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caligvlasaqvarivm · 7 months ago

Note

ik you mentioned interest in writing out how you'd prefer homestuck ended (though obviously time and money makes that impossible lol), and you touched on it in your big eridan essay at the end, but would you ever consider maybe a more detailed outline? i really enjoy your thoughts on the characters and the abandoned plotlines, i'd love to get a little more of an in depth look at how you wish it went down.

Yeah sure!

For those who aren't sure what the hell I'm talking 'bout, please check out my blog and the various essays I've been writing.

Some of it is contingent on stuff I kind of still need to reread so I'm really sorry to the alpha kid likers but I'm still not totally 100% sure where I want to take them. I'm also going to include quite a few personal preference ships; I'm not interested in arguing what other people should ship or about arguing about the course of action for my dumb fanfic in general. I also tend to discover the plot I want while I'm writing it, which I don't have the luxury of here, so... some of it is going to be kind of sloppy. I'm also a big troll stan so unfortunately the kids are a little bit neglected (sorry!!!!). That said.

So the changes would take place directly after GAME OVER, which is personally the point at which I think the truncation/turning on the fanbase really starts - ships start to get turbo-sped at that point. I'm not even saying I dislike JohnRoxy or JohnRezi, but they just feel oddly rushed the way they're handled in the comic itself. IMO, anyway.

There's not too much I would rearrange during this interstitial segment; I think it's important for Jade to have the experience of loneliness, for Terezi to kick off the retcons by only feeling comfortable fixing her own mistakes. Moreover, there's no reason why other characters can't use her mind beacon abilities to ask John to rearrange the timeline, though their attempts, because they aren't backed by Seer of Mind abilities, are a lot sloppier and come with a lot more unforseen consequences.

But something I would change is that Roxy's deal with Nyx is not to just kind of... sit back and chill in non-space while John does all the work; instead, like Rose in Davesprite's timeline, Nyx puts her to sleep, and when the timeline ceases to be, GameOver!Roxy's memories get transferred to Past!Roxy via her dreamself (which wakes up early), fulfilling a "stealing from void for others" aspect of her abilities, and leads to some important interactions later on down the line.

Also, this timeline's ARquiussprite and Gamzee's corpse (heretofore referred to as (ARquiussprite) and (Gamzee)) need to come along for the ride somehow. Maybe they fall through the sky after LOLAR crashes into LOFAF.

This kicks off a series of retcons, as each troll that gets brought back successively asks for another troll/set of trolls to be brought back. This absolutely RIDDLES Act 5 with password pages, can't go two steps without running into a password page, there are password pages within password pages (which IMO is very funny and very Homestuck).

Meanwhile, a couple other plots are running concurrently - the GameOver!crew (heretofore referred to as (Name)) are now in the dream bubbles, completing their character arcs and preparing to defeat LE. Because time and space are weird in the Furthest Ring, every successive meteor trip that occurs as a result of John's retcons is the first time from the point of view of the meteor, but is a repeating event from the point of view of the people in the bubbles - eg those dead god tier Eridan and Feferi wind up healing the Mayor like seven times from their perspective.

(Aradia) is fluttering her ASS off to make sure everyone is in the right "place" at the right "time" for this, lmfao.

Roxy gaining future memories also means that the Alpha kids get to complete their arcs in a way they weren't able to prior to Game Over. Because what John's retcons are doing are functionally whiting out and redrawing the past, the Alpha kids are also only seeing a single linear timeline.

One last arc, which is running concurrent to the retconned!trolls and their new meteor trips, is that bringing back each successive character allows them ALL to grow a little more. So it is NOT like they bring back Vriska, and now everyone's problem are fixed and everything is fine; Vriska's still kind of awful, but she gets better after Tavros gets brought back and they have to character develop alongside each other, and same when Aradia and Sollux get brought back, so on and so on. Because it's about BEING FRIENDS and BEING A TEAM. They're all still having interpersonal problems right up until ALL of them get brought back.

But as a side effect of this and the questing done by the GameOver!crew, the Dancestors get more fully utilized as foils, and get their problems addressed. As the retcon!team goes through their character development, they start to tear the Dancestors apart, because the Dancestors represent shitty parents who force their kids to clean up after their messes, and refuting them works both literally and symbolically as rejecting their irresponsible way of being in lieu of responsibility, accountability, empathy, and compassion.

So here's the series of retcons, and the absolute bullshit that accompanies each decision:

Terezi asks John to save Vriska, and prevent herself from getting too spades with Gamzee, as these are her two greatest regrets.

Pretty much just what her canon iteration asked for; I don't see any problems with the actions she asks John to do for her.

HOWEVER, we'd get more than just a montage of Vriska's time on the meteor, because in this version of events, we're taking our time and letting plot points breathe. Neither does she magically fix everything just by being around when she's very much herself still going thru it by the time the Meteor trip pops off. In any case, she brings with her some new complications:

Karkat still winds up having to play moirail and keep Gamzee calm. This still ends up breaking down by the halfway point of the comic, because they're kind of just not good for each other, but Karkat's personal shitty relationships are going to become A Theme, so it's important to make note of it here.

Vriska and Terezi don't fully make up on this iteration of the trip, since from Terezi's point of view, she was still actively about to kill Vriska before John intervened; however, we get more hints, now that they have to spend three years together, that not only does Vriska really miss Terezi (which is pretty well-established, given how she can't seem to leave Terezi alone), but Terezi actually misses Vriska, too - she's just really bad at separating her own feelings and desires from her instinctive grasp of karma and justice, a very Mind player-type problem to have.

At least with Vriska around, Terezi's able to nip her Gamzee habit in the bud, but this kind of leads to Gamzee feeling worse and more alone.

Something Really Messy happens between Vriska, Rose, and Kanaya when Rose starts her drinking habit, and it's pretty toxic for all involved, and Karkat is kind of stuck playing auspice. Vriska already expresses not liking Rose much and develops some flushed feelings for Kanaya after being watching her murder Eridan, so "It's Really Messy" is kind of all I can say on the matter. The girls are fightiiinnnnggggg

Dave and Terezi get close again, but given the weirdo vibes he notices between her and Vriska, and the fact that he's really not down with quadrants (YET.), means they still end up not getting together.

Sorry DaveKat likers but I am not one. They do not ever get together, so if you are hoping for that, I am sorry and you don't have to keep reading if you don't want to, it's OK.

On a note about Vriska and Terezi - personally, I do think their moirallegiance is endgame; Vriska clearly misses her terribly, constantly trying to bug her into making the Scourge Sisters a Thing again, and she even expresses feeling really bad about the Team Charge Debacle to Terezi explicitly, before directly foreshadowing how awful Terezi will feel after killing Vriska:

AG: Cause even though you got all these highfalutin morals and fancy reserv8tions, you know as well as me that a killer is a killer is a killer! AG: There 8n't no ch8nging your ways for good, and one d8y you're going to flail that silly l8ttle cane of yours and not find n8thin to 8ump into, and fall f8ce first into the shit ag8in. AG: And you're going to do something t8rri8le to some8ody and wish you could t8ke it 8ack 8ut you c8n't!!!!!!!! AG: And then you'll work hard to win 8ack their trust, and you'll try and try and tr8, and you'll see how hard it is! AG: You'll seeeeeeee!

We know that she starts using 8's where they don't make sense phonetically when she gets really agitated, so it's pretty safe to say that she's displaying genuine emotional distress here. When combined with the way she tells John about feeling absolutely horri8le about killing Tavros, it's pretty clear she's genuine about feeling really bad about the Team Charge debacle, and sincere about wanting to somehow make amends and get back into Terezi's good graces, at times trying rivalry, at times trying to prove that she's trying to fix her mistakes.

Terezi also vehemently denies them having a kismesistude and directly mirrors Vriska's hesitance about all the murder:

GC: W3 4R3 SUPPOS3D TO R3V3L 1N BLOODSH3D 4S W3 GROW UP GC: 4ND SH3 S33MS TO B3 3MBR4C1NG H3R R1T3 OF P4SS4G3 W1TH R3CKL3SS 4B4NDON, 4S 1 WOULD 3XP3CT GC: GR4BB1NG TH3 BULL BY TH3 HORNS, SO TO SP34K GC: 1TS 4 L1TTL3 1NT1M1D4T1NG GC: B3C4US3 1M NOT SUR3 1F 1M R34DY FOR TH4T

AG: On my world, I would 8e completely vindic8ed for killing him! He is far lower on the hemospectrum than me. He managed to disrespect me time and time again, 8ut I kept letting him live! In fact, the amount of slack I cut him would 8e considered scandalous 8y those in my class. AG: I had every reason to kill him. And yet... AG: I feel 8ad a8out it like a lame weak fudge8lood, just like he was. AG: And the fact that I feel 8ad is why I'm sort of freaking out right now!

They're basically two toxic girls who CANNOT be honest with their real feelings, and wind up hurting each other. They need therapy badly, but given the fact that they also mirror each other positively - Terezi feels grateful to Vriska for blinding her, and Vriska mentions she ought to thank Terezi for killing her, which set her up on a date with the dead John Terezi also killed - I think they have a lot of potential to be genuinely kind to each other once they work through their individual issues.

Anyway. We're keeping the Roxy stuff under wraps for now - last we saw of her, she went to go see her denizen, and her planet exploded, and John was really bummed about it. HOWEVER, we are going to check in with our GameOver!crew, although only lightly for now:

Meenah and (Vriska) have fully disappeared, and (Tavros), (Nepeta), and (Feferi) are looking for them because they've got the FUCKING TREASURE???

Everyone else from the Game Over timeline has landed in the afterlife, to varying degrees.

Shortly after entering the afterlife, (Eridan) fucked off somewhere to be alone. Last anyone heard from him was (ghost!Sollux) and him being Erisolsprite, but neither (ghost!Sollux) nor (alive!Sollux) have seen him since Erisolsprite died in Game Over.

(Karkat) is also brooding off on his own, feeling really shitty and sorry for himself. He's always felt personally responsible for everything going wrong for his team, and now that his team is basically entirely dead, he feels extra shitty.

Mostly just setting up that these guys are still relevant to the story, despite now being (irrelevant).

That brings us to the second retcon. Vriska obviously had great regrets about killing Tavros, both pre- and post-retcon, so she asks for his death to be prevented.

Tavros is back.

Vriska's requested fix is a very simple one - after all, Karkat makes mention about how Vriska's always had a competitive streak with Terezi, admiring/being jealous of her ability to manipul8 people; I think an ultimate culmination of that is her insisting that insisting to John that he do a retcon to stop her from killing Tavros - which, as covered above, she regrets greatly - but to do a much sloppier job of it, simply having John pop into [S] Wake and knock Tavros the fuck out.

Vriska herself doesn't believe this will have any unintended side effects, because her opinion of Tavros is still really low despite her genuine desire to make amends, and she's wrong.

Tavros's stay on the meteor has a major effect on Gamzee. I'm not entirely sure how it would pan out exactly, but I think Gamzee would step in between Dave and Tavros, into a situation none of them are happy with. This starts Tavros on a path of realizing that his inability to stand up for himself not only hurts him, but people he cares about (Gamzee, whom he ghosted).

Vriska is mostly uninterested in Tavros now, as the moment has kind of passed, and Terezi keeps getting on her ass about going after him (which brings the two of them closer).

Previous Messy romantic situations are still active. Karkat is going thru it.

Dave feels bad about tormenting Tavros but he kind of can't help himself, especially because Tavros keeps going up to him for some reason. The fact that he gets trapped in an auspice with Tavros and Gamzee kind of reinforces that he does NOT vibe with troll quadrants. Dave becomes MORE xenophobic.

On a note regarding Gamzee and Tavros: while I generally try to avoid relying on Hussie's commentary too much, as he likes to play his cards close to his chest, his note about Gamzee in the Act 5 book is actually significant enough to me to include:

The best explanation for why Gamzee says he's scared of Vriska, in my opinion, is this: he's flat-out lying. It's a good way for him to maintain his cover as 'Soft Gamzee.' It also provides some ammunition for those who, against all sense of good taste and judgment, want to continue to believe and assert that Gamzee is a decent guy with sensitive emotions and vulnerabilities before he undergoes his Muderstuck awakening. He was none of those things, ever.

Hussie likes to play coy, and you can't really trust anything he says after Act 6 because he's fed up with the fandom, but I think this comment comes early enough, and is made assertively enough, that it can be taken at face value. I know that "Soft Gamzee" is actually extremely popular in the fandom, so this may be controversial, but I do think there's more evidence for him being kind of nasty and manipulative than not, and having that always be a part of him brings more cohesiveness to his character. For example, he seems to have a pale crush on Karkat, trying to assert that Karkat is his best friend and changing the topic when Sollux gets brought up and he recognizes Karkat is closer to Sollux than him, and if you read his first log with Terezi as if he's hiding being nasty under a soft veneer, then his comments do read as pretty passive-aggressive.

TC: yOu KnOw HoW iT iS wItH fAmIlY. GC: NO, NOT R34LLY! GC: 4DURRRR DURR DURP TC: Oh YeAh... ... TC: I sPaCeD oUt, DiD yOu KnOw HoW bEaTuFuL tHe SoUnD oF tHe OcEaN iS? TC: hAvE yOu EvEr EvEn SeEn ThE oCeAn? TC: oR i MeAn SmElLeD iT... TC: SoRrY. GC: >:[

Maybe most damningly, his narration calls dealing with Eridan's genuine emotional distress "indulge emotional theatrics," an implication of his true feelings. Karkat and Eridan are heavily foreshadowed to be moirails, and Gamzee seems to have a pale crush on Karkat. What does Gamzee do in this conversation? He chases Eridan away from comforting Karkat - using the same excuse as he uses to avoid dealing with Vriska.

CA: put kar on TC: UuUuH, i cAn't rEaLlY ThInK AbOuT InTeRvEnInG, tHe bLaCk fRoWnInG MoThErFuCkEr kInDa sCaReS Me

Moreover, he does NOT seem to like Jack comforting Karkat instead, either.

THIS IS NOT TO SAY I DON'T THINK GAMZEE ALSO DESERVES A SHOT AT KINDNESS AND REDEMPTION. Gamzee is clearly a very troubled youth, between his absentee lusus, his indoctrination into a fundie doomsday cult, and his sopor usage. The fact that having his faith shattered by Dave makes him snap implies that, one, he was already unstable and teetering on the edge, and having his faith fucked with was the last straw, and two, that until he lost that last shred of hope, he was still pretending to be nicer than he was for a reason, and given that his LE worship doesn't start up until after the snappage, I think it can be extrapolated that that reason is that he genuinely wants to get along with his friends.

Given that Gamzee's issues largely stem from his neglectful lusus, it's not a stretch to say that Gamzee does not take well to abandonment and isolation. So here's kind of where Tavros comes in:

Gamzee mentions that he feels "So aT ChIlL WiTh yOu" while talking to Tavros, and Tavros reciprocates the friendship and also - interestingly - acknowledges Gamzee's religion, calling it beautiful even if he doesn't necessarily believe in it. I call it interesting because Karkat's inability to do so is explicitly one of the reasons their moirallegiance broke down. Moreover, in their first conversation together, Gamzee explicitly praises Tavros for his "gumption" for stealing his clown nose, when Tavros's avoidance of his problems is one of his biggest personal issues. So yeah, personally, I'm all for moirallegiance.

But Tavros started ghosting him after Gamzee offered to make out a little, another symptom of his avoidance issues. I'm sure that, even in this meteor trip, the fact that Gamzee killed Equius and Nepeta really scares him. In his conversation with Terezi, Terezi outright says "NO WOND3R V4NT4S C4NT ST4ND YOU"; Equius is constantly yelling at him; lots of people on their team seem to genuinely just sort of dislike him.

CG: MIRACLES ARE LIKE POOP STAINS ON GOD'S UNDERWEAR. TA: eheheh makiing fun of people2 reliigiion2 i2 the be2t thiing two do.

So having one of the few people he does really like also ghost him probably did... bad things to his mental health. Especially so when said person wound up dead. But now that he isn't dead, I think they have a shot - they just need to address their personal problems. Tavros with his avoidance, and Gamzee with his resentment toward the world, and reliance on substances and religion to take the edge off. In this meteor iteration, that doesn't quite happen - their toxic auspicetism succeeds in letting them air out their dirty laundry to the audience, but doesn't bring full reconciliation.

In any case, this meteor trip is fairly short, and uneventful from the dream bubbles side, although I do think Tavros should get a talking-to from (Tavros) about real self-esteem and self-worth.

Still, being back in contact with Tavros again, even if in kind of a messed-up way, does make Gamzee start to reconsider some of his past actions. This brings us to:

Gamzee Asks for Equius and Nepeta back.

Gamzee's not as nice as he lets on, but he does genuinely care about his teammates, and for the people he really cares about, like Karkat or Tavros, I think he's willing to stick his neck out. Bringing back Nepeta and Equius is more for Tavros than himself, really, because Tavros is scared of him for doing that, and he motherfuckin' misses Tavros, okay? John mostly agrees because he's kind of scared of Gamzee.

Some really fun stuff starts happening this go around.

The Gamzee-Tavros situation becomes resolved because this time, Equius steps in as an auspice between Tavros and Dave, and this auspicetism is COMPLETELY HEALTHY (with the bonus of being extremely funny, and what is the point of a Homestuck ship if it is not deeply funny).

Gamzee and Tavros are able to enter into a totally healthy moirallegiance once the auspicetism builds up Tavros's self-confidence, much to Karkat's relief.

Being stuck in the auspicetism makes Dave go crawling back to Terezi on his hands and knees. I'm sorry, Terezi. I'll do anything if you take me back. Just don't let me die as the guy stuck in a threesome with the two worst trolls. Dave has overcome his xenophobia.

Dave and Terezi becoming official does make Karkat sad, however, so when Nepeta finally works up the courage to confess to him, he accepts the offer to date her, thus fulfilling Jaspersprite's musing that she might only be able to date him after she dies.

They also break up. We're keeping up this trend of Karkat and his disastrous relationships. He's still involved in the Rose/Kanaya/Vriska drama, too.

With GamTav and Dave/Tavros/Equius cinched, Tavros and Vriska reach a sort of truce with each other. Not really friends, since they kind of still dislike each other, but Vriska would genuinely be glad to see Tavros getting more actually confident, and muster up the energy to genuinely apologize for almost killing him, so there's a sort of mutual respect there now. Vriska and Terezi are even closer because of this, but still not fully over their problems.

On the topic of the Dave/Tavros/Equius auspicetism: Dave still can't stop bothering Tavros, but the lewdness of it sets Equius off, so he feels like he has to intervene. Dave also can't stop himself from bothering Equius, which ALWAYS BACKFIRES, and since Tavros has a weird fondness/rivalry with Dave, he'd find it within himself to ask Equius to back off (which would work, because of Equius's... Equius). And every time Equius gets too overbearing toward Tavros, Dave feels COMPELLED to intervene, because he's like, my fucking god, you are the two worst trolls, why must weirdos fight. Dave desperately wants out, but he can't stop staring at these two.

And weirdly enough, it's beneficial for all of them. With two people to yell at him for being weird, Equius becomes less weird. With a rival in Dave and more contact with Equius, Tavros becomes more confident. And Dave has two people to rap against and feel good about his art with, something he more or less had to deal with alone during previous trips.

On the topic of Karkat and Nepeta, there are quite a few implications that they wouldn't necessarily work out. For citations, let me just link my Nepeta essay, where I go over what the comic says about their relationship from a storytelling perspective; here, I'll talk about their relationship from a more interpersonal perspective.

Karkat's signals are mixed as fuuuuuuck. While I don't necessarily think this will be an issue for Nepeta, as - as a Heart player - she's preternatually gifted at understanding motivations, the thing is... I think Nepeta can do better, and deserves better, a sentiment echoed by Jasprosesprite^2. She certainly deserves better than being second to Terezi, at the very least, even if she states she likes his outbursts.

And the thing is, Karkat is pretty explicit about saying that he doesn't return her feelings; in a world where they date, there's always going to be a sense that she's his second choice. And, just... my girl deserves better, okay? Moreover, while he respects her personhood, he's also pretty nasty to her when he DOES talk to her, implying he doesn't necessarily respect her choices. And also, she's actually really bad at shipping, so there will be this extremely weird tension of like... a hobbyist vs. a professional. I don't think Karkat would be able to stop himself from mocking some of her shipping choices if she ever opened up to him about that.

But I think them getting together is important for Nepeta, developmentally - I talk about this in my essay for her, but shipping is something I think she does need to outgrow, since it's kind of a replacement she's using for her loneliness. Moreover, I say in that essay that the issues she has in her moirallegiance with Equius warrant relationship counselling - and that's what Karkat is uniquely qualified to dispense, as the team's Blood player. Although they end up not working out, Nepeta would take several valuable lessons from this relationship - that she's kind of bad at shipping, that Equius is being kind of a shithead to her, and that she needs to start making friends with other people.

Now then. We're finally getting into some drama in the bubbles.

Please imagine for me Equius and Horuss talking, and Equius being aghast at the way Horuss is so derisive towards his matesprit and moirail. Now imagine him pulling a mic out of nowhere and rapping at him about how his problem is that he does not respect his partners. Now imagine Tavros and Dave joining in, also out of nowhere, with Tavros adding bars about how the hemospectrum is, not a good thing, he thinks. And Dave adding bars about how he does not have a fucking dog in this race. He's not even a troll. He doesn't understand their hemospectrum. Let him out of here. The fine fucking art of Alternian slam poetry. I think Horuss would start crying. So would I if three people including my grandkid started rapping at me.

Nepeta's uncanny emotional acumen leads to her wanting to befriend Damara, but being unable to speak her language.

GameOver!crew is up to something, IDK, probably showing (Tavros) inspiring people and rebuilding the ghost army, to tell a parallel story to Tavros becoming more genuinely self-confident.

We check in with the Alpha kids, too, who have some group therapy sessions led by Roxy.

Vriska and Tavros confront Rufioh together, a final culmination of their no-longer-enemiesship, and together, they steal Rufioh's ones. Like, Tavros starts speak1ng w1th ones, something he always had in him, and they also roast Rufioh so badly that he stops speaking in ones. But the way it's presented to the audience, Vriska outright just says that Tavros should steal his ones. And Tavros does. This carries over to successive retcons, as it's implied that Tavros just kind of starts naturally being more confident as healthy relationships are established sooner and sooner.

Anyway, a final note about Equius - his problems are mostly due to being sheltered. Although he is probably the most casteist highblood, he's not really that casteist, as what's really going on is just that he's got a BDSM kink. But because he's sheltered, he does not realize that it's a kink. And a fetishist who does not realize that they're a fetishist has more power than God.

His protectiveness of Nepeta does come from a good place; preventing her from playing FLARP was actually in her best interest, given what happens to people who play FLARP. But he's very much going overboard with it, likely an extension of his own lack of understanding of how much sheltering is good and how much becomes detrimental. What he really needs is for someone to point it out to him, which I think he gets via Nepeta or via Karkat, and then have a reaaaaally long think about it. He's genuinely a polite and helpful soul, who doesn't WANT to make people uncomfortable. The auspicetism is very good for him in this regard, as is his moirallegiance once Karkat talks him and Nepeta through their issues.

The point is, once he's forced to reckon with the fact that the degeneracy is coming from inside the house, I think he'd have a LOT of regrets about the way he treated Aradia. Which leads us to:

Whoops That Robot Thing Was Really Inappropriate Huh

Equius approaches John to ask him to make Past!Equius reconsider the Aradiabot Thing. John's getting kind of impatient with all these trolls who keep asking him to go back through time, but given that everyone seems a little happier each time, he can't help but agree.

So he goes back to the past, before Equius can give Aradia her robot body with the love chip in it, and something really fun gets to happen here: first of all, Equius's Void status makes him really hard to place, so John winds up missing by a bit, time-wise, so Aradia's already in the body. This is the first time that retconning!John and Aradia have been in the same place together, and when she meets him and finds out that he can time travel without causing paradoxes, she demands (with her Aradiabot deathmurderkill intensity) to be taken back in time to before she died.

John's retcon powers explicitly ignore the usual rules of paradox space - he describes it as a "fresh start". Given that Breath is associated with choices and freedom, his retcon powers are kind of the ultimate culmination of his abilities as a breath player. Although doomed timelines can and will still result from paradoxes caused by players when John isn't there, anything he directly interferes with is totally a-okay.

So all Aradiabot asks him for is passage back in time, in order to sanction her interference in the past. After she dismisses him, she still more or less has to adhere to events in the original timeline, for two reasons - the first being that she doesn't want to risk a new doomed timeline, and the second so she can keep the timeline predictable.

So even though she's basically asked for passage to the time period before SGRUB, it's basically outright stated that the progression of events has to be more or less the same, up until the point where John's other retcons take place. So here are the cascading effects of Aradiabot preventing her own death:

Aradiabot takes Aradia's place in the Team Charge debacle, being blown up/"killed" (as a sprite) by Sollux's eye beams, so that she can take Aradia's place as Doc Scratch/the Handmaiden's servant and "carry out" their orders.

Meanwhile, Aradia seeks refuge with Equius, whose void powers keep her hidden from Doc Scratch's omnipotence.

Because Sollux never actually killed Aradia, and Aradia communicates with him via Equius's account, Sollux is less depressed and self-loathing. He no longer predicts a future where all of them die and he has to be blinded. It's left deliberately vague whether this future comes to pass because he's less pessimistic, so his Mage powers are calling a happier future into being, or if his future changed, so his Mage powers are prophesying something new.

Nepeta starts regaining memories of alternate timelines and past retcons, as an extension of her Rogue of Heart powers. This includes the relationship counselling she received from Karkat.

Between Nepeta and Aradia yelling at him, Equius's character development starts sooner, so he's squared away for future events, and ends up not making the creepy Aradiabot, making a non-creepy one instead.

Aradia and Equius do not strike up a relationship, and become uneasy enemies/friends.

Aradia secretly god tiers well in advance of Jack's arrival, and meets him at Derse rather than awakening on her crypt there.

Aradia and Sollux continue a loving matespritship, leading to Sollux settling into a moirallegiance with Feferi. He's devastated when she dies, which still happens along with the rest of Eridan's freakout; Aradiabot doesn't intervene because she's needed for:

Aradiabot winds up being the one to sacrifice herself piloting the meteor, allowing Sollux to stay with the rest of the team when he meets up with Aradia, (Aradia), and (Sollux) at the Green Sun. Aradiabot winds up with the GameOver!crew.

With the 1337 hackers back in commission, Sollux and Roxy are able to establish a server connection with each other, allowing them to communicate during the 3-year meteor trip.

Aradia involves herself in the Rose/Kanaya/Vriska Mess, and I kind of can't decide what I like better - a vascillatory pitch/flush threeway between Rose, Kanaya, and Vriska, now that Vriska's near the end of her character development, with Aradia serving as a stabilizing force as Kanaya's on-again off-again moirail, or Aradia stepping in as an auspice. Either way, it's out of Karkat's hands.

This has a knock-on effect of finally giving Vriska the chance to fully make amends with Aradia, which winds up cinching the Vriska/Terezi moirallegiance. The scourge sisters are back baybee. And between a healthy moirallegiance for Terezi and a healthy moirallegiance for Gamzee, I think pitch Terezi/Gamzee could work as a healthy ship this time around. I'm not married to it, but they did always seem to hate each other well before SGRUB.

Nepeta has LEARNED HER LESSON regarding dating Karkat, so that does not happen.

Karkat now has no quadrants. He winds up desperately throwing himself at Sadstuck Sollux to try and help him get over his breakup. It's not a good look. Sadkat. He also takes up talking to the alpha kids for emotional support, which puts them off, too. Still gives really good relationship advice. He's clearly one of the more unstable members of the retcon!crew at this point.

We're light on the dream bubble drama this time around because of how MUCH is happening for the retcon!crew, but there's going to be a reference in there of Nepeta learning East Beforan.

SO. NOTES TIME.

Aradia expresses outright that she hated the feeling that she was set up and that she wishes someone would have stopped her from being so reckless. And although she seems to find some satisfaction in being the stewardess of the afterlife, there's clearly some resentment there that she's been forced into that role, as she expresses that what she's really looking forward to is watching it all break apart. There's also kind of an orphaned plot thread where Aradia is spending a lot of time in the afterlife putting knowledge together, which never really directly pays off except to the audience, and I think a really good way to bring that back in would be for her to be communing with (Aradia) in the dream bubbles in order to make sure the timeline flows as smoothly as possible.

As for Aradia/Kanaya - they're actually really good friends, and Aradia expresses that she's flattered that Kanaya wants to talk to her so much. There is a tone here that matches the way Vriska thinks about Kanaya when Kanaya is still ostensibly Vriska's moirail, and Kanaya herself admits to being attracted to people who are reckless. In fact...

AA: i just wish AA: back when i was behaving recklessly AA: i had s0me0ne t0 tell me t0 st0p listening AA: even if i ended up ign0ring their advice AA: it w0uld have been nice

GA: It Must Be A Certain Madness Im Afflicted By GA: To Orbit Those More Reckless And Dangerous Than I And More Daring For It GA: I Guess I Want To Help Them But They Never Can Be Helped It Seems

So I'm just kind of saying... Aradia and Kanaya moirallegiance... is not entirely unfounded. And a moirail stabilizes a troll's other relationships; if we have a moirail for Kanaya and a moirail for Vriska, then the Mess that is whatever's going on with Kanaya, Vriska, and Rose would probably resolve itself, I think. Either way, Rose is surrounded by SUCH a girl's night of emotional support to help her with sobriety now.

As for whatever's going on between her and Equius, I tend to believe the comic when it tells me relationships don't work out, and Aradia expresses regret for kissing him during the Ministrife. I think they could be good vitriolic frenemies, though.

Okay, onto Sollux.

In the same panel where Eridan and Karkat are implied to be "hatched for each other" pale-wise, Feferi and Sollux are foreshadowed in the same way:

They also spend a LOT OF TIME curled up in a pile together talking about their feelings, which we don't see with matesprits, but we DO see with moirails. Nepeta and Equius do the same thing, and they are kind of THE moirails. So I think Sollux and Feferi were always meant to be pale, but because Aradia died, Sollux wound up taking Feferi on as a matesprit instead. Between EriFef, SolFef, and GamTav, people getting flushed and pale feelings entangled is like, a Running Thing, so it's not really surprising to me.

Now, here's the thing. We already know that Sollux likes to cope with a rebound, since he went flushed with Feferi after Aradiabot exploded and was presumed dead. And Karkat cares very fucking much about Sollux, to the point where Gamzee speculates that he's actually Karkat's best friend, and Karkat even calls him that (although Karkat also kind of just calls anyone his best friend, lol).

CG: GAMZEE WAS MY VERY GOOD FRIEND, WHO WAS THIS GOOFY LOVEABLE BULLSHIT CLOWN UNTIL HE WENT PSYCHO AND KILLED SOME PEOPLE. I LIKED HIM A LOT. CG: I DON'T KNOW, I GUESS MY BEST FRIEND IS REALLY JUST THE GUY WHO I HAPPEN TO BE FEELING MOST SENTIMENTAL TO AT THE MOMENT, IS THAT A FUCKING CRIME.

This crab's got so much love in him. In any case, I mostly just want to keep sticking Karkat in these extremely unhealthy relationships for a while. It makes it sweeter when he finally winds up with Eridan LIKE HE WAS ALWAYS MEANT TO... but yeah.

Cross-session communication is also entirely possible, as Sollux set up chat clients between the trolls and the kids in the first place, and even without that, Kanaya found Rose's old GameFAQs on a server in the Furthest Ring. With both Sollux and Roxy on the case, there's no way they can't somehow establish communications way sooner.

Regarding Nepeta regaining her memories, let me once more point you towards the Nepeta essay. She's on track to become the one who attains Ultimate Selfhood, and comforts people like Jade and John about not really knowing their friends or being lonely.

But yeah, obviously Sollux asks for Feferi to be brought back.

F-EF-ERI!!!! 38D

Mostly Sollux just asks to be prevented from provoking Eridan so harshly. Eridan still winds up blowing up the matriorb, and thus, still getting killed by Kanaya in retribution, but this means that Eridan is now the only member of the team left dead.

PITCH FEFNEP. PITCH FEFNEP. PITCH FEFNEP

Pitch FefNep leads to Feferi letting slip something casteist where Sollux can hear; he doesn't personally care because he's heard much worse, but puts them on a break while she sorts herself out. They get back together after that.

Karkat alone :'( he's mostly just talking to the alpha kids at this point, trying to hide from all the happy fucking relationships happening all around him.

If the last retcon was really heavy on the retcon!crew, then this one is much more about what's happening in the bubbles. We get most of our dancestor development this go around. Do not read if you like the dancestors! I go very in-depth about how most of them are horrible people on purpose here, so their arcs are mostly about them being pulled up on their abject awfulness.

Nepeta, who has learned East Beforan, is able to talk to Damara and have an earnest heart-to-heart with her about how awfully she was treated. They hug and cry. Damara, finally validated, gives everyone a big middle finger.

Feferi heals Mituna's brain injury, because literally why the FUCK has nobody else done that. Now once more in control of his faculties, he breaks up with Latula, pissed off that she took advantage of him all those eons to boost her own ego. He also gives everyone a big middle finger. Damara steals her skateboard and high fives Mituna.

Porrim's basically the only dancestor who grew as a person so I think she mostly escapes unscathed.

Latula gets chased around by Sollux and Aradia, who basically just bully her for being bad at games. This is a date to them.

Gamzee completely refutes Kurloz, with his newfound clarity about the real miracle being friendship and the real dark carnival being the world he and his friends will build, not that LE noise.

In a double team between Terezi and Rose, Meulin gets eviscerated for the way her own Issues have made her ships deliberately awful, that she could have simply Not, and she has a bit of a breakdown.

As Feferi is grappling with her privilege and internalized casteism, Cronus wanders up to try and hit on her, and she goes "oh my god... when people look at me, are you what they see? A friendless loser that nobody likes? A total waste of seawater who's only pretending to be cool with the lower castes? A totally fake poser? 38(" Cronus just goes "..." and starts crying and Feferi ends the convo oblivious to that, just going "wow... thanks for talking with me! really gave me a lot to think about" imagine how funny it would be -

Karkat finds and talks to (Eridan), where he fully admits to missing the guy. His mopiness is so extreme that (Eridan) takes issue with it and punches him, before basically yelling at him to get his shit together. Karkat then yells at HIM for him to get HIS shit together, and they both leave, intent on getting their shit together.

We also get an update on Vriska and Meenah at this point, where Meenah is starting to seem more into how they totally ditched their responsibilities than Vriska is.

So the thing with this update is that most of the trolls have sorted their shit out; even Karkat has had a lot of introspection about how he really just fucking loves his friends and should have been more honest about it, not worried so much about appearing weak or lame. With the double Aradias in play to kind of handwave that the timeline will be stable because they're ensuring all loops get completed and all necessary conversations happen, and with everyone's successful relationships on display, we can kind of truncate the next leg of the journey:

Karkat Fixes Everything

Karkat is the Friendship Troll. Karkat is the Romance Troll. Karkat is the Bonds troll. He is their team's Blood player, and as the Blood player, he's been shown to deeply love all of his fucking friends - yes, even the assholes. Maybe even especially them.

As such, it's vitally important for the last push - last leg of the journey - to belong to Karkat. Where would our Blood player be without his bonds? Well, we actually have the answer to that. It's knocked out and prevented from joining in any of the important boss battles. LAME!

So in the last retcon, Karkat hears from Nepeta about the retcons that have been happening, and he really starts digging through his own past. If every retcon so far has been each troll only feeling comfortable undoing their own personal mistakes, then what of the guy who feels personally responsible for everything, all the time, forever?

Look, I'm not saying that a shipping chart saves Homestuck, but... by the time this last retcon is through, every Alternian troll is alive and god tiered. And he is dating Eridan.

If you have any questions about him dating Eridan, please refer to the link above. That essay is nearly as long as this one. There's SO MUCH FUCKING FORESHADOWING.

I don't think the god tiering needs to be explained, because if we hear that Karkat basically made his past self a shipping chart, and we've seen everybody's character development as they've gone through this journey, and we have Aradias on timeline duty and Nepeta with memories of past retcons and her alternate selves, I think we can more or less gloss over exactly how they go about earning their wings while maintaining timeline integrity. The important thing is that Karkat is dating Eridan now.

Because that leads to the last few bits of dream bubble stuff, but before we get into that...

Miscellaneous Plot Things That Need To Happen But I Don't Know Where To Put Them

Yeah there's just some ideas that I have floating around that need to be placed somewhere but IDK exactly where, or exactly how they shake out.

Hal becomes a real boy. And by that I mean as part of their character development, Jake makes Hal "real" a la brain ghost Dirk, and then the rest of them have to scramble against the clock (Jake's ability to maintain Hal's realness) to god tier him and make his existence permanent. He's a Sylph of Mind, which allows him to negate Condy's mind control. And maybe a GCATboy?

(Tavros) becomes the new leader of the ghost army.

Davesprite winds up dead at some point in the bubbles and doesn't explain how he died, but he and (Dave) get to fight each other and hash out their Realness and Relevance issues, before facing their final boss fight as bros once more.

Jade and Nepeta get to talk, and Nepeta gives Jade the reassuring speech about Ultimate Selfhood and how she won't be lonely forever. Maybe it's flushed. Might leave it ambiguous.

Somebody needs to auspicetize Dirk and Jake holy shit. Dunno who. Maybe Karkat, but I kind of like him pitch with Dirk, so IDK really.

Dad needs to die. Sorry Dad. If I can find a way to kill off all of the sprites besides ARquiusprite, I will. It's explicitly stated that sprites are drawn to the battlefield during the Reckoning, presumably to die, as part of the coming-of-age themes - losing one's guardians. It's sad but it's gotta happen.

All the Godtier!Calliope stuff basically happens as-is.

Can you tell I need to do more research on the alpha kids...

Ok Back To Karkat And Eridan

I think I'm going to leave their moirallegiance fairly ambiguous, but when Eridan is brought back, he and Karkat are basically together all the time. Karkat's signals are mixed even on the best of days, so I don't know how easy it'll be to tell that these two assholes slinging death threats at each other are pale, but *I* will know, and that's what matters.

This leads to the last two dancestor takedowns:

Karkat and Eridan (mostly Eridan) round on Kankri. Eridan calls him SO MANY SLURS. The fact that Karkat not only condones this, but is DATING ERIDAN, kind of makes Kankri lose it a bit.

(Karkat) and (Eridan), who have reconciled in the bubbles, finally find (Vriska) and Meenah. (Karkat) gives the two of them the speech that retcon!Vriska gave (Vriska) in the comic's original ending, but this time around, (Vriska) actually agrees with him. This serves as a conclusion to (Karkat) and Meenah's arc, and causes Meenah to feel so bad that she walks back to the other dancestors in shame, as (Vriska) leaves with him with the treasure to finally fight LE.

When Meenah returns to the dancestors, the first one she finds is Aranea, who's really sad about her own little escapade, blaming herself for the way Game Over went. This prompts Meenah to go, no, it was probably my fault, shouldn't have let you run off like that. And this would, from all the sobbing dancestors, prompt a string of "no, I'm the reason we failed"s, eventually culminating in Meenah rallying them together to do one last good thing before everyone gets sucked into the black hole and go join the fight against LE. Everyone agrees.

(Gamzee) is revived by the life players and cursed with immortality, so he can go on to become LE and complete that time loop. He is immediately locked in the fridge. This is also why he can't fucking die no matter what you do to him.

This also leads us into the final boss fights.

VS. CONDY

The twelve trolls. The Condesce represents tyranny, the worst aspects of the trolls' old society, and as such, is most thematically taken down by them. While she did fuck up the alpha kids' lives, too, I just personally think it's so much more thematic and satisfying to watch her be beaten down by the trolls.

VS. THE THREE JACKS

The eight kids plus Hal plus Davesprite. With Bec Noir specifically, it's fucking PERSONAL, as this guy killed their parents. This is where Dave fulfils his destiny of killing an iteration of English with his sword, when he decapitates Jack English; the person in the middle of that sandwich is Davesprite, which is how he dies and winds up in the bubbles. The iteration of Jack that survives to date Ms. Paint is Spades Slick, as he's the most sympathetic out of all of them and didn't kill anybody's parents.

At some point during this fight, I like the idea that they get zapped away by Jack English, John zaps them to the Godtier!Caliborn fight where he gets sealed in the juju, and then we cut back to the fight with Jack English, where, inexplicably, they all zap right back in.

VS. THE FELT

The spares - ARquiussprite, (Gamzee) in the fridge (who has since been revived by the life players and blessed/cursed with eternal life so he can go on to fulfill his role in the timelines and become part of LE), Dad, and the other sprites (if any of them are left alive).

VS. LORD ENGLISH

The GameOver!crew, the ghost army, the dancestors (they have a Big Damn Heroes moment right near the end, buying Jake time to deploy the Weapon), Aradiabot, and Davesprite.

Jake fulfills his destiny to defeat the Lord of all Angels by being the one to deploy the weapon, which deposits the beta kids, who knock LE in to the black hole. They then zap out of there, collecting the alpha kids from after the Caliborn fight, and zap back to the fight with the Jacks.

This specific configuration of boss battles winds up leaving Lord English entirely up to dead characters, who are then implied to all eventually get sucked into the black hole - their memories to live on through the living characters via Ultimate Selfhood, which only Nepeta achieves on screen, but implies that they will all achieve eventually.

It's important to me that the GameOver!crew is the one leading the fight against Lord English, as they're the ones who were the most screwed over by LE and his machinations - manipulated into killing each other, used as servants of his will, dying ignobly in a doomed timeline filled with special stardust. Meanwhile, the retcon!kids and trolls prove what they've learned - about compassion, kindness, equality, and forgiveness - by beating the shit out of the Condesce, who represents the horrors of Alternia, and the Jacks, especially Bec Noir and Jack English - the latter of which is a shadow of what Lord English represents - immaturity, cruelty, hatred - and the former of which is a culmination of all the failures they committed to get to this point, a symptom of their universal cancer.

I wrote a little snippet of Aradia once, and I think I'll use that to end this essay:

(ARADIA): ok now that we are all done being stupid (ARADIA): im sure enough people here remember the plan that i dont need to explain it again (ARADIA): so instead i just wanted to say (ARADIA): leave your backs to us and face forward without fear (ARADIA): the dead and irrelevant will slay the demon of double death while you unmake the threats of the living (ARADIA): and personally i think it's very fitting that he will perish here as nothing more than a bad dream (ARADIA): this will be the last time we see each other (ARADIA): so on behalf of everyone that you are going to be leaving behind (ARADIA): live (ARADIA): and be happy!

#homestuck #eridan ampora #karkat vantas #nepeta leijon #feferi peixes #kanaya maryam #gamzee makara #vriska serket #sollux captor #aradia megido #equius zahhak #tavros nitram #terezi pyrope #unfortunately i was not able to get my actual project done so i'll save that for 6/12 hahaha #but have this meager offering instead

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shsy7573 · 1 year ago

Text

Something

A Voltron Fanfiction by shsy7573 a langst addict

Description: As torturous as a war with the Galra is, it’s nothing compared to the constant mockery from inside Lance’s mind. When the team partakes in a training exercise designed to help them confront their insecurities, and grow closer as a team, Lance knows he’s screwed. No way they’ll want him around once they see how pathetic he really is. Will our favourite Blue Paladin be able to hide his misery, from the team, or will he break, and reveal to the team just how much he hates himself?

Info: Langst. Hurt/comfort. Original Paladins. Tbh this is probably one of my weaker fics. It’s not really descriptive. Mainly just focused on the feelings. Nonetheless, I’ve always enjoyed rereading it because of the concept.

Relationships: Klance, but it’s mild. Barely there.

Note: Tumblr kinda jacked up the formatting. I seriously need to get myself an AO3 account, but writing for that site intimidates me for whatever reason.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lance scanned the battlefield, his heart pumping rapidly as the supposedly easygoing mission went off the rails. They had planned to take over a small, low activity Galra base to try and find more information on what Zarkon and his people were planning. Unfortunately, this “low activity” base ended up being extremely more well defended than they’d thought.

There were Galra ships everywhere, spread out across the sky like a giant beehive. The Paladins were swamped, and the Castle of Lions had been forced to draw back for risk of colossal damage. With all the chaos, there was no opportunity to converge and form Voltron. Each Paladin was, for the most part, on their own.

And Lance was drowning.

He veered swiftly to the left as a Galra ship charged him from behind. Kieth flew by at the exact same time, and if it had been anyone other than The Red Paladin, there would have been a collision. Kieth banked up, and Lance just had time to shoot a laser at the ship tailing him before he and his lion ran face first into the debris.

“Watch it, Lance!” Kieth spat, and Lance cringed.

“Sorry!” He yelled.

There wasn’t enough time to dwell on it though, because the ship that had been on Lance had recovered from the Blue Paladin’s change in course, and was shooting at him again.

Lance groaned, trying to dodge around the lasers, taking one or two hits to the back. He yelled, his heart jumping as another squadron of battleships came at him from the front. Reacting fast, he sent Blue into a barrel roll, hoping the Galra ships would collide.

Fortunately, they did. Unfortunately, so did he and Pidge. The Green Lion, who apparently had been chasing the Galra ships, met the Blue Lion head on, both going at full speed and sending the Paladins into a tailspin.

“Lance, what the hell?!” Pidge yelled as they both regained control.

Lance chastised himself inwardly.

“Sorry Pidge!”

His mind was screaming at him. Way to go, fuck up!

“Lance! Look out!”

He looked up to see a Galra ship as it powered up a blaster. With how close it was, he should have already seen it.

Shiro flew by in the Black Lion, slicing through the ship with his jaw blade and putting it out of commission.

“Lance! You need to pay attention!”

“Sorry!” He said for probably the 10th time since the start of the battle.

What is wrong with you? Get your head in the game! You can’t even-

His thoughts were interrupted as he was once again forced to bank out of the way of a Galra ship. Sadly, he was too slow to react, and as he swerved upwards a beam of purple light collided with Blue’s underbelly. Lance screamed as he was jostled around in his seat, trying to regain control as another beam hit him on his left.

So now you can’t even fly? What are you doing?! I thought Paladins were supposed to be expert pilots!

“Lance!” Someone yelled as he tried and failed to gain control of Blue. More and more Galra ships getting hits in on his Lion.

Useless piece of shit! They all know it!

“Lance, control yourself!”

“Someone needs to help him!”

“There’s too many of them!”

“Fall back!”

Before he knew it, Hunk and his lion had grabbed hold of Blue and were pulling Lance out of the battlefield. The others joined up with them, and Lance felt tears welling up in his eyes.

As the Galra fleet fell away from view, Lance was able to retake control of his lion. Hunk let go, and they made their way back to the castle. Mission failed.

“Lance, what was going on out there?” Kieth asked, ever the hothead. Lance didn’t reply, only lifting his gloved hand to whisk away his tears. His mind was screaming at him.

You can’t fly for shit, that’s what! You think they’re gonna want you around after that debacle? I’m surprised it took you this long royally fuck. They’re gonna see it now! You’re not fit to be a Paladin!

—

They arrived back at the Castle of Lions, and for a couple minutes all Lance could do was pull off his helmet and just… sit there. Unable to bear the looks of utter disappointment on his teammates' faces. Unable to face the resentment.

Then he heard Shiro’s voice over the coms.

“Post-mission briefing on the bridge.”

Lance sighed, and finally forced himself out of Blue’s seat. He dragged himself to the control room, trying to stay as far back and out of sight as possible.

Shiro began speaking, but Lance could hardly hear him over the scrutiny going on in his own brain.

You don’t belong here! You know it. They know it. They’d be better off without you.

“Guys, this can’t happen again. We cannot lose our heads in a time of crisis. If we’re going to win against the Galra, we need to work harder. Not just individually, but as a team. We were completely divided out there, and we kept getting in each other’s way.”

Lance looked down, mainly me. He was certain that’s what everyone was thinking. He bit his lip, trying his damndest not to cry.

“We’ve been focusing on training our bodies, but I think we’ve been neglecting to focus on the most important part of Voltron: our minds. Our connection to ourselves, our lions and to each other is what powers Voltron, farther than any of our individual skills.”

Like anyone would want to connect with you. You’re the problem, you always have been. They’ll turn on you one day, and you’ll deserve it. Maybe you should just speed up the process. Get out of their lives before they come to hate you on their own. But you won’t, you’re too weak. Too cowardly to face the reality of that decision. Too selfish to give up your friendships for the universe.

“Lance!” A voice cut through the noise. Lance looked up to see Shiro staring at him.

“Are you even listening?”

They hate you.

“I, uh- yeah.” He could feel his skin crawling at all the eyes on him.

“Then what did I say?”

“Voltron is powered by our minds, or something.” It was the last thing he remembered.

The irritated muttering around the room caused him to assume he’d guessed wrong.

“Lance, I need you to be paying attention when I’m talking.”

Lance sighed, looking back down at his feet, “sorry.”

Had he been looking up, he’d have seen the slight edge of concern in The Black Paladin’s gaze before he continued. “Anyways… what I was saying is that tomorrow afternoon we’ll meet on the training deck to go through some mental team building exercises. I’m sure Coran has a few ideas.”

Lance nodded, but kept his gaze trained on the ground.

You’ll probably fuck it up, like you do everything.

“That I do. Don’t you worry Shiro, I’ll get it sorted.”

Lance looked up just enough to see Shiro nod. “In that case, you’re all dismissed.”

Lance turned, and headed out of the control room. His mind swimming with self ridicule. He could feel the tears threatening to fill his eyes. The days’ failures replaying over and over again in his mind.

Idiot. Useless. Screw up everything.

Suddenly, he felt a hand grab him by the arm, pulling him back slightly and forcing him to stop.

“Lance, wait.”

The Blue Paladin looked up to see Shiro gazing at him curiously.

“Is… everything alright?”

No. Lance forced a grin, “of course! Why wouldn't it be?”

“I just… you seem… distracted.”

Lance shook his head, forcing his smile to become even brighter. “I’m fine. I promise. See you in training tomorrow!”

He pulled his arm free, and began to walk (a little too quickly) to his room.

As soon as the door closed, he collapsed on the ground. Tears spilled out of his eyes. What was he doing here? He was no Paladin? He had no place here. Nobody here wanted him around, he was just their only option. If they had anyone else to fly Blue, they’d take them in an instant. Anyone would be better than you!

“Fucking useless,” he whimpered to himself, burying his head in his knees.

“All I do is mess things up.”

“I’m an idiot.”

“No one wants me around.”

“I’m…”

He trailed off, his throat closing up as he voiced his darkest thoughts to the empty room. Sobs racked his body. He sat there, back pressed against the door, letting tears spill down his face. Crying at the truth of it all. That he was the problem, he was the weak link. All he brought to the team was bad jokes and annoyance.

He had no special skills.

No special purpose.

He was nothing special.

He was just nothing.

—

The next day, Lance woke up as he usually did. Early. With a skip in his step, a smile on his face, and a silent prayer that today wouldn’t be the day that the mask slipped. That today wouldn’t be the day they saw how useless he really was.

He went to breakfast with the team. Pidge was still a little irritated at him for running into her. Kieth was broody, as usual. Hunk and Coran were happy. Shiro and Allura were focused.

Lance, as usual, was cracking jokes to try and lighten the mood. To try and drown out the voice in his head. To try and fein cheerfulness.

And the others, as usual, we’re not having any of it.

“Lance, can you shut up for five minutes so that we can eat in peace?!” Pidge snapped. “I swear it’s like you’re trying to piss me off.”

Lance smiled brighter on the outside, but on the inside, his mind screamed.

“Aw, did the Pigeon wake up on the wrong side of the bed?” He teased, and she grumbled, turning away.

He saw Keith roll his eyes, and heard him muttering under his breath.

You can’t let up can you? If you’re not royally screwing up a mission, you’re annoying the shit out of everyone.

But he would rather annoy them into not paying attention than allow them to see how worthless he was.

Selfish? Probably. But, he couldn’t help it.

Besides, if Pidge was angry he’d rather she take it out on him than the rest of the team. Unlike the rest of them, he deserved it.

—

And then the afternoon rolled around. Lance headed for the training deck, something akin to apprehension churning in his gut.

Come on Lance, afraid of a training session? A Paladin should be better than that.

He steeled himself, and entered the training deck.

Everyone else was already there. Lance couldn’t help chastising himself for that. Even though he wasn’t late, he was last. He’d kept them waiting.

“Has Coran said what we’re doing yet?” He asked, banishing the thoughts aside. If today was meant to train his mind, to connect them, he had to keep his negativity as far away as possible.

They all shook their heads as he reached the group.

“No, I haven’t even seen him since this morning,” Pidge said. Lance was glad to see that she seemed less aggressive now. Maybe a bit of time to wake up had calmed her temper at his previous fuck-upery.

Not that she’d be wrong to still be pissed.

Lance smiled wider.

Just then, Coran entered the room, holding a mass of technology in his arms.

“I’m here! I’m here! Sorry, I’d hoped to have this all set up before you arrived but—“

“It’s okay, Coran. We’re not in a rush.” Shiro assured.

Hunk smiled and walked over, “need some help?”

Pidge joined her friend as Coran nodded and they began setting up, the Altean telling Pidge and Hunk how to hook everything up.

Why didn’t you offer to help? Useless.

But then his own mind fired back.

You’re too stupid to help with something like this. It’s too complicated.

Lance resisted the urge to wince, refusing to let his expressions betray his inner rebuke. So far he wasn’t doing a very great job at keeping negativity out of training.

Then again, you never could do anything right.

He was grateful as Hunk, Pidge and Coran finished setting up. It meant he’d have something else to focus on.

His dreams of distraction were crushed as Coran began to explain the exercise.

“Today's exercise will be all about overcoming your mental barriers. In combat, you need to be completely open with each other, and having blockades and hidden insecurities can distract you from working as a cohesive whole. Today, the team will be given the chance to travel into each Paladin’s mindscape. Not actually, of course, mind travel is very dangerous and can more often than not lead to disastrous consequences. That’s where all this technology comes in. This will simulate a sort of virtual landscape for you all to traverse through. It should still be accurate, but it will prevent any serious harm coming to any of you.”

Lance’s stomach somersaulted. Travelling… into his mind… to face his insecurities?!

No way they’ll want you around after this.

Lance took a deep breath. Maybe he could worm his way out of it. Maybe he could delay, and they would run out of time and not get to him. Maybe he could fake illness closer to his turn. The healing pods didn’t cure sickness so he’d just be sent back to his room to rest.

They were feeble wishes, but a boy can dream.

—

Unfortunately for Lance, they did have time for him. All day, dread had been clawing at his chest, and he’d taken every possible opportunity to have someone else go first.

But… he couldn’t put it off any longer. He had really considered faking a migraine or some shit, but if any of them found out they’d think he was being lazy. Or worse, they’d question why he wanted out so close to his turn anyways.

They’d been through Shiro’s mindscape. Forcing him to confront his fears and regrets about his time with the Galra, and helping him accept that it was all just survival. The Galran prisoner he used to be was running purely off instinct, and the Shiro they knew would never be so callous. They also helped him wrestle with the guilt and pain of leaving Adam behind.

They’d been through Pidge’s mindscape. Helping to quell her fears about not being able to find her parents. They’d sworn they would help her, and do whatever it took to get Matt and her father back.

They’d been through Hunk’s mindscape. Helping him through all the anxieties and fears that had taken hold of him over his years at the Garrison, and now in space. They’d consoled him by telling him that he was brave. That it was okay to be scared. And that he would never be alone.

They’d gone through Keith’s mindscape. Begrudgingly, he’d admitted to his feelings of lostness. How he wanted to feel a sense of self, and get to know who he was and where he came from. They’d told him they would help in whatever way they could, but that at the end of the day ‘who he was’ depended solely on him. Not who his parents were. They’d even gone as far as to say Voltron could be his family if he let it.

And now… now Lance had to go.

And he was terrified.

Coward! Afraid of what they might find? Afraid they’ll see how worthless their Blue Paladin really is?!

He felt a hand on his shoulder and he stared at the mindscape device in his hands. He looked up at Shiro, who smiled down at him.

“We’re right here with you.” He assured.

Lance smiled.

But for how long?

He pushed the voice away, pushed everything away. All his thoughts, feelings and emotions.

Then, he put on the device, and closed his eyes. The world around him melted away, and when he reopened his eyes, he found himself standing on a beach. The ground beneath him which he knew technically shouldn’t, felt soft. Having been through several mindscapes by now, he was used to the strange faux sensations they caused. Making it seem like you were actually there.

He looked around as the other Paladins faded in, and took in their surroundings.

Finally, it was Pidge who asked, “where are we?”

Lance smiled as he spotted a house on the hill, not far from the beachfront.

“My home.”

—

They made their way up the hill, Lance making absolutely certain that everything they saw was what he wanted them to see. Keeping the nasty voice that haunted his conscious locked behind the walls of this fabricated world.

Okay, fabricated wasn’t exactly the best word. This was all still very real. It was just something he was more comfortable showing the team. Something understandable. Something sweet. Something wholesome.

Something better to the alternative. Something easier.

They reached the house, and Lance grinned as he saw his little niblings playing in the front yard. Rolling around the grass, wrestling over a yellow toy truck.

They didn’t see him though, nor did they see the other Paladins. At the end of the day, they were just spectators to a virtual reality. They weren’t actually in Lance’s mind, and thus, couldn’t interact.

“Aww, they’re so cute! Who are they?” Pidge said, cooing as they drew nearer.

“Those are my niece and nephew.” He said, smiling fondly. He’d missed them so much. He’d missed them all so much.

Almost as if his mind was reflecting this, the house seemed to pull away, just slightly. Not quite letting the Paladins reach it.

Lance frowned.

“Woah… what was that?” Hunk asked, looking at Lance.

“I’m… not sure,” he admitted.

He could feel the fringes of his paradise shudder as an insult tried to break through. He didn’t let it. He couldn’t. Not with the Paladins watching.

But he could see their unease as the trembling surrounding the area scape passed.

Fortunately, his mother emerged from the house before they had time to question it.

She began spewing how she missed him, and he felt tears prick his eyes.

Each time they got close to the house it shifted away again. Pretty soon they caught on.

Homesickness. Homesickness was the barrier he was choosing to show the Paladins. The guilt for leaving his family behind. It was one he found much easier to bear. One he felt they would understand and accept.

And they did.

They comforted him, and told him it was okay to miss home.

And he thought, just for a moment he thought he’d done it.

He’d really done something right. He hadn’t fucked it up.

“Is this why you were so distracted yesterday? In the battle? You were missing your family?” Shiro asked.

Lance nodded.

And then the voice came rushing in, faster than he could stop it.

A venomous, icy echo twisted around them, filling up the atmosphere.

Liar!

He forced it back, but it was too late. The Paladins were looking around, frightened and confused.

“What was that?” Pidge exclaimed.

Shit.

“I- I don’t know…” he said, his voice dejected. But he found lying much harder in the midst of his panic.

“Lance. What aren’t you telling us?” Keith demanded.

Then it happened. A sharp sound drew Lance’s eyes to the ground, where a crack was beginning to spread beneath his feet.

“What the hell’s happening?!”

“Lance! What’s going on?!”

He couldn’t think. He couldn’t speak. He was frozen. Fear was creeping through his veins, sending a wind rushing through the mindscape.

A Paladin. Afraid of his own brain.

Pathetic!

More cracks. He closed his eyes, and tried to shove the voice away.

There was still time, still an opportunity to hide this, to get past this. He could do this.

“Lance!”

He looked up. Everyone looked scared. He was making them scared. And this was just the surface. No way he could let them see the full force of it!

Nobody would want you around then.

The voice crackled in the wind around them, sharp as a knife, but also sweet as honey. A perfect tone of intoxicating mockery. One that had haunted him for years.

Shards were beginning to fall away, revealing a world of empty blackness, and Lance was panicking.

How disappointing. Paladins aren’t supposed to panic.

“Lance, Lance it’s okay! Just breath buddy. Tell us what’s happening. We can help you!” Shiro assured.

They’ll hate you.

“We won’t!” Hunk tried to reassure, reaching out a hand.

And then the world fell away. The cracks gave way and Lance was falling. Falling. Falling. Falling. Away from the hill. Away from Cuba. Away from his little paradise.

And down

Down

Into the bitter darkness.

Into the truth.

Into the nothing.

—

Lance inhaled sharply, his breath echoing all around him. All he could see was darkness. Darkness above, darkness below and darkness all around. Yet somehow, he was standing on solid ground. He tapped his feet curiously, a faint ringing echoing at the back of his mind. Like when you listen to the silence for too long.

Then he turned around, and found the other Paladins facing him.

His heart lurched. They were here… with him. Dios what has he done?!

“Lance… what- what is this?” Hunk asked, looking at his friend in deep confusion. Concern etched his expression.

“I- I don’t know…”

You never know! Came the voice. Harsher and clearer than it had on the beach house. Pounding in his head and vibrating in his skull.

He turned to see the faint outline of a person against the darkness. Inches from his face. It shoved him with a hiss, that’s the problem!

“Lance!” Keith started forward, sword in hand, but a voice interrupted him.

Are you gonna let him fight your battles?!

Another grey figure appeared in front of Keith, blocking Lance’s view of the Red Paladin.

I thought Paladins were supposed to be strong?!

Another figure appeared to the right of Lance.

But you were never much of a Paladin to begin with, were you?

Lance backed away. He closed his eyes and shook his head, begging it to stop.

Why? Why should we stop? Can’t handle the truth?

“Lance! Lance, it's okay! Look at me!” That was Shiro’s voice. It sounded so far away. Lance looked up to see the other Paladins, slowly disappearing behind a mob of grey.

They pity you.

You think any of them actually want you around.

Something latched onto his arm, digging its claws into his flesh.

After all you’ve done? After everything you’ve messed up?

Images of the earlier fight flickered all around them. Then it was all the fights before. All the times he’d done something wrong.

You’re a screw up, Lance! You don’t deserve to be a Paladin.

Lance was being dragged down. Dragged down by thousands of latching hands. Swarming and smothering him. Suffocating him in his own greatest faults. His biggest insecurities.

And he was faintly aware of the other Paladins screaming for him.

They were seeing all of this.

He hadn’t wanted them to.

Did you really think you could keep this from them? That they wouldn’t find out how weak you are?

How useless you are?

You’re stupider than I thought.

And that’s saying something.

Tears pricked his eyes as more claws dug into his flesh, ripping and tearing as he tried to fight them off.

Nobody wants you around!

I’d say go back home, but I doubt they’d want you either!

More hostile, hungry claws stretched from the crowd, latching onto his skin and screaming in his ears. Lance cried as the claws dug into his skin, but his voice was drowned out by the icy, honeysuckle tone of the never ending voice.

Pathetic

Weak

Selfish asshole

Can’t even deny it.

Lance curled in on himself, tears flowing down his cheeks and sobs racking his body. Surely they would all hate him now, after seeing all this. After seeing what a mess he really was.

Can’t even fight back?

You were never meant to be a Paladin!

You don’t belong here!

You’re just a cargo pilot!

Nothing to offer!

You’re not special!

Pain raked his body as he felt himself being torn apart. In the back of his mind he wondered how they were touching him. Coran said they wouldn’t be able to. But of course, Lance always did seem to do the impossible when it came to screwing up.

They would be better off without you and you know it!

There’s so many better options to pilot the Blue Lion.

Shame they had to settle for you.

He tried not to listen. Tried so hard.

You’re hopeless!

But they were right, weren’t they?

Stupid!

Deadweight!

And in that moment, Lance found himself lost. Succumbing to the sea of his own insecurities. They’d come on this mission to connect as a unit

But…

He had never felt more alone in his entire life.

It was just him, and the voice echoing over and over in his mind.

You’re nothing

—

Lance jolted upright, phantom claws still tearing at his skin as he looked around frantically.

He was back on the training deck. Sitting on the floor. He was fairly certain he hadn’t been on the floor when they’d gone in.

He was breathing heavily, his body shaking as tears ran freely down his cheeks. The only positive right now was that whatever wounds the figures seemed to have inflicted were gone… if they had ever really existed in the first place.

“Lance…” came an empty, uncertain voice. The Blue Paladin looked up to see the other Paladins standing a foot or so away, watching him completely break down after…

After…

Dios! They were gonna hate him. More than they did already!

“I’m sorry,” he whimpered.

If it was possible, he began quivering harder.

At that moment, nobody seemed to know what to do. They were all frozen in some sort of silent shock, mortified by what they’d just witnessed.

And then… to everyone’s surprise… Keith began walking towards Lance.

The Blue Paladin began scrambling away, trying to pull himself to his feet and failing as he stumbled backwards. He raised a feeble hand to try and hide his crying eyes.

Kieth grabbed his arm, catching him as he fell. He tried to pull away, letting out a frantic whimpering sound. But Keith held his grip and pulled Lance towards him.

And then they were hugging. Lance felt slender, firm arms wrapped around his back. He fought against them for a few seconds, but the Red Paladin didn’t let up.

So, Lance folded. Keith dropped to his knees as the boy buried his head in the Red Paladin’s shoulder, clutching the back of his shirt with trembling hands. Sobs raked his body, and Keith only seemed to hold him tighter.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Lance murmured through his sobbing. He hadn’t meant for this to happen. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. What would they think of him now?

Another pair of arms joined them, and Lance heard Hunk whisper in his ear, “It’s okay, buddy.”

Then something small weaselled its way between the hands already around Lance, and he heard Pidge murmur, “we’re right here.”

A hand fell on his shoulder, and Shiro spoke in a calm, affirming voice: “we’re not going anywhere buddy.”

And Lance cried harder. He was sure he was squeezing Keith too hard. He was sure he was making a fool of himself. He was sure they all just pitied him.

“I’m sorry.” He sobbed again wetly. Voice thick with misery. The embrace became more secure, and Lance was acutely aware of Shiro joining it fully.

Then, someone moved their hand into Lance’s hair. Working it between their fingers, and combing it gently. “Don’t—“ Keith rasped. If Lance wasn’t sure they all hated him now, if he wasn’t sure this was just pity, he’d say he heard a quiver in his voice, “don’t apologise.”

And they sat there, Lance sobbing into Keith’s shoulder as the team embraced him from every angle, smothering them in their warmth. This smothering, it wasn’t like what the figures had done. It wasn’t suffocating. In fact, with each passing second it seemed to breathe more life into Lance.

And even though he knew it wouldn’t last, even though he knew his time with the team was at its end…

He didn’t feel so alone anymore.

—

Keith was shell shocked. He couldn’t comprehend it. Lance was supposed to be the happy one. The one who cracked jokes, and… and kept everyone optimistic, and annoyed everyone with his dumb, extremely endearing pick-up lines.

He wasn’t supposed be sad. He wasn’t supposed to be the one falling apart. He wasn’t supposed to believe so little of himself that his own mind turned on him the second it got the chance.

Yet here they were. Lance in Keith’s arms as he carried the Blue Paladin to his room after he’d cried so hard he’d passed out from exhaustion.

It wasn’t right, seeing Lance so broken.

How long has he felt like this? How long had he been hiding it? How long had he been pretending?

Keith wasn’t sure he really wanted to know. Because if his instincts were correct (and they usually were): he never hadn’t been.

The Red Paladin approached Lance’s bed. He propped the boy’s body against him as he pulled back the covers. Then, cradling him gently in his arms (strange that this had happened twice now), he lifted Lance up and set him down on the mattress.

Keith couldn’t believe it. Salty tracks stained the Paladin’s face, and Keith had to fight to keep his own tears down.

Because seeing Lance like this… it hurt.

It was wrong.

It felt more wrong to him than anything had ever felt in his life.

And Keith knew why.

Because ontop of how unbelievable it was that this was how Lance really felt… Keith loved him. He loved Lance so much.

And seeing him like that, completely helpless. Completely broken…

It hurt worse than anything Keith had ever felt before.

And he swore to himself, right there and then, that he would make sure Lance never felt that way again. He wouldn’t give the Paladin room to doubt. He would make him see just how beautiful he was.

—

Lance awoke to a hand in his own - grip weak - and something pressed against his side. He looked around disoriented for a moment. He was aware of a couple things: the person beside him (obviously), the exhaustion and aching in his limbs, the dim lighting, and the stiff skin on his cheeks that came with dried tears.

So he had been crying? Why?

He moved a bit, sitting up to try and see who was with him.

Had they seen him cry? Dios he hoped not.

As he moved, he felt the hand atop his twitch, before the grip grew tighter. Lance gasped as the figure sat up, and blue eyes met black. The hint of violet in them was a dead give away as to who it was, as was the black mop of hair.

Lance would reckognise that mullet anywhere.

“Keith?” He asked.

“Lance!” And the boy in question had never seen Keith look so happy, so relieved. He wasn’t sure why, not like he was in a healing pod or anything.

“What’s goin’ on?” Lance asked, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.

And then he remembered. The mindscape, and the figures, and the sobbing and the hugs… and he dropped his gaze.

“…oh.”

He knew his voice sounded small. Weak.

Pathetic.

He couldn’t hold back the wince.

Then a hand squeezed his. “Lance…” Keith tried to turn his gaze towards him, but Lance couldn’t look up. He feared he’d see scrutiny and disgust. He was certain now why Keith had waited by his bedside. He wanted to tell Lance he was off the team. Tell him he couldn’t be the Blue Paladin anymore. Tell him they didn’t want someone on the team who held them back.

And tears flooded his eyes.

“Lance, hey, it’s okay.” Keith brushed a soft hand against the boy’s cheek, brushing away stray tears.

Lance lifted his hands, pushing Keith’s out of the way as he frantically tries to wipe his own eyes. He felt guilty and embarrassed and stupid.

“I’m sorry,” he whimpered, though whether he was apologising for the tears or his very existence he wasn’t sure. He supposed it could be both.

Hands grabbed his face, grip gentle but firm. “Hey, none of that.”

And the tears came even more. Even now he was disappointing Keith with his stupid crying.

“I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I’m sorry. I- I tried—“

“No, Lance! Don’t apologise.” Keith reiterated.

Of course, Keith didn’t want to see him grovelling. Didn’t want to see his pathetic attempts at asking for forgiveness. He was done with him, and nothing Lance said would change that.

But… dammit a part of him begged to be allowed to stay. Allowed another chance.

He cried harder.

“I know— I know you want me off the team. I know I’m a disappointment. I know I’m just holding you back. But please. Please, I can do better. I’ll work harder. I’ll train every day. Please! Please, Keith, don’t send me away. I- I can’t— I don’t—“ his pleas died out in exchange for desperate sobs.

Look at you. You think this will make him take you back? You’re disgusting! He’s disgusted by you! He’s right to send you away.

You don’t deserve his forgiveness.

You don’t deserve Voltron.

Keith’s voice broke through the terror.

“Woah, hey, hey, hey!” Lance could hear the awkwardness in his voice. Keith never really was good with people. Good with emotions. And here Lance was making it harder by crying all over him.

Deadweight. Dumbass. Worthless.

“No one’s goin’ anywhere. Okay?”

Lance stilled. He sobbing stopped, and he felt like the ground had just been pulled out from under him.

He dared look up, dared meet Keith’s gaze, and was met with nothing but soft, gentle eyes flooded with concern. Concern and heartache.

“What?” He asked weakly.

It didn’t make any sense.

Nothing makes sense to you.

“We're not kicking you out Lance.” Keith said, pain evident in his voice.

Lance was… so confused.

“But…” he couldn’t find the words.

Keith sighed. It wasn’t exasperated, or irritated. Just… heavy. “We need to talk, Lance. You, me, and the rest of the team.”

Oh. So they weren’t kicking him off the team. They were just gonna reprimand him.

I bet it’s because they pity you.

They don’t have the heart to send you to the whims of space. They don’t have the time to drop you back on earth. So once again, they’re just stuck with you.

The deadweight.

The burden.

“Why don’t you come with me.”

And then gentle arms were wrapping around the Blue Paladin’s waste, helping him to his feet. Lance’s legs wobbled, and a new bout of shame engulfed him as he clung tightly to Keith.

Fuck!

—

Keith led him down to the lounge area, keeping a stable, comforting grip around the shaking boy’s form the whole way down. The half-Galra could tell Lance was still exhausted, and for a moment he wondered if he should have told Lance to rest before dragging him all the way down here.

But, Lance was convinced that the team didn’t want him around, and the thought of letting those feelings simmer any longer made Keith’s heart ache.

No, they needed to talk to him. Before Lance regained the ability to try and cover it up… he was rather good at that. Despite all of this, Keith found himself admiring just how good an actor Lance was. He’d managed to get past Keith’s scary accurate instincts, the Red Paladin not having thought for a second that the boy he paid attention to the most on this ship was hurting so much. Not until it all came crashing down.

Which begged the question: What else had Lance been hiding?

Hopefully nothing. But that wasn’t important right now.

What was important is that Lance got help.

—

The others were already waiting for them when they arrived. Lance refused to meet their gaze as he was led by the Red Paladin over to the sitting area, where he was lowered onto a couch. Shame churned in his blood as he stared at his shaking hands. He was pathetic, couldn’t even manage to walk himself.

The tension in the room was thick, Altean space goo thick. The longer the silence grew, the worse Lance felt.

Just berate me already! Then we can all move on with our lives! He pleaded.

Not that you’d have anything meaningful to move on to, his mind filled in kindly.

Finally, Shiro decided it was time to put the Blue Paladin out of his misery. “Lance… we need to talk about yesterday. Your mindscape-“

Lance thought he would be able to bear it. To sit through another ridiculing lecture about his incompetence. But he couldn’t, he couldn’t bear to listen to the disappointment of his team members. Couldn’t bear to withstand the disapproval. So, against his better judgement, he interrupted desperately.

“I know! Okay, I know. You don’t have to say anything. I know I fucked up! I failed the exercise and made a complete fool of myself. I know behaved in a way no true Paladin of Voltron ever would! I know I compromised Voltron’s bond and probably put you all in danger, and I know- I- I know you all think I’m stupid, and weak and unworthy now! I know I’m not good enough, I know I’m only here because you don’t have time to find another Paladin for Blue, I know none of you actually want me around! I know! I know, I-“ Tears had begun streaming down his face again, his palms pressed into his eyes as he tried desperately to hide his obvious despair.

A firm grip on his shoulders caused him to look up with a start. In an instant he regretted it as tears spilled from bloodshot, tired eyes.

Weak!

But before he could wipe them away, or hide his face again, Shiro said something he was not expecting.

“No, Lance. No… no to all of that. You didn’t mess anything up, and none of us think you’re weak, or stupid, or unworthy. We do want you here. You belong on this team Lance, and it’s okay to not be… okay sometimes.”

Lance’s tears didn’t let up, despite the obvious genuinely in Shiro’s eyes. He should be grateful… happy. They weren’t mad. But… that… that couldn’t be right.

“N-no. No you’re- you’re lying. You don’t mean that, I know! I already know! I’ve always known! You- you’re just trying to make me feel better. You just- you- you’re trying to keep Voltron together so you don’t have t- to waste time f-f-finding someone else. But you w-w-want to. You want someone better. I know I’m not-“ his choppy, shaky voice cut off at a an angry voice coming from behind Shiro.

“Do you really think that?! After everything we’ve been through! You really think none of us actually care?!” It was Pidge, small, angry, heartbroken Pidge.

“How can you fucking say that shit when we’re supposed to be your friends! How can you fucking- think that shit about yourself— you don’t- how could you not trust us to tell-“ Pidge, smart, intellectual, tactful Pidge, was at a loss for words.

And then her anger broke. Taken over by guilt, regret, and most of all, fear.

“Did we really treat you that badly?”

Lance’s heart was thumping in his chest. No. No he made Pidge upset, now everyone was gonna be mad- he couldn’t- “No- n- no -o no no no, no, no! No! No! It was- you guys never! You guys were always so great! So good! I’m the one that’s the problem here! You never- I just- it’s just the truth. That’s just how it is- I didn’t-“ he paused for a beat, staring at everyone as they watched the interaction. Then, finally, he returned his gaze to his hands, “I’m sorry.”

“Okay, everyone just… take a breath,” Shiro said, stepping away from Lance, and sitting down on a chair across from the couch he was on.

There was silence as everyone situated themselves around the area. Keith sat next to Lance on his left, and Hunk sat on his right. Pidge sat next to Shiro on a stool, while Coran and Allura shared another couch situated next to Pidge and Shiro.

Then, finally, Shiro asked something.

“How long have you been feeling like this?”

Lance was confused. Again.

Idiot.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re not good enough… for Voltron.”

Lance was glad for the final specification. That made the question a little easier to answer. Even still, he found the words tangled in his throat as he feared the reaction the answer would recieve.

“I…” his body tensed as he felt all eyes on him. His heart started racing. He was trying to answer but he couldn’t. Of course he couldn’t. He could never do anything he was supposed to! They were asking him a question and he couldn’t even find it in himself to answer!

Stupid!

Weak!

Worthless!

Deadweight!

Fingers brushed against his thigh, and he looked down to see Keith’s hand slowly inching towards him, clearly trying to comfort him. To get his attention.

“Take your time,” the Red Paladin said. “We- we’ve got nowhere else to go.”

Lance looked away. Look at him, having to be placated like a child. Still, he hated to admit that the removal of pressure helped.

“I… I guess… I guess I… always?” He said uncertainty. Shrinking in on himself as he braced for backlash. Surly now they would see how inadequate he had been from the start.

But Shiro’s voice remained calm, and the room remained quiet.

“Why?”

Lance scoffed at that, leaning back against the couch, but keeping his eyes on his lap. “Isn’t it kind of obvious?”

“Tell me anyway. It might not be as obvious to some of us.”

Lance was pretty sure that wasn’t true, but he was already on thin ice with the team as it was, he wasn’t about to disobey Shiro.

Still though, it took him several minutes to be able to say the words out loud.

“You- you guys are all so… so good at stuff. Pidge is smart and good with technology and determined. She can hack into anything and we’d be dead like 10x over without her. Hunk is gentle, and big hearted, he’s a good cook and a great engineer for Voltron. He gets along well with aliens and he’s always there when people need him. Allura and Coran are the last of their kind alive! We need Allura to run the ship, she’s got altean magic plus she’s like royalty. She’s important. And Coran keeps everything running on the ship. He knows so much about space and planets, and he’s the best doctor we have - besides the healing pods. Keith’s our best pilot and our best swordsman. He’s confident and brave and insanely talented! Without him I don’t know if we’d have survived half the battles we were in, he’s a great soldier! And Shiro is… Shiro is our leader. Shiro’s been through so much. He’s so calm and level headed and determined and we need him. Without Shiro we’d be nothing! Without any of you we’d be nothing!”

He paused, taking a moment to catch his breath, recollect his thoughts, and brace himself for what he was about to say next. For the truth he’d kept inside for so long. There was no hiding it anymore, they’d all seen it first hand and now he had to explain it.

“But me? I’m nothing special. I’m not… any of that. I’m not smart, I’m not creative, or a diplomat. I’m not brave or talented or a leader. I don’t know things! I’m not important! I’m just Lance! I’m stupid and weak and annoying and useless and I don’t contribute anything but subpar shooting skills that any of you could probably learn faster than I ever did! I’m just a fucking deadweight, I hold Voltron back, I’m a fucking joke of a pilot! I’m not even really a fighter pilot, I got in a technicality! I always fuck things up! I’m a fuck up! A stupid, weak, good for nothing, worthless fuck up who doesn’t deserve to be a Paladin! Voltron would be so much better off if I just stopped being selfish and fucked off already so you guys wouldn’t have to deal with my shit anymore! Maybe then we’d actually be making progress against the Galra!”

He hadn’t meant to say that much. Actually he’d planned on stopping after ‘I’m just Lance!’ But, once he started, he found the words just poured out of him faster than he could collect them back up. And now… now here he was. With everything he’d ever felt about himself being laid on the table. Everything his own mind ever fucking screamed at him coming out in a convoluted mess as he finally found the words put to it’s mockery.

Lance lifted his hand, trying to whisk his still very much present tears away, when a gloved hand caught it.

He looked at Keith, making eye contact. Suddenly he was stuck. He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think (not that he usually could).

Because Keith, warrior, closed off, emotionless Keith… had tears in his eyes.

“That’s not true! None of that is true! You’re not stupid, or weak, or worthless, or any of that! You are Lance! Smart, skilled, funny, beautiful, amazing, wonderful Lance! Lance who always seems to know how to lighten the mood or offer up a joke! Lance who keeps everyone positive and innocent in the middle of a fucking space war! Lance, the sharpshooter, who we know always has our backs in battle. Lance who cares so much about everyone around him, and who would give his life in an instant to save any one of us! Lance who hid for so long that he was suffering because he didn’t want to make anyone else upset! Lance who thinks of everyone so highly that he thinks he isn’t good enough! But you are Lance! You are good enough! You’ve always been good enough! You’re not a deadweight, or a cargo pilot! You are so much more than that!”

Lance just stared as Keith tried to drive home a message that he just… that Lance couldn’t comprehend. This wasn’t… this couldn’t… he’d always known that he wasn’t… and now Kieth, Kieth who hated Lance’s guts was telling him…

Hunk joined up, bringing Lance into his arms as he began to speak. “We care about you man. Me especially. Whenever I’m feeling nervous or overwhelmed, you are what keeps me grounded. Keeps me from completely freaking out. You’re my best friend, and I would be devastated if you left. I couldn’t do this without you.”

Pidge nodded, staying where she was as she added her own two cents. “I know I haven’t always been the nicest towards you… especially in our early days as friends. I made you feel like you were stupid and not worth my time, and I didn’t even realise or try to apologise because I had other things going on. But I’ve always admired you Lance… the way you embrace everyone around you so easily - except maybe Keith - and the way you’re always so aware of everything going on around you. You always know exactly what to say or do to take the edge off, even if it means you end up getting yelled at or in trouble. You take care of us out here, and I never told you before but… I am extremely grateful for you.”

Lance was speechless. They were all saying such… nice things. Things he never saw as passably notable or important. Things he’d always said he had to do to make up for the fact that he was a complete fucking pile of nothing. And of course they weren’t! Not up to the standards of everyone else. None of that really helped in the fight against the Galra… did it?

“Lance,” Shiro began, “you are a valued and inconsequential member of this team. Your bond with the Blue Lion is the strongest out of all of us. Your ability to trust so deeply and so completely in others has been life changing in our diplomatic missions. There’s something about you that is just… so disarming that people want to be around you. I just wish…” he sighed, “I just wish you’d trusted us enough to tell us that you were feeling like this. You didn’t have to suffer alone Lance, none of us ever have to go through anything alone.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Pidge asked. She always wanted to know the why.

Lance, completely taken aback by everything, took a minute to register the question.

“I… didn’t think anyone would care. I thought it was just common knowledge… or that if I told you then you’d realise I was right. I didn’t want to jeopardize our objective with my stupid problems, not when it was just as easy to go about my day pretending everything was fine.”

Shiro’s eyes grew soft, “Lance, we would never ever kick you off the team for talking about your problems. I promise. You should never be afraid to talk to us. You don’t have to lie, or pretend you’re okay when you’re not. We’re a team, we’re here for each other, and nobody is going to be angry at you for telling us how you’re feeling.”

Lance’s lower lip trembled. The tears, which had subsided by the time Hunk started talking, came back. He pulled his hand out of Keith’s grasp to wipe at his eyes… again.

“I just- I- I didn’t want you guys to hate me.” Lance had given up trying to sound okay. His voice was wet, broken and oh so afraid. As if any minute they would realise that everything he was talking about was indeed true, and that they’d send him off into space. It’s what he deserved.

Hunk pulled him in again, this time it was a proper bear hug. Lance cried. It wasn’t the raw, terrified, pleading sobs that had taken over his body in the training room. These tears were drawn from a place of relief and mild fear. After all this time he’d finally let it all out, he’d finally opened up and showed them what he was - what he really was - and so far… they didn’t hate him.

They could. They may one day just decide they didn’t want him around. But right now they wanted him… all of him.

So he cried; and when Keith wrapped his arms around Lance from behind he didn’t resist; and when Pidge and Coran came over to join he didn’t fight; and when Allura and the space mice nuzzled their way in he didn’t try to run; and when Shiro finally decided to join in fully on the embrace, he stayed put.

He didn’t scream, or kick, or claw or try to get away. He embraced them, all of them. Embraced their warmth and their love, and their desire for him to be okay.

And he cried.

And though those tears would not be able to wash away the toxin of his brain. The poison that had built up after years of his life feeling like he was just some second rate cargo pilot from Cuba… they were a start.

A start to the long road to healing. A start to seeing himself as equal to his peers. A start to seeing himself deserving of Blue and his Paladin uniform.

They were a start to his long journey to feeling like he was worthy.

Like he was something.

#langst fic #langst #voltron langst #voltron #voltron in 2023 #klance #but it’s mild #not a major focal point #hurt/comfort #mindscape #but it’s virtual #you’ll see #manifestation of self hatred #personifying negative thoughts #I guess?#I mean it’s what happens #again you’ll see #fanfic #angst

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formerlycookierunauprompts · 9 months ago

Note

Sup bitches! Guess who made a confession fic for Arcane egg, Golden butter, and Shadow milk. Me! First things first @revisitingfandoms helped me come up with the gifts, but also write the letters! Check them out!

Anyways tell me what you think of the fic!

—————————————————————————————-

He sits at a desk within a well ferbished room decorated in a variety of blues, purples, magentas, and some cyans. Within his vice tight grip is a letter, the packaging is tossed aside and now sits next to a mechanical flower. The flower shifts from a inky yet iridescent black to various shades of blue on each of the petals. The stem is a shining light silver that glints within the light, both petals and stem hold an intricate design of swirls and eyes. The most curious thing about the flower though is the soft music emminating from it. Its a playful tune, one might here this type of song playing at a carnival or maybe theater.

Shadow milk cookie keeps rereading the letter, over and over his eyes linger on each word. The familiar sent of sweet sugars and of metal almost overwhelm him more than the actual words. He can’t believe, he just can’t. Arcane sent him a confession letter, and such a sincere one to! They might say they were no good with words, but this makes his heart beat incredibly fast. It’s such a simple letter but that may be why it’s so effective, in its simple nature it’s incredibly sincere and heartfelt.

It reads…

(Dear Moonie,

It's been a long run between us, huh? So many years between us, from the old days on my island and your tower to where we are today. I missed you for so many years when you were taken. I can’t count the amount I would just sit back and wish that you were here by my side. I remember wanting at one point wanting to just summon you to tell me what happened and yet- I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Anytime I thought about it- I’d look back on the false letter the witches sent thinking that this was what you wanted.

I betrayed my emotions hundreds of times- always thinking ‘he wanted to be alone, this what he wants’. Part of me can only look back at how foolish I was. Did I not know you for hundreds of years? Did I not visit and learn beside you for decades? Perhaps it was my assumption and belief of you being under the influence of the corruption. I only realize now that was something that doomed me in the end.

Moonie Shadow Milk, I have come to realize one thing. I cannot hide the pains I’ve gained over the years, I should not hide my pains because in the hide they will only come back to hurt myself and those who care for me.

Shadow Milk, I did not tell you everything that day. I left a few secrets to myself and I tell you now because I cannot bring myself to say it in person.

Shadow Milk Cookie, I love you. It's a realization that hasn’t come to me easily, much less immediately.

I realized only after you were sealed. Perhaps that's what originally broke my heart- I remember Golden Butter telling me about the kiss you shared between her and you. Part of me had resigned to never holding your heart- until you told me those words that day. I won’t hesitate here and now. Shadow Milk I love you.

Yours truly,

Sunny.)

His eyes keep going back to the words “I love you”, he feels just a little light headed and his face can’t help but deepen in color. He forces himself to put down the letter and tenderly picks up the mechanical gift, he holds it like it’s the most valuable thing he owns and would ever own. As the soft music plays his mind wonders back to letter, has his dear Sunny really felt this way for that long. For thousands of years, even though he and the rest were sealed? Even though they thought his heart belonged to another… even when the two people she liked we’re interested in each other and not her.

That sounds like torture! Complete and other torture! Shadow milk grips his hair tightly with one hand, the other still holds the precious flower. He quickly hops out of his chair which almost knocks it over, and begins to rapidly pace back and forth in the room. Holding those types of feelings with that intensity within yourself for that long! That sounds awful! So very awful! How, why did she do that to herself! Not even confessing to just get those feelings out, but instead keeping them buried! Why he ask’s himself… he knows why, or at least her their reasoning why.

She thought that if she did confess her feelings that they wouldn’t only not be reciprocated, but she thought she’d loose both oh her closest friends. Which offends him, it offends him greatly! Do they think so little of their friendship that they think he’d just leave, he’s their blinding BEST-FRIEND! And another thing! They were just gonna let themselves suffer, which is unacceptable! He can’t help it when he stamps his foot on the ground in frustration.

That big depressed dumb dumb! Well he won’t stand for it, he needs to find Golden butter and talk to her about her feelings. Because of the mention of her in his letter Arcane must’ve sent her one to! He quickly bounds towards the door and flings it open with haste. Those who are tempted to stop him to ask questions on the reconstruction of the Blueberry academy quickly decided against it, for he had an intense look in his eyes. As if he were a predator on the hunt, they feel bad for whoever earned his ire.

….Indeed. Poor Arcane egg cookie, poor Arcane egg cookie indeed.

Luckily for Shadow milk cookie Golden butter cookie is in the same kind of predicament he was in. Golden butter recently decided to take a break from her travels, as a result she’s in her toy box relaxing in her room… well she was relaxing. Right now she was sitting on the edge of her bed with a letter in a tight grip, with wide eyes scanning the letter. For her usual easy expression with minimal reactions is now very, very expressive.

The letter that’s gotten such a reaction reads…

(Dear Starlight,

A Lot has happened over these thousands of years and there's quite a bit I feel I should say. The question is how I put it into words.

For the longest time I’ve had feelings for Shadow Milk and yet- You loved him. Back then I was more than content to let you two be with each other even at my own expense. You two made each so happy and I couldn’t…

I couldn’t bring myself to ruin that. Yet over time something inside me grew- I didn’t realize it right away.

It was only after you were asleep that I realized I was in love with you. I remember silently cursing fate, I remember more than expecting for my own heart to break once again.

Yet in the aftermath of everything, I want to defy that so-called fate I thought of- I want to chance this, I want to so badly.

Starlight I am in love with you, I am so very much in love with you and shadow Milk- more than anything.

Sincerely yours,

Sunny)

As Golden butter nervously twirls a strand of her golden hair, to her side on her bedside table a small mechanical flower can be seen. The flowers petals are various shades of yellow that fade to white tips, the stem is a darker gold-brass that’s cool to the touch. It’s center is a brown metallic button, the most spectacular thing about it though is when it’s in light. For when that happens the white tips of the petals refract the light creating a soft multicolor iridescent light. It seems Arcane is truly after the artists heart.

And it seems Arcane may have seized it, for Golden butter pulls the letter to her chest as if it were one of her precious dolls. A faint blush can be seen on her face as she can’t help but let out a small giddy giggle as she kicks her feet slightly. After a long moment as she collects her emotions she grabs the metal flower, she can now hear a faint melody playing. It’s as soothing as a lullaby, and so Golden puts the flower in her beret. It’s a perfect match!

When she first read the confession she was so sure she saw Arcane as only a close friend, but afterwards she can’t be sure that’s true anymore. For her heart started to beat oh so fast after the simple words “I love you”. After the realization Golden can’t help but giggle slightly, for if she said that to Arcane they would’ve teased “ Damn. Cant believe historians will remember us as the closest of friends~.”

For as quiet as they may be, they are quite lively, witty even. That’s probably one of the reasons why her and Shadow milk got along so well… as yes Shadow milk. They liked Shadow milk, oh god she confessed her feelings about Shadow milk to them. Is that- is that why they seemed slightly off? No wonder, of course they would be slightly different after that! You confessed to not only liking their crush, but you were also one of their crushes.

As Golden butters thoughts continue to run wild at that realization a soft ping could be heard. She sits still for a moment before searching for her communication device, Arcane made one for all of them do they can stay in touch. When she finally finds it another ping rings out, she quickly answers.

“U-um yes? How may I help you-“

“Hey Goldie! Did you happen to say- get a well worded confession from our dear Sunny!” While his voice might hold a lively conviction to it, his actual mood seems to be intense. Maybe slightly irritated?

“Oh yes I did, why are you asking-“

“Great, now I need you to be as plain as possible, mkay? Do you have feelings for Sunny.” He… was being uncharacteristically serious.

“I-… yes. Yes I do… do you?”

“Of course I do, just as much as I love you.” That admittance of feeling makes Golden’s heart beat and stutter. “So…”

“Sooo..?”

“Cmon now Goldie! If we both like them, we like each other, and they like us both why not take a chance!! Or is the doll maker to afraid to loose control, hmm~” for as much as she wanted to snap back at him, he was right in a sense…even if he was being a slight jerk about it. She was always withdrawn allowing herself to drown in her doubt, to never believe and take a chance.

“Yeah… ok I’m willing to give it a try.” She said firmly, resolute in her actions.

“Good~! Now I’m on my way to pick you up because we have a very silly, and I mean silly silly egg to cheer up!”

“Cheer up? Last time I checked they were doing much better. Why did something happen??”

“Not quite my dear, while it is true that she’s gotten better. We both know her, we know how much of a nervous mess they get when dealing with uncertainties. Especially when it’s stuff, or in this case people she cares about. Are we really gonna let our dead Sunny burn themselves out in worry until they fizzle out like a dying star?”

“No, when are you getting here”

“Oh theirs the conviction~ I’ll be three minutes.”

…..

Arcane egg sits quietly within a gazebo near their old facility, their old home. They're currently on the old island port they used to run, it’s now abandoned but she’s thinking of getting it back up and running. So not only can beast yeast have easier access to the world outside, but so she can give trade opportunities to Gingerbrave’s kingdom. Give them a little gift for giving them the opportunity to see their family again, no matter how incidental it might’ve been. They feel a need to pay a debt.

And so for the past week or so they’ve worked on fixing their old… facility, facility is the best way to describe it they think. For it’s a mish mash of multiple types of buildings, such as the green house, the lighthouse, the lab, etc…. Her “keep” might be a better word. Anyways she’s been working on fixing it up since she plans to help run this old port again. But recently they’ve taken a break from that to…. Write their confession letters to Shadow milk and Golden butter.

It’s only been a day since she sent the letters she knows!! But gods above waiting is SO nerve wracking, like she hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it. And they hate it, they hate this feeling so, so much. God do they feel a little pathetic, wait no! No talking bad about yourself you promised you won’t. Arcane takes a deep breath in, no need to catastrophize everything ok.

They move to the edge of the gazebo with lush tall wild grass all round, with a multitude of wild flowers dotted within. Arcane then plucks a few wild flowers and begins to weave them together into a flower crown. They needed to do something with their hands. And so a few minutes pass with only a gentle breeze to fill the air. Arcane egg than heard something…. Were they foot steps?

“Wait! Shadow milk wait-“ was that Golden butters voice? Wait what-

(THUD)

Arcane egg is suddenly knocked backwards into the grass with a loud thud, they drop the flower crown they were making. “Wha. Who?” Arcane stutters out.

The person pinning her to the ground says “We finally found you~!” Shadow milks sing song voice rings out.

“Huh- Moonie? How did you get here so fast. Weren’t you on Crispia?”

“Tut tut tut, my dear Sunny I’m an accomplished mage! Of course I got here quickly, besides you left the teleportation line open to us!”

“Oh cool…” is all Arcane can say, still very stunned from being tackled so brazenly. Especially since she’s so short.

“Shadow milk, get off her. We have things to discuss.” Golden butter says calmly but firmly, she’s focused on the goal at hand.

“But oh c'mon~ she’s just too cute like this!” Shadow milk presented Arcane like a most prized possession.

“Shadow milk…”

“Fine, fine, no fun.” Shadow milk lets out a small hmph before setting Arcane egg back on the gazebo floor quite gently actually, he then sits right beside her.

“W-why did you tackle me? Did I do something wrong?” Arcane is still a little winded.

“I wouldn’t say you did something wrong Arcane, but we do need to talk.” Golden butter then sits on Arcanes other side.

“…. Is it about the letters..?” Arcane asks nervously, are they upset?

“Hey now! Don’t start spiraling on us now!” He pinches Arcanes cheek, out of affection mostly “We actually accept!”

“HUH!?” Arcanes voice cracks a little “Really?!”

Golden butter gives Arcane a tender look “of course we accept, and even if we didn’t we wouldn’t be cruel about it.”

“Do you think so lowly of us Sunny, oh I’m wounded.”

“NO! Not at all, I just… never got the impression Goldie liked me that way. You either Moonie.”

Shadow milks face softens noticeably “Oh Sunny.” He grabs one of their hands “of course I loved you, even when I let my attention turn from you. From what really matters, I still did it for my family. For you!”

Golden butter than grabs Arcanes other hand “… I know I left you alone for… so long, I made you grieve for such a long time. And for that I’m truly sorry, we both are. Which is also why we won’t let you slip away now.”

(…Sniffle)

The two look at Arcane egg suddenly, was- was she crying?

“Hey hey hey, Sunny-!” Shadow milk begins to wipe away a few tears

“I- I’m sorry, I just… didn’t think you would feel the same way… I was afraid of pushing you away.” Arcanes watery voice breaks her silent crying

“Oh Hun- we would never do that! We care about you too much” Golden butter says while brushing some hair out of Arcanes eyes “…we love you to much to do that.”

This makes them cry more “Guh- I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” They quickly wipe away their tears “but if you do feel the same way… do- do you want to go on a date?”

Both of them stare before a deep blush can be seen on each “Of course! Oh this is a dream come true!” Shadow milk claps happily

“I- of course!” Golden butter blurts out

The three begin to discuss what their first date should be, and when beneath a sunset. Arcane doesn’t know how this will end but… she’s hopeful. It’s a nice feeling, and so warm…

She loves them so much.

AUFAIHTAUOHGIGUUSHGJGH THEY'RE ALL SO SILLY I LOVE THEM!!!

#not a prompt #oc x canon #oc talk #other's writing #other's ocs #Golden Butter Cookie Tag

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the-heartlines · 1 year ago

Text

RE: Plagiarism

This post was the only way I knew how to approach this subject in the best way I could to clear my name. I feel as though if I stay silent I’m complicit, but this entire post is the utmost truth I can offer and I hope you’ll choose to believe me.

First off, I won’t be mentioning the author, and this will not contain screenshots.

I have been extremely nervous as of late…my stomach in literal knots, and have had anxiety attacks due to this. I deactivated twitter, again.

And I’m most of all, very disheartened and upset.

I’m being accused of purposefully plagiarizing fics and deliberately doing so. Also, of “mimicking an author’s voice”—which I’m still not entirely sure what it means, per say?

There was one instance, that was brought to my attention last month by said author, in my jacegan drabble (that was written back in February which is now deleted since pointed out to me) where, yes, I did unknowingly draw quite a bit of inspiration from her fic and used the ‘your grace, my jace’ line, with a similar scene, but I didn’t do that with evil intentions or even mean to do so. (I literally wrote that fic on the werdsmith app on my phone while making/eating breakfast one morning.)

A snippet I had posted in June of my migwen fic om twt was another one this author had issue with…saying I had used similar wording in this specific chapter. I had read this fic up to this exact chapter back in April and couldn’t even recall it…but finally did reread it, twice, and found zero similarities between this specific chapter and my migwen drabble. (this chap had a literal blowjob scene, which my migwen didn’t even have in it)

As far as ‘mimicking this person’s voice’ in all my works? I have plenty of moots who read my fics—and this author’s—say they can’t see what this person means by it, and that we have very different tones/voices. I found this accusation particularly pretentious (and did express it to the author). It confuses me and upsets me…and truly, it still does.

And, of course, yes, I've drawn inspiration from fellow creators. We all have. We’re all continuing to inspire each other during the hotd hiatus…whether that be through tweeting, discords, dms, random thoughts…I cannot tell you how many countless times I’ve come across exact hive-minds with fellow creators where we have the exact same thoughts for different AUs or fic ideas. like it’s literally crazy. We also love to connect our other favorite films, etc to the current OTPs we have.

I am someone who has been in fandom for many years. I have friends in different fandoms from 14 years ago, that I am still moots with. I’m an honest and genuine person—albeit a little weird and freaky. But what you see is what you get with me.

I’m the kinky buffering hornball gemini.

Even though I just started publishing fic back in December for the first time, I have read smutty explicit fics since I was in highschool.

I myself am also a very sexual person, so I tap into that when writing my ‘ungodly smut’ as someone put it, recently.

I DO NOT have fics open that I am copying and literally pasting from and onto my word doc. I do not literally “lift lines” from any of my fellow writers, for any of my fics.

There is absolutely no way I can plagiarize 4-8K of fic. This is what baffles me the most.

The thing is, my writing has improved in the last six months because I AM writing and using that creative part of my brain that I’ve tapped into.

I am not dishonestly stealing other people’s hard written fanfics.

Why would I do that? After MONTHS of befriending others in the hotd fandom and discords? If I wanted to gain “clout” or “importance” in this fandom, purposefully plagiarizing or stealing from others IS NOT the way to do so.

(I would know this, because I have been soft blocked or blocked by many over the last month. And it has fucking sucked.)

I'm a person who continually has supported my fellow moots by reading and commenting on most of their fics. I would even do reaction threads for certain author’s fics, would post screenshots of favorite parts, and post them to tweet in a thread freaking out about how much I loved them—which I now feel like anyone who thinks this, thinks I’m going to use and copy their words, which I have not and will not ever do, intentionally.

I truly apologize if you’re someone who thinks I am “maliciously” plagiarizing your work, but I can promise you I am not and never have meant to do so, purposefully.

I appreciate if you took the time to read this…I don’t know if anyone believes me, but this has been a heavy fucking burden weighing me down and making me want to delete my entire online existence. And I had to get this off my chest. Thank you again for reading.

#personal

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azure-buttercups · 9 months ago

Text

the confession

Anyways tell me what you think of the fic!

—————————————————————————————-

It reads…

(Dear Moonie,

Shadow Milk, I did not tell you everything that day. I left a few secrets to myself and I tell you now because I cannot bring myself to say it in person.

Shadow Milk Cookie, I love you. It's a realization that hasn’t come to me easily, much less immediately.

Yours truly,

Sunny.)

….Indeed. Poor Arcane egg cookie, poor Arcane egg cookie indeed.

The letter that’s gotten such a reaction reads…

(Dear Starlight,

A Lot has happened over these thousands of years and there's quite a bit I feel I should say. The question is how I put it into words.

I couldn’t bring myself to ruin that. Yet over time something inside me grew- I didn’t realize it right away.

It was only after you were asleep that I realized I was in love with you. I remember silently cursing fate, I remember more than expecting for my own heart to break once again.

Yet in the aftermath of everything, I want to defy that so-called fate I thought of- I want to chance this, I want to so badly.

Starlight I am in love with you, I am so very much in love with you and shadow Milk- more than anything.

Sincerely yours,

Sunny)

“U-um yes? How may I help you-“

“Oh yes I did, why are you asking-“

“Great, now I need you to be as plain as possible, mkay? Do you have feelings for Sunny.” He… was being uncharacteristically serious.

“I-… yes. Yes I do… do you?”

“Of course I do, just as much as I love you.” That admittance of feeling makes Golden’s heart beat and stutter. “So…”

“Sooo..?”

“Yeah… ok I’m willing to give it a try.” She said firmly, resolute in her actions.

“Good~! Now I’m on my way to pick you up because we have a very silly, and I mean silly silly egg to cheer up!”

“Cheer up? Last time I checked they were doing much better. Why did something happen??”

“No, when are you getting here”

“Oh theirs the conviction~ I’ll be three minutes.”

…..

“Wait! Shadow milk wait-“ was that Golden butters voice? Wait what-

(THUD)

Arcane egg is suddenly knocked backwards into the grass with a loud thud, they drop the flower crown they were making. “Wha. Who?” Arcane stutters out.

The person pinning her to the ground says “We finally found you~!” Shadow milks sing song voice rings out.

“Huh- Moonie? How did you get here so fast. Weren’t you on Crispia?”

“Tut tut tut, my dear Sunny I’m an accomplished mage! Of course I got here quickly, besides you left the teleportation line open to us!”

“Oh cool…” is all Arcane can say, still very stunned from being tackled so brazenly. Especially since she’s so short.

“Shadow milk, get off her. We have things to discuss.” Golden butter says calmly but firmly, she’s focused on the goal at hand.

“But oh c'mon~ she’s just too cute like this!” Shadow milk presented Arcane like a most prized possession.

“Shadow milk…”

“Fine, fine, no fun.” Shadow milk lets out a small hmph before setting Arcane egg back on the gazebo floor quite gently actually, he then sits right beside her.

“W-why did you tackle me? Did I do something wrong?” Arcane is still a little winded.

“I wouldn’t say you did something wrong Arcane, but we do need to talk.” Golden butter then sits on Arcanes other side.

“…. Is it about the letters..?” Arcane asks nervously, are they upset?

“Hey now! Don’t start spiraling on us now!” He pinches Arcanes cheek, out of affection mostly “We actually accept!”

“HUH!?” Arcanes voice cracks a little “Really?!”

Golden butter gives Arcane a tender look “of course we accept, and even if we didn’t we wouldn’t be cruel about it.”

“Do you think so lowly of us Sunny, oh I’m wounded.”

“NO! Not at all, I just… never got the impression Goldie liked me that way. You either Moonie.”

(…Sniffle)

The two look at Arcane egg suddenly, was- was she crying?

“Hey hey hey, Sunny-!” Shadow milk begins to wipe away a few tears

“I- I’m sorry, I just… didn’t think you would feel the same way… I was afraid of pushing you away.” Arcanes watery voice breaks her silent crying

“Oh Hun- we would never do that! We care about you too much” Golden butter says while brushing some hair out of Arcanes eyes “…we love you to much to do that.”

This makes them cry more “Guh- I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” They quickly wipe away their tears “but if you do feel the same way… do- do you want to go on a date?”

Both of them stare before a deep blush can be seen on each “Of course! Oh this is a dream come true!” Shadow milk claps happily

“I- of course!” Golden butter blurts out

The three begin to discuss what their first date should be, and when beneath a sunset. Arcane doesn’t know how this will end but… she’s hopeful. It’s a nice feeling, and so warm…

She loves them so much.

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laufire · 9 months ago

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I borrowed this from someone at dreamwidth and I thought I'd post it over here too: behold, my (completed*) January reading! feel free to borrow the meme yourself.

(list & some thoughts under the cut)

NOVELS

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. This was, technically, a reread. I say technically because I don't remember the last part of the book and now I'm wondering if I DNFed it over a decade ago and completely forgot LMAO. I... could see why. While it's A Classic, and there's plenty to like in the novel, especially in the sisters, the moralising really got to me at some points. The biggest was the one where Jo attends this meeting full of artists and geniuses and political giants ~behaving just like people~~ and this is DEVASTATING to her (and then Bhaer peddles some chrisitanism). Gurl, I would have loved that LOL. But all in all I mostly enjoyed the read. I did it bit by bit, subscribed to The Public Domain Book Club in substack; each month (or, in LW's case, each couple of months) they go through a book. I've kept the subscription for February, where it'll post "Sense and Sensibility", another Jane Austen novel I haven't read.

Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirlees. I fucking ADORED this novel. I've mentioned it in this blog before but I just found it such a treat to read. Mirlees' prose is enticing and enchanting and everything I want mine to be. If you're someone that enjoys a good descriptive, florid style of narration, give this one a shot.

SHORT STORIES

I read three short stories by Angel Carter. The first three in "Burning Your Boats", apparently her earliest work: "The Man Who Loved a Double Bass", "A Very, Very Great Lady and Her Son at Home", and "A Victorian Fable (with Glossary)". They're not nearly as good as the handful of later ones I've read, but I enjoyed seeing some signs of her future style. "A Victorian Fable" was also really interesting in a technical sense.

*I put the cover of the whole book, although those three only form a section of it, just to make this more manageable.

COMICS COMICS COMICS

I'll just list here runs I set out to start and finished. Sometimes that means "reading every appearance of character X", sometimes "reading everything author Y did in this volume", sometimes "this one specific issue-long plot", sometimes it's a run properly speaking.

DC Speechless. Really cute run. Just some popcorn to the brain that you can chill with.

Robin: Year One. A re-read. Sometimes Chuck Dixon writes well. I absolutely don't have to hand it to him though.

The Judas Contract. A staple and a must-read if you're interested in these characters. Tara Markov's characterisation is sure. Something that happened. But unintentionally on the part of the writers, very, very interesting. And I loved reading Joey's introduction! Ngl, I lowkey ship him with Dick. I lowkey ship Dick with a lot of people lol.

Superman: Lost. This run is more interesting in a meta sense than a properly narrative one. I'll have to mull over it.

Oracle: Year One (The Batman Chronicles #5). Another re-read. BTW, it's already suspect that Robin: Year One has FOUR issues (and Nightwing: Year One SIX), AND JOKER IS GOING TO HAVE THREE, but Oracle: Year One is like, 18 pages within a random issue of a Batman-adjacent comic ñlaksdjf. She deserved something longer and plottier. BUT. Those 18 pages are near perfect and a must-read to all DC fans.

The Next Batman: Second Son. About Timothy "Jace" Fox, who was Batman for a little while. I was curious, and it's a really short read (the issues are more webtoon-length than usual comics length). It was fine, but I had set out to read it before I was like, 99% done with Prime Earth lol. I wouldn't read it now and I doubt I'll continue his journey. Sorry Jace, you were alright.

Nightwing/Huntress. Loved it. Gave me a new ship. A bit heavy-handed at times (Devin Grayson's writing gains a lot more subtlety later on), but I still loved it. And the art is gorgeous.

Batman & Son (Batman #655-658). AKA a reread of Damian's introductory arc. Morrison will have to answer for their crimes against Talia lol, but I wanted a refresher.

JLA/Titans. I'd say the same re: Devin's writing (and I'd say the same about the next in the list), but it was also a really enjoyable read. Very long, lots of characters and moving parts, lots of POWER OF FRIENDSHIP Titans stuff but they're messy as fuck (as proved by the continuation of this plot in...).

Titans #1-20, aka Devin's run. LOVED IT. They are SO messy, SO interesting, SO fun to read. The exact opposite of the current Titans run, if you ask me lmao. The character concepts alone... *chef's kiss*.

Devin Grayson's Nightwing run. Oh, this is a controversial one (yes, this one includes the infamous #93, but you have to analyse it in context)... but I adored it. Grayson's writing matured for this one, it's a lot more nuanced, it doesn't lead you by the hand. It was extremely compelling, maybe one of the most compelling storyarcs I've read in DC comics. And ofc, it was cut short and interrupted in an abrupt way by editorial meddling smh. @ dc, fight me.

Far From the Tree (Batman: Gotham Knights #15). I read this one because I wanted a taste for Tim's characterisation under certain circumstances. It's good. Bruce is an ass during it xD

#reading meme #books #comics #dc comics #my thoughts #dc thoughts #dc #id in alt text #captioned #tag game

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birlwrites · 2 years ago

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i was rereading career goal tyrant, and there was this throwaway line abt walburga going thru all of regulus' friends and her opinions on whether he shld recruit them or not which was very 👀. what interesting opinions does she have abt regulus's friends?

AJFLSGHSLGHSDJGHSKJDHF

okay so - walburga's opinions of regulus's friends vary a little depending on whether we're talking about tyrant or ttdl, mostly because in ttdl she's not thinking of them in terms of how useful they'll be in a war, she's thinking of them in terms of how useful they'll be politically

the central most important thing is that orion and walburga look at regulus's friends and go 'well, at least none of them are james potter.' sirius has really paved the way for regulus here by putting together a circle of friends of his own that is comprised of the most USELESS people (politically speaking) his parents have ever seen. plus james potter who's just annoying to them on a conceptual level. and, you know, there's a half-blood involved, etc etc etc

my point is, regulus's friends are all pureblood and run the gamut from upper middle class to upper class and don't make nuisances of themselves. orion and walburga are predisposed to tolerate them because they know it could be WAY WORSE

(side note, regulus Strategically Does Not Mention megan to his parents. ever. they aren't familiar with the lineup of the quidditch team off the tops of their heads - they know emma and evan are chasers on the team, they are vaguely aware that amycus carrow *used* to be on the team and got kicked off for [insert condescending phrase of the day], and they are also vaguely aware that the youngest nott scion is on the team this year. that's pretty much it. regulus gets by in house black by choosing his battles very carefully)

another side note that i'm not putting in parentheses, orion and walburga consult each other on most things. they have their own opinions and ways of looking at things, but if it's a topic that's come up multiple times in the past, you can bet pretty safely that they've discussed it and are in lockstep, especially if it's something like the connections (or lack thereof) that their children are making

so i can talk about what they think of regulus's friends in ttdl, but that's different from what you asked about, which is that conversation regulus had with walburga where the only reason she didn't start annotating one of regulus's yearbooks is that hogwarts doesn't have yearbooks (afaik)

and here are the results of THAT conversation:

the absolute first person walburga brought up was barty. he does have that unfortunate father, but he doesn't have other pesky sacred 28 ties that might come back to bite regulus (save his friendships with other, less important people). regulus brought him into the land of dark arts, which means barty has reason to feel indebted to him (note the thought patterns regulus picked up from walburga re: indebtedness), so IF HE'S AMENABLE, he's a good choice for a right hand. (as opposed to one of regulus's sacred 28 friends, who have their own houses to worry about - ESPECIALLY the heirs)

that 'if he's amenable' is the reason walburga wanted to meet barty in person - she doesn't know him well enough to make a judgment and wants to rectify that

evan's immediately categorized as 'keep him around, because you don't want anyone else getting hold of him, but don't *trust* him really - you want to use his family's money and social influence, you don't actually want to entrust anything important to him.' which regulus promptly throws out the window because Feelings Dammit

emma is deemed worthy of further consideration. the key issue with emma is that she gave up a lordship - not being power-hungry is good, because she's not likely to backstab regulus for her own gain, but if she doesn't want power then what *does* she want? without knowing that, it might be hard to leverage her, and walburga really isn't sure what particular purpose she would serve, so she's graciously leaving that one up to regulus

charlotte is a no - the yaxleys aren't *so* useful that regulus should be trying to keep her around for the sake of preventing anyone else from getting her (unlike with evan), and charlotte is Intensely focused on her studies, and walburga has no doubt that she will adopt something similarly mundane to occupy all her time and energy upon graduation. (unlike regulus, who gets Os not because he devotes himself to studying, but because he is simply better than everyone else)

the people walburga really wants regulus to recruit are maeve and priam, both for their families (who are not aligned with the death eaters, at least not yet) and for their skills - priam is a parkinson and there are probably infinite ways for THAT to be useful in a war, and walburga's met maeve before and concluded that maeve is NOT thrilled by all the machinations of high society and were she to have something more interesting to do with her time, she'd dive into it wholeheartedly. walburga is also of the opinion that maeve would stab someone with a fork if she knew she'd get something out of it. these things obviously go together well

and at this point, regulus has heirs to wizengamot seats and he has people who walburga thinks are willing to stab other people (which obviously means they're willing to partake in more Genteel methods of violence, by which i mean magic-based), and he has evan but he's not supposed to trust evan with important things which means what he *is* supposed to trust evan with is getting the right invitations for the right people so regulus can make use of all those parties

so regulus needs those people. narcissa would of course be very helpful, but bellatrix and lucius are both death eaters so if regulus can get narcissa on his side walburga will be mildly impressed. katherine vanity née rosier is very much a social butterfly but she travels so much these days that who knows how useful she'd actually be. if regulus can get maeve, then he may very well manage to get maeve's brother, who would be helpful in this situation. etc etc etc around and around - really, the person walburga is looking for is heather, but walburga is NOT willing to gamble on trying to get a brown involved on the side of the dark arts. (i'm saying that with the benefit of hindsight - when i wrote tyrant, i wasn't thinking very much about heather as a character, which changed as i was planning ttdl)

besides, walburga's going through regulus's friends at this point, not general people he knows - so heather doesn't come up

#dark lord wip #should i make an inbox tag

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piercingnovember · 2 months ago

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let's give him a name. we must. if i don't give him a name then our discussions will become far too complicated and i don't think i deserve the confusion upon rereading. let's call him ross.

let me also preface this and say that, i do love my true love - who also needs a faux name. let's call him a martyr, he is after all. i love martyr with all of my head and heart, it's borderline all consuming. so i feel guilt in the post i am about to write. i feel guilty even putting it into a space where no one will ever read it except myself. but despite my all consuming feelings, there exists an arrow stricken into my hip by ross. he appears and takes my mind away. he's taken residence but he was never invited in the first place. was he?

anyway, all things must come out or they eat us alive. maybe i'm just saying it so i can develop a sense of shame. anything other than action. please god anything other than action.

please just let me say it. if there are higher powers do not strike me down for i am about to sin. forgive me. but as they say, there's no such thing as bad thoughts.

my mind is in a whirl regarding ross. he's everywhere, he's taking up everything. i want to taste him. it's been so long since i have craved the touch and taste of another, it's been so long since i've had it too. i imagine his lips on mine, his hands wrapping around my body, hair pulling, teeth biting, bruises from lips left too long on skin. he went away for the summer, i finally knew peace and honestly, i finally let him go. i wasn't thinking of our secret glances, our smiles and eyes searching each others faces. i didn't think about it after the first month or two of not seeing him. i think i may have even stopped looking; at least not frantically. not the way i do now that he's back. maybe it's simply the back and forth. i can feel it frantically coming off of him too. the urgency to see me, to talk to me. to taste. i know it's not in my head. i've got a sixth sense.

and of course, he's just there now. present. existing. beautiful. it's nauseating. i hate that there's no one to talk to this about. no one hates someone more than a cheater; everyone takes it personal and offensive. i tried to talk about it last year with a friend, i couldn't keep it in, but i can tell she thought less of me from it, she was shocked i could even utter the thoughts out loud. but what does anyone expect from me when he's tied a rope around my thoughts. how am i supposed to act with something this heavy on me.

i can try not to stare and try not to smile too big and resist the urge to reach out but how many times can you resist something before you just give in? it has to be over one hundred times by my measures.

i just want him. his new hair is breathtaking too. it compliments his smile well. it looks so soft i wish i could touch it. he looks tired too, like this summer has taken a toll on him. god, i want to ask him about it, i want to know everything. tell me all your secrets, i beg of you. but in typing this i may realize that i have to gain some control. i can't ask. i can't keep laughing and smiling. i can't compliment him, even when it aches to keep the words in.

i should be a better girl. but it's so hard when the bed at home feels so empty and cold.

edit: i masturbated and honestly it’s not even that serious he’s not all that im just ovulating… he is very charismatic tho

#ross #when martyr met me he said he heard i cheated on my ex boyfriend and that he didnt know if he could trust me #it wasnt true to me because it was things like this #is it cheating if its innocent #i have to put an end to it

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eluneu · 2 years ago

Photo

“No, no! I return your - affections - entirely,” Spy said, choking on the obvious like a fool. She grabbed Sniper’s hand and wrapped her own around it, pulling it to herself as if to prevent the other woman from up and rushing out of her own home half-naked.

“Thank bleedin' Christ," Sniper said, and blew out her breath.

Art based on chapter 17 of I Can Dream About You (If I Can Hold You Tonight)

#tf2 #team fortress 2 #fem fortress #spy tf2 #sniperspy #featuring sniper's arm only #unbavaclavaed and genderbent but still spy tf2 i promise #CEL SHADING #THE BANE OF MY EXISTANCE #im actually happy with how the cel shading came out though + I feel like it taught me quite a bit about lighting on humans #but anyway can yall believe this fic is over? what am I supposed to look forward to on my mondays and thursdays now ldksfhlk #the ending was so satisfying and good though and i'm still thinking about it. also the whole fic. i may have problems (autism?) but its okay #but god what a good and well plotted story and the ending that made earlier things just Make Sense #and i feel each time i reread I gain another thought and the thought put into spy's thought processes and sniper's actions and slkdfskldfdk #such a good fic. i am lying on the floor flopping around like a fish thinking about this fic. 100/10 recommended fic

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spiderking-of-queens · 2 years ago

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Chapter Twenty-Three: Just Friends

Summary: You and Eddie go on a “definitely not a date” date and learn a little bit more about each other, including how you both actually feel for one another. (Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader, 13k words)

Warnings: Language, mentions of abuse and violence, eating (Eddie puts peanut butter on his burger bc he’s weird), reader loves Stevie Nicks? This is just pure flirtation, gentle Eddie fluff, and some more angst at the end of course sorry I love drama lol.

A/N: This one’s a DOOZY lol sorry I did not mean for this to be so long. Got a little carried away! Also, once again, I have an album for you! Look up the lyrics to Leather and Lace and think about Eddie or The Highwayman and think about Steve if you wanna cry 🙃

Tags: @princesseddie @dessxoxsworld @blackbirddaredevil23

Series Masterlist

September 20th, 1985

As soon as you got home from your little adventure at the Hideout the week prior, your parents were waiting up for you, ready to scream at you for being out so late. As long as you were still stuck under their roof, you would still have to live by their rules. Their cold-shoulder silent treatment from your decision not to go to college was officially over. You had reawakened the sleeping dragon. Now the little freedom you had gained from their passive-aggressive distance was gone, and there was no way they would let you anywhere near their car again. But that Friday night you had made a promise to see Eddie again and return his jacket to him, and you at least owed him that after the mess you made the week before. So you decided to rebel one last time, and drove to the school to meet him after Hellfire.

You would have joined in, but you felt like you owed him some space, too. So you sat on the floor in the hallway instead and read your book to try to slow your thoughts as you prepared to face him.

Eventually, you heard chatter and laughter as the door opened. You looked up as the boys filed out of the room. Eddie was teasing Dustin, pushing his baseball cap over his eyes. Then he saw you, and his smile dropped.

“Hey, Y/N. I didn’t think you were gonna show up,” Dustin said. “Are you good to drive us home?”

“Yeah. Sorry, just felt like reading today,” You replied, holding up your book. It was kind of true, just not the whole truth.

“The Hobbit,” Eddie mumbled. “Is this your first time reading it?”

“Oh, no. I’ve read it a billion times, I just… like to reread it when I need a good escape.”

He nodded solemnly and you lowered your eyes in embarrassment. The other boys looked at each other, clearly uncomfortable from the obvious tension in the air.

“Okay… well, we’ll be in the car, then…” Lucas grumbled and started to walk away. When Dustin and Mike didn’t get the hint, he walked back towards them and pulled them away by the collar of their shirts. Gareth, Jeff, and Freak mumbled their goodbyes to Eddie and awkwardly shuffled away as well.

The two of you stared at each other in uncomfortable silence before you cleared your throat and stood up from the floor, tugging on your shirt anxiously. Then you remembered his jacket. You bent down to pick it up off of the floor and brushed it off, feeling bad that it looked like you weren’t taking proper care of it.

“I, uh, brought you your jacket,” You said wiping it once more for good measure. “Sorry.”

He chuckled.

“No problem. Thanks for bringing it back.”

He put it on and melodramatically fluffed his hair out.

“How’s it look?”

“Great. As always.”

You smiled shyly at each other, then both tried to speak at the same time.

“You go ahead,” You offered.

“I just wanted to say, I’m really sorry about last weekend,” He said earnestly. You couldn’t stop yourself from snorting at him.

“You’re sorry? I’m sorry! I was such a mess. I can’t believe I got drunk. And puked. Oh god, I’m so humiliated. I completely ruined your night.”

You covered your face with your book in shame as the events of the night came back to you. Eddie took a step forward and pushed it down so he could look at you.

“It’s really okay. You didn’t. I’ve just been worried about you, that’s all.”

“That’s really sweet, but despite the embarrassment, I’m fine. I promise.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

He could definitely tell that you were lying, but he didn’t press you.

“Okay. Well… I’ll see you next week then?”

“About that…” You winced, clenching your teeth. “My parents weren’t exactly thrilled that I left their car at a bar all night. I don’t think I’m gonna be able to drive the boys anymore. Or… anywhere, ever again, for that matter. I had to sneak out just to drive here tonight. So… no more Hellfire. At least for a while, until I can get them to forget that I exist again.”

His shoulders slumped, and he looked down at his hands to play with his rings.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t even think about that.”

“Oh, no, it’s fine. It’s my fault. You have nothing to be sorry about.”

“But… you wouldn’t have even been there if it wasn’t for me.”

“Yeah, maybe, but I wanted to go. And I chose to get drunk. Listen, even though I was a complete disaster, I still would have chosen to go - exactly as it played out - over staying home. It was fun watching you guys play. I’m glad I went. Really.”

“I’m glad you went, too. I wish it would have gone better.”

“Me too,” You sighed.

You stared at each other for a moment before you took a step away from him towards the school’s exit.

“Okay. Well… I guess I’ll see you around?” You said tentatively.

“Sure. See you around.”

You nodded, giving him a sad smile before you walked away. You made it halfway to the door before he called your name, making you spin back around.

“Yeah?”

He hesitated, punching the palm of his other hand anxiously before he walked towards you, avoiding your gaze.

“Alright, fuck it,” He eventually said with a nervous laugh, forcing himself to look at you. “Lemme just ask you before I lose my nerve again. What are you doing tonight?”

Your eyes widened at him and you looked around like you were being pranked, then you turned your head back to him. His gaze was unwavering.

“Nothing?”

“Good. I mean… okay. Would you wanna… can I take you out to get something to eat? Just to hang out. Nothing weird, I swear. Just a redo.”

You stared at him, stunned. Was this actually happening? He still wanted to spend time with you, even after everything that went down the week before?

He raised his eyebrows and cocked his head when you stayed silent for a little too long.

“Again, you can always tell me to fuck off at any time,” He said with a small laugh and smile that immediately disappeared when he realized there was a chance you might actually take him up on that. But you didn’t.

“Okay,” You said simply instead, unable to fight off a little smirk. He grinned back at you.

“Cool.”

“Cool,” You agreed.

He nodded, then stopped suddenly, his smile fading once again.

“Sorry, that was a solid yes, right? Just wanna make sure I’m not an asshole who can’t take a hint.”

You grinned at him.

“Yes. It was a yes.”

“Good.”

He inched ever so slightly closer to you and you felt a sudden pang of panic. Was this a date? You took a step back, brushing your hair behind your ear anxiously.

“Wait, we are just hanging out, right? As… friends?”

He snorted, subtly leaning away from you with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Uh, of course. Yeah. Absolutely. That is what I said. Right.”

He was trying a little too hard to prove to you that this was obvious information.

“Okay…” You paused, narrowing your eyes at him skeptically, then relaxed when he didn’t budge. “I’m paying, by the way. I owe you for last week.”

“You know I’m not gonna let you do that, right?”

You rolled your eyes at him.

“We’ll see about that. So, would you mind picking me up at my place? I can write down the address for you.”

“Of course. No problem."

You rummaged in your bag for a marker, then when you found one and pulled it out, Eddie stuck out his hand before you could rip a piece of paper out of your sketchbook. You eyed him quizzically, and he laughed when he recognized your confusion.

“Just write it on my hand. I won’t lose it that way.”

You raised an eyebrow, but didn’t fight him on it. You bit the marker cap off and held it between your teeth, then took his hand and wrote your address on the back of it. When you dropped it and returned the marker to your bag, he brought his hand up to his face so he could read it. His eyes widened.

“Shit. Nice neighborhood.”

“Yeah… For all intents and purposes, I suppose it is,” You snorted.

“Might get a few disgruntled neighbors. My van can be kinda loud.”

“Good. There’s quite a few people I wouldn’t mind pissing off.”

You hated every single person that lived on your street. It was mostly stuck-up old couples that pretended to be nice to your face but complained about the stupidest little things, or families like yours that hated each other behind closed doors. Families just like the Hagans, and the Perkinses, and the Harringtons.

You were teasing, but Eddie actually seemed kind of nervous about it.

“It’ll be fine,” You reassured him. “I won’t make you wait. I promise. But if you’re really worried, I can totally meet you somewhere. I wouldn’t mind.”

“No, no. It’s cool. I’m not worried if you’re not.”

“Alright. Thanks. If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure. So… I’ll pick you up in an hour? Or is that too soon?”

“No, that’s perfect. The sooner the better.”

He smirked at you, and you scratched your eyebrow with uneasiness, letting out an anxious chuckle. That sounded a little too eager.

“I meant, because I probably shouldn’t stay out super late after last weekend,” You added, trying to take him down a peg.

“Right. That’s what I thought you meant,” He nodded, but that stupid smirk was still on his face, making you blush.

“Alright, Munson,” You teased, stepping away from him. “I know you’re always fashionably late, but try your best not to keep me waiting.”

“I won’t. Promise,” He called after you, waving the hand you had written your address on.

“And don’t wash that off!” You added with a giggle, opening the door with your back before turning to walk off to your car.

You tried your best not to wait too eagerly after you got home and changed your clothes, but you couldn’t help pacing around your room, checking your watch. On top of being nervous as hell, you were slightly concerned that your parents would have something to say about a noisy van parked in front of their house. You had a plan to get them off of your back, and you wanted to be ready to go as soon as he pulled up, just as you had promised.

Then at ten on the dot, you heard the sound of Eddie’s van’s engine coming down the road. You were pleasantly surprised that he actually was on time.

You immediately put your plan into motion, opening your window and climbing down carefully onto your porch awning, sliding smoothly to the ground. Then you ran over to Eddie’s van and hopped in, trying to hide the fact that you were out of breath.

“Hi,” You said as you panted. He just stared at you.

“Uh… what was that?” He asked with a chuckle.

“What?”

“The acrobatics?”

“Oh. Uh… I thought I’d try something new. My parents can’t get pissed at me if they don’t notice I’m gone, right?”

“Mhm. Right,” He said with a smirk, and pulled away from the curb. He kept looking you up and down out of the corner of his eyes. You clicked your tongue at him.

“What?” You asked again more impatiently.

“You changed,” He pointed out with a smirk, nodding at your fresh top.

“Yeah… so?” You mumbled, looking down at it. “I was in my work shirt when I saw you at the school.”

“Okay. Just saying. It’s a pretty nice top to wear for hanging out with a friend.”

“Well… I didn’t know where you were planning on taking me. Figured I’d dress to be ready for anything.”

“It won’t be anywhere fancy,” He snorted. “Hope that’s okay.”

“Where are we going?”

He squirmed in his seat nervously, leaning forward over the steering wheel.

“Okay, so I have this place in mind, but it’s outside of town a little bit. Is that okay? I kinda want it to be a surprise, but I just don’t want you to think that I’m, like, about to drive you out into a field to murder you or something.”

“Well… I wasn’t thinking that before. But now I’m slightly concerned.”

“I promise I will not murder you,” He laughed. “I sort of like you too much.”

“That’s… good to hear? I guess?”

He paused to look at you before turning back to the road.

“That’s where you’re supposed to say that you like me, too. You know, or whatever.” “Okay… Eddie, I like you too much to murder you, too.”

“Aw,” He cooed, putting a hand on his heart. “You’re sweet.”

Eventually, he pulled off of the road several miles outside of Hawkins into the parking lot of a retro diner.

“Is this the place?” You asked him with a grin.

“Yep. This is it. What do you think?”

“I think… I’m dying for a strawberry milkshake right about now.”

“Then let’s get you a strawberry milkshake,” He said with a nod, unbuckling his seatbelt. You followed suit, and before you could get out of his van, Eddie had already raced around to extend a hand to help you out. You raised an eyebrow at him but took it anyways as you hopped down. He shrugged, picking up on what you were thinking.

“I’m always chivalrous. Doesn’t mean anything,” He argued, dropping your hand.

“Mhm. Right.”

If he could tease you about changing before seeing him, you could tease him about getting the door for you. It was fun pushing each other’s buttons like this, flirting innocently. When you got to the front door of the diner, you made it a point to hold it open for him, which amused him immensely.

As soon as he walked in, an older woman smiled at him from behind the front counter.

“Well if it isn’t little Eddie Munson,” She called, stopping him in his tracks. You froze beside him and looked between the two of them in confusion.

“Hey, Deb. How have you been?” He asked her.

“Same ol’, same ol'. How are you? How’s Wayne? Still at the plant?”

“Yes ma’am, he is. We’re both great, thanks.”

“Glad to hear it. Your usual booth is open if you wanna make your way over, I’ll be there in just a second.”

Eddie nodded and instinctively put his hand over the small of your back to guide you towards the back of the diner, but corrected himself quickly by shoving it into his jeans pocket instead. When you both slid into your seats across from each other, Deb met you over by the table and smiled down at you before glancing back at Eddie.

“Well, who’s this? It’s a pleasure to meet you,” She said kindly, and reached out her hand to shake yours. “How do you know our Eddie?”

“I’m Y/N,” You answered shyly as you shook her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, too. I, uh… went to school with him.”

You fought back the urge to ask her how the hell she knew Eddie.

“Well, any friend of his is a friend of mine,” She said, patting his shoulder before turning back to you. “So, what can I get you?”

��Could I please get a hamburger and fries…”

“And a strawberry milkshake,” Eddie interrupted with a smirk.

“Yes, thank you, Eddie. And a strawberry milkshake, please.”

“Of course,” Deb said, writing on her notepad. Then she looked up and pointed her pen at Eddie. “The usual for you, dear?”

He tilted his head at her with a wide smile.

“You know me so well, Deb.”

“Well, I suppose I should after all these years of you ordering the same thing,” She teased him, smacking him gently on the shoulder with her notepad. Of course, Eddie couldn’t resist melodramatically pretending that it had wounded him. “I’ll be right back with your food. You kids have fun."

“Thank you,” Eddie turned to call after her, and then smiled back at you.

“Come here often?” You asked him with a smirk.

“Yeah,” He chuckled bashfully. “My uncle’s been bringing me here ever since I moved in with him as a kid, and Deb’s worked here for forever.”

“And what’s this mysterious order you’ve been getting for the past, what, ten years?”

“A Dr. Pepper and a hamburger, well-done. Extra pickles. With a side of… peanut butter.”

“I’m sorry… did you say peanut butter? For what?”

His eyebrows raised so high in surprise that they disappeared behind his bangs.

“You don’t know about peanut butter burgers?”

“Peanut butter what?”

“Peanut butter on hamburgers. It’s amazing.”

“You’ve got to be joking,” You grimaced.

“I’ve never been more serious in my life. You’ve heard of peanut butter and pickles, right? It’s pretty much the same thing. It’s an acquired taste.”

“I’m not sure if my tastebuds are… sophisticated enough for that yet.”

“Oh, you’re gonna try it.”

“I will not.”

“You will,” He shrugged.

“Eddie.”

“Y/N.”

He was grinning at the horrified look on your face. You could tell he wasn’t going to let it go.

“One bite,” You finally said after he successfully stared you down.

“Deal,” He agreed, sticking out his hand to shake on it. You shook your head at him, but stuck your hand out to grip his anyways. He held onto it for a little too long afterwards, looking you straight in the eye before you tried to turn your face away to hide your blush. You pulled your hand back and immediately turned your attention to the little jukebox that was sitting on the booth tabletop.

“This is cute. I’ve never seen one of these before. How does it work?”

“Yeah. That’s half of the appeal of this place. You can pick a song from any table, and eventually it’ll play over the speakers. My little ten-year-old brain almost exploded with excitement the first time my uncle gave me a nickel to pick out a song. Now every time we come here, we always have to pick something.”

You could picture Eddie as a little kid clear as day, easily excitable, and it made you smile.

“Your uncle, his name is Wayne, right?” You asked.

“Yup. Good ol’ Wayne Munson.”

“So you guys are pretty close, huh?”

“Yeah. He’s more my dad than my actual dad, so.”

“He seems like a really good man.”

“He is.”

Eddie became uncharacteristically quiet then, seemingly humbled by this vulnerable admission. You tilted your head at him curiously, but he avoided your gaze and began to fish for change in his pocket, then reached out to try to hand it to you.

“Here. Pick something out. It’s too quiet in here.”

“No, you should do it. It’s your tradition.”

“Well, now it can be yours, too,” He objected, reaching out with his other hand to peel yours off of the table, then pressed the coin into it and closed your fingers around it. “Pick a good one.”

Your face flushed as he released you and you opened your fist to look down at the coin in your hand.

“No pressure,” You mumbled to yourself with a laugh.

“What, do you think I’m a music snob or something?”

“Oh, I know you are,” You teased. “In fact, maybe I’ll try my best to pick something you’ll absolutely hate.”

“Now, hold on a minute,” He scoffed. “What did I do to deserve that?”

“Nothing. I’m just not ready to show you my hand yet. I’ve gotta figure out what your limits are first.”

“My limits? Jesus, what kind of music do you listen to?”

“Nothing weird! Just… definitely not what you’re used to.”

He cocked his head at you and raised an eyebrow.

“I think you’re underestimating me.”

“Well, guess we’ll find out then, won’t we?”

You smirked at him deviously as you made your selection, and he sat back and crossed his arms in waiting, equally amused by your game. When it began to play, you sat back, too, staring him down, willing him to react. It took a minute for him to recognize the song, but when he did, he scrunched his eyes shut and let out a chuckle, then opened one of them to look at you.

“Girls Just Want to Have Fun? Seriously? That cannot be one of your all-time favorite songs.”

“No, you’re right. It’s not. That was a test, and you failed,” You laughed.

“Oh, come on. That’s so not fair. How else was I supposed to react to that?!”

“Alright, alright. Fine. I’ll choose a better one for the next song. On my nickel, don’t even try to give me any more change. Got it?”

He put his hands up in defeat.

“Got it. You’re making the rules now.”

“Damn straight.”

He bit his lip, then leaned forward towards you with his hands clasped over the table as if he was prepared to make you some kind of dubious offer.

“I have a game for you, too, though.”

“Oh?”

“Mhm. I challenge you… to draw me.”

“What?”

“Draw me,” He shrugged. “What? You don’t think I could be a good model?”

He daintily pushed his hair over his shoulder and fluttered his eyelashes at you to showcase his beauty, making you laugh.

“I’m sure you’d be a great model. I just don’t think I’m a good enough artist to capture…” You paused to wave a hand at him in a circular motion. “All that.”

He laughed back at your teasing.

“Are you forgetting that I’ve seen your art? I know what you’re capable of.”

“You seriously want me to draw you? For what?”

“So I can hang it on my wall to remind myself how pretty I am, obviously.”

“Right. Obviously,” You snorted. He stared you down, tapping his finger on the table.

“I am serious, though. Draw me.”

“I… with what? I don’t even have a pencil.”

He smirked at you and turned to flag down Deb, then asked her for a pencil. She took one she had been keeping behind her ear and handed it to him, and he thanked her before holding it out to you. You took it from him reluctantly, glancing between the two of them anxiously. Eddie noticed and looked back at Deb, then explained, “She’s an artist. She’s gonna draw me,” With a pleased grin.

Deb smiled back at him, eyeing you knowingly before shaking her head fondly and walking off. You raised an eyebrow at Eddie as he stared at you expectantly.

“Alright,” You sighed, “I have a better idea. I’ll draw you somebody in this restaurant right now - anybody you choose - and if you like it, then I promise I will draw you.”

He tilted his head at you impatiently, but nodded.

“Fine. You’ve got yourself another deal. You do make the rules, after all.”

“That’s correct. So who do you pick? Choose wisely.”

He draped an arm over the back of the booth and turned his body around to look at the other people in the room, not even bothering to be covert about it. There weren’t too many to choose from. He eventually turned back around and leaned over the table to whisper to you.

“See the guy at the counter? Ten o’clock?”

You leaned a little to the left so you could look over his shoulder.

“The one in head-to-toe camouflage?”

“That’s the one. I pick him.”

“Okay. Challenge accepted. Easy.”

He smiled at your confidence, then grabbed a napkin from the holder beside him to pass it off to you. You snorted and took it from him. It wasn’t the ideal material to draw on, but it would have to do.

“So, what music do you usually pick out when you come here?” You asked as you began your drawing. “The selections aren’t very… metal.”

He chuckled to himself.

“Uh… well, see, that’s an interesting story. It’s actually kind of part of the tradition for me to pick a Woody Guthrie song.”

“What? Like, the guy who wrote This Land Is Your Land?”

“That’s the one,” He admitted with pursed lips and a shrug.

“Very interesting. Where did that come from?”

“Wayne introduced me to him as a kid, and I thought he was a cool dude. I had a little bit of an obsession. Read all these books about him. He’s actually the one that made me wanna play guitar.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I know. It’s shocking, right? I started with acoustic, and then when I discovered AC/DC, that was the end of that story. Wayne saved up for a year to get me my first electric guitar, and, hence, my first foray into the world of rock and roll began.”

“Ah. See, now that makes more sense to me.”

“Right. But they were just a stepping stone, obviously. The music I like now is a little more…”

“Loud?” You interrupted him with a smirk, still focused on your drawing.

“Yes, exactly. Heavier.”

“So who do you listen to now then? Anybody I would know?”

“I don’t know. Iron Maiden? W.A.S.P.? Dio? Metallica? Black Sabbath?”

“Oh, sure. Ozzy Osbourne. The guy that decapitated a bat live on stage. Love that guy,” You teased sarcastically, glancing up at his face to see his reaction. He was smiling sheepishly at you, and it was so cute that it made you want to cry. “I’m teasing. I don’t really know any of those bands, but I’m willing to be educated. You did promise me you would lend me some tapes, remember?”

His face lit up again, and his smile became wider.

“Oh, trust me. I remember.”

“Good.”

You smiled back at him, then returned to your masterpiece before Eddie cleared his throat and tapped a finger against the mini jukebox selector.

“Did you forget something? I shared my favorites, now it’s your turn. Pick something out that you actually like.”

You sighed and set down the napkin you were sketching on in your lap.

“For the record, I do actually like Cyndi Lauper. She’s just not in my top ten.”

“Well, of course you do. It’s criminal not to at least like her a little bit. I’m not a total freak.”

You rolled your eyes at him and crossed your arms discontentedly.

“You’re making fun of me.”

“No, I’m not,” He raised his voice indignantly. “I’m serious. Her shit is catchy.”

“Stop it. Do you want me to finish this drawing or not?”

You set the napkin back on the table and continued, trying your best to ignore Eddie as he leaned forward towards you. Then when he realized he couldn’t get to you, he slumped back into his seat like a pouting child. Just when you thought you had won, he began to hum, and you couldn’t stop yourself from glancing up at him. Then he began to sing quietly when he realized that he had finally caught your attention.

“I come home… in the mornin’ light… my MOther says, ‘Whatcha gonna do with your life?’”

“What are you doing?” You tried to ask him, but he ignored you and began to sing louder, drumming his fingers on the table.

“Oh momma dear, we’re not the fortunate ones. And girls, they wanna have FU-un!”

You shushed him, eyeing the people around you, but it only spurred him on more.

“THAT’S ALL THEY REALLY WAAAANT,” He sang as loudly and passionately as possible, closing his eyes and scrunching up his face. You straightened up in your seat in shock, then reached out to clamp a hand over his mouth without thinking.

“Stop!” You hissed, fighting back a grin so he wouldn’t be tempted to keep it up.

“I’m not gonna stop until you agree to pick out another song,” He mumbled into your hand, tickling your palm. Then he pulled away from it and screeched, “SOME FUUUUUN!” to prove his point.

“Okay, okay!” You yelled, waving your hands at him emphatically to get him to stop before reaching into your bag for change. When you found a nickel, you held it up to him in desperation to prove that you were willing to comply, then kept your eyes locked on his as you put it into the jukebox. “Happy now?”

“Yes,” He said with a shit-eating grin. You rolled your eyes at him, then couldn’t resist looking around at the other people in the diner who were still staring at the two of you.

This is exactly what Robin meant when she said that Eddie would be good at getting you out of your shell. Everybody was looking at you, which normally would have made you shut down, but you couldn’t help smiling. It didn’t feel so threatening when Eddie’s goofiness was the cause of it. It was actually kind of fun.

“You’re a child, you know that?” You grumbled playfully as you turned your attention back to the jukebox to pick out a song.

“I know,” He agreed, resting back into his seat triumphantly. You shook your head at him again.

“I can’t believe you actually know the words to Girls Just Want to Have Fun.”

“I told you,” He shrugged. “Catchy.”

Your eyes flicked up at him briefly as you were making your song selection, catching his gaze. You knew exactly what he was doing by playing these games with you. He was softening you up so you would open up to him. Worming his way into your brain, trying to figure you out. Trying to get you to share your favorite things with him. You would have been mad, but recognizing the twinkle in his eyes made it impossible. All he wanted was to get to know you better. How could you be angry about that?

You decided to play nicely and actually picked one of your favorite songs despite the fear that he would judge you for it. After selecting it, you quickly went back to drawing, doing your best to appear nonchalant even though your heart was racing. When the song started playing and you heard a contented sigh from Eddie, you looked up at him again in shock.

“Landslide. Heavy. And not in the way I’m used to,” He joked. “Sad, heavy. But it’s really good.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh, hell yeah. Fleetwood Mac was actually… one of my mom’s favorites."

You stopped drawing suddenly and stared up at him, unsure how to react to that bit of information. Judging by the serious look on his face, he wasn’t sure either. But this only lasted for a second before he had his typical, beaming, Eddie smile back, and he quickly cleared his throat and tried to move the topic away from his mom again.

“Stevie Nicks is a total badass. Although, she wasn’t always in the band, right? It’s hard to keep all that straight. They went through a lot of personnel changes over the years, didn’t they?”

“Yeah,” You smiled kindly, trying to ignore the pregnant pause in your conversation. “Although, I really don’t have any interest in them pre-Stevie Nicks. She’s definitely a top ten artist. Top five, even.”

“Understandable. Edge of Seventeen? Great song.”

“Are you kidding?” You scoffed ecstatically. “When that album came out, I listened to it on repeat so much that my record was completely scratched by the end of the summer. I was absolutely obsessed. I probably wouldn’t have survived the start of my freshman year without it.”

He nodded, grinning at you, basking in your joy. He’d gotten you truly excited about something for the first time that night, and he knew it. He was successfully figuring you out. Your cheeks burned red from his gaze. You shook your head and looked back down at your work, trying to pretend that it hadn’t happened.

“You know… you can keep telling me things like that,” He said as gently as possible. “Personal things. I’m not gonna, like, use them against you, or anything. Or make fun of you. Right?”

You weren’t expecting him to say this, and it flustered you.

“I… I know,” You stammered. “I mean… I’m trying.”

“It’s fine if you don’t want to. I just want to make sure you know that. You always seem…embarrassed. I don’t want you to be.”

“I know. I’m sorry. It’s not you. That’s just… my own shit.”

“I get it. Trust me.”

It hadn’t really occurred to you that he would understand. He was so good at pretending like he didn’t care about anything, at being his carefree, happy self, that you almost forgot he had dealt with his fair share of bullshit in his life.

“You can always tell me things, too. I hope you know that,” You added, just in case he didn’t.

“Thanks. I appreciate that.”

“Speaking of…” You were about to ask him more about his mom, but Deb came over and set your plates down in front of you, interrupting you before you could. Maybe it was for the best. You didn’t want to pry too soon. You both said your polite thank you’s to her, and after she walked away, Eddie looked down at the little bowl of peanut butter on his plate, then back up at you. You groaned.

“You’re really gonna make me try that monstrosity?”

“Monstrosity? How dare you. More like masterpiece.”

“Alright, whatever. Let’s just get it over with,” You grumbled, setting your drawing aside to pick up a knife and spread a tiny amount of it onto your burger. You picked it up and stared at it, then glanced up at Eddie for a moment to see him leaning in eagerly, his chin resting on top of his intertwined hands. There was no backing out. You took a hesitant bite and put your hand over your mouth as you chewed, analyzing its bizarre taste profile. After a few moments, you let yourself swallow it and your eyebrows raised in disbelief.

“Surprisingly not horrible,” You admitted.

“You love it.”

“Let’s not get too carried away. It’s… it’s good. Okay?”

He clapped his hands together excitedly, rocking back in his seat.

“I knew it! I knew you’d like it!” He exclaimed loudly and pointed a finger at you, once again drawing attention to himself.

You laughed and shushed him.

“Okay, okay. You were right. Are you happy?”

“You have no idea,” He grinned.

You watched him take the top bun off of his burger and dump the entire bowl of peanut butter on the patty as you took a sip of your milkshake. The boy was weird, and you were enjoying every moment of watching him be himself.

He took a large bite of the burger after reassembling it and then tried to talk to you with his mouth full without thinking.

“What was that?” You chuckled, then took a bite of one of your fries.

He covered his mouth with his fist and swallowed, then smiled at you sheepishly.

“Sorry. I said, are you done with that drawing yet?”

“Oh!” You brushed your hands together to wipe off the crumbs and took the drawing off of the seat beside you to study it. Then you held up a finger and picked up your pencil again. “Just a second, it needs one last touch.”

You scribbled one last detail then held it up, eyeing Eddie as he sat in waiting behind it.

“Okay. I think it’s done.”

He sat up straight in his seat and wiped off his hands with his napkin, then held them out to you in preparation to receive it. You waved it at him then snatched it away playfully, and he reached out and grabbed it from you with a laugh before you could take it away again. It took him a brief moment to analyze it before his face lit up in pure delight.

It was a drawing of the lonely camouflaged man, as requested, but slightly more caricatured with the addition of a little caption that read, “Sometimes I feel like everybody looks right through me.”

“Holy shit,” He said with a boisterous laugh. “That’s fucking amazing.”

He held it up to you to show it off as if you hadn’t just finished drawing it right in front of him less than a minute before. You chuckled at his show of pride in you.

“Why, thank you. Glad you like it.”

“Like it? I’m framing this shit.”

“Alright. Calm down, Munson. It’s just a stupid little joke drawing.”

“No, it’s my stupid little joke drawing and I will cherish it forever,” He argued, clutching it fondly to his chest. “Thank you. I can’t believe you cranked that out so fast. This really is your thing, isn’t it?”

You remembered your conversation at The Hideout about each of your respective talents. His music, your art. Your heart dropped. Seeing the joy your drawing had brought him helped a little, but you still felt like you had all but completely lost that side of yourself.

“Well, about that… I’m not so sure that’s true,” You admitted. “I don’t really know what my thing is anymore.”

“What? Why would you say that?”

“Because I haven’t really been able to make anything new since I graduated. It’s like I’m all dried up. Barely nineteen and I’m already having a mid-life crisis.”

“Dried up?” He scoffed. “Look at what you just did. And what about leaving Hawkins? What happened to your plans?”

He seemed genuinely concerned by your change of heart, and you didn’t really know what to say to him to make him understand what caused it.

“I… don’t know. I just don’t think it’s in the cards for me anymore, you know? Reality kind of whacked me over the head a little bit.”

That was an understatement. And also pretty literal, considering the bruises you received from the battle at Starcourt.

“Maybe it’ll still happen someday, but just… not anytime soon,” You added to ease his worry, even though you didn’t really believe it. He nodded and seemed to relax slightly.

“Well, if you really are going to be sticking around for a while, we could always use your help designing band posters and stuff. Maybe even some new shirts for the Hellfire Club?”

You blinked at him, surprised by this kind offer. He tapped his rings against the table to fill the uncomfortable silence.

“If you’re up for it, I mean. No pressure. We probably couldn’t pay you much, but…”

“I’d love to,” You interrupted him. “Free of charge. Anytime.”

“No, you’ve gotta let me pay you something.”

“Okay, you can take me out to eat again.”

Now it was his turn to be stunned speechless. For some reason, it was a surprise to him that you considered spending time with him valuable.

“That’s all you’ll accept?”

“Yup,” You nodded matter-of-factly.

“Sounds like that’s a bigger payoff for me, but alright.”

You smirked at him, shaking your head. That wasn’t even remotely true.

“I believe you also owe me a portrait of yours truly,” He added. “Don’t forget.”

“Okay, fine. But it’ll cost you an extra meal.”

“I think I can live with that.”

You tried to hide your giddy smile by taking another bite of your burger, and he eyed you over the rim of his soda as he took a sip. Then he set it down quickly and swallowed as he recalled something.

“Oh, I almost forgot. What were you gonna say before our food got here? Something personal, or whatever?”

Shit. He had heard you. You tried to think of something else you could ask him that would be much lighter than the topic of his absent parents.

“Oh… um… I do have a question I’ve been wanting to ask you, actually. Speaking of leaving Hawkins… I’m curious to know what’s in the cards for you when you finish school. Do you have any plans? Or… dreams?”

He raised his eyebrows at you, then reached over to steal a fry from your plate. You glared at him playfully, but didn’t say anything.

“Do I have any plans? Uh… maybe the first two times I was supposed to graduate. But the third? Nah. The plan is just to get the hell out of that school.”

“Okay… Then can I ask you something else?”

He wiped his hands with his napkin again and leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms.

“Okay. Shoot.”

“You’re…smart…”

When you paused to think about how best to continue your question, he snorted.

“Is that your question?”

“No, I’m trying to say… you’re really smart, and certainly smart enough to graduate. So how have you been held back so many times?”

He sighed loudly, and blew a puff of air out of his lips.

“Takes a certain special talent, I guess. It was actually sort of hard to do. No, actually, the answer depends on who you ask. If you ask my teachers, they would say it’s because I have an inability to focus in class. If you ask principal Higgins, he would say that I’m a degenerate who cares more about getting into trouble than succeeding in anything. And if you ask the guidance counselor, she would tell you that my unwillingness to move forward in life is due to a ‘fear of the unknown,’ and a direct result of my ‘rocky upbringing.’”

“And if I were to ask you?” You asked, cocking your head.

He took a pause to think about it, sipping his soda again. When the answer came to him, he traced a finger over the tabletop’s pattern absentmindedly.

“I would tell you that it’s because I can’t force myself to give a shit. About any of it.”

He looked sad as he continued to stare down at the table, and you wanted nothing more than to make him smile again.

“Would it be awful for me to say that I’m glad you flunked?” You teased, leaning forward to catch his attention. “Because we probably wouldn’t be here right now if you graduated when you were supposed to. Or last year, either, actually.”

He looked up at you, the first signs of a smile appearing on his face.

“What, do you think I would have actually gone anywhere if I had graduated?”

“Absolutely. Are you kidding?”

“I think the guidance counselor would disagree with you.”

“Well, the guidance counselor can kiss my ass. You are way too good for this town, Eddie Munson. And you are going to graduate this year. I know you will.”

You could tell he wanted to object, but the look on your face was warning him not to. He chuckled with a little shake of his head.

“Alright, how about we make one more deal then? I work hard and actually graduate, and you get the hell out of this town like you planned. Sound fair?”

“Fine. I guess that is fair,” You reluctantly agreed. “But only if you agree to get out of this town, too.”

He nodded and looked down at his hands that were resting flat on the table, then reached to twist the rings on his left hand nervously. You could tell there was something else on his mind.

“Okay. Now can I…ask you something now? Something personal?”

Uh oh.

“Sure?” You agreed tentatively.

“You said something at The Hideout last weekend… while you were…”

“Drunk?” You interrupted him, squeezing your eyes shut in humiliation.

“Yeah. So I don’t know if you really meant it or not, but… you said something about…how you’re a ‘ticking time bomb,’ I believe were the exact words you used? And that I…deserved somebody… ‘good, like me?’”

“Shit,” You muttered, reaching up to rub at your eyebrow. “Yeah, I remember. I wish I could lie and say I don’t, but I wasn’t that drunk. Unfortunately…”

“Right. So my question is… what the fuck was that about?” He paused to raise an eyebrow at you, then added pointedly, “Friend?”

It took everything in you not to slide down in the booth onto the floor and crawl outside, straight into traffic.

“Fuck… I’m so sorry. I was hoping you didn’t hear that part of my rambling…”

“Yeah, sorry,” He scoffed. “Not a chance.”

“I’m so embarrassed… Look, clearly, I… I was having some… confusing thoughts. About… well, I saw you with… with Jo. And I think it just made me feel kinda lonely.”

“Jo? Oh shit… I forgot you met her.”

He forgot? You spent all summer thinking about the two of them together, and he forgot?

“Well… I did,” You said a little too aggressively. “At the movies. In June. Your date with her?”

“No, yeah… I remember,” He said, fighting back a smile at your frustration with him. “But it wasn’t really… a date, date. I don’t think.”

“Oh? Really? Then what was all that then, at The Hideout?”

“What?” He laughed, unable to fight it back any longer. You snorted at him.

“‘Oh, Eddie,’” You mocked her, reaching out to grab his arm while pretending to fawn over him. “‘You looked so hot up there with your guitar. Marry me?’”

He laughed at you openly this time, clearly enjoying how worked up you had gotten. He’d never actually seen you act like this around him. You’d teased him before, but not like this. Not in a way that almost matched his own special brand of charisma.

“Was that supposed to be Jo or you?” He countered.

“Her, obviously!”

“So you didn’t think I was hot?”

You rolled your eyes at him.

“Don’t change the subject, Munson. What’s going on between the two of you?”

“Alright, alright. She came to see my band at the start of the summer, and she was nice and asked me to… hang out a… a couple times. Just casually. And I… I’m sorry, are these still friendly questions? Because I feel like I’m being interrogated a little bit.”

You didn’t like how he was anxiously dancing around the subject. Clearly, there was something about the two of them that he didn’t want you to know.

“I’m not interrogating you,” You argued. “I think I’m asking valid questions. You never mentioned her before.”

“Well, then, can I ask you about Steve?”

You narrowed your eyes at him, annoyed by his quick deflection.

“What about Steve?”

“Is that why you called him to come get you? Because seeing me with Jo made you feel…” He trailed off, then held up air quotes with his fingers. “‘Lonely?’”

“What? No. I… I called Steve, because nobody else would have been able to come get me. He was my only option.”

“Right. Besides… me,” He said indignantly, pointing a thumb to himself. “Who was already there, and completely ready and willing to drive you.”

“Please. That would have been… humiliating.”

“More humiliating than Steve “The Hair” Harrington threatening to kick my ass outside of a bar?”

You covered your eyes in shame. You had almost forgotten that part.

“Fuck… I am so sorry about that. If it helps at all, we fought over it.”

He eased up a bit when he saw how mortified you truly were over your decision to call Steve, relaxing back into his seat with a sigh.

“So what’s really going on there? Honestly?” He asked. “Because I’ve gotta say, the way he tried to defend your honor like that… didn’t seem very friend-like.”

You leaned forward, pushing your plate out of the way so you could cross your arms over the table, readying yourself for a vulnerable admission. It was the first time you would be speaking about what happened between you and Steve with somebody other than him, and it felt strange. It made it feel more real. Especially since it was Eddie.

“Okay…” You began, taking a deep breath. “I don’t know what you were thinking last year with all of the rumors about us, but… I swear we were just friends. Things didn’t become more… complicated… until recently. Over the summer.”

“Oh. The summer. Right.”

You could tell what he was thinking. He knew something changed in you that summer, and he was making an assumption that Steve was the cause of it. You wanted to tell him he was wrong, that it was so much more than that, but you knew you couldn’t. You sighed, and decided to at least give him the full, honest truth about one thing.

“We… we kissed. Once. At the end of August. And it kind of messed everything up. That’s all. I don’t even know if we’re friends anymore because we haven’t really talked since…but that’s what happened.”

“So… you guys aren’t, like… seeing each other causally or anything like that?”

“Like you and Jo, you mean?” You scoffed.

By now, you had pieced together what he meant by “casual,” and it didn’t exactly align with what you considered it to be. It was obvious that he had more romantic experience than you.

“Yeah… I guess,” He shrugged.

“No. We are definitely not.”

He seemed to perk up slightly at this revelation, but didn’t say anything. He just nodded and went back to fidgeting with his hands. You sighed loudly.

“Are you still seeing Jo?” You asked, then added, “Casually?” With an eye roll.

“No. It was just a fun, summer thing. We both knew it wasn’t going anywhere. We’re just friends.”

“Are you sure she knows that? Because she seemed very into you last weekend.”

“She’s just… flirtatious like that. It didn’t mean anything.”

He tilted his head to study you as you nodded slowly with your lips pursed together and stirred your milkshake with your straw.

“Are you pissed at me?” He asked you, his voice pitching up slightly in confusion.

“No. Of course not. Why would I be pissed?”

“I don’t know. Why would you be?”

“Well, I don’t know. Because I’m not pissed.”

Your eyebrows were raised as you took a drink of your milkshake and stared at him the whole time, and he scoffed at you in frustration. You set your glass down and began ripping up your straw wrapper anxiously as an awkward silence filled the air around you, and you couldn’t resist prodding him further to ease the burden of it.

“How many… how many people… have you been with? Casually or… otherwise?”

“Is that a question friends ask each other?”

You glared up at him.

“…Yes. You don’t have to answer it. I was just curious.”

“Not many,” He shrugged. “Two. Three, actually, I guess.”

You sat quietly for a minute to let that sink in. It wasn’t outrageous, but not really what you wanted to hear.

“Can I ask you the same question?” He asked.

You felt your cheeks turn red. Did Steve count as one? Or was he asking about how many you’d slept with? Wait, was three his number for people he’d slept with, or just done… other stuff with? Your head was starting to hurt and you regretted asking him the question in the first place. You looked up at him pleadingly, and he shook his head.

“Never mind, I don’t want to know,” He said with a chuckle, and you sighed gratefully, going back to ripping up the wrapper until it was nothing more than little white paper flakes.

“So… have you ever brought her here?” You asked quietly, staring at the shredded remains of your wrapper. You hadn’t learned your lesson from your previous question. You were dying to know.

“Who, Jo? No. I’ve never been here with anybody before, besides Wayne. It’s kind of, like… my little secret.”

“Then why did you bring me?”

“I don’t know,” He shrugged. “I just thought… maybe you’d appreciate it.”

He’d never brought anybody else there before. Maybe he had been with other girls, but at least there were some things he hadn’t done with them before that he wanted to do with you. It made you feel special. Not that you had a right to feel that way, since it wasn’t a real date, after all.

“I do appreciate it,” You said, barely above a whisper. “Thank you for bringing me.”

You smiled softly at each other, then your eyes drifted to Eddie’s digital watch.

“Oh, shit!” You yelled and reached out to grab his wrist to make sure you were reading the time correctly. He jumped slightly, his eyes widening in shock at your sudden outburst. It was almost midnight. “Is that the time? I should probably go… just in case my secret agent plan didn’t work on my parents.”

He studied your face, tapping his fingers on the table, and let out a disappointed sigh.

“Alright,” He agreed, then paused to take one last bite of his burger. “Let’s get you home, then. Wouldn’t want you turning into a pumpkin or something."

After the two of you went back and forth on who would pay and eventually agreed on just paying for your own meals, Eddie drove you home. You asked him to park down the street just in case your parents really had realized you were gone.

“Thanks again. For driving me,” You said with a contented sigh after he switched off his ignition and turned to you.

“Anytime.”

You knew you should have gotten out and left then, but you didn’t want the night to end yet. Instead, you turned back to him and asked, “Do you have a long drive home?”

“Not too long. I live out at… Forest Hills,” He admitted reluctantly. “You know it?”

“No shit! That’s where I’m helping my friend Max move in next weekend.”

He was taken aback by your excitement, and chuckled a little bit.

“Oh, yeah. Sinclair’s girlfriend. I’ve heard all about her, trust me. She was also… Billy Hargrove’s sister, right?”

It sent a jolt through you, hearing his name. You’d almost forgotten about him for the first time in months that night.

“Stepsister. Yeah,” You corrected him, looking down at your lap. “His asshole dad just ran out on her mom, left them with nothing. Max doesn’t really talk to me about it, but I know she’s struggling.”

You fell silent and he seemed to pick up on your distress instantly.

“I can help keep an eye out for her if you want, if you’re worried about her,” He offered quickly.

You turned your head against the headrest of your seat to look at him. He had a kind, warm smile that made you feel like melting into your seat.

“That would be amazing. Thank you, Eddie.”

He nodded and then rested his head against the back of his seat, too, that smile still on his face as he watched you. He was so kind. So good. Your heart ached.

“Can I ask you something before I go?” You said quietly. He nodded again, his eyes still fixated on you.

“What’s inside of you that compels you to do that? To help people like that?”

“What do you mean?” He asked, his brows furrowed.

“You let the boys sit with you on their first day of school because they had nowhere else to sit. You’re offering to help Max, who you’ve never even met. And… you helped me. Last year. When Carol and Tommy were being assholes in the hallway. You almost got into a fight for me. What drives you to do those things?”

“I… I don’t know. Well, first of all, I helped you with Carol and Tommy because I owed you for the cigarettes, remember?” He chuckled. You weren’t amused.

“Eddie. We both know that’s bullshit. You just can’t help yourself, can you? No matter who it is, whether you know them or not, you just can’t help being the protector. Throwing yourself over the grenade. I need to know what it is that compels you to do that. I have to know where that comes from.”

He blinked at you in the dark blue midnight light, confused by your urgency, unsure how to respond. Then after a few moments, he took a deep breath and began to speak so uncharacteristically quietly that you had to lean in closer to hear.

“Maybe it’s just because… I know what it’s like. I’m sure it’s hard to imagine now, but I was a scared kid once, too. I got beaten up all the time before I met Jeff and the others. And after, too, a little bit, but not as bad. Then when I got to high school and we found Hellfire, it became a little easier to be my loud, obnoxious self once I found other people that liked the same weird shit as me. And I felt some power in that. But I also drew some negative attention from it, obviously.”

He trailed off and looked at you, and you nodded, willing him to say what he was holding back. He bit his lip anxiously, but took a deep breath and continued anyways.

“It did a pretty good job keeping me out of trouble for a while, but when I was 14, I kinda snapped and lost it on this kid who just would not let up. It was terrifying. It was like, I didn’t even have control over myself. I pretty much beat him within an inch of his life before my friends could pull me off of him.”

He stopped to look over at you, and seemed to clock the horror on your face that you were failing to conceal.

“Did you know about that?” He asked, grimacing.

You shook your head no.

“I thought maybe you did. I mean, everybody and their mother heard about it. That’s pretty much when I became the town pariah. The “Freak." I assumed that was why you tried to stay away from me for so long.”

“No. I… I had no idea.”

“Well, the cops got involved, but thanks to my uncle, they didn’t press charges. I don’t know what he did, but I know he saved me. And after, he sat me down, and he told me that I had to make a choice. I had to decide if I wanted to hold onto all the anger and implode like everybody else in my family had, or I could just… let it go. The idea of being anything like my old man really did the trick. So I let it go. I chose to start laughing at all the bullshit instead of getting mad over it. And it wasn’t easy at first, pretending not to care. But eventually I got used to it, and people stopped messing with me. Mostly because they were scared of me, but also because they realized they couldn’t get to me anymore. It just makes life a whole lot easier when you don’t take it seriously. A lot less painful. And after a while I started trying really hard to use that superpower for good, you know?” He paused, laughing at himself a little. “I figured, if people are gonna be scared of me, I may as well use that to help out people like me. Protect the people who need it. People who… who don’t have anybody to sit with at lunch. Like you and me. I don’t know. It’s the least I could do.”

You found yourself suddenly struggling to hold back tears. You knew he hadn’t had an easy life, but hearing these details struck you deeply. He was absolutely remarkable, and much stronger than you could have ever imagined. For him to make it through that and still be the soft, gentle, goofy person he was? He had to be a real-life fucking superhero. He was incredible. And you didn’t even know his full story yet.

“But, how do you keep that up?” You asked, your voice cracking. “I mean, don’t you get tired of pretending not to care? Don’t you ever feeling like exploding?”

“Yeah. All the time. But, you know, I have my outlets. Weed helps. Weed helps a lot. And other… nondescript drugs.”

“Eddie, I’m serious.”

“So am I. Drugs. And music. My band, my friends, my uncle, Hellfire. And… talking to you tonight. That helped… quite a bit.”

You looked away from him and sniffled, trying to pretend like it wasn’t taking everything in you to hold it together.

“Thank you for sharing that with me,” You said, your voice raspy.

He didn’t respond. His glassy eyes just searched you in the dark.

“I really like hanging out with you,” He said instead.

“I do, too.”

“I mean, I really like hanging out with you.”

“Eddie…” You said pleadingly, still looking down at your hands.

“What?”

“We’re… we’re just friends. Remember?”

“Right. Yeah. Friends. Because friends get jealous about the people their friends have dated.”

You turned your head back to him to glare at him.

“What?”

“I didn’t like hearing about Harrington kissing you, Y/N. And I know you didn’t like seeing me with Jo last weekend.”

Your mouth fell open, and you scoffed at him reproachfully.

“I… Why would you even be interested in me Eddie?” You deflected, because you knew you couldn’t argue with the fact that you were jealous of Jo. “After everything? After all the shit I’ve put you through?”

“Are you serious? You mean besides the fact that we had a great night and you’re insanely pretty?”

“Eddie… don’t. I mean… why did tonight even happen? Why do you keep… trying? I really don’t know if I’m worth all of this.”

“Don’t say that. Please don’t say that. That’s not true.”

“It is true. I’m a fucking mess, Eddie. And you’re… you. I may have been drunk when I said what I said last weekend, but I still meant it. You’re good, and you deserve somebody good and easy that sees the world like you do…”

“You wanna know what I see in you? What I’ve always seen in you?” He interrupted you quickly. “I remember you from middle school. You know that?”

You blinked at him, your mouth hanging open.

“You do?”

“Yeah. You were… so cool. So tough. Even though you were younger than me, you used to scare the shit out of me, honestly. You had me shaking in my little Reeboks. But I was also completely entranced by you. You just had this… I don’t know what to call it. Light? Just absolutely fucking radiating from you all the time, blinding me. And I noticed when… when things changed in you. Like, something was fighting inside of you to snuff it out. When Harrington and the others dropped you and you started sitting alone at lunch. And I wanted to go sit by you so badly. Just to talk to you, just to see that light in you again. But for some reason, I kept talking myself out of it. I think I was just scared, you know? That you would tell me to fuck off, or you would hate me. And that honestly probably would have killed me. So I just stayed away. And then when you got to high school… I almost went up to you. I should have. But every time I tried to talk to you I couldn’t tell if you wanted me to or not. So I tried to give you your space. But I couldn’t stop wondering… if maybe that light was still there. And each time I talked to you again I kept getting little glimpses of it, and I wanted more. So I kept trying, year after year, rejection after rejection. And then tonight… fuck. Now I know it’s still there. It’s still fighting to get out, despite all the shit you’ve gone through. I just had to earn it. And I gotta say, it’s definitely worth all the effort. Because, I swear… you’re fucking magic, Y/N. There’s nobody like you.”

You couldn’t fight the tears back anymore. It was too much. He was too perfect, too kind. Nobody had ever, ever said anything remotely like that about you before. He had noticed you the whole time, before you even noticed him. He called you magic. Him.

You tried and failed to hide your emotions from him, and as soon as he noticed, he immediately turned his whole body towards you in preparation to comfort you.

“I’m sorry, did I say something to upset you? Did I freak you out?”

“No, it’s nothing,” You said quickly, waving a hand. “I’m sorry.”

“Obviously it’s not nothing. If I scared you away… I understand. I know I’m a lot, trust me.”

You shook your head as you tried to stop your tears.

“No, no. Definitely not. I just can’t believe… I think you’re just a really amazing person, Eddie. Maybe even the best I’ve ever met,” You admitted quietly. “And I wish I’d gotten to know you better so much sooner.”

His face changed from concern to shock, then to something that looked a whole lot like longing, all in one split second.

“Me too. The second you got to high school and you pierced me with those eyes of yours from across the cafeteria while I was acting like an idiot… I wish I’d walked over and asked you out right then and there. I’m sorry I didn’t.”

“It’s my fault,” You sniffled, shaking your head. “I’m always running away. I wish I could stop running away.”

He reached out to wipe one of your tears away, and you shamelessly kept your eyes locked on him the entire time. He let his ring-clad fingers linger on your cheek, and your eyelids fluttered from the shock of the cool sensation of metal against your skin.

“I wanna kiss you,” He said plainly. You were taken aback by his honesty. Nobody had ever said that to you so plainly before.

“You do?”

He nodded, his thumb still brushing your cheek as his eyes darted around your face. If he could be honest, you could, too.

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted that,” You whispered.

He leaned forward towards you, and you stayed completely still as you watched and waited for him, wanting to take in every single moment. Then his lips were finally against yours, pulling you into a kiss so soft and gentle that it made you want to cry all over again.

The only comparison you had was your kiss with Steve, but you instantly knew that this was what it was really supposed to feel like. It wasn’t fumbling, or rushed, or too heavy. It was perfect. It felt like a thousand tiny little shockwaves being sent through your body.

You recognized the feeling immediately. Electricity. And not just that, but something else, too. Something purer. It was laced with complete adoration and trust. He had been nothing but gentle and honest with you the entire time he’d known you, from the very first time you spoke with him. But this also made you realize that you hadn’t been so truthful. There was a large part of your life that you had been keeping from him. You suddenly felt like a fraud. That you weren’t actually the person he thought you were.

And if you were honest with him, what would happen then? Would he believe you? Would he think you were insane? If he did believe you, would that mean that he would be in danger the next time something inevitably happened? What if something bad happened to him? The intrusive image of Max sobbing over Billy’s body reentered your brain, and you pulled away from him quickly, turning your head. He backed away slightly in surprise, but kept his hand on your cheek as concern reappeared on his face.

“What’s wrong?” He asked with furrowed brows, trying to get you to look at him.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have… I can’t… we can’t… do this.”

When you said this, he immediately removed his hand from you and sat back in his seat, trying to hide the look of dejection on his face. You watched him as he turned his head away from you to look out the window, clamping a hand to his mouth. It pained you seeing him so shut down.

“Eddie… I’m sorry.”

He shook his head, then turned back to face out the windshield, still trying his hardest to avoid eye contact with you.

“I can’t figure you out, Y/N. You gotta help me out here. Because I’ve been bending over backwards trying to figure out what you want from me for far too long. I’m trying really hard to be patient, because I understand. I really do. And I know I’m not… the best option for you. So if you really want me to leave you alone, it’s fine, but you’ve gotta tell me now. Once and for all. Because I can’t keep doing this.”

“Eddie, it’s not that. I swear to you, it has nothing to do with you. You’re… perfect. I just have… a lot of shit I need to work out. Trust me, I’m the problem here. Can’t we just… can’t we just be friends? Like we agreed?”

He cocked his head at you impatiently.

“You know I don’t want that, right? You’ve gotta know that. I want more than that. I want to spend time with you exactly like this, exactly like tonight, but I want to be able to call it a date, and I want to be able to kiss you again. I don’t want to have to hold back with this. I want to be with you.”

It still shocked you how straightforward he was being, despite the fact that he’d never been anything other than that. It felt strange to have someone fight for you like this.

“I’m sorry. I want all that, too…”

“Then what is it? I don’t understand.”

You leaned forward in your seat to put your head in your hands. You didn’t even know where to begin. He waited for an answer as long as he could before he let out a deep breath.

“Is this about whatever’s keeping you stuck in this town?” He asked, then after another breath, he added more quietly, “Whoever keeps bruising up your face?”

“What?” You gasped in shock, straightening yourself up to look at him again.

“I went by the general store while you were working back in July, and I saw the bruises on your face. I would have walked in right then and there and tried to find out whoever did it, I wanted to more than anything, but I… didn’t think I had the right to. If that person is still in your life now, though, if you need help, I’ll do anything. I swear. I’ll kill them myself…”

“Eddie!” You interrupted him, gripping his arm tightly. “Slow down, it’s not… it’s not like that, I promise! I’m fine now. I’m okay. That person’s not…” you trailed off, thinking about Billy’s lifeless, blood-covered face on the floor of the mall once again, and removed your hand from him quickly. “That person can’t hurt me anymore,” You concluded weakly. Eddie could tell right away from your voice that there was more to the story, though.

“Look, I know you told me nothing is going on between you and Steve anymore, but if he was hurting you…”

“It really wasn’t Steve. Okay? I know he was an asshole once - and you probably still think that he is - but even back then, he never would have done that to me. Ever. Please believe me.”

“Then… please, can you just… can you just tell me what’s really going on?” He begged you wearily. You swallowed, trying to come to terms with some portion of the truth that you could share with him.

“In July… it was… I was there. At the mall, on The Fourth. During the…fire.” It physically pained you to lie to him like that, but that was as close to honest as you could get.

His face softened as he studied the tortured look on your face.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”

“I know. It’s fine,” You said quickly, trying to brush it off. He fell quiet, and then after a moment, he couldn’t resist pressing you further.

“Is that what you’re trying to save me from? From whatever happened at the mall?”

“Eddie, please,” You groaned, squeezing your eyes shut in exasperation.

“Listen, I’m sorry, but I know there’s more to the story there. And if it’s something you know about, something I can help you with… I want to help.”

When he said this, your fear intensified. He was closer to figuring out the truth than you realized, and if he did figure it out, he would most likely do everything in his power to protect you. Even if it meant putting himself in harm’s way. He could never resist throwing himself on a grenade, after all.

Eddie was amazing. He said all the right things, and he made you laugh, and he made you feel safe and comfortable in your skin. It had been an amazing night. But it was selfish of you to bring him into your messy life. You had roped him in when he had no idea how high the stakes really were.

You couldn’t let him end up like Billy. Or Bob. Or Barbara. Or Hopper. Each person you had to watch your friends lose was a lesson, and it would be thoughtless to ignore it.

He could never really know about what you’d been through. You wouldn’t have it. You wouldn’t take his freedom away from him. His future. It wasn’t right. He’d been through so much already. You couldn’t let him get involved.

You knew instantly what you had to do. You had to push him away one last time.

“You’ve just been dying to save me from myself this whole time, haven’t you?” You snapped. “To rescue me, just like you try to rescue everybody else.”

“What? No. I want to help you, but it’s not like that. It’s… I don’t know. Maybe I thought…”

“Thought what?”

“That… you could save me, too. That we could save each other.”

When he said this, it felt like a punch in the gut. Little did he know that this was your chance to be selfless, like him. Pushing him away was saving him, even if it hurt him. Even though you wanted nothing more than to be the one he could always confide in.

“Eddie… I can’t save you, and you can’t save me. This isn’t some… fantasy novel or D&D. This is real life shit, and it’s… look, if you don’t want to stay friends, then I think we need to move on. This is me officially asking you to leave me alone. Okay? Thank you for tonight. I’m… I’m sorry.”

He didn’t argue. He just frowned at you, his face screwed up tightly as if he was in physical pain. You’d never seen him look so sad or confused in your entire life. It took everything in you to turn away from him, to fight more tears back as you unbuckled your seatbelt and got out of his van. You walked briskly away and didn’t stop until you made it up to your room and shut the door quietly, falling face down on your bed. After several minutes of a decent, self-pitying cry, you got the urge to pull out your Walkman and listen to something that might soothe you. When you shuffled through your tapes, you paused when you got to Bella Donna - the album you had talked to Eddie about at the diner - and decided to play it for old-time’s sake. You collapsed back onto your bed and shut your eyes, letting Stevie Nicks take you back to where it all started. You began to feel a little better until Leather and Lace started to play, and the lyrics were like a knife to the heart. You had listened to it a million times before, but now it suddenly felt like it was written for you and Eddie. You began to bawl all over again.

He was the strong, outgoing one who had the ability to bring you to life, and you wanted nothing more than to let him open up to you again the way he had before you’d gotten spooked.

Maybe now it was your involvement with the supernatural keeping the two of you apart, but this wasn’t a new feeling. There was something there already, all this time, keeping you from him. Something that Eddie had clearly noticed as well. Otherwise, you would have gone to see Corroded Coffin the very first time he asked when you were seventeen. You probably would have already been a couple. Maybe you wouldn’t have even wound up in that junkyard last November. But something had always been in the way, keeping him at a distance, and now it was too late.

The problem was that your heart had been broken long before you met him. You didn’t even realize it until then, but listening to the record again as it stirred up old emotions in you, it was apparent that it hadn’t actually ever healed. You remembered how you used to sob every time the final track of the album played. “The Highwayman.” You, in your infinite pre-teen wisdom, believed Steve to be your highwayman. The one who valued glory over your love for him when he suddenly stopped speaking to you and became the most popular boy in school.

“And still, they try again.”

Maybe that’s why you were so mad at Steve about your kiss. Maybe it brought up all of those repressed memories of betrayal the same way your record was now. Maybe you were actually still angry about what you thought had happened between the two of you in middle school, even though you believed you were past it after finding out the truth. You had never been fully honest with him about how much it had shattered you. You assumed it didn’t matter anymore, but if it really didn’t, then you probably would have told him about it. You were still clearly wounded, left with the lingering bitterness of unworthiness and shame. And you really only had yourself to blame.

Sure, Carol and Tommy had done their fair share of filling your head with insecurities, but it was you who believed them and held onto every word. You were still holding on. The lovelorn, anxiety-rattled thirteen-year-old in you was still there, still unsure of how to mend what had never actually been broken by somebody else. Because Steve had never really broken your heart. He never even knew how you felt about him. You broke it all on your own, and you had to figure out how to heal it on your own, too.

You just really, really had to get your shit together.

How was it even possible that in less than a year, you had discovered another dimension beneath Hawkins and kissed two different boys that you had only ever dreamed about getting close to? No wonder you were so messed up.

You started the tape over again and got under your covers with your clothes still on, eventually crying yourself to sleep.

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loneworldgazer · 3 years ago

Text

what if you were their personal helper?

a/n: im biased on all of these because basically you're special to them in a type of way

part 2

warnings: chapter 189-206 spoilers‼‼, suggestive, violence mentions

sanzu

you would be his personal cook that mikey assigned

you really worked hard at making the best dishes for sanzu (1. 50/50 chance of getting killed because you might never know with his pill popping ass and 2. you don't want to purposely mess up good ingredients)

sanzu though, really loves your dishes

he would say horrendous compliments like how he was about to have an orgasm biting into the steak minutes ago (rindou looks up at him from his laptop in disgust while ran scoffs in amusement)

ran suggested to maybe gift you something or pay a visit to whoever is cooking his meals and damn well sanzu was thrilled to hear that idea and was ready to work on it

(the haitani brothers thought the same, that you were probably going to shit your pants if bonten's number 2 suddenly appeared right beside you out of nowhere)

the very next day, his preffered time of lunch was much more later than the others so it's pretty normal for the others to not see him at the table and knowing that he's doing his own business

but this is completely different than what he usually does, he's looking for you! and there you were, in the flesh and busy preparing his meal

you look rather panicked, oh how many guesses he had. it was near his lunch time, you cooked the wrong meal, you're panicking about the slighest things or you thought you were doing it wrong

turns out you just wanted to cut the right size of tomatoes because you cut one ridiculously large chunk so you huffed and picked another tomato and nearly laughed at your stupidity

well sanzu was correct in some ways but you were just minutes away in finishing so he watched

with every second he stepped closer and the closer he got which was just right over your shoulder, you squeled because 1) creepy and 2) his breath was tickling your neck that you just had to make noise

you grabbed your wrist and your finger bled, in the state of suprise you accidently cut your thumb, luckily it was only a little so you rushed to the sink to wash it off

sanzu had a smile on his face, oh woops accidently shocked a poor person by breathing on them so the best he could do was offering a bandaid that was in his pocket

you glanced at his arm and saw the bonten tattoo inked on it so your eyes lit up in fear in why a bonten member is up infront of you

you gulped and he couldn't help but giggle to how terrified you looked and he twirled the plate that his food on it

"you're almost finished with my food, huh? quickly, you have a few seconds" you looked at him again but with genuine curiousity and suprise that said "sanzu haruchiyo? what is he doing here?"

your thoughts swirled in your head in chaos, finishing up his food and the waiter that were to take his food entered the kitchen

he froze in the doorway, recognizing the feared bonten 2 and sanzu asked him to go away by simply motioning it with his hand as well as adding in a "if you don't go, i'll kill you" by doing a slashing motion across his neck, you did not know how fast the waiter walked out of there

sanzu carried his plate towards the table your partners and you ate at and sat there, tilting his head when you stayed at the same spot

"sit here, i wanna talk" shitting your pants is a understatement, dying should be the right term

but no worries when you sat down, he smiled again with his eyes closed (though you're not sure what kind of smile was this, his rare ones? because if it is then you can make it out of here without being out in a grave)

let's just say he was interested in you and he said quite some nice words to you, this won't be the first time he'll crash into your life and have moments of talking to you after all, you're his cook right?

you're just lucky enough when he decides that you're one of the few pieces he'll cherish in his life, one he wouldn't kill but respect deeply and stick around with

kokonoi

you were his respectable assistant that deals with errands, well a more better term is a spy

you listened to conversations about bonten in the dark and sneak off to inform the others, first of all koko of course

your relationship between him was proffesional and all, reporting about what bonten enemies have said, nod and leave

but there was a time where he finally got to know you a bit better

you were a bit later than the time he asked for you to come to his office after your work, about 10 minutes atleast and he raised his eyebrow at you when you slipped into his office out of breath but quickly regain it as to not piss him off any further

"sorry sir, i got attacked" attacked you say? he got up from his seat, slowly approacing you and you sweat

overall his demeanor was cocky and all but you've never seen a scary side so supposingly it's okay for you to not feel threatened but would he really be angry at you for getting attacked?

"i don't see any bruises on you, did you really get attacked?" that sly grin showcased itself, he felt the taste of a lie coming but it didn't when you spoke up again

"i fought back sir, with this." you pulled out the staff, pressing the button to open it and twirled it over for him to see

it was the staff he gave, well actually showed off when he opened the weapons room, telling you to atleast get a weapon to defend yourself, if you can even though (he halfly joked at the end with his tongue out)

you told him that it was the gang that was still gaining these "leaks and secrets" or so to speak, are the ones rindou falsely put out in the open and the gang planned to go to one of the secret bases that bonten usually went to

besides what you say is necessary information but he circled around you in silence and decided to try to hit your head but you smack his hand away with the staff

he went for your neck but you swiftly wack the staff into his waist and he groaned, impressed

he was about to say something but sanzu interrupted by opening the door without knocking and almost bumped koko with the door

"heheh sorry, can i borrow your assistant, come come~" sanzu sung out but koko shooed him away, wanting some time to talk to you but pink crazed bastard wanted to talk to you so he shut the door on him and yelled at him to go away for a moment

after that day, more people seem to recognize and fought with you

it would pretty ironic if koko were to be the one ordering them to attack you

" i wanna see you fight more" whatever he says, you just hope it actually isn't him sending mofos to attack you because that would be a d!ck move

but he didn't, one of the bonten members revealed that a little spy is watching them from above like the idiots they were that they bumbled out their secrets for the spy to hear (guess who)

so he rewards you, after the hell you went through, you better be gifted

extra!!:

"may i measure you?" you looked back at the person in shock as they smiled warmly at you and you suspiciously glared at them, reaching slowly for your staff.

"sir kokonoi has asked to measure you." they went to stretch out the measuring tape and held it around your waist, you hesitated on holding up your shirt because of how ticklish and feathery their fingers were. this was all too sudden but you go along with it.

while you twist your shirt up, they placed a note in your back pocket and you questioned on why did they do that, you reached it while they're measuring your legs.

"i'll send someone in to measure your size for your clothing, do you also want lingerie to be part of your gift too?~" the note said and you nearly stumbled into the tailor when you tried rereading it all over again.

"what colour do you want? do you want a matching set?" "no!!"

(koko's probably pissing himself right now, trying to imagine your panicky expression, laughing like a maniac in his office)

ran

you worked as his personal maid and he admired how careful you were

you were pretty noticeable since you took your time on one thing at a time like dusting off shelves and cupboards for a long moment or scrubbing away at the dirt in the plate that stuck too long there (i mean it's reasonable but you stressed over it for a few minutes)

he approached at some times to check on you and he would smile sadistically at times when you look at him like a deer in headlights, wondering what you did wrong to make him approach you himself

he just wanted to praise and point out some of your habits which you rubbed your neck to and nodded to do better next time

it also gave him a chance to see your stretched arm and your hands, especially your knuckles more better than afar (not in a creepy way)

your knuckles were deep red and would have cuts over it and he would leave at that but it got too much for him whenever he came to you and it kept getting worse

he popped the question when you moved his flowers into a pot to sit in the sun when your hands were all bandaged up

"why has the condition of your hands worsen everytime i come to you?" so he did notice, you sighed and told him the truth while you rubbed your bandaged knuckles

"people are picking on me so hitting their faces makes my knuckles hurt and become ugly each time i return back here" he was suprised that you even used your fists and he held your hands and spoke softly

"you didn't use the baton i gave you?" you feel yourself burn, you had to pull away from him and you wanted to jog off into the sun but you akwardly shrugged instead

"i'm a lot more used to using fists to fight plus i.. might have hit my face with the baton once" his laugh was sugary sweet, the rarest you've ever heard but he was laughing at your mistake so you bit your tongue and fumed, going back to arranging his flowers (that he's probably allergic to but keeps them around cause they're pretty💀)

he patted your shoulder, casually correcting himself that it was cute that atleast you did try to use the baton that he lended to you

"i'll teach you, every evening at around 4, i'll train you to use the baton so it's less work for your fists and more for your baton." you responded that mikey had his meal around that time and you had to clean the table cloth after he eats, shyly you admit that he tends to be a little messy when eating

ran smiled, stuffing his hands into his pockets and going off after insulting you one last time

"i'm impressed that you're more careful with the table cloth than your own hands" and that ends the evening with you screaming into your hands because of how frustating, ran haitani bonten executive was

extra!!:

"now i really need you to be honest with me, how do you even fight with your fists?" "your brother teaches me how to break their limbs but i accidently graze the floor sometimes because of how tough the enemy is"

well that was pretty shocking, he looks at you with suprise in his eyes, you also looked at him suprised, you just didn't know how expressive he was and you're finding out about them because of these 4pm sessions.

"doesn't he have a maid that helps him out?" "he says i make great coffee" ran grumbled that you shouldn't even serve a fucker who drinks coffee in the first place and you couldn't help laughing. in exchange for the love of coffee, rindou might as well train you. he's not blind, he sees the bruises on your hands when you return back to the headquarters.

(and to maybe trigger ran a little since he was the one mainly teaching reader his fighting style and not ran and his lame ass baton and he just stole his maid for a few seconds, might as well train them as a reward)

"show me a better compliment and i might stop serving him" "you're good with your hands" you smirked and got up and tapped his shoulders with the baton, teasing him into giving you more compliments

"shut it now before i use my hands to shut you up" "you may at anytime" and he did, now you can imagine what he did lol

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clouds-rambles · 4 years ago

Note

hello!~ o(〃＾▽＾〃)o

can i request headcanons for kaeya, diluc, childe, and venti on what they would while their s/o dies in their arms? (if thats okay with u <3)

thank u sm! :))

BESTIE THE PAIN I FEEL RN!!! Omw to make hurt some of my faves hope you enjoy <3

Also guys I’ve been here for a day how are there almost 50 of you following?!

Pairings; (Separate) Kaeya, Diluc, Childe, Venti x reader

Warning(s); hurt, big hurty, reader death, vague wound description, cursing, talk about dead bodies

Keep reading under the cut!

Kaeya

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. You were meant to live forever with him. You were supposed to grow old with him and become a parent to your future children. You were-

“Kaeya” you choke out smiling at your partner above you. The man shakes his head mentally pleading with you to not die “Kaeya I will always be on the wind” you tell him, a shaky, bloody hand raised to his cheek to weekly caress it

“Please” he pleads “Please don’t die on me [name]” you smile at him feeling the breaths in your lungs disappear

“I’m sorry Kae--ya” you apologise before passing away in his arms

He doesn’t move for a long time. He doesn’t feel for a long time. The one person he could share his secrets and his love to gone. Away with the wind

Kaeya doesn’t remember the last time he cried, but he’ll remember this one.

Your beaten, bruised, broken, dead, and beautiful body slumped in his arms as his tears fall from his face as he feels an absence in his heart

How is he supposed to live on if this is the pain he feels right now?

Jean eventually stumbles upon Kaeya out in the wilds, still clutched to your now cold and even more lifeless body

Jean manages to get the man up with your body held close to his chest

“Jean, I can’t, I can’t let them go” he pleads as if he’s waiting for you to simply wake up in his arms

“Kaeya...” Jean says in a concerned tone having never seen him in such a state, even he seemed to quickly recover from his fathers death

Eventually Jean coaxed Kaeya to go back to the city and leave your body in the hands of the sisters. Where they dressed you up and prepared a funeral service for you

The funeral was larger than Kaeya was expecting, you had affected a many more people than he realised from your small jobs around the city. Kaeya can’t help but be awed at how many people you’ve helped while you were in Mond

The usual chatter of Mondstat is quiet and in a time of grieving for about a week or so, many people have wonderful memories of you and Kaeya seems to be collecting them all, that and bunches of flowers. Many of which find themselves laying on your tombstone as Kaeya tells you about his day

A month passes and it seems like everything's back to normal, Kaeya is back to his outgoing self. He spends more nights at the tavern, but even Diluc doesn’t have the heart to cut him off.

Jean seems to pick up on the smallest things, goddamnit Jean, the extra nights at the tavern, the eyebags, the weeping she can hear from his room. In it’s own right is heart-breaking, the acting Grandmaster cannot imagine what it’s like to be actually experiencing that kind of pain

Diluc

No, not like this

You had both decided that night to join each other in your little vigilante escapade. Which was fine you had both done this before, but tonight resulted in something very different

Here you are, head on Dilucs lap. This could be considered romantic, and often was, were it not for the fact you felt like you choked up a mixture of your lung and your bloody supply

“Diluc” you speak with a much worse for wear voice, the red-head looks into your eyes, eyes already gaining moisture. A similar scene has befallen him before, a Diluc knows how this ends

“Please” he pleads his voice wavering “Please don’t leave me” he chokes back a sob and tears fall off his face the salt hitting your own

“I love you so much” you start, Diluc shakes his head. Must you hurt him so with last words? “Don’t blame yourse-” another set of hacking befalls you as you lose more blood

“Please” he pleads again as the grip you had on his arm goes slack indicating your loss of life

Diluc screams, he cries and he hugs you close. He screams into the air of Mondstat until his voice hurts and he cries until all he’s doing is dry sobbing and he holds you close until you’re broken body is pried from his own broken mind

A wondering Jean heard his screams into the night sky and hereby answered them. She never expected to see Diluc, still in his vigilante getup, crying over your body

She calls for more guards who take your body from his and Jean helps Diluc get back to the estate. At one point during the walk Jean can feel DIluc shaking and hyperventilating. So they stand for a moment, Jean holds and comforts the wine-master before they move again

Jean has never seen such emotion from Diluc before, and she wholeheartedly hopes she’ll never have to see it again. Seeing Diluc so raw and rife with emotion is enough to make anyone cry. And Jean nearly did on more than one occasion.

Your funeral is small, much to Dilucs request and really only were attended by the estate and Jean. Diluc didn’t want to cry again in such a large audience

Though the maids often hear pained sobs coming from Dilucs room as he contemplates and often blames himself for what had transpired. Maids daren’t speak up about what they hear though, Diluc’s pain is more than understandable

Diluc throws himself into work opting to man the bar most days of the week and fighting for the city as often as he can. People around him are more than concerned

Diluc’s stoic nature seems to be intensified now, not wanting to let another person in and die in his arms. He’s seen enough death for his life and wishes not to lose more loved ones

Everything seems to have moved back to what life was before you arrived in your life, depressive, monotonous, boring, mundane for the most part and sad. So very sad

He wishes for a day where his heart isn’t strife with grief, but he doubts that day will not be coming anytime soon

Childe

You grin up at him, feeling close to naught pain coming from the gaping wound thanks to the excess of adrenaline that’s pumping through your body

“Childe” you say the smile still on your lips in an attempt at not making the situation as dark and horrific as it is. Childe speaks your name in return

“I love you” you tell him mustering the strength to cup the mans cheek, who immediately nuzzles into it. The situation almost doesn’t feel real to him. He’s going to be shaken awake by a very unwounded you in just a moment and inform him he’s having a nightmare

But that moment doesn’t come. Nor do any words come from you. Your slow rhythms of your heart remind you that he’s still got time, but you’ve expended all your energy. Your smile you’re wearing seems to be dropping

“I love you [name], I love you so much, you are everything I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you” he rambles bringing your body to his chest

“Live for--- me” you sputter out into his chest, a dying wish that Childe isn’t too sure he can uphold. Is it really living if he’s an empty vessel.

You go limp in his arms and he can no longer sense your heartbeat. Death had finally laid claim to you

Childe sits with you for hours, you’d expect him to be wailing like a banshee if you knew his personality but that’s rather not the case. Sobbing quietly is a better word for what happens. Most of his sobs and hacks for air are hidden in your hair. He pulled your body to his shoulder just to weep

Eventually he finds himself mustering the courage to walk back to Liyue Harbour. You firmly held in his arms. He knows that if he walks too plainly the Millelith would pry and ask too many questions for his fragile heart to answer

Childe ends up barging into the wangsheng funeral parlour, which surprises Zhongli a little. He’s about to go on a rant to Childe about how he must book an appointment, until he sees your lifeless body in his arms

The funeral is arranged quickly and neatly. There aren’t many people who attend, Childe is okay with that, he secretly wants to see his family and cry on their shoulder a bit

Instead he opts for a letter, which arrives to the family tear stained and lacking the usual penmanship ‘I’m sorry, you won’t be able to see [name] after all. They passed away not too long ago...’ he basically writes your arbitrary in the letter. And his whole heart is in every word he writes

Determined not to let anybody in Childe finds himself in a pattern, when he’s not throwing himself into battles he’s doing paper work or yelling at his subordinates and when he’s not doing that he’s doing his weekly fight with the traveller. Childe gets next to no sleep and instead opts to reading and rereading every letter and note you’ve ever given him

If Childe passes out at his desk nobody bothers him either in fear of getting yelled at by the harbinger or an understanding of losing a loved one

They never said being a harbinger was fulfilling work. Yet, he let himself believe that he could be fulfilled and content with a lover. What a shameful lie

Venti

He’s awfully quiet. He hasn’t experienced death in so long. Especially one he thought would be forever.

He couldn’t even get to you to hear your last words. Ironic isn’t it? He hadn’t heard that guys last words either. And yet this pains him so much more

Sure mortal lives are fleeting but he was certain he had more time with you. More time to see you grow old, more time to put off your inevitable mortality. More time to-

He’s hyperventilating, Venti’s body shakes as he finds nothing to ground himself not even the person he loves so dear is there for him. He feels like he could explode, breaths caught in his throat refusing to surface and come up for air. Despite being an immortal archon, the breaths that refuse to surface don’t fail to make him feel like he’s choking

A bard he is. And one that knows every song from the past, present and future. Suddenly the pained songs from the future make sense to him. He knew what was written. A love lost

Suddenly he finds himself crying and hunched over your deceased form making promises to the wind that he’ll never forget you. Much like he’ll ever forget that bard

He isn’t sure how long has passed but he’s still sobbing over your form, there aren’t many tears left for him to cry but he can’t find himself stopping. He feels like they’ll never stop.

Maybe he could lay beside you and sleep for another thousand years. But that would only delay the inevitable. The inevitable sinking feeling.

Maybe it was his fault for letting himself fall in love with a mortal, but in the moment he could truly see you living life with him. He could see a marriage, children. He wanted you to have it all.

Damn celestia and all things above for not letting you ascend, at least when he inevitably ascends you’ll be there to greet him. Curse that and your mortality

Jean eventually stumbles upon him during a recon mission to find him covering your body in various flowers, a crown made of cecelias don your head. He’s quiet, but he’s saying goodbye. Who would blame him? Jean doesn’t interrupt him and only wishes you a farewell

News of your death spread around town like wildfire, your grave donned with more flowers than Venti can count. He almost feels bad about not doing a public service after seeing how many people are truly in mourning

Diluc doesn’t push Venti to pay his growing tab no matter how much he should. And Diluc doesn’t say no to Venti singing his happy tunes in the tavern

It feels like his life has retuned to normal. Though Jean can’t help but look out the library window to see Venti sat atop his statue with an expression, as Jean can only guess, of sadness.

Venti finds himself going back to an old schedule again but he can’t miss the nagging feeling of somethings missing. The something being you

Sometimes he half expects you to hug him from behind, or join him up at the statue, or kiss him on his nose, or-

Venti can’t quite comprehend how he feels, he just knows there’s a hole in his heart where you belonged. And he doesn’t want to let anyone find their way into there

He doesn’t want to lose again

It’s happened too much

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votederpycausemufins · 3 years ago

Text

College has stopped kicking my butt enough for me to post another chapter of the the Scattered au fic. this one is meant to be a parallel to last chapter, so you might want to reread that one.

scattered au is by @hermitcraftheadcanons and their community

reading tag list: still just @helleborusangel right now. Send an ask if you want to be added on.

Xisuma pulled himself out of the water, coughing a bit from what had gotten past his filter. He tried to look around only to squint at the light from the surface. He didn’t think he had swum that far up, but for all he knew, he was able to push himself that far to finally escape the warden. So when something suddenly attacked him and didn’t immediately kill him, Xisuma quickly fought back.

While initially swimming, he thought he had felt something though wasn’t sure, but this was much more clear. And slimelike, it seemed, since that’s what it felt like when he attacked it. But the following grunt of pain from the attacker sounded much more human like.

Xisuma did his best to focus on whatever was there, but he was seeing double. He looked back and forth, trying to tell if it was just from the intense lighting change or from there actually being two… things there. And it seemed it was the latter when the things looked at each other.

“Well, that’s probably not good.” The two things spoke in unison, which didn’t help the headache that Xisuma could feel coming on. Still, he was able to focus enough to get a good look at whatever was there and was a slime hybrid of sorts similar to Jevin, though instead of his very clearly blue slime, these two - one? They were more of a sea green. Plus from what Xisuma could guess, they were able to split like a regular slime, something Jevin couldn’t.

“Sorry.” Xisuma spoke up, it finally clicking in his mind that he had likely damaged them enough to make them split. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I thought you were attacking- I mean, maybe you were, but this does seem to be where you’re staying, so I guess I invaded your home a bit.”

“I guess. So, are you from around here?” The slime pair asked, making Xisuma shake his head. “Huh, neither am I… are we… This is the first time I’ve split so-”

Xisuma tilted his head a little. “I guess it is pretty safe here. Have you had any deaths so far?”

“I thought that was going to be my first.”

“So that would explain the lack of death messages as opposed to Gemini or Pearlescent. Do you know either of them?”

“No, sorry, not really.” The slime people answered. “Well, uh, there’s just enough here if you need basic tools, but not much else. I’ve got a pickaxe- crafting table.”

Xisuma looked between the two. “I think both would be nice. I spawned underground and had trouble with getting anything at all.” And before he could say more, the slime people were handing him those two items and a few more.

“You’re on your own for food though. Berries aren’t the most filling, so I’ve been eating them all up. They taste nice though.” And to prove their point, each of the slime people went after a berry, though they went after the same one and ended up fighting over it.

Xisuma nodded and went up to one of the walls. This would be much easier than getting the warden to do all his mining, seeing as how he would now be in control. He started to staircase out of the cave, placing what few torches he had until he found more coal. Technically he didn’t need to, but then something could spawn and head down and attack the slime pair. And Xisuma didn’t want to never return and just leave them there alone forever. So when he finally did get up to the surface, Xisuma went straight back down. “Are you sure you want to- er, what are you doing?”

The slime people looked back over to Xisuma and shrugged. “Trying to fuse back together or something. Why did you come back?”

Xisuma wasn’t sure exactly what happened, but the next thing he really knew, he was going back up towards the surface, his arms full from holding the slime pair, one cradled in each arm. Sure, they said they would be safe alone in the cave, but X couldn’t help the feeling that they wouldn’t be safe so far away. He was pretty sure it was just from his worry about everyone else, and this was just one person he could protect, but Xisuma couldn’t help but wonder if there was something else going on.

Hypno leaned against Etho, who was doing surprisingly well considering their current situation. Both of them were low on hunger, only managing to stay alive from what little they could get from the flowers and grass they picked and ate. Etho somehow managed to find a pig wandering around and killed it for some raw pork, handing it to Hypno to eat. They couldn’t cook it, but Etho was less worried about the hunger the meat would satiate and more about the fact that Hypno wasn’t fully himself.

After the initial shock of finding horns on Hypno’s head, the pair looked him over. Hypno made mention of an ache at the base of his spine, and Etho found a few concerning bumps on Hypno’s upper back. Until they actively looked into it, Hypno hadn’t noticed anything wrong, which led to them checking Etho, and also giving the ninja something to plan for on his next respawns.

Etho was glad they didn’t notice much with him, but with little to do, he explained to Hypno his encounters with Ren, Impulse and Grian. Out of the three, Impulse had seemed the most normal, only having red eyes instead of the golden brown he usually sported. Ren had seemed fine at first, but then in the attack from the creeper, the shifter had killed Etho, acting like an attacked wolf. And then Grian for the most part had been acting like a bird, though near the end…

A moobloom trotted over, pulling Etho out of his thoughts. It nuzzled against Hypno, who happily reciprocated. Still worried about the other hermit and the effects the environment was having on him, Etho forcefully separated the two, needing to attack the animal to make it flee.

“What was that for Etho? It was just being friendly.”

“Right now, we need to be cautious of everything. Especially those cows and all the flowers around here. Because in case you forgot, growing horns like that is not normal. Plus, we could use the food right now.”

Hypno huffed. “We’ll use up more energy trying to kill it than we would get from anything it drops. It’s better to let us willingly help us than-”

Etho suddenly held up a finger to shush Hypno, letting them listen to the breeze. “Do you hear that?”

Hypno listened, only hearing a few moos from the nearby moobloom. “The cows?”

“Well, okay yeah. But it’s more what I’m not hearing.” And then Etho pulled out his communicator. Hypno watched as Etho stared at the screen, mask moving ever so slightly as he mouthed counting up. But nothing was happening. At first, Hypno didn’t get what was so important until he pulled out his own communicator. No death messages were coming in. Specifically none from Impulse.

“Impulse got out.” Hypno said, whispering in disbelief. “Someone must have found him.”

Etho nodded. “Yeah, but the question is who.” And then almost immediately, it was answered.

Zedaph was slain by impulseSV

If there was one thing that was a benefit to respawning in the same place every time, it was the fact that no matter how many times Impulse died, the guardians wouldn’t disappear. Meaning that after a few attempts, he finally killed one of the monsters giving him grief. Just being able to slay one of them felt freeing with all the torment he was currently being put through, but that wasn’t the only benefit.

When the guardian died, it dropped two things, a prismarine shard and some cod. Impulse greedily grabbed at the items, stuffing the shard in his inventory and then stuffing the fish in his mouth. After not eating in so long, the fish seemed like the most heavenly food in the world, though Impulse had other ideas on why that was the case.

Here and there, guardians had completely ignored him. Sometimes he felt like he was getting a full breath of air even though he was still stuck in the water. He hadn’t missed the webbing between his fingers and toes growing each respawn nor the scales that appeared and itched like crazy. Half of Impulse would have preferred drowning forever instead of whatever this was, but his other half realized that it was likely his only way out.

Another respawn left him fumbling for his prismarine shard, using it to dig into the nearby blocks. Along with the claw-like nails he had gained, Impulse was able to break another block, making him smile at first, but then his expression dropped. With the way the temples were constructed, the walls weren’t that thick. Instead of gaining an air pocket, he had just broken into another chamber.

“Impulse.”

In anger, Impulse took the prismarine shard and used it against the next guardian he saw.

“Impulse.”

He started by using it like a knife and jamming it into the eye of the beast, making it flail and spread its spikes.

“Impulse.”

As the world around him seemed to fade into blues and golds, Impulse kept attacking, needing to get his anger out somehow.

“Impulse. Impulse. Impulse.” And then Impulse felt like he was falling, but he still thrashed around, trying to stop whatever it was. Then the next thing he knew, it was like gravity had increased drastically, leaving him pressed against the floor. Something moved and he attacked it, surprised to find it feeling much fluffier than the guardians had been. There was a sound, like someone talking, but why would anyone be talking with him stuck all alone. Etho maybe? Was he back?

As the creature died in his hands, Impulse looked towards the sound. The first thing he noticed was that Etho’s eyes were now both red. Even the sclera were red. He had also dyed his hair blond, and gotten rid of his mask, and well that wasn’t Etho at all. Impulse kicked his legs to try and swim closer, only to finally realize he wasn’t underwater anymore.

The moment Impulse realized he was out of the sea temple, he started taking gulps of air. His lungs had already started breathing it all, but now he was trying to get as much oxygen as he could before he drowned again. A part in the back of his mind told him he couldn’t drown right now, but his mental state wasn’t the best right now.

“Hey Impulse. Calming down now?” Tango was asking, and Impulse looked over, glad to see his friend. He nodded, which got Tango to smile before looking off towards the horizon. Impulse briefly followed Tango’s eyes before his hand moved and he felt the soft wool of the carpets beneath him. It almost felt overwhelming how different it was compared to the past week plus that he had been stuck in the temple. But it was also good, so he wrapped himself up before following Tango’s eyes once more.

“What’s that way?” Impulse spoke, voice feeling unfamiliar from disuse and possibly alterations that matched everything else going on with him.

“Zed. I’m hoping he’ll be able to find us again since I have made a bit of a path.”

Impulse tilted his head before noticing his inventory had many more items. “Did he get killed or something?”

“Yeah, you sort of killed him when we first summoned you in.” Tango explained, and Impulse felt horrified. Him? Kill Zedaph? For a prank or something, sure, that was believable, But this had been from pure bloodlust at the time.

“I killed him? Oh no! I didn’t know! It had been a guardian at first, and then I was falling, and then I was-”

“Hey, calm down.” Tango replied. He took a step toward Impulse, obviously to comfort him, but then Impulse was surprised to see his friend change their mind and step back again. “Zed and I figured something like this might happen. We would have made beds to set our spawn, but we haven’t been collecting wool that much, so at most we would have had just one piece.”

Impulse chucked a little after realizing there were no sheep around. “What? Did Zedaph finally grow his hair out enough?” And he expected Tango to laugh in return, but the frown that appeared didn’t bode well.

“Impulse, do you… realize what you look like?” Tango asked, and then Impulse looked down at his hand and flexed it.

“What’s happened with Zedaph?”

Tango took a few steps to the side and a moment later the nearby leaves of a tree caught fire. “Zed and I have had both of our more animal-esque traits acting up. I’m burning just about any flammable thing that gets close to me and his wool is growing out of control. There’s other stuff too but…”

“But even if you’re not ending up like me, you’re still dealing with your own things.”

“Hey! I’m back! And it looks like Impulse has not killed you!”

Hels cut down a hoglin that was in the way of he and Wels as they travelled the nether. Wels was reluctantly following, his copy being the only reason he was doing so well right now. Well that, and the fact that he was promising some sort of shelter. They went a bit further, and then Wels spotted something that was clearly man made, making him try to run forward for shelter before he was grabbed by Hels. “Don’t run ahead idiot. I just know that you’ll manage to die if you try that and we’ll have to start all over.”

“Well I’m sure I could find a way to survive fine on my own.”

“Sure you could.” Hels said, obviously sarcastic. “And your death messages make that so very believable. Tell me, have you noticed anything odd about your situation, other than being stuck in the nether.”

“Well, chat hasn’t been working right and I can’t regenerate my health.”

“Right… Well, what have you been eating?” Hels asked as they finally reached the door to the helsmit’s base, opening it to let Wels inside.

“Mainly crimson fungi or the rare pork if I can chip enough health away from a hoglin.” Wels answered, linking himself to the respawn anchor sitting inside.

“That fungi is only edible to hoglins you know.” Hels said, closing the door and then crossing his arms.

“Well obviously that’s not the case here.” And then Wels made his point by munching down on a mushroom he still had in his inventory.

Hels pursed his lips before yanking the fungi out of Wels’ hand and then smashing the knight’s head against a nearby wall. “Spit that out right now or I’ll go again until I break your tusks.”

“My what?” Wels asked, reluctantly spitting out the half chewed fungus.

“You’re an idiot. How did you not notice you were growing tusks?”

And Wels didn’t have an answer, just letting his hand go to his mouth and feel what were definitely tusks. “When did-”

“Who knows. My guess is it's something with this world. It’s not like any of us want to be here.”

Wels looked back over to Hels at that comment, a questioning look on his face. “Evil Xisuma approached me a few weeks ago. He was planning to get into the new season before the rest of you so he could keep from getting banned and put some action into play with his brother and a number of the other hermits. I wasn’t as interested in his plan, but having fun on the server on my own seemed like a good idea to me. A few others were planning to join us, but I’m sure they haven’t followed along. So as far as I’m aware, it is only Evil Xisuma and I trapped here with all of you.”

“Well, at the very least neither of us are stuck here alone.” Wels spoke, trying to give a positive spin on things.

“I would have preferred to be alone.” Hels replied. “You’ll use up more of my resources. That being said, my guess is you’re necessary for whatever is going on around here to stop. So until that’s fixed or I learn otherwise, I am reluctantly helping you.”

“Alright, that sounds fine for now. And you said Evil Xisuma is here too, correct? Any clue where he could be?”

Bdubs stared down at the void below his feet, glad to have stopped moving, though his gut was still getting used to that change. The guy in pink armor next to him was reluctantly patting his back as another wave of nausea hit and he started to dry heave. “Th-Thanks.”

“Whatever. I just know what being stuck in the void is like so I have a little sympathy.”

“Well glad to know I’m not the only one stuck in this situation. Not that that’s a good thing.”

“Right.” The armored person deadpanned, looking down at the void as well.

Bdubs was quiet for a little before looking over to his savior. “So then, I don’t really think I caught your name in all our yelling to heave both of us up here.”

The other person raised an eyebrow at Bdubs, as if to ask if he was serious, then being a little surprised when he was. The person hesitated, looking down, not to the void but more at their lap, then a hand fiddled with their hair before they finally looked back at Bdubs. “Name’s Xannes.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Bdubs!” And he held out a hand, pausing as he noticed the state it was in.

Xannes took the hand carefully and shook it, before helping it back to Bdubs’ side. “Side effect of the void. I’m more protected because of my armor, but you don’t have that.”

“Well now I’m actually upset about not having armor, even if it were pink.”

Xannes looked incredulous at that before putting his hands on his hips. “Hey, this is simply a… lightish red.”

“You mean pink.”

“Lightish. Red.”

“Lightish red is red mixed with white. And what does that give you? Pink. You’ve got pink armor.”

“Alright, so maybe it’s supposed to be pink.” Xannes conceded. “But my color is red, and this isn’t my armor, I’m simply borrowing it. So for anyone else, it would be pink, but as long as I wear it, it’s a lightish red.”

“Whatever you say.”

Xannes sighed and then carefully took Bdubs’ hand again. “Alright, so looking again, this doesn’t quite look as natural as being stuck in the voice can make it. Obviously that’s because none of this is natural. Even though it wouldn’t help me in the long run if it were working, I have tested plenty with my communicator and learned a number of things. First, we are not the only ones in a situation like this.”

“Yeah.” Bdubs agreed. “I already met Scar stuck on one of the islands below.”

“Noted.” Xannes nodded. “Well, others have similar odd spawns. I- Someone named Impulse had been stuck in a guardian temple, a Docm77 has been sent to his death by goats. X-Xisuma has been dealing with a warden.” Xannes started to explain, voice getting quieter at the last example, though Bdubs didn’t notice.

“And the void stuff?”

“If I knew more about what was going on, I could tell you. But as it stands, I can just tell your limbs seem to have a form of void-bite and your eyes are as dark as the void itself.”

Bdubs leaned back a little in shock at the comment. “Wait, really?” And then he was fishing into his shirt before pulling out a knife, Xannes’ eyes widening at the weapon. Bdubs held the blade up, briefly putting it back down to shine it against his shirt before using it as a mirror and then staring into it. Sure enough, his eyes seemed to go on forever into their sockets, pure darkness filling them.

“How many knives do you have?” Xannes asked, tearing Bdubs’ gaze from the weapon.

“Huh? Oh, I’ve got plenty. Want one?” And he pulled out another, only the tiniest bit worried about being stabbed by the unfamiliar person. But instead of stabbing him, Xannes simply threw the knife off the edge, watching it fall down. “What was that for?”

Xannes didn’t really reply, just holding a finger up for Bdubs to wait. Reluctantly, he did, but then got restless as time seemed to drag on. Any time he attempted to talk, he would just get shushed, making it feel even worse. Finally, out of nowhere, the knife suddenly fell past them, making Bdubs jump back enough that he nearly fell off their gateway and into the void, but Xannes grabbed him before that could happen and pulled him back in.

“Well then, it seems like a loop around the void lasts around two and a half minutes.” Xannes stated, shifting to turn his body and move to a different part of the gateway. “I guess it would be less on a second loop after already reaching terminal velocity, but it's good to know. I know something has been flying past here ever so often but I was still sort of stuck on the side of this thing for most of it, then I was dealing with you, so… you get the idea.”

“You telling me everything’s looping up and down like us?” Bdubs asked, looking around the sky, or what passed for it in the end.

“Us and anything non-living. I’ve already seen that there have been three void related deaths by Scar, Etho and TinFoilChef.”

“Well so far I’ve only seen Scar and you.” Bdubs replied. “I guess those other two are stuck around here too.”

“The chef, yes, but I’m not so sure about the other.” And Xannes handed his comm to Bdubs, showing a list of death messages, all belonging to Etho. “I have a function that lets me sort these messages. It’s very handy.” And then he reached off to the side, catching a comm as it fell from the air. “And this would be yours. I’ve seen it here and there… To be honest, it seems like it takes more than two or so minutes. We might need to test more.”

Bdubs swapped their communicators before looking down at the abyss below. “Well, Scar’s somewhere down there, I already found him once. I’m gonna see if I can get to him again and you can do whatever while I’m falling.”

Xannes rubbed his chin and then nodded. “Alright, go ahead. I’ll look out for you. If you respawn, wait a loop for me to catch you because I don’t have omniscient reaction time.”

“Sounds good to me.” Bdubs replied with a smile, then jumped into the void once more, ignoring the fear that came with it.

Scar rolled around on the end stone, trying to get to sleep. Sure, beds didn’t work in the end, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t sleep. It just wasn’t restful enough to keep phantoms away or set a spawn. Not like he needed to set a spawn three blocks away from his current one.

But right now, there was too much noise. The endermen were slowly losing their cool with Scar and he was also hearing the whispering of the vex. To be honest, that was probably why huge endermen were acting as they were. Void magic didn’t like to work with other magic.

But even with all of that, Scar really wanted to sleep for another reason. The whispers of the vex weren’t the only new thing with him. He had polished the pillar near him as just something to do other than wait around. The end rod in particular he shined until it was just mirror-like enough that he saw his green eyes were now vex blue. From that, he checked himself over a bit more and found that his eyes weren’t the only change. He seemed to be an inch or three shorter and his skin was definitely paler than before. He didn’t have wings again, but he knew it would only be a matter of time.

Scar really didn’t want to use any more help from the vex yet, knowing it would speed things up. He wanted to keep hope out for seeing Bdubs again before doing anything since it could be his last chance before a deal was needed once more. If he could just-

“Convex.” A much clearer whisper spoke, making Scar jump a little. “Are you sure a deal is such a bad thing at this stage in time?”

“Oh no no no no no.” Scar insisted, standing up and waving his hands in refusal. “I’m sure I’ll be better use to my friends if I’m not mostly stuck working with you guys.”

“What if you were not working for us?” The whisper asked, making Scar pause.

“Wait? I’m Convex because I can’t become true vex because of Xisuma and him tainting me and Cub with the void or something. I would think now being stuck in the end would make it worse, not better!”

“You still cannot, that is true. But a new evoker is being trained, one also tainted by the void. And I believe you would want to work with them.”

Scar inhaled sharply at the implication, knowing that it must be a hermit they were referring to. He fumbled in pulling his communicator out and then scrolled through all the death messages before finally seeing what he wanted. Death messages to vindicators and evokers, both about Mumbo. “So clarification on this deal?”

“You will still be considered Convex, but on a higher level than before. Not quite at the level of standard vex however. But during this, you will be linked to the new evoker, and cannot be released unless they themselves will it. And you should not will your release either.”

“Yeah, yeah, if that’s all, sure!” Scar agreed quickly, so excited he didn’t really take the time to think it over. Then suddenly he could feel more magic flowing into him. So much it felt like a red hot iron pressed all over his body, especially at his scars. And then it was gone, and he was left panting on the ground.

He didn’t know how long he had been there, but suddenly his name was shouted and Scar managed to lift his head up. He saw Bdubs rocking down towards him again and suddenly felt stronger again, getting a burst of energy and moving towards the builder. New wings spread from his back and let him fly, keeping him above the void as he grabbed his friend and then slowed them before reaching the abyss below, then slowly dragging them back up.

“Bdubs! Are you okay?!” Scar asked the moment they were both on the endstone, only staying on his feet for a second before his knees buckled beneath him.

“Am I okay? Am I okay?! I’m on the sweet sweet ground again!” And then he kissed the stone beneath him. “What about you? You look… not Scar but sound normal.”

“I can explain more in a bit. There’s an end city just over that way and I want to get something so we can start towards the main island. I’ll see if there’s elytra for you.”

“Oh no. I don’t think I ever want to fly again. If anyone, give it to Xannes.”

“Who?”

“Okay, guess my story first.”

On the main island, TFC dodged another attack from the dragon. She had been attacking less frequently, which was good and bad in his eyes. No attacking meant less dying, but TFC needed her attacks to even attempt destroying all the crystals. Because there was no way she was dying to fists alone with them still around.

That all being said, TFC had a sneaking suspicion on why exactly that was happening. His prosthetics were built to match his remaining limbs in function, but gradually over the past few respawns, they were becoming off balance. In trying to fix them, TFC realized he was less human than before, claws on his hands and feet, and tenderness at his tailbone and shoulder blades.

TFC was old, that much was true. And because of that, he had seen all sorts of situations. While for the most part the problems of this world were new to TFC, adaptations were not. A number of present day hybrids were a result of that. Heck, mob variants were also sourced from suce and occurrence. So yeah, TFC was not too surprised about seemingly becoming a dragon hybrid.

Thinking it over, in the long run it would likely give him just enough of an upper hand to defeat the dragon, but there was also the concern of how long it would take to get to that point and how far these alterations would go. If this went too far, the world itself could mistake him for a new ender dragon, and even after killing the real one, no portal would form due to his existence.

Well, if that was the case, he would need to figure out what it was that made the existence of the dragon close the portal and see if he could reverse it. Especially since he recalled at least one or two hermits were supposed to be stuck in the end with him. Though that did give him another idea. Maybe he didn’t have to keep fighting if the dragon opened the portal herself.

The next time TFC respawned, he waited, giving her time to rest. When he was sure the dragon was fully healed again, the miner made his way to the podium and waited. The dragon swooped a few times, giving some warning shots, but she didn’t attack TFC directly, and he made no move to attack the crystals. She didn’t look happy, but TFC had plenty of time to wait.

In a bout of frustration, ink was spilled over the floor, making Mumbo even more frustrated than before. He didn’t understand the need for learning another language just for spells. He was sure that knowing the characters that appeared with enchanting would be enough, but apparently the illagers had their own writing system. At the very least, Mumbo recognized a character or two that Scar or Cub must have had written down, but it still felt like he was learning a new language from scratch.

With ink all over the place, Mumbo paused to work on cleaning everything up. He had ruined nearly all his materials, so now he would have to attempt to get more or find an illager who would assist him in such a task. Paper was easy enough to get, a farm already set up in the mansion, but Mumbo hadn’t automated it yet, so there wasn’t going to be much to reap. And squid ink wasn’t something they just had on hand.

Mumbo reached the farming room and grabbed what sugarcane had grown, taking the reeds over to a crafting table then cutting and pressing them into paper. He only managed to make six pages from all of that and didn’t have the material to bind them into a book.Instead of leaving the room, Mumbo put the paper into a nearby chest and then pulled out his redstone materials.

As Mumbo built, he decided to multitask by using redstone dust to practice some of the characters he needed to learn. He couldn’t remember the normal order of the characters, so he just wrote them at random. He never really focused on the characters, so he didn’t notice when a few in a line started to glow a bit. In fact, he was just pausing his writing to work on fixing a bit of redstone, his head stuck in the contraption.

His hand blindly reached for some string to add as a tripwire, but he was about half a foot to the wrong side of his pile of materials. When Mumbo’s hand started to go further, it was stopped by some thread being placed in his hand. The redstoner said his thanks and then strung it up before pausing and pulling his head out.

Standing nearby was someone Mumbo immediately recognized, not knowing anyone else with a bright red sweater like that. Not caring that he was currently covered in redstone dust, Mumbo jumped at the newcomer and hugged them tightly, so glad to see a familiar face. “Grian! You’re okay! How did you get here? Where are the bots? Are you alright?”

But pulling away again, Mumbo watched as Grian just blinked at him, seeming a little confused. “I think you may be mistaken and confused, my mustachioed friend. I mean, I am okay and I got here because of you, but I’m not sure what you mean by bots and well, you were trying to take to someone named Grian.”

Mumbo furrowed his brows. Looking them over again, he could tell this had to be Grian. His clothes and hair and everything were the same. He couldn’t quite tell about their eyes because they were wearing a mask, but it matched the one he had seen Grian with in the past, a black mark on its face instead of the purple Eflyn expected. The only thing unfamiliar were the wings. Shape and pattern wise, they matched the wings Grian had, but the colors of the feathers were no longer red yellow and blue, but purple grey and black.

“Well then. If you’re not Grian, then who are you?” Mumbo asked, and the person giggled slightly.

“I could have swore you already knew, but I guess not. The name is Xelqua, but don’t go throwing it around to just anyone.” And just hearing it reminded Mumbo. It had been a name Grian had told him before.

“Well, if you don’t want me throwing it around, I’m going to have to call you something.” Mumbo spoke up, Xelqua seeming to agree. “Since I already mistook you for him and he’s not around, how about I call you Grian.”

“Hmm.” Grian thought about it before shaking his head. “Just you and me, you can call me Xelqua. Otherwise just Watcher is fine, okay?”

“But I-” Mumbo started to say, and then there was a clatter, making Mumbo and Grian look over at the door where Eflyn was standing.

“Well. It seems we have another guest then…”

Joe had paused in his material gathering. It was just going to be for a little bit, but he needed to clear his head. And the best idea he had for that was climbing the tower at spawn the correct way. Sure, he could try climbing from the outside or something, finding a window, but at this point these were definitely Watchers, and Joe was very much aware that they were not to be messed with.

Joe needed to pause on a platform to hold his head, a headache forming. It had been coming and going for a while, but it didn’t feel so bad now, the tower already lit up pretty well. As he waited, his other hand clutched at the wall as best it could, just feeling the texture of the wall, as if to check that it was real. “Guess you really couldn’t have been swayed, now could you?” Joe asked, speaking into the empty air around him. “Well maybe after this mess we can try it again.”

Joe climbed a few more parts of the parkour that acted as steps before nearly falling to a sudden splitting headache. He half considered letting go and trying again, there being enough hay lining the floor below to break his fall, but he had already gotten so far. And maybe if he could get to the top of the tower…

It had been ages ago when Joe had first met a Watcher. From what he could tell, it was even the first Watcher to exist. One that eventually disappeared to time that not even the other Watchers knew what happened. He wasn’t an expert of whatever the Watchers exactly were, but it had been enough that he recognized Grian as one pretty quickly when they first met in season six. Though that was partially from that not being their first meeting.

Yes, Joe had been along for a very long time. Which is why he was not happy with everything going on. But he had a bargaining chip in the form of knowledge, so getting to the top might be the one place to try and use it.

His headache passed and the glow from his eyes faded. Joe pulled himself back onto the platform and then adjusted his glasses. Just a bit more to go until he was at the top.

Doc woke up in a wood hut, lying in a bed. His back and head hurt, getting worse when he attempted to move to get up. He tried to remember what happened last, but suddenly being knocked unconscious wasn’t the best thing to try and remember. Looking around in a way that didn’t hurt as much, he was able to see a chest as well as something lying on the ground to his right.

Some crackling implied there was also a furnace running nearby. Mixed with that was some slight banging of metal from crafting and the hum of a tune that was familiar to Doc, but he couldn’t quite place it.

Another attempt to sit up left Doc yelp slightly in pain, stopping the humming and crafting sounds, getting replaced with footsteps that came towards him. “Are you awake this time?”

“Grumbot?” Doc asked, vaguely recognizing the robot that appeared in front of him. He only really distinctly knew his larger form, only seeing him and his brother at this size when they were just about to leave their previous world.

“Yeah. looks like you are. We have some bread if you’re hungry.” Grum spoke in a quiet voice that felt so odd compared to how energetic the hermits usually were. That being said, it had been a while since he had seen anyone else, so it might have just been from what others were dealing with. “I also left some of the wheat as wheat if you prefer that.”

“What? Why would I want that? Bread sounds fine.”

“Okay, I wasn’t sure if you were like dad or not.” Grum said before he went over to the chest, giving Doc a moment to think things over.

“Dad as in Grian or Mumbo?”

“Grian.” Grum answered, pulling out some food. “He was with us on the mountain. Everything was getting to him, so he started eating seeds instead of other stuff.”

“Okay. Is he out getting supplies or something?” Doc asked and then Grum’s face shifted to something sadder. “What happened to Grian?”

“I don’t know.” Grum spoke, managing to be quieter than before. “He just disappeared and Jrum and I were stuck alone on the mountain. And then I messed up.” And it took all of Doc’s willpower to not sit up and possibly hurt himself in the process with how sad Grum sounded in that moment.

“Why? What happened?”

“Someone figured out how to send messages in chat by accident. Jrum and I noticed, and we were going to try it out for ourselves, but it didn’t go right. And now Jrum… Jrum didn’t respawn right.”

And with that comment, Doc realized what was on the ground nearby. Jrum’s body was laid out, screen dark and body unmoving. “How long has he been like that?”

“A few days I think. It got really snowy so I couldn’t quite tell. Then I got busy digging through the snow until I found some ice to break.”

“And that must have been the waterfall I took down off the mountain.” Doc said, making Grum look a little sheepish.

“Sorry about hitting you when I fell. I freaked out a bit and then you were there and I couldn’t react in time. I’m sure if it was anyone else, they would have been in worse shape.”

“Why’s that?” Doc asked, though he had an idea based on which side of him ached more.

“Well, your metal parts helped protect you plus I think your thicker skull helped from a concussion.”

“My what?”

“Oh, I thought you…” Grum said, trailing off. “Um, so I think more weird stuff is happening than just being stuck wherever.”

“Yeah, I knew that.” Doc said. “Creeper instincts have been kicking in like crazy.”

“Well, your death messages mentioned goats a lot. It looks like because of that, you’ve started turning into a goat hybrid as well.”

“I’ve what?” Doc asked, incredulously. He ignored the pain from moving when he started feeling himself over, finally finding horns coming from his head. “Oh… huh…”

Grum forced Doc back down to a resting position before feeding him some bread. Here, how about I tell you what I know about, then you can tell me what you know.

“Sounds good to me.”

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