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fandom-strumpet · 3 years

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Some Help

Prompt: Y/N gets back from a fight, she hasn’t shown Klaus her wings yet so when she needs help getting shrapnel out of them she calls for Rebekah. Rebekah isn’t home so Klaus comes to answer Y/N’s cries for assistance.

Word Count: 1705

Pairing: Klaus x Reader

Warnings: Blood, Angst, Swearing, Non canon character

You had just gotten home early from Prom night. You got in a fight with a nasty witch and you managed to take the fight outside with no casualties. Unfortunately, he had one upped you and sent metal shrapnel flying at you. The wings managed to take the most of the blow so the rest of your body was relatively fine save a few cuts and deep colored bruises. Stumbling into your room, you headed for the bathroom where you stripped out of the dress clumsily. Blood spatters ruined the sea green chartruese gown. You felt weary, slipping into some pajama shorts and black crop top bra. Dragging your feet you set yourself down on the sofa in your room. Suddenly you made your wings appear as you sat up and studied them in the vanity. Blood streaked down the feathers, and you began plucking out all the pieces of metal. Wincing, the first piece came out and it gave a clank as you tossed it on the vanity counter. 20 minutes later you were starting to work in the areas closest to your shoulder blades which were near impossible. The amount of pain you were in had you sweating and feeling delirious. At this rate you were going to pass out if you didn’t have some help.

“REBEKAAHH!” You yelled. You knew with her super hearing she would be able to hear you even in your weakened state. Silence.

“Rebekaaaaaah!” You groaned, leaning your forehead on the back of the sofa, your arms bracing you from collapse. Tears ran down your face and blurred the figure who knocked on the door.

“Rebekah?” You questioned.

“Not quite, love.” Answered a rich, honey accented voice.

Klaus. Your heart started racing, you couldn’t let him see you like this. He would think you were some kind of freak or monster. God I just need Rebekah.

“Where’s Bekah?” You rubbed your forehead.

“She’s still at the prom dance. What do you need?”

“Some help.” You sighed and Klaus went silent for a moment.

“Perhaps I could be of some assistance? Rebekah will be gone for a few more hours.”

You shook your head and groaned. I can’t last a few more hours.

“Y/N?”

Come in.”

Stepping in, Klaus gave an audible gasp at the sight. Here it comes. He’s going to say how horrific I look, what a beast I am. But no biting comments came, rather he was crossing over to you swiftly as he admired your beauty. His hands traced over your blood covered skin like he was afraid you would break any moment.

“Dear god, love. What happened to you?”

“Got in a fight with a witch and he put metal shards in my wings.” The hybrid growled hearing that.

“I need help getting the pieces out I can’t reach.”

“Alright, sit forward a bit darling.” He climbed onto the sofa behind you. His presence was a comfort, his heat and smell giving you a sense of security in the pain you were enduring.

“Here we go,” he warned and pulled a piece out. You hissed and Klaus put one hand on your back to still you as he continued to gently pull little pieces out of the feathers. You groaned and shut your eyes tight as nausea overwhelmed you.

“I’m sorry love, only one more to go.”

“It’s- AAAAAAAHHHGGG!”

Klaus had taken the opportunity to wrench out the largest piece near your shoulder blade where your wings joined your body. Tears streamed down your face as your scream filled the room. You made your wings vanish from sight, not able to bear another moment of Klaus’ view. Leaning back to collapse, Klaus cradled you in his arms as you sobbed. He planted a kiss on your forehead and softly apologized over and over for causing you so much pain.

“Y/N, you need to take a shower.”

“I don’t think I have the energy to stand that long and I don’t think you’ll want to get in the shower with me.”

Mentally Klaus countered your statement as he would like to but considering the circumstances it wouldn’t be the right time.

“Then I’ll help you to the bath.”

You nodded slightly. He was right, you needed to get all the excess blood off your body before you could fall asleep properly. Klaus went into the bathroom to start the bath while you got undressed. A few minutes later you walked into the bathroom to find a bathtub full of bubbles. The sight made you smile a bit, it was almost kid like to see all the foam. And it smelled like roses, oh heavens it looks amazing. Klaus turned and covered his eyes as you slipped out of the robe and into the sea of foam.

“You’re good to turn around now.”

Klaus turned and smiled at you. You looked like such an angel sitting there in the tub. Your bare skin attracted him like no other but he had to stay focused on the task at hand. Getting you cleaned up. Klaus grabbed a sponge and started helping get the blood off your back.

“Love, I’m going to need you to show me your wings again.”

There was a silence as you processed his request.You didn’t like that he had to see your true form but he was right. You had to clean the wings and you couldn’t do it without some help.

“Okay,” you said softly.

You focused your eyes on the suds as a whoosh sounded and your wings appeared. Klaus was speechless once again, his mind so wrapped up in you.

“This might hurt a bit.” Klaus warned.

And he was right, your wings stung as the sponge made contact. Klause watched as a mixture of water and blood dripped from your feathers into the water, creating swirls. For the next half hour, Klaus remained by your side helping you wash off. Finally, once almost all the bubbles were gone, and Klaus deemed you clean, you were able to get out. Klaus gave you his arm in support so you could get out and he respectfully looked away to give you some sort of privacy, no matter how minute.

“Do you need any help getting dressed?”

“Actually, yeah.” You blushed.

“Let me get you some pjs.”

“Middle drawer. You motioned with your head. In a flash, Klaus was back with your favorite graphic t shirt and comfy pj pants.

“I can get the bottoms, I just can’t quite get my arms high enough for the top.”

Klaus nodded in acknowledgement and turned around to let you get half dressed. He smiled a bit upon hearing the towel drop to the floor.

“Alright you can turn around now.”

Klaus turned to see your back facing him. You still felt shy about showing Klaus everything. A girl would normally dream about being stark naked with her crush but this just felt different. You felt so exposed in this weak moment. With your wings out of sight, Klaus could now see the already fading scars on your beautiful skin. He stepped forward and gently touched your back as if you would disappear if he wasn’t careful enough. He hadn’t realized how long he had stood there mesmerized by you until you cleared your throat.

“Um, Klaus?”

“Hmm?” He shook his head, his mind registering that he still held your shirt in his other hand.

“You ok?”

“Yes, sweetheart. Apologies, I just got lost in your beauty for a moment.”

You laughed nervously and looked at the ground to hide your furious blush.

“Here,” Klaus said gently and brought the shirt over your head, sliding his hand down your arm. Goosebumps raised on your skin feeling his soft touch. He helped lift your arm and then tracing his fingers across your back he moved to the next arm. Pulling your shirt down slowly, it teased him and hid your body from him once again. You turned around to face Klaus and for a moment you stared deep into his eyes. He grinned at you, dimples appearing on his stubble covered cheeks. Leaning forward you wrapped your arms around his torso, taking in his warmth and calming scent. He hummed and you felt his chest vibrate. It made you smile and gave you butterflies rampaging around in your chest.

“Let’s get you to bed, love.”

Stooping down he picked you up bridal style which made you gasp in surprise. Walking over and setting you down in bed, he covered you up with the soft blanket. He turned to leave before you stopped him.

“Klaus?” He turned around, his face poised in question.

“Will you stay with me?”

“Of course.” he smiled and went to sit down in a plush chair.

“No, Klaus.” you lifted the covers and patted the bed, “With me.”

Klaus’ face broke out in a beaming smile and crawled into bed with you taking the covers up with him. You sat up slightly to let Klaus slip his arm around you and you hummed in content upon feeling him against you. You both rested in quiet comfort and peace until you broke the silence.

“Do you think I’m a monster?” You asked quietly.

Klaus pulled you in closer and tilted your chin up to meet his frowning face.“Not one bit, love. And don’t ever let anyone tell you that you are.”

Your face scrunched up and you could feel a silent tear roll down. Klaus rubbed his thumb over your cheek to whisk the lone tear away. “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever met, you are absolutely stunning. Sweetheart, you are a shining star that out glows all the others, you are a gift from the heavens. Your mere presence is as calming as the roaring tide of the sea. Your smile brings joy to all who witness it and your laugh is the most beautiful song that everyone wants to sing along to because it is so contagious.”

Another tear fell down your cheek, but this time from peace. You scoot closer to Klaus until your head was resting on his chest. You closed your eyes as he started to play with your hair.

“I love you, Niklaus Mikaelson,” you whispered.

And with that you were asleep. Klaus felt stunned and elated at your words. He ran his fingers through your wavy hair and placed a gentle kiss on your forehead.

“And I love you, my sweet angel. Sleep well.”

You smiled in your sleep feeling his chest vibrate against you.

@katherinesbtch @rome5683

#klaus mikaelson fanfiction #klaus mikaelson #klaus mikaelson x reader #klaus mikaelson imagine #tvd fanfiction

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eldritchqueerture · 2 years

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One For The Memory

Chapter 10: Bound in Madness

Chapter Summary: Tim enters the Artifact Storage, looking for the source of the noise. Things just basically spiral from there.

CW: Graphic depictions of violence, canon-typical Stranger content, allusions to death, unreality, questioning one’s identity, mentions of worms, gaslighting, mention of self-harm, gore

Author's Notes: Oh man. This one sure is something. I'm so happy with it, you have no idea.

Work Summary: Jon awakens with a tidal wave of memories that don’t make any sense. In an attempt to go on with his life, he searches for the cause of the turmoil in his mind. He knows, though, that something inside him is waking up.

Likes are greatly appreciated, but please consider reblogging so other people may see it! Thank you 💜

Tim has always been a little bit creeped out by the Artifact Storage. There were enough stories about people mishandling an object and disappearing, or ending up hurt, disfigured, or worse. Sasha has told him about some of the spookier stuff held there, but he knew there were things even she didn’t talk about.

Standing in the entrance with a fire extinguisher brandished as a weapon, Tim feels the weight of those stories in the atmosphere of the place. Only one light is lit further into the room, casting shadows about the floor. The shelves, boxes, and glass cases are all unmoving; silent guardians of the supernatural secrets within the objects they hold.

Tim takes a careful step forward, looking around warily.

“Hello?” He calls out. “Is anyone here?”

A metallic scraping comes from the direction of the light. Tim frowns and slowly walks towards it, winding around the various containers.

What he sees is the table that was brought to the Archives some time ago. Jon told the Artifact Storage guys to seal it somewhere safe, but the glass casing it was contained in appears to have been broken. Shards of glass lie strewn all over the floor around it, but everything is quiet and still.

“Hello?” Tim calls again, looking around.

Something moves in the corner of his eye. He rapidly turns that way to see nothing but shadows. Tim swallows and takes a step back with the intent to leave.

It is then that he feels it. A pull that grows in strength rapidly, directing his eyes again and again onto the table despite his attempts to turn away. An uncomfortable sensation bordering on pain of something clawing at his chest, an invisible force trying to gain purchase on a less physical part of him. His legs refuse to cooperate with his increasingly frantic desire to run, and the invisible claws hook around the core of his being. Tim draws in a gasp. The claws pull him towards the table.

Possibly by pure luck, Tim manages to tighten his hold around the fire extinguisher. When he stumbles into the table, he pushes it forward, striking the table’s wooden surface with the heavy tool. His lungs constrict as the invisible hand tightens its hold over his core and keeps pulling, as if trying to rip his entire being out of him. He struggles for breath, his attention laser focused on not touching the table with his bare skin.

“ The show must go on, Timmy ,” a familiar voice sounds in his ears. Tim shuts his eyes, as a pained groan escapes his lips. “ Don’t you want to see your little brother again? ”

He shouts, putting his whole strength into pulling the extinguisher back and striking the table with it again. The claws in his chest lurch, almost tearing him apart, and light flashes before Tim’s eyes.

“I won’t. Let you.” The words push past his lips in a new bout of effort to pull back. It brings sweat onto his skin and forces tears out of his eyes. He strikes the table again, the cracks of wood a music in his ears. He cries out at the wave of pain from his chest.

“ We play a new show tonight, ” Danny’s excited voice says in his ears. “ And the starring role is yours! ”

Tim grits his teeth. “You have no right to his voice,” he growls and strikes the table one more time.

The wood cracks in the middle, the fractures snaking along the web of spirals, and it falls to pieces. With the force of the blow, Tim lands on his knees in the scattered chunks of wood, the extinguisher rolling away from his grasp. The hold on his core slackens a little but doesn’t let up completely.

He doesn’t have time for but a breath of relief, when a vibrating laugh sounds in his ears – a cacophony of overlaid voices that rumble inside his brain. The invisible claws suddenly dig deeper, far deeper than before. He can only gasp at the indescribable pain of his identity tearing apart at the seams. His vision swims, doubling and blurring at the edges. He thinks he can hear someone scream. Is it him?

He can’t see his hands in front of him, though he can still feel them on the floor, knuckles surely bruised from impact. His consciousness starts to fade, though he tries to hold on to it. Something is pushing it away, taking its place. He knows he won’t wake up if it succeeds.

With a desperate effort, putting all his strength into it, Tim lunges at the thing that isn’t him. He fights tooth and nail, crying out from strain, but he could just as well try to move a wall of concrete. His strength waning, he realizes this is the end.

There is no one to save him. Jon is god knows where, Martin and Gerry are still trapped in the basement, and Sasha is probably dead already. He falls into the abyss with a last thought:

It could not have ended any other way.

—

Jon is once again left in solitude among the swirling patterns of the Distortion’s corridors. After Michael leaves, he resumes his search for any sort of door that could lead outside, noting with a growing unease that his reflection in the mirrors grows darker, more blurred. He doesn’t know how much time passes before he decides to stop in front of one and look at it closer.

In the mirror, his hair blends with his skin in a dark blur, the edges flowing as if underwater. There are no distinguishable features to his face, just a black mass of lines that twitch and shift. As he blinks at the sight, two eyes on the face open - unnaturally green and almost luminous. Jon doesn’t have enough time to draw a breath before the rest of the eyes open in a similar fashion, all of them stark green against the dark shifting mass that holds them.

Jon takes a step back. The Archivist stares at him from the mirror unblinkingly, not reflecting the horror that must surely show on Jon’s face.

Is he still himself? He looks over his hands. For a moment he sees his brown skin dry and rough, with a few round pockmarked scars, and a lighter scar tissue of a burn on his left hand, the shape of someone’s palm. His hands shake slightly, as the sight of them unblemished overlaps the scarring, as if two layers of reality fought for dominance. It reminds him of those lenticular images that change or move when observed from different angles. A few seconds later the scars disappear, as if they were never there.

Jon raises his gaze to the reflection that still shows the Archivist. That part hasn’t changed then.

What is it that he said to Michael? “ We’re not someone else entirely, we change through the becoming. ”

Is he still Jonathan Sims? The same Jonathan Sims that stepped out of Elias’ office with a promotion he did not ask, nor was qualified for?

“ We’re not being replaced by the powers. We bend under their influence, but our essence doesn’t change. ” How much change needs to happen until you’re not yourself anymore? What does it even mean to be yourself ? How does he know that his essence is still his?

Jon stands as if frozen in one spot, staring at the mirror. He doesn’t remember to blink, but it seems he doesn’t need to.

Perhaps the Archivist really is just him. Perhaps there was never a monster there to begin with. He knows he could never really be the same Jonathan that had only just begun working for the Magnus Institute. If the change is already done, and the lines of his identity already accommodating the Archivist and everything it means to hold that title, perhaps the only thing left to do is to accept it. Because otherwise, there will always be a vital part of him missing.

Jon finally blinks, and the reflection blinks with him.

“Jon?!”

He jolts with surprise at the voice from further down the corridor. He turns to see Sasha there, confusion and agitation written on her face.

“S-Sasha?” He asks, his voice hoarse all of a sudden. How much time did he spend staring in the mirror? “What are you doing here?”

“I went through a door…” Her eyes are inevitably drawn to Jon’s reflection when she walks up to him, but she looks back at him without comment. “Prentiss is in the Archives.”

“ Fuck. ” Jon looks around helplessly.

“What is this place?” Sasha asks, but Jon shakes his head.

“It doesn’t matter. We need to get back to the Archives right now.”

“Tim went for help, it’s going to be fine.” Sasha grabs his arm, and they hurry down the hall.

“What about Martin?” Jon asks, his voice wavering slightly.

“Safe with Gerry in document storage.” Sasha looks at Jon curiously. “Is that why you weren’t at work today?” She gestures to the corridors around. Jon hesitates for a moment.

“Yes. Yeah.”

Sasha raises her eyebrows. “You’re a terrible liar.”

“There!” Jon grabs her sleeve and pulls her around the corner towards a pale yellow door. Jon stops in front of it, with his hand on the handle. “Here’s hoping this doesn’t lead to a room full of worms this time.”

“Huh?” Sasha asks, and Jon flings the door open.

They walk into a dark, spacious room. Behind them the door closes with a gentle click and then it’s gone, plunging them in the darkness.

“Jon?” Sasha whispers, and he feels her fingers digging into his arm.

“We’re not in the Archives,” Jon remarks, also whispering.

“No.” There’s a tense note in Sasha’s voice. “This is Artifact Storage.”

Before Jon can react, they hear a grunt somewhere further into the room. Their eyes somewhat adjusted to the darkness, they exchange wide glances and carefully approach the noise.

One overhead light flickers and comes on. Beneath it is Tim, crouched in a pile of broken wood, leaning on his trembling arms, as if he’d just fought a bear and won. He raises his head when he hears them approach.

“Tim!” Sasha shouts and lets go of Jon to run towards him.

“Sasha, wait—!” Jon reaches after her, but he isn’t fast enough. Sasha grabs Tim by the shoulders and helps him stand up.

Jon’s throat constricts with an unnamed terror, and for a moment he doesn’t know where this feeling of utter wrongness is coming from. Then the puzzle pieces fall into place. The correct images from his memory overlap with the man standing in front of him, in quite a similar fashion as when he looked at his hands in Michael’s corridors. This sensation is much stronger though, more confusing, and it hurts . This image of a man with blond hair cut short that stands before him tries very hard to convince his brain that it’s the correct depiction of Tim Stoker, but Jon knows, and with every second he grows surer, that it is completely and utterly wrong.

Sasha looks at him questioningly, seeing the growing panic on his face.

“Sasha, get away from it,” Jon says quietly, trying to be firm but unable to stop the quiver in his voice. “This isn’t Tim.”

“What are you talking about?” Sasha glances at Tim and back to Jon, smiling nervously with confusion. “Of course it’s—”

“Yeah, what are you talking about, Jon?” Says the thing that isn’t Tim with a smile that’s nowhere near genuine. “It’s your old pal, Tim Stoker!”

Jon feels his palms curl into fists, nails digging into his skin. Every instinct tells him, shouts at him to run; memories of the night Not-Sasha chased him through the tunnels coming alive in his mind and awakening that same fear and helplessness. Despite all that, he takes a step towards the creature. And another. And another.

He grabs Sasha and pulls her behind him. He expects resistance, but she lets go of Tim, confusion written all over her face. Jon begins to back away, keeping Sasha behind him with a raised arm.

“Sash, you can’t seriously believe this guy, right?” Not-Tim laughs with artificial nervousness and crosses his arms on his chest. “It’s me!”

“Jon, what the fuck?” Sasha hisses. Jon bumps into her, as he takes another step back.

“He must have broken the table,” Jon mutters in a panic, his gaze sliding over the broken wood and a fire extinguisher on the floor to the side. “He let it out.”

“Let what out?”

“Why do you even care about pretending now?” Jon shouts at Not-Tim. “You’re free, you got what you wanted!”

Its expression changes, the smile morphing into one full of cruelty and amusement. It’s body suddenly sprouts additional, long arms, skin stretching and paling into a sickly white. It laughs at Sasha’s shocked gasp.

“ Oh, I am only about to get what I want, Archivist ,” it says. “ Isn’t this fear delicious? ”

“Sasha, run,” Jon mumbles over his shoulder.

“Are you kidding, what about you? And Tim??” Sasha’s voice shakes with fear. The thing in front of them laughs again.

“ Oh, but I am Tim! Your dear friend, Tim! ”

Jon takes a step back, and this time Sasha doesn’t protest. He shuts his eyes, searching the darkness of his eyelids. Where are you when I need you? He calls in his mind, addressing the Archivist for a reason he’s not entirely sure of.

“ Ah, Archivist, isn’t it a shame you can’t protect your own assistants, even when you allegedly possess more power than you should? ” Not-Tim chuckles and steps towards them slowly, like a predator playing with its prey. “ The Eye was never very smart though, was it? ”

Jon frantically looks around. What do I have to do? He asks in his mind. How do I free you?

“ Maybe I should take your identity next? ” The creature wonders, taking another painfully slow step closer. “ I think I’d make a better Archivist than you. And you’d make such a good central piece for the Unknowing! She would positively love you .”

Later, if you asked Jon what went through his mind at that moment, he would not be able to tell you. Was it some sort of conviction, an internal understanding that what he needed was an intense enough trigger, that struck him all of a sudden? Or was it a desperate attempt at doing something , fuelled by grief for Tim, helplessness, and guilt deeper than the oceans of the Vast?

As it is, he turns to Sasha – determination and panic sparkling in his eyes – and he tells her – no, orders her to run. Then, he turns back to the Not Them, a kaleidoscope of memories playing in his mind: plunging into the fog after Martin, diving into the coffin for Daisy, shaking Jude Perry’s hand, sitting at Mike Crew’s table. After all, what’s another scar to the collection?

He lunges himself at the creature, tackling it to the floor. Sasha screams his name, but it doesn’t matter. Jon is far smaller than the creature in every regard – he only succeeds in tackling it to the floor due to its surprise. It quickly recovers, sinking one of its claws in Jon’s chest.

The sensation feels like déjà-vu, so familiar yet so impossible to have happened before. Jon gasps at the pain piercing his lung and heart, his arms quickly losing strength. Not-Tim throws him to the floor, blood seeping from his chest, and he hears Sasha’s stifled gasp from afar.

He hits the ground and closes his eyes at the impact. When he opens them again, his surroundings are dark, illuminated only by the faint green light of familiar eyes. Jon groans with pain, looking up at the Archivist pleadingly.

“ You called. ”

“Help me,” Jon says hoarsely. “Please.”

How ironic it is, Jon thinks, that these were the exact words the Archivist had greeted him with in the very first dream he had all those months ago.

“ How am I supposed to do that? ” It asks.

“Tim, it… It took Tim. I failed him again. I can’t—” Jon lets out a dry sob. “I’ll free you. I’m ready. Please.”

“ Tim can still be saved ,” the Archivist says. “ If we act quickly. ”

“What?” Jon blinks and sits up, forgetting about the wound. “How?”

“ I believe, with enough power, we can extract him from the Not-Them ,” it says.

“Like… Like a statement?” Jon frowns, confused.

“ Not quite, but similarly. Statements are knowledge of events, and of feelings that these events hold for the statement giver. They’re just a form the knowledge takes for us to digest it. I believe we can extract knowledge about a person while it’s still fresh inside the Not-Them, thus reversing what it has done to Tim, and the reality around him. ”

“Ah… Alright.” Jon swallows and stands up. Only now does he take notice of his surroundings past the darkness - that the Archivist is once again bound in heaps of magnetic tape snaking along the floor to Jon and sinking into his chest, in the place of his recent wound. Jon suddenly Knows that it winds around his heart. “What do I do?” He whispers.

“ You are both the beginning and the end ,” the Archivist says. “ All you need to do is cut the tether. ”

Jon feels his stomach twist into knots. “I don’t suppose you have any scissors?”

The Archivist doesn’t laugh. Jon isn’t sure if it’s even able to.

He grips the strands of tape flowing out of his chest with a trembling hand. “Will it…” He clears his throat. “Will it hurt?”

The Archivist doesn’t blink.

“ I think you can answer this one by yourself. ”

“Right.” Jon sighs. “Of course.”

“ You’ve done worse things to yourself before. ”

Jon lets out a bitter chuckle. “You really do know how to be comforting.”

“ I’m trying. ”

Is that humour in its voice? Jon pushes this thought away, realizing his mind is looking for distractors to place between itself and what he has to do. This has to happen. He needs to do this. For Sasha. For Tim.

He tightens his grip on the tape, grits his teeth, and pulls.

He opens his eyes on the ground of the Artifact Storage, his chest burning with pain and the breath knocked out of him by the impact. Not-Tim scrambles to its legs beside him and its face appears above him when he catches his breath.

“ Pathetic, really .” It says. “ What were you even hoping to achieve? ”

For a moment Jon is too dazed to react in any way other than staring, as Not-Tim shakes its head with pity. Jon feels the hairs on his arms stand up with a feeling of being watched, not by the creature above him but something else. He raises his trembling hand to his wound with a groan and feels the skin weave itself back together.

“ Poor Archivist. Maybe I’ll hunt down your friend, Sasha, and then come back to kill you with her hands? ” It laughs.

“You have no idea what’s really going on, do you?” Jon whispers. “You’re bold. I’ll give you that.”

Not-Tim scoffs, but a flash of unease passes through its face at the simmering strength in Jon’s voice. He slowly pulls himself up on his elbows.

“Hunting in the temple of the Eye? That’s bold. Although you knew Magnus has always been a passive watcher. He would not stop you. And the Archivist was weak, scattered. You’d heard rumours that he was powerful, but did you believe them? You had to check for yourself.”

Jon stands up and fixes his stare on the creature, its intensity ever growing. He can feel the power of the Watcher focus on him.

“That was your first mistake. Then, you grew even bolder, seeing the chaos the Archives were in. You’ve chosen your victim early, since he was already marked by one similar to you. And surely, in the chaos of the Hive’s failed attempt, no one would notice a slight change among the archival staff. At least, no one who mattered to you.”

Jon takes a step towards Not-Tim, and it backs away.

“ That’s impossible ,” it hisses. “ You can’t do that. ”

“And that? That was your second mistake.” Jon’s voice deepens into a growl, as he continues his merciless monologue. “Daring to threaten me in my own place of power, you only sealed your fate.”

“ No! No, you can’t! ”

“You have no right to anyone that belongs to this place, and you know that. I’m going to make you pay for what you did. And I’m going to take back what’s mine, even if I have to tear your entire being apart to do it.”

“ Please, I’m sorry, I—I’ll leave! ” It begs. Jon only bares his teeth in a mirthless grin. Inside the creature’s eyes, he can faintly see a dot of light, a familiar shape curled into itself. He reaches for it with his mind, taking another step forward.

“ Ceaseless Watcher, gaze upon this wretched thing and find its recent victim. See what it has taken, drink in every detail of his personhood. Let the creature taste every ounce of fear and pain it has caused. ”

Not-Tim shrieks, the sound echoing in the Artifact Storage and piercing through the entire Institute. Jon’s burning gaze strips away its skin and limbs, unearthing the curled light. It takes shape, slowly but surely, until it forms a person. Features paint themselves onto their face, clothes appear, and hair grows, while false skin is peeled away and falls with a heavy splat to the floor.

The echo of the shriek lingers in Jon’s ears far longer than it does in the room. Tim — the real Tim — lies unmoving in the bloody remnants of skin and bone, his eyes closed. Jon, feeling suddenly dizzy, takes a wobbly step towards him, and collapses to his knees.

“Tim?” He asks. No response. “Tim!”

He crawls the rest of the way towards him with a single-minded focus of making sure he’s alive. As soon as he touches his shoulder, he Knows that Tim’s heart is beating, and his body is working as it should. His breath is shallow, but it’s there. Jon breathes out a sigh of relief.

“Is he…?”

Jon looks behind him to see Sasha hovering some distance away. He’s unable to stop a small chuckle from escaping his lips.

“I think I told you to run,” he says flatly, though with considerable amount of amusement.

“I couldn’t just leave you!” Sasha throws her hands in the air and, as she blinks, tears stream down her cheeks. “Is Tim…?”

“He’s alive,” Jon informs, realizing that his mood might be slightly influenced by the rush of power, and that Sasha must be finding exactly nothing about the situation funny. “He should be waking up in no time.”

“And the—the thing?”

“It’s not dead,” Jon says. “But it’s not here either. I hurt it pretty badly, it’s going to need a lot of time to recover.”

“How… Is there a point asking you how you did that?”

Jon passively notices that she still keeps her distance from him.

“I… I cut the tether ,” Jon sneers at the choice of words and looks down at Tim. “When it wounded me, I blacked out. It seemed no time had passed here, but I came to an agreement with myself; the part of myself that I kept locked away. The Archivist and Jonathan Sims were always one and the same thing.”

“So…” Sasha shakes her head. “So when you threw yourself at it, you didn’t know you’d be able to do… whatever you just did?”

Jon chuckles. “No, not really.”

“You are such an idiot, Sims,” Sasha says, her voice cracking, tears on her cheeks. She finally starts walking over to him. “You could have died .”

“We all would have if I didn’t do that.” Jon grits his teeth around a wave of guilt assaulting his stomach. “I knew this was my fault and I was right. Not just about the Not-Them, about all the Entities. I brought them here.”

“That can’t be true,” Sasha frowns and kneels next to Jon. She wipes her tear-stained cheeks with the back of her hand. “All this existed way before you and your memories showed up.”

“I suppose it’s possible they did not originate in our world and were here too all along. We did theorize about it,” Jon mused. “Though I doubt that now. The last statement in the Panopticon would have mentioned it.”

“Wait, does that mean you remember how you got here?”

“Yes,” he answers quietly. “I know exactly what went wrong. It was stupid of me to believe Martin would have gone through with me. He was human enough to die there.”

He feels Sasha’s hand on his shoulder, and he looks up at her with surprise. Would she really offer him comfort after everything she saw him do?

“Good thing our Martin is still alive,” Tim says hoarsely. Sasha’s hands shoot forward to take hold of his arms.

“Tim! Are you okay?”

“Frankly? I’ve been better.” His attempt at a laugh turns into a cough. “Fuck. That sucked. So bad.”

Jon feels an idle curiosity about what it felt like to be devoured by the Not-Them. An idea of taking Tim’s statement rears its head, but he pushes it away firmly. It’s easy to dismiss it, his hunger sated with banishing the Not-Them.

Sasha helps Tim up to a seated position, trying not to cringe at the gore on the floor and keeps him upright with an arm around his back.

“Come on, Jon, help me move him,” she says, and they both haul Tim up by the shoulders.

“Oh, ew, what the fuck,” Tim groans, only now noticing the bloody scraps of skin. “That’s more gross than the worms.”

“Could’ve been worse,” Jon mutters. “Could��ve been meat.”

“Right you are,” Tim says and grunts, as they put him down on a clean part of the floor nearby.

“There,” Sasha exhales. “We’ll get moving when you regain some strength, we gotta get out of the Institute.”

“Where did you guys even come from anyway?” Tim asks with a frown. “Last I remember Jon wasn’t even here and you were…” His expression sobers up and he grips Sasha’s arm. “Did any of the worms get you? How did you escape?”

“No, I’m fine.” Sasha smiles. “I found a random door in the wall. Turns out it was that Michael thing. It saved me.”

“I found Jon in the corridor maze behind that door,” Sasha continues and looks at Jon quizzically. “You never told me what you were doing there in the first place.”

“Uh, Michael tricked me into entering the corridors from my apartment,” Jon grumbles, looking away. “That’s why I wasn’t here.”

“Mm, I’m pretty sure there’s still something you’re not telling me,” Sasha tilts her head and sighs with mock exasperation, when she sees Jon won’t elaborate. “Anyway, when we finally found a door to escape the maze, we landed here. And…” She hesitates.

“The Not-Them had stolen your identity,” Jon picks up, still not looking at either of them. “I was able to, uh… reach you within it, because it happened so soon. Usually, whoever ends up as its victim doesn’t come back. It’s like they’re erased from the world, from other people’s memories, replaced by the impostor. Only one or two people remember the real person, and the creature feeds on their fear.”

He deliberately keeps his eyes away from the expressions of horror he knows he’d find on his friends’ faces.

“Jon…” Sasha starts quietly. “Did… Did this happen to one of us in your world?”

Jon’s throat tightens. He looks up at Sasha with a pleading look, tears threatening to spill.

“It doesn’t really matter now, does it?” Tim says, looking between them. “We’re all alive.”

“Yeah.” Jon sniffs and clears his throat. “Yeah, we are.”

“Alright, I’m sick of this place and my head feels like it’s going to explode,” Tim says categorically. “Let’s get out of here.”

They help Tim stand, and with Sasha supporting his one arm, he’s able to limp towards the door. The wound on his leg is still bleeding, though not enough to threaten huge blood loss. As they exit the Artifact Storage, Sasha hands Jon her phone and he calls the ambulance.

The stairs prove to be trickier but, slowly, they make it to the ground floor. Sasha gasps and stops suddenly.

“Look out, worm!”

“Oh, worm,” Tim mumbles, while Jon stomps the worm to the ground with perhaps too much force than necessary. “Did Elias not get the CO2 thing yet?”

Jon looks up at him with alarm, then looks towards the stairs to the Archives. They’re quiet and dark. Foreboding.

“Motherfucker,” he growls. “No one is getting marked today.”

“Jon, what are you—” Sasha cuts herself short when Jon hurries to the corridor leading to the boiler room. “Jon!”

“Sasha,” Tim warns. “He seems to have a handle on the situation. You don’t have to go after him.”

“But…” She sighs. “You’re right. You’re right. Of course.” She secures Tim’s arm on her shoulders. “Let’s get you patched up, huh?”

“This was not in the contract we signed, Sash,” Tim mumbles, shaking his head. “This was not the job description.”

“It really wasn’t.”

They exit the front door of the Institute to see a couple of ECDC vans pull up to the Institute. A bunch of people are crowding the street, looking worriedly towards the building and discussing the events. Overall, it seems like most of the employees have scattered somewhere along the street in a café or some other, to wait out the emergency.

Sasha sits Tim down on the steps. “I’m going to go talk to the ECDC guys, will you be okay over here for a moment?” She asks, taking note of the colour high on Tim’s cheeks, and his distracted gaze.

“Hm? Sure, yeah. Go ahead.”

“The ambulance should be here soon.” She squeezes his shoulder reassuringly.

“No worries, Sash. I’m as healthy as a duck in the water.” Tim grins. “No wait, that’s not how it goes.”

When Sasha comes up to the ECDC brigade, she asks Rosie (who is already there) to keep an eye on Tim, while she explains in detail what is currently roaming free in the Institute’s archives. They ask no questions and, with minimal instructions from their leader, start preparing for the task. She makes it back to Tim just as the ambulance’s engine turns off and two paramedics exit to take in the scene.

“Sasha!” A voice calls. Sasha turns around to see Martin and Gerry rush towards her, the former more winded from running.

“Martin…?” She blinks and shakes her head. “Where did you come from??”

“The tunnels,” Gerry explains, while Martin catches his breath. “Can’t believe I’m saying this, but we gotta call the police.”

He grimaces as he says that. Martin stares at Sasha a little too long for it to look natural, but she takes out her phone without protest.

“Why, what’s going on?”

“Gertrude’s body.” Gerry says. “Found it in the tunnels.”

“Christ, is Tim okay?” Martin asks, spotting the paramedics leading Tim to the ambulance.

“He’s…” Sasha hesitates. “There was a whole thing, but it’s over now. He’ll be fine, it’s just his leg wound, exhaustion, possibly a fever. But, uh… I think Jon has done the heavy lifting for him and now he just needs to rest.”

“ Jon is here?” Martin asks, his eyes opening wide.

“Y-Yeah, I found him in the corridors, and we got to Artifact Storage… You know it’s best if we catch up after—”

“ Artifact Storage ?” Martin repeats, suddenly growing pale. “Where is he now?”

“He went to confront Elias in the boiler room, I think.” Sasha looks between Martin and Gerry with a frown.

“Of course he did.” Martin rolls his eyes. Without another word, runs up the steps to the Institute.

“Martin, wait!” Gerry shouts and runs after him.

Sasha looks back at the ambulance. Tim is sitting half inside, leaning his head against the edge of the door with his eyes closed. A blanket has been thrown over his shoulders, and a paramedic dresses the wound in his leg.

Sasha groans to herself. “I’m sorry, Tim,” she mutters, and runs after Martin and Gerry.

Author's Note: Next chapter, the excitement continues! Stay tuned!

Title inspiration: The Killing Kind by Marianas Trench Which is also the inspiration for the title of this entire fic! Do with that what you will :)

#tma oftm #tma #tma fanfic #niki.writes #jonathan sims #jonmartin

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oksana-moods · 3 years

Text

Supernova

Summary: As the seasons passes you by, it is inevitable for you to watch the fall.

A/N: This is an AU requested by the darling @multi-muse-transect and you might find it in here. This request filled me with joy and worries at the same time, because it was hard to create a visible story in my head before trying to write it down. But I really enjoyed all the research about Nova Corps, hence it took me a little more than intended.

Warnings: Language, marvel’s canon violence… if there is any other that I should mention, please, let me know.

“You take my breath away. You're a supernova and I'm a space bound rocket ship and your heart's the moon.”

#not my pic

Carol is at a window looking at the sculptures and other buildings of Hala, she’s just arrived from a mission against Kree insurgents. ‘They're like weeds’, she thinks. No matter how hard she fights or fights back, they always come back and never learn that against the Empress they will never succeed.

The lights are beautiful in Hala, but they will never compare to the lights of the Old Earth. She takes a look at the latest reports of her home planet's reconstruction on the table beside her and sighs, knowing that New Earth will soon be ready.

Years ago, Ronan attacked Earth with the intention of destroying Carol and he did, in fact, destroy her heart. Even though she could absorb and redirect energy, she failed to destroy all the missiles before they hit the ground and then it was over. And the beginning at the same time.

Completely possessed by the grief of losing her home and loved ones, Carol went hunting for the Kree and, more importantly, for the Supreme Intelligence and, one by one, Carol brought down her tormentors until she became the Empress of Kree, residing in Hala.

Her patrols to different galaxies have been reduced as she monitors the Kree group responsible for rebuilding the Earth, chases mutineers and still rules the Empire. Her Empire. There's not even time for karaoke, she thinks, as her eyes follows a shooting star across the night sky of her capital.

Her eyes narrow when said shooting star seems to take a route, rather than a random path, because it is a celestial body without navigation. This shooting star is, in fact, very different, she observes. And, almost a second late, she notices that someone is heading right for her.

Taking her by surprise, you hit the balcony glass as if it were nothing and saw Carol's body hurl against the wall with the impact of your body. Not even spending a breath, it's your turn to be hurled against the wall when Carol fights back even harder than you.

You fight, exchange punches and blows. You notice that she's slightly surprised to find a worthy opponent, something that's still unheard of. Until today. Until you.

And that intrigues her, how could someone be so powerful without her knowing?

"Did the Kree insurgents send you?" She asks after you collide on Hala’s sky, the noise and vibrations being felt even in buildings far away from the fight.

"No." You answer. “I was sent by Nova Prime to deal with you” You barely finish your sentence, and you attack Carol again, but she's confused. She had heard of Nova Prime when she was still a Kree soldier. When she fought for the wrong side.

She then looks at you once more. She takes in the clothes you're wearing and your helmet, which covers your eyes with a blueish light but leaves your chin bare. The symbol that resembles a star painted in red on your golden helmet indicated what you are. Nova Corp. You are a corpsman.

A bright, gold insignia in a form of three circles linked in your chest shines even in the dark, showing her that you’re not an ordinary corpsman, but a Centurion. You are Nova Corps’ Commander. Okay, that explain why you’re so powerful.

"What do you want with me?" She asks without the slightest pretension to continue fighting and for the first time you don't attack, you stop and look at her. Wow, the reports of her strength and agility were consistent with what you see, but there was nothing about her beauty. Shaking your head, you answer it.

"Justice." Seeing the confused expression on Carol's perfect face, you continue. "You are crushing the democracy that existed for the inhabitants of this planet, the countless reports of an empress overthrowing entire communities have crossed galaxies."

"Justice, you say." You see her eyes flash with anger and hatred. "And what justice does Nova Prime intend to give Earth?" She approaches dangerously and you have to remind yourself to not cower under her glare.

"The Kree have destroyed my home, so I won't give them one until the New Earth is rebuilt and populated." The threat in her gaze, in her posture, was tangible. "And nothing and no one in the universe will make me concede freedom to this barbaric species."

"Being a barbarian yourself?" You turn your head to the side in a questioning tone, but she takes it as irony. Maybe it was. “An eye for an eye, as earthlings are fond of saying. Or should I say, used to like?” A kind of roar was the only warning before her fist collided with your face.

"Wash your mouth before you talk about Earth, soldier." She patched up a string of blows you couldn't get out of. "Nova Empire has always fought the Kree, why they want to protect them now?"

She was strong; you've already figured that out, but like many other very powerful beings in the universe, they tend to think they're the only ones with powers. Absorbing most of the blows and directing the energy against the empress, you use your power blast and with that, once again, Carol is hurled against the wall of her palace.

As an automatic response, Carol uses the powers of her fist and you feel the force of a thousand cannons throwing you backwards into space, grunting right after with the impact of Carol's body, engaging the fight once more.

You could tell that she was angry and, according to your studies, humans tended to be guided by such frivolous feelings. And that was something you intended to use to your advantage.

Being two beings bestowed with stamina, the fight would go on for hours until someone got tired, but if she uses her powers erratically and drenched in rage, she will be drained quicklier.

“I am the Empress of the Kree Empire! Answer me!" The tone of voice in which she addresses you makes it clear that your goal of getting under her skin is working. With a smirk, you respond.

“Nova Empire takes care of the galaxy and has balance as its main goal, your highness. To overpower other species is not our intention.” Your response seems to enrage her even more and the only reaction you got from her was more blows and more blasts in your direction.

You dodge, you block, and you realize she's getting careless then letting her guard down. And that's where you come in with quick jabs almost powerless, only to enrage her more and more. Just to remind her that even an Empress has weaknesses.

You hit the ground and certainly the people throughout the city felt like it was an earthquake. Something was off and before you could react, Carol hits you with a blast right in the middle of the chest, throwing you meters and meters into a random building.

This time, you start feeling the impact on every wall you hit. You feel dizzy, your hand is shaking, and you find yourself bleeding. ‘What's going on?’ You think as you watch Carol's figure to grow in your field of vision.

The smirk on her face is ridiculously sexy, but you barely have time to make any comments before her voice reaches your ears. "Apparently, you're not that tough without your helmet on, are you?"

You look at her hand that is carrying what was once your helmet, now just broken shards and she drops it into your lap. Without your helmet you are ruined, as is your mission.

The smirk and one last punch were the last thing you remember before she knocks you down cold.

---

Your head was about to explode inside your skull, and you blink at the light entering your cell. All that brightness was not helping your headache at all.

It's been a few days since you've been taken prisoner by Empress Carol Danvers and whether Xandar knows or has noticed your disappearance is something you have no idea of. And when Nova Prime sends reinforcements after you it won't be pretty.

Before proceeding on your mission, you had already been informed that all diplomatic avenues had been tried but completely closed by the Empress. That way, Xandar wouldn't try negotiations to try to get you back. Perhaps this would trigger a new war.

A war you couldn't afford. Certainly, you didn't want the weight of being the trigger or the spark in a cold battle of inflated tempers on your shoulders. Carol had a very short fuse, as you witnessed firsthand, while Prime could be an slayer when the situation called for it.

Days passed, becoming weeks and your monotonous existence is only interrupted by the Empress's daily visits. Visits that you don't know why she still keeps, when it's pretty obvious that you have no information to provide.

You are a member of the Nova Corp and have been sent on a solo mission to "dissuade" the Empress from continuing to rule her own empire with an iron fist. There were no ulterior motives, no espionage or reinforcements waiting in the moon not far from Hala.

You were a single, last resource. There was nothing but you and your broken form. A failed soldier.

You were standing, watching the sun shining on buildings across Hala through the small window in your cell, admiring the dots circling farther down the street, almost forgetting that each dot was a person. You wonder if Carol forgets who they are.

"Um, admiring my city, I see." You spare her a brief glance before you return it to the window. She was in a red robe with local designs, and you can't shake off your head at how beautiful she is. How beautiful she looks in red. Or any other color.

You don't exactly know why Carol still comes to your cell, but you can't lie to yourself that you don't like it. You do. But you convince yourself that any company is better than the solitude of these walls, just that and nothing else.

She is an empress after all. A Sovereign, considered by many to be evil and tyrant. But each gentle gesture towards you reminds you that her hands are stained with blood. Like yours. Your conscience doesn't seem to know which side it should be on.

"Forgive me if my boredom is exacerbated, your city is the only thing I have left to admire." You answer still looking ahead, afraid to look at her and be mesmerized. The Empress was a mystery that captivated you, as her answers were never what you would expect them to be. Just like now.

“I could end your boredom. Hala’s Summer Trade is famous across the galaxy, have you ever tasted Pluot Fruit?” Your head swivel towards her so fast it feels like a whip.

"Summer?" Quickly you do the math in your head, in this solar system the days and seasons were longer than in Xandar, so... "How long have I been kept in here?"

"Too long, Nova." Nova? What kind of nickname is this? Shaking your head, you question her. "Nova? This is not my name." She giggles and moves closer to the energy field that makes up your cell door, she’s one yard away so you can smell her perfume. White jasmine.

“I know it isn't. But I decided to abbreviate the title of Nova Corps to Nova, besides, I own this place…” she opens her arms to emphasize what she's talking about. "I can call you whatever I want, prisoner."

You decide to play her game and with a smirk on your face you respond. “Prisoner? Now, seconds ago weren’t you inviting me for a walk, your highness?”

You lick your lips when you see her face contorting in a mix of anger and something else, but what, you don't know. “You abuse my benevolence too much. Your precious Xandar never tried to open a ransom deal, you are of no use to them or to me.”

Her words crash into your chest, and you feel your heart break a little more. Months have passed and there was no sign of another corpsman coming to your rescue and now she tells you that Nova Prime didn't even try to negotiate your freedom.

You close your eyes and with small, defeated steps you walk to the window. A lifetime dedicated to Nova Corp and Xandar, to be abandoned like a stray dog lost from its owners. Like someone worthless.

Defeated and hopeless, you ask Empress Carol why she still keeps you alive. Standing in the hallway leading to the dungeons hall she smiles triumphantly and speaks. "For my entertainment, prisoner."

"What do you think of the Pluot?" Carol's voice breaks your train of thought.

"Strangely delicious." You respond by referring to the strange appearance, as if it was a dried fruit and not completely juicy right after tasting it.

As with the fruit, such was your surprise to see Carol's interaction with her subjects. Many of them kept their distance, paid their obeisance and respects to the Empress, and continued on their way with their heads low.

However, a reassuring number of people seemed to genuinely like or even admire Carol and not out of obligation. Doing a 180° turn in the opinion you once held of the Empress, she was extremely adorable when interacting with children.

Who knew the fearsome tormentor of the Kree empire would be so… human? How can someone, who keeps a prisoner just for her own pleasure, be so kind? You wonder if they were the same person at all.

She smiles in response to what you said and you smile back, completely unsure of the reasons why you do.

After the Hala market tour went without incident, that is, without any attempt to escape on your part, Carol has granted you the right to stroll through the inner gardens of her palace. As much as you want to hate the way she plays as if you were a puppet, you can't.

You try to hate her, but each day you spend in her company makes it harder for you to deny the feeling that, gradually, grows in your chest. Then, you find yourself desperate to hang this passion before it's too late.

Your morning walks allow you to see autumn slowly approaching, little by little, with each leaf touching the ground. And if you used to enjoy Carol's garden alone, over time, the Empress's company became part of your routine.

"Why are you still keeping me alive, Carol?" You rarely addressed her by the title of empress or nobility, and she never forced you to use it, she seemed not to care whether you recognized her power or not. Nor did he seem to mind when you used it ironically.

"I like your company." She answered and that made you look directly into her eyes. "It isn't every day that I find a match." Her answer made something boil in your chest and you had to force your heart to understand that she was probably referring to the fight.

"I'm not a match for you, your highness." You spoke. "Everything special about me came from an enhanced helmet." A sad smile danced on your lips, remembering how powerless you felt when you saw it broken in her hand. You remembered how broken you felt yourself.

“Everything special about you comes from your heart, Nova.” Her tone was low and as much as you wanted, there was nothing to grasp in it. She spoke this sentence as if she were speaking about the weather but for you it just set your heart on fire.

Between stories from a lifetime ago, when Carol was only a human being without a single clue that the universe was bigger than her world and stories from her time adapting and training in Hala, you felt yourself slowly but surely falling for her.

The change for you was visible and you prayed it would be visible only to you. If before you thought she was beautiful, now she’s extremely attractive in your eyes. Even when choosing simple robes, Carol was always dressed impeccably.

After spending so much time together, it was only a matter of time before you realized that the Empress was possessed of vast intellect and knowledge about many different things.

But what strike you most was how funny and mundane she could be, yet, she still had that special something in her eyes that never failed in make you weak. You were a prisoner, indeed. A prisoner of her eyes.

Unlike many extremely powerful beings, Carol was humble enough to listen to your stories, and even encouraged you to tell more details about yourself. She never quite understood, but something about you drew her as if you were a magnet.

The sparkle in your eyes as you spoke about your homeland, friends, or your passion and honor in serving Nova Corp thrilled her. There were many things in you that stirred emotions in her, as well as aroused feelings that she thought she was no longer capable of feeling for a long time.

And so, without realizing it and at the same time fully aware of what was going on beneath her skin, the Empress fell in love with her Prisoner.

Winter at Hala marked when your quarters were no longer a cell but a room in Empress's palace. Larger than your home in Xandar, the room was beautifully decorated with art, and you could discern some Xandar artwork. You wonder if it was coincidence.

Despite being as warm as a star, Carol suggested that both of you should trade your walks in the garden for spending time in the library available at the palace. And that's how you began to be the Empress's company during her meals.

It started with lunch and then evolved into dinner and now Carol finds herself waiting for your presence before even touching her plate. ‘I shouldn't allow myself such weakness’, she thought. However, she couldn't bring herself to change or to avoid the need of your company.

"I beg your pardon?" You speak, barely able to avoid spilling your soup. The increasingly warm but shy rays of the sun and the many animals strolling in the courtyard tell you that spring is just around the corner. And that's exactly what almost made you spill the soup, in first place.

Carol cleared her throat, promptly speaking again, as if you had not heard her from the first time. “I’d be delighted if you grant me the honor of your company for the Spring Ball due in two weeks.” She looked at you expectantly.

Your mind was swirling as to why she would want you as her company, out of all people. She was the Empress; she could have anyone she wanted by her side. Yet, here she was, asking you to be her date.

The time in Hala flew slower as it did in Xandar, but it felt like the opposite, for the Ball came faster than you thought it be possible.

And here you were, walking down the entrance stairs in a beautiful golden gown with Carol’s arm locked with yours. Her deep green dress was marvelous and when you saw her welcoming you with that pretty smile of hers you thought you could melt.

Much to your dismay, Carol could sing just as she’d told you she could, but you never believed in her. It wasn’t hard for you to realize that you were free falling in love with her even more than you already were. If it was possible, you fell in love again. You’d be her prisoner, forever.

As the night went on, you were mesmerized by the ball, the music, and the way of life in Hala. It felt like a different life, one that very much resembled prince and princess’ tales that you heard when you were a kid.

A life that didn’t quite belong to you but looking into her eyes it made it feel like everything was possible, reachable, as if her power could create a different world. Just as she did. As ruler of the Kree empire, she created a new kingdom.

Standing in the balcony, you welcomed the cold air hitting your skin that was inebriating your senses, previously flooded by the Empress. The stars illuminated the sky of Hala making the city bellow you even prettier.

A soft touch in your hand brings your gaze back to its owner and a small gasp scape your lips when you see how close she is, even more so when you wish she were closer. “I never told you how beautiful you are tonight.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

“You flatter me, your highness. You’re flawless yourself.” A small smile creeped up her lips and you forced yourself to keep your eyes locked with hers, proven to be a hard task when she started to lean into your ear.

“There is something that I wanted to tell you for a while ago.” Her hands on your waist made it difficult for you to pay attention to her words, along with the feel of her cheek touching your cheeks made your knees weak.

“You’re no longer a prisoner and you can leave Hala if you want to.” Her thumb drew patterns where it touched you and you could feel your skin burning. “You’re free, but I wish you’d stay here.” She backed down and now her eyes were boring into yours.

“I wish you’d stay here with me.” She stressed.

Your heart and head were running thousand miles per hour in completely opposite directions. The rational part of you wanted to take your freedom and go back to Xandar, even though you should find it suspicious that, almost after a year, she’d let you go. Specially after you’d learned so much about Hala. About her.

However, your heart’s been slowly giving itself to this woman right in front of you, and there was nothing that you wanted more than to stay here with her. Surely, you felt left behind by Nova Prime, but it still stings in you that no one came after you. Not even a fellow corpsman.

‘Not one that you know, for that matter.’ You shook your conscience’s voice away and gave in to your heart. The rational part of you broke at the exact same time as did your helmet.

“Carol, I…” You begin but she interrupts you by placing an oh so soft lips on yours and there is no voice to hear anymore. Nor rational, nor emotional. There are only her lips pouring her heart into a kiss and you do just the same.

Right in that moment you felt as if your heart was about to melt, maybe it would, if she hadn’t broken the kiss and rested her forehead in yours.

“Tell me you’ll stay and rule by my side.” Before the true meaning of her words could sink in, the sky of Hala suddenly shone as if thousands of stars appeared right in that moment, drawing the attention of you both.

Not long until you realized that it wasn’t stars, but thousands of spaceships painting the night over your heads, and you’d recognize those ships anywhere. Xandar was here. And a voice that you’d never forget was heard above all noise.

“I am Nova Prime and Xandar declares war to Empress Carol, accused of murdering Nova Corps’ Commander.”

‘Why are they accusing her of murder?’ You thought to yourself. It does not make sense that she’s being accused of killing you when you’re alive. Unless…

“Carol, what did you do?”

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mythicaldemigoddess-of-deltarune · 3 years

Photo

Prisoner Of OTP-Love: Sunset Shimmer x Scourge The Hedgehog

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

Credit for My Little Pony goes to Bonnie Zacherle

Credit for My Little Pony Friendship is Magic goes to Lauren Faust

Credit for Sonic The Hedgehog goes to Sega

Credit for Archie Sonic The Hedgehog Comics goes to Archie Comics

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

I had to edit this drawing today, because I needed to put my tumblr name on it, as well as edit out Sunset's third arm that wasn't being held by Scourge.

I mean it is possible for some humans to be born with more than two arms, or only being born with one.

and besides that one error I made on this drawing, I also had to edit the ends of Sunset's hair to have some yellow.

I believe that if I remember right,

this was inspired by Shadow Meets Equestria Girls,

it's a crossover and it's on Cryil Smith VA's Youtube Channel,

their channel and works is one of many Youtubers,

I want to be protected from the video/episode stealing shisno.

I really REALLY can not stand those toxic-youtubers,

you do NOT re-upload a episode of Helluva Boss on your channel,

to share it, if your gonna share it, put it in a link to someone.

I’m still not okay with finding out what that youtuber today.

and there is a reason why I put Redacted instead of their real youtube name.

when I was first looking up Helluva Boss, it was to see if episode 6 was out yet, but then I found that there was another episode stealing jerk.

if a youtuber is gonna re-upload a video from another youtuber,

it should only be if the original is off of youtube.

it’s because of most toxic-youtubers, that half of other youtubers

who don’t know where the original videos come from

and don’t bother checking the description below more carefully,

that the original ones end up getting false reported,

and if I had to guess, if you don’t inform that you have a youtube amv you made and uploaded on both youtube and at another video sharing site, and a person sees it over at the other place first

and then see it on youtube, it is possible they will not think they are the same person and will falsely report the video.

that might of been the reason for what happen to one of

the Undertale Amvs. either the person who false reported saw the sub version of it by a person who got permission, or they saw it on another video sharing site and then didn’t bother to ask before jumping the gun.

later I am gonna write about how the Toxic-Youtubers

need to be stop, because of their taking episodes or amv and gmvs

without permission of the other youtubers that end up the victims.

right now I’m just going to post some drawings up on here.

I don’t think Sunset will end up in Shadow Meets Equestria Girls,

at least not to my knowledge.

too bad she couldn’t stop Discord, Celestia and Luna

from turning Cozy Glow, Tirek and Chrysalis to a stone statue.

could of used the Element of Empathy during that battle.

I still love the last episodes and all the other episodes of MLPFIM.

but if characters like Discord, Celestia, Luna, Star Butterfly, Scrooge McDuck (from the ducktales reboot) , Pink “Rose” Diamond,

and Mr Death’s girlfriend Miss Life from Adventure Time series

(worst Mom Ever of all time.)

do a Anti-Hero move, and end up hurting others who for what they believe is the fully the right thing to do.

no matter if Discord had turned Cozy bad or not,

it is possible that the reason why she was trying to get rid of the magic,

was because of how Unicorns (even if it’s not all Unicorns)

treat Earth-Ponies and Pegasus as second class citizens.

the only ponies that seem to higher in rank than Unicorns,

would be Alicorns.

in theory, the Bat-Ponies might be treated third class citizens,

seeing as no filly or colt or equine of the bat-ponies

have ever made much appearances or went to Twilight’s school of friendship.

let’s turn to the Buffalo in MLPFIM,

we know that the earth-ponies took over their lands and planted apple trees.

but it is possible that the Buffalo weren’t the only ones who lived in the land that would then become Equestria II.

before they were driven out, Tirek’s family ruled the land that would then become the new equestria.

and the three wendigos are possibly from the Equestria I,

before Equestria II was founded.

I believe that the wendigos are the spirits of the original sirens

that Stygian met and when he went to get help,

the three original sirens end up tricking three little filly sisters

those being Adagio Dazzle (the eldest sister) Aria Blaze (the middle sister), Sonata Dusk (the youngest sister)

the siren gems end up bonding to the three young fillies,

and transforming them to sirens, while the originals

become the wendigos.

wendigos go after ponies with negative energy/magic,

the dazzling’s use to do the same until their power was taken away,

but it returned to them when they re-learned how to sing,

and it appears their powers might of changed a bit.

find the magic is one of my favorite songs that is sung by the dazzlings.

when the three of those sisters

(and yes they are really sisters in canon)

were tricked by the original sirens who then became wendigos,

Stygian did not see this and because of him and Starswirl and the others, innocent fillies that were overcome by the power that was given to them by the wendigos, were banished from equestria I.

over time the Wendigos frozen the land beyond healing,

and all ponies moved to another land, taking it over,

and driving it’s original ruling family and half of their people

to a new place, possibly underground.

the only ones that were left, was the native animals

such as the bugbear, chimera, cockatrice and other monster type animals.

the animals that weren’t originally from the land that would become Equestria II, were brought from Equestria I by the ponies.

the other natives of Equestria II besides Tirek and maybe even the changelings,

would be the Buffalo.

before earth-ponies became crystal ponies,

they took the original Queen Changelings Crystal Empire,

this was long before they become what they look like when we are first introduce them, in theory, I think they look like their reform selves

but possibly in Crystal form.

I wont force other fans to believe that theory,

but I see it as headcanon.

the earth-ponies that would become crystal ponies,

were welcome into the crystal changelings home,

but then were exiled by them and without the crystal heart,

they slowly became corrupt and starve.

over time the earth-ponies that took over their rightful home

became the Crystal Ponies, maybe by Princess Amore’s Grandmother.

I guess it could be possible that Amore didn’t know how the Crystal Ponies and her grandmother had founded the Crystal Empire,

not knowing it was the original home of the changelings,

and without the power of the crystal heart to share their love that would then in return feed them, they would slowly become the changelings that we end up introduce to.

I also have a theory that Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie

and Rainbow Dash from the human world, might really be the original ponies from Equestria, from the first season of when Nightmare Moon returns.

like what if when any pony finds out the truth about the history of Equestria, they were taken to that magic pool, cloned

and then banished to another portal to the human world

or the mirror to the human world was open by Alicorn Magic.

the only one who possibly didn’t have a human counterpart,

was Sunset Shimmer and Starlight Glimmer, well they might have in the fanon.

but we know that most of the humans we see in the human counterpart world, aren’t seen in Equestria.

what if Trixie from the human world, was really the original Trixie

who had used the Alicorn Amulet and after everything seem to work out in the end, Trixie was taken by Celestia to the magic pool,

cloned and then the real Trixie was banished to the human world.

even if most of the humans from the human world,

would be originally born humans, most of the humans could turn out to be ponies who were banished by at first Starswirl and then later Celestia.

at some point Celestia stop that kind of banishment,

and started to turn ponies into stone instead.

I think that half of the pony statues we see along with Discord,

were real ponies once, who perhaps were the original elements of harmony along with Celestia and Luna.

but they were betrayed by Celestia,

and when Luna found out the truth of what happen to their friends,

it gave her the final push (besides the other being jealous that their subjects seem to love Celestia more than her.)

to give in to the negative side of Alicorn Magic,

and transform into her dark half.....which is Nightmare Moon.

the Statue Pony that looks like they are holding a stroll,

might be the element of inspiration.

the book of the elements of harmony, was perhaps rewritten,

to hide the fact there was more than just six elements.

to hide this truth, Celestia took the elements that she and her sister could not use, and destroyed them and threw their shards into the human world, where they would end up in a cave

and then grow into a new tree of harmony for the human world,

and later their power will be given to Sunset and her friends.

Rarity was original suppose to be the element of inspiration,

but because of the word might not be understood,

it was changed to generosity.

it is easy to explain the element of inspiration,

it’s like you get a idea that inspires you, like drawing a fan art

or writing a fan fic or writing a story or drawing that doesn’t have to do with fan art or fan fic and or if you write a song or poem.

that is what is the true element of inspiration is like.

Trixie being the element of forgiveness in Princess Trixie Sparkle,

is awesome.

in theory if she ends up meeting Starlight in that fan series,

I think they would still end up becoming friends because of the bond they shared in the canon.

if my theory ended up being true, and not just a fan theory.

if the shards of the lost elements of harmony were destroyed by Celestia, then thrown into the human world and ended up in a cave,

and then grew into a new element of harmony tree, or what appears like a broken tree crystal rock thing.

then those broken shards would have some of the original powers of the elements that are still in equestria, in them which would grow each of all the elements, first the ones that are needed by Sunset and her friends, then when the time comes the lost elements would grow from that crystal rock tree stump.

one of those who might be the ones who represent the lost elements of harmony.

might be Trixie, Moondancer, Starlight Glimmer, Wallflower Blush,

Juniper Montage, Maud Pie, Vinyl Scratch possibly.

those who are the Neo-Elements of Harmony,

would have to be Smolder, Yona, Gallus, Sandbar, Ocellus

and Silverstream.

and if Cozy ended up forming a friendship and deep bond with those six.....she might of became someone who represented the element of empathy.

and those who represent the lost elements of harmony

might be Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, Diamond Tiara,

Silver Spoon and Silverstream’s brother.

there is always the comic series of MLPFIM,

and maybe Cozy, Tirek and Chrysalis

will be given freedom in the comic series...maybe, I don’t know.

anyway I hope some of you like this drawing that has a ship

of Nicolette x Fiona and Scourge x Sunset.

even if this was partly inspired by Shadow Meets Equestria Girls,

it is still possible that Sunset might not end up in that fan series.

but it be nice if she was, and Scourge fell in love with her.

if anyone can reform Scourge and understand why he became the way he did, it would be Sunset Shimmer.

in this drawing Scourge captures Sunset, that is why he is the only one smiling and she is not too happy,

but it also hints that they will fall in love.

and it is Scourge and Sunset’s love and bonding with each other,

will help Scourge reform, he will still be himself,

but be a bit different too.

well that is how I view it anyway.

#scourge the hedgehog #sunset shimmer #scourge x sunset shimmer #nicolette x fiona fox #crossover ship #one true pairing #archie sonic #my little pony friendship is magic #equestria girls #captured

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lookalivefrosty · 4 years

Text

Summertime

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female Reader (but, really, Winter Soldier Bucky x Female Reader)

Summary: Three days ago, the Winter Soldier walked away from Hydra. They’ve just sent you to bring him back.

Word Count: 7,656 words (!!!)

Warnings: a heavy helping of angst, descriptions of injuries and pain, canon typical violence. The reader is an enhanced human with the ability to manipulate pain. (Let me know if you come across any others I’ve missed, I’ll gladly add them!)

*Reblogs of course are welcome, but please do not repost this story to any other websites without my permission!!*

A/N: This was written for @jbbuckybarnes‘s birthday writing challenge. Happy belated birthday, and thank you so much for reassuring me that it was okay to post this past the deadline! I didn’t mean for it to take this long, but the good news is, this is the first thing I’ve written and actually liked in about five or six years. So, yay? I really hope you and everyone else who reads it enjoys it!

P.S: my prompts are bolded, the not too shabby moodboard was made by me, and the title of the fic and lyrics within said moodboard are courtesy of My Chemical Romance’s ‘Summertime.’ Oh, and, the totally awesome text divider seen just below (and several times throughout the fic) was created by @writeyourmindaway (thank you)!

EDITED ON 5/24/2021 - no major changes, only a change in spelling for two of the characters' names.

“You ever think of where you’d go if you got out of here?” you’d asked the Soldier once, the two of you hunkered down in a safe house somewhere in Alaska. It’s been so long since then that you can’t even remember what mission had brought you there - or maybe you should say, so much has happened since then that you can’t remember.

He didn’t answer your question. He couldn’t. His programming limited his dialogue to giving orders to those ranked below him and answering the questions of those ranked higher. You’d been able to see his answer in his eyes, though, sitting there on the opposite side of the hallway from him, your faces illuminated by an oil lamp he’d found while sweeping the basement for any threats.

They had narrowed slightly, his way of wordlessly saying, ‘No.’

No, because he never thought he would ever escape from Hydra; and neither did you, for that matter. But it was nice to think about, especially back then. Freedom.

“I can remember,” you’d said slowly, not missing the faint look of surprise that crossed his usually stoic face at the words. You shouldn’t be able to remember anything that occurred before they wiped you the first time. But you remember this vividly, too vividly for it to be a mere fragment of your imagination.

“I can remember,” you’d started again, “this place my parents and I used to go to along the Blue Ridge Parkway.”

And then you’d told him about it. How after visiting a few tourist attractions you’d park the car at a lookout spot and stare out over the miles and miles of autumn colored trees in the valleys below, untouched by man aside from the randomly placed house. Far away from where you stood, blue tinted mountains pierced the overcast sky - and it was beautiful.

He’d listened to every word you’d spoken intently, his gaze never straying from your face as you reminisced on happier times. And when you’d finished, he’d looked sad. You could feel the longing in his chest within your own, and see a sparkle in his stormy blue eyes that seemed to say, ‘I would take you there, if I could.’

And he has, hasn’t he?

Here you are, standing at the very same lookout you’d told him about that night. It’s warmer than you remember, greener, seeing as it’s summertime - but it’s no less beautiful. If you squint you can see ghosts of the past; two figures standing against the most breathtaking of backdrops, smiling with their arms around one another as you took their picture.

You miss them.

Your parents.

You wish you could remember more about them.

About yourself.

Your old life.

“Empat.”

His voice startles you, but not because you didn’t know he was there. You’d felt his presence step within the reach of your powers almost twenty minutes ago; had known it was him because you know his aches and pains as well as you know your own. The phantom pain where his left arm used to be, the carpal tunnel syndrome in his right wrist and hand from years of holding a gun, and all the other wear and tear seventy years of assassination work has put on his still visibly young body. New to the roster, though, is the break in his right forearm - no doubt an injury gained during his fight in D.C. three days ago. A fight you’d been sidelined for, but should have been battling alongside him.

If you had been, that break wouldn’t be there. You’re certain of that.

You could only do so much with the amount of distance between you, but because you care, because you wanted him to know that you knew he was there, you’d cast your healing warmth over the fracture, numbing it until you could touch him and heal it completely. As thanks, he’d given you this time with your memories. Time before the inevitable had to happen.

But time is up now, and he’s standing right behind you, his voice startling you not because it’s unexpected but because he’s never been able to call you anything, let alone the name Hydra had given you. Empat, meaning Empath. His programming simply didn’t allow for it. To hear his voice say it now - after months and years of knowing each other, fighting alongside each other, nearly dying for each other - well, it’s quite a shock to the system.

Three days, you think. It’s only been three days since he walked away from the Triskelion wreckage, walked away from Hydra, and already he’s regained the ability to speak autonomously. And here you are, sent here to drag him back to the very same people who stripped him of his ability to do so in the first place.

You, because they know that in spite of their best efforts to keep him as emotionless and empty as possible, he feels something for you. Because if it’s you asking him to, he might come back willingly, without a fight. Because if it comes to a fight he’ll hesitate before killing you, and give you the opening you need to-

“Empat,” he says again, interrupting your internal ramblings. The sound of it threatens to bring tears to your eyes.

You don’t want to do this.

But you have no other choice.

“Hi, Soldier,” you greet him gently, and he takes that as his cue to move to stand at your side. He places himself on your left and it’s such a familiar position: you and the Soldier shoulder to shoulder, against the world. Normally it would bring you comfort; but today, it just makes you sad.

As if he can sense it - which he probably can; he has a knack for reading people - the Soldier brushes the back of his hand against the back of yours in a silent offer of comfort. You turn your wrist and intertwine your fingers with his without a second thought, and together you gaze out over the mountain range, silence hanging thick in the air between you for what feels like a lifetime.

And then, “Is it what you remember?”

So you were right. The red star on the tracking device had stopped in this town with a familiar name yesterday not by coincidence, but on purpose. He’d traveled west, deep into the peaks and valleys of the Blue Ridge Mountain range just so he could bring you here, to the location of your only remaining memory.

It’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for you - that you can remember, at least - and, God, do you want to cry.

“Yes,” your voice and your smile is strained, “Thank you.”

He squeezes your hand tighter in response, causing a bolt of pain to shoot up towards his shoulder and down to the tips of his fingers - but he shows no signs of feeling it when you glance in his direction. He was trained to suffer in silence; if you weren’t, well, you, you wouldn’t have the slightest clue that he was in any pain at all.

“Your arm?” you inquire, turning your head to face him at the same moment he turns to face you. It’s only then that you realize what he’s wearing: a black baseball cap pulled down over his brunette tresses, a dark denim jacket over a black t-shirt, blue jeans and his usual pair of boots. The shoes are the only part of his attire that you recognize, but you have to admit, this casual look he’s got going on…

You like it.

“Steve,” he tells you, as if you know who Steve is. You raise your brows. “The guy on the bridge,” he amends. “Captain...Captain America.”

Right. The target Hydra had sent the Soldier to kill not once, but twice - an anomaly, as he usually gets the job done on the first try. You’d been as shocked as your superiors when he came back from the fight on the bridge to report the mission as failed - but more so due to the foul mix of emotions churning within him than the failed mission itself.

It was astonishing to see him in such anguish so openly; to feel the full force of his normally repressed guilt, anger and sadness. You’ve gotten glimpses of it in the past, during those precious few minutes between him being awoken and being wiped. But only one other time had you seen him so distraught, which could only mean one thing.

The target - this Steve, whoever he is - had somehow broken through decades of wipings and programming to free the man Hydra had tried so hard to keep contained, and every sour emotion he’s felt while locked in his cage - though only for a moment before Alexander Pierce ordered him to be shoved behind the bars again.

It’s not easily done; liberating the man that lingers beneath the surface of the Soldier.

You would know.

You’ve done it before.

“You knew him,” you say simply, recalling the trembling words he’d spoken that day. Words that, when combined with the look on his face and what had happened after he’d uttered them, had shattered your already broken heart into even smaller shards.

“But I knew him.”

“I don’t know,” the Soldier replies eventually, and he’s lying - to you and himself.

But that’s okay.

You assure him as much with a small smile.

“Here,” you change the subject, “let me…” you turn your body towards him and bring your right hand up to cup the back of his, which still clings to your left one, as he turns to face you as well. You close your eyes and focus on the break, casting your warmth over it and holding it steady as it guides his bones back into place. As it does, your body takes his pain and converts it into ammunition, adding it to what’s already been piled high within you thanks to the metal choker around your neck.

Hydra’s scientists had designed it especially for you; a necklace that would, whenever your handlers deemed it necessary, electrically shock you continuously so you would have to be constantly taking your own pain away. Whenever you use your healing abilities - regardless of whether you’re using them on yourself or someone else - your body absorbs the pain and stores it within until you either unleash it on someone or your handlers shut the necklace off and the power coursing through your veins is allowed to dwindle away on its own.

It flows through you now, but you’re so used to the uncomfortable prickling feeling that accompanies it at this point that you hardly even notice it’s there anymore.

How sad that is.

“Thank you,” the Soldier says after you’ve finished healing him and open your eyes again. That’s another first: the Soldier thanking you aloud instead of with his eyes and soft, secret touches. If it weren’t for the current circumstances, it would have brought you joy.

“Don’t thank me,” you beg with a rapid shake of your head. “Not when you know what I’ve been sent here to do.”

“Empat, it’s okay-”

“No,” you interject harshly, dropping his hand and retreating a few steps backwards. “It’s not okay, Soldier. It’s not. Because you knew,” your smile is sardonic as you point a finger in his direction. “You knew they’d send someone - that they’d send me - after you. You knew what they’d make me do to bring you back. So why, Soldier? Why didn’t you cut the tracker out? You could have been free,” your voice cracks on the last word, and you feel his chest ache in response.

He holds your gaze for a moment longer before dropping his focus to the grass between his boots. You stand there, blinking tears from your eyes and waiting for him to say something - anything - in defense of himself, but he doesn’t say a word.

He’s maddeningly silent.

“Why would you do this?” you demand again, your voice frail in spite of the anger rising inside of you. The Soldier is slow to raise his gaze back to yours, and even slower to give you an answer.

“‘Cause I wanted to.”

It hits you like a punch from his left fist, and you find yourself unable to speak.

He... He wanted this? He wanted you to be sent after him? To potentially have to fight him, to have to drag him back to the people you’ve always told him you wished you could help him escape from?

“Listen,” he urges, seeing the look of hurt and betrayal that’s overtaken your features. He’s lifted his hands in a pacifying gesture, and his left one catches your attention, as it’s donning a black winter glove. Where did he even find one of those this time of year? “I did it because I didn’t know how else to find you. I went back to the bank after...after the fight, and everyone was already gone. You were gone, and I had no way of knowing where you were but I knew that if I left the tracker in, it wouldn’t be long before they sent you after me. It...It was the only way I had to be able to see you again,” he finishes with a sad, tearful smile, the same one he’d given Alexander Pierce that night after his first encounter with Steve.

It pulls at your heart now just as it did then, but at the same time -

“You could have been free,” you echo your earlier words, sounding every bit as devastated as you feel. Your tears make the Soldier a blur as he steps closer to you, raising his hands to tentatively cup the sides of your face. You blink and a pair of them slip down your cheeks only to be quickly smeared away by his thumbs, gloved metal and bare flesh alike.

“I don’t want to be free if you’re not free with me,” he tells you softly, and you see those words for what they are: a testament of his love for you. It’s the first time he’s been able to voice such a thing, and you want to find joy or at the very least solace in it. Truly, you do. But right now, with the situation at hand, knowing he’s tossed away the only chance at liberation he’s had in seven decades all because he didn’t want to leave you behind, you can’t.

You just feel guilty. So incredibly, debilitatingly guilty.

“I’ll never be free of them,” you state grimly, pulling out of his hold and putting some distance between you. “As long as this necklace is around my neck, I’m stuck. They’ll ramp it up as soon as I get too far for their likings and kill me. But you - you had a chance. And you threw it away because of me,” you practically choke out the last word. You pause for a few moments to collect yourself before continuing to speak, your eyes fluttering shut to send another pair of tears down your cheeks.

“I’m begging you, Soldier. If you love me, cut the tracker out and leave. I’ll tell them you beat me unconscious before I could move to apprehend you, or… I don’t know. Something. Just please don’t make me take you back there. Don’t make me the reason you go back there, I…” your throat gets too tight for you to speak any further, so you open your eyes and try to communicate with him through them, as he used to you.

I won’t be able to live with myself if you do.

He lets your unspoken words hang between you for exactly seventeen shaking breaths, and when he goes to speak, he looks apologetic, telling you he’s not going to change his mind even before he confirms it aloud.

“You know I never get to choose what I want for myself,” he says, a pleading tone to his voice. His eyes are equally as imploring as they stare into yours, trying to get you to see just how much he needs you to do this for him. “I want this, Empat. I do. So, please, for once in my life - let me have what I want.”

…How are you supposed to say no to that?

The answer is simple:

You don’t.

“Alright,” you sound as defeated as you feel. “Alright.”

The corners of his lips twitch upwards, but the glossiness of his eyes conveys what you feel twisting inside of him. The fear. The sadness. The anger.

He reaches out, asking for your hands, and you unfold your arms to give them to him, biting back a sob as he intertwines his fingers through yours.

“Whatever you have to do,” he says slowly, “Do it.”

You squeeze your eyes shut and inhale deeply to gather what little strength and courage you have left in you; then, you breath out a single word:

“Sputnik.”

A moment later, the Soldier collapses at your feet.

…

...

You couldn’t do it.

You’d told him you would, and had fully intended on honoring his wishes - but it was one hour into the three hour drive back to the safe house your handlers were waiting for you within that you realized you just couldn’t. You couldn’t take him back to the people who have been holding him hostage for over seventy years, doom him to another who knows how many more years of brainwashing and torture. You couldn’t, and you wouldn’t.

So you turned the car around, much to the displeasure of your handlers. The wattage of your necklace shot up almost immediately after you’d made the u-turn, and you’d almost driven into the guard rails due to the sudden onslaught of pain. You’d quickly smothered it, though, and righted the vehicle on the road, backtracking until you reached the abandoned house you’d spotted only a few minutes prior in the drive.

It had caught your eye because of its reminiscence of that safe house back in Alaska. It’s a small and barely standing home made of deteriorating wood, its front door hanging by a single hinge. Upon entering it you’d found it had the same damp, moldy atmosphere, and a similar, familiar layout - a ground level with two bedrooms and a bathroom, a living room and kitchen area, and a basement. Its windows were shattered, parts of the wood flooring were either caved in or missing altogether, and you’d even found an oil lamp while you were scoping out the basement.

Talk about déjà vu.

As for getting the Soldier into the house, it was as much of a struggle as it’d been to get him into the car your handlers had sent you out in. Somehow, though, you’d managed, and had tied him to a weathered dining chair that had squeakily threatened to collapse under his weight when you’d dropped him into it.

What had happened after that is nothing more than a blur of blood and tears, right up until you’d collapsed into an identical chair in front of a boarded up window, staring as if you could see right through the planks to whatever lies beyond.

You don’t know how much time has passed since then, but you haven’t moved since you’d sat down. You’ve barely even breathed.

There’s a pounding in your head from previously shed tears and there’s dried blood on your hands, your clothes. You’re shaking so badly you don’t know how you haven’t vibrated right off of the chair and into a clump on the floor.

He hasn’t woken up yet. You’re starting to worry he may never - that there’s another code word that has to be used to wake the Soldier after he’s been shut down by ‘sputnik.’

Wouldn’t that be just your luck? To do everything that you’ve done in the time since he’s been unconscious just for it all to be futile because-

A soft groan sounds from behind you, and you hold your breath.

Did you actually hear that? Or did you-

“Empat?” he rasps, a confused lilt to his voice. You almost start crying again at the sound of it.

He’s awake.

Everything you’ve done isn’t for nothing, after all.

“I’m here,” you get to your feet and move towards him slowly. Taking in his disoriented expression, you ask, “How do you feel?”

You being you, of course, you already know how he’s feeling; he’s got a headache similar to your own and he’s discombobulated, stiff and sore. Still, you ask him - not only because it’s nice to do so but because you want to hear it out of his own mouth.

However, instead of answering your question, he raises one of his own. “Why are you covered in blood?”

You stop right in front of him, shaking your head.

“It’s not mine,” is all you offer, reaching forward to brush his hair out of his face since he can’t do it for himself. You then trail your fingers down the side of his cheek, watching as his eyes flutter shut briefly in response to the gentle touch before he seemingly forces them open again, assessing you with his stormy blues.

“Where are we?” he asks. You freeze in your movement.

“Hour away from where we were,” you supply. He ponders that for a few moments, tearing his eyes from you to take in what he can of the room before meeting your gaze again.

“Are they coming to extract us?”

You drop your gaze.

“Empat,” his tone is low; dangerous - the closest it’s been to the one he uses while giving orders on missions this entire time. You turn away from him and clasp your trembling hands together.

Every so often your handlers have been knocking up the voltage of your necklace to tell you to hurry up and get you and the Soldier back to the safe house. You’ve been having to use more and more of your powers to keep yourself from feeling it, from being harmed by it, and it’s drained you more than you’re willing to admit.

You don’t know how much longer you can fight against it. You need to get moving before they ramp it up beyond the reach of your powers and kill you, which they’d very clearly told you they would if you failed them.

You’ve only hung around this long waiting for the Soldier to wake up to make sure that he would wake up; you didn’t want to leave him behind without knowing for a fact that he was going to be okay.

But he’s awake now, and really there’s no reason for you to be here anymore... Yet, you can’t bring yourself to move any further away.

“Empat,” the Soldier calls for you again, this time more desperate. “What did you do?”

You close your eyes.

He’s going to be so upset with you over this.

But perhaps that will make it easier for him to move on.

“I cut the tracker out,” you inform him, hearing him inhale sharply in response. “I…Understand why you didn’t do it yourself. I’d do the same thing, to see you one last time - but you know that if our roles were reversed you would refuse to take me back to them. So you shouldn’t expect me to,” you face him again, letting him see the tears that started running down your cheeks as you were speaking.

He looks as devastated as you feel.

Biting back a sob, you walk back up to him and cup the sides of his face, as he had yours earlier, and lean down to rest your forehead against his. You remain in that position for only a moment before pulling away enough to peer into his tear-filled eyes.

“I’m sorry I have to be another person keeping you from what you want,” you brush your thumbs over his cheekbones, “but I can’t do this to you. You’ve been with them so much longer than I have, Soldier; you’ve been through so much - too much. You deserve to be free, to live. And you’ve got a chance,” you smile at him sadly. “I can’t take that from you.”

Those words appear to be what takes him over the edge, as with his next blink, the Soldier’s tears spill over. They run down his stubble covered cheeks and quickly find themselves wiped away by your waiting thumbs.

“They’ll kill you if you show up without me,” he chokes out. And he’s right. You know he is. But,

“You would do it for me.”

You have him there, it seems - because he has nothing to say to contradict your statement. You nod, for no particular reason, and press your lips to his forehead; your silent I love you, your wordless goodbye.

You pull away from him with the intentions of leaving, but before you can even straighten your spine he says, “Y/N.”

You freeze.

That name…

You pull further back and meet his gaze.

“What?”

“Y/N,” he says again. “That’s your name. Your real name.”

Your breathing hitches.

You don’t know how, but you know he’s right. You can feel it.

“How-”

“You told me,” he answers your unfinished question. “When we first met, before they wiped you that first time - no one told you I couldn’t talk and you - you introduced yourself to me. You were terrified of me, I could tell - but you still stuck your hand out and told me your name. I couldn’t,” he pauses to gather himself, Adam’s apple bobbing. “I couldn’t have told you my name even if I could have remembered it, but I put my hand in yours, and you smiled at me. Do you know how long it’d been since someone had smiled at me? Without any malice behind it?” he leans forward against his binds, baring his wet eyes into yours.

You don’t say anything. You’re completely and utterly speechless, staring at him with wide eyes and a trembling lower lip. You drop your hands from his face and take a step back, absorbing every single word he has to to tell you.

“They wipe me to make me forget, but I never forgot that moment, Y/N, no matter how many times they did it. I never forgot your name even though my own was long gone.” The Soldier presses on, “I don’t know why, but I feel like it was for a reason. Like I was supposed to be the one to remind you what it was - to help you remember who you were. But I can’t do that if you’re...If you…”

He doesn’t finish, but it’s not hard for you to figure out what he was going to say.

I can’t do that if you’re dead.

“I don’t know what you think I can do,” you force the words out around the lump in your throat, “I die if I go back without you. They’ll kill me if I stay with you - either way, I’m dead. There’s nothing we can do-”

“Yes there is,” he insists, desperate. “We can go there - we can fight them-”

“And they’ll kill me as soon as they realize what’s happening,” you dismiss the suggestion, “right in front of you. I don’t… Want you to have to watch me die, Soldier. I don’t want you to have to carry that around with you for the rest of your life - can’t you understand that?”

“Untie me then. Let me try and get that thing off of you-”

“What?!” you take a step back as if he’s struck you. “Are you insane?! You’ll get electrocuted if you touch it!”

“Not if you protect me from it,” he counteracts. You shake your head and go to protest against the idea, but he starts talking again before you can. “Don’t you remember the day you realized what you could do? What you could really do?”

Of course you do. That’s another memory Hydra couldn’t rip away from you no matter how hard they tried: the day you found out the true extent of what powers Loki’s scepter had bestowed upon you. The day that you were promoted from the Winter Soldier’s nurse to his partner in crime - literally.

Seeing the look of recognition in your eyes, the Soldier latches onto it. “You can do it again. I know you can.”

“Your arm,” you point out. “It’ll conduct the electricity - send it straight towards your heart. And I don’t know if what I can do is enough to protect you from the damage that would cause.”

His face falls.

Clearly, he hadn’t thought of that.

He parts his lips to make another argument but before he can get a single word out the wattage of your necklace suddenly increases again, making you cry out and fall to your knees. You just barely manage to smother the pain this time; if they turn it up any higher, you’re not sure you’ll be able to.

“I knew you couldn’t do it,” a voice taunts in Russian from somewhere behind you. Recognizing it, you lift a hand in the general direction it came from and feel the power coursing through your veins gather in the palm of your hand before a cloud of black smoke erupts from it. The man lets out a scream of pure agony a moment later before hitting the weathered floorboards, dead. You look over your shoulder and take in the lifeless form of the handler before turning back to the Soldier, wide eyed.

“Untie me now,” he orders, and you know better than to argue with him.

As Hydra’s motto claims, ‘Cut off one head, two more will take its place.’

You’re gonna need his help.

So you scramble to your feet and round the chair he’s tied to, unsheathing the knife strapped to your thigh. It’s not easy to cut through the rope, which had been specially designed to restrain the Soldier, but it’s not impossible, either. You have him free before long and he puts his hand out for the blade, which you hand over without even thinking just in time for two more figures to step through the doorway.

“Sput-” the handler who had been just a syllable away from shutting down the Soldier again gets cut off by the knife you’d given him embedding itself in his chest. A cloud of black smoke engulfs him a moment later and he chokes on it for a moment before collapsing just as the first had.

Next, gun shots ring out. If any bullets hit you, you don’t feel them - all you can feel is the power in your shaking hands, the slight ease of its pressure as more of it is released onto the third Hydra agent. She does little more than gasp before her eyes roll back in her head and she lands on top of her comrade.

The Soldier surges forward, scavenging the closest body for any weapons. He finds a gun just in time to get a head shot on a fourth agent.

“We need to get out of here,” he states the obvious, taking a shot at a fifth one.

He doesn’t miss.

You clench and unclench your hands, the power surging within them making it impossible for you not to fidget. “My tracker’s still in, they’ll just follow us,” you remind him, “and the necklace-”

“Search them for the remote,” he meets your eyes briefly over his shoulder. “Someone here has to have it.”

You nod and kneel beside the body he’d taken the gun from. You rummage through the handler’s pockets, coming up short on finding the device that would free you from the necklace. From Hydra.

It’s unreal to you that this is even happening right now; you never thought you would ever have even a chance at freedom, but now -

As if it’s punishing you for even thinking about escaping, the wattage of your necklace suddenly spikes. And as you’d predicted, this time you can’t completely cover the pain it’s inflicting on you - it’s too strong, hurts too much.

You scream and fall sideways, clawing futilely at the electrified metal around your neck. For several long, agonizing moments, all there is is pain, pain, pain - and then, suddenly, it’s gone.

You think at first you’re dead; in fact, you’re certain of it. But then a hand taps on your cheek and you open your eyes - when had you even closed them? - and see the Soldier’s face hovering over your own. It melts with relief and he says something to you, but you can’t hear whatever it is over the ringing in your ears.

You’d tell him that, if you weren’t so dazed.

After some time the Soldier gives up on getting a response out of you and helps you to sit up, watching you closely afterwards, presumably looking for any signs that you’re going to pass out. You don’t, though your head does swim, and find yourself blinking rapidly trying to get your eyes to focus. They land on the doorway when they do, where a familiar man stands holding a familiar object, the sight enough to make your blood run cold.

Having noticed the shift in your demeanor, the Soldier follows your line of sight, tensing just as you had when he realizes what you’re looking at.

The ringing in your ears fades away just in time for Talon, the highest ranking of the handlers, to speak.

“Drop the gun, Soldat,” he commands, shaking the hand holding the remote to your necklace pointedly. “Or watch your precious little empath die.”

The Soldier swallows thickly. Then, he obeys, the gun clattering onto the wood floor just beyond your reach.

“As I thought,” Talon muses, his smile anything but friendly as he approaches you and the Soldier at a slow pace. His eyes are fixated on the latter, but his thumb hovering over the red button on the remote is enough of a deterrent to keep you from trying anything.

You don’t refrain from openly glaring at him, though.

“You’d do anything to keep her safe, hm?” Talon inquires coolly, his lips falling into their natural frown. “First chance at freedom in almost seventy years... And you toss it away for a girl you’ve known for two,” he holds up two fingers on his free hand for emphasis, and you flinch. Even though they’re the same words you've been telling yourself this entire time, they somehow sound even worse coming from someone else’s mouth.

The handler doesn't show it outwardly, but he notices how his statement hits a nerve. You know this because, for a moment, his irritation gives way to amusement; he can tell you're feeling guilty, and he's enjoying it.

Bastard.

Talon comes to a stop a few feet away from where you and the Soldier are sat. His eyes, their irises the color of green peridot, flicker back and forth between the two of you a few times before he seethes, “She makes you weak.”

The Soldier tightens his arm around you, and you can feel the anxiety rising within him; the anger. You want to spare a glance in his direction but opt to keep your gaze fixated on Talon, afraid of what he might do if you were to be momentarily distracted.

“It’s pathetic,” the handler goes on, “and if we didn’t need her help to sort out the mess your failure-” he jabs an accusing finger at the Soldier “-created, I would have you kill her. Slowly and painfully, to punish you both.

"I should regardless, considering what she was about to do,” he moves his focus onto you, now. “You should count yourself very lucky, Empat, and pray that I still find you useful when all this is said and done.”

Your glare turns deadly at the threat. In response, Talon hits a button - not the red one - to make your necklace come to life, albeit on a much lower setting than it’d been on before.

It’s a warning more than anything, but it still hurts.

“Yes, you will both be punished harshly for your recent acts of disobedience - eventually,” Talon states, tossing the remote into the air and catching it, quite literally playing with your life. “There’s simply no time for it now, as we leave for Sokovia tonight, per von Strucker’s request. He’s made a call for all of his creations to return and help defend their birthplace,” he stuffs the hand holding the device into his pocket and seems to consider you before adding, “He’s very interested in seeing how your powers have developed since he’s last seen you, Empat.”

Unease claws its way down your spine at the words, and though you’re not sure why - you trust it. You may not consciously remember von Strucker, but there’s a girl locked away in your mind who does; who’s warning you that he’s no one you’ll want to see ever again.

You trust her.

Talon sighs exaggeratedly, having seemingly grown bored of this one-sided conversation he’s been having with the two of you.

“Get her up, Soldat; we must get going,” he commands. You feel your heart lurch, and finally tear your gaze from the handler to look at the man who’s yet to let you go.

There’s a look of calculation on his face; the one he bears whenever a mission goes wrong and he has to come up with a new plan on the spot. What could he possibly-

“My name,” the Soldier snarls through gritted teeth, glaring up at the other man with pure hatred swirling in his chest. “Is James, Buchanan, Barnes. Not Soldat, not Asset - James. Bucky.”

You gasp silently in response to what he’s just revealed, and place your hand over that of his that rests on your waist, squeezing it tightly. Right now is the most inappropriate of times to feel happy, but you are, because the Soldier, your Soldier, he has a name. Well, he’s always had one - but now he remembers it; now you know it. You know his name and you know your own - your first one, at least - and, wow. You have names. Real, genuine names and it feels so surreal, so right, even if you are currently standing on the verge of losing them again.

“I gave you an order, Soldat,” Talon emphasizes the title pointedly, and you whirl back onto him with a glare even more murderous than the first had been. “And I expect you to follow that order, or I’ll-”

In your peripheral vision, you see the Soldier - James, you remind yourself - pull out a gun and line up a shot with expert ease. You barely register the action before he’s pulling the trigger and an ear piercing bang echoes throughout the abandoned house.

The bullet hits its mark, of course - a fatal head shot.

Talon’s body falls towards the ground and when it makes impact, whether his hand was just carrying out his last request or your luck is just that bad and he happened to land on it, the red button on the remote gets pressed.

The wattage of your necklace spikes, and it’s the most excruciating and unbearable pain you’ve ever felt. Your lips part to scream but the cry doesn’t even get a chance to escape before you succumb to the pain being inflicted upon you, your world going dark.

And then…

And then there’s light.

Not a heavenly, bright light, but a dim, golden glow.

You blink against it a few times, trying to focus your vision, all the while casting your healing warmth over the pain in your head. The world around you finally aligns and you realize that you’re in a car, sprawled across the back seat with your head lying on top of a rolled up denim jacket.

Your last few moments of consciousness return to you as the headache is successfully smothered to nothing, and immediately your hand shoots up to grasp at your neck - the action sending a jolt of pain through your arm.

Brows furrowing, you withdraw the limb and bring it to eye level, finding a bandage wrapped tightly just below your elbow. You bring your other hand up and pull the bandage down carefully, revealing a stitched up wound right where Hydra’s scientists had implanted a small tracking device beneath your skin seemingly so long ago.

The implications the sight brings forth make your heart stutter.

Slowly, almost afraid of what you’ll find, you lower your hand back towards your neck -

Finding nothing there.

And the fact that your necklace is gone is your second indication that something huge happened while you were unconscious, as the only time your handlers ever take it off of you is when you’re off mission and locked away in a cell. Gingerly, you rub at the scarred skin where it usually rests, putting the few pieces you’ve gathered so far together.

Your tracker has presumably been cut out, your necklace is gone, and both of those things could only mean-

You stop yourself short, realizing you’re getting ahead of yourself.

You can’t let yourself think that until you know for sure it’s true.

So without moving - because if it isn’t him, you’re gonna want the advantage of the person in the driver’s seat not knowing you’re awake - you close your eyes and reach out with your powers, studying the only other soul in the car. You take into account every familiar ache and pain in their body, the fragile hope within their chest, and you smile.

“Soldier?” you call, ignoring the pain in your arm as you push yourself up into a seated position. Startled, his icy blues snap towards the rear view mirror.

And then they melt.

“No,” he responds, a smile tainting his tone. “I’m Bucky.”

Disbelieving and overjoyed, a laugh bubbles up in your throat. He maneuvers the car to park it on the side of the rural road and you slide off of the back seat, leaning over the center console to look at his face. He turns to look at you, too, grinning - something you’ve never seen him do before.

He’s offered you slight tugs at the corners of his lips in moments where he was more ‘James’ than ‘Soldier,’ yes, but not ever this - this flashing of his teeth and crinkling at the edges of his eyes. Bathed in the golden glow of the rising sun and freedom, he’s one of the most beautiful things you’ve ever seen.

“Hi, Bucky,” you greet him breathlessly, smiling so hard your cheeks hurt.

“Hi, Y/N,” he returns, and the next thing you know you’re being pulled - squealing - from the back seat towards the front, and his arms are around you, holding you tight against him. In the cramped space of the car, the embrace is awkward and even on the verge of painful - what with all the levers and the steering wheel digging into you; but you don’t care. You just wrap your arms around him, too, and pull him impossibly closer, a different kind of tears filling your eyes as you bury your nose into his dark hair.

“I thought I lost you,” he heaves out the shaking words against your chest, trembling in your hold. There’s so many emotions twisting within him that it’s hard for you to decipher them from one another, but most prominent of all is his guilt; his overbearing, gut-wrenching guilt. It makes you realize, with a sinking heart, that not only had he thought you dead, he’d thought he’d been the one to kill you - inadvertently - by shooting Talon.

“I’m right here,” you murmur into his hair, pressing a kiss to it after. “It’s alright - we’re alright, Bucky. We’re free.”

At your words, he pulls back enough to meet your gaze, an almost mystified look on his tear-stained face. It’s the smallness of his voice as he repeats your last two words back to you that causes your own tears to spill over.

“We’re free.”

He almost sounds like he doesn’t really believe it, and you can understand that, as you hardly do yourself - but still, you try and reassure him, nodding quickly.

“Yeah, Bucky, we’re fr-”

Bucky presses his lips against yours, cutting you off.

Taken aback, you stiffen at first - but then you melt into him, one of your hands moving to cup the side of his face and pull him closer, the other sliding down to rest over his heart. It beats strongly against your palm, setting the pace for the kiss, the first the two of you have ever shared. And, oh, what a first kiss it is: gentle yet passionate, grounding but freeing all the same.

It warms you from the inside out and tingles beneath the surface of your skin in the most exhilarating of ways, making you feel so alive - reassuring you that you are, as it would be so easy for you to convince yourself that you’re not, since this is the closest to Heaven you’ve ever been.

If you could have it your way, it would never end; you would stay in this moment for the rest of your life, reveling in the feeling of Bucky’s lips moving against yours and his arms encasing you, the mix of positive emotions swirling in your respective chests. Your lungs however eventually betray you, and you have to part from him to catch your breath - but you don’t go too far. You only move to rest your forehead against his, a happier rendition of a moment lived not too long ago.

You stay like that, just basking in one another, for an eternity. And then he asks you, in a tone that tells you he’s open to anything you might suggest, “Where do you want to go?”

You smile as you open your eyes, meeting his waiting gaze.

“Anywhere,” you tell him simply. “As long as I’m with you.”

A/N: first and foremost, if you’re reading this, bless you for making it this far, and I really hope you liked this one-shot! I’d love to hear any thoughts you may have on it :).

I’ve been planning the story of Bucky and this specific reader in my head for months now, so to see them finally “come to life” is a pretty great feeling. I hope you guys love them as much as I do, because I’ll hopefully be sharing the journey that led them to this ‘epilogue’ with you soon 💜.

One last thing, I want to give a shout out to every single person who has given me words of encouragement and advice over the past few months as I’ve talked about picking up writing again. Especially @stop-obsessing-over-those-actors, whose reaction to just a snippet of this one-shot and constant support throughout the writing process pushed me to keep going even when I felt like giving up and dropping out of the challenge. I’m so sorry I kept you waiting to see what happened for so long! I hope the wait was worth it!

( @buckyreaderrecs and @stop-obsessing-over-those-actors, I did it you guys!! 💜)

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not-from-the-absence-of-violence · 4 years

Text

You'd break your heart to make it bigger, so why not crack your skull when the mind swells

“Something's not right about what I'm doing but I'm still doing it-- living in the worst parts, ruining myself. My inner life is a sheet of black glass.” ~Richard Siken

Moments in Leenik Geelo's life after losing his brother.

a/n: love that my first campaign star wars fic is just pure leenik geelo angst, i dedicate this one to @leenik-matagot thank u and also ur welcome <3 >:)

content warnings for: canon typical character death and violence, suicidal thoughts, refrences to self harm, ptsd, trauma and just general grief and depression.

It’s the emptiness he doesn’t expect. When they were running out of the planet the numb shock passing into the unrelenting reality of the loss he had just suffered.

There is that night where neither him or Chartreuse say anything and it felt like his chest was going to collapse into itself. It wasn’t real, not quite yet but the grief that threatens to consume him whole had already set in. it was like a gaping open wound in his chest. Like shards of glass. Like he was dying, following Tony into an early grave.

Those days blur together but he remembers eventually when the pain wouldn’t stop, he remembers cristal clear the quiet desperate prayer he sent out to the stars he and his brother had once travelled together.

Make it stop. He begged. I will do anything to stop feeling like this someone, anyone, please make it stop, make it stop, make it-

Be careful what you wish for, they say, because eventually it did, and it left the broken being that had once been Nicky Geelo.

There was nothing, he hadn’t thought it possible before to feel nothing but it was there. He was but an empty black hole. What was he now, without his grief and pain.

Nothing matters then, when the world stops being something you experience, he stared blankly at the wall. A million thoughts hung around his head.

It was your fault. It should have been you. You have always been this useless. What are you now? What have you ever been?-

They droned on, it was like listening to static, they were there, they were his thoughts and he believed them, but there was no emotion tied to it. He wants it back, the overwhelming despair, the anger burning in his veins, the quiet background sorrow that settles into your bones.

The first time Leenik Geelo gets captured on purpose he doesn’t plan on coming out of it.

He had picked up doing jobs again because he had to, life didn’t stop even if it felt like it should, the loss of Venton was nothing on the greater galaxy, even if to Leenik it felt like the stars weren’t allowed to shine without him.

It isn’t quite like he consciously plans on getting shot, it’s just that he goes in with a half-baked plan, no plan B, no weapons and not really sure when the last time he ate was.

And sure maybe when they are marching him to the brig, blasters trained on him part of him wonders why it would be bad if they just fired.

It’s not quite wanting to die, as much as it is not seeing the point in living. As much as that the moment they truly are about to shoot him his fear finally kicks in and he feels awake for the first time in months.

How he gets out of that one he doesn’t know, it's like all the luck in the galaxy follows him when he doesn’t want it.

He stands there and picks at his suction cups absentmindedly until one starts to bleed, he stares at the blood dripping from his finger like it contains the answers to everything.

He isn’t prepared for the wrath that comes next, the vast nothing in his chest comes and goes but the only other thing he is made of these days seems anger.

It is directed at everything and nothing, his brother's killer, Traxx, the ceiling fan that is too loud, himself.He who couldn't help, he had insisted to take on a job they shouldn't have, he should have been the one to fall in Ventons place.

The first time he stuns himself he can almost convince himself it's an accident. He is in fact, shooting at the fan, but who is to say whether he knew that the laser would bounce of it and hit him in the chest.

There is a flash of blinding agony and then a final blissful nothing. He wakes up very soon after, with a pounding headache, dizzy and miserable.

He knows very well he should not do that again, he stares at his blaster and feels some sickening kind of fear of himself. He tries to avoid using a blaster for a while but it doesn't last long.

It's always an accident though, and usually when it happens people laugh at the guy who just got himself stunned.

That's good he thinks making people laugh.

Leenik Geelo doesn't know the name of the first truly innocent person that he kills.

Usually there is some sort of justification for it, in his mind at least.

At some point he is at a shoot out and he very well knows he could aim away from the civilians that have nothing to do with it.

He doesn't.

There he is met with sickening guilt, and an even worse sense of perverted glee.

He sees the disappointed face of his brother every time he closes his eyes.

The moment he is alone that afternoon he breaks down crying, falling to the floor of some ship.

What have you become Nicky?

He doesn't know. He doesn't know.

It's Venton who should have lived, and so he starts dressing the part. it's easy to pass off the wig and the eye patch as simple eccentricities, people find it odd, people laugh.

Good. He thinks, it's almost better to not be taken seriously, no one seeing under the surface.

So easy some days to almost believe it's Tony who is staring back at him in the mirror. That he’s here with him at least. He doesn't know how to be himself anymore.

One day he simply forgets the eyepatch, he catches a glimpse in the mirror and panics. True awful panic, the one that causes you to stop breathing, your chest to hurt, your mind to start racing.

"I need to go get it," he chokes out.

"Jeez man, we have a job to do."

He is already running back already, his hands in fists shaking as he tries not to break into sobs in the middle of the busy street.

It is odd in many ways how much Venton had been to him. His brother, his work partner, his only connection to his home he had left behind.

Leenik isn’t good at planning, he isn’t very strong or agile or-

Together they were invincible and alone he’s just...him.

He isn’t sure whether he misses Rodea or his brother sometimes, tangled up together in a web of nostalgia.

There is so little that is left from the person he used to be now.

What exactly makes memories flood him like rivers is truly awful arbitrary, he hates it.

And like anything he hates inside himself, he fights it like a caged animal. He is holding onto the shards of himself so tightly, cutting his fingers with it, he is walking on his own broken glass.

It’s a perfectly unremarkable day on the Mynock, he struggles to open a container.

"You should work out more, Leenik."

He stares at a fixed point on the wall, he feels it, the helplessness, his brothers hand in his, he feels the way he can't pull them up because he isn't strong enough, good enough, such a failure-

"Leenik? You okay there buddy?"

Leenik snaps out of it, clearly looking at his surroundings.

"I am just self conscious about my strength alright," he says as he bats away Bacta's hand " Don't bring it up again."

Bacta looks vaguely worried but drops it, used to his odd outburst by now. Leenik goes to look outside at the stars that were supposed to be theirs.

Sleep and Leenik are at war. Every night is a battle.

The weeks, months even after he couldn't sleep. He couldn't without waking up to nightmares of every kind and every night he saw his brother die because of him in seemingly increasingly gruesome ways.

Not sleeping made being awake worse, made the colours sharper and the noise louder, made his already weak grasp on reality weaker. He heard Venton everywhere, knowing it wasn't him, his own head driving him mad.

The only sleep he knew was collapsing from exhaustion.

Eventually time passed and no matter how much Leenik picked at it the wound healed somewhat and sometimes he slept.

Nightmares were still common enough for him to be anxious every time bed time approached. So he read, indulged in the calming familiar anxiety repetitive formulaic fiction brought.

Sometimes he had good dreams about Venton, of beautiful summers in Rodea, about the best bounties they had brought in, soft quiet scenes of love they deserved to have.

He woke up feeling the emptiness worse those days, not being able to even look at himself in the mirror.

There is something so comfortable in not being him. Leenik picks up a million hobbies and drops them just as soon but dressing up he might just keep.

He’s good at it, it’s fun, most importantly for the rest of the crew, it's useful.

And if it also means that he gets to look into the mirror without having to bear his own face looking back at him, even better.

He falls into the same patterns over and over and over again. He can’t stop, like a derailed train, and it’s always him left to pick up the pieces of his mess.

Like pushing boulders uphill it soon starts to feel tedious, pointless, if you have to do it again every time.

He doesn’t know who he is without anymore, doesn’t know how to be whole, he doesn’t want to know.

It feels like he is a spectator in his own life as he sees himself grimly fall back into ruining his life in both small and big ways.

It’s too hard to mend it, he doesn’t know how to sow.

He had never thought of having children really, every day he didn't quite believe he was going to survive the week, much less enough to form a family.

The vornskr gets attached to him so quickly, it needs him, like Leenik once needed his brother.

So he names him Tony, the name feels like rubbing salt in the wound, something that is almost like comfort for him now.

I'll protect you he thinks, even if I couldn't protect him.

He stares at the place where his arm used to be.

He can see it so vividly in front of him, Tony's arm a bloody mess dangling making it unable for him to pull himself up. He sees his own hand, the one he doesn't have anymore, not strong enough to pull him up either.

He stares at his arm and sits on the floor crying. The noise of the battle fading away to the background

Maybe I deserve this one.

Leenik Geelo has a family now, crammed into a small spaceship, full of unspoken issues and painful tension.

He holds on to it lightly, or pretends to.

The only way Leenik knows how to hold on is so tight it's suffocating, so loud it hurts, so pleading it is pathetic. He overcompensates in the other direction constantly, to the point where neither he nor the people he now loves know whether he cares about them or not.

He looks onto Tamlin who lost his mother, so small, so fragile. Now his responsibility too. Maybe he doesn't know quite yet what's to come for him, all the small ways loss cracks you. He is afraid of Tamlin in the same way he is afraid of his own true reflection. And as afraid as anyone is of his own children.

"What's the name of the kid again?" he asks and he can almost convince himself he doesn't know.

So many masks to Leenik Geelo, his name has lost meaning.

Everyone has a breaking point and eventually Leenik reaches his. As he falls to the floor crying, there are people there this time. To listen, to hug him, to comfort him. To share in his pain and not flinch as they see the worst parts of him. To hold his hand and pull him up as he starts the arduous climb from rock bottom.

He isn’t alone amongst the vast expanse of space anymore.

Time passes and loss never truly gets easier, but eventually one has to heal. Eventually he grows up and knows his brother wouldn't want this for him. More importantly he doesn't want this, not anymore.

Rebuilding yourself is a never ending process that often leads to hallways you had forgotten about, it's painful and thankless and while in it it never feels worth it. But it is, oh it is, when he is able to talk about Tony again and it doesn't feel like his throat is full of glass. When people can call him Nicky and it brings only the slightest twinge of melancholy, like pressure on a sore bruise. When he can go to Rodea again, a planet he had once thought he would never be able to bear to return.

Sometimes he still gets cut on his own shards, but this time he lets someone help mend it.

He can lay amongst the trees and for the first time lay his brother to rest in his mind.

"Goodbye Tony," he says, looking onto the millions of planets and galaxies above him, in wonder of how small he is compared to it all.

"I miss you." he says because it's true, he will never stop missing who had once felt like an infinite constant in his life.

"I hope you are well amongst the stars."

#campaign star wars #campaign podcast #leenik geelo #venton geelo #my writing #fic

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carewyncromwell · 4 years

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M E T and K for the OC ask >.>

Oooh, that’s a lot! x.x Okay! For M, I’m going to cheat a bit and use a surname, since a lot of the “M” first name characters I added onto in LOLS are expansions of canon characters (i.e. Millicent Bulstrode) -- the others I’ll use first names! :)

Full Name: Lydia Julien Montmercy

Nicknames, If Any: Caeneus Jove (pen-name)

Hogwarts House: Slytherin

Gender: Transgender Male

Sexuality: Gay

A Song I Associate With Them: Ascendance by Lindsey Stirling

3 Important Relationships

Eddie Carmichael ~ One of Julien’s best friends. They first met at school, and even though they were in different houses (Ravenclaw and Slytherin, respectively), Eddie and Julien bonded over their shared aspiration to join the Auror Department. Once they were both accepted into the ranks of that Department, they grew even closer, to the point that when Eddie was looking for people to help him with circulating a rebel newspaper during the Second Wizarding War, he knew he could depend on Julien, even if Julien’s father was one of the most high-ranking Death Eaters at the Ministry.

Antoinette Montmercy ~ Antoinette raised her child Julien almost entirely on her own, and so the two are incredibly close. There is nothing Antoinette wouldn’t do if it meant protecting her child -- even obeying the will of her cold-hearted Death Eater husband.

Etienne Montmercy ~ Julien’s father was in Azkaban most of Julien’s life for being a Voldemort supporter, and when he was released, it signaled a hellish new chapter in Julien’s life. Not only would Etienne never accept Julien’s gender identity, which forced Julien to stay in the closet longer than he’d intended for his own self-preservation, but Julien did not share Etienne’s blood purist beliefs in the slightest. To top it all off, Etienne forced Julien into an arranged marriage with the blood purist tabloid writer Uric Cuffe without even consulting Julien or caring if he objected. Etienne and Julien may look very alike, but they couldn’t be more diametrically opposed as people.

2 Fears

Losing his free will

His friends dying

1 Element of their backstory

Julien’s dead name is “Lydia,” which was a name Etienne had picked. “Julien” is derived from a line in an old poem that Antoinette used to read for her son about July gillyflowers.

Full Name: Erik Landon Apollo

Nicknames, If Any: Rick (by Eos Amari), Jarvey (by Orion), Apollo (by most of his students), Sour Patch (by Wendy Copper @drinkyoursoupbitch)

Hogwarts House: Slytherin

Gender: Cisgender Male

Sexuality: Bisexual

A Song I Associate With Them: “Remember the Name,” by Fort Minor

3 Important Relationships

Carewyn Cromwell ~ Erik’s legal guardian, after he lost his parents and was hauled before the Muggle-Born Registration Commission during the Second Wizarding War. Although Erik never calls Carewyn his mother due to the trauma of losing his actual mother Sadie, Erik admires and cherishes Carewyn like nobody else in the world. Although Erik by and large isn’t the sort to lose his temper, he’s never been able to let any insult toward Carewyn slide.

Roxanni “Roxi” Kim @mira-shard ~ Erik’s one true love and (in his mind) better half. Erik was immediately impressed by Roxi’s kindness, humor, and honesty, but was soon enough enthralled by her astounding emotional intelligence, to the extent that she could read people like a book and perfectly pinpoint the best way to help them solve their problems. Given that Erik himself has never been as attuned to his emotions and thinks with his head so much more than his heart, Roxi’s deep understanding of both herself and others is a marvel to Erik. And if you’ve so thoroughly awed Erik Apollo, especially while being drop-dead gorgeous like Roxi is, you’ve got yourself a rather awkward turtle for a suitor. :3

Alistair Schaefer @cursebreakerfarrier ~ Erik’s superior in name only and the mediating Obi-Wan to Erik’s reckless Anakin. Even if Erik is technically Alistair’s assistant, the two rarely see each other as anything other than equals, not just because of their equal levels of talent in Defense Against the Dark Arts and Wizard Dueling, but because of their immense respect for each other. Erik might swear and play favorites with their students way too much for Alistair’s liking, but their friendship is still resilient enough that it wouldn’t be unlikely that Erik could end up asking for Alistair’s help with an Auror assignment in the future, after leaving Hogwarts.

2 Fears

Dementors

Being helpless

1 Element of their backstory

Erik’s love for Star Wars comes from his father Phillip -- it was one of the main things they shared together before Phillip’s abrupt death. Erik’s middle name “Landon” is even a reference to one of Phillip and Sadie Apollo’s favorite Star Wars characters, Lando Calrissian.

Full Name: Tokala Kyon Mulligan

Nicknames, If Any: N/A

Hogwarts House: N/A (American: homeschooled)

Gender: Cisgender Male

Sexuality: Pansexual

A Song I Associate With Them: Dance Magic Dance by David Bowie

3 Important Relationships

Travis Fitzgerald ~ The Vice President of the MACUSA saw a lot of potential in Tokala from the get-go. Despite Tokala only being in his late 20′s, Fitzgerald (the real power behind the rather superficial and pompous President Aaron Crowe) was able to pull enough strings to move Tokala all the way up the ranks to become the Head of Major Investigations. Like Fitzgerald, Tokala is incredibly ambitious and determined to protect his country and all of the people in it, magical or otherwise, and so it’s unsurprising that both men are very glad to have such an valuable ally in their fight against the blood purity movement taking root in America.

Cho Chang ~ When the Chang family emigrated to the U.S. to escape Voldemort during the Second Wizarding War, there’s no way Cho would’ve expected to get wrapped up in the MACUSA’s Major Investigations Department. But when Cho and some of her Muggle friends were targeted by some American blood purists walking in the footsteps of the Death Eaters in Britain, Cho collided with Tokala, and soon they became unlikely allies and, later on, partners in espionage.

Mia Romero ~ Like Cho, Mia is a MACUSA employee who was secretly recruited as an agent for the Major Investigations Department for her strong dueling skills and expertise in human psychology. Mia would go on to become President of the MACUSA in the late 2010s, with her old cohort Tokala remaining as Head of Major Investigations -- it’s likely only thanks to friends like Tokala that Mia is able to deal with the chaotic whims of her Muggle counterpart, the so-called “Other President,” without going insane.

2 Fears

Losing his Metamorphagus abilities

A fascist government

1 Element of their backstory

Tokala, being half-Cherokee, was taught at home by the magical members of his family, rather than attending an American magic school like Ilvermorny. (Because seriously, there is no way in HELL either Tokala’s family or I as his writer would send him away to a British-style American boarding school. *glares at JK*)

Full Name: Kevin Elijah Whitby

Nicknames, If Any: N/A

Hogwarts House: Hufflepuff

Gender: Cisgender Male

Sexuality: Gay

A Song I Associate With Them: Merry-Go-Round of Life from Howl’s Moving Castle

3 Important Relationships

Astoria Greengrass ~ Despite being in the same year, Astoria and Kevin didn’t really spend much time together until they both ended up as contestants in Potions Professor Gordon Ramsay’s MagicChef contest (yes, really, that’s a thing, in Kevin’s fic). During the contest, the two really connected thanks to their similar personalities and shared interest in cooking, and they became even closer friends through the Cooking Club Kevin helped found. By the time they’re adults, they would both consider each other their best friend.

Colin Creevey ~ Like with Astoria, Kevin hadn’t interacted at all with Colin until the MagicChef contest and the founding of a Hogwarts Cooking Club right afterwards. After a traumatizing escape from an extremist group during the Second Wizarding War, Kevin ended up in a playground close to where the Creevey family was in hiding, and Colin and his brother Dennis brought Kevin home with them. It was thanks to the Creeveys that Kevin was able to heal both his physical and emotional wounds from that particular trauma. While living with the Creeveys, Kevin came to see Colin like the older brother he’d never had.

Dennis Creevey ~ Kevin bonded with Dennis while living with the Creevey family and came to see him like the younger brother he’d never had. After the end of the Second Wizarding War, Kevin and Dennis became even closer, with Kevin supporting Dennis not unlike how Colin had supported him.

2 Fears

Losing his family and friends

Being alone and unloved

1 Element of their backstory

Kevin is the son of an female Auror named Hattie Ollerton, who fell in love with a Muggle bobby, Elijah Whitby, during the First Wizarding War. It’s because of his parents that Kevin pursues becoming an Auror as an adult.

OC Asks! or Meet Julien, Tokala, and Kevin in Harry Potter and the Lack of Lamb Sauce!

#oc ask #should I tag this 'shameless plug?' LOL #erik apollo #about erik #harry potter and the lack of lamb sauce

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rhodochrosite-love · 5 years

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Rhosie’s backstory

For those who wanted to know the whole story!

Rhosie was made for Pink Diamond. This is all she knew, 9000 years ago. She was created on a planet made hollow by the Diamonds, made to produce gems like her. Yellow Diamond had supervised Rhosie completely; She was to be a gift to Pink, to get to her good graces. Once Rhosie emerged, she was shuttled into a ship on track to Homeworld.

On the way there, Rhosie was kept in a special chamber to keep her comfortable, which was guarded by two Yellow Topaz guards. The ship was piloted by Peridots and Rubies, and it relatively big. It’s captain was a daring Heliodor, who had no problem getting into fights.

When another ship came close, Heliodor demanded to know who was piloting it. It was a group of crystal gems! They quickly bombarded Rhosies ship and invaded, their plan being to take Rhosie and save her from Homeworlds grasp.

The Heliodor had other plans, however, and crashed the ship with all the rebels on it. A couple got away, but only Rhosie survived. She ended up on Earth, surrounded by wreckage and shards.

Rhosie, poor girl! She did not poof, but she wish she did. Rho’s feelings were astray-- she was very distressed! How was she supposed to get to her Diamond now?! She cried and cried, but after a while, she explored the planet.

She found so much to discover-- the flowers, the mountains, and stars! The animals were very fond of Rhosie! After a while, she found a group of gems that are ‘team switzerland’. Rhosie LOVES meeting new gems! And these guys aren’t those awful crystal gems! she lives with the gems for years and years on end until word gets around that Rose Quartz has shattered Pink Diamond.

Rhosie has been living her life impulsively for thousands of years, joyous and flighty and naiive. But now her heart is in two, and she has to try and do something to make it whole again. She turns dark and swears to avenge her Diamond by killing Rose Quartz. She then infiltrates the CG’s as the victim of a raid of sorts and they take her in as one of their own.

During this time, Rhosie plays nice, despite her hatred for Rose. After some time, she starts poofing gems close to Rose, one by one until she gets caught by a purple spinel, who she moves to blackmail to keep secrets.

Rhosie eventually gets to Garnet, but she’s brought down by the fusion’s sheer force. Pearl, Rose, Garnet, and Bismuth try to lock her away, but Rhosie escapes and reveals her dark form and how much she hates Rose and the Crystal Gems. Rose took her from her Diamond! Both in the beginning and in her dreams! She realizes that she’s never ever seen Pink, or talked to her or even felt her touch. She’s thought of Pink as her world for so long, and she always thought she’d get to see her again, but now that it wasn’t possible, she took her fury out on the gems she hurt.

Rhosie quickly escapes and leaves the main gang to grieve over the loss of their friends, who they had all thought had simply gone missing, but had now realized they were most likely shattered. But alas! Rhosie shows up unarmed and returns the gems she’d taken from the rebellion, and apologizes for being such a fake, awful person. She promises to leave them alone from now on, and goes to leave. Rose stops her and thanks her for returning them, and makes Rhosie realize that she grew and changed! That she can live a life without Pink!

(This kinda delves into how Rose is a hypocrite. She can’t live a life without Pink because she WAS Pink.)

Rhosie is bewildered! She CAN live without her, can’t she? Rose offers her an //official// place beside her and Bismuth, Pearl, and Garnet. Rhosie agrees. This is where she meets other gems and begins her fusion escapades! She keeps an official log of who she becomes when she fuses and it the most wonderful thing in the world to her.

Years pass and canon goes on; The Diamonds corrupt almost every gem on Earth, leaving Garnet, Rose, Pearl, and Rhosie. They bounce around to different places in the world then meet Amethyst.

Cue the 1920′s. This feels like Rhosie’s time to shine! She’s a hit with the gentlemen and the ladies and it truly feels like she is loved! SHe and the CG’s haven’t been doing so good, Rho feels left out more often than not, so she wanders alone into an alleyway and gets threatened by a mugger! This obv doesnt affect her but another man shows up-- A private eye that goes by the name of Claude Fox. He ‘saves’ her and he takes her out to dinner (cuz he fancies her). They talk and we find out that he’s a very private man, very mysterious. Rhosie is flustered in his presence b/c she’s surprised a human of all beings would want to love her! But she finds herself swayed by his demeanor and his actions and they’re courting!

Rose gets jealous and finds herself keeping them apart. Once Rhosie announces she’s going to become ‘Rhosie Fox’, Rose inevitably becomes the force that stops the wedding. I’m not super sure what happens but I do know that Claude gets abandoned at the alter and Rhosie has to run with the CG’s, and never gets to see him again because of Roses selfishness. Rhosie knows it’s Roses fault too! She’s the only one that can see Roses faults, unlike P, G, and A. After chasing after Claude, and coming up with nothing, she runs back to Rose.

Years and years pass after that, and Rhosie finds herself comfortable with flirting and being a bit provocative. She finds Greg incredibly cute, but he gets with Rose obviously. Eventually Steven is born, and Pearl is shaken up the most out of everyone, while Rhosie is almost the LEAST shaken up?? Amethyst lashes out at Rhosie for acting ‘apathetic’. Rhosie IS mourning Rose, but she’s just more fascinated by Steven.

(This launches into an arc where Rhosie cares about Steven more than Rose, and the gems become distant from her again. Steven is actually closer to her than the rest of the gems.

I haven’t done exact arcs for her, but her whole thing is that she’s bubbly and considerate towards Steven. She cares about him so very much, that she often forgets about Rose, which makes her different than the rest of the pack.

During CYM, her new form represents the fact that she’s growing happier with herself.

I want her arcs to maybe be about her getting over Pink, maybe?

I know for sure she was completely upset when she found out RQ=PD, extremely distraught. She ran away to the moon and officially met Lapis! Like officially, and spent time with her.

#rhosie #rhosie backstory #my post #rose quartz #pearl #amethyst #garnet #steven #steven universe

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toomanybruises · 5 years

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portia route book xiii theory

this post contains spoilers for portia’s route up to book xiii, please refrain from reading if you haven’t read the chapter yet. (❁´◡`❁)

after reading book xiii, I have a theory about tasya’s motives and plans.

okay firstly, we need to establish that tasya killed/attempted to kill the devorak family straight off the bat. as soon as she was denied her brother’s shipment fleet, she so happened to accompany them on a voyage that eventually drowned portia’s parents.

we know she wanted the fleet, and in book xii we know that she values her influence and power over others through manipulating valerius and vlastomil. she gets what she wants, when she wants it. and she didn’t get the shipment fleet. so that gives her motive to kill her brother and his wife. (i’ll explain how exactly she manages to pull this off later i promise-).

but the thing is, if she killed her brother and his wife, the shipment fleet wouldn’t go into her name, it would go into julian and portia’s name as they are the direct descendents of tasya’s brother. and who also happens to be on the ship when it gets shipwrecked? julian and portia. only they survived.

and in book xi, we are told that tasya had no idea that the siblings had survived. I have no doubt about that she believed they were dead at some point but i don’t believe it lasted long.

think about it, what would tasya, who wanted the merchant fleet in her name shipwrecks the boat out at sea with no survivors apart from herself, do straight after making it back to land? try to claim the company for herself and the fortune that came along with it.

but she can’t because the devorak siblings are alive. (or she does get it in her name for some time before it is revoked when the bank finds out that siblings are alive and did survive the shipwreck)

either way, tasya is mad and wants to kill them off to get the company/wealth for herself. however she needs to pinpoint where they are. which is quite tricky due to them living in the small town of nevivon for some time and julian going on his countless adventures across the world.

it is only when julian devorak is announced to be executed does she find the eldest’s location. now, I believe that she didn’t realise portia was also at the execution and was in attendance to make sure that julian died this time.

until she realised that portia there and that. she would have to kill them both.

(also I forgot to mention but just imagine the time between the shipwreck and the execution, tasya is investing and building her connections to be more influential and affluent).

now, tasya finds a way to get more power while in vesuvia (which i will also explain later i promise—) and realises she can obtain more power while also killing off her niece and nephew at the same time.

she needs to see both julian and portia die, and she cannot get close to portia if she lets her older brother die. so she intercepts the execution and convinces vlastomil to change the verdict through corrupt means so she can get close to the siblings so she can betray them and make sure they are dead.

and you know how I said tasya had made a plan to gain power and influence in vesuvia? well she did that by financially aiding the city projects by helping rerouting the canal. many people needed this which would give her power and support from the people for all the work she had done. but I find it suspicious that a power hungry woman like tasya would pour so much of her wealth into rerouting the canals unless it benefitted her.

which leads into my next point, tasya intentionally brought the palace down to the ground, in the process killing julian, portia and several members of the prakan royal family, including the countess.

now it is common knowledge that Muriel’s, Portia’s and Lucio’s route show a drastic different perspective than the main three and are a lot darker (like the character deaths in muriel’s route).

i believe that some major characters will die in the next book. maybe a certain countess that runs the place or our favorite himbo doctor? (which will serve as a pivotal turning point for portia’s character alongside the destruction of the palace!) and it wouldn’t be out of place due to the tonal shift the new three stories are expected to go.

anyway, I believe that by killing the countess off, tasya would be able to work her way into becoming the leader of Vesuvia. let’s think about it. she only does things for her own gain and if her plan all along was to capture nadia’s position, it would make sense why she was throwing so much money to solve the canals if she knew she would rule over it in the near future.

and by helping the city immensely, she has already got a good reputation going for her. if nadia is killed and Lucio is nowhere in sight, who will vesuvia turn to? an icompetent court or tasya who has helped improve the city and the livelihoods of others? also the fact she has a nobility title of baroness puts her in higher power than the courtiers so that’s something to think about. (and) it makes sense why she wants the palace as we have established before she is power hungry and wants money.

and the fact that portia and julian die in the process is an added bonus for tasya.

now one small detail in book xiii had me wondering. how did tasya know about asra stealing lucio’s body to resurrect the apprentice? only three people know about this. asra, who stole the body; Lucio, whose body was stolen and the devil; who was giving the body to lucio.

we know that she didn’t get the information from asra since he was surprised at her accusation. it doesn’t really make sense if the devil told her. even if they made a deal together, it would not benefit the devil to share that information. but learning from lucio makes perfect sense.

tasya was probably well acquainted with Lucio when he became count or in the very least, came across him in his goat form. we know that tasya is slightly magically talented so it is possible that she could communicate with him.

now, we know goatman lucio’s motives are getting a new body and he will do anything to be able to get it back, willingly to bargain with or sabotage someone else for it. and what if tasya bargained that she could get him a new body from the apprentice for him if she could take his place as vesuvia’s leader? or perhaps even helping him to reclaim his position as count as his new betrothed and then later betray him (or you know, just marry Lucio and be happy together, whatever floats your boat).

now you’re probably wondering how tasya managed to pull this off. well i briefly mentioned and believe that tasya has magical abilities. it is one of the only ways for her to plausibly do all this destruction if she was behind it all.

tasya could have taken the wheel of the ship and steered it into a tidal wave or into sharp rocks but wouldn’t the crew know what she was trying to do and make a commotion? wouldn’t the siblings have heard if they were being steered into the wrong direction on purpose? wouldn’t they be able to disarm tasya?

so i think that tasya has a magical affinity with water or/and air and created the storm herself to kill everyone on the ship. the crew wouldn’t expect it to be foul play/magical since it’s a storm, something that is a common occurrence out at sea. and it had to be either water or air since we know it was a storm (which are vicious winds and water) that led to the shipwreck and the eventual drowning of the crew (again too much water and not enough air). and it would give tasya a higher probability of surviving the shipwreck if she had magical powers to shield her from drowning.

now, I want to divert your attention to the main 6’s arcana patrons. all except portia have made a deal for magical abilities with one of the major arcana. however, it canonical that portia has a patron and it is the star. now, I want to dissect the star. she and portia have much in common. from physical appearance to their personality: their happy-go-lucky nature, their optimism, extraverted nature, etc. but one thing strikes me the most is the fact that the star’s symbol is water. we see her holding a jug of water, and the fact that when split, the water just floats. water being held by air. water and air.

maybe the star isn’t portia’s patron but both hers and aunt tasya’s? it would make perfect sense that tasya bargained with the star for air/water powers so she could be able to shipwreck the devorak’s. and I’ll go one step further, water has been symbolically used a lot in portia’s route, especially in book xii and book xiii book. there have been heavy storms since Julian’s trial that semi-cancel the masquerade. where does tasya invite portia and the apprentice to? a magical room that is filled with breathable water that she personally installed!

and I don’t believe we have heard the last of tasya, because I believe that she purposely brought the castle down. that’s why she holed herself up in the water room she personally installed, so that she could protect herself from the damage and herself alone.

and from reading the scene of the palace crumbling, words like “thunderous boom” and “shards of glass raining down” and “magic that tears through the air” which can allude to tasya using her water and wind magic to tear the palace down. it even says that the apprentice recognises it as “arcane” magic. so yeah.

another thing i want to point out is that i think that portia will later make a pact with the star (I don’t totally think she’s 100% tasya’s patron and hers only) in order to be equal/overcome tasya and the situation at hand. I think that portia will either get magical powers or find newfound hope and courage to face what challenges her and her happiness. make sense to why the star is portia’s patron- we are going to see her connection to the star in current time, rather in flashbacks and recollections.

this theory I thought up in a whim and has many plot holes so feel free to add to this or suggest your own theories, I’m just distraught after the end of the book xiii I need to find some semblance of explanation to why tasya is being tasya.

also I forgot to mention that tasya’s got another motive to make people immortal which kind of throws my theory out the window/changes it drastically but you know what? I’m not going to try sorting into the theory I made, I just need a hug, a hot cocoa and a nap to reassure me that portia and her mental health will be okay in the next book.

TL:DR:

Tasya wanted the Devorak merchant fleet for herself and used her magical powers from the pact with The Star so she could drown the Devoraks. Realises that the siblings didn’t die and sets off to kill them for good by collapsing the palace, taking the leadership of the nation for herself I the process. Portia may or may not make a pact with the Star in the future.

#portia route #portia route spoilers #the arcana theory #tasya theory #portia theory #nix hydra why did you do this to us #we want portia to be HAPPY #not depressed and feel like all of her hard work has been wasted and that she cannot trust anyone

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randomkposts · 4 years

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Katniss Everdeen Aromantic.

The thing about the Hunger Games, and why I head-canon Katniss as Aro, or at least grey, is that romance seemed to matter to everyone but her. She describes food in much more loving detail than any of her love interests.

Katniss, in the first books, says outright that she doesn't want to get married or have kids, as she doesn't want them to be entered into the games. Even a victor's kids would not be safe from the games.

She spends the first book believing that Peeta being in love with her is a strategy, something she adopts when it becomes needed. It's a way to allow her to get both of them home. It's only after, she realizes "oh shit! He wasn't pretending!" And he realizes "she did it to survive". Things become strained between them after that point.

President Snow doesn't believe in the love story the rest of the capitol does. But he does focus on that as the threat. He threatens Katniss's family to get her to keep to the status quo.

Katniss and Peeta spread the fire by paying respects to district eleven.

Katniss explores her feelings for Gale, and goes as far as to kiss him. But bigger concerns soon come between that budding relationship. It won't pan out between them, not because of what they are willing to fight for, but over what they are willing to sacrifice in the fight.

Katniss enters in her would be wedding dress, with rebellion hidden within. Cinna understood.

In the interviews, Peeta is a master painter. He paints the audience a picture of their secret marriage, a pregnancy. Despite being desensitized to seeing children fight to the death on a yearly basis, the audience is outraged over the thought of Katniss losing the child she would never intend to have in this cruel world.

The tributes hold hands, symbolizing their friendship, and the lights are killed.

They go into the arena, and this time, their affection is real for them both.

Katniss has to be reminded she's pregnant more than once, and everyone covers.

She gets saved from the arena. Peeta doesn't.

Mockingjay, she spends trying to adjust. Building her relationships. Finding friends, but at a loss of purpose.

She tries being the mockingjay. She can't just read lines, and mean them with feeling. Peeta is the painter, the artist, able to make people see the narratives crafted in his head. Save for Katniss. He is using them against district 13 and Katniss as they speak.

Haymich understands that much about her at least, and puts her into scenarios that are dangerous, but meaningful to her. Her words are genuine. That is why people are listening. Truth is a guiding star, burning brightly amongst the web of lies, lighting the way.

Gale is throwing himself into war, forging ahead with no care for what the consequences may be. He knows not what he will leave in his wake. Perhaps that would be different if he had been in the games. Perhaps not. Gale might have been able to survive the games, in a way that any other tribute did. By killing other children, to come home to those who mattered to him.

Peeta is brought back, and dangerous to her. And she helps him still. For she loves him, in the way Katniss loves people.

Not in the way of burning stars that passion is made of. But in a way that is steady and loyal and true. It was not romantic love that Snow should have feared coming from her. Katniss does not give romantic love to people. She gives them love, and it is love in truths, in promises kept, in gifts given, and deeds done. She is not always kind, and kindness is not always honest. She does not want hearts. She never knows what to do with them.

She wants safety. And neither Snow nor Coin will give her that.

She fights. She fights for her friends, and parts of her break when she can not save them.

She fights to the capitol, loss in her bones, and sees that no one is safe.

She stops speaking, stops interacting.

She goes to Haymitch, who makes some jokes about problems in Paradise. Her world has imploded with the loss of her sister, glass shards sticking out from her skin, and all he can think about, all anyone can think about in the context of her, is romance. The capitol thinks it, the rebels think it, even her friends think it. The audience thinks about it. Everyone except Katniss thinks about it. She screams, because that is not who she is. Not what she wants. And she is sick and tired of being painted with that brush.

She had thought Haymich had known her better.

She goes to Snow, in his Garden. He knows why she's here. He says"Miss Everdeen, I thought we had agreed not to lie to one another". A line I feel is so full of meaning. A truth, burning and bitter. President Snow has done many things. Sent her to the death, trapped her in agreements she could not keep, broken those she cared about, killed people. But they have never directly lied to one another.

President Snow has never kept her safe. But will President Coin be honest? Will she be safe?

Katniss has learned something about playing the game, though the audience does not know it yet. She votes in favor of a finale to the hunger games.

And when it is time to kill Snow, she kills Coin. Maybe she isn't safe. But maybe one day, other people can be.

She lives. And she goes home, tired and worn and thin. And Peeta goes with her. He takes care of her. She paid her debt to him, but he still owes her more than she would know what to do with.

They aren't in love. His feelings were burned out in his torture in the capitol. He's still figuring his shit out. She didn't love him like he loved her, once. But they love each other. Quiet and steady.

And they heal.

Maybe Katniss does fall in love with him then. And he falls in love with her again, slowly and truly.

Maybe they don't fall in love, like that. And maybe, it's enough to love each other.

Katniss heals, and decides, maybe she wouldn't mind kids. They won't be in any hunger games. She asks Peeta. He's enthusiastic.

Peeta and Katniss make choices differently from their parents. Things are safe now.

Their children grow up never doubting that they are loved.

#Random K #Hunger games #Katniss Everdeen #Aromantic #Grey Katniss #headcanon

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heychangbin · 5 years

Text

Memory of an Enlisted Man ║ A Billy in Westworld Story

Wordcount: 4576

Warnings: blood, depictions of injuries, death

A/N: this is a memory of one of Billy’s earlier deployments during his first tour as an enlisted man in Afghanistan. (way before he met reader) You don’t have to read it to know what’s gonna happen in part 3 of BiW, just some backstory for our guy.

despite the amount of research that went into this, some liberties were taken with call signs and protocols but i tried to be as faithful to the material as possible.

Also, this is me Marie Kondoing all over canon and giving one of Billy’s major and most significant injuries and scars a new story that won’t just be a one and done deal.

Also also, can’t thank @the-blind-assassin-12 enough for reassuring me every step of the way while i was writing this.

tagging my BiW peeps,

Tagging my BiW peeps: @something-tofightfor @the-blind-assassin-12 @songtoyou @its-my-little-dumpster-fire @fireeyes-on-teller-dixon-grimes @ificouldhelpyouforget @suchatinyinfinity @christinawxxx @drinix @lysawayne @lexxierave

Let me know if y’all want to be added, removed of just wanna be tagged for the main story!!

The trip was as routine as they came, get from point "A" to point "B" neutralize the threat, and then back to base, debrief, then retire for the night,wake up at 0500 the next day ready for the next mission. They had done several of these since their company had deployed months ago, every road, every turn, planned and carried out without so much as a hiccup.

It was routine.

What wasn't was the IED that tore through the first Humvee midway through the third and fourth checkpoints.

An ear splitting boom filled the air followed closely by the sound of metal being torn apart as if it were paper along with the cracking and shattering of glass. He didn’t hear any screams, everything was drowned out by the high pitched ringing in his ears. He knew he didn't have the luxury of waiting ‘til the ringing died down, there could be enemy combatants surrounding them at that very moment, aiming their guns at the wreckage that was their convoy and pick them off one by one.

Billy grabbed his M27, the automatic rifle feeling heavy in his hand, squinted out of a portion of the window that wasn’t damaged too much, eyes quickly scanning the outside for hostiles. When he was satisfied that there wasn’t any immediate danger, he threw the door open, wincing as he planted his feet on the pebbled floor, adjusting his stance as he brought the butt of the rifle against his shoulder, eye looking through the optic mount, pointing the barrel of his rifle as he does another sweep of his immediate perimeter.

Once he is sure that he is not under enemy fire he goes to take a step but a sharp pain shoots up from his abdomen and makes him stop immediately and look down where the pain was radiating from and sees a large shard of glass protruding from low in his gut, blood thick and slowly oozing around the sharp edges that are further cutting into the soft tissue with every shift.

“Fuck” he mutters to himself, he hadn’t thought that he had been injured, there had been no pain but now every breath he took was almost too much. He had thought that the Humvee had taken most of the damage, was expecting only a few minor cuts and scrapes, not to have a piece of fucking glass sticking out of his lower stomach. A piece of glass he’s gonna have to remove if he wants any chance of getting back to base.

He grits his teeth at the mere thought of having to pull the large shard of glass out, it’s gonna be painful but it has to be done, he can’t move without almost whiting out, and if he wants to get back to base, he needs to scour through the wreckage that is their convoy and radio for help.

As gently as he can so as to not irritate his wound further he leans onto the opened door and looks into the Humvee, the three other marines that made up the second car not moving, Reyes, the brother that had sat beside him in the back, was slumped against the side of the car, the right side of his face covered in blood as is slowly poured outta somewhere underneath his helmet, muttering a curse under his breath when he can't tell if the man is breathing.

Knowing he won’t be able to help anyone before he sorts himself out, he reaches for the first aid bag under the front passenger seat, pain shoots up his side as he feels the glass move against the tender edges of the torn skin. Biting back a groan he pulls the bag free and with deft fingers pulls the zipper open and lifts the flap. Despite his training he forgoes the nitrile gloves and picks up the scissors and as carefully as he can cuts around the piece of glass sticking out and removes the soiled pieces of clothing. The skin around it looks angry, red and swollen, knowing he can't delay any more he picks up one of the gauze packets and rips it open, quickly discarding the packet, takes one of the few loose straps from him uniform and bites into it and finally with his left hand takes hold of the end of the glass, the slight jostle makes him groan again. He steels himself, closes his eyes and takes a deep breath and holds it in his lungs as he begins to pull.

He feels how the edges drag against the soft tissue of his insides and cries out in pain, the sound muffled slightly by the impromptu gag in his mouth. He feels lightheaded for a second when the tip of the shard is freed dropping it as he slumps against the Humvee door at his back, feels the blood rush out and wet the skin around the wound and down, quickly seeping into the top of his fatigues and he forces himself to continue. He takes one end of the gauze and stuffs it into the cut, squeezing his eyes shut and biting on the strap in his mouth as pain shoots through him.

He’s halfway through the roll of gauze when he feels resistance and he thanks his lucky stars, the wound isn’t that deep, and it didn’t feel like anything internal was punctured, and firmly presses the rest of the roll onto the wound and does the three minute count, then one more just to be safe. He tears through the packaging of one of the larger bandages and wraps it around his waist, making sure that there is enough pressure on the wound to keep the gauze tight against it but not so much that it makes him too uncomfortable.

He pushed himself off the door slowly, carefully, there was pain still but it wasn't the searing and blinding pain that had left him gasping before, it was duller, bearable. He quickly tested his range of movement and is relieved that he isn't too restricted, maybe if keeps the strain to a minimum he’ll live to see another day.

Himself squared away he checks on the other men in the Humvee, going first to open the front passenger door and swears, Sticks, a 23 year old surfer type, blonde, blue eyes with golden tan skin, from California is slumped against the seat not moving, the front of his uniform is dark, the wet material clinging to his unmoving chest. He reached over and pressed his fingers to his neck, to the spot under his jaw, next to his windpipe but wasn’t too surprised when he didn’t feel anything. There was too much blood soaked onto his clothes for there to be one. He walked around the large car, and threw open the back door, Reyes’ body falling onto him in the same motion, the strain of holding up the 180 odd pound man makes his wound flare up, making him guide the unconscious man down to the floor and propping him up against the back tire of the Humvee. He quickly checks for a pulse and is relieved when he feels a pulse against the tip of his fingers, it’s weak but it’s there.

“Reyes, Reyes can you hear me!!” Billy shook the man’s shoulder his neck lolled from side to side, his dark skin looking more ahsen than it had a few minutes ago, he shook him harder calling his name out louder a few more times until there was a visible hitch in the mans breathing, the rising and falling of his chest more pronounced,

“Bill...what th--” Reyes let out a groan when he tried to move Billy’s hand shooting out to press against the middle of his chest to ease him back against the wheel,

“Easy man...we hit somethin’, took out the first two cars

“We gotta--” Reyes made to get up again, pushing himself off the ground and away from the car, when he was upright he began tilting to the side, Billy barely managed to get a hold of him in time before he hit the ground.

“Easy, easy,” he said as he lowered Reyes back down and against the side of the Humvee, “right now all you gotta do is get yourself right...you can join me after the nausea passes and are able to take a step without wanting to hurl.”

Reyes gave him a curt nod, Billy knew the guy hated it but he was of no use to anyone with his senses impaired as they were. Billy had had his share of concussions in the past and they weren’t anything to sneeze at.

Billy stood and peered into the front of the car, Scott “Tennessee” Graves, one of the older men in their unit, who had two tours under his belt already, who had that very morning mentioned over breakfast that this would be his last deployment since his wife was a few months away from giving birth to his first child, was pinned to the seat, a metal rod, no doubt from something off the second car, sticking out of his shoulder, the area around it already drenched in red, skin more pale than it had any right to be, shattered glass littered all over him like some over enthusiastic kid got carried away with a glitter pen. Billy knew the man was gone, no one could be that still and still be alive, still he reached a hand over, laying his index and middle finger against his neck and checked for a pulse. When he didn’t feel one, he shifted his fingers slightly and continued to wait for the slight push against his fingertips. When it still didn’t appear he picked up the arm that was closest to him, pushed the sleeve up and pressed his fingers to Scott’s wrist. C’mon Tennessee, with a heavy heart he placed Scott’s hand on his lap, sniffed back the tears he felt pricking in his eyes and continued on.

He walked over to the second car, body crouched low and eye looking through the optic mount of his gun again, quickly scanning the area, when he came up on the rear of the Humvee he could make out the sound of someone crying out in pain from the back. Without hesitation Billy reached for the handle of the rear door, having to yank on it a few times before he was able to throw it open, and for a split second he wished he hadn’t. The first thing he saw was one of his fellow marines, Jason Todd, clutching at his left leg, or rather half of it, the bottom half was lying just out of reach from Jason, the stump bleeding profusely. Billy reached for the nearest first aid kit and tore it open, once again forgoing the gloves and reaching for the tourniquet. He ripped the plastic bag it came in and wrapped and secured it around Jason’s thigh, all the while Jason cried, voice hoarse and raw, “My leg, my leg is gone, my leg is fucking gone!!”

Billy gave the tourniquet the final tug and fastened it in place, reaching out and took a hold of Jason’s scruff, and looked Jason in the eye and in as sure a voice as he could said,

“You’re gonna be okay...Red listen to me...you’re gonna be alright!”

Jason shook his head, the action so violet Billy wondered if he should move out of the way so to not get thrown up on, then Jason started listing to the side,

“Hey, hey! C’mon stay with me man!” Billy shouted as he slapped Jason none too gently to get him to stay awake and aware.

There was shuffling coming from behind him, making Billy bring up his automatic rifle and aim, finger ready to pull on the trigger, relaxing only when he saw that it was Reyes, legs dragging on the pebbled ground as he slowly made his way towards them, torso low and gun tucked against his side. He looked somewhat better than when he left him, some of the color had returned to his face.

“You good?”

Reyes only nodded, lips pressed together in a hard line as he leaned against the side of the car.

Billy tuned and ducked back inside the car, Jason was slumped back against his seat, head rolling from side to side as he continued to mourned the loss of his leg. At least you still have your balls Red.

Knowing Jason was good...as good as he was gonna be given the circumstances, he moved on to check the rest of the men in the car. Norris, Dean, and Hanson were all full of shrapnel and way too bloody to be anything but dead. Still, he went around and checked each for a pulse. He didn’t allow himself to hesitate, to wait, to check and recheck for a pulse that he knew wasn’t there and wouldn’t come no matter how long he pressed his fingers to their necks and wrists.

He goes back around the car, tells Reyes to stay with Jason, keep him awake while he goes and checks the Lead car, Reyes nods and shuffles over to lean against the open car door, Jason only an eye shift away as he looked out to the open road.

Billy turned to make his way to the lead car and for a seconds wondered if he should, the car was flipped over, the outside burned black, windows completely gone from their frames. I’ve heard of guys surviving worse.

With that thought in mind he crouched low and made his way to the wrecked vehicle, every other step he took he scanned his surroundings, unable to trust the quiet and still expanse. Once he reached the wreck, he lowered himself onto one knee, a spark of pain shooting up his side when the motion put too much pressure on the packed gash on his stomach.

Despite the pain and through gritted teeth he inspects the inside of the Humvee, he almost steps away, the smell of burnt flesh too strong for him to take but the sound of wet breaths keep him where he is. His eyes scan the inside as quickly as they can and he sees Otto, his body is twisted, one of his arms is bent in the wrong direction, his mouth is open and half his left cheek is missing, along with his closely cropped chestnut hair from the same side, left in its wake is raw red skin with a scattering of large bloody boils, his bright hazel eyes swollen shut into purple slits, nowhere in sight is the...boy fresh out of MOS training and on his first deployment. He’s gaping like a fish out of water, the sound wet as he struggles to breathe or talk or cry out for help, it’s a sight Billy knows is gonna haunt him for the rest of his life.

Next to him is James Malone, their companies charismatic reverend and medic, in much the same state with the only difference that he was not only missing part of his face but also his right arm. What could God's plan possibly be for this? He thought bitterly as he saw his brothers suffering. He reaches inside and grips one of the straps from his vest and drags him out and away from the wreck, Otto makes the first real sound, a wet choked off scream that makes Billy wince, silently promising that if the kid makes it out of this, he’s gonna buy him his first beer. He goes back and pulls Malone out calling out to Reyes as he lays him down beside Otto. When Reyes comes into view Billy shouts at him to bring the first aid bag. Reyes disappears for a minute as Billy removes what’s left of his shirt and presses it to what remains of Malone’s arm to try and staunch the bleeding. When he looks back up, Reyes is trotting over, first aid kit hanging off his shoulder and tourniquet in hand, Reyes dropping to his knees as soon as he reaches them taking out the scissors and cutting away the sleeve at the shoulder. Reyes gags when he pulls the fabric free, Malones arm is mangled, the skin bloody and torn to shreds. He knows the sight isn’t anything new to the other marine, but he imagines it’s not something you ever get used to.

Reyes tears through the plastic packaging and wraps the band around the swell of his shoulder, the skin there smooth and unaffected.

“How’s Red?” Billy asked as Reyes finished tying off the tourniquet.

“Had to give him something for the pain, he’s a little outta it, but...we gotta get him outta there, it ain’t good…” Reyes trailed off but Billy knew what he meant, it ain’t good being up close and personal with all that death.

Billy nodded, “Gonna check the others, you got this?”

Reyes nodded once and moved over to Otto, Billy saw him bring the scissors out before he turned and headed back to the lead car.

The smell of burnt flesh was just as strong and as gag inducing the second time around, he looked over the bodies that lay mangled on the car roof, looking like bloody chewed up dog toys. Georgie’s neck and chest were gone, having taken most of the damage, he would have to check his wrist if he wanted to check for a pulse. Dwight was in much the same boat, the right side of his body shredded to the point that he could see bone.

If he were a man of belief, he would’ve sent out a silent prayer, begged whatever higher power there was in the world that they accept his brothers into...wherever, both had been good men. But he wasn’t, he couldn’t bring himself to believe that there was an all seeing, all powerful being out there in the cosmos, that controlled all of their day to day occurrences. And if he did and let things like this happen, then he was a cruel being and didn’t deserve that power and the adoration of millions.

He just hoped their deaths had been quick, a flash of something and then nothing.

He was pushing himself back up when he caught and heard a groan. He peered back in and caught the rise and fall of Stone’s chest. Billy reached in and grabbed onto the strap of his utility vest and started pulling him out as he said in a hurried voice,

“It’s alright Sir, I got you...we’re gonna get you outta this!” Billy said as he tugged harder, trying to unlodge Stone from under Dwight.

“Stop...it Russo,” the older man said, his throat clicking audibly as he swallowed. “Get the others out…”

“Sir…”

“Just go...I can’t...I don’t want…”

It’s then that Billy took notice of the extent of the damage the man took, while the wounds on his upper body could probably been treated in one of the med tents, then taken to the nearest hospital, his lower half was broken in more ways than one.

“Stone...there’s--”

“God damn it Russo, I said to fucking leave me here!!”

Billy flinched back at the amount of venom in the man’s words, hesitated telling him that he still had to pull him out, lay him along with the others. Instead he gave him a hard pat on the shoulder and pushed himself up and walked away from the car. Red still needed help, he still had to check if one of the Humvee had a working radio so he could request a medevac. He’d take care of that first and then, he’d go back and drag out the bodies, leaving the lead car for last, that should be enough time for Stone.

Billy looked over at Reyes as he trotted back to the second car, he was working over Otto still, holding wad of gauze over one of the larger injuries as he checked his eyes. When he reached it, he found Red slumped against the side of the car, eyes closed and breathing through his mouth, there was a slight wheeze with every intake of air.

“C’mon Red, let’s get you outta here.” he said as he reached in and gently shook the marine whose eyes slowly opened, giving him a small nod.

It took some maneuvering, but Billy was able to get Jason out of the car, left arm over his shoulder and side pressed firmly against his own and hobble to where the other survivors were. They had just cleared the front of the car, Billy gritting his teeth and pushing past the pain shooting up his side when Reyes walked up to them and went to take hold of Jason’s other side. The walk went by much quicker then.

Once Red was settled with the others, Billy had Reyes stay with them while he went and searched for a working radio. He checked the second car and went directly to the consol between the two front seats, the radio was a little banged up but the disp[lay was functioning making him breathe a sigh of relief as he turned the dial and entered the frequency for the distress channel, pressed and held the button on the receiver and said the words he was trained to say but hoped he’d never have to.

“Dustoff, this is Blackbird, requesting medevac, over.”

Billy waited and counted the customary three seconds needed for a response, when it didn’t come he cursed and took a breath and tried to maintain his voice steady and clear. Then repeated the line.

“Dustoff, Dustoff, this is Blackbird, requesting medevac. Over.”

He took the pressure off the button and the click on the radio was the most beautiful sound Billy had ever heard.

“Blackbird this is Dustoff, send it. Over.”

Billy kept a cool head and clear tone as he said the first line of the request, reciting their coordinates then continued,

“Line too: niner niner six fife. Break. Blackbird. Break

Line tree:...” here Billy hesitated for a moment. There had been 13 members in the squad that left their base that morning, packed away in 3 vehicles on a route that had been previously scouted and cleared as safe, the faces of the brothers he lost flashed through his face, he didn’t let his thoughts linger any longer, knew he didn’t have that commodity, not here. He had to think about the men that were still alive, still breathing, still had a chance to make it outta this desert road. He cleared the knot that had formed in his throat and continued to recite the request he had to get through.

“Three alpha, break, two delta. Break.

“Line fow-er: Alpha. Break

“Line fife: 3 Lima. Break. 2 Alpha. Break

“Line six: November. Break

“Line seven: Charlie. Break

“Line eight: Alpha. Break.

“Line nine: None. Break.

“This completes 9line medevac request. How copy. Over.”

The click came again and the voice over the radio was clear as it said,

“Blackbird, this is Dustoff. We copy, medevac dispatched, EAT 10 minutes. out.”

Billy breathed a sigh of relief, 10 minutes. He quickly unscrewed the radio from the console, grabbed a couple of smoke grenades and trotted to the back of the car, unhooked the stretches they had strapped there and trotted back to where Reyes and the others were, they still had to transfer Otto, Jason, and Malone onto the stretchers so they could just be loaded up onto the helicopter and evacuated.

When he reached them he set the radio down and the stretchers down, looked up at Reyes and told him,

“Bird is 10 minutes out, we need to get these guys on the litters to load them up and…” he paused but the we gotta get the others outta the others outta the cars hung unsaid between them.

Without further prompting, Reyes hooked his arms under Jason’s armpits and Billy took his leg and gripped at the loose fabric of his fatigues, counted to three and lifted him up and onto the stretcher, gritting his teeth as pain shot up his abdomen. Doing the same for Otto and Malone. Then started the arduous task of removing their dead and lining them up a little ways away from their injured, covering them with a canvas sheet, Billy was working on tugging Stone out of the lead car, the man deathly still as Billy pulled and yanked to free him from where he was snagged on something when he heard the crackle of the radio, he jumped up and out and rushed over to the radio, pushing down the dizziness that threaten to overtake him as a voice came through the receiver,

“Blackbird this is Dustoff 609. Two minutes out. Over.”

At those words Billy pulled the pin from one of the smoke grenades and almost instantly, green smoke erupted from the top of the can, encasing them in seconds.

“Blackbird this is Dustoff 609, we got visual on green smoke. Is that you? Over.”

Billy says a breathless yes into the receiver before his training kicks in and corrects himself, reciting call signs and confirming that the green smoke was in fact them.

“Blackbird this is Dustoff 609 we see you. Over.”

It wasn’t long before they were able to hear the sound of the helicopter, even less when the spinning of the blades cleared the smoke, men jumping out of the helicopter and running to where they were, taking hold of the stretchers and rushing them over and loading them onto the helicopter. Another couple of guys went to where the rest of their squad laid and loaded them onto other stretchers and carried them to the second helicopter. He was on his way to help them when he stumbled, his vision blurred at the edges and everything seemed a bit too bright He closed his eyes tight and breathed for a moment, steadied himself and took a step when he was caught by the shoulder He turned and saw one of the guys from the first helicopter, his lips were moving but he could barely make out he was saying over the sound of the helicopter motor.

“What?” he yelled, hoping the guy was able to hear him.

“I said, we gotta get you loaded up!”

Billy gave him a quizzical look, to which the guy said,

“Soldier, you’ve bled through your bandages, we gotta get you outta here!”

Billy looked down at himself, the dark elastic bandage he had wrapped around his stomach had a large, wet dark spot. He looked back over at the guy, Wade read the name over his right breast pocket

“C’mon, we gotta get you outta here.”

Billy nodded and let Wade guide him to the belly of the helicopter, where Otto, Jason, and Malone were already being hooked up to IV bags, Reyes was sitting on one of the seats in the back, holding a cold compress to his head. Wade pointed for him to lay across a few seats and had him hold clean bandages to his stomach.

He felt when the helicopter took off the ground and shifted forward and that’s when his eyes began to droop, everything fading as tiredness overtaking him.

#the punisher #billy russo #billy in westworld #westworld #the punisher fic #billy russo fic #westworld fic #billy russo fanfic #the punisher fanfiction

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areyouscarletcold · 5 years

Photo

QPR!Goldenvibe, Canon Divergent Au

For my @dctvgen Bingo “Disability” Square and Day 2 of @flarrowverse-shipyard’s Rarepair Week: “Calming Each Other Down”.

Now posted on Ao3!

The distant noise of something shattering jolted him awake first, a breathless gasp torn from his chest as sleep faded from his senses. He almost rolled out of bed to grab his gear, put on his suit and blast whoever the intruder was with a faceful of inter-dimensional energy, because that was what you got for disturbing a very nice, restful morning and -

Someone swore, low and unintelligible, and the sound was familiar enough to nag at the back of his mind and stop him in his tracks. It took a longer moment before Cisco realized the ceiling he was staring at wasn't his own.

Oh.

At least he hadn't actually raced out of the bedroom and sprung into attack mode. Not that his rising migraine was any sign of this day getting better.

Cisco rolled out of bed at a slow, normal pace - he seriously envied Barry's speed sometimes, what he wouldn't give to be able to get ready faster than he could snap his fingers together and say, "Tada!" - and ran a hand through his hair, grimacing when he felt its greasiness. Right. He'd been planning on showering last night, hadn't he?

Well, that idea went out the window, huh, he couldn't help but think bitterly.

There was another curse - likely from the kitchen. Cisco pulled on some sweatpants so he didn't wander out in Star Wars boxers, gave his hair a much more vigorous tousle, and headed to see what disaster had befallen his poor apartment.

Not his, he corrected again, bracing himself as he stumbled into the kitchen. Dios mio, he really was scatter-brained today, and he hadn’t been awake for more than a few minutes.

Another pulse from his temples caused him to suck in his teeth. He shut his eyes and shook his head as if that would help him regain control of the leftover ache brought on by last night’s less-than-successful patrol.

“Didn’t mean to wake you,” Lisa said, and Cisco forced himself to grab the back of the nearest kitchen chair to steady himself as he eyed where Lisa was crouched on the floor. The jagged ceramic around her, pieces painted a yellow that was an eyesore for someone still half-awake, looked like a strange mockery of a salt circle in a horror movie. The only thing missing was a pentagram and someone chanting in Latin.

It was rare to see Lisa in such disarray. Not just with the mess before him, but the unruly bun perched atop her head, the leftover smudges from mascara and eyeliner staining bloodshot eyes. His chest twisted when he realized she was wearing his S.T.A.R. Labs sweatshirt, the one he’d thought he lost months ago.

Little thief.

“S’fine,” Cisco assured her, his voice a little hoarse. “You okay?”

Lisa shrugged. The dustpan in front of her was halfway full of pieces already but she didn’t look like she was in any rush to keep cleaning. “Dropped a plate. That’s all.”

He was tempted to brush by the incident, help her scoop up the remainder of the ceramic plate and leave it be, but there was a familiar tightness in her jaw, eyes glassy. “How’d you sleep?”

She smirked, but the corners of her mouth didn’t quite curl. “Well enough after last night.”

“I’m not talking about that, Lise.”

The smirk vanished and she turned away. “Don’t call me that.”

“Hey, I - ”

“I’m not in the mood, Cisco.”

“I thought we agreed to tell each other things like this. You know, be honest with one another?” He tried to keep his tone gentle without verging on patronizing.

Lisa gave a bitter laugh, picking up the nearest yellow shard and waving it at him. There was something in blue, maybe a word, scrawled across it, but he couldn’t make it out with how badly she was beginning to shake. “Yeah, well, honesty isn’t always the best policy. Besides, it’d be rather hypocritical to ask when we both know you didn’t sleep much either. Tell the fucking Flash to stop calling you out in the middle of the night, for god’s sake.”

Oh. So she hadn’t been asleep for that. “It was a street over, and I wasn’t sleeping anyway.”

“Cisco.”

“Don’t change the subject, though.” He rubbed his temples and crouched beside her. “What’s up? Talk to me.”

Lisa just stared back at him, fire in her eyes and hands trembling as she lowered the shard. Cisco fought back a sigh and reached out, grateful when she didn’t jerk away from his touch, taking the broken, garish piece from her grasp.

It wasn’t a particularly sharp piece, aside from the large point on the left side, shaped like a toddler’s crude interpretation of a parallelogram. He turned it over in his hands, blue letters bright against the mustard yellow shard.

To Lenny.

“I didn’t realize what it was ’til I picked it up,” Lisa muttered. Something flickered in her gaze when he glanced up, the flames of her determination wavering and giving way to exhaustion. Cisco was all-too acquainted with that tired, defeated sense of grief. “Didn’t mean to wake you, I swear.”

“Lisa.” He set aside the piece and cupped her cheek. She didn’t attempt to pull away but she wasn’t quite relaxing into his palm. Cisco made a split-second decision and took one of her shaking hands in his, ignoring the urge to scrub at the migraine furiously pounding in his skull, remnants of vibing too often. “Hey. There’s nothing wrong with not being okay. Take it from someone who’s been hit by the proverbial bus one too many times.”

“I’m not - ” Lisa closed her eyes and made a noise that came off like a cross between a groan and a growl. “I’m not a child, this isn’t - it shouldn’t be new to me. It’s not new. I just...” She glanced at the shard and her nostrils flared. “He’s still fucking here after years but he’s also not and it’s not fair.”

His heart ached in sympathy and Cisco thumbed her cheek, light and slow. “I know, Lisa. I know.”

“Like he deserves to be after running off and leaving me alone, galavanting with a bunch of heroes and getting himself killed!” Lisa blinked hard, moisture gathering in her eyes. “Sonuvabitch. Always thinking about himself and dragging Mick into it, doesn’t even care if others get caught in - in the fallout.”

“I’m sure he didn’t think about it like that.”

“Never does! That’s the problem!” Lisa drew back from his touch, gritting her teeth as she glared at the shards around them. “He never fucking does! And then he leaves everyone else to pick up the pieces. For someone who claims to be so smart, god, he’s so fucking stupid and I hate him so much.”

“No, you don’t,” Cisco whispered.

Lisa whirled on him. “Don’t you dare claim to know him or me better than I do. That stupid, goddamn - ”

“I do know you, Lisa. And I know what this feels like.”

“No. You don’t.” She moved to stand, jerking away from some of the shards as her knees brushed them. “He left me, Cisco, like he always does, and I don’t need you to - ”

“Dante.” He had to swallow hard, the name quivering on his tongue, but it had the desired effect: Lisa paused, the haze of mingled fury and grief starting to disintegrate from her eyes. “You’re not the only one who’s lost a brother to some real time fuckery.”

“Right.” Her voice was quiet, nearly inaudible.

Cisco hesitated before reaching out once more, offering his hand to her. Lisa took it with hardly a moment of her own hesitation, still at war with the irritation boiling below her surface. He pressed her hand to his chest, right above his heart.

“I miss him every day.” She tried to pull back but he didn’t let her, pushing on with his words. “Sometimes I hate him for getting in that car, for not avoiding the driver even though I don’t know if he could’ve - maybe he could’ve swerved or sped out of the way or something, I don’t know. And it hurts. And all I want to do is punch him because he left me here. To pick up the pieces, as you said.” He nodded to the broken plate. “Maybe more literally than he intended.”

Or maybe there was no literal meaning, no hidden lesson he was supposed to learn by now. Maybe it was that pain was everywhere and every time you thought you were over it, the ache came roaring back, a metaphorical flood crowding you with the force of a hurricane. Maybe the simple answer was that life inherently sucked ass and the only way to get over it was to live it without a care in the world.

And with people who cared, he amended, stroking the back of Lisa’s knuckles. That perhaps was the most important part of the equation.

“Some days are harder than others," he murmured, holding her gaze. "Doesn't mean it won't hurt less, but... Well, it gets easier. To be happy. Like they would've wanted.”

“They left,” Lisa said, fighting every step of the way like she always did. This time, the tears broke free, trailing down the side of her face carving silent paths. “They left us.”

“I know.” Cisco could feel his own throat getting tight, throbbing alongside his migraine. “And it’s okay that it hurts, Lise.”

The nickname snapped something inside her, the fire extinguishing before his eyes as she sagged into him, burying her face in his chest. He didn’t comment on the dampening fabric of his t-shirt, smoothing her hair as he pulled her close. The stifled sobs shook against him and Cisco longed to tell her things would get better, that it wouldn’t hurt anymore.

But they’d agreed to be honest with each other when they started this.

Breakfast could wait. They had a mess to clean up.

#goldenvibe #dctvgenbingo #fsrarepairweek19 #lisa snart #cisco ramon #the flash #tw grief #tw chronic migraines #qpr relationship #my aesthetics #My writing #f you cw for writing off their budding relationship #this also may be based off of that one post a while back where everyone in the arrowverse is disabled #bc cisco with migraines is kinda canon and lisa with ptsd and depression is...something that really hurts but is prob canon too #also can you tell i miss leonard snart akjsdhf

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