#brot3: i knew you guys would come through

[rays-of-fire-and-ice]

Okay but am I the only one who hopes if we get a new manga arc that we get more Izuru, Renji, and Momo interactions?!

This is one of my brot3s, and it's such a shame to not see them interacting as much beyond the Soul Society arc. If I remember the correctly the most we got was Izuru saving Momo from Ayon with Shuhei and worrying about her wounds, and Momo being glad to see Renji after the remaining Shinigami gather up to go to the Soul Palace (there might be other moments and I'm sorry if I can't remember them!).

Remember their past where Momo charged in to save Shuhei, a man she barely knew, and was then backed up by Renji and Izuru? Remember when Momo and Izuru were worried about Renji when he was going rogue? Remember when they were by his side after he was defeated by Ichigo, and then how Momo stood up for him against Byakuya (BYAKUYA!) and Izuru had to reign her in? Remember when Momo visited Renji while he was still recovering in his jail cell or how guilty Izuru felt for raising his zanpakuto against Momo? Remember how it was Momo and Izuru who presented Renji with the lieutenant's rank in the above gif? I sure as heck do!

But you know what else would have been awesome to see?

When Renji and Izuru came to visit Momo while she recovered in the Fourth Division, because you can't tell me they didn't come visit her at least a few times, or at least congratulate her when she made a full recovery and returned to her duties.

I'm sure sometime before the Full Bringer arc Izuru and Momo reconciled with one another about what actions they took against each other during the Soul Society arc, and I'm also sure Renji would find out what Momo did on his behalf when Byakuya turned his back on him.

How did Renji and Momo react to Izuru's new arm and the fact he has METAL RODS PROPPING UP A LARGE HOLE where the right side of his chest used to be? Am I the only one who wants to know this?! They've known this guy for decades, know he went through a hard time when Gin was revealed to be one of the traitors, and now he has this to deal with, they've gotta be feeling for him! Heck, how did they react when they found out he was critically injured during the first Quincy attack and needed to treatment in Twelfth Division?

On a side note: It's implied through his character design in the Hell one-shot (which remember is set 10+ years later) that Izuru is still using this prosthetic arm, he never got an organic arm even though the technology is there for him to use. Please tell he at least got the hole in his chest closed up! As awesome as the panel of him reappearing to take on the chicken Lilles is, it's sad to think he's still have that hole there.

How did Momo and Izuru react to Rukia's pregnancy and then the birth of Ichika? Surely they were one of the first people to come visit Renji and Rukia after Ichika's birth!

On another side note: you can't tell me that Renji hasn't told Ichika about his Academy days with Izuru and Momo, or that Momo sometimes baby-sat Ichika, or that Izuru (along with Momo) didn't divulge embarrassing stories about her dad. You also can't tell me neither of Momo or Izuru would be surprised if Ichika took up an appreciation of eye-wear and bandanas like her father has.

Anyway, that's my rant. All of this is to say I hope we get to see more of these three interacting in the future if we're getting a new arc/getting filler in the upcoming anime! I don't expect them to be as close as they once were, but gosh it would be great to see them TALKING WITH EACH OTHER.

[littlespoonevan]

listen!!! ian/mickey/mandy was my original brot3 i had to bring her back!!!!! i hope you like it, bud :D <3

*

Mandy never used to believe that Ian and Mickey would last.

To be fair, the day she found out was also the day their relationship reached its first real breaking point. (Though a part of her remembers not feeling shocked at all, all the pieces – Ian seeing someone he refused to name, Ian overly concerned about Mickey’s wedding, Mickey always conveniently showing up whenever she and Ian were hanging out – suddenly falling into place.)

And she’d taken Ian’s side because- well, as far as she could see Mickey was fucking Ian over just so he could stay in the closet. She’d been wrong, obviously, though no one’s ever actually told her that directly. But there were enough context clues for her to more or less figure out what had happened – especially after the night of Yevgeny’s christening.

So she’d found out about them and she’d been around them and she knew, deep down, they loved each other. But to her it had always seemed like a doomed sort of love. In the way that love tends to be if you’re a Milkovich or a Gallagher.

She’d watched for about a year and a half as they’d clung to each other, desperately trying to make it work despite the world throwing every fucking problem it possibly could at them. And then one day it ended and she wasn’t in Chicago anymore and she still wishes she could’ve said she was surprised when she heard the news.

Time passed after that and she didn’t really talk much to either them but she hoped they’d move on. At least, she knew Ian was trying.

Then one day she’d gotten a phonecall from Beckman Correctional and Mickey was on the other line. (She’d known he’d escaped prison the first time – the cops had come knocking on her door too.) And it was strange talking to him after so long but nice too. In its own way. She’d nearly dropped the phone when he told her Ian was his cellmate.

(She’d heard about that too – Gay Jesus could still reach her even in Boston.)

After that Mickey started using his weekly phonecall to call her while Ian, with a much longer laundry list of relatives, started calling her once a month. It had been the most she’d spoken to either of them in years but she liked it – it made her feel connected to someone again, like her family hadn’t been totally obliterated.

She hadn’t planned on missing the wedding.

But part of getting her shit together meant not flaking on work responsibilities and she’d been roped into securing some account in Toronto with her boss and couldn’t get out of it. She’d managed to score a long weekend off a few weeks later though and promised she’d come visit then which had seemed to be enough to appease them both.

That’s how she finds herself standing on the steps of the Gallagher house on a Friday in February with an overnight bag on her shoulder.

Ian had insisted there’d be plenty of room for her here but she’ll believe that when she sees it. There’s always more people than there should be in this house. She hesitates for a moment, considering knocking but then feeling weird for even thinking it. No one knocks on the door to the Gallagher house. Testing the handle, she finds it unlocked and gently pushes it open.

The house is a lot quieter than it used to be and it throws her for a loop for a moment before she hears voices in the kitchen.

She steps further into the living room, pausing by the back of the couch when she catches sight of Ian and Mickey through the kitchen door. They’re…doing dishes. She thinks.

More specifically, they’re laughing as Ian replaces the glasses in the cabinet and Mickey idly spins a dishtowel in his hand.

“You’re so full of shit!” Mickey’s saying and the size of his grin momentarily leaves Mandy dumbstruck. She can’t even remember the last time Mickey smiled like that. Looking so…content and at ease and happy in own skin.

“I swear to god!” Ian exclaims, turning away from the cabinets and giving Mandy a clear view of the mischievous expression on his face as he holds in a laugh. “The guy’s dick was fuckin’ purple. Nastiest shit I’ve ever seen.”

Mickey makes a face before dropping the towel on the counter and taking the two steps it takes to put himself in Ian’s path. He cups Ian’s face between his hands and says, very solemnly, “You ever break my dick when we’re having sex and I’ll break your neck.”

Ian barks out a laugh and Mandy has to quickly bite her lip to stop a snort of her own as she watches Ian’s hands fit to her brother’s waist. “Pretty sure I’m the one who needs to worry about that,” he points out, expression light and amused as he quirks an eyebrow at Mickey’s reply.

He says it too quietly for Mandy to hear but whatever it is they’re kissing hardly a second later. She considers clearing her throat to make her presence known then because she knows what happens when Ian and Mickey start kissing when they’ve got the house to themselves but they break apart after a few seconds with matching grins. Ian looks up absentmindedly and his eyes land on her, his grin freezing on his face.

“Mandy!” he says, surprise and excitement colouring his voice. He lets his hands fall from Mickey’s waist just as Mickey turns to look at her.

She only has the briefest moment to share a look with him before Ian’s bounding over and sweeping her into a hug. “Hey,” he breathes, squeezing her tight. “Sorry, we didn’t hear you come in.”

Mandy hugs him back and instantly feels herself calm. Ian’s presence has always been comforting. She still remembers stealing whatever bit of affection she could from him when they were teenagers. When he dutifully let her call him her boyfriend even after it became very clear that was never gonna happen.

“It’s okay,” she says on a laugh. “You two looked busy.”

Ian leans back with a bashful expression, squeezing her shoulders before stepping out of the way so she can say hi to Mickey. There’s a single second where they both flounder as they stare at each other before Mickey’s pulling her into a hug and letting out a soft, “Hey.”

She doesn’t expect it but as she wraps her arms around Mickey’s shoulders she can’t help the feeling of déjà-vu that hits her, thinking back to the day she and Ian went to pick Mickey up from juvie. It’s a similar hug, light and familiar and comfortable, and it makes her smile.

In a lot of ways, they used to be normal siblings. They’d been the closest in age out of all their siblings and as the two youngest they sort of naturally fell into that dynamic of driving each other insane while also being willing to defend each other to the death.

Things got more complicated as they got older. Their words becoming sharper sometimes, their inability to help each other like they used to suddenly paralysing them both and making it difficult to know how to interact.

But this feels like before.

Mickey messes up her hair when she pulls away and, inexplicably, it makes a lump form in her throat. Fuck, it’s been so long since they could just joke with each other. But Mandy hasn’t had bruises on her face for years and Mickey has a wedding ring on his finger that he actually wants so maybe it’s time they can get back to that.

“You kept the blonde, huh?” Mickey says when he steps back and Mandy lifts her chin in a haughty smirk.

“Anything to stop people from saying I look like your ugly mug,” she retorts, slipping back into an old banter that comes to her without even thinking about it.

“Bitch,” Mickey grumbles but he’s smiling like he’s amused.

Ian’s hand lands on Mickey’s shoulder before his other reaches for Mandy. “Mands, drop your bag. We can talk in the kitchen.”

Mandy does as she’s told, letting Ian shepherd them both into the kitchen. She tries not to smirk at the fact Mickey doesn’t shrug Ian off this time, electing instead to wind his own arm around Ian’s waist.

They sit at the kitchen table as Ian goes to the fridge to inspect its contents. “You want a drink?” he asks over his shoulder. “We’ve got beer, milk, orange juice, soda, coffee-“

“Coffee sounds good,” she says. The flight hadn’t been all that long but travelling always wears her out a little.

“Mick?” Ian asks and Mickey considers him for just a second before saying, “Make one for me too.”

Mandy raises an eyebrow at him and he ducks his head, looking embarrassed. “’m tryna stop drinking beer before five o’clock.”

The laugh that comes out of her is a little disbelieving but she’s impressed. It’s rare to see Mickey actively trying to take care of himself.

Ian sets the coffee pot going and there’s a sort of awkward pause where none of them quite know what to say before she finally decides on the safest topic. “So tell me about the wedding.”

Mickey scoffs at the same time Ian laughs and she looks between them until Mickey says, “Long version or short version?”

And is that even a question. “Long,” she says decisively.

As Ian returns to the table with their coffees they regale her with the complicated events leading up to their wedding ceremony – including her dad burning their fucking venue down.

“Have you heard from him since?” she asks, feeling an old anxiety twist around her spine. She can’t say she’s missed Terry Milkovich since she’s been gone.

“Not since he shot up our fuckin’ honeymoon suite,” Mickey mutters and Mandy feels a pang of sympathy for them. It’s about fucking time the two of them just got to be happy with no strings attached.

Before she can say anything though Ian’s hand reaches out to grasp Mickey’s on the table-top and Mickey offers him a small, grateful smile. And it’s these little moments that keep shocking her, really. The causal ways they touch each other or look at each other. The way they keep picking up each other’s sentences as they tell the wedding story.

Everything about their relationship before had felt so life or death, these moments of just being were few and far between.

Eventually the conversation about the wedding winds down and Ian asks her about her job and it’s weird, the three of them having such a grown-up conversation, but every second word out of Mickey’s mouth is still “fuck” and Ian’s still got that puppy-dog grin he used to wear when he was fifteen so maybe things haven’t changed all that much.

Ian gets up when Liam comes home from school, following him up the stairs to help him move whatever he needs out of his bedroom and into Carl’s while Mandy stays over since, “Liam’s room is definitely the cleanest,” and Mandy watches Mickey watch Ian, a soft smile on his lips as he stares after Ian until he’s out of sight.

Mickey’s gaze returns to the table then but the smile is still there. After a second or two of silence Mandy kicks his leg under the table. Mickey’s gaze snaps up to stare at her. “What?”

She feels herself start to smile without actually planning to. “You’re really fucking happy now, huh?”

Mickey’s face goes blank with surprise before that bashful twist to his mouth comes back and he averts his gaze, shrugging once. “I guess.”

“Oh, you guess!” she scoffs, kicking him again. “Jesus Christ, Ian’s dick can’t be that great.”

Mickey smirks then. “Jealous you never got to find out for yourself?”

“Shut up, asshole,” she huffs, laughing in spite of herself. “I’m being serious.”

Mickey makes an incredulous noise and Mandy clears her throat, forcing herself to be sincere. “I mean it, Mick,” she says and his expression smooths out at the earnestness in her voice. “You two really figured shit out.”

Mickey doesn’t say anything for a moment before he breathes out a soft laugh. “I mean it was about fuckin’ time.”

Mandy grins. “No arguments there.”

Mickey looks like he’s about to say more when Ian’s footsteps suddenly sound on the staircase again. “What are you two talking about?” he asks, jogging down the last few steps.

“Just about how Mandy’s still jealous you had sex with me and not her,” Mickey says casually and Mandy lets out a choked noise, reaching over and punching Mickey’s arm as hard as she can.

Ian’s laughing as he comes to stand behind Mickey, hands settling on Mickey’s shoulders like they belong there and Mickey looks from him to Mandy with a shit-eating grin.

“Don’t worry, Mands,” Ian says. “You got to call me your boyfriend first.”

“Ey!” Mickey calls out, affronted, and Ian grins down at him, eyebrows raised in an, Am I wrong? look.

And Mandy’s just- she’s relieved, more than anything. Because they fucking deserve this – all three of them do. They deserve to be able joke about the good shit in their past in the safety of a present that isn’t threatening to take away their future. They deserve some fucking peace of mind.

And as she watches Ian lean down to kiss the top of Mickey’s head before he returns to his seat at the table she thinks it’s probably time to rethink her stance on whether or not Mickey and Ian are going to make it.

*

[thedetectivessay]

Highlights from the Fan Meeting

(took longer than planned. sorry..)

So, there were definitely A LOT of people watching during the event. At one point, it reached 26k viewers - but it could have been higher than that. They were also broadcasting through VLive so there were more. 

There was an earlier interview thing that was reposted later on on Instagram. I’m not sure if that was something exclusive to SK viewers or if it really was just a private interview (saw a news outlet’s watermark somewhere; Yonhap News’, I think). 

Either way, in that interview, Cho PD participated. He wasn’t there for the international fan meet, though.

Anyway, here are the highlights in a (mostly) chronological order:

• During the opening, the cast were introduced. Jaesuk or the MC did mention straight off the bat that this will be the final season. 

• Sejeong roasted Kwangsoo because of his hair 😂 It’s currently very long because he and Sehun had been filming for Pirates 2; Sehun’s hair was long-ish as well. But yeah - he got the most teasing because his hair is as long as Sejeong’s now lol

•  Okay, I gotta mention this: Jongmin was DRESSED TO THE T. He looked so nice, but it was so cute! He was just so determined to impress the international fans present. It just showed how much he cared about us and about how we felt about him. 

So yes: if you haven’t yet, give Jongmin some love. 

He was also asked at one point who he felt the closest to among the cast members, and y’all - he hesitated 😭😭 It was obvious he wanted to say he felt the closest to Sejeong, but he got scared because he thought the fans who were there might get mad at him 😭

But Sejeong, being the sweetheart that she is, kept encouraging him to pick her anyway by throwing hearts at him 🥰

Y’all, what are we gonna do once this show is over? This brOTP is the best when it came to roasting people! And they act like fr siblings 😭😭

• On the same question, after Jongmin did pick Sejeong, Kwangsoo made a remark, saying that he thought Jongmin was going to choose him. He looked hurt 😂

Side note: are we finally getting more Jongmin and Kwangsoo scenes this season?? 😃

• Not that long after, they played a game. Three of the cast members were chosen prior to the meet to draw a picture summarizing an episode. The rest had to guess where it was from. 

Kwangsoo was the first to go, and his clue - drawn nicely - pointed to S1EP5, The Last Vampire. Jaesuk was the first one to solve it, mentioning that it was the episode Park Hae-jin was in.

Seunggi was next, and it took the cast a while to figure out which episode it is. Can’t remember who solved it or if Seunggi just gave them the answer, but it was depicting one of the final scenes in S2EP10, The Flower of Death. It was that part where they were in Flower Killer’s hideout, when he finally told them who he really was while standing over Minjae. 

Kwangsoo afterwards said he was surprised by how terrible(?) Seunggi’s drawing skills were. Seunggi just laughed. 

Sejeong was next. She drew the detective team (beautifully, btw), and underneath the picture were the words versus + seven silhouettes with question marks on their faces. 

Kwangsoo praised Sejeong for her great drawing skills, and the cast agreed. 

The cast eventually figured out which episode, but they were hesitant to really speak of it.

It was then revealed that it’s an episode/case where the detective team faces off with a copycat team. We will see this and find out who the copycat seven are in S3. 

• Afterwards, they did this thing where a roulette chooses one of the members, the MC reads the messages written to them by fellow cast members, and they guess who they think it’s from. 

I’ll probably make another post later for this if you guys want since I can’t remember everything that was said, but basically...

> Jaesuk received messages from Sehun and Seunggi. Can’t remember what Seunggi said, but Sehun pretty much just thanked Jaesuk for teaching him 10% of what he needed to know about variety (he said the other 90% he learned himself lol) 

> Seunggi received messages from Sehun and Minyoung.

> Kwangsoo received messages from Jaesuk and Sejeong. Jaesuk said in his message that he highly valued him and Jongmin - and he asked them to stay with him forever (😭)

Meanwhile, Sejeong said that she’s thankful and sorry to Kwangsoo. When asked what she was sorry about, she said it was because she knew there were moments when it needed to be funny, and Kwangsoo would make a fool of himself to make that happen. 

(Side note: she interacted a lot with Kwangsoo this fan meet, too, so I have hope that I will also get the Kwangsoo and Sejeong brOTP scenes I’ve been asking for 🙌🏼)

> Minyoung received messages from Jaesuk and Jongmin.

> Jongmin received messages from Kwangsoo and Sejeong (my other brOT3 😭❤️)

> Sehun received messages from Jongmin and Minyoung. Jongmin said in his message that he was sorry to Sehun because he didn’t (couldn’t?) take care of him better. 

> Sejeong received messages from Jaesuk and Minyoung. Minyoung asked somewhere in her message for them to have a drink together some time, while Jaesuk asked Sejeong if she could help Kwangsoo land a role in her current drama 😂

Kwangsoo then revealed that Jaesuk always does that: whenever he meets with his friends and other celebrities, he always asks them to cast Kwangsoo in their drama or movie. The cast laughed. 

Seunggi then mentioned afterwards that he’s currently working on a new drama or movie (not sure which one), and he offered Kwangsoo the role of a mouse lol

• That was then followed by the Thank You messages from the fans. Some of you may be aware of this, but about a week and a half ago, on IG, the Busted Netflix official account asked fans to submit a 10 second video of themselves saying “Thank you, Team Busted!” in their native language. 

It was so cute, you guys! It just showed how much the cast and crew were loved by many all over the world. 

Although: there was one fan from Sweden or Norway who had a whole PROJECT D MARK HANGING ON HIS WALL. THE SAME ONE HANGING OUTSIDE THE MAZE IN C’S LAIR IN THE SERIES PREMIERE.

Where did he get that?? I want one, I’m so jealous!! ☹️

•  The fan meeting closed with messages from the cast. Most of them seemed so tired at this point, but Jaesuk proved to be the best leader the cast/team could ask for even in the end. 

I mentioned this on the first update, but he said he felt sad that the series was coming to an end especially since the cast had such great chemistry. It was heartwarming to hear because it personally gave me a sense of closure. 

To hear a cast member address the feelings a number of us feel is comforting, you know?

• The fan meet ended with bouquets of flowers (non-threatening kind 😏😉) and gift bags for the cast! They were all so pleasantly surprised, and it was so cute. 

Netflix seemed to be aware that the awards season just finished in SK, so they gave each of the members their own trophies bearing personalized awards! It was a weighty trophy, too; the cast commented on it.

I don’t know what the other members received, but Sejeong, I think, got the Bright Future Award. 

Myuk PD later posted on his IG pictures of this big gift bag that Netflix apparently gave him and the other PDs. One of the gifts they received contained a pair of wine glasses with an electric bottle opener in the middle. It was so classy and nice.

Bro - no one can say that Netflix didn’t love the detective team and the creators of the show. They threw all kind of love and attention on them, and they didn’t skimp on the gifts and ads either. 

There are other points from that earlier interview I was talking about, but I’ll put that on a separate post if you’re interested :) 

Detective Fam! There’s literally only two days before the final season drops! For those of you who live on the Eastern hemisphere, it’s just one day and some change! 

Season 3!! Are you guys excited??!

[o-dasaku]

i was wondering if you could explain the descriptions on your fgc posts and how they relate to the characters? i'm v interested

oooo for sure

don’t you (forget about me) > don’t you try and pretend, it’s my feeling we’ll win in the end. 

this one’s kind of obvious, the back half of the lyric is my brot3 tag for blamtina - they’re altogether hopeful kids that go through some (a lot of) shitty times. they’ll come out on top in the end, they’re sure of it.

here comes the sun >  here comes the sun and i say, it’s all right.

it’s a metaphor!!!!!!!! dani’s the sun, you fools!!!!!!!!!!! i don’t want to say that santana spent all of s4 hung up on brittany, but santana spent all of s4 hung up on brittany. i have no doubt she hooked up with her fair share of beautiful ladies, but she definitely didn’t date - i don’t think it’s because she was waiting for brittany to dump sam (okay she was, but not so they could be together again), i think she genuinely just didn’t feel super comfortable with it - she never really dated brittany, they were best friends and then they were girlfriends too and santana doesn’t want to leap into that minefield for the first time with just anybody.

enter: daniella perea, struggling musician who picks up a job at spotlight to help pay the bills and gets along with everybody, which is fucking rare because 90% of that diner’s staff are broadway divas in waiting (and santana) so people take notice and santana doesn’t want to like her, but she does. she really does.

so moving on from britt is hard and it’s scary, but it’s alright. she has dani. they’ll figure it out.

creep > i want a perfect body, i want a perfect soul.

i almost picked like twenty different lyrics here because it’s a Very Them song, but i feel like this speaks very well to their characters: this lyric is rachel in a nutshell, she doesn’t just want to the best, she wants to be perfect. it speaks to brody because it’s the antithesis to him: he doesn’t care to be perfect, he just wants to be himself (who, lucky him, happens to be very talented).

sidenote: i think brochel really work on that level, rachel challenges brody to want to be better while brody can remind rachel that being less than perfect is perfectly okay. i’m still sad about how they treated him.

never can say goodbye > though i try and try to hide my feelings, they always seem to show.

listen, i hate to draw riverdale/glee comparisons, but quinn’s veronica lodge. you want fire, cheryl bombshell? sorry, but my speciality’s ice. quinn wants to be cold, wants to be this untouchable ice queen but-

she just isn’t (just like veronica, funnily enough). quinn fabray feels so much and isn’t that just the worst? i don’t think quinn wears her heart on her sleeve the way so many characters on this show do, but she feels things very strongly, much to her own annoyance. whether or not the world sees isn’t really up to her either, as much as she wishes it was.

(on the riverglee comparisons: santana is cheryl, puck is reggie and sam is archie. i know people cast finn as archie but ehhhh. i don’t have anything super solid on anyone else, but rachel is probably betty and kurt is probably kevin (i’m not saying that because they’re both gay, more “i exist solely to prop up betty/rachel when needed”). jbi is evelyn from the farm and i will hear No Arguments on that.)

being alive > i’ll always be there as frightened as you to help us survive being alive.

i’ll be honest, there is an infinitely more kurt line in this song (someone to crowd you with love/someone to force you to care/someone to make you come through) but um, this is literally one of my top 3 musical theatre songs and that lyric is one of my absolute favorite lyrics ever, musicals or otherwise. 

but this line does relate to kurt (and blaine, i guess- this song is clearly meant to implicate him- for the first time, i really know what it means) well enough. i know there’s a fuckton of kurt and death meta but i don’t claim to know him well enough to make sense of any of it so we’ll look at this very shallowly - i think kurt experiences life quite differently to the normal person, and we can owe that to his mother’s death or the long term bullying or whatever tickles your pickle, but he does seem a little... removed, i think. i don’t think he’s afraid to be alive, but i do think he has a long list of reservations about being alive. i think that’s where blaine generally works for him, because blaine is so alive - even if he’s scared to death about it (see: sadie hawkins, the slushie incident, literal depression), sometimes. 

i’m not here to shit on any ships, but i do wish i shipped klaine more. oh well. i’ll always have s2.

i feel pretty/unpretty > i was told i was beautiful, what does that mean to you?

i know this is a quinn line (and a very good one at that), but i find it interesting when i apply it to both of the girls. quinn and rachel are both very beautiful, though in clearly different ways - and they both have trouble believing that. or more accurately, quinn finds herself beautiful but not her self. 

anyway. i wonder if quinn’s parents ever called her beautiful, before she was quinn. they seem incredibly shallow, even if judy develops away from that - i have a headcanon that lucy was very close with their pastor (not...in a creepy way jdsdlaks) and he was pretty much the only positive interaction she had with any elders until after quinn was a thing but ANYWAY he always told lucy that she was a beautiful person but only tells quinn that she looks lovely. that informs a lot of this performance (especially this line) for me. anyway. whatever.

so to rachel: her brief interactions with her fathers make me think that she grew up being told she was beautiful quite often, but then her peers are always telling her differently - i have no doubt that places more esteem in her father’s opinions, but i’m sure that being told two different things would confuse the fuck out of a kid. quinn was likely spearheading the “crazy berry is ugly” craze in their freshman year, so. i don’t know. the what does that mean to you? is an interesting question for that line of thought.

being good won’t be good enough > i’ll be the best or i’ll be nothing at all.

please, she said emphatically.

everytime > every time i try to fly, i fall; without my wings, i feel so small.

listen. what a marley mood.

it’s all coming back to me now > there were things i’d never do again, but then they’d always seemed right.

rachel Fucks Up A Lot. we been knew. i do think she learns from a lot of her fuck-ups (not all, see: leaving nd for cabaret and then leaving funny girl for that’s so rachel), but she did genuinely think she was doing the right thing a lot of the time (see: telling finn about drizzle’s true paternity and robbing puck and quinn of that opportunity) and i don’t think she’d change much, if she had another chance - she just wouldn’t go repeating the bare majority of fuck ups.

hand in my pocket/i feel the earth move > and what it comes down to, my friends, is that everything’s just fine, fine, fine.

listen, considering this is their proposal song, i would’ve hoped for something a bit more meaningful. but i do think that there is something to the simplicity of this song, - brittany and santana are happy. they have no issues this season (outside of britt’s bridezilla tendencies) and as much as they’ve always been the type to get their feelings out via song (see: landslide, songbird, mine), they’re definitely at a point where they can just. talk about their feelings.

their song is simple because they are too, finally. what it all comes down to? they’re fine, fine, fine. :P

human nature > see that girl? she knows i’m watching, she likes the way i stare.

another song i almost picked like, five different lyrics for lmao. while the others spoke nicely to characters, this lyric is quite indicative of their mid-s3 relationship (mercy is still w shane, sam’s trying to push in on that) and uh, i think this is an unpopular opinion. so. hang tight, kids.

while mercedes and sam were certainly attracted to one another, i think there’s a few more things at play here: sam likes being in a relationship, knows that he and mercedes could be good together and he’s trying to recapture being sixteen again, so dating the girl he’d been embarking on something with is a pretty great way to do that. mercedes? i think she likes the attention, likes actually being noticed. she likes the way he stares, basically. (i’m dropping lyrics into explanations now, sue me.)

crazy/u drive me crazy (you guys are all on notice for letting this flop, btw) > tell me i’m not in the blue, that i’m not wasting my feelings on you.

marley’s spent all episode being warned against jake, but i think it’s interesting that she’s basically seeking him out here and asking are they right? his response leaves something to be desired (tell me i’m the only one you’ll see) but at least it’s a conversation they’re having? it does speak well to marley for the rest of the time she’s on the show - she’s best when talking her issues/concerns out (see: her eating disorder v her wanting to stay abstinent, neither end well for her but she seems more at peace with the latter) while jake is. jake.

(i love jake always!!!!!!!!!!)

and finally, need you now > guess i’d rather hurt than feel nothing at all.

i changed this like, twenty times. the alternative was their ship tag (and i wonder if i ever cross your mind/for me it happens all the time), but i think this speaks a lot more strongly for their characters than that does to their relationship. puck and rachel are both very all-or-nothing characters, but 99% of the time they’re going to pick all. it fucks them over a lot of the time, but i don’t think they regret it much.

[lyssala]

Future

Pairing: Terra/Aqua (gotta end it with the brot3 too ;-;), Kindom Hearts

Words: 3375

Rating: K+

Notes: WOW low key got really emotional writing the end of this. Thank you guys so much for reading and being so encouraging to me. I was terrified to start writing for a new fandom but you all have been nothing but so nice! I really loved writing these stories and giving these sweet children a happy ending (hopefully canon does the same haha). They deserve all the happiness ;-; I just really loved writing this story, thank you so much for all the kind words you’ve given me <3

That being said, while this story does have a hard end I’m not ready to say goodbye to writing them cause omg I love it so much haha So I do have a few more plans for this year including two 3 chapter fics (a modern au one and canon one which is actually the first thing I ever wrote for KH but I was too scared to post it lmao), a one shot collection to dump random drabbles, and maybe a modern au set too. So yeah, I hope you enjoy this last one from the sweet sunshine boy’s perspective <3

AO3 (Which has all ten chapters <3)

Ven woke up so suddenly he nearly fell out of his bed. His heart was pounding in his chest, he felt too hot for blankets but too cold to kick them off, stomach reeling in such a way he had to swallow hard. The worst of it was when he looked around the room it seemed like every shadow was alive. He shut his eyes, unsure if his mind was playing tricks on him or if the room really was spinning.

He opened them again and this time while everything stayed in place, it didn’t help him feel any better. Ven tried to sit up in bed but he found the cool air on his body sent chills through him despite feeling like he was sweating. He reached his hands up to rub his face. He knew he should probably just go back to bed and try to sleep it off but a part of him knew he couldn’t sleep like this.

Was he sick or was it just a really bad nightmare he couldn’t remember? The latter wouldn’t really surprise him but he usually woke up scared, not feeling like he was gonna throw up. Maybe water would help but that would also require him to walk all the way to the kitchen.

The thought made him feel a little sicker but it was either stay here and potentially feel worse or find some kinda solution. He pulled himself out of bed and headed to his door which he happened to leave open that night. The hallway felt cool but he couldn’t tell if that was the way it really was or if it was just him feeling gross.

Ven reached a hand up to his head as he walked. It still wasn’t hurting too much but he did feel a little dizzy again. He reached his other hand out to the wall, trying to steady himself. Both Aqua and Terra’s rooms where nearby and Ven thought about maybe going to one of them instead but their doors were closed. He knew neither would care but Ven didn’t wanna bother them either, not when they had the exam coming up.

He kept walking down the hallway, though a bit slowly, till he reached the stairs that would take him down to the kitchen. Maybe he could find some crackers or something to help. Ven grimaced at the thought; his stomach started to turn. Okay, maybe just the water.

He placed his hand on the railing to start to head down but something caught his attention. There was laughter coming from the other end of the hall.

He furrowed his forehead at the sound. As far as he knew there weren’t any guests and Terra and Aqua were in their rooms. Ven let go of the railing and started to follow where he thought he heard the noise. He felt a little dizzy as he walked but curiosity momentarily helped him ignore how he was feeling.

There wasn’t too much down this particular hallway, just a few guest rooms. Ven was about to think he was just hearing things when he saw light peeking through a doorway. There was a deeper voice talking but it was so low Ven couldn’t quite make out what they were saying. For a moment he thought may be it was just Master Eraqus, which meant Ven really should just walk away and go to get his drink of water but the curiosity was too strong.

As carefully as he could, he turned the doorknob and cracked open the door enough so he could peek in.

Despite the fact placement was unusual, the sight was rather usual. Ven honestly shouldn’t have been surprised Terra and Aqua made it look like they were asleep but really weren’t in the least. Why a random guest room Ven wasn’t quite sure, maybe just to throw their Master off their trail should he realize they were up after curfew.

They weren’t really doing much; Terra was sitting up against the backboard of the bed, eyes looking up at the ceiling as he recited something to Aqua. She was laying down on her stomach facing him but had a book in her hands. He paused in what he was saying causing Aqua to hit him in the arm even though she wasn’t looking up at him. Terra rolled his eyes and said something though Ven’s mind wasn’t processing just what at the current moment.

It was odd almost, a strange sort of unease slipped into Ven’s mind, reminding him of his stomachache. It was like he was nervous, like he shouldn’t be there even though he very well knew they probably wouldn’t have cared. Ven honestly didn’t know how to explain it but watching them when they didn’t know anyone else was around was vastly different than just the way they usually hung out.

Ven carefully closed the door but he apparently wasn’t careful enough.

“Hello?” Aqua said, her voice clear in the otherwise quiet hall.

He contemplated leaving, pretending like he was never there. There would be no harm in it.

“Ven?” That time it was Terra, and Ven supposed there was no use in hiding now. One of them would probably come to the hall before he could get far enough away.

He pushed open the door, standing in the entrance to the room and feeling a little awkward despite the previous intimate atmosphere of the room pretty much dissolving when he stepped in. He reached a hand behind his head, and tried to smile but he was only reminded how sick he actually felt. “Sorry,” he murmured, his voice coming out more choked than he expected. “I heard your voices.”

“It’s fine,” Terra said, though he was sitting up a little straighter than he had been moments ago. “Couldn’t sleep?”

Aqua seemed to notice something was wrong right away as she was already sitting up and halfway off the bed; not that Ven was terribly surprised. “You look pale, is something wrong?”

He wanted to play it off, he didn’t need to be babied after all; then he could leave them alone, could just get his water and go back to bed. His head started to spin a little again, his stomach turning as it did. Ven closed his eyes to make it go away but it didn’t seem to help at all. “I don’t feel good,” he said, though he honestly had no idea if it came out coherent or not.

It must’ve because there was a cool touch on his forehead. When he opened his eyes, Aqua was crouched down in front of him, the palm of her hand against his face. She looked a little concerned but it was comforting in a way.

“You’re burning up, Ven,” she said.

No, that couldn’t be right. “I’m freezing.”

“Is it a fever?” Terra asked, still sitting on the edge of the bed but watching them attentively.

Aqua dropped her hand to Ven’s cheek. “Sure seems that way.”

He was vaguely aware of what that meant and he knew he should probably leave, the last thing he wanted to do was make them sick too. “I should go,” he said but he honestly could barely recognize the words falling from his lips. The room started to spin again and as a reflex he reached out to her shoulders to be able to steady himself. “I’ll be okay.”

“Maybe so, but why don’t you come warm up under the blankets for a little bit?”

Ven nodded, it did sound nice.

“Okay, c’mon then.” She placed her hand on his shoulder and carefully led him along side of the bed.

He honestly didn’t even really remember getting into the bed, he was just suddenly surrounded by warm blankets and a soft pillow under his head. The chills at least stopped but his stomach and head still felt dizzy. It was kinda weird to describe his stomach as dizzy but that’s what it felt like.

“Do you want us to stay with you?” Aqua asked, reaching a hand over to brush some of his hair from his face as she sat down near him.

Ven felt Terra lean over the other side of the bed, probably waiting for an answer as well. Ven knew he should say no, to not keep them up with him, to go back to his own bed and just sleep it off but he was so warm, and as dumb as it seemed, having them there looking over him just made him feel better.

“Yes,” he said.

With no word of disagreement Terra flopped down on the bed, laying down on his back while Aqua moved to lay on her side; both effectively sandwiching Ven in the center of the bed.

“Try and sleep,” Terra said, his voice low, it was more soothing than Ven would’ve thought. “I’ll take you back to your room if it gets too late.”

His eyelids were getting heavy, almost impossible to keep them open. He found his head hurt less when they were closed anyways. Ven wasn’t sure if he’d actually fall asleep or just rest, even though he was really comfortable and it was nice and warm between the blankets and Terra and Aqua. A yawn pulled at Ven’s lips as Aqua hummed some sort of melody. He wasn’t really sure if he had ever heard it before, though it sounded distantly familiar. Ven couldn’t even dwell on it, he was asleep in moments.

He didn’t even really know how much he fell asleep until he opened his eyes and it was dark. He panicked for a moment completely forgetting where he was but when he tried to sit up he found he couldn’t, the blankets were pinned at his sides.

Ven blinked in the darkness. Terra was still on the side of the bed though he was on his stomach now, arms tucked under his pillow as he slept. Aqua was still curled up on Ven’s other side, sound asleep too. A smile pulled at his lips as he settled back down into his spot in the center. One of them must’ve flipped the lights off when the other fell asleep.

He sighed and closed his eyes again. He didn’t really even have a chance to question if he was feeling better, all he knew was he was safe.

Ven breathed in a deep breath of warm air as he stepped outside. The sun was already starting to set but it didn’t change the temperature at all. Summer was on its way back and he couldn’t be happier about it. He stepped down on the stone path, barefoot as he decided not to hunt for his shoes before coming outside.

He glanced over the green grass near the front of the castle but he didn’t see anyone. He could try the lake he supposed. It wasn’t that far of a walk anyways.

Normally he’d leave Terra and Aqua alone after dinner knowing they had to spend mostly all day with him and the others. As much as he was used to having so many others near his age to hang out with now, sometimes he missed it when it was just the three of them. So he went out to find them, wherever they were.

They usually didn’t go too far just in case, so Ven kept peaking around the area trying to find at least Aqua whose hair stood out more than Terra’s. Sure enough, they were by the lake. Ven saw Aqua first, sitting sideways against a bank of the water, her legs kicked over Terra’s lap who had his feet dangling into the lake.

Ven was too far away to even remotely hear what they were talking about but Aqua was chatting away at something, Terra listening attentively. There was just something about the two of them when they were alone that was different. Ven kinda recognized it when he was younger but he could never place what it might be. It was pretty obvious what it was now.

He almost changed his mind and turned back around. There was never anything that wasn’t inviting about them really. He still often had to remind himself to knock first just because he knew them so well. He knew if he walked over there they’d let him join with no second thought, it was more out of his consideration than anything else.

He understood, he did. The castle was big sure but it probably never seemed big enough when you had a bunch of other people always bothering you for something. Neither Aqua nor Terra would probably ever complain so it was up to Ven to make sure no one bothered them whenever he could, himself included.

He moved to turn back around but his name being called out across the lake stopped him. When he turned around Terra still had his hands cupped around his mouth and Aqua was waving her hand over her head to get his attention.

Despite himself, a smile pulled at his lips. It was exactly what he meant but he also couldn’t deny it made him feel good to still always be accepted by his oldest friends. He made his way over to where they were sitting, knowing if he tried to keep walking away now that they saw him one or the other would chase him down till him came back. Usually that involved getting tackled to the ground or getting put in a strong headlock so he decided to save himself the trouble.

“Hey,” Aqua said, leaning slightly back on her hands so she could look up at him. “What’s up, Ven?”

“Wow.” He let out a low whistle. “You must really be happy if you didn’t even ask me if something was wrong first.”

Terra snorted, his hands resting on her legs. “We can see the castle from here if something should explode or such.”

“C’mon, sit down,” Aqua said.

Ven almost tried to back out again, just to be respectful but there was also the part of him that did just wanna spend time with them. He sat himself down next to her, suddenly thankful he couldn’t find shoes as his feet dipped right into the water. It was still kinda cold as spring was still lingering but it was nice enough for now.

“Soon we’ll get to go swimming again,” he said, kicking his feet lightly to get the water to ripple.

Aqua made a noise of slight disgust. “I’m pretty sure something lives in the deeper end of this lake. I’ve never liked swimming in it.”

Terra tapped at her leg. “No, that’s just because I happened to get a leech on my foot one time and you thought it was so gross you never wanted to go back in.”

“Well, can you blame me?”

“C’mon,” Ven said, nudging Aqua’s back with his shoulder. “It’s fine, if you don’t let your feet touch the ground.”

“Or the sides,” Terra added. “You know, where all the plants are growing underwater.”

“Probably the deep end too, I can’t say nothing is living in there.”

“Yeah, okay,” she laughed. “You boys can have fun in a few months then. Take the rest of the kids, try not to let them get eaten.”

“Aqua, have you always been this dramatic?” Ven asked, arching an eyebrow at her.

She opened her mouth to answer but Terra beat her to it.

“Yes.”

Aqua looked like she wasn’t sure which one of them to hit first but it only made Ven laugh. That seemed to be good enough for her.

They settled into silence, but the good kind. The warm weather coming back, the nice breeze blowing off the lake, the sun setting, sitting at the side of the lake with his closest friends it all suddenly made him realize.

It had been almost one year since they came back here.

When they came back to this world it was in shambles, just like their lives were. They all were broken to an extent, recovering from both victory and failures. After those first few nights in the dark, cold, and so empty castle they used to call home, Ven didn’t know if things would ever be able to go back to the way they were.

Really, they didn’t.

As he watched the sun setting over the lake in front of them, the green of the grass under his fingers, the water rippling against his feet, Ventus knew without a doubt things were better now than even before. He could feel the warmth of Aqua’s back against his shoulder, hear the soft hum from Terra as he looked over the lake.

They were all together again. While they were missing one, Ven thought Master Eraqus would’ve liked to see the castle full of kids eager to learn. Sometimes Ven could almost see his master, that knowing smile on his face proud as he watched over Terra and Aqua teach others, watched them smile again and be happy together; then watching over Ven as he took steps closer every day to take his own master’s exam. He could almost hear Eraqus’ rough but always calm voice say, “Well done, little ones, well done.”

Ven closed his eyes, letting the warm breeze blow over his face. It wasn’t perfect. Terra still let his temper get the best of him sometimes, Aqua still didn’t know how to stop bottling her feelings up, and Ven still didn’t know if he was worth all the trouble that went into protecting him. Yet, they were here. They were together, they were home.

But he knew things were changing again.

Ven and Sora were next to take their exams, Lea and Kairi not too far behind. Soon there would be a whole new group of kids ready to train here and Ven would have to decide just what he wanted to do. They always said they’d travel together, see the worlds, and while he knew if asked Terra and Aqua would absolutely go with him but it was different now. Whether Terra or Aqua officially said it or not, they were rooted here now; they were the leaders, the teachers. Ven knew they’d both stay here and they’d both take care of their home and every student who passed through. He could easily see them older than they were now, matching rings on their fingers, their own children playing with the students who’d come to learn under great masters.

Ven blinked open his eyes, the sun almost completely behind the trees now. It was so much like that night so long ago, just on the brink of change for them all. Unlike that night where they thought they knew how it would go, Ven had no idea what a new day would bring but he knew no matter what it was, none of it was bad. Not this time.

“Hey,” he said, though his voice came out a little choked. He didn’t have to look to know both had turned their heads to him. Ven rolled his head onto Aqua’s shoulder, his body leaning into her back. He was nearly taller than her now but there was a special sort of comfort with being so close to her, like he was still a child reaching to the both of them when he was plagued with nightmares. “We’ll always be together, right?”

“Absolutely,” Aqua said, her usual mix of unwavering determination and calming comfort. “We’ve made it this far, haven’t we?”

Terra didn’t say anything but when Ven closed his eyes again he felt Terra’s arm reach around Aqua, a gentle but strong hand on Ven’s head.

A smile pulled at Ven’s lips. “Yeah, we have.”

An unbreakable connection Aqua had said on that night so long ago and even through deceitful outside forces, sacrifices, and darkness all around they still proved her right in the end. Ven let out a content sigh and Aqua hummed something soft while Terra’s fingers carefully brushed around Ven’s hair but none of them moved.

Even as the sun set in front of them, moon and stars coming up into the night sky Ven never felt cold.

[justabookworm39]

I think you’re my best friend (RvB Angst War Fanfic)

Summery:

gkingoffez said: RvB Angst War prompt- Caboose breaks his leg in the middle of a fight, and Tucker gets hurt trying to drag him out. Carolina and Epsilon find them once the battle is over. Happy or sad ending, you decide. *finger guns*

Nobody wanted to admit how much they cared until then.

Warnings: Language, injuries (and abuse of said injuries b/c Caboose tried to stand up with a broken leg), emotional breakdowns(?), heavily implied but not onscreen character death.

Pairings: Blue Team BroT3 (AKA Platonic!Church/Tucker/Caboose), with a dash of some other friendships mentioned.

Notes: This is... the first time I’ve cried while writing. Maybe this is among my best works, maybe it’s just because I love these three and their friendship so much. (This is also my first time writing RvB fanfiction from the first-person P.O.V., so that might have something to do with it.) Either way, I hope this makes you guys as emotional as it did me.

Also, I was going to give it a happy ending, but I liked the sad ending too much to ‘fix’ it. If you want the happy ending, you’ll have to prompt me for it when Fluff Week starts.

Finally, the title is a quote from Fall Out Boy’s ‘The Kids Aren’t Alright.’ Combined with Jem’s ‘24 Hours’ and Matt Corby’s ‘Brother,’ it made a very sad soundtrack that I hope at least one person listens to while they read this.

“Tucker, come in. Everything alright?” God dammit, why isn’t he picking up? “Tucker, for fuck’s sake, just let me know you’re alive, got it?”

“Everything alright?” Carolina asked, returning from talking to Kimball. The battle was finally over-for now, at least-and everyone was regrouping. I hadn’t been able to keep track of everyone, but I knew Tucker and Caboose had led their respective units off in one direction. Surely they’d be fine.

Right?

“Tucker’s not answering his radio.”  At that point, I glanced up and saw Green Team and Blue Team heading towards us. “Fucking finally.” Maybe they could tell me what the dipshits were doing.

One of the soldiers-Lieutenant Palomo-picked up the pace, practically running to us. “Church! Agent Carolina! Something’s really wrong! We need help! We-”

Lieutenant Smith came up behind Palomo and cut him off. “Something happened during the battle.”

“Yeah, I kinda figured that out.”

Carolina ignored me, saying, “What’s wrong? Is it about Caboose and Tucker?”

Palomo piped up again, saying, “Captain Caboose broke his leg! Captain Tucker stayed behind-he told us to keep fighting, he said he’d keep Captain Caboose safe-but when we went back to find them later, they were gone!”

What?

“What we did find were a couple of space pirate bodies with sword wounds,” Smith continued. “We don’t know where they went, but we have to find them.”

Before Carolina could say anything, I found myself yelling, “Yeah, no shit, we have to find them! Palomo!” I turned to Tucker’s prize lieutenant, “Go find Wash!” He’d spent a lot of time looking for downed agents, surely he could find the guys, right? “And Smith! Where’d you lose them?”

“This way.” Smith took off with the rest of his team behind him.

“Come on, C.”

“Church, slow down. We have to be careful. They could’ve gotten captured, or-”

“No, they didn’t. They got lost because it’s Caboose and Tucker and Tucker was probably too busy bragging about killing those space pirates to look where he was going and Caboose is Caboose. They’re fine.”

All of those were lies, I was sure. Tucker would’ve been able to keep track of where he was going and Caboose wasn’t that dumb and they weren’t lost, they were hurt, maybe they were-

“Church. It’s alright. We’ll find them.”

I was starting to realize they wouldn’t find us. At least, not in time.

We’d sat in the sinkhole we’d dove into to avoid the space pirates for hours now. Our armor protected us from the worst of the impact, so we were, at least, no more injured than we’d been before the fall. Caboose played with Freckles, tossing and turning the rifle in his hands as he spoke to it, while I tried to ignore the pain in my side. Just a gunshot; I could live through this.

I hoped.

“Tucker?”

“What is it, man?”

“Why hasn’t anyone found us yet?”

“Well, we came down here to hide from the space pirates, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And we’re still alive, right?”

“Well, uh, my leg really hurts and I do not think I can really walk without somebody else using their legs… but yes. I am still alive.”

“So, clearly this was a good hiding place. Which means it’s gonna be kinda hard for the Chorus army to find us.”

“Oh, oh, that’s it! We are too good at hiding!” He looked up at the gap in the ceiling, yelling, “WE GIVE UP! COME FIND US NOW!”

“Caboose, I don’t think anyone can hear us,” I said, though that didn’t stop him from continuing to yell at the sky. I chuckled sadly. Over the past several hours, I found that Caboose was the worst person to be trapped with. Not because he could be annoying-though that really didn’t help-but because of how hard it was to explain just how bad the situation was. How hard it would be to explain if we couldn’t get out.

If I couldn’t get out.

“Tucker?”

“Hm?”

“Your face looks weird.”

I chuckled. “Hey, there’s no need to be an ass about it.”

“No, not your normal weird. Different weird. Bad weird.” Caboose sat up, trying to crawl towards me, but stopped suddenly, flinching at he moved his leg. “Ow.”

I thought for a moment. Maybe I should tell him. I felt woozy. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could hold out… “Want me to sit next to you, buddy?” I saw him do a double take. Usually, calling him ‘buddy’ was a Church thing. I wasn’t sure why I said it. Maybe I thought it’d made him feel better.

He nodded. “Yeah, I’d like that.” I crawled across the stone, only to stop a few feet away from him, wincing and throwing a hand over my side. “Tucker?” I heard him gasp dramatically, and he grabbed my shoulders, sitting me down next to him. “Stupid Tucker, that’s not good! You-you do not move when you are shot!”

I felt tears running down my face, partly due to the pain, and partly due to the fact that I couldn’t hide this from him any longer. “Hey, big guy. I need to tell you something.” I swallowed thickly. “I… I hate to have to tell you this, but… I don’t know if I’m gonna make it out.”

Caboose was quiet for a second. Then, “Tucker, don’t be stupid. You-why would they get me out of this hole, and not you? I-now you’re just being silly.”

“That’s… not what I meant.” I took a deep breath. He’d… never had a great grasp on the concept of death. When it came to when we thought Freckles was dead, Wash told me that Caboose never caught onto what it meant. Not to mention Church… Then again, if he kept coming back, it was kinda hard to blame Caboose for that.

But I wasn’t like Church, or Freckles. I wouldn’t come back.

“...I got hurt pretty badly, Caboose. I… by the time somebody gets here to rescue you, I’m probably not gonna be here.”

Caboose stared at me, wide-eyed. “But-but where would you go?” He still didn’t get it.

“I-I think I’m going to die before help gets here. And I’m not coming back.” Saying it out loud made me sick to my stomach. It hadn’t fully set in-I was worrying about my teammate-but just then, I realized it. I was going to die.

Oh god, I was going to die. I wouldn’t get to see any of my other friends again. Church, Wash, Carolina, Grif-

I’d never get to see Junior again. He’d be an orphan.

I was caught up in my own thoughts, so I didn’t notice Caboose moving until I heard him whimper. Looking down, I realized he was trying to force himself to his feet, holding me in his arms. “Caboose? Buddy, what-”

“I-Maybe, if I stand up…” I heard him sniffle in pain, as when I looked up at him, I saw fat tears rolling down his cheeks. “Maybe… Maybe I can boost you out… Then somebody will can you and find us…”

“Caboose, stop!” I shifted just enough to place a hand on his shoulder. “You can’t do anything, you’re just going to hurt yourself!”

“No! I-I will be fine, just-” He yelped, his broken leg crumbling beneath him, and we tumbled to the floor. “I-I-No! No, I…” He looked down at me, terrified. “But-But, Tucker, I-I don’t want you to leave!”

“I… I know, Caboose. I’m sorry.” I fought back tears. I didn’t want to make him sadder. “Hey, it’s okay, you can put me down.” I don’t want you to have to hold my corpse.

“Tucker…” Caboose gently put me on the floor. He looked away, then said, “Do you want to talk to Freckles?”

I smiled slightly. “Heh, sure, buddy. Might make me feel better.”

I don’t know how much Tucker was sleeping before somebody found us. I let him hold Freckles, because Freckles made me feel better, and Tucker probably would have also liked talking to Wash or Agent Carolina or even Church, but-

But none of them were there. It was just me and Tucker. And I had to make Tucker feel better. Because he’s my friend.

I don’t know what happened after that. My memory gets fuzzy sometimes, when things get scary, and my memory was really fuzzy then. I remember Smith was there. He was happy I was alright. The scary doctor lady was there, too, and-and so was Church.

“Caboose! Oh, fucking Christ, you’re alive!” He was all ghosty-like, so he couldn’t hug me, but Wash could, and he did, and I think Church wanted to hug me, too.

Tucker still wasn’t waking up.

I remember Church crying-I think he was crying-because he was happy that I was safe again. But then I heard him ask somebody else something that made me sad.

“Is Tucker alright, too?”

I remember Agent Carolina and Church talking.

“Church, you should stay with Caboose.”

“I know, but I think he’s fine. What about Tucker?”

“Church, please, just… stay over there.” Carolina always sounded so brave, but not now.

“Why? What’s wrong, Carolina?!”

Then Wash joined them. I think he was crying again. “Oh, god. No…”

“What? What is it?”

“Church, please, don’t-”

Silence. Then I heard Church screaming. “Oh, fucking… No! No, he can’t- Tucker! Tucker, wake up! You can’t just- No, goddammit, no!”

I started crying. “I-I-I’m sorry, Church. I tried to help him-” I curled up, closing my eyes. I wanted everything to be alright again. “I couldn’t, I’m sorry, he’s sleeping now, he’s gone, I’m sorry.”

I felt something appear next to me, and I opened my eyes to see Church floating in front of me. “I know you did, buddy. It’s OK. You must’ve been really brave.”

I reached up, wiping my eyes. “But-but he’s gone. I couldn’t...”

“I know.” Church sat down in mid-air, and he flickered. His helmet went away and I saw his face-I hadn’t seen it in a while, and even though his hair was more red than it was last time I saw it, I knew it was him. He smiled sadly at me. “But you tried. And sometimes…” He looked away. “Sometimes, that’s all you can do.”

[sage-nebula]

PokéAni - Immortality AU headcanons

I honestly want to re-write the one fic I have for this AU (in order to fix up some details that are either now incorrect, as well as add in things I forgot, like how Alan keeps Gabrielle after Sycamore’s passing), as well as write more fics for this AU (including and especially one showing Ash’s life after the events of all this), but since I don’t know when I’ll get around to all of that, I figured I’d go ahead and make this post real quick so that I can at least have details for this on my blog. (Plus, if I have the structure down, this means I can hop around in this AU and write fics for it wherever. I can refer to this as a masterpost if anyone ever has any questions.

So with that said . . .

The basic premise is that this would happen near the conclusion of the Flare arc. I first conceived this AU before the Flare arc finished, when all we had was an episode summary saying that Alan and Ash were going to head into the Megalith. Back then, I hadn’t yet realized what the Megalith actually was, and thought that it might have some connection to Xerneas due to its rainbow color (and because we were still speculating at the time that the ultimate weapon from the games was going to come into play somehow thanks to Lysandre). Now, however, I’ve realized that the Megalith was actually the meteorite that crashed in Hoenn eons ago and allowed the Draconids to get Rayquaza to mega evolve (since it served as a massive Key Stone, and thus reacted with Rayquaza’s innate ability to mega evolve thanks to Dragon Ascent), so that idea is kind of scrapped. However, I can still work with this. For the purposes of this AU, let’s say that Lysandre does still have his hands on the ultimate weapon, unbeknownst to anyone (save perhaps Xerosic and the other scientists), and was keeping it as a backup. When he loses control of Squishy and Z2 thanks to Bonnie (and therefore Plan A fails), he moves on to Plan B and relocates to Fleur-De-Lis Laboratories in order to put the ultimate weapon into place. Now, the Megalith still has to factor in somehow. In the actual arc, it activated thanks to the life energy Hari-san had absorbed from Squishy, thereby going crazy with roots and whatnot as it moved toward the Sundial in Anistar City. That can still happen, but perhaps that was a diversion. Lysandre set it up so that the Megalith would activate and head toward Anistar City, supposedly to wreak some kind of havoc and end the world, but in all actuality all that would happen is that there would be some more city destruction because on its own, the Megalith can’t do anything. It’s just a massive Key Stone, after all. Unless Rayquaza is there to mega evolve with it, no world ending is going to happen. Nonetheless, everyone is distracted and still goes after the Megalith as in canon, particularly since Hari-san is still trapped inside, and Alan made a promise to get Hari-san back for Manon. So all of that still happens. However, again, it was a diversion. While everyone else is doing that, Lysandre is preparing the ultimate weapon, which he can then use to cause mass genocide all on his own, without making Squishy or Z2 do it for him. Though he does need a legendary to power it, it’s possible that he has another Zygarde core (perhaps Z3?), or maybe there could have been something about how he found Yveltal and/or Xerneas, or at least their energy. Or maybe, and I like this idea even better, the real reason why he was already in Hoenn after sending Alan there to search for the Megalith was because he---unbeknownst to the rest of the TSME squad, Steven included---was having a business meeting with Steven’s father, the current CEO of Devon Corporation, and the result of that meeting was that Lysandre got his hands on enough raw Infinity Energy in order to power the ultimate weapon. Remember, the Infinity Energy that Devon Corporation canonically makes (according to the games) is the same exact energy that was used to power the ultimate weapon 3,000 years ago, made from sacrificed pokémon and all. (Well, it comes from the lives of dead pokémon, but that’s not to say Devon Corporation is necessarily sacrificing pokémon to make their technology. That said, the games also don’t say that they’re not doing that, so . . .) This means that if he had that Infinity Energy, he could power the ultimate weapon even if he didn’t have Zygarde, Yveltal, or Xerneas. I like this idea a lot better, particularly since it doesn’t require him to pull a legendary out of thin air. Let’s go with it. So Lysandre, while everyone else is busy stopping the Megalith, is powering up the ultimate weapon, possibly (probably) with Xerosic’s help, along with the other scientists (e.g. Celosia, Mabel) once he rounded them up from wherever they were. Once Hari-san is rescued and the Megalith stops, instead of Lysandre having his “surprise, bitch” moment by showing up actually on the scene, his “surprise, bitch” moment comes when someone picks up on a really frightening energy reading coming from near Geosenge Town. (I believe everyone might have already been near there, but I can’t remember if they said where the Megalith was, exactly, when they managed to stop it. They may have, but I’m not going to rewatch those episodes right this second to find out.) Lysandre perhaps hijacks everyone’s HoloCasters and other equipment again to make another announcement about his plans, this time adding that he has an ultimate weapon with which to carry them out (and at this point perhaps Sycamore can have a moment of horror as he realizes what this ultimate weapon must be, gives a brief history lesson to those who either aren’t native Kaloseans or else don’t know their history / lore), and thanks Devon Corporation for providing him with the energy to do it (as a “fuck you” to Steven, who definitely hates him now if he didn’t hate him before (and trust me, Steven hated Lysandre before, we have canonical evidence for this)). Of course, everyone is beyond horrified about this, and when whoever was picking up on these signals or energy readings or whatever pinpoints the location and gives the exact coordinates for where this is going down, Alan wastes all of .01 seconds before hopping on Lizardon’s back (FINALLY) to fly there and do something to stop it, because you know he would. (And so does everyone who knows him. Like, legit, Steven tells him to wait, Manon tells him he can’t, Sycamore is in shock, but does Alan listen to any of them? Nope. He and Lizardon are going to stop the director right now and you better believe that no one can stop him.) I don’t think that, even mega evolved, Lizardon could presently fit two people on his back . . . but Ash would still try, chasing after them and jumping to try to hitch a ride on Lizardon’s back. He falls, but Alan catches his wrist, and in the next second Lizardon grabs Ash (and Pikachu, of course!) in a tight bear hug, and off to the ultimate weapon they go. They arrive before the weapon is fired, and of course Lysandre has his gloat moment like in the games. Since the confrontation on Prism Tower borrowed dialogue from the games (the “what are you protecting? A tomorrow that is even worse than today?” line he gave to Alan, as well as his woe is me sob story about how people were greedy when he tried to help them and thus everyone deserves to die), more dialogue could be borrowed and put to use here, such as the “you did stop me fair and square, but I’m not going to stop because lmao you can’t always get what you want” bit, among other things. Lysandre would have healed his pokémon by this point, probably, so they could battle again, and once again Lysandre would lose (hopefully with Lizardon getting a win over that pyroar because tbh, he deserves it). Lysandre is mad, kind of, but in this case the battle would mostly be to stall as the ultimate weapon powers up. Lysandre still plans to fire it, but before he can, both Alan and Ash order attacks on it, and Lizardon and Pikachu follow through. While this doesn’t break the ultimate weapon entirely, it damages it enough so that it at least can’t fire on all of Kalos. And this time, Lysandre is truly angry, he’s truly enraged, and he lashes out at Alan in particular because, you know, Alan has been his abuse victim for the past two years, so why wouldn’t Lysandre lash out at him in retribution for his plans having failed? So there’s another verbal fight there (and also Ash speaking up because hey, Lysandre, shut up), but eventually it stops when Lysandre realizes that (as I said before) they didn’t break the ultimate weapon completely, it can still do something, and he starts laughing and says that even if he can’t unleash this on the world (as the world deserves), he can still use it on them. Alan realizes what’s happening and he says, “Ash, run.” “What? I’m not gonna run and leave you here,” Ash says, indignant. “Pika pika!” Pikachu agrees, equally indignant. “We can all get out!” Alan says, but he doesn’t really, completely mean that, because the fact that Lysandre is doing any of this at all is his fault (even if it was Infinity Energy and not mega evolution energy that he’s using for this particular portion of it, but details), and so if he dies that’s okay, but--- “Lizardon, take them and go.” “But are you actually going to follow?” Ash would ask, and Lizardon hasn’t moved either, because he knows. He knows. And Alan is so frustrated, but there’s no time--- And there really isn’t, because this little bit took maybe about three seconds, and that was enough for Lysandre to do what he was going to do, and what he did results in the ultimate weapon exploding in a burst of rainbow light, and that---that did it. That did the trick. See, in the games, his final gambit failed. The protagonist and other characters didn’t die (Y Version), nor were they cursed with immortality (X Version). But here, it doesn’t fail. No one dies (though Alan, Lizardon, Ash, and Pikachu are all unconscious and buried under rubble when they’re found), but they are struck with immortality. (Lysandre isn’t found, by the by. He’s not there when everyone else shows up to dig through the rubble and recover the human boys and their platonic soulmates. But he is immortal. He just had the good sense to get the fuck out of dodge before the police showed up.) But this isn’t something they don’t realize right away. How could they possibly know? It isn’t until later that, well . . .

First, as a disclaimer: I’m aware that the way immortality affected AZ was that he grew into a giant (though personally I think that’s just genes?) and did seem to age to some extent. But that said, it’s been 3,000 years and he still just looks like a really big old man, so I think it’s less that he just stopped aging at some point, and more that he was just already somewhat old when the immortality struck him, and so he’s just been frozen like that all this time. Floette also makes me feel that way, since she still looks perfectly young, like any other floette. So for the purposes of this AU, the immortality I’m saying they were struck with is the “stop aging as you are right now” type of immortality, so they won’t grow or physically age beyond that point. (With one exception, kind of. More on that in a second.)

A lot of the stuff that I had in the original fic I wrote for Alan still holds true. At first, no one knows that Alan, Lizardon, Ash, and Pikachu are immortal. This is because they have no real way of knowing, no one told them, and also because aging is slow, you know? Teenagers don’t show that much variation as they get older, once they’re older teenagers, so even though Alan doesn’t seem to change when he turns sixteen (shortly after all this), or seventeen, or eighteen, no one thinks much of it. But when he’s twenty-five, he looks the exact same as he did when he was fifteen, and Manon jokes about his moisturizer, like, how does he still look so young? And as he nears thirty and still looks like a teenager, well . . . Sycamore puts the pieces together a few years before that point (like, early 20s, maybe 23-24). He realizes that when the ultimate weapon exploded, there must have been some kind of reaction. And that’s when Alan leaves to find some way to end this, to stop it, because he doesn’t want to be immortal and outlive everyone he cares about, he doesn’t want this. (He’d probably sort of . . . not necessarily resign from being Champion, per se, but since he can’t do his duties while traveling like this he’d at least step down to an extent, and the day-to-day stuff would be handled by a standing Champion, kind of like what Lance did while Red was being a hermit on Mt Silver in the games. In this case, standing Champion would probably be Diantha.) 

That said, even if the non-aging stuff wasn’t as immediately apparent for Alan, for Ash? Whether we go with the idea that he was ten (as is canon) or thirteen / fourteen (as I prefer because it makes more sense), you’re still going to see a lot more variation in the next few years due to how kids are, you know, supposed to have growth spurts around this time. But Ash doesn’t. His voice doesn’t get any deeper, and he doesn’t grow, and at first he’s just really irate, because really? Really? He was already always pretty short for a boy his age, and he’s been looking forward to finally being taller than Misty (he plans to gloat so much), so when is his growth spurt coming, huh? When is this gonna happen for him? It’s not. It doesn’t. And when he gets to be about fifteen and he looks and sounds the same way he did when he was thirteen, he gets really alarmed. He’s alarmed enough to see doctors about it, but they have no idea what happened. And he asks Professor Oak, but Professor Oak doesn’t know either. Neither does Professor Kukui. For some reason he doesn’t think to ask Professor Sycamore (in fairness, Ash was never that close to Professor Sycamore), so they don’t talk about it, but he sees various people to see if they know why he’s just not aging, and no one knows, but most tell him not to worry. At least, they do when he’s fifteen. When he’s twenty and he still looks and sounds thirteen / fourteen (just let me have this), yeah, then they get concerned. But Sycamore had realized about Alan in Alan’s early-to-mid twenties, and to be honest around the time he does he might contact Ash himself to ask Ash how he’s doing, and when he sees that Ash still looks ten, well . . . good news is, he knows why. Bad news is . . . everything else. So, that’s real great news. Ash is thrilled. [/sarcasm]

Like I said, a lot of the other stuff for Alan still holds true. Alan doesn’t find a way to reverse it (of course), and so he can’t do anything to stop the fact that the people he cares about age out and die while his body stays fifteen. Meyer, Clemont, and Bonnie (so, his stepdad and stepsiblings) all grow old and die, with only their kids and/or grandkids (mostly just in Clemont’s case---Bonnie never has any kids) living on. Manon grows old and dies as well, and though she always seemed to find delight in the fact that people mistook her for the older one and Alan for her younger brother / son / grandson as she grew so much older than him, toward the end of her life she did let on that she realized that Alan never found those jokes nearly as funny (and she realizes why he never found them funny), and encourages him to, hey hey, maybe spend some time with her surviving family? (She’s a lesbian, but she got married to a nice woman and they adopted some kids, who had some kids, and so on and so forth.) And Alan says sure, but his heart is really not in it. And as for Sycamore . . . Well, Sycamore was always pretty worried, you know? He’s a forward thinker, and he knows his son, and he saw how desperate and despaired Alan got when there really was just no way on record to undo what happened (because why would there be?). And so he spent a lot of the time they had together alive trying to look on the bright side of things. Alan is immortal, so think of all the things he can learn! The places he can go and the things he can experience! So much left to learn, and explore, and do. There’s no getting around the fact that Alan is watching everyone he loves (apart from Lizardon, ofc) grow old and die (and no gentler way to put that, either), and of course that’s heartbreaking, but Alan is still alive and can do so many more things and Sycamore just wants Alan to keep learning, keep experiencing, please, promise him you’ll keep doing this--- And Alan promises that he will, but . . . again, his heart’s not really in it. Alan would take Gabrielle once Sycamore passes away. Gabrielle is a dragon by species, so even though she’s not immortal herself, she’s still aging very slowly. She’s got a lot of longevity in her. So Alan, being immortal, takes Gabrielle (or Gabby, as he calls her) with him, because as an immortal he’ll actually outlive her, but he’ll also be able to care for her for the rest of her life. Plus, he’s family, he’s the one who originally brought her home . . . so it makes sense that he would be the one to take her from there, too. (The lab is left in his name, but it’s too painful to be there once Sycamore dies. So although Alan does own the property, he lets the assistants that were presently working there still run the place. The parts of it that were home are closed off, no one can go through their bedrooms, but . . . yeah, he just can’t bear to be there anymore. It’s too painful.) That really, really bad moment where Alan legitimately tries to kill himself because he just can’t stand this anymore still happens. This time, though, it’s after Bonnie’s death, since Manon was a little older and thus would probably die a little sooner? Then again, Bonnie was a Ranger . . . well, either way, after losing his father, his stepfather, his (step)brother, and both of his sisters (stepsister in Bonnie, tagalong kid that he formed a sibling relationship with in Manon), that’s just . . . kind of more than enough. And so he still has that really, really bad moment where he actually gets the alcohol and all of those pills and is about to really do it . . . but the he feels the weight of Lizardon’s pokéball in his pocket, and he realizes what he’s doing (that he’s about to leave Lizardon alone, too), and so he calls him out and has that moment where he apologizes and apologizes while hugging Lizardon, and just cries, and all of that still happens, because it’s honestly based on my own near-suicide and how I only stopped because of Shiloh and hugged her and apologized in much the same way, and therefore it’s personal enough for me to keep. So that stays. After that, Alan gets himself together again and decides to keep traveling, as noted in the fic. He does go to so many different places, experiences different things . . . but, perhaps most importantly, he also makes it a point to always get involved in any criminal, world-ending things that are going down to stop them, because if he’s not doing that, then what’s the point? (Also, yeah, he stopped being Kalos Champion a while ago---like, officially gave it up---but that’s just a tiny blip to this whole story now.) He also starts wearing the second outfit I described in this post (yeah, this is the AU that I was talking about; the fic I was trying to keep from being spoiled got deleted when I lost my “current WIPs” folder, so). CTRL+F and search for “the other outfit I have in mind” to jump to that part. Alan is given the coat from the Johto Dragon Clan after he helps them out with something, as part of his “when there is a crisis, stop to help” thing he has going on. I’m not sure if he’s actually aware of his heritage (though quite possibly, if his biological parents also sought him out in this AU), but whether he is or not, it’s not entirely relevant, because he was given the coat as a gift nonetheless.

All of that said about Alan . . . remember how I said there was one exception among the four to the “no longer grows or ages” bit? Yeah. Lizardon. My headcanon for the charizard species is that the 5′7″ height given in the Pokédex is an average height for charizard when they first evolve from charmeleon, but that they continue to grow in size as they grow older. This is why all of the charizard in the Charicific Valley are so big, why Ash’s charizard has grown over time, why Kiawe’s charizard (which was his grandfather’s) is so big, et cetera. And so, as the years pass, Lizardon gets bigger, too. The thing is . . . he shouldn’t be. At least, Alan doesn’t think he should be. He was caught in the blast, too---the ultimate weapon should have affected him, too. And look, guys, look, he has already watched his entire family grow old and die. Gabby will live for hundreds of years or so, but she’s going to die, too, and he knows this, he’s accepted this, but Lizardon . . . yeah, he had that brief moment where he flipped out and was going to take his own life, where he wasn’t thinking about Lizardon, but then he did think of Lizardon, and he stopped because of Lizardon, because he can do this, he can do this so long as he has Lizardon, but only as long as he has Lizardon. If he . . . if he has to . . . if he has to watch Lizardon die, too . . . if Lizardon also grows old and dies too, then he . . . then he . . . He really tries not to think about it. He really, really tries. But Lizardon, as a charizard, gets to be pretty damn big. Like, ten feet tall? Something like that. Eventually he just can’t be indoors anymore, he’s definitely big enough to carry multiple riders, he could make the earth quake when he roars, like. He gets to be a big boy. And he doesn’t look older, really, other than that, but like . . . it’s deeply, intimately terrifying for Alan. He knows he really will lose it if Lizardon dies, too. Nothing will hold him back. Not even Gabby. So he tries---he tries to tell himself that maybe the Infinity Energy just affected Lizardon differently because he’s a dragon. Maybe it still lets him grow because he’s a dragon, but he’ll stop growing at some point. Maybe . . . maybe . . .

As for Ash, well, as mentioned, he was irate when he realized he wasn’t getting his growth spurt, then scared / worried, and then he learned what happened and he . . . he just . . . Oh.  At first, he tried to look on the bright side. Look, Pikachu! We’re immortal! We’ll never grow old and die! We can do everything forever! Our journey will never end! Hooray!!! The thing is, there’s only so long the bright side can hold you over. Although Ash is only thirteen / fourteen physically, emotionally and mentally, he isn’t. He matured. And so, say, did his feelings for Misty. He had a big ol’ crush on her that he didn’t fully understand or know what to do with when he was ten, but those feelings matured over time. And to be honest, Misty had feelings for him back then as well . . . but as she grows into her twenties, she doesn’t feel attraction toward him physically anymore, because . . . well, he has the body of a child (young teen, but you know). So although she still cares about him very much, she moves on. He doesn’t, but she does. And she gets married to someone else. And Ash---feeling salty, and bitter, and more than a little upset that the woman he loves is marrying someone else because he looks like a thirteen-year-old even though he’s mentally twenty-six---doesn’t attend the wedding even though he was supposed to be part of the bridal party (he was Misty’s best friend, after all). He does send Pikachu, but this still causes a huge fight with Misty, who wanted him to be there, but Ash is angry and emotional, and it . . . it’s a huge, big mess.  And that’s just one thing---that’s just one thing that happened. There are other things, too. Such as, well, just as Alan had to deal with Sycamore dying, so, too, does Ash have to deal with watching Delia grow old and die. She teases him sometimes about never giving her grandkids (“At least I have lots of pokémon,” he says), but for the most part she’s of course still very supportive and loving of her immortal son until the day she dies (from old age, peacefully in her sleep). Ash inherits the house, and unlike Alan he still visits someitmes when he’s older. It’s kind of rare, though, because as the years (and centuries) go on the populace of Pallet Town changes a lot, and so while no one can take the house because it does belong to someone and not the town itself, there are so many urban legends surrounding it from the Pallet Town populace. Whenever Ash does show up, everyone is always pretty “!!!!” about the fact that some seemingly random “thirteen-year-old kid” is going into the “abandoned house,” so Ash usually tries to sneak in at night, or however he does it. And it’s not just his mom. After enough years, when Ash is mentally in his thirties or forties, he realizes that the TRio hasn’t been around. He seeks them out, and finds that they have . . . a house? A house. They have a house. (Probably squatting, but whatever.) And they’re . . . not following him anymore? Really? “We’re old now, twerp,” James says. “Speak for yourself,” Jessie snaps. “We’re the same age,” James says, offended that she had swatted his arm like that. And it’s true, they’re in their forties or fifties now, like---it’s fine if they retire now, right? “But don’t you wanna try to steal Pikachu?” Ash asks. He didn’t sit down at the kitchen table even though they told him to, even though Jessie is fixing up some tea in the little electronic kettle they have, and James is preparing pancakes at the stove. “No, not anymore. If we wanted Pikachu we would have gone to take him. We don’t do that anymore,” Jessie says. “We’ve moved on.” “Moved on?” Ash says. “Everyone’s gotta grow up sometime, kid,” Meowth says, from where he’s curled up in front of the fireplace. And that was the wrong thing to say. When Jessie and James turn around to give Ash his tea and pancakes, he and Pikachu have already bolted through the open window.  He never speaks to them again, though they have an uncanny ability of tracking where he is, and so they send him things from time to time. After enough years pass the gifts dwindle down, and then the last thing Ash gets is a letter written by James telling him that he and Jessie are very old and also sick and don’t have much time left at all, but that they want him to take care of himself, and also to never let anyone else steal Pikachu, either, because if they didn’t get to no one else should, okay? He goes back to them at last just to make sure they can have proper funerals, or at least memorials. I mean, they didn’t have any family. No one besides him and Pikachu, really. And it bothered him too much to see them all old and stuff when he wasn’t, and when they weren’t going to steal Pikachu (or try to steal Pikachu) anymore, and so he had stopped visiting, and he really regrets that now, and--- I’m sure you can imagine the breakdown for yourself. I don’t need to write it out. He had stopped talking to Misty for a good chunk of years after their fight, but this motivates him to seek her out and really . . . make up. And she calls him an idiot for thinking that she wouldn’t have wanted to see him, or that she’d still be holding a grudge, and so they do reconcile. But when she dies, he doesn’t go to her funeral. He does’t go to Brock’s, either. Or Gary’s, or Tracey’s, May’s, or Max’s, or Dawn’s, or Iris’s . . . See, here’s the thing. He had to accept his mom was dead because he was the one to put that funeral together. He had to accept the TRio was dead, because same. But if he never sees anyone else’s funerals, or hears of their deaths, or anything like that, then he can just pretend they’re still alive somewhere. Old, sure, but still alive somewhere. He never has to move past the denial stage. Definitely not to acceptance. And this is totally a perfectly healthy way to live, so he’s just going to do that. It’s a bit harder for his pokémon. Most of them aren’t dragons by species. They die over the years. He always makes sure he’s there for that, as best he can be. Charizard is still alive, being a dragon by species, and in the Valley for a good portion of time. Gible, Noivern, and Goodra as well (though he doesn’t have Goodra officially, anymore, but still). He does eventually get Charizard on his team permanently once again (along with a Key Stone and Charizardite Y), as well as the aforementioned Gible (now Garchomp) and Noivern. He also gets a milotic (since milotic are dragons by species---sea dragons), and this milotic actually gets a nickname: Mysterica. He calls her Myst or Mysti for short. “After a real special girl I knew a long time ago,” he says. He never becomes Kanto Champion in this AU, because around the time he was going to he has already realized / learned of his immortality, and it was pointed out to him by Gary that, well, it’s probably not the best to put himself in public spotlight then, is it, because then everyone will realize what has happened to him. And to say that Ash is a little bitter about this on top of everything else that his immortality makes him salty about is an understatement. Bad enough it makes him have to watch everyone grow old and die (even his dragons will grow old and die eventually), but now it has also taken his dream from him. Great. He does keep traveling, though (of course he does), but after a little while he stops getting travel companions, for the most part. That’s just more people he’d have to get attached to, only for them to grow old and die later, and also most of the people who’d want to travel with him are kids, because they think he’s a kid, and he is . . . not a kid, mentally, at all. But sometimes he does still mentor some new kids, and when he turns one hundred he decides to pretend that he is a brand new trainer fresh out of Pallet Town again as a “fun prank” (so mentally healthy!), and that’s how he meets Souji and Makoto. See, look, I can do things with M20. I can make it even sadder than it already was. Look at me go. Like Alan, he ends up purposefully involving himself in world-crises as he travels around, because he’s Ash, of course he does. The outfit I usually imagine him in is heavily based on Red’s from SM. He has the t-shirt with the 96 on it, and the backpack that has the strap go across his chest. But his hat is actually the one Red had in his original art, albeit the leaf badge is instead replaced by his Key Stone. (To use it, he swipes his fingers across the Key Stone and then grabs the bill of his hat to turn it backwards in one fluid motion. His invocation is: “Let’s understand the power that’s inside! Mega evolve!” Because come on, it’s perfect.) His pants are baggier, too, and fall over his sneakers, and he still has some dark fingerless gloves on. That’s how I picture him in his immortal years, anyway. But speaking of traveling . . .

So both Alan and Ash travel around, getting involved in things, probably dropping fake names and aliases everywhere, you know. They both know, in the back of their minds, that the other is immortal. But any attempts at communication failed for some reason or another (they both travel so much being the main reason), and for decades and decades their paths never crossed, and Ash was doing his best to avoid everyone for a time, and things happened . . . But finally, they both do reunite, purely by chance, during a crisis in Oblivia. How I imagine it is that there’s this big, huge battle going on, and Ash is fighting, and all of a sudden he hears “Dragon Claw!” and he knows that voice, he knows, and he looks over and there’s Alan and Lizardon, and he calls Alan’s name, and Alan looks at him, and they realize so many things in that second, but there’s no time to talk, so they finish up the battle. Everything gets wrapped up, and it takes another couple days, but when they finally get a chance to settle down and reunite and talk it’s just . . . it’s really emotional, for both of them. But we also know what Ash tends to do with emotions he feels about other humans, so he says, “Hey . . . we never did have that battle you promised me.” So they battle. Lizardon vs. Charizard, and maybe mega evolution is involved, but either way. They battle and Alan wins, but at the end Ash is staring at Alan, and when Alan asks him about it, Ash says, “Nothing, it’s just that this is the first time I’ve seen you really smile in three days.” And it’s true. Alan feels . . . lighter, and the battle made him feel happier, than he has in . . . god, as long as he can remember. He forgot . . . even with his eidetic memory, after all these years, he forgot that Ash always had that effect on him. But it’s not just him. I said it was an emotional reunion, and I meant it. Like, Ash is . . . for the first time, Ash is faced with someone from his past who looks the same as he always did, because he’s immortal, too. Alan is immortal, too. Those feelings---he had formed such a connection with Alan in Kalos, even before the immortality. Alan had helped Ash, too, back then, even if it wasn’t as obvious. And now Alan is here, and Ash hadn’t even realized that he needed this, hadn’t even realized---of course he has Pikachu, they’re platonic soulmates, of course he does, but . . . to have another human being that he can connect with, that he can be honest about his immortality with, that he won’t have to watch grow old and die . . . When they go to part ways, and Alan goes and hops up on Lizardon’s back, Ash runs after him and is like, “Wait! Alan!” And Alan does. He waits. And Ash asks him where he’s going, and Alan shrugs, because who knows. And Ash says, “I don’t really have anywhere I’m going either, not really. Wanna go wherever . . . together?” And Alan is quiet, and at first Ash thinks that Alan might say no. But then Alan smiles a little, and extends his hand. And Ash grins, and takes it, and allows Alan to pull him up on Lizardon’s back. So they start traveling together.

They continue what they were both doing before, but together. Lots of exploration, but also lots of world defending, like . . . they intervene with huge criminal organizations or legendary crises, yes, but they also keep an eye on political stuff, too. Like, at one point the Charicific Valley loses federal protection as a result of some corrupt government dealings in Johto, and as a result poachers descend on the place en masse. Ash and Alan book it to get there, but they get there a little too late. They save some of the charizard (a couple, here or there), but a lot of them were just . . . it wasn’t pretty. It was devastating, actually. But they did their best, all the same. They felt it was their duty. The least they could do. But this is a part of the reason why, years down the line, the charmander line is . . . basically extinct. There are maybe still some others, apart from Lizardon and Ash’s charizard, but . . . they’re very, very few in number. (And like, no, the Valley was not the only wild charizard sanctuary, but the fact that it was necessary at all tells us the charmander line was already hurting. This . . . this didn’t help.) But sometimes they are more successful, and as I said, they keep an eye on things like that. There are times throughout the years when a government gets too corrupt and they actually intervene to help stage revolutions. At one point, there’s a Champion (maybe even in Johto or Kanto around the time the Valley massacre happened?) who likes to wear a necklace made out of charizard fangs, and Alan actually jumps up on that stage to use that necklace to pull the Champion near so that he can punch him in the face, and the government was so corrupt at the time that this puts a bounty on Alan’s head, so that was a thing that happened. (Ash was there, but he was in the crowd and is like 4′8″ forever, so. Not easily seen.) They made it out of that one, but you know what, the guy deserved to be socked in the face. Alan had enough.  But anyway, main takeaway here is: They keep an eye on world events and intervene when necessary. If you ask Ash, “We’re . . . kind of like guardians.” It’s the least they can do, you know.

Both are considerably happier once traveling together. Now that he has someone human to joke about it with, Ash likes to make lots of jokes about their immortality. He says he likes to think of his age as, “Thirteen with an asterisk.” He sings songs like “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” by the Beach Boys for the irony. (’Cause you know, the first lyrics are, “Wouldn’t it be nice if we were older, then we wouldn’t have to wait so long . . .”) It’s been a long time since he was ever in the mood to spontaneously sing, but hey, he is now! And Alan asks him if he’s a steel-type, actually, because, “Your irony is killing me.” Ash is delighted. He’s so delighted. They eventually do tell each other all about what they’ve been doing in the interim. Ash is the one human Alan was always able to confide in without problems, so he does naturally tell Ash about his suicide attempt. And Ash? Now Ash is not delighted anymore. He’s furious, and horror-stricken (because he can’t help thinking about what if Alan had gone through with it, he wouldn’t be here right now, he wouldn’t be---) and he’s just, “We hadn’t had our battle yet! You promised!” Alan stares at him. “I wasn’t thinking about that.” “Well, you should have been!” Ash says, and before Alan can say anything else, Ash points at him and says, “Three hundred more battles. I want three hundred more battles with you. Promise me.” Alan is aghast. “That’s . . . excessive,” he says. “That’s an absurdly high number---” “We’re immortal,” Ash says flatly. “We’ve literally got forever. Promise me.” And Alan knows what Ash is making him promise, really, and so he nods. “I promise.” “Good. I’m gonna make sure you keep it. Right, Pikachu?” “Pika!” Pikachu says, and believe me, he means it. 

They get very close, as could be expected. They reach a point where they can communicate certain things just by looking at each other. Pikachu, as he always did with people he and Ash became close with, does have a way of saying Alan’s name after a time (Kacha), as well as Lizardon’s (Pikaacha). I know that the names Pikachu has for others typically start with Pi, but there was just no way I could make Alan’s name work with that, so. Just work with me, here. Sometimes he rides around on Alan’s shoulders or head as well, depending. Ash, being a person who conveys love through physical affection and who loves physical intimacy, is often the one to initiate any sort of cuddling. Sometimes he uses Alan’s chest or stomach as a pillow (and complains about Alan’s abs, which Alan absolutely has as a dragon rider, because god, they’re so hard, couldn’t he be a bit of a softer pillow?), or just throws himself back against Alan when they’re watching a movie or something, if they’re staying at Ash’s house or somewhere else. Alan doesn’t mind; he might not initiate the cuddling himself, but he doesn’t mind it. Ash is really grateful for this. Sometimes, when they encounter others, people mistake them for brothers. Neither Alan nor Ash ever bother to correct them, although they don’t think of each other as brothers. In Alan’s mind, he only ever had one brother, and that was his stepbrother, Clemont. In Ash’s mind, well . . . he just never really thought of his friends as siblings, you know? He was an only child. Closest he ever got was Gary, he guesses, and also probably Brock. So even when someone calls Alan his brother, he goes with it, but he doesn’t really think of Alan like that, not really. It’s different than that. But they don’t ever discuss it. Alan figures they’re fine as they are (gee, wonder who he learned that from, Sycamore), and Ash kind of does, too. I do think Ash probably thinks about it more than Alan does, particularly since . . . well, keeping in mind that mentally they’re both over a hundred years old, probably, by this point (and that in canon we never saw a maturity gap between them anyway), and Ash is demiromantic pansexual (in my headcanon, at least), it is possible that Ash would actually develop feelings for Alan. But---and this is important---Alan is still aromantic asexual, so he’s not going to reciprocate those feelings. And Ash is very emotionally intelligent, I think he’d be able to tell that Alan is not in love with him. (And he figures, well, he still looks thirteen anyway, he still looks like a kid whereas Alan looks like a teenager, so thanks for that once again, immortality.) And he’d be fine with that, really, so long as they can stay together. Like, whatever he feels, even if he doesn’t realize “I’m in love with him,” I think he’d at least know that he wants to spend the rest of his forever with Alan, or at least he does for the time being. And he hopes Alan feels the same way. And even if he did tell Alan, and Alan was like, “Oh . . . I can’t---” and was feeling kind of alarmed, Ash would assure him of this. Like, he might want Alan to know, but he doesn’t expect anything from it, like that. Don’t worry. But that said, even though Alan is aroace, make no mistake that Ash is just as important to him, like . . . we all saw those canon episodes, we know what kind of deep connection these two have. So especially in Immortality AU, where they’re the only humans each other has left, really, that bond is going to be even stronger. (It’s going to be a mega bond, if you will---okay, I’ll see myself out.) So that’s definitely where the queerplatonic relationship comes in, even if it’s never actually called as such between them. (Actually, in a situation where someone who knows they aren’t brothers asks what they are, Ash would probably just shrug and say, “Dunno. Haven’t thought too much about it. It’s good, though.”) So that’s a thing, too. 

But oh, I’m sure anyone who is still reading this is probably wondering . . . what about Lizardon? Because I mentioned up above that Lizardon still grew physically, and Alan was internally wrecked with worry and impending grief over this, and Ash, being emotionally intelligent, would pick up on Alan’s fear even if Alan never actually said . . . Well, you really can’t expect Ash to just let this go, can you? The thing is, Ash has a way with legendary pokémon. You know this, I know this---we all know this. And by this point in his immortal life, he’s just not down to take any nonsense from them. So he decides, okay, you know what, we’re just going to go ask Xerneas about this. Let’s go to Kalos and ask Xerneas what is up. If Lizardon’s not immortal, we’ll have Xerneas fix that. And if Lizardon is and is just growing anyway because he’s a dragon, hey! Now we know! And if he isn’t immortal and Xerneas won’t fix it, I’ll have a talk with Yveltal to fix me, Alan thinks, but doesn’t say. No, Ash thinks when he can tell that Alan is thinking ths, but also doesn’t say because Alan didn’t say his part, either.  So they go to Kalos so that Ash can tell Xerneas to get his antlered ass out here so they can have a little chat. (Probably he approaches this with a bit more tact, but . . . only a bit, because this is Ash we’re talking about.) And he succeeds at getting a chat with Lizardon, and Alan is suitably impressed, because like---it’s not that he didn’t believe Ash when Ash said, “Oh, no, trust me, I’ve got a whole thing with legendary pokémon, I can make him have a talk with me,” but it’s just . . . seeing is different than believing. Anyway, as it turns out (thanks to Pikachu helpfully translating), Xerneas’ power did affect Lizardon differently because Lizardon is a dragon by species. Essentially, it took longer to kick in, wrangling with Lizardon’s longevity. Lizardon did age normally for a few years, but all the while Xerneas’ power was slowing that process down, until it does eventually stop. Lizardon is fine. He won’t grow old and die. He’s immortal, too. Alan’s so relieved he nearly cries. “Great! Thanks, Xerneas,” Ash says, and he grins. “That’s all we had for you. You can go now.” Xerenas is more than a little bewildered by this sudden dismissal, but he probably does go. (A fic I was writing was originally a time travel fic wherein Alan and Ash, in the midst of trying to find Xerneas, were sent back in time by Celebi (who was feeling mischievous and pranky, I suppose) to the time period between TSME 4 and the League. They end up encountering Sycamore by happenstance, and Sycamore doesn’t realize that this is time-travel, and so it’s all emotional as Alan gets to see his father for the first time in 80+ years, and as Sycamore tries to talk to Alan about Lysandre, but Alan is cagey and won’t talk about that and says, “Nothing you say to me right now will change anything” and Sycamore doesn’t know why, and Ash keeps interrupting and changing the subject every time Sycamore tries to press, and also Alan refuses to call Lizardon out and Sycamore doesn’t know why that is, either (it’s because Lizardon is over ten feet tall and, uh, that’s going to be more than a little noticeable, probably), but he’s really worried because Steven told him that Lizardon healed fine after the incident in Hoenn, so ??? Anyway, I was originally a fic about all that, but then I lost my “current WIPs” folder, so. That’s gone now. I’m as devastated as anyone about this.)

There’s probably more that I could say, but wow, I’ve been typing this up for two hours and it is long, so I’ll leave it at this, haha.

[sage-nebula]

I was reminded of Ash’s line at the end of this video thanks to the On This Day app on Facebook (since I had quoted it as a status once upon a time), and I still love it so much that I had to share. I kind of stopped making the Sass Ketchum compilations, but god, I love the sassy mouth he used to have.

Also, Ash, yes they are your friends (or at least your frienemies). Just admit it already.

[sage-nebula]

One of my favorite relationships in the whole of the PokéAni is the frienmity between Ash and the TRio, and one of my favorite episodes to illustrate this is OS081, in which they continuously kidnap him and he keeps escaping. As a result I recently cut out those bits and merged them into one video, but because of Tumblr’s video upload limits, I had to break the video in three parts in order to be able to share it.

Part One Part Two

[sage-nebula]

I love how Ash was already brushing off Team Rocket and saying, “uh, we’re kind of busy here, so---” when they showed up by episode three of the OS.

[lyssala]

Time

Pairing: Terra/Aqua (and lots of brot3), Kingdom Hearts

Setting: Post KH III

Words: 5169

Rating: K

Notes: Okay so I never intended to post any of this haha I usually like to dabble in new fandoms to get the grip of it before I publish anything but I felt as though others might be in the same boat as me. The I’m so desperate for new material I’m just gonna damn well do it myself lmao So this was a prompt suggested by a friend for Ven plotting to get Terra and Aqua some time together. I’ve written a few little one shots from their perspectives (which are unpublished so far haha) so it was interesting to take a stab at it from Ven’s perspective. It was also nice to explore their interactions in everyday situations since really we’ve only seen them interact under stress or distress. So lots of headcanons went into this to build off how I saw the characters. It was fun! I might do it again haha Also please forgive me if I get anything story wise wrong. I tried to remember/research as best I could but man, there’s so much to this series lmao 

AO3

Ven didn’t understand. Okay, he got the exams were coming up and he knew a lot of weight was riding on that for both Terra and Aqua, that they were probably under a lot of stress. At the same time though he didn’t understand why they were flat out avoiding each other. It wasn’t a competition. It’s not like one would pass and the other wouldn’t. Yet for the past few weeks Terra and Aqua who were usually inseparable where barely in the same room as each other unless they had to be.

Ven didn’t like it at all and not just because it meant he was left alone, sitting on the couch, with his chin in his hands staring at absolutely nothing. Yeah, it was boring, but he felt like his best friends were fighting and he didn’t like that. Sure, Terra and Aqua bickered but they never stayed mad and really they weren’t even mad that Ven could tell. They were just…distant. They were like the best friends Ven ever knew, they weren’t supposed to act like this. It was weird honestly.

That was when he knew he had to do something. It was close to midnight when he left the living room, knowing full well if he was caught he’d be sent right back to bed. He was careful sneaking into the kitchen and carrying out all the snack foods he could fit in his arms (chocolate chip cookies for Aqua, chips for Terra, and the rest of the cake for himself…or you know if the others wanted any too). He laid out all the food on the small table in front of the couch and set out to drag his friends in so they could spent some stress free time together. If they could just relax maybe things would go back to being normal.

Aqua was on the training grounds, only a few lanterns and the moon shining down on her as she moved gracefully for through her routine. She was like the moonlight, just a flash of silver and blue. It was so different watching her than watching Terra; he was grounded, firm, and powerful but Aqua almost danced through her moves, always graceful and never missing her mark.  

Ven waited until she paused before he called out to her. “Aqua!”

She quickly turned her head to him, a frown on her lips. She only made her keyblade disappear when he waved at her. “Ven?” she asked as she walked closer to him. “What are you doing out here? Is something wrong?” Aqua looked concerned, like she was about to reach for his forehead.

Ven only then realized he was standing outside at near midnight in his pajamas. “Oh! Oh, yeah everything is totally fine.”

She looked like she was waiting for another explanation.

“Um, totally fine, but would you mind coming with me? Back inside?”

“Ven…” Aqua glanced back at the training ground before looking to him. “I…”

“Please? I have something for you.”

That seemed to do it. She gave him that smile she had whenever she caved. She reached up to brush some of his hair from his face. “Okay, whatever you’d like.”

Ven grinned and grabbed her hand leading her back to the castle and back into the room where all the snacks still laid out on the table. “Ta-da,” he said. “I thought you might be hungry.”

“Oh, Ven,” she chuckled; even if she wasn’t hungry at all she was still humoring him. “You’re too sweet.”

“Okay, sit down, I’ll be right back.” Before she had a chance to object he was out the door.

If Aqua was in the training grounds then Terra must be in the library. Or already asleep in his room, or asleep in the library. It was one of them.

Thankfully for Ven, since waking up Terra was a nightmare he could sleep through anything, he was sitting at one of the tables at the center of the library with one lantern guiding his reading. The last thing Ven wanted to do was scare the older boy, so Ven stood in the doorway, door open behind him. Terra looked like he was reading intently but his eyes didn’t look focused. It looked more like he was zoned out, thinking about anything but what he was doing.

“Terra?” he said as quietly as he could.

Terra glanced up but he didn’t seem too surprised; he must’ve heard Ven coming. “Yeah, buddy, what’s up?”

“Will you come downstairs with me?”

Terra gave Ven a look similar to Aqua though Terra scrunched his forehead much more than she did. “Is something wrong?”

“No, just thought you’d need a break.”

Terra hesitated but Ven gave his biggest grin and the brunette was already closing his book. “Alright. My eyes were starting to blur lines anyways.”

Ven didn’t wait; he already started to head back down the stairs and hallways, though he kept track of Terra’s footsteps knowing he was still following.

When Ven walked back into the living room, Aqua was sitting on the couch though she didn’t touch any of the food. She looked up when he walked in and if she was surprised to see Terra come in the room she didn’t show it at all.

“There,” Ven said, plopping down on the ground in front of the table while Terra sat at the other end of the couch. “Now we’re all together.”

He didn’t have to read their minds to see the guilt in Terra and Aqua’s eyes. They glanced briefly at each other before looking off in other directions.

“It’s okay, I know you’re busy,” Ven said, trying to imply best that he wasn’t upset with how they treated him but how they were treating each other. “I just thought you guys might need a break. Together.” Okay, maybe he hadn’t mastered subtlety yet.

Aqua opened her mouth to say something but Terra leaned forward, clapping his hands together. “Well, thanks, Ven, that was kind of you.” He gestured to the table. “Let me guess, cookies are for Aqua, you grabbed my favorite chips, but the cake?”

“Oh, you know,” Ven shrugged, tracing his finger over the cover of the cake. “For…for us all.”

Terra laughed lightly. “Have at it.”

“You’ll never sleep if you eat that whole thing,” Aqua said, always the voice of reason.

 “Let him enjoy it. He can just fake sick in the morning and sleep in.”

“That’s what you used to do,” Aqua’s voice was a little stern but there was a smile pulling at her lips. “Whenever you snuck too many snacks from the kitchen in the middle of the night.”

“And it worked didn’t it?”

“Until Master caught on and made you train anyways.”

It was working. They were smiling. This was so much better. Ven went to uncover the cake when he quickly realized he forgot drinks. “Oh! I’ll be right back!”

Neither of them bothered to stop him as he ran out, heading back to the kitchen to grab cups and the nearest drink he could grab. Well, the second one; the first one was a sweet soda he knew Terra didn’t like. Juggling his newest addition to their small feast, he hurried back into the living room.

“Okay, now we have…” Ven trailed off the moment he walked in front of the couch.

Terra was sitting on his end of the couch, his head leaning back against the pillow and long legs sprawled out in front of him. Aqua was curled up on the cushions, the top of her head touching his leg. When Ven first came here, plagued with his own nightmares he snuck into their rooms enough times in the middle of the night to know sleeping near each other brought them some form of comfort. Maybe that’s what they needed right now.

With a smile, he placed down some of the cups, and headed back up to his room (but not without grabbing the cake first).

Ven knew everything had changed. The world was a very different place than it was before, though that wasn’t all a bad thing. He was back home; well, what was left of his home. It wasn’t exactly the bright world he remembered but Aqua and Terra were with him. They were all alive and they were home together.

It was a little strange knowing over ten years passed. Even now, as he sat at the dining room table, watching Terra cut up vegetables to cook for dinner, Aqua doing some of the dishes behind him, it was like nothing changed. None of them even aged a day while they were all apart; not physically at least.

Ven didn’t really remember his time…away so it was hard to say how it impacted him. Terra said he didn’t remember much either but Ven had a feeling that was a lie to spare their feelings. He saw the tentative glances, the uncertainty in Terra’s step, how his smile didn’t always reach his eyes, and how careful he was not to be too close to either of them. Also, he was terrible at lying.

Aqua on the other hand was an incredibly good liar. Ven never really knew when she was being honest with him or when she was just trying to make him feel better. He supposed it was because she was so sincere about everything even when she lied a little, she still only had their best interests at heart. She usually didn’t lie too often though. She told them what she remembered of her time in the Realm of Darkness; if anything she simply left the things out she didn’t wanna share which he understood. Even if things were upsetting her, she always put on a smile and did whatever it was she needed to do to get the job done in a way only she could do.

But Ven knew she wasn’t sleeping well, if it all. Aqua had these dark circles lingering under her eyes for weeks now, thinner than he remembered her being, and even though she tried to hide it her physical strength was weaker. Not by a lot, but enough for him to notice and if he noticed then Terra definitely noticed; which probably made him feel worse, like it was his fault. Even though by now he had been told a million times it wasn’t. Ven knew it didn’t matter what people said, sometimes it was only what you could believe. But it would only make Terra more cautious and more distant, which Aqua would then notice and make herself worry more but not be able to tell him for fear of making it worse.

It was a never ending circle with them sometimes; that at least didn’t seem to change. If anything, they still knew how to dance around each other just right; except it was almost worse now. When they were younger one of them would break, they’d fight, one would make the other laugh, and they’d be fine again until next time. Now they were almost even too afraid to fight with each other, like if they said the wrong thing the other would just vanish. Ven could understand the feeling after all they all went through, but at the same time he sometimes wished just to hear Terra’s annoyed outburst and see Aqua get that stern look on her face. Then at least things would seem more normal.

Ven sighed and looked down at the book he had opened on the table. He was pretty sure he read the last line about five times already. 

He supposed for himself, the first real shock of it was when they did finally get to go home. Their world looked like it aged for ten long years with no one to take care of it. What used to be a clean and beautiful land was overgrown with weeds, rubble littering all areas; it was dried and worn out. At least the castle reverted back to what it used to, the sun shining high in the sky again, but even then it lacked the brightness it used to hold. They all set to work to get it looking back like the place they used to live, for people to come visit or even stay, train, whatever they’d like. It was hard work every day but they were together, all three of them were together again.

Ven wasn’t unhappy, he really wasn’t. The world was different, sure, but it was better now. There was no immediate lingering threat anymore. They were safe to lead the lives they always wanted but things were different now. Their home was a little emptier, and little quieter. It wasn’t just the presence of their Master or the people who used to visit either.

Ven looked up from his book that he had now given up reading to look at his friends still lingering in the kitchen. They weren’t paying too much attention to him or each other, Terra choosing to focus on whatever he cutting up now and Aqua humming lightly to herself as she slowly cleaned a pan from last night’s dinner. Despite the fact Ven saw the tension that lay between them ever since they returned, times like this it was easy to watch them fall into an easy rhythm of working around each other. Terra would look up to see where the bowl he needed was and she was already handing to him, or he’d hold out a knife he didn’t need any more and her slightly soapy hand would be there to take it from him. They were partners for so long now that even doing the smallest tasks together was usually effortless.

A smile pulled at Ven’s lips as he watched a cup covered in water and soap slip out of Aqua’s careful grip only to have Terra catch it before it fell to the ground. He passed it back to her without a word, though even Ven could see the teasing glint in Terra’s eyes like he wanted to comment about his reflexes being better than hers. It didn’t need the words apparently cause she reached up to hit her hand against his shoulder, though not without trying to hide her own amused smile, to push him back over to the counter. It left a wet mark on his sleeve as her hand lingered just a little longer than a playful push would, his eyes watching her before they both went back to their own tasks.

Ven admittedly didn’t always know. He was young when he came to live here, and really that’s how they had always been; teasing and bickering but a special sort of devotion and loyalty. Ven didn’t give it too much of a second thought. He loved them and they loved him; that was all that really mattered. It wasn’t until they finally got Terra back, when he was the same person he always was before, that Ven really knew. Terra had been quickly tackled to the ground by the two of them, and through the mix of laughter and tears Ven realized that Terra and Aqua looked at each other very differently then they looked at him.

He felt a little stupid afterwards cause looking back it was so obvious to everyone except maybe the two of them. He kinda thought that would be it cause that’s what happens when you realize you’re in love with someone; they’d come home and he’d have to remember to knock before he went in any door. Instead he found them battling their own demons and pushing each other out. Ven didn’t get it, but he had never been in love like that either so it was probably way more complicated than any book he read made it out to be.

“Do you need any help?” Aqua asked, drying her hands with a hand towel as she looked over to what Terra was doing.

“Absolutely not,” he snorted in response.

“Excuse me.” She tossed the towel on the counter before placing her hands on her hips, though the action was lacking any real anger. “I used to cook dinner for you all the time.”

“Yeah.” Terra side eyed her, a little bit of a smug smile on his lips. “And every time it was your night to cook Master promised he’d bring me food later if I pretended to eat it and make you happy.”

“You’re such a dirty liar, Terra.” She reached up like she was gonna hit him again as he was already laughing as he poured the cut up vegetables in the nearby bowl.

Sometimes it was still like this, reminding Ven of the way their home used to be. He reached a hand up to his mouth to try and stifle his own laugh. It didn’t work as the both of them looked over at him. He knew they didn’t necessarily forget he was there, but they kinda forget he was there. It never bothered him; he really only wanted them to be carefree like that all the time. 

“You’re on my side, right, Ven?” Aqua said. Her tone was normal but her eyes were pleading with him a little bit. She really didn’t like to lose anything.

Terra was making a face at Ven, like the thought alone was gross. Terra could tease all he wanted but Ven knew if she put food she made on the table they’d both eat it with little complaint just to make her smile.

“You make the best cookies.” Ven settled on not lying but also making her feel good too.

She watched him for a second, like she was trying to figure out if that was a win or not. “I’ll take it,” she said with her usual smile.

“It’s fine.” Terra had his back to them, pouring whatever he had in the bowl into the pot on the stove. “Just about done anyways. We’ll have a little time while it cooks if you guys have anything you wanna do while you wait.”

That’s usually what happened so Ven knew Aqua would probably go off to the library and Terra would hang around the kitchen watching the food and snacking on what he could find. Ven would choose one to stay with depending on how he felt but the thought made his stomach sink a little. It’s not like they didn’t do things together, they spent all day fixing up various parts of their home usually together and they ate together but their down time was just different. Mainly cause he got the feeling Terra and Aqua avoided each other when they had nothing to distract them.

A memory lingered in the back of Ven’s mind, from back before. It wasn’t the first time he got that feeling. Ven really didn’t know why at the time but it was easy to recognize now for what it was. Even then he knew something was wrong. Sure her and Terra fought sometimes, they were rivals in their training but it was never aggressive; just always trying to push each other to be their best. At least, that’s what Ven saw when he watched them. When training was done Terra would tease her and Aqua would pretend to be mad at him but they’d go off with Ven and spend their down time together either outside watching the stars, or playing games, just having fun.

Something changed the older they got, the closer the exam started to loom. It was kinda like it was now; Terra noticeably distanced himself which hurt Aqua’s feelings but she didn’t know how to approach him so she just let it happen. To be fair, then or now, Ven didn’t know how to approach either of them about it too. Back then he just thought they were stressing themselves out to much, that maybe they just needed a break to relax some.

“Well, I guess I’ll go to the library then,” Aqua said, pushing some of her bangs from her face. “Just call me whenever it’s ready.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t read that whole place by now,” Terra snorted, wiping his hands on a towel.

Judging by the numerous talks Ven hated at the time that Master gave him about growing up, and his friend’s ages at the time, Ven realized they probably felt their relationship start to change and neither knew what to do about it; kinda like right now too he supposed. Even though the exam happened shortly after that night, they seemed a little better after Ven forced them in the same room so maybe…

“Who says I haven’t?” she waved her hand at Terra as she started to head for the door.

He was still watching her though he made no move to stop her. So it was up to Ven, right? But he was pretty sure luring them with snacks wasn’t gonna work this time so what was he supposed to offer?

She already had the door open.

“Uh, wait!” he sputtered.

 Both Terra and Aqua stopped what they were doing immediately. She quickly moved back into the room, a concerned look on her face. Oh, whoops. He didn’t mean to make them worry.

“Is something wrong?” she asked, looking almost like she was gonna come try and feel his forehead or something.

“Oh, yeah, I’m fine,” he said, trying to give her a smile.

Terra had moved to lean his elbows on the counter as he watched; his forehead furrowed like it did when he was concerned over something. “Then what’s up?”

Aqua was still standing near the door waiting for his answer too.

Well, crap. He didn’t really have an answer. He should’ve thought this through better. “I, well, you know, just thought we could do something together.”

“Of course,” Terra said. “What did you have in mind?”

Crap. Crap. Crap. “Um… we could…” Ven really wished he thought this through. He tried to quickly scan through his memory for everything they used to do together that didn’t involve training. Inside so Terra could hear the alarm go off on the stove, all three of them, somewhere nearby… “We could play a game!”

“A game?” Aqua asked. “Like a card game?”

Oh, that was a good idea. “Exactly,” Ven nodded, like he always knew what he was talking about. “I’m sure there’s some we used to play in the library. Will you, both of you?”

This time it was Aqua who caved first. “Absolutely we will,” she said with a kind smile.

Terra gestured to the door. “Lead the way, Ven.”

Did he mention they rarely said no to him? He left his book on the table and left the kitchen to take them to wherever he wanted really. The first floor of the castle was pretty much finished; the upper floors still were getting worked on so he figured the same room they used to play in seemed fitting. It wasn’t too far away from the kitchen and had places to sit and a small table to play on, though Ven didn’t quite plan on getting that far.

Terra was the first one who flopped down on the couch, breathing a sigh of relief as he stretched his legs out in front of him.

“Don’t fall asleep, old man,” Ven said. “I have to go find a game first.”

“Need I remind you again, I’m not that much older than you.”

“Yeah, but I don’t fall asleep in the middle of the day.”

Aqua covered her mouth to hide her laughter, especially when Terra arched an eyebrow at her. “What? He’s not wrong.”

Terra kicked his legs up on the couch. “Yeah, see if I make any room for you.”

That was a lie. The moment she sat down to swat at him, he moved them for her. Ven almost rolled his eyes. And people though he was naïve. “Okay, I’ll be right back. I’ll see what I can find.”

“Do you want any help?” Aqua said, probably already standing up to follow him but he was already halfway out the door.

“I got it,” Ven called back. “It’ll only take a minute.” Maybe he had gotten better at lying himself cause neither gave any opposition.

Okay, so he felt a little bad lying to his best friends but at the same time it was for them. Maybe if they could just talk about whatever was bothering them, they’d see what Ven saw. Granted, that wasn’t a strong point for either of them. Terra was never big on words especially regarding his feelings, and Aqua tended to like to hide how she was feeling so she could always seem like she had it under control. But maybe if they could just talk, they’d be happy too.

Ven slid to the ground outside the doorway. It was so quiet in there he couldn’t tell if he was too far away to hear anything or if they just weren’t speaking. Maybe he felt a little bad at eavesdropping too but he had to know if it was gonna work or if he’d need to try something different next time; maybe plan a little farther ahead too.

“Terra, if you lay down you really will fall asleep before Ven even comes back.”

There was Aqua, so Ven supposed he wasn’t too far away.

“Yeah, well, maybe you should give it a try sometime too.”

There was silence for a moment. Well, that was fast. Ven didn’t quite expect one of them to bring something up like that after a second of being alone. It kinda made him wonder how much they really put on appearances for his sake.

It sounded like she started to say something but she didn’t get very far.

“Don’t give me any of your excuses, I know you. I know how you operate.” Terra paused for a moment. “What is it? Nightmares?”

“Sometimes,” she said, though her voice quieter than before. “Sometimes I just don’t want to.”

He sighed; not really exasperated, just tired. “It’s the dark isn’t it?”

Her silence seemed to be her answer. “I just…what if I go to sleep and wake up and this is the dream. What if I’m still there?”

“Aqua, you’re not.” His voice was firm but it was also gentle, soothing. “This is our world. Ven’s here, I’m here. You’re home.”

“But I’ve dreamt of all that before, of here, of you.” She must’ve realized her mistake because she didn’t go on after that.

“Oh?” Terra asked, and Ven could hear the amusement in Terra’s voice. “Did you now?”

“Shut up, you know what I meant.” She didn’t sound mad but she did sound a little flustered; clearly she didn’t mean to let that bit of information slip.  

“Tell me, please, what was I like in your dreams?”

“Annoying, just like the real you is.”

Ven heard Terra laugh probably because Aqua was hitting at him somehow. Ven tried not to smile, even though he knew no one could see him. It was just, this was like how it used to be. He really just wanted them to be happy, whatever that meant to them.

“It’s okay to be afraid, you know,” Terra said, his voice sounding a little more normal. “You don’t always have to tough it out. Just don’t let it run your life.”

“Ah,” she breathed. “Takes one to know one I suppose.”

“What?”

“You. That’s why you’ve been keeping Ven and me at an arms distance away. You’re afraid too.”

It was Terra’s turn to be quiet. “It’s different.”

“It’s not. You were deceived and manipulated. That wasn’t you. This is you, laying on the couch and teasing me, waiting to play a game with Ven even though you’re exhausted.”

He gave some kinda grunt, clearly wanting the conversation to be over. That was Terra, more than willing to help his friends but never wanting to accept the same for himself.

“Are you afraid you’ll hurt us?” And that was Aqua, who always finished what she started.

He laughed, but it was sharp and bitter almost, disdainful. “I already did, haven’t I?”

“No, not aside from pushing us away.” There was some kinda shuffling on the couch but Ven couldn’t tell due to what. “Our Terra would never hurt us.”

“You’re such a sap,” he mumbled.

“Maybe, but it’s true.”

There was a pause.

“Alright, come on.”

There was more movement and then silence again. Well, at least if they were still talking Ven couldn’t hear them. He waited a moment longer but still nothing. He supposed maybe he should at least pretend to finish what he was doing. He did feel a little guilty for listening when they didn’t know he was there, but really it was for everyone’s own good. They did talk, maybe Aqua would be able to sleep better now and maybe Terra would realize neither of them was scared of him. Ven knew it probably wouldn’t be that easy, but it was a start.

Ven walked back into the room ready to announce he couldn’t find anything but if they wanted he’d try harder, which wasn’t a lie. When he rounded the corner around the couch he found he really didn’t have to say anything.

Much like when they were younger, he came back to find them both passed out on the couch. Terra didn’t quite fit anymore, one foot draped over the arm rest while the other was tucked up under Aqua’s legs. She was sleeping beside him, her back to his chest, and one arm hanging over the edge of the couch. Terra had one arm was tucked under his head and the other resting over her waist, hanging with hers over the side.

Ven was admittedly a little surprised, though he shouldn’t have been. Aqua probably hadn’t gotten a full night’s sleep since they got back, and it would be naïve to assume Terra could sleep through the night too. They probably just felt an ounce of comfort and passed right out from exhaustion.

Well, he had to think with a knowing smile, at least his plan worked somewhat once again. Man, he was actually kinda good at this; though he realized it was probably just because he knew them like he knew the back of his own hand. Ven even betted that they’d sleep a whole lot better if they stayed together like he knew they used to as kids. Ah well, that was a plan for another day.

For now he left the room, making his way back to the kitchen. The timer Terra set was still ticking away as Ven sat back down at the table. He knew when it went off he’d just turn the stove off and move the food over till they woke up. He flipped the page in his book as he settled in to read. After all, they had all the time in the world now. 

[sage-nebula]

I know this is ridiculous, but if Ash did win the League then I would want there to be a cut away to Team Rocket crying, like, “Our little twerp is all grown up and---and winning Leagues!” You know, like Mushu at the end of Mulan. Just like that.