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erenaeoth · 2 years

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I love reading your thoughts (and fanfics) about Tekken. And currently I’m starving for JinHwoa…could you please share any thoughts you have about what we might see in T8 regarding those two? Or perhaps what you specifically would like to see happen with them in T8?

sat down to write a short reply and now its nearly 2,000 words...

I've spoken a little before about Tekken 8 and Jin and Kazuya but I decided to speak a bit more here about hopes for Jin. Please be assured my hopes for Kazuya can fill a library but the library would be 70% angst and despair.

Jin, Redemption, & Hwoarang

Thank you very much! I'm glad you enjoy my fics and rambles :)

My expectations for Tekken 8 aren't particularly high, and I'm mostly hoping for a chapter of the story that reflects the entire series so far, and gives us some satisfactory arcs for the protagonists, namely, at this point, Jin and Kazuya. I would love to see a redemption arc for Jin that lets us really see him break down with regret. He's very good at noticing who he hurts and just closing down. He'd rather wallow in self-hatred and martyr himself than deal with the real consequences of his actions. So I'd like to see him have to live and work through all the sticky reality of his actions. To do this, he'd have to notice that despite hurting Hwoarang and Xiaoyu (especially Hwoarang), they both still see Jin as someone beyond just the monster he's become. Xiaoyu never stops believing in Jin, and Hwoarang, despite having suffered at Devil's hands, still says to Devil that it's weak, and not the opponent he's interested in. Devil is a monster to him, and it’s Jin that Hwoarang wants, not this warped thing eating the better man he knew.

Both Xiaoyu and Hwoarang have faith that there is a Jin beyond Devil that is retrievable, and right now in the Tekken saga, I think this is the biggest difference between Jin and Kazuya. Jin’s utilising Devil and the Mishima Zaibatsu to bring about his vision for how the world ought to look, is very similar to Kazuya’s motivations. Jin has always warred against and despised his Devil, but the more he utilises it and falls prey to its way of thinking, the more his actions resemble Kazuya’s. It’s hard to know the tonal direction that Tekken 6 and Tekken 7 have taken without having another chapter in this story as a frame of reference, but we’ve seen a few instances (at the end of Tekken 6 and 7) that imply it’s become more easy for Jin to slip into his Devil form at will, something that importantly only Kazuya could do and control previously.

My interpretation of the end of Tekken 7 is that Jin has rounded a corner from trying to ‘correct’ things to simply trying to destroy the Mishima and Devil, and that he sees this as his last responsibility. We’ve seen his self-destructive inclinations since Tekken 4 (and the extremities in his judgement from earlier, since his sole focus in Tekken 3 is Ogre’s destruction), and in my opinion, Jin intends to be a weapon launched at Kazuya, and has little intention to live beyond that encounter. If the end result of this encounter isn’t to be mutual destruction, then I think Xiaoyu and Hwoarang have to play an important role in essentially helping Jin to see the hope that they see.

Jin believes that Xiaoyu is naive to believe in him, and whilst he cares for her, and that care is powerful enough to even give Devil pause (TK6 SC; Pachislot 4) I think Hwoarang can offer something different. He’s the only person we know ever to have survived being mauled by Devil. He’s fought Jin’s Devil twice, and has seen and knows that monstrous side to Jin. And I think it’s important that Jin was partially still in Devil form when Hwoarang saved him and took a grenade for him. Hwoarang can look Devil in the eyes and still want to see Jin. I think that kind of honesty will be a lot harder for Jin to turn away from than his school friend who has always maintained an innocence to him that Jin himself doesn’t believe he has. In Hwoarang, there is an opportunity for Jin to accept that he’s done terrible things and to see himself as being able to become something better than that.

So I would like to see Jin really think about what it means to have someone he’s severely hurt look at him with that kind of determination and belief. Personally, I’d like him to break the cycle of Mishima violence and refuse to meet Kazuya on his own grounds. I don’t know if he still has the strength of character to do that, or if the storytelling of a future game could be up to the task of telling in a satisfying way that Jin has become a villain but that this doesn’t remove him from the possibility of hope.

To do such a story justice, I would like to see the same opportunity offered to Kazuya. For various reasons, I’m not sure Kazuya would ever, or even can, take up such an opportunity. This was one of the things I wanted to explore in Chasing Demons, where, even when I took my most optimistic estimate for him, I left ambiguous whether Kazuya would truly give up this power. One the one hand, he’s someone with absolute determination and self-control, and if he decided to let go of Devil, he absolutely would. But on the other, I think a lot of his confidence comes from knowing that he has the power to shape his surroundings, something he’s never done without Devil’s assistance before. The equation of more power and control equalling greater feelings of safety and some degree of contentment has not been proven wrong for him, whilst all things painful to him have happened because he didn’t have sufficient power, or let others close to him who made him doubt the path he was on. So Kazuya is in a very different position to Jin. He’s on his own. He’s built himself to be alone. And things are going well for him. His motivation to let go and change is very small.

By contrast, Jin has hit rock bottom, lost all confidence in his choices and himself and exists for nothing beyond his blinkered approach to martyrdom and ending what he perceives to be a greater evil. There is space narratively for him to not have to condemn himself to oblivion. The Tekken writers are aware of this, in the sense that there’s been a tragic trend of all the ‘justices’ Jin has committed himself to ending up worsening his situation and the lives of those around him. If Tekken 8 goes the way of Blood Vengeance and says ‘Jin has to become almost as bad to defeat Kazuya, then flies off because he can no longer be a part of society’ it would indeed be in keeping with the string of tragedies that comprises his life. I think this would be the more dull option narratively, as it doesn’t really break with anything that’s happened previously, except perhaps that those close to Jin will ‘secretly know’ he is a hero. This would be annoying, because offing your dad isn’t really a particularly heroic move, especially when you’ve got a world war to your name (and said dad doesn’t). So it rings shallow to me. I wouldn’t see such a character as a hero or even an anti-hero, he caused a lot of murder then murdered a guy who’s also not that nice. Does he want a pat on the back?

Fighting games like building up to big fights, so my hopes for Jin attempting a non-violent solution are slim. So, realistically, my best possible hope would be for Jin to be willingly exorcised and to fight Kazuya as a human. Probably also unlikely as the games seem to be building up to some Devil on Devil fight. Maybe Kazuya could finally absorb Jin’s Devil part way through a fight though, so that Jin still has to fight him just with his own strength.

But anyway, a Jin redemption arc handled properly and not tritely gives great potential to a number of other characters’ arcs. It would give Hwoarang and Xiaoyu the reward for their pursuit of who Jin used to be. I would like to see them hold Jin to account, as the people who care most about him as a person. I don’t care for arbitrary systems of justice being meted out on people, but neither do I want stories that dismiss heinous actions just because they’re done by protagonists. So I would like to see Jin have to work to become a better person alongside people who can help him refind hope in himself. Hwoarang and Xiaoyu are integral parts of that story.

The things I want for JinHwoa don’t really fit within my expectations for a Tekken game. I can wax lyrical about ways in which Hwoarang might retain enough significance in a future game for him to have a satisfying arc and for Jin to find some peace, but no mainstream fighting game is going to give me what I actually want. What I actually want is for Hwoarang as the one person who’s seen all these different sides of Jin and who’s still enamoured, intrigued, infuriated, and compelled by the Jin he knows is still underneath, to push Jin to the edge of his comfort zone, and force him to admit he’s afraid to keep living and face the consequences of his actions. I want Jin to see that the Hwoarang’s hope and dedication to him shouldn’t be taken for granted and for him to really think about why it is that someone pursues a ‘rivalry’ that involves fleeing the military and walking into two warzones for him. And why, if it was just about testing strength against strength, did Hwoarang throw himself in the way of grenade for him, permanently disabling himself. Hwoarang will, for pride’s sake, always be the last to admit love, but perhaps Jin could see that, and see to what self-destructive lengths Hwoarang would go for him. I want Jin to finally stop only seeing things from his own perspective, and to think about how much his life, that he seems willing to dispose of, means to others. I would like him to choose to live at first out of a desire to not cause further pain to those who love him, and second because he genuinely wants to become someone worthy of being loved the way that he is. Even if he struggles to find meaning and purpose in his own life, maybe it is enough for him to want to bring some happiness into the lives of others. I think a realisation like that would convey meaning into Jin’s life and give him the foundations to start building himself into a better person.

So I want Hwoarang’s love for him to help Jin see worth in his own existence, and his love in return is to strive to live for Hwoarang, someone who’s always had so little to rely on and who has pinned his hope and identity on someone whom he believes to be worth his time. I want Jin’s redemption to stem from his desire to atone through living, and for his choice to live to come out of love. thanks bye

#jin kazama #hwoarang #tekken #tekken thoughts #jinhwoa #asks

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aminiatureworld · 3 years

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A Sea of Fragment VI

Word Count: 3.964

Warnings: Slight violence

Author’s Note: I’m back! This chapter was so enjoyable to write, I missed this series so much! Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Also yes I did see the 2.1 trailer. Scaramouche’s JP laugh my evil beloved.

After your little interlude of conversation with Scaramouche you had succumbed once more to the blinding heat that was enveloping you. Having little sense of the world around you, waking up to bits and pieces of movement only to be stolen away by the darkness again, you found yourself completely disoriented by the sight that greeted you when you finally woke up.

You were in a tent, that much was sure, though beyond that you weren’t really aware of much else. The bed that you were lying on, though slightly damp, was clean, and the top cover, which remained underneath you, was folded over neatly. There was a large table next to you, filled with what could only be medical equipment, as well as a dresser, a chair, and a bench, presumably there for medical purposes. However the high quality material of everything, the tent, the sheets, the pillow, made the whole room seem much too fancy to be a simple hospital tent.

You weren’t sure how long you lay there, too afraid to move in case the world started swimming again, when what could only be a medic walked in. The Fatui emblem was embroidered neatly above his breast pocket, but otherwise he seemed completely, almost unnervingly, normal. The only other thing of note was the Anemo vision strapped to his arm.

“Ah I see you’re awake. Good, I didn’t want to have to call the head medic in again, since she made it perfectly clear already that your case didn’t need her specific supervision. Still, when my lord Scaramouche came in shouting, she couldn’t very well say that, ignoring how banged up you were at the time.”

“Scaramouche was here?” You asked, head still slightly fuzzy.

It probably shouldn’t have been a surprise to hear that, after all you weren’t the one walking to the medical tent by yourself considering the state you were in. Still the image felt like an odd one. You figured he would’ve found someone else to do it for him. Letting this information rattle around in your mind you mutely listened as the medic asked you to hold out your arm for pulse checking, barely listening to his halfhearted small talk.

“Your pulse seems to be evening out a bit,” he finally said. “Good, you were going berserk for a little bit there. We even had to call in a healer, didn’t want you to die. Thankfully the healing seemed to help, my lord was saying something about your state being magic induced, and we were worried that there would be no effect.”

“Thank you for your concern,” you replied, knowing full well that this level of treatment was likely the result of being dragged in by a Harbinger. Still, you couldn’t help but feel somewhat grateful.

“It’s nothing. Better have you alive then a dead body on our hands after all.”

“Fair enough.”

“Still, you’ll have to take care. Your iron levels were also somewhat wonky, so we’re going to give you a week’s worth of pills for that. Come back in a week and if everything seems alright you’ll be good to go. Okay?”

“Alright.”

The medic nodded before walking out. Feeling still exhausted you flopped down on the bed. A breeze seemed to be blowing outside and a part of it came in through the slits in the tent. Letting the wind fan over you, you closed your eyes. Soon enough your thoughts swam into incoherence and you were dragged down into the realm of sleep.

“My lord.”

Scaramouche jerked his head up from the papers he’d been half heartedly studying. Seeing the medic in front of him he immediately stretched himself up a little taller. At least this wasn’t something completely worthless.

“I assume you’re here to tell me about the condition of the person I left with you.”

“Yes, they have just woken up. Their vitals are no longer in critical condition, and they appear to be alert.”

“Good. That will be all.”

“Yes my lord.”

Scaramouche waited until the medic had left before letting his thoughts roam. You were awake, you were finally awake. Though he wanted to deny it, the relief that flooded through him made it all too apparent how worried the Harbinger had been. When you’d first woken up in his tent he had felt worried, yes, perhaps even slightly frantic. Still, he had assumed that that would be the end of it. You collapsing again had made his blood run cold in a way that rarely, if ever happened. He was Scaramouche after all. The Balladeer, the Harbinger who had no room for mercy in his heart, no time to worry about the lives of other people. After all, does the winter blizzard care about whose house it destroys? Certainly not, it only has to fulfill its goal. Yet he had cared about what was happening with you, even more than that, he’d been worried, perhaps even terrified.

Acknowledging these things left a bitter taste in Scaramouche’s mouth, but he wasn’t idiotic enough to try and deny it. Somehow you had managed to become noteworthy to him, important enough to draw such a reaction out of him. Was this some despicable side effect of your ability? No, it was unlikely. There was no use in looking for excuses or denials. What the Harbinger had to do now was figure out what to do with his predicament. He ought to crush it, to treat you as he would any other low-level lackey, he ought not to have brought you over to his personal section of the medical tents, should have had someone else carry you to the general wing. Those sorts of regrets were too late now however. He had acted out of pure panic, hadn’t even thought of the strict hierarchy that ruled all the lives of those who lived under the Tsaritsa.

Not did your aberrant status help, you who weren’t from Snezhnaya, who had no sense of authority, who had no true place amidst the Harbingers. You were merely there, a shadow that Scaramouche had hoped to command who had instead appeared to have manipulated him in some way.

Yet he couldn’t get rid of you, not now. You were still needed in some capacity, needed to tell him of the layout of the village, the location of the artifact, you had said it was a mirror. Besides, Scaramouche still wasn’t entirely sure whether or not Signora would want to inspect you, having brought you to Scaramouche’s attention in the first place. It certainly wasn’t out of the realm of possibility; Signora had a habit of going where she pleased, deriving satisfaction from the ability to draw irritation out of her fellow Harbingers. The mere idea of her sauntering in to inspect you brought a sour sort of taste to Scaramouche’s mouth. Now more than ever he loathed his coworker’s antics.

Still something had to be done, though what was still up in the air. Pondering this Scaramouche stood up. At the very least he ought to look after you, though whether this was tied into the emotions that roiled in him or simple logic he wasn’t yet sure of. At the very least there would certainly be more talking if he didn’t look on you than if he did. If there was anything that the Fatui loved it was erratic behavior. After all those who could be swayed into doing illogical things were certainly much easier to manipulate. No, better for him to make an appearance, to say that he was concerned you were on the verge of death which would have ruined his plans. This excuse in mind he stood up, urging his inner thoughts to silence as he walked out of the tent and into the afternoon sun.

The image he was greeted with upon entering your, or rather his, tent was all too reminiscent of how you had first looked in that forest where he had first met you. Face pale, a slight sheen of sweat visible on your brow, slicking your hair against your neck. Though your eyes had almost immediately snapped open upon hearing the voice of the medic they were unfocused, and for a moment it seemed as if you were squinting to make the Harbinger out.

It was a pathetic image of a person, and a mix of disgust, pity, and worry swept over Scaramouche. Silently hoping that he himself would never look so weak he sat on the only chair in the room, dismissing the medic with a wave of his hand, keeping his focus on you the whole time.

“So,” he began when you two were finally alone, “you have been saved from the teeth of death. If I had known the spectacle you were going to cause I would have never asked you to do such a thing.”

“Most visions don’t go that way,” you replied, voice husky and cracked from lack of use. “It was, it was because of the mirror.”

“You mentioned that before. This mirror, I presume it’s what we’re looking for.”

“I won’t look for it anymore,” your voice seemed to tremble slightly. “Even if my vision it was terrible. It warped the space around it, even from the future. If you were to get into the same room as it, were to try and touch it, I, I don’t know.”

“We must get a hold of it. If it is the Tsaritsa’s wish we would sacrifice a whole reserve for it.”

“How can you say such a thing?” you replied, voice quiet. The dispassionate tone sent a lance through Scaramouche, and for a moment he found himself unable to reply, knowing full well the answers he ought to be giving you, the total loyalty demanded by the archon he served.

“Still,” he finally continued, “you have showed me that you’re certainly not strong enough for this. From now on I will no longer provide you information about this mission, nor will I ask you to do anything to bring it about. All I need is a report about what you saw, if you wish you can write it yourself. There are other things that you would be better suited for.”

“What things? I don’t think you understand. I’m the only one who has seen what could happen, what seems very likely to happen based on the fragments that were lined up in front of me. The best outcome I saw was that you were unable to find it. The worst,” you took a deep breath in, “the worst outcome is that the village goes up in flames.”

“Ridiculous,” scoffed Scaramouche, feeling irritation rise up inside of him. “I thought you would be grateful to hear that you wouldn’t be required to look into the future again, instead you insult me, insult the Fatui.”

“I am glad that you aren’t going to try and force me into the future. I don’t think you could truly convince me to anyways, but I’d rather not fight about it. Still, I want to be there, to make sure that this doesn’t happen. I have to know what’s going on.”

“You don’t have to know anything. I don’t owe you information or position, you’re only here at my pleasure.”

“Yes! I am only here because you forced me to be here, only here because you asked me to do something I didn’t wish to do. And now you take the advice I give you and trample all over it! Why, why are you acting so irrational?”

“You’re the one acting irrational!” Scaramouche shot back, feeling a wave of panic shoot through him. The idea that you had managed to somehow divine the odd emotions that he was currently experiencing seemed unlikely, but that you could sense something was out of place was alarming. “I just need the report,” he pressed, feeling his voice raise in irritation, wanting this to be over.

As you stared at him, silence being your reply, the thoughts that whirled inside the Harbinger’s head seemed to get louder. Why was this suddenly so complicated? All Scaramouche’s career he had easily ordered his way around and over people. Deals were only made with other Harbingers, who quickly stepped aside to let the Balladeer do his duty. Never had someone simply refused his orders. The idea that you would do so, would turn down something so easy and to your benefit, was absolutely infuriating.

“I would like to rest a little more,” your voice finally broke through the thick silence. “I’m tired.”

“I would have gone a long time ago had you just listened to me,” Scaramouche pointed out.

“Please,” you shot him a look, “I’m not in the mood. I don’t want to fight either. I really don’t. It’s the last thing I want to do. I wanted to thank you in fact, for bringing me here rather than letting me lie on the ground or trying to slap me awake or something. But, but you just, you never listen. That’s what makes it so hard, what makes all of it so hard. You never listen so how, how are you ever supposed to hear me?”

The plaintive tone of your voice struck another blow, as Scaramouche found himself suddenly, suddenly what? He found himself leaning out of his chair, the urge to walk over to you so intense it seemed to steal the breath from his lungs. He wanted to do something, though what he wasn’t entirely sure of. To apologize? To demand? To scold? To, to console? What a stupid thing to do. Yet all these things he suddenly wanted to do. Of course he couldn’t do nay of these things, couldn’t push you any farther, couldn’t pull himself back. All he could do was lean forward, as if that might in some way convey what he was feeling.

“Is there something you want?” You asked.

“No,” Scaramouche stood up. “There is nothing more I wish to say to you.” What a lie that was.

Making his way over to the tent flap Scaramouche stopped. Quickly, almost in rebellion with his mind, he turned and walked over to you. Taking your wrist he pressed his fingers to it.

“Your pulse is still irregular,” he noted.

Spinning around and walking out of the tent the Harbinger fought the urge to scream at himself, scream for such an irrational act. Yet part of him wasn’t thinking about that at all, was instead marveling at how warm, how comfortable your hand had been in his own.

It seemed like an hour had passed by the time your pulse managed to right itself, though surely only a few minutes must’ve passed. You held your wrist in your other hand, staring down at it, as if willing the scene that had just passed to reappear before you. What was that, what in Teyvat was that? You couldn’t make heads or tails of it, could barely acknowledge that it had indeed happened at all. Scaramouche, the Harbinger, the man who had only moments before been berating you, that Scaramouche had walked over to you and checked your pulse, held your hand in his, if only for a moment. It seemed laughable, seemed so surreal as to have been a dream, yet it had surely happened.

Of course maybe to him that had been a completely normal thing to do. After all, the medic had told you that your pulse had been irregular. Surely Scaramouche would have noticed that too. Perhaps his self-righteousness had caused him to want to make his own judgement on the state of your health. Still that didn’t stop your heart from leaping into your throat the moment it had happened, hadn’t stopped you from feeling like you were, for very different reasons than before.

You cradled your wrist, still able to feel the slight pressure his fingers had exerted on it, as if he had somehow branded you. His fingers had been surprisingly soft, not at all rough as you had expected it. Perhaps that was only natural, you knew that he sported no sword hilt, and there were no sharpening stones in his tent, meaning in all likelihood he was a catalyst user. Still, it was unexpected. His fingers had been surprisingly gentle, his palm with which he held your hand was soft and warm. You wondered for a moment what it would be like if he were to hold your hand properly. A small part of you wondered if you might yet do so in the future.

Almost immediately you shook yourself violently, willing those thoughts out of your head. Even now the idea of doing something so domestic, so intimate, with Scaramouche seemed odd, almost heretical. He was a Harbinger, a bloodthirsty man, one who evidently had no problem with a village going up in flames. And yet, and yet…

You sighed, lying back down on the bed. You should sleep, you were exhausted. Everything was going fast, oh so fast. You couldn’t keep up, couldn’t keep up with your feelings, with Scaramouche’s logic. All you wanted to do was block it out, to sleep. As you closed your eyes one final coherent thought floated through your head. He had, despite it all, not asked you to do it again.

You never realized you were dreaming until about halfway through your dreams. Even then you had no power to stop them, they pulled you along, like a riptide, waiting to drag you down into their depths.

You weren’t exactly sure how you got into the village, the all too familiar landscape. It was hot, and your thoughts seemed to melting along with your legs, as you tried to run towards the now blazing rooftops, yet found yourself hardly moving. Yet you kept moving forward, intent on something, though on what you weren’t sure of. Something very important to be sure. If only you could reach it.

Reaching some sort of back you shinnied your way between the burning. The flames licked at your clothes and at you, but you couldn’t feel them, they certainly weren’t any hotter than the rest of you. In fact the only side effect that seemed to be happening was how close the walls were becoming, so much so that you were barely getting through. Still you kept going, and eventually you found yourself out of the seemingly endless tunnel.

There were a few men in the distance, men who seemed to be barreling towards. Unease spiked through you, somehow you knew that whatever happened they shouldn’t catch you. Yet another part of you dismissed them as no important enough. No, this wasn’t how you wanted it to go, there was something else. As you thought that they seemed to suddenly fade away, or perhaps it was that you had suddenly found yourself somewhere else.

Walking down this road that seemed so busy and so desolate you found yourself in field. Not questioning the black sky above you, the fact that there was a field in the middle of a tiny village, you approached a figure in the middle of the field. Somehow you already knew who it would be.

You had never really thought about the space that Scaramouche took up before. He was simply there, a man, a Harbinger, a person. Just there. Now however he seemed all too small, almost puny. His head was turned to the side, so much as to be unnatural. A slight dribble of blood pooled from his mouth, and his eyes stared with the glassy intensity of the dead, the kind of stare that would forever haunt. You seemed to float above him, high, high above. Yet you wanted to lower yourself, to shake him, to see if he was just pretending. Everything felt glassy and distant, like a play that you were part of but not actively participating in. Soon enough he’d pick himself off the ground and start yelling at you. Soon. Yet someone was wailing in the distance, and for once the voice seemed eerily familiar.

You opened your eyes, at first seeing nothing before the cloth ceiling of the tent finally revealed itself to you. Lying there, not daring to sit up or roll over or do anything, you replayed your dream. Before it had seemed so distant, so disconnected from you. Now however it close, all too close. Your back was sticky with sweat, and the sudden heaving of your chest, cause panic to flood through your mind, revealed how truly shaken you were. You had seen Scaramouche dead before, had seen his fallen frame in your visions. It had been so different then however. Then he had just been a Harbinger, just been a demanding man. Now however he was, something. Something else.

All this time you had worried about your feelings for Scaramouche, worried that they were just some figment of imagination that stemmed from your visions of the future. Perhaps that was partly the truth, perhaps those visions had indeed provided the fuse for your emotions. Yet somehow you had lit them, or more aptly somehow Scaramouche had. The image of him lying there, dead on the ground, filled you with such distress that it seemed liable to drown you. Even if these feelings were somehow made up, the result of some imagined Scaramouche in the future, some need to line yourself up with some possible path, they were still real. Painfully so, if this was a sign of anything.

Finally sick of lying in one position you sat up. Though the tent was opaque enough you could see little bits of light through the slits of the tent, and the slightly warm air had the distinct feeling of it being at least midday. Standing up you made your way, somewhat hesitantly, over to the flap of the tent. You needed to see Scaramouche, if only to try and convince him again not to go through with such a ridiculous plan. You needed to make sure that your dream didn’t become a reality.

Walking through the tented hallway you quickly ran into the same medic as before, this time pushing a tray with food on it.

“Oh good you’re up,” he said, voice slightly bored. “Maybe you’ll be able to leave tomorrow then.”

“I need to talk to Scaramouche,” you said, words tumbling out and running into one another. “It’s something of the greatest urgency.”

“I’m sorry but my lord isn’t here.”

“Isn’t here? Then, he…”

“He went off on a mission, he said if you were ready to leave before he came back to move you back into your tent tomorrow and to wait until he returned for further instructions.”

“He’s gone?”

“Yes.” The medic replied, seemingly slightly impatient.

Turning around you fell right back onto the bed. Ruining the hospital corners you ripped the blanket over your head, willing it to block out all the light. You needed to get out, you needed to go find him. Somehow you knew it wouldn’t be that easy. Even if you wanted to you doubted the medics would cross Scaramouche’s orders to keep you here until tomorrow. Even more so you had no information on what exactly he had done, though you were almost positive that he had gone to the village. Even if he hadn’t though you had to go check, go make sure. What he was doing was madness, running into a situation without fully comprehending it, what in Teyvat was he thinking?

Anxiety welled up inside you, consuming any and all thoughts you might’ve had. In their place was fear, pure distilled fear. Fear for the Harbinger that you didn’t want to die, and fear for the future that might not come to pass after all.

#genshin impact #scaramouche x reader #scaramouche #genshin impact fanfiction #genshin scaramouche #series #my writing

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oliviayamaoka · 3 years

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Heartfelt Deception (Joey / The Legion x F!Reader)

Y/N is a rather new and young survivor, taking a while to become accustomed to the brutal trials set out by the god-like figure known as the Entity.

Feeling alone and in despair, you meet somebody who begins to slowly change the way you perceive yourself and your current situation.

Y/N wasn’t sure what this place was called, it was a cold place. You shivered as you hugged yourself, walking through the snowy winds trying to find a generator. A part of you felt crazy for thinking your clothes were thin but it was just the piercing cold weather. Y/N looked up before noticing the killer shack, you quickly ran towards it. You hoped there was a generator there to warm up your hands slightly.

As you entered the shack, you stumbled across four lockers, a generator, and a firey totem at the corner. You shut your eyes in relief, stumbling somewhat. You felt as though your legs were about to freeze off at any moment. A part of you regretted not asking any other survivors about this realm. You were relatively new to the realms and hadn’t fought many killers yet, not that you wanted to.

“Oh, god.” You mumbled as you kneeled downwards, immediately getting to work on the generator. Your lips curved into a smile upon feeling the warmth of the machine and the sparks of the wires.

Your eyes averted towards the totem with the fire. For a second, you wanted to use that to warm up but you wanted to finish this generator as fast as you could. There was a strong sense of focus and determination within you at that moment.

“You got this.” You mumble. You weren’t exactly hyping yourself up, it was just you reacting to your circumstances by mumbling.

It felt lonely and pathetic, doing a generator by yourself, You felt a small sense of pity towards the others for not accompanying you. A sigh escaped your mouth for even thinking about that. Five generators, four survivors. Of course you all should split up for the sake of survival. Stop being so selfish, you thought to yourself. In fact. you didn’t even see which other survivors were here. Your train of thought was interrupted as somebody entered the shack.

Your hands trembled as you observed the figure that walked in. Within those seconds, you just assumed it wasn’t the killer. It was a guy in darker clothing. There was a streak of black paint spread across his eyes. His expression remained unchanged and rather welcoming. Another survivor.

“Um, hey.” You say awkwardly to him as you turned your head back to the generator. There were two wires that needed connecting.

“Hey, hey.” He replied, nodding his head as he watched you.

“Wanna help? If you want, of course. There’s also a totem there. The Entity told me that the firey ones could help us.” You said. He smirked slightly as he began to work on the generator, kneeling down beside you. The guy seemed lean.

“Let’s finish this up first. I don’t think I caught your name, by the way.” He said to you. His presence felt relaxing, he was about eighteen or nineteen. it was peaceful to have somebody else young here.

“Oh, I’m sorry. My name is Y/N, what’s yours?” You asked him with a smile.

“Name’s Joey.” He responded to you as you nodded.

“It’s nice to meet you, Joey.” Y/N said as she looked around the shack again to make sure there wasn’t anything out of place.

“I haven’t seen you around much. Well, I have, I guess. We just never got to talk and whatever.” He shrugged.

“I wish it were under better circumstances.” You replied as you stood up, walking towards the firey totem in the corner. His eyes shot up as you did so.

“Woah, woah, woah. No need for that right now.” Joey reassured you, quickly standing in front of you with his hands up to his chest to slightly push you away from it. Your eyebrows raised up in surprise for a second.

“Oh, I thought breaking them would help us.” Y/N said as he scratched the back of his neck with a small smile.

“Eh, not really. You ought to avoid these ones entirely. The Entity will say anything to have you--or us suffer. Trust me.” Joey explained as you nodded your head, being rather naive about what he said.

“Makes sense. What is this place, anyways?” You asked him as he peered out through the killer shack window. The winds calmed down.

“It’s called Mount Ormond.” He said in a rather reminiscent yet relaxed tone.

You nodded a bit, This must’ve been the realm he was plucked out of based on his reaction to it. Maybe his family resort? You weren’t sure at all but you enjoyed making assumptions and theories about the people here. Hell, you met somebody that claimed to be from the 70′s. Either way, at least you found a friend in Joey and somebody to hang out with at the camp.

“Are you from here?” You asked him.

“Huh? Oh, well... It’s complicated. I do really like this place though. I’ve never felt more free before this whole shitshow happened.” Joey replied.

“Sorry to hear... sounded fun.” You say to him.

“It was... best few moments of my life until Frank... nevermind. Is your generator almost done?” He asked.

“Almost, I think.” You responded as the generator lit up.

Your face immediately lit up as you bounced back up, proud of your accomplishment. Joey smiled and lifted his hand up to high-five you. You smacked your hands against his. He chuckled at your excitement, he seemed to quickly grow fond of you. Y/N looked around before looking back at him.

“You should come with me.” You say to him.

“I... wish I could.” He said with a small hint of guilt and sadness in his voice. He quickly noticed how depressing he sounded and stood up straight.

“I wish I could! I mean, we already wasted enough time on one generator. And you’re a fast learner so I’m sure you can pop these motherfuckers really fast.” Joey said to you, confident in your abilities. You nodded with a small smile.

“Thanks, Joey.” You said to him, rubbing your hands together at the door. Joey noticed you must’ve been freezing. He stared for a moment before building up the confidence

“Here, you must be freezing.” He said, sliding off his gloves and giving them to you. You felt your cheeks burn up as you reluctantly took his gloves, he seemed to push them towards your chest. Joey was very insistent on you taking them.

“I, um... thank you. I mean it.” You stammered as he nodded, clasping his hands together and taking a few steps back in a very confident manner.

“Like, I know I don’t sound genuine or anything but thank you. Thanks for helping me and um, being my friend. I’m sorry if I sound stupid but like, this place is just so fucked up, y’know?” You say to him as you sat down in front of the generator, sliding his gloves on. Joey felt his heart tingle slightly.

“Nah, you don’t sound weird at all. It’s probably shitty to...I mean, it is shitty fighting killers and whatnot. I get you.” He said, sitting down next to you. It felt strange yet intoxicating for him to be in such a close proximity to you.

“Yeah... how do you do it, Joey? Having to live an eternity getting fucking hooked... and tortured by these fuckers.” You asked him as your voice began to crack and tremble. Tears welled up in your eyes as he stared in shock.

“Just--don’t worry about that right now. The killer hasn’t hurt you this time and he won’t, I promise he won’t. Believe me.” He said as you wiped your eyes with your sleeve.

“I just wanna go back... I don’t get it.” You mumbled, looking upwards as you tried to relax yourself.

Joey hesitated but wrapped one arm around you. You welcomed the gesture and rested your head against his chest slightly. Any form of comfort right now felt nice to have. Your eyes shut as Joey rubbed your shoulder a bit. He felt very scared and vulnerable in that moment but he did his best to comfort you. Joey never would’ve imagined his first encounter with you would be so... nice?

“It’s fucked up, I know but... don’t let these things destroy who you are. You seem like a tough person. I never let what happened to me destroy who I was. And now, well... I’m free. I can do what I want, when I want.” He said to you.

Joey felt guilty. He saw a part of himself he never wanted to acknowledge within you. A part that needed consoling, a part of him that only felt regret and pain. For what he would do to you one day and for what he did to that janitor. Why did he have to be so stupid sometimes? Joey found you in the purgatory he was meant to be punished in, to kill for god knows how long.

“That does sound nice... sorry for being a suck.” You said as you got up and hurried towards the door. Joey seemed to be in a bit of a rush too since he needed to please the Entity some sort of way.

“It’s fine, it’s fine. Thanks for being my fourth friend... I meant what I said, though. Just don’t think of me as.. bad.” He said as he slid out the door.

You stared in slight confusion before bracing yourself for the coldness. You began to make your way to the next generator.

One all generators were complete, you made your way to the exit gate. You noticed three girls. Y/N stopped in confusion as she stared at them. Feng Min, Kate Denson, and Claudette Morel. Claudette was wrapping up her own wounds as Feng began to open the door. Four survivors... four survivors.

“Hey there, stranger. You okay?” Kate asked as she playfully nudged you.

“Where is Joey?” You asked her as she stared blankly at you.

“Joey?” She questioned as you finally put two and two together.

You spoke with the killer? He didn’t kill you. Wait, you let a killer embrace you. No, not a killer, it was Joey. No, Joey was a killer. Your mind raced as you spaced out, ignoring the blaring noise of the door opening. Kate nudged you softly again.

“Did you get caught in his frenzy? That shakes a lot of folks up.” She said.

“Oh, yeah... I guess...” You replied as the gates opened.

“Alright, ladies, Let’s roll.” Feng said jokingly as you walked with them outside of the place. You were both confused and horrified at what just happened. It was weird because you felt so at peace and even inspired from him. Joey made you feel confident. You inhaled sharply from the coldness as you made your escape.

Joey watched from a distance at the lodge with his mask on, he leaned against the doorframe. He felt disappointed that you’d figure it out sooner or later. He sighed deeply, feeling frustrated and angry. Now, he felt like listening to his mixtape and returning to being the edgy troublemaker he was until he got to talk to you again.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Thank you for reading! This was kinda based off of the HC’s I made of the Legion where Joey always had a crush on you. Might do a part two since I enjoyed writing this but stay tuned if I do :)

#joey dbd #joey the legion #the legion #legion #legion dbd #dead by deadlight #dead by daylight x reader #dbd x reader #oneshot #joey x reader

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ohnopoe · 3 years

Text

The Long Road Home | Frankie Morales

Ship: Frankie Morales x Reader Summary: After a one night stand with your best friend, it feels like everything’s going to hell... maybe you just need an escape Word Count: 5.6k+ Warnings: Angst. I looked at this doc and went ‘I haven’t hurt myself with pain for a while yet’, and just put a months worth of angst into one fic. I am sorry. Author’s Note: Oh look! It’s another super late entry to something! This time it’s for the FABULOUS @autumnleaves1991-blog and her writer Wednesday... as I post this at 3.30am on a Monday... yikes. I’m so sorry this is so late, thank you for being so kind about it! And yes, I did give up very quickly on making this gif look good. I’m too mentally done to try harder 🤣

The car was filled with a stilted silence, heavy and thick in the air-conditioned air. Never before had the awkwardness sat so oppressively, least of all with the one and only Frankie Morales at your side.

For years now, your life had been filled with laughter and smiles, of warm hugs and secret looks that hinted at inside jokes that no one had a chance of guessing. For years, your life had been plentiful with the simple fact that Frankie Morales, the kindest man you had ever known, was your best friend. Was it enough? Maybe not. But it was better than the alternative, and you knew that clearly now.

One night. It had only taken one night, to destroy the very foundations of your friendship, to send your comfortable little bubble crashing down into a cacophony of pain and agony.

Oh, the night itself was anything but agony. No, that was filled with euphoria and the sounds of absolute bliss. His taste scarred into your memory, his touch forever melted into your skin. Sleeping with your best friend might just have been the best damn thing you’d ever done, were it not for what came the morning after.

Perhaps you had been naive, waking up in his sheets, craving the warmth that had surrounded you as you both blissfully drifted off to sleep in one another’s arms. Perhaps you ought to have realised the moment you found his spot cold to the touch, but your mind was still too filled with the fuzzy drunkenness of the best damn fuck of your life.

Perhaps you should have come to realise when you slipped out into his living room, seeing him already fully dressed, sitting silently on the couch with his head in his hands, his emotions on display so clearly that it would have broken your heart right there and then, if only you’d been awake enough to see them.

But no, it wasn’t until you were forcing a reassuring smile onto your lips as you desperately begged your features not to give away the heartache you felt that your world truly came crashing down around you.

It was a mistake.

A mistake.

Of all the words he could have used, somehow that hurt the most. He didn’t claim he didn’t enjoy it, didn’t blame you for the way your lips had sought out his when he’d been looking so damn beautiful with the warmth of the fireplace dancing across his features. No, he regretted it, and that, that hurt deeper than you had expected it too.

But you had put on a brave face, reassuring him that nothing would change, that you were still his best friend, if that’s what he wanted, and you pushed the heartache away until you were safely secured in your apartment, where the tears could fall until they ran out, until there was nothing but your empty sobs to fill the echoing apartment, as the man you loved seemed further away than ever before.

A week passed, then another, but nothing got easier. Your interactions seemed awkward now, the overwhelming reminder of what you had done hanging over the two of you like a thick blanket, threatening to suffocate you both.

It was impossible to move forwards, to think of anything but him.

The anguish you felt only grew as your friends seemed to pick up on the fact that something was wrong between you. It was Will who came to you, a silent support when your world was still crashing down around you, but you never dared whisper so much as a word of what had happened.

How could you ever guess it would get worse?

How could the all consuming pain you felt ever grow to something more when you already found yourself mourning the ease of your friendship every night when you sat alone at home?

Your answer came in the form of a beautiful stranger.

She was kind, gentle, beautiful… everything Frankie deserved, and what’s worse, she seemed to truly like him.

You hadn’t meant to spy, hell, you hadn’t even known he was going to be there. You were just at the cafe to pick up some lunch when you saw them, laughing and smiling, hand in hand at a small booth in the corner.

He didn’t even notice you as you entered your favourite cafe, the same cafe that you had spent countless afternoons in with the man who was still your everything, even now, even as he sat there with another.

Strength was becoming a part of you. You could hold off the tears, hold off the wails of anguish until you were safely at home, until you were alone once more.

But your strength was waning. How long could you continue on like this, mourning your friendship with the man you had secretly loved for years? How long would it be until he introduced this beautiful stranger to the boys? How long would it be until you had to force a smile as he fell in love, as he found himself marrying her?

There was only so long you could be strong when the object of your pain sat so close, yet so far.

Perhaps it wasn’t your most thought out plan. Perhaps you ought to have put a little more care into your actions, but you needed to get away, needed to be free from the anguish that had plagued you for over a month now.

Working freelance was a wonderful thing when it meant you could quite literally pack up and work anywhere. However, it was not the best when it came to stopping you from making a rash decision.

Clothes and essentials packed up in your car, you didn’t give yourself a moment to think as you fled the town you had called home for so long.

Was it a permanent answer to your problems? Hell no. Did it, realistically, cause more issues than it would solve? Sure. But this wasn’t the time for critical thinking, this was the time for an escape.

It had all been going so well.

For hours, you drove.

The chaos of the city fell behind you, the long open road ahead. Your phone filled your car with music, allowing you to fill your mind with anything but thoughts of home, and the thought that you might just find freedom from your agony seemed tangible.

With the windows down, the fresh air licked at your skin, cool and refreshing, filled with promises of renewal.

With each passing hour the crowds thinned and the light fell low.

A quick pull into a gas station had you filled up with fuel, snacks, and the motivation to continue on, moving ever forwards, even though no destination was set in your mind.

Perhaps you should have found a hotel for the night, somewhere safe to stay until morning came, but you were determined; the need to get away spurring you ever onwards in your pursuit of something you could not name.

Night fell, and even the houses spilled away into nothing, your only companions the rich sand that surrounded you, and the road that continued on into the horizon.

Yes, this was what you needed.

It was all going so well, until it wasn’t.

The headlights began to flicker, that was your first clue that something was amiss. Then it was the clock, staggering between minutes.

You weren’t particularly mechanically minded, there wasn’t exactly a need for it when your best friend was always there to fix whatever hiccups your car decided to adopt, but even you knew it was time to pull over.

The air was cold, colder than you ever would have expected in the depths of the desert, but then, with the sun slipping past the horizon, you could hardly be surprised to find the temperature dipping too. Opening the bonnet gave no answers, only a steady slew of steam that drifted upwards at the sudden release, only furthering your fears.

Well, that certainly didn’t seem good.

Perhaps you could find a mechanic or a garage, surely there was another gas station somewhere along the long and dusty road. But the moment you hit the ignition, the car stalled. Another attempt, another stall. The engine refused to budge.

This was not how things were meant to be going.

Your hand hit the steering wheel with fervour, doing more to hurt you than to dissipate your growing anger.

This was meant to be your escape, your freedom from everything that was weighing you down, but now even your car seemed to be working against you.

The sun was now fully eclipsed by the horizon, and there you were, stuck on the side of an empty highway, alone and crying your frustrations into your steering wheel as, once more, your emotions got the better of you.

Someone would come, they had to. It wasn’t as if the stretch of road was forgotten and beyond repair, it was still a popular stretch… for some.

Locked in your car, with no engine to run your heater, you went for your phone, hoping you could call for help. Picking you up hours away from home wasn’t exactly the kind of favour you could put on anyone, but the boys were never ones to say no to a person in need, least of all one of their best friends. Perhaps you could call Will, see if he could pick you up or help you get a tow.

The black screen of death was the last thing you needed. Plugged into the car’s power, it seemed even it wasn’t immune to whatever had eaten away at your car’s battery.

So there you were, stuck on the side of the road, alone, desolate, and now without any means of communication.

Perfect.

Hours passed, or at least, you assumed they did, with nothing but silence as your companion, and suddenly, all those thoughts and memories you had been pushing away filled your mind with an aching determination.

Memories of nights curled up in Frankie’s side as you laughed at the stupidity of couples in films, as you hid your face in his neck as he laughed at yet another horror film he insisted wasn’t that bad.

Memories of nights when the world felt like it was crashing down around you as yet another relationship failed, and you found solace in the warm hugs of your best friend and the sweet taste of ice-cream with whatever alcohol was in the house.

So much of your life had revolved around your best friend, and here you were, weeks without so much as a word shared between you, desperately searching for something to fill the void within you.

In the dark of the night, you could admit this wasn’t your smartest plan. With the cold air struggling to make its way into the insulation of your car, even you knew you should have at least told someone you were going. Will wouldn’t have judged you, at least, not outwardly. Benny would have come with you, given the chance. Santi, well, Santi would have read far too much into it and probably figured out exactly what was breaking you down…

And then there was Frankie. Frankie who would have listened, who would have held you as you cried, who would have whispered sweet words of comfort and reassurance until you no longer felt the need to escape at all. At least, the old Frankie, your Frankie, would have.

Now, everything was so different. What would he have said if he knew you were leaving so suddenly? Would he have realised it was because of him? Would he even care?

The darkness of the night seemed to match your darkened mood, allowing the heartache to consume you, to plague your mind until a restless sleep fell over you.

Dreams and nightmares melded into one another, happy memories turning sour with rejection, those four words haunting you with every attempt at happiness.

This was a mistake.

How could a voice you loved so dearly bring words of such pain? How could he be everything good and everything horrible, all at once?

A bright light, and a deep, loud sound shook you from your slumbers. A truck was passing, a truck!

Perhaps they could help, perhaps they could- your sleep filled mind suddenly plagued you with images of your body chopped up into tiny pieces, lost to the desert and never seen again…

Ok, maybe wariness was the way to go.

But it was slowing down, past you by some hundred meters, but slowing to a stop nonetheless.

With the taser Santi had bought you years ago held tightly in your grip for protection, you watched as a smaller light came towards you, footsteps echoing behind it on the empty road.

You could do this, you said to yourself, unable to fool even yourself with your attempt at optimism.

The man seemed alright, from what you could tell. A sympathetic smile, and a safe distance away so as not to scare you, he seemed as non-threatening a stranger as you could hope for. But you couldn’t shake the warnings the boys had given you over the years.

“Never, and I mean never get in a car with a stranger,” Santi had invaded your space as he drunkenly forced his advice upon you.

“What if I don’t want them to be a stranger?” you had replied coyly, loving the way the group of men, who had taken it upon themselves to act rather like older brothers had squirmed uncomfortably in their seats at your response.

“If they’re a stranger, they’re not good enough for you,” Santi had replied, his gaze flittering around the group as if struggling to leave his sentence there. “If you don’t know them, keep it that way. You’re safety is more important than your- than your-”

“Than your sex life,” Will finished with a roll of his eyes, never ceasing to be amused by the way Pope struggled at the idea of you having sex.

You didn’t dare open your door, and with the engine out of commission, opening the window was an impossibility, and so it was a conversation of yelling in the dark empty desert.

“You alright there?” his cheery tone put you at ease more than it ought, but the man was clearly aware you were alone, and equally aware that his large frame could easily be construed as intimidating.

Half of you was ready to nod in response, to claim you were just fine and not give anything away. But, well, even the threat of being murdered seemed a little less impactful when you knew, realistically, you needed help.

“Broken down,” you yelled from behind the safety of your locked door.

“You called someone to get ya yet?” he actually looked concerned at that, but then a thought seemed to flit through his mind, so loud that it was shown across his features as he second guessed his words. His southern twang resonated loudly as he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, hand barely missing the full grey beard that looked oddly reminiscent of Santa Claus. “Or ya need a lift or somethin’?”

“Actually,” the trepidation was clear even as your voice echoed in the car. What you needed wasn’t exactly easy, and, while he certainly didn’t seem dangerous, Santi’s words still rung clear in your mind. “You wouldn’t have a phone I could use, would you?”

His smile was reassuring, easing your worries more than it ought to do. Broken with missing teeth and crows feet that showed the man clearly smiled just as often as he could, it was almost tempting to take him up on his offer. But he was nodding before you could second guess yourself.

“You wait just here, I’ll go get it.”

The moment he was gone, relief flooded you, easing your wound up shoulders, and giving you a final glimpse at hope. Now all you had to do was call someone you trusted, someone who wouldn’t mind a call at the ass-break of dawn.

Will still felt like the safest option, even if he did mind, he’d never say it, and you could always make it up to him with a carton of beer.

Your hand reached for your phone, ready to bring up his number, when realisation struck you. Dead. It was dead. That was the whole damn reason you needed another’s phone in the first place.

A groan escaped you as you realised, once again, just how badly your escape was going.

A knock on the door woke you from your pity party, an empathetic look mixing with bemusement as the truck driver watched you jump in shock.

“Here, I’ll pop this on your hood. I’ll just be over there,” he paused to point back towards his truck, “you just holler when you’re done, ok darlin’?”

And then he was gone, his phone large and clunky on the hood of your car as his flashlight bounced light off the road with every uneven step he took.

Getting out quickly, you grabbed the phone before returning to the safety of the locked car. Ok, so you needed someone who’s number was memorised, someone who would answer, someone… fuck.

“You can drop me off here,” your voice was soft and uncertain, barely breaking past a whisper, and yet echoing in the silence of the car. The first words spoken in an hour, hanging so heavily between you that you almost wished you could suffocate once more in the overwhelming silence from before.

His hand crashed against the top of the steering wheel; anger, raw and unrestrained, shining through as he clenched his jaw to swallow words he might regret.

“I’m not leaving you at some shitty garage,” the words were grit out, harsher than you had ever heard him before. His emotions, once bottled up and held deep within, were now clear for all to see, even as he refused to so much as glance in your direction. “I’m taking you home.”

“Frankie, I-” you cut your words off at the sudden glare that was thrown your way, gulping down the fight you had been willing to make in order to make your point. You had never seen him like this, even on his darkest days, he had never spewed forth an anger so heated and vile that it had you almost scared to speak.

And so you fell back into silence once more, letting the empty road fill your gaze with its monotonous landscape, desperately pleading with it to help clear your mind of the whirlwind of emotions that brewed within.

Perhaps you ought to have wished it upon Frankie instead.

Just as you thought the silence had begun to settle, some ten minutes later, he exploded once more, passionately angry in a way that had no right to pierce your heart as it did.

“The hell were you thinking, running off like that?” he practically spat the words out, wondering aloud rather than directing the question at you. But still, it had you fidgeting uncomfortably in the passenger seat. His anger was new, but somehow that didn’t hurt half as much as the disappointment you heard now as he rolled his fists over the steering wheel.

You could practically see the way his mind whirled with thoughts, his gaze flittering over the road as he did his best to stay in control.

“Pull over,” your words were barely a whisper louder than the last time you had spoken, but there was a determination in them now.

Frankie merely scoffed in response, shaking his head as if the thought was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard.

“I’m not- I’m not going to rush off, just- please Frankie,” and if your tone sounded more desperate than it ever had before, well, so be it.

A glance was thrown in your direction, filled with suspicion, as if he were trying to see whether you were telling the truth, whether you were simply looking for another chance to flee from his life. But you met his gaze, soft determination filling your own as you silently pleaded for him to do as you say, before he ended up causing a crash.

With a sigh, and the most unnecessary use of a turn signal you had ever witnessed, Frankie eased the car to the side of the road, making a show of turning off the ignition before he turned to you, watching you so intently that his very gaze seemed to melt into your skin.

“I wasn’t.”

“What?”

“Thinking, you asked- I- I wasn’t thinking. I just-” you sighed. Unable to meet his searching gaze, your focus fell to your fingers, fiddling anxiously in your lap in a desperate attempt to relieve some of the pent up energy that was brewing within you. “I needed to get away from everything.”

I needed to get away from you.

“And you didn’t think to let someone know?” his anger was radiating throughout the car, hot and fevered, and it almost made you feel guilty, almost. “Do you have any idea how it felt to hear your voice on a stranger’s phone? To know you were trapped, alone, hours away- You should have told me.”

“Told you?” you couldn’t help the scoff that fell from your lips at that. Perhaps you should have told someone, but of all the people in the world you could have informed of your sudden trip, he was hardly an option. “Frankie, we don’t even talk anymore!”

“What are you-”

“Ever since that night, you’ve been distant,” you interrupted, refusing to accept his attempt at ignorance. After years of practically living in each other’s pockets, there was no way he could simply not notice the time that had passed since you last spoke. “Hell, it’s like I don’t even exist anymore! We haven’t spoken in weeks. Weeks, Frankie!”

“Well I-” he tried once more, but even he stumbled for a response to that. It was true, and there was no denying it, no matter how much he wished he could.

But the dam was broken now, emotions and words flooding out, filling the car where once silence lay.

“Do you have any idea what that’s like? To lose your best friend all because of a mistake,” the word was spat with more aggression than you had intended, but it stung to think about it. The very word was tainted now, filled with the memory of his forlorn face as he had uttered it into the morning light.

You didn’t notice the way he gulped at your words, as he desperately tried to alleviate the way his throat suddenly felt drier than the desert that surrounded you.

“I am trying my hardest to keep it together,” you continued, your voice steely now as you spoke resolutely, staring out at the long road ahead, refusing to acknowledge the steady stream of tears that made their way down your face.

“I am trying so fucking hard to not break every second of every day, and the moment I do something for myself, the moment I try and accept that I need to move on from my best friend, the world just screams ‘no’. I don’t get to just move on like nothing ever happened, I don’t get to go on dates with beautiful women who hold my hand and look at me like I’m the world. I get to suffocate under the knowledge that I’m in love with a man who thinks I’m a mistake. So, forgive me if I needed to get away from it all. Forgive me if I needed an escape from the never ending circle of pain that it is to simply survive.”

Each word seemed to burn your tongue as it escaped you, a fiery, fierce explosion filled with all the things you had kept secret for too long. It was so damn much, too much, perhaps, but then… it was a relief. After years of keeping your feelings to yourself, they were finally free, out in the atmosphere and untethered from the confines of your mind.

Was it the best way to let them out? Probably not. But after holding them down for so long, it was liberating to let go, even if you knew no good would come from it.

The silence that followed was, surprisingly, not the worst reaction you could have expected from your spiel. In fact, in respect to the alternatives that raced through your mind, it didn’t seem bad at all.

Perhaps you could continue like this. Perhaps you could make it home in silence, with your secret no longer a secret anymore.

Perhaps you could face tomorrow, even if it meant you could never face him again.

You couldn’t bear to look at him, not now that the words were out there, that he was aware of just how long you had harboured feelings for him. You couldn’t dare see the disappointment or disgust in his features as he struggled to find a way to let you down easy.

“You’re not a mistake,” the words were so soft that they took a moment to register in your mind.

But you knew that tone, it was the same tone you heard when Frankie’s world was crashing down around him. It was the same tone that crept out of him after hours of silence the night he came home from Columbia, turning up on your doorstep disheveled and broken and oh so silent that it had hurt to witness.

You wanted to scoff at the words, an easy attempt at placating you after you had practically offered your heart on a platter, baring your very soul to him, but for that tone.

There was no room for doubt or fear when he spoke like that, no room for anything but sheer acceptance. He believed what he was saying with his entire being, and you wished you didn’t know him well enough to tell.

It would be so easy to be angry, to ignore those words as he had ignored your admission, to doubt him and call him out on it, to ask the question your heart begged for the answer to… then why say it in the first place?

Wiping a tear from your cheek in a hurried movement, appalled at just how wet your skin felt, and the fact that your emotions had betrayed you so easily, you merely shook your head, still not daring to look his way.

“Doesn’t matter,” you mumbled, forcing your attention out the passenger window to the seemingly never ending sea of sand. “Next time I’ll tell someone, ok?” your voice was small, insecure, each word focused on entirely the wrong thing. “And I’ll get my stupid car fixed too.”

Was it a poor attempt at humour? Yes. But you were desperate. You needed to end this conversation, needed to get back to the comfort of your bed where you could allow the tears that seemed to haunt you to fall once more as you accepted the heartache that only grew with his silence.

“Next time,” the words seemed to die on his tongue, voice shaky as his hand reached out for your own, pulling your attention towards him as he grasped it tightly on your lap.

There was a desperation in his gaze now, a determination that you hear him, that you take each word he offered to heart.

“Next time, we both go.”

A scoff of laughter fell from your lips, your head shaking even as an incredulous smile dared to show itself in the corners of your lips.

“Frankie,” you sighed his name, gaze falling to your joint hands, to the way his thumb ran over your knuckles, even as he held your hand so tightly. “You’re missing the point of me getting away entirely.”

And then, for the first time since he had pulled up next to your broken down car, he smiled.

“I’m not,” the lilt of his voice almost tempted you to glance towards him, amusement dancing in the corners of his tone as he sought you out.

“Frankie,” you started once more, although you weren’t quite sure what you planned to say. How could you begin to explain your need for freedom from him?

“I was wrong,” he shook his head, more to himself than anything, as he spoke softly. “I made two mistakes that night-”

Would this man ever cease to shatter your heart? Surely it was already in pieces smaller than the grains of sand that sat outside your door.

“I should never have said it was a mistake, and I should have told you the truth.”

“The truth…” it came out more as a statement than a question, as if you were testing the very words on your tongue. Even with your focus flittering between his intense gaze, locked onto his very being you could still hear the suspicion in your tone. What truth would you learn if he continued? Would it hurt you further, or heal the shattered remains of your heart? Could you even risk considering the latter?

Your sights fell, focused on the warmth of his hand in yours, on the comfort he was trying to bring you, even if this was the moment your world came crashing down around you. Perhaps, with his hand in yours, you could bear it this time. After all the times your world felt as if it were imploding within you, perhaps you could face it if he just kept holding your hand.

“I have loved you since the moment I met you.”

“Frankie, please don’t-” you could see what he was doing, softening the blow, reminding you how much you meant to him. You were his best friend, and he loved you, just as he loved Santi or Will or Benny… minus the whole one night stand issue.

Your hand was stock still in his, unable to clench onto the one thing that could keep you together and break you apart all at once. It was still despite the way his thumb still ran over your knuckles, desperate to soothe and reassure as he had done time and time again. And it was the only thing you could focus on.

The sound of him shifting in his seat was both deafening and oddly muted as you trained your focus on your joined hands that sat in your lap.

His other hand reached over, his touch so light as it traced against your wet cheek that it had you closing your eyes without a thought.

“Hey,” his voice was broken now, rough and raw with emotion that you didn’t dare let yourself focus on. The touch of his hand felt stronger now as it dipped to your chin, silently begging at you to look his way. Silence sat between you as he waited, with a patience only Frankie knew, for you to give in to his plea.

Even here, stuck in the middle of the desert with tears flowing freely down your cheeks, you could never truly deny Frankie anything.

Your eyes opened slowly, painfully so, but the sight that greeted you was somehow worse than the unknowing blackness you had before.

He looked worse than he sounded, an echo of his worst days, his face haunted with a mirage of emotions that you never wished him to experience. And for a moment you wished you could take it all back. The relief you felt at finally telling him how you felt, the way your heart screamed at no longer having to suffer in silence… none of that was worth it if it was causing this pain to the man you adored.

His smile was small as it crept onto his lips. You could see the uncertainty in the way his eyes flickered over your features. But his hand that still sat in your lap held your hand with a determination that was meant to reassure, although you couldn’t quite tell if it was meant to reassure you or him.

“I have loved you since the moment we met,” he repeated, pausing as he took a deep breath. “And I have been in love with you for almost as long.”

Your eyes met his without a thought, needing to see whether there was truth in his words, needing to see whether he meant what he was saying, or if he was simply doing what he could to keep you safe and by his side.

But there was no lie in his eyes, no fear that you could see past his words into a hollow land of half truths. No, the only fear that sat there was trepidation, anxiety… timidity.

What if you didn’t believe him? What if, after all you had both said, after all that had happened you didn’t want him?

But how could you not?

Frankie, the man who had been at your side through thick and thin, the man who had driven for hours to pick you up when your car had decided it no longer wanted to work… he was still your everything, he was your Frankie.

Hours of exhaustion and desperation, filled with tears of heartbreak and frustration, slipped aside, replaced with the smallest of smiles.

“You love me, huh?” the teasing lilt to your tone surprised even you, but the way his entire being lit up at the words was addictive. Your features seemed to mirror his, smile growing until it was all you knew, until the happiness you felt seemed to chase away the anguish you had felt for so long.

His hand tightened in yours, and finally, you moved with it, squeezing reassuringly as you watched emotions dance over his features.

“Honey,” he stopped, pulling your joint hands to his lips as he pressed a tender kiss to the back of your palm, never letting his gaze drop from yours for so much as a moment. “I’m crazy about you.”

#writer wednesday #Frankie Morales #frankie morales imagine #frankie morales x reader #frankie morales fic #Triple Frontier #My fic

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starbuckie · 4 years

Text

𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐤

challenge: time travel challenge by @justagirlinafandomworld

prompt: “we’re divorced?”

pairing: sirius black x reader

words: 5.7k words

warnings: FOURTH WALL BREAK!!(sorry im very excited about that), lots of angst, almost smut(hehe), sirius lowkey has a breeding kink, sirius is an asshole for a bit, the smallest bit of fluff, fix-it, and the same time travel theory as back to the future

summary: an unnatural occurrence lets a woman go back in time to try and change everything she’s known for the past twenty years.

a/n: wow, i normally don’t write for harry potter so this was a nice change. anyways, this is for yvette’s time travel writing challenge, and everybody say HAPPY BIRTHDAY YVETTE! i’m so sorry this is late, it got deleted and i needed to re-edit, but i truly appreciate your friendship and your lovely, amazingly beautiful self, and I’m so so glad that we became friends :) this fic is not beta-read at all, so if you see any mistakes tell me, but otherwise i really hope you enjoy this fic<3

main masterlist || harry potter masterlist

It still wasn’t over. After all she had lost, more specifically everyone she had lost, and the shitty cycle that she had to call her life, it still wasn’t over. The people she had watched the life drain from, the screams of those suffering from the loss caused by the Dark Lord, and yet life still hadn’t had its fill of torturing Y/N. Grimmauld Place felt empty without the kids, without the Weasleys, but they had gone back to their home and soon enough she would have to as well. Harry had gone back to Hogwarts with Dumbledore, though she’d argued to hold onto him just a bit longer after-

After Sirius had died.

Time had passed, maybe two or three weeks, but no matter what the woman couldn’t bring herself to get out of Sirius’ old bedroom, simply staring at the ceiling with her tears at bay. Her and Sirius had been a complicated thing, to say the least, a topic nobody had brought up since 1983, when she had banned it. Not as if there was much to talk about after the divorce and Sirius going to Azkaban. After Lily and James had died, after she had fought with Dumbledore for custody of Harry, after she had become a professor at Beauxbatons and moved to France without a second thought. Sirius had been locked up after he’d hurt her in the worst possible way, and Y/N’s heartbroken soul found no other reason to return to England.

But, she pushed those bad memories to the back of her mind. It seemed so trivial, looking back on it. Not the broken house, of course, that had been his own mistake. But Y/N had many regrets, all of them seeming to revolve around the mischievous black-haired man who she had fallen in love with as a teen. The night it went down, the night their relationship had fractured at the seams and fallen down, was her greatest one however. It had been so stupid, so, so stupid, but they’d both gotten caught up in the moment, and Y/N had let him die without knowing how much she was sorry for that night that they let their fears consume them.

The cries that she had tried so hard to contain finally broke free from the restraints of her heart. “I’m so sorry, Siri,” she whispered into the air, “I couldn’t save you this time.” As the hot, salty tears ran down her cheeks, Y/N shuffled across the room, letting her feet drag her to the old Black family room, the dark green walls embracing her rainy emotions.

A little gasp escaped her lips as she looked at the portraits among the wall. The Black family tree was faded along the age-old wall, but what she was really looking for was the burned out image of her raven-haired love. There, right next to Regulus, was a black spot, scorned and scarred by the prestigious family for being a blood traitor. Y/N smiled and traced the burn with her finger, remembering their fourth year when she had accompanied him home for the holidays so he wouldn’t be completely alone in the hellhole he had to call his house. Sirius had snuck them up to this room and spent the night talking in hushed whispers sworn secrets. “I’ll be yours forever, Siri, and I’m sorry for fighting with you. I wish-” she sniffled, glaring at the spot in the wall as she tried to garble out her words, “I wish, I could go back in time, and just fix it. Just me and you, and that stupid night, with the bloody fight about children because you deserve it all, darling.”

“Ah, I think you can.”

Y/N turned around, her eyes wide with fear. That was not Kreacher’s voice. There stood a younger woman, around nineteen, a scroll of paper and a quill in her hand. There was a whisper of a smirk on her face, brown eyes glittering even in the dimness in the room. “Who the hell are you?” Y/N looked at the door, which was still closed as she left it. She cast her wand out, pointing it at the stranger who did nothing but smile. “How did you get in here? Are you with the Lord?”

“With Voldemort?” The woman simply laughed. “Dude, I’m not with ‘the Lord’,” she added with air quotations. “Also I’m not really even here, so don’t you worry about that. My name’s Malia.”

Malia held her hand out, but Y/N kept her guard up. “You’re American. What brings you here? Are you a muggle?”

“Oh, nope, not a wizard, I’m just the author of this story.” Malia confided. “I’m here to tell you that you can fix this.”

“Fix… what?” Malia just rolled her eyes and sighed, staring up towards the ceiling as she spoke.

“God, did I write you to be hard of hearing now, too? I ought to fix that when I get back.” The woman blankly stared at the strange girl, wondering what the actual fuck she was talking about. “I can give you the chance to go back in time, Y/N. It won’t be for long, it’s really not gonna be interesting for more than two hours at most, but that should be enough time to tell the gang about what’s to come with Voldemort.”

“Like... time travel?” Y/N asked. The only way she knew how to time travel was the time turners. “But all of the ti-”

“Time turners were destroyed in the Department of Mysteries, I know, I know. Trust me, I’ve read Harry Potter more times than I’ve said ‘I love you’ to my parents.” Malia smiled. “I’m the author, I make the rules, and my rule is that I’m giving you two hours in 1978 to talk to Sirius so he can fix the emotional fucking mess left behind by J.K. Rowling.”

“Who’s J.K. Rowling?” Malia shuddered at the name.

“A raggedy-ass, transphobic bitch who wrote y’all into existence, but she’s not of importance right now.” She checked the small, rectangular box in her hand, which glowed and provided little light in the darkened room. “Let’s see, it’s currently eleven-forty, so you have until one-forty to find the Marauders and fix this future. It may not be fixed in the books in the future, but if you are able to do it here that’s all that matters.” Malia’s brown eyes were downcast, her bright and loud personality dimming for just a moment before returning to Y/N’s confused gaze once more. “Try not to screw up too much while you’re there, just enough that you defeat the Dark Lord the first time. Tell Sirius all you know and that should be enough for him to fix all the mistakes, but do not under any circumstances let him or anyone else know who you are. I wish you luck, Y/N, it was nice to meet ya in person.”

And with a peace sign in front of her face, she disappeared into a flash of neon pink light.

“Bloody hell! Fix my future? Talk to Sirius? If this even is time travel, then how am I supposed to get there- AH!” Y/N’s body felt like it was turning inside out, her guts being torn from her stomach and back into it again. A delirious giggle arose from her lips in the black void she was pulled into, and a soft chatter could be heard, like voices at the end of a tunnel.

“Blimey, looks like we got ourselves a nutter on school grounds.” Y/N’s arms flailed around, desperately seeking some sort of grounding surface to hold on to when her back hit a rough surface. There was an audible crack somewhere in her body, but she felt so sick that she couldn’t tell where.

“Are you okay, ma’am? You just appeared from the sky and hit the ground.” Warm, brown eyes met Y/N’s, a familiar mess of black curls resting atop of the boy’s head. Large, rounded glasses sat perched on the tip of his nose, and an impish smile, one she used to know so well before he died, met his lips.

“James,” she sighed. The boy stared at her strangely, and only then did she notice the three other boys and girls each behind them. Remus, Peter, Sirius, Lily, Marlene, and Alice.

Sirius.

The sight that met her eyes made her nearly emotional. It had technically been only three weeks since she had seen him, but here was the young boy she had fallen in love with. The one who charmed her with his smart words and witty retorts to her brush-offs, who used to hold her in his arms in the most intimate and gentle ways. His grey eyes sparkled with curiosity, the infamous Marauder mischief swirling within the silvery pools.

Seeing him so young tugged at her heartstrings, and though she wanted nothing more than to hold him in her arms and never let go, a small, niggling feeling at the back of her head held her back. Was there something wrong?

“You know me?” Oh right, she was currently thirty-five. Looking around she noticed that she was outside the quidditch pitch, and there were other students, staring at her with widened eyes. No one knew she was Y/N L/N, their fellow schoolmate and probably one of the very few of them that survived the Death Eaters attacks. None of them were aware how it ended, or how it was currently going for them back in 1996, and in this time there was the first Wizarding War going on and they had every right to be terrified for their lives.

James now took a more defensive stance, standing tall and holding his wand out. “Who are you?”

She couldn’t give him the answer, instead letting her mouth gape open as she stared at him with wide eyes. Y/N looked across the grounds for the nearest exit, which was down by Hagrid’s hut and into the Forbidden Forest. It was her only choice at this point, to hide in the dark, creepy space, maybe just until the students went away so she could find Sirius and talk to him alone. It’d be hard to separate him from the boys, but if Lily were occupied with James it sure would be easy.

Her younger, seventh-year self didn’t seem to be in the audience, thank Merlin, and with that knowledge, she got up and ran, ignoring her screaming muscles. That time travel really did a number on her.

As she ran through the crowd, shoving people aside, she heard the students mutter, too much in shock and disarray to stop the crazy, old woman who knew James Potter.

“This is dodgy.”

“Someone ought to tell Dumbledore about this.”

“She kinda looks like Y/N L/N.’

“Don’t insult the poor girl like that, that wonker is ages old.”

“Come back here! Who the bloody hell are you?” Y/N’s heart beat quickly in her chest, threatening to burst out. Only three minutes in the past and it was all going straight to shit. “Stupefy!”

Shit. “No, James, please don’t-“ Her body hit the ground and her eyes closed, the last thing she saw being the pumpkin patch by the hut.

“I see you’re awake now, Ms. L/N.” Dumbledore stood above Y/N in the hospital ward bed, his grey beard dangling in front of her face. Her first instinct was to start blaming him for everything that had happened, starting from Lily and James’ deaths to Sirius’, already opening her mouth to call him an old, senile cow, but then she realized that Harry hadn’t been sent to the Dursleys yet, much less been born yet, so none of it would have an effect on him. Y/N’s second instinct was to question how Dumbledore knew who she was in 1978, but her former Headmaster started to speak before she could do so. “I must admit, it’s very courageous, that stunt you just pulled. I don’t think Ms. Louie will be too happy about that.” Y/N sent him a questioning stare. “Malia, the girl you met earlier. Malia Louie.”

“Headmaster Dumbledore, how did you know it was me?” She was dressed in a white gown that went to her knees, and behind him she could see her blouse and jeans folded and clean. Ah, the Hospital Wing. She had brought the boys here more times than she could count in her years at Hogwarts. “I don’t exactly look as young as I used to.”

“Ah, don’t worry Ms. L/N, you’ve kept your good looks quite nicely, even in your older age.” He stroked his beard thoughtfully, his wrinkled eyes sparkling with joy. “And speaking of young, if you are still worrying yourself about your younger self, you can put that to a stop. I am aware that you are not able to tell anyone who you are, and time travel is exceptionally dangerous if you are seen by the other version of yourself. I’ve already told the students that you were just a stray witch, misguided in your ways and that you were well taken care of. However, I think that brings us to the question of what your intentions are in the past, Ms. L/N.”

“Headmaster, I don’t think I can tell you about my business here. I’ve already messed up by letting the school see me by letting everyone see me, I don’t know why that girl even sent me here, it’s clear that this was a mistake.” Y/N sat up on the headboard, feeling her eyes fill with tears once again. The tall arches of windows let the sun in the room, and she could see the specks of dust swirling around in the golden light. It had to be close to the end of the year for them, maybe sometime around April or May, near the end of N.E.W.T.s at least. She could imagine that it’d be easy for her to get out of Hogwarts for the day, with all the students studying for the stressful exams in the library, maybe she'd make her way to Hogsmeade and walk around or visit Hagrid under a false name to have some tea. He was always open for a nice cuppa with strangers on any free day he had. “Thank you Headmaster, for your kindness, but I really ought to be going. I-it was nice to see you.”

Y/N started to help herself out of the bed, swinging her feet over to touch the cool stone ground. Bones cracked with pain and fatigue, her muscles stretching sluggishly. Merlin, that she was not expecting that much hurt from the fall, but she should have never underestimated James Potter. No one ever should if they want to keep their good mind and sanity.

Dumbledore handed her her clothes, cracked lips set in a straight line as he nodded solemnly. “I hope you accomplish whatever it is you are here to do, Ms. L/N, but I have no doubt that you will.” With a sly wink, he added, “You were always one of our most ardent and bright students.”

Y/N let herself smile, and with a wave, swiftly brought herself to the door. “Thank you, Headmaster.”

After slipping outside, she ran down the corridors, echoes of her feet ringing lightly behind her. The courtyard proved to be empty and she quickly ducked behind a column and tugged her jeans on hastily, making sure that no professors came walking past. Though the sky proved to be bright and cheerful, a slight breeze carried through, making her fall off balance and fall on the cemented ground.

“Are you okay, darling? You look like you’re in need of a little help.” Y/N looked up to the speaking figure, one that she both loved and dreaded to see.

She gathered herself quickly, her mind running fast and heart beating out of her chest as she tried to get out. “Yes, I am okay, thank you for asking. I think I’ll just get up and going now, I don’t need to take time out of your day like this-”

“I know who you are, Y/N.”

Y/N came to a full stop, going against her brain that screamed at her to run away. Sirius looked downtrodden, his grey eyes watering despite the small hint of a smirk on his face. Though he was always one for playing around and not taking anything seriously, she knew when it was time to stop pretending and get real. “How’d you know it was me, Sirius?”

“You really don’t look bad for your age, darling.” He offered her a hand to help her up and she took it graciously, eyeing him nearly guiltily and forgetting about her promise to Y/N. But that was useless now, this moment with her first love was much more important. “Also you have the tattoo on your chest. I knew it was you the moment you landed on school grounds.”

She traced his gaze to her left collarbone, where a paw print, just barely visible beneath her low-cut blouse, sat. It was his, or Snuffles’, paw print, and at this point in time they had probably gotten it done about three months before. He had one for her too, a horseshoe for her horse patronus, right on his left side of his chest too. So they’d always be right next to each other’s hearts, as cheesy as it seemed.

But they were dumb, lovesick teenagers, and they acted the part well too. Their love was all-consuming, shagging in under the bleachers at the quidditch pitch and making out under the stars. It was fast, everything was fast, decisions, ideas, classes, all of them under the impression that they had to do everything right then or they’d be dead before they got to actually live. They had dreams of marriage, and a big, big family, obviously so far away from his family so they could never hurt their children’s lives the way they had hurt his.

They were fantasies, Y/N had known that well enough when she and Sirius got divorced, but it was something that eighteen year-old Sirius Black held close to his heart. No matter how shitty his life got, he was always a firm believer in a happy ending. In their happy ending.

“How am I right now?” They now stood over the Black Lake, staring into the glittering depths of the water where some mermaids could be seen sneaking peeks at the handsome boy and the strange lady who had fallen from the sky.

Sirius stared at her questioningly for a moment. “How are you doing right now? I mean, I believe that I should be asking you that ques- oh, Merlin, I’m such a git, you meant your younger self.” Y/N laughed at that, her heart lifting with the goofiness of the old Sirius relieving an ache in her heart that she had had for so long. Not that old (it felt weird to say that) Sirius had been anything less than silly and snarky, but it was never directed towards her. It was nice to have the resemblance of their old relationship back, even if it was just for a fleeting moment. “I suppose that you’re okay. You didn’t see, well, your big moment on the field, but at this point Lily has probably opened her big, fat mouth and told you. N.E.W.T.s are just finishing up, so you’re much more light-hearted than during the study season.”

“I really did have a stick up my arse during exam time, you always told me to loosen up-”

“Y/N, cut out the small talk, I think it’s okay for me to ask how and what is happening.” Sirius cut in.

So she told him. Y/N had always been upfront with people about everything. Or rather, she had learned how to be upfront with people after her and Sirius’ divorce. Without details of the deaths, she explained how she was sent back into the past to fix it in some conceivable way. However, she did tell him about the fall out. Maybe she wanted him to understand her pain, even though it was a younger him, but she had to admit to herself that it was because she just wanted Sirius, in whatever form life gave her to hear out her grievances and apologies.

Since her Sirius was dead before she could.

“We’re divorced?” Sirius looked about ready to break down into tears, almost as if the concept of them breaking up or separating was foreign to him. “What exactly did we fight over, Y/N? That doesn’t seem normal for the two of us.” Sirius asked.

“Well, to be fair, it wasn’t a normal predicament for us. either…”

Sirius slammed the door shut, efficiently pinning her against it with his white button up ruffled up, navy tie hanging from his neck loosely. Y/N’s arms were held down tightly against the oak wood, the sensation of the cold door burning into her rather warm skin making her squeal. Her husband’s tongue worked its way through her parted lips, low groans rising from the back of his throat from the way she moaned in tandem with his hips pushing into hers. Legs wrapped around his tapered waist, the pink, floral skirt Y/N wore rising high on her thighs, revealing more of her flesh to the lust-filled man. Both of their giggles echoed off the hallway walls of their small cottage home, just four miles west of their best friends’.

As the twenty year-old man threw his wife unceremoniously on the bed, he shed himself of his shirt and swiftly unbuttoned his slacks, throwing them haphazardly across the room. Merlin, Y/N looked ethereal laying spread out on the bed, panties around her left ankle, swollen lips parted with short puffs of air leaving them. “You just get right down to business, don’t you, Black.”

Crawling over his body, his hot breath hit her neck as he growled against her skin. “Could say the same thing about you, darling.” Sirius’ lips made their way down every inch, every curve, nook, and cranny of Y/N’s body, smoothly slipping her clothes off as he did so. Her sweet gasps filled the bedroom, back arching off the bed to meet his chest. “I’m going to put a baby in you tonight, sweetheart, we’re-”

Y/N sat up straight, her eyebrows trained in confusion at her husband. “What? A baby?”

Sirius’ heart pounded in his chest. “Yes.” He remarked in a clipped tone. “Is that not what you wanted?”

Her mind recalled her words from earlier that day, as she chatted happily with Lily about the news of her pregnancy. “Siri, I said I may one day enjoy having a kid of my own. Not right now, of course, but later. After all, we only got married a few months ago, don’t you think we should hold off a bit on that? We’re twenty years-old, Siri, there’s so many years for that.”

Rage filled Sirius’ blood like a spreading fire. In all honesty, it wasn’t so much about his anger as it was his hurt and fear. Fear that she had realized how fucked up he truly was, fear that she realized what he had known all along- that she deserved better than him. “So you don’t want a baby with me?”

“I never said I didn’t want that, Sirius, I just said that I’m not ready!” Y/N yelled back. At this point both of them stood on opposite sides of the bed, faces hot with tears. “We’re in the middle of a bloody war, people we know, people we love, have lost their lives, and it is not the ideal environment to raise a child, Sirius! Just because James and Lily are ready to have one doesn’t mean that I am too!”

“When will you be ready, Y/N? When will it ever be enough time for you? When will I be enough for you?” The heartbroken girl tried to interject, but her voice was cut off by her husband’s quickly enough. Sirius climbed onto the bed, holding her chin harshly with one hand. “Tell me, did you ever want to be with me in the first place?”

“Yes, Sirius, of course I wanted to be with you.” His heart hurt looking at the love of his life in tears, but even that was able to melt his cold facade. “I love you more than anything in the world.”

“Then fucking prove it, Y/N.” With that declaration, he removed his hand from her face and gathered his clothes, slamming everything in their shared room as Y/N quivered, knees ready to buckle on the spot. “I’m going out, don’t wait up for me.”

As soon as the front door shut, she fell to the ground in tears, the laughter that once filled their home replaced with the sound of her shattered heart.

Y/N had done her best to not tear up during her explanation of the events that had taken that night, but Sirius' eyes watered, refusing to believe the truth. “No. No. I didn’t do that. Y/N, tell me,” he gripped her biceps with trembling hands, “please tell me I didn’t really do that. I can’t believe that I-I, that I-”

“You were drunk, Sirius, I don’t think you truly knew what you were saying at the time.” She sighed, “But people always say that drunken words are just sober thoughts.” Y/N rubbed her arms, just shivering slightly in the Scotland breeze. “You came back two hours later punching the wall and breaking it, and that’s when I knew that we wouldn’t last.”

The raven-haired boy’s head started to shake, even more mortified of the actions that his future self, the man he’d be in just two years' time, had done. “I packed up my things, not that there were many, we’d only moved into the house a month before, left, and I sent the divorce papers a week later. It was probably better that way, you would’ve divorced me if I hadn’t done it first.” Y/N had gotten used to telling her sob story to colleagues at Beauxbatons, to her family, but it felt different with pre-divorce Sirius. Of course, she had never thought she’d be in this citation either, so no one could really blame her for feeling weird. “You signed them easily, and my lawyer made sure that I never had to see you again.” Until Lily and James died.

“Until…” Sirius led on.

“Merlin’s beard, Sirius, you’ve always been able to read my mind. Shouldn’t have doubted it for a second.” He smiled at the sentiment, gesturing for her to continue. “I can’t tell you, Sirius, I hope you can understand that.”

“Why, Y/N, what happens that can be any worse in the future?” Oh dear, Sirius, you really do not want the answer to that question. She needed any way out of this conversation, after all running away was what she did best, and her eyes already searched for several routes to which she could run. Not that Y/N could ever outrun Sirius in his animagus form, but it was nice to have the belief that she could. The boy sensed her distress and grabbed hold of her hand. “You don’t have to tell me, darling, but I have to admit that I am a bit worried, just in the slightest.”

Y/N let herself calm down, squeezing Sirius’ hand and noticing his watch. She had actually given him that watch, gold-plated and dark grey metal, but it wasn’t the beauty of the gift that caught her eye, but rather the actual time on it. One-thirty.

How had that much time gone by so quickly? She was going to be sucked into the black void of time travel again in ten minutes, and that wasn’t nearly enough time to unload nearly twenty years worth of history onto Sirius. No, he would go insane from that much knowledge, which was exactly against what Malia had advised.

“I don’t have enough time to tell you everything that happens in the future, Sirius. But what I am about to tell you is vital, absolutely vital for the good of all of us in the future.” Sirius nodded with a serious sort of smile on his face. “Don’t let Peter be Lily and James’ secret keeper. When the time comes that they move away, I’m not going to tell you where yet, do not under any circumstances let Peter be their secret keeper. I know he’s one of our best friends right now, and do not tell anyone about this, but he’s going to betray us in the worst way possible.”

While Sirius was shocked, he nodded solemnly and ran a hand through his long hair. “I won’t tell anyone, Y/N. Can I fix us, Y/N? I don’t know if you should be letting the key to a happier future rest in my hands.”

“I full heartedly trust that you’ll do some good, whatever the outcome may be. As for fixing us, I hope you can, but depending on what happens we’ll just have to wait and see.” She sighed, “If you want my opinion on it, I think that we both should have waited longer to get married. It was right after James and Lily got married, but we aren’t and never will be them. We both had a lot of growing up to do, so I would take it slowly. Communicate your wants and needs in the relationship and in the end it may not even be us together. But I know you, Siri, don’t let this get in the way of your entire life. The most important part is that you tell James and Lily about Peter.”

She glanced back up the school grounds where students could start to be seen leaving their classes. “You better get back to the castle, Sirius. McGonagall is going to come for your arse and this time the boys aren’t going to be able to cover for you.”

“If they knew where I was, darling, I don’t even think they’d believe me.” Sirius chuckled.

Y/N nodded in agreement and pulled Sirius into a tight hug. “You can do this, sweetheart, and even if you can’t, it will not stop me from loving you any less. Maybe the future wasn’t meant to be changed, but regardless of whether that is true or not, I know that you will try your hardest, Sirius. Just try not to die, okay?”

The boy was still clutching onto her tightly, his tears soaking her rose-colored blouse. “I’ll do my best, darling.”

With one last kiss on the forehead, she smiled at him. “I know you will, Siri.”

Y/N’s arse hit the floor once again, her spine cracking once again. “What’s the year?” She yelled out, reaching for the walls of the black family room.

But it wasn’t there. Upon opening her eyes, she saw James, Lily, and Sirius sitting at a wooden table in her old white cottage. A nice tea set, her grandmother’s as she realized later, sat in the center, along with a large stack of letters. “Y/N, what the bloody hell happened to you, I’ve been worried sick!”

Her red-headed best friend scurried over to her, brushing invisible dirt off her shoulders and pulling her up abruptly. James fixed the glasses on his nose, cleaning them off with his striped jumper. “You look a little disheveled right now, Y/N, what ran you over?”

“You know who she reminds me of right now, Jamie? That crazy witch friend of Dumbledore’s that made her way onto campus back in seventh year.” Lily giggled as she hugged Y/N.

“Merlin’s beard, you’re right!” James walked over to the woman of the hour, ruffling her hair with a smirk on his face. “If you were about twenty years older I’d have no trouble believing you were the same person.”

While Lily and James recalled their memories from the strange woman all those years ago at Hogwarts, Sirius pulled Y/N aside, an arm wrapped around her waist. The warmth radiating from his body was nice, embracing her in a comfort she hadn’t felt in so long.

“I’m going to go ahead and believe that I did something right?” Sirius grabbed her hand, and only then did she notice the coolness of metal sitting on her left ring finger. There sat the single band of gold, a small ruby encased in its plating. She had once joked that diamonds were too overrated, and he went out and got her the most vibrant gem he could find, claiming that it was just like her. But regardless of its shape, size, or type of gem, it was there.

“Yeah, Siri,” Y/N replied with tears in her eyes, “you did good.”

“Oi, Blacks, stop making out and get over here, we got a letter from Minnie!” James yelled, making both wives chuckle. “Harry’s gotten himself in detention for punching Malfoy again.”

“Oh, thank Merlin, the boy deserves a few more good hits.” Sirius laughed.

“McGonagall still talks to us?” Y/N asked in amazement. “You’ve got to get me caught up.”

“Don’t worry, darling, we’ve got all the time in the world.” Sirius gently placed his lips onto hers, and for once in nearly twenty years, Y/N felt at peace. There were no more hasty warnings of the future, no psychotic old men coming after her family, no young girls rushing in to tell her how to fix her screwed up life. Cracked, pink lips moving against her own, his tongue delving into her mouth, and Y/N knew she was finally off the clock.

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ieattaperecorders · 3 years

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Something's Different About You Lately - Chapter 12: The Truth

All cards are laid on the table. Everything ends tonight.

Read on Ao3

"How far do these go? Are we even under the Institute anymore?"

Melanie trailed behind the group, peering down each turn they passed. Jon wasn't sure if it was curiosity or concern they wouldn't find their way back that kept her dragging her feet, but supposed either way he couldn't blame her. It was profoundly disorienting down here.

"Dunno, honestly," Martin said. "Jon uncovered them a while ago when Jane Prentiss was hiding here, but they've been locked off since then. Safety or liability or something."

"I've come down to look a bit. Mostly just near the entrance, never too deep," Sasha added. "We really ought to make a proper attempt to map them, but Tim is so set against it."

"Because there's dangerous stuff under these old buildings," Tim said darkly. "Not to mention this place has been buried for who knows how many decades without any maintenance. We don't know anything about the structural integrity. Who's to say it won't come down around our heads at any moment?"

" . . . Cheerful thought." Melanie observed.

"Could we save the talk of being buried alive for when we're not actually down here?" Martin asked. "Jon? Are we almost . . . wherever it is we're going?"

"We are going somewhere, I assume?" Melanie called. "Not just wandering in circles because you got lost?"

"We're nearly there," Jon pointed to a turn ahead. "Just down that corridor, it should be far enough in."

"Far enough in for – oh."

Melanie's question was cut off as they rounded the turn, ending in the small chamber where over the past few months, Jon had been slowly been smuggling in crates. At the far end was a shoebox-sized container, which he sifted through until he found what he needed – a small, unlabeled cassette tape.

"All right . . . I know you all have questions for me," he took a breath and turned. "Hopefully this will– Christ Tim, don't lean on that! It has plastic explosives in it!"

With a start, Tim jumped back from the crate he'd been slouching against, blinking at him with surprise. Sighing, Jon gestured to one on the other side of the chamber.

"You can lean on that one if you like, I suppose," he said. "It's just a bunch of eyeless doll's heads."

" . . . Should I even ask?"

"Gertrude used them," he said. "Eyeless dolls, eyeless photographs. Wards to keep Elias's gaze off her. The tunnels help too . . . it's disorienting down here, hard for him to see."

"Elias is our boss. Head of the institute." Sasha supplied for Melanie.

"Jon's been going on lately about him spying on us with some kind of supernatural powers," Tim added. "Honestly I believe it. He's been sending files to me that feel . . . personal."

"You're saying he's, what, psychic?" Melanie asked.

"If you have to call it that, I suppose," Jon said. "What's important is that he has ways of finding things out. Meaning once I explain things, we're all going to be in very immediate danger. If any of you aren't ready for that, you should probably speak up now."

The four of them looked back at him, silent. For the best, he supposed. He pulled a tape recorder from his pocket – it had been purchased this evening for this purpose, and hopefully wasn't supernatural – and placed the tape inside.

"I'll let Gertrude start. She tells it fairly succinctly," with a rueful smile, he held it out towards Sasha. "Would you like to do the honors? It was meant for you."

Sasha glanced at him, stepped forward and pressed play. The dead woman's voice filled the chamber.

* * *

Jon stopped the tape after the explanation, before Jurgen's voice could be heard. It would be hard enough getting everything across without that conversation derailing things.

"Wh – all right." Melanie held up both hands. "So the woman on that tape, she worked here before you. I got that. All that she was saying about – gods and rituals, being supernaturally compelled –"

"That part's true. I've tried," Tim said. "We can't quit. As in can't."

"Fine, all right. But what does it all mean? If this is some sort of cult thing –"

"It's not," Jon said. "You've seen manifestations of the powers with your own eyes. The thing that called itself Sarah Baldwin was an extension of what Smirke called the Stranger. One that hides itself inside human skin."

"What about the thing that attacked her?"

"You already know it better than you think . . . all your subsequent searches have focused on sites of violence – bombings or massacres, military hospitals. You've been following the scent of blood. Maybe you found something in that presence that resonated."

Absently, Melanie's hand went to her shoulder where the scalpel in the Rotherham scrapyard went through it. She looked profoundly sobered.

"So . . ." Sasha said. "Gertrude left this for you, and I'm guessing you found it around the time you started acting so cagey about everything?"

"No. By the time I heard this tape, I‘d already learned all of this the hard way," Jon sighed. "Fourteen months ago, I woke up with memories of years I hadn't lived through . . . ."

He told them everything. The broad strokes at least, the larger things that seemed relevant. He avoided personal details, but tried not to take out the parts that made him look bad. He wanted to be as honest as he could. He explained the ritual – leaving out the truth about the fears being connected, the fewer minds that held that knowledge the better. He explained his role in it, the end of the world, the plan to send his memories back.

Several times the others stopped him to ask questions – pressing in one direction or another, telling him to go back and elaborate. He ended up explaining a great deal about the thing that had replaced Sasha, about Melanie's experience with the Slaughter, about the Circus of the Other.

Surprisingly – or maybe not, really – Martin asked very little about himself. Sasha recognized Peter Lukas's name from the statements, and her subsequent questions led Jon into a more detailed explanation of the Lonely. His gaze kept flicking involuntarily to Martin, as he went through it, and he saw his face slowly change. When he mentioned a moment later that Peter had taken an interest in him, Martin didn't need to ask why.

He told them that Martin had tried to keep Peter occupied. That in the end Peter pulled him into the Lonely, and Jon managed to get him out. That was all they really needed to know.

And then, that was it. That was everything.

". . . I know it's a lot to take in," he finished. "But hopefully you've all seen enough to believe me by now."

"Why didn't you tell us this to begin with?" Melanie asked, an edge in her voice.

"Would you have believed me?" An edge came into his voice to join hers. "You dismissed me when I tried to warn you about dangerous specters, would you have listened to anything I said about memories from a post-apocalyptic future?"

"You could have tried," she muttered.

He nearly matched her tone, tempted to to push back with irritation, but he hesitated. Something in her was struggling against itself. Her fists had been clenched at her sides since he explained the bullet, the Slaughter and all that had happened to her. Her knuckled were white, but she hadn't raised her voice. She was trying. He softened.

"I could have. Maybe I should have . . . but now you know," he looked at the others, pleadingly. "You do believe me, don't you?"

Tim was the first to nod, Melanie was second. Sasha looked at him thoughtfully.

"It's certainly bizarre, but I believe you," she said. "Though I don't understand why you wouldn't send your memories back earlier?"

"Actually yeah," Martin frowned, realization striking him. "Did you just let me get trapped by Prentiss?"

"Of course not! I didn't choose where the memories went," Jon protested. "If I could have done that I'd have gone back before I took this job. Probably years back . . . there are so many things I might have prevented. Tried to, at least."

He sighed heavily, leaning back against one of the less-dangerous crates.

"The past isn't some pristine country with every moment in a living diorama. Time is just one more thing for the powers to twist and distort, and the Beholding shows you what you least want to see. Those memories wouldn't mean as much to the person I was five or ten years ago, and the man I would later become might have even been relieved to have actionable knowledge." He folded his arms. "Even thinking of it as time travel is misleading, really. More accurate to call it regret."

"So . . ." Martin paused. "After Prentiss. . . ."

"Yes. Letting that happen to you is one of many regrets that I have, and it was also a turning point." He closed his eyes. "The night after you came back, I had a breakdown. I was sitting at home, and it was sinking in . . . what had happened, and what it meant. The things I knew where hiding in the darkness weren't going to stay there, and there would be no sitting on the sidelines."

He looked up, smiling sadly. "A mind perfectly readied for the knowledge that would destroy it. Already trapped in the Institute, already attached to people I'd later watch suffer and die. Still hiding in denial, even after it became horribly clear it wouldn't save me."

"Jon . . ."

Martin looked conflicted, and as he drew his arms around himself Jon had to push down the urge to reach for him. He had to be calm. Steady. If he let himself start to break down, that would be it.

"Okay – okay, yes," Martin breathed, "I believe you. But what do we do about it all?"

"We have to destroy the archive," Jon said solemnly. "Finish what Gertrude started. And we can't wait. It's not impossible he already knows what we're discussing, we'll have to act before he can intervene."

He watched Martin take a deep, shaky breath, likely still processing it all. Tim seemed to notice his nerves, coming up beside him and throwing an arm over his shoulder.

"I'm game," Tim said, smiling grimly. "You guys ready for some light arson this evening?"

Martin flinched at first, startled by the touch. Then he let out a weak laugh, shaking his head as Tim jostled him in a comradely fashion. A wave of gratitude swept over Jon, seeing Tim so ready to comfort him. He was still there, Sasha too . . . he hoped they'd be there for Martin when it was all over.

"Putting a pin in committing to any felonies here," Melanie said, "won't your evil boss come after us?"

"That won't be an issue. Jonah Magnus's original body is down here . . . between the explosives and the gas main, collapsing the tunnels will be easy –"

"Sorry, gas main?"

"Oh!" a laugh spilled out of Jon, and he shook his head. "Lord, I nearly forgot. Jurgen Leitner is living down here."

"Excuse me?!" Martin sputtered. "Evil librarian Lietner?"

"He's . . . not as evil as I thought." Jon sighed. "Leitner was a fool who meddled with forces beyond him, hoping to protect the world from them while playing into their hands. But given the path my own life's taken . . . I don't think I've much room to stand in judgment of him now."

He waved a hand and continued. "He has a book that can alter these tunnels. I've already contacted him, he should be moving the buried gas main into place now. When it all goes up in flames, Jonah's body will be immolated and he – Elias – will die." Jon's tone became serious. "Now, I realize some of you may object to what is essentially an act of murder, but--"

"I'm good with it," Tim interrupted.

"Yeah," Martin nodded. "I think we're okay. Guys?"

"I've got no objections," Sasha agreed.

Melanie sighed. "In for a penny, I guess."

". . . Oh." Jon had prepared a speech on why this would be necessary, and was a little disappointed it wasn't needed, apparently. "All right, then."

"Or, one objection, actually." Sasha continued. "Didn't you say that killing him means killing us? Along with all the other employees at the Institute?"

"I have a plan for that." Jon said. "For the people outside the archive it should be simple, assuming you can get into the computer in Elias's office."

"Can, and have before." Sasha confirmed. "It's upsettingly easy. I mean, our bank information is on there."

"If they can quit, they can be fired. You'll just need to change everyone's employment status before we set the charge off."

"What about the rest of us?" Tim kept his tone light, but even Jon could tell there was something darkly serious behind it. "You planning for us all to go down with the ship?"

"No . . . that won't be necessary."

He didn't want to have this conversation, he really didn't. More than once he'd thought about lying, pretending he was going off to perform some elaborate ritual while the others were upstairs. Letting them believe he'd just been caught in the explosion – an accident, unfortunate but natural in its way.

But no. He'd tell them the truth.

"I probably should have told you this sooner, though it hardly matters now. The three of you are connected to me – when the Archivist dies, their assistants are freed," he continued quickly, not leaving room to respond. "I – I'm not needed for most of this plan. When we're finished here the rest of you can go upstairs, I'll stay behind and – well at any rate you should place letters of resignation on Elias's desk to be sure. ‘I quit' and a signature should be enough, just confirm you're no longer bound here before setting off the charge."

"In one night, we'll rid the world of Jonah Magnus, his knowledge, and –" Jon placed a hand on his own chest, gesturing, "–and his tool. The world will be as safe as it can be, for a while at least."

Minutes of silence. The cool air of the tunnels bit through him as he watched the others' faces, trying to glean something from their expressions. Jon couldn't fathom what was going through their heads, he wasn't even sure what he was hoping for.

"Well we're obviously not doing that," Tim said eventually. "So let's brainstorm plan B's. Sash?"

"Oh! Um, well, off the top of my head, I can try changing our information in the computer as well . . . ."

"I very much doubt that will work . . . ." Jon sighed.

"Shall we at least try it before going for the plan that involves death?"

A quiet, frustrated noise came out of Jon. He didn't want to fight them on this. But what did he want from them? What did he expect? It was unfair, he knew, impossibly contradictory – not wanting to hurt them, but wanting to be mourned. Wanting them to care, but not to ask him to live. It could only be one or the other.

"Wait." Melanie said. "You said that I ‘got out' in that, whatever, alternate timeline you remember. Obviously you didn't die then. So there's another way, isn't there?"

"I suppose I could try gouging my eyes out," he said. "That might be enough. If it wasn't, all of you could gouge out yours, that would definitely work--"

"Um--" Sasha began, but Jon continued

"But it's about more than just getting you out. It isn't just this place, it isn't even just the Eye. It's me. There's another power that may still have plans for me, and if it does . . . ." He looked at the others pleadingly. "The Web is insidious, it feeds on the fear of being controlled, of being trapped without knowing it. By the time I even know what it's planning, my will might not be my own any longer."

"But if you don't even know what it's planning –"

"If there's one thing I've learned in all of this, it's that no matter what I do they're always one step ahead. I've told you all what I know, as this point I can only be a liability." He laughed hollowly. "I think, truly, the most good I can do for the world right now is ensuring I can't do it any more harm."

". . . That's a horrible thing to say."

Martin shouldered his way past Tim, stepping closer. His voice was hurt, and angry, and it cut through Jon just as he'd known it would.

"Martin . . . ."

"It's hideous," Martin continued, his jaw tight. "And it's not true. It's a lot of nonsense, Jon."

Jon stepped forward, heart pounding, and reached for Martin's hand. Martin only hesitated a moment before taking it, and it was all Jon could do not to sob in relief. He was hurting him, he was hurting him and he wasn't going to stop, and still Martin accepted his hand. Despite whatever pain or anger he felt right now, he wasn't pushing him away, and the maelstrom of warmth and gratitude and sorrow and regret that rose in Jon threatened to overtake him entirely. He pulled himself closer until there were inches between them, and looked into Martin's eyes.

"I love you," he said, clasping his other hand over Martin's. "More than you will ever know. I wish that we could have a life together . . . but we won't have that either way. If we try, the powers that shape this world will tear it away from us, just as they did before."

Martin breathed in sharply and Jon lowered his gaze, looking at their intertwined fingers. Now dotted with identical scars.

"I – I can't watch that happen again. I'm sorry. I can't." Still looking down, he did his best to give an encouraging smile. "But you won't be alone. You'll all have each other this time, when it's all over. Just . . . take care of each other. And remember that you're loved."

Jon kept his eyes down, afraid to look at him. Already he feared that he'd made a mistake, that he shouldn't have told Martin how he felt. It was cruel to give him that now, to leave him with another reason to feel hurt by his absence. But it was done and out now, and too late to take back. Jon would just have to hope that he'd be all right in the end.

Then he did look up, and met Martin's gaze.

Oh. Yes, it had definitely been a mistake to say he loved him.

What he saw in Martin's face wasn't the expression of sorrow and devastation he'd been afraid of. It was hard, fixed determination. The face of stubborn, blind certainty that had smirked back at Jon when he'd said that they couldn't fight the whole world. A beacon that could rival the dread powers in its brilliance.

"You can remind me yourself, Jon," his voice had no unnatural compulsion behind it, still it demanded to be heard. His grip on Jon's hand was iron-clad. "Because we're finding another way."

Jon's heart tightened painfully in his chest, and he truly could not say whether it was with fear or hope.

#tma fanfic #tma #sdayl #cw: suicidal ideation #tma time travel au

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anthropwashere · 4 years

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Phic Phight: it’s all downhill from here (honey don’t be scared)

Prompt from @aggressivelyclueless: Halfa Valerie AU: Valerie becomes half-ghost. Apart from that being a total nightmare, this also leads her to discover Danny's secret as well. How is she going to handle it?

@currentlylurking @phicphight

Word count: 7,825

Mr. Heppenheimer, the latest in a long line of chemistry teachers that have come through Casper High since actual, real life ghosts have begun treating Amity Park like their own personal Las Vegas retreat away from the rigors of whatever normal life is like for ghosts in the Ghost Zone, gives Danny a lingering stink eye. Clearly the last teacher, Mrs. Jamshidi (who barely lasted a month, and submitted her two-week notice while recovering in the hospital after an admittedly memorable encounter with Ember), had left notes behind for her successor. Danny doubted a single word of it was in his favor.

"This practical's worth a quarter of your grade this semester," Mr. Heppenheimer says in his usual droll way. "You're not going to make me regret handing you glassware, are you, Mister Fenton?"

Danny, still a bit sore and off-kilter after another Jack Fenton-approved growth spurt, grins down at him. "No, sir."

Mr. Heppenheimer hums doubtfully. Clearly Mrs. Jamshidi had left extensive notes. "Don't make me regret this."

"Short of a ghost attack, I doubt you will," Danny answers truthfully. He really has gotten a much better control on his powers since the last time any science teacher let him near anything fragile, well over a year ago now. Mrs. Gorman hated him from the start for reasons he never figured out, anyway. He's looking forward to a fresh start.

Of course, worryingly enough Danny’s been sensing a pretty powerful ghost lurking around Casper High for over a week now. Along with the usual big green beasties that like to come sniffing around crowds of humans, which he’s had to dip out to handle three times now. No one’s noticed his on-going ghost sense, though it helps that he’s long-since gotten into the habit of keeping one hand cupped lazily over his mouth—just in case. That’ll be harder to pass off here in a practical lab, but there ought to be a lot of things bubbling and steaming soon. He just has to be careful until he’s got some cover.

Mr. Heppenheimer hums again, more dismissive than doubtful, and lets him approach the counter. His partner in this practical is Star, which is—randomized, definitely. Whatever, also definitely. He and Star have as much in common as him and an actual star, which is to say—nothing. He doesn't even generate heat anymore, not really. He's got a modified Maddie Fenton-approved belt buckle that lets him fake it, but it's not remotely the same thing, and not a

ll that convincing at close quarters anyway. Star, at least, knows him well enough that she's been bringing a mint green cardigan to class ever since they were assigned project partners.

Danny, well-aware he’s only good in the eyes of his peers for a laugh and anti-ghost tech, smiles thinly at Star and gestures at her to take the lead. She sniffs pointedly and does just so, which is fine with him. She's well on her way to valedictorian, whereas he's just trying to graduate. If deferring to whatever she wants gets him a passing grade, sure! He'll do whatever she says and accept whatever belittling comment she tacks on along with it. No skin off his back, right?

About twenty minutes into class there's a magnificent crash of glass that puts Danny 110% on edge; it's only Sam appearing at his left with a reassuring hand on his arm that keeps him from blasting a hole through the wall out of pure reflex. Which, maybe, possibly, likely says something about his state of mind after three straight years of fighting the kind of monsters that don't have any place outside of his very worst nightmares, but—whatever. Point is, thanks to Sam, he doesn't trash the lab or draw any unwanted attention to himself, both of which are good things! Another point in his favor: it’s finally somebody else’s turn to destroy a whole tray of beakers.

"Miss—Gray!" Mr. Heppenheimer shouts after a brief glance at the clipboard Danny hasn't seen him put down in the two weeks since he took the job. "What's the meaning of this?!"

"S-sorry!" Valerie stammers, her eyes firmly on the mess at her feet. Her project partner, Wes, is scowling at Danny. Likely because he believes the mess is entirely his fault. Wes can believe whatever he likes; just because he's the only one not fully in on The Big Secret who figured out The Big Secret out doesn't make him automatically right 100% of the time. Case in point: now. Danny's only touched his notebook, where he's got three pages of dutifully written notes on what Star's tasked him to write as she did all the metaphorical heavy lifting. He could swear on a stack of Bibles that this latest chemistry accident doesn't have a thing to do with him. It’s kind of refreshing, honestly.

Mr. Heppenheimer hums again. It seems to be his default over all the loud swearing he'd obviously prefer to be doing. "Clean it up. And do be careful, Miss Gray. I'd prefer to avoid sending anyone to the nurse's office today if I can help it."

"I—yeah. Yes, sorry." Valerie dashes off to the closet where all the safety-slash-cleaning gear is stashed to fetch cat litter, broom, and dustpan. Star scoffs on Danny's right, while Sam, hand still firmly squeezing Danny's bicep, has a worryingly thoughtful scowl on.

"Valerie has been such a mess since her dad lost his job," Star remarks in the usual scathingly cruel A-lister tone.

"He got his job back." Danny points out as he tries to shrug Sam off without making a big deal of it.

"So?" Star's tone has shifted from scathing to incredulous, which means she somehow didn't know something Danny's known since the tail end of their freshman year. It's admittedly bizarre to find himself able to lord some classmate gossip over an A-lister, but—with a glance at Sam to confirm it is, in fact, cool to lord this gossip over an A-lister—he gives Star a slow, sly grin as he gestures her closer. She leans in without an ounce of self-restraint or disgust, which means Danny's moved higher up the food chain since the last time he bothered to pay any attention.

"Valerie's dad used to be some bigwig in Axion Labs," he says, one eye on Sam and the other on Tucker, both of whom in turn are watching the teacher and the rest of the class. Just in case. "After Vlad—uh. Vladco, I mean—took over the company, Mister Gray got his position back despite Phantom screwing him over, and it's been smooth sailing for him ever since."

The sound of Valerie sweeping up broken glass gets discordantly loud, somehow. Danny doesn't have to look at her to know she's glaring daggers at him. He sets his shoulders and sticks the angle of his nose twenty degrees snootier, mostly to spite whatever murderous and/or weepy glower Valerie might be trying to laser into his soul. Which, whatever. He knows the shape of his own soul by now. He knows it's Phantom, plus or minus some degree of fiery white hair and green-tinged skin.

A bit of the old guilt niggles in the back of his head though. Accident or not, it was Phantom who cost Mr. Gray his job in the first place and Vlad who gave it back. And Vlad only did it at all once he realized his favorite little ghost fighting minion would be a better thorn in Phantom’s side if she didn’t have to work a part-time job at the Nasty Burger. Which—well. Danny’s glad she doesn’t have to deal with that anymore, for all that it does make her a better thorn in his side.

But—guilt. Dumb guilt, but on his plate all the same. He manages to edge the conversation to some other Gossip with a capital G that even Star's not aware of. Oh the things a guy can hear when he can literally turn invisible. It's kind of fun, honestly, to fill her in. The rest of the hour is spent hissing old-as-shit hearsay that still manages to make Star's eyes light up like she's watching Paulina’s favorite cabin burn down again. They do, somehow, manage to get their project pushed along to step three, which will pick up with the rest of all the normal and unobtrusive partnered projects tomorrow. He's not sure which of them is to thank for that, but he is more than a little pleased with how neatly he wrote their notes. It's the most like a regular student he's felt in months. It's honestly pretty great!

"We have a problem," Tucker hisses no less than five seconds and no more than ten after the bell rings. It's that perfect middle ground time of everyone shoving all their shit into their bags so they can bolt out the classroom door as fast as normal-humanly possible, so it's also that perfect middle ground time of nobody paying the three of them the least bit of attention.

"You noticed too?" Sam asks with her usual omniscient scowl. Danny truly and whole-heartedly wishes she'd stop with that, but he's yet to find an opportunity where he can say that to her face without coming across as a total shitheel, including now, so he grits his teeth and raises a pointedly baffled eyebrow at the both of them.

"Noticed what?" He asks with a patience he hasn't actually felt since junior high.

"Valerie's—" Tucker does a casual look around to see if anyone's close enough to eavesdrop, intentionally or no, which means this is a Phantom Thing. And if this is something Phantom and Valerie related? Yeah, no, he's in too good a mood for whatever latest gadget or trick Vlad might be cooking up via Valerie.

He holds up a hand with a sigh he automatically pretends is a yawn to cover up the blue wisp that escapes with it. "Can this wait? Better yet, can we just—not? At least for today? I'm really not up for counter-scheming."

"No need for that," Tucker assures way too quickly. The nervous laugh he follows it up with really doesn't help.

"Right," Danny says wryly, but motions to let them talk. Sam and Tucker share one of those weird non-verbal psychic looks where they have a whole conversation in the span of two seconds that goes right over Danny's head. He wishes they’d stop doing that, but if he called them out on it they’d deny it loudly, and it’d be a whole thing, and—ugh.

"Valerie's acting weird," Tucker says once they've finished. "As in, 'we definitely need to intervene' weird."

"Possessed?"

"No. But this might be worse."

"But this isn't the first time she made a mess in class,” Sam says.

Danny slips his one (1) notebook and one (1) pencil into his bag. He's learned the hard way to pack light and get real good at shorthand, as well as keep all his textbooks down in the Fenton dungeon where they're least likely to get torched in a ghost fight. Again. "Isn't it?"

"Nope," Tucker says as they make their way to the door. Danny's sure to give Mr. Heppenheimer some ever-so-slightly iridescent stink eye of his own to make him flinch, and then doubt himself for flinching. One good turn, and all that. "Seventh actually. Third a teacher noticed, but she's been weirding out a lot of the other students."

Danny grunts, more interested in shouldering other people out of the way to make it easier for Sam and Tucker to squeeze out into the hall. Hey, may as well get some mileage out of being one of the tallest guys in school, right?

Sam touches his elbow to make sure she's got his attention while they make their way to their next classes. She's got sign language, Tucker's got photography, and Danny's got a free hour to nap in the auditorium ceiling. "She's constantly dropping things, she's always shivering, every lie I've heard her tell a faculty member has been total nonsense, she hasn't gone after a single ghost in almost two weeks—"

"Well, that would explain why there's been an uptick in my fifth period snake-wrangling," Danny remarks dryly, then grins nastily at some girl giving him a serious case of side-eye. She squeaks—actually squeaks!—and ducks behind some broad-shouldered guy in an eye-wateringly neon football jersey.

Tucker wacks his other elbow, scowling up at him. "Dude, this is serious."

"I haven't heard a reason to care yet."

He doesn't have to look to see they're doing another round of psychic Concerned About Our Bestie back-and-forth. Sam's the one who trips him—damn her preference for steel-toed boots—but it's Tucker who shoves him into a nook between two battered banks of lockers. "Danny," they both snap.

He blinks down at them expectantly, staying quiet. Hey, they're the one's worried about the badass ghost fighting black belt who would love nothing more than an opportunity to strap Phantom down to an operating table and go wild with a cattle prod. He's just trying to graduate. Preferably with all his teeth.

"Valerie is acting just like you did freshman year," Sam hisses. "Right after the you-know-what."

Danny barks laughter. "Yeah, right."

Sam and Tucker remain stone-cold serious. Worse, they look worried.

They wouldn't suggest something so crazy without a lot of thought put into it.

Fuck.

It's another two days before Danny gets a good—"good"—opportunity to talk to Valerie one-on-one. During that time he sees first-hand no less than 37 incidents of irrefutable acts of half-ghost-hood. How nobody else—including that ass, Wes!—has caught on yet is nothing short of a miracle. Valerie cut ties with every other person in their graduating class after some disastrous party embarrassment Danny never cared enough to find out the details of secondhand. She's kept her head down and her teeth bared at anybody who’s tried to meet her halfway, and it seems everyone's accepted the fact that Valerie Gray is the second worst delinquent in the entire school.

(The first is him, naturally.)

He corners her three minutes before the bell to end lunch will ring. He's got calculus next—an unexpected good turn in his life that still makes him giggle every time he actually has time to do his homework—and she's got English. They can't afford to skip either class, but hey, you only half-die once, right?

She scowls up at him, twitching her head out of a habit she's not yet broken. She only shaved her head a month ago. He's still reeling over how good she looks, and also how much it makes her look like the awesome older Valerie from the horrible future where he and Vlad ghost-melded and murdered a dismayingly large number of humans. If that future is still somehow lingering out there in the tangled fabric of spacetime like a bad hangnail, he’s pretty sure that Valerie died, fullstop.

He’d like it if he could do something to help this Valerie not die, fullstop.

She scowls up at him harder. "What do you want?"

He allows himself another couple seconds to just—bask. Yes, she's hot as hell, and if they were both normal humans she could easily break him over her knee like a fistful of kindling. He's not yet gotten an inch of the Fenton width. He's basically all elbows, and it's now all but impossible to find shoes in his size. It's great, really, just super.

Mostly though, he holds his breath and lets his ghost sense settle in a chilly, wriggly knot in his lungs. How the hell did he not realize she was the cause before now?

He smiles down at her. It becomes immediately apparent that this is the worst possible thing he could have chosen to do. He stops smiling. Somehow that's worse.

"We need to talk," he says, and immediately wants to hit himself. Has daytime television not taught him anything? That's the worst thing he could have said!

"I don't think so," she says, and tries to edge past him. He catches her elbow—

—and she's got him smashed up against a classroom door before he can even blink.

"Uh," they say at the same time. He feels one of her hands go ice cube cold against his skin. Since it's him and not a normal person, it's far more likely her hand just dropped to some negative three-digit temperature. If he were human, he'd be at risk for frostbite. As he's not, it's more like a refreshing breeze. He swears he even gets a whiff of the Ghost Zone off of her; like a hard shock of static on his tongue in a midnight snowfall. It's... nice. Is that what he smell-feels like?

Hmm. Distracting himself. Best to stop doing that.

She realizes after too long a beat of awkward silence that one of her arms has gone full-ghostly, and springs back with a half-hysterical yelp. He turns around to look at her again, rolling his shoulder out of a long habit of pretending that Dash trying to rough him up actually feels like anything. She looks—

Well. Kind of like some kind of frazzled toy dog that's had to deal with way too many idiot humans manhandling her, and like she's pissed that all the finger-biting she's tried has only gotten her a bunch of braindead cooing. Danny finds himself sympathizing, and also like maybe he needs to vent to somebody else aside from Cujo on their 3 a.m. Thursday walkies. He considers several facial expressions he could make at her, dismisses all of them, and settles on upping the grimacing and shoulder-rolling. It sort of works? She looks guilty, which is honestly one of the better reactions she could be leveling at him right now.

"We really do need to talk, actually," he says, feigning an apologetic tone while pretending very hard he hasn’t noticed her left arm suddenly stops at the elbow.

"Pretty sure we don't," she retorts.

He makes a show of rolling his eyes, and then a show of looking pointedly at her invisible arm. She looks down at herself, does a double-take, yelps again, and hides both of her arms behind her back as she makes several stammering attempts at a believable excuse. Danny winces, torn between sympathy and secondhand embarrassment. Sam was right; this is exactly how he stumbled his way through the first six months of figuring out his powers. At least he had the benefit of a couple of friends and eventually Jazz too to help cover his tracks. Valerie's on her own. She's going to get found out at this rate, and accidentally or not she will drag him and Vlad down with her.

"It's okay," he says calmly.

"Everything's fine I don't know what you're talking about!"

He looks at her, unimpressed, until she looks appropriately embarrassed. "Let's try this again," he says, and puts both hands up to stall when she goes to retort. "Please?"

She purses her lips, huffing through her nose, but nods. Good enough.

"You're not okay," he tells her. "You're freaking out because something crazy happened to you, and you don't have anybody to turn to for answers without risking everything. You think you're a monster, or that you're dead, or you're dying, or some shitty combination of all of the above. You're scared because you can't control what's happening, and you're scared because you know you're gonna get caught at this rate, and you're scared because you know exactly what the GIW does to the ecto-entities it manages to get its hands on, because you're the reason half the ghosts that frequent Amity Park have done time in a GIW containment cell. Right?"

Valerie stares.

She keeps staring.

Eventually her mouth starts making some feeble attempt at protest.

A while after that she musters up the stamina to stammer out, "W-whahaaat are you talking about? I think you've got—ha! The wrong idea! Yeah! I bet you're thinking I'm, uh. Um. Possessed! Yes! I'm definitely possessed! You caught me, oh fuck, I'm definitely just another one of Walker's goons—nobody important though! No nefarious schemes going on either, honest! I just, uh, wanted to take a human… out for a spin? Yes, that’s what I’m doing. You definitely don't need to say anything to your parents—"

"Valerie," he says.

Her mouth snaps shut so hard her teeth click. She looks terrified, furious, and miserable all at once. She looks like she knows she's cornered, caught red-handed, and like she fully expects Danny to rat her out. Does she really think so little of him?

He winces inwardly. Of course she does. She's kept him at arm's length since freshman year because he never owned up the truth to her. She's been protecting him from himself all this time by staying away. She only knows the front he puts on for everybody else.

The bell rings. In a matter of seconds this hallway is going to be packed with students, and this is not a conversation to risk anyone overhearing. He looks around. Their options are to either continue this wedged in a janitor's closet (she'd probably shoot him), ghost her up to the roof (she'd definitely shoot him) or duck into a classroom. Luck's on his side for once. He'd cornered her just outside the wreckage of the wood shop; it's not going to be fit to teach in until after they graduate, and even the other, regular delinquents know better than to hang out anywhere with that much Fenton ectobiological hazard caution tape.

He nods toward the door. "Please?"

She looks like she'd much rather go toe-to-tail with Desiree, but the sound of a crowd surging their way decides for her. She bolts for the door, Danny at her heels, and they're in and hidden out of sight before anyone could see them go. He watches through a small hole in a stretch of opaque plastic sheeting, patiently waiting for the rest of the school to disperse into their various classrooms. There're too many holes in the wood shop's walls to risk talking even with all the noise out there.

Eventually the hall outside quiets. The late bell rings. It's about as safe as it'll ever get to have this talk.

"I can explain," she begins, her voice quiet and shaken.

"You don't have to," he says, and turns on the scary eyes as he faces her.

Three years of fighting nightmare monsters hasn't done Valerie the right kind of favors either. A metal cube materializes over her shoulder and flares brightly as it powers up a shot. She in turn steps smoothly into a defensive stance, light humming up and down her as she... doesn't pull her ghost-fighting suit out of the spectral hammerspace it sloughs off to whenever she doesn't need it. He blinks. He looks at the cube properly once it becomes clear she isn't going to shoot him. The light coming off it isn't pink anymore, but the same ghost-green as his own powers.

"Explain," she growls.

Probably not a good time for jokes. He keeps his serious face on, scary eyes and all. "I was in an accident freshman year. My parents couldn't get their ghost portal to work. They got lax about not letting Jazz and I down there unsupervised. I took Sam and Tucker down there one afternoon while they were out. One thing led to another, and I accidentally got their portal to work. While I was standing inside it."

She winces. Not like Jazz or Wes did when he stammered out the story to them just so they'd stop asking. Not in sympathy as they tried to imagine what that would have felt like and falling a thousand miles short (not that he ever said so). She gives him the same look he's seen in the mirror every time a bad dream of that day grabs him by the throat and shocks him awake. She knows.

"Don't shoot," he jokes weakly, and reaches for that cold spark that shares the same illogical, impossible space as his heart.

Another three cubes appear in a neat arc over her head when he changes, not that he blames her. She's just found out she dated her sworn enemy once upon a time. He's definitely surprised she doesn't shoot. She does go a bit deer in the headlights again, but more like a ghost deer that's just as likely to shoot lasers as it might bolt into traffic. "I," she tries. "You. You're. The whole goddamn time?!"

"Okay," he says. "Point of order. Cujo really wasn't my dog yet when I got your dad fired. That was an accident and I'm still very, very sorry about that."

Her eyes go ghost-red. "You wanna try that again?"

He sucks air in through his teeth, sighs out another blue wisp. She's doing it too. Has been the whole conversation actually, and plenty of other times before. He wonders if she's figured out what it means yet. He adds it to the list he's mentally compiling, keeps his hands up, and starts running his mouth as contritely as he can.

The sun's almost set by the time Danny's really, truly, fully convinced Valerie not to turn him into the half-ghost equivalent of Swiss cheese. He's so hungry he feels like he's nursing a gut wound, but he thinks it's the smart choice to not suggest talking all of this out over dinner. It's not like his allowance (and black hole of an appetite) would pay for more than clearing out the dollar menu at Jack-in-the-Box, and no way is he stupid enough to suggest Valerie pay. So he remains perched on one of the few remaining tables left in the wood shop, still in Phantom mode mostly to watch Valerie grind her teeth. She's sitting cross-legged on another table, cubes and scary eyes gone. She's reached the fun sort of balance between bone-tired exhaustion and impotent frustration with no good outlet that isn't the kind of violence that will draw a lot of unwanted attention. She sits there and stews awhile, turning over everything he's told her.

He pulls out his phone—tossing her a wry grin when she flinches—and lets her stew. He shoots out a "safe, taking longer than a thought it would" into the group chat he's got with Sam, Tucker, and Jazz. Tucker lets him know he's rooting for him, and also they handled the Box Ghost's usual afternoon showing with a game of checkers, and Wulf's in town avoiding Walker again. Sam reminds him to work on his book report if Valerie doesn't skin him alive first. He shoots back a neutral affirmative to them both, then pulls up Bubble Blaster to kill time until Valerie feels like talking—

"It was two weeks ago," she starts.

Danny resists the urge to sigh and pockets his phone again. Well, he mimes pocketing his phone. It sort of phases into that weird imaginary skin between his halves with a buzz of protest. When he changes back it'll be in his back right pocket, fully charged.

"Mister Masters," she pauses to make this really complicated grimace, like she'd sort of prefer calling Vlad something like Captain Fuckface but she's too polite to do it aloud. Danny makes a mental note to call Vlad exactly that the next time they run into each other. The fruitloop'll make a hilarious noise, he just knows it. "Mister Masters sent me info on another job. He told me some of his employees at Axion Labs had reported some ghost sightings, and my dad had mentioned seeing some weird stuff too, so. So I snuck out and went to go check it out. It didn't sound like anything bad, just. Y'know. Another ghost."

Two weeks ago her tone would have been one of complete, dismissive disgust. Two weeks ago she was still human though. Danny stays quiet, which is probably the smart thing to do.

"There was something on my radar when I got there. I thought it was gonna be you, honestly—" She glares, a flicker of red coloring her eyes. He shrugs and gives her a charming grin that's all, Who, me? She doesn't buy it for a second, not that he expected her too. Two weeks ago Vlad was being a real prick though, setting all sorts of nasty ghoulies he'd Frankenstein'd in his super gross secret lab loose in the downtown area. Danny's honestly not sure if he got any sleep for like, four straight days. There was a lot of doctored coffee involved, by which he means the kind of coffee a regular human couldn't drink without requiring a fairly immediate trip to the ER.

(Tucker Foley tested.)

"Most of the reports were from some department I've never heard my dad talk about, and it's all three levels underground. If Technus hadn't juiced my suit up again I don't think I could've gotten down there—"

That's an alarm bell Danny super doesn't like the sound of. "Again?"

She waves her hand dismissively that's all, So last year, honey, try and keep up. "Doesn't matter. Point is, I got down there, and it—well. It looked like the Fen—uh. Your parents' lab. Kind of identical, actually. In a kinda creepy way."

Yeah, that's Vlad all over. Kinda creepy and not all that original. Oh well. He raises his eyebrows pointedly.

"Uh. Well, my radar went crazy down there, but I still couldn't get a real bead on anything. So I went poking around and found the framework of this—well, portal. I didn't realize it was a portal though, since it didn't look like the one in your parents' lab. It was standing on its own in the middle of the room, covered in cables—"

"Ours is a mess too," he points out. "You can't tell unless it's off though. I'm not really sure where all those cables and weird hunks of tech go while it's on...."

She gives him a look like she's regretting not shooting him earlier. He does the smart thing by not pointing out that shooting him is still very much on the table, and that if history's anything to go by she's a huge fan of shooting him. He can't help but think that opinion might, just possibly, if he's very lucky, have changed in the last couple of hours. Fingers crossed? Those cube cannon things hurt like a bitch.

"I was looking around that thing because it was freaking my radar out when Plas—Mister Masters showed up."

He reels a bit. She must've expected it, because it's her turn to raise her eyebrows pointedly. "Wait," he says, holding his hands up in a time out T. "Wait a minute. You knew he's Plasmius? The whole goddamn time?!"

"No," she snaps. "Only after Danielle."

"That's nearly the whole goddamn time. What the hell, he's been lording you over me as a reason not to blab the truth for years. For fuck's sake, Valerie—"

"You wanna maybe shut up and let me finish, ghost kid?"

He scowls. She scowls back, plus scary eyes. He's pretty sure she's not doing it intentionally, so the effect's not as impressive as it could be. Red continues to be a great color for her though, not that he's dumb enough to say that.

"Plasmius showed up, blasted me into the portal, and hit the switch before I could do anything," she bites out, hunching in on herself like she's wishing the ground would swallow her whole—aaaand there she goes, sinking through the table. He clears his throat loudly, she realizes what's going on and ends up flailing around like an idiot for a few seconds until her body gets physical enough to stay put.

"Sam was right," he muses. "This is entertaining."

"Fuck you," she snaps without much venom. Mostly she sounds tired.

He sighs, hating himself a little for reasons he's not gonna explore right now. He's too hungry for introspection. "Did he evil-monologue why he did that to you?"

"A little. I was kinda out of it, after." She grimaces, gesturing at herself. "I didn't catch all of it. Something about being a distraction for you, though I didn't know that he meant you at the time."

"Oh goodie, this evil plot has layers, and ruining your life is apparently a fucking footnote." He scrubs his face with both hands and changes back into his plain Jane self. Valerie twitches badly, eyes flashing red and a fun eye-watering white shimmer shivering up her whole body. Huh. "Hey, have you tried changing back since that asshat zapped you?"

"Of course not," she hisses, looking at him like he just suggested she go streaking through the administration office. "I'm trying to keep a low profile while I figure out a way to fix what he did to me."

Ah, hell.

"I'm sorry," seems the smart thing to start with. He hops off the table, hands up where she can see them as he approaches her. He takes a risk at reaching for her hands. She surprises him again by continuing to not shoot him. "I'm really, really sorry. But there's no fixing this. You just get—better at being this." He squeezes a little when she starts shaking her head and pulling away, amping up the 'I'm sorry for your loss' face he's had to get way too good at. Superhero, he ain't. "I'm serious. Vlad's been like me—like us—since like, '85 or whenever he got zapped by a proto-portal, and he got really sick after."

Her eyes go big and laser pointer red again. "S-sick?"

"Ecto-acne. Ever hear of it?" She shakes her head. "You'll probably be okay, if Axion's portal is based on my parents' portal, or even Vlad's."

"He has a portal?"

"In Wisconsin," he confirms grimly. "He's been trying to build a second one ever since he moved here, but I kept messing with him. I didn't think to check the basements of any of his evil companies."

"Axion Labs isn't evil," she retorts instead of doing the sensible thing and blaming him outright for the shit she’s mired in for keeps.

He raises an eyebrow. "Sure. And Invis-o-Bill really is hellbent on establishing a ghost-human empire capital in Amity fucking Park."

She winces.

"Wait. You didn't actually believe that, did you?"

She winces harder.

"Ohhhh Valerie," he sighs, dropping her hands to melodramatically sag against another table. "I'm wounded. Honestly, truthfully, hurt that you'd think so highly of fucking Invis-o-Bill. Haven't you been paying attention to the shit the gossip mags shill about me? I'm either a ghost blob with delusions of grandeur in a skinsuit or the ostracized son of Pariah Dark and Desiree. You don't think my evil ghost parents have been around enough to teach me how to be a good evil emperor, do you?"

She's trying—and failing—not to laugh. "Shut up. How was I supposed to know what to believe, huh? None of the ghosts ever say shit about you."

"Yeah, 'cause they're cool with keeping my secret!"

She presses forward to jab a finger in his chest. She's still kind of flicker-y at the edges, like she hasn't quite decided she isn't going to go full ghost hunter on him, so it sort of feels like another hard burst of static. Goosebumps break out all down his skin; it's all he can do not to shiver. "What's with that, anyway? Most of 'em are so hellbent on destroying you for stopping them again and again, but none of them have ever come blabbing your big life-ruining secret to me or your parents!"

He shrugs. "Honestly? I don't think it's ever occurred to any of them. I'm pretty sure Skulker's the only one who knows like, for sure that Vlad's the same as me, and that's only 'cuz he likes to take jobs from Vlad now and then. The others?" Another, more expansive shrug as he slides sideways out of her range. So she makes him uneasy. What about it? She's only shot him point blank like, five hundred times if she's done it once. He'd really like to get out of this whole situation without any new burns to hide.

"Huh," she says. "Seriously?"

"Yeah. It's not—I dunno. I think it'd be like cheating for most of 'em to go blabbing to some humans or even Vlad. They wanna take me down, sure, but they wanna do it on their own steam. I'm definitely not complaining."

"Course you're not, because you are ludicrously overpowered compared to most of the ghosts out there itching for a little world domination."

He grins down at her, big and sloppy. "Hey, give it some time and you'll be OP as fuck too."

She reacts to that little nugget of wisdom just like he expected her to; retreating halfway across the room and shrinking in on herself like she's dearly wishing for a bit of time travel to undo what Vlad did to her on a selfish whim. Well. A conversation with Clockwork is an option still on the table. He'll give her a few more days of adjustment before suggesting a fun little jaunt into the Ghost Zone. He's honestly not sure if Clockwork and her are properly acquainted. That should be good for a laugh if nothing else.

"Hey," he says companionably. "I mean it. You're gonna be okay."

She scoffs. He pretends not to hear the dampness to it. "Oh, sure. So long as I do exactly what you say, right?"

"This isn't blackmail," he says, injecting as much calm as he can to his voice. "Honest. I mean, I won't lie and pretend I'm not hoping you listen to me. If you get found out it's both of our necks on the chopping block. Sure, I'll make sure Vlad takes the fall too, so that's some nice revenge wrapped with a bow, but it's not like we'd be around to really appreciate it, y'know?"

She makes another, slightly damper noise. He considers the risk of hugging her against the risk of walking away with all his parts where they ought to be, and he decides the smart thing is to stay put and pretend right along with her that she's definitely not crying.

"I want to help you, Valerie. I've been where you're at. I know how much it sucks. And I had Sam and Tucker helping me while I tried to figure it all out. You... you need somebody to help you. Trust me on this much at least, okay? This isn't something you can do alone."

Her various damp noises evolve into an outright sob. "Fuck."

Yeah. That about sums it up.

"Fuck," she hisses out again, pawing roughly at her face. "This. I didn't want—all this time and you never—I coulda killed you but you didn't—and now I'm—!"

Okay. Yeah. Superheroes don't leave anybody to cry so miserably on their own. He's hardy. Even if she shoots him he can hang out, make sure she's okay to get home on her own. And they both skipped their last two classes. He ought to go rummage around their teachers' desks and try to figure out what tonight's homework is. She's got every reason to burn her textbooks and scream fuck it at the moon (Danny's sophomore year was a personal low point), and it's just as likely Skulker will pull some new scheme to try and skin him tonight as any other school night, but it's the principle of the thing. They're both just trying to graduate at this point, and they're so close.

It might seem so incredibly, completely stupid, to care about graduating with all the other bullshit in their lives. Most days, it is stupid to care. But there are some days that stupid, pointless piece of paper is the only reason Danny chooses to get out of bed. He chooses to remember that he's still human enough for human consequences. He needs that diploma to get into college, and he needs to get into college so he can earn his bachelor's, and he needs to be stable enough to earn his pilot's license, and then somehow net 1,000 hours as pilot-in-command in a fucking jet, and on and on and on, because there's still this stupid, stupid, stupid little voice in his head that won't shut up about how cool it'd be to actually manage to become an astronaut despite—

—everything.

He wants to ask what Valerie wanted to be when she grew up, but that's... not now. That's a conversation for later, if he's lucky enough that she'll trust him with that little, foolish dream every kid clings to even when they're loudly proclaiming how stupid it is. Everybody grows up and realizes how stupid the dream jobs they wanted when they were kids was; it's the real dreamers that grit their teeth and keep working despite—

—everything.

He takes the risk, the leap of faith. He closes the distance between them and plays a pattern across her shoulder to warn her he's coming in for a hug. No cubes or guns or accidental ecto-rays materialize to blast him into next week, so he calls it a win and finishes the deed. She's all hunched shoulders and hard fingers knotted in his shirt, hot tears and probably some snot at war with how neutrally temperature-wise the rest of her feels. Everybody else—everybody human—feels hot as a sunburn if he gets too close. Ghosts are still too cold, though thanks to his handy-dandy ice powers none of them are ever cold enough to hurt like humans do.

Here and now, hugging Valerie and whispering soft, pointless bullshit into her frizzy hair is the closest to human he's felt in—

—in too long.

"I'm sorry," she says.

"Don't be," he replies, instead of Me too.

"Thank you," she says.

"Nothin' to thank me for," he replies, instead of You should be blaming me for this.

"I'm scared," she says.

"It's going to be okay," he replies, and means it.

It's almost nine by the time he makes it to Sam's house, and he's so hungry he tunnel visions twice on the flight over. Lucky him, his friends and secret keepers know how bullshit his anatomy is, and there's a veritable buffet awaiting him when he gets there. Luckier him, his friends and secret keepers know better than to try and hold a Serious Conversation when he's like this, and leave him alone for the better part of 20 minutes before they both start loudly clearing their throats.

He slows his flawless imitation of a combine harvester long enough to muster a, "Hngh?"

Sam and Tucker waste precious moments he could be upping his calorie count with another psychic conversation that they're clearly both enjoying. He scowls, for all the good it'll do him.

"How'd it go?" Sam asks.

"Well," he says, setting his fork down to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand. Manners, schmmaners. "She didn't shoot me."

"Damn it," Tucker says loudly, and pulls out his phone.

"Seriously?" Danny asks.

"He owes Jazz twenty bucks," Same explains as Tucker begins a furiously-typed text. Danny suppresses the urge to shudder. Something about the haptic feedback on cell phones really sets him on edge. He genuinely doesn't know if it's a pet peeve or a ghost thing. Either way he always has to squash the insane urge to pitch Tucker's phone at the nearest brick wall, and right now that is an honest struggle.

"Seriously?" He repeats. "You bet against me?"

Tucker pauses long enough to level an incredulous glare at him. "Dude."

...yeah, okay. That's fair. Danny would've bet against himself too, if he'd known to.

"Rude," he says anyway, on principle.

Sam and Tucker both make a huge show of rolling their eyes, but at least Sam pushes another three slices of pizza in his direction. They even ordered in, so there's actual meat and cheese on it. He has the best friends a guy could ask for, even if Tucker is an ass nine times out of ten. Serves him right to lose 20 bucks, voting against him against his sister of all people.

"Details," Sam demands. "How's she doing, what happened, is she gonna stop trying to kill you, et cetera."

"Vlad happened," he manages through half a slice of pizza. Sam and Tucker both wince; Tucker hard enough he actually drops his phone.

"Fuck," Tucker hisses. "Why?"

"Dunno yet. And I dunno about you, but figuring out his latest scheme has definitely become number one on my honey do list."

They both nod. Tucker's the one to ask the important follow up. "And Valerie? How's she doing?"

He makes a seesaw motion with one hand. "Again, gotta stress the whole 'didn't shoot me' thing." He grins real sleazily while Tucker groans. "She's not great though. I foresee the next like, two months helping her out taking priority over all the usual ghost bullshit. Short of like, apocalyptic ghost attacks, of course."

"Fair," Sam and Tucker both say. Sam gives him a pointed capital L Look, going so far as to pull his plate a few inches away so he can better direct his instinctive growl at her. "She's not gonna rat, is she?"

"No," comes out more snarl-y than he means it to, but—pizza. Sam takes him at face value at least, and gives him his plate back, with an extra slice of meat lover's for good behavior. She's his favorite.

"We're gonna co-op," he adds, and pretends not to notice the Extraordinarily Concerned Psychic Look Sam and Tucker share over that bit of news. Whatever. They can stress over the idea of Valerie being included in their group. Him? He's gonna polish off the rest of this pizza, pull his one (1) notebook and one (1) pencil out of his bag, and he's going to get as much of a headstart on his homework before patrol as he can. If he actually manages to finish his two pages of grammar problems he's going to call it a great day. Anything else? Well, that's gravy so far as he's concerned.

He grins to himself a little, thinking of Valerie's new phone number burning a hole in his pocket. If anything toothsome decides to show up tonight he got the okay to text her. And honestly? For all that she's in the same bullshit hell as he, Vlad, and Elle are....

Well. It's probably shitty of him, but it's still nice to have an ally and friend in this half-ghost bullshit hell.

#danny phantom #my writing #valerie gray #gray ghost #phic phight 2020

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goblinconceivable · 4 years

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All The Feels

Random bulletpoints of Annie/Jeff analysis because I am overcome with shippiness. :D Also more like bullet-lengthy-paragraphs. You tried, self, you tried.

Pascal’s Triangle (PT) is not a love triangle.

Sure, look at the top two rows and you’ve got a binary split, ie, choice between two women. But PT is row based, your current row based on the one above. It’s complex. Look below the binary surface of choice to row 3, where it actually becomes PT, where the complexity begins (and Community is about complexity.) 1, 2, 1, a total of 4. The 2 is the merging of the two 1s from row two - Ie, two women who get lumped together. And beyond them is a 1 that springs out of nowhere - Annie. Surprise!

Kiss at the end of S1

Jeff’s major deal is being afraid of expressing caring/vulnerability, while desperately craving/needing it. Britta and Slater were both saying they loved him, and he does want to take that, but runs scared because they are challenging him to admit his feelings in public, which no one who really knows and cares about him would do. His scene with Annie is private. And she isn’t asking him FOR anything, she’s just asking what’s up, because she cares about the answer. He feels safe, he opens up, it’s intimacy, which is both giving and taking. Notably he admits he’s glad she’s staying after his share, this is him saying he cares about her too.

His explanation of the situation is a perceived choice between being the New Year’s guy (who he wants to be) and the Three Weeks Later guy (who he is.) But the thing about New Year’s is the initial momentum always fades, and you have to put in the work, which Slater doesn’t help him with. And he WON’T be able to sustain it on is own. The guy he IS isn’t who he wants to be, it’s just giving up, rather than striving, even if imperfectly, to reach those goals. Annie falls into the sweet spot: she understands what his default is, but shows him that he CAN be the man he wants to be, shows him what those steps ARE, encourages him to take the steps to be that person, and rewards him when he succeeds. Which he does, with her behind him.

And she kisses him first. Which is an offering similar to Britta and Slater’s public announcements, but through action, not words. Jeff uses words as shield and weapon, as did the other two. Bypassing this essentially shortcircuits his brain. His brain will warp and analyze and question, but she kisses him gently, an invitation not a demand. He’s already put aside his sword and shield during their talk, and doesn’t feel the need to pick them up because he feels safe and cared for and is okay accepting and reciprocating that.

Play

Jeff is all adult and aloof and beyond such petty childish pursuits such as play, which is the scoffed at domain of Annie/Troy/Abed. But he actually really wants it. It likely stems in part from his loss of a proper childhood, but it’s also just who he is. Imagination isn’t just for the young, the loss of the ability to play is an oft-bemoaned feature of adulthood, one the learned remind us we ought recapture. (And a joy of parenthood is getting to do that through your children.) But look, he literally was playacting being a lawyer. It’s how he engages with the world. He just justified that as a means to an end and did it for power and profit, rather than for enjoyment.

We see this, I argue, when responding to Annie’s playacting they were married. Annie anticipates a bad reaction, but he doesn’t give one. No judgment. He then establishes it’s not a deeper issue (”do I have to worry about this” ie, is this real/insanity). When he says “I can tell you one thing your fantasy got wrong...” he’s not challenging her, or even taking offense, and while he’s not entering into her fantasy world (which is over anyway), he’s offering fodder. He’s involving himself in the narrative process for her benefit. And in the couched language of daydream he’s reassuring her -if- it was true, he would be devoted. IF is a super important word in play, because you don’t have to believe, for example, you ARE a pirate. You just need to act as IF you were a pirate.

Also cute, I take as justified fanon the deleted scene where he orders her appletini. He was whining to her about it but it was relaxed because they both know he’d do it anyway. And when the bartender turns out to be a believer in Annie’s created fantasy world, Jeff stops himself from correcting him and destroying the world. Instead, he lets it persist just far enough to let himself glance at Annie as if it was true, and in that moment he sees her through the eyes of fantasy, and sees a beautiful woman, rather than all the complexity of their relationship.

Then there’s basically all the giant Greendale instances of play. Which one way or the other, he gets roped into and ends up jumping into with abandon. (Paintball, lava etc.) And they’re often paired, because he enjoys playing with her, and the “if this” acts as license for them to explore their compatibility. And their capers, when they pair up in the “real world”, is really just a sophisticated form of play. As brought up pointedly when they were searching for the ASB, there’s a dual nature here. They aren’t just buddies, like Troy and Abed, who are also very fantasy oriented (cardboard submarine!). There’s a level of daydream beneath the fantasy world where they can set aside the complexities of their relationship, and say “if we’re solving this crime, then we can live in this bubble and just be together.”

I also really love the whole Professor Professorson episode because of course the layers are just so intricate and delightful when they unfold. He tackles her which was total overreaction, he’s in a heightened world and committed to it. They plot out this crazy intricate play to teach the Dean a lesson together, where they involve real emotions. Many of which are Annie’s, but that means they’re creating a world in which it is safe to amplify her feelings which they are both aware of but are usually repressed, especially by Jeff. And he praises her for that later (she went off book and deceived like a master) rather than being uncomfortable. They exit play safely because they trust each other while playing and can leave that permissive world as an if. And it ends with the blanket fort collapsing and cocooning them. It is a play space literally being broken, begging the question of how much impact our play can have on our real selves.

Season 6

So basically I think I missed fandom the first time around and just binged on meta and there’s (fanon?) that Jeff spent the season looking for her attention, but Annie had pulled back? I zipped through a bunch of scenes they were in together, and heartily agree. Also I think I went a little nutty but What I see:

Annie doesn’t ignore him or anything, but where she might have previously inserted herself in his life, she starts to let him fend for himself while she diverts her attention to other relationships, and treats him more like she does the others. I don’t think she really does anything like taking his class so she can evaluate his teaching and bludgeon him into being better? But when they’re in a situation, like City College’s ad, she stands up to him as normal, challenging him to be better and do the right thing, as she always has. Rewards him with approval when he does, and his whispered “thank you” is the cutest thing ever because it’s an intimate choice in a rather boisterous exchange.

Meanwhile Jeff does seem to spend a lot of time and energy trying to get back to a place where he’s first in her eyes. There are a lot of shots in S6 a the Table and group scenes that involve him looking at her disproportionately, first, last, or only when speaking, esp when they’re all at the table. When I went back and tried to do the same to S5 those scenes are set up a bit differently and I saw less of it but I think there’s just fewer group scenes in general though?. In S6, he often ends a comment directed at the group (non table) by looking at Annie, indicating he wants her response, and thus her attention and engagement. And often, she is the next person to speak. Which is her personality as a leader, which supports the idea that while he’s seeking her out, she isn’t necessarily responding to that but just being her.

Finale

I’ve sort of run myself dry thinking through other things. And great analysis is plentiful and most recent. So not even bullet points just ramble But:

Oh3, so when Garrett proposed and Abed noted Jeff had a funny look, he’s been daydreaming marrying Annie for that lone plus longer? That took me a long time to put together as an actual literal thing.

Oh2, it’s all canon that he has issues with prolonged eye contact because he doesn’t want people to see him broken and he doesn’t break eye contact through any of this. He knows she knows he’s broken already and is quietly fine with her seeing everything and this is a moment for *sobs*

Oh wait hey, so callback to that bit where she’s like “your words don’t mean anything” and he’s like “That’s what conversation is, people saying things to get stuff.” Because he’s 100% not trying to get anything by telling her he’s let her go. And he means a lot by saying it. And if he said “I love you” there’s an implied sense of obligation to say it back and since he means romantically he can’t do that. So this is just him letting her know, no pressure, no expectation, that he loves her and has loved her but it’s okay because she’s free and he wants her to be free because he loves her. And he means it so hard when she says “kiss me goodbye” he’s all “you don’t owe me anything.”

But she does love him too, except she knows she’s in a different place emotionally and professionally. And it’s sweet and a gift because she doesn’t make this about her but about him and his feelings. So she preempts his regrets because she knows he WON’T kiss her goodbye unless she invites him to. There’s something I’m reaching for and can’t find here. She doesn’t admit to anything because there’s no point? It would just hurt him either way? Sharing her feelings through action rather than words?

And so much squee thinking how far everyone’s come for this scene to be a thing which could happen.

Callback to Annie’s marriage fantasy when Jeff has his own. Hers was external, by her personality (esp at the time of her maturation) and thus public and psychologically working out a reasonable feeling of abandonment as she gave their fictional selves marital difficulties. His is very internal, and occurs after Abed, always so reliable as a gateway to fantasy, turns the tables on him. He’s experiencing reasonable feelings of abandonment, and while he runs, it’s to a safe space of “what if,” a coping mechanism he has learned, and which allows for working out of psychological issues.

It’s dual: in that the larger issue is his need for a sense of stability. Though he’s staring at the table the scene doesn’t involve Greendale at all, he already had that fantasy. This is about wanting a life outside of the safe zone of the college. And while he suggests a dog as an option he imagined a kid because having one represents stability for him - it was his father who left, and he won’t leave. If there’s a kid, this is a life, Annie can’t leave. But he offers her imaginary self complete editing powers, because all he really wants is to be able to love and be loved. It’s indulgence, a desperate grasp at balm because while he let her go, he can’t let her -go.- He was okay with being close friends, they do love each other as friends. See his pitch. But faced with losing that, he’s stripped bare. He indulges in his supressed hearts desire and is faced with the reality of what he already knows: it’s not in the cards.

And he’s stripped down to insecurities that aren’t limited to Annie. It’s cute how they jive over Marvel, though it’s weird to me and takes up more time and weird dramatic looking around that doesn’t feel playful enough to be justified. The tone of their voices is too serious, it’s a mismatch. I like how he admits the huge thing that he let her go as far as he has control, and suddenly a time pressure is on their alone time. Everything is immediate right now, everything happening fast. I wonder what Annie would have said if not for the text. But that’s the thing, it’s the wrong time for them and this is a goodbye. It’s too late but just under the wire all at once.

In this chapter at least. In the safety of the group Annie brings up a season 7, which we all know could happen years down the line. Would have been more fitting if she said movie though. Still, he takes that as the comfort in which it was intended.

WTF with his all coed season 7? Yes, we cut to it so it totally isn’t happening, but has he put his issues to rest and is just fantasizing crap or what? It makes no sense to me.

I love that he not only puts her first after she invites him to kiss her goodbye by asking “what about you,” but is -asking for consent.- He doesn’t even move towards her until he gets it, he’s literally just standing back. What’s up with the penis thing? Meta reference to shortcut arguments that it’s not true love but lust? Is it Jeff acknowledging his own cynicism and how he’s dropped it? Since he’s so clearly not in a lust mode here. Is he adding a tiny bit of his usual pointed add ins to his speeches?

I guess it’s like... this is one of his speeches, but it feels out of place because of his delivery? Which is beautifully subdued and resigned and honest and just defeated, but defeated in the sense that he defeated all the barriers he still keeps around himself.

and goodbye hug and kiss at the airport.

#community #jeff x annie #meta

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erazonpo3 · 4 years

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Intro to my infodump on Alphecca but also I’m getting more and more shameless about it so I’ll probably dump a lot of other shit too later but back to the point: I never tend to stop mutating characters in my head but for all intents and purposes Alphecca is at a point where I’m satisfied with how fleshed out she is in my mind, so I figured I’d write it down.

SO basically a rundown:

Alphecca’s main purpose is to be the “Season 1” villain, in which her part in the story can be expanded but mostly wraps up in a self-contained plotline, and has relatively low stakes so that there’s room for the narrative to escalate. That doesn’t mean that she doesn’t pose a threat as an antagonist- because she absolutely does- but simply that her behaviour of terrorising people and raising bodies is already the status quo, and she has no grand design or plan of action. Cassandra steps in to change that status quo for the better, but her failing to do so won’t leave anyone any worse off than they already are. Yet with that being said, Alphecca is also built to be Cassandra’s antagonist specifically, so of course there has to be a resolution there.

Alphecca as Cassandra’s antagonist

Alphecca exists to be a foil to Cassandra, so that when you put them together their differences shine brighter. Where Ilione is a foil to Cass in that she’s largely her polar opposite: extraverted, very emotionally sensitive, inexperienced etc, Alphecca is a foil to Cass by being very similar to her but for a few glaring differences. It’s worth noting that while their personalities are pretty different, they share a same jaded perspective on life and struggles with mental health that stem from an ugly ZT origin story.

Both women were approached by Zhan Tiri during a time they felt powerless, and sided with her over loved ones in an attempt to regain control over their life. They were encouraged to embrace malice and sadism, had their faith in their loved ones undermined and had those insecurities stoked, and all this instability created the perfect storm for them to be easily manipulated and betrayed. Zhan Tiri operates as a cult leader does, seeking out vulnerable people and cutting them off from their remaining support networks until they have nowhere left to run, even if they want to.

It’s not to say Cassandra wasn’t making her own choices, but this kind of gaslighting shouldn’t be dismissed either. Some people will forever lack sympathy for her, but that’s exactly the point of Zhan Tiri’s manipulation- if nobody’s willing to help you out of the hole you’ve dug for yourself you’re going to be stuck there to rot, so you may as well keep digging in the hope that you might hit gold eventually.

Alphecca and Cassandra are both victims to Zhan Tiri’s super fun form of control, but the major difference between them was that Rapunzel remained willing to help Cassandra out of that hole. Alphecca didn’t have a Rapunzel, or a Varian, or a Eugene, and instead over time she became twisted and warped into a menace who doesn’t need Zhan Tiri’s encouragement to do terrible things anymore. And that’s what makes these two foils to each other; Alphecca is the monster Cassandra never was but could have easily become if she was never shown compassion.

Thus the only person who can stop Alphecca is someone who can empathise with her, at least to some degree. In fighting terms, Alphecca has a bottomless bag of tricks up her sleeve and the nature of her undeath makes her essentially immortal. She cannot be conquered, only slowed down, and the more pissed off she gets with you the more volatile and dangerous she becomes.

Cassandra initially sees Alphecca as a chance to prove herself, both as a force for good and as someone who can rid the world of Zhan Tiri’s legacy. However, it quickly becomes apparent that Alphecca cannot be defeated through conventional means, because otherwise warriors like Adira (who has encountered Alphecca before) would have been able to deal with the problem. Considering that Alphecca herself has sought out her phylactery to destroy it- with an extra thousand years of hunting up her sleeve- but failed to do so, makes it apparent that she can only be stopped by being reasoned with. But for a lich who hardly remembers the human experience, that’s pretty difficult.

It ultimately means the only person who can stop her is Cassandra, because the only person who can reason with her is someone who can empathise with her from a place of camaraderie rather than condescension, and recognises that the cycle of violence needs to be broken by compassion and not just violence but harder.

The Storyline

Basic plotline goes like this:

Early on into her journey Cassandra learns about the bone witch that roams the wilderness and terrorises innocent villagers, desecrates the dead, is probably a cryptid because legends have existed about her for generations, et cetera and so on. When evidence appears that this witch is real Cassandra and decides to investigate, because this is a pretty straightforward “good guy stops the bad guy” situation for her to jump into. (By this point Ilione is also tagging along).

Their first encounter with Alphecca is pretty tame. They intercept her at a mausoleum, she does a fancy music number/generally has a good time fucking around with them, but ultimately skulks back into the shadows at the end. It’s sort of all in good spirits and Alphecca isn’t ‘defeated’ by any means but still bows out as a show of good sportsmanship.

Their future encounters are a lot less nice.

The more Cassandra continues to pursue her, the more pissed off Alphecca gets, and when Alphecca gets pissed off she begins to embrace her sadism and her outbursts become more violent and cause more collateral damage. She lowers herself to underhanded tactics like throwing Cass into a nightmare reality a la Tromus and becomes increasingly sinister. The ‘tentpole’ of this plotline probably marks the shift from Alphecca as a trickster figure into a more dangerous one as Cass and Lio learn that she was also a disciple of Zhan Tiri.

The situation ultimately comes to a head by the finale, by which point Alphecca is very much unhinged and out for blood. She becomes fixated on Cassandra and does her best to hit below the belt, sniffing out her insecurities about her past with the moonstone and bludgeoning them with a metaphorical sledgehammer, and basically tries to goad her into a complete spiral.

This is the emotional climax, and the underpinning of Cassandra’s character development in becoming emotionally sound enough to shake it off. It’s at this point she understands what Alphecca is doing; Alphecca is caught in her own eternal maelstrom of emotional torture and latches onto anyone she can drag down with her for the small amount of pleasure it brings. She’s able to recognise those feelings because she can empathise with them and knows exactly what she needs to hear in that moment.

There’s probably some extended backstory revealed by this point too, going into a little more detail about the way in which Alphecca was caught in Zhan Tiri’s web down to becoming a lich, but of course what’s more important is the resolution.

With Cassandra getting through to her, Alphecca is able to pull herself together long enough to ease the situation back down again and have a more honest conversation about hope and humanity and compassion and all those good things. Cassandra admits that she can’t do much to ‘fix’ her, but starts by continuing Rapunzel’s legacy and showing forgiveness and compassion to someone who doesn’t think they deserve it. (Alphecca isn’t entirely regretful of all her actions, but does acknowledge that she ought not project her pain onto others anymore.)

Alphecca Post-S1

Alphecca doesn’t really get a ‘redemption arc’ because honestly I don’t want her to be redeemed. It’s not really a moral stance so much as I believe she’s genuinely disinterested in being a better person, she just has the selfish desire to be able to live happily again. And that’s kind of all she needs. She doesn’t care much about other people, but she’s working on herself and that means squashing the sadism.

I think it also continues to make a good parallel to Cass: Cassandra is trying to do better not only for herself but by others because she sees it as her own social responsibility, whereas Alphecca just wants to do better for herself and if other people benefit from that, that’s just a bonus.

Alphecca doesn’t join Cassandra on her travels either, although she does make appearances as a reoccurring character. Cassandra is upfront about the fact that while she wants to help Alphecca, she needs to help herself first, and the damage Al inflicted on her is slow to heal. They’re both in danger of dragging each other down in their own spirals so it’s best that they give each other space, but it’s also very important that they’re able to share their experiences. It’s a minor struggle between Cassandra and Ilione that Lio doesn’t really understand a lot of Cass’ struggles, although she does try to be sensitive about it. Alphecca provides that alternate perspective: Lio can provide support but little empathy, while Alphecca can provide empathy but little support.

I’ve also got more Alphecca stuff living in my brain regarding her origins, her own foray with Death and her association with lesser and greater deities, her relationships to other ZT cultists, et cetera et cetera but I’ll probably stop here to keep it succinct.

But basically over the course of this plotline Alphecca goes from wacky evil villain to really tragic but still evil villain to not really evil villain but still kind of a jerk neighbour that shows up at your house asking for your wifi password acquaintance.

#basically my build-a-bear guide to making an antagonist #it's fun #of course there's so much more to making characters and villains than just this but basically foils good #alphecca #cta au #my art #cassandra #female villains can have little a homoeroticism as a treat

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padfootagain · 4 years

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Hold Me Till It’s Over (II)

Part 2 : Sweetest Fall

Here is the second and last part of this story! Lots of angst at the beginning again, but then it gets better, because… you know me!

Still warning for angst and themes of war, so be careful if you're sensitive to these themes.

I hope you like this story!

Gif not mine (I know I’ve used it before for other fics, but I don't care, I just love this one so much…)

Word Count : 4432

Obi-Wan looks like himself, but he isn't. He's calm and instructs the soldiers around him to secure the conquered town, and his voice is firm and unfaltering. Of his tears are left no signs. Except for Anakin. He notices that the Jedi master is not wearing his gloves anymore, and his hands are shaking. When Cody and his men leave, spreading across the streets as instructed, Anakin slowly walks to join his former teacher. He's stern, and if his blue eyes look kind, they are sadder than usual too.

"Obi-Wan? Are you alright?"

"Of course. I am unharmed."

"That's not what I meant."

They're standing in the daylight, the dust has settled on the battlefield. The fires have died, and Obi-Wan wonders if that's why he feels so cold. It's quiet despite the rumbling of the transports flying back and forth across the town. After the chaos of battle, it's almost silent. In the distance, the city hall still stands. There are traces of blood on the pavement before the building.

Obi-Wan sighs.

"No, you did not."

"Is she going to make it?"

"I don't know."

Anakin rests a reassuring hand on his friend's shoulder. He's shaking.

"You should stay with her."

"My place is here, Anakin," Obi-Wan sternly answers.

"I can handle it. Ahsoka and I will handle it. You should go to her. That's where you belong, isn't it?"

Finally, Obi-Wan turns to look at his former Padawan, and he feels proud of this man he is lucky enough to call a brother. After all, Anakin is right, he and Ahsoka can handle the rest, there is little more to be done anyway. The battle is over, and has been won… oh, but at what cost?

"Very well, then. But try not to… 're-deploy' yourself while I'm away."

Anakin chuckles, but he's impressed most of all. He's always admired Obi-Wan's capacity to take pain in and act like nothing has happened. It's only because he knows the Jedi so well, only because he is so sensitive to the Force, that he can see and feel Obi-Wan's grief and fear. It's not the first time Anakin witnesses Obi-Wan's strength. He reckons that it's truly what a Jedi should be made of, what ought to differentiate them from the Sith. Pain makes them kind, not hateful.

The wounded have been transported to the medcenter of the town that, by some miracle, still stands. It's a short walk from the city hall, but it feels incredibly long to Obi-Wan. He can't run though, there are troopers that may be watching. And he is still their commanding officer. So, he walks through the destroyed streets instead, making his way through the broken walls and torn out homes. Deep down, he's grateful he can't hurry. He's torn apart between his need to see you, and his fear to learn a terrible news…

Every corridor and room is packed up with wounded. The medcenter smells of chemicals and blood and sweat, and the stench makes Obi-Wan's nose wrinkle. He looks for a droid and is soon guided to your bed. You're lying on a narrow mattress in a cupboard with two clone troopers. Your eyes are closed, a sheet pulled up under your chin.

"How is she?" he asks the surgical droid.

"She is stable for now, but needs to go through surgery again. She will need to be transported to Coruscant or an equivalent medcenter though, we are not equipped here. She'll take off in the first ship."

"Will she…"

Obi-Wan takes a deep breath, struggling to let the question out. He's so afraid of the answer…

"Will she make it?"

The medical droid seems to think, or well, calculate, for a moment.

"Her chances of survival on this planet are below 10%. There will be an increase up to 55% if she is transported to a larger medcenter before the end of the day."

Obi-Wan's breath is caught in his throat, and his head starts spinning. But he merely clenches his fists and jaw, and nods with sadness oozing from his whole frame.

"I will see to it that she reaches Coruscant as soon as possible. Thank you for your help."

The droid exits the room without another word, and the Jedi walks to stand by your side.

Your breathing is harsh and irregular, he can hear you struggle to gather the strength to force the air in your lungs and push it out again. You look so tired…

"Y/N?" he calls softly, but you don't answer.

He rests his hand upon yours. This time, he's not wearing his gloves, and it's a soft touch, skin against skin. Your blood oozed through the gloves, and he still has traces of the red liquid on his fingers, but he tries to forget about it. His thumb is gentle as it grazes across your knuckles. He wants to cry again, tries to hold the tears inside, manages for now, but his voice is shaking as much as his entire frame when he speaks again.

"I do not know if you can hear me at all, but if you can… please… please don't leave…"

That's it. He's failing again. The tears are rolling down his cheeks, and he can't hold them back. And you're dying, and there's nothing he can do…

"Please, don't leave me. I… I don't want to lose you too."

It seems that he keeps on failing. Qui-Gon, Satine, and now you… Was he made to see the people he loved so deeply die? It feels like it now. He wishes it wasn't. If it could be different just this one time. Just once. Just for you…

He brushes a strand of your hair away from your forehead, his fingertips lingering on your skin for too long, but he doesn't care.

You told him that you loved him. And stars, he loves you so deeply, so completely… But he can't let the words out. It's not right, not like this. And the confession will bring so much out of him, he's not sure he can speak the words more than once, they're too meaningful, for a million of reasons. Because he's a Jedi, because it's forbidden, because he never thought that he could feel this way, because he can't be with you for now, because he can't ask you to wait for him, because he is not sure he deserves you, because he loves you so deeply it hurts…

It might be his last chance, but he lets it pass. It's a risk to take. He bets that you will live, and that he will have another chance. Besides, he knows you've read the truth in his eyes already before you went unconscious. Or at least, he hopes so.

He sniffs, and dries his cheeks. He can't be weak like this now. Is it weakness though? No, it's not, and he knows it, chooses to use another word. Drown. Yes, that's the word. He can't give up and lets himself drown. You would keep on fighting, and so needs he.

"I'll make sure you get to Coruscant as soon as possible. Keep on fighting, please. For me. Besides, you wouldn't let me have the last word, would you? You're too stubborn for that."

How many times has he stopped himself before? A thousand times, maybe more. He's got nothing more to lose now, though. So he leans down to drop a chaste kiss on your forehead. And it's soft and tender, and he wishes he did it these thousand previous times, every chance he had, he wishes he seized them all. There's a voice in his head repeating he couldn't, but he doesn't listen to it now. For now, all he sees is you, and him, and all these chances he let slip through his fingers to show you he loved you, and if there is one thing he regrets, it's wasting them all.

Maybe he's too late. He doesn't know. What if he can't bring you back? What if you're too far gone…?

The door opens on the surgical droid again.

"I need to tend to her."

Obi-Wan nods in silence, gives your hand one last squeeze, and strides out of the room in silence. The best he can do for you now is to make sure you get some space on that transport and leave as fast as possible. The rest is out of his hands, and to the will of the Force, or so he repeats to himself, at least.

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

It's almost 1am. Obi-Wan is exhausted, but he can't sleep. Instead, he's sitting by your side in an uncomfortable chair, watching clouds hiding and revealing the moon through the windowpane. You've been moved to another part of the medcenter, you're not in that tiny cupboard anymore. But you're not on Coruscant just yet.

The transports can't leave before the morning, the Separatists blockade around the planet was reinforced during the day, and no ship could take off and reach a Republic cruiser. The battle is still raging on up there, beyond the lazy clouds. The Republic forces seem to be winning, but it is pretty obvious that no one would be going anywhere before dawn.

Once again, there is nothing he can do, and despite his stern expression, it drives him mad. You're dying, right before his eyes, and he can't help.

It's quiet tonight. No shots, no explosions. It's almost like the war has stopped, for a little while. The world is peaceful as it rests, asleep and silent.

You're still unconscious in that bed. He still holds your hand. You asked him to keep on holding you till it's over, and he will. He will stay with you. He gave you his word.

The droid said 10%. If there is one person to make it through these 10%, it is you. At least, that's what Obi-Wan keeps on repeating to himself. It's hard to convince a rational mind of a fool's hope.

He's been listening to your breathing, monitoring any changes. Nothing has changed for the passed few hours, but now, there's something… different.

He listens more closely, turning to you. Your breathing becomes shallower and shallower, it seems harder for you to breathe…

He merely has time to frown, before your body spasms, and you start coughing, and coughing, and coughing…

Obi-Wan jumps to his feet, and tries to steady you, help you calm down, but there's little he can do. He calls for help, but no one answers.

You keep on coughing, but now… there's blood… you're coughing out blood…

"HELP! I NEED HELP IN HERE!" he shouts, turning you to your side to get the blood out of the way and stop you from suffocating.

"Y/N? Calm down. Please, stop… stop…" he whispers, begging.

He's so scared, he's near panicking, he doesn't know what to do. And why is no one coming?

"Y/N, please. Calm down. Come on…"

Finally, hurrying footsteps down the corridor, and a couple of seconds later, the surgical droids appear.

"Please, leave the room and close the door," a droid requires, but Obi-Wan doesn't move.

There's still more blood being coughed out of your lungs, and he doesn't know what to do to stop it, all he can do is watch the dark liquid stain your pillow, and the sound of your cough and how you struggle to breathe and…

"Master Jedi, you must let me through."

Let him through? The droid… yes… yes, he can't help, but the droid can. He needs to move, take a step back, but your hand, he has to keep on holding onto it, he gave you his word…

"Obi-Wan?"

Anakin's voice? Yes, he's there, by the door, but what is he doing here?

It doesn't matter, Obi-Wan finally realizes that the droid is by his side, waiting for him to step away, and finally, he shakes himself out of his stupor, and lets go of your hand before striding to the door.

He rests his back against the door as he closes it behind him. Anakin is there, before him, in the corridor, looking at him with worry.

"Is she…?"

He doesn't finish his question, but he doesn't need to.

"I don't know," is all Obi-Wan can answer, and it's the truth.

He doesn't know if you'll make it through the night. Perhaps not…

10%...

Under any other circumstances, he would have asked Anakin what he was doing here, why he wasn't with the troopers, would have joked about 're-deploying' himself again. He doesn't. Instead he stares right at Anakin, as if he could get an answer from him, but his former Padawan has none to offer.

It's always strange to Anakin to see fear on his mentor's features. He who appears so calm and strong, it's hard to face the cracks about to destroy something one would have thought unbreakable. Yet, Obi-Wan seems lost now. Just like Anakin was, so long ago, after Qui-Gon died. Lost, and cold, and silently asking for someone to help him.

Obi-Wan has been here for him, always. And looking back, Anakin has to admit that he has not always been the most obedient student, and yet, Obi-Wan has always been there for him. He has done his best. Anakin would not fail him now that it is Obi-Wan's turn to be in need for a friend.

Without a word, he wraps his arms around the crumbling Jedi before him. It's not what Obi-Wan was expecting. But as he starts crying again, he finds out that it helps.

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

You hate being in a hospital bed. You hate it. You hate lying down like this, idle. You keep on asking when you can get out of the medcenter for good, but you can feel that you're not ready anyway. It's been two weeks, and you can barely take a walk in the garden.

Still, you're breathing, alive. You're going to make it. It's enough of a miracle, you reckon. You can't exactly complain, given the circumstances.

It is not only your active nature that keeps you restless though. You've learned that Obi-Wan is back on Coruscant, has been for four days now. And he hasn't come to see you yet.

What if your confession pushed him away?

You thought, then, on the battlefield, that you could read in his eyes that he felt the same as you did. But then, you were bleeding, right after being shot… you guess that your mind wasn't at its clearest. Perhaps you misread the signs, maybe that day, when he held you so tenderly, he was just trying to be kind. Perhaps it didn't mean what you thought it meant, and he was just being a friend. Maybe you imagined things, given the circumstances, it would be plausible.

You want to go to the Jedi temple and see him, explain everything to him. You can't take your words back, but you can reassure him on your intentions. He's a Jedi, and your worlds are so different… you were a fool for falling for him in the first place. Still, you don't regret falling at all, it was the sweetest of falls.

And if he can't be your lover, you still want him to be your friend. As long as you keep him into your life…

You look by the window to the speeders flying across the gigantic town. It's twilight already, the sky is red and feverish, shining upon the windows of the glass buildings. The clouds are like flames drawing crazy forms through the air. You wonder where Obi-Wan is now. You wonder if you can make things be the way they were before.

You don't know he's been standing before the door to your room for the past ten minutes. You don't know that he's scared you've changed your mind, that you back away and decide that you were just saying whatever crazy thoughts were twirling in your head then. It's silly, his reason denies it, but he can't help but fear all the same. Doubt is not an enemy easily defeated once it's settled in one's mind and heart.

He has to see you though. He's almost lost you, and he needs to see you now.

He knocks on the door, barely breathing. He doesn't wait for an answer to step inside, he knows you're alone.

You can't control the way your heart jumps in your chest as you see him. He gives you a warm smile as he walks to your side.

"You look better," he says softly.

"Not hard to do, really. I was told I looked terrible when I was on the verge of dying."

Your voice is still a little weak, a little hoarse, but it's steady too and he finds back that humour he adores. You sound like you, a tired you, but you nonetheless.

"I'll be fine," you add as you see that he hesitates. "It'll take a little while though."

Obi-Wan nods, wondering how to bring up the subject he so desperately wants to mention, but instead, he decides that this is not the place.

"I heard you didn't have any time outside today. May I volunteer to take you for a walk? If you're not too tired."

"Oh, you can't imagine how much I want to get out of this bed!" you answer, already sitting up, and you make him chuckle.

He helps you get up and walk across the medcenter until you reach the gardens set on the rooftop. Grass and trees and brightly coloured flowers are cut by a winding path. You don't walk for more than ten minutes before your wound becomes painful again and you and Obi-Wan sit down on a bench, watching the burning sky bathe with red and gold the leaves of the trees.

At this hour, the garden is almost empty, and despite the distant humming of the speeders, it's quiet and peaceful out here. None of you have said a word since you've walked out of your room, but you reckon that one of you has to be the brave one and start the conversation, it might as well be you.

"Any news? From my homeplanet, I mean."

"The city is secured, Anakin and Ahsoka stayed there. It will take time to draw their forces away further, but we will."

"Thank you, for helping us."

"There is no need to thank me for anything."

Silence tries to settle between the two of you again, but you can't let it. It will be too hard to speak again if you do.

"Thank you… for staying with me… when I was wounded," you stutter a little, tripping upon your own words.

When he looks at you, you seem nervous. You push some of your hair behind your hair, fumble with the blanket you've kept wrapped around your shoulders.

He's imagined this conversation, played the scenario in his mind before coming to see you. Now, he's at a loss for words.

"I heard you, you know?" you go on, a little smile on your lips, although you're still terrified by this conversation. "I know when you were there. I asked you to stay, and you did, as much as you could. Thank you for that, thank you for keeping your word."

But Obi-Wan shakes his head.

"I've failed you in more than one way that day."

You shake your head with an amused smile cracking through your pain.

"No, you did not. You never have. I don't reckon you ever will."

"I've let you get hurt," he answers with anger in his voice, but the harshness is directed towards himself, not towards you.

"This wasn't your fault. I'm the one who took the risk."

"I should have done something."

"What could you have done? There was nothing to be done, Obi-Wan."

"I… I thought… I really thought you were going to die out there."

Anger has left his tone, replaced by a fragile sadness that cracks on the edges, vulnerable and lost and scared, like a child left in the dark.

It's strange to see this side of him. You feel like he must trust you deeply to let you see him like this.

"You need more than that to get rid of me."

He lets out a breathy laugh, and stares at you. You exchange a sad smile, both of you looking for the right words. You don't know how to come back to your confession, how to start discussing it. He doesn't know how to tell you how he feels. Words seem aimless, as if they would just been thrown in the space between the two of you, as if they would pull you apart.

Instead, Obi-Wan takes your hand.

It's a soft and tender hold, thumb brushing against the back of your hand, soothing. You can guess the truth in his eyes again, but you need more than a guess with this. He sees this is your own gaze. So, he does something absolutely mad, and surely he has lost his mind. That's what you think as he leans forward to reach your lips. You don't move away though, you don't stop him, you don't even blink. If anything, you're afraid he'll come back to his senses and stop. But he doesn't. He falls forward and forward, and he's happy to lose control, it's the gentlest of falls.

His lips linger on yours for barely a few seconds, as if he's scared he's done something wrong. But as he pulls away, he realizes, it's not out of guilt for the Order, not because he's a Jedi, he's just scared he's done something you didn't really want him to do. So he looks at you with eyes filled with a thousand questions, and your grin answers them all.

"I never thought you'd do something like that," you admit, your lungs short of air for the best of reasons, your heart beating so fast.

"Neither did I," he admits with a smile. "And yet, here I am."

He hesitates before asking the question that burns his tongue, but he needs to know the answer, so he asks anyway.

"Did you mean it? What you said when you… when you were hurt?"

He looks so fragile again, and yet you feel so safe with him. It's crazy how he makes you feel, like nothing bad can ever happen to you as long as he holds your hand.

You intertwine your fingers together, and give him the sweetest of smiles.

"I love you, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Somehow, it feels like I always have, and always will. Like I was meant to fall for you."

It's his time to smile, bright and happy and unreserved, and even his eyes are smiling, sparkling. He gives your hand a tender squeeze.

"Well, that's fortunate."

You can't help but laugh, despite how it makes your wound painful.

"That's all you've got to say?"

But he shakes his head.

"No, no it's not all I have to say. I should say that… something that would get me in a lot of trouble if anyone else heard me speak so…"

Your expression saddens a little.

"It is forbidden to you, isn't it? To… be with someone."

"Yes, it is. But… maybe… when the war is over, I won't have to be a Jedi anymore."

You look at him with round eyes.

"It's your life. I could never ask you to do this for me."

"Yes, you can. You already did, once. And I have no hesitation."

"Obi-Wan…"

"I love you," he interrupts you, his hand rising to caress your cheek. "I have lost so much, I will not lose you as well. I love you like I've never loved anyone in my life and…"

He pauses, takes a deep breath, bites his lip in search for the right words.

"When I was very young, merely a Padawan, I fell in love with someone."

He takes his time to breathe, and you patiently wait for him to continue. You wonder how many times he's told this story before, and somehow, you know he hasn't. Somehow, you know you're the only one to whom he confesses the whole story.

"We were on the run for a year, a dissident group wanted to kill her… it's a long story. Anyway… we were in love. But we were young, and I was a Padawan, and she… I figured out that if she really loved me and wanted me around, she would ask me to stay. She didn't. She loved me too much for that. And we were so young… I've spent many hours wondering how my life would be if I had done chosen her then."

"Where is she now?"

He shakes his head.

"She died."

"I'm sorry…"

"This moment had passed. But ours has not. And I will not make the same mistake twice. I thought… that night, I thought that I had wasted my chance to tell you the truth, and there was nothing, looking back on my life, that I regretted more in this moment than to have not seized all these chances I had before to tell you the truth. To show you how I cared. If you want to be with me, after the war, if you want to wait for me, I will leave the Order to be with you. Just… ask me to stay."

You're crying, and haven't noticed. You want to tell him how you feel, but the words won't form on your tongue. You could tell him that you love him more than anything, but you've already told him how you felt, and it doesn't feel right to say it again. The moment is too powerful for a mere 'I love you'. You raise your hand to run your fingertips through his beard, and he leans in your touch, craving, eager, and you can see he needs you as much as you need him.

You've chosen him, no matter what. You reckon, it's his right to choose you as well. All you can do now, is ask him to stay, and so, you do.

"Obi-Wan?"

"Hmm?"

"Can you hold me till it's over?"

He smiles, but doesn't trust his voice to answer. His throat has tightened too much. Instead, he draws you close, and holds you against him, until dusk turns into night and the burning clouds leave in favour of the cold stars. He doesn't need to say it, you know what he means by holding you like this. It's a silent promise you both take.

Always. Always…

*****************************

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brooklynislandgirl · 3 years

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For the headcanon{s}, can you talk about Beth's mental illness? How it does and does not impact her daily life, if things trigger it, how she handled this after losing Riley {in verses that are sans Riley, obviously}, and what some of her experiences have been? I feel like it's something people determinedly overlook about her, and I'd like to know!

This.

“You can’t be fuckin’ serious!”

“You keep a civil tongue in that head of yours, boy. I think I know what’s best for your sister.”

“With all due respect, sir... you haven’t known what’s best in-”

Beth is an oyster.

Vague lines and curves that are nothing remarkable perhaps to the point of being unappealing. She can only burrow into the Sand....sandy...Andy. Andy and the Admiral are outside of the room, arguing about the proper course of treatment. She can’t hear every word because she’s underwater and all the sounds are so far away as to be indistinct from the beeping of the monitor that is keeping track of her vital signs. The bandages on her pseudo-pods ~arms, they’re arms, Beth~ are too heavy. They keep her trapped to this bed where she can’t really move and she doesn’t know why. It’s all wriggling around inside of her. A parasite. One she has to wrap in smooth layers of aragonite and conchiolin. Layer after microscopic crystalline layer. Maybe if it’s smooth enough and round enough, maybe if it has enough lustre, then they will set her free. She’s so very tired but she doesn’t have her turtle, and the thin cotton gown isn’t warm enough, worn thin in places. The blankets are too scratchy and the air smells funny, too many chemicals that it’s making her feel nauseous.

But that’s all wrong. Oysters don’t have blankets and they aren’t tied down to beds and they don’t... they don’t...

“Electroshock! How can you? Look at her. She’s just a kid!”

“And your sister nearly killed herself tonight, Andrew. I am done discussing this with you. I’m your father, and a neurosurgeon. If anyone is capable of choosing a treatment plan, it isn’t a teen age boy.”

~*~

Beth was fourteen years old when she was diagnosed however wrongly with Depression mood disorder with features of psychosis, after she smashed her bedroom mirror with her fists, deeply slashing her arms from wrists to elbows. The symptoms leading up to this moment certainly were red-flags for what was wrong with her, all of them classic to the specific diagnosis: the trouble concentrating or making decisions, chronic fatigue, feelings of guilt and worthlessness, insomnia, restlessness, loss of appetite, phantom aches and pains that didn’t seem to go away, persistent sadness and anxiety. It isn’t uncommon for girls and young women diagnosed with Turner Syndrome to also develop depression. And her father felt the matter was cut and dry, despite strenuous objections from her brother.

She spent three miserable weeks in an in-patient psychiatric facility receiving less than pleasant electroconvulsive therapy, psychotherapy and was prescribed citalopram {Celexa}. Which made Beth absolutely nauseous to the point that she had trouble keeping water down, only worsened her sleeping troubles, and made her jittery. As soon as the Admiral shipped out again for a year long deployment aboard the USNS Comfort, Andy took her back to the doctor to get a second opinion.

It was then, at fifteen, that she was re-diagnosed correctly with Rapid Cycling Bi-Polar Disorder. Andy nursed her through the withdrawal of the citalopram and taking over her care regiment seemed to do his sister wonders, as she started to be the sweet and gentle girl he’d always known her to be. He’d sort out her medication by days of the week, would make sure she took the right ones at the right times with her meals, going out of his way to cook things she could stomach, letting her sleep in his bed when she wanted to, and for years after, she seemed to improve. She went months without crippling depression and her manic and hypomanic states were few and far between as well.

Then everything changed.

Beth was accepted into several universities and chose Columbia, knowing that their pre-med program was top-notch and their medical school was even better, and wouldn’t require her to change schools for the duration of her education. Having just turned sixteen in June she was starting a new life perhaps far younger than she ought to have.

There was major upheaval, stress and abject terror at leaving Hawai’i behind, going almost as far away as possible. She was not prepared for the cross-continent move. Neither was she prepared for living on her own. Perhaps she simply expected to live with Andy the whole of her life, or at the very least through her under-grad years. But after the initial first two months that it took to move into their grandparents’ apartment in Brooklyn, and Andy setting up all of her bills, hiring a cook and house keeper, making sure she got settled in as a freshman, he enlisted in the US Air-Force. She saw very little of her brother for the next two years, and the only thing that kept Beth from failing out of school was the idea that she would be sent home to live with the Admiral.

She began to notice that her medication {bupropion aka Wellbutrin} seemed less effective during this time. She was barely getting more than three hours of sleep at night, and maybe half that during day time naps. She experiences bouts of nausea that once again made eating difficult to prioritise, a feature that would last her entire life thus far, with Beth being at least twenty pounds consistently underweight. She also began to experience chronic sore throats, what she describes as her bladder shrinking down to the size of a pea, and worse...tinnitus that became co-morbid with her audio processing disorder.

The few times during the year that she was able to see Andy, things seemed to get better....until she crashed immediately after he left again.

Beth decided she no longer wanted to take her medication.

~*~

“C’mon Beth, I’m getting married, it’s not like I’m dying!”

“GET OUT! GETOUTGETOUTGETOUT!” She’s throwing things at him. She’s destroyed seven plates,six coffee mugs and at least one irreplaceable vase. There are so many tears, so much snot, it’s hard to believe his sister is almost eighteen and not eight. But thankfully, she’s still so short she can’t reach the stemware and is forced to come out from behind the island kitchen.

Which means he manages to get his arms around her, a bear hug from behind that locks her stick-figure arms to her chest. She fusses and has a fit, kicking and trying to bite him, but his training in Pararescue has taught him how to hold someone without hurting them.

“I’m not gonna leave you, jelly bean, I promise. And you’ll like Lana. She’s a real nice girl, her family’s from Jersey, and she’ll be moving in with us. You won’t have to-” “LA LA LA! NO CAN HEAR YOU!”

Beth is a hermit crab.

She can just shrink back into her shell and keep everyone out. She can hide down in the bottom of the sea and let the water of her Mother’s arms wash over her and if anything gets close, she’ll pinch them to bits.

But she really isn’t. She isn’t a hermit crab, she’s just a girl and there’s nothing that can keep everything inside of her from dying a slow and painful death. Because now Andy is not only not going to be around, but he’s getting married. To a stranger no less. But like a hermit crab, her house is too small and this woman is never setting foot inside of it. And it’s his stupid fault, because that’s what her brother is...stupid.

Doesn’t he know that no one will love him like she does? That no one depends on and needs him as much? Doesn’t he know they’re supposed to be together, forever and always? Doesn’t he know he’s the only person who truly loves her? The person who said he’d never leave her? Why does he need a wife anyway? She can do everything this Lana person can, and better. If he’d just let her prove it, he’d see!

~*~

But he didn’t. Andy ended up getting married.

Beth dropped out of medical school before completing her residency, but applied her credits to nursing. She was absolutely certain the Admiral was going to have a stroke that she had decided not to become a neurosurgeon like him, or his second choice, a cardiologist. Emergency room nursing suits her needs. She is indoors and on her feet throughout the darkness of the night when home is ever so lonely. It feeds the excessive energy that floods her system and lets her literally crash, semi-conscious during the sometimes three, sometimes four consecutive days she has off.

Life settles into a medication-less routine. Beth finally grows her final inch in height, puts on a few more pounds so she doesn’t seem nearly as cadaverous as she did before. She can blame late occurring puberty for that and for just the most brief moments of time, things seemed to have found their balance. There were no great highs. There were no life-threatening lows. Beth could finally breath.

At least until....the sun burned out and destroyed everything in a single knock on the door.

Perfunctory words that echo in her dreams.

~*~

“Miss Riley, on behalf of the Chief of Staff, United States Air Force, I regret to inform you of the untimely death of your brother, Second Lieutenant Andrew M. Riley-”

Beth Riley...isn’t anything any more. All of everything that was bright and best within her is now a single leg and some bone fragments in a beautiful koa wood casket. It is a folded flag put into her hands. It’s the reception in the Admiral’s house and an incredibly long line of people talking and talkingandtalkingandtalkingandtalking and saying nothing at all. She can’t breath. She can’t feel. Nothing makes sense and it never will because what do you say when half of you is ripped away and gone forever? What do you do when the world stops turning and the sun has burnt out of the sky?

Beth slips out of the house without being noticed. She manages to get in her brother’s Mustang and heads into the city proper, and ends up at the bar he used to like to frequent when he was on leave. She sits at the bar and orders scotch, 25 year Macallan.

She buys the bottle. She buys the entire bar drink after drink until last call.

She lets someone take her home. Gets into his apartment. Doesn’t really feel his mouth and his hands pawing at her. Doesn’t feel anything really at all until she shoves him away. Things become blurry after that and she only really vaguely remembers calling Jay from a payphone some blocks away.

She can’t find her shoes. But that doesn’t matter.

Nothing does.

Three months later ~one hundred days, to be precise~ Beth quits her job. She turns her utilities off. Throws a few things including her wallet, her passport, and her rosary into a sea bag that she’s had forever.

Darfur. The Democratic Republic of Congo. Amsterdam. Uruguay. Wherever Médecins Sans Frontières will let her go, to treat people living in the worst conditions. Ironic, isn’t it...that no matter where she goes, Beth always manages to make it back. That all those fears Andy had of her killing herself from neglect or inattention, or even possibly through deliberate action, and she can’t get so much as a life-threatening paper cut? It isn’t fair.

And maybe...maybe it doesn’t matter. There’s a lot of ways you can die in Louisiana.

She hears the coffee in New Orleans is really wonderful.

#mynameisanakin #She's Talking To Angels {Bethisms}#Making Wishes on Passing Cars|Answered Asks #mental health tw #medication tw #suicidal ideation tw

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fortylessonsbeforeforty · 3 years

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Lesson 30

I learnt the importance of being unapologetically ME! I read a quote recently that said something along the lines of that in life we aren’t finding ourselves, we are becoming ourselves, which I loved, but at the same time didn’t entirely agree with. For me, I think sometimes in life, we do get lost. Lost in the expectations of others that we think we ought to be living up to. Lost when we are in different relationships, personally and professionally. And at times we need to rediscover ourselves, which I understand in a sense is how we become our authentic self. For me, turning thirty was a defining point in my life where I first remember I truly felt I was ME!

I saw a psychic medium in my late twenties and one thing that really hit home for me, was when she suggested I needed to release the self-made guilt, responsibility and loyalty. She told me to release old ways of doing things — old ideas, beliefs and notions. It made me reflect on the person I was and the decisions I was making in life; whether or not they were for me or to please the people around me. I came to see that the ‘plan’ I had for my life was created based on the ideas and beliefs of others and what society said was ‘normal.’ The greatest internal battle was the desire to be who I wanted to be and who I knew I was versus who I thought my family, friends and society told me I should be.

This realisation that I was living a life for others and not completely for myself wasn’t entirely a bad thing. I realise now, that some of my best qualities and characteristics have been shaped by my family and loved ones. I had to reconcile the idea of who I wanted to be with the person (I thought) others wanted me to be and ensure I wasn’t compromising me in the equation. In an episode of ‘The Secret Life Of Us,’ Dr Alex Christensen returns to her high school to speak to current students. She explains the weird feeling she got when she was called ‘Doctor’ for the first time and how she hadn’t yet seen herself as a doctor. She said:

“I understood that people were seeing me from a different perspective from the way that I’d always seen myself. And so, in a way, I had to rethink my own view of myself. It’s a critical moment for us all. But what’s more important, I believe, is how we use this realisation. When we understand this, when we embrace all our contradictions, only then are we equipped, fully equipped to find our true place in the world.”

After seeing the psychic medium, I felt a confidence to embrace the contradictions of who I was, rather than feel ashamed and hide them. For so long I had felt afraid to express certain parts of me, for fear of people not being accepting of who I was. This in turn made it hard for me to like the person I was, because it was a person I was pretending to be. Savage Garden’s song ‘This Side Of Me,’ explores this idea of wanting to showing one’s true self. Darren Hayes sings:

And in the dark I want to find that golden glow within

’Cause I am not afraid to let you see this side of me

It was after seeing the psychic and turning thirty that I feel I began to take steps towards truly becoming happy with who I was and the me I wanted to be and have people see. I began the work of getting to know the me I wanted to be and letting that side of me shine.

When studying to become a teacher, it’s made clear that you need to be very reflective. It’s drummed into you that you need to be reflective at the end of each lesson, of your teaching style, your behaviour management, how you set up the room, the list is endless. I have no doubt that reflection is a natural part of all professions, but it’s showed me the importance of using this skill in all aspects of who I am, not just the teacher in the classroom. If we aren’t reflective, we can’t grow. David Chang discusses the importance of self-reflection in his memoir, ‘Eat A Peach,’ using the analogy of a lobster. He says:

“There’s an old myth that lobsters are immortal. They never show signs of getting old. They don’t slow down until they day they’re cooked and eaten. Lobsters grow by molting. They shed their old shell to reveal a new, soft shell that will eventually harden around them. By the time they’re done, there’s no sign of the lobster they were. It’s an exhausting, dangerous process. It takes a tremendous amount of energy and leaves them exposed and vulnerable while they’re in the middle of it. Want to know the only sign a lobster is dying? It stops molting. Never again would we fear the gruelling work of breaking ourselves down and gluing ourselves back together again. That cycle of building and destroying and rebuilding is not something to overcome. The human equivalent of not wanting to molt is trying to make life easy, refusing to grow or be self-reflective.”

Sometimes we are forced into situations that allow us the time and space to look inward to ask ourselves if we are on the right path. The global pandemic has been one of those times that has allowed us the opportunity to do so. No matter where we are in the world, Covid-19 has had an impact on us, some more so than others. I really enjoyed the conversation between @taylorswift and Jack Antonoff as they discussed recording ‘folklore’ during this period of time. Jack said:

“In our dismantling of all our systems of life that we’ve known in the pandemic we’re left with two options. Either cling to it and make it work of just say “Ok, I guess I’m gonna turn a new path and get a frontier mentality. Everything’s a blur so I’m just gonna rewrite it.”

I know for me it was a great opportunity to think about what was important to me and what I could leave behind. Letting go of all those things that weren’t contributing positively and productively to the person I aim to be. It made me think about how I spend my time and the notion that I had to ‘use up’ my whole weekend seeing people and doing things, otherwise it was a wasted two days. It made me realise the importance of prioritising the things I love and how it’s more about quality over quantity. It’s a sentiment that @taylornation reflected on with Jack, saying:

“There’s something about the complete and total uncertainty of life that causes endless anxiety, but there’s another part the release of pressures you used to feel. Because if we’re going to have to recalibrate everything, we should start with what we love the most first.”

It reminded me that in times of any disaster, whether it’s a global pandemic, a health scare, losing a job or the breakdown of a relationship, the importance in taking the time to discover who you are. Finding yourself in order to become who you want to be. And sometimes that may take time, as Taylor Swift sings in ‘happiness’:

And in the disbelief I can’t face reinvention I haven’t met the new me yet

It may take some time to find the new person you want to become after a disaster. Similarly, we can find ourselves changed in the blink of an eye after a completely unexpected event. Things happen that will change us and Katharine McPhee’s song ‘Stranger Than Fiction’ is a good reminder of that.

I found love when I least expected it I found faith from a night of no regrets I found me in a place too crazy to mention Let’s say that life is stranger than fiction

I found love from the strength of letting go I found faith from the nights spent on my own I found me in a place too crazy to mention Let’s say that life is stranger than fiction

Another thing that I’ve learnt is to be open to all experiences and how they might influence and change us. Never be so rigid in our own mindset, that the things around us could change us for the better. It’s one of the things I love most about travelling, especially when I go outside of my comfort zone, travelling alone. I know for a fact that part of who I am today, I’ve become because of the people and places I’ve met on my many overseas adventures, especially those unplanned moments where a crazy chance of coincidence lands you in the right place at the right time with the right person.

Sometimes the circumstances of life, will force you into situations where you begin to forget who you are and the person staring back at you in the mirror is unrecognizable. In the musical ‘Waitress,’ the protagonist, Jenna comes to the realisation she has ended up in a life, not of her choosing. She sings in ‘She Used To Be Mine’:

It’s not what I asked for Sometimes life just slips in through a back door And carves out a person And makes you believe it’s all true

It’s easy to believe sometimes we are the person based on the circumstances life lands us in. I love the quote, “Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it.” We don’t have to be defined by the failures we’ve faced, the health diagnosis we’ve been given. We choose who we want to be. I love Jenna’s epiphany in the song where she is determined to make a change for herself.

And you’re not what I asked for If I’m honest I know I would give it all back For a chance to start over And rewrite an ending or two For the girl that I knew

We will inevitably face people who will try to tell us who they think we are or should be, based on information they’ve heard (whether it’s true or baseless rumours). They’ll make assumptions about us before they even know us. We have no control over the version of ‘us’ that other people choose to see us as, because the truth is, we only ever know the version of a person that they chose to show us. At the end of the day, we should not put too much time and effort into the thoughts and opinions others have of us. I’ve always loved the saying “Lions don’t lose sleep over opinions of sheep.” Billie Eilish reflects on this very thing in her song, ‘Not My Reponsibility’:

Who decides what that makes me, what that means? Is my value based only on your perception? Or is your opinion of me not my responsibility?

I’ve learnt to drop any mask that I’ve worn, choosing to be unapologetically me. What you see is what you get. And if you don’t like it, you don’t have to be around me. I’ve come to really LOVE ME! I’ve seen different variations of self-love quotes over the years and have remixed my own that I’ve used in countless pep talks to students, colleagues, family and friends over the years.

“The one person that you will spend your entire life with, is yourself. So you better love yourself as much as you can.”

So whether you are finding yourself or becoming yourself, the most important thing I’ve learnt is to base it on what you love. We attract what we are, so it makes sense to embrace the things we love and let go of the nuanced complexities we create to fit into different groups we think are cool or popular, but just aren’t us. In the closing words of Taylor Swift’s song ‘Daylight,’ which closes the ‘Lover’ album:

I wanna be defined by the things that I love Not the things I hate Not the things that I’m afraid of, I’m afraid of Not the things that haunt me in the middle of the night I, I just think that You are what you love

#unapologeticallyme #taylor swift #jack antonoff #folklore #savage garden #david chang #katharine mcphee #waitress #billie eilish

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kaen-ace-of-diamonds · 4 years

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Grade Book

Word Count: 1600+ (oneshot) [AO3]

Genre: Angst/Fluff

Characters: Korosensei, Class E (mentioned), the Second Reaper (mentioned)

Summary: When he was a man, the Reaper kept meticulous records of those he killed, as a mark of pride in his own work. Now that he’s Korosensei, what he wants to leave behind for good is a record of pride in his beloved students.

Written for the @assclasszine.

~0~

The Reaper is a methodical man.

It would be a rookie mistake to leave evidence of his work around his apartment, he knows that. Nobody but himself ever comes inside it. Even then, when he vacates his various residencies after some time, he leaves them emptier than they were when he first moved in, in body and soul, and it feels as if no one ever lived in them at all. He is a spirit, a god of slaughter, and the spaces he passes through leave no trace of human presence, only death.

At least, that’s the way it’s supposed to be, according to both his reputation and his own standards for what a legendary assassin is made of. But the Reaper is only human, after all, and he can in fact succumb to the average human compulsions. He’s fairly certain that it’s only humans that feel the need to meticulously list and organize things, the pleasure centers of the brain stimulated when a pattern is found and adhered to. He theorizes that it comes from the desire of a weak species to find some order or control over their lives, which can be ended or thrown into irreparable disarray out of absolutely nowhere.

The Reaper is not weak, and needs no such reassurance. He has very little life to upset in the first place. But he finds the process comforting anyway.

This time around he has been lucky enough to rent an apartment that comes with a desk. When he returns home with his most recent mission completed, he retrieves his blank black binder and a ballpoint pen from his suitcase, and sits down at it. He’s always surprised at how pleasant he finds the mixed scents of looseleaf paper, old wood, and fresh ink.

First he documents the details of the mission, taking it all down in a cipher of his own creation to hide his own location and methods, as well as the names of his employers. He doesn’t assume it to be unbreakable, but he supposes it will give anyone who doesn’t know him quite a job to do in solving it. He feels neither fear or doubt when he sets out to kill. At least, this is what he tells himself.

This habit used to be for study purposes, back when he was in training himself. He used to have a section for reflecting on the mistakes he’d made, working on ways to do better. He makes no mistakes as a full-fledged killer, and when that section reappears in recent entries it is reserved only for the failings of his apprentice. Now instead he sticks firmly onto the pages identification photos of his targets, front and center, and the photos he takes to give his employers the proof that his job has been completed as ordered.

He writes down biological observations, the initial information on them given him by those employers (as well as whatever connection both share), any specifications they may have given him for the kill, the weapons and methods that he used in bringing about their deaths. He is tempted sometimes to put in the pictures and text clippings from the various newspaper articles about them — even the pitiful scraps that the largely overlooked ones get, in remembrance for average lives — but always decides against it. It isn’t his own personally gathered data, and he’s not some run of the mill serial killer, after all, gathering trophies and memorabilia from a hobby.

The Reaper is a professional, the best of the best. His work is his life, and it is only fitting that one of his very few indulgences in that life is documenting that exceptional work. Statistics are not all of what makes him the world’s most perfect assassin, of course. People in his circles discuss what does, behind his back in hushed, bitter tones. He has heard many of their conclusions over the years, all of them wrong. The conclusion that he himself has drawn — which certainly lends it credence as the right one — is that his success comes from two things. It’s not only the core of ice that’s long since replaced his heart, allowing him to commit any gruesome task asked of him with the clearest mind and the least regret. It is also the intense devotion to his trade that has replaced any other emotion that might get in his way. He has nothing else, and needs nothing else, except for the death that has always surrounded him.

This book is merely a testament to that. To his work, if not himself. Like the shadowy god for which he’s named himself, when somebody finally takes his life, whoever he is will disappear into the misty night. Unimportant and unacknowledged. Only the work he has left behind will remain. Only the trail of blood stretching endlessly into the horizon.

The Reaper supposes that it is perfectly fitting. Such is the inescapable point of life, isn’t it?

He writes out the name and time of this latest death, in a top corner, like he assumes a doctor would do. The point of his pencil lingers on the grayish paper, and idly scratches out the vague form of the kill’s broken form on the street.

~0~

Korosensei has very little experience with things like textbooks and strict curricula. So though if asked, he would vigorously deny anything so unprofessional as winging it, that is the majority of what he is doing at first. Karasuma must have his suspicions, of course, but he never says so outright, only gruffly barks him towards the right direction like an irritated sheepdog.

He doesn’t think he’s ever had teammates before, any more than he’s had this many students to train. The small sea of determined young faces looking up at him is unlike anything he’s ever been faced with. They’re certainly on the other side of the universe from the eternal dissonant calm on the face of his apprentice. Where the Second Reaper is ice inside, his children are pure youthful fire: overwhelming, beautiful, and sometimes even terrifying to behold.

So it is almost second nature to begin recording them. Some part of him mourns the loss of his old scrapbooks, but he supposes that this grade book is a perfectly worthy replacement.

He doesn’t even notice it at first when his books become more than that. More than they have ever been, even at their most thorough.

All the information in his students’ files he meticulously copies down. Personal information and opinions come next, along with lesson plans, weapons data, the tactics they choose and their results. With all of his new appendages, it’s easier and faster than ever before to take down all his thoughts before he loses them. It’s all just logs and facts and records, really, just a whir of necessary information...until it isn’t.

All of a sudden, it’s candid photos instead of yearbook and ID standards, with the bright smiles of his students’ true selves instead of the dull-eyed depression their school life has forced upon them. It’s a diagram of the makings of anti-Sensei bullets, above the top ten best shots in the class. It’s train and plane tickets from their resort trip, bordering the pages of their vacation pictures, and four whole pages of bits and pieces from their festival success. Outstanding test grades are plastered everywhere, from cover to cover.

Also scattered around are tentacle-drawn sketches (improving with each new attempt, if he does say so himself) of the best aspects of his classroom. He thinks he’s finally captured the wryness of Karma’s smirk, the strangely familiar shape of Kayano’s face, and most intriguing of all, the bright, striking sharpness of Nagisa’s eyes, glowing with killing intent.

Korosensei fills so many pages that sometimes he forgets that his time and their space is limited. His pencil shakes over the page when it hits him that the date of his inevitable destruction is drawing near. He’ll need to wrap it up, as painful as it is...

Yes, that is exactly what he shall do, he decides, heart leaping a little. His personalized graduation albums are a work of art, but he supposes it couldn’t hurt to leave one more hidden treasure for Class E to find here, after the final bell has rung. So he gathers up all his books from the beginning of the year to now, and sets them all in orderly piles in a box, which he stores safely inside of his desk.

He almost wants to take them all back out again, and look through them one last time. Maybe adjust some things. But no. No time for that. Besides, his raw and unedited feelings ought to mean the most to them, anyway. They are so very pure of heart and bursting with passion themselves, after all...

Korosensei straightens up and looks out the window at the ravaged moon. He hopes and prays that his children will be the ones to kill him, in the end, before he can destroy them. Those faces of theirs would make for a fine last sight. And he doesn’t want to be the one who snuffs those brilliant lights out, after all, before they’ve even reached their prime. He hopes they will always know how special they are, and how much they are worth, and how deeply his adoration of them runs even when he is gone.

The Reaper never once told anyone “I love you.” Korosensei isn’t quite sure how to, either. But for his students, he has given it his best try.

The name of the Reaper is gone, and the trail of blood has run just about dry. And when Korosensei disappears, it is life and love that he will leave behind, for his children to carry with them as they surge forward and thrive.

#assassination classroom #ansatsu kyoushitsu #korosensei #kaen's fics

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