meatriarchived · 10 months ago
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thing with dannys dire routes particularly if hes not the only one in the mix being kept, really just. does not take much whatsoever to get him to be violent or even kill honestly. he'll bloody up his own hands to keep the others from doing it. and he's good with getting himself out of many iterations of his restraints to literally put himself in between the friends & another captive and deal a blow to them if needed, even if it got his ass beat for stepping in and stopping them from having to themselves.
guy is literally just always getting his shit rocked for pissing johnny off in some capacity frankly
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heelycular-manslaughter · 4 months ago
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new hellbreak this ones about some freaks again
Hellbreak is the working title for my Hades-inspired ttrpg, in which the PCs are residents (likely prisoners) of hell attempting to break out, and finding support from various gods in the setting's pantheon. While most of the gods that give you boons do so on their own, there's a pair that don't really have that option.
Remis, God of Rats + Salvo, Goddess of Plagues
Remis goes by it/they, Salvo goes by he/him
Remis & Salvo have two conflicting stories to how they became gods; Remis says that it became the god of rats just before the mortals blamed the species for starting a disease among their kind, and Salvo thus formed from one of its veins. Salvo says that he found Remis while he was between hosts, and infected them, thus becoming a god and causing the mortal plague. 
Remis is frenetic, almost constantly stressed about something, exuding a nervous energy that is unseen in every other member of the pantheon. Salvo does not help with their anxiety, constantly whispering things that could go wrong, presenting himself as getting a twisted joy from it, hiding the deep fear of everything he has as well.
Remis usually takes the form of a small, thin, vaguely humanoid creature with pale gray skin covered in thin patches of hair and beady eyes on their palms. They have a light, jittery tone of voice. Salvo often likes to change how he appears on the body, if at all, but his favorites include bright red spots, a writhing ring under the skin, blackened veins, or a golden halo. 
Remis and Salvo help runners because they were tasked with establishing a trade route with the 4th layer of hell, but both have been too scared to meet with the Lord Mistress, and instead ask the runners to relay information when they see her. 
Core Mechanics: Rats & Infection
Rats will help you do various actions better, like adding harm to attacks or dice to attribute rolls. 
Infected enemies take harm at the end of each round.
Boons of Remis & Salvo
Rabid: +2d6 to Wrath.
Scurry: +2d6 to Greed.
Protective: +2d6 to Pride.
Quick Reaction: You can use a cast to instead dodge the first attack on the GM turn.
Scurry: Gain +1 movement if at least 5 enemies are infected.
Rat's Weight: (requires weapon slot) Using your weapon action pushes you back 1 range
Rat-Toss: (requires cast slot) Your cast turns into a rat that will scurry towards any other enemies after being thrown, moving 1 range toward the nearest enemy and dealing 1 harm on each turn until the next round
Bloodborne: (requires weapon slot) Weapon attack infects target for 1 harm
Contagious: (requires move slot) When you move into Close range of an enemy, that enemy is infected for 1 harm
Bug: Your cast deals -2 harm, but inflicts infection for 2 harm
Spread: Infected enemies can infect other enemies if in Close range for 2 turns
Superspreader: For each rat boon you have, infection deals +1 harm
The rat boons do involve literal rats you just have to use your imagination ok
previous god
hey thanks. thank you for reading all that. would you like to read any more? i have plenty. no pressure though. okay. thank you. love you
prev update (Puppet Daggers)
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seafoamreadings · 2 years ago
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week of april 30th, 2023
aries: if you have been putting *work* into a money situation, which may seem grim, keep calm if it appears to become... even more grim? this week, with the eclipse. you actually have really good money astrology at this time, but patience is the key. don't give up.
taurus: the new moon eclipse of this eclipse season was teetering on the threshold of your sign but this week's full moon eclipse occurs in your relationships house, with the sun fully ensconced within your sign. so yes, it's a big one. and yes, it involves a special someone.
gemini: mercury is half done with its retrograde but there's also how an eclipse in your daily routines and pluto backtracking after his fresh entrance into your 9th house. so, it's crazy out there in both small and big ways. but no one handles changes better than you do.
cancerians: people do see you as someone who loves to stay in the nest so to speak. by the end of this week venus enters your sign and you can enjoy doing so in style. she graces you with extra charisma as well, so use it wisely in these strange times. it is especially useful on the heels of that full moon eclipse!
leo: this lunar eclipse is in fixed signs, quite possibly squaring some of your natal points. and being that it involves your natal ruler the sun, and what with plutonic upheaval afoot, it is likely not an easy time. so go out of your way to take things easy. rest if needed, guilt-free.
virgo: be cautious about someone who might be described as a business partner, especially if you also have romantic links or interests involving that person or those people. i do not like to issue dire warnings but there is, amid all the astrology of this week, a chance of some kind of dishonesty/deceit/even betrayal in that arena.
libra: you do have a lot going on all week so watch those transit posts but perhaps what you feel the most will be pluto going retrograde in your 5th house. at first this will feel like you're getting flipped from rom com mode to soap opera tragedy mode. it'll even out later on, especially after venus settles into cancer, where she enters by the weekend.
scorpio: you have two major astrological events to watch this week. first, your ruler pluto takes a retrograde before even reaching the first degree of aquarius. second, there is a full moon lunar eclipse with the moon in your sign. all this spells upheaval. it's phoenix season for the scorpion folks.
sagittarius: it's hard times for many, but for you it's mostly just strange times. in fact things may flow so quickly and easily as to seem actually rather suspicious. it's true you can't trust anything to turn out according to plan at this time, but you can trust it'll work out somehow.
capricorn: pluto did finally give you sort of a break. now it goes retrograde. it'll be in your sign for a few months again, then, and after that? never again in your lifetime. all really is transformed and renewed.
aquarius: pluto good retrograde in your sign before really getting settled AND there's a fixed sign full moon eclipse squaring off with whatever you have going on in the middle of aquarius natally. these are not easy times but they ARE impactful and they do have the ability to really lay a nice foundation for what is to come.
pisces: it is an underappreciated fact about pisceans that you have houdini-like escapist abilities. this week, that can be tempting and/or useful. but try to make sure nothing will backfire on you if you go that escape artist route. it sometimes pays off and often doesn't.
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kingdomoftyto · 1 year ago
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Welp, I beat AA5, and it only took me--*checks watch*--almost 3 months
I've already kind of said most of what I wanted to say about it, but overall...... yeah, gotta agree with the general consensus I've seen in the fandom: it's the worst game so far.
That's not to say it doesn't have a lot going for it, because I can already hardly imagine a version of the series without Athena in it (or Blackquill for that matter), and as convoluted as their shared backstory was it was also REALLY good. Everything going on with Metis, Aura, the robots, and even Aura's crazy actions in the present day of the game? All excellent. No notes.
And Athena's gimmick, as I've already said, is great despite how silly and contrived it is. The evidence it provides is no more convincing in a courtroom setting than Apollo's callouts of witness' nervous ticks, but at least that shortcoming is acknowledged by several characters out loud, and it furthers the narrative started in AA4 that "decisive evidence" can't always be relied upon to find the real truth. So in that sense I think going the route of analytical psychology was a brilliant play on the writers' parts.
...... that is, it WOULD have been brilliant if they hadn't simultaneously turned around and thrown out basically the entire ending of AA4 itself...? Did they even mention the Jurist System ONCE in this game??? I don't know how they would have implemented it without compromising the gameplay loop, but they could have at least ACKNOWLEDGED it as being implemented offscreen or something.
And I don't think Phoenix's characterization is quite as dire as I've seen a couple of people suggest, but I do wish we saw him a little more calculating and poker-faced after his disbarment. It's not that he's OUT of character in this game, imo, but it could have added a lot to the story if he'd been a little more obviously changed by the prior seven years.
................ and then yeah, there's the parts that are just objectively bad writing lol. Klavier's shoehorned and out-of-character cameo, Apollo's out-of-the-blue, piled-on backstory of the week, Phoenix's (and Miles') relatively mild reaction to Trucy being held fucking hostage....
And. Y'know. The 3D models are just ugly. 😔 I like Athena's and Blackquill's and some of the witnesses but everyone from the 2D era looks awful now. (Except Trucy I guess but her sprites are all like.. exactly 1:1 with her old ones and are only seen from one angle, unlike the lawyers.) It's a shame because I LOVE the artwork for the game--Phoenix's new design freaking RULES, but it wasn't translated well from the concept art into the character model. :( Same for Miles. And the less said about Apollo the better
BUT ANYWAY
TL;DR - The game isn't very good imo, but it's also got so many excellent pieces within it that it's not one you should just skip or anything, either. The other games in this series set such a high bar that even the worst of the bunch is still not actually a bad game. It's worth a few frustrating out-of-character moments and especially-contrived plot threads for all the delicious new stuff underneath.
...*sigh* Guess this means I have to start SoJ next. And I've heard mixed things about that one, too, haha.......
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kaibacorpintern · 2 years ago
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i was thinking about KT's plans for a post-ceremonial duel arc where yuugi has to face off against his dad who is a master gamer and while i don't really have a strong desire to write this, here are the broad outlines of my daydream:
yuugi gets a mysterious invite to a "game retreat" way up in an isolated mountain resort - basically come test your gaming skills in this experts-only game retreat. the invite itself contains a riddle, and when yuugi solves it, the sender is revealed: his dad.
he turns to his good friend, Kaiba, a guy who has strong feelings about his dad, and he's like, "this letter is from my dad, who abandoned me and my mom to go off on adventures, what should i do?" and kaiba's like "go to his little game retreat, play his games, and destroy him <3"
yuugi goes to his other good friend, Jounouchi, also notably a guy who has strong feelings about his dad, and jounouchi is like "go to his game retreat, play his games, and maybe you can find a way to be a family again <3"
yuugi's like "great both of you are coming with me" leading to the most tense train ride of their lives as yuugi tries to keep the peace between his two best alive guy friends who loathe each other on top of representing opposing philosophies on what attitude you should take towards your shitty dad and his role in crafting the direction of your life. anyway they reach the mountain resort and it's just this ancient, maze-like mansion in the woods and every room is like a different lethal game in the style of death-t but way less goofy "serial killer with a chainsaw" camp and more unnerving "don't flinch or you lose" strategy games (kaiba's so pissed. this is way better than death-t).
anyway: why is yuugi's dad making him go through all this?? i dont know and for the purposes of this post, it doesn't matter. in the vein of a classic yugioh dad he is just burdening him with a legacy of anger and/or neglect. and the entire time yuugi is torn between kaiba's refusal to forgive/insistence on vengeance and jounouchi's desire for reconciliation/hopes that things can get better. yuugi's not sure if he's being asked to prove something he already proved at the ceremonial duel or if his dad is asking him to prove something entirely different, and if so - WHAT? he thinks about atem. he wishes atem was here. atem would know what to do.
after various trials and struggles blah blah blah someone almost dies, and judging by their respective track records, it's either jounouchi on accident or kaiba on purpose, but onwards. they all make it through to the final stage where yuugi is finally brought face to face with his dad for the final confrontation AND things are looking dire when who should arrive but... SUGOROKU. this is all his fault and he knows it. he spent his life adventuring away from his wife and son, and his son grew up to do the exact same thing to his wife and son, and he is here to reconcile with his son, maybe, and play a game with him... don't redirect all of your own grief and anger and frustrations at yuugi... close the loop and bring it all back to sugoroku... meanwhile yuugi doubles down on his deep commitment to be there for his friends, which was a reaction to his feelings of abandonment over his dad leaving him and his mom behind - but now he understands the whole scope of things and it's more actively a choice instead of a reaction... intergenerational mistakes and traumas stopped right in their tracks. okay that's everything. yuugi and kaiba kiss at some point somewhere
big thanks to @danieco for listening to me talk ten miles a minute over several glasses of sangria and when i came to a breathless stop like "well yuugi can't choose either kaiba's route or jounouchi's route, those are for them and he's his own person so he has to pick a THIRD route BUT WHAT IS THAT THIRD ROUTE?!!" she was like "IT'S SUGOROKU"
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corsairesix · 3 years ago
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How would you change Fallout 4?
Okay so this is a long one so it’s under the cut
As I’ve mentioned before, I would make the main plot focus on synths as a metaphor for McCarthyism (and to a lesser extent transness). This is assuming a magical world where I have full creative control over a main game in a major franchise. The main character would either be a wastelander (with optional traits to be an escaped synth, mind-wiped or not) OR if we’re going with the Sole Survivor then it would confirm the Sole is a synth theory; if the game’s going to make roleplay decisions for me, at least let them be thematically satisfying and cool.
The four faction companions would all be synths (Sturges, Danse, X6, and Glory) and would all represent a different take on synths in society. Danse would be basically the same, synth who doesn’t know it, self-hating, forced to change through self-acceptance or die in Blind Betrayal. The main change would be significantly changed behavior after BB and a chance to join the Minutemen or Railroad. Glory would be a synth who knows she’s a synth, and is very concerned with synth welfare and autonomy. X6 is a synth who has been mind wiped several times by the Institute due to his increased contact with the outside world. As he travels with the main character, there are decision points where X6 raises concerns about “glitches” (developing a personality as he gains experiences) and the player can decide whether to wipe his mind again or continue to travel with him. Before max affinity, he will ask for your help escaping the institute once again, you can complete his quest or you can turn him over to be mind wiped. Sturges is a synth with a Railroad identity, but who has traumatic memories resurfacing after the attack on Quincy. He is stuck between the true, harmful memories of the Institute or the false, comforting memories of his invented life.
In general the synth’s exploitation by the institute veers away from the slavery metaphor that’s in the game. Robots address labor issues very well and the slavery thing was weird and bad, so we’re moving away from that.
Mind wipes are much more controversial, much more like how they’re portrayed in Far Harbor. Characters like Glory who are mostly opposed to them see them as destruction of identity, not quite murder, but something that should only be done in dire circumstances. Those who are for it, Desdemona and Deacon, see it as a tool for helping synths hide and covering up painful memories (imperfect, as Sturges shows), and that there is an ineffable self that persists between wipes. It’s a source of tension even within the Railroad.
The Institute doesn’t have synth spies, but it does have human spies. The idea that the institute would 1) put synths in charge of major cities while still claiming they aren’t sentient and 2) put their constantly-escaping labor force on the surface with minimal supervision always bothered me. Institute agents foment anti-synth movements on the surface and sabotage synth sympathetic communities.
However, synth paranoia still totally exists. The combination of institute interference and the presence of freed synths, the public is terrified that their friends could be replaced by synths. In reality, the “confirmed” replacements were freed synths who either died (and evidence of them being a synth was found on death) or felt that it was safe to admit to others that they were a synth. No body snatching actually ever existed.
McDonough is a regular wasteland human, a corrupt Boston politician. He made his political career on anti-ghoul fearmongering, but after kicking the ghouls out of Diamond City he needed a new target. He is not associated with the institute, but since he began targeting synths he has received monthly campaign donations. He started the synth activities committee to investigate suspected synth sympathies among the citizens of Diamond City and its surrounding neighborhoods.
That’s the main plot stuff but for companions the main changes are:
Preston is a faction leader, not a companion. He’s very involved and has the same character arc, but the quests he gives are less radiant and more focused, with a plot moving forward.
Hancock is not a companion either, and is less of a good guy than in the game. Goodneighbor’s government serves as a condemnation of the founding father’s idea of freedom and that kind of American libertarianism. (Really, he’s an anarchist but also immortal mayor-for-life?)
Piper is a blacklisted journalist and the most vocal critic of McDonough’s anti-synth policies. She’s somewhere between an Edward R Murrow-esque anti-McCarthyist and an underground journalist. She’s a little more self-admittedly editorial and is openly for using journalism to change hearts and minds. She’s also a better writer than in the actual game.
Curie is a Mister Handy instead of a Miss Nanny because I find the concept of a girl Mister Handy that does the housework (especially when that’s already what Mister Handys do?) a bit silly. She voices more of a desire to be human and have control over her own body, rather than just “I want to do zee science better.” She even admires the player character if she is a woman. You can go the regular in-game route (with strong objections and disapproval from Glory, who doesn’t like to see someone she was close to inhabited by someone else) or you can use the institute to print a synth body for Curie. This route can be done under the guise of an “experiment” if you are part of the Institute (although some scientists may question the scientific value of such a plan) or you can get Liam Binet’s help if you’ve made contact with him as a spy for the Railroad. If you print Curie a body, it will be created based on her self-perception, and will look different from her body if you use the wiped synth route.
Ada and Codsworth can have a synth body printed as well, to Ada’s ambivalence and Codsworth’s objections. This can only be done if you are allied with the institute; Binet won’t help if your companion doesn’t seem to want to be a synth. There is no benefit to doing this.
Nick Valentine was a private detective pre-war, not a cop. After the Eddie Winter quest, which skips the collect-a-thon part, Nick wants to solve a case that is all his own, an unsolved wasteland murder that was the first case he had walk away from.
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purplesong1028 · 3 years ago
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Wrong in All the Right Ways
Chapter 6: End of the Road
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As Neto and Miguel hide from DEA after Kiki dies, Amado makes a shocking discovery about Pacho’s gift for him.
Rating: PG 13 (This chapter only, entire work is 18+)
Paring: Amado/Miguel, Amado/Pacho
AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34735498/chapters/94161922
Chapter 1  Chapter 2  Chapter 3   Chapter 4 Chapter 5
“The search continues in Mexico for missing US DEA agent Kiki Camerena…”
Pacho takes a long drag of cigarette and glances at Gilberto and Miguel, both intensely staring at the TV screen. No one saw this coming. Diego had absolutely no idea prior to it, and neither did his other informants in Mexico. As frustrating as it is, Pacho can’t really blame them: a fucking DEA agent?! Who would have thought…who in their right mind would do that?
“What kind of savages are we in business with?!” Gilberto finally turns away from the TV, “You both met them before, right? You told me the guy was a discreet businessman, like us!”
Pacho and Miguel share a look, both seeing rage and confusion in each other’s eyes.
“We’re sorry, hermano.” Miguel speaks first, “We really had no idea. I honestly still don’t know how this even happened.”
“None of my informants has anything useful either.” Pacho adds in, looking down at several major newspapers spread out on the table, all with the same headline. “Not that it matters now.”
“You know how bad this could get? These Mexicans move our stuff. They know our routes, our contacts in the US, the location of our fucking warehouses! What do you think would happen if the Americans get them?”
“I know, Gilberto, I know.” Pacho downs his whisky, and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I already spoke to Chepe. We’re securing these locations, switching the contacts. We’ll move our products around if we need to.”
“Well, good. Keep me updated on that.” Gilberto takes a deep breath, “I’m going to make a few calls. Let me know if anything else comes up.”
Miguel takes one last look at the TV as they all get up. “They better kill that motherfucker, so he doesn’t talk.”
**
“What the fuck do you mean you’re not coming back?” Amado paces back and forth around the bedroom, wiping his forehead again. This ceiling fan really doesn’t help with the desert heat at all.
“So what, you’re just gonna stay in Puerto Vallarta until they fucking get you?”
“Yup, and when they do, I will be looking into the ocean.” There’s no distress in Neto’s voice, as if he’s just enjoying an ordinary vacation by the sea, not living out his last few free days. Or last few days. “Ha, maybe even under the sunset.”
“Look, there has to be another way, no? What…did Miguel say anything?”
“Miguel?” Neto laughs out loudly, “Kid, get your head out of the cloud! He fucking got us into this shit!”
“No, I know! I just…” Amado runs a hand through his hair. “I thought you guys bought some time after you handed Rafa over to them.”
“Well, no amount of time will solve this.” Amado hears a woman laughing, and Neto stops talking briefly to join her. “He killed a fucking DEA. It’s over.”
“Amado, escúchame.” Neto lets out a long sigh as Amado falls silent, the seriousness in his voice matching up to this dire situation for the first time. “I know he’s your friend, but there’s nothing you can do. There’s nothing I can do.”
Amado leans back on a wall, letting the weight of these words crushing into his rib cage, squeezing his heart.
“Stay in Juárez, you hear me? Acosta is a smart guy, he’ll know what to do. You stay out of this mess.”
But what about you? Amado wants to ask, almost instinctively, but he doesn’t. There’s no need to waste time on useless questions.
“Remember when I was six or something? One day my parents brought me into the city, and I saw this little toy plane in a store.” Amado walks over to the shelf, gently brushing a small black plane model with his fingertips. “It wasn’t even that nice, pretty cheap stuff, but we still couldn’t afford it.”
It used to be white, but over the years, most of its paint has fallen off, so eventually he just repainted it completely black.
“You got it for me on my birthday, along with some other stuff.”
“Some other stuff?” Neto snorts, “I got you a new bike, you little fucker!”
“Oh right! Shit, I totally forgot!”
They burst out laughing, genuinely, effortlessly, until they stop, both catching their breathe.
“Te extraño mucho, tío.”
Neto doesn’t speak, doesn’t say it back, so Amado closes his eyes and focuses on the faint background noise of waves splashing on the rocks, and young women’s flirtatious laugh. He stays like this for a long time, until the phone disconnects from the other side.
**
Time seems to have stopped here in the mountains. The sun will still rise tomorrow, and the day after that, but it doesn’t matter to him anymore. He has a week, and then if he’s extremely lucky, maybe a lifetime on a deserted, beautiful little island where no one can find him. Time goes on, but he will simply disappear from everything he’s built. The governor’s right: it’s over.
Miguel almost jumps when the phone rings.
“Hey, man.” The other side speaks before he even says hello, but doesn’t say anything else.
“Amado.” He’s not sure if he just smiled, but it feels like he might have. He’s not expecting the call, but at the same time, it doesn’t surprise him one bit.
Amado slumps down on the couch, frustrated by the sudden loss of words when it matters the most, “I just spoke to Neto.”
“Yeah? How many women were there with the old man?”
“A dozen at least, I bet.” Amado snorts, but struggles to find real joy. “What about you? Who’s with you?”
“Guards, lots of them.” Miguel glances at the group of men carrying fancy guns, his literal defense line that he knows, deep down, ultimately serves no use. Behind them, the mountain range stretches endlessly, melting into the the clear blue sky, surrounded by soft, fluffy clouds.
“Remember those plane rides we used to take around Guadalajara?” A bird sings nearby, almost ceremonially. “You were always saying mountains looked way better than the city, from up there.”
Those little trips never took long, 30 minutes at most, as far as Miguel remembers, so they never went far enough to see the mountains, nor were they supposed to. It was a temporary distraction, an easy way for him to physically get away from everything, just for a little while, just enough to clear his mind, but not too faraway from Guadalajara that he could lose sight of it. Amado had a small plane prepared solely for this purpose. It was always completely fueled up, ready to go, so they could fly anywhere, but they never did, never wanted to.
“Yeah of course. You really liked that.” Amado liked it too, at least some parts of it. He remembers putting his right hand on Miguel’s thigh when they were 3000 feet above the ground, just to watch him freak out, or the way Miguel kissed him after that, angrily, feverishly, with more teeth than tongue, the most intoxicating punishment.
We could fly anywhere. Amado remembers himself once saying. He wasn’t sure why he said that, or how much he meant it. How much he still means it, if Miguel just asks him to. In a sense, he almost wants Miguel to ask, to order or beg him to come to the rescue, so he knows he’s been right all along, that Miguel only wants people as much as he needs them, and everything else purely exists in Amado’s delusions.
“Miguel, listen…”
“You should go see the mountains after this is all over.” He cuts Amado off and clutches his stomach, stifling a pained groan. “They really are beautiful here.”
Over. Just like what Neto said. The right question would be, what do you mean by over? But there’s no purpose in asking Miguel that, or anything else.
“Yeah, I will.” Amado stops himself, trying to hide the tiny change in his voice before he speaks again. “You take care, ok?”
“You too, Amado.”
Miguel drops the phone on the couch and quickly stands up, barely able to hold in waves of nausea. He keeps a straight face as he strides towards the end of a long corridor, where he remembers the bathroom is. But for some reason it isn’t there; there’s only a small resting area with a guard standing outside. He pushes past the guy, and quickly locks the door from inside.
Miguel hates it when this happens. His entire stomach spasms with every cough, muscles on his abdomen twitching uncontrollably. It’s like out of nowhere, his body decides to act on it own to reject a bad organ, and there’s nothing he can do about it, besides kneeling over and bearing through it.
“Sir? Are you ok?” The guard asks from outside, knocking on the door. Miguel wants to answer him but can’t, his mind almost completely blanking out as another wave of pain twists his organs.
“Hey, are you ok?” Someone gently shook his shoulder, feeling his forehead. “Miguel?”
Miguel opened his eyes to the ceiling of his hotel suite. Amado was standing in front of the couch, dressed in all black as usual, which almost makes him look like a human-shaped shadow under the dim yellow light.
“Amado…? How did you get in?”
Amado handed him a glass of water, looking just as confused. “You called me earlier, remember? They just let me in.”
Oh right, he did. He called Amado in the afternoon to talk about some issues with transportation, and then asked him to come over. But did the security just let him in without asking? Why did they do that?
“¿Estás bien?” Amado asked again, glancing at the prescription bottle on the coffee table.
“Yeah, I’m good.” Miguel slowly sat up and adjusted his wrinkled shirt. He looked at Amado, who was staring back at him with nothing but genuine concern—— but that was not what he came here for, and he should know that. There was only one reason for them to meet alone at the hotel in the evening, nothing more, nothing less. That was their unsaid agreement; it was the best way, the only way.
“Listen, you should go. I’m tired tonight.”
“What?” Amado sounded like he just got insulted. “I’m not trying to do anything.”
“I know.”
Amado looked away, clearly still wanted to say something, but ultimately decided to keep quiet for his own good, yet he also didn’t immediacy leave as he was told.
Miguel frowned and reached for the whisky glass on the table. It had been there for hours, and the ice cubes already melted long time ago, but he just needed something, anything to distract himself from this silent, stubborn hold-off, and the throbbing pain in his stomach that could come back at any second.
A strong hand grabbed the whisky glass, stopping his movement effortlessly.
“Amado.” Miguel stared up at the bigger man, ready to let him know how big of a mistake he just made, to show him he had no right to overstep on this line, no matter what he thought was going on between them.
“Alright, I’ll go.” Amado let go of the glass and put up both hands, giving him a clear victory before he even tried to fight for it, but Miguel didn’t feel like winning.
“Just thought you shouldn’t be drinking that now.” There was no threat, aggression or regret in Amado’s eyes, just frustration, and something close to…hurt.
“You should go.” Miguel repeated blandly.
“Yeah, I’m going.”
He looked down as he heard the door open, and then close, slightly louder than usual.
“Sir? Are you alright in there?”
The guards calls out again, more urgently this time, snapping Miguel back to reality.
“Yeah, I’m good.” He blinks at the thin traces of blood at the bottom of this nice porcelain sink, taking a few deep breathes to calm down his racing heartbeat, and fetches out his prescription bottle.
**
When Amado walks out to the runway construction site, Acosta gives him a long, insightful look. If that doesn’t count as concern, what he says next definitely does.
“You spoke to your uncle?”
“Yeah.” Amado tries to keeps his voice as nonchalant as possible. “Shit’s pretty fucked up, yeah?”
Acosta silently regards him for a few seconds, then proceeds to speak in his normal manner. “Benjamín just called. He’s inviting all plazas to a meeting.”
“What? So, Tijuana’s going to be in charge now or what?”
Acosta blows out a puff of smoke. “He said they could get in contact with the Colombians, ensuring our supply.”
“How? They already spoke to Cali?”
“Don’t fucking know.” Acosta shrugs, “Guess we’ll find out in the meeting.”
“Wait, you’re ok with this?”
“We’ll see what he says.” Acosta gives him another long look, then pats him on the shoulder. “Go home, Dopey. We don’t need you here today.”
“What? No it’s all good! I’m fine.”
“No one said you weren’t. Look, they all know Neto’s your uncle.” Acosta looks around at the workers, a few already peering this way at them. “I don’t need people nosing around here.”
“Oh. Yeah alright.” Amado takes off his sunglasses and wipes it with his shirt, and when he looks back up, Acosta is already walking away.
“Pablo.” He calls after him, and Acosta looks back with a chill, nonchalant expression.
Amado smiles. “Gracias.”
**
It’s nice to have a day off, but frankly, Amado doesn’t know what to do with it. He’s definitely not in the mood to hit a bar, and doesn’t want to talk to anyone either, not that he actually has someone to share these stuff with, or knows what to say, even if this person does exist. So that leaves him with drinking or sleeping, or maybe both. Both sounds nice. But either way, he needs a shower first. Amado opens the closet to get his pajamas, and as always, something in there stands out: a glimpse of white in the middle of darkness. It’s been there for a while now, and he sees it everyday, but it has never been so glaring, so insulting.
He yanks it out, a lot more roughly than necessary, and the weightless silk robe inside falls out of the box gracefully like cloud under the breeze. Amado sighs deeply. What the fuck is he doing, getting mad at a piece of cloth? He bends down to pick it up from the floor, and then, completely out of nowhere, something else falls out.
“What the…” Amado whispers to himself, grabbing the smaller, square-looking piece of silk. It must have been wrapped inside the bathrobe, and since he never actually took it out, he didn’t even know it was there.
He turns it around, revealing a series of numbers. Phone numbers. The color is a little faded, but clearly written by a black marker.
“Despite what happened, I did have a relatively pleasant evening.”
“If you ever fly to Colombia, I know a few places where people don’t shoot at you.”
“You had your chance to use it, and you just did.”
Fucking. Hell.
**
“Pablo!” Amado barges in, pushing over two very confused and curious guards.
“What the fuck are you doing back here?”
“Listen Pablo…” Amado locks the door and walks over to his desk, takes a deep breath and lowers his voice.
“What if we have our own Colombian contact?”
Pablo freezes for a brief moment, and his eyes grow wide. As far as Amado remembers, he’s never seen him like that, ever.
Then he stands up behind the desk, looking straight into Amado’s eyes, firm and demanding.
“Who?”
“A Cali Godfather.”
@ashlingnarcos @yourlocalspacewitxch @mandaloria314 @cositapreciosa @criatividad-e @cherixrosa @acrossthesestars @narcolini @carlislecullenisadilf @cigarettesaftersunset @kesskirata
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burgerpocalypse · 3 years ago
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I've been trying to run through some free games I got from the Epic game store, specifically Grand Theft Auto V, Creature in the Well, and most recently Night in the Woods. I quit GTAV about 60% of the way because it sucked, and I can't beat the last area of Creature, so that leaves me to talk a little about NitW and the emotional turmoil it gave me.
Upfront, I'm not interested in games with heavy emphasis on story, least of all visual novels or whatever you want to call this game. However, I've heard mostly positive things about Night in the Woods here and there for the better part of the previous decade. That and the fact I got it for $0 convinced me to finally try it out.
Night in the Woods is an adventure focused on exploration and character drama. Mae Borowski, the protagonist, is a college dropout that just moved back to her Rust Belt hometown for mysterious reasons, and becomes entangled in suspicious happenings. The player will traverse the aged suburban sprawl and rural outskirts of Possum Springs, conversing with family, friends, strangers, and everyone else, uncovering secrets and opening wounds along the way.
Seeing as how Night in the Woods is primarily a story, I'll mostly be discussing that, so look out for spoilers, yo.
After spending two years away, Mae attempts to reconnect with her previously closest friends Bea (an idealist goth whomst had considerable familial and financial responsibility thrust upon her at a young age), Gregg (an anarchist punk with bipolar tendencies), and Angus (an incredibly nice man). Mae pushes the story forward by hanging out with Bea and Gregg, and sometimes Angus. This will often involve going to social outings, running errands, committing crimes, and so on.
Other than her friends, Mae will also have opportunities to interact with her parents, various citizens, and vagrants. whom provide flavor and history to the world while also bringing some of Mae's muddled past to light. The player will traverse environments through walking and jumping around, with the occasional platforming feat required to progress or access certain areas. Occasionally, you'll be presented with small minigames, like a Guitar Hero-clone or red light/green light shoplifting, and a game-within-a-game dungeon crawler that pissed me off to no end. While most activities in the town are benign, certain important events will move the day along and lock you out of further exploration.
Early on, Mae's group stumbles upon a discarded arm and some cryptic dialogue from a few characters. After each day, Mae experiences strange dream sequences that involve platforming segments and surreal representations of her friends and the town. Several hours of gameplay later, Mae witnesses a kidnapping on Halloween by what appears to be a ghost.
In the midst of all this, Mae hangs out with her friends and discovers what they've been up to in her absence. Bea runs the family business for her father, who broke down after her mom died, putting them in dire financial straits and preventing Bea from leaving Possum Springs; she bears resentment towards Mae, since she dropped out of college and came home for no apparent reason while also not maturing at all. Gregg is aimless, sporadic, and uninhibited, while his boyfriend Angus is neat, tidy, and overly helpful. Their relationship appears strong, and they are planning to move to a new city together, though Bea is convinced it won't last.
Mae does her best to strengthen bonds while suffering from a variety of stressors, like her family's money troubles, her self-destructive tendencies and dissociative episodes, and ominous celestial beings invading her mind. This sometimes leads to inadvertent and painful social situations, especially with Bea.
Mae attempts to investigate the supposedly supernatural happenings with the help of Bea, Gregg, and Angus, while her mental health steadily declines. Eventually, the group travels deep into the woods (at night) and stumble into a cult, after which Mae suffers a great fall and enters a coma. After waking up, Mae then attempts to confront the cult head-on, though her friends arrive to help. They enter a cave, find the cult again, discover the eldritch horror they serve and explore her personal connection to it, accidentally cause a cave-in and trap the cultists, escape the cave, and try to make sense of what happened after the fact.
Now, don't get me wrong. I rather enjoyed Night in the Wood's story. I really liked all the characters. I loved the dialogue. Even the platforming and various minigames were fine, if simplistic and occasionally annoying. The structure of this paragraph seems as though it's leading towards a big 'but'. I just wanted to say that I really liked the game, even though I don't generally enjoy video game stories, and especially not video games primarily about a story. Though I'm not from a run-down midwestern town, and obviously don't have the same sort of personal relationships she does, Mae's emotional strife and insecurities really resonated with me. Her personal thoughts and reactions often made me just stop and think about the many mistakes I've made with the people I care about and all the relationships I've ruined.
However, if the plot wanted to spend so much time on Mae and her friends, it should have been about Mae and her friends. Conversely, if it wanted to be about a spooky cult in a small town, it should have spent much more time on a spooky cult in a small town. The plot is torn between two diametrically opposed focuses, those being Mae's struggles to maintain relationships and her dealing with suspicious supernatural occurrences in Possum Springs. So much time passes before anything really happens with the cult and cosmic horror that I feel some people might even forget there is a cult and cosmic horror, and Mae isn't just experiencing a psychotic break for no reason.
In the end, the cult goes unresolved, and it's unclear what the relationship is with the residents of Possum Springs, or what its powers even are. I don't need the game to explain every aspect in detail, but no one appears to be affected by the existence of the cult and its god other than Mae. My brain was going into overdrive looking for clues, making patterns, identifying red herrings, anything that might help me understand the mystery, when in reality there was no mystery to understand.
There is also a severe lack of actual choice or decision making in terms of dialogue, and a distinct absence of any real challenge in gameplay. I definitely felt that this story could have been more efficiently told if it were in a book, usually after spending a few minutes walking around trying to find something important and
It doesn't help that I sometimes accidentally skipped certain segments, since it's not always explicitly clear if an action will push the day forward and lock me in. I even completely missed a third of the investigations since I chose to check out the historical society building with Gregg second when the game expected me to do it last. This sort of problem led to me giving up completely on other story-focus games like Kentucky Route Zero since I constantly skipped and missed chunks of stuff or did things out of the intended order and ruined the flow of events.
Now this has obviously gotten a little too long, so I'll just wrap it up by saying that Night in the Woods is great and I recommend it. It made me feel feelings, deep feelings, like I was moments away from crying on more than one occasion.
Thanks for reading. I have a lot on my mind because of this game, so I hope it was worth your time.
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lollytea · 3 years ago
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Hi! I love you Shageera fic! The fandom is so small and your fic is so good, I can't thank you enough! And I wanted to ask you, do you have any headcanon about their relationship outside of Talespin? In the original Jungle Book "canon" or some other AU? I'd love to hear them if you do have them, your takes are gold!
Hi! Thank you so much!!
Hmmm. All the versions of shagheera in my head follows the same basic story structure of “friends as kids, grow apart as they get older, reconnect as adults” EXCEPT for the jungle book/canon universe, where the first two DO apply to them (thank you jungle cubs for making that canon, idk where I’d be without jungle cubs canon.) but they continue to keep their distance from each other once they’re grown. I mean Khan tried to kill Bagheera’s kid AND his bear husband. I don’t think they ever can bounce back from that one. They got bad blood and they probably always will.
Unless….just kidding…..unless….
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I think about the plot of this cancelled third jungle book movie very often. Yeah it would’ve been bad but….but….but adult Khan and Bagheera might have interacted. Also I wanna know how the fuck a shere khan redemption arc is written. Not very well probably but I still wanna see it. I think Disney should send me the script to this film. As a gift. I think I deserve it. It’s not like they want it. Hand it over, lads.
ANYWAY
Besides the talespin universe, I’ve got like two shagheera AUs
Treasure Planet AU — Bagheera is a scholar and astronomer who comes aboard Captain Shere Khan’s ship. The two know recognize each other as the childhood friend they used to play pirates with. So, rather ironic circumstances they’ve found themselves in. Neither know how to react to reuniting so they’re pretty awkward about it and refuse to acknowledge that they were ever close. They mostly interact with the distant politeness of people who barely know each other and strictly refer to the other Captain/Doctor (unless circumstances are dire) But they’re gonna be stuck on this ship together for the next few weeks so they better figure out what the fuck their relationship is.
Bagheera is deeply out of his element. He’s intimidated by the crew and he doesn’t know how to handle a weapon so he considers himself rather useless on this expedition. He’s never even held a pistol before and now he’s expected to know how to shoot one. He’s so frazzled that he nearly (accidentally) shoots Khan dead at one point. But he wouldn’t be Bagheera if he wasn’t stubbornly insisting that he knows what he’s doing, especially when the captain shoots some sardonic comment his way. The two get into more squabbles than he cane keep track of.
Shere Khan is exasperated with the doctor, with the boy he brought aboard, with the entire idiot crew he hired, but especially with the doctor. He attempts to keep himself composed but he keeps stooping to the most childish arguments and he feels like the presence of Bagheera is forcibly dragging him back 25 years every time they interact. Shere Khan does not know how to feel about that.
Shere Khan finds himself having to acknowledge that Bagheera is brilliant. Due to the doctor’s calculations, the ship avoided the waves of impact during a difficult path through a black hole and he’s the reason they got out alive. He never felt all that much admiration for the little brainiac when they were children but now he is absolutely blowing him away.
Bagheera starts spending more time in Shere Khan’s office because it’s the only place he feels comfortable. (The crew really creeps him out.) and they do everything from argue to discuss alternate routes to pour over the map. This evolves to Shere Khan teaching Bagheera what he knows about wielding a sword and they have many homoerotic sparring sessions. Sometimes they’ll lay out in the escape boats and Bagheera will teach Khan the names of all his favourite constellations. They have many homoerotic star gazing sessions. BASICALLY they have a gay space pirate love story but it’s behind the scenes stuff cuz Kit is the protagonist of this au and he doesn’t give a fuck what Shere Khan and Bagheera are doing.
They are forced to acknowledge that they care about each other when the stakes get more dangerous and both have their near death experiences, rattling the other considerably. At the very least they start calling each other by their first names again ❤️
Fairytale/ Dragon Princess AU — OKAY i don’t think I’ve ever publicly posted about this au so I won’t unpack all of it cuz I know y’all aren’t familiar with it. It’s mostly focused on Baloo/Rebecca and the bear family as a whole but Shagheera is involved too so I’ll focus on that part for now.
So basically Shere Khan was a kid prince and Bagheera was the son of a servant so, as the only two children in the castle, they’ve been playmates since before they could walk.
The only other children they interacted with were Bagheera’s friends (Baloo, Louie etc.) and Shere Khan’s wife-to-be, Princess Rebecca. Their parents arranged the engagement and neither Khan or Rebecca were thrilled about it. As they grow older, Bagheera leaves the palace to make his own way and he and Khan don’t keep in touch.
By the time they were young adults, mysterious circumstances paused Shere Khan and Rebecca’s upcoming marriage when word spread around that the princess had been horribly cursed and locked away in a tower. Details were sparse, even to her fiancé. All that was known was that she had last been seen talking with a man who had a reputation for being a dark mage and it can be deduced that he was the one behind the curse.
But before she disappeared, Rebecca sent Khan a letter begging him to please not retrieve her from the tower, warning him that whoever ventured out to save her would not make it back alive. Khan obliged of course, both because he respected her wishes and if she returned, he would have to marry her.
As a king, Shere Khan had excellent publicity. He was charming and charismatic in public, masking the fact that he was an absolute bitch in private. He was also obliged to act like he cared about his fiancée being returned to his side so every now and then he allowed whatever arrogant glory seeking fool who offered, to go “save” her. None of them lived.
Years later, Khan drops into an ancient, desolate library on the outskirts of town, hoping to find a particular book on plants. It’s after midnight, so he doesn’t have to deal with the scandal of the king being out and about. And who does he find between the shelves, bathed in the dim glow of oil lamps, but Bagheera, snoring on the floor in a pile of open books.
This begins a tentative acquaintanceship in which Khan escapes to the library every now and again for a change of scenery and to meet with Bagheera, who lives on the floor above.
It doesn’t take long for Shere Khan to learn Bagheera’s reputation. As it turns out, the passionate yet introverted scholar with books on the brain, is allegedly the “dark mage” that put a curse on Rebecca all those years ago. This would explain why his library is always empty. Everyone in town is petrified of him.
Rather than turn to anger or fear, Shere Khan can only feel disbelief and intrigue because whatever rumors are going around are clearly fabricated. He challenges Bagheera to perform some evil little spell for him, summon hellbeasts if he must. But Bagheera falters and it is revealed that underneath that reputation is a bit of a sham. Bagheera has been trying for years to become an adept mage but he just can’t get the hang of it. His spell-work is terrible. Always has been.
“Well surely you can’t have cursed the princess then?” Shere Khan reasons. But that’s not exactly true. Yes, Bagheera was not behind the original curse but when Rebecca came to him for help, he accidentally made it so so much worse. Bagheera is the reason shes been forced to hide herself away in a tower and he’s been spending all these years attempting to improve his magic so he can finally undo what he’s done.
And so Fairytale/Dragon Princess AU is a fantasy love story where Shere Khan attempts to help Bagheera effectively channel his magic. The fun part about it is magic is intricately tied to a persons emotional state so when you’re having homoerotic little scenes with your childhood buddy and he touches your forearm, you nearly set the whole goddamn library ablaze. Real gay shit.
I have run out of steam and cannot ramble anymore. Hope I have pleased you.
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cherry-gemz · 3 years ago
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Summary: This is a continuation of the movie Before We Go and my interpretation and imagination of an A/U. Brooke is you (Y/N) and Nick is still Nick :)
Prompt: "Just admit that I'm right." for @the-ce-horniest-book-club Drunk Drabbles for Nick Vaughan.
Pairings: Nick Vaughan x Y/N
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: <2k...is this a drabble still? Oopsies XD
A/N: I watched this movie for the first time just last week. It's now one of my top 3 Cevans movies! While I'm all for a romantic, serendipitous, spontaneous trope...much like Before Sunrise *no spoilers*, the ending was great, but I wanted a different spin. No pressure...yah, right! Either way, hope you enjoy xx.
Tags: @thesecretlifeofdaydreamss @tonystankschild @a-little-counter-esperanto
****************************************************************
You sniff and rub the end of your coat sleeve with your nose. Had to be the chill in the air, you thought. Not the fact that you just spent the most amazing and life changing night with a man you just met hours before and it was ending.
You stare out the train’s window; the gentle hum of the cart gliding across the steel tracks echoed in your thoughts. You shook your head in thinking that you made a mistake. I should have stayed...I should have told him how I felt…
“Nick. It's you again. Listen. I want to give you one more piece of advice. You're gonna be playing one night... Grand Central... thinking of every reason in the world to not go see the girl that broke your heart. Then, you're gonna meet somebody. And now, at first, she's gonna seem… icy. You're gonna know right away she's trouble. She's gonna take all your money. You're probably gonna get punched in the face. But stay with her; you're gonna need her a lot more than she needs you. And at the end of the night, you're gonna want to say some things, but don't. Don't ruin it. It's nothing she doesn't already know. Just give her a kiss. Wish her good luck. And thank her. Thank her for showing you that you can love more than one person in this life.”
He was unbelievably charming. You said so yourself. His raw talent with the trumpet was beautiful and different from what you were used to. The suburbia of the Boston bubble was what you were forced to live in now. You were from London, you were cultured and refined. Sure things with Michael were exciting at first, but the ho hum of the daily diatribe of routine became loathsome. Dépaysement. But you still never wavered in your marriage. Unlike Michael who had crossed that sacred line and lost your trust. It wasn't even fully the physical aspect that he went to another woman. It was the intimacy of telling her his deepest desires and then some that hurt the most. That he would want to share that with anyone else but you. But tonight. Tonight was what made you see clearly.
"It's possible, isn't it? It's possible that you could meet somebody who's perfect for you even though you're committed to somebody else," you asked as you bit your lip.
"No, no, see, I think if you're committed to somebody, you don't allow yourself to find perfection in someone else."
You found yourself blushing and cupping your cheek in thoughts of Nick. He was right. The whole night was a cluster mess of you trying to get home before Michael so you'd be able to throw away that wretched note. That he'd come to his senses and forget Linny. That he'd realized he was a fool and you'd start over. Just like old times.
However, slowly that feeling of reconciliation faded away little by little as each hour in the city passed. You couldn't pinpoint it exactly, but somehow the scrappy trumpet player Nick Vaughan etched his way into your icy heart and left an impression and stayed.
His fluffy, dark hair - so soft and inviting for you to rake your fingers through it was enough to drive you mad. His scruffy beard, which tickled when you kissed. You already loved ghosting your palms over it softly and imagined being able to do it whenever you wished. He said earlier into the night you weren't his type; you scoffed, but we're annoyed that it bothered you. You were a classic model of what guys were into, looks wise. Sure, your attitude was what rubbed some people the wrong way, but Americans really were too sensitive.
He however...he was the full package. Every toothy grin, wink, and full hearty laugh. He was addicting. He was a dead ringer for a heartthrob, but you also couldn't hate the guy for it. He was the friend you'd call to bail you out of jail at 4am and the boyfriend that you could see settling down with. It was nauseating really.
And then his lips. His soft lips...you can’t believe you kissed him in the hotel room. And then again at the train station. But you would have kicked yourself for not doing so in the first place. The way your fingers interlaced themselves on his terry cloth robe, how desperately you wanted to press your body against his. All you wanted was for him to feel that burning need within the apex between your thighs and extinguish it all night. But it was more than that, he was what you were missing. But you were kidding yourself. You weren’t running to Michael, you were running away from Nick.
But why? Because of the unknown? Because he actually knew who you were deep down inside? How could a man you barely knew, change you? Change what you thought was true, what you thought was love?
You dove your hand into your wool jacket’s pockets to push any thoughts of self-doubt, when you realize there was a piece of cardstock. You were puzzled to find it and immediately smiled in recognizing the hotel survey card. You bit your lip as you read down the survey questions one by one and notice Nick’s handwriting at the bottom, ‘turn over’ with an arrow.
Curious you turn over the hotel card and he’s written the word ‘yes’. Yes? You furrow your brow and contemplate further what he would be saying yes to. You think about the night - the time at the bar, helping him with Hannah, when you went to the psychic reading. Yes? What in the world - and then you turn the card back over and realize that on the second to last question it asked “Will you be likely to return?”
None of the boxes are checked, but he’d written ‘yes’ on the back. Yes. Yes he’ll return? Where? To the hotel? But when? You look up and rush to think about stopping the train dead in its tracks to return back to Grand Station. You breathe out heavily and come to terms that this isn’t a movie. He’s not chasing you down the tracks, jumping on the train to find you. Or is he? You wouldn’t put it past him. The whole night was filled with serendipitous concourses, this would be icing on the cake. You dart your head around to see if he’s in the cable car. It’s like in every rom com movie ending, the man of your dreams will be right there. He’s somehow charmed his way into boarding the train and found you waiting like a princess in her high tower. The train car is dark and bleak, only a few passengers are riding it as it’s the first route to Boston on a Sunday. You peer over to see if he’s in the next cart, but alas he is not. You slump in your seat and rub your thumb methodically over his words.
"Have you ever had a feeling that somebody was going to play a major part in your life?” you ask.
“Yeah."
“Do you know the most interesting thing about hotel art? It's what's on the back.”
It’s then you realize you have to return to New York. This story wasn’t about you and Michael anymore. No, it was about the man who selflessly helped you while you were in need, not only at your dire hour, but metaphorically as well. This was meant to be. You were meant to miss your train, break your phone, and meet the handsome man named Nick Vaughn. You knew he’d still be in the city because of his audition for the day with Duke at least, if you could just get to him somehow...
*
Your knees bounced as you sat on a cushioned chair in the hotel lobby. You had planned to wait there all day, but then realized the $13 train ticket was your only way of providing you security back home. So you went home. Confronted Michael. Cursed, cried, and then relief rushed over you as he had read your letter and how you knew about the affair. How you wanted to throw fists on his chest and tell him how much you hated him. But once you saw him, you found it didn't matter to you anymore. Someone else was worth fighting for. Your marriage was over. The hatred and spite you once had for your husband had dissipated. Your world didn't end like you thought it would. This wasn't your only chance at love. You were choosing to be happy, whether it was with Nick or not. This was the first time you were going to jump without having a net.
And Nick was wrong. Michael didn't want to work things out, he was coming to tell you that he loved you, but that and he'd be returning to Atlanta for good. The house, car, everything was yours: Nick said so himself, you gotta be okay with not being okay. So you walked away. You made the choice just like the psychic said and took it in stride, you faced the music.
However now you found yourself back in New York. Not the once stranded woman at a crossroads less than 24 hours before, but the woman that made a choice. You were worried that Nick would see it as you running away again. Running away because Michael didn't choose you. But in reality you didn't choose each other.
Still without an ID, you took your car and better against the four hour drive to the city and hoped a cop wouldn't pull you over. You thought of the night in the hotel. The laughs, the closeness you two encountered. The playful and cheeky way he could make you feel seen. You were starting to get nervous, what if he doesn't show up? What if I missed my chance?
"I'm an idiot," you murmur to yourself. "I can't believe I'm here."
You stand up and realize there Nick was there in your path. He looked a little worn, obviously from staying up all night. But he had changed and showered from the looks of it, and his signature trumpet case held in his hand.
"Well look who it is. The biggest loser in New York."
You laughed and blushed at the sight of him. He slung his trumpet case over his broad shoulder and walked over to close the gap.
“Just admit that I’m right.”
"Admit what?" You ask as you find yourself touching his jacket sleeve.
"Admit that you couldn't get enough of me." You hitched a breath from his words.
"You can say that."
"I can't believe you came back," he responded. His blue eyes gazed into yours as he brushed away a tendril of hair from your face.
"I read your answer to the survey...on the back."
"The stay did exceed my expectations and I did say I would return," he smiles.
"And here you are."
"Here I am…" he pulls away slightly as he's reminded that you're married.
"I jumped," you replied.
He's taken back by your statement and furrows his brow.
"What? With what?"
"I told Michael it was over."
"Wow. I'm so...sorry, Y/N."
"Don't be. You said so yourself, at some point it was time to face the music."
He nodded, absorbing the information.
"Say what's in your head."
He shook his head and grinned,"I'm just glad you came back is all."
"Yeah? How'd you know?"
"I didn't. Just sure as hell hoped you would."
He intertwines your fingers with his and holds tight. Like a missing puzzle piece found, your hand fits perfectly with his.
"Whaddya say we get out of here?"
"What do you have in mind?"
"I may know a place," he smiles devilishly and gives your knuckles a kiss.
You grab his dress shirt collar and turn him towards you. He runs his hands through your hair and places his lips upon yours, kissing you deeply. It's a kiss so passionate, so perfect - that after you part, neither open your eyes for a few moments afterwards and he embraces you tightly.
"Good, because I'm not going anywhere."
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bettertomorrows-ao3 · 4 years ago
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Are You My Mother?
Ellie is frantic. Dina is amused. JJ has some questions.
JJ stays still in Ellie’s arms and his teeny voice is muffled when he says, “Max said you’re not my real mom so we’re not a real family and that you only fake love me.”
Tags: Post-Game, Family Fluff Rating: Teen for language
EllieDina Week // Day 4 // FAMILY
---
It’s almost sundown when Ellie gets a visitor at work.
Her office is a medium-sized shack located near the stables of the main gate, a perfect place to house all the paperwork she needs in order to facilitate her new role as the patrol manager. Ellie had originally argued with Maria that the chore didn’t even exist, that it seemed like a feeble arrangement to give her a task somewhat similar to what she was used to just so she could still feel useful around town.
Maria admitted to some truth to Ellie’s point, but she also insisted that she would love for Ellie to start learning to ropes of leading the town. There was a buried emphasis in her request that suggested Maria only trusted Ellie to be the one to succeed her role in the future. That Ellie was already deeply embedded in the tangled mess of a family the Miller brothers left them with—and implication was what led Ellie to accept the job on the spot.
Managing patrol rotations is not the laid-back kind of job Ellie thought it would be.
It’s far more stressful than what Maria initially described it would be, but it’s a task that keeps her on her toes on a daily basis. It was hard to believe it at first, but rescheduling patrol rotations sometimes felt like hugging an exploding bloater. Not to mention how balancing patrollers with the right partners oftentimes resembled the act of gathering sheep into a barn. One wrong move, and a stray could lead the pack in the wrong direction.
Jackson’s townsfolk always knew she would have the job in the future, anyway. There was a tacit understanding that regardless of the complications of their familial relations, Maria’s niece would one day take over the duty of leading Jackson. It was never a question of whether it would ever happen, but more of when Ellie would feel comfortable to take on these responsibilities.
It came as a surprise to those who personally knew her—that Ellie would start making her way up before she was even in her thirties. Most of them thought they would have to wrench a 100-year-old Ellie away from patrolling duties, so to have her willingly take a job inside Jackson’s walls was a bit unnerving.
The desk job isn’t as exciting, but it’s definitely enough work to keep her busy throughout the week. Her favourite part of the job was toward the end of the day. When her last task was to wait for the afternoon patrols to come back home, and she spent the time quietly drafting ways to adjust routes for possible expansions to the town. Nothing felt better than to wrap up a workday with a glint of hope for a better future for her son.
Ellie is knee deep in concentration, head down studying a map and ready to sketch out a new patrol route when a knock on the door breaks her focus. It’s Andres, Dina’s new apprentice at the electric shop, a gangly young man whose family recently moved to Jackson. His presence immediately makes Ellie panic. They’ve only met three times since Dina hired him, and their interactions have been cordial at best. So, what else could warrant his appearance at her office at the end of the day if it weren’t for something urgent?
“Hey, uh… Ellie. A-are you busy?” he croaks out, Ellie can tell he’s nervous, but what for she’s not sure yet.
“Andres, right?” she asks hoping to calm his nerves even though she knows exactly who he is, “what’s up?”
“D-dina sent me t-to tell you to please… go to her house as soon as pos-possible once you’re finished with work,” Andres stutters out, making Ellie all the more concerned.
Ellie stands up from her desk and promptly grabs her coat from the chair, “did something happen? Is she hurt? Is JJ okay?”
She tries to calm herself enough to hear a response from him. Whatever it was must have not been too terrible, because if something dire had indeed happened to her family, there is no way Maria would have sent this semi-stranger to send the news.
“Oh! I don’t—um…” the young man stutters and brings a hand up to rub the back of his neck, “she didn’t say. I’m just a messenger.”
With her jacket half worn on her back, Ellie looks down to the scattered papers on the desk and then to the clock on the wall. She only had 30 minutes left before the last patrol shift returned and reported back to her. Ellie was not one to ever leave her post early, but she was unfortunately not immune to whatever nervous energy Andres passed on to her.
The whole situation was terrifyingly curious, and she had to get to her family to find out what was happening. Ellie scribbles a note on a torn piece of paper, neatly folds it, and hands it to noticeably anxious Andres.
“Since you’re a messenger and all… can you quickly send this to Maria for me, please?”
**
Ellie tries not to sprint to Dina’s house. She doesn’t want to alarm anybody in town, so she ends up speed walking instead. In hindsight, sprinting would have probably looked way less ridiculous than the quick shimmy her hips do when she makes herself walk fast.
The thought comes too late. Dina’s house is already in view when she decides to run the rest of the way.
Ellie pauses on the porch to catch her breath. She knocks on the door twice before she curses to herself. Why is she knocking when she has a key to the door? Ellie digs in her pockets for the familiar shape of the metal when the door swings wide open.
“Did you forget your key again?”
Ellie looks up and releases a breath she didn’t know she was holding. Dina is leaning on the door frame with a smirk on her face. She looks perfect as ever and all Ellie can’t stop herself from hugging her right away. Relief floods her senses when she feels Dina reciprocate, her arms wrapping tightly around Ellie’s waist.
“Are you fine? Like, you’re not hurt?” Ellie whispers into her ear.
“Yes? Is this a trick question? Why?” Dina is puzzled by Ellie’s panic-stricken face and leads them into the house.
“Andres said I had to come home, and he was all nervous and twitchy, so I freaked out and kind of ran here,” Ellie admits before adding, “wait, what about JJ? Is he safe too?”
Dina eyes Ellie as if gauging to see if she was being pranked. When she realizes that Ellie was serious, she laughs and gives Ellie a quick peck on the lips.
“JJ’s upstairs doing homework, but babe, you do know Andres has a speech impediment, right? Like, it’s a medical condition, it doesn’t mean he’s actually nervous,” Dina chuckles when Ellie finally realizes that there was actually nothing to worry about.
“A speech impediment? You mean to say I got nervous for nothing?” Ellie takes a step back to shrug her jacket off her shoulders.
“Mhm,” Dina agrees, and takes Ellie’s jacket to hang on the coat rack by the door.
“So, what was so urgent you sent you lackey out to fetch me?” Ellie tilts her head to the side, still so apparently confused by everything.
“Well… your son—” Dina starts but Ellie interrupts her.
“Oh no. What did he do?”
Dina points up to the stairs, “your son picked a fight at school today.”
Ellie’s eyes bulge out in amazement, “Potato picked a fight? But… he’s only five years old!”
“That’s what I thought!” Dina shrugs, “but then I remembered who his parents are and then I realized that the apple really didn’t fall far from the tree.”
“Holy fuck, you didn’t not just say that,” Ellie laughs.
“I literally just sounded like my mother,” Dina groans.
“Seriously, though,” Ellie asks, treading carefully but not without a smirk on her lips, “why did he get in a fight in the first place? Because questionable parents aside, he’s practically an angel!”
Dina sighs and leans forward letting Ellie hold her once again, “he said he doesn’t want to talk about it. Only that he wants to ask you something important.”
Ellie glances up toward the stairs wondering what their son could possibly want to ask her. She wonders what kind of demon would have likely possessed their sweet little spud to attack another student at school. The worst part is not even knowing how to explain to their son about not resorting to violence when the world they lived in required such actions to survive.
Despite the severity of the situation, Ellie couldn’t help but to joke, “if he wants to learn how to punch better, he’s asking for the wrong mom.”
The comment earns Ellie a light jab to the chest from Dina.
“Oof. Way to prove my point, babe.” Ellie shakes her head and grabs Dina’s hand to lead them upstairs to JJ’s room.
They share a look understanding that whatever JJ wanted to talk to Ellie about, they all had to do it as a family.
**
Ellie enters JJ’s room first. They find him slumped and sitting cross-legged on his big boy bed. Ollie is on his lap, and they seemed to have interrupted a silent conversation between JJ and his beloved toy. Ellie slowly makes her way to sit on the edge of the bed leaving Dina behind to lean on the doorframe. Their family was complete, but they still wished to respect JJ’s request to only talk to Ellie.
“Hey, bud. I heard what happened at school today. Wanna tell me about it?”
JJ sinks further into his bed and fiddles with Ollie in his hands. He hesitantly looks up and whispers, “do you love me?”
The question baffles Ellie and feels her heart breaking at sound of doubt in her son’s voice. She is more than a little concerned that her son somehow thinks there is a universe in which she could possibly stop loving him. She immediately scoots closer to him and wraps him tightly in her arms.
“Of course, I do, Spud. What makes you think I don’t?” Ellie eyes Dina by the door making a speechless plea for some comfort on her part. Dina only nods her head, assuring her that she is doing all right.
JJ stays still in Ellie’s arms and his teeny voice is muffled when he says, “Max said you’re not my real mom so we’re not a real family and that you only fake love me.”
“What? Who the fuck is Max?” Ellie growls making JJ flinch under her grasp.
Ellie has a sudden urge to hunt down this Max to teach a lesson about not meddling in other people’s business. Dina loudly clears her throat as if to remind Ellie that she is veering off track. Ellie has to remind herself that children can be unconsciously callous and that whoever this kid was probably didn’t mean any harm, and most likely doesn’t know any better.
“Are you angry with me?” JJ asks her and slithers out of her arms.
Ellie is reluctant to let him go and only does when Dina approaches them to sit next to her.
“Mom is not angry with you, Tater,” Dina speaks up, “she has her thinking face on.”
JJ pokes Ellie on the cheek as testing to see if his mom would notice. Ellie fails to hide the smile that emerges on her face. She kisses JJ on the head and comes up with a way to explain the dynamics of their family to a five-year-old.
“Do you remember the book I read to you the other night about the lost bird asking the dog if she’s his mother?” he nods and she continues, “well, our family is kind of like that. You have momma, and you have me. And just because we don’t look alike, it doesn’t mean that I’m any less your mom than momma is to you. Do you understand?”
The truth is that the allusion to the old story isn’t quite fitting to their situation, but Ellie hopes that it is basic enough for their little boy to understand the way their family works.
“You’re the dog and me and momma are birds, and you love us anyway?” he asks so innocently she and Dina can’t help but to laugh.
“I love you always no matter what other people say, Spud,” Ellie reassures him, and she is relieved to see him accepting her explanation, “we’re our own little family and I will always be your mom, even when you don’t see me.”
“What about momma? Do you love momma too?”
Dina tilts her head at Ellie, mimicking the hopeful look in their son’s eyes.
“Your momma owns my heart, Tater.”
Ellie feels Dina’s hand grasp one of hers, their fingers intertwined. JJ sees the contact, jumps on them, and nuzzles his little head in between theirs. The moment was so tender they almost forgot what had started the discussion in the first place.
Until JJ spoke again, “if we’re always a family, how come you don’t live with us?”
And damn, their son really did have some hard-hitting questions that night.
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gumnut-logic · 4 years ago
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Mosaic Beach
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It has taken me since Thursday morning (it is now Saturday night) to write this goes-nowhere-piece-of-fluff. I had a low level migraine Wednesday night and felt awful Thursday morning, so the first 850 odd words are me visualising being in a better place other than outside my daughter’s school. Then Scott had something to say and promptly ate my fic. But then at least he was thinking about Virgil.
Also, Gordon is evil.
As always, many thanks to @tsarinatorment​ @scribbles97​ and @janetm74​ for the read throughs and support. You guys are amazing to me :D
I hope you enjoy this totally lazy fic ::hugs you all::
-o-o-o-
It was a lazy day.
Virgil suspected John, who had been kicked off Five the day before, had Eos routing all but the most dire situations to local authorities whether Scott authorised it or not.
There were days where Virgil wondered if Scott was really in charge, since John had so much ultimate say.
But that thought was for another day. He was tired and it was likely going to be a day off - please let it be a day off - and he was going to find a corner of the Island to sit alone and scribble in his sketchbook.
He ended up on Mosaic Beach, a personal favourite on the edge of the caldera. Gordon had mentioned it the day before regarding the quality of flotsam available after the last storm and Virgil thought he would see what he could find.
It was overshadowed by an ancient pokey tree brilliant in red blossom and the sand here was a mass of black and white swirls as the coral detritus fought the eroded igneous rocks – the reason they had given it its name. Gordon was right - there was all sorts of things tossed up the sand and Virgil spent the first half hour wandering along the strip of sea wrack picking up shells and whatever caught his eye.
One of the shells appeared determined to return to the ocean and it was with a small smile that he picked up the tiny hermit crab and watched it curl up into its shell.
Holding it gently in his palm, he sought the shade of the giant tree and sat down on the sand in its shadow. Here the breeze was gentle, the sand cool and, leaning back against a rock, he set the little crab down on a smooth patch of sand, along with his small hoard of shells and let it scamper across the little landscape that resulted.
Sketchbook out, he spent the next few minutes sketching the crab madly as it moved about. It shifted angle at random and he found himself increasingly switching from real life to a character sketch. A little personality sprouted from the page that reflected the little crab’s determination.
Ever aware of the crab’s needs above his own, he sketched fast, took a few photos and then gathered the little creature in his hands once more. He trotted down to the rock pools at the edge of the beach and found a spot he felt the crab would be happy.
Crouching down, he watched it scamper into the water.
His lips curved into a smile.
Gordon would know what species it was, where it lived and how to best care for it. Virgil was pretty sure he knew what type it was. Mel was pedantic about crabs and had given them a list of ‘these are endangered, tell me if you see them, kill one and I will kill you’. Fortunately or unfortunately, it wasn’t a long list, so Virgil had memorised it. This little guy...he should be happy here.
The crab found some weed and promptly hid under it.
The rockpool drew Virgil’s eye a little longer before he finally stood up and let the breeze cool his face. A sigh at the sun’s warmth and he wandered back to the shadow of the pokey tree and sat down again.
The little crab stared up at him from his sketchbook, spritely and determined.
Kind of like Gordon really, despite the claws.
That prompted a smile at the thought of his fish brother’s reaction to being compared to a crab.
He would squawk, but he would love it.
Virgil returned to sketching the shells and bits of coral he had collected. Rearranging them, repositioning for lighting. He picked one up and stared at the colours created by a little mollusc. He was ever amazed at what Mother Nature was capable of. Simple geometrics and chemical formulae made one of the world’s strongest and most beautiful substances in nacre. Another broken shell showed the rainbow of colour that he knew his paintbrush would never quite be able to capture, much less the pencil and stick of carbon he had with him today. He was left with a little snapshot from his phone...which was never quite the same either...and what his memory could provide.
Perhaps it was nature’s way of ensuring it was always the most beautiful.
He shifted to scribbling down the beachscape after that. It wasn’t the first time he had drawn this beach, but as with all beaches, it was different every day as the tide sculpted it.
His fingers grew more and more lazy, his lines wandering through more emotion than reality as the day drifted on. At some point, he ate the sandwich he had packed, quite happy to not care what time of day it was and refusing to look at his watch.
Eventually the sketchbook was set aside and he let himself just stare out at the ocean lagoon, eyes tracking the movement of the distant waves and the laps of the ripples against the shore.
And nature’s rhythms lulled him to sleep.
-o-o-o-
“Hey, big bro, you might want to drop by Mosaic Beach before the tide comes in.” Gordon waltzed past the desk Scott was sitting at with a smirk on his face.
“What?” Scott’s brain was still stuck in working out what the hell Simmonds meant by the ‘urgent memo’ that had interrupted his afternoon off.
“The snoring is scaring away all the wildlife.” With that Gordon grabbed a book off the shelf on the far side of the room and backtracked out the way he had come in...without another word.
Scott was left staring where his brother had been.
But then Gordon was worth ignoring some times.
He turned back to his display and continued to try and work out why Simmonds had ordered sixty plastic flamingoes and then memo’d him about it in a panic.
It took him a good few minutes more before throwing it back at Simmonds’ supervisor in Japan with a ‘concerned’ note.
What did Tracy Industries need with sixty plastic flamingoes?
He shook his head and forced himself to stand up and not invest any more in any comms from the business. Today was hopefully his day off and he refused to fall into the trap of losing himself in all the things that required attention.
All the things.
He paused mid rise.
But no. No! Vacation day. He forced himself away from the desk and out onto the balcony.
It was a beautiful out here. The afternoon sun was blazing in a brilliant blue sky without a single cloud. The sea was murmuring far below. It was an artist’s dream.
He blinked as certain Gordon utterings connected neurons together.
A frown. “Gordon!”
No answer.
Another frown and he strode back inside, following the recent tracks of his fish brother down to the kitchen.
Scott found him reading at the table, a phone that was most definitely not his in one hand and the book in his other.
There were lots of photos of crabs.
“What are you doing?”
“Confirming the identification of a crab.”
“Why?”
“Virg found one down on Mosaic Beach and I wanna make sure it is what I think it was so I can report it to Mel.”
The dots that had been connecting earlier fused into a solid line with an arrow pointing directly at Gordon. “And where is Virgil?”
“Snoozing on the beach.”
“And why do you have his phone?”
“Because his drawings were excellent, but I needed a colour shot.”
“Gordon!”
His brother didn’t even look up. “What?” But then he blinked and frowned at Scott. “He’s fine. Well above the high tide line.” A glance down at the book again. “There, that’s it. Oooh, Mel is going to be so excited.”
Scott glared at Gordon for a whole second longer before storming over and snatching the phone out of his hands. Without another word, he strode out of the kitchen and took the path that would lead him down to the reported beach.
Younger brothers were hard work.
The little beach wasn’t the closest on the Island. Probably one of the reasons Virgil chose it to get away from pesky younger brothers. Trust Gordon to find him anyway.
He fingered Virgil’s phone in his hand as he walked. The green leather case was embossed with an elaborate dragon design.
Looking at it, all he could really feel was fondness.
He must be tired. Grandma was right. He needed a day off.
Easier said than done. It wasn’t like he could park himself on a beach and fall asleep.
He grunted as he stepped over some rocks to start the climb down to the little cove. The path was thin and wove amongst several pōhutukawa trees – or pokey trees as Alan called them, their dark green leaves adorned with puffs of red blossom. Birds darted between them squawking at each other. That combined with the surf in the distance and the breeze rattling palm trees, it wasn’t the quietest of places.
Nevertheless, he found his brother sprawled against a rock under the largest pokey tree at the edge of the beach, snoring his head off.
Definitely noisy.
Virgil was dressed in an old pair of work shorts and a t-shirt with a hole in it. Both sported spatters of paint and clearly showed how relaxed his brother was trying to be.
Beside him on a rock, carefully placed, no doubt by Gordon, the brat, was a sketchbook and a box of drawing tools. Virgil’s artist backpack lay folded up supporting his head - again likely Gordon.
Virgil snorted and curled up just a little more against the rock.
Gordon was a shit, but he was a kind one. Virgil slept like the dead and would likely need one of those waves off in the distance to wash over him if he was going to wake up before he wanted to.
Staring a moment longer, Scott sighed, gave up and sat down beside his brother. He dropped the phone onto the sketchbook and looked out at the beach.
Virgil continued to snore.
His biggest little brother had always snored. Scott had cornered him and got him tested for a variety of sleep issues, but he was fine. Just loud.
The terrible two used to make a point of pointing it out as much as possible. But that was before the hydrofoil accident.
Gordon didn’t know it, but due to his injuries, he now snored, too.
The ribbing about snoring in the Tracy household had dropped to a minimum since, Gordon the only unknowing ribber.
But Virgil remained the major noise maker and the brothers worshipped the soundproofing in the villa.
Regardless of the racket, Scott did find it strangely quiet out here. Sitting on the sand with nothing to do was oddly relaxing. Of course, he wasn’t really one to do nothing and Virgil’s sketchbook was right there. Gordon had obviously already stuck his nose into it and Scott was pretty sure Virgil wouldn’t mind if he took a peek.
Would he?
Lifting the phone off the book, Scott carefully picked it up and nestled it in his lap...ever, ever so careful. Okay, so he had some respect and not a little fear of damaging Virgil’s artwork.
The pages were thick and stiff and likely designed to support wet media as much as dry. Most of the work in it was pencil, however, maybe some charcoal? The darks were so deep in some that they had to be.
But Scott was no artist and really only had eyes for the content.
The first page found him looking at himself. Virgil had obviously either captured Scott’s likeness on the sly or drawn from a photo or holoprojection. His drawing stared up at him in almost all three dimensions. The expression on his graphite face was thoughtful, almost wistful. He could see his rendered self was thinking or planning and totally distracted...which was likely why he had no clue his brother had captured this shot.
But the artistic strokes were strong and sure, simple in their complexity.
Scott blinked, moved that his brother was so talented and capable.
Though he really shouldn’t be surprised.
Turning the page, he discovered their grandmother.
He had to smile. The concentration on Grandma’s face was almost comical. A bowl and a recipe book sat in front of her and the very tip of her tongue stuck out of the side of her mouth as she frowned at whatever she was reading.
There was a touch of caricature in the drawing, a little exaggeration, but done with love and fondness, not mockingly. His grandmother was beautiful.
Scott swallowed and turned the page to find several detailed scribbles. They looked like pieces of machinery and the pages had notes written down the sides.
It was a spark moment. He knew Virgil well enough for that. One of those times when his thoughts all came together and saw him running naked out of the shower to grab whatever he could find and get it written down.
Several major equipment improvements had occurred exactly this way. It appeared that at some point, this sketchbook had been the nearest note book and had borne the brunt.
He stared at the diagrams, doing his best to work out exactly what they were. Sharp notation, numbers, that had to be the backend of a pod. It clicked. This was part of the pod assembly redesign from the previous year. Virgil had come to him with some major improvements, including a pod body redesign. What followed had been a massive overhaul of all the ‘birds’ assembly systems and a whole new set up, including colour changes according to which Thunderbird housed which pod. Virgil and Brains had been buzzing for weeks.
And it was possible it had all started here on this piece of paper. Now he could see the scribbled down inner workings of the assembly mechanism and the shape on the second page was a worked and reworked pod shell.
He glanced over at his brother who was still snoring peacefully. Virgil was amazing. Scott could not have been prouder of what his little brother had achieved. Yet Virgil never really boasted or bragged or even highlighted what he had done. He was just there. Always there, one step behind him ready to help.
He must be really tired because now he was getting emotional. There had been a few times in the last couple of years where he had come close to losing Virgil. He hadn’t, but there had been nightmares and many a night where he had spent reassuring himself that his biggest brother was still with him.
And yes, he could stand outside his brother’s bedroom door and listen to him snore.
It gave him comfort.
Gordon had caught him once.
That had been a heartbreaking moment.
Because his fish brother hadn’t said a thing, just reached up, squeezed his shoulder, dropped his forehead against Scott’s arm and just stood there for a solid moment. Another gentle squeeze and he left, not even looking up at Scott before he was gone.
It said more than any words.
Scott sighed and turned the page...only to come face to face with Gordon again. Though this time the joy in their fish brother’s eyes was lighting up the page. He was grinning at a shell and there was a speech bubble - ‘Virgil, come and see this!’
Scott had to smile. Gordon was notorious for sharing his beach discoveries. Virgil was usually the target because at least he knew a little bit about their little brother’s fascinations. Scott loved to see Gordon happy, but honestly, he couldn’t tell the difference between one shell or another. He tried. He honestly did, but Virgil had the patience of a saint and was much more engaging.
Scott loved to watch the two of them instead.
And yes, he saw Virgil sneak things into his pockets. Usually shells, but occasionally rocks and bits of coral. Those finds made their way back to Virgil’s studio and there was a whole corner devoted to marine still life.
Which was why it was no surprise when the next three pages of sketchbook turned out to be exactly that. A curly shell, a pile of cockle shells - Scott knew those at least - they were good for fishing. The third page had a plan for a reef painting. It had scribbled notes, much like the pod redesign pages, but this was based around a sketched layout. Scott frowned at it...it was vaguely familiar. He would have to ask Virgil about it when he woke.
The next two pages sported today’s efforts. The same beach he was sitting on emerged from the paper, along with some sketches of a crab. The first few were realistic, but the last one had the little hermit crab with an IR symbol on its side and one of Dad’s old uniform hats perched on top of its shell. It bore a sash that resembled Virgil’s despite the lack of green colour and one of its claws was bigger than the other in a very exo-suit-like way.
That had Scott grinning. This was no doubt the reason why Gordon had run for the crab book. Mel, in her position of Director of the Kermadec Expedition south of them on Raoul Island, was very particular about the endemic crabs on all the islands in the area.
He wondered what she would think of them inducting crabs into IR.
He wondered what she was doing today and if she might be available later for a nice evening together.
That thought was very distracting and had nothing to do with crab identification at all.
Virgil snorted, rolled over off his backpack and face first into the sand.
Scott startled, fully expecting a woken bear of a brother to surface from that.
But Virgil just kept snoring, now snorting sand as well.
He placed the sketchbook down, scrambled around his brother and gently shoved the folded backpack under his head again.
His fingertips brushed sand off Virgil’s face.
And he found himself sitting beside his brother again.
Why was he out here?
Because Gordon was evil and dangled the concept of Virgil drowning in the tide simply to aggravate him enough to do exactly what he did.
Gordon was a shit.
But a good one.
Another sigh and he lay back against the rocks and got comfortable, because, let’s face it, he wasn’t going back up to the villa without Virgil. His brother was safe, sure, but walking off and leaving him to the elements ran against his grain.
And Gordon knew it.
He would throttle, and possibly hug, his fish brother later.
Besides, it was nice out here, taking a moment to just be.
Virgil would approve.
Virgil would fake being asleep just to get him to do it.
Scott’s eyes darted to his now softly snoring brother, a sudden suspicion at the forefront of his thoughts. He would put it past either of Virgil or Gordon’s conniving ways to conspire to get him out here.
Virgil was drooling a wet patch onto his backpack.
Ugh.
Well, maybe not.
Perhaps he was just being paranoid.
Perhaps he just needed to relax.
Relax.
He closed his eyes and folded his hands in his lap. Kayo was good at meditation. So was Gordon. Virgil did some connecting with nature thing that seemed to work for him.
Exhibit A snorted as if in agreement.
He could try.
Out of all the sounds he could hear, only one really held his attention.
That same soft snoring. No waves or wind or birds squawking brought him any kind of comfort.
The sound of his brother breathing evenly beside him, safe and sound, was the most beautiful sound in the world.
What that said about him...well, he didn’t care right now. He was tired and worn out. Maybe Gordon was right. Maybe this is what he needed. He should care, should be annoyed, but the rhythm was lulling and, god, he was so tired.
So goddamned tired.
Virgil kept breathing and Scott followed him into sleep.
-o-o-o-
Hidden in the foliage of the grove of pokey trees behind his two brothers, Gordon just smiled.
-o-o-o-
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awackyphdinadorkable · 4 years ago
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Cherik Moodboard - Stranded AU
Geneticist Charles Xavier embarks on a quest to uncover the secrets of origin of mutation. Being a mutant with the ability of telepathy himself, Charles seeks to find truths on a set of faraway islands. He is convinced that Krakoa’s wildlife holds the answers he is so desperate to find. However, finding a pilot to fly him to an island that appears nowhere on a map proves to be about as difficult as convincing fellow scientists of his theory concerning the origin of mutation and a mysterious plant with outstanding healing properties.
At last, Charles finds a daring pilot named Erik Lehnsherr - a mutant with the ability to control metal. Erik travels routes most pilots are afraid of, since his abilities allow him to maneuver even more dangerous terrains and ensure a safe landing no matter the situation. Though Erik is less than impressed with his newest client. Charles talks too much to his liking, is overly enthusiastic, especially when he finds out about Erik’s mutation - and did he mention that he talks too much? Erik sought out a life far away from “human” civilization, finding solace in the desolation of his plane taking him away from people who killed his mother, who proved to him time and time again that while they belong to the species human, most of them are very inhuman.
Nonetheless, Erik agrees to go looking for Krakoa. Because the professor definitely pays well for a flight that may very well bear on no success. They manage to find an archipelago off the usual routes, but they get caught up in a storm. Despite Erik’s efforts to land the plane, they crash on one of the islands, leaving their one matter of transportation and contact to the outside world in ruins. And so, the two men are swept ashore an island they don’t know, with no means to call for help. The machines are dead and since Erik runs his business privately, no one knows to where he and his client were headed.
Not even Charles’s telepathy can reach far enough to contact someone.
In sum, they are screwed.
To say that Erik is none too pleased with the situation is an understatement. The fact that Charles tries to act like they can manage together and how this may prove to be some kind of adventure only enrages Erik further. He spends most of his time trying to fix up the plane, well aware that even with his abilities it is beyond saving, leaving Charles to his foolish explorations and musings about how they may have actually landed on Krakoa after all.
Erik knows how to survive. He learned those lessons the very hard way, but a sheltered scientist like Charles who seems to know real life and its troubles only from his books is in dire danger of winding up dead just because of his damned childish curiosity and foolish hope. Though Erik soon has to think that assessment. While yes, Charles grew up sheltered, he is wickedly intelligent and his knowledge of flora and fauna on the island soon proves vital to their survival.
Confronted with the reality that no search party comes looking for them months into being stuck on the island, the two make do with what they have and build a home of their own.
Erik tries not to get too attached, despite the gravitation Charles has, a sheer force pulling him closer to a man with so much hope that it could suffice for a thousand. Charles encompasses all those things Erik believes he long since lost to the demons of his past. If you get attached, losing someone hurts all the more. And every day may be their last in the wild. So no, he doesn’t want to get attached, doesn’t want that man to matter in his life. He wants to take it all as fleeting, born out of necessity - but no more than that.
Though that attitude proves increasingly difficult to maintain. In the end, playing chess with their makeshift board every night, hunting together, building a house and managing their lives, watching Charles experiment and explore the island and the plant he was so desperate to find, it is means more to him than Erik can take at times.
Charles does not push, though. After all, he knows what is going on inside Erik’s head even when he does not actively look at it. With only one man’s voice other than his own around, Charles can’t help but pick up the signals, however mixed and muddled they are that they even leave the telepath confused as to what those emotions may mean.
Even when they give in to some of their most basic instincts, seeking satisfaction for a now almost unbearable need, Erik tries to make himself believe that it is really just that - satisfying a need, following an instinct.
Because if he thought of it as more, he’d have to admit that Charles is the only thing he has left in life. And if he is the only thing he has left in life, Erik will lose all he has left in life if anything happened to Charles - which may be the very next day. Because every day may be their last.
But day after day comes to pass and the feelings don’t go away. And so, Erik has to come to the realization, however painful, that he can pretend all he want, Charles is all he wants, is all he needs, is all he has. So the only thing he can do is try to keep him. And Charles commits to that same promise. To stay together and let no harm come to the man who grew to be his world, reaching beyond his obsessions with Krakoa and his studies.
The years pass wherein Charles and Erik live a most unexpectedly yet strangely fulfilling life out of sight. Charles makes most astonishing discoveries about Krakoa and the plant he wanted to find when he embarked on that journey, which leave him to believe that even if they had found it without crashing, he would have done better not to reveal the island’s secrets.
While both dare to think of a future whereby they will grow old together on the island, Charles picks up new voices all of a sudden. A ship is within reach all of a sudden. And that leaves Erik and Charles with the difficult decision on whether to return to a normal and safe life and thus reveal the location of Krakoa, or let the chance slip and continue a life that may not have ended them yet but may very well as they grow older…
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accursedkaleeshi · 3 years ago
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Blys’aan’s Bio (Wife #7)
TL:DR 2 Members of the Izvoshra bully Grievous into another marriage to the captain of imports of the largest trade organization on Kalee. Blys’aan was successful PR for them & was an angel with a soup ladle. Died 27 BBY due to scarcity of medical resources.
Part 1: Meeting I wrote over 1000 words, there’s a lot of dialogue, its like a lazy fanfic.
Part 2: About Her
First of all, I finally gave Western Wuja Bandit Izvoshra a name. It is Dakaliidae, as Western male names tend to be a ton syllables. Yes his name is Doc Holliday: it’s funny & topical, fight me about it. Anyway, I told you this because he is instrumental in meeting Blys’aan.
So, whilst Grievous was doing Ked’jat (the crackhead friend, if you’ll recall) a solid by meeting his aristocratic family, Ked’jat & Dakaliidae got together to try & be responsible members of society by helping Grievous out. They got him an audience with the council of the largest native trading organization on planet, aptly called Hakaleel. This surprised Grievous because Ked’jat & Daka were literally the two least law-abiding Kaleesh he knew. They must have been on their best behavior to get a meeting with an esteemed legitimate business council. He was not without his suspicions.
Hakaleel was already well aware of the planetary embargoes they were facing. Their High Trade Chief, Yaitee (ee-eye-tee) was present at the meeting Grievous had at the capital with Bryaru’s father. So, the Hakaleel trade council was pretty much in various states of the stages of grief. Hakaleel had an excellent local reputation; Kaleeshi people were not keen on material greed as a trait. The trade council were legitimately thinking of the economic impact on the people. The fact that they were themselves facing down poverty was just a bonus.
Yaitee, in a delicate manner, admits to being almost completely locked out of all nearby extraplanetary trade routes by Republic ban on official registered vessels in their system’s airspace & exorbitant fees otherwise in a currency they scarcely even had any access to. They had been combing over the documentations the Republic was gracious enough to provide them & came to much the same conclusion. There wasn’t anything they could legally do about it. After this admission there was a long heavy pause after which Grievous replied, “What about illegally?”
He had known Yaitee to be a very keen & straight-laced man. He could see his lips purse beneath the edges of his mask. Desperation does much to test a person’s image of themselves. Yaitee said, “Let us see what input our Captain of Imports has on the matter.” Grievous could almost feel the energy of Ked’jat & Daka doing their best to maintain their composure. Yaitee & his scribe led the three of them down to their spaceport. It was not on the scale of anything in the core worlds by any means but it used to be quite busy just a year before. The fact that Grievous had expanded his crusade against the Huk to the neighboring systems actually did a lot to improve relations & they had seen more traffic than usual despite the Yam’rii.
Now it was very quiet. In what looked to be a sort of central gate there was a stocky, medium height Kaleesh woman of day gecko colors standing in front of an equally colorful display of spices. She was looking forlornly at an old datapad from behind her hunt veil before Yaitee introduced her as Captain Blys’aan of Hakaleel Imports.
Grievous was like, “I hate to ask, Captain Blys’aan, but how are things.”
To which Blys’aan, in this warm mix of Caribbean & local Slavic space-adjacent accents, replied, “BOY lemme tell you. Is grim! So grim! Precious few of our off vendors want to pay the fees for reaching us out here on the edge of wild space & not ONE of them are willing to defy the Republic openly. Can’t blame most of them. We can’t afford to regularly offset the fees with oh- anything on our planet.”
Grievous was just like, “Yeah I thought as much.”
“Does the Great Khaganate General Grievous have any enlightenment for us today?” Blys’aan asked sarcastically. Not because she didn’t respect him, but because the situation was that dire.
Grievous deadpan replies, “How do you feel about pirates.”
“Oooh boi, I knew I was going to like you. Guess what, I already have a few in contact,” Blys’aan reacted very excited.
Yaitee was like, “Blys’aan what the fuck.”
But she just lays it out like, “Lissen Yaitee, sweetie, da core worlds want civilized societies. But when we try to advance? No. We should have done that already. We don’ warrant de resources.”
“Yaitee, you hire some tough sons to protect my inventory managers & you deal wit dese pirates. T’ings have to change with or witout us. You are best on Kalee at wheelin & dealin. If anybody try to throw us down river? De General will kill them. Won’t you, big boy?” She tapped his chest with the back of her hand like she was indicating quality stock.
With absolutely zero hesitation Grievous goes, “Yeah, I will. The Republic is not a popular as they like to think. You will find people willing to work.”
Blys’aan says, “I t’ink I’m gonna step down. Hakaleel doesn’t need my brand o customer service anymore. Everytin gonna work out. Or maybe no. I hope I get myself a husband before I get killed by pirates…”
It was at this point the Ked’jat & Dakaliidae can no longer contain themselves & go full gremlin mode. “Grievous is taking wives.” Ked’jat says. “Yeah, he is available.” Daka follows.
Grievous is just like, “I’m- I literally have- you just set me up with your sister-”
Blys’aan again gets very jubilant. “Oooh. You have a hard limit on that number? My pedigree maybe not so shiny as others but I can cook better than your hearth mothers, I bet this.”
Daka interjects, “Also. you came down here to denounce legally binding documents from the Grand Army of the Republic & she was already one step ahead of you.”
“That is true. I am impressed,” Grievous admired only to immediately regret it when Ked’jat says to her, “Oho, hear that? He’s impressed, bima-” Grievous is just stone faced wondering what is wrong with these two.
“Or. I could stay in my position & be killed by pirates,” Blys’aan says with a very overexaggerated sigh.
Daka grabs one of Grievous’s shoulders, really pouring it on thick like, “Ah, General, what if she is killed by pirates? So sad.”
Blys’aan gives Grievous big sad green puppy dog eyes. There is half a minute of silence.
“Very well, you can accompany me home & we’ll see how it goes,” Grievous relents. Ked’jat is like furiously giving her a thumbs up from behind Grievous, mouthing dumb shit like, “Girl that means yes!”
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passable-talent · 4 years ago
Note
Going with Ani to free his mom because you know it’s such a big moment for him (and obviously being there for the aftermath)
oof. here I go to make myself angsty for the evening
same day request answering. its like its april.
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Padme Amidala is a really good person. It pretty much all comes back to that. 
She’s kind. She’s empathetic. She recognizes when someone is in pain, and when someone needs help. She understands when an unwise course of action is one that needs to be taken. 
So, of course, she understood when the Jedi apprentice meant to protect her instead wanted to run away to his birth planet and help his mother. Of course she did. 
Though, level headed as she was, she thought that it might be wise to gather up another Jedi. To watch over her while Anakin was distracted, or possibly to help Anakin face whatever plagued his mother. 
She suggested Anakin call upon Obi-Wan, which he refused. Obi-Wan’s mission was just as important, and if he knew what Anakin planned, Anakin would never be allowed to go.
So, instead, he called for you. 
You were also a Jedi apprentice, at that time training between missions at the temple on Coruscant. Your master, Shaak Ti, trusted you immensely, and granted you permission to leave on your own. You commanded a Starfighter and were on your way- opening a com to Anakin en route. You had never been to Tatooine before, but had heard about it whenever Anakin felt like sharing his childhood. As his closest friend other than his master, you knew how much his mother weighed on his soul, and how much he had wished that Qui-Gon could have saved her, too. You had known that one day, he would try to return. He had promised his Shmi as much. 
Anakin’s reunion with Watto was tense for just about everyone there. You didn’t know the terrain, you barely knew Padme, you certainly didn’t know Watto, but you felt the impatience rolling off of Anakin. It put you on edge, and so as he followed Watto into the shop, you kept pace behind Padme, ensuring her safety. It was the one thing you felt you were capable of doing, the one thing you could control. 
Anakin wasn’t very talkative. Padme tried- but he was a focused man, and felt closer to finding his mother than he had in a decade. You were a silent support, beside the senator, as though you could take some of the weight off of Anakin’s shoulders. Every emotion he experienced seemed to radiate out from him, and it almost made your head pound to get blasted with them all- the guilt, the fear, the anger. You just hoped that he’d find his mother alive, or else, you imagined, this would get so much worse. 
When you left the ship again, you found yourself in the most flat, barren landscape you’d ever seen. Growing up among the skyscrapers of Coruscant, it was almost unfathomable, to look out at the horizon and see nothing between you and it. 
There was, however, one little building, which you could gather was your destination. And a droid. 
Anakin’s mind must have been clouded by his emotion, or maybe he just wasn’t showing it, because you could feel that something was off. From the moment C-3PO requested to go inside, you knew that there was nothing but bad news here. You couldn’t say anything, though- you felt it wasn’t your place. Anakin was among his family, now, even if they’d never met him, and he needed to hear it from them. 
You could tell. Shmi Skywalker was gone. 
“It was just before dawn,” Cliegg Lars explained, “they came out of nowhere. A hunting party of Tusken Raiders.” You had heard of them before- in Anakin’s ramblings of the pod racing he did as a child. You sat at the end of the table opposite Cliegg, though it did feel informal. The head of the table was meant for anyone other than you, surely- but Anakin had his place at Cliegg’s right hand, and Owen at his left. 
“Your mother had gone out early, like she always did, to pick mushrooms off the vaporators.” At the very least, you were silently happy that Shmi had spent her last years as a free woman with a husband that clearly cared about her greatly. 
“From the tracks, she was about halfway home...” Your heart broke with every word for Anakin Skywalker, who had spent years dreaming of returning for his mother, only to arrive too late. “...When they took her.” Anakin’s face was devoid of clear emotion, but you knew him well- you could see that famous temper brewing inside of him. But, this was more than a frustration. This was so much deeper than that. 
“Those tuskens walk like men,” Cliegg continued with a sigh, “but they’re mindless, vicious monsters. Thirty of us went out after her, four of us came back.” You lowered your head in respect, but kept your eyes on your friend, whose brows were tightly knit. He was thinking, mulling it over, considering, processing. You couldn’t blame him, but wished you could make it easier. 
“I’d be out there with them, but...” Cliegg, too, was weighed down by his grief. His loss, you could see, was still just as raw as Anakin’s. “After I lost my leg, I just couldn’t ride anymore, until I heal.” Anakin’s heart seemed to break open wider with every moment that passed him by, and Cliegg continued, trying to reassure his lost stepson that his mother hadn’t died unloved. 
“I don’t want to give up on her, but she’s been gone a month.” Unimaginable it was how much it must’ve hurt Anakin to know that he had missed her by only a month. “There’s little hope she’s lasted this long.”
And there it was- the clear implication to Anakin that his mother was not only gone, but dead. That there was a finality to it, and nothing he could do. You watched him, carefully, as he turned his head, and clearly you could see that he didn’t take such helplessness well. 
He stood, and you made to do the same, but the both of you were interrupted by Owen, asking Anakin’s intensions. 
“To find my mother,” Anakin said, and you let out a short breath. 
“Your mother’s dead, son,” Cliegg said, with the voice of a heartbroken husband, “Accept it.” 
Anakin left without a word. 
You followed, knowing his plan. 
“Anakin, it’s dangerous,” you told him, and he turned, shaking his head. 
“I’m going. I have to.” 
“I know,” you said, and in the gaze you shared with him, he realized that you meant to come with him. 
Padme emerged from the entrance, and her gaze met yours. You nodded, and she gathered that you hadn’t been able to stop him. You hadn’t tried. 
“You’re gonna have to stay here,” you said, a little more hardness in your tone than you had intended. “You’ll be safe until we return.” Anakin stood behind you, grief and anger rolling off of him, and though she could not feel the Force, Padme clearly could see a man in pain. After all, Padme Amidala is a really good person. She walked to him and gave him a brief hug. 
“We won’t be long,” you promised as they parted, and as she retreated inside, you followed him to the speeder. 
The longer he rode, the more anguish he felt. He hardened before you, from a boy who lost his mother, to a man who sought revenge. You could only hope you would serve to curb the damage. 
Just after nightfall you reached the encampment of the raiders, their domes still lit by dying fires. You deferred to Anakin’s lead, assuming that he would know your enemy better than you. It had been a while since the two of you had gone on a mission together- if the atmosphere were less dire, you might have even enjoyed it. 
You don’t know how he chose which dome to enter, but it was the right one. You felt the world change when Anakin laid eyes on the bloodied woman tied to a post, like you were recognizing her yourself. Shmi Skywalker, still alive.
“Go,” you whispered, stationing yourself between the opening of the dome and the opening Anakin had created. His reunion was his own, and you gave him the best security and privacy you could. It was astounding that she had survived, all this time, and for a moment you were filled with hope, joy, that he had disobeyed Cliegg and searched for her anyway. Otherwise, she likely never would have been found. You kept your eyes to the night outside the dome, a lookout, your breathing calm with the joy and love and relief that Anakin had once again allowed into his body. 
And then you felt it change. 
You whirled around, and she was dead, and Anakin’s silence was suddenly all you could hear. The world was turning red around the both of you as he felt the grief of his mother’s death for a second time, and his eyes lifted to yours. 
“Anakin,” you breathed, knowing nothing else to say. His grief hardened into anger, but he gently closed her eyes and held her close. You didn’t know what to do. Panic hit you hard as his anger curdled into rage, and his eyes lifted. 
“Anakin, we need to take her home,” you said, hoping to deflect his focus. He didn’t listen. 
As he lowered her gently to the floor so that he could stand, you tried to move into his way, and successfully you cupped his face, catching his eyes for just a moment. In them, you didn’t see the anger you felt from him. In them, you saw so much sadness. 
And so you let him go. 
It wasn’t the Jedi way, you knew that. And you wished you could will yourself to move, to stop him, because the pain that his actions would cause would haunt him, possibly for the rest of his life. But it felt as though he needed this, as though it was the only thing that would sate his soul. So you breathed mantras, and did your best to combat his anger with peace, thinking that it might invade him. 
And when the Tusken Raiders had all given their last breaths to Anakin Skywalker, you went to him. 
He collapsed to his knees under his own weight, no longer grieving but feeling a consuming emptiness. You had to force yourself to block it out as you ran to him, and pulled him against you. Never before had you felt someone who needed a hug so bad, and only then did he begin to break, knotting his fingers into the robes at your back. He buried his face, but did not cry, and you stayed as long as he needed you to. 
You drove home. He held his mother, behind you, cradling her like she had once held him. You rode through sunrise, back to Cliegg’s home, where quickly you were met by Owen, Padme, Cliegg, Beru. You dismounted quickly and retreated, knowing that this was Anakin’s moment, and his alone. His anger had returned, but it didn’t feel so sharp anymore- it was anger and sadness and frustration, and it just felt to you like pain. Incredible pain. 
You stayed in the room with him, wherever he went, continuing the strategy you’d had back at the camp. You held peace in your chest, and hoped that he could feel it the way you felt his pain. You hoped it would calm him. His pain did not fade, but it did dull, and for a while as he tinkered with the shifter, it felt as though maybe the anger had drained from his body. 
Padme entered with two meals, and she handed one to you before approaching Anakin, her footsteps light, but her presence noticeable. 
“I brought you something,” she said over his shoulder, and when he didn’t respond, she moved around to his front. “Are you hungry?”
“The shifter broke,” he told her, and if it wouldn’t have taken from your concentration you would’ve chuckled. He avoided the question- you knew he hadn’t eaten in at least a day. “Life seems so much simpler when you’re fixing things.” You would give anything to have back the boy you’d trained with on Corellia. So heavy Anakin felt now, with everything that had happened. You wished you could give him back the peace he had once felt. Padme looked to you briefly as she moved to set down the tray near Anakin, and you nodded. You’d get him to eat eventually. 
“I’m good at fixing things,” Anakin continued, “always was.” Padme turned back to him slowly, the both of you noticing the waver in his voice. “But I couldn’t...” he trailed off, putting down his tools. “Why’d she have to die? Why couldn’t I save her?” You sat up, more toward your feet, ready to approach him if you felt the need. He was getting ramped up again, but the jagged edges of his grief this time was less anger and more blame. Blame on the Tuskens, blame on himself. “I know I could have!” He turned from Padme and for the briefest of moments his eyes met yours, but he moved forward, away from both of you.
“Sometimes there are things no one can fix,” Padme said softly, and you kept your breathing steady to combat his erratic emotion. “You’re not all powerful, Ani.” 
“Well, I should be,” he said, giving her words no time to hang in the air. 
“Anakin,” you said, showing disapproval of such a thought, and for the first time wished Obi-Wan was there. 
“Someday I will be,” he insisted. “I will be the most powerful Jedi ever.” He turned to face you and Padme again, tears glistening on his face but his expression angry. You didn’t know what to say, even when he levied his gaze toward you. 
“I promise you. I will even learn to stop people from dying.” 
“Anakin,” it was Padme’s turn to say, and what he said next shook you to your core.
“It’s all Obi-Wan’s fault!” he shouted, “He’s jealous! He’s holding me back!” Anakin launched whatever he’d picked up across the room, and it clattered quietly before coming to rest. 
“You know that’s not true,” you said, quickly rising to your feet. You took a step closer to Anakin as he turned away, but did not get too near. 
“I know,” he conceded under his breath. Padme sensed what was really going on.
“What’s wrong, Ani?’ She asked, and finally you realized what was truly causing his pain, in this moment. He was looking at his hands as he stuttered the beginning of a sentence, the hands that had killed so many. 
The peace in your body faltered- if you had stopped him, he wouldn’t be grieving nearly so much now. It was your fault.
“I killed them,” he explained, “I killed them all. They’re dead- every single one of them.” He turned to Padme with rage at himself and the raiders twitching his lips, tears still falling from his eyes. “And not just the men, but the women and the children, too. They’re like animals, and I slaughtered them like animals!” You lowered your head, trying to push away your own guilt so that you could be there for him. His pain, you knew, was greater than yours. 
“I hate them!” 
Hate leads to suffering. 
As Anakin sank to the floor, you and Padme sat to flank his sides. You were his best friend, closer to him than anyone else in the world, and so you leaned against his side while Padme offered her words. 
“To be angry is to be human.” 
“I’m a Jedi,” Anakin insisted, “I know I’m better than this.”
“Most Jedi never know their parents,” you said softly, “and never form attachments. There is no one in a Jedi’s life who matters as much as your mother does to you. I’m sure you’re taking this with more grace than Master Windu would have.” Anakin didn’t laugh, but he did quiet, almost as though he believed you. Slowly you found the hand he held beside his knee, and gathered it into yours. 
Padme leaned forward and gave him the best hug she could from the side, but then left Anakin alone with you. 
She’s a good person, like that. 
“Anakin, I’ve known you for a long time,” you started quietly, “and all of that time I’ve known you to be a kind man. A compassionate man. Quick to anger, yes, but not to judgement. They earned your rage, and that’s okay. It does not outweigh all of the good you’ve done in your life.” His grip tightened on your hand, still his breathing erratic, but once again the jagged edges of his mind began to soften. You let silence drift into the room for a moment as he slowly evened. 
“She was beautiful,” you said, laying your head down onto his shoulder. He nodded, and slowly, there grew the beginning of a smile on his face. “And she won’t be forgotten.” 
-🦌 Roe
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angst-in-space · 3 years ago
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you’re a dream (i’m never waking up) // chapter 3
fe3h | sylvix | M | ongoing | 18.2k+
fic summary:
Sylvain is hit with a dark spell during battle that casts his mind into an inescapable dream world. Felix volunteers to follow Sylvain into his dreamscape to save him—but when he arrives, he discovers that Sylvain is living in an ideal post-war world where he and Felix are married.
tags:
dreamscapes, dreamsharing, fake marriage, or well they’re married in a dream world if that counts, pov felix, slow burn, domestic fluff, hurt/comfort, sharing a bed, canonverse, canon-typical violence, blue lions route spoilers, post-time skip, angst with a happy ending, fluff and angst, background relationships
CHAPTER 3 / (6.7k)
The Blue Lions gather together to determine what's wrong with Sylvain—and, more importantly, how they're going to save him.
[excerpt below the cut]
“I’m willing to take that risk,” Byleth said. Everyone looked at them in surprise—and when they all continued staring, waiting for a further explanation, the professor took a deep breath. “I’ll do it. You can cast the spell on me.”
The words had an immediate effect, sending a frenzied ripple through the group. There were several gasps around the circle. Felix went rigid, staring at Byleth in shock, but the professor was undeterred by the attention.
“Professor, no. I—I can’t allow it,” Dimitri said. His one blue eye had widened considerably, his face going deathly pale. “It’s far too dangerous.”
Byleth frowned at him, and it was difficult to discern whether their expression conveyed anger or confusion—perhaps a combination of both. “With all due respect, Dimitri, I don’t need your permission.”
Dimitri’s jaw twitched, like he’d been about to say something but then thought better of it. “My apologies. I didn’t mean to sound like I was commanding you, or that I lack faith in you. It’s just, I can’t bear the thought of …” He sighed and shook his head, starting over. “I—we all thought you were gone for the past five years.”
“But I returned,” Byleth said without missing a beat. “Just as I returned after Solon sealed me in the darkness. Whatever dimension Sylvain is imprisoned in now, I’m certain I can get both of us back alive.”
They did have a point, Felix had to admit. Byleth had an uncanny ability to return unscathed from the strangest and most dire situations. But the thought of Byleth taking on this particular quest made Felix feel like the blood in his veins had grown heavy. It didn’t feel right, and he couldn’t stand by and let it happen when there was another obvious choice standing right in front of him.
“No,” he said, before he could stop himself.
As he had anticipated, everyone turned to stare at him in shock, but he stood his ground as he crossed his arms and glared at the professor like they were the only two people in the room.
Byleth’s odd, light-colored eyes pierced him with unnerving scrutiny. “No … ?” they repeated. “‘No’ what?”
Felix’s tongue weighed in his mouth like lead. Was he really about to challenge the professor’s judgement, of all people? It was probably the most foolish choice he’d ever made, but he refused to back down now.
“No,” he repeated, with as much firmness as he could muster. “You’re not going. Because I am.”
>> read chapter 3 // read from beginning <<
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