#and saw just how much she's gotten better because their fight was pretty equal.......... | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

thegoddessprose · 5 months ago

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Doing this for Chiasa🩷💜

A - Activities: Really, just sitting down and having a conversation is great for her, even if it's just about their day. She likes to get Plutarch in on her interests and will indulge in his too... Although sometimes "parallel play" can be enough.

B - Beauty: The first thing that attracted Chiasa to Plutarch was his willingness to fight for what he believed in (While knowing how not to get himself killed) His quiet confidence/BDE was also a big factor. If we're talking physically, what she finds beautiful about him is that he looks like a real person rather than a painted up doll or whatever inhuman creatures Capitolites want to look like. She has a soft spot for freckles too...

C - Comfort: Chiasa will offer a shoulder to cry on right away. If physical affection isn't needed or wanted, she'll be there to talk him through it or lend an ear.

D - Dreams: In general, while maintaining her own business, she wants to help Plutarch make Panem a better place, not just to support him, but also because she feels like she needs to make up for years of standing by. While neither are too keen on marriage, both would probably want the wedding part through a commitment ceremony. Children are off the table, however... She's a little too old for that.

E - Equal: Chiasa isn't overly domineering, but is in no way passive either. She and Plutarch roughly try to be equal in the relationship.

F - Fight: Like with all couples, it would depend on what happened. She'd typically take a little time to cool off before further discussions. Big fights are pretty uncommon, however. Disagreements happen, like with most couples, but since she and Plutarch are pretty rational people, they tend to try to find a solution rather than blowing up.

G - Gratitude: Very much so. Chiasa had decades of pent up beliefs and resentment and she was finally able to express it with Plutarch. She becomes quite aware of the hope he's given her and is grateful every day after.

H - Honesty: Not really... One of the biggest foundations of their relationship is openness and honesty. Plutarch knows about her deepest beliefs and past... There's even a point where she shares her darkest secret with him because she feels like it's unfair to keep it from him as they grow closer.

I - Inspiration: She'd become more hopeful and courageous. She was always kind, but not brave enough to step out of line, even when it was the right thing. Plus with seemingly everyone around her saying the opposite, it was a big turning point to have her beliefs and sympathies validated.

J - Jealousy: Not really, Chiasa trusts him. Plus she has the knowledge that nobody else had successfully gotten as close as she had, so...

K - Kiss: Chiasa is a great kisser, having decades of practice under her belt. Basically, the two of them were playing hooky from her family's New Year's Eve party, and she playfully suggested that they kiss at midnight. I'll say it was a lot more than a simple peck and clinking champagne glasses...

L - Love Confession: Ideally, Chiasa would have confessed in a more romantic setting, but in reality, she blurted it out the minute she saw Plutarch after the rebellion. To be fair, they'd been apart for a while and both had some near death experiences and realized how precious their time was.

M - Marriage: Like I said before, Chiasa doesn't really believe in marriage... She's been around too many contractual shams and plain bad marriages. But she'd be fine with doing the wedding part. The "proposal" was essentially them discussing the idea and agreeing on it. I picture it being a small ceremony with their family and friends, but that's where the low-key stuff ends. While it's not a state event, pictures would definitely be sent to the society pages. (Plutarch would likely be a bit of a groomzilla too...)

N - Nicknames: They don't really go super mushy with nicknames... She typically calls him "Honey" and he usually uses "dear." She does occasionally call him "Ploot," though.

O - On Cloud Nine: When she's in love, Chiasa is calmer, happier, and just smiles differently. As an artist, she tends to see the beauty in everyday life, but when she's in love, she will wax poetic. Once they're official, she will brag about him. What he's doing for the country, a little thing he's done for her, how smart he is, even little quirks... She will rave about Plutarch if given the chance.

P - PDA: PDA was off the table at first because they had to keep things under wraps. Once they went public, however, there wasn't any going back. While they're not constantly making out or sneaking away together, there are little things. They'd share a short kiss, he'd put his arm around her waist, she'd rest her head on his shoulder, hell, they'd even just hold hands.

Q - Quirk: Chiasa is quite empathetic. She can tell if Plutarch (Or, well, anyone close to her) is feeling great or down. It does wonders for communication and intimacy.

R - Romance: Chiasa isn't as romantic as she was when she was younger, but still appreciates it a little. She prefers to be creative, but also personal. One thing she has in common with Plutarch is a dislike of big, but impersonal gestures from S/Os in the past, so she's sure to keep his preferences in mind when wanting to surprise him with anything.

S - Support: Definitely! She's not exactly a political scholar, but is more than happy to help make Panem a better place. Sometimes it's just appearing with him and saying a few words, other times it's charity work, hosting functions, even just helping him look good or relatable. She still makes sure he has his downtime as well so he doesn't burn himself out.

T - Thrill: Chiasa needs the best of both worlds. A routine provides a sense of safety, but monotony bores her. At the same time, she was a thrill seeker in relationships, but even that wears off or becomes too risky. Since they're both creative people, she and Plutarch know how to keep things interesting, whether it's dates, domesticity, or the bedroom.

U - Understanding: Again, Chiasa is quite empathetic. She got to know Plutarch very well before the rebellion, and although it takes some getting used to, it's her kindness and empathy that brings him closer to her.

V - Value: Chiasa values her relationship highly, although she doesn't quite realize how much until Plutarch is away from her. I wouldn't say she'd drop everything, certainly not her fashions or family, but he's still pretty high up there.

W - Wild Card: Chiasa really likes Plutarch's voice. At first it was just for not fluffy reasons, but she found it soothing soon enough... And absolutely fell for how his tone shifts when he's talking about something he's into. She might not always get what he's talking about the first time, but it's worth it to see and hear him so enthusiastic.

X -XOXO: Chiasa is a very affectionate person, not just with Plutarch, but with most people she loves. With him, she loves to kiss and be kissed. She loves to hug and cuddle too, and it helps that he's very comfortable; very soft and warm.

Y - Yearning: When they were apart during the rebellion, it was a little bit more dire because she wasn't sure what would happen. She coped then by writing letters/diary entries to him and attempting to be optimistic about life after the war. When it comes to the short term, communications are open, so there's less to worry about. Otherwise, she tries to focus on other things and welcomes him back with open arms.

Z - Zeal: When it comes to pre-war, Chiasa would have covered for Plutarch if it had come to that. Afterwards she was also willing to enter the scrutiny of politics for him (Although to be fair, she's been around those circles for a good chunk of her life), and endure busy schedules, nosy tabloids, and a reconstruction era.

Fluff Alphabet!

Inspired by the NSFW Alphabet by @fairy-tail-babes.

Feel free to use for your own writing Blogs!

A ctivities - What do they like to do with their s/o? How do they spend their free time with them?

B eauty - What do they admire about their s/o? What do they think is beautiful about them?

C omfort - How would they help their s/o when they feel down/have a panic attack etc.?

D reams - How do they picture their future with their s/o?

E qual - Are they the dominant one in the relationship, or rather passive?

F ight - Would they be easy to forgive their s/o? How are they fighting?

G ratitude - How grateful are they in general? Are they aware of what their s/o is doing for them?

H onesty - Do they have secrets they hide from their s/o? Or do they share everything?

I nspiration - Did their s/o change them somehow, or the other way around? Like trying out new things or helped them overcome personal problems?

J ealousy - Do they get jealous easily? How do they deal with it?

K iss - Are they a good kisser? What was the first kiss like?

L ove Confession - How would they confess to their s/o?

M arriage - Do they want to get married? How do they propose? What would the marriage be like?

N icknames - What do they call their s/o?

O n Cloud Nine - What are they like when they are in love? Is it obvious for others? How do they express their feelings?

P DA - Are they upfront about their relationship? Do they brag with their s/o in front of others? Or are they rather shy to kiss etc. when others are watching?

Q uirk - Some random ability they have that’s beneficial in a relationship.

R omance - How romantic are they? What would they do to make their s/o happy? Cliché or rather creative?

S upport - Are they helping their s/o achieve their goals? Do they believe in them?

T hrill - Do they need to try out new things to spice out your relationship? Or do they prefer a certain routine?

U nderstanding - How good do they know their partner? Are they empathetic?

V alue - How important is the relationship to them? What is it’s worth in comparison to other things in their life?

W ild Card - A random Fluff Headcanon.

X OXO - Are they very affectionate? Do they love to kiss and cuddle?

Y earning - How will they cope when they’re missing their partner?

Z eal - Are they willing to go to great lenghts for the relationship? If so, what kind of?

So: Send me a character and one/several letter(s) and let’s get started!

#relationship ask meme #chitarch #plutarch heavensbee #plutarch x oc #oc: chiasa lapin #oc x canon #thg fanverse #fluff alphabet #Is there a word for a sweetheart but bs proof?#Because that's Chiasa #Plutarch doesn't seem like he's used to the fluff though #And thanks @arthdoesart for the Ploot thing #It's just adorable

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nicad13 · 2 years ago

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Swimming Lessons

Summary: “The thing that really gets me, is that I saw you take your helmet off to say goodbye to your kid. You gave us hell for removing ours, but when it came down between your Creed and showing your love for your kid, you chose love. And now you desecrate that love by calling it a transgression! You drowned yourself trying to wash away the sin of showing love to your child and you have no idea how stupid that is!” --- Bo-Katan teaches Din how to swim, reflecting on her own transgressions in the process.

Lifeguarding is more than just swimming lessons.

Tags: Death Watch, Children of the Watch, Regret, Attonement, Religious Discussion

AO3 link in the Source below.

---

I know you’re gonna have it your way or nothing at all But I think you’re moving too fast

TLC, Waterfalls

Bo-Katan Kryze stands at the edge of the shoreline. The sea is calm today, even if the sky remains grey. The day is mild, the air can almost be called “warm,” and the water laps with a pleasant slosh against the low bluff.

A perfect day for a swimming lesson.

Din stands next to her, still clad in the armor. His weapons and ammunition lay on a nearby rock, wrapped in his cloak.

The Darksaber lays swaddled in the bundle as well.

Grogu sits in his pod, ears perked and flared, eager to see what happens next. Bo had shared a quick word with him earlier. “I’m going to put your dad through some challenges today. He won’t like it and he’ll probably make some noise about it, but I promise you that he’ll be safe. Do you trust me?”

The kid had tilted his head from side to side in a way that seemed to say “We’ll see.” About as enthusiastic a response as she could’ve expected from the little guy, but he seemed to understand. The last thing Bo wants is to be on the wrong end of a Jedi-powered temper-tantrum, and she’s done all she can to avoid any misunderstandings.

Here goes nothing.

“This’ll go better if you take the armor off,” she says.

“No.” Din shakes his head. “I’ll be wearing it the next time I get dunked. I need to be ready.”

“Just to start,” she counters. “We’ll start light, then add pieces back as you get comfortable with it.”

Another head-shake. “I don’t want to get used to it without the armor.”

Bo heaves a sigh. She can’t say she’s surprised. The man is just as stubborn as any other Mandalorian.

“But… thank you,” he says, his tone easing up. “I appreciate you taking the time to train me.”

“Don’t thank me till we’re done,” she says. “I’ve hauled your soggy drowning carcass out of the water twice, now. You’re heavy. I’m doing this for my benefit as much as yours.” The words come out exactly as she intends – equal measures of irritation and light-hearted teasing. No trace of guilt.

Because, dear gods, does she ever harbor a load of guilt about this clueless Child of the Watch standing next to her staring down the sea like it’s yet another enemy he has to vanquish.

It had taken her a few minutes to notice, back when they had first crossed paths on Trask. Not until after he had slung his self-righteous accusations about the arcane helmet rules. Only then had she noticed the design of his armor, details that only a select few know to this day. Certain angles of his chestplate. The cut of his T-visor. Subtle features that marked him as a Child of the Watch. Details that she’s pretty sure even Din isn’t aware of.

Not yet, at least.

A Child of the Watch. One who was kidnapped as a child and raised in the Fighting Corps to fill out the ranks to aid Death Watch in re-talking Mandalore.

Hell, she might have even participated in the raid that stole him.

She’s not sure how old he is. She’d only gotten a good look at the back of his head when he’d removed his helmet on Gideon’s light cruiser to say goodbye to the kid, committing the “transgression” he’d held against himself like a blade against his own throat. All she had seen was a mop of dark, unruly hair. Maybe a few flecks of grey, but it had been hard to tell with the lighting. He could be anywhere from ten years older to ten years younger than her, depending on when it had happened and how old he’d been.

But she’d been young. Young and stupid when she’d joined Death Watch. Jealous of her sister’s inheritance of power by simple virtue of being born first. Easily seduced by Pre Vizsla’s words of supremacy and Meritocracy of the Strong. Anyone who was strong enough to take power deserved it. Anyone who could fight hard enough deserved it. And Bo had been strong. Bo had been a skilled fighter. She’d been good at war. And she’d thought that was what made a good Mandalorian.

Until the day she’d watched Pre Vizsla’s end, on his knees at Maul’s feet, his head parting company with his shoulders at the edge of the Darksaber. Even so, his last words summed up the madness entirely.

“Only the strongest shall rule.”

Maul had been the strongest that day. But he was no Mandalorian. Never had been. He was nothing but a criminal. She’d known Vizsla’s alliance with the Shadow Collective was nothing more than calculated opportunism. Vizsla had just mis-calculated.

And she’d been an idiot to follow him.

But not a big enough idiot to swear her allegiance to Maul. Not a big enough idiot to follow whoever was best at swinging a big stick on any given day regardless of who they killed with it.

And thus had begun her journey to determine what it meant to be a Good Mandalorian.

Decades later, she still hasn’t quite figured it out. But here she stands next to a Child of the Watch who is doing his damnedest to be the best Mandalorian who’d ever Mandalorianed, and he has even less of a clue than she does.

Not out of any fault of his own.

Gods, Death Watch hadn’t even taught the poor bastard how to swim. Just like they’d never taught him about the Darksaber or other Ways of the Creed or even fed him pog soup. They’d only taught him what they’d needed him to know. How to fight. How to kill. Nothing but gun fodder. They’d locked him in his helmet to make his life miserable. No shared meals. No intimacy of looking a lover or a friend or even his own child in the eye. So that when his time to die would come, he would welcome it. He would welcome the warrior’s death because his warrior’s life had been nothing but pain and suffering.

The Children of the Watch had been meant to die in the service of reclaiming Mandalore, but the Empire had destroyed the planet before they’d ever gotten the chance. They’d abandoned Concordia like a sinking ship, afraid the Empire would hunt them down there, as well. Din Djarin is just another piece of flotsam, drifting out from the wreckage, and he has no idea.

The difference is she’d known what she was getting into, and even with the benefit of knowing, she had taken far too long to get out. Din… he… well. He’d had no idea. Still has no idea. And the words keep getting hung up behind her teeth. You weren’t rescued. You were kidnapped. You were brainwashed. You may have a lot of sins under your belt – most bounty hunters do – but taking your helmet off isn’t one of them. You never had anything to atone for in the eyes of Mandalore. It is very much the other way around.

But she can’t say it. For a man who knows nothing of Mandalorian history, culture, or food, he has staked every gram of his identity on being Mandalorian. She has no doubt that he would’ve killed her for her heresy on Trask had Woves and Reeves not been at her side. Outnumbered and outgunned, he’d jetted away instead, shaken to his core at the discovery that Mandalorians who were different from him existed. Even now, he clings to the Old Ways because he doesn’t know anything else. He’d asked her the question point-blank, himself. “What do we stand for?”

She’d bitten the answer back. War. Murder. Betrayal.

And then she’d watched him drown, again, as he’d tried to wash away the sin of removing his helmet to say goodbye to the child he loved so dearly.

What did they do to him? The question burns through her. What did they do to him that he thinks that saying goodbye to his child eye-to-eye is a transgression?

She frowns, knowing damn well what they’d done to him. She’d watched them write the book. The transgressions are hers, not his. She wonders if he would kill her if she told him everything. That she’d thrown in with the people who had stolen him and made his existence a living hell. She figures the chances on that are pretty good. She can’t blame him in the least.

So she stands here instead, at the side of a man who is so broken he dare not take the armor off for fear he’ll crumble apart at the seams, and offers to teach him how to swim.

A pitiful reparation for sure, but better than nothing.

“Lesson number one,” she begins, “is to seal your helmet before you even get wet. Don’t just panic and dive in. The two seconds it takes to pressurize first is worth it.”

Din nods his understanding and taps the side of his helmet. The thunk of the gasket closing around his neck and whistle of pressurization are followed by the harsh whoosh of his breaths though the oxygen exchangers. The components sound good. Solid. She had also noticed the kid’s chainmail, earlier. Whoever had built Din’s helmet and the kid’s shirt may have been a cultist holdover, but they’d been a damned good armorer.

Bo points to the water before them. “The drop-off is sharp. It’s three meters deep here.” She points a little to the right. “But that’s a gavel bar right there. Only about a meter and a half deep. See it?”

Din shakes his head. “My gear isn’t equipped for getting readings through water.” His voice is clear through the com interlink in her helmet, but she’s still not quite sure she’s heard him right.

Bo turns to look at him. “What?”

He shrugs. “All of my prior work was on arid planets. Bounties don’t come to lake country to hide out.”

She retracts her prior opinion of his armorer. They may have been skilled, but they had certainly skimped on certain tech. Again, only giving Din what he’d needed to serve their purposes. “We’ll fix that later, then. Just keep the depth difference in mind. Show me what we talked about for treading water.”

He brings his arms up and makes the sweeping motions she’d shown him earlier, moving as if he’s gathering the air around him and pushing it down. “This and the scissors kick.”

“That’s right,” she says. Then she looks back out over the water. “Lesson number two. Always be ready to fall in when you least expect it.”

Her service droid had been standing behind them, silent and motionless until now. It steps forward, and before Din has any idea what’s going on, it knocks him forward. Din lets out a startled “Oop!” flails, splashes into the water, and sinks like a rock.

Grogu pipes up with a whine. He’s not startled. In fact, he’d probably seen that coming a kilometer away, but he gives Bo the biggest, saddest eyes she’s ever seen.

“He’s okay,” she says with half a smile. She wonders if he can sense it through the beskar. “I had him seal his helmet, remember?”

The kid grunts and points out to the water, which is bubbling and boiling with the thrashing Mandalorian submerged beneath.

“Go to the gravel bar,” Bo says, hoping Din can still hear her over the com through his panic. The water stills, then eddies around Din’s armored form as he clambers up onto higher ground and breaks the surface. The oxygen exchangers are still whooshing away and he’s not coughing or choking. So far so good.

“That wasn’t funny.”

“Wasn’t supposed to be. So next time you fall in, what’s the first thing you’ll do?”

“Get to the shallows.”

“Good. Now walk out a little deeper and practice the arm tread.”

He does as he’s told, but shakes his head after a few moments. “I don’t think it’s working.”

“Close your fingers together and cup your hands. Like you’re scooping the water down.”

His helmet tilts as he figures it out. “Oh. Okay. Yeah. Got it.” He rocks to and fro a few times, learning how to push through the water to move himself around. He figures out how to flare his arms so he can push himself up, noticing little bobs of buoyancy with every sweep. At the same time, he notices how the vambraces drag. Sharp surfaces that he’s learned how to use to control his pitch and roll in the air with the jetpack now create resistance in the much denser water, hindering his movement. He rolls his forearms to compensate, but he has to over-rotate his wrists to compensate for that. It feels unnatural, but he’ll have to get used to it. Just like he’s learned to get used to everything else that comes with the armor.

“Ready to get back in over your head?” Bo’s tone is encouraging. He looks up and sees Grogu next to her in his pod, scooted all the way forward and gripping the edge, ears up, eyes wide, ever vigilant.

He’ll have to kick with his legs – he’s not strong enough with his arms to stay afloat. Not with the armor, anyway. He understands now how it’s more than just about the weight pulling him down. The shapes that protect and allow ventilation on the surface pull and drag in the water. Bo’s armor is more streamlined, probably less of a hinderance, more adapted for life on Kalevala with its vast oceans. But the tradeoff is evident. He remembers how well his plate had served in their battle against the Imps when they stole the freighter on Trask, better able to stand up to a full assault than what the Nite Owls had worn.

He's paying the price for it now, though. He steps off the ledge of the gravel bar and sinks before he can even begin to kick. He’s ready for it this time, though, trusting the exchangers in his helmet, keeping his breathing even. His feet hit the sea floor, the water’s surface a bit more than a meter above his head. He pushes off, just enough to get his arms going again and try the scissors kick. The plates on his thighs drag this time, and it takes him a few moments to figure out how to compensate – shifting his body from a straight vertical line to more of a sitting position, bringing his knees up and then kicking down, using the plates to scoop down with them. It’s awkward, but it works, and he eventually makes his way back up, breaking the surface and holding position.

Bo stands on the shoreline, head tilted, arms crossed over her chest. She notes his breathing – heavy but steady, his motions becoming more fluid as he gets the hang of it. “Not bad,” she says.

“What now?”

“Keep going.” She checks the time on her HUD. “Aim for ten minutes.”

“Huh… okay…” His tone suggests that it’ll be a challenge, but he can probably manage it.

“Keep it up for twenty and I’ll make you and your kid some more of that pog soup.”

“Aaaahhhrrrgh…”

“Batu!”

Din makes it the full twenty before he promptly sinks to the sea floor, crawls up the gravel bar, and hauls himself back up onto shore, flopping face-down in the grass and panting.

---

Lucky for Din, Bo had used the twenty minutes of tread time to gather wood for a fire and get it going, sending the droid back to the castle for a fresh set of clothes. Now, he sits by the fire, wearing Bo’s father’s old under-armor gear. The sleeves are short on him and the pants stop a bit above his ankles, but everything is more than roomy. The important thing is that they’re dry, and he watches his own clothes and armor steam on rocks warmed by the fire as he sips soup through a straw. A dull, metallic clunk beats through the breeze as Bo stirs her own soup before taking a drink, her helmet on the ground beside her.

Grogu takes a gulp out of his cup, then lets out a belch.

“Mind your manners,” Din says. His tone is mildly scolding, but gentle.

“Tuu-uu tuu.”

Din sighs. “Close enough.”

Bo smiles at the kid, and Din sees the warmth behind it. So far, she’s been the only person other than Ahsoka and Skywalker to talk to him like he understands what she’s saying. Like he’s a child, not just a baby. Indeed, she had been the one to send him in Ahsoka’s direction in the first place. He takes another sip, savors the warm, kelpy, brininess in his mouth for a bit, then swallows. “How do you know Ahsoka Tano?”

The smile drops from Bo’s face. “Long story.”

Whoops. “I’m… sorry. I thought you were friends.”

The ice thaws a little. “We are… strong allies. Made necessary under adverse circumstances.”

“A story for another day, then.”

“Maybe.”

Din knows a Keep Out sign when he sees one, so he steps clear. “Have you had any contact with her lately?”

Bo raises an eyebrow. “Why do you ask?”

“I just… the last time I saw her was at Skywalker’s school. She seemed concerned about Grogu’s attachment to me. It’s why she wouldn’t train him in the first place. Now that he’s back with me, I’d like to understand it better. Why she seems to think it’s a bad thing.”

“Is his attachment to you reciprocated?” The set of her brow is calculated, now. Searching.

Grogu squeaks as his head swivels up to look at Din. “Eh?”

Still, the silence lasts longer than Bo expects before Din finally answers. “Of course.” His tone is low, warning.

“Have you spoken the gai bal manda to him yet?”

“The what?”

Bo heaves a sigh and Din catches the sight of rolling eyes before she turns her head away from him. “The Mandalorian adoption vow. The ancient tradition of recognizing your foundling as your own child. Your cult never taught you that?”

Again, another squeak from the kid.

Again, a lengthy bout of silence before Din answers. “… No. I was raised in the-”

“The Fighting Corps, yes, I know.” Bo turns to face him again, and her eyes are as hard as her voice. The words almost shake as she cuts him off. “Din, haven’t you figured this out, yet?”

“Figured what out?”

“Haven’t you wondered why you don’t know anything about Mandalore? Why you didn’t know anything about the Darksaber? Why you didn’t know about other kinds of Mandalorians? You’d never even had pog soup! What else haven’t you had? Have you ever had shig tea? Tiingilar? Ne’tra gal? Have you ever seen the art of Veraslayn Kast? Alrich Wren?”

Silence.

“Didn’t you ever wonder why they kept you on Concordia? Why they never let you set foot on Mandalore before the Purge?”

“We were cloistered-”

“We were exiled, Din. Death Watch was banished to that moon because we nearly destroyed Mandalore in the wars before that.” Bo is almost shouting now, voice raised, eyes shining.

Din cants his head with a very slow tilt. “What do you mean, we?”

“I was part of it,” she admits, the tremor returning to her voice. “I thought war was a better measure of strength than civilized society so I joined Death Watch and I waged war on my own family and I got thrown to that moon with the rest of them and we deserved it. They had to dome Mandalore’s cities because we destroyed the rest of the planet with warfare. Why do you think the Empire’s fusion bombs turned the surface to glass? Because we’d already turned it to sand decades before! And we never bothered to teach you any history because we didn’t want you to know you were growing up on the wrong side!”

Unable to look him in the visor any longer, she turns back to the fire. Grogu, finished with his soup and sensing the tension, crawls into Din’s lap. Din picks up his cloak and wraps it around the little boy, who snuggles into it against the chill of the oncoming evening.

Bo pokes at the fire and the flames perk up a bit, radiating more warmth. “I left, eventually.” Her tone is quiet, now. Sad. “But it was too late. My sister led the pacifist government on Mandalore until Death Watch imprisoned her. I tried to save her but I was too late. I lost everything.” She turns her head back to Din, looks him in the visor, looks the kid in the eye, back up to the visor, then back to the fire. “I recommend you get out, too. Before the same thing happens to you.”

The silence is much shorter before Din responds, this time. “Our secrecy was our survival. We survived on Concordia because we were hidden. We survived out in the galaxy because our Way prepared us for harsh conditions-”

“Oh stop with the empty platitudes,” Bo says, her face twisting with disgust. “You survived on Concordia because the Empire wanted to leave witnesses to see what they’d done to Mandalore. They left you to spread the cautionary tales of what happens to anyone who crosses them. And you weren’t exactly thriving when we hauled you out of the mamacore tank on Trask.” She gives the fire another poke, lips pressed into a tight, thin line. “The thing that really gets me, is that I saw you take your helmet off to say goodbye to your kid. You gave us hell for removing ours, but when it came down between your Creed and showing your love for your kid, you chose love. And now you desecrate that love by calling it a transgression! You drowned yourself trying to wash away the sin of showing love to your child and you have no idea how stupid that is!”

Din is very still, but his breathing is labored enough that she can hear it through his modulator. It looks like he’s staring into the fire, but she can’t really tell. She’s pushed him about as far as she dares, but she wants to know one more thing. “Why are you so eager to go back to them? Why are you so eager to go back to people who taught you these things?”

Another bout of silence. Just when she thinks he won’t bother responding, he pulls in a breath.

“… They saved me. My parents were killed when Separatists attacked my village, and the Mandalorians saved me. They raised me as one of their own.”

Oh dear gods he really doesn’t know.

And she can’t tell him. Not right now. She doesn’t dare. She can’t tell him the truth. But she won’t lie to him. She can leave him a trail. A path out, if he chooses to take it.

“When are you going back?”

“As soon as I leave here.”

“They’ll take you back now that you’ve redeemed yourself?”

“Yes.”

“And then what? Back to bounty hunting? Hide in caves and sewers for the rest of your lives? Live happily ever after while they take your kid away and put him in the Fighting Corps? Are you really going to let them seal him up in a helmet? Jam his ears under the bucket? You’re telling me you’re okay with never seeing those big brown eyes again? You’re okay with never showing your face to him again? Are you okay with these things because that’s what you’re used to and you just don’t know any better? Have you really thought this all the way through?”

He turns his head, just a little, away, out toward the sea. She knows he won’t give her an answer. He can’t give what he doesn’t have.

“Do yourself one favor,” she says, before he disengages entirely. “You saw the remains of Sundari. Even you recognized that it was once beautiful. When you go back, ask your Armorer why they had to dome the city. If they lie to you, maybe reconsider your choices. If not for your sake, at least for the sake of your kid.”

Din is still for a few more moments. Then, he heaves a perfunctory sigh, hauls himself to his feet, gets the kid settled in his pod, gathers up all his weapons and armor into a bundle with his cloak, and plucks his almost-dry clothes from the rocks and slings them over his shoulder.

“Thanks for the soup,” he says, and he turns and trudges back up the hill to his ship.

A few minutes later, the N-1 slips by through the clouds. Din Djarin, the man who just today learned how to tread water, flying a ship built on a world covered with oceans, a ship modeled after the rays that live in those waters. He’s still drowning. She’s saved his life at least three times now, but she’ll keep saving him. She’ll save him and his kid every chance she gets.

Because she has her own transgressions. Transgressions that can never be forgiven. Ameliorated, maybe, but not by ritual. Only in deed. Only in action. She spreads the coals out, letting the incoming drizzle extinguish the fire.

“Did you put the tracker on his ship?” she asks the droid.

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Good.” Her eyes follow the N-1’s vapor trail out over the sea. “With any luck, he won’t get himself killed before I can get to him.”

Lifeguarding is more than just swim lessons.

#the mandalorian #din djarin #bo katan kryze #grogu

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elriell · 4 years ago

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Two Mates? Elriel & (El)ucien Theory.

These are just a few of my thoughts compiled together regarding having two mates, the signs and breadcrumbs Sarah has incorporated. If you know me you know am a Lucien fan so this is nothing hateful towards him and we will be looking at his place within it all as well, that being said this will have bond rejection/misalignment talk so if that is not your cup of tea I understand and you can skip this! As always I would love to hear everyones thoughts so long as we are all respectful ♡

Let's start by discussing the where the two ships align and parallel mates behaviour, and then we will discuss where their arc's veer from each other...

“TOUCH HER, SMELL HER, TASTE HER– THE INSTINCTS WERE A RUNNING RIVER.” (Lucien in ACOWAR about the mating bond.)

“Letting his scarred fingers touch her immaculate skin. Letting them brush the side of her throat, savoring the velvet-soft texture.”

“Azriel's fingers lingered at her nape, atop the first knob of her spine. Slowly, Elain pivoted into his touch. Until his palm lay flat against her neck.”

“They'd exchanged looks, the occasional brush of their fingers, but never this. Never blatant, unrestricted touching. ”

“He prayed she didn't peer down. Prayed she didn't understand the shift in his scent. ”

“Her arousal drifted up to him, and his eyes nearly rolled back in his head at the sweet scent. He'd beg on his knees for a chance to taste it. ”

“He needed to know what the skin of her neck tasted like. What those perfect lips tasted like.”

“This one moment, and maybe a taste, and that would be it.

“Yes" Elain breathed, like she read the decision. Just this taste in the dead of the longest night of the year, where only the Mother might witness them. ”

Now you can easily parallel this to any of SJM's mates, like Feysand or Nessian. But for the sake of brevity I will leave you with the original link to the wonderful @suelky post where it was pointed out w/ Feysand quotes as well. [source]

Also "The instincts were a running river.” sounds a little like “Azriel’s Siphons guttered, the stones turning as dark and foreboding as the deepest sea."

The Bonus POV has a lot of typical "Mates" behaviours manifesting between Elain and Azriel, and it would make sense this would be a extreme POV shift as we have never been inside either of their heads before so we were bound to have a major learning curve, especially with Az who is so reserved with his emotions.

“But Lucien’s attention went right to the hallway toward the back, his nostrils flaring as he scented Elain’s direction. And who she’d gone with. A low snarl slipped out of him—”

“So you will leave Elain alone. If you need to fuck someone, go to a pleasure hall and pay for it, but stay away from her." Azriel snarled softly.”

There are countless main trio parallels but most of you are aware of which one is my favourite...

“Knelt on those stars and mountains inked on his knees. He would bow for no one and nothing— But his mate. His equal.”

“Her arousal drifted up to him, and his eyes nearly rolled back in his head at the sweet scent. He'd beg on his knees for a chance to taste it.”

"Every instinct in his body came roaring to the surface, so violent he had to choke them with a brutal grip or else he'd find himself on his knees, begging her for touch, for anything."

And on to where they go their separate ways from a textual perspective;

"Elain only shrank further into herself, no trace of that newfound boldness to be seen.”

“Rhys kissed the hollow of my collarbone, and my core went utterly molten. “My brave, bold, brilliant mate.”

“You can give everyone that I Will Slay My Enemies look—which is my favorite look, by the way. You can keep that sharpness I like so much, that boldness and fearlessness. I don’t want you to ever lose those things, to cage yourself.”

“And he had the nerve once his powers were back to shove me into a cage. The nerve to say I was no longer useful; I was to be cloistered for his peace of mind.”

“Remember that you are a wolf. And you cannot be caged.” He kissed my brow one more time, my blood thrumming and boiling in me, howling to draw blood.”

I think finding freedom and power from within is something that the books have emphasized through Feysand and Nessian's journey's. Which is so interesting considering Lucien and Elain are both feeling tied to each other, as if in a cage of sorts.

Elain herself has been stuffed in to a box of other peoples making throughout most of the series, it quite prevalent she might feel caged by their opinions of who she is.

"Maybe she was never given a chance to be that way." I whipped my head towards him. "You think I stifle her?" Rhys held up his hands. "Not you alone."

“Nesta had been right. It was like a prison, this place.” [Graysen's Manor]

“Shall I tend to my little garden forever?” When Nesta flinched, Elain said, “You can’t have it both ways. You cannot resent my decision to lead a small, quiet life while also refusing to let me do anything greater.”

“She ignored me, and saw Elain as barely more than a doll to dress up, but Nesta was hers. Our mother made sure we knew it. Or she just cared so little what we thought or did that she didn’t bother to hide it from us.”

And as for Lucien I think his duty and honour to her is what is caging him;

“I can’t stand to be in the same room as her for more than two minutes. I can’t stand to be in this court and have your mate pay for the very clothes on my back.”

“Why are you here?” Cassian asked, unable to help the sharpness. “Where’s Elain?”

“I am not always in this city to see my mate.” The last two words dripped with discomfort.”

“Why?” Not a flicker of emotion. “He is Elain’s mate.”

I waited. “It would be an invasion of her privacy to track him.”

Godbless Azriel for respecting Elain's privacy.

I think we would see/understand a lot more if we got a chance inside their heads but the one time we did see Lucien's POV we got a good glimpse at how he feels about his situation with Elain and it wasn't particularly positive and reminded me of Rhy's parents.

"She’d seen him not as a High Lord’s seventh son, but as a male. Had loved him without question, without hesitation. She had chosen him. Elain had been … thrown at him.”

“...to remember that she picked it. Picked me. That it’s not like my parents, shoved together.”

Not using the word cage per say but the implication isn't much better.

“You know them better than I do. But I will say that Lucien is loyal—fiercely so.”

“So is Azriel.”

I don't think the debate is really whether Lucien is deserving of her, or even Azriel for that matter, it is a question of who is actually right for her and vice-versa, who has she been consistently written to thrive and smile alongside. And that is Azriel.

Why does Sarah constantly put Azriel in the picture, from day DOT. She was screaming "hey look Azriel is here, and they would work magically together"

“And I think Elain—Elain would like it, too. Though she’d probably cling to Azriel, just to have some peace and quiet.” I smiled at the thought—at how handsome they would be together.”

There are several instances/evens that occur throughout the series that set both Elucien and Elriel's relationships apart, and I think it is highly intentional on Sarah's part...

“I said quietly, “We will get her back.” But Lucien was watching me warily. Too warily.”

“From the shadows near the entrance to the tent, Azriel said, as if in answer to some unspoken debate, “I’m getting her back.” Nesta slid her gaze to the shadowsinger. Azriel’s hazel eyes glowed golden in the shadows. Nesta said, “Then you will die.” Azriel only repeated, rage glazing that stare, “I’m getting her back.”

Or we can look at both Solstice's and the clear differences in how their relationships are growing, and also how well one and other know each other.

“Tell me when you knew,” he demanded, his knee pressing into mine. “That Rhysand was your mate. Tell me when you stopped loving Tamlin and started loving him instead.”

“He left the rest unspoken. Because her mate was here, sleeping a level up. Because her mate had been in the family room and Azriel had needed to stay by the door the whole time because he couldn't stand the sight of it, the scent of their mating bond, and needed to have the option of leaving if it became too much. Elain's large brown eyes flickered, well aware of all that.”

“I want to see her. Just once. Just—to know.” “To know what?” He hitched my damp cloak higher around us. “If she is worth fighting for.”

“Azriel stiffened. “I know. I helped rescue Elain, after all.” Az hadn’t so much as hesitated before going into the heart of Hybern’s war-camp.”

GIFTS REFLECTING THEIR RELATIONSHIP MILE MARKS

“Az ran a hand through his dark hair. “Are we …” Unusual for him to stumble with words. “Are we supposed to get the sisters presents?”

“I handed Elain the small box with her name on it. Her smile faded as she opened it. “Enchanted gloves,” she read from the card. “That won’t tear or become too sweaty while gardening.” She set aside the box without looking at it for longer than a moment. And I wondered if she preferred to have torn and sweaty hands, if the dirt and cuts were proof of her labor. Her joy.”

“Don’t forget that gardening often results in something pretty, but it involves getting one’s hands dirty along the way.” “And torn up by thorns,” I mused,”

“I didn’t dare mention that if she had been wearing the enchanted gloves Lucien had gotten her last Solstice, nothing would have pierced them at all.”

“He and Lucien did not exchange gifts, though the male had brought a gift for Feyre and one for his mate, who barely thanked him after opening the pearl earrings. Cassian’s heart strained at the pain etching deep into Lucien’s face as he tried to hide his disappointment and longing."

Not only is she visibly uninterested which is painful to watch, it also highlights how little he knows about her. SJM is creating a visible gap in their dynamic.

“The golden necklace seemed ordinary -- its chain unremarkable, the amulet tiny enough that it could be dismissed as an everyday charm. It was a small, flat rose fashioned of stained glass, designed so that when held to the light, the true depth of the colors would become visible. A thing of secret, lovely beauty. “It's beautiful," she whispered, lifting it from the box. ”

“My Nesta. Elain shall wed for love and beauty, but you, my cunning little queen … You shall wed for conquest.”

“I painted flowers for Elain on her drawer,” I said, sawing and sawing. “Little roses and begonias and irises. And for Nesta … ”

“She plucked another figurine from the mantel: a rose carved from a dark sort of wood. She held it in her palm, its solid weight surprising, and traced a finger over one of the petals. “He made this one for Elain. Since it was winter and she missed the flowers.”

“Elain bit her lip and then smiled sheepishly. “It’s for the headaches everyone always gives you. Since you rub your temples so often.”

“I led her into the sitting room, where Cassian had a bottle of amber-colored liquor in each hand, Azriel was already rubbing his temples,”

“She hadn't bought her mate a present. But she'd gotten Azriel one last year -- a headache powder he kept on his nightstand at the House of Wind. Not to use, but just to look at. Which he'd done every night he’d slept there.”

“Azriel unwrapped the box, glancing at the card that merely said, You might find these useful at the House these days, and then opened the lid. Two small, bean-shaped fabric blobs lay within. Elain murmured, "You put them in your ears, and they block any sound. With Nesta and Cassian living there with you...”

See yet again a very thoughtful and funny gift on her part. Now at it's core even just simply comparing their general reactions says a lot about the story Sarah is putting forward.

"Silence again. Then Azriel tipped his head back and laughed. I’d never heard such a sound, deep and joyous.”

“He chuckled, unable to suppress the impulse. "No wonder you didn't want me to open it in front of everyone."

Elain’s mouth twitched into a smile. "Nesta wouldn't appreciate the joke.”

“Elain bit her lip and then smiled sheepishly."

"Cassian’s heart strained at the pain etching deep into Lucien’s face as he tried to hide his disappointment and longing."

“She hadn't bought her mate a present. "

The writing is nothing if not clear about the discomfort both Lucien and Elain feel in regards to each other, though they lay under different reasons.

We are given multiple incidents in which we are told about how mating bonds are not perfect and we are given clear examples of it repeatedly, about woman enduring out of obligation, and do not forget this is heavily discussed literally in regards to Elain and her circumstances.

“She’d been revealed as his mate, and endured the miserable union mostly from gratitude for her unharmed wings.”

“You said your mother and father were wrong for each other; Tamlin said his own parents were wrong for each other.” I peeled off my dressing robe. “So it can’t be a perfect system of matching. "

“She glowed with good health. Except … Her brown eyes were wary. Usually, that look was reserved for Lucien. The male was definitely in the family room,”

“Elain had already departed with Feyre, claiming she had to be up with the dawn to tend to an elderly faerie’s garden. Cassian didn’t exactly know why he suspected this wasn’t true. There had been some tightness in Elain’s face as she’d said it. Normally when she made such excuses, Lucien was around,”

“Elain, the wretch, had taken the seat between Feyre and Varian, about as far from Lucien as she could get.”

“That smile grew, bright enough that it lit up even Azriel’s shadows across the room. “I would like to build a garden,” she declared. “After all of this … I think the world needs more gardens.”

“Then his gaze shifted to Elain, and though it was utterly neutral, something charged went through it. Between them. Elain’s breath caught slightly, and she gave him a shallow nod of greeting before brushing past, leading Nesta into the room.”

What if ”—I jerked my chin toward the window, to my sister and the shadowsinger in the garden—“that is what she needs? Is there no free will? What if Lucien wishes the union but she doesn’t?”

“Can you truly fly?” He set down his fork, blinking. I might have even called him self-conscious. He said, “Yes. Cassian and I hail from a race of faeries called Illyrians. We’re born hearing the song of the wind.” “That’s very beautiful,” she said. “Is it not—frightening, though? To fly so high?”

“ I couldn’t tell if she was looking at his blue Siphon or at his scarred skin beneath as she breathed, “Beautiful.” Color bloomed high on Azriel’s golden-brown cheeks, but he inclined his head in thanks and led my sister toward the back doors into the garden, sunlight bathing them.”

“This is Truth-Teller,” he told her softly. “I won’t be using it today—so I want you to.”

“Never, Rhys said from where he finished buckling on his own weapons against the side of the wagon. I have never once seen Azriel let another person touch that knife.”

The romantic subtext is there and has been for quite some time, they prove it book after book when SJM continues to grow their bond and nurture it whilst breaking her connection with Lucien further apart, and for what reason?

“A mating bond can be rejected,” Rhys said mildly, eyes flickering in the mirror as he drank in every inch of bare skin I had on display. “There is choice. And sometimes, yes—the bond picks poorly. Sometimes, the bond is nothing more than some… preordained guesswork at who will provide the strongest offspring. At its basest level, it’s perhaps only that. Some natural function, not an indication of true, paired souls.”

“Why not make them mates?” I mused. “Why Lucien?” [...]

“I’m serious.” I turned toward him and crossed my arms. “What decides it? Who decides it?” Rhys straightened his lapels before plucking an invisible piece of lint from them. “Fate, the Mother, the Cauldron’s swirling eddies …”

“What if the Cauldron was wrong?”

“Just this taste in the dead of the longest night of the year, where only the Mother might witness them.”

“The Cauldron chose three sisters. Tell me how it's possible that my two brothers are with two of those sisters, yet the third was given to another.”

It is remarkably interesting to me that we are told about what Rhys suspects/believes is responsible for mating bonds, paralleled alongside Azriel questioning it all, I also think it is abundantly clear from his answer to Feyre he doesn't truly know for sure.

We also have several lines of dialogue talking about the sisters and fate, their reason for entering the IC's life. Not only that but we get a glimpse at Azriel's personality and how despite the world (Rhys and the mating bond in general) telling him to despair, he still found it in him to have hope the Cauldron could be wrong.

This is so significant, and she has carefully woven his character throughout the series to make this incredibly plausible.

“If I had not met a shadowsinger, I would not have known that it is the family you make, not the one you are born into, that matters. I would not have known what it is to truly hope, even when the world tells you to despair.”

“And then he said to my sisters, “We have not known each other for long. But I have to believe that you were brought here, into our family, for a reason, too. And maybe today we’ll find out why.”

“All three sisters blessed by fate and gifted with powers to match your own.”

“Even after the bond is rejected, they see her as belonging to them. Sometimes they return to challenge the male she chooses for herself. Sometimes it ends in death. It is savage, and it is ugly, and it mercifully does not happen often, but …”

“Oh, I can, and I will. If Lucien finds out you're pursuing her, he has every right to defend their bond as he sees fit. Including invoking the Blood Duel.”

As you can see even back in ACOWAR she was weaving the web for Elriel's journey and an upcoming Blood Duel/The threat of one.

“Many mated pairs will try to make it work, believing the Cauldron selected them for a reason. Only years later will they realize that perhaps the pairing was not ideal in spirit.”

I think it is pretty clear from all the quotes above that Lucien is no her ideal spirit and vice-versa to be frank when you put it side by side his budding relationship with Vassa or hers with Azriel they are clearly very different.

“On the continent, there are territories that believe the females literally belong to their mate. But not here. Elain would have our full protection if she rejects the bond.”

“Azriel's hand slid up her neck, burying in her thick hair. Tilting her face the way he wanted it. Elain's mouth parted slightly, her eyes scanning his before fluttering shut. Offer and permission. He nearly groaned with relief and need as he lowered his head toward hers. ”

Elain is choosing Azriel, choosing their bond over the one assigned to her time and time again... Back to mating bonds;

“The ancient healer jerked her chin toward Lucien. “See what he can do. If anyone can sense if something is amiss, it’s a mate.”

“The mating bond. It is a bridge between souls.”

"She pointed at Lucien as she saw herself out. “Try sitting down with her. Just talking—sensing. See what you pick up. But don’t push.”

“Can you hear mine?” He wasn’t sure if she truly meant to address him, but he said, “No, lady. I cannot.”

Her too-thin shoulders seemed to curve inward. “No one ever does. No one ever looked—not really.”

"Azriel’s hazel eyes churned as he studied my sister, her too-thin body. And without a word, he winnowed away. Mor watched the space where he’d been standing long after he was gone.”

“Should we—does she need …?” “She doesn’t need anything,” Azriel answered without so much as looking at Lucien.

Elain was staring at the spymaster now—unblinkingly. “We’re the ones who need …” Azriel trailed off. “A seer,” he said, more to himself than us. “The Cauldron made you a seer.”

“It made sense, I supposed, that Azriel alone had listened to her. The male who heard things others could not … Perhaps he, too, had suffered as Elain had before he understood what gift he possessed.”

“But Azriel nodded. “You knew,” he said to Elain. “About the young queen turning into a crone.” Elain blinked and blinked, eyes clearing again. As if the understanding, our understanding … it freed her from whatever murky realm she’d been in.”

Are you telling me that Madja saying a mate would know, would sense whatever is going on with her, and as it turns out Azriel was the one to sense and uncover it is solely what, a coincidence? Also to emphasize what she said about "A bridge between souls..." Where else have we heard that terminology? The Truth-Teller scene.

“I saw the painting in my mind: the lovely fawn, blooming spring vibrant behind her. Standing before Death, shadows and terrors lurking over his shoulder. Light and dark, the space between their bodies a blend of the two. The only bridge of connection … that knife.”

Not to mention this scene is simply iconic for a multitude of reasons, how poetic Feyre describes them, the clear soulmates/ying-yang subtext and him giving her something he has given no other but that's another story.

Azriel has also been displaying some very protective fiercely so mating vibes towards her,

“Azriel stilled. “What happened to Elain?” Cassian waved a hand. “A fight with Nesta. Don’t bring it up,” he warned when Azriel’s eyes darkened. ”

“Cassian surveyed the shadows gathered around Az. “You all right?” His brother nodded. “Fine.” But shadows still swarmed him.”

“Nesta saw the blow land, like a physical impact, in Elain’s face, her posture. No one spoke, though shadows gathered in the corners of the room, like snakes preparing to strike.”

“Azriel’s Siphons guttered, the stones turning as dark and foreboding as the deepest sea. “Where did Lucien go.”

I think there are some mixed opinions on Lucien and whether he deserves her (and vice-versa in this fandom) but I don't think that is what this comes down too, they are both handling it in the way they think best/following their instincts.

Lucien is hurting throughout this process as well, but I think ultimately it is honor and loyalty binding him to her not any genuine emotion for her as a human being fae. I think realising they are not meant for each other and supporting each other developing true bonds with other people will be their journey. And it would be a completely fresh and new view of a mating bond.

Smaller pieces of dialogue that need little explaining and a rather oddly specific choice of words in the latest book that is meant to set up the next one in the series:

“You’d know if she’d died,” Azriel said, pausing his work and looking up at Cassian. He tapped his brother’s chest with a scarred hand. “Right here—you’d know, Cass.”

“Elain and Feyre—that was the new status of things. The bond Elain had chosen.”

"I'd never do such a thing. you must be thinking of your other mate."

Honestly? At this rate I have no doubt Elriel are endgame and everything within canon text spells that out but I truly believe he will be her second mate/the will form a bond via some circumstance that shall arise due to these little hints.

I would love to hear your thoughts and/or additions because I by all means didn't do a massive deep dive and there are most likely tons more examples to add but I didn't want it to become overwhelming to read!

Hope everyone has a spectacular and magical evening <3

#elriel #elain archeron #azriel #elain x azriel #azriel x elain #acotar #acosf #acowar #acomaf #a court of thorns and roses #elriel mates #elriel theories #elriel metas #anti elucien #tb safe and all that #dont want it falling in the wrong tag #c

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ladylynse · 4 years ago

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Dimensional Displacement [FFN | AO3]: Danny has a love-hate relationship with the Fenton Booo-merang. This time, it didn’t do him any favours. This time, it knocked him through a portal—and from what he can glean from the Water Tribe siblings he meets, odds are, there’s a reason for that.

-|-

For @geronimo-alonzi as a thank you for donating to my ko-fi. (Yes, they won my fic giveaway, but I finished this one first.) Loosely based on this three sentence fic.

-|-

Danny had been clobbered in the head by the Fenton Booo-merang more often than he’d like to admit, let alone count, but this was the first time it had knocked him through a portal.

That wouldn’t have been a particularly bad thing if the portal hadn’t immediately closed behind him.

One minute, he’d been minding his own business in the Ghost Zone, coming back from a visit with Frostbite that Jazz must have forgotten about if she’d sent the Booo-merang after him. (Sam was stuck with her parents at some fancy dinner party thing somewhere and Tucker was working on designing a computer game for his comp sci assignment, a class neither Sam nor Danny was in, so it had to have been Jazz.)

The next minute, Danny was…. He didn’t even know where he was. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere. He’d caught the Booo-merang before either he or it had hit the ground, but once he’d righted himself to look around, there was no familiar skyline or something equally useful to him. There were only trees and rocks and dirt roads as far as the eye could see, even from a considerable distance up in the air.

Well.

That wasn’t quite fair. He could see a silver river cutting through the trees in a path roughly parallel to the road, but in terms of helpful things, he was coming up empty.

He didn’t even know which direction he’d need to fly to get to a city. It was too light out to see any distant glow of city lights against the scattered clouds, and all he could smell when he breathed in was fresh air and pine needles and something else—moss? The general mix that was pretty much mulch on the forest floor?—that was decidedly natural, not the signs of human activity he’d been hoping for. Sure, following the road or even the river would get him somewhere sooner or later, but what was he supposed to do, pick a random direction or go eenie meenie minie moe?

Danny did another loop above the trees, looking for some sign of anything, and came up with nothing.

“Come on!” Danny yelled at the patch of blue sky where the portal had closed. He spun in a circle, the Booo-merang clutched tightly in his fist, but it didn’t pull in any direction, and he didn’t catch so much as a glimmer of the familiar green of the Ghost Zone. “Just open up again already!” It was as effective as he’d expected it to be, which was not at all, but screaming out his frustrations made him feel a bit better. “Now! Please?”

Unsurprisingly, the portal didn’t listen.

Out of appealing options, Danny threw the Booo-merang. Logically, he knew it wasn’t the Infi-Map. Logically, he knew that the universe did not often do what was convenient for him, even if he sometimes got incredibly lucky in a fight. Logically, he knew that the chances of the Booo-merang deciding to reprogram itself to find portals just because it had done it this one time (likely coincidentally) were slim to none.

Illogically, he didn’t expect the stupid thing to circle around and hit him in the back of the head again.

Danny cursed and landed to retrieve the fallen Booo-mang from the roadway, muttering under his breath about how much he’d like to just dismantle the thing and hide the pieces. He wouldn’t, of course. It worked too well to risk Sam, Tucker, and Jazz losing the ability to find him if they really needed to. It had been dicey enough the few times his parents had decided to try to ‘fix’ it, only for disaster (Vlad) to strike in the meantime.

That didn’t mean Danny couldn’t fantasize about bashing it against a rock, though. There were plenty of those around.

“That’s a weird looking boomerang,” someone said from behind him, and Danny nearly jumped into the air right there.

He didn’t, mostly because he was getting used to Sam and Tucker trying to surprise him, but it was a near thing.

He wasn’t used to people sneaking up on him. His ghost sense was reliable, Dash made more noise walking around than even Jack Fenton, and, well, most of the people who hunted him couldn’t be subtle if they tried, especially since a good chunk of them liked hearing their own voice. He’d only ever really had to worry about Jazz, and self-preservation in the face of tickle attacks had given him the ability to be extra sensitive to her presence whenever she was in a certain mood.

The two who’d caught him by surprise now must have come from the trees on the other side of the road, and he hoped that meant they hadn’t seen him do anything particularly ghostly. Granted, neither of them was screaming, so he should be safe. They didn’t look terrified, either. Wary, maybe, but not scared.

Danny guessed that they were both somewhere around his age. Siblings, by the looks of them, but probably not twins even if they’d both decided to leave the house wearing oddly styled blue clothes today, at least compared to the usual jeans and T-shirt combo Danny was used to seeing. Unless he wasn’t anywhere near the States anymore? Or unless he’d been flung through to a different time. But the boy had spoken English, and it hadn’t sounded funny to Danny’s ears, no lilt of a foreign accent or strange phrasing that he associated with Shakespeare or something.

The girl was his height, the boy a bit taller, and they were both staring at him.

They probably thought he was the one who was dressed strangely.

The boy pointed. “Your boomerang,” he repeated. “It looks weird.”

The girl elbowed him in the gut—none too gently, judging by his immediate wheeze—and hissed, “Sokka!”

Yeah, those two were definitely siblings. And even if the girl wasn’t older, she definitely had the annoying (and annoyed) sister tone down pat. Danny had heard (and been on the receiving end of) the same from similar exchanges with Jazz more than once.

“Sokka’s going to apologize, right, Sokka?”

The boy frowned and then threw up his hands. “Right. I apologize for saying your boomerang looks weird. It looks interesting.”

The girl stepped on his foot, and he yelped. “What was that for?”

“You know what that was for!”

“It’s fine,” Danny said. He still wasn’t entirely sure what was going on. Maybe the portal had dumped him out in the middle of some historical re-enactment thing. Granted, there should really be more people around if that were the case—or at least hidden cameras. He was better at spotting them now. Vlad and his creepy spy tendencies aside, Danny had gotten good at noticing (and avoiding) cameras so he didn’t let his secret get caught on tape. (There were a surprising number of places in Amity Park not under video surveillance, or at least not under real video surveillance even if they had fake cameras out; he could practically transform in the middle of the street sometimes.)

Still, nothing about this felt staged. It didn’t even feel like one of his enemy’s tricks, some giant setup that was meant to trap him or whatever. That’s not to say Danny was wholly convinced this meeting, whatever it was, was merely chance—he didn’t particularly trust Clockwork not to arrange things as he saw fit without warning anyone—but it didn’t feel overly contrived, either. There was just….

Something felt off, and he couldn’t explain what it was.

“It’s fine,” Danny repeated, since the two were looking at him dubiously, but the familiar phrase felt strange on his tongue, almost like—

Wait.

“Okay, this is going to sound like a weird question, but where are we?”

The boy, Sokka, blinked. “Did you hit your head or something? We’re in the Earth Kingdom. Or, wait, do you mean where in the Earth Kingdom? Look, if you need new supplies, there’s not much in the last few villages, but we’re about a day from—”

The girl elbowed him again, and he fell silent. Danny could see the growing suspicion on her face for what it was, could see suspicion settling on the boy’s face as well, but he wasn’t sure if it was because he’d asked the wrong question or because he’d asked something at all. He’d been paying attention this time, watching Sokka’s lips, and Danny didn’t have to be a good lip reader to know that he hadn’t been saying the words Danny had heard.

Well.

More accurately, he hadn’t been saying them in English.

And Danny, in answering, had somehow not been speaking English.

That was not, as far as Danny was aware, something Clockwork could do to him.

He didn’t know a ghost who had power over language, though, unless the Ghostwriter had something else up his sleeve and this mess was it. Nocturne would be able to pull anything in a dream, but Danny couldn’t see why he’d bother including something that would be an obvious tell like this, so it shouldn’t be him even if he had decided to come back. More likely, it was someone he hadn’t fought before, someone who had targeted him, seen an opportunity when the Booo-merang had hit him and seized upon it to throw him…here.

Wherever here was.

The Earth Kingdom, apparently.

“Um.” The girl still looked like she expected him to start fighting, and her stance…. Danny didn’t recognize it, but he did know that she looked ready to move at any moment. Her brother had taken her cue and, while Danny hadn’t been paying attention, pulled out a boomerang of his own. That couldn’t be good. “Look. I know how this sounds.” How he sounded, more like. If he had some accent he couldn’t hear because he wasn’t speaking their language properly, whatever it was, this had to be a setup after all.

Someone had sent him here to be dealt with. By this world, this dimension or construct or whatever it was, if not necessarily by these two people.

Granted, Danny wasn’t sure why someone would go to the trouble of letting him understand and be understood in the first place if that were the case, since he could get in just as much trouble without speaking the native language.

Surely he wasn’t actually supposed to help someone here, right? This wasn’t even his world. Or the Ghost Zone. Whatever was going on here was most definitely not his business.

Except now he was in the middle of it, so if there was something going on, it would be beneficial to find out what it was sooner rather than later.

This wasn’t some Jumanji kind of thing where he’d been tossed into a game and had to do whatever it was to get out again, was it? It didn’t feel like the time he’d gone into Doomed, but that had been intentional, and this….

Okay, no, he didn’t have enough information to speculate, which meant he needed to get some information out of these two in order to get somewhere. “I just…. I was kidnapped and dumped here for some reason, and I’m trying to find my way home.” That was close enough to the truth that it shouldn’t raise any red flags. Hopefully. “My name is Danny.” Introducing himself as Phantom, even in ghost mode, wasn’t something he wanted to do when he had no idea how these people felt about ghosts. Besides, it wasn’t like they’d ever see him as Fenton. He just needed to stick to the ground and pretend to be a normal human being, which he could most definitely do—at least when the sun was bright enough that his slight glow was basically nonexistent. He doubted it would be terribly noticeable even under the cover of trees.

“Danny,” the girl repeated, not relaxing her stance. “That’s an unusual name.”

Sokka just cocked his head at Danny. “Why would anyone kidnap you?”

It was spoken like it was an innocent, thoughtless question, something that could be brushed away with a laugh, but Danny could read an underlying tension in each of their faces. Sokka was waiting on his answer, and so was his sister. Danny’s response might very well determine what happened next.

Consequently, Danny didn’t miss the fact that Sokka didn’t offer up any potential explanations that he could jump on.

Another lie wasn’t going to do him any favours, not when he knew so little. “I don’t know.” He could guess, but he didn’t know. From the looks of it, though, these two wouldn’t be satisfied with that. Chances were good they wouldn’t be particularly satisfied with his suspicions, either, which was that someone wanted him out of the way for whatever they were planning—or maybe that someone had decided they wanted to have a little fun with him at his expense, if world domination wasn’t on the table. “My parents are inventors. Maybe that’s why?”

“That doesn’t explain why whoever took you would leave you here,” Sokka pointed out, and Danny wished these two weren’t so smart. “If you were taken because you were valuable, you wouldn’t have been left behind unguarded.”

“So maybe they kidnapped the wrong person and realized that I wasn’t who they wanted?”

Sokka exchanged glances with his sister before murmuring, “We can ask Toph. I mean, it’s possible they found us, but if he is really a Fire Nation plant picked solely for his eye colour, they’d have at least dyed his hair and given him some normal clothes.”

Danny decided not to ask who the heck picked people for something based on eye colour and not skill or merit or experience or something normal like that. Aside from derailing the conversation from anything potentially useful, Danny was pretty sure Sokka hadn’t realized he’d been overheard, and it wouldn’t be in Danny’s best interests to let them know how good his hearing was.

Still, he took the opportunity to tuck away the Booo-merang before they could ask any questions about it that he wasn’t up to answering. Maybe it would make him seem like less of a threat if they didn’t think he was ready to use it as a weapon—not that he knew how to use a boomerang as a weapon, but he was pretty sure Sokka hadn’t pulled his out to see which of them could throw it farther or throw it properly—and maybe then they’d trust him enough to answer his questions. Hopefully. He was perfectly willing to meet this Toph if it meant figuring out where he was and how to get home, especially since it would be easy enough for him to cut and run later.

The movement was enough to draw the attention of the siblings, though, and both pairs of eyebrows rose. Had they not expected him to make what he hoped would be taken as a gesture of trust or were they wondering how the heck he’d gotten it into his pocket? Maybe they thought he was trying to hide it, which wouldn’t help matters at all. Then again, if they thought that he thought it had been a subtle move, then maybe—

No.

He had to stop doing this. He didn’t know enough about these two to try to guess their thoughts, let alone what actions they might take against him.

Danny shifted on his feet, glad they hadn’t jumped to attacking and that they weren’t even asking questions about the Booo-merang, since practically anything about it would be difficult to answer. At least they hadn’t seen him flying. Even for people familiar with ghosts, unknown ones tended to be cause for concern until their threat level was assessed, and Danny didn’t want to invite trouble and immediately find out what this world had that messed with ghosts. Sure, he wanted to know what could hurt him here, but finding out while it wasn’t actively being used against him was infinitely preferable.

“Where did you say you were from?” the girl asked after a beat, even though they all knew he’d never said anything about that.

“Nowhere you would know,” he hedged, which was true enough.

“We travel a lot,” the girl said, and her brother snorted.

“What Katara means is, try us. If we can help you get back to your family, what do you have to lose?” Sokka offered Danny a grin, and his stance had visibly relaxed, even if he hadn’t put his boomerang away. It might be just for show, especially since he still had a weapon out, but at least the girl hadn’t drawn any knives or something like that. “Look, from one guy to another, you don’t need to make up some crazy story if you’re a runaway or something like that. We’re basically runaways.”

“We’re running towards something, not away from it.”

“We were almost runaways.” To Danny, Sokka added, “Gran caught us, but she let us go.”

Katara rolled her eyes, and Danny looked between the two of them as Sokka continued talking. It was obvious that they’d changed tack for some reason, no doubt trying to get him to trust them, but the blatant switch made him uneasy. Did they not realize how obvious that was or was this just their usual dynamic?

“I’m from Amity,” Danny eventually interrupted. He knew from the way that they were looking at him that neither of them had forgotten he had yet to answer the question. He’d already told them they wouldn’t know the place, so technically he could’ve said Amity Park, but for all he knew, these two had been sent to get information out of him, and the less he told a potential enemy, the better.

Come to think of it, maybe he shouldn’t have told them his real name, and maybe he should’ve just made up a village name rather than dropping heavy hints about his hometown.

“Which is near—?”

Danny ignored Sokka’s prompt. He didn’t even have a good enough idea of the geography of this place to make that up, especially when there was a chance they knew the area, runaways or no. “Do you know where I could get some water? I haven’t found any since I woke up.” That wasn’t true, but they wouldn’t know that unless they were getting some more intel about him from someone unseen.

The siblings looked at each other again, and then Katara faced him and said, “We’re headed to the river. Come with us. You can get your water, and we can share our catch if we get anything.”

“Wait, I didn’t agree to share my meat!” Sokka exclaimed. Katara’s only answer was a dirty look, but it was enough to have Sokka subsiding into grumbles.

“I’m not hungry yet,” Danny said, which also strictly wasn’t true, but he knew he didn’t need to eat much.

“You might be hungry by the time we’re finished,” Katara said over Sokka’s griping.

Danny hesitated, trying to figure out how weird it would be if he made up some excuse not to go with them. What were the chances that this was a trap when he’d brought up the river—or at least water—before they had? It wasn’t that he thought they’d be able to take him out if it came to that, even if Jazz had more experience fighting normally than he did, since he typically relied a lot on his powers when he could.

These two might be better fighters than him—there were almost certainly better hunters, given how silently they could walk—but he’d always have something like intangibility in his back pocket if it came to it, and they wouldn’t. Still, when it came down to it, he wasn’t used to fighting humans. What if he didn’t pull his punches enough and seriously hurt one of them?

“You can tell us about Amity,” Katara added. “We’ve never been there.”

Danny really hoped that was true and that there wasn’t a place in this world called Amity that they knew well. Still, when they started walking, spreading out so he was always in sight and they never had their backs to him, even when they hit the trees on the other side of the road, he kept pace with them. “It’s pretty much like you’d expect.” Except for the ghosts. At least his ghost sense hadn’t gone off here. Yet. “This is probably the farthest I’ve ever travelled from home.” He couldn’t get much farther away than a completely different dimension that (probably) wasn’t as connected to his world as it was to the Ghost Zone, anyway—unless he counted when he’d time travelled, but he wasn’t about to bring that up.

Katara opened her mouth to ask another question, maybe to press him for details, so Danny cut her off. “What about you two?”

They looked at each other again. How many times were they going to do that? Hadn’t they already decided how far to trust him? Danny knew it wasn’t very far, but they’d clearly decided he wasn’t going to straight up attack them at this precise moment, so even if they didn’t tell him the whole truth—

Sokka gestured at their clothes. “We’re Water Tribe.”

He said it like it was obvious, like Danny should’ve known already, but of course it explained absolutely nothing.

“Southern Water Tribe,” Katara added unhelpfully, despite Sokka’s frown. “We wanted to see the world, and now we are.”

As cover stories went, it was better than Danny’s. Barely. “Right,” he said, wondering again why he’d been dumped in the path of these two. “It’s a nice world to see.”

Somehow, that was the wrong thing to say, because they were both looking at him like they’d expected him to say anything but that. “What?”

“There’s a war on, you’re supposedly kidnapped and dropped off somewhere in occupied territory without any of the proper paperwork, and the best you can come up with is it’s a nice world to see?” Sokka turned his incredulous look from Danny to Katara. “He cannot be Fire Nation. This kid is more sheltered than Toph was supposed to be.”

Danny, who had stumbled at the word war, kept walking and hoped they hadn’t noticed. If they had, maybe they’d think he’d tripped over a tree root or fallen branch or hole or something. They weren’t following a trail, so that was a perfectly reasonable explanation, right?

“It’s all right,” Katara said as she reached out to touch his arm, and, okay, from that gentle tone, which was a complete change from anything earlier, it must mean she had noticed, knew he hadn’t tripped over anything in the terrain, and—from how she was looking at him now—thought it wasn’t surprise that had tripped Danny up, either. “Trust me, I know what it’s like to be a little naïve until you have a chance to leave home for the first time, but unless you’re got a camp around here, you’re not prepared at all.”

Sokka finally put his boomerang away and smirked at Danny. “We at least left home with supplies.”

“Did you have to run without any warning?” Katara asked, giving her brother a pointed look.

“Oh, uh, kinda.” Danny winced, knowing that had to sound like a lie. “I…I didn’t really plan on leaving when I did. This just…happened.”

Sokka raised an eyebrow, but Katara said, “You don’t have to worry. We’re the last people who would turn you in to the Fire Nation.”

Right. So the Fire Nation were the bad guys, at least according to the Water Tribe and, if he was putting things together correctly, the Earth Kingdom, where they were. Meaning the Fire Nation had invaded the Earth Kingdom if this was occupied territory. Danny thought about asking why these two had come into occupied territory themselves and then decided he didn’t want to risk getting into a discussion that would show off how little he knew. If they had decided he was a runaway who knew practically nothing about the world, well, that worked in his favour.

“Thanks.” Danny wasn’t sure what else to say. “Why are you helping me, though? Won’t that put you in danger?” That had to be a fair question in this situation.

“We can’t help everyone,” Katara said quietly, “but we can help some people, even if it’s just a tiny bit. Sometimes, that has to be enough.”

Danny really didn’t know what to say to that, because she certainly wouldn’t understand if he said he knew the feeling, so he smiled weakly in thanks and let the conversation drop.

They were still watching him, but they were more subtle about it now, and it didn’t look like they were watching him more closely than they were watching everything else.

Being downgraded from a threat was a win, though. Danny hoped he didn’t do anything to mess it up.

“There’s no shame in being a refugee,” Sokka said after a moment. “Being from a richer family might’ve bought you an isolated childhood, but it wouldn’t guarantee your safety.”

“We won’t try to hold you for ransom if you tell us where you’re really from,” added Katara.

Danny glanced at her. “I said I was from Amity.”

“I could say I have a platypus bear as a pet,” Sokka interjected. “That doesn’t make it true.”

“We know what it’s like, thinking you understand the way things are and then realizing how little you know,” Katara said quietly. “It can be overwhelming.”

“And it would explain why you’re in your nightclothes,” Sokka said. He’d come in range of Katara’s fist, but he danced out of the way as she swung in his direction. He hadn’t even needed to look at her to know it was coming. “You didn’t know enough to keep your valuables hidden and got robbed your first night on your own, didn’t you?”

“I—” Danny knew it was an excuse for his ignorance being handed to him on a silver platter, but he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep up with a lie like that when he knew so little. “These aren’t my pajamas,” he said instead. Let them believe what they wanted to believe; that would make his life easier. Even if it blew up in his face somehow, he could truthfully say he’d never said they were right.

They might be suspicious that he hadn’t outright denied it, but then again, he’d already told them something a lot closer to the truth.

“Uh huh.” Sokka glanced at Katara again, and she gave a slight shake her head that Danny didn’t understand.

“Let’s get you some food and water first,” Katara said. “Then we can see about finding you other supplies.”

Danny decided not to point out that they’d already told him it was slim pickings for supplies around here. Not that he had the money to pay for anything, but Sokka had already guessed that. Besides, they thought he was running around in his pjs.

Judging by the sour look on Sokka’s face, he’d evidently translated his sister’s words to mean that she wanted to give him some of their supplies, something Sokka clearly wasn’t sure he approved of.

Katara must have had similar thoughts on Sokka’s expression, since she murmured, “It’s this or bring him with us, and you know what’s safer.”

Katara might not have minded that Danny could overhear her last words, but Sokka closed the distance between them, pulling his sister farther away from Danny before hissing, “It’s not the only option, and you know it. We can’t afford to give away any of our supplies, and just because Toph can make sure he’s not coming in with the intention of stabbing us in the back, doesn’t mean he wouldn’t blab to anyone once he figures out who we’re travelling with. You know as well as I do that that wouldn’t take very long.”

“He’s just kid.”

“Technically, like Aang keeps reminding us, we’re just kids. Who very much cannot afford to so much as drop him off in the next village. Show him the river and teach him how to catch and cook his meals? Fine. Picking him up as a stray when he’s not bringing anything to the table? Not fine.”

“He’s lost.”

“So? He’s not hurt. He’s already in a better position than some refugees. He’ll survive until he can walk to the nearest settlement. Then he can try to get help from people who can actually give it.”

Katara bit her lip and slowed to a stop. “There’s something else.”

“What?”

Danny very much wanted to know the answer to that—what had Katara figured out?—but he tried not to react so they didn’t know he’d been listening in. He deliberately turned away and stared around the trees instead, a mix of deciduous and evergreen. He couldn’t pick out any specific types of trees—nothing distinctive like oak leaves that he could see—and, as far as he could tell, the woods were utterly devoid of critters. He had no idea if that was because this world wasn’t real or if it was simply because all the animals in the region had had warning of their coming and hidden accordingly.

Danny knew his disinterest wouldn’t be very convincing, but if he was lucky, they’d think he’d given up on trying to eavesdrop.

“There’s something…off about him. Not necessarily something wrong, but something different. I can’t…. When he asked about water, I wanted to make sure he wasn’t hiding any on him or nearby in case it was a trap, and— He didn’t feel the same as you or me. I can’t explain it. Toph might have a better idea than I do. Or…or Aang.” The last word was a barely audible whisper.

“You think this might be a spirit thing?” Sokka’s response was closer to a suppressed shriek than anything else, and Danny winced.

“I think he might be spirit touched,” Katara answered, and Sokka’s sharp inhalation was painfully audible. “I wasn’t good enough back then to notice anything about Yue, but—”

“Fine.” Sokka’s voice had gone flat. “I don’t want to shun someone and accidentally anger the spirits. I’ll teach him to fish. You go back and interrupt advanced earthbending practice and pick a meeting place, but make sure everyone’s packed in case this doesn’t go the way you think it’ll go.”

“I know to be careful.”

“We all know to be careful. Some of us just need more reminding than others.”

Katara didn’t say anything else, but she must have nodded or done something similar because Danny heard Sokka stalk back over to him. “Katara’s going back to talk to the rest of our group about what we might be able to spare,” he said as Danny turned back to face him, “and I’ll show you how to fish in the meantime. If you don’t catch anything, I’ll give you one of mine.”

Danny wasn’t about to admit that he’d overheard their entire conversation, so he smiled and said, “That sounds great, thanks.” It didn’t stop the uneasiness from settling in his gut, though. Sure, now he knew these people believed in ghosts, and Sokka’s response made it clear he didn’t want to get on their bad side, but Danny had no idea what being spirit touched meant. He didn’t know if that was seen as a good thing or a bad thing.

More to the point, if it was a bad thing, he didn’t know if these people had something suitable with which to attack spirit touched people, since if they did, chances were good that it would work on him.

He was not lucky enough to get a free pass here.

Still, the odds were good that he’d be able to escape if they did attack since he’d know to be on watch for something, and he wasn’t about to turn down an offer of food. He had no idea when a portal would open and he’d be able to go home. Until then, the best he could do was survive.

He’d survived this much, and his life had hardly been a walk in the park since the accident, let alone before. He wasn’t about to let some ghost fling him into an unknown world and succeed in taking him down. He needed to get out of this to kick their butt and prove to them that they couldn’t get rid of him that easily.

Assuming this wasn’t all a series of genuine coincidences and not the result of the careful manipulation of events.

Danny didn’t want to think about that, though.

He had a much better chance of getting home if there was someone he could beat, and he was going to get home.

Somehow.

(see more fics)

#danny phantom #atla #avatar the last airbender #danny fenton #sokka #katara #crossover #fanfiction #dp fanfiction #atla fanfiction #my writing #ladylynse #snippets #crossover snippet #geronimo-alonzi

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saintbobbynash · 4 years ago

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Okay but I am not over how Buck was so clearly framed as the "person who had to watch their love almost die right in front him but now has to take the full responsibility of taking care of their son and continue to work all while being a complete and emotional wreck".

Like when Buck had "the hardest job" - Chimney perfectly put it- and went to tell Christopher about Eddie and was trying to reign in his emotional turmoil, once he saw that Eddie had made it through surgery he just could not keep it in anymore. He completely broke down and CHRISTOPHER was the one to comfort BUCK before they both comfort each other. Which I always go absolutely feral about bc even though Buck wears his emotions on his sleeves we all know how he tends to put others first. We saw how he was trying to reign in his own grief so he could be there for Christopher. Because being there for Christopher was the most important thing in Buck's eyes, his own emotions be damned. An yet once that he saw that Eddie survived surgery and was going to be okay, he could not control it anymore.

And then we see him staying at the Diaz house and taking care of Christopher. However, Chris is the one who has to wake up Buck to school. That lil moment reminds me so much of a scene in Practical Magic where Sandra Bullock's character, Sally, is grieving the death of her husband and her daughter tries to wake her up to take her to school while Sally is numb just completely overtaken by her grief. We see Buck be the same way. And even though he does get up and takes care of Christopher and goes to work, we see how not okay he is. so much so that he wants get shot by the sniper as well

Which leads me the integral scene with Buck and Bobby. We all talk about the BLATANT parallels between Buddie and Bathena that this episode beautifully showed, but I gotta talk about it again. Right when Eddie had gotten shot, Bathena had the biggest fight of their marriage. But once they got their feelings out from the fight and was effected by the shooting, they had a honest conversation about what was bothering them. Which hugely consisted of Bobby talking about what it was like to witness what happened to Athena and how it effected him. Which brings me back to the scene with Bobby and Buck. When Bobby tells him that what happened to Eddie wasn't his fault, we get a DIRECT parallel with Buck saying "No but I was just the guy standing there who couldn't do anything about it" to which we get Bobby just staring at him in what seems to be a knowing look mixed shock and recognition. Because that was what he was literally what he was talking about with Athena. In the end of s3 with what happened to Athena and then in this season as well (especially this season) we see Bobby talk about and deal with witnessing HIS WIFE having a traumatic near death experience. Which was blatantly paralleled with Buck's trauma and grief with Eddie. (Two ppl having to witness the person they love most/their spouse almost die.)

But the parallels don't end there folks. No sir.

Not only do we get a hospital scene with both Bathena and Buddie but there are so many parallels in the Bathena hospital scene with Buddie. First we have the obvious of Athena sitting at Bobby side like Buck sat by Eddie's side as they both have emotional conversations. But whereas Buck mentions how he thought it'd been better he had been the one who had gotten shot instead of Eddie, Athena talks about saving Bobby.

Which I would like to point out the parallel of Buck helping Athena save Bobby and his knowing look when she said that it had to be her to save her husband. He understood that need and helped her be the one to save Bobby and not the actual firefighters (of course there's other reasons for Athena being the one like the guy having a gun but still).

But back to the hospital scenes parallels. In Bathena's hospital scene and the second one for Buddie (aka the Will™ scene), both relationships have a certain... shift if you will. Bathena's issues are fully solved and their relationship has grown even more for the better. And with Buddie the shift is also a growth in their relationship, just in a different way.

Because seeing how Eddie getting shot effected Buck and made him think so lowly of himself that he thought it'd be better if he was the one who got shot but also saw how Buck to continued to take care of Christopher despite of it, Eddie decides to finally tell Buck about the will. It's not only a shift of finally acknowledging the will after keeping it a secret for so long but a shift in how they're relationship is going to be for now. Sure, they already planned to always be in each other's lives but this seals it.

And what helps both relationships shift as all is what Athena and Eddie tell Bobby and Buck, respectively Athena tells Bobby that she couldn't let a little fire keep her from saving her partner. That right there is Athena reaffirming that Bobby is her partner, that she acknowledges the issues they had talked about previously about not acting like equal partners and reaffirms that they are fact partners. But then she also shows how much she loves Bobby. He's her partner in every way and she would (and did) walk through literal fire for him (which in LS we saw Judd use an example to show how much he would show Grace how much he loved her). Athena not only reminds Bobby how much she loves him, how she feels, but also tells him what he needed to hear that moment with what they were going through (especially with his lingering issues with what happened to Athena s3).

Now, with The Hospital Scene™ with Buddie, we get Eddie telling Buck about the will (which, given the fact that he kept it hidden for a year ass year indicates that it was a pretty big deal for Eddie to finally tell him) and Eddie does it because of what he also tells him. That Buck, Evan, in fact not expendable. That he knows Buck's perception of himself is that he's expendable, that Buck thought it'd be better if he was the one who got shot.

So how does that parallel the scene with Bathena? Well, Eddie shows Buck just how much he trusts him with Christopher (aka his heart and soul). They are partners already, but this just takes their partnership even further bc yeah, Eddie had already told Buck that 'there's no one else in this world I trust more with my son than you', but this both reaffirms that and takes it a step further. Because he made it legal that he'd rather Buck take care of his son more than his family. This reaffirms his trust in Buck, their partnership. Just like Athena reaffirmed hers and Bobby's partnership. Just like how she showed Bobby just how much she loved him by walking through literal fire for him, Eddie shows how much he loves and cares for Buck by entrusting Buck with the most precious thing in the world to him aka his son. And just like how Athena telling Bobby that is what he needed to hear, Eddie telling Buck about the will and showcasing the biggest insecurity that Buck was going through at the moment, that he's thinks that he's expendable but he's wrong.

Both Eddie and Athena saw how what happened to them effected their partners and they both have these things to help their partners with it (and themselves).

In conclusion, all of this shows the framing of Buck being the "grieving partner who had to deal with watching the love of their almost die". Because almost all of those Bathena parallels dealt with what Bobby had to deal with witnessing Athena almost die and how the aftereffects which directly paralleled with Buck was currently going through in that episode. And the of end episode (as well as Buck's season arc) getting a reaffirmation from his partner and consolation of how what happened to them effected him. Just how Athena did with Bobby.

Say it with me folks: Choices were made.

Thank you for coming to my Tedtalk.

#buddie #evan buckley #eddie diaz #911 fox #kj makes a post #buddie meta #long post

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1994sunflower · 4 years ago

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what if Michael accidentally hurts y/n. Like maybe she’s coming home from her classes and she sees him beating someone up and she tries to stop him and he hurts her on accident. Sorry I just really love your writing especially angst ;)

thank you so much! i love angst too hehe...I dont know how angsty this is but i put a little bit of fluff at the end lol

also, i’m so sorry for being so inactive guys i really am working on stuff i promise :(( but i’m also making like 20 essays for school applications so it’s going slowly. hope you like this!

in which michael accidentally hurts you

You’re never sure how they start. You couldn’t picture something making you so angry that you’d resort to fists. Even your boyfriend, as apathetic as he is with most people, you didn’t know his violent side intimately. It was just never the way Michael was with you. It almost felt like a stranger when you saw evidence of it acting against others, hurting others.

You never minded much, just tried to stop him and chastised him a bit while you patched him up. Because at the end of the day you knew he wasn’t a bad guy. Even appreciated his ability to defend himself and you. But still the mystery was always preserved. How the man that held you close, looked at you with nothing but love could be the cause of so many broken bones and bloodshed. Was it his temper that you had never seen or was it his not caring of anyone or even himself, the harm it could bring to him if he wasn’t careful.

Either way you hated it. Hated it each time you heard of it, his (comparatively much more violent) past of it and even more when you caught him at it yourself. It was never on purpose. Because if Michael had known you were anywhere near the vicinity he would stop, or leave to finish his business without you being there to witness that side of him.

You were docile, so much different than him. Michael knew that as well as anyone else. He knew he didn’t deserve you. So, he tried to hard to avoid adding to the list of why. He could imagine in his worst nightmares you seeing that dark side of him, the one that was so much better than before thanks to you, and be terrified. Realize what kind of man you had chosen and finally see that you needed someone better. Someone who wasn’t so aggressive, so violent, so scary. He didn’t want you to look at him with those eyes. Scared, like you never really knew him. Because the truth was you knew him better than anyone else.

Usually you’d catch him when you were walking back from class. Something he should be doing as well. Instead, he’d be somewhere where he imagined you’d never cross paths, far from your last class. Too bad you liked to walk around campus and take shortcuts more than you should.

It was usually the same thing. He’d have the upper hand. With his height and strength, it was easy. But that’d leave a victim, someone who couldn’t properly defend themselves against the wrath brought on by whatever they had done to Michael. Sometimes as little as bumping into him. You, with all your goodness and empathy, always stopped your boyfriend because you knew only you could. And if you could help someone, you’d always take the opportunity.

This time was a little different. Maybe Michael had gotten his days crossed, maybe he forgot you had lab that day and you’d have to pass by that way. But in the walk from your building back to off campus, in the little alleyway of one of the last buildings separating campus from the main street, you heard it. The building was tall and its brick walls looked more like formidable walls, so you had to keep walking until you were right at the entryway of the surprisingly big alley to see.

But your boyfriend was unmistakable. And so was the way he was punching down another boy. The boy was younger than him, it was obvious, maybe even a freshman. Which somehow made it worse. But they were almost equally matched in height and the boy, either from adrenaline or reflex, wasn’t just holding his hands up in defense. He landed more than a few punches back at your boyfriend. Hitting him in his jaw and face, you already saw some scrapes on his temple and cheek.

Your face contorted into panic at the sight of Michael getting hurt. Maybe even more fear-stricken at that fact than you would have been just seeing another person getting hurt by his hand. It wasn’t fair to care more about him than the other boy, especially when you were sure Michael was the aggressor. But you didn’t care. You loved him too much to see him get hurt. It was the reason you hated him fighting so much, you dreaded to see the consequences it could end up having on him. You’d told him so many times to stop fighting in the past but he wouldn’t listen. He was getting better but never stopping. Being as good for his girlfriend as possible so you’d be proud of him.

There wasn’t much need to worry, though. A few punches landed on him but he still was dominating the fight by far. Especially when he was more pissed off at the younger boy fighting back. But it didn’t matter. If it went on the way it currently was going, both of them would be more seriously injured than maybe they even realized.

You weren’t sure why you didn’t call out to him. Maybe it was the urgency of the situation that had you mute and just running to your boyfriend as quickly as you could. You always stopped him, but that was always when he realized it was you by the sound of your voice. It never occurred to you that he wouldn’t recognize your touch when he was so blinded by rage. You didn’t realize until you were too close, had already touched his arm desperately, hoping to stop any more attacks from raining down on the other boy. You didn’t even get a chance to call out to him, let him listen to your familiar voice that always seemed to soothe him.

By then, he had already pushed you away. He did it without even looking at you, his anger still directed at the boy and no one would stop him — at least when he thought you wouldn’t be there.

“Get the fuck off me.” His words were in a tone you’d never heard directed at you, only at other people. And his hand hit your shoulder and sent you flying back, landing with a loud thud on the concrete.

You weren’t sure if the feeling of your body left lingering on his fingers was what made him recognize who he had just pushed. Or maybe it was the recognition of your voice in the pained yell you had let out as you fell down. But he froze. So completely paralyzed, his body rigid. He was begging that as he turned around, slowly almost mechanically, he wouldn’t see you on the ground. That you wouldn’t be the person he had just physically hurt in his anger.

It was fruitless. As he kept his grip on his opponents shirt, but stopped yelling, stopped assaulting; just looking behind him, dreading what he would see. It was you. You sitting up, your knees and arms scraped from the fall, some blood and red, raw skin on the injuries. Your pretty dress was crumpled and dirty, bits of concrete, dirt and filth marred your spotless person. His pure, fragile girl.

But it was your face that had him letting go of the boy, arms hanging limply at his side, anger forgotten and eyes wide in horror at what he had just done to his girlfriend who he loved so much. You were looking up at him, tears in your eyes from the pain. They flowed down your cheeks and while you were silent, your eyes screamed at him what hurt more than any of the punches he had just taken. It’s your fault.

He hadn’t pushed that hard. But to your smaller body, even a light hit from him would be painful and powerful. Especially with his added strength.

“Y/N…” The boy was long forgotten. Even when he took the opportunity to run away. Michael forgot the reason for the fight in the first place. Nothing, really, entered his mind as important except you. All his thoughts had zeroed in on the scene in front of him, what he had just done to you. You were the best thing to ever happen to him. He cared about you so much. He loved you more than anyone else, even himself. Hurting you was the last thing he ever wanted to do. He’d hurt himself before he let anything touch you. All he ever wanted was to protect you. But yet, he was the one that ended up doing just that.

“Fuck, baby, I didn’t-” Know it was you.

He fucked up. He’d never felt more ashamed at having lost control. If he hadn’t, he’d have stopped and seen it was you. He would have listened when your little hand took hold of his arm. Recognized the feeling of your skin on his like he could so easily do when he was in the right frame of mind. He wouldn’t have hurt you. You wouldn’t be on the ground, dirty and injured because of him.

But as he stepped towards you, already bending down to help you up, check on you, it got worse. It was worse before you pushed yourself back with the heels of your feet, putting more distance between him and you, making sure he couldn’t get near you. “Don’t touch me.”

Hurt flashed on his face at your words. At you rejecting to even be near him. The one person that had always stuck by him through everything and forgave him even with how often he fucked up. The one that gave him an unconditional love he wasn’t used to. Part of him new he deserved it, for hurting you even if it was an accident. But the ache he felt when he couldn’t even help you, ask for your forgiveness because you didn’t want to hear it right then, was strong.

Your voice wavered and broke but your eyes showed very clearly how much you meant those words. He wasn’t sure what was worst to see in them, the anger or the fear.

Why were you even there? He was sure you had class on the opposite side of campus. It was why he never imagined you were the one trying to stop him. He pictured you walking peacefully from your class back home to wait for him to get back to you. Not what actually ended up happening. He would have never fought in a place you could so easily have seen, so easily have gotten hurt. Especially when he wanted to make you see how much better he was being for you, even if not by much. If you had called out to him, he hadn’t even heard you.

Michael felt a pit at his stomach. Could already hear you breaking up with him, because a girl like you didn’t deserve to be on the ground, looking so pretty and innocent and have that ruined because her boyfriend couldn’t just listen to her and try to be less violent with others. Dread filled him at the different possibilities of losing you this could bring him. None of them did he want. But still, watching you wince as you emotionally collected yourself, he had to curse himself. He wouldn’t blame you. It’s his fault.

Even at your words, he still moved forward, getting down on his knees to be on your level. When you lifted up your palms from the ground, they were tinged pink from the fall and bits and pieces of the concrete were stuck to the palms of your hands. His jaw locked at the sight, regret filling his mind.

Taking your small hands in his, slowly, he sucked in a relieved breath when you didn’t push him away like he thought you would. Instead, he wouldn’t meet your big eyes as he felt them looking at him, he couldn’t. It was so shameful to see that pure wide eyed look of yours and know he had hurt someone that wholesome and kind.

His gaze stayed on your hands as you held them out palm up. One of his hands cupped the back of your two hands while the other he used to gently pick off the grovel. Not too fast lest they be sharp and hurt you. It was almost comical really, to see his hands, still bloody at the knuckles from the fight, being so tender only a few minutes later.

“Does it hurt?” He asked you when he was done. When you winced as you curled your fingers in was the answer.

You wouldn’t even look at him. Let alone acknowledge the apology begging to leave his lips. And he had to resist the urge to take you into his arms so he wouldn’t feel the coldness you were currently giving him. Tears were still running down your cheek by the time your backpack that had fallen beside you was taken up by Michael. He slung it across his shoulder easily, no matter how heavy you had found it. Then his arm was around your waist and his hand on your arm, pulling you up finally from the ground that should be kissed at your feet instead of you laying in it.

Clearly, he wasn’t taking your command to not touch you seriously. But you didn’t make any move to enforce it - despite how angry you felt, how struck at what he had done to you, no matter that he had done it unconsciously. He needed it, to feel as if he hadn’t completely destroyed everything in the relationship he cherished so much. That the only girl he loved and respected didn’t feel terrified of him and distrust him.

He’d brought a lot of emotions out of you, particularly pleasure, but pain was never meant to be one of them.

That much was obvious in the almost shameful look on his face all the way back to your house - the place you’d forced him to take you to instead of his own home. You would’ve preferred to go home by yourself, your anger and freight not being appropriate to be next to him, let alone have him nearly piggyback carrying you all the way. But he wouldn’t leave your side.

It was also seen in his small voice, as shaky and almost insecure as you’d ever heard it when you forced him to put you down as you finally got home. The security of your home giving you what your had been lacking the second Michael sent you to the ground, the safety you usually got from him was weak.

“I can help...”

“No, I got it.” Your words were cold, so different from your usually light and happy voice, as you walked away from him and to your bathroom where you kept the first aid kit. It was usually there for him whenever he got in a fight and got hurt. But now, you needed it.

He flinched at your tone. Despite whatever fights he ever got in, you were the only one who could ever truly hurt him.

Michael stayed in the living room silently while you disinfected your wounds and covered them up. He hurt you. You could still feel the pain of it, see it physically manifested. You were still crying, sniffling as quietly as you could. It didn’t hurt so much as it did scare you. Not that you were scared of him. Despite what happened, you knew it was an accident and you knew he would never hurt you purposely like that ever.

But the fact it happened, the fact he had been so lost in his anger that he didn’t stop and think about what he was doing and his surroundings. The fact that you had felt his strength in such an ugly, dangerous way. The suddenness of it scared you.

And you hated feeling that towards your boyfriend. You only wanted to feel happy and loved with him, nothing as negative as this. It was also frustrating, knowing you had warned him of consequences of his actions like this, though never expected you’d ever be on the receiving end of it, but he still hasn’t changed. But this was the last time you’d ever allow yourself to be in this position.

It made you almost think that your friends, the rumors, maybe they were more right about Michael and his anger than you were whenever you tried to defend him. You wanted your boyfriend to be safe. You didn’t want to believe they were right. Otherwise, you didn’t really know the man you claimed to love.

You were mad and frightened. But it came from a place of love. You didn’t want him to get hurt and you especially didn’t want it to get to this point where he couldn’t even stop himself before it got out of his control until it was too late. You loved him.

When you finished fixing yourself up as best as you could, you left the bathroom and moved quietly into your living room where Michael was sitting silently. His face was in his hands. His very posture screamed regret and you didn’t even want to imagine how dark and self-deprecating his thoughts were as he blamed himself for hurting you, you knew it was hard for him.

He’d told you so many times it was the last thing he wanted. You weren’t sure he could forgive himself. Especially when he knew his strength compared to yours, when he saw your injuries caused by his hand.

You weren’t sure he even felt your presence when you slowly sat down next to him on the couch, the kit still in your hands. “Here, let me cover that up.”

He had bruises all over his face, particularly his jaw but he had an especially nasty cut on his forehead.

But when you raised your hands to start working on it, Michael finally looked at you, only to move his head back and shake his head. You were too good for this world, to still worry about him after everything.

“Don’t waste it on me.”

With you red rimmed eyes, your voice was still more serious than usual but your words were almost normal, “Don’t be silly. You’re hurt.”

Michael kept silent as you focused on his injury. But you could tell his mind was moving quickly, probably figuring out what to say to you.

You wanted him to feel bad, it wasn’t okay and he needed to feel it in order to change. But you didn’t want him to drive himself crazy with kicking himself in the back for what he accidentally did. He stopped as soon as it happened, it gave you hope of how he could change. How this could be a wake up call.

It was only when you were almost done that he spoke. “I didn’t know you were the one grabbing me. I swear I would never have hurt you, it was too late when I realized you-” his head hung in shame, “You were already on the ground when I figured out it was you.”

He was silent for a while and you thought it was him re-living the moment you had been flung so strongly. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. I would never hurt you like that. Ever. I promise. You’re the only good thing I have in my life. I can’t lose you and it shouldn’t have happened, I should have realized I was just so pissed off. And I thought you were in class. I never thought you’d be there. But it will never happen again.”

“Michael…” You sighed, you’d heard that before.

But he cut you off. “No, I’m serious. It won’t. I….I hated seeing you hurt like that. Especially because it was my fault. I know I’m violent but you’ll never experience that again. You’ll never see that again. I’ll never hurt you again so…please…I’m sorry.”

He was so rarely vulnerable with his words, let alone speaking so much. It was obvious he meant it. You took in his apology and his words. You didn’t say it was okay but you didn’t move away or reject his apology either.

“You won’t lose me.” When his guilty eyes bore into yours, you took his bruised hand. “I know you didn’t meant to, Mikey, you’re not that type of guy and you’ve never been violent towards me. But I get so worried seeing you fight and get hurt, you didn’t even realize it was me because you were so mad. It’s seeing you in a light that I don’t like.”

His words were soft-spoken and gentle, his rough hands encasing your smaller ones almost as if they were glass, like the most precious thing he had. “I know. I’m working on it.” Both of you knew he was. If just to keep you happy. His fights are fewer and farther between but when they do happen, they’re never any less bloody.

Michael’s eyes trailed down to your arm and your dress, marred with stripes of gravel and dirt. Your scraped knees. Your eyes puffy from crying. Even hurt you were the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. He almost wanted to pull away, he had no right to be touching you, to still be the object of your love. Not when someone as sweet, innocent and peaceful as you was with someone as wrong as him. You deserved someone that brought only smiles out of you. Fuck. He cherished you. And he was disgusted at what he did; would always be, the memory would haunt him for a long time.

He almost looked in pain as he forced himself to keep looking at what he had done to you. “Does it still hurt?”

You almost didn’t want to answer, for his sake but still you nodded. “I have to change clothes, too.”

“You look so pretty.” It made it worse, how much you more you deserved. “You deserve better.”

Your eyes were confident with your next words, “You’re going to give me that.” He had to. Otherwise, you didn’t think anything you imagined your future would be was going to stay the same.

And he would. For you.

It didn’t mean he would be perfect or that his tendencies would change. You’d always catch him in fights or in some kind of trouble. But he would be in his right mind, he’d stop before he went too far. And most importantly, he’d never hurt you like he did today. It wouldn’t be hard. When you changed his life so much, he wasn’t in that state of mind he was when he was so angry and violent before he met you.

Michael started that new resolution to change by peppering you with kisses, grateful he still could, not stopping until you began giggling and pawing at him to stop. You were still kind of mad and hesitant after all, but it was hard to fight back against his sweeter side giving you more of an apology. He was careful to ghost his fingertips over your injuries so as not to hurt you as he took you in his arms like his life depended on you being with him.

“I love you.” His gravelly voice murmured, “So much.” You were everything to him. What he cherished the most in his life, who he would always need at his side. The last person he wanted to hurt. He was so lucky you were such a good, forgiving person that believed in him. Trusted him. Loved him.

“I know. I love you too.”

You and your love were the what that brought his happiness and goodness into his life. Without you, he would be so much worse than he seemed to be right then. You were the reason he could imagine a normal future for himself, one with a family and a home. The reason he was so much happier recently, why he hadn’t been in a fight in months before this last one.

He’d never hurt you again. You’d only ever feel good feelings arisen by him, like it always should have been.

Your voice was almost shy but your words were very much willing to take advantage of his guilty mind. “Can we have a spa night? I think it might help my wounds.”

Michael, your big, mature, manly, would-never-have-a-spa-night boyfriend looked at you, knowing very well the healing properties a spa routine could have on your injuries was bullshit. But still he nodded. He’d do anything for you.

Anything to make it up to you. To take away that hesitancy and sadness in your eyes, to try as he might to erase his huge mistake and replace that scary image of him and know that he was nothing like that with you. Anything to have the rest of the day bring you nothing but peace and happy memories with him, what you had always felt in your life that changed when you met your explosive boyfriend. Having you in his arms for the rest of the night, forgetting the cuts on both of your persons for the night.

“With face masks?”

“…Fine”

You smiled sheepishly, “….And can we watch Legally Blonde?”

“Whatever you want, baby.”

#5sos #Michael clifford #Michael clifford x reader #5sos fluff #Michael clifford fluff #5sos imagines #bad boy fluff #bad boy michael #Michael clifford angst #5sos angst #bad boy angst #college au

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starlessea · 4 years ago

Text

Here Comes the Sun: XII. Highway To Hell (Daryl Dixon/Reader)

Series Masterlist: Here Comes the Sun

Summary: Daryl Dixon scares the hell out of you climbing out of that damn creek. It takes hauling his ass halfway across Georgia and taking a bullet for him to realise that you're not half bad. He slowly starts to come around, despite grumbling about how much he doesn't like your singing, or that you can't use a gun for shit - and don't get him started on that ugly yellow tent of yours. It takes him a while before he starts to see for himself that he's found a best friend for life, and that he doesn't actually mind the colour yellow that much, after all.

Words: 7169

Chapter Warnings: Language, Violence.

You held a hand up over your shoulder and crouched down near the door, signalling for Carol to do the same behind you. Your gun was pressed snug between your palms, and your knife hung from your belt in case you needed it. Though, from the looks of the place it seemed pretty secure - if the lock you'd just busted open was anything to go by. The two of you were scavenging and had spotted a small general store, deciding to check it out before heading back to the cabin. The group hadn't eaten anything substantial in days, save for the things Daryl had been hunting. Even then, the harsh winter months made it harder for him to pick up tracks when most animals had better shelter than you all did.

It had been a number of weeks since the farm was overrun, but it almost felt like yesterday. The temperature had dropped to freezing seemingly overnight, making your fortunes that much more cruel. Even now, your breath formed clouds of smoke before your eyes, and the cold felt like it had infiltrated your bones at some point and never left. The tips of your fingers stung as they glowed red, exposed through your fingerless gloves, and you were certain that your nose matched, too. Carol's did, that's for sure.

You gave her a quick nod before kicking in the door harshly with your boot, raising your gun as you entered. The inside was bigger than you were expecting, and it took you a few minutes to clear each aisle for walkers. As you did, you noticed how most supplies were missing from the shelves, having been taken before the place was locked up. Still, Glenn had always drilled into you the first rule of scavenging: 'there's nothing good left in this world that isn't hidden.'

Sending a nod to Carol, you put your gun away in your holster before reminding her to stay alert. The two of you split up as she made her way towards the canned goods sections, hoping to find something there. Ever since you'd been on the road, you and Carol had gotten quite a bit closer. At first, she seemed sceptical of Rick and the whole situation you were forced into, as you all did. Though, after time she seemed to realise that he was the group's best shot. Most days, the two of you made dinner with anything you could find, often supplementing the things you were missing with whatever Daryl had managed to bring home from his hunt. Other times, you went scavenging together, as you did today.

At first, Rick absolutely refused to let anyone split up, and you had to abide by his rule. One time he'd caught you mocking his 'this isn't a democracy' speech to Beth behind his back and you'd had to forfeit your portion of squirrel to the greater good that evening. Daryl sneaked you some of his afterwards, however. Though, Rick quickly began to realise that there was no other choice. Before long, you'd gotten good with a gun; taking down walkers each day had that effect. Soon, you were one of the frontrunners whenever you had a house to clear - often fighting alongside him, Glenn and Daryl.

Now, he was comfortable with you leading a few runs of your own and taking Carol along with you. Glenn and Maggie often went together, too, so that you covered more ground. It wasn't that Rick was comfortable with splitting up the group, you thought; he just didn't have a choice. Lori was nearing her due date and you were all practically living on fresh air, moving from place to place quicker than you had the chance to catch your breath.

You hadn't even had time to settle things with Daryl. You barely saw the man. He'd leave first thing in the morning to look for food, and be back late at night - when most of the group had already fallen asleep. Even then, he often took watch straight after he returned. You could tell how responsible he felt for everyone and you saw the worry in his eyes daily, if the bags under them were anything to go by.

After you had kissed Daryl, back at the farm, you only had one conversation about it. It was a couple of days after you all fled, when you were taking watch with him as the rest of the group were stuck camping under the stars. It was brief, and before that the two of you had already gone back to acting as good friends, like usual. He'd told you that he wasn't good with words, and didn't want to just give you some half-assed response in the midst of struggling to survive the Georgia winter. You agreed, and it was decided then that you'd talk about it later. Yet, later never came.

It had been an unspoken rule between the two of you that everyone's safety was the priority. Though, in truth, you hadn't had a single moment where you felt safe since you left the farm. It seemed almost cruel that immediately after you'd told the man that you wanted to live, rather than just survive, you had been thrust out into the vicious world where that's all you could struggle to do. So, the two of you just existed at the moment.

Some mornings you'd wake up to sound of him leaving, and some evenings he'd be back early enough to share a meal with you. Other than that, you lived for the brief occasions where you'd take watch together, when he'd smoke a cigarette next to you and you'd sit in content silence. Though, sometimes it felt like you were frightened to say anything at all, in case you accidentally blurted out all of your feelings at once. So, the both of you barely talked - waiting for the time when you could actually talk.

You shoved some supplies into your satchel as you scoured the aisles. There wasn't much you could see that hadn't been taken already, but you picked up a few bandaids in case you ever needed them. The only thing you were able to save from the farm was your satchel. Luckily, it already had your polaroids in it and a change of clothes, since you'd been packing to move into the Greenes' farmhouse at the time the horde arrived. Still, there was so much you missed from those days.

You missed the material things, like the comfort you got just from seeing Dale's RV parked by the main camp. You missed the flimsy deck chairs surrounding it, and the big apple trees that gave it shade, and the books you'd borrow from Hershel's library to read when you had lookout duty on top of it. You missed your white dress that smelt like the washing powder that Patricia used - even though you knew it wouldn't have survived long out in these dingy, cold places. You even missed the intangible things, and felt a deep longing of nostalgia for the sounds of the leaves rustling in the breeze or for the sweetness of the air. Those days felt so far away from you now, like the images of them were slipping out of your grasp - like grains of sand before you could catch them.

The things that remained fresh in your mind, however, were the people that you left behind. You missed Patricia and Jimmy and Andrea, and even Shane. As much as that man rubbed you the wrong way, you didn't want to see him die. You didn't want any of them to die. That night was a mess. These days, you often woke up in a cold sweat from the nightmares. Except, this time it was the faces of your family replacing the walkers that usually inhabited them. You missed the people you'd lost and you missed the place that you all thought was home. You also missed Daryl Dixon.

A loud clatter sounded from a few rows over from you, immediately making you thumb over your gun as you stilled in place.

"Carol?" You called over, unable to see her from behind the tall shelves. "Everything alright?"

She responded instantly, and you felt relief wash over you as she did.

"I'm fine. I just dropped a tin." She reassured you, her voice carrying as an echo in the empty store.

You let out a small sigh before continuing with your poor haul. It was times like these that you really felt your mind wander when it shouldn't. You knew that you should always be cautious, since you promised Rick that you'd look out for Carol. Though, quite frankly, you thought that he didn't give her enough credit. That woman was a force to be reckoned with, but not many people had realised it yet. Daryl had. The friendship the two of them shared was really admirable. He'd been the one to search for Sofia, and comfort Carol after the loss of her - and Carol was equally as good for him as he was for her. She'd been able to coax him out of his shell where even you struggled to, and you could see how he'd started to accept his new role within the group because of her.

You just wished, very selfishly, that you could be with him. You understood that he had a job to do now, and how not everyone was able to do the things he did. The group had women and children and older people and a pregnant Lori. You were all running on empty, barely hanging on as it was. Yet, those nights when he'd come back empty-handed, cursing himself under his breath when he thought you were all asleep, made you want to hold him close. You never did, knowing how much Daryl Dixon hated pity from anyone, but the longing was so strong that it made your eyes sting with tears.

Although things weren't awkward between the two of you, you didn't joke around nearly as much as you used to. The atmosphere always felt heavy, as nobody knew when the next meal would come, or how long this place would be safe before you had to move again. As the nights got bitterly cold, you huddled next to Beth for warmth, or Carol sometimes. You felt absolutely no shame in it. There were only a few tattered blankets to go around, but they barely did anything for your numb toes and stiff fingers. If you weren't all family before, then you definitely were now - given how close you'd all had to become.

Some nights, the ones which were your favourites, Daryl slept beside you. You didn't think it was intentional at first. Or, maybe it was. In the grand scheme of things, it was barely anything at all. Yet, the first time almost made you cry, as it felt like he was reminding you that he still cared for you. It wasn't like you ever embraced him, or did anything remotely intimate. You hadn't ever been anything more than the brief kiss you shared in his tent. Though, it still felt intimate to you.

He'd come in late, as usual, on a particularly cold night. You'd heard him slug off his boots and throw them aside as he stripped out of his heavy winter gear. The whole time, you'd pretended to be asleep, like you normally did. After a while, he finally laid down on the ground, clambering over the sleeping bodies of the rest of the group. You usually all huddled together in one room for warmth. You'd felt the floorboards creak and shift beneath you as he settled next to you, not that you were touching, but close enough to feel his presence and hear his breathing.

Once you were sure he'd fallen asleep, you scooted backwards slightly, so that your backs were touching. It was hardly anything, but the slight warmth you felt from him was more comfort than you'd had in weeks. You were touch starved and hungry and cold. You needed something. When you'd woken up the next morning, he was already gone. He never said anything about it, but since then you'd found yourself occasionally waking up in the middle of the night to your back pressed against his, or sometimes having a hand intertwined with your own.

As you finished down one aisle, you noticed another that had been left untouched. It was a toy section, quite small given the size of the store. Obviously, the necessities had been taken first, and you thought that whatever children had survived the apocalypse probably didn't have many things left to play with - since they were all still here. You trailed your finger over the dusty shelf, feeling the glossy plastic of the boxes and the soft fur of the stuffed animals piled there.

"Looking for something for the baby?" Carol asked, popping up behind you.

You immediately jumped, and flung a hand over your chest as you shot her a look. It had been your fault for not paying attention, but she didn't need to know that.

You shook your head. "Not intentionally." You admitted, eyes scanning over the selection. "But I suppose we could pick something up."

You chose one of the bears and shoved it into your satchel. Usually, you'd have looked for something for Carl, too, but he'd recently been acting a lot older than his years. He wanted to step up and protect everyone like his father, he confessed to you one day. You had to admit, he was a pretty good shot and certainly didn't seem like a child anymore. You didn't want to undermine his efforts by presenting him with an action figure in the midst of your current situation, telling him to take a break from killing walkers to play with it.

"Did you find anything?" You turned to look at Carol, who held up her bag that didn't seem anywhere near full.

She shrugged her shoulders at you and made a face. "Few expired cans, but nothing much." She frowned. "You?"

You shook your head softly and flipped open the flap of your satchel to show her your haul.

"Some bandaids and a Freddie Mercury bobblehead." You confessed, picking it out to show her.

You held up the small figure in front of her face, pulling back its comically large head with your thumb and letting it wobble.

"Cute, right?" You asked, raising an eyebrow.

Carol just gave a small chuckle in reply, folding her arms as though about to half-heartedly scold a child. You shrugged your shoulders before stuffing it back into the bag. Just because Carl didn't want to play with toys anymore didn't mean that you couldn't.

Carol glanced over at the entrance of the store, before giving the shelves a final scan. "We should get going soon." She noted, her bag clanking as she readjusted it over her shoulder. "Some walkers might have gathered outside by now."

You hummed in response, distracted by the array of multi-coloured boxes. "It's fine, I'll look after you." You said, shooting her a wink as she sighed.

The woman had become used to your teasing by now, and it was a welcomed change from how tense you all were most of the time. Even though you mostly used humor as a coping mechanism, especially when you felt nervous, it seemed to lighten the atmosphere when it got a bit too heavy.

"Though I don't think you even need me." You continued, eyeing the small pistol she had tucked into her jeans. "You're getting pretty good with a gun."

Carol snorted at that, reminding you of the time she almost shot a bullet through Rick's boot not so long ago. In her defence, Rick had been a lot more on edge that day, and you'd been quite tempted to do the same.

"Speak for yourself." She spoke, after you'd tried to convince her otherwise. "You started learning after me and your aim's already on parr with Rick's."

You remembered those first days, and how hard they were. Everyone had fallen into their roles and you'd felt almost stuck in place. You didn't know how best to contribute. It had taken the neighbourhood you were all staying in to get overrun before you had the chance to test your skills. You hadn't wanted to waste bullets before that, but you'd scarcely had a choice then.

"He's a good teacher." You smiled at Carol, giving Rick praise where it was due. "And there's no better practice than being terrified and having to learn on the job." You admitted with a strained laugh.

You continued walking down the aisle slowly, back in the direction of the entrance.

"But you're right, we should go." You agreed, gesturing to the door.

The two of you took a few steps together before you stopped abruptly as something caught your attention, right in the corner of your eye. You whipped your head around to look at one of the glossy toy boxes, reading its bold letter description.

"Oh my god." You mumbled to yourself, below your breath.

Carol looked over at you, confused. "What is it?" She asked, glancing in the direction where you were staring.

You couldn't hold back the grin that spread over your face as you grabbed the box and held it in your hand. You glanced over your shoulder, at Carol, before running your fingers back over the dusty plastic.

"No fucking way!" You yelled in disbelief. It seemed like your luck was finally changing.

Carol peered over your shoulder before letting out a chuckle at your expression.

"Now that would be perfect for the baby." She smiled, staring down at it in your hands.

You shook your head at her, looking up to meet her eyes. "I actually had someone else in mind." You admitted, still feeling the smile tug at the corners of your mouth as you said it. "It's a bit of an inside joke we have."

Carol hummed in reply, but didn't press for answers.

"But I agree." You went on, making room for the box to fit into your satchel. "It'll probably get handed down to baby Grimes at some point."

The walk back to the cabin was pretty uneventful. The two of you stayed in the cover of the forest, out of sight of the main road. You'd had to dispatch a couple of walkers on the way, but nothing that the two of you couldn't handle. At this point, you just wished for another set of clothes that weren't covered in muck and dried blood. You could hardly remember the last time you'd worn something clean - that hadn't just been dunked in a creek when you came across one.

As you walked, you must have strayed slightly off the path that you usually took, since you came across an unfamiliar, old Toyota truck that had veered off road and crashed into a tree. It was covered in dried leaves and all beat up, but you recognised the model as the same one belonging to Otis, back at the Greene farm. It was always parked outside there. It was a simple, two person pick up truck that was rusty red in colour, and it instantly made you think back on the night that you were forced into driving it.

After Rick had told you and Daryl that Randall had escaped, the whole farm went into an uproar. You stayed in the farmhouse whilst some of the group went to look for him, Daryl included. It wasn't long before you spotted the horde coming your way, and Hershel's barn had started to go up in flames in the distance. After that, you could barely remember what had happened.

You'd been with Daryl at first. He shot the walkers that got too close with his crossbow, before switching to guns. You did the same, trying to give the others an opportunity to pile into the vehicles and escape. At some point, however, you got completely cut off from the rest of the group and had been forced back to the opposite side of the farmhouse.

The chaos was indescribable. It was like you'd been drafted up for war in the span of half an hour. Soon, you had run out of bullets and only had your knife left to defend yourself. So, you ran. Not able to see any of the others anymore, you sprinted for the last vehicle left - Otis' old Toyota truck. You flung the door open and clambered inside, locking it just in time to avoid the hands that smacked up onto the glass windows. You remembered how your chest heaved as your hands fumbled around the dash frantically. You finally found the keys tucked into the sun visor above your head, and almost cried from relief.

When your hands stopped shaking long enough to put it in the ignition, you turned the key only for the engine to rumble once before falling flat. You tried it again, and it gave out a choked sputter and died.

"No, no, no." You whispered, turning the key over and over to try and start the truck. "This can't be happening."

The windows had almost been completely blacked out by the number of hands and faces pressed against them, the walkers snapping their jaws at you as you panicked inside. In the rearview mirror, you could even see some start to clamber into the truck bed, and knew that it was only a matter of time before they completely swarmed you. You slammed your hands onto the steering wheel in frustration and yelled, not caring whether you attracted more.

"I can't die now, I just kissed that stubborn asshole!" You screamed, accidentally hitting the windscreen wiper stick with your elbow. You watched as the blade caught one of the walkers' flesh and smeared it over the glass.

"Fucking great." You sighed, and turned the key again.

This time, you felt it catch slightly between your fingers, and thought that perhaps the starter motor was sticking. The truck hadn't been used since Otis' death, but it still seemed to have some life in it. You jiggled the key and turned it half way, praying to every deity you could think of. You twisted it fully, and the engine roared to life. You held your breath for a few seconds, not entirely trusting it, but as it continued to rumble you realised that it had started properly this time.

Not wanting to sit around any longer, you immediately set off, mowing down the stream of walkers in front of you all while hoping that the car wouldn't flip over. You watched your mirror as the ones clinging onto the truck bed were flung off as you picked up speed, and you almost wanted to yell out in triumph - but felt like you might be sick if you did so.

The truck was hell to drive. You couldn't figure out the stick for a while and your windscreen was covered in blood and smeared guts. You knew you had to head for the highway where the supplies for Sofia were left. You'd gone with Rick one time, when he went to wait for her there at noon. As you pulled out of Hershel's farm, you gave a final glance back in your mirror to see your home burn and become entirely inhabited by the undead - and noticed your little yellow submarine trampled to the ground as you did so.

As you neared the highway, after driving on the wrong side of the road for a while without realising it, you felt a knot start to form in your stomach. You hadn't seen the others get away - you didn't know if they were alive or dead, or even if they would have waited for you if they managed to escape. Your eyes blurred with tears as you drove, still not feeling any sense of relief despite having made it out of the farm. You just prayed that everyone was safe.

When you got closer to the meeting spot, you immediately noticed the familiar vehicles from the farm, and even Daryl's motorbike, all parked up. You stopped the truck once you couldn't go any further, being blocked by the abandoned cars. The group began to approach you quickly as you clambered out and hit the floor with shaky feet. Glenn reached you first, smiling widely when he saw that you were okay.

"Is that you?" He asked, clapping a hand over your trembling shoulders. "I've never seen anyone drive that badly before-"

You didn't let him finish, instead running over to Daryl on unsteady feet. You flung yourself into his arms, which pulled you in close and held you tight. You sobbed louder than you thought you ever had before, crying into his chest as you felt one of his hands stroke softly over your back. You didn't care what anyone thought at this moment. Nothing could describe the feeling of losing your home and thinking your family was dead. You realised how close you had been to being all alone, once again.

"Hey, c'mon look at me." He said softly, trying to pry himself out of your grip.

He lifted your chin up with his finger and you knew that you must've looked quite the state. Your eyes were completely blurred with tears, so much that you could barely make out the man in front of you, and your nose ran as you struggled to hold back your sobs.

"It's a'right." He reassured you, looking into your eyes as if realising that you needed further convincing. "Yer safe."

You looked around at the group, taking in their faces and feeling your hands tremble against Daryl's chest as they clutched the material of his shirt still. Everyone looked relieved, and offered you small smiles of comfort.

You stepped back from the man a little, giving him his space. You still couldn't stop the tears from falling. It was as if your body still hadn't caught up to your mind.

"I was so scared." You admitted quietly, voice quivering as you did so. "I thought you'd all left me."

You didn't drop your hands from his chest, letting yourself feel his heartbeat beneath your palms as a reminder that this was all real.

Daryl shook his head at you. "We'd never leave ya, Teach" He grumbled, as though he couldn't believe you'd even suggest it. "Went back to look for ya on the bike but I couldn't find ya."

Maggie stepped forward, pulling you into a hug as you finally released Daryl's shirt from your grip. She stroked your hair as she brought you into her chest, and you felt tears stream down your cheeks.

"You scared us all half to death." She told you, before gripping onto your shoulders tightly as you stood back from her.

Glenn nodded in agreement, before letting out a small chuckle. "Then we spotted Otis' truck barreling down the highway." He said, pointing over to the vehicle you'd abandoned. "Thought a walker was driving it the way you were swerving all over the place."

You tried to let out a laugh in return, but it came out all watery in between your sobs.

"The gearstick-" you choked out, hiccuping as you spoke. "Had to change gears with the wrong hand." You explained, lifting your arm to give a poor demonstration as you continued to cry.

"You-" you spluttered, letting out a wail mixed with a desperate laugh. "You stupid Americans."

It was a few days before you and Daryl crossed paths in the cabin again. It was late and you'd been trying to sleep for a few hours when the door creaked open. He'd shuffled around for a bit before you heard him take over watch duty from Glenn. At first, you'd wanted to go outside and scold him for never taking the time to rest, but after a few minutes you decided on a different plan. Prying yourself out from underneath the blanket you shared with Beth, you pulled on your boots - not bothering to do up the laces. The icy breeze hit your skin and caused it to prickle instantly, making you wish you had a spare comforter to take with you. You wouldn't be surprised if it snowed soon, given how dry and bitter the air had felt on your cheek earlier that day.

You retrieved your satchel and tip-toed around the sleeping bodies, doing your best not to step on any creaky floorboards and disturb them. You opened the cabin door slowly, and shut it behind you as you stepped out into the night. Daryl was sitting on the stone wall a few feet away, and you could tell that the smoke coming from his lips was from more than just the cold. He had a cigarette lit between his fingers, and you could make out the familiar lighter that he flicked open and closed in his other hand. You approached with purposefully loud footsteps, not wanting to startle him. He didn't turn around, waiting until you came closer.

"Mind if I join you?" You shot him a smile, pulling your arms to your chest to try and protect yourself against the chill.

He hummed in response, and you noticed how exhausted he looked in the glow of the lighter flame that flickered near his cheeks. His hands were covered in dirt, as were parts of his face, and his hair stuck to his forehead and the back of his neck despite how cold it was. Though, you were sure that you didn't look any better. Your once white vest was now a grubby brown colour and you'd pulled your long hair into a bun on top of your head about a week ago and hadn't looked back since.

Wordlessly, the man shrugged off the poncho he'd found recently, and handed it to you. He had another leather jacket on underneath, but you still felt guilty. You thanked him, pulling it over your head and instantly feeling grateful for the warmth that engulfed you. He then pulled a carton of cigarettes out of his pocket, offering it over to you where he sat. You shook your head and gave him a small smile as he shrugged and stuffed them back into his jacket.

The two of you sat in silence for a while, just watching and listening to the night. Nothing was uncomfortable between you. It's just that the two of you were almost like magnets, trying to intentionally stay away from each other. You feared that the two of you might never be able to seperate if you stuck together for good. It wasn't awkward, but there was definitely unspoken tension, like you were both waiting for something that you couldn't let happen yet.

"I miss my tent." You sighed, watching your breath appear as a small puff of air against the black night.

Daryl grumbled at that. "I sure as hell don't." He muttered, taking a final drag from his smoke before snuffing it out on the wall. "Thing was an eyesore."

You chuckled a bit at his response, not really sure what you were expecting. "You loved it, really." You teased, shooting him a wink that he dismissed.

"Whatever, Sunshine." He mumbled back, but his voice sounded a lot lighter than it had for a while.

After a few seconds, you remembered your satchel, now safely tucked away in the warmth of the poncho you wore. You fumbled around beneath it for a bit, which made Daryl give you a look, before pulling out the canvas bag and setting it onto your lap.

"I have something for you." You beamed, feeling the breeze sting your sore, chapped lips.

Daryl sighed at you, finally looking over to meet your eyes.

"Ya need to stop gettin' me shit." He drawled, with no bite behind his words.

You shook your head quickly at the accusation. "It isn't from me!" You almost yelled, before reminding yourself that there were people sleeping a few feet away, and lowering your voice.

You glanced back at the cabin and pointed to it. "This place has no chimney, so he told me to pass it onto you."

Daryl raised an eyebrow at you, which you ignored. Instead, you fished around in your satchel until you found what you were looking for. You could barely contain your excitement as you pulled out the box wrapped messily in old newspapers, and handed it to him expectantly.

He took it from you carefully, as though not entirely trusting it. Though, he still held it gently in his hand, in case he was afraid to break it. You watched intently as he flipped it over and squinted his eyes at the writing on it, confusion clear on his face. You'd scribbled on it earlier in the day, having found a sharpie tucked away in one of the drawers. You'd tried to do it secretively, but almost had a heart attack when Glenn asked you what you were doing - dropping the gift and kicking it under the couch until he promised to leave. Luckily, you hadn't found any dents on it afterwards. Yet, you now found it almost comical how carefully Daryl treated the box, considering what you had done to it only a few hours before.

Your eyes scanned over the letters with him as he read them, seeing the words written on top of the newspaper in black, bold print:

'To Young Daryl Dixon,

Merry Christmas!

From, Father Christmas.'

By the time he looked up to question you, you were already watching his eyes - waiting to see his expression. At the moment, his face was still scrunched up in confusion, which made you chuckle. The man looked at you like you'd just handed him a bomb he didn't know how to diffuse.

"Father Christmas?" He asked slowly, like the syllables were foreign on his tongue.

You cocked your head to the side, looking back down at the gift and wondering if you'd made a mistake. Your eyes widened.

"Shit." You muttered below your breath, before looking back up to meet his gaze. "It's Santa Clause to you people, isn't it?" You questioned.

Daryl looked at you in disbelief, as if wondering what the hell you were going on about. You were used to that look from him by now, and continued to ramble.

"I'm sure that's what he meant." You said, nodding. "He probably was in a rush when he wrote it." You looked away from the man, trying not to giggle as you remembered the whole incident between you and Glenn.

He continued to stare at you before shaking his head.

"Yer crazy, woman." He grumbled, picking the wrapped box back up to inspect it closer.

You felt your patience reach its limit, unable to contain your excitement anymore. You shoved his arm.

"Just open it!" You ordered, and he did.

For a man so rough around the edges, you'd never seen someone unwrap a gift so gently before. He didn't rip into the paper like you would have, but spent a few extra seconds pulling the parcel tape off and unfolding it with care. Once it was opened up on his lap, you watched his face as he finally saw the plastic box inside.

You knew it wasn't the exact same one he'd told you about, from all of those years ago, but it must've been close. It was a child's sheriff kit. It had the little hat that looked similar to Rick's, and the pointy metal badge in the shape of a star. When you'd seen it in the store, you just knew you had to get it for him. He might have forgotten telling you about it by now, but you had remembered.

"It didn't come with a gun, I'm afraid." You pointed to the plastic window of the box, explaining it to him. "But we have plenty of those."

You shot him a smile as you saw his expression. It was still confused, as he glanced between you and the box in his palms, but it was a lot more shy and uncertain now. You could almost see the thoughts working overtime in that head of his, as he processed it all, and decided to stop staring at him.

"It was either this or a Freddie Mercury bobblehead." You noted, feeling your cheeks hurt at how much you were beaming at the man. "And I wanted the bobblehead."

He sat in silence, just listening to your ramblings as he usually did. His eyes were still fixated on the gift, as if making up for all the years he'd wished for it as a child. You desperately wanted to slip your hand into his, or rest your head on his shoulder - but you refrained. You didn't want to take away from this moment; you just wanted to watch it. That, and you weren't sure if you'd be able to let him go if you did.

"You said how you never got any presents as a kid." You started carefully, trying to navigate your thoughts into words. "It made me sad." You admitted, in more of a whisper this time.

Daryl looked over at you, his expression soft. It was like he was uncertain of his own words, too.

"I know it's stupid." You confessed, voice trailing off as you lost your nerve.

"Nah it aint." He interrupted, shaking his head and trying to get you to look at him. "I love it."

You thought he was being sarcastic until your eyes met his and you saw the sincerity within them, and suddenly your breath caught in your throat. Daryl Dixon gave you a smile so warm that it almost made you forget it was winter. You didn't know he could even make these kinds of expressions, and you weren't able to entirely hide your reaction. Though, his smile went as quickly as it came. He looked away from you, as if noticing he'd let his stubborn, unapproachable wall crumble down. You snorted, wondering if he truly hadn't realised that you knew him better than that by now.

"I thought that baby Grimes could play with it eventually." You suggested, and he hummed in agreement.

"But in the meantime-" you continued, taking the box from his hands and opening it.

He watched you with curious eyes but didn't say anything, just letting you carry on like you had him wrapped around your little finger. You fumbled with the box, pulling out the star shaped badge, before handing the rest back. You turned so that you were facing opposite him, and pulled on his leather jacket so that it opened.

He grumbled at you as you did it, but made no effort to pull away or stop you. Instead, you flipped open one side of his jacket and pinned the badge on the material inside, closing it again before the cold set it.

"It belongs to Deputy Dixon, as promised." You finished with a smile, watching as he thumbed over the metal concealed in his jacket. The look on his face showed just how much he struggled to figure you out.

To your surprise, he didn't remove it straight away. He just bit his lip, as though trying to think of how to respond.

"Yer too much, Teach." He said lowly, after a few seconds.

"How so?" You asked.

He glanced back down into his lap, at the box that was still resting there. "Doin' all this." He mumbled, seeming like he was holding himself back. You stayed silent, waiting for him to go on.

"You bring back comics for Carl, an' stuff for the baby." He said, looking down as he spoke. "We're all here tryna do our best jus' to survive, an' you come in with that huge beamin' smile on yer face showin' us a bobblehead ya found."

He finally met your eyes, and you could see from his look that he just genuinely couldn't comprehend it. You seemed to completely allude Daryl Dixon, and the thought of him struggling to try to understand you better made you almost giddy.

"I know it's odd." You admitted, pulling the poncho closer to your body as the wind picked up. "But just because our priority is surviving doesn't mean that we should put off living."

You bit your lip. This was the most you had spoken to the man in weeks, and as the seconds went by you found it harder and harder to hold yourself back.

"I thought you could use a reminder of that." You said, offering him a small smile. "You work so hard to try and keep us all fed and safe, I wanted to give you something as a thank you."

The newspaper fluttered in the breeze, and Daryl barely caught hold of it as a gust picked it up. You caught a glimpse of your handwriting, where he held it between his fingers.

"Santa Clause did, I mean." You corrected.

You sat together in silence for a while, but the man didn't light any more cigarettes. You felt yourself growing tired and attempted to convince him to swap his shift with someone else, but he refused. You knew the sun would start to rise in a couple of hours, so you wanted to get some sleep before then. Begrudgingly, you shuffled out of the oversized poncho and offered it back to the man before you left, immediately being reminded of how icy the weather had gotten. He shook his head at your outstretched hand, which you had already expected.

"Nah, you keep it." He said, in a way that left you no room to argue.

You raised an eyebrow at him, feeling nostalgic at the familiar situation. This time, however, you didn't fight with him. Slipping the material back over your head, you huddled it to your chest and whispered a soft 'thanks' to him. The sky was still dark, and kept you wondering whether you would start to see sleet fall in the next couple of days. You looked back over to the dilapidated cabin, with its wooden weathered walls and its roof that looked close to caving in. It was a far cry from Hershel's idyllic farmhouse, but somehow you didn't seem to mind as much on this specific night.

You slipped off the stone wall you'd been sitting on and stood up on your tip-toes to reach the man still sat there. You brushed away the hair over his face with the palm of your hand, and gave him a brief kiss on the forehead before turning to leave.

"Merry Christmas, Daryl." You told him, and returned to the house to watch the first snowflakes fall from the window.

A/N Don't you love it when the plot points you set up 6 chapters ago come back around to be resolved. It's *delicious*. I think I would actually pay to see the Christmas scene play out. There's only so much imagination can do - I want to see Daryl's shy reaction in person, too!

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narhinafan · 3 years ago

Note

Hey someone said that (First of all Kishi stated that Hinata possesses Hamura chakra, which is permanent and enhances Hinata's strength and abilities even more when one of Japanese fans say to kishi if hinata have hamura chakura or not.)

Now i saw someone said:

1. Hinata- She is THE MOST OVERRATED CHARACTER IN THE SERIES. Her fans overrate her so much. It’s hilarious and pathetic. Hinata is overrated because she’s nice, is part of NH and because she’s a Hyuga. In truth and in fact she’s an ordinary rookie 9 member but some of her fans think that she is kage leveled. They still compare her to current Sakura. This is the most popular comparison. Hinata’s fans think that she’s better than Neji as well even though she has no feats to prove this. They think that she is super smart, the best at chakra control, taijutsu, being a ninja, everything. She’s actually pretty average for the rookie nine but people put her on the kage tier. They also cling to her being a Hyuga despite Neji and her dad being stronger and still not being as powerful as other characters. They think that being Naruto’s love interest and being a Hyuga automatically puts her on the kage tier or stronger than Sakura when that’s not true. SS is not NH’s rival in power, only Naruto and Sasuke are rivals only.

Oh and with this last movie crap they think she had hamura’s power. All she did was collect chakra to give to naruto. She did not activate the tenseigan nor did she get any abilities. Had she gotten abilities like Naruto and Sasuke then she would have used them, kept them and shown us something. She would not have just collected chakra to give naruto. This shows that Hamura gave her chakra without abilities. Even then she’s still not overpowered like her fans say. SHE’S NORMAL and it’s annoying how people overrate her for the slightest little feats.

Hinata is anything but normal in fact that applies to Sakura more then anyone else. What Sakura fans refuse to admit is that Sakura getting the seal and creation rebirth doesn't make her a better fighter, before the war Sakura was still get one shot by Omoi a chunin so no way she is Kage level, he fighting skill wouldn't have improved much before the war nor during it and after she started working at the hospital full time eventually taking it over. Hinata however in the manga is shown landing hits on Pain and even pushing him back when his jutsu wasn't on cooldown a feat no other character has managed. Even Naruto had to use Shadow clones to resist almighty push, Hinata however is the only character that has managed to hit him before he could use it. The difference between Hinata and Sakura is obvious when one pushes back one of the strongest ninja in the series on her own, while the other gets taken out by a new character that isn't even a jonin.

As for Hinata she was put equal to Neji during the war so with the extra years she has over him it is safe to say she is better now, if he was alive it would be another story, but Hinata in Boruto has 10+ years of training over Neji. As for her father Hinata already proved herself better when she easily took out several puppets that were shown to have overwhelmed Hiashi at the start of the move.

Hinata would easily be ranked 3rd or 4th out of the rookie 9, first Hyuga are basically anti ninja the combination of the gentle fist and Byakugan make them OP and that is not even factoring in Lion Fist.

Now I am going to post the Twin Lion Fists jutsu file that properly explains what it does and shows just how terrifying of jutsu it is when paired with the gentle fist.

Gentle Step Twin Lion Fists (Juuho Soushiken)

Taijutsu, Kekkei Genkai, Offensive, Defensive, Supplementary, Close range

User(s): Hyuuga Hinata

Strong will held in the fists!! Its form is double lion heads!!

A secret high-level Gentle Fist technique, taught only to the Main House of the Hyuuga Clan. By changing the shape of chakra released from both hands, [the user] greatly increases reach and destructive power. The arms become entirely like lions which drain the chakra network of those they touch.

Because it will fail at even the slightest mistake in chakra control, it is extremely difficult to learn this ability, which is a feat that requires the Byakugan.

It can be used to increase the power of Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms.

Now as we already know the gentle fist bypasses defences and damages the organs and chakra network directly. This makes it quite deadly and will weaken an opponent with every it. Add that is unlockable and as shown that even a glancing blow can do harm it is difficulty to dodge as well. The gentle fist and Byakugan is so fearsome that it is consider the strongest taijutsu in the village and possibly even the world, the cloud village even went as far as attempting to kidnap Hinata when she was younger to try and get them. Those things alone easily put Hinata over most ninja's that even if she isn't equal or better then Neji as long as she is close to Neji's level there will be few that can deal with her.

Now Lion Fist makes the already OP, not only does it increase the gentle destructive power, but also greatly enchants range as well as drains chakra.

As you can see in the ss, the increase isn't small either the lion fists greatly extend Hinata's reach by not only length, but also width. In a taijutsu fight the only way to perfectly evade the gentle fist was by parrying, but Lion Fist covers Hinata's hands and good length of arm making them impossible to parry. Add that their size the same as Hinata's body in close combat the jutsu is basically the perfect offensive and defence, it would be extremely difficult to land a hit while avoiding them in fact close combat is pretty much impossible against such a jutsu.

Then there is the fact it can be paired with 64 palms which is basically an instant win when hit lands unless the enemy is a jinchuuriki. With Lion Fist on top of 64 palms will take out anyone, even if 64 palms doesn't land properly the extra range and damage Lion Fist provides will ensure the enemy is in no state to keep fight.

Now as for Hinata's chakra control, the Hyuga have always had a level of chakra control beyond others due their innate ability to release chakra from any chakra point on the body and even doing so from several different points at once. Add that they have the Byakugan that allows them to see their chakra and how it flows through the chakra points and network they can easily perfect their chakra control through training with its aid. The Lion Fist is stated to fail at even the slightest mistake in chakra control being extremely difficult to learn this ability and is a feat that requires the Byakugan. This means the level of chakra control needed for Lion Fist is somthing that can only be obtained with the Byakugan. Hinata mastering a jutsu that even for Hyuga standards is difficult to learn and needs the Byakugan proves that Hinata's chakra control is one of the best in the series.

Neji was hailed as the greatest genius in the history of the Hyuga clan and Hinata during the war is shown fighting back to back with him as equals even saving him at one point when they were fighting Zetsu. Add that Hinata could easily fill in for Neji after he overused used his Byakugan also shows that Hinata has some advantages over Neji. So during the war Hinata is strong enough to be considered Neji's equal, even if she wasn't stronger then him then after he died Hinata would have had more then enough time to surpass him. Also though Neji doesn't have Lion Fist which is a big game changer, if both Hinata and Neji fought even if Hinata was still the less skill of the two Lion Fist would give her the advantage over Neji. Even if Neji used rotation the Lion Fists ability to drain chakra would counter it.

So Hinata isn't overrated in fact she would be considered underrated. At the very least with Neji's passing Hinata is easily the strongest Hyuga. In the novels a rusty Hinata can easily beat a Jonin Hanabi who is the next head of the Hyuga clan. While Hinata already proved herself stronger then her father in the last. The Hyuga clan is known as the strongest clan in the leaf village so Hinata being the strongest Hyuga at the moment goes a long way and would easily put her in the upper echelon in the ninja world.

As for Hamura's chakra Hinata's lion fist got upgraded after she got it with it being remained and the colour changing. The normal Lion Fist is easily A-S rank jutsu and OP as I explained above so an improved version would just be insane.

#pro hinata hyuga #anti sakura haruno

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helpistolethesecharacters · 4 years ago

Text

Death Does Not Discriminate Between the Sinners and the Saints

Part 1

Tony Stark x Male Demon Reader

Word Count: 3361

This is for the amazing @charliedakotariley who keeps absolutely making my day with all the sweet things they say.

This one is a bit angsty, but there is fantastic tooth rotting fluff at the end for anyone who gets that far. Keep yourselves safe and don't read anything that will make you go down a bad path.

Warnings: The title kind of says it, we are going to be dealing with the concept of a loved one dying in this. NO-ONE ACTUALLY DIES.

--------------

Y/n had known for months now that something was wrong with Tony. They had gotten past the hurdle of Tony's new self-consciousness thanks to the arc reactor that was a part of him now, or at least Y/n thought they had. He had spent weeks reassuring Tony (in and out of bed) that he still found him attractive.

Of course, the rest of the world would be surprised to see Tony Stark be self-conscious about anything, but they didn't know him like Y/n did. He found Tony's public persona to be hilarious. As a literal demon he loved to watch Tony wind up anyone who thought they could get under his skin.

That had been a surprise to Y/n. He had approached Tony at a party one night for a little bit of fun. Hey, he wasn't about to censure himself, he was a demon. Fun was what he did best.

As cliche as it is, Y/n hadn't expected to fall for the dashing young man so many years before. He sighed for at least the tenth time that night. They had been together for years and still no-one had connected the dots.

'Friends my ass,' Y/n snorted as he thought back to that latest tabloid headline, 'or Tony's ass, as the case may be.'

The problem right now was that Tony was avoiding him. Y/n watched disinterestedly as Tony got eye-wateringly drunk at his birthday party.

Y/n was long over the days where all chaos was his preferred fun. That had stopped when he fell properly for the billionaire. He much preferred it when the chaos didn't stem from his boyfriend getting drunk, putting on his Iron Man suit and proceeding to destroy large parts of his home.

Pepper stood beside him looking equal parts furious and worried. She was alternating between biting her fingernails and sighing in frustration. She looked up at the much taller man.

"Isn't there anything you can do to stop him Y/n?"

Y/n's expression soured.

"No, he hasn't told me what's bugging him. He hasn't even looked at me once tonight."

That was when Rhodey came busting in wearing one of Tony's other suits. For a minute Y/n considered getting between them, but then he decided that if Tony couldn't be bothered to even talk to him, then he could get out of his own mess.

It wasn't until Y/n was back in his own apartment staring out into the darkness of the night sky that he realised what it was that had been bugging him.

Tony smelled like death.

----------

Y/n was a man of many talents. As a demon, he had lived for over a hundred years, all the while, seemingly never aging a day. He had been all over the world and met (and ruined) many amazing people. (Thank the devil for the light telepathic abilities he had that allowed him to make people see him as human looking. Well, at least more human than he really was.)

He had never once been in love. Until Tony. Y/n was starting to regret not getting closer to other humans over the years, because now he had no idea how to deal with the idea of Tony dying.

What was he going to do? He was a demon, they lived for over a thousand years at least. That was like the lowest natural age to die for a demon. He couldn't live the rest of his life without Tony, he was his everything.

That pulled Y/n up short. When had he fallen so low as to be so affected by the death of a lowly human? But that lowly human was Tony, his adorable chaos-creating boyfriend. He wasn't even dead yet, but Y/n was already acting like he was gone.

A glimmer of a thought flickered through Y/n's head.

There had to be something he could do, instead of sitting back and letting this happen. Tony could NOT die. Y/n wouldn't let it happen, no matter who had to fall in his place.

'How do you stop the death of someone who doesn't even know they are dying. If only there was a google search for something like this.'

Y/n grinned manically. They had healers in Asgard. Some of the best in the universe. He had heard whispers of paths between the realms here on Earth. Heck, he had even used some of them himself, how else did you think he got here in the first place?

Y/n's face set in determination. He could do this. He would stop Tony from dying even if it meant his own death.

He wasn't a demon for nothing after all.

-----------

Getting into Asgard shouldn't have been that easy Y/n lamented as he stepped out into the lush forest that surrounded the portal. He was pretty sure that there was supposed to be some all powerful, all seeing God that watched over the realms. Y/n wasn't sure what to do about that, but figured that if there wasn't a squad of Asgardian guards waiting to arrest/remove him on arrival then he must not be a valid concern.

Y/n bared his teeth at the thought. He considered letting his perception field fall and making a big dramatic entrance, but let it go.

'For Tony.'

Y/n walked as carefully as he could through the forest. It wouldn't do to get all tattered and look even more suspicious than he already would.

Luckily it didn't take more than an hour to get to the edge of the forest, and even more luckily it bordered on the golden city itself.

Y/n stopped to take in the grandeur of the city of Asgard and thought that he must be the only demon to have ever set foot in this realm. How ironic that he wasn't even there to try to destroy it like so many of his kin had dreamed of doing.

No one really paid Y/n much mind as he made his way into the city proper. It turned out Asgardians were taller than humans generally speaking, so Y/n actually fit in better here than on Earth where he just about towered over everyone.

He even saw a couple of other people with skin as pale as his was, and the same white hair. No one had eyes like his though. Y/n knew that his eyes looked like the lava that covered so much of his home realm. They even glowed if he got too emotional.

This realm was so much more open. The streets were wider, there was so much more room to move than on Earth. Y/n was starting to feel like a tourist, gaping at every little thing in the city. That wouldn't help him in blending in, but he couldn't help it. He had the sudden urge to see if he could do a full spin and not knock anything over.

That had been one of the hardest things to unlearn when he first made it to Earth. His long armored tail was pretty unwieldy in such tight enclosed spaces, so he had had to learn to balance all over again with his tail tucked closer to his body. Unfortunately his perception field only changed how people saw him, so if they tripped over his tail and really looked to see what had tripped them, they sometimes saw what he really looked like. Luckily for him, they were usually written off as insane or, as one really unlucky woman found, it was written off as women's hysteria.

Y/n reined that thought back in and tucked it away for later. If he got out of this alive he would think about it later.

Y/n was sure that the best healers would work in the palace, but that would mean trying to sneak in and abscond with a royal physician. That would be noticed much more quickly, and would be met with a much harsher response.

Y/n set his shoulders back in determination. He would just have to be incredibly convincing, or this would go sideways much too quickly.

'Well,' Y/n thought grimly, 'at least that would solve the problem of watching Tony die slowly.'

--------------

The palace was quiet. This was just too odd. Something supernatural must be at work here.

Y/n was starting to freak out. He had made his way into the palace totally unhindered, and even his admittedly amazing luck had never been that good.

He slunk around another corner, still on high alert. Which was why he didn't miss the shimmer in the air that meant something else was in this space with him.

Y/n shot out an arm at it, aiming for the same height as his own neck.

His hand caught around a slimmer neck than his own, and he tightened his grip to almost unbearable for a demon. He wasn't about to underestimate the people of Asgard.

The stories of Asgardians from back on his own realm lauded them as incredibly strong and fast, and able to live as long as demons themselves.

The Asgardian struggled fiercely for a moment, but when it became apparent that Y/n was stronger than them, they slumped and dropped whatever incantation had allowed them to be invisible.

They appeared to be male, and around the same age as Y/n, but then, so had Tony when they had first met.

Y/n shoved the man away from him hard, and took up a fighting stance.

The other man sputtered and heaved in deep breaths to make up for his previous lack, thanks to Y/n. He looked pretty pathetic, laying against the wall, black hair falling over his face, which was red from lack of air.

"Why have you brought me here mage?"

The man looked up, affecting a surprised expression.

"What makes you think I have brought you here? Are you not an assassin, here to remove either the King or Crown Prince? Both are in the throne room, if you were interested."

Y/n remained in his stance, passive.

"I have the feeling that you know why I'm here already."

The man pulled himself up at last.

"Fine, I might have sensed you when you first stepped foot in our realm. I must say, I haven't seen anyone from Helheim before. Whatever are you doing here, a place that some have dubbed the promised land, home of the Gods?"

"You don't half think highly of yourself, do you?"

The man's response is a sneer.

"I need help."

Y/n stood up from his stance. It didn't feel like this man was going to attack him, and he could hardly ask for help much less receive it while preparing to attack.

He definitely gave off an odd vibe, but it wasn't an 'I'm about to kill you and all of your family just for breathing near me' vibe.

The man looked positively delighted.

"A demon of Helheim needs help," He crowed. "What can I, the humble Loki of Asgard, do to help you Oh Great Demon of Helheim?"

Y/n's left eye twitched, but he reigned himself in once again. Just because Loki seemed like he would benefit from a good smack upside the head, that didn't make it his job to deliver it.

"My, paramour, is in need of a healer. We do not have the ability to heal him, and I will not see his life ended without every attempt having been made to save it."

Loki apparently noticed the pause at the beginning of my request.

"My, my, what type of paramour could you possibly have that would warrant such a delicately put request? Surely not another demon, I thought you were nigh on indestructible?"

He was wandering around Y/n now, getting closer in his circling, all the better to whisper intimidatingly in his ear.

"Perhaps, to be in such desperate need of rescue that you, a demon, would risk everything by coming here of all places, your 'paramour' is something a little more frail?"

Y/n took it back, Loki was pure evil. He grit his teeth and squashed the urge to deck him in his smug face.

"Me thinks, perhaps, something so frail as, a human?"

They stood face to face in silence.

"Your silence speaks volumes my dear."

Y/n lost the battle. With a cry of outrage that came from somewhere deep inside he leapt at the smug God and prepared to smash his stupid face into pieces.

Shockingly his fist simply went through Loki's face. The image rippled and flickered out as it did so.

It flickered back into place beside him.

He spun into a roundhouse kick and the God went down.

"Stop! Dammit, just stop!"

'Some God,' thought Y/n.

"I was sent to get you."

Y/n was done with these so-called Gods and their mind games.

"What do you mean you were sent to get me? Spit it out!"

Loki looked up and glared at Y/n from his position on the floor.

"You were Seen. The moment you stepped foot into Asgard Heimdall Saw you and reported it to the All-Father. Luckily for you Queen Frigga Saw that you weren't here to attack, and that you only sought our help. I was sent to collect you and bring you to her rooms."

------------

The Queen turned out to be much sweeter than Y/n had assumed. He had heard stories of course, but how much could be believed from the daughter who was banished to Helheim?

"Y/n, come, sit. How was your trip dear?"

Y/n was confused. She was acting like they were old friends. As far as he knew he had never met the Queen of Asgard before.

"Ma'am, I'm here for aid. My partner is not long for our home realm. I could smell death on him."

Y/n looked at the ground and clenched his hands into fists.

"I can't lose him. I thought once before that he was gone for good, but he fought tooth and nail to come back to me. Now I am having to sit and watch as something pulls him ever closer to deaths waiting arms. Please, I'll do anything, but please, heal him."

Y/n knew he was begging, but what else could be done. He had thought maybe he could intimidate a regular healer into healing Tony. After that was hazy, but he had been prepared to do anything that would be necessary to make Tony better.

This was not going to plan. He couldn't do anything to make the Queen decide to help him, he would just have to appeal to her softer side.

Frigga knelt by Y/n's side and softly took one of his hands in hers. Her eyes softened as she took in the genuine distress on Y/n's face.

"There is nothing to be done dear. No, don't panic, your loved one is fine. You were right, he was dying, but events have conspired to keep Tony Stark alive. Something needs him still alive, and I am talking about something bigger than you or I. He lives, and at this moment is going just a little bit more out of his mind than normal in his search for you."

Y/n was on his feet and by the door before Frigga had even finished speaking.

"Wait!"

Y/n turned, not wanting to waste another second when he knew that Tony was looking for him, but not able to be disrespectful of the one who had given him hope back.

"Eventually, when you are both ready for that next step, come back and bring your partner. I can organise for one of Idunn's golden apples. You can grow old together."

Tears gathered in Y/n's eyes at the offer.

"But, why? I'm a demon. Tony is a human. Neither of us are anything special. Why are you offering this to us?"

Frigga smiled, beautiful but so broken.

"Because you remind me of someone. So passionate and loyal to the ones who you love that you are willing to flatten entire realms."

Y/n didn't know what to say to that, so he turned back to face Frigga fully. He bowed from the waist to her.

"Thank you Queen Frigga of Asgard. I am in your debt."

Y/n heard her words spoken softly as he left, not entirely for his ears.

"Will you ever forgive us, my dear daughter?"

--------------

Tony was broken. He had thought that the lowest he could get was knowing that he was dying from something that was supposed to be saving his life.

He was wrong. When he had finally come up for air after the whole thing with his arc reactor, Shield and the Hammer Fiasco as he was calling it, he had realised that he hadn't seen Y/n since his disastrous birthday.

He had searched for what felt like forever. Not even Jarvis could find any mention of Y/n anywhere in the world. It was like he had dropped off the face of the planet.

Tony was now spending his time in his boyfriends apartment. He was sure that when he finally came back from wherever he had been, this was one of the first places he would go. He loved his boyfriend, but they were both equally as vain as the other. Any big dramatic entrance back into Tony's life would need to be planned out meticulously by Y/n. So he was sure if he just waited in his apartment he would see him again.

He was not wrong, he realised with rising hope as he heard the door swing open. He poked his head up over the back of Y/n's couch, hair a mess, goatee completely unkempt, knowing that he was wearing rumpled clothes that hadn't been washed in a few days.

In short, he was the only thing that Y/n wanted to see when he got home.

They collided with a slightly painful thump, banging limbs into each other, but not caring in the slightest.

"Oh God, Y/n, I'm so sorry! I--"

"Tony! Thank God you're alright!"

They fell into hysterics at this. Both knew that it wasn't funny at all, but after all the stress they had been through lately, simply being in each others arms was the most amazing feeling in the world.

Neither of them wanted to move, but common sense won out in the end, and they found themselves on the couch some time later.

They had pulled a soft blanket out of somewhere and where wrapped up together, totally unwilling to move for as long as possible.

"I was so scared when I realised you were dying. Why didn't you tell me?"

Tony had never heard Y/n so quiet before. He sighed heavily.

"I wanted to, but then whenever I tried to tell anyone, it wouldn't come out. It was never the right time, and then I realised that I didn't want anyone's last memories of me to be clouded with the knowledge that I was going to die soon. You especially. I didn't want you to have to carry that around, that I was dying and there was nothing you could have done about it."

They were silent for a while after that.

"Maybe that makes me selfish, but I couldn't bear the thought of adding to the hurt you were already going to feel when it happened. God, I'm so sorry."

Y/n just pulled Tony in closer, wrapped him up a little tighter into his arms.

"It's okay, but next time, tell me. I know you remember that I'm a demon. You have the best memory in the world. Next time you have some unsolvable problem, let me in. There might be something I can do that you can't, but even if there isn't, we would still shoulder that problem together. There's nothing I would rather do, than try to help lighten the load."

Tony was crying now, he could feel the tears dripping openly down his face, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

"I love you, so much it hurts. Never leave me."

"I will always love you Tony. You've changed me irrevocably. If there ever was a point where I could have turned away from you, if was long ago. You're never getting rid of me now."

#Tony Stark x male reader #Male reader #iron man #tony stark #Iron man 2 #Loki #Death does not discriminate between the sinners and the saints

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char-lotteral · 4 years ago

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Ticket Booth

Great. Just what she needed.

Amity being stood up on her blind date.

Again.

"This is just ridiculous." She sighs to herself, impatiently alternating between checking her phone and the watch on her wrist just to avoid human confrontation from any passersby on the street.

I mean, is she surprised? Not really. Did she hope it would turn out different? Kinda

Not like this was the first time Ed and Em had set her up on another blind date. You should head out more! Meet new people, get a change of environment!

New people, my ass. If ever she gets a chance to meet these said new people, that is.

Amity checks her phone again with a big bright 8:10 PM, humiliating her at every passing second. Tick, tick, tick. There's that sound of that unnecessarily large wall clock hung in front of the movie theaters, more people arriving in front of the ticket booth, hands interlaced and smiles all warm and happy, and goddammit; her date was supposed to be here 10 minutes ago!

The wind's gotten colder, the theaters getting overcrowded, her feet hurt from standing too much, and in attempt to hide herself from the sad, despicable, cynical reality of it all, she huddles herself inside her massive winter cloak, tendrils of bubblegum hair sticking out from the side of her hoodie.

Why God, why did she agree to go to this?!

"Are you waiting for someone?"

Snapping out of her thoughts, Amity whips her attention towards the (cute) lady behind the ticket booth. Not one for initiating conversations, she coughs to suppress her shyness and answers, "Uh y-yeah. I have a um, a date. I'm waiting for them."

The lady behind the ticket booth smiles this really cute smile of hers and suddenly Amity has forgotten her name altogether. "You know, I don't wanna sound rude or anything, but the movie starts at exactly 8:15. And I don't think you'll be able to see it if you're gonna be out here, freezing in the cold."

She laughs tucking a hair behind her ear. "Yeah well, this isn't my first time being stood up so I guess I'm used to it at this point."

"Wait, you're being stood up?"

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Now she thinks you're some hopeless romantic.

Shaking her head frantically, she manages to salvage herself from this stranger that she has a sudden urge to impress all of a sudden. "W-What? No! I meant my date was um busy and they texted me too late, so I guess I am kinda freezing my ass off outside the movie theater. But not because I was waiting for them the entire evening! I-I have better things to do than um..."

Being stood up by my blind date who hasn't even met me! Crap, maybe I am the problem?

"Better things to do like stand outside in the freezing cold?"

Her eyes dart towards the ticket lady who no doubt is feeling sympathetic for her pathetic ass and as she does, there's still that smile of hers etched on her face, looking down at her with some sympathy but she doesn't mind, she likes how she's looking at her. Had she already mentioned she thought she was cute?

"O-Or that." Amity answers pathetically, chuckling at the absurdity of it all.

"Tell you what," The lady in the booth begins. "Maybe I can refund you for the tickets? I won't tell my boss or anything, they'll be fine with it."

Ticket lady was being awfully nice to her, which was strange because most strangers usually had a fight or flight response whenever they saw Amity talking to them, probably because of her intimidating aura, which she doesn't really blame them for. This cute ticket lady on the other hand, was a whole different story.

"Oh no, my sister's already paid for the tickets online, plus I don't think these two tickets are refundable so um, I guess I'll just have to watch this movie alone or maybe sell my ticket to someone who actually has a date." She giggles again, internally sorry for her own situation.

The cute ticket lady pauses for a second, attention a bit distant and elbows perched above her desk. Amity debates with herself whether or not she should just say fuck it and watch the movies alone, at least until ticket lady finally looks up and meets her eye to eye. And woah, she never knew eyes could look that brown.

"Hey, how about I watch it with ya?"

... What?

"What?" She parrots her thoughts. I'm sorry did she hear that right?

The lady smiles even wider, eyes pinched from the apples of her cheeks and a smile so bright, it could rival the stars above them. "You heard me. I wanna watch it with you!"

"You wanna... watch it with me?"

" 'Course I would. That is, if you'll allow me? I promise I'll pay for the tickets, I'm not scamming you or something."

"Oh um, can I ask why?"

The lady laughs again, oblivious to the damage she's been doing to Amity's poor stomach. Butterflies seemed like a stupid analogy, it was like the entire zoo came in to visit. "I can't let a pretty girl walk inside that movie theater all alone. There might be some serial killers inside there."

Oh.

Well, this turned out to be the best possible scenario she could come up with.

Pretty girl? Her?

This night just keeps getting better and better.

Feeling uncharacteristically playful, she refutes back, cheeks ablaze by the little compliment. "And how do I know that you're not a serial killer, plotting to bury my body?"

Her eyes are squinting from absolute mirth, clearly not expecting her to reply back. "I can prove to you that I am not, in fact, a serial killer by politely introducing myself. "Luz Noceda. College student by day, billionaire philanthropist by night."

"By billionaire philanthropist, do you mean ticket booth manager? Because I think both are equally badass."

Luz shrugs, unfazed. "Eh, its hard living the double life. I have to keep my identity hidden so no one assassinates me in broad daylight."

Simultaneously, they both laugh at their dumb topic, and Amity has never felt this alight with another person before. Her chest feels tighter, her cheeks hurt from smiling so much and she thinks that maybe, just maybe, this night might not be as bad as she initially thought it would be.

"So, have I proven myself worthy? Can I watch it with you?" Luz is practically bouncing on her feet, tail wagging like a retriever waiting for her treat. She looks so damn adorable behind the ticket booth that Amity's heart threatens to jump out of her throat and melt right in front of her.

So what if a cute girl wants to watch a movie with you? Big deal! It's not like she's asking for your hand in marriage. It's not like it's a date or anything.

Oh God, is it a date?! Oh no, no, no. What has she gotten herself into?!

What if she says yes and embarrasses herself right in front of her? They barely even know each other! They don't know each other at all! What if this really, really cute girl doesn't actually like her and is just doing this out of pity and turns out they'll never see each other again, and, and—

"Hey, earth to bubblegum, I'm still here. In case, you forgot. I don't wanna be all rude or anything—"

"N-No!" Amity cuts her off so quickly, she's on the verge of a panic attack. "You can watch it with me! We can watch it t-together! I'd l-love to!"

Smooth move Blight, smooth move.

Her words seemed to be enough to calm Luz down and she feels like she has God to personally thank for for that beautiful smile of hers. Honestly, how can one smile like that? It's that type of smile that could brighten an entire room or the physical embodiment of joy, youth and everything else good in the world.

"Wait, but what about the ticket booth? Are you allowed to leave it alone?" Concerned, Amity asks Luz as she walks out of the booth.

"Nah, Eda won't mind. I think. I-I'll be back before she even notices I'm gone. Won't be a problem! Hopefully." Taking off her cap, Luz locks the door behind her, tucking the key safely in her pocket. She looks back at Amity, eyes gleaming from the adventure of it all. Eyes that remind her of chestnut and coffee on a cold, serene morn. And a low, pixie cut to tie it all together.

Luz hands out her palm, anticipation and adrenaline coursing through her, she's smiling that sunny smile of hers again, cheeks flushed and hair a mess from the stuffy cap and Amity thinks to herself again that wow, she really is cute.

"You ready?"

Two words, two simple words from a stranger she's never even met before. What would Ed and Em think if they saw her right now, watching movies with a random girl she doesn't even know? Her instincts are telling her to go, leave, maybe find another night to watch the movies, you can pay for the tickets another day, you barely even know this person!

But when Amity finally looks up from her hand to those chestnut eyes and that smile of pure unabashed warmth, she's made her decision.

She's positive that her cheeks are the brightest shade of red, practically glowing under the cheap porch light, but if she squints, just enough, the same shade of red are on Luz's cheeks too, flushed and cherry red, just as she was. Nervous albeit excited, just as she was.

"I thought you'd never ask."

#lumity #the owl house #lumity fanfiction #amity blight #luz noceda #modern college au #hey hey hey lookie its my first lumity fanfic

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imaginethoseguys · 4 years ago

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Liquid Courage

Hi, I need to submit a seminar paper in 10 days so naturally I wrote this 3k+ fic for Itadori Yuji girl, bye

Pairing: Itadori Yuji x fem!S/O Word count: 3.3k Warnings: fluff, drinking, drunk confessions, slight angst, au motifs Summary: No matter the chosen activity, Yuji would be equally excited to simply spend time with her. He didn’t even need her to reciprocate his feelings. He felt comfortable in his lovable bubbly state, and she most likely loved him as a friend, so all was well. Trying to take things further would be a risky move anyway and he would not dare take his chances at the expense of making things worse between them because the last thing he would ever want is to make her upset or uncomfortable. He still remembered all her stories about friendships she inescapably lost after the “I need to tell you something” texts in the middle of the night from guys who she felt comfortable enough to be herself with.

Yup, no way that was happening. a/n: Itadori's in his 20s (as well as s/o)

gif credit

It wasn’t Yuji who offered to spend the Friday night at a bar. He didn’t enjoy drinking that much, and there was some weird old movie at the local theatre that they could watch and make fun of together. But it was an unusual occasion, they were on a week-long mission, dealing with curse activity in Osaka, and, well, it was her who asked, so of course he agreed. He never went against her suggestions, he trusted her fully, maybe even too much. Possibly, it was her way with words. Somehow, she knew exactly what to say in situations where Yuji often found himself at loss for words. She was reliable and reassuring and had a certain kind of warmness to her.

Or, possibly, it was Yuji’s six-years-long crush on her that had him blushing and hyperventilating at anything she did, so opinions were divided on this one.

No matter the chosen activity, Yuji would be equally excited to simply spend time with her. He didn’t even need her to reciprocate his feelings. He felt comfortable in his lovable bubbly state, and she most likely loved him as a friend, so all was well. Trying to take things further would be a risky move anyway and he would not dare take his chances at the expense of making things worse between them because the last thing he would ever want is to make her upset or uncomfortable. He still remembered all her stories about friendships she inescapably lost after the “I need to tell you something” texts in the middle of the night from guys with who she felt comfortable enough to be herself. Yup, no way that was happening.

“Oh, look, they have homemade plum wine!” her exclamation brought Yuji’s attention back to reality. “And it’s in pitchers too. Lucky!”

“You do remember you can’t hold your liquor, right?” he said, propping his face on his right hand while watching her mumble giddily “plum wine and soda, plum wine and soda.” She lowered the laminated menu sheet and leveled him with an annoyed gaze.

“I am a grown young woman who earns a living by exorcising curses, I’m pretty sure I can handle a glass or two, Yuji .”

“Including that time when you threw up on Fushiguro mid-conversation?”

“That was graduation! And we did shots.”

“Yeah, it was also 7pm.”

“Enough of you, mister.” She threateningly pointed a finger at him and turned around to call the waiter. Receiving an acknowledging nod in return, she turned back. “Besides, if we’re talking about you, everyone is terrible at holding their liquor in comparison.”

“I’m just heavyweight.” He shrugged his shoulders.

“You’re just a beast machine who suppressed the King of Curses and can run 50 meters in 3 seconds,” she shook her head at her own description, “no wonder you’re Special Grade. Why do you bother drinking at all? Pretty sure it does nothing to you.”

“I don’t do it on my own. I like the company.” He said timidly.

“Aw, see? This is why I love you.”

Yuji’s eyes widened unintentionally, but she didn’t look at him long enough to see it, her attention swiftly taken away by an approaching waiter. He assured himself he was better at controlling his feelings, but it was all falling apart now, like a bunch of lies, because he could feel his entire face and ears pulsate from heat. He stared at the way her lips moved, making the order.

as a friend as a friend as a friend as a friend as a friend

“Yuji? Yuji!”

He snapped back, looking even more surprised.

“You wanted the Ginjo-Shu, right?”

His gaze lingered on her face, open and bright, with eyebrows slightly raised.

“Yeah.”

This is fine.

* * *

“Ah, see? This is exactly what I was talking about.”

Yuji furrowed his eyes helplessly and took the glass from her hand. She tried to down her drink in one motion but missed and spilled it over herself. Looking back now, he wasn’t sure if it was her being lightweight or her not stopping in time.

“When did that even happen,” he mumbled to himself, “she was fine a minute ago.”

“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here,” she moaned in drunk annoyance, “because I am here.”

“So it seems,” Yuji smiled.

“And I may be many things, but there’s one thing that I am not, and it is deaf. Or stupid.”

“Yup, that’s two things though.”

She sighed loudly and leaned back on the wooden wall of their booth. They were surrounded by soft mixes of white noise: distant frying and sizzling from the kitchen, clinking of glasses, and giddy discussions of the upcoming weekend. They could almost feel like they belonged here, to the normal crowd of Osaka drinking their weekly stresses away, complaining about their bosses, bills, and personal dramas.

Is that what it’s like to be normal? Both of them thought.

Yuji looked over at her and felt the heat returning to his cheeks. This drink spill felt too deliberate to be accidental. And her bra was very thin, and the bar’s AC was on and—

Yuji groaned and swiftly took his hoodie off, almost throwing it in her direction.

“Wear this, please.”

She didn’t really fight it and slowly put it over her head, beginning to crawl inside. She stopped somewhere in the middle and breathed in.

Ah, it smells so good. Smells like him.

She pressed the fabric into her face, taking in his scent. When did he manage to put on cologne? That’s just unfair.

“You okay in there? Are you stuck?” Yuji looked questionably at the wrinkly bundle that was now his hoodie with her somewhere inside.

“Listen, Yuji.”

“You’re just gonna talk to me like this, huh?”

“I’m sorry,” she murmured in a soft voice. “I know this isn’t how you would spend your night, but—I wanted to—you know. But in the end, I just—and—”

Suddenly, she felt a gentle tug, and her head popped out of the hoodie, revealing Yuji’s face lightened by a warm smile.

“I told you, I like the company.”

There was a needle prick somewhere around her heart, and she pressed her lips together, taken by a sudden wave of sadness.

“Let’s get back, yeah?”

* * *

Their hotel wasn’t far from the bar, but due to her condition, the walk back took longer than usual. Summer was ending, the air was still warm, but there was a tingling coldness with each wind blow, a careful reminder of the approaching grey sky and smell of wet concrete, covered by tired leaves.

The path to the hotel entrance was hidden among the sleeping quarters, illuminated by floor lights, and framed by tall bamboo sticks. Yuji walked first and was right in front of the automatic sliding doors when he stopped and turned around to check on her. Instead of right behind him, he saw her at the beginning of the entrance path with her head down.

“Hm? Are you okay? Wait, are you sick?? Then stay right there, if you wanna throw up, do it—um—” he swiftly looked around. Seeing a gardening pot near one of the doors across the street, he pointed at it. “Here, maybe in this pot? Wait, no, this is a nice neighborhood, imagine waking up and finding vomit in your plants… ah, maybe in this bamboo? I’m not sure if it’s real though… ah, but this hotel allows hosting of jujutsu sorcerers because the owner is a friend of someone from the higher-ups, and if we vomit here—"

“Yuji.”

“Oh, maybe vomit in my t-shirt? And I’ll carry it to the nearest dumpster? No, that’s a horrible idea. Are you sure you can’t hold it until we get to our room? Then—”

“I’m not sick, Yuji!” she said loudly, maybe even too much so. “Although all this vomit talk is grossing me out.”

Yuji raised his eyebrows. “Then what’s wrong? Wait, did drinking uncover your hidden phobia of hotels? I read that somewhere…”

She smiled sadly. “You’re such an idiot.”

He bared his teeth, clearly offended. “Well, I’m sorry for trying to be helpful! Jeez, if you can’t walk – just say so, I’ll carry you to our room.”

“I don’t want to go to our room!” she yelled again. Yuji’s eyes widened in surprise, but he didn’t say anything.

“Because then we go to sleep, come back to Tokyo and—I—” She squeezed the hem of his hoodie, “and I’ll never get another chance.”

There’s a short silence after her outburst. Yuji glanced over her hands that were clenched in fists and looked to the side.

“I mean, it’s not like this is our only chance to visit Osaka, we can always book a vacation and come back here.”

“Huh? Who cares about Osaka? It's—”

“I’m not very smart,” he interrupted her quietly, “so you’ll need to be straight with me, otherwise I won’t understand what you mean.” Then, his voice got even quieter. “Or I’ll start imagining things that aren’t real.”

“Yuji, I—” she tried to speak fast, because she felt a betraying lump in her throat, “I never wanted to drag you into a bar. There was this old movie at the local theatre that we could have watched, but I—If I didn’t drink, I would have never gotten the strength to say the things that I’ve been meaning to say for a long-long time. And this trip felt like a perfect opportunity, and you’re right, I’m a lightweight and I overdid it, and I was so close to saying it, but I thought—I cherish you so, so much , Yuji, it hurts me to even think about it. I tried to tell you before, after graduation, but you distanced yourself from me that night, so I figured it was a bad idea. I still think it is, but I—Yuji, I—”

Yuji shortened the distance between them with a desperately fast sprint and grabbed her with both of his hands, squeezing her so tight that she could barely talk anymore, her face pressed into his chest. He was silent for a bit.

“I distanced myself from you during the graduation night because you looked so vulnerable. I thought you were doing things you would regret the next day, so I didn’t want to take advantage. Because when you’re like this with me, I,” his hands trembled, “It’s so hard for me not to be selfish.”

“Wait, Yuji,” she tried to move away from him, but no matter how hard she pushed, she would never win Yuji in a battle of strength. “Please, let me finish.”

“No,” he sounded uncharacteristically serious. He lowered his head and pressed his cheek to her forehead. “When you say that this is not the way I would spend my night… You can invite me to dumpster dive or read books about molecular physics in a public library, or lick poles in winter, and I’ll choose it over anything else. When I found out we would go on this mission together, I was so happy. I can be doing the grossest, most stupid, and pointless things, but if I’m with you – it would be the best way to spend all the time I have. I hate being alone, and it's all I ever felt for so many years of life. But when I met you—when I’m with you – I feel so warm. You make me forget about the bad stuff. When you’re next to me, I—I feel wanted. So please,” his hands weakened his grab on her frame, letting her lean back and catch a glimpse of his face. “Please, don’t give me false hopes.”

Their breaths were hot and shaky as they looked each other in the eyes, hypnotised by each other’s presence. She cautiously moved closer to him and cupped his cheeks. Yuji swallowed thickly, he had to stop himself, but her hand was soft and warm, and the number of times he dreamt about this exact moment didn’t let him move an inch of his body. She raised herself on her tiptoes and leaned to his lips. She smelled so sweet, and her body was so close to his that—

“Ghh, stop,” Yuji groaned and pressed his forehead to hers in agony.

“Why?” She asked breathlessly, “you don’t want this?”

“ No ! I mean, yes. God, I want this so much my head could explode, b-but,” he leaned back slightly, revealing his glowing red face, from the neck to the tips of his ears. “You’re drunk, and we’re tired and I,” he rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. “I want this to be right. If you wake up tomorrow and don’t remember any of this, I—”

“Stop talking,” she moaned and pulled him back by the fabric of his t-shirt, crushing her lips into his, arms then moving up to snake around his neck. Yuji had to resist. He had to, but when she touched him like this, the taste of plum on her lips, and when her—

“Mhm,” Yuji groaned hopelessly, feeling her tongue explore the insides of his mouth. It was hot and wet, and he felt like his heart could stop. Suddenly, he was so putty in her hands, he would do anything for her to keep touching and kissing him like this. No, for her to do anything she wanted with him. He would make a pact with a curse and sell his soul to stay like this a little longer, or to never feel the need to breathe again, so her lips can remain sealed with his forever. Still desperate for air, however, he forced himself to pull away, a shining string of saliva stretching between their lips.

She breathed in, preparing to talk. “I—”

“No, please, don’t say it.” He pressed their foreheads together again, breathing heavily. “Allow me to be selfish. I—I want you to say it tomorrow, in the morning. So that—”

“—It’s real?” she finished for him.

“Yeah,” he smiled bashfully, looking into her eyes. He could see himself in the glassy reflection of her eyes. They were bright and kind, and they looked at him the way he never thought would ever happen. He never thought he would be close enough to her to have the chance of examining just how deep and gentle they are.

Yuji moved a hair strand away from her face. “C’mon, I’ll carry you.”

He lifted her in one motion and pressed firmly to his chest. She could hear the rapid pounding in his chest, and it made her heart race after it. Pressing her ear closer, she could almost hear his thoughts. She didn't really need to hear them, she got the general idea from how uneven were his breaths and how his fingers trembled around her form.

While they waited for the elevator inside, she looked at him.

“Can I keep kissing you?”

His face heated up for a hundredth time this night, as he diverted his gaze nervously. She could feel his hands now squeezing her a little tighter.

“Y-yeah. I would like that.”

* * *

Yuji did not know that pain can bring such an amount of happiness with it. There were two single beds in their room, but they ended up sharing one of them together, which resulted in soreness and numbness in different parts of Yuji’s body. His back ached from arching it so that he didn't fall, and he couldn’t feel his right arm anymore because he went to bed while hugging her. Not that he was complaining though. He could go to sleep on hot coals for all he cared if that meant she would lie on top of him. Feeling her body next to his sent vibrations down his spine. Suddenly, he heard her groan, and his heart fastened its pace.

Nanami Kento was right when he said that getting old is manifested in small things. One of them was getting morning sickness and headaches from any amount of drinking, moderate or otherwise. She hid her face in both of her palms and turned to the side, trying to hide from the morning sun. Sliding the palms down to her chest, she was met with Yuji’s glowing but anxious face: his hair was a mess, and there was a big imprint on his right cheek from the pillow wrinkles. She smiled softly, reaching out to fix one of his hair strands.

“Hi,” she rasped.

“Hi,” he responded, sounding relieved.

“Remind me to never drink again,” she said, turning on her back tiredly. “I lose years of my life from each hangover.”

“I mean, it’s exactly what I’m doing each time, but the strategy doesn’t seem to be working.” He chuckled, slowly getting up from the bed. “I’ll bring you an aspirin.”

Her eyes traced his features radiating in the morning sun as he made his way to the coffee table across the room. He had plenty of scars across his back and more on the chest. None of Jujutsu High students got anything close to normal school life, but Yuji certainly took the cake. And to remain so gratuitously giving and caring all while dealing with so much burden and pressure—her heart sank from just the thought.

She sat up as Yuji sat in front of her on the side of the bed, giving her a glass of fizzling water. She smiled in gratification and brought it to her lips.

“By the way, can you tell me what we ended up doing yesterday? I don’t remember shit,” she said nonchalantly before starting to gulp down the medicine.

The look on Yuji’s face filled with terror and chagrin; he felt his fingertips grow colder as he grasped the bedsheets beneath his hands. He lowered his gaze in silence, feeling the heartbeat pounding in his ears.

Meanwhile, she downed the glass and put it on her nightstand. Looking back at him, she lifted the corners of her lips.

“Kidding.”

He let out a questioning yell and grabbed a pillow, aiming a blow. “You’re so mean! Never ever do that shit again!”

He threw the pillow into her face, and she laughed, grabbing his hand, and pulling him on top of her. Yuji positioned his hands on both sides of her head and felt the familiar heat run up his neck to his cheeks, nose, and ears.

“Sorry,” she whispered softly.

“I’ll think about it.”

She lifted her hands and palmed his face, looking deep into his amber eyes. Yuji swallowed thickly, both of his palms twitching uncontrollably.

“Yuji.”

“Y-yeah?”

“I love you.”

The warmness from her hands went deep beyond his face. He felt her arms reach out gently into his chest and cradle his heart, calming its frantic heartbeat and holding it with such care that it sent lumps to his throat. He fought back the quivering of his lips as her thumb stroked across the scar right beneath his eye.

“I love you so so much,” she murmured fondly, squinting from her growing smile. Yuji lowered his body closer to hers and hid his face in the crook of her neck, hugging her from behind.

“If you don’t stop, I might die.”

“Why?”

“I shouldn’t… feel this happy.”

She closed her eyes contently and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing a slow kiss to his temple. “Well, that’s not for you to decide, dumbass.”

She played with his messy hairs, breathing in his scent.

“But if you don’t reciprocate, I might die as well.”

Yuji rose sharply on his hands and leaned forward, crushing his lips into hers for a quick second.

“I love you,” he said loudly after breaking the kiss. Then he leaned in and kissed her again.

“I love you. I love you I love you I love you,” he kept repeating after kissing her over and over again. “I lov—” She interrupted him mid-sentence and took initiative, thrusting into his lips and parting them with a twirl of her tongue. He moaned and gave in, moving his head to the side.

Please, don’t leave me

I’m with you until the world collapses

#jujutsu kaisen #jjk #jjk x reader #itadori yuji #itadori yuji x reader

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silkling · 4 years ago

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This is part two of an ask box fic. For part one, click below.

Part 1

———————————————————————————————————

Cody had been expecting to see Blades sitting in front of the TV when he and the others returned. He had not been expecting to see the large bot the team had rescued holding the copter while said copter made a sharp, painful sounding noise. When he, his siblings, and the other three bots had returned to the firehouse, they’d been chatting and teasing Heatwave about his increasing frustration with his difficulty at contacting Optimus. Then when they’d gotten down to the bunker, the three Cybertronians had abruptly stopped talking, before they’d looked concerned and panicked and rushed ahead. The humans had followed as quickly as they could, and the group arrived to see Blades in the large bot’s grasp, making that noise that Cody didn’t know the meaning behind.

The large bot noticed the, first, and a sharp, red gaze snapped to the group. “More younglings, little one? I suppose I should not be surprised, the Rescue Force did tend to match teams within the same age bracket.” he remarked.

Cody didn’t know what a “youngling” was by Cybertronian standards, but to human ears it sounded like the new bot was calling Sigma-17 kids. Or at the very least, younger than adults.

Heatwave clearly didn’t care about what the bot had to say. “You let Blades go!” he snarled, stepping forward and looking ready to tackle the larger bot.

Blades had startled and gone silent when the bigger flyer spoke, but at Heatwave’s words he jumped and pulled himself free, gathering his pedes under him and standing between his team and the larger bot. “Wait!” he protested. “He wasn’t hurting me. I was kinda…collapsing, and he kept me front falling.”

Cody frowned. “Why were you collapsing?”

“He told me something that Optimus should have told us a long time ago. Something very bad.”

“And what was that?” Kade snipped, eyes narrowed.

“I’d be curious to know too.” Dad’s voice came from behind them. Cody turned to see his father stepping out of the elevator. “But first, maybe we should sit down. Something tells me this news isn’t going to be pretty.”

“You are a clever human.” The stranger rumbled. “I believe that would indeed be best.”

Heatwave growled, but nodded stiffly. “This way.”

He led them to the lounge area, where everyone got settled and comfortable. The stranger sat on the floor, Blades and Boulder took the couch, and Dani and Graham sat beside their respective partners. Heatwave sat leaning against the couch, and Kade sat leaning against him. Chase pulled over a Cybertronian sized beanbag Graham and Boulder had made, and Dad squished in next to him. Cody, after a moment of consideration, stepped in and sat in front of the newcomer. The large bot shot him an arched brow, and the human just smiled and waved in response.

“So.” Heatwave grunted. “What’s this news?”

“We’re the last Rescue Bots.” Blades cut in, voice quiet.

Chase was frowning. “That is not entirely news. Optimus implied as much when we asked him about the rest of the Rescue Force. I assume the rest of the Rescue Teams were folded into the Autobot ranks when the War began.”

Boulder frowned. “That would make sense, though I have a hard time believing the others would just….abandon in the oaths of neutrality we all took.”

“They did not.” The stranger cut in. “When the War began, the Rescue Force remained neutral. They aided and rescued mechs from both factions. Megatron offered them the chance to join the Decepticons, and they refused. They wished to hold true to their oaths to serve and protect all who needed it. Megatron did not take kindly to the refusal. In order to make an example of them, and also to remove a faction that would aid his enemies, he destroyed the Rescue Force Headquarters and offlined every Rescue Team there. Survivors of the initial attack, as well as those who were simply not present, were subsequently hunted down and slaughtered.” he said bluntly.

There was dead silence in the bunker, with horror growing palpable in the air.

“Dreadwing.” Blades’s voice was weak. “Maybe that was a bit blunt.” He glanced at his teammates. “I think he’s right. I found a mention of the “end of the Rescue Force” in one of High Tide’s data pads. Plus…remember what Optimus said when he first saw us? “I was not aware Rescue Teams were still active.” That’s what he told us.”

Dreadwing. So that was the stranger’s name. Still, he was more worried about the bots. Boulder looked horrified and increasingly sick. Heatwave looked stunned and angry and grief-stricken all at once. Chase looked disbelieving. None of them seemed to be able to protest what they’d been told.

“Dreadwing, is it?” Dad’s voice rose in the silence. “You seem to know a lot about the topic.”

“Any Cybertronian who was alive at the time knows about the Fall of the Rescue Force. It was a great tragedy.”

“That’s why Optimus is so adamant about keeping us here.” Blades whispered. “He knew. He probably thought we’d be in danger if any other bot knew what we are.”

“You would be.” Dreadwing agreed. “If Lord Megatron were to discover your existence, he would send his forces to see you slain, even if it meant razing this island to the ground to do so. Perhaps he would even keep you alive long enough to force Optimus Prime and his team watch your destruction.” He stated, blunt and hard.

Everyone collectively flinched at that, looking sick and horrified at the prospect. Cody could relate. The way Dreadwing discussed such violence and such horrors…it was so casual. He didn’t know what to make of it. The Rescue Bots didn’t speak so bluntly about that sort of thing, but he knew that was due to lack of exposure to that level of violence. Optimus and High Tide were both also very…sanitized, in the way they spoke of the War. It wasn’t necessarily bad that Dreadwing didn’t care to censor himself, but Cody certainly wasn’t used to it. Just the idea of his friends being stolen away and killed to make a point made him sick.

Graham’s voice broke the silence. “Lord Megatron.” he sound, sounding strained. “You called him “Lord Megatron”. I can’t imagine any Autobot calling the leader of their enemy something like “lord”. Which means you’re not an Autobot. You’re a Decepticon.”

There was a second of silence, and then Heatwave surged forward and yanked Cody away from Dreadwing. As one, the Rescue Bots, baring Blades for some reason, lowered the windshields in their chests to let their partners climb in to safety. As for Blades…he just stood, carefully maneuvering Dani out of range of danger and stepping forward before anyone else could do anything. Cody, still dazed and now strapped into Heatwave’s passenger seat, could only watch in confusion.

“Everybody stop and calm down!” The copter snapped, his rotors rattling against his back. The other bots were still, and Dreadwing hadn’t moved from his seat on the floor.

The large bot shifted his gaze to Boulder, or rather, Boulder’s chest where Graham was tucked away. “You are correct.” he said, voice somber. “I am a Decepticon. Or rather, I was. It was Megatron himself who gave me the wound that nearly offlined me.” He paused. “I am afraid I am still teaching myself to shed the loyalty that once bound me to him. I spent many millennia calling him my Lord, and it is a habit that is very difficult to break.” He tilted his head. “Regardless, I assure you I have no desire to return to the Decepticons. I would be destroyed if I were to return.”

That seemed to calm the bots down, and Dani frowned from where Blades had stashed her. “You knew, didn’t you partner?”

Blades sighed. “I suspected.” he admitted. “I read in the data pads that Optimus left for us that after the fall of Vos, most Seekers joined the Deceptions. Dreadwing is a Seeker. I put the pieces together.”

Dreadwing bristled at the mention of “Vos”, though Cody didn’t know what that was. “Vos was destroyed and razed to the ground by Autobot forces, little flyer.” he rumbled. “Seekers did not join the Autobots when the War began because most of those who did were the same who had spent generations abusing and ostracizing any and all flight-frames.” he said bluntly. “It is why most flyers joined the Deceptions. They did not wish to be treated as lesser simply because of a different vehicle mode.”

Dani blinked. “Huh. So bigots exist on all planets, then.” she sighed. “The War…are you saying it started as a social revolution?”

“Just so.” Dreadwing nodded at her. “In the beginning, it was not Optimus Prime who led the Autobots. It was his predecessor, a mech called Sentinel. Sentinel was backed by the Senate. The same Senate that had created laws to force mechs to live only by the function of their frame types, and the same Senate that allowed flight-frames to be treated as filth. When Megatron rose up initially, it was to fight for justice and put an end to the caste system.”

This was news to all the humans. They’d heard about the War, of course, but hearing about how it started and why it had began put new context on things.

“The Senate refused to listen, and thus the War began. Megatron initially led as non-violently as possible, but then any who harbored even slight anti-Senate mentalities began to be culled by Autobot Enforcers. Flyers were confined to the ground by force when not in Vos, and in Vos they were not permitted to leave the city.” The Seeker continued. “What started as a fight for equality turned into Decepticons fighting for their right simply to live. And then the Senate was assassinated, and Sentinel destroyed, and Optimus Prime took his place. By then, it was too late for things to return to peace. Too many Decepticons feared they would be killed for the crime of wanting a better life and fighting for it, and too many Autobots were bitter and angry towards the chaos the Decepticon had wrought. And so, the War continued.” he sighed.

There was silence for a long moment, and the Rescue Bots finally returned to their previous positions, though they didn’t let the humans out just yet. Blades sat on the couch, and Dani shifted over to perch on his shoulder. Everyone present was silent for a moment, taking in what they had been told. This…changed things. Certainly, the Decepticons had done horrible things. The fact that they had slaughtered the Rescue Bots was a prime example. But to learn why they had risen and where they had come from…it put a lot into perspective.

“Blades.” Dani spoke up. “You’re a flyer. Did you run into any of that sort of thing Dreadwing was talking about, before your stasis nap?” she asked.

Blades sputtered. “Well, no.” he seemed embarrassed. “You know I wasn’t always a flyer. I was a ground-frame, on Cybertron. Sure, I’d heard about the anti-flyer and anti-Seeker stuff but I never experienced it. Dreadwing is telling the truth, though. Cybertron…didn’t have the best social system. I did know about the civil unrest, thought it hadn’t grown to a revolution quite yet the last time I was on Cybertron.” he said, sheepish.

Before one of the humans could ask for an elaboration, Dreadwing was straightening up. “Youngling. You mean to tell me you were able to shift from a ground-frame to a flight-frame by scanning a new vehicle mode?”

Blades paused. “Yes?”

Dreadwing was quiet, before uttering what Cody was very sure was a curse. “You do realize that is an extraordinarily rare ability? Even triple changers are more common than that.”

“Really?” Blades, and even all the other bots, seemed stunned by this revelation.

“Yes.” Dreadwing was frowning. “Most Cybertronian t-cogs will only allow for scanning and transformation into a vehicle mode that is compatible with your root mode. To be able to change from a grounder to a flyer by simply scanning a new vehicle mode…it speaks of a highly malleable and adaptable base frame type. The kind one expects from the tales of the Shifters of old.”

That made the Bots perk up, and Cody made a note to ask about that later. For now, he opted to stay quiet and let the Cybertronians figure this out. And it seemed his family had the same idea. Even Kade, for once.

“Are you saying I’m a Shifter?” Blades seemed frantic at the idea.

“No.” Dreadwing shook his head. “But perhaps you have coding descended from them.” He sighed. “Your ability, little one, is one I have only ever heard of on Cybertron. Many would be jealous of you. I know many flyers would not give up their flight for anything, but I know of many more who would have wanted your ability desperately in order to change to a ground-frame and escape the derision.”

Blades blinked, then looked down. “Oh.” he whispered.

Heatwave growled. “Look, it’s all well and good that we’ve figured this out, but now what? You were a Decepticon! You could hurt us or someone else on the island!”

Dreadwing looked unimpressed. “I have no intentions of doing any such thing, though I will leave if you prefer.”

“But won’t Megatron kill you?” Boulder asked.

“He will try. I will simply have to avoid him.”

“Then why not join the Autobots?” Chase asked.

The Seeker’s expression went dark. “No. While Optimus Prime is honorable, the Autobots have not always been such. I have lost too much to their regime to submit myself to the brand, even if it is different now.”

No one seemed to know what to say to that. After a long moment, the humans were finally let out of the cabs of their respective partners, and Cody saw an odd look in his Dad’s eye.

“Hoe about this, then.” Dad said. “We don’t feel right about sending you off where you might be killed. You don’t want to fight the Autobots, you don’t want to fight for the Decepticons. Am I right so far?”

Dreadwing simply bowed his head.

“Do you even want to fight in the War at all, anymore?”

Dreadwing paused. “The Decepticons committed a crime which I must put right. But other than that, no.” There was a pause. “Even with my end goal, it is not the Decepticons at large I wish to see defeated. It is only one mech among their ranks.”

Dad hummed slowly, then nodded. “I’m guessing you’re not ready to tell us the details, so I won’t even ask.” he said. “Here’s what I propose: you stay here on Griffin Rock. You don’t let yourself be seen by the humans here, we do have a cover to maintain after all. You can think and plan your next steps here. That lets us keep an eye on you, and keeps our minds at ease that you’re not out there running for your life from a tyrant. You just can’t destroy anything or hurt anyone or cause trouble.”

Cody was surprised by the offer, and clearly Dreadwing was too. What did his Dad see in this large bot that was making him take a chance like this? Cody wasn’t against it, but it was a little unusual.

Dreadwing seemed to think over the offer, before he nodded. “I will accept your terms.”

Dad relaxed, and before Kade could protest he waved his children along. “Now come on, everyone. It’s late and we humans need our rest.” he said. “Kade, not here. We can discuss this more later. Let’s go, everyone.”

Cody hopped off Heatwave’s knee, and followed his siblings and father to the lift. The last thing he saw before the doors closed was the Rescue Bots turning to their newest addition, and heard the start of a question before the doors shutting cut it off.

“So what else do you know that Optimus isn’t-“

——————————

Everything came to a head a week after Dreadwing had settled into the bunker. The Seeker had taken over one back corner of the large room, converting it into a small space for himself. None of the other bots or humans had raised a fuss at that. But Kade was getting increasingly agitated. It was clear that he didn’t understand why Blades and his team were so calm about letting a Decepticon live peacefully with them. Personally, the copter bot attributed that to the fact that the firefighter was human, so he probably didn’t understand the Cybertronian cultural or societal intricacies that had allowed the five bots to come to an understanding. That day, Kade had been particularly snarly. Even Boulder was starting to get put off by it.

They had gathered in the bunker. Blades was watching TV with Dreadwing and Chase, trying to explain the allure of his favorite show to the two bots. Boulder was painting, and Heatwave was on his little sparring platform. The humans had come down in time to see Dreadwing pinch one of Blade’s finials when the little copter bot’s rotors had straightened and extended, threatening to start spinning right there on his back due to his excitement. It had pulled Blades back to himself, and he’d sheepishly tucked his rotors back along his spinal strut while shooting the older mech an apologetic grin.

To a Cybertronian, such a gesture from an older mech to a youngling would not have raised any attention. The gentle tweak hadn’t even hurt his sensitive finials. But to a human, especially one who didn’t have or understand the context of Cybertronian culture, the gesture and lack of reaction from the bots could easily be misunderstood.

So really, Blades wasn’t surprised that Kade had finally snapped. As soon as he’d seen the interaction, he’d roared a demand to know what was going on, questioning how the bots could live with someone who had been part of the same team that had wiped out all the other Rescue Bots. That was when Chief Burns had sighed and suggested they all get settled in the lounge to talk again. They had, taking up the same positions as the previous time, though this time Boulder also dragged over a large beanbag for himself and Graham, while Dani perched on Blade’s shoulder and Dreadwing took the free spot on the couch. Which was where they were now.

“Alright.” Kade spat. “So I’m not getting something here, obviously. Why are you four so comfortable around him? He literally admitted that he used to be a Decepticon! The same guys that destroyed your Rescue Force!”

“But he wasn’t there.” Blades chimed in. “We talked when you went to bed that night. He joined the ‘Cons after the Autobots destroyed Vos, which happened after the fall of the Rescue Force.”

“And that changes anything?” Kade sputtered.

“It changes everything.” Heatwave grunted. “He wasn’t part of the group that destroyed the Rescue Force. And even though he joined them later, it wasn’t to inflict violence, it was in response to his home and people being destroyed. That may be hard to understand, based on what I know of your human culture, but for us Cybertronians that’s enough.”

Kade crossed his arms, scowling fiercely. “Fine. I guess I can accept that, even if I don’t get it. What I don’t get is why you’d defect.” he directed the last part at Dreadwing. “You hinted last time we talked that you served Megatron for thousands and thousands of years, and joined him because he was fighting for a just cause, one you believed in. What changed?”

Dreadwing frowned, staring hard at the human. “You are correct, Skyquake and I did originally join Megatron because we believed him to be honorable and just.” he tilted his head. “As the War progressed and left Cybertron, Megatron gradually became more…mad. However, we still followed him because we had sworn an oath of loyalty, and to break that oath would be dishonorable.” he rumbled. “And we did not fully agree with the Autobots either, even after Optimus Prime took command.”

“Hold on.” Graham cut in. “Skyquake?”

Dreadwing blinked, and something odd entered his gaze. Blades felt the flash of grief in his EM afield before it abruptly cut off. “Yes. Skyquake. He was my brother. We were split spark twins.”

“I thought you said you guys don’t have families like humans!” Kade said to Heatwave, eyes narrowed.

The fire truck scowled. “We don’t! Not usually! There’s only really one exception, and that’s so rare I didn’t think it mattered!”

“Two exceptions.” Blades intervened quickly. “There’s actually two exceptions, two ways for Cybertronians to have siblings.”

Looks were directed at him, and he squirmed under the attention. Slag, he hadn’t meant to say that. They’d want to know how he knew and that was something he wanted to keep to himself. It was his burden to bare.

Dreadwing sensed his discomfort, cutting in before the questions could start and drawing the attention back to himself. “Yes. The first exception is that of split spark twins.” He glanced at the humans. “We Cybertronians are not created like you organics. On Cybertron, our source of life is called the Well of All Sparks. It is where all sparks are created, and where all sparks return upon deactivation.”

“A spark is like…your soul, right? It’s what gives you guys life and makes you who you are.” Dani questioned.

Dreadwing dipped his helm towards her. “Indeed. When a new Cybertronian comes into be, their spark is created in the Well. It goes through several layers of the Well’s energy, the spark refining and becoming more defined as it progresses to the edge of the Well from the center. Often, the sparks will not maintain their form in this process, and their energy will dissipate and return to the Well.” Noting the human’s looks, he shook his head. “The spark has no life or sentience at that time, it is merely a small collection of energy. It is if the spark holds its form past the final layer of shaping that it gains sentience and life. At that point, the energy of the Well pulls resources from Cybertron itself to create a protoform, a physical body, around the spark. Then, the protoform is pushed from the Well, and thus a new Cybertronian is created.” the Seeker explained.

“That doesn’t explain how you guys can have siblings.” Graham pointed out.

Dreadwing dipped his head. “Twins like myself are a rarity. They occur when, just before a protoform is formed around the spark, a surge of energy from the Well causes the spark to split into two. When that happens, most sparks to not survive and dissipate. If they do survive, the Well forms two protoforms around the two halves. The two halves of the spark can function on their own, and are fully formed in their own right, but due to the fact they were one a singular spark those two halves are forever bound.” he explained it carefully.

“Two halves, one whole.” Graham said, eyes lighting up with understanding.

Dreadwing nodded. “Yes. That is how split spark twins are created. Due to the bond, twins are very close to one another. A spark bond is a precious thing, little human.” His optics went distant, and Blades’s own spark ached with painful remembrance. “Through a spark bond, you are always and forever aware of the one who you share the bond with. You know what they feel, how they think, you know them in every way that they in turn know you. You can talk and communicate using the bond, and it can never be detected or listened in on. Distance can dampen a bond, and the further one gets from those they are bonded to the more muted it becomes. At one point, the bond becomes too muted to talk in words, and you can share only base thoughts and emotions.” he rumbled. “But even so, the bond persists, and it allows you to know your bonded is still living.”

“And…this Skyquake. He’s your twin? Where is he?” Kade asked.

“Gone.” Dreadwing said, his EM field flaring with that sharp agony, and even the humans could hear the grief in his tone. “Offlined before I even arrived on Earth.”

“How did it happen?” Chief asked, voice somber.

Dreadwing stared at him for a long moment, and Blades could see the grief in the angle at which he held his wings, even if he had reigned in his EM field. “Centuries ago, Megatron stationed my brother here in stasis in order to guard over Deception energon deposits. I was aware of his mission, but I was sent to far off star systems to fight in the War.” he sighed. “Recently, Skyquake was awoken, and in an ensuing confrontation with the Autobots he was slain by Optimus Prime and his scout.”

Blades flinched, optics wide. Bumblebee had killed Dreadwing’s twin? He supposed he couldn’t really judge a situation in which he didn’t have all the information, but he still had a hard time imagining the friendly yellow bit he knew actually killing someone else.

“How did you survive?” he blurted out. Looks were directed to him again, confused, but Dreadwing understood.

“Distance.” he rumbled. “I was so far away at from my brother at the time of his death that the bond was too strained for me to even feel his strongest emotions. I could only barely tell he was still living, and even then only when I focused on the link between our shared spark.” His gaze went sad. “I felt his death. The surge of energy that came from the bond breaking did reach me, but by the time it did it had had to travel so great a distance that it had dulled too much to overwhelm and gutter out my own spark. All I felt was a very faint sting. It didn’t even hurt to feel him perish.” he said, and he sounded bitter at it.

Blades could understand. “I’m sorry.” he said honestly.

Dreadwing sighed. “He died an honorable death. For that much, I am grateful.”

Kade cleared his throat, frowning. “Okay.” he said carefully. “But that doesn’t explain why you left the ‘Cons. Shouldn’t you have more reason to stay with the, if the Autobots killed your twin?”

Dreadwing growled lowly here. “No.” he denied. “The Autobots gave my brother a good death, a death I know Skyquake would not have been ashamed of. For all I resent the Autobots from taking my brother from me, it is War, and I cannot find fault in them removing an enemy from the battlefield.” He turned a sharp look to Kade. “It was the Starscream, however, who is a Decepticon, who desecrated my brother’s rest by defiling his corpse and turning him into a Terrorcon.”

Blades inhaled sharply, rage clouding his processor. He seethed, his rotors clamping tight to his spinal strut, his optics going dark and angry, and his hands curling into fists. Dani was the only one to notice, and she didn’t want to draw attention to him just yet.

“Terrorcon? Cody asked.

“A zombie.” Boulder offered, looking sick. Actually, all the bots look sick. “Or the closest equivalent to it there is for Cybertronians.”

And now the humans all looked sick. “Oh.” Kade said. “That’s why you left.”

“Yes.” Dreadwing said darkly. “I learned the truth, and when I attempted to avenge my bother Megatron attempted to destroy me. It did not matter to him that Starscream had attempted to assassinate and betray him on countless occasions. He sought my death in order to protect a known traitor.” he growled. “Starscream turned my brother into something twisted and abhorrent. That is why I left.” he finished.

“I’m surprised you didn’t rip his spark out.” Blades hissed. Stunned gazes turned to the copter, and everyone was alarmed to see just how angry he looked. “I’d have tried to, in your place.”

The only one who wasn’t surprised was Dreadwing. “I did try, and I was almost killed for it. I will avenge Skyquake one day, little one. But for now, calm yourself.”

Blades actually snarled at that. His rotors rattled aggressively, the smaller ones in his pedes whirling to life with a loud buzzing, and his engine all but roared with fury. “Just the idea of someone doing that-!” he cut himself off, snarling again. Dreadwing was quick to pick Dani off the youngling’s shoulder and set her down.

“Blades.” he snapped. The others were too frozen in shock at the sight of the usually bubbly copter so aggressive.

“No!” Blades snapped. “If someone did that to ‘Aid, or Groove, or Streetwise, or Hot Spot, or any of them, I’d rip them apart myself!”

Dreadwing narrowed his optics, his processor working quickly. There was no reason for the youngling to get so upset at the idea of a spark sibling being so badly defiled, no reason for him to take it so personally. And those names…

“You are gestalt, aren’t you, little one?”

That was enough to snap Blades out of his angry haze, and his optics shot wide. Fear swamped his field, and his rotors abruptly silenced and clamped back against his spine while the rotors in his pedes cut off with a sharp grinding noise. “What?”

“Given your reaction, and those names you said….it is the only conclusion that makes sense.”

“Wait, Blades…you’re part of a gestalt?” Boulder asked, his own optics blown wide.

“That…would explain your reaction.” Chase offered hesitantly.

“Blades.” Heatwave prompted at the copter’s continued silence.

“Uh, hello? Clueless humans here!” Dani called. “Blades, put me back up. Also, what’s a gestalt?”

The youngling bent down, allowing his partner to climb her way back up to his shoulder before he sat up. He sagged, looking defeated,

“A gestalt is the other way Cybertronians can have siblings.” he said quietly. “It happens in the Well. Most of the time, the Well creates on spark at a time. Creating a living spark is a complex process, so it can’t afford to create too many at once. Every once in a while though, the Well has an excess of energy, undetectable to any technology. When that happens, it creates multiple sparks at once. If all those sparks survive to the edge of the Well, then the excess energy pulls them together into one large, massive spark. Many sparks, becoming one. They remain combined until the energy stabilizes, and then split into the original number again and that’s when the protoforms are created around the sparks.” He sighed. “When that happens, all the bots in that group are linked. They were created by the Well together, and they were merged together by the Well to bind their sparks. That’s a gestalt. Because of the spark merge that occurred in the Well, gestalt can actually merge themselves again outside of it. They can push together their sparks and processors and very beings to become a singular bot. Gestalt frames are even adapted to that they can physically combine, each member becoming a different body part, in order to form the body of a new, larger mech while their sparks combine to form the mech’s own spark. Many, becoming one.” Blades looked down. “My brothers and I are that. We can combine to form Defensor. I’m the arm.” he said weakly.

——————————

Part 3

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shadyteacup · 4 years ago

Note

If you’re still doing requestsssssss how about a hcs of Dazai x fem! Reader who is like Midari from Kakegurui 😌

Ooh thats a nice one! Yes love, I'm still doing requestss

And I'm so sorry, this is so late... also it's very long n I'm not exaggerating. It's not even funny I'm so sorry

I'm Crazy, But I'm Free

Dazai x Fem!reader who is like Midari

• You and Dazai probably met during his days at the port mafia.

• I can imagine the mafia capturing you because of how much trouble you were causing in a casino.

• UK, when big businesses pay gangsters for security?? Yeah, similarly the casino you were playing at, has paid the mafia.

• You were already banned from many other casinos, as your games either end with you gaining a lot of money, or begin with a dangerous condition.

• Many people were quite afraid of you, and wanted to avoid even being in the same room as you, as they couldn't handle the severity of the danger you pose with every game.

• Anyways, so you were warned by a few members of the mafia twice, but you, being the fearless adventurer you are, flipped them off and continued to seek a life threatening game.

• So then the mafia decided to use violence, and cornered you in a dark alley. You pulled out your beloved gun.

"Well, well, well! Do you boys want a fight!?", you excitedly point the gun at them.

"Put your weapon down, Ms. L/N. We are here to warn you for the final time. Stay away from this casino. Further misbehavior will lead to dangerous consequences."

You hum, thinking up a plan.

"How about this. My revolver has 5 bullets. And there are five of us. How about we all take turns to shoot blindfolded!"

You excitedly shove them in a circular arrangement.

"I'll go first! The rules are that every person gets a chance to shoot from the center of the circle. If the bullet misses, everyone takes a step ahead, closer to the center."

You explain, grinning at the men clad in all black.

"If a bullet hits me, I'll agree to your terms. If it hits one of you lot, then you can't stop me anymore. What do you say?!"

The mafiosi were weirded out by this. What if you had a good aim, or an ability that allowed you to shoot them with your eyes closed? They didn't have much intel on you, and only knew you to be a girl from a rich background, who had come to Yokohama for higher studies.

"That's enough. Grab her-"

• Thats when our boy showed up. Dazai was curious when he overheard some of the men talk about some 'fearless girl that had flipped them off even after two rather threatening warnings.'

• So he had decided to tag along, staying in the shadows, until now.

• "I think it will be a wonderful idea. Play along, gentlemen. I want to see where this goes."

• You shot, and missed. So did the other guy. Then the other one. Now, the circle had shrunk really small. You were almost in the line of fire at this point. There was an 80% chance of getting shot.

• "That's enough." ,Dazai said, as he walked to stand in front of you.

• "You are daring, aren't you. You're not afraid of death."

• Staring into his eyes, you saw a reflection of yourself. A dark, lost soul stared back at you.

• "In fact, you arranged this little game to ensure that you got hurt. You perfectly planned it out, and ensured that as the circle gets smaller, you would be in the direct line of fire."

• "You missed the first shot on purpose, didn't you?"

• He had seen right through your game.

'What's this guy's deal?', you thought.

"Why would you stop the game when it was at its peak? Hah? Whats wrong with you, man?!", you angrily grab his collar. "I was just beginning to have fun, and here you are, ruinjng it!"

• Taken aback by your bravery, he just blinked at you.

"Do you know who I am?"

"Yes, obviously, idiot. But that doesn't give you any right to interrupt our game."

"Oh? So who do you think I am."

You give him a 'baka janiono?' look.

"You are their leader. Probably an executive of the mafia, judging by your expensive suit. Why?"

The thoughts running through Dazai's head were along the lines of :

'Just who is this girl? How does she know about the mafia? Surely my men weren't dumb enough to tell her who they work for. How does she know about my position? She surely didn't just guess that, right?? And why the fuck does a student have a gun? Does her family have connections within the underworld? She obviously doesn't fear death. Will she be a good addition to the mafia?'

• "What are you thinking about, baka? Answer me."

• He smiled sweetly at you, and firmly gripped your wrist, pushing it off his collar.

"There's someone who would like to meet you"

Before you can retort back, he continues,"You seek adventure, do you not? You want to feel something worthwhile. Something akin to facing death, something that will give you an adrenaline rush. I can give you all of that. If you come with me, that is."

• Mori was shocked when he heard about what had happened. He agreed with Dazai's decision to make you join the ranks. He needed such fearless crackheads in his organization.

• He paired you up with the double black, making you an executive too. You hadn't quite agreed to his terms, but he had offered you to just accompany the ginger and the brunette on a mission. And had let you make the final decision .

• You three had to go to an abandoned warehouse, where some people were tampering with the mafia goods. There, you saw how sadistic Dazai was. How manipulative and bad he was. It made you fall for him. Hard. Plus, you realized the risk of being a mafiosi. It was quite thrilling.

• When you got back, you had screamed at mori to let you join. Quite literally begged. And he, ofcourse, agreed. You hadn't even given him a chance to threaten your life, which was the usual norm, when a valuable asset wasn't willing to join the ranks of the feared organization.

• You trained with dazai. And purposely got hit. It turned you on. But you never mentioned anything, in fear of being rejected.

• Dazai, ofcourse, noticed this, and one fine day, confronted you about it. You told him just how much you love him. He was always intrigued by your sadistic side. He saw a part of himself in you. The daring, brave, smart side of yours was something so similar to himself, yet unique. You were seeking the same thing that he was, that is to feel something. He felt sadness, and loneliness, and he never had a purpose in life. You, someone who had it all, a good family, a great marksheet, and a pre set goal in life, were willing to give it away, just to feel something. He, someone who was stripped off of a normal childhood, was never given the opportunity to choose. He used to think that maybe he was to blame. Maybe if he had had better luck, he would have gotten a good childhood, a purpose. But now that he knows you, a genius, smart person, who had it all, but threw it away, he realized that maybe life really is worthless. Maybe, he wasn't to be blamed. And that, oddly enough, made him feel better. To know that no matter how much lady luck favors him, life would still be fucked up, and that it wasn't his fault, made him hate himself less.

• And so, you two became a thing.

• Let's just say, that both of you are equally freaky.

• You want him to dom u, and he gladly accepts

• You guys try it all... I mean, especially with guns.

• I can imagine you both sitting at a boring meeting, when you decide to edge him on, and you're not even touching him. Your gun is.

• You both claim atleast one spare room on every floor of the building, for your.... activities.

• You are like his praise queen.

• He loves that.

• Always rough. Always. And you guys are into spicing it up.

• Anyways, you both never decide to commit double suicide.

• Thats because dazai wants a beautiful way out, while you want to feel the thrill of facing death. You don't really want to die, you just want to know the feeling of almost dying. You want to feel something exhilarating.

• When Dazai decides to leave the mafia, you are all for it. As long as you get to stay by his side, you were ok with it.

• Like Midari, you are a very perceptive person, and can easily guess what's going on in someone's mind. Dazai was easy to read for you, as his thoughts were pretty similar to your own.

• You were smart, cunning, and could read peoples mind with ease. So it was pretty easy for you to guess what's going on in Dazai's mind, sometimes even predicting his next moves.

• You really fit in with the ada, coz that place is filled with crackheads, and you and dazai are no exception lol

• Also, you get along with Yosano really well.

• Like, if you weren't so loyal to dazai, you would have become Yosanos slave. So would i ngl

• Anyways, you and dazai always mess with kunikida. You two prank him till the breaking point. You two are such a menace in the office. Always skipping work, slacking off, but really shining when it comes to actual detective work, like solving mysteries.

• You are a valuable asset to the ada, coz 1. You are smart and 2. You can intimidate the enemy into giving in, thanks to your sadistic games.

• You are also a very good companion. You can easily understand what the other is feeling, and end up comforting the gang.

• I can imagine you roasting Kunikida for being such a nerd, but at the same time giving him accurate and well needed advice .

• You do the same for your bf, and the two of you have many late night convos about topic that Dazai had never discussed with anyone before. Because no one had quite understood him the way you did.

• Midari is actually a pretty deep character, and just like her, you have many layers. There's the sadistic side, the goofy side, the careless side, the intelligent side and the insightful nature.

• You would be his perfect partner, as you'd support his crazy, reckless ideas, but at the same time keep him afloat, and prevent him from drowning in his own thoughts.

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