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quirklessidiot · 4 years ago

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title : minazuki [3: an agreement between two devils] pairing : gojo satoru x f!y/n Genre: angst, arranged-marriage au, mystery/thriller, romance, mature, enemies-to-lovers-ish, and very slow burn (canon compliant-ish for ch-0 to the anime)

Summary:In which Y/N L/N is placed under a union she has no choice but to partake for the sake of her survival.

Warnings: mild dark themes, mentions of parricide, mild gore, anxiety, paranoia, very brief mention of child abuse, sleeping problems Notes: fluffy ass chapter dont let the title deceive you HAHAH i cant believe i finally get to write a cute scene between them. and i changed my update scheds to random twice a week updates since welp AHAHHA this isnt beta read as always (we all die like men here)

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Chapter summary: It’s a charade of trust and a dance between two devils, just where was this going to lead?

When you were a child, you wondered what lied beyond the eyes of people and the ardor that they held. In a way, it had been a sort of game for you to try to wade through them. Your grandmother had mentioned once that if you couldn’t peruse the room well or read through people’s emotions, you would end up not only embarrassing yourself but putting yourself in a precarious position.

It’s the same way with relationships.

If you didn’t know your place or read onto it properly, you might end up severing not only the connection but losing the person itself and in this world, connections and relationships were pieces that you needed to use to stay in the game. Life hadn’t been kind to you but it didn’t mean that you needed to stop playing, it only meant that you had to keep building and building and shoving yourself back in it until it was sick of you because the essential need of surviving was constant.

Gojo Satoru had been nothing but a paradox as the months passed in your marriage, always acting on impulse and whatever he deemed fit. The relationship you had with him was never on the bright side. There was a constant push and pull between you two and you had to admit that your husband wasn’t the type of man you could get along with easily yet you don’t deny how indispensable he is to your plan.

He could bear forth poison in the guise of a gift, for at the end of the day, like you, he’s human. He could parade like some sort of higher being who thinks he is better than everyone else but temptations and betrayal always come hand in hand. He could easily gamble his life but at the same time easily shield himself from your dagger. Humans are tricky. They’re mostly foul, disgusting, and revolting to the point where you’d want to recoil only in disgust. You sometimes wonder if god exists and if they’re merciful enough to take you away from all this or if they’re staying in hiding because of fear of their very own creations that don’t dance to the tune of their music.

Then again, would god ever grant mercy to a devious and villainous person like you?

The thought of it burns itself to the core of your subconscious. It sears itself in your way of life to the point that you can’t even trust the man who sleeps right across your room.

How you ended up agreeing with the said man you barely trusted was a mystery itself.

You don’t deny how much it favored you but you weren’t one to easily be swayed by such things, in fact, Gojo Satoru hadn’t really done anything to win over your trust except for repeatedly insinuating that you could go crazy and he’ll handle the consequences. He was an idiosyncratic man, indeed.

Either ways, despite him proclaiming such weaknesses and even letting you touch where you were supposed to cut him if he ever went back on your deal. You were still chary of him and you wondered how things were going to proceed at this point. Obviously there was supposed to be some underlying trust that should be involved in this matter, after all, it was a wager between both of your lives and knowing each other’s weakness.

A big part of you had felt like you needed to prepare something, anything. It’s not like you to sit around idly and let someone else do all the work. This was a new scenario on your part, one that you didn’t even consider in the first place. You could almost hear your grandmother castigating you for being too overconfident and careless. As she said, if you’re going to do something at the expense of your life, do it properly.

Your empty gaze stares at the dead trees and flowers outside of your window, the cold continuing to nip your skin despite being indoors and wearing a hanten as the winter season draws to a close.

“He told you where to kill him…” you look down at your hands as you recall the dreams that taunted you last night, “...Maybe you should…”

You might need to go grab some more of those lavender and vanilla essence, they’ve always helped lull you to a dreamless state. You weren’t crazy or desperate enough to kill your husband. He hadn’t done anything to warrant that violent response from you and you didn’t want to end up dead too since you had a feeling that Gojo Satoru wasn’t going to be merciful towards you if he ever found you with one of your sharp hair pins in hand, ready to commit parricide.

You slowly lift your hand, grabbing one of the red spider lilies in the vase and crushing it in your hand, the petals slowly falling out and the juice leaking from it. A brief reminder of how fragile everything is right now, a life for a life.

Huh, you thought, deep in contemplation as you stare at the crumpled flowers on your hand, Trusting someone else with something as fragile as that.

Satoru’s gaze lurks through the dark, the head of the curse on his bloody hand is heavy and sticky as he walks through the uncharted field. The only sounds were the crickets, the crunching of the leaves below his feet, and the never ending whistling of the night wind.

He tosses the head side with no care, another mission was done again today and quite easily so. There was a significant amount of cursed spirits spiking out because of the sudden reemergence of the fingers of Ryomen Sukuna, it seemed like they had to work fast for this, “Ah,” he mumbles, shaking his hand off to try to get rid of the blood, “I don’t think I packed a hankie for this.”

He looks down at his shirt, blood stained from the action that he had done earlier. Well, the maids would definitely have a hard time on this again. In a flash of an eye, he’s right in front of his home. It’s the dead of the night as he welcomes himself in the tranquility of his estate.

The events that had transpired these past few days were something else, from the agreement with the wager of both of your lives in tow well, technically, you and your problem with the bridal market and his life to him visiting the elder who had the guts to come into his home and do something as abhorrent as that.

The shaman recalls the defeated look of the elder as he kneels down, continuously begging Satoru to not be kicked out of the Gojo clan and be stripped of his title, explaining that you were just a commodity that needed to know her place and her job which was to bring an heir in. It only furthered his aggravation towards the system and the old man. An underlying threat of a death sentence followed soon after if he ever tried to show himself again in front of the both of you. This action that he had done did not go unnoticed because soon after, the remaining elders of the Clan found their feet tied and mouth clamped shut, in fear that they might meet the same end. It seemed like you were safe, for now.

Satoru’s footsteps are light on the floor, careful to not wake anyone up at this unholy hour. His bloody hands and clothes reek from the messy fight he had earlier, he should’ve been told that the curse would be a messy one. At the very least, he would’ve brought an extra shirt or something.

He takes off his eye bandages as he makes his way to the kitchen, the blood that wasn’t his, staining it. This sudden action elicits a headache when his blue eyes are bare to the view, especially since he feels another presence behind the sliding door. A very familiar and faint one. He could only guess it was you. Like the little mouse that you are, your curse energy was too obscure for his six eyes to see, even harder with his bandages on. He wonders if you were that weak. The thought of that makes his jaw set; the empty eyes that seem to peerlessly lurk, the faint curse energy, he felt like something was amiss.

His grip on the sliding doors tightens, the blood is dried so it doesn’t stain as he slides it open.

Under the unobtrusive light, there you are, indulging yourself in a sweet daifuku and wearing your usual haori to cover the skin of your upper torso yet it's not enough to cover how your nightie rides up to reveal the small flesh of your upper thigh, the sudden action makes Satoru look away. Entirely he’s unsure of a lot of things with you. At the end of the day, he’s not celibate and to see you walking around in something that leaves little to his imagination seemed intrusive on his part.

It also sometimes baffles him that the only thing you knew of each other was your weaknesses. A part of him feels like this was the beginning of a Shakespearean tragedy or that one japanese stage drama called the tale of genji, both of which he fell asleep half-way through when they forced him to read it as a kid but he knows they both end in death.

He silently maneuvers his way to the sink to wash his bloody hands off while you remain there, eating your food, not even the slightest bit phased by his sanguinary appearance. The shaman runs his hands through his white hair after, trying to tame it down as he uses his other hand to grab a tupperware of sweets reserved for him.

The chewiness and sweetness of the red bean settling on his palette as he eyes you for a brief moment, “It’s rude to stare.” you exposed, your gaze suddenly directed at him. At some point after that brief conversation you and your husband had settled upon, you realized how useless it would be to keep up the pretense so you don’t bother using the usual cloying tone.

Satoru has also realized that despite whatever you both had agreed upon, it doesn’t exactly change the relationship between you two, in fact, he felt like it had only worsened. It was as if you both were dancing with knives painted on each other's back and if one of you had stopped, the other would be at the receiving end, “Just wondering why you’re out and about at this time of night.”

Which wasn’t exactly a lie, so far, you two had met usually on the silent of the night. You, with your sleeping problems and your workaholic husband who barely seems to be around his own home.

“Just hungry.” you lied.

Yet judging by the faint bags underneath your eyes and the way you said it in an overconfident tone, he knows otherwise, “Or you can’t sleep?” he reckoned. The shaman realizes that he might as well poke around a bit. He’s reminded of a certain someone with your appearance and he can’t seem to look away this time.

“I thought we went past the stage of asking each other too many questions.”

Your husband’s low chuckle resonates in the quietude of the kitchen, his gaze shifting from you to the dessert in hand as he relaxes and leans behind the counter. He starts to make out and try to piece out his thoughts about you awhile ago, looking even closer at your curse energy but it didn’t seem out of the ordinary which mildly bugs him even more, “You like lying too much over trivial things.” He specified in a smooth tone, “I just thought we were past that too.”

“Lying.” you thought out loud, gazing at him as you rested your head on top of your hand, carefully examining the curvature of his features and the way his lips pressed into a thin line, “Now that’s a strong word, Gojo Satoru. I believe the words you're looking for is protecting my own self-interest.”

“Ah,” he nods, feigning acknowledgment as his blue eyes zeroes into yours, cupping his mouth to hide his cynical chuckle as he lowered his head, “Self-interest... only you would justify lying as something like that…You...you’re really something else.”

You continue to ignore him and his words, parading unbothered as usual. The room is tense yet again, the silence is deafening enough that you can hear a pin drop. The shaman puts his food down, then crosses his arms, tapping his finger on top of his skin, “You know,” he paused, “We can keep lying to each other,” He walks closer just until he’s right across you, the shaman leans down, the distance between you is close enough that you can hear each other’s slow breathing and heartbeat, “But at the end of the day, we both know each other’s play so it’s not really of use.”

Maybe it was the way he said that or the underlying vexation you have developed for the man these past few months, one that has piled up to the point where you wouldn’t hesitate to put him right back to his place, “We don’t know each other.” You point out, you remain calm as you stood up from your stool, not even breaking eye contact, “You and I are strangers and that’s all we’ll both ever be. So don’t say things like that as if you know me too well.”

Satoru has to take a step back and for what seemed like a while, you let out a small sigh as if you were, once again, tired of the repetitive words already. You don’t even wait for his response anymore nor do you even bother to say goodbye, you just walk out of the room, leaving him alone.

The shaman might, at some point, realize that maybe he should’ve tried to apologize first before deciding upon that agreement, maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as it was now if he tried to reach out earlier. The notion that he may or may not have been the cause of the sudden worsening of this relationship between you two because of the sudden integration of the agreement bugs him.

He looks up at the ceiling for a moment, his thoughts lingering at your choice of words and whether or not he should even be involved again. You weren’t exactly wrong but a part of him felt like he shouldn’t be sitting back idly anymore with what was going on with you.

Maybe he should turn away, it’s not really his business, right?

Perhaps, in your part, you should’ve known better, after that brief conversation you had with your husband last night Hana had said that a doctor was outside your doorsteps, apparently to ‘check’ on you. The automatic response when you heard doctors was never a positive one and you were sure that your head was throbbing because not only were you getting less sleep but now you had to deal with this too. The lower part of your silk yukata was crumpled and mildly creased from your fists balling it too much during the whole journey down the door to greet them. Once your down, you’re ready to smooth out the creases and put on your rehearsed and pristine smile but instead of it being some strange old woman or an unfamiliar doctor, it’s Shoko Ieiri standing there, one hand on her hip while the other on her phone, “Hey Y/N.” She greets you casually, this time, she has a lollipop between her lips.

“Oh Sat-“ you’re mildly dumbfounded by the woman’s unannounced presence. The maid must’ve gotten it wrong and thought it was for you.

“I’m actually here for you.” She cuts you off, eyes twinkling with what seemed to be like levity, “Someone called me up last night, saying that you have trouble sleeping.” Only one person was with you and now you feel befuddled, didn’t you try to tell him off the night before? Why would he ask his friend a doctor who was on call, at that to come by to visit you?

The older woman eyes you for a moment, trying to descry what had been going on between the both of you and why the six-eyed shaman had decided to call her in the middle of the night with a small tip about how someone in his estate wasn’t getting the proper sleep she needed. She was clearly mad at first by the fuss but when she heard the mild exasperation in his tone, she knew she couldn’t turn away this one.

“He…” you paused, a line appearing between your brows, seemingly at a loss for words, “I’m alright…”

You didn’t exactly want to seem like it was bothering you but the brunette knows better, “Just so you know, he bought me a few packs and paid big money after so I can’t really turn this down.” She shrugged nonchalantly, “Plus a little check-up from a real doctor won’t hurt anyone, right?” You slowly trail behind her as she enters your home, mildly still disoriented by your husband's actions and what he was getting from all of this, why he continues to keep pushing his own agenda.

“Hey Y/N?” Ieiri snaps you out of your train of thought, you look up, blinking at her as she gives you a coy smile, your thoughts already in a disarray with your husband's unusual actions, “Try not to read into it a lot. Satoru has his moments but he means well.”

“Right.” You try to return the smile yet it doesn’t shake off the thoughts about him, about everything that has been going on between you two, and everything that’ll happen tomorrow or the day after that.

“We can keep lying to each other,” his words echoed in your head, like a brief reminder, “But at the end of the day, we both know each other’s play so it’s not really of use.”

When daybreak comes and spring shows itself in the form of pretty flowers, blooming Sakura trees, the smell of fresh dew in the mornings, and a continuous presence of Gojo Satoru that you seem to avoid after that incident and one that he didn’t heavily question either, the estate seems to finds itself at peace.

This doesn’t escape the servants' field of vision, they’re quick to catch signs of the sudden and overnight change between you and the Master of the house. It wasn’t obvious at first glance but they seem to notice how the usual heated and intense emotion you two would shed was now reduced to nothing. This starts a small hearsay between them, of how you were apparently pregnant or better yet, the master had fallen in love with you and you refused to be caught on to it.

One that you didn’t bother to correct but instead used to your advantage because if this would reach the spies ears at the very least, it would leave you alone for now and would lessen the plight around you.

You run your hands through your hair as you slowly sit up, rubbing your sore shoulders after, the only sound that could be heard was the soft blows of the wind outside and the chirping birds that usually greet you on this fine day. Shoko had advised you to continue using the lavender essence but she said that if worse came to worst, you had to start using prescribed pills.

You’ve slowly come to accept your fate, that this would be how your nights really went, maybe it was a small price of being too selfish or something along the lines of that.

“Y/N-san,” you hear Hana’s voice behind the door, interrupting your long train of thoughts, “Gojo-sama is reminding you of the council meeting you both have to go to later at ten am.”

Your feet are outstretched on the bed as you slowly lean against the bed frame, trying to collect yourself, “Thank you. Tell him we can leave by nine.” You promptly replied, maintaining a polite tone to conceal your over-fatigue and chaotic thoughts. Your line of vision slowly trails from the pretty red spider lilies to the neatly wrapped box on top of your dresser. A gift that you were supposed to give to your husband during his late birthday a year ago. You had almost forgotten about that since a lot had happened between you two.

The sudden thought of giving it to him sparks an internal debate, maybe you could use this to your advantage. Maybe get the maids talking more to ward off the spy. Carefully, you slide out of the comforts of your duvet, snatching the haori that was hung on your dresser to wrap yourself around it, “Hana…” you suddenly call out again, taking the box and turning it from one side to the other and giving it a brief once-over.

“Y/N-san?”

You open the door, the young raven-haired girl standing there with her usual kind features. You chewed on your bottom lip, momentarily reflecting on what to say next, “Tell Satoru-sama that this is for him.” you nonchalantly handed the box to the young girl. Hana eyes the box given to her for a brief moment then looks at you then at the box again.

“Oh, is it your anniversary already?”

“No,” your eyes glinting as you look down at the box once again. The abrupt memory of your little shopping trip with Geto Suguru before he died and his choice of clothes slowly wormed its way back to your head. The brief impression of the wanted man who wanted to kidnap you and the connection he had with your husband to the sad night you had found him during the twenty-fourth last year makes your gaze harden as another notion comes in. Omitting your earlier plan for the gift, “It’s not from me but a friend.” you remarked.

Hana’s eyes flickered to the box and towards you for a moment, quite dazed at the order you had given, “Ah,” she nods fervently, not wanting to disobey you, “I-I’ll be sure to say that, Y/N-san but um...” the young girl paused, very hesitant with her next few words, “But isn’t this actually from you?”

You raise your hand and give her a small dismissive wave, “It isn’t from me, so don’t bother.” you vaguely replied, closing the door right at her face soon after. The young girl looks down at the box again and gapes at it for a moment, confusion written all over her face as her brows are scrunched together. It seemed like the rumors between you and the master were true but only to some extent. She starts whistling and carefully holds onto it like precious cargo as she makes her way down to the dining area, wondering what she should say to the master of the house.

In times like this, you end up picking the prettiest kimono. Probably to show how well your husband is treating you and how you value him to high regard, you were, after all, precious commodity and only seen outside in public gatherings only a few times. After making sure you were well-dressed and you had your hair neatly away from your face with lavish hairpins, you find yourself walking to the doorway of your home. Your husband is standing there with his casual ensemble on something you're sure many would frown upon since they had always forced him to wear a formal kimono on this except this time, his tawdry bandages are now replaced by a hand-sewn black blindfold.

Geto Suguru was right, black did suit him.

After that minor event, Hana would occasionally glance your way but like the tractable and good girl that she is, she doesn’t further question what happened and why you had requested to have her deliver that gift under a false alias, she was even kind enough to keep her mouth zipped about it too.

Spring continuous on with Megumi visiting you on one of his off days from school and training. The boy is kind enough to help you since he’s fully aware of how much gardening you have to do because of the new season. He’s also conscious of the sudden gossip that’s been going around in the estate, he’s not exactly that insensible and out-of-touch, “Y/N-san?” he tried to address you, you hummed a response as you continue to snip some of the dead leaves in front of you.

It’s quite hot but it’s bearable and he sees how much you enjoy being under the cool shade with your plants. In the young boy’s eyes, he finds your hobby quite astonishing since you had much tolerance for things as delicate and fragile as this.

He has always thought that maybe that’s why you and his teacher didn’t seem to break it off with the marriage too quickly despite it being arranged and the fights being too heavy to the point where he has to unadroitly look away unlike other couples that he has heard of you were probably so patient with the said shaman unlike him.

The raven-haired boy is hesitant with his next few words, “Are you...” he paused, awkwardly looking down. You look up from the herb and tilt your head in reply at the boy’s sudden motion. He has to repeat it again with his head, making you scrunch your forehead in confusion.

“Megumi-kun...” you carefully place one of the trimmers down right next to you and clasp your hands together, “I am not a mind-reader. I’d like it if you’d use your words and not go...” you gesture your eyebrows up and down in attempt to copy the child.

He immediately bursts into redness at the way you copied his actions, the boy wasn’t sure with how to approach the topic itself. After all, when he had set foot in the estate this morning, he head heard from the maid at the front who was feather dusting and gossiping to the one next to her, of how nice it would be if their soon-to-be-born young master would be as helpful as him.

It could only really mean one thing.

Like he said, he’s not exactly that witless or so people call him.

“Are you um...” His voice drops low to a whisper, like a child telling a secret that shouldn’t be known to many, “Pregnant?”

Silence enveloped you two for a moment, the only sound was the nearby sprinklers and the birds chirping all around you two. Your mouth twists into a small smile at the boy’s words and riotous behavior, “I didn’t think you’d be one to listen to gossip.” you humor him, whispering back in the same fervor.

He immediately turns even redder, fidgeting on the spot, “I-sorry, Y/N-san-”

Your mouth falls open to a small chuckle at the boy’s sudden uneasiness, at times, hanging out with Megumi reminded you of people you wished you had more time to be with. It was probably why you delighted his company whenever he accompanied you on random days, “It’s fine,” you remarked, a fond look gracing your features, “Don’t need to look so blue, Megumi-kun. I was simply teasing.”

“Sorry. I just heard from them...” he mumbles, starting to add more fertilizer to the soil in attempt to busy himself and cover up the embarrassment of even suddenly asking such a thing. You continue to look directly at him, seemingly still engrossed by his reaction and how easy he is to tease.

Your gaze shifts back down to the dainty pansies that started growing healthily during the winter, your eyes twinkling as you looked at how aesthetic and pleasing they look to the eyes.

“You know,” You paused, a sudden thought enters your head as you return your gaze back to him, “If we ever do have a child...” Although it may seemed like a fib and a far-fetched truth with you and Satoru, you don’t mind telling this one to the young child, “I’ll be sure you’ll be the first to know.”

Megumi looks up, his eyes lightening up at your words, “After all, you’re like family to the both of us already. I’m sure the young Gojo won’t mind having you as a big brother.”

The young raven haired suddenly cracks a small smile, the timorous features from moments ago is replaced by a softer one, more befitting for his age as if he was elated by your words, “that...that sounds nice, Y/N-san.”

It’s wonderful how a little white lie can shift the boy’s mood, probably would’ve been bad for your consciousness but it was a reaction that was worth it in your part.

Your husband is rarely home despite the spring break.

You may see Satoru but on most days, he was at the institution and at work since he had received more jobs than ever with the reappearance of Sukuna Ryomen’s fingers. You, on the other hand, carried on with your quiet life. Aside from the grueling nightmares of the unknown and constant anxiety of protracted thoughts that Gojo Satoru may betray you one day.

You were fine, in fact, better than most days.

Most days.

Your eyes glaze over the text, fiddling with the pages as you reread the same paragraph over and over again like some fool and hard-headed buffon. You put one hand over your head and shut your eyes tight. Maybe you needed to get some rest, it was almost ten anyways.

Yet sleep doesn’t come easy again.

You find yourself stirring awake in the middle of the night, your breathing is heavy and your palms are shaking again as you try to recall what you dreamt about. Days on, it had constantly varied, some were of the night of your grandmother, others would be the dark forest that you were left upon to fend on as a child because apparently training needed to be done like that, some felt like it wasn’t your memories at all.

“You should remember, Y/N.” Your grandma’s words slowly sink in, it’s a fleeting memory, “You’re not only taking the technique from me. You’re taking the memory of the users before it. Some grow mad to the point where they try to murder the next user just to stay alive but it doesn’t work that way...it never does...”

You place your hands on top of your forehead as you lightly grip the strands of your hair, trying to sit upright on the side of your bed as you catch your breath. You try to get ahold of yourself, for you knew this was something only you could solve alone and crying wouldn’t do so much help in your current circumstances. By then, you start mumbling some curses while you were at it towards all your ancestors out there for not giving you even just a single bit of stillness in your god-ridden life. Hadn’t they done enough debauchery in their part already? The least they can do is stay dead along with their wretched and mortifying memories.

Maybe you should go back to training in secret, if it can help knock you out to the point of expelling you to a dreamless state, that would be good right?

The moon hung low on the sky and the stars shone bright as the cool wind slowly wafted in your room mixed with the lavender essence that you liked to light up to help you calm down and sleep well something that seems to be inefficacious now. It’s a noiseless night as always around the Gojo estate, as if not a single soul had lived here, the only thing you could detect is the small curse energy of some of the servants and the cursed energy of your husband who was a few doors down, probably fast asleep.

You bring yourself out of the comforts of your bed and trudge your out, grabbing ahold of one of your hands, trying to make an attempt for it to stop shaking due to the sudden strong emotions you’ve undergone moments ago. One deep breath after another, you make your way to through the dark corridors of your own home, one that you’ve memorized like the back of your hand.

You picture out the earlier things they made this afternoon, maybe you should have one of those things that the chef had prepared for dessert. They had always made good sweets here and didn’t stop you from eating whatever you wanted, an uncommon response on your part since you grew up in a very strict and controlled environment especially when it came to food portions.

Sliding the door open, you silently padded through the kitchen, the cold floor under your bare feet served as a reminder that you were awake and that you were fine. That everything that had previously happened was simply just a dream. That this wasn’t some make-shift reality anymore. You’ve dealt with worse, what’s some bad-nights going to do to you?

This time, you grabbed two cold taiyakis, leftovers most likely. You don’t even bother heating them up and just start nibbling on one of it, relishing the sweetness of the custard filling.

You take a seat, your thoughts trail back to your dream, one that was probably not yours since the emotion was very unfamiliar yet it felt painful, like a sore and distant memory that only brought immense sorrow and grief in your part. This emits an audible breath of weariness. Everything was so baffling at this point. Your grandmother didn’t tell you anything past those warnings and little stories, she was too busy training you to the brink of death to even tell you anything about this situation. Questions upon questions pile up, did she even know why people like the both of you weren’t supposed to exist in the first place?

If she did, why didn’t she bother telling you?

“Ah, I’d reckon you’d be here.”

You don’t even bother to look up from your meal since you’re not even surprised by your husband’s late night appearance in the kitchen for some snack. It seemed like the shaman wasn’t being theatric today with his bloody clothes. He was in his sleepwear, his black shirt clinging to him like some type of second skin, revealing the taut of his muscles along with his hair in a complete disarray as if he had just rolled out of bed like you. He doesn’t bother to get his own share tonight from the ref, instead, he takes a seat next to you and grabs the extra Taiyaki on your plate as if the last time you saw each other wasn’t an exchange of heated word discussions.

The sudden warmth of his presence next to you reels you back out of your depressing thoughts, he takes a bite, shoulders slumped as he relaxes next to you, “Shoko’s advice not working?” he questioned. He doesn’t bother asking what was your diagnosis or a thank you for the gesture, it seemed like he wanted to be unpretentious about it.

“I was hungry.”

He swallowed his food, not even bothering to turn off his filter this time, “Right,” he nods, “I’ll take that as a no then.”

You continue on with your meal quietly, trying to ignore your husband and not wanting to engage in a conversation since your head is still buzzing from the events that had transpired earlier but the next few words catch you off guard and once again, pull you back right out, “We should go on a trip.” he suggested.

You turn to him, giving him a quick once-over at the sudden distance between you two and the proposal he had just said. He was closer than you had anticipated, his propped elbows touching yours as if he had just put off his infinity around him, a peculiar riposte since you didn’t believe he could trust you to this extent, “A trip?”

“We haven’t gone on a honeymoon, right?” he takes another bite, “Where would you like to go for our anniversary, instead?”

Your mind turns blank at his phrase, a trip.

You’ve never been anywhere aside from kyoto, tokyo, and your estate growing up. It had always been a warning to stay away from places that they weren’t familiar with or far places that were too crowded because your safety would be in jeopardy. Despite this, it doesn’t exactly stop you from dreaming about certain places you wished to go to.

Growing up, you hated the bleak winters in Japan and the boring scenes of the city. You've always wanted to go somewhere sunny and bright all year round. One where the flowers could grow and you could read books under the shade every single day yet despite this ever so long childhood dream, your mind instead, goes back to one place in the far off north of japan. It’s a faint memory as well but you’ve always been curious about that place.

“How about you?” your eyes are boring upon his blue ones yet you’re tempted to say otherwise, “I’m fine wherever you want to go.”

Maybe it was because you’ve been tired these days that you end up humoring him with a laid-back response.

“I doubt it,” he implored, insisting that you be the one to decide. He’s well-aware of your circumstances. Satoru has been to and traveled to many places both for work and leisure. You, on the other hand, hadn’t been to many so he might as well take you out, with those familiar ghostly and tired features that he catches a glimpse of when he comes home, he knew you needed a change of pace and environment, “Go pick a place, Y/N.”

You put your food down, drumming your fingers on the counter top in deep thought, maybe you both could go there since it was within the country, “Anywhere, right?” you wavered, “Then can we go to Sendai?”

Satoru’s brows furrowed in confusion, Sendai? He wonders what made that place catch your eye, it was a small and quiet town and it was far off north of Tokyo. There wasn’t much to see there except small shrines, museums, and ruined houses of some old samurai’s, “You sure about Sendai?”

“I’ve always wanted to go there.” You honestly disclosed, your mind reeling in a distant memory, “They have a festival there apparently called the Tanabata…”

The shaman studies you for a moment, mild displeasure on his part because the festival won’t be held when you both visit Sendai since it was only celebrated during the seventh of July to August. Maybe he should take you there again after, if he isn’t so busy, probably the least he could do after realizing how messed up everything is, “Tanabata… they won’t be celebrating that until July… Do you want to go someplace else?”

“No,” you paused, “But if you’d like, we can go somewhe-”

“Sendai it is then.” he cuts you off, clearing his throat and ignoring what you were about to say, “Anything you want to do there?”

“I just…” your brows furrowed in wonder. Apart from the usual antagonistic and hostile attitude or the faux smiles that you’d usually present yourself with when you’re around him, Satoru sees something else, genuine uncertainty as if you had a muddle of thoughts in your head and you can’t seem to pick on what to say, it seemed like he rendered you speechless for the first time, “I just want to eat something there.”

It was a childish but very sincere reason, one Satoru couldn't bring himself to point out as a lie because it looked like anything but that, “Food, huh?” he nods in acknowledgment. Well, it’s not exactly a bad reason. He has heard about the good cuisine up there, “Let’s go to Sendai then, Y/N.”

The words are familiar, one said to you a long time ago but this time, unlike before, it seemed like you’d be going on that trip after all.

taglist @birdiewolf ;; @shokobuns ;; @aprosperlys ;; @tsukkisfatsimp ;; @menacanela ;; @shutuptenguu ;; @strawberrykilos ;; @dixonsbugaboo ;; ;; @itoshiwhore ;; @imuziawi ;;@sweetcreaturr;; @senjuasuna ;; @reggxea;; @jjkdilfs ;; @kageyamakock ;;@micheladakenzo ;; @myrroronthewall ;; @wubbawubwub04 ;; @cosmeti ;; @haewanna ;; @m3nh3raa ;; @junggoku ;; @kat-su-ki ;; @pjofics ;; @nikkiandherrandomshits ;; @cowward ;; @tsumuuwu ;; @gojojogo ;; @gomchan ;; @fiona782 ;; @serendipity-imagines ;; @shephard17895 ;; @pissbbyai ;; @hinaamaya ;; @taihjj ;; @menacanela ;; @softieelorelylove ;; @roione ;; @dixonsbugaboo ;; @fyodors-crime ;; @reggxe-a ;; @senjuasuna ;; @micheladakenzo ;; @myrroronthewall ;; @kgojo ;; @wubbawubwub04 ;; @mindlesschicca ;; @archonssun ;; @gyubit17 ;; @sangwoahbigbussy ;; @cupieyeri ;; @onlyshinji ;; @enesitamor ;; @pissbbyai ;; @rasoia ;; @daniisnotdead ;; @strayreader ;; @itsvanilla ;; @lavandula-stuff ;; @yuutaokkutsu ;; @rinnieroulette ;; @rogueofbullshit;; @kiyoojima ;; @rasoia ;; @daiawritss @musichime07 ;; @iriesviel ;; ;; @sleepxxing ;; @angelicvsoul ;;@Mindlesschicca ;; @cathymnhi ;; @archons-sun ;; @musichime07 ;; @iriesviel ;; @sleepxxing ;; @leftwherenothingsright ;; @kamisamaundercover ;; ;; @pissbbyai ;; @angelicvsoul ;; @chiizukeeiki ;; @lovedenji ;; @leftwherenothingsright ;;

#jjk x reader #jjk x you #jujutsu kaisen imagines #gojo satoru x reader #satoru x reader #jjk imagines #jjk angst #📝📝.minazuki mini series #i cant stick to an update schedule goodbye #hostclub.adulting

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theyhaveacavetroll · 3 years ago

Text

I posted 1,671 times in 2022

That's 162 more posts than 2021!

84 posts created (5%)

1,587 posts reblogged (95%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@combefaerie

@thessalian

@theyhaveacavetroll

@penflicks

@bonesandchekov

I tagged 577 of my posts in 2022

#james bond - 155 posts

#fate winx saga - 76 posts

#remington steele - 34 posts

#fate the winx saga - 29 posts

#ftws - 26 posts

#andreas of eraklyon - 22 posts

#saul silva - 18 posts

#october daye - 14 posts

#alec trevelyan - 13 posts

#love it - 10 posts

Longest Tag: 133 characters

#one of those used to be the villain and is still not on side but is putting up with bond for some ungodly reason even he can't fathom

My Top Posts in 2022:

today's hot take is that Andreas of Eraklyon is basically just the Chosen One who's grown up into a man with PTSD who's still being manipulated by the person who put him in that position to start with.

26 notes - Posted November 3, 2022

Bond/Felix/Della Headcanons for Polyamory Day

I think the screencap speaks for itself, but just in case anyone had any doubts, here is a ship manifesto:

The above scene occurs.

This is the second time that Della kisses Bond again on her wedding day.

Della's idea of ways to pull her husband's best man over to where she wants him is to grip the fabric at the small of his back this way.

See the full post

41 notes - Posted July 19, 2022

Raoul Silva/Tiago Rodriguez Headcanons

In honor of headcanons day, here are some about arguably my second-favorite villain.

He's Portuguese by way of Macau rather than being European. As a result, he speaks Cantonese, Mandarin, Portuguese, English, and Macanese with equal fluency.

He's got multiple sisters, none of whom know he's alive as of Skyfall.

He considers Tiago Rodriguez to be his name. Silva is an alias at best that comes from two of his middle names combined.

He was framed by General Chang when the Chinese stealth technology went missing in early 1997. The timeline lines up exactly with the events of Tomorrow Never Dies.

He's on some fairly serious pain medication more or less constantly and has some leftover health issues from being tortured for five months beyond the obvious damage to his face

His hair is that color naturally.

He was 008 during his time with MI6 - the one that M mentions calling in from Hong Kong during Living Daylights who "follows orders, not instincts".

He absolutely can't drive to save his life nor should he with the said pain meds on board.

His only pet is a small black rabbit.

He's got a playlist for just about everything (yes, including vengeance)

Like M, he's got terrible aim. He prefers explosions.

64 notes - Posted July 1, 2022

Alec Trevelyan Headcanons

And of course, I can't do a post about my second-favorite villain without doing another about literally my favorite villain/character in the entire series!

Loves driving but frequently gets relegated to the passenger seat if Bond is present

He's the sort who has names for guns he likes

Comes from a working-class background but hides it now that he's a double-0. That crisp accent is hard-won and slips sometimes.

Alec didn't defect. Instead, he woke up after the explosion and was subjected to torture for months using a combination of physical pain mixed with the kind of drugs they use to cause amnesia during surgery. They'd hurt him, force him to repeat what they told him, and then make sure he didn't remember any of the actual events consciously. They'd then wake him up, "explain" things to him, and let him assume the pain and anger and fear he felt was the result of betrayal. He might never fully remember any of this.

He's allergic to mushrooms and certain other fungi.

He's always been fond of a good explosion.

Reports of his death have been greatly exaggerated. In fact, they're outright lies, because Bond could no more drop him off a satellite than he could voluntarily take a vow of celibacy. Instead Alec spent several years getting un-brainwashed.

He and Bond have a dog named Spring. She's a Staffordshire terrier and they name her Spring because she's bouncing up and down out of boredom when they find her.

On mission, he's all charm and elegance. Off-mission he's a cheesy chips at the pub and cereal for breakfast without bothering to get dressed kind of guy

64 notes - Posted July 1, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

ok but for real - POV: you're Saul Silva. Your dad died at your hand because of a Burned One, you killed your best friend because he wanted to slaughter civilians, and the PTSD off of both of those things is off the charts, and that's before we get to the bit where you fought a war and had to imprison your former commander for war crimes. You raised your former friend's son because you're a good egg trying really hard to do the right thing.

And then - and THEN - in the space of a few months - you yourself get infected by the same thing that killed your father. You find out that the thing you killed your friend over is maybe not what you thought it was and those civilians were potentially actually enemies after all. You find out that the friend you thought you killed is alive and has been in hiding for 16 years, the commander you imprisoned gets free and has you arrested, and then you find out that your other friend who hides you and who helped you take down your evil commander is the literal Worst and that friend tries to kill you using your former friend who you thought you killed. Oh, and the former friend ends up dead again and now your foster son semi-hates you because you didn't quite tell him the truth about what happened to his dad.

Oh, and on top of all this, your other friend whom you've spent all these years with, who relied on you and whom you loved dearly, is now dead too because of your former commander.

How the fuck is Saul not rocking back and forth in a corner somewhere having a breakdown? How is he even remotely still sane?

67 notes - Posted October 20, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

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kingdoms-of-fate · 4 years ago

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Dungeon Encounter 1

--A--

A set of ice stairs leads down into a hall of stone. Snow drifts have seem to collected on the steps and piles of snow have gathered around the base.

Note 1: Anyone passing through will find it slippery with the snow, which comes up to calf height. You can require players to move half distance or some sort of roll to push through the drifts.

Note 2: Getting into the snow drifts triggers the statue B

--B--

A ten foot statue of a snow (angel/demon/elemental) stands on a block of ice facing the stairs.

Note: When any player enters the snow drifts upon the stairs in A, the statue will unleash a breath of snowy air. This effect can be anything from cone of cold to a few points of cold damage depending on the level of party.

--C--

A wall of translucent ice seems shattered in the middle as if something long ago has broken through.

Note: This should give the players an idea on how to break the ice wall at H.

--D--

This is a chamber of blue and gray icy stone floors with ice covered walls. Several pits surround the area, reaching about ten feet down and are filled with rows of sharp ice shards. Your breath hangs in the cold, stinging your throat and lungs and in the center is a block of ice 10x10x10 in size.

Note: Anyone moving across the room will find it very slippery as a thin layer of ice covers the ground. This will require players moving at half speed or require a Dex related check to not fall Of course any checks made should increase in difficulty the faster a character tries to move. A fumbled roll could see the player falling into an ice pit F

--E--

This is a block of translucent ice that glows with a faint ambient blue light. The sounds of a swirling snowstorm can be heard as a whisper if one gets close and perhaps words that are muffled by the winds.

Note 1: The block is a transformed Water(ice) elemental. Depending on the difficulty you wish to use, the block of ice can have hit points as per an elemental of a certain size, a block of ice of its size, or stone. As the block of ice is mostly an obstacle encounter, I suggest going with higher hit points so the players are forced to solve the challenges around the room G, H, while avoiding the ice block. Fire should do increased damage. For added challenge, the block can deal cold damage upon contact, regenerate drawing in the cold of the room to heal damage, or even spawn small ice elementals that break off from it to protect the block from players' attacks. Once the block is at 0 hit points, it will shatter.

Note 2: The whispered words are the elemental trying to communicate in its native tongue. It could be for aid in transforming back to its original form, or a warning of the chamber beyond or gibberish, depending on the DM's choice.

Note 3: Once the players have entered the chamber for two full rounds, the block will activate sliding across the ground trying to ram the players into pits or into the walls. You can use an attack score vs their AC, or have them roll a save to dodge. If hit, they take d6 ram damage, are knocked back 5 feet and must roll a DEX related check or fall, with a critical fail being launched into the pit F. They will also fall into the pit if within 5 feet of pit F when failing.

--F--

An icy pit that drops 10 feet into a bed of sharp ice shards.

Note 1: Falling into a pit deals fall damage (ten feet but the pit can be deeper) plus d6 damage for the spikes with an added d6 for each ten feet a players falls. Example: 20 feet - 2d6 falling 2d6 spike damage The spikes can do additional cold damage for added difficulty and force the player to roll a freeze check as if hold person, their bodies freezing or becoming stuck to the spikes.

Note 2: Climbing out will require a climb check but the walls are icy so it will be an increased difficulty.

--G--

Several chains ending in loops come out of the wall.

Note 1: Pulling on the chain requires a DEX related check to not fall, a fumble of a 1 resulting in falling into a pit F.

Note 2: All four chains must be pulled to open the portcullis at H For an added challenge, all 4 chains may need to pulled at once, or strength checks required to free the chain from the frozen walls

--H--

A large wall of translucent ice gives only vague images of the room beyond, a faint aura of blue and orange coming from the other side. Before the wall, a portcullis bars the way.

Note 1: If all 4 chains are pulled G, then the portcullis will rise.

Note 2: The wall of ice can be broken through once the portcullis has been raised. For an added challenge, the ice wall can be impervious or resistant to damage requiring the block E to break. A player can stand in front of the wall trying to get the block E to hit them and then with a successful dodge, the block will slide past them into the wall, breaking it open.

--I--

This room sends out a blast of frigid air that stings the skin upon contact. Snow and ice cover the ground and spending more than a few moment within the frozen chamber begins to hurt. Upon an altar of blue ice, an orb of frozen blue pulses with light. Several bodies frosted with snow lay at the base. In the upper part of the room, the remains of a titan lay half buried in the snow, a large two handed sword, its metal glowing a deep red embedded into the rib-cage.

Note: Upon entering the room, anyone not immune to cold begins to take cold damage, the strength of which can be determined by the level of the party. I suggest d6 damage per 3 levels of the party max of 5d6 - saves should be allowed.

--J--

An icy sphere hovers inches above a solid cylindrical block of ice. It hum's like the sounds of moving ice-sheets cracking in the far north and slowly spins. Encased inside is the item you have come for (key, magic item, prisoner, etc)

Once the door is opened, the players escape, popping back out the same door they came in.

Note 1: Cold damage to the players should double within 5 feet of the sphere.

Note 2: Touching the sphere will result in the titan corpse K to animate and attack.

Note 3: Using the fire-blade placed in the titans chest can break the sphere allowing the players to get at the item.

Note 4: The bodies are of dead adventures. They should have equipment ice-coated and stuck to the floor. However if thawed, the players could find treasure and magic items. The treasure can be random or geared to the players. (Maybe some solid ice potions of healing, useful once thawed)

--K--

Titanic size bones lay frozen in the snowy mounds with a large two handed sword, its metal glowing a bright orange, the end embedded through the rib cage. The blade has a series of runes in ancient script glowing a bright yellow with engravings of flame along the pummel and handle. It stands nearly 10 feet tall and casts a reddish glow on its surroundings

Note 1: When any player touches the orb J, the skeleton will animate and attack. You can use huge skeleton stats for the fight.

Note 2: If the players touch the sword before the orb, the bones will turn to ash. However, the sword is hot to the touch and weighs nearly a 100 pounds. It will deal d6 fire damage to anyone who tries to wield it. The sword cannot be welded in any useful way in combat, however, a STR roll can be used to swing it at the orb J, shattering the magical field encasing the item.

End:

This could be a small encounter or one part of a much larger Ice themed Dungeon.

#dnd homebrew #dnd campaign #dnd #printable dungeon #printable dungeon idea #free printable dungeon #dungeon ideas #dungeonsandragons #dungeon and dragons #dungeonsanddragons #dungeon #homebrewmaps #homebrew dungeons #d&d world building #dnd worldbuilding #world building #kanvas #kanvas productions

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cultivating-wildflowers · 2 years ago

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Books of 2023 - March

Reading slowed a bit this month because 1) most of the books on my list were printed or digital rather than audio and 2) I had a lot of other projects on my plate, so if I couldn't listen to a story, I wasn't getting through it very quickly. As always, I got to the end of the month with a bit of spare time in which I crammed several books. I'm only going into April with one book unfinished, and I'm starting to think I may put it down anyway.

Total books: 8 | New reads: 5 | 2023 TBR completed: 2 (0 DNF) / 7/25 total | 2023 Reading Goal: 29/50

February | April

#1 - Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy L. Sayers - 5/5 stars (audio)

see note from last month about me screaming into the carpet

#2 - The Traveler by E.B. Dawson - 4/5 stars ('23 TBR, audio)

I should put an actual review here but at present I'm just reeling over the crew's collective inability to back anything up. Vital research documents? Not backed up. Super important evidence? We only have one copy. Years' worth of work on very personal issues? Yeah it's right there in plain sight and oh no now the villain has it.

People. Please. BACK UP YOUR WORK.

#3 - The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery - 5/5 stars (reread, audio)

I am completely normal about this book. Extremely normal.

Also it occupies the same shelf in my brain as both The Secret Garden and The Unsettling of America. Do with that what you will.

#4 - Balanced and Barefoot: How Unrestricted Outdoor Play Makes for Strong, Confident, and Capable Children by Angela J. Hanscom - 4/5 stars ('23 TBR, audio)

More instructional rather than the largely-informational book I was expecting, and not as engaging as I was looking for, but I still learned things! And now I’m itching to go camping….

#5 - Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis - 4/5 (reread)

I've always been pretty neutral about this Narnia book. It's comfortably familiar while at the same time I saw things I hadn't really noticed before, little details I missed the last time I read it (whenever that was) or that were probably cut in the Radio Theater production.

#6 - Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry - 5/5 (audio)

I don't read a whole lot of literary fiction, and what I do read tends to be hit-or-miss. This one was a hit. Beyond that, I can't really articulate much. One of those "hold on, I need to process this" sort of books.

#7 - The Creeping Shadow by Jonathan Stroud - 4/5 stars

Stroud's writing style is enviably enthralling. I hate him. And I'm delighted that Lucy and Holly are reconciled. Holly's untaming was a marvel to behold.

#8 - The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis - 5/5 (reread)

This installment of the series used to occupy a lower spot for me than Prince Caspian, but I liked it more on this read-through. Maybe it's the pace. Maybe it's Eustace.

DNF

The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard - The concept was beyond intriguing, and the opening images reminded me of The Goblin Emperor for some reason, but the writing failed to grab me. The voice itself was bland, but also...vague? Not immersive, I guess. It feels unfair to give up so soon on such a large book but there we are.

#2023 reading list #mine #Busman's Honeymoon #Dorothy L. Sayers #The Traveler #E.B. Dawson #The Blue Castle #L.M. Montgomery #Balanced and Barefoot #Angela J. Hanscom #Prince Caspian #The Voyage of the Dawn Treader #C.S. Lewis #Jayber Crow #Wendell Berry #The Creeping Shadow #Jonathan Stroud

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king-gob · 4 years ago

Note

What’s a good comic that doesn’t involve superheroes?

oh buddy. pal. friendo. I’ll limit myself to books currently running to keep this only a single mile long. Note that depending on how loose your definition of “superhero” is will affect this. I’ve seen people call John McClane a superhero so yeah.

Something is Killing the Children

by James Tynion IV and Werther Dell'Edera (Boom! Studios)

Kids have been going missing in a sleepy woodland town. A strange woman named Erica arrives, determined to do something about it. She partners with a young boy who claims to have seen the thing stalking the town, and things quickly spiral further out of control. Well-written characters and fantastic art. Easily my favorite book running right now.

The Department of Truth

by James Tynion IV and Martin Simmonds (Image)

Cole Turner is an FBI agent who specializes in conspiracy theories and the deleterious effect it has on the minds of people obsessed with them. Unfortunately for him, he is about to discover that there is more going on under the surface than he realized and belief is far more powerful than he could ever imagine. Tynion is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers, and Simmonds’s art is even better here than it was in Dying Is Easy (which I also recommend). This series has one of the best first issues I’ve ever read, and I was hooked instantly. A definite recommend if you are as interested in conspiracy theories as I am.

Fire Power

by Robert Kirkman and Chris Samnee (Image)

Owen Johnson is a regular dad in the suburbs. He has a great wife, two kids and a job working at his father-in-law’s antique shop. What sets him apart is that he had spent years of his early life in a Shaolin temple, mastering martial arts, including the legendary Fire Power, the ability to generate fire from his body. He has long since turned his back on his order and the responsibilities they demand, but his former life is not ready to let him go. Written by Robert Kirkman, creator of The Walking Dead and with art by the great Chris Samnee, Fire Power is a great martial arts comic, recommended for fans of Street Fighter or anyone who likes seeing monks and ninjas beat each other up. I definitely recommend starting from the “Volume 0″ prequel trade. It’s not ESSENTIAL but I believe the story flows much better with it that way.

Fear Case

by Matt Kindt and Tyler Jenkins (Dark Horse)

Two Secret Service agents are investigating the Fear Case, the Service’s oldest open case. All agents are put on the case, but are only given a single year to investigate, as the case has the tendency to ruin the lives of those who get too close. Winters and Mitchum are in the last three weeks before they have to turn the case over, but they are closer than anyone has gotten in the history of the Service to getting their hands on the legendary box. But the closer they get, the more bodies they seem to find, and the duo’s mental and emotional limits are stretched to their breaking point. Everything Matt Kindt writes is worth reading, and this series is no different. Recommended for fans of the X-Files and other supernatural mysteries.

I Breathed a Body

by Zac Thompson and Andy MacDonald (Aftershock)

Telling too much about this comic would honestly be spoiling it. In the not-too-distant future, the biggest social media influencer in the world posts something horrific and the macabre lengths his PR team go to to handle it. The art is extremely good at showing the body horror involved and while I do recommend the comic, be warned, it is *extremely* fucked up. Excellent horror comic.

Once and Future

by Kieron Gillen and Dan Mora (Boom! Studios)

Terrorists resurrect King Arthur in a bid for power, but it turns out that the english legend is not what they thought or bargained for. Now, a retired monster hunter and her archeologist grandson must turn back the tide of returning myths before the world is irreversibly plunged into darkness. But their family history has plenty of shadows of their own. Really great book from two of my favorite creators, and really love the way they play with the metatextual nature of the myths and legends involved. Very fun.

Seven Secrets

by Tom Taylor and Daniele Di Nicuolo (Boom! Studios)

A clandestine order protects seven briefcases which hold seven secrets. However, a betrayal from within threatens to reveal those secrets, and Caspar, the son of two former protectors of the Seven Secrets, must discover the truth before all is lost. Tom Taylor is a fantastic writer that makes everything he writes infectiously fun, and with Di Nicuolo’s great eye for action scenes, this is an adventure book worth checking out.

Stillwater

by Chip Zdarsky and Ramón K. Pérez (Image)

A promise of a substantial inheritance brings Daniel West and his friend to the quiet town of Stillwater. However, they quickly realize the town’s sinister secret: in Stillwater, nobody dies. And as the marketing for the book says, that’s not just a promise, it’s a threat. Good writing and an intriguing mystery. Highly recommended.

That Texas Blood

by Chris Condon and Jacob Phillips (Image)

The murder of his brother brings an aspiring writer back to the Texas town of his youth, and puts him on a violent road to his own undoing. Fantastic writing. If you’re like me and love dark neo-western and crime stories, then I honestly can’t recommend this book enough. Look elsewhere if you want happy endings.

We Only Find Them When They’re Dead

by Al Ewing and Simone Di Meo (Boom! Studios)

Captain Malik and his crew pilot an autopsy ship, so named because they harvest meat, metal and other materials from the fresh corpses of dead gods that appear on the edge of space. Malik wants to see a living god, and is willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen. But the ghosts of his past haunt him, and until he confronts them, making history won’t be easy. Fantastic cosmic sci-fi story with gorgeous art by Di Meo. Recommended for people who love stories set in space, and also for people who love long panels.

American Ronin

by Peter Milligan and ACO (AWA Upshot)

In a future where supercorporations rule everyone’s lives (I know that may be hard to visualize but try to imagine it), war is fought not by nations, but by enhanced operatives carrying out all manner of assassinations and espionage. But when one unnamed operative breaks his programming and goes on the hunt, the entire sick system is about to be violently brought down. Really interesting protagonist who has a great ability. Hunt down his targets by ingesting their DNA to learn how they think, and then using that empathic ability to get inside their heads. The cat and mouse games are really fun, and I highly recommend for anyone who likes superspy stories or seeing complex plans pay off.

Casual Fling

by Jason Starr and Dalibor Talajić (AWA Upshot)

Jennifer Ryan is a successful lawyer with a loving family and a great career, but a bad decision (that is, cheating on her stay-at-home husband) made on a whim has disastrous consequences. Saying much more would be spoiling, but there is definitely something sinister going on beneath the surface. Made in the style of erotic thrillers like Fatal Attraction and Eyes Wide Shut, this book features very well-written, realistic characters and importantly (to me anyway) refuses to condemn the protagonist while not shying away from the destructive results of her mistakes. I picked this book up because I liked Jason Starr’s previous book, Red Border, and enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. Recommended.

Bitter Root

by David F. Walker, Chuck Brown and Sanford Greene (Image)

In 1920s Harlem, a long-standing family of monster hunters is splintering. Tragedy and conflicting worldviews are tearing them apart, and they’re going to need to stand together if they want to save New York City from the darkness that’s coming. Hate is a powerful thing, but also a cancer, and it’s about to metastasize. Really great worldbuilding and immediately likeable characters. Despite having a lot of themes about hate and prejudice (and utilizing them particularly well, in my opinion), the book is an exceptional action story. David F. Walker is a favorite writer of mine (See: Shaft, Nighthawk, Luke Cage) and Chuck Brown wrote the incredibly fun On the Stump (also highly recommended). The issues also feature essays from black scholars who expand on some of the historical events and themes that are present in the book, if you’re into that sort of thing (which I am). I’m not sure if those are in the trades, though.

Honorable Mentions/Books that I am too tired to give the full treatment to right now: Babyteeth (Aftershock) Chained to the Grave (IDW) Dead Dog’s Bite (Dark Horse) Decorum (Image) Deep Beyond (Image) Dryad (Oni Press) Family Tree (Image) The Goon (Albatross Funnybooks) Killadelphia (Image) Nocterra (Image) Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology (Dark Horse) Orcs (Boom! Studios) Orphan and the Five Beasts (Dark Horse) Outcast (Image) Proctor Valley Road (Boom! Studios) Redneck (Image) Sea of Sorrows (IDW) Second Coming (AHOY Comics) Silver Coin (Image) Tartarus (Image) Two Moons (Image) Undiscovered Country (Image) Undone by Blood (Aftershock) Vampire: The Masquerade (Vault Comics) Wynd (Boom! Studios) Year Zero (AWA Upshot) Honorable Mentions/Books that have ended but you should check out: A Walk Through Hell (Aftershock) American Born Chinese (First Second) American Vampire (DC Comics) Animosity (Aftershock) Archangel 8 (AWA Upshot) Bad Reception (Aftershock) Basketful of Heads (DC Comics) Black Science (Image) Blacksad (Dark Horse) Chew (Image) Dark Ark (Aftershock) Dark Red (Aftershock) Daytripper (DC Comics) Dead Day (Aftershock) Devil’s Highway (AWA Upshot) The Dollhouse Family (DC Comics) East of West (Image) Folklords (Boom! Studios) Gideon Falls (Image) God Country (Image) Grendel, KY (AWA Upshot) Hotell (AWA Upshot) Infidel (Image) Knights Temporal (Aftershock) Locke and Key (IDW) The Low, Low Woods (DC Comics) The Man Who Fucked Up Time (Aftershock) Midnight Nation (Image) Nailbiter (Image) Orc Stain (Image) Pestilence (Aftershock) Plunge (DC Comics) Preacher (DC Comics) Pride of Baghdad (DC Comics) Red Border (AWA Upshot) The Red Mother (Boom! Studios) The Replacer (Aftershock) Scalped (DC Comics) Scott Pilgrim (Oni Press) Strange Skies Over East Berlin (Boom! Studios) Tokyo Ghost (Image) Transmetropolitan (DC Comics) Unholy Grail (Aftershock) The Wicked + The Divine (Image) Y: The Last Man (DC Comics)

#please read this I worked a long time on it #and now I go to sleep #asks #baronegg #comics #m

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silleye · 4 years ago

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!! If you’re looking for oc asks! What are the tragector’s relationships like with the other mercs on their team (it doesn’t have to be both you can just do one HEBDHWBH) Do they have some theyd consider themselves closer to than the others ?? Close friendships?

Ok so I actually have a LOT written about them o-(-< … but the short version of this is that both trajectors are on pretty good terms with everyone, but they're the closest with the medics and spies for lore-related reasons! They’ve been around in the Gravel Wars the most out of everyone, so the team respects them for their experience. However, the trajectors are more involved in the war than most would think, and as a result try to keep a relative distance from the team, since they’re still working to keep a stalemate between the two factions (well, up until Gray Mann came along and messed everything up :P).

For BLU, V can be seen as a parental figure of sorts since she’s pretty straightforward and willing to give advice based on her experience; she has a reduced affect that makes it hard to read emotions, but she’s approachable once you get past it. However, for RED, Coda kinda just does their own thing and can be found in their workshop often; they don’t really like interacting much with others out of anxiety and can also be awkward at times, but they mean well :)

Anyways here’s a TLDR of their relations with their team:

RED Trajector (Coda):

Closest with Spy, Medic, Pyro, and Heavy

Close but not the closest with Engineer and Demoman

Friendly with Scout, Soldier, and Sniper

BLU Trajector (V):

Closest with Spy, Medic, Scout, and Engineer

Close but not the closest with Soldier, Heavy, and Sniper

Friendly with Demoman and Pyro

I'm still thinking of this more in-depth, but if you're interested in reading about their relationships with Medic and Spy and more of the Trajectors' backstories (since they're closest because of lore-related reasons) there's more below :0

For context, V and Coda are technically celestials and two ocs I took from a personal project to throw into TF2 for fun! They're also immortal :P... The two of them travel around in different AUs as a way to regain some familiarity in life as a human and to find a way to cure their condition. Eventually they stumble onto the TF2 universe and realize that there's a LOT of weird stuff here that can help them understand more about the power behind their celestial status (I call it Null for now). Coincidentally, Australium is a type of Null that found its way in the TF2 universe thanks to a certain angel Coda knows about, and through a complicated series of events, V and Coda found and was hired by the Administrator in her early years to kick off the Gravel Wars at the very beginning. They’ve been around in Teufort for a While now and also used to work directly under the Administrator before Miss Pauling came along…

The reason why they’re the closest with the medics + spies is related to them being immortal lol

Medic:

I’m assuming that both RED and BLU Medics are pretty much the same in personality and traits, so this kinda applies to both :0

V has always found the medics interesting; all three generations had medical knowledge and skills beyond their times, so to her, they’re the closest they’ve ever gotten to understanding immortality and if there’s a way to “fix” it. The Medic in particular caught V’s attention; she’s aware that there’s something up with Medic’s soul and is also intrigued by just how eccentric he is compared to the other medics. Like, who goes around stealing their teammates souls and making contracts with the devil and also how the hell does uber work???

Anyways, V’s fascinated by the medics and often hangs out around them to learn more about their work. Which eventually led to some shenanigans and a strong friendship forming over time, though Medic’s still a bit disappointed that V doesn’t let him experiment on her :(

Also on a related note, crows tend to like V for whatever reason when she’s around… which makes for some interesting interactions with Medic’s doves.

For Coda, pretty much the same thing applies as above, though they also find Medic funny and just hangs out around him often because he’s an interesting guy who’s done a lot of shady work in the past (and continues to do so). The two of them share a funky sense of humor together :)

Spy:

With Spy and Trajector, their relationship started off as a rivalry of sorts; Spy’s determined to figure out what the hell is up with these Trajectors and why they get special treatment from the Administrator, while Trajectors are well aware of this.

Their first few interactions felt a bit forced, but over time, it turned more and more into a genuine(ish) friendship between the two.

Also there’s a whole separate thing I have for BLU Spy in particular, since he was some weird unkillable head for a while LOL

Coda initially found the BLU Spy as a head in Medic’s fridge… After chatting with him for a bit, Coda agrees to find a way to kill and return him to BLU normally.

Somehow (I’m not sure yet how but somehow) he gets back to normal.. And life on the battlefield resumes just how it has been before. They’re still enemies and also can be seen as rivals since they pick on each other more often then the other mercs, but there’s just something with how the BLU Spy can relate to being unable to die that links him to the Trajectors in a way different from most other people… which eventually spirals into more interactions and conversations between them :P

Anyways! Medic, Spy, and Trajector have the most potential regarding relationship stuff and I constantly switch between shipping them with each other (they're my ot3?? ot4?? technically ot6 if you include different colors???? i have no idea anymore hgjhfhgk). Overall I think they are neat :)

#current mood is the gif of that guy with a whiteboard explaining things in a hurried manner #SORRY THIS IS... A LOT OF WRITING ABOUT MOSTLY OC CONTENT IVE NEVER TALKED ABOUT BEFORE AAAAA BUT TY FOR READING THIS FAR IF YOU DID!!!#tf2 oc #tf2 trajector #tf2 tenth class #ask #team fortress 2 #tf2 #AND TY FOR SENDING IN THE ASK I FORGOT TO MENTION THAT EARILER BJGHDFKJGHKJDHKGJH

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bulkyphrase · 4 years ago

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Everybody & the Avengers Team

I've got a new fic rec list for you!

The stories in the "X & the Avengers Team" tags focus on one person's relationship to the Avengers team as a whole. Courtesy of AO3's tag browse and Excel, here's a ranked list of the top 20 most popular pairings:

Tony Stark | 2470 total, 240 OTP

Peter Parker | 2255 total, 85 OTP

Steve Rogers | 602 total, 56 OTP

Loki | 387 total, 26 OTP

Natasha Romanov | 308 total, 35 OTP

Clint Barton | 268 total, 46 OTP

Bruce Banner | 244 total, 15 OTP

Thor | 209 total, 7 OTP

Avengers Team | 174 total, 24 OTP

James "Bucky" Barnes | 156 total, 7 OTP

Wanda Maximoff | 143 total, 4 OTP

Phil Coulson | 105 total, 9 OTP

Darcy Lewis | 91 total, 6 OTP

Matt Murdock | 60 total, 8 OTP

Sam Wilson | 53 total, 5 OTP

Nick Fury | 41 total, 5 OTP

Harry Potter | 40 total, 0 OTP

Pepper Potts | 31 total, 1 OTP

Vision | 29 total, 2 OTP

Stiles Stilinski | 25 total, 0 OTP

In chart form, if you like charts:

Notes:

The numbers after the names are the number of stories tagged with that ship. OTP means the number of stories where that is the only relationship tagged on the story. Numbers are accurate as of July 2021.

Story Recommendations

For your reading pleasure, included below is at least one fic rec for each pairing except the crossovers from non-Marvel fandoms (apologies to Mr. Potter & Mr. Stilinski). Most are gen fic, and even in the ones with a romantic pairing, romance is not the focus.

Tony Stark

As Subtle As Cognitive Recalibration by petroltogo (Teen, 8949) tumblr: @tonystarktogo

Standing inside his penthouse, listening to Rogers, Barton and Banner explain to Fury how they just happened to stumble over the Tesseract on a routine security check of Stark Tower’s roof and wouldn’t you know, they’ve managed to fight off the looming alien invasion before it could really start and secure the missing overpowered nightlight is one of the most surreal situations Tony has ever had the displeasure of experiencing.

Peter Parker

the worst field trip ever by shrill_fangirl_screaming (Teen, 3420) tumblr: @i-am-having-an-emotion

"We're on a field trip," Peter said. "To here. And Tony decided to be our tour guide and absolutely embarrass me, so can you please help get him under control?"

Which is how Peter Parker, architect of his own destruction, ended up with not one but two superhero pseudo-dads being annoying on his school field trip.

Steve Rogers

Do You Remember Being Happy? ('Cause I Sure Don't) by GalaxyThreads (Teen, 11022) tumblr: @galaxythreads

That seems about right. He doesn't know how he knows that, though. He does have vague memories of an annoyed fondness at finding peanut butter in some sort of jam. Thor's doing, because he doesn't see the point of using two knives when one works just as fine. He knows that. How does he know that? He knows all those little details, though, almost innately. How can he know these strangers so deeply?

Everyone else below the cut!

Loki

Proprietary by TheThirdMarauder (Teen, 7639)

No, Loki simply wants the Avengers conquered. The details of whom, how, and when matter not. Unless, of course, said details interfere with Loki's plans. Then, well, then none can fault him for protecting his own interests.

Loki has always been exceptionally good at lying to himself.

Natasha Romanov

What Girls Are Made Of by enigma731 (Teen, 4613) tumblr: @enigma731

She rolls her eyes but does as he’s indicated, using his shoulders to leverage herself up onto his back, her arms around his neck and her legs hugging his waist.

“You know,” he says blithely, “this isn’t really what I tend to picture when I think of a hot girl riding me.”

Natasha groans, deciding that if his sense of humor gets them arrested, she’ll kill him herself. “Just go.”

Clint Barton

Dear Clint Barton (circa age 7) by pollyrepeat (Teen, 4221)

With a normal person, this might count as blackmail material, but a) this is a case of mutually assured destruction if ever there was one, and b) Fury is immune to embarrassment. Not just in the regular, Tony Stark way, either, oh no. Things that could possibly end up being embarrassing to Fury get somehow warped and changed until they go from mortifying all the way over into useful and/or good for his image. It’s like a superpower.

Carrying Clint’s small child self around on his shoulders more than once has probably already hit the interagency rumour mill as an example of Fury’s innate awesomeness: good with rocket launchers and small children.

Also available as a podfic!

Bruce Banner

They're Not Wrong by Trumpeteer34 (Teen, 10163)

As Tony began to pace around the hole in the road to keep himself from shooting repulsors at the nearby buildings in a fit of rage, Thor began to study the nearby area. There was no sign of either the Hulk or Bruce Banner beyond the crater. The surrounding area, aside from the rubble of the fight, held no clue as to their friend’s location.

“Guys, he’s gone,” Tony growled into the communicator on their private line, drawing Thor out of his darkening thoughts. “Someone tranqed him and took him. He’s gone.”

Honorary mention goes to the Responsible Science series by @letteredlettered - the stories don’t have the "Avengers Team & Bruce Banner" tag, but they could, and they are amazing. The best Bruce Banner writing I've ever come across.

Thor

Fortunately, I Am Mighty by onward_came_the_meteors (General, 3062)

Steve was the first one to speak. “Are you okay?”

Thor nodded. Which was a bad idea, as it turned out, because now there were little gray lights flashing in front of his eyes. “I’m fine.” Absolutely everyone narrowed their eyes, and he added, “But, uh. Could we possibly not get back in the car just yet?”

Avengers Team

Civil Wasn't by onward_came_the_meteors (General, 7123)

"We're having an ideological conflict here," Tony stated with disbelief. "Are you telling me you still want to go out to dinner?"

"It's a standing engagement, Tony," Rhodey reminded him.

"Not you too—"

"We already had to reschedule from Friday when Natasha was..." Rhodey frowned. "What were you doing?"

The question was directed toward Natasha, who shrugged and said, "Spy stuff."

James "Bucky" Barnes

You Know How I Feel, aka, The Adventures of Bucky and Muffy the Dinosaur by ifeelbetter (Not Rated, 4511) tumblr: @ifeelbetterer

“As you may have heard, Bucky Barnes, a.k.a. The Winter Soldier, recently rescued a tiny part-robot dinosaur during the Avengers’ battle with Dr. Doom in Antarctica,” the other newscaster explained. “Pictures of Barnes and the dinosaur were posted on twitter by fellow Avenger, Clint Barton, a.k.a. Hawkeye, and immediately made Barnes’s new pet America’s sweetheart.”

“Her name’s Muffy,” said Steve."

Wanda Maximoff

and the woman was young again by Mira_Jade (General, 3669)

Tony Stark called them the Cap's Kooky Quintet, and sometimes the term amused her – causing her to lift a sardonic brow where someday a smile would truly smile. She enjoyed the presence of comrades – true comrades – and she enjoyed the way their minds wove and bound together about each other to fluctuate against her senses as one. There was something soothing about being in their midst, and even when their loud and brash ways – their painful Americaness - rubbed her raw and drained on her, it was ever the knitting of their minds that soothed those moments over, and made them inconsequential.

Phil Coulson

Coulson's First Day of School by storiesfortravellers (Teen, 3055)

Coulson looked up at him. “I like drawing pictures with Mr. Rogers. I like having tea parties with Ms. Potts. I like it when Dr. Banner reads me books, and I like it when Natasha teaches me things. And I like when you play with me. You do really good voices when we play action figures. And you’re the only one who lets me do stuff like jump off the high diving board at the pool or eat three cupcakes or play tackle with kids at the park.”

Clint didn’t realize that. He was pretty sure that meant that he was doing something wrong.

Darcy Lewis

Beginner Yoga for Dummies (Darcys) and Sad Hobos by chailover (Teen, 3434)

Darcy had a theory: crazy attracted crazy, working kind of like gravity. It was pretty much her explanation for her life after Thor. And if she had thought the type of crazy Thor attracted was bad, be it Loki or the Warrior Three and Sif, or the dark elves and the Convergence, it was still nothing against what the Avengers manage en masse.

Matt Murdock

Double Blind by smilebackwards (Teen, 2381) tumblr: @smilebackwards

Stark snaps his fingers. “You can’t see half of my inventions. This explains so much about you and why you’ve never been properly impressed by me.”

“Does it?” Matt says, ambiguously.

Sam Wilson

Bystander by scribblemetimbers (Teen, 52029)

“I just want you to know,” Sam says loudly, cautiously raising his hands, “That I’m very poor and very sleep-deprived and literally the only thing you can kill me for right now are my notes.” He pauses. Wait. On second thought: “Please don’t steal my notes.”

“I’m not—I’m not a mugger,” Not Mugger rasps out, and for all that he looks about to keel over and die, the man actually manages to sound offended.

Nick Fury

Bedtime Story by dixiehellcat (Teen, 2532) tumblr: @deehellcat

Fury snorted. “I have to check in with the duty officer. I’ll be back in, let’s say twenty minutes. I expect all of you to have whatever your pre-bedtime routines are completed, and be in here pajama’ed and ready to be read to.”

He tapped the book under his arm, then left with the usual dramatic swish of his long coat. Bruce scratched his head. “Did…he just say be ready to be read to?”

Pepper Potts

Pepper and the Avengers (Which She Knows Nothing About) by rebelmeg (General, 6696) tumblr: @rebelmeg

The Avengers, that mismatched group of hurt and heroism, was one of the most important things in Tony Stark’s life. So, naturally, Pepper had made them an important part of her life too.

Vision

039. Intoxicated by aimmyarrowshigh (Teen, 100) tumblr: @aimmyarrowshigh

It might be nice to fit in, just this once. To lose a bit of composure.

Vision floated over to the refrigerator and, with some timidity, pulled off a magnet. He stuck it to his forehead.

#marvel fic rec

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unproduciblesmackdown · 4 years ago

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which bmc scenes make you the softest bc for me it's gotta be most of the stagedorks scenes ESPECIALLY a guy that i'd kinda be into. mostly bc of christine cause her and michael are my favs (i love them all sm though) but also bc of jeremy because he is a close second to both of them. also vimh but vimh makes me cry a lot although nowadays i can hardly watch one scene without at the very least tearing up. anyways yeah which ones make you soft

i simply rewatched bmc and took notes for this and really got off track at points in the sense of sticking to What Makes You Softest but that’s how it goes babey

ACT ONE - in mts when jeremy is just having a whole moment being smitten in christine's presence while she's inelegantly picking herself up off the floor and smearing on lip balm and adjusting a skirt wedgie - jeremy and michael just being default that glad to meet each other in the middle of a random schoolday - michael hyping up jeremy's crush on christine and just encouraging this momentum to get jeremy to sign up for the play - ilpr.....that christine stops after like, the first two verses and goes back to her book b/c she doesn't figure someone's looking to listen to her beyond that but then she sees jeremy's still 110% paying attention and the whole rest of the song enfolds with increasing enthusiasm - jake doing that whole bit "all the pressure i feel to be the best at everything all the time" lmao classic stuff here, depressing content delivered in this humorousse way. charming moment - "leave me alone, i've had a bad day" - 2pg......when michael taps jeremy on the shoulder to get jeremy to join in on his choreo, which jeremy then does.....that michael asks if jeremy will be too cool for Video Games and jeremy just responds Emotionally Directly......we love the Favorite Person moment......that this song just ends with the two of them grooving 2gether god bless - jeremy stammering and Tics and Fidgeting when the squip remarks uponst it - jeremy delivering the Looking Pretty Sexy Brooke as awkwardly as possible and she's just like "thanks :)" - jeremy's own Theatricality coming out......hey hamlet - jeremy spinning around in place alternately addressing both brooke and the squip with "oh i'm supposed to meet my friend michael" - nice little detail wherein brooke signals for chloe to join in on her choreo - speaking of, v fond of the Moment jeremy is in on both their choreo......brooke sort of alarming jeremy with her whole attempted grande finale, straw and all, ft. the first instance of her messing with his hair so much she's just tugging his entire head around - cute that jake and rich have a sort of 2pg-esque handshake routine too - jeremy's "that's sad, what should i do" reaction re: jenna - rich's Earnest invitation to come over and play xbox... - "bonjour, jeremy" "ooh brooke!" and this whole exchange, her complimenting him, him laughing at "That Was French" and remembering to ask about pinkberry - love the whole choreo sequence/s in sync up, especially fond of his Moments with the girls, bumping hips with chloe (twice), hearing some Gossip from jenna, posing with brooke.... ;__; - the bowling alley performance art exchange before agtikbi ;____; - agtikbi......the glittery hearts choreo.....the whatever! the interlude or whatever!!! the I Guess A Part Of Me section hhhhoughhh ;o; ;o; ;o; ;o; ;o; that she pulls him into a hug and puts her head against his shoulder omggg ;_________; - brooke just trying to interact with jeremy the Right Way w/o any guidance on the bleachers and it continues to be awkward and funny....like comforting just his Leg while he converses w/his squip.....how she just ends up Physically pushing him around by the hands and head and shoulder and etc......whole situation here in upgrade.mp3 clearly less than Ideal but jeremy and brooke are nevertheless very cute individually And together - meanwhile jake also trying to genuinely Be With christine in upgrade is also charming lol, quitting archery to hang w/a girl like her.... - i always love when the Playful Shove brooke gives jeremy at "but at the mall, you looked at me" pushes him back a whole few steps....this moment of them truly Getting each other sans anyone else's interference.....tres magnifique - jeremy being That psyched to see michael for the first time (in like, less than one full day lol)....michael being That psyched just hearing that jeremy's cool scifi thing worked out after all - lgw ;_________________________; - like i'm some normal, handsome guy..... - giving us All that silence after "The Problem Has Always Been Me" - the whole bit where he launches into the "I'm Not The [series of insults]" and i've realized it's really especially a stretch to say i'm Soft for these moments in lgw but i Am vulnerable and that's its power. little 1" tall will roland on my screen here just made me shed a real tear doing That.....

ACT TWO - brooke's Howl at the end of her verse lmawooo - oughhh jeremy and brooke Greeting each other at the party too, jeremy unable to disappoint her and going for the Real Compliment, just v charming. rip - jake and jeremy's danceoff lol hell yes and then jake just having Misunderstood the costume plan between him and christine lol - the squip getting in on the dancing :) go you funky little ai - jeremy and brooke singing that last verse of Halloween v enthusiastically at each other, - again that jeremy is just genuinely glad to see michael.... - the inherent intimacy of singing mitb b/c your bff dumped you..... - AGTIKBI REPRISE..... ;______________________________; hhhhuouuuoh my god :'3 the lil detail that at the Height of things christine is Shy and turns away.....just. This Scene oh my god - soft in a vulnerable way like, rip to jenna where we're seeing chloe's Lack Of Enthusiasm in accepting a call from her :[ - the Shift at the start of the pants song :] - and the lil mitb reprise during said pants song lmao, also always having a great time w/this concept of "maybe this teen having a rough time needs some guidance from someone grown w/all that bonus maturity here" - i wish there was a way i could help everyone but i don't know how so i guess i'll just do theatre..... - jenna being Moved simply being asked for the first time ever How She Is u_u then her being like "....Okay!" lmfao jenna's great - just have to say in whatever context i'm v fond of pitiful children there at the end lmfao the bass kicks in like that and we're having a great time - the audience always having that response to "all the way to broadway" - jeremy going "you came to see me in the play? :)" like, that he's processing the significance of that in the middle of these Very Raised Stakes - i'm soft for will roland's vocal glitching mouth noises live every night!!! - jeremy like "ha! >:)" flipping his squip off after he's successfully Apologized lmfaoooo love him - but then having that real And I'm Stronger Than You Think I Am victory like :'| - that michael's been by like a ton btw during jeremy's probably somewhat concerning coma. also cherish the lil dance he does while they're celebrating mr. heere's bepantsedness - jake and jeremy sharing a Dab - and just the Popular Kids actively seeking him out to help re: christine b/c they just Want To Be Supportive.....very nice - this vimh interlude or whatever with christine and jeremy like jlsdfhh i think of this all the time - me and the voices in my head have made up our collective mind ;__; what do they say we should do ;______; and the Woohoo! ;_______________; - huoughh kiss and you KNOW especially the [jeremy spinning away in sheer enthusiasm] of 2.0 just KILLS THE MAN ;O; - jeremy not missing a beat despite the squip's interruption leeet's GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO - the more than survive na na na na na na na na na na na's but they're all So, and jeremy ending With everyone but also there with Himself and it's so Good and Everything Wants What Vimh Has!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! hhrough ;0; - that jason does that spin at curtain call w/his excellent squip costume... - that in virtually any given curtain call when they get into line together there's that lil ritual of george smacking will's ass lmao love languages

i mean tl;dr quite Same in that like, most likely to inspire tearing up over something or other includes agtikbi reprise and vimh which is just like, again any finale wants what it has, and the I Guess A Part Of Me bit of the non-reprise agtikbi like Oof augh this is so cute, and lgw always Gets me, and while i was rewatching speaking of being soft and move-able i was also just continually struck with delight over various moments throughout, and noticing little details for the first time thank god. just Vulnerable the whole time

#anonymous #Great Ask thank you for sending it #bmc

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needtherapy · 4 years ago

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open always petal by petal (ch 1)

Song Lan knows his only passenger, Cao Huan, is more secrets than truths, but he's still the best passenger Song Lan has ever had: paid up front, self-sufficient, and silent.

It shouldn't matter that Cao Huan plays the guqin like his heart is broken.

It shouldn't matter that his smiles light up the darkest corners of Fuxue's passageways.

It shouldn't matter that he makes Song Lan curious, curious in a way he hasn't felt in years.

It's just an ordinary transport, a regular fare, a mostly-honest way to make a living. All they have to do is get from Sichuan Station to Caiyi Port. The galaxy may be a dangerous place, but Song Lan is very good at his job, and this should be an easy two-week trip.

The rest doesn't matter. It doesn't.

READ ON AO3

Notes: Rated E for Explicit. Title from e.e. cummings' poem "somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond". Thanks to @cirilien, @coslyons, @treemaidengeek and tucuxi (AO3) for the beta reads!

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3

⋆ Day 0 ⋆

The papers are fakes, Song Lan thinks, but damn good ones. It’s really only the feel of the paper—a bit too clean, a bit too smooth—that tips him off. The ID badge is probably fake too.

He examines the man standing in front of him. He’s handsome in a patrician sort of way, if a bit too thin, and nearly as tall as Song Lan himself, dressed in graceful Eastern Sector robes that rustle the way only real silk does. They’re a far cry from Song Lan’s utilitarian jacket and comfortable shirts and pants in shades of constant black, only a small step up from the uniform he used to wear.

Song Lan wonders why this obviously wealthy man would need forged travel docs. He doesn’t really care, of course. Everyone has their secrets. But he doesn’t need trouble with the Goldlighters. It’s already tricky enough to be unaffiliated without drawing the attention of the galaxy’s most powerful economic cultivation guild.

With a sigh, Song Lan fishes the comm out of a pocket and holds it to the tiny neural node on the side of his head.

[Why the fake name?] the comm speaker asks in a cheerful, melodic voice that still twinges painfully in his chest. It’s been five years. He should really get the damn thing re-coded.

Instead of being offended, the man—supposedly named Cao Huan—tilts a wry, weary smile at him.

“I had hoped to be anonymous a little longer,” he says, his elegant accent denoting excessive amounts of privilege and education. “If you require my real credentials, I can produce them.”

Song Lan shrugs and shakes his head. As long as the man is legit, he can call himself whatever he wants, but now Song Lan has another question. Frowning, he lifts the comm again.

[Why not just travel on a Goldlighter transport? You’re headed for Caiyi. It’s a major port. You know it’ll take two weeks to travel through all four sectors in my ship? The trip might be more dangerous than on a sanctioned vessel,] Xingchen’s voice asks.

Song Lan is under no illusions about his typical fares. There’s usually a good reason they want to travel without questions, and usually a good reason they choose Fuxue. He might be unaffiliated, but he’s not cheap. The galaxy is a dangerous place, and he’s very good at his job. In ten years, he’s only lost one person. It was, however, the only one who mattered.

“I am returning to my family after...some time away. I am in no hurry,” Cao Huan answers, with an edge that Song Lan takes to mean the topic is closed.

Well, he’s happy to take the man’s money; he paid extra to be the only passenger. Song Lan shrugs again and motions for Cao Huan to follow him on a very short tour: kitchen, guest bedrooms, sonic lavs, the foolishly indulgent bath, infirmary, bridge, engineering, cargo bay, plus half a dozen corridors that serve as storage, computer terminals, short-term passenger seating, and whatever else Song Lan needs them to be. He’s even strung up hammocks in emergencies.

[Make yourself at home,] he says with a nod and quick, slanted smile.

“Thank you Captain Song,” the man says with a wide, genuine smile that starts in the corner of his mouth and spreads, opening like a flower across his face. It surprises Song Lan in a way he can’t quite articulate, as though neither of them expected today to hold any need for smiles. “I have been told you are the best pilot, and I look forward to the journey.”

Song Lan finishes prepping Fuxue with supplies for the two-week flight, plus extras, because it’s always better to plan for the worst. He checks to make sure his one luxury—six skeins of outrageously expensive qiviut yarn—is carefully stowed in waterproof cases. Having warm socks and something to do with his hands in the long dark expanse of space is worth any price. Cao Huan busies himself with loading his own gear, waving Song Lan away when he offers to help.

“Commander Song! Commander Song Lan!”

Song Lan turns at the familiar voice calling a half-forgotten title, but it takes him a minute to recall the person: Ouyang Ju. They had served together some ten years ago in the war that brought down the Wen High Chancellor. Fat lot of good that had done.

“Man, it is you! Haven’t seen you in ages,” Ouyang grins, slapping Song Lan on the back. “How’s it going?”

Song Lan tries not to flinch. He has never understood the need people have to touch each other when they’re talking. It’s annoying. He smiles and tips his head, the universal motion for a polite and disengaged fine, and hopes he won’t have to elaborate. It’s not that he doesn’t like using the comm. He would just rather not use it.

Alright, maybe it’s that he doesn’t like using it.

The man’s face twists with sudden, embarrassed recollection, and Song Lan knows what’s coming next.

“Sorry to hear about your partner and...everything,” the older man says with an apologetic grimace. “He was a great guy.”

[He was,] Song Lan acknowledges, giving in to the blasted voice box. [Thanks.]

“Hey, I’m XO on the Goldlight Ren,” Ouyang nods at the huge transport vessel resting in the nearby docking bay, just visible through wide banks of windows designed, Song Lan assumes, to show off the might and power of the ships that travel here. Nothing like Fuxue, who might be ninety meters if he squints just right, can be flown by a single person, and only requires a landing pad.

“Anything you ever need, you tell me, okay? I owe you.” Without waiting for a response, Ouyang strides away, whistling a fairly dirty bar song.

Song Lan watches him go, wishing it was that easy, wishing he could reduce the war to favors performed, a series of tit-for-tat exchanges that balance to zero instead of a perpetually-red loss column.

Wishes are pointless. Only the road ahead matters.

Song Lan sees his new passenger idly poking through a bag, head dipped away, back turned, and something about his posture rings a distant alarm bell in Song Lan’s mind. He has flown the route from Sichuan Base to Caiyi Port hundreds of times in his life. It should feel exactly the same as every other trip. And yet this time, he senses trouble brewing, and he does not like it.

⋆ Day 3 ⋆

Other than the unexpected music, it’s almost like flying alone. Cao Huan seems to have a sixth sense for knowing where Song Lan will be and avoiding him. He only occasionally catches glimpses of the tall man, white robes swirling behind him as he disappears through doorways or around corners.

It suits Song Lan just fine, and he laughs to himself about his initial concern. Cao Huan is the best passenger Song Lan has ever had: paid up front, self-sufficient, and silent. Song Lan finishes his first sock less than two days out of port, a record.

The only place he consistently runs into his passenger is in the kitchen. After the third day, it occurs to Song Lan that, as strange as it seems, it must be on purpose. Song Lan gets the definite impression that Cao Huan waits for him to arrive before he eats, as though it’s some ceremony he wishes to observe.

There’s no good reason for it, but Song Lan starts to eat his meals at the narrow kitchen table too. After all, there’s no reason not to, either. He just doesn’t usually eat in the kitchen. He’s grateful to discover that conversation is not the reason Cao Huan prefers company; meals continue to be quiet, peaceful affairs.

“Captain Song?”

Cao Huan’s voice startles Song Lan into dropping the knife he’s using to stir his...whatever this goop is.

“My apologies, but...will you join me for tea tomorrow morning? It is not as enjoyable to drink tea by myself.”

Without meaning to, Song Lan looks at the cabinet that contains the “tea” and “coffee,” thinking, it’s never enjoyable to drink that swill, and Cao Huan laughs.

It’s only a laugh on the barest technicality, a soft huff of air, but it changes things so profoundly, Song Lan has trouble staying on his feet. Suddenly, Cao Huan is a person, not a passenger, not a potential problem. The word no forms in his head even as he feels himself nodding.

Cao Huan smiles and inclines his chin, pleased, and Song Lan finds himself smiling back. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him. He’s not usually so soft-hearted. Xingchen was the nice one, he reminds himself, and look how that turned out. The cruelty is the only way he can snap himself out of the whispering camaraderie, a pointless train of thought, and back into his role as captain of a ship, nothing more.

[Captain, your attention is required.]

As if to punctuate the computer’s notification, an alarm sounds—unexpected, as this part of space should be smooth and easy sailing. Song Lan grimaces, shrugging apologetically.

“I’m coming,” he signs to the computer’s security camera, before running back to the bridge.

It turns out to be nothing major, only a debris field. Either a small ship had a catastrophe here or a large ship dumped trash. Neither option is particularly heartening. Bad enough if ships are carelessly leaving obstructions on a primary transit route, worse if a ship has been attacked and destroyed here where it should be safe. He knows the Joint Senate is doing its best, and Hanguang-jun, the new chairman, is by far the best leader the four sectors have had in decades, but it’s hard to protect everyone.

There’s no signs of life anywhere after three scans, and Song Lan steers them out of the mess before he resumes course and autopilot.

He doesn’t go back to the kitchen, though.

It isn’t wise, he tells himself, to think of passengers as anything but temporary. Even if they seem nice, even if they’re friendly, they always reach their destination and move on. That’s what he likes about flying transport.

Like clockwork, at 8 pm the music starts. The first night on the ship, Song Lan had thought he was going crazy, hearing the eerie twang of an instrument he didn’t think still existed outside of private art collections.

But no, his passenger had been seated in the mostly-empty cargo bay, eyes closed, playing the guqin. An actual wooden guqin. The music had echoed through the hold, wrapping its notes around Song Lan and reverberating in his chest. He had listened with a mix of disbelief and reverence to the beautiful melody flowing from the fingers of the obviously skilled musician. He listened, in fact, until Cao Huan lifted his hands off the strings and sighed, a long, plaintive sound of grief that piqued Song Lan’s curiosity more than was healthy, and he’d hurried away before Cao Huan noticed him.

The next night had been the same, the music winding into access shafts, around the bridge, even through engineering.

Which Song Lan knows, because he tried all of those places to escape it.

Tonight, though, he gives up. If he is going to be treated to an impromptu concert by a master musician every night, he may as well enjoy it. He knits on the catwalk over the cargo hold and listens, wondering if the song has words, wondering what it means to Cao Huan, wondering how long you had to practice to make the guqin sound like an ocean of sorrow.

⋆ Day 4 ⋆

Evidently, Cao Huan had not been referring to Fuxue’s stores of tea.

He had his own.

Song Lan tells himself to stop being surprised that a man who carries a guqin and can afford a private transport would have a jar of aged white tea that smells like honey and the summer sun. He sits at the table across from Cao Huan and watches him gracefully pour tea, holding back his draping sleeve with one hand.

Cao Huan notices Song Lan’s raised eyebrows.

“You must think me overly indulgent,” he says, pouring his own cup. “I am not particular about many things, but I do enjoy good tea. I am fortunate that it is something my...my family can provide.”

Oh, Song Lan thinks, his family must be tea merchants, which does explain quite a bit, and he feels a little guilty for judging the man on appearances. He wonders if it’s flash-cloned or actually soil-grown, and he peers into the cup, considering the color and shape of the leaves he can see, as though they will give him an answer.

“It is soil-grown,” Cao Huan answers Song Lan’s curious thought, and smiles when Song Lan looks startled. “It is the obvious question. Unless you were seeking your fate in the leaves?”

Song Lan snorts, and Cao Huan laughs again, again that soft exhale that feels more intimate than raucous laughter. It highlights faint lines around his eyes and softens his usually-tranquil angular features with a hint of playful teasing.

“Perhaps you do not believe in fate? Or perhaps you do not believe tea can tell the future. It is considered a noble art, Captain Song. Could so many fortune-telling market grannies be wrong?”

Song Lan laughs, a sadly rusty sound, he thinks with an internal wince, and shakes his head. The man looks pleased.

“Captain Song, may I ask a nosy question?”

Sometimes when people say things like that, they mean I am going to ask a nosy question whether you like it or not, but Cao Huan sounds sincere. Song Lan considers. With a sigh, he finds the comm.

[You may ask. I can’t guarantee that I can answer.]

The man’s mouth twitches in an almost smile. “That is fair. It is only...I noticed you signed to the camera yesterday. Do you…” he pauses, seeming to reevaluate his question, which is good, because Song Lan has frozen.

He forces himself to relax. Hand sign languages are no longer illegal, but he still can’t stop the fluttering fear from pooling in his gut.

“Does the computer understand your hand signs?” Cao Huan finishes, and Song Lan practices breathing normally.

[Yes. It’s easier to sign than find the comm sometimes, especially if I’m in a hurry,] he says through the little speaker, only a little defiantly. He won’t let this man shame him.

“Would you prefer to speak this way?” Cao Huan asks, lifting his hands and signing as he speaks.

Song Lan just stares at him.

And stares.

And stares until Cao Huan’s eyebrows raise. “If you would rather not…”

“No, I do prefer it,” Song Lan signs hurriedly, not wanting him to withdraw the offer. “It’s just...unusual to find someone who knows hand signs these days.”

The High Chancellor had been a paranoid and suspicious man, and he had outlawed the use of hand signs decades ago, fearing them to be the language of bandits and assassins. He wasn’t entirely wrong; hunters and thieves did use the signs, but so did countless others. His replacement, who preferred to be called Xiandu, wasn’t much better. All in all, almost thirty years passed before the current Joint Senate legalized them again after Xiandu’s death three years ago. In so many places around the four sectors, the sign languages that correlated to the spoken languages have been lost entirely.

Song Lan had learned the sign language after Xingchen died five years ago, after he was left for dead, after he decided he was done with the future. His teacher was a wizened old woman on an unaffiliated space station, Rogue Sky, and she was most likely one of the High Chancellor’s feared bandits. Song Lan hadn’t cared then and he didn’t care now. All he knew was that she’d refused to let him wallow in misery, no matter how much he felt he’d earned it.

Song Lan still takes her snowflake cakes whenever he’s near Qinghe space. It’s the least he can do.

Cao Huan nods in acknowledgement, still signing as he talks. Even though it’s unnecessary, Song Lan finds he likes watching, the words and motions blending together to make something wholly different.

“I have always loved languages. This one is particularly beautiful and unique.” He grins suddenly, eyes twinkling with mischief, and the expression turns his face brilliantly luminous. “Plus, it was an appealing novelty to learn something forbidden.”

Song Lan’s first reaction to the man’s captivating smile is an unwelcome surprise. Instinctively, he covers his embarrassment—which he hopes has gone unnoticed—with something he’s more familiar with.

“I did not have the luxury of enjoying the novelty,” his fingers cut angrily through the air. “I was taught illegally on an unaffiliated station by a former bandit, but it was better than never speaking again.”

Swiftly he stands and goes back to his room to berate himself. He isn’t sure which is worse, yelling at his passenger or feeling a knee-buckling surge of desire for him. He has no business doing either.

Song Lan flops on his bed and stares at the ceiling, at the sword that hangs above his head. Shuanghua, Xingchen’s pride and joy, the sword he brought with him when he joined Song Lan’s crew, the sword that couldn’t save him in the end. Couldn’t save either of them. The guilt throbs in his gut, as familiar as the vibrations of Fuxue’s heart, and he sinks into it. This is an emotion he understands.

[Captain, do you need assistance?] his computer asks, and Song Lan wants to laugh. It seems that even Fuxue thinks he’s being a moody child.

He shakes his head and signs to the camera. “What would you do if I did? I’m the captain and the crew.”

The computer is silent, the question apparently having stumped the AI.

[Zichen, do you want to talk about it?]

“No,” his hands say emphatically. He’s not an expert, but he’s pretty sure it’s not going to help to get a psych eval from a computer that’s using his dead partner’s voice.

“Captain Song?”

And now Cao Huan is on the other side of the door. Why can’t everyone just let him sulk in peace?

“Captain Song, I profoundly apologize. It was a terrible, insensitive thing I said, and I am so sorry. It is not an excuse but...I have not been around...people much lately. Evidently I am still quite bad at it. I will not disturb you…”

Song Lan yanks open the door.

“It’s nothing,” he signs slowly, calmly. “I overreacted.” Song Lan smiles ruefully. “I’m not around people much either. Thank you for the tea.”

Cao Huan blinks in surprise, and his face shifts through a series of expressions Song Lan doesn’t recognize before landing on careful neutrality.

“You’re welcome. I...I would be happy to share tea with you every day. If you wish.”

He looks like he’s considering saying something else, but he doesn’t, just nods his head once and goes. Song Lan doesn’t exactly watch him walk down the passageway, one fist resting on the small of his back, but he doesn’t not watch him either.

⋆ Day 5 ⋆

Song Lan is amused to discover that Cao Huan is insatiably curious about everything on Fuxue. It’s not hard to believe he’s been isolated for a while. He is unfailingly polite, and still mostly avoids Song Lan, but occasionally, Song Lan finds him in the oddest places: staring at the engines, examining at the computer core, meditating on the catwalk, sorting through supplies in the infirmary. Song Lan wonders if he’s bored.

He finds Cao Huan on the bridge one day, running his lithe musician’s fingers over the flight panel, murmuring something to himself. Song Lan knows as soon as Cao Huan is aware of his presence. He doesn’t startle, exactly, but he stiffens and steps back slightly. His face, when he turns to Song Lan, though, is tranquil and uncomplicated.

“My pardon, Captain,” he nods, and steps to the side as though he intends to move past Song Lan, but for once, Song Lan is curious.

“Were you talking to Fuxue?” he asks before Cao Huan looks away.

Cao Huan’s neck flushes, and he shrugs. “I have heard these Jian-class AIs have distinctive personalities, as it were. I prefer to err on the side of caution.”

Song Lan doesn’t understand what he means, but Cao Huan is still blushing, the tips of his ears turning a distracting shade of pink, and it makes him want to know.

“I don’t understand,” he says, and Cao Huan sighs.

“I was introducing myself,” he explains. “It seemed courteous.”

Song Lan can’t help his smile. He wonders if Cao Huan introduced himself to Fuxue with his real name.

“Yes, Fuxue is somewhat unique,” he agrees. “My...my partner was a gifted tech, and he gave her more autonomy than is customary since we flew alone so often.”

Cao Huan nods. “So I gathered. She tells me about him sometimes. Is her voice…” he pauses, noticing the look of surprise on Song Lan’s face. “Is that strange?”

Fuxue talks to Song Lan, and of course, she used to talk to Xingchen—one of the reasons, Song Lan suspects, that his ship is so unusual. Talking to Xingchen for extended periods of time would make anyone a bit odd. But as far as he knows, the ship has never spoken to any other passenger, much less talked to them about Xingchen. He can’t decide why Fuxue would start now, whether it’s a bug in the programming or something about Cao Huan specifically.

“Yes,” Song Lan acknowledges. “She still manages to surprise me sometimes.” He smiles up at the camera in the corner of the room and adds, “Don’t make trouble, my love.”

“I believe she likes the music,” Cao Huan says, stepping around Song Lan and moving into the passageway. “I apologize again for intruding on your bridge.” He smiles, a minute flicker, and Song Lan catches his sleeve impulsively, probably foolishly.

“You are welcome on the bridge any time,” he signs swiftly, before Cao Huan can leave. “Whether I am here or not.”

Cao Huan considers for a moment and nods, his smile a little wider, a little more genuine, and Song Lan doesn’t regret his words at all.

⋆ Day 7 ⋆

“How did you learn this?” Cao Huan asks one day, touching the toe of the sock Song Lan is knitting.

They are sitting in the two bridge seats, and Song Lan is working through a heel turn, shaping the rows to reinforce the curve. He finishes the section before he sets down the sock to answer.

“I learned when I was a boy. I grew up with scrappers, and there was a lot of downtime.”

Cao Huan is silent, rubbing the soft wool between his fingers, and Song Lan wonders why he bothered to ask.

“Would you like to learn?” Song Lan asks, and Cao Huan shakes his head slowly.

“Yes, but I am not certain I will ever...I do not know what my future holds. There may be no point in learning.”

He sounds so bleak and disappointed, dozens of questions pop in and out of Song Lan’s head, and he firmly shuts them behind a door. He isn’t going to intrude on this man’s private life.

“There is always value in learning something new,” he signs instead, and Cao Huan smiles ruefully.

“You sound like my brother,” he says, then snaps his mouth closed and hides the expressiveness of his face behind the neutral mask Song Lan is beginning to recognize, even if he’s still not certain what it means.

“Mm,” he agrees, one of the few sounds he can still make. To his surprise, Cao Huan laughs.

“Now you truly do sound like him. He is not a man of many words, but he is very eloquent with noncommittal sounds,” Cao Huan explains when Song Lan looks puzzled.

“You’re close?” Song Lan asks, and the shuttered expression returns.

Still, the man answers after a pause. “Yes, we were, but...he is gone now, living his own life. I am proud of him, but...it makes going home seem...different.”

Every word is reluctantly spoken, as though giving shape to them makes them dangerous. Song Lan vows not to ask any other questions, but Cao Huan keeps talking, and he can’t very well tell him to stop, either.

“Home used to mean people, but...they are grown or changed or…” his eyes close in obvious pain, and Song Lan wants to tell him to stop or distract him with a starboard nebula, but there’s nothing, just this palpable misery.

“Or gone,” he finishes. “Home is only a place now. It should be enough but…”

Song Lan understands this much at least.

“It’s too quiet.” He finishes Cao Huan’s sentence, and he means that home has always been Fuxue, but it no longer hums with love and laughter and Xingchen. It is the same place it was five years ago, but...it isn’t.

Abruptly, Cao Huan leans forward and squeezes Song Lan’s knee, his face softening in sympathy. It’s only a brief touch, but Song Lan’s body reacts like the brush of fingers is a line of electricity, both sharp and crushing, nothing like he expected, not that he could ever have expected this particular cataclysm. Has it been so long, he wonders, since someone touched him with kindness?

He stands, covering his sudden need to escape by hunting through one of the storage bins for a bigger set of knitting needles and a chunkier-gauge yarn. He sets them on Cao Huan’s lap.

“You may as well learn,” he signs with an easy smile. “We still have a week of travel left.”

Cao Huan laughs in disbelief when Song Lan shows him how to cast the yarn onto the needle, but he turns out to be a quick study, which Song Lan should have expected, given his dexterity with the guqin. Song Lan admits to himself that he likes the way the man’s face lights with the satisfaction of meeting a challenge, even more the way he brandishes a square of fairly smooth rows with such pride.

The quiet stretches out like a lazy cat, broken by the sound of clicking needles, and it settles serenely over Song Lan. Usually on transports, he is busy every waking moment, herding children, answering questions, sometimes even preventing bloodshed. He could get used to this uneventful kind of trip.

As if the gods have heard his thoughts, a piercing blue alarm sounds. Not an environmental emergency. Blue is an enemy attack.

Song Lan jams his needles into the yarn and tosses the whole bundle into the corner before turning to the screens, grabbing the yoke with one hand and snapping the comm headset onto his neural node with the other.

Where? he asks Fuxue through their mental link, and Xingchen’s voice relays the coordinates through the overhead speakers: 403 225 687.

He enlarges the image. Junk pirates. A mini-fleet of five. It could be worse, it could be Red Robe mercs or Goldlighters or soldiers of any major faction, but he isn’t looking forward to a run and gun. He scours the sector for a nearby...anything. There’s an asteroid field and two tiny stations, one in either direction, all so much further than is particularly helpful. He makes a decision and changes course, doubling back on the pirates and surging past them.

[Cao Huan, we have pirates,] he says via the comm. [We’re going to try to outrun them first.] He doesn’t bother explaining what the other option is.

“Give me tactical control,” Cao Huan says, calm and insistent, and even though he has no reason to think this man has ever even flown a ship before, Song Lan flips on the secondary pilot display and unlocks the manual gun controls.

[Fuxue is adapted for neural node. You’ll have to shoot manually, but it might at least scare them off,] he explains.

Cao Huan grins. “Or I might surprise you, Captain Song.”

He does, of course. Song Lan is busy avoiding the pirates’ attacks, so he can’t watch as carefully as he suspects he'd like to, but his new co-pilot seems to be racing through calculating targeting coordinates like he’s half computer. Interestingly, he isn’t aiming to destroy, only damage, and he knocks out the first two ships’ navigational cores with single, identical, virtually impossible shots.

Fuxue is easily faster than one of the ships, and Cao Huan clips its starboard wing, only dislodging the thruster, before they pull away. It’s enough to send the forty-meter ship spinning out of control in the opposite direction.

The last two though...they’re a problem. The smaller of the two has an expert pilot and gunner, and Fuxue takes several hits. One explodes against the side of the lifeboat bay, others destroy sensor arrays and scatter pieces of shielding into space. They’re going to have to do something drastic or they aren’t going to survive this.

[Rolleram?] he asks Cao Huan, not entirely sure if he’ll understand, but he nods once and waits for Song Lan to turn.

Song Lan rolls Fuxue in an arc and flies directly at the larger ship, avoiding a few shots before dodging around the ship on its right side, swooping down, using the ship as a blind. With a hard bank, he brings Fuxue up on the other side of the big pirate ship. The smaller ship is right in front of them, a perfect shot.

[Now!] he yells, but Cao Huan has already fired the phaser cannons, and without even looking, Song Lan knows he’s calculated Fuxue’s path and the pirate’s trajectory perfectly.

[Target disabled,] Fuxue confirms. [Nice shot, XO.]

Cao Huan’s mouth tips in the corner. “Thank you, Fuxue,” he says.

Song Lan shakes his head at them both. Since when did the passenger become his executive officer, and who thanks a ship’s AI?

But there’s no time to celebrate. The last ship, the largest ship, is less agile than Fuxue, but more heavily armed and is throwing everything at them in a last ditch effort. With a jarring lurch, Fuxue shudders, and Song Lan grimaces.

[Port wing…]

[Yes I know,] he snaps. He only barely has enough rudder to pivot Fuxue, pure luck more than anything. They won’t survive one more impact like that.

“Wei Drop?” Cao Huan suggests, and Song Lan snorts.

[Play dead?] No one who has ever seen the Wei Drop is fooled by it twice. But even as he derides the idea, he realizes it might work. It’s going to have to. Cao Huan is a good enough shot, and they don’t have a lot of choices left.

[Fine, but if this doesn’t work, you owe me a ship,] he says, killing Fuxue’s engine, shutting down all the systems, and letting his ship slowly start to drift oh-so-subtly in a circle.

It works. He can’t believe it works, but the pirates stop shooting, probably reluctant to break their new salvage any more than necessary, and coast toward Fuxue.

When Fuxue has made a full rotation, when Song Lan can almost see the attacking crew through the shielded fore windows, he looks at Cao Huan, who nods.

It happens so fast, the two of them working in unison to flip on all the power, stabilize Fuxue, take aim, and fire twice. At the last second, the pirate ship banks, trying to escape the shot, but they’re too close, far too close, and instead of disabling the wing or navigation, or whatever Cao Huan was aiming for, the ship explodes in a blinding blast of nuclear white light.

The last thing Song Lan thinks, the last thing he has time to think before the shockwave hits them, is Xingchen is going to be so mad about his ship.

#the untamed #cql #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #lan xichen #song lan #lanlan #space au #in which there is knitting and space battles #tea and music #and both of these wounded men get to heal a little #Kristina writes tiny stories #this one is medium sized

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molluskwritesfic · 4 years ago

Text

The Waif ~ Chapter Three

As an alien science experiment, she remembers nothing. Knows no one. With nowhere else to turn, Claudia must rely on the Doctor and his companions for help. She's mutating. The Doctor knows more than he's telling. But why does the Time Lord seem to hate her so much? Rated M.

Masterlist - Fanfiction.net - Ao3

Prologue - Previous Chapter - This Chapter

Chapter Three: The Mimic - Part One

Claudia woke up slowly from within her blanket cocoon. Twenty four hours earlier, she wouldn’t have believed it were possible, but now she was so warm and sleepy that it took her a minute to realize what had woken her.

She jolted slightly when there was a knock at the door; three sharp raps, like Dinstral would on the glass of her small prison whenever he wanted her attention. The similarity made her heart drop. For a fraction of a second her still-dozy mind believed that the scientists had found her again.

She brushed the thought away, writing it off as ridiculous, and called out, “Yes?”

Decidedly the exact opposite of Dinstral, Rose tentatively pushed her way inside. She was already dressed, but still rather hazy, like she hadn’t been up long enough to be fully awake.

“Morning,” Rose greeted with a small smile. “I was gonna let you sleep, but the Doctor gets grumpy if we leave him on his own for too long. How do you feel about breakfast?”

Claudia’s stomach rumbled at the mention of food, but then clenched as her mind automatically went to the bland porridge that her diet had consisted of over the last few weeks. But she reckoned that normal people are more than slimy oatmeal.

She nodded, trusting that Rose had something better in mind.

“Great. Get dressed and I’ll show you the kitchen.”

Claudia fumbled out of bed and made for the closet. She opened the dark purple door and gawked at the sight. Beyond was a massive walk-in closet, complete with a vanity. The entire room, wall to wall, was completely packed with clothes.

There were dresses, jeans, coats, shorts, skirts, a series of undergarments, and more. There was even a smaller connecting room completely dedicated to a myriad of shoes - the purpose to many of them she couldn’t even begin to decipher.

If this was a personal closet, Claudia couldn’t imagine what the main wardrobe was like. Surely there were more articles of clothing in this one room than she could ever wear in her entire life.

“You alright?” Rose called from the squashy orange couch, where she had sprawled out to wait.

“Yeah,” Claudia squeaked. “But what do I wear?”

“Whatever you like.”

Claudia considered this. “But I don’t know what I like.”

Rose heaved a sigh. “Just look for somethin’ you think you like, and put it on.

Claudia blinked at Rose. Then at the closet. Overwhelmed, but eager, she plunged into the depths.

~0~0~0~ . . ~0~0~0~

When Claudia tumbled out of the closet twenty minutes later, she was the living manifestation of her maximalist bedroom - had its style been based on a three year old that insisted on dressing itself. After so long in a cold, colorless environment, she positively adored anything bright and soft, and felt the need to hoard it all like a magpie.

Her short excursion into her personal wardrobe had been filled with her digging through the racks and shelves in search of color. At which point her finds were then separated into piles to be sorted by which colors she liked best.

After a period of painful deliberation and significant indecision, she finally emerged wearing an avocado green jumper decorated with little red frogs under a chunky dandelion yellow cardigan, long rainbow socks over electric blue jeans, solid red trainers with sequins dotting across the toes, all topped off with a neon magenta beanie and matching gloves.

Beaming with excitement, Claudia hardly registered the raised eyebrow Rose directed at her choice of style.

“Blimey,” Rose snorted, struggling not to laugh outright in the face of the memory-less woman’s optimism. “That’s… uh… boisterous.”

Claudia wasn’t sure if this was a compliment or not, but chose to believe it was meant well. She grinned and tugged her hat down more securely on her head.

“Right, then. Come on.” Rose paused in front of Claudia’s bathroom mirror, taking a moment to smear away a bit of the eye liner caked around her eye that was a smidge uneven.

Claudia made a mental note to ask Rose how makeup worked as she followed her through the maze of corridors that led to the kitchen.

The kitchen was large but homey. It contained the usual variety of items to cook with as well as a number of things that Claudia didn’t recognize.

“How do you not get lost?” Claudia inquired as Rose made her way to a machine that appeared to be some sort of drink dispenser.

“You get used to it, I guess. She moves rooms around a lot, so you just sort of guess. Coffee or tea?”

Claudia blanked. “Can you… pick for me?”

Rose nodded and placed a mug beneath the dispenser. With the press of a few buttons, hot liquid was streaming into the mug. Claudia watched, transfixed, as the steam rolled off of it, curling into pretty shapes that swirled and danced like living creatures before dissolving into the air.

Rose settled down with two mugs and two plates of bacon and eggs. Claudia took a sip of her coffee, but grimaced at the taste.

Rose grinned and indicated the dispenser. “Go add milk and sugar.”

Claudia hopped to her feet and pondered the machine. It looked complicated, but she found it to actually be fairly straightforward. Curious about her own preferences, Claudia spent more time toying with it than necessary, adding milk and sugar in miniscule amounts until enjoyable.

Sipping at the now lukewarm liquid, she made her way back to the table. Her mouth watered at the collective smell of the bacon, eggs, and coffee. She picked up a fork and, with a certain amount of trepidation, scooped egg into her mouth.

Rose watched bemusedly as Claudia wolfed down the large plate of food at an alarming speed.

“Blimey, you were hungry, weren’t ya?” The blonde commented as she took another sip from her own mug, which was filled with tea, quirking her eyebrows at the other woman over the rim of the mug.

Claudia just shrugged, unable to respond around her bacon and egg stuffed mouth. When it was gone, she glanced longingly at the food-dispenser machine. Not that she was still hungry - she was stuffed - but because she wanted to see what other things tasted like.

“You can mess about with that later,” Rose promised. “ The Doctor will be wondering where we got to. I’m surprised he hasn’t come looking for us yet.”

~0~0~0~ . . ~0~0~0~

The Doctor was standing at the console when they arrived, staring at the monitor with a serious expression. From over Rose’s shoulder, Claudia made out what appeared to be a black and white video, fuzzy, vague, and lacking any artistic quality. She thought that it might have been from a security camera, but the Doctor abruptly switched it off before she could get a proper look.

“What’re you watching?” Rose inquired, bounding over and leaning against the console beside him, close enough for their shoulders to brush.

“Nothing,” he said quickly. He yanked down a lever with a certain degree of flair, his previous severity melting like butter. “So, Rose Tyler, where to now? I was thinking maybe the moon of Tyink. Lots of lovely views. Oh! Or the United Republic of Snah. Those people there love a party. The Sun Festivals are the best across three galaxies. Mind you, better not go during the Snee era, never mind why…. or…”

Rose cast Claudia a glance. “Actually, Doctor, shouldn’t we be looking into that science ship from yesterday?”

“We took care of the science vessel,” the Doctor griped, keeping his eyes fixed on the switches he was fiddling with.

“Yeah, but what about Claudia? Shouldn’t we be trying to figure out what happened with her memory?”

Claudia felt a rush of gratitude and looked to the Doctor expectantly.

“The blood sample didn’t reveal anything I didn’t already know,” the Doctor explained, as if doing so inconvenienced him greatly. “A buildup of mutagenic particles mixed with alien DNA. It’ll dissipate eventually. Give it a year or two and all the residual components should be completely gone.”

“What about my memories?” Claudia asked, quiet and hopeful.

“I don’t know,” the Doctor said in a flat voice, his emotions carefully concealed behind a mask. “I went back to Cardiff when you were sleeping. The Thalians dropped their test subjects all across the city, probably as some form of stimulus experiment to see how you would respond to stressful situations. That’s all.”

“What happened then?” Her heart was hammering in her chest. Her fingernails dug painfully into her palms. She barely noticed when Rose wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

“You said that one of the test subjects displayed unchecked aggression,” he added, not bothering to look at her. “I’m willing to bet that it was a cascade neural degradation response to the treatments. Most likely you experienced something similar, but it manifested differently.” He paused. “Bit lucky, actually.”

Claudia pondered this for a moment. She certainly didn’t feel lucky. Words failed her. All she could do was stare at him, emptiness welling up inside her, reclaiming it’s hold on her soul.

“Can’t we figure out where she came from?” Rose pressed, fixing the Doctor with a reproachful glare.

“No real way to find out,” he sniffed. “Doubtful she’s from anywhere near Cardiff. Have you noticed her accent? Indistinct. Thalians are capable of traveling the vortex, so without her memories, there’s no way to narrow it down.”

“But there’s got to be something,” Rose hissed, casting Claudia a sideways glance. “Are you not even going to try?”

Claudia said nothing. She stood silently, staring at her glittery shoes without really seeing them. They'd made her feel so happy before, but now she felt nothing when the boisterous sparkles blurred as her eyes welled with tears. She wrapped her arms around herself in an imitation of a hug. She tried not to cry, she really did. But a single tear rolled down her cheek unbidden.

When she finally spoke, she did so quietly that her words could barely be heard over the hum of the engines. “What do I do now?”

“Nothing, I suppose. That’s all there is to it.” The Doctor shrugged, going back to the console.

“Doctor!”

“Rose, leave it,” the Doctor snapped, his voice low and laden with warning. A hidden meaning lingered in his dark eyes, one that Claudia couldn’t begin to decipher but Rose took to heart.

Rose blinked at him for a moment, but immediately dropped it, brimming with eager curiosity.

“So, where to?” The Doctor repeated his earlier question, dropping the severity and attempting to take back on a cheerful facade. It almost worked. “Snah?”

“Actually, I was thinking about stopping by home,” Rose suggested, voice still tense from the previous exchange.

“What for?” The Doctor scoffed, lip curling into a scowl.

“Oi! Don’t start!” The corners of her mouth gave the slightest twitch, like it was an old joke. “I’ve got that Moeysian necklace for my mum, the one we got on Iria? I promised her a souvenir and I need to get it to her before I forget.”

The Doctor sighed wearily but began the sequence. Claudia remembered to grab onto the railing as the ship began to jolt violently, but didn’t really feel it. She was busy biting down her despair into bitter acceptance.

When the TARDIS landed, she had steeled herself. Her emotions were locked down tight in a steel box. It left her feeling numb and grey, but it was better than the alternative.

“There. Earth. Powell Estate. 2007.” The Doctor looked up from the controls. “A couple months after we left.”

“Alright. You go on out. Just give me two ticks.” Rose hurried back into the corridor, presumably to retrieve the gift for her mother, leaving Claudia alone with the Doctor.

The Doctor sighed, shrugging on his light brown trench coat as he approached the doors leading to the outside world.

“Where’s the Powell Estate?” Claudia asked shyly, wiping her eyes on her sleeve as she followed him out into a grey parking lot.

She surveyed the surrounding buildings curiously. And to be fair, everywhere was interesting after spending the majority of your conscious life locked in a glass case.

The sun was out, it’s position suggesting that it was mid to late afternoon. The warm air and thick greenery on the nearby trees and shrubs she could spot through the gaps in the buildings told her it was spring.

She took a deep breath, reveling in the earthy scent.

“London,” The Doctor responded, leaving the door open for Rose and leaning against the side of the blue box. He cast her a glance and tugged at his ear awkwardly. “Do you… uh… know where that is?”

Claudia shook her head. The name meant as much to her as the other places they’d mentioned. Iria and Moeysian and Snah. She leaned beside him, careful to leave a few inches of space between them.

The Doctor’s frown intensified. He studied her closely for a heartbeat before turning away once more, as if looking at her caused him physical pain.

She couldn’t imagine why. Claudia looked down at her outfit. Maybe boisterous hadn’t been a compliment after all.

Suddenly self-conscious, she took off her gloves and stuffed them into her cardigan pocket.

“2007?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Rose said that your box travels in time.”

“Yep.”

“When am I from?”

The Doctor sighed through his nose. “The ship you were on was in October of 2007. Just a few months after where we are now. But like I said, the Thalians are capable of time travel, so you could be from anywhere.”

Claudia nodded, pushing back thoughts having to do with her past. “The scientists were Thalians?”

The Doctor nodded, staring resolutely at the graffiti sketched on the wall across the lot.

“And they’re aliens?”

“Yep,” he said, popping the ‘p’.

“And I’m human?”

The Doctor let out a breath that hissed through his teeth. “Yes.”

“Like Rose?”

“Like most everyone on Earth.”

“What about you?” The question had been nagging at the back of her mind, but she hadn’t gotten around to asking Rose yet. “Are you human or Thalian or…?”

“Time Lord,” he grunted. “Last of the Time Lords.”

“Last?” The Doctor tensed. Claudia noticed and decided not to ask about it anymore. “I’m sorry.”

“What is taking her so long?” He grumbled, mostly to himself, before leaning inside the door and calling, “Hurry up, will you?”

“Alright! No need to shout,” Rose’s voice drifted out, her clanging footsteps audible from outside the TARDIS as she stomped across the console room. When she emerged she didn’t hesitate to lead the way across the lot towards one of the buildings.

They had nearly reached it when a dark skinned man dressed in blue coveralls came sprinting around the corner, panting like he’d run a fair distance.

“Look out, here comes trouble,” The Doctor grumbled, only half-playful.

“Rose!” The man shouted, a massive grin spreading across his face when he laid eyes on the blonde.

Rose beamed back and he hurried to throw his arms around her shoulders to pull her into a bear hug. “Oh, I’ve missed you!”

The man released Rose and clapped the Doctor heartily on the shoulder. “I was in the shop but couldn’t get away.” He shrugged his shoulders sheepishly. “I was worried I’d miss you.”

“Time was, you’d hear the TARDIS and come running,” Rose teased, eyes narrowing impishly.

“Well I did, didn’t I?” He protested, gesturing to his work clothes. “I was under a car. It took a minute.” His eyes drifted between the pair for a moment before they rested on Claudia, who had stayed back. He smiled warmly at her. “Don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Mickey, by the way.”

“Claudia.” Claudia shook his proffered hand with a small smile. He seemed nice, if not a bit dopey.

The Doctor rolled his eyes, nudging Claudia away from Mickey with his shoulder. “Come on then, go and see your mum. I don’t want to stay here all day.”

“Good luck with that, mate,” Mickey chuckled. “Jackie’s not about to let Rose be anywhere else. Not today, at least.”

“Why? What’s today?” The Doctor narrowed his eyes, trying to work out what he’d missed.

Mickey rolled his eyes like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I don’t know, maybe Rose’s birthday.”

“It’s the 27th?” Rose echoed, her wide eyes blinking in surprise.

“Yeah” Mickey confirmed. “Your mum’s been worried that you wouldn’t turn up, especially since you missed your last one.”

“How old are you?” Claudia inquired, shuffling back from around the Doctor so she could be included in the conversation.

Rose frowned thoughtfully. “It’ll be my twentieth, I guess.” She shook her head to clear it. “Time’s funny on the TARDIS. I don’t really know if I’m older than twenty, or still younger.”

“Younger, technically,” the Doctor offered. “We missed a year, remember?”

“Yeah.” Rose frowned. “Does that make me nineteen, then?”

“Does it matter?” The Doctor complained. “You don’t exactly live linearly. Technically, it isn’t your birthday at all. Not to you, anyway.”

“But it is to her.” Mickey crooked his thumb in the direction of Jackie’s flat. “She’s been looking forward to it. She’s got presents and everything.”

“Fine,” the Doctor relented, albeit begrudgingly, as if he were giving in to give the humans a treat. But looking at Rose’s determination and Mickey’s smug grin, Claudia could tell that the alien didn’t actually have much choice. “But just until tomorrow, you got that?”

“Whatever you say, boss,” Mickey smirked cheesily.

Together, the small group, headed by Rose and Mickey, who had launched into a deep conversation about what Rose had missed while she’d been traveling, made its way towards one of the buildings.

Naturally, Claudia brought up the rear, lingering a couple yards behind the Doctor. Her first instinct was to walk side by side with him, as the small party was even numbered, but the Doctor had shoved his hands into his coat pockets and prowled stoically after the others with long strides that kept an intentional distance between himself and Claudia.

Instead of struggling to keep up, she resigned to his apparent distaste towards her and focused instead on placing one foot in front of the other, wiggling her toes within her comfortable new shoes and appreciating the barely audible clacks they made on the asphalt.

Claudia's attention was diverted, however, when an uncomfortable tingling sensation itched its way up her spine. Her eyes darted away from her feet as she reevaluated her surroundings in a manner resembling a nervous cat.

Outwardly, there was no significant change in the environment. Rose, Mickey, and the Doctor passed through the glass door without a hitch, though the resulting screech of the rusted hinges made Claudia flinch.

The sensation somewhat passed as she herself entered the building, but through the glass pane she caught a glimpse of a man staring at her from across the lot.

He was tall, that much was apparent. Almost too tall, in Claudia’s opinion. From what she could make out at a distance, he was bald. His face appeared to be almost comically wide and dimensionless, contrasting starkly with the long brown cloak that shrouded his entire form, covering everything from chin to feet.

There was something odd about him, but she didn’t much care to find out what. In a series of small, rapid movements, Claudia closed the distance between herself and the group and flatly ignored the mildly irritated glance the Doctor gave her when she accidentally stepped on the back of his shoe on the way up the stairs.

When they got to the correct door, Rose let herself in without the slightest hesitation. “Mum?”

“Rose!” Rose’s mother, Jackie, a rotund woman with blonde hair similar to her daughter’s, poked her head out from a bedroom just off the side of the short hall. She beamed at the younger woman and immediately drew her into a hug. “Oh, I was just wondering when you’d turn up.”

She released her from the hug and held her at arm's length.

“Four months,” she accused. “It’s been four months. You said ten bloody seconds. Not that I actually believed that, but four bleeding months.”

“I didn’t lie,” Rose scoffed, taken slightly aback by the confrontation. “It’s a time machine, we could’ve been back in ten seconds.”

“But you weren’t,” the older woman snipped back. “Instead you leave me sitting here… on my own... for months at a time. When it comes to that long, I start wondering if you’re going to come back at all.”

Despite Jackie’s snide tone, the real emotions behind it were plain. She was lonely and worried for her daughter’s safety; terrified that one day Rose wouldn’t come back, and she’d be left with nothing.

Claudia felt a flicker of jealousy and longing, trying to imagine what it would be like to have someone worrying over her that way. For all she knew, there was. Someone could be waiting for her to come home.

But that almost made her feel worse.

“What’re you all still doing crowding my doorway?” Jackie scolded, redirecting her energy into something a little more friendly. “In or out. Hold on…” Claudia blushed slightly upon realizing that she was now at the center of the group’s attention. Jackie’s eyes were lighter than her daughter’s, more hazel than brown. In them was a maternal glint, coupled with an appraising air. “Who’re you, then?”

“That’s Claudia,” Rose answered for her. “She’s staying on the TARDIS for a bit.”

A bit? Claudia wondered. Where else would I go?

She shuddered at the thought and returned her attention to Jackie, who had wheeled around to confront the Doctor.

“Oh, snatched up another one, have you?” Jackie accused, hands on her hips. “Just like a man. One’s not enough, is it? You’ve just got to surround yourself with pretty young women. You might as well collect them.”

“Nice to see you, too, Jackie,” The Doctor snipped sarcastically as he moved around her to get into the sitting room.

The Tyler residence was homey, if not on the small side. There were a few magazines laid to the side on the coffee table, full of celebrities and pop culture pieces. Claudia took a place on the edge of the couch and picked up one of the magazines, flipping through to see if anything seemed familiar.

Rose found a seat at the small dining table while Jackie immediately began bustling about making tea. The older woman didn’t stop talking for a moment, even while juggling multiple tea cups. Claudia immediately jumped back up to her feet and hopped into the kitchen to take a couple of the cups before Jackie could drop them.

“Anything I can do to help?” Claudia offered with a simple, kind smile.

Jackie nodded and directed Claudia in pouring milk and distributing sugar while the Doctor plucked out one of the newspapers on the dinner table and flipped through it idly, opting to stay standing.

Mickey naturally flopped down next to Rose. The young man produced the remote and switched on the tv, settling on a sports channel.

“... your birthday, though, Rose,” Jackie was bickering in her shrill voice. “I’ve got the shopping done an’ everything…”

“Really, mum. You shouldn’t have bothered…”

“I’ve got the cake in the fridge and the rest of the dinner’s ‘bout halfway finished…”

“Mum…”

“Now, I haven’t got any guests together yet. Not that I could, though, could I? What, with your track record… “

“Mum, we don’t need guests… “

“... it was lucky you turned up in the right decade. We could call Shareen, I suppose.” Jackie grimaced. “On second thought, best not. Doubt she’d come, anyhow.”

“Why not?” Rose inquired, blinking in mild alarm. “She’s my best mate.”

“Was, last I heard,” Jackie corrected, looking the slightest bit smug. “She got married, and you were nowhere to be found.”

“Married?” Rose echoed, voice hoarse with shock. “But… she can’t have.”

“Two months ago.”

“But she’s only…”

“Twenty.” The older woman fixed her daughter with a slightly disapproving glance. “She came around looking for you six months back. Wanted you as a bridesmaid. I told her that you were still off travelling but she wasn’t having it. ‘If she doesn’t want to be part of it, so be it’, she said...”

Rose stood blankly while her mother rattled on, flippantly dictating the destruction of the younger girl’s friendship. Claudia tried to keep her attention on an article about makeup, but she couldn’t help but see how Rose’s bottom lip trembled as she drew in a quivering breath.

It was a piteous sight, so much that Claudia was glad when the Doctor, who was oblivious to his blonde friend’s distress, interrupted.

“What’s this about, then?” He inquired, holding up the newspaper he’d been looking through so it displayed an article about halfway through the paper.

The header read; Third Disappearance on the Powell Estate.

“Oh, that?” Jackie shrugged. “Yeah, word has it that a few people have gone missing. Police have no idea.”

“They’ve already passed by my place twice to ask questions,” Mickey complained. “A few drunk blokes go missing, and who do they turn to? The black guy.”

“Oh, come on Mickey,” Jackie scoffed. “They’re just on you because…”

“Because of all the times they questioned me back when Rose was missing,” Mickey said bitterly. “I almost lost my job, you know.”

The Doctor coughed to break the tense silence that followed. Claudia, who had been fidgeting nervously in the background, couldn’t help but let out a soft sigh of relief when the Doctor decisively threw the newspaper down on the coffee table.

“Well, while we’re here…”

“Oh, no you don’t!” Jackie cut him off, waving a warning finger under his nose. “Don’t you dare go swannin’ off! It’s Rose’s birthday and I’m not having you start all that ridiculous nonsense before we’ve even had time to cut the cake!”

“I don’t swan,” the Doctor retorted.

Before Jackie could respond, Rose stepped between the pair.

“Don’t start!” She glanced at the Doctor and shot him a tiny grin that she thought her mother couldn’t see, her previous melancholy evaporating like mist. She turned back to Jackie. “Dinner’s not ready yet.”

“Rose,” Jackie pleaded, crossing her arms across her chest.

“You and Mickey finish getting everything ready, and by the time you’re done, we’ll be back and we’ll all have a proper sit down. Alright?”

“Why can’t I come help investigate?” Mickey complained. “I helped before with the Slitheen, remember?”

“Well...” the Doctor drawled. “Pressing a few buttons hardly makes you qualified for— ”

“What he means to say is,” Rose interrupted, fixing Mickey with her cute little tongue-in-teeth grin, “it’s probably nothing, anyway. We’ll go poke around a bit and be back before you know it, alright? I’m sure mum could use all the help she can get.”

Mickey gave a disbelieving scoff, but backed down, flopping back onto his place on the couch.

Rose wheeled back around to beam at the Doctor. “Shall we?”

The Doctor grinned back and offered her his hand to take. “Now then, Rose Tyler…”

He broke off suddenly, blood draining from his face when his eyes rested on Claudia, who had instinctively started to move to follow them. In the emotional turmoil of the past ten minutes or so, everyone - including Claudia - had forgotten she was there.

The Doctor’s eyes darted away, fixating on a framed picture of a little blonde girl as he dropped Rose’s hand in favor of rubbing his ear lobe between his forefinger and thumb. “Claudia, why don’t you, just… stay here for a bit. Help Jackie and Mickey.”

Claudia nodded and picked up another magazine, thumbing through and pretending to examine a page to hide any emotion that might have shown on her face.

The young woman rolled the corner of a page between her fingers until it curled in on itself, feeling sheepish at her somewhat needy urge to follow them about like a lost dog.

“Well, that’s them, then,” Jackie sighed when they’d gone, leaning back against the wall. Her face had lost some of its color, “First time I’ve seen her in months and she runs off again first thing.”

“Tell me about it,” Mickey grumbled. “But that’s us, I guess.”

“That’s us,” Jackie agreed ruefully before turning her attention to Claudia. She studied the younger woman for a moment, her gaze warmer than before. “What’s your story, then?”

“My story?” Claudia echoed. “I’ve only known them for a day.”

“Yeah, but how did you end up wound up in this? The Doctor, I mean,” Mickey clarified. “I got kidnapped by a vat of living plastic.”

“And my daughter ran off with an alien,” Jackie added sourly.

Claudia blinked at them, trying to mentally work out the presented scenarios. Mickey slapped her shoulder good-naturedly.

“Come on, then. You’re part of the club now.”

“Club? What club?”

“The ‘I-Survivied-the-Doctor Club.’” A cheeky grin ate its way across his face. “We should get shirts.”

Jackie snorted and went into the kitchen. “Ah, but first, you two shift. We’ve got work to do. Come help me with roast and tell us about yourself.”

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