#“it's not your fault”

[angelwings-crossbowstrings]

Whumptober 2024 No.18 & No. 20

Prompt 18: Survivor’s guilt (Alt)

Prompt 20: “It’s not your fault.”

Warnings: Mentions of canonical character death

Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Fem!Reader

gif by @daryl-dixon-daydreams

There was no answer when you knocked, the silence as thick as the tension, making the door heavier and harder to open. The single candle had burned down to an oddly shaped sculpture, its curves and dips dimming the flame’s reach. The dinner tray you had brought earlier remained untouched, the soup cold and sandwich soggy.

Your heart ached just as much as it burned, scorched with rage that simmered just below your ribs. Daryl was on the edge of the mattress, staring blankly at the floor. It was as if he’d turned to stone, frozen within a nightmare. And you feared he had forever become trapped in a place you couldn’t reach.

“Daryl.” You tried, keeping your distance. He was a wounded animal, fearful and dangerous at the same time. He remained as he was. He had clung to you so tightly when he had clambered off the back of the bike, his legs giving and his tears flowing. It had been the only reaction you had seen from him in his day and a half back at Hilltop. “Daryl.”

You still didn’t approach, but finally he blinked, his bruised and bloodshot eyes sliding over to finally acknowledge you. The attention didn’t last. He was back to staring at the floor within seconds.

You risked two deliberate steps toward him before crouching, making yourself smaller in hope that it would not arouse the terror held at bay within him.

“You need to eat, sleep.”

Nothing.

Sighing, you slowly stood and stepped back before turning away, bending over the candle in preparation to blow it out, a new one beside it so as to keep the darkness away from your partner. The least you could do was stay, give him a measure of comfort that he wasn’t alone.

“Should’a been me.”

His voice was raspy, tired, and so unexpected that you gasped. When you spun to regard him, he hadn’t moved. “What?”

Daryl cleared his throat after an agonizing period of silence. “Was ready. Deserved it. Should’a been me.”

A flash of red, Glenn’s final words. Your lip quivered and your eyes closed as you gathered your bearings. “No.” You whispered, reassuming the earlier position a few feet from him. “Daryl, it’s not your fault.”

“Was. Is.” He muttered, a tear breaking free to cascade down his cheek. You wanted so badly to wipe it away and hold him.

“Negan was going to do what he was going to do. You had no influence over him.” You attempted, dropping to your knees and shuffling forward a few inches at a slow pace.

“F’I hadn’t—” The words dried up on the tip of his tongue, his eyes squeezing shut.

“Oh, Daryl.” You knew he would carry this forever, a guilt on his shoulders that he’d never shed. He still carried Beth after all this time. The weight had lessened, finally splintering off to allow you to carry a portion for him, a burden you were more than willing to bear for him. “You couldn’t stop him.”

His eyes slowly peeled open, wet and shining, and you could no longer stay away.

“Please.” You began. “Let me help you.” When his head turned, even with the heavy pain his expression bore, you had never been more relieved. No, that wasn’t true. The relief came when he nodded, a simple dip of his head that had you carefully climbing to your feet and approaching.

When your hand touched his shoulder, the dam broke. His hands found your waist and pulled you toward him, his face finding shelter against your stomach as his shoulders shook in silent sobs. Gentle fingers carded through his hair, hushed syllables making an effort to soak up even a portion of his suffering.

Each tear, each jerk of his body was gasoline on the inferno raging within you.

And Negan would burn.

[whumpdoyoumean]

Whumptober #20

part 1

xxx it's not your fault

Neal is slumped on the ground against the wall. His right arm is held tight against his stomach, and it looks like that's where the blood is coming from. Peter pulls out his phone, quickly dialing Jones as he crouches in front of Neal, setting the flashlight down on the ground.

"He's here," Peter says as soon as Jones answers. "We need an ambulance to his anklet coordinates, now."

He hangs up, shoving his phone in his pocket before reaching forward to give Neal's shoulder a gentle shake.

"Neal. Neal!"

Neal groans, lifting his head from where it's dipped down toward his chest. Peter can see now that there's a huge bruise forming over his left eyes and his lip is split.

"I knew you'd find me," Neal rasps. "Would've called but m' phone broke."

So that's why he'd stopped moving once he was outside of the perimeter. He'd gone just far enough to set the anklet off and then waited, knowing Peter would come find him and get help.

"Move your arm," he says, trying to ignore the guilt that rushes over him. He grabs Neal's hand when he doesn't move. "Come on, let me see."

Neal allows Peter to pull his arm away from his body, letting out a hiss of pain.

"Careful," he groans, and Peter realizes that the blood isn't from a wound on Neal's flank like he'd initially feared. That doesn't offer much relief, though; there's a huge gash on Neal's forearm, and it's bleeding badly.

"Ambulance is on the way," Peter says gently, reaching forward to pull the tie from around Neal's neck. He loops it around Neal's arm. Neal lets out a cry as Peter ties a tight knot.

"Sorry, about that," Peter murmurs. "Sorry, just trying to slow that bleeding down some."

Neal nods breathlessly, eyes screwed shut. There are little beads of sweat as his hairline and across his upper lip, though whether it's from the pain, or, god forbid, and early sign of hypovolemia, Peter's not sure. He puts a hand on Neal's shoulder. The man is trembling.

"What happened, Neal?"

Neal opens his eyes, staring down at his shoes.

"Owen Kang is dead."

For the second time in just a few minutes, his heart feels like it drops into his stomach. Owen Kang, witness in their current case.

"He – what?"

Neal looks up at Peter, and his eyes are shining with tears.

"He called me about an hour ago, told me he wanted to talk. I was going to tell you, Peter, really I was. But he begged me, and I just – I thought it would be fine. We were just a few blocks south of here, and this guy just-just came out of nowhere. His face was covered and he had gloves on and I knew. I knew he was there for Owen, and I pulled out my phone but he grabbed it from me and smashed it..." He trails off, pulling his lower lip between his teeth as tears roll down his cheeks.

"It's okay," Peter assures him. "Take your time."

"He went for Owen and I – I tried to stop him. That's why he cut me." He winces, as if remembering the moment the knife bit into flesh. "He wasn't actually going for me, I just got in the way. The second time I got in the way is when he hit me."

Neal's breathing starts to quicken and he closes his eyes. Peter tightens his grip on his shoulder. When Neal speaks again, his voice is quiet and strained.

"The guy hit like a boxer. By the time I came to, he was gone and Owen was...And my phone was broken, and the edge of the radius was closer than any people were, so."

He'd been knocked unconscious, then, long enough for the man to kill Owen and escape, which means that on top of the wound on his arm he's probably got a concussion. Concern and guilt, and anger at whoever did this, all twist in Peter's gut.

"You could've been killed," he says, and Neal lets out a miserable laugh.

"If he'd wanted to kill me, I would've been." He looks up at Peter, and his expression is one of anguish. "If I had just called you..."

"Don't," Peter says.

"Peter, a man is dead because of me." It's like all the strength drains from Neal and he slumps forward, dissolving into sobs as Peter wraps him in a hug, pulling him tight against his chest.

"It's not your fault," Peter says, relieved when he hears the approaching sirens of an ambulance. "Neal, it is not your fault. It's gonna be okay." He rubs one hand down the back of Neal's head. "Everything is gonna be fine."

xxx

[kybercrystals94]

Blame to Share

Read here on Ao3!

Whumptober 2024 - Day 20 - Prompts: Emotional Angst // Giving Permission to Die // "It's not your fault."

Rated: G | Words: 594

It’s been one year today; although nobody says it. 

They silently speak it in their postures, their eyes, their subduedness. 

Their silence on the subject screams, an agonized wail in a yawning chasm that is loss, mourning, and regret. 

Crosshair hears it. Because it’s his fault, isn’t it? That Tech is gone? Of course it is, and he won’t listen to their kark about it being Tech’s choice, that he did what he did because he loved all of them. That Tech did what he did to save them, and they will honor his sacrifice. 

Crosshair doesn’t want to be soothed, doesn’t want to be absolved. 

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” he tells his siblings at midday meal.

He has to leave, because he doesn’t know what he’d do if he stayed. 

“Where are you going?” Wrecker asks. 

Crosshair won’t meet any of their eyes, their gazes make his skin burn. “I need some time.” 

“We understand,” Hunter says. 

Crosshair believes they will try, and hopes they never do. 

He finds a quiet beach, gathers wood for a fire, and puts out his bedroll. He goes fishing for his late meal, standing in the surf, waves lapping around his knees. He roasts his catch over the fire, the crackling of burning wood integrating with the song of swelling nighttime. The stars appear, constellations Crosshair doesn’t know the names or patterns of forming before his eyes. 

Tech would know. 

Tech knew almost everything. 

And he shouldn’t be dead. 

“Who gave you permission to die?” Crosshair demands of the void where his lost brother should be. 

“Tech rarely asked permission for anything,” Hunter replies. 

Crosshair scowls into the flames as Hunter steps into the circle of firelight, a pack over his shoulder. 

“I said I’d be back tomorrow,” Crosshair tells him. 

Hunter tosses his bag next to Crosshair’s. “Told Wrecker and Omega the same thing.” 

“I said I need some time.” 

“And you got some.” Hunter sits down in the sand across from him, the fire between them. “I know what you’re doing.” 

“You don’t know anything.”

“I know you’re blaming yourself for what happened to Tech.” 

“And you don’t?” Crosshair spits. 

“I blame a lot of people,” Hunter says. “I blame the Empire, I blame Hemlock, I blame Saw Gerrera…I could go on and on, but I don’t blame you.” 

“But did you?” Crosshair asks. “Before?” 

Hunter sighs, clasps and unclasps his hands. “I blamed you for a lot of things, before. Doesn’t mean all those things were justified.” 

“If I hadn’t sent that message, you would never have been on Eriadu.” 

Hunter huffs. “Message or not, Crosshair, we would have come for you. The moment Tech found your CT number on the prisoner manifest–”

“Why?” Crosshair interrupts angrily. “I earned that prison cell, Hunter. You should have left me there!” 

Hunter frowns at him. “By the Empire’s standards, Crosshair, we all earned that cell, even Omega.”

Crosshair thinks bringing their sister into it is a low blow. “It’s not the same.” 

“Here’s the thing, Crosshair,” Hunter says. “You weren’t with us, and I made a call.”

“Stop it,” Crosshair whispers. 

Hunter doesn’t stop, shadows flickering across his face, the gleam of tear tracks catching in the light. “So, if any of us are to blame, for any of this…it’s me, Cross. Got it? Every single call I’ve made our whole lives, the good and the bad, I’ll have to live with.” 

Crosshair swallows. “Sounds like we’ve both got our share of the blame then.” 

Hunter doesn’t answer. 

Maybe there’s nothing else to say. 

END

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[stardustloki]

The Boundaries

After the Chancellor's death, Fox takes a job offered to him by Bail Organa.

For over two years, he's believed himself defective, has believed that everything that Palpatine did to him was for his own good, and even knowing that he was a Sith Lord can't erase all the lessons that Fox learnt from him.

But perhaps, in time, Fox can discover that he isn't as much of a failure as he was led to believe.

- Tags: Gen, T, No Archive Warnings, Fox & Bail Organa, Fox & Thire,

Healing, Past Trauma, Hurt/Comfort, Self-Esteem Issues, Anxiety, Burn-out, Past Abuse, Non-graphic references to past torture and medical experimentation, For Fox day (10 days late counts, right?)

-

Read it on ao3 here.

Or below the cut.

-

“I am so glad you decided to accept the job offer,” Bail Organa tells him as they walk into his office. 

The doors fall shut behind them, in a way that makes Fox wince internally, before he tells himself to get a grip. So, he’s trapped (no, not trapped, he can walk out any second, he can leave if he wants to, he can)- he’s alone in an office with his new boss.

This is fine. He took this job because he’d known the Senator of Alderaan for two years now, two years in which he has been nothing but good to Fox. He is nothing like the Chancellor was.

But, despite everything, he cannot ignore the fact that Palpatine had been kind to him too, far kinder to him than many people had been, and had given him lots of chances where he hadn’t deserved them.

Fox can leave.

He knows this. He does.

-

The war had ended three months ago, when Wolffe’s chip had malfunctioned, and Plo Koon had gone on a protective rampage that had ended with the Chancellor dead.

He’d been a Sith lord, apparently.

Initially, Fox had found this quite hard to believe; he’d had been so welcoming, had called Fox by his name (whenever he didn’t mess up too badly), and had been far more patient than he could ever justify.

“Fox,” Wolffe had said, more softly than he had ever heard him speak, sitting across from Fox’s bed in the Jedi’s Halls of Healing, a fresh bandage on his head from where his chip had been removed, “he tortured you.”

Fox had said nothing, merely pushing his skinny arms under the soft blankets so that the lightning scars and needle marks hadn’t been visible. As terrified as he’d been of the man, the Chancellor had never done anything to him he hadn’t deserved, and, even if he hadn’t liked it, Fox had known it - Palpatine had made sure he understood how forgiving he had been.

Then, Master Che had shown him the inhibitor chip that had been inside his brain, and the screen of the datapad that Mereel Skirata had connected to it, the Null Clone having sliced through the security measures easier than breathing. The datapad showed the chip had been used regularly, to make him hurt people, to make him forget large swathes of time.

Later, Fox would blame the surgery for the fact that he spent the next few minutes shaking as he threw up bile into the refresher.

When he could speak, he’d explained what Palpatine had done, explained that he’d run lots of tests on Fox with the most advanced medical droids, droids who had been helping him to get better.

“Did they actually make you feel better?” Vokara Che had asked.

Fox had thought about his creeping suspicions, about the fact that he’d tried not to wonder if the tests and the treatments were what had been making him even more dizzy and disorientated, making his fatigue dig its claws ever deeper into him.

He’d thrown up again.

So, Palpatine was a Sith Lord who had been hurting him for his own sick amusement. Okay.

This didn’t mean that he was wrong though, this didn’t mean that Fox wasn’t a failure.

—

When Organa tells him the shift pattern, Fox lets himself frown.

“So, I’m only going to be working eight hours a day,” he clarifies.

Organa nods. “Technically, it is only seven hours in total, when you include breaks, which of course you will be paid for.”

Well that- that made no sense. Why would Fox be given breaks when he was working for such a short amount of time, and paid ones no less? This had to be some kind of trick… but Senator Organa had never been known for those, so what was this?

“And when I pass my ‘probation’-” there is a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach that says he won’t. He would have been decommissioned for his mistakes long ago if Palpatine hadn’t wanted to watch him suffer- “I presume I will be moving up to doubles or triples.”

“No,” Organa says, face very calm in the way it only gets when he is very angry with someone in the Senate, but he doesn’t want to show it. Fox stiffens. “There will be a few events that require longer hours, special occasions or festivals and the like, but you will not be working sixteen hour shifts. Aside from the fact that it is illegal, it would not be in my best interests for the people guarding me to be exhausted.”

“Yes, sir,” he agrees automatically, but there’s a deeply jaded part inside of him that just laughs. That’s never going to be true.

“The way Palpatine-” Organa all but spits his name- “and my esteemed colleagues treated you is wrong. You know that, don’t you?”

—

When Senator Organa had offered him the job after three months of medically-mandated downtime, Fox had leapt at the chance, despite the fact that half of him was screaming at him to stay away from Natborns, and the Senate building most of all.

But he’d always been pretty good at pushing past his fear, he’d never have made it out of training if he hadn’t.

The last few months had been strange. At first, he’d been on medical leave, forbidden from looking after his men until Master Che had fully understood the effects of the Chancellor’s experiments. And then, there had been no more Coruscant Guard.

Learning of the chips had shaken the Republic, and the Clone sections of the GAR had been quickly disbanded. It had only been at the pushing of the Jedi, concerned Senators such as Organa, Amidala and Chuchi, and - most surprisingly of all - members of the general public, that the mass ‘decommissioning’ had only been a discharge from the military. They were luckier still that them leaving the army had necessitated the Republic granting them citizenship, and - to prevent them roaming around as Separatist mercenaries or some such ridiculous idea - they had been given accommodation and a ‘small’ amount of money each month.

Looking at the amount of money he now had in his bank account (something that was quite difficult to secure with biometrics) Fox wondered what natborns considered a ‘lot’ of money - perhaps it would be the ‘starting salary’ Bail was going to pay him.

His brothers had done their best to integrate him into civilian life. One of the first things he and the other ex-Corrie Commanders had done was to go and see a holo about an imaginary war. It probably hadn’t been a good idea, as they’d all spent the entire time complaining about the unrealisticness of tactics and the injuries the characters suffered. But, at least how terrible it had been meant that none of them had gone into battle shock.

Next, Fox and Cody had tried laser tag. It was like combat sims, but for Natborns, and the training bolts weren’t meant to hurt at all (which seemed a bit stupid - how were you meant to learn to dodge them if you didn’t have a proper reason to?). They’d shown up at the same time as a party of Twi’lek cadets, none of whom had wanted to split up and join their team. That had been fine, Fox and Cody had obliterated them 2 v 15… or would have, if they hadn’t been asked to leave when Fox had started to climb on the scenery to get a better vantage point.

When they’d gone for drinks at 79s afterwards, they’d decided to claim it a victory nonetheless.

But most of the time, Fox had slept. He wasn’t quite sure why - he’d survived just fine on an average of four hours a night for a year.

Okay, okay, even he wasn’t stubborn enough to claim that he’d been fine - he’d felt awful, the fatigue like an anchor in his bones, dragging him under the seas of Kamino - but surely he’d slept enough. Surely months on he shouldn’t be wanting to spend most of his time in bed.

“Burnout,” Master Che had called it.

“Your body was pushed to the limit for over a year, Fox. It’s gonna need some time to recover,” Risk had said.

Whatever, Fox had had enough time. He hated it, the sitting around doing nothing. Okay, he didn’t hate all of it, he loved being able to spend time with his brothers, but he hated enough of it. It was making him antsy, day after day with no purpose.

Fox had been designed to protect Natborns, to feel armour on his body and a blaster on his hip, and without that purpose he was nothing. He hadn’t even been able to protect his brothers, they’d been getting along just fine without him.

So, when Bail Organa had offered him the job, despite the tightening in his chest, he’d felt like he was finally able to breathe again.

—

There isn’t much different about providing security for Bail Organa than there was running security in the senate.

Okay, that isn’t true. There is a lot that’s different, but the security aspect is the same at least, lots of thinking about exits, vantage points, coordinating with a team.

The team he works with is no longer his brothers which is- which is fine . He spends his whole day with Natborns but nothing bad happens, not exactly. 

They offer him caff, which Fox always refuses because he can never tell if they are joking or not, and in any case the shiny caff machine in the kitchenette is too nice for the likes of him. They try to ask him about his life, but the few times Fox’s answers are longer than monosyllabic leave them staring at him like he’s weird and defective, and it makes his skin crawl and his heart race. He knows well that it’s never a good thing to be deviant, so he makes himself as quiet and unobtrusive as possible, from then on only joining in on conversations about work.

When the others take breaks they chat to each other, or watch something on their holopads if they’re alone. Fox doesn’t. When he's told to take a break, he sits in a corner somewhere, reading the latest updates about security and weaponry, and all the dangers that could threaten Senator Organa, unable to risk looking idle. It’s alright for Natborns to relax, it’s never been okay for him. He only starts hesitantly munching on a single ration bar in his lunch period when the others make a fuss about it - he doesn’t need this much food, but it’s better not to get noticed.

They haven’t hurt him, yet, or done anything to show him his place in their hierarchy - unlike what’s happened to some of his Corries that have tried to get jobs on Coruscant - which he supposes he’s grateful for. One month in and he’s almost wondering if he can relax around them.

He can never truly relax though. And though he’s made sure he’s always punctual and his behaviour perfect, there’s always a voice in the back of his head telling him this won’t last, that he’ll do something wrong and everything will go back to how it’s always been.

It hasn’t. Yet. In fact, Fox has made quite a few small errors - or things he knows other Senators would have considered errors - and no one has picked him up on them. It’s strange, disorientating, it almost makes him feel more unsafe. The voice in the back of his head starts to hope that he’ll fuck something big up soon, just so this facade will end, just so he can see how things really are, they can get back to how they were supposed to be and he can stop waiting.

Honestly, he berates himself, there probably isn’t a bigger di’kut than Fox in the entire universe, wanting this calm to end, wanting to be punished for something, it just shows how wrong and broken something inside him is. He should be relishing this relative peace and instead a part of him wants things to go back to how they were before. It’s stupid. He’s stupid. 

He hates himself for it.

-

Despite his initial confusion around the short shifts, he quickly finds himself grateful for them, and dreads the time when more work will inevitably be piled on. 

Whenever he gets back home at the end of the day, he finds he can do little more than collapse on the creaky couch the Corrie Commanders took from their base to their new apartment, wrapping himself up in the soft blankets that cover it. Thorn had bought them all with his first paycheck, to replace the holed and blood-stained throw that they’d acquired and shared during the war, the one that now stays on Fox’s bed. Thire had gaped at it when he’d seen it there, instead of back in the trash where they’d found it, but he’d had to eat his words several nights later after a nightmare - it might look terrible compared to their new brightly-patterned ones, but there’s something comforting about the fact that it had been one of the first things they had been able to call theirs .

The exhaustion is beyond frustrating. Why, when he had once worked for 72 hours straight, can he not cope with eight hours with breaks ?

“You need to be patient with yourself,” Stone says.

Fox pulls the blankets over his head and ignores him.

-

He’s been there almost two months when he wakes up late. It’s fine, he’s fine. He throws on his uniform and probably breaks several traffic laws getting there (but his ident chip is still set to law-enforcement because the CSF hasn’t bothered to change it, and will cancel out any code in the cam-droids that might catch him). He gets to the start of his shift on time.

He hasn’t had his caff though.

This isn’t actually a problem. Whatever his brothers might say, his blood hasn’t actually been replaced by the stuff, and he doesn’t need it to function.

The fancy machine sits in the corner of the kitchenette, taunting him. He doesn’t need it.

His first break comes and goes and his headache grows and his exhaustion doesn’t fade. But Fox is stronger than this - he’s gone through everything Kamino and Coruscant could throw at him and come out the other side.

But, he thinks as the second part of his shift continues, why should he need to be stronger? Everyone has said he’s equal to the Natborns here, everyone has said he’s allowed to drink the caff. So, why not test it? At least then he’ll know, at least then he’ll be able to stop waiting.

So, during his lunch break, he switches on the caff machine. His hands don’t shake, his fingers don’t tap against the worktop, and his breath is steady - he has a lot to thank Kamino for to be honest, it really made him excellent at pretending he isn’t being swallowed up by his own fear.

When he shoves himself into his customary corner he finds that he cannot focus on the article he’s pulled up on his datapad. This is fine, he can just pretend to read it as he sips the delicious caff he can barely taste, as his eyes flicker up to his colleagues as they enter and leave the room.

By the time his break is over his heart is racing, and his limbs are thrumming with an adrenaline he can’t get rid of, but he’s finished his drink. No one’s even much more than glanced at him.

The end of his shift rolls round. In this time, no one’s held him down and poured the boiling water from the caff machine over him, like Senator Apval and his friends had done to Ely early on in the war when the shiny had been naive enough to believe that the offer of a drink was genuine. Fox can still remember his screams as he was treated in the medbay. But the point is, Fox hasn’t been punished for the infraction of pretending he’s as good as a Natborn yet, and a small part of him doesn’t believe he will be.

Then again, Palpatine had liked to let him think he’d gotten away with stuff too.

The next day, Fox has barely slept, but he comes in before the start of his shift with renewed vigour as he makes his way towards the caff machine. He refuses to wait around on tenterhooks anymore. If they are going to remind him of his place, well, he intends to make them get on with it. He pours himself a cup, sits down, drinks it.

No one says anything.

No one says anything the next day, or the next.

At the start of his next shift pattern, Groffith is standing next to the machine, and asks him how he’d like his caff. After a few seconds, Fox tells him.

Perhaps, for some weird reason, his colleagues and employer don’t consider good caff (the most delicious caff he’s ever tasted, to be honest) wasted on Clones.

Who would have thought it?

-

The day Fox has been waiting for comes.

He misses an assassin, whose blaster bolt sears by Senator Organa’s neck. It would have been through his head if Milla hadn’t started pushing him to the ground.

Organa was safe, no thanks to Fox.

Fox is the one to catch the assassin, to put them in binders and hand them over to the incompetence that is the Coruscant Security Force. It isn’t enough. It will never be enough.

He hadn’t checked the surroundings properly. He should have seen them, should have noticed.

If there had been a call that close with any other Senator-

If there had been a call that close with the Chancellor-

As his head starts to spin, he wonders how there could have been a part of him that wanted this to happen, have wanted him to fuck up this badly.

I’m sorry, Fox wanted to beg, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but the Chancellor had usually hated it when he’d done that.

He’s alone, with Senator Organa, who’s sitting behind his desk. Fox is standing straight backed on the opposite side, and hasn’t so much as twitched since they’d entered the office. Organa pulls out two glasses and a decanter from his bottom desk drawer and pours a small measure of alcohol into both.

“Sit down, Fox,” he orders, his tone exhausted as he wipes a hand across his forehead. To be honest, Fox isn’t quite sure how to move, it’s probably only his body’s long experience of obeying orders that allows him to.

He sits there, tense, waiting for Organa to speak because he knows he can’t.

“Please drink, you look like you need it even more than I do,” the Senator says, but all Fox can do is stare at it. He usually likes alcohol, the burn of it seeming to soak into his veins and calm him, but sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes he has days like today where all he can remember is being forced to drink things that made him feel disorientated and sick, but he is being ordered, and so he has to.

Fox cannot move, cannot make himself reach out and take the glass. His arm muscles feel as if they might snap.

Organa drains his own glass and lets it clunk on the table.

“I’m sorry,” Fox manages to say. “I should have seen them waiting on the balcony. I-”

He cuts off. What he is meant to say, what he should be saying to the Natborn is what he’s been trained his whole life to say, that he accepts whatever consequences Organa sees fit, but he doesn’t seem to get the words out. They stick in his throat as he realises just how afraid he is, a fact that is utterly ridiculous, Fox had never let his fear take over him like this before. But suddenly, with no one hurting him for the past eight months, he has become weak and afraid. 

Force, he’s pathetic.

Organa sighs. “Well, I can’t say I enjoyed almost getting shot. But these things do happen, and any fault that doesn’t lie with the person who actually tried to murder me isn’t entirely yours - the other three guards on shift could have spotted them as well.”

Fox frowns - he shouldn’t be, shouldn’t be expressing any confusion towards the Natborn, but he can’t help himself - this isn’t how it goes. Whenever there are other Natborns around it is always the Clones, always Fox, who gets the blame.

“Thank you for catching them.”

Fox just nods.

Organa calls Cody to come and pick him up.

-

Fox continues to come to work and be treated with respect. He keeps drinking the caff from the fancy machine. No one says anything. One day he comes in late. No one seems to pick up on this.

-

He does end up pulling a double shift, in the end. There isn’t much for it otherwise considering that numerous bounty hunters are trying to kill them (or rather, Senator Organa, and by extension, everyone guarding him).

By some miracle, he and all of his colleagues make it out alive. The bounty hunters, Fox acknowledges with a smirk, had not all been so lucky. It hasn’t been a bad day, all in all. Adrenaline has been rushing through his veins, but in such a way that it makes him feel alive. Fox is happy, and satisfied, and when he falls into bed in the early hours he sleeps deeply.

He wakes the next morning after four hours sleep, groggy and disorientated, feeling shivery, achy and exhausted. When he struggles to pull himself out of bed, Stone calls Risk, who starts running tests. They take far too long for Fox’s liking.

“I can go to work,” he insists, wondering why they are even having this conversation. “I’ve felt worse, you know I have. I’m not that ill.”

“You’re not technically ill,” Risk frowns, looking at his test results. “Your body’s just reacting against what you did yesterday, it’s warning you not to run yourself into the ground like you did last year.”

Fox actually gapes at him. “Kriffing- Karking- Shabla nu dar’haat, Risk, let me out of this bed. I kriffing survived on a couple of hours sleep every night for two years and this is what my body does now. Ha. No. Kark that.”

Risk shrugs, but surprisingly allows Fox to push past him and stumble towards the kitchen. “It’s not bullshit if it’s true!”

When he gets there, Thire is taking a holocall. “- yeah so he won’t be in today, but I’m sure he’ll be able to let you know whether he’ll be able to make the rest of the week later today.”

Fox feels his blood turn to ice as Thire hangs up.

“That was Organa wasn’t it?”

“Yeah he-”

Fox dives for the comlink, but Thire dodges, slipping it into his pocket, so instead he finds himself throwing him backwards to crash against the oven, blood pounding in his ears. 

“Give me my kriffing comlink you kriffing shabuir!”

Fox is the better fighter, usually, but Thire has the advantage of not feeling like absolute shit. Fox is also pretty sure the room isn’t spinning slightly for him either.

He finds himself dragged backwards, away from Thire, even as he desperately tries to struggle free. Stone, who’s gripping his right arm and shoulder blade in such a way as to almost immobilise him, tells him to calm down.

“Calm down!” Fox spits, anger searing through his veins. “Do you know what he’s just done!? I can’t have a day off, I can’t. Organa won’t let me. I’ll cost him money, I won’t be worth the credits. Stone. Stone you know this. You know we can’t be ill. Stone, tell him, Stone!”

There is a part of Fox that is aware he sounds almost hysterical, that is berating himself for acting like this. He’d never have done this last year, he’d never have broken down like this. He would have thought rationally, and just taken himself over to Organa’s or something. But last year Thire would never have dreamed of acting like this either. What the kriff had gotten into him. They weren’t people who could just take ‘days off’ if they felt a bit ‘under the weather’.

“Organa said it was fine,” Thire argues, like he doesn’t know you shouldn’t ever trust Natborns, even the ones that paid you and let you drink their fancy coffee and didn’t have you beaten or your men decommissioned for almost failing to stop an assassination attempt. “And if he dares hurt you for it, I’ll tell Master Yoda, or get Mereel to override the security and let Jar Jar lose in his office. Or, I’ll go to the Senate and make sure he regrets it myself.”

Fox gapes at him, watching the blood trickle from Thire’s nose where his elbow had caught him.

“We can’t trust him,” his voice is almost pleading. “We can’t.”

“Then why did you agree to work for him, Fox?” Risk asks.

Fox grits his teeth and refuses to answer.

-

Organa greets him warmly when he returns to work, his body feeling better, but his mind swimming with a terror he barely has under control. Fox sighs internally. He used to have a much better handle on things, he used to walk into Palpatine’s office knowing he was going to be tort… knowing that his behaviour was going to be corrected, with barely a glimmer of anxiety, his head feeling as if it was somewhere else entirely. He used to be completely in control.

He grits his teeth, Organa has greeted him warmly and asked how he is. He hasn’t ordered him into his office to explain to Fox exactly why his behaviour is lacking, and he won’t. Risk is right. This is why he took the job. He trusts Organa.

He’s just not sure how to get his body to realise that.

Instead of punishing him, later that day the Senator informs him he needs to make an urgent trip back to Alderaan the next day, and asks if he would like to be one of the security guards accompanying him on the mission (Fox obviously says yes, but he would have said yes anyway, even if he hadn’t been afraid). Organa also informs him that - whether Fox is able to come or not - the ship he’s travelling on has more than enough space, so if any of his brothers would like free transport to visit Alderaan, they are more than welcome.

When Fox gets back home that day, Thire teases him for worrying for no reason as he hands him a cup of hot-choklad. Fox rolls his eyes, he knows his vod’ika doesn’t mean anything by it. Thire has his own issues. He spends most of his time with the cadets at the temple, and won’t ever go near the Senate building again, has told Fox he wishes he could burn it to the ground, hates that he can’t because he thinks too hard about the collateral damage, doesn’t understand how Fox can walk through its halls day after day.

Fox doesn’t know either. It probably has something to do with the fact he doesn’t know what else he’d do with his time, and the fact that it did offer him things such as a front row seat to Senator Apval’s arrest in the Rotunda following a joint investigation by Senators Amidala and Chuchi. He can’t help but smirk every time he remembers the expression on the man’s face as his arrest was broadcast live over the holonet.

-

The next month, life day is approaching, and Fox is told he has to take part in ‘team-building’. Fox would say he was rather good at this, when it involves having to get an injured squad member from one side of the training grounds to the other, when all the time the training droids are shooting at you. He isn’t so sure about an ‘escape room’.

Fox and five of his colleagues end up ‘locked’ in a room, and told they have 60 minutes to escape. He finds himself grimacing - this would be so much easier if he were just allowed to kick the door down. He glances at his team members. He knows so much about them - their families, their favourite holonet shows, what they like to eat - but only from listening to them talk to each other. Since the beginning Fox has kept himself separate. He knows stuff about them, but they don’t know him.

The others are very good at all the cultural references that Fox can’t get, which is a relief, because they wouldn’t be escaping otherwise and the ‘team-building’ exercise would be pointless.

What is surprising, is that when Fox is asked to help them with the logic puzzles, and he manages to do them far more quickly than any of them, they don’t seem angry. If Fox has learnt anything in the first 12 years of his life, it is that Natborns tended to hate it when a clone outsmarts them, but these guys don’t seem to. In fact, they are ecstatic when him solving one of the puzzles gets them into the final part of the room. 

He supposes it’s okay when your skills mean that real people can also be successful. But then, these guys have always surprised him. Despite the fact that they look at him weirdly when he talks sometimes, they have always tried to include him in their banter, and they’ve never hurt him.

When they escape, with 7 minutes 52 seconds to spare, they invite him out for a drink. Feeling unusually confident, Fox goes with them. He orders something non-alcoholic (unwilling to get drunk in a bar that isn’t 79s), but so do two of the others, so he guesses this is okay.

They play darts in one of the corners, and, at the start Fox makes sure he loses deliberately. That is until it becomes a competition between them and a group of strangers who drunkenly bet a round of drinks that they can do better than them. Fox wipes the floor with them, and Bess hoists him on their shoulders as they cheer and accept the drinks.

Fox is starting to think he might be having fun at a bar without his brothers, which is a bit of a novel experience.

“You know,” Groffith says, sipping his drink as he sits beside him at one of the high tables. “You’re alright. You should come out with us more often, kid.” Fox finds himself bristling at the last part but the man only laughs, clapping him on the shoulder. He deliberately doesn’t flinch at the contact. “I don’t mean anything by it. I’m 143 and your hair barely has any grey in it. I’ve seen you fight, I know you’re skilled.”

He sighs, staring into his glass. “You should come out with us more. We like you around. You just- You’re just not very easy to get to know, gotta whole lot of walls around you and when you let them down you tell us stuff like that kriffing Orn Free Taa used to-” He cuts himself off again with a shake of his head. “I guess we just don’t know what to say to stuff like that. We’ve seen a lot of shit but what they used to do to you Clones, that’s fucked up, man. So. You’re gonna stick around with us, right?”

There’s a lump in Fox’s throat. All he can do is nod.

It is then a new group of Natborns approach them, drunk, but not in the reckless and easygoing way the darts group had been earlier, these five have eyes full of hatred when they look at Fox, and their mouths are set into a snarl.

“We don’t like meat-droids here,” one of them says, shoving Fox off his stool. His push is weak and uncoordinated, and if he had had any real choice in this, Fox wouldn’t have let himself fall. But as it is, he just goes with it. Long experience has shown him that in situations like these, it's better if a Clone doesn’t defend themselves, if they just wait for it to be over and hope the Natborn’s thirst for violence is easily satisfied.

Groffith doesn’t seem to have got this memo, and when Fox looks up from the floor it’s to see him punching the guy square in the face.

-

Six months after Fox had first started his job as Bail Organa’s security guard, he finds himself seated across from him in his office. There’s a datapad in between them. If Fox didn’t know that Senator Organa appreciated eye contact, he wouldn’t have been able to take his eyes off him.

“Obviously, this appraisal is nothing to worry about,” Organa says, because clearly Fox isn’t doing a good job at hiding how tense he is. “As your employer I’m mandated by bureaucracy to do one every six months. This also serves as the end of your probation period, which clearly you’ve passed with flying colours.”

“What?” The question is out before he realises it and Fox can do nothing but wince as he looks down at the datapad. There’s a table on it, with tick boxes. All the ticks have been put in the ‘excellent’ category.

“This can’t be right,” Fox says, as he grips his legs tightly to stop his hands from shaking. He’s spent weeks and weeks thinking about this, about how Organa hasn’t brought up any ways he’s disappointed with him before, but this meeting was sure to be the perfect time.

“It is,” Organa replies, voice calm. “Fox, I contacted you to offer you this job because I saw how you worked in the Senate, your competence never ceased to impress me. Throughout these past months I have continued to be impressed by your abilities and your work ethic.” Fox was somewhat aware that he had moved his gaze back up to Bail Organa’s and he was now openly gaping at him. “Though, I will admit, perhaps I should add a box for confidence, and then say that ‘requires improvement’.”

He smiled at Fox. Despite himself, Fox found himself smiling back.

Next, Organa updated Fox’s holo-badge to show, in small-print aurebesh, that he was now a permanent member of his Guard. Fox couldn’t help but stare at it, wondering how all this had happened.

When he left the office, his badge wasn’t on his belt, but clutched in his palm. Physical, tangible proof that Fox could be good at something.

It was back in his palm when he went to bed that evening. He stared at it as the words glowed with a faint light. Fox. Security Guard for Senator Bail Organa of Alderaan.

He thought back to the review, back to all the boxes. ‘Excellent’, ‘Excellent’, ‘Excellent’, ‘Excellent’... He’d never even believed it possible, thought it only a matter of time before he turned out to be as useless at this job as he had been as leader of the Coruscant Guard.

Though, thinking about it, maybe he hadn’t been useless as leader of the Guard. Thorn had told him to look at all the kriffing shinies he’d saved from de-com. Cody had thrown back his head and laughed, asked him to explain how Fox could have done any better when he’d had to deal with a karking sith lord fucking with his head every day. Perhaps, Fox thinks, he should start making a bigger effort to believe them.

He sits, turning the badge over and over, smiling slightly as he wonders about the future, and thinks that it might not be that bad after all.

“Get more of those plush animals like your little bee,” Thire says to him from the opposite bunk. “You can’t sleep with a bloodstained blanket and your work-badge.”

Fox lobs a pillow at him.

[asocial-lobster]

Homesick

"Hey, Sailor? Are you okay?"

Wind frantically wiped his eyes. It was probably too late to hide he had been crying, but he tried anyway. The others already saw him as the child of the group. If he let them see him like this, he would only be confirming their biases. He would no longer be an equal. He'd be reduced to someone to be rescued. And after the adventures Wind had been through, he never wanted to be seen as helpless again. He'd earned the right to call himself hero of Hyrule.

"I'm fine," he said and cursed the tremor in his voice. Pirates were supposed to be good liars, damn it.

"Mhm," Sky said. He sat down beside Wind in the sand and looked at the ocean in front of them. It sparkled in the evening sun.

"Do you miss sailing?"

Wind looked at the man at his side while he contemplated how honest he should be. The skyloftian's brown hair swayed in the wind, framing a round and kind face. Maybe it was the combination of his gentle expression and intense eyes, but Sky had an odd way of always looking both sleepy and awake, Wind thought.

"I s'ppose so," Wind said.

"But that's not what's bothering you," Sky said. 

Wind sighed. "No."

They sat in silence for a while as the sun dipped closer to the horizon. Soon, the sky was bathed in red and orange hues. The ocean reflected the light. It was a spectacular sunset, but Wind knew it would be even more beautiful from the deck of his ship.

"The sunsets on Skyloft are amazing," Sky said like he'd read Wind's thoughts. "Sometimes Zelda and I go flying, just as the sun is setting. The red and orange is everywhere around you. It almost feels like you can touch the sun."

A wistful look had appeared on the older boy's face. He often spoke of his Zelda and his friend, Groose, but Wind had yet to meet either of them; he hadn't been to Sky's era yet. He knew that the knight's home was a floating island - which was, you know, weird - but he didn't know much else about it. 

"What's Skyloft like?" Wind asked.

"I'm not even sure where to begin," Sky said. "It's so different from the other eras I've seen."

He hesitated. 

"Living on Skyloft feels like the rest of the world is just out of reach. The horizon is endless and there's a whole world beneath the clouds, just waiting to be discovered. But you're confined to the island itself."

He sent Wind a smile.

"That's how it used to be, at least. The cloud cover disappeared after my adventure, and we've begun exploring the Surface."

Wind could get behind wanting to see the world. He'd felt the same way when he was small, looking at the endless ocean but unable to leave his island. Until his adventure, of course.

"Why couldn't you explore until after your adventure?" Wind asked. "Did you have to stay with your family?"

"Skyloft is very small. Everyone knows everyone, so the island feels like one big family," the knight answered, something in his eyes suddenly turning bittersweet. "But I don't have any parents or siblings. So to answer your question, no it wasn't because I had to stay with my family. Hylia herself made it so that it was impossible to cross the cloud cover."

"What happened to your parents?" Wind asked cautiously.

"There was a virus when I was little," Sky said. "Like I said, Skyloft is very small, so it spread quickly. My parents didn't make it."

Oh. Wind looked at the knight and wondered what else he was hiding. Sky was always so patient and kind. Wind had thought he was an open book. He was only now realizing how much he had yet to learn about his past.

"I'm sorry about your parents."

"I'm okay," Sky promised with a small smile. "It was a long time ago."

He bumped Wind's shoulder with his own.

"What about you? Do you have family back home?"

The burning in Wind's eyes intensified. He sniffled.

"I have my grandma and a little sister." 

"What's your sister like?"

Wind smiled shakily. 

"Aryll has a lot of energy. She likes climbing trees and dancing and swimming. That sorta thing. I'd promised to take her sailing when I came home from dealing with the dungeon."

A tear finally escaped his grasp and slid down his cheek.

"And then I left without even saying goodbye."

"That wasn't your fault," Sky said. "You couldn't have known we'd show up that day. And you weren't in control of that portal either."

Wind shook his head. While it was true he hadn't exactly been expecting to run into a group of heroes from other timelines in the dungeon, he had still left his grandma and Aryll behind. And it'd been weeks since then.

"I didn't even get to explain what happened," he said. "They must think I'm dead."

The tears started flowing more freely, and Wind couldn't have stopped them if he tried. Sky put an arm around him and held him close.

"We'll find a way to let them know what really happened," the knight promised. "Maybe we'll even get to visit your era soon, we've already been to Four's world twice."

Sky put his cheek to Wind's hair.

"We'll figure it out. You'll be okay. You'll be okay."

And Wind let himself be cry into Sky's shoulder until he had no tears left. The knight's voice was low and soothing. The breeze smelled of salt – of home – and the gentle lapping of the waves made for a pleasant background noise.

"You'll be okay," Sky whispered.

Wind settled into the older boy's hold and tried to believe it.

[amethystfairy1]

"Maybe I should get you some sleepy time tea or something...?" -Etho, probably.

Making 70 WORKS in TTSBC we've got the whumptober prompt for today! Please check it out, I hope you enjoy it!

[brucewaynehater101]

WHUMPTOBER 2024: PROMPT #20

Emotional angst, giving permission to die, "It's not your fault"

TW: blood, main character death, pain, ableism CW: anti-religious sentiment, HURT NO COMFORT

[cosmicobubisi]

Cosmic's Malleyuu Whump vs Flufftober: Day 20

shoulder to cry on | "it's not your fault" / Paw

Continued from day 6, day 14 and day 16.

Yuu let Tsunotaro drape a blanket over them.

"I mean, it's just kind of ridiculous, right?" they said indignantly, crossing their arms to bolster their point.

Tsunotaro nodded, nosing a pillow to Yuu.

"And- oh thank you," they said, adjusting the pillow. "And I just can't keep arguing in circles with everyone else!"

Tsunotaro chirped in agreement, and Yuu grabbed into one of the scales on his chin to bring him in closer.

He settled in right away next to them, letting Yuu rest their arm on his head.

Yuu had just gotten out of a rough staff meeting, and was now ready to decompress away from spiteful professors and penny-pinching admin staff.

The commute from Tsunotaro's cave to the school was not an easy one. It involved a lot of walking, often largely unprotected from the elements, and it was sincerely beginning to exhaust Yuu.

But the spacious cave allowed the two of them to do this, and so Yuu would continue to make it work until they came up with a better solution.

And Tsunotaro tried to make it as good for them as possible, by making sure they were well taken care of once they got home.

"It's just totally impossible to make any level of progress in any direction, whether that's in teaching or in my research, if they don't wanna give me any funding for it!" exclaimed Yuu, nearly whacking Tsunotaro in the snout with their aggressive gestures.

He nodded again, licking Yuu quickly on the cheek.

They giggled. It tickled, and Tsunotaro knew that.

"They complain I can't be there all the time," grumbled Yuu. "It's not my fault."

Tsunotaro paused, making a small noise of distress.

"Oh! No, I don't mean- my point was, they're making an unreasonable request."

Tsunotaro make another little noise that showed he didn't fully believe them, but kept up his ministrations as he fussed with Yuu's pillows.

"Hey. I shouldn't have said that. You know it's not your fault, right?" they insisted.

He nodded, but his eyes couldn't meet theirs.

"Besides," said Yuu, grabbing the scale in his chin again. "We couldn't do all of this."

Tsunotaro was sprawled across a vast section of his newest cave, which they'd actually been in for about a year now. His instincts guided him to a cave, and his large, sprawling dragon form was taking up most of the floor space, in addition to quite a bit of the ceiling.

Yuu gave Tsunotaro a kiss on the snout, and he smiled, melting into their touch.

The cave, despite its size, became surprisingly warm with enough work. The fire was roaring, and Yuu was quite comfortable under their mountain of blankets. It was a reprieve from the cold rain they'd had to walk through on their way home from the school.

Yuu reached out to hug Tsunotaro, who allowed himself to be hugged. They felt his warmth seep into them, and sighed, giving him another kiss.

He rumbled, and Yuu laughed. "I know, I know, you get it. I just wanted to make sure."

They stayed there, cuddled side by side, until they fell asleep to the pounding of the rain.

[actress4him]

Whumptober 2024 - Day 20

Emotional Angst | Shoulder to Cry On | “It’s not your fault”

Contains: generic whumpee and caretaker, crying, comfort, referenced abandonment, self-blame

“I don’t know what I did wrong.” Whumpee stared hard at a piece of artwork across the room, determined to look anywhere but at Caretaker. If they looked at Caretaker, they would start crying, and that seemed like the worst possible thing right then. 

“But…it had to be something, right? There has to be a reason that they hate me. That they…abandoned me. I keep racking my brain, trying to figure out what it was, if there was anything I could have done differently, but…maybe…maybe it’s just…me. Maybe I’m just unlovable. Maybe I’m just so messed up, so not right, that they couldn’t stand to be around me anymore.”

“Hey. Whumpee.” Caretaker’s voice was soft, but their tone was firm. “You can’t do that to yourself. There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“But there has to be!” Despite their best efforts, tears were burning at their eyes, and they blinked rapidly to try to stave them off. “Either that, or I did something to make them hate me, because -”

“It’s not your fault, Whumpee.”

“Then why?” Their voice broke, and they breathed out a sob, both their posture and expression crumpling. “Why did they leave me?”

“Come here.” Ever so gently, Caretaker’s arms slid around them, pulling Whumpee into themself. “You need to let it out.”

They didn’t want to let it out, but they had no choice at that point. The dam was broken, and all the pain and anguish came flooding out of them as they fell apart in Caretaker’s arms. 

Caretaker let them cry for as long as they needed to, rocking slightly. “It’s not your fault,” they repeated in a whisper. “It’s theirs. You’re good, okay? There isn’t anything wrong with you, you’re good, and you’re loved.”

[alicewritingstories]

Whumptober 2024 Fills Part 3: Aftermath

AO3

Fandom: Legend of Zelda (Breath of the Wild)

Central Character(s): Link and Zelda

No.8: SLEEP DEPRIVATION | Isolation Chamber | Forced to Stay Awake | "Leave the lights on." (Coldplay, Midnight)

No.12: STARVATION | Underground Caverns | Cannibalism | "Just a little more."

No.15: CHILDHOOD TRAUMA | Painful Hug | Moment of Clarity | "I did good, right?"

No.18: REVENGE | Unreliable Narrator | Loss of Identity | “I see what's mine and take it.” (Panic! at the Disco, Emperor's New Clothes)

No.20: EMOTIONAL ANGST | Shoulder to Cry On | Giving Permission to Die | "It's not your fault."

No.27: VOICELESS | Laboratory | Muzzled | “I have no mouth and I must scream.”

No.29: FATIGUE | Labyrinth | Burnout | "Who said you could rest?"

No.31: ASKING FOR HELP | Therapy | Making Amends | "I'm alive, I'm just not well." (Elliot Lee, Alive, Not Well.)

Warnings: Past emotional abuse, brief (non-graphic) mention of injury

Also a sequel to Febuwhump 2024 Day 29

---

Link was trembling in Zelda's arms, not sure what to do, not sure how to stop the tears pouring down his cheeks, not sure what she even wanted of him now. He didn't remember anyone ever touching him like this. It… was almost painful in a way that wasn't due at all to pressure on his injuries or the ache of hunger in his belly or the thumping headache caused by trying to replace sleep with stamina elixirs.

"Princess," he slurred out through a tight throat. He'd called her Zelda before and he wasn't sure that was right.

He wasn't sure about anything any more. Since he'd woken up in the Shrine of Resurrection and heard her voice he'd had one purpose: save the princess. Kill the Calamity and save the princess.

He'd done that.

Now what?

Did he go back to being her dutiful knight? Was that what she wanted of him? He didn't think he knew how to do that any more. He wasn't who she remembered. He didn't think he ever could be again.

Trembling himself, he slowly put his arms around her. She squeezed him a little tighter and a shiver went though him, warm and cold all at once.

He wasn't used to hugs. Since he'd woken up nobody had hugged him.

It… it felt strange. Good, but strange.

She snuggled impossibly closer, still crying into his shoulder.

"I'm so sorry," she mumbled. "I… I'm sorry, I…"

He shook his head. He was the one who had failed. He coughed to clear his throat and struggled to get the words out, hating how difficult it was to be articulate. He hoped the sound of his voice wouldn't disappoint her.

"It… 's not… your f…fault," he managed at last. "You t-t-ried… so hard."

She sat back on her heels, sniffling and wiping fruitlessly at her eyes.

"You… fought all alone… so long," he said slowly, the words coming out so rusty and awkward. "I… I'm sorry. Should… should've… protected you. Took… too long. Sorry…" His breath caught and he swallowed, trying to sniff back his own tears, trying to yet again put aside the hunger and pain and exhaustion. He didn't know who he was any more, but he could try to go back to being her knight. He could try.

"No," she said. "No, don't… don't apologize. I… I don't even have… the right to ask for help… when… it's all my fault. All of it." Her voice cracked into a wail and she buried her face in her hands again.

"No!" he rasped out.

"My father… he always said… I could… if I really wanted… And he… he was right," she said between sobs. "If… If I'd just…"

Tentatively, he put his arms around her again and guided her head back onto his shoulder. He didn't know what to say. He wanted to somehow express that her father's words had been cruel and unfair. That he knew she'd tried as hard as she could. That he had no explanation for why she had finally found her power when she had. He wanted to tell her about the memories of her he had clawed back together and what he'd seen of her pain and her longing, but the words slipped off his tongue and out of his mind as they always did.

At last, as she got too tired to keep crying and her sobs began to ease, he managed, "I remember… the Spring of P-Power. You… really wanted… t-tried so hard… I… believe in you. Did your b-best."

"No." She hiccupped. "No… I was capable of… of using that power… so the… the fact it didn't work… means I wasn't doing my best…"

For a moment a memory sparkled up out of the darkness in Link's mind: listening in helpless silence as King Rhoam berated Zelda yet again.

Father, I'm doing my best! I really am and you said that was all anyone could do!

If you were doing your best, you would have unlocked your power by now.

He blinked and was back in Hyrule Field again.

"Link?" Zelda had pulled back again and was looking at him in confusion.

He shook his head and swallowed hard. "M-Memory," he said. He swallowed hard and scrambled over words for a moment, once again struggling to articulate what he wanted to say.

To his relief, she just laid her head on his shoulder again and said softly, "Take your time, it's OK."

"I… remembered… your father telling… you th-that. That thing you j-just said. And… he was wrong. You always… did your b-best. D-dont rem… remember much, b-but I remember th… that."

There was a long pause, during which she didn't move from leaning against him. At last, she said, "You really think so?"

He nodded. "Did good."

She laughed, though it turned halfway into another sob. "I did good?"

He laughed too. "You did good."

And suddenly they were laughing together instead of crying, though he wasn't even sure what they were laughing about. He was so tired and he guessed she was too. He didn't know who he was any more or what he was supposed to do now, and as he remembered how driven she had been to unlock her power and how much she had been forced towards that as the only purpose of her life, he guessed she felt much the same. There was really nothing to laugh at, but still they laughed and cried all mixed up together until they were worn out, leaning on each other. Link's head and stomach and throat all ached. He felt a little dizzy as the last of the adrenaline faded from his system.

"What shall we do now?" asked Zelda, sounding as lost as he felt.

"Eat?" he murmured without thinking.

She laughed again. "Oh, Link… I… I am hungry, actually. Oh, I'm hungry." Another hysterical laugh. "A hundred years and I wasn't… but I didn't need to eat." Her breath caught. "I'm going to… I'm going to need so much help getting used to… being alive again."

He pulled back and dug in his pouch to pull out a perfect egg tart that he'd made at the last stable when he was preparing to make this final approach to the castle. He'd thought at the time it was probably a waste of space that he should use for another elixir - and he could have done with another mighty elixir in the battle - but had made this instead, with some premonition that he'd want it. And now he knew what he wanted it for.

"Oh!" she exclaimed as he handed it to her. "For… for me? These are my favorite!" She looked up, eyes shining. "Did you… remember?"

He rubbed the back of his neck. He didn't want to lie to her. "Not… really? Thought… might want… something." He could feel himself blushing. "And thought of… this. It's for you." Maybe he had remembered, even if he didn't know it.

Her eyes were still bright as she took a bite, but then she closed them with a long sigh. "Oh… Link, thank you so much," she said.

He smiled back, his heart full despite his exhaustion and hunger and the pain of his injuries.

He'd done it. He'd fulfilled the oath his former self had made. He'd saved the princess. He'd defeated the Calamity.

He didn't know what to do now, but for the moment it was enough.

[bespectacled-bookwyrm]

Whumptober 2024 - 20

Summary: He said it wasn't his fault. That he was not to blame for what happened. Lear wasn't so sure.

A sequel to "Aching Wounds".

[sorakh28]

Whumptober 2024- On a resolution in Break Me, Shake Me

PLEASE READ TO CHAPTER 14 OF BREAK ME, SHAKE ME FOR THIS COMMENTARY AND THE PROMPTS TAKEN TO MAKE SENSE.

The Lowell siblings’ conversation at the end of this chapter is a narrative interest: it works in developing two characters’ growth connected by one event. While the story itself is the Hero’s Journey of Marth not undergoing the plot of Shadow Dragon, but of growing out of expectations given to him by the backstory changes… Elice is saved from her canon capture, and is with him the entire time. She might as well be the deutragonist of the story as she, too, is personally affected by Marth’s backstory and growth.

“But that’s not why you came here, isn’t it?” Marth deducted. “Something else is bothering you, right?”

But I love how, despite how Elice wanted to tell Marth her feelings… she still feels like she lacks the strength until she’s prompted. And honestly, after what Marth went through the last two chapters, it makes sense. She’s scared of hurting Marth further; she’s scared of hurting herself further. The resolution, however, strengthens their bonds as older sister and younger brother, furthering into the rest of Break/Shake and the rest of the series.

[antennatoheaven]

[tired-of-being-nice]

the blame game

emotional angst my beloved <3 this was a very good prompt for me. continuing the weird westerners arc, let's check in on rosa and eve!

(rosa uses she/her, eve uses they/it)

cws: discussion of past (temporary) death, anxiety, guilt

Rosa's not good at driving.

Eve is better at it than her, but also Eve's hands phase through the wheel sometimes, so mostly it's Rosa who's driving, and it's— she's not good at it. It's a stupid, small thing to be worried about right now, but it's the thing her mind's got caught on.

Zeni was good at it. Zeni is good at it, they're not gone forever, they're just– not here right now.

Rosa rests her head on the steering wheel with a dull thunk. Fuck, she misses zem. It's been three weeks now since they...lost the other half of their team, and they're no closer to finding them, and Rosa hates it.

"Hey," Eve's voice says from her side, and Rosa feels a gentle, mostly-there touch on her arm. "You good?"

Rosa turns and hugs them. Eve squeaks a little in surprise, but then returns the hug with all the force someone who's semi-corporeal can muster. It's there enough to hug, at least, and that's enough for Rosa.

"What if we never get them back?" Rosa says into Eve's shoulder. "What if they're just gone, forever– what if they died and didn't come back this time, and, and–"

"Hey, hey," Eve says. "Easy. You're not helping anybody by scaring yourself."

It's a familiar refrain, and all the more painful because of it. Rosa feels Eve gently brush stray flower petals out of her hair and cries harder.

"It's gonna be okay," Eve says, a little more wobbly than before. "We're gonna find them."

Rosa lifts her head and cups Eve's face in her hands. (Its skin is cold. Rosa tries not to think about it.) "Eve. I'm so sorry I got you into this."

"What? What are you–"

"I'm sorry I got you killed," Rosa says.

Eve places their hand over Rosa's. "Oh, Rose. Don't."

"No," Rosa says. "If not for me, you wouldn't have been out there– you had no stake in that fight, you were only there because of me. You wouldn't have–"

"First of all, I made that choice," Eve says firmly. "You didn't drag me into anything– I went out there of my own free will. Second of all–" They swallow and look away. "If anything, I should've stopped you."

"Eve, no," Rosa says. "Don't, come on, don't blame yourself."

Eve sniffles. "Don't blame yourself, then."

"I'll stop when you do?" Rosa offers with a wobbly smile.

They're both silent for a minute. Thinking about regrets, and mistakes, and the empty spaces in the seats behind them.

"It wasn't your fault," Rosa says finally. "I mean it."

"It wasn't yours, either," Eve says. "None of it was."

"I'll try to believe that."

"Me too."

[geelizzzie]

Whumptober day 20!

My doomed brothers are back at it again... This fic was originally supposed to be a oneshot but I couldn't help myself and now it has several chapters... and I'm so excited to post this one!

Day 20: Emotional Angst | Shoulder to Cry On | "It's not your fault."

Summary:

“W-why are you crying?”

“Why are you?”

A sob escaped his mouth.

“I- I don’t know.” Everything.

[lostinthewanderingblue]

“I love you, sweetheart,” Uncle Ben slurs through the blood bubbling around his lips. “You gotta- you gotta remember that, okay, Pete?”

Peter nods frantically, shoving harder against the wound. Pressure, right?