very well in studies. ( bird brain …… )

getting 14th place out of the class on midterms, he’s aware that he’s not motivated & as well as his migraines & other mental illnesses ( adhd, executive dysfunction, etc. ) this means that he doesn’t really reach his “full potential.”

he’s aware of this, though, which causes him to train physically. physically training also allows him to ( a ) feel proud of himself, something that he struggles with ( b ) help him generally, esp with dysphoria ( c ) get his mind off of other things / points of stress.

i still don’t think he’s like. as buff as shouji for example, though part of that is that he’s naturally lean ! & he has trouble motivating himself sometimes but when he stays up late ( due to dark shadow ) it basically wrecks his sleeping patterns, so this gives him something beneficial to do while also exhausting himself, which he hopes will help him fall asleep.

like i know that i said that . . he was skinny / not v muscled ( when compared to his buffer classmates, rather ) but i guess i’ve been proven wrong because it took both Buff McFuck mina and hagakure 2 push him out of the way ( not tht it took that long but that was w them straining / time skips )

so @ this point i Just Don’t Know. he got 9 in the practical which means he’s obv like ?? p good but that was the entrance exam. ( he got 10 rescue my baby !!!! im so proud of him ) & then w aizawa’s exams he started off at 5 & im tryna find the other thing what it ended up as but @ this point i’m just , pretty divided cause i’m not seeing much reason for him to learn to train w/o proper training ( & we kno that he’s not someone who was trained specially like todoroki / momo tho tht doesnt mean it’s not possible & at this point im just ) ya. he’s gotta be able but from what we know he’s not v motivated ? ausdjkfdsfjk we’ll see ig.

tokoyami is a mix of shinto (where his hero epithet comes from), taoist (due to the values), & hindu (again, values). i think for now it’s going to be some mix of that, though i’m going to do some research on shinto values since i don’t know much about it !!!!!

generally, he’s pretty superstitious, just because he knows many myths are based on facts, & the idea of ‘it doesn’t hurt to watch out for them.’ he prefers to avoid possible things that would make him have bad luck.

#dont rb or i manifest in your house n kill you /

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