#[more like an unpolished WIP but oh well] | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

conceptalbummultiverse · 1 year ago

Text

WIP Wednesday 2

I forgot to post anything last week, but here's a section from Part 4 of Strange Fascination: A Love Story. I've been told several times that I write very well when I'm writing about concerts, so let's see if that holds true for this section, which depicts a Ziggy Stardust concert as seen from his POV. (Usually I edit what I write before I post it, but I'm trying to avoid slipping into editing mode before I finish writing Part 4, so here is a very rare glimpse into my raw, unpolished writing style.)

“Mr. Stardust?” The stagehand’s calm voice shook Ziggy from the brooding daydreams he’d been trying not to have as he sat in his dressing room, listening to the echoes down the corridor of the Spiders From Mars rocking the International. He lifted his head from his hands, which were clasped in the air with his elbows digging into his knees. “Yes?”

“Five minutes.” As briskly as she’d arrived, the stagehand departed. Ziggy sighed, getting to his feet and smoothing out the creases in his costume. Soon. He’d be onstage with his bandmates soon, and all would be well.

On silent feet, Ziggy traveled down the corridor to the area that would take him below the stage. Along the way, he expected to catch a glimpse of someone, anyone, who might be waiting in the halls, but all was still. A strange feeling tugged at his heart, but Ziggy pushed it down, intent not to let anything ruin his mood. Once he reached the steps, he descended into the darkness and made his way onto the platform that had been rigged shortly before rehearsals yesterday, which was helpfully marked with two huge strips of duct tape in the shape of an X. As if there are any other platform down here, Ziggy mused as he stepped onto it. Closing his eyes, he breathed in the sound of the audience from above, his skin prickling.

“Also Sprach Zarathustra,” the piece of music that Ziggy had selected for his stage entrance based on an intriguing film that Bobby had shown him, came swelling out of the speakers overhead. Whoever had programmed it had boosted the volume to the point of making the floorboards rattle. Its sound, however, was nothing compared to the frenzy it whipped up among the audience, their screams of desire building and building, their energy feeding back into itself. Closing his eyes, Ziggy slipped his hand beneath his cape to feel his heart, racing away inside his chest. Were it not for his fingertips capturing the vibrations it emitted, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to tell that he was still alive during moments like these. An uncontrollable smile spread its way across his face. Oh, Lord. He was ready.

The platform beneath Ziggy’s feet began to rise. He dropped his hand and spread his feet apart to keep from swaying, his stomach churning delightfully. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. In no time, he’d be up there with his bandmates, giving the audience all he had. Just a few seconds more…

With a swoosh, a section of the stage slid away, leaving just enough room for Ziggy to rise through. He opened his eyes, molding his features into the kind of seductive pout that he knew would drive his fans crazy. The instant the top of his head breached the hole in the stage, the roar of the audience reached a fever pitch. It was all he could focus on the further he rose– the cries, shouts, and calls of his name. “ZIGGY! ZIGGY!” A memory from his early youth sprang to mind, the first time he’d visited the sea. Not knowing the danger, he’d wandered away from his family and into the surf, where a wave had charged at him, knocking him head over heels. His family had rushed to the rescue, and there had been warm towels, a scolding, and a threat to never return to the beach again. Deep inside, however, Ziggy hadn’t dared to admit to his family that he had enjoyed the feeling. The noise rising up from his audience was in a way like that wave– breathtaking, overwhelming, and tinged with a hint of both danger and excitement.

The platform came to a stop as the music reached its climax. Rising high in his heels, Ziggy stepped forward into the brilliant stage lights. The first time that he’d played on a stage such as this, he’d almost been afraid to move, half-blinded by the light and unable to perceive the edge of the stage. Now, however, Ziggy knew to let the voices guide him. They followed him as he went to fetch his guitar, raining down on him as if he were standing beneath the spray of a waterfall. They wrapped him in endless love and affection.

With his guitar now in hand, Ziggy slunk his way back to the microphone at the center of the stage. The lights shifted, softening into a pale yellow shade, revealing for the first time the sea of outstretched arms all reaching towards him. All longing to touch him, to know him. A spine-tingling sensation washed over Ziggy from his scalp to his toes, and goosebumps rose on his skin.

There were many ways that Ziggy knew of to experience ecstasy. Sex, of course, was one. So was drinking alcohol or smoking hay, and so was speeding through the night in a motorized vehicle, programming its controls to fly faster and faster. From time to time, even the taste of a delicious meal or the sight of a radiant sunrise could reduce him to an all-encompassing heightened state.

When it came to how Ziggy preferred to experience ecstasy, however, nothing in the entire world could compare to performing live.

On either side of Ziggy stood his bandmates, Weird and Gilly, their acoustic guitar and bass respectively in hand. Behind him, Henry’s drumsticks hovered over his kit. With a nod and a grin, Ziggy made sure that they were all watching him, before approaching the microphone at last and shouting those magic words.

“One, two, three, four, one, two!”

There were always four moments right at the top of the show to which the audience was guaranteed to react– the moment the house lights went down, the moment they caught sight of the band, the moment Ziggy arrived onstage, and the moment that the first few notes of “Hang Onto Yourself” were played. Ziggy always preferred the last moment most of all, because it was a joy that he could share in. He ripped ferociously into the riff, sweeping his gaze across the audience and hoping that he was making eye contact with his invisible fans.

“Well, she’s a tongue-twisting storm, she’ll come to the show tonight, praying to the light machine! She wants my honey, not my money– she’s a funky thigh-collector, laying on ‘lectric dreams!”

From stage left, Weird’s voice sailed through the air to cushion Ziggy’s. “So come on, come on. We’ve really got a good thing going.” Every time Weird came in, Ziggy couldn’t help but smile a bit wider. Playing on his own was no problem– he’d done it countless times back home, and there had been a few coffee shop gigs earlier in his career here that had demanded it– but as with most things in life, the experience was even more enjoyable when Ziggy had someone to share it with.

“Come on, come on,” he sang, watching the front row twist and shout. “If you think you’re gonna make it, you better hang onto yourself.” Stepping back from the microphone, he assumed a rock-star pose, raising his guitar high, and a fresh round of screams spread through the audience.

As the second verse began, a spotlight hit Weird, who stood happily strumming away at his acoustic. “Well, we can’t dance, we don’t talk much, we just ball and play.” His shining eyes were downright hypnotizing, a far cry from the cerebral persona that he carried with him throughout his daily life. On and offstage, Ziggy considered Weird to be a lovely person, but he never admired him so much as when he was standing under the spotlight, happy and free. A small smile played at the corners of his lips as he sang, “But then we move like tigers on vaseline!”

“Well, the bitter comes out better on a stolen guitar.” Now Gilly was singing, and Ziggy faced him as he strode backwards into the now-dark area of the stage where Weird was standing. He couldn’t resist mouthing along to the words that his bandmates had written as Weird approached the mic again, and all three– Henry included, although he was off-mic– joined in on the next line. “You’re the blessed, we’re the Spiders From Mars!”

Now that he was on Weird’s side of the stage, Ziggy leaned into his microphone, while Weird shifted slightly to make room for him. Together, their voices rang out in perfect unison. The blend was impeccable, as if he and Weird had been separated at birth. “So come on, come on! We’ve really got a good thing going!” It took a moment for Weird to notice that Ziggy was staring at him, but once he did, he held the eye contact. A smirk spread over Ziggy’s face. “Come on, come on!” He winked at Weird, who simply smiled patiently in return. “If you think you’re gonna make it, you better hang onto yourself!”

The piece de resistance of each show’s opening performance was always the solo that Ziggy topped off the song with. During rehearsals, he’d found a way to spice it up even further. Instead of heading back to center stage to bask in his fans’ adoration, Ziggy turned around and leaned against Weird, so that they were playing back to back. A thrill stole over him, much like the one from the top of the show, as the audience cheered and Weird’s muscles flexed against him and Gilly nimbly tore through the dancing bassline that he’d come up with, and Henry urged the ship forward into uncharted waters. Yes, yes, YES. Ziggy threw his head back, his eyes closing and his mouth opening. Nothing else existed but himself, and his bandmates, and the room full of people to whom they were performing. So many people. All the fat-skinny, tall-short nobodies and somebodies of Suffragette City had gathered together in Ziggy’s name. They were here, both in the room and inside the song, and Ziggy was there with them, and goodness gracious, he never wanted this to end. How could anyone ever expect this to end?

However, the moment was fleeting, for Ziggy still had a song to finish. Reluctantly, he peeled himself off Weird and traveled back to the center, where he was received with a warm welcome. The footlights beneath him began to dance and sway, illuminating the letters on the drum kit that spelled out the name of the band, and the glitter that he’d daubed on his forehead and under his eyes. With Weird and Gilly’s support, Ziggy yelped out the last few lines, exciting himself as much as he was the audience.

“So come on! Come on! Come on! Come on! Come on…”

The room erupted within seconds of the song’s ending. Breathing hard, unable to peel the grin off his face, Ziggy returned his guitar to its rack and leapt up onto Henry’s drum riser. He raised his hands in a familiar, practiced motion. It was best to pull off his next move right when the applause was at its peak, to encourage the audience to reach even higher heights. He held his pose for a second, trying not to blink too much under the spotlights, before loosening the collar of his cape and letting it flutter to the ground. Right before the audience’s voices rose, Ziggy heard Henry gasp behind him. Once again, he flung his hands in the air, before bouncing from the riser and striding forward. He didn’t need to look at Gilly or Weird to know that they were staring at him, mouths agape, taking in his black fishnets and lacy black leotard. Nor did he particularly care what they thought. The roar of the crowd was much more intoxicating.

“Thank you!” Ziggy cried. Every part of him longed to twirl around, to show off for those who adored him, but he refrained, heading over to grab his guitar again instead. He strode back up to the mic with a swing in his step.

“I’m Ziggy Stardust! And these are the Spiders From Mars!”

#SF: ALS

0 notes

itsamenickname · 2 years ago

Text

As promised, here is a sequel/continuation post of my fun little Bowuigi story idea I posted yesterday! (Shoutout to @jelixpo for motivating me to upload the ending of this rough Bowuigi idea (which I'm now calling, "The Secret Alliance,") and to the 30 people who reblogged my previous post and/or gave it a like.)

Enjoy! :)

(Adding a cut here because oh boy I cannot express to you how long this post is.)

******************

So where we last left off, Luigi decides to sneak over to Bowser's Castle (without Mario, Peach, or anyone else knowing) in order to talk Bowser face-to-face (for the first time since Bowser's alliance with King Boo) in hopes of figuring out why he's doing all of these bad things (but also more importantly, convince Bowser to stop turning back into his old self).

However, when Luigi finally arrives at Bowser's Castle, he's actually pretty conflicted on what to do.

Now obviously, he could just go up to the front doors and ask the guards to let him in, but there are some problems that could arise from doing that, the biggest one being there's a strong possibility that Bowser ordered the guards to not let anyone (even him) enter the castle.

And considering the fact that Bowser pretty much shut him out for the past 2 weeks..., yea, going up to the front door may be a no-go for our green-clad plumber.

So it looks like Luigi will have to go with plan B.

And what's plan B you may ask?

Well, breaking and entering into the castle, of course!

Now here is where I should point out that this is where the story starts to get...unpolished, so to speak. When it comes to my WIPs and stories, I want to plan out everything down to the wire. While I fleshed out the first part of this story idea enough to where I'm really happy with it, I should warn y'all that there will be some holes/unfinished parts in this second half of the story (and I'll point them out throughout the post).

The first example of the unpolished parts is the way Luigi actually breaks into the castle.

So with this part of the story, I imagine Luigi scaling up the castle walls with a rope/grappling hook. I don't know if I like the idea of Luigi bringing rope with him (cause I don't know what he would've used it for if he hadn't scaled up the wall) and I don't think Bowser or his minions would be stupid enough to leave a grappling hook hanging out in the open for Luigi to actually use.

Okay, maybe his minions would've been stupid enough to do that, but that's besides the point.

Anyway, Luigi is eventually able to successfully climb up to one of the balconies of the guest rooms and enter that said guest room. While every part of him wants nothing more than to leave the room and look for Bowser, he knows that it ultimately wouldn't be a good idea to go up to his 10-foot turtle-dragon boyfriend without kind of knowing what he wants to say to him.

So Luigi uses this time to think. He takes this time to figure out the things he wants to say to Bowser and try to mentally prepare himself for the reactions Bowser will have upon seeing him for the first time in 2 weeks as well as anything Bowser could possibly throw at him (figuratively, not literally).

But oh boy, do things get instantly terrifying for our poor Luigi because this is when he starts to hear the all-too-familiar ghost laugh that gave him nightmares since that faithful night in Boo Woods.

And fear wouldn't even begin to cover how Luigi felt when he turned around and saw the one and only King Boo.

I cannot emphasize to you how horrified and scared Luigi is upon seeing his nemesis. The green-clad plumber talked to E. Gadd last month and the professor reassured him that King Boo was still trapped in that canister from The Last Resort adventure.

So it was a complete surprise to him when he had the courage to ask King Boo how this was possible.

So here is where King Boo tells Luigi about how he escaped. Funnily enough, the method he used to escape from E. Gadd in this story is the same method he used to escape from E. Gadd back in chapter 1 of TBTBWTK (because as I kind of mentioned in the previous post, this story and TBTBWTK were born around the same time so I was trying to figure out what worked with what).

But that's not what's important here because the more significant part about this interaction is this is when everything clicks for Luigi.

Bowser breaking parts of his and Peach's peace treaty, Bowser essentially cutting off all interactions with everyone (especially Luigi), it all suddenly made so much sense.

Bowser was doing all of this because King Boo was making him do it.

And that was when one sudden thought came to Luigi.

He had to tell Mario and Peach.

Luigi has to tell Mario and Peach that King Boo is the one pulling all the strings in the Dark Lands so that they can save Bowser and his kingdom from King Boo.

And King Boo quickly comes to this same realization too because it wasn't long before he started conjuring up some lightning.

And oh boy did that kicked Luigi's fight-or-flight instincts into high gear real quick as he realized that King Boo was going to kill him right then and there.

So luckily for Luigi, he quickly snaps out of his shock and uses his Thunderhand ability to attack King Boo. While the lightning didn't kill or knock King Boo unconscious, it stuns him long enough to where Luigi makes a break for it. Even though he's not entirely familiar with this section of the castle, he doesn't dwell on that thought for too long as his main goal is to find an exit and/or find Bowser.

So here it kind of turns into a cat and mouse chase scene with Luigi running through the halls of Bowser's castle (and screaming for Bowser or anyone to help him (for some weird reason, he hasn't run into a single minion throughout this entire chase scene, but he doesn't dwell on that for very long) and King Boo chasing him and trying to hit him with fireballs (and his tongue) not too far behind. Eventually, Luigi makes it to the throne room and while there's no one in the said throne room, this doesn't ruin the happiness he felt at that moment because not only does he now know where in the castle he is, but he can also now confidently make a mad dash to the exit.

But here is where Luigi's clumsiness comes into play because this is when Luigi trips and sprains his ankle.

Hard.

With Luigi now pretty much immobilized, King Boo starts to kind of compliment Luigi on how he manages him to surprise him (with the surprise lightening attack and all). Unfortunately, because Luigi knows too much about what's going on (and is secretly worried that the green-clad plumber will ruin the possibility of the MK and the Dark Lands declaring war on each other), King Boo sadly remarks on how he has no other choice but to kill Luigi (should mention that he saids this entire scene sarcastically because like in TBTBWTK, I imagine him being an enormous dick).

So as King Boo shoots a huge fireball at Luigi, the green-clad plumber closes his eyes as he braces for the worse.

But the impact never came.

For some reason, the impact just never came.

And when Luigi eventually gained the confidence to open his eyes again, he quickly finds out why.

Because Bowser actually saved him and used his shell to block King Boo's attack.

To say that both Luigi and King Boo were shocked by Bowser's sudden appearance was a complete understatement, but it wasn't long before King Boo's surprise turned into rage.

Now here is when King Boo gets really angry at Bowser for protecting Luigi when they had an alliance. In response, Bowser angrily breaks off his alliance with King Boo and tells him that if he wants to kill Luigi, he'll have to kill him first.

And oh boy does King Boo quickly take up that offer when he blocks off the exits with spectral gates and starts attacking Bowser.

Now here is where we have a big fight scene between King Boo and Bowser. However, because I'm not good at writing fight scenes, think of King Boo and Bowser's fight similar to Azula and Zuko's fight in ATLA (thank you @jelixpo for the ATLA reminder because that is probably how I would imagine their fight would go).

But after a while, King Boo actually gains the upper hand as he slams Bowser into his throne hard. Bowser actually has a really tough time getting back up on his feet (because King Boo is relentless and determined in making sure he takes Bowser down for good), but he able to look up at King Boo in anger and frustration. (Here I should briefly point out that Bowser received a really bad beating from King Boo during this fight and just looks like absolute hell. He has multiple dark bruises all over his body, he has a black eye, he's pretty sure one of his teeth is loose, and one of his arms may or may not be broken, but he's not sure).

Once King Boo sees that Bowser's looking at him, he then does the usually villain monologue and asks Bowser if he has any last words before he kills him for good.

And actually, Bowser does. He takes one look at something behind King Boo before looking back at the ghost king with a smirk and saying this specific line:

"A good villain is ALWAYS aware of his surroundings."

And before King Boo could figure out what the hell Bowser meant by that, Luigi uses a bat (or some other type of weapon, idk) to hit King Boo like a baseball and sends him flying across the throne room. (Here I should mention that while Bowser and King Boo were fighting, Luigi found the said weapon and not only crawled his way to the weapon, but actually waited until the perfect moment to use that previously mentioned weapon on King Boo).

So with King Boo down and out, Luigi rushes over to Bowser (as best he can given his sprained ankle) to make sure that his boyfriend is okay. Bowser reassures Luigi that he's okay (which Luigi doesn't quite believe due to the fact that Bowser still looks like he went through a meat grinder, but he soon pushes that thought to the side because the most important thing that matters to him right now is the reassuring fact that his boyfriend is now safe and okay and that everything can go back to normal).

Well..., not really.

You see, Luigi and Bowser's wholesome reunion is actually cut short by, you guess it, King Boo and oh boy, anger doesn't begin to cover how the ghost king feels at that moment. He was so close, so fucking damn close, to his ultimate end goal of taking over the Mushroom King/entire world, but to have his plan getting ripped away by the stupid cowardly green plumber who defeated him not once, but three times?!

Oh no, King Boo was NOT going to let that slide. Not this time.

So here is where King Boo uses his magic to rip Luigi out of Bowser's grasp and sends him flying across the room. Luigi slams into the wall hard (and I mean hard) to where he starts to feel blood running down his back (and maybe his head, but I'll leave that up to reader's discretion).

But Luigi doesn't have time to dwell on that right now because this is when King Boo starts attacking him (similar to what he did to Bowser).

So here is where we have a second, but kind of smaller, fight scene but this one is between King Boo and Luigi rather than King Boo and Bowser. Now here, since I'll leave this part of the fight scene up to the reader's discretion (because again, I can't write out fight scenes), what I'll point out here is that Luigi is able to successfully dodge all of King Boo's attacks (but with difficulty because of his sprained ankle). I should also point out that every part of Bowser wants to get up and help Luigi, but because he's still too injured from his fight with King Boo, he can't do much other than watch his boyfriend with fear and worry.

That is, until King Boo manifested a knife and used that said weapon to stab Luigi in the chest.

And oh boy did Bowser's internal animal instincts kick in when he heard his boyfriend's gut-wrenching and painful screams.

But before Bowser could have a chance to tear apart King Boo limb or limb, this is actually where Kamek and Kammy break through the barriers and use their magic to defeat King Boo. Now here is where I will point out the second example of the unpolished parts for one huge reason. You see in this story, I imagine King Boo's defeat as something more permanent in that this is the last time Luigi, Bowser, and co. will ever have to deal with him (basically like a lot of villains (other than Bowser) in the Super Mario franchise, like Dimentio and Princess Shroob, to name a few).

So what that means is that how exactly Kamek and Kammy defeat King Boo (or how King Boo is stopped for good) in this story, I'll leave that up in the air because I only have one idea on how Kamek and Kammy could defeat King Boo, but I'm not really happy with how they defeat him.

But there's no time to worry about the logic behind King Boo defeat because Luigi's loosing a lot of blood very quickly! Bowser, Kamek, and Kammy have to take him to the castle hospital and fast!

______________________

Time skip to the afternoon of the next day where Luigi slowly regains consciousness. While his brain is a little fuzzy at the moment, he can tell that he's in some sort of hospital and it doesn't take him long to feel the bandages around his body and ankle (and possibly head).

However, that is quickly pushed out of Luigi's thoughts when he sees Bowser right by his bedside. (Briefly want to mention that he looks a lot better than yesterday, but he still kind of looks like hell because of the bruises, black eye, and arm cast sling on his shoulder.)

So after the two lovebirds greet each other and make sure they're both okay, this is when Luigi asks Bowser what happened (because he can't exactly remember it right now). While Bowser is very, very hesitant to answer his boyfriend's question, he eventually tells Luigi everything.

From the night King Boo came to visit his castle to when the doctor told Bowser that it's up on Luigi on whether he'll wake up or not after he brought the tiny human to the hospital, Bowser left no stone unturned as he refuses to take his eyes off of Luigi. Once Bowser finishes telling the entire story (and after Luigi takes some time to digest it all), Bowser is quick to apologize for everything he did (and he actually tears up a little during this scene too). He never wanted to break the peace treaty he had with Peach and he especially didn't want to cut off all ties with Luigi, but...he had no choice. Since the very beginning, King Boo threatened to hurt/kill Luigi unless Bowser did whatever King Boo wanted him to do, so Bowser honestly thought that shutting Luigi out was the best way to protect his boyfriend.

And Luigi instantly forgives him (which really shocks Bowser)! In fact, Luigi actually apologizes to Bowser for breaking and entering into the castle in the first place (which Bowser doesn't understand why he needed to apologize for something so small, but he does immediately tell Luigi that he forgives him) and tells Bowser that he is truthfully just really happy that Bowser wasn't permanently going back to his old and evil ways.

But their reunion is cut short when Luigi remembers that today is the 7th day.

And if you recall from the previous post, the 7th day was when Peach was going to declare the treaty null and void and declare war on the Dark Lands.

And considering that Mario and Peach don't know where he is..., you can imagine Luigi's thoughts spiraling into a panic attack when he starts thinking about the terrifying possibility that his disappearance will cause Peach to declare war early.

However, Bowser quickly reassures Luigi with multiple different things. He tells Luigi that he'll write a letter to Peach explaining what happened over the past 2 weeks (and how he still wants to keep the peace treaty between their kingdoms) and will also send a minion to reassure Mario and Peach that Luigi is currently safe and sound at the Dark Lands for good measure.

Now here is the third (and biggest) example of the story having unpolished parts. After Bowser gives Luigi reassurance about telling Mario and Peach about what happened and Luigi's current whereabouts, I don't entirely know where to go from here. If I had to come up with an ending, I would have it end on a positive note where Mario and Peach receive Bowser's note (and got informed by the minion on Luigi's whereabouts) and quickly traveled to the Dark Lands to make sure that Luigi's okay. This is also when Luigi and Bowser reveal their relationship to Mario to Peach and to everyone's shock, Mario is actually okay with it. Okay yea, he's a little hesitant with Bowser (cause he and Bowser have been rivals for years), but he can see how happy Bowser makes him, not to mention that Bowser saving Luigi's life when he didn't have to is obviously a checkmark in Mario's book. (That doesn't stop him from being the protective big brother and threatening Bowser to not hurt Luigi or he'll kick his ass though, haha. XD)

But aside of that, yea, this is pretty much the entire story of The Secret Alliance.

I want to give a huge thank you to everyone who made it this far in the post/story. I know that this post as well as the first post are a lllllllliiiitttttttttlllllllleeeeeeee long (around 3.2k and 2k, respectively), so I sincerely appreciate you guys taking the time to read this all the way to the end. As I've said in the previous post, if anyone wants to do something with this idea, then by all means go right ahead (just let me know if you have something with the idea so that I can see it). :) This is probably the last time I'll ever touch with this specific story idea, but hey, it's at least now out in the open for all of Tumblr to see instead of hidden away in my computer files.

Thank you all again for your support and I'll see you in my next Bowuigi post. :)

Okay, so do you guys remember how I talked about how both @jelixpo and @deckof-dragons/@anomander-dragnipurake inspired me to write my story, To Break the Bonds Within Two Kingdoms back in the Ao3 chapter 11 notes?

Well, what if I told you that there was another Bowuigi story idea I had in mind while brainstorming TBTBWTK?

That's right, what you are about to read is another rough Bowuigi story idea I had that actually originated back in late April-early May 2022 (right around the same time TBTBWTK was first born). While I ended up choosing TBTBWTK to flesh out and actively work on, I felt bad for keeping this WIP hidden within my computer files for almost an entire year (okay, I kind of told one person about this idea back in mid-November 2022, but it wasn't to the extent of what you're about to see).

And since the Mario movie is coming out today, I thought what better way to celebrate the momentous occasion than by sharing this fun little Bowuigi story idea? :)

Also, before I forget, if anyone wants to do something with this idea, then by all means go for it. (Just let me know if you have done something with the idea so that I can see it.) :) As I just mentioned, this was something I've thought of back in early-mid 2022, but because I want to not only finish TBTBWTK, but also work on a second (and bigger) Bowuigi story after TBTBWTK is done, I figured that it would be better to at least share this rough WIP/idea than to leave it in my computer files for no one else but myself to see.

Anyway, I apologize in advance for the extremely long post (and for any grammatical errors), but I hope you guys like the idea all the same! :D

(Adding a cut here to help make this post shorter.)

***********

Okay, so imagine a time in the Mushroom Kingdom where Bowser is living a good life. He and Peach recently signed a peace treaty together (and by recently, I mean like 1 month ago), not to mention that he's been dating Luigi for about 6 months now and has never been happier (per Luigi's request, they are keeping their relationship a secret which Bowser doesn't mind at all).

But on one mysterious night in the Dark Lands, Jerry (yes, the same Jerry from TBTBWTK) informs Bowser that he has a surprise visitor waiting for him in the throne room. Well, this didn't make much sense to the Koopa King. If it was Luigi, Mario, or even Peach, Jerry would've explicitly told him, but the fact that the Hammer Bro. not only refused to elaborate about the visitor, but also seemed kind of hesitant and nervous when Bowser asked for more info about the said mysterious visitor? That just seemed really weird to Bowser.

And oh boy was he right when he stepped into the throne room and saw the one and only King Boo.

Now, even though Bowser wanted nothing more than to kick the ghost king out of his kingdom, Luigi's kindness actually rubbed off on him just enough to where he instead angrily asked King Boo why the hell he's here. When Luigi talked to E. Gadd last month, the professor said that the ghost king was still trapped in that canister from the adventure of The Last Resort, so it didn't make much sense that the ghost king who he thought was trapped is floating right in front of him.

So King Boo explains to Bowser about his new plan. He rants on and on about how he is just so sick and tired of getting defeated and captured over and over again, so King Boo devised a new plan. He figures out that the best way to defeat the Mario Bros. (especially Luigi) and take over the Mushroom Kingdom/rest of the world is by teaming up with Bowser. Sure, King Boo understands that Bowser may not have a good track record when it comes to defeating Mario, but he figured that as long as Bowser distracts Mario and Peach just long enough, King Boo could use that stall to trap Luigi in a painting.

Bowser, of course, shoots down the idea. He explains to King Boo how he just recently signed a peace treaty with Peach and he doesn't want to do anything that would break Mario, Peach, and especially Luigi's trust (although he doesn't mention Luigi to King Boo). And even if he and Peach hadn't signed a peace treaty, he has very well learned from his past mistakes and knows deep down that Mario and Luigi can, and will, easily defeat both of them.

But before Bowser can leave the throne room, King Boo manages to stop him in his tracks by explaining how he knows that he and Luigi are dating.

King Boo also blackmails Bowser by saying that if Bowser doesn't agree to team up with him, he won't hesitate to posses Bowser and force him to kill Luigi with his own hands.

As much as Bowser wanted to call on King Boo's bluff, he's inwardly really scared to. If King Boo was making threats to him, Mario, Peach, or anyone else (should point out that the Koopalings & Jr. don't exist in this timeline, but I'll leave that up to reader's discretion), Bowser wouldn't care about the idea of King Boo possessing him. But King Boo was making an indirect threat to Luigi, the one person Bowser would not hesitate to lay his life down for. If anything were to happen to the love of his life, it would kill the Koopa King (no matter if it was his fault or not).

So Bowser grudgingly agrees to King Boo's plan as the ghost king is excited to finally set his plan into motion. But before he forgets, King Boo mentions one little important thing:

This new alliance they have has to be a secret. No one, not even Kamek and Kammy, can know about it. Everyone has to believe that whatever is about to happen is Bowser's ideas and his ideas alone.

And if anyone finds out about their alliance/plan on their own (or if Bowser tells anyone about their plan), King Boo will kill Luigi himself and force Mario and Bowser to watch.

_________________

So time skip to around 2 weeks later where Bowser has caused so many problems to the MK to the point to where Peach is sick of it. She sets up a royal meeting with herself, Mario, Luigi, Toadsworth, and the royal court about what they should do with Bowser. The royal court is honestly spilt on either declaring war on the Dark Lands (they have a justifiable reason to declare war because Bowser has broke parts of the peace treaty) or try to reach out to Bowser and meet with him peacefully.

Eventually, the arguments get so stressful and out of hand that Peach gets mad (and I mean really fucking mad) and orders the royal court to let her, Mario and Luigi discuss this in private. While the royal court (especially Toadsworth) are hesitant on this, they eventually follow her orders and leave the brothers and Peach alone in the room. When it's finally just the three of them, Peach just takes this time to calm down and take a few deep breaths (which Mario and Luigi don't mind and allow her to take as much time as she needs).

Once she is really to talk about it again, she explains to Mario and Luigi how she is kind of dead set on declaring war on the Dark Lands. As a few Toads pointed out earlier in the meeting, Bowser broke parts of the peace treaty, not to mentioned that she had actually privately reached out to him on multiple occasions, but has never received as response back.

Now Luigi (who had been mostly quiet throughout the entire meeting due to his anxiety and his tough decision on whether to stand by Peach or Bowser's side) tries to defend Bowser by explaining how both the MK and the Dark Lands had worked on the peace treaty for almost 3 months (not to mention that they've officially signed it last month) and theorizes that there has to be a reason that Bowser is causing so much trouble that they don't know about. Luigi begs Peach to give him time to talk to Bowser before she decides to declare war on Bowser's kingdom.

Now here, I should point out that both Peach and Mario know that Luigi and Bowser are friends, but they don't know that they're dating. So obviously, when Luigi begs Peach to let him talk to Bowser, Mario (being the protective older big brother that he is) hates the idea. He still doesn't trust Bowser and is afraid that allowing Luigi to talk to Bowser (especially right now) will ultimately get his little brother hurt or worse, killed (it would destroy Mario if anything happened to Luigi).

But despite Mario's protests, Peach makes a deal with Luigi: He has one week to talk to Bowser and make him change his ways. If Luigi succeeds, then she won't declare war on the Dark Lands. However, if he fails, Peach will declare the treaty null and void and declare war on Bowser's kingdom.

So over the course of the next 5 days, Luigi tries to reach out to Bowser in multiple ways. He tries to write him letters, meet at their usual spot on the usual days they hang out together, little things like that. However, none of his ideas work. Now, that's not to say that Bowser hadn't received Luigi's letters. In fact, Bowser has actually received every single one of his boyfriend's letters (at one instance, Bowser started to tear up as he carefully touched Luigi's handwriting, which led to King Boo taunting him on whether he should respond to Luigi's letter or not.), but...Bowser is honestly scared. He wants to tell Luigi that he hates doing what he's doing, he wants to tell Luigi about King Boo's ultimate plan to take over the MK and the rest of the world, but...he can't. He doesn't want to put Luigi in any form of danger, so he figured that the best way to keep Luigi safe is by completely shutting him out.

But that kind of backfires on Bowser because on the afternoon of the 6th day, Luigi gets a new idea.

He gets the idea to sneak over to Bowser's Castle (without Mario, Peach, or anyone else knowing) and talk to Bowser face-to-face (for the first time since Bowser's alliance with King Boo) in hopes of forcing his boyfriend to talk about why he's doing all of these bad things.

But as for what happens when Luigi finally arrives at Bowser's Castle?

Well, I'll leave that up to you. ;)

50 notes · View notes

confinesofmy · 3 years ago

Text

a few days ago i asked “hey does anyone want to read the semi-organised scraps of my abandoned wip where kendall overdosed in early season two, had a really bad series of seizures, and basically got thrown into a new york penthouse “for his own good” to “heal” “away from public scrutiny” but then just stayed there, trapped, until his dad died and his siblings discovered that he wasn’t in a catatonic state in some facility upstate like they thought but instead, like, in solitary confinement on the upper west side in a stripped out apartment with no way of contacting the outside world?”

well, here it is. 🙈

⠀

there are content warnings sprinkled here and there but for the most part this is exactly what it says on the tin. i thought it was too bleak to continue writing or put on ao3 but however bleak you’re imagining it from the description is probably just about right. it’s not that bad.

thanks everyone who said they were interested in reading, btw! i hope you enjoy.

okay, so, i waffled on... pretty much every facet of this, all the time. almost everything i publish contains 200 secret AUs that no one ever sees but me, so this is going to read like a fever dream, maybe? there will be endless contradictions.

i've actually never shown anyone an unpolished piece of fiction writing outside of creative writing "drafts" in school that i reverse-engineered from finished works to make it look like i was doing drafts the way my teachers wanted me to. so in lieu of any known standard of formatting for this, it'll be notes first, then fic fragments, but feel free to skip around obviously. including the notes is probably a completely unnecessary intimacy on my part but they inform the writing immensely so i don't feel like this sprawl is complete without them.

notes wordcount: 1,628 fic fragments wordcount: 6,482

⠀

NOTES

⠀

disclaimer for the viewers at home: any medical stuff about status epilepticus and the treatment plans is heavily researched but that does not mean it's accurate, both bc i'm no expert and bc kendall's care is open to manipulation. by that i mean that if logan wants him to stay on benzos forever then that's something he can make happen and something that would be communicated to kendall as necessary, even if it isn't. but i feel obligated to say some quick (ish? not really, sorry) things about status epilepticus just so you have a frame of reference for it outside of the context of fiction.

⠀

so, status epilepticus is a seizure lasting longer than 5 minutes or a series of seizures that occur too close together to allow adequate recovery between. it is most common in children and elderly populations and has a vast variety of causes. in kendall's case, his generalised tonic-clonic SE is caused by snorting too much park coke (cocaine insufflation specifically is actually v unlikely to cause SE but oh well) and i think it probably lasted less than an hour total, which sounds long but for SE it really isn't.

the main factor in recovery from SE is etiology. if SE is a symptom of something more serious, like a brain tumour or an infection or drug-resistant epilepsy, you're obviously more likely to have a worse time recovering. in kendall's case, his GTCSE is coke-induced, and he's 39 and in good health, so realistically, 6 months down the line he probably wouldn't have the lingering symptoms he's implied to have in this narrative premise, from what i understand.

something that i waffled on was making his GTCSE refractory (drug-resistant). this complicates treatment during the continuing seizure/s, which in turn complicates outcome and recovery, and could explain kendall experiencing lingering neurological symptoms like speech apraxia, chronic headaches, personality changes, etc. it was at about this point in my research that i realised i was getting a little too bogged down in neurology and decided to leave it up in the air, which is very annoying after that much research. but regardless, i settled on: maybe kendall's lingering symptoms are neurological, maybe they're psychological, who knows.

another specific point of contention was kendall's speech patterns, during and after recovery. i did a bit of research into acquired apraxia of speech to help me write accurate speech patterns but the whole topic became this kind of no man's land. if his GTCSE, refractory or otherwise, caused a traumatic brain injury, that could manifest as, like, anything. if i could only research one more topic for the rest of my life, it would probably be TBIs simply because the sky's the limit on how their symptoms can manifest. so once again, psycho, neuro, it's both, it's neither, who knows. i hesitantly decided his speech difficulties would be one (or two or three) of like ten categories of speech dysfunction but honestly never did quite settle it.

⠀

for point of reference, i think this might be the penthouse apartment that i reference in this fic except in my fic it has balconies. trying to find the perfect apartment in new york w a budget of 100 gazillion dollars is like, weirdly difficult. strange city.

⠀

also the short conservatorship comments in the notes are only somewhat researched but if there's one thing we learned from the free br*tney situation it's that conservatorships' rules are often open to wild interpretation in reality, as well. :(

⠀

all! that! aside! here's the original notes.

⠀

content warnings for abuse, isolation, substance abuse, basically everything you'd expect but also some descriptions of really distasteful twitter-variety ableism re: seizures

⠀

Okay so Kendall is basically abducted and imprisoned by his dad who takes advantage of Kendall's isolation to enact cruelties upon him. Things are very bad for Kendall.

Eventually the family finds out where he's been the whole time. This coincides with his father's... Death, probably?

Someone new takes over his conservatorship. Kendall has to relearn how to be a person.

He's okay. Presumably his conservatorship ends but then again maybe not.

⠀

48 hours in Icelandic rehab. A few days of helping out daddy. He gets fucked up before an event and winds up experiencing a series of seizures in public.

He wakes up in the hospital in bad shape, experiencing coke withdrawal and neurologically out of sorts. A doctor tells him his dad's setting something up and he'll be able to leave soon.

He's transferred to the apartment. Insert bad times here. His dad occasionally visits and is sometimes physically abusive. He mostly recovers from the seizures but thinks some things will never be the same.

Maybe his dad dies? His siblings find him. They tell him they had been told he was in a coma or that he was in some facility unsuccessfully relearning how to, like, breathe and blink.

His guardianship and conservatorship are either A.) nullified now that Logan is dead because he refused to name a beneficiary to it and had Kendall's doctor doing assessments every 90 days with instructions to stop approving the guardianship if Logan were to ever lose control.

B.) He is inherited by a family member who claims to want him emancipated but sabotages the court case so they can keep him under their thumb. Or maybe they do emancipate him. Or maybe they don't, but it's not a control thing, it's a genuine act of caring.

C.) He gets a public guardian who encourages him to seek emancipation or, alternatively, is just a neutral public servant who truly wants to accommodate his needs.

D.) Nullified bc Logan paid lawyers in advance to bail Kendall out ASAP if Logan isn't the conservator anymore.

Whatever the case, Logan's dead. Kendall's not going to be getting any more visits from him. Kendall's allowed to go outside when he wants. He's allowed to buy things from stores. He can go out to eat. He can talk with people he knows on the phone or in person.

Recovering from his seizures was a long and difficult process but recovering from his year/s? in the apartment isn't going to be much easier.

⠀

The day of the party it's probably been about 10 days since Kendall did the manslaughter.

The partygoers who witness/record Kendall's seizures don't actually know who he is, so most of the original videos hit the web as like "guy has seizure at nyc houseparty" and like a snapchat of Kendall seizing and then the phone slowly panning to a guy making kind of the 😳 face or maybe like a tiktok of Kendall seizing with the "he need some milk" audio

The videos go kind of viral, at least viral enough that there are hundreds of permutations of them out there. A caramelldansen remix, memes galore. Kendall's identity is leaked in the early stages of it going viral, before the PR teams had identified the videos, so the main spike comes from Kendall-specific memes like a remix of the Iceland interview: "I saw their plan, dad's plan was better b-b-better dad's plan was better" interspersed with clips of him convulsing at the party.

Meanwhile, Kendall's drifting in and out of consciousness, completely out of it when he is awake, his level of possible neurological damage completely up in the air.

⠀

Oh btw Greg puts him in the recovery position against his kitchen bar while he's convulsing and he 100% dislocates his fucking shoulder because of that.

⠀

New York Presbyterian

Neurological screening exam, blood tests, toxicology screening, an EEG, lorazepam 4mg 2 or 3 times, then levetiracetam after the seizures cease. Continuing levetiracetam prescription after, but probably not as a medical necessity.

40 minute long seizure, continuous video EEG for 24 hours, first MRI after the seizure stopped, a second (third?) three days after

Speech language pathologist, maybe assistive tech like a pecs board. Neurologist. Physical therapist?

Immediate after-effects exhaustion, headaches, vomiting, light and noise sensitivity, memory loss short term and long term, difficulty reading and thinking and speaking, confusion, mystery bruises, achiness, personality changes,

⠀

It's honestly easier to list Kendall's privileges than to list all his limitations of freedom.

He's allowed to go to the bathroom by himself, usually.

He's allowed to bathe by himself, usually, but if he takes too long someone's coming in to fetch him. He's no longer allowed to sit in the shower for hours like he sometimes had at first.

He's allowed to feed himself and is allowed to use a spoon and fork with supervision.

He's allowed to sleep with no direct supervision for the most part. Random check-ins happen but they're sporadic.

He's more or less allowed to choose a room to be in during waking hours.

He's allowed to read the books that are in the apartment.

He's allowed to get food out of the fridge so long as it's not an unhealthy interest. He can get a snack but he's not allowed to binge.

He's allowed to request groceries and he's allowed to request meals. Doesn't mean he'll get them.

He's allowed to ask for non-food items but it's a rare thing to actually get approval on those. Books are the most likely to get approved.

He's allowed to ask permission to make supervised phone calls to certain people and private calls to Logan.

He's allowed to wear a watch that he asked for early on, the only signifier of the passage of time aside from the location of the sun and the staff changing.

He's allowed to choose his own clothes. This list is short enough that I guess that bears mention.

He's allowed to work out in the at-home gym after he finds out that it exists but his handler can make him stop if it seems inappropriate.

⠀

FIC FRAGMENTS

⠀

In his new apartment, Kendall is closer to the household staff than he's ever been before.

It's not real closeness. He's not friends with them, he doesn't really talk with them, not like friends talk. But they're the only human faces that he sees, other than his father's. They come and go on their own schedules, something he's not yet allowed to do, and they bring him things from the outside world.

For the first time since childhood, Kendall really takes a moment to consider himself from the help's perspective. His forced house arrest, his quiet despondency, his one and only visitor.

These people, some of whom live with him in the apartment, some of whom he's never quite learned the names of, know things about him and his father that would make headlines for weeks. They have to, as close to it all as they are.

⠀

After a couple of days of doing his little song and dance to support daddy and prevent a hostile takeover, Kendall, seeing no end in sight, descends into a huge bender.

He killed a guy, he relapsed, his ex-wife doesn't want him around his kids for a while, he lost all leverage he had against his dad, he let Stewy down. He feels hollowed out and empty, a puppet with his dad's hand up his ass. So why not do all the drugs he can get his hands on? What's it matter at this point?

He winds up experiencing a major medical event in front of a bunch of people and needing to be hospitalised both to recover and to detox. After that, instead of going back to lifelessly working for daddy while trying to find his way into a medical coma, it is determined it would be for the best if Kendall just disappeared for a little while, just so he won't embarrass the family any further.

The place he's sent isn't rehab. And it's not really an institution either. He does not have the words to describe it.

He's not allowed to choose anything. He's not allowed to be completely alone in the kitchen. It's rare to be left alone in the den. If he spends too much time in the shower, first someone knocks and then, if he doesn't come out, they unlock the door and pull him out. Not unkindly. It's all very clinical, routine. Like he's a child who can't be unsupervised or he'll get into trouble.

⠀

He thinks there might be cameras.

He sneaks into the kitchen one day to make a fruit plate, managing to avoid the attention of that day's minder. After he's done slicing some strawberries he finds himself looking at the knife, the little flecks of flesh and the red stains lingering behind. He's not sure how long he looks at it before quietly washing it and returning it to its place.

The next day, it's gone, along with the entire knife block. The next time he opens the cutlery drawer, he discovers the butter knives have also disappeared. The man who was watching him that day is also gone and Kendall never sees him again.

⠀

He has to ask permission to use the phone. Then usually the person he's asking has to ask someone higher up, maybe then they also have to ask someone higher up. Kendall is beneath them. Kendall is beneath everyone.

When he gets permission, maybe half the time (and he starts asking less and less), the number is dialled for him. The first time he had been knocked so off-kilter by having to wait for permission that when the other person picked up he didn't know what to say and ended the call.

⠀

He gets visits from a lifestyle coach and a masseuse every week. He thinks they might think he's people, at first.

Their first visits were both a surprise, a simple, "Kendall, the lifestyle coach is here," was his first awareness. He'd spent the morning in a dull haze sitting silently on the couch after he'd finished the breakfast he'd been given.

The lifestyle coach, Pete, knew his name already and seemed to be under the impression that Kendall was looking to fulfill a fitness goal after a health scare. He asked Kendall questions about his diet and exercise levels, Kendall half-heartedly answering that he's been having difficulty eating and that he used to exercise more.

From there, they move on to abstract questions that Kendall doesn't know how to answer. "What are you looking to get out of this experience?" is the first.

"Uh. H-has anyone talked to you? Any of my, the team?"

"I got your intake form so I know you're interested in maintaining a healthy diet and exercise level and I know we'll be doing some physical therapy with your shoulder but I was wondering if you had any other specifics in mind? Anything you'd like to prioritise?"

Kendall blinks slowly. He thinks this might be the first real human conversation he's had in weeks. The first conversation where the other person doesn't know that he's broken. He barely knows how to navigate it.

"N-no, just that... Will be fine."

Pete looks him over, takes in his hunched shoulders, his downcast eyes, his hands gripping the couch cushions on either side of him.

"Okay. So Kendall, tell me a bit about yourself. What are you into?"

Kendall thinks about making some shit up but he's too tired to lie directly. He barely has the energy to speak at all. His mind slips around, trying to find something, anything.

"I used to like listening to m-music. Hip-hop. Uh, and rap," he says. He had kind of hoped more words would come after that but he couldn't think of any so he just closed his mouth.

"Oh cool, that'll be good for workouts," Pete says and smiles encouragingly in a way that Kendall would've found condescending before but now finds genuinely comforting.

"Yeah, I guess," Kendall mumbles, averting his gaze to the carpet. He hasn't had his phone since he was at the hospital and doesn't think he'll ever see it again. There aren't any TVs or computers in the apartment either. He's not really allowed to listen to music.

Pete must get that Kendall's not going to do any better with more questions because he stands up and says, "Alright, great. So do you wanna show me your gym?"

Kendall didn't know there was a gym. He looks to the guard posted by the door, trying to communicate that, and is thankful when the guard turns, purposefully walking down the hall. If Pete notices, he doesn't comment.

When they reach the gym, Pete requests that Kendall do some range of motion exercises so he can take a look at what he's working with. The first one is just standing.

"So does your back hurt?" Pete asks casually.

"Sometimes." Kendall answers. He hasn't really thought about it.

Pete steps forward and asks, "Can I touch you?" clearly expecting a quick answer right before he does. He freezes awkwardly when he doesn't get it.

"Oh. Uh, yeah." Kendall answers after a couple of beats.

"So, it was your right shoulder, yeah?" Pete places one hand on Kendall's right scapula and the other on his right delt, cupping the muscles carefully. Kendall sucks in a sharp breath, feeling unpleasant sparks of sensation where Pete's hands rest.

After a short pause, Pete continues. "So aside from a little bit of remaining joint instability, you're also keeping your shoulders rounded and what this is doing is putting a lot of stress on your joints and muscles and in the short term that causes shoulder and back pain, which leads to the muscles tightening up further. It's kind of a self-perpetuating problem. Today's bad posture becomes tomorrow's injury. Add in that a dislocation makes you vulnerable to more dislocations and you've got a real problem here." As he speaks his hand dances up and down Kendall's back, tracing muscles from the small of his back to his shoulder and above. Kendall feels like he's going to jump out of his skin but tries not to show it.

"This is where your shoulder should be," Pete says, gently manipulating Kendall's arm up and back, then adjusting his elbow to line up with his shoulder. "Does that feel better or worse?"

It feels like Kendall's at a meeting. Or at a gala. It feels like he's showing off for his dad, trying to be as tall as he can make himself but it's not tall enough. His eyes sting with tears and he tries to blink them away before Pete can notice.

"It feels fine," he croaks.

"That's good. That's a really good sign," Pete pats his shoulder lightly and then thankfully backs off.

From there they do more range of motion exercises, Pete occasionally correcting Kendall's form and pointing out areas they can work on. It's been years since Kendall's had a trainer and he finds the whole thing unexpectedly overwhelming. No one's paid this much direct attention to him in... Maybe months, actually.

Pete guides him through a few strength reps, taking note of his strengths and weaknesses and then hands him a bottle of water and tells him he can stop for the day. Kendall starts drinking just to have something to do.

"Alright so I think weekly appointments are going to work out perfect with your current fitness level. I'll email you some exercises I want you to do before our next appointment and in the meantime I want you to keep me up to date on how you're feeling, we don't wanna move too fast, okay?"

Kendall nods, unsure how much any of that is going to apply to him when he's not allowed to call people on the phone without permission.

Pete also gives him a food guide printout to follow, telling him to modify it however he needs so long as he eats.

"You're going to be building some muscle so your eating needs to reflect that. You said earlier that you've been having some trouble with eating so really I'd say just try your best to eat whatever you feel like you can. If it's healthy that's a bonus, if it's not that's okay."

Kendall nods again and murmurs his agreement but is once again thinking about the contrast between the level of control over his own life that Pete thinks he has versus the amount he really has. He guesses he could tell him, surely Pete's going to have to sign an NDA anyway. But then wouldn't he be just another person who treats Kendall like a zoo animal? Maybe it would be easier that way.

"You did good today," Pete's voice breaks through his thoughts. "We're gonna have you back in shape in no time."

The compliment hits way too hard, sending a thrill through him that he ignores entirely. "Thank you," he says gruffly.

"Anytime. See you next week, dude."

And with that, Pete's gone, and Kendall's back to finding a nice spot to look at on the wall until someone makes him stop.

⠀

content warnings: suicidal ideation, and like. light incest. (kendall gets an inappropriate erection. :/ )

⠀

Here's a thought. Maybe Kendall thinks it's for his own good. Maybe he's grateful that even now, when he's tried to kill his dad and ruin everything, when he's fucked himself up so bad that he can barely even string words together, that his dad is still willing to take care of him.

He's placed in the apartment and notices that he's never left completely alone and he thinks that it's probably safer, that there's someone watching him to keep him from hurting himself any further. He notices the lack of sharp objects and that no one ever gives him his phone back so he can't call anyone to get him drugs, notices that there isn't any alcohol in the apartment. The doors to the balconies and the elevators are locked at all times and he isn't given keys. He thinks about the care in such gestures, that his dad's going to help keep him in line no matter what.

He can't leave and maybe that should frighten him but he imagines what leaving would look like. His shaky hands and his stuttering speech, embarrassing his family by simply existing where people can see him. There's no real reason for him to leave anyway, he's burned bridges with everyone at this point and he's afraid of what he might try if he did get loose. Best case scenario he'd go to Waystar but it's not like he can work, not like this.

He's been wanting to die since the moment he pulled himself out of the water and clawed his way up the riverbank but now when he's come closer to death than ever before his dad has rescued him and told him to live. This is probably the kindest thing his father's ever done for him.

Every morning when he's gently awakened to be brought to the kitchen island to sit until he finishes eating, he thinks of it as his father encouraging him. During his physical therapy sessions when he's sweating and panting and nearly crying from pain. During his speech pathology appointments when his stutter is unignorable he clings to the fact that his dad thinks he's worth the trouble of fixing.

When his dad finally comes to visit for the first time he finds it all boiling over and he almost runs to his dad to hug him, murmuring "thank you, dad" again and again with barely any mistakes because he's put so much preparation into finally having this moment. He feels arms wrapping around his back and he starts crying, sobbing, and his dad holds him through it and presses a kiss to his temple and he thinks he's never felt so loved.

His dad's visits are infrequent but treasured. Kendall doesn't really know why he visits at all but he always tries to tell his dad about all his recent progress, words sometimes muddled or halting. Unlike when he was little, his dad doesn't get mad at him for his stutter now, he just listens and occasionally murmurs encouragements. Before he leaves they always hug and after the first time Kendall doesn't cry anymore he just relaxes into it like a warm bath.

One day he does the most humiliating thing he's ever done in his entire life. He can't help it, he doesn't know why it happens, but it does. His dad is hugging him goodbye, rubbing his back through his thin t-shirt. It had been a great visit, he'd made his dad laugh and aside from his stutter he'd only mixed up his words a few times throughout the visit. But something goes wrong as he feels his dad's fingers firmly tracing the outline of his shoulder blade, there's some kind of misfire in his stupid, broken brain, and he feels himself start to harden in his sweatpants.

He rips his hips back and pulls out of his dad's arms stuttering out apologies as he turns away and tries to hide his shame. His face feels like it's on fire.

After a long pause, he hears his dad say, "It's okay, son. I'll see you next time." and the shame slips away like sand. He's forgiven, even for this. The promise that his dad will return feels like absolution.

⠀

Here's another thought, Logan moves Kendall into his penthouse duplex and whenever anyone visits he arranges for Kendall to be on thrice the benzos he's prescribed. Anyone who visits think he's turned into a drooling incoherent vegetable and feel uncomfortable looking at him.

Maybe even after he's out and Logan's dead, that idea still slips out sometimes bc the siblings prefer it to the truth, that Logan abducted him, drugged him, and abused him, while they watched.

⠀

content warnings: substance abuse, smth like an overdose, seizure pov, more descriptions of really distasteful twitter-variety ableism re: seizures

⠀

s02e02 Kendall does too much park coke at the party and has a prolonged series of seizures. His dad makes sure he's "taken care of."

⠀

It's been ten days since he crawled his way back to Shiv's wedding for an alibi that didn't matter.

Kendall's walking out of Greg's bathroom for the third time that night, coke still dripping down his numb throat. A bad feeling hits him, inexplicable but so intense he can't ignore it. The polar opposite of the high he's expecting.

He looks around the room like he can find the source. Takes an inventory of his body. There's nothing. Just a disconnected sense of impending doom that he can't shake.

He grabs another beer, starts scouting the crowd. Maybe someone here can fuck the feeling out of him.

Greg sneaks up on him, his freakishly huge hands on Kendall's shoulders, pulling him back down to earth. Starts talking about his back pain. Within a minute, Kendall's drifted back into the welcoming embrace of the party.

He drifts aimlessly, coke making the bass in the techno music feel like it's thrumming in his bones. He's becoming less sure that a fuck would even fix him, the feeling of dread still at full intensity.

He's walking to the open plan kitchen to sit down on one of Greg's few pieces of furniture when a spike of pain splits his head in two and he feels every muscle in his entire body lock up. The last thing he sees is dozens of pairs of ankles, sideways from where he is on the floor.

⠀

[ID: A 15 second LiveLeak video entitled, "Guy Having Seizure At Nyc Houseparty." A group of people in an apartment surround an unconscious man on the floor who is convulsing. A voice from off-camera shouts, "Should we call 911?" End ID.]

[ID: A 6 second Snapchat video. Caption reads "this party craaaaaazy 😳😳😳" Loud techno music is playing and a lot of people are talking. A man is lying on the floor having a convulsive seizure while people nearby dance. The phone's camera switches to the front lens and we see the blond young man taking the video widen his eyes apprehensively as he takes a drink. End ID.]

[ID: A looping TikTok video of a man having a seizure at a party with the "he need some milk" sound. End ID.]

⠀

Kendall wakes up on the floor, Greg crouching over him, his head throbbing with pain and his mouth full of blood. He tries to speak and discovers that he can't.

⠀

Kendall wakes up and holds onto consciousness by the skin of his teeth. Everyone is yelling. The lights are so bright and he realises he's looking at a ceiling. Someone's putting glue in his hair and his head feels like it's going to burst.

⠀

Kendall wakes up alone in a hospital room and feels like if he could just reach up and press his hands against his head maybe the pain would stop but his arms are too heavy and he's worried if he moves them they might shatter.

⠀

Kendall wakes up in a hospital room and there's a woman standing beside him. He tries to ask what's happening, where he is but all that comes out is "What?"

She looks at him and smiles like she understands what he meant.

"Hello, Kendall. I'm Nurse Lisa. You're in the hospital because you had a series of seizures but you're going to be alright now. Your cousin is here and the rest of the family is on the way and we're gonna do everything we can to help you, okay?" she says. His attention waxes and wanes as she speaks and he thinks he catches about half of it.

"My head...?" he asks, running out of words before he's finished.

"Your head hurts? That's common for the type of seizures you had and it looks like you bumped it when you fell. We're gonna get you an MRI later just to take a look at things." She smiles reassuringly at him.

"Right," he says, without really meaning to. He feels like he's in a dream.

The woman starts saying something, voice soft, but he can already tell he's passing out and he doesn't understand any of it.

⠀

Kendall wakes up alone in a hospital room. He feels like he's been hit by a bus and his mouth tastes like copper. He's also doped to the gills, he can tell.

He runs his hands carefully over his body, looking for an injury to explain this. He finds more spots that feel bruised than he can count but nothing else. Eventually he notices there's wires stuck to his head. As he investigates them with his fingers, one of them pops off. It's an electrode. He wonders if they've given him electroshock therapy.

He's still examining the electrode when the door opens and a man in scrubs walks in.

"Hello, Kendall. I'm Nurse Charlie, you're at the hospital. How are you feeling?"

Kendall tries to shift focus so he can understand. Eventually he manages to croak out, "Gad."

His brow furrows. That wasn't right. Why did he say that? He tries again. "Bad."

"Can you tell me more?" Charlie asks.

After an uncomfortably long pause as he tries to find the words, Kendall says, "Hurts. What happened?"

"You had a series of convulsive seizures that we think were drug-induced and we had a tough time getting you stable. Now we're just monitoring you to be sure you don't have any more seizures. You've been here for about 15 hours."

"Where's my dad?" Kendall asks, these words coming easier than the others.

"He came earlier but he had to leave. Do you want to see if we can call him?" Charlie asks.

Kendall thinks about how fucked up and weak he feels and how hard it is to talk. Thinks about how his dad must have responded to learning that this happened because of Kendall's addiction.

"N-no."

"Alright, that's fine. I'm just gonna get that back in place, okay?" he says, gesturing to the electrode that Kendall forgot he was holding. "We need to get a good look at your brain waves so we don't miss anything important."

Kendall falls back asleep as the nurse is reattaching the electrode.

⠀

When he next awakens, Greg is there, sitting next to his bed and seemingly texting. Kendall's head hurts less, or maybe it just hurts different.

"What pay is it?" he asks, nearly startling Greg out of his chair.

"What?" Greg asks.

"What pay- What..." Kendall trails off. Why can't he fucking talk? "What day is it?"

"It's Wednesday, technically. Are you okay? I thought you were gonna die, they kept asking me how much coke you did and I didn't even know. Do you think everybody's gonna be mad at me for buying it for you? I didn't know you were gonna do that much."

Greg keeps going but Kendall doesn't really hear him. His mind's caught on Wednesday. Wasn't it Monday? How long was he asleep?

"Greg." Kendall interrupts.

Greg's mouth claps shut. After a short pause he says "They told me to call Karolina if you ever woke up. Are you good, should I go do that?"

Kendall opens his mouth but then thinks better of it. Nods instead.

While Greg is gone, Kendall takes stock of himself. He's sore, all over. His muscles feel wrung out. His head is killing him and when he finally gets his aching arm up far enough to feel around, he finds a lump on the back of his head and nearly screams with how much it hurts to even touch it.

He zones out for a while, mind slipping around as he tries to process what's happened. Was this an OD? He can't remember how much coke he did. It was probably a couple grams. But he's done more before and he'd been working his tolerance up since before the wedding. It doesn't make sense.

Karolina walks in, high heels clacking against the tiles. She sits down where Greg had been.

"So, Kendall. How are you feeling? Do you think we can talk?"

Kendall moves his tongue around for a moment, trying to speak. As Karolina opens her mouth to say something, he finally manages.

"Is dad m- m-" he swallows, tries again. "Is... dad... angry?"

Karolina's lips purse.

"Well, he was worried about you. Did Greg tell you about the videos?"

Kendall shakes his head.

"Well, apparently some of your guests decided to film you during your episode. They didn't actually know who you were but, unfortunately, Twitter put it together pretty quick and you were trending for a few hours. Now we're trying to spin it as you having epilepsy, see if we can win some public sympathy."

"Do...?" he interrupts.

"No. The doctors did some tests and they're pretty sure it was just the cocaine. They have warned us that you might develop epilepsy as a result of this event though." Karolina pauses, straightening her skirt. "Your father's arranging a place for you to stay while you recover. He doesn't want you in the public eye until you're well."

"When?" Kendall asks.

"We don't actually know. Could be weeks, could be months, or..." Karolina shifts minutely in her chair. "The doctors are going to want more tests so we can get a better idea but we've been told to be prepared for anything."

Kendall's eyes start burning before she's finished and by the end he can feel tears streaming down his cheeks. His face crumples and he lifts his hand up to cover his mouth. Karolina stands up and awkwardly puts a hand on his shoulder.

"There's no reason to assume the worst yet. You're going to have around the clock care for as long as you need it and you've got one of the best medical teams in the world. You'll be taken care of, Ken."

She stands there for a moment longer before she realises he's going to keep crying and leaves.

⠀

After she's left, he tries talking more. Speaking takes a long time because it's hard to think of words and how they fit together but it's also hard to make his mouth move properly. There are some words he can't say right, no matter how much he tries.

He assumes the headache and the muscle soreness will fade with time but what if he can never talk normally again?

Roman had told him he'd be fucked as soon as he wasn't any use to dad. Kendall had believed him. Now he literally can't say the word "business." That's how useless he is. He looks down at the open weave hospital blanket in his lap and suddenly he's tearing it apart, forcing his fingers between threads and pulling, yanking until the tear becomes too wide for his wingspan and then starting again on a new section.

When he's done the blanket is a complex tangle of string and his arms feel like the muscles are falling off the bones. He does not feel any better.

⠀

When Kendall gets out of the hospital he's still dealing with his new meds' side effects, constantly doped on the benzos and still fucked up from the seizure, the hospital stay, the disjointed things he's heard from Gerri, Karolina, Jess, his siblings. He's in shit shape and when he's summarily shuffled into a Hell's Kitchen penthouse he's really too stoned to argue.

His health aide tucks him into bed and that's the last he knows until he wakes up the next morning and his dad is sitting in the den reading paperwork.

His dad explains that Kendall is single-handedly destroying the family's reputation. The bear hug and now this? People can smell blood in the water and they're paying a lot of attention to the family at large and it's only so long before they do the math on Kendall's relapse and that K-holed moron's demise.

Ken needs to keep his head down, for the family's reputation but also for his own health. He could have died. Watching that video of him, writhing around, blood frothing out of his mouth, surrounded by disaffected druggies debating whether they should even call a fucking ambulance? It had made Logan sick, to see his son, who he had always loved so dearly and had such high hopes for, brought down so low.

Kendall's made it very clear he can't be trusted to stay off drugs and Logan is furious that Greg sourced for him. But if even that hapless little fuckstick could be swayed to give Kendall enough coke to kill himself, the solution is obvious.

Kendall needs to sit tight, no outside contact, until the whole thing blows over.

He'll have a physical therapist, a doctor to fix his voice, and a shrink to fix whatever the hell is wrong with his fucking head. They'll all be carefully vetted, so there's no use asking any of them for anything.

Kendall's also going to lose some privileges. He needs to keep things clean while he recovers. No leaving the apartment while he's like this. No need to look at the news or call anyone to bring him drugs, so no phone, no TV, and all of his financial accounts frozen. Logan will take care of anything he needs.

Kendall breaks down. Not because he feels trapped or like he's being treated unfairly. What breaks him is that he's been such an embarrassment to his dad and put his dad through so much worry, done so many unforgivable things, but Logan is still looking out for him. Still willing to see to it that he's taken care of.

He clings to his dad, shaking and sobbing, until Logan has to leave and carefully peels him off. He leaves him with the simple statement, "I love you, son. I'm gonna take care of you."

Kendall tries to return the I love you, words halting and slurred, but his dad stops him with a squeeze on his shoulder and a shake of his head, and then he's gone.

⠀

When his dad finally dies he expects to be inherited, not as a ward, but as an object. He doesn't know who it will be or what will happen to him. It scares him.

⠀

When their dad does die it's revealed that Kendall is inheriting the most shares or whatever. No one quite knows where he is other than a facility somewhere. When they find him, they're shocked.

He's skinnier. But softer. He looks healthier. But there's something deeply wrong. He's skittish, he seems slower mentally, much more sweet and shy like he was when he was really young. He cries more and not just because he's grieving. His hair is longer than it's ever been before, framing his face and long enough he has to tuck it behind his ears to keep it out of the way.

It seems like he's been holed up in this apartment, with no TV, no phone, and a bunch of other shit missing, since he was first hospitalised. There was never a facility. He thinks the raisin is still president and he doesn't know that he's 40, almost 41.

They send him for health check-ups. Find out that he's been seeing several specialists on a weekly to monthly basis the entire time, even a psychologist who refuses to communicate with them. He's in perfect health. No brain damage, no lingering physical effects aside from his stutter but it sounds like the stutter he had when they were kids so it's hard to tell if it's from the seizures or if it's just regression.

But he can't function if there's a TV on nearby. He frequently needs to be reminded to get out of the bath otherwise he'll just stay. If meals aren't scheduled he doesn't eat. He panics when he has to leave the house and doesn't try very hard to hide it. Or maybe he's just bad at hiding it now.

He's scared of crowds, startles easy. Frequently anxious in general. After two weeks he works up the nerve to ask if he can move back into the apartment. It's the biggest request he's made yet so they say yes after consulting with his new psychologist.

He moves back. Doesn't request any changes to be made to the apartment. He wants his Walkman and headphones but no phone. They get him set up with a landline phone but even then he eventually asks that the ringer be turned off and they usually have to call Jess to get in touch with him.

Rava visits frequently. She had wondered if he was dead and they'd just covered it up. Apparently at some point their divorce had gone through with all her concessions met which while at first it had relieved her eventually when no contact had been made had become a source of worry.

She tells him the kids have missed him and he's inconsolable. She holds him until he's asleep on the couch and tries not to descend into despair herself. She tries not to think about how she's going to explain this to the kids, knows that that's a question for their psychologist. Maybe his, too.

The next time she visits she's told them that their dad is feeling better but he's still sick and Sophie and Iverson have made him a get well soon card. He cries for a little while after she gives it to him but not as bad as before. She broaches the idea of bringing them next time and he panics and says no.

"I-I don't think that, that they sh-should see me. L-like this."

"Like what?"

He opens his mouth but no words escape. Fresh tears spill over his cheeks as he pulls his lower lip between his teeth and bites, viciously.

She pulls him close, runs a soothing hand down his back, and tells him that they love him and miss him and they'll understand if he's different now, whatever that means.

"They want to see their dad, Kendall. Nothing else matters."

"Y-y-you wouldn't say th-that. If you knew w-what. What I've done."

She asks him to tell her and he breaks down. She's persistent, knows that he wants to see the kids, she asks if he's told his therapist. He nods and she suggests they book an appointment together to discuss his hang-ups, because, as she tells him, seeing the kids would be good, for him and for Sophie and Iverson.

He wants to discuss it with his therapist first, so they agree to wait until he has. His new therapist, who he's been seeing for two months at this point, thinks that if he wants to tell Rava about the car accident and about his father's abuse then he should, and so she agrees to mediate.

He decides to tell her about his dad first, selfishly. He doesn't think she'll want to talk to him ever again after she learns about the waiter and he doesn't think he's ever going to tell anyone else about what his dad did so she's his only chance to ever tell someone who will really understand.

He also, and his therapist doesn't necessarily agree with him, thinks that if Rava does allow him to have a relationship with the kids in the future, she should probably know, that-- That he spent over a year waiting by the elevator for his father to visit and hopefully not hit him. But if he did hit him, that was fine too, because Kendall was that desperate for attention. That desperate to feel useful, needed in some way.

She should know that, sometimes between visits, he would grab at himself, his chin or his shoulder, and grip to the point of bruising just to feel an echo of his father's love. She needs to know about the times his dad had been irritable and Kendall had intentionally frustrated him so they would have more time together, after his dad took out the day's stress on him. He doesn't think it would be right, for him to see her kids, their kids, without her knowing how sick he had become.

Between his stutter and his occasional meltdowns he doesn't think he can tell her with words even if his therapist helps, so he painstakingly writes two confessions, one about his dad, one about the waiter.

After his therapist explains, he hands her the one about his dad, ashen-faced.

She starts crying early, a hand over her mouth. He joins her, stressed and scared and wishing he was braver. He turns away to try and compose himself, not wanting to seem like he's looking for pity, but he can still hear as she gets progressively more upset.

When she's done she blows her nose and starts delicately drying her face of still-dripping tears. His therapist asks if she'd like to share how she's feeling and she lets out a hysterical mix between a sob and a giggle that makes Kendall duck his head in anxiety.

"Can I touch you?" she asks and he nods. She puts her hand on his shoulder, putting slight pressure until he's facing her, eyes still averted.

"I'm so sorry that happened, Ken. I'm so sorry it took so long for us to find you. That you had to suffer like that, all by yourself." Rava delicately reaches for his hand, interlocking their fingers together loosely and placing her other hand on top. She continues, "But I'm really glad that we found you because now we can help you recover from what happened. Whatever that recovery looks like. We all just want you to feel safe and comfortable."

She pauses, controlled breaths the only noise she makes for a moment.

"I don't think the things that happened with your dad were your fault, or that you did anything wrong. You were put in a terrible position that most people couldn't imagine in their worst nightmares and you did your best to get through it in one piece. None of what I just read makes me think you shouldn't be around the kids. It did help me understand how desperate you must be to see them and I can tell how much you don't want to do anything to hurt them. But you're not disgusting, Ken, you're not going to hurt them by being near them. They've missed you so much, the whole time. All they want is their dad back."

Kendall lets her words wash over him, pretends the second letter isn't burning through the couch cushion beside him. She doesn't blame him. She doesn't think he's disgusting. She still thinks he should see the kids. She wants him to feel safe.

⠀

#adam talks too much

34 notes · View notes

katytheinspiredworkaholic · 3 years ago

Text

WIP Wednesday Thursday

Title: Extraordinary

Pairings: HotchReid (side pairings Morcia, WillxJJ, others in flirtation)

Summary: League of Extraordinary Gentleman/Vampire AU;

Within the FBI there is a specialized team full of an elite selection of people. Unique individuals with very particular skill sets. And their job is to take the unusual cases: the ones that need to not only be solved, but are undetermined if the unsub is human, or something else entirely.

In a world filled with Vampires, non-human creatures, and subspecies unknown, there is only enough information to have them vaguely regulated. Rules that are so easily, and violently broken, all while hidden in plain sight among the unsuspecting public. Unrivaled for eons.

That’s where the BAU comes in.

Official Posting Date: Now posted on tumblr and Ao3, Click Here

Links: (Masterpost) (Snippet 01) (Snippet 02) (Snippet 03) (Snippet 04)

(TW/CW: This is pretty tame, Emily is just a little intense and eager because Spencer is... well, Spencer, and when she realizes all he can do? Oh she is chomping at the bit. Some trance-like things and witchy stuff and Hotch being territorial without being able to admit it.)

(the story so far/what you need to know for this clip at least: this takes place in chapter 02, what you will all see on Saturday evening, and this version is insanely unpolished (I’m about to go through and fix it up and give it a good make-over) but basically this is the first time Spencer is meeting Emily Prentiss and it makes... an impression. Also, Emily has been at the BAU for about 0.2 seconds and Hotch is already done with her. The sibling energy I love to see. It’s also hella long, as an apology for missing last week and being a day late. All you’ve missed is Spencer about ran into Emily turning a corner and she saved him from spilling his case files and coffee all over the floor. Now they are talking)

–

“I apologize, I thought you were an intern or still in the academy.”

“It’s alright, everyone does,” Spencer says without taking offense. He wouldn’t have gotten where he was or lasted very long if he did; however, if he had a nickel for every time someone had been surprised by his age, he’d be as rich as Father Rossi. His full hands actually aids him as he mentions, “I don’t usually shake hands with people, so don’t think me rude. I’m Dr. Spencer Reid.” He offers her a smile in exchange, and it is mirrored on her face just as her surprise kicks up another notch.

“Doctor, my my I am in for a trip on this team, aren’t I?” she laughs, and it’s a melodic thing that stretches over an expanse of time and history. Ballrooms in Russia and palors of France, Elizabethan and the roaring 20’s and everything in between all rolled into one. He’s not sure how he sees it, an impossible thing, but he can read it like a book and that must have something to do with what she is. “Emily Prentiss, it is a remarkable pleasure to meet you Dr. Reid. Now, I have to ask--” her tone is so charming and playful and probing he barely notices the nuance, “And I’m sure it’s taboo around here, but I have to know -- your regeneration process. Tell me what it is or what you do. You look so young.”

“I am young,” he states simply, finally stunned by a question he’s not usually asked.

“Yes, yes, we all can’t be a thousand years old like your fearless Vampire leader,” she waves off and Spencer’s eyes widen because… he hadn’t known Hotch was that old. Sure he’d said he’d been alive for the better part of a millennia, but he always said it like a hyperbole. A turn of phrase that’s off by a couple centuries. But --

A thousand years old.

That would put him…

God, that would put him alive, as a human, just before the start of The Crusades.

“Oh, did he keep that to himself? Oops, my bad. Pretend you don’t know. Anyway -- so are you a Shifter? Or use a particular spell? Oh, or is it a curse? I’m fascinated by curses, I don’t use them often myself but the rigidity of terms using a power so chaotic is just such a fun juxtaposition that I--”

“No, no, I’m… normal, human,” Spencer interrupts her, still the smallest bit shell-shocked, but now connects a few dots himself as she speaks. Realizes very suddenly that Ms. Prentiss appears ageless because she is ageless. She’s also a Witch. One of the broadest terms for subspecies categories, which really doesn’t do it justice. A Witch could be a number of things. Someone who uses magic and science and the very Earth itself paired with the spiritual planes to do impossible things. Witches are beings so powerful they should be uncategorizable. Something Spencer is fascinated by as well. He’s never met anyone like Emily. “I look young because I am young. I’m 27, I’ve only been with the BAU for the past three years. I’m a little excited to not be the newbie on the team any more,” he tries to joke, but Emily’s gaze has gone distant and sharp all at once.

“You’re only 27? And you’re a doctor?” She asks in clarification, Spencer nodding along each time. “You’ve been a doctor, since becoming an FBI agent?”

“Um, well -- I’m not a medical doctor. I do have three doctorates, though; in mathematics, chemistry, and engineering,” he finds himself shrinking a bit under her intensely interested gaze. “What?”

“Chemistry?” she asks, vaguely more distant.

“That was my first doctorate,” he murmurs back, not sure what has her looking so contemplative.

“You’ve achieved all of this: three doctorates, FBI agent, BAU -- in 27 years?” she questions, a grave yet wondrous sound.

“Technically I did all of that in 15 years. I graduated high school when I was 12,” he manages to do more than mumble, and Emily’s wide-eyed stare has him spewing forth information like it requires an explanation. “I have an eidetic memory, and I can read 20,000 words a minute, and my IQ is 187 so by human standards yes -- I’m a genius, and borderline on the advanced brain developments scale. But I’m still human. Nothing paranormal or extraordinary.”

The pause that follows is palpable.

“Oh,” she says in an exhale, “Oh, you young soul. You have no idea, do you? What you are capable of...” She tilts her head as she steps closer and Spencer is very suddenly aware that he’s not sure she’s blinked since they started speaking about his qualifications. What he can do, how he got to where he is. No one usually shows this much interest, he makes them uncomfortable for reasons he doesn’t always understand.

Emily doesn’t look uncomfortable, she looks… hungry.

“You are so very, very extraordinary. Exceptional, really. Look at all of what you’ve accomplished with just 15 years of life.” That astonished sound again, like she can’t believe her luck--

And then she’s in his space, gaze boring into his, and Spencer can see galaxies in the depth of her eyes. His breath stolen from him and feet rooted to the floor. So he doesn’t step away as she leans just the smallest bit closer, words resonating with echoes across ages.

“Imagine what you could do with a thousand.”

“Prentiss,” the deep voice of Hotch’s monotone (edged in something vaguely aggressive, and more than a little aggravated) breaks through their moment. The trance fading like a fog from Spencer’s eyes. “No recruiting. It’s in your contract.”

“You have such a gift, it’s a shame to waste it,” Emily whispers in a rush as Hotch approaches them from down the hall. More earnest than intimidating, now.

“Prentiss!”

“Think about it,” she winks, and then turns to give Hotch a smile that’s all teeth so sharp she resembles a shark. “Oh, what a sour face. What’s wrong? Were you planning on asking him first? You snooze, you lose.”

“Conference room,” he instructs, pointing the way Spencer had just come. “Team meeting in 20 minutes. Try not to summon anything between here and there.” She sticks her tongue out at him childishly as she leaves, and sends a quirk of a smile Spencer’s direction that shifts her whole expression into something comically entertained. He’s never seen Hotch interact with someone like this, like they were… familiar, even exasperatingly so. The closest in comparison is probably Father Rossi. But this is less like old friends and more like sibling rivalry.

The space Emily had just vacated is suddenly filled with Hotch, an overwhelmingly welcomed presence and it eases the tension out of Spencer’s spine and shoulders that he hadn’t even realized was there.

“Are you okay?” he asks, low and quiet. They’re the only ones in the hallway, but secrecy is a hard habit to break.

Spencer nods, still gaining his bearings once more. “I think so. That didn’t feel like hypnotism. I don’t know what that was.”

“Prentiss doesn’t manipulate minds or the wills of other people,” Hotch tells him, which is soothing if not for the foreboding question of what just occurred. “She doesn’t need to. She can do a lot of things: change her face, her voice, make illusions and talk circles around anyone -- even you.” Spencer looks up to him at that, aware that his level of intelligence is the only thing that keeps him safe from JJ or Hotch’s influence. His mind can’t be bent, or tricked.

“Then what was she doing? I felt compelled but… not against my will. What was that?” he asks, also quiet but much more high in pitch as his confusion turns his voice to a winded sound.

Hotch’s thin, stern frown does nothing to alleviate the apprehension caught up in his chest like a bad cold.

“Possibility,” he states, grim and not liking that Spencer had fallen prey to such a short moment with Emily Prentiss and her promise of what her craft could do for him. Hotch is well aware that Spencer’s gift of soaking up every speck on information he’s given like a sponge isn’t something to let wither and die like so many before him. There’s so much he could do with an infinite life, such as his and Emily’s, but the curse of living forever alone is not something to be taken lightly. And not to be decided by someone who still has so much more life to live unaided by other forces.

However, Emily was right about one thing. Hotch can’t deny that he’s thought about it. More than considered it as a definite possibility.

An offer, all his own.

–

Tagged list so far: @physics-magic, @thaddeusly, @ssa-noa, @ssa-sarahsunshine, @tobias-hankel, @reidology, @mintphoenix

#THIS IS JUST A SNIPPET #it's a very long one as an apology for missing last week and being a day late #and also because it's COOL and I have no self control #Emily and Spencer would be a terrifying duo honestly #Also Emily and Hotch have the best sibling relationship ever #if anyone wants in on that taglist hit me up via ask or comment or rb #the story is posted! Updates on Saturday evenings #Extraordinary #HotchReid #Katyswriting #Katyswip #wip wednesday

20 notes · View notes

suoyou · 3 years ago

Text

[wip] 凤凰涅槃; phoenix rising

incomplete wip. 9034 words, rated t.

wangxian court intrigue + wuxia + wingfic au, in which wwx is the lost phoenix and lwj is royal scholar. this is actually a collection of scattered scenes through the first act of the fic!

dwell too long in the fire and even the phoenix will burn.

Wei Wuxian holds a rotting mango in his hand.

Pungent, slippery as an oiled wok and twice as dangerous, it’s just a few days too old for optimal flavor—but he does not plan to eat it. No, he’s going to throw it.

A well-aimed piece of fruit and the right audience and a stomach just empty enough that the metallic edge of hunger has begun to bite makes for a good show. Wei Wuxian teeters like a gargoyle on the upturn of a roof, all his weight balanced in a crouch, waiting for the fishmonger to pass by beneath him. The market teems with citizens who have come early to buy the freshest kills and produce that the morning has to offer, the smell of frying jianbing wafts in thick curls up to Wei Wuxian’s perch. His belly rumbles. His last meal had been during sunrise the day before.

“Fresh fish!” shouts the fishmonger. His mule’s head bobs dark and feisty as it tugs his cart along. Behind them, their wagon is crammed with quivering tubs full of water and writhing fish. “Fresh from the docks this morning! Fresh caught! Carp and eel and shrimp! Killed and scaled and gutted if you ask! Fresh fish!”

Wei Wuxian rocks up onto the knobs of his knees. The tiled roof digs into his skin--what are you doing here, flightless bird? His weapon of choice bleeds a thin, honeyed line of juice from his wrist to his elbow. He takes aim.

A little commotion in a crowded market goes a long way. One spooked mule, one fishmonger, and a wagon full of uncovered tubs of live catches? What could go wrong? The sun hammers on his back, asking him what he’s waiting for. The mule’s flanks are exposed around its saddle and harness. Wei Wuxian screws one eye shut and sticks the tip of his tongue between his lips as he raises his mango, and--

“I’ll bet my daughter!”

A disturbance rises above the cheerful twang of the market below. It comes from the gambler’s stall, tucked away by the liquor stand. What a smart, slimy placement.

“Is this man crazy?”

“What kind of father are you?”

“How disgusting, to gamble with your daughter’s life!”

Wei Wuxian frowns. Below him, the fishmonger passes, and the crowd molds around his wagon like ants around a snail. A pustule of a man hunches over the gambler’s stall with a girl of no more than nine or ten in his grip as he snarls in the proprietor’s face. His clothes are stained and dirty, and his eyes are yellow with jaundice. Anger flares hot as a kicked hornet’s nest in Wei Wuxian’s belly, muting the hunger, when the drunkard yanks on his daughter so hard that she trips into the table.

Without thinking, Wei Wuxian shouts, “Hey, you, ugly dog at the gambler’s table!”

Dozens of heads turn to stare.

Wei Wuxian lobs the mango with all his might.

It whistles over the street like a lumpy, bulbous pigeon, dripping as it goes. The man is too drunk, or too hungover to move out of the way--he simply watches, jaw slack, not seeming to realize that he’s in the way until it splatters him square in the face and explodes in a shower of golden muck. He howls, clawing at his skin, and in the process lets his daughter go. She falls because she’d been unbalanced, hard into the street on her elbows. Some of the mango carnage had splattered onto her. Orange-brown bits drip off her chin like fat, gummy tears.

The drunkard points a trembling, furious finger at Wei Wuxian. “You--!”

“Me? What about me? Worry about yourself first. Worry about your daughter!”

A small crowd has gathered to watch the spectacle--this man, covered in sticky mango goo and attracting flies, and this vagrant shaking with laughter on the roof. He is so close to the edge, yet balances in place without any unsteadiness, with the surety of someone who is always in high places.

“You are a coward, staying on the roof! Get down here and fight me with your fists, like a man!” shouts the drunk. His daughter tugs on his sleeve behind him as the crowd thickens.

“A-die, A-die, let’s go--”

“Let go of me, you useless girl.” He shakes her off. “Good for nothing, waste of space. Not even good enough for gambling money.”

Wei Wuxian frowns. A hushed gasp races through the bodies below as he stands and tips from his perch on the roof, tumbling once before alighting in the street. His shoes stick to the pavement from the tack of juice. The man barely makes it up to his chin, and his skin is splotchy from alcoholism; his clothes are patches which means he had family members whose kindness he did not deserve at home.

“What,” says Wei Wuxian, tucking his hands behind his back. He’s not above mango-throwing, but he’s not going to fight a man in front of his young daughter. Now that’s just bad manners. “You really want to fight me? Just take my advice, sir. Go home. Take your daughter and your money and buy some food, and go home. Don’t make me throw another mango at you. That was going to be my lunch.”

“I’m not scared of men like you. Arrogant and scornful, just looking for a fight! I ought to break your--”

Wei Wuxian intercepts the man’s fist before it can connect with his face.

He fights like a commoner would, crude and unpolished, with his thumb tucked inside his fingers. Rookie mistake. His eyes bulge like a frog stepped on as he tries to force his way through Wei Wuxian’s grip, face turning the color of puce as he fails comically. Wei Wuxian digs his nails into the back of the man’s hand, trembling with the effort of holding him in place, and then he shoves him back.

The man goes sprawling in the street, and the crowd shuffles back, as if to avoid a particularly filthy swine.

“A-die,” says his daughter, trying to help him up, but he swats at her. “A-die.”

“Go.”

Not without spitting at Wei Wuxian’s feet. He simply laughs, because it’s such a silly, juvenile thing, and then, like an infection clearing, the citizens around him scatter back into the day.

Wei Wuxian claps his hands together, then wipes his palms on the seat of his robes. “You really ought not to entertain patrons who have clearly started to lose their control,” he says to the proprietor of the gambling stall. They wipe down the edges of their table with a dusty rag where the carnage of fruit clings. “Soon he will trade his whole family away for nothing but a nugget of gold.”

The proprietor scoffs. “And who are you?”

“Someone nice enough to clean his mess up. Sorry for this, by the way,” says Wei Wuxian. He starts straightening sacks full of supplies--coin bags, a set of rings, vases clinking fluted and musical against each other. They must run a games stall elsewhere in the city; Wei Wuxian has seen these prizes before.

“Who asked you to be a vigilante, anyway.” The proprietor shakes his head. “You look for trouble, boy.”

“The only thing sweeter than trouble is justice,” says Wei Wuxian, laughing at the distaste the proprietor levels at him. He chases a few escaped scrolls that have tumbled from their sack. “Ah, don’t be like that. I really am sorry, I didn’t mean to interfere with business, okay? I just don’t like to see--”

One of the scrolls has unfurled enough for Wei Wuxian to catch a glimpse of the ink painting. Beneath the glimmer of midday sun the paper is so buttery that Wei Wuxian expects for his fingers to come away slick when he picks it up, letting the scroll’s weight pull the painting the rest of the way open.

The brushwork is unfamiliar. Mountains studded with frosted clouds, a lake, a tiny figure of a man at the silver waterline. A spray of peonies cradles the scene in its petals, done with a brush so fine that the artist could have drawn it with a single human hair. Wei Wuxian doesn’t recognize it--not the art. He hadn’t opened it for the art.

A red seal dots the corner of the painting like a button of blood. Wei Wuxian would recognize it anywhere--anyone should recognize it anywhere. Being in possession of something with a seal like this, without explanation, could earn an axe to the neck.

“Sir,” he asks, staring at the painting, “how did you come across a painting done by the imperial family?”

The proprietor’s eyes widen, and they make a wild lunge for it. Wei Wuxian is taller, though, and jerks it out of reach, rolling the scroll back up so the paper won’t tear. “Give it back!”

“Aha! What is it? Tell me. How did you come across a treasure like this?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Hmm. So if I simply walk away with it, you will also simply shrug, and let me be on my way?” Wei Wuxian raises his eyebrows when the proprietor glowers. “Ah, so it mustn’t be nothing. Not with a look like that. Do tell.”

“It’s none of your business.”

Wei Wuxian chews on his lip, smiles. His stomach rumbles, already two cartwheels ahead, but he needs to slow down and think. “Can I pawn it from you?”

“I’d like to see you try, boy. Give it here!”

Wei Wuxian sighs. “I would not try. I would give it back to you, if you asked nicely, but oh--oh, the danger of another person knowing that you have a painting with an imperial stamp on it, with no way to explain how. Unless you’d like to tell me. But you’ve made it clear as day that you’re not interested in letting me know, so you’ll just have to let a stranger go, knowing he carries this secret, not knowing who he is, not knowing what he’ll do.” He holds the scroll out now. “But of course, I cannot take what’s mine. Shame. Here you are.”

The proprietor had listened to him speak with a vague, mounting fear in his eyes, and when Wei Wuxian shakes the scroll at them, they shrink back as if he’s shaking a dismembered arm at them.

“What, don’t want it now? Didn’t you want me to hand it over?”

“What are you playing at,” the proprietor asks. “Are you a palace spy? What do you want?”

Laughter leaps from Wei Wuxian’s mouth. “Me, a palace spy? Oh, no, no, no. I’m afraid not. Palace spies have much more important things to do than to sniff out thieving proprietors. Tell you what. I take this off your hands and you don’t have to worry about your neck, or your family’s necks, and in return, I won’t tell them where I found it. Hm?”

“You plan to give it back to the imperial family?”

“Of course,” says Wei Wuxian. “All things return to where they belong in the end.”

So as it goes, Wei Wuxian is one mango poorer, but one imperial painting richer, and he cannot tell if he is better off for it. He tucks the scroll into his knapsack and the key that hangs around his neck back into his collars and scans the market for weak spots, opportunities to win more food than he has money for. The rotten mango had been stupid luck, and luck is a finite resource which Wei Wuxian does not have much of to begin with, so he’s going to have to work for the rest of his food today.

A surreptitious scrap of pink peeks out from behind the liquor stall and Wei Wuxian only catches a glimpse of the girl before she tucks herself behind the wooden beams again. Oh--the drunk’s daughter. She’s alone now. Irritation bubbles in the pit of Wei Wuxian’s stomach when he pictures the man shaking her off, lumbering towards another gambling stall that will entertain his time, and he has half a mind to--

“Fresh meat buns! Made this morning. Pork and chicken and mushroom!”

Wei Wuxian catches up to the bun cart, falling into step with the vendor. “Shifu, how much for one?”

“One bronze piece for three.”

“Can I get five for one bronze piece?”

“Are you deaf or just stupid? No. Get lost.”

“Please, shifu,” Wei Wuxian says, he gestures behind himself in the direction he’d seen the little girl, “my daughter, she hasn’t eaten in days, and we’re here to see the doctor and he turned her away on account of the fact that we have no money, and she’ll only get sicker if she doesn’t have any food in her system, our family is still waiting at home, please have mercy--”

“Heavens! Good heavens, fine, here! Take these misshapen ones, they’re an eyesore, anyway.”

“Thank you!” Wei Wuxian fishes the bronze piece out of his money pouch, fingertips poking through the holes in the bottom like eyes, and collects his spoils. “Thank you, Shifu!”

“Get outta my sight.”

Wei Wuxian holds his armful of buns to his chest, and their heat warms him through his clothes down to his bones. It’s a relatively cool day, even for autumn. When he turns around again, the girl scrunches herself back into the safety of the shadows, and he chuckles to himself. The liquorist eyes Wei Wuxin warily when he approaches, but he simply seats himself on the other end of the stall and opens his carrying cloth full of lopsided buns. Ugly, unwhole, but still good for hunger. Still good.

“Could I interest you in a bottle of rice wine?”

“Ah, no, it’s fine,” Wei Wuxian flaps his hand. “I am not wont for liquor, but perhaps some company to share these buns with. I have far too many to finish on my own. But I don’t know who’d want these ugly buns. Certainly not you, Shifu, I’m sure?”

The girl peeks out from behind the stall, and Wei Wuxian smiles. “Want one?”

She scampers to sit down in front of him, reaching out with sooty hands for a bun at the top of the bile. The skin of it is pearly in the noon sun, giving under touch, the way only fresh steamed buns are. Then she hesitates, looking into Wei Wuxian’s face as if expecting to be struck.

“Go ahead,” he says, holds the bun out. “Eat.”

She snatches it and crams half of it into her mouth, and Wei Wuxian chuckles again. He knows hunger like this, and takes his own portion to tear into. The sweet smell of pork and mushroom and oil floats up into his eyes, and for a moment the meat sears on his tongue before it settles into a taste.

“Is it good?” he asks.

She nods.

So it’s good.

“Where have you been? Wei Wuxian, I ought to cut you off at the kneecaps! A-Jie’s been worried sick, you were supposed to be back over a shichen ago.”

“I ran into a friend, Jiang Cheng. Lighten up, will you? Here, I got buns.”

“Keep your stupid buns. Where’s the fish you were going to get?”

Wei Wuxian scratches at the back of his neck. “Ha. Well, about that.”

“Seriously? I can’t believe you. If it weren’t your birthday, I really would cut you off at the legs.”

“But it is, so instead, you need to be nice!” Wei Wuxian crows triumphantly.

Jiang Cheng sighs, a gust of hot summer wind that picks up stinging sands. A wisp of his hair flits with his breath. He’s wearing his nice clothes, no doubt because A-Jie made him, with a polished belt tucked around his waist like the coil of a sleeping snake. It’s a formality that they hardly ever bother with anymore, not in such a provincial town as this, leading a life as threadbare as theirs. The shine of the buckle comes off of him in bright flashes.

“Whatever. Come on, A-jie made noodles. Where’d you get buns?”

“Oh, so you do want one. Here, I know you like chicken.”

“Don’t tell me you managed to snatch all of these,” Jiang Cheng asks, but he takes the one Wei Wuxian offers anyway. “Who likes chicken,” he mutters, mostly to himself.

“I just harnessed a talent that you have never quite mastered, Jiang Cheng,” Wei Wuxian says. “Charm.”

“I ought to smack you.”

“There was a hungry kid. I didn’t want her to go hungry.”

Jiang Cheng is quiet. “We all are, why go help a stranger?”

“Wouldn’t you have wanted someone to help us back then?”

At this, a grunt. Which, coming from Jiang Cheng, is as enthusiastic a yes he’ll give, so Wei Wuxian smiles to himself and slings his sack of food over his shoulder. He’s down to two now, and he figures he’ll just give both of them to A-Jie who deserves much more than two pork buns, but it’s the best he has. One day he’ll get her expensive candied mangoes and hawthorn berries that the baker makes in the market in the next city over--the one that glitters.

“A-Cheng, A-Xian! You’re back!”

“Found him scaling the wall back into the hutong,” Jiang Cheng grumbles. “Punk.”

Jiang Yanli, too, is wearing her nicest set of robes today, with a hair ornament that Wei Wuxian hasn’t seen her with since the new year. Her face clears of worry when she sees them, and she reaches up, straightens a lock of Wei Wuxian’s hair where it’s caught over his ear. “A-Xian, you’re not--you know that you shouldn’t--”

“Scale walls, climb to great heights, jump off roofs, I know, I know,” Wei Wuxian says, vividly recalling that he has done all of the above and then some today. “Sorry to make you worry, A-Jie, I’m fine! I got you buns. You can have them both.”

“But what about the fish? A-xian, we were going to make one for dinner for you.”

“Ah, fish or no fish, it’s no matter. Noodles are good enough. As long as I can live a long life, luck will always come back around.”

“What if your whole life is plagued with bad luck?” asks Jiang Cheng as they duck back into their hut of clay and brick. The curtains are open, a rare moment of Jiang Yanli letting daylight peek inside, and it lights up their matchbox home in a wash of sunset. Bowls of steaming noodles are set out on the rickety slice of table, with the biggest in front of the seat where Wei Wuxian always sits. His heart swells. He’ll be forcing mouthfuls of noodles into his siblings’ bowls when they sit down, he’s sure, but for now his heart is the pulse of afternoon sun in the window.

“Then my next life,” says Wei Wuxian. “My next one won’t be nearly as bad.”

The Lost Phoenix is lost. I think that’s the point. No one will ever find them. You will die looking for them.

Wei Wuxian is built from broken things.

He sees rubble and thinks, that is a home. He sees blood and thinks, that is a heart. He sees himself reflected in the slow meanders of swamp-green lakes lazy with dragonflies and skeeters and tries to remember, that is a human, that is a human, that is a human.

“You may not be human, but that is what makes you worth loving,” is what A-Jie says.

“You? A human? With an appetite like that? It’s like trying to feed a void with you,” is what Jiang Cheng says, which is basically the same thing.

Wei Wuxian is built from broken things, but the uglier, eyesore-pork-bun truth is that he is born from destruction. He is born from the fire of things, and the ashes of himself; his body waits for the wither.

The Lost Phoenix is dead. His ashes were scattered in mountain, sea, and sky.

The Lost Phoenix is alive! Everyone knows that leaving behind but a single ember can spark a wildfire. Fire has wings.

No human, ghost, or demon has ever seen the Lost Phoenix. If they had, wouldn’t we have heard by now? They are only a legend.

There are scars on his back to prove what he once was and never will be again, and Jiang Yanli tells him, The world was not ready for you. The world, perhaps, will not be ready for the Lost Phoenix to return for as long as we still walk upon it, A-Xian, but maybe when one day when everyone is gone, when A-Cheng and I are gone, you’ll--

He always cuts her off there. Usually he can’t see her face, because she’ll be sitting behind him and rubbing oil into the muscles that can never seem to loosen around his shoulder blades, the ones that line the edges of the scars like mottled mountain peaks. Just two of them, in straight lines as long as a hand, glaring at each other over the expanse of his back, the winding groove of his spine. Phantom pains. Human or not, the body will miss limbs when they are gone.

Tonight, Jiang Yanli does not tell him the world isn’t ready for him. It hurts to listen to her say it, because it’s not a pain that Wei Wuxian can beat away with his fists or even his words. There’s a quiet noise of the bottle being unstoppered, then the cloying scent of liniment oil wreathing around him as he sits with his back bared to her, hair swept over his shoulder.

“A-jie,” he says.

“Hmm?” Her hands are small and warm against his back, and he hisses in pain when her finger catches on a tight knot immediately. “Sorry, Xianxian.”

“It’s okay. Uhm, I have a stupid question.”

“I’m sure it isn’t. Ask.”

“Which birthday did we celebrate tonight?” he asks quietly.

The inside of their hut is a dark, uneven indigo now, the fires of the village filtering in through their window. Jiang Cheng has gone to bathe, so the only answering noise above the sound of a city settling in evening is Jiang Yanli’s soft laughter.

“Your thirty-first, A-xian.”

“How many years have passed in this life?”

Her hands disappear as she dabs more liniment oil onto her fingers. “Since your reincarnation?”

“Yeah.”

“Thirteen.”

“Thirteen,” Wei Wuxian repeats. “Thirteen.” He rolls it over his tongue, trying to figure out how it tastes. Bitter, a little. like medicine. Maybe it’s the liniment. Jiang Yanli runs her thumb down the edge of one of the scars, massaging out a few particularly gnarly knots there.

“Is there something wrong?” she asks.

“Not wrong, exactly.” Wei Wuxian pushes his fingers into his folded robes in his lap, pretends the fabric is sand and silt at the bottom of a lake. He almost expects handfuls of snails when he pulls them back out. “It’s just that, with every passing year, I think maybe this is it--this is the year I’ll remember. This is the year I’ll remember the things about my life before this one. Remember when I tried to teach you and Jiang Cheng how to catch fish with your hands, in the river, A-Jie? You said you could see them beneath the surface, but when you’d reach in to grab it, it was like the fish were never even there.”

“I remember,” says Jiang Yanli. She is quiet, waits for him to go on.

“Trying to recall my first life is like that. I know it happened. I can see it right there, flickering under the water, but. But each year comes and goes, and not only do I not remember anything, it feels like more and more of what I thought I could remember slips away,” says Wei Wuxian. “I was excited in the eighth year of this life. Then I was excited in the twelfth. Thirteen is no good, is it, A-Jie? I’ve run out of lucky numbers to count on.”

“Would it make you happy to remember, Xianxian?”

“I think so. When I think about it--it’s funny, you know. Maybe you know. I can’t recall memories from it, exactly, but when I think about my first life, I think I remember being happy. Like when you roll over and the sun is already up. You can feel the warmth on you even if you don’t see the light.” Then Wei Wuxian snorts. “That doesn’t make any sense. Sorry, ignore me, A-jie.”

“It makes sense. Of course it makes sense. Is that all you remember, a feeling?”

They’ve been over this before. A hazy, murky image of something from Before, dredged up from packed soil. Jiang Cheng will always say, “Who knows? Why do you think I would remember?” waspish, and Jiang Yanli would always give him a soft, “Perhaps it was, A-xian.”

“I remember,” he says, “that we were in a noble family, once.”

This is an easy one. She always says yes to this one. “We were.”

“I remember that the palace walls were lined with bronze, not gold like a lot of the common folk think.”

“Yes, they are.”

“The accident.” The one that has turned him into this.

“I wish you did not,” says Jiang Yanli.

“I don’t--not really. I just remember the pain. My body does, anyway.”

“Muscle has memory,” she says. “But because you are who you are, so does your blood and bones.”

Wei Wuxian fiddles with the gap-toothed key that swings from his neck. It thunks hollowly against his bare chest without the robes to hold it in place, and he tugs the deerskin rope that loops around his neck so that the knot tying it together comes down, down, down, through the hole in the key, up, up, back up again, a miniature comet’s orbit.

“You were a princess,” he says, quiet again.

“Princess is a strong word.”

“But you were.”

“In my own way.”

And then, the most solid memory he has—a figure in white, with hair that fell to their waist, holding a smudge of pink in their hand. Solid, but blurred, like Wei Wuxian is trying to see them through a sheeting waterfall. The lines of their body were straight and crisp, except for the pink. The pink was always soft, parting the mud of his memory.

He doesn’t mention this one, usually. Wei Wuxian holds it close to his heart where it has roots. Year after year, no matter the rains, nothing has flowered. Seasons have passed.

“A person,” Wei Wuxian murmurs.

Jiang Yanli’s hands slow. “Who?”

“I don’t know,” says Wei Wuxian. “Just a person. Their back is to me, so I can’t see their face, but it’s too blurry for me to see them, even if they’d been right in front of me. And they were just standing there--just standing. Nothing else. I don’t even really know if they’re real, but it’s the best memory I have.” He digs his nail into an indent in the key’s teeth. “Do you think they were real, A-Jie?”

“As real as the Lost Phoenix is.”

Wei Wuxian laughs weakly. “The Lost Phoenix is as good as myth.”

A myth meant to scare people.

A cautionary tale.

“The Lost Phoenix needs to stop squirming, or I will poke the sensitive parts of his scar, and I know he hates it when I do,” Jiang Yanli says.

A story about a monster.

“Maybe it’s better to forget some things, A-Jie.”

“A-Cheng and I only want you to be happy, Xianxian. Whatever that means to you. Whether that means remembering or forgetting.”

“I want to remember, because your happiness is my happiness,” Wei Wuxian insists, turning around. Jiang Yanli lifts her hand away as he rearranges his legs in a half-lotus, one foot stretched out onto the floor. “I want to remember because I know this life isn’t one you and Jiang Cheng would have chosen if you both had a choice. You can’t say I’m wrong about that. No noble family member would choose to live in a rundown hutong if they had a choice.”

“A-Xian--”

“I know you won’t tell me what happened before my reincarnation,” says Wei Wuxian. “I know you want to forget. But if anything ever happens that means we can go back to it--you have to say so, okay? You both are the only family I have left. Let me do something for the people who have somehow kept me alive for thirty-one years. I can’t remember eighteen of them. As if I started reading in the middle of the story. There are things I know without knowing how I know them.”

Whether it be a story, a tale, legend, or myth, one thing was certain: the Lost Phoenix is the last known survivor of the Phoenix Rising, once the most revered noble family of the imperial city, the warrior family that protected the throne.

Forged from the Sacred Fires of Scarlet Mountain, the Phoenix Rising once was so formidable that simply meeting one of them in their true form was a sign of luck and good fortune. They were, as their family name suggested, bewinged humans who lived and died and rose again from their own ashes. They were skilled in combat, nimble in war, with the ability of flight. They harnessed Taoist magic that was only spoken of in books.

A secular world did not have room for magic.

“Our A-xian,” says Jiang Yanli, shaking her head, “always hurts himself trying to make us happy before he remembers he has a heart, too.”

“Ah, what good is a heart if I can’t deal it out in pieces for my didi and my jie?” says Wei Wuxian. “It’s not like anyone else has any use for it.”

“That’s not true,” Jiang Yanli murmurs.

“Hm? What’s that?”

“Nothing, Xianxian.”

“You have my promise, A-Jie,” says Wei Wuxian. “It’s us three until the end. Never apart. If I can bring you and Jiang Cheng back to the glory days before this life, then I’ll do whatever it takes.”

She’s quiet, then dabs a light gauze over his skin to absorb the excess liniment oil. Both of them know it won’t be possible--even if they were a lower noble family, there wasn’t a ticket back into the royal city unless you saved the emperor from death or something equally as momentous. Save the empire, or something. Wei Wuxian dreams big, but he’s realistic.

“Thank you, Xianxian,” she says, finally.

“It smells like old people in here,” Jiang Cheng announces, as absurdly loud as new year firecrackers when he comes back inside. He smells of freshwater and sand, and he tracks an inky line of water where his wet shoes stamp footprints into the floors. “I know you’re another year older now, but you’re really getting started early.”

“If I’m so old, then you better talk to me with respect, punk,” Wei Wuxian says. Jiang Cheng may be loud, may be messy, but he chases away the strange, yearning sadness that tugs like a deep saltwater current on Wei Wuxian every time his birthday comes and goes. He loves his stupid, loud brother for it. “Hey! Where’s my kowtow? Where’s my ‘ge,’ then? Where’s my ‘Wei qianbei,’ huh? I’m so old, Jiang Cheng, pay your respects!”

“Screw you, Wei Wuxian. I’d sooner call you Old Man Wei. You’d have to rip out my tongue first.”

“Okay, come here then, my hands are free.”

“Gross! What’s wrong with you?”

And so night falls on another day, another year, and Wei Wuxian feels a little empty and a lot full, like a planet is breathing inside him. Jiang Yanli tugs on Jiang Cheng’s hair, makes him sit down so she can wrestle the tangles out of his drying frizz, and Wei Wuxian holds the lantern for light.

It’s enough.

So what happened to them, the Phoenix Rising? Why have they disappeared?

Because they had power. Because they were loved, feared, and respected, all things an emperor should be.

In the beginning, it was an honor to be the emperor that controlled the Phoenix Rising, for it took an equally distinguished ruler to command such a family, and for generations, the Phoenix Rising served the throne with grace. For generations, the empire was a glowing, golden city upon which the sun glittered, and the common folk called it the City of Gods.

But at the end of a weak dynasty, the throne was seized by a bloodthirsty family that feared the Phoenix Rising and the power they held. People, monsters, kings, or gods? Did the citizens respect the throne? Or did the loyalty of their hearts lie with the strange, winged family that had for centuries been revered as the beacon of luck and fortune?

Humans fear what they do not understand. Humans seek to destroy what they fear.

And so the Phoenix Rising paid the steepest price.

“Did he mention it to you at all yesterday?”

“No! He never brought it up. That punk. I’m gonna wring his sorry little neck.”

“A-Cheng.” A rustle of wind through paper. Then, “We need to ask him where he found this. He could’ve been caught. He could’ve been killed.”

Wei Wuxian wakes to his siblings whispering. Whispers always come through dreams like shouts, and he’s having a very strange dream about walking through wire, except instead of coals at his feet, there is ash, and in the ash there are hundreds and hundreds of keys glinting red as squirting cherries. His feet are burnt and blistering, but he can’t run, can’t turn back, can only walk forward.

There are no secrets in a single-room shack. No matter how quietly Jiang Yanli whispers, Jiang Cheng speaks loud enough to wake the whole town.

“Nicked it, probably,” says Jiang Cheng now. A grudging respect colors his voice. “That’s probably why he took so long to get back yesterday.”

The bamboo sleep mat crackles beneath him as Wei Wuxian rolls over, then sits up. For a moment the world is a spinning top. Jiang Yanli turns, lowering something, and smiles when she sees him awake. Jiang Cheng, of course, is already swinging.

“You dumbass! Where did you get this? If someone comes looking for it and finds it with us, do you know how dead we are?”

Then Wei Wuxian sees it--the painting that he’d charmed out of the hands of the gambling proprietor at lunch yesterday. Jiang Yanli holds it like a broken bird in her lap, and Wei Wuxian ducks when Jiang Cheng aims another swat at him. Mostly half-hearted, but he leaps to his feet and skips out of reach.

“I was going to surprise you!” he says. “I didn’t even have a chance to tell you what I was planning. You don’t know how much money this could bring in the black market, Jiang Cheng, an imperial painting? Just think about it. I can just disguise myself, go at night--cover my face, you know--and we could stop living here. We could live in a real house, and we wouldn’t have to all share one sleeping mat.”

“A-Xian,” Jiang Yanli gets to her feet, too. Always graceful in a stark contrast to her two brothers, the lantern from which two wild tassels would dance in the wind. She lifts the painting up high so that she can point to the red seal in the corner. “Do you recognize this?”

“The imperial seal, right? Sure. Everyone does.”

“I’m going to puke blood,” says Jiang Cheng.

Jiang Yanli ignores him. “You’re not wrong, A-Xian. But this is an imperial seal of a concubine.”

Wei Wuxian blinks. “Of the emperor?”

“Yes. Judging from the seal design, not just any concubine--she must be a consort, at least.” Jiang Yanli holds the paper closer to her face, trying to discern the characters. “Mo,” she mutters, unsure.

“So we could sell it for even more money,” Wei Wuxian concludes.

“No, we are not going to sell it for money,” says Jiang Cheng. His face has darkened.

“Are you crazy?” Wei Wuxian asks. “You said it yourself, if someone finds us in possession, it’ll be our heads. The faster we get rid of it, the less likely anyone is to know it ever passed through our hands at all.”

“Yeah, well, you probably should have considered that before you nicked it, genius,” Jiang Cheng snaps. “It doesn’t matter. Now that we have it, we’re going to use it.”

“Use it how, if not for money, then?” Wei Wuxian struggles to keep his voice low. Jiang Cheng is not making any gods damned sense--isn’t he the one who constantly talks about leaving this hutong under the guise of hating how cramped it is, when really, he and Wei Wuxian agree that they should move closer to the imperial city where there would be better houses and perhaps a respectable man for their sister to marry if she so wanted?

“We’re going to use this to return to the imperial city.”

A silence falls like a tree toppled in storm between them.

“A-Cheng,” Jiang Yanli begins.

“We are?” asks Wei Wuxian. “How would that even work?”

“You’re the best at telling lies.”

“Well, yes, I’m glad you have seen the light.”

“Think about it,” says Jiang Cheng. “An emperor's consort. It means she must have been in favor with the sitting emperor, Jin Huangshang. A painting with her seal on it. How would a painting by a favored concubine of the emperor end up out here?”

“Wound up in a gambling stall, no less,” Wei Wuxian says. Now that Jiang Cheng puts it that way--it’s more than a little strange. “Fine, say that we could use it as our golden ticket back into the imperial city. We’ll be lucky if the consort is dead. She won’t be around to ask any questions if there are holes in our story. What if she’s alive? What if she’s not a consort? What if she was hated, what then?”

“A-Xian,” says Jiang Yanli, setting her hand on his shoulder, and the touch is firmer than he’s used to. “Stop. You too, A-Cheng. Returning would be dangerous for us.”

“Dangerous how?” asks Wei Wuxian. There it is--that gap of the first eighteen years of his life rearing its mangled head. Sometimes it’s like trying to read a page of text with half the words blacked out, the ones left behind still beautiful, but without meaning. “A-Jie, I thought we were…”

“We were a lower noble family then, Xianxian. But it does not mean that the court is a safe place for any of us.”

“Jie!” says Jiang Cheng.

“No, A-Cheng. We’re not going back. It’s not just for A-Xian’s safety, it’s for all of us.”

“Would we really be in that much danger?” asks Wei Wuxian. “If no one knows I’m the Lost Phoenix but the three of us, nothing would happen.”

Right?

“Jiejie,” says Jiang Cheng, his voice quieter than Wei Wuxian has ever heard it, “the Crown Prince has never married.”

Jiang Yanli’s face, for a dizzying heartbeat, is stricken. Something like pain and longing flashes through her eyes quick as the swing of an axe in cloudy morning, but then it’s gone, and she sighs.

“What does the Crown Prince have anything to do with A-Jie?” asks Wei Wuxian.

“That isn’t any of our business. Not even yours, A-Cheng,” she says. Wei Wuxian has never seen his sister like this, drawn up tall with her chin held high, and for a moment he sees the princess that she must once have been. Jiang Cheng, who is easily a head taller than her and twice as broad, crumples under the weight of her gaze. “We left because we wanted to. We’ve lived by this choice and we will continue to live by it. Now, both of you listen--A-Xian will do as he planned, sell this painting for whatever sum that traders will offer, and we won’t speak of it again. Understand?”

The tension swells like a fever between them.

Wei Wuxian should be happy that his sister is on his side for this--when is it that she ever picks sides whenever he and Jiang Cheng argue? Any other time, he’d be hooting with laughter, rubbing it in Jiang Cheng’s face, but there is a deeply strange, melancholy expression on his brother’s face that does not suit him at all.

“Fine,” says Jiang Cheng. He takes the scroll from Jiang Yanli, rolling it up with care, then shoves it into Wei Wuxian’s chest with considerably less care. “Get this shit out of my sight. I’m going out.”

Wei Wuxian watches helplessly as Jiang Cheng moves around their hut with jerky movements, jaw set with the pulse of anger. He gathers his knapsack and what meager rations of buns left over from the day before, no doubt stale and hard by now, and loops it around his shoulder.

Then he’s gone, without another word.

Wei Wuxian gnaws on the soft inside of his cheek. “A-Jie--”

“Don’t think too much about what A-Cheng said, Xianxian,” says Jiang Yanli. “He won’t show it, but he worries. You needn’t take what he said to heart.”

Jiang Yanli will say no more, no matter how hard he presses. He’ll press anyone until they give, but not her. She ducks her head when Wei Wuxian turns to her with his confused, hurt silence, as if she is waiting for his anger. He’d never be angry with her.

“I don’t understand, A-Jie.”

“A-Cheng and I simply have different ideas of what it means to keep our family safe. He thinks it means returning. I think it means to stay.”

“But why would we be in danger?” he asks. “Does this have something to do with the Crown Prince? Did he know who I was? I guess so, or else why would Jiang Cheng bring him up? Did you know him? Could he help us?”

“No, he couldn’t.”

Wei Wuxian sets his mouth in a line. “Well, I should be off too,” he says. The sun has already started to burn back the clouds; he needs to find tonight’s dinner for the three of them. Maybe he should go after Jiang Cheng, press him for more details. Their sister, despite what anyone might think, gives far less easily than either of them.

“Be careful, Xianxian,” she says. “Oh, are you taking the painting with you?”

“There’s no way I’m going to leave it here in case anyone finds it and you’re here by yourself. Worst case scenario, I throw it away, and we can pretend none of this ever happened.” He takes Jiang Yanli’s hands in his, squeezes them ruefully. “I’m sorry, A-Jie. I just thought it would help. I didn’t want you to argue with Jiang Cheng.”

“It’s okay.” She tucks his stray hairs over his ear. “Go. Come back safe, A-xian.”

He waves at her once when he steps out, and once more when he makes it to the end of the hutong and she becomes little more than a quilted patch of terrycloth in the distance, as he does every morning when he leaves. Jiang Cheng can’t have gone far in the time that he’s gone, unless he took off at a sprint, so Wei Wuxian lets the scented chill of autumn fill his lungs.

The Crown Prince. What a strange person to bring up. Wei Wuxian rifles through what he remembers hearing in taverns and pubs, filtered through the thick veil of alcohol. The Jin family sits upon the throne now, after staging a coup against the Wens and seizing power just over a decade ago. The Crown Prince would have to be a Jin prince. The Jin Emperor was said to be quite the philanderer and had more than enough sons from too many concubines to choose from. The Crown Prince must be quite a favorite, for an emperor with so many sons would not pay any mind to choosing the Empress’s sons if he so liked one from his concubine better.

And this Crown Prince, according to Jiang Cheng, has never married.

The look on Jiang Yanli’s face--frozen, bruised, a bird shot from the sky before it begins to plummet--was not one Wei Wuxian expected to see when she heard this news. If they’d known this prince, then he must have been around even before Wei Wuxian’s reincarnation. Jiang Yanli must have spoken of him.

But all his memories can offer him are vague smudges of color and a person with pink like a fire in their hands.

It’s too early for the fishmongers just yet, but the market brims with life as it always does. Wei Wuxian narrowly dodges a cart full of fresh flowers, a toothless grandfather with a bamboo hat pulling it along weakly. One of the wheels is crooked, wood squeaking against the stone pavement.

“Shifu, your wheel,” says Wei Wuxian, plucking the canteen of oil tucked low against the cart. It dribbles out in a black splash. “There, that’s better, isn’t it?”

“Thank you, young man,” says the grandfather, and Wei Wuxian waits for him to turn his back to the street before plucking a lotus from the back of his cart and tucking it into his knapsack. For A-Jie, as penance for upsetting her so early in the morning.

Jiang Cheng is not hard to find. He is poor at concealing himself, both in body and in voice, and he really is very bad at haggling. Wei Wuxian sidles up to him at a fruit stall, arguing with the vendor over a particularly ugly dragonfruit that looks more like a leathery handful of meat left too long in the sun than any respectable fruit.

“Now I think,” says Wei Wuxian, plucking it out of Jiang Cheng’s hand and ignoring his indignant scoff, “shifu, if you let this fruit sit out in your display, it would ruin the look of all the rest of your fruits. ‘Ah, look at this lovely display of dragonfruit. But what do we have here? A misfit! A miscreant! A monstrosity, really!’ And then you lose business. So really, we’re doing you a favor.”

“A favor?” says the vendor with disbelief. “What gall.”

Wei Wuxian laughs, then tosses the fruit back and forth between his hands and gives a quick jerk of his chin. “What do you say? Half off?”

“I can’t believe you weaseled him into giving it to us for less than half off,” says Jiang Cheng five minutes later. “You could talk your way out of your own--”

Wei Wuxian tosses his dragonfruit from hand to hand. “My own what?” Jiang Cheng’s knapsack hangs flat and sad against his back, crumpled like a dead leaf, so Wei Wuxian holds it open and drops the fruit inside.

“Nothing. Never mind. What are you doing out here with that--thing?”

“Do you think I was going to leave it with A-Jie? No way. Imagine if she were alone and someone found her with it.”

Jiang purses his lips, nods. He tucks his thumb into the strap of his knapsack, a deadknot slung over his shoulder. “Have you thought about any stories?”

“What stories?”

“About what we’d say, if we brought it back to the imperial city.”

Jiang Cheng resolutely does not meet Wei Wuxian’s stare.

“You want to go?”

“I just think that if we have a plan, A-Jie might be more willing to go. To be honest with you, if it were just to the two of us, it wouldn’t matter as much. We could sell the stupid painting, use the money. We could eke out an existence. It would fucking suck, but we could, and I wouldn’t feel guilty about it.”

“Ah, Jiang Cheng. You’re finally talking sense!” Wei Wuxian claps him on the back. When Jiang Cheng doesn’t shake his hand off, his smile falters. He must actually be worried. “Okay. We have to consider multiple scenarios, then, if we want this to be foolproof. We don’t want to make up a story where the concubine is alive when she’s dead. Or vice versa. So the first order of business is to figure that out.”

Jiang Cheng nods. “And what kind of favor she’s in with the emperor. The better, the easier for us.”

So, like peddlers, they spin their stories.

The night blooms blue and foggy, the moon dropping light in handfuls of glass through the forest, and Wei Wuxian straightens to see that he is not alone.

Someone else is in the mist with him. It’s thick enough that he cannot see their feet, so they could be floating. A man--just a bit taller than Wei Wuxian himself. His sword is drawn, lowered, as if he’d been pointing it before Wei Wuxian sensed him and stopped. The folded steel blade flashes.

Blood sheets heavily down Wei Wuxian’s leg where the muscle has torn around the arrowhead, and haze sloshes in his skull. His brain is an upended bowl of goldfish. He grasps for words, for his thoughts, but they slip through his fingers. The stranger stares at him a bit in shock, a bit in horror, mostly in surprise. He opens his mouth. He closes it. He is wearing so much white he could be glowing, a star abandoned by its galaxy, and Wei Wuxian is the only one to find him.

They stare at each other in the gloom.

Wei Wuxian’s scattered goldfish thoughts say, Pink.

“Are you here to kill me?” asks Wei Wuxian. His words come out slurred even to his own ears. He needs to find Jiang Cheng. They need to get back to A-Jie. He needs to get out of here.

“No.” The stranger steps towards him. “We mistook you for a prey animal. Are you badly hurt?”

“This? No, no. I’m fine. I need to go.”

“Your leg is injured.”

“It’s fine. I need to get back to--my wards,” Wei Wuxian says, catching himself before he says anything too revealing, pats himself on the back for staying in line even as his thoughts unravel. He picks his favorite story and sticks with it, hopes to any god that is listening it won’t get any of them killed. “My wards. They were with me. I was looking for Jin Bixia.”

The stranger has come so close that Wei Wuxian can make out every stitch of his robe. “What business do you have with the emperor?”

“I have a painting,” he mumbles around the haze. It’s a dark one, now. “My mother’s painting.”

Then darkness kisses his eyelids, and the night pulls him under.

The scroll unfurls with the quiet hush of paper that has gone undisturbed too long. Even mounted on fine silk, the edges of the hemp and mulberry fibers have begun to wither, time nibbling as cruel and hungry as moths. The paper stretches on forever, nearly as tall as him fully unfurled. The cherrywood stick clacks upon the floor.

Wei Wuxian’s mouth goes dry. He stares with seeing, then without comprehending, then without believing.

The ink color has faded, like the paper, with age. Once the red might have leapt off the page, the greens so bright that spring grew from the painting itself, but all of it has flattened. It’s a simple composition. Where Mo Fu Ren had let her human subject be lost among the trees and sweeping landscapes, this painting is only one person, draped in textured golds and silk brocade embroidered with dragons.

Simple, perhaps, but done by the hand of someone who held them beloved.

His fingers shake when he reaches out. They hang back, and he pulls away, afraid that touching it might make the entire painting dissolve in his hands.

Smiling serenely back at him is his own face, thirteen years younger, thirteen years less hungry—but it is him. His eyes are downcast, with a rabbit cradled in the crook of his elbow and a bird perched upon his shoulder. Without a doubt it is him. Even if he could not recognize his own face, the characters that march in little terracotta soldiers down the paper leave no room for guessing.

The black ink is fresh, as if someone has run a brush through the strokes every year so that they can never fade.

Wei Wuxian, they say.

This can’t be right. He must be misreading. He blinks hard.

His thoughts trip over each other’s ankles. They come in a clamoring flood, each wanting to be heard first, pored over first. Wei Wuxian. Had there been another before him? It is not a common name. It is not a name that would show up twice in the royal city if every noble family had the names of their descendants planned out for generations, no matter if the Phoenix Rising had been slaughtered by order of the emperor. Why is there a painting of him rolled up and locked away in the private study of Hanguang Gexia, second head of the scholar house to Emperor Jin?

Did they once know each other?

How could it be that a key that Jiang Yanli gave him would unlock this desk?

There are corpses sleeping under their feet. This earth has been burnt and salted.

An old ache starts in his spine.

We were a lower noble family then, Xianxian.

Fire without coals.

There was a person. Just a person.

Do not exhume these bodies.

We left because we wanted to.

Something terrible must have happened to him.

#fic wip #incomplete #wx

15 notes · View notes

theravenclawrevolutionary · 4 years ago

Text

In one last celebration of Maxime's birthday here's a collection of three birthday scenes from my novel wip about him! This post is fairly long and certainly unpolished so read at your own risk.

Excerpt from Chapter One, featuring newborn Maxime

"Isn't he wonderful mon amour," Jacqueline asked her husband, tearing her eyes away from her son for the first time since he'd been placed in her arms. "Absolutely wonderful! And to think," she said pausing to look into François' eyes. "He was born out of love. Not everyone can say that for themselves."

"You're right," François muttered, thinking back to the day Jacqueline had told him that she was pregnant. She'd told him a month or so after they had done the very thing that caused it. He had been courting her on and off for a little more than a year and one night the two had let their emotions and desires get the better of them in the worst way possible.

The night Jacqueline told him, François had done two things. First he had gone out and drank for quite a considerable length of time. While he was out he had decided that he was going to marry Jacqueline. At the beginning of their still-new marriage, there were times when he wasn't sure whether he did it for his honor or the sake of Jacqueline and the child. Now, he realized, as he sat with his own little family, it didn't matter who he originally did it for. Either way, he'd made the right choice.

Yet even after they had promised to marry, the two were the talk of Arras. Everyone knew everyone there and all it seemed anyone could talk about was the brewer's daughter, her scandalous relationship with the well-known attorney, and the swiftly growing child that was the result. There had been numerous occasions several months before they were set to be married, and he'd been so terrified of what others would say and whether or not he was ready for such a commitment that he'd almost called off the entire thing. His own parents hadn't even attended the ceremony when it finally came around and Jacqueline's parents only went because witnesses were required. Yet here he was, four months married with a beautiful newborn son and a wife that he loved.

The child shifted his small arm slightly, inadvertently drawing his parents’ attention back to him. His tiny eyes opened slightly for a fraction of a second, revealing pale green irises that matched his mother's. Gently, trying her best not to disturb the child, his mother bent down to kiss him on the head. A few moments went by in comfortable silence. The three sat together, warm, and filled with love.

"He's going to be named after you, you know." François looked away from Maximilien's peaceful face, startled at his wife's words. She laughed slightly and laid her head on his shoulder.

"What?" Francois was completely taken aback.

“He's going to be named after you. Maximilien François; that's going to be his name." Jacqueline smiled up at her husband and shifted even closer against him, enjoying the slightly surprised expression on his face. Her husband was not usually an easily surprised man so she took great pride in the times she did manage to surprise him. "We've talked about this before, you know. It was the night I told you about him. I told you that after you came back to me." She refrained from adding, 'Not that you were sober enough to remember it.' As well as things had turned out, her husband’s fondness for alcohol did occasionally tend to cause problems when his emotions ran high enough. She could smell it faintly on his breath.

There had been no expectation of all-encompassing joy that night. It had been terrifying to say, like a criminal confessing his crime to a condemning judge. Her lips had trembled and her eyes had filled with tears as her lover approached their meeting place.

Francois had greeted her with a kiss to her hairline, his dark eyes taking in her pale face. He’d said some words as well, but Jacqueline didn’t hear them. Her own words spilled from her lips, burning as they left. Francois froze for a few moments like an animal caught in a trap. He made to move toward her and for a moment she thought that perhaps everything would be alright in the end. He fled. And then he’d returned.

Jacqueline could remember looking up at him from the place she had sat crying for hours. She could remember smelling the alcohol strong on his breath and clothes as he fumbled over his words. But she could also remember him kissing her cheek softly with one hand resting gently on her stomach and telling her that everything was going to be alright. And everything was. He’d gone out and bought a ring, and tried, really tried, to make things right. Jacqueline was so lost in her memories that she almost didn't hear the soft sound of her son fussing in her arms.

"Shhhh," she crooned sleepily, holding the child close to her chest. One hand reached out of his blankets for a moment and François tucked it back in as gently as he could manage. "Hush little Maxime. You will be alright. Nothing will happen as long as your father and I are here, and we always will be." Quietly comforting their son, Jacqueline and Francois sat together in peaceful darkness until the priest came to baptize him.

Excerpt from Chapter two, featuring six-year-old Maxime

“Come on little man. Let’s show you your gift shall we?” François headed for the door, making sure that Maximilien ducked his head before stepping outside. The street was mostly empty and the sky was still cloudy and grey, but the fresh smell of the recently finished rain filled their nostrils and the sound of their own laughter filled their ears. Jaqueline, walking slowly because of her pregnancy, and the other children with their little legs followed the pair out of the house. Maximilien gasped.

“Birds! You got me birds, Papa? Oh, thank you! Thank you, Papa!” A small wooden cage containing two gray doves chirping softly sat beside the door. Maximilien knelt down beside it and stuck his fingers through the slats, hoping that one of the birds would come land on his finger. He felt the water on the road soak into the knees of his breeches but ignored it. He was too entranced by the birds to care.

“You like them then,” Jacqueline asked smiling. She already knew the answer, but she wanted to hear it from her son.

“Oh yes! I love, love, love them! Do they have a name already? Or can I name them?”

“Go right ahead darling,” Jacqueline said, lifting Augustin into her arms. “They’re yours now. But you have to promise to take care of them, alright?” He nodded earnestly.

“I promise! Cross my heart and hope to cry! Wait… is it die? Hmmm… I dunno.” He paused to think for a few moments. “I’m going to name them um… Sunny and… and Tart!”

“They’re so cute,” Henriette squealed, pushing her way past her parents. “Can I pet one Maxime?” He made a face but nodded anyway.

“I guess so. But be nice. You gotta be gentle.” Maximilien took her little hand in his and slowly guided it towards the birds. They squawked a little and ruffled their feathers slightly but allowed the two to pet them.

“Wow,” she breathed. “Lottie look! See them?” Charlotte giggled and joined her siblings by the cage. François and Jacqueline smiled at each other in the setting sun.

It had taken a significant amount of time to get him to bed that night. He kept finding his way back to the cage which had been moved to his bedroom.

“Maximilien lay down!” He sighed and stormed over to his bed, stomping his feet and glaring at his mother as he went. “If you don’t behave, you’re going to have to be punished.” He flopped onto the bed.

“But Maman,” he protested. “I want to play with my birds!”

“If you don’t go to sleep you won’t be allowed to visit Grand-mère and Grand-père tomorrow. And I know you were so looking forward to it." Those words seemed to have the desired effect because Maximilien nearly fell out of bed as he scrambled under the bedsheets and pulled them up around his chin. “I thought you might see it that way darling,” Jacqueline said, smoothing her son’s hair and planting a kiss on his forehead.

Maximilien fell asleep easily that night with a smile on his face and the sound of his birds chirping quietly in the corner.

Excerpt from Chapter 25, featuring thirty-one-year-old Maxime

May 6th proved to be an interesting birthday. Most of the day was spent in the palace assembly hall that housed all the meetings of the Estates-General, listening to the bickering of hundreds of men. It was also discovered that, though the representation of delegates from the Third Estate had been doubled, the entirety of the men gathered still shared one vote. Outraged at the holdover from the outdated 1614 meeting, several men voiced their opinions on the largest class receiving the same number of votes as the minuscule portion of society represented in the First and Second Estates, none too quietly either. For Maximilien, a large portion of the assembly was spent gritting his teeth and trying to ignore the pounding headache forming behind his eyes.

Camille, who Maximilien hadn’t known to be around Versailles, found where he was staying and gifted him a surprise visit that night.

Maximilien had been sitting at the rickety desk in the half-light of the setting sun, scribbling down a few lines of poetry into his journal, when the knock came.

“Um… hel- hello,” a muffled, but familiar, voice asked from the other side. “Is this where Maxime, I mean Monsieur de Robespierre is staying? I’d heard that it is.”Maximilien sprang to his feet, removing his glasses and setting them beside the journal before running his fingers through his hair, attempting to comb it into some semblance of order.

“Camille? Is that you? What are you doing in Versailles?!”

“Yes. It’s me. Let me in and I’ll tell you.” Maximilien opened the door and Camille, with his curls dancing wildly about his head, bounded into the room. He embraced Maximilien with a grin and kicked the door closed behind him. “Oh! Right. Happy birthday by the way. That is the whole reason I stopped by after all.” Maximilien gestured to the delicate desk chair he had just been sitting at.

“Ah. Thank you. Would you… would you like to sit down? I feel as if you’ll be staying for quite some time.” Camille complied and sat gingerly on the edge of the chair, holding his breath a little as he did so, clearly hoping it wouldn’t break under his slight frame. “I’d offer you refreshments, but I feel that it’s painfully obvious that I have none.”

“That’s alright. I realized about halfway here that I should have brought you a gift of some sort.”

“I’m sure the tales of what you’ve done since we last spoke will be a gift on its own.” Camille laughed, the warm sound filling the dark cramped room and bringing back fondly bittersweet memories from their years at Louis le Grand. “So please, enlighten me as to what’s delivered you to the same place as I. And any other stories you find worthy of mentioning.”

“I haven’t been elected to the Estates-General as you well know,,” he began. “I wanted to so incredibly badly, but the men back in Guise aren’t nearly as fond of me as you are. I failed, almost certainly because of their distaste, but living in Paris for so long before with nothing but occasional visits home certainly didn’t help.”

“I’m sorry.” Camille dismissed the comment with a wave of his hand.

“No matter. I’ve been enjoying myself to some degree. My law practice sputters out now and again, but it always comes back around. I write for newspapers on occasion too.”

“How’s Martin,” Maximilien asked, fearing the answer. He had little hope that their relationship had lasted the extent of nine years. “Are you two still together.” Camille let out a barking laugh still tinged with sadness, even after many years.

“No. I apparently was a ‘flight of schoolboy fancy” who was being used for cheap entertainment and all that. He was crying when he told me though. I think it was a lie. His father found out about us. But Martin doesn’t matter. I’m courting a girl now. Lucille Duplessis. She’s very, very pretty, extremely sweet, intelligent for her age, and, unlike Martin, she’s deemed proper by society. I’ve fallen head over heels for her and she seems to feel the same way unless she’s a fucking fantastic actress! Contrary to what her father has to say, I think we’re a good match.”

“Oh… That’s nice. I’ll have to meet her someday. I am sorry about how everything ended with Martin though.”

“‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ Is that all you can say Maxime? You need to relax a little. Tell me, what have you been up to recently?”

“Life in Arras has been good to me since graduation. Not only has my law practice been mildly successful but I’ve also been elected to the Royal Academy of Arras and I spend a lot of time writing poetry. Living with Charlotte was not disagreeable either. We live in a small house we’ve been renting on the Rue du Saumon. It’s only a short walk to my office and an even shorter one to the parish church where my grandparents and mother are buried. In this time I have also realized a… a specific vein of fondness not only for ladies but a few gentlemen as well.”

“Maxime!” Camille’s tone was incredulous and a bit proud. “You’ve turned yourself into a right little rake, haven’t you!” Maximilien sighed in exasperation, pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand as his eyebrows knit.

“Not fondness in the physical way for either of them, like you, Camille,” he said hurriedly, trying to make himself clear. “I know these feelings to be of a solely romantic fashion. Additionally, no feelings have resulted in anything, hindered by my inability to flirt and to detect when someone else is flirting with me in return.”

“Poor Maxime,” Camille said, his voice dripping with playful sarcasm and his hazel eyes shining. He ran a hand through his hair, fluffing out the curls. “Whatever shall you do?”

“Devote my time to helping others. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. You know that.”

“And I expect that’s why you wanted to be here, isn’t it. You wanted to be around when the revolution starts.” Maximilien raised an eyebrow. Camille cocked his head. “We’ve been discussing the inevitability of one for years. The Americans did it. They were fed up and they did something about it. We all know it’s only a matter of time before it happens. Danton, a friend of mine back in Paris, you really ought to meet him someday, believes it will happen soon as well.” Maximilien sighed and nodded. Camille was right, a fact he usually hated to admit. Even Arras and its surrounding small towns were rife with talk of forcing change on the country. Even at school, many years ago, the general consensus had been that reforms, real, meaningful reforms were due any year.

“You’re right, of course,” agreed Maximilien. “What better way to help people than to play an active part in achieving their will. I do hope that our ‘revolution’, as you are so fond of calling it, is more civil than the American’s though. What good can come to the people if we must wage war against ourselves?”

“Someday when the two of us are famous and well known from all the good we’ve done for France people will print little books, like those books with bible verses in them or short prayers, but instead they’ll be filled with quotes by you. You’ll have to start saying things like that all the time and hope that I don’t start selling a separate one with all your naughty quotes from Louis le Grand in it.”

“Unlike you Camille, I see no fame or fortune in my future in relation to politics.”

“If you say so Maxime. But I’m not sure how you’re going to help all of France if that’s the case."

#french revolution #frev #robespierre #maximilien robespierre #history #robespierre novel #frev wip #creative writing #joyeuxanniversaire

12 notes · View notes

the-last-cuddlebender · 4 years ago

Note

🌹🌹🌹

Okay, I know the rules of the 🌹 request is to give just a snipet of a WIP, but I’ve come to realize I don’t like cutting up parts of a fic. So you get a whole scene, congrats!

This is from one of the chapters of “But You Called Me Here”. It’s an ATLA/TLOK crossover that should have it’s first chapter posted pretty soon if everything goes according to plan.

This scene is verrrry rough and unpolished because it’s still in progress, but here ya go!

“Let...me...go!”

The other airbender tugged harder on Aang’s wrists, but Aang refused to let up his grip on the jaws of the metal dragon. It was cold under his hands and as smooth as a general’s plate-armor, decorated just as lavishly. It growled like a beast hiding in tall grass, its snarl shaking him to the bone. Puffs of smoke billowed out of its wrong end and polluted his lungs with ash and something else unnatural.

“Tenzin, you’ll get nowhere like that. Don’t you remember when mom—I mean, don’t you remember the vaccination fiasco?”

Tenzin growled his frustrations and turned to the nonbender. Aang, not one to pass up an opportunity, readjusted his grip and pushed against the older monk who was now digging his heels into the ground and pressing them back to back. Aang almost growled, himself. He didn’t have enough room to blast his way out with a gust of airbending, and when he inhaled to blow the stranger off, Tenzin elbowed him in the side —again—and rendered his attempt mute.

Oh, what he wouldn’t give to have the Avatar State right then.

“If you have any bright ideas, Bumi, please, feel free.”

Bumi scoffed. “‘Do I have any bright ideas’ he says—Of course, I do! You gotta put your back into it!”

Blinking another bead of sweat out of his eye, Aang peeked over his shoulder. The nonbender charged like a boulder on a mission; Tenzin scooted to the side, giving Bumi just enough room to ram his shoulder into Aang’s back.

Aang wheezed and bowed further into the metal dragon. His arms shook, but he couldn’t tell if it was from fear or strain at this point. The leather-lined tongue of the beast looked too much like a welcoming seat, but Aang had been to the Spirit World enough times to never trust what wasn’t natural.

“Oh for the love of—” the older waterbender’s voice was as hard as ice and just as cold, “—Just get in the damn car!”

Her weight added to the human battering ram, and Aang cursed his arms slowly giving in.

“I am not—I’m not...going!”

There was a brooding sigh and smacked forehead, not for the first time that day, somewhere to Aang’s right—the firebender. “This is ridiculous. We’re wasting time. Chief, can’t you talk some sense into him?

“Yeah. He always sounded like a reasonable Avatar to me.”

The chief snorted. “‘Reasonable Avatar’ is an oxymoron. And, in my experience, young, stubborn Avatars would sooner argue that the sky is green just because I said it was blue.”

“Hey!”

“Full offense, by the way.”

Aang took as much offense as the younger airbender who was dressed like a waterbender. “I am reasonable! You haven’t explained any—Stop that!”

They pressed harder, and Aang clung to the sides of the metal dragon not too unlike Momo clung to the edges of the tub when he refused to bathe. If only Aang had his other elements. Airbending was great at evading and escaping, but a downed airbender was a dead airbender.

And, apparently, very easy to hold down and shove into a metal dragon that smelled like Fire Nation war machines.

The three stupids pulled back, just a bit, to deliver the finishing blow.

That inch of free space was all Aang needed. He squirmed free, strained the limits of his acrobatics to escape their grabbing hands, and flipped onto the roof of the evil spirit. His heart pounded, and his laugh felt well-deserved as the three crazies flushed crimson and spat words unbefitting a temple.

Aang didn’t get far. He had been the last airbender for so long that he never expected the gust that circled his ankles and flung them backwards, sending him tumbling down the metal dragon’s front.

The girl airbender with a bun grinned and waved her fingers at his mass of robes and tangled limbs. Betrayal like Aang hadn’t felt since Sokka stole Momo for a week froze him in place. He wanted to laugh and tell her off all at once. She executed the air-bolo flawlessly.

Even Gyatso would have been proud.

“Alright, that’s it!”

A hand like iron yanked him to his feet and carried him like a ragdoll to the metal dragon’s maw.

The woman with green eyes sat in the front of the beast. She rolled her eyes and did something that made the metal dragon snarl.

Aang yelped, trembling, and latched his arms and legs around the angry airbender dressed as a waterbender. “Oh, nononononono. No. Not-uh. Nope. No way— ”

His new opponent tugged and yanked him, digging in her nails, but Aang clung all the tighter even as she danced around and growled as loud as the metal dragon.

“Get off me, you moron! We have to go!”

“Karen, there is no way in heaven, hell, or the Spirit World I am getting in that thing! You can’t make me!”

“It’s Korra!”

“I don’t care!”

The earthbender approached with his arms up in mock surrender. Aang spared him half a glance before Korra grabbed and spun them again.

“Hey, um, Mister Avatar Aang, sir? Could you pretty please get in the Satomobile? It won’t hurt you, I promise!”

Aang escaped Korra’s headlock and ducked around to cling to her back. Korra thrashed and turned as red as heated metal, and she gladly rammed him against the beast’s iron hide. She savored his wheeze with a teasing laugh, and Aang hugged around her neck and seriously considered pulling her hair.

The earthbender took a step back. His voice squeaked like a frightened lemur. “Um...Maybe don’t hug Korra like a purple pentapus?...Please?”

“Purple pentapus?” The older waterbender grinned something evil. “Bolin, you are a genius.”

“I am?”

Bumi eyed her as she strode to the tussling duo. Aang looked up and, for some reason that he couldn’t explain, shrunk back a bit when he met her sharp smirk and scheming eyes.

Some unseen force compelled him to sit straight and speak clearly when he talked.

“Um…I...I, um…You’re Kya, right?”

“Yes. And you are getting in that Satomobile.”

Tenzin sighed and bent his head in prayer. “Kya, please, whatever you do, just don’t hurt him.”

“Hurt him? Perish the thought Tenzin, brother, dear. I would never put a bratty teenage airbender in his place.”

Tenzin sighed again but with more feeling.

Kya tickled Aang’s side before he could stop her. He let go, immobilized by peels of uncontrollable laughter, like he really was a purple pentapus. He weakly smacked her hands, trying to catch his breath and control of himself, growing ever more frantic as Korra and Bumi closed in on him.

They each grabbed one of his arms and threw him—gently—into the metal dragon.

Outside, Jinora felt a pang of pity for her grandfather when the dull click of the safety lock made him scramble like it was a weapon that had been loaded.

“Do you think he’ll try to break the glass?”

“Hardly. He would have fought with his bending if he knew he was in any real danger.” Lin crossed her arms. “Besides, knowing Asami, she probably reinforces everything on her personal vehicles.”

Bolin nodded. “True, true, true, she is the paranoid one. Besides, he just has his airbending, right? He can’t do much of anything— ”

Mako cleared his throat and gave his brother a meaningful look.

“What? You know it—Oh…”

Korra held herself a little tighter. She tried to hide how much she shrunk into herself, but Jinora was at her side in an instant, hugging her anyways.

Silence overtook them. They all itched to hug her, too. Jinora held tight enough for all of them.

Aang fumbled against the glass and searched for a door handle that he didn’t know was there. The wind kicked up inside the van, swirling to life with his panic. Asami glared out the windshield. Her jaw set into a stony scowl that they only saw in glimpses since her hair was blowing like she was standing in the midst of a hurricane.

Korra twirled her wrist. Hot embers caught in her throat when not even a small gust answered her. The wind danced over her palm before jerking away, like it was repulsed, and fleeing away from her.

Her hand fell into a loose fist. She held Jinora with one arm just as tightly as she did her waist.

Korra tried to stop herself from seeking the warmth of an inner fire that was no longer there.

She mumbled to herself, her voice soft and laced with something vulnerable.

“...Yeah. Can’t do much of anything.”

31 notes · View notes

wordsmithie · 4 years ago

Photo

@your-girl-is-lovely thank you for tagging me in the fanfic wip tag! i don’t really have a writing community on here, so instead of doing the tag properly i’m going to post a snippet of a wip that i think you’ll be interested in. 😁

this is the rose x dj wolfman au that’s been rolling around in my head. it’s going to be a gothic-steampunk hybrid. in this scene, rose has traveled to talbot manor in the hopes of enlisting the services of mr. monserrate rafael lawrence talbot (aka dj haha) to help with finding a cure for her sick sister. she finds the gate locked, so decides to climb it. fyi this is still very unpolished. sticking this under a read more, hope it works on mobile. 🤞🏾

Most of the stonework was hidden beneath a tangle of vines. They might be enough to hold her up. She gave one of the curling stems a tug. They might be enough to hold her up if she climbed fast. She slipped her bag off her shoulder. It would only add to the weight, and she could come back for it later. She tried out a few different possibilities for a foothold, before lifting herself up with a grunt. The vines were scratchy against her hands, and she tried not to imagine any of the insects that might have been crawling between them. She had reached a particularly unpromising looking spot where they didn’t seem to be any stems strong enough to hold onto, when a gruff question startled her.

“Who in t-t-the hell are you?”

Rose let out a cry, her hold slipping. She dropped to the ground, landing on her back. The good thing was that she hadn’t climbed that far so the fall wasn’t too great. The bad thing was that it still bloody hurt. She lay on her back, waiting for the air to make its way back to her lungs.

“Did you hear me? How did you g-g-get here?”

The grey clouds that hung over her eye line were blocked out by an irritated looking face.

“Scraggly” was the word that came to Rose’s mind when she saw the face. The face looked tired. It had dark circles under the eyes, and a jaw invaded by stubble. And even upside down, Rose could see the small scars on one of the cheekbones.

“I’m…I’m Rose.” It was still hard for her to breathe. She climbed to her feet. “Rose Tico.”

The scraggly face belonged to a scraggly figure. The man was wearing a dark, worn coat. He had the air of someone who had been through trials. Rose wondered if he was the manor groundskeeper.

“Wonderful,” he rasped, his expression flat. “T-T-That tells me absolutely nothing.”

“I’m - I’m Rose Tico,” she said again, taking quick steps forward and holding her hand out. “I’ve come to see Mr. Talbot.”

The man simply stared at her and then at her outstretched hand before looking back up at her. “You want to see Talbot?”

Rose frowned, dropping her hand. The rudeness of the man! “Uh, yes. I was hoping to have an audience with him.”

At that, the man laughed, a wheezing sort of crackle that left Rose feeling like she was the unsuspecting subject of the joke. “An audience with him, eh?”

Rose’s frown only grew. “Yes, I heard he was back in town.”

The man shook his head, his mouth crooked in a smile so smug that it irked her. “Oh? Where d-d-did you hear that?”

“I - well, it’s all over town. In the society papers. Everyone knows.”

“They do, huh?” The man sniffed and looked away, rubbing his nose with his knuckles. He seemed to be lost in thought for a moment, but then he turned back, ire pooling in his eyes. “You never said how you g-g-got here.”

“Ah, the gondola,” Rose said, gesturing vaguely behind him.

“It’s out of order.”

It was increible, Rose thought, just how much the man managed to convey despite being so dead-eyed. For instance, she could tell that he thought her a simpleton.

“Not anymore.”

A frown accompanied his dead eyes.

“I - I fixed it.”

“You fixed it.”

“Yes?”

The man’s eyes narrowed.

Rose felt the urge to insist that she had, in fact, fixed the thing but held herself back. She didn’t have to prove herself to this stranger.

The man seemed to sense her resentment and his lips twitched, a smile hiding in them.

“It isn’t easy to fix,” he said.

“Well, I’m an electro-mechanic.” She shrugged. It was almost true. She had completed her studies and her apprenticeship after all. Any further details about her as-yet-undeveloped career weren’t necessary to this man.

His eyes narrowed some more, and she could see him assessing her. She held back the outrage and defiance that was unfurling slowly in her stomach. After all, all he saw was someone still fresh out of university, looking as if they lacked all work experience.

“Right.” His drawl implied that he didn’t believe her. “And what is it you need t-t-to have an audience with Mr. Talbot for?”

Rose could almost marvel at the fact that someone she had met mere moments ago had the capacity to spark so much irritation. Almost.

“I really would prefer to discuss it with him.”

The man let out a huff of laughter and had the audacity to roll his eyes, neither of which did anything to dampen Rose’s ire.

“I’m sure you would prefer it,” he said, eyes sliding back to meet her. “But Mr. T-T-Talbot expects all visitors to go through me. So if you wouldn’t mind -” he held out an arm with a mocking graciousness, dipping his head - “Miss Tic, was it?”

“Tico,” she ground out. Blast this man. He was proving to much more of an obstacle than the imposing gates had been. She supposed that Mr. Talbot must pay him well. Though if he did, the man clearly did not spend any of his salary on personal grooming. “Very well. I have - I come seeking Mr. Talbot’s assistance.” Now that she was here and forced to articulate her need she found that she didn’t quite know how.

“His assistance?”

“Yes. Well, his knowledge. His scientific input. My sister is - she works in the Llanwelly mines, or rather she worked in them. And she has been in a weakened state the past few months. None of the doctors know what the matter is, and nothing seem to hel-”

“And why do you s-s-suppose Mr. Talbot would know any better?”

Rose blinked.

“He has one of the keenest scientific minds in Llanwelly! Everyone knows that.”

“They do, do they?” His blank stare turned ironic.

“Well, yes, he has -” Rose stopped. The man clearly resented his employer, and nothing that she could ever say at this moment would change that. “Well, that is, I was hoping to seek Mr. Talbot’s advice.”

“And, what?” the man rasped, eyes flat. “You th-th-thought he would help you out of the kindness of his heart? That he’s some b-b-benevolent benefactor? You can’t possibly be as naive as you look.”

Rose’s mouth tightened.

“I have no such delusions, I assure you. I am willing to recompense Mr. Talbot for his efforts.”

The man’s eyes stayed on Rose, a small frown forming between his brows.

“It won’t be cheap.”

“I - I can appreciate that.”

“Can you? It will d-d-demand more of my time. I’ll need to learn the details of your sister’s illness - the state of her health before the illness, all of those details - before I can even begin to decode the problem.”

Rose knew she was gaping in what Me would say was a most un-ladylike fashion.

“And then of course who knows how long it might take to solve the problem. That is -” he turned to look at Rose from under his heavy brows - “if there even is a solution.”

“I - you - you’re Mr - you’re not -”

The man - Mr. Talbot? - sighed, looking away.

“Yes, I’m Talbot. Monseratte Rafael Lawrence Talbot, second son of Talbot Senior, and -” his words slowed to a scornful, staccato cadence, “heir - to - Talbot - Manor. Or whatever’s left of it,” he added, sucking on his teeth.

His head swivelled back to her. “You can close your mouth now,” he said, waving his hand at her, before turning around and making his way down the path that curved along the side of the property.

Rose snapped her mouth shut and made to follow him, then, remembering her bag, ran back, looped it over her shoulder, and turned around to run after him again.

“Right, so you’re - you’re Mr. Talbot,” she panted, as she tried to keep up with his strides.

He grunted. “You won’t have t-t-to get your hearing checked, I see.”

“Alright, alright,” Rose acceded. “Yes. Well, would you - would you be able to help?”

“That d-d-depends, Miss Tic, on what you’re offering.”

“Tico. I can - offer - three hundred pounds now,” Rose said between huffs. Trotting after him with her bag hitting her leg was proving difficult. “And another three hundred pounds later.”

He stopped, swerving on his feet with a suddenness that had Rose almost careening into him.

He gazed at her with his flat eyes. “Th-th-that’s not nearly enough.”

“That’s…,” Rose inhaled, “not enough?”

He shook his head, his mouth screwing up apologetically. Though Rose had the distinct impression that he wasn’t apologetic at all.

“Right, well…,” Rose frowned, thinking, eyes dropping from his face to his throat, to the faded buttons on his jacket - “well, I could…try and get some more, I suppose.” Her family’s savings might have grown a bit in the time it would take for Mr. Talbot to complete his work.

“My services would require a th-th-thousand pounds.”

Rose’s eyes jumped to his face.

“A thousand pounds?” Somehow her voice did not squeak.

He nodded, his eyes on her.

Ever since Paige had gotten sick that small, glowing spark - hope - had stubbornly lodged itself in Rose’s chest. With each doctor’s visit, with each pronouncement of failure, it had faltered, flickered at first, but then it had always burned again in Rose with a vengeance.

Now, looking into the steady, dark eyes of this man - eyes, which seemed to offer steadiness only because emptiness tinged them - who so carelessly made demands that couldn’t even begin to imagine meeting, Rose felt that hope slowly fade away.

She breathed through her mouth, trying to ensure she would have control over her voice before she spoke.

“Th-Th-There is another option.” His rough, staccato words cut through Rose’s thoughts.

She blinked up at him.

“In addition to your three hundred pounds, I would be willing to accept your services.”

Rose frowned, and then, as realisation dawned on her, her jaw dropped.

“My - ?!”

The man scoffed, his flat expression disappearing for once to make way for exasperation.

“S-S-Spare me the scandalised virtue. I have no interest in schoolroom chits.”

Rose slowly closed her mouth again, still rendered speechless as her mind tried to grapple with offense after offense. She had left the schoolroom after all. For quite some time now.

“You c-c-claimed that you’re an electro-mechanic?” He inclined his head in question, though it felt most certainly like a challenge.

Rose lifted her chin, ignoring the flush of heat that still clung to her face. “I am.”

“Mm,” he grunted, nodding, his eyes running down the length of her, stopping for a moment at her waist where her toolbelt hung.

The assessment made her want to growl at him. Lord, all her polite manners were going to be in tatters.

“If th-th-that’s the case, I could use someone like you in the manor.”

“What do you mean?”

He scratched at the back of his head. “It’s been in disuse for some time. N-n-no doubt all of the foot-droids will need some attention. And then of course there’s the household equipment. Would your skills be up to the task?” He watched her out of the side of his eyes, his head tilted to one side. His eyes were narrow, sharp like the tip of a dagger, curving to dangerous points.

“If I say yes, how long would I be in service?”

He shrugged, mouth curving down, his eyes suddenly looking a lot less dangerous.

“That all d-d-depends, of course, on how long my work will take.”

Rose nodded, absent-minded. She had known that would be the answer.

“Fine. Yes. I accept.”

He stared at her for several moments longer before inhaling. “Alright, then.” He turned on his feet and started down the path again without sparing Rose another glance. This time she didn’t run to keep up. She still wasn’t entirely certain of what it was that she’d agreed to. And she wasn’t certain that she wouldn’t regret it.

She looked up to see that he’d stopped by a small gate set deep into the stone wall. Overhanging vines spilled insistently over it making it easy to miss. She heard the lock click, and he shoved the door open with a grunt. He stepped back, turning to her with an outstretched, chivalrous arm. She ignored it and the resulting chuckle from him, and stepped over the weed-ridden threshold.

#rose x dj #dj x rose #rose tico x dj #dj x rose tico #rose tico #star wars dj #the last jedi #sw #benicio del toro #kelly marie tran #my fanfic #tag you're it

17 notes · View notes