#have said this before and not even sure its worth analyzing the choices made in the earlier seasons considering the clear shift in the story

[crashdevlin]

Purgatorio

Author’s Note: This is part Thirty-three of The Best Laid Plans series

Summary: Y/n navigates the rough terrain of Purgatory.

Pairing: none

Word count: 4380

Story Warnings:  angst...A/B/O dynamics, canon divergence, reader illness, a bit of a suicidal ideation

~~~

You felt like you’d been running for days, but you were sure it couldn’t have been more than a few hours. You killed half a dozen monsters in the time since you arrived in Purgatory, but they seemed like a never-ending tide. Running was exhausting, but it was better than fighting forever. You were on a mission, and that didn’t involve spending the rest of your life fighting monsters that had already been killed.

You could feel Dean, but it wasn’t strong enough to pinpoint his location. You just kept moving.

There was no sun, just a haze of foggy grey filtering through the trees. You didn’t seem to need food or water, but you stopped at a river out of habit and a lifetime of Bobby’s survival training. It was a poor choice, of course, as a werewolf jumped you from behind while you were analyzing the safety of the river for drinking. Claws dug into your right side as you tried to maneuver away from the attack and work through the pain. You grabbed blindly at the machete attached to your left hip and lashed out at the monster, but before the blade could make contact, a familiar sound met your ears.

You twisted to see the werewolf hit the riverbank mud, its eyes blown out with divine power. Standing behind it was the blue-eyed angel.

"Castiel? What are you doing here?" you gasped, adjusting your grip on the machete as you pressed a hand into the claw wounds on your side.

"I could ask the same of you." He stepped closer, and you moved away, fearing a trick.

"I'm here to save Dean. What else?" You shook your head. "John didn't even mention you. What the hell?"

"I can only assume John Winchester is hoping I have perished in the inhospitable landscape of Purgatory." The sullen way he spoke threw you off more than his words. “Let me heal you.”

You licked your lips and moved your hand, shifting to allow him access. “Why would John want you dead?”

“A lot transpired while you were absent, Y/n. I made several shameful, regretful decisions in the pursuit of victory in Heaven.”

“Wait, what?”

“Raphael wanted to bring Lucifer and Michael back, negate all of the sacrifices that marked that day in Stull Cemetery. I fought against it, but…the ends did not justify my means.” He reached forward and laid a hand on your side, healing your wound with a bit of burning divinity.

“What did you do?” you asked softly, pulling on every bit of omega comfort you could manage.

He looked away toward the horizon, looking for the river's end. “I betrayed Dean…and I hurt Sam.”

“How?”

“I broke the wall in Sam’s head. I made him remember. I drove him insane.” Your eyes went wide as the angel turned to you. “He remembers everything.”

“Everything?”

"Everything he endured in the Cage…but also, everything he did and said, everyone he harmed."

"I'm sure he had some tearful words with Dean and John over the things he did."

"From what I saw in my more lucid moments, the guilt seemed to better him." You couldn’t help but roll your eyes. A better Sam was still not worth your time. "How did you come to Purgatory, Y/n? John sent you? How?"

"John didn't send me; he found me and made me start remembering. I volunteered to come once I remembered Dean."

“And how did you come to be here?”

You looked down at the hole in your shirt and the blood on your hand. “Hades brought me. I’m supposed to find Dean and get him to the exit down south.”

“There is an exit?”

You nodded and looked back up. “Apparently, God wanted humans to be able to escape if necessary…which is a great thing considering that Hades can’t get me back home.”

“I’m surprised he was able to transport you to Purgatory; it is not usually the purview of the God of the Underworld.”

You shrugged again. “Hades has always been much more powerful than he’s given credit for.” You cleared your throat and looked down the river. “So, do you know where Dean is?”

“Only based on the movements of the monsters."

"And why haven't you found him?" you asked, adjusting your pack on your back.

"The Leviathans have been tracking me. It is best for me to stay away from him…and you.”

“Wait, you’re not going to leave me, are you?” you demanded, reaching out to grab the Angel’s coat. “Look, I’m a bit out of my depth here, okay? I’ve been running since I got here, and I’m exhausted. Please, don’t leave me.”

Castiel sighed and nodded. “Of course. I understand. But it will not be safer for you.”

“It’s better than running around alone.” You licked your lips and gave him a tight smile. “So, thank you for staying with me, Cas. I haven’t been back very long and just jumped into this rescue mission, kinda.”

“I understand, believe it or not. I was in a mental institute for many months before I was needed to send the Leviathans back to Purgatory,” Castiel said as he started walking away.

“You were crazy?” you asked, following him.

“Yes. When I broke the wall in Sam’s mind, he lost his sanity for a time. The only way I could heal his infirmity was to take it upon myself. It might have been better if I never came out of my catatonia.”

“But you said that they needed you because of the Leviathans…which are…what are Leviathans, by the way?”

“John didn’t explain?” You shook your head. “Of course, that does make a bit of sense. If he didn’t explain about me, then-”

“Well, I dreamed some stuff,” you interrupted. “So I know they were…pretty much about to eat the whole world.”

“You dreamed of the Winchesters?”

“Is that so weird? I used to be the Junction, remember?”

“Of course, I remember, Y/n. I remember everything.” He turned to you and tilted his head as he looked down at you. “But you were away from them. You didn’t remember your connection to Dean and John. It makes little sense that you would be dreaming of them.”

“Maybe I just missed them, and my soul reached out and made contact for me.”

“I suppose that is a possibility, of course. I find it strange that these dreams didn’t inspire you to contact the Winchesters.”

You shook your head. “There was a block. Every time I thought about contacting Sam or Dean, something made me change my mind. I suppose that was Death’s doing.” You cleared your throat and tried not to think about lost time. “So, how far away is Dean?”

“I estimate it will take us two days…and you will need to sleep soon. You are unwell.”

You didn’t feel like sleeping, but as soon as he said the words, you knew he was right. You couldn’t keep going much longer without rest. “Will you keep watch?” You followed him away from the river and into the woods.

“Of course.”

~~~

Sleep was hard-won with the environment and the pain in your ovaries, but you must have fallen into a deep one because you didn’t know a blade was tucked under your chin until you pulled yourself out of whatever dream you found yourself in that night.

“What the fuck are you?” the familiar gruff voice of Dean Winchester demanded. Overwhelmed tears filled your eyes before you even opened your lids to look up at him. He looked dirty, angry, almost feral, but it was Dean. “Shifter? Djinn? Siren? What are you?”

You blinked the tears out of your eyes and took a steady breath. The tears slipped down your face to disappear into your hairline. You made sure to catch his eyes and hold the contact as you tried to stay as still as possible. “Now, tell me what kind of monster could connect to your soul like I have, Winchester. Unless you wanna say that you don’t feel it.”

His bottom lip trembled as he glared down at you. “No, you…you can’t be her. She can’t be here. I’m not stupid, I-”

“If there was anyone other than your brother or father that could get here to try to get you out-”

“It’d be Y/n, but she’s gone. Death took her, and he didn’t bring her-”

“Of course, he didn’t bring me here. Hades did.” You took a chance and carefully reached up to pull the drachma necklace out of your shirt so that he could see it. “John said you were in trouble. Of course, I’d do whatever it took to help.”

Dean’s eyes fell to your necklace, then jumped back up to your eyes. “You gave up what Death gave-”

“Yes.”

It seemed to take a moment for the words to sink in, but he stumbled backward after they did and dropped the blade. You sat up and looked down at the weapon. It looked just as primitive and feral as he did. “I looked for you…for over a year,” he whispered. “I begged Death to tell me where you were. He said you were where you belonged and…” He took a deep breath that didn’t seem to do its job and blinked a few times to clear his eyes. “Dad found you?”

You nodded. “Yeah. John broke into my office and pulled a Bourne Identity on me.”

“Figures he finds you as soon as I’m out of the way,” he muttered, a bitterness to his words.

“It wasn’t like that, Dean. He only found me because-” The words stopped in your throat and refused to leave. You just found him. You weren’t going to ruin the reunion by dropping the news of your cancer. “Another hunter came across me, and let him know where I was.”

“Oh, so he was just lucky.”

“Right, and that leads to your luck, Dean.” You stood, picking up his primitive blade as you did. “I’m here to take you home. There’s an exit.”

“I know.”

“You know?”

Dean nodded and reached out his hand to take the blade back. “Somebody told me about it a couple months ago. We’ve been trying to find Cas so we can all get the hell outta here.”

You looked around for a sign of the Angel. “Wait, Cas was just here when I fell asleep. And, wait, who told you about the exit?”

“Well, if Cas was just here, then I’m sure we’re not too far behind. Grab your shit, and let’s see if we can find his trail.”

“Wait, who told you about the exit?”

He ran his free hand through his hair and chewed on his bottom lip for a moment before clearing his throat. “There’s this fang that’s been here a few years. He found out about it and wanted me to help him get out.”

“Monsters can’t get out. That defeats the purpose of the exit. It’s for humans only.”

“Yeah, well, Benny used to be a human, okay?” Dean argued. “And he’s had my back for months, and I think he deserves us at least trying to get his soul back home.”

You nodded, shocked at how fiercely he seemed to defend his new friend. “Okay. It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve worked side by side with something we should be hunting, right?”

“Yeah. Right. Hey, Benny!” he called out, looking behind him.

A man with a beard walked out of the foliage and stepped beside Dean. “She’s actually her?” he asked an accent that you couldn’t quite place on his words.

“Yeah. She’s real. Y/n, this is Benny. Benny, Y/n.”

“Benny Lafitte. Pleasure to meet you, cher,” the vampire said, offering his hand.

“Cajun?” you asked, guessing at his accent as you took his hand.

Benny smiled. “Yes, ma’am. Dean hasn’t been able ta keep his mout’ shut ‘bout ‘chu.”

Dean rolled his eyes and looked away. “Come on, Benny.”

“All good t’ings, o’ course,” Benny clarified.

“Of course. Well…do you know where the exit is, Benny?” you asked.

“Yeah, but Dean won’ let me take us dare ‘til we fine Castiel.”

You turned your focus back to Dean and licked your lips. “Cas was just here. When I fell asleep, he was with me, but…” You took a deep breath and sighed it out. “He told me he felt it was better to stay away from us. The Leviathans are tracking him, apparently.”

“Well, I’m not leaving without Cas, all right, so we need to find his feathery ass.”

Your eyebrow raised. “You’d keep us stuck here just for Castiel, who refuses to be found?”

“Castiel deserves to-”

“Cas doesn’t agree,” you argued.

“Why does that matter?!”

“Keep your voice down, Dean,” you demanded.

He looked around and licked his lips. “Okay. Look.” He stepped closer to you and looked down into your eyes. “You just saw Cas. He said he doesn’t deserve to go home, but you and I know him, and we know that he deserves everything we do.”

“I don’t know him that well, but I know that we need to get out of here. He’s a goddamned Angel. If anybody could get out of here, it’s him, but he doesn’t want to go-”

“He can’t stay here, Y/n!”

You glared up at him. “Dean, you should understand better than anyone the feeling of being unworthy of salvation. But he actually did something worth feeling that way. He told me what he did to Sam. You’ve forgiven that?”

“He thought he was doing the right thing. I should doom him to this place for it?”

“No. He doomed himself, Dean, and I’m telling you, if anyone could make it out of here, it’s Castiel.”

“Then why is he still here?”

You sighed. “Come on. We just talked about this. He doesn’t think he deserves to go home.”

“Then we find him and force him to-”

“Dean, bruddah, we needa get movin’. I hear somethin’ comin’ our way,” Benny said, calling attention to himself quietly.

“We’re finding him.” Dean’s voice told you that he wasn’t arguing about it anymore, so you stopped saying your piece and followed the men further into the woods of Purgatory.

~~~

“Your dad found her just to get you back, and you gonna risk it all for the Angel? You gonna risk her for the Angel?”

You could barely hear the two talking in the clearing ahead of you. Dean was facing away from you, but Benny kept one of his eyes on you.

“Benny, she’s not at risk. She is the strongest woman I’ve ever met. I’m not joking. Dad went to her because he knew that she would do whatever it took to get me back, and that means she’s going to have to wait for me to find Cas and convince him to come home.”

“I think dat’s probably frustratin’ for her. She came all dis way an’ you won’t go wit’ her?”

“Look, I know you wanna get out of here, too, man, but I gotta try to get Cas-”

“This ain’t about me. I know you gonna get me out if you can, but look at her.” Dean looked over his shoulder at you, but you pretended you didn’t notice as you sharpened your machete. “You said you’ve been sick over her for years. She’s here. She came for you. Don’t you think she needs a little bit of an explanation?”

Dean ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek and nodded, letting out a ‘yeah’ under his breath. He cleared his throat and walked over to you. “So, uh, you probably want an explanation, huh?”

You focused on your machete and the whetstone in your hand. “If you want.”

“Okay. Um.” He licked his lips and dropped down to sit on the log you were sitting on. “So, I pretty hard on Cas when everything went down. He hurt Sam, so I’m sure it’s not a shocker that I was pissed. But when we needed him, when everything was coming to a head, and the power and the Leviathans had thoroughly flown his cuckoo nest, I gave up on him. I thought the Cas I knew was gone, and the world was gonna end, and it was gonna be his fault. I was bitter and angry at him and angry at Death and…” Dean reached up and ran his hand through his hair. “Sam had faith. Even after what Cas did to him, Sam believed in him…and it worked. Cas came through, but it was too late. The Leviathans ripped him apart, or at least I thought they did. I thought he was dead. I thought he was gone forever and that he went out with me barely able to look him in the eye.”

The emotion in the tone of his voice made you turn to look at him. “That’s not your fault. Cas betrayed you. You had every right to think that he was irreparably changed. I mean, this is Castiel, the Angel that rebelled against Heaven for you.”

“Yeah. That’s pretty much what I was thinking, but…his heart was in the right place. He was tryin' to make sure that Sam throwing himself in the Cage and you and Dad and Bobby…”

“Yeah. He said that. There was so much sacrifice, and he didn’t want it to be for nothing.”

Dean nodded. “Right, and he just got so deep in trying to do the right thing that he ended up way far off the mark and buried so deep in Crowley’s bullshit that…Point is, I should never have given up on him, and I can’t give up on him now. Does that make sense to you?”

You took a deep breath and twisted to face him. “Of course, it makes sense, Dean. But you still have to figure out what you’ll do if you can’t convince Cas to come with us. Are you going to stay?”

“No, of course not. I got people waiting for me back home. Until a few hours ago…gettin’ back and finding you was on the top of my list.”

“I’m sorry I disappeared,” you whispered, leaning forward to put the whetstone back in your backpack.

“Did you know what Death was going to do? That he was going to…”

“Erase half of my life and put something completely different in its place so that I don’t go searching for my past and everything I walked away from?” you finished for him. “No. He just said he was going to take away my damage. I figured he was going to wall off or take away my memories of Hell, but Death didn’t think that was where my damage started; he thought it was a symptom of the damage that started when I got way too close to the Winchesters.”

“So, he took all of your memories of us?”

“Nope, not all of them, just everything after my eighteenth birthday. Everything went bad after John and I…”

Dean scoffed. “Wow. I thought things were bad with Sam not being able to remember the time between going into the ground and waking up in the Panic Room.”

“He replaced what he took with other memories. I never imagined that I was missing so much.”

“But you remember it all now?” You nodded. “Why did you leave?” You placed your bottom lip between your teeth and chewed on it for a moment, trying to figure out a way to explain what you were thinking when you took Death up on his offer. “I know you were angry about me taking Death’s ring and about me working so hard to save Sam, but-”

“It wasn’t fair that he got to forget,” you interrupted. You zipped your pack and stood. “He got to forget Hell and everything he did and said when he was soulless. He got to forget stalking me, treating me like a piece of meat, and trying to kill your dad, and all the other horrible shit. I had to remember. It wasn’t fair. I just didn’t want to remember. I wanted to…” You took a deep breath. “Death gave me a chance. He let me be what my father wanted me to be; a normal girl with a head for antiquities and a reliance on no one except myself.”

“What about Bobby? You weren’t there when-”

“No, I wasn’t, and I don’t think Bobby would have wanted me there. He wouldn’t have wanted me to see him lying in a coma from a gunshot wound. A gunshot!” you hissed. You looked away in disgust at the thought of it. “But Bobby would have been happy with who I became. The very last conversation I had with that man was him telling me that I should leave.”

“What?” Dean sounded shocked.

“He saw that you weren’t treating me well, putting everything and everyone else above me, and he told me to consider leaving. He told me to move on from you because you were never really going to be mine because you can’t allow that. He said that I could go pretend to be normal with someone else somewhere.”

“And Death stepped right up and made it happen. So, who was he?”

You rolled your eyes and picked up your backpack. “It’s so like you to pick up on the least important part of the story. There was no one. I thought I was a virgin, blissfully ignorant of all the times I was used or forced to use someone I didn’t want. I didn’t remember pining sickness or Winchester family drama. I was actually happy, but as soon as John found me, I knew I had to come to get you. So, here I am, with all my damage firmly in place, waiting for you to get your guilt over Cas assuaged so we can go home.”

“You were happy?” he asked quietly as you started walking away toward the river.

“Don’t worry; it’s been remedied.”

~~~

A few weeks later, you and Dean walked down a Louisiana backroad heading toward Benny’s grave. He’d been quiet since you made it home and you knew it was because Cas didn’t make it through the portal. Benny made it through, though, in Dean’s forearm. Souls were weird.

“Maybe you should go back,” Dean said suddenly, after hours of silence.

“To Purgatory? No, thank you.”

“No, I mean, back to the life Death made you.”

You scoffed. “What would be the point?”

“You were happy,” he insisted.

“I was blissfully ignorant. I’m not anymore. I can’t just go back and be that again.”

“You could find somebody to make you forget about…everything.”

You chuckled, thinking about the email you read as soon as the two of you made it to a motel. It was from your other-life doctor prompting you to call him to discuss the rest of your treatment and how important it was to find out how to deal with the prognosis, because if it was ovarian cancer, the survival stats were low. “I’m gonna be dead a few months, anyway, so there’s really no point.”

“What?”

“I’ve got cancer, Dean.” You kept your tone even, keeping a Hunter-appropriate amount of nonchalance in your stance.

He reached out and grabbed your elbow, effectively stopping you and turning you to face him in one motion. “You what?”

You looked up and saw fear in his emerald eyes, but you felt loss emanating from him. “I have cancer. I’ve been taking the strongest suppressants available since 2009. I’m probably going to be dead within the year if projections are right.” Dean looked a mix of lost and confused, so you reached up and patted his cheek. “But unlike last time, I’m going to Heaven and I’m gonna stay.”

“W-wait. If it’s just, just normal cancer, then why don’t you-There’s chemo and shit, ain’t there?”

“Spend my last few months without any hair, nauseated, and weak? Why would I do that?” you dismissed.

"You could live! You…or we could…we could find an angel or…why didn’t you have Cas fix you?”

“He was barely standing, Dean; I wasn’t going to have him waste his energy on me.”

“Why the hell not?!” He scoffed. “You can’t seriously want to die, can you?”

You scoffed right back. “You know, a week ago I was terrified of it. It was the worst thing I could imagine, but…now that I know everything I’ve been through, dying seems like a sweet fucking reprieve, ya know?”

“Look, I know that things haven’t been the best for you but…” Dean looked lost for words for a moment so you interrupted.

“Things have been worse than not the best.”

“I can’t lose you again, Y/n.”

“Yes, you can,” you disputed, trying to walk away. Dean stopped you.

“No, I can’t,” he insisted, getting in your way. “I’ve had you on my mind every day since Death took you and I cannot lose you again. Heaven, Hell, the Underworld, the other life, I can’t…” He took a deep breath and looked down into your eyes. “My soul hurts with you gone and I can’t…I can take any kind of pain the world throws at me, honey, but I can’t take that anymore.”

There it was; that honesty that completely disarmed you. “Dean…we don’t work. We never have.”

“Because we never let ourselves work. Between me pushing you towards Sam and putting him before you and letting everything get all messed up all the time, we never let it work, but I promise you, okay, I promise that if you go get healthy, I will never put Sam before you ever again.”

Your jaw dropped a little. “You can’t promise that.”

“I am. I am promising that I will never allow my brother to come between us again, and I am promising that if you get this cancer shit dealt with, I will finally mark you and spend the rest of your life being the worst decision you’ve ever made. Understand me?”

Your eyes went wide as you searched his face for any sign that he was being insincere. You saw only love and fear. So you nodded. “Okay. I’ll call my doctor.”

[randomposterofstuff]

On the change of dynamics of Mikasa’s relationships with Eren and Levi

Author’s Note: Hi, all! I just wanted to share my personal analysis of two scenes that involve Eren, Mikasa, and Levi. The idea for the analysis just occurred to me randomly. And it made me think that these two scenes illustrate how much the dynamics of Mikasa’s relationships with Eren and Levi have changed over time. I don’t know if anyone has already made an analysis of this. But I just wanted to share my take on it. Haha. Fair Warning: This post is lengthy. Hahaha.

This is an analysis of two paralleling scenes involving Eren, Mikasa, and Levi. The first scene that will be discussed is the one where Levi beat Eren during the latter's military trial in Season 1. The second scene involves Levi striking Eren after the Raid on Liberio in Season 4. In the analysis of both scenes, I focused primarily on Mikasa's reactions. And at the end of the main analysis, I also posted my thoughts on what all of these could mean for Mikasa's relationship with Levi.

Also, SPOILER ALERT for those who haven't read Chapter 138 of the manga yet. While this post mainly analyzes the two scenes mentioned above, I also included some tidbits from Chapter 138 at the end to tie things up as neatly as possible. Hahaha.

So, anyway, here it goes:

-----

Season 1: The Trial

Back in Season 1, during Eren’s military trial, he was physically beaten by Levi. We all know that he did this to ensure that the Scouting Regiment/Survey Corps gets custody of him. The display was necessary to emphasize and prove that Levi, who is widely known as "Humanity's Strongest Soldier", is best suited to subdue Eren should he lose control of his abilities. Because of this, the Scouts were able to convince the Military Police and Premier Zackly that they should be given custody over Eren.

One of the most notable parts of this scene is how Mikasa was enraged by Levi's actions. Had Armin not stopped her, she would’ve probably lunged at Levi and struck him. At the time, Mikasa was gravely concerned about Eren’s well-being and was perhaps too furious at Levi to think about anything else. Because of this, she probably did not immediately realize that Levi had effectively secured Eren’s relative safety at the end of the day. 

During the trial, the MPs spoke of planning to dissect him, among others. Conversely, the Scouts proposed that he participate in an upcoming scouting expedition to determine whether he is a threat or not. They also suggested that Eren be placed under Levi’s direct supervision so that he could be subdued in the event of an incident. While the latter proposal still entailed some degree of violence, it was far less hostile and more beneficial to Eren than the MP’s proposal. 

Screenshots taken from Season 1, Episode 14 of the “Attack on Titan” anime

It is also worth noting that her primary concern during this time was Eren’s well-being. Mikasa is not cruel or heartless towards others. But it is worth noting that she was more concerned about Eren than the fact that he could have been a grave threat to so many innocent people. During this time, humanity inside the Walls was still ignorant of the truth, so the apprehension and fear directed towards Eren’s powers were justified and understandable. Yet, despite this, Mikasa was mainly singularly focused on Eren.

This is one of many instances which illustrate how she allows her affections for Eren to impair her judgment. She cares about him so much that sometimes her emotions get the better of her.

-----

Season 4: The Aftermath of the Raid on Liberio

Now, flash forward to Season 4 during the Raid on Liberio. When Eren was pulled onto the airship, Levi expressed his disgust and disappointment in Eren’s actions and behavior. He drove his points home by kicking Eren again. When he did so, Mikasa, probably out of habit and instinct, moved to intervene before Armin stopped her again. The difference here is that this time, she did not express anger towards Levi for beating Eren again. Instead, she had a sad and torn expression on her face.

Screenshots taken from Season 4, Episode 8 of the “Attack on Titan” anime

This is an indicator of growth and change on Mikasa’s part. While she still had the urge to protect Eren, she knew that because of what he did to the citizens of Liberio, Levi’s anger and disgust were justified. As a matter of fact, she herself was distraught when she saw the bodies of innocent civilians and children scattered on the battlefield. And what distressed her even more was the fact that Eren – her childhood friend, adoptive brother, and literal savior, was the cause of all the destruction.

Screenshots taken from Season 4, Episode 7 of the “Attack on Titan” anime

During this time, Mikasa had already begun to notice that the Eren she once knew was no longer with them. However, probably because of personal sentiment and their shared history, she still cared for him. It is likely that Mikasa still hoped that he would change for the better during this particular time. Even so, she is now wise and mature enough to not turn a blind eye to his terrible actions.

It can also be said that Mikasa is now better able to properly analyze the situation as a whole instead of just focusing on Eren. She understood the gravity of the problem and therefore acknowledged that Levi was in the right for feeling disgusted and disappointed. And maybe it can be said that she couldn’t blame him for kicking Eren again. (Lol.)

-----

What This Means for Levi and Mikasa's Relationship: Having Common Ground

As for what all of this means for Mikasa and Levi's relationship, I think that it can be said that Mikasa now has more common ground with Levi than Eren. 

The affection she has for Eren is rooted in a shared history and the kind of person he used to be before he became their ultimate enemy. Before the truth about the world and Eldians was revealed to the inhabitants of Paradis, Eren and Mikasa were long-time friends who worked hand-in-hand to achieve their common goals. The first was to keep humanity within the Walls safe from the threat of the Titans. And the second was to uncover the truth surrounding the mystery of the Titans. However, their relationship began to deteriorate when they finally learned of the truth, and when Eren gained access to his Attack Titan's ability to see the memories of its future and past inheritors. Over time, Eren began to slowly but surely drift away from her to the point that they had completely lost their common ground.

Conversely, her connection to Levi is based on trust and comradeship. Indeed, there aren't any explicitly romantic interactions between them (not yet, anyway. Lol.). However, it has already been established that Mikasa trusts Levi as a leader and as a fellow soldier. In the same vein, Levi also has faith in Mikasa's abilities. More importantly, it has been shown that Levi is capable of great empathy and that he has the best interests of humanity as a whole in both his mind and heart. This is another thing that he has in common with Mikasa. While she was heartbroken at the fact that killing Eren was the only way to stop him, she ultimately chose the rest of humanity over him and her feelings for him. She was even the one who dealt the final blow in Chapter 138. On this, I think that her act of choosing to kill Eren and actually seeing that choice through was her way of finally letting him go and choosing to move on from him. It's true that she said that she won't forget him, but then again, it's possible to move on from someone without forgetting them.

In relation to this, I think that it's symbolic (and perhaps even foreshadowing of events to come in Chapter 139) that Levi was the one to help her kill Eren. It's symbolic in the sense that by helping her kill Eren, Levi was the one to help Mikasa move on from him. It's also worth noting that when Mikasa declared her intention to kill Eren, Levi seemed to look awestruck and proud. He followed her lead - meaning that he trusted her resolve.

Images taken from Chapter 138 of the Shingeki no Kyojin manga.

This is particularly significant because, in the past, Levi (along with a few others) nearly always had to placate Mikasa whenever a dangerous situation involved Eren. Levi was completely aware of how reckless she could be whenever Eren's safety was in jeopardy. Even in the events leading up to the final battle, Mikasa still protested whenever anyone suggested that they kill Eren. However, when it came down to it, Mikasa decided that she would be the one to kill Eren. And when she asked for everyone’s help, he did not question her. Instead, he chose to trust her and believe her.

Perhaps this will lead to a deeper connection between them in the aftermath of the battle. Maybe this can be a foundation for the relationship that they will have in the future.

Anyway, that's all for now. I hope that this post makes sense. Haha. I'm sorry if it's a bit convoluted and messy. Lol. Let me know what you guys think!

[littlemisspascal]

Death and an Angel part 3

Death!Din and Cupid F!Reader

Summary: You and Din have an unexpected heart-to-heart about what it means to be Death and a Cupid on route to a planet where Din’s potential soulmate lives.

Rating: G

Word Count: 1,500

Warnings: Pining, smidge of angst, more plot development, Razor Crest (RIP I miss you darling!), a made-up home world for the reader (yes, yes, there’s like a million I could have picked but my brain said NOPE)

Author Note: Ahhhh, the comments are so amazing from you all! Thank you everyone out there sparing time to check out my little universe, it makes me sooo happy you have no idea! As always, I hope you enjoy this new segment as I try to plot this story out and get these two idiots to acknowledge there just might be something between them. 

Also special thanks to @codenamewitcher​​ for including the first two parts on Weekly Fanfic Recs. Be sure to go check out the list for a whole bunch of fantastic stories!

Links to Part 1, Part 2 and Part 4

Photo Inspiration: (What I imagine is beneath the armor in this scene...*dreamy sigh*)

There is a distinct silence that can only be found in hyperspace when the stars outside resemble sparkling streaks of silver tinsel and your breath is trapped within your lungs as you’re awestruck by the sheer beauty of it all. You experience this silence aboard the Razor Crest, sitting in the cockpit behind Din as he pilots his beloved gunship. It isn’t the first time you’ve been a passenger, having traveled with Din on two previous ventures where your Cupid services were required on planets far away from your home on Umbriel.

Off-world assignments for you were generally rare since your bosses were more inclined to choose Cupids of higher ranking to handle those clients, but sometimes you were the only available option left. Which, come to think of it, is exactly how you became the one roped into meeting with Death every full moon. Your bosses decided someone needed to check up on him to make sure he wasn’t reaping anyone before their fated time and thus messing with the natural order of things. You privately have reached the conclusion it was a decision made during a fit of paranoia as you had yet to find any evidence suggesting Din ever broke a single one of the universe’s rules, let alone even considered the mere possibility.

When you did travel for assignments, you never stopped feeling like a goldfish being dumped out of your familiar little bowl and into a massive ocean full of strange oddities. You would often find yourself wasting time trying to successfully navigate the unknown world when you should have been focused on tracking down your client’s soulmate.

That’s why Din had offered to start traveling with you. Actually, in his own words it was because, “You think about love so much you don’t see trouble until it’s an inch in front of you. Someone’s got to be there to look after you.”

You’d tried to argue, told him you had never experienced trouble and that if you did then you could handle it with your bow. All Cupid’s were required to master archery for self-defense purposes, though Din’s responding snort of derision made you suspect he wasn’t convinced of your skills. You wondered if he thought, just as humans incorrectly did, a Cupid only used their bow to spread love and lust. Or maybe he just thought you weren’t capable of such finesse. It was an insulting assumption, fueling you with the burning desire to prove him wrong. One day, you keep telling yourself, a repetitive chant. One day you’ll show him just how capable you are with your weapon and you imagine his look of shock, whether worn openly on his face or hidden beneath the visor of his helmet, will be utterly priceless.

But in the meantime, you’re in no hurry to encounter trouble. Finding enjoyment in taking these trips with him on his ship instead.

The Razor Crest had actually been a complete surprise to you when Din first welcomed you on it; primarily because the notion of him using such a primitive form of transportation despite the powers he possessed as Death was too outrageous to wrap your head around. However, it took less than ten minutes soaring through space for you to discover just how many details of the universe you were missing by relying on your Cupid abilities to teleport yourself between locations. Never would you have imagined Death to be the one to teach you to love the slowness of travel, to let your eyes linger on all the beautiful wonders along the way. But that’s exactly what happened.

You turn your head away from the window to look at Din. From your angle, all you glimpse is the back of his helmet, reflecting the passing starlight. Soon you’ll be introducing Din to the first immortal on your list of potential soulmates.

Death, you quickly correct yourself. He’s only Din when he’s around you.

You initially thought he elected to wear his armor because you told him he could to ease his comfort, but now you think it’s because this is him meeting his potential soulmate as himself. It is easy to forget sometimes this is the image of Death—a warrior enshrouded in beskar, cunning and ruthless—that is recognized throughout the universe. And feared.

If the handsome face he concealed was known instead, you wonder if mortals would readily choose to embrace the ending of their lifetime, rather than foolishly seek to run from its inevitability.

“What is it?” Din’s baritone voice startles you as it shatters the quietness. The modulator within his helmet gives his tone a low raspiness that never fails to send a chill down your spine when you hear it.

“Huh?” You respond ineloquently.

“You’ve been staring at the back of my head for the last five minutes, angel. I figured you had something worth saying.”

“Oh, no. I was just thinking about you.”

Immediately you wish a meteor would collide with the ship, providing you with the necessary distraction to escape and find somewhere you can hide until the end of time.

“...What about me were you thinking?” Din wonders after a solid thirty seconds of pure silence, voice somehow conveying an equally blended mixture of intrigue and wariness. He flips on the ship’s autopilot and turns in his seat to pin you with his gaze, apparently unwilling to let you try and weasel yourself out of the conversation.

You roll the question around in your mind, wanting to give an answer that satisfies him without it also embarrassing yourself further.

“I was thinking how much of an enigma you are,” you murmur at last, leaning back in the chair with your arms crossing over your stomach. “You wield such incredible powers and yet you choose to wear a human face, to call this man-made ship your home and to also spend your spare time living amongst those you will eventually reap. Why are these your choices?”

He tilts his head, and you just know there is a little crease of bewilderment appearing between his eyebrows right now even if you can’t see it. For as much as he is a puzzle you can’t put together, he is also at times an open book that you will never tire of reading.

“I would think you, more than most beings, would understand the discomfort that stems from loneliness and the lengths one will go to ease it,” he says, not unkindly. He mirrors your position, maneuvering himself until he’s comfortable in his seat and totally oblivious to the dilating of your pupils as you observe every subtle shift of his armor-clad body. “Isn’t that the true purpose of Cupids? To spare individuals the ache of living a life of solitude by introducing them to someone to love so they no longer feel it.”

“That’s a poetic way of putting it,” you answer, smiling softly and shrugging your shoulders. “My superiors would just quote our mantra back at me when I used to ask. Amor vincit omnia.”

“Love conquers all.”

You shouldn’t be surprised he’s able to translate such an ancient and obscure language, but your eyes widen regardless. “That’s right.”

His voice is unusually soft when he asks, “Do you like being a Cupid?”

You stare at him, caught off guard by how easily he’s changed the topic of the conversation from himself to you. You’re used to taking orders and being thanked for your services, but no one has ever asked you if you liked doing any of it.

“I’m good at it,” you finally say, even though it’s not really an answer.

He nods his head still, as if he understands. A part of you thinks he actually does.

You lick your lips, eyeing him hesitantly. “Do you...like being Death?”

“I’m good at it,” he echoes, but your words sound somber coming from his lips.

The cockpit fills with hushed silence again, but there’s a unique tenderness unlike ever before. Minutes seem to stretch on for entire seasons as you watch one another, content to simply coexist and revel in each other’s presences.

It would be so easy to slip off his helmet and kiss him right now.

You stiffen, stunned at your own thought, but you aren’t given the chance to analyze it further as an alarm on the ship’s control panel announces with a resounding beep you’ve reached your destination.

Din spins in his seat, reclaiming control of the steering to begin the ship’s landing process. You look out the front window at the large green-blue planet drawing nearer with every anxious tick of your heartbeat.

“We’re here,” you say needlessly, forcing excitement into your voice. Fake it till you make it, isn’t that the human expression?

“Who is it we’re meeting on this backwater skug hole?” Din asks, pressing a series of buttons above his head.

You kick the back of his seat. “Be nice,” you scold when he shoots you a look. He mutters something unintelligible under his breath as he turns back around, prompting you to roll your eyes. “She’s a goddess of springtime and motherhood. The locals call her Omera.”

Tag List: @leilei-draws​, @theocatkov​, @becauseican2, @vintagesaph​, @stardust-and-starlight​, @kay2304, @odelia-d32, @adrieunor​, @remmyswritings​, @gallowsjoker​, @rhiannon-russo​, @randomness501​, @eleine-t1d​, @nicotinebirds, @sylphene​, @softly-sad​, @maytheglitter​, @melobee​

[pleasantanathema]

Graves into Gardens | Reiner Braun x Reader | Chapter Six

Chapter Six: Revelations 

Pairing: Reiner Braun x Fem!Reader

Rating: Explicit (18+ Only)

Warnings: Modern AU, spoilers up to season four, slight manga spoilers (only by including characters met later), captivity, mentions of death, violence enemies to lovers, angst, and eventual smut (ohohoho we’re so hot on it now, just wait until the end of this one)

Word Count: 5k

A/N: Thank you so, so much to everyone who has left comments, screamed in reblog tags, and just encouraged me to create this story. I have never felt so much love for a fic in the time I’ve been writing.

This chapter reveals a lot, and it’s a little longer than the rest, but it’s for good reason- the end of this is one of my favorite things I’ve written.

Previous Chapter | Masterlist | Next Chapter

        Reiner’s apartment truly wasn’t much. You thought he’d been joking, perhaps was even being humble, but the small studio apartment was quite dismal. The walls were stark white, a few faded posters peeling off the wall from neglect, a couple of medals and trophies lining a small bookshelf that was bursting with paperbacks and notebooks. A simple bed with a royal blue comforter and overstuffed pillows, the most compact L-shaped couch in front of a tv, and a corner dominated by a desk with two monitors and stacks of documents, manila envelopes, and crates of papers crammed below.

        A kitchenet that looked hardly used was tucked away in another corner, the entryway to a small bathroom right near it.

        There was truly nothing worth looking twice at, save a handful of framed photos scattered around. 

        You’d taken it all in rather hurriedly, still out of breath from practically running through snowy alleyways, the developing snowstorm covering the land like fresh linen. There was a window near his bed, which you gravitated toward after kicking off your damp boots by the door. Not much a view, either. Just more desolate, brick buildings and a sorry looking street below.

        He told you once that he didn’t grow up with much, and it unfortunately seemed like despite joining the ranks of the military, he was still left with close to nothing.

        “What are we here for?”

        He was busy toiling with the thermostat, thick fingers mashing against the heat button to try to warm the small box of an apartment.

        “You won’t like it,” he grumbled, golden eyes glancing over to you with a tinge of regret painting his brow.

        “Then why bring me?”

        “Because you need to see it.”

        You tucked your hands under your arms, the chill of the winter’s day finally settling into your bones.

        You watched keenly as he shrugged off his snow laden jacket, hanging it by the door before promptly locking it. He seemed as out of breath as you were, nose red from the cold, hands shaking as he fumbled with his phone. You bit the inside of your cheek with impatience, a small flame of ire licking its way into your chest.

        Bringing you out here could get you killed. He knew that, right? Of course he did, but he did it anyways. Surely this matter of seemingly great importance could’ve been fetched by one of his comrades. You hadn’t quite considered the danger leaving the headquarters could bring upon you until you were dashing through the streets, the heavy paw of Reiner’s hand squeezing around your wrist. At one point in time, he’d shoved you back down another corridor, shielding you with the size of his body as particular caravan of cars turned down the roadway. He seemed to fear any pair of government eyes spying you.

        He always was so careless.

        He was busy texting someone, still standing idle, lip worried between his teeth.

        Must be the girl you ran into that’s giving him a headache. He probably thought he could slip out and back again without a soul noticing, without anyone giving him grievance, but that bright eyed little cousin of his had ruined that. She’d been so excited to see him; he probably hadn’t been to see his family quite a while, seeing that he was on guard duty after his last mission. 

        How many days had it been since you’d been here? You’d honestly lost track of time, your world feeling like it had been caught in a slow turn of molasses. A few seconds could feel like hours, days felt like minutes, every heartbeat felt like it could be your last. You tried to add it all up in your head, eyes closing as you replayed all the events that led to you standing in Reiner Braun’s home in Marley.

        A week and a half, you surmised. But it could be a little more, a little less. You think you would have kept your eyes on the sun a little more acutely, seeing that you’d missed it rise and fall for at least two days when you were bound in that cell.

        “Are you alright?”

        For a moment, you thought you had spoken the words. You were thinking them, but he asked you instead.

        “That’s a loaded question,” you looked back down to the street, catching the sight of a line of what appeared to be school children marching in tandem down the sidewalk, snow in their hair and happiness on their faces, “but for the moment, I’m okay.”

        Reiner pulled his lips to the side, considering your words. Maybe it hadn’t dawned on him that you couldn’t have been in any state of ease since you’d been promptly abducted and plopped down in this new world to navigate.

        “Are you alright?” You encored, observing how his worried thumbs were still fast against the screen.

        “Have I ever been?”

        You made at face at that reply, corners of your mouth turning down while your shoulders shrugged. Fair enough. 

        Though, for the first time, a bit of pity crept into your mind. Reiner didn’t really ask for this life, did he? He was doing whatever he could to get by, fallen rather inelegantly into the position of being sent to Paradis, and was now being handed you to watch over, presumably without his full consent. You were both pawns in this world, kings and rooks dominating the board and playing you both for fools.

        Being a Scout hadn’t been your intention, either. You’d once had other dreams: college, a career, a family, but you’d been grandfathered into the role by your government working parents, and cemented into it when they’d died. You had nothing else to do, so you served. You served your country, your friends, but you also served yourself, using the role to keep your life afloat, even if it sometimes meant spilling the lifeblood of others, even if it meant sacrificing aspirations and settling. Though, you would admit that some rather beautiful things managed to bloom from the barren soil. Regrettably, those had all been left behind, washed away by tides you couldn’t control.

        “I’m sorry,” Reiner grunted, sinking into the cushions of the couch, “she—she already opened her mouth. I’ve gotten Annie to settle things at HQ, but I imagine Chief is still furious.”

        “Is it such a bad thing to take me out here? I mean, you could easily stop me if I tried to run away.” 

        “Could I?”

        You debated his question. While you were quite nimble, you’d be like a rat in a maze trying to find a way out of this god forsaken place.

        “If I let you,” you reasoned, a tinge of humor behind your words.

        He smiled, all warm and soft, full lips parting. The realization that you hadn’t seen him smile in years pummeled into your chest like a heavy hand stealing from your lungs. It made the sorrow that much more palpable.

        “For the record, Zeke is more upset I didn’t ask permission. He’s hellbent on his authority.”

        “So I’ve noticed.”

        You also pinpointed something else of note, a picture glinting on his nightstand catching your attention.

        It resembled the same one you’d seen on Zeke’s desk, only now you could make out the faces. Reiner didn’t pay you any mind as you reached for the framed memory, plucking it from its home, dust from the back of it staining your fingers. 

        A red booth housed five familiar faces, all grinning over half-drank pints of beer. Their arms were interlocked around each other’s shoulders, all the men young and handsome, Reiner and Bertholdt even more youthful than when they’d first walked through the doors of the Scout Office. Then there was Zeke seated next to Porco, the latter in that green jacket you’d seen him in earlier. But your eyes were set on a face you’d never thought you’d see again, a face that possessed the very recesses of your mind, only appearing late at night when you’d see it in corners, catch it lingering behind your eyelids. He was attractive, appeared personable, messy dark hair and distinct brow that matched the boy next to him.

        “Reiner…” you whispered, still unmoving from your spot between the bed and the window pane, “who is this?”

        He peered over his shoulder, any hint of a smile now vanished like etchings being erased from a page.

        “You don’t recognize him?”

        Him, a photo full of faces, and he knew who you were asking about. He’d probably stared too long at the ghost himself. You wondered if he ever placed the frame down at night to sleep better; you would have, if you’d killed someone you cared about.

        “You know I do.”

        Reiner held his hand out, long arm stretched across the back of the couch. You finally talked your feet into moving, shuffling across the hardwood as you placed the offending item into his upturned palm. 

        Then, you sat next to him, your knees bumping together as you tried to analyze the emotions stirring within. You couldn’t quite place any of them—Regret? Fear? Curiosity? Sadness? But they were quelled when Reiner placed his hand on your twitching thigh, pressing that anxiousness away for a moment.

        “Marcel Galliard, Porco’s older brother.”

        Your lips parted, both of your attentions centered on the souvenir held between you.

        “It was his birthday, and we hadn’t had the chance to celebrate mine and Zeke’s yet either, so we all went out for drinks. I unfortunately don’t remember much from that night, but I remember being…happy, content.”

        “Why’d you do it?” you asked it a little quickly, “why would you…save me, not him?”

        “I told you, some things I don’t have a choice about.”

        “But you—you could’ve said he killed me and got away, right? You did have a choice.”

        You saw how his jaw clenched, muscles in his cheek flexing.

        “I don’t know.” Agony lined his voice, the words soft, hushed.

        That situation was something you both thought about far too often than you’d like to admit, a late-night mulling that never led to conversation.

        “I’m sorry.” You took the photo away, placed it face down on the coffee table.

        “Don’t be. We can’t change the past,” he said solemnly. 

        You could, however, lament it. Which is something you did perhaps too often.

━━━─── • ───━━━

         Reiner wasn’t ready for what was to come. He knew he never would be, which is why he threw precaution to the wind and decided to lay his cards on the table now. 

         He had to pick a side. Even if these wars didn’t truly concern him, even if the fate of countries ultimately didn’t matter to his conscious, you did—you mattered, he mattered, and he had to start thinking about things on a smaller scale. 

         He wanted to go back to Paradis. He practically yearned to go back in time, to return to a place where being Eldian didn’t matter, where his status didn’t matter, where he could remake himself into something new. If it hadn’t been for his binds connecting him to Marley, he could’ve actually seen hope instead of sorrow on the horizon. He could never seem to cut the vines, could never actually get away from the people controlling his life. 

         But now, now he saw an out, and it was with you. When this cataclysm first happened, all he wanted was for you to be dead, for you to go away and leave him and his miseries alone to rot and wither. Being with you, however, reminded him of a life he could have. He just had to make it happen, he had to start molding his own clay, had to keep bearing the weight of the world like the weary Atlas until he could find a way to make it turn in his favor.

         He was tired of wishing for death.

         Which is why he had to bring you here and why he would handle the consequences that were waiting in the distance. 

         You might not be very helpful to Marley, but he could be of use to Paradis.

         “I believe you,” he hadn’t noticed he was still touching you, fingers gripping onto your leg like a lifeline, “about Zeke. I believe you because I—we, Pieck, Annie, Bertie—we know he’s up to something beyond what he tells us and the generals. He is working with someone in Paradis. We don’t know who, but we do think we know what for.”

         “Oh my god…oh my god. Why didn’t you—”

         “You think I can just fucking say that when anyone could be outside my door listening?” 

         “I thought you said I wouldn’t like what you have to show me.” 

         He noticed how your shoulders relaxed, like you’d been holding in tension for far too long.

         “That’s not…I have something else for you.”

         He didn’t move just yet, not quite ready to actually set this all in motion.

         This all hinged on you. As much as he hated to admit it, he knew you quite well; of course, that was the you of four years ago. The you he had next to him now was older, scarred, burdened, but he still felt that same magnetic pull to you that he could never explain. He was just a moon consigned to orbit you, to be connected to you even when neither of you desired the attachment.

         He knew you were going to be upset, livid; his skin was already prickled at the thought of how you would possibly punch him if when you read what he had to give.

         At least you always looked pretty when you were angry.

         He could still remember how Jean had cowered undeath his desk when you’d stomped into the office after discovering he’d used the branch’s own money to play in a high-stakes poker game while undercover. He’d been fishing for information on the elites, found himself tipsy, and then found himself on the receiving end of your fury. The only thing that stopped your yelling was Erwin, who, for personal reasons, didn’t want any fuss made over government money being gambled away.

         Erwin. He’d never cared for how close you were to him.

         Reiner finally stood, expecting you to sit and wait, but you were following him like a shadow, small hand wrapped around his forearm as he moved to his computer. When he sat down, that hand moved up to his shoulder, your fingers squeezing into his muscle with encouragement. It didn’t really put him at ease.

         He turned the desktop on, the monitor flashing to life. He typed in his password quickly, then went searching for that folder he’d kept hidden away so he’d never bother to look at it again. 

         “Hand me one of those,” he nodded his head in the direction of a small container of flash drives on the other side of his desk. You plucked one out of its resting spot and went ahead and placed it into the port on the computer. He knew you wouldn’t question why had so many on hand—you both knew how it all worked, you both kept important documents that had to be shuffled around digitally.

         Familiar names lined the inside of the folder, ones he’d once tried to forget. He heard you suck in a quick breath and took a moment to look up at you. Your brow was set, tongue obviously caught between your teeth to keep yourself from saying anything. 

         This was his job. He was in charge of keeping tabs on The Scouts, he was the one who fed Marley all the information they could. Well, almost all of it. 

         “These are files I never gave over. They’re yours now. I never gave Marley everything they wanted I…I thought I was protecting you. There’s also a few files on Zeke that Pieck created in here, too.” 

         You both watched as he copied the folder over to the flash drive, one by one the names and dates slowly dropping into a new safe place for them.

         He touched your waist, signaling you to step back. He rolled his chair out, ducking under the desk for a split moment to gather a box of the printed documents he had actually handed over; the action was a mistake. 

         You were leaned over him in an instant, hand clutching and moving the mouse so quickly it scraped against the desk. He attempted to reach up and stop you, but he paused—there were still bruises on your wrist, on your fingers, faded watercolors of surviving pain. He’d gripped your hand, your wrists, all day, why hadn’t you stopped him?

         He already knew which file you opened; he didn’t need to look. But he did anyways, moving the crate to the side and sitting back in his chair, arms crossed across his chest. His poor heart felt like it was going to burst.

         Marco Bott’s face filled part of the screen, all sweet and freckled like he remembered. Those kind eyes were looking straight at him, judging him. Reiner was just waiting, he knew what was said in there, he wrote it all, still recalled how puffy his eyes were when he did it, how much he regretted it.

         There was a pregnant pause, one so heavy he felt like he was being crushed.

         This all hinged on you. He needed you to help him, needed you to help you.

         “I fucking knew it.”

         He was already flinching, shrinking. He watched the screen scroll, the black letters and white spaces all a blur.

         “Threat eliminated by gunfire, killed by organized crime members after…” you hesitated, eyes dancing as you reread the words, “after his gear was removed to ensure death.”

         He was on his feet before you could hit him, backing away from your clenched fists, chair rolling to be forgotten in the corner.

         “What. Did. You. Do?” 

         Each word came with a step toward him. He was running out of space, nearly tripping over the edge of the couch as you encroached upon him.

         “What did you do?” Your voice was getting louder, pain written across your face like he’d just stabbed you. “You told me there was no fucking truth about Marco!”

         “There isn’t! Marco’s dead, there’s no changing—”

         “There’s no changing the past,” you mocked his words, venom dripping from your tongue.

━━━─── • ───━━━

         Your blood was boiling, wrath itching between your fingers. 

         You were going to kill him. You were going to wind your fists around his neck and watch the life drain slowly from his eyes like he fucking deserved.

         You couldn’t believe you’d let you guard down, that you’d started to trust him. You always knew something had gone awry the night Marco died. He’d been slaughtered, ransacked with bullet holes across his body. It was like he had been dropped into the line of fire, dangled out like a piece of meat to be eaten alive.

         And he didn’t have his gear, that’s what stumped everyone looking into the mess of it all. It was like he had walked in unprepared, like a boy on a suicide mission walking straight to his death. Thirty-six bullets and even more empty, splattered holes littered had riddled his corpse. Jean had fallen to his knees. Connie didn’t speak for a week. Sasha didn’t eat for days.

         Because of Reiner’s decision, that man suffered, you all mourned, and you felt like you most of all had let him down. Marco had been your protégé, you’d taught him everything he knew, and that was the first mission he was allowed to go on after his training. You’d been tailing a rather violent gang, found their hideout, and were infiltrating for arrests and to see what was inside. Marco had been paired with Reiner and Bertholdt to lead the first wave of infiltration, while you and the rest waited for the signal to rush the back doors to the run-down ranch not far out of the city of Trost. They’d been up ahead by the barn that was sandwiched between stables.

         But your signal turned to sounds of gunfire. You could still hear it echoing in your ears as you approached Reiner. The sounds of metal clicking, of repeated blasts from automatic weapons ringing across the hillsides like single note windchimes in a raging storm.

         “Tell me why.”

         Your fingers were digging into his shirt before you could stop yourself, the threads of the worn Henley threatening to rip from your nails sinking into it. You could actually feel his heart beat against his chest, a frightened bird trying to flee his ribcage.

         When he didn’t speak right away, your anger flared, made you shove him back against the wall with all your might. It made your arms hurt, like you’d just slammed your hands against brick, a sharp pain that made you hiss.

         “He overheard us—”

         “Overheard what?”

         You could tell he was getting a little infuriated as well, nostrils flaring as he looked down his nose at you. It must look funny, you pressing him against the wall of his own apartment. Reiner was nearly twice your size—he was bigger than most people, and he towered over you like a looming threat.

         “Let me fucking finish,” he took a deep breath, eyes nearly glazing over, “He overheard Bertie and I talking about how we should relay the details of that gang, of organized crime in general, to Marley. We—we hadn’t had time to talk alone since we’d been prepping that shit for days. We didn’t know Marco followed us around to that side of the rooftop.”

         “That’s it? He heard you whispering little secrets and you killed him for it?”

         One of the buttons near the neckline of his shirt popped as your knuckles dug deeper into the fabric.

         “He literally heard us say that we needed to find a time to call General Magath of Marley. If he lived and told someone that—,” his breath caught for a moment when one of your nails started to pierce his skin, “it would have compromised our entire mission. We’d been there for three years, and he could’ve ruined it all.”

         You were at your breaking point. You could feel that terrible heat that comes with sadness creeping up your neck, snaking around to your cheeks. If you weren’t careful, you were going to cry. All this time, all this time spent wondering why, and this was why he had to die?

         Killing wasn’t unusual in your life. It was part of the job, something you’d unfortunately had to do on a few occasions. You knew those strangers who ate your bullets or your knife had families, that they were people too, but most of them were monsters, thieves, rapists, threats to the corrupted balance of the governmental structure. But Marco…he was like family, and finding his limp, almost unrecognizable body had sent even the most hardened veterans into despair. Levi took off from work the next day; the only time he had ever missed a day on the job.

         “Tell me how!” You truly didn’t mean to scream it, but the emotions raging in your stomach, your chest, it all ached too much. 

         “Be quiet, I have neighbors—”

         “I don’t give a fuck about your god damn neighbors, Reiner!”

         He finally moved then, his once idle hand now jerking up to your face to fiercely hold your cheeks beneath his fingers. You tried to smack his hand away, your own fingers digging and tugging at his wrist.

         “Letme-go!” Your words were jumbled, your open mouth allowing his fingers to press your cheeks in between your teeth.

         “You have to be fucking quiet,” he hissed, a whole new light shining in his eyes, a familiar rage you had seen when you’d fought against him the day Paradis was invaded. The reality of how large he was sunk in again; he looked like a vengeful god peering down at you, all hot-blooded and incensed.

         You thought for a moment he wouldn’t hurt you, but then you remembered he already had. He had the inclination to be just as cruel as you could be.

         His fingers stayed firm against your cheeks, holding you like he was daring you to speak again. 

         “Tellmehow,” you managed to spit out, wincing when he took the leverage he had on your face and used it to shove you back. You stumbled, banging into the side of the couch as you rubbed at the sore flesh of your mouth.

         But he was unmoving, back straight against the wall, a statue built on the foundation of wrath and agony, waiting to crack and fall onto you if you made the wrong move.

         “We knew their guards were patrolling. Bertholdt covered his mouth while I stripped him of his equipment, of his guns, and I pushed him off the roof and into their sight.”

         He said it so calmly that it made you sick. But that was a reality he had to live with every day, wasn’t it? He had to replay in his mind over and over again that he had done such a vile thing, he had to justify it else it would eat him alive.

         Your tears were hot, but contained, your lashes blinking them aside as you just stared at him. You opened your mouth to scream at him, you were so ready to spew hatred and let it burn him, but he was quicker than you. 

         With one step, he was on you, your hair wrapped in his fast as he wrenched your head to the side, smarting your scalp to silence you.

         “Marco’s dead, and I’m sorry for it. You fucking screaming will do nothing but have the assholes who live below me calling the authorities and you’ll find yourself in a much worse prison than before.”

         You didn’t like how he was right. Still, you glared up at him, brows pinched together in pain.

         It felt like you’d merged into him, those rapid hearts within your chests suddenly beating as one with the same suffering, the same torment. You both had to live with the poor reality of your lives; you were killers, you were monsters too. 

         You were too close to him, could smell the heat of his skin, could feel his breath against your sore cheeks. Your hands were flat against his chest, trapped between you, his arm an anchor as it tugged at the roots of your hair, keeping your face turned towards his.

         You couldn’t help but look at him, there was nowhere else to focus, only on him. It was like you could see the pages of a book open across his face, wretchedness and anguish painted in broad strokes in the fair wrinkles around his eyes, in the curve of his brow. It was beauty and pain bleeding together, the amber color of his eyes swirling as he searched your own face like he was looking for something. What would he find hidden behind your own grief?

         “I hate you,” you whispered, breath long gone.

         “I know.”

         “And I’ll never forgive you.”

         It was like he was moving closer, the time you were losing now completely stopped, frozen between your bodies.

         “Don’t want forgiveness,” he caught your whisper and gave it back, “just judgement.”

         His lips met yours with a bruising fervor. 

         The hand in your hair flexed, pulled you closer, made you gasp as your hands slid up his chest. Your fingers found his rumbling throat, and in the back of your mind, you recalled how just moments ago you were waiting to snatch the life from his neck. You felt his pulse beating beneath your thumb, a war drum beating hot and fast in his veins. Your mouth was moving against his, eyes closed, suddenly greedy and hungry; for what, you didn’t know. All you did know was that this felt so wrong, like you’d taken a misstep and landed right into the lion’s lap, but that it also felt like absolution, like he was devouring your sins and taking them for his own.

         Your mouth slanted for him, a hum resounding from both your throats as you fell into this new, strange rhythm. You’d thought about it before, kissing him like this, feeling those plush lips against yours, angry and hot and needy. You cherished the taste of him, like a dark, rich wine filling up your mouth, spilling over and enveloping your senses. Your tongue tempted him to open his lips, to let you in. There was no hesitation. 

         His other hand found your hip, fingers mean and pulling you impossibly closer. Your palms drifted up from his neck, found his face, thumbs smoothing over cheekbones. You could feel the soft hairs of his cheeks, his chin, sweeping against your skin. It all felt too good, like you were getting lost, delirium taking over. Nothing else mattered anymore, just the gratification of tasting his emotions, of taking his groans into your mouth and echoing them back. You pressed harder into him, kept your tongue tangled with his, noses brushing as you found new beats to your rhythm. 

         It was wicked, sinful, something your heart was pleading for and your mind screaming out against. But you couldn’t stop. You didn’t stop. It was as if you kissed for as long as you’d known each other. Every year passed by, every regret, every sharp turn of your tongues against one another, all the hurt and longing, placed into one moment of your bodies finding one another.

         When the heat began to die, you were both still stroking the flames, deep, languid kisses turned into smaller presses of your lips against one another. It was intoxicating and you felt so drunk, so, so drunk off of him.

         There was a stillness between you, like the gentle sigh and breaths of the world as it awoke to the morning sun when you finally stopped. A lulling peacefulness lingered in the wake of what you’d done.

         His hands were still on your body, in your hair, looser now. Yours were still on his face when your eyes fluttered open.

         “I’m sorry,” he murmured, lips plump, wet.

          “I know.”

Next Chapter

[quicksandblock]

speaking of c!techno and losses, cus I thought about it a bit in the shower, you know what I would've liked for techno to lean into? the loss of his allyship and friendship with c!tommy.

even though the relationship between them was completely dysfunctional and doomed to fail due to conflicting goals, they still CLEARLY cared for each other while working together. and c!techno was clearly very hurt and felt betrayed when c!tommy switched sides. that could've been a major loss for him, or prompt him to question his ideals and whether it was worth the people he hurt and lost.

that's really why c!technos response to c!tommys death later was disappointing. sure, you could argue that 1. c!techno isn't the type to grieve publicly and maybe he grieved privately "off-camera" 2. cc!techno obviously prefers a lighthearted tone and isn't gonna lean into angst.

but his lack of response obviously gives the audience the impression that he doesn't care. and im not sure if that was the intent, but if it is, that's disappointing.

there could've been subtle ways to show grief and regret (he's good at the subtle stuff anyway). he couldve subtly implied that he was covering up grief with humor. techno is not a bad actor or writer, he excels at subtle storytelling. but that whole thing really made me just. dislike and distrust his character, lol

-cube-cumb3r (thank u for reblogging my crit post earlier btw)

it was a good post lol, like I said you put it all very well

and yes!! all of this!!! like it would have been weird if he’d grieved too obviously, but we wanted something, and we didn’t get it, and now Techno’s character is starting to feel kind of flat. he’s losing a lot of depth he had at the start. like it’s still an interesting character, but more and more we’re having to read that in from possibly-unintentional clues rather than being able to analyze obviously deliberate character choices.

unfortunately I think the root of the problem is that Techno isn’t having as much fun on the dsmp anymore. he came in to play a cartoon villain and promote his channel, and suddenly everyone’s storylines are fucking dark and everyone has 15 different kinds of ptsd and his funny anarchist pig doesn’t really have a place there anymore. not to say his character hasn’t always had its serious moments - but like the dream smp itself, they used to be the spice that added significance to a mostly lighthearted story, not the norm. nowadays it feels like you have to be able to cry on command to even participate.

there’s also the fact that he doesn’t really like collaborative storytelling. he’s said this on stream before - I can’t remember exactly when, but it was when half the fandom decided that Ranboo was his son (?? why????) and he had to come in and clear that up. he doesn’t like other people being able to decide things about his character, and he doesn’t really like “yes and”-ing as far as I can tell. he prefers to have tighter control over his own story. which is valid - but creates some problems in a story built entirely out of collaborative roleplay.

unfortunately both of these lead him to clash with Tommy’s storytelling style pretty severely - Tommy loves the dark stuff, and he’s also more than willing to play off of people and let improv and chance have a strong influence on his character’s path. and Tommy does a lot of highly emotional improv acting, which Technoblade just Doesn’t (unless the emotion is anger).

Ranboo and Tubbo have been talking about the older “semi-lore” style of the smp recently, and I think that a return to that style would allow Techno to come back to participate more in the story. but overall I think the conflict here is going to remain until the current arcs, especially the Tommy and Dream thing, have been wrapped up. which is unfortunate because Techno is kind of an integral part of some of those arcs.

coming back to specifically his response to Tommy’s death... I kind of feel like cc!Techno is trying to retroactively make that relationship less important to his character in an attempt to separate himself from the grimdark stuff. but I honestly can’t tell. it could just be a manifestation of his tsundere-ness. I hope it is, because while I get not being interested in a darker story, it would be kind of disappointing if he just noped out of any story that didn’t fall in his comfort zone. I just wish he would fucking stream so we could have anything at all to go off of lmao

[nugnthopkns]

eyes full of stars

word count: 3.1k

warnings: insinuated!fem reader, cursing, alcohol consumption, slight sexual innuendo (kind sorta maybe, minors please be aware)

recommended listening: cowboy like me | taylor swift

a/n: it’s cold and snowy. to combat the winter blues i wrote about a sunny minnesota summer with brock :))

You can’t remember the last time you’ve seen Brock this carefree. 

The season was hard on him. There were large periods where he didn’t put up any points, and trade rumors started to circulate. Halfway through, before the playoff push even started, the negative social media comments came rolling in. You frequently saw fans request a trade or say that the organization should regret drafting him. Brock did his best to brush everything off, but it was beginning to waer on his mental health. You’re devastated when they fail to make it to the postseason, but you know it’s for the best. The injured team will spend the offseason recuperating and be ready for the next one. Besides, it means you and Brock will get to spend more time on the lake. 

So here you are, packing the car for the twenty-seven hour drive to Minnesota. Brock insists on driving, says it’s relaxing, but you aren’t sure you agree. Prone to car-sickness so fierce you can barely look out the window, you’d much rather fly. Everything is exasperated by the fact you’re a nervous traveller to begin with, afraid of taking a wrong turn or missing an exit. You’re a terrible road trip partner but at least Brock could talk to the dogs. Coolie and Milo loved car rides, and you can typically hear your boyfriend having full on conversations with them as you fade in and out of consciousness. 

“Ready to go babe?” Brock asks as he closes the trunk. The question is delivered with a bright grin, and despite your anxiety you return it with ease. 

“I don’t really have much of a choice do I?”

He shakes his head, chuckling as he moves towards you. Sliding his hands into the back pockets of your jeans he kisses you lazily. It’s comforting and all-consuming at the same time; doing a great job of occupying your mind with thoughts of him instead of the journey ahead. “I suppose not,” he says, planting a final kiss on your forehead. “It’ll be fine. You can take a Gravol right before we cross the border and you’ll be asleep before we hit Seattle.”

It’s the best plan of attack, so you agree immediately. After taking one last run into your shared apartment to use the bathroom and make sure everything is in order, you make yourself comfortable in the passenger seat of Brock’s jeep. Music filters through the speakers at a low volume, and you focus on the retreating skyline of Vancouver. You’re excited to get back to Minnesota, to relax and see your boyfriend in his natural habitat. Countless days are about to be spent lounging lakeside enjoying each other’s company. It will also be nice to spend time with Brock’s family: they’ve been incredibly welcoming over the years and you can’t wait to catch up with them. You know Brock’s itching to spend time with his nephew, and just to be at home. 

Just as Brock said, you’re asleep before Bellingham. It’s fitful, and you’re frequently woken up by the dogs barking a little too excitedly in response to something Brock said. However, it does a good job of keeping you from emptying the contents of your stomach onto the floor. Somewhere in Idaho, a good seven hours after you left Canada, you awake for the final time. 

“Look boys, Mom’s finally awake!”

You laugh at the comment and lean over the center console to ruffle his hair. It’s still long from the season, and curls slightly around your fingertips. 

“You’re hilarious.”

Brock takes his right hand off the steering wheel, unravelling yours from its resting place and entwining your fingers together. He places a kiss to the back of your palm. “You know I’m just teasing,” he whispers. “I know these drives are hard on you. Thank you for doing it twice a year.”

Instead of answering verbally, you squeeze his hand tighter. Though it’s true you hate driving through five states, you’d do it twice a week if it would make Brock happy. It seems a bit much to convey with a single gesture, but you can tell from the smile that graces his features that Brock understands. The two of you sit in silence, enjoying the scenery and trying to scout for a rest stop. Coolie and Milo are getting antsy and you’re also due to stretch your legs. 

After letting the dogs run around to release some energy and using the bathroom, you start the final leg of the day. Missoula, Montana, is the destination. Not quite the halfway point, but close enough that you could tackle the rest of the miles tomorrow, the city has a wide variety of pet-friendly lodging. You insist you drive the rest of the way, giving Brock a well deserved rest. Looking at the interstate for hours can cause serious highway hypnosis. Not even twenty minutes after getting back on the road he’s asleep, snoring softly as he rests his head on the window. 

You take a moment to admire your boyfriend. He looks so relaxed and peaceful, and the forehead creases that are starting to develop from over analyzing hours of tape disappear. Brock looks years younger, and you know the youthfulness will creep back into him the longer you’re in Minnesota. You can’t wait to see him without any cares again. 

Less than two hours later, the hotel creeps up on your left. Pulling into the first available parking space, you turn the car off before waking Brock. 

“Brock, we’re at the hotel,” you say softly, jostling his shoulder. “Let’s get checked in and then we shower.”

The mention of washing off a day’s worth of travel has him letting the door fly open. You had made sure to pack your overnight bags in an easily accessible spot, and work at getting them out while Brock wrangles the dogs. For being cooped up all day, they’re extremely well behaved. Once cleaned up you imagine you’ll take them on a long walk and grab some food. 

“Hey, give that back. Milo!” you hear Brock yelp, and peek around to see what’s happening. The younger pup has Brock’s bucket hat between his teeth and is in the process of tearing across the parking lot. 

With a giggle you call him back. “Milo, come here baby,” you say. Without a second thought, the dog bolts towards you, knocking against your shins when he fails to stop in time. You lean down to scratch Milo’s ear, and as soon as you ask him to drop the object he places it in your open palm. “Good boy,” you coo, letting him lick the side of your face. 

“He’s your dog alright,” Brock huffs from where he’s standing, Coolie running circles around his ankles. 

You toss the hat over the roof of the car as you laugh at him. “You’re just jealous he listens to me.”

“I sure fucking am. He’d be an absolute nuisance if it wasn’t for you.”

The rest of the night is spent unwinding from the long day. Dinner consists of the greasiest burgers you can find, and you roam around the city hand in hand, the dogs leading you. By the time you get back to the hotel you’re spent. Sleep takes over rather quickly, and you’re dozing off before Brock gets back from brushing his teeth. Once ready for bed, he slides his body against yours. The pair of you fit together like a puzzle, and after a quick kiss you let sleep consume you. 

The second day of travel is much the same, except you do a better job of staying awake. You take a different anti-nausea medication and frequently switch with Brock. Conversation flows easily, ideas for summer excursions and repairs that need to be done around the house. The Boeser’s are kind enough to lend you their lake house during the off season, but the property can be a lot to manage. Brock takes it all in stride, and somehow actually enjoys spending hours mowing the grass. He says it’s relaxing, mind numbing work, so you let him handle it. Country music flows from the car speakers, and eventually talking turns into a full on concert. Milo and Coolie do their best to harmonize with Brock, and it’s too cute not to post somewhere. You sneak your phone from your pocket and manage to catch some of it on video, posting to Instagram immediately. Those from the Canucks organization you have on social media will love it; Brock’s teammates will most definitely chirp him for being tone deaf. 

It’s late by the time you pull into the driveway of your temporary home, almost eleven. Grabbing only the essentials and leaving the rest to be unpacked tomorrow, you unlock the door before flopping on the couch. The dogs follow suit, laying on top of you. When Brock walks in he shakes his head, but still leans over to kiss you. 

“Make sure you text your mom and let her know we made it,” you call to his retreating figure. “And let her know we’ll be over in the afternoon once we get situated.”

You swear he flips you off, no doubt poking fun at your maternal instincts. “Yes ma’am,” he replies. 

“Ma’am?” you shriek. “I am not fifty. You’re so gonna get it Boeser.”

After gently nudging the dogs off your legs you’re chasing after him, laughing all the way. Brock’s a lot faster than you, being the athlete he is, but you don’t give up hope. In a last ditch attempt to get him back, you launch yourself forward, square into the middle of his back. The change in weight distribution has him falling to the floor, sprawling the width of the hallway. Both of you are giggling messes, delirious from lack of sleep and the knowledge you get to spend four months of uninterrupted time together. 

“I love you, you know that right,” Brock murmurs into the crook of your neck. He dots chaste pecks along the skin and you sigh at the feeling. 

Pulling him closer, you make sure to properly enunciate your words as you respond. “Yes sir.”

Brock eyes darken visibly, and he shifts his body so he’s resting on top of you. “You’re in for it now,” he groans, dragging himself to his feet. You quickly follow, meeting his lips in an eager kiss. The pair of you stumble the rest of the way to the bedroom, bodies intertwining like ivy vines, and Brock makes sure to kick the door shut to ensure your pets don’t interrupt the salacious activities he has planned. 

☼☼☼☼

You settle into a routine fairly quickly. Mornings are spent alone while Brock works out, and afternoons are for lounging in the sun. The hours after the sun fades away are spent huddling around a bonfire with friends, and midnights are for just the two of you. Sometimes Brock lets himself rest and spends the day in the middle of the lake doing his best to fish, leaving you to spend time with his mom and sister. They’re lovely; warm and welcoming, making sure you’re never too lonely or bored. You and Brock also spend a lot of time with his nephew, doting over the toddler. Seeing your boyfriend with him makes you want kids, but that’s a conversation that is yet to be had in any serious light. 

Sometimes you join Brock when he does typical professional hockey player in the summer things. It turns out you're quite the golfer, and have put him to shame many times. Countless days are spent helping him fix the roof of the lake house because he insists on doing it himself even though he knows nothing about roofing. At least seven phone calls to his father and a desperate run to the hardware store later, it’s completed; sealed and free of cracks. Though you’re a terrible fisher, Brock tries his best to teach you. Truth be told, you don’t have any interest in the sport, but his tongue pokes out slightly when he’s thinking about how to explain a concept and you think it’s adorable. 

Coolie and Milo are loving being able to roam free, and you both spend a lot of time outside with them. You’re only ever really in the house at night, reading or playing games on the patio furniture Brock’s mom picked out. It’s peaceful; existing like this. You swear you could do it forever. 

Being home allows an invisible weight to be lifted off Brock’s shoulders. There’s a pep in his step, and he’s always smiling. Even the intense at-home workouts can’t seem to bring him down. You’re delighted, how could you not be? It’s as if the only things that matter to him are enjoying a few beers lakeside and coaxing you out of shorts in the dark. You suppose that’s the truth. 

☼☼☼☼

It’s incredibly warm out. The sun beats down on your back as you turn the pages of your novel, half listening to the conversation Brock is having with his friends. A group of you are on the boat, enjoying one of the last full days of summer. Later in the week you and Brock will pack up the car again, making the long trek back to Vancouver. You’re sad time has passed so fast, but you’d be lying if you said you weren’t excited to be back in the city. It’s your home, and the boys seem to be really fired up for the new season. You have a feeling some really good hockey is going to come out of Rogers Arena. 

“Yo Y/N, who’s the better driver. Me or Boes?” 

The question pulls you from the fantasy taking place on the pages, and you look to see who’s speaking to you. It’s Brock’s dearest childhood friend, someone you consider family at this point. “It’s absolutely not Brock,” you shrug. The comment earns a loud laugh from everyone and you find yourself joining in. 

“Ouch babe, that hurts,” Brock says as he slides into the free space next to you. Casually wrapping a strong arm around your shoulder, he leans down to whisper into your ear. “Looks like you need to be taught a lesson.”

His words have a vaguely sexual connotation, and you look around nervously. Your swimsuit won’t cover the flush that will be sure to rise on your skin if Brock tries anything. Everyone seems to be engaged in their own conversations, but you still feel queasy about getting caught. Though Brock’s friends are the type to laugh it off, you’d be absolutely mortified. 

Before your brain can overthink anything else, you’re being lifted from your seat. It only takes two seconds for Brock to hoist you over the side of the boat and throw you into the cool water. You land with a glorious splash, but take your time coming to the surface. Partly to bring your temperature down, partly to make your lover squirm. 

“You’re a fucking asshole,” you yell to him from below, but the bright smile you flash him lets Brock know you don’t mean it. 

He sets his hat on top of your book before climbing over the edge. “Shut up,” he fires back, diving gracefully to join you in the water. 

A small splashing match breaks out, and soon everyone else is in the water, picking sides. You swim until your skin is wrinkled beyond recognition, pruned and puckered something akin to a raisin. Only once the sky begins to redden do you head for home. Brock keeps the boat at cruising speed, and you sit comfortably in his lap. Once back on land, dinner is quickly thrown together. A mish-mash of what’s left in your fridge and what others have brought, but it works. The boys huddle around the grill and everyone else swoons over the dogs, who are on their best behaviour. 

Later in the night, once the dishes are cleaned up and some guests with day jobs have left, you settle into Brock’s side at the fire. Not caring if you get chirped for the PDA, you hold his face in both your hands and rest your forehead against his. The scruff that’s grown in since the last time Brock shaved tickles slightly, but you’re too in love with him to care. It’s been so refreshing to see him relaxed, acting without a care in the world. Hopefully the attitude he currently has will stick and not disappear once you hit the Vancouver city limits. 

Brock takes a sip of his beer before offering the bottle to you. You gingerly place it to your lips, making a face at the taste. He laughs at your reaction, pushing a few loose strands of hair behind your ear. 

“Still tastes disgusting,” you mutter, reaching for your own drink to wash away the taste. 

The fire crackles gently behind you but you barely register the sound, in your own little world where everything is perfect. It’s you, Brock, and the dogs living in a house similar to the one you’re currently residing in, living life to the fullest. 

“You gonna come back to me, space cadet?” Brock chuckles, tracing the outline of your nose. 

“Yeah, yeah. Sorry,” you apologize. “Was just thinking.”

“About what?”

“Us. The future. Living in a lake house just like this one and spending all our time being so in love with each other that our friends constantly make fun of us. Maybe having kids in a couple of years. How I love seeing you like this; so at peace and full of life.”

In lieu of a response, Brock kisses you passionately. It’s a soft kind of passion: one that holds you tenderly and whispers sweet nothings in your ear. He tastes like the Coors Light he’s been drinking, but somehow the idea of beer is much more appealing when mixed with Brock. You lose yourself in him for a while, relishing in the gentleness of his hands resting on your waist. Eventually you return some of your attention to the others, but even then you can’t find it in yourself to focus. Your mind is filled with nothing but love for Brock. 

It’s seems that he’s feeling the same way, because he continually leaves kisses across your shoulder blade. “I really, really love you,” Brock confesses, and you feel him smile through the thin material of your worn hoodie. 

You intertwine your pinky with his and let them sit comfortably in your lap. “I love too. So much that it’s all consuming.”

Brock often leaves you breathless in more ways than one, but sweet sentiments like this will always take the cake. Especially when they happen on summer nights where he’s free to be his authentic self.

☼☼☼☼

taglist: @jamiedrysdales​ @kiedhara​ @tortito​ if you want to be added shoot me an ask :)

[astermacguffin]

The semantic logic of AMVs

I finally finished the post I promised to @katebushstandean , so here's my contribution to the blossoming field of spn amv studies.

In this post I made about fanworks and intertextuality, I argued that AMVs can be referred to as a "discourse between discourses." What I meant by that (and I elaborated on this in the post) can be summarized in this argument structure:

(1) AMVs are typically a dialogue/discourse between a song and a show/film.

(2) A song is already a discourse of its own (i.e. it's the dialogue between music and lyrics).

(2) A show/film is already a discourse of its own (i.e. it's the dialogue between the visual and auditory elements of the show/film).

(C) Therefore, AMVs are typically a discourse between discourses.

I want to push this argument even further and argue for a more generalized theory of meaning that should (ideally) be applicable to any piece of media.

LAYING THE FOUNDATION

Let's start by analyzing at least just one medium at a time. Take music, for example. Without lyrics, how does music convey meaning at all? Now, I won't go too much into either music theory or the psychology/sociology of music (since I don't think I'll be able to give these subjects any justice anyway), but I want us to look at music more structurally/linguistically. (I am certainly not a linguist, but I am a training logician and I think it would be interesting to extract the logical/semantic relations that occur in music if we treat it as a "text".)

If we want to break down music into its smallest possible units of meaning (the same way we break down language into morphemes in morphology), then we would probably end up with notes, beats, and chords as our basic units (among other stuff, like timbre). Obviously, we cannot subject music to the same reductionist approach we do with either natural or formal languages (e.g. breaking down language into morphemes/propositions/subject-predicate relations/functions).

This is due to the fact that music doesn't really agree that much with the principle of compositionality—that "the meaning of the whole is a function of the meanings of its parts and their mode of syntactic combination." (If you disagree with Montague semantics, you might even argue that the same is true for natural languages and that only formal languages are truly compositional, but I digress). Generally, there is "more than the sum of its parts" when it comes to music; the meanings of a chord don't solely depend on the meanings of the individual notes that make up the chord.

Anyway, back to music and meaning-making.

Yip Harburg has this interesting quote on songwriting, which Adam Neely references here at this mark (15:29–16:10), a quote he originally got from Ben Levin. The quote says: "Music makes you feel feelings, lyrics make you think thoughts, songs make you feel thoughts." I think this quote best encompasses what I mean when I argue that songs are "discourses" of their own.

But even without the lyrics, music on its own is already "discursive." A single note played once doesn't really "mean" much, in the sense that we can't really gather as much meaning out of it alone. The note's relationships with other musical elements is what opens up the realms of meanings that we can attribute to it. (This concept is explored much better in here.)

The same thing is true with natural languages. Morphemes and words have meanings on their own, sure, but they don't really say that much on their own until you place them in a specific order with other morphemes/words. A single sentence is already a discourse between the units of meaning that compose the sentence.

I have been using the term "discourse" a lot, but what do I mean when I use the term? Without spending too much time explaining my own theory of discourse, let's define a discourse as a "series of discursive units." A discursive unit consists of two parts: a prompt and a response. What's important to know about responses in a discourse is that you won't really be able to fully grasp what they mean without knowing what the prompts are (i.e. what they are responding to).

When I describe song and lyrics as "discourses", what I think I really mean is that they are "discourse-like" (hence the description, "discursive"). The words of a sentence treat each other as their own prompts/responses; they're not as meaningful alone, but when taken together, meaning emerges. The same goes with music.

Taking this to a more macro scale, we can treat each episode of a show as their own discourses, and each episode "responds" to the others in some way. The harmonies, tensions, and contradictions that emerge from the "conversations" between these episodes are what we often respond to when we make fanworks (fanart, fanfics, meta, and the likes).

Generally, there are two kinds of "conversations" that happens within and among pieces of media:

The intra-discursive (the conversations that happen within a single text, like how a show's episodes converse with each other), and;

The inter-discursive (also called the intertextual, or the conversations that happen between different texts).

Now that we have established these terms and concepts, we're FINALLY talking about AMVs.

THE DEAL WITH AMVS

I've already touched upon this in my intertextuality post, but it's worth repeating. What I believe AMVs do is reveal the intra-discursive using the inter-discursive. What this means is that by making the subject text converse with other texts (e.g. by making clips from Supernatural "dialogue" with a song of your choice), you are somehow extracting the implicit discourses present in the original text.

When we talk about fanworks (and transformative works in general), we often talk about it in terms of recontextualization, as well as adding something new that wasn't there in the original text (e.g. fix-its). But a neglected aspect of fanworks that I believe AMVs bring to light is the revelatory power of fanworks, like the way it makes the people (may it be the audience or the original creators) confront the implications and implicit meanings already present in the text.

(Learn more about the semantic logic of AMVs below the cut)

Another interesting thing that AMVs do is that it often makes the subject text subservient to the song. More often than not, it's the show that has to adjust to the song; it's the show that has to be sliced and diced in order to fit the song. This is simultaneously a form of violence and a form of liberation—violent in the sense that goes against authorial intent (with "author" here used loosely to refer to the forces that brought the piece to life, may it be a single person or an entire production team) and liberating in the sense that the latent or supressed narratives are brought to light.

Even before the AMV is done, this discursive process is already made explicit by the act of editing. In most editing softwares, you get to see the timeline of your material and an explicit divide between the audio and the visual elements. The audio stream is already a discourse of its own, and the same goes with the video stream.

When you vertically slice these juxtaposed streams and cut out a portion of it, you now have what I call a "semantic moment" locked in time. We can imagine the audio being divided into these little semantic moments (e.g. the chords, a key change, a shift in dynamics or tempo, etc.) and something similar can be said with the video (e.g. vital scenes in the show). Now, a semantic moment doesn't have to be special or eventful; in fact, most of them aren't. In fact, all of experience is nothing but a series of semantic moments (i.e. moments of extractable meaning).

Now, imagine an AMV playing in front of you right now. Let's represent the audio as a series of semantic moments from A1 to An and do something similar to the video, from V1 to Vn. If we represent the flow of time from left to right, then we can talk abstractly about experiencing an AMV like this:

A1-A2-A3-A4-A5...-An

V1-V2-V3-V4-V5...-An

Every moment of our experience of the AMV can be divided into a series like this. AMVs are art objects that unfold over time: they are temporal, and therefore we cannot immediately access all parts of the semantic "discourse" of the text all at once—we have to wait for them to happen.

Let's say I want to analyze Semantic Moment number 6 because something interesting happens there: the chord suddenly shifts into a minor key while at the same time, the video shows a character turning their back to the camera. Now, there are three possible ways to handle this (none of which are mutually exclusive; we usually perform these modes of analysis simultaneously):

Vertical analysis - analyzing the discourse between A6 and V6. What meanings are brought up when we take these two elements in conjunction? What associations do we have with minor keys, with people turning around, and how these associations influence the other?

Horizontal analysis - analyzing the discourse between A6 and its earlier counterparts, A1-A5, or between V6 and V1-V5. Earlier, we have discussed that a single chord or a single word on its own doesn't mean that much; it's their relationships with other elements that bring out their "meaning space." What "narratives" or "metaphorical gestures" are brought upon when you consider these semantic moments as discourses/texts as a whole?

Diagonal analysis - analyzing the discourse between A6 and V1-V5, or between V6 and A1-A5. Here, you make the semantic moment converse with the "history" of its counterpart. What are the events that happened in the earlier parts? For example, knowing that the earlier parts of the song were in major key before the turn-around scene might influence our reading of it. Similarly, knowing that the earlier scenes depict a happy relationship might influence how we read the minor shift.

Again, we often do these analytic slices as quick as possible (and often simultaneously); it's not something that we often do consciously (unless the subject text is actually that dense and difficult). It's instinctual to us to bring up these comparisons and engage with the explicit and implicit discourses of meaning happening with any kind of text we interact with.

Now, here's where it gets more complicated. Unless the AMV in question is just a scene lifted from the show and overlaid with a song, it would usually involve a bunch of cutting and joining between different scenes/episodes. What this means is that you're taking an already temporal object and reassembling it into a new order in time. This means that we might've initially thought of as V1-V2-V3-V4-V5...Vn might actually be V3-V1-V6-V19-V8...Vn or some other permutation.

Again, this process is simultaneously violent and liberating—violent because you are destroying its intended order, and liberating because you are negating the tyranny of linearity and contiguity. What I mean by this is that people tend to focus on the discourse of the semantic moments depending on how close they are in space and time. For example, we might focus on how V1 is in dialogue with V2 and how V2 is in dialogue with V3, but the farther the semantic moments are, the less likely we are to notice their discourse.

What AMV editors do is rebel against the tyranny of this habit and bring into light the connections that might have gone unnoticed without the intervention. We often talk about how certain fanworks are more analytical than transformative (e.g. fanfics that function more as character studies and meta analyses of the source text), and there certainly is a spectrum of this among different genres of fanworks. I believe that AMVs, no matter how transformative they are, cannot help but invoke a certain analyticity in their production and reception.

And that concludes my AMV essay. I'll probably add more to this when I gather more thoughts (like how these three posts are related in some way).

Lemme know if y'all wanna hear more about my theory of discourse or something else related. Support your content creators and reblog!

[terrm9]

38 and 49 ethan and chiara 😊 from the i love u prompts

Dearest anon, thank you for the request and I am so sorry it took me so long. I truly hope you can still find this enjoyable.

Warnings: hurt/comfort, teeny tiny little bit of angst (maybe?), other than that just fluff

This is set in the time jump in Book 2 (after the gala)

Prompts: “I am not leaving you” & “If only you could see yourself the way I see you”

*** *** ***

It was 2:54 AM when the sharp sound of an incoming call interrupted Chiara’s already light sleep. All traces of it, however, disappeared the moment her phone started ringing, because nobody calls at three in the morning to tell you good news.

Cold sweat made her shiver and she felt like her heart skipped several beats when she noticed Ethan’s name on the display. What was happening? He was not working and he knew she wasn’t either. He would never call her knowing that she was sleeping if it wasn’t for something important.

Or serious.

“Ethan?” she picked up, holding her breath and biting her lip nervously. She was a second away from pacing her room.

“Chiara,” her name sounded like the most precious combination of letters that has ever been created in the moment.

There was no sign of panic or alarm in his voice as he breathed her name out, quite the opposite – was it relief? Could it be?

Why would it be?

“Are you okay?” they both asked at the same time.

Chiara decided to be the first to answer, as it became obvious that Ethan called her to make sure she was okay. She was beginning to understand what was going on and her heart dropped at the realization.

“Of course I am okay. I am at home, I was sleeping.”

The air around Ethan felt colder than he remembered from any other January in Boston and he wondered how big a part his feelings, his emotions, his state, played in the illusion?

It was not his most clever idea, to take a walk in the middle of the night. But the scotch was not working and he needed to escape his own mind - hoping to achieve that with the walk.

“I apologize for waking you up,” he said slowly and then, despite hating these moments of weakness, these moments that became more and more present in his life as of late, he dared to ask. “Could I come in?”

There was a long silence on the other side and he cursed under his breath, this was a terrible mistake, and then the door of her building opened and Chiara stood there, in her tank top and underwear, not caring that it was freezing, a sad smile on her lips.

Ethan stepped closer and he despised himself for being so uncertain, for hesitating before he reached out to her and cupped her cheek with his hand.

She took the hand and put a lingering kiss on his palm, the contrast between her soft and warm lips and his freezing skin so sharp he felt like the touch burned him.

It didn’t take him long to realize that he never wished to be burnt until now.

Without any words, Chiara interlaced their fingers together and led him into her apartment and then straight into her room, her expression soft and understanding and Ethan felt like a little boy that found his comfort and he hated that he needed to be comforted.

And he loved it too.

For a moment or two, Chiara felt the urge to ask him What happened? Are you okay? How long have you been freezing out there before calling me?, but she knew better now.

No matter how much Ethan hated to admit it – no, how much he avoided admitting it – under the mask of stoic, stable doctor, there was a man whose life was falling into pieces and he was failing to put them back together.

Chiara’s little encounter with death back in November was the first event that set Ethan off his axis and they both naively believed that it would be the only one, that they would get through it and life would go back to normal.

And then Luise crashed into Ethan’s life again.

And then the gala did not save Edenbrook and it was reaching its end.

Today, Ethan lost a patient. And it was the moment he insisted that Chiara spends her night in her apartment instead of his that she knew. She knew his night would be the one spent agonizing over what was, what is and most importantly, what will be. She knew that he would beat himself up for things he has no power over, but no matter how stubborn she was, Ethan managed to be more.

And so she left with Elijah after her shift and believed she would meet Ethan in the morning.

Just not three in the morning.

There was no point in asking him, because Chiara Ray knew exactly what was going on, just as she knew that Ethan was not okay.

She didn’t offer him a t-shirt as he took his clothes off, even though there were enough of his t-shirts in her room for him to pick up which one he would like to sleep in.

But Ethan hated sleeping in t-shirt almost as much as he hated talking about the emotions overriding him. And so Chiara didn’t offer him any and just quietly laid down next to him, putting her head on his chest.

“I am sorry for interrupting your night again,” Ethan whispered at last, his gaze pointed on the ceiling.

“I am glad you came,” Chiara smiled softly and put another gentle kiss on his chest, feeling his heart beat rapidly under her lips.

“We are going to be alright,” she spoke again after some time. “Not tonight and not tomorrow, but we are going to be alright one day. We are here and we are together and we are okay. I am not going anywhere, Ethan. I am not leaving you.”

His grip on her waist tightened, a silent acknowledgment of her words, a non-verbal thank you. It was all Ethan managed.

He knew her words were supposed to be soothing, that they had their purpose, a delightful lullaby of reassurance that should have brought sleep that was not marked by nightmares.

But just as Chiara knew without asking, Ethan knew exactly as much.

Ethan knew that her words carried more meaning that some sweet nothings whispered in the darkness of her room, Ethan knew that when Chiara says I am not leaving you, she means every single part of it.

And it scared him.

Did she realize how much was she putting into his arms? Did she realize the power she was giving him by promising to stay by his side?

The hospital was closing and what was he supposed to do? He cannot – he must not – jeopardize her career by expecting her to stay by his side, no matter what his next choice will be. She had the potential to blossom if only she could find the hospital that is worth her presence. And he cannot stop that.

Ethan could live with Chiara hating him for breaking her heart if it would mean that her career was as successful as it deserved to be. He cannot live with Chiara hating him for keeping her close and destroying her chances of becoming the diagnostician she aims to be.

What was he supposed to do?

“Stop doing it,” her soft, sleepy voice interrupted his thoughts and for a moment, he was confused.

“I haven’t done anything,” he defended himself, tilting his head slightly to have a better look at Chiara’s face – her eyes are still peacefully closed and hadn’t she spoken, he would think she was already back to sleep.

“You are spiraling. Analyzing your next steps, drowning in the sea of what if’s and what should’s and I know you think you need to break up with me in order to save my career.”

There was a long silence. Ethan wanted to ask how do you know?, but then he remembered it was Chiara he would be asking and so he didn’t.

In the months of knowing Ethan, Chiara was aware of the ways Ethan’s body responded to his anxiety. She could tell exactly how the fingers on his feet moved rapidly all the time and how a soft gasp left his mouth when an especially strong wave of uncertainty hit him.

“Don’t you ever dare to break up with me because you believe it would be better for me. I am capable of making my own decisions and I decided to be with you,” she went on, her voice sharper than she intended to. “We are not going to solve this whole situation overnight, but even in this moment I know that I want to be part of your life and I want you to be part of mine.”

There were so many things Ethan wanted to tell her. He wished to express his gratitude and he wished Chiara could feel how sorry he was for putting her through so much.

But words stuck in his throat and the only sentence that left him was not even on the list of those he wanted to say.

“I don’t deserve you,” he whispered.

Chiara let out a soft chuckle, the warm breath tickling Ethan’s ribs and despite everything, his lips twitched on the right side, a small smile forming on them.

“Life is hardly about what we deserve,” she whispered back. “Sometimes, we get more than we deserve and sometimes we get less. It is what it is.”

“I don’t think you don’t deserve me, though,” she added quickly, throwing a glance up only to find Ethan staring at her intently. “If only you could see yourself the way I see you,” she sighed but didn’t say anything else.

She didn’t need to, after all. Chiara was the first woman in Ethan’s life that never hesitated to let him know which parts of him she loved and for which she could tear his head off. He knew that in Chiara’s eyes, he was great. Worth love and worth happiness.

In her eyes, he was deserving.

There was another box of untouched thoughts in Ethan’s head and tonight, after he felt Chiara’s breaths getting steadier, he allowed himself to open the box.

Ethan was sure that there was no man, no woman, no person in this world that deserved Chiara. He was sure that Chiara was far too good for mere humans, with their flaws and their sins and their limits, to claim her as theirs.

He was more than sure that he was not deserving of her presence in his life.

But there she was, dedicated to stay, dedicated to show him the world the way she sees it. Dedicated to show him magic, because if Chiara was something, it was magical. Ethereal.

And in the chaos of his uncertainty, Ethan found out that there was one thought that he became certain of.

A frightening one, indeed. But certain.

He loved the woman.

[politicalmamaduck]

Sabacc and Secrets

Thrawn and Ar’alani play sabacc with a smuggling ring. Written for @arcticelves, for the tarot card themed prompt "The Fool": madness, cliffs, gambling, innocence, recklessness. I hope you will like this! Read it on AO3 here.

“The Aristocra find your conduct unbecoming, Captain.” Ar’alani’s tone was not scolding, but rather wry, with raised eyebrows and upturned lips to match. It was not a full smile, nor did Chiss eyes twinkle, but Thrawn could not help thinking a lesser species would describe her expression thusly. 

Thrawn would rather describe his friend and colleague as a work of art. She was not only a model officer, displaying keen intelligence, an eagerness to serve, and trim physical fitness, but also a willingness to listen and learn. She was not overly sentimental nor complacent, neither a slave to emotion or tradition. 

Ar’alani was one of the few beings Thrawn ever trusted, from the moment they met at the Academy on Naporar. He knew the feeling was mutual. Their history of teamwork spoke for itself.

Therefore, he would bring her into his confidence, entrust her with his plan that would bring them one step closer to their enemy’s identity, and once more bring glory to the Ascendancy. 

If she would take the gamble with him, despite what the Aristocracy would see as recklessness, all the better. 

“Do you agree, Admiral?” He knew she did not. What she said next mattered, however, for the form of his planning. 

“You know I don’t agree, Thrawn. However, you do need to learn to play the political game better. I won’t always be there to help you smooth things over afterward.”

She told him that before, numerous times. 

“I am grateful for you and your assistance, Admiral.”

Ar’alani sighed. “What are you planning, Thrawn?”

He couldn’t resist smiling in turn.

Ar’alani couldn’t help but thinking that this time, truly, would be the time Thrawn’s recklessness, or madness, as some of the Aristocra would put it, would get them killed. 

Here they were, diving over a cliff in a small speeder, chasing criminals--smugglers, most likely, not a full crime syndicate--who Thrawn believed had ties to those who wished to destroy the Ascendancy. There were still too many unanswered questions, too many variables to pinpoint a particular target or assailant. It was unsettling, Ar’alani thought, shifting in her seat as Thrawn guided them closer to the smugglers’ hideout. 

She had no doubt, however, that they would be up to the challenge, when their adversary revealed themself. She trusted Thrawn, trusted herself. 

Even if she wasn’t comfortable with that dive over the cliffs just moments before, or playing a high stakes sabacc game with these criminals. Just being Chiss would put them in danger. If the criminals discovered their true identities--Ar’alani wouldn’t allow herself to continue the thought.  

She’d have to deal with the aftermath and the Aristocra regardless. She steeled her spine and took a deep breath as Thrawn landed the speeder. He nodded at her as they entered the lair. No words were necessary. They would play their parts, obtain information and hopefully cargo, and leave with their heads held high, if all went according to plan. 

It was hard to see inside the cave; the glow-lamps placed throughout did not reach through all the shadows and curves to penetrate the pockets of darkness fully. Crates of cargo stacked upon each other loomed haphazardly above and to their sides. They pressed forward, traveling deeper as the ground sloped downward into the space beneath the mountain, despite the potential for an ambush they’d never see coming. Ar’alani could hear voices up ahead, and laughter. Credit chips clacked together, and mugs thunked against a table. 

Ar’alani never could see the appeal in gambling or gaming, and she assumed Thrawn felt the same way. It was enough to gamble with their warriors’ lives on a mission. She ran a hand through her wig and adjusted her glasses to be sure they were in place, and took Thrawn’s hand as they entered the smugglers’ den. 

No blaster fire or other weapons met them, but their arrival did cause a stir. 

“We weren’t expecting any more tonight.”

“Who are the newcomers? Didn’t see them last time.” 

“Friends, please, may we join?” Thrawn asked. “My partner and I would like to buy in for this round.”

Ar’alani smiled and nodded at the smuggler who approached to her left, trying to appear coy and flirtatious.

“What can I get you to drink?” he asked, reaching to take her arm. She tried not to recoil from his touch, and hoped he wouldn’t notice how cool her Chiss skin was. At the same time, she reminded herself they had no reason to suspect she and Thrawn were Chiss at all, and she highly doubted they were familiar with Pantoran physiology either. 

“Ales for us both, please,” she said, smiling once more. After he departed to grab their drinks, she followed Thrawn to the sabacc table.

They made idle conversation while waiting for the cards to be dealt. The ale was not to Ar’alani’s taste, as she suspected, but it was a safer choice than any of the local homebrews. Smugglers of this sort wouldn’t stock fine Corellian whiskey, unless they were siphoning from their cargo. She listened carefully to the conversational cadences; she would gather the intelligence, and lose at cards, while Thrawn played to win. 

The cards dealt, each player called out their opening total. Ar’alani held The Queen of Air and Darkness and Demise. -15 wasn’t a bad total, but the card titles gave her pause. She was not superstitious, nor were her species, and she pushed her thoughts away to concentrate. 

Next to her, Thrawn chose to draw on his first turn. Ar’alani followed suit, drawing an eight. She would definitely lose at -7.    

Thrawn’s expression was unreadable. She did not dare ask him anything, to draw more attention to them, but she did gently place her hand on his arm, to reassure herself, if nothing else. 

With their cards drawn, Ar’alani listened to the chatter around them, allowing her focus to drift away from the game. There would be another shipment from this location next week, she deduced. The smugglers would meet the buyer in deep space. 

On the next turn, Thrawn stood. Ar’alani chose to draw again, pulling 11. Her hand was far worse, and she hoped Thrawn’s was far better. This time, she felt Thrawn’s hand on her own arm to reassure her. She appreciated the gesture for what it was, for she knew Thrawn was never nervous. 

Their second turns completed, starting with the dealer, everyone called their final hand. Thrawn inclined his head ever so slightly. He nodded to Ar’alani, who met his eyes. 

Gasps arose around the table as Thrawn laid down his cards. “Idiot’s Array,” he said, without gloating. He won. Ar’alani grinned. 

Her grin faded, however, when across the table, a burly human rose and slammed his fist down. “Not fair,” he bellowed. “This newcomer must have cheated.”

Thrawn shook his head. “I played an honest game, just as you did.”

“Take it easy, buddy,” another smuggler said, clapping the burly man on the back. “Have another drink and we’ll play another round.” 

“Like hell we will,” the burly man said, pushing his colleague away. He fell down to the floor, knocking over a chair. Chaos reigned from then, as fights erupted across the bar. A Gamorrean took a swing at the burly man, trying to bring him down, while other humans helped their compatriot off the floor. 

Thrawn and Ar’alani grabbed their winnings and ran for the entrance, blaster fire beginning to erupt behind them. They wouldn’t be able to carry any of the cargo, but at least what they learned was safe in their brains--and other information inconspicuously documented on their holorecorders. 

“They headed for the entrance!” someone yelled from behind them. They ran, hurtling through the darkness, dodging the crate towers as best they could. Ar’alani hit the corner of one with her hip; she’d have dark bruising later, but the bruise was worth her life. 

The blaster fire followed them as well; one hit a crate, spilling its contents and hopefully delaying their assailants. 

As they emerged from the cave’s darkness into the night, Ar’alani and Thrawn leaped into their speeder, barely settling in before taking off.  

Her heart still racing, Ar’alani turned to Thrawn. “Are you injured?”

“Just minor scrapes,” he replied. “And you?”

“I’ll have a large bruise tomorrow, but otherwise, I’m fine.”

Thrawn nodded. “Good. Thank you for your assistance. I trust you noticed their pattern?” 

“Of course. We’ll be ready for their next shipment. Perhaps then we can uncover their buyer’s identity.”

“Indeed,” Thrawn said, appearing deep in thought. 

They arrived back at their ship, docked in the closest city’s outskirts, without incident. They loaded the speeder, then strapped in for takeoff. Once their coordinates were set and the autopilot engaged, Ar’alani finally allowed herself to relax. She wanted to ask Thrawn how he played such a hand, but he spoke first.

“I will grab the medkit, if you will allow me to see to your injury?” His tone was quiet, unlike his usual confidence. The fighting would not have fazed him, certainly, she thought. Was there something she missed?

“Yes, thank you,” she replied, unstrapping herself and following him toward the bunks. He grabbed the kit from a shelf, and she sat down, allowing him to sit next to her. 

“Please accept my apologies for your injury, and what you will have to explain to the Aristocra when we encounter these smugglers next,” he started. 

Ar’alani laughed. “I will deal with them when I have to. How did you play such a hand?”

Thrawn put down the bacta patches and met her eyes. “I analyzed the game, the players, their weaknesses. I assumed those across the table would be overconfident, and pull too many cards and drinks.”

She nodded. “A sound strategy, as always.” 

“There is no one else with whom I would rather strategize.”

Ar’alani smiled as Thrawn placed a hand on her cheek. His hand was soft, gentle. As he leaned in to kiss her, she thought the gamble had been worth it.

[shihalyfie]

The 02 epilogue and “realism”

While the following thoughts have been something I’ve been thinking about for a very long time, the official Kizuna Twitter posted some interesting tweets this morning about the 02 epilogue that made me feel very much like I wanted to talk about this in detail today, so I’ve written this up. Considering how historically controversial the 02 epilogue is (or having an opinion on the 02 epilogue at all, really), I’m probably standing on thin ice by even talking about it, but I’ll do my best.

I think there’s no way getting around the fact that the 02 epilogue was really sudden for pretty much everyone -- it pretty much jumps at you without warning at the end of episode 50, a sudden 25-year timeskip when we had just gotten out of Oikawa’s death (and a very chaotic finale in general). But there is another quirk about the epilogue, which is that a lot of what seems “illogical” out of it...is most certainly illogical to someone approaching it as a kid thinking in terms of media tropes, but gains a very different nuance when you become an adult and have a certain degree of life experience under your belt.

(Note: This post does not discuss Kizuna, despite being inspired by something from it, so no fear of spoilers.)

Before we begin for real, I just want to get it out of the way that I’m not trying to “defend” the epilogue in the sense of implying that people are unreasonable for being blindsided. Like I said, it was sudden, and it was a giant timeskip where a ton of incredibly massive changes happened, leaving the audience likely to be disoriented wondering what on earth happened in the middle there to lead up to that. On top of that, although the rest of this meta is basically dedicated to “analyzing the meaning behind the epilogue writing choices from the production perspective”, I will be very honest in that, yes, I do think that, regardless of good intent, it may not have been the best decision to go ahead and make these decisions in this degree of lack of thought as to how the audience (especially one that was expected to be largely comprised of children) would take it -- creativity is a two-way street, after all, and communicating with your audience and understanding how your work will come off is very important.

Still, nevertheless, I’m writing this meta because I think, well...now that we’re all adults, and now that we’ve gotten a plethora of development information over the past twenty years, especially in the light of Kizuna, it’s worth doing an analysis about why these kinds of writing choices were made, because even to this day you get a lot of people who feel completely blindsided about it.

Everyone’s careers

Actually, the reason I decided to make this post was that I was inspired a bit by this morning’s post from the Kizuna Twitter discussing why, despite being a lead-up to the 02 epilogue, some of the cast in Kizuna seems to be in careers or aspirations that are slightly off from the careers we saw them in during the actual epilogue. (Most notably, Sora still working in ikebana instead of fashion design, Mimi being into online shopping instead of her future cooking show, etc.) The official statement was that Seki Hiromi (producer for the original Adventure and 02) personally stepped in and warned them that, in real life, a lot of people will end up changing their career aspirations at this age, and that it wouldn’t hit close to home if everyone had it exactly figured out by this point.

Kizuna is a movie about the Sad Millennial Adult Experience, so of course it is very important that it be relatable to adults in the modern era. But, in all honesty, this principle applies to 02′s epilogue itself as well. Back when the epilogue first aired -- and for the last twenty years, really -- you got a lot of comments like “why didn’t Taichi become a professional soccer player? why didn’t Yamato go into music?” and such. The thing is, though...well, this is a personal anecdote, but I first got into Digimon when I was a preteen, and, having already had an experience where my childhood interests had changed completely, I actually severely disliked seeing people say that because it felt too straightforward. Even that early, that kind of thing felt unrelatable.

Kizuna as a movie, right now, would be impossible to make in the form it is now if it hadn’t been for the 02 epilogue setting that kind of precedent -- because of the idea of your childhood hobbies not feeling as appealing as they used to be and being very lost about what to do now, feeling that everyone lied to you about that whole “having things figured out by adulthood” thing, and maybe you’ll never really figure it out. But even taking out the fact that the 02 epilogue most likely wasn’t written with the idea they’d need to make an adult-relatable movie 20 real-life years later, I think it’s easy to glean that this philosophy was behind the 02 epilogue as well. Especially since, well...Adventure and 02 themselves were both famous for this kind of writing, for depicting the lives of children in surprisingly realistic and close-to-home ways that avoided generic anime tropes.

Actually, Kakudou said it straight-out:

There were a lot of anime normally made with the idea that a given rule must occur, but I decided to do them while having doubts about whether or not it was a good idea to take on such given rules without any detail. Even if we went on with these given rules, I tried to take appropriate steps in showing why such things had occurred through step-by-step arrangements and reasoning. That is why I tried to add a little bit of realness each time to the characters, despite the restrictions that they are from anime.

So yes, that actually was the point -- no using anime tropes unless they felt they could feasibly happen with these characters. Daisuke is commented on as having “the most anime-like” and idealistic personality, but as I commented in my earlier 02 meta, he still doesn’t quite hit all of the check marks on the shounen hero archetype. So after going for a whole series on the line of going into a grounded take on human mentalities and thought processes...it probably would be inappropriate to suddenly shift into an extremely idealized fictional trope-ish depiction of everyone just going into a more exaggerated version of their childhood hobbies.

Again, that doesn’t mean that some of these don’t come off as really sudden -- the most infamous being Yamato becoming an astronaut. This was eventually revealed in 2003 and several times later to be a holdover from the original beta concept for a third Adventure series, so in that light it makes a little more sense -- Yamato probably would be the most passionate about keeping up the fight as a Chosen -- but nevertheless, it’s ambiguous whether that actually still holds (especially since the actual, uh, “third series” was...a bit different), and since we live in a world where that hypothetical Digimon in Space series never happened, it still blindsides the viewer.

On the other hand, though, both the tri. stage play and the official Kizuna profiles only took less than a paragraph to explain the disparity of why Yamato isn’t doing music anymore: he wanted to keep it in the range of hobbies. Which, incidentally, is an extremely common thing for many who experiment with creative work in their youth -- many realize that if they make it into their job, they’ll actually start hating it. Conversely, while I haven’t talked to a lot of astronauts myself, I really do sometimes wonder how many of them actually knew they were going to get into it from childhood.

So that’s the thing. We have no idea what happened, we’re left with very little recourse as to bridging the gap (at least, until Kizuna came 20 years later and helped us out a bit), and that’s why it feels implausible to many -- especially for a kid in the audience who may not have had that experience of having their hobbies change or feel less appealing. In the end, like I said, I’m not sure that going about it this way was the best decision when the very target audience was likely to be confused about this, and since, after all, fiction does have to have some acceptable breaks from reality for the sake of being a followable story. But at the very least, it is very much in line with Adventure and 02′s philosophy towards writing and its characters -- that things would be the case based on what would be these characters’ likely trajectory as actual people, and not as what you might expect “because it’s fiction” or “because they’re this kind of character”.

That everyone has a Digimon partner

I have a very distinct memory of, as a preteen, going around the Internet and seeing a fansite where someone made their “better version” of the epilogue, where their favorite ships got married instead and everyone got the careers they thought they should have, but one major thing that stuck out was that it had the now-adult kids still keep the existence of Digimon a secret, and that it’s kind of a “secret club” that they still have. In general, one of the biggest arguments against the “everyone has a Digimon partner” thing is that this, allegedly, diminishes how “special” the Chosen are when they’re not the super-amazing sole people in the world to have a partner.

When you’re a kid, being the “Chosen One” sounds romantic. You’re a special selected hero with fated abilities to save the world. In the context of Adventure and 02, however, this would actually be very contradictory to the constant reminders given by both series that magical powers selecting you out of nowhere means absolutely nothing if you’re not the one with personal will and volition to do the right thing with what you’re given. In fact, I’d say it’s actually the opposite of what all of those people have said -- if you did something amazing because of fate or because some higher power said you should, it says a lot less about you than if you were given abilities and choices and actively made an attempt to do something good and change the world, by your own volition.

But the other very important thing about the epilogue is that people keep seeing this development of Digimon proliferating all over the world like it was completely out-of-nowhere, to the point I’ve even seen conspiracy theories that the epilogue was a last-minute decision. This is especially funny because the epilogue was one of the first things decided in the entire series -- “the entire series” in this case being not 02, but Adventure -- before they’d even finalized the characterizations for everyone! The 02 epilogue was, infamously, intended to be Adventure’s ending, before 02 was greenlighted and they postponed the plan there resulting in 02 ultimately taking the fall for it.

Because it was a new television series, without an original novel or manga to use as its reference, we had to cut back on the aspect of explaining the character to each voice actor, something that we would usually do under normal circumstances. We only described their basic personality during auditions because it was likely that those personalities would change drastically in the future depending on the plot’s developments. We did not omit the explanations because there were too many characters. I swear.

But in exchange, we began post-recording by saying just this: “This story is one that’s being reminisced on by one of the children in the group who becomes a novelist 28 years later. The narrator here is that child as an adult.” Those who watched the last episode of the continuation series “Digimon Adventure 02” would know that this was Takeru, but back then, that information was kept secret. At the time of the show, it was planned that the last episode of “Digimon Adventure” would end with ‘where are the characters now’ 28 years later. However, in mid-run, production for its sequel “02” was decided and its story contents were established to be juxtaposed to the previous show, so we carried over the 28 years later scene to the sequel series instead.

(From the afterword from Adventure novel #3, from director Kakudou Hiroyuki.)

25 years after 02. 28 years after Adventure. We calculated that very precisely. In 1999, there was Taichi’s group of eight, and there were also eight other people who didn’t appear in Adventure. Before that there were only eight total, and before that only four, and before that only two, and at the beginning, only one. If they were to double every year, then it would be 28 years until everyone in the world would be able to live alongside a Digimon. Threaded through both Adventure and 02 is a story about humanity’s evolution. For everyone to have their own Digimon partner is the final step of evolution. Because there’s not much left for our actual bodies to change in terms of evolution, it is a story about how the hidden parts of our souls use the powers of digital technology to manifest in the real world, resulting in humanity’s evolution.

Statement from Kakudou Hiroyuki, from the Digimon Series Memorial Book.)

About Digimon 10: The initial trigger for humanity receiving partner Digimon was the Hikarigaoka incident in 1996, but at the time the Internet network was not ready and it was too early for anything to happen. The following years resulted in two and then four people getting involved, and after that it doubled every year (twice, because digital and binary). About Digimon 11: Twenty years later, in the world depicted in the final episode of 02, all human beings have received a partner Digimon. This is the ultimate result of Digimon Adventure’s story of evolution.

Statement from Kakudou Hiroyuki, originating from Twitter and later moved to his blog.)

While the 02 epilogue taking place in the year it did sounds like it’s because they just wanted to add an arbitrary neat number of “25 years later” to 02′s finale, in actuality, the original goal was not for that 25 years but to specifically hit the year of 2028 (not 2027, actually), where, calculating the number of humans that could be partnered to a Digimon based on the global population, everyone would have a partner by exactly 2028. The “doubling every year” principle was only brought up in actual anime-centric canon in a drama CD, and even then it was in a context of speculation instead of being stated as hard fact, but it should be noted that even Kizuna is compliant with this principle, since To Sora states directly that the number of Chosen Children as of 2010 is over 30,000, which is the approximate correct amount you should be expecting by 2010 under this principle. (So yes, really, despite ostensibly not being compliant with his original concept, presumably thanks to the nail added by partnership dissolution and how that ties into his theory of Digimon being part of the soul, Kizuna actually goes out of its way to otherwise be compliant with even the more obscure parts of his lore.)

But the really interesting thing that this epilogue concept brings out is that “the adventure of the Tokyo Chosen Children” actually had nothing to do with the proliferation of Chosen Children around the world whatsoever. From the very beginning, even since the original conception of Adventure, the proliferation of Digimon was something that was going to happen whether anyone liked it or not.

In fact, let’s look at what Koushirou actually says in the aforementioned drama CD:

Yes. I’ve figured it out… The meaning behind the term “Chosen Child.” The number of “Chosen Children” has been growing at a steady rate. Having a partner Digimon isn’t really that special. Being a “Chosen Child” means… to cease the hostilities that break out and inconvenience the Digital World. In order to do so, that child gains a partner Digimon faster than another. In other words, we are children chosen to fight. That’s what it means, isn’t it? ... Oh, is that so? That’s surprising. I didn’t expect that not even you would know what countries the Chosen Children come from when they go to the Digital World… It’s Qinglongmon that’s helping you, is it, Gennai-san? Do the other Holy Beasts who have revived not know either? The Digital World is still so full of mysteries. I’ll do my best to look for them over here.

I think a lot of people tend to have misconceptions about the nature of a Chosen Child, and those who picked them, because the way everyone became “chosen ones” is actually very different from how most media usually would play the trope. In particular:

Homeostasis, the Agents, and the Holy Beasts are explicitly not gods nor omniscient. Homeostasis admits their own lack of abilities in Adventure episode 45, and there’s a recurring undercurrent of the “I don’t know” coming from them and the Agents not actually being because they’re deliberately cryptic, but because they really don’t know. In fact, the Digital World itself is depicted as being about as confused about this whole human contact thing as the human world is.

Note that Koushirou makes a distinction between “being a Chosen Child” and “having a Digimon partner”. If you’re deemed someone who might be able to do something important in this very early time when the Digital World is still trying to figure all of this stuff out, in a world where humans overall still don’t understand Digimon very well, you get first dibs because you’re someone who can be a valuable pioneer. In other words, just because everyone else will eventually get a partner doesn’t mean your contributions aren’t still historical, valuable, and important.

The Digital World was mentioned in Adventure episode 19 as being approximately as big in scale as the real-world Earth itself. That means the Digital World is huge. Of course, its time and space doesn’t exactly match up with the real world’s, as demonstrated multiple times in 02 when the kids abuse it to circumvent travel distance, but nevertheless, there is presumably a lot of the Digital World that neither the Adventure nor the 02 kids have seen in their lives. When they meet Qinglongmon in 02 episode 37, he introduces himself as being in charge of the Eastern side -- and we never meet the others. In effect, there’s probably a huge area of the Digital World that needs protecting that even twelve kids from Tokyo can’t cover by themselves. And that answers the question of what the international Chosen Children are there for -- what do you think they’re doing with those Digivices, twiddling their thumbs? The Tokyo Chosen’s adventures were the ones we were blessed with being able to bear witness to, but that absolutely does not exclude the idea that there were other kids going through their own tales of growth and adventure -- especially since, as I said, Homeostasis and the others protecting the Digital World are not omniscient, and there are a lot of known factors beyond their control.

On that note, you might notice that, by the doubling-every-year principle and by running a math calculation, in 1999, there were eight other Chosen Children besides Taichi’s group. This also tracks with the fact that Adventure episode 53 revealed that there were other Chosen Children prior to Taichi et al. who performed an incomplete seal on Apocalymon, ones that even Gennai wasn’t aware of (remember how I said that the Agents aren’t actually omniscient?). While the fact that such an ostensibly huge fact was dropped so casually is jarring for the viewer, in retrospect, the fact that this was dropped so casually was indicative of the idea of how...not very much of a big deal this was supposed to be. Taichi and his friends may have been instrumental in the selection process for Chosen Children back in 1995, but they weren’t the only ones who witnessed the Hikarigaoka incident nor to have contact with Digimon, and they weren’t even the first to save the Digital World, nor will they be the last. But the journey of personal growth they took was still important to themselves -- just because they weren’t the only ones who took it didn’t change the fact that such an important thing happened, nor that we got the benefit of being able to meet and resonate with these kids.

In fact, the Hikarigaoka incident wasn’t even the first point of contact with the Digital World. 02 episode 33 hinted very heavily that what humans have perceived as youkai and other spirits were actually Digital World contact, just not something actually noticeable until digital technology started connecting the worlds. Episode 47 revealed that Oikawa Yukio and Hida Hiroki had made contact sometime in the 80s via video games -- even though they weren’t Chosen Children themselves at the time. In short, the concept of the Digital World and its contact with the human one is something that spans throughout history, of which the Tokyo Chosen Children are only part of in very recent years.

And finally, one of the most important parts: the idea that the Digimon would stay a secret to the world for very long is inherently infeasible. The 1999 “Digimon in the sky” incident was international. It made international news. Everyone in Tokyo has clear memories of the “Odaiba fog” incident, and, as revealed in 02 episode 14, even a boy from America, Michael, has clear memory of seeing a Gorimon. Reporters like Ishida Hiroaki didn’t hesitate to get in on the scene and try to cover what was going on, and 02 episode 38 revealed that Takaishi Natsuko was doing intensive enough press coverage on the Digimon incidents that Oikawa actually sought her out for information on it. They’re probably not the only reporters around the world doing the same. One episode later, Gennai revealed that the government/military and scientific worlds had actually caught onto the existence of Digimon and did make active attempts to research it -- but, fearing that the world wasn’t quite ready to do that without exploiting Digimon for evil purposes, Gennai and the other Agents wiped out any data records so that they couldn’t do organized research or swap notes. But just wiping out data doesn’t wipe out the public memory, and, especially when the number of Chosen Children is proliferating, and with all of the Digimon-related disasters that happened around the world in 02 episodes 40-42, at some point the world is going to start becoming very aware of what’s going on with this whole thing.

And finally, about that thing where a lot of people claim that a world where everyone has a Digimon partner must be some kind of dystopia: I think this camp severely underestimates how adaptable the world is.

This is something that might not be as resonant to those who were very young at the time they aired, but Adventure and 02 were written in what was a very shocking and scary world for adults that were living at the time. The rate at which the world changed and adapted to digital technology in the late 80s and all of the 90s was ridiculous, and in some ways even terrifying. Many tech people have pointed out how much it feels like the entire structure of the world has changed in light of technological developments, AI, and the Internet in only the last few decades compared to centuries before. International policy has changed, daily life has changed, business structures have changed, in time much less than 25 years. Hell, I’m writing this post smack in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic; I think anyone reading this right now at this time can attest to how terrifyingly quickly the world changed itself in only a few months in response to such a thing.

Compared to that, a whole 25 years of slow burn where the Digimon partner rate at least had the decency to double every year and give people a chance to acclimate and make public policy seems practically luxurious. On top of that, while there will certainly be more people like the Kaiser out there abusing their power, Digimon evolution at least happens to be tied to human emotions (unlike many other weapons out there), and there is some stifling factor in less-than-pleasant people being a bit less likely to have the same access to overwhelming power as those who are more selfless and virtuous. That kind of limiter is something I wish modern technology could have sometimes.

So what is the Tokyo Chosen Children’s place in this narrative? At the forefront of such incredibly massive incoming changes were children who were living in a completely different world than that familiar to even people who were born five to ten years earlier -- much like the real children born in the world of technology in the late 90s. The Tokyo Chosen Children were some of the earliest pioneers in this regard, being the ones who had to figure out logistics and Digimon and the Digital World and what it meant to be a partner in a world that hadn’t figured any of this out yet, and arguably wasn’t ready yet.

Yet they did, and they saved both worlds with no precedent nor support on what to do. This, I think, is a massively more meaningful accomplishment than the idea that they were exclusively selected by some higher power.

On romance and marriage

I feel like this topic is one I’m setting myself up to end up with my head on a pike by daring to breach it -- there is pretty much no way I can cover this without setting myself up for some risk of this -- but I do want to talk about it. I really don’t want to make this post into a pro- or anti-shipping discourse post, so you’ll have to forgive me as I try to be about as diplomatic about this as I possibly can. For all it’s worth, I’m a firm believer in shipping and shipping headcanons being an integral part of the fan’s experience (heck, anyone who knows me knows that I often talk about my own ships more than I really should), and so, as I said before, I’m writing this largely from the perspective of elucidating “the most likely reason it was written this way”, and not “should it have been written this way” nor “how I think people should feel in spite of this”.

In any case, I’m going to start off this section by a statement from a friend that left a particular impression on me. I’d introduced them to Digimon recently, with both of us as adults, and one thing they commented was that the idea of shipping any of the characters felt a little too odd, because they were all elementary school kids. They, of course, understood quite naturally that I had been shipping some of these kids since I was their age (and that my current round of shipping usually was more about whether they’d get together later than whether they would during the time of the series), so it wasn’t an accusation of me being creepy or anything -- it’s just that, as an adult coming into this for the first time without a lot of preconceived attachments, it felt too weird for them to ship children at that young of an age, and it was something that made me think a lot about it.

As I said, shipping is often an integral part of the fan’s experience, even for those who don’t do “fandom” -- romance is such a huge priority that it permeates all of our media, and how it’s handled is often one of the first things deeply scrutinized. Part of the reason the 02 epilogue is so controversial is that it went pretty much against the face of the most popular ships in the fanbase, and the two that did go forward (Yamato/Sora and Ken/Miyako) weren’t ones that people would conventionally expect given what you’d generally look for when it comes to fictional relationship development.

But that’s kind of the issue here: remember when I pointed out earlier that Adventure and 02 were trying to stay away from anime tropes unless they found it to be particularly relevant to the characters’ arcs? In actuality, the way that people generally expect romance and romance tropes to happen in a series -- especially a not-particularly-romance-centric series like this one -- isn’t how romance generally works, and especially not for kids at the age we saw them in Adventure and 02. It doesn’t seem like coincidence that the first hard show of romance we get (Sora asking Yamato out during Christmas) is when the relevant characters were 14, which is around the earliest age you can imagine two kids actually taking a relationship seriously and having some depth of what they’re getting into. As if to drive this in further, Daisuke’s crush on Hikari is portrayed as a sign of him acting shallow and not having a good sense of priorities at the moment; the whole 02 main cast, as of 02, is probably still too young to entertain anything serious for at least a few more years.

If you look at actual couples, as romantic as “childhood friends to lovers” is as a trope, it’s actually not very common in real life, especially for “childhood” being defined as 8-12. There might be a slightly higher chance when it comes to the Tokyo Chosen Children, considering they’d gone through some shared experiences others might not understand, but even that gets slightly mitigated by the fact that more and more people around the world are becoming Chosen themselves. So while it can happen, and while it’s probably somewhat more likely for this group in particular, it’s not as likely as the average shipper would probably want it to be. Even those who support the canon ships don’t really favor the idea of them being in a continuous relationship all the way up to adulthood -- my personal experience as someone closely following Ken/Miyako fanfiction and comics in both the West and in Japan indicates a common thread of it being treated as a mutual pining ship until several years later, and the Yamato/Sora fans I’ve personally talked to have a very high rate of feeling that the two of them have experienced at least one breakup before getting back together. Or, in short, even people who like those ships have a hard time imagining a unbroken, continuous relationship all the way from elementary/middle school to adulthood, because of how much that generally doesn’t happen.

I promise I am not writing this as a treatise against the ship itself, I swear I’m just using this because it’s the best example I can pull out at the moment, but I’ll put it this way: I think the clearest example of this is Takeru and Hikari, the only pairing that has the unfortunate distinction of being explicitly confirmed as not being married (by Seki Hiromi in V-Jump), whereas everyone outside the scope of Yamato/Sora and Ken/Miyako is still technically in “believe whatever you want” territory. Takeru/Hikari is, depending on which scale of ranking you use, a ship that consistently ranks as one of the three most popular Digimon ships globally, and them not getting together is cited as one of the most common things disliked about the epilogue. But despite its overwhelming popularity to the point you’d think it’d be easy to cater to such a humongous fanbase by pairing them together -- and so few people would dispute it, really! -- not only were they not made an item, but they were explicitly confirmed as not being one.

Why?

Takeru and Hikari probably feel “baited” to anyone who’s looking at this from a romantic trope perspective. They’re constantly in each other’s company to the point where it almost feels like they like hanging out with each other more than they do others. Takeru is shown as having a particular investment in Hikari’s welfare in 02 episodes like 7, 13, and 31. They’re constantly associated with each other in promotional materials, too. But when you look at them in terms of their actual relationship as children...well, I’ll put it this way with another personal anecdote: I actually had multiple platonic friends like that back when I was their age in elementary and later middle school, and, uh...well, people did actually ask if we were in love with each other, and it genuinely, no-strings-attached, annoyed the hell out of me, because we weren’t, and I hated being pigeonholed into that.

In real life, platonic relationships happen a lot with kids in that age group, and it’s not actually all that surprising that 02 would have wanted to portray a healthy one without any strings attached -- the same way the series also portrayed other unconventional situations with kids, such as Iori being a nine-year-old who hangs out with kids much older than him (there are most certainly kids who can attest to being in that position!). I mentioned in my earlier 02 characterization meta that both Takeru and Hikari are actually rather inscrutable (especially in the first half of the series), and in fact, episode 13, usually quoted as a Takeru/Hikari episode, is actually centered around Takeru having difficulty reaching out to Hikari because, despite the fact he was closest to her at that point in time, she still was too closed-in to open up about anything. They almost never talk about what they actually think about each other, other than obviously having an investment in each other’s welfare and enjoying each other’s company, but, again -- this isn’t unusual for platonic friends at this age. And the fact that this is the one ship where there was actual official word putting a foot down and saying, no, this did not end up in marriage...everyone interprets this like it’s some kind of callous move made to make people miserable for no good reason, but I would say that, given the writing philosophy applied to the kids in nearly every other respect, the intent was likely to make a statement that this kind of relationship can exist without it ending up in inevitable marriage somewhere down the line.

We’re inclined to see “two people being emotionally close means a higher chance of being a couple” because this is how romance has been portrayed in media for as long as any of us have been consuming media, but in actuality, relationships are very multifaceted and complicated, and there are many ways to be “emotionally close” to someone in ways that don’t overlap with being “romantically attracted” to someone. This is especially once you start becoming an adult and end up needing to navigate the web of who’s a friend and whom you might have a crush on, and in actuality the person you start flirting with because you think they’re attractive might have been someone you just met last week, or at least someone you don’t know very emotionally intimately (which is why crushes can be intimidating, even in adulthood). This is also what I think fuels the disparity between why Taichi/Sora gained such a huge following and what actually happened with them, because many, many fans will testify that they felt baited by the ship, but if you look in the actual series in terms of what counts as “romantic attraction” and not just emotional closeness, there’s...not a lot; they happened to know each other before the events of the series (but so did Koushirou!), Taichi had a bit of a mental breakdown about saving her (because he’s not someone who abandons important friends), and in Our War Game! they had a bit of a spat with traces of tsundere (which, ultimately, are circumstantial and don’t necessarily indicate they actually have serious mutual feelings for each other). Official word implies that Yamato and Sora were planned since rather early in the series, and it doesn’t seem like coincidence that “pairing up the main hero and heroine” (Taichi and Sora) was given as an example of an avoided trope in an official booklet, so it lends further support to the idea that “not following typical romance tropes and expectations” was a significant priority.

Again, this isn’t me saying anything about those who ship it or those who have been able to figure out ways in which the relationship could work in some very wonderful headcanons I’ve had the benefit of reading over the past decades, nor those who are having a marvelous time with fanfic and headcanon and comics and being a bit more willing to indulge outside the scope of the series’s canon. (Nor the multitude of very good headcanons and meta I’ve seen about the possibility of Takeru/Hikari at least trying out dating somewhere along the line, even if it doesn’t end up anywhere permanent.) Nor does that mean I think that this was the best way for the writers to go about it -- as I’ve said in this meta already, there is an inherent fallacy of not paying enough attention to how writing will be taken and interpreted by people with certain reasonable expectations cultivated from years of media consumption, and especially by kids who aren’t going to pick up that nuance or don’t have the appropriate relationship life experience. Regardless of intent, there’s still a lot that can be criticized about its handling; in many ways, it could be considered a bit cruel that the series had things known to be considered romantic subtext in most other series that may not have been actually intended this way. But, nevertheless, I do feel very strongly that there’s a high likelihood that this is what they were at least going for, even if it didn’t come off that way to most of the audience.

Extrapolating this concept further, it’s also interesting to see how Adventure and 02 treat romance as a relatively insubstantial thing in the grand scope of things. I said earlier that it’s quite understandable that romance and shipping have become the main obsession for media -- and it’s probably been that way for as long as human civilization has even existed -- but when you really think about it, Adventure/02 treat romance as “a thing that is a big part of your life, but not the sole controlling factor”. Again, note how Daisuke’s precocious crush on Hikari manifests when he’s at his most shallow, and even after Yamato and Sora start dating in episode 38, we really don’t hear a lot about it -- granted, neither were in the lead protagonist cast by that point in the series, but whenever they do appear thereafter, it’s almost always about their work helping out as Chosen than it is about their relationship, which is presumably a private thing going on in the background. It’s a part of their lives, but it’s not the only thing going on with them. Of course, shounen anime with casts of these ages don’t tend to breach the topic of romance much at all, but it’s interesting how it touches on the topic and then leaves it in the background -- again, something probably frustrating and a bit too cavalier for those inclined to see shipping and romance as life or death, but from a real-life perspective, makes sense in the realm of friends’ relationships largely not being your business, even if it is significant.

(Ken and Miyako are a trickier matter because their pairing was allegedly based on their voice actors’ friendship, but considering that it has been cited multiple times across multiple Digimon series production notes that character outlines were often subject to change even mid-series based on impressions of the voice actors’ performance -- it happened in Tamers too, and it’s not even unusual for original anime in general -- it’s still ambiguous as to when in production this decision was made, and, considering the flip between Miyako having jealous pettiness over him in episode 3 to fantasizing over him and considering him exactly her type in 8, I would not be surprised if the decision were made somewhere in between there, especially since the fact the epilogue would eventually happen was already established in production over a year prior. Unlike with Yamato and Sora, we don’t get to see the two of them at a reasonable age to start doing anything serious within the scope of 02, which led to the unfortunate result of the reveal of them getting married in the epilogue being a very startling and sudden jump for many.)

In any case, I’m going to close this with yet another disclaimer -- I know I’m repeating myself too many times at this point, but I really, really want to make it clear that I am not, in any way, trying to imply that I don’t understand why people would be blindsided by the epilogue in any of the above ways (careers, the status of Digimon partnerships, shipping) because, as I said, I do think there is some merit to the philosophy that maybe they should have paid a bit more attention to how people -- especially kids -- would actually see the events rather than the writing philosophy behind why it should be written this way. (And, to be honest, I think I might have this complaint behind not just the epilogue, but both Adventure and 02 as a whole, for a multitude of different reasons.) Moreover, there are a million other cans of worms that could be feasibly discussed regarding the epilogue that I’ve only barely scratched the surface of here, because there are so many different topics to unpack when it comes to it, and I could go on forever (and further increase my risk of ending up with my head on a pike...). And of course there’s the wider issue of how to handle timeskip epilogues in general (they don’t really tend to be very popular, do they), so, really, there’s only so much I can cover in one post before dragging this on for too long. But in the end, even after writing all this, I understand that there are a lot of people who still won’t like it or don’t want to accept it, and that’s fine; it’s not my place to try and convince people to.

But, nevertheless, the reason why I made this post -- and what I hope the take-home can be -- is that, no, I don’t think this was made as a random off-their-rocker decision with the intent to make everyone miserable, nor some kind of fever dream that the writing staff must have pulled out while drunk, nor whatever accusations I’ve seen levied about it as a weird spontaneous idea (and the fact it really did come out very suddenly at people), but that -- regardless of how it landed -- there was some idea behind why it played out, and why, even 20 real-life years later, principles like “not everyone’s going to stick with the same career even in adulthood” continue to hold.

[actress4him]

Whumptober 2020 - Day 4

Another hopeful ending today! Also featuring a bit of Pidge whump. As always, please check the tags and let me know if I missed any. And if anyone wants to comment on/reblog any of my Whumptober fics so far that would make a fantastic birthday gift! 😉

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Day 4 - Collapsed Building

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Warnings: claustrophobia, impaling, blood, internal bleeding, broken bones, overuse of the word quiznak

“All the royals and diplomats are clear. What’s everyone’s status?”

“Just coming down the stairs,” Lance puffed. “Hunk’s with me. Be out in a tick.”

“Keith? Pidge?”

“On our way.” Keith skirted around a table and shattered vase that had fallen when the ground started shaking, and kept running. “We’re on the lowest level, but not sure...” He glimpsed a familiar room through an open door. “Wait. I think that was the dining hall we just passed.”

“It was!” Pidge confirmed from a few feet ahead.

“Okay. You guys need to hurry. The rebels could be back with more bombs any minute, and I’m not sure how much more the palace can stand. Allura and I are gonna get everyone underground; you all head to your Lions as soon as you’re out.”

“Roger.” 

“Headed that way now!” Hunk replied.

"Quiznak." 

Keith nearly ran into Pidge, who had skidded to a halt in front of him and was messing with her gauntlet. “What is it?”

“The way we came in earlier is blocked. Looks like it took a direct hit.” She pulled up a glowing schematic of the palace as Keith took in the piles of beams and stone in the hallway to the left. “We’ll have to go this way. It’s longer, but it’s our only choice.”

He let her lead the way once more, not only because she had the map but because he wanted her to set the pace. He could easily outrun her, he knew, but there was no way he was leaving her behind. They’d make it out. They had to. Maybe the rebels were done. Maybe there wouldn’t be any more - 

His thoughts were interrupted by another ear-splitting explosion and the floor rocking beneath them. Pidge stumbled, but Keith caught her by the arm and quickly righted her. 

“Go, go!” 

She picked up the pace, and Keith tried to ignore how wide and fearful her eyes had been. He didn’t have time to worry about that, anyway. Shiro was yelling in his ear, wanting to know if they had made it out yet, and somewhere high above them ships were droning and another bomb was whistling. And getting louder. In fact, it was louder than any of the others he had heard so far, and for the first time, he heard the actual impact on the roof before the explosion. 

His heart in his throat, he leapt forward without fully realizing what he was doing. “Pidge!”

Then there was pain.

And darkness.

The next thing that Keith was aware of was a far off voice calling his name, over and over again. Parting his superbly dry lips, he attempted to answer, but all that came out was a groan. Why did he feel so heavy? It was as if every single muscle in his body weighed three times as much as it should. He blinked open his eyes, but the darkness barely retreated. There was only a faint glow, like that of the insignias on their armor.

“Keith?” The voice came again, and this time he was fairly certain of its owner, though he was unsure of why he couldn’t see her when she sounded so close.

“P-Pidge?”

“Oh, thank quiznak.” Pidge drew in a shuddering breath, sounding close to tears. “I was so scared you weren’t gonna wake up.”

Had he been asleep? He ran his tongue over his lips, but it was just as dry as they were. “What...I don’t...”

Pidge’s voice softened. “The rebels, remember? They dropped one of their bombs right over us, and you...”

He had jumped on top of her. The memory hit at the same time as the pain, and Keith screamed.

“Keith! It’s okay, it’s okay! Ugh, I mean, I know it’s not okay, but...” Pidge floundered for words. “Can you...can you tell me where it hurts?”

Everywhere. “M-my leg.” That was the worst, at least.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure my leg’s broken. Like, I think there’s maybe like a rock or something sitting on top of it.” She sounded so nonchalant about it, but that was Pidge, he supposed. Analyzing the situation and relaying the information was what she did best. “Do you think...is that kinda what yours feels like?”

“No.” He attempted to flex his foot and had to clamp his teeth together to keep from screaming again. “It, uh...it feels more like it was stabbed.”

“The fact that you know the difference between a broken bone and a stab wound just by pain is concerning to me,” she deadpanned. “Okay, anything else?”

Keith tried to focus past the searing pain in his leg to take stock of the rest of his body. He still felt heavy, though he now knew that was probably because of the three stories worth of debris on top of him, and everything felt like one giant bruise. “Pretty sure some ribs are broken. Can’t...really feel my arms...” 

“I’m just glad you can feel your legs. I was afraid your back might be broken. Since it’s not, I’m gonna try to scoot out from under you and see if I can get a look at your leg.”

It took Keith a moment longer than it should have to process that statement. “Wh-...wait, are you...under me?”

The explosive reaction from Pidge was not what he was expecting. “Well, yeah, since you tackled me like a frickin’ idiot! I swear, you and Lance and your stupid, frickin’ self-sacrificing tendencies...”

If his normal social skills weren’t bad enough, right now he hurt way too much to be able to come up with a proper response to that. “Uh...sorry? I guess? I just...wanted...”

“You just wanted to keep me from getting hurt, I know. I got it.” Though her tone was still angry, he thought he heard it waver with another emotion.

“But...you still did. Get hurt.” And he hated that fact more than he hated his own pain.

“It’s not nearly as bad as it could have been.” Not nearly as bad as you, she didn’t say, but he heard it anyway. She sighed. “Thanks, I guess. I mean, I don’t like you sacrificing yourself for me, but...at least this way we’re together, right?”

“Yeah. Being alone right now would -“ his words caught in his throat as his leg gave a particularly intense throb -“would suck.”

“Yeah.” Silence fell for a moment, then he could hear her draw in a deep breath. “Okay. Gonna start wiggling out to the left now. Still not sure how you didn’t know you were laying on top of me.”

Once she started moving, Keith was able to free his left hand and reach out blindly until he found something to brace it on, leveraging himself up slightly to give her more space. The movement made that one particularly sore spot near his kidney flare up dramatically, and he swallowed back a gasp. That was...probably not good. No need to worry Pidge about it, though, when there was nothing she could do.

“I assumed...y-you were debris.”

“Gee, thanks.”

He managed a small smirk. “No offense to you. It’s...probably the...armor.”

By then, Pidge had managed to wriggle her way out far enough that he could actually see her face through her helmet. She gave him a tiny smile before twisting and craning her head back to look at his leg. “Quiznak. That’s...quiznak.”

“Yeah, kinda...kinda feels that way.”

She dropped back down so that they were face to face. “So, bad news is, there’s a reason you feel like you were stabbed. Best I can tell, there’s like, an entire beam going through the middle of your thigh.”

The mental image combined with the pain made his stomach roll, but he swallowed it back. “What’s...what’s the good news?”

“Uh...the good news?” The stumped look on Pidge’s face made it clear that there really hadn’t been any. “The good news is...Shiro made us wear our helmets, so neither one of us have major head injuries?”

Keith huffed, regretting it when his ribs protested. “Yeah. Point for Shiro, there.” Before coming to the dinner and meeting tonight there had been a whole argument between him and Allura on whether the helmets were necessary for a diplomatic event. “I assume the...comms are out, though?”

Pidge nodded. “At least our end is, though I doubt they can hear us, either. I...went ahead and said where we were a couple of times while you were out, though. Just in case.”

He wanted to say something to reassure her, despite not being too optimistic about their outlook, himself, but found himself suddenly unable to draw in a breath. Something gurgled in the back of his throat. It exploded outward with a violent cough that spattered on the inside of his face shield and left him whining pitifully and wanting to curl in on himself.

“Yikes, that couldn’t have felt good on broken ribs.” Her eyes widened. “Wait. Why are you coughing? Your helmet’s sealed, there shouldn’t be dust.” Leaning in, she cupped the side of his helmet with her hand and let the light from her armor illuminate the pinkish liquid. “Please don’t tell me that’s blood. Quiznak, that’s blood, isn’t it? You’re bleeding internally. That’s not good. That’s not good at all.”

“Hey.” Keith grimaced, already feeling more blood crawling up into his throat. “It’s okay. Don’t...don’t freak out.”

Pidge almost looked ready to throttle him. “How can I not freak out? We’re trapped under a crap ton of debris and nobody knows where we are and you are coughing up blood, Keith! It was bad enough that you were losing blood from your leg, but now you’re losing it somewhere inside, too!”

“Yeah, I know.” He was starting to feel the effects of it, too. Losing every few words that she said, his vision occasionally blinking out altogether. He coughed again, unable to hold it back any longer. “It’s...it’s ‘kay, though. Sh’ro...Sh’ro’ll fin’ me. Sh’ro...always fin’s me. He’s good...at that.”

“Whoa. Keith. No, come on, buddy, you gotta stay awake. Look at me.”

He pried his eyes open, unaware that he had even closed them. “‘m ‘wake.”

“Okay, good.” Pidge patted the side of his helmet. “You need to stay that way. Tell me...tell me something about yourself. Tell me about living in the shack, out in the desert.”

Keith scrunched up his nose, wondering why she would want to hear about that. “The shack? The shack was...borin’. Was lonely. Nobody...nobody out there...’cept me. Me an’ Blue.” He huffed a laugh, and wondered why doing so hurt. “Thought I was...goin’ crazy. Losin’ my mind. She wouldn’t...stop callin’ me, though. Kept me goin’. Needed...needed somethin’ to keep livin’ for, so...might ‘s well be...a voice ‘n my head.” He coughed again. “Owww. That hurts.”

“I know, bud.” If he wasn’t mistaken, which was a very real possibility considering the fuzziness of his head, those were tears reflecting in her eyes. He wanted to ask her why she was sad, but she was still talking. “I know it does. You just gotta keep hanging on for a little while longer, okay? Then Shiro will come and get us.”

“‘Kay. I like Sh’ro. He’s a good...good guy.” Keith let his eyes slip shut again. The darkness felt nice on his tired brain. It was almost as nice as Pidge. She was really nice.

“Nope, don’t close your eyes.” When he didn’t respond right away, she grabbed his shoulder and shook it slightly. “Keith, come on.” Her voice sounded choked.

Begrudgingly, he opened his eyes. “I’m tired,” he whined. “Need to sleep.”

“You can’t sleep until we’re back at the Castle. Then I promise you can sleep for a long time, okay?”

He sighed. It kinda seemed like something had been hurting pretty bad earlier, but now everything felt pleasantly numb. It was good for sleeping, but Pidge seemed really adamant about him staying awake. “I like th’ Castle. Th’ Castle’s nice. ‘S like...’s like home. Never...never really had a home...b’fore.”

Pidge nodded, her lower lip trembling. “Yeah. It is like home. I’m glad...I’m glad you found a home, Keith. You just stay awake and keep talking to me, and then the others will come and take us home.”

“Don’t...know if...I...can.” His eyelids were so heavy. 

“Keith. Keith!” There was the shaking on his shoulder again. “Come on, Keith, don’t do this to me!” She was definitely crying, now, but he couldn’t seem to make himself look to see why. “Keith!”

Everything was slipping further and further away, his body feeling as if it could just melt into the floor and disappear. He’d be okay with that. He was more than ready for it. It was only a shift somewhere above him that brought a jolt of pain and a gasp from Pidge that brought him back around, his eyes fluttering open once more.

Pidge caught his gaze and smiled through the tears that streaked her cheeks. “Look, Keith, look!” She cut her eyes up and he did the same. A shaft of light was piercing through their dark little hole, and up above the familiar groan of a Lion’s joints could be heard.

“They’re here, Keith. I told you they would come. We’re gonna go home.”

[ampmiscfiles]

To Us You’re Worth Everything: Chapter 11

Start from the beginning

Peter groaned as he opened his eyes and sat up. He looked around, taking in his surroundings. He was in a park, and he wasn't sure how he got there.

Stretching, he lifted his hand to scratch at his itchy cheek, meeting a crusty substance. Frowning, Peter picked at the dried substance on his face before pulling his hand away to look.

Peter felt the blood drain from his face as the dark red, almost black, flakes peaked out under his nails and on his fingertips. Following down from his hands, his arms were marked with dark streaks, some places thicker than others. His clothes were stained in blood, blood that clearly wasn't his.

Quickly, Peter lurched to the side, throwing up what he had had for supper.

What had happened?

Crawling away from the tree he was under and further into the bushes, Peter wrapped his arms around himself, panic seeping in.

He had no idea what was going on. He didn't remember anything after leaving the group home, but clearly something had happened.

Trying to calm his rising panic, Peter closed his eyes and let the sounds of the park wash over him. The cool breeze rustling the tree leaves. Children laughing on the distant playground. Dogs happily enjoying playing with their owners. Couples chatting happily as they walked the pathways.

It was nice, and Peter felt his heart rate slow.

Opening his eyes, he took a deep breath before fully analyzing his situation. He couldn't exactly exit the cover of the bushes looking like he did. There was no way a blood covered teenager would be ignored.

Looking around, Peter sighed in relief as he caught the strap of his bag buried in between the bushes. He grabbed it, pulling it out and brushing off the twigs and leaves. He started at the set of pajamas he had thrown into the bag when he changed. He knew he could swap out what he had on for them, but they were all he had. If he waited till nightfall, he could change and find a laundry mat. There was a good chance that he would be able to find some loose change by then, plus no one would be around to possibly catch a glimpse of what he was washing.

Releasing a sigh, he laid back on the soft grass, trying to remember anything from the night.

Whose blood was staining his skin and clothes? Why was it there? What happened to the person it belonged to? Had he tried to save someone and suffered a blow to the head? It would explain the lack of memory.

It was the only option he would allow himself to consider, because he wasn't sure he could handle it being anything else.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tony pulled the cap further down his head and put on his sunglasses as he exited his car.

He was surprised to find himself looking at a rather public park. If the kid was trying to stay low-key, this was a risky place to be.

Holding up his phone, he began the trek toward the location of the tracker. He wasn't sure what he was going to find, if he really found anything at all. Peter could have ditched his bag at some point, or even managed to have found the tracker and took it out.

Praying for the best, he continued on.

His phone ringing temporarily removed the tracker location as Pepper's face filled the screen. Frowning, he answered her call.

"Hey Pep, I'm-"

"Tony!" Pepper shouted into the phone. "We have to find Peter! There's been an incident not far from the home. Another body, the worst of them so far."

Tony felt a cold dread seep into his bones.

"They found blood in the alley beside the home Tony. They think who ever killed the man, caught him there and then took him away. Tony.....that maniac could have Peter!"

Pepper's hysterical sobs filled the phone.

"Pep, Pep, listen to me!"

There was a sniffle on the other side of the line as Pepper tried to compose herself.

"Has anyone talked to the kids?"

"Tony! They're missing too!"

"Great." Tony huffed, running a hand down his face.

"Pepper, I want to you focus on finding Wanda and Pietro."

"But Peter-"

"I'm handling Peter. Just, just trust me here Pep. Let me do this."

There was silence then the shuffle of someone moving around.

"Ok Tony. I'll call the others and tell them to focus on the twins." she took a deep breath. "Please, find my son, Tony."

"Let me know when you have the kids." Tony said, disconnecting the line.

He stood in the middle of the sidewalk, the calm, sunny day a stark contrast to the feelings inside him. On his phone, the little light continued to blink and Tony prayed he was going to be happy with what he found.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pietro looked at the building before him with wide eyes.

"You can't be serious."

"I am." Wanda said, eyes narrowed in determination. "We're going to make sure things go the way they need to."

Pietro huffed out a breath and ran his hand down his face before turning to her.

"We can't just walk in there, Wanda."

"We're not, but Kent and Kathy Matthews distant cousins are." she said casually.

"Now I know you're not being serious."

"I am. Now put on the rest of your outfit."

"Exactly what are you planning to do? This place is littered with cameras and, relatives or not, they're not going to let us see them. We don't even know if they're awake! They weren't exactly in the best of shape when they were brought in. Cl-those two random criminals did a work over on them."

"You forget," Wanda smirked. "I managed to get into the heads of the Avengers. I think I can handle things here."

"Again, the camera footage?" Pietro pushed.

"We'll collect it before we leave. No traces left behind."

"Ok, but what'd your goal here?"

Wanda paused, looking away from her brother and toward the building.

"We both know who's in that building, Pietro. They've mistreated him. Physical, mental and verbally abused him. I can't let them get off as easy as they're going to. Jail isn't good enough." she said, looking at him out the corner of her eye.

"I think you feel it too."

Pietro didn't respond for a moment, choosing to let her words sink in. She wasn't wrong. He didn't think a simple jail sentence, even if it was life, was good enough for all the damage they caused.

Squaring his shoulders, he took Wanda's hands and gave a squeeze.

"Yes, you're right. I think it might be a good idea for our cousins to do a little....reflection on their actions. Maybe try to picture themselves in their victim's shoes."

Wanda just returned the grin he flashed her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tony's anxiety spiked a little as he got closer to the location of the tracker. He was growing a little weary at the fact the signal hadn't moved at all since he locked on to it.

"Please let him be ok." Tony muttered, stopping where the tracker blinked.

Frowning, he looked around the area. Maybe Peter had ditched the tracker after all.

He had just about decided to continue on down the path when I slight shuffle from the bushes next to him caught his attention. Slowly, he made his way over, pushing aside the foliage.  

"Peter!"

Peter jumped, surprised by the shout as much as the fact someone had managed to sneak up on him. Rolling over, he stared wide-eyed into the equally wide-eyed face of Tony Stark.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pepper ran her hand through her hair as she waited on Sam to return to the car. Her nerves were strung tight as images of what could have happened to Peter flew through her head.

She barely knew the boy, but she had immediately fallen in love with him.

How could anyone not?

It was so easy to see past the evidence of abuse to the sweet boy buried inside. They had already glimpsed him through interactions with Spider-Man.

Peter held Spider-Man in such high regard that it was as if he saw himself as two separate people. That Peter Parker and Spider-Man weren't the same person.

Maybe that had been how he was able to maintain his upbeat attitude, because he clearly didn't hold the Peter Parker side of himself in such a light.

Still, somewhere out there was a lonely kid in desperate need of help.

She couldn't think anything less.

She couldn't think he wasn't.

She looked over as Sam opened the car door and slid into the passenger seat.

"Here." he said, handing her an iced coffee. "How are you holding up?"

"Been better." she sighed.

"Well, I'm not about to help matters." Sam winced as Pepper turned her puffy eyed face towards him.

"The twins are missing."

"They're what?" Pepper yelled.

"Just got off the phone with Steve. The kids bailed and haven't been seen since. They've tried finding them, but no luck."

Pepper narrowed her eyes.

"You don't believe him."

"Oh, I believe Steve wants me to be believe they can't find them. I think the truth is they don't really want to."

"Why not? Peter is already missing, now they are to!"

Sam sighed and rubbed the back of his neck.

"He think they know, or at least Nat does, where they went."

"And I'm guessing she's not telling, nor is she going after them herself."

"She wouldn't let them go if she didn't think it was something they needed to do or they couldn't handle. I'm sure they're fine. Let's just focus on finding Peter for now."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Well, I just got off the phone with Sam." Steve sighed, sitting down at the table next to Clint.

Peter's case file was once again spread out before them.

"Let me guess, he doesn't believe we don't know where they are."

"Well, we don't." Steve replied, motioning between Clint and himself. "She does."

The two looked over as Natasha typed away furiously on her laptop.

"Leave them be. They can handle their business. They'll be fine."

"You're not leaving us much of a choice." Clint huffed.

"What do you two know about the mysterious killer the police are chasing?"

Steve frowned as he shared a look with Clint before turning to Natasha.

"I know the police are mighty territorial about it. They're been very clear they don't want our involvement. I think its rather stupid considering the increase in attacks, manner of violence, and the fact there has been no real connection from one victim to the next-"

"Other than criminal history." Clint finished. "I may not approve of the guy's methods, but he's not exactly attacking the innocent here."

"Still, none of the other vigilantes in the city go that far-"

"Frank Castle and Deadpool-"

"Haven't been seen in the city in months. These attacks have only been happening the past two." Steve shot as Clint shrugged.

"Fine. So what's the point, Nat?" Clint asked, ignoring Steve's eye roll.

"Considering the Matthews, I decided to look into some of Peter's other foster families."

"And?"

"A few of them have joined the victims list."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Ma'am, I afraid we can't just let you in to see the Matthews. They're in police custody. You would have to have permission to-"

"I'm sure it won't be a problem for us to have just a few moments with them." Wanda smiled, her eyes flashing red.

The man stood frozen and silent for a moment before a dopey smile crossed his face.

"Of course. I don't see why not. I might do them good to have some family chastisement."

"Thank you."

The twins followed behind the doctor, Wanda stretching her powers out to touch each person they passed. They couldn't afford for anyone to give fully accurate descriptions of them, even if they were disguised.

"Around the corner is the room they're located in. Just give the officer outside the room your names."

The two nodded towards the man as he shuffled off back the way he came.

"So far so good. Let's see your next trick." Pietro whispered into Wanda's ear.

"Prepare to have your socks knocked off." she smirked, leading the way.

As they approached the room, the officer stationed outside stood to face them.

"I suggest the two of you turn and leave. This couple is under arrest and police observation."

"We're their cousi-" Pietro started before being cut off.

"I don't care who you are. No one is getting through that door. I don't know how you made it this far, but I'm going to have security escort you-"

"Surely you understand our need to see family." Wanda smiled sweetly, her eyes flashing red.

The officer looked at the blankly before nodding with a smile.

"Please, go right in."

"Thank you."

"Wow. Those training sessions are really paying off." Pietro whispered in her ear as they entered the room and shut the door behind them.

"Nat is brutal." Wanda replied.

The two stopped talking as they took in the ghastly sight of Kathy and Kent Matthews. The damage Clint and Natasha had inflicted had been highly underrated by the officers and social worker that had taken Peter away.

"Well, is it wrong that I don't feel at all bad seeing them this way?" Pietro asked, stepping up to the foot of Kathy's bed.

"This will pale in comparison to what I'm about to do." Wanda said, eyes narrowed. "They're bodies have been pushed to the limit, but I'm going to break their minds."

Pietro watched as Wanda stepped in between the two beds.

"I want you both awake for this." she said lowly, raising her hands and touching their foreheads.

The Matthews gasped in both pain and shock as their eyes flew open and consciousness returned to them.

"Hello there." Pietro grinned, leaning down on Kathy's bed.

"Who the hell are you?" Kathy asked, voice raspy.

To her right, Kent looked at the two intruders, unable to speak as his mouth was to swollen.

"It doesn't matter who we are." Wanda hissed. "What matters, is that you understand the atrocities you've committed, and that you will admit to your actions."

"You're insane." Kathy's eyes narrowed. "We're not admitting anything. How did you even get in here?"

"Tsk tsk." Pietro frowned, shaking his head. "That's not what we wanted to hear."

"No, it isn't." Wanda glared.

"Get out!" Kathy rasped.

"Not without a little parting gift." Wanda smiled wickedly.

"I'm going to let your mind pick itself apart. Everything horrible thing you've done to someone, you're going to know what it's like. You're going to feel the pain you've caused. You'll be begging for mercy long before it's over. I hope it wrecks you."

Pietro watched as Wanda's finger tips swirled with red magic as she placed each of her hands on the forehead of Kathy and Kent.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Kid, what happened?" Tony panicked, pushing to himself into Peter's hiding spot. "Are you ok? You're covered in blood!"

Peter couldn't speak as Tony frantically checked him over for any serious wounds.

"Jesus, kid." Tony sighed. "You had us all worried."

"H-how did you...."

"I put a tracker in your bag." Tony answered, no longer guilty for his actions.

"You put a tracker in my bag?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Pete, I know the signs of avoidance better than anyone. It was written all over your face and body language. You had no intention of facing what was coming your way." Tony said, still studying Peter for injuries.

He knew the boy healed fast, but some wounds healed faster than others. Pepper and the twins would be furious if Peter was returned without care.

"I...I can't..."

"Come on kid, let's go get you cleaned up."

"No." Peter said, pushing further back from the billionaire. "I'm not going with you."

"Pete," Tony sighed. "You have three of the most powerful and influential people in the world focused on you right now, how far do you think you'll get?"

Peter frowned, looking down at the grass.

"They need to focus on someone else." he sniffed.

"And who would that be?"

"Anyone but me."

Tony narrowed his eyes as Peter still refused to look at him.

"Kid, they're not the only ones looking for you. Your little stunt, as I'm sure you know, wasn't unnoticed. The home called the police. Your description is out there and they're looking for you. Where do you plan on going?"

Peter felt the uncomfortable sting of tears in his eyes.

"I thought so." Tony frowned. "Come on kid, let us help you."

"You can't!" Peter yelled, pushing away further. "You can't help me and you shouldn't help me! You're wasting your time, all of you! You'll take me back and wish you hadn't! Just leave me alone and you'll be better off."

Tony watched as silent tears slid down the boy's dirty face. In all his years, he couldn't say a child's tears had ever affected him as much as Peter's did.

"You can't disappoint them, Peter."

"You don't know me."

It was true. Tony didn't really know Peter. Hell, he didn't really know Spider-Man all the well. Sure, he had worked with him enough to get a bit attached to his upbeat attitude, but these past few days had thrown all he knew out the window.

Spider-Man and Peter Parker were both the same person, and yet not. Peter had worked hard to give them a distinction. It was a little concerning.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Tony finally crossed, what he was positive was, the last line.

"Look, Peter. You're soulmates with Wanda and Pietro, and they love you already. Pepper was ready to adopt you the moment we learned about your situation. As soon as she does, and she will, that makes you my son and I protect what's mine. So, we can do this one of two ways."

Peter finally looked up at Tony's words, a feeling of dread creeping up his spine at the tone.

"One, you come with me willingly. Two.......I put you in a suit and take you back by force."

Peter froze.

He couldn't be serious.

A long look at Tony's face told him he was.

Peter's thoughts whirled inside him. He wanted to feel anger. Anger at Tony for tracking him. Anger at Tony for threatening him. Anger at Pepper wanting to adopt him.

Anger and Wanda and Pietro for being their soulmate.

He was supposed to age out of the foster system and be on his own. Never find his soulmate or mates.

Never hurt them.

Never cause them sorrow.

That's all Peter Parker was good for anyway.

There was only one choice.

Forgoing his bag, Peter darted out of his hiding place. He was small and fast. There was no way Tony would be able to catch him. He would just have to keep running until he couldn't anymore.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Wow. These are brutal." Clint winced as he looked over the crime scene photos of Peter's former fosters.

"They're some of the worst." Natasha nodded with a frown.

"The Matthews were pretty nasty." Steve frowned. "Maybe they were worse."

"Or maybe the Matthews just got lucky enough to be victims of a break-in instead of this guy." Clint replied, completely unphased by his mentioning of the strange event surround the Matthews.

"Should we look into them?" Steve asked, crossing his arms.

"Normally I'd say yes," Natasha shrugged. "But I could really care less at this point. Whatever they did, they paid for it. Looking into them won't change anything now."

"This guy is all over the city." Clint whistled. "I mean, the killings have no pattern to place. The only links are criminals and the fact they all happen at night."

"Does anyone know if Peter was looking into this?"

Natasha and Clint both paused.

"I mean, he's on the streets every night as Spider-Man. I can't see him ignoring it."

"He's not the only vigilante out there, though." Natasha replied, leaning back in her chair. "Maybe they all are."

"I know that look." Clint huffed. "Who's at the top of your list?"

"There was an attack in Hell's Kitchen not to long ago. I can't imagine the Devil of Hell's Kitchen isn't investigating."

"Does Spider-Man know him?"

Natasha shrugged at Steve's question.

"Spider-Man has been seen talking to him once or twice. Just how well they know each other is unclear."

"Why are we asking this again? I'm pretty sure local law enforcement doesn't want us 'intruding on their territory'." Clint scoffed.

"The Matthews are about to be involved in a high profile crime case." Steve said, looking up at the ceiling. "If the guy doesn't already know about them, he will soon."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tony sighed as Peter darted out the bushes. He had really hoped the kid would come along willingly.

"FRI, launch the suit."

Back at Tony's car, the emergency suit engaged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Peter had a brief ting of his Spider Sense before he found himself enclosed in, what he knew, was an Iron Man suit.

Tony hadn't been lying.

"Let me out!" he screamed, watching as the ground got further and further away.

"I'm afraid I can't do that, Peter." FRIDAY's calm voice filled his ears.

"Releasing you from the suit would cause you serious injuries from your fall."

"This is kidnapping!" Peter shouted, desperate to reason with the AI.

"Technically it's a rescue." Tony's voice came through the speakers. "You're a runaway kid. I'm rescuing you from the streets and possible danger."

"I didn't ask you to!"

"I'm going to anyway."

As he tried to decide if the risk of breaking out of the speeding suit was worth it, a thought struck him.

The voice of anger that had rose up in him, was silent.

The time the voice should have been the loudest, and there was nothing.

He didn't know what to think of it.

"Trust me kid. You may not think it now, but you're going to thank me later."

Peter didn't reply.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pepper snatched up her phone as it buzzed in the console.

Sam watched as she fumbled to turn it on to see the message.

/I've got him. I'm taking him to the compound. He's escaped from one home, he'll escape another./

A tear slipped down her cheek as she quickly sent a reply.

"Please tell me it's good news." Sam said, looking at her hopefully.

"Tony found him. He's taking him back to the compound."

"Well, I guess we should go alert the cops and the home."

Pepper nodded, putting the car in drive.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Incoming call from Boss.”

“Patch him through FRIDAY.” Steve replied.

“I have a special package in the way. Make sure you secure it when it gets there. I’m about 10 minutes behind it.”

“Package? You order us something special, Tony?” Clint smirked.

“If you consider the insecure, disgruntled, wonder twins teen soulmate ‘special’, then yes.”

“What do you mean ‘10 minutes behind’?” Natasha asked, raising an eyebrow at Clint and Steve.

“He’s in the suit. Kid tried to run again. Hence the ‘secure it’ warning.”

“You put the kid in a suit?” Steve groaned. “Tony...”

“No choice Cap. You'll see when why when he shows up. I'll be there shortly."

Steve pinched the bridge of his nose as the line went dead.

"Well, come on boys. Let's go greet our little Spider-Baby." Natasha smirked.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Peter felt his nerves spike as the compound came into view. He knew as soon the suit landed that would be it for anymore escape attempts.

He most likely wouldn't be allowed out of anyone's sight any time soon.

"Your vitals are concerning, Peter. If they continue in this fashion, I will have to alert Boss of your distress."

Distress!

Of course he was in distress!

This was the last thing he wanted. He wasn't supposed to come back to the compound. He wasn't ever supposed to see any of the Avengers again! Spider-Man was supposed to leave New York. Branch out somewhere new. Maybe even become an entirely new vigilante even!

It had been a small thought in his mind for a while. He loved being Spider-Man. It was the only good part about him anymore. Spider-Man was useful and, for the most part, people loved him.

Spider-Man was everything Peter Parker was not.

Spider-Man was also easy to track. If he left New York, word of him showing up somewhere else would spread quickly, and no doubt the Avengers would be on his doorstep before he could blink.

No, Spider-Man would have to take a break and let a new hero step in for a bit.

It was sad, but also ok. It didn't matter what suit he wore, he was still Spider-Man regardless.

That, however, was quickly becoming a distant option.

He would be trapped with the Avengers, with his soulmates. There would be no way to hide all the things wrong with him.

They would learn quickly that he just wasn't meant to be loved anymore. He lost that right when May died.

When May died, he learned he should have been left alone.

"Prepare for landing, Peter. I have alerted those at the compound of your condition since Boss hasn't arrived yet."

Tony wasn't there?

Peter wasn't sure why that bothered him. The man had only betrayed his trust over and over, there was no reason to care anything about him.

Immediately, Peter felt the guilt creep up on him.

This was exactly part of his problem. Tony had done what he had to, and Peter was being his normal, ungrateful self.

This was why he didn't deserve kindness. This was why when someone did show a hint of care, Peter knew they were wasting their time and would ultimately be disappointed in him.

There was a jolt as the suit landed and a brief moment before the pieces separated, revealing him to Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, and Clint Barton.

"Welcome back little spider." Natasha smiled

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wanda leaned against the car as she waited for Pietro to round up the security tapes. She felt confident in the knowledge that, when they awoke, Kent and Kathy Matthews would be screaming their guilt.

With any luck, they'd never spend another night without the nightmares of what they saw.

"Got them." Pietro grinned, holding up the tapes as he stopped next to her.

"Good." Wanda smirked. "Maybe we won't be in quite as much trouble."

"Oh, we'll definitely be in trouble. Still, if ends in them paying for what they've done, I'll gladly take whatever punishment we're given."

Wanda nodded in agreement as she pulled out the keys to the car.

"No way!" Pietro said, snatching them from her hand.

"You almost killed us on the way here. I'm driving back. I want to be able to see Peter again."

Wanda puffed out her cheeks in frustration.

"My driving is perfectly fine and I want to see Peter too!"

"Then get in the car. I'll deliver us safely back to the compound."

"Whatever." she huffed, grumpily getting into the passenger seat and crossing her arms.

[panharmonium]

why are you being like this?

people i’ve met - they’re not like you.  they don’t care.  i don’t matter.

don’t ever think that.  we all matter.

just some meandering thoughts on where the thematic center of merlin bbc lies for me, and how it weaves itself in and out of my fandom experience.

under a cut because this is a) sort of long and b) not really directed anywhere but my own brain, as i keep thinking about and creating for this show.

[as always, before i get rolling, a reminder: when i write about how i engage with this show, it’s just me talking about what gives me, personally, the most satisfaction or enjoyment, not the way i think everybody should do things.  if this isn’t your particular read, please feel free to scroll past.  i am not ever going to bother anybody for engaging with this show in their own way, so please don’t worry about it if we are not on the same page.]

that post about kilgharrah really got me feeling things.  

i struggle a lot with the sort of...non-nuanced ‘fuck kilgharrah/fuck gaius/fuck arthur/fuck whoever’ mode of engagement that i sometimes run across in fandom.  (and i’m not saying there’s anything intrinsically wrong with it; if you have the most fun engaging with the show in that way, please continue to have fun.  i’m just writing, on my own blog and in my own space, about what i personally do or don’t find compelling.)

i struggle with this mode for the same reason that i struggle with the whole ‘fuck yoda!’ narrative that pops up sometimes in tumblr’s star wars fandom.  because it’s not the narrative that the story is actually trying to create, and though this fact doesn’t mean you can’t twist things that way if it gives you more enjoyment, for me, there’s nothing about it that feels good.

writing fictional characters off like this, when the narrative is clearly not asking us to do so, feels...frustratingly false, and externally-imposed, as if characters are being evaluated based on the exacting standards of a universe in which they never lived, in a context where they were never intended to exist.  doing so requires you to willfully ignore what the story is actually trying to say, and it’s fine to go ahead and do that if you want, but for me it strips away so much of what makes the story meaningful.

bbc merlin’s core plotline is about believing in someone’s better nature.  the central storyline is that merlin commits himself to someone who doesn’t always give merlin reason to believe that this commitment is worth it, and yet still there’s always this hope and faith and belief that one day arthur will make it right.  

and this is presented as a worthy choice.  are there problems with it?  of course.  the show knows that, and it gives us places to think about that.  but even with this being the case, the ultimate message of the show is still never that this commitment was useless, worthless, or foolish.  the message of the show is that under the right conditions, people grow.  this show says that when we are given deep love, care, and companionship, we can change for the better.  it says that people, under the right conditions, can learn how to be better than they were before, and that everyone deserves the opportunity to grow into the person they were meant to be.

bbc merlin is not asking us to cancel any of its characters, ever.  that is never the show’s intention.  i won’t try to stop anybody from doing that, if that’s how they have more fun watching the show, but i am still going to contemplate, in my own space, how small that makes the story feel for me.

sometimes i see things like ...‘morgana/gwen/whoever is the only valid character in merlin bbc,’ and i just...first of all, neither of them are perfect, okay, and second of all, it doesn’t MATTER, because that has never been the point of the story.  this story is not asking us to rank characters on a scale of how righteous/unproblematic we think they are.  it’s asking us to CARE about the characters - ALL of the characters - and to root for them (yes, ALL of them), in the fullness of their imperfection.

when i explore the wider fandom, i typically bump up against one of two mindsets.  there’s the shipping mindset, where everybody loves arthur and he’s helplessly in love with merlin.  but i don’t want that mindset (because i don’t ship that pairing), so i look elsewhere.  but the other mindset is an attitude that dislikes arthur, full stop.  and i don’t want that either!

this ‘either/or’ divide is the opposite of what bbc merlin is asking us to do with its characters.  i criticize arthur all the time, but i still don’t think the story is asking me to reject him.  and i don’t WANT to reject him, either - why would i even watch this show, if i didn’t think it was important to see him become who he was meant to be, if i weren’t invested in his growth, if i didn’t ultimately believe in his possibility?  if i didn’t think the show was asking me to root for him - not uncritically, of course; the show is never asking me to do that - but with the core understanding that arthur is somebody worth caring about?

the same goes for morgana.  the show never asks us to write her off.  up until the very end, the show wants us to care about her.  the show wants us to root for her.  the show never asks us to forget that she and the other characters used to love each other; it never tells us to stop wanting morgana to get what she needs.  

gaius, too - the show never wants us to kick him to the curb.  it knows he’s not perfect.  he knows he’s not perfect.  he tells merlin, when talking about his own life, “there has, for the most part, been very little purpose to it.”  but the show doesn’t want us to fixate solely on his failures, or to dump him for his more cowardly moments.  the show wants us to know that he still has value.  it wants us to know that he is doing more good in the world now than he did before, which is all we can ask of a person, in the end.  it wants us to know that he cares, and that he is trying.

and kilgharrah - the show is never asking us to hate him, either!  yes, i get that it’s funny to joke about how “unhelpful” he is; i think that stuff is funny, too - but i also think it matters to understand that in canon, in the show, we are not meant to read kilgharrah as a malevolent figure.  we are not supposed to read him as a villain.  we are supposed to care about him.  we are supposed to understand that he, too, is working, ultimately, for the triumph of Good.  even though his version of this may feel convoluted to us, because kilgharrah isn’t human and can’t possibly be evaluated by human standards, we are supposed to understand that he, too, is trying.  we are supposed to be moved when merlin asks him, “what will i do without you?”

we are supposed to care about all of them.  we are supposed to find all of them worthy.  we are not supposed to evaluate them (and then discard them) according to inflexible, merciless, decontextualized standards imported from a non-merlin-bbc world.

and this doesn’t mean people aren’t still allowed to do that, if it’s fun for them, but for me, analyzing this show outside of its context doesn’t bring me any satisfaction.  we can go ahead and say things like ‘arthur should get his head chopped off’ and like, okay, that’s funny as a joke.  but as an actual analysis of the show - as a sincere interpretation of the story - it fails.  it’s devoid of all context.  we aren’t supposed to be evaluating this story from the perspective of ‘let’s overthrow the monarchy, kings should die, etc etc.’  the context of merlin bbc is that albion is waiting for a righteous monarch, and that this is a desirable, acceptable, correct thing, in the context of that world.  we are supposed to understand that arthur IS the once and future king, and that this IS a good thing, in this universe, and that the journey we are on here is one where he becomes worthy of his seat on the throne and then ushers in a time of peace and justice for all of albion’s people.

(and as i’ve said before - this is why the merlin bbc finale is so stunningly bad.  it’s not that the show subverts our expectations, it’s that it annihilates its own story, which it has been consistently telling for sixty-three episodes.)

that aside, though - this same overlooking of contextual nuance is the reason why i don’t connect to takes that consider ‘oh no, merlin kills people!’ to be evidence that he’s “changed,” “gone dark,” or “lost his soul.”  merlin does go through a dramatic (and tragic) change by the time we hit season 5, but what happens to him has nothing to do with the fact that he’s killed people.  the context of this show isn’t one where killing is a universal evil.  killing in battle or for the purpose of self-defense is not a morally problematic choice, in this world.  merlin, like everyone else in this show’s context, understands this, and killing a group of enemy soldiers to protect his own life is not something the show intends for us to interpret as an erosion of his humanity. 

what IS framed as an evil act, in the context of merlin bbc, is when someone chooses to kill despite the fact that mercy is an option.  if arthur had killed odin when he could have instead made peace with him, if arthur had executed annis’s champion or vivian’s father when he had already defeated them in single combat, if merlin had killed kilgharrah whilst having absolute power over him - those are morally bankrupt choices, in merlin bbc’s context.

we’re not supposed to see things like merlin killing agravaine as evil decisions.  in the context of the show’s world, killing agravaine is a necessary, morally uncomplicated act.  it isn’t something merlin wants to do, certainly, and he tries to avoid it, and he doesn’t strike back until agravaine tries to kill him first, but ultimately this moment is not supposed to be illustrative of merlin turning down a dark path.  it’s grim, sure, but in the context of the show - in the context of the era - it’s nothing more than the justified wages of aggression.  agravaine brings this fate down upon his own head.  merlin is not a pacifist, and neither he nor anyone else would expect himself to just stand there and let a group of enemy soldiers murder him when he could instead kill the soldiers and get away.  that’s nonsensical and utterly decontextualized.  it’s not an expectation that anyone in-story would have, nor a standard that merlin (or anyone else) would hold himself to.

all that aside, though -

the issue, for me, in summary, is just that i think sometimes we...evaluate this show in ways that it really isn’t meant to be interpreted, without considering the story’s context or thinking about what the story’s actual intent is.  and i think that these decontextualized interpretations are often less generous than what the show is actually trying to say to us, and that sometimes we write characters off when the show absolutely is not asking us to do that.  

and of course, nobody has to listen to what the show is trying to say if they don’t want to.  if it brings someone more enjoyment to pick one character to stan and say ‘the rest of these characters are Bad People and i’m not interested in them,’ then that’s fine!  whatever floats your boat.  

it just doesn’t float mine.

the point of this show, for me, is that everybody deserves a chance.  the point of this show is exactly what merlin says to daegal in the woods, even as daegal is leading merlin into a trap: we all matter.  the theme at the heart of this story is that it is possible to love someone who doesn’t deserve it, and that this can be a worthy choice, a transformative choice, a powerful choice - not necessarily a perfect choice, or even the right choice, maybe, for the person making it, but still a choice that holds value, a choice that creates something good in this world, even at cost.

listen to me, clotpole.  i don't care if you die, there are plenty of other princes.  you're not the only pompous, supercilious, condescending, royal imbecile i could work for; the world is full of them.  but I'm going to give you one more chance.

should merlin have done that?

we can debate that forever.  i am critical enough of arthur pendragon myself, when it comes to merlin’s well-being, and i could easily argue that no, merlin shouldn’t have given arthur as many chances as he did; he shouldn’t have stuck around; he shouldn’t have offered so much of his life to someone who continued to make arthur’s kind of mistakes.

but i think it matters to remember that in canon, thematically, the story’s answer to this question is yes.  mercy, in this story, is the most noble gift a person can bestow on someone else, and i think we are asked to bestow this same kind of mercy on the show’s characters, heroes and villains alike.  we aren’t ever told, in this show, that some of these characters “weren’t good enough” to deserve their chances.  we are told that in this world, compassion is always worthwhile.  love is never wasteful.  it is never foolish to care for people, even and especially when they aren’t yet their best selves.  giving someone a chance does matter.  choosing to care does make a difference, in the end.  

people don’t have to import these themes into their own personal analysis, by any means.  but i am still committed to remembering, in my own work, in my own space, that when we raise the question “was it worth it” in reference to whether these characters truly deserved to be loved, or trusted, or given a chance to grow - the story’s answer is unequivocally yes.

[ellewritesathing]

So Close - XXVIII

Summary: The universe has a funny way of putting the things you want right in front of you, but just out of reach. Stiles and Y/N have been best friends ever since Scott brought him home, but when Stiles realizes that he might want to be something other than best friends, she leaves to go to some fancy private school up North. Now that she’s back though … maybe he’s got a shot? A Teen Wolf AU in which the reader has always been so close to Stiles and yet so far.

Masterlist Prev. | Part 28

Word-count: 3.6k+

A/N: what a time guys!! this season was sad and stressful (and there’s still a bit to go) but i’m rooting for these dummies!!

Somewhere between eating all the candy in the vending machine and your phone dying, Stiles opened up to you about what happened at Eichen House. He started with being institutionalized and the kid hanging himself in the stairwell on his first day there and ended with watching Brunsky choke on his own blood in the basement a few hours ago. 

“Stiles, you know none of that is your fault, right?” you asked when you were sure he was done speaking. He didn’t answer so you moved out from under his arm to look at him, sitting up and holding his hand in your lap. “You couldn’t have saved that kid; you didn’t even know him. Brunksy was a sadist. I don’t even know if he’s worth saving. But-” 

“You think people can be too far gone to save?” he asked, not moving an inch from where he lay on the bed. He was watching the way you moved his hand in yours.

“I don’t know,” you said quietly, dropping your gaze to your hands as well. It was easier than looking at him when he was so sad. “But I do know that we saved Malia. And Lydia. And you. That’s worth it to me.” 

Stiles didn’t say anything else while the two of you waited for your mom to bring a tape player, and you weren’t sure if you had anything else to say. Another stilted, emotional conversation with no real ending. 

You were so wrapped up in your thoughts that you almost jumped out of your skin when Melissa opened the door and set down an old stereo on the table. “You would not believe how hard it is to track one of these things down nowadays,” she said with a sigh. “The good news is that we should have you in for that CT Scan in a few minutes, and then you can go home.” 

“That’s great, Mom. Thanks,” you smiled as you sat back up. 

“Yeah, really, thank you,” Stiles said, reaching over to put the stereo on the bed. 

Melissa gave you each a smile before heading out the door again. Once the door closed behind her, Stiles grabbed the tape he’d placed under the pillow and popped it into the stereo. 

“He used to make tapes whenever he killed people.” 

“To relive the kill,” you said. Stiles looked at you and you shrugged. “I watch Criminal Minds. You sure you want to listen to this again?” 

“I don’t really think we’ve got much of a choice,” he said, finger hovering over the play button. “You ready?” 

“Yes,” you lied. “Play it.” 

Lorraine’s voice was so certain as it drifted over the speakers. She knew she was going to die, and she knew Brunsky was going to kill her just like the rest of the patients. Your breath hitched. Lydia had to listen to her grandmother get murdered as the same man tried to murder her. It made you sick. 

Stiles had to go in for his scan before you could talk about it, but you stayed in his room and listened to the tape until he came back. Every time, you hoped it would end differently. That she wouldn’t ask him not to hurt Lydia. That you’d figure something out. It ended the same each time. 

“Your mom has, against her better judgment, cleared me to go home,” Stiles said as he leaned back in the room. “She said it was important that I tell you the judgment part. You ready to go?” 

“Yeah, I just-” you sighed and shut off the stereo. “Remember how you said you don’t think they were at Eichen House on the tape?” 

“Yeah, Brunsky said ‘taking you back to Eichen House.’ Plus, there weren’t any echoes.”

“Right, exactly. So where would she have been, completely alone?” 

“Not at home, not with the Martins.” 

“I think she was at the lakehouse,” you said, looking back up at him. “It’s the only place that makes sense. Everything with her leads back there.” 

“Then let’s go to the lake house.”

The drive to the lake house was arguably the fastest and most erratic twenty minutes of your life, excluding the five extra minutes to pick up Malia because ‘even though she’s still mad at Stiles, she wants to help.’ Stiles used his copy of Lydia’s key to get in but you froze in the threshold. Whatever you were going to find in there, even if you found nothing at all, was going to change things again. After some encouragement, you let Stiles take your hand and lead you to the study. 

It felt wrong to be in there without Lydia, like you were trying on someone’s clothes without their permission, but you knew you had to do it. Stiles sat down and played the record player while you analyzed everything in the room. How many weekends had you spent here with Lydia doing this exact thing? 

“What are we even doing here?” Stiles sighed as he got to his feet and shut off the record player. He was frustrated. After half an hour of nothing but needle scratching, you were frustrated too. “This room wasn’t made for people like us. No, we need someone like Lydia or Meredith. We’re just sitting here listening to a stupid record player play a record that doesn’t play anything!”

“Try saying that five times fast,” you said, holding up your hands for him to help you to your feet. You let out a breath as you landed a few inches in front of him. “There’s gotta be something here, Stiles.” 

“Then let’s try somewhere else in this stupid-” 

“Guys?” Malia asked. She was still cross-legged in front of the record player and she looked confused. “I can still hear it.”

“It’s not on,” Stiles said, still frustrated. 

“Then it’s something else,” Malia insisted. She got to her feet as you and Stiles walked back over to her. “Something’s spinning.” 

Stiles took a step closer and started feeling around the record player. He found the spot where its cord connected to the wall, moved the record player out of the way, and started pulling. It broke through the plaster. 

You dropped next to him and put your hand on his to stop him. “Stiles! Lydia said not to damage the house, remember? Not a scratch.” 

“We have to find whatever’s still spinning,” he said, keeping his voice level. “Trust me. I can do this.” 

Reluctantly, you got back to your feet and stood next to Malia as he pulled the cord out of the wall in a long, jagged line. He looked back over at you and you shrugged. The wall was already ruined, what did it matter if the three of you tore the rest of the drywall off? Once the hole was big enough, you saw three long towers spinning in front of you, and if you listened close enough you could fool yourself into thinking you heard them. 

“What is this?” Malia asked. 

“The deadpool,” Stiles answered. 

She didn’t wait for either of you to say anything else before she tried to put her fist through one of the towers. Stiles scrambled to grab her arm and you grabbed her by the waist to pull her back. 

“No, no!” Stiles huffed. Once he was sure you were holding her, he added, “You can’t just smash it to pieces, okay? If this thing’s being used to disseminate the list, then it’s probably gonna keep going until everyone’s dead.”

“Then what do we do?” Malia asked. It was like she and Stiles had swapped moods; she was frustrated and he was doing his best.

You sighed and let go of her. “We figure out how to turn it off. Each part of the list needed a key, right? So maybe we just need to find the key for the towers.”

“Like a physical key?” Stiles asked. 

Malia stepped forward and you reached out to grab her again but she held a hand out as a signal to stop. You fell back and she reached her other hand up to point to the top of the tower; a physical lock to switch them on and off sat at the tip of her finger. “Yeah, like a physical key.” 

“Okay, Stiles, you call Lydia. Malia, you wanna help me look?” you asked. 

You and Malia started going through the drawers while Lydia asked about the monitor for the computers and Stiles kept repeating that there wasn’t anything other than the towers. Then she asked to see the floor and you and Malia looked at one another before closing the cabinets and walking over to Stiles. 

“Where’s the stain?” Lydia asked. “There should be red blotches. A wine stain.”

“There’s nothing there, Lyd,” you said. 

“That doesn’t make any sense,” she mumbled. She used the cleaner money to bribe Brunsky, so there should have been a big, red stain on the carpet where there was nothing but white. 

“What the hell does wine have to do with anything?” Stiles snapped. 

“Red wine doesn’t just disappear,” Lydia said. It sounded like she was pretty tired and frustrated too. Then she sparked. “Unless it wasn’t wine.” 

“So what the hell else would it be?” Stiles asked.

“The ashes weren’t ashes. The study isn’t a study. And the record player isn’t a record player! So … so maybe the wine wasn’t wine,” Lydia said. “Stiles, you have to find the wine. Find the bottle. There could be something about it.” 

Stiles started bolting to the kitchen, Lydia telling him what to look for over the phone, and you took a breath. Rubbing your temples, you looked at Malia, who looked equal parts annoyed and confused. Just like in geometry.

“You know, I’m really glad you’re here,” you said with a smile. 

She frowned for a second before nodding. “Me too.” 

When Stiles came back, he was rattling the bottle in one hand and holding the phone in his other. “I think there’s something inside. Do you have, like, a wine opener or-” 

Malia reached across you and took the bottle out of his hands. She threw it on the ground and you knelt next to her to help sift through the pieces as Stiles tried to calm Lydia down. Everything went quiet when you held up a key. 

Taking it from your hand, Stiles went over and put it in the tower. He looked over and you nodded before he turned the key. You held your breath as the lights on the towers started going out and the plates stopped spinning. 

“Is it over?” Malia asked. 

“I think so.” 

---

The next few days were a blissful kind of foggy where no one was trying to kill your friends. The lack of a visible threat didn’t mean any of you were less on edge, but it meant that you finally had time for other things. Things like school, planning a first date, lacrosse, and (for some of you) sleeping in and missing lacrosse. 

“Stiles,” you said for the tenth time, rubbing his arm lightly. You hated having to wake him up when he got as little sleep as he did. “Stiles, babe, you’ve gotta wake up. Coach is gonna kill you if you’re late for another morning practice.” 

Nothing. 

“Okay, you know what, I’m just gonna ask Noah to drop me off on his way to the station.” You stood up and did your best not to look at his cute, tired face as he frowned up at you. “I’ll just stay at my house and see you at lunch from now-”

Stiles grabbed your wrist and laughed. “Hey, wait, I’m up, okay? I’m up.” He pulled you back onto the bed and curled around you. 

“Mm, you sure?” you asked as he yawned, rubbing his head against your arm. 

“Maybe in like five more minutes?” 

You laughed and twisted around to cup his face before pressing a kiss to his forehead. “Get up. We’re gonna be late.” 

“You’re cute when you’re bossy,” he mumbled, a lazy smile on his face. Your heart swelled at the sight of it. He was happy.

“Okay, five more minutes.” 

Stiles cheered and pulled you back into him, the two of you laughing and holding each other for a little longer than five minutes. 

---

Even though the whole pack was taking advantage of the lull of supernatural activity, you and Stiles were taking your fair share and more. The two of you were finally going on your first real date. To differentiate between this dinner and the countless others you’d had together, Lydia picked out your outfit, Stiles chose the restaurant, and you were driving.

He didn’t tell you anything about where you were going except that it was fancy, so you begrudgingly wore the heels Lydia lent you. Wobbling up the walk to the Stilinski household, you reminded yourself that this was Stiles. Goofy Stiles that you’d had a crush on since before you knew how to write. You had no reason to be so nervous, but the butterflies in your stomach didn’t listen to reason. 

“Hey, Y/N.” Noah greeted you with a warm smile as he opened the door. “Stiles is upstairs, so you can either go get him or help me sort through a week’s worth mail.”

“As tempting as expired coupons sound, I think I’ll go see what’s taking him so long,” you laughed and kissed Noah’s cheek before carefully making your way up the stairs. All you needed was for this night to end with you in the emergency room for a twisted ankle. 

But, thankfully, you made it up in one piece. 

Stiles’ door was slightly open and your gentle knocking pushed it all the way. He was standing in front of the mirror, earbuds in and music blaring as he struggled his way through knotting a tie. He wasn’t tying it, because that required some sort of calmness and focus. He was haphazardly throwing the ends into loops and through each other, and getting increasingly frustrated at the turnout. 

He noticed you when you were halfway across the room, but he didn’t say anything until you were right next to him and taking out his earbuds. 

“Wow, you look … like, really pretty. Like way out of my league. Are you wearing heels? Damn, McCall, you really-”

Blushing slightly, you laughed and looked down at the earbuds you were wrapping up. “So I’m guessing that means I’m not overdressed for wherever we’re going?”

“No. No, you’ll fit right in,” Stiles said as he took a breath. He was still staring at you when you looked back up at him. “Me, on the other hand. They’ll never let me in unless I get this damn tie to work.” 

“Do you even know how to tie one of these?” 

“Well, no. Never stopped me before.” 

You laughed and started unknotting the tie. “Lucky for you, I used to have to wear one of these bad boys every day for school.” You moved behind him, reaching your arms under his and up to where the ends of the tie dangled. You were more than a little out of practice, but Stiles didn’t seem to mind how slowly you worked. Tightening the knot to his neck, you reached over and kissed the back of his cheek before resting your head on his shoulder. “There, perfect.” 

“I think so, too,” Stiles said in a low voice. He was looking at you in the mirror and you felt yourself blush again. Damn cheesy lines.

Luckily (or unluckily), you didn’t have time to respond because Noah rapped on the door and burst in. You took a huge step back but stumbled because of the heels as he said, “Drop what you’re doing.” Stiles caught your arm before you could fall as Noah continued, “I’m taking you both out to dinner. Whatever you want.” 

Stiles looked over at you for a second before saying, “Dad, I’m not sure a man of your debts should be treating anyone to anything. Plus, I don’t think our first date should be chaperoned.”

“Your first-” Noah blinked and looked at the two of you, realization slowly spreading across his face. “Oh. Well, uh, then forget about that but you can take my card for your, um, first date.” 

Stiles was already walking towards his dad and arguing, but Noah held out a letter and waited for him to read it. “What is that?” Stiles asked as he tore it open.

“A letter of apology from Eichen House,” Noah said. “Apparently, they’ve decided to forgive our debt due to, uh, well, you and Lydia almost getting murdered.” 

“I have never been so happy to have almost been murdered!” Stiles grinned after reading the letter. He tossed the letter to the side and pulled his dad into a hug.

“Well, we’re not out of it yet, but we’re going to be okay,” Noah said with a smile as he patted Stiles’ back. “So at least for the moment, I can treat my son and his girlfriend to a real, unchaperoned dinner, alright?” 

“Alright-” 

“No way,” you said. They both looked at you like they’d forgotten you were there. Walking carefully closer you continued, “There is no way that we’re celebrating this without you. Stiles and I can go for dinner next week, right, babe?” 

“Uh, yeah,” Stiles said. “I can just cancel the reservation, I guess.” 

“Great, so where do you wanna go, Sheriff?” you asked with a smile on your face as you turned to Noah. 

“Oh, no, I’ve already messed with your night as it is. You can pick wherever you want to go,” Noah said, raising his hands up in surrender. 

“We could go to the diner,” you suggested. “Remember? The one you used to take us to when we were little. Stiles lost his tooth there and Scott got his head stuck in the-” 

“Those incidents were completely unrelated!” Stiles talked over you and you collapsed into a fit of laughter at how upset he got. “Man, that kid had big ears. When did he stop getting his head stuck in things?” 

“Around 12 maybe?”

“You guys remember that?” Noah laughed. He shook his head as you and Stiles launched into stories about getting milkshakes before the spring formal there and Scott having way too many minor accidents at the diner. 

“Wait, wait, wait. Aren’t you two a little overdressed for a diner?” Noah asked. “I don’t know, maybe you should kids should just-” 

“I’ve got a pair of Y/N’s sneakers right there that she could change into.” Stiles pointed to the huge pile of shoes next to his desk. “I can put on some jeans and a t-shirt and we’re good to go.” 

“You two are sure about this? You want an old man crashing your date?” Noah asked. 

You and Stiles looked at one another, hands interlacing and smiling. A family dinner sounded like what you needed. Your date could wait a few more days.

“Yeah, we’re sure,” you said. “But I can still drive? Because I almost never get to drive.”

---

The excitement of not having anyone trying to kill you didn’t last long. While you and Stiles were prepping for the big game, Scott and Kira went MIA. You knew it was their big date and all, but they weren’t answering calls or texts. Perfect timing, really, because it was the night before the full moon and you were playing against Davenport Prep. 

About halfway into the game, you and Stiles ditched to go find them. He wouldn’t let you say goodbye to Liam because he didn’t want him to have to worry about anything else, and Malia agreed to stay and keep an on him for you. She promised to call if Scott and Kira showed up. 

When you, Noah, and Stiles got to Derek’s loft you found it trashed. Lightbulbs were hanging all over the ceiling - some blown out, some broken, and very few actually working - and almost all of the furniture was broken. Braeden was picking up pieces as Derek assessed the damage. 

“Okay, what the hell happened here?” you asked, folding your arms over your chest. 

“It was supposed to be a date,” Derek said. 

“So they were both here?” Noah asked. 

“And now they’re both gone,” Braeden finished. 

Stiles’ phone vibrated and he dug it out of his pockets to answer the call. “Hey … Yeah, Scott and Kira. We just don’t know where … Mexico? Why the hell would they- okay, okay, I know that- Okay, goodb- Bye, Lydia!” He hung up in a huff and turned back to the group. 

“So they’re in Mexico? Like the same Mexico with werewolf hunters and berserkers?” you asked. 

“I think Scott’s got bigger problems than them,” Derek sighed. “Where the berserkers are, Kate is.” 

“Okay, I know this isn’t what any of you want to hear, but we can’t just rush into this,” Noah said. “Why don’t I take these two home and we regroup in the morning to come up with a plan?” 

“Because Scott’s been kidnapped by a psychotic were-jaguar! We don’t have time to sleep and regroup,” you snapped and started pacing. What did Kate want with your brother? She could have killed him a long time ago. She wanted him alive when you ‘killed’ him to draw out the benefactor. No, no she didn’t want him alive, she wanted his body.

“I’ll take her home,” Derek said from behind you. You stopped pacing to look at him. You didn’t know he still cared. 

“Thanks, but she actually has a curfew, so we’ll take her-” 

“Stiles, it’s okay,” you said with a small smile. “Derek can take me. We’ll regroup in the morning, okay?” 

Stiles looked at you like he was unsure again. He didn’t understand the relationship you had with Derek. He didn’t know why you could go from being ready to storm across the border one second to willing to wait until morning the next. But he trusted you. 

“Okay,” he said. “We’ll regroup in the morning.”

Part 29

[hookedontaronfics]

Honky Dancer - Chapter 9

Chapter title: Recovery and Reconciliation Read the previous installments here: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3  | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 Rating: M Pairing: Taron x OC Warnings: Mentions of an eating disorder, medical drama, subtle mentions of sex A/N: I know you all have been waiting to know the outcome of what happened after the cliffhanger I left with you last chapter. I truly apologize it took me so long to put this together, and I hope it lives up to all of your expectations. There’s not a lot of action in this, but there are a lot of emotions, so I hope you hang on for the ride. When things get dark, the people we love truly are the lights we keep fighting for. Always remember to be someone else’s light; it may save their life. X

Soft sheets, but not soft enough. Maybe the industrial-produced kind. A quiet whooshing noise. Dim light. The smell of antiseptic hanging heavy in the dry, static-filled air. When I first assumed consciousness, it hurt to open my eyes, so these were my first impressions of the world around me, from what I could sense. But while I could try to analyze the stimuli around me, I had very little sensation coming from my own body, and that concerned me more than anything. Of course, I was probably on strong painkillers, but the absence of pain made me feel no longer grounded. Instead, I just felt drained and lethargic, like it would take far too much effort to even lift my arm.

Where was I? What had happened? I fought through the mental fog clouding my thoughts as I tried to remember. We were filming, on set, of that I was certain. Flashes of dancing played behind my still-closed eyelids. I remembered how hot it felt that day, the shimmers of heat bending the air. I didn’t feel well, but I’d pushed through like the stubborn fool I was. I had… fainted? Collapsed? Given up? I wasn’t sure entirely, but now here I was, prone in a hospital bed and not sure what was going to happen next.

I groaned slightly and felt the need to move suddenly, shifting uncomfortably, slowly becoming more aware of the weight of tubes and wires snaking across my body. A low moan escaped me and then a voice asked “Juliette?”

I instantly popped my eyes open, the room a wash of white. I knew that voice, of course, but it wasn’t the one I’d been hoping to hear. “How are you feeling?” Markus asked concernedly.

“I’m stuck in a hospital bed, Markus. How do you think I feel? Like shit,” I said bitterly.

“Of course. Dumb question,” he said, not even blinking at my tone.

“Why are you even here?” I asked, staring at some point on the wall above his head. “And where is Taron?” I asked softly, despite myself.

“Your lover has been here already, but he couldn’t stay. He had obligations beyond you. He brought your phone and purse, they’re over there,” Markus sighed, running a hand through his hair. “But what happened to you, it concerns me too,” he said, not unkindly.

“Concerns you? Like you give a rat’s arse about me,” I said, angry at him, and angry at myself too. Angry at the world, really, but for what I couldn’t even define.

“It...affects me. Alright? I had a fucking personal stake in this whether I wanted it or not,” he said, his voice a bit choked up.

“What are you going on about, Markus?” I asked.

“The baby. Our baby. You … lost it,” he said, and I instantly felt my blood run cold.

“What?” I asked, struggling to sit up. 

“When they brought you to the hospital, you were dehydrated, and malnourished, and miscarrying. You lost the baby.”

No, no, it couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be real. I was still pregnant, I had to be.

“You didn’t take care of yourself, so you caused this. You killed our child,” he continued, his words turning sharp, ruthless, cutting deep. The pain that blossomed through me, no drug could touch.

“No,” I whispered, horrified at this new reality. A reality I wished I hadn’t woken up to. I felt sick to my stomach, hitting the call button for the nurse, certain I was going to puke in my own lap. The tears threatened at the corners of my eyes, but I refused to cry in front of Markus. He didn’t deserve my tears.

“You didn’t even care. You wanted me to get an abortion. How is this different? Why are you using this to hurt me?” I said, gasping for air, feeling like my lungs were seizing up in my chest.

“Oh, Juliette, it’s just simply what you deserve,” he said, those steely eyes of his as closed off as a mask. He delighted in my pain, a pain I couldn’t escape. I slowly smoothed my hands over my stomach, my hip bones protruding prominently, feeling empty in a way I had never known, not even in my darkest moments before.

“No,” I said again, feeling the grief compounding in my chest. I hadn’t known I was pregnant for very long, but that didn’t matter. The bond had been instant, the hope for this baby immense. I was its mother and now I had nothing - I would never hear its cry, I would never be able to nurse it, I would never sing it lullabies in the 3 a.m. dusk. There wouldn’t be belly laughs and first words, rounds of patty-cake and jars of baby food. There wouldn’t be tiny fingers and tiny toes to kiss, the sweet smell of milk breath, the discovery of new things. And I wouldn’t be able to experience those moments with Taron either. I felt a pang so deeply in my soul for him, an ache, a longing for him just to hold me in that moment. But there was distance between us now, and I didn’t know how he would respond to all of this either.

A nurse with a kind face and brown hair pulled tight in a ponytail swept into the room after knocking. “Glad to see you’re awake,” she smiled brightly at me, but I couldn’t return it. She seemed to notice my distress right away. “Oh honey, let’s make sure you’re more comfortable,” she said, checking all of the med levels on the IV machine before checking my vitals and sitting with me as I fought off the urge to puke, clutching a bucket to my chest. Markus was silent through all of this, scrolling through his phone like he hadn’t just caused me this torment.

“I’ll see if I can get the doctor in here shortly to talk to you. You’ve had a rough go of it but we’re going to get you back to normal, sweetie, I promise,” the nurse said kindly. While I tried to appreciate her kindness to me, it was hard to pull myself out of the depressive pit I was sinking into. I could feel the wave of hopelessness clutching at the edges of my psyche.

“Markus, could you leave me alone for a while? I need to rest,” I made sure to say in front of the nurse, hoping this would mean he’d have no choice but to leave.

“I can sit right here while you sleep,” he said, almost smugly, but that just made the panic rise in my chest. I could not be left alone with this man again.

“No, please, just go,” I said, clutching hard at the blankets.

“Perhaps it would be best if we give Juliette some space,” the nurse said, reading my distress and emphasizing the last word. She stood up and looked expectantly at Markus, who sighed and stood up himself after a beat of awkward silence, shoving his hands deep in his pockets.

“Good luck with everything,“ was all he said before striding out, and I felt both relief and also more alone than ever.

“Do we need to put a security alert out for him?” the nurse asked sympathetically, but I shook my head.

“Not necessary. He won’t be back. He’s my ex and, it ended painfully,” I said, wiping at my eyes quickly.

“He doesn’t seem like a very kind man,” the nurse observed. “You’re better off without him, honey.” After promising, again, to get a doctor in to visit me as quickly as she could and making sure I was otherwise comfortable, she left me with my thoughts, which were veering toward a dangerous place.

I finally had the space to let out the tears, crying so hard I knew I was leaving snot all over my pillow, but I didn’t have the capacity to care at the moment. Fat, hot tears rolled down my cheeks, unbidden, though I tried to keep the sobs that wracked my body as silent as possible. I could now place a finger on that empty feeling in my body; I was no longer pregnant, and I couldn’t hide from that harsh truth. The abyss of pain yawned wide in my chest, beckoning me into its darkness. I didn’t feel I had much to live for, and maybe non-existence would be better than this pain.

But then there was Taron, and if I had anything to keep fighting for, it was him. I couldn’t leave things the way they had been. I couldn’t allow my mess of a life to ruin his. This wasn’t how things should be. I sniffled slightly, trying to calm myself down. I’d spent my tears already, and now my head was throbbing and my chest hurt and my nose was congested, and I really didn’t feel any better. I saw a box of tissues on the nearby bedside table and grabbed one, wiping away my tears, my fingers brushing against a tube taped to the side of my face. I followed it to my nose, and realized, with a sickening shock, that I had been fitted with a nasogastric feeding tube; they were forcing nutrients into my starved body, and for some reason that made me angry. Who’s right was it to decide that?

But, rationally, that’s what had landed me in the hospital in the first place. That’s what had cost me my baby in the first place. They were trying to save my life, but was it worth it? That question would haunt me for a while.

I managed to doze off for a bit, exhausted by my emotions and my depleted body, but my sleep was restless, my dreams troubled. I woke to a very different presence in the room. “Taron.” I could barely make my voice work, tears pricking at the corners of my eyes already just to see him there.

He looked tired - no, exhausted, his hair a mess, probably stuck under a bald cap and wig all day, but there was only concern in his expression. Concern for me, but I’m not sure I deserved it. “Hey, I’m here now,” he said softly, reaching over and gently taking my hand in his, careful of the IV lines.

“Are you sure that you want to be?” I asked hesitantly, and Taron’s brow wrinkled like I was being ridiculous.

“Of course, why would I be anywhere else?” he asked softly, sweetly brushing my hair out of my face, his fingers coming to rest under my chin. “Seeing you fall put some things in perspective. I don’t want to hold onto my anger any more. So those things that happened before, they don’t matter to me.”

“But they should, Taron. They should. I lied to you, about a lot of things. I was scared, yes, but that doesn’t excuse it,” I replied weakly.

“And I’ve forgiven you, and it’s as simple as that. People say they forgive each other all the time but it’s not real if you still hold a grudge, if you still hold it against them. Real forgiveness takes trust and courage. All I know is that losing you isn’t an option for me. So first, we focus on your recovery. Then, we can work on the rest of it. Okay?” he said gently. I found it hard to meet his beautiful peridot gaze.

“But… You shouldn’t be with a baby killer, you’re too good for that,” I said resentfully.

“What?” he asked, genuinely confused.

“I lost the baby. Markus said it was all my fault,” I whispered.

“Markus doesn’t know shit,” Taron replied instantly. “We both know he’s an idiot, and he doesn’t know the situation at all, so don’t you dare believe a word he says. I spoke with the doctor myself. The baby had a genetic defect, Juliette. It was never going to survive. Maybe the malnourishment contributed to this all happening at the same time, but love, it wasn’t meant to survive. You didn’t do this, okay? It’s sad, and it’s awful, and we’re going to mourn it, but please don’t take on that guilt as yours. It’s not,” he whispered, his eyes growing watery too. He paused to wipe quickly at his eyes. “I had hopes for this too, you know. I was excited for what could be, for us. I’m not going to let you feel alone in this. The baby is gone, yes, but you are still here, and you are what I have to focus on. I need you to get better.”

“I just don’t know if I can,” I said, closing my eyes and sighing heavily.

“What, get better?” he asked, knitting his brows together again.

“Move forward. I’m not strong enough. I’m not sure I deserve anything more.”

“Hey,” he said, “that’s not true. You’re one of the strongest people I know, next to maybe my mam,” he added with a cute laugh. “I’m sure right now it doesn’t feel that way, but I know you. I see you. It’s going to take time and it’s going to take as many steps back as you take forward, but you can move forward, and you do deserve to be happy again. It’s painful now, yes, but not impossible. You have so much to look forward to still. You have me.”

I opened my eyes again and gazed at him for a moment, feelings tumbling and crashing through me, the depression and grief clashing with the hope and love I felt for Taron. That was definitely something I think we took for granted in life; that emotions weren’t simple, black or white. They didn’t come to us one at a time, perfectly lined up so we could deal with each one in its time. No, life was much more complex than that, and oftentimes we were battered in a sea of emotion, in a constant battle of contradiction. How did anyone ever figure themselves out?

“One day at a time, Juliette. I just need you to fight for you right now,” he continued after watching me wrestle with my inner turmoil.

I nodded and closed my eyes again. “Just so tired,” I murmured softly.

“You should sleep. I’ll be right here,” he said, pulling the blankets up around me again. I couldn’t help but smile over his tenderness, something he still wished to bestow upon me despite everything we’d been through. I felt myself slowly sliding toward sleep again, and gratefully surrendered. 

I wasn’t asleep for long, though, as a doctor arrived finally to advise me of my condition. He explained some of the obvious, corroborating what Taron had told me about my miscarriage, and also some of the less obvious problems, the dehydration and malnutrition that had caused my collapse and an acute kidney infection resulting from it, which I was now on heavy antibiotics for, and a concussion from hitting my head on the concrete road. My bloodwork levels were incredibly out of sync, and my body had been crashing hard when they rushed me into the ER, which was likely why I felt like shit now, lethargic and headachey and exhausted. I was also assigned a therapist, whom I was going to have to have consultations with over acute anorexia nervosa and depression. In other words, I was a complete and utter mess.

But somehow even worse than all of that was the fact that I’d managed to sprain my ankle too when I’d fallen. My leg was bound in a heavy plastic boot, which I discovered when I hastily yanked the covers back. I gasped and shook my head in disbelief; this directly threatened my livelihood and I didn’t know how I was going to cope.

I tried to not have a meltdown in front of the doctor and nurse and Taron, but I could feel it clawing at my brain. I grabbed my phone to try and distract myself, surprised by the many text messages from other dancers and my friends who knew what had happened, at least. I tried to respond to those as best I could after the doctor and nurse had excused themselves. I had several voice messages from Zayn and my mother, and I realized I needed to let them know I was going to be okay. The production, of course, had already contacted them, as was protocol in an emergency situation. But to hear from me would probably be good.

Just as I was dialing my mum’s number, though, a knock came on the door and she popped her head in. “Mum!” I nearly cried, struggling to sit up and nearly getting knocked back into the pillows by her embrace.

“Juliette, my darling, darling girl,” she said into my hair, running her fingers through it before holding me out at arms length and looking at me. “Don’t you ever, ever do that to me again. You scared me half to death. I had no idea you were so sick,” she said, tears running down her face. “Why didn’t you talk to me, honey? I could have helped you, I could have…” she said, her words cut off by her sobs.

“Oh god, mum,” I said, also tearing up and trying to hug her again. “Mum, I’m fine. I’m going to be okay. I promise,” I said, my voice breaking slightly.

“I know, honey. But I feel like I should have seen it. I should have noticed you were hurting,” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed, careful of my leg, which was resting on a pillow now.

“Mum, I hid it from everyone that ever loved me. I’m still sick, you know... in here,” I said, pointing at my head. “But I have people in my life worth fighting for, and I know that. Clara, you … Taron…” I smiled over at him, caught up in the emotion I saw there in his face. “It’ll be alright,” I whispered softly, finally laying back into the pillows, already worn out but happy to have my mum there.

We talked quietly for a while, and I’m pretty sure I went in and out of sleep, at least until the nurse came back to check my vitals and suggested I should eat something. I had no desire to eat but knew this was a major test I needed to get over if I was ever to get this damnable tube out of my nose. So I would have to pretend until it was no longer pretend, until my brain didn’t see food as the enemy. I ordered something off the menu that sounded remotely palatable, but when it arrived even the smell made me want to throw up.

Still, with my mum and Taron there to support me, I picked up the applesauce and slowly peeled back the lid. “You can do this, Juliette. You need to do this,” Taron said, watching me carefully, a supportive hand on my knee. My hand shook slightly as I picked up the spoon and dipped it into the applesauce, staring at it for probably uncomfortably long before finally putting the bite of applesauce in my mouth. It tasted okay, and my stomach even gave a small rumble, realizing, even if my brain didn’t, that I hadn’t eaten in over 24 hours.

I managed to swallow that first bite, and then it was like something inside my brain snapped, and I wolfed down the rest of the applesauce without another thought. I was hungry, absolutely starving, and no matter how much I worried about calories and being fat, I couldn’t deny the almost-nauseous pain in my stomach any longer. Soon after that applesauce, I dug into the other food on the tray, eating greedily and not seeing the looks my mum and Taron were exchanging, words being said without a voice.

“I need to pee,” I finally spoke up, pushing the food tray away from me.

“I’ll call the nurse,” my mum said, reaching for the button.

“No, I’ve got it,” I grumbled slightly, peeling off the covers and awkwardly swinging my legs over the side of the bed.

“I think we should get some help, babe,” Taron said hesitantly, instantly going to support me, as I was a bit precarious on the edge of the bed. A wave of dizziness passed over me, likely a result of my concussion, but I wasn’t willing to let that win.

“I have to try,” I said, gripping the bed railing tightly and slowly lowering my feet to the ground, the boot making a clunk on the cold tiled floor. I winced slightly, aware that my ass, clad in a massive pair of mesh granny panties to absorb the blood from my miscarriage, was open to the world in the starchy hospital gown, but my bladder was insistent. My mum carefully unplugged the IV from the wall so we could wheel the tower into the bathroom, and I carefully shifted my weight into my feet. Despite the support the boot gave, a sharp crack of pain ran up my leg, making me cry out and reach for whatever was nearby; thankfully, that was Taron, and he kept me from falling to the floor.

“I think we should have waited for help,” he said, as he clutched me tightly to his chest, helping me hobble to the bathroom before I had an accident on the floor. I had to admit he was probably right, as I sat there on the toilet, groaning silently as I relieved myself. Taron leaned in the doorway, his soft, caring, gentle eyes taking me in. He wanted to fix this all for me, I knew, but he couldn’t.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do, if I can’t dance,” I whispered softly, blinking in the harsh fluorescent light of the bathroom. “I’ll lose Rocketman, and my classes at the Academy, and then what am I? I’ve defined my life by dance.”

“I think right now is not the time to worry about the what ifs to come. You have a road of recovery ahead of you, and you are more important than any career. Besides that, most of the major dance numbers are already done, and you if you focus all of your energy on getting better, maybe you’ll be back in time for Bennie. But regardless of that, the most important thing is you right now. Your career can, and will, wait for you. You’re more than just a dancer to me, you know,” he said with a small smile. “You’re my girl, and I love you.”

His words hit me straight in the chest, and I cried for what felt like the 80th time that day. There I was, sobbing into a wad of tissue paper, goosebumps on my arms because it was cold, propped on the toilet and losing it over everything; it was not my finest moment, but no one was there to make me feel guilty over it either.

My mum had ended up calling the nurse, and she’d brought some crutches for me too, because I wasn’t supposed to put any weight on my leg for a while. After I managed to get myself sorted out, I hobbled back to the bed, and gratefully crawled in, exhausted by even just going to the bathroom. I really had done myself in, and it saddened me. I didn’t want to need help doing even basic things; I wanted to tell myself to get over it, to stop being so weak, but my body didn’t have a choice. I’d abused it, and now I was paying the price.

My head had started to throb by now, and my body ached everywhere. I was due for more painkillers, though, so the nurse changed out my IV bags so I could rest a little easier. She suggested my company give me time to rest, but I didn’t want Taron or my mum to leave just yet.

I asked after Troy, but my mom reassured me that my dog was with Madison and would be just fine. She had also contacted the Academy to let them know of my situation, and they had been nothing but concerned and understanding, which gave me a little bit of relief. Another knock on the door turned out to be Zayn, holding a bouquet of flowers, and Clara, who instantly ran over to me and launched herself into the bed. “Mummy!” she squealed as she flounced down beside me.

“Clara, be careful!” my mum chided, but I was happy to pull my daughter into my arms and hug her tightly.

“Oh, my Clara Bean,” I said, kissing her on the top of her head and smelling the sweet fragrance of the strawberry shampoo still lingering in her hair.

“We came as soon as we could,” Zayn said, setting the vase on the bedside table and kissing me lightly on the forehead.

“Thank you, those are beautiful,” I smiled.

“How are you feeling?” he asked quietly.

“Not great at the moment, but I’ll be okay,” I replied, watching as Zayn and Taron shook hands and greeted each other with pats on the shoulder. Zayn really had come a long way in just the past few months, I had to give him that.

We talked for a bit but the heavy arm of sleep was beckoning to me like a warm, cozy blanket, and I couldn’t fight it off any longer. I’m sure at some point they all figured out I had dropped off, and the next time I woke up, it was quite late and I was alone in the dark room. There was a note on the bedside table for me, scribbled in Taron’s handwriting, promising he’d stop by in the morning before going to set; I couldn’t begrudge him wanting to shower and actually get a good night’s sleep. My body was on fire, but I hesitated to hit the call button, figuring this pain was a sort of penance to be paid for all the wrong I’d done in my life.

I wasn’t a bad person, no, I didn’t believe that. Deep down, I’d always had good intentions. I loved the people around me, but when you’re a broken person, the way you love is broken too. And I knew Taron saw that, and understood that, even more than me. He was patient and kind in ways I didn’t deserve, but he gave that to me anyways. The only way I could begin to make amends, to try and fix the pain I’d caused him, was to try and love him the best I could. And that started with me, with fixing myself. I decided, then and there, that no matter how painful it would be, I would let the therapist dig deep, deeper than I’d ever let myself go, into the places I’d long ago sewn shut, the things I’d tried to forget. If I was ever going to heal, I needed to discover how deep the wounds were, and forgive every single person in my life that had caused that pain, and apologize to the little girl I was who lost her innocence long ago.

I slept fitfully for a while, waking up from troubled dreams, dreams full of memories of my father before he left, when he was drunk all the time and shouting and breaking things, scaring my mum and me, the times I hid in the bathroom cabinets, clutching my stuffed patchwork bunny until my mum would tearfully come find me, long after dad had passed out on the couch.

I’m pretty sure the nurse gave me more painkillers at some point in the night, because I woke from a deep, dreamless sleep the next morning to Taron’s sweet kisses peppering my face. “Morning, love,” he said with that adorable boyish grin of his. I smiled, happy at least to see him freshly showered and awake. I still felt exhausted, but that was probably how it would be for a while, until I recovered some more.

“G’morning,” I murmured softly, trying to shake the sleep out of my eyes. I had a dull headache but otherwise felt a little better than the day before. I had no idea when I’d be able to leave; there were more tests to be done before being discharged would even be considered. I giggled when Taron barged his way onto the bed, scooting me over gently, ever-careful of my tubes and wires. He cradled me in his arms, and I was all too happy to lay my head on his chest, hearing his heart beating.

“I think this might be against hospital protocol,” I said, actually laughing.

“Fuck the protocol. I’ve got this hot babe in my arms, so I think I might need treated too, for heatstroke,” he smirked.

“What? That doesn’t even make sense, T!” I giggled, but he didn’t care if it was stupid, he was just happy to see me smiling and laughing again. I was even hungry in the morning, so I ordered eggs and fresh fruit and Taron sat with me while I ate, finishing off my toast when I didn’t touch it.

He hated having to leave me but I didn’t mind so much, just grateful that he wanted to be there with me at all. “Go on, go be Elton and be great at it,” I smiled. “You know where I’ll be,” I smiled as he left a sticky jam kiss on my cheek.

“Of course. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” And with a wave, he was gone, but I didn’t have very much time to be bored. After posting something to social media and responding to more texts and chat messages, I had another steady stream of visitors, Leah and Pietre and Dennis included, and several other dancers I had come to call friends. I was touched by the outpouring of love and support. My mum visited again, grateful to see me in better spirits than the day before. And of course Madison came, bringing a massive bouquet that was so large it took up an entire corner of the room and perfumed the air with its floral fragrance.

“You’re ridiculous,” I said, but couldn’t help but laugh. She painted my nails while chatting about all the drama I was missing at the Academy, and if I closed my eyes I could very nearly pretend we were just sitting on my couch with wine and containers of Chinese takeout spread out before us. It made me feel normal, and not just like the “sick girl.” She even made me promise that I’d get better or she’d kick my ballerina ass, and I was grateful she didn’t pity me because pity wouldn’t get me through this.

So between visits and further medical tests, mostly to rule out any other issues, the day passed on quickly, and I received some good news by the evening. The doctor determined that come morning I could be sent home, where they were certain I’d be more comfortable, with one caveat; I had to keep the feeding tube for a few more weeks at best, until I could prove I was no longer a danger to myself. But I had been clear to the therapist that I was aware of my shortcomings, the control issues and painful past, the things that drove me to try and control my food intake in the first place. I wanted to get better, and that was crucial; you couldn’t make someone change if they were unwilling to do so. And I genuinely wanted to do better, even if trying to convince myself that my worth was more than my waistline would be an uphill battle.

Taron, of course, did his best to convince me I should hole up in his house with him, where he could keep a closer eye on me, and I didn’t have the energy to argue. So the following morning, after being instructed on how to prepare the feeding pump and bags, and getting me back into my real clothes, I happily signed the papers for dismissal. There would of course be follow-ups and therapist appointments, but this small step in my recovery was important. My mum had promised to keep an eye on my house for a while, and after stopping by to collect more clothes and toiletries and my phone charger and anything else that might be useful, Taron got me settled in on his couch with free reign of his Netflix. It wasn’t a bad arrangement, and I felt much better after I finally got a proper bath, with only a little help from Taron getting in and out of the tub with my bum leg.

While he was away filming, I decided I wasn’t just going to be this invalid in need of his total care, so after hobbling to the kitchen and snooping around in his fridge, I decided to make a curry for when he came home. It took a while to figure out a rhythm with the crutches, but eventually I had a skillet full of lean beef and green curry simmering away and a pot of rice steaming too. I’d just set out bowls and a basket of naan bread on the table when Taron came home again, surprised, of course, by my surprise.

“What is this, babe! You didn’t have to. I’m supposed to spoil you, you know,” he grinned.

“I dunno, I wanted to,” I said as he wrapped his arms around my waist and kissed me gently. “You didn’t have to do any of this for me. You don’t have to earn your way back into my good graces,” he said, gently tipping my face up to look at him.

“I want to give back. I feel like all I do is take and take, and all I’ve done is manage to hurt you. I want this to be an equal relationship,” I tried to explain.

“I don’t think you take and take from me and give nothing back. You make me happy, Juliette. You make me laugh. You support what I do, and you believe in me. You’re not here for my money or good looks,” he said sweetly.

“Well…maybe the good looks,” I teased lightly, making him chuckle.

“Giving back to me doesn’t have to be tangible goods. I don’t operate in black and white like that. You give back simply by being perfectly imperfect you.”

“Yeah, but you are perfectly perfect, so I feel inadequate all the time.”

“What? I’m not perfect. God… I have my flaws. I’ve been jealous, and angry, and bitter over things. I’ve been distant and cold to you too. I drink too much and don’t get enough sleep and sometimes let my house go to shit. I’m not perfect, I just try. I make the effort. It’s high time you had someone in your life making that effort for you.”

“You say such sweet things to me,” I replied softly, somehow struggling to comprehend he was saying these words to me.

“Well I mean them, so get used to it. You need to get used to being happy. Now, shall we eat this curry before it gets cold?”

“Yeah, of course,” I said lightly, both of us tucking into our bowls. I even managed to eat a few strips of naan, and considered it a victory; a small one, but life had to be lived by the small victories sometimes. We finished our food, had a lazy evening cuddling on the couch with a film we didn’t spend much time actually watching, and rather than waking me after I unintentionally dozed off, Taron carried me to bed.

Or at least I assumed that’s what happened, because I woke up some time in the night, needing to use the bathroom, Taron snoring softly next to me. As I watched him sleep, his chest rising and falling in the darkness, shadows shifting over his face, I realized how much I had truly missed him. How much I needed him. How much I wanted him.

An uncomfortable throbbing need woke up in my groin and I groaned slightly. My body could be a real asshole sometimes. I made myself get out of bed to prevent myself from waking Taron from his slumber, though I’m quite certain he probably wouldn’t have minded if I chose to have my way with him. I also just wasn’t in any shape to have sex at the moment, still bleeding and sore down there anyway. At least I wasn’t totally dead inside, I thought ruefully as I strapped myself back into my boot and stomped as quietly as I could to the bathroom, cringing every time the boot scraped over the wooden floor. I didn’t have to sleep in the thing, but I really couldn’t walk without it at the moment either.

After taking care of my needs I stared at myself in the mirror, at my pale face and rumpled hair and dull eyes, and sighed. I had no idea how Taron still found me attractive at all. But I could be that girl again, if I worked hard enough at it.

I returned to the bed and when I laid back down Taron rolled over and nuzzled into my neck. “Where’d you go?” he murmured, kissing my neck sweetly.

“I had to pee,” I laughed, shrugging at how easy it was to just announce that.

“Well, I hope it was a good trip then,” he giggled, sleep still thick in his voice.

“Um, yeah, it was adequate,” I joked back, running my fingers through his soft, fluffy hair. The movie had yet to hack his hair up but I knew that was coming very soon.

“Glad my facilities are up to your standards,” he snickered back. “God I love you,” he added, his breath hot on my neck and not helping the state of my arousal.

“I know,” I smiled, as he continued to kiss my neck, his fingers slowly working their way under my camisole, caressing the skin of my stomach. “I can’t, you know, not yet,” I whispered, and he sighed softly, light spilling in from between the blind slats reflecting in the deep orbs of his eyes.

“You should get some sleep,” he said, withdrawing his hand and making me sigh shakily.

“I want you, I just, my body,” I tried to explain, not very well, squeezing my eyes shut.

“It’s okay,” he grinned, kissing the tip of my nose cutely. “I know,” he said in return, pulling the blankets around me and humming softly as he settled in to fall asleep once more, his arm draped sweetly over me.

This was what I wanted the rest of my life to look like, this moment, a beautiful man beside me who stole my breath away, who didn’t judge me for my failings, who adored me and loved me with a love so pure I didn’t always know how to carry it. If there was anything to fight for, I knew it was a future with him.

Will Juliette continue to fight for herself, and for a future with Taron? Or will she let ghosts of her past haunt her? Keep reading to find out - Chapter 10, Coming Soon!

[yoongisbars]

quest of omission | myg (4)

summary: The war between kingdoms was starting and being Freywind’s highest ranking Captain, you would always be there to defend your people from the treachery of Woodwind. There’s just one problem: their best killer, The Silence, and his insufferable ability to make your heart race with both loathing and yearning. And now, on the verge of death after an ambush gone wrong, you both have no choice but to keep each other alive.

pairing: myg x reader genre: enemies to lovers au | knight!yoongi au | future angst? fluff? | drabble series word count: 2.3k parts: 4/_ | 1, 2, 3 cw: none, unless ure a veg note: it’s been eons, but its here ;_;

“Yoongi? Is that you?”  Relief flashed across the young boy’s face as Yoongi lowered his weapon in recognition. Shaking Yoongi’s arm off you, you stood back analyzing the possibilities of what this could mean.

“Jimin?” Surprise colored the pale man’s words as he eyed the boy in confusion. “I thought you were dead?” Great. Now he has a friend.

“I’m very much alive. I was wandering around during the night, and I saw you in there, but I didn’t want to intrude.” His eyebrow raised in a suggestive manner. “I figured I’d stay up there to stick around, y’know?”

“Okay… Anyways, I’m glad you’re okay.” Yoongi’s stoic expression was contrasted by Jimin, as his eyes turned into delicate crescents. They then focused on you, widening in realization.

“Isn’t this the Freywind Captain? From the bar?” He takes a few steps closer, scanning you with concern. “You look flush, are you okay?” You gently swat his approaching hand away from your face.

“I’m fine.”

“She had a fever, but she’s gaining her color back. I guess you are fine.” Yoongi shrugs, proceeding to stretch his arms. “So what’s next? Is this where we part ways?” The question seemed sudden and out of place, rendering both you and the one named Jimin in confusion. It was as if each second you felt better, coming down from your fever, he became more his colder self…  “I mean, I just needed someone as a companion for a surer survival. I have Jimin now though, we’re not on the same side, so it would be best to part, right?” Classic woodwindian. A double edged sword. You knew this would happen eventually, but you figured, like he said, it would last until you made your way out. But now that one of his little ragtag mates appeared, getting rid of you is at the top of his priorities. 

Your stubborn tongue was ready to fire back in agreement, roughing it out with the enemy was the last thing you ever wanted to do. With a bit of stamina from resting and a fallen friend’s sword at your side, in your head, you were more than ready to take on the vast forest. However, Jimin quickly interjected before you could get a word in.

“I honestly think it’s best if I join you guys, instead of just you and I trekking around. Three’s always better than two? And I’m not even armed.” He threw his hands up in exhibition, not even a small blade on him. You almost pitied him, but how did he even get so far with nothing? “I think we can come to an agreement? Like one I’m suspecting you came to before?” The boy eyed you and Yoongi curiously. He mentioned he had seen you inside the tree sleeping, and when he jumped down, you were practically wrapped in Yoongi’s steady arms.

The woodwindians stared each other down before the eldest, you assumed, yielded. You wouldn’t comment unless he did anyways, an agreement was already previously made and a freywindian always keeps their word. if it would fall through it would have to be at his doing. 

“Fine. The truce agreement stands, for now.” A glance was shot in your direction, waiting for any response.

“For now.” Even if they were his words, you could see they were like bile to him.

“A bit hostile, but at least we’re in terms I guess.” Jimin shrugged. “And I don’t know about you, but I am starving.” His hand quickly traveled to a satchel at his waist. A waterskin. “I do have water though, if any would like?” His arm extended to you first, expressioned soft. It was tempting, as you were as dehydrated as you could be for someone who was ransacked by a body of water. But noting your hesitation he assured you it was alright if you took it.

“Thanks.” The liquid engulfed your tongue and throat in the most refreshing manner. You felt as it made its way to your stomach. It was surprisingly cold, probably due to the night temperature. You passed the waterskin over to Yoongi, who simply gave it back to Jimin, not bothering to take a sip. Rolling his eyes at Yoongi, he shoved it back to him, giving him no choice but to at the very least carry it. He’d drink eventually.

“Let’s go then. I’m sure we can find something small enough to hunt but large enough to make a meal of it.” Yoongi ushered at Jimin to make way with him.

“There are plenty of rabbits in the area, but are you sure you need me to go along?” Jimin eyed you with slight concern again. You were feeling better, and according to Yoongi you were starting to look like it as well. But Jimin’s expression seemed to deny these claims. “I still think the Captain looks a bit ill, I don’t think leaving her alone would be right…”

“She has a sword… and a couple of tricks down her pants.” You understood what he meant quickly, Jimin however was confused and eyes automatically scanned your legs, landing on your knives. He quickly regained his composure, brushing Yoongi off.

Their bickering continued until Yoongi ultimately had no choice but to go on his own while Jimin stayed with you in the trunk.

If you were to pick which woodwindian you’d stick around with, it would surely be the newest addition. Their only similar trait they shared, besides who they serve, was their underwhelming height. You were used to being surrounded by men in Freywind given you were in the army and were close to the Prince and King, and they were all tall. Woodwindians must be of shorter genetics. Aside from that, Jimin and Yoongi were nothing alike. At first you thought the one before you was quite peculiar and quick to trust another, but it suited him. He was a genuinely nice person, unlike the other who was nice either by convenience or due to your own fever. 

Not to mention Jimin’s particular features were quite endearing. The chubby plims under his eyes and his plump lips suited him marvelously. Distracted by his appearance as you were, you missed half of whatever story he was telling you now. From the many things he’s spoken about, you discovered he’s half freywindian. No wonder he was easier to get along with. Blood doesn't deny blood, even if tainted.

“You know,” Aware you were ignoring him, you focused on what he was saying again. “He’s not bad once you get to know him.” A smirk faded as quickly as it appeared across his face. “Taking his time though, isn’t he?” The fingers tapping against his knee were a sure sign of worry.  And although you hated to admit it, even if to yourself, the feeling was mutual. It wasn’t until you fully came down from the high of the fever that you considered the fact that maybe, he might have been sick as well. Considering you both went through the rough of it. Jimin on the other hand, didn’t suffer that much initially. According to him, he wasn’t near the opening when it happened, but that he still swiftly got carried away with the water as the tides started to lose its strength. Eventually he just kept walking in search of anyone, but instead ended up deep in the forest, meeting the same fate as you and Yoongi. Lost, and without a clue on how to get back out. 

Your thoughts drowned with worry far more than you’d like at the reminder of the other woodwindian. Part of you hoped it was just your mind mimicking Jimin's anxious habits, but you  knew that, despite everything,  the survival odds of three were far better than those of two. The deeper meaning behind the sinking feeling underneath, you didn't dig into. But before Jimin or you could stand up and propose a new quest to find the lost boy, a shadow fell upon the thicker part of the woods. Yoongi came out shortly after, from an opening hidden and likely chosen for his style of fighting. You didn't hear your sigh of relief, and if Jimin did he didn't comment on it. Seconds later he was scrambling to help his friend bring back the two rabbits perched atop his shoulders. 

With the fire burning and rabbits skinned clean, it was only a matter of time before food would be in your stomachs. Eating rabbit was something you weren’t fond of, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and the inviting aroma was enough to awaken your suppressed hunger. As the meat cooked, being turned ever so often by Yoongi, Jimin was busy arranging different stones into a sundial in an attempt to determine how much time we had left, if it was worth to keep venturing farther than the shelter until we could find a new one, or simply wait out the time before waiting for an opportune moment to take leave

“I think it’s safe to say,” He stared up to the sun and back down to his array of sticks and stones. “We probably have a good six hours of sunlight left.” Dusting off his hands and placing them on his hips, he showed pride in his efforts. Looking back at you and Yoongi, still sitting on a couple of logs near the fire, he beamed. Although a simple glance up to the sun would have been enough, you had to give him credit. The patience needed to find enough stones and branches, enough sunlight peeking through the canopies above, and arranging them in such a precise manner, was not something you were blessed with. “Would it be wise if we continued within an hour from now? Or is it better to wait?” Although the questions were voiced generally, Jimin’s sight never left his superior. It was normal for him to seek guidance from him. Yoongi pursed his lips, deep in thought.

“The chances of finding another shelter as good as this one are slim.” He brought the crisp rabbits away from the fire. “But slacking on our next move any further can cost us much more than that. We leave after breakfast.” And a rather late breakfast at that.

It would have been a silent meal if not for Jimin trying to start up a conversation every second. His intent was noticeable, to try and get everyone on comfortable speaking terms. But neither you or Yoongi would budge, only speaking directly to Jimin, very rarely you would share a word, but it would often be an opening for disagreement, which Jimin was quick to stop before it even had a chance to start.

“So,” Jimin started, oddly enough removing one of his boots and pulling from it some folded parchment. As he continued speaking, he unfolded it and spread it across the ground where he sat. “Where would you say we are?” Neither you nor Yoongi noticed Jimin sheepish and expectant looks, you both stared at each other in disbelief that this individual had a map this whole time, and didn’t bother to mention it earlier. A sigh left him as he got up to take a closer look. In turn you were finding the strength to not curse out the boy, and instead look at it from a grateful point of view. There was now: a map. No need to be mad.

“I think… We might be around here, but frankly I’m not too sure.” Yoongi sat down on the ground as well, while you inched your way down the log to sit just behind them, overlooking the map. “When did you get a map including Ahbörr?” The question, though simple, weighed heavy. From your understanding, Abhörr was a group of people from different lands, Freywind, Woodwind, Lunyth and so on, that were against the growing positions of power for women. But you had always dismissed it as a myth, no one ever mentioned them, much less encountered them. “I knew they were south, but not this close…” Yoongi’s brows furrowed upon examination.

“About a few months ago, when the cartographers modified the maps.” His fingers started to trace over what was displayed as the forest we were currently residing in. “Hmm, if this large tree here is any indication to where we are, it might be best if we head south anyways if it’s certain that this clearing is there.”

“With Abhörr being so close to that, I’d much rather go back and head for a northeast direction. We’ll take onger, but we can get to Woodwind faster, then this one can find her way back to Freywind easily.” A thumb jutted back in your direction and you couldn’t help but roll your eyes.

“It is just a map, small at that. So it doesn’t necessarily mean Abhörr is really that close.” You scooched down between them taking the map into your hands. Yoongi’s sudden distaste at your proximity was duly noted as he inched away slightly. “And clearly this forest is larger than what this map makes it out to be.”

“She’s right, Yoongi. If we head South, we spend less time in the forest, but if we head east…”

“Where Woodwind is.” Yoongi interrupted.

“We both know it’s impossible to cross the river. We’d have to go south anyways to make it across safely.”

After a long discussion about which direction to head for, south was the victor. Jimin and you had more valid points to offer, while the soured man simply wanted to avoid any encounters with Abhörreans, as he called them. Neither of you paid mind to his worries, it wasn’t like you were seeking out these people anyways. You simply wanted to get out of there as soon as you could and be on your way back home. But it’s tragic, really, how Yoongi’s worries turned out to be. 

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