#solid and tangible. so ty!!!!! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lady-of-the-lotus · 3 years

Text

Xue Yang brings Xiao Xingchen back from the dead.

Xiao Xingchen begins to rot.

“You would have dumped me in a ditch,” says Xue Yang, too calmly, “but I spent years bringing you back, even after all those things you said to me.”

“You mean the truth?”

Xue Yang’s pupils swell to fill his irises, two inky black pits in his face. "I didn’t steal your eyes and abandon you. I stayed with you.”

Xuexiao - E - Read on AO3! - Tumblr: Chapter 1 Chapter 2

Chapter 2 - Life

Xue Yang’s face is all he can see.

It floats in the darkness above him, eyes wide, red-rimmed, dumbstruck. Black hair hanging loose around his sickly white face, sticking to his sweat-beaded forehead.

“Where am I?” Xingchen tries to ask, but all that comes out is a choking sound.

With a shaking hand Xue Yang touches his throat, feeling for a pulse, and his vision expands to Xue Yang’s naked body, smeared in red, bleeding freely from his wrist.

“Thirsty,” Xingchen manages to rasp, and Xue Yang’s wrist is at his lips.

He laps at the blood, filling his mouth, wetting his throat, swallowing Xue Yang down as he lies cradled his arms, Xue Yang petting his hair. The blood is hot in his mouth, the heat filling his cold limbs, sharpening his vision, letting him see the stars, the treetops above the Coffin House courtyard, the crescent moon.

But the moonlight, the strong metallic taste of blood, the bold crimson splashed across his range of vision, are all too much. Xue Yang is looking at him, speaking, but his face slips away, voice fading as Xingchen’s senses spiral.

He feels himself being lifted, the breeze on his bare limbs, motion. Something damp gliding over his limbs, something being tied around his waist, something combing through his hair.

And then he’s lying somewhere soft, and Xue Yang is beside him, devouring him with his eyes. Xue Yang’s hair is fixed with a silver scorpion-like hairpiece, and he’s clothed in a black inner robe, but his pale cheeks are still sunken, eyes still red.

“Daozhang,” says Xue Yang. His voice cracks. “You're back.”

Xiao Xingchen blinks slowly. It’s been so long since he’s felt anything at all, truly felt it, that he’s half-forgotten that he had lost his eyes before he died.

Before he…

He begins to shake.

“It’s alright,” murmurs Xue Yang, reaching out to cup his jaw in his hand, pressing his forehead to his. “It’s alright, you’re back now, you’re home…”

Xiao Xingchen’s body is still half-numb, still waking, and Xue Yang’s touch sets his nerves tingling, bringing life into his arms, his legs, as if he’s consumed more of Xue Yang’s blood.

“Say something else, daozhang, let me hear your voice…Are you still thirsty?” And then Xue Yang has disappeared from the bed, flying across the room, and then he’s back, holding a cup of water. “Here—”

Unlike the blood, the water just sits in his throat, as if the muscles that should push it down to his stomach have lost their ability to contract.

“What am I?” he asks when he’s finished coughing up the water.

Xue Yang swallows hard at the sound of his voice. “Alive,” he says.

Xiao Xingchen closes his eyes, shuts out the starlight seeping through the paper window shades. “I don’t think I am.” It’s hard to get the words out, as if his tongue has forgotten how to articulate.

“You are, you are, and I brought you back—” A brush of lips against his, warmer and firmer than he remembers. A hand on his waist, solid. “Just let me know if you need anything...” An arm slipping around him, Xue Yang’s face pressed against his throat.

Xingchen can handle these sensations. Welcomes them. Xue Yang’s touch is bearable. Grounding. Pleasant, now that it’s silent and dark.

“Sleep, daozhang…”

He drifts off.

The morning sun is blinding when he wakes. He covers his face, wincing. His mind’s a quivery jumble, his memory a disjointed collection of stray scraps of thought and memory.

“What’s wrong?” Xue Yang brushes his hand. “Are you in pain?”

“Bright—”

“Of course—” Xue Yang is tying a blindfold over his eyes. “It’s alright, it’s alright…”

He helps Xingchen to the table. He’s prepared a simple meal of rice and fruit. Xiao Xingchen has no appetite, but he forces himself to taste the food.

It has no flavor, no scent. The chopsticks slip from his nerveless fingers, and he gives up, simply gazing down into his bowl.

Xue Yang is staring at him intently, but he doesn’t seem to notice his lack of appetite. He’s prattling on, talking without stopping to take a breath, as if afraid of what Xiao Xingchen might say if given a chance.

“Not hungry?” he finally says, and then, before Xiao Xingchen can respond, “I’ll put it away for later. Here, let me help you back to bed; I want to—tidy up the courtyard before you go out; you might trip over something. The blindfold is like old times, but we’ll get you used to the light yet…”

Xiao Xingchen tries to think as he lies there, tries to shore up the crumbling walls of his mind, but all he feels is a growing numbness spreading from his hands and feet.

He wants to panic, wants to thrash and scream at the horror of the encroaching nothingness as he had wanted to beat at his coffin, wants to cry out for Xue Yang to come back inside, to touch him, wake him up, but the creeping malaise pins him to the bed, and he falls asleep before Xue Yang returns.

He wakes half-blind, half-deaf.

“Xue Yang,” he whispers. His words are indistinct, and, face numb, he bites his tongue.

“I’m here, daozhang…” And then, so low his numbed ears can barely hear, “You can still call me Chengmei, you know…”

“…Chengmei….”

A ghostly touch on his throat. “I’m right here."

“I…I can’t see.”

“Here.” A faint brushing over his face. “There. No more blindfold.”

“It’s not the blindfold. And I can’t…” He closes his eyes, shutting out the blurred figure. It’s suddenly too much effort to speak.

“Daozhang?” A note of panic, even through the cotton filling his ears. “Daozhang!”

Hands inside his robe, sliding over his chest, the only thing he can fully sense. He focuses on the sensation, clings to it. He can’t slide back into the dark nothingness, can’t face the red eyes again…

Something wet in his mouth. He laps at it, mouth filling with coppery heat. He sucks harder. It tingles as it goes down, bringing warmth to his limbs.

“Better?” Xue Yang whispers. Xiao Xingchen opens his eyes. He’s nestled in Xue Yang’s arms, bright red blood dribbling over the curve of Xue Yang’s forearm. “I can give you more. Take it all…”

Xiao Xingchen shakes his head, licking the last of the blood from his lips.

“What did you do to me?” he whispers.

“I…”

Xiao Xingchen pulls away. Xue Yang’s face is bone-white.

“What did you do to me?” he repeats.

Xue Yang bites his lip, hard enough to draw blood had he any left to spare. “I brought you back.”

“From…”

“You don’t remember?”

“I don’t…I don’t…I....why...the blood—"

"Yin is animating you." He rubs his chest. "The yin in my blood helps."

"But—"

"I'll make sure you get the yang you need too." Xue Yang looks away, bandaging his wrist as if trying to avoid making eye contact. “What do you remember?”

“I…I stabbed you.”

“It’s fine.”

Xingchen sits up, feeling slightly sharper. “I don’t care about that! I—I stabbed you because—you—you lied to me—”

“Is that all?”

“You—you tricked me into killing Zichen—”

“I brought him back as a fierce corpse! He was killed by a ghost, not me! And I didn’t hurt A-Qing; she’s fine, she wandered off on her own—”

“You made me kill Zichen!”

“A mistake. I regret that. I was just as horrified as you were. If you’d had eyes, you would have seen that—”

“You made me—you made me—”

And suddenly he finds that he can’t dredge up the hate and rage he felt back then. It’s as if death has bleached strong emotion out of him, as if Xue Yang’s blood, still warm on his tongue, is clouding his ability to hate him as he knows he should be hated.

He rises and drifts, half-stumbling, to the door. The floor is insubstantial beneath his bare feet, the walls hazy.

“Wait!” Xue Yang scrambles shakily out of bed. “It’s not fully clean yet, you might trip—”

“Over what?”

“I mean—I mean, it is clean, but—”

Xiao Xingchen steps out into the courtyard, seeing it for the first time. A dilapidated wall encircles the courtyard, paved with cracked gray stone with scattered coffins and poles. The morning is overcast, almost twilit, air thick and humid.

There’s something caked in between the cracks on the ground, he notices. Something brownish-red—

“Come back to bed.” Xue Yang is behind him. “Come to bed, daozhang. I’ll make you some t—”

And then, without so much as a sigh, he sinks to the ground and sprawls forward on his chest.

Xiao Xingchen stands there for a moment, tilting his head at Xue Yang’s prone form, then lifts him up and, too weak to carry him into the house, deposits him in a nearby coffin.

He leans over the coffin and examines him.

Xue Yang is sharper than anything else around him, somehow. Extremely pale, handsome face thin. His loose hair is a silky black cloud around his head, body slender and well-formed and wrapped only in a green silk inner robe. It’s loosely tied around his waist, and Xiao Xingchen can see an unfamiliar sigil carved into his chest, the graceful lines healed over into scars.

Xiao Xingchen reaches down, trails a hand over the curve of his throat. The coffin is barely tangible where it presses against his chest, but Xue Yang’s cheek is solid, almost cold. He’s seized with a sudden desire to strip them both naked and rub against him, twine himself around Xue Yang like a vine, light up his skin for a few precious seconds of sensation. There's no heat in Xingchen's limbs, fingers and toes numb.

Xue Yang opens his eyes. Blinking, he gazes up at Xiao Xingchen. “What happened?”

“You fainted.”

Xue Yang rubs his eyes. “You look worried.”

“No.”

Xue Yang tries to sit up but can’t. “There’s plenty of room in here.”

Xiao Xingchen hesitates, and then, without making a conscious decision to do so, finds himself crawling inside the coffin. Xue Yang winds his arms and legs around him, pressing Xingchen’s face into the hollow of his throat.

“How do you feel?” Xue Yang murmurs, his good hand combing through Xiao Xingchen’s hair. Xue Yang's entire body is trembling, either from the blood loss or faint or Xingchen’s nearness. “Do you need more blood?”

The skin of his throat is soft and smooth against Xingchen's cheek, his hands firm on his waist, his back. Xue Yang moves slightly, hip shifting against Xingchen’s, and Xingchen is filled with that same desire to rip off his clothes and simply writhe naked against Xue Yang, the only solid thing among the numbing mists—

He kisses Xue Yang.

Xue Yang’s entire body goes rigid.

He kisses Xue Yang again, full on the mouth, probing past his lips. Desperate for warmth, Xiao Xingchen devours his mouth, his tongue.

His heat.

Without thinking about it he slips his hand inside Xue Yang’s robe, resting it on his hip. His skin must be cool after losing so much blood, but it feels warm against Xiao Xingchen’s cold numb hand.

“You sure?” Xue Yang breathes.

Xiao Xingchen kisses him again, Xue Yang's mouth even warmer than the rest of him. Xue Yang moves slightly, one leg bent at Xiao Xingchen’s side. He’s untying Xiao Xingchen’s robe, good hand closing around his cock.

“Ever done this before?” he murmurs in Xiao Xingchen’s mouth.

Xingchen stops kissing him. He knows he should be overwhelmed by a red-hot tangle of negative emotion, but all he feels is an urgent hunger for sensation. “I know how you brought me back.”

Xue Yang’s eyes widen. “I didn’t—”

“I don’t care.” Increasing desperation builds as Xue Yang pumps his cock to full hardness, all the frustrated lust of the past…weeks? months? returning tenfold. “Pay me back now.”

“I don’t know if—I don’t want you to lose whatever yang energy I was able to give you—”

Xingchen glances down at his cock, rigid in Xue Yang’s hand. He knows he should be embarrassed to be seen like this, but all he cares about is how Xue Yang’s skin feels on his, how he aches for that hand to touch every inch of him, spark his half-numb body to life. A few drops of blood ooze from the cockhead, dribbling down the sides, staining Xue Yang's hand red.

"We’ll try it once.”

Xue Yang is still strangely hesitant. “Do you even know what to do?”

Xingchen opens Xue Yang’s robe, slides a hand along his thigh. “I remember what you did,” he says, and thrusts into him without preamble.

Xue Yang winces at the sudden intrusion, body tensing, hands curling around Xingchen’s arms at his sides, and then he makes a concentrated effort to relax, allowing Xiao Xingchen to push in deeper.

Xingchen begins to move, sliding in and out of Xue Yang, cock slick with bloody precum. He leans forward to kiss Xue Yang as he thrusts into him, filling his mouth with Xue Yang’s heat, chest brushing against his. Xue Yang’s eyes are closed, gripping Xiao Xingchen’s arms tightly, not bothering to touch himself.

Xiao Xingchen reaches down, closes his hand around Xue Yang’s cock, strokes it, more to feel the soft slippery sensation against his palm than to give Xue Yang any pleasure.

“Yes,” Xue Yang murmurs, back arching. He has one leg on Xingchen’s shoulder, knee hooked around him, drawing him closer to him. “You can be rougher — ”

Xiao Xingchen wants to sink his teeth into Xue Yang’s lips, suck the life out through his mouth, but is afraid any more blood loss will kill him and with him, Xingchen. Instead he thrusts faster into Xue Yang’s pliant flesh, grips his cock tighter, eliciting a gasp from Xue Yang. Xue Yang has lost too much blood to be fully hard, but precum is leaking from his cock, dripping onto his middle.

The sigil on Xue Yang’s chest is glowing blue.

Xiao Xingchen glances down at it and for the first time notices a sigil on his chest as well. The same foreign symbol, backwards.

It’s glowing with red light.

“Don’t be gentle, daozhang,” Xue Yang breathes, and Xiao Xingchen comes, biting down on Xue Yang’s neck as he feels true pleasure for the first time since awakening, his body sparking to life around Xue Yang’s cock.

Xue Yang comes at the feel of his teeth in his throat, cum spurting weakly into Xiao Xingchen’s hand. Xiao Xingchen instinctively licks the cum from his hand, the sticky white liquid tingling in his throat, feeding the golden light in his chest.

The glow of the sigils begin to fade.

“Yin energy,” Xue Yang whispers as Xiao Xingchen pulls out of him and settles down next to him, body wrapped around his, absorbing his phantom warmth. He laps gently at the bite in Xue Yang’s neck, not daring to suck it but swallowing the blood that rises from the raw wound.

Xiao Xingchen makes a small questioning noise.

“You gave me some of your yin energy….” Xue Yang laughs weakly, body vibrating against Xiao Xingchen’s chest. “Tainted yin, thanks to the ritual, not fresh like my blood. Eating me from the inside, is that it?…I’ll take it…"

Xingchen doesn't respond. For the first time since waking, the dampening curtain has been pulled back and Xingchen can fully feel his emotions.

Feel the rage, the grief, the overwhelming sorrow and disgust. Roiling red emotion, all around him, inside him. He wallows in it, stretches out his arms, embraces him. Rubs his face in the emotion, inhales it.

Enjoys the humiliation.

The hatred. The guilt.

The confusion.

He's not sure all of those emotions belong to him.

Or only to him.

“You alright, daozhang?” Xue Yang murmurs. “You look like…”

Xingchen pulls him closer.

* * * * *

It’s evening when Xingchen wakes. Xue Yang is still asleep, neck crusted with dried blood.

Xiao Xingchen lifts him out of the coffin and carries him into the house. He’s filled a pot with water before he remembers that he can’t eat or drink. He takes the water off the fire and seats himself beside the bed, watching Xue Yang sleep.

His emotions are still touchable. The hate, the anger. But they're more muted than they were that morning, a simmer instead of a boil.

It would be so easy to strangle Xue Yang right now. Cover his face with a pillow. Crush his throat beneath his thumbs. Hold him down as he thrashes beneath him—

Without him, you’ll die.

“And so what if I do?” Xiao Xingchen says aloud.

But his words ring hollow. They would have rung true that morning, but now that he can feel again, his senses sharp—

He does not want to be back. But he can't atone for his sins if he's dead. Can't put some good back into the world, can't make up for all death he's sown.

He steps out onto the porch. The night is unusually clear for Yi City, the deep blue sky thickly embroidered with diamonds. A vast sweeping carpet of stars, filling the night with silvery radiance despite the dim crescent moon. The scent of the nearby forest is on the night air, drifting on a cool breeze that cuts the humidity. Its treetops wave over Yi City’s walls, the leaves rustling.

Slowly he walks around the courtyard, one hand on the wall, enjoying the feel of the rough warm stone sliding past under his fingertips, the soft smooth weeds in the cracks. He still feels surprisingly strong, surprisingly alive.

He’s almost all the way around the courtyard when he’s stopped by a heap of orange fur at his feet.

A dead fox, lying huddled against the wall, surrounded by a cloud of blowflies. Fungus is growing along the fox’s ribs, white in the shadowy gloom, and the air is heavy with the carcass’s sweet scent.

Xiao Xingchen stands there for a long time, watching the insects feed, swarming black on the bright red fur. Maggots writhe in the creature’s eyes and nose and mouth, white on the brownish-pinkish flesh. The buzzing should be growing quieter as the flies settle down for the night but instead it grows louder, filling his ears, vibrating through him.

That should be me.

The thought cuts through the overwhelming buzzing.

He does not belong here.

He closes his eyes against the stars, the moon, the trees, the dead fox, but can’t shut out the sickening certainty swelling in his chest:

I do not belong here...

No. You were brought back for a purpose.

A second chance....

He turns and goes back inside. The Coffin House is manageable, at least. Contained. Almost like the tomb he should be filling…

He spends the night dozing in a chair beside the bed. Xue Yang doesn’t move at all, lying all night in the exact same position Xiao Xingchen had set him in.

Xiao Xingchen makes him tea and congee the next morning.

“There’s honey in the cabinet,” says Xue Yang. He’s very white, hands shaking as he accepts the bowl of congee.

Xiao Xingchen ignores him. Half of him wants to dump the tea in Xue Yang’s lap. As if sensing this, Xue Yang eats the bland rice without another word.

“Thank you,” he says as Xiao Xingchen takes the empty bowl, and immediately falls asleep.

Xiao Xingchen sits and watches him.

Xue Yang looks young—no more than eighteen or nineteen, though he knows he must be in his late twenties. He’s lost the baby-faced roundness Xiao Xingchen remembers, his cheekbones and jawline sharp, but there’s still a softness to his face, an innocence.

Innocence!

He gets up and leaves the house before he can do something he’ll regret. Spends the day sitting beside the dead fox. The sweet smell is even stronger today, and he thinks the little white mushrooms have grown larger, nourished by the fox.

Useful, even in death.

He too can be useful. Will be useful. As soon as Xue Yang is stronger, they’ll go on a night-hunt—help people, save people—

Just as we used to.

He shoves the words away, but the memories remain.

The countless night-hunts, Xue Yang keeping up a steady stream of jokes and chatter. The thrill of the hunt itself. Xue Yang praising his technique. A hand on his arm, a thumb wiping the blood from his cheek…

Human blood, some of the time. The blood of the villagers he’d—he’d—

“I regret all that too.”

Regret all that. As if that would bring them back to life, wash the blood from his hands—

Balling his hands into fists, he heads into the house.

Xue Yang is sitting on the floor beside the bed, struggling to rise. “Where were you?” he mumbles. “I called for you, but you weren’t here...”

Xiao Xingchen helps him back into bed.

Xue Yang smiles up at him blearily. “I knew you’d come back.”

Xingchen swallows. “Where is all the poetry you transcribed for me?”

“You remember." Xue Yang smiles again, eyes slightly sharper. "It’s in the chest in the corner.”

Xingchen spreads the sheets of paper out over the table. “What language is this?”

Xue Yang sits up. “Oh, I f—it’s my own. I…”

Xingchen holds the paper close to his face, vision blurrier than it was yesterday. The page is covered in thin, uniform marks. “This reminds me of Nushu letters.”

“I made it up. I can read it to you, and you can write it out properly—”

“How many characters do you know?”

Xue Yang picks at the blanket. Xingchen can’t tell if he’s brooding or embarrassed. “I don’t know. Maybe five hundred. Why does it matter?”

“Who taught you?”

“I taught myself. Like everything else.” He lies back down and closes his eyes.

Xingchen looks over the poems. He wonders how old Xue Yang was when he developed his own writing system, and when he had taught himself the few characters he did know.

He glances back at Xue Yang, squinting slightly. There’s a fresh bruise on Xue Yang’s forehead where he hit his head falling out of bed, and his breathing is shallow.

Xingchen digs the heels of his palms into his eyes.

He can’t do this.

Can’t keep up sustained hatred for someone so—so pathetic. All his natural compassion is roused by the sight of someone in need, even someone like Xue Yang.

“I called for you, but you weren’t here...”

Xiao Xingchen goes to sit beside the bed again. If only Xue Yang were to yell at him, sneer, spit venom again—

But instead Xue Yang opens his eyes, one trembling white hand reaching up to brush Xingchen’s face.

“Don’t leave me again,” he whispers, and Xiao Xingchen thinks he might have strangled him then and there had his life not been bound to his, smother the source of his shameful weakness and pity.

Pity. That was the word. Pity as one would have for a wounded animal.

A wounded animal. That was what Xue Yang was, had always been. A scared, wounded animal, lashing out—

Scared. As if Xue Yang were ever scared!

The sound of Xue Yang’s voice returns to him: " But the man was so irritated at the sound of his crying, that he snatched the driver’s whip and lashed the child’s face, knocking him to the ground. Then the wheels of the carriage rolled over the child’s hand, one finger at a time. He was seven! The bones of his left were completely crushed, while one finger was milled into battered flesh on the spot!"

Not a scared animal. A scared child, lashing out.

He almost laughs aloud at the thought. Millions of people have been scared children. How many of them had Xue Yang’s body count? How many had made him kill his partner? How many of them had dragged him into their twisted revenge scheme?

He closes his eyes. It all seems like a past life, faded and blurred and impossible to touch.

It was a past life.

“Daozhang?” Xue Yang’s voice is soft. “You don’t have to sit up all night…”

Xingchen opens his eyes. “I’m fine.”

A wide smile curls Xue Yang’s pale lips. Xiao Xingchen still doesn’t know if he’s always this expressive, or if he’s forgotten that he can be seen now.

The night grows colder as it goes on. The chill creeps over Xiao Xingchen's arms and legs, numbing his fingers. It’s very late when he crawls into bed beside Xue Yang, desperate for heat. Xue Yang is still cool, but he’s warmer than Xingchen. Half-awake, he slides his arms around Xingchen, pulling him to his chest.

“About time,” he mumbles.

It’s late when they both wake the next morning. Xiao Xingchen fixes his breakfast, adding the tiniest drizzle of honey to the congee.

“Don’t try getting out of bed on your own again,” he says, and steps out into the courtyard to go sit beside the fox.

The mushrooms are definitely larger today. He sits there until mid afternoon, transfixed, allowing the flies to land on his eyes and lips, then rises and brings Xue Yang water and more rice.

“I brought you ink and brushes and paper a few weeks ago,” Xue Yang tells him as he eats. “You don’t need me to write for you anymore, so…” He keeps his eyes focused on his bowl. Xingchen still can’t reconcile this soft, almost bashful Xue Yang with the one he remembers. “And I found you a flute.”

That catches Xingchen’s attention. “A flute?”

“A dizi. I was going to give it to you later.” He points at a long thin box on a shelf. “If you want.”

“You can give it to me yourself.” Xiao Xingchen gathers the writing materials and heads out into the courtyard.

He spends the day sketching the fox. Page after page of the dead fox in various stages of decomposition: ribs rising from the red fur, bones bleached white in the sun. Flesh bloated, pink skin slit, inky black liquid leaking from its nose, the greasy liquid glistening with iridescent fly wings. Rice-like maggots, wriggling in the red, sun-baked flesh, slowly consuming the dead fox: nourished, strengthened. Dozens of mushrooms, red, brown, yellow, clustered thickly on the animal’s haunches, drawing life from the corpse. The carcass covered by moss, inlaid thickly with flowers, entwined with delicate green vines.

Flies land on his hands as he sketches. They’re beautiful, in their way, wings tiny glass slivers of rainbow, legs long and elegant.

And slightly blurred, just as the poems had been last night.

He returns to the house as the sun sets, dusting the grim gray courtyard with rose-tinted light. He fixes a meal for Xue Yang as usual, but as he hands Xue Yang the bowl, it slips from his hands, spilling on the table.

“I apologize. I’ll get you some more—”

“It’s fine.” Xue Yang scoops the rice back into the bowl. “Maybe you should lie down, daozhang. You’re looking…” He tilts his head. “I don’t know. Kind of…hazy.”

The entire room is hazy. Xiao Xingchen closes his eyes against it. If he can’t see the furniture’s soft edges, the growing shadows, then his weakening vision could simply be his imagination…

A hand at his elbow, guiding him into bed. A soft kiss on his forehead. “You’ll feel better in the morning, daozhang…” Another kiss. “Do you smell that?”

“Was sitting with a dead fox,” he mumbles.

“A dead fox?” Xue Yang nuzzles his jaw, laughing. “You’re more like a dove or crane or something like that than a vulture, I’d say.”

“It’s beautiful,” Xiao Xingchen says, or thinks, he says, and drifts off.

Xiao Xingchen feels better in the morning. His thoughts are… smoother , is the word that comes to mind, though he knows it’s not quite right. Unruffled by concerns about Xue Yang, of the people they’ve killed, of Song Lan, of A-Qing. Mechanically he fills a bowl with congee and honey, being careful not to drop it, and sits on the edge of the bed as Xue Yang eats.

“—go night-hunting, I think, I’m feeling much better. There must be some monster or something out there for us to kill. I want to watch you fight again; we’ll have to find you something—”

His voice fades, blends in with the buzzing Xiao Xingchen imagines he can hear. Buzzing, swarming, the song of hundreds, thousands of blowflies and beetles—

He picks up Xue Yang’s bowl. It slips from his hands, landing on the floor.

He stands there, staring down at the bowl, then looks at his hands. They’re hazy, ghostly white shapes in the darkness. It’s morning, with bright yellow light pouring through the windows, but the beams are frozen, failing to illuminate the dark room, sharp yellow blocks in the blackness.

“Daozhang?—”

“I’m fine.” His tongue feels thick, swollen, and he can barely form the words around it. “I’m fine…”

He manages to drift to the table. Sits there for a few hours, one hand resting on the table, the other on a sheet of paper, not moving.

A voice behind him, laced with concern. “Come back to bed, daozhang…”

“I’m fine,” he says, or tries to say, but his tongue flops uselessly between his teeth.

Pressure around him. A distant sensation of being lifted. A pricking in his mouth, something being squeezed out of his tongue. “You’ll be better soon.” Heat at his lips, between his legs. “Just hang in there, daozhang. You took care of me, let me take care of you—” A green and white shape above him. More pressure, inside him this time.

Movement. Fullness, expansion, something building—

He hadn’t realized how dim the golden light in his chest had become until it bursts back into full radiance, and suddenly the green and white shape sharpens into Xue Yang, straddling his legs, rocking forward into him. A faint blue light glows through the robe covering his chest, illuminating his anxious face.

“I’m fine,” Xingchen mumbles.

“Daozhang!” Xue Yang pulls out. “How do you feel?”

Xiao Xingchen blinks slowly. “Better.”

Xue Yang rolls off of him. “You have to be more careful! If you were to fade away entirely, I don’t know that I could bring you…I’d have to bring you back again, and that was a real pain.” Xue Yang scoots down the bed, hands sliding along Xiao Xingchen’s hips. “Now, to take some of your tainted yin,” he says. The anxious look is gone, replaced by a teasing one. “How about it?”

“You don’t have to—”

Xue Yang moves Xiao Xingchen’s robes aside, running a finger along the side of his cock. “Would you prefer to drink my blood, then? Try to dilute it with fresh yin?” He laughs aloud at Xingchen’s wince. “Let's try this first. You make the best faces, and now that I can see all of your face…” He grins at Xiao Xingchen, then closes his mouth over his cock, sliding his tongue along the sides, sucking hard on the tip.

Xiao Xingchen closes his eyes and tries to hold back his climax. He feels more alive than he has in almost two days, fully awake. He digs his fingers into Xue Yang’s hair, nails scraping his scalp, twisting hard enough to hurt. Xue Yang’s hands wander, ghosting over Xiao Xingchen’s hip bones, running between his legs, over his abdomen, along his waist, tracing the faint purple veins winding through Xingchen’s pale skin.

Xiao Xingchen gives in to the sensation, the warmth. He can live like this, he thinks, if only this one moment went on forever. Can live with Xue Yang suckling at his cock, warming his cold skin, sucking the poison from his body.

Xue Yang takes him deeper, gagging slightly, and Xingchen comes, filling Xue Yang’s mouth with blood. He pulls off of Xiao Xingchen with a sloppy wet sound, gulping down the yin-laden cum, cleaning Xingchen with his tongue.

“It doesn’t taste like blood alone,” says Xue Yang, licking his lips. “Interesting.”

Xiao Xingchen stretches, savoring the return of sensation to his limbs, the softness of the sheets against his bare skin. “I’m sorry.”

“No, no! I like it.” Xue Yang settles down on Xiao Xingchen’s chest, a leg wrapped around him, a hand playing with Xingchen’s hair. A slight tingle where their chest sigils touch, a humming. “We ought to bath you tomorrow,” he murmurs. “That dead fox is potent.”

He falls asleep like that, a gentle weight on Xiao Xingchen’s chest. Xiao Xingchen focuses on his comforting weight, his warmth, his heartbeat. Xue Yang is the most vibrantly alive person he’s ever met, and now it’s as if a fraction of that vivacity has entered Xiao Xingchen, seeping through his skin where it purrs against his.

Xue Yang makes breakfast the next morning. He sets a bowl down in front of Xiao Xingchen but doesn’t press him to so much as pick up the chopsticks, and he empties his bowl back into the pot without a word.

“So, I got you this,” Xue Yang says after he’s finished washing up. He sets a long silk-wrapped object down on the table with an overly casual shrug. “I thought you might want it.”

It’s the flute he’d mentioned before, a green jade dizi inlaid with ebony.

Xingchen runs his fingertips over the smooth jade and looks up at Xue Yang. He’s sitting across from him, eyes bright, grinning, unable to contain his excitement anymore. “This must have cost a fortune. Where did you get this?”

“Does that really matter?”

“Xue Y…Chengmei…if we’re going to—” He stops. “I need you. But if you’re going to keep—keep doing things as you’ve done them, then my keeping you here just to stay alive would be selfish, and…” He trails off, repressing a regretful wince. He hopes his words had been jumbled enough for Xue Yang to not understand what he was saying, but Xue Yang’s smile disappears.

“So the only reason you’re here with me is because you need me to fuck life into you,” Xue Yang says blutly, “and if I kill people, then you’ll kill me in my sleep.”

“No!” Xiao Xingchen feels his cheeks get hot for the first time since his return. “No! I….” He trails off again. What had he meant, if not that?

There’s no expression at all on Xue Yang’s face. A first. “I know you would do it. You did it once before.”

Xiao Xingchen runs a thumb over the flute, letting it catch on the holes, focusing on the feel of the jade. His heart is pounding, and he feels almost faint.

He welcomes the distress, as he would welcome any strong emotion after spending so long in that deadening malaise.

Then welcomes the irritation. Why should he feel upset? Xue Yang deserves far worse than a painless death—

He realizes Xue Yang is waiting for a response to his last jab. Xue Yang’s cheeks are as pink as his bloodlessness will allow, mobile mouth rigid, eyes hard.

“Can you blame me?” Xiao Xingchen asks.

Xue Yang laughs, mouth relaxing, but his eyes have no light in them.

“You didn’t even give me a chance to explain,” he says.

“Explain? You—” Xiao Xingchen stops. He’s fully dizzy now, the room swaying back and forth, Xue Yang’s face the only stable thing in the room.

He tips his head back, looking up at the ceiling, trying to stabilize himself. “It doesn’t matter, not anymore…”

Xue Yang shoves his chair back and leaves the house.

Xiao Xingchen picks up the flute with shaking hands. His mind is oddly empty, given what had just passed between them. A part of him wants to go after Xue Yang, but what is he supposed to say?

Tell him that he wants to be here with him? A lie.

Tell him that he forgives him? Another lie. He’s not sure Xue Yang even realizes he had done anything wrong.

He begins to play the flute.

He plays for hours, till his fingers grow stiff and his lips ache.

He thinks of Baoshan Sanren as he plays. The years spent teaching him the proper fingerings and breath. What would Shifu say, to see him like this? Reduced to—to—

Xue Yang’s mouth on his…Xue Yang, pressed to his chest. Xue Yang, nuzzling the sensitive skin between his legs…

What would she want? For Xingchen to kill himself again?

He sets down the flute. Perhaps Xue Yang had only stolen it. Perhaps he hadn't murdered the owner…

He wants to leave the Coffin House, but is afraid Xue Yang is sitting on the stairs.

Instead he goes to bed. He sleeps fitfully, waking before dawn.

The Coffin House is empty.

He picks up his flute, tries to play it, but his fingers won’t respond, fumbling over holes they can barely feel. Feeling vaguely sick, he heads out into the courtyard, lit by dawn’s soft pink light. Walks around the back, looking for the dead fox, half-tripping over nothing, legs heavy and clumsy.

The fox is gone. A greasy black stain and trail of ants are all that remain.

He stands there for what seems like hours, then looks up. Xue Yang is standing behind him, arms crossed, eyes dark.

“Miss your little friend?” he asks.

“What did you do with it?”

Xue Yang sneers. “Tossed it over the wall. It was disgusting.”

Xiao Xingchen returns to the house, takes out Shuanghua, and flies out over the wall, drawing on his weak golden core for the first time. The fox is lying in a heap of rotting meat and splattered intestine, red fur vivid against the brownish-greenish weeds.

Not quite vivid. Everything is… dull.

Xiao Xingchen gathers the fox and buries it under a larch tree.

He likes it here. He’s always been drawn to nature. It reminds him of the mountain he grew up on, his happy days traveling with Song Lan…

He looks up at the leaves. It’s been so long since he’s seen a tree up-close. Dusty yellowish-green leaves, but they’re alive, the trunks strong and slender, the tall grasses stirring in the fresh morning breeze.

A glimpse of black among the green. Xue Yang, sitting on top of the wall, looking down at him, backlit by a pale blue sky still streaked with the last gold fingers of dawn.

Xingchen turns and walks deeper into the forest.

A swishing sound, and Xue Yang flies down behind him. “Care that much about a dead animal?”

“It was a living thing.”

“And what were you going to do with my corpse after you disemboweled me? Dump it in a ditch?”

Xingchen turns, eyeing Xue Yang evenly. His emotions have died down to a mere whisper, any intensity long since faded. Xue Yang’s eyes are correspondingly blank, but more like a cat’s eyes seconds before it pounces than one truly devoid of emotion.

“I stabbed you in the stomach,” Xingchen says coldly, “and you tricked me into killing the people I’d pledged myself to protect and pushed me to suicide. Which do you think is worse?"”

Xue Yang takes a step towards him. Xiao Xingchen refuses to step backward. Xue Yang is too close now, but neither of them move.

“You would have dumped me in a ditch,” says Xue Yang, too calmly, “but I spent years bringing you back, even after all those things you said to me.”

“You mean the truth?”

Xue Yang’s pupils swell to fill his irises, two inky black pits in his face. “ I didn’t steal your eyes and abandon you. I stayed with you.”

Xiao Xingchen knows he should be furious at this oblique reference to Song Lan, rage at Xue Yang for daring to compare himself to him, but it’s hard to feel more than a flicker of irritation.

And the terrible, fleeting thought that Xue Yang had stood by him. That their fight had been worse than the one he had with Song Lan—just as bad, at the very least—and yet—

Zichen was right to leave you, he reminds himself. And then, He left you because of Xue Yang…

I wonder why he came to Yi City.

"Song Lan was not looking for you," says Xue Yang. "He came here tracking a ghost."

Xingchen closes his eyes. “The past doesn’t matter,” he says, getting the words out with difficultly. “I need you now.”

Xue Yang is standing very still. “And if you didn’t?”

“What does it matter?” Xiao Xingchen begins to drift toward the nearby stream they used to bathe in. Perhaps if he stands in the water, the cold rush might wake him—

Xue Yang grips his arm. “Then yell, or fight, or stab me, or something— ”

Xiao Xingchen pulls away and heads for the stream. He slips off his shoes and stands barefoot on the muddy bank, watching the burbling white water gush over the rocks and squeezing the mud between his toes, then slowly gets down and trails his fingers in the water. It’s as if he’s wearing a glove, touching it but not fully feeling it, just as he had felt while talking to Xue Yang—

It’s nice, though. Cool, soft, if not enough.

Xue Yang appears on the opposite bank, that strange, un-Xue-Yang-like stillness still clinging to him. Xingchen wishes he cared enough to spark that stillness into a rage, stir Xue Yang’s slumbering temper, but the numbness is growing.

“I liked it better when you were stabbing me in the stomach,” says Xue Yang bitterly.

Xiao Xingchen steps into the water. The water swirls around his ankles, wet hem clinging to him. He knows the pebbles in the streambed should hurt, but all he feels is faint pressure on his bare feet, as if the pebbles are covered by a thick blanket.

Xue Yang grabs his arm again, roughly this time. “Just say something , dammit!”

Xingchen only half-feels his fingers, and can't feel his warmth at all.

"What do you want me to say? Just tell me!"

Xiao Xingchen leans forward and kisses him.

Xue Yang melts into it, one finger hooked into the collar of Xingchen’s robe, stepping into the water. “So—”

Xiao Xingchen shuts him up by filling his mouth with his tongue, swallowing his heat. It’s not a gentle kiss, but Xue Yang swallows it down. Somehow they end up in the water, Xue Yang on his back, the water burbling around his face.

He pulls Xiao Xingchen’s face down to his as Xingchen fumbles between his legs. There’s no oil, and Xue Yang winces as he enters him, but Xiao Xingchen is not gentle. He's barely thinking, acting more on instinct than anything, consumed by a sudden desperation to feel fully again, feel like he did yesterday, feel the holes in the flute, be able to hold a brush, be able to rage properly at Xue Yang—

He enters begins to move, hard and fast. The stream grows cooler and wetter as the sigils on their chests glow brighter, sensation flowing back into him.

“I can’t—” Xue Yang’s voice is a sputtering choke. “I can’t bre—” His face is half underwater, and he gasps and spits water as Xiao Xingchen thrusts into him. He claws at Xiao Xingchen’s arms but doesn’t push him off. Xiao Xingchen ignores his spluttering, thrusting another few times, rough and deep, overwhelmed by the sudden rush of heat and friction and pleasure, and cums inside him. The gold light in his chest shines brighter, not as vividly as when Xue Yang gives him his own life force, but he feels like himself again.

Xingchen pulls out, and Xue Yang sits up with a wet gasp, coughing up water. His eyes are red, face bluish. He draws in a rasping, wheezing gasp and spits more water.

“Take some blood,” he chokes.

Xiao Xingchen is already unraveling the bandage from his neck, scraping the scab off with his teeth, sucking at the bite marks. He drinks until the world around him bursts into full color, till he can feel the breeze and hear the birds in the trees.

“Better?”

Xingchen lies down flat in the water, relishing the coolness playing over his limbs, the sunlight on his face, the sharp pebbles against his arms and legs. It’s hotter than he thought, the sun baking the countryside even at this hour, and he absorbs the heat like a lizard on a rock.

“Better?” Xue Yang asks again. He’s pale, neck still bleeding, but his eyes are human again, warm and anxious and just a little too intense. “I can give you more.”

Xiao Xingchen closes his eyes. “And die in the process.”

“Right, wouldn't want my dead body poisoning the water supply.”

Xingchen wants to laugh suddenly. He's not sure where this sudden mix of joy is coming from, but it's mixed with a potent dose of bitterness and disqueit that keep the laugh from escaping. “Drag you onto the bank, let you feed the plants…”

He can almost hear Xue Yang stiffen. “Really?”

“Of course not.” Xiao Xingchen reaches up, dribbles water over his face, savoring the sensation. “I would bury you.”

“Sprinkle dirt over the ditch?”

“Properly.”

“How generous,” Xue Yang says sarcastically, but when Xiao Xingchen opens his eyes Xue Yang is staring at him, eyes now far too intense.

Xue Yang quickly looks away. “What would you put on the headstone?” he asks, too sarcastically to be sincere about the cynicism.

Xingchen closes his eyes again, takes a moment to relish the emotions Xue Yang stirs up, now that he can feel them. The pity, the frustration, the hate.

And the embers of lust. Guilt. Disgust. And…

Not all of the disgust is for Xue Yang.

He, too, is disgusting.

Xue Yang is sitting up, clearing his throat, trying to get the last of the water out of his lungs. Blood runs down his throat, dripping into the water.

Xiao Xingchen winces.

“Sprinkle dirt over the ditch?”...

And suddenly pity is overwhelming the other emotions.

His hand creeps over the rocky pebbles, finding Xue Yang’s fingers. His bad hand, the glove soaked through. He slips his fingers under the hand, touching the scarred skin of his palm.

“Thank you,” he says. “I don’t know if I truly need the blood, but it helps.”

Xue Yang looks away.

Xiao Xingchen sits up and ties Xue Yang’s bandage back on.

“Can’t risk infection,” says Xue Yang, “or my bleeding out, can we. Though I suppose you can always fuck my corpse.”

“Let me fix your hair for you,” says Xiao Xingchen, wincing again. Like I used to.

“It’s wet.”

“After you bathe.”

Xue Yang puts his arms around his legs, resting his chin on his knees. “ You’re the one who smells like a dead fox.”

Xiao Xingchen swallows. “I want to leave the Coffin House.”

Xue Yang tips his head towards him. He simply looks tired now, and very pale. As if something more than the blood has been taken out of him—not taken out of him. Put into him. Slowly poisoning him, like a corpse fouling a stream…

“Why?” Xue Yang asks after too long a pause.

“I think it would be better for us.”

Xue Yang reaches his good hand down, cups it in the water, drinks, picks up a pebble, and fiddles with his hair, before asking, with exquisite casualness, “Us?”

“I’m not going to leave you behind.”

He knows Xue Yang wants to open that wound again —“Because you need me to survive?”— but all Xue Yang says is, “I’ll go buy supplies.”

“I’ll come with you.”

Xue Yang rises, shaking his head. “I’ll go alone.”

“I can help—”

“It doesn’t take two people to hold a basket.”

Xiao Xingchen remembers when "Chengmei" would have done anything to cajole him into coming with him, or make up increasingly ridiculous excuses to tag along with him, but he lets him go.

Xue Yang returns in the evening with the supplies, whistling off-key and swinging a basket from each hand.

“Want some fruit?—oh, right, you don’t eat.” He tosses a candied nut in the air, catches it on his tongue. "Too bad."

Xiao Xingchen wonders if he’s drawing attention to his mouth on purpose. No point, really. It’s not as if Xingchen has a choice about sleeping with him.

Xue Yang grins at him. “How do you feel?”

“Fine.”

Xue Yang sets the basket down on the table and begins packing the food away in oilskins Xingchen holds open for him. “Play the flute again?”

Xiao Xingchen reflexively flexes his fingers. He looks down at them, long and pale and tingling slightly, though they’re no longer numb. “No.”

“Just sit there thinking about how long you can go without being forced to fuck me, then?”

Xingchen looks up. “Don’t say it like that!”

Xue Yang pouts facetiously. “ ‘Make love’?”

Xingchen rubs his temples. His wrist smells sweet where it brushes his nose. “Call it what you like.”

Xue Yang frowns. Xiao Xingchen suspects he had been half-hoping for another fight, perhaps ending in bed.

“You telling me it’s suddenly alright to lie, then?” Xue Yang asks, still goading him, but Xingchen is suddenly too tired for these games. Irritated, he lies down, leaving the packing to Xue Yang.

From beneath lowered lids he watches Xue Yang. Xue Yang picks up the flute, then stops. Sniffs the finger holes. Glances at Xiao Xingchen. Hesitates, then wraps it in silk and inserts it in the qiankun pouch.

It’s late when he crawls into bed beside Xiao Xingchen, almost as if he were waiting until he was certain Xingchen was asleep. And yet he rocks the bed slightly, presses the mattress hard enough for it to dip, drops his hairpiece, curses when he bangs his knee on the bed frame, the first time Xiao Xingchen can ever remember him being so clumsy. He pulls at the blanket as he settles in beside him, making sure it runs over Xingchen’s shoulder.

“You’re awake?” Xue Yang whispers in feigned surprise when Xingchen grips the blanket.

“Get some rest. We should leave early.”

“Doesn’t really matter when we leave...” Xue Yang stares up at the ceiling. “I’ve lived here longer than I’ve lived anywhere else.”

“We have to leave early if we want to make sure we have time to travel to a decent town.”

“Nine years.”

“Neither of us are strong enough to fly distances, and once it gets dark…”

“Where are we going?”

“Wherever people need help.”

“Why?”

Xiao Xingchen presses his lips together. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

“You couldn’t—” He stops. “You’ll learn.”

“To what? Save the world?”

Xiao Xingchen turns over on his side.

“Daozhang?”

Xingchen doesn’t respond.

Xue Yang touches his back. “How do you feel?”

“You don’t have to keep asking me that.” Xingchen wishes he had continued pretending to sleep. Save the world. Just as he and Song Lan had always discussed.

The snick of Shuanghua’s blade through his chest—

“You don’t sound so good. Here, let me—” Xue Yang slides a hand over Xingchen’s waist, grazing his hip bones, brushing the back of his neck with his lips, and Xingchen shoves his hand away with more force than intended.

“I said I was fine!” he snaps. He turns to look at Xue Yang. He suddenly feels like picking that fight Xue Yang was so intent on earlier. “Can’t we have a simple conversation without your hands all over me?”

Xue Yang pulls back. “You didn’t want to talk.”

“Well, what did you want to say?”

“Nothing.” Xue Yang rolls over. “Have to be well rested for tomorrow and all, right?”

The conversation is obviously over. Xingchen feels strangely dissatisfied. He tries to think of something else, something to spark the fight, fan the embers, but he has little practice being nasty and can’t think of anything on the spur of the moment.

Xue Yang moves slightly, rolling away from Xiao Xingchen, turning onto his stomach, and though he doesn’t understand why, another shameful rush of pity fills Xingchen.

“I’ve lived here longer than I’ve lived anywhere else. Nine years…”

Oh.

He glances at Xue Yang, but it’s too late to say anything now. He briefly considers offering to fix Xue Yang’s hair again, then banishes the thought as ridiculous. It will only get mussed. He’ll offer in the morning…

But Xue Yang is up before him in the morning, putting the last touches on their provisions.

It’s almost midmorning when Xiao Xingchen drags himself out of bed. His limbs are curiously heavy, fingertips and toes half numb, and when he washes his face with the water Xue Yang has placed beside the bed, he notices that same sweet smell clinging to his hands.

The same scent as the dead fox…

He finds Xue Yang pacing up and down before the Coffin House, eyes fixed on the sign above the door.

“We should just burn this place to the ground," Xue Yang says.

"Xue Yang, I—”

"We should get going," Xue Yang says and, without waiting for an answer, turns abruptly and heads towards the courtyard gate.

Xingchen follows him.

* * * *

Xiao Xingchen, rocking the "undead chic" look and bonding with bestie

Up next: "Blood," in which several murders are committed and Xiao Xingchen realizes that taming a murder gremlin requires more than mere good intentions. Also, Xue Yang gets to suggestively eat tanghulu

Enjoy? -> AO3!

#xue yang #xiao xingchen #mdzsnet #untameddaily #xuexiao #lotus writes #Consume Me Slowly #cw dead animal

17 notes · View notes

di-kut · 4 years

Text

Baar Bal Runi: Chapter Two

Series Masterlist

Pairing: The Mandalorian x Reader

Words: 4k

Summary: (Body Swap AU) You wake after a terrible few days on the mysterious green planet, disoriented and confused. At first you can’t make sense of what is happening, but when you do, reality is worse than what you could have imagined.

Rating: T (I believe?)

Tags: body swap, force sensitivity

A/N: Welp here it is. The moment we’ve all been waiting. This is just chaos and I make no apologies for it. Enjoy.

I’m trying to find a planet.

Pieces. Fragments. Jagged shards of memories and thoughts.

You feel like you’re being crushed.

I’m trying to find a planet.

Your head is throbbing, your back aches. One of your arms is beginning to tingle and you realise you are lying on it. It’s too hot. Too cold. All at once. There are storm troopers which patrol outside your window, you’re sure you see the flash of their helmet lights as they pass. A helmeted face looks down at you against a blue sky. There’s shooting nearby. Dust everywhere. The blinking lights of a control panel. The smell of rich spices. The chanting of a thousand voices.

Maker, your head hurts. Your bed feels strange, too hard, and the room is so dark even behind closed lids. Pieces slip and tumble, chase each other around in your mind. Memories which must be dreams, you realise. Faces of people you have never known. Places you have never been. The sounds of the other children in the bunks around you. The smell of melting metal. A man and a woman, their memory filled with fear and aching. The eyes of the kid. Hundreds of people, the dead piled at your feet. It’s hard to differentiate the ones which are real and the phantoms of a forgotten dream. You realise you aren’t in your bed on Coruscant at all. Or in your quarters Batuu.

Maybe you should try a map.

Slowly, painfully. Things sharpen. The fog, the giant trees; larger than the petrified ones on Batuu. The darkness, never ending. The taste of fear in the back of your throat like bile. These are solid, more real.

The planet I’m looking for isn’t on any map.

You jolt. The floor of the Razor Crest clangs beneath you. At first you think you must still be sick because the effort of trying to get off the ground is like fighting against the tide. And then you realise you are beneath something heavy. A crate in the hull must have fallen, you think dazedly. You can feel your left side throb, your ribs hurt like they’d taken a hit bad enough to break them. Your breathing is impossibly loud, echoing back at you, warm air condensing around your mouth.

You open your eyes, but your peripheries are blacked out, and what you can see is hazy, like looking at static. You taste panic again, not some confused memory, but real and tangible. You manage to swing an arm up above your head and you suddenly know there is no crate holding you against the ground. As the world starts to grow clearer you realise you aren’t in the hull anymore. You can see the back of the co-pilot chair, the blinking dials of the controls. The darkness outside the ship. Did the Mandalorian move you to the cockpit? He was sick too. A hazy memory, his voice in your ear, asking you for help. I can’t lift you. You’re awake enough to know the feeling of his lips brushing against your ear is an illusion you must have created later. But you can’t place the scene in the jumbled mess of the last two days. Everything feels like it is swimming right at the edge of your grasp.

You manage to roll over. “Kriff, what…”

Something is wrong with your voice, or maybe your ears. It comes out so deep, it reverberates around your head and chest and echoes. Almost familiar. You lift your hands to try and touch your ears, touch anything, ground yourself from the strange floating feeling of being separate to the world around you.

Gloves, you notice. The Mandalorian, he’s here. Your heart kicks up, until you realise it isn’t the Mandalorian’s hands reaching for you in the darkness of the cockpit, they’re your own. Wearing the Mandalorian’s gloves. And then your heart leaps into your mouth and you’re scrambling, the scraping sound of metal on metal, you slip, push yourself onto your hands and shuffle backwards. Something yanks at your neck and you swing, thinking someone has caught you by the collar, someone was here with you in the ship. But your hand closes around air and your head clangs hard against the wall of the cockpit. It rings, like a mallet on durasteel, but the sound is lighter, clearer. Except it’s all around you and your breath is fogging against your mouth and nose and you can see your peripheries but you’re wearing the Mandalorian’s helmet.

“Mando!” You yell, hoarse and thick and deep. If your stomach weren’t empty you would heave again, just like outside that Maker cursed cave. “Mando!”

You get up. You don’t know how. You don’t look – can’t look – at the gloves or the boots or the holster on your hip. It just doesn’t – your brain cuts out thought. You almost slip twice coming down the ladder to the hull. The gloves make you clumsy. The space feels too small, too tight. You slam your head on the way down, overestimating the height of the guard at the bottom. Part of you is glad for it, thinks it might wake you out of this nightmare.

The crib is in the corner, still sealed. The child is crying inside it. You wonder how long he’s been in there. How long you have been lying unconscious on the floor of the cockpit. In the corner, by the door, there’s another shape. You want to look away. Feel like you might vibrate out of your skin. Maybe you already have. You want to run, go back to the cockpit, close your eyes. Hope it all goes away. But you know it won’t. So instead you edge forward, shuffling your feet sideways. You find yourself with a hand outstretched, ready to repel some sort of attack. You aren’t sure if you expect it to come from the slumped body in the corner or somewhere else. Hysteria is beginning to tinge the edges of your thoughts.

You aren’t sure what makes you ask, exactly. It’s an impossibility but – the arms stretched in front of you are not yours, and ceiling was never this close before, and your footsteps never this heavy. And there is a body slumped in the corner of the hull, head to the floor where you had fallen getting back to the ship. You are close enough now to see the sickly pallor of her skin, the shallow breathing, the sunken eyes. The braid of her hair has come mostly undone. A braid you know, and braid you remember tying nights before. A face you know, although it looks different, not facing it in the mirror. Abstract somehow. And even though the question is impossible. You don’t know why you ask, but you do.

“M-Mando?”

It doesn’t move – she. She doesn’t move.

You inch closer, lean down. The knee pads you can now feel protect your knees from the worst of the hard flooring digging into you. The armour clangs as you move. You get close enough that you could touch her. You reach out, pull your arm back again. Your breath is fogging up the inside of the helmet. You can hear it in your ears and hissing through the modulator in the hull around you. Finally, you settle for a gentle nudge of the shoulder.

“Mando?” You ask. Your voice is deep. It crackles through the Modulator. “Mando?”

Suddenly her eyes are open. They stare blankly, misted with sleep, and then her face contorts into a snarl. Before you can get out of the way her hand strikes out, but its slow, groggy. Misses you completely. She shoves against your chest plate with her other hand. You try and grapple with her, grab her hands and stop her from hitting you, but you’re shaking too much to really stop her. She lets out a sound, something between a growl and a yell.

“Mando!” You yell, and it comes out too harsh. Too loud. You sound angry, threatening, but you realise it too late. The woman in front of you is already reacting. “No, wait – “

She swings hard. She doesn’t miss this time. Her hand hits the helmet with a splintering crack. You stumble backwards and get to your feet, dazed from the metallic ringing but otherwise unhurt. You almost trip on the cape around your shoulders. The woman is cradling her fist, the knuckles already beginning to swell and darken. But she doesn’t make a sound, she’s rolling, pushing herself up to stand. Her eyes slide across the room wildly until they land on the sealed crib. And then she looks back you. She looks almost feral now; lip curled, eyes wide. Still terribly silent. Quiet even when she had broken her hand on your helmet. She moves towards the crib, towards the weapons compartment you’d left open before you went out to search for the Mandalorian. You move back a couple of steps.

“Just…” You don’t know what you’re meant to say. How you’re meant to put the pieces together. Say out loud what you know. Staring down at your own face staring back at you.

“Who are you?” She asks. Her voice is grating in its familiarity and you wince.

“I…”

“What did you do?” She snarls. Her eyes dart to the crib and back to you. Listens to the baby crying in the silence of the ship. “What did you do to him?”

“Nothing! Nothing I swear by the Maker. Please, Mando, listen – “

“Who. Are. You.”

“I…” Nothing comes. Just blankness. Emptiness. It occurs to you that like this you probably don’t need to fear so much if the Mandalorian decides to settle this in a fight. This thought is chased quickly by the knowledge that he, she, would probably still win anyway. All the Beskar on you would amount to nothing anyway. “Mando, just trust me. Please. For – for five minutes.”

“No,” she, he, growls.

“Your son –!” And she stops the step he had been about to take, straight at you. “You’re looking for his home! For his people. They… they… you don’t know where they are, or who they are. We…” Your voice drops to almost a whisper. Watch his reaction. “We’ve been looking for them for months. After… After Batuu.”

He goes completely still. So still you think he might have gone into shock. And then he ducks, snatches something from the edge of the weapons compartment he can reach. He lifts it in his good hand, the blade catches the light along its sharpened edge. His broken fist curls over the spot on his thigh where his blaster should be. Where it’s strapped to your thigh. You stay rooted to the spot and try and lift your hands slowly as you can, palms forward. He looks like he’s gone over the other side of furious, tipped into an eerie calm. He’s going slow, off to the side, and you realise he’s cutting you off from the child. You start to shake your head and he tenses. You stop moving again.

His voice is so calm. The knife is Beskar, the same colour as the armour you wear. “If you have hurt either of them – “

You choke. “Mando, just stop! Stop! It’s me! Me! I don’t know what’s happening, okay? I can’t – I don’t – the cave, I can’t remember, I don’t know, just… but then I woke up in the cockpit, okay? I don’t get it either but something’s happened to us. We’re – we’re – “ You can’t get the words out. You swallow around them. “It’s me.”

“Where did you get that armour from?” He moves around, cages the crib with his body. The crying quietens. “Tion meg be’aliit gar? Tion gar gai?”

It takes several panicked moments for the change of language to filter through. He’s never spoken to you directly in Mando’a before, except – gotabor. You know it well enough from the soft sounds of him speaking to the child, swearing under his breath, muttering it as he works. It takes longer than it should to realise what’s happening. What he must be thinking.

“What?” You almost trip. “No! No, I’m not a Mandalorian! It’s me!”

His voice gets dark. You would never think your throat was capable of making such a threatening sound. “Ne shab’rud’niÖ.” He surges forward.

“You smell like lemon after you shower!”

He stops dead.

“You never talk to me, you just go straight back to your quarters, but you pass my bed from the ‘fresher and I… I always notice.” You aren’t sure how you manage to find the space in your chest to feel the burn of embarrassment, admitting that guarded secret to him as he is about to gut you. Somehow the hot feeling of shame creeps up your cheeks. But he isn’t moving, so, “The little guy, he… he sleeps better. When you’re gone, I mean. He sleeps better if he can smell it. So sometimes I give him the bottle while you’re away and I put it back before you… before you come ho – back. Before you come back.”

He stares at you like you’ve kicked him in the stomach. His calm, even face crumples into something like pain and he sucks in an uneven breath. Mutters a quiet word. “Me’ven?” You aren’t even sure you’re meant to hear it.

“You don’t like the sweet flavoured rations bars, but I do. And you always give them to me.” Your heart is beating so hard against your chest you think you can feel it against the Beskar. Head spinning. “It annoys you when I forget to switch off the extra lights before I go to bed, but you never say anything. I try, I promise I do, but I just… don’t like the dark. And – And – And you – “

“Stop.” Now he sounds like he’s been kicked in the stomach as well. “Stop!”

So, you do. You keep your hands up, wait for him to move. You see everything play out over his bare face. Your face. You watch the same realisations which had occurred to you as they happen to him. The confusion, anger, abject horror. He looks down at the hands which are now his, but used to be yours, and drops the knife to the floor with a clatter. You think for a moment he’s going to keel over, so you jump forward. It only makes it worse. He throws up a hand between your bodies, makes a raw sound in the back of his throat. For the first time you watch him notice that the voice coming out of his throat is wrong. That everything is wrong. He stares at his empty hands, one swollen and blooming purple. Down at your body which he us now inhabiting, and then looks up at you. You know very well what he sees, so used to the sight of your dark, blurred reflection staring back at you in the Beskar. Your stomach lurches at the feeling of yourself looking back at you, the body you should be in being worn by a different soul.

“How?”

You deflate. The helmet drops to your chest plate. You think you might fall over yourself. The Beskar is just so heavy. Your voice cracks. “I don’t… I don’t know.”

He stares at you, looking as sick as you feel. Then abruptly turns. He reaches for the controls on his armour, lets out a shuddering breath when they aren’t there, and ducks under the child’s crib to unlock the crib manually. He’s scooping the child out before its even fully opened, holding him up to his chest. The child grabs at his face and the collar of the jacket your body was still wearing, at the tangled mess of hair long since fallen out of its braid. You feel your legs buckle and manage to lower yourself onto a crate. The Mandalorian keeps his back to you, stares down at his son in his arms, making soft noises to the snuffling child. Your eyes are burning. Being knocked unconscious certainly didn’t make up for the three days before. You want nothing more than to curl up in your own bunk and close your eyes. Be somewhere that wasn’t here, stuck with the Mandalorian in his body, and him in yours. You want to say something, anything. Need to speak to him. But you have no words. All you can do is stare at the back of your own head.

“H-How long…” He stumbles with the words.

Yours hands are shaking. “I don’t know,” you whisper. You brace them against your helmet, try to hold yourself together. “I don’t know.”

“My armour – my helmet – “ But he cuts himself off. He turns finally, walks blindly until he finds a crate to sit on as well. The child turns his head towards you and makes a noise. You lift your head and smile at him and then it drops immediately. He can’t see you. The Mandalorian’s voice sounds strangled. “The Way.”

Of course, you think. The implications slam into you, close around your lungs. You have to wrap your arms around yourself to keep the sudden wave of distress at bay. A Mandalorian without his armour. He’s staring at you – not quite at you exactly. At a spot on his helmet. You can see the flurry behind his eyes, feel a flash of such distinct fear through your system which you know does not belong to you. It makes your shudder. The child shared his emotions with you willingly, but the Mandalorian was as impenetrable as his armour. But this – this was his. It makes you nauseous, the strength of it.

“Mando…” His eyes – your eyes – dart down to the visor. “I won’t take it off,” you offer quietly. “I know what it means to you. I – I promise.”

His face twists. “Does it matter? I’m not wearing it – I’m not – “

“I haven’t seen you. That’s the rules, right? I haven’t seen you. And – and I won’t. I’ll never look. I swear by the Maker, Mando, I won’t I’ll – “

“You have to eat. To sleep.”

“I don’t know, I can’t think, but I would never…” Yours hands are shaking so badly now its sending tremors up your arms. “Never do that. To you.”

“What does that matter?” He snaps. “W-What does any of that matter?”

There are tears burning the backs of your eyes. “What else do you want me to say?”

He clenches his jaw. Stares at you. You feel a hot tear slid down your face. The Mandalorian doesn’t say anything, just keeps staring. A myriad of emotions chase each other across his face. You want to apologise; you want him to apologise. You are just so tired. The panic bleeds away into numbness, bleeds out through your shaking hands. You stand, you might say something, but you can’t remember what it is. You must cross the hull to your bed, climb into it. You hear the Mandalorian moving but you can’t bring yourself to care. You don’t remember falling asleep. It’s dreamless.

Mando wakes you, forces you up to eat. The hull is in complete darkness all around you, only the flashing emergency light above the carbonite chamber still on. The blinking orange allows you to see ghosts of movement, the shape of your own body walking through the ship, so unsettling you feel as though you can’t hold on to the reality of it. Mando helps you take the helmet off in the darkness, his hands brush over the spot on your neck where your pulse throbs through the skin, around the edges of the Beskar. When it comes off its like coming up for air. He hands you rations bars and lets the child sit in your lap, cooing quietly. Tells you it had been too long since you had eaten.

“We’re moving today,” he says when you finish.

“Where?” Your voice is coarse from disuse, burns your throat on the way out. You wonder how long he let you sleep.

“Away from here.”

He helps you back into the helmet and leaves you. Climbs back into the cockpit and takes the child with him. The engine powers up not long after. The further you get from the planet’s surface the easier it is to breathe. The tight twisted lump which had become so permanent under your ribcage finally loosens, dissipates when the hyperdrive whirs to life and the Crest is swallowed in a tunnel of light.

The planet you land on is uninhabited as well. The surface is grey, and a continuous rocky plane in every direction. He powers the engine down again as soon as you touch down. A dead planet, home only to the three of you. The galaxy feels so quiet, quieter and more lonely than you have ever known it. The Mandalorian moves around in the tiny upper deck, you hear footsteps between the cockpit and the captain’s quarters. Some occasional metallic clanging and scrapping. Just above you and yet untouchable. Wearing your skin. Living in your body.

You know you are hiding from him. You cower in the hull, drift from your cot to the other side of the small space and back. Unable to face him. Unable to look at your own face looking back at you. The weight of the Beskar slowly becomes familiar, but never comfortable. You sleep often, never fully, always drifting in some in-between limbo. Mando reappears eventually, before you go to seek him out. He turns the lights out again and takes off the helmet and you eat in darkness. The third time you sit together in the blackness of the hull you hear him eat with you. A small tendril of relief works its way through you. The silence slowly eases into something – not companionable – but no longer harsh. It makes it better. Easier. In all the time you had known him never once had your relationship with the Mandalorian been a difficult one. The feeling of constant tension was a new one. Days slip by.

“We must be getting low,” you say. His voice without the helmet is different. It’s not deeper exactly but richer, fuller. Feels strange rumbling through your chest when you speak.

You can’t see him, but you can hear the rustling of his movement not far from you. “In what?”

“Everything.” You hold the bar you’re eating up and then remember he can’t see it. Drop you hand into your lap again. “Food. Fuel. How much water do we have left?”

He doesn’t say anything, and you sigh. Lean back against the wall behind your crate. The horrible question has lingered between you, unsaid for days, but always on the tip of your tongue. So, you talk around it. Barely. The Mandalorian tries not to talk at all and you wonder if he hates the sound of your voice coming from his mouth, if it disturbs him as much as it does you. You talk about the child, about the planet outside, and now about the inevitable need to restock and refuel the Crest. Don’t ask what you will do if whatever has been done to you is irreversible. Don’t talk about how to fix it.

“How long do we have before we need to leave?” You ask.

There’s rustling from his spot in the darkness. “A week. Maybe.”

“Where will we go?”

“Somewhere close. We don’t have enough to fuel to do another jump to hyperspace.”

You suck in a breath through your teeth. You hear Mando stand and move around the hull. He’s quicker on his feet now, getting used to moving through the darkness without his helmet. It makes you feel even more useless. You finish your paltry meal and pick up the helmet, suck in one last deep breath before you pull it back on. The weight of it on your neck and the pressure around your skull is immediate and suffocating. You have to close your eyes and count backwards from ten, clench your hands around the crate so tight it hurts. The light switches back on.

For the first time he doesn’t disappear straight away, doesn’t immediately clamber up the ladder and back to his own separate world. He stands in front of the control panel, arms folded across his chest. Stares at you, eyes finding yours through the visor. You stare back. The longer you do, the less the woman’s face across from you feels like yours. Mando is still wearing the jacket you were in the cave, the same boots and trousers. The braid had long come undone. He looks tired. Your eyes caught the wrapping of bandage around the purpling fingers of his right hand. You need to shower; you need to talk to him. Relieving yourself was a problem you tried to put off for as long as you could, dealt with it only when you had to. Everything feels like an awful invasion of privacy, even just living. You hate that you are taking something away from him, hate that he’s taking it away from you. Hate that for the first time since you’d met him you felt as though you were disconnected from him. You feel something shift, an opportunity maybe, rise between you.

He doesn’t say anything. Neither do you. The moment passes. The Mandalorian turns and climbs up the ladder and is gone.

Tion meg be’aliit gar? Which clan are you from?

Tion gar gai? Who are you?

Ne shab’rud’niÖ Lit: Don’t mess with me, extremely strong warning, usually followed by violence

Me’ven? Expression of disbelief (Huh?)

Gotabor Engineer

Tag List: @btillys @vercopaanir @sistasarah-sallysaidso @adikaofmandalore

#the mandalorian #the mandalorian x reader #reader insert #force sensitive reader #mandalorian fic #mandalorian imagine #din djarin imagine #din djarin x reader #self insert #body swap #Baar Bal Runi

403 notes · View notes

dp-marvel94 · 4 years

Text

The Mystery Shack Spooks- Part 5

For Holiday Truce 2020

Summary: Elle Fenton had hoped for a normal summer, a chance to make normal friends with people who know nothing about her crazy family, ghosts, or, most importantly, her status as a clone. But ghosts always seem to find her, even in Gravity Falls. Now the Mystery Shack is haunted by a unknown apparition with an unknown connection to Dipper and Mabel, and to Elle herself. The half ghost struggles to open up to her new friends and to find a way to help this lonely ghost.

Part 1 -> Part 2 -> Part 3 -> Part 4 -> Part 5 (Here)

Also on AO3 and fanfiction.net

Note: As I'm sure you can see, this story now has an actual title! Credit to MagicalEevee on AO3 for that. And so here's the last chapter! Enjoy and feel free to let me know what you think!

Again, Elle woke up to sunlight streaming through her window. She blinked up at the ceiling, remembering last night. Her conversation with Dipper, watching the boy and his clone’s reunion, talking to Danny on the phone. And Danny’s idea, using ectoplasm to help Tyrone. Tentatively, hope crept into her heart. Maybe, just maybe this could work. She just had to figure out where the other ghost was.

Sitting up, she called softly. “Tyrone?”

Again, her room was silent and bare as ever. Closing her eyes, she weakly reached out with her ghost sense. Sadly, she sensed nothing. Not too surprising though. Tracking a ghost once she’s sensed it was one thing. Reaching out to sensing another’s core when it was too far away or too weak was another.

Elle’s brow furrowed in thought; where exactly was the other ghost? Actually, where did he go when he wasn’t hanging around her? Or where would he have gone after hanging out with Dipper?

Suddenly, her core stirred in her chest. Cold air swirled in her lungs.

“Ty?” She questioned.

A moment later, a misty figure phased through the ceiling. Elle frowned, eyes falling on the other ghost. Again, his form was fuzzy and indistinct, blurring his facial features.

Tyrone tilted his head. His static voice formed a question that was probably ‘what?’

The half ghost’s shoulders fell. “I can't see your face now.” She sighed. “I guess Danny was right. The reason me and Dipper could actually see you yesterday was ‘cause it was your...deathday.”

The clone shifted nervously at the last word. Then he asked. “Da...nny?”

“Yeah.” Elle rubbed the back of her neck. “I talked to my brother about everything that happened yesterday. Ya know, figuring out who you are, telling the twins about my powers, Dipper finding out about you.” Her eyes lit up, remembering. “Oh, how did that go? You and him hanging out.”

Tyrone’s head popped up, his gaze fixing on her. He waved his hands, his voice tilted up in happiness.

The girl raised a brow. “So I guess it went well?”

The boy nodded his head enthusiastically.

“That’s good.” The corner of Elle’s mouth turned up but then she turned more serious. “I’m sorry about….” She motioned up and down the other ghost’s body. “But...the good thing is...Danny had an idea about how to help you stay solid.” Tyrone brightened, almost literally as the girl continued. “So I really should have thought of this earlier but...we were thinking ectoplasm.”

The ghost boy titled his head, questioningly.

“Here let me show you.” With that, the half ghost stood up and retrieved one of her bags. She pulled out a vial of glowing green liquid. “Basically...this is what ghosts are made of. We get energy from ectoplasm. Without it, we’ll get weaker and less solid….or at least regular ghosts do. I’m not sure about me. But anyway….” She held the vial out to him. “Do you want to try some?”

Tyrone floated forward, studying the vial. He shifted nervously, rubbing the back of his neck.

“It can’t hurt you.” Elle softly said, trying to guess why the boy was anxious.

The other ghost muttered something sheepishly; Elle could imagine him biting his lip.

The girl’s expression softened as she suggested. “Do you want me to go find Dipper and Mabel and see what they think? Wait...does Mabel even know that you're well...you?"

Tyrone shook his head.

“Oh…” Elle frowned. “We should probably tell her.”

The other ghost titled his head back and forth before nodding in agreement.

“Okay. How about I go get the two of them and-”

Just then, Mabel’s voice yelled up the stairs. “Elle! Come down to breakfast! There’s bacon!”

“And pancakes!” Shouted Dipper.

At the proclamation, the half ghost finally noticed the delicious scents drifting up the stairs. Her stomach growled in demand for food and she frowned down at it. “I should be getting down there. But…” She glanced back at Tyrone.

The boy waved her off. “Can wait.”

“Are you sure?” Elle bit her lip. He nodded and the half ghost took a breath. “Okay. I’ll go down stairs. We’ll have breakfast. Me and Dipper will tell Mabel about you. I’ll tell them the ectoplasm idea. Then we’ll come back upstairs.”

Tyrone nodded again and gave her a thumbs up.

With that, the girl headed for the door. “Hang tight. I’ll see you in a bit.”

With a wave which the other ghost returned, Elle exited the room. She walked down the hall towards the stairs. She’d just turned the corner to start descending when she almost ran into Dipper.

The boy stopped suddenly. “Oh, I was just coming to get you.”

Elle nodded. “Yeah, I’m coming.” Dipper turned around and they started down the stairs. The girl swallowed. “So...I was talking to Tyrone just now.”

The boy stopped, turning to face her again. “Tyrone? That’s...That really happened last night, didn’t it? He’s really back?” Though his eyes shone with happiness, he sounded like he could hardly believe it.

“It’s really him.” Elle confirmed.

Dipper shook his head. “Man….I half thought I just dreamed it but…..it’s really him.” He smiled.

“Yeah….and I think I have an idea to deal with his tangibility problem.”

The boy’s smile widened. “Really?!”

“Yep. I can tell you and your sister in a bit.”

“My sister?” Dipper blinked at her, suddenly startled.

“Yeah. Your sister. We need to tell Mabel. Ty wanted to, too.”

“He did?” He added, somewhat disbelievingly.

“I mean…he nodded when I asked about telling her.” Elle shrugged. “Actually talking’s still kinda hit or miss for him. But...my idea might help with that too.”

Dipper nodded soberly. “Okay. We can tell her. Come on.”

The pair continued down the stairs and into the kitchen. There they found Mabel pouring syrup on her pancakes.

“There you guys are.” Mabel smiled teasingly. “I was just about to eat all your pancakes.” She stuffed a heaping amount into her mouth and chewed.

Elle chuckled at the display. She grabbed her own plate and took a seat beside the other girl. As she grabbed a few pancakes, she asked. “Where are your Grunkles?”

Mabel shrugged. “Out somewhere. Grunkle Stan said to call his cell phone only if zombies attack the Shack again and Soos can’t handle it.”

That earned another laugh from the half ghost. Across from her, Dipper was not so jovial.

Mabel tilted her head. “What’s got you down, Dip-dip?”

The boy sighed. “Mabel...I’ve gotta tell you something, something I should have first thing this morning.”

At the serious tone, Elle frowned, a spike of guilt poking her heart.

Mabel also sobered. “What is it?”

Dipper swallowed. “Elle and I found out who the ghost haunting the Shack is and….” He trailed off.

Elle continued for him, taking a deep breath. “Mabel...it’s Tyrone.”

The girl’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean, it’s Tyrone?”

“It’s Tyrone.” Her brother said more confidently. “The ghost who’s been haunting the Shack is Tyrone.”

Mabel blinked in confusion. “Tyrone?....Your clone, Tyrone? But that’s...that’s impossible.”

“I know but...it’s him.” Dipper’s more serious expression started to crack. “I actually saw his face last night.”

The girl’s mouth fell open. “You saw him. Tyrone? Our Tyrone?”

Elle’s brow furrowed; our Tyrone? But she nodded eagerly. “I saw him yesterday too.”

“And I talked with him.” Dipper’s eyes lit up. “Or...as much as we could with body language and short phrases. But it’s really him, Mabel.”

His sister’s eyes continued to widen, her face frozen with shock. “Wow.” She whispered, excitement growing. “That’s amazing! He’s….he’s really alive?!”

Just like that, Dipper shut down. “No...He’s not...I mean...he is a ghost.”

“Oh.” Mabel looked down, face reddening with shame.

The twins’ eyes both focused down, expression heavy with sadness. It hurt Elle’s heart, to see them so subdued after Dipper’s happiness and Mabel’s growing excitement.

“You know….” Elle said kindly, trying to draw the twins out of their somber mood. “With ghosts…it’s not always as simple as dead or alive.”

Dipper frowned, eyes narrowing. “Because half ghosts are a thing?”

“Well yes but...” The halfa shrugged sheepishly. “That’s not the point. Ghosts are complicated. There are different kinds of ghosts. There’s some that are born ghosts from parents that are ghosts. There’s ghosts that just kinda spring out of the ectoplasm from emotions and thoughts and beliefs.” She swallowed. “And yeah, there are ghosts that were once living humans but...I’ve talked to some of those and….some would tell you becoming a ghost was a second chance for them. Yeah, they died and their life as a human ended but...they got to start a new life. They get to do and see things they couldn’t before. They get to find love or a family. They learn and grow and explore and...it’s not so bad.”

The boy’s nose wrinkled in thought. “Okay, I get that, I guess. But...where does Tyrone fit in all this?”

“Well...Ty never was human.” Elle said softly. “He didn’t get much of a chance to live before but...he’s here now and that’s what matters.”

For a moment, neither of the other teens responded, both studying the half ghost thoughtfully.

Then to Elle’s surprise, Mabel spoke first. “Yeah, that is what matters.” A smile crept onto her face. “I’m actually gonna meet this Tyrone that Dipper told us all about.”

“Yeah.” Elle nodded, also smiling.

“Yeah.” Dipper parroted, though a thoughtful look remained on his face. “Elle….” He bit his lip. “Where do you fit into all of this?”

The half ghost blinked. “What?”

“With ghosts I mean. You said there are different kinds and….yesterday you told us you weren’t dead so...where do you fit?”

The look on his face, the tone was innocently curious, not probing. But Elle’s stomach flopped with nerves all the same. Where did she fit? That was an impossible question.

Dipper apparently noticed her anxiety. “I’m sorry. That’s personal.” His face reddened with shame. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No.” Elle shook her head. “It’s...it is personal but….I’ll tell you guys.” She sighed. “I don’t really know where I fit with other ghosts. I’ve never died. Obviously, my parents aren’t ghosts. And…I didn’t just spontaneously appear one day. Well...maybe that last one’s not completely true.” She smiled wryly. “I did kinda randomly show up in Danny’s room one day.”

Across from her, Mabel actually snorted. But Dipper blinked at her confusedly. “What are you...?”

Elle’s smile fell, realizing how weird what she just said was and...where this conversation was inevitably going. She needed to tell them the rest of the truth….and she would. Elle wrung her hands nervously before squaring her shoulders and steeling herself. “I...I didn’t tell you everything yesterday. Actually, I left out something really important but...I decided last night, I’m gonna tell you guys ‘cause I trust you and I know you won’t think any less of me because of it.”

That sobered the other girl, who’s eyes widened. “Elle…”

The half ghost held up her hand. “Let me finish before I chicken out.” She took a deep breath. “So..I told you yesterday that I’m half ghost because someone experimented on me. And that’s technically true but...it’s less I was experimented on and more...I was an experiment.” The girl paused, taking in the twin’s deeply concerned and slightly disturbed expressions. And….she was likely to make it worse.

No...the girl chastised herself. What she’s said earlier was true; she trusted Dipper and Mabel.

“What do you mean, you were an experiment?” Dipper asked, quietly.

Elle swallowed, looking down. “I wasn’t...I wasn’t born like a normal human.” She painfully forced out the words. “I was….made in a lab.”

Pausing, the halfa looked up to to gauge the twin’s reactions. She found Mabel staring at her with wide eyes. Dipper opened and closed his mouth in disbelief. “You were...made in a lab?”

Elle nodded in confirmation. “The bad man I told you about….his name was Vlad...he...well...he wanted a half ghost lackey to boss around. He tried to get Danny to join him but he wasn’t having it. So Vlad decided he was...kinda going to... make his own halfa. He made a bunch of clones and I’m the only one who survived ...so” She trailed off.

Again, the twins stared at her in shock.

“Dipper? Mabel?” She asked quietly.

Dipper finally reacted. “But that’s…” He put a hand on his head. “That’s crazy. That’s...How would someone do that and...why?...You said why… But….”

Mabel swallowed, looking at the girl seriously. “You mentioned Danny, again. What does he have to do with this?”

Elle frowned. Of everything to pick up from her ramble, Mabel noticed that. And that….that was the question. Because she’d barely mentioned the big thing, the big secret. Bracing herself, the girl wrung her hands. “Danny….Danny’s the person I was cloned from.”

Dipper’s startled eyes suddenly met hers. “What?”

“I’m a clone. Danny’s clone.” She said with as much confidence as she could muster.

“You’re a clone?” The boy’s jaw dropped. “A clone? Really? You’re a clone?”

Elle shivered. “Yes...you can stop saying that word now.”

“What word?...Oh…” The boy blushed. “So you’re...you’re like Tyrone.”

“Pretty much. I mean…” The girl shrugged. “I came from weird ghost science, not a magical copier but...yeah, we’re not that different.”

At that, the boy nodded. Beside him, Mabel asked. “And the person you were...cloned...” She hesitated on the word clone for a moment before continuing. “from is Danny? The one you’ve talked about and you showed me a picture of?”

Elle nodded in response.

Then Dipper frowned, stating plainly. “You told us Danny was your brother.”

The half ghost crossed her arms, glaring seriously. “He is my brother.”

“But-” The boy started.

“Look.” Elle held up a hand, cutting him off. ”Yeah, I’m his clone and he’s my original. But that doesn’t mean we’re not siblings too. Actually…” She uncrossed her arms. “We’re siblings first..because we’ve chosen to be. That’s more important than where I came from or how we meet.”

Elle paused, letting her friends take in her honest words. She meant every one. While her origin did matter, she was not just a clone. She was a sister, a daughter, and a friend. Having a family, being a Fenton was vastly important to her, a vital part of who she was. And it was one that she’d chosen; she and Danny had chosen to call each other siblings instead of cousins. The Fenton parents had chosen to take her in and she had chosen to accept.

A deep thoughtful look crossed Dipper’s face at the words, his expression softening. She could almost see wheels turning in his head as he considered her words. And maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t just thinking about her but how this related to his own situation with a certain clone.

After a while, Mabel asked. “How did you and Danny meet?”

“Well...that’s an interesting story….” With that, Elle expanded on the story she told yesterday. She properly explained how she met Danny and how they escaped from Vlad together. Looking down, she talked about her time living on the streets and worst of all...the time she almost destabilized.

Mabel’s eyes widened. “Elle...that is horrible. I am so sorry.”

“It’s fine.” The other girl waved her off. “I’m okay now. Danny figured out how to stabilize me.”

“But..you almost melted.” Dipper covered his mouth, a haunted look in his eyes. “No wonder you were so upset about what happened to my clones.”

“Yeah.” Elle agreed numbly. “I uh...I know from experience. Melting’s horrible whether it’s happening to you or you’re watching it happen to someone else.” She shivered again at the statement, her mind momentarily drifting with what happened to her clone siblings. She wrung her hands. “Like I said, I wasn’t the only one. None of us were stable but...I’m the only one left.”

Mabel gave Elle a compassionate look while Dipper’s eyes flickered down. “And you saw….?”

“Yeah.” Elle swallowed. “I was there when all of them, all of my clone brothers,...died.”

The boy looked up, sorrowful but kind eyes meeting hers. “I know it doesn’t make it better but...I’m sorry that happened and...I’m sorry you had to see it.”

“Yeah.” The half ghost wrapped her arms around herself. “It still hurts sometimes but...all I can do is remember them, honor them, and...I guess, try to live since they didn’t get the chance tp.” She let a small smile crept onto her face. “I like to think they’d be proud of me, if they could see me now.”

“They would be.” Mabel said with conviction. “Your brothers would be so happy for you if they knew.”

Elle nodded, trying her best to believe. It still hurt, talking about all of this but...having Dipper and Mabel to listen was helping.

The half ghost continued explaining the journey that led her to living with the Fentons. “So Danny told Mom and Dad about his powers and introduced me. And now I live in Amity Park with them.” Elle’s story ended and she waited for Dipper and Mabel to respond. Despite their favorable reactions, her heart still fluttered with nerves. “So...what do you guys think?”

Dipper and Mabel both seemed to notice the uncertainty in her voice, based on the concerned looks they traded with each other.

Mabel addressed Elle first. “I think you’re really brave, after going through all that.” She gave the halfa a smile. “And I still think you’re really cool.”

Elle sighed. “Well that’s a relief.” She tried to sound casual, like it was a joke but her tone gave her lingering anxiety away.

Across from her, Dipper swallowed. He addressed her seriously.. “Elle...I remember what you said earlier. We don’t think any less of you, because you told us the truth.”

“Yeah.” Mabel shrugged. “You’re still you...even if there’s more to you than we thought. And you’re still our friend.”

“Really?” Elle asked hopefully.

“Of course.” The other girl said, like it was the most obvious thing.

Dipper nodded. “You’re our friend. And…” The boy bit his lip. “I’m happy you told us. I think I get more why you reacted to the Copier like you did.” He looked down. “Everything I told you, everything I did with the machine. It must sound really awful, considering….your origin.”

“Yeah….” The half ghost rubbed the back of her neck. “Anything about clones is a sore subject for me. And hearing everything that happened was...well...it was not fun.” She wrinkled her nose before her expression softened. “But...you’ve learned since then and I saw how you were with Tyrone.”

“Yeah, I have learned.” Dipper agreed, sounding more confident. “And thanks for helping me see. What you said about Tyrone not being just a copy...well...I already told you.”

Mabel looked at her brother curiously but didn’t comment on that. Instead she excitedly interjected. “Speaking of Tyrone...when do I get to meet him?”

“And what was that idea you had, to make it so everyone can see and hear him completely?” Dipper added.

Elle nodded. “So I was talking to my brother and he thought…..”

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

With that, the half ghost explained the plan she’s come up with as the trio finally finished their breakfast.

“Come on! Let’s go!” Mabel practically jumped out of her seat as soon as the rest of her pancakes were gone. “Come on!”

The trio headed up the stairs and to Elle’s room, where the girl opened the door with a flourish.

“Tyrone?” The halfa called.

A moment later, the ghost materialized, form as misty as before.

Mabel squinted at the ghost boy. “Is that him?”

“Yes.” Elle nodded.

The other girl grinned. “Hi Tyrone!”

The ghost boy waved eagerly and again, Elle could imagine his bright smile.

Dipper finally spoke up. “Why are you back to looking…. like that?”

“Oh yeah.” His sister nodded. “You said you could see his face last night.”

Tyrone said something but his explanation was lost in static.

Elle sighed. “Danny thought it was because yesterday was his DeathDay and traditional ghosts are stronger on the anniversary of their death. But…” She held up the ectoplasm. “This should help. You should be stronger than ever if it works.” She turned towards Dipper and Mabel, jabing a thumb in the other ghost’s direction. “Earlier, I was trying to convince this one to give it a try.”

Dipper raised a brow at his clone. “It can’t actually hurt, right?”

The ghost shrugged before shaking his head.

“So you’ll try it?” Mabel asked hopefully. The ghost boy nodded, now more confidently, earning a grin from the girl. “Great!”

Elle also smiled. “You can absorb it through your skin so I can just pour it on you unless….” The half ghost held the vial out to Dipper. “Do you want to do the honors?”

Tentatively, the boy took it. “Alright.” He took a step towards the other boy. “Here goes nothing.”

Anticipation seemed to swirl through the room. In front of his original, Tyrone tensed, bracing himself as the other boy tipped the vial over with a similar tense posture. Mabel looked between the pair with wide, eager eyes. Elle held her breath as the ectoplasm touched the other ghost’s head. The substance dripped down and Tyrone’s dim aura brightened. Then there was a flash of light.

Elle covered her face on reflex at the brightness. Nearby, Dipper squeaked startledly and Mabel gasped. There was a long silent pause.

“Did it...did it work?” Someone said. No, not just someone. The voice was young, male, and...echoing.

Elle’s eyes popped open, her gaze falling on Tyrone’s face, his now very visible face. The other ghost’s eyes were pinched closed, his shoulders raised.

“Did it work?” Tyrone asked again.

The half ghost’s mouth fell open. His voice….it sounded different from the few times she’d heard it before. It was more….physical, like actual sound waves traveling through the air and into her ears. Less like pure thought and emotions telepathically communicated straight to her brain. (It was so weird that she could tell the difference between those things.)

Across from his clone, Dipper wore a similar expression of shock. Numbly, he nodded in response to the question.

Tyrone noticed, his eyes meeting the other boy’s. “Can you hear me?”

Again, Dipper nodded, this time more enthusiastically.

The ghost boy grinned. “You can understand me. You can understand me! Dipper!” He put his arms up, eyes flittering to the other Pines sibling and grinning. “Mabel! I think it worked!” In his growing excitement, Tyrone grabbed one of Dipper’s and one of Mabel’s arms.

The other boy’s eyes lit up as he looked at where his clone was touching him.

“I can’t believe this!” Mabel exclaimed.

At the same time, Dipper was mystified. “It worked.” He met Tyrone’s eyes again, his own excitement growing.

“Dipper! Tyrone! It worked!” The girl yelled as she took the human boy’s hand and started jumping in excitement.

Dipper and Tyrone both laughed. The clone grinned as he shifted his grip to hold one of Dipper and one of Mabel’s hands. He started jumping as well and Dipper joined a moment later. Soon all three were jumping up and down, all chanting. “It worked! It worked!”

Elle smiled, watching the elated reaction as the three celebrated with exclamations of pure joy and laughter. They spun, almost dancing in something reminiscent of children playing ring around the rosie. Dipper ran into the bed and fell onto it all the while laughing even as Mabel fell into him. Tyrone dipped forward with the force of gravity but let go of the other teens’ hands. Floating, he darted in front of Elle.

“Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” The ghostly clone threw his arms around her, still jumping.

The half ghost joined in, starting to laugh as well. “Ty! It worked!”

A moment later, Dipper hopped up beside the pair. He threw one arm around Elle and one around Tyrone, forming a group hug. “Yeah! Thank you so much Elle!”

The girl grinned, more at seeing her friends so happy than the praise itself. It had worked! Not only did Tyrone look fully solid and visible, he was fully tangible. Hugging him didn’t feel like touching mist but instead like hugging an actual person. He wasn’t warm of course; the ever present cold and electricity that came with touching a ghost was present. But he was here and he could touch and be touched. He could be fully seen without distortion. Though his body and clothes had a very faint blue tint, possibly from his much more visible aura, he looked very human for a ghost and very much like Dipper’s clone. And finally, she could understand him. His words actually came out as English!

Mabel’s voice interrupted Elle’s thought. “Tyrone?” The girl questioned. Though her lips turned up in a smile, her voice was more serious.

The ghost boy turned, suddenly nervous at the girl’s change on tone. “Yeah?”

“You’re really him? The clone Dipper told us about?” Mabel questioned, her eyes shining with a mix of emotions.

“Yeah, I guess….” The clone said, rubbing the back of his neck. Then he lowered his hand. “Dipper told you about me?” He asked, slightly mystified.

“Yeah. Of course I did.” The living boy said softly.

Tyrone nodded, understanding dawning on his face. “Of course you did. You tell Mabel everything.” He then blushed at the strangely personal statement. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. ” Dipper shrugged. “You’re right.” Then he turned more serious. “But actually...I told her because you’re important to me, Ty.”

The ghost boy’s face softened. “Really?”

The other boy nodded. “Yeah.”

“You’re important to me too.” Mabel interjected, confidently through her voice wavered with emotion.

Tyrone turned to her, eyes wide. “What?”

“You’re important to me, Tyrone.” Mabel took a step forward, hesitating a moment before practically leaping forward to wrap the ghost boy in a bear hug.

The ghostly clone’s eyes widened even more. “Mabel?”

The girl tightened her hold. “I thought...I thought I’d never get to meet you, bro-bro.” Her words rang with affection and just a hint of sadness.

The clone’s widened with something that could be hurt as he sputtered “Mabel. I’m...I’m not your...”

“Of course you are.” The other teen pulled back, enough to see his face. “You’re my brother.” She said, like it was the most obvious thing. “You’re my bro-bro, just like Dipper is.” Mabel smiled kindly. “I’ve got two brothers now.”

Tyrone blinked, totally bewildered. He opened and closed his mouth before muttering in disbelief. “You….you mean that?”

The girl nodded enthusiastically. “Yes. I mean that. You’re my brother and I’m your sister...if you want us to be.”

The clone also nodded eagerly. “Yes, I want that! Of course I do! But….” He glanced nervously at Dipper.

The still living boy walked forward. He gently placed one hand on Tyrone’s and one hand on Mabel’s arm. “I like that word, brother.” Though he bit his lip anxiously, he sounded sincere. “I think….I’d rather call you that, than my clone.”

Tyrone’s eyes widened as he asked hopefully. “Your….brother?”

“My brother.” He nodded. “We’re brothers.”

“Brothers…” The clone mused, his eyes shining with happiness. “I liked that. I really liked that.”

Tyrone leaned forward to wrap one arm around Dipper and one around Mabel. The three newly minted siblings collapsed into a group hug on the floor, laughing and muttering loving comforts to each other.

“I’m really happy to finally meet you.” Mabel said.

Tyrone agreed. “And I’m happy to meet you properly.”

She laughed. “Yeah. Two days ago doesn’t really count, Misty.” Her voice pitched up, teasingly.

The ghost boy groaned in somewhat mock annoyance. “No, Mabel! You can’t call me that.”

The girl grinned. “That’s not what you said, then.”

Tyrone rolled his eyes. “Well, it’s not like I could actually tell you guys my real name.”

“Dude, let it go. You know she’s never gonna give that one up.” Dipper added, with a hint of humor.

“Dipper! You’re supposed to be on my side.” The other boy argued.

The living boy held up his hands. “Not this time, Misty.” He wiggled his eyebrows.

Tyrone groaned, putting his head in his hands. “You two are the worst.”

The three bantered back and forth. And again, Elle watched the scene with a smile. It was a beautiful reunion. And….her heart clenched as she remembered being in a similar situation. The first time she met Jazz and the girl called her, her sister. That was the first time she’d called Danny her brother and the older halfa confessed that he’d been thinking of her as his sister for a long time.

And Elle couldn’t help but think what she’d said earlier had had an effect as the trio’s conversation continued without her.

“I guess I should have told you last night but...I know you’re not me, Tyrone.” Dipper said sincerely. “You’re your own person and I…” His lips turned up in a smile. “I look forward to learning who exactly that is.”

“Me too.” Tyrone agreed, eyes shining with gratitude. “And...thank you Dipper. You don’t know how much that means to me.”

“Well….you know I’m happy to get to know you too.” Mabel shrugged. “And I meant what I said; I want us to be siblings.” She grinned. “We can be triplets now.”

“Triplets..” The ghost hummed in thought. He squeezed the girl in a side hug. “Yeah….Thanks Mabel.” The girl nodded. Then Tyrone met Elle’s eyes. “And thank you Elle.”

Dipper and Mabel also looked up at her.

“Yeah. Thank you.” Dipper said. “We wouldn’t have figured any of this out, without you.”

“That’s not true.” The half ghost waved off his praise.

“Yes it is.” The human boy insisted. “You brought us together.”

“And….you helped me see I’m not alone.” Tyrone blushed. “It’s nice to know there’s someone like me out there.”

Elle’s eyes softened, understanding his meaning. Slowly she lowered herself to the floor. “Yeah. I...I’m happy to not be alone. You guys accept me and….I’m glad to have you guys as friends.”

“Friends.” Tyrone agreed.

The ghost held an arm out to Elle and the girl let herself join the group hug with the siblings. In her chest, her core hummed with happiness. She’s helped Tyrone reunite with his new found siblings and find his way on to the material plan. And though the ectoplasm supplement was a temporary solution (and there was the question of what would happen after the summer was over), with her parent’s expertise, Grunkle Ford’s ingenuity, and Dipper and Mabel’s determination, they’d find a way.

As for herself, Elle finally had friends. Tyrone, who was a clone like her and intimately understood some of the hardships of being a clone- they’d have to talk more later now that he could. Dipper whom she’d shared secrets with and who had shared ones in return. And Mabel, whose positive, fun-loving, and accepting attitude encouraged her. Elle sighed; she really was lucky, not to be friends with normal kids, but with these three accepted her as she was- her crazy family, ghost powers, clone weirdness and all.

#Danny Phantom #gravity falls #CrossOver #dani phantom #elle phantom #Elle Fenton #dipper pines #mabel pines #tyrone pines #clone angst #holiday truce #holiday truce 2020 #dp holiday truce #My fic

31 notes · View notes

anxiouslyfred · 3 years

Text

Tangled Ribbon

Summary: Remus has become a wizard to local kids by using his soulmate ribbon as a swing or to hang from a line he’d used it to string outside his house. Virgil has moved into the area and just wants to know how anyone cannot see that this fool is sitting on ribbons

/\/\

It isn't that Remus doesn't care for meeting his soulmate. It's that he cares more for causing mischief and making children believe in magic than letting the ribbon simply hang loose between them. If the universe hadn't meant for him to cause trouble then it wouldn't have given him an invisible ribbon that's easily made tangible enough to trip others over, or become a swing for Remus to hang off a tree.

He'd learnt how to do it as a teenager and very quickly tying the ribbon in front of doorways or like spiderwebs between trees for people to trip on or walk into became his favourite thing to do. Roman had even learnt how to do it in order to retaliate so nobody in their house could trust their eyes when checking for pranks.

Nowadays when Ramus wasn't completely gutting his house to change the furniture style and paint colours on a whim, he was the magician almost every kid near to his house loved to come and watch. His favourite trick to accomplish was flight especially since he'd figured out a few ways to make his soul ribbon into essentially a zip wire.

There had been moving vans to the house on the corner of his street that week so Remus was hoping they'd brought some kids he could amaze and entrance. Half of his ribbon tricks were constantly set up now regardless so as soon as he saw someone new he could be in the air, and hoping the adults trip if they tried coming to his door.

“Wizard Frogton! Wizard Frogton! Can you do the flying thing please. My cousin's visiting and says it's impossible.” The knocking and yelling at the door made Remus grin. He loved the name he'd given the neighbours kid and had been thrilled when Wizard got added to it.

He'd just got out and sat on the swing, looking like he was sitting hovering in the air to the kids when someone at the edge of the garden scoffed.

“Is that meant to be impressive? I can literally see the ribbons you're using. Just cause it's green doesn't make it invisible against the tree.” The words had the children turning to the stranger frowning, while Remus was blinking down to their wrist, spying what must have been the other end of his ribbon there.

“You better stay right there, Sunshine. I've got a lot of climbing to do before we can get to talking.” He cried out, spinning his swing around fast enough it would get him in reach of the lowest branch to start untying the ribbon.

He could feel the gazes of the children and who must be his soulmate following his hands and hear snickers from the kids when it must have looked like he was trying to untangle the air. “Most people would have said hello, are you new to the neighbourhood, something along those lines, perhaps introduced themselves. Have I scared you enough you need to hide in a tree?” The stranger was snickering while looking up through the branches.

“Nope, just made a hell of a tangle of this ribbon and think it should probably come down for a day or two. I'm Wizard Frogton.” Remus called out, now jumping down the tree and glancing between his bedroom window and the lamppost opposite his house to try and decide which should be taken down first.

“I'm Virgil, and... Dude you are going to get yourself killed. Why the hell are you scaling a lamppost?” His soulmate and the kids were all following in Remus's steps, the children giggling about the wizard actually having gone insane while Virgil was clearly fretting over the stunts he was pulling.

Remus didn't pause once the end of the zip wire was untied, just used a loop near the edge to abseil back down and unwinding it before hurrying off into his home. “Can't kill me, the ribbon's too strong at this point to let me fall.”

“Should I pretend I believe that, or just question how you're putting it away while rushing around like a lunatic?” Virgil snapped, inviting himself into Remus's house without a word and just stepping over the ribbon assault course Remus had made one bored afternoon.

“Soul ribbon disappears once it's able to get shorter. No mess, no fuss, just a lot of pranks and magic tricks children adore.” Remus shouted the explanation, hanging upside down out of his window to untie this end of the zip wire.

Hands on his knees stabilised him once he was trying to get upright again, but Virgil was scowling when their eyes met. “Are you trying to suggest we're soulmates and instead of doing anything to follow this ribbon you've been using it for home security, pranking visitors and convincing kids you can fly? Do you have no care about what the soul ribbons are meant to be?” Virgil hissed, shaking the wrist where the soul ribbon connected in Remus's face.

“I'm telling you it and if you let me go I can get the rest undone to prove it to you.” Remus insisted, nodding, a glance behind him showed the kids had decided to walk away, clearly aware he didn't usually let people into his home. “Although if you want to keep me trapped on my windowsill that could be fun too.”

Virgil scowled again for a moment, glancing back towards the hallway. “My ribbon doesn't even point to your house. What else is left beyond your trip wire and spiderweb hallway?” He was clearly still sceptical but moved away to start untying the ribbon knots near the top of the stairs.

“Probably my last walk to the park. The trees reminded me of Tarzan so I had to find out what it's like to swing straight into a tree trunk.” Remus replied, dodging under any ribbons he could to start undoing the knots further though and leaving the end for Virgil to work on.

“So you just leave the things you tie the ribbon to as they are without undoing them?” Virgil glanced away from the knot for a moment. “Or did you just want to make meeting you an adventure for whichever poor sod the ribbon tied to you?”

Remus leant backwards as one of the knots came undone, and the ribbon snapped to be tight between 2 others. “Makes an impression and not usually. I only went there yesterday and was planning to return tomorrow after finding out if there were any kids I could convince I'm a wizard with the family that moved in.”

“No kids, just me, and seriously, the impression is still that you're a lunatic, if seemingly a harmless one.” Virgil snapped back. He'd gotten the first row of knots untied and was moving closer to where Remus was working now. “How the hell did you even manage to make the ribbon this solid anyway?”

“Lot's of focus and wanting to annoy my brother as a kid. Thought it could be interesting to try as bondage too, but never had the chance to test it. You interested?” Remus cackled a little, actually letting the ribbon hit him with the next knot untied.

Virgil raised an eyebrow at him for a moment, before shrugging. “If this is all your focus then why not get distracted from the ribbon for a moment instead of making me run around untying knots all afternoon. We can talk about being in a relationship after you've proven that this isn't just a new game for you to play.”

Remus pouted a moment at the thought of letting all his hard work so easily disappear. It took time to sort out, and the seconds he let himself believe it was just a soulmate ribbon and not truly real would destroy that. “Fine.” He was still pouting as he let the trust that it was really there fade momentarily.

“And you're right. This ribbon declares us soulmates.” Virgil nodded before he'd opened his eyes.

What shocked Remus though was that he suddenly got tugged forwards by the ribbon on his wrist, into Virgil's arms. “Um, Hello?” He blinked for a moment.

“Also correct about the ribbon behaving how we think it will. I can cope with starting something with you, Remus. Or do you want me to leave you to make swings and zip-lines from our ribbon again?” Virgil offered, pushing his hair back.

Remus was leaning up to try and steal a kiss before letting out a delighted laugh. “Let's start something new, as long as you let me keep being a wizard who can fly to the local kids?”

“Deal.”

#dukexiety #remus sanders #virgil sanders #soulmate au

8 notes · View notes

concussed-to-pieces · 4 years

Text

The Mettle Of A Man; Part Fourteen

Fandom: Fallout (4)

Pairing: Eventual Paladin Danse/Female Sole Survivor

Rating: Holy shit M.

AN: Enjoy!

Part One: ArcJet

Part Two: The Prydwen

Part Three: Orders

Part Four: Finding Brandis

Part Five: Weston Water And Oberland

Part Six: Meeting Preston And Matthew

Part Seven: Radstag And Radstorm

Part Eight: The Return To Sanctuary Hills

Part Nine: Domestic Ruminations

Part Ten: Institutionalized

Part Eleven: Two Weeks, Three Days

Part Twelve: Haylen’s Warning And The Glowing Sea

Part Thirteen: Under Fire

[!TRIGGER WARNING!: This installment contains graphic depictions of abuse. Stay safe!]

"This would be so much easier if you would just comply , Vega." Maxson sneered.

"How the fuck else am I supposed to comply? Danse never told me he was a synth, Maxson!" Backhand protested, glaring up at the young man as best as she could with his boot pinning her head to the floor.

Across from her in the brig Brandis floundered against his shackles, the older paladin clearly furious but unable to articulate around his gag.

Maxson ignored him, leaning down and applying more pressure to the side of Vega's head. "My patience is growing thin , Vega. I refuse to believe that he did not confide in you. You're the only person who's been in and out of the Institute, no doubt keeping that traitor apprised of orders from the masterminds of his true agenda."

"After everything that Danse has been through, I can't even believe that you would think he's a threat to the Brotherhood! Whether he's a synth or not!" Backhand retorted hotly. "So what if he is one? Synths can be rescued , wiped, reprogrammed with new identities. They aren't all infiltrating units, some of them are-"

Maxson hauled her to her feet, shoving her back against the wall. The rivets of the brig ground through her Vault suit, making Vega grunt in pain. "You certainly have a lot to say in the defense of synths, Vega." He hissed, taking a fistful of her hair and forcing her to look at him.

At the tearing sensation on her scalp, two hundred-plus years abruptly melted away for Backhand. She was suddenly in the pristine kitchen of their first apartment and Nate , shouting as loudly as any drill sergeant, throwing his briefcase in frustration, grabbing her neck and dragging her--

No . She had fought back then and she could fight back now. Backhand jerked her head to the side, not caring whether she lost a handful or two of her hair. "Get your fucking hands off of me!" She snapped, and Maxson's gloved fingers slammed shut around her throat.

"You would disobey the elder of the Brotherhood?" Maxson asked, a sinister smile twisting his mouth as Vega choked for breath. "I think your insubordination deserves repayment in kind."

...

When Danse awoke, he was incredibly disoriented. His hands clenched tight into the blanket that covered him as he stared up at the unfamiliar ceiling, feeling his breathing stutter as he tried to remember what the hell had happened.

Haylen . The message the scribe had given him. Confusion. Terror. Panic . Crushing it all down, I am a paladin of the Brotherhood of Steel I have sworn an oath protect sisters brothers skills weapons body --

Finding the munitions. Elizabeth Knight Vega damn it departing to report back to Maxson, the paladin knowing almost definitively that she had no idea about what he was, about the hideous truth of his existence. Her giving him her lucky bandanna, wrapping it around his neck like a scarf, touch light and tender.

Fleeing the Sentinel site, abandoning his armor, the deathclaw, the walk of shame that culminated in...God, was he really a synth?

M7-97 .

A synth . With a sinking feeling in his gut, Danse cast his mind back over his first memories yet again, growing up alone in the Capital Wasteland …

If he wasn't a synth, surely he would have something more concrete than a hazy record of empty locations? Something tangible, maybe an encounter with a friendly trader or a scuffle with some other children, something . But nothing seemed solid until he got to the memories of opening his junk stand in Rivet City. Eerily similar to what Sturges had mentioned. At that point he had been an adult for several years, or at least he believed he was--

God, his head was pounding . He was so confused. Danse pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes, trying in vain to rub the tension away.

"Oh, you're awake! Good."

Danse jerked his hands down, shoving himself half-upright on his elbows. His confusion only intensified when he realized that it was Mrs. O'Brian who was currently hovering in the partially-intact doorway, the woman pointedly keeping her distance.

"Wasn't sure how fighty you'd be when you woke up." She said by way of explanation, "you looked like you'd been through hell."

"Where am I?" Danse rasped.

"At the O'Brian homestead, just a little ways south of that Oberland settlement. How do you feel?" She queried.

"I…" Danse paused, taking a mental inventory. His legs felt like they belonged to someone else. His face and shoulders were, admittedly, worse. Bandages pulled at his shoulders, the fabric wrapped over and under his arms. "I'm in pain, but the levels are manageable." He muttered, struggling to swing his legs over the side of the bed. "I have to-"

"Whoa whoa, hold it! I did a lot of work getting you all fixed up, you're absolutely not movin'!" Mrs. O'Brian scolded him, waving her hands in front of her like Danse was a rampaging brahmin. "You are going to sit and heal, so help me God, if I have to strap you down to do it!"

"Citizen, you don't understand . Having me here puts you in danger." Danse's brain finally caught up with the rest of him as he remembered, "you have children , a family, innocents--I shouldn't be here." He said in a panic, trying to stand again.

M7-97 .

Mrs. O'Brian scoffed, stomping over to the bed and giving Danse a careful shove in the middle of his chest. He was immediately knocked prone, his back hitting the mattress hard enough to make him grunt. "Don't give me that shit, Mr. Paladin. You're all kinds of banged up and you're not goin' anywhere ." She instructed him firmly. "Trouble might have been followin' you before, but you've already been out for two days and we haven't received any visitors."

Danse blinked dully up at her. Two days . His stomach growled abruptly, hunger pangs digging in on top of everything else.

"Now, you just sit tight and I'll get you some noodle soup, alright?" She patted his arm calmly, a fair contrast between her previous attitude. "If trouble comes, then trouble comes. Until then, we'll focus on getting you back to your old self."

He was almost too weak to move, aside from adrenaline-fueled bursts. Danse felt anxious, skittish, frantic . What the hell was he going to do?

He had to leave. But where could he go? He could return to the Capital Wasteland. Or maybe he should head north instead, run to the untouched expanses of Maine or the mountains of Vermont.

He had to leave. He couldn't stay here.

M7-97 .

He should be dead.

"Mrs. O'Brian," He began carefully when she returned with the soup. "You don't grasp the danger of this situation. I'm a s…" His voice hitched. "A...a synth ." Danse finally forced the word out, speaking it aloud and solidifying it as reality. His empty stomach pitched violently.

"That's nice. You can just call me Katie." The woman replied absently, patting his hand. "Should we get in touch with the Railroad?"

" What? " Danse asked incredulously. " How can you be so nonchalant about this? I should be dead , I'm a monstrosity -"

"Mr. Paladin, what you are right now is a hungry and scared man. So hush up and eat your soup." Katie interrupted Danse gearing himself into an elaborate diatribe. "If you were supposed to be dead, you would be." Her eyes were almost as green as Brandis', and she narrowed them at him. "I don't doubt that if you could have done the job yourself, you would have. And since you haven't ," she continued pointedly, "I'm going to assume you won't."

Danse mulled over her words as he slowly consumed the soup, more water than broth and noodles. She was right, he realized. He was too afraid to end himself, and too cowardly to wait to be destroyed.

M7-97 .

What the hell was he going to do?

…

He tried to slip away the following night, but his attempt was foiled by Mr. O'Brian's watchful eye. That and the fact that he was barely able to put one foot in front of the other. Hell, just tying his boots up had almost made him pass out. He knew deep down that it was idiotic to attempt to leave while he was in such a sorry state, but he kept imagining the sound of vertibirds drawing near and the fear that the O'Brians could be in danger because of him kept him from getting any meaningful rest.

The older man startled Danse out of his skin when he cleared his throat from his shadowed spot beside the door. "I had a feelin' you might try somethin' dumb like this." He remarked, shaking his head while Danse cast wildly around for a way to explain his current ambulation. "Have a seat, big fella'."

"I can't stay, Mr. O'Brian. If the Brotherhood-" the paladin began desperately.

"Call me Tom, Danse. I'm of the impression that we're in this together now. If trouble finds you, then it finds you." Mr. O'Brian interrupted him, inadvertently echoing his wife's sentiments. "Personally, if it was me in a jam, I'd much rather I was surrounded by people that care about me when trouble comes callin'."

"I'm trying to leave so that you don't need to get involved-"

"No, you're tryin' to leave because you're hellbent on runnin' from this problem." Tom's expression was sharp in the warm glow from the lantern. Danse had no idea whether Mrs. O'Brian had told her husband that their unanticipated guest was a synthetic freak . "You wanna' get the hell out of here, maybe go back to the Capital Wasteland and pretend like nothin' happened. But the weight of the truth is heavier than any sin, Mr. Danse. You'll figure that out. I hope for your sake it's sooner rather than later."

"Mr. O'Brian, I...I don't know what to do ." Danse admitted softly, sinking down into the rickety chair beside the other man in defeat and putting his head in his hands. Everything ached.

"I can tell, son. You're all tangled up like Katie's balls of yarn. I don't have the answers for you. All I know is that runnin' away only prolongs the trouble." Mr. O'Brian rose slowly, muttering about his old knees. He clapped a hand on Danse's shoulder in passing. "The O'Brian family doesn't give a flying fuck one way or another about whether you're a synth, got it? And if anyone else in the Commonwealth has any sense left in 'em, they'd be wise to follow suit."

Tom left him to think beside the door, and Danse was there until sunup the following morning.

...

The O'Brians homestead consisted of an acre or so of land and an old, half-collapsed commercial brick building just outside of Forest Grove Marsh. Danse had apparently crash landed on their proverbial doorstep that fateful morning, though he didn't remember much after he had passed out.

Tom and Katie had eight children, four sons and four daughters of varying ages. They ranged from the eldest, a boy named Eamon who was nineteen, to the youngest, a tiny girl named Siusan who was almost a year old. Between them was Thomas Junior (known strictly as Teej), then came the triplets of Connor, Matthew and Bridget, and the twins Kathleen and Fionnula.

Danse had never had such a difficult time remembering names, consistently stumbling over Fionnula while the three-year old patiently coached him.

It didn't help that Connor and Matthew looked exactly alike, as did Kathleen and Fionnula. Bridget at least wore her hair longer than her identical brothers, so that gave Danse a fighting chance amongst the triplets.

Eamon was tall and lanky like his mother, while 'Teej' was on the stockier side like his father. All of the children were freckled and sported either blue-black or dark brown locks, further adding to Danse's predicament.

As the days turned into weeks and the paladin slowly regained his health, he found himself automatically settling into the schedule of the O'Brian family. It was comforting to have a routine. Maybe that was the military in him. Rise before daybreak, milk the brahmin, gather the laundry, weed the crops…

His nose mercifully healed as good as new. No visible damage remained aside from a small mark at the peak of the bridge, right between his eyes. His shoulders were much the same, functional even though they were now graced with long, jagged lines of scar tissue from where the power armor frame had collapsed. Danse knew he was incredibly lucky to have escaped from a deathclaw so unscathed.

Tom managed to find a few old pairs of jeans that would fit Danse somewhat after the paladin expressed his concern at his threadbare jumpsuit. "From my younger days!" The older man claimed, tugging Katie close and planting a kiss on her cheek. "Back when I had to stay in shape so that my beautiful bride wouldn't grow tired of me."

Katie chuckled, swatting Tom's arm. "If you thought a few extra pounds would scare me off, you don't know me very well." She teased.

Clad in blue jeans and a tattered assortment of too-small hand-me-down flannel shirts, Danse almost fit in. Almost. He still held himself a bit too rigid to really get away with assimilation, but Katie assured him he at least looked the part. He was still certain to make himself scarce whenever company came calling, not wanting to bring trouble to the O'Brians.

He refused to be deadweight to the already-struggling family however, and as he was not exactly gifted in the areas of agriculture and animal husbandry, the paladin quickly fell back on one of the many practical skills he possessed.

Hunting.

Only armed with his service pistol now, the man was up well before dawn on the days he stalked prey. He avoided the roads as much as possible, sticking to the brush. The last thing he wanted was to draw any attention to himself and, in turn, the family fostering him. Occasionally he was accompanied by Teej or Tom, both senior and junior relatively skilled hunters in their own right. Through their combined efforts Danse was able to contribute a bit more protein to the large family's diet, while simultaneously balming the concerns that he had about being a burden.

Eamon was a quiet, peaceable young man and helped Katie manage the younger children while Tom was away. He was adept at settling squabbles and redistributing toys to keep the peace. Danse couldn't help but picture him becoming a knight and sponsoring countless fledgling initiates.

He then felt idiotic for still thinking about young people and children in the Brotherhood way, as if they were all destined to be military assets thrown at the next enemy. Danse slowly forced himself to recalibrate, doing his damnedest to imagine a world where a gentle man could still have a future. Maybe Eamon would be a teacher, or a merchant in tandem with his mother's wares.

Matthew and Bridget were all but attached at the hip, the two of them dogging Danse's footsteps and peppering him with questions when he was in the yard or weeding. The paladin had taken over a ramshackle trailer that sat across the road from the homestead as 'his', and the two children were always eager to visit as soon as he sat down on the front step in the mornings with his cup of coffee. Connor was a little more shy, hanging back from his outspoken siblings.

Bridget was the first one to demand that Danse show her how to shoot. "Papa won't. He says I have to be twelve." She huffed. "But I'm almost twelve, and that's like being twelve."

"I'm sorry, little one. I can't go against his orders." Danse tried to soften the blow by asking her to teach him how to do something, which was how the paladin found himself learning how to make a poppet out of dried corn husks. Not exactly a practical skill, but he supposed he could do with a few less conventional lessons.

Connor actually approached him while he was being instructed, the normally-timid boy offering him a few pointers to make the task a little less challenging. "I'm not good at braidin' like Brigey, so I gotta' hold the ends real tight." He mumbled, tiny hands miles more deft than Danse's had ever been pushing and pulling his fingers to get the arms of the doll tucked properly.

Bridget praised Danse just like her mother praised her when she accomplished something, and the paladin got a little misty at the notion that his own tendencies towards praise while he was in the Brotherhood might have made a few of the aspirants more inclined to be encouraging to their fellow soldiers.

It was hysterical to be supported by a child for his proverbial 'field work', but the way Bridget's little brow furrowed sternly told Danse that she was deadly serious and he should take her as such.

"You are very patient for someone your age." Danse commented, holding up his latest attempt for her inspection.

"We gotta' work together, Mr. Danse. Mama says I'm the strong one, Matt's the brave one and Connor's the smart one." She replied, squinting at the length of husk he had tied around the body of his little creation. "Almost! You're getting better and better." The thin girl clapped her hands like she was applauding him and Danse couldn't help his sad smile.

"Show me again, please?" He requested.

…

Vega had no idea how many days it had been.

After Rhys had brought Brandis' evening meal (and snuck Vega something in the process), the knight had whispered that Maxson seemed to be waiting for something when it came to dealing with the two 'dissenters' in the brig.

"Not sure if he's trying to use her to draw the Institute into attacking us directly? I just don't get it." Rhys swallowed hard, glancing over his shoulder before continuing, "According to our field reports, Danse is dead. They bagged him out in the Sea and incinerated his body."

Backhand had been expecting this news, but hearing it aloud felt like a kick to the stomach. She sobbed out once before she could help it, drawing Rhys' attention back to her.

" Fuck , Vega, I'm so sorry." The knight apologized tremulously. "He sponsored Haylen and I, he was fucking selfless and loyal to the cause. I don't...God, I can't believe he's gone."

"Rhys, this cannot be allowed to continue." Brandis declared, "we are being held without trial, without evidence! Maxson has no right to-"

"Anyone who questions his judgement is threatened with the same treatment Vega is getting." Rhys interjected dully. "None of us know what the hell to do , Brandis. The consensus is that we need to forcibly eject him, but no one person seems to have the balls to do it." The knight tipped his head forward in shame. "Not even me. If something happens to me, I don't know what might become of Haylen and I...I can't risk it. I'm sorry, Brandis. And Vega, you don't deserve this shit."

"Don't apologize, son. I'll...I'll figure out something." Brandis replied sadly, letting the knight re-shackle him as loud footsteps heralded Maxson's approach to the brig.

"Out of the cell, Knight Rhys." The elder ordered sharply, his voice sending a new frisson of scalding fury through Backhand's battered body.

He killed Danse .

"Maxson, how long do you plan to stand on ceremony like this?" Brandis queried as Rhys obediently departed. "This is not justice! "

"I see the knight forgot to gag you again." Maxson shrugged. "No matter. Nothing that you say will have any real impact." He tugged open the cell door and sauntered in, standing over Vega's crumpled body. "We slaughtered that abomination out in the Glowing Sea." Maxson chuckled in a self-satisfied manner. "It thought it could run from us."

Backhand squeezed her eyes shut tight against the hot wave of tears that threatened to spill over, forcing herself to focus on the rage instead. "You're a real prick, Maxson." She rasped.

Maxson caught her arm and roughly yanked her upright from the spot where she had collapsed previously, gripping her shoulders in a pantomime of a caring embrace. "We incinerated it and cast its ashes to the wind." The young man answered smugly, those cold blue eyes boring into her own when she mustered up the strength to raise her head.

" You ," Vega seethed through her teeth at the elder of the Brotherhood, "were a fuckin' god to Danse, know that? You could do no wrong in his eyes. And you killed him ." The reality of it hadn't wholly set in for her yet and she clung to the rage she felt, nurturing it into a grudge in her chest. "But you're not a god at all, are you Arthur? You're just a scared little brat who got too much power too soon." She spat.

Maxson ground his teeth, grabbing her by the throat yet again and slamming her back against the bars of the gate. "Keep testing my patience, Vega, and we'll see who the scared one is!" He roared in threat as she struggled weakly in his grip.

...

The celebration dinner for Siusan's first birthday was surprisingly elaborate. The entire house was decorated with garlands of hubflower and ash blossom, painstakingly woven together by Matt and Connor. Katie had been baking with Eamon and Kathleen for the past two days, stockpiling a variety of sweet treats for the youngest family member's fête.

Danse, for his part, had done his best to stay out from underfoot. He helped Tom move several of the old tables together, and obediently smoothed the wrinkles out of the faded purple tablecloth that Katie asked him to cover the tables with.

Vega never even got to have this with her son , he thought somberly. No birthdays, no celebrations...nothing. First the divorce and then the war, one right after the other .

It was a saddening topic to think about and Danse found himself distracted by it. The fact that she had been so thoroughly robbed of raising her child, despite her oft-voiced trepidation of whether she was a good parent...

Well, there was nothing he could do about it, was there?

That night Siusan sat on her mother's lap at the table, staring wide-eyed at the child-sized mutfruit pie that was just out of her reach while everyone in the family sang her Happy Birthday .

Danse hung back in the doorway, feeling a little awkward until Katie urged him in. Fionnula immediately clamored that Danse had to sit next to her. Sandwiched between Kathleen and Fionnula, Danse slowly relaxed enough to smile and even laugh once or twice, his own attitude affected by the collective high spirits of the O'Brians. It reminded him of being at Sanctuary and with a melancholic pang, he recalled the simple meal he had shared with Elizabeth and her makeshift 'family'.

Not a day passed that he didn't think about her. Her smile, her voice, the pleased flush she got when he praised her performance in the field, her selfless nature...

Danse had convinced himself that she was better off without him, though. The Brotherhood would allow her to achieve her future goals of totally breaching the Institute's defenses, hopefully letting her enact that master plan of freeing any synths that wished to be freed. He just prayed that the Brotherhood wouldn't override her and decide to wholly eradicate the Institute instead.

Maybe once he got himself far away from the Commonwealth, he could send her a message. Something simple that wouldn't compromise her position. Would she even care, though?

Danse, lost in thought about Elizabeth once again, didn't notice the young man looming in the front doorway for several minutes. Not until Tom called, "Garvey! You're just in time for pie, pull up a chair!"

Preston removed his hat politely and Danse felt his heart plummet to his boots. "Evening, Thomas. Katie. I'm afraid this isn't a social call." Lieutenant Garvey said calmly. "I'd like to speak with you outside, Paladin." His eyes were flinty despite his mild tone. Dogmeat was at his heel, the large German shepherd's ears flat against his skull.

Danse surprised himself by nodding, the paladin rising from the table with a murmured apology. "I'll return shortly." He promised Matthew, the little boy looking like he might pitch a fuss. Danse then followed Preston outside, barely resisting the urge to jam his hands into his pockets and hunch his shoulders like a squire waiting to be scolded.

What he didn't expect was Preston's next sentence. "Alright, where the hell is she?"

Danse blinked at the other man, suddenly confused and off-balance. "I don't understand." He said finally.

Preston huffed angrily, "The general , Danse! She's been missing for weeks now, ever since you and your little tin soldiers were all getting prepped for heading to the Sea!"

Danse was sure all the color had drained out of his face. Was he going to pass out? Did something like him even have the ability to pass out? No, no, he had been unconscious before. But did that count as actual unconsciousness-

He grabbed the side of the building to steady himself, his voice shaking when he pleaded with Preston to explain. Dogmeat whined, licking at Danse's hand.

"How the hell do you not know?! She went missing on your watch!" Garvey protested. "She hasn't been seen at all, Danse. Not at any settlements, not around the airport... nothing . It's been a big fat radio silence."

"Oh my God." Danse's voice was frail.

"You...you really didn't know, did you?" Preston asked incredulously. "What are you even doing out here anyways? Shouldn't you be at the airport with the rest of your troops? I thought Dogmeat's nose had busted when he led me here ."

Danse opened his mouth, then hesitated. The reality of being a synth was something he was still trying to come to terms with, but lying to Garvey would no doubt make everything worse. "Lieutenant Garvey, I must confide in you." He fixed his attention firmly on Preston's boots. "Some information was discovered after the first journey into the Institute. Something pertaining to me. I of course, was not made privy to such information before we had departed for the Glowing Sea, but another individual of the Brotherhood managed to tip me off in time. When last I saw Vega, she was returning to Waypoint Echo on foot per the elder's orders. After we were separated, I...I was fired upon." He said gruffly, the words filling him with a morose sensation.

"Whoa, wait a minute. Danse are you saying you're a-" Preston lowered his voice, "are you saying you're a synth? " His heart hammering in his throat, the paladin raised his eyes to Garvey's and nodded wordlessly. "So what happened in the Sea, then?"

"We reached our target and cleared the area without incident. She was under orders directly from Elder Maxson to report back immediately once the area was secured. I was tasked with guarding the munitions. I was attacked by my own troops, so...I fled." Danse confessed.

" Damn . That is...that's a lot , Danse. She had to report straight back?"

Danse nodded. "Correct. Maxson was very firm on that."

"You don't think your elder guy would have...I dunno', locked her up or something?" Preston suggested, pointing out, "You disappearing probably looked pretty bad. She'd be a suspect."

The paladin swallowed hard, this new realization crushing down on him. "I had not considered the ramifications my sponsorship would impose upon her." He rasped. " God , Garvey, I didn't think...I didn't...I thought I was doing the right thing. Hell, I should have let myself be slain. I'm an abomination , I'm everything that I signed up to eradicate. Of course they would--God, I'm so sorry, if they suspect her, I..." His thoughts were a tangled mess, loping this way and that.

"Don't be sorry yet." Preston grumbled. "What the hell am I supposed to do, Danse? She's the only way into the Institute. I can't just let her cool her heels on that fancy balloon, not when we're so close to taking the Institute down!"

"If I had my armor, I might be able to sneak into the airport. But I don't." Danse said unhappily, burying his fingers in the thick ruff Dogmeat sported. "If I go anywhere near there without some sort of protection, they'll just gun me down. Kill on sight."

"Now's not the time to consider a sweeping policy reform, unfortunately. If we got you a suit…" Preston trailed off, then changed the subject. "Pack whatever you have. You're coming with me."

"Right now?" Danse asked.

" Yes , right now!" Preston retorted sharply. "The hell is wrong with you, man?"

"I just...I'll need to say goodbye, that's all." Danse felt immensely awkward, but he pressed on, "The O'Brians have been extremely kind to me during my prolonged stay in their residence."

"Oh. Oh . Okay, yeah. Go ahead. But make it quick!" Garvey blustered, jamming his hat down a little.

Danse crept back into the O'Brian family dwelling, his footfalls muffled by a rousing rendition of The Ants Go Marching that Siusan was enthusiastically enjoying. This struck Danse as odd, seeing as how the only ants he had ever seen were the size of stray dogs. And why on earth would ants trouble themselves about the rain? Most of the irradiated insects seemed to love it.

He managed to catch Tom's attention and pull him off to the side, explaining in low tones what was happening.

Tom surprised him by punching Danse lightly in the chest. "I'm shocked it took you this long to get your head straight." The older man chuckled. "Go get her, Danse. Paladin Danse."

...

The trek to the Castle, or rather Fort Independence, took almost six hours. Preston avoided a majority of the destroyed roads, the both of them tensing up every time they heard the whirring blades of a vertibird approach.

"They shouldn't be able to see us without using the searchlights." Danse informed Preston as Dogmeat flitted behind the supports of a ruined overpass. "They have no methods of thermal detection."

"I'm still not taking any chances." Preston grumbled. " I've got people counting on me, Danse." Danse fell silent at that, just following after the Minuteman and keeping his mouth shut.

I've got people counting on me .

Once upon a time, that had been Danse. An example to his brothers and sisters, the pride of the Brotherhood. Now, he skulked through the darkness like a fugitive. A traitor to his cause. A liar, by omission or by ignorance. A fraud .

Danse wiped at his eyes, frustrated with his own weakness. How the hell was he such an emotional wreck? He was a machine for God's sake. It was hardly fair that everything in him was screaming that he was human when he had already been backhanded with the empirical evidence to the contrary.

M7-97 .

He gritted his teeth, exhaling through his nose. He didn't have the luxury of contemplating his humanity at this point in time. Maybe someday, once everything had sunk in, he would be able to examine himself from a critical stance. But for the moment, it needed to be compartmentalized.

"If I cannot reacquire the general," he began cautiously, "perhaps I can still be of service. If I am a synth, maybe there's a way for me to…" A lump rose in his throat. "Return, I suppose? Breach their defenses accordingly?"

Preston hummed thoughtfully. "Vega did mention a synth reclamation department. And coursers , the guys sent out to reclaim the escapees." He shuddered, his grip tightening on his musket. "She had to put one of those bastards down to get what she needed in the first place. It was brutal. She said he almost killed her. I guess they're made for hunting synths or something?"

Danse felt sick to his stomach, remembering Vega talking about the courser mourning the loss of his friend. "Well, we have the option," He muttered, "should the need arise. Proctor Quinlan often said that the best edge is the unexpected one."

The walls of the Castle solidified against the night sky and Danse caught the scent of the sea on the breeze, the smell refreshing his memory of finding Vega half-dead in the Minutemen's crumbling excuse for a fortress. It appeared that they had done extensive renovations since his last visit, however.

"Well well well, look what the lieutenant dragged in!" Sturges chuckled without humor from beside the outermost guard tower, his eyes uncharacteristically narrowed. Danse didn't miss the way his grip on his old rifle tightened. "You've got some explainin' to do, big fella'!" The cheer in his voice was decidedly hostile.

"Stand down, Sturges." Preston said wearily. "We need your help. You still got that suit you were working on?"

Sturges chewed on his answer for a moment before he finally nodded. "Garvey, you'd better not be suggestin' what I think you are." He gestured up at Danse with the hunting rifle.

"We don't have a lot of options, Sturges. He's been kicked out of the Brotherhood." Preston replied curtly.

Sturges did a double take. "You uh, wanna' run that by me again sir? The holiest of rollers was kicked out? What the hell did you do? " The mechanic asked Danse incredulously.

Danse swallowed hard. "It would appear that I am...less human than I had been led to believe." He stated, trying to choose his words with care.

"Well, physically anyway." Garvey tacked on grudgingly.

Sturges' mouth curved into an 'o' as the truth dawned on him. " Ho then. That uh, explains that. Damn. Damn . But...shit. So where the hell is the general?" He muttered, as if to himself.

"According to Danse, he's been on the run since their foray into the Glowing Sea. That was also the last contact he had with General Vega." Preston explained.

"I've heard about how damn wild the Brotherhood gets over synths. How the hell did you even escape?" Sturges queried, his tone suspicious.

Danse cleared his throat. "One of the soldiers I sponsored tipped me off right before we set out into the Glowing Sea. Scribe Haylen saved my life. Originally I assumed that Vega was to be my executioner, but it turned out that she had orders from our elder to return as soon as we have verified the location." Danse paused. "We were separated and shortly thereafter, the Brotherhood attempted to end my life."

"Just like that?" Sturges gawked. "How long you been Brotherhood, Danse? Good ten years? Fifteen? I can't even believe that shit. Pitched to the wayside on account of some fuckin' speculation!"

"Not speculation, if Scribe Haylen's information was accurate." Danse corrected the other man. "My DNA matched the DNA of an escaped Institute asset known as M7-97."

" Escaped , though. So you're a Railroad refurb like me, you ain't some shitbag infiltrator unit!" Sturges protested, ushering Preston and Danse further into the courtyard. "How could they just try to snuff you? Brotherhood's gone balls-deep this time."

Danse hadn't actually thought about it like that, but he supposed it made sense. He wouldn't have been listed as escaped if he was assigned to infiltrate the ranks of the Brotherhood, that wouldn't make any sense. It was almost a relief to realize that maybe, just maybe there hadn't been some ulterior, coded motive behind him joining up with the Brotherhood. That and the fact that there wouldn't have been someone he was replacing.

So for all intents and purposes, he was the original and only Paladin Danse. A comforting thought.

Sturges wasn't done though. "If you're here and Vega ain't, that means your boys in armor have her. If she ain't dead, of course." The mechanic mused. "Might be that they thought she was in on your little secret and capped her instead of botherin' with interrogation."

"I would greatly appreciate if you would not suggest that Vega is dead, Sturges." Danse's palms started to sweat, his breathing rough for a moment. Calm down, calm down .

"Well I'd greatly fuckin' appreciate if she wasn't dead neither, big fella', but until we know for sure…" Sturges shrugged. "Anyway, to work. Got a real cherry suit here, a little pet project of mine, and if you're goin' to that airport, I imagine you'll want some protection."

"I'll need it just to get near to the damn place at this point." Danse mumbled.

Sturges' grin was a little less hostile this time. "I think you'll like your chances."

Part Fifteen

#fallout 4 #fallout four #spoilers #paladin danse #paladin danse x sole survivor #Eventual romance #paladin danse/sole survivor #paladin danse x f!sole #paladin danse imagine #fo4 companions imagine #fo4 companions #fo4 paladin danse #preston garvey #fo4 preston garvey #brotherhood of steel #canon-typical violence #slow burn

12 notes · View notes

writethehousedown · 4 years

Text

Lesson In Love (Gigi x Jackie) - Mina

A/N: So excited to participate in one of these challenges again, you treated me so well last time so I’m so excited to release this! Ty so so much to @dollalpaca for being an angel and betaing

Summary: Gigi may or may not be failing her music studies class. She also may or may not have caught feelings for the pretty Persian woman that offered to tutor her. Maybe. She’ll never tell.

“Janet,” Gigi groaned, narrowly avoiding falling off the couch as she rolled over and wrapped her blanket tighter around herself. It was leopard-printed, a gift from Jan to themselves from when they moved into the apartment. “Do you think ‘Intro to Floral Arrangement’ sounds like an easy class? Or do you know anyone who’s taken it?”

“Isn’t it an evening class? I feel like we went over that one like… twenty minutes ago.” The blonde hummed from the floor, not bothering to look up. She was probably right, too. She had her own laptop in front of her, in the process of color-coding her online calendar. Blue for lectures, green for labs and purple for choir practices. Gigi had seen her do this enough times - every semester since they met on move-in day their first year - to be able to recognize the blocks in her schedule at a glance. Sometimes it motivated her knowing that Jan could be so on top of things while also being the most chaotic person Gigi knew, other times it made her want to die and be reborn into someone who could organise her sock draw by diameter.

“Yeah, you’re right.” She frowned, letting out a deep sigh and closing the tab. Goodbye, department of nature studies. So long, her potential florist career.

The thing was, Gigi knew she couldn’t really afford to be particularly picky with only five days before the registration period ended, but still. At least, she thought, she’d long been enrolled in all her textile-related classes for the semester. She was looking forward to most of them too, especially the design ones. Really, it was just that one additional stupid arts gen ed course she needed to get out of the way, and then she’d be free for good.

“How about ‘Art of Listening’?” Gigi asked a few minutes later, reading over the course information. She heard the sound of Jan typing on her keyboard come to a halt. “That kinda sounds like a class for people that want to become therapists or something. Or marriage counsellors?”

“Maybe people that are gonna need marriage counselling, sure,” Jan replied, her typing picking up again.

Gigi laughed, running a hand through her hair and looking back at her screen. “It doesn’t seem too bad, y’know. Just two papers and a final.” She hummed, scrolling through last year’s syllabus. “And it’s actually about music, I could totally do that.”

“Wait, who’s the prof for it?”

“Uh… something-Nguyen I think?“ Gigi paused as she scrolled back up. “Yeah, Andrew Nguyen, why?”

“Oh, that’s the one!” Jan nodded happily. “Rock took it last semester, I think. I remember her talking about it when we first met, she was always complaining about the prof who—”

“Great, you should have just lead with that.” Gigi rolled her eyes as she closed the tab. Rock was one of the more easy going people she’d ever met when it came to that stuff, so she couldn’t imagine what a prof that annoyed her would be like. Probably awful, or at least had a bad taste in anime. A soft but slightly damp piece of fabric hit her in the nose before falling down in front of her, disheartened. She scrunched up her nose in distaste when she realised what Jan just threw at her.

“Why are you throwing your dirty socks at me?” Gigi screeched, picking it up and throwing it back in the blonde’s general direction. “And why is it wet?”

“If you’d just let me finish!” She rolled her eyes pointedly, leaning to grab the sock again. It was a little too far for her to reach, and Gigi watched her stubbornly wiggle to the side until she could close her fingers around it. She smiled victoriously, huffing a little as she leaned back against the couch and made herself stand up straight. “As I was saying,” she started again, enunciating carefully.

“Before I rudely interrupted you.” Gigi grinned down, picking at her nails.

“Yes, before you did indeed do that,” Jan huffed, “Rock took it last semester. And she was always annoyed because the prof didn’t always let them use their laptops in class, but she also said that it was really easy. Most of the time they just had to listen to some music and write about how it made them feel, that sort of stuff.”

“That sounds pretty easy.”

“Right?” Jan nodded excitedly, “And I think she mentioned one of her friends is taking it this semester too. A senior, so she’s probably in the same boat as you.”

Gigi didn’t think that’d make much of a difference, but she didn’t bother telling Jan that. It wasn’t like the class had group projects anyway, so she could hopefully get by with just showing to most lectures and turning in the assignments.

“I really should have done this over the summer, you were right about that,” she exhaled, shutting her laptop and falling back into the couch. She could have gotten those mandatory art electives outside of her major done as a freshmen, or even last year, like most other students in her program did.

“I’m sure it won’t be that bad,“ Jan chuckled, moving closer until she could rest her head comfortably on Gigi’s shoulder, blonde hair falling all over her face. “You’ll do great, because you always do; you’re talented, but you also work hard. So you’re gonna ace all your actual photography classes, pass this one, and be done with all your dumb degree requirements. And then next year you can take all the textiles classes you want, I’ll take all the music production classes I want, we’ll go to each other’s senior showcases, and barely even remember all the time we wasted on the ugly classes we didn’t care about.”

When Jan put it that way, it sounded pretty easy. *** After three weeks of classes, Gigi felt like she could safely conclude that the class was… Not that bad. If she had to give the class a grade it’d be a solid C-, bordering on a straight-up C. It was mostly filled with freshmen from the arts faculty trying to get an easy A, a solid half of whom had already stopped showing up to lectures. And yes, it was weird being back in a two hundred-person room when most of her other classes were forty at most. She had to turn in weekly written assignments, which was also not fun, but writing five hundred words once a week wasn’t a time commitment she couldn’t handle. The problem, though, was that as far as she could tell from those three first weeks, that supposedly-easy class would also n’ot rate the level of effort Gigi had put in as anything more than a C either. Which was definitely not what she wanted out of it. Far from it.

The class did have one major saving grace, a light in the dark and a minor help in stopping Gigi from quitting the class on day one, in the form of a fellow student.

Gigi didn’t know her name, or her major, or anything tangible about her, which was a little unfortunate. She did, however, know that the girl had legs. Long and strong, with toned thighs that suggested at least some form of semi-regular exercise, and looked equally good in the kind of wide-legged, loose cotton pants Gigi herself favoured as they did in denim cutoffs. She had really nice hands too, which the brunette found out about when they accidentally reached for the same assignment sheet. They looked soft, strong and capable and careful. They’d be nice to hold, or to have holding her down tightly, or tangled in her hair while she sucked bruises into her equally-beautiful thighs.

So yeah, you could say Gigi was kind of enjoying the course, sure.

The girl usually sat at the front of the room, in the very first row from where you kind of had to strain your neck upwards to see what was on the board. Gigi knew, because that was also where she sat during the first two weeks, until she realised this wasn’t going to be the kind of lecture where she could talk all the way through the lesson without the professor caring, not if she wanted to do more than just pass, anyway. The girl usually brought her laptop to class too - covered in political stickers and pictures of cartoons Gigi didn’t know. One time the brunette walked past her, only to see a video of a crab walking up a pile of sand playing in the corner of her screen.

Gigi could remember that she made a point about the role of music in religious movements when prompted, and how that connected to society’s idea of liveliness within places of worship. Gigi didn’t really remember the details, mostly because some of it had just flown way over her head, but their professor had been very impressed. When he had said so, instead of the self-satisfied smile that the brunette had been expecting, the girl had looked down at her notes, one arm twitching like she was resisting the urge to scratch at the back of her neck in embarrassment.

Gigi thought she’d even blushed a little, and really, no one should have had the right to be both this attractive and adorable at the same time. She wasn’t quite sure how she felt about the crab video, which was definitely weird, even by art faculty standards. But for her, she thought she might be willing to overlook it.

geege ok this girl at the front of listening class? so hot she’s like 90 percent leg and 40 percent sexy aunt energy

janjanjan sounds Hot

geege i’d let her walk all over me and say ty she’d just be like :] and tell me about the periodic table or smth

janjanjan okay maybe let’s stop there like keep the rest for when you’re alone at home

geege or in the shower

janjanjan thanks not like i use that shower too The thing was, Gigi wasn’t new to having crushes. At all. So perhaps it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to herself that she ended up developing crushes on more than a few of the people she met. Most of them were great, a lot of them were cute, and a few left her heart beating that much faster as she found herself wishing for their conversations to never end.

What was new (or disconcerting, if she were to listen to the Jan voice in her head), was Gigi feeling that way about someone she’d never talked to. Gigi still didn’t know anything about her, other than what she looked like and the sound of her voice - but god did she want to know.

And it felt like it’d been years, so many years, since Gigi had felt too shy to just go up to someone she wanted to know better and introduce herself. She’d felt anxious before, maybe a little self-conscious, but not the kind of shyness that turned into complete inaction. She found herself looking forward to the class, though not the actual work. *** She, Gigi thought, was currently winning at life.

She was done with classes for the week, had no plans that required her to get out of her sweatpants for the next twenty four hours, and was currently sitting back on the couch surrounded by food and two of her favourite people.

So yeah, life was pretty fucking great right now.

She leaned back against one arm of the sofa, a forgotten ball of yarn and half knitted almost-scarf in one hand and the other casually playing with Jan’s hair. The blonde was laying down on the couch, the only one out of the three of them that could kind of do so without most of her legs hanging off one end. Her head was resting on Gigi’s lap while her feet were in Rock’s.

Friday evening was their unofficially -designated group hang out time, a tradition that developed the last few months without any of them being aware of it, but now it was something that she wouldn’t miss for the world. It usually just meant Thai food, bitching about their classes, and whatever booze one of the other two decided to pick up. When Rock made grabby hands at her, Gigi grabbed an unopened can of sparkling water she brought for today and passed it on.

“Thank you,” Rock chuckled as she cracked it open, leaning forward to catch some of the foam that came out before it had a chance to further stain the couch. “Y’know,” she started, as she watched Gigi reach over for the mostly-empty bag of popcorn on the table. “I could just ask Jackie to help you out with the class.”

The brunette’s fingers closed on thin air, the bag of popcorn she was aiming for remaining just out of reach. “Who’s Jackie?” she asked absently, shuffling forward gently and trying not to dislodge Jan’s head from her lap.

Jan flicked her on the thigh regardless. “Rock’s friend, the one I told you about when you signed up! And, y’know, the one that’s also taking the class right now.”

“Oh,” Gigi realised. She totally remembered that, right. Her fingers grazed the bag of popcorn again, but in her haste she just ended up pushing it a few inches further away, balancing precariously on one edge of the table. “That Jackie.”

“I think she tutored, like, half her contemporary fiction class last year. So you know she’s gotta be good at actually teaching things, and not just smart,” Jan continued, as though Gigi’s attention was mostly captured by the pursuit of academics. One more inch, she leaned in a little further, balancing her weight on one arm. She just needed to get one inch closer and the bag would be hers. She could already taste the powdery, buttery, amazingness on her tongue.

“And Rockie’s always talking about how her old professor still basically cries about not being able to convince her to stay in the department. I’m pretty sure she’d totally still take him on as a grad student if Jackie just asked, nevermind that she transferred out more than two years ago.”

“So what do you think?” The blonde finished, a little more loudly, like she realised Gigi had tuned her out a bit. And Gigi had, yes, but she could finally feel her fingers closing in on the bag, triumphantly reaching in and stuffing a handful of popcorn - fat free - into her mouth. “Do you want Rock to ask Jackie when she has some time to meet up with you? Or maybe just give her your number, if that’s easier?”

“What? No, don’t do that. I’m not doing that bad.” Gigi laughed slightly, rolling her eyes. “No, I’m all good.”

“It’s too late anyway,” Rock laughed, all faux-casual. “I already messaged her.” She shoved her phone in front of Gigi’s face, and yeah, right there, that was a message saying just that, complete with her own number at the end.

“Why would you do that?” She complained loudly, tapping at the screen furiously to try and make it delete. It wasn’t that she was against the idea of getting help with the class, but mostly she was reluctant to have it taking up more of her time than it already did. Especially when she didn’t even know the girl.

“You need help!” Rock said with a yelp, avoiding the kick Gigi aimed at her. “She can help! It’s a perfect solution, why are you trying to hit me!” The last one landed just under her armpit, drawing out a higher-pitched squeal. “Besides, Jan agreed with me that it’s a good idea,” she added, turning expectantly towards her. “Tell her how you were the first one to even suggest it.”

Next to them, Jan had indeed been suspiciously quiet. “Why aren’t you saying anything?” Gigi asked, poking the older woman in the chest.

“Don’t you want to see what your soon-to-be tutor looks like, Geege?” Jan giggled, ignoring her question.

“Oh, you’re right, let me show you her insta,” Rock butted in, her thumbs moving on her phone screen for a moment before handing it to Gigi with an evil smile.

Jacqueline Coxx, the profile read, next to a very familiar, grinning face. The same very familiar, grinning face that Gigi had spent many a lesson fawning over. This had to be a mistake, there was no way. “You should really be better at Instagram-stalking people,” Jan laughed as Gigi felt her mind going blank. “I think it’s the only skill that’s going to save our generation from lifelong unemployment. Or underemployment, for that matter.”

The brunette didn’t give it a second thought before she pushed her off the couch and onto the floor, screams of unacceptable betrayal and terrified excitement echoing loud in the room.

*** geege hiiiii is this jackie cox? this is gigi, roxanne’s friend from the listening class she said she’d told you i would message you geege but in case she didn’t i wanted to ask you about some tutoring if you could tutor me i mean geege but if you can’t that’s all good !! don’t feel like you have to say yes just bc of rocks stupid puppy eyes oh and sorry about the triple-text ***

“I more than triple-texted her, but three separate times,” Gigi groaned, burying her face in between the couch cushions.

“I’m sure it wasn’t that bad,” Jan comforted, running a hand through her hair. Gigi would maybe feel a little bad about how much complaining she’d been doing over this, but everytime she thought of stopping, she reminded herself that Jan was at least forty-five percent to blame for this in the first place.

“It’s been more than two days. When’s the last time you went forty-eight hours without checking your phone? And be honest.”

Jan’s silence was enough of an answer. *** Jackie Hey Gigi! Rock did tell me about you, it’s all good Do you want to meet up after class on monday to figure out the details? Oh and sorry for such a late reply My phone was broken after i dropped it in a lake while i was hiking *** In an ideal world, Gigi would have planned things so she could get to class nice and early on the day she was supposed to properly meet Jackie. She’d have maybe put a little more thought than usual into her outfit, and made sure her hair looked good. Worn that red headband she knew did great things for her forehead and her eyebrows, maybe. Not that Gigi ever looked like a slob, but she definitely had clothes she liked more than others, and that she thought served her better for seduction purposes. Or even for just ‘making a decent first impression’, which she’d really settle for right now, as she ran up the final flight of stairs. Nothing said ‘I’m serious about needing help with this class’ like showing up late, especially for a course where attendance was actually recorded.

She spotted the door to the classroom still cracked open at the end of the hallway and slowed down a little, trying to catch her breath. She ran a hand through her hair, hoping that’d tame the mess a little and her cheeks wouldn’t be too red from the unexpected burst of athleticism. At the front of the room, their professor has already started talking, and Gigi quietly slipped into the first free seat she spotted, grateful to have avoided drawing everyone’s attention to herself.

It was only minutes before the class ended that Gigi thought to look around for Jackie, peering across the middle rows of students before she accepted that she wouldn’t dare sit anywhere but the very front row. She tried to lean forward to glance at the first row once or twice, eventually accepting that there was no way she could be subtle and standing the slightest bit up from her chair. The first row was mostly empty, as it usually tended to be. Gigi recognized a girl from the Image Composition class she took last semester, and thought about saying hi to her after class when she remembered she had a goal here. As she let her gaze move through the other students in the front, it eventually landed on Jackie, although Gigi had to do a double-take to make sure it was definitely her.

The thing was, she’d gotten to see - unknowingly, at the time - Jackie often enough since the semester started to get a sense of her style. And from Gigi’s weeks of casual observation, she tended to favour loose, comfortable clothes, and mostly neutral colours. She liked floral patterns too, especially on shirts, which the brunette could appreciate.

However, the first thing she noticed today was Jackie’s hair. And really, Gigi thought that if it wasn’t for the bright smile and the longest legs known to humankind, she wouldn’t have even recognized her.

The messy dark brown hair that Gigi had gotten used to, and maybe dreamt about running her hands through once or twice, was now four inches shorter and numbingly straight, effortlessly falling over her forehead and almost into her eyes when she looked down. Something about the flawlessness of her hair combined with the white hoodie she was wearing seemed to make her face glow, skin tanned and radiant with pearly teeth glinting through a bemused grin as she laughed at something her friend was saying.

Damn.

She was brought out of her daydreaming by the sound of students around her packing up their things, and Gigi realised that she most likely missed the professor dismissing their class. As she struggled with the zipper of her bag, the same one she’d been meaning to get fixed for the last three months but still hadn’t, she felt a hand hesitantly tap on her shoulder, warm against the thin material of her shirt.

“Hey, Georgia right?” A voice asked right behind her, and when Gigi turned around Jackie looked just as good as she did the first time she saw her at the beginning of the semester.

“Gigi. I’m— my name— Yep, hi, that’s me. What’s shaking?” The brunette chuckled awkwardly, “Thank you so much for agreeing to help me out, I really appreciate it! Or at least agreeing to consider it I mean, I know we really just said we’d talk about the details today, so you technically haven’t agreed to anything yet. And you don’t have to, obviously.”

Jackie didn’t seem thrown off by the sudden explosion of words and gratefulness, which Gigi took to be a good sign. If anything, her smile only grew less hesitant, the tiniest dimple appearing on her left cheek.

“We could, like, go to that library around the block? It’s a nice place to study, so.” Gigi nodded, following Jackie and making awkward small talk until they made it inside. She learned in those quick minutes that Jackie liked crabs, and geography, and obscure movie references no one else understood.

“It’s been a while since I was here to be honest.” Jackie grinned, swiping at her phone casually. “I missed it.”

"Right, Rock mentioned you’d transferred out of the faculty.”

The brunette hummed in agreement, looking a little surprised at Gigi’s knowing about this. “Yeah, I swapped my major and minor back halfway through my second year. Geo major with a minor in stage production now.” She made little jazz hand motions as she said it, and the brunette really wished she didn’t find it half as endearing as she did.

“Okay, so, tell me more about what you’ve been struggling with so far,” Jackie asked with a tilt of her head, and they got down to business. *** Maybe it was a little self-sabotaging (or self-serving, she could never quite decide), but part of what Gigi quickly found out she liked best about their bi-weekly tutoring sessions, was how much time she got to just stare at Jackie. She’d finish writing up the draft of her weekly listening assignment and pass it on for the older woman to read over, and get a solid five-to-ten minutes of ogling out of it.

Not that she was ogling her per se, that sounded bad. She was just… appreciating. Appreciating Jackie’s arms, and her neck, and her cheekbones, and her brain as she read through Gigi’s outline. Every now and then, Gigi would catch her frowning slightly, bringing her pen to the paper and tapping over the words as she read a section a few times over before making a quick note and moving on. It was kind of embarrassing how devastatingly cute Gigi found the whole thing, honestly. Like how the way she was resting her head on one hand, her fingers accidentally creating a gap that just perfectly framed the dimple on her left cheek.

“Hey, Geege,” Jackie suddenly smiled as she turned towards her. Fuck. Gigi really hoped her face wasn’t making what she was just doing incredibly obvious. “What did you have in mind for this part here?” She asked, shuffling her chair to bridge the space between the two of them.

“Which part?” Gigi shakily replied, leaning in a little. The paper she wrote her outline on was on the table, technically close enough for both of them to read, but just barely. Gigi told herself that was her excuse for moving in a few inches more, until their hands were almost meeting on the sheet of paper. Almost.

Jackie was making it hard for Gigi to focus, leaving her stumbling through the start of an explanation of the admittedly somewhat unclear point she’d made in her outline about the sudden change in rhythm. As she got into the meat of her point, she could feel herself getting more confidence, gesturing with her hands as the words started coming out more easily, and Jackie nodded in wordless understanding. It only took a few sessions to realize that if there was one thing Jackie was good at, it’s listening. It never felt like she was trying to put answers into Gigi’s mouth - letting her explain her perception of the music instead, and asking questions when needed. She made Gigi feel like even if writing about how she experienced music as an art form would never come all that naturally to her, not in the way sewing or even most visual arts did, it was something that was still within her reach. Something she could understand and relate to.

“So, are you saying it felt expected to you?” Jackie asked eventually, after Gigi paused. “Like it was building up to this in the previous parts? Or that it caught your attention specifically because it was sudden? Or out-of-place, maybe.”

The brunette took a moment to think, replaying the lead-up to that section in her head.

They weren’t even touching, but she could feel the heat radiating off the older woman’s skin. She could feel the warmth, could see it in Jackie’s gaze as she looked softly back at her, she could smell it even. And Gigi knows that didn’t actually make sense, that all she was probably smelling was laundry detergent and sweat and maybe coffee. Gigi didn’t even like the smell of coffee. But right now, sitting side-by-side in the library and alternating between emphatically talking and listening to each other, Gigi felt like all of those things.

It was only when they both moved on from that particular point, a few messy notes from Jackie hastily written to Gigi’s own words, that she realized just how close they’d gotten. She was well into Jackie’s personal space, their shoulders no longer content just brushing against each other occasionally but rather aligned against one another. No wonder she could smell the coffee.

She started to move back slowly, not wanting to draw attention to how close she’d gotten, but a sharp sting on her ear stopped her mid-motion. She let out a small cry of pain, Jackie immediately turning to face her. The older girl felt impossibly closer than a moment ago.

“I think my earring got caught in your shirt,” Gigi said quietly, a pained and nervous giggle leaping from the back of her throat. She remembered putting them on this morning, long and dangly strips of silver shaped like eyes, and thinking about how they might get stuck in her hair. If the lack of distance between the two of them went unnoticed earlier, it was definitely no longer the case. Gigi felt incredibly conscious of every exhale of her breath, of Jackie’s face only inches away from hers. The guy in the seat in front of them threw them a dirty look, like he was annoyed at how wrong Gigi’s flirting attempts had turned out. She couldn’t really blame him because, what the fuck, they had turned out pretty bad, huh.

“Hold on,” Jackie breathed, “let me untangle it for you.” Gigi knew she was speaking quietly because they were in a library, and so close to each other anything above a whisper was unnecessary, but she was struck hard by the intimacy of it nonetheless. She couldn’t decipher whether choosing to wear those earrings today was the best or worst decision she’d ever made.

Jackie reached for the end that got caught, carefully lifting it away from the threads of her sweater. It was the kind of tangle no one could probably ever manage to achieve if they tried, and yet happened without either of them realizing it. When she moved to grasp at the fabric a little more firmly, her fingers brushed against Gigi’s neck, unexpected. And maybe it’s stupid to feel so thoroughly destabilized by the mere touch of a fleeting hand, but Gigi found herself forgetting to breathe for a few seconds.

“There,” Jackie chuckled as the earring finally came free, looking in Gigi’s direction without directly meeting her gaze. “I think you’re all good now.”

Gigi thanked her politely, but she’d be the first to admit she found it hard to focus during the rest of their session, every brush of air or clothing against her neck making her shiver at the memory of Jackie’s fingers. ***

“Wait, Jackie Coxx?” Crystal asked the next time Gigi met up with her to catch up over some drinks in their favorite dive bar. Crystal had technically been Jan’s friend first, but she and Gigi had gotten a lot closer over the years, bonding over a love of what their friends would lovingly call ‘loud’ and ‘confident’ clothing choices. “‘Trips on her own feet’ Jackie Coxx?” Crystal continued, the grin on her face widening as Gigi felt her cheeks heating up. “Follows at least three Twitter accounts dedicated to Star Trek? Rockie’s junior year baby crush? The same—”

“Rock is still a junior, Crys,” Gigi interrupted, laughing, because— what. What. “And wait, she has a crush on Jackie? My Jackie?”

“So not the point,” Crystal answered, still smiling like this was the best news she’d heard all week. “My Jackie huh? God, you’re such a simp—”

“No.” Gigi groaned, dragging out the ‘o’. “Back to Rock. My best friend, Janet fucking Sport, is head over heels, stupidly in love with Rock. And I don’t care how adorable she is, if what you’re telling me is true, she’s just been… been using her! And that really this whole time she’s just been waiting and pining for Jackie! As if Jan didn’t—”

It was Crystal’s turn to interrupt this time, the smile having faded away from her face to leave way for a confused expression. “Gigi, Gigi, stop for a second,” she repeated, a little more forceful than the brunette was used to hearing her speak. “Come on, think of all the time you’ve spent with Rock, with both of them. Have you ever gotten the impression that she was anything that a hundred and ten percent in?”

The brunette closed her eyes for a moment. She thought of Jan ditching her and Nicky to go hang out with Rock every Friday. Of Jan dragging her to go shopping on the weekend before Valentine’s day, an itemized and color-coded list of stores and potential gifts saved on her phone. Crystal definitely has a point, Gigi let herself recognize, deflating as the potential anger left her body as quickly as it had arrived.

“Rock did a tour of the university, back when she was still in high school and she wasn’t completely sure what program to apply for. Jackie was the one doing it apparently.” The red head paused to take a sip of her drink, grimacing a little at the taste. Why she kept ordering those novelty IPAs everywhere they went despite knowing full well she didn’t like how hoppy they were, Gigi had no idea. “I think she just made Rock feel comfortable, you know? Like, it was fine that she didn’t have everything figured out already, and made sure she knew she wasn’t making a decision at seventeen that she could never walk back. So Jackie gave her her number in case she had any questions, and then they actually started hanging out together once Rock started this year.”

“Oh,” Gigi realised, “that does really sound like her, yeah.” She could imagine it in her head, Rock a little younger and more unsure, not all that dissimilar from how she behaved when Jan first introduced the two of them to each other.

It was strange, remembering that a few months ago she would avoid directly meeting her gaze or spending any one-on-one time with her, when she could also recall the ‘u up’ and ‘netflix? :)’ texts she received from the shorter woman last night. It also really sounded like Jackie, although she didn’t tell Crystal so. It was just as easy to imagine her taking the time to reassure a worried high-school student without making her feel like she was being talked down to.

Crystal was still looking at her expectantly, and Gigi couldn’t help but feel a little embarrassed at how strongly she reacted. “So, not an actual crush then?”

“Nope, she just thinks Jackie is really cool. God knows why, because based on what I’ve heard, she’s kind of a giant dork.”

“Hot giant dork.” Gigi rolled her eyes. “Maybe I should have asked you that first.”

“Uh-huh,” Crystal replied, giving Gigi’s shoulder a squeeze. “You should ask her for the full story, actually. I’m surprised you haven’t heard it before, but she tells it much better than I do. And maybe you want to spend some time thinking about why you reacted that quickly, because we both know Jan is a pretty flimsy excuse.”

The brunette sighed loudly. “It’s just a crush, it’s nothing.” It didn’t sound convincing even to herself. Back when Jackie was just the hot girl in her class, that would have probably been true, but it felt like a long time ago now.

Crystal rolled her eyes with a cheeky smile. “That was a lot more believable five minutes ago, but sure.”

Gigi made sure to hit her in the leg for that, laughing easily and sputtering mindlessly about how she had it all wrong.

“Wait, what did Rock used to want to study, back when she was in high school?”

There was a long pause, before Crystal finally cackled., “Video game design.” *** geege do you think it’s weird

rockstar YES

geege … to ask someone if you can platonically caress their cheeks kiss them on the forehead at least wait till i finish to be mean

rockstar u know what this is both not as weird AND weirder than i expected ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

geege what do I do roxanne she’s not gonna tutor me forever. the final is less than a month away how do i tell her i wanna date her without seeming like i wanna date her

rockstar go up to her and be like ‘if we played pokemon together, we’d be a pokematch’ ;)))

geege what

rockstar will you be the nidoking to my nidoqueen

geege tf those sound like the names of drugs

rockstar yk it was one thing when you were just thirsting after the hot girl in ur class but now it’s actual feelings how embarrassing

geege u have given me a solid amount of advice. none.

rockstar k fair how about i pick up noodles on my way back? and we can eat that for dinner while you tell me all about ur gay crush without my consent

geege i like the chicken stir fry ones

*** “Do you want to listen to it again, maybe?” Jackie asked, reaching for her headphones. “Then you can tell me the exact part you’re thinking of.”

It was another Wednesday afternoon, but this time they’d ditched the library in favor of a small coffee shop that was closer to where Jackie lived. It was artsy in a way that Gigi was used to, a little hipster, but not actually fancy enough to properly lay claim on the word. The tables were a little worn in and wobbly, the lattes a little too cheap, and the art prints on the wall either too well-known or not enough.

“Sure, just give me a second.” Gigi took the earbud the Persian woman offered her, making an aborted motion towards the computer, before following through as Jackie nodded at her with a soft smile. The older woman’s phone vibrated on the table between them, and she took a quick glance at the screen before putting it back down with a little more force than necessary.

It took Gigi a few tries to find the part she had in mind when mentioning texture, replaying the same part a few times over until she was fairly certain she found what she was looking for. “That part here, until the tempo slows down again—”

The brunette was cut off by the sound of Jackie’s phone vibrating on the table again, lighting up with a missed call notification and some texts.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” the Persian woman cursed sheepishly. “This is so rude. I’m sorry, Geege, I should have just turned it off earlier.” She sounded a little annoyed, but mostly flustered, taking a quick look at the screen before flipping it back over facing down.

She flashed the younger woman an apologetic smile, her cheeks coloring a little as she pointedly pushed the phone away from her.

“Are you sure everything is okay? We can take a break if you need to deal with some stuff? Or even just cancel for today, I think I have basically everything I need to finish writing this up, so.”

“No, no, âsemun be zamin nemiyâd,” Jackie protested, mind clearly elsewhere. “It’s nothing, really. Or, well, it is something I guess, but it’s kind of stupid and I shouldn’t let it distract me, you know?”

Gigi hummed noncommittally, not wanting to force her to talk about whatever this was if she didn’t want to, but finding herself unwilling to acknowledge it as something stupid either. She offered Jackie what she hoped was a quick and comforting smile instead.

“I just…” She sighed, rubbing at her eyes with the heel of her palm. “I’ve been waiting to hear back from this prof about a recommendation letter for grad school? And she’d said yes before, but some more students asked her, and she has this thing about not writing more than five letters per year, I don’t know. So she said she’d get back to me today or tomorrow to confirm, and I’ve just been really stressed.”

“Oh no, I’m sorry. That sounds really stressful.” Gigi brought a hand to Jackie’s shoulders, squeezing the back of her neck lightly. She tried to avoid doing too much extensive thinking about what she might do after college, but she doubted it was a train of thought that’d ever made anyone feel good.

“It’s okay, I should be used to it.” Jackie shrugged with resignation. “It’s just that every time I remember I’m waiting to hear back from her it makes me think of next year, and what’ll happen if I don’t get in? Or if I do, because it’s like I really know that grad school is what I want to do, you know?” She ran a frustrated hand through her hair, and Gigi really wished they were close enough friends for her to offer Jackie a hug or something.

“Just call your prof back now. You should have said something earlier, and we could have rescheduled.”

“Oh,” Jackie breathed out, sounding inexplicably surprised as she turned towards her. “No, no, no, no, that’s not necessary. That wasn’t her. I’m sorry I’m a bit of a mess today, let’s just get back to this thing, yeah?”

Gigi nodded, reaching for the headphones and passing one on to her. In a lot of ways, this had grown to be her favorite part of their sessions. Not that she didn’t enjoy listening to Jackie talk about music, which she did; mostly because she was practically tone deaf and found it magical that Jackie was so good at it, or trading ideas back and forth on the pieces they listened to, both of which were rewarding in their own ways. But there was something about sitting next to each other, silent save for the shared music, that just got to her.

They were standing outside the coffeeshop, Jackie struggling to undo the lock on her bike, when Gigi thought back to their earlier conversation. “I know it’s not the same because I’m not graduating yet, but you know I’m here if you ever need to talk to someone, right? Like, no pressure or anything, but I just— just wanted to put it out there, I guess.”

Jackie stopped mid-motion and looked up at her, half of her U-lock in hand. “Thanks, Gigi.” She grinned, all bright and pearly and warm. “I think sometimes I just get too in my own head, you know? Especially about things I can’t do anything about. And yes, I know how stupid it is to stress out over these things so much, I really do.”

“I don’t think that’s stupid, though,” Gigi mentioned, as they started walking towards her bus stop. It was really nice of Jackie to walk there with her, rather than just take off on her bike straight away. It maybe made sense now that they knew each other well enough, but her heart still kind of fluttered whenever she offered it. “I mean, maybe it’s not productive because you’re worrying about things you can’t control, sure, but it also means you care, right? And I don’t think that’s something stupid, even if you wish you could just… not care less, but care better, you know. Still care, but in a way that’s better for yourself. To yourself.”

She thought of her parents, and of the guilt she used to feel every time she overheard someone asking them if they really thought it was wise to let her go to college for fashion, how she overworked herself to the point of passing out alone in the studio her freshman year in a misguided attempt to redeem herself from having failed a class. Like she thought she could atone for her perceived academic failures by working her body into the ground. She thought of the conversations that had started to happen in her periphery, whispers of ‘What are you thinking of doing after next year?’, ‘Have you also applied for the internship at this gallery?’, ‘Have you considered doing a minor in business?’, and how she sometimes struggled with not letting these thoughts invade her brain late at night.

“I just think it’s hard sometimes, but it’s even harder if we don’t let ourselves accept it. Or talk about it. So I guess all I’m saying is that if you need someone to listen, you know where to find me,” she finished with a deep breath.

When she looked up, there was a quiet smile on Jackie’s face, and Gigi felt warm at the thought of maybe having been the one to put it there. ***

geege you know i suddenly understand why you do the shoulder thing like i use to never really get it but that was before

janjanjan the shoulder thing??

geege wait more important how did ur audition go did they love you when are you gonna hear back

janjanjan it went pretty okay i think they’re def looking more for someone that does modern

geege so that’s good! very good!!!

janjanjan and one of the choreographers sort of smiled and nodded at me at the end i think he was on the dance team my first semester but that was before he graduated ig anyway idk maybe it was just in my head

geege no but that all sounds really good!!! look at u go diva!

janjanjan gigi just finished twenty minutes ago she was wearing this stupid ass shirt a really loose tank bc it’s been hot af and one of the straps kept falling of her shoulder

janjanjan oooooooooh oh no that shoulder thing

geege i saw collarbone and so much shoulder and upper arm

janjanjan how tragic tell me, did she lift it back up

geege yeah but it kept falling back down

janjanjan that’s rly good though!!!

geege no it was torture did you know she has a mole on her shoulder? right at the top and all i kept thinking of was that i wanted to kiss it

janjanjan cute also i don’t know how to tell you this but that shit doesn’t happen by itself

geege well it’s not like it was her fault

janjanjan listen a shirt can be a too big sure but you still kind of have to make it happen it doesn’t magically keep falling off

geege hm

janjanjan believe me i would know *** No matter how much she tried to forget about it, Gigi’s last session with Jackie was a thing that was very much happening right now.

It was strange, thinking back to the beginning of the semester, how she almost didn’t sign up for the class. How she maybe would have never met Jackie if she hadn’t, or maybe would have just pined from afar without ever learning her name were it not for her meddling friends. She found herself spending the last half of their session wondering more about how to casually ask Jackie if they’d still hang out once finals are over. Or if their semester-long friendship was, well, just that.

In the end, she just blurted it out as they packed up their things, subtlety thrown out the window.

“I mean, you’re friends with Rock, so I’m sure I’ll at least see you around, yeah?”

Jackie only hummed noncommittally in reply. She was busy packing her things back into her khaki tote bag, checking each pocket like she was looking for something. It reminded Gigi of what she used to do in middle school, every time she hadn’t done the homework or just really, really, really didn’t want to be the one called on to explain her work in front of the whole class. She’d just lean down, and start searching through her bag very obviously, making a show of opening every zipper, her head almost disappearing inside it if she could manage.

“Do you, like, need help finding something in there?” She asked, her voice coming out more harsh than she’d intended, just as Jackie seemed to decide she’d found what she was looking for and decisively slung her bag back over her shoulder.

“Sorry, I— it was—” she stopped and started, letting out a resigned sigh and shaking her head at herself. It made Gigi want to cringe. “Yeah, I’m good now, and yeah, I’ll still see you around. At least for the summer, but after that too I hope! I mean, I’ll still be around and you’ll be around too, so, y’know…” she trailed off. Her cheeks were tinged pink, just barely. Her ears, too, or maybe it was just the white of her sweater making everything appear brighter in contrast. “Besides, you still haven’t shown me any of your work, and you promised you would.” She was right about that, Gigi knew. She usually wasn’t shy about showing her designs to other people, but somehow she’d found himself unsure of what to show Jackie first.

She settled her bag on one shoulder, and they started making their way out in companionable silence until Jackie spoke again. “Hey, actually, do you maybe want to grab coffee before heading back? I have a bit of time before my next class and I could use a pick-me-up.”

They ended up just stopping by Starbucks, because it was on their way and surprisingly empty for a Thursday afternoon on campus. Gigi got a mocha frappuccino (almond milk, extra whip) and managed to sneak in Jackie’s usual cold brew order before she had the chance to protest.

“Gigi…” She sighed fondly, kind of like a grandma would when her grandchildren were doing something they’d regret. She was shaking her head in resignation, which Gigi took as a sign that she’d decided to leave it at that.

“No, I’ve been stealing almost three hours of your time every week since almost the start of the semester and—”

“How can that even be true when Rock only introduced us in what, February?” Jackie laughed in protest, reaching out to grab her drink from the brunette’s hand.

“No, not the point!” Gigi replied, moving her arm back until the cup was just out of Jackie’s reach. “You’ve given up a lot of your free time for me, is what I’m saying. And you didn’t even really know me, I could’ve been a total freak.”

Jackie opened her mouth and looked like she was about to say something, but Gigi continued before she had the chance.

“And you were so nice about it. Not ‘nice’ like when you have nothing actually all that good or specific to say. But nice in that you never made me feel like I was being stupid, you know? And you actually took the time to explain things to me so I’d understand them, not just the bare minimum so I could pass. You did all that when you didn’t really have to, so that meant a lot. Means a lot. I enjoyed spending that time with you, and not because it means I’m going to pass the class.”

Gigi forced herself to stop there, even though she knew for a fact that she could’ve easily kept going. She could feel her words coming out a little rambly, probably sounding more confusing than appreciative. At least she hoped that was what they sounded like, because the only other alternative was frightening. The idea that Jackie was in fact hearing everything Gigi was saying, her poor attempt at expressing the warmth she had felt growing inside her all semester long every time she was beside her, was infinitely more terrifying.

“Geege.” Jackie looked away, smiling after a moment, looking a little embarrassed. “I don’t even know where to start.”

Gigi could feel her cheeks getting hot, but when she looked up she could see that Jackie’s cheeks were tinged pink, too. It was almost funny, feeling what she felt and seeing the physical reflection of it not on herself, but on the person causing it. She wanted to reach out and let the tip of her fingers brush against Jackie’s cheeks, to see if they felt as warm as her own face did.

“You don’t have to say anything, I wasn’t trying to, like, I don’t know, get anything. I just wanted you to know what I meant, and that I really did mean it, when I was saying thank you.”

Gigi was laid bare, like her body was nothing but a lens, and behind it were all of her feelings jumbled together in a tangled mess, conclusion still very plain to the eye.

It was a surprise, when Jackie stepped forward and kissed her.

Gigi closed her eyes reflexively, but she could feel herself inhaling sharply, her body failing to catch up with what her brain was also struggling to process. When she eventually kissed back, it was only because she could feel Jackie’s body starting to move away, the fear finally pushing her into action. She brought one hand up, resting it on the side of the older woman’s neck, fingers gently brushing against her hair as she kissed back a little more confident. She could feel Jackie’s hand on her waist, warm and solid. Her grip tightened slightly as they separated, not strong enough to keep Gigi anywhere but a reassurance of where she was wanted.

Neither one of them really stepped back when the kiss ended, just stayed standing right in front of each other, breathing the same air. She heard Jackie swallow, loud in the silence of their shared space. She licked her lips, a reflex she didn’t even think about, and it was like the realization that, oh my god, they just kissed, hit her all over again when she found them wet. She suppressed a small shudder, although she wasn’t sure how successfully.

It was Jackie that finally broke the silence and stepped away from her, letting her hand fall away from Gigi’s side, brushing against her wrist and then gone before she had a chance to realize it.

“I,” Jackie breathed, “I’ve wanted to do this for a really long time, Gigi.” She laughed a little, maybe a bit self-conscious, and that was what brought the younger woman out of it.

“I spent hours talking to Jan about this gorgeous girl in my listening class,” she started, words leaving her mouth almost of their own volition. “How I didn’t even know her name but god, I really wish I did. Then I did know, even if I didn’t realize that you were, you know, you, when Rock said he knew someone who could tutor me. And then you were there and still the same person, but also so nice and understanding and just… good? Like, being around you just felt good.”

She paused, forcing herself to meet Jackie’s eyes again. “And I still mean everything I said earlier too, you know. Even if you weren’t interested in me, that’s not why I was saying it, but I still mean it just as much now.”

“Oh.” Jackie’s mouth was gaping so wide Gigi was worried it might actually fall to the floor. Maybe if Gigi were a different person, or if her brain wasn’t currently busy processing and reprocessing their kiss on an endless loop, she would have felt a little self-conscious at her outburst, but that just wasn’t who she was.

Especially not right now. Not when Jackie’s lips were right in front of her, still a little wet, still a little too red.

“That’s, that’s pretty good, then,” she finished quietly. They looked at each other in silence for a moment, only interrupted when Gigi let out a small snort.She couldn’t help but realise they were kind of ridiculous. Her face was taken over by an unashamedly stupidly large grin. Jackie properly stepped back then, far enough that Gigi could no longer feel the warmth of her body. She missed it immediately.

“I really need to get to my next class.” Jackie rolled her eyes. “So I can talk to the prof about her feedback on my draft first, but text me, yeah? I know it’s really shitty timing because we both have finals to take and papers to write, but I’ll make it work. Or I’ll call you, if that’s better? But I’m not running away, I promise.”

Gigi flashed her a bright smile and nodded in understanding. “I have your number too, y’know, so maybe I’ll just be the one to text you.”

“Okay, great, nice.” Jackie replied. She had her bag and coffee in hand, but made no clear motion to leave, kind of like she was worried if she did Gigi might disappear forever. It was so, incredibly, frustratingly cute and Gigi couldn’t help but wonder if Jackie would mind being kissed on the forehead.

“Jacks, it’s fine.” Gigi grinned. “I need to go too, anyway. Just maybe don’t drop your phone in any lake before you text me back this time, yeah?”

She turned away with a laugh of her own this time, and Gigi sipped through the plastic straw like it did anything to hide the smile on her face as she watched Jackie walk away.

“Wait!”

The Persian woman startled, turning back to her with an unsure smile. “What, did you forget something, Geege?”

“My first final is tomorrow,” Gigi said, looking up at Jackie with glinting eyes. “And it’s my first actual written exam this year, because I didn’t have any midterms, so how about another kiss for good luck, huh?”

Gigi’s cheeks ached from the force of her smile as she watched the uncertainty leave Jackie’s face, only to be replaced by a raised eyebrow and deep smile. Her shoulder’s rose slightly, like her instincts were telling her to hide her face in embarrassment at the cheesiness, but her eyes didn’t leave Gigi’s anyway. They didn’t leave Gigi’s, until they closed and their lips met again, and the younger woman thought it felt like more luck than she thought she had the right to ask for.

#rpdr fanfiction #gigi goode #jackie cox #rock m sakura #Jan Sport #Crystal Methyd #gigi goode/jackie cox #jan sport/rock m sakura #jiji #jock #lesson in love #mina #lesbian au #back to school 2020 #day 4: lesson #submission

27 notes · View notes