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cdroloisms · 3 years

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take a shot - dsmp!mcc fic

MCC FIC! MCC FIC! MCC FIC! To be clear, I outlined this weeks back, when teams were first announced, and I took very very little from the actual MCC itself when it came to actually writing this - all I have are the same teams, but it really exists in its own continuity outside of Real Life MCC (obviously, as it’s using the dsmp characters) and everything like that as a whole! Just to be clear :D)

The worldbuilding is also Absolutely Bullshitted start to finish, as well as any and all medical information. Rip. We’re here for a good time, not for a long or particularly accurate one - hope you guys enjoy regardless!! I had a LOT of fun writing this fic, dsmp!mcc aus my BELOVED

title obviously from win it all by derivakat

---

Michael loves MCC.

But it’s one thing to love the normal Championships and quite another when his team looks like it’s falling apart from the inside out - and as the games progress, it becomes more and more obvious that losing, this time, might not be an option.

tws: C!QUACKITY CRITICAL (sorry i promise i love him but he is NOT portrayed very nicely here, very dark portrayal of him), implied trauma, abuse, torture, panic attacks, manipulation, gaslighting, needles, hospitals, MCC-typical violence, emotional distress, prison arc, pandora’s vault themes

(16k words !! :D long boi)

Michael loves MCC.

Of course he does! It’s fucking MCC - like, who wouldn’t love it? MCC is how he met so many people, how he met Dream, that one time, the two of them teamed with Techno and Burren and winning it all - MCC is a goddamn blast and he’s thankful every time he gets the invite that he’s able to compete.

Still- it’s hard not to be a little more nervous, now.

Dream gave him an invite to his SMP right after they teamed, but it wasn’t until months later that Michael actually cashed it in. Entering the server, it became very obvious very quickly that the DreamSMP, as it’s known, isn’t quite the same as its shiny media appearance. The spawn was covered in blocks, creeper holes littering the ground. The people he passed were grey-faced, too stoic to be the same, smiling faces he remembers from only less than a year ago. The air stings of gunpowder and iron. Worst of all are The Crater, shoddily covered in glass that does nothing to hide the damage done, rending the server in two straight down to bedrock, and the Prison, looming on the horizon. Absent-mindedly, Michael rubs at his left shoulder, remembering the Warden setting the prongs of his trident against the skin in warning, just hard enough to barely draw blood. Yeah, that place is bad news.

The fact of the matter is the server is a mess. And like, okay, whatever, Michael gets it. Everyone has their issues - it’s just the DreamSMP seems to have more than most. Despite his original worries, it’s honestly not been as bad as he originally feared upon logging in; yeah, Bad and Puffy and Foolish and the rest of them are a little more trigger-happy than he might’ve expected (and he’s not going to say that Bad crying over turtles wasn’t a little startling when he first joined, but honestly he thinks Bad is just Like That.) There’s way more death than he’s really comfortable with, and Puffy keeps mentioning Bad murdering her son (Foolish? He thinks? The guy is also a literal God but like, families are weird, who’s he to judge) in a way that’s way too casual to come from anyone entirely well-adjusted, but overall his experience has been alright.

Still, he gets the feeling that nobody exactly wants the outside world to know about the issues with the place. It’s not an issue for him usually, not when his sleeping schedule is the exact opposite of most of the people he knows and he spends most of his time screwing around on the server, anyway (usually harassing the Warden until the asscrack of dawn if he’s being honest) but with MCC, with everyone watching - he’s starting to get why everyone from the SMP was so damn tense all the time, now.

Anyway- he loves MCC, he really does. But even that doesn’t stop him from wincing when he sees his team card, the names Dream and Quackity and Sapnap written in Scott’s looping handwriting. He’s not seen Sapnap at all since joining the server, has only heard a little about his place (something Kingdom, not that he was paying attention) from Foolish, and has no idea what the man has been up to. Quackity is his own unique can of worms; Michael doesn’t know exactly what’s up with him and his country, but everything he’s heard so far has sounded like nothing but bad news, casinos and schemes and a trail of wreckage following wherever he goes. And Dream-

Michael looks out his window, chewing on his lip, looking directly in the direction where he knows the prison stands, impenetrable, intimidating. Where Dream’s cell is, in line with his house, where he’s been hidden for months without a trace. Where the Warden had confronted him that one night, a dangerous gleam in his eyes, blood splattered on his boots.

There’s no real ignoring an MCC invite - not without good reason, not without the admins picking up on something being up. There’s not really a choice, here, but for Michael to duck his head down and pretend everything’s fine just like everyone else from the SMP. He directs one last glance at the prison before walking away, setting the invite on his counter. If he’s lucky, everything will turn out fine.

(He ignores the part of him that asks what’s going to happen if they’re not. No point in worrying about what hasn’t happened yet - right?)

---

Weeks pass, the tournament creeping closer, and Michael gets no alerts from his teammates on his comm. No one comes to his house to check in, say hi, not even a ‘hey, we’re kinda competing in a massive tournament in like, seven days, you ready?’ Hell, he even starts checking his goddamn mailbox for a letter or something only to come up empty-handed every time. Never mind performing well - it’ll be a miracle if their team manages to arrive at the tournament at all.

It isn’t until the day before MCC, the sun high in the sky at what must be near noon, when he finally gets a message on his comm. Michael fishes it out with a frustrated huff, seeing Quackity’s name pop up first when he manages to turn on the screen.

Quackity whispers to you: you down for some practice?

It takes a couple seconds for him to blink away his shock - out of everyone he expected to arrange practice for their team, Quackity was definitely not at the top of the list. He half-thought they would have to drag him to the tournament kicking and screaming; from what he’s heard, he’s been nothing if not devoted to his country. Shaking his head, he goes to reply; practice is practice, and their team really needs it.

You whisper to Quackity: sure. practice server?

Quackity whispers to you: yes

Pulling up his server list, Michael scrolls for the practice server, finding it and then letting the server transfer do the rest. A few nausea-inducing seconds later, he’s at the practice server spawn, standing in the middle of a neatly paved road surrounded by colorful arenas and signs.

“Michael!”

He turns; there, by the Battle Box arenas, Quackity is waving at him, already dressed in a red varsity jacket and a pair of shorts, the jacket bearing a front pocket embroidered with a rabbit and a large R stitched onto the back. He reaches behind him for a red bag, throws it his way for Michael to catch mid-air.

“Got these outfits for us last minute - hope it’s alright with you,” Quackity smiles, and Michael tries to prevent his eyes from clinging to the scar spanning the entire left side of his face. “Anyway- how are you, man? I feel like we haven’t seen each other at all on the server. How’s it been?”

“I’m good- it’s been good.” Michael opens the drawstring bag, cataloguing the contents - there’s a jacket, just like Quackity’s, a pair of shorts and sweatpants, a t-shirt, and a headband, all in varying shades of red and white. “Nice outfit- thank you. Is anyone else around?”

Quackity waves a hand behind him. “Yeah- Dream’s here. Should be coming out of the arena soon, actually.” Michael looks over behind his shoulder to where he’s pointing - there, walking down the stairs, is another figure wearing all red that must be Dream. “There he is- hey Dream! Michael’s here!”

Dream hurries down the stairs; unlike Quackity, he is wearing the sweatpants along with the same jacket, hands stuffed in his pockets. His hair is a lot longer than Michael remembers, pulled back behind his head in a ponytail, mask, as usual, fastened over his face. He settles behind Quackity, giving Michael a small wave; his hands are covered by a pair of fingerless gloves.

“Hey, Dream!” Michael grins; it’s been such a long time since he’s seen his old teammate, and despite the circumstances and everything that’s apparently happened since then, it’s still pretty damn nice to see him. “How’ve you been?”

Dream seems to freeze for a moment, before shaking his head. “Good,” he says, quiet, sounding almost breathless. Michael’s eyes go to the slivers of skin that show on either side of his face, to the slight shake to his hands.

“You alright? You look a little pale,” Michael asks, and he definitely doesn’t miss the way Dream stills at the words, muscles tensing, gaze averting to the side even with the mask - doesn’t miss how Quackity steps forward, looking Michael in the eye as he tosses a casual arm around Dream’s shoulder, smiling brightly.

“Don’t worry. This idiot has just been practicing a bit too much before you got here,” Quackity gestures with a flippant twist of his wrist, “You know how he gets. Right, Dream?”

“Um- yeah. Ha,” Dream responds just a little too late to be strictly normal, shoulders tight and nearly pulled to his ears under Quackity’s arm. “Practice- I’m a little out of shape.”

“You sure?” Dream’s breathing hitches and Quackity steps forward, just a little bit, eyes still fixed firmly on Michael’s own even as he shifts his gaze to try and look at Dream. “We can take a break if you need, Dream-”

“I’m fine!” Dream smiles with a little stuttered breath that turns into a small laugh, “It’s- uh. It’s fine. Thanks Michael, but we can practice. Not much time left to waste, you know?”

“You sure, Dream?” Quackity says, suddenly, voice soft and sincere. “I guess it has been a while since you’ve been able to practice- you sure you don’t need a break?”

Dream shakes his head firmly. “No- it’s fine. Really- where’s Sapnap? He should be coming soon, right?”

“If you say so, pal,” Quackity replies, doubt coloring his tone as he pulls out his communicator. “I told Sapnap to come, he replied a couple minutes back; he should be here soon, I think. You want to go meet him at spawn?”

Dream nods, and they begin to set out towards the center of the server, Quackity and Dream quickly taking the lead as Michael falls back. After a minute, Quackity falls into casual conversation, rambling about something as Dream nods, Michael trailing behind the two of them and adding his own input as he sees fit. Sapnap arrives soon after, and the noise level picks up even more after that, Sapnap and Quackity falling into an easy rhythm of banter and quips as they set out to practice Battle Box and Parkour Tag, carefully working their way through the different games under Dream’s tutelage and advice.

And here’s the thing- Michael isn’t stupid. Yeah, he’d hardly consider himself a top tier MCC player, and he’ll be the first to say that he’s nowhere near qualified to deal with the literal laundry list of issues that affect every member of the SMP, but even so, he’s not clueless. He’s good at looking at multiple sides of a situation, doesn’t easily give into intimidation or manipulation, and he’s observant as all hell. So when Quackity wraps his hand around Dream’s wrist, fingers wrapping all the way around until his knuckles pale, when Dream winces, muscles in his arm locking before letting it go limp, not protesting when Quackity drags him forward except in the tiny, tight expressions that flit across his face every few moments, tight and gasping and shaky at the corners - Michael notices.

“See you at the tourney, yeah?” Quackity calls to him after practice with a wink before clapping Dream on the back, Michael watching silently as the muscles of Dream’s neck pull tight, head ducking to his chest. “Good job, big guy,” he says, laughing. “Keep this up for tomorrow and we’ll be good.”

“Mmhm,” Dream mutters after a brief second, “We’re- we’re gonna win.”

“Betting on it, pal,” Quackity replies, voice light in a way that completely fails to explain Dream’s full-body flinch. “MCC, huh? Can’t fucking wait.”

“See you tomorrow, Quackity,” Michael says as he presses DreamSMP on his server list, pretending that a chill doesn’t crawl down his spine at the smile that the other man throws his way in return.

---

There’s no real easy answer.

Michael comes to that conclusion at some point in the middle of the night, restless and pumped on way too much adrenaline to go to sleep. He can’t outright antagonize Quackity, can’t let him know he knows something’s up - not when Quackity had already spent the majority of practice keeping one dark, narrowed eye on him at all times, lips pursed in a slight frown whenever he thought Michael wasn’t looking. He’s not stupid; whatever’s happening between Dream and Quackity is secret, and kept that way for a reason. His mind goes back to the brief flashes of anxiety that had moved over Dream’s face before he could react fast enough to school them back into a carefully neutral position; whatever it is, he doubts it bodes well for Dream in the slightest.

Unfortunately, his hands are pretty damn tied. He knows public opinion on the masked man in the server is overwhelmingly negative, but has no damn idea how far it extends. How many people are in on whatever’s happening in that damn prison? How many people know what would make Dream, bold and bright and recklessly confident in all of Michael’s (rather limited) memories, into someone so quiet, unimposing, nervous? His head spins with the possibilities, with the ever-present reminder to not make a fuss, let the tournament pass on, to never, ever let anyone find out what’s going on within the SMP. Should he do anything at all?

Too soon, it’s morning, and he drags himself out of bed with a groan to glare at the sun streaming through his window. Somewhere, Quackity and Dream and Sapnap are also waking up, are preparing to compete in one of the biggest damn tournaments to exist. Michael sighs, glancing over to where he’s set out his outfit, freshly pressed and waiting. Any other day, and he’d probably be fucking ecstatic. Here, he buries his head in his hands, muffling a frustrated groan against the palm of his hands.

He loves MCC, but he sure as hell doesn’t like whatever the hell is going on with the rest of his team.

Getting into the server goes smoothly enough. The outfit is comfortable and looks damn good, props to whoever made the thing, and the sight of the multicolored crowd successfully manages to tamp down some of his nerves. He busies himself with saying hi to all of the members waiting in the lobby, happy for the chance to talk to some people he hasn’t seen in ages, feels the night of anxieties wash away with every stupid joke told and burst of laughter drawn from his lungs.

They come back the moment Scott steps up in front of the lobby. “Teams, it’s time to head to your team rooms! The tournament will begin in fifteen minutes,” Scott says, expression sunny and bright, “we’re wishing you all luck for a great performance today! May the best team win!”

In a flurry of movement, they’re all whisked to their rooms for a final few minutes of preparation and morale-boosting, and Michael enters the glorified dressing room to Quackity, Dream, and Sapnap already standing there, seemingly in the middle of conversation.

“You ready to win?” Sapnap yells, and Quackity whoops, and Michael manages a small cheer of his own. They’re all visibly nervous; Quackity has scarcely stopped moving, pacing from one side of the room to the next; Sapnap is basically jumping in place where he stands. Dream stands at the very back of the room, looking tense; Michael directs a wave his way and gets a small one in return.

“Game plan, game plan,” Quackity mutters, “do we know what games we’re playing first? Dream?”

He nods at Dream, and Dream stands up straighter, mouth falling open.

“Oh- um,” he hesitates, a strand of hair flopping forwards as he tilts his head in thought. “We’ll want to save Parkour Tag and Battle Box towards the end- maybe something more high-risk at the beginning, but not first, just to boost morale,” his teeth catch on his bottom lip, “Maybe something like To Get To The Other Side? If they have that- or Build Mart, if we can get it out of the way.” He shakes his head. “If that’s alright- I mean-”

“Great,” Quackity cuts in smoothly. “Sapnap? Michael? Does that sound good to you?”

Sapnap flashes a thumbs up, and Michael nods. “Yeah, sounds great. Thanks, Dream.”

Dream’s head snaps towards him, mouth slightly open in shock. The sight of it makes Michael’s gut twist uncomfortably; there’s something about how surprised he is, at the nervous hesitancy with which he spoke that was nothing like what Michael remembers of his easy leadership in that MCC with Techno, that doesn’t sit right at all in his stomach. Even with his expression largely hidden, there’s no mistaking the clear, genuine surprise on his face at the idea of someone thanking him - Michael tries to tell himself that he’s reading too much into it as Quackity continues to speak.

“We’re going to win,” he grins, just a little too sharp at the edges, “so get out there and play like your lives depend on it, yeah?”

Sapnap cheers, and again, Michael and Dream follow. It’s not until he’s outside the door, within the clamor of screaming teams and people counting down with the timer that Michael realizes that Quackity was staring at Dream the entire time.

---

Michael curses, frustrated, when he’s knocked off a platform again, making sure to flip Krinios the bird before he falls into the Void entirely. When he makes it to the other side, Quackity and Dream are already deep in conversation - if you can call it that. Even from here, it looks worryingly one-sided.

“-were you thinking, falling off there-” Quackity’s hand is on Dream’s shoulder, Dream standing stock-still in front of him, “you better be taking this seriously, Dream.”

“Hey- sorry about that,” Michael calls with a wave, “I swear Krinios had it out for me. At least I made it across, right?”

Quackity turns, startled, and in the split-second that it takes for him to register Michael’s appearance, his expression smooths over into something friendlier, more inviting. “Michael!” He says, enthusiastic, and it’s like the anger that had filled his words just seconds before was never there at all. “Don’t- don’t worry about it, man. We all kinda dropped the ball on that one, right Dream?”

The words should be encouraging, just simple ribbing between teammates. Dream’s mask is still ducked down, facing the floor, shoulders slightly hunched in.

“Um- Sapnap did pretty good,” Dream says, quiet, “he got top ten, right?”

Michael looks over to where Sapnap is standing a little ways away, seemingly busy typing on his communicator. Quackity laughs, sharp and loud.

“True,” he punches Dream lightly on the upper arm, and Michael watches the way he freezes the second the fist makes contact with his jacket, “come on, man, you’re losing your touch. You really gonna let yourself get beat by Sapnap?” he shakes his head, still laughing as he pulls open his communicator. “Jesus- even I beat you in that last round. Watch your spot, Dream, I’m coming for you.”

“I mean,” Michael says when a second passes and it becomes clear Dream isn’t going to respond, “Dream was doing pretty well with the last two rounds, right? I thought I saw his name pretty far up there.”

Quackity takes a second before responding, again, staring at Michael oddly as he does. “That’s true,” he concedes, “hey- I was just making a joke, don’t worry. It’s all for fun, right Dream?”

His gaze goes to Dream, and automatically, Michael follows. Dream seems to startle under the attention, twitching Quackity’s direction in the awkward silence that results. Michael watches as the mask slants slightly to face Quackity, as Quackity looks back at him with an intense, unreadable expression, shoulders strangely tense. Whatever unsaid conversation that seems to pass between them is entirely lost on Michael as Dream finally responds with a sudden, almost strangled bark of laughter.

“Yeah- just jokes,” his fingers twist over one another, hands held close together in front of his body, “Though Qu- Q’s right, I- I should probably pick it up. We’re playing to win.”

A ding alerts them to the end of the round, and Michael steadies himself in preparation for the teleport to the next map. As he turns, he catches Quackity’s expression, once again, and the self-satisfied smirk on his face as he continues to look at Dream.

“Good luck,” he calls just before they enter the next round, and tries not to think too much about what he’s saying it for.

---

They manage pretty well for the rest of To Get To The Other Side, finishing with a second place overall that got cheers from Sapnap and even a slight smile from Dream. Hole in the Wall, on the other hand, has been a lot less successful - though Michael will be the first to say that it’s his fault. His practice in the last few months has been lackluster (at best) and it definitely showed in the arena.

He leans over the railing, watching Dream and Sapnap through the crowd of participants left that have yet to be knocked out by the giant walls of slime. Quackity’s standing next to him, having been similarly thrown off the platform early in the round, expression tight and lips set in a small frown, and looking at him for too long makes Michael uneasy so he looks down at the arena again. They’re in the last round, and they’re supposed to be making callouts anyway for their teammates still participating below.

Without thinking, once again, Michael looks over at Dream. Sue him, he knows the guy best and Dream has been acting odd all day, to put it lightly. Even ignoring the part of him that’s screaming that something’s wrong, that there’s something up that has everything to do with the beanie-wearing man standing besides him, it only takes a few minutes of observation to see that Dream is - for the lack of a better word - off. Michael watches as he vaults over another wall, only barely managing to bring himself to his feet in time on the other side. Dream’s movements - even to his untrained eye - have always been fluid, effortless. He jumped and vaulted and ran like gravity didn’t exist, like every physics-bending maneuver he made was as easy as breathing. Michael remembers watching him sprint over the parkour course before, time completely unmatched as he appraised each obstacle and basically flew his way through, sounding hardly even winded when he whooped loudly in victory from the top of the salmon ladder. In total contrast, Dream jerks away from the coming wall again, movements sloppy and harsh as he scrambles to the other side of the disc-shaped arena. He’s still fast, and still making jumps, but everything is strangely angled where it had once been fluid, stopping and starting suddenly, moving in bursts of speed and then skidding to sudden stops.

“WEST!” Quackity shouts, and Michael watches as Dream’s head turns jerkily at the noise before he dives out of the way of the incoming wall and manages, barely, to twist around the side. Michael winces at the tumble he takes on the opposite side, clutching his chest slightly as he stands back up again.

“North!” Michael calls, because he should probably actually help his teammates, huh, and Dream manages to move around this one better, jumping through a hole in the wall and tucking and rolling as he lands. “Nice jump- East!”

It’s an easy wall, thankfully, and both Sapnap and Dream visibly take a breath as they stand in place for the wall to pass over them. As it passes, a droning buzz comes from the speakers, and the walls below them speed up.

“South-to your right!” Michael shouts as they turn, eyes turning between all of the false walls before finally focusing on the right one, his shout echoed by a similar one from Quackity. At each one of the calls from the man besides him, Dream seems to tighten further, movements increasingly erratic as he dodges and weaves around the walls. There’s still a lot of people left - Michael follows Dream through the crowd with a frown, watching as he and Sapnap jump the next wall, Dream’s foot nearly catching on the top edge.

“West-” Dream flinches, jumping over the two-high wall at the last possible second, landing completely off-balance on the other side and falling to the ground. He scrambles to his feet, but there’s already a wall at the west edge of the platform - his head turns, still searching for the wall - Quackity yells.

“LEFT!”

Something in Dream’s movements seem to shift, even in the distance - Michael watches as he immediately, almost robotically, steps to the left at Quackity’s voice, not even jumping, not turning his head to take in his surroundings, just moving instinctually at the words, and slams into the coming wall hard enough to get flung into the middle hole in the platform. Quackity curses, fist crashing into the railing as Dream falls and the chat message shows on their communicators, and a second later he’s materialized beside them, face oddly slack and mask focused somewhere faraway.

“Shit,” Dream mutters when he seems to come back into himself, shaking his head and then turning to the two of them, still by the railing, “Dammit. Sorry, I-“

“Don’t worry about it,” Michael cuts in before Quackity can speak. “You did good.”

“I-” Dream catches Quackity’s gaze, then pushes his head away, mask facing the ground. Something about it and his raised shoulders and the dark, angry glare that Quackity directs over the railing when Michael looks back makes him shift in place, uneasy. “Could’ve done better, ha. Sorry.”

The three of them watch, silent, as Sapnap continues to compete. He manages to get pretty damn far, making it to the top three, but getting knocked off-balance by a wall and off the platform just before the timer sounds. Michael cringes back at the sound of it over the speakers, watches the other contestants settle into place, panting, in victory.

“Great job, Sapnap,” Michael shouts when he materializes in front of them, and the other two are quick to echo his sentiments. If they sound a little duller than they should be, if Quackity’s jaw seems clenched and Dream’s all coiled up like a spring, far too tense, it’s from placing lower than they wanted and slipping in the rankings, not anything else.

Keep your head down, Michael reminds himself, and everything’s gonna be fine. And if the words ring more and more hollow with every repetition, well, that’s for him to ignore and for everyone else to never, ever find out.

---

Buildmart is chosen next, which they all groan at, but at least it’s going to be out early and not left to ruin all of their scores later. Michael takes his place at his build, one third from the left side - it’s some abomination of colored glass and white concrete meant, if he is to guess, to emulate a stained glass window. He’s between Dream and Sapnap, the former positioned in front of a flower-dotted grass field with a picnic table, the latter staring down a miniature car with black concrete for tires and stone buttons for detailing. He breathes a steady breath as they await the countdown, already planning for his trip to the Colors section to grab materials for his build and the others’- Buildmart isn’t his strongest game, but it’s not his worst either, and he’s damn well going to try his best.

He skids into the portal with an armful of colored concrete and glass, spilling half of its contents inside a chest before running to his build. He pulls himself to the crafting bench to craft - he squints at his build - he needs four red glass panes and 3 yellow, right. As he brings the panes to his inventory and begins laying out the frame of the build in concrete, he looks over to Dream, who is noticeably struggling with placing the flowers in his build and getting the placements to match that of the original. He knocks away a white tulip with a muffled curse, sounding frantic as he looks back to the original, and places it again to no avail.

It seems that his struggle hasn’t only caught Michael’s attention, as the statue to the leftmost side of the room explodes in gold coins and confetti - Quackity has finished his build and is now looking at Dream with narrowed eyes. Dream places the flower again, and the build refuses to respond. Quackity’s gaze narrows further, and he opens his mouth-

“Hey Quackity!” Michael starts speaking before he’s even noticed that he’s opened his mouth, fumbling as he regains awareness of what he’s doing and tries to find a direction for his sentence to go, “do you have any concrete?”

Quackity looks at him like he’s grown a second head, which is fair, considering there’s a block of white concrete pretty obviously visible in his hand. “Um- no? Weren’t you supposed to go to Colors?”

Dream finally manages to place the tulip where it belongs, and the build between them disappears in another explosion of gold glitter. Michael laughs awkwardly.

“Sorry- haha. I got a little mixed up.” He places the last piece of white concrete, watching as his own build disappears. A little wooden cottage takes its place, made of what appears to be just oak wood and cobblestone. “Are you going to get wood? Or should I?”

“I- You get wood,” Quackity shakes his head, visibly frustrated, “And I’ll get stone. We have to hurry, we’re falling behind.”

After that, Michael finds it a little too easy - or maybe not easy, but at least tolerable, to interrupt when Quackity looks a little like he’s about to fall on the side of being angry versus just annoyed, stepping between his angry glares at Dream with a forced smile and an incessant string of annoying questions-

“Hey Quackity, do you have any spare iron?”

“Hey Quackity, I think you placed that a little too far back.”

“Hey Quackity, can you take a look to see what I placed wrong?”

It’s not perfect. It’s hardly even functional; Michael knows that Quackity has begun with the habit of directing death glares at his back whenever he thinks he’s not looking, his responses to Michael’s questions becoming more and more clipped, often paired with irritated grumbles and sighs. Sapnap, when Michael looks at him, seems largely engrossed with his own builds, but he’s also begun looking over at the two of them with a vaguely dissatisfied expression, and Dream only seems to be getting more jumpy with every frustrated growl out of Quackity’s mouth. Even Michael’s forced levity and falsely ignorant questions can’t do much against Quackity’s anger when they walk out of Buildmart dead last for the minigame, dropping their team all the way down to seventh in the overall rankings, and the tension within the team as they walk out - Quackity nearly stomping, Dream following with his hands wringing around each other and head ducked fearfully - is almost enough to make Michael scream. He looks at the scoreboard with a worried expression as he enters the Decision Dome, trying to quell the sinking feeling in his gut.

There’s still five more games to go, and he’s not sure how long they can last before something snaps.

---

Battle Box is chosen next, and they react to the game with quiet cheers and slightly grim faces. Michael’s been in enough MCCs to know that this game, of any, is crucial - after their lacking performances in the last two games, a good showing at Battle Box will be crucial to pull them back into the competition and raise morale. With Sapnap and Dream, if this were any normal game, they should be able to sweep through a good amount of the competition without much effort. As it is, though, Michael looks at the two more combat-oriented members of his team with a worried expression, the two barely even able to meet each other’s eyes. Their interactions so far have been less than promising- if they can’t hold it together for this round, well.

Michael shakes his head. They’ll do fine. They have to.

Even so, the first round only seems to confirm his concerns - they get woolrushed almost immediately, and in Dream and Sapnap’s stumbling to get to mid, nearly crashing into each other and focusing their efforts on the same player by accident, the other team manages to fill out the wool, sending them back to the spawn box even more frustrated than before.

“Amazing teamwork, guys,” Quackity snarks immediately, and Michael rolls his eyes.

“Like you did that much.”

Sapnap is still staring at Dream oddly, Dream turning his head to avoid his gaze. The two of them look largely oblivious to Quackity and his whole deal, even as Quackity whirls around to give him the stink eye.

“You didn’t do anything either, if I remember correctly,” Quackity mutters, and Michael shrugs.

“Fair.”

A ding alerts them to the round’s end, and they resign themselves to preparing for the next round. Michael picks the extra arrows from the wall, knowing that no one else will want the kit, and watches as Dream anxiously runs his hands over the crossbow.

The next round goes better, barely; Michael and Quackity end up knocked out pretty early, but Dream and Sapnap manage to kill the rest of the team soon after. He watches from the box as they fill in the wool, Dream looking awfully tense as he shears away the white wool for Sapnap to fill it with red. Quackity watches them both with a tight expression, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.

Michael turns away, ignoring him, going back to watching Dream and Sapnap still standing within the arena. Both of them look awkward, oddly out of step with each other - Michael’s not watched them fight much, but he knows that they have a reputation as a pair, was there for the Sky Battle round where they completely wiped through the competition. Even here, Sapnap moves forward and Dream flinches back - there’s something heavy and tense between them, lingering in the few words they’ve spoken to each other, if they’ve even spoken to each other at all, one always rushing forward too fast or following just a little too slow. They’re still brilliant fighters, almost unrivaled in hand-to-hand combat and with swords, but the faltering communication is sure to hurt them more in the future.

His worries come true just three rounds later, the two in between being narrow wins for their team, each a little more shaky than would be comfortable. Michael has found himself easing off the worst of his anxiety in verbally sparring with Quackity, jabbing at the other with offhand remarks and little needling jokes to keep his attention off the other two, especially as his glare has become more pronounced and his words more angry. Even so, nothing he does or can do will fix the odd tension between Dream and Sapnap, whose communication remains as stilted and awkward as ever.

They’re facing a stronger team, PVP wise, with Punz and Seapeekay, and Michael ends up falling in a bow duel against Jack. He watches as the Captain falls to a potion by Sapnap, then as Jack is taken out by a crossbow bolt courtesy of Dream, just before Quackity falls to a well-timed bow shot from the opposing team.

That leaves the strongest PVPers to battle it out, and Dream and Sapnap manage to team up and kill CPK - but not without taking a nasty damage potion to the face that must leave the two of them low. Michael watches Punz, booking it to mid with a crossbow, anxiously - both of them would be a oneshot with the thing, and on the condition that he takes no damage before fighting with either of them outright, he’s probably got enough health to hold out a few hits.

Sapnap pulls out a health potion, and Michael grins - that’ll be good for the two of them, and should secure them the win - only for him to gesture roughly with his sword and for Dream to stagger backwards, panic flashing over his face. He only seems to grow more fearful at the sound of glass shattering on the ground, falling backwards further - far enough to be largely out of range of health pot - and in their shock, Punz manages to catch both of them off guard and nail Sapnap with a crossbow bolt that downs him for the round before similarly dispatching Dream in two hits of his sword.

Sapnap explodes upon respawn in the box - “What was that? I had a health pot!”

“I-” Dream fumbles, face still oddly pale, “Sorry I didn’t- I- I-”

“We had that round!” Sapnap’s arms flail forward as he gestures angrily, Dream freezing further as one hand skims past his shoulder. “I can’t believe- I had a health pot! Punz was on, like, half! We could’ve killed him!”

“Easy, easy,” Quackity moves forward, putting a hand on both of their shoulders - Sapnap seems to relax immediately, while Dream, if anything, only looks more tense. “It’s time for the next round - we’ll talk about this later, alright?”

Dream nods, movements overly tense, and Quackity flashes a toothy smile his way as Sapnap moves back, still mumbling to himself. He and Quackity move to talk in the back corner, words quiet enough that Michael cannot make them out, and something sick and cold slithers over his spine. Sapnap and Quackity are fiancés, aren’t they?

Michael looks over at Dream, mask still covering his face as he looks away through the glass to the arena, shoulders still tight as Michael’s pretty sure they’ve been for as long as he’s seen him since he came onto the server. He remembers the panic that make itself obvious on his face every time Quackity came up to him, even as covered as it is, the similar- if not the same- fear that had painted his face when he respawned fresh off of the Battle Box round after Sapnap’s sword had passed a little too close to his body.

Quackity and Dream- he’s sure, even if he doesn’t want to admit it, that there’s something going on there, dark and dreadful and poisonous. Who’s to say that Sapnap isn’t involved, as well?

---

They finish Battle Box decently well, but not as well as they’d hoped, pulling them up to fifth place with a decently large gap between them and fourth. Quackity and Dream disappear immediately as the Audience Votes begin coming in, leaving Sapnap and Michael to stand awkwardly in the lobby to wait for the rest of their team to come back. Michael watches the crowd for a glimpse of Quackity and Dream, comes up empty. A sigh fizzles through his teeth as he looks up into the sky, the endless blue doing little to ease his nerves - he’s worried, even if he doesn’t want to think about it, for his teammates. For Dream.

It doesn’t take a genius to see that the man is scared of Quackity, that there’s an odd sort of history there that Michael conveniently has no information about. Whatever it is, it’s left Dream unsure and uncharacteristically nervous, left the entire team floundering without proper leadership to tie them all together. Really, a part of him knows that the Championships should be the least of his concerns - if he were braver, or a little better at combat, or a little less inclined to just let things pass as they always have, then he’d be raising a fuss. Getting in the way, talking to Dream, doing something other than making backhanded compliments to Quackity that he’s sure have been doing little more than annoy the man further.

“Michael?” Sapnap comes within his line of sight, lips pressed together in a carefully put-together expression that Michael is sure will collapse the moment they’re away from others’ prying eyes, “Can we speak for a moment?”

Michael forces another easy smile to his face as he turns towards his teammate, feels a little disgusted at the amount of them he’s had to use to simply function with the rest of his team. “Sure! Where to?”

They walk at a brisk pace to the team room, Sapnap’s eyes focused forwards the entire time, not speaking. If he’s being honest, it’s a little awkward, but the lighthearted comment on his tongue to break the silence dies out the minute Sapnap closes the door and looks back at him with fierce, focused eyes boring into him.

“What’s your deal?” He hisses immediately, words pitched low even though he doesn’t really have to - there’s no one nearby, and the team rooms are decently soundproofed. Michael feels his hackles rising as Sapnap’s arms cross in front of him, eyes still focused on his own as he talks. “I’m not going to lie- I don’t know you that well, even though you’re on the SMP now, but can you quit it with Quackity already?”

“Quit what?” Michael snarks - sue him - matching Sapnap’s tone with irritation of his own.

“Don’t- you’ve been antagonizing Quackity all day,” Sapnap’s hand runs through his hair, messing up his hair and tangling it into knots, “And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re kind of in the middle of a competition here? So it’d be really nice if you could save the fighting for until after we’re done?”

“Says you?” Michael can’t help the retort this time, huffing irately at the offended expression that flashes over the other’s face, “I don’t really know if you’ve noticed, but your teamwork has been a little less than stellar, today. Pot calling the kettle black, much?”

“What-” Sapnap looks confused, even through his anger, gesturing more and more wildly. “What do you even mean?”

“Oh, so are we just ignoring what just happened in Battle Box then?”

Sapnap’s eyes flash as he closes into himself again, hands gripping at his upper arms as he crosses his arms in front of his chest once again. “That- that’s different. That’s because of Dream.”

“Oh, just keep blaming it on the other guy, why don’t you?”

“No-” Sapnap shakes his head furiously. “You haven’t been on here for nearly as long, you don’t get it, Michael. Dream- he’s-,” Sapnap flails, and Michael groans at the familiar words.

“Dream’s what? I was on the team with the guy before, you know. It’s kind of the reason why he invited me in the first place?” He raises an eyebrow. “We worked together perfectly well then - am I supposed to believe that his self-proclaimed ‘best friend’ can’t do the same?”

“You don’t understand,” Sapnap repeats, expression hard and oddly far away, “Dream- he’s changed- he’s done so many terrible things. I don’t know what he’s said to convince you, but he’s bad news, man. He’s hurt- so many people.”

“Oh- you want to talk about hurting people?”

Michael isn’t quite sure what comes over him - only really realizes a white-hot flash of rage lancing through his chest, a sleepless night and half a competition’s worth of anxiety and frustration and build up combining into a sizzling spike of fury that briefly tinges his vision red.

“How about the way Dream looks like he’s about to keel over whenever anyone gets close to him? How about how he flinches back at literally every loud noise and fast movement? How about how Quackity’s been making these stupid, angry comments at him for the entire competition that make him freeze for a minute each time? Or how about when you were in Battle Box and Dream backed away from your sword like he thought you were gonna drive it through his chest?” Michael barely feels himself stepping forward with each word, jabbing his index finger into the other’s chest. “You want to talk about hurting people? How about you go talk to that fiancé of yours and then come back to talk?”

A loud, droning buzz comes over the speakers, alerting them of the end of the break. Michael steps back, face flushed in embarrassment, before the world whirls away and they’re teleported back into the Decision Dome.

He adamantly refuses to meet Sapnap’s eyes as Quackity and Dream materialize in the sector with them, Quackity’s hand clamped around Dream’s upper arm as the other man keeps his eyes fixed firmly on the floor, looking even more panicked and frozen than before the break.

“You ready to win?” Quackity laughs, and Michael watches as his hand tightens around the sleeve of Dream’s jacket, knuckles paling from the strain.

“Yeah,” Michael tries to cheer, and it feels like ash on his tongue. “Let’s do this.”

---

Survival Games ends up being picked next - Quackity and Sapnap quickly pull up to the front of the group, close enough to be within eyesight but too far to really pick up their conversation. Michael keeps an eye out for the reddish glow of their bodies as they scout the surrounding areas for chest, staying back with Dream as they look at the other side of the road. He’d be lying if he said that he didn’t feel a smug sort of satisfaction of Sapnap seemingly confronting Quackity about whatever the hell has been going on, as awkward as his whole outburst had been. As it is, some time with Dream is nice without Quackity watching over his shoulder like a hawk - he directs a small, genuine smile at the man by his side that Dream seems to do a double take at before shyly returning it with one of his own.

“There- I think I see a chest,” Michael points under a lamppost, running to the wooden box and flicking the lid upwards. He pulls out a chain chestplate that he promptly puts on himself, then throws over the iron boots to his teammate as well as a small stone axe that he’s sure Dream will make better use of. “We should probably catch up to the others - don’t want to be caught off guard while separated.”

Dream nods, and the two of them pick up the pace before finding another chest that Dream rummages through, this time, finding an iron sword that Michael takes for himself and a cake.

“You’ve been doing really well so far,” Michael says after a few minutes of quiet, words becoming more firm when Dream looks up at him with a surprised expression. “Seriously- you’ve been doing great, man.”

“Thanks,” Dream smiles, words quiet and terribly sincere, and the sinking pit in Michael’s gut returns at the tone. “Not as good as I should, though. I’ve been underperforming a lot,” he laughs a little at the words, but even to Michael’s ears it rings hollow. “It’s not over yet, though.”

“No it’s not,” Michael concedes, rearranging his inventory as they run. “But it’s good enough, man, really - just look at my rankings.”

Dream huffs. “You’ve been doing good, Michael.”

“And you’ve been doing a hell of a lot better than me,” Michael tips his head in his direction. “Give yourself some more credit, man. You’ve been playing well.”

Dream smiles again, but even now the corners of his mouth seem tight, tense. “I need to play better, though, if we want to win,” he says, matter-of-fact, analytical to a damn fault. Michael rolls his eyes, but nods to concede the point.

“Sure, but that goes for all of us, Dream,” he shakes his head. “And it’s okay if we don’t win, you know?”

“No.”

Michael turns, frowning. Dream’s tone has become oddly flat, eyes dead as he continues to stare at the pavement under their feet. He seems to be chewing on his lip anxiously, startled out of his own thoughts when he looks up to meet Michael’s gaze. “I mean- I don’t know. I really have- want to win.”

There’s something so carefully worded about the admission, quiet and scraped open and raw in the slow sincerity of the words. Michael wants to poke at it, wants to understand what’s left him so unsure of every step, what determination lies behind the words that has left desperation clinging to every shallow breath he draws. A crack of thunder on the horizon, heralding a player’s death, reminds him that now is not the time.

Keep your head down.

“Alright,” he smiles thinly, hoping that the fracturing, yawning pit of emptiness in his chest isn’t obvious in the words. “Then we’re going to win.”

---

Michael skids to a stop at the finish line, feeling the elytra deequip as he’s thrown into spectator mode. He runs his hands through his wind-tousled hair, feeling it strain against his fingers as he roughly finger-combs it back into place. Dream and Sapnap are off to the side, standing next to each other but seemingly not speaking - Michael smiles as he floats over, still shaking the adrenaline off from the race.

“Hey,” the two look up, smile in recognition, and Dream waves; there’s a small smile on his face, strained but present. “You both did really good!”

“Thanks, Michael,” Dream laughs, earnest, “I did decent, I guess- haha. Top ten at least.”

Sapnap whoops. “We’re popping off!” Michael cheers in agreement, and their efforts manage to pull Dream’s smile a little wider as he ducks his head to look away again.

“Thanks, guys.”

They watch as Quackity flies through the finish line, appearing in front of them and shaking his arms out as he gets his bearings.

“Geez- that trident,” he shakes his head, looks up. “Hey, there you guys are. How’d we do?”

“Dream got seventh,” Sapnap scrolls through his comm, looking through the rows of contestants and their times as they come in, interspersed by the occasional chat message, “And I got 10th. Michael got- 28th, I think? And you got 32nd.”

“Hmm,” Quackity hums, “What do you think, Dream? Is that good enough to pull us to Dodgebolt?”

Once again, Michael watches as Dream stiffens under the scrutiny, head ducking down and looking for all the world like he’d rather be anywhere else. “Um- I don’t know,” Dream mumbles, “I messed up a trident- fell into the void once, probably could’ve done better otherwise-” his voice trails off, tensing further as Quackity takes his usual spot by his side, jabbing an elbow none-too-lightly into his ribs.

“But you didn’t, though,” Quackity says, tone flippant, “so what do you think? With those placements- is it going to be enough?”

“Hey, we did great, man,” Michael glares at him, more forward than he’d usually be - but all he can see is the shoulder that he has pressed against Dream’s arm, the way Dream’s stood stock still since the moment he made contact, “Lay off of Dream, would you? He did great.”

“Yeah, Q,” Michael’s eyebrows raise in surprise as Sapnap chimes in from the side, rising further when Sapnap moves forward to link his arm with Quackity’s own and half-drag him away from Dream. “Chill out, man, we popped off. We’re gonna fucking win this, ok?”

Quackity’s lips press together; he’s still smiling, but there’s no mistaking the seething darkness that lingers in his narrowed eyes and furrowed eyebrows, gaze still trained on the pale off-white disk of Dream’s mask. Still, with the rest of the team against him, he’s in a losing fight and he knows it; Michael watches as he visibly backs down, rolling his shoulders back as he lets Sapnap pull him further back.

“We’re going to fucking win this,” he repeats, and Michael wonders how he manages to make the words sound so much like a threat.

---

“Sky battle,” Sapnap calls as the decision dome below them lights up in confirmation of the penultimate game, expression immediately becoming more focused as he turns back to the rest of the team. “Alright- strats, what are we thinking?”

“There’s the iron at spawn,” Dream starts, interrupted by the teleport to the Sky Battle arena, making him cut himself off comically and take a second to shake off the resulting disorientation, “And then there’s the iron in the nearby island. We gotta pick one, tower as soon as we can.”

“Got it,” Sapnap looks down, seemingly calculating, before looking up again - Michael has heard him compared to fire before, but he thinks this is the first time he’s really seen it; there’s a veritable blaze burning in his eyes as he looks at each member of the team, easily taking charge as they prepare for the first round. “Same buddy system as Survival Games - Q, stick with me, Michael, stick with Dream. I’ll tower to the next island- Dream, you good with getting the iron at spawn and crafting armor for us?”

Dream startles, before flashing a small thumbs up at the other - Sapnap smiles wider, teeth bared dangerously.

“This is our game,” he cheers, and Michael enthusiastically whoops in reply, “we’re winning this, you got that team? Let’s go!”

This, Michael thinks, is the way the games should’ve gone - they jump into action upon the start of the game, Michael watching as Dream races through both chests on the spawn island, getting the iron and jumping down cleanly with a water bucket before following Sapnap’s bridge to the other island. He tosses over a pair of leggings and boots as he lands, then takes Sapnap’s excess iron to craft the other pieces of iron for himself and Sapnap as the other man begins shooting at opposing teams. Their communication is near wordless, simple one- or two-word requests communicating all they need as they follow each other seamlessly into the main arena area, sealing off their entrance as they search the ring for other teams.

Sapnap, especially, seems to have shifted - instead of waiting for Dream to take the lead, he seems comfortable barrelling on forward on his own, trusting for Dream to follow his steps. Michael watches as the two of them easily work through the two lagging members of Orange, shooting through a gap in the wall to catch an unsuspecting Yellow player chased by the border. Michael ends up dying to an unlucky block of TNT placed on his head - curses out what appears to be Quig, bounding over to the other side of the arena, and follows Dream and Sapnap as they continue to fight their way through the competition.

It’s not perfect, for sure - Dream hesitates at a bad place a minute later, ending with Sapnap getting 2v1ed and exploding in a flash of red sparkles. Dream is similarly dispatched a few seconds after, and the three of them watch Quackity, caught in the crossfire of two other teams, before he also goes down.

“Good work, team,” Sapnap says as he appears, disoriented, in spectator mode, and they watch the remaining two teams battling in a rapidly shrinking border before Fruit falls as well, leaving Pink as the winners. “That was close- we’ve got this.” The conviction in his voice leaves no room for argument, and Michael, briefly, feels bad for anyone that stands in the way of it.

With the second round, they once again fall into rhythm without any major hiccups - someone tries to cut them off before entering the main arena, but are made quick work of by Sapnap’s relentless onslaught. As Michael watches, Dream seems to regain confidence as well, moving more to fight with Sapnap side by side instead of just playing support, tugging him back from a risky play and catching Punz in a nasty combo that does him in when he manages to slip past Sapnap.

The four of them end up in the final stand off in the middle, but end up getting caught too high up and killed by the border before they can jump down. Sapnap hisses at the narrow defeat, but the disappointment has hardly seemed to dim his determination - if anything, it seems to burn brighter.

“Last round,” he mutters, and Michael watches as Dream walks up to him, bumping him lightly with his shoulder.

“This is our game,” he says, a small smile appearing on his face, and Sapnap returns it with a fiery, blinding one of his own.

“Ours,” he says, and even just standing on the side, watching - Michael believes it.

Still, his concerns have yet to disappear - they linger in his mind as they jump into an adrenaline-filled last round, jumpy from excitement and victory just within their grasps. Dream is still more jittery than he should be, taking a second more than usual to react to fights, and his teamwork with Sapnap - while good - is still noticeably rusty. Michael’s lips thin at the memory of Dream backing away from Sapnap’s sword in Battle Box, hunched into himself, almost on the floor, with a clearly desperate edge to his expression - and no matter how he tries, he can’t quite manage to shake it off.

Unfortunately enough, the third round doesn’t bode well for them from the start - Quackity gets bowed off while bridging to the main arena, and upon entrance there they end up flanked, hard, by another team in a conflict that gets Michael killed within seconds. Sapnap and Dream book it to the other side of the arena, where they manage to work through a full team without too much trouble - but the next minute brings another half-team flying at them from the back, catching them in the middle of trying to recuperate. The two focus Dream in the middle of eating a steak, and Michael watches as Dream steps back instead of moving forward to fight, that same shade of fear making his muscles seize as he stands, stock still, watching helplessly as swords fly his way- Michael cries out, but there’s nothing he can do-

Between one blink and the next, Sapnap is standing in front of Dream, a snarl painting his features as he whirls through both players in a fury. Michael watches, awed, as his sword weaves and dances between the two attacking Dream, making quick work of them both until they’re no more than items scattered over the ground, then grabs Dream by the wrist and drags him up a nearby ladder onto the upper floor, plopping him by the wall and then backing off.

Sapnap stands back as Dream sits against the wall, breathing fast and labored, dropping to his knees with his hands in front of him, palms up, no weapons in hand. Michael watches, frantic, for the signs of any teams nearby - with Dream panicking and Sapnap’s back to the rest of the arena, they’d be easy pickings - but for once, luck seems to be on their side, because no one comes. Dream heaves a breath through his lungs, deep and shuddery - Sapnap watches, lips flat from concern, but doesn’t speak.

“You good to continue?” he asks, when Dream seems calm enough to recognize his surroundings, and Dream looks up at the words, jaw slack from shock and disorientation, before his head dips in a firm nod.

“Good,” Sapnap smiles, tight-lipped and fiercely determined, fiercely loyal, as he reaches out a hand that Dream moves to take. “Let’s go fuck them up, yeah? You and me, just like we used to.”

Michael watches, heart in his chest, as they stand together to face the rest of the competition, towering towards the middle and facing off with the remaining teams, watches as they move forwards through explosions and buckets of lava, coalescing onto the middle island, as they battle through the remaining opponents as one in a clean spiral of clashing blades and flying arrows, fighting with their backs to each other in the center of the arena. He watches as a well-placed fishing rod by Dream knocks their final opponent off the platform, leaving them in the middle, triumphant, as the only remaining team -

Watches, a brilliant, bubbling laugh in his chest as Dream and Sapnap take their spots in the middle of the arena, standing side by side as Sapnap raises Dream’s hand in victory, both laughing and cheering into the sky.

---

Their performance in Sky Battle manages to pull them to third - but second place still stands a few hundred coins away, and they watch anxiously as Parkour Tag is chosen as the last game and they are transported over the arena.

“Last game,” Sapnap calls, “We’ve got this, alright?”

He gets terse, short nods in return - it’ll be a close game, and even Michael is feeling the pressure. He breathes a soft, quiet breath through his teeth as they prepare, looking over to the opposite team as they choose their hunters and runners.

“Dream, you up to hunting first four?” Sapnap seems to be watching the effects of his words more, waiting for Dream’s agreement before moving forward, sliding into the position of leader easily when Dream seems to struggle. Dream nods and steps into the hunter’s box, lips pressed together, flat and focused, and Michael turns back to the arena to plan out his route.

Parkour, by far, is not his strong suit. It hadn’t been his strong suit during Parkour Warrior and sure as hell isn’t it now - he enjoys it well enough, but with the pressure of a hunter on him or the time creeping past and the competition standings hanging over his head like a guillotine, he’s prone to slipping up and he knows it. The map is full of dizzying, multi-colored structures and difficult jumps, the twists and turns of the arena making his head spin. Being good at parkour is more than being good at movement - it involves being able to make split-second decisions and execute them with no time to hesitate. Unfortunately, Michael isn’t particularly good at any of that, so Parkour Tag mostly just stresses him the hell out.

He sets out to the arena, listening for callouts over comms as he fumbles over the buildings. Halfway through the game, Dream’s voice comes through comms, quiet, focused.

“Gottem.”

“Nice, Dream,” Michael smiles, trying not to trip over a particularly hard jump, only to fall to being tagged in the back by the opposing team’s hunter - Ant, if he remembers right. “Sapnap and Q are still in- we’ve got this.”

Once again, each time, Dream races through the opposing team in seconds, seemingly going faster with each round. Michael has heard his reputation as a hunter before, but only now is he really appreciating the extent - the speed at which he manages to dispatch all three opponents is downright terrifying. They manage to win all four rounds, lingering around second place overall on the leaderboards, before Sapnap and Dream switch off for hunting.

With each round, Michael watches Dream in the lobby, watching as he tenses further in focus and determination and no small degree of fear, but it hadn’t been nearly as obvious in between rounds. Now, with him in the arena with Quackity and himself, Dream’s jumpiness is all that more palpable, adrenaline making him pace and jump in place from where he stands at the edge of the place. The glass lowers, and he explodes into motion, bounding on top of the nearest tower to wait for the hunter to come towards them.

Michael ends up caught first, early in the round, once again, and resolves to following Dream over the glass to watch his movements and make callouts for the hunter chasing behind him. Watching Dream move through the arena, dodging below fixtures and through tunnels and jumping from tower to tower with seemingly no regard for gravity pulling him down, it’s become all the more obvious that this is his element. He makes another hairpin turn around a pole, kicking himself up over a tower and then diving from it to a nearby building, landing on a ledge inside it, hands clutching the wall - Michael watches, quietly awed, as he outlasts the hunter, landing in small, panting breaths in the lobby.

“Great work,” he cheers, quiet, as Dream shakes off the last dregs of the adrenaline, all of them watching the leaderboard anxiously, “Just three more rounds, alright?”

The rounds that follow continue in much of the same vein - Dream, once he’s gotten started, seems near-impossible to chase down; Michael and Quackity provide support, distracting the hunter for as long as they can until they get tagged, but part of him wonders if it’s all even necessary. Dream flies from structure to structure seemingly unhindered by The Laws That Be, expression firm, if a little frantic, as he parkours his way through the arena. To their credit, the hunters chase, and several come pretty close - but Dream, worked up on adrenaline or anxiety or some twisted mix of the two, races over and around the buildings within the arena like his life depends on it.

It’s a surprisingly (if sickeningly) apt description - the skill in parkour is far from unacknowledged on Dream’s record; they all know his reputation with Parkour Warrior, all know that there are little that can match his skill as a traucer - but there’s something newly desperate in the way he runs, the muscles of his body tight and taut even in between rounds, expression permanently tight at the corners from fear. His movements, lacking in their usual fluidity, are made up with sheer speed and mad scrambles up walls that no one else seems to dare replicate. It’s concerning, even to Michael’s untrained eye, how frantic he seems the entire time, the flashes of expressions that he’ll direct towards the hunter like being caught by them will be his end, but- if anything, at least it’s effective.

Between his parkour and Sapnap’s own skill, they manage to dominate the other teams without much issue, and the bonuses from eliminating the other team first combined with Dream’s survival points each round land them a first place for the game by just a few hundred coins. The four of them watch with bated breaths for the event standings, whooping and cheering together when it shows the red rabbits in second -

“DODGEBOLT, BABY!” Quackity cheers, loudly, and the rest of them join him, laughing and screaming incoherently, “LET’S FUCKING GO!”

“LET’S FUCKING GO!” Sapnap punches the air with a loud, resolute whoop of joy, and Dream - still shaking off the jitters of his last round in Parkour Tag - soon joins in with a few cheers of his own.

Michael watches them all with a smile on his face as they cheer in victory - Dodgebolt has them against the Yellow Yaks, which will be a hard match up, but between Dream and Sapnap’s skill, if they all stay focused, they shouldn’t have any issue.

They’ve done it. They’ve made it to Dodgebolt - if they keep their heads in the game, then they should win. All he has to do is keep his head down a little longer, long enough to win them the game, long enough for them to go home with new crowns and new coins, long enough for him to go back to living his quaint little life in his quaint little house - going back to heckling the Warden at night and hanging with Bad and Puffy, working on builds and living life away from the rest and pretending that nothing is wrong. The server will go back to normal come tomorrow, and it will all be okay.

The smile slips off his face.

They’ve done it. And then they’ll go back to the SMP, and Dream might evade whatever immediate consequences come with losing, but there’s no evidence that whatever’s caused that heartstopping, devastating fear that has characterized his every move is going to stop. They’ll win, and they’ll go back to the SMP, and they’ll keep dying and fighting wars and keep pretending that the world they live in is normal; they’ll go back to the server, and Michael will go back in his house while Dream goes back into his cell directly across from it, still locked in a black box with no way in or out, no means of communication with anyone outside, locked away with the key thrown away for anything to happen with no one to know-

Michael glances over to Dream, to the tense edge of his shoulders that has never left for as long as the tournament has continued and long before. To the grey-faced, grey-eyed inhabitants of the SMP, coming to the Championships with sealed lips and a shared determination to never reveal that anything is wrong, to pretend that things are normal and move on.

Michael’s hands clench into fists at his side, then unclench, the helplessness cutting through his excitement like a splash of cold water straight through his chest. They’ll win the Championship, and then what? They’ll go back to the server, and then what?

He looks up at the sky, avoiding the eyes of the rest of his team as they are teleported to the arena. Around him, nothing comes in reply.

---

“Shit-”

Sapnap disappears in a flourish of red particles, and Michael winces as Dream picks up the arrow he left behind, biting his lip as he watches the opposite side maneuver on the ice.

Both of Dream’s shots hit true, and Michael switches to dodging over the ice as the opposing team begins to shoot. His mind is still buzzing with uncertainty, questions whirling around his skull and making his head spin, the reminder to just let things be raging against the anxiety that has wormed its way deep into his bones for the better part of the day. His performance has fallen a bit as a result, and they’re tied, 2-2, for the last round of Dodgebolt against Yellow - winner takes all.

He doesn’t know what to do. He wants to tell, but he wants to fall back into the background. He wants to make a difference, but also wants nothing more than to go on pretending that everything is fine. It would be so, so easy to move on and wash his hands of the whole affair - it’s not like anyone else will know, only himself and the guilt that he’s sure will haunt him to remind him of his failures. Is there even anything he can do? He’s no genius at combat, or parkour, or strategy- all he has are his eyes, his ability to see what the hell is happening with no means to change any of it.

An arrow whizzes towards him, too low to hit, and falls to the ice by his feet. Michael feels it plop into his inventory as he runs past it, shivering slightly from the cold or adrenaline or some mix of the two - not that he can really tell. The other team still has an arrow, the gleaming arrowhead catching the light as the person shooting - Jack, it looks like - moves it from one side to the other, looking for someone to aim. Michael lets the arrow into his hand, feeling its weight.

A sudden shock of clarity.

He staggers back and nearly trips over his own feet, feeling relief rock his body when he manages to catch his balance - his eyes rake over the rest of his team, still dodging over the ice, completely focused on the opposing side. He worries his lip between his teeth - it’s a risk. It’s a hell of a risk, and if he messes up - they’re fucked. They’re more than fucked. There’s a good chance that this does more harm than good, a good chance that it won’t do anything at all.

Michael takes a deep breath, and nocks his arrow.

With his bow pointed to the floor, he doesn’t think anyone’s noticed yet - especially the rest of his team, gazes still trained over the centerline to the other side of the arena. Michael plants his feet, raises his bow, aims - he’s standing still, too still, and he can already see Jack swinging the bow towards him from the corner of his eye, preparing to let the arrow fly directly at him. That’s fine. It doesn’t matter.

Keep your head down.

Michael lets go, and Quackity manages to turn just in time to see the arrow hit him between his eyes.

Not this time.

Michael just manages a wicked, satisfied smirk before the world disappears in a flash of red.

---

“What the hell was that?”

Michael teleports into the middle of the MCC main lobby, finding Quackity already mid-yell in front of the podium, where the Yellow Yaks have taken their places as the winners of the Championships, new, shining crowns on their heads as they greet the crowd with smiles and cheers. Michael turns to where the rest of the team has gathered in the corner, Quackity hissing angrily at Dream, curled into himself against the fence.

“I- I-”

“You lost us the fucking game, that’s what you did,” Quackity grabs him by the arm, rage painting his features as he yanks Dream closer to him, ignoring the other’s panicked yell at the proximity and flailing to get away. “What the fuck- you had both the arrows. How the fuck did you miss that?”

“Back the hell off, Quackity.”

Michael steps forward, bodily shoving Quackity out of the way - Dream’s head rises just enough for the two eyes painted on his mask to look above where they’d been hidden behind his arms, though Michael’s far too lost in his own anger to pay any mind to him at the moment. Quackity turns his furious direction towards Michael, only seeming to get angrier as he meets his eyes.

“Oh, fuck off, Michael- you-” he rakes a hand through his hair, “You fucking- we fucking lost because of you, you know that? We had that! We were going to win that, you fucker-”

“And then what, Quackity?” The words Michael had been pushing back the entire day come forth, mixed with his simmering anxiety and muffled anger that he’d been forced to push down, game after game after game, one bubbling mess of emotion underscoring his tone and making Quackity rear back, “Then you’ll go back the SMP and pretend that everything’s fine and dandy? Go back to your shiny little country with a shiny new coin, beat up Dream a few times to work off the adrenaline because, hey, it’s not like anyone else is gonna know if he’s black and blue inside of that shitstain of a prison, is that right?”

The flash of panic that makes its way over Quackity’s face is more than enough to confirm the worst of Michael’s assumptions, and the rage that has made a home in his chest only burns hotter.

“What- what the fuck did he say?” Quackity barely manages to catch onto his tone, pressing harder with narrowed eyes and a snarl, “He’s lying, you fucking idiot, that’s all he ever fucking does-”

“He’s not told me shit,” Michael presses forward, forcefully pushing Quackity away from Dream, who is cowering from both of them behind him, “But you would know a hell of a lot about that, wouldn’t you Quackity?”

“I have no fuckin’ clue what you’re on about, pal,” Quackity shakes his head, hair whipping past his eyes, “And I’d recommend you shut your fucking mouth before you go around hurling baseless accusations- I could have you sued for defamation, you know-”

“Oh, we’re talking law, now? Fine! We’ll talk legalities- how about we start with that casino of yours and work from there?”

Sapnap moves over, quiet thus far as he watched from the sidelines, and Michael watches as Quackity relaxes, minisculely, at his approach - only to tense further when Sapnap presses a hand to his shoulder, meeting his eyes with blazing eyes staring right at his.

“Q,” Sapnap says, voice uncharacteristically serious, “tell the truth, now- what did you do?”

Quackity laughs - it sounds unsure, even in Michael’s ears, “Sapnap? You can’t tell me you believe-” he waves his hands frantically, “this- this fucking asshole, now, do you hear him? He sounds- he’s literally out of his fucking mind-”

Sapnap shakes his head, firm. “Quackity, I’ll need you to cut the bullshit. What did you do?”

“He’s backing up Dream, Sapnap,” Quackity focuses his gaze on Sapnap, something creeping up in his tone, sweet and cloying despite the bitter tone, that Michael can’t quite recognize, “You know what Dream is like- he pulled the same shit with you, remember? You and George? Tommy?” He waves a hand at Dream, who ducks down further at the attention, “He hasn’t changed, man! He’s still pulling the same bullshit, still manipulating people for the hell of it- you know, the exact same thing he did to you? Don’t fall for that again, man.”

“I-” Sapnap seems to hesitate, conflict warring over his features.

“Look at me, Sap - you know what Dream’s like. He pretends to be your friend, makes up some stupid bullshit to justify his shit - Michael hasn’t been around for as long, not like the two of us, remember? He doesn’t know.” Quackity brings his hand to Sapnap’s own, ignoring Michael’s protests as he laces their fingers together, “I care about you, Sap. All of this- I’m just worried that he’ll end up manipulating you again. I’m just trying to protect you.”

“...liar.”

“What?”

Sapnap steps back, wrenching his hand out of Quackity’s own. His expression, out of what Michael can see from the sliver of his face that is facing him, is stormy with fury and no small amount of regret - Quackity steps back, unease finally beginning to flicker in the corners of his self-satisfied expression as Sapnap stares him down.

“You’re a liar, Quackity.” Sapnap draws himself up. “Now, I’m asking this for the last time- what did you do?”

Quackity’s expression stutters, falls, as Sapnap stands back next to Michael, the two of them between him and Dream. His eyes flick between their faces, then to Dream, then back again, frown deepening with every pass he makes between the three of them. Michael keeps his arms crossed in front of his chest, feeling his muscles tense with every second of silence that ticks by, Quackity seeming to grow more and more angry and tense under their scrutiny and unforgiving stances-

-a second passes, and he throws himself forward.

“Quackity!”

Michael only manages to throw himself out of the way of the man barrelling towards him just in time - too late, he realizes that he wasn’t Quackity’s intended target. He tackles Dream to the ground, pinning the taller man underneath himself onto the ground in a rough thump that seems to knock all the air out of him. Dream immediately begins to thrash aimlessly, jaw going slack in panic as Quackity levels his arm against his neck, going still as Quackity presses harder against his windpipe. Michael is only barely close enough to pick up what he says over the sound of the surrounding screaming, Sapnap rushing forward to pull Quackity off to no avail-

“-make what I did two weeks ago look like a fucking joke when we get back, going to make you wish you fucking died-”

The world explodes into white.

When Michael’s vision clears, he’s face to face to the stony face of one of the MCC admins, their status displayed by the proud red [Admin] by their nametags and the fact that they’re floating several inches off the fucking floor. He backs away, strangely winded - probably from the panic or adrenaline or yelling or, more accurately, all three, as Quackity is pulled back effortlessly by an admin, easily caging his flailing limbs with a snap of code as he is frozen into place - and Michael whoops.

“LET’S GO!”

(The arrow hits Michael in the shoulder, and he disappears in a flash of red - only instead of going to his usual place above the Dodgebolt arena, standing with the other competitors, he finds himself teleported in front of a dizzying array of screens and buttons, too many to have any idea where they connect and how they work. Michael turns to meet the faces of the MCC Admins, each one looking at him with odd, concerned expressions and furrowed brows.

“You shot your teammate,” one says - Noxite - and Michael nods to concede the point, not quite finding the words to speak. “Why?”

“If you had such a big issue with the teams, you could’ve just talked to Scott,” another one pipes up from the back, “I’m sure we could’ve worked something out.”

“I know, I know,” Michael runs his hand through his hair, both relieved at the plan working better than he could’ve ever fucking imagined and suddenly lost for words in front of the admins, each one looking at him with their full attention. Every nerve in his body rails against the scrutiny, reminds him to pretend that nothing is wrong - but it’s too late to pretend, now. It’s been too late for a long, long time.

He remembers Dream, looking away all competition, voice dead and lacking all of its former vitality - remembers Puffy, hair a little greyer from stress, grief painting her face whenever she thought anyone wasn’t looking - remembers Bad, hands still shaking despite his attempts to hide it - the prison, looming on the horizon, unbeatable, impenetrable - himself, helpless, for all this time, to do anything but watch and wait. Until now. He takes a deep breath, steels himself-

“Something’s wrong with Dream.”)

“Thank you for your information, Michael,” Noxite smiles at him, and relief throws itself through his system so fast that it makes him dizzy- “We’ll handle this from here. Good job.”

“Holy shit- when did you get time to contact the fucking admins, Michael?”

Michael ignores the clamor around him as the lobby bursts into activity and people talking over each other, each one probably trying to figure out what the hell just happened, ignores Sapnap muttering, awed, from beside him, to move towards Dream, still sprawled out over the floor. There’s an admin by him, standing by to seemingly keep the crowd away but not engaging with Dream directly, and Michael ducks by them to kneel down by Dream and meet his gaze.

“Hey,” Michael smiles, still shaking from the leftover adrenaline as he presses his hands to the ground to try and hide it, “We’ve got you. It’s over- Quackity’s gone. You’re safe now.”

“Michael?” Dream’s voice is so damn small when his head twists to look over, hair having fallen largely fallen out of his ponytail to land in wisps all around his face. “You- how-”

“Don’t worry about it,” Michael shushes him, chest twisting painfully. “It’s alright.”

“...I don’t feel so good.”

Dream coughs harshly, and Michael quickly maneuvers him to a sitting position as his shoulders shake with another one, hand flying to his mouth as he is wracked with loud, wet-sounding coughs. Concern wells up in his throat, watching as Dream shakes with more coughing, nearly choking as he curls into himself, muscles tense. After what feels like an eternity, he pulls his hand back, and Michael gasps at the sight.

“Dream-”

There’s blood, and a lot of it - mixed with the saliva in his palm, shiny and stringy over the planes of his hand, dribbling past his lips and down his chin. His teeth are similarly stained red when his mouth opens slightly, stance wobbling before he collapses altogether against Michael’s body - Michael can barely hear himself shouting for a medic as Dream heaves a rattling, wet sounding breath into his shoulder.

“Th’ts not g’d,” he mumbles, quiet, before going completely limp.

---

When you first get strong enough to go to the Nether and collect blaze rods and brew potions for the first time, the first thing that gets beaten into your head forwards, backwards, left, right, and every way in between is that health and regen aren’t a replacement for actual recovery. Instant health pots are famous for their tendency to heal everything affected to the same degree - which is bad when you have a particularly deep injury, as it’ll often finish healing it near the surface while the injury persists underneath. Regen pots tend to be better at that front, but even they cannot completely fix a serious injury - the two can only act as a temporary, emergency fix for severe wounds, often being an invaluable resource to stop the worst of the bleeding and hold everything together for long enough to bring someone to proper medical attention.

Unfortunately, when someone tries to use health pots and regens to completely bypass the time and rest needed for the body to properly heal itself and recover, what usually ends up happening is internal injuries - not completely healed by the potions alone - continue to be jostled and irritated, which can lead to further, worse, problems with internal bleeding and bones shifting out of place if they’ve been broken, which can then pierce through muscle and organ tissue - to be honest, Michael was never the best with all the medical stuff, and he’s half-sure that the horror stories he’s heard were exaggerated to beat it into his head never to be an idiot that thinks that potions can solve everything, but either way, he’s never tested his luck with the things.

Unfortunately, Dream doesn’t seem to have done the same, as the entire day’s worth of intense activity, between practices and MCC itself, were more than enough to fuck over the healing effects of whatever health potions he apparently downed before coming to the Championships. From what Michael has heard, it got a little harried after he was first brought into the hospital, but he’s apparently stabilized since - recovery will be slow, both physically and mentally, but at least he’s out of that damn prison to actually start on that path.

“Simply put, your teammate is a bit of an idiot,” Scott tells him when he finally catches him in the waiting room, hair fluffed up at the sides from where he’s evidently messed it up in Admin-related stress. “But he should be alright now, with proper medical attention and lots of rest - make sure to tell him to actually rest, will ya? No more parkouring for him - he can wait until after he’s out of the hospital to show us all how it’s done.”

Michael laughs, relief settling into his chest, “Thanks, Scott.” He directs a playfully accusing look towards the other, a grin tugging at his lips, “but you know, he’s only my teammate because you made it that way. Kinda sounds like your own fault there..”

“Oh, quiet, you.” Scott laughs- he looks stressed, and Michael feels a twinge of sympathy. The administrative side of things after his whole stunt at Dodgebolt, and then especially with what happened in the main lobby, must be an absolute nightmare. “Anyway, I need to go back - Admin meeting,” he shakes his head, already looking at his comm. “You should go see Dream, by the way. I think he’s awake.”

“Thanks for everything, Scott.”

Scott smiles at him, soft, sincere. “Go see your friend.”

He disappears in a flash of white light, teleporting away, and Michael looks at the empty space where he stood for a few seconds before standing up out of his chair to move towards the door. He hesitates at it for a second, hand on the doorknob but not yet turning it to the side - it’s suddenly awkward, without the pressure of the competition at his back and the relentless questions of what he should do. He doesn’t even know if Dream knows what happened, or if he’ll be happy with him - for all he knows, Dream was the one who started the whole ‘don’t tell the Championships what happens in the server’ deal. His teeth catch on his lip as he stands, lost in thought, at the door.

Well. Here goes nothing.

He eases the door open, getting a glimpse inside the room - it’s white, clean-looking, the smell of disinfectant heavy in the air. There’s a bed in the middle of the room, a chair on the side with his Championships clothing and what appears to be some sort of padded body armor laid over the cushions. Dream, as expected, is lying down in the bed, unmoving; for a second, Michael thinks he’s sleeping, before he suddenly twists his head over to look at him.

“Michael?”

“Hey,” Michael smiles, moving into the room and closing the door behind him. For the first time today, Dream’s face isn’t masked, a glimpse of it visible behind him on the dresser by the bed. He blinks up at him owlishly, eyes wide and green, looking even bigger combined with the hollow planes of his cheeks, overlaid by pale, slightly raised scars. “How are you feeling, man?”

“Um-” Dream tries to pull himself up, visibly struggling, and Michael rolls his eyes as he hurries over to help raise the back of the cot because you’re supposed to be resting, Dream, just let the fancy bed do its job, and settles back with an odd look on his face as Michael pulls over a chair. “Good? I think? I mean-” he flails his hands a bit, “this is weird. And I kind of hate this gown- but um. Yeah.”

“That’s fair,” Michael laughs, and Dream huffs a small laugh out of his own, settling back into his pillow. He looks strangely small, with all the layers stripped away, frail and skinny against the sheets. His skin isn’t that same paper-white shade it had been when he collapsed in the middle of the fucking lobby, but it’s still pale enough to be vaguely worrying, especially combined with the IV and other wires hooked up to him.

“Apparently, I’m dehydrated,” Dream drawls when he catches Michael staring at the IV, making a small, frustrated sound through his teeth as Michael turns to look at him, “figures, I guess, but still sucks. I hate needles.”

“Ouch,” Michael winces in sympathy, “yeah, those don’t look that fun.” Dream smiles up at him, before his expression shutters, dulls, and he looks away, not meeting his eyes. The sight of it makes Michael frown, quiet, remembering the way he’d drawn back from them all over and over again throughout the day - that fear and trauma won’t go away in a day, but it hurts all that much more to see his face as panic flashes across it and he pulls back, gaze carefully detached.

“Dream?” Michael moves closer, but is careful not to make contact, “you alright?”

“Hmm?” Dream directs another small, tight smile his way, strained at the corners as his eyes flick away to the floor once again, “yeah- I’m- I’m fine.”

Michael sighs, but decides not to push it. “Have you done anything else here, yet?”

Dream shakes his head. “No- I think that someone’s going to bring food over soon, I’m not sure. Not really hungry,” he mutters, half to himself, and Michael tamps down the concern that wells up in protest, “But we’ll see, I guess.”

“That’s good,” Michael nods, and Dream looks up at him, expression startlingly unsure.

“Um- do you know?” He wrings his hands together, eyes darting across the room nervously before flicking over Michaels’ face, and Michael tries to make himself look as calm and comfortable as possible, “I mean- do you know what’s going on with- everyone?”

Ah. Michael winces internally- he probably should’ve expected this question, but in the fallout of what happened in the lobby and Dream, you know, passing out in his arms, he ended up brushing off or ignoring a lot of the chaos that resulted. He wracks his head for snippets of information that he’d seen in his communicator and from visitors to the waiting room, including people that had been there with him that had been pulled for questioning and meetings, Tommy’s expletive-filled yelling from the lobby still ringing in his head.

“Um- I think that they’ve got a team of moderators pulled up to investigate the server, figure out what’s been going on,” Michael ticks names off on his hands, mentally going through the list of people that he’s been given information on, “They have Quackity in custody, I think, for the moment- they’re still waiting for more information on what to do with him, but they’ve got a whole MCC lobby’s worth of witnesses that saw him assault you so far, if you plan on pressing charges and stuff- um- Sapnap got pulled for questioning, nothing too major right now, I think that they’re going through the other server members that were attending the Championships for the moment.”

“Are they- putting them in jail?” Dream’s voice sounds slightly tinny despite his forced calm, arms crossed in front of him, and Michael shakes his head firmly.

“No- legal stuff between servers is weird, and I think they’re holding off on anything like that for now. Quackity’s just there at the moment because of assault charges on the MCC server - stuff in the SMP is still technically outside of their jurisdiction.” Dream visibly relaxes, and Michael smiles thinly, “It’ll be rough for a few weeks as they collect evidence and figure out what to do, but for now, they’re just focusing on recovery - giving people medical attention if they need it, lining up therapists,” he laughs, quietly, “lots of therapists.”

Dream hums, looking away. The corners of his mouth fall, eyes fluttering shut as he breathes a shuddery sigh through his lips.

“I- never wanted it to get this bad,” he opens his eyes, looking down at his hands, lip slightly trembling, “I don’t- I don’t know where it all went wrong.”

“Hey,” Michael slides closer, ducking to meet Dream’s eyes with a soft smile. “You’re not alone anymore, alright? You don’t have to fix it all by yourself. Focus on yourself, on recovering.”

Dream hesitates, breath seeming caught in his throat, wide green eyes staring into Michael’s own, before ducking his head to look away with a slight nod. Michael leans back in his chair, watching as Dream turns to the side, curling in on himself slightly with a small wince, eyes fixed on the window.

“Didn’t think I was going to see the sun again,” Dream says after a while, gaze still trained behind the glass to where the sun is slowly setting, rays of sunlight streaming past the slits in the blinds and casting glowing stripes of honey-gold throughout the room and over Dream’s face. Michael feels something cold press against the back of his throat, the quiet admission making air stutter in his lungs at the image of Dream, alone, huddled in the middle of an obsidian box for months and months and months, never knowing if he’d see anything other than the same black walls for the rest of his life.

“You’re not there, anymore. You’re safe now.”

Dream doesn’t reply, continuing to look out the window silently, breathing slowly as he moves his hand through a sunbeam, watching the way it streams between his fingers and warms his skin, seeming mesmerized by its soft glow.

“Michael?” Dream looks over, and Michael feels the air punched out of his lungs at the soft, disbelieving sincerity held within his expression, the fearful edges for once pulled back far enough for the light to catch the quiet, heartfelt appreciation gathered in the slight quirk of his lips and downward slope of his eyes. He looks away a second after, a band of light cutting across his face and landing over the bridge of his nose, smile still on his face, voice almost too quiet to make out. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” Michael feels his own smile widen, looking out the window himself- it really is a beautiful sunset. “What are friends for?”

#-> my writing #my writing :D #c!Quackity critical #tw trauma #tw abuse #tw torture #tw panic attack #tw manipulation #tw gaslighting #tw needles #tw hospitals #tw emotional distress #pandora's vault #prison arc #god this was so fun #hope you all enjoy !!#long post

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kittydemon9000 · 3 years

Text

Okay so I was thinking about ToE and had ideas to add for my Not Today Destiny AU(tl:dr, Kai keeps Lloyd’s Green Ninja status secret from everyone and how canon is affected from there)

Also, before we get into it, because there was no Overlord messing with tech, THERE IS NO LOVE TRIANGLE! I am fully subscribed to the theory that the Overlord messed with it in order to split the team up, and it’s stupid that it worked. So no Love Triangle and no Jay Cole Fight. That’s important later.

ANYWAY, with Zane not dead they’d be a bit less desperate to go to the island, and without that incentive of keeping quiet they’d probably immediately go talk to Wu about this weird invite and the fact that other Elemental Masters existed.

Wu would fill them in, explain how Chen was definitely up to something, which has them all go in the first place, and Nya and Wu agree to stay behind to watch Lloyd and defend against Garmadon.

How does this exactly tie into this AU? Well, there were two extra letters sent, one to Kai and Lloyd respectively.

Lloyd’s letter explained how he was also being invited, and if he won he would be awarded some info about his mom. Lloyd knows the ninja would never let him go, so he opts to sneak there and then explain. Better to ask apologies than permission. But don’t worry, he left a note for Nya and Wu

Meanwhile, Kai’s explains how they have found knowledge of who the Green Ninja is, and if he wins he’ll get that info and can do whatever he wants with it.

These two are connected and also important later.

They go to the boat, Nya gets them some hidden trackers to be safe, Kai is secretly freaking out since “How the heck does Chen know???” and then Lloyd sneaks on too. Now, at first everyone just thinks Lloyd is just really short and keeps to himself. It’s not until they land and get to the main room that it finally clicks to Kai that it’s Lloyd when Chen points him out as the Master of Energy.

He of course, is very not happy that Lloyd is here and makes that very well known. The other ninja are equally unhappy while the rest of the EM’s are given a slight Moral Dilemma since yes they want to win, but that means there’s a chance of them fighting a literal child(it’s been….almost a year since they first met Lloyd so he’s about 10 right now).

Lloyd’s room is next to Kai’s, just on the other side so he still shares a balcony space with Skylor. Maybe one of the other EM’s finds Lloyd desperately looking for a Jade Blade and “accidentally” drops it so he can pass.

Later when Karlof is dropped through the floor more than a few cast a glance over to Lloyd, each silently dreading who will have to go against him. Nobody comments when Kai holds Lloyd close and if anyone saw Lloyd sneaking into Kai’s room that night, they didn’t say anything.

It’s that night when Lloyd explains why he came, which makes Kai panic even more. On one hand, he cannot let anyone else find out about Lloyd’s Destiny. But on the other….Lloyd could finally get answers for what happened to his mom unlike Kai who has no idea what happened to his parents

So yeah. Not a fun time.

But it only gets worse from there.

You see, at first each of the ninja let out a silent sigh of relief when they learned they wouldn’t have to fight Lloyd.

Wellllllllll since there’s no Love Triangle and no fighting between Cole and Jay, Chen has no reason to pit them against each other to further split up the ninja.

What he does instead? Changes things so instead it’s Kai vs Lloyd

Now, it’s plainly obvious to everyone that those two are very close, so they’re not looking froward to this next fight at all. Camille honestly isn’t sure if this is better or worse than if she had to go against him

At first, their fight is mostly a verbal one, trying to get the other to take the Jade Blade, with only the occasionally very wide shot to try and herd the other toward the Blade. At some point Kai ends up physically picking up Lloyd and trying to carry him over to the Jade Blade, yelling about how Lloyd has a chance to find his mom and he shouldn’t that up, but Lloyd is fighting him and immediately yells back that he doesn’t want to find her at the cost of his Big Brother and god if that isn’t a knife in the heart of the other EMs.

But Chen, being the bastard he is, decides this is boring because it’s going no where and release the bikes like canon, and then these two fight like a well oiled machine.

But ofc, we can’t have nice things and the arena starts falling apart.

And Kai….as much as he’s terrified of Lloyd’s Destiny, he even more terrified of loosing Lloyd.

So with a bright smile and a good luck wish, he jumps.

That night when Chen takes away their rooms as punishment, none of them can be mad. They don’t comment either when the remaining ninja drag two of the bunk beds together a curl up around Lloyd. Instead of splitting them apart, it only lets them know that Chen is not their friend. He sees all of this as a game, going as far as to lure a child here with promises of finding his mother and making him fight the family he has left.

This actually makes their Elemental Alliance work out better this time.

(Also this time Jay fought Ash, then Cole fought Camille(I’m also 99% sure the skating thing was just another attempt to split them up, so again it’s kinda useless here).

Meanwhile Kai does not have a fun time. Clouse is upset since 1) the plan was for Lloyd to be the one to loose, either by Kai winning or making Lloyd fall, since because he’s the green ninja he’s bound to be powerful and 2) because Skylor got attached to this stranger and Chen ordered him to make Kai useful to them. So now he’s trying to keep a very annoying, very loud prisoner while waiting from the Master of Mind to be captured so he can use those powers to make Kai more docile.

Unfortunately, a side affect of Kai being as loud and obnoxious as possible means he spends a lot of his time knocked out, so he has no idea how long he’s been stuck under or if any of his family are stuck under here too. At the very least he shares a wall with Karlof who tries his best to fill him in(when he learns who Kai was made to fight he also gets pretty pissed).

Later when they’re all dropped from the plane, all of them are quick to make sure Lloyd has a parachute. This time the objective is to a “Safe Zone,” but there’s only enough for four of them. However, the Safe Zones are, unsurprisingly, traps and there’s enough for everyone. Once you step in one, it descends, then vengestone cuffs fly out and trap the Master inside.

Skylor ends up finding Lloyd and offers to help him look for one. They end up talking and joking, Lloyd saying how Kai has an enormous crush on her and kept trying to impress her, but Lloyd thought she was good and would like Kai if they didn’t need to fight each other, which accidentally slams her with guilt.

Some how she ends up slipping, maybe by accidentally revealing how she knows the locations/number of traps and Lloyd realizes she’s the spy which crushes him. He tries to fight her but she just pushed him onto the trap.

Going to the small cult area below, the remaining EMs are brought together. They try their best to keep Lloyd protected but he’s brought to the front anyway. Lloyd asks if they even knew about his mom, to which Chen reminisces about a woman they meet a few years ago who was stealing from them and how they stole some of her things, but they were mostly worthless. They honestly have no idea where she is, which just makes Lloyd mad.

Mad these people tricked him. Mad these people had the audacity to pretend to know his mom. Mad these people made Kai sacrifice himself for him.

However, they weren’t lying About having met Misako. That’s actually how they found out about the whole “Lloyd Being The Green Ninja” thing

But anyway. Chen steals their powers, Skylor is having a moral dilemma, and they start getting ready to Make Trouble in the Noodle Factory

Only this time when they go to steal the staff, they now have to fight Kai.

Only this time for real.

This is the replacement for the Staff Scene. Because of his affect under the Staff Kai…..isn’t really there. Like, he’s just a blank puppet. There’s the tiniest amount of emotion, but his eyes look empty.

At some point the staff goes flying and it turns into a mental tug of war between Clouse commanding Kai and Lloyd and the others trying to get through to him. Lloyd is luckily able to get to Kai enough for him to smash the jewel, releasing the EM powers and the control on him. It gives him the worst headache though.

And from there, canon is mostly the same for a while. The whole time this has been going on Zane has been having dreams/nightmares about an Ice Dragon and finally makes the connection to unlock it. Skylor is still captured, Chen still escapes but now Clouse is still around, Pythor is captured, TIME FOR THE END

This time around, the EMs are able to follow Chen to their base of operations and have the final battle there. They fight, and even though they’re only partially Anacondrai, they’re still hard to fight.

Clouse tries to do the whole “Banish You To the Departed Realm” thing, but accidentally summons the Anacondrai Generals as well, who are very not happy over what these humans are doing.

And yeah. That’s what I got.

I might do more in depth posts for some of the other seasons, not sure. But feel free to ask or submit ideas of your own

#if you cant tell #ToE is my favorite season #but at the same time #i love to change it #Not Today Destiny #info dump #kai #kai smith #lloyd #lloyd garmadon #tournament of elements #ninjago #long post

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screamingatanemptyroom · 3 years

Text

Please Fix the Story Pt 19 - Sci Fi

The new part is here. I've struggled with this story a little bit recently, but I wanted to continue this, to share it with you.

Master Post linked here

Enjoy!

_________________________

“Bel…”

“BEL!”

The world around me was pitch black, empty except for voices I didn't recognize, shouting a name I couldn't remember. I blinked, trying to clear my vision without success.

“Hello?” My anxious shout faded into the nothingness around me.

“I have to do it, Bel. It’s how the story goes.” A blurry figure stood in front of me, his facial features unclear behind his blond hair, but his tone contained frustration and regret. “You know what happens to a world when the story is incomplete. Sacrifices have to made.”

“Who are you…?”

“That’s our fate, we just have to accept that.” He faded away into the darkness, leaving me alone again.

“Come back! Explain what you meant!” I screamed at the disappearing figure. “WHAT SACRIFICE? WHAT FATE?!”

"YOU MUST ACCEPT YOUR FATE."

“Are you lost?” A new voice spoke up, strange, yet completely and utterly familiar.

I spun around, but there was no one behind me. “I’m… I’m lost.”

“No matter where you go, who you become… I’ll find you, Bel. I promise.” The voice was a whisper in my ear. “Fate can’t tear us apart. I won’t let it. Even if I have to destroy fate itself.”

“But I can’t find you. I don’t remember who you are!” I was crying, my tears disappearing into the surrounding mist.

“I’ll find you.” The words were quieter, as if the owner of the voice was fading away.

“DON’T LEAVE ME!”

“I promise.”

“NOT AGAIN!”

"You must accept your fate."

"Bel..."

"You must.."

“…I promise…”

_________________________

“LIAM!”

I woke up, screaming a name that disappeared from my mind as soon as the sound as faded, tears and sweat staining my cheeks.

I curled up into a ball, my head resting on my knees, trying to catch my breath.

Who am I?

Finding no answers, I eventually steadied my nerves, getting up, showering and changing. I looked up at the clock on the wall, wincing as I realized that I was running late for class.

Great, now I’m going to miss breakfast, and I'm starving.

I put on my uniform jacket, lamenting silently my lack of time to fill my empty stomach. As I left my dorm, however, my eye caught something sitting on the floor right outside my door. It was a small plate with a peeled apple and a note with Alaira’s name on it.

I thought Alaira was supposed to be loner… This has to be a trap, right?

It had been several weeks since I woke up in this strange world. It couldn’t be more obvious that she didn’t have any true friends or allies. No one who would care enough to send breakfast, definitely.

Maybe it’s from whoever has been following me around?

Since the second day, I had noticed a shadowy presence following me at a distance. Whoever it was, they never attempted to try to speak to me, or interfere with me in ay way. But it was always nearby, always watching.

So now they’ve upgraded to leaving me food?

I picked up the apple, looking around, and scanned it with the personal computer on my wrist, which showed no drugs or other abnormalities.

Well… I am hungry, which outweighs the possible grim outcome of death by poison, I suppose.

Shrugging mentally, I took a bite. The taste was sweet. I sighed with satisfaction and took another bite. As I chewed, a thought occurred to me, confusing me all the more.

How did they know I like peeled apples?

As far as I could remember, Alaira had never liked apples. It was considered an ancient fruit, more of an oddity than a dietary staple. She had tried it once or twice and hadn’t been impressed.

But I liked it…

I liked apples a lot… but only peeled ones. It was something almost instinctive I had felt whenever I thought about the fruit. But… I hadn’t eaten any apples since I woke up as Alaira.

So how do they know? Does this sci fi story come with mind readers?

I took another bite, feeling confused.

_________________________

“Why the hatred for the apple peel?”

The young man seemed genuinely curious from his tone of voice as he handed me a freshly peeled fruit.

I shrugged, taking a bite. “You try living as a princess in a lower fantasy realm. I bit into a poisoned apple once and the inside was glowing green.” I shuddered. “Ever since then I can’t stand to bite into an apple with the peel still on.”

The man had already started peeling another fruit, and paused in his actions. “Did the prince have to kiss you to break the spell?”

“Why, are you jealous?” I grinned.

“N-no… I’m just asking.” His head hung down, as he seemed to stare intently into the apple in his hands.

I patted his head. “I took an antidote ahead of time. Didn’t fall asleep. Instead, I beat the crap out of the witch.”

He laughed at that. “Didn’t you get in trouble for changing things?”

“Of course. But it was so worth it.”

_________________________

I stared down at the partially eaten fruit in my hands, feeling overwhelmed at the memories surging through my mind.

I keep seeing these memories, but I can’t connect them to anything. What are these lower realms? Is that what I’m in right now? Who is this person I keep seeing?

I felt incomplete, a large part of my memories, my emotions, were missing. What was worse, I wasn’t even sure what was gone, what I should be sad about losing.

I grabbed my bag and walked out the door.

“Alaira.” A voice called out, stopping me in my tracks. Turning, I sighed with odd sense of disappointment at the person standing before me.

Who was I expecting?

I forced a grin and made a rude gesture. “Hey Chris, how awful to see you this morning! Terrible of you to stop by.” I checked my personal communicator and shrugged. “Fortunately for me, I’m running late and have no time for your nonsense. So we’ll save your annoying ranting and raving for a later date, okay?”

He ignored my words, stepping closer with an excited look. “Have you heard the news?”

“Even if I say yes, you’re still going to tell me, right?”

“Don’t pretend, it’s not fooling anyone!” He glared at me. “You’ve been hoping to trap me as your Connector since the match results came back!”

I sighed. “At this point, it’s not even funny anymore. What can I say that will possibly convince you that that is NOT the case?”

“You won’t be able to stop my dreams, Alaira! Next time I’m going to win!”

“Yes, you’re the absolute greatest.” I rolled my eyes. “I cry myself to sleep each night over the fact that we aren’t partners, and I will never feel anything in this life but anguish and despair… now can I go to class?”

He looked ever angrier at my sarcasm. “Just wait until the next match. You’ll see that I’m good enough to be a Guardian. Because I’ve got…”

“Okay, buddy. Sounds good.” I interrupted, walking away.

“Wait, you didn’t finish listening…”

“Yep. See you next match.”

I left him behind, ignoring his rage induced sputtering.

Met an idiot first thing... but hey, at least I'm not hungry anymore!

_________________________

A few days later, the next round of mock Mech battles began.

As the winner of the prior fight, I was slated to go first, completing the first four battles with relative ease. As the day wore on, however, the drain on my body from using the Mech was increasing exponentially. Fortunately I was on my last scheduled fight of the day… even if this was the hardest so far.

A light headache was throbbing at my temples as I scanned the field around me. The arena stood as a large stadium, featuring a high-class barrier shield that extended up to twenty stories in the air. Hundreds of seats surrounded the fighting field, all equipped with holo screens that played the footage taken by the referee bots floating around the fight.

The excited screams from the audience were slightly muffled by the protective screen, and the remaining noise was filtered out as I focused on the fight ahead of me.

My opponent this time was a third year A level Guardian, an experienced fighter, who fought along side a D level Connector. Alaira had faced off with them multiple times in the past, and she had always struggled to win despite the difference in strength of abilities.

There was no denying the advantage that a Connector brought to the fight.

I grinned, ignoring the draining sensation of operating my Mech, the headache and weakness that quickly came on each time I made the Connection. The pain was severe, like a knife stabbing through my eye, but I forced myself to ignore it. As I fought, I couldn’t help but feel bitter.

It’s not like I haven’t been looking for a Connector.

Each day I went to the Matching Center. Each day I endured the laughter, the stares, the whispers and pointing. Each day I was faced with the same words: “No match available.”

Do I need to come up with a different plan? But I can’t fight the Hive without a Mech, and I can’t operate a Mech without a Connector… unless I want to slowly destroy my mind like Alaira did.

I sighed, not seeing any easy answers, and focused on the fight ahead of me. Although I had Alaira’s memories, and operating the Mech came as almost second nature with my S level alpha waves, I had run into an unexpected obstacle:

Alaira’s weapon of choice had been dual wielding energy pistols.

What a waste of the cool looking sword on my back. My physical body was suspended in the Connection chamber, a shielded globe filled with suspension gel. Although the Mech was controlled through alpha brain waves and the Connection, the closer I was to the Mech, the easier that control was. Thus the space for the Guardian was always in the center of the Mech.

I wore helmeted mask monitoring my vitals such as oxygen saturation and heart rate, adjusting the air composition and breath volume to accommodate my body’s stress reaction during battle. A skintight silver suit covered me, interacting with the gel to provide me physical feedback that the Mech would feel. My vision was shared with my Mech’s video system; I looked down and saw the pistols resting in the robotic hands. It was strange, I was obviously inside the robot, but the sensation of the ground beneath my feet, the guns in my hands, was all too real.

The physical sensation made it easier to fight, but it had an obvious drawback, which was that I felt any blows that my Mech sustained. During the fight I was the Mech, and it was a part of me. I tightened my grip around the energy weapons, feeling tired.

Something felt off about using these as my weapons.

I still had no memories about my past, but as I had practiced with the Mech these past few weeks, I had noticed a familiarity with fighting and battles, even more than what Alaira had in my memories after a lifetime of training at home with her father and then in the academy.

Am I some kind of warrior or something?

It didn’t seem right, but I couldn’t explain the comfortable sensation of judging my opponent and fighting with them. But that comfort and familiarity did not extend to dual wielding pistols.

I just wasn’t a great shot.

We had already been fighting for ten minutes. My headache had worsened and I felt tired, but I had only managed to score a few hits on non-vital areas. The only benefit was that the opposing Mech had only been able to strike me twice with the energy-enhanced spear he carried.

“You seem a little off today, Alaira, everything all right?” My opponent’s voice came over his speaker, shocking me. It was technically considered bad etiquette to talk during battle, but it was hard to fault him, as he seemed genuinely concerned about my less than ideal fighting state.

I shook my head, raising my pistols once more. “I’m fine, let’s continue.”

I rushed forward, taking advantage of my superior speed and maneuverability to get closer, trying to make it harder to miss my shots. The opposing Mech jumped backwards, but it was too late. Its hand was within my grasp. Turning and using its significant weight to my advantage, I flipped the robot over my own’s shoulder put the barrel of my gun against the metal head.

My final shot through its temple destroyed the key mechanisms within it, rendering it immobile and finishing the fight.

That was too close… I’ve been practicing with the pistols since I’ve woken up in this strange world, and seen no improvement… what am I doing wrong?

As the referee called out my victory, I backed away, letting out a sigh of relief. It had been a harder fight than it should have been, but at least it was over.

I need a nap.

“I WANT TO CHALLENGE ALAIRA!”

An extremely annoying voice spoke up, causing my already bad headache to worsen.

... Why me?

I turned towards the speaker. “Chris. Didn’t we agree that we were going to avoid each other? … Or was that just my wishful thinking?”

His all white Mech landed in front of my own, holding a large, oversized sword. He swung it back and forth, and although I couldn’t see his facial expressions, the smug tone of his voice through the Mech’s speakers were enough to make me wish I could make my Mech roll its eyes.

“Surely the legendary S level Guardian Alaira isn’t SCARED to fight with a mere D level Guardian such as myself, right?”

“Guardian Chris, please retract your challenge. Guardian Alaira has already finished five consecutive mock battles, and needs time to recover.” The instructor’s face was stern on the holographic screens around us, leaving no room for disagreement.

Chris laughed mockingly. “Oh, I thought she said that even with all the advantages and luck she could still beat me? I guess it was just empty arrogance.” His Mech shook its head. “With such a weak personality, no wonder you can’t find a Connector to match you. Who would want to endure such a woman?”

“…”

CLANG!

My Mech’s foot connected with the other’s crotch, and I heard a high-pitched squeal of pain. Ha, shared sensation with the Mech comes in handy sometimes.

“How dare you?!” His pained shout made me grin.

“Less talking, more fighting. I accept your challenge, Chris.” I took a deep breath, trying to ignore the feeling of my head splitting apart, as well as the light ringing in my ears. I had reached the limit of how long I could safely operate the Mech.

But the sound of his smug satisfaction infuriated me.

Every night, I was haunted by nightmares. Sometimes it was fragments of memories of unfamiliar worlds and people. Most nights, however, I dreamt of Alaira’s end. Alone, broken, terrified, a horrific death for a lonely girl.

And this idiot had watched it happen.

It might not be smart, but I just really want to beat him up. I took a stance, brandishing the pistols, feeling off kilter once more at the light weight in both of my hands.

In the meantime Chris had recovered from his inconvenience, and had resumed his taunting. “Oh, yeah, you ran away so fast the other day, I never got to share with you the good news:” He paused for what I assumed was dramatic effect. “I matched with a Connector earlier last week.”

He obviously meant this to be a huge blow to me, but Alaira’s memories had already warned me this would happen. A beautiful young woman, one of the many who competed for Chis’s affection. This one is a princess… Ilene, I think?

Unbidden, my mind was filled with the thought of the serious, quiet Prince William. I hadn’t seen him since that first day in front of the matching center. So he would be her brother?

I felt a moment of concern at his absence, and then confused, I shook my head, dismissing the thought. I had no reason to see him. Why would I worry about a stranger? Shrugging, I waved casually to Chris’s Mech.

“I welcome the princess to the battle. Sorry you’re on the losing team!”

“…”

There was a moment of shocked silence. “You already know?!”

I winced at Chris’s ear piercing shriek. “Know and don’t care.”

“But… I have a Connector.”

“Yeah, you said that.”

“So I won’t be YOUR Connector!”

I sighed. “We’ve long established that. Look, buddy, it’s been a long day and I’m really tired, are you gonna keep talking about your boring personal life, or are we gonna try to crush each other with massive robots?”

“... Fine then! Keep pretending you don’t care!” Chris seemed really upset at not eliciting a bigger reaction from me, but fortunately turned his attention to the battle as well.

As the hologram around us signaled the start to the fight, he raised his sword and moved towards me, but I had already moved behind him.

BAM!

A shot hit his shoulder, blowing large metallic pieces into the air. I frowned, frustrated. I was faster and stronger than him, but my shots just weren’t going where I wanted them to.

Chris ‘s Mech turned around to face, me, the oversized sword’s momentum swaying the robot from side to side. His movement accuracy and speed had tripled from our last encounter. Clearly, he and his Connector were well matched, well over the required 50%.

But I was still faster.

I ducked under his blow, aiming upwards at his elbow and firing another couple shots.

BAM! BAM!

I missed. Cursing, I recovered, dodging another blow as I increased the distance between us.

Stupid guns.

_________________________

A young man threw up his hands, clearly frustrated.

“Why are you so stubborn? Every single world you insist on using a sword. We were in a laser battle for goodness sake!”

“Swords are more dependable.”

“Oh come on…”

“Plus I’m a terrible shot.”

He sighed. “Fine. But what if one day you don’t have me watching your back?”

“It will be fine.” I grinned. “Don’t you love saying that everything is according to fate? Maybe a sword is just mine?”

“... It doesn’t work like that.”

_________________________

A brief memory flashed in my mind, confusing me.

During my distraction, Chris’s Mech tried to strike again. With no time to dodge, I raised my gun, blocking the blow with the barrel. The weapon cracked under the edge of the sword. I pushed him back, relying on my superior strength and jumped backwards, throwing away the broken weapon in my hand. Glancing down at the remaining gun I had, I felt a warm liquid drip from my nose. It was bleeding, a sign of the increasing strain of the Connection.

I was breaking down. I wouldn't last the rest of the fight.

I had to surrender.

Screw that!

I holstered my remaining gun, drawing the large sword on my Mech’s back. As I held it in front of me, I suddenly felt at home, completely comfortable, as if I had held a sword many times before. I stared at Chris’s Mech, feeling excited.

Now, this feels like a fight!

I raced forward, swinging my sword in a horizontal strike.

_________________________

I was standing in a group of zombies, my sword cutting through the neck of the closest monster.

_________________________

Chris dodged, stumbling backwards. I used the momentum of my first swing to smoothly transition into a downward slash.

_________________________

I was an elf, dancing in the forest, my blade striking down shadowy creatures in the midst of a large battle.

_________________________

THUD!

A robotic hand fell to the ground as I cut it off at the wrist. Chris let out a moan of pain, cut short as I controlled my Mech to kick him in the face, knocking him on his back.

_________________________

I was a vampire, holding a sword made of darkness, fighting humans with elegance and grace.

_________________________

Chris tried to stand up but my foot on his chest prevented the movement. I rested the tip of my sword at his Mech’s throat.

“Do you surrender?”

_________________________

“Surrender?” I smiled as I spoke, staring down at the man on the ground. I couldn’t see his face clearly except for his dark blue eyes, which stared at me without a hint of embarrassment despite his defeated position.

“I surrender.” His voice was warm. “You’re pretty amazing with a sword.”

“After all the realms I’ve fought through? I would have to be.” I shook my head. “Don’t you use swords when you travel?”

“I’m not permitted to travel anymore.” He grinned. “I keep refusing to play my role.”

_________________________

I blinked, focusing on the partially destroyed Mech in front of me. Not hearing his answer, I dug the tip into his neck slightly, only stopping when he let out a groan.

“Do. You. Surrender?”

“I surrender.” His answer sounded like it was forced through gritted teeth.

I could hear muted cheers from the crowd behind the shield as the holographic screens around us displayed my name as the victor.

“Good.” I moved my sword and turned away. My body felt drained, every muscle screaming in pain. I tasted blood in my mouth, my head hurting worse with each passing second.

“I’LL BEAT YOU ONE DAY!” Chris called out behind me. “I’LL GET STRONGER, AND I’LL SHOW YOU!”

“Tell it to someone who cares.” I didn’t turn around, and left the arena.

At least I won. Now if my head would just stop hurting...

As soon as I reached the docking area, my legs crumpled beneath me, and my world faded into darkness.

_________________________

Where am I?

I woke up in a white room, on a plain, clean bed, wearing a hospital gown.

This isn’t a different world, is it?

I carefully searched my memories, but didn’t feel anything different. I sighed, realizing I must be in the school infirmary. In my memories of her life, Alaira had helped bring her fellow students there in the past, but had never stayed to be examined. Deep down she had known that without a Connector she was breaking down, and was afraid the school would prevent her from fighting.

It might have saved her life if she had.

I sat up, rubbing my forehead tiredly. It was still throbbing.

“Are you okay?” A soft voice spoke up, startling me.

I jumped, looking to the chair beside my bed, where a dark haired young man sat. His dark blue eyes studied me carefully, his face expressionless.

“…Prince William?”

“…” After a long silence, he nodded slowly.

“What are you doing here?”

He stared down at the floor silently, and just when I thought he might not respond, he reached out, handing me a peeled apple.

I took it, feeling dazed. “Umm… thanks.” I took a bite, and after swallowing, asked the question on my mind. “Were you the one leaving food outside my dorm room then?”

“…hmm.” His gaze never left the ground.

What the heck kind of answer is “hmm”?!!

“How did you know I like peeled apples?”

“…” A look of genuine confusion crossed his face, but quickly disappeared as he shrugged silently.

“Okay. Well. Thanks.” I pushed myself up, trying to swing my legs to the side of the bed.

He stood up, his face concerned. “Wait. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, my head hurts, but otherwise I feel great.”

“…You should rest.” He frowned as he looked me over.

“It’s just strain from a prolonged connection.” I sighed. “I’m used to it.”

“You haven’t matched?” He seemed mixed, as if happy and disappointed at the same time.

“Nope. Not for lack of trying though. ” I looked him over. “Are you a Connector? Have you matched yet?”

“I…” A look of agony distorted his features.

“He can’t. He’s broken.”

A young woman stood at the door of the infirmary, a mocking smile on her face.

I studied the newcomer carefully. She had long black curls framing a heart shaped face, and large blue eyes that looked down on me with pride. Given the similarities in features to Prince William next to me, it wasn’t difficult to figure out her identity.

“I’m assuming you’re Princess Ilene?”

She ignored my words, walking closer to her brother, whose face had become expressionless once again.

“He can’t Connect. His mental barrier is too strong.” She stopped a few feet away from him and raised her hand, knocking on what looked to be empty air. It made a solid noise, her hand stopping at the same invisible point. “He can’t put it down even if he wants to.”

I thought back to the first time I met him, remembering people being pushed aside.

“A useless Connector who can’t make the connection. A Guardian who can’t match. Two failures together.” She smiled at me. “Sorry I took away your only possible chance at matching Chris, but you needed to see the reality of the situation. He’s a better Guardian than you.”

“…Remind me again who ended up flat on their back at the end of the last fight?”

Her eyes narrowed in annoyance at my comeback. “At least he will be around a long time to help fight the Hive. You, on the other hand.” Ilene pointed at her head and turned her finger in a circle. “You have no future. But on the bright side, at least my useless brother can keep you company while your mind slowly breaks apart.”

BAM

William stood up, angry, and with the loud sound of an impact, Ilene was pushed by an invisible barrier out of the room. Her face enraged, she slammed her fists against it while her mouth made motions as if she was shouting. I stared at her, confused as to why I couldn’t hear her.

“…I sealed her out of the barrier.” William whispered. “Her voice can't make it through either.”

“Oh.” I nodded with satisfaction, watching her shout silently outside the doorway. “Thanks.”

“I can expand the barrier… but she’s right… I can’t drop it.” His eyes dropped down to the floor again. “I can’t Connect… I can’t help Guardians… useless…” His voice slowly dropped in volume, until it was barely a whisper.

“Well, you’re helping me out right now, and I’m a Guardian. So I’d say you’re a pretty useful guy.” I gave him a thumbs up. “I know that not hearing her is already making my day better.”

He stared at me silently for a few moments. “… Are you hungry?”

“Kind of. Why? Do you have more apples or something?”

William shook his head. “No… cake.”

“Please tell me you are serious.”

He solemnly set a container with a piece of cake on the table next to me, along with a napkin and utensils.

I stared at it in shock, motionless.

“… Do you not like it?” His nervous tone broke me out of my stupor. I quickly reached out and held the container close, grabbing the fork and taking a bite.

“Oh, this is amazing… totally worth passing out after my fight.” I took a few more bites, noting him relaxing visibly as I showed my enjoyment. “…Why are you being so nice to me, anyways?”

“Why?” William blinked, looking shocked as if he hadn’t considered it before.

“Yeah. As far as I can tell, I haven’t met you outside of running into you in the hallway once. Why go out of your way to leave me food and sit by me in the infirmary?”

He finally looked up, his dark blue eyes staring into my own. “…I’m not sure. “ He shrugged. “Whenever I see you, I feel happy. I want to help you.”

I leaned back against the backboard of the infirmary bed. “Well… I guess I could always use a friend.”

“Friends?” A trace of a smile crossed his face, before it disappeared into expressionless once more. “Really?”

“Yeah. So let me introduce myself officially, Prince William.” I started to reach out a hand to shake, but remembering his barrier, I pulled it back. “I’m Alaira. Level S Guardian but unable to match, and your new friend.”

He stared at my hand with a look of regret before looking back up. “I’m a Level S Connector… but can’t connect. I’m your new friend… “ He hesitated. “Can you call me a nickname instead?”

“Sure.”

“Then call me… Liam.”

_________________________

“Are you lost?” I woke up in a strange world to the sound of an unfamiliar voice, laying on my back, confused.

“Seems a good description for my current situation.” I stared into a pair of dark blue eyes, smiling despite the dizziness. “Nice to meet you, Stranger.”

He grinned, reaching out a hand to help me up. “Call me Liam.”

“Nice to meet you, Liam.”

_________________________

I blinked away the memory, smiling at the timid young man in front of me. “Nice to meet you… Liam.”

#writing #please fix the story #sci fi #world hopping #memory loss #giant robots #aliens #more memories #call back to the peeled apples from the zombie arc if anyone remembers that far back #so happy to post this part finally.#weight off my chest

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wonder-womans-ex · 4 years

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See It In Your Eyes

The sequel to ‘Cause Boy I was Made for You

When Finn O'Hara was eleven years old, he got two things for Christmas: an Iron Man action figure and a telling off. There were probably other things, too, but in ten years (or eleven, or twelve, or even thirty for that matter) he wouldn't be able to remember them.

But the action figure had been the one he'd eyed in the toy store window for the past seven months, and the telling off had been from his Aunt Isla.

"There are two things you must never ask a lady," she had scolded. "Her age, and to see the mark on her wrist. Remember that, Finnegan."

(For the record, he hadn't asked to see her wrist. He had asked her to pass him the stuffing, and he'd said "What's that?" when her sleeve got bunched up around her elbow.) (Not like she cared.)

***

When Logan Tremblay was eleven years old, he nearly broke his jaw. One of the boys on his team tied his shoelaces together after practice and he fell and smashed his face on the locker room bench.

After three and a half hours in the ER, he met his own eyes in the bathroom mirror, cheek swollen comically huge, and thought, don’t let it get to you, even though it already had.

***

When Leo Knut was eleven years old, he got his first job. Sure, it was only a paper route, but to Leo, it was everything. Not only was he making money (real, actual money; his dad couldn’t tell him his Monopoly skills were just pure luck anymore) but he was the first in his family to learn anything interesting. One morning, halfway through his rounds, he flipped to the sports page. The words Local Team Manager Loses Job over Sexuality glared up at him.

At lunchtime, when his parents asked about the news lately, he merely shrugged and took another bite of his taco.

***

When Finn O’Hara was fifteen years old, he fell in love for the first time. Not with a person, no, but no one could deny that he was in love—by the fourth rewatch of Mamma Mia, his mother was resigned to promising him extra dessert if he would please, for the love of God, just sing anything else.

***

When Logan Tremblay was fifteen years old, he and his sister Noelle woke up at five in the morning on April Fool’s to rig their house. Noelle, admittedly, was behind most of it, but Logan came up with five spectacular (if he did say so himself) pranks: baking soda in the cereal and vinegar in the milk, which caused his father’s breakfast to fizz and explode the moment he poured it out; semi-permanent hair dye in his mother’s shampoo (her hair kept the blue tint for almost a month); all the hard-boiled eggs in the fridge swapped out for raw ones and vice versa; glue in his father’s shaving cream; and, just because he felt like it, all the toilet paper in the house hidden in the downstairs freezer. The day was a bright spot in a patch of darkness—it had been only a week before that he had found the tumblr post about anxiety symptoms and thought, maybe…

***

When Leo Knut was fifteen years old, he quit baseball—for good this time. His coach was confused as to why anyone would give up an 84 mph fastball and a glove that could catch any pop fly in favour of the ice, but Leo was sure. Hockey was his destiny. The pitcher’s mound had nothing to offer him, not anymore.

***

When Finn O’Hara was eighteen years old, he met Logan Tremblay. His first thought—though he would not accept it until years later—was, He has very nice lips. I would like to kiss them. His second, mere moments later, was, Wait shit no fuck no dammit shit fuck.

***

When Logan Tremblay was eighteen years old, he began to wonder who his soulmate was. Maybe she would have coffee-brown eyes and a gap between her front teeth, the perfect height for him to rest his chin on top of her head. Maybe she would be taller, with wide hips and sharp elbows and long eyelashes.

He tried to shake his fantasies of fiery red hair and gorgeous grins, because Logan was a hockey player and hockey players weren’t queer.

***

Leo Knut is eighteen years old, and he is being pulled down a dimly lit hallway by Finn O’Hara. His wrist is warm beneath Finn’s grasp, his heart beating a little too fast for his liking.

“Where are we going?” Logan asks from his place at the end of Finn’s other arm, but he gets no answer.

Finally, they reach what Leo assumes is their destination: the…. Well, Leo isn’t sure where they are, actually. Some sort of storage room, he guesses, judging by the net in the corner.

He still has no idea why they’re there.

Logan is looking at Finn expectantly, a curious expression on his face. He looks like he knows what’s happening, and the thought bites at Leo’s heart. Great—he’s the only clueless one here.

Finn takes a deep breath, and then another. “Hi,” he begins, and then stops.

Not sure which of them he should look at, Leo focuses on a spot on the wall between Logan’s and Finn’s heads. He senses one of them watching him. He doesn’t check which it is.

“So,” Finn tries again. “Ugh. I’m bad at this.”

“What exactly is ‘this’?” Logan’s brow, when Leo sneaks a glance at him, is furrowed, only a sliver of green eyes visible beneath his squint.

There’s a thunk as Finn lets his head fall back against the wall. “This is me finally deciding to man up and tell you I’m in love with you.”

Leo’s head turns to look at Logan so fast his neck hurts. He sees Logan blink once, and then twice.

***

Finn meets Logan’s eyes. He can practically feel the electricity crackling between them.

Because Logan knows.

He has to.

He has to know that Finn’s heart nearly beats out of his chest every time Logan smiles. He has to know that sometimes he’ll be talking to someone, anyone—Cap, or Coach Weasley, or the press—and he’ll think about Harvard and he’ll forget how to breathe. Logan is half of Finn’s heart.

But whether or not Logan knows it, the look on his face says he feels the same. Finn feels his lips start to curve into a smile.

And then Leo says, “Why am I here, then?”

There are a hundred ways Finn could answer that question. One of them is ‘Why wouldn’t you be?’ and another is ‘I don’t know.’ He could be passionate. He could be tactful. He could be poetic or blunt or gentle or any of those things.

What he goes with, in the end, is philosophical.

“Who decides it’s wrong?” Finn says to the floor. “Any of it. The feeling. The wanting. The having, even. If it’s real, then how can it be wrong?”

He can’t see Logan’s face, nor Leo’s, but he imagines they must be confused. He goes on, not entirely sure he knows what he’s saying and not entirely sure he cares. “And maybe it’s destiny. And maybe it isn’t. Why does it matter? If it’s real and painful and there for the taking, why bother about whether it’s supposed to be?”

Finally, he looks up. He senses that one of them is going to say something, and whichever it is, he cuts them off.

“Maybe it’s not you. Fuck, maybe it isn’t either of you, and maybe I’m the only one who thinks it should be. But it has to mean something, doesn’t it? Because if it doesn’t… why bother at all?”

And maybe, Finn thinks, I’m going to start crying.

***

Logan, mind still wheeling, is the only one who gets an inkling of what Leo is going to do before he does it. Finn certainly doesn’t, and he’s not quite sure Leo does either.

He grabs Finn by the collar and pulls him up, their faces smashing together, red and gold curls tangling between their foreheads. Logan watches them slowly break apart, far enough away to lock eyes, yet still so close they’re breathing into each other’s mouths. His heart surges—with jealousy, yes, but also with something fiery and sweet. Something akin to excitement, or—dare he say—love.

“Whoa,” he says out loud, not realizing it until Leo and Finn both glance over at him. His cheeks start to colour.

Then Leo places a hand on his shoulder and leans down to kiss him, too. This one is more gentle by far that the previous; a dance rather than a battle. It makes sense—Finn’s always been the brash one, the impulsive one, while Logan is tentative, sturdy—and it seems fitting that Leo is the one to remind them of that.

Logan still doesn’t know what they’re doing there.

Well, he knows what they’re doing, of course. They’re kissing. But he doesn’t know why Finn picked now to haul them halfway across Hogwarts arena and make it happen. Maybe if he really thought about it, something would come to him.

But of course he’s not going to think about it, because Leo is still kissing him.

When one of them finally pulls away—Logan isn’t sure who—Leo reaches one hand up and touches Logan’s lip. They stay there for a long moment, neither of them moving, before calloused fingers carefully skate across his waist. He turns towards Finn.

They surge forward together, meeting in the middle. One of Finn’s hands fists in Logan’s hair, the other slipping under his shirt, as they kiss for the first time in nearly four years.

He can taste salt. One of them is crying; it’s probably him.

When Logan starts to break away, desperate for air, Finn chases his mouth. Within a few seconds, though, he’s pulled back, too. It’s almost simultaneously that they remember there’s another person in the room.

Leo’s lip is between his teeth as he worries at it. He doesn’t speak for a long moment; the silence, before it shatters, if practically tangible. “You two have history,” he says, like it’s a question he already knows the answer to.

“We do,” Finn answers easily. There’s something fierce in his eyes. “But it’s the future that matters.”

Logan wishes Finn would stop sounding like Plato. Or Socrates. Or Aristotle. One of them, anyway. Finn is an American in his 20’s, not a 2000-something-year-old Greek. In any case, mystery is decidedly not Finn’s colour.

Leo shakes his head. “That’s not what I meant.”

“What do you mean, then?”

“I mean you guys are—you’re practically—” he breaks off. One of his hands moves towards Logan, only stopping when it hovers mere centimetres from his wrist. “May I?”

“I—sure.” Logan’s heart skips a beat when their fingers brush. Leo gently turns his hand so Logan’s palm is up, and it’s not until Leo starts to push his sleeve away that Logan realizes what he’s doing.

But by then it’s too late—those three paw prints he spends so much time agonizing over are on display, no longer private, no longer just for him. For a split second, he considers covering his wrist again and leaving. But he does no such thing.

Because if he can’t trust Finn and Leo, he can’t trust anyone.

Finn’s mouth opens slightly in surprise. “It’s—” he says, and there’s barely any hesitation before he’s pulled his sleeve up, too.

It takes a moment before Finn’s soulmark registers in Logan’s mind. When he does, he starts to smile.

They’re soulmates.

***

Leo feels his jaw clench. He knows he should be happy for them—and he is, really. They’ll smile at each other, and they’ll kiss again, and they’ll go on with their lives as that one couple who are so in love it hurts to look at them.

He turns away when tears start to pool in his eyes. He’ll go back to the locker room; they obviously want to be alone right now. “I’ll just… yeah.”

Just as soon as he takes his first step towards the door, Finn grabs his arm. “Wait,” he says, and Leo stops.

“Logan and I are soulmates,” says Finn, all in one breath, “But there are three prints. Not two. And I know that it’s rare, but Re—but I’ve been told it’s possible. That it’s happened before.”

Leo thinks he knows, but he has to make sure. “Do you mean—do you think we’re—”

“I know you’re only eighteen,” Finn continues. “And I know there’s no way of knowing for a while. But does it matter? Even… even if I’m wrong? I love you—I love both of you—soulmates or not.”

Leo waits for one of the others to say something more. When neither does, he wonders why, and quickly comes to the conclusion that it’s because they’re waiting for him to say something.

“Who told you?” he asks the moment it pops into his head. It’s not the best thing he could say, but it’s not the worst, either.

“Told me what?”

“You said someone told you it was possible to have two soulmates. Who was it?”

There’s a pause as Finn cracks one of his knuckles, deep in thought. “Loops,” he whispers, but not until Leo has decided he’s not going to say anything at all. “I was talking to Loops yesterday, and I told him I thought… anyway, he said I should tell you.”

“You told him we’re soulmates?” Logan’s eyes are wide and fearful. “He knows we’re…?”

“Not you guys, no. Well, Leo, maybe. I just said you were both on the team, that’s all.”

“But you would have had to say something about my age,” Leo concludes, the dots starting to connect in his head. “And I’m the only one who’s not nineteen yet.”

“Yeah.”

Logan swallows, the almost comical gulp audible in the quiet room, and he crosses his arms over his chest. There’s something about the gesture, however, that tells Leo it’s an act of protection, not defiance. “He’s not going to… tell anyone, is he?”

“No. And if he doesn’t, I won’t.”

“What?” Leo thinks he might be missing something.

“He won’t tell anyone we’re… gay.” It’s the first time any of them have said it—that three-letter word that, in their profession, could ruin everything. “Because he has his own secrets. There’s a difference between being ashamed of something and wanting to keep it private.”

Logan’s eyes widen slightly. “You mean… we’re not the only ones?” His voice is incredulous, choked with emotion, and Leo reaches out a hand to him.

“I don’t think we ever were.”

***

Finn feels as though he’s floating. No—this is better than floating. This is dreaming. At any moment, he’s going to wake up staring at the ceiling of his bedroom with Leo asleep just a wall away. A mile away.

It’s like he’s watching, not experiencing, the way Logan’s fingers twine with Leo’s, love overflowing from the gaze they share. He’s imagining the kiss Logan leans forward to plant on his cheek. Leo’s arm wrapping itself around his shoulders is all in his head.

But it isn’t. Without having to speak, the three of them make their way out of the storage room and back into the hall—blond and brunet hand in hand, blond holding redhead so close it seems he’ll never let go. Finn leans into the warm body to his side, and he feels Leo stagger slightly as Logan does, too. They seem as though they would be perfect on the cover of a book, or a movie poster—Three’s Company, his mind provides, and he files it away just in case he ever decides he wants to sell the rights to his life story.

He’s a long way from that, though. After all, it’s been barely half an hour since they started to unravel this knot they’ve spent so long tangling themselves into, and right now all Finn needs to do is try his best to make sure they don’t get tied up again.

The locker room is almost abandoned. Pascal’s packing up the last of his stuff, and he smiles when they enter. Logan, for one, stiffens slightly in fear, but it doesn’t seem like there’s any need to. Indeed, the only thing Pascal says as he does up the zipper of his bag is, “Be good to him,” and none of them knows who he’s talking to, so they all nod.

Finn waits until they have the room to themselves to pull Logan close to him. “It’ll be okay,” he says. “I promise.”

“But if people find out—”

“Then we’ll have to deal with that—all of us will. But you don’t have to be afraid. The team’s family. And family means no one gets lost behind or forgotten.”

Logan nods, chewing his lower lip. It’s obvious when the gravity of Finn’s words clicks in his head—the expression on his face twists into one of confusion. “Wait a second—why does that sound familiar?”

“Because it’s from Lilo and Stitch.”

Swiveling his head towards Leo, Finn stage whispers, “Shhhhh!” This gets a smile out of Logan.

“I knew I’d heard it before somewhere. Shame on you, Finn—plagiarizing the words of an innocent blue alien!” He stops, blinking. “There’s something I never thought I’d say.”

Finn smiles. This is his life now. He thinks he’ll have a lot of fun getting used to it.

***

Skates swishing over the ice, Logan lets the world fall away. He stops thinking about everything—even Finn’s contagious laughter and Leo’s broad grin fade from his mind as he gets closer and closer to the goal.

Almost there, almost there—

He shoots. The puck whizzes past Kasey’s elbow, only barely missing him.

“Nice one, Tremblay!”

Moody is nodding in approval. Logan feels a rush of pride—it’s an easy, everyday drill, something he’s been able to do in his sleep since he was a kid, but praise is always a good thing. When he can’t have a cheering crowd, he might as well have a coach who admires his talents.

“Merci!” he says, beaming, and then, on second thought, adds, “I’d be surprised if it wasn’t!”

Out of the corner of his eye, he notices Finn and Leo bump shoulders. His heart swells—they love each other, and he loves that they love each other. Somehow, he finds it hard to believe it’s only been a day since the storage room and the kissing and—

“Tremblay!” Logan is shocked back out of his thoughts by Coach Weasley’s (albeit slightly amused) shout. “Stop daydreaming and take another shot!”

“Yes, Coach.”

He’s sweating by the time he’s finally allowed to sit down again. He takes a swig of Gatorade, watching Finn try and sneak up behind him.

“Boo!”

“Hi, Fish.”

“Dammit.” Two red eyebrows lift and fall again. “How’d you know I was here?”

“I saw you. You’re not inconspicuous.”

“You don’t just love me so much you could sense me from halfway across the world?”

Logan can’t help it—he glances around furtively, heart pounding, hoping desperately that no one heard Finn’s comment. “Well, that, too,” he adds, once he’s sure everyone else is sufficiently distracted. “But mostly that ginger head of yours just sticks out like a sore thumb. I call you mon rouge for a reason, you know.”

“Fuck you.”

"Peut-être plus tard.”

“In English, please?”

“...Maybe later.”

“But I want to know now.”

(If only he knew.)

Logan feels giddy as he realizes they really do have time for ‘maybe later.’ They have time, and they’ve earned it. After all, it’s been a day. It’s been eight years.

It’s been forever.

***

It’s almost a year later that Leo wakes up in an empty bed. He yawns, stretches, arches his back and hears his joints pop. For a moment, he wonders where his boys—even now, the thought that they really are his boys makes him unbelievably happy—are.

Then he hears the voices from the kitchen. A smile spreads across his face at the exclamation of “Oh, shit!” and he swings his legs over the side of the bed, placing his feet on the floor and preparing for whatever disaster may greet him.

(Honestly, who thought letting Finn and Logan cook was a good idea?)

And true enough, the moment walks into the kitchen he’s greeted by two things: the grinning faces of his boyfriends, and the smell of smoke.

“What’s burning?”

“The bacon.”

“Of course it is.” He reaches over, taking the pan from Finn, and scrutinizes it. “Salvageable,” he declares, “But please never try to make anything other than instant ramen again.”

Logan nods sheepishly. “Sorry,” he says. “We just wanted to make you something special. Y’know, for your birthday.”

Right.

His birthday.

He’d actually forgotten about that.

He’s not sure how—it’s all he’s been able to think about for almost a month now it’s here and he knows all three of them have the same thing on their minds. Sure, he’s excited, but right now, he’s leaning a little more towards terrified. Today’s the day.

But he knows, when he lets a very real grin spread across his face, that they won’t pressure him. They know it’s his choice, and they’ll respect that. He has nothing to worry about except for the fact that the smoke detector is around six seconds away from going off.

“Here,” he instructs Logan, putting the frying pan down on the stove. “Grab the fan from the bathroom—the little portable one—and bring it in here if you don’t want the fire department racing lights-and-fucking-sirens down our street.”

“Oui.”

“Finn… just try not to set anything else on fire.”

The hustle and (incredibly mild, all considering) panic only lasts for a few minutes. Finally, Leo presses a kiss to the top of Logan’s head, ruffling Finn’s hair, and opens the fridge. “Thanks for the breakfast, by the way.”

“Anytime.”

“...Or not.”

They all laugh at this, and when Leo grabs the milk and pours out three glasses, he watches them. He sees Finn pull out Logan’s chair with an exaggerated bow, glancing over and smiling when he and Leo lock eyes.

It’s the classic movie dilemma. Will he, won’t he. Won’t he, will he.

He waits until they’re all seated to bring it up. In the meantime, he rubs his wrist through the long-sleeved shirt he wore to bed yesterday for this very reason. It meant he was warm last night, but at least he gets a choice this morning.

“So.”

Finn and Logan both look up. “Yeah, Peanut?” one of them asks—probably Finn, but Leo’s mind is too far away to give it much thought.

“Are we going to talk about it?”

This time, it’s definitely Logan who responds, shrugging and poking at his bacon before saying, “Do you want to?”

“I think so.”

Here Finn cuts in. “I only have one thing to say, and that’s that whatever’s on your wrist? It doesn’t change anything. You’re mine—you’re ours—no matter what. We don’t have to be soulmates to be in love.”

“I know that. I just… I used to feel like I was missing something, you know? It’s been ages since I did, but at the beginning I felt like this was your relationship, and I was just an extra part of it.”

“I… I didn’t know you felt that way.” Logan’s eyes are earnest, emotional. Leo thinks he might see tears there. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. No, really—I felt that way, sure, but I don’t anymore. I know you guys love me. That’s what matters. I’m just tired of having the ability to tell myself I don’t belong, and this… this is what confirms it either way.

“I want to know. I really do. But I can’t help being afraid of the answer.”

Finn opens his mouth to speak, but Logan beats him to it. “It’s your choice. Whatever you decide to do, we’re here for you. You can do it today, you can do it tomorrow, you can do it in a year, you can do it never. Je t’aime, mon amour. Toujours.”

Time seems to slow down in the instant it takes Leo to reach into the deepest recesses of himself to gather all the courage he can find, take a deep breath, and pull up his left sleeve. His hands are hidden under the table, so neither Logan nor Finn knows what’s happened until Leo’s face spreads into the widest smile he’s ever worn and a choked, happy sob escapes his lips.

He can see in both their eyes the instant they realize—Finn first, Logan following mere instants later—and he rubs a thumb over the golden print. Somehow, he knows that one’s his.

He’s already seen this mark a hundred thousand times, but it feels so much more real there on his skin, blue and golden and green and—

“Yeah.” They know what he means. He wants to shout it out loud, sing it boldly as he walks down the street, because they’re his soulmates, and the only thing that matters more than that is that they’re in love.

thanks to @peggyrose19 for betaing and @lumosinlove for the incredible characters <3

#o'knutzy #finn o'hara #logan tremblay #leo knut #I made finn and logan that same age because what? even? are? timelines???#soulmates au #they're in love!

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butgilinsky · 4 years

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coming home // np

warning; tooth rotting fluff. not proofread but what’s new

summary; three times nolan comes home to you and the one time you can’t wait

word count; 3.3k+

add yourself to my nhl taglist!

one

roadies were always hard, no matter how long they lasted or how many you had to go through during the duration of your relationship. you should’ve been used to it by now, having upwards of three years under your belt at this point.

despite becoming accustomed to going weeks at a time without seeing him, it never got easier. every game that required anything more than the short drive over to the wells fargo stadium was a disappointment for the two of you.

despite not being the most public of relationships, the two of you were inseparable. it had been that way for as long as you could remember and no nhl team was going to change that.

you were happy to move out to philadelphia after nolan got drafted. you hadn’t even hesitated. you knew that there were chances for him to end up at multiple places across two separate countries, but you weren’t worried about it. you were ready to go wherever he would’ve ended up, and he knew that just as much as you did.

the apartment felt empty when he was gone, especially for a week or two and you had no one to come home to, nor anyone to wait for on the couch. you had gotten used to seeing nolan once you got home from work, or waiting for him to get home after a long day at practice. you hated the days that the apartment fell quiet, the only sound coming from the tv and your feet shuffling from the couch to your bed.

thankfully, you only had to wait a few days this time around. the boys were in boston, only playing one game before coming back to their home arena to play the next game in the series. this went over well with you, given that you only had to spend two nights away from nolan.

it was still pretty early in the evening when you started making food, not entirely sure when nolan was supposed to be home but starting dinner anyway. you had been home for almost two hours by the time you started, not getting very far into the process when the front door swung open.

you turned over your shoulder, a bright smile on your face as you laid the knife in your hand flat onto the cutting board and turned around to completely face him. he smiled at the sight of you, letting out a heavy sigh when he dropped his bag by the door and wrapped his arms around you.

he dug his face into your neck, practically melting into your embrace as exhausting rolled over him in waves. he was in the middle of a busy season, and coming home to you was something he looked forward to almost more than anything else.

“missed you.” it was mumbled into your skin, though you didn’t expect much else from the boy in your arms. you loved him to pieces but even you couldn’t decipher the mumbling at times.

“i missed you too, baby.” you kissed his cheek, watching the red tint that he hated spread across his cheeks.

“what are you making?” he lifted his head to scan the kitchen, trying to figure out what dinner would be just from the utensils you had out.

“pasta.” you shrugged, the entire thought of food completely shoved to the back of your mind as you looked up at the boy who had gotten home only moments prior.

“want any help?” you smiled, a warmth spreading through your chest as you nodded gently.

the two of you finished dinner with ease, talking about nolan’s short roadie and what you did while he was away.

two

the entire week had been hell. you were slammed at work every single day that nolan was gone, and today was no different. you had lost track of how long he’d been gone, stuck between thinking it had been an entire month or only two days.

in all actuality, it had been almost two weeks. usually, you went out with friends to distract you from long roadies like this. sometimes you’d ask the girls to come to your apartment, opting for a wine and movie night, other nights you’d go out to whoever’s bar of choice and just try to distract yourself from the almost vacant space back home.

this time, though, there was no time for you to do that. you had been drowning in projects back at the office, and though you loved your job and the people that you worked with, it didn’t make it any less stressful. it felt like you were hitting deadline after deadline lately, and all you wanted to do was sleep for the remainder of the time that nolan was on the road.

you had posted yourself in front of the tv, spread out across the couch with a glass of wine that you had barely taken three sips from before you fell asleep. the tv was still on, ending up on a show that nolan hadn’t recognized once he walked through the door.

he knew you had been busy, so he wasn’t surprised by the sight in front of him. it was earlier than you’d normally go to sleep, but with the last few weeks the two of you had, he figured it wasn’t a bad idea to give yourselves a night of doing absolutely nothing. if you wanted to sleep through it, he was going to let you.

he dropped his things and kicked his shoes off by the door before he had caught sight of you, wine glass still sitting on the coffee table mere feet from you and tv still playing the program that came on after the movie you’d originally chosen.

after moving your wine glass and turning off the tv, nolan threaded one of his arms underneath your knee and the other around your back before lifting you into his arms.

you stirred, being a light sleeper not boding well for you in a time like this. your arms wrapped around his neck instinctively just before you opened your eyes, immediately squinting from the intrusion of light that came through your eyelashes.

“nol?” he hummed in response, telling you to just go back to sleep and he’d talk to you in the morning. “what time is it? when did you get home?”

“just now.” he laughed gently as he kicked your bedroom door open and set you gently on your side of the bed.

“wait.” you reached for his arm before he could get too far away, gripping onto his bicep gently. “my wine.”

“i put it in the fridge. it’ll be waiting for you tomorrow night, baby.” you hummed and nodded, allowing yourself to relax back into place as nolan got ready for bed.

when he slipped into the spot beside you moments later, he brought you close to him, smiling when you leaned into his side.

“i love you.” your voice was groggy, slightly mumbled and raspy, which made him laugh. he was usually the mumbling one, and here you were, talking through your battle against sleep.

“i love you too, sleeping beauty.” he kissed the top of your head just before you surrendered yourself to sleep.

three

it’s not how long he was gone, but the fact that he had to leave just two weeks before your anniversary. the two of you had managed to spend your first three together, and neither of you planned on skipping the fourth one.

you had known each other a lot longer than the span of your relationship, but that didn’t make the day any less special to the two of you. you had offered to make the trip out to the games, but the last stop of the roadie was pittsburgh, and nolan assured you that he was going to do everything he had to do in order to be home in time.

to say that you were excited when you woke up to a text telling you that he’d be home before noon propelled you out of bed. it almost felt surreal. he was going to be home an entire day before your anniversary, which meant you wouldn’t have to wake up or fall asleep in an empty bed.

after getting ready and receiving multiple texts from travis telling you that nolan was being absolutely insufferable, you made the trip to the airport, waiting patiently for your boyfriend’s plane to land.

there were only a few other people in the small lot you had to wait in. most of the boys drove themselves, not wanting to burden their families with going back and forth to the airport at odd hours of the day, but you didn’t mind.

you just wanted to see nolan.

you would’ve been able to spot him from miles away. besides his coat being a dead giveaway, you watched travis sport a wide grin and hold his arms out to his sides at the sight of you. nolan shoved him playfully, surely mumbling something about his best friend being far more annoying than he ever was.

you couldn’t stop the smile from taking up half of your face when he finally reached you, wrapping you in a tight hug that constricted your breathing, though you couldn’t seem to care.

"hi baby.” you sighed out at the sound of his voice, relaxing into his hold but still holding onto him tightly.

“hi.” you hummed in return, finally releasing him and laughing when travis held his arms out for a hug.

“thank god you’re here. he hasn’t shut up the entire morning.” travis exaggerated, though you weren’t surprised, and you laughed.

“seems like the tables have turned, eh?” you watched nolan roll his eyes despite the smile inching up his lips while travis laughed and pulled back from you. “do you need a ride?”

travis shook his head, thanking you for the offer before muttering something about nolan threatening him back on the plane. travis knew just as much as anyone else what tomorrow was, and he wasn’t going to prolong the reunion the two of you were looking forward to.

after waving to travis, along with a few others, you slipped into the car, watching nolan reach for the aux on impulse. you smiled to yourself, never being able to wrap your head around the fact that every time he came home you fell into the same routine with ease.

no time away from one another was ever enough to cause unnecessary tension between the two of you. no, it wasn’t always easy by any means, but the two of you knew this system all too well by now. through nolan’s time playing hockey growing up, to when he moved to brandon to play in the whl, and now even in the nhl, the two of you stuck together.

he caught you smiling, a slightly dazed look in your eyes as you watched the road.

“why are you smiling like that?” you glanced at him, letting out a soft sigh when his hand landed on your thigh, his thumb moving back and forth instinctively.

“i don’t think i’ll ever get used to the feeling i get when you come home.” your voice was hushed, barely enough to reach his ears over the soft lull of music filling the car. but he heard it. he heard every word.

“i don’t think i’ll ever get used to the feeling i get when i come home to you.” your right hand dropped from the steering wheel, landing on his enough to wrap them around one another.

“i love you, nol.”

“i love you too, baby.”

one

landing in dallas felt slightly surreal. you had to navigate most of it on your own, given that the only person you thought of asking to direct you were nolan and travis. given that nolan didn’t know you were even in dallas and travis was attached at his hip at all times, it made it slightly difficult for you to ask either of them for help.

you did a decent job at finding your way around, not having much time before the game started anyways. the entire trip had been rush planned between you and travis, and you were both dealing with outside situations at the same time as trying to plan an impulsive trip across the country that was also supposed to remain top secret.

a few of the other guys knew you were coming, given travis’s lack of ability to organize everything on his own while also trying to shield it from nolan. being that the two of them were always together, and travis wasn’t the best at planning things or keeping secrets, it was all a bit of a shit show.

you had lost track of how long the boys had been on the road. all you knew was that you were here tonight, and you’d be able to see him. even if you weren’t able to stay for long, even if the next few hours were going to be spent in a packed stadium you were unfamiliar with. it didn’t matter, because you’d see nolan soon enough.

you had answered travis the third time he called you, telling him to calm down and that you were safe and sound at your hotel. you were going to make it, even if you didn’t have time to see nolan before the game.

it was a good game for nolan. three points, two goals. one scored in the first period and the other being the one that gave them the lead with only two minutes of game left. it had you out of your seat, screaming at the top of your lungs with the rest of the flyers fans around you.

when the last buzzer sounded through the stadium, you practically sprinted out of your seat. you followed the directions that travis had texted to you, though they weren’t the best directions he could’ve given, you appreciated everything he had done for you in the past couple of days.

it had been his idea to fly you out to dallas, and he made sure to put together everything for you. all you had to do was clear your schedule and show up to your flight and the game. all things you could do with ease.

when he finally found you, after searching through various hallways for somewhere around ten minutes after he had showered and changed, you saw him sight out in relief.

“i thought i was never going to find you.” he said once he reached you.

you laughed, wrapping him in a tight hug while thanking him repeatedly for the entire thing. you laughed again when he told you it was nothing, claiming that you made nolan much more bearable if anything.

nolan made his media rounds. given the game he had, he knew it was inevitable. he was still on his high from the game, adrenaline still pumping through his veins and heart thudding in his chest. he answered questions with ease, thankful that he had time to shower and change before this entire process began.

nolan wasn’t a big pda guy. the two of you kept most of that to yourselves, not doing much more than holding hands outside of the confines of your apartment. you didn’t mind it, liking the fact that your relationship wasn’t completely drawn out for everyone to see. however, there were times where nolan’s emotions built up high enough to surpass his privacy preferences.

he had been pulled out of his line of focus at the sound of your laugh, but he quickly shoved it to the back of his mind when he figured he was hearing things. he shook the thought from his head, telling himself to get back into the mindset of the media he was in the middle of.

he was asked another question, the answer sitting on the tip of his tongue just as you rounded the corner with travis. the black jersey sitting on your shoulders was a stark difference from the slew of green ones he had seen throughout the night, and it tore his focus away from the interview completely.

“no fucking way.” he muttered softly, his eyes locking with your own as a smile spread across your lips, your conversation with travis completely forgotten about.

he excused himself from the people surrounding him, leaving them with the softest and quickest apology he could manage before making the short distance over to you.

his momentum lifted you off of he ground, arms wrapped around you tightly as you quickly locked your ankles behind his back. you squealed softly at the impact, laughing when your back hit the nearest wall. nolan squeezed you as if his life depended on it, not being able to grasp the fact that you were actually here, right now, in front of him.

“hey superstar.” you whispered softly, running your hand through his wet hair on instinct.

“what the fuck are you doing here?” you laughed, pulling his head out of your neck gently.

you held his head in your hands, fingers splayed across his cheeks as you looked directly into his eyes, bright smiles mirroring one another. the look in his eyes told you everything you needed to know. you made the right decision flying down to dallas.

“i couldn’t wait.” you shook your head gently, watching his lips turn up even further, something you thought was impossible at this point.

“i love you so much. i don’t think you’ll ever understand.” you shook your head gently before leaning your forehead against his.

“i understand.” you whispered softly, allowing your eyes to fall shut. “i love you more than anything, nol.”

he closed the gap between the two of you, leaning up the slightest bit in order to connect your lips. it was firm, and it was filled with passion that you had been stripped of for weeks. you hadn’t been able to see him, hold him, kiss him and tell him everything he means to you for weeks.

you hated roadies.

he pulled back only when he had to, both of you drained of any breath you previously had as you kissed the other like your life depended on it.

“how?” your eyes shifted to travis, who stood off to the side with a warm smile playing at his lips.

he knew how much nolan loved you. he was the one that had to hear about it when you two were separated. though he joked about it being annoying, he couldn’t complain since nolan offered him time to do the same. no matter how much he’d chirp nolan for being wrapped completely around your finger, he found it unbelievably endearing every time nolan spoke about you.

“tk.” nolan turned over his shoulder, hands moving to support your thighs as he made eye contact with his best friend.

travis nodded and held out a hand, telling nolan that a thanks wasn’t necessary. he knew nolan would’ve done the same for him, and that’s all he needed. he was happy to see nolan so happy, he didn’t need recognition for being behind it.

the boy shared a nod before travis made his way back towards the locker room, offering to round up his and nolan’s things so the two of you could have another minute before you’d have to leave the stadium and figure out what you were doing for the rest of the night.

“i can’t believe you’re here.” you looked back at the blue eyes that never failed to fill you with every emotion you’d ever felt.

“you can pinch yourself later.” he let out a soft laugh at that, allowing you to jump back onto your own feet but not letting you move from his grasp just yet.

“what am i supposed to do until then?” he quirked an eyebrow up, watching you pull your bottom lip between your teeth.

“you could start by kissing me again.” you poked his chest lightly, smiling widely at the sound of a genuine laugh falling from his lips.

“i can manage that.”

nolpat taglist; @extratragic @shelbsays @teenagekook @stfukie @kiedhara @sadcupofcoffee

tagging the himbos; @dmonchld @bricksatanakinswindow @dreamypeaches @sortagaysortahigh @anxietyandtacos

#nolan patrick #nolan x reader #flyers #nhl #nolan patrick x reader #philadelphia flyers

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xoxo-teddybear · 4 years

Text

Oh, The Lies You Tell - Bakugou Katsuki - pt.8

Bakugou x f!reader

Warnings: angst, trauma, abuse, betrayal, fluff, slice of life, smut, cursing, manipulation, possible spoilers, physical harm, 18+, MANGA SPOILERS

Ep. Warnings: ANGST, cursing, manga spoilers

Summary: it’s time for the battle competition! Or so the students of UA think. Just before the battle starts, a portal opens up and chaos is unleashed. Everything would’ve been fine if Dabi hadn’t exposed the truth.

BAKUGOU’S MASTERLIST

Pt.1 Pt.2 Pt.3 Pt.4 Pt.5 Pt.6 Pt.7 Pt.8 Pt.9

After the long drive, a break, mind-blowing sex, and another long drive, UA has finally made it to the battle competition! The students all marveled in their seats as they looked out the bus windows. The buses for all the schools were parked atop a cliff. The area the students would be participating in was below in and it was nothing but forests, valleys, mountains, rivers, and meadows for miles. This was a race and only the best school and best students will win.

“And welcome to the competition UA,” Aizawa tiredly said. The students all cheered as they exited the bus and stepped foot onto the soft grass. They felt the breeze blowing and felt ready to go. “There’s a building down that path, you can change into your costumes there and wait for further instruction. And Y/N, you won’t be able to be with Rumor on this, so I’ll watch him for the time being. See you all soon.”

The students were excited as they quickly scrambled down the path as Rumor went with Aizawa to wherever.

“Man, after all that time we’re finally here!” Kirishima said. “We’re definitely gonna kick some ass the second we step foot in there,”

“No shit, Shitty Hair. These losers don’t stand a chance,” Bakugou said with a malicious grin. They Bakusquad continued to walk and talk as Bakugou kept his arm around you but he once again noticed your unusual silence.

“Hey..princess, tell me what’s up?” He whispered with a concerned voice. You looked up to him as you snapped out of your haze and stared at him with loving eyes.

“I’m fine Suki...just nervous.” You said with a slight laugh to appear okay. Bakugou took your word for it but still held some concern as he felt somewhere in his heart that there was more to the story.

“About what? You’re one of the best fighters here, you don’t gotta worry about anything. You’ll do great out there Princess. Promise.” He said before he kissed your forehead to reassure you. You gave a nervous laugh as you continued to stare off into space. You were scared.

The league would be coming after you sent the coordinates. Your palms were sweaty and your throat felt dry as you got closer and closer to the assembly building. You wanted to cry so bad for so many reasons. You were lost, you didn’t want anybody to be hurt, you didn’t want the truth exposed....you didn’t want to leave UA...and you didn’t want to leave Bakugou.

Time passed and the others spoke of whatever. You wouldn’t know. You were too busy stressing over the villains upcoming arrival. Class 1-A walked in and took notice of all the schools in the building. Infront of the crowd was a stage and a podium. You felt Bakugou’s grip on you tighten and you laughed as you saw he was looking at all the boys staring at you. You loved your jealous little pomeranian.

Students mumbled and talked amongst each other until a man came up to the podium and addressed everyone.

“Hello students! Welcome to the battle competition, Olympus! Today, all you hero trainees will battle against other schools as you all race to the top of the mountain on the other side of the valley. When you reach the top, there will be people awaiting your arrival to bestow upon you the chalice of victory!” The students cheered at the news and got all riled up. They piped down once the man began to speak again.

“Here’s how this will work. Each class from every school will be given a certain location somewhere out in the field. Don’t worry, it’ll all be at an equal difficulty and distance from the finish line so there’s no advantage for anybody. Once you hear the gun go off, you will all run through the wild to get to the top. Maps will be passed out to each of you right now and along with that, a badge that each of you will get that will tell everyone what team/class you’re apart of and it will connect you and your teammates to one team. Now, classes MUST stick together and everyone must arrive at the same time. Along with the obstacles of nature, some of you will fall into certain traps. There are markings placed at random in the field and once a member of the class steps into it, you will wait until another class gets trapped and you shall battle. Winners get to move on and continue the race. The competition will last for 3 days and if you haven’t made it to the finish line by the morning of the 4th, you must remain where you are so that we can find you and track you by your badge. Everybody clear?”

Students cheered once more as a way of agreement and got ready. “Good. All of you will be directed to the changing areas. There’s over 4,000 stalls, gender is separated, and each student will be able to get their own changing area. Put on your hero costumes and head to your class’s assigned location. Good luck to you all.”

Students got rowdy as they all began to leave the room. You and the Bakusquad stayed and talked for a bit before you kissed Bakugou and left to put on your costume.

You got to your own stall and quickly changed. As you finished you looked in the mirror. You, a villain, dressed as a hero. Comical. But yet, you smiled at the new look. You felt that it really suited you. You snapped out of your gaze and went to the earring hidden in your bag.

“Hello? Can anyone hear me?” You whispered softly into the earring. A minute passed before Shigaraki answered.

“Tell me the coordinates.” You bit your lip in hesitation. Was this really what you wanted to do? You held a shaky breath as you spoke

“43.5647 to 12.8499.”

“See you soon.” And just like that, the call was over. You released a deep sigh in regret and anxiety as you gathered your things and walked to the given location. There you met with all your classmates and Bakugou. He welcomed you with open arms as he pulled you in for an embrace.

“Hey Princess. Everyone already discussed a plan so I’ll fill you in on the way,” He said after he pecked your forehead. Oh his sweet kisses. One of the things you’ll dearly miss when you have to go your separate ways.

“Hi....” Bakugou once again held a frown and concerned stare as your unusual behavior kicked back in. He held you tighter as he tilted your head up by your chin and gave you a loving kiss. He pressed his forehead against yours as your head was still tilted towards the sky.

“What’s wrong Y/N?...Please,” he begged. He knew something had been wrong for awhile and now he was desperate for an answer. You held your breath as you stared at him with sad eyes and a fallen jaw. You squeezed your E/C eyes shut as you shook your head to the ground and placed it against his chest.

“Katsuki, I have to tell you somethi-“

*BANG!*

That was it. The sound of the start of the race. Students began running to the forest and you sighed as you realized this was destiny trying to tell you to not go. You shook off your nerves as you looked towards Katsuki.

“It’s okay, you can tell me later. C’mon,” he said as he grabbed your hand and began to run but with the first step that you took, your eyes glowed and you didn’t see Katsuki or the competition anymore. It was bright and white and all you could see was Korra’s angry face as her eyes also glowed.

“TELL HIM THE TRUTH Y/N!” She yelled with the voices of all the other avatars. Your eyes filled with tears as they shut again and you shook your head.

“I can’t! I’m sorry!” You cried out.

“CHOOSE THE RIGHT PATH!”

“I-I can’t! I don’t know what to do anymore!”

“Y/N!”

...

“Y/N!......Y/N!” Bakugou said as he shook you. Out of nowhere your eyes glowed and you froze in your tracks. Bakugou stopped running when he didn’t feel you follow him and when he looked back he did everything he could to snap you out of your avatar state. After a minute you finally settled and your eyes returned back to normal. You fell into his arms as your groaned in exhaustion.

“Katsuki....?” You softly spoke out as he held you against his chest.

“Are you okay?! What’s wrong?!” He frantically asked. The competition completely left his mind as he shifted his everything to you.

“I’m...im fine. It was just..Korra. She..spoke to me.” You explained.

“Are you okay? Do you need to sit?” He offered as he attempted to walk you to a tree stump so you could rest but you stopped him.

“No, no it’s fine Katsuki....we have to do this competition..” you said with stern eyes.

“No Y/N, I think you shoul-“

“Katsuki.” He looked at you and noticed your serious tone and strong grip as you held onto his arms. “Please.”

“.....okay.” And so you both ran to catch up with your class. You strained and shook off your headache as you thought about your past choices. Fear bubbled up inside of you as you looked towards Katsuki. He seemed focused on the task at hand and so you followed. What you didn’t realize was that under his cool, composed cover, he was nervous. He wanted you to be okay, it was all he yearned for but he also wanted to give you whatever you desired so if going through with the stupid race was what you wanted, then your wish is his command.

You both finally caught up with the class and out of nowhere, a trap was sprung. Denki had stepped into a red zone and all of 1-A’s badges glowed as the ground crumbled beneath them and they all fell into some arena in a cavern. The students plopped onto the ground, some on top of each other, as they all coughed from the dust and examined the area.

“You okay Princess?” Bakugou asked.

“I’m fine Suki,” you reassured him.

“What the hell Dunce Face?! Why didn’t you watch where you were going?!” Bakugou screamed at the poor blonde.

“Cool it man,” Bakugou’s best friend had said as he hooked his arms under Bakugou’s to keep him from attacking the electric boy. “Kaminari didn’t know what the traps looked like. None of us did so it’s good that we can identify them now. All we have to do is wait for another class to fall into another trap so we can fight ‘em and win”

“We’re losing time! Now we have to wait for some dumbasses and if nobody shows up, we’re stuck here! Like losers!” Bakugou said as he huffed and plopped on his ass to the ground infront of Y/N as he placed his chin in his hand. Y/N placed her hands on his shoulders to calm him.

“Kirishima is right, there’s hundreds of kids here and nobody who hasn’t sprung a trap knows what they look like. Somebody is bound to fall down here soon,” you reassured your angry boyfriend. Some of the class settled until a few minutes later, a voice spoke up.

“That you are correct, little mouse. Your opponents are here, but it’s not who you’d be expecting.”

Your eyes shot forward as you recognized the voice.

“Oh no...” you whispered and took your hands off of Bakugou as you stood straight. Everyone turned towards you as they watched you tremble.

“Princess, are you okay?” Bakugou asked as he stood up and held your hands.

“She’s fine blondie. She just knows what’s coming like the smart little puppet she is,” Shigaraki said as he stepped out of the shadows. The class shook and stilled at his appearance and got into defensive positions. The rest of the league popped out of the shadows and the class looked in confusion as they spoke on their concerns.

“What they hell are they doing here?!”

“What’s going on?”

“Should we get help?” The class all asked aloud. You shook off your nerves as you took your hands out of Bakugou’s as he looked at you in worry. You clapped your hands as a gust of wind hit everyone to bring their attention onto you. It was silent as everyone watched you speak.

“..Where are the actual opponents? What did you do to the students?” You shakenly asked. Dabi smirked as he walked back into the shadows and then returned before tossing an unconscious body in front of the class. You quickly ran to him and used your water bending to check on his body and health. The water went all around the poor student until you stopped your movements. He’s dead.

“Heh..you should see the rest of the students, little mouse,” Dabi said as he walked to you and gripped your chin in his hands to make you face him. As he smirked at you, an explosion was sent his way but he jumped and dodged it.

“Get your hands off of her!” Bakugou screamed as he ran to you. He brought you back into his arms as you just stared at Dabi.

“It’s not her you should be protecting, hero,” Dabi hinted. You cringed at his words but Bakugou ignored them as he seethed out a question.

“What the hell do you bastards want?!” He asked and Shigaraki was the first to answer his question.

“Take a guess!” He said as he directed the league to attack. Toga was the first to move as she went towards the girls and attempted to sliced at them. Dabi followed as he sent flames to the ground, but Todoroki was quick and put them out with his ice. The two brothers stared at each other, one with a nonchalant determined face and the other with a cocky smirk.

It was here and now. The attack was happening and it was happening to your class right now. All the students sprung into action as they fought villains, multiple students vs single villains. Sadly, the class were the ones struggling. Bakugou fought at Dabi as he pushed Todoroki away.

“Pick someone else IcyHot! I want this Bastard to myself!” The blonde said before he pounced to the fiery villain. Todoroki shifted as he and Midoriya worked at Shigaraki and you stood in pain at all the violence. You heard screams of pain from your classmates and you felt your own heart breaking. Due to your out of zone state, you couldn’t sense the blue flames coming your way until Bakugou screamed your name.

“Y/N! This isn’t the time for your daydreams! Get your head in the game!” He said. Delivery was a little harsh, but necessary. You quickly snapped out of it as you bended Dabi’s flames away.

“Poor little Y/N. Always a burden, always a bother.” Those words rung in your ears as you advanced towards Dabi. As you jumped mid-air, it was like time slowed down as Dabi’s eyes had slanted as he stared you down. “You sure you wanna do that...little mouse?”

His tone, cold, and your eyes widen in fear. The name, the way he spoke. It was the same voice and degrading name he used when he would attack you as a punishment. You quickly stopped your attack and stared infront of him. You looked up at him in fear as he smirked down at you. You may have changed the slightest bit but you were still a submissive little punching bag to the league. As you both held a staring match, one in fear and one in power, Bakugou blasted Dabi away from you. The black haired man groaned in pain as he felt the burn of the explosion and watched from a distance as Bakugou ran to guard you.

“Are you okay, Princess?” He asked you while he still watched Dabi in caution. You nodded your head and gave a “mhm,” as a reply as you both watched Dabi get up. He and Bakugou jumped at each other as they fought. Bakugou threw punch after punch as Dabi dodged each one while he spoke.

“Princess, Huh? *dodge* Never knew you were into villains Katsuki,” Dabi said as he dodged again.

“Shut up! You don’t know shit! That was her past!” Bakugou screamed as he continued to attack.

“Past?! *dodge* HA! You think your little Princess is an ex-con?!” He laughed in Bakugou’s face.

“She did what she had to!” Bakugou screamed once more. He swung again but Dabi caught his fist this time.

“Really? I didn’t know robbing banks, murdering people, and joining the League of Villains counted as survival,” Dabi said in his face. Bakugou face sprouted a confused look as Dabi threw him back.

“What?” Bakugou seethed threw grinded teeth. Your heart began to race as Dabi continued to talk.

“You don’t know Y/N at all Katsuki.” Dabi said as he gave you the side eye and watched your fearful and angry gaze.

“Stop talking Dabi,” you quietly said, however Dabi still heard. Including Bakugou.

“Your precious little Princess is on our side, hero. She’s a villain. And not just any villain. She’s the best of the best when it comes to the girls.” Bakugou shook his head in anger as he ran back to Dabi and threw punch after punch and kick after kick.

“SHUT UP!” He screamed at the villain but Dabi just dodged and continued. Bakugou was so confused and so angered that his emotions took control. His fighting faultered and Dabi had the upper hand as he attacked Bakugou and threw him into a small boulder. Bakugou groaned as he sat exhausted against the rock. He breathed heavily as he watched Dabi walk to Y/N, take her hand, walk closer to Bakugou, and wrap his arm over her shoulder. “GET AWAY FROM HER YOU FUCKING BASTARD!”

“Heh...do you wanna tell him or should I, Princess?” Dabi asked as he mocked the nickname Bakugou gave you. Your eyes teared as your breath became jagged and you looked towards Bakugou. Katsuki noticed how you didn’t remove Dabi’s arm and just stayed silent.

“Y/N?” He whimpered out as he looked at you for some sort of answer. What the hell was Dabi talking about? Grand theft? Murder? Joining the league? He needs an answer. Bakugou watched you swallow down a nervous breath as you hesitantly spoke.

“Katsuki.....I’m Titania....and...I..I’m a part of the League.” You said with a quivering lip. Bakugou’s eyes went wide as he felt his entire world shatter. The girl he fell in love with and gave his entire being to was an undercover villain. He felt tears stinging his eyes as he spoke.

“W-what?” He questioned. Dabi groaned aloud in annoyance as he threw his head back dramatically and continued the talk.

“Your little girlfriend here is a villain. In fact..this whole attack was her plan,” Dabi smirked out. Bakugou watched you as you kept your head down with a shadow casting over your face. An obvious frown adorned your lips. The lips that Bakugou had kissed a thousand times over and they belonged to the most heinous female villain. Bakugou dropped his head down as his eyes stayed open in shock. He felt a panic attack coming onto him as his breaths got heavier and he freaked out.

‘This can’t be true....She loves me! She would never....she could never do this! It’s Y/N! She’s...She can’t be a villain! She would never lie to me like this...’ Bakugou’s thoughts became too much so he screamed as he got up and ran to attack the both of you. He jumped into the air and released an explosion to the both of you but you both had dodged. When Bakugou dropped back to the ground he quickly ran to you and tackled you to the ground. He pinned you down as he hovered over you trying to scan your face for some sort of reasonable answer or explanation.

“Y/N!” He screamed in your face as he shook with tears falling from his ruby eyes. He watched as your lips continued to whimper and the shadow over your face remained. Dabi used his fire to send an attack towards you both and instead of burning you both, it stung as it pushed you both away. The two of you fell down a tunnel. You both held onto each other as you guys tumbled down a tunnel. When you both hit the ground again, you realized you ended up in a cave away from the fighting. Ahead of you was an opening to the outside world. You continued to lay on the ground as Bakugou stayed atop of you as he cried and whimpered into your shoulder. You gently pushed him off of you as you stood and tried to walk to the exit, but before you’d could take a step, Bakugou quickly grabbed onto your wrist.

You looked down at him with sad eyes as you watched him keep his head down as fat tears dropped from his eyes. He stayed on the ground, seated on his knees as he cried.

“Please tell me it isn’t true, Princess..” he whispered. You felt tears invade your own eyes as you squeezed them shut. You both stayed like that for awhile as you released silent tears.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered as you tried to help Bakugou stand but once he got to his feet he gripped your shoulders.

“Tell me everything! ...NOW!” He screamed with his eyes open and full of tears. You stared at him with an apologetic face as you shook your head.

“We have to go Katsuki, we have to get help.” Bakugou shook his head ‘no’ but allowed you to drag him out of the cave and into the opening. It was getting late and the evening had already started as the blue sky darkened a bit. You stomped your foot into the ground to use your earth bending to figure out exactly where you both were. Once you felt the vibrations, you realized you were too far to even locate the others or even the competition grounds. You guys were lost.

“We’re too far away from everything Katsuki. We should look around a bit and see if we can find our way back.” Bakugou held onto your wrist before you walked again.

“You owe me an explanation when all of this is over, Y/N.” He quietly said with a sad tone.

“...I owe you a lot more than that Katsuki. But I will be giving you an explanation...and with how far we are away from everyone, I might have time to give it to you sooner than you think.” You explained. You and Bakugou walked on with heavy hearts but the both of you both had the exact same question ringing in your minds.

‘What are we now?’

—

You both walked for miles and yet you still got nowhere. Everytime you stopped and checked to see where you guys were, it felt like you guys just got farther away from everyone. You silently begged for Rumor to just find you and regretted not having him just shrink down to a mouse to carry around.

Bakugou trailed behind you. His crying had gone on for some time but eventually stopped, however when it did, his sadness was replaced with anger. He was pissed. He doesn’t know where he was, what he’s doing, what’s going on, and he doesn’t even know who he’s with right now. He’s basically with a stranger at the moment.

Eventually, it grew dark and the sun had set while the moon had began to rise. While you continued to look for a way back, Bakugou was aware of his surroundings and stopped you by grabbing onto your arm.

“Stop walking, moron. Can’t you see it’s dark?” He said as he looked at you with a bored expression. You turned back and scoffed at him in disbelief.

“We’re lost. We have no idea where we are and have no idea how to get back. If we stop now, we’ll lose time and it’ll take forever to get back. And who knows what’s happening now to our classmates?!” You exclaimed. Bakugou shook his head at you when you finished.

“They’re my classmates. Not yours,” truthfully, saying that broke him a bit, but he had to continue, “and if we keep going, we’ll die out here in the wild. We should find a safe place to sleep for the night and find some fire wood to keep warm. Maybe get some food to fight off hunger.”

“We’ll be fine if we keep going. I’ve survived the streets before, we’ll be okay.” You said and attempted to walk again but Bakugou held you back.

“Well this isn’t the streets Y/N. There isn’t a store full of food we can rob when we’re hungry and there isn’t an overhead tunnel at every turn that we can sleep in. This is a forest. So just shut up and listen to me.” He said, his grip on your arm slightly getting tighter. You winced the tiniest bit and Bakugou saw as he quickly took his hand off your arm. He cringed at his action but shook off the bad thoughts. “C’mon, let’s go. We gotta find some shelter.”

You thought about it for a bit and realized he was right. This wasn’t the city. You sighed and bit the inside of your cheek before answering. “Okay.”

As you silently trailed behind Bakugou, you realized you just followed him blindly. It was like he read your mind when he spoke again. “I saw a cave awhile back. We’ll camp out there. Along the way let’s just collect some firewood whenever we see some.”

You followed his orders and by the time you guys made it to the cave, you were all set to sleep. You collected wood for a fire and even leaf piles to sleep on. As you both entered the cave, Bakugou set up your sleeping area and you started the fire with your bending. Once you were done you took a seat infront of the fire and just stared at the bright flame. Here you were in a cave with your....well now you were back to where you started with him. You didn’t know what you two were anymore.

Bakugou finished with the leaves and when he turned around, he saw you sitting on the ground with a blank look. He looked at you with sad eyes and a broken heart before he sighed and sat in-front of you on the other side of the fire. You looked towards him in confusion as to why he sat but then it came to you.

“Talk.” He said as he looked towards you. You stared at him and saw he was working to build up his walls again as if he was preparing himself for disappointment. He was smart for doing so though because disappointment was exactly what he would be feeling. That and probably some severe heartache. You pressed your lips together with a sad look on your face as you came to the conclusion that there was no avoiding the truth now.

“....I’m not who you think I am.” You said and it was like the air thickened as you watched how his jaw clenched and his eyes teared behind his mask.

“My name is Y/N L/N, I’m 16....and I’m a member of the League of Villains,” Bakugou’s breath stilled as he heard the words leave your mouth. He already heard it once but hearing it now as confirmation hurt.

“The story I told you when we were in the kitchen that night was all true. I just left out some details and kind of switched the story around. The place I was born in was a hidden village. The people there had the abilities to control the 4 elements. My parents had me but were killed by the cult I mentioned before. They took my people in so they could use their abilities to create the weapons, but me being so young, I had no idea how to control them. Eventually, I discovered I was the one who could bend all 4 elements instead of just one....I discovered I was the avatar.” You breathed out.

“The avatar?” Bakugou scoffed, “the bridge between the spirit world and physical world? The person destined to bring peace to the world? That’s nothing but a legend.”

“Wellll then I guess I’m a legend so thank you for that compliment.” You said and Bakugou stared at you in shock. He was sitting with the actual avatar. “Blah blah blah, trained with a master, blah blah blah, and that’s when the league found me. They saw my abilities and took me in. But you don’t get to live in the league’s hideout once you join. You work your way up the food chain and so I had to live on the streets and do their dirty work to prove myself. I did it for survival, but in the end, being a villain was all I knew. So I stuck to it. I officially became a member and I eventually became Titania, the best female villain alive.”

“....Why did you come to UA?” He asked.

“I didn’t want to. I came for a job. Aizawa and I were fighting when he took me away while I was injured and offered to take me in and put me in school. Said he saw good in me....obviously he was wrong considering the only thing that triggered me to go was the fact that there was an opportunity to take down UA and prove myself to the league.” You explained. You noticed Bakugou kept quiet and bit his lip as he seemed to have shook a little before asking the next question.

“...What about me? What part did I play in this fucking game you got going on?” He asked. You didn’t look at him the entire time. You kept your eyes on the fire and held a nonchalant face the entire time.

“You were the only part of my UA life that was genuine. I didn’t come here looking for a relationship and I didn’t need a relationship to take down UA.....but then you came into my life. You showed up and something about you...just made sense to me. And it gave me a comforting feeling I never got to experience before. You gave me a break from my chaotic life and it was the refresher I needed.” Bakugou blushed at your confession but still felt sorrow. Your feelings for him were true but that doesn’t change the fact that you lied to him and never told him who you truly were. You were also a villain while he was a hero trainee. This relationship was wrong. He dropped his head as tears began to pool at his eyes.

“.....I still love you, Princess.” He confessed.

“I know...and I still love you Suki..”

“........WHY DID YOU HAVE TO LIE?!” He screamed as he stood up. “YOU LIED TO ME ABOUT WHO YOU WERE!”

“I did a lot of things but I have never lied to you about who I was or what I felt towards you,” you calmly said to his loud proclaims.

“BUT YOU DIDNT TELL ME THE TRUTH EITHER Y/N! ....You didn’t tell me anything. You left me in the dark. You made me fall in love with you...and now I don’t know what to do...” he sobbed out. “You’re a villain...my dream is to be the number one hero...but I love you...but it’s wrong for me to not put you behind bars.”

You just looked at him with a straight face but it was clear you were hurting as well. But you still continued to let him take his frustrations out on you.

“I’m sorry Katsuki..”

“SORRY ISNT GONNA FIX ME Y/N! SORRY ISNT GONNA MAKE ME STOP LOVING YOU! SORRY ISNT GONNA STOP ME FROM BEING ANY LESS CONFUSED!”

A silence fell over the two of you. Bakugou was so hurt and it was all your fault. He didn’t deserve this. None of them did. And yet you still followed through with this horrible plan. You knew what had to be done.

“Let’s just get some rest..we should start our search for home again in the morning,” you said as you got up and walked over to the sleeping area. But this only triggered Bakugou even more.

“Rest?! REST?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME Y/N?! YOU’RE JUST GONNA DROP THE CONVERSATION LIKE THIS ISNT FUCKING IMPORTANT?!,” he said with tears in his eyes as he stood and screamed at you.

“YES! THIS ISNT FUCKING IMPORTANT! IF IT ISNT OBVIOUS, WE’RE DONE. OVER. SO LETS JUST FORGET ABOUT THIS AND FOCUS ON FINDING OUR WAY HOME!” You screamed back. The cave grew empty as silence filled the air. Bakugou felt his heart die in his chest. He loved you, even though you were a villain he still loved you. He didn’t want this to be over..but you? You were really willing to drop this relationship? Just like that?

“So..that’s it? You’re not even gonna try for us anymore? You’re not even gonna fight for us to be together?” He asked with tears in his eyes.

“......there is no more ‘us’ anymore, Bakugou.”

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bmblboop · 4 years

Text

“Ren! Nora! Flower-Power!”

(This analysis is a little bit gif/image heavy so I will include image descriptions below each photo. Please message me if you wish to submit a more detailed description for each gif/photo OR if you want to request I add a cut/keep reading function.)

Team attacks in RWBY have always been interesting to see - how they combine the strengths of each pair and demonstrate the strength of their bond. I could go into detail about every attack and variation of each (including this little tidbit about how the Pyrrha/Nora attack ‘Pomegrenade’ has since become Jaune’s signature team attack with his teammates) BUT, Today I want to focus on these two.

(ID. A screenshot of Lie Ren and Nora Valkyrie from RWBY)

Ren and Nora are arguably the closest characters in the RWBY canon, having grown up together following a deeply traumatic experience in the destruction of Kuroyuri. So, if team attacks are all about understanding and complimenting each other’s abilities, why haven’t we seen their combo attacks more often?

The History of Flower Power

Okay, the short answer is that the ‘Flower Power’ team name didn’t exist until Volume 3, when Jaune was inspired by team RWBY’s team attacks from Volume 2 and sought to replicate it. We don’t even see the attack formation since JNPR had a miscommunication and discussed that for the rest of the battle. The name has not been brought up in canon since.

The longer answer is that team attacks involve a great deal of trust and coordination with your partner. The team attacks that JNPR attempted at the Vytal Festival fell apart due to lack of clarity and communication. We will come back to this later.

Why are we talking about a team attack was mentioned exactly once?

Because it existed in the, now deceased, mobile game Amity Arena:

(ID. A gif of Ren and Nora from from the RWBY Amity Arena mobile game. The art features their Volume 4 outfits, both pointing their weapons toward the camera.)

Flower Power is basically a Ren card with a special attack that calls Nora to the screen. She then launches him into the air and he delivers an AOE explosion where he lands.

(ID. A gif of the unlock animation for the Legendary Flower Power card. Ren somersaults into view, and punches the air a few times. Nora then arrives behind him, riding her hammer, before winding back and hitting Ren with it. Ren is now in the air, landing with a punch to the ground and an explosion to indicate the impact. He stands up and poses beside Nora, his symbol illuminating the background.)

Okay, so what? Now we know what their team attack could have looked like?

This was one of the few attacks that existed in Amity Arena without any direct references from the show (or After the Fall/Before the Dawn for that matter) aside from the name. Did the Amity Arena designers just, make it up because they’re a popular pair?

For a while, I thought nothing of it. Until the Volume 7 finale.

(ID. A gif of Nora following through on a hammer swing off camera. The footage pans up to reveal Ren in the air, moving toward the camera. It cuts to Neo smiling and Ren crashing through her illusion.)

This IS the Flower Power team attack from the game. The card was released in the 1.13.0 patch on October 24th 2019, and this episode aired in early February 2020. Given the amount of time it takes for an episode of any show to be written, boarded, animated and finished - I will operate under the assumption this attack existed in the show first and CRWBY informed the game team behind the scenes, rather than claim the show copied the move from the game. (Additionally, AmityArena needed RWBY permission on all their cards, costumes and hidden lore, so there is no way this was a coincidence.)

What it means for Character Development

Flower Power, as a combo attack, isn’t super complex - but it does require a lot of trust. Any team attack that involves one partner launching the other to deliver a devastating attack is going to be a very elaborate trust-fall exercise, but I find it even more dangerous considering the method yeeting being employed here is Nora’s hammer. Add onto that the fact that Ren is facing away from Nora in all of these versions of Flower Power - he has to be prepared for the momentum of the hammer swing even though he can’t see where she is or how she is swinging it.

TL;DR - Trust is important for this attack to work or else someone is gonna get really hurt.

While Ren and Nora are very close friends, and have proven their closeness over and over again, they aren’t as open with each other as they appear. Nora doesn’t tell Ren she’s fallen in love with him, Ren doesn’t tell Nora he’s concerned about the responsibility of being a Hunstman. They don’t spend time figuring out their relationship after the kiss and the election night massacre, thus leaving a big floating question mark above the future of their relationship as they entered Volume 8.

I think it is very intentional that the first time we see the team attack, and it fails, is when their relationship has hit it’s lowest point at the end of a volume centered around Trust.

(To clarify - Nora and Ren’s teamwork was fine vs Neo there, I’m saying symbolically and thematically that is why it failed)

So what does that mean for the future? Will we see a true version of Flower Power? Well, that’s going to depend on when Nora and Ren figure out themselves and their relationship to each other. So when Ren and Nora survive the fall of Atlas and reconcile their feelings, I expect their relationship to improve and become more open with each other. Ren’s ability to see/sense emotions will help greatly with that. It may not be for a while, personally I would not expect it before Nora’s new arc of self-worth reaches it’s climax. Eventually, we’ll see a successful Flower Power attack with all the power and triumph of the first time we saw Bumblebee or Ice Flower or Pomegrenade in action.

And it’s going to be beautiful.

#renora #flower power rwby #lie ren #nora valkyrie #my analysis #my posts #rwby analysis #in-show meta #out-of-show meta #rwby amity arena #rwby v7 spoilers #rwby v8 #rwby v8 spoilers #rwby meta #TL;DR Flower Power team attack proves that Renora lives through volume 8 because of theme and parallels and these two deserving happyendings

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hellowkatey · 4 years

Text

Febuwhump Day 8

Prompt: “hey, hey, this is no time for sleep”

Warnings: graphic descriptions of violence and injury

Crash at Point Rain

The battle already rages below them as the 212th Attack Battalion descends toward Geonosis. Obi-Wan watches with great trepidation as the ground forces are already deep in the midst of a violent undertaking. The explosions kick up the dusty surface of the bug planet, creating a cloud that obscures his view from seeing anything besides the muted flashes of blaster and cannon fire.

The Force reeks of death and destruction. If the turbulence of the gunship isn't enough to cause his stomach to turn, the feeling of darkness is.

"Five klicks to the rendezvous, General!" the message is passed from the pilot.

"Very good, stay sharp."

Everything relies on things according to plan. So naturally, everything goes up in smoke.

A massive explosion next to them causes the gunship to jolt, nearly throwing half the men out the other side of the open ship. Obi-Wan whirls around in time to watch one of their other ships, hit by cannons, violently explode and fall to the ground in a massive fireball.

Oh, not good, he thinks, because as long as they are in the air, they are practically defenseless. The clunky ships only have so much maneuverability and the dust is too thick to get a proper visual to shoot down the anti-aircraft tech.

"Take evasive action!" he yells, though his orders are implied. The blast doors are slammed shut, and darkness encompasses the hold. Obi-Wan white knuckles the hand-hold, his heart dropping as the reports begin to come flooding in through his commlink of other gunships having the same issues.

He would have preferred to never step foot on this Force-forsaken planet again. One time on Geonosis is more than enough in Obi-Wan's opinion, but apparently, the bugs seem to have a significant role to play in all of this. He still remembers the carnage in that arena like it happened yesterday. It still haunts him that all of this could have been stopped had they managed to capture Dooku.

Instead, Anakin lost his hand, The Jedi lost numerous, and the galaxy received a civil war.

Cody's voice rings through on his commlink, sharp and frantic. "General Kenobi, don't land! The zone is hot!"

"But there's nowhere else to go!"

Suddenly, the gunship jolts once more, but this time the horrible sound of durasteel being forced apart and the heat of explosion accompanies it.

"We're hit, we're hit!" he yells over the alarms that now blare through the cabin. "We're going down!"

Some troopers fall into the walls as the ship loses control. Obi-Wan can see out the front window from where he stands, and the red sands of Geonosis are very quickly approaching. We're coming in at too hard an angle!

Another shot comes hurdling through the very window, shattering the transperisteel and striking the pilot. There is only time for a gasp of surprise, and then the trooper slumps forward.

"Brace yourselves!" Obi-Wan screams as the ship takes a nose dive. Gravity is pulling his body off the ground now, and despite his order, he finds himself suspended with only his grip on the strap as an anchor. The Jedi Master flails, trying unsuccessfully to plant his weight anywhere else and get some traction, but troopers are already being thrown at a terminal velocity within the durasteel coffin, pushing him out of any position of security he could manage.

When the front of the gunship slams into Geonosis, Obi-Wan is torn from the handle. He unceremoniously crashes into the durasteel floor, his forehead bouncing off it with a sickening crack. Darkness clouds his vision, but he holds onto consciousness as the belly of the ship follows close behind in the violent crash. He is tossed into a huddle of other troopers, their armor cutting into the unprotected portions of his skin. Obi-Wan has no idea if up is up or down is up, or how long they have been skidding across the surface of the planet. The pile of helpless men is suddenly thrown in the other direction as the ship seems to slow, but tip onto its side. Obi-Wan, on top of the pile one moment, is hitting the wall again the next. This time, he doesn't have a moment to react before the other occupants of the hold are on top of him.

The destroyed gunship itself has stopped, but everything still feels like it's spinning. He gasps through the thick black smoke that has funneled into the cabin, trying to move, but the four troopers that are slung across him have him pinned against the wall. His head throbs, his vision is blurred. He can't tell if it's from the smoke or he hit his head hard enough to give him a nasty concussion-- possibly both.

Through his haze, he hears groans of agony around him. His troopers have not moved since they came to a stop. He can feel their Force presences-- they're dim. Few. Many have perished, and many more are on the way.

Obi-Wan manages to get an arm free and pushes the clone that lies across his chest to the side. Blood covers the front of his armor where it looks like his blaster got jammed in his throat. He pushes down a wave of nausea and uses his newfound freedom to push another one of his fallen men off his leg. He's weak. Barely able to manage the weight, though he's never had issues before.

"General!" a faint voice calls from the other side of the ship. It takes him a moment to look up, searching lazily across the smokey cabin. A trooper slowly gets to his feet, stumbling over the bodies of his fallen brothers and landing on his knees at Obi-Wan's side.

"Trapper," he recalls his name. "are you injured?"

"Not as bad as others. And you, sir?"

Obi-Wan grimaces as another wave of nausea burns like acid in this throat, and decides to ignore that question. "Help me get free if you can."

Trapper is able to pull the other two troopers off him before practically collapsing. Obi-Wan pulls him to sit next to him with his back against the wall. "Well done, trooper. Rest now."

The clone sighs in relief, reaching up and pulling his bucket off, and holding it in his lap. Now that they have settled and the smoke has thinned, Obi-Wan can finally take stock of the damage.

The walls of the gunship look as though they were crushed between the hands of a giant. It's a wonder it held up the way it did judging by the force of their impact. Bodies of troopers are strewn about. Motionless. The smell of blood and burning flesh is already potent, which is just about pushing Obi-Wan over the edge.

"Pardon me, Trapper," he says before leaning over away from his companion and emptying the contents of his stomach. He vomits until there is nothing left, and then his stomach still twists, as though even its natural acid must be ejected. Tears spring up in his eyes and his face feels hot and clammy. Obi-Wan has to clutch the wall to bring himself back to his original sitting position. His hands are shaking. He folds them together in an effort to calm them.

His head hurts. It's a dull, radiating pain that encompasses his head and runs down his neck, making his body simultaneously feel like it's crumbling and completely numb.

He can feel Trapper watching him. "I'm okay,"

"Did you hit your head general?"

"A better question may be what didn't my head hit."

It's more honest than he usually is, but Obi-Wan is quickly losing the will to hide it any longer. He is holding back tears that he isn't sure why are trying to force themselves out. He's felt greater agonies, been through worse tribulations.

But the tears don't seem to be sadness. It's difficult to place, but he feels angry? Frustrated? With every passing moment, his emotion seems to change.

It's exhausting. He's exhausted. Obi-Wan lets out a shaky breath and lets his heavy eyelids fall closed. Though the gunship was dark already, the total darkness is like immediate relief.

"Hey, general, this is no time for sleep."

"It sure feels like it," he groans.

"If you have a concussion you must stay awake to monitor your symptoms, sir."

"And if I decide to nap?"

Silence hangs between them for a long moment.

"I believe there is a chance you may not wake up. Sir."

As enticing as that sounds in the moment, Obi-Wan forces his eyes open again, rolling his head slowly to the side to look at Trapper.

"We can't have that, I suppose."

Minutes or hours later-- Obi-Wan isn't sure-- voices echo from outside and rapid footsteps approach. Not the buzz of Geonosisans nor the clank of battle droids, which is comforting at least. He grips his lightsaber anyway, ready to use it if needed.

Obi-Wan isn't sure of how much help he could possibly be, though. After taking greater stock of his injuries, he is quite sure he won't be able to stand on his own for more than a few minutes, nevermind actually fighting.

The door of the gunship is forced open and light streams in, causing a flare of pain behind his sensitive eyes. He squints through the daylight until his swimming vision finally focuses long enough to see familiar troopers.

"Waxer, Boil. Am I glad to see you," he pauses as they run forward to meet them, their gaze obviously wandering to their dead brothers lying about. "Trapper and I are the only ones still alive."

"Good to see you, sir," They hoist him to his feet, quicker than he probably should have been by the way everything goes black for a few long seconds, but Waxer keeps his arm securely around him as he blinks through it. "Commander Cody's established the square just beyond this position..." a ringing in Obi-Wan's ears drones out the clone's voice, and he winces, squeezing his eyes shut until it passes. "...trying to surround us as we speak, sir."

Right. The battle. The war. Now out of the ship, he is rudely reminded of the brutality of the ongoing battle that is only made worse by his pounding head. Blaster shots sound as though they are being amplified directly in his ears, and explosions and cannons make his knees feel weak from the light sensitivity.

Medical is going to have a field day with this, he sighs.

Though he wants nothing more than to collapse in his bunk for the next week and a half, he reminds himself of the importance of their success. They must recapture Geonosis and take out their droid foundries.

Obi-Wan pulls the Force around him, releasing his pain and using it to augment his strength. It's a short-term solution-- and something that will get him in deep trouble with the healers if they find out-- but it will do for now.

There will be time to rest when the war is over.

#febuwhump #febuwhumpday8 #hey hey this is not the time for sleep #violence and injury #head injury #landing at point rain #obi-wan kenobi #wax #boil #trapper #cody #star wars #tcw

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shyrose57 · 4 years

Note

Its me da Brothers au anon back again. I reblogged your post with the link to the story because I think that was easier than linking it in a ask! (I dont think links work in asks?)

I personally think while Porkius isn't the best king by far, he also isnt the worse. And he makes sure to treat the group with some respect and treats them like humans instead of mindless fighters, giving them what they need and taking certain things into consideration (Like Ran's inability to touch water). But because he's not perfect he also tends to hold him to high expectations and is sometimes seen as rude, mean, and uninterested in them. So a friendly boss-coworker relationship is the best way to describe it probably.

Grievous is Sapnaps character! But as far as I know there where no hints about any characters being related to people like Sapnap, Ranboo, Punz, etc. So Grievous is completely different from Sapnap, more hesitant and shy at times, but confident and kind. At first the friendship is slow and seems like it may just fall apart, but it doesn't to their surprise, and its when conversations between the 4 are even going on beyond battles and training they get closer.

Again taking inspiration from a lighthouse is waiting for me, as of now Karl went back in time and saved the fishers, dropping them infront of Ranbob to make their own decision. They keep him in prison for a while until Benjamin starts to suspect something is off, and moves him as far from the Dream room and the closest possible to the surface, where Ranbob starts to act differently. Eventually as Ranbob gets better and they eventually, reluctantly trust him, they decide to move to the fishers shack, even after Cletus and Isaac repeatedly say they want to stay in Mizu but Benjamin and Charles said being so close could set Ranbob back. Ranbob does not become a fisher man, instead he hangs around and tries multiple different things (repair work, cooking, arts and craft, etc) in an attempt to find who he is again and what he's good at.

I imagine a part of Dream somehow managed to latch onto his mask, not enough to have a own body and mind, but enough to get into vulnerable enough peoples mind to manipulation them. And after multiple disasters, and lettibg his mentor down, Ranbob became depressed and desperate for a way to make it all right. And that how Ranbob became so heavily influenced by Dreams remaining presence.

TW FOR BEATING BTW!

When the battle begins Ranbob desperately calls for it to be stopped and that he forfeits, but Porkius and Ran refuse to let him leave without a fight. At first Ran attacks Ranbob, but he lets Ranbob fight back. And makes a show of him dogding and countering attacks, making it known they are truly better than Ranbob in fighting and will win no matter what Ranbob does. Porkius thinks its fine and doesn't notice that Ran is striking to kill (as according to the Tales people are only knocked unconscious in the arena and not killed), until Ran picks up Ranbob and throws him against one of the rocks in the arena, where he starts to beat him and throw him more against the rock. Then Porkius hastily calls off the match and sends people in to grab Ran.

Ok TW gone

I headcanon Ranbob as being less than 25% enderman, not being able to teleport and only sometimes being allowed to pick up blocks.

While I headcanon Ran as being about 70% enderman. Which is very rare. And due to this percentage he is able to teleport (which is highly rare for enderman hybrids, as typically their other side/human side can't handle the teleportation) although sometimes he can't fully control where he goes), pick up blocks, and fluently speak enderman and make noises.

And no, Ran does not recognize Jackie as looking similar to Tubbo. Ran doesnt have the clearest memory of Mizu, only remembering certain moments. One of the things he doesng remember is the paintings/pictures, he knows there are rooms dedicated to multiple Ancestors, but forgot that said rooms tend to have paintings/pictures of the Ancestors. I hope that's what you mean by the last part anyway?

Hello again! And thank you for the link, I’m excited to read it, the summary makes it seem pretty cool.

Okay, so fairly okay King Porkius, even if they aren’t the closest, got it.

Glad I got Grievous right, there. He seems to have an interesting personality. I’m curious about everyone else’s personalities here as well, given certain circumstances, and the bits we got from them.

They become fairly close, huh? That’s nice. Is there anyone who’s particularly close? Watson and Ran seemed to know each other somewhat. And what’s their relationship with the other fighters from the Pit? If nobody died, then I imagine the others are still around. Do they talk or fight with them occasionally?

So Karl saved the fishermen, and they kept him in a prisoner? Where? In Mizu, I’m assuming from what you said, but did they keep in a room or something? And since you said Benjamin noticed something was off, was he able to sense something, or is he just observant?

How do they deal with the Dream mask? Or is that a plot point for later? Do they even figure out that’s what was influencing Ranbob, or just know it’s something in Mizu?

Ranbob’s just kind of learning new stuff, seems like it might come in handy. Maybe he can sew or something? Cletus and Isaac could explore Mizu more, on their own? Or would that make them vulnerable to the mask as well?

Speaking of, how is life with the fisherman, like around the house? Are they fairly well-off, or having some trouble with the new addition? Who’s closest to Ranbob?

And, uh, oof. I can imagine that’s a whole mess to deal with. Not only are the fishers getting themselves involved, but the gladiator gang is probably shocked at what happened. First impressions are less than great, I bet. How does Ran feel once he calms down a bit? And what’s everyone’s reactions to discovering their brothers, on both sides? Since the gang would hear that Ranbob killed hundreds, and the fishermen would realize Ran didn’t know what had been happening to his brother.

Now, the brothers’ different abilities are interesting, and I’m curious as to how it would effect their battle styles. Are they the only hybrids of their respective groups, or are there others?

And I believe there was a picture of the original L’manberg crew in the Clingy Duo room? Do Ranbob or one of the fisherman recognize how much Jackie looks like Tubbo? Does it confuse them, or do they brush it off?

Poor Ranbob. Is he hurt badly? I imagine he’ll need some sort of medical attention, which gives the two groups an opportunity to talk. Do the fishermen stick around, or leave after that shocking display?

#dream smp #Brothers AU #dream smp au #tales from the smp #ran #ranbob #jackie #grievous #cletus #isaac #charles #benjamin #watson #karl jacobs

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lilyharvord · 4 years

Text

The Chain (Part 10)

Main concept: Two love struck idiots get sent back to a pretty UGH time period in their lives (that required me to reread all the books again) and have to hide the fact that they know everything.

Find the rest of the fic here: part 1 / part 2 / part 3 / part 4 / part 5 / part 6 / part 7 / part 8 / part 9

Tag list: @delilahlbard, @king-maven-calore, @thatoddgirl777, @elliekratzzz, @evangelineartemiasamos, @evangeline-of-montfort, @scxrletguardsdawn, @freaky-freiday, @petergrantkavinsky, @kuwei, @whatsup-gorls, @katiemoore, @redqueenetwork, @tranquil-dusk (I’m trying to add you but for some reason it wont @… the same problem happens with @thatoddgirl777 and I have no idea how to fix it)

(/Mare/)

I’ve been freed from Protocol for the time being. Cal pulls the same strings as last time, and I am put into Training. It makes my blood sing to know that I am going to be joining him there too. One more place where we can protect each other and plan without anyone knowing. We are a secret, united front that the Silver’s will never see coming.

It’s been a week since my first meeting with Farley. I almost expected Maven not to show up to join us, but just as he did before, he appeared out of the shadows with the servant Holland. He was just as full of the righteous fire I remembered, smiling at me and promising things he will never give. Swearing fealty to Farley and her cause for the good of everyone. I wish I had the courage to ask him if he had meant those things.

I’d gone back to my rooms cold and shaken, feeling in all senses of the word numb. Walsh had to practically guide me back to avoid me taking wrong turns and getting lost. In bed, I drown in the memories of the future that I am rapidly stumbling towards, trying to keep my head up as the tides suck me deeper. I toss and turn for hours, kicking the blankets off before pulling them back on when I wake from my hazy doze shivering uncontrollably because of invisible silent stone walls.

I’d slipped through the secret door in my closet and felt my way through the dark tunnel to Cal’s rooms. It was silent in them, not even the sound of his breathing disturbed the space. Sure enough, his bed was empty and neatly made. He wasn’t even in Summerton. I’d sunk onto the bed before slipping under the blankets and burying myself in his smell.

I’d woken to warm hands lifting me out of the blankets. Gripping his shirt, I’d whispered sleepily to him as he carried me back to my rooms. His voice was soft as he’d replied with a gentle, “you’re fine. I’ve got you.” I had to enter my room alone though, just to avoid the cameras seeing him.

Now standing in the training room a week later, I still can’t shake the blanket of cold that envelopes me. Dread pools in my stomach the closer we get to the Ball and the closer I get to those names Maven will deliver. Everything is working perfectly, I have no reason to worry. And yet, a part of me quivers with nerves. Maven is as charming as ever, but something bubbles behind his eyes. Maybe it’s because I know what to look for now and I see it. But I had been just as untrustworthy the first time around. I would have seen it then too.

Standing off to the side with my arms crossed I watch the young Silvers prepare for a session of tearing each other apart. Inhaling slowly, I take in the scent of the freshly washed matts and the summer breeze from the open windows. It’s been sweltering for the past few days, and sure enough a bead of sweat rolls down between my shoulder blades, tracing the track of my spine.

On the other side of the training room, Cal catches my eye. He quirks a brow before pushing off the wall he’s leaning against. Strolling across the room, he tucks his hands into the pockets of his training jacket. When we’re standing side by side he rolls his shoulders a few times and says, “I’m sorry that I wasn’t there a few nights ago.”

“You were off being a crown prince.” I say and wave my hand for emphasis, “doing crown prince things.” My lips quirk up a little bit at the edges when his frown deepens. I haven’t teased him much since we got stuck here, I forgot how much fun it is.

“I won’t lie; I did think someone put a dead body in my bed.”

“Don’t be dramatic.” I tease him, hiding my smile behind my hand. On the other side of the room, Evangeline holds court around the targets. She hasn’t made any moves like she did in the breakfast room weeks ago, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have something planned. If I recall, today is dueling day, and this was when she decided to take a piece out of my face.

“Hard for him not be, he’s so very good at it.” Maven’s voice cuts the air between us like a knife. I spin to face him quickly, throwing up a smile to hide the fear that rushes through me. He tilts his head to the side and smiles as well. “What is he being dramatic about now?”

Cal clears his throat, and hides his discomfort with a laugh. Setting his hand on Maven’s shoulder and squeezing he says lightly, “something to do with Shadow Legion. It’s been… difficult.”

If Maven is fooled by our game, I cannot tell. A part of me sends a silent prayer that he didn’t hear anything. But a smarter part of me chastises myself for even falling prey to my fears and searching out Cal. Have I doomed us with my little slip up?

“So I’ve heard, has Rhambos been giving you trouble again?” Maven grins at Cal in the way only brother’s sharing a private joke can.

“You have no idea.” Cal’s relief is near invisible, and I have to force my own to be that way as Maven comes to stand next to me. His eyes dart to me and he gives me a small, tentative smile. I return it, wondering exactly what is going through his mind. What I wouldn’t give to be a Whisper just so I can know if we are in the clear.

He turns his eyes forward as Arven calls Tirana forward to duel. His name comes next, and as he leaves my side, the little bubble of heat I didn’t notice him exuding leaves with him. His shoulders are tense as he steps into the makeshift arena to face the nymph. Next to me, Cal’s hands clench into fists.

When he comes sulking out, dripping water all over the floor, his eyes are burning. They dart to me and soften for a heartbeat before hardening once more. Mercifully, Cal keeps his mouth shut and turns to watch the next match when Maven steps in between us. The air crackles with heat, and a few of the other Silvers take a step back, making it appear as if they are simply interested in something else.

“Nothing to say?” Maven murmurs when Cal continues to sit in silence. My eyes dart to them, and my hand slowly closes in a fist at my side.

“There’s nothing to say.”

“You always have something to say, forgive me if it’s a surprise when you don’t.” Maven turns those eyes on Cal, and I imagine his stare could turn Cal into a puddle of human parts if he weren’t a burner as well. He’s instigating, something I never saw him do. Or maybe it’s happened before and I never got the chance to see it. Cal makes no move to show me panic, so maybe Maven being this bitter has occurred sometime in the past before I met them. Maybe nothing is wrong and he’s picking a fight because he’s upset about the embarrassment of his loss.

Straightening his shoulders, Cal turns a neutral look onto Maven, sweeping him over with his eyes. “You could have beat her if you had given her a bit more space. You were stronger than her the whole fight.” Cal assures, his eyes dancing to me for a moment. We both know that isn’t what he said last time. But this didn’t occur last time, and without a script Cal struggles.

Maven’s entire body tenses, even as his expression cools. It’s such an odd contradiction that I’m not quite sure what will happen next. Reaching out, I close my hand around his wrist and squeeze. He’s cold as ice, and I shiver involuntarily as my skin makes contact with his. I don’t know why I expected heat.

His flips around to look at my hand, his lips pursed in a tight line. I swallow my grimace and offer him a gentle, knowing smile.

“There will be more fights. More important fights.” I raise my brow, hoping he takes my hint. The anticipation of his reaction practically drives me to dig my nails into his skin. I’m surprised he doesn’t flip around and demand to challenge Cal right here, right now. It would be a short fight, but it would be no less damning.

His shoulders soften though, and his stance shifts to one of embarrassment. “Of course.” He murmurs, his other hand coming to rest on mine. “There always are.”

Hiding my relief behind a smile, I try to pull my hand away. I can’t believe I thought he would actually go to blows with Cal. He’s smarter than that, and better at playing the long game than I give him credit for in the moment.

Before I can pull my hand away completely, he grips it tighter and stares me down, daring me to pull away. He puts up the mask then, the one that I loved dearly and searched for during my months with him in Archeon.

“Even if some battles are already lost.” He whispers as he leans close to me so his words are only for me.

He’s a desperate boy now. I can hear the ache in his voice. What does he know? What does his mother know? Nothing, I’m certain they know nothing. Elara didn’t get anything from me, and she hasn’t gotten anything from Cal. We’ve been careful enough, we’re never together in a way that anyone could question. We haven’t even gone into that moonlit room yet. I haven’t put a knife in Maven’s back yet. Maybe he was more jealous of my escapade to the Stilts than I initially noticed. That’s the only thing he has to work with, and maybe the fact that Cal and I were obviously teasing each other before training just now. He’d never been so outwardly jealous of Cal though. His jealousy was always a quietly simmering pot that never overflowed. He was so much more dangerous because of that.

Pulling away from me when I stay silent, he gives me a rueful smile and turns to face the arena where Elane and Sonya are tearing each other to pieces. I can’t focus though; my mind turns into a tail spin of panic. Have we slipped up? Did I damn us a few nights ago? Are we even off track? What if we are? What has changed?

I am so lost in my own thoughts I almost miss Evangeline demanding our fight. Lifting my eyes to her, I take in her gloating smile. She senses my panic, but has no inclination of the source.

Maven jumps to my defense like a cat would to a mouse. Evangeline doesn’t back down though. I should be grateful for this, at least something is back on track. It’s been a while since I’ve been glad for Evangeline Samos, and even though she is not my friend now, she is the closest thing I’ve seen since training started.

(/////)

Sitting in the darkness of my room that night, I watch the moonlight as it passes over the floor. Are the Sentinels watching me on their screens, wondering if I’ve lost my mind? I doubt it. Unless Elara had told them to keep a closer eye on me. I wouldn’t be surprised, when she’d corned me and Maven in the hallway I had felt her creeping in my mind, searching in the mirrored halls I’d barely had enough time to drag up to protect my memories.

Sighing, I let my head fall into my hands as I breathe. Focusing on the hum of the cameras, I follow the source of the electricity along the wires. The purr of the current fills my senses and drowns me. For a moment, I let myself just exist in the peaceful darkness behind my eyelids. Things will only get harder from here. I regret not tuning for Montfort more than anything now.

A gentle knock on the door drags me out of my meditation. Raising my eyes to the door, I wrap my robe tighter around me as I stand. My steps are near silent as I creep across the room and crack open the door.

Leaning against the frame of the doorway, Cal looks more exhausted than I’ve ever seen him. With a shadow creeping along his jaw, he looks more like he did in Montfort. He was on the verge of doom and greatness here, and there too. He wears the years he’s already lived tonight in the bags under his eyes and the weariness of his shoulders.

When he spots the sliver of my face behind the door, he gives me a tentative smile. “Up for a dance?” He asks quietly as I open the door a little wider.

Nodding, I let him pull me out of my room and toward a moonlit room where I can at least pretend for a little while that I’m safe even if I’m the furthest from safe that I’ve ever been.

(////)

In the hours leading up to the ball, while I am being painted and primed, the names Maven gave as targets ring through my head. When he had visited me late in the dark to tell me them, I had expected him to give me different names. I’d whisper to Cal that I thought I had messed up, and given us away. He’d tried to assure me that everything would alright. And when we kiss this time, there was a desperation to it. Like Maven, he is terrified to lose me, and he poured that fear into the kiss he gave me.

Reynold Iral, Ptolemus Samos, Ellyn Macanthos. Belicos Leorlan. Those names chase me and haunt my waking hours. The prospect of them being wrong, and Maven adding more names, or different ones, haunts me even more.

Belicos with his two young children who will die tonight too, Ptolemus Samos who will live to someday kill my brother but father a beautiful daughter with Wren, Colonel Macanthos with her sly eye that can see right through Elara’s schemes, and Reynold, a man I’m pretty sure is lost somewhere anyway dance behind my eyelids and in the corner of my eyes. I don’t think I will ever be rid of my ghosts.

I couldn’t breathe when I stood before Mareena and saw her in the mirror. She was lovely and wicked in the light of my room, and I’m sure she’ll look the same way at the ball tonight. The dress is the same riotous mess of gemstones and purple fabric that I hate even more this time around, especially when I have to stand next to Maven and observe him in his beautiful charcoal suit. He is beautiful in it, as beautiful as I remember. It makes my stomach twist every time I look at him.

The pleasantries leave me just as breathless, and I can feel Evangeline’s eyes on me as she glares down the line at the people who are to come. It’s almost a relief when Maven pulls me out onto the balcony, just so that I can inhale fresh air. As we go, I feel the brush of Cal’s hand as he reaches back to catch my skirt. My eyes dart to him in warning, but he’s already hiding the movement behind setting his hand on Evangeline’s back and smiling at Belicos as he steps forward to greet them.

Even as Maven pulls me onto the balcony, my heart is pounding. Seeing Belicos a second time does nothing to ease the ache in my heart. His children, I remember their bodies laid out next to his like they were nothing. Was Maven’s emotion in the moment a scam? Had he felt anything seeing their little bodies. I don’t know what’s real and the closer we get to the moment, the more my fear increases. .

“You’re giving them a father.” I whisper, the words like poison on my tongue. He’d give anything to topple the Guard, and he did give everything. Even if I hadn’t been enough to completely crush us. At the same time though, he wasn’t the one to truly give those names. Elara told him who to pick and he acted like a good little mouth piece. He could have chosen not to give that name though. In the moment he could have chosen to spare a father and his children. He’d made that choice. I know he’s braver than he claims, especially where Elara is concerned. Farley was right to call him a coward.

He lets go of me but doesn’t step away when I speak. He stays close instead, his hands just ghosting over my skin. He looks like a marble statue in the moonlight, his lips drawn in a tight line. Achingly beautiful, a boy on the cusp of manhood and his own demise, an angel teetering over the edge of the abyss.

He backs me into the wall, his eyes like chips of ice in the pale plane of his face. Slowly he places his hands on either side of my head, trapping me so that I have to listen to him.

“Reynald is a father, too. The Colonel has children of her own. Ptolemus is now engaged to the Haven girl. They all have people; they all have someone who will mourn them.” The words are forced and cold. A part of him believes those words but the larger part of him, the one Elara has groomed to be king someday knows it must be done. “We can’t pick and choose how to help the cause, Mare. We must do what we can, whatever the cost.”

My skin feels like it’s alive. I might electrocute him right here, right now, until he backs away from me. I have half a mind to press my hand to his chest and shove him over the balcony. It would take one push, and I know all the weak points to knock someone of balance now. It would be so easy. I could claim it was the Scarlet Guard, that they appeared on the balcony and pushed him.

His breath is warm on my face as he whispers, “I want this to be done with the least blood shed possible.”

His hand trembles as he brings it up to brush his fingertips along my cheek, a ghost of a touch, like he can’t bear to let his skin connect with mine. “Tonight will change everything.”

My heart pounds harder against my ribs as he pulls back enough to give me space. His eyes dance away from me and back to the line of dwindling nobles. The pleasantries are over, it’s time. Even if I’m not ready. I’ll never be ready though.

The shadows break again and I recognize Cal’s familiar outline as he steps onto the balcony. “You two all right out here?” His expression is hesitant, probably worried that he’s interrupted a moment that I am supposed to be getting information. His eyes linger on me, his expression softening. These next moments will be the hardest. “You ready for this, Mare?”

Maven jumps on my silence. “She’s ready.”

Taking my arm in his, he pulls me along. He was never this aggressive with me. At least, not that I remember. Maybe I had been so blinded by my emotions of the night that I hadn’t realized how he was acting. He’s agitated though, and monsters are dangerous like that.

Still, Cal’s fingers brush against my wrist, his touch somehow colder than Maven’s. I wish he actually took my hand and held it. When I look over my shoulder at him, his expression is stormy. He’d never been so outwardly nervous about Maven. At least he’s not afraid. We know what comes tonight. I told him what to expect, and he knows what he has to do. I wonder if he will be able to put Farley through the pain of the Gilican shiver’s torture now. I have to rely on him to do just that though.

Evangeline appears at his side, her jewel encrusted fingers enclosing his arm. She squeezes tightly when she sees my eyes lingering on him.

Oh Evangeline. I wish I could help her now. She has her own battle to fight though.

Maven’s lips almost brush my ear as he whispers to me, “This is the hard part.”

Even with all the eyes on me, I don’t blush. He pulls me into the frame but his skin is warmer than I remember. And as we start the dance, his eyes never leave my face. What is he looking for there?

As we move in the box formation, he raises a brow and his lips curl into a smile. “You’ve been practicing.”

“A bit, didn’t want to step on your toes.” I reply with my own smile. I put as much true joy as I can behind it.

His eyes flash for a moment and he leans a little closer to whisper, “You’re just full of surprises.” He chuckles, and the grin he gives me as he pulls back makes my stomach flutter. There is the boy that had captured my trust and my heart. I turn away at the sight of it, my stomach dropping.

I spot Cal spin Evangeline, who looks more like a glittering ball of spikes than a human. I’m surprised she doesn’t slice Cal’s hands open when he rests them on the back of the dress. I miss her more casual regalia that she wears in Montfort. I never saw her casual outfits that she wore here, but I imagine she carried that style into Ascendant.

Sensing my gaze, Cal’s eyes meet mine. His fingers close around Evangeline’s waist, and a million memories of him doing the same thing with me come back. I can almost feel his hand sliding around my waist in the tiny living room of our apartment as he hums the song playing on the radio. I can remember laying my head on his chest and listening to his heartbeat and the sound of his humming reverberating in his chest. He can’t carry a tune to save his life, but it is still wonderful.

We spin through two songs until I feel dizzy with anticipation. Just when I think Maven will pull me to the side though, he leans close to me. I almost pull away, but instead force myself to stay close and turn my head slightly to give him a shy smile. His eyes are darker than I’ve ever seen them though.

“I told you that everything changes tonight.” He breathes against my ear. I nod, confused where this is going. “And I do have to admit that I’ve… kept something from you.”

What? What is he getting at? I pull away, panic flaring through me as I search that face for the truth. He’s too good at hiding it though. I grip his hand tightly, prepared to push as much electricity through his body as I can muster.

His hand burns in my grip instead. My lips curl in pain, but he ignores it and spins me so that my back is to the crowd around us. Forcing me to step into the next dance, he tilts his head forward again to whisper. “I did give Farley four names. But I lied to you about one of them.”

“What are you talking about?” My voice is cold, dangerous too. He senses it, pulling back a fraction. We stop dancing, and his hands drop to his sides. My heart beats so erratically, I worry it might beat right out of my chest.

He tilts his head to the side, his lips falling. “Ptolemus is a good target. Removing him would send the officers into chaos. But there was… a better target, one that would cause more chaos.”

“Who did you give?”

Who did your mother give? I want to grab him by the shoulders and shake it out of him. His lips curl up slowly, a remorseful smile if I ever saw one from him. My blood goes cold at the sight of it.

“Farley agreed with me that you were getting too close, that your attention was becoming divided. She also agreed that if there was ever a time to cut the head off the snake it was now.” He takes my hand and squeezes my fingers. “I’ll step up in his place. My father will never recover from the loss, so Farley can do what she pleases. It is a win for all of us.”

Realization burns through my stomach, followed immediately by frozen panic. “What have you done?” I wheeze as I flip around, searching the crowd, desperately trying to find Cal’s silhouette. In the mass of bodies, I can’t find him and my fingers twitch at my sides as I glance up in the rafters. The Sentinels pace, searching the crowd but they are looking in the wrong places. Above them, shadows move too. The Guard is already in position, ready to carry our Farley’s plot.

“I know that you two have become…friends.” Maven begins, taking my hand and pulling me back around so that I face him. I try to turn my head and search the crowd still, but he grabs my chin and drags my eyes back to his face. “That’s why I asked Farley to take the shot. She’ll give him a quick end. One bullet and a dynasty will end.”

One bullet that won’t miss. One bullet that will tear my future away from me. One bullet that will break me, because Farley never, ever misses.

My blood boils and sparks dance on my fingertips as I glare at him. Cold calm washes over me as the rush of adrenaline leaves. I am in battle mode now; survival is all I can think about when I stare down the man before me.

“Farley removed you from the mission. That’s why I didn’t tell you I gave her his name. She thought you might compromise us.”

We were wrong. I gave something away. Elara never would have dared to target Cal. She needs him to get rid of his father, she needs a scapegoat. But if she looked in my head or his and saw the future, she would have seen that he is more trouble than he’s worth. She would have found out that cutting him from the equation might someday save her and Maven.

If I turn and run after him, I will confirm whatever they believe about us, whatever they have found. But if I sit here, I will lose everything. I can’t go after him; I can’t save him or else I risk Farley and compromising this whole mission.

I am a selfish creature though. I always have been, and I always will be.

Ripping my hand from Maven’s grip I flip around to push my way through the crowd. I have time, there’s still time. I am racing against a clock I can’t see though. It’s like push through mud as I shove my way through the crowd. People gasp and glare at me, but I have eyes only for one person and I can’t find him.

My eyes start to water, and my breathing comes in ragged gasps.

Farley doesn’t miss. And she will make sure she doesn’t miss this time.

Memories of him lying on the sand of Harbor Bay, grey and lifeless threaten to overtake me. I shove them down. He won’t be made into a symbol tonight. I still have time.

There.

He stands with his back to me, speaking quietly with some military personnel or another. I shove through the last of the crowd, my hand extended for him. Elara’s eyes are on me, I can feel them, but I don’t care. I don’t care about keeping things on track. Jon can damn himself to the hells. I won’t lose him.

“Cal!” I scream his name, making him turn. His brows furrow, his expression confused by my panic and fear. I’m five steps away. Then four, hand outstretched as he takes a tiny movement forward as if he might meet me halfway. He never gets the chance.

The lights drop and four guns fire at the same time.

I scream so loud that my own ears ring. The lights around us flare to life on their own by the sheer force of my ability. My vision tunnels, even as someone slams into me from the side, screaming in panic as the lights directly above me explode in a shower of sparks.

I shove them away from me and sprint to his downed form. The man he’d been speaking to is gone, probably lost in the panic. People are screaming, shouting and pointing to the roof.

I slide the last foot between us on my knees and come to his side. Blood, there’s so much blood. I choke on a sob as I try to find the source of it. His eyes are open though, and his mouth opens and closes like a gaping fish.

Relief like nothing I’ve ever felt rushes through me, and I choke on his name as I feverishly try to find the source of the blood. It’s staining his uniform and pooling around his shoulder. His hands press to his chest, and I immediately press my hands on top of his. Sticky, burning blood pours through my fingers though.

“Mare.” His voice is ragged as he gasps my name, and I tear my eyes from the wound long enough to meet his eye. His going grey, the black undertones starting to appear under his eyes.

“No, stop trying to talk. You have to keep breathing.” I cry as I press the heels of my palms harder into the wound. More blood pours out and I feel like I’m fighting an uphill battle when I reach down and rip some of my dress off to press it to the wound. “Healer! Someone get a healer!” I scream to the panicked crowd. They’re like spooked animals though. No one notices their crown prince on his back bleeding out.

His hand closes weakly around my wrist and squeezes, trying to get my attention. His eyes are wide, but his expression is anything but fearful. “Don’t—” he begins, but ends up coughing on blood instead.

“No, no, no.” I sob as I push harder and glare at him. “No last words Calore. Not tonight. You’re going to be fine. You’re going to sit and drink coffee and talk with Julian again, and see Clara and my family again. And—and we’re going to see our baby, we’re going to hold him and watch him grow and become a better person than either of us. It’s going to be fine. Everything will be fine!”

His grip weakens on my wrist even as he smiles. My throat closes and I drop my chin to my chest. It’s a pretty picture I paint, but it fades with every slow beat of his heart. “Help!” I scream uselessly one more time, hoping someone will hear, that someone will come to my aid.

The crowd parts for a moment, and Sara who whipped around at the sound of my scream finds me. She barrels her way to us, and drops to her knees on Cal’s other side.

“Help him, save him.” I sob at her.

Her lips twist at the sight of all the blood, but she immediately pushes my hands away from the wound and replaces my hands with hers. Cal’s head falls back and his eyes close the minute she does. I leap for him, grabbing his face and trying to get him to open his eyes again. His neck falls slack in my grip through and I end up almost shaking him.

“Open your eyes, open your fucking eyes.” I scream at him, tears pouring like rivers down my cheeks. Hands grab me and try to pull me away, but I thrash against them and scream. When I’m flipped around, I meet Julian’s tortured expression.

He pulls me to him, keeping me out of Sara’s way as she works. His eyes never leave his nephew’s face. I wonder if he is seeing his sister in his grey features. Cal looks like a corpse, and my entire body feels like a live wire set to explode at any second.

“Don’t let him die. Please, don’t let him die.” I beg Sara, reaching a hand out to grab Cal’s hand. It’s cold in my grip and I almost vomit when my stomach clenches.

Her eyes dance up to me, and I see the resolve there. Is he lost? I don’t know if I will be able to bear that burden, if I will be able to survive this crushing blow.

She pulls her blood stained hands away and I dive out of Julian’s arms to grab at Cal. For a moment, I think he’s truly gone and a pained sob leaves my chest, sounding more like a scream than a moment of weakness. Underneath my hands though, his chest hitches with a breath, and then begins to rise and fall slowly.

The ballroom is practically empty around us. The royals have fled, the Sentinels have gone after Farley and the others. All that is left is us and the corpses. But there is one less among them.

“Cal,” I whisper to him as I brush his hair off his forehead. His eyes open for a moment only to close in a grimace.

“I wasn’t one of the targets.” He breathes, and I slowly let my forehead fall to rest on his chest. He wasn’t, but he survived. Turning to answer my call had saved his life. He’d changed his positioning, too fast for Farlet to correct her shot before the lights went out. She’d shot blindly, and almost succeeded in killing him.

“This sounds like a conversation for more… private chambers.” Julian’s voice is a dangerous rumble. I glance at him over my shoulder, belatedly realizing that he saw me sob over a prince that is not mine. He heard Cal mention targets, and judging by the fury behind his eyes, he is rapidly putting two and two together.

“Julian,” I reach for him, but he pushes to stand and then steps up to Cal’s other side.

“Sara will finish her work in my rooms. You two will come with us.” He bends down to grab one of Cal’s arms and help him sit up. I almost try to stop him, but he glares down at me. “Help me get him up and moving. We will have to move quickly.”

I crawl over Cal and grab his other arm before helping him to his feet. He stumbles, barely able to take his own weight. I grunt underneath him, and press into his side. Already I can feel the heat returning to his skin, and it sends such a thrum of relief through me that I have to swallow more tears.

(////)

Julian’s rooms are dark and after he helps me deposit Cal on one of the couches, he works quickly to shut all the curtains and lock the doors. I search for the cameras, but there are none for me to turn off.

He lights a few candles and brings them to the side table to light Sara’s work space. She shoes me away and takes my place at Cal’s side before tearing his ceremonial suit off. While she healed the artery that was severed, there is still a bullet in his chest. I can just catch one of the edges reflecting in the dim light.

Sara holds out an expectant hand and not even a heartbeat later, Julian sets a small cloth wrapped set of tools in her hands. She sets them in her lap and goes to work as I edge around the back of the couch and take one of Cal’s hands in my own. His pulse is getting stronger with every passing second, and his grip increases as Sara digs the first tool in to get the bullet out.

“Both of you, talk.” Julian’s fury is like nothing I’ve seen before. Even when I came to him for help in freeing Farley and Kilorn, he had still been soft, quiet. This fury is the fury of a man that has seen horrible dark places and is terrified to be forced back into them.

I glance at Cal who grimaces and grinds his teeth together when Sara starts to tug on the bullet. He won’t be able to make this decision right now.

“You wouldn’t believe us.” I say quietly before looking up at Julian and begging him to understand my hesitation.

“Try me.” He grinds out past his clenched jaw.

My stomach turns and Cal squeezes my hand. I glance down at him, and he nods slowly. We have been compromised. It’s time.

“You have to… listen the whole time. Don’t waste time with questions.” I urge, and in the low light, Julian’s nod creates dark shadows across his features. He looks older than I’ve ever seen him. Bowing my head, I inhale slowly and then launching into the story, starting with the most dangerous truth.

It takes more time than I want for Sara to finish with Cal, and for me to finish the story. As he gets stronger, Cal interjects, adding bits and pieces that I forget. Julian keeps true to his word and stays quiet, but his expression pulls into a deeper and deeper frown as we go.

“How could you not trust me with this. If you know what I am to be to you, why would you not seek out my help immediately?” He pushes to his feet and begins pacing the space before us. Sara watches him, her eyes solemn.

“We—I didn’t want to put you in danger.” Cal whispers, pushing to a sitting position. I try to push him back down, but he fights me off.

“I end up in danger anyway.” Julian turns his gaze on Cal, but it’s softened considerably. I relax as he steps forward to look both of us over. “You’re certain Elara knows the truth?”

“Cal wasn’t a target. But Maven made him one tonight and pushed me off the mission. He knew about me and Cal and if he knows about that, then he knows about everything else.” I whisper, and take the rag Sara had brought a few minutes ago. Wiping some of the blood of Cal’s chest, I shake my head. “I gave us away completely tonight by saving you.”

Cal closes a hand over mine and squeezes softly.

“You must have given yourselves away some time before that.” Julian stops his pacing to set his fists on his hips. Glaring at the carpet like it is the sole reason for his worry, he says, “and now you are once again at the mercy of Elara’s mechanisms.”

“Not exactly.” Cal argues, sitting up completely and starting to shrug his uniform jacket on. Julian raises a brow at his words, but waits until Cal gives up with the buttons to let him speak.

“We know what her ultimate end game is, and there is more than one way to get to the point we want.” Cal glances at me warily. “You and Maven are supposed to meet with Farley when we get to Archeon. You are going to have to warn her, and tell her the truth. All of it.”

I jump to my feet, shock coursing through me. “Have you lost your mind? Julian would understand, but Farley?”

“Farley will understand if you tell her the truth and give her proof.” Cal urges.

Sara and Julian watch our responses bounce back and forth like spectators at some sports match. It’s my turn to pace though, so I start wearing a trench into the floor, grabbing fistfuls of my gown as I do so. “Even if I did manage to get her to believe me, what are we going to do?”

“Elara doesn’t know that I know right?” He reasons with a tilt of his head. I pause my pacing to glance at him. He finishes buttoning up his jacket and nods at whatever plan is forming in his head. “She may think you are the only person that knows the future. That only you are here.”

“What are you talking about? If she’s seen my memories—”

“Then she’s only seen the ones formed before.” Julian jumps on the plan. His eyes dart between the two of us. “You would know if she was in your head Cal. And you are certain she has not looked. She has only seen your memories Mare. As far as she is concerned you are the only person with knowledge of the future.”

“Then why get rid of Cal tonight?” I wave a hand at him for emphasis. My fingers are still shaking, and my body still feels numb from the near death scare.

“You said so yourself. He plays a role in toppling her and Maven. Remove the tumor before it becomes cancer.” Julian offers with a shrug. Setting his hand on my shoulder, he gives me a tired smile. “You may still have a card up your sleeve. Go to… Farley, and get her to believe your story. Make a new plan, one that will put you back on track.”

How am I going to do that? How will I keep Maven in the dark? I’m smart, but he’s always been so much smarter than me, and with the knowledge Elara now has, the game has just become that much harder.

Cal rises on shaky legs, his expression cold. “Speaking of Farley, she might be done in the cells now.”

My blood goes cold and I blink stupidly. “But you didn’t catch her this time. She got away.”

“I didn’t catch her the first time. The Sentinels had already apprehended her by the time I caught up to them.” He nods to Sara and with a slow dip of his head whispers, “thank you, for saving my life.”

She smiles at him, a tiny weak expression but it lights up her face. She takes Julian’s hand and rises from her chair.

It feels good to have the two of them on our side now, playing the game with us. Maybe with them, we can actually win this time around.

#The Chain #my writing #red queen #glass sword #kings cage #war storm #broken throne #post broken throne #my fanfics #thank you so much to everyone who stuck around and waited #here it finally is #she's thic and important and she knows it #(((:#I know it moves fast at the end but it's time to pick up the pace with this fic #I've been dragging it out too long.#marecal #the eternal ship #and now they get to be badasses together #it's great

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