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a-reader-and-a-writer-for-all · 2 years

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Treading Water

Whumptober 2022: 18. Treading Water Fandom: Top Gun, Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, Carole Bradshaw Word Count: 800 TW: Angst, PTSD, Grief, Allusions to Canon Death Notes: This takes place two years after the original Top Gun (1986) and Maverick has become a parental figure for Bradley. It is in the POV of a 6-year-old Bradley Bradshaw.

Bradley didn’t understand why Uncle Mav was so upset. After all, it had been an accident. He hadn’t meant to tip over the small canoe they had been riding in but he wanted to grab a stick he saw floating in the water. However, he had leaned over just a little bit too far….

At six years old, Bradley knew how to swim well enough to stay afloat and it didn’t even really matter since both he and Uncle Mav had been wearing life preservers. So, Bradley had just rolled onto his back and begun floating around.

But then, Uncle Mav had grabbed him and pulled him tightly against his chest, so tightly that Bradley could barely breathe. He tried to squirm out of Uncle Mav’s arms as he cried for him to let him go, but Uncle Mav didn’t listen. He just clung tighter to Bradley as he muttered something about a goose. Bradley had never seen any geese in this pond so he didn’t know what he was worried about.

Instead of swimming them to shore like Bradley expected him to do, Uncle Mav just kept them floating in the same spot in the middle of the pond. Turning his head slightly, Bradley could see Uncle Mav’s eyes were tightly closed and he couldn’t tell if there was just water on his face or if he was crying. It almost seemed like he was scared, but they had gone to the beach a hundred times before and the water had never bothered Uncle Mav before.

Another boat pulled up beside them and a lady offered to help them get to shore. Bradley tried to reach out to her, but the hold on his chest just grew tighter as Uncle Mav began to shake and mutter, “No. I won’t lose you again.” over and over.

They floated around the pond like that for almost ten minutes before someone was able to track down Bradley’s mom and row her out to the middle of the pond. It was only when he saw her face that Bradley started crying.

She leaned over, running her hand over his hair and cupping his cheek gently, as she whispered, “It’s okay, baby. Everything’s okay.” Then she jumped off the boat into the water.

Swimming behind Uncle Mav, his mom ran her hand over his face just as she had to calm Bradley. “It’s not him, Mav. You’re not back there. It’s just you, me, and Bradley at the park. And you saved Bradley. He’s safe. But you can let him go now. It’s okay. I promise, he’s okay. It’s not like last time.”

Her voice trembled and this time there was no doubt that those were tears streaming down her face. But ever so slowly, Uncle Mav loosened his grip on Bradley until he was able to swim away. The nice lady from before helped him into her boat and Bradley watched as mom held Uncle Mav and they both floated in the water for a long time.

Uncle Mav hadn’t said a word the entire drive home and when they arrived, his mom had given him a bath and sent him to bed. Since then, his mom and Uncle Mav had been talking in the living room, and Bradley thought he heard more crying.

Now he was sitting in his room, his ear pressed up against his door, still wondering what he did wrong or if he was in trouble. The noises had faded from the other room, but he hadn’t heard Uncle Mav leave.

Suddenly, Bradley heard footsteps coming down the hall towards his room and he dove into bed, pulling the covers over his head. A few seconds later, his door opened and someone sat on the edge of his bed.

“Bradley, are you awake?” his mom asked softly.

Peeking his head out from beneath the blanket, he saw both his mom and Uncle Mav looking back at him. Neither looked angry, just sad. Sitting up, Bradley asked, “I’m sorry I tipped the boat over. I didn’t mean to, it was an accident.”

His mom smiled gently, rubbing his back. “We know, sweetheart. You’re not in trouble and I’m sorry if you thought you were. It was just–”

She glanced at Uncle Mav who sighed and sat down next to her. “It just reminded me of something bad that happened and I got scared something was going to happen to you, too. I’m sorry, kiddo.”

“It’s okay,” Bradley said, climbing over to give Uncle Mav a hug. “I don’t want you to be sad or scared, but why were you?”

Uncle Mav looked over at Bradley’s mom and she nodded. Pulling Bradley carefully into her lap, she said, “Baby, I think it’s time we told you what happened to your dad…”

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#whumptober #whumptober2022 #whumptober 2022 #drabble #no.18 #treading water #top gun #rooster #bradley rooster bradshaw #maverick #pete maverick mitchell #carole bradshaw #angst #ptsd tw #grief tw #allusions to canon death tw

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one-piece-aus · 2 years

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Whumptober Day 18

Ace x Reader

"Ace, aren't you freezing?" you questioned and pulled your jacket closer together as your shivered.

"Ah come on, [Y/n], it's not that bad," Ace said as a snowflake evaporated when it landed on his shoulder.

"Okay Mr. Fire logia," you muttered and rolled your eyes.

Winter islands weren't your favourite, you were used to the heat of the burning sun from Alabasta that anything less made you wear foreign attire to keep you warm. You were fortunate enough that your captain ate a fire-related devil fruit. The other crewmates would tease you when you clung onto Ace for warmth, thankfully Ace didn't mind, if anything-

"You want a kiss to warm you up?" Ace winked at you, wearing a teasing smirk.

"A hug would be enough," you stated, facing away from him as your chilly cheeks became a darker red.

Ace chuckled at your reaction and slyly planted his lips on your cheek, colouring your whole face into a red rose. You shook out of your flustered state when you heard Ace laughing. Taking advantage of him being distracted, you knelt down and picked up a handful of snow, shaping it into a ball.

"What are you-" Ace got cut off when you threw a snowball at his face. "Hey!"

"Who's laughing now?" You stuck out your tongue. Ace only grinned back at you, and you realized your mistake. "Uh oh!"

"So is that how we're going to play it?" Ace crouched down and rapidly made an alarming amount of snowballs.

"Oh no!" you started to dash away from the scene.

"Not so fast!" Ace called and you saw a snowball zip past you.

Your legs spirited as more snowballs came charging towards you. Ace chased you through the winter forest, hitting the trees, rocks, and anything that got in the way of his target. The few times you did look back only resulted in you getting hammered by snow. You were so concerned about dodging the snowballs that you slipped onto your back and slid across an icy surface.

"Ow..."

"You alright, [Y/n]?" Ace asked, making his way over to where you were.

"Yeah, I'm fine," you reassured him as you sat up.

"Hey, you found an ice rink!"

"An ice what?" A puzzled expression painted over your face.

"An ice rank, it's when water freezes over and you can walk on it," Ace explained as he stepped onto the ice. "My brothers and I used to play all the time on these."

Curiously, you watched as Ace pushed himself across the ice with unique strides. He glided around the surface, hands behind his back, and once he knew you were watching him, Ace started to show off. He twirled around, balanced on one foot, and for his final act, he jumped into the air and landed on the ice with a continued glide before coming to a stop.

"Ha! I finally landed it!" Ace exclaimed, proud of his achievement. "Sabo was the only one of us that could pull it off, I never knew how he could do it."

"You were amazing, Ace!" You applauded your captain.

"Thank you, thank you," Ace bowed dramatically, making you giggle. He glided over to where you sat and held out his hand. "Would you like to join me?"

"Oh!" You blushed, glancing at his hand and then trailed back to his eyes. "Uh- I'd love to but, I don't know how..."

"It's not that hard," Ace reassured. "I'll show you the ropes."

As you were ready to place your hand in his, a quiet crackling played in your ears. Your gaze moved to the ice where Ace stood, watching lines spread across the surface. Instincts took over. Grabbing Ace's wrist, you twisted your position to launch him into the patch of snow off the rink, sliding yourself to the center of cracks in the process.

Ace popped his head out of the snow. "Hey, [Y/n] what did you do that for-"

Your captain stopped, seeing the brief worry in your eyes, and could only watch as the ice broke beneath your body. You disappeared below the icy water, your jacket being the only evidence of where you once were. Ace felt his heart drop to the bottom of the ocean and he flew over to the hole in the rink, hovering over the water. He stuck his hand inside the water, splashing water around as he tried to find your hand.

"[Y/N]!" Ace cried into the water. "GRAB ONTO MY HAND [Y/N]!"

Yet nothing but the cold grasped his hand.

#whumptober 2022 #let's break the ice #treading water #one piece #one piece x reader #one piece scenario #one piece x you #fire fist ace #one piece ace #portgas d ace #ace x reader #one piece x y/n #ace one piece

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fromwinter · 2 months

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Drowning doesn’t look like drowning, it’s swimming till it's not. And suddenly you’re comprehending all the weight that you forgot.

Your head is going under and you cannot keep it up. You see the shore, you kick for home, this living rests on luck.

— From Winter, ‘Treading Water’

#text #full poem #treading water

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shioaoi · 10 months

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Treading Water - Chapter 6 - Sleep

“So…” Ace starts to say, unsure how to exactly start broaching his current predicament with Nick, “I’ve been having some weird encounters recently – the supernatural kind.”

Nick raises an eyebrow. “How did you stumble across this one?”

“I didn’t, it found me.”

#Ace focused chapter lets go!#Only took me five months lmao #it is worth it tho I swear #nace #nancy drew #nace fic #shio be writing #treading water

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drabbles-mc · 2 years

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Treading Water

John B Routledge x F!Reader

Whumptober 2022: No.18 Let’s Break The Ice- Treading Water

Warnings: angst, language, pining

Word Count: 1.9k

A/N: I’ve missed John B so much. Time to make him go through some feelings.

Outer Banks Taglist: @garbinge (If you want to be added to any of my taglists, please let me know!)

It had started off just as the two of you going surfing. Everyone else seemed caught up with one thing or another, but the weather was nice and the waves were great. So you and John B figured, fuck it, we might as well go and have a good time even if no one else can.

What was originally going to just be a quick trip to the beach to catch a few waves somehow turned into a much longer affair. You weren’t complaining about it by any means. It was just curious to you, how quickly the time slipped away. If the rest of the pogues had been trying to get in touch with either of you, you didn’t have a clue about it. The two of you hadn’t gone back to touch shore in a long time. You’d catch waves when good ones came along, but in between that the two of you just lounged, sitting or draping yourself over your boards to keep afloat. Treading water was preferable to going back to land, back to real life.

It'd been a bit since either of you actually made a move to try and catch a wave. You were fairly certain that the swells were done for now. And if you had realized it, you knew that John B definitely had. Neither of you said anything, though. Instead, you both stayed, drifting and ignoring whatever was waiting for you back on solid ground.

John B was gazing out across the water, and you were gazing at him. You could see it in his eyes that his mind was somewhere else. There was a lot that the two of you could avoid by staying out on the water, but no matter how deep out into the ocean you went, there was no getting away from your own mind. It looked like John B was figuring that out the hard way. Again.

He was half-draped onto his surfboard, arms folded on it and chin resting on top of his hands. Everything below his shoulders was submerged beneath the water. “I needed this.”

You frowned for a moment but he didn’t catch it. “I can see that.” You paused, waiting for him to elaborate on his own. When he didn’t, you prodded a little. “Wanna talk about it?”

He didn’t hesitate at all in his response. “You think it’s been too long?”

Your face contorted in confusion. “What?”

He sighed, running his hands over his face before allowing his chin to rest on them again. “Is it…is it stupid that I’m still waiting for him to come back?”

Your heart dropped into your stomach at the question. You and John B talked about pretty much everything, and that included Big John. You were never the one who started the conversations, knowing that it was a touchy subject even if you weren’t bringing up his disappearance. It was impossible to even talk about the good times with Big John without subsequently thinking about the fact that he had now essentially dropped off the face of the earth, or into the depths of the ocean somewhere.

Even still, whenever John B brought it up, there was always a hopefulness to it. He missed him—what kid wouldn’t miss someone who just disappeared like that? He regretted a lot of things about how it all went down before his dad left. He could acknowledge those things. But at the end of it there was always a remark about how he was going to make things right when Big John got back, how things were going to be better. He would shoot down any remark that even alluded to the fact that his dad might never make it home.

So you didn’t know what to do about the fact that now he was the one with doubts. You’d had your own as the months continued to tick by, but obviously you weren’t cruel enough to tell them to him. Although you knew multiple other people who hadn’t been so kind. Maybe that’s why he was asking now that it was just the two of you. You were his last line of defense. If you didn’t have hope, who else would?

You realized that you’d been silently sitting on top of your surfboard for a little too long. You could feel the way that John B was staring at you, anxiously awaiting your response. You shook your head, clearing your throat before saying, “It’s not stupid, John B.”

“It has been a long time, though.”

You nodded—you’d never been one to lie to him. “It has.”

“You really think he might still come back?”

You shrugged, giving another nod. “Don’t you?”

“I,” he paused, trying not to let his emotions shine through, “I want to. I can’t just…what am I supposed to do if I stop thinking that?”

“Why do you think that you have to stop thinking that?”

He shrugged, ignoring the tears gathering in his eyes. “Because apparently it’s delusional. Apparently I’m concocting.”

Hearing the pain in his voice as he parroted back the words that have been said to him far too many times over the last few weeks, your heart broke. Despite the fact that you had your doubts every now and then, you never would’ve told John B that he should give up the hope of his dad coming back. It’s his dad. You get that people were just trying to help however they knew how, but you never thought that that was the right way to handle it.

“The people who are apparently saying all of that shit to you,” you waited for him to look at you before continuing, “never had their dad go missing.”

He let out a shaky breath, tears escaping out onto his cheeks as he nodded. You didn’t comment on the tears, and he didn’t wipe them away. They mixed in with the leftover saltwater that was dripping down off the ends of his hair. You saw the way his mouth twitched as he tried not to let his lips quiver too much, tried not to let the cries locked down in his chest break through.

“Right. Yea.” From the tone in his voice, you could tell that he wanted to believe you, wanted to take what you were saying to heart, but it wasn’t easy. It was the first time all day that you wished that you weren’t out in the ocean. It’d be so much easier to hold him if you were sitting back on the dock, or lounging at the chateau.

“You know,” he sounded a little more in control of his emotions as he started to talk again, “after a certain point, I didn’t even, you know, I didn’t even entertain it as an option.” He shook his head. “When he first went missing, it was scary. Like, it still is, but it was really scary, you know? And then,” he shrugged as best he could given his current position, “then I just got sad.”

“I remember,” you spoke up, voice soft, barely audible over the movement of the water.

John B frowned for a moment at that, noticing the pain in your eyes. “Yea.” He cleared his throat. “For a little while, I thought that he really was dead. I every time the cops showed up, I figured they were showing up to tell me that they found his body washed up somewhere. I really thought, you know, I thought it was over. But then more time went by. And, messed up as it sounds, the more time that went by with nothing, the more I was convinced that there’s no way he was dead.” He let out a sad laugh. “That sounds insane, doesn’t it?”

You chuckled quietly, shaking your head. “It doesn’t sound insane, John B.”

The small reassuring smile on your face got him to keep talking. Judging by the tears in his eyes and the hitch that periodically popped up in his voice, this was a conversation that was long overdue. “Once I decided that he was still alive, everything just got a little easier. It’s just like, you know, like I’m waiting for him to come home after a long trip. I just gotta get through the days. Just gotta stay afloat.”

His eyes were glued to the water now. Laying down on your stomach, you paddled your board a little closer to his. You were practically eye-level with him now, but you were both staring out at the ocean rather than at each other.

“It’s okay if you’re tired, you know,” you told him reassuringly. He looked over at you for a moment and you nodded to reaffirm your point. “Treading water gets exhausting after awhile.”

He chuckled half-heartedly. “Yea, it does.”

Reaching over, you rested your hand on his shoulder. His skin was cold, damp, but he didn’t flinch beneath the pads of your equally cold fingers. “If you ever need a break…”

“I know.” He glanced over at you, a weak but sincere smile on his face. “Thank you.”

“I’ll always toss you a life-preserver if you need one,” you said with a soft laugh.

“Yea, but are you strong enough to pull me back to shore, is the question.” It was the biggest smile you’d gotten out of him since the start of the conversation.

You playfully shoved him so that he lost his grip on his board. “For your sake, you better hope I am.”

There were a few beats just filled with the sound of both of you laughing, along with the splashing of water around you. John B tried and failed to knock you off your board and into the water next to him. You started to paddle back towards shore, giving yourself a tiny head start while he scrambled back up onto his board. Once he did, though, he caught up to you quickly. Both of you reached the beach in almost no time at all.

The two of you were clumsily making your way back to your towels, detaching yourselves from your surfboards. You both collapsed, sort of drying yourselves off with your towels but mostly letting the ocean breeze take care of it.

Both of you eventually, reluctantly, reached to check your phones. You skimmed over the notifications, breezing through the missed texts in the group chat. Neither of you had ever been so happy to miss so many of them.

“Hey,” the joking lilt was gone from his voice again as he got your attention.

“Mm?” You raised your eyebrows as you looked over at him.

“Thank you. I, uh, it’s nice to not feel, you know, insane.”

You playfully nudged your shoulder against his. “Oh, John B, you’re definitely insane.” You smiled over at him. “Just not about this.” A few beats of silence passed between you before you said, “When trying to stay afloat gets too tiring, call me, alright? I’d rather drag you back to shore a million times over, than have you drown in all of this.”

He smiled, nodding. “Thanks.”

“I love you, you know.”

The smile on his face let you know that he didn’t feel the full weight of what you’d said, and you were going to have to be okay with that for now. “I know. I love you too.” He held his hand out. “Pogues for life.”

You set your hand in his, reveling in the warmth as he clasped it tight, “Pogues for life.”

#whumptober2022 #no.18 #treading water #outer banks #obx #john b routledge #fic #john b #john b x reader #john b x you #john b routledge x reader #john b routledge x you #outer banks netflix #outer banks fanfiction #obx fanfiction #my writing #fanfiction #drabblesmc

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