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buckyismybicycle · 2 years ago

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Title: “sugar, spice and everything nice” [AO3 Link] Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Steve Rogers (Bucky x Nat and Bucky x Clint if you squint) Rating: Gen Summary/Notes: Cuddles, Tooth-rotting fluff, outsider POVs, Christmas Cookies, Deaf Clint Barton, Partially Deaf Steve Rogers, Amputee Bucky Barnes

For @cabottombingo - E3: “Didn’t know they were dating” (but not the way you think this is gonna go) @stuckybingo - B1: “AU: Coffee Shop”

Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays to everyone! Please have some xmas cuddles and floofs.

💖 OVERALL MASTERLIST

“Hi! Welcome to Purrfectly Brewed!” Janet chirps from behind the counter. She watches a stunning redheaded woman approach, her hand around the arm of a handsome brunette. They might just be the most devastating couple Janet has ever seen.

“Hi,” the woman says, her voice huskier than Janet expected. “Would you be able to make an iced latte with half the sugar, and with almond milk instead of whole milk?”

“Yes, absolutely! Can I get your name?”

“Natasha.”

The man beside her pipes up then. “Look, Nat.” He’s pointing at one of their several kittens, lounging on the arm of a cat tree by the window.

“Her name is Alpine,” Janet volunteers.

“She’s so…” The man trails off, seemingly forgetting what he was saying, though his eyes go soft and Janet has a pretty good idea of what’s happening. He’s falling for the little ball of fluff that’s sunbathing, her tail flicking occasionally.

“Can we also get two large coffees, both black, and a large caramel macchiato with extra caramel?” Natasha asks, sensing that she’s lost her companion to the snowball of fur.

Janet blinks, thrown off by the number of drinks to the number of customers ratio before nodding with her Customer Service Smile on. “Sure thing, coming right up.”

She sets the total, swings the machine around to face them and then hands Hope all four cups with her instructions and Natasha’s name written across them.

There’s a murmur of a language that definitely isn’t English, and she tries not to ogle when Natasha presses a kiss to the man’s temple. Sweet. Loving.

Looking like everything that Janet loves about rom-coms.

When the two leave, it’s Hope that blurts it out first. “Jesus, they’re hot.”

✧

“That was a cute shop, I bet Clint would really like it here,” Bucky says as they leave to walk back to their apartment. “Steve would too, I bet, if he liked cats.”

“Bet you twenty dollars I can get him to go with you in under a minute,” Natasha gloats.

Bucky knows better. He does. But that doesn’t stop him from smirking back. “You’re on, love.”

When they get home, she stands in front of the TV, blocking Steve’s view and signs very clearly. “Bucky fell in love with someone at the new cafe down the street.”

“How?!” Steve exclaims, sitting up and looking at Natasha before he raises an eyebrow at Bucky. “It’s been fifteen minutes, Buck.”

When Bucky opens his mouth to correct Steve, Nat places a finger over his lips. “I think Steve’s just gotta see for himself, don’t you think?”

When it’s settled that Steve will be going to the cafe and turns back to the TV, Bucky signs from behind him. “You evil woman.”

She blows a kiss back at him and he sighs in defeat.

✧

It’s a week and a half before Janet sees them again, and this time Scott is working the cash register. Janet peeks over Scott’s shoulder and spots the same brunette ordering drinks, but this time he’s with a shorter, slighter blonde.

Scott has a laugh with them before handing over two cups with the name “Bucky” on them. She thinks it’s strange, but then again, with Scott’s chicken scratch handwriting it could be just about anything.

She makes a caramel macchiato, and pours a latte with almond milk and half the sugar. Familiar.

“For… Bucky?” Janet calls.

Bucky, presumably, comes to claim their drinks, and doesn’t correct her. “Thanks!”

Huh. Maybe it is “Bucky” after all. Bucky has a very nice smile.

She watches Bucky hand over the latte and take a seat at their table, facing the cat tree. Bucky talks then, but his hands come up to sign, as well. Even though Janet is much too far to make out the words, it’s obvious the story is funny given the way the other man is stifling his laugh behind his own hands before signing back.

Janet thinks it’s so sweet. Had Bucky learned to sign, just for this? He seems so comfortable with it already.

“He’s so in love,” Scott says abruptly, startling Janet out of her thoughts.

She looks at the table again, trying to see what Scott sees. The way Bucky looks at Steve, with bright eyes and a smile to match — the way their feet are hooked around each other’s ankles? Janet has no choice but to agree, though she wonders what happened to Natasha.

“Yeah,” she says eventually. “S’too bad about Natasha, though.”

“Huh?” Scott asks, confused. “I was talking about the cat.”

“OH.”

✧

“Nat tells me you went to scope out Bucky’s new girl,” Clint hollers, hands flying as he signs, giddy. “I want to meet her too!”

“Well… She’s white.”

Clint scrunches his face, furrowing his brows at Steve and looking around the room. Surely, he hadn’t read that right.

At the confusion, Steve doubles over laughing, and can’t get himself straightened out to let Clint in on the joke.

Bucky finally comes over with a picture he’d taken of Alpine while they were sitting down.

“Oooooooooooh!” Clint exclaims. “That makes… Way more sense.”

✧

Hope is wiping down the tables when the chime above the door rings, and she looks up to see Natasha, but this time she’s not with Bucky. Even though Janet had filled her in during their last shift together, it still takes Hope by surprise. The sandy-blonde man, dressed like he’d fallen into a vat of grape juice, has a wide smile on his face and a peculiar band-aid across his chin.

Hope busies herself nearby just in case there's any juicy gossip to share with Janet while Scott handles the order at the counter.

“Two large coffees please, black” the man orders, taking out his wallet to pay, and batting Natasha’s hand away from where she’d been reaching into her bag.

“Easy peasy,” Scott sings, with that charming grin he gives all the customers. “Under what name?”

Even though Hope notices the hearing aid, the man doesn’t seem to miss a beat. “Clint.”

Oooooh. Hope stores that away for later. So, Natasha-not-with-Bucky is Natasha-with-Clint now, and Bucky-not-with-Natasha is Bucky-with-Blonde, it seems.

There’s a handful of people in the cafe right now, most of them are busy petting the cats around the shop, drinks long finished. Hope refills the cat’s water bowls, and when she gets to the cat tree, she stops to pet Alpine.

“These cats are all up for adoption, correct?”

Hope spins around and comes face to face with Natasha, whose green eyes are brighter than emeralds this close.

“Yes! Yeah, they are, of course,” Hope fumbles, watching Natasha’s eyes on Alpine. The very same cat that Hope knows Bucky has been eyeing.

Oh no.

“That’s great to hear,” Natasha says, smiling softly like she isn’t stealing away Bucky’s best buddy at this cafe. “I’d like to adopt this one please.”

OH NO.

✧

“She didn’t!” Janet gasps the moment Hope tells her. Janet’s eyes are wide and she’s got a death grip on Hope’s arm, blunt nails digging in.

“I know!” Hope exclaims. “I felt so guilty giving Alpine to her… Even though that’s exactly what we’re supposed to be doing.”

“But Bucky will be so heartbroken,” Janet nearly wails. “Again.”

“Hey you don’t know what happened between those two,” Hope admonishes, elbowing her friend. “Besides, they both seem… Happy.”

“But Alpine.”

“Oh my god,” Hope huffs, tossing a rag in Hope’s direction. “Go clean something for crying out loud, I can’t look at your pouty face anymore.”

✧

“Oh! Here they come, here they come,” Hope squeals, shoving Janet towards the cash register.

“Oooooh, he’s with Nat’s boyfriend!” Janet proclaims, smoothing her apron down.

“They look cozy together.”

“Stop that! He was just in here with Bucky yesterday,” Janet reminds her. “And they adopted a cat!”

“You don’t know they adopted Liho together,” Hope points out. “Bucky could just be finally taking that step to adopt, now that Alpine is no longer up for grabs.”

“Okay, fine, maybe the cat adoption wasn’t a clear indicator but you know what is? The fact they definitely shared a very steamy kiss.”

“Gee, I didn’t realize you were such a creep.”

“You watch them too, what the f —”

“Shh!” Hope hisses as she scurries back to her machines. “Here they come!”

“No way, he’s not cheating on Bucky,” Janet vehemently denies under her breath, though Hope has long stopped listening.

Janet plasters a smile on her face as the two approach. She watches as the slighter blonde — Steve, Bucky’s boyfriend — gestures with his hands to his companion.

“Uhhh, I forgot to ask Bucky what he wants,” Clint confesses, squinting at the menu hanging above the counter when they get closer.

Steve rolls his eyes and shoves him aside a bit before smiling at her. “A large praline latte, large sugar cookie oat latte a — Clint —”

The nudge makes Clint look back down at Steve, who’s gesturing for him to order.

“One extra large salted caramel hot chocolate, please.” He watches Steve’s lips as he rattles off the remainder of their order.

“A large — actually, make that an extra large — caramel macchiato. With extra caramel, please.”

“Spoiling your boy, hm?” Clint asks, and Janet has to fight to keep the smile off her face.

Steve’s look softens as he pays, signing to Clint after tucking his wallet away. Janet desperately wishes she knew what he was saying.

“Ah,” Clint says, as if that explains everything.

Hope is a whirlwind preparing the drinks, so Janet tucks them all neatly into a tray, and tops them off accordingly before they hand the tray over.

“Have a wonderful day!” Janet sings with a bright smile.

“You too,” they reply in unison before leaving together.

“Did you hear?” Janet asks, poking Hope in the side. “He called Bucky Steve’s boy. I told you.”

“Sure, sure, but like, how weird is it that they all know each other?”

“Maybe they all went to school together, there can be a simple explanation you know.”

Hope rolls her eyes and starts to wipe the countertop. “Sure, I guess. Guh, they’re just so cute.”

“We should stop speculating,” Janet suggests, albeit reluctantly. “What matters is that all four of them are happy and they’re somehow together one way or another.”

“I’m sure they’re together. Like all together.” Hope’s eyes sparkle a bit.

Janet gasps, “Oh.”

✧

“You’re worse than Alpine,” Nat says with a chuckle, her hands raking through Bucky’s hair as he lays in her lap.

Bucky closes his eyes, leaning into the touch and mumbling what was supposed to be a protest back at her.

As if on cue, Alpine hops down from the back of the couch and onto Bucky’s hip.

“Easy girl, daddy’s still not feeling well,” Nat warns, scratching under Alpine’s chin to stop her from climbing any further up Bucky’s side.

Bucky whines at the loss and as obnoxious as it is, it gets Natasha’s hand to come back, so he counts it as a win. His prosthetic currently lays on the ground beside him, until he can handle putting it back on.

The telltale click of the lock indicates the return of Clint and Steve, followed by Clint’s hollering, of course.

“HONIES, WE’RE HOOOOOOOME! Oooooh, smells good in here.”

Lucky, who’d been asleep in his bed, bolts up and runs to the door, barking happily while Clint sniffs the air like a bloodhound.

“Gee, I hadn’t noticed,” Natasha deadpans. “What’d you get?”

Bucky forgives her, this time, for abandoning his petting as she uses her hands to sign. He sits himself up, slowly, to see Clint with a shopping bag in his hand and Steve with a tray of hot drinks from what they've now dubbed as their their coffee shop. A successful trip, it seems.

“C’mon Nat, I can’t just tell you what I got for my lucky giftee,” Clint says with a smile. “But this means I’m not the last to finish my shopping this year!”

Bucky and Nat share a look, as if contemplating whether or not to burst Clint’s bubble. Steve, who’s toeing off his shoes, is suspiciously quiet.

“Aw, seriously?” Clint whines, having seen enough of Bucky and Nat’s looks to decipher it. He turns to Steve, eyes narrowed.

“Sorry?” Steve shrugs with a smile that indicates he’s not sorry whatsoever. He makes his way to the couch, handing out drinks.

Clint throws his hands up in exasperation before going to stash his gift in his room.

Liho chooses that moment to jump up onto the arm of the couch, trying to headbutt Steve’s hand.

“Liho, princess, if you spill this macchiato, Bucky will never forgive you,” Steve chuckles.

“Oh please, Bucky falls for a bat of an eyelash,” Nat teases.

“Hey!”

“She’s right, Buck,” Steve agrees, pressing the macchiato into his boyfriend’s hand.

When Clint re-emerges, he’s all smiles again. “Okay, I may be last, but I have the best gift.”

Bucky, halfway through his macchiato in bliss, doesn’t even argue. “Thanks, Stevie.”

Steve drops a light kiss to his temple from behind the couch, his hands over Bucky’s shoulders, a little lighter on the left side. “Figured it’d be a rough day with your physio. Feeling okay?”

Bucky drops his head on the back of the couch to look up at Steve with his lips pursed for a kiss. “Could be better.”

Steve rolls his eyes, but obliges. Their kiss is a sugary sweet exchange, chaste as it was, and Steve’s voice is softer after. “Seriously, Buck. How do you feel?”

“I’m fine,” Bucky placates. Then with a smug smile, he adds, “I even got pets from Nat.”

“You never —”

Clint is cut off by Natasha, who’s already predicted what he was going to say. “Yes, I have. When you broke your arm falling out of that tree.”

“She petted you for hours after you slipped mopping the kitchen last year,” Steve adds.

“And,” Bucky chimes in, poking Nat to sign for him as he holds onto his lifeline that is the macchiato. “When Lucky was at the vet’s a month after you picked him up.”

“I hate all of you,” Clint chirps, cheerfully as he returns to his earlier quest of sniffing around. “Did you guys make cookies?”

“Nat made cookies,” Bucky corrects. “I —”

“You helped,” Natasha interjects.

“Yeah, sure, I lent a hand,” Bucky replies with a grin, wiggling the fingers of his right hand.

Steve lets out an exasperated sigh, Natasha rolls her eyes and Clint guffaws in the kitchen so enthusiastically he nearly brains himself on the cupboard.

Natasha tugs at Steve’s sleeve to take her place, brushing Bucky’s hair back as she stands. “You pick first!”

Bucky’s eyes widen at the high honour of picking their first movie for the night. The tradition had slowly morphed over the years, but watching scary movies has always been something they all agreed on.

He jumps off the couch gleefully to grab the remote, knowing exactly what he wants to watch. First, he gets distracted by petting Lucky, then refilling the food bowl for Liho and Alpine, then refilling the water dispenser for Biscuit, Steve’s hamster.

Steve diligently starts to pull the blankets and pillows from their rooms. Since Bucky sleeps with an absurd amount of pillows, it takes him two trips just to bring out what he needs from their room. He lays the blue and white duvet that he and Bucky share out on the floor in front of the couch. Haphazardly tossing the pillows down, he moves on to retrieve Nat’s black and red bedding, then the purple monstrosity Clint claims to be his pillow, blanket and eye mask.

“Nat, get the lights! Where’re the cookies at?”

“Clint’s on cookies!”

“Buck, if you take any longer to find your movie, I’m stealing your turn.”

It’s an affair of cookies, coffee and cushions as they all settle in.

Nat settles into Bucky’s right side, taking the tray of cookies from Clint to spread around. She’s tired from the day, and Bucky knows she likely won’t even make it through the movie.

Steve is careful as he sits on Bucky’s left, doing his best not to lean into the aching muscles there. He instead turns his body in, his hands light as he massages Bucky’s shoulder, where it usually aches the most.

Clint obnoxiously lays across their feet in front of them, feet tangling with Steve’s as he rests his head against Nat’s shins, Lucky dutifully takes his place curled up against Clint’s stomach, wagging tail brushing over toes.

Bucky, surrounded by warmth, surrounded by love, passes the remote to Clint so he can hold his drink again.

“Ready?” Clint asks.

They all give him a few love-taps with their toes, and Clint starts Hereditary.

Halfway through the movie, Nat’s soft breaths in Bucky’s ear tell him she’s asleep, and Steve might not be too far behind. Clint’s munching away on cookies, eyes glued to the close captions.

It’s perfect.

It’s home.

“Love you guys,” Bucky whispers, even though nobody can hear him.

#stucky #stucky bingo round 4 #captain bottom bingo 2022 #steve/bucky #stucky fanfiction #fluff #bucky barnes fanfiction

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edutainer2022 · 2 years ago

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Scott is 6"2 (per some TAG journal, I guess). Jeff is massive, it shows in The Long Reach. Virgil's is smol next to him in bulk. Partially, that's to underline that the Allfather God is back, his children are slighter in comparison.

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all-my-friends-were-glorious · 3 years ago

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[ @squealformepiggy || Continued From Here ]

[ Leslie ]

“Fuddy, huh?”

It had been a while since he’d heard that. Had it been from his grandpa? It sounded like something that he’d say. Maybe his grandma.

On his father’s side.

Leslie took a few steps closer, swaying just slightly, as he took in the slighter man’s form. Lifting his shirt near the right back side, he patted the concealed holster there.

“Don’t put guns in your pocket, you’re bound to shoot yourself trying to get it out. You get a good holster, outside preferably if you don’t know what you’re doing. Keep it concealed, don’t go bein’ an idiot unless you think you got it. And then make sure numbers are on your side.”

His eyes raked over Scott’s body, and he shook his head.

“Numbers are important for someone like you.”

That coming from a literal brick wall with a face.

#My Daddy Is A Lawyer And There's Nothing That I'm Sorry For (Leslie Cowens)#I'm Trying Not To Accuse You Of A Blatant Appeal To Authority (Leslie and Scott - Squealformepiggy)#cw weapon #cw gun

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inactive-seathesilverlinings · 4 years ago

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Ordinarily I don’t do this but I loved writing this chapter so much (and it kind of stands alone, you don’t really need to know what’s gone on to read it)

But I thought I’d post chapter 30 of Adjustment Period here too, so that people who aren’t reading it get to see some fluffy little snippets of potentially their ships too! 💕

In order we have Jobannon, Virgil/Brains, Pen and Ink, and Scayo!

Enjoy! 😁

💕💕💕💕

When John got to his bedroom Ridley was already curled up in bed asleep. He smiled softly at her before turning to the back of the door and slipping the little box into a jacket pocket and zipping it up.

“Hm… John?”

John almost fell over he span around so fast.

“H-hey!” He stammered in shock, but quickly regained himself. “Hey… I thought you were asleep.”

“Mm… Yeah… Was… Heard you…” Ridley muttered, snuggling further into her pillow.

“Go back to sleep Rid. I won’t be long.”

“M’kay…”

He smoothed some of her hair back away from her face and stooped to kiss her head as he passed her on his way into the en-suite.

She murmured in appreciation. “G’night. Lu’ you…”

John huffed a laugh. “I love you too.”

When he had finished in the bathroom John swapped his shirt and jeans for a comfy t-shirt and some cotton pyjama pants and climbed into bed.

Once his head hit the pillow and he pulled the blanket up over himself one of the blue eyes belonging to the person occupying the pillow opposite cracked open. Ridley pouted and reached out to him.

John laughed. “You’re so needy when you’re sleepy.” He looped an arm around her waist and pulled her closer to him.

He rolled over to lay on his back, tugging her gently with him. She draped an arm across him and rested her head on his shoulder.

By the time Brains finished up in the lab he had expected Virgil to be asleep and snoring away like usual, but the light coming from under the bedroom door told him different.

“V-virgil?” He asked as he pushed the door open.

“Hey,” Virgil’s head raised from his tablet immediately with a grin. “Everything alright?”

“Yes. I f-figured out the problem.”

“C’mon, please tell me it was something complicated that I couldn’t possibly have seen.”

Brains chuckled. “Unfortunately n-not. A couple of b-bent pins in the s-s-sockets. I think it’s from t-too many reuses.”

“Well we have been reusing some of the same pod bases for years. Nothing that can’t be fixed though, right? We don’t need to build whole new pods?”

“S-should be an easy fix. Just replace the p-pins with new ones and p-problem solved.”

“Mmhm…” Virgil nodded, distracted by watching Brains get ready for bed.

Just as Brains was about to shrug on his pyjama shirt Virgil stopped him.

“Wait.”

Brains stopped, looking at him quizzically with one eyebrow raised.

Virgil swung his legs out of the bed, almost getting tangled in the sheets in his haste to stand up. Brains laughed.

“V-virgil. Please don’t fall over.”

“I won’t. I just…” Virgil made his way to the door and clicked the lock on.

Brains raised both eyebrows with a smirk. “Oh…”

Virgil crossed the room to Brains in two swift strides, enveloping him in his arms the moment he reached him. Though they were almost equally matched for height, Brains tipped his head eagerly for a kiss. Virgil’s hands found their way to either side of Brains’s face, while Brains’s gripped Virgil’s hips pulling him closer.

Cradling the back of Brains’s head Virgil drew him in, swiping his tongue along the seam of his lips, asking for permission that was readily granted.

After a few moments Brains broke the kiss, panting. He toyed with the hem of Virgil’s t-shirt.

“Y-you are far too over-dressed.”

Virgil gazed down at him with hooded eyes, pupils blown wide with only a sliver of russet still visible.

“You’re right.”

Virgil quickly yanked his t-shirt over his head and threw it somewhere in the room. Brains laughed and Virgil slid his hands down Brains’s back, over his backside, bringing them to rest on his thighs. With a small bend of his knees he managed to catch his hands under Brains’s and lift the slighter man up, carry him the few steps to the bed, and deposit him on it.

Brains scooted further back on the bed after toeing off his shoes and Virgil didn’t hesitate to follow him.

Neither Gordon nor Penelope had been particularly tired like the rest of the family, but had retreated to Gordon’s bedroom none the less, Sherbet at their heels.

“What do you wanna watch?” Gordon asked as he flicked the holoprojector at the foot of his bed on.

“I’m not watching Buddy and Ellie.” Penelope answered quickly.

Gordon gave a little nod along with a chuckle. “Fair.”

“I love you, but they irritate me darling.” Penelope said, absently stroking Sherbet’s ears.

When she turned back to him, Gordon was staring at her wide eyed.

“What?”

“Nothing… I just… I…You said…” He made a noise, frustrated with himself. “You-you love me?”

She thought it often enough, but Penelope didn’t even realise she had finally said it out-loud.

“Of course I do!”

Viewing options forgotten Gordon’s full attention was now on her. He approached her slowly. Sherbet hopped down from Penelope’s lap, choosing to settle in the old blue armchair in the far corner of the room.

She was perched on the end of the bed, wearing pyjamas consisting of matching pink satin and lace tank top and shorts, that barely left a thing to the imagination and had Gordon practically salivating the moment she’d stepped out in them. When Gordon reached her he stood in front of her and took her hands in his, watching her face carefully.

“Say it again?”

The plea was barely above a whisper, but Penelope still heard it.

“I love you.” She answered, never breaking their eye contact.

In one swift movement Gordon crushed his lips to hers and they tumbled backwards together, onto the bed.

“I love you.” She gasped between deep and frantic kisses.

“I love you.” She sighed as clothes were tossed onto the floor.

“I love you.” She told him with surety as she brought his face back up to hers.

Holding the back of her head carefully, his fingers tangled in her hair, paying special attention to that sweet spot just behind her jaw, as she herself was lost for words, she felt a soft purr in her ear.

“I love you so damn much Pen…”

Scott had just gotten into bed and was ready to settle down and turn the lamp off when his door opened to reveal an extremely sleepy Kayo, blanket from her own bed slung over her shoulder. She stepped over the threshold and closed the door quietly behind her, making her way over to the bed.

Scott automatically made room for her but watched her curiously.

“You always steal the blankets.” She muttered sleepily. “This is my insurance.” She set her blanket down on the floor beside her half of the bed, conceding to share with him for the moment.

He lifted the cover and she slipped into the bed beside him.

“You’ve ruined me.” She mumbled; eyes closed the instant her head hit the pillow.

“Hm?” He allowed his own eyes to drift shut.

“I can’t sleep without you.”

His eyes snapped open and he found her watching him through her own half-closed ones.

“Don’t let it go to your head fly boy.”

He fixed her with a crooked smile. “Too late.”

He reached out and she allowed herself to be guided to him. He pressed a sweet kiss to her lips, smoothing a thumb over her cheekbone.

“Goodnight Kayo…” He whispered as he broke the kiss.

A small hum was all he got in reply as he watched her drift into unconsciousness with a smile on his face.

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds are go fanfiction #jobannon #Pen and Ink #Scayo #brains and brawn #brains/Virgil #john tracy/captain ridley o'bannon #scott/kayo #lady penelope creighton ward/gordon tracy

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tsarisfanfiction · 4 years ago

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Hollow V

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: Teen Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Angst Characters: Jeff Tracy, Kyrano, John Tracy, Scott Tracy

Part 5 of my contribution @gumnut-logic‘s SensorySunday: Sixth Sense. Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

And the plan slowly begins to spiral away from me, again. I shouldn’t be surprised at this point.

It was inadvisable to run along the island’s paths, especially in the dark – and even if you had a high-powered torch – but Jeff’s heart was in his mouth and all the breath had been stolen from his lungs by Kyrano’s short but devastating call.

They appear to have fallen. How far? How badly were his children hurt? John is conscious and responding. A cause for relief. Scott is not. Scott wasn’t what? Conscious? Responding? Either? I will need assistance. Kyrano never needed help.

Jeff tore along the path, blindly dodging past tree roots and branches reaching out to ensnare him. Kyrano needed him. His boys needed him. Why oh why hadn’t he been firmer, why had he assumed John wouldn’t find another way to get what he wanted? Was he really so distant from his sons nowadays that he didn’t realise just saying “no” and “it’s too dangerous” would stop a teenager on the cusp of adulthood from doing what he wanted?

He didn’t find the rope Kyrano had tied to the tree so much as almost trip over it, catching himself on the tree it was tied to at the last second to avoid sharing his sons’ misfortune.

“Kyrano?” he called, panting and heaving for air with frozen lungs. “Scott? John?”

“Down here, Mr Tracy!” Kyrano called back, his voice drifting from below. “Use the rope.” Jeff shone the torch in the direction of his voice and shuddered at the sight of the fresh landslip, shearing away part of the path. Creeping towards it, he watched as the light picked up first a slumped form with Lucille’s distinctive ginger hair, and then another two a little further away. Kyrano was bent over Scott, hiding him from view.

His hands burned as he slung himself down to the ledge, too fast and rubbing his hands, but he didn’t notice the discomfort as he sank down next to John, reaching out with trembling fingers to brush dishevelled red hair back from his face. Clouded turquoise eyes sluggishly followed the movement.

“Da’?”

“I’m here, John,” he assured his second eldest. He looked nothing like the confident and stubborn teenager Jeff had found himself in a heated debate with several hours earlier, and much more like the pale waif he’d been as a young child. “Dad’s here.”

“’m srree,” he slurred, and Jeff hushed him, continuing to card his hand through ginger locks – finding the unmistakable stickiness of blood as he did so.

“We’ll talk about that later,” he said. “Right now I’m just glad you’re okay.” John wasn’t okay by ordinary standards, shivering slightly despite the warm air – shock – and his long limbs bent at awkward angles, but he was alive.

“Sc’t…” John mumbled, and Jeff glanced over to where Kyrano was still hunched over his eldest, reassurances on the tip of his tongue.

They died unspoken. In the light of his and Kyrano’s torches, he could see what he had missed with his cursory glance. Scott was laid on his back, limp as a ragdoll, but it was the gradually growing pool of blood and the stake protruding from his hip that chilled him to the core.

He couldn’t abandon John, not when his second son was in shock and pain, but the bloodless face of his eldest called to him.

Lucy, don’t take our boy yet, he begged his wife silently. Losing Scott – head of the pack, a once tiny and unexpected bundle of joy that melted his heart with bright blue eyes and deep dimples even as he voiced his displeasure at leaving the dark, safe confines of his mother to be thrust into the bright wide world – was unthinkable. He needed Scott. He needed all of his boys. All five of them.

“Kyrano,” he started, faltering. How did one ask is my son still breathing? Is he still with us or has he gone to join his mother in the stars?

“He is still with us, Mr Tracy,” the smaller man assured him, raising his head. Green eyes locked with his. “If you could assist me?” Jeff looked down at John, turquoise eyes half lidded, and hesitated. “John’s life is in no danger,” Kyrano told him, and it was the implied but Scott’s is that got him moving, leaving John’s side with one last brush of his blood-matted hair to drop down the final foot to his eldest’s side.

“What do you need me to do?” he asked, catching sight of Scott’s left hand and blanching. Swollen and dribbling blood, he knew enough about the island’s wildlife to know it was not just the terrain his son had fallen foul of.

“Keep him still,” Kyrano said. “I will need to cut him free from this branch before the bleeding can be staunched.” Jeff nodded numbly, trembling hands finding Scott’s shoulders and holding onto them securely.

“The snake venom?” he asked.

“I have given him a generic antivenom to slow the spread,” Kyrano said as the noise of knife meeting wood began. “Until I can determine which snake it was, there is little more to be done for it.”

Scott groaned suddenly, his head rolling to rest the other way as his arms trembled and shoulders strained. At loath to hurt him, but with enough experience to know that if he injured himself further his chances of survival would drop, Jeff increased his grip, pinning his eldest to the ground.

“Easy, Scott,” he soothed, wincing at a sharp cry of pain. “Easy. It’s just me and Kyrano, you hear me? Dad’s here. Just hold on, son. We’ll get you home.” Scott wasn’t pacified by his words at all, weakly thrashing to escape the pain as Jeff exerted as much strength as he dared to keep him still, talking to his son all the while as his heart broke.

It felt like an age before Kyrano sat back. “I have done all I can here,” he said. “We will need to get them back to the villa for further treatment.”

With his wound no longer being agitated, Scott had sunk back down into apparent unconsciousness, white as death but still breathing. Jeff cautiously released him, cupping his pale cheek as he turned to face the other man.

“We can’t get either of them back up to the path,” he said, and Kyrano nodded.

“I know another route we can take, Mr Tracy,” he said. “We will have to be careful, but it should not take too long to return.” It was Jeff’s turn to nod, looking back at Scott and then up at John, whose eyes were almost closed but undeniably watching them. From his elevated position, he would have been able to watch Scott bleeding out the entire time. “I believe you should take Master Scott,” the other man continued, sparing Jeff the agony of choice.

If it were possible, he’d carry both of his boys, but even if they weren’t both taking after him in height, the last time he’d been able to carry two sleeping sons at once was when they were in diapers. As it was, he took a deep breath and with Kyrano’s help scooped his eldest son into his arms, mindful of the bit of tree still stuck through his hip. Kyrano had cropped it as short as possible before wrapping bandaging around the area to stem the flow of blood, but it was still there, staunching what was likely a severe wound.

Scott’s bitten hand hung limply. Kyrano shuffled around, gently repositioning his head so that it rested against Jeff’s shoulder rather than lolling limply and placing the unbitten hand to rest on his chest, far enough away from the wound it wouldn’t bother it, but left the bitten hand dangling.

His son felt like a dead weight in his arms, and Jeff was reassured only by the mostly regular exhales of air tickling his neck as he watched Kyrano approach John, murmuring something quietly to him before gently manoeuvring him onto his back. John cried out in pain, stray sobs escaping as Kyrano’s soft words continued evenly.

Scott made a noise of protest against his shoulder and Jeff glanced down at him to see he was frowning slightly; he didn’t doubt for a moment that he was reacting to his younger brother’s distress.

“Kyrano’s got him, Scooter,” he murmured. “Your brother’s going to be okay, I promise.” Scott made another noise of discontent but then fell silent.

“This way, Mr Tracy.” Kyrano turned, John nestled in his arms not unlike a baby giraffe, all long and gangly limbs, although the image was somewhat ruined by the unnatural angles. The boy’s eyes were closed entirely, and Jeff realised he must have passed out at last.

“Lead on, Kyrano.”

Without the other man, he would never have found his way back. Torches were difficult to use when both arms were full of limp son, but Kyrano was sure-footed and confident in their route, unerringly guiding them back to the villa.

The light in Virgil’s room was on, Jeff noticed as they approached. A silhouette stood in the window – no, two, three silhouettes.

Four. One stood slightly apart from the clump of three, slighter and a little bit shorter than the tallest.

Jeff didn’t know which of the four watching children – it was the early hours of the morning, all of them should be fast asleep, not awake and worrying – saw them first. At some unseen signal, all four moved together, vanishing from the window, although the light stayed on.

“Scott! John!” The rapid patter of multiple bare feet announced the reappearance of them all in the kitchen, clamouring for the missing members of their family as Jeff and Kyrano entered.

“Virgil, take your brothers and Tanusha up to the den,” Jeff ordered. He wanted them in bed asleep, but that was a command that would never be obeyed.

“But-” his son protested, eyes wide with horror as he spotted his older brothers, bloodstained and limp in his and Kyrano’s arms.

“Please, Virgil,” he said, glancing meaningfully at the white faces of Gordon and Alan. “Look after your brothers for me, just for a little while.” Virgil hesitated, torn between his older and younger brothers, but Tanusha bent down and scooped Alan up with a grunt.

“Come on,” she said, nudging Virgil with her shoulder as Alan continued to stare at his biggest brothers from her arms. Jeff couldn’t wait for him to obey, all too aware that Scott was bleeding through his bandages and leaving a trail of small crimson drips from his hand. He and Kyrano hurried past the children, towards the room they’d been setting up as a medical room.

Thank goodness he’d already started stocking it with his project in mind. His mother, while not on the island currently, had had a large influence on the room, insistent that it be up to hospital standard. While they didn’t yet have everything they planned to, they had enough.

Scott and John were its first two real patients. Leaving Kyrano to continue where he’d left off, Jeff fumbled for his phone, punching in a number he knew by heart and listening to it ring.

Click.

“Jeff? Isn’t it two in the morning for you?”

“Mom, I need you.”

Part VI

#sensorysunday #sensorysunday2020 #thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds are go fanfiction #tsari writes fanfiction #jeff tracy #kyrano #scott tracy #john tracy #virgil tracy #gordon tracy #alan tracy #kayo kyrano #hollow

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earth-ambassador-jim · 4 years ago

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Lost Souls: Story 7

Nowhere to go but Forward

~~~~

Lost Souls Summary: Merlin awakens early from his sleep. He decides that he doesn’t want to leaving anything to chance and kidnaps the young James Lake Jr. to began training his Trollhunter as early as possible.

Barbara is determined to hunt down the man who kidnapped her son. In her efforts to get her son back she finds a strange old radio that speaks to her in a woman’s voice. The radio leads her to an underground society of shapeshifters.

Mother and son meet again years later as strangers on opposing sides.

AO3 -Fanfiction

~~~~

Barbara listens half-heartedly as the meeting drones on. Spy movies really put too much glamor on the concept of secret societies. An organization is still an organization whether it is made up of middle aged salary men or centuries old shapeshifters. And unfortunately that means that they have to deal with things like supplies and delegation of manpower and paperwork. The major difference in is that if she allows herself to stop paying attention the backstabbing will be much more literal.

“What is your opinion, Dr. Lake?”

Barbara raises her eyes from the point in space she’d been watching to meet the gaze of her ex-boyfriend. Walt –Or she supposes she ought to call him Walter now: Strickler or Stricklander don’t feel right and she can’t say Waltolomew and keep a straight face.- Walter is giving her a rather smug eyebrow raise like he thinks she won’t be able to answer. He has been rather testy ever since she took over his position.

“I think that we need to focus more on laying our communications groundwork,” Barbara says after making a show of thinking about it. “We all know that Gunmar will not want to be kept waiting when he comes to the surface and we can’t have nuclear bombs being shot at us, so the normal modes of communication will have to be the first thing we hit. We’ve started relying a little too much on human means for our own infrastructure in the past centuries.”

She says “we” as if she herself is centuries old and not human. It’s almost laughable how sometimes she still feels like a sheep supping with wolves despite how much she’s changed.

Some of the assembled changelings nod at her point, some just watch silently. The secretary takes notes.

The rest of the meeting proceeds in much the same way. There’s always a feeling of walking a knife edge at meetings. Barbara may be the mouthpiece of Morgana, who is a god to the changelings, but if she can’t prove her strength and cunning on her own, she won’t last long.

When the meeting finally wraps up the changelings depart out of the room from the lowest ranking to the highest. Walter and Barbara hold eye contact for a long moment. She sees just the faintest glow of yellow in his eyes and allows a glint of volatile blue to flicker in her own in response.

He tenses and looks away, chin tilting up ever so slightly despite the clear resentment that is evident in the curl of his lips.

She watches silently as he leaves. The door closes and she lets out a breath and her shoulders slump. She isn’t quite done yet -she still has to report back to Morgana- but she just wants a moment to breathe.

Her head aches from keeping up with the constant scheming and swirling agendas that are present at any Janus Order meeting. That and…

And she still misses her relationship with Walt. They’d already been strained after she found out the truth about changelings but once she had taken over his position they’d truly split. She knew as well as he did that if their positions had been flipped he’d have done the same, but it didn’t make it less cruel for him.

And it didn’t make his bitter resentment and verbal stabs any less painful for her.

She misses having someone to talk to and just be herself around. A memory of the odd meeting in the rain flickers through her mind.

“Everyone needs friends…”

That is what she had told the Trollhunter then.

Perhaps she should take her own advice.

~~~~

Barbara sits in her car in the driveway for a whole hour before she works up the courage to walk up to the front door. This house was once as familiar as her own but now it’s been years since she last visited. Knocking takes her another ten minutes.

There’s a series of soft thumps and the door opens. The elderly lady stares at her before adjusting her glasses as if she can’t quite believe what she’s seeing. The light of the late evening sun glints off the thick round lenses.

“Barbara?” She says finally.

“Hi Nancy,” Barbara responds.

Her lips twitch into an uncomfortable smile as she tries to remember how to deal with normal social niceties. Nancy beams back in response.

“I can’t believe it’s you! What brings you back to Arcadia after all this time?”

Barbara doesn’t tell her that she technically still lives here. No one, or at least no one from her old life, knows. It’s easier that way.

“I’m just going to be in the neighborhood for a while and thought that I’d visit… You aren’t busy are you?”

Nancy steps out of the doorway gesturing with a hand to invite her inside.

“Of course not! Come in. Come in! I just finished a fresh batch of cookies.”

“Thank you.”

Barbara enters and finds that her old neighbors place hasn’t changed much in the time she’s been gone.

The two of them settle down in the comfy couches in the living room. The elderly lady pours a cup of tea for each of them and sets a plate of cookies out on the table.

“So how is Toby?” Barbara asks. “He’s in high school now right?”

Jim would have been in high school. He’d be fifteen now…

Like the Trollhunter.

A flash of blue eyes set in a slighter darker blue face flash through her mind. Her heart aches.

“He’s doing well,” Nancy says, interrupting her thoughts. “But he’s always been a bit quiet since…”

She doesn’t have to clarify. Jim’s kidnapping hit him hard too. There’s a moment of silence before she straightens up and goes on.

“He has Darci and they stick together. It sounds like now that they’re in high school she’s been able to introduce him to some more of her friends. She’s really such a dear.”

“Darci?” Barbara asks. She swirls her tea around in the mug and breaths in the smell. Like everything else it’s familiar. She sets it back down without drinking.

“Darci Scott. The Scotts were the family that moved in next door after you left. Her father is one of the police.”

Ah, Detective Scott then. The Janus Order monitors the police force within Arcadia carefully. They have agents in key areas to make sure that no one ever looks too closely where they shouldn’t.

“I see…” Barbara says and isn’t quite sure what else to say.

Nancy sets down her mug and fixes her in a gaze that is slightly too sharp for a woman with cataracts like hers.

“Enough about me, you didn’t just come to catch up, did you? What did you want to talk about?”

If Barbara hadn’t spent so much time learning to cover up her emotions she would have tensed.

“Why would you say that?” She asks instead.

She doesn’t like it when people are able to read her. She’s usually very careful to only show the emotions she wants them to see. She wonders what she let slip.

Nancy smiles disarmingly.

“I happened to be looking outside when you pulled up, people who are okay don’t spend an hour sitting in their car in someone else’s driveway.”

Barbara does actually blush a little at that. Her hand drifts up to toy with the yellow pendent around her neck.

A weight comes to rest on her leg and Barbara’s hand clenches around the crystal. She looks up to see that it’s Nancy’s hand. The woman is staring at her with concern.

“Sorry,” Barbara says, before mentally wincing at the apology.

“Take your time dear,” Nancy says. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”

Barbara opens her mouth to say something –A denial, maybe?- and then closes it.

She’s become a little too used to hiding her emotions and vulnerabilities from everyone. In truth, she wants to talk about the strange young troll who, despite being her enemy, she finds herself suddenly worried about, but even the little bit of openness she’s shown has already put her on edge.

She’s so wrapped up in a web of secrecy and magic that she can hardly even remember what it was like to be a free woman living a normal mundane life.

Barbara sighs.

“Can we just talk for now?” The words come out almost pleading.

“Of course,” Nancy says.

There’s pity in her gaze that makes Barbara’s jaw clench but she accepts it and tries to let go of her need to be seen as invincible.

“How is high school been for Toby so far?” She offers the question like an olive branch.

“Oh it’s going quite well,” Nancy says, leaning back into her chair. “One of Darci’s friends, Claire, got Toby to try out for the play the school is putting on…”

Barbara finds herself relaxing minutely as Nancy rambles on telling her about things that seem to be happening a world away.

Eventually the light outside begins to take on an orange tint and Barbara forces herself to her feet with a sigh.

“It’s been nice, Nancy, but I really must be going,” She says.

“Oh! Well it’s been a pleasure having you over, dear.”

“Thank-you.” Barbara slings her bag over her shoulder and hesitates. “Would you mind if I visited again?”

“Of Course!” Nancy smiles. “You’re always welcome here.”

Barbara smiles back at her. She’s forced to take a careful breath to fight back the prickling she feels in her eyes.

Thank-you,” She says again, before slipping out into the darkening world.

#Trollhunters #trollhunters fanfiction #Tales of Arcadia #Barbara Lake #Child Champion AU #Lost Souls #nancy domzalski #Trollhunters AUs #my posts #my writing #a short chapter but it needed to be done #looking forward to the next one

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sareyen · 4 years ago

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A Machine Without Feelings: A Jane Eyre AU (Part 7/11)

Read on ao3

Chapter 7

“At first I thought it was Anna-Marie,” Charles said, the vivid image of the ghost’s face seared into his mind. “But I saw her face, Erik. It was not her. It was a woman that I had never seen before.”

“You must have been half in dream, Charles,” Erik said, smoothing down the young man’s hair as he sat trembling in Erik’s lap, head buried in the crook of Erik’s neck. The two of them had returned to Erik’s bedchambers, Charles having shown him the tattered and ripped clothes that were no more than a pile of scraps now. Erik’s face had darkened, before he grabbed the torn fragments and thrown them into a box, hiding them from sight.

They now sat on Erik’s bed, the master still dressed in his shirt and pants, while Charles had been given Erik’s discarded coat. Charles held the garment tightly around his slighter frame, breathing in the comforting scent of his partner.

“I was not dreaming,” Charles replied adamantly, Erik sighing.

“But who else could it have been? If it was not Moira, Angel or Lorna, then who else besides Anna-Marie?”

“Erik, I know what I saw. It was a woman that bore none of their faces, but I had heard her voice before. That laugh. It’s haunting. Erik, why are you not more concerned? I am sure she was the same one that set your bed aflame all those weeks ago!”

“Charles, it’s just not possible,” Erik said, fingers stilling as they threaded through Charles’s hair, tickling the nape of his neck. “You were frightened and half asleep, and your nerves were already frazzled from your nightmare. It is not uncommon to see things. I told you before that Anna-Marie is… a singular type of person. She drinks, heavily, and that makes her do erratic things at times. This was one such occasion. No one was hurt, and I will reprimand her in the morning.”

Even though he did not converse with Anna-Marie as much as the others, she did not strike Charles as an alcoholic. Charles was very familiar with the type, considering his own mother was always drowning at the bottom of a bottle.

“Erik-”

“Charles, please rest, you’re shaking and cold, and I worry,” Erik murmured, pulling back to kiss Charles’s forehead and lips, helping lower the man into the bed. Charles did not take off Erik’s coat, finding it comforting even if it swamped him in size, and Erik smiled down at the sight of his Charles bundled up in his clothes.

Erik pushing Charles’s floppy brown hair back from his cherubic face, the young man looking up at him, still a touch frightened but comforted by the feeling of Erik beside him.

“Stay,” Charles whispered, Erik nodding, not needing to be told twice. He settled himself in the bed beside Charles, gathering the smaller man into his arms and wrapping himself around him like he could protect him from all of the horrors of the world.

In Erik’s arms, Charles was no longer scared of ghosts or phantoms or shadows. He wasn’t afraid of Kurt and Cain Marko and the Red Room, and he wasn’t afraid of Erik being kept away from him behind a locked iron gate, in the arms of someone else.

Before he drifted off, Charles thought about what Heathcliff said, about love being unbreakable by anything other than the will of those in love. Maybe it was foolish, like Erik said, but Charles couldn’t help but find the notion beautiful. For Charles, there was a string tightly knotted under his left ribs, which was similarly knotted to a similar string in Erik. They were bound, and the string would not snap unless one strayed too far, leaving the other behind.

Apart from that, nothing else could cut the string that bound the two of them; not ghosts, nor subordinates, nor potential wives. Charles thought that nothing could come between them, because Erik was his likeness, as he was Erik’s.

But Charles was young, and naïve, and too new to love.

And he was wrong. So very, very wrong.

***

The appearance of the ghost did nudge at Charles’s mind every now and then, but Erik had assured him that it was nothing for him to worry about, and it was easy to feel comfort and security in Erik’s confidence. Charles did not forget about it, but he did not let his thoughts linger on it any further.

A handful of days passed, Ironfield Hall running in happy contentment. Emma had returned back home after spending a few days with Scott, who had proposed the day before she departed. That was a joyous day of celebration, though Scott was wary that Emma’s family would not approve. They did not, but Emma could not care less, taking inspiration from Erik who, too, loved Charles without a thought about anything or anyone else.

Everyone was gathered in the back garden that day. The day when the ground beneath Charles’s feet gave way, the floorboards built on lies and secrets finally crumbling down.

Charles was laughing as he watched Peter run around, swinging a large butterfly net around his blonde head. The child swatted at the buzzing insects Charles had asked him to catch with youthful glee, burning off his endlessly abundant energy with enthusiasm. They were going to learn about native insects, and there was no better way for an active learner like Peter to learn about them than catching them on his own.

Erik sat on a garden chair with a drink in his hand, watching the blue-eyed man smile warmly at the young boy, his eyes lighting up and his sinfully red lips pulling upwards to reveal straight, white teeth. Erik could watch the way Charles’s face transformed with every smile forever, each one becoming more radiant than the last.

Charles bent down to match Peter’s height as they transferred an insect Peter caught into a glass jar, sealing it with some thin fabric and twine. Charles held the insect to the sun, Peter peering at it curiously. Charles told him a few things about the insect, before handing the jar back to Peter so he could sketch it in his notebook, the boy skipping over to Moira to show her what he caught before he went to do his homework.

While Peter was occupied, Charles walked back to Erik, the man standing up and pressing his mouth to Charles’s casually. In a house filled with people who knew about their relationship and accepted them without prejudice or judgement, Charles was feeling more and more comfortable to show his feelings, even if he sometimes caught Alex and Angel smirking at him from the sidelines.

“How long will the little beast be occupied for?” Erik asked, looping his arm around Charles’s waist, the tutor making a show of looking at his pocket watch.

“Not long enough for you to do what you’re thinking about,” Charles replied cheekily, Erik’s hand beginning to migrate south like the birds Charles taught Peter about the week prior. Charles gave Erik a look, reaching back to relocate Erik’s hand a bit higher again, reminding him that they were outdoors, in full view of everyone.

“It’s just them,” Erik huffed, leaning in to kiss Charles. “If they are bothered, I can just increase their wages. There’s not much people won’t suffer through for a salary.”

“You’re terrible,” Charles laughed, eyes fluttering closed to enjoy Erik’s touch, but was suddenly stopped when a gruff, accusatory voice rang across the garden - a voice that was familiar, but not one from any member of the household.

“Adulterer!” the masculine voice rang out, Erik stiffening as Charles turned to the source of the disruption, confusion flooding through him. The man who spoke approached roughly, taking large, angered strides, arms swinging so harshly that his hands slapped the plants lining the garden path, the flower petals falling into the dark dirt.

When the man neared, Charles recognised him instantly; it was Mr Victor Creed. The man looked vastly different from how he did the last time Charles cast eyes on him, pallid and bleeding as he was hauled into a carriage at the break of dawn. Charles remembered his face clearly, having pressed his hands to the man’s gaping wound and wiped away the sweat on his brow for nearly an hour that memorable night.

Now, Creed was stalking over to Erik and Charles, the younger man immediately aware of how they were standing, jumping from Erik’s grasp.

“Erik, what is he doing here?” Charles asked, turning to his lover frantically, but finding that Erik was not looking at him. Before Charles could say anything more, Erik had walked towards Creed, his mouth pulled back in a snarl that showed too many teeth, grabbing the man by the collar of his shirt.

“Creed,” Erik seethed, the man looking him in the eye with equal animosity. “How dare you storm into my home and-”

“How dare I?” Creed laughed, the sound dry and grating, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Erik Lehnsherr. Brother-in-law. You cannot begin to preach to me about my wrongdoings, not when you have sinned so heavily that your soul is bound straight for Hell.”

‘Brother-in-law?’ Charles thought, his mind latching onto that phrase more than anything else that spilled from Creed’s mouth. Erik seemed to notice how Charles stopped breathing, a guttural noise escaping from his throat.

“Quiet, you bastard. Don’t you dare-” Erik growled, tightening his grip around Creed’s neck, the man only grinning at the way Erik’s arms shook with the amount of force he was exerting, unfazed. Creed’s eyes only tore themselves from Erik, moving to Charles who stood behind him, confused and fearful.

“I bet you don’t know, do you, boy? About how this man has cheated you. Lied to you. Deceived you,” Creed sneered, grabbing onto Erik’s wrists and wrenching them down, pushing Erik’s chest roughly. Creed rubbed his bruised neck before rolling his head, bones cracking.

Erik pushed Creed back again, eyes afire, before he walked back to Charles and desperately grabbed his hand to pull him away. Charles stumbled as Erik pulled on him roughly, but dug his heels in, his hand wrenched from Erik’s tight grasp at the surprising movement.

‘Something is not right,’ Charles’s senses screamed, that slightly unsettled feeling he had been ignoring flaring in his mind. Charles stepped back, away from Erik, footing uneven.

Erik turned to look back at Charles, eyes wide and pleading, more desperate than anything Charles had seen from the man before. Creed grinned wider as he watched Charles’s gaze flicker apprehensively between himself and Lehnsherr, and Creed knew that the little fish had taken the bait.

“Charles, please. Don’t listen to him. He is delirious, you’ve seen it. Come with me,” Erik pleaded, holding his hand out for Charles to take. Charles’s arm twitched in habit, too used to not thinking twice before taking Erik’s hand, to fall into his arms.

“Still feeding him lies, brother? Even now. Your name is Charles Xavier, is it not? Well, Charles, you tended to my wounds all those weeks ago. The good Dr McCoy said that if you hadn’t cleaned my wound and stemmed the bleeding, it would have festered and left me either bed-ridden or dead. You saved my life, so it’s only fitting for me to save yours from this defrauding wretch,” Creed said, stepping forward now, a new confidence in his gait when he saw Charles hesitate to take his lover’s hand.

“Charles, please,” Erik said again, Charles finding his voice.

“What is he talking about, Erik?” Charles asked, voice too shaky, too unsure. Erik opened his mouth to answer, but no sound came out, like he was unable to say the words. Charles’s face twisted in pain when all Erik managed to say was “Please, Charles. I will explain. Just come with me, now.”

Misery and degradation and death and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you of your own will did it.

“Erik, what are you not telling me?” Charles whispered, feeling Creed waltz up to them, Erik moving to assault the man again. Charles stepped between them, pressing a hand to Erik’s chest, the man stilling immediately at the unmoving wall that was Charles Xavier, so small and yet so resolute. “Erik, don’t.”

Turning to Creed, Charles tried to keep his voice even as he ordered the intruder to speak, the man doing so with an ease that was in direct contrast to Erik. He pulled out a piece of paper, a legal document with two signatures scrawled at the bottom.

Marriage License – Mr E Lehnsherr, Miss C Creed

“Mr Erik Lehnsherr was married 15 years ago to my sister, Clara Creed, now Mrs Clara Lehnsherr, in Spanish Town, Jamaica,” Creed said slowly, each word deafening in Charles’s ears.

What.

“Charles, Charles, it is not all as he says. I can explain everything to you, please, just come inside with me,” Erik said, but his words were muffled as Charles’s mind kept repeating Creed’s words, over and over.

“The truth of it is, Charles, is that Lehnsherr has not been honest with you. You are young, and thus easy to deceive. Lehnsherr is not a good man – he married my sister and betrayed her by committing adultery. He has led you into a life of sodomy, and caused you to sin on his behalf. Charles, that is the real Erik Lehnsherr!” Creed bellowed, Erik growing pale as Charles finally turned to look at him, eyes wet with tears.

I have not broken your heart – you have broken it, and in breaking it you have broken mine.

“Please tell me he is lying, Erik,” Charles said, stepping back when Erik moved towards him, arm outstretched. Erik gritted his teeth, eyes tormented, before casting his eyes towards the western building, tilting up to the top floor. That was where Erik had taken him that night, when Mason had been bleeding on the chaise. The rattling noise behind the tapestry, the laughing, the ghost.

The ghost.

“Oh, God,” Charles gasped, stumbling back, head dizzy and throbbing. “The ghost. The fire. The blood. You knew, the entire time. Your wife. Your wife is the ghost, the one in the tower. The one who attacked Creed, who set your bed on fire, who tore my clothes to shreds with a knife. You told me it was nothing, that it was just Anna-Marie. You… You knew the truth, all along. And you deceived me. Oh, God. I can’t- I…”

Charles covered his mouth, suddenly feeling sick. He didn’t know what to believe as he tore past Creed and Erik, one of them smiling, the other one awash with devastation and guilt.

If Erik was calling Charles’s name as he ran, Charles did not hear it.

He couldn’t hear much at all over the screaming inside his head.

***

Charles locked himself in his room for the rest of the day. Night had descended swiftly, but Charles had not strayed from where he had dropped himself on the edge of his bed, body still and silent. The events of earlier in the day replayed over and over in his head.

Erik had a wife. He’s been married for 15 years, to the ghost – the woman – that lives in the western tower. Erik knew it, but he had lied.

Charles looked down at his body now, wearing the clothes Erik had bought for him. They suddenly looked ghastly covering Charles’s body, and he quickly stood from the bed, breaths stunted as he hastily pulled off the garments, pushing them to the ground and stepping away from them like they burned his flesh.

Charles rummaged around his wardrobe, reaching into the back to pull out his old clothes, the ones that he carried with him all the way from Graymalkin School, and pulled them on. They scratched at his skin, and the mismatched patch at the elbow was frayed and falling apart, and Charles thought ‘this is just like me’.

It had been hours since Charles ate, missing tea and supper, not even drinking any water. Charles was feeling light headed, and knew that if he did not consume anything, he would collapse. Charles almost wanted to let himself get to that state, to fall into unconsciousness, because at least in his sleep he could run away from the tumultuous feelings running amok in his chest.

But Charles did not do that. He clung to the only rational part of himself left, and lit a candle, before opening the door of his chambers for the first time that night.

From his left, there was a sudden noise and a rush of movement, Charles too weak to jump at the shock.

“Charles,” Erik said quickly, pulling himself clunkily off the floor, where he had apparently been lying. The candle he held was nearing the end of its wick; Erik must have been lying there in wait for Charles for a long time, waiting for his lover to venture out from his self-imprisonment. Charles knew that Erik could have unlocked the door with the key only he and Moira had, but the fact that he did not meant that, even though he had lied to and deceived Charles to his face, he at least held a grain of respect for the young man.

How big that grain was, however, Charles did not know.

Charles didn’t seem to know anything, not any more. The rug had been pulled out from under his feet, and now he was falling into an abyss, a pit that was so dark that the bottom was unable to be seen. Charles could only hope that when he hit the bottom, it would not shatter his bones.

“I don’t want to do this now, Erik,” Charles said, voice thin and frail, a little breathless. Charles swayed on his feet, and let out a pained noise as he leaned on the wall for support. Erik immediately rushed forward, gathering Charles into his arms, one under Charles’s back and the other hooking behind his knees.

Erik held Charles close to his chest as he carried him to the drawing room, placing Charles down into an arm chair and quickly pouring him a glass of water. Charles took it, dizzy and sick, gulping it down and wetting his chapped lips.

“Speak to me, Charles,” Erik said, using the same words he had that night a few days after they had met. Things had been so different at that time; the words, back then, had been intriguing to Charles, but now they only filled him with anguish and heartbreak.

“I don’t think that there is anything left to talk about,” Charles responded simply as Erik fell to his knees. The older man bent so he could look up into Charles’s eyes, which were trained down at the carpet. Erik tentatively placed his hands on Charles’s knees, the young man sucking in a tight breath and shifting, Erik’s hands sliding off uselessly.

“Charles, please. Let me explain,” Erik whispered, Charles remaining silent, a pillar that Erik could not topple nor climb. Swallowing, Erik began to speak, whether it was an explanation, a plea or a defence, Charles wasn’t completely certain.

“I was 20-years-old, not much older than you. My father, Jakob, had just died, and my family was almost destitute. It did not matter that we had once been wealthy; my father had made one wrong deal with the wrong man, and we all paid the price for it. Edie, my mother, was desperate to save our family, and arranged a marriage for me. It seemed too good to be true, but we didn’t know it back then. All we knew was what the Creeds had presented to us; Miss Clara Creed, Victor’s younger sister, whose wealthy father had provided her with a sizeable dowry.”

“I was young, and foolish. Creed had set things up so that I would fall for his beautiful, younger sister, blinded by her dowry. He preyed on my mother’s desire to pull our family out of financial ruin. I married her, only seeing the good while Creed hid all the bad.”

“It was not evident at first. Clara was beautiful and charismatic, and was somehow everything I had been looking for. But it was after we married that the symptoms that Creed had hidden began to manifest, and fester until it overtook her. She became mad, and what you saw that night – the ghost, you said – was only a fraction of her derangement. She is violent, feral – you saw it yourself, how she mauled her own brother. Charles, I was defrauded by Creed into marrying his mad sister, a woman that no one would have married if they had not been blinded.”

“Once her madness was known, I could have let her die. Gott knows I had many opportunities. I have a second house, a little further into the countryside. It is not as well maintained as Ironfield, and I could have left her there, where the inclement weather would have finished her off, and no one would have blamed me for it. I could have, but I am no monster. I wouldn’t do that to her.”

“So, I kept her here, in Ironfield, where I pay Anna-Marie a weighty sum to care for her. But, Anna-Marie is only human, and Clara is mad every hour of the day, and even more under the moonlight. The night of the fire, and when she broke into your chambers, Anna had dozed off, letting Clara able to unlatch the locks on her room and wander around our halls.”

“Charles, you have to understand – this was a mistake I made 15 years ago, one I am still paying for today. One that I am paying for now, with you,” Erik said, voice wavering now, his pale eyes blinking rapidly as they heated. Erik’s eyes have not shed tears since his mother’s death which occurred only a few mere months after he married, but now, they burned full of them.

“Charles, liebling. I deceived you, and I was wrong. I made another mistake, but only because I was afraid I would lose you. I… I haven’t lost you, have I?”

Charles did not respond, and Erik let out a choked noise, clutching at Charles’s face which remained impassive. Charles’s soul felt empty, his body a vessel carrying fractured pieces of a man that happened to love someone named Erik Lehnsherr.

“Charles, Gott, please don’t,” Erik pleaded, pressing his forehead against Charles’s, like he was trying to get inside his mind, to show him directly the depth of his love, regret and desire to make amends, in whatever way Charles wanted. “I need you, Charles. Don’t break my heart, please. I love you. Fully and completely. Only you.”

Charles laced his fingers together in his lap, trying to still their shaking as he spoke.

“I have not broken your heart, Erik,” Charles spoke, voice even and still, like he was reading from a script. And he was, in the end. They were the words taken directly out of ‘Wuthering Heights’, ones that he and Erik had laughed over as they lay together in the gardens. Neither of them laughed now. “You have broken it, and in breaking it you have broken mine.”

Charles stood then, Erik sliding down, his arms scrabbling to grip onto Charles’s chest, waist, legs. But Charles was a pillar, a statue made of stone, and Erik could not get at him, no matter how hard he tried.

“I am tired, my friend,” Charles said slowly, Erik flinching at the familiar phrase. “I am tired, and need to rest. And…” Charles said, breathing out shakily. “I am sorry.”

With that, Charles stepped out of Erik’s hold on him, not letting his legs turn back no matter how much his shattered heart yearned to return to Erik’s side, still so very much in love with him.

Charles forced himself to return to his room, the string under his left rib tugging harshly, and Charles let himself cry once he had locked the door behind him, burying himself under his blankets and sobbing like he was ten-years-old and alone in the Red Room.

But even then, his tears hadn’t hurt so much.

***

Charles slept for three hours, but after that point, his body simply gave up trying. It was barely daybreak, and by then, Charles had pulled all of his belongings into his worn suitcase, leaving the five sets of new suits hanging in pristine condition in his wardrobe.

Ironfield Hall was deathly quiet; Moira and the others had witnessed the implosion in the gardens when the truth had come to light. Alex, who had no idea about his employer’s secret wife, could no longer look at Erik any more after knowing what he had done to Charles. Angel was more sympathetic, feeling pity for Erik rather than hatred. Lorna was too busy trying to soothe a distraught Peter, who had said something along the lines of “Meine Väter kämpfen.” Anna-Marie felt guilty for not keeping a closer eye on her charge, Clara Creed, and felt like she was partially responsible for the mess; she had liked Charles, even though they had not spoken much. She knew that she was not sociable, but even when Charles was apprehensive about her, he was still polite and smiled when he walked past her in the halls. She also knew Erik’s pain, having been the one assigned to watch over his mad wife.

Moira held the most complex feelings; she had been the sole subordinate who knew about the existence of Clara Creed apart from Anna-Marie. Moira had known, but had pushed away her misgivings about Erik finding a new lover. She knew that Erik, even though he pretended to have a hard and cold front, was dealt a heavy blow in his youth and yearned for nothing more than to make a house and home with someone he loved.

She knew that the reason Erik used to stay away from Ironfield for months and years at a time was because he couldn’t bear the pain of returning to a house that was also a prison for a wife he did not love. She knew that he roamed France, Germany and America in an almost desperate search to find someone that would love him for who he was; not for his title or money or a sick plot to cast off an insane sister to someone that was too kind of heart to kill her and rid themselves of the burden.

Every time Erik had returned home, he had grown colder and more bitter, unable to find that person that would love him wholeheartedly, and that he would love back in equal measure. He would always end up returning alone to the house that he abhorred.

Until Charles.

Charles had changed everything, not only for Erik, but everyone living in the house. He had breathed new life into it, transforming it from a prison into a sanctuary, where everyone felt safe and included. He turned it into a place that Erik never wanted to leave, if only because Charles was there.

But everyone had seen the fallout, and now the illusion Charles had cast over Ironfield Hall had been shattered by Creed and the truth. The subordinates knew better than to disturb the silence now, and they walked on eggshells, staying in their chambers and kneeling at their bedside to pray for things to work out.

Charles did not pray; instead, he packed, and opened the window of his bed room. White curtains billowed out, dancing around him as he looked down. It was a decent drop from the second storey window, but beneath him was plush grass, which would hopefully soften his fall.

Charles could not stay here, in a house where Erik’s wife was being kept in a tower room. In a house with Erik, who had kept the truth hidden from him, when he had more than one opportunity to unearth it. Charles wasn’t sure if he would have reacted any better if Erik had told him before, but he wanted to believe that he would have. It wouldn’t have been such a betrayal if Erik had been the one to tell him, and not Creed.

But that wasn’t what had happened, and Charles had to go. He needed to get away and clear his mind, and maybe, even his heart.

Charles dropped his luggage down first, the case making a heavy thud against the grass. Charles closed his eyes in a silent prayer, before bundling himself up in his cloak, and letting himself drop.

Charles landed hard on his legs, grunting in pain as he landed poorly. His left leg throbbed, but it was not so bad that he could not run. Charles grabbed his suitcase, and hobbled with pain across the back fields towards the road, forcing himself to not turn back around. If Charles saw the house again, if he even caught a glimpse of Erik’s face, he knew he would not be able to leave.

Charles kept running, the morning chilly and the distant ocean winds slapping his red-cheeked face. The tutor – ex-tutor – clutched at the meagre amount of money he had in his hands; a few pounds and a dismal amount of shillings, remainders from his journey to Westchester months ago. Remainders from the ten-pound note Erik had given him, along with the promise to return back for the other five pounds he was owed.

Charles never got those five pounds.

Charles used the money to pay for a coach to go anywhere but here. The coachman just looked at him with pity, wondering what happened to this poor, young boy who seemed so desperate to escape from something. Life was hard in the era they were in, and the coachman was not one to pry – everyone had their own tale of woe.

The coachman took Charles as far as he could according to the amount of money Charles had given him, extending his good graces to take Charles one stop further. Charles thanked him, and had taken his luggage with him before the carriage rolled away into the distance.

Charles now stood in the middle of a crossroad, surrounded by acres and acres of green and brown fields punctuated by rocks and dirt. Charles did not know where he was, and he let out a sob, collapsing onto his knees.

As he cried, he imagined, for a brief moment, someone calling his name.

‘Charles.’

The voice calling it sounded broken, but muted by distance. He heard his name one more time, the phantom-like sound carried by the wind, before it grew silent again.

Charles laughed to himself, tears streaming down his face, and wondered if he was going mad.

***

Charles did not know how much time had passed; his left leg now throbbed, having carried him across the Moors despite being injured, and he was sure if he removed his boot his ankle and calf would be black and blue.

His stomach was empty and his face bitten raw by the cold winds. He was dehydrated, but had collapsed beside a little pool of rainwater held in a concave rock; the water could be tainted, but Charles was desperate, and scooped up the water in his dirtied hands and swallowed it down so quickly he choked.

That must have been hours ago now, because the sun was beginning to set, and he was nearing the end of his tether.

Under the orange and red glow of the sunset, Charles let his legs carry him as far as they could go, but the Moors were a vast land and no matter which direction Charles turned, he could not see anything beyond the dirt, bush and rock. He laughed dryly, a croaking, fractured sound, before finally taking his last step.

Charles fell with a haze over his mind into the dirt, using the last of his energy to roll himself onto his back. He stared up into the waning sun, which began to glow blonde, and Charles blinked sleepily. Everything was quiet, peacefully so, and Charles thought that, ‘ah, a peaceful death I’ve been granted. God’s small mercies’.

Charles blinked, and for a second, the blonde sun turned into a slope of blonde hair, golden and fair. Charles did not have the energy to rub at his eyes, wondering if he was delusional, but the hair soon connected to a face, one that he had only seen in his dreams for eight years.

“Raven,” Charles whispered, his sister looming over him, face unchanged. Raven was still beautiful, and in Charles’s dying mind, she looked vibrant and alive, and smiled down at him gently. “Am I dying?”

“Yes, you idiot,” Raven said, laughing a little as she kneeled beside him, pulling Charles’s head into her child’s lap. Charles breathed out a laugh, his lungs rattling. “You’re dying, but you’re not going to die. Not yet. It’s too early for you, brother. You still have so much more to do.”

“What is the point now?” Charles rasped, turning his head to the right to look at Raven, her image becoming blurrier, fading into the horizon. “Raven, tell me, what am I supposed to do now?”

“You’re the genius, brother,” Raven said, her face blurring as the sun dipped below the hills. “You can figure that out on your own.”

“Raven,” Charles called out, though his voice was scratchy, weak. “Raven, don’t leave me. Don’t leave me again, please, wait for me. Raven-”

Charles’s consciousness began fading, but not before he felt his body begin to float. Warmth surrounded him, along with the scent of earth and firewood, a gritty and coarse voice muttering something into his ear that sounded like-

“What the Hell are you doing lying and dying here, bub? And who the fuck is Raven?”

Next chapter (8/11) →

#cherik #charles xavier #erik lehnsherr #charles x erik #xmen #xmen fic #marvel #jane eyre #jane eyre au #i just love cherik and jane eyre ok

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writerpyre · 5 years ago

Text

Addendum: Skyhook

So. I’ve been writing this tiny thing on and off since Skyhook came out oh four-and-a-half-years-ago where’s the damn time gone!?, and I finally managed to get it finished tonight. Amazing what an age without looking at this thing -- and randomly getting vibes while trawling through @lenle-g’s old fanart -- can do, but here; have a oneshot everybody.

*An addendum to the end of Skyhook, because no bloody way did he not get saddled with anything remotely health-endangering. It made me quite indignant, but what can we do about animation budgets and not scaring small children?, but anyway. :) As usual, I only do this for the joy, not money. Many thanks as always to my beautiful beta (co-writer), LexietFive; who, without her encouragement and love, I wouldn’t still be doing this stuff. Love you L. xx

Enjoy. xx

John is starting to feel rather unwell by the time he ushers Fischler and his recently-fired associates through the final airlock between Thunderbirds Three and Five, an hour after he'd locked the nosy creatures in the galley to stop them from ferreting out the secrets of International Rescue. His head is pounding, his skin aching, and his scalp to his toes and everything in between feel hot and heavy and painful. His limbs feel like they weigh several tons, even despite the lack of gravity, and his throat feels thick and tight; every inhalation feeling like a wholly unnecessary effort. His heartbeat slowing as the still-lingering adrenaline from the rather unorthodox rescue finally burns out, John lets out a weak sigh of relief as the airlock between finally seals shut behind his three unwelcome guests.

He loves 'Five, but he is heartily sick and tired of spinning around in that damned gravity ring. The ache is intensifying swiftly now the excitement is over. His brain feels like it has been scrambled from the pressure of being flattened against the panels, and has been since he managed to pick himself off the ground, and his right arm and shoulder are pure bruise from where he'd been slammed down in the process of reaching the cut-off switch. Seems to be a rather recurrent event as of late, he muses wearily. At least last time it was only 3Gs, Alan having managed to slow down the spin with Thunderbird Three before the still-malignant EOS turned him into a John Tracy pancake, but still, after that one he'd had a pressure headache and vision problems for three days. He wasn't pleased to be repeating the experience so soon.

Sucking in a painful, stuttered breath against his battered, bruised ribs, John gives himself a moment to regroup, promising himself that he'll do a systems' check shortly, just as soon as the station stops whirling around him. When that started exactly, he's not sure, but he thinks it must've had to do with the black-out he had in those moments before he forced himself upright to deal with the reverse thrusters. This is why he doesn't do gravity all that often, it always screws him up for the rest of the damn day!

"Thunderbird Three to Thunderbird Five, are you there, John?" And there goes that plan. His eyes flicker open and John grimaces as he forces his arm up to bring his comm. level with his face, wincing as his head and neck throb with the motion. That's gonna get irritating real fast...

"Thunderbird Five, reading you strength five, 'Three," He contemplates sitting up and addressing his siblings and their holograms properly, but his eyes and his entire body are turning swiftly into agony right now, so nope, stuff it. It's only Scott and Alan, having come up to fetch the high-ballooning mis-adventurers - crapped-up second engine and all. They won't care.

"Planning on turning us and the Space Invaders loose anytime in the future, Johnny? We're kinda stuck til you release your grip..." John blearily watches Scott's eyebrows rise up his forehead as his sibling takes him in, lolling on his back in midair, and he blinks painfully as a wave of nausea-induced dizziness rolls over him, his eyes shuttering to half-closed with no warning. Yup, definitely time for a nap before those checks...

"Make EOS do it..." John mumbles chokedly, forcing them back open, and his older brother just looks at him, with that ridiculous expression he gets when the Terrible Two are being morons and he can't believe they can be so childish. "I'm tired..." He isn't whining, he isn't, but some part of him says that he should probably be alarmed, especially when his head is aching so, but right now, John just doesn't have the energy to devote to it. He feels all sick and wobbly and... eurgh.

Something's wrong, he thinks as the pain suddenly spikes enormously, forcing him in on himself with a cry of pain, and Scott seems to have had the same lightbulb moment as John, because his brother is suddenly hollering rather inadequately for Alan, and it's all John can do to roll himself over in the air before he's throwing up the gorgeous, floating chunks of what only a few hours ago, there were two rather delicious breakfast bagels and his morning vacuum flask of coffee. John groans and clutches his stomach, his ears ringing as his body convulses, the undersides of his eyelids tinged red by pain.

Wonderful, motion sickness at the very least; bloody centrifugal and gravitational forces have gotten him, goddamnit, and so suddenly too, which means it's a bad bout, because he's not experienced that since he went through astronaut training, years ago. Apparently twenty-five Gs and more can do that to a guy. Yup, his rather muddled, normally-intelligent brain remembers that right now, at least. Yummy.

John retches again - because that thought is definitely not appropriate right now, when he's dirtying up the pristine, sanitised atmosphere of his beloved 'Bird - and he wonders absently where the hell EOS is, as, quite abruptly, the chilled hands of John's older brother are on his arms, pulling him into an upright position and away from the contents of his stomach. He flails blindly, because dear God, his head is killing him, but John tries to wriggle away regardless, because those damned idiots in Three's passenger bay are far more important than him dealing with a bit of nausea... Or not, as the case may be...

Deny it, and it’ll be all okay… Yep, sound advice, Tracy.

It doesn't seem like Scott has gotten that memo though, because he only grips John tighter and pulls his head back firmly but carefully, straightening the slighter man out, literally forcing him to gasp for air to regulate his breathing. That only makes it harder to bear the pain, rapidly growing stronger now, like the veil on the shock of what happened barely half an hour ago and the damage he has apparently inflicted upon himself has fallen away, leaving raw, naked agony in its wake.

"Easy, John, easy..." Scott mutters in his ear. "I know what you're thinking, but none of them are hurt but for a bit of altitude-headache, and right now, you're coming down with us whether you like it or not. They can wait til we've got you settled in 'Three, and then you can come home and Brains can check you out; you're shaking like a maraca."

Coughing, his eyes streaming even as he grips his brother's arms blindly in dizziness, John glares up weakly at the fuzzy form of his eldest sibling. Scott knows his thoughts on that matter - he knows that John much prefers to spend his time up here unless he has to be elsewhere, and right now, John doesn't want to. He'll be fine once he gets an hour or so's nap, EOS - whenever the apparently-absent AI deigns to reappear - can mind the shop for anything desperate, but so help him, he isn't going to move from his 'Bird, thank you very much, Scott Tracy!

"There will be no arguments, John." Said AI, almost as if she's read Scott's mind, is suddenly right in John's burning face with her green-blinking camera lens, making him squint painfully at the light. "Your body temperature has risen and seems inclined to do so further, your pupils are dilated and unwavering at this time, and if my data on this subject is indeed correct, you are suffering from the condition called Non-Impact Concussion. There are indications of the presence of stress fractures in your subclavian, thoracic, pelvic and cervical regions, and thermal heat readings signify that there is an abnormal level of swelling radiating from the area surrounding the axillary nerves in your right shoulder. Medical treatment on this is strongly advised. Sensors compute that you also may have microscopic muscular, bone and tissue damage, particularly in your internal organs and within your skeletal system... This must be assessed. Scott Tracy,"

The AI that John shares 'Five with suddenly turns her 'face' to his brother, who seems to be containing John and his wobbly limbs now, rather than restraining, much to his puzzlement. John is stuck by an absurd flash of irritation that not only has his body and 'Bird turned against him today, but so has his supposed companion... Brilliant.

"... From what I can determine," The AI continues doggedly, the high whine in John's ears making him cringe, "This situation is not life-threatening to John currently, but according to my calculations of duration and pressure in relation to the fragility and subsequent mortality of the human form, it is suggested that he does not return to work until he is satisfactorily sound. This coming period will be very... What is the term? Unpleasant. It is recommended that he be closely supervised and examined to ensure that there will be no complications. For this, John needs to leave this station and seek appropriate treatment."

"You need some time to rest at the very least, so no arguing." Scott murmurs, his voice raspy and thick in John's left ear. "There are no ifs, buts or maybes about it. You've endured freaking twenty-five Gs of gravity in one hit, and I can tell you right now, you're not in good shape, Little Brother, even if your brain is too scrambled for you to realise that yourself."

And oh shit, Scott actually sounds concerned, God help him, John realises, closing his eyes painfully. That certainly means that something isn't connecting right for him right now, because though they might tease and mock Scott and call him 'Smother Hen' and all other assorted samples of you're-too-overbearing-for-your-own-good teasing, John and the others know that Scott doesn't outright order them around outside of a rescue unless something is actually very wrong.

And yes, somewhere in his shit-that-freaking-hurts brain, John knows the reality of all those things that EOS listed off. He learned the ramifications of that amount of gravity on the human body years ago - twenty-five Gs is nothing to sneeze at - but quite honestly, right now he's in so much pain that it's starting to engulf his rational, sensible mind, and he doesn't really want to uncurl himself from where he's hunched over his screaming ribs and cramping stomach. Lost in the burning waves of pain shooting through him now his body has stopped spinning, it's suddenly all he can do to not pass out properly. This is going to be interesting...

Without being aware of it, John realises that he has indeed blacked out, because when he's opened his eyes again, it's to find he's strapped firmly into one of 'Three's jump seats, with the hard ridge of a cervical brace digging into his chin, and the firm, almost painful pressure of the restraints holding him securely in it. Struggling to force his fluttering eyelids open properly - yeah, that should not be as hard as it is right now - John can feel the shuddering of the ship underneath him, and he can barely restrain himself from moaning as his entire body protests the whirligig sensation. Strangely enough, his head, while still feeling like it has the Mole digging through it, feels a little less raw and abused, but the rest of him still feels like an elephant sat on him. And his stomach is still rolling. Fantastic.

Somewhat winning the battle to focus his vision, John is aware that there is sound around him, the voices of what he assumes are his brothers as well as the life-support machinery and the piloting systems, but it's not until he lets out a sharp cough and a subsequent, burning gasp of oxygen, that he realises that Scott is almost right above him.

"Hey Starman," Scott's accompanying smile is strained and relieved at the same time, and John wants to wipe it all away - because his brother being relieved means that John has scared the pilot, and John doesn't like frightening his brothers, any of them... "Nice to have you back." Scott's hand comes up out of nowhere to press into John's dishevelled, sweaty hair, gently carding through it, and John feels more than a little confused and disconnected, because, he should be able to pinpoint what his limbs are doing, and holy effing crap does it actually hurt to breathe right now...

Oh, yeah right; no more microgravity... Blurry eyes, nausea and freaking, disorienting weight on top of him again... Cos returning to earth and all sucks even when he's healthy and hasn't been crushed by his own gravity ring... Why'd he do that again? What a stupid idea.

"Mmmm." John agrees with his brother belatedly, because again, the breathing thing, and good, sorta-numbing drugs apparently affect his ability to make coherent sounds. Not to mention the solid, thumping agony of his head, even despite the clear attempt at pain relief... "Di'nt, w'nna lea'e, Sco'..." He tries to frown - because why did they move him? - but his face scrunches in pain as the hot jagged edges of his shoulder and ribs decide to arc up, and his attempt at displeasure rapidly turns into a fiery ball of ouch.

Well, it was worth a try... He thinks miserably, trying not to let his stomach rebel again - a bad idea in hypergravity...

"Yeah, I thought so," Scott seems to commiserate with him, even if he can't understand him - jee, thanks Scoot, John loves being humoured when he knows he's incoherent - but then his brother brings up a bottle of water into his rather patchy line of sight, and John suddenly is so thirsty that all thoughts of annoyance are crowded out of him by the sheer, one-track gratitude he feels at that fuzzy realisation.

Reaching out clumsily for the receptacle, John can't help but feel irritated as Scott gently but firmly pushes his aching, painful arm back down and holds the bottle to his lips. Not a baby, Scott, he finds himself thinking somewhat irrationally, even as his mouth clamps to the bottle, his tired, burning, painful body mass literally demanding he drain it dry; he feels so dehydrated and parched.

John grimaces slightly as he forces himself not to gulp at the water, summoning the last bit of strength as he sips. By the stars, the water feels so good, he can almost swear he feels it soaking into his tissue. Feeling greedy, he forgets himself and tries to take an extra big swallow of the liquid, before grunting angrily as Scott suddenly pulls the bottle away.

"Nuh-uh, Johnny, no more yet, unless you want to be sick again?" His big brother's voice is low and full of compassion as John feels him sweep a hand over his forehead on the pretence of smoothing away that cowlick curl of red-gold hair that never stays gelled back for long, but exhausted and ill as he is, John isn't fooled, Scott is fever-checking. All four of his younger brothers know the signs, though it's been a very long time since he himself has been on the receiving end of Scott's worry.

Weakly, John attempts to pull away and wreaks his own undoing as the quick movement forces the mother of all headaches to rip through his skull. The pounding ringing, burning pain resonates behind his eyes, through his very brain it feels like, pushing down his nose and through his ears with such intensity that he can't help but let out a strangled squawk as he forces his hands up in the air. He needs to know what seems to be sluggishly flowing on his face, surely he didn't drop water on himself?

"Oh, shit!" Scott's voice sounds strangely far away and thickly muffled as John squints painfully through narrowed eyelids, trying so hard to bring the rocket's lounge into focus. He feels something soft and thick mopping at his tingling, sore eyes and covering his nose as his body convulses with the agony he's being forced to adapt to. "Close your eyes, John," Scott orders, a note of fear penetrating John's thoughts despite the fuzzy thickness of his ears.

John obeys, he's not stupid, he knows what's happened, that the sharp movement has caused the built up pressure in his head to vent outward, that he's probably perforated his eardrums, that the thin straw like liquid mixed with earwax is running from his ears, and that his nose is definitely gushing with blood, hence Scott's concern. In fact he'd hazard a guess that the sclera of his eyes are now pink and watery, possibly even bleeding out slightly from his ever-increasing blood pressure. As an astronaut, he is well-versed on the dangers and what to expect. So is Scott.

He gropes out suddenly, clasping Scott by the forearm. "H'w b'd is it?” He grunts.

“Blood pressure has skyrocketed dude,” Scott’s voice is tight with worry. “Your heart rate is way up and your respirations are shit. Deep breathing exercises now, you're not having an aneurysm just because you wanted to see what it felt like to try and separate your elements John, do it.”

“Was that a science joke, Scott?” John wheezes incredulously, because that wasn't bad at all. Not like usual. Huh. What's the world coming to?

John feels himself choke painfully with amusement, and immediately regrets it. Laughter is a spectacularly bad idea. He sucks in a breath, and well crap; that’s the end of him isn’t it?

Dizzy is an understatement, John thinks fuzzily.

Hello, darkness.

“Hey, hey! No you don’t,” What must be his brother’s hand snaps sharply at his cheek, and John startles; torn between anger and confusion as his eyes snap open to meet his older brother’s determined stare. “You are not passing out.” Scott orders, voice fully infused with Field Commander deliberation. “You can take an order; your WSA training says so, Starman.” His brother tells him, with a sudden, sly smirk. “Don’t blink out on me now; not after we’ve nearly got the blood stopped and all.”

John is still confused and dizzy, but his amusement returns at his brother’s quip, which gives him some optimism that this nasty little episode might stop soon. Once his body stops throwing a temper tantrum, at any rate. Urgh.

Scott’s brusque love tap seems to have cleared his head a little, however, and blinking a little, even as his brain seems determined to keep bashing itself against the inside of his skull, John’s attempts at deep breaths seem to be at least reassuring Scott. The fear in his face has disappeared, in any case. Phew.

John realises that the older man is still clamping a cloth from the medkit over his nose, careful to not obstruct his mouth, and he can still feel the unpleasant, gritty wetness of his ears leaking awfully down the sides of his neck and into his suit, but at least the nausea has lessened a little. Awareness of his own body comes flooding back with the return of cognizance, and John frowns as he realises both his hands are held in a one-hand vice grip in Scott’s left, and that there’s that hard ridge of the neck brace cutting into his chin again. Ew. The awful feelings retreat a little, to be replaced with an awful lot of oh-hell-no, when he realises exactly what the plan is next for him when they finally get back to Earth.

Honestly, he should’ve seen it coming, and it’s inevitable and needed, but it doesn’t mean he has to like it! He hates being carried out on stretchers. No-no-no no-no-no-no! Shit.

Scott seems to have read his mind, and has a sly, half-amused expression on his face, just barely concealing the undeniable look of sheer relief still lingering there. John knows that it’s because once again, he seems to have scraped himself out of yet another life-threatening situation by the mere skin of his teeth. Gordon has joked in the past that if John were an animal, he’d be a cat, by virtue of the fact that he seems to have an inordinate amount of lives to chew through, what with all his assorted mishaps. He has to get through the damn medical tests and examinations first though, and it isn’t fair, because it’s not like he does these things on purpose. Not like the idiot younger three, and Scott, who didn’t get his nickname from Dad for no reason. The man fell out of a tree when he was a teenager; too busy trying to see the planes at the airfield, for crying out loud!

John’s eyes widen further as he realises that once they’re all reassured he really is actually okay after this jaunt (not that he feels that way right now, he’s going to be stuck in bed for at least a few days, especially with these ribs, he just knows it), his three younger brothers are never going to let him live the repeat of his out-of-control-hamster-wheel antics down. Not to mention his idiot of an older brother; don’t you dare to pretend otherwise, Scott Tracy!

Huffing out an indignant breath, as Scott suddenly breaks out into full-on-laughter at his epiphany -- still trapped in the dual vice-grip of his brother’s firm restraint and the pain of his battered body -- John can only make a face of resignation.

Jerks. He thinks. Jerks; the lot of them.

Fanfiction.net // Ao3

#look: a ficlet!#pyre writes #pyre writing tag #the bound universe #bound series #addendum to a fic #skyhook #fanfiction #thunderbirds #thunderbirds are go #john tracy #scott tracy

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rhnuzlocke · 5 years ago

Photo

Chapter Four: Child of the Moon

The car rumbled softly into a space behind the Petalburg Gym, and Senri climbed out of the driver’s side. Ren paused for a moment to marvel at the solar parking lot and scuff her new boot against its textured glass surface. They were still stiff, and she was not looking forward to how sore her feet would be by the end of the day, but she liked the look and weight of them.

Kenta emerged from his ball, and Tāraki bounced excitedly beside the Ursaring as they walked around to the front. The hulking pokemon yawned, then murmured some doubtless sage advice from his own journey with her father. Tāraki listed with unusually rapt attention, eyes glued to Kenta’s grizzled muzzle. She was going to miss him.

Ren wondered if everyone was in yet and how long this would take. Barry was already at the front desk settling in, and Lei walked out of the changing rooms with their Persian.

“It feels like you just got here, and you’re already on your way!” they complained, but they were smiling. “Are we finally gonna battle when you come back for the badge?”

“Depends how much you train,” Ren shot back with a grin.

Lei laughed. “She’s your daughter alright!”

“That she is.” Senri ruffled her hair. She almost threw him but shoved back the impulse and brushed him off instead. “I’ll go get your things.”

He went back, and a few of the other trainers offered her congratulations and goodbyes. Kenta nudged her when Barry left for the bathroom.

“I’ll be careful,” she told him.

“You are careful,” he said with a chuff.

There was a lot she wanted to say to him, but for a long moment nothing came to the surface. Then something old surged up from the depths, a memory she thought she had forgotten. “I—I’m sorry it took so long.”

“We evolve in our own time, little cub. I don’t hold you to the things you said when you were cave-bound. I’m just glad to see you smiling again—feel the warmth pour out of you like a campfire. I’m grateful for every day you live and every step I see you take. Doesn’t matter the direction.”

Ren dropped to her knees and slung her arms around his neck, burying her face in his soft, thick fur. He put an arm around her, and she was safe again.

“Watashi wa Kenta-sensei ni hibi to gyōseki karite iru subete.”

“I have no regrets,” he returned and hugged her tighter.

“Kenta talks even less than Otōsan but he always knows what to say. I was lucky to have so many parents.”

They have certainly been a formative—and positive—influence.

At last, she dried her eyes and let go of him. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Good. Ready to say goodbye to the others?”

Ren smiled. “Yeah.”

Tāraki climbed back up her shoulder, and she scratched under his chin as they went back to see the rest of her father’s team. The old Tauros nearly knocked her off her feet as she came in only to be snatched to safety by the Ambipom. The Blissey and Kangaskhan nearly smothered her between them. Even the Vigoroth gave her a fond pat with his claws, only to sulk away when the others poked fun at him. The rest of the crew didn’t know her as well, and she couldn’t understand them, but they wished her well just the same.

Then it was time to leave, and she returned to the lobby with her father.

“Senri, Mr. Scott is here to see you,” Barry called as they entered. A middle-aged man and green-haired teen were waiting with him by the front desk.

“Good morning, Charles! Wally, how are you?” Senri greeted them.

“Very well, thank you, sir,” the boy answered. He was almost eerily pale and didn’t look terribly well but held himself with a certain kind of poise. It made him seem taller than he actually was. He was small—only as tall as Ren—and slighter with delicate features to match.

“Oh! Introductions! This is my daughter, Ren.”

Mr. Scott shook her hand. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, young lady.”

“I should have introduced you two a while ago,” said Senri while Ren shook Wally’s hand. “I wasn’t thinking. Ah, maybe it’s just as well. When’s the big move? Soon, no?”

“In a week, sir.”

“Excellent. So, what can I help you with today?”

“I got my trainer license.”

“Wonderful, let’s see it!” Senri beamed. Wally fished it out of his shoulder bag and handed it over. “Look at that photo! I’m jealous. My first made me look like a convict,” Senri chuckled as he returned it. “Well then, let’s go in and meet the greenhorns. I’m sure you’ll find someone suitable.”

“Actually, sir,” Wally stopped him, “I was hoping for a loan. I want to catch my first—my service pokemon.”

“Oh?” Senri said as his mind worked. Then something flickered over his face, and he tried not to grin. Ren knew that look. “Very Good! Now let me see, who can I give you…” He pretended to think it over for a moment, and Ren figured what he was up to before he opened his mouth again. “Actually, Ren, would you mind helping Wally with this?”

“Sure.”

That was surprisingly quick.

“I knew he had to have a good reason. He was more excited than I was for me to set out.”

“Great! Ren has already caught three pokemon so you’re in good hands, Wally. I’ll see you two later.”

Senri ushered Mr. Scott further inside, throwing Ren a wink over his shoulder. Once they were gone, Wally shifted and wrang the shoulder strap of his bag between his hands.

“Thank you for helping me. I hope this isn’t getting in the way of anything.”

“It’s no problem,” she reassured him as they walked out. “I don’t have a schedule to keep.” He accepted that, and she gestured towards Route 102 since it was closest. They walked in silence for a bit, and he pulled his cardigan sleeves down over his hands.

“So, why do you want to catch a wild to have as your service pokemon, if it’s okay to ask? Are they expensive here?”

He wrung his bag strap again before answering. “Um, the truth is I don’t want a service pokemon—well I do. I’m going to live with my aunt and uncle, and my cousin is a breeder, so I could have gotten one from her—and I still might—but I want to be a trainer. I always have. But, um, I’ve never really been healthy, and my parents wouldn’t let me try.”

“So we’re actually out here to get you a battler?”

“Yeah,” he responded meekly and twisted his bag strap even more.

“Hey, don’t worry. I won’t Rattata you out or anything. But why not just take one of Otōsan’s trainees or your cousin’s pokemon and battle them?”

He reached up and held the carved wood pendant hanging around his neck and rubbed at it with his thumb. “My parents have a point. I don’t know if I can be a real trainer, so I set myself a test of sorts. If I can get a wild pokemon to respect me, show enough potential that they decide they want to be my partner, then maybe I can do it.”

Ren nodded, and Wally looked taken aback by her acceptance. “It makes sense to me. I mean, it does feel like you're being a little hard on yourself, but you’ve clearly given this a lot of thought. And I don’t think it’s strange. I didn’t really ‘catch’ any of the pokemon on my team. I asked them—except for Panahi, who asked me.”

“Oh wow! Really?”

“I think it’s more common in some regions. After all, we didn’t always have pokeballs.”

“I guess that’s true.”

Ren pulled a ball of her belt and held it out to him. He accepted it reverently and cradled it in his hand for a minute. She bumped her eyebrows at him, and a look of determination settled over his features. He threw the ball, Akahana popped out in a flash of red, and he caught it again.

“Oh, what a cool Poochyena! I haven’t seen one like her before.”

“She’s a Striped variant. Akahana, this is Wally. We are going to help him get his first pokemon.” Akahana scrutinized him for a moment and nodded. “She knows Growl, Tackle, and Thunder Fang.”

“Whoa! Really?”

“Yep! And Thunder Fang is great because—

“It has a chance of causing paralysis!”

“Exactly. And Aka here is good at it.” Ren gave him an appraising look. He must have practiced to toss and catch a pokeball that naturally. She remembered doing the same with a rubber band ball when she was young. “You sure know your stuff.”

“I sorta have a library on pokemon training at home. And I watched every battle video I could get my hands on since I couldn’t…” He trailed off.

“That’s great! Whatever pokemon you catch will be super lucky.” He smiled, and Ren grinned back. “What species did you have in mind?”

“I would really like a Ralts.” Ren pulled out her nav and looked them up since it wasn’t a species she had bumped across out with Kai. When she saw the first image, her eyes flickered to Wally’s hair . The resemblance was too close to be a coincidence. She shook her head and turned her attention back to the data. “Hmm, DexNav says they’re elusive. We could be out here a while.”

“I’m sorry,” Wally apologized again, visibly wilting.

“Hey, don’t worry about it. This is super important. Besides, it’ll be fun.”

Wally’s lips parted slightly in surprise, then a wobbly but radiant smile took over his face, and his pale blue eyes shimmered. “Thank you.”

“He shattered my heart with that smile.”

That’s very sentimental of you.

“Something you have yet to learn about me is that I am extremely and unbearably sentimental.”

And was that the only reason you helped him?

“No. I was angry at his parents. Otōsan’s encouragement was a lot sometimes, but he never told me that I couldn’t do something. And Okāsan has been there to support me at every tournament and performance for my entire life. It wasn’t fair. So I was determined to give him at least a little of what he was owed.”

Wally and Ren wandered around for hours. Ren consulted the Littleroot Labs data on her nav, Akahana used her nose, Tāraki climbed every tree, Iki peered around from the safety of Ren’s head, and Panahi scanned from above with her keen eyes.

They slowly spread out to cover more ground, though not so far as to lose track of each other. But Ren had Akahana stay with Wally just in case.

Ren was looking through some bushes when she heard coughing so severe that she went running to find Wally, but by the time she was in sight again, he had an inhaler over his nose and had quieted. He put it casually back in his bag, barely looking at what he was doing.

So it was his lungs—probably asthma or some kind of birth defect. That seemed like a particularly frightening ailment to Ren—to at any moment be unable to breathe, suffocate on nothing. It couldn't have been easy for him to grow up knowing each breath could be his last. But then again, maybe that made things simple. It would be a terrible waste not to do what he wanted, so here he was, risking himself on a dream, letting passion drive him.

Ren turned around without making herself known and kept searching.

At long last, Wally gave a shout. “I found one!”

Ren tried not to run, so as not to scare it off only to gasp when she caught sight of it. The pokemon was indeed a Ralts, but with glittering feathers and a bright blue helmet instead of green.

“Nanda, is that a shiny?”

“Yeah,” he confirmed weakly, clearly still trying to process it himself.

“Ralts!” Akahana called out to it before anyone could gather themselves, “this human is a trainer without a pokemon. If he can demonstrate his ability in battle to your satisfaction, would you be interested in becoming his starter?”

The Ralts cocked its head and looked carefully up at Wally through its fringe, first with one eye and then the other. It chirped to Akahana in an odd ringing tone and she shook her head. Then it nodded, and Akahana settled lower to the ground, coiling herself and ready to spring.

“Oh!” Wally gasped. He took a deep breath and a look of determination spread over his face. “Akahana, use Thunder Fang!”

Akahana surged forward, bright tendrils of electricity trailing from her bared white fangs. The Ralts startled at the unexpected move, and its feathers ruffled as it lashed out instinctively with Confusion. The pulsing purple waves bounced harmlessly off of Akahana, and she sunk her teeth into its arm. The Ralts shuddered with the jolt of electricity but held steady. Pink, ringed sound waves erupted from its mouth and struck Akahana off. A close quarters fairy move was a lot for her, but she rolled right back to her feet.

“Hang in there, Akahana,” Wally cried. The Ralts fired off another Disarming Voice, but Akahana leapt to the side. The Ralts twitched stiffly, unable to course correct before the attack was spent. “It’s paralyzed! Get around back and Tackle!”

Ren nodded approvingly as Akahana dove under another attack, sprinted past, and whirled around. Her skull connected powerfully with the Ralts’s back and it fell forward in a heap. It tried to get up but wavered from the paralysis. Akahana pressed a paw between its shoulders and growled. It held stubbornly for a moment before letting its head loll, admitting defeat. Ren heard Wally gasp softly.

Akahana released it and walked back to Ren’s side. The Ralts righted itself and looked directly up at Wally, who started. They were both quiet for a minute and Wally’s lips moved, which meant it was probably using telepathy to speak to him. Finally, Wally pulled out a pokeball and kneeled down, offering it to the Ralts. It pushed the button and flowed inside. Wally clutched the ball tightly for a moment, and then it flashed green.

“YES!” he yelled, jumping up with the pokeball held aloft. “I can’t believe it!”

“Great job!” Ren congratulated him. “You really kept your cool. That’s a tough thing for most beginners.”

Wally was too elated to process her compliments and swept down on Akahana. “Thank you, Akahana!” he said, hugging her tightly. “You were so awesome! Thank you so much!”

Akahana was stiffened in shock at the display of affection, but remained still until he started coughing and had to let her go to use his inhaler.

“Thank you, Ren,” he said, a bit calmer and quieter so as not to upset his lungs again. “This means so, so much to me. I don’t think I could have done that without you here.”

“I’m happy to help, but don’t give me too much credit. That was a pretty even match, and you won it on your own.” He glanced away and she placed a hand on his shoulder to pull him back. “I want you to remember that.”

“Okay, but I still want to pay you back some day.”

She smiled wide enough to split her face. “Deal. Hey, why don’t we trade numbers? I’ll probably be going through Verdanturf in a few weeks. Maybe we can meet up?”

“Yeah, that sounds great!”

They swapped navs and filled in their contact information. Wally was still radiating joy like a Sunny Day and took the Ralts’s ball in his hands again to let his new pokemon back out. The Ralts looked up at him and smiled too.

“Let’s go to the Pokemon Center. We can heal these guys up and get your trainer card updated. Any idea what you’re going to call them?”

“Faris.”

“It was a lot of fun to go back and show Otōsan that catch. You should have seen his face. He couldn’t believe it!”

I did see it, and it was rather amusing.

“Oh, right. Well, I’m glad I hung around. And I think it was good for Akahana.”

You’ve accomplished a lot to be proud of. And needed me for so little of it.

“I—When you put it in that context, it makes it very hard to deny.”

One doesn’t live as long as I without learning a little trickery.

#ORAS #nuzlocke #storylocke #Wally #Senri #Mr. Scott #Ren #Taraki #Akahana #Iki #Panahi #Kenta #lgbtq #chapter

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maremote · 2 years ago

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Black Sails Monologuolympics BR2.2: Secondary Characters: QUARTER FINALS

3/4: Miranda vs. Mr. Scott

Miranda, to Peter Ashe, in 209: "You destroyed our lives! You caused our exile! Thomas died in a cold, dark place… […] What do I want? I want to see this whole goddamn city, this city that you purchased with our misery, burn. I want to see you hanged on the very gallows you've used to hang men for crimes far slighter than this. I want to see that noose around your neck and I want to pull the fucking lever with my own two hands!"

vs.

Mr. Scott, to Billy, in 208: "When Captain Flint first arrived on this island, he gained influence faster than any man I'd seen before. Or since. I heard men say it was because of the violence. I heard them say it was his charm. But it was clear to me the reason why he was so good at bending men towards his will was he knew the power of a story and how to harness it to his own ends. That man there, I would argue, may very well be his equal. […] Yeah, the story's his, the story isn't his. But the power of the telling... that is clearly his. At the moment, he's using it to help the captain. But God help us if he ever realizes what else he could use it to accomplish."

BRACKET TWO ROUND THREE // BRACKET TWO // ALL POLLS

#bsm #bsm2 #bsm23 #og #black sails #mr.scott #miranda

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gumnut-logic · 6 years ago

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The Bellini Incident (Part Five)

Title: The Bellini Incident

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five

Author: Gumnut

Apr 2019

Fandom: Thunderbirds Are Go 2015/ Thunderbirds TOS

Rating: Teen

Summary: Kayo was going to kill him.

Word count: 2625

Spoilers & warnings: Virgil/Kayo, Virgil!whump with a side order of Scott!whump, some blood, language warning for one word.

Timeline: Standalone, not Rain Series.

Author’s note: For @soniabigcheese who threw the prompt at me, and @i-am-chidorixblossom who suggested some Virgil whump. Scott got a bit whumped, too, I’m branching out as a writer, blame @scribbles97.(And thanks to her for the read throughs :D )

The prompt: The character who doesn’t realize they’ve been hurt trying to see if everyone else is okay only to slowly realize that everyone is looking at them with mounting horror. Then they touch their side to find it’s wet and oh no…

Well, this was a fight to get onto the page. Many thanks to @scribbles97 for the plot help for the last scene. Apparently my brain fried after all the action and had no idea what to do next. Scribbs saved me big time :D I hope you enjoy the extra dose of whump in this one :D

Disclaimer: Mine? You’ve got to be kidding. Money? Don’t have any, don’t bother.

-o-o-o-

It was pure chance Virgil wasn’t asleep when the door opened. The pain radiating up and down his left side was the culprit. Despite the drugs in his system, it hadn’t liked the movement earlier and was making him pay.

A man entered dragging a body.

It took a moment for the concept to register in his fog filled brain, but once it clicked, adrenalin flooded his system and his heart picked up.

The man was holding a gun.

The body on the floor wore an IR security uniform. Brie, his security guard.

Virgil’s eyes widened as the gun came up pointed in his direction.

Time stopped.

He threw himself of the other side of the bed. Heat tore into his shoulder as he moved. The floor reached up and hit him. Hard.

A frantic moment as he struggled with pain coming from everywhere.

Footsteps.

Move!

With nowhere else to go, he rolled under the bed. He didn’t need his engineering knowledge to know it wouldn’t stop a bullet.

Black booted feet stopped at the end of the bed.

Desperate for a way out, Virgil’s eyes caught on the bed’s brakes. Only one was on. The bed hadn’t been secured properly after the nurse changed the sheets.

A flick of the lever, he grabbed the head end of the bed and with everything he had, pushed it in the direction of the gunman.

Years of training paid off as his shoulder muscles did as he demanded, screaming with the movement and the pain. The bed was flung forward, colliding with the gunman’s legs and pinning him to the far wall.

Leaving Virgil exposed.

Tears in his eyes, he rolled over and pushed himself to his feet, fighting the spin of the world around him. Everything was screaming, everything hurt. A bullet embedded itself in Scott’s empty bed.

Virgil threw himself through the door, legs pumping of their own accord as his upper body struggled to stay upright.

The corridor was empty.

There was a crash behind him.

Virgil picked a direction and ran.

-o-o-o-

“John!” It was a harsh whisper in his earpiece.

“Virgil?”

“John! I need help. There’s a guy with a gun.” His brother cut off with a gasp and a groan.

“Virgil! Eos, locations on Virgil, Scott and Kayo. Now!” His fingers danced across his screen. Eos fed the information to him without replying. Three dots flashed on the plan of the hospital. “Locate suspect. Locate security! Virgil, speak to me!”

“I’m... Can’t-“ Heavy breathing. Another groan. John wished for vital stats, but Virgil was not wearing his uniform. “Contact Kay and Scott. Safe. Keep them s’fe.”

“Virgil!”

His shout had Grandma at his side. “John?”

He didn’t have time. “Scott! Kayo! We have an armed intruder. Eos! Have you located the suspect?!”

“Interference in the hospital closed circuit network. Working on it. Security has been advised and is attending.”

“John?!” Both Scott and Kayo responded at once.

“Please hold position for your safety. I have yet to locate the suspect. Security is on its way.”

“John, if you think I’m staying here-“

“Kayo! Hold position.” A flick of a finger and he connected her line directly to Virgil’s. “Talk to Virgil. Stay calm.”

-o-o-o-

A dripping tap was poor company.

Virgil curled up in the corner of the shower. He had locked the door to the bathroom, but knew it was only a temporary setback. He only needed enough time to allow security to stop the guy.

The world was spinning. His whole side was screaming at him and he had no doubt he’d blown his stitches. Kayo was going to yell at him again.

He sagged against the cold tiles.

“Virgil?” The whisper was so quiet, he almost missed it, but the voice was heaven sent.

“Kay? Are you safe? Is Scott safe?”

“We’re fine. Where are you?”

“Stay where you are. He’s got a g’n.”

“Are you hurt?”

He bit his lip. The answer was yes, but he wanted her to stay put. “I’m okay.”

“Virgil-“

“Stay where you are.” A door beyond the bathroom creaked. He froze. “Quiet.”

He couldn’t hear footsteps. The silence was deafening.

The bathroom door rattled.

He flinched and bit through his lip.

A bullet tossed splinters into the room as it tore through the lock.

Virgil whispered into his comms. “I love you, Kay.”

He pushed himself to his feet.

-o-o-o-

Eos streamed through the network desperate to unravel the blockages in the system. Someone knew what they were doing and she cursed their skill. John deployed tracers behind her as he tracked IR security running through the building.

Closed circuit video was crippled in the section she needed, a loop playing ‘all is well’. She stretched across available avenues.

The fire prevention system.

Yes.

Eos moved.

-o-o-o-

Virgil had nothing and everything to lose.

He yanked open the door before the gunman could do it on his own terms, and shower curtain in hand, he threw himself at the man.

They crashed into a bed; the plastic curtain tangled between them.

Virgil had strength and mass on his side. The other man was slighter and whip thin, but Virgil was injured, drugged and poorly co-ordinated.

He fought anyway.

His hand found the gun and he clung to it with everything he had, his fingers digging into the man’s hand.

An alarm started screaming so loud it hurt his ears. The sprinklers in the room activated and there was water suddenly in his eyes.

A fist found his side and he screamed.

He hung on.

A breath and he brought up a knee hard into the man’s groin. His opponent folded, but still held on. Virgil twisted a foot around and hooked the man’s leg, desperate to topple him, but his feet slid on the wet floor and he lost purchase.

The shower curtain grew slick and clung. Virgil shoved it in the man’s face.

The man swore and spun him around, throwing him across the room. The air was knocked from his lungs as he collided with the far wall. He had a split second of gun barrel pointed at his head before a blue-grey blur smashed into the man taking him down so fast, he was gone between one breath and the next.

Virgil stared stunned, water running into his eyes.

Threat gone.

Gone.

And he was falling.

-o-o-o-

“I love you, Kay.”

Her heart tore in two. “Virgil?”

Scott had his hand on her arm.

A crash echoed through the wall from the room next door. She jumped. “Virgil?” She tore from her brother’s grip.

As her foot hit the corridor, a fire alarm started screeching.

Her hand shot out and pushed Scott behind her.

The sound of running water.

A yell in a familiar voice.

Standing behind the wall for protection, she edged open the door to the suspect room.

It was raining inside.

Two men were fighting, a shower curtain tangled between them.

Red swam in the water on the floor.

Virgil was struggling.

The fire alarm was screaming.

The gunman yelled and flung her lover across the room, brought up his gun, aimed-

Kayo collided with him. The bullet embedded itself in the ceiling. Her palm connected with his throat and he went down hard. A knee in his gut as she wrenched the gun from his hand. A swipe of her arm and she knocked him out with his own weapon.

“Virgil!”

She looked up to see Scott reaching for his brother as he slowly slid down the opposite wall leaving a smeared trail of red washed away by the sprinklers.

-o-o-o-

Strong hands caught him and gently lowered him to the floor.

Blue eyes, ever worried.

Scott.

The alarm and sprinklers died. The silence was sudden and he blinked.

“Kay?”

“She’s safe, Virgil.” Scott’s voice was tight, those blue eyes scanning him for injury. A frown carved a canyon through his brow. “You’re bleeding.”

“Kay?”

Scott’s fingers peeled back his pyjama shirt. “Aw, hell, Virg.” He spoke into his collar. “John, get a doctor in here asap. Virgil’s been shot.”

“I have?” He looked down at himself. An exit wound in his left shoulder was dribbling blood down his wet chest. “Aw, hell.”

“Exactly. You’ve also blown your stitches.”

His brother nudged him and he tipped to his right side, leaning against Scott. Everything was wet.

Then Kay was there.

Oh, he was in so much trouble.

Her face was pinched with worry, her hair soaked with water. It ran down her cheeks as she reached for him. Her fingers touched his face.

Security burst into the room, Gerald and Iz trailing hospital staff. Kay disappeared from his vision and he reached out. Pain shot up his side and he groaned.

Scott caught his arm and held him. Voices gave orders. Fingers prodded him and he cried out. Stars danced. He needed Kay.

A stranger’s face appeared in his field of vision. Pale blue eyes surrounded by a halo of dark wavy hair. “Mr Tracy? Virgil?”

Huh? He raised his head and blinked away the haze. He didn’t feel too good. Scott still had his arms around him, but he found himself shivering anyway.

The woman said something about ‘bleeding’ and ‘surgery’.

Her eyes danced in front of him. Why weren’t they green? “Kay?”

“Virgil?” And suddenly she was there.

“Oh, Kay.” He reached out, but Scott held him back.

“Don’t move, Virgil. Stay still.”

But he only had eyes for Kay. “Safe? Please be safe.”

A soft smile. “I’m safe. Now we need to get you better.”

“He shot me. Wasn’t my fault.”

Another smile as she touched his cheek. “It never is, love. It never is.”

He leant into her touch and closed his eyes.

-o-o-o-

“It has to be Polominka. Who else could it be?” Alan was pacing.

“We have no proof.”

“Not yet. Give me a moment.”

“John, you got something?” Scott was hovering as expected. No Virgil to mother hen, so he was flailing.

They were holed up in a conference room deep within the hospital. IR security was on heavy alert. Gerald and Iz had Virgil in surgery. Jeremy was outside their door and more officers were flying in.

“No, I said I need a moment.”

“That goddamned bastard.”

“Gordon, mind your language.”

“I’m sorry, Grandma.”

“So you should be. At least throw one ‘fuck’ in there.”

The room fell silent. Even John found himself staring at his grandmother.

The woman had fire in her eyes. Scott took a tentative step forward. “Grandma, are you okay?”

“No, I’m not. How could I possibly be okay? Someone killed Brie and tried to kill one of my grandsons. I am definitely not okay.”

“I’ll find him, Grandma.” John turned back to his tablet. He tried not to think about Brie. Work now, grieve later.

“We already know where he is.”

“We have no proof it was Polominka, Alan.” Scott’s tone was patient, but on edge. His hair was in disarray having dried without attention and he had bloodstains on his dressing gown.

“Who else could it be? The Hood’s dead. Who else would want to hurt Virgil?”

That question shut down the room for a moment, each brother caught in his own thoughts. They had Polominka in custody. They had the attempted assassin in custody, a man with no identity or background yet discovered - John had bots on that as well. They had no answers to any of their questions. So, it was quiet when the door was flung open and Kayo strode into the room, Colonel Casey on her heels.

Eos drew his attention for a moment as she reported back on the hacked hospital network. She had very little to give him. He was not surprised. It had been done well. He swore under his breath. His tracer bots were out there hunting for keywords, following Polominka’s transactions. He had already confirmed that the man had supported the Hood when he was alive and was still filtering funds into several terrorist organisations, mostly those whose mandate led to profits in other sectors in which Polominka had interests. As far as he could determine, the billionaire was a soulless bastard who catered only to his own whim.

In this case his brother hadn’t, so the man felt he had the right to attempt to force him. Of course, he failed and was humiliated by Kayo. John had already hacked the holding facility. Polominka’s only visitor had been his lawyer, a man as shady as his employer. John had traced the man’s movements since, but couldn’t garner enough detail from the digital network. He needed Kayo on the ground.

Casey spoke up. “This room is surveillance proof. You may talk freely here.”

“We know. John already checked.” Scott’s voice was sharp and confident. His brother was in a mood, understandably.

The colonel’s dark eyes flicked to Scott and back to John. “We also know you are attempting to trace information on Richard Polominka, John.”

“Just doing my job, Aunt Val.”

Her lips thinned. “Keep within the law.”

He shrugged. “I only do what is necessary, you know that.”

“This is not your usual rescue.”

“No, it’s not.” Scott stepped towards the Colonel. “Someone tried to kill Virgil. And succeeded in killing Brie Edison.”

“I know that, Scott. That is why I’m here. We are doing everything we can to discover who did this.”

“As are we.”

Blue eyes locked onto brown and challenged.

“Scott-“

“I’m sorry, Aunt Val. This is just a step too far.”

John bit his lip. Why did they always find that they needed Virgil when the man was the source of the problem?

Probably because Scott flailed when his brother wasn’t available.

His tablet beeped and he raised an eyebrow. There was activity on one of Polominka’s phone lines. The word ‘Tracy’ had been mentioned at least once. “Eos, get on it.”

“Yes, John.” The AI dove into the network, her fingers reaching out and connecting datapoints. John could do it himself, but Eos had more power and speed and he needed that information now.

“So, what do we do?” Gordon was fidgeting, his concern obvious.

Casey straightened as if readying herself for a battle. “We need to move you all to a more secure facility.”

“Virgil’s still in surgery. He was shot.” It bore repetition.

Her brown eyes didn’t even blink. “I know. And I would prefer he didn’t get shot again. Hence the move to a more secure facility.”

“Do you think whoever they are will try again?” The concern in Alan’s voice was obvious.

“I don’t know, but we can’t risk it. I won’t risk it.” Casey’s tone was firm and final.

John glanced at Scott. His brother’s face was stone. “We’re not leaving him. We move as one.”

“I had no intentions on separating you. Why are you fighting me on this, Scott?”

“You will have to excuse me for being on edge. I get that way when someone kills one of my employees and tries to murder one of my brothers.”

What the hell? “Scott, Colonel Casey is only trying to help.” He knew his brother wasn’t well. No doubt he had a throbbing headache and should probably be in bed. But no one here would be able to get him there. The only person who could was currently incapacitated himself.

Cold blue eyes turned in John’s direction, but his brother didn’t answer him.

“John, I have the conversation for you.”

“Thank you, Eos. Display content.”

Words appeared on his tablet screen. His eyes darted across them. Shit.

“We can’t move Virgil.” Seven pairs of eyes pinned him to his seat. “They’re already planning an attack.”

-o-o-o-

End Part Five.

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction #virgil tracy #scott tracy #the bellini incident #virgil/kayo #whump #virgil!whump #kayo kyrano

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phoenixrisesx · 5 years ago

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@blindedxthelight said ‘ i can’t do anything right.’

Scott’s words make a breath leave her, short and sharp. It didn’t feel like enough to tell him that it wasn’t true. It had crossed her mind too, in the dark while she stared at the ceiling late at night, wishing not to fall asleep and risk losing control while she slept. I can't do anything right. Jean watches him with eyes warm and heavy, gathering herself before finally stepping forward and slipping her hand into his. Her fingers are much slighter than his but her grip is stronger than expected for someone her size. She squeezes his hand tight, thumb sliding over his knuckles as she studies his face.

Her voice is sweet, quiet like she doesn't want to spook him. "Scott..." Had she missed something? She doesn't want to invade his privacy, take a quick look and find out exactly what spurred this on. Then again, it could just be the pressure he's normally under piling on or... She couldn't help but wonder if it was something she'd done, or something she'd said. "Tell me what happened," she urges, tugging his hand to get him to turn his body and look at her.

#//so i had to stop this from turning into a novel #//also fun story i had to rewrite it twice because tumblr doesn't want us to write together apparently #//hope this works! <3 #scott//01

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theloniousbach · 5 years ago

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A Listener’s Journal, #22: The Piano Trio in the 1950s

As I reminisce about my 50 years of hearing music, I go back even further, another five years or so, to a huge one. The Oscar Peterson Trio (with Ray Brown and Ed Thigpen) opened (?!?!) for the New Christy Minstrels (@#$%*@) at UMKC where my Dad taught. I was drawn to the music and ended up sitting behind the PA column onstage (I felt at home and I was a cute enough kid). It was magic. The Canadiana Suite was an early album and Ed Thigpen gave me some drumsticks I have to this day. And, piano-bass-drums is my basic unit, my entry point. Miles is a formative hero, but perhaps because of that, I've been slow to get to know other trumpeters. Tenor is the horn I know best but it's not necessary. Piano-bass-drums is enough, thank you very much.

Bill Evans with Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian is a pinnacle, sure. I also gravitated to Peterson, but he was already Oscar Peterson with album after album of great playing when I started buying him. Until this exercise, I never heard him (or Ahmad Jamal or Errol Garner) do the things that commanded that level of attention.

So I started with the three "Amazing" Bud Powell albums, then went to the Jamal at the Pershing album, then Garner By the Sea, and, a great new fine, a collection of Oscar Peterson recordings from 1949-1951 with Ray Brown or Major Helley. Garner was, I arrogantly thought, flashy and commercial, though the complete By the Sea release and another archival concert plus Christian Sands revival efforts prepared me for this exercise. Jamal's influence on Miles won major points, but I didn't explore much beyond a Greatest Hits (on Impulse) album--but he seemed slighter some how even if what I was supposed to listen for was precisely the spaces. The Bud Powell I had was at the Massey Hall Concert (okay, he's the pianist you call for such a gig) and with Mingus at Antibes when that band intriguingly didn't have a pianist unless it was Charles himself.

All this to say, they were revered names but I didn't (and still don't) know them in all the subtleties I know Evans. Or Monk. He is in a category all his own, except I should do a different but similar exercise with Monk, Elmo Hope, Herbie Nichols, and possibly Sonny Clark. And I'm not going to get to Tommy Flanagan, Hank Jones, and Cedar Walton. I've got a fair sense of the trio work of Miles' pianists Red Garland and Wynton Kelly. So this project can happily metastasize.

For now, pianists known more, if not exclusively, for trio work than accompaniment and therefore for burning the format on our/my ears. One last digression though is about Art Tatum who is a huge influence on these men. My folks had a two record set of him playing solo versions of gems from the Songbook. They were overwhelming Chopinesque ornamentations and all of them have those chops and deploy them in lieu of the horns. But Tatum tires me out.

Powell, particularly on the relatively early Amazing albums, ain't shy about calling attention all he can do, but if he's the bebop pianist, the one who could play on Parker at that level, I hear that level of melodic invention. And melody is what I'm gravitating to in Parker's playing and bebop chords are means to that end and not ends in themselves. These are shortish pieces given recording conventions of the time, so there is a concision that polishes it all too. Powell has more than enough power and speed, but I'm struck how it simply adds to the heft of playing. Part of that heft is the bebopper's, certainly Parker's, grounding in the blues. As with all these players, the Great American Songbook is another key jumping off place, a rich lode to explore. Powell, particularly here when there's promise not its tragic loss, is so inventive, so compelling. He certainly played in larger ensembles, so he stands slightly apart from these others. But I think that's true of his piano work too and his influence is broader than the piano-bass-drums ensemble.

Garner, on the other hand, is almost the quintessential piano trio leader. He has chops and ideas to carry a band. There's lots to listen to and I do disavow the flashy/commercial snap judgment, but I do think his impact is on pianists than the music as a whole. He is flashy and winning. The detail to explain away is "Misty" which is one of the most compelling and oft recorded standards. With this exception and Jamal's "Poinciana," these men are not known as composers. But, if we just immediately elevate "Misty" to the Great American Songbook then he--and one strong thread of the genre, think Bill Charlap--is a stylist and champion of these tunes. Together, they contribute to a popularity that is too easy to dismiss. I have though dismissed him and so welcome this exercise that will put him in play when I want to get back to some basics.

I expected to hear lots of overlap of tunes with Jamal, but they just make different choices from the standard repertoire. I don't read too much in which Gershwin or Porter each chooses--and it's not that I prefer Jamal's choices. But, I simply prefer Jamal's approach and see a wider influence than Garner has. It's not just Miles, but that space just opens up possibilities. With the band, Israel Crosby and Vernell Fourier have room that Garner doesn't allow Eddie Calhoun and Denzil Best (interesting that all of them, except Best, are better known for their work in these bands than elsewhere). There's a "Cherokee" where all three lead an uptempo verse, but each chorus slows into lush ensemble playing. Throughout there are gorgeous chords and fluid lines that build often slowly. He/they show us nifty facets of these treasured tunes. If "Misty" confounds my notion of Garner as an interpreter, not a composer, then "Ahmad's Blues" makes the assertion that Jamal (and Garner too) are not as bluesy as Powell or certainly Peterson. But I think that's mostly true--and I like how Jamal lets tunes unfold without the drive of a blues shuffle.

As I've said, Oscar Peterson had a wonderful impact on my very young ears His trio had a huge sound and an insistent often bluesy pulse. He could hit big chords, block or trilled arpeggios, to culminate a solo or part thereof, that knocked you back. Yes, there was Tatumesque flash but that drive was always present and kept things going and focused. What makes the "Debut: Clef/Mercury Duo Recordings 1949-1951" set such a treasure is that it was all there at the beginning, including when Norman Granz just happens (yeah right) notice that he's in the audience at a Jazz at the Philharmonic concert and asks him to play, thus getting around work permits (Peterson was from Toronto). The chords, the fluid ideas, the taste (he too is all over the Great American Song Book--and had I not found these recordings I might well have written about late 1950s collections of "Oscar Peterson Plays the Songs of [Tin Pan Alley Composer]." I will still happily explore them too, but this will be my go to Peterson for a long time.). It's the proper mix of flash and taste.

Much as I appreciate Powell's edge, Oscar pulls that back a notch but just brings more ideas to the table than Garner. Jamal is for a different mood, but it's a mood to indulge.

I want to relook at Parker in terms of melodic invention and Powell will be part of that deepening of what I can absorb from bebop. I can see other explorations of the piano-bass-drums ensemble in formation (Nichols/Hope/Clark or Garland/Kelly or Tommy Flanagan, maybe Horace Silver (I don't even know if there are trio albums),

But I'll be spending much more time with Peterson's duo and Songbook albums and Ahmad Jamal across the decades.(he has a wonderful very recent solo album "Ballades" that was an impetus for this little exercise).

#jazz #2019 #listener's journal #bud powell #oscar peterson #ahmad jamal #erroll garner

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