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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

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Spilled Pearls

- Chapter 3 - ao3 -

The closing ceremony of the discussion conference was dignified and serene, as appropriate for an event hosted by the Lan sect, and after it was done everyone milled around to chat a little more before starting to break off into groups to leave.

The leaders of the Great Sects naturally gathered together.

They were an unusual mix. Wen Ruohan was the eldest by an entire generation, technically hailing from the generation of Lan Qiren’s grandfather even if his extraordinary cultivation made him seem as young as Lan Qiren’s brother; after him there was Lan Qiren’s father and the Jiang sect leader, Jiang Menglin, who themselves were a generation above their younger counterparts from the Nie and Jin clans – Jin Guangshan especially, having only inherited his position in the past year.

Lan Qiren’s brother stood beside them, speaking with them with his head held high. Their father planned to slowly transition sect leadership to him over the next half-decade so that he himself might be allowed to retire from the mundane world to focus on cultivation, as Lan An ultimately did. In accordance with that plan, he had allowed him to take the lead on hosting certain small events at the discussion conference, like the night-hunting.

Lan Qiren was there, too.

He was lurking as far to the back of the platform as he could get, trying simultaneously to perfectly reflect his sect’s expectations for proper behavior while also doing his utmost to remain beneath anyone’s notice – Lao Nie had caught his gaze at one point and winked, a friendly older man’s indulgence of a junior, but that was in large part unavoidable given the man’s gregarious personality – and enjoying the rare moment in which he could see his father at something other than a distance.

He usually only saw his father when he was brought before him to report on his achievements, typically once a month. When he was younger, he had been accompanied by one of his teachers, who would report on him while Lan Qiren anxiously examined his father’s face for signs of approval; now that he was older, he went by himself, dipping into a deep salute as he recited anything of interest, and sometimes if he really exerted himself his father would reward him with a word of praise.

Lan Qiren was only allowed to stand with the rest of them on the basis of a technicality – his father hadn’t officially transferred power to his eldest son and wouldn’t for a while yet, so he had brought along both of them on the transparent excuse that they could provide company for Jin Guangshan and Lao Nie as members of the same generation. It was very much a technicality in Lan Qiren’s case, given his much younger age; he fell on the very tail end of their generation on account of the circumstances of his belated birth.

Lan Qiren’s birth was very late to allow him to be considered a peer to those a decade or more older than him, in fact, but that was the way of things.

He was a child of duty, rather than pleasure.

His parents had been very much in love, as was the Lan sect’s way, and together they had had two sons and a daughter within six years, each one of them deeply beloved. But perhaps their joy had been too complete, because the heavens had not permitted it to last: they lost their younger son and daughter both – one to an unexpected illness, the other to an accident. Their eldest, Lan Qiren’s brother, was still there, but it would have been irresponsible to have only a single heir to a Great Sect. Accordingly, under great pressure from the sect elders, they had sought to have another child, only to fail time and time again, enduring countless miscarriages and stillbirths alike.

There had even been some debate as to whether such a situation permitted the sect leader to take on a concubine, regardless of custom or even his own wishes. Desperate to prevent such a result, Lan Qiren’s mother had inadvisedly taken certain drugs to encourage conception and at last Lan Qiren had been successfully born in a slow and bloody labor that had sapped his mother’s already poor health. She had died a few years later, suffering a recurrence of the infection left behind from his birth. Lan Qiren had been too young to really remember her, but he knew that his brother had blamed him for her loss ever since.

He sometimes wondered if his father did, too.

Of course, unlike his brother, his father had never said as much. As the Lan sect leader, he was graceful and refined, educated and reserved, a venerable and venerated cultivator; it was widely agreed that he would never have planned to retire so early if it hadn’t been for losing his true love all those years ago. Perhaps he might even have been another Wen Ruohan, seemingly ageless, striving for immortality – at any rate, he would never be so petty as to mistreat a person due to the circumstances beyond their control. It was something he had heard that his father had said from one of the other Lan sect juniors, and at any rate it was in the rules, and Lan Qiren believed in the rules.

Besides, it wasn’t a surprise that Lan Qiren would be an afterthought in comparison to his brother, the already famous Qingheng-jun, who his father treasured like a pearl cupped in his palm. His brother was the much-anticipated first child of his father’s happy youth, the reminder of good days gone by, a child who had survived the misfortunes that had taken his siblings, and Lan Qiren’s brother repaid his father’s adoration with strength, intelligence, and endless potential. He was a cultivation maniac, yet good at managing the other juniors; he was cold and aloof, elegant, yet capable of being personable and even charming when needed. He was one of the shining stars of his generation, already a powerful cultivator and a respected gentleman even though he’d only just passed twenty-one. Even the name which he was commonly called, Qingheng-jun, was a rarity, a personal title unusual in this peaceful day and age.

Lan Qiren, in contrast, was slow and clumsy, with only average cultivation skills and positively dire social skills. While his teachers praised his strong academic skills and musical talent, the Lan sect followed first and foremost the orthodox path of swordsmanship; once his weakness in that area had been discovered, many of his sect elders lost interest in him as anything other than the inferior back-up plan that he was.

Undoubtedly that was why, when Wen Ruohan turned to Lan Qiren’s father and said, “Your son is a credit to you,” everyone assumed he was talking about Qingheng-jun.

“Sect Leader Wen does him too much honor,” their father said, clearly pleased despite his deprecating words. After all, Wen Ruohan, Sect Leader Wen, was well known to be extraordinarily sparing with his praise for any who didn’t share his bloodline or surname. “My unworthy son is still young and foolish. His eyes are always fixed upon cultivation, never straying – he doesn’t even spare time for girls, despite his advancing years!”

The other sect leaders were smiling, and Lao Nie already opening his mouth to say something teasing, when Wen Ruohan said, “I meant your other son.”

Lan Qiren wasn’t prepared at all for all the sect leaders to turn to look at him.

He shrunk back.

“Qiren?” his father said, almost as if he were checking to confirm that that was the right name, a trace of doubt in his voice even as Lan Qiren’s brother’s face went white with humiliation. “I didn’t realize you’d had a chance to hear him play.”

“Regrettably I have not yet had that pleasure,” Wen Ruohan said, a slightly strange expression on his face. “We merely exchanged some charming conversation, that’s all. Is that his most notable skill?”

“His accomplishments as a musical cultivator are sufficient to rank him among the adults of his already talented sect,” Lao Nie volunteered when there was a brief pause, and Lan Qiren’s father was quick to smile and nod along. “You missed out, Sect Leader Wen.”

“Perhaps another time,” Wen Ruohan said, his return smile still strange and almost subtly displeased, though Lan Qiren would hardly trust himself to know for sure.

At that point, Jiang Menglin spoke up, changing the subject, and most everyone joined in, all of them evidently relieved – not least of all Lan Qiren himself, who had started wondering if there was some way he could become invisible or else fall into a deep chasm that might conveniently open up beneath his feet.

Nothing more was said on the subject until the ceremony was done and the last of their guests departed, when Lan Qiren’s brother tracked him down and hissed, “What did you do?”

“Nothing!” Lan Qiren cried out. “We only talked!”

“You mean you talked at him the way you always do – ”

Their father cleared his throat, having come up behind them, and they both turned at once and dropped into deep salutes.

“Do not think about it too much,” he said, voice distant as the cold wind on a winter night. “Sect Leader Wen sometimes likes to make trouble for the sake of making trouble, especially if he thinks he has found a weakness. You will need to be on your guard against that when you are sect leader.”

He was talking to Lan Qiren’s brother, of course. Lan Qiren could count, and had, the number of times his father addressed him directly in a given year, but it was only reasonable – he wasn’t the heir, doomed to take on the burden of leadership, and so there was much less his father needed to say to him.

“Yes, Father,” his brother said. “I’ll remember.”

“Do not trouble your younger brother over nonsense.”

Lan Qiren felt his brother’s angry gaze like a flame against his skin, even if it wasn’t anywhere as weighty as Wen Ruohan’s. He did not understand what he had done wrong, whether to Wen Ruohan to decide to make trouble using his name or to his brother now that had made him angry, but that wasn’t so much different from the usual.

“Very well, Father,” his brother said. “I won’t.”

#mdzs #lan qiren #qingheng-jun #wen ruohan #my fic #my fics #spilled pearls

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scapegrace74-blog · 3 years

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New Ways of Turning Into Stone

A/N Another long drive, another Outlander fanfic idea that dropped into my brain out of nowhere, shoving aside the historical AU I have been wrestling with for months. Here’s the pitch: Claire Beauchamp is a psychiatrist specializing in grief counselling. Jamie Fraser is referred to her by his sister, who is worried for his well-being after a series of family tragedies. You can probably guess the rest, but I’m going to write it anyway. The title is taken from a song by the amazing Phantogram that was playing as the story idea came to me.

After losing my WIP virginity posting Ginger Snap, I’m going out on that limb again and posting this first chapter with only a rough outline mapped out in my head. You people are a terrible influence! Also, there will be some trigger warnings on future chapters, so please watch out for those. And now, on with our show.

Claire Beauchamp glanced down at the leather-bound calendar open on her desk. The ivory page for Thursday was packed to the margins, each hourly block filled with the name of a patient followed by a series of cuneiform symbols she used to remind herself of the last session, course of treatment, overall progress, all while maintaining strict confidentiality. Not even Geillis Duncan, her office administrator and very good friend, knew how to decode the script.

Geillis liked to laugh at the old-fashioned day planner, reminding Claire that their practice utilized software that could perform the same function electronically, but she enjoyed the act of physically logging each session. The solid heft of her Mont Blanc pen in her hand, a medical school graduation gift from her Uncle Lamb. The scratch and grab of the nub as it bled black ink over virgin paper. It was a tactile ceremony in a detached world. Geillis would nod and then tell her she needed to get laid.

Speak of the devil, a sharp rap on her office door was followed by the appearance of her strawberry blonde head. blue eyes alight with mischief.

“Yer two o’clock is here. Did ye need more time tae finish bolting down tha’ chaff ye call a salad, or can I show him in?”

“It’s kale,” she defended. “It’s full of anti-oxidants.”

A disdainful scoff was the only response.

“Yes, Geil, please show Mister...” she glanced down at her planner, “...Fraser in, thank you.”

The tiny rectangle contained only a name, which meant this was their first appointment. Geillis vetted all prospective patients, but Claire preferred to go into the first meeting blind, with no assumptions or pre-conceptions.

She wondered what misfortune had caused Mr. Fraser to seek out her psychiatric services. The death of a child, perhaps, or the end of an extra-marital affair. People grieved for very different reasons and worked through or around that grief with a surprising variety of coping mechanisms. Most called upon her practice in much the same way they would a breakdown truck when their car’s engine failed. They simply wanted to get back on the road to happiness.

Despite the degrees and accreditations that decorated her office wall, Claire wasn’t certain such a thing was possible. In her experience, grief was a phantom limb that never really went away. The best one could hope for was to learn healthier ways of living with it.

The sound of Geillis clearing her throat snapped her back to the present.

“Was there something else, Geil?”

“Och, no’ really. Just, when yer considerin’ how tae thank me later on, remember tha’ my favourite stone is an emerald, that I prefer gold tae silver, but platinum is ne’er amiss.”

“What are you on about, Duncan?” But her friend had already disappeared back into the reception area, leaving behind only the glow of her Cheshire smile. Claire was shaking her head, bemused, when another knock rang out, this one considerably heavier than the first.

“Come in,” she called as she looked up. And up. And up some more.

The man who now practically filled her office door had to be at least six foot four, with powerful shoulders and a broad torso encased in a blue henley. His nearly endless legs were likewise muscular, as testified by the stretch of his jeans across each thigh. As if his physique wasn’t remarkable enough, he had a head of outrageously wavy red hair, worn long enough to graze the tops of his ears and the nape of his neck, but swept back from a high brow by a judicious use of product. His face was angular in a pleasingly unique way, with a day or two’s growth of beard counter-balancing an almost youthful, earnest appearance. But his most striking feature by far were his aquamarine eyes that shimmered like a tropical sea. Eyes that were currently observing her with perplexity.

“Dr. Beauchamp?” a deep Scottish brogue inquired. He pronounced it as though she were French.

“Yes,” she startled. “That’s me. And it’s pronounced Beecham. Please, come in Mister Fraser.” She shuffled a few items around her desk needlessly as she tried to compose herself. Damn Geillis for not giving her a bit more warning that her newest client was some sort of fitness model.

“Thank ye,” he replied. “An’ it’s pronounced Jamie, if ye please.” She added wit to the growing list of the man’s attributes.

If anything, he grew even more impressive as he approached. She could see he was nervous, although hiding it well. His striking eyes darted about the room, trying to get a sense of his environment. She indicated the well-upholstered armchair that sat to one side of her desk.

“Have a seat,” she invited.

With a surprising amount of grace for one so tall, he eased into the chair but didn’t lean back. The fingers of his left hand tapped restlessly against his thigh. She watched him quietly, waiting for him to speak. This was a trick she had learned when she first started practicing psychiatry, but in this case it also allowed her to continue her appraisal. He was, she concluded, the most attractive man she’d ever seen in the flesh.

“No couch,” he finally observed.

“No. That’s a bit of a Hollywood trope, I’m afraid. Lying prone in front of a stranger is hardly conducive to feeling at ease.”

He nodded his acceptance of her logic, but was otherwise silent.

“So,” she spoke at last, unable to wait him out, “what caused you to seek out counselling, Jamie?” His name suited him, she thought as she spoke it for the first time. Both boyish and imposing at once.

“I didna. Twas my sister, Jenny, who insisted I see a doctor.” His mobile mouth twisted into a grimace. She could imagine the sibling discord that such a demand would have caused. Whoever this Jenny was, she was made of strong stuff. Unfortunately for her, a hostile patient would receive no benefit from merely visiting her office. Counselling was a participatory process, and she could tell from the stubborn set of Jamie’s shoulders that he had no intention of participating.

“I see,” she said carefully. “Well, it’s your time and your dime, Mr. Fraser. This session lasts for forty-five minutes, and you’ve not been here for five. There’s a carafe of hot water on the table over there, if you care for some tea. Or you’re welcome to just enjoy that comfortable chair for another forty minutes. I’ll be working on some administrative necessities.”

She turned her chair away from him, but from the corner of her eye she could see his gobsmacked expression. He had clearly expected her to cajole and manipulate him into co-operating, but that simply wasn’t her style.

“I meant no offence, doctor. I’m certain ye’re verra good at what ye do. Tis only... well, Jenny is my older sister, ye ken. She practically raised me. And so ofttimes she treats me like a muckle-sized bairn, and no’ a man who’s capable of lookin’ after himself.”

As he spoke, Jamie leaned forward until his elbows rested on his knees, expressive hands gesturing in front of his face. Hostile to the notion of counselling he might be, but he clearly wanted her to understand it wasn’t a slight. As a physician, she had been trained to never take a patient’s reactions personally, but it didn’t mean she didn’t appreciate the effort.

“No offence taken, Jamie. If you don’t need my assistance, I’m happy for you. That’s one less person hurting in the world.”

“I didna say I wasna hurting. But I can handle it my own way. I am handling it, that is,” he hurried to add.

Unable to sit still any longer, he rose and walked over to the small table where she kept an assortment of herbal teas and a tray of Geillis’ homemade biscuits. Bending over, Jamie set about making himself some; chamomile by the smell of it. The sound of spoon ringing off porcelain as he stirred in some honey made her smile, reminding her of Lamb and his obsession with the lost art of afternoon tea.

“Can I make ye a cup?”

The question was so unexpected, it took her a moment to process it. The tea was there as a distraction for her patients, to give them something to do with their bodies as they worked through difficult emotions. None of them had ever thought to offer her a reprieve as well.

“No, thank you. I just finished lunch.”

He dipped a shortbread into the steaming tea, then ate it in a single bite. Instead of sitting back down, he began to browse the framed certificates and photographs along the far wall as he sipped his tea. With his back turned, her eyes dipped to admire his ass, which filled out his jeans perfectly. When she caught herself, she gave her head a shake, appalled at her lack of professional detachment. Maybe Geillis was right. Maybe she really did need to get laid.

“How long have ye been a doctor?” Jamie asked without turning around.

“Ten years,” she replied. “But I’ve only been a psychiatrist for the last two.”

It was a dangerous topic, and she blamed his ass for letting the words slip out. Fortunately, his inquisitiveness took him in an entirely different direction.

“Were ye some kind of prodigy, then? Ye hardly seem old enough tae have yer own practice, let alone fer a decade. If ye dinna mind me sayin’ so,” he added quickly, as though realizing what he’d just said.

“Not at all. And you hardly seem young enough to be a, what was it? A muckle-sized bairn?”

As he turned to look her way, she understood the expression ‘shot-gun smile’ for the first time. It spread across his face like a sunbeam, transforming what was already remarkable into a work of art. If she hadn’t been sitting, she likely would have stumbled backward from the force of the blow. Scrambling for something familiar to keep her from making a very grave fool of herself in front of this man, she clasped her clinical training with both hands.

“Are you and your sister close?”

“Aye, when we’re no’ tryin’ not tae kill the other. Our Mam died when I was only four, and with Da workin’ dawn til dark on the farm, Jenny was parent, teacher an’ playmate all rolled inta one.”

“You’re not from Edinburgh, then?” Although what that had to do with his counselling, she hadn’t a clue.

“Nah, I hail from a wee village in the Highlands ye’ve likely ne’er heard of called Broch Mordha.” She shook her head to indicate she was indeed unfamiliar with it. Jamie launched into a detailed description of the place, his hands sculpting the landscape out of thin air. He obviously cared very deeply for his home, and she felt a twinge of jealousy, having never known that feeling of deep belonging herself.

“And what brought you to Old Smoky?” she asked as he wound down, her interest piqued. It was like slamming a lead door on his previously sunny disposition.

“Family obligations.” Said in such a way as to make it clear that no further words would be forthcoming on the topic. She regretted her nosiness immediately, despite what it revealed about his emotional state. Jamie was most certainly grieving something, but handling it he was not.

Before she could find a way back to the easy flow of conversation, a chime from her laptop indicated that the session was up. She couldn’t bear to dismiss him without trying to set things right.

“Listen, Jamie, I understand that you only came here today to humour your sister, but I want you to consider something. Whether we’re grieving or angry or jealous, or any destabilizing feeling, we’re often the worst surveyors of our own landscape. Just like you can’t know your place on the sea without referencing the stars, it takes something external to ourselves to measure how far adrift we have become. Your sister obviously loves you. Ask yourself, what has she seen in you that prompted her to force you to seek help?”

They parted with cordial but muted goodbyes. The door closed behind him, leaving Claire to stare at the blank rectangle in her planner that bore his name. No coded symbols flowed from her pen. When the door re-opened, it was Geillis, closing it firmly behind her.

“Weel, did I no’ tell ye? Wee fox, tha’ one. And he told me he liked my shortbread!” Geillis said this as though it was some kind of sexual euphemism, which for all Claire knew, it was.

“Yes,” she replied distractedly. “He’s very nice.”

“Nice! Nice? Tha’ man is tae nice what Wagyu is tae beef jerky. Have ye completely lost yer senses, woman?”

“Yes, well, he’s a patient, Geillis, as you well know. And not one I’m likely to see again,” she added, acknowledging out loud what she already knew.

“Oh, no?” Geillis sing-songed. “Thas’ strange, as he just made an appointment fer the same time next week.”

Claire’s eyes flew to where her friend looked on, smug as could be.

“Yer three o’clock called tae say she was runnin’ five minutes late. I’ll leave ye tae think about yer... patient.”

Claire picked up her pen, trying to pull together something resembling a professional summary of her first appointment with Jamie. Her mind replayed their interaction, but all she could remember was the way his eyes crinkled when he was listening attentively, the tidy half-moons of his fingernails, the seam of his jeans as it contoured his thigh, and the cymbal-crash in her chest that accompanied his smile.

Patient, she reminded herself. Jamie Fraser is your patient.

#my writing #outlander

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cryinginthebackseat · 4 years

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you’ve got more poison than sugar - part i

AO3 part ii

Fandom: Call Of Duty

Pairing: Russell Adler x Bell

Words: 4.009

Summary: Russell Adler should have known better that it wouldn’t take an entire nation or continent to bring him to his knees.

Warnings: just swearings, sexual tension, blood, mentions of past abuse and brainwashing. adler being that manipulative asswipe like usual.

Author’s note: i don't know what i'm doing. one moment, i was watching the walkthrough of the new call of duty game, found myself curious, acutely curious by that guy with the scars and shades on- a younger, shadier (no pun intended) Robert Redford in Spy Game and oh my... fast forward to 2 weeks later, here we are.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

A house somewhere on foreign soil,

Where ageless lovers call,

Is this your goal, your final needs,

Where dogs and vultures eat,

Committed still I turn to go.

I put my trust in you.

A Means To An End - Joy Division (1980)

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It's mystifying how little she talks. Or when she does, it's always in fragments. Like a crossword puzzle in your local newspaper, but several letters are missing. He initially thought maybe MK-Ultra fucked her head or worse, if it hasn't worked at all, but the more he watches her, the more he realizes it's just the way she is. And it's ironic because he named her Bell. He expected her to chime like a goddamn goldfinch yet here they are.

But he won't be fazed. Russell Adler is a man who's stopped at nothing in getting what he wanted before, he sure as hell won't stop now for a close-mouthed science project.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“We've got a job to do, Bell."

It intrigues him, every time, the way the words trigger something deep within her psyche, the way her eyes change, her body stands a little straighter, like a machine ready to function at his disposal. It reminds Adler of one of those cartoons he watched when he was a kid about wizards and magic words, except there are no musical dance numbers playing in the background or a talking cricket perching on his shoulder. This is his power over her, over the USSR, over Perseus. That monstrous filth. It really does take a beast to tame another.

Although he surmises calling Bell one would be superfluous.

She barely looks like one, but Adler knows too well than to underestimate her. Just because Bell hasn’t shown her set of claws, that doesn’t mean she’s harmless, delicate, like a miniature China Doll in his breast pocket.

Bell never offered him her reply before, but now, now, she nods, head almost bows, obedient pretty thing, and says:

“Yes, Adler.”

So it goes.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It takes West Berlin for Adler to realize she’s left-handed.

She wears her watch on her right hand, smokes with that same said hand only when she’s writing or moving her pieces for an impromptu late-night game of chess against Lazar. And she always wears her gloves all the time- leather, black, lined with silk and pretty, small buttons on the cuffs, covering those striking red nails underneath. Whether it is for the theatrics or an old habit of hers, he can't really tell.

He doesn’t know why he begins to take notice of these mundane details about Bell, but rationalizes because he’s never been in the same room with this version of her, post-brainwash Bell, for more than 10 minutes. And for all intents and purposes, there’s still a lot of question marks surrounding her character; who is she? Where did she come from? What is her connection to Perseus?

Are they in a possession of a walking, breathing bomb about to destroy them all or the West’s only salvation?

He supposes he’ll find out soon enough.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Adler hears Bell from his table, typing busy on the computer- barely blinking- all soaked up in that caffeine-infused energy at 1 am. She's always like that, he learns, when it comes to working, always with that steel determination, pulling out all the stops as long as it gets the job done- that Soviet discipline at it's finest.

Reminds him a little of himself when he's young.

Adler walks up to her.

“You done for the night?” A shake of her head is her only response. He sighs. “You should go home, Bell.”

“You go. I’ll lock up behind you,” Bell replies, low and monotone; that youthful stubborn.

If she was any other person, he would probably commend her for such fierce willpower, but she is Bell, the walking conundrum, his ace in the hole. Call him paranoid, but the idea of her having the safehouse for herself does nothing but raises every alarm in his head.

“No, we’re going home,” he says instead, tone brooking no argument and she frowns at the screen, her fingers stop moving then looks up at him with those goddamn empty eyes. "Come on, it's late anyway."

She doesn't say anything. Adler wishes he could read her mind- or crack that lovely skull on the back of her head, dissect her brain, learn its secrets and answers.

Adler has his gun with him. It wouldn’t take long. A quick, true shot to the heart to keep the brain intact. He’d have Hudson contact one of his people inside BND and he'd deliver the brain himself if he has to. They could do it. He heard they’ve been studying inmates' brains for decades now, anyway.

Before he has a chance to entertain the idea further, though, Bell nods once and rises up from her seat.

Bell walks past him. Her scent, like honeysuckle on ice, hits him like an uppercut in the face. Adler inhales, as if against his will.

He thinks he could get drunk on it.

“Hop in. I’ll drive you back to the hotel,” he says once they’re outside, regretting the decision the moment the words left his lips, but he knows he can’t just leave her on her own at this late hour.

The irony isn’t lost on him, though, considering he just thought about unspooling her brain a few minutes ago.

Bell complies without a protest. Getting inside the passenger seat, wordless still, fingers toying with the radio. An angry, krautrock music comes blaring all over his car. Adler winces, but at least the riot is loud enough to muffle the one's brewing in his head.

"How's your memory these days?"

Bell shrugs. "Nihil novi sub sole." There's nothing new under the sun.

Good, he muses. The least she knows about herself the better.

Though that doesn't mean he's out of the woods yet.

"Listen, from now on, I want you to keep me informed if there's any new progress about your memory or if you've developed any new symptoms. I want to know everything." He steals a sidelong glance at her, making sure she is listening (she always does, but Adler needs an excuse)

(An excuse for what?)

"Alright, Bell?"

"Of course," replies the woman in question.

"Good." Adler shifts his attention back to the road. "Good." Taking a long drag, he considers trying to appeal to her sentimental side. It's not something you'd improvise last minute- at least not with someone you brainwashed to believe you are her mentor/confidant for the past decade, but he's itching to know where he stands with her.

"You know, I'm just tryin' to look out for you, kid."

Her lips twitch but the rest of her visage remains impassive and faraway, more like a flick knife than a woman. The correlation is uncanny.

That's when she inches closer. The space between them bridged. He freezes. Hyper-aware of just how dangerous this is, but can’t bring himself to pull back, to look the other way. Not when her hand reaches out to pluck the cigarette from his mouth, eyes still glued to his, and curls her lips around the filter. One heavy pull, and then she rolls down the window and tosses it out on the side of the road.

"Thought I'd reciprocate the sentiment."

And with that, she leans back in her seat before Adler could even process what has just transpired.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“Welcome back to the land of the living, kid,” Adler greeted her, about a month ago.

Park had insisted that he had to be there for her when she woke up (naturally, Adler had balked at the idea, but at the English woman’s fact-of-the-matter explanation, also because it had somewhat dawned on him last minute the logic behind her machinations- “both of you are supposed to have known each other for years now. If she doesn't see you by her side, she’s going to wonder why”- thus, here he was)

“How are you feeling?”

Bell blinked owlishly and stared at the older man with those bottomless, cat-like eyes that had haunted him since January.

Her gaze eventually softened as recognition flickered across her face.

“Like someone just hit me in the chest with a bulldozer,” she said hoarsely. “Where are we?”

“St. Dismas’ hospital, Pittsburgh.” Adler got up and fetched her a glass of water from the table. “Although not a bulldozer, but bullets did. That, and you hit your head really hard on your way down. Thought we’d lost you there, Bell.”

Bell drank in silence. She’s still watching him, thinking. This was the first time he realized that he couldn’t exactly read her expression and somehow that threw him off.

“What happened?” she asked, one hand mid-air, like she was deciding which to touch first, hesitating and abandoned the idea.

“You don’t remember?” She shook her head. Adler pretended to look remotely distressed about it. “The doctors warned me about this. It must have been because of the fall- heck, I could even still hear that sickening crunch from here.” He dragged his chair closer towards her bed.

“We were in Amsterdam. Remember Fohler?” she shook her head again. “Well, we’d been tracking this son of a bitch for months, but we were chasing him in Amsterdam. He was running away and climbed up some scaffolding. You were about to go up after him,” he recited the fabricated story he, Park and Hudson had crafted. “He shot you and you fell and hit your head against the pavement.”

Bell looked away first, silent. Her hand gingerly touched the back of her head and winced, albeit only slightly.

Adler was almost impressed, if not, disarmed by how calm and composed her reaction was to all of this. But then again, after having had witnessed first-hand how the woman barely flinched under any kind of interrogation technique they threw at her- a personality built for wrestling tigers- he really shouldn’t be surprised.

“Bell, what is the last thing you remember?”

Bell frowned. “Not much. I remember ‘Nam, but-”

“Vietnam? Kid, that was thirteen years ago.” Adler watched the way her throat bopped, like she was swallowing her own blood and the color drained from her face, just like the first time he’d seen her, and proceeded to drop the bomb:

“Bell, the year is 1981.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"Bell dear, would you mind taking a look at this?"

Park's voice sails from across the room. She says it like it's a compound word: Bell-dear. Like the two words belong together. Bell-dear. 2 syllables, 1 word, 9 characters and that just might be the weirdest thing he hears this year and he heard many things.

"Bell dear?" Adler asks much later, his gravel-and-smoke voice reduced to a whisper, when she delivers a document to his table.

Park shrugs as if that explains everything. "What? I like her."

He's tempted to say you really can't put a term of endearment and someone you brainwashed into submission in the same sentence, but what else is new?

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

They wind up in a bar. It’s called Die Stube and the place’s brimmed with artists and all sorts of leather-clad, Bowie-esque dramatic, chromatic blue eyelids young people chattering over a dirty cloud of smoke.

The two of them colonize a lone booth in the back. It’s dark and the quietest. She orders a beer and he, a scotch and they drink in silence. There are moments where her head would twist to the side, as subtle as a needle and survey the phantasmagorical scene before them, like studying something from a petri dish.

While he’s watching her.

Only to tear his gaze away to the nearest object he can find.

It lands on his watch.

"It’s almost ten. Hudson's contact should be here soon," he announces, if anything to distract himself. She nods mutely in reply, as always, and runs a finger around the rim of her glass.

"The place ain't much of your scene?"

She shrugs, like it's self-evident. "I didn't know this was a scene, though."

"Well, that’s West Berlin for you. A worry-free playground for the hedonists, hipsters and proto-electro NDW enthusiasts with drugs on tap," Adler says, sipping his drink in practiced nonchalance. "Always makes my head spin."

"I guess I remember it differently," Bell replies, tinged with something akin to begrudging.

That warrants his full attention. "What do you remember?”

Bell shrugs again and lights a cigarette instead, menthol, one of those long, skinny cigarettes they only market for women; biding her time, making him wait. She lets the smoke flares from her nostrils so her eyes are veiled.

"It’s hard to explain, but I suppose it’s grittier?” she gesticulates, searching for the right word like she’s skim reading the entire Oxford dictionary in her head. “Bizarrely, infinitely grittier and dimmer? Like being in an underground tunnel and there's not much to see."

Interesting. Maybe she’s recalling one of her ops for Perseus or her mind is confusing her with the world on the other side of the wall.

“Maybe you’re remembering one of our clandestine ops here. It was a few years after Vietnam,” Adler supplies, passing over the tale like bait.

She falls for it, hook, line and sinker.

“Ah, I guess that also explains my fluency in German.”

“I taught you that.” It’s only logical, he decides, that she learned from him. She’s supposed to be his protégé after all.

An elegant brow quirk. "You did?"

"Yeah, though you were already fluent in Latin, Russian, Vietnamese and Portuguese when we first met anyway. You have quite a natural ear, kid.”

She gives him a look. He really can’t categorize it, but it makes it a whole lot harder to fight against her stare.

“What else did you teach me?”

If they were anyone else, the lines could have a potential to entice, to seduce, that winsome, catty-eyelashes coquette, but they aren't anyone else and Bell does not voice it like that. Yet the implication behind the question stirs something in the pit of Adler’s stomach anyway, that tight knot of confusion as it is buried with something else and he finds himself, once again, uncharacteristically speechless.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

That particular question of her stays, even hours later, unbidden. Interspersed with her scent and face.

His emotions are a minefield whenever she’s near now. It evokes that newfound rush of terror within him, like walking on a tightrope or being thrown into the pit to face hundreds of hungry lions, bare hands. It makes Adler questions his every decision, and he can’t have that in his line of work.

Adler lights his sixth cigarette, contemplating everything, nothing. Anything to distract him from her. It's 4 am and he’s exhausted, but his mind won’t stop whirring. This isn’t like him at all- like he's lost somewhere in a Dali-style labyrinth that is his head and he wonders if this is a byproduct of his fear or fascination or confusion for the young woman.

He fears it is all of them.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

(They're only 10 minutes away from East Berlin when he senses it, something akin to burning on his peripheral vision, pulling him like weight.

Bell is staring at him from across the seat.

He cocks his head slightly to the side.

Adler catches the quick, telling quirk of her lips, like she's about to smile but lights a cigarette instead.)

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“Did you hear that?”

Krauss has just crossed the wall and their soles are slippery from the rain. She's panting. Her breath is white like a fog. Adler muses it must be from the running, until his iris trails down to where her hand is clutching his jacket sleeve, the leather creasing like a modulation signal.

“What is it?” Adler asks, hushed. There are no Stasis here, but even one can't be too careful.

“The TV.” She’s gaping at the broken TV next to them. Adler looks at the said object, frowning, then back to her. “Y-you didn’t hear it?”

"Heard what? Bell, the thing's dead."

Bell withdraws from him. Stepping back until her back meets the walls, her eyes seeing and unseeing, like a lens finding focus in the dark, then she closes them, as if trying to regulate her breathing. Adler has never seen her scared shitless of anything before. The sight confuses as it intrigues him.

"Bell, what's going on?" Adler steps closer, but he dares not to touch her.

She shakes her head, dismissive. In just a span of seconds, Bell dons that mask she likes to wear again; deadpan and frustratingly distant. A spike of annoyance drives through him. Just when he thinks he can get through her, there she goes again, retreating behind her palisades.

"Nothing." Bell turns away abruptly and she’s walking again."Let's just go. The others are waiting for us."

He doesn't pry about whatever she heard on the TV- Adler knows better than to beat a dead horse, thank you very much- not even after they save her from Volkov's clutches, after she bashes his head against the steel door and reeks his blood all the way home, it seems superficial at the time.

Until two days later.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The day starts, as it mostly does for the team, with a briefing.

Fifteen minutes in and something like a gasp pulls his attention to her.

That’s when he notices it; her hands are shaking, coffee spilling out of the mug over her hand. A shatter follows. Her mug smashes to smithereens at her feet. She’s swaying, near collapse, like a house of cards about to fall, a hand on her nose.

Adler catches her before she tumbles to the floor.

“Bell!” His arm around her waist tightens, trying to keep her steady. Lazar rushes to their side in a flash and helps him move her to a nearby chair.

"Jesus Christ," he curses, more to himself than to her as he watches blood, a bead of angry red, trickling down her nose. "Sims, get me a washcloth from the bathroom."

He kneels before her once Sims returns with a damp cloth. Nicotine-stained gloved fingers tentatively grasp her chin, holding her still.

“Kid, you alright?” Adler asks, worry bleeds into his voice without him realizing it. He firmly presses the cloth under her nose, his other thumb touches the pulse at her throat- it's almost sickly affectionate. “Bell, talk to me."

Bell looks at him, discombobulated, like he's a figment of her imagination, then blinks. Again and again until she heaves a deep breath.

"I-" she hisses. One hand flies up to her head. "Fuck. My head.”

Adler’s eyes immediately search for Park’s. A knowing look passes over her face and he knows without saying that she's thinking the same thing, like they're attached to the same brain-wire:

MK-Ultra.

There’s a fraction of pause, then Lazar asks, "Should we give her something?”

Before Park can voice her answer, Bell beats her to it. "I already took an anticonvulsant this morning. It should have helped.”

“Wait, this has happened before?” Adler asks.

Bell looks away, a hesitating look shadowing her face. He fears the worst.

“Bell…” he tries again, a slight warning to his tone.

She sighs loudly, as if mentally preparing herself before walking into a storm.

“Yes. Two days ago."

His mind instantly refers to East Berlin, the TV. Trying to connect the dots in his head. It seems far fetched, but now he wonders if she saw something that triggers this. Although he's never read about this on other subjects before, the correlation is just impossible to ignore.

Fuck. He heaves a breath, willing himself to calm down, to think. They can't afford complications at times like these. Not when there's so much at stake right now.

Adler snaps his attention back to Bell when she tries to scramble awkwardly to her feet, swatting his hand away. The hand on her neck immediately reaches for her waist again and pushes her back down onto the chair. His grip's tight enough to leave marks on her skin, but he doesn't care.

"Bell, for fuck's sake, stay still or so help me," he says, exasperated, not letting go of her waist.

"I feel better now." Stubborn little shit.

He is tempted to scream at her face and grab both of her shoulders and shake. “The hell you’re not. Stop fighting it. You’ll only make things worse.”

Her face sours, if only for a millisecond before it morphs into guilt. “I’m sorry.”

Adler watches her for a long moment. It’s only now that he realizes that he’s still holding her waist and the cloth on her face.

He backs away from her like he’s been burnt.

“You should have told me. I thought I made it clear the other night to keep me informed regarding this,” he scolds.

“I’m sorry,” she utters again and she looks so pliable like this, a blank canvas perfumed with obedience and lethal mind. It makes him almost feel sorry for what he has in plan for her once the shit show is over.

“Look, just go back to the hotel and take a day off.” Her mouth cracks open. He raises a silencing hand. “That’s an order, Bell.” But she merely scowls, looking more like jagged ice than a person. Hudson may have just met his match, after all.

“I told you I’m fine.”

“That’s not how it looks to me.”

“It is. It’s my body and I know what I’m feeling, and I’m telling you, I. Feel. Fine.”

His jaw clenches. “Are you disobeying a direct order, agent?”

Bell doesn’t answer, but her whole face remains challenging and hard. Undeterred.

Adler holds his breath. He feels the whole room collectively does the same. It’s like staring down the barrel of a gun and there’s an awful sort of danger to be found in that.

Just when he thinks an imaginary bullet would dig itself into his skin, however, Bell utters, “Of course not.”

And so the woman resumes to her normal, docile self at a drop of a hat. Even when Park steps in and whisks her out of her seat, drives her back to her hotel with Lazar on shotgun.

It doesn’t assuage his worry, though. He’s still restless throughout the day, like a roaring ocean inside a bell jar. She’s never done this before, openly rebels against him. Now, the situation is just bad. Not casually bad or almost-got-shot bad, this is the-entire-Europe-could-turn-into-a-nuclear-wasteland bad, an-armageddon-waiting-to-happen bad.

What if this is the beginning of her old self trying to scratch her way out of the surface? Adler’s blood goes cold at the thought. He is going to have to keep a close eye on this development.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

West Berlin - 1 am, local time.

“How is she?”

“Stable. I’ve administered another dose of Propranolol before I left the hotel. She should be fit as a fiddle in the morning.”

“Tell me, what do you think happened to her?”

“My theory? Traumatic brain injury. A cumulative product of torture, trauma-based mind control and chronic stress. I've read reports about cases like these before in MI6. None of them is still alive to recount the tale, unfortunately."

Adler grips the phone.

“How long do you think we have?”

“Theoretically, 2-3 weeks tops.”

“But?”

He hears Park sighs on the other line. “But then again, none of the subjects I’ve encountered before were like her. So, I suppose it’s still a little too premature to determine at this point."

Adler kneads his temple, feeling the start of that familiar Bell-induced headache forms in his head. Can things just be fucking simple for once?

“We don’t have that much time anyway, Park. And if Hudson gets a wind of this, he’ll want her gone by morning. I can’t let that happen. Not…” he pauses. “Not when we are this close.”

"What are we going to do about her, then?"

Adler sighs.

"Raise the dosages of her drugs,” he says. “And keep an extra eye on her. I think we may be heading into uncharted waters now.”

Tagging: @mvalentine cause you said to tag you with everything i write so 👁👄👁

#russell adler #russell adler x bell #cod bell #cod #call of duty #call of duty black ops #call of duty cold war #cod cold war #alex mason #frank woods #helen park #lawrence sims #jason hudson #lazar azoulay

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tiffdawg · 4 years

Note

I need thots on boba pls ma’am

boba!?

oh god... i’ll be honest, i haven’t put much thot™️ into boba because he intimidates the hell out of me. actually, that’s a lie. first, preteen boba annoyed the hell out of me in the clone wars and i just didn’t see the appeal even with ot boba. han solo and leia organa were right there. then temuera morrison did this:

fucking EXCUSE ME???? how is this legal?

this man really crawled out of a sarlacc pit just to snap some necks and break our hearts. he still intimidates the hell out of me but here we go...

rating: m | warnings: a little nsfw below the cut. mostly soft. nothing explicit. but maybe a little something akin to brat taming? idek... but gender neutral reader because anyone can be boba fett’s princess 😌

boba fett has lived a violent life. his quiet youth on kamino was disrupted by the sudden death of his father and this pattern carried on into the decades he spent as a bounty hunter. he might rule tatooine’s underworld, preferring the straightforward and familiar life of the criminals to anything else, but he’s looking for a softer touch. even if he doesn’t realize it.

his hands are physically scarred and figuratively covered in blood. he knows this. he’s reached a point in his life where he’s accepted this. when you show up one day, standing tall before his throne with your head held high despite the tragic situation that’s forced you to seek help from a known criminal, someone more than willing to work with the empire back in the day, he’s intrigued. you speak softly, and while you clearly don’t belong in the hutt’s old palace, there’s a quiet strength to you.

perhaps he’s gone soft in his older years, but he offers you his help.

and in a move that surprised everyone, except maybe one fennec shand, a few months later you’d taken up a permanent residence in the palace and in boba’s bed.

boba would not call himself a gentle man. rough, calloused hands caress your soft skin and gentle curves. a hungry mouth collides with yours, eager and demanding. a deep, smoky voice commands you, asks things of you he never dreamed you would do for him. spread your legs for me, little one. get on your knees, princess. lay back and let me take care of you, my love. and you listen. you always listen.

until one day, you didn’t.

he watches as you grow accustomed to your new place at his side. he never lets the dark tendrils of the underworld touch you, but as you traipse around the palace, skirting along the edge of danger, your confidence grows. and so does your inclination to test your new lover.

boba fett’s wild, reckless youth is behind him. he’s let go of the anger that fueled him years ago. and he’s traveled around the galaxy long enough to know that timing is everything and a strategic mind wins the day. he’s a patient man, but he has his limits.

he’d been off-world for a few weeks and while he’d wanted to seek you out as soon as he returned, he was stuck holding makeshift court much to both of your displeasures.

he’d made it explicitly clear that you were the one person he would never hurt. still, you should know better than to cross him. this man has no interest in anything resembling bratty behavior.

as he sat on his throne, listening to some sleemo hutt drone on about the benefits of a potential partnership, he caught sight of you on the corner of his visor. you were engrossed in a conversation with a beautiful young coreworlder. clearly someone new to the outer rim. and clearly someone who didn’t know who you belonged to.

because boba fett makes no qualms about claiming you as his own. you belong to him just as he belongs to you.

but when he sees you smile as you place a hand over theirs, your pretty eyes flicking toward him to see if you’ve caught his attention, he realizes just what you’re trying to do.

furious doesn’t even begin to describe his reaction. but boba fett is a patient man. he feigns disinterest in your little game. biding him time until the palace starts to empty as his visitors made their way out to the cool desert in the late hours of the night. when your companion, drunk on spotchka and your smiles, attempts to throw an arm around you and guide you back to their speeder, he gets a blaster shot right to the chest.

he expects wide, surprised eyes when you turn to him. instead, he’s met with a mischievous glimmer.

he wraps a strong arm around your bicep and pulls you against his beskar cuirass. his modulated voice rasps low against your ear, you’ve made a grave mistake, little one.

#tiff answers #boba fett #boba fett headcanons #boba fett x reader #boba fett x you #anon 💌

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buck-buck-boose · 3 years

Text

I'll Love You 'Til I Die

Masterlist | Playlist

Summary: A Brooklyn schoolgirl fell in love with James Buchanan Barnes at the tender age of nine. With this love she made a vow, promising to love him until her very last breath.

Pairing: Bucky x OFC

Warnings: Language, violence

Word Count: 4.3k

Author's Note: I am... so sorry for taking so long. I was not expecting the start of the semester to be so hectic. I can't promise I'll go back to posting as regularly as during the summer, but I can promise that I'm not disappearing. I promise. I WILL SEE THIS FANFIC THROUGH EVEN IF IT KILLS ME. Thank you for the kind words and support while I've been MIA. Enjoy a chunky chapter.

Chapter Twenty-Four: Little Saint Lottie

October 27, 1943

“I’m worried about her, Betty.”

“I know, Gladys. I know.”

Lottie couldn’t remember the last time she’d gotten a full night’s rest. Days seemed to bleed into each other, with no slumber to distinguish today from tomorrow. It wasn’t long after arriving at Azzano that she realized that he wasn’t waiting for her. Bucky was gone. In his place, dozens of men awaited her arrival with sunken eyes and twitching lips that begged for relief, whether it be through a healing touch or a final blow to the head.

When the realization hit Lottie, there wasn’t much she could do besides throwing herself into her work; if she couldn’t help Bucky, the least she could do was help his brothers in arms. Although anxiety ate her up from the inside out, Lottie had confidence in Bucky’s abilities. He wouldn’t let himself die in some POW camp, he just wouldn’t. Because then who would take care of her and Steve? He’d fight tooth and nail to get back to them, she just knew it.

She threw herself into her work, rarely stopping long enough to have a proper conversation or a full meal; this bad habit of hers came to a halt, though, when she came upon a boisterous redhead in need of stitches. Lottie had been deep in thought while examining the gash above his forehead when the soldier cracked a grin and peered up at her without moving his head too much.

“Do I know you from somewhere?”

Lottie shook her head, “I’m afraid not, Private—” she glanced at his dog tags, “—O’Connor.”

“Ever done pinup? Maybe I know you from one of those cheesecakes we’ve got hanging up.” The man— more of a boy really, with his lanky frame and jovial smile —wiggled his eyebrows and ruined her diligent work of cleaning the blood from his wound.

The question left Lottie flustered; the idea of dozens of men gawking at her scantily clad figure left her feeling mortified, “Certainly not! I find that my talents are better suited for healing.”

O’Connor nodded and inspected her face carefully as she went to work on his gash once more. “I’ve got it!” Lottie nearly jumped away from him when he clapped his hands together, “You’re Little Saint Lottie, in the flesh!” The boy crowed his revelation, earning him glares from the other men recovering in the medic tent.

Lottie nearly dropped the needle that she’d been preparing to thread, “Excuse me?”

“Ah, it’s a funny story,” O’Connor chuckled, “Y’see, Sarge had this little photo he’d take everywhere. Always had it in his pocket, tucked in his helmet, you name it. Wouldn’t let the damn thing go. Anyway, we stole it out of his fatigues one day while he was cleaning up in some river ‘cause we wanted to see what the big deal was. Once we saw it was some dame—” Lottie shot him a look, “—lady, we started yanking his chain about it. He was just about as obsessed with that photo as my Ma is with her holy cards, so when he finally told us your name, we dubbed you ‘Little Saint Lottie,’ patron saint of the one hundred and seventh. That kinda pissed him off, but it’s not like you’re his girl, y’know? Though he sure acted like you were.”

Lottie was speechless. About halfway through his story, her mouth had dropped open and her hands had fallen to her lap. Here she was, looking dumb as an ox, while the soldier in front of her chuckled with childish glee.

“Me and the guys would even ask for your intercession whenever the chaplain came by to pray with us. Poor guy had no clue which saint we were talkin’ about. We tried to give it a place of honor in the tent but Sarge made us run laps when he found out we’d nicked it again.”

O’Connor nearly doubled over in laughter as he watched Lottie’s expression grow in horror. “Well as I’m sure Bucky— Sergeant Barnes has told you, I’m no saint. I’m just a nurse. Now hold still, unless you want these stitches to be more painful than they already are.” Before she could stop herself, the question came tumbling out of her mouth, “Speaking of Sergeant Barnes, do you know—” she fumbled with the needle as she made the first stitch, “—is he alright? Did you see him?” The soldier let out a hiss of pain, “Yeah, I got a glimpse of him while they were takin’ him away. He was battered but alright. There’s no man quite like Sarge, I know he’ll be back. He’d fight tooth and nail to get back. That’s what he said at least, ‘cause he always went on and on about how you needed him and all that. He sure talked about you an awful lot for a guy who hasn’t even asked you to go steady.”

Lottie’s breath hitched at the final comment, the mere idea of going steady with Bucky reducing her to a stuttering schoolgirl. She began to tie off his stitches, “We’ve been best friends for over a decade, it’s perfectly normal to care for each other deeply without bringing affection into it.”

O’Connor shrugged, which jostled her arm slightly, “I’ve never heard a guy talk about his best friend like that.”

Lottie didn’t respond. She gave his fully sutured wound one last glance, “Looks like you’re all set. Now don’t do anything stupid to get it infected.”

He gave her a crooked grin and wiggled his eyebrows, Lottie nearly scolded him but held her tongue, “As you wish, Saint Lottie.”

Lottie rolled her eyes and moved along to the next bed, where another soldier waited with a smile just as wide. It seemed that these men had become pleased as punch to know their patroness had come to grace them with her presence.

The USO’s visit to their camp took Lottie completely by surprise. She’d spent so much time floating from one medic tent to the next that she’d ended up completely out of the loop of the camp’s other goings-on. It wasn’t until she saw the fully-erected stage in the middle of camp that she realized. Her heart beat powerfully within her; with Steve here, she would be one step closer to finding Bucky. One step closer to bringing him home. “They say he’s gonna be here in a few hours,” Mary beamed, obviously giddy to see the Star-Spangled Man up close and in the flesh.

Lottie returned her smile, though it was weak. The weariness was starting to catch up to her, making her feel much older than a youthful twenty-three. Her stomach was in knots with anxiety; she needed to get to Steve as soon as possible.

Betty stood with them as they watched the hustle and bustle of preparations, “I’m pretty sure we’re the only ones looking forward to seeing Captain America. All these boys care about is seeing a bunch of girls dancing for them on stage, not some hunk of meat in a red, white, and blue suit.”

Nancy, who had just joined the conversation, scoffed, “It’s quite disappointing how little you think of these men and their patriotism.”

Gladys rolled her eyes, “They’re still men, Nancy. Scantily clad women or a guy singing about war bonds? They’re gonna prefer the women.”

Several hours later, Gladys was indeed proven right. Although he’d been driven off-stage with jeers and taunts, Lottie was waiting for him with a warm embrace.

“Hey, Lottie,” She could hear the smile in his voice, she felt its warm timbre as it surrounded her and reminded her of home.

“Good to see ya, Stevie.”

Steve pulled away from her and gazed around the camp, a grimace growing on his features, “Things don’t look to good around here.”

Lottie nodded, a twin grimace gracing her lips, “The hundred and seventh started out with two hundred men. Now they’ve only got fifty left. They’re barely holding on.”

Steve’s gaze shot to hers the moment she mentioned the one hundred and seventh, “Lottie that’s— this is Bucky’s—” The desperate look in his eyes made her own calm exterior begin to crack.

“Stevie, I know,” she whispered, a lump forming in her throat and tears pricking at her eyes, “I know, and I’m sorry. He’s not here. They— Those bastards took him, damn them!” For the first time since arriving at camp, Lottie cried. She sobbed and clung to Steve once more, feeling every bit like a scared little girl from days gone by.

Steve rested his hand against her back, “I’ll get him out, Lottie. He’s gotta be alive and I’ll get him out.”

She shook her head and wiped the hot tears from her cheeks, “No, Steve. You’re not going alone. I’m coming with you.”

“Lottie, you know I can’t put you in harm’s way like that—”

“Steve. I’m serious. What do you think I was doing that whole time I was with the SSR? Yes, we were making the serum, but they nearly trained us to death. I can shoot, I can use my knife. I can’t let you go without me.” Her voice was starting to crack, “We have to find Bucky together.”

There was silence between the two of them until Steve finally conceded, a wary gaze in his eyes, “Fine. But you need to be by my side the whole time.” Lottie nodded her chest warming with hope. “C’mon, we need to have a conversation with Colonel Philipps.”

The two of them jogged to his tent with their coats held above their heads to shield them from a sudden shower of rain. They entered the colonel’s tent, looking comical with their wet hair and heaving chests. Around them, soldiers and officials paced to and fro, examining maps or signing off various forms. If Lottie squinted, she could just barely make out the words. Letters of condolences; heartbreakingly clinical letters of regret for the losses of these sons, these brothers, these boys.

“Colonel Phillips,” Steve began, “Are you planning a rescue mission? For the surviving prisoners from the Battle of Azzano?”

The colonel looked back at him with a straight face, “Yeah, it’s called winning the war.”

Steve’s blond eyebrows furrowed, “But if you know where they are why not at least—”

“They’re thirty miles behind the lines. Through some of the most heavily fortified territory in Europe. We’d lose more men than we’d save, but I don’t expect you to understand that because you’re a chorus girl,” before Lottie could protest, he shot her a glance as well, “and you’re just a nurse.”

Steve’s gaze on Colonel Phillips was cool, “I think I understand just fine.”

The colonel pushed past them, “Well then understand it somewhere else. Now if I read the posters correctly, you’ve got someplace to be in thirty minutes.”

“Yes sir, I do.”

Steve grabbed Lottie’s hand and pulled her behind him, “C’mon, we’ve gotta get going. You go get changed.”

Lottie nodded; her medical uniform would impede this mission so she’d need to wear the fatigues that the government had finally issued to them. Her heart raced a mile a minute as she scrambled back to the nurse’s tent to change. She knew that Colonel Philipps would be terribly angry once he found out she’d shirked her night duties, but her loyalties to Bucky took precedence. The recovering soldiers were left in the capable hands of her peers. She swore as she nearly toppled over while yanking her boots on; it was rather hard to get dressed in such a hurry. By the time she was ready and had exited the tent, she was met with the somber faces of Agent Carter and Steve.

“Agent Carter, what are you doing?” For a moment, she feared that they’d already been caught, that the SSR was already putting an end to their mission.

The other woman pursed her lips, “I’m here to help.”

A mere half-hour later and they found themselves in the SSR’s plane, headed to Krausberg, where the POW camp was located. Howard Stark called out to them from the cockpit, “We should be able to drop you right at their doorstep.”

Fear was starting to creep into Lottie’s mind and burrowed itself deep within her gut. She heard the conversation continue all around her, but she was still processing the daunting mission before her. She and Steve up against Hydra. All alone. Even Bucky had struggled against them; he’d lost to them in the Battle of Azzano. Bucky. That’s what worried her most. It’s what filled her with the most fear. If she and Steve got through the Hydra camp safe and sound only to find that he was dead, Lottie wasn’t sure how she’d deal with it. She’d probably go mad, in all honesty. She’d end up in some institution, crying over lucky pennies and charcoal drawings while being molly-coddled by some woman in white. How tragic that would be.

Before her thoughts could become any darker, Lottie was jolted back to reality by the sound of bullets against metal. Steve grabbed his shield and her arm, urging her to join him by the plane’s exit.

Agent Carter shot up from her seat, “Get back here! We’re taking you all the way in!”

He turned to respond, “As soon as I’m clear, you turn this thing around and get the hell out of here!” “You can’t give me orders!”

A smile grew on his face, “The hell I can’t! I’m a captain!”

Steve shifted his goggles and nudged Lottie, “It’s go time. When you see me pull the chute out, you do the same.”

Lottie nodded with a quiet determination, and together, they jumped.

Entering the base was painstakingly quiet; once they’d snuck into a truck and eliminated the guards inside, Steve and Lottie were left to mouth words and offer silent support through unwavering gazes. Once they’d safely passed the gate of the base, they exited the truck and swiftly dealt with any opposition.

Steve led her across the base with caution, giving hand signals when it was safe to turn a corner and sprint across a patch of unobstructed space. The two of them traveled with the shadows, avoiding any spotlights that could catch them in the act. Lottie scarcely felt that she could breathe, it was as if one exhale would reveal their presence to the multitude of guards.

Once they entered the main building, the two of them found themselves in what seemed to be a factory. There were giant sheets of metal everywhere and huge bombs seemed to surround them. Amongst them all, Hydra soldiers transported other metal parts and containers of glowing blue material. That did not bode well with Lottie at all.

Lottie spotted some guards walking to a lower level, jangling keys in hand. “Steve, they might be guarding the prisoners.” Her whisper was barely audible, fear keeping her from speaking any louder.

“The blueprints said they were below the manufacturing level. C’mon.”

They followed the guards onto a walkway that had large circular grates that cut into the metal, each forming the ceiling of small cells that the poor prisoners had been separated into. Lottie and Steve knocked the guards out and stole their keys. The two dropped to the same level as the cells and began unlocking their doors.

One of the soldiers gazed at them through the bars of his cell, “Who are you supposed to be?”

Steve panted from stress, “I’m Captain America.” He gave Lottie an expectant look.

“I guess I’m Little Saint Lottie,” she responded somewhat sarcastically, referencing the retrospectively comical nickname that was developed by the one hundred and seventh.

Some of the men cracked grins, “So you’ve heard our prayers, huh?”

“Loud and clear. Now let’s get you out of here, yeah?”

She tried to ignore the growing horror inside of her upon the realization that none of these men had brilliant blue eyes. Not a dimpled chin in sight.

“Is there anybody else? I’m looking for a Sergeant James Barnes.” It seemed that the same horror was growing within Steve.

A man in a scarlet beret responded, his British accent prim and proper, “There’s an isolation ward in the factory, but no one’s ever come back from it.”

“Alright,” Steve nodded, “The tree line is northwest, 80 yards past the gate. Get out fast and give ‘em hell. We’ll meet you guys out in the clearing with anyone else we find.”

“Wait, you know what you’re doing?” “Yeah. I’ve knocked out Adolf Hitler over two hundred times.”

Lottie couldn’t help but stare at Steve in amazement. Gone was that awkward boy from Brooklyn. He was a man now, a leader who could do anything he put his mind to. He’d grown so much, not just physically, but in his character.

While the prisoners worked their way out of the base, Steve and Lottie began their search for the isolation wards. Lottie tried to ignore the sounds of explosions and men crying out from below them while they traveled across metal catwalks. She could only hope that the cries of pain were coming from Hydra soldiers.

After turning several corners, they found themselves in an old hallway, surrounded by brick on both sides. They hurried down the corridor out of desperation; they knew they were running out of time. Lottie stopped suddenly when she heard a groan. It was close. She drew her weapon and dragged Steve into the room, her heart stuttering and her palms slick with sweat.

“Sergeant. Three-two-five-five-seven…” That voice. Oh, how she knew that voice; she loved it so. Lottie heard it whenever she found the time to fall asleep. It crept into her sweetest dreams but tore her apart whenever it wiggled its way into her nightmares.

Bucky lay in front of them, strapped down to a table; his lips moved ever so slightly as he repeated the same phrase over and over again.

She rushed to his side alongside Steve and nearly let out a cry of happiness. Had the situation not been so dire, she would’ve descended upon him with a bone-crushing embrace and great big sobs of joy by that point.

Lottie whispered a quiet, “Bucky?” His eyes were glazed over and his mouth agape, “Is that— is that—”

“It’s us, Buck,” Steve nodded reassuringly as he tore at the straps across Bucky’s chest. Bucky looked up at him, taking his face in,

“Us?”

“Me and Lottie,” he nodded, tugging her closer so that the two of them could be in Bucky’s field of vision.

Tears welled up in her eyes as she looked at him, finally feeling whole again. She’d gotten her Brooklyn boys back. Bucky only looked back in confusion, “Little Lottie, she— she’s always been here. Always. Stayed with me the whole time.”

It was Lottie and Steve’s turn for confusion. Lottie brushed the hair back from his forehead to calm him down and ground him, “Bucky, I’ve been with the SSR this whole time. We’re here to rescue you.”

Steve nodded and dragged him off the table, “I thought you were dead.”

Bucky was obviously having a hard time processing everything that was happening, “I thought you were smaller.”

Lottie listened as the gunfire intensified, “Come on, we need to move.” Steve threw one of Bucky’s arms over his shoulder and the two fell into step behind her.

“What happened to you?” Bucky grunted out, pain etched into his voice.

“I joined the army.”

“Did it hurt?”

Steve was growing agitated, “A little.”

“Is it permanent?”

“So far.” Lottie huffed, “I’d sure hope so after all that effort I put into it.”

Bucky mustered out a befuddled, “Huh?”

“I helped to create the serum that made him like that.”

“So that’s why you left without saying a word.” Bucky’s tone was only slightly accusatory.

Lottie muttered a weak “Yeah.” They’d need to have a lengthier conversation once he wasn’t struggling to walk five yards.

As they crossed the catwalks to get towards the exit, the factory below them began to combust. Huge flames erupted from the metal contraptions and triggered explosions all around them. They hastily climbed the metal stairs to get to higher ground.

“Captain America, how exciting!” A thick German accent cut through the noise of explosions and gunfire. “I am a great fan of your films!” Before them stood two men; one was a short little fellow clad in a jacket and fedora. The other was tall and wore a distinguished Hydra uniform with its menacing crest emblazoned on his shoulder.

The taller of the two gave Captain America a once over as he strode across the catwalk that separated them, “So, Dr. Erskine managed it after all. Not exactly an improvement, but still, impressive.”

“You’ve got no idea,” Steve snarled and punched the man in the face. The swift blow caused a blotch of redness to appear near his eye and a sinking feeling of realization settled into Lottie’s stomach. This was Schmidt, the monster who used the serum prototype.

Before she could say anything, Schmidt struck back and left a dent in Steve’s shield, “Haven’t I?”

There was a brief scuffle before Schmidt backed off while the other man pulled a lever, pulling the catwalk apart. With a grin, Schmidt began pulling at the skin of his face and revealed fiery red muscle and tissue beneath, just as Lottie had seen when she first began experimenting with the formula. “You are deluded, Captain. You pretend to be a simple soldier, but in reality, you are just afraid to admit that we have left humanity behind. Unlike you, I embrace it proudly. Without fear!”

“Then how come you’re running?”

Steve never got an answer. Schmidt and the other man had already boarded an elevator and left them standing on the catwalk, nearly helpless.

Another explosion went off, cueing the trio to leave, “C’mon, let’s go. Up.” Lottie instructed the men to follow her, though she wasn’t too sure how to escape the factory. All she knew was that they needed to keep ascending the stairs.

When they reached the top of the stairs, they were faced with a metal beam that led to a catwalk with an exit. It was terrifyingly slim, with only enough room to place one foot in front of the other.

“Ladies first,” Bucky murmured, “but I’ll be right behind you.” Lottie felt sure of herself knowing that at least she wouldn’t have to cross on her own.

She took a tentative first step, testing how well it would hold her weight. Lottie tried not to look down at the fiery pit below while she carefully moved along the beam. It was a comfort to have Bucky behind her with his chest nearly pressed against her back as he followed her every step. Lottie had just scrambled over the railing of the catwalk when a jarring explosion shifted the beam’s position and sent it careening downwards. She gasped in horror as Bucky leaped to grab onto the catwalk.

“There’s gotta be a rope or something!”

Steve stared at the two of them from across the pit, “Just go! Get out of here!”

Bucky slammed his fist on the railing, desperation tearing at his voice, “No, not without you!”

“Steve, please! We can’t just leave you here!” Lottie pleaded. Steve couldn’t die, not like this.

With a look of determination, Steve backed up and made a running jump to clear the gap between the two catwalks. An explosion threatened to swallow him up, but he made it over safely, although a little worse for wear.

Lottie and Bucky could only stare in amazement. Steve nodded to them both, “Let’s get outta here.”

Several ladders and a whole lot of dodging later, the trio found themselves trudging towards the tree line.

It was silent amongst the three of them; painfully, dreadfully silent. She decided it was time to break the silence, “Bucky, I—”

“Look, Little Lottie, I know you’re sorry, alright? And I forgive you. Even though you lied to my face and left without saying goodbye, I had a whole lotta time to spend forgiving you.”

Now that the fear of being caught by Hydra soldiers had fully subsided, Lottie allowed herself to let out a sob of joy and nearly threw herself at Bucky. She almost apologized for the force of her embrace since it was likely to hurt a man who’d been captured by Hydra, but he didn’t show any sign of pain. She’d need to remember that for later.

“I missed you so much, Bucky. I really did,” Lottie nearly whimpered. Gosh, she sure sounded lovesick. “I missed you too, Little Lottie.” His embrace was sure and strong, and with it, a flood of memories came back to her. Nights on her fire escape. A birthday evening spent swing dancing. A lucky penny slipped into her hand. For the first time in months, Lottie finally felt whole. Her heart that had been splintered into shards of pain and hopelessness had finally begun to mend itself back together. While she found comfort in his arms and forgiveness, she knew there were still so many words left unsaid; words that he needed and deserved to hear.

“Yeah, I missed you guys too,” Steve muttered, obviously peeved that he was being left out of their moment.

“Aw, come on, Stevie,” Lottie grinned and pulled away from Bucky a little to allow Steve to join their hug.

“And if I remember correctly, Bucky, I think it’s actually Little Saint Lottie now,” she grinned. While she couldn’t see his face at the moment, she just knew it was turning a gorgeous shade of scarlet, based on the sputtering coming out of his mouth.

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aceofspadegrass · 3 years

Note

niragi bullying kids but i think the kids should start bullying back

Bully The Angry Licorice They Said. It’ll Be Fine They Said

Characters: Last Boss, Niragi Suguru, Cabot

Genre: Just some funky bullying. And a little murder.

1.7k words

Niragi really do be bullying children. Even if the children are kind of dickheads in return.

As you see, I am bad at bullying. What I am good at is just calling the other person very dramatic names.

Also Last Boss is just watching the entire thing.

Sorry it's a little bad.

—————————————————————————————————

If there was anything Last Boss preferred to do other than follow Niragi around, it was just sit in his room alone with Cabot, but sadly that wasn’t an option. Niragi didn’t let him sit in his room, poking him awake with his own cat and then dragging him outside for reasons the other hasn’t even told him yet.

Cabot meows quietly in his ear, paws resting on his shoulder as she perched there, watching the world pass by her. Last Boss feels her nuzzle the side of his head, tickling his ear, Last Boss gently reaching up and scratching her where she liked it. She purrs happily, and Last Boss goes back to focusing his attention on Niragi, who saunters down the halls, gun at his side as always. He doesn’t bother to ask Niragi where they were even going, or why exactly he needed him there. Niragi was weird and usually had his own plans that he acts out of a simple impulsive whim, and sometimes Last Boss was simply dragged into it. Maybe because Niragi kind of thought his presence was intimidating and cool.

Or maybe he was just lonely and Last Boss was the only person willing to be in the same room and not judge him for trying to peel a banana with a coin.

They both end up outside, Last Boss slowly blinking as Niragi walks to one of the cars, glancing back at Last Boss and jerking his head towards it, that cocky smile on his face. “ Well? Come on, we don’t have all day.” Niragi called out to Last Boss, who shuffles over. “ Technically, we do…..” He says, low and quiet enough that Niragi would’ve never heard him as he makes it to the car, opening the passenger door. Niragi was already inside and turning it on, Last Boss slipping inside and shutting the door. He snaps on the seatbelt, Cabot comfortably tucked inside Last Boss’ hood and kneading close to the nape of his neck, where the fabric was.

Niragi drives off, not even wearing his own belt, and Last Boss braces his feet against the bottom part of the car as Niragi races down the empty streets with reckless abandon, the vehicle swerving this way and that. Last Boss had to keep his head down to even process it, the outside making him a little dizzy from how violently Niragi was going. Cabot was at least keeping him stable, her constant kneading against his neck familiar and slow.

He doesn’t know where they where even going until Niragi shuts off the car, Last Boss finally looking up and around him. It seemed to be a simple shopping district, Niragi already walking away without him. Last Boss stays put and watches Niragi, silently testing how far he’d go before realizing (or simply just remembering) that he was there too.

Cabot meows, wriggling herself out and landing on his lap, Last Boss looking down at her. She stretches, and proceeds to also make biscuits on his leg before staring up directly at him.

“…. He’ll come back sooner or later, so ….” He tells Cabot, and as if even mentioning his existence summons the demon himself, there was a loud knock at the window, Cabot scrambling off into the back of the car. Last Boss looks up, staring directly at Niragi in silence, face blank. He didn’t appreciate him scaring Cabot, Niragi just staring back.

“ Come on! I didn’t kidnap you to be lazy and sit there! Come on! I want to walk around!” Niragi knocks on the window again, and Last Boss opens the door, if only to stop him from pounding so impatiently. Niragi backs away to let Last Boss exit, the taller of the two waiting until Cabot hops out and rubs against the duo’s legs in content. Last Boss bends down and pets her, Niragi just staying where he was for a few seconds. He leaves when Cabot focused her primary attention on her owner, strolling off. Last Boss follows him silently, Cabot keeping pace with him.

Niragi wasn’t lying when he said he wanted to walk around, quite literally going inside buildings and straight back out, looking at random trinkets that each shop housed. Last Boss stayed outside most of the time, only coming in when Niragi calls him in to show him something that caught his attention, only to leave it there and wander off somewhere else. Nothing went into Niragi’s possession as far as Last Boss was aware, always set down where it was originally. At one point it almost looked like Niragi would take an old handheld console, but all he did was suddenly ramble on about how long it took for him to beat Sonic before putting it down and walking away.

He looks down at Cabot, who was pawing at a stray dust ball. “ He’s happy about things other than violence. He has a brain, isn’t that nice.” He mumbles, out of Niragi’s hearing range, Cabot batting the dust ball away and chasing after it.

There was a shout deeper in the store, and Last Boss goes to investigate, although at his own pace. Niragi could handle himself, he was sure, so he didn’t feel the need to hurry.

“ What the fuck!? Who the fuck are you!” It was a younger voice, Last Boss slowly blinking as he makes it to where the shout came from. Niragi was standing there, door open, Last Boss peeking in. There, all in the corner surrounded by blankets, pillows, and old thrown away cans, were a bunch of kids, perhaps no older than 14 at best. One of them was aiming a baseball bat in their direction, Niragi scoffing and leaning his weight to the left. “ I should be asking you that question. What are you all doing back here, eh? This place is shit.” Niragi smirks, Last Boss watching the interaction in the background.

“ So? Not like what you had is much better, old man!” “ Wh- Old man?! I’ll have you know that I’m fucking youthful as hell! You look like fucking babies!” Niragi growls, the lead kid smirking and turning the bat in their hand, the light in the room illuminating the dark splotches upon the wood. “ At least we’re decades more spry than you! You may look good, but I bet that your old man bones are gonna fail you!” “ I take care of myself, excuse you! I’ll fucking shoot you right here, don’t think I won’t!” Niragi points his gun at the children with a snarl, a few of the children hiding behind whatever they could. Last Boss didn’t know what to make of any of this, but the determination and bravery on the baseball bat wielding kid was impressive, the kid laughing in the face of death.

“ Oh, too much of a pussy to take a few words? You look like you buy your clothes off the bargain rack! No, even better! You stole them from the thrift store!” Niragi only got more angry it seemed, and as a warning shot a few bullets into the ground, a few yelps coming through from the other end. Last Boss blinks, and looks to Niragi for a second. He seemed infuriated by the kid, and likely wasn’t about to take any of it sitting down.

“ You think you’re so tough, but I’ll show you! I’ll show all of you! You’re just kids, and I’m an adult with a gun!” The other kid snorts. “ Yeah, surrrreeeee…… Bet you think you’re tough too! You look like you try too hard.I mean, look at that face! Piercings all on one side? You look like you have silver moles! They look stupid on you!” The kid retorts with a smug grin, and Niragi huffs.

“ And you look like a generic background character that doesn’t even get a name! Who the fuck made that face? Oh man, your mom probably looked like a hag!” Niragi cackles at his own statement, Last Boss slowly blinking as Niragi looks back at him with a satisfied smirk. “ At least I have a mom! You look like yours went and taught you how to be a badly printed pool!” Niragi rolls his eyes at the kid. “ At least it didn’t print little volcanos on my face! Unlike someone.” The leader glaring at him.

“ That’s just how I look! I’ll get super sexy and all the girls and boys will adore me! You’ll look like a wrinkled pocket receipt , ready to decompose and die Niragi rolls his eyes, and he shoots again, closer. “ You say one more thing and I’ll blow you like a piñata.” The kid grins, and his stupid mouth begins to open,” So in other words, you would blow me? Ewwwww! The weird bag of Adderall and crack is gonna get us! I’m sooooo scared~” He smugly and sarcastically replies, a few other kids joining in a little in laughing.

“ He looks like a discarded charcoal grill!” “ Probably smells like overflowing garbage-“ “ Hey! Do you think he even has a brain in there? Probably filled with tapioca pudding! Ooh, or just black beans!” There was a faint click, and Last Boss doesn’t even have time to react properly then Niragi let bullets fly from his beloved gun.

He sighs once the other end were nothing more than flesh, and turns to Last Boss, grinning. “ I’m gonna head to the other store.” He rolls his eyes, resting his gun back on his shoulder as he leaves. “ They really think they could get away with calling me names?” Niragi grumbles on his way out, and Last Boss merely blinks, not even looking back. Cabot comes around on his way out, demanding pats. Last Boss kneels down and runs his hand from back all the way to her tail, Cabot purring. “ He smells more like a sad sandcastle, actually.” Last Boss mutters, and Cabot meows in agreement, the cat climbing him like a short child using a countertop to reach her favourite cereal on the shelf. He stands up and shuffles his way back near Niragi’s side, not at all ready to deal with his angry grumbling for the next half hour.

#aib #alice in borderland #aib fanfic #alice in borderland fanfic #niragi suguru #last boss #takatora samura #last boss deserves a cat #cabot's back :D #she's just vibing doing her own thing #i sure am bad at being a bully-#ask

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desperationandgin · 4 years

Text

Strawberry Wine - Chapter 14

Also Read On: AO3

Summary: Where has Jamie been, and where did he think Claire was, all this time?

A/N: Thank you so much for the incredible and overwhelming outpouring of support for this little fic. You have all been amazing, and I'm so grateful you came back to finish reading ❤️See you back here next week for the 2nd to last chapter!

Chapter 14: I Come Back to this Place

He was there. Right there above me, staring as if I were the ghost.

Perhaps we both were.

Jamie was cupping the back of my head, a look of shock etched on his features, and when he spoke, it wasn’t in English. Finally, slowly, his eyes met mine, and I could see they were shining with unshed tears as he seemed to refuse to blink.

“Ye...ye’re alive, Sassenach…”

Carefully he helped me sit up, and when my hand wrapped around his arm, I felt the sting of my own emotion to feel him, real and solid under my touch.

“So are you,” I whispered. A tear slipped down my cheek and dripped onto the back of his hand as he cradled my face.

“I thought...they told me ye were dead,” he choked out, and I felt his body sag, the two of us coming together in a tangle of arms.

“I’m here,” I insisted over a tremor in my voice, taking his hand and pressing it to my chest, over the beating of my heart. “I’m here with you, Jamie.”

His free hand moved into my hair, cradling the back of my head as his eyes raked over my face. “I grieved for ye. Mourned and ached…”

My tears only fell with more force at his words, and I had to let go of a sob before I could begin to form words. “Then why did you come?”

Jamie blinked and looked down at me, rearranging himself so that he could better fold me in his embrace. He squeezed me as tightly as he dared while composing himself enough to speak. “I returned a few months ago, to see what condition the property was in, now that I’m in a position to buy it back into the family.”

His voice sounded rough, right on the edge of tears. He paused to kiss my temple, and I sank into the sensation, into the reality that was Jamie holding me.

“Somethin’ drew me out to the river,” he continued, dropping his forehead against mine. “I dinna ken what it was, but I thought of ye and found my way to the strawberries. I wanted to think of ye in the place where it was only ever the two of us. I found yer message and I…”

When he paused this time, I reached up with both hands to hold onto his face. “You had hope again.”

Jamie nodded against me. “I didna ken how it could truly be you. Officers told me ye were in an explosion,” he managed to say, even though his voice grew strained and broke. “That they couldna even find anythin’ to send home to bury.” He’d gone pale and looked as if he wanted to vomit.

I shook my head, trying to somehow wrap my entire body around him. “Another unit found me. But no one knew where I’d come from. I was injured,” I explained, wetting my lips as fresh tears began to fall. “The attack forced everyone to move, and by the time I regained consciousness, I had no idea where you might have gone.”

His eyes were closed, a frown drawing his brows together as his hands skimmed up my back slowly. “Yer letters began returning to me unopened.”

His voice was nothing more than a whisper, but I could feel his words in my bones.

“The day after they told me ye’d died, Ian and I went on a raid. I had no mind to return alive if it meant being denied a chance to be wi’ ye.”

I felt my chest heave as a sob attempted to wrench its way free from my throat, but I swallowed it back as my hands held onto him in desperate reassurance that he wasn’t a figment of a dream.

“I was injured as well. Ian…”

He trailed off and I looked up at him, prepared to mourn the man I’d once thought would be my brother-in-law.

“There was a bombing. Thank Christ he lived, but he lost a leg.”

I looked Jamie over and ran my hands down his arms. All there.

“But there was a fire. My clothing, it...” He cleared his throat uneasily. “It melted to my skin. I dinnae remember anythin’ about it happening. No’ even before the fighting began.”

I didn’t have to ask what his last memory was. He’d gotten word that I was dead, and everything else had ceased to matter.

“I meant to die that day, a nighean.” His voice shook, but I still understood his words. “Always wondered why I hadn’t.”

I was powerless now to stop the whimper that cut through me as I wrapped my arms tightly around his neck. “I was out there. Looking for you.” I managed to pull myself together enough to explain everything to him — how I’d met Ned Gowan — but didn’t get much further.

“Is Jenny alright, Jamie?”

He smoothed a hand over my hair softly, nodding. “Aye, she’s well. I’ll tell ye everything, Claire, but right now, I...I need to look at ye, I need to see ye.”

I wasn’t sure if I would ever stop crying, but I pulled back so that he could see me fully. I took my own time looking into the face of the man I loved, taken aback by how the decade had changed him. He had more facial hair than he ever had before the war, just a touch or two below a full beard. Gone was the soft roundness of youth he’d still held onto before the draft. Now, he looked older — less like a farm boy, easy to laugh, and more like a hardened soldier with a sharper edge.

I wondered what he saw on my face.

When my eyes met Jamie’s again, I let myself believe, finally, that he was here.

“Claire.”

Apparently, he was convincing himself of the same thing.

“Ye’re real.”

I closed my eyes as two of his trembling fingers grazed my cheek. Then, he reached for my hand, the one with his first initial jaggedly etched into my palm. Slowly, his thumb moved over the scar before he spoke in an unsure, shaking voice. “I want...I would...verra much like to kiss ye.”

When I opened my eyes he was looking directly at me, tears on his lower lash line refusing to fall.

“May I?”

Knowing my own eyes were shining, I smiled so widely my cheeks hurt before nodding, leaning closer. “Yes.”

He leaned forward, pausing to wet his lips. “I havena done this in a verra long time.”

Before I could respond, Jamie’s lips grazed mine, and his hands fell away to drop down against my waist. One of my hands came to rest against his cheek, and I was powerless to stop my tears from falling. I could feel his dropping against my palm, and when I tasted salt on his lips, I couldn’t be sure whose tears they were.

“I saw ye so many times,” he breathed out raggedly once we parted. “Ye came to me so often...when I dreamed, sometimes. When I was in a fever. When I was so afraid and so lonely, I knew I must die.”

My hands paused their movement over his features as he spoke, my heart wrenching painfully in my chest. To know he’d been so ill, and I hadn’t been there — sorrow passed on my face even as he continued, his hand cradling my chin.

“Whenever I needed ye, I would see ye, smiling. Yer hair curled around yer face.”

I began to smile, but it died on my lips when he spoke once more.

“Ye never touched—”

His voice broke, and our foreheads came to rest together as our fingers twined.

“I can touch you now,” I whispered, nuzzling the side of his nose with the tip of my own. “If you give me a thousand words,” I began quietly.

Jamie let out a quiet, tearful laugh. “I’ll give ye a thousand kisses.”

We melted into one another once more, kissing with everything we’d tentatively held back before. My arms wrapped around him, and we kissed until we were breathless, only pulling back to take a few greedy gulps of air.

“Where were you, Jamie?” I finally asked, just as gathering clouds broke and a raindrop landed on the tip of my nose.

“I’ll tell ye,” he promised, patting my hip to stand. “Out of the rain.”

Rising, I reached for his hand and held it steady as he took it and pulled himself up. That swift movement was all he needed to pull me flush against him, kissing me again for all he was worth. The sound I released into his mouth was something between a whimper and a sob, and he responded in kind before finally pulling back as the sprinkling transitioned into a steady pour. Leading me by the hand to his vehicle (another truck, I realized happily), he opened the door and let me in, urging me to scoot across before he slid into the driver’s seat and pulled the door shut behind him.

For a few quiet seconds, we simply watched the rain come down over Lallybroch, the stone of the old home darkening in the damp. When Jamie reached for my hand again, I turned to find him already looking at me, and closed my fingers tightly over his.

“It took months for me to be able to do anythin’ other than lie on my stomach,” he began, and I covered our joined hands with my free one.

“Your back?”

“A ruint mess,” he admitted.

I shook my head and kissed his wrist. “You're alive, Jamie.”

“Only barely. I had an infection that nearly took me, before I was finally well enough to stand the flight to America.”

I blinked in confusion. “America?” Never had I thought to expand my search overseas, and I said so.

“I had nae reason to mention my Aunt Jocasta before. But when Da…” He paused to swallow, squeezing my hand. “Jenny wrote to her when she had nowhere else to go. Jocasta never thought she would see us again once she moved to the States, but our aunt has enough that she could take her in.”

My mind was swimming with new information, and as he spoke, I felt as though I only had more questions. Jamie anticipated them, it seemed, and raised my hand to his lips.

“I couldna find anyone while I was convalescing, so I wrote to everyone I could think of in the family.”

“You found Jenny when your Aunt Jocasta wrote back,” I surmised, closing my eyes and exhaling as events played out in my mind. I couldn’t imagine him weak and vulnerable, unable to move. It contrasted so starkly with how I’d always known him and as I saw him now: strong and solid.

“Aye,” he murmured, gathering me into his arms, unable to stand the foot of space between us. I went easily, pressing my ear firmly against his chest. I could hear his heartbeat, and when he spoke, I could feel the low vibration against my cheek.

“Ian was able to go before me. Was another two weeks or so before I was cleared.”

His voice took on a quieter, more subdued tone, and I tilted my head up to look at him.

My heart felt as though it had broken in my chest, snapped jaggedly in two.

There were tears on Jamie’s cheeks, falling silently as he held me as tightly as he dared. “I’ve no’ ever felt so alone, Sassenach,” he admitted shakily. “My da was gone, then Ian left and you were…” he swallowed and closed his eyes as fresh tears fell.

“Ye were lost to me, Claire.”

The tenuous hold both of us had on our emotions broke then, and as he wept, my own sob escaped ahead of tears. I could feel the way his large hands spanned the width of my back, and in an instant, I knew no one else could have ever made me feel so whole again.

“I kent ye were dead, and that I wanted to be.”

I’d spent so long thinking he was exactly that, and I shook my head in rejection of his words. At the same time, he seemed desperate to find my lips, tugging me away from his chest only to pull me up into a kiss. Our teeth clashed with the urgency of it, his hands helping me move until I was sitting in his lap, able to kiss and touch his face, both of us overcome with emotion. Only when thunder cracked, so loud it seemed to shake the truck, did we reluctantly part.

“Where are ye staying, Sassenach?” he asked me quietly, his nose nuzzling my temple.

“Mrs. Baird’s. Do you know it?”

As soon as I said the name, Jamie gave an owlish blink before exhaling what might have been a laugh under different circumstances. “Truly?”

Confused, I nodded. “I rented a room when I arrived. Why?”

“That’s where I’ve come from. I have a room too, left directly there and came here.”

Now, I matched his awed expression. “We slept under the same roof last night.”

Closing his eyes, Jamie pulled me close again, his forehead pressing to mine. “Perhaps our minds grieved wi’ little to no information to go on,” he suggested, finding one of my hands and tangling our fingers together. “But our hearts were already together again.”

I reached out with my free hand and traced his bottom lip with my thumb. “Take me there, Jamie,” I requested quietly before sliding back into the passenger seat.

There was more to talk about, more to learn about one another and how we’d lived in our time apart.

But it would all have to wait until we caught up with our souls.

#outlander #outlander fic #jamie x claire #strawberry wine #my fic

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supremeuppityone · 4 years

Photo

This was created for the Klaroline Fall Bingo Event @klarolinefallbingo. It’s a sequel to Chapter 119 - Part 2 - What Makes Up a Monster, in my series, A Beautiful Symmetry.

Part 3 is here.

Warning: Some angst

Prompt: Fake blood

Please review here.

______________________________

Why did she do this to herself? Caroline stabbed the makeup brush into the foundation palette a bit harder than necessary, watching a couple of the extras giggle and fawn all over Klaus. Despite his worldwide fame and countless industry accolades, he’d somehow remained the same generous, down-to-earth man he’d been when she first met him two decades ago. Not that he’d remember her. She’d made sure of that.

One of her fangs dug into the tip of her tongue, pricking it just enough to sate her monster. Monsters shouldn’t have regrets. What they’d had together should’ve been a brief fling, but instead feelings happened, and she ended up compelling him to forget. It had been for the best — he was close with his siblings and he desperately wanted to be famous — that combination spelled disaster for her kind.

But Caroline couldn’t stay away. Almost as though she was doing penance, every few years, she’d find her way onto the makeup team for one of his movies, feeling the need to check up on him. However, she hid behind a wall of cheerful professionalism, making sure not to let him get close again. Her heart could only take so much.

“My apologies, sweetheart.”

Klaus’ accented voice was a buttery warmth that flowed over her. Straightening her spine, she replied dryly, “It’s such a pity to have to drag the Great Klaus Mikaelson away from his fan club so that he can do his actual job.”

“Might want to mind that sharp tongue of yours, love; when you get a bit older, you’ll find that youth and beauty only get you so far in this business.”

Arrogant little bastard. Tucking back a grin at Klaus’ assumption that he was older than her, Caroline tightened the collar of his protective cape a bit more than strictly necessary. “Sharp tongues have their uses,” she muttered, carefully reapplying the coagulated blood gel to the prosthetic gash she’d crafted along his cheek and neck. “You’d be surprised how many movie sets this sharp tongue has talked me onto.”

That smirk of his deepened, dimples cutting into his cheeks. Fake blood had never looked so good. “Perhaps you’re a secret fan of mine? Consider me flattered.”

“I’ve caught a couple of your movies.” No need for him to know she’d been the lead special effects artist on the set of the highly acclaimed paranormal drama, Ghostly Secrets. And the blockbuster sci-fi movie, The Price of Ambition. Or a handful of others where she’d purposely managed the other makeup artists to avoid him becoming too familiar with her face over the years. Fuck, that was pathetic.

He seemed charmed by her terse tone, chuckling as he replied, “I have to admit, I’ve had a good run in this town, but lately everything just feels so predictable. A table at Pearl’s, drinks at Boarding House — the days all run together.” Klaus frowned, leaning forward as he became more invested in what he was saying. “And you should see the scripts my agent’s been sending me. Bloody awful drivel that’s even lazier than my old Hell’s Hybrid movies.”

Caroline’s blue eyes widened, and she hated the way her sluggish heart suddenly began to pick up its pace. It’s just words. It doesn’t mean anything. “Then quit. You’ve probably made enough to last you several lifetimes.”

“But what if I want to live more than several lifetimes?”

His cheeky question made her hand tremble, and she accidentally nicked underneath his chin while carefully trimming the loose edge of his prosthetic. Damn it. She quickly sliced her finger, dabbing a tiny bit of blood in the wound so that it would heal instantly. “Not sure the planet could take the weight of your ego for so long,” she teased, doing her best to strangle the hopeful butterflies that fluttered inside.

“You wound me, sweetheart.” His tone turned speculative as he added, “I suspect my younger brother would’ve enjoyed you.”

Caroline busied herself applying a thin layer of adhesive to the smaller prosthetics, unsure of what to say. A few years ago, Kol’s death had made global headlines when he died in the plane crash that also took their sister. Her heart had ached for Klaus, but she stayed away, knowing that if she saw him grieving, she’d compel him to remember her just so she could comfort him. She couldn’t be selfish with him.

She’d been proud of the way he’d grown from the tragedy, taking the time he needed to grieve, before returning to the spotlight. There was a quiet strength to him now, a matter-of-fact confidence that had been lacking when they first met. “Your family would be proud of you,” she murmured, briefly squeezing his shoulder so she wouldn’t do something stupid like give him an awkward, way-too-familiar hug.

“Thank you.” Klaus paused, gray eyes regarding her in a way that made her wonder what he saw. “You’re very easy to talk to — maybe we could have a drink after we wrap for the day?”

No. You can’t go through this again. “I doubt you’re lacking for company. But I’ll see you tomorrow,” Caroline replied gently, flashing him a smile that made her face hurt.

Undeterred, he winked, telling her, “Challenge accepted. I’ll earn your company eventually, love.”

______________________________

The speedboat revved its engine, the stunt driver taking sharp turns through the narrow canal as he waited for Klaus to get into position. The studio always shamelessly plugged the fact that Klaus was one of the few leading men who’d perform at least one major stunt per film. Why did he always have to pick the most dangerous ones?

Caroline carried the last makeup case to her car, resolutely staring ahead once she saw the safety coordinators and trainers buckling him into his harness. She never could stomach watching those scenes. The first explosion still made her jump, despite her anticipating the loud boom. However, it was the unexpected second explosion and shattering glass that made her gasp. Something was wrong.

She followed the screams to the center bridge overlooking the canal, the crowd pointing at the side of the skyscraper that Klaus was supposed to parachute past and shoot a grappling hook into the speedboat below. Instead, several cables had snapped in the accidental second explosion, and the wall of shattered glass showed her that Klaus had been slammed into the side of the building.

No. Tears instantly sprang to her eyes, and she didn’t bother restraining her strength as she shoved people out of the way. She had to do something. But there was nothing to be done. The crew frantically retracted the remaining cables on the crane, pulling him back to the roof. But it didn’t matter — he wasn’t Klaus anymore. Just a body. She cursed her enhanced senses, hating how the staff still had hope as they watched. Because they couldn’t hear how the air stopped inflating his lungs. How his heart had stilled. Caroline closed her eyes, sending a silent goodbye out into the universe. For he who he was.

______________________________

The morgue was crawling with parasitic reporters, all salivating at the thought of capturing a grisly morgue picture of the famous Klaus Mikaelson’s corpse. Caroline compelled her way onto the hospital’s staff, the heightened security a minor annoyance that she fortunately understood how to navigate.

She brushed aside the curls along Klaus’ forehead, the ghastly bruising much more faint than when he’d first been removed from the destroyed set. Suddenly, his body jerked violently on the slab; Klaus’ eyes opened with a gasp.

There. Confusion clouded his gaze as he stared at her, the compelled memories rattling around in his mind as he sorted through them. “Caroline,” he asked uncertainly, before recognition colored his tone as he exclaimed, “Caroline! It’s been so long and I’ve missed you. I didn’t even realize what I was missing, but I felt it all the same. I felt you.”

Caroline didn’t know when she started crying, but soon she found herself wrapped up in his arms. He murmured against her curls, “What happened?”

Time to discuss those several lifetimes he’d mentioned.

#klarolinefallbingo #uppity bitch fanfic #klaroline fanfic #klaroline aesthetic #aesthetic #klaroline #klaroline does hollywood #i love sequels #thanks for the ask!!!

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gingerreggg · 3 years

Text

Caesar’s sandals made a soft rustle with each careful step he made along the sand.

He was old, and weary, and at this point a mere shell of his strength and vigor of his youth. His once-golden hair, grizzled to a silvery hue with age, was a crown he bore with a sense of accomplishment– he knew his days of glory were past him, but to him his elder years was of no cause of grief, and still sought to live every day he had to the fullest.

Even in his older years, he still was fond of taking walks on the beach. He reveled in the orange light of the setting sun, the smell and sound of the ocean, the feel of the breeze. Sensations of his youth, when he made a living fishing by this very coast.

Sensations full of memories, of a loved one long since absent but never forgotten.

And how could Caesar possibly forget? For not every man was blessed with the privilege of having loved a merman.

Oh, those were the days, he thought to himself, with a nostalgic chuckle. Of all the wonderful times they spent together. Of all the adventures they faced side by side. Of all the tender moments he spent with him, someone to hold him close in times of lonesome darkness, something he never thought he would feel…let alone from a being he once thought was a figment of his imagination.

He never knew if he would ever see Jojo again.

With a sigh, the old once-fisherman stared out to the sea, and began to walk towards it. He enjoyed wading into the shallows, feeling the waves lapping at his feet, granting him some comfort, for even after all those years, the feel of the ocean was strangely reassuring, almost embracing, a sense of the familiar that he’d known most of his life.

He stood in the waist-deep water, staring out longingly toward the fiery glare of the evening sun. Casting the waves in a brilliant display of fire and water, resplendent even in its twilight– just as he himself was.

But as Caesar basked in the evening sea, he felt a presence, and knew he wasn’t alone.

A faint glow appeared beneath the surface from the direction of the sea, and began approaching in his direction. For a moment Caesar was alarmed, thinking it may be something dangerous. But there was something familiar about the glow, even if it was the wrong color: a deep, regal purple, instead of the sunny yellows that he recalled emanated from a certain beloved’s tail.

And before he could respond, something massive suddenly rose from the water, with a flash of violet light that glared at Caesar’s eyes, causing him to stumble back. His eyes struggled to adjust to the brilliance, but as they slowly did, Caesar beheld the majestic figure that was the source– and his jaw dropped in awe.

It was a merman, bigger than any he had ever seen in his life, clad only with a satchel of kelp and rope and his elegant face adorned with a thick, gray beard and long flowing hair, like what Caesar would expect from ancient paintings of the Roman gods of the sea. He pierced through the surface with a powerful splash in his wake, while behind him a violet tail, which he estimated to be nearly seven feet in length, emerged from the shallow waters with a tremendous flick of his fin.

For a moment Caesar was frightened. He’d never seen any of the mer, for decades now. They had all seemed to have disappeared, leaving Caesar to wonder where they went, what had become of them, or even if they were still around…and Caesar, surprised to suddenly see one in person so suddenly, was humbled by the noble, royal presence of the titanic lord of the ocean– until he glanced up to meet the merman’s gaze, and saw…those eyes.

Those unmistakable, blue-green eyes, filled with energy and exuberance and just a hint of childish mischief. Those warm, inviting eyes, crowned by thick, brushy eyebrows that Caesar remembered all too well.

“J-Jojo?” he stammered in disbelief, scrambling backwards up the wet sand. “Is that…you?”

The merman laughed, a deep, powerful, yet gentle and cheerful laugh. “I was worried you wouldn’t recognize your old chap!” he said in his rich, musical vocal tones, as he clambered up the beach with the power of his arms alone, and sat himself next to Caesar, still sitting in shock on the sand in a stupor of both surprise, fear and joy. “I see you and your funny pink cheek dots haven’t changed one bit!”

Without hesitation Caesar threw himself into Joseph’s arms and embraced him tightly, burying his face in the merman’s enormous chest. “Jojo! It…it really is you!” he cried weeping rejoicing tears, as the merman embraced him back with one arm, while parting his hair with the other– exposing the back of his neck and revealing the star-shaped mark that Caesar recognized in an instant. “Jojo…”

“Well, by now many call me as King Joseph of the Joestar Clan,” he said in a somewhat boastful tone, “…but for you, I’ll make an exception,” he added with a warm chuckle. “I missed you too, Caesarino.” He may have looked very different, but he sure was Joseph all the same.

Caesar glanced up at the merman who towered above him even in a sitting position, and, at a better view, looked about fourteen feet from head to fin. “I never thought I’d ever see you again…”

“I am so very sorry,” Joseph apologized, resting his humongous hand on Caesar’s back with surprising strength and gentleness. “But since the trident was passed onto me…i’ve been dealing with a lot of royal business. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, they say…I have a kingdom that needs me.” he sighed.

“And why now, of all these years, did you choose to visit only now?” Caesar asked, half-angry at his absence, half-worried at his plight.

Joseph returned a smile, reassuringly. “Well, I had been planning to come back for a long time…but I thought I’d wait until…he was old enough to be on land and come meet you.”

“He…?” Caesar asked in confusion. “Who’s he?”

And, in answer to Caesar’s question, Joseph made a loud, gentle hum, like that of a whale’s song, and to the old fisherman’s amazement came a set of small ripples that rushed eagerly to shore before culminating in a splash at the water’s edge.

It was a tiny mermaid baby, who eagerly came flopping clumsily across the sand and into Joseph’s waiting arms. Caesar was amused by the little one’s resemblance to Joseph: he had the same brilliant blue eyes, same fierce brows and star-shaped mark on his neck, though his hair was an ebony black, just like his tail, which was adorned with golden-yellow fins.

“Caesar,” Joseph said proudly, as he held out the child toward him, “meet my grandson, Jotaro.”

“Grandson…?” Caesar replied in endeared admiration to the adorable little one, staring up at him with big, wide innocent eyes and making soft cooing sounds. Caesar gingerly held out a finger at the baby to stroke his hair. “Why, hello there, little fellow–”

“ORA!” cried Jotaro, smacking Caesar playfully in the face that caught the old man off guard, almost flooring him.

“OW!” Caesar grumbled. “He’s pretty strong for a young ‘un, isn’t he?” he asked, rubbing his face painfully. Joseph gave a hearty laugh.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, he likes to do that, a lot,” Joseph chuckled. “It just means he likes you!” Little Jotaro babbled cheerfully in agreement.

Caesar, recovering from the blow, gave a laugh as well. “Your arm strength sure runs in the family,” he said, recalling the times Joseph followed him along on strolls along the beach without the help of legs. “Just like how you used to when we went on walks.”

A grin crept across the old merman’s face.

“Say…why the heck not?” Joseph said, pulling himself up on the beach. “Just one more time, for old time’s sake?"

"Come on, Joseph,” Caesar said, standing back up. “I doubt it’s very becoming of a King of the Sea to go flopping around on dry land. Besides, I’m not as strong or quick as I used to be. I’ve gotten old, Jojo.”

Joseph laughed. “Then I suppose I’ll finally have a chance to catch up with you! Come on, Jot!” he called to the little mer, who eagerly climbed up onto his grandfather’s mighty shoulders and clung on tight. “I’ve brought a bottle in my satchel to keep him wet!” He looked eagerly up at Caesar. “And besides, in the ocean I may be a king…but we’re on land, aren’t we? Here…I’m just your good old Jojo.” he said with a wink.

“The same old Jojo.”

Caesar gently stroked the merman’s silvery hair and knelt down beside him, gazing into his jewel-like eyes, as lovely as he’d always remembered them. “It’s great to have you back, Jojo.” Caesar said softly.

“And it’s wonderful to be with you again…Caesarino.” Joseph replied, their faces growing ever closer as they stared lost in each other’s eyes.

And with neither realizing it their lips instantly locked in a union of land and sea, of a love that knew neither time or distance. A kiss that filled both with a soothing, ecstatic warmth, of a kiss they never thought they would ever feel again, after so many years apart, of a love long lost…but never forgotten.

Except this time, there was someone watching.

“Yawwe yawwe,” mumbled little Jotaro with a yawn.

————

#IM CRYING #THIS IS SO SWEET #little joot love taps uncle caesar #this is amazing thank you so much #this was the perfect thing to wake up to #jjba #caejose but mermaid #submission #long post

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tejaswrites · 4 years

Text

Wildflowers

For @14daysdalovers!

Pairing: Persephone Hawke x Knight-Captain Rylen Summary: It’s spring in the Frostbacks. One of the hold’s young men asks Rylen for romantic advice. As he gives it, he reminisces on loving Persephone. Rating: Gen / Word count: 1416 Also available on AO3

---

It was one of those days in early spring when the earth had a last become more alive than dead, when Rylen laid back in the grass and tilted his head toward the late morning sun. The earth was still damp with the last of the melting snow disappearing no more than a few days before, but he enjoyed it anyway, as he did the first outing every spring.

Winters were harsh in the mountains and he relished the coming of summer, even if it was far from the ones he’d grown up with on the shores on the Minanter. The streams of the Frostbacks never ran warm enough to take a dip in, for him at least. The cold never kept the youth of the clan away though. Maybe they were made of sterner stuff, or maybe he was just getting too old to be playing in rivers like he did when he was young.

A shout from across the field drew his attention to where a group of teenage boys wrestled in an effort to impress a few of the young women braiding wildflowers into crowns nearby. The girls whispered behind their hands; giggles, laughter, and gasps slipping out every so often when the boys knocked each other into the dirt at their feet. Younger children frolicked: some cartwheeled down the hillside while others played tag, darting between the older youths and adults. Everyone celebrated the return of spring in their own way.

He tilted his face back toward the sun and couldn’t help but smile at the way his life had turned out.

A shadow interrupted his sunlight and he popped an eye open.

Angus stood next to him. One of the older teens, he’d known Angus since they’d arrived at the hold nearly a decade ago, though he was just a boy then. He was proud of the man he was becoming. One who cared for his family and looked out for others. From what Rylen had learned about the Avvar, he might even be thane some day.

“Something wrong?”

Angus shook his head as he squatted down. “Can I ask something?”

“I’m always glad to. You know that.”

“I know, but…” he hesitated as he sat down with crossed legs. He scratched at the back of his neck and his eyes flickered toward the group of young women crafting flower crowns.

Rylen followed his gaze. No longer just young women, he realized as he caught sight of Persephone settled among them. Wrapped in the heavy winter skins she’d wear until the height of summer, she focused on a basket of greens, tying the collected herbs into bundles for drying. She laughed at something, and Rylen’s heart lightened at the smile that spread wide across her face.

Even after all these years and all his travels, her smile was still one of the most beautiful sights he’d ever seen.

At Angus’s continued silence, Rylen prompted him, “But what?”

Angus snapped his eyes back to Rylen, away from the group of women. “You and Augur Hawke, you are not married.”

“That’s right, we’re not.”

“You never untied knots from her rope?”

Rylen shook his head, wondering what the young man was getting at. “Nay.”

“Why not?”

Rylen shrugged. Their arrangement might be unusual, even for the Avvar and their marriage traditions, but it worked for them and that was all that mattered. Years ago, when they’d first arrived in the mountains, some thought it meant they were available to marry others, but after so long most had come to understand they were committed to each other, marriage rope or not. “I love her, and she loves me. We don’t need a ceremony to tell us that.”

Angus picked at the grass in front of him as Rylen glanced back over at Persephone, still bundling herbs as she chatted with the group of young women. Fifteen years since he’d first laid on her and fifteen years since he’d wanted anyone else. She’d been made from the same piece of the Fade as he, that much he knew. Even during their darkest days he’d never doubted that.

“How did you know?” Angus finally asked, intent on shredding the blades of grass he now held between his fingers.

“Know what?”

“That you loved her...and that she loved you back.”

Rylen laughed. “I’m not the one to give you that advice. I loved her far before she knew she felt the same.”

“But how did you know?” he pressed.

Settling back on the grass, Rylen stared up at the sky. “It was intense, at first. The world was brighter and every breath sweeter because of her. Every moment of every day, she was all I thought about. All I wanted.”

Kirkwall was a world away now, as though it had been a dream. It wasn’t. He had been there, in the aftermath of the explosion, and so had she. They were different people now. How could they not be after all they’d been through?

“Yeah?” Angus breathed next to him.

Rylen pushed himself onto his elbows and his glance confirmed the young man was hanging on his every word. “It was like now: the first warmth of spring after a long, dark winter. As though I finally lived for the first time.”

“I know what you mean.”

“Do you now?”

Angus sucked in a deep breath, as though he were about to share something important. “I feel that way about Jorunn.”

“Jorunn Asdisdottir?” Rylen wouldn’t have that she would catch Angus’s attention, but then, who would have thought he’d catch Persephone’s? Love worked like that.

“Quiet!” Angus dipped his head and a flush appeared. “She’ll hear you.”

“I dinna think so.” The group of young women surrounding Persephone were now singing and braiding each other’s hair, the young men showing off for them all but forgotten. The particular woman in question was situating a flower crown on her younger sister’s head.

“I want to marry her,” Angus confessed, following Rylen’s gaze.

It would be a good match. Jorunn was known to be as equally kind and generous as Angus was. If their marriage lasted, it would be good for the future of the hold. “And what does she think about that?”

Angus shook his head. “I haven’t told her. What if she says no?”

“She may, and if she does the gods will see that you find another good match.”

“But I don’t want a good match. I want her,” the young man lamented.

“I know, Angus, I know.” Persephone had begun to gather her herb bundles, returning them to her basket. Rylen pushed himself to his feet, offering a hand to Angus to help him off the ground. “You dinna have to tell her today, but start letting her know how you feel about her.”

“How?”

“Talk to her. Pay attention. Learn. Some will tell you to give her gifts or sing her songs, but none of that matters until you know her. Let’s go help.” He gestured toward the group of women now gathering their belongings.

He held Persephone’s gaze as he crossed the meadow directly for her. “I’ll carry that,” he told her as he took the basket laden with spring herbs, slipping it onto his forearm.

“My savior,” she teased as she lifted her heels to give herself more height to give him a chaste peck on the cheek.

Rylen wasn’t letting get away that easily. He wrapped an arm around her waist and kissed her properly. The herbs went flying out of the basket when he dipped her and her arms flew to wrap around his shoulders with a shriek, “Rylen!”

He laughed and kissed the tip of her nose. “I got them.”

And he did, picking up every last bundle and returning them to the basket on his arm, before he reached for her hand. “Back to the hold then?”

“Were you matchmaking?” Persephone lifted an eyebrow and nodded in front of them. Angus walked alongside Jorunn and her sister, intently listening to whatever it was the former was talking about.

“Not so much that as encouraging,” he chuckled, bringing her hand to his lips and spreading kisses along her knuckles.

“You are hopeless.”

“Aye,” he smiled as he intertwined their fingers. “Hopelessly in love with you.”

Persephone shook her head at him but returned his smile all the same. Hand in hand, they followed the group back to the hold, back to the life he wouldn’t trade for anything.

#14daysdalovers #persephone hawke #knight captain rylen #dragon age #hawke x knight captain rylen #hawke x rylen #my rarepair loves #tejaswrites

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scalpel-mom-mori · 4 years

Text

The Colors of Yukichi Fukuzawa

It was so long ago that only a few even remember it, but at one time, Fukuzawa too was an angry young man.

This was supposed to be funny, I’m sorry. It just kind of turned into angst there at the end, oops.

Based on this post, submitted by Aure. Dedicated to @sword-dad-fukuzawa

Slight AU where Fukuzawa and Mori went to high school together lol. Did I steal Aure’s storytelling POV? Yes I did. Reblogs and comments highly encouraged.

POV you’re modern!smol dazoo from Temple on a Hill that asked Sensei for a bedtime story.

Oh? A story? Well, I don’t have any stories I should really be telling to someone your age. Especially right before bed.

No, I take that back. I do have one. Just one, so it’s the only one I’ll ever tell.

This was at least twenty years ago, maybe more, but I remember it well. I nearly had a heart attack when Yukichi started dyeing his hair. Even at that age, he looked like an old man in some ways, what with that grey hair. Even at this age, he moves like a much younger man, the likes of which I never could approach. He’s just timeless like that.

But that day I couldn’t quite be sure if it was truly Yukichi that I was looking at. He wore his hair in a high ponytail when we were in high school, and he arrived at our usual meeting place with acid green highlights beneath his ponytail.

“They’re hideous,” I told him. He didn’t mind.

It might not seem like it, but Yukichi was an angry man in his youth. He was the sort of person that was angry with the world. To this day, his soul rails against injustice, but he wears a well-respected face.

“You don’t have to like them,” is what he told me. “Where are we having brunch?”

I could have laughed. “You’re not even wearing your uniform today.”

He shrugged. “Why should I tell them who to report me to?”

At this, I really did laugh. “What’s gotten into you?” You know what he’s like these days, with those intense, inscrutable stares. You’re still quite intimidated by him. His eyes were just as intense back then, but they burned with something like passion.

One of these stares he levelled at me. Back then, I was nowhere near as accustomed to those stares. Yukichi doesn’t look at someone he’s speaking to unless he’s very close with them or very displeased. “What does that mean?” The longer you know Yukichi, the less he expresses himself. Back then, anyone walking past would know my friend was upset with me.

“I just thought you liked a nice veneer of respectability,” I said.

The disgust in his face said clearly what his voice did not. Such deception is your forte.

Perhaps it is, but that’s nothing to worry yourself over. I assure you, in our high school days, Yukichi and I were both as fresh and green as any high school boys can be.

“Of course. You look good, if you didn’t look like you were going to go murder someone,” I amended. “How does Chinese sound?”

Yukichi, I will take care to note, was also quite sulky while we were in school.

Though, perhaps all boys are at that age.

Still, he expressed no additional offense besides over the comment about murdering someone.

Over our meal, I found myself amused over how he drank tea like an old man. “Truly, how do you convince me to ditch with you?” I asked.

As if to cover up any face he would have made at me, he picked up his steaming cup and drank. I continued staring at him, long after he set his drink down and began eating.

But Yukichi was as stubborn as he is now. Perhaps even more so.

“You know there’s no longer enough time,” is all he says.

Even then, I knew what he meant. Already in our second year, there would never again be enough time for everything we wanted to do anymore, and Yukichi… well, he already had his career lined up for him. The first part of it, anyway.

I frowned, half-teasing. “Well, I need to study hard to get into the medicine program,” I replied, “and skipping classes doesn’t help that.”

Yukichi’s eyes felt like a whole sky on my chest. “Then go,” he said.

I have to admit, I was rather hurt, but Yukichi was never one to mince words. Nor was he one, in our youth, to speak with much tact. But there was some cunning in that statement. And I let him have it.

“I didn’t mean that,” I told him quickly, “And I know you didn’t either.”

Yukichi’s eyes slid away from me, back to his food.

Yes, he did mean that. If I wanted to, I could leave him to self-destruct under the weight of his future. But he and I both knew that I wouldn’t.

The next time I saw him, the streaks were purple. A rather pleasant shade, too. Rather odd with his particular coloring, but at least it didn’t burn to look at. He’d tied his hair in something of a messy bun, and had a pen sticking out of it, rather like one of those ladies you see painted on silk screens.

“What does the maiden require of me today?” I asked with a mocking bow. Yukichi looked annoyed, but didn’t argue.

“Lunch. You’re paying.” I suppose I brought that one on myself.

I made a face. “You say such things with a straight face,” I complained. “Only if you wear a hairpin.”

However, today, Yukichi had the face to agree without hesitation.

The nerve of him! It vexes me to this day. It certainly didn’t help that he was tall enough that most wouldn’t notice the thing unless they were looking, and no one looks Fukuzawa Yukichi in the eye. Not even back then.

Well, I do, but that’s a different matter altogether.

So we bought a hairpin from a shop that sold trinkets for pocket change. Yukichi somehow kept a straight face when the clerk wished my girlfriend and me a happy relationship. I could barely manage the same. Despite the fact that Yukichi had probably killed a man by this point in life, I couldn’t help but be amused by the thought.

With a perfectly serious expression, he tucked it in his hair and turned to me. “It’s not crooked, is it?”

I pouted, knowing full well that this was his way of asserting, as he did without fail at that time, that he was taller than me by nearly a head. “Well, I can’t tell from this angle.”

So, maintaining his neutral face, he crouched so I could see. This was the last straw. “Oh, the nerve of you! It’s fine!” I shouted, nearing tears. This man was willing to play this far to humiliate me. But, I should have known at the time that Yukichi saw no shame in femininity.

I still had to buy today, and Yukichi decided to thin out my wallet with fast food and the nicest bakery he had the nerve to suggest to me.

Ah, but only for him would I have ever suffered such humiliation. These days, he wouldn’t subject me to them. Only to frown at me disapprovingly, as though he has some moral high ground.

And I suppose he does, these days.

He grew out of being an angry young man.

The last time I saw him before he went underground, he had a shock of red in his bangs. I was well into preparing for premed at the time, and had little energy to argue with him, but something else kept even me from teasing him about the color. In those two years, he’d worn every imaginable color besides red. He hated red, so it was rather curious that he would pick it for his hair. He wore his hair half up to keep it out of his face.

He was dressed in his usual traditional attire, but he carried a sword now. It was Christmas, after we had graduated, and he had aged a decade.

His hair had always made him look older than he was, even now. He looked younger with the splashes of color to soften the grey. But it was his eyes this time. They were tired, and one hand rested lightly on the handle of his weapon the whole walk. We spoke very little, absent of all the teasing we did during school. But, it wasn’t all bad. This was what he wanted anyway. Almost nineteen, and he had a despair in his face that men three times his age rarely knew. Still, we went to that bakery he loved when we were in school. I bought him his favorite pastry from memory, and this seemed to soften the weight in his heart.

Very little was said the whole time we ate.

Yukichi always left abruptly. He does still, as I’m sure you know. Still, there are usually signs. Today, he licked one finger and stood. He was almost out of earshot by the time I had realized what happened. “Keep in touch!” I called after him.

I could have sworn I heard, carried by the wind one word. “Can’t.”

Another two steps, another two footprints between us, and from the half bun on the back of his head, the little flowered hairpin I’d bought him caught the light through the dull snow-grey world.

#bsd mori #bsd fukuzawa #sword dad is best dad #peaches writes #bsd fanfic #platonic zenki skk #boomer soukoku #but like it could be gay #if u want #oh hey look an angst

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justasparkwritings · 4 years

Text

Illicit Affairs: Show Their Truth

Previous: A Million Little Times

Pairings: None

Genre: Angst

Ratings: PG17

Word Count: 2.5K

Warnings: Manipulation, Abuse of Power, Swearing, Negotiations and Contracts, Plans for Rehab, Interventions

Summary: The Hyung Line breaks down the reality of BTS’ situation, and the group plans what to do about “the problem with Jungkook”.

Listen: illicit affairs by Taylor Swift

The six men shuffled into the dining room, prepared to discuss the new terms for their contract, their next seven-year sentence, one for each circle of hell Bang intended on making them go through.

“What happens if we win a Grammy, or an Oscar?” Namjoon asked the men, Yoongi and Seokjin already having a sense of where this was going.

“We win!” Jimin said.

“That would be so cool, Oscar winners, BTS,” Ho-Seok said laughing.

“No, I mean, contractually, do you know what happens?” Namjoon clarified.

“Yes, we get the award,” Taehyung said, looking at the other members to see if they were as confused as he was.

“Right, as a band, but Big Hit’s names are what will be on it, they’ll each get their own statue, and we won’t have anything, technically,” Namjoon stated, punctuating each word.

“Technically?” Hoseok asked.

“The people named on the physical award are the group, but the only people who get credit are the writers and producers… Hypothetically, I’ll have credit, or Yoongi and I will, but the rest of you wouldn’t,” Namjoon tried to lay it out in the clearest terms possible.

“We wouldn’t?” Jimin asked.

“Take Map of the Soul 7, if we had won a Grammy for it, none of us would’ve seen it,” Namjoon clarified.

“Why not?” Taehyung asked indignantly.

“We didn’t write or produce it, depending on the category we won in, we would never see it.” Yoongi chimed in.

“But we did the work!” Jimin yelled.

“That’s why The 1975 is credited on everything as a collective group, so that if they win anything, they all get the rewards… In our contract it states that we don’t own anything, and we don’t produce enough to get credit on anything, so we would see nothing unless we produced it, like we did with BE, but we didn’t win anything for BE.” Namjoon tried to gage their reactions, utter shock and anger dominating the room.

“Who owns our music?” Ho-Seok asked.

“Bang and Big Hit outright own everything we’ve ever made, solo work or group,” Seokjin said.

“What?” Jimin yelled.

“It specifically states that they do in our contracts,” Yoongi said.

“So, Bang owns it?” Ho-Seok repeated.

“My assumption is Big Hit, Bang, and their shareholders,” Namjoon nodded.

“What does that mean?” Taehyung asked.

“It means that if we break up, they can continue to earn revenue from our music, put out compilations, remix or remaster, let artists sample it, without our permission or consent.” Yoongi explained.

“What?” Jimin yelled again.

“Aye, stop yelling,” Yoongi snipped.

“We get nothing?” Taehyung repeated.

“What does our contract say?” Jimin turned to Namjoon, eyes wide.

“We’re fucked,” Yoongi said.

“Part of what is in our new contracts is a clause that everything we create belongs to Big Hit, in perpetuity,” Namjoon said slowly.

“In what?” Jimin had never heard the phrase.

“Forever,” Yoongi said.

“What?” Jimin couldn’t keep it in. He was livid. “They own everything?”

“Yes, that’s the first problem,” Seokjin said.

“The first?” Taehyung said, still in shock.

“They’ve put in a new clause about who we can’t date,” Yoongi said, trying to take the pressure off of Namjoon.

“Oh?” Jimin asked, “Another rule about our nonexistent love lives?”

“It says that you can’t date anyone, regardless of sexual orientation, any fraternizing is strictly prohibited,” Seokjin said. The six of them exchanged glances, the spoken and unspoken resting between them.

“I thought after you and Y/N had made it, they were going to give us a try?” Taehyung asked.

“I don’t know,” Namjoon said defensively.

“What else?” Jimin asked.

“If a scandal breaks, we’re responsible for paying to have it scrubbed from the media,”

“That seems fair,” Taehyung shrugged.

“The percentage of what we write and produce in order to gain credit has gone up,”

“And so has the amount of V Live time we do,”

“Ah, that comes with a cash incentive,” Jin said smiling, a poor attempt at lightening the mood. No one laughed.

“We spoke to independent lawyers, and unfortunately, the contract is pretty airtight. They said we can counter with a few minor changes, offer a few different solutions, but other than that, if we sign it, we’re stuck.” Namjoon informed them.

“Is there an option to not sign it?” Taehyung asked.

“Yes, but we can’t make music until after each of us has served,” Namjoon said. It was a condition buried deep within their contract, one that he’d never thought much of, never realizing that he’d eventually want to get out of Big Hit’s suffocating embrace.

“So, we sign it, or we find other careers for the next decade?” Ho-Seok probed.

“Yes,” Seokjin, Yoongi and Namjoon replied, glancing at each other at the rare moment of harmony.

“The other issue we need to discuss, is Jungkook,” Seokjin said, willingly changing the subject.

“Ah, the problem with Jungkook, rearing its ugly head once again,” Yoongi said bitterly.

“I don’t know what to do,” Jimin said.

“He’s in his own head,” Taehyung said, “I don’t know how to reach him.”

“Why isn’t he here?” Ho-Seok asked.

“I don’t know,” Yoongi whispered.

“What does Bang say we do?” Ho-Seok queried.

“Well, that’s part of the problem,” Yoongi muttered.

“He wants me, the Hyung Line and me, to fix it,” Namjoon offered.

The Maknae Line was known for often being confused, for obeying their hyungs and frequently being lost in the shuffle. Their discernable qualities were often boiled down to superficial labels, ignoring their raw talent and honed gifts. Together they were a strong unit of lovable goofballs, with sex appeal in spades. But Jimin’s confusion fed Taehyung’s, which made Ho-Seok question himself, and encouraged Jungkook to go with the flow instead of employing his own thought process. Together, they bickered and loved harder than anyone could imagine. They were a unit, dysfunctional, but they were the most integral parts of BTS.

Being a unit meant that Taehyung and Jimin spent the most time with Jungkook and had seen his drinking up close. It had been a slow progression, his excitement about turning the legal age in Korea, coupled with being of age in the states and essentially, the entire world, manifested in a habit he couldn’t kick. How could he? He was now free to have a beer with his hyungs after a show or at dinner, and he loved it. He loved being able to experience this with them, to share when they went out, to kick back at home. Jungkook developed his own tastes, what type of red wine he liked, what kind of hard liquor he wanted to nurse, if he liked it on the rocks or not… He could pass it off as trying to understand alcohol and all its complexities, a mixologist in the making, a connoisseur of spirits.

The six members couldn’t pinpoint exactly when his drinking started becoming a problem, their best guess was sometime after turning 22. It was then that they began to see the shift from Jungkook the baby, to Jungkook the man. He started drinking more, more frequently, larger quantities, different hours of the day … Everything in abundance.

The consummate professional, he never let it interfere with work, and would sweat out the hangover at the gym before throwing down in a performance. In the beginning, he was sneakier, hiding it from the members with ease. As he got older, as it got worse, his ability to hide bottles clanging or shots taken from them became more and more challenging. They didn’t know how long the addiction had been raging, which concerned them the longer it went on.

They knew it was bad when Jungkook started lying to them and sneaking around in public. No longer open and brazen with his penchant for well-aged liquors, opting instead for whatever he could pay with in cash, in a dive bar outside the city. He didn’t savor and sip, he chugged and got wasted. There were moments when they saw the old Jungkook, the one just starting out, savoring every drop knowing it was sacred. It didn’t happen often.

“Does he need to go to rehab?” Taehyung whispered, asking the question everyone had been too scared to ask.

“When we go to military service, it’ll be a slow roll out. Jin-hyung and Yoongi-hyung will go first, followed by the 94s, which gives us a little time to figure out what to do… But when we go,” Namjoon motioned to Ho-Seok, “You will be alone, the Maknae Line, until Jin and Yoongi are ready to return, and you will have to handle this.”

“Send him to rehab,” Yoongi said, face blank.

“He won’t go,” Jimin said.

“So, he kills himself? Another K-Pop star slain at their own hand?” Yoongi asked bitterly.

“Or he leaves the group,” Jin said.

“He can’t, not if he’s signed his contract,” Jimin said, looking to Namjoon to assure his assumption was correct.

“Can we force him?” Taehyung asked.

“No,” Jin replied.

“Why is he drinking anyway?” Ho-Seok asked. “Is that a dumb question?”

“I don’t know,” Jin said.

“And yes, it’s a dumb question,” Yoongi answered.

“I,” Namjoon sighed. “I’ve been having meetings with management, and they think he wasn’t raised well enough, that his youthful rebellions are not growing pains, but general disdain for the values of Big Hit.”

“That seems like a far stretch?” Taehyung said.

“I think he’s angry that he signed his life away, and is looking at a bleak future,” Yoongi said.

“Youthful rebellions? More than his tattoos?” Ho-Seok asked.

“Scandals that have been reported but not confirmed,” Namjoon was filling in the blanks, wasn’t that what he’d always been doing?

“Drinking,” Jimin said.

“The general lack of enthusiasm for filming anything,” Namjoon added.

“Don’t you think it’s weird that we’re grown men, playing games for shit we can already buy?” Jimin asked.

“Y/N asked me that a few weeks ago, and yeah, it’s fucking weird,” Namjoon said.

“They bribe us so they can film content to keep ARMY engaged,” Yoongi said.

“Jungkook hates it,” Ho-Seok replied.

“The fact that anyone hates it more than me is implausible,” Yoongi muttered.

“All of these things, when looked at under a microscope, paint the picture that Jungkook is,” Namjoon started.

“Tarnishing the good name of Big Hit?” Jimin filled in.

“Correct,” Jin said.

“Who’s supposed to stop him?” Taehyung asked.

“We are,” Jin said, stepping in for Namjoon. “Namjoonie’s carried the weight of this for a decade, and it’s time we all start pitching in,”

“Isn’t Jungkook supposed to carry his own load?” Taehyung wondered.

“How’s he doing with that?” Yoongi snipped.

“Point taken,” Taehyung bowed his head.

“What do we do?” Jimin asked, bringing everyone back on track.

“Intervention?” Jin offered.

“Drop him off at therapy?” Taehyung posed.

“He’s only going to get better if he wants to, when he’s hit rock bottom,” Yoongi informed them.

“Can we nudge him along?” Jimin asked, trying to find the fastest route to a positive change.

“Purposefully make him think he’s fucked up, scare him into getting sober?” Yoongi questioned.

“That’s diabolical,” Taehyung said.

“Would it work?” Yoongi asked.

“No, we can’t, he already hates-

“He doesn’t hate you, hyung,” Taehyung said.

“He blames me, for everything. His loss of innocence, for growing up so fast, his lack of identity and understanding of who he is… That he can’t love anyone, that everyone views him as the sexy one but doesn’t see any other side of him, for how overbearing management is… Every shortcoming is my fault,” Namjoon was trying not to cry, not again. No more tears over Jungkook.

The Maknae line sat staring.

“Why isn’t he mad at Bang? It’s more his fault than yours,” Jimin queried.

“I’m the one he saw every day, who made sure he did his work, I got him to sign,” Namjoon answered.

“You’re the one that’s secretly been parenting him for a decade,” Jin said. “I was clearly trying to raise him, but you? You did it in secret.”

“In secret?” Taehyung asked.

“I was, instructed, taught, guided, on what to do to help raise Jungkook,” Namjoon said.

“Into what?” Taehyung was still confused.

“Into a man, into a better musician, into the Golden Maknae,”

“Were you monitoring his food or exercise?” Jimin asked.

“No, not really, the trainers did that… I’ve mostly been encouraging good behaviors that would become habits,” Namjoon replied.

“How come you never addressed the lisp?” Yoongi wondered, always the fan of bringing in random tidbits.

“There’s not much you can do about the lisp, and it doesn’t come out when he sings.” Ho-Seok answered, looking at Yoongi. “It’s endearing.”

“Not to stray off topic, but what do we do? Does he know?” Jimin continued to bring them back on track.

“Know?” Ho-Seok asked.

“About your clandestine meetings and ‘guidance’ which sounds more like a cult leader and less like a bandmate,” Jimin pressed.

“He doesn’t, as far as I know, he doesn’t know about any of it,”

“How’d you do it?” Taehyung asked, voice hushed in the chaos.

Namjoon inhaled slowly before looking at his chosen family.

“Little things like taking him to the gym or saying positives about whatever health juice I was drinking, I wanted him to imitate my behaviors, to copy them until it became rote. Until he didn’t know where the idea came from. It got more, elaborate as he got older… leaving articles behind, or quoting something I knew he’d ask about… dropping breadcrumbs for him to pick up.”

Namjoon was embarrassed, ashamed by the way he’d conducted himself. He didn’t tell them about the times Bang had asked him to put supplements in JK’s water, or to swap out a pair of pants for ones slightly smaller to make the Golden Maknae feel insecure and fat, forcing him to work out relentlessly. He didn’t bring up the phrases he’d repeated, the little words of affirmation that he’d sprinkled into daily conversation, encouraging Jungkook to become obsessive in his habits. Namjoon could never admit to the hell Bang had put him through during Jungkook’s first few years, the drive he’d instilled in Namjoon to push Jungkook to his breaking point. He’d only let up when JK turned 21, when Bang felt like the transformation was complete.

Namjoon would never admit he blackmailed, dosed, and destroyed little parts of Jungkook so Bang could fill them with who he wanted him to be. Jungkook was right to hate him, the parking lot meetings and notebooks he’d filled with his covert plans, in the wrong hands, would destroy BTS and Big Hit. No one would be safe.

The men dispersed, some to their apartments, others to the kitchen, and Namjoon to the living room to start a movie. They’d have to talk to Jungkook in the morning. They’d have to write their counter offers for Bang and the Big Hit lawyers. They’d have to try and find a solution so that after a decade of intermittent service, something of their time in BTS remained, and their futures could continue.

Next: Mercurial High

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gra-sonas · 5 years

Text

Alex Manes - an essay

Alright, my inbox is bursting with asks, and I’ll get to them (tomorrow, it’s almost midnight D: ), but I’ve been thinking about this all day while trying to work (had to get up and angrily pace my flat several times), and I had to write it all down to get it off my chest. (Also, I’m sorry, but once again Tumblr won’t let me add a Read More, after two attempts at creating new posts with a Read More, I’m giving up 🙈)

As viewers, we’ve been introduced to two different versions of Alex.

Alex at 17

wears mostly black

puts on nail polish, eyeliner and jewellery, including a stud earring and a septum piercing

loves skateboarding

plays the guitar

works at the UFO Emporium

his mom, a Native American woman from a New Mexican tribe left the family when he was younger

has 3 brothers, presumably they’re all older than Alex

Alex at 27/28

a soldier, he’s been in the Air Force for a decade

a decorated purple heart airman with three deployments under his belt

an amputee, he lost part of his right leg in an attack in Iraq, sometimes uses a crutch

a codebreaker who's hacked into Russian and Chinese intelligence

a man who still dips fries into his milkshake

the nail polish, spiky hair, piercings and jewellery are gone

Alex wears fatigues occasionally, his civil clothes are mostly neutral colored shirts/jeans (until The Leather Jacket™ in 1x13)

we don’t know whether he still plays the guitar

his brothers are also all military, Flint (~2 years older than Alex) is a Special Forces Weapons Sergeant with the US Army

Quotes from/about Alex’s youth (incl. Jesse’s abuse)

1x01, Alex: "We're not kids anymore. What I want doesn't matter.“

✧→ 17 year old Alex hoped to escape his father one day, he dreamt of making music. His hopes were shattered that day in the toolshed, and Alex hasn’t allowed himself to go for what he wants since then - including Michael.

1x02, Alex: “Made me think about... I don't know, who I was when this started. Before I went to war.”

1x05, Kyle: “Do you remember that night your dad made us set up that tent to teach us extreme weather survival?” Alex: “Yeah. Your dad had driven home for the night, so mine concocted a brand-new form of kiddie torture.”

1x05, Alex: “My dad was a homophobic, abusive dick."

1x05: Alex: “The dad I got was a monster. Is a monster.” Kyle: “Because he sent you off to war?” Alex: “My father was my war. And your dad saw it, when we were kids. Do you remember the summer - that we built the tree house?” Kyle: “Yeah.” Alex: “That's the summer that my dad found out I was gay. He knew before I did. He thought he could beat it out of me. Jim tried to intervene. But you can't make someone stop hating someone. And my dad hated me.”

✧→ Alex is talking about his father/childhood matter-of-factly, but the language he’s using to describe his childhood allows a glimpse at the hell he went through: torture (through extreme survival trainings), homophobic abuse, his dad is a monster, sent him to war, for years tried beating the gay out of Alex, Jesse hates him. This is not just a homophobic remark his dad made at the dinner table, this informs us about years of violence and abuse Alex endured at the hands of his father.

1x06, Alex: “Things at my house suck.“

✧→ Many teenagers will probably say this at some point while growing up, this isn’t about Alex being upset about a curfew, or having to do his homework tho. This is as much as Alex will disclose about the ongoing abuse.

1x06: Alex: “Dad, this has nothing to do with you.“ Jesse: “Everything you do... everything. And I will not be humiliated.“

✧→ This is Alex, terrified of what his dad might do. And he knows that Jesse will do something (he’s already picked up the hammer). Alex expects violence, because that’s what his dad has done to him numerous times. 😔

1x07, Mimi: "You look like your dad today." Alex: "Oh, good. I was hoping that the rage face might skip a generation."

1x08, Alex: “I've been looking for leverage my entire life.“

✧→ “My entire life”, a clear indication that having Jesse as a dad’s never been a walk in the park, Alex just got the special ‘anti gay’ treatment as a bonus when he got older.

1x08, Alex: “When I was...- I wanted to make music. You sent me to war.“

✧→ Alex at 17 wanted to make music, and although he never says it, I think it’s implied that he never planned to join the military. Jesse didn’t give him a choice though, he made Alex enlist, probably threatening him with what he’d do to Michael if Alex didn’t do as he was told.

1x08, Alex: "Why are you trying to frame Michael? Haven't you done enough to him?"

1x08, Alex: "Do not talk to me about unprovoked violence!"

1x09, Michael: "And what do you want to say, Alex?” Alex: That I loved you. And I think that you loved me. For a long time.” Michael: “Yeah.” Alex: "But we didn't even know each other that well, did we? I mean, we just, we-we connected, - like something… -“ Michael: “Cosmic.” Alex: "Yeah, but we didn't even do that much talking."

1x10, Alex: "My dad is a bigot with no moral compass."

1x12, Flint (to Alex): "You ever get tired of being the black sheep of the family?"

1x13, Alex: "Look... I shouldn't have left you behind when I enlisted. I could... I could stand here and tell you that I didn't want to leave, but I did. After what my dad did to you, I just, I... I wanted to be the kind of person who won battles. But now I-I look in the mirror, and I-I don't even see myself sometimes. I see my father. I'm still fighting his battles. Not mine."

✧→ It’s kinda implied that Alex never wanted to enlist, but once Jesse forced him to do it, he tried to make the most of it. He wanted to be the kind of person who won battles. He was also looking for leverage, something he could use to take his dad down.

✧→ Alex at 17 wanted to get out, he wanted to make music and live life his way. Since Jesse was going to beat him for being gay anyway, he’d at least wear what he wanted, put on make up, and wear jewellery. Jesse hadn’t manage to break Alex.

✧→ The shed incident changed everything, because someone else got hurt. And from Alex’s POV it was because of Alex. Because he’d been selfish. He’d wanted Michael. And because of that Michael got injured.

Now that we’ve established the basics, onto Carina’s statement.

“Alex was too ashamed of Michael (not of being gay, which Maria knew, but of michael specifically) to name him to Maria for 10 years - until he saw Maria as a threat.” [x]

✧→ At 17, we saw how much Alex cared about Michael, that he wanted him safe and warm bc nights twere too cold to sleep in the car. That’s why Alex offered Michael to stay in the shed. He liked Michael, and he wanted to spend time with him. He even brought Michael a guitar bc he thought Michael would like to play. None of Alex’s behavior gives any indication that he was ashamed of Michael before the shed incident.

✧→ 17 year old Alex was afraid of his father, no surprise after years of abuse, but he also seemed confident, defiant even, believing he could handle it for a little bit longer until he’d finished high school and would finally be able to leave to make music. Despite living under Jesse’s roof, he dressed in all black, openly wore make up, nail polish, and jewellery/piercings, refusing to be another picture perfect son of his military father. We didn’t see it on screen, but given Jesse’s homophobic views, Alex’s behavior very likely caused his father to punish him in some way for it.

✧→ Then Michael kissed Alex at the UFO Emporium, Alex kissed back, one thing lead to another and they ended up at the shed where they had sex for the first time. It was Michael’s first time with a guy, we don’t know whether it was Alex’s first time tho. Alex still didn’t show any signs of being ashamed of Michael.

They were SO in love and happy in that moment. 🥺

✧→ When Jesse and the hammer happened, and it changed everything. Up until that moment, Alex had been used to his father’s abuse, he’d been strong enough, he’d been convinced he could take it, but this time someone else got badly hurt, and I think that broke something in Alex.

✧→ We never saw how things played out for Alex after Michael left the shed, all we know is that Jesse made Alex enlist. And given Jesse’s preference for blackmailing (he blackmailed Jenna, and Alex asked Flint what Jesse had on him) it’s probably fair to assume that Jesse threatened to go after Michael should Alex not do as he says.

Alex didn’t tell Maria for a decade because he was ashamed of Michael (at 17)?

Say what now???

There are several good reasons why Alex wouldn’t have told her, but shame isn’t one of them... I’m sure Alex thought of Maria as a trustworthy friend back then, but the most important reason why he wouldn’t reveal who ‘museum guy’ was would be the one the straight showrunner of the show’s apparently not aware of:

Alex would’ve outed Michael (without Michael’s consent I’d like to add) to Maria by telling her who it was. As a gay kid in 2008, I’m sure Alex was very well aware of LGBTQ etiquette, and the first rule of queer club is, you don’t out a fellow queer. And guess who’d just experience a brutal attack because he’s queer? Why would Alex ever consider outing Michael and potentially putting him at risk???

The outing reason alone would be enough to explain why Alex never told her who it was. And in 1x10 he didn’t outright out Michael either, Maria realized it was Guerin and Alex reluctantly confirmed (there was no way for him to plausibly deny it).

1x10, Alex: “It is just a standard, run-of-the-mill boy problem. Oh, come on. Don't give me psychic face, Maria.” Maria: “It's the guy from the museum, the one that kissed you into crazy stupid love when we were kids. He's back?” Alex: “Wha... How-how do you do that?” Maria: “You're just... I feel it, you're-you're hopeful, like you were before. Who is he? Come on, spill it. I've been waiting ten years for this. - Come on.” Alex: “You... you wouldn't believe it.” Maria: “It's not like you're hooking up with Wyatt Long or Michael Guerin or something. Geez. Please tell me you're in love with Wyatt Long. Wow.” Alex: “Michael's not so bad after a shower. But you know that.” Maria: “I had no idea...” Alex: “I know. I mean, how would you?” Maria: “It meant nothing, Alex. Seriously, I swear, it was just a drunk, dusty, no-good Texas rounder."

Another reason why Alex wouldn’t necessarily have told Maria: Alex was traumatized by what happened at the shed. This wasn’t just the ‘normal’ kind of abuse he endured on the regular (which is a boatload of trauma all of its own), someone else had been hurt, someone Alex liked, and because Alex liked him. On top of that Jesse likely threatened him. There’s no way Alex wasn’t scared and deeply traumatized. It’s fairly common that victims of abuse don’t tell anyone about it, out of fear even more bad things could happen, there’s surely also a lot of shame and self-blaming involved.

Alex also knew that Michael was homeless, and probably not yet of age. Jesse could’ve threatened Alex to put Michael back into the system or whatnot.

Absolutely NOTHING we’ve seen on screen suggests that Alex was ashamed of Michael when they were 17. Alex joined the military afterwards, and was away for a decade. Not many opportunities to talk about it to Maria, but again, the first reason (outing Michael) is a perfectly valid reason not to tell her for an entire decade. And this being a major trauma, Alex probably didn’t feel like opening that box again after such a long time.

And wow, claiming that Alex waited to tell Maria (which isn’t exactly what happened) because she felt threatened by her? Sure, Alex just waited for the right moment. 🙄

Is Alex ashamed of Michael at 27/28?

In 1x03 it seems like Alex let’s his father’s words get to him. “Seems to me the only one you're embarrassing is yourself, son.“ I’ve always interpreted this as a thinly veiled threat tho, and Alex, on instinct, immediately put distance between himself and Michael. Because before he talked to his father? Alex was perfectly happy to be seen with Michael, if he'd been ashamed, as Carina claims, he wouldn’t have approached Michael in public in the first place.

This is also how I read the scene in 1x02: “What happened at the reunion cannot happen again.“ In the pilot, Jesse had been part of the group of soldiers poking around Michael’s Airstream, and Alex saw the way his father looked at them talking. Then they kissed at the reunion, and I’m sure it felt so good and like coming home, but the fear of what Jesse could do if he found out was back the next morning, and Alex once more tried to put distance between himself and Michael to keep Michael save.

This is not an excuse for Alex pushing Michael away, not an excuse for Alex to call him a criminal either. That is absolutely shitty behavior and not okay. I just don’t buy this ‘Alex is ashamed of Michael’ shtick.

Friendly reminder that Maria did not only tell Alex in 1x10 “It meant nothing, Alex. Seriously, I swear, it was just a drunk, dusty, no-good Texas rounder.", here’s what she said in her next scene with Guerin:

1x10, Maria: “We're closed. - You found my necklace.” Michael: “Clasp broke. I fixed it. I think it calls for a celebration. And by celebration, I mean booze, preferably the free kind.” Maria: “Alex is one of my best friends.” Michael: “Congrats.” Maria: “I never would have slept with you if I knew you two had history. It can't happen again.”

So in 1x10 Maria

learned Michael is 'museum guy’

realized that Alex is in love with Michael (still), and hopeful

swore to Alex it was a one time thing and that it meant nothing

told Michael that Alex is one of her best friends (and you don’t go after your best friends’ love interests)

she would’ve never slept with Michael had she known

she also says it can’t happen again

And yet Carina’s surprised why many few fans don’t understand

what made Maria ignore Liz’s advice to talk to Alex (which would’ve been the fair thing to do, no one’s mad at Maria for catching feelings, it’s that she acted on them without talking to Alex first what upsets and angers people)

why Maria invited Michael to kiss her just 3 episodes later

why she’s still chasing after Michael 2 weeks later without having talked to Alex

she’ll continue to go after Michael but still won’t talk to Alex

and therefore some are having a hard time not to dislike Maria to some degree? Okay...

Either way, imo Alex was definitely not ashamed of Michael at 17, and I don’t see much evidence of him being ashamed of Michael at 27/28.

Apart from that, shame is for sure NOT the reason why Alex never told Maria.

Alright, this got LONG, but it I had to write it all down. I think I provided facts in the form of dialogue quotes. In addition, I’m sharing my interpretation of these facts.

I don’t claim that I’m right, I don’t claim that I know more than Carina (who seems to have forgotten some things she herself wrote tho), none of that. This is my interpretation of what happened, based on what we saw on screen, what’s been said by the characters, and what we know about the different characters involved.

I also don’t claim that Alex didn’t do anything wrong, that he’s a saint, or whatnot. But I strongly disagree with the notion that by not telling Maria Alex is somehow to blame for her going after Michael.

#alex manes #malex #michael guerin #long post is long #my apologies for the missing read more #i tried but tumblr wouldn't let me #🙈#rnm opinions #the alex essay

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