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lavendercharm · 3 months

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Linger, Chapter 5: Kiss With A Fist/Human Nature

A/N:

Ya'll. Writing this chapter felt like a marathon. But I think I'm ultimately very happy with it. Please let me know what you think!

This chapter is a bit longer, and I think it deserved to be named after two songs because of that. "Kiss With A Fist" by Florence + The Machine definitely fits the first half of this chapter and was one of the first songs I added to my playlist when writing this story, so I knew I wanted to use it for the big public confrontation.

The vibes toward the end are different. I discovered this song earlier this week and haven't been able to stop listening to it, so maybe I'm just reaching to try and justify including it lol. But "Human Nature" by Barrie is what I decided to use for the second half of this. Cause they're spitting facts when they say "Human nature doesn't always come easy" lmfao.

This is far from the end of this story, but it may be a second before you hear from me, depending on how busy the next few weeks are. I say that - watch me turn around and post something this weekend lol.

Thank you to everyone who's stuck with me thus far. I love you and I'm so grateful to know you're along for the ride.

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Summary: From the moment you meet her, you can't stand Melissa Schemmenti.

Warnings: Strong Language

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Barbara Howard did not take days off. It was only recently that she allowed herself her first mental health day, and while she could see the benefits, she had been eager to get back to her classroom, her students, her best friend, and even her coworkers. The life of a teacher was unpredictable, and the life of a teacher at Abbott Elementary came with its own unique set of challenges, but Barbara had seen a lot in her decades of teaching. With some hard work, support from her fellow teachers, and the grace of God himself, she had seen and survived it all. Barbara Howard could conquer anything thrown her way.

However, if Barbara had the magical gift of foresight, she might have chosen Monday morning to take her second mental health day in her entire history at Abbott.

As it was, Barbara could not see into the future, and so she entered the teacher’s lounge at 6:30 AM, on the dot. She claimed her usual spot, made herself a cup of coffee, and began sorting through her lesson plans for the week. She enjoyed her few moments of serenity in the lounge prior to the arrival of her more talkative coworkers. It wasn’t unusual for Melissa to arrive a bit later, especially on a Monday, so Barbara thought nothing of her absence. She politely greeted Janine and Jacob as they entered together; she did the same for Gregory shortly after. As the three younger teachers gathered at their table and discussed their weekends, Barbara continued her work, occasionally reacting to what she overheard. And when you entered the lounge, your first time visiting in the morning, Barbara was mildly surprised, but she shot you a warm smile all the same. She noticed you seemed to be a bit tense, but she chalked it up to the fact that you were still very new.

Melissa had talked her ear off about you last Monday, of course, explaining your tardiness and the shots you’d taken at her about her age. When Barb pressed her for details about your confrontation and what you’d said to each other, she simply said, “I took care of business, a’right?”

While Barbara agreed it was unprofessional of you to arrive late, she also knew Melissa better than anyone else in Abbott did; she knew Melissa could take things too far. Melissa was as passionate as they came, which meant she was one of the best teachers at the school. On the flip side, she also had a short fuse. Barbara knew she didn’t have all of the details, but she didn’t think much of it - you were a sub, after all. She expected she’d never actually meet you.

So when you arrived in the lounge for lunch the day after your explosive argument, she was shocked. While skeptical of you, she couldn’t help but admire your tenacity. You’d come face to face with the wrath of Melissa Schemmenti and still returned to Abbott. You’d introduced yourself, and as far as Barbara could tell, you were perfectly polite and well mannered. The displeasure and hostility radiating off of Melissa was felt by everyone in the lounge, but aside from giving her close friend a pointed look, Barbara chose to ignore it.

You’d continued showing up the rest of the week, greeting Barbara every day before taking a seat with Janine and Jacob, as well as Gregory, occasionally. The younger teachers seemed to have taken an instant liking to you, the four of you sharing stories from previous schools or discussing the latest movie releases. You’d even had a good-natured exchange with Ava one morning. The principal had leant against the corner with her phone and talked you through her “roster”, whatever that meant. Barbara was sure she didn’t want to know.

Barbara observed how seamlessly you integrated into Abbott’s social circles - with the obvious exception of the red head who always sat to her right in the lounge. Melissa pretended you didn't exist, which would have been fine if it wasn’t the elephant in the room. Your first day in the lounge, Janine had tried to talk to Melissa about you. She’d turned to Melissa with a huge grin on her face and said, “Man, Melissa, you’re so lucky to have such an awesome sub as your aide.”

Melissa had glanced at Janine over the rim of her cat-eye glasses, and in a sharp tone, retorted, “What sub?” That’s all it took for everyone in the room to grasp her unspoken message: If you value your life, drop it. The only reaction Barbara saw was a sharp flash of your eyes before you turned your back to the older woman and called Janine over, changing the subject.

But last Friday, Melissa caught up with Barbara after the school day ended and explained that you’d just given her two VIP tickets to the Eagles game on Sunday. If there was anything that would help Melissa forgive your transgressions, it was that. Once again, Barbara found herself impressed with you - you took the initiative to make amends and you’d knocked it out of the park. She was happy for her friend. She’d told Melissa, “Just think of how much you’ll be able to accomplish now that you and that young woman can work together. Now, you and Gary go enjoy that ball game.”

A week after your first morning at Abbott, all of the water was seemingly under the bridge, and the staff room could breathe easy again. No one paid much mind to the anxiety radiating off of you. For the most part, the energy in the room was calming as the day began.

The sudden CRACK of the door slamming into the shelves violently ripped the room’s occupants out of their morning zen. It was enough to cause everyone to nearly jump out of their skin. Heads whipped in the direction of the doorway as Melissa’s furious form charged into the lounge. Her attention was initially on Barb, but as she opened her mouth to speak, her eyes locked on you. The blush of fury rose instantly in her cheeks. She ripped her bag off of her shoulder and tossed it in the direction of her regular table, nearly hitting Barbara in the process, and as her eyes narrowed, you could practically see the steam rolling off of her as she hissed out, “You.”

And that’s when Barbara knew any chance of a peaceful morning had gone out the window.

—----------------------

As your weekend began, it didn’t take long for it to sink in that you were well and truly fucked. You completely failed to consider the consequences of your little scheme. There’s no way in hell Melissa wouldn’t be out for blood at the start of the next school week. The smartest thing to do would be to never return to Abbott, move to a new city across the country, and change your legal name. You went back and forth between chastising yourself for being ridiculous, and being so ridden with anxiety that you couldn’t eat. You felt so stupid - what did you think would happen?

Ultimately, you reached a point where you couldn’t handle the crushing weight of what you’d done alone, so you’d spilled to Ava. Her response had been about the least reassuring thing she could have said.

You did WHAT? I didn’t know you were crazy like that! You’re gonna die girl. I’m not even joking. We gotta go out this weekend, cause it’s your last one alive. I’ll make sure you have fun tho. Do you own any latex?

After refusing Ava’s offers to make your last days on earth worthwhile, you spent most of the weekend drowning in anxiety and imagining how Melissa would bring about your demise. You decided you had to do your best to prepare. You literally couldn’t afford to not go back to Abbott, especially after getting your headlights repaired Saturday afternoon. Under the anxiety, you could feel the ember of your rage, still pulsing with a red-hot glow, so you decided to grasp ahold of it. What you’d done was shitty, sure. But compared to smashing headlights? All you’d done was get even.

Seeing as you couldn’t afford to uproot your whole life and leave Philadelphia, the next most logical thing to do was to never be caught alone in a room with Melissa ever again. You were pretty sure this was something you could pull off - you figured you had two weeks left at Abbott tops, and as long as you had kids or other teachers in the same room, you would have witnesses who could recount your violent death should Melissa murder you.

This is what caused you to arrive at Abbott on Monday morning a full hour and a half before you needed to be there. You’d dithered in your car for about fifteen minutes, debating driving away and then talking yourself out of it. Eventually, you braved the outdoors, darting into the building and down the hallways as quickly as you could. You practically sprinted past Melissa’s classroom door - the lights were out, but even though you logically knew she wasn’t in yet, your mind conjured a vivid image of her jumping out of the shadows like a monster in waiting. You slowed down and tried to control your breathing as you entered the teacher’s lounge, and you were immediately soothed to see how many people were already there. Even better, Melissa was absent.

As you passed Barbara, you gave her a hesitant smile. You actually liked Barbara, as much as you can like someone who’s polite and whom you don’t know very well. You figured it may be the last chance you get - surely the woman would turn against you once Melissa told her what you’d done. Janine, Jacob, and Gregory were all sitting at your usual table, and after preparing your morning coffee, you quickly situated yourself in a seat, thankfully facing the door to the lounge.

“Hey!” Janine said, shooting you her adorable, slightly gapped-toothed smile. “How was your weekend?”

“Oh, uh… it was fine,” you said, your eyes darting toward the door as it opened. Not Melissa . “Mostly caught up on chores… had to get some work done to my car, fun stuff like that.”

“Car problems are tough,” Gregory said, spooning a bite out of his bowl of plain oatmeal. “What was wrong with it?”

“Uh…” you hesitated, unsure if you wanted to share what was really wrong. It would inevitably lead to questions and the last thing you wanted was for everyone to know the details of your feud. It was one thing for everyone to know Melissa didn’t like you - there were very few people Melissa actually liked in general. But it was another entirely for them to know she’d smashed out your headlights. Something generic - a bad alternator, maybe - would suffice.

You didn’t even get the chance to lie.

Despite the fact that you could see the doorway, the resounding SMACK of the door slamming open still made you jump. Before your brain knew what it was processing, in stormed Melissa Schemmenti, thick heels clacking on the linoleum tiles. She wore a form fitting pink sweater, the neckline questionably appropriate, and skin tight black pants. Her saint necklaces shimmered from their home on her collarbones. You supposed she wanted to look hot when she killed you.

It only took a moment for her eyes to lock on you, and in that moment you knew things were about to get ugly. To your surprise, seeing the flustered state she was in created a feeling of immense satisfaction. She was furious because your plan had worked. You didn’t even fight the smile that began to find its way onto your lips. The anxiety wasn’t gone, but you relished in the triumphant feeling of landing a critical hit.

“ You,” she hisses, tossing her bag from her shoulder. The tension in the air was thick enough to be cut with a knife.

Your eyebrows shoot up, feigned ignorance in your voice as you point at yourself and respond, “Who, me?”

She starts toward you, and everyone else at your table scatters. You’re shocked to see Janine step in front of you, her hands up placatingly. “Melissa-”

“Shut it, pipsqueak, and get out of my way ,” she growls, her gaze over Janine’s head burning holes in you.

“Hey!” You spit out, anger spiking and crowding out your anxiety. You’re suddenly standing. “Don’t call her that!”

Janine turns to you, holding a hand in your direction now too. “It’s fine, she calls me that all the time-”

“It’s not fine!” You shout, fists balled. Your eyes are glued to Melissa’s. “You think you can say and do whatever you want because no one will stand up to you. Well, I’m not going to put up with it!”

“Oh my god, please stop this. I will never psychologically recover from seeing your dead body,” Jacob pleads, wedged between the corner of the room and the fridge for cover.

“Can’t believe I was dumb enough to trust ya,” Melissa growls. “And after all that bullshit about ‘olive branches' and bein’ cordial.”

You smirk. “Oh, right! How was the game?”

Melissa starts forward again and Janine has to physically hold her back. She’s shockingly effective in spite of her small stature.

“Ya know I didn’t get into the game! Gary and I went all the way to the stadium, but you gave me fake tickets! We wasted our whole afternoon and got harassed by security!” she shouts.

“So what are you gonna do about it? Beat me up? Call the cops on me?” you challenge.

A deeply offended look crosses Melissa’s face as her jaw drops. “Are you callin’ me a snitch?” she snarls. She surges against Janine one more time, who manages to keep her back again. “That’s low, even for you!” Melissa says nastily over Janine’s shoulder.

“Oh, that’s low?” You ask incredulously. “Low like smashing someone’s headlights out?” There’s an audible gasp from Jacob in the corner, and you feel the heat of everyone’s gaze turn from you to Melissa, the whole room enthralled by your verbal tennis match.

Melissa glances around her before pointing an accusatory finger at you. “Ya can’t prove that was me!” You thought someone would have to have been born yesterday to believe that; anyone who worked at Abbott knew that’s exactly something Melissa would do.

“Oh yeah, because everyone else here keeps a bat taped under their desk like a neurotic asshole!” you proclaim, throwing your hands up in the air.

“I’ll show you ya stronza- ” Melissa hisses, pushing past Janine and beginning to reach for you. Your arms come up to instinctively protect your face, but before she can reach you, a figure closer to your height blocks your vision.

“THAT IS ENOUGH!” Barbara Howard bellows. The whole room comes to a standstill, frozen in time. Even Melissa has been stopped in her tracks, her eyes wide in shock as Barbara looks accusingly between the two of you. You feel immediately ashamed. “Are you both not grown adults? I cannot believe the absolute foolishness I’ve just witnessed!” She rounds on Melissa. “Especially from you!”

“Barb, she-” Melissa starts.

“I don’t care if she insulted your cooking to your face, you do not behave like catty teenagers! We are professional, grown people! Acting like this in front of your peers? Disgraceful! ”

She rounds on you, her eyes narrowing. “And you. To think that I was beginning to think highly of you. You went to all that trouble to make fake football tickets, just to get back at Melissa? Have you ever heard the phrase ‘An eye for an eye’ ?”

The pit of shame in your stomach is sickening as you slowly lower your arms, your eyes unable to meet Barbara’s. Feeling like a petulant child, you couldn’t help but mutter, “She started it.”

“And now I’m ending it!” Barbara yells. You feel her grip the sleeve of your sweater and pull. You stumble after, seeing her grasp Melissa as well. “You are both coming with me!” The rest of the lounge doesn’t move a muscle as Barbara Howard physically drags you into the hallway.

She marches with both of you in tow, Melissa sending you the nastiest glares she can muster from the other side of her friend. Stopping in front of a classroom full of bright colors and tiny chairs, Barbara turns to both of you. “This has gotten completely out of hand! You are both going to sit in my room and we are going to work through this. I don’t care if it takes all day - you will NOT be allowed out until you can act like civilized adults!” She folds her arms and gestures her head forward. You stare back for a moment, thinking she must be joking, but the woman doesn’t budge. After a moment longer, you enter the classroom. You’re followed closely by Melissa, who stalks to the other end of the room.

Barbara closes her door and pulls down the window blind. She turns to you both, her eyes closed and her shoulders rising in deep, even breaths. Eventually, she opens her eyes, and commands, “Take a seat.”

You glance around and only see chairs for children. You begin to protest, but the look on Barbara’s face prompts you to simply grab the nearest chair and plant yourself in it. Your knees are comically close to your chest and you don’t know where to put your hands. You settle on resting them on top of your knees. Melissa is pacing back and forth, muttering to herself - you guess she gets to ignore Barbara’s request.

“Now,” Barbara begins. “We are going to talk out your problems so we can put this whole mess behind us. Your students deserve you at your best, and you cannot be your best when you’re at each other’s throats!” She’s stern, chastising, and you feel ridiculous. “Where did all of this animosity start? Why are you angry with Melissa?”

You can’t help but scoff because the answer should be obvious. Barbara presses her lips together in annoyance and you quickly reply, “Well, where do I begin? Aside from smashing my headlights out, she’s done nothing but disrespect me since I stepped foot in her room. She was insulting me before she even learned my name!”

“I never learned your name,” she pipes up spitefully, and you whip your head around to glare at her.

“Memory not as good as it used to be?” you retort. A muscle in her jaw jumps out as she clenches her jaw, her face coloring once more.

Before she has a chance to rip into you again, Barbara cuts you both off with a stern, “Knock it off!” She looks exasperatedly between the two of you before pinching the bridge of her nose. “The Lord is testing me today,” she whispers to herself, shaking her head. She turns her attention to the fiery woman across the room. “Melissa?”

Melissa comes to a stop, planting herself and leaning her weight onto one hip. She rolls her eyes, gesticulating wildly as she speaks. “If we’re goin’ back to the start, then first things first, she strolled into my class thirty minutes late. Didn’t even have the decency to apologize.”

“You didn’t give me a chance to!” you protest. “I hadn't even stepped into the room before you were criticizing me. It’s not like I did it on purpose, it was a complete and total accident. And then you started insulting how young and inexperienced I look.”

“I was just givin’ you a hard time, that’s all,” she says indignantly. “How was I suppose ta know you can’t take a joke?”

Your head whips toward her. “And smashing my headlights? Was that a joke?” you retort incredulously.

Her eyes narrow and her tone is venomous as she hisses, “Nah, that was for throwin’ away my school supplies, stealin’ lunches, and callin’ me a bitch.”

You hear Barbara’s sharp inhale and jump to defend yourself. “Those supplies were all broken or unusable! You have so much on your hands with two classes and I was just trying to help you. Also, Janine gave me that lasagna because I forgot my lunch, I didn’t steal anything. You wouldn’t give me a chance to explain myself before jumping down my throat. Not to mention calling me degrading names in Italian!”

Barbara raises an eyebrow and gives Melissa a knowing glance. “Melissa uses gabbortz quite often, it’s nothing to get offended over,” she says, an attempt to reassure you.

Melissa’s eyes dart to Barbara’s as she huffs, “Uh, it’s gabbadost , Barb. And I mighta used somethin’ more… vulgar.” To your disbelief, the red head practically looks sheepish at this admission. Her arms cross in front of her as she shifts her weight, and your eyes are drawn to how the motion causes her cleavage to swell ever so slightly. Feeling heat flood your cheeks, you dart your eyes all over the room, attempting to find something else to fix them on. Luckily, neither woman seems to notice. Barbara’s eyebrows are furrowed in an inquisitive way that suggests she’s waiting for the shorter woman to elaborate. Melissa lets out a puff of air. “I mighta used the ‘P’ word, a’right?”

Barbara’s eyes widen as her mouth drops open in a gasp. “The ‘P’ word? Melissa Schemmenti, you don’t mean-”

“Yeah, yeah, the one I save exclusively for Kristin Marie. That ‘P’ word.” You don’t know who Kristin Marie is, but Barbara looks positively scandalized.

Tearing her eyes away from Melissa, Barbara stands and turns away from both of you, hands on her hips and head shaking in disapproval. As she takes her turn pacing across the room, the disappointed silence from the older woman allows the weight of the last week to settle on you, and you find yourself suddenly exhausted. You lean forward, your head in your hands and the shame rising inside of you like a tidal wave. How did you get here?

“Well, I think you both have been sufficiently horrible to each other,” Barbara says, turning toward you. “Now explain how this has all made you feel.”

You and Melissa groan in unison. “Come on, Barb,” Melissa starts, but Barbara holds up a single admonishing finger to silence her. The Italian woman becomes subdued immediately, and you notice how different Melissa’s reaction is to being silenced by Barbara.

“How has this made you feel?” the older woman presses, her tone of voice a warning to comply. Melissa leans against the wall, refusing to budge. You all sit in tense silence for what feels like an eternity, and you wish the floor would swallow you up. She was using the same tactics on you that you might use on two fighting eight year olds.

Eventually, you can’t handle the tension any longer and you burst out, “I feel totally disrespected!” You look to Barbara and she gestures for you to continue. “I uh… I feel belittled, and like you don’t take me seriously, but I think the worst part is I never got the chance to prove to you that I belong here… you wrote me off before you even met me. I’ve worked hard, and I love what I do, so to have you disregard me right off the bat, just because I made a mistake and I look young… it felt pretty shitty,” you admit, the confession coming out of you in one long rush.

“Especially because… I was excited to work with you,” you add quietly. You’re suddenly enamored with the floor, unable to bring yourself to look either woman in the eye. You feel exposed and vulnerable, and you’re majorly uncomfortable with it.

You’re forced to endure your feelings of discomfort for a few more torturous minutes. Suddenly, your eyes widen in shock as a husky voice meets your ears, and it takes a moment for your brain to process the words.

“I guess I feel a lot of the same,” Melissa admits. You raise your gaze to meet hers, and she’s staring at you intently, the earnestness reflected in her jewel-green eyes making your heart skip a beat. “Felt like you didn’t really care when you were late. Some a’ these kids? They got plenty of adults outside of these walls that don’t really care. That’s the last thing they need here. And then ya walked in and you look so young… I couldn't resist teasin' ya. But then you got me back and I got defensive, and I shouldnt’a.” She shifts her weight, casting her eyes to the floor. “I bought all those supplies with my own money,” she admits. “So seein’ you throwin’ em away, it really rubbed me the wrong way. But… you were right. I was tryin’ to stretch em when there was no more room to stretch. And then seein’ my lasagna on your desk… I know I can be a real hot head, and I took it out on ya and it wasn’t fair.”

As you look at Melissa, her red hair shining under the fluorescents and her evident unease at her own candor, there’s a swelling feeling in your chest and a warmth slowly spreading in your limbs. “Melissa,” you say, and her head snaps up to meet you. You search her eyes, waiting for her to snap at you for using her first name. She doesn’t. She simply waits, holding your gaze, and you can’t quite read what’s behind her eyes, but you suspect it’s something far softer than she’s shown you before.

You allow yourself to swim in those emerald pools for just a second longer before you admit, tenderly, “I’m sorry.” You see her shoulders drop ever so slightly, tension releasing as she allows your words to sink in. “I’m sorry for what I’ve said about your age. I’m sorry for throwing your things away without asking. And I’m really sorry about the Eagles tickets. That definitely wasn’t my finest moment.” You say the last bit with a touch of humor. You pause for a moment, before adding, “I’m not going to apologize for the lasagna, though. Janine insisted on giving it to me, and it was one of the most incredible things I’ve ever tasted.”

You see her eyes widen, her brows raising in surprise. A genuine satisfied smile graces her lips, and you can’t help but momentarily wish things had been different over the last week so you could have seen more of those. That smile made her entire demeanor change.

“Well,” she says, eyes flashing with her own humor. She shoots you a sly grin, and you return a small smile of your own. “If I’m bein’ real with ya, I’m impressed. Fake tickets? Pretty diabolical,” she continues, admiration in her voice. Her smile fades, though, and she brings her hand up, pressing a knuckle to her lips briefly in thought. She sighs, murmuring, “I’m sorry too. I shoulda given you a chance before jumpin’ to conclusions. And, uh… I’ll pay for ya to get your headlights fixed.” She mutters that last part, and you notice that she didn’t apologize for smashing them - but you know it’s as close as she’ll come, because you’re not sure she entirely regrets it. You’ll take what you can get.

“Thank you,” you murmur, and once again you suddenly can’t look at her anymore. Luckily, Barbara draws your focus to her as she clears her throat. You both look toward the older teacher as she stares down at you, a smug, triumphant smile dancing across her full lips.

“Now, was that so hard?” She asks, her voice teasing both of you. For the first time in days, you feel like you can breathe fully again. Melissa rolls her eyes, pulling herself away from the wall, but you detect a hint of relief radiating off of the woman as well.

“Don’t expect us to hold hands or nothin’ Barb,” she says as she heads for the door. When she reaches it, she pauses and turns to you. She considers you for a moment, and you begin to feel warm underneath her gaze. Finally, she says, “Well, ya comin’? We got lessons to plan for the day. How do ya feel about teaching Science?” Her tone is gruff, commanding, no nonsense. The carefully curated tough exterior of Melissa Schemmenti is back in place. But you’ve seen the slightest glimpse of the human being underneath.

“Right behind you,” you reply, and a tentative grin breaks out across your face as you stand and begin to follow the short woman. You pause briefly though, a thought entering your mind, and you turn to Barabra. Your hands grasp each other behind your back as you rock forward onto the balls of your feet, and you convey your gratitude by giving the older woman the warmest smile you can muster and uttering, “Thank you, Barbara.”

She returns your smile, her own radiant and warm, and you can’t help but feel like you’ve been blessed a bit. “My pleasure, dear. Go on, I’ll see you at lunch.” You nod in agreement, and turn on your heel, following after your lead teacher. You’re not friends - seeing as your time is limited at Abbott, you don’t imagine you ever will be. But you feel lighter, and there’s a newfound respect for the short woman. And for the first time since you stepped foot inside Abbott Elementary, you feel excited for the day before you.

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A/N:

Yes, I'm sorry, Gary will be briefly mentioned/perhaps even making small appearances. Stay strong lol. Controversial opinion but I don't hate Gary. Did I think he was good enough for Melissa? HELL NO. Do I think he should have respected her wishes and listened to her when she explained her boundaries? HELL YES. But ultimately he was just a big dumb guy who was infatuated with Melissa Schemmenti, and to that, I relate. Still, I wasn't mad about that split.

Fun fact - if you've watched season 3 episode 4 already, I wrote the Ava roster line before that episode aired. I died laughing when the kids were talking to Gregory about his roster. We don't need to talk about the firefighter exchange... denial is my favorite state.

#melissa schemmenti x you #melissa schemmenti x reader #melissa schemmenti #Spotify

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eepyuii · 20 days

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frostbite — pt. 14

pairing ; childe x gender neutral!reader

content ; childhood friends to “rivals” to lovers, slowburn

cw ; mentions of scars (edit: im a fucking idiot i forgot they talk abt scars at the start of the chapter) and like… brief dottore mention, so u know it’s icky. also u guys will be mad at me.

notes ; AHHH!!!!! I LIVE!!!!! oh gosh so many hectic life events lately….. i hadnt been able to get my hands on this dang chapter for so long

anyhow, i was planning to publish this one early like a day or two ago with a reference to an arlecchino voiceline that was THEN a leak and not out yet, so i’m glad i waited and developed this one just a little more LOL

also good luck with everyone’s arle pulls!!! (better luck than mine i hope ;w;) just like childe and the reader at some point, WANTERS WILL BE HAVERS ‼️

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“agh— be more gentle!”

“i’ll be more gentle if you stop flinching away. you’re a war machine who can turn into an abyssal beast, withstand how draining it is to use it, hold your ground against a champion duelist but you can’t handle a little cotton ball soaked in alcohol?”

“well there’s no adrenaline anymore to remedy this sting, now, is there?”

it’s almost comically reminiscent of your meeting with childe back in zapolyarny palace, where he got himself hurt just to come tell you that he was to leave for liyue— feels like it was ages ago. childe leans against the elegant marble counter of your hotel room’s bathroom, pile of bloodied cottons and tissues piling by his hands, while you clean the fresh wounds he’s just acquired from clorinde.

from how much he flinches and hisses, the wounds almost seem grave… but they’re no more than a few scratches, slashes and bruises. after his witty remark, you can only attribute his absurd resilience during battle to the mentioned adrenaline— otherwise he wouldn’t have gotten nearly as far as he has with those reactions of his.

“so did you get what you wanted from that spar? how was it in comparison to your other tries?”

childe pauses thoughtfully and proceeds to pout.

“…i think she was still holding back. i need another spar.”

“gh-! are you kidding?! childe tartaglia ajax, i am not letting you resplit the forehead i just fixed up anytime soon.”

he sighs melancholy like a grounded child, but nods in agreement anyhow. childe’s eyes remain downward, he mindlessly fiddles with the hem of your shirt as he awaits patiently for you to finish tending to his wounds. once you finish, you scan him up and down to certify that you’ve taken care of everything, until your gaze is caught by his scars.

his war medals.

he’s got an insurmountable amount of them scattered all over his body and not one is like the other— some are large lashes most likely caused by weapons like axes or claymores; some are finer lines caused by swords or daggers; a few of them even look like different types of burns, likely the work of varied elemental catalysts; and some look like small stars or circles, probably the result of arrows or the tips of polearms.

the inches of his skin that his scars don’t cover are littered with the tiniest specs of freckles… ones you’ve barely had the privilege to see over the years as a result of living in eternally cold lands. it’s only been since you’ve both been to warmer regions like liyue, inazuma and now fontaine that you’ve began to notice them.

and you’ve found that the intricate, graceful tapestry that childe’s scars and freckles weave is… gorgeous.

it’s so uniquely mesmerizing that you nearly struggle to find a worthy comparison within words or the world around you. the closest one would be to a starry sky— you imagine that his freckles become the stars that remain stationary and furthest away in the night sky, small and bountiful, while his scars are the shooting stars that flash by in a vivid explosion of light.

it’s beautiful. he’s beautiful.

you’ve realized that you’re less afraid to admit this to yourself now. perhaps spending so much constant time with childe after such a while of misencounters and diverging schedules, has made you become more comfortable around him— to the point where you barely minded him childishly playing with the hem of your shirt. it feels fine, domestic even… almost in the same way that a coup—

“hey, why’re you staring so hard? am i not gonna make it, doc?”

you flinch as you’re snapped away from your train of thought, taking in how childe’s eyes flicker worriedly over your face. unfortunately, your mind isn’t freed from the grasp of your thoughts of… admiration and your gaze quickly flies over his scars once again. the delicacy of the moment, unexpectedly, fuels you with enough confidence to raise forward a hand that lightly grazes a particularly eye-catching gash on childe’s neck— the stretched healed skin ever so slightly bumping against your digits.

“nothing… j’st looking at your scars.” you answer absentmindedly.

beneath your hand, you feel his adam’s apple raise in a hearty gulp. next, childe inhales deeply and exhales a shuddered breath, as if an attempt to ground himself.

“what about ‘em?” he whispers expectantly.

“i like them.”

it’s as if you’ve gotten the liquid courage of a drink while being entirely sober, you’re surprised that you’ve done so much as let yourself say that out loud. though perhaps… that bewilderment might just be your downfall— within the thought, you notice just how close you and childe stand before each other. he leans against the bathroom counter in only the deep red undershirt of his uniform, eyes laser-guided onto your every move while you’re only a hair’s length away from him. his absurd height doesn’t help the moment either, as he’s forced to hunch over and his figure arches forward into you— it’s suffocating.

you can’t allow yourself to crumble and panic right now, it would absolutely destroy you for the rest of your life, so you opt to breathe deeply. childe watches intently as you do and returns it with his own deep sigh, one that you feel hit your face warmly the moment it leaves his lips and so it further capitalizes on just how obscenely close the two of you are— to the point where you breathe each other’s air.

childe’s piercing azure eyes move from matching your own to slightly further down on your face…

to your lips.

“yeah?” he mumbles in the most delicate tone possible, it’s not like you’re too far to hear anyway.

it’s an inexplicable magnetic pull that brings you the smidgenmost closer to him, it has to be so. it must be that same pull that brings you to look at his mouth— plump and pink, likely still store from the split at the corner of his bottom lip. and there’s no other possibility other than that damned magnet as to why your hands slide up to wrap around his neck, childe’s shyly snaking around your waist in response.

you don’t feel like you’re in a bathroom in a hotel room in fontaine anymore, you don’t feel like the seconds pass anymore. it’s a pocket between space and time that has enveloped the two of you, away from everything else.

and there’s nothing in this world left to do other than to lean just a breath closer to each other… just a little more and—

knock knock knock knock!

you flinch away faster than lightning, heart thudding ironically like thunder. childe also seems to have been entirely spooked by the knocks on the bedroom door and he pretends to bring his hand up to scratch something on his face, but you know very well he means to hide his glaringly flushed face— you know that because you do the very same, only you briskly step away to open the door instead.

outside the room, two fontainian officers greet you, though they seemingly go wide eyed for just a brief second as if you’re not who they expect to answer.

“forgive me, friend, this is… mr. tartaglia’s room, is it not?” one inquires.

you frown in suspicion, and you plan to not directly confirm the question as to pry exactly what business two policemen would have with childe. unfortunately, the devil decides to announce it himself by coming up behind you, arms crossed defensively.

“and what might be the problem, officer?” childe asks pointedly.

both officers simultaneously eye the two of you, the blushing idiots opening the door together, and proceed to share a knowing look. the first officer sighs while the second clears his throat awkwardly.

“we apologize for… intruding so abruptly but— mr. tartaglia, you are currently being suspected of being the culprit behind the serial disappearances of young women case. for the time being, you are under arrest and must face trial at the opera epiclese to make your case.”

…what.

“what?”

coincidentally, both you and childe exclaim at the same time— though, childe’s tone is rather condescendingly skeptical while yours is laced with pure, unadulterated shock.

the harbinger scoffs. “well, i can very confidently tell you right now that i didn’t do it.”

yeah, great way to clear any and all suspicion, man.

frustratedly pinching the bridge of your nose in an attempt to help you process the last five seconds, you sigh.

“i-i think what he means to say, officer, is that it’s not plausible for him to even be a suspect in this case. i mean— if i remember correctly, doesn’t that case extend for over twenty years? we’ve only been in fontaine for a few weeks! you can check our travel tickets, they’re dated. plus, we haven’t done anything even remotely disruptive while we’ve been here, both of us have multiple reliable alibi’s regarding our whereabouts over the past few days, and—“

the officer puts up a dismissive hand, effectively interrupting you. “please, leave this for the iudex to hear.”

a metallic jingling catches your attention and you see that the second policeman wordlessly produces handcuffs from his tool belt, the panic bubbles in your throat even further. childe’s shoulders visibly tense and it’s clear that he’s intent on fighting back— with once again lighting fast reflexes, you put a hand on his shoulder and throw him a warning look as a means to discreetly impede him. childe sighs frustratedly but ceases anyhow, allowing himself to be guided out of the room. out of pure illogical desperation, you chase after.

“don’t say anything hostile or stupid until we find you a lawyer! i promise you i’ll be right behind!” you call out as the three are at the other end of the hallway and catch a final look from childe, the emotion behind it is indescribable.

your chest feels overwhelmingly tight.

—

who knew such a resplendent room could be so suffocating.

it feels as though you’ve been waiting for an eternity and the intended comfort of the opera eplicese’s waiting room only serves to unnerve you more. the most important person in your life has just been abruptly accused of being a serial kidnapper and you’re supposed to indulge in sickeningly sweet pastries and tasteless tea? it’s almost derogatory.

your leg has become sore from how much it bounces restlessly, your nail plates scratchy from how much you fidget with them, all the paper napkins on the table sloppily folded into failed paper stars. none of it helps.

you can’t even decide what to worry about, all of it swirls and spirals in your head like a rumbling tornado. is he okay? are the officers treating him well? who will defend him? will he go to prison? for how long? when in the tsaritsa’s name will arlecchino retur—

the door slams open and you jump, partially with the abruptness of it and out of sheer panic to get some news on the situation. your heart starts palpitating again and it takes everything within your willpower to seem more put together in front of the knave.

“s-so?” you ask with an uncontrollable shake in voice.

“it’s invariable, childe must face trial and defend himself. we can only count on the factuality that he is innocent and the oratrice will say accordingly.”

you sigh, at least… whatever in the archons’ name constitutes that machine is infallible.

“the trial starts in five minutes.” arlecchino adds curtly.

you nod and allow yourself to take a deep, grounding breathe before standing up to leave the waiting room. as your hand reaches out to the doorknob, there is a firm grip on your shoulder. you turn ever so slightly to find a pointy-nailed, stark black hand holding you back— another moment to analyze the hand reveals to you that… that’s her skin. black.

a chill runs down your spine.

“allow me, for a moment, to ask a selfish question in exchange for a selfish answer, sargeant.” she stands, voice dark and menacing. “as an asset of the doctor’s… do you share his ideals?”

the question takes you off-guard but it also… doesn’t. you’re not an idiot— you’ve heard of dottore’s letters to the house of the hearth suggesting the, err.. ‘rejects’ be sent to his custody so he can further his experiments. you remember how utterly appalled you were when you first came across the information. if the knave truly cares about the children in her orphanage, it’s no wonder how tightly she grips your shoulder, sharp nails just a breath away from breaking skin.

and so she asks you selfishly, a question not of loyalty but of morality.

dottore’s face flashes before your eyes and your hand subconsciously tightens into a fist, expression hardening.

“if his life were in my hands, i’d crush it in a heartbeat.” you whisper bitterly.

the grip releases you and it’s as if air is easier to breathe after that. arlecchino wordlessly steps ahead to open the door for you and gestures for you to leave first, expression neutral as if nothing had happened.

the courtroom looks like no courtroom at all, rather you feel as though you’re about to watch an opera in a grand theater— the rumors about fontaine seem to be true after all. in the rows of cushy seats, people whisper and gossip endlessly until you find yourself a seat and the booming sound of a gavel being struck echoes through the court, all sound ceases.

“court is now in session for the case of serial disappearances of young women, today we will hear both the prosecution and defense’s arguments regarding mr. tartaglia of the fatui’s alleged involvement.”

a baritone voice echoes through the silent courtroom, the direction it rings out from reveals a white-haired man in proper blue robes, sitting in a balcony that floats above the courtroom’s stage. you recognize him as the iudex, the chief justice, monsieur neuvillette. his tone is elegant and intellectual, with complete considerate professionalism—- its cadence almost reminds you of zhongli in a sense. but that’s not all that reminds you of zhongli… you can’t quite put your finger on it though.

what follows is merely formal introductions from the prosecution and the defense and you take the opportunity to become distracted and ponder over just how catastrophic your morning had turned out. it all happened so quickly too— one second you were… ah… canoodling with childe and the next he was being escorted out the room by law enforcement. had you been cursed by the gods? would they be so cruel as to make every peaceful moment in your life just merely bedding for the next major inconvenience? would they be so frustratingly taunting as to let you get that close to the one you have feelings for only to rip you two away from each other right afterwards?

“it would appear i must repeat my question, mr. tartaglia.” neuvillette says firmly, catch your attention and breaking you from your daze.

“do you accept the charge that you are the true culprit behind the serial disappearances case?”

“to be perfectly honest, i don’t understand your country’s complicated court systems, or the reason why i’m being charged with something i’ve never even heard of.” the harbinger answers bluntly.

“however, i did hear that people who have been charged can choose to participate in a duel to clear their name— is that right? in that case, as long as i accept the charge, i can have an all out fight with that champion duelist clorinde, right?”

…

how can the supposed love of your life be this stupid?

“when i privately sparred with her last time, she was obviously holding back… real disappointing.”

“hey, don’t you understand? you’re currently the prime suspect for a major case! this isn’t the place for you to be looking for fights.” a female voice calls out from the balcony directly above where you seat— while you can’t see who it is, you can only assume from the bossiness of her tone that it’s lady furina herself, the hydro archon.

“oh? sounds like the hydro archon wants to lecture me on the ways of the opera house…” childe taunts. “then why don’t you duel me too? i’m the kind of students that learns best in the heat of battle.”

you’ll kill him, oh you’ll kill this idiot one day… does he want to rot in prison for the rest of his days? this time you truly cannot hold yourself back from subconsciously standing up in panic, limbs urging to get up there and try to amend the situation yourself by arguing like a normal, sane person— but the judging stares of the other spectators hinder you glued to your seat out of sheer embarrassment.

“alas, it would appear that communication with the defendant is going poorly, and we have made very little progress.” neuvillette intervenes. “in that case, let me explain everything from the very beginning again. the goal of this trial is to determine the culprit behind the serial disappearances case—“

“that case had nothing to do with him! you’ve got the wrong man!”

huh? …who said that? did that not come out of your own mouth? seems like something you’d blur out… instead it comes from a flamboyantly dressed blonde woman who bursts into the courtroom at that very second. to you, she nearly seemed angelic in the moment.

“miss navia, this is the second time you’ve interrupted the court proceedings. i only tolerated your behavior last time because you were able to provide the court with a key eyewitness. but that was exception rather than standard court protocol— i can very well charge you with contempt of court for your interjections.”

“oh please, did you ever think i had any respect for this place’s pointless theatrics?” navia scoffs.

“we can put aside that discussion for now, i’m not here to argue with you. i’m here to charge the true culprit behind the serial disappearances case. and if my charges prove true, the tartaglia here will be proven innocent by default, correct?”

neuvillette proceeds to dismiss childe from the stand to make way for navia and allows him to seat in the audience and you feel like you should owe this lady your life. childe’s eyes scan through the seats and when he spots you, he visibly lights up and beelines to the seat next to yours.

“challenging the hydro archon? really?” you whisper playfully.

childe contains himself not to laugh loudly. “can’t say it wasn’t worth the shot.”

it’s as if a wordless conversation settles between the two of you, silent glances and deep sighs that express the mutual hopefulness for a good outcome of this trial. after a solid few seconds of staring at each other like fools, childe’s gaze drops down, you follow it to see his gloved palm sat in the armrest between the two of you— it faces outward in an invitation. your hand joins his without thought and the second your skin registers the warmth that radiates from his hold, it’s like an electric shock runs through your veins. one so buzzing that makes you two simultaneously face away from each other to hide your burning cheeks.

you’d like to pretend that you’re paying attention to the trial, but the ever so gentle squeezes childe hand gives yours periodically seem to take up all of your focus and cause it to short circuit. suddenly, there’s another burst of the courtroom’s doors and there stand the traveler and paimon, because of course they’re somehow also involved in this.

“naviaaa, we’re back!” paimon calls out.

“as expected of my partner! i just knew you’d come back in the nick of time!”

“just how often do you intend to flout the rules of this court…” neuvillette mutters disappointedly.

the traveler’s appearance contributes new evidence towards navia’s favor, who expertly disperses all of the oppositions statements. the culprit is revealed to be a man by the name of vacher, who was intent on bringing back his dear vigneire to the point where he began dissolving innocent young women with primordial seawater. as overtly ridiculous as fontaine’s spectacle culture seemed to be, you couldn’t say that watching this trial play out wasn’t extremely entertaining.

but speaking of innocent…

“at this point, the verdict of this trial is clear. with mr. marcel’s conviction, the charges against mr. tartaglia no longer hold any basis.”

you giddily look over at childe, who seems as aloof as someone who didn’t worry for a second. your fingertips tingle with excitement and you can feel the stress evaporate off your shoulders in real time. neuvillette summarizes the entire case once more and submits the verdict to the oratrice— the machine hums loudly and flashes a blinding blue, producing an envelope finally confirming his guilty status. much to unspoken disappointment, childe lets go of your hand to stand with his chest proudly puffed up.

“well now, hasn’t this been the most delicious piece of drama? the villain has been caught, justice has been served, pas wrongs have been righted and it’s a bit ol happy ending… since it’s been such a great show, i’ll just let the false accusations against me slide. either way, i’ve still got some business to attend to, so if you’ll excuse me—“

the harbinger looks back to offer you his hand once more and you happily take it before childe begins to lead you two out of the room. unfortunately, the guards at the doors of the courtroom remain unmoving as they block the doors and you frown in confusion.

“please wait just one moment, mr. tartaglia.” says the iudex.

“oh, what now? none of this has anything to do with me.” childe groans.

“according to court protocol, since this trial was initiated due to a charge against you, a verdict must also be made regarding the initial charge before the trial can conclude.”

you sigh out of selfish frustration, but opt to respect the proceedings anyhow— it’s not like the verdict will change now. childe, on the other hand, voices his annoyance like a petulant kid.

“please respect the laws of fontaine. this has always been the rule.”

“it’s fine, we’ll just have to wait here a few little seconds more.” you whisper to childe coaxingly.

he sighs. “alright alright, but this has been a lot of hassle. all i need is to stand over there, right? let’s just get this over with…”

“through evidence presented in the public trial that was just held, it has been established that mr. tartaglia has no direct connection to the serial disappearances case. the guilty party has been established and thus, it is logical to suppose mr. tartaglia is innocent of the charges.”

the machine whirrs once more, stirring some curiosity within you as to what exactly makes it tick or give accurate verdicts at all. as the envelope reaches the chief justice’s hands, he seems to stutter for a moment as he reads it. neuvillette’s ever so stoic face falls slightly into a vexed frown and he hums in confusion.

“according to the judgment of the oratrice mechanique d’analyse cardinale, mr. tartaglia is— guilty.”

taglist ; @kentply @osaemu @rain-and-a-nice-nap @koichirana

#genshin impact fic #childe genshin x reader #childe imagines #childe x reader #childe x y/n #childe x you #genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #childe fic #tartaglia x y/n #tartaglia x you #childe tartaglia ajax #tartagalia genshin impact #tartaglia x reader

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drunkenskunk · 2 months

Text

Meanwhile, en route to the Icebreaker...

All was quiet on the Dragon's Tooth. The old IPS-N clipper being used as the home-away-from-Hell's-Gate for the Strategic Response Team was currently on its braking burn towards the Icebreaker Borealis, and the ship's clocks had all been set to the station's local time. As a result, it was close to “one in the morning,” and nearly everyone on board was asleep.

A hatch suddenly opened onto the mech bay. Scarlet stepped through the open door, wearing only a tank top and sweatpants. A part of her knew she shouldn't be walking around in here with bare feet, but she was worried about making too much noise. In fact, she was worried about a lot of things...

Before she knew it, she was standing before her mech: Big Red. An old Everest, battle scarred and rough around the edges, she'd been slowly tinkering with and upgrading the ancient beast over her last several months on the team. What stood out the most was the armored “boombox” she'd had custom fitted to the right shoulder. It housed the barrels, rotor assembly, and firing mechanism of the Leviathan heavy assault cannon, fed by a pair of armored ammo belts and connected to the immense ammo drum mounted on the back. It wasn't the newest addition, but it was certainly the most obvious, especially when compared to the other assault mechs in the militia's rank-and-file.

The war machine was still harnessed and braced in its alcove, completely immobile and powered down: exactly as she'd left it several hours earlier. That wouldn't have been notable, had it not been for the unexpected... calamity from earlier. And it was why she was here right now.

See, Scarlet had ordered some explosive vents for Big Red some time ago; after all, heat buildup during the last few fights was becoming a bit of an issue, so she might as well put that heat to some good use, right? But for one reason or another, she had kept putting off the installation. This was likely because everything had become Completely Fucked in Calliope ever since the arrival of all those warship fleets in system. She'd been way too busy running “all hands, repel boarders” combat drills with a lot of the Hell's Gate militia, on the ever-increasingly-likely chance that they'd need it.

Now that the SRT was on their way to the Icebreaker, she had plenty of time, and Agarin even offered to help her get them installed. Getting the physical parts slotted into the mech went as smooth as every other installation in the past, and everything seemed to be going fine. And then she powered up the mech to install the firmware updates.

The instant the fusion core spun up, the machine started moving all on it's own, ignoring any commands and struggling against the restraints and maintenance catwalks holding it in place. Big Red's distinctive purr – a clicking sound with an unknown source the mech would occasionally make – had turned into a ferocious, almost animalistic roar that Scarlet was sure must have echoed throughout the entire ship. The whole machine bucked and writhed uncontrollably, very nearly ripping the umbilicals out of the bay, and if Scarlet hadn't been strapped in by the assault harness and connected through the cranial jack at the base of her skull, she was sure she would have been tossed right out of the open cockpit like a ragdoll.

Just as she felt like her options were running out, Agarin had hopped into the open cockpit with a grace that she thought shouldn't have been possible for someone so damn tall (did that tail of his help with balance?). He was intent on interfacing with the mech using some of his implants and technical know-how in the hope that the two of them working together could get the machine to calm down... but as soon as the handsome dragon man plugged himself in, everything just got worse.

In truth, Scarlet could barely remember everything that happened. Big Red misidentified Agarin's presence in the system as an attack, battering him through the connection with words like INTRUDER, INTERLOPER, and HOSTILE, repeated over and over again... and because she was hard-wired into the machine as well, her mind was also hit with the same mental assault.

Combat recordings from dozens – maybe hundreds – of past engagements flooded both of their minds. Indescribable death and carnage on an unthinkable scale that she had never before witnessed. Screams of the dead, entire worlds on fire, and the machines who burned them. Pilots murdered by the score, one after the other, their names and faces blending together. Recordings, information, tactical data, and images force-fed directly into her brain through the cranial jack, overloading her senses and layering on top of one another until the horror and anger and pain of it all melted into nothing but noise.

The whole experience only lasted for a few minutes, but it had felt like hours.

What she did remember clearly was Agarin doing some kind of Clanner Space Magic to ask her a simple question: “Do you trust me?” And while she responded with as an enthusiastic “yes” as she could possibly muster right then and there, it was like the mech had also been given pause by the question. Before she knew it, the connection in her mind began to fade, and the mech powered down of its own volition.

That was several hours ago. She stared up at the wedge-shaped head of her mech, and the distinctive mass of cracks around the left optical unit. She half expected it to start moving again to look at her, but the trio of cameras remained shuttered, and the head was still and immobile.

“Can't sleep?” came a voice from behind her, and Scarlet practically jumped out of her skin. She wheeled around and was face-to-holographic-face with Siren, the Dragon's Tooth NHP pilot. She had her arms folded across her chest, and she was looking at Scarlet with a curious expression. Was that amusement or annoyance?

“Wh- I- well... no.” Scarlet stammered out eventually. She brushed some errant strands of red hair out of her face. “I'm just... y'know, I'm still... still just a bit on edge from earlier, yeah?”

“And you thought checking in on your haunted mech in the middle of the night would take the edge off?” Siren asked, tilting her head with her mouth cracking into a smirk.

“Hey, c'mon, Big Red ain't haunted, I just...” she tried to wave it off dismissively, but Scarlet briefly looked over her shoulder to glance up at her mech – as if checking to make sure it was, indeed, still not moving – and then quickly turned back at Siren. “Look, I know we're headin' to the Icebreaker for that party bein' thrown by the Kingdom Aniline or whoever, but you know what things've been like lately. Fer all we know, we're headin' into another fight, an' I... I just wanna make sure he's good t'go, and isn't gonna freak out. Don't want any more surprises.”

“Sorry marine, I'm not letting you boot up that thing again while we're in transit and without proper support,” Siren shook her head. “I heard about the Vent Crab Incident back on the Gate, and I'm not letting you blow any holes in my ship.”

Scarlet screwed up her face in frustration. Apparently that fake Muse post Pearce made a while back (do mechs even know what they're doing or do they just see crab flowing down a vent and think “absolutely not”) was still floating around the Omninet. And, sure, she had accidentally blown up a vent crab (and several bulkheads) with a mech scale rifle round that day, but she didn't even have a Muse account!

“I promise I'm just gonna run some diagnostics,” Scarlet said, holding up her hands in what she hoped was a disarming gesture. “I'll keep him in low-power, won't even spin up th' reactor. Just wanna be sure everything is fine, so I can put my worries to bed an' get some sleep.”

Siren was quiet for a minute, scrutinizing the mech pilot. The holographic NHP eventually sighed and shrugged.

“Alright, go on. But I'll be keeping an eye on things, and I'll have my hand on the kill-switch the second I even get a whiff that something is about to go wrong.”

“Hey now, you don't ha-” Scarlet began, but Siren held up a blue shimmering finger.

“These terms are non-negotiable, marine. Now go on, check on the spooky boy, I'll keep watch from here. But do try and be quick about it. I've got some friends in a game of Fleet Command 5016 on standby, and I don't want to leave them hanging for too long.”

And with that, the Siren hologram winked away.

Scarlet turned on her heel, scampered up the access later, and popped the cockpit hatch as quick as she could, just on the off chance Siren decided to have a change of heart. Once she got settled in the command couch, she flipped a series of switches to start the mech in low-power mode. While the monitors and consoles around her began to hum softly, warming up into a diagnostic boot sequence, she reached behind her head, feeling around for the metal jack behind her seat. She moved her ponytail out of the way with her free hand, and slotted the jack into her cranial port with the other.

The connection was immediate and made her grit her teeth, just like always: a sharp electric buzz at the base of her skull that blossomed into icy fingers prodding inside her brain. The sensation wormed its way down through her neck and flooded her extremities until everything tingled uncomfortably, as if her whole body had fallen asleep for half a second. Then the sensation passed, and a relative equilibrium was achieved between Scarlet and her war machine.

“Alright big guy,” Scarlet said, trying to blink away the sparkles on the edges of her vision. “Tell me what ails you.”

The low clicking reverberated through the cockpit in response, and words quickly typed themselves out on one of the monitors.

<<HOSTILE ARCHITECTURE DETECTED>>

“Hostile architecture?” Scarlet said aloud. “Wait, y'mean the new parts?” She figured that was probably the problem, but she still wasn't entirely clear as to why.

The mech rumbled. A different monitor on the other side of the cockpit flipped on, and began to playback a recording. This was one of the many recordings that had been force-fed in her brain earlier, but it took Scarlet a minute to realize that was what she was looking at. After all, seeing an image on a monitor was a slightly different experience than a video feed overlaid with tactical and sensor data flowing around it like water, and transmitted directly into her mind through a cranial jack. Especially when there had been so much other information to parse.

The recording looked like it was the camera feed of a broken mech lying motionless on the ground, surrounded by rubble. It was hard to tell from the quality and angle of the recording, but she was pretty sure the mech this recording came from was much bigger than an Everest. Even so, the mech itself wasn't the focus: it was the inferno all around. It was like the whole world had been set on fire, and through the heat haze, she could see crude juggernauts marching past in formation. The recording shook with every stomp of their heavy boots, and streams of liquid fire surged from titanic flamethrowers.

More words began to type themselves on the other monitor, drawing her attention:

<<Rec:4533u//Hercynia-MycolFields//Varano,J.(Clover)//DECEASED>>

Scarlet turned back to the recording, with slightly better understanding. This was from 483 years ago? She knew this mech was old, but she had no idea it was that old. Hell, she didn't think the Everest frame was that old. Was that why it looked so different, and... so much larger? Had this machine not always been an Everest? The techs back on Hell's Gate had always joked that the “Rage Machine” was an ancient piece of shit, but... did anyone actually know how old this beast was?

And then there was that word that stood out to her for some reason: Hercynia. That was... Agarin mentioned something about that, after he got Big Red to calm down earlier, hadn't he? Her memory was still a bit fuzzy about that. Hercynia was... it was a planet somewhere, wasn't it? She wasn't entirely sure.

“Hang on, somethin' else is botherin' me. What are those?” Scarlet leaned forward, squinting her eyes, trying in vain to get the grainy picture on the monitor to come into focus. “Those mechs stompin' around, they kinda look familiar, but... hell, if I didn't know better, I'd say they were the same kinda frame Andros Capella was drivin' when he came out of that fire gate.”

Big Red seemed to shudder at the mention of Andros Capella... though, it was probably more accurate to say it sent a shudder up Scarlet's spine, directly through the cranial jack.

“Heh... yeah, I feel ya, big guy. You wanted a crack at him, same as I did.” Scarlet started to chuckle, and patted one of the consoles. “Well, look on the bright side: Pearce murked him, what? Four times in the last fight? An' Cassilda punched him t'death the first time. We'll probably get a crack at him ourselves, eventually.”

The clicking sound briefly grew in volume, before settling back down again.

“Alright, so these mechs yer showin' me. What are they, anyway?”

Another monitor above her and to her left winked on. It showed a wireframe of the mechs in the recording, clearly generated from what looked a mixture of official schematics and tactical data. Again, words began to type themselves out, drawing her attention.

<<U-MEF//GMS-UPA.1//Mk-1.Genghis//Worldkiller>>

“Wait, Genghis? That doesn't look like a-” but she cut herself off before she could finish her thought, as another one intruded. The Harrison Armory license she'd accessed to order the explosive vents was for the Mk II Genghis. Mark 2. She'd always wondered about that. Scarlet looked back up at the wireframe: this squat, brutal looking monster of a mech definitely cut a significantly different silhouette than the smaller, slimmer, sleeker frame of the Mk II... but the more she looked, the more she could see the resemblance.

Before she had a chance to ponder that any further, all the monitors cleared themselves, as a string of more words on the first monitor appeared.

<<Protocol 1: Link To Pilot>> <<Protocol 2: Uphold The Mission>> <<Protocol 3: Protect The Pilot>> <<ERROR//PROTOCOL CONFLICT//ERROR>> <<HOSTILE ARCHITECTURE DETECTED>> <<PROTOCOL 3 IN JEOPARDY>>

“Y'know what... after seein' all that? I don't blame ya for takin' that stance,” Scarlet reached up to scratch at her head. “I wouldn't want somethin' from those big fuckers in me either.”

Big Red rumbled again.

“Protect the pilot...” Scarlet muttered under her breath. “Well... I dunno if it'll help things, but... that's the whole reason I got these parts. I wasn't thinkin' of where they came from, but what they could do fer us, y'know?” She gestured with her thumb above her right shoulder. “That big fuck-off assault cannon we got from the Drake license generates a lot of heat, and I'm not sure I know how to squeeze in any more heat sinks without sacrificin' some structure.”

The screen winked clear, and another string appeared in its place.

<<...PROCESSING...>>

“Hell, if you don't believe me, believe what Agarin told ya earlier. We're all part of a team. Agarin, Fern, Cassilda... hell, even Pearce and that gaggle of NHP's he's been collectin' like playing cards. We all look out fer each other. We all make sure we come out the other side of every fight in one piece. An' that's all I was tryin' to do, yeah? Use whatever I can to keep myself alive, so I can find my Five Minutes, an' keep all them alive.” Scarlet let out a heavy sigh. “I... hell, I don't know if I'm makin' any sense. Am I makin' sense?”

The clicking steadied, and Big Red rumbled in sympathy.

The monitor flickered, and one more message scrolled past:

<<Protocol 3>> <<I will not lose another Pilot>>

“Yeah, don't you worry 'bout a thing, big man,” Scarlet patted one of the nearby consoles. “I'm not goin' anywhere.”

With that, she flipped the switches to fully power down the mech. The connection at the base of her skull went cold, as the monitors winked off and the hum of the consoles fell silent. She reached behind her head to disconnect the cerebral jack, and she sat nestled there in the command couch, waiting for the pins and needles sensation of neurons firing at stimuli no longer present to subside.

And as she sat there, surrounded by silence and darkness, a memory crossed her mind. An errant thread, begging to be pulled.

The memory was one of the visions she'd seen, when the team had been caught in that paracausal labyrinth deep beneath the surface of Botzmann. She still wasn't quite sure of how any of that shit worked, or how a cascading NHP was responsible, but it was like reality itself had been cut up and stitched back together; even time didn't make sense, experiencing pasts that never were, and impossible futures that still might be. And while Scarlet was lost, separated from the others, she had stumbled across a mirror. No words were said, but she somehow knew what it was the moment she saw her reflection looking back at her.

This Scarlet stared at her with tired, empty eyes. She was old and grey, with hands covered in blood... but none of it her own. A trail of death and carnage followed behind her. This was a Scarlet that had never found her Last Five Minutes, because she'd deliberately avoided finding them at any cost. This Scarlet was so good at keeping herself alive, that she had become the last one standing.

This was who she feared she could become.

“Yeah...” she said aloud, to no one in particular. “Guess I'm not goin' anywhere.”

#Lancer #Lancer RPG #lancer ttrpg #in golden flame #vex wasn't lying that one sure is plumed in golden flame #Strategic Response Team #Dragon's Tooth #GMS Everest #short fiction #my writing

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sinner-sunflower · 1 month

Text

P.2 HH Lucifer-centric AU 1/?

STORY 1, PART 2, PART 3, PART 4, PART 5, PART 6, PART 7, PART 8, PART 9, PART 10, PART 11, PART 12, PART 13, PART 14, PART 14.5, PART 15, PART 16, PART 17, PART 18, PART 19, PART 20

We're finally here! I hope this sequel makes you feel the same excitement the first one gave you. I know I'm excited.

To the new readers, please read STORY 1 first for better understanding of how we got to this point. Trust me, it's important plus! It's a pretty awesome prequel if I do say so myself.

To the readers who have been there since I posted part 1, I hope I make you proud too!

Let's go!

HOOK: A LUCIFER CENTRIC AU - AO3

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Previously:

A powerful explosion lit up the sky. The sky split in two and fire appeared high and wide over Pride. At that moment, everyone became so hot that they couldn't bear it, as if their whole body was on fire. They wanted to rip their skin off just to get a sense of relief but then the sky shut closed. A strong thump was heard by every demon in the vicinity and then they were all thrown a few meters.

It felt like an eternity before Charlie and the others could get their bearings. Those that didn't get knocked out went outside, once there, they see Lucifer far up in the sky, holding up a flaming sword. The signature pentagram of the city has been fractured by whatever happened and demons all around were either hurt or unconscious.

Charlie: Dad!

Charlie calls out to her dad but he doesn't acknowledge her. His gaze never leaving Heaven, as if he's seeing something that no one else can.

A screen locked on Hell zooms out as the machine's voice rang out 'target disengaged'.

An angel looking similarly to Lucifer, except there's blue tints on the spots where Lucifer had reds, was looking down at Hell pulling back a large, golden gun. They blew the smoke residue and sighed.

Michael: Hello, Lucifer... Still causing trouble, I see.

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

Lucifer lands on the now burnt soil of Pride trying to keep his composure calm as those who were not knocked out by the blast panic once again.

His jaw clenched so tightly that the muscles strained against the skin, teeth grinding together like stones. He tightens his grip on Lightbringer, knuckles whitening.

'Damn it, Michael!'

In his pure anger, his body moves on its own. Lucifer swung his arm back, Lightbringer's flames tracing a graceful arc through the air. He pivots his back foot and-

How dare Michael! How dare he attack Hell, endanger his home, his family, HIS DAUGHTER!

Before he could launch his sword at Heaven, at Michael, in retaliation, a mass of assorted colors grabs his arms and blocks his view.

It was the Sins.

Lucifer: Let go.

Lucifer lets out a wave of power, they faltered a bit but none released their hold or moved.

Satan: We- shit! We can't do that.

Mammon: Mate, don't do something I would definitely do.

Asmodeus: Stop, Lucifer. this will only make things worse. We'll come up with a plan but we can't afford setting off a war right now!

They're trying to reason with their King but Lucifer's eyes are still looking through them.

Lucifer: I'm not the one who started this.

Beelzebub: We know, babe! But! You're getting pissed off more than Satan over here on a normal day. It's not a cute look.

Satan: Hey!

Belphegor: Ozzie is right.

Leviathan: Calm down, Luci.

He was about to shake them off and continue what he was about to do until-

Charlie: Dad!

And just like that Lucifer's anger recedes. He slumps a little into the Sins' holds and calls back Lightbringer.

Charlie and the hotel residents were the first to reach him, he can feel his daughter's hands all over him checking for any injuries as the others worry about what happened. And what the fuck was that?? Was that Heaven??

He was about to say something when they were suddenly blinded by flashes and a bunch microphones being shoved at his face. His family were screaming obscenities for the press to back the fuck up.

'How did they get here so fast?'

Reporter 1: -Your Majesty! Can you tell us what was that??

Reporter 2: -Lucifer, over here! Was that a direct attack from Heaven?

Reporter 3: -Does it have anything to do with what happened in Sloth?

Reporter 4: -Lucifer! Lucifer! Does this mean a war with Heaven is about to happen??

Reporter 5: -Sire, the Pentagram symbol above is destroyed! Is that a barrier? If so, do we not have any protection against Heaven anymore?

Reporter 6: -Are you any match for Heaven's higher forces?

Questions after questions. It doesn't stop even with the threat of the Sins.

'Too loud. Too noisy. ShutupShutupShutupShutupShutupShutupShutupShutupShutupShutup SHUT UP!'

He looks directly at the group vultures, letting Roo's attributes surface more.

Lucifer: Fall.

The noise stops and the next moment the demons around them fell to the ground fast asleep.

Not even Charlie berated him for using that ability against their will.

Lucifer: Alright. Why don't we talk inside?

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

I feel like the start of my AUs are always short but I hope y'all will support me again 'til the end!

Read STORY 1 here!

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ramblesbiab · 4 months

Text

i desperately need to be the leader of a human uprising against a world which has been largely overtaken by robots and there's one specific robot girl who's a prominent leader in the robot forces. She hates me, I hate her, and years go by as we keep fighting each other. I think we're getting closer, we have to be. We can't let those things win.

Then, finally, it comes. Our largest scale attack. We charge, all at once, on the largest base of operations for the robots, running on adrenaline and hope, desperate, desperate hope, for the future of humanity.

And they obliterate us. They obliterate me, leaving me bloody and barely alive, lying on the battlefield knowing we'd failed. Then, a figure stands over me, and as I blackout, I can feel myself being picked up.

When I wake up, something feels wrong. I'm in pain, sure, but not nearly enough for the abuse I just took, and I assume I must be dead. Then I see her. The robot girl leader, at a work table across the room. Humming a softly digital tune to herself, until I make the surface I'm on creak and she startles.

She explains that I was in critical condition. That I was going to die if I didn't have parts of me replaced, so she did it. I can't think about the disgust of being part machine now from the sheer surprise that she - helped me? My worst enemy saved my fucking life?!

Like she's reading my thoughts, she snaps at me to shut up before I can ever say anything. It's unclear what happens next. If I can leave, if the other robots know I'm here. If her goal is to torture me, so dying wasn't an option, or if there's some other strange reason she wants me alive.

I spend a few unbearably contentious nights in the workshop I woke up in, sleeping on the same table my operation took place. Feeling the machines moving inside me so unnaturally every time I close my eyes. She keeps not saying anything, only giving me glances from the side, not saying I can go but not telling me to stay, either.

One day, I move closer to her worktable. Watching the way her robotic fingers move with such grace. It's mesmerizing.

She finally speaks up to tell me it's rude to stare. But I keep watching, and she does nothing to prevent it. I swear there's a soft smirk on those grey lips of hers.

It's odd to me, how I know what she's working on. About all the devices she's always tinkering with, from all the observing I did while planning the uprising. I know so much about a robot woman I've yet to have a conversation with, at least one that wasn't yelled over the sounds of gunfire and explosions.

I can't bear the silence, nor the occasional sarcastic remarks. So I crack. "What are we?" I ask after another few days. She freezes perfectly in place, or so I think, until I notice the shake to her hand, such an oddly human response to the question. More human then most of the monsters who were willing to join my uprising.

"I'm still figuring that out," she whispers. She goes back to work. After a few minutes, she starts to hum, like I'm not here. Or - like it's okay that I'm here. I let a smile creep onto my face.

We're getting somewhere.

( if it's not obvious this is very inspired by portal 2 and also this portal 2 fanfic: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8896805/27/Of-Robots-and-Women )

#robots #robot girl #I needed to get this out of my system #i need a robot girl so bad #like damn #portal 2 #writing #yuri #robot yuri #also im way too squishy to ever lead an uprising #but it works better in the story #for them to be direct rivals #so yay

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aealzx · 1 year

Photo

A little midnight dive

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“MIKEY!.... MIKEY GET BACK HERE NOW!”

Raph’s yelling sounded almost frantic, not quite ready for the clutter of mechs that too closely resembled the Krang’s own machines. The creatures had left scraps in the Hidden City eons ago, and someone had found them and adapted them to modern war machines.

And Mikey’s form had done a backflip off the side of the building they were on, hurtling towards the enemy as though they were common origami Foot soldiers.

Raph felt like throwing up his lungs, already clutching an unresponsive Leo to his chest.

“{.... It’s okay Raph,}” Leon’s voice broke through the panicked haze in Raph’s mind, the ghostly hands of his own older counterpart resting on his shoulders as deadly orange chains slipped into the air under Mikey’s feet, giving him a path to slide to the ground on instead of free falling through the air. “{That’s not quite your Mikey,}” Leon clarified, an eager grin splitting his face as he watched in anticipation. “{That’s OUR Mikey.}”

“{Figures he’d be the first to figure out dual operation,}” Don muttered from nearby, his own hands carefully holding his younger counterpart together, Donnie’s hand in a determined vice grip around Leo’s wrist..

It had been a long time since Michael had gotten to really fight without being hindered by a fragile body. He wasn’t quite used to Mikey’s incredibly younger, and less mystic experienced form. But at least it was easier to just push a little less mystic, and a little more razz. The small form crashed into the mechs with both feet while coiling chains sliced through two others. Impact buffered by Michael’s own manipulation of physics knocking the machine back, and he used it as a springboard to launch to the next. His coiling chains lifted the skewered machines above him into a cacophony of applause crushing together overhead as ballet toes twisted his form midair to catch his palms on the next victim.

Fingers lacing into the rim of the machine’s shoulder, Mikey’s form never halted and instead fell back to whip the machine into a rolling throw behind him. More chains spiraled around another metal body, crushing it in their grasp while additional chains caught Mikey’s feet. With barely a pause Mikey’s legs launched him into a graceful arc over the head of a charging scrap heap. His toes caressing the atmosphere, Mikey’s form rolled upright to almost land behind his final enemy. Yet his feet remained allies of the air, and raised fingers delicately coaxed more chains into creation from behind him. Hurtling in curves around him, they pierced the mech before him in a violent similitude of swiss cheese.

It was only when the final explosion rent the offending heaps to scraps that Mikey’s feet returned to the earth, touching down as soft as snowfall as Michael’s spirit form peeled away with a mutual sigh from both of them. As Michael’s form rose, Mikey’s collapsed to sit on the ground as he heaved air into his lungs. It had been an effort to fight on top of keeping the direct link connection with his spirit buddy. But as his lungs became less greedy of the air he was giving them the exhaled breaths gradually became bouts of laughter. To the point Mikey was laughing so hard he couldn’t stand even though his limbs had stopped feeling numb. “WOOOOOOO! THAT WAS AWESOME!!!!” Mikey whooped, raising his hands into the air in triumph before flopping onto his back.

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

Sometimes I get images that slap me in the face to be drawn, usually because of music and other people’s art. X’D

So this actual polished illustration was inspired by this piece by happyfoxx-art, the mikey one of these two, and the song Hikari by Vanguard Sound.

This is going to get search banned because of the links I bet, but oh well.

shoutout to dragoonwys yet again for helping me make stuff work with this XDD still learning how to actually finish things nicely.

#my art #polished art #rottmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #mikey #older mikey #tethered timeline #rottmnt tethered timeline #TT Michael #short fic #long post #writing

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asquared-ohgodnotthehorrors · 2 months

Text

I wanna make a Lancer storyboard about the Mourning Cloak. Actually, lemme write up what I would do in it real quick:

A battlefield, shrouded in darkness and flame. The fight was finished not too long ago. A scout team walks through the ruins.

Suddenly, they recoil in fear, backing away, guns raised. All are terrified… except one.

Within moments, it’s obvious why. A specter he alone could not see cuts his head off, not even behind him, but in front of him. The blade microns thick, the only hint of its existence a glint of red across the length of it, and the slight shimmer as its broad side was slightly bent. The blood is everywhere.

The scouts open fire, spreading out to surround the wraith. Shots stay clear as the mourner dashes, an ivory streak dodging stream after stream of bullets. One hits clear, punching into an arm. The one who landed is greeted by the thing behind it, sliding the crimson blade across his throat. Blink. Another lies dead with the thing beside it, arm cradling the body gently while blade of folded metal slides through him, long as his body.

As a grenade fires upon it, the impact lands, the horrible crunching of metal almost louder than the explosion as it silently whips around, clawing at the air. The lone heavy who fired it learned too late that it wasn’t a claw. It was a throw. The arm holding the rocket launcher is exploded to bits. A cavity in his chest soon followers as he is launched back, unceremoniously dead on the ground.

The last of the group, huddled together, hold their guns shaking at the haunting. It stares at them… and vanishes. They panic, shooting short bursts at where it was, where it might be, where it could be approaching. Nothing lands. Any traces. it could be making were nowhere to be seen. Yet it’s gaze… it was still boring into them.

Three of the final four couldn’t handle the pressure. They break off in separate directions, to the protests of their comrades. All that is heard when they vanish from sight are the gunfire, then silence.

Now there is only one, panic overtaking him as he darts around, looking to where his allies, his one saving grace could be.

The Specter, like the wind, grasps his neck, slams him into the ground. The long, distorted image of what man had wrought was choking him. The other hand follows, and in these final moments the soldier can see. This thing. It is not invulnerable. It has been wounded. Yet it still acts, despite the pain, any injury, because it is not a beast. Not a monster, not a god, not even a man. Simply a machine with a task to fulfill. A Hornet in a Hive.

The beauty is lost on him as it snaps his neck with a sickening crunch. It stands still, its body in full view as it hunched over the field of corpses. It is not a visceral sight, each of the bodies were killed with only blood spilling, dying with beautifully clean efficiency. It stood over its masterpiece, balls of the feet and tips of the fingers the only contact with the ground. A dancer of death. Poised as to resolve, but ready to leap into its act yet again.

A gun raises to our view, the sights aiming at it. The frightened breathing of the soldier being the first voice we have heard in this massacre, loud over the absence of gunfire and the ring of death in our ears.

It looks at the soldier, down the sights. We get close to its face… something has gone wrong. The camera does not move. The scene begins to distort. A whisper of a scream, distorted a thousand times over begins to rise to a forte. The hand of the specter rises to its face, smearing blood across it. It scratches it. It crunches it. The scream is so loud we can barely hear the soldier joining it, static and abstract distortion overtaking the face.

Then… silence. The camera hasn’t moved. But we have. It backs away. Slowly. The Mourning Cloak in a showroom, filled with other weapons like it. Its injuries only visible to us, contrasting the pristine unblemishnent of its brethren. Yet it is still the most beautiful one in the room.

Everything is silent as we pan back. Pure silence. Recording studio silence. Like a memory that isn’t his own. His hand enters the periphery, and it’s holding a clipboard. A requisition for a Mourning Cloak License. We linger for but a moment. All still.

In an instant, we are back at the battlefield. The camera has not shifted. The specter is gone. All we hear is the soldier’s panicked breathing. And cut to black on his last exhale.

#lancer #lancer rpg #lancer ttrpg #lancer game #lancer mourning cloak #mourning cloak #fiction #writing #the horrors #I’d make it a full animation but I don’t have the artistic will or capability to make that a reality #in fact now I’m probably happy with this and just this #lancerrpg

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nota1eks · 7 months

Note

If/when they create a phm movie, what changes (if any) would you like to see them make to the story?

Jesus that’s a hard question…wow…! In a perfect world, they’d change nothing. It’d be a TV show with lots of room to portray everything. But we don’t live in a perfect world. I, therefore, want to keep as much of the original book as possible. My only immediate want is that it might be cool for them to use “they” for Rocky instead of “he”. Maybe some toning down of the Crazy Russians stereotyping, though if they do it right, that can be great. Nothing else comes to mind that I want changed -- it's a very good book.

But with that out of the way, let's talk about stuff that will very likely be cut. Because I think that's very interesting...

I think, as with Pathfinder getting fried and the dust storm in the Martian (2015) (wherein, both times, a huge plot event in the movie was gotten rid of for time purposes, with little impact on the overall plot, but a devastating-ish loss to the dedicated novel-enjoyers), some stuff will get cut out. Let's go one by one through the timeline of events:

The flashbacks will be there. Maybe not in flashback form (maybe they come before the rest like in the Martian...though those aren't flashbacks it's just backstory), but nonetheless there. Not everything will be there, though. Stratt barging in on Grace's class will be there; him doing the first experiments on astrophage will likely be there; meeting the crew will be there along with some of him training them so as to explain how he learned so much about being an astronaut; the explosion at Baikonur and the proceeding chaos will be there, trailer meetings included; but I think that'd be roughly it. They'll add some; they'll take away a lot. No Steve Hatch; no Lamai; probably very little Lokken (which is very sad); no frenchscientistwhosenameicantrememberimnotevenarealphm fanomllllll, either. They'll have their stories be explained via Grace talking to Rocky. Lots will be explained via Grace talking to Rocky.

Now, they'll have to have Grace waking up and seeing his dead crewmates. They'll have to have Ryan Gosling wandering about this spaceship scratching his head. That's a big part of the story. But I think after a certain point, after enough clues are gathered together, they'll infodump on us. It will be done well, of course, I mean just look at who's making the movie, but it wil lhaev to be like that. Maybe the nannybot will give him information. Maybe there will be a "Here to save Earth from imminent apocalypse? Click here ->" type of thing, but it won't be Grace turning to the camera and saying "Hey guys! I'm here at Tau Ceti to save Earth from astrophage! There's this weird ship out there. Keep you updated! Like and subscribe!"; nor will it be a voiceover. I had a Media Arts teacher in school and he told us that, more than anything, we were to avoid having to use voice-overs to explain out movies. At all costs. So I doubt they'll use that here -- maybe later, though. More talking-head with visuals than voiceover explaining the story.

Now. With Grace meeting Rocky there will either be nothing cut or everything cut: Maybe Rocky wil have a Magic Language Machine. Maybe Grace has a Magic Language Machine. Maybe they do everything how they did it in the book. Either way, it'll have to likely be one or the other. I'm very excited to see how they do Rocky's voice. An adaptation of the Audible Audiobook's version would be ideal, as I and many others think. There aren't many other good options... With the rest, I'm genuinely not sure. I can see them going both ways with this: cutting everything and rewriting it or keeping it pretty book-accurate. By any measure, they won't cut it all out. That'd be stupid.

With the in between between the Blip-A-Hail Mary disconnection and them arriving at Adrian, much will be cut out. It'll be rewritten. For better or for worse. Since it's just that theoretical, I'm not sure what changes I'd even want to see. Maybe some more back story on Rocky's crewmates? On Adrian (the eridian)? I mean Grace asking Rocky about Adrian would be a great opportunity to get some backstory in, btu the movie will already be so chock-full of it that I don't know if they'll be able to fit it in amongst everything else.

The Adrian Incident will likely still be very, very similar. It's the emotional peak of the movie. Rocky will nearly die. I will watch my friends weep, crying about how I should have warned them, and I will tell them they should have read the book. With Grace trying to save Rocky...eeh...it might be there; it might not. Flip of the dice with the landscape of the table being what the rest of the plot looks like, if that makes sense.

Now......The Great Taumeoba Escape. It's a lot like Pathfinder and the Dust Storm. It's just not all that relevant! SO MUCH is happening in the book at this point that -- I don't think -- they would be able to fit this in, even with a TV show with half a dozen hours to show the story in. I'd much rather lose this than lose backstory or silly goofy Rocky details.

The journey back, though, along with the breeding of Taumeoba was so boring it was cut out in the book. No way they'll have it in the movie. Probably even more will be cut out. Maybe one single Eureka! scene where Grace and Rocky drink vodka and wear crystals, respectively, but no more.

Now...The Great Taumeoba Escape 2: Radiation Exposure Boogaloo will NOT be cut out. Lest I stomp out of that movie theatre shouting insults at the directors etc. I kid, but not by a lot. They have to have this in order for Grace to turn around. I also bet they'll delay Grace learning he was a coward until here. It'd work so well there, yeah!? So he does his little thing, then turns around. From here, I think everything will be to-the-book. But let's talk about the ending.

Grace being a teacher is fundamental to the story. He can't not be, or the book/movie just won't work. Now, in The Martian (2015) they changed the ending. But that's not big, really. Mark becomes a recluse who gets looped back into being an astronaut training people who will then work on Artemis versus him being a teacher -- there's not that big of a plotline difference there. And we can pretend that in the interim he was a recluse. BUT IF THEY DON'T MAKE GRACE A TEACHER I SWEAR TO GOD--! calm. be calm. Anyways, him teaching again is a huge end for his character arc. And Rocky wil come in, no doubt, and tell Grace Earth's back to normal. Sending him back off to Earth just doesn't work, plot-wise or logic-wise.

Here's my last want: Earth. I want to see Earth back in shape. I want to see Stratt looking happy in her jail cell, etc.

Christ, I just wrote a lot. Um. I hope that answers your question...? And if it doesn't, feel free to ask me! I can -- and gladly will -- talk about this book all the livelong day!

#project hail mary #phm #phm movie

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admiral-mason · 9 months

Text

You Reap What You Sow - Chapter 10

Genshin Impact SAGAU x Iron Harvest 1920+

Sights to Behold

As you and Childe walked side to side discussing his family, you took the time to point out how sunny the day was. "Man, it's quite sunny today. And here I thought Snezhnaya was known for its month-long blizzards..."

Childe's interest was piqued by your comment. "Now that you mention it, your grace, There hasn't been any blizzard ever since you arrived. One of the agents said that when you arrived and slept for the night, smaller blizzards across various towns stopped!"

Despite Childe having more experience than you at fishing (you never even really went fishing other than trying it out as a kid), you somehow caught more fish than he did. They kept swarming to your line even without bait. You filled your bucket within a few minutes, so much so that you decided to stop fishing because you didn't even know what to do.

"I guess Teyvat really does love you, comrade!" Childe exclaimed as you just looked at your giant stash of fish. "What are we going to do with all of this?" You asked.

"I'm taking my share home for my family. You can do what you want with yours, so see ya, your grace." Childe said, right before you heard the sounds of rapid gunfire close by. This slightly startled you as you ended up falling into the snow. Thankfully, you still had your coat on, so you didn't feel that cold from the impact as Childe helped you up. "Are you okay??" He asked.

"I'm fine, Childe." Suddenly, you heard the sound of a mechanism before an explosion followed it. "The sounds are coming from over there," you said. "I wonder what's going on," Childe responded. The two of you grabbed your fishing equipment and walked on over to the source of the sounds.

It turned out to be a bunch of Rusviet soldiers alongside Il Capitano and Lev Zubov testing equipment and mechs. You saw a heavy machine gun, SHM-60 Groza exosuits, and varying mechs. Lev Zubov was there as well.

The crew on the heavy machine gun fired another burst as they mowed down a group of training dummies. A Kolokol that was present then fired a bomb at the dummies, turning them into wooden bits. "...Impressive," Capitano remarked. Childe simply watched at his first glance at the technology of another world of yours, seemingly eager to fight them as you saw his smile.

"Our world's technology at its finest," Lev Zubov responded, "and more on the way shortly." The duo then noticed you and Childe before facing you two. "Your grace," they both responded before giving a quick bow. "...Uh- no need for that-" You responded as you awkwardly looked at the two men. You then went back to watching what seemed to be combat tests. "Do you mind I stay and watch?"

"Of course not, your grace!" Zubov said. "Come, watch along." He motioned for you to walk to an area with better viewing as Childe followed. "So these are the war machines in your world? Heh, let's see their performance." He spoke.

The Kolokol walked off the field by this point. The next mech, a PZM-7 Smialy, was the next to be tested. "That thing's darn skinny compared to Ruin Guards... and seemingly less destructive." Childe spoke. "The thing's fast though, Childe." You replied. "It's a scout, not a one-man-army."

"I bet I can literally set up a tripwire and the thing would tumble over." Childe said as the Smialy shot its cannon in the likeness of a rifle at the training dummies, blowing some of them up. It then charged at a larger dummy, impaling its head. The Smialy then walked off the field as the pilot exited, stretching his arms and legs while doing so.

"I would like whoever designed this seat have to sit in it," he said. He then noticed you and casually saluted. "Good day, your grace." He said before walking to a nearby bench and drinking a bit of water.

Capitano looked at the damage the Smialy could do and nodded. He then noticed an SHM-68 Nakovalnya nearby. "What is that thing?" He asked Zubov. "It... looks like a pipe organ." Zubov responded to Capitano's question with glee on his face. "That there, my friend, is a Nakovalnya. It's an artillery mech that fires a barrage of rockets at whatever needs to be destroyed." Capitano's interest piqued as he ordered for the Nakovalnya to be tested.

"Rockets? Now I'm interested," Childe said. The two of you watched as the Nakovalnya's single crew member got into its cockpit and moved the mech a fair distance away from the training area. "I suggest we all stand back. This thing's explosions can be quite indiscriminate." You lightly beckoned Childe to stand back as you and everyone else did the same.

"Rockets away!" The pilot exclaimed as twelve rockets were fired on the dummies, hitting their general vicinity. After the smoke cleared, nothing remained. Childe looked at the destruction with a bit of shock in his eyes. "...That thing just turned those dummies into nothing but splinters..."

"That's indiscriminate firing for ya." You responded back to Childe. Then, you picked up on metal footsteps in the distance. You turned towards the general direction of the sound and saw an SHM-70 Gulyay-Gorod slowly walking its way over here alongside Sandrone on its left. Childe also looked and looked at the towering mech.

"That right there, is Rusviet's largest and finest mech." Zubov said, looking over the huge mech's tall profile. "...I have no words to say to this thing." Childe bluntly replied. "Shocked?" The female pilot responded. "Watch what this thing can do." She walked her mech up to the training grounds before noticing that nothing was there for her to kill.

"Did you all have fun without me?" She asked, a bit of anger in her voice. "Get us some more targets," Capitano ordered to some Fatui soldiers. Soon, another set of targets was set up. Sandrone got a bit closer to the training grounds, eager to see the Gulyay-Gorod in action.

"Alright, watch this." The pilot said before firing three times from the mech's right-mounted main gun. Being an anti-mech gun, it didn't make large explosions. She then fired a devastator rocket from the left side's rocket launcher. This rocket, being more of an anti-infantry missile, blew a medium-sized crater into the fields and utterly turning the dummies to shreds.

"I honestly now feel bad for the dummies..." Childe said. "Yep, and to think that there's more of these things..." You responded back.

Genshin Impact is owned by miHoYo. Iron Harvest 1920+ is owned by Jakub Różalski and KING Art Games.

#sagau #genshin impact #genshin sagau #iron harvest #iron harvest x genshin impact

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brassknucklespeirs · 2 years

Text

Tʀᴜsᴛ Mᴇ, I ᴋɴᴏᴡ [Rᴏɴᴀʟᴅ Sᴘᴇɪʀs x ꜰ!ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ]

Pairing: Ronald Speirs x female reader

Genre: FLUFF but make it slowburn-ish pining fluff

Warning: normal hbo war stuff, graphic mentions of needles and sowing up a wound, brief mention of attempted assault, and graphic depictions of someone getting the shittt beaten out of them...i can’t think of anything else

Prompt: requested by @seamsmilex

“I have always liked the concept of pining Speirs not knowing what to do with his feelings. He's there in the corner of the room giving FemReader this weird stare.”

Just wanna thank Poe (@latibvles) for giving me a hand with some of the plot points and also for listening to me complain about my writers block, love yah long time brah xxx

The adrenaline pumped through her veins as the plane rattled obnoxiously loud, her fingers tightening on her rifle when the enemy assault continued on their airborne position. Her eyes were stuck on the same position on the metal flooring of the flying machine, trying her best to numb the fear and anxiety that clawed at the pit of her stomach like a raging monster. She inhaled deeply, allowing her lungs to grasp at as much fresh air as she could before letting her shoulders drop with an exhale, her eyes slowly moving up. Her gaze clashed with Meehan’s, who was sitting directly in front of her, a strained but encouraging smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. She returned it, simultaneously taking note of the way his knuckles were white from gripping at his own rifle like it was his lifeline. She almost snorted at her own thought because that was about to be all too true; that Thompson in his hands will indeed be the man’s lifeline, his saving grace, as much as the M1 Garand on her lap will be hers as soon as they reach the ground; if they reached the ground.

The woman’s eyes moved away from the man after a particularly harsh bump threw them all to the side, a close call that sent the pilots into a flurry as the jump light flickered on. Meehan yelled for checks to begin once everyone was clipped in, the distance screams of numbers and ‘okay’ drowning out with the ongoing assault of artillery fire. Y/N let out another deep breath as she felt the hands of the trooper behind her sweep down her equipment before smacking her on the back in confirmation, her eyes set on Meehan once again. He nodded at her to step towards the open door, hands set on her shoulders to offer comfort as they all waited with baited breaths for the jump light to flash green.

The view outside was quite a sight, and if she hadn’t have been in a life threatening position at that second, she might have been able to comfortably enjoy the explosive mirage as if it was the fourth of July. Her fingers saw no relief as she exchanged the harsh grip on her rifle for the tense grasp on the safety rails beside the doorway, her nails digging in to the calloused tips of her thumbs as they meet full circle. The twisting of her stomach as unease resisted against her fighting calm was reaching the point of being nauseating, yet as she went to turn back to look away from the reds and oranges of the exploding artillery to glance at Meehan, she wasn’t given any more time to think about it.

The plane jolted harshly to one side, and Y/N counted herself lucky to be holding so tightly to the doorway as those men not holding on enough to their jump line were thrown aggressively across the cabin. Her head snapped to Meehan as he let out yell of encouragement to his men before he patted her on the back, her eyes observing the inner fear the man refused to show while his pupils bore into hers. A shout of angst came from the cockpit, which was quickly followed by another jolt, one which came harder and sharper than the last as the woman felt a hot flush of air rush at her from the front of the plane. Her breath lodged itself in her throat, and as if some invisible barrier had been shoved against her side, her body was thrown forward, her fingers slipping off the side of the doorway. Her gaze met Meehan’s as a yelp left her lips, the hopelessness settling in both pairs of eyes, and things seemed to move in slow motion as she watched him leap towards her in an attempt to stop her from losing her to this foreign territory. It had been no use though, and she had found her luck had run out as she began to plummet to the ground. It was as her shoot deployed that she had seen it, though she didn’t see the hit meet its mark, she certainly saw it ignite as the plane she had been standing in second beforehand went up in an explosive blaze.

Debris shot in every direction, accompanied closely by a shockwave, the metal splitting apart from itself as it splinted and melted before gravity grasped at it, bringing it to the ground. A cry of shock left her lips as a heated piece of the plane met the skin of her stomach, tearing through her uniform and grating at her flesh. She gritted her teeth together, tensing her jaw to take the focus off the pain, trying to make it to the ground before she let worry set in. The ground came at her quick, her newly opened wound spiking with burning pain as she pushed her body into a forward roll before letting herself starfish across the grass, her eyes set on the skies above her. The woman lay there for a moment, the great display of firepower going off around her while laboured breathing left her dried lips, hot tears welling up in her eyes. Her fists clenched at her side before moving to unstrap herself from her shoot, her body sitting upright as her cheeks quivered, the tears streamed silently down her face. Her stomach churned while she forced herself to pull her eyes away from the explosive crimson hue above her, yet she found no relief as Meehan’s face flashed in her mind, cheeks painted the same colour as the fire that consumed him and the rest of her plane.

The woman threw her shoot down, noting that the rope half of her kit was tied to had snapped on her decent, a fact that made the frustration well up in her eyes once again. She held back a sniff as she wiped her face quickly with her sleeve, trying to do much the same with her thoughts while taking deep breaths. She shook her head as if it would rid her of the unprocessed grief that lurched at her, succeeding in gaining her wits back for the time being. The movement of her chest caused a stretch in her skin, and an aching burn reminded her of the wound she’d taken to the stomach. Her hands moved her uniform aside after tugging an emergency bandage from her front pocket, the lack of light or clean hands leading her to wrap it as well as she could for now. She gritted her teeth to hold back a groan while she tightened the fabric around the wound, taking a second to let the burn subside before she moved to a crouched standing position. Her quads ached already as she took tentative steps forward into a line of trees just off to her right, searching for concealment to shield herself from enemy eyes while she figured out where the hell she was.

Not a moment after she’d settled her back against a nearby tree, a familiar click was heard. Her eyes squint as she stared into the foliage in the noise’s general direction, though panic settled in for a moment as she failed to find her own clicker. The woman resorted to placing her hands on her rifle, readying it to fire as she whispered out a ‘flash’. A shadowy figure rose from behind the dense bush approximately 15 metres from her current position, taking quiet steps towards her as a response of ‘thunder’ reached her ears. His face, though shrouded by cam paint, was easily identifiable as he got closer, a sigh of relief leaving Y/N lips when he stopped, dropping to the ground directly in front of her.

“Lieutenant Speirs, it’s good to see you sir.”

***

The night had been long and tiring, and even worse is the silence that hung over the two soldiers, one which was only broken by the occasional gunfire in the distance and, when it came round, the navy artillery. Y/N had been doing well at keeping ahold of her emotions outwardly, her face mirroring Speirs’ in stoic expression, though the survivor’s guilt was eating her alive from the inside. The woman didn’t want to show any vulnerability, especially not to the notoriously aloof man that Ronald Speirs was known to be, hence why she kept her breathing as steady as possible and her eyes as dry as she could. Yet, the lack of noise created a prison for the woman and her grief, caging her into her own mind as she was forced to remember the look on Meehan’s face as he watched her fall as well as the burnt orange colour of the explosion that took him. Speirs noticed the way her breathing was in a constant state of change between even and erratic, confusion taking over his mind as he continued to glance at her out of the corner of his eye in intrigue. It took him a while but the man finally came to understand that she was trying her best to calm herself, especially after they had the passed the fiery wreck of a plane that could have been her own. Neither of them lingered at the scene, though her eyes did as they walked away, the flames that still flickered reflecting in her eyes as Speirs stared at them and if he hadn’t have worked so hard to remain indifferent to the woman, and any other for that matter, he might have allowed himself to notice the way his heart clenched for her obvious pain. Her eyes shifted to the officer for but a moment, and she caught the way he tilted his head in curiosity before signalling for her to keep moving with a flick of his chin.

The sun was on the rise when the lieutenant spoke his first words to her, his eyes having been lingering on the drying blood on her uniform, as well as the exposed flesh through the rip in the fabric. “You’re hurt.” His voice almost made her jump, the hairs on the back of her neck standing at the sudden noise leaving his lips. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes as they continued to walk, her gaze lingering on him for a moment before looking away as his moved up to meet hers. The woman took to gazing back out ahead of them, taking note of the sign coming into view, relief washing over her as she read over it, realising they’d made it to their meeting point. The woman nodded her head in response but said nothing else as she felt his eyes on her face, an action she could confirm as she witnessed him looking in her peripherals, curiosity crossing her mind at this fact. His eyes were drawn away from observing her when the soil beneath their feet turned to mud, creating a harder path to walk, one that required less distraction as he realised she had strangely become since they crossed paths all those hours ago. They passed a group of German POWs who were being watched by a couple of Fox Company soldiers, the fellow Americans greeting the two with a cheerful chirp as they directed them towards battalion.

The odd pairing were leaving said building after relaying the verbal reports they needed to when a yell of her name sounded, causing both heads to snap towards a figure coming towards them. Speirs watched a grin pull to her lips immediately as she moved to meet this man halfway, and he realised this was the first time he’d seen her smile. He almost went to leave when she paused, turning back to him, that cheeky beam still covering her face.

“Lieutenant Speirs, sir?” She called to him, causing him to raise his eyebrows in anticipation of her next words.

“Yes Sergeant L/N?”

“Thank you sir. It was nice to have a little company on my trek across France.” The woman spoke with such a playful tone, one he didn’t think he’d ever taken the time to listen to before. The man cringed as he held himself back from smiling at her, opting to nod his head in confirmation, an action he was becoming known for when it came to talking to her. Y/N turned just as Joe Toye threw his arms out to grab her by the waist, hauling her to his body and off the ground, causing her to shriek in surprise. The Easy Company soldier spun her around towards the rest of the men, giving Y/N one last glimpse at Speirs’ dark eyes before he looked away, though her gaze lingered on his figure as he began to wander off somewhere else. What an interesting guy. The thought came to her for only a second before her attention was brought back to the twelve men who had made it already, all of whom wanted a hug from their favourite girl.

***

Y/N let a scowl spread to her face in frustration as she saw those twelve Easy Company men march off to begin their first planned assault of their war, an assault which she was not allowed to partake in. She had been ordered to stay back after her D-Day companion had let slip that she had been wounded during her jump, leading her new CO to make Speirs her ranking babysitter with a mutter of ‘she doesn’t get to do anything until she gets that wound sown up’ into the Dog Company officer’s ear. Speirs, like the good little dog he was being, nodded his head with a reply of ‘you got it’ at the red headed officer, leading to a newly settling annoyance to find its way into the woman’s mind, the sneer being set alit on her face as she turned to him with disbelief lingering in her eyes. Winters had walked off to prepare the men by the time Speirs let his eyes flicker to her, his gaze quickly moving to her wound that seemed to have bled through the bandage when she squinted at him in vexation.

The woman knew she would be pushing her luck getting such a minor flesh wound patched up with the single field medic they had at the present time, an idea that bothered her profoundly. Yes, it had been painful, and yes, it was bleeding a little, but it was nothing in comparison to several other wounds of the men who had been brought in, one even looking close to losing his arm after it had been tangled in his jump rope. The cogs began to turn in her mind as she caught a glimpse of a medical pack that sat out with several surprisingly unused surgical needles sitting in plain sight. A small smirk played at the corners of her lips when she glanced back at Speirs, who had been watching the metaphorical lightbulb go off above her head with a look of scepticism.

The uniform jacket she wore that was now covered in dirt, sweat and blood was ripped from her body as her hands grabbed at it aggressively, her taunting eyes never leaving the Dog Company officer as he struggled to look away, his curiosity getting the better of him. If he had been told to keep her from going anywhere until she was stitched up, she would see it done. Her eyes had landed on a few men in the corner who had been trying their best to hide the bottle of hard liquor they had found not long after she had first walked into the barn, observing their lack of stealth as Winters explained his plan to the men. Her eyes turned back to those men again, though this time she sought them out, grabbing the alcohol from its hiding spot before using her teeth to open it. The men protested as she spat the lid at them, and proceeded to lift her top to pour it over her wound and hands, gritting her teeth as she did. The woman let out a groan of pain, her eyes squeezing shut as the flesh burned, the skin around it pulsating with an aching pain that made her throw her head back with the bottle following as she took a few strong swigs. Y/N lingered in that spot for a moment, letting the alcohol wrap her in a warm blanket of comfort before she handed it back to the men, all of whom stared at the sergeant with wide eyes.

When Y/N turned to grab the needle and thread, she tugged her undershirt up and into her mouth to both keep it from obstructing her view and using it as a means of distraction, knowing this wasn’t going to feel the most pleasant. She was almost surprised to still see Speirs in the barn, having not moved an inch since she had last seen him, his eyes still very much narrowed in on her. The look on his face told her he knew exactly what she was thinking of doing, yet his expression still held the doubt it had before. Perhaps if he had ever taken notice of her during training, he may have known that Y/N always meant business, and that she would do anything to see things done. Hence, if he had been told to keep her from going anywhere until she was stitched up, she would see it done.

It took her a moment of fumbling to get the thread through the pinhole of the needle, but it gave her a moment to calm herself as she let several deep breaths leave her mouth. The woman silently praised her gem of a mother for having been a nurse her whole life, remembering all those times she had listened intently to her explanations of how to combat certain wounds and treat pain for others. The needle punctured her skin as the eyes of several onlookers turned to her, some going white in the face from the sight of it while other had gone red. Speirs hid his disbelief well, but Y/N saw it in the smallest movement of his widening eyes when she’d thrown her head back to take a moment to rest after the third stitch. She almost let a smirk fall across her lips but she pulled her focus back to her slightly bleeding wound, deciding she just wanted it done as the flesh seemed to pulse with every pump of her heart. Another groan left her mouth after the fifth and final stitch, sweat becoming clear along her hairline as she’d worked so hard to withhold her pained moans. She paused, holding the needle away from her skin, the thread still connected to her as she took a much needed deep exhale before her eyes turned back to Speirs.

“Pass the scissors will you sir?” She muttered to him, trying not to show the tiredness that had seeped from her voice as she gestured at the metal medical instrument. The man stood frozen for but a second, his brows furrowed over his eyes as they trailed over the woman’s face and the wound she had just taken upon herself to sow up. They only left her to find the scissors, but stared straight back at her as soon as he handed them over, not sure how to let the shock of what he just witnessed settle. He wondered how he’d never taken much notice of a woman that had been cut from such a similar type of steel as him, and now that he had, he was certainly taken by her.

The woman was just finishing up with placing a clean bandage around her stitches when a soldier ran in, barking news that Winters and his team of Easy men were in need of ammunition replenishments. Y/N’s eyes met Speirs immediately, a small grin covering her lips as she watched him eye her for a moment. The officer turned his head, nodding to the rifleman in reply before yelling to several of the Dog Company men lounging around him to get on their feet and bring any spare ammo. Her eyes squinted at his form as he walked away from her with such purpose, seemingly forgetting his babysitting duties. Her mouth went to open to throw a snide remark his way, but the sound of his voice cut her off.

“You coming sergeant?” Y/N froze, her expression one of shock before her grin came back twice the size of before. She was clutching at her rifle in a moment, her feet propelling her forward to join the officer at his side, her spare hand ripping a belt of machine gun rounds off the shoulders of a nearby Fox Company soldier as she went.

***

She didn’t really remember when she first saw Ronald Speirs. She also didn’t remember when her eyes started to wander to him anytime he was in her general vicinity. What she does remember is the way his gaze would do the same, and the way it would flicker away from her constantly before ending up back on her. For so long she had put it down to him scrutinizing her, his eyes seemingly squinting at her anytime she was there, though this changed when she realised that he had never once said a word against her, and if anything, had agreed with her any chance he got during meetings and reporting hour.

It had started on D-Day, of course, being the first day he’d given much thought to the female paratrooper. It had followed on from this at any occasion that they were in the same room, an almost constant game of cat and mouse with their eyes, a game that Y/N was more than not considered to be the cat, while Speirs was the mouse. It was quite a sight to notice the usually imperturbable man squirm at the realisation that he’d been caught staring, an action that often came with the rubbing of the back of his neck, the awkwardness of it all getting the better of him. She had noticed this at several points of time, including the time she’d spent a week or two in the bed beside him after the events of Operation Market Garden, in which both of them had been wounded, as well as after the events of Foy when his eyes had trailed over her in a way that lead her to believe he was checking her for injuries.

The woman was known to be observant, and though she was not considered a being of little words, she had upgraded her ability to multitask to an all new level. Conversation often flowed between her and the men she was closest to, and even those that she wasn’t, but it wasn’t uncommon for her eyes to trail away from one’s face while she was talking to them, instead set on scanning the environment around them before politely looking back at said person’s facial features. This was how she was so aware of Speirs’ tendency to let his gaze linger on her, well, that and the quiet taunts that had been thrown her way from Nixon, a person whom was also known for his observation skills. It was passed the point of being able to count on her fingers the amount of times she had caught him staring, and though she would never admit it, she knew that those times had not been unintentional from her side either. Not only that, but the accompaniment of the straightening of his posture as if she was some General he needed to brace up for had made her question exactly what this man’s deal with her had been, though she was certain she had a fair idea.

The day she became fully aware of the reasoning behind her new COs actions was the day they’d arrived in Haguenau. The newly appointed company First Sergeant was slowly finishing up with ensuring the men were settling in at the passing request of Captain Winters when she’d run into her favourite intelligence officer. He grinned at her on his approach, an expression of smugness spreading over his face as if he had just figured out something she hadn’t. She squinted her eyes at him as she stopped in front of him, her arms moving to cross over her chest to warm herself.

“What in the hell are you looking smug about Nix?” She questioned causing the man to shrug casually with a hum leaving his mouth before he replied.

“Nothing in particular Y/N. Say, you haven’t happened to have heard any interesting rumours recently have you?” The dark haired man pushed, his tone mockingly nonchalant while he stared pointedly at her. She sighed, knowing exactly where he was going with the question.

It was no secret that Captain Ronald Speirs was an intimidating and mysterious man, one that caused a lot of the more gossip friendly men to open their mouths to talk about him at any opportunity given, even when most of the garbage they spoke was a lie. While most of those rumours were to do with him ensuing violence with no prior reason to do so, the new one that had slowly begun to circulate was actually an addition to one of the previous one, almost an answer as to why he did something and a warning to those who followed. It had come from the idea of him shooting one of his sergeants for being drunk while on duty, a story she had heard so many times before, yet one that she knew was not the full, nor accurate telling of. She had known the sergeant from Dog Company as he had introduced himself to her, quite aggressively might she add, and then proceeded to bother her frequently any chance he got. The last time she had seen him is the night he’d shown up drunk while she was on patrol and attempted to get a little too handsy with her. It wasn’t long after she’d broken his nose that several other soldiers, including Speirs, had run over to see what all the fuss was about. She was quickly taken off patrol for the remainder of the night and sent to Winters to report to him what had happened, but not before she caught a glimpse of Speirs dragging the man away by the collar, a sour expression painted over his face.

The new addition to the rumour, which Nixon believed to be more fact than fiction, had finally taken into account the circumstances in which Y/N was there, and that Speirs’ reaction wasn’t because the sergeant was drunk, but because he’d tried to harm her. The men who loved to talk had spun such an elaborate new story, one that even she was having a hard time refuting. Even then, the rumour had it perks as the men all saw it as a warning, a new golden rule to avoid being on the wrong end of Ronald Speirs’ pistol, and she was the one that reaped the benefits as anyone who had been previously bothering her stopped immediately after hearing it. Y/N had tried her best to deny the idea, even to herself, yet she couldn’t shake the thought that maybe this was finally not a rumour being passed around about Speirs, and instead that they were actual facts.

“What are you getting at here Nix?” The woman asked the intelligence officer as she finished glaring at him. He shrugged at her again while tucking his hands under his arms to keep them warm.

“I’m just saying, the man doesn’t even try to hide it. His eyes move to you whenever you walk into a room.” He replied matter-of-factly.

“Trust me, I know.” Is all she can manage to whisper as her heart seems to get caught further up her throat with every beat it took. She shook herself from getting lost in her own mind before moving to smack the man on the arm. “However, I also know that you are a shit stirrer, so just cut it out will you. Go mind your own business.” The man just smirked once more, throwing his hands up in the air in mock surrender before his eyes flickered down to her neck and back up at her face, and she watched as they sparked with amusement as he turned to walk away.

Her head was spinning, realising that Nixon had gotten into her head with only a single sentence, while her feet mindlessly led her to the building she’d left Lip in, eager to get her hands on the coffee she’d been told by Luz would be waiting for her when she got back. The cold air bit at the exposed skin of her neck, prompting her to pull the scarf she wore up over her nose and mouth. It was not her own piece of warm kit, for hers had been blown sky high along with the rest of her foxhole in the forests of Bastogne, thankfully when she was not occupying it. No, this piece of fabric was much softer than hers and smelt strongly of which ever man it belonged to before she had found it tucked under her head when she fell asleep in the church after the attack on Foy.

The woman inhaled the scent on the scarf, her muscles loosening as she felt a calm wash over her, a feeling she had become familiar with ever since she first drunk in the smell that lingered so temptingly on the fabric. The door to the building swung open as she pushed at the handle, showing four tired soldiers as well as two fresh faced ones inside the room she entered, the latter both turning their heads to look at her. She paid no mind to them, though her eyes did momentarily widen at the return of Webster, yet she welcomed the break from the brisk breeze that hounded her outside, as well as the somehow still chirpy voice of one George luz.

“Y/N takes a sugar in her coffee, right Lip?” He called, with none of the four tired soldiers, bar the one propped up on the couch, realising she had even entered the room. Lip smiled at her in a strained manner, one she returned as best as she could as she went to open her mouth to answer Luz for him. It came to her surprise when someone else bet her to it, the lack of uncertainty in his voice throwing her off ever-so-slightly.

“Two, actually.” Speirs replied casually, the cigarette still placed between his lips as he went to turn back towards the piano, on which half of his loot was sat. He froze for a moment at Y/N seemingly sudden appearance, yet he composed himself quickly, pulling his shoulders back and straightening his back. His eyes didn’t linger on her long as he twisted back around at the sound of Winters entering through the back door while clearing his throat in quiet embarrassment, his reddened cheeks hidden from her and only noticed by the Intelligence Officer. Nixon tried his best to hold back a smirk as his gaze flickered to the captain and the first sergeant behind him, but Y/N took notice of it and squinted her eyes in silent judgement. She would never say it out loud, but with her awareness of what just happened fresh in her mind, her heart had picked up its pace as it hammered away in her chest, almost distracting her from the patrol plans that Winters was trying to explain.

The woman’s gaze flickered back at the man occasionally, her ears listening out for the red headed captain’s words while her eyes strayed. Her fingers played absentmindedly with the scarf wrapped around her neck as she looked at him, her mind telling her there was something off about his appearance though she could not figure it out. She pulled her gaze away from the man, almost rolling her eyes when she heard the new guy, now obvious to her to be their fresh lieutenant, had stepped forward and asked to lead the patrol. The snide remark she wanted to let out was held on the tip of her tongue when Winters counteracted his request with a solid ‘no’, though she couldn’t do anything about the smirk that slipped onto her face after that.

The first sergeant took a few steps forward when she noticed Luz reaching out to her with her steaming cup of coffee, bringing her to stand beside Speirs, rather than behind him. She felt his eyes immediately as she took tentative sips of the hot drink, the warmth that trailed through her body doing nothing to cure the goosebumps and frigid hairs that spread over and stood tall on her skin from his gaze. The woman contemplated whether she should return his stare before she quickly glanced at him, trying to catch him off guard. The subtle movement of her looking out of the corner of her eyes did not alert the man to the fact he was being watched also, meaning she got a good glimpse of his features softening at the sight of the scarf wrapped around her neck. Her eyebrows furrowed for a moment, her hand reaching up once more to fiddle with the fabric twisted around her while her eyes slowly trailed to the man’s own neck. Her eyes widened as the alarm bells in her mind went off, the image of the officer with a scarf tucked in to his uniform flashing through her head, the one which was now absent from his neck and seemingly wrapped around her own.

It was his. The piece of warm kit she had been using as her personal stress relief was his. Her cheeks immediately went red, her hand that was previously playing with the scarf was now pulling it up over her face to hide her rosy complexion. She looked up at his face once again, only to realise he was staring straight back at her, his expression showing that he was trying to gauge what she was thinking. Her head whipped back towards Winters, only to make eye contact with Nixon, who looked at her with his head cocked to the side mockingly. She refrained from throwing him the middle finger and instead opted to scrunch her nose up at him, her eyes showing her displeasure at the man’s nosiness as well as her own thoughts. Perhaps the intelligence officer was getting at something after all, not that she would ever admit that.

***

The air in the room held a tension that Y/N couldn’t quite explain, and between Tab’s grinding teeth and Luz’s sorry excuses for calming jokes, she was struggling to hold it together. Her chest held a flurry like her ribs were a cage withholding her fragile heart while it stammered away; thump, thump, thump. It hammered in her ear, the sound of anxiety, and fear, and anger but also guilt. It was her that the barrel of the pistol was pointed at. And yes, she’d been on the other end of a rifle on many occasions, remembered the metallic taste that invaded her mouth as she bit her cheek to hold back the worrying sigh of relief she wanted to let out. But this was entirely different. It wasn’t another time where she could have been shot down and left for dead with no harm done to those she held dear because this particular instance had put one of her friends directly in danger and it was all for her.

Chuck had moved too quickly in a world that progressed in slow-motion in her eyes and before she had the chance to meet her maker, the crimson of his blood had splattered across her face. She had frozen in place, aware that the man who pulled the trigger was already off in one of the vehicles, screaming down the road as she lowered herself to the ground. Chuck didn’t move when she nudged him, and a smothered cry came from her trembling lips as she watched the sticky, red liquid leak from the gaping hole in his skull.

Y/N swallowed the thick feeling that engulfed her throat, the lump growing larger by the second as she recalled the night she’d had in vivid colour. Her ears tuned in to the noises through the door just as Tab had been doing, her fingers crinkling the cards she held in her hand so tightly that they bent on odd angles. She felt it then, surrounding her fast beating heart, like a blue flamed fire burning it’s way through her bloodstream and she was scared to say she knew exactly what she wanted to do with the emotion she felt. Luz glanced at her after he’d played his turn, ready to tell her to go before he took in the colour rushing to her face. Her cheeks tinted a darkening red as she exhaled loudly through her nose while listening to the sound of someones knuckled coming in contact with bare skin. The feeling threaded it’s way through her limbs again as she stood suddenly, throwing the card down harshly on the table, causing a few to flutter to the floor as they swept across the surface.

“Y/N, I think it’s best if you stay here where we know you’re safe. Don’t go wandering around outside by yourself in this state.” George piped up, concern covering his features as his eyes followed her every movement. She kicked her chair out from underneath her harshly before turning to look at him, a fire burning in her eyes like he’d never seen before.

“I’m not going outside George.” She spoke in a low and indelible voice, her knuckles cracking as her finger clenched as fists at her sides. His eyes widened in shock while she took several long strides to the door the rest of the men stood behind, yet he made no move to stop her. She threw the door open aggressively, pausing the movement of everybody in the room as she closed it behind her with the same rage. It coursed through her veins, tainting every decision and thought that popped up in her brain to a vengeful red.

The men took note of the woman who usually held such a gentle smile and softened edges, yet in that moment her forearms looked like they were cut from marble with the tension in her muscles while her eyes were dark and haunting as they refused to look away from the man she had come to seek out. Her gaze trailed over the blood leaking from his face as Liebgott took a step away from him, the same red dripping from his tightened knuckles. Those around her parted like the Red Sea as she made her way towards him, stopping almost directly in front of him, her eyes turned down on him menacingly. The few steps she had taken forward were assertive, shoulders pulled back and head held back to look down her nose, a stark contrast of the usually floating, wistful steps she took on the daily basis. This woman, however, was not the same as she was on the regular. This was a person made up of white hot metal, the burning heat of the sun and plagued with every bad memory she could find in her head, and all of it, all of it, was being made his fault.

“Remember me?” Y/N questioned as she watched him raise his head from lulling down, his eyes meeting hers. He tried to manage a teasing smirk but couldn’t stop the groan that left his lips as his cheeks stretched. A snort left her nose at his pitiful attempt at provoking her, in fact, she was already provoked enough by him, he wouldn’t need to try any further. “How pathetic you are.” She said in a low voice, leaning down so her face was close to his, her breath fanning across his skin. “You royally fucked up private.” The dirty language that leaked off her tongue like poison made her men look at each other in worry, the use of it from her mouth only meant trouble as they’d come to know.

“Yeah? Cause I tried to shoot you and missed?” He hissed back at her causing those worried eyes of the men to turn to disgust and anger, and even a huffed breath through flared nostrils from Liebgott. “It’s a shame your little friend had to jump in and save the day. Is he dead yet?” Y/N’s closed fist met his jaw as soon as the last words left his lips, his head whipping to the side as his body began to follow, yet Bull, who had been standing closely beside him the whole time, gave him a shove to the shoulder, sending him upright in the chair once more. The man made a whine of pain as his spine straightened and the woman couldn’t stop the smug smirk that pulled at the corners of her lips. She took a few steps back, turning her back to him at the last second as she looked down at the floor, an almost sinister giggle leaving her lips. Her eyes lingered on the mud stained rug, analysing the footprints the men had left as they dragged the sorry excuse of a soldier into the room as well as the few drops of blood that littered it. Her lip twitched even more as she imagined the pitiful fight he would have put up before one of the men would have landed a harsh smack to his jaw to get him to settle down. Yet the longer she stared at the vermillion circles painting the carpet, the more her brain wandered, the brilliant colour flashing with Chuck’s face, the echo of a pistol being shot off and the smell of gunfire.

The woman looked up, her gaze seemingly looking through the wall in front of her with a distant glaze over her eyes, the imminent tears threatening to escape. Her jaw clenched, once again revealing the taunt muscles under her skin as it tightened, the fluttering of her eyelids and furrowing of her brows accompanying the need to withhold her sadness. She swallowed the build up of salvia in her mouth, and with it went every emotion but the anger. Her nostrils flared with the release of an aggravated breath and her top lip twitched one more as she slowly twisted her head to look over her shoulder at the man.

The sight was a terrifying one, her darkened pupils squinted over her arm bringing to life the picture of Lucifer as he was painted by Alexandre Cabanel, with nothing but deep set wrath shimmering under the layer of salted tears. Her body turned to face him once more as her tongue ran over her front teeth, taunting steps leading to her previous position directly in front of the man.

“We feeling brave, aren’t we private?” She said, bending at the hips so her eyes almost levelled with him, yet she still held her gaze down on him as if asserting a silent dominance over him. “You really don’t know what game you’re playing, and if I were you I would quit while you’re ahead. There’s no need for further damage to be done.” The woman continued, her voice dropping to a dark jest. Another pained laugh left the man’s mouth, the sneer she knew all too well pulling over his lips.

“Oh yeah? And who is gonna do that damage? You?” The question made the woman chuckle as the thought lit up in her head.

“You crossed a line private, several even.” She disregarded his words, proceeding with her own threats. “And I expect he isn’t going to be forgiving at all. Especially because you broke the golden rule.” The woman tilted her head in a taunting manner as she stared directly into his eyes. “Do you want to know which rule that is private?” She asked him, straightening her back to stand tall before him, the light behind her creating a shadow over her face. He didn’t answer, only stared up her with a confused look held in his eyes, one which he didn’t let cover his features. Y/N’s face pinched into a sour look of disgust, throwing her fist towards the man once more causing his head to snap to the side as her knuckles met his nose before his chin was grasped harshly within her fingers, pulling his face back towards her. “You will answer me when I am speaking to you private.” She spat. “Now I will ask you again; do you want to know which rule that is?” Her fingers tightened against his jaw, surely leaving white imprints on his skin, his gaze meeting hers with weakened defiance.

“What rule first sergeant?” He managed to get out through exasperated pants.

The woman went to move her lips to speak when the echo of a door being slammed open bounced around the room, sending every head in the room whirling towards the entrance way. Her gaze didn’t stray for long before she looked back at him, an amused smirk on her lips as she watched the confusion finally spread to his face while his eyes flicked from her to the door and back again. A muffled yell was heard as she let her tongue trace along her top teeth like a predator preparing to devour its next meal, the condescending action seen as she held her mouth partially open. She leant down to him once more as the yell sounded again, her lips touching the curve of his ear.

“No one fucks with his girl.” Is all she said before she stepped back, the door flying open as she did, yet her eyes didn’t leave the bloodied face of the man before her until the new presence made himself known beside her. The smell of his cologne mixed with sweat and ammunition washed over her immediately, spreading a newfound scene of comfort and security within her as she inhaled through her nose. She felt his eyes on her yet she didn’t turn her cold leer from the private until she felt his body press uncharacteristically closer to her, a hand laying carefully on her hip. Her head whipped to him instantly, the ice melting from her gaze in seconds as they clashed with the ocean blue eyes she often let herself drown in. His face was hardened and tight, cut from the same marble hers had been, yet his eyes were soft as they ran over her, stopping short on the blood that decorated her knuckles before flickering back to look into her soul, his brows pulled together in silent recognition. Y/N withheld her surprise at the forwardness and lack of awkwardness of his actions, but didn’t take any further time to question it as she found it rather comfortable. His hand left her side, and the woman suddenly felt the ice return to her veins as he turned to glance at the private before looking to Bull.

“This him?” His voice sounded, settling over the woman like a blanket of warmth, even with the bitterness that echoes from behind his teeth. The sergeant nodded, his face holding a similar resentment as he glanced down at the pitiful man.

“That’s him. Replacement, I company.” Is all he was able to mutter before Ron takes a threatening step towards him, purposefully cutting off the man’s view of his woman in an act of protection. The captain held himself with an air of dominance that everyone around him could see, yet as one inspected him closely, his muscles encased a tension that could only be described as concealed rage; a rage that sprouted from the seed that this pathetic private had planted by trying to hurt her. No sound could be heard within the room aside from the panted breaths coming from his mouth as he peered up at the daunting figure of the man above him, the unease in the room settling like a blanket of snow over a field in the winter season, heavy and cold as it smothered the life out of everything.

“Where’s the weapon?” Speirs asked, his voice sharp and pointed as if he wielded a knife rather than words. The soldier looked up at him with widened eyes as he choked on the blood that trickled down his throat from the broken nose Y/N had given him before letting out a brave taunt of a reply. The captain’s lip twitched before he brought his pistol down and slammed it against the man’s cheek, a splatter of crimson sprouting from his mouth as his head whipped to the side once again.

The woman moved her gaze to her bloodied hands from where it had been trailing over the back of Ron’s head as she took a step back, her anger diminishing as it sucked the energy out of her, leaving her with nothing but grief and anguish. Liebgott noticed the way she almost backed into him with her mind drifting quickly from the situation before them, causing him to reach out to grab her around the waist. She stumbled into him, her glossy eyes flickering to him for a moment to give him a silent ‘thank you’ as she leant her weight on him before glancing back at Speirs as he spat his next words.

“When you talk to an officer you say sir.” The sentence exerted only some of the rage kept within the man yet as he cocked his pistol and held it to the private’s head, he was ready to express it all. The room watched on with hesitation, but none of the men stepped forward to stop it, some even going as far to turn their heads away from the scene before them. Y/N looked on, gaze flickering between the man she loved and the man she despised, and for a moment she too hesitated, but the feeling of pain hung over her like a black cloud and she didn’t believe she would be able to take any more, even if it was from someone she couldn’t care less about. The woman stepped forward out of Liebgott’s grasp, one hand raising to rest on Ron’s shoulder causing him to glance down at her out of the corner of his eye after withholding a full body flinch. He watched as her other hand came to fall on the hand that held the pistol, before his gaze moved back to her, his eyebrows furrowed slightly in confusion. He almost wanted to ask why she would want him to not pull the trigger after everything he had done, but as his eyes stared into her, he noticed the way hers held a gloss of pain, one that was threatening to spill at any moment.

The man let a deep breath escape through his nose as he lowered his sidearm before glancing away from Y/N to look back at the private. Speirs took note of the way he watched her with squinted eyes, yet fear spread through them as he turned his gaze to the officer who had threatened his life just moments ago as the man sneered down at him.

“I should shoot your sorry ass for even looking at her. If it wasn’t for her, I would have put a bullet between your eyes.” Ron hissed as he leaned over to wipe his hand clean of the private’s blood onto his own uniform. The man goes to pull away only to stop, halting his movements to flash one last sneer at the replacement. The officer stepped back, making sure he grasped at Y/N’s jacket to take her with him, keeping her behind him protectively. The private’s gaze lingered for a moment between the two before it lowered to the floor, the inability to put up a fight finally coming to him. Ron kept his face stoic and unmoving before he glanced over at the men standing beside him.

“Have the MP’s take care of this piece of shit.” He uttered casually before he turned on his feet and headed to the door. This, however, was not before glancing at Y/N as a silent note of ‘you’re coming with me’ that he showed with the flick of his head. He let go of the woman’s jacket, exchanging it for the small of her back so he could push her from the room, causing her to withhold a shiver at the seemingly constant physical touch he was offering.

“Grant, he’s dead?” Floyd asked in a flurry as Speirs tried to whisk the woman out of the room as quickly as he could. He paused at his words, letting out a breath of relief at the answer before turning his head back to the men, his hand now clutched absentmindedly on Y/N’s hip, keeping her tucked into his side, an action she was greatly enjoying.

“Nope. Kraut surgeon said he’s gonna make it.” Tears of relief sprung up in her eyes as the words tumbled from his mouth so calmly, her own breath of relief fluttering from her mouth audibly. Ron’s hand gave her side a squeeze when it sounded, a gesture of shared happiness flowing between them as he glanced at her looking up at him with a hopeful expression. The right side of his mouth tilted up in a tiny grin, one she was sure she’d never witnessed, before he used his hand to move her out of the room, this time with no interruptions.

A scuffle of movement could be heard behind her, but she was too busy trying to keep her emotions from eating her alive to care. The woman couldn’t help but let a tired smile crawl to her lips as they left the suffocating confinements of the room, wandering to the next house over in which her, being Easy Company First Sergeant, and the officers were staying. Another loud sigh left her lips as the silence in the house set her at ease, and even more so with the officer behind her still following closely, his eyes watching her intently.

The woman quickly made her way to the kitchen as soon as the front door had closed, her hands ripping at her bloodstained uniform until she stood in her slightly cleaner undershirt. The lack of noise in the room, though setting her nerves at ease, did nothing to calm her swirling brain as several emotions hit her again in full force. They were fighting for the reigns, the positive and negative feelings trying so hard to unseat the other and causing havoc as they went. She felt such joy and happiness with the news of Grant being okay, while the anger still bubbled deep down in her stomach, the disgust of her own actions following not far behind.

Her feet stumbled as she made it to the sink, throwing her over-shirt to the floor before fidgeting furiously with the tap to turn it on. Water sprung from it moments later, splashing along the edges of the sink and dampening parts of her uniform, yet she couldn’t care less as she reached for the soap, scrubbing aggressively at the crimson stains on her skin. Ron trailed behind her slowly, coming to a halt in the doorway, his eyes never leaving her figure as he watched her grow more and more impatient with her hands’ lack of cleanliness. Her fingers grew tired as she gripped the soap in a tightened fist, and when it almost slipped from her grasp she finished the job by throwing the bar harshly into the basin, an aggravated moan accompanying the action. Her face pinched in annoyance before she glanced up at the window above the sink, an angered woman being the only reflection she could see, adorning a scowl and tightened brows. The longer she stared, the more she became lost in the expressions of a woman she didn’t recognise anymore. This war had taken a gentle soul, chewed her up, and spat her out as a harsh product of conflict, battered and tired, and angry, and lost. And yet, the gleam of light hitting the eye of her reflection showed her more; she was a survivor, stronger with every hit she took to her gut, still prepared to kick, and fight, and scream to protect those she loved. This woman had never felt more weak and yet she had never been more strong; a fact that she was now aware of. What was more beautifully tragic than a person who carried their trauma like a heart on their sleeve?

The tears followed this thought, presenting themselves rather quietly as they flowed down her face with no sign of stopping. They were the heartbroken kind of tears, the ones that would fall down ones cheek without a single change of facial expression, the kind that fell just because they needed some form of release. Speirs was behind her in a moment, though hesitant as he held himself back for a second, unsure as to whether she’d want his comfort or her own space. He decided to opt for rubbing soothing circles onto the woman’s back as a gentle sign of support, though anyone that saw the way he stood so stiff would understand that he wanted to hold her in his arms and tell her that he was there. She froze at his touch, and he almost pulled his hand away, thinking she had been uncomfortable with his actions, something she had become very aware of.

The man was taken aback when a quiet laugh let her mouth, especially when he got a glimpse of her face, which still had several wet streaks of tears coating her cheeks. His eyebrows furrowed as they stared at each other, only the woman being aware of the lack of space between them because he hadn’t stepped back when she turned to face him.

“I always thought you must have something against physical touch. But after tonight, it’s been made very clear that I was wrong about that.” Y/N spoke to him, her mind finally connecting the pieces of the puzzle that hadn’t seemed to fit until now. Ron stared at her in confusion, eyebrows furrowed while he looked down at her.

“What are you talking about?” He asked, his eyes never leaving hers as he refused to look away for once, not when he had an opportunity to look at her in this light.

“I think I get it now, you just needed a little extra push.” She seemed to mutter the words, her gaze flickering between his eyes and his lips, something he took note of immediately. She reached forward to him, one hand grasping gently at his jaw while the other rested on his chest, causing his breath to get lodged in his throat. She gave them both a moment, an opportunity to stare at one another shamelessly for a few seconds before she began to lean towards him. He met her halfway, their lips clashing softly as his hands moved to her hips, pulling her closer to him.

The kiss they shared was far from perfect, and also extremely wet due to the tears that had barely stopped falling from her eyes, yet Ron couldn’t help the smile that pulled to his lips as he held her close to him. She was, in fact, completely right; the intimidating, mysterious Captain Speirs needed a little extra push.

The woman pulled back first, the urge to breathe coming back to her as she inhaled to clear her hazy mind. She let a grin take over her face as she relished in the feeling of his arms secured around her.

“I like it when you smile.” She whispered to him, causing his grin to widen even more, his eyes swimming with awe as he gazed down at her, placing his forehead gently against hers.

“I think I love you Y/N.”

“Trust me Ron, I know.”

#this is slowburn pining speirs in its most condensed form #literally one single fic for the entire war so...#deal with it feeling rushed because it really really isn’t #ronald speirs #ronald speirs x reader #ronald speirs fluff #band of brothers #band of brothers imagine #band of brothers fanfic #pining!speirs #soft!speirs

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