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my-writings-and-musings · 4 years

Note

hello! if you are taking requests, can you please do the oxygen loss prompt with megatron and whirl?

I did Whirl in part two, so I have Megatron here with a ridiculously long one and I hope that's okay! I added Thunderclash as well so I can keep my pattern of two because... I like patterns. I might be getting super into this prompt...

Part One: Here!

Part Two: Here!

Part Three: You're Here!

Part Four: Here!

Part Five: Here!

Part Six: Here!

Part Seven: Here!

Part Eight: Here!

Part Nine: Here!

Part Ten: Here!

Part Eleven: Here!

Part Twelve: Here!

Megatron

·You're in the ship's recently finished classroom organizing lesson plans on your own, having been working with Megatron to try and set up more structured class schedules on the growing list of topics he's begun to cover. You're thrilled he's found a kind of calling on the ship, especially one that seems to be allowing bots to see the side of him you know best. He's made it quite clear in his own way that your assistance in this endeavor means the world to him.

·He's on the bridge, scouting out potential locations for refueling on the next leg of the journey with the rest of the commanding officers. For once there's mostly cohesion in their efforts, and his insistence on choosing planets hospitable to humans is met with agreement, if not surprise. They're on schedule to finish early for a quiet afternoon off when everything turns to a level of chaos even the experienced crewmembers have to call extreme. The rumble that shakes the entire ship is one Megatron and experienced space travelers know well; they've been ambushed.

·You're nearly knocked off the desk you're standing on by the unexpected tremors. While you're trying to figure out what could possibly have caused the disturbance, a message is appearing up on the bridge, where alerts of failing systems and corrupted codes almost make it impossible to hear an alien captain decree an intent to storm the ship. Megatron attempts diplomacy before lives are lost, but the enemy makes it clear; this ship and its contents are more valuable than anything they could offer. While the captain notes their species has heard of the famed Lost Light and its crew, their hack of the security systems proved embarrassingly simple, and they look forward to the easy payoff from selling the scraps of the Cybertronians onboard!

·With communications down and systems struggling through an ongoing sabotage, Megatron still prepares to coordinate a defense, but is stopped before he can begin by a final taunt from their enemy. Their hack of the security cameras showed his fondness for his new pet, a homo sapien of all things, and thus his current concern should be for the atmospheric regulation instead of battle plans. But considering how many dead organics he's left in his wake, surely one more shouldn't perturb him too deeply, yes?

·The line goes dead just as the ship's alarm attempts to sound, signaling an impending attack before it too crashes with everything else. His fellow officers are moving to get defenses up however they can, preparing to get the resident tech experts on the job of restoring key systems while trying to plan a counterattack with no way to reach anyone. He's near to frozen as he tries to message you to no avail, the cruel mockery of the enemy cutting deep in ways words rarely do for him, if only because the implication terrifies him like nothing ever has; he's all but helpless to save you.

·Only experience and an undying determination allow him to break through the fog. Without asking for guidance or permission, he states his one intent; to rescue you however he can. If there are any objections, he does not hear them, and soon his pedes are tearing down the hallway to where he last saw you and prays he'll find you; the classroom. Oblivious to his rush, the only thing you're aware of is the fact that something is amiss, but you don't have a clue as to what. Between the tremor, the brief blare of the alarm and your inability to get your communicator running, you only know there's danger inbound.

·Not having much information to work with, you surmise that the classroom is probably not the safest place to hunker down, and recall that the medical and scientific wings aren't far. As the doctors on the ship have added human medicine to their repertoire, and are hardly defenseless, trying to get to them seems your greatest hope for securing yourself. Not wanting to panic, you push your supplies into a somewhat neat pile and climb down the small ladder that's been added to the desk for your sake. Somehow you don't find yourself at the top of your worries at all. Your thoughts center almost entirely on Megatron, who will undoubtedly be forced into whatever conflict might erupt, and even an unexpected staleness in the air around you hardly registers amidst your anxiety.

·Megatron is still too logical of a bot not to stop every crewmember he sees to give them a brief list of orders. He knows that, without a united defense and victory, there won't be any way you can be saved at all. So he takes the hindrance, though bots hardly take long to move when he issues a command. But his growing fear gnaws at him with a simple truth; without communication, he can't even be sure of your location, let alone your condition. Perhaps he's going the wrong way. Perhaps you're already beyond help. Perhaps you've already been discovered by the enemy. All he can do in the face of blinding terror is keep moving, keep coordinating, and keep hoping beyond reason that he'll be fortunate for once.

·You can't remember the classroom ever taking so long to cross, but that's hardly important, especially with your communicator still failing to function. Reaching Megatron would give you incredible comfort right now, if only to hear he's alright, yet that's obviously not going to happen. Honestly, it sounds silly to really think about it, the human worrying for the Cybertronian... But your anxiety isn't comforted merely to remember he's a gigantic combat veteran, not knowing anything about his current status is all it needs to wander to scary places...

·Closing in on your position, the mech in question echoes your worry, but his knowledge of the current danger puts his feelings closer to panic. All he knows is that he's coordinated a not insignificant number of bots for a better defense on his way through the ship. With better resistance on their side, he knows they can win, because they must. The alternative won't come to pass while his spark still flickers within him. That promise comes to an early test when he overhears enemies moving on the path ahead, and he takes the charge without hesitation, his terror converting quite easily to rage for extra assistance.

·By the time you're at the door you know something is wrong with you. Each step comes with a wobble you can't explain, and soon the dizziness you thought was worry has grown to almost debilitating levels. Why is the room spinning? Why does your body feel so heavy? It doesn't worry you as much as it probably should, but you know it needs to be fixed, especially with the ship potentially in jeopardy. Faint activity from the hallway outside spurs you to finally trigger the door to open, which thankfully appears to be one of the few systems still working. Heavy footsteps not too far away register in your ears just as you're forced to lean against a wall for support.

·The aliens that come into view before you quite unexpectedly are large, tough, and well armed. Most races would have found them an insurmountable challenge, and even an experienced Cybertronian combatant couldn't expect an easy victory against a single fighter, leaving you quite hopeless as you stare upwards in confusion. Megatron is not the norm, and his drive to win is fuelled by far more than just survival, so he feels little more than irritation when he finally arrives to the hallway you're pinned within. More than a dozen mark his path to you, their forms clustered around the helpless human in sick curiosity, and as a result they're heedless to his appearance.

·Hulking forms most definitely not of Cybertronian make tower over your body as it struggles to keep upright, the ceiling spinning overhead as you try to connect thoughts and move your legs to flee. A language you don't understand precedes a slow swipe in your direction, one that you stumble away from more than dodge, resulting in you roughly collapsing to the floor. Something like cruel laughter greets your painful tumble. You should be angry, being mocked like a bug skittering from its inevitable squishing, but God you're so exhausted. It's not even in you to be afraid when the barrel of an alien gun is pointed at your head and the scent of ozone fills your nose while the barrel fills with light.

·A second tremor shakes the ship, but this one proves to be far more deadly than the last. Your would be killers are obliterated by a blur of gunmetal gray that pummels them into the floor, and before you can blink the carnage begins and seems to escalate to unimaginable levels of ferocity. Only your familiarity with Megatron allows you to discern him amidst the flurry of quickly diminishing combatants, but he's nothing like the mech you know in this instant, going for sheer brute force over strategy as he tears aliens apart with his bare servos. In the bloody chaos you can't tell if he's taking damage or not despite the sheer numbers he was initially facing.

·The end of it all is somehow more startling than the beggining. In one final attack he ends the last soldier, quieting the cacophony of battle to leave only the steady drip of alien blood down the wall and his own haggard ventilations. There's a dash of bright energon amongst the mess, glowing in rivulets down his side, and somehow that's what gets your cloudy brain moving again. Pushing exhausted legs against the floor, you try to rise as you cry out in concern, reaching for him before you collapse right back against the solid ground.

·Heedless to his own injuries, Megatron is over you in a single instant, no longer blinded by the fury he'd experienced at the sight of you in peril. All he'd known was that your attackers had needed to die, no hesitation, and tearing them apart had come easily from there. Now things are once again far from simple. The blood on his hands doesn't stop him from picking you up as gingerly as he can, though your impossibly tiny body appears more delicate than ever in his massive palms. Though it makes him sick to realize, he does indeed know a struggling organic when he sees one, making the captain's words burn in his audials once more.

·Guilt is forced down to a minimum so he can focus on what matters; you. He needs to get you somewhere safe but with access to oxygen, and the only place that can happen is the medical bay or the laboratory, and he knows both are quite close. He couldn't care less about his own gashed side, so even if the medics and scientists are elsewhere he should likely be able to rig something up before energon loss impacts him. Holding you close, in a way that will permit him to shield you with his body, he starts moving while he speaks to you. It's obvious even to him his words aren't motivating, but at least they seem to get your attention.

·Looking up at him, feeling like you're tiny beyond belief thanks to his incredible size, you wonder how much of this could be real. Megatron had just hurled himself into battle for you, enduring agonizing wounds in the process, and beaten back what should have been impossible odds... If he wasn't so close you could touch him, you'd certainly think he was just a figment of your imagination emerging from the spinning hallways around you. His deep baritone rumbles reassurances to you as your eyes slowly drift shut, your perception fading around the edges until he's all you can see, and you can feel sleep beckoning like never before.

·He truly has seen enough organics dying to recognize that you're fading in his arms, and seeing the connection between such atrocities and you is slowly starting to tear into him with guilt that refuses to be ignored. How many lives just like yours has he snuffed out? How recently was it that he could have ended your life amongst the billions of others, unaware of what a gift you are to the universe? More specifically, because of this, what right does he have to so much as look at you? The thoughts are a dark and unmanageable tangle by the time he arrives at his destination, where an already overwhelmed medical crew is tending to the injured from an apparently victorious battle. He's near to shock when he hands you over to a frantically rushing Ratchet and simply explains you need oxygen, his hand gingerly cupping his injury before he firmly insists on being the last to be repaired. If he's spoken to afterwards, he doesn't remember any of what is said.

·The medical bay is dim when you awaken, and you see that you've been placed in your own private room when you look about, oxygen mask holding secure to your face as you do so. A massive shape against the wall would have startled you if you didn't immediately recognize Megatron. He smiles almost sadly when you awaken, and while you initially attribute his uncharacteristic weariness to the welded injury on his side, he quickly makes it clear that isn't the case. Whispering a simple wish for your recovery, he excuses himself and makes to leave, and you know that something is amiss m

·When you merely call for him to stop, he breaks, confessing that his relief to see you alive is equal only to his certainty that he's not worthy of you and can no longer pretend otherwise. It takes all of your strength to sit up and demand he stay; you refuse to let the bot who just saved you walk out, especially when you've made it abundantly clear his past is something you've accepted, and your firm reminder is cut short only by dizziness forcing you to lay back. The sight stirs him to return to your side, concern in his optics, and you lay a hand on the tip of his digit in a breathless and wordless reminder; he's more than his past to you, and you made that decision knowing the struggles ahead. He smiles as his digit gently strokes your forehead, recalling that he too had made a decision that day; to trust you meant yours.

Thunderclash

·The two of you are in the hangar practicing sparring, which for your benefit mostly consists of him holding up a training dummy against his palm while you whack at it, and as is often the case you've become sidetracked by conversation over actual work. He's laying on his front to keep the two of you closer to eye level, leaning his chin against his spare hand for comfort, talking about all the little things that come to mind as opposed to the grand topics he's used to being asked about. Frankly, this freedom a big part of what he likes about these moments with you. He gets to just be a bot with interests like any other.

·Your casual chat is interrupted by a communication from the command team on the bridge, who summon him for assistance tracing where a series of small anomalies across the ship might be coming from. Systems are glitching in ways that can't be explained, the defensive radar can't seem to decide if there's something in the apparently empty space around them, and in an ironic twist the message goes dead just as communication problems are mentioned. It's quickly apparent something needs to be done.

·Apologizing for having to cut things short, the massive bot offers to give you a ride to the heart of the ship, which he'll have to pass on his way to the bridge. Always eager to spend more time together, you happily oblige, taking the place of the training dummy in his palm as he lifts you to rest beside his spark. While his shoulder is arguably a more dignified location, you take more than a little comfort feeling the hum of his energy at your back, and thus have chosen this as your travel spot. Between his wound and the many setbacks it's taken to get him back in shape, it's just nice to feel his spark going strong.

·Not long after setting off, he gets the sense there's more to these troubles than technical error, and that something less than desirable may be the culprit. It's not something he can explain, but being more attuned to the subtler things in his environment just gives him a feeling. When he voices this to you, along with the thought you should probably be left somewhere safe, you ask what he believes might be coming. Not because you don't believe him, but you know he only drops his smile when he is preparing for something bad, and you haven't seen proof of any concrete threat.

·With almost comedic timing, the ship lurches at that very moment, nearly knocking the big bot off balance. Only his firm but careful hold saves you from a twenty foot fall. The rumble fades off with something like a great dragging sensation through the ship, which you'd compare to a Manhattan sized car grinding to a halt. Now cupping you in both hands, Thunderclash asks earnestly if you're alright, to which you reassuringly reply that a little turbulence isn't enough to do any damage.

·Smiling at the fortitude of your tiny body, he begins walking straight away, shifting to strategy as his red optics narrow in contemplation. He explains that the particular nature of that shake confirmed his suspicions something is planning an attack. Rather, they're initiating an attack. The sensation of a ship being locked to another and anchored is a particular one, and combined with their systems crashing it's obvious an enemy has come prepared to strike for a well planned ambush.

·You see that he's worrying, but you say nothing of it, taking hold of his thumb to communicate support. Being with him in private has made it clear his existence as a perpetual source of strength for others exhausts him, so you've since committed to acting as his well of certainty in difficult times. Not letting your fear bleed in to your words, you instead ask what the two of you should do, confirming your own communicator is uselessly jammed as you do so.

·Moving through the ship at considerable speed with his long legs, he decides that you'll still need to be secured rather quickly, as enemy combatants are probably already storming the ship or preparing to do so. You'd debate him if you weren't well aware of the logic in his plan. No matter what the enemy is, you won't stand much of a chance in a full on brawl, as anything confident enough to attack a Cybertronian starship is likely to have the firepower to back itself up. Still, it's impossible not to be dissapointed by your inability to offer aid, though it's probably for the best as you're rather exhausted from sparring anyway.

·It happens in a blur, but that's partly because of the shocking reaction time of the bot carrying you, something few would expect due to his size. Thunderclash registers the threat as soon as he turns the corner, a feat aided by the very much not Cybertronian appearance of the figures he sees, and then made far easier by the multiple clicks of weapons preparing to fire. Your presence in his hands became his central point of focus in that instant. Turning on the spot, he allowed the first hail of bullets to strike his armored back, keeping you well out of the line of fire before ducking behind an opposite corner for cover. The sting of the gunfire matters little when he sees you safe in his hands, and less when he instructs you to stay low after setting you down and charging in to fight.

·In the heat of it all, you're embarrassed to be caught so frazzled, as this is hardly your first exposure to alien combat. But there's little time to admonish yourself when chaos unfolds just around the corner, and your tiny size permits a small peek... Thunderclash is the gentlest giant in the world to you, but in just a few blinks the hulking aliens are on the losing front, and while his fighting style is far from gratuitous it is effective. You're still trembling from the rush of the initial shock when the last enemy of the group is on the floor, but even with your shaky vision you can see your bot is unharmed. For a moment that little burst of relief supersedes everything else.

·In usual fashion though, he expresses worry for you when he returns to pick you up from where he left you, drawing an affectionate chuckle from you at how impossibly selfless this mech can be. But he doesn't back down from the question like he usually does. His expression of concern intensifies as he starts moving again, and his sharp optics find ample to worry about on your seemingly unharmed body, with particular attention being paid to your face. Those brilliant eyes of yours are well known to him, and so he can tell something is... off in their beautiful depths. Even if his medical studies focus very little on organics, he's able to recognize the signs of a body struggling, and your paleness combined with the way you labor for each breath tells him something is very wrong.

·Now in a race against time, he has no choice but to move, gunning it towards the ship's tech wing where the laboratories and medical bay are located. He doesn't yet know what's wrong with you for certain, but aid will be there if it's anywhere to be found. There's no time to be wasted in securing you somewhere either, he's going to have to face any threats as they come in the moment whilst ensuring your protection in the process. It's a set of circumstances he's encountered before in his long and eventful time as a soldier, but there's an entirely new variable this time around; you. He adores you, like no one he's ever met before, and perhaps it's selfish but the very thought of losing you... he's not sure his spark could take it.

·The soothing tone of his voice and the rhythmic thumping of his footsteps make it surprisingly difficult for you to heed his requests to stay as awake as possible. Even though your breaths are coming in with difficulty, it seems like sleep would be a fantastic idea at the moment, even if only to rest your eyes. His cupped hands just support your body so nicely, and are so warm, and his voice is so delightfully melodic. Why does he seem so intent on keeping you conscious? Why does he look so incredibly upset to see you struggling to keep your eyes open?

·The pathway he chooses is mercifully free of conflict at first, but that matters little due to your rate of deterioration, as you may not make it even at his full speed. Driving isn't an option due to his need to be combat ready, and the lack of options and hope is absolutely tearing him apart. He hasn't had someone like you in his life before, and the desperation in his voice begins to show that, cracking as he loses his steadfast control of his usually impervious wall of confidence. The selfishness of his desire kills him; how dare he put his own feelings on you due to his weakness? Begging you to survive for his sake?

·No amount of haze can prevent you from startling at his pain. There are tears in his optics, though he doesn't even seem to notice them, letting them fall down his face as he pleads. In the warm fog clouding your brain, you feel a surge of worry, and your hand instinctively grabs at his nearest digit to give it a squeeze. Before you can even offer a breathless reasurance, he ceases running and dives from gunfire that seems to erupt from nowhere, laying you in a tiny maintenance crevice before hurling himself at the second delay he knows you don't have time for. The last thing you see before drifting off is the grief in his optics that you wish you'd been able to comfort...

·While his combat skills always make things quick, in this blur of pain and rage he's downright brutal, ending each foe swiftly but with absolute contempt for their existence clear in every torn limb. Hits to his own frame don't register at all. Bullets and blades mean nothing in the face of what he's about to lose, and the vengeance fueling his strength turns foes into scattered body parts more effectively than any grenade ever could. By the end of it all he's likely set a record for the swiftness of his takedown, but it matters as little as his multitude of bleeding wounds. All he can see is your now limp body as he pulls it from the hiding spot, and his vision narrows to only your faintly moving chest and his pedes moving one past the other through the carnage.

·There's a mass of activity in the technology wing, likely due to injuries as well as the many bots ordered to stand guard in the event of battle, but he doesn't hear the reaction his arrival triggers in the slightest. His sharp processor is reduced to one goal, and anything unrelated doesn't exist. At the sight of the crowded medical bay he starts to strategize. Ratchet appears in his vision, first focusing only on his obvious injuries and the alien blood he didn't know was spattered across his frame, before well trained optics catch sight of the tiny human limp in his hands.

·There's a rush of an explanation; they think one of the systems downed was the atmospheric generators, resulting in a loss of the oxygen the ship maintains for your needs. It's all the information Thunderclash needs to act. Brushing off any help for himself and encouraging the more egregiously wounded to be tended first, he requests only to be provided what you need. Busy tending the injured, medics still assist him getting a supply of oxygen going where they can, with Ratchet using his particular knowledge of human anatomy to ensure the ratio is correct for your biology while Thunderclash prepares it all. Dexterous hands set you on a medical slab where an oxygen mask and scanner are used to return your blood oxygen to normal, and just like that, he knows you'll eventually be okay...

·By the time you wake up your tiny frame has been moved to a private room, both to keep you from the chaos of crammed in bots and to give the two of you privacy from adoring admirers. He's beside you, his wounds patched but his frame still dirtied with blood, a sight that shocks you enough to force a gasp into your mask. Perking up the instant he hears you, the hulking mech is as close as the berth allows in a flash. A stream of questions about your wellbeing passes his lips before you can get a word in. Between the dried blood, the patched wounds, and the faint discoloration of his optics that suggests recent weeping... It's hard to know what to ask him, so you vaguely request a rundown of what happened.

·His face falls, and in between recounts of alien attacks and near death experiences there's overwhelming self depreciation. To hear him tell it the entire affair might as well be his fault. You've always known him to be humble, even critical of his actions, but this borders on self destructive. Worse, the crux of his crisis seems to be that he was motivated to save you not just by duty, but by his selfish desire to protect the one he loved so dearly and can't bare to lose. His own desires are inexcusable in these things, as he puts it, and could have hindered him at your expense. Shaky arms rise so that you can grab the nearest part of him, a digit once again, as you encourage him to stop tormenting himself. You owed him your life, several times over just for today alone, and there wasn't a bot in existence less selfish than he. The kindness of his spark was what you'd fallen in love with, and what you still loved now, because he was more than a legend to you. You loved Thunderclash the bot, not the expectation everyone else had built around him, and thus he'd always be enough just by being himself. Finally relaxing after everything, and his spark singing at your ability to become his rock when he needs one, he allows himself to just rest and exist as he is. Laying his helm on the berth beside you, he nuzzles close, allowing himself to feel simple gratitude to have and love you as you do him.

#transformers #maccadam #more than meets the eye #mtmte #lost light #idw #tf #my writing #requests #anon #megatron x reader #megatron #thunderclash x reader #thunderclash #human reader #self insert

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whatgaviiformes · 3 years

Text

Firefly’s Glow - Part 1/?

For @janetm74 and @tsarinatorment and because I am desperate to post something to get my groove going again.

📦 trapped in a box requested by Janetm74 / How about ⏳ - time’s running out and 📦 - trapped in a box with some Scott&Gordon? – requested by Tsarinatorment

A/N: Author’s Note - Okay, first I hope it’s ok that I combined these asks. Second, I know this is strange. End notes included to explain. Also, I have and by extension Gordon has a potty mouth. I promise I edited most of them out.

*****

Less than a minute.

Gordon could work miracles in less than a minute. In 51.2 seconds, he went from Gordon Tracy, son of the late Jefferson Tracy, to Gordon Tracy, Olympic Gold Medalist representing the United States of America. He’d let the muscular pull, push, recovery rhythm of the butterfly stroke propel him past world records.

But of course he never really had to think about how to move through water.

Focus.

He had shackles to pick.

“You’re running out of time, Gordon Tracy.”

Damn it all.

Now the Hood was just being rude. It was Virgil’s face and voice that taunted him– though it really wasn’t his voice because Virgil could never speak to Gordon with a tone so laced with malice. Ire, sure. Hatred and malevolence, no way in hell.

Gordon would tear the Hood apart for stealing his brother’s voice, starting with a solid right hook in his snickering mug once he got out this.

Arms crossed, the Hood had a timer in one hand and an unrecognizable gun in the other. Though Gordon knew guns, he couldn’t recognize this one from the quick glance he’d spared. He’d had no time to look.

35 seconds.

He could do this. In that amount of time he’d saved an electrified Thunderbird 2 from a free fall by redocking his pod in the plummeting behemoth and connecting their computer systems to regain control. He hadn’t needed time to think, just react – his brother’s life was dependent on Thunderbird 2’s survival.

His brother whose voice was stolen by a madman.

“My, my, didn’t my niece teach you better than that?”

Leave Kayo out of this, you stupid, greedy, motherf - His survival thus far had been a little bit Kayo, a little bit Parker, and a whole lot of Brains. Parker for the lock picking knowledge, Kayo for the speed and survival tactics, Brains for the lock pick built into the bottom of his boots.

And sure, maybe a little bit of his own survival training helped.

A minute to remove the shackles in exchange for freedom. 60 seconds. Gordon could save lives in 60 seconds. He can, and will, save his own.

15 seconds left.

“Tick tock.”

His hands fumbled with the small pick between his fingers and the awkward angle of a lock he couldn’t even see, only feel.

Click!

The shackles came free and fell to the ground with a clatter. Gordon panted, his heart pounding in his chest.

“Very good. Perhaps, you have some worth to me after all.”

“But-”

“Oh, I was never going to let you go, Gordon Tracy. But thank you for the…” Virgil-that’s-not-really-Virgil waved a hand towards Gordon’s shoes. “Demonstration.”

Rage welled up inside him.

It was Virgil’s face, sure, but Gordon had punched Virgil before. Hell, Virgil had punched him before. And the man in front of him wasn’t really Virgil anyway. So, Gordon launched himself at the Hood, preparing to attack.

In his anger, he’d forgotten about the gun. He wouldn’t have entered a gunfight with his fists if he remembered. Taking out your opponent 101. His WASP superior officers would have been sorely disappointed in him.

Sans his standard yellow baldric (because the Hood had taken that from him too), Gordon gasped at the sudden impact that hit his chest. Even though the projectile’s force wasn’t enough to drive him back, the gun, intended for mid-range, packed a hell of a punch, and there was a terrifying moment when Gordon looked down at his body and expected to see blood. Instead, the dart protruding from his left pectoral carried a blue liquid, an injection of something. He didn’t know what, and somehow, that thought was even less comforting.

The swift lethargy that flowed through his muscles slowed him as the drug hit.

Gordon crumpled to the dirty cement floor as Virgil cackled in his ear, and all went black.

*****

Gordon’s love of the sea came first from the fact that the sea was so different from the plains of Kansas, secondly that it was a part of the Earth itself he loved so much. and thirdly – and most importantly– because the first time he stepped into the rushing waves of the ocean it had been like finally learning to breathe.

Gordon had learned to appreciate all of Earth’s life at a young age. He was never a rescue scout like Scott, as there was a bit too much focus on badgework for his tastes, but his youth was spent making mud pies, watching bird’s nests, and observing caterpillar chrysalises all the same.

The summer Gordon was six, Scotty had taken him out to the barn late at night and showed him how to make a lantern of fireflies. Their adventure pack (really Scott’s school bag, repurposed) held a flashlight, mason jars, a couple pieces of mesh to put overtop the glass, and two bug nets.

No brothers were allowed – this was for him and Scotty only.

He’d abandoned the bug net for his hands pretty quickly, and within a few minutes, he’d managed to catch five or so for his lightning bug lantern. Of course, Scott had managed to catch more because he was older and also because he’d shared this memory with all his brothers and this was only Gordon’s first time.

It had been so pretty, the fireflies dancing in the mason jar, their lights slowly dimming and brightening in a mellow cadence that soothed his soul. But then, he realized their little bodies, which were used to flying around in the expanse of the sky, were suddenly confined to the glass container of the jar. And he saw not beauty but pain.

It was a lovely, bittersweet memory he kept close to his heart because it represented a key moment of his youth: first growing up with Scott as an older brother and also the first time he’d felt a creature’s cry reach him. It was the same wail he felt when he read about oil spills off the coast of Alaska and illegal fishing nets that should not still be in use, and, god, the absolute trash humanity left in the oceans for poor sea turtles to choke over.

Scott hadn’t understood where the tears came from suddenly, but Gordon remembered his brother kneeling in front of him so their eyesight was level, and he recalled him asking what happened and what Gordon needed, completely uncaring that his jeans were getting dirty in the fertilized soil. And the best thing about Scott was that he was the type of older brother that didn’t laugh or ignore him when Gordon said “they want out” through blubbering tears. He just helped Gordon release their fireflies back into the night, and instead they spent their evening counting their happy flickering until the numbers lulled Gordon to sleep.

The memory faded; the fireflies behind his eyes converged to a fragment on the other side of his lids, and a piercing white struck his brain with each blink as he awoke.

His feet were cold. The Hood had stolen his boots. Of freaking course. His next realization was that the rest of him was not as cold as his feet. In fact, that light coming in through the window was making his face and neck feel quite flushed.

It was the light that told him he was somewhere new. Previously the Hood had kept him locked in the darkness in his cell.

He groaned, shifting to sit up and look around his new abode, which was compact and with no angles to define the walls. But it was all glass, and so the window he thought was present was actually the room itself. And the floor he realized, feeling the material against the pads of his feet as he stood, was also glass.

His investigation was short lived, and Gordon hissed as the attempt to put weight on his left foot shot a laser of pain up through his ankle.

God, the Hood must have really thrown him in here, he thought.

He looked up.

No, not thrown. Dropped.

The ceiling of the room was not a ceiling at all, but the top of a bottle where the glass curved inward and then continued upward.

It was not quite what he imagined…. being the test subject of a madman. Maybe a tube or a cage or the cell where he was before would make sense, but a human-sized glass bottle? He felt like one of the fireflies he was just dreaming of, and of course, the Hood had to steal that memory too, in addition to his baldric, his boots, and his brother’s face.

As Gordon squinted to peer past the glass, the light that had been penetrating his new home suddenly darkened with a singular brown eye filling the expanse of the vessel, disorienting the shape so that the pupil was huge and the iris round, and the rest was…well, still huge just not as much so.

Fire raced through his ankle as he backed up two steps, stumbling into the back of the bottle.

“Gordon?” The eye said in a deep rumble.

The hell? He knew that voice.

“Fuse?”

“Shit, man, you’re tiny.”

His instinct was to look at his hands, but of course, they were the same from his perspective, though perhaps a bit grimier than they were before he was captured, tossed in a cell, and then forced to pick his way out of his shackles for no reason other than the Hood’s demented sense of pleasure.

The eye was then replaced with Fuse’s hand as he picked up the bottle to clasp it by the neck and pull it off of what was clearly a high shelf, with Gordon still inside.

Everything was not okay.

He was not okay.

It was never a human-sized bottle, and as his world shifted with Fuse raising the glass, Gordon realized he was lucky if he was half a foot tall.

END PART 1

End note: In effort to think outside the box for in a box my brain went straight to pocket!Gordon, so I went angsty Arrietty/the Borrowers vibes. There’s a more literal box planned later, I promise, and more Scott as requested. But for now, hope this helps do the job. Also don’t skip over the first part, POCKET!GORDON. 😊

Part 2

#Gavii Scribit #ask box prompts #Gordon Tracy #Scott Tracy #Thunderbirds fanfiction #Thunderangst #thunderwhump #Firefly's Glow

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wingsofhcpe · 3 years

Text

whumptober day 1- barbed wire

fandom: shadow & bone

pairing: fivan [ivan x fedyor kaminsky]

rating: T+

additional warnings: blood & injury

you can also read here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34208404/chapters/85114393

[tagging @camilleisback upon request <3]

It’s days before Ivan finally finds Fedyor.

The druskelle, clever bastards that they are, have elected to hide near the borders with Fjerda and wait for reinforcements rather than make a run for it. There’s an abandoned warehouse that must have once been a butcher’s store near a withering Ravkan village; it’s well-camouflaged between the trees, and the vegetation and snowdrifts muffle the sounds of screaming that echo from inside as the witch-hunters torment their prisoners night and day. The location would have been impossible to hide, had it not been for the honed senses of a Heartrender being able to detect the distressed heartbeats from miles away, as well as an experienced Squaller sensing the slightest vibrations in the air that are commonly caused by loud noises such as screams.

Seven Grisha had been taken captive during the druskelle raid at their camp; when Ivan barrels into the warehouse, druskelle dropping left and right with nothing but a flicker of his wrists, he finds two survivors and five rotting corpses. For a moment, he fears the worst- but as his senses clear and the adrenaline of battle fades, he realises one of the two remaining heartbeats echoing in the dark, murky space, belongs to Fedyor. Ivan’s head snaps like a hound catching the scent of blood, and it is mere seconds before his eyes adjust to the distorted light coming from the busted door, and he finally makes out a shape at the far end of the warehouse. Before he can even think about it, he’s running.

Fedyor’s body is suspended by the wrists from a meat hook attached to the ceiling; it’s bad enough to see his lover limp and unmoving like a corpse, but then Ivan takes a closer look and realises with gut-wrenching horror that Fedyor’s hands aren’t bound with rope but with thick coils of barbed wire. The jagged points have dug deep within the skin, leaving sickening gouges across Fedyor’s wrists and forearms. There’s blood everywhere, having dripped down to his elbows, shoulders and even his hair. It has created a small puddle on the rotting floorboards, and Ivan’s boots squelch as he steps on it, trying to get as close to Fedyor as possible. The latter is nearly unconscious, but he makes a low, keening sound when Ivan attempts, in vain, to undo his bindings. It’s no use; the barbs are embedded deep into the flesh, and trying to uncoil them now will only cause more damage, more bleeding, more pain. They have to be cut away, but Ivan isn’t sure whether any of his Grisha is carrying a blade sharp and slender enough for the job. Either way, his first concern should be getting Fedyor down from where he’s still hanging from; this way, he’ll be able to get a better look.

It’s slow work, painstaking for both parties. Fedyor stirs in and out of consciousness as Ivan works, whimpering and begging for mercy. Ivan realises with a pang of unrestrained fury what a devilishly clever idea it had been to bind a Grisha’s hands in such a manner- Fedyor’s hands are close enough, he could twist them if he tried, he could use his powers to do away with his captors. But the barbed edges would shred his skin further if he did, would cause him to suffer and bleed even more. The druskelle had evidently known that; they had risked their own lives for the sake of toying with their prisoners in such a sadistic, inhuman manner.

Fedyor’s weak, pained cry jolts Ivan out of his fury-addled thoughts, and he realises belatedly that he has pulled too roughly at the wires; fresh blood is trickling from somewhere, and Ivan swears colourfully under his breath.

“I’m sorry, moye serdtse, I’m sorry,” he whispers, hoping Fedyor can hear him, hoping he knows Ivan doesn’t want to hurt him, he just has to get him down for his own good “I’m almost done. Just stay strong for me, Fedya.”

Finally, he manages to pry the hook loose from the wire; Fedyor’s body drops lifelessly, but Ivan is there to catch him and gently lower him to the floor, until Fedyor is lying against his chest. Ivan holds him gently, cradling him against his own body and whispering apologies and reassurances. It’s only then that Fedyor’s eyes open just slightly, brown irises glazed with pain and pupils dilated. His cracked, bloodied lips move, and Ivan has to strain to hear him.

“You found me.” The injured man whispers, and Ivan nods seriously.

“Of course I did, my love. I’m here now. You’re safe.” He doesn’t mention how he’s been too late; how he’s allowed the druskelle to torture Fedyor for four long, endless days. How they have lost five of their own, because Ivan had been too incompetent to find them fast enough.

Yet Fedyor’s mouth twitches into a small, relieved smile. “I knew you would… you always… find me…”

“Shh…” Ivan lays a hand on Fedyor’s cheek, flushed with fever. “Don’t talk now.”

They stay still for a little while; Fedyor’s ragged breathing echoing in sync with Ivan’s relieved sighs as he holds his beloved close, peppering gentle, loving kisses across his bloodied cheeks and brow. Eventually, Ivan carefully places a hand over Fedyor’s still bound wrists.

“I need to take these off.” He says softly, and catches the glint of fear in Fedyor’s delirious gaze. “I cannot lie to you, Fedya, it will hurt. But it will only be for a little while. It’ll feel much better after.”

Fedyor whimpers softly. “…so much. They hurt so much, Vanya. My hands… it feels like they’re on fire…”

“I know, I know.” Ivan voice cracks with despair; seeing Fedyor suffer like this, it’s too much to bear. “I will make it better, I promise. Just… Just trust me, dearest.”

Fedyor’s eyes close, but he nods tiredly; even while in so much pain, he must know there’s no other solution. Ivan takes his kefta off, bundles it up into a makeshift pillow and lays Fedyor down on it as carefully as he can. Then he calls out to one of his Grisha, requesting the sharpest and thinnest blade that can be found in their equipment or the druskelle’s. While rummaging, he takes the opportunity to hastily check on the other survivor, a younger Inferni woman- she’s alive and in slightly better condition than Fedyor, although her hands have been bound in a similar manner. By using her powers to heat them up, however, she has made the wires pliant and thus easier to remove. Clever, Ivan thinks to himself. He would have asked her to do the same for Fedyor’s bonds, but she looks so pale, and she can’t even sit up without feeling faint. No, he can’t run her any more ragged. The dagger will have to do.

Finally, Ivan finds a fine, razor-sharp blade within one of the druskelle’s coats. It’s possibly used for gutting fish, and is less than clean, but it’s his only choice, and anyway, Fedyor’s probably already suffering from an infection judging by the rust that covers the wires. Dried fish gore won’t make a big difference at this point.

“Close your eyes and count to fifty, Fedya.” Ivan encourages as he kneels next to his partner. “Focus on the numbers. Don’t think of anything else.”

Fedyor nods feebly and does as he’s told; his eyes close and his lips begin to move in a voiceless mumble as he starts to count. Ivan slips his fingers carefully between the coils of wire, and as gently as he can, he begins to saw at it with the dagger. No matter how gentle he tries to be, however, Fedyor’s body immediately tenses and his breath comes out in short gasps. Ivan shushes him softly, although he knows it’s not much help. The best he can do for Fedyor now, is focus on his task. And so he does- he does his best to shut off the pained gasps that soon turn into whimpers, and saws methodically at the accursed barbed coil until, little by little, it starts to come off.

“…fifty.” Fedyor murmurs shakily at some point, and Ivan doesn’t have to look to know there are tears running down his blood-crusted cheeks.

“Ten more, moye serdtse. I’m almost done. You’re doing so well. You’re so, so brave, my Fedyenka. So brave.”

Fedyor’s chest heaves as he cries quietly, but he doesn’t complain, not even when Ivan finally cuts through the wires and is able to pull them away. There’s a sickening wet sound as the barbs are pulled free from Fedyor’s flesh, where they’d been wedged for days, and Fedyor’s back arches- for once, he can’t keep in the hoarse scream that rips out of his throat. But the next moment his muscles relax as Ivan unbinds him completely, his fingers twitching slightly in relief as blood circulates back to them. Ivan breathes out a sigh, and places his palm on Fedyor’s forehead.

“I’m done, Fedya. It’s alright now.” Fedyor only shakes his head a little, unable to speak. But his heartbeat has eased just slightly- he’s still in pain, but he’s better.

The group makes camp right there, inside the warehouse (after moving the corpses of the druskelle away and dumping them into a snowdrift to be prey for scavenging animals. Serves them right). They hold a funeral pyre for the deceased Grisha, but Ivan only speaks a few words as the squad’s leader and then retreats back into the building; one of the others has lit a fire in the middle, right under an opening in the rotting roof, using old scraps and thin branches. The interior is warm now, and the smell of burning cloth and wood is chasing away the odour of stale blood and dead bodies. Ivan directs two of the Grisha to stand watch as soon as the funeral pyre outside is done, and focuses on the task at hand.

He digs around the ruins until he finds something that resembles an old, cracked wooden bowl- possibly used by the previous owner of the establishment to collect the majority of the blood that poured from freshly slaughtered cattle. It looks cleaner than one would expect, and it smells only vaguely of blood; nothing a good rinse with snow can’t fix. After that’s done, Ivan refills the bowl with snow and holds it over the fire until it’s turned into warm water. He rummages through the squad’s supplies too, and finds clean cloths and bandages.

Fedyor’s eyes flutter behind pale, close lids when Ivan returns to his side, although he seems to weak to open them. Still, Ivan knows he’s still conscious and in pain.

“I’m going to clean your wounds.” He says softly, sitting next to the other man. Fedyor can only hum in agreement- it’s not like he could move away even if he wanted to. Even if he didn’t know his wounds had to be cleaned before infection set in for real. There was no Healer with them, as conflict hadn’t been expected. It had only been a reconnaissance mission. It would be three days of fast riding at the very best, until they made it back to the Little Palace, and Fedyor wouldn’t last for half of it if Ivan didn’t do something to keep the infection at bay.

So with as much care as he can possibly muster, Ivan takes hold of Fedyor’s hand into his own and lifts it up slowly to take a closer look. Even with the dried blood obscuring the worst of it, Ivan can already tell it’s worse than he’s initially assessed; the cuts are deep, the skin around them swollen and hot to the touch, and there’s white liquid concentrated on the edges of the deeper, wider gashes. Fedyor’s hand is trembling in his own, and Ivan can only imagine how much it truly hurts. Fedyor has a high pain tolerance, yet even for him this must be almost unbearable.

In a desperate attempt to comfort his partner, Ivan starts to hum a slow lullaby as he soaks a strip of cloth in the warm water, then wrings it out and starts to slowly, gently clean the blood and grime away from the cuts. Fedyor lets out a quiet sigh of relief, the clean, warm water immediately doing wonders for his mangled hand. Ivan allows himself a small smile; he doesn’t cease his humming while he continues to carefully clean and bandage Fedyor’s left hand, then his right. All the while he keeps a metaphorical eye on Fedyor’s heartbeat, glad to feel it gradually grow slower and more relaxed. The last thing Ivan does after he’s checked Fedyor for other open wounds (he’s satisfied to find nothing, although the dark bruises on his face, chest and ribs are certainly worrisome), is clean the rest of the blood from his husband’s hair, face, and neck. By the end of it, the water in the bowl has turned from clear to a dark, muddy brown colour. Ivan does away with it as soon as he can- he can no longer stand to look at Fedyor’s blood.

Most of the other Grisha have gone to sleep by now, including the other survivor- a good sign all in all, and Ivan can see from where he stands that her own wounds have also been taken care of. The two Grisha he’d ordered to stand watch are doing so in a perfectly straight posture, even after four gruelling days of riding and searching, and Ivan makes a mental note to mention their names and devotion to the General when they go back to the capital. When he’s certain everything is in order, Ivan finally allows himself to lie down next to Fedyor. The wooden floor is uncomfortable at best, but he doesn’t care. Gently, he slings one arm over his husband’s sleeping form and draws him close. He’s never letting Fedyor go, ever again.

Fedyor hums a little in his sleep, cracking one eye open to look at Ivan. Immediately, he smiles tiredly and Ivan smiles back, unable to begrudge him such a simple pleasure.

“How are you feeling, moye serdtse?” He asks.

“Much… much better.” Fedyor whispers in a relaxed manner. Yet Ivan doesn’t harbour any illusions- he knows the pain and fever will come back with a vengeance soon, and he wants Fedyor to get as much rest as possible until then. He’ll need it. So he places a chaste kiss on Fedyor’s lips and starts filing his hand through the latter’s hair. Predictably, Fedyor submits to the affections; Ivan knows how to best make him relax, even under such conditions.

“Sleep.” Ivan whispers tenderly, and Fedyor nods. Before he closes his eyes again, Fedyor offers him another small smile.

“I knew you’d find me.” He mouthed, and Ivan nodded, pride and love and devotion swelling in his chest.

“Of course, my love. I will never leave you. I promise.”

Even if the whole Ravka, the whole world, was against them, they believed in each other. And in the end, that was that really mattered.

#my writing #whumptober 2021 #fivan #heartrender husbands #shadow & bone #fedyor kaminsky #ivan no last name #fedyor x ivan #angst #whump #whumptober

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novantinuum · 3 years

Link

Fandom: Steven Universe

Rating: Teen Audiences

Words: 6.3K~

Summary: In another world, he doesn’t have his mother’s sword or shield to hide behind when Bismuth lands her strike. The bubble pops.

Steven falls apart.

Chapter summary: In which freedom is a future worth fighting for.

Finally finished this chapter, yay! I promise I throw canon off a ravine entirely next chapter, I just needed to set up some stuff. Hopefully the Ruby POV makes things somewhat fresh.

If you read this and enjoy, I’d greatly appreciate your support through reblogs here, or kudos/comments on AO3. Thank you! <3

____

Chapter 13: system/REBOOT, Part 1

The whole mission is Garnet’s idea.

By this point, they’ve known about Homeworld’s rushed Beta Kindergarten project for about fifty years. Frankly, its composition leaves much to be desired. The area is rich in the iron and silicon deposits necessary to produce a strong batch of quartzes, but the foundation they incubated all their new soldiers within is red clay cemented sandstone; it’s soft, and in constant danger of erosion. According to all the rebellion’s peridots, many of them top Homeworld kindergarteners before their eventual defection, this type of stone is critically unfit for Gem production. It can’t compress the inclusions of injector fluid at the correct pressure, can’t reliably bar the excess from draining through the porous material. As a result many of the individually incubated sites are predicted to ‘weep’ and lose critical volume, which will inevitably cause the emergent quartzes to be ‘off-color’ in some fashion. Some may be under regulation height, some may exhibit crystal twinning, some may be incapable of standard abilities like shapeshifting or weapon summoning, so on and so forth.

As a fellow off-color herself, Garnet carries a deep empathy for all those who are forsaken and unwanted. She can foresee the dire fate of these Beta Gems creeping over the dawning horizon even without the benefit of future vision, can foresee that despite all of these soldiers’ loyal programming, they’re ultimately cursed to be eliminated within the cruel machine of Homeworld. One day beyond the battlefield, the so-called Great Diamond Authority will see no further use in their existence, and then they’ll be purged. Harvested for scrap. Trapped within a myriad of Gem-powered objects. Crushed and used within their drop ships for fuel.

It’s pure tyranny.

Thus, she refuses to let their cruelty stand without a just fight. They have to give these Gems a chance beyond Homeworld’s rule, because abandoning them would be abandoning everything that their brave rebellion stands for, that she stands for. She refuses to stand powerless and idle in the face of a Diamond’s commands like the Sapphire and Ruby she once was, refuses to let another tragedy slip by without at least attempting to mend its damage. She is Garnet, she is freedom, and she is love.

And deep within her core, she believes these soon-to-emerge soldiers deserve the same opportunity for renewal and hope as any other Crystal Gem.

For all Ruby’s aware, a whole geological era could have passed between that fateful moment she first set eyes on Jasper and the shards-late arrival of Amethyst and the others. All three of them duck behind the low rock formations she’s hiding in the shade of, Steven still breathing heavily from the no-doubt harried and concerned exertion of their sprint towards her. Hard light coursing from the gem in her palm to all other extremities at random intervals amidst crackling cinders of immobilizing terror, (she’s almost surprised her form isn’t flickering at this point), she desperately attempts to babble an explanation. She’ll admit— it’s not a particularly coherent one. Ask her mere minutes later, and there’s little chance she’ll be able to repeat what she said. Heck, she’s not confident about her words now, in the heat of the moment. It’s probably something about holes, something about injector scrap, about all those Gem monsters, a-and—

"Whoa, what the heck!” Amethyst blessedly interrupts, raising her head above the rocks and pointing across the clearing at the orange and red striped quartz diligently prowling the area like a true squadron leader. “Jasper’s here, too? Did everyone decide to skip on over to Beta today, or somethin’?!”

Peridot’s face scrunches in confusion as she regards her former mission partner. “What is she doing?”

“She’s got all those corrupted Gems in cages,” Steven murmurs with realization, a tiny spark of outrage lighting up behind his eyes on those creatures’ behalf. “They’re not even bubbled, they’re just… trapped, and scared!”

Ruby brings her fist to her mouth, nervously nibbling at her fingers for a moment to anchor herself back to this present. Above all else, ignoring every thread of trepidation and insecurity she bears, there’s one burning question that pulses at her core with an unmatched luminosity about this whole scenario:

“B-but why would she want so many corrupted Gems in the first place? Doesn’t she know she can’t tame them?”

The purple quartz growls, the fringe of her hair casting a dark and menacing shadow over her features as she tilts her head down and glares at her self-proclaimed rival. “I don’t think she knows nothin’.”

And as— instinctively, mistakenly, running off of over five thousand years of deep engrained habit— she attempts to open her third eye towards the winding tributaries of potential futures they may soon find themselves wading through and fails, it slowly dawns on her just how isolated and lost they all are, without Sapphire’s sight. Without her love.

“Neither do I…” she says softly, her stature shrinking in the throes of that suffocating inadequacy. Riding an abrupt wave of frustration, she slams her foot into the coarse dirt, gripping thick chunks of her coily hair between her fingers. “Aughhh, this is a terrible time to not have future vision!” she huffs, spitting out each word staccato.

“Pipe down!” Jasper hollers at the poor corrupted Gem cornered in the distance as she kicks one of the bars of its cage, her booming voice easily reverberating off the cliffs’ curvature.

All four of them can’t help but bite back their gasps upon this clamoring startle. Peeking her head just above the rim of the rocky outcropping, Ruby watches the fur covered quartz visibly shrink back at the soldier’s command. Jasper continues, her unwavering act of confidence currently undeterred by this reaction.

“You take orders from me now. You used to be a quartz too, didn’t you? What happened to you?”

Utterly failing to comprehend any of her words in this vulnerable, animalistic state, the corrupted Gem merely snaps its fangs at the bars, and then tilts its head sideways to begin chewing on one of them. Jasper scoffs, her lips rising in a mild sneer. Taking the risk to edge closer, she continues to verbally berate the poor thing, talking the same sort of smack Ruby’s former Homeworld commanding officer, Condor Agate, used to dish out. Ruby grinds her teeth together so hard as she watches this display that the pressure and heat alone might be enough to form a brand new batch of Gems. Jasper even finds a moment to rope Amethyst into her insults, which almost has the stone in question summoning her whip in pure unfiltered fury. It’s only Steven and Peridot’s quick clutch on her shoulders that holds her back from steamrolling into the clearing with zero preparation and potentially making a terrible mistake. Still, she’s gotta admit, the temptation to whoop this Homeworld brute’s butt right this minute is devilishly hard to resist.

Ruby growls, one of her gauntlets emerging into existence on her clenched fist with a burst of light. “Oh-hoh, do I wanna launch this baby right into her dumb, chalky face…!”

“But maybe first we should go back to the temple and grab reinforcements?” Peridot whispers hastily, whirling around to face her. Panic visibly tightens its grip on her form with each passing second.

She pauses a moment to let the logic of this suggestion sink in, gaze hardened, and self-consciously aware of how her fellow Gems are (wrongfully) looking towards her as their leader in this chaos. What options do they even have? They can choose to fight, that’s one. They could disengage. They could retreat to Beach City and seek backup. If they were truly desperate, they could surrender. (Although she’s not confident Jasper would gracefully accept anyone’s defeat, not until it ended with their poofed— maybe even shattered— gemstones littering the coarse sand.)

As the gears are still pirouetting in her mind, she turns towards Steven, who nods in vehement agreement of Peridot’s strategy, his mouth stretched thin.

Sighing with frustration, she loosens her grip, recalling how even Garnet was barely able to match up with Jasper’s might. “Yeah, you’re right. She’d beat us into the dirt without Pearl or Sapphire.”

“Okay, so far we got three votes for retreat,” he says, holding up the appropriate number of digits as a visual. “Amethyst?”

In sync, the trio turn towards where the quartz just stood and find nothing but faint granules of recently upended dust filtering through a beam of sunlight. Both Peridot and Steven let out a fearful squeak at her absence.

“W-where is she?” the former Homeworld technician cries, craning her neck over the top of the rock formation to try and secure a visual.

“Up there!” Steven exclaims under his breath, pointing at a ridge a good ten feet above them that crosses from the arched entrance of this natural amphitheater all the way to the other side where Jasper stands, her back still turned to them.

Following the path of his index finger, Ruby catches a flash of purple, black and lavender stealthily advancing along the narrow rim towards the very soldier who reportedly poofed her with a single strike about a week back. The light sustaining her form nearly drains from all her limbs and rushes back to her gem.

“Oh, shards no…”

Stars above, what the hell is her problem? she thinks, her mind riding in a narrow track between exacerbated vexation and dread. Does she have a death wish, or something?? Surely the last place a rational person would choose to run is directly into the arms of the Gem who clobbered them into a senseless cloud at their last meeting. Surely a rational person would instead choose to retreat and regroup. However, as she glumly reflects upon the dour happenings of the past few days, Amethyst’s actions prove she’s currently unable to think rationally about Jasper or any other kind of conflict. She’s been markedly sullen at everyone around her ever since she first got her butt whooped. Obsessed with her private training sprees. Emotionally stand-offish. Prone to making rash decisions, like letting her mouth run off at poor hapless Steven about matters that aren’t his fault, or slashing her whip right at people’s feet to push them away, or… or rushing directly towards Jasper in an enclosed space with little to no backup just because she’s desperate to show her up for the sake of her own self-worth, or whatever.

And Ruby gets it, to an extent. She understands how cripplingly powerless it can feel to be written off as ‘the weak one,’ as nothing but an expendable. She understands the vivid temptation to let one’s anger drive such antagonistic confrontations. However, she’d also like to believe that she carries enough self respect in this gem to not throw herself right on an enemy’s anvil. Whether or not Amethyst possesses the same level of restraint is another question entirely. She flexes nervous, twitchy fingers at her side as she watches her dear friend creep further along the rim, ever closer to what she fears will be her unquestionable demise.

With the corrupted Gem’s racket still occupying Jasper’s undivided attention, Amethyst leaps from the cliff’s edge and into the clearing, pulling her whip from her gem in midair. The moment her toes touch the ground again, she slashes its barbed ends at the bars of the cage, right next to the quartz soldier’s hand. Jasper yanks her digits back. Her entire body snaps tense upon this disruption. Watching from behind their rocky cover, Ruby, Steven, and Peridot bite back the urge to gasp in shock.

“HEY!” Amethyst yells, lowering on her haunches right behind her opponent.

Now, there’s obviously no way to prove it without somehow obtaining intimate knowledge of her headspace, but upon external observation, Ruby swears that this big, buff Beta Kindergarten quartz is masking surprise. The sentiment is visible in the alignment of her shoulders, lifted high and tight against her neck. It’s visible in her narrow stance, light years away from the proper form of a soldier expecting battle. Flexing her thick, dexterous fingers at her side, she makes a blatant show of puffing out her chest before she turns to face her challenger, an almost predatory smile curving upwards on her lips as she regards her.

“You back away from her,” Amethyst hisses, nodding towards the Gem in the cage.

Jasper lets out a hearty chuckle. “Oh-hoh, what do we have here? You finally decide to crawl back for a rematch, runt?”

She grits her teeth, tightening her fist around the pommel of her weapon. “That’s right. I’m back, and I’mma wipe you all over these cliffs!”

“Perfect,” her opponent practically purrs, cracking her knuckles in anticipation. “I’ve been needing a light warmup.”

Rose approves her mission without question, when she first brings her the idea. Of course she would, in retrospect— the hidden diamond she was.

Garnet takes forty of her fellow soldiers and friends with her to the Beta Kindergarten. They don’t wield any weapons. These Gems are brand new, stepping into the light for the very first time. There’s no need to threaten them; all she wants is to peacefully talk, to introduce them to the concept of freedom, of choosing their own path beyond the Diamonds’ rule.

At the time, all she wanted was to follow her beloved leader’s example and choose peace and harmony over subjugation and brutality.

But with the bitter truths they know now, and reflecting upon the horrid atrocities they themselves participated in amidst the war… despite Rose’s self-proclaimed ‘pacifism,’ despite the shaky justifications of their cause being different than Homeworld’s brand of violence... she’s increasingly unsure if any of them ever had a choice.

Tragically, it only takes mere seconds for the initial triumphant beats of Amethyst’s war against Jasper to devolve into a one-sided thrashing.

With a mighty, almost frenzied yell, Amethyst moves one foot forward for counterbalance and slings the weighted, barbed tip of her weapon directly at her opponent’s face. Jasper catches it midair, mere inches from her gem. An arrogant smile paints her visage. After winding the whip’s end around her hand, she yanks its user towards her with a snap of her wrist, swings her in a wide arc, and effortlessly slams her into the nearest cliff wall, blowing up a huge plume of pulverized rock and dust. It all happens so fast that the rest of the party barely has any time to react. As the rubble settles, Ruby finally spots her friend amidst the chaos, collapsed on hands and knees in the dirt. The poor Gem’s hands are nearly trembling as she vies to rise to her feet again, vies to stand her ground and keep fighting.

There’s only one thing she knows for sure, watching all this: if hard light were consumable rather than indelible, she would quite literally be chipping away at her knuckles with her teeth by now.

His expression blown wide with fear, Steven breaks their communal silence to holler Amethyst’s name. Hands flexing in and out of fists, he darts away from their hiding spot. And they tried to stop him, they really did— it’s simply that he’s far too nimble for either of them to catch in time.

“Steven!” Peridot cries, trying and failing to grab his hand to hold him back.

“Steven, no!” Ruby yells, arms outstretched, as he sprints into the clearing— entirely blowing any remaining amount of cover the three of them had, placing his gem at Jasper’s mercy, and causing a thousand living nightmares to flood into her consciousness in but a millisecond. “Come back!!”

“Wait! Wait,” he gasps, waving his arms wildly to catch the larger quartz’s attention as he passes into the center of this natural coliseum, firmly planting himself at Amethyst’s side. “Stop! We don’t need to do this!”

Giving a growl that would rival that of a corrupted Gem’s, Ruby clenches her fingers around thick coils of her hair at either side of her head and yanks. “Aughh, why does nobody listen to me when I’m short??”

A faint trail of glowing embers marks a record of her path as she leaves Peridot by their rocky outcropping and storms right into the open after him. Oh, hoh, hoh— that boy can disobey her clear, simple orders all he wants, but in his folly he’s forgetting one very important fact: rubies are stubborn Gems. And she’ll fight to protect him from the crossfire of Jasper’s hubris and Amethyst’s self-destruction even if that means braving her deepest terrors to run out there and drag him back to safety herself.

(Ideally, she’d be able to drag Amethyst with her out of the thunderdome as well, but she’s also quite the stubborn one. So try as she may, that’s not likely to happen.)

Ruby strides towards the middle of the clearing and defiantly plants her feet in the sterile soil right in front of Steven, and adjacent to Amethyst. She summons her gauntlets, her features twisting in a scowl. “Stand down and let them go!” she shouts up at that bulky orange quartz with all the Garnet-like confidence she can muster. “This is not a Homeworld controlled planet!”

“Steven, Ruby, get out of here!” Amethyst hisses under her breath, her battle-ready stance solidifying with a strange mixture of apprehension and anger as she regards the two of them.

“No!” she shoots back, tugging at her arm. “Come on, you know I can’t just leave you here.”

Jasper’s molten amber eyes narrow, her steely gaze colliding right into her.

“ You,” she says, enunciated as sharp as a dagger. “One half of that vile war machine.”

“War machine?!” Steven cries, distraught by the very implication. “She’s not a war machine! Garnet fuses for love!”

“Yeah!” Ruby jabs her fist in the air loud and proud.

The Homeworld warrior scoffs, seemingly not impressed by their display of solidarity. She folds her arms solid across the Yellow Diamond insignia emblazoned upon her chest and steps closer to address her directly. “And where’s this love now?” she spits, mockingly stooping to her level.

And despite the faint, triumphant memories of her last incursion with this quartz, (well… Garnet’s last incursion), she can’t help but cower in her presence, can’t help but crumble like the deficient sandstone of this very kindergarten under the cruel, personalized precision of her blunt words. Because... she’s right. Because that’s the whole problem, the pulsing heart of life’s cruel game. Fusion offered her a tantalizing taste of freedom, a glimpse of a reality where, together, a lowly guard and her sapphire could achieve literally anything through the strength of their love!— but that world feels like nothing more but an unobtainable mirage now. She’s absolutely useless on her own, just some pathetic waste of resources! No authority, no power, no wisdom of foresight— she brings nothing to the Crystal Gems’ cause. She never did. It was always her. Tears bead at her widening eyes, her gauntleted fists already beginning to tremble at her sides.

“I-I…”

“Where’s any of your power now?” Jasper continues as she raises back to her full height, lifting both open hands towards the empty, cloud-streaked skies. She throws her head back as she offers them all a bright, boastful chuckle. “To think I used to view you traitors as a threat, but now even your disgraceful cause is falling apart, isn’t it… Rose?”

Still standing a step behind her, Steven’s immediate reply brims with tones of frustration. “I’m not—“

“But you’re wrong!” a high, familiar voice urgently calls out from behind them all.

This whole messy confrontation breaks to a halt as everyone turns to gape at the lone Gem poking her head out above the rocky outcropping. Peridot gasps at the sudden influx of attention, and hastily ducks for cover again.

“What are YOU doing here?” Jasper growls with annoyance, grinding one of her feet in the dirt as if inwardly hoping she could shift the very earth they stand on and finally gain the advantage of surprise once more.

“I-I…” the green Gem stammers, slowly creeping out from her hiding spot, summoning newfound confidence as she lays her eyes on each and every one of her friends. “I’m here because our cause hasn’t fallen apart! We live on Earth to be free, to learn new things about ourselves. Like how I can bend metal to my bidding!” she exclaims, tossing enthusiastic fists into the air.

On the cliff face over twenty feet away, a skinny length of metal from one of the injector’s legs slips from the device, falls straight down, and noisily clatters as it collides against the rocky soil. Amethyst facepalms. Meanwhile, Jasper appears so underwhelmed by this display that in any other circumstance, her glazed-over expression could be comedic.

Peridot briefly scowls at her botched handiwork. “And sure,” she shrugs, nodding towards that shard of metal, “nothing’s ever perfect here, but together, we work to help and support each other, just like we’re supporting Amethyst now. Isn’t that freedom worth fighting for?”

A few beats pass as the heart of this proclamation sinks in, the ticking seconds seeing Steven beam in pride at his friend’s progression since the beginning of her stay on Earth, and Jasper’s features scrunch inwards in an almost sour manner. Between the stifling roots of her own despair, even Ruby herself can’t help but feel a little uplifted by this hopeful sentiment. It’s a well-timed salve to an old burn, a naive yet ultimately truthful promise of lighthearted days to come. After all, hasn’t her time as a Crystal Gem taught her by now that no circumstance is permanent? That a single unifying cause can collapse empires like a wildfire, can continually reshape one’s entire understanding of existence? Her gauntleted hands shift at her side as a new spark of timid confidence ignites at her core. What was she thinking, letting this brute of a quartz tower over her and define the very pillars of her own story? She’s better than this. For the very sake of her friends she has to be!

But alas, before this newfound bravery can see its hour of triumph on this secluded battlefield, she finds herself once again cast aside by one of the very friends she’s vying to protect.

Amethyst growls in frustration at their continued presence, and summons her weapon. “UGH, you GUYS!” She slashes its barbed tips against the cliff face right above Peridot, not close enough to hit her, but certainly with enough force that it spooks her into diving behind the low rock formation again. Scowling, she then turns and plucks an actively protesting Steven right off the ground. “Get out of here!” she yells, tossing him back towards the clearing’s entrance. “This isn’t your fight!”

Ruby gives a sharp yelp as she just barely leaps backwards to dodge the business end of her whip, swinging low in a vain attempt to tangle up her feet. “Hey—!”

“It’s just you and me, Jasper,” the purple quartz breathes heavily, and abruptly whirls around to jab her finger towards her opponent. “ONE-ON-ONE!”

Silently, a consenting smirk riding over her lips, the taller Gem summons her ramming helmet in a glittering flash of light.

The mission is— in the terms of the brave humans they sometimes fight alongside— a bloodbath.

When they first warped in, Garnet only expected to find a small handful of disoriented jaspers, citrines, and carnelians roaming about. Gems they could talk to. Gems they could reason with, just as Rose reasoned with her fellow quartzes at the very start of this bold rebellion. Instead, what emerges soon after their arrival is more shocking and unpredictable than any future Garnet could’ve ever visualized.

Bursting from the very heart of this slapdash, rushed Kindergarten, despite every single locational and structural disadvantage this place stacks against one’s favor, is Her.

The strongest, most perfectly formed jasper she’s ever laid eyes on. She’s seven feet tall, built as solid as diamond, her flawlessly faceted gemstone gleaming bright and proud in the rising sun. She wastes no time in following the miserable orders the Great Diamond Authority cruelly embedded deep within her soul, immediately calling the hundreds of scattered and confused off-color Gems surrounding her to action.

Garnet and her squadron simply don’t have enough time to intervene, to try and settle this skirmish halfway peacefully. They don’t have the numbers.

Twenty three Crystal Gems are shattered that day. Numerous more on both sides are cracked or poofed.

And yet one of the greatest tragedies, in her mind… is that these emergent Gems never got the proper chance to consider any purpose beyond their assigned station. Never got a chance to glimpse the promise of their own freedom.

Everything happened so fast.

She took this place for granted— thanks to her own preconceived notions about the kinds of Gems that could emerge here, utterly failed to foresee this potential turn of events— and in the end it cost lives. Both those of her fellow Crystal Gems, her friends … and those of the Beta quartzes she failed to save from Homeworld’s damaging influence.

That night, as she bitterly weeps for the recovered shards of the beloved they lost, clenches her gauntleted fists tight around her gemstones, she vows to never let such a harrowing tragedy escape her vision again. No more.

A leader like her is not allowed to fail.

With the mighty roar of a lion, Amethyst stamps her leading foot to the ground to center her balance and rears her weapon-wielding arm back, wholly intending to defend her pride from this boorish bully. The first and second slashes are fruitful, one striking Jasper in the face, and the next hitting her chest with such intense force that it slams her into the cliff wall a few feet back, but Ruby can’t help but dread the litany of unknown possibilities haunting their future as she watches, powerless in her lack of second sight to influence their present. Could Amethyst win this fight? Sure. There’s gotta be at least one river of time where that occurs, where Jasper is so wrapped up within that facade of insufferable hubris that she fails to take her seriously as an opponent and pays the price. But on the other hand, she senses so many chinks in Amethyst’s armor that she can’t help but fear the opposite. She’s blinded by her anger, unable to consider consequence rationally. Her form in battle— compared to her usual performance— is notably sloppy, as if she’s throwing herself at this fight with such an explosion of tangled, raw emotion that her years of training and refinement have all but melted away in the inferno. Her fingers are trembling as she tightens her grasp on the whip’s pommel.

All of this stated, Ruby may not possess the gift of Sapphire’s future vision, but she has more than enough experience on patrol and on the battlefield to recognize a soldier who is woefully unprepared for a fight. Something terrible is about to happen, she can just feel it.

“Be careful!!” she cries, cupping her hands around her mouth.

“It’s fine, she’s totally rocking this!” Steven says with a huge grin, seeming uncharacteristically calm, given the circumstances. He whoops, and punches his fist in the air. “Go Amethyst!”

Ruby and Peridot briefly match eyes, the noted concern in their gazes pointing towards the fact that they both think that Amethyst’s insistence to fight is reckless and naive. In retrospect, of course her friend would agree with her. She spent a lot of time cohabiting with Jasper on their journey to Earth, so she’s bound to be well aware of her fundamental nature.

At the moment however, given the shorter quartz’s tunnel vision, she’s certain that any of their valid concerns would fall upon deaf ears.

“Who’s weak now, huh?” Amethyst spits from across the clearing, flicking her wrist to activate the triplet spiked balls at the ends of her whip, an upgrade gifted by Bismuth she surprisingly hasn’t seemed to have abandoned. With a holler, she swings her leading arm back and around to build up momentum and then slashes at Jasper’s chest three times in succession. The last hit comes with enough force to push her backwards in the dirt a few feet. “Who’s powerless NOW?!”

Then, just as Ruby fearfully predicted, the winds shift.

The firestorm doubles back upon them, Jasper merely swatting the flail ends away like they were nothing more but a momentary nuisance. Her expression narrows into a scowl. Emergent shock mingles alongside the dark cloud of Amethyst’s anger like wayward lightning bolts as she growls in frustration, the side-swept fringe of her hair shadowing her features. In retaliation she summons a second whip and immediately slashes them both against the soil, endowing them with a crackling, purple-tinged energy, almost a fire of her own making. She tucks into a ball and literally hurls herself at the quartz warrior, her form only recognizable in the heat of that moment via a dazzling blaze of light.

The resulting collision throws up so much dirt and smoke that Ruby has to throw her small body in front of Steven’s to shield him from the worst of the debris.

When the thick curtains of dust finally part, the consequences of this overly-impulsive move are revealed. Jasper still stands proud and tall, her mettle unaffected by this attempted show of strength. Barely a scuff even marrs her uniform. Meanwhile, Amethyst lays hunched over on hands and knees, hacking up fragmented remnants of sandstone she likely swallowed amidst the impact. (Alas, that’s the price she pays for choosing to always reform with an semi-operational digestive system.)

“Is it sinking in yet?” Jasper queries pointedly, advancing towards the trembling Gem on the ground.

Amethyst is so exhausted she can’t even muster the strength to respond, her arms quivering beneath her as she vies to hold up the simulated weight of her hard light form.

Her foe roughly kicks her in the chest, her foot striking mere inches under her gem. Ruby visibly cringes at both the shallow huff of distress that this hit elicits from her, and Steven’s cries of fear in response.

“It doesn’t matter how long or hard you fight,” Jasper boasts, her imposing figure hovering like a bad omen over her quartz sibling’s, “because I’ll always be stronger! Runts like you never had a chance. Runts like you are worthless.”

Angrily, she grinds her teeth together, cradling the vulnerable gemstone on her hand.

Worthless.

Who the hell does this square hunk of stone think she is, slinging such heavy-handed words around like the blunt end of a mallet?

“Get your worthless, sorry forms back in formation!” wretched old Condor Agate used to scream at her and the others in her squad, back when she spent eternity guarding empty corridors, back before she was eventually reassigned to Sapphire’s personal guard. “You’re an embarrassment to your commanding agates, all of you!”

Ruby growls, finding her resolve. That’s it. No more. She can’t bear to stand at the sidelines gripped in fear while some bully is literally beating her friend into the ground, both physically and emotionally. She can’t bear for Amethyst to fall prey to the same type of unwavering torment she herself experienced all those years ago on Homeworld, torment that utterly deformed her sense of self-worth until recognizing any ounce of good in herself became a gargantuan, near-impossible task. Admittedly, she still hasn’t healed from those days. Not entirely. Sometimes she’s unsure she ever will. But it’s her duty to put an end to this, to what’s happening in the here and now. After all, what’s the point of being a Crystal Gem if you don’t look after the people you love?

“We have to separate them,” she says firmly, turning towards Steven and Peridot. “She’s gonna get clobbered!”

The former kindergartener’s expression warps to despair under her visor. “But how? She doesn’t even want us to be here! And none of us are strong enough to face Jasper…”

“Could we make a distraction?” Steven suggests, his voice tinged with the same sort of urgency she feels thrumming like a frantic drum line at the depths of her core.

Humming in thought, Ruby considers the status quo. To no success, she attempts to ignore her friends’ expectant gazes, trustingly falling upon her exactly like all those fellow rebellion soldiers used to look at Garnet… as their de facto leader. But she’s no leader, far from it. Garnet would barely have to think before coming up with a genius, foolproof plan, but she’s going into everything blind. She can’t weigh out potential consequences before rushing into action. She has no ability to pinpoint the most ideal outcome and work backwards from there. With all this in mind, it’s really no wonder that Garnet passed command of the group to Pearl instead of her. At least Pearl has experience leading missions solo.

And yet desperate times call for desperate measures.

She scans their surroundings for inspiration, considering what options may be open to them. At this point there’s no time to double back to the barn or the temple for reinforcements. (And she strongly doubts Lapis would care to so much as match eyes with Jasper, anyways.) One or more of them could always charge into the fray to attempt and break up this small skirmish by force, but that would risk their safety, too. The last thing she wants is to knowingly throw her friends into harm’s way. No, the best option would be breaking the two quartzes up using something in their immediate environment, something large and heavy but capable of being quickly moved, something like...

Her eyes snap wide. “That injector!” she whispers excitedly, pointing to the hulking piece of junked equipment precariously hanging from the cliff wall, only stabilized by a few legs that still penetrate the cracked sandstone. “It’s right above them. If we knocked it down, then maybe…”

Peridot flashes a hopeful smile, and nods.

“We’re on it,” Steven says, summoning his shield. The two of them glance at each other, perhaps silently coordinating their plan, and then leap into action.

“Metal powers activate!” she exclaims, and throws her hands up in the direction of that rusted injector.

Subtly but noticeable, its legs begin to shift and creak under the force of her ferrokinesis, loosening from the eroding stone. Licking his lips, Steven aims his weapon and hurls. It strikes the device directly at its center, clanging against solid metal. The injector wobbles for a moment, its delicate balance obviously destabilized by this force, and then begins to slide free from the porous kindergarten wall. One still-impacted leg snaps under the torque as the cylinder’s immense weight plummets towards the ground.

“Heads up!” Steven calls out, causing a bemused Jasper to flick her gaze skyward, towards the falling object staining the soil with an ever-growing shadow.

The collision of the junky old injector almost appears like a small explosion, flinging dirt a good ten feet into the air and resolutely separating the two quartzes. But Ruby barely has time to high five Peridot and celebrate their success before the kid she’s supposed to be keeping safe darts off into the clearing once more. She hisses a small curse under her breath. Drat, of course he’d run straight to Amethyst’s side again at his first opportunity! She should’ve seen that coming a whole star system away. At least Jasper’s been temporarily marooned on the other side of that busted Gem tech, though.

The real question is, for how long?

Nibbling at her lip, she hastily sprints towards the edge of the injector to keep a watchful eye on their opponent as Steven attempts to have a mid-battlefield heart-to-heart. (At least, that’s what she assumes he’s doing. Admittedly, they kinda failed to hammer out the fine details of their plan before sprinting into action. Her fault.) Thankfully though, at first glimpse it seems the impact’s force has effortlessly knocked Jasper clear off her feet. She seems slightly dazed, but beyond that remains unscathed. Time will only tell if this strategy was a beneficial one. Briefly turning back towards the group, Ruby watches Steven crouch next to Amethyst. She’s muttering something to him, she thinks— her expression raw with fresh tears— but her words are far too hushed to make out. Whatever she shares, however, it’s clearly enough to elicit a strong emotional reaction from her companion.

“No, no!” he pleads, hurt painting his features. “My mom- Rose, she doesn’t matter. Whatever Jasper thinks doesn’t matter. She's the only one who thinks you should be like her!”

“But-”

“Stop trying to be like Jasper. You're nothing like Jasper! You're like me!”

“But even you’re different!” she explodes at first, but any anger present in her form immediately evaporates into something more innately hesitant, more self-conscious. Her fingers claw thick troughs into the reddened soil as she curls them inwards. “I’m not like you at all, I’m not some di—”

“No, that’s not the point!” he says, tears of his own budding at the corners of his eyes. “You’re like me because we’re both not like anybody. And yeah, it sucks. Everyone always expects us to be someone we’re not, but you know what? At least I've always got you. And you've got me! So stop leaving me out of this!”

Slowly pushing herself to her feet behind the junked injector, Jasper groans, her voice strained with newfound exhaustion Ruby never imagined she possessed.

“Y’guys, she’s getting up!” she calls out to her friends behind her, equally a warning as it is a call to action. After all, if this bold stunt finally managed to crack through the first layer of their opponent’s armor, then they might genuinely stand a chance now.

She’ll never know if they heard her, though— because in the same split second she turns back to check on them, the now embracing pair is engulfed in a blinding white light.

Even in the absence of a soldier's fire, everything turns to smoke.

#su #steven universe #ruby #amethyst #jasper #peridot #su fanfiction #my writing stuff #crack the paragon

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fantasyandromancelover · 3 years

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Candyman AU

This is a favor for someone who’s planning on writing this fic in September and I’m just helping develop hype for it by writing out the plot.

Charlie Magne is a graduate student in journalism who is constantly belittled, taken advantage of, and pushed around by a number of people in her life including her mentor Professor Pentious, her boss Katie a reporter who is the definition of yellow journalism and her perverted camera man Tom, even her fiance Seviathan Von Eldritch who's also a professor. Only her friend Vaggie treats her with any kind of respect or decency.

One day Charlie learns of several murders in downtown New Orleans and decides to do a report on them with Vaggie. They question some of the residents but the only one who seems to know anything is Anthony "Angel Dust" a private drug dealer who reveals to the ladies (In exchange for a little money of course) that the one responsible for the killings was "The Deer Demon" a blood thirsty apparition that can only be summoned by saying his name five times while playing his favorite song Come Sweet Death on the radio and once he arrives he kills those who have summoned him. Though both doubt him, Vaggie is frightened by this while Charlie is strangely intrigued. Angel then tells them to talk to local tendent Rosie Crawford because she was a neighbor to one of the victims.

They interview Rosie who's the single mother of a baby son and she tells them that she only heard the murder, that she didn't see anything. However she warns them both not to meddle in things they don't understand which makes Charlie suspect that Rosie knows more than she's letting on.

After this Vaggie suggests that they find a different topic but Charlie remains determined and decides to try to summon the Deer Demon to prove to her scared friend and Angel that he's not real. She plays Come Sweet Death on her radio and calls out Deer Demon five times. Nothing happens thus convincing Vaggie and Angel he's not real.

But the next day when Charlie is on her way to meet Professor Pentious the Deer Demon appears, he tells her how angry and upset he is with her for trying to disprove his existence. Charlie is afraid but at the same time entranced and for some reason tearful at the sight of him. For some reason though he chooses not to kill her like he normally does with those who call his name but instead makes her faint and kills Pentious. When he confronts her again he reveals to her that her punishment will not be death but guilt as he intends to kill people in her life, telling her that they would be alive if only she had not trifled with him. At that moment Vaggie arrives to check on Charlie and the Deer Demon prepares to make her his next victim.

Charlie pleads with him to spare her and promises to do anything to make up for what she's done. He then strikes a deal with her, he tells her the reason he does not want his legend destroyed is because it's the only thing keeping him from moving on to the afterlife and he refuses to cross over until he reclaims what was stolen from him in life. So the deal is if Charlie can figure out what was stolen from him and bring it back to him then he'll ceases his blood shedding ways. But until then he will continue killing and if she fails then he will save Vaggie for last.

So Charlie starts to dig into the Deer Demon’s past to find out what he lost as one by one he murders the people she knows which is pretty much everyone who's mistreated her so far. Upon doing her research she learns of his tragic backstory.

In life the Deer Demon a.k.a Alastor Le Rouge was the son of a white man and a slave woman. He had an interesting talent as a hunter, this lead to him being a Taxidermist to make trophies for the highest bidder. One day he was commissioned by a very wealthy landowner to make a trophy out of a prize lion he killed in Africa, but the wealthy landowner wasn’t alone. He had a daughter the most beautiful young woman in all of New Orleans. Of course, they fell deeply in love and she became pregnant. The father executed a terrible revenge on the taxidermist, he paid a bunch of drunken hooligans to do the job. They chased him just outside of New Orleans where they pinned him down, cut off his right hand with a rusty blade, and replaced it with a deer antler. But his torment wasn’t over yet, a pack of hungry wolves came to him and tore the flesh from his bones with their sharp teeth as he bled in agony. No one came to his aid except for the young woman he loved who screamed and cried for him slowly dying while looking at her eyes. He died for love.

This causes Charlie’s fear of Alastor to slowly vanish and in it’s place feel a deep compassion for him. This allows Alastor to seduce Charlie as she finds herself becoming more and more drawn to him for reasons she cannot understand. This desire only grows as Seviathan continues to belittle her and suddenly neglects her. Leaving the Deer Demon to ensnare her insecure and under appreciated heart with sweet words of admiring her beauty and cherishing her goodness forever.

Later she learns from Angel that Rosie's son is missing and she is quick to figure out that it was Alastor who took him. She asks him about stealing the baby but he replies that he is only reclaiming what should have been his. When she questions what he means by that, he merely chuckles that she'll figure it out soon enough. She goes back to Rosie's apartment to tell her what happened and to her surprise not only does Rosie believe her but she reveals to Charlie that Alastor Le Rouge was in fact her great, great, great, great, great, great, grandfather. She shows her some old pictures of him from when he was alive along with her other ancestors and Charlie notices that the young woman he was involved with bears a striking resemblance to her.

Charlie goes to confront Alastor in his makeshift lair where she finds more pictures of the landowner’s daughter underneath a carved phrase "It was always you Charlie." She then realizes that she's the reincarnation of Alastor's lover and he appears to tell her that when she died her soul did not meet him in the afterlife so he had to sustain himself on earth until she came back to him. He tells Charlie that he cannot move on until he has the wife and child that was stolen from him in life. That he wants Charlie and his infant descendant to join him in death as a family. He tells her that he loves her, urges her to accept that she loves him, and to come with him. Charlie is horrified but can no longer deny the truth so she confesses that she loves him even after all he's done. That she loves him now as much as she did in her past life. But she refuses to die with him because she feels that she can't leave this life and that she also loves Seviathan. Alastor angrily tells her she is not happy with this life, that she's been living in denial of her misery, and that Seviathan could never truly love her. She is not convinced and pleads with him to give back Rosie's child. But he just silently vanishes.

Confused and not sure what she wants, she goes to visit Seviathan only to find him having an affair with one of his students. Charlie finally let's loose the inner rage that has been built up by the years of being pushed around and starts to wreck his apartment. He calls the police and has her committed to a psychiatric hospital. When the doctors prepare to use shock therapy on her she calls for Alastor who appears to kill the doctors and cut her restraints. She flees from the hospital with the police following her and manages to evade them by going downtown.

She hears crying coming from a junk pile and discovers that's where Alastor has hidden Rosie's son. She goes inside to retrieve him but the residents assume that she's the Deer Demon so they set fire to the junk pile. Angel, Vaggie, and Rosie realize that Charlie is in there and try desperately to stop the bonfire but no one can hear them over the cheering. With Rosie's son safe in her arms, Charlie attempts to crawl out of the burning pile but suffers many burns and can barely move. Alastor appears one last time to push Charlie out of the flames while apologizing for hurting her for all he ever wanted was to be with her again and promises to cease to exist after this. Charlie manages to reach her arms out of the pile and hand the child to Rosie but then chooses to die in the fire with her love. Vaggie and Angel frantically try to pull her back out but by the time they reach her she has already died from her severe burns.

Seviathan gets a call confirming Charlie’s death, becoming grief-stricken and guilt-ridden he listens to Charlie's favorite song on the radio and says her name five times. Charlie and Alastor's vengeful spirits both appear for one last "hunt" and kill Seviathan, leaving his body to be found by his student lover.

Afterward, Angel, Vaggie, Rosie, and the remorseful residents all pay their respects at her funeral and gratitude for riding them of the Deer Demon by helping Alastor find peace at last. When the funeral was over everybody leaves except for Vaggie who stays behind a little bit longer to say her final goodbye to her dear best friend by calling her name five times as well. Charlie’s spirit appears to her but only to say goodbye as she has now been reunited with the spirit of her long suffering lover and daughter. Vaggie then tearfully watches the family ascend into heaven together and is left with comfort.

#hazbinhotel #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel fanfiction #hazbin hotel charlie #hazbin hotel alastor #candyman #charlotte magne #charlie #alastor the radio demon #alastor #charlie mange #hazbin charlastor #charlastor #radiobelle #charlie x alastor #charlie and alastor #hazbinhotel au #hazbin hotel au

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itsclydebitches · 4 years

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RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Divide”

Hello, everyone, and welcome back! It feels good to be doing some normal RWBY-ing in this strange world of ours. First, some supplementary materials.

Number One: In response to any (valid) questions along the lines of, “Hey Clyde, it’s now been a full year since Volume 7 was airing and you still haven’t answered my ask about it. Or the ones about Volume 6… what’s up with that?” I’ve created what I hope is an informative video detailing the problem:

vimeo

(I assure you, the Earth, Wind & Fire was a happy accident during the screen recording.)

Needless to say, there’s a lot and I’ve known for some time now that I will LITERALLY never get through all my asks. Which doesn’t mean I don’t want you to send future thoughts in! Just know that as we head into Volume 8 territory I’ll most likely prioritize those, as well as any Volume 7 asks that aren’t woefully out of date. But I do want everyone to know that I read all the asks I receive, appreciate them immensely, and think too much about hypothetical answers, even if I don’t have time to actually write them out 💜

Number Two: There’s a bingo board this year!

Jury’s out on whether I’ll remember to update it, but at the very least this serves as a decent glimpse into my — and others’ — expectations going into this volume.

Number Three: I’ve collected a list of things I’ve heard about Volume 8 from what seem to be reputable sources. I did this because RT is developing a tendency to talk up certain points and then fail to deliver, either because something was taken out of a volume/moved to another, or because RT apparently has radically different ideas about what including something means. So this might be handy to keep on file and ask ourselves two months from now, “Did RT actually deliver on what they promised?”

Emphasis on Ruby’s leadership and how Summer’s death has impacted her

Insight into Ren and Nora’s flaws

May Merigold will supposedly have a larger part

More information about The Long Memory (Ozpin’s cane)

Theme of the volume is that you can respect someone but that doesn’t necessarily mean you agree with them

Very short timeline (supposedly just two days)

Yang in particular is very suspicious and distrustful

I was also going to include a list of all the threads that need to be continued/wrapped up, but honestly that would have taken too large a chunk off my life. Let’s just throw out the highlights:

Are we really going to have Qrow gunning for Ironwood?

Clover is dead regardless. Press ‘F’ to pay respects

Oscar bb you got shot please acknowledge this

Ozpin bb you got done dirty please acknowledge this

Penny is a Maiden now. I feel like the fandom has been sleeping on this (myself included)

Queer baiting, queer baiting… you’re on thin ice at this point, RWBY. Just skate on over to the queer snack bar before you fall straight into the lake.

Ren spill your deep dark secret already and it had better be something more than just ‘Oh no Nora might someday die :( ’

Salem is here so how the actual fuck is the cast surviving this?

Will Ironwood likewise survive his descent into antagonism? Yes or please yes no?

I think that’s all the biggies. I strive to keep lists like this in mind while analyzing, but honestly RWBY has a hundred moving parts that are abandoned or changed or simply retconned at the drop of a hat. So an attempt will be made.

Number Four (last one I promise!): Normal disclaimers and reminders for Recaps apply:

Please don’t fill up the already full inbox with flames. It’s still 2020. No one has time for that nonsense.

There will absolutely be typos and wonky parts because I try to get these out the same day an episode premieres. I have now been working on this for ten hours, nearly straight, and have no more energy for edits. Apologies in advance and RIP to my Saturdays.

I reserve the right to use stupid GIFs and memes at my discretion.

I strive to keep my focus on recapping/analyzing but salt tends to worm its way in… If you’re a die-hard RWBY fan with little patience for criticism, let alone (at times) snarky criticism, please proceed with caution.

No wait I lied, this is the last thing:

Okay, got that out of my system LET’S DO THIS!

We start not with the episode itself but rather Rooster Teeth’s (RT’s) strange non-promotion of it. If you follow my blog you may have caught the post where I pointed out that there was nothing on RT’s website to suggest that one of their most popular shows—if not the most popular show—was premiering today. Nothing on the main page. Nothing on the RWBY page either, not unless you count the Volume 8 poster background (easily mistaken for the Volume 7 poster) and the trailer buried all the way down past Episodes, past Merch, in the Bonus Features section along with videos like Live From Remnant and the volume intros. RT… the promotion of your feature show is not a bonus. This should be front and center! Honest to god, five minutes before the episode dropped I was checking the website for a Volume 8 section, a countdown, anything that would tell me the episode was imminent without relying on fans on tumblr to keep me in the loop. We got nada, zilch. I’m not sure whether that speaks more to RT’s iffy management of the series or simply the website’s horrible design—RIP losing RWBY on Youtube—but I was surprised when I saw the episode a few minutes after 11:00am. At that point I honestly expected to hear about a dely.

So that’s the mood I entered the premiere in, but truly? We start off strong. Things take a pretty severe nosedive later on, we’ll get to that, but I was impressed with our beginning and that probably has a lot to do with the fact that we start with our villains.

We open on a Cinderella character, Cinder, and thus I’m immediately pleased that we’re getting something about her backstory after all this time. Seven years! She appeared in episode one, folks! To say we’re overdue is an understatement. There isn’t a whole lot to go on, just a younger Cinder sadly scrubbing the floor, poised under a spotlight. What we learn, or potentially learn, is based far more in cultural knowledge than this scene. We know Cinderella’s story, which includes the abusive family, the longing for more, the eventual escape, and thus we’re able to read all of that in this image, despite the image itself not telling us any of this overtly. That means we could be wrong in our interpretation, but if we’re not it’s an easy shorthand in an already packed story.

What I’m really impressed with is the sound bridge between the scrubbing and her nails on the back of Neo’s chair. Fantastic way to confirm that this is Cinder as well as showcasing just how far she’s come. The sound of her labor has been replaced with the sound of her power and given that Cinder’s power is stolen, tied to a grimm arm, the property of a genocidal maniac… that’s messed up. It’s a Cinderella story gone wrong.

So yeah, Cinder tells Neo to head straight into the creepy, grimm infested blood cloud to see Salem and Neo is like, ‘Uh… no thank you?’ lol.

RT does a good job this episode with her expressions, ensuring we know exactly what she’s thinking despite an unwillingness/inability to speak.

Poor Neo might be in too deep, but I quite like the overall atmosphere of this opening. Say what we will about Salem’s awful characterization, at least she has style. This woman knows how to make an entrance and, piggybacking off of the Apathy, RT knows how to infuse horror elements into their fantasy. The red and purple coloring of the clouds, spiked whale teeth peeking through, bright orange in the background looking like explosions… that’s all 👌 Including the intro card.

The only thing I want to gripe about is this:

I’m sorry, why does the whale grimm have landing pads? Or something like it?? The whale otherwise works because it’s poised between the natural and the fantasy synthetic. It looks like a real grimm whale on the outside, but is sporting a throne room, a control panel, and other unnatural elements on the inside. It’s a visual indicator of Salem’s ability to control and change grimm. Now though, the additions are wrong, infringing on the line between organic and tech, the line between what helps the grimm individually (giving monkeys wings) and what just helps Salem. Every other aspect of the whale straddles that line wonderfully, adding to the creep factor, like a grimm version of the Uncanny Valley: it’s not quite a whale anymore… but landing pads? That looks ridiculous. Why does Salem even have that? How many ships are her people feasibly using? Why are there five?

Take it away, please.

Cinder waltzes in like this is a normal home visit, but Neo has an appropriate ‘What the actual fuck?’ face going on.

They approach Salem on her throne where Cinder immediately kneels, greeting her with, “My queen.” I mentioned during my trailer breakdown that I think Cinder is lying her ass off here, and I still think that based on a line we’ll get in a minute, but now at least we have a sense of how she can pull this off. A woman who started out as a (presumed) servant is going to know how to mimic subservience, even if her heart isn’t in it. Salem is very good at playing the girl who will still kneel and scrub the floor for you. She will scrub the floor, she’ll do everything you want, she’ll just be plotting her own rise to power while she does it.

There’s quite a bit of interesting cinematography in this episode, not all of it good, and I think one of the mistakes is here when we get a closeup on Salem’s mouth as she greets Cinder. A closeup like that should be reserved for more significant dialogue—“Rosebud”—and yet we get this shot again when Cinder tells Emerald to be quiet. It’s awkward and coupled with the numerous eye closeups we got in the trailer, I think RT is playing a little fast and loose with the camera. Each shot should add something to the scene, not distract from it. If you don’t have a reason for including a technique like that then leave it be.

Back to the actual dialogue though. We knew that Salem knew Cinder was alive and now it seems that she just expected her to come back? I’m slightly lost. It feels like we’re missing something here. Cinder goes off to secure the lamp, fails, nearly dies, wanders on her own for months, and then randomly shows back up on Salem’s whale doorstep, yet Salem isn’t angry at all? Did she have faith that Cinder would return when she has something to offer? Did she just not care about Cinder, considering her return an unnecessary but otherwise welcome surprise? That would make the least sense given that she holds the key to accessing Beacon’s relic… but that circles right back around to why Salem is seemingly indifferent to Cinder’s comings and goings. Surely she can’t actually believe that Cinder is loyal?

“So I trust you wouldn’t return to me empty handed,” she says. Yeah, trust means nothing in this show, Salem, didn’t you watch Volumes 6 and 7? Again, I simply don’t know. I suppose I’ll just chalk it up to confidence, that if Cinder did bail Salem knew she could track her down again. Deciphering her motivations and beliefs is a lost cause when the show continually gives us so little.

The important thing now is that Cinder does indeed have an offering and you can see that Salem is somewhat surprised at being handed the relic.

Cinder, of course, takes credit for the victory and we’re given another wonderful shot of Neo. ‘YOU took it?’

Oh, Neo. Best get out while you still can.

Tyrian appears having obviously made his way to Salem’s ship sometime between her arrival and now. The exchange is pretty standard for this group. He insults Cinder for failing and needing this victory to make amends, talks about how any win against Ironwood says more about his lack of intelligence than her skill, and Cinder… doesn’t have a whole lot of comebacks, actually. I’d say Tyrian won that verbal spar, enhanced by a better use of the camera when we get his tail looming menacingly towards Cinder and Neo.

He goes on to say that Watts was a “necessary sacrifice” so, uh… I’m just going to toss out the ask I answered yesterday. Based on our intro I’d say Watts is still significant to the volume—hacking Penny is my guess—but by the end? He could be in trouble.

(As a side note: I plan to analyze the intro next week. It’s just easier when it comes first.)

Tyrian also calls Neo “little one” which I just found absolutely hilarious. In an on brand creepy manner, that is. Not that Neo couldn’t kick his ass, but there’s something wonderfully chilling about having the serial killer use an endearment towards a potential victim, one that comments on her size while he’s looming.

In contrast, Cinder refers to Neo as a “valuable asset” and we get our third mood of the episode.

Who’s going to start a Neo reaction image collection?

It’s true enough on the surface—who wouldn’t want an ally who can turn into anyone else?—but we’re still bumping up against question of why Salem needs this. She’s immortal! She has an endless army! Magic! This scene works well with a villain who needs a skillset like Neo’s to succeed, but Salem doesn’t. RT is doing a great job writing a story thus far, just not the story we’ve previously been given. This isn’t the story they set up.

This will come back up when we reach the RWBYJNOR group. Just wait.

Before that though, the gang’s all here as Emerald, Mercury, and Hazel show up, all in new outfits.

I think I like everything except for the weird Xs on Emerald’s jacket—it’s way too distracting and frankly makes an otherwise good look ugly—and the fact that she’s showing her midriff in Atlas. Hazel doesn’t have any sleeves! Oh my god, why doesn’t anyone dress for the weather in this show?

Frankly, I found their reunion to be kind of lackluster. I mean, there was nothing wrong with it. Emerald does sound briefly excited, she does run, and it’s in character for Cinder to cut her off… it just didn’t resonate with me emotionally. I thought after two volumes of thinking she’s dead, then working through the knowledge that she’s alive, that I would feel Emerald’s shock and relief more, but I didn’t. And I’m not entirely sure why. I don’t want to level any accusations at the voice acting because frankly I know next to nothing about that skill (and from what I’ve seen it’s usually praised in the fandom), but I will say that throughout the premiere I was noticing it more than I ever have before. The lack of emotion here and some awkward deliveries later, like when Yang goes, “Ruby, there is no way Ironwood will cooperate with us” and I immediately thought, “Wow, that came out stilted.” These observations stick with me because, as said, voice acting usually isn’t on my radar. It’s not something I’ve studied or had practice analyzing. If you’d never told me that Ren or Qrow’s VA changed then after a year hiatus I literally wouldn’t notice… but there’s something about this episode that didn’t sit right. Anyone else get that sense, or was it just me?

Regardless, the arrival of our other three villains really doesn’t amount to much, though I’m happy for all the Emerald and Mercury fans who get to see them in new outfits. The focus is still on Cinder as she delivers a line indicative of her true motivations: “That power will be mine.” Yeah, she’s not loyal to Salem, she’s just power hungry. Of course, Salem immediately takes note of this and raises her hand, in another nice use of the foreground, reminding her that she hasn’t given that order.

Cinder is shocked, angry even, but quickly covers it up with her “Without you I am nothing” line. If I caught it right I think she also calls Salem “Ma’am”? Hilarious. Again, skilled at playing the servant.

Also, before I forget, it’s worth noting that almost everything from our trailer appeared in this episode. Yeah, there are a few details like Nora attacking some tech and the group on their bikes, but on the whole we’ve already seen the majority of our promo material and will likely get most of the rest next week. It makes me both interested and nervous for what another twelve episodes are going to hold.

Salem opens her whale, or opens a portal type view in it, something that gives us a long-distance look at Atlas. I don’t know what exactly is going on here, but it’s pretty so I’ll take it.

She also delivers the frankly badass line, “Just because you’re more valuable to me than a pawn does not make you a player.”

She waves them all away with perfect ‘You mean nothing to me’ attitude and we sadly leave our villains.

Sad not because I don’t love my farm boy, but because things are about to get a whole lot messier.

Oscar has made his way to a camp of civilian survivors… all of whom are just hanging out in the supposedly deadly cold. Yeah, there’s a single fire, but at least four of them aren’t anywhere near it. Three of them also aren’t wearing gloves. What was that survival rate again?

A nice if gruff dude gives Oscar soup—water?—while showing off his… badger claws? I don’t know what kind of faunus he’s supposed to be, but he feels like the sort of two second, minor character who could easily become a meme lol.

Oscar thanks him (my polite son!) and hands the bowl back after a single sip. Which is impressive because I would have assumed the guy was giving me the whole bowl and just taken it. Hell, I’ve done that even when I didn’t assume it’s all for me. A Starbucks barista once approached me with a tray and a plate of samples, I knew I was supposed to take just one, yet for some reason my hand went to take the whole goddamn plate. He had to tell me off, then I was trying to explain that I didn’t actually want or think I should have eight shots of cappuccino all to myself, I don’t even like coffee, he clearly didn’t believe me… it was awkward. So good job, Oscar. You’re less awkward than me (though that’s not saying much).

Now a question, Oscar. Darling. Brilliant boy who has been through too much: why the fuck aren’t you talking to Ozpin? This will be A Thing later when he presents a lack of time to talk as justification for keeping more secrets (we’ll get to that too…) yet here is time! You’re just sitting there for who knows how long, with plenty of privacy to hide a supposedly one-sided conversation so the Mantle citizens don’t get weirded out or suspicious. Talk to Ozpin. Our headmaster gets two lines in this episode, utterly inconsequential lines like his airship scene, lines that feel like they exist to say, “See? He’s still included in the story!” even though he absolutely is not. Two volumes of mostly silence, a perfect setup to start the reconciliation process, but we’re going to put it off again?

Instead Ruby randomly and conveniently appears. I want to know how she found him. Oscar isn’t wearing a tracker. He clearly didn’t call them because he’s surprised when Ruby shows up. He fell alllllllll the way back down to Mantle and then wandered to a random part of the slums. You’re telling me they flew over the entire city—after beginning this search thinking he was in Atlas—and somehow managed to spot him from up in the air? C’mon. I would have rather had a beginning where Oscar makes his way back to the group himself, giving him and Ozpin time to hash things out.

“Need a lift?” Ruby says, eliminating that potential. Sigh.

Oscar immediately starts beating himself up when he gets onboard, saying that he “was stupid to think the General would listen.” Nah, you were stupid to buy into Ruby’s nonsensical confidence and for telling Ironwood he’s as bad as Salem. Sorry, Oscar, but everyone is written badly these days. I will, however, say that I am THRILLED at the group’s reaction to his return. Ruby says that she’s “just glad you’re alright.” Nora has a wonderfully tender moment where she hugs him gently rather than her usual glomp.

That? That added a year to my life. Everyone else seems relieved that he’s okay too, so kudos there. After four years of Oscar being an outsider in the group, this is one of the few moments that feel like he’s 100% accepted. Really glad to see it.

Now let’s see if it sticks after they learn Ozpin is back...

They fly to the Happy Huntresses’ base and I again feel like I’ve missed something crucial. When did they team up? I mean, RWBYJNOR was working directly under Ironwood up until the last hour and Robyn ran off to fight Tyrian/Clover in the last couple episodes. When did she have time to explain her (briefly) changed allegiance and why would the Happy Huntresses trust the group without that? Did Robyn share that Blake and Yang went behind Ironwood’s back for her? Do the Huntresses instinctively trust them because they’re now wanted by the military? How did they even run into each other?

Again, I think we would have been better served to have an episode before all this. Let Oscar make his way back and let the group struggle with the magnitude of their situation on the airship, before they find new allies. Transferring directly to, “They have help and a secret base and a plan in the works!” makes me feel like I missed the real premiere last week. You know, the one where Salem unexpectedly arrived and we left the group like this.

This is where we’ve ended up though. The group is cozy in this hideout, getting info from Joanna, and my only other thought is, “Why is she giving all this exposition?”

Shouldn’t it be May? I mean, we were told that she was going to play more of a role this volume, a promise that’s pretty important imo given her status as a (so far off screen) trans character, so why not put her in the role of mediator between the Happy Huntresses and RWBYJNR? Giving her that setup as a leader among her people as well as lots of lines would be meaningful. A trans character just existing and being a part of this fight! May could obviously still fill that role—I’m well aware that we’re only one episode in—but it just seems like a missed opportunity to me. Out of all the undeveloped Happy Huntresses, our premiere focuses on the one who has the least importance to the fandom.

As said, Joanna talks a fair bit but what it basically boils down to is trying to get everyone to the crater below Atlas. It’s apparently not safe, but it’s warm, which is what matters right now.

So… let me get this straight. You want to gather everyone into a not safe crater, by leading them through an army of grimm, so that they can wait there in case someone moves the Staff, thus dropping an entire city on top of their heads? That’s the plan? Which admittedly isn’t Joanna’s fault. This is another instance of RWBYJNOR having information that a leader does not and they should really consider speaking up about it. But of course they don’t.

Also, how long does everyone have in regards to the cold? Shouldn’t there be dead civilians by now? The time it would take to find the Happy Huntresses, team up with them, get settled in the base, and find Oscar says that things should be pretty grim right now (pardon the pun), yet every non-aura user in this city seems content to just hang out in the snow. Either the cold is deadly enough to justify moving everyone to the crater, or it’s mild enough to let everyone survive this long, not both.

After hugs are given everyone obviously wants to know what happened to Oscar. His response?

“It’s a… long story. I get the feeling there’s been a few of those tonight.”

That’s a check for the bingo card! We’re halfway through the first episode and we’ve already got another secret. Yes, this is a secret. Oscar actively chooses not to tell anyone that Ozpin is back—something Ozpin himself comments on—and then skillfully draws attention away from himself with “I get the feeling there’s been a few of those tonight.” Indeed, all eyes go to Penny. Oscar’s plight is forgotten, which is what he wanted. His justification?

Ozpin: “You’re not going to tell them?”

Oscar: “You and I aren’t done talking yet.”

Along with this look.

Oscar no. There’s so much wrong with this I don’t even know where to begin. Let’s create a list.

As said, you had plenty of time to talk to Ozpin and chose not to. Miss me with this excuse.

You are now doing to your friends exactly what you and your friends did to Ironwood, which in turn is what Ozpin did to you! I can’t believe we’ve got Oscar critically side-eyeing him when they are still—still—repeating the behavior they drove Ozpin away for.

What is there to even talk about now? Oscar didn’t punch himself/Ozpin (lol) but he did steal Jinn’s name from Ozpin in the first place. You got what you wanted, drove him away, and have been lying and keeping secrets ever since. The only thing they should be talking about involves apologizing. Any further criticism—which is what Oscar’s expression and curt reply suggests—is beyond hypocritical.

Seriously, what needs to be discussed? There’s no reason not to tell the group unless Oscar wants to talk about whether they should tell them. There’s no good ending here...

Don’t you think it would be nice to know that Ozpin is back and you’ve got super magic powers while making plans to save the entire world?

This is all especially stupid given Oscar’s “Salem wants to divide us” reminder to Ruby in a moment. Oscar, you are doing the most to divide the group right now. By not forgiving Ozpin. By refusing to work with him. By keeping him secret from everyone else.

This is bad, friends, I worry for what the rest of the volume will bring…

The story is done with Ozpin for now so I guess I will be too. The group continues filling Oscar in and we get some shots of the base, including a rather prominent poster of what I assume are two Happy Huntresses. Did they die in battle perhaps?

It’s a little strange.

Oscar: “Where’s Qrow?”

Me: “Likely still making bad decisions.”

No one knows so they just drop it. Which I kind of get, only so much you can do to find him if he’s not out on the streets like Oscar, but it still reads as kind of iffy that two nieces look down at the ground for a hot second and then move on with their plans, content to leave Qrow to whatever fate befell him. In a minute we’ll see Yang firmly take Ren’s side regarding helping the people they can in Mantle, which frankly comes out of nowhere for her. I think an easy motivation would have been Qrow. Ruby wants to save the world, Yang wants to find and save their uncle, and that just happens to align with Ren’s desire to save the civilians who need immediate grimm and cold help. Don’t get me wrong, I like that there’s finally some division between the sisters, I just wish it hadn’t come about so abruptly. Ren had setup for standing up to Ruby. Yang did not.

But I’m getting a little ahead of myself. Joanna lists the grimm horde and no heat as the major threats to everyone. The group agrees.

Me: What about Salem?

Joanna says that this is all doubly dangerous because there’s “no more military protection.”

Me: Oh, so now you want the military?

This is all so disjointed. Even more-so when Joanna mentions that Ironwood has stopped all evacuations to Atlas, likely due to the “hard light shields” that are the only thing standing between Salem and the city. Thing is, the show never makes this connection, I just did it myself based on this scene and the one that comes later. The show presents Joanna’s line as a pure condemnation. Ironwood won’t let more evacuees in because… he’s just evil, I guess. Yet there is a justification here, namely that continuing the evacuations even while he’s stuck without Penny leaves him wide open to a Salem attack, the death of everyone currently safe, but that argument is never presented to the viewer. I don’t need people to agree with Ironwood’s perspective, I just wish that perspective was offered as an option. The show is very good about acting like RWBYJNOR’s opinion is the only justified opinion, or simply the only opinion at all.

After everything is laid out Weiss goes, “We’re never going to sleep again, I just know it.”

I could make a crack about the lack of continuity and how the group should be collapsing right now… but that was a funny line. It can stay.

What is far more of a problem is the fact that no one is talking about Salem. Okay, that’s a lie. They do talk about her, but in a roundabout way like her presence isn’t impacting every decision they make. That’s the real issue. They’re acting as if Salem isn’t here right now, like she’s off far away, maybe approaching slowly, and they’re arguing over how best to prep the world for her eventual attack. There’s no emotion here—let alone action—to reflect that the series’ Big Bad has arrived and is poised to murder them all. Literally what is this? Ruby is yelling about warning the world and, ignoring the continued question of why that’s a good thing when the world can do nothing to stop Salem and knowledge of her continually drives people to horrible acts, she has yet to acknowledge that… she’s the world? Ruby is the world in this conflict. She, Mantle, and Atlas. Salem is here for you all. Right now. You are, this instant, in the situation you want to warn others about, so why don’t you try to do something about it? Or at least acknowledge it. Ruby wants to warn the neighborhood about a potential fire while her house is actively ablaze, and the fire could have totally killed her by now but decided not to for… reasons.

“Ruby’s right,” Nora says. They have to tell the world so “they can prepare.” How? How are they supposed to prepare for this? The story cannot continue ignoring Salem’s immortality.

“Ruby’s right,” is all Blake says and I’m starting to thinks that’s why her character exists now, to agree with Ruby. It’s great that she’s getting a little distance from Yang, but man.

As Ruby asks whether Pietro can get Amity up and running despite it not being finished (called it) we start an incredibly odd sequence of flashforwards to their individual missions. I’ve seen a lot of praise for this already and though I agree that, in theory, it’s a good way to save time, I found the actual execution to be jarring. Upon thinking back through our timeline, it became clear they were flashforwards, but while watching I thought they might be flashbacks (especially since that’s more common).

Some of the shots, like Nora’s, just look awkward when you’ve got the exact expression and pose transplanted from one scene to another, like she’s a cardboard cutout behind a green screen. To say nothing of how the flashforwards ruin any suspense (I use that word loosely) in the conversation itself. If the question is, “Will they decide to go to the military compound?” then that question is answered when we see Ruby scoping out the compound, not when the group actually decides on the course of action.

It just made an already muddled scene worse for me, so I hope this trend doesn’t continue.

And of course, Amity can be used despite all the info last volume claiming that it wasn’t finished. Pietro suddenly acts like it is finished and the only thing standing in their way is Ironwood providing access. If that were the case, he would have used Amity weeks or days ago like he wanted to! When was it finished? Not after Watts commented on how incomplete it was. When did they get back the resources they needed from Robyn? It’s as ridiculous and retcon-y as I thought it would be.

Yang points out that Ironwood will never listen to them and Ruby counters that “he doesn’t have to.” They’ll just take the access from him. Because why wouldn’t they in a series where they’ve already stolen two airships? Stealing from the super evil military that Joanna wishes were helping them right now is just the group’s go-to plan nowadays.

Pietro isn’t sold on this plan though. He lists at least three obstacles they’d need to get through “and then… oh boy, I might need to think about this some more.” “And just to clarify,” Oscar says, “This is the easy option?” Um...no it’s not? We also know there’s an access point in Ironwood’s office so… why not go there instead? They really think the Academy is less guarded than the military base? There’s a potential justification here along the lines of, “After Neo and Cinder broke into his office Ironwood will have the place on high alert,” but unless I missed it the group doesn’t assume anything like that. They just listen to Pietro point out all the ways they can’t get into the military base and jump straight to that being the best option. It feels like a transparent way to create conflict for the group. We’ll just have them taking the most dangerous route despite an easy route being offered alongside it. Why bother mentioning his office at all? Just have the access in the military base. Boom, done.

It’s that conflict and the fact that Ruby tends to hear “You can’t” and digs in her heels. You can’t go to Atlas. I’ll just steal a ship then. You can’t defeat Salem. Watch me. You can’t break into this base. Guess what I’m doing! She’s dangerous in her fairy tale, meta-driven insistence that everything will turn out her way because she wants it to.

Speaking of, we finally—FINALLY—get someone challenging Ruby. Sort of. Not actually but it’s the closest we’ve ever gotten:

Yang: “Ruby, when we came here we said we’d follow your lead… but things haven’t exactly worked out.”

Now, there are two things to take away from this moment. The first is how utterly shocked Ruby and the others are. I mean, take a look at these expressions.

Ruby straight up can’t believe what she’s hearing. Weiss put her hand to her mouth like this is the most dramatic thing to ever happen to her. Oscar looks down in a ‘Yeah, I agree but please don’t look at me and make me admit that’ way. And Nora looks indifferent in the screenshot but animated she goes sort of stern, likely pissed that Yang would dare say that given her own agreement with Ruby. This not only reiterates that Yang’s challenge came out of nowhere—seriously, how did we move from following Ruby no matter what to this? Last volume she asked a single question along the lines of, ‘You sure?’ and when Ruby said ‘Yes’ Yang was entirely on board—but also demonstrates that no one has EVER said no to her before. Ruby is amazed that someone would challenge her. The act of challenging Ruby is, in and of itself, shocking. This group has gotten so used to following Ruby blindly that the teensiest little pushback is greeted with this.

Because it is teensy. This is the second takeaway: Yang barely challenges her and that challenge leads nowhere. She doesn’t accuse Ruby of anything, she doesn’t question her continued authority, she just broadly implies that things could be better. We followed you, now things are bad, take from that what you will. It’s incredibly mild as far as criticism goes, making the shock all the more, well, shocking, but it also amounts to—wait for it—nothing! Because Yang didn’t truly challenge Ruby’s leadership. She’s still in charge, she’s still calling the shots, and they’re still listening to her. We might have gotten some change if this division had been allowed to play out, but instead Jaune comes in with a, “Let’s go for both!” solution. It let’s both groups get what they want which, in turn, releases them from the need to grapple with whether they’ll listen to Ruby when she’s advocating for something they don’t agree with. We have now lost the chance to see whether, when push comes to shove, Ren and Yang will cave to Ruby’s will or stick by their own beliefs.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s more conflict than we’ve gotten in years, but that doesn’t mean it’s particularly compelling conflict. It’s good by RWBY’s standards, which doesn’t necessarily make it good. The actual issues at hand—Ruby’s dangerous arrogance, the group’s loyalty, her choices up until now—are just swept under the rug. For all the visuals we get insisting that there’s this great divide in the group… there’s really not. Not in any way that matters.

Also, Ruby is an idiot. Okay, that was mean, but she really is in this scene. She’s actually not an idiot overall because she was written as wonderfully intelligent in the early volumes, but now? Lately? She makes me want to bang my head against a wall.

“But that’s how Salem got this far,” she cries. “By dividing us!”

Ruby… oh my god, Ruby. No one should have to explain to you that dividing people means turning them against each other, not literally dividing your team to complete separate tasks. This girl honestly thought that because there was this teensy disagreement and that half the team would complete Plan A while she and the other half completed Plan B, both of which notably work towards the goal of, “Protect people from Salem,” that this was somehow what Salem wanted. That is was dangerous. Honestly, it’s a scary look at her view of leadership too: If everyone doesn’t 100% agree with me and do what I say, that’s an objectively bad thing that the grimm queen wants, right? Does Ruby think that unification means following a single person (her) without question or variation? That would explain a lot...

The fact that Oscar needs to explain the difference to her is not good. It really doesn’t say great things about this version of Ruby. Though he was comparing Ironwood to Salem last volume, so really they should all be wearing dunce hats.

Penny offers to take the relic directly to Salem in exchange for her leaving the kingdom alone. I honestly didn’t expect that. If anyone took that risk I would have put my money on Ozpin (but of course, during all this talk of the women he knows best, he’s kept quiet). Oscar is again the voice of wisdom, pointing out that they have no reassurance that Salem will keep her word. At least Penny is thinking about Salem as a threat though, so kudos for that. When this plan is shot down she volunteers to get Ruby past the military security instead and, uh, she’s a little intense about it.

I’m not entirely sure what is going on with Penny. She disagreed with Winter but then seemed to come around to her point of view, enough to help anyway. They had another (stupid) disagreement about the value of individual lives, so that helps to explain why she’s teaming up with RWBYJNOR (if you ignore that Ironwood is also trying to save individual lives...). Did watching Fria die shake her up? Is it being the Winter Maiden that’s not sitting right? Does Penny have lingering feelings about the framing that haven’t shown up until now? Her status as a ‘real girl’? We’ve got a lot of reasons that could definitely explain this sudden need to fight, but we’re not told which—if any of these—is the driving force.

We’re then given a lot of little details. Someone points out that if Salem gets the staff and “create[s] anything else” then Atlas will fall (so yeah, let’s move the people underneath it). We still don’t know what exactly the Staff does because “creation” is kind of broad and “powering a city to float” doesn’t seem to sit within that category at all. Pietro gives Yang the keys to his lab so they can get the bikes. We see the group dividing in the flashforwards, something I do like, especially since the show has gone out of its way to break up most of the usual duos. Nora in particular is pissed at Ren for his choice.

“Oh, I’m saving Mantle because I actually believe we can do this.”

#yikes. Well, I did say I wanted a conflict other than ‘Oh no, one of us might die’ and it looks like I got it. But Nora, the only reason you can do this is because the plot is in your corner: none of you are collapsing from two major fights, you didn’t lose your aura so the cold isn’t a danger, the military is barely a threat all of a sudden, Salem is helpfully hanging out in her whale instead of killing you, and the story decided that Amity can function so long as you all are the ones who get to use it. That’s why you can do this. Ren, who follows in-world logic and doesn’t want to risk a whole kingdom’s worth of lives on a pipe dream, thinks differently, oddly enough.

As they leave though Penny gets a call from Ironwood. I know precisely what the fandom is going to say here: “This evil man is just trying to use Penny to open the vault!” Of course he is. He needs it open to save everyone he can, Penny included. Plus the concept of “using” her is a double-edged sword. What do we think the group is doing right now? Using her to get past the security. Penny’s power is a tool any way you slice it. Granted, Penny volunteers to help the group, but notably here Ruby speaks for her. Penny seems torn and Ruby takes the scroll away with, “She’s not going anywhere until you change your mind about Mantle.”

Sorry, Ruby, but coming from you that sounds less like a reassurance for Penny and more like just an order for Ironwood. Remember Harriet? We’ll stop attacking you provided you do what we want. Ruby has yet to learn about compromises, let alone acknowledge that she might be wrong. How about you let Penny decide where she goes, especially since by all logic she should have a lot of loyalty to Ironwood. She knew him before she ever met you. She’s worked with him since she was rebuild post-Volume 3. Despite what Penny has said, if the story would just let her think about his actions for a hot second—making her the protector of Mantle, sticking up for her after the framing, sending her to the party, teaming her up with Ruby, etc.—she might realize that the ‘He doesn’t want me to have friends’ and ‘He just treats me like a tool’ assumptions are just that, unfounded assumptions. But no, Ruby speaks for them both because Ironwood is evil now.

“If she makes it through our defenses,” Ironwood says, “everything that follows will be on your hands.”

That’s true! Kind of like how it’s own Qrow’s hands that Clover died. When you insist on making a bad situation worse you hold responsibility when the shit hits the fan. You know though that Salem won’t get through their defenses now, somehow, so that there’s no chance RWBYJNOR will be blamed for it. Or, by that point Ironwood will be so crazed that anything coming out of his mouth is dismissed, no matter how accurate it might be.

We then transfer to the Ace Ops who are, despite what the fandom theorized for many months, clearly upset about Clover. Also pissed. Which they have every right to be. Their friend and leader was killed. Imagine for a moment that Ruby had been murdered by Tyrian with an allies’ help. Exactly what do you think the group would do? Swallow it quietly and get over it? Ha.

I’ve already seen some speculation that Clover survived due to details like showing us the bandage and his room being listed as for a “Patient,” but he looks pretty dead to me.

He got gutted through the chest and left out in the snow for who knows how long. We saw him slip away. Qrow screamed over his dead body. He’s not breathing now. If RWBY suddenly claims he survived this, I’m calling BS.

Most of the other visuals we get here were already dropped in the trailer. Winter is pretty injured from her encounter with Cinder, likely permanently based on her new outfit. Ironwood had to replace his arm—and I am calling BS on that “Losing his arm is reflective of him losing his humanity” commentary from RT. Please go read up on a couple decades worth of ableism in media and then get back to me.

We get Ironwood’s line about the light shields and, notably, a whole lot of empathy. Regardless of what he might want Penny for, he still called her with compassion. He’s watching the Ace Ops mourn their friend. He’s talking about protecting his kingdom. The first thing he says to Winter is, “Thank you, Winter. I don’t know what I would do without you.” Ironwood has a heart! It’s always on display, which makes this scene utterly ridiculous.

I literally don’t know how to respond to this. The gunshot made me jump, both because it’s a gunshot and because, again, what the fuck? I know I said that next volume RT might just have Ironwood descend into full villainy, shooting whoever he pleases now that he’s shot Oscar, but I didn’t actually expect them to do it. Because he never should have shot Oscar in the first place! I wanted the story to let Oscar grapple with it a bit and then quietly backtrack, acknowledging it as the mistake it was. The concept that Ironwood, empathetic Ironwood, rational Ironwood, always thinks before he acts Ironwood, let’s kids yell at him Ironwood, tried to team up with Robyn Ironwood, did everything Ruby wanted Ironwood, won’t kill Watts after he destroyed his arm Ironwood would shoot this guy just to shut him up is absurd. It was absurd then, it’s absurd now.

That being said, there’s a possibility he didn’t actually shoot the council member, but rather just (“just”) gave a warning shot down the hallway. I say this because the reactions to this are pretty tame. Everyone looks startled, yeah, but after the initial shot there’s nothing that I would expect if there was now a guy bleeding out on the floor. The council woman doesn’t scream. Winter doesn’t seem overly shocked. No one is running to try and help him. Basically, if Ironwood had just killed a political figure in front of six witnesses, entirely unprovoked, I would expect a bit more of a reaction than this. This feels far more like a, “Damn he’s not joking around, letting off warning shots to get people to leave him alone” not “WOW, our general just killed someone in cold blood!”

What I really hate though—beyond just assassinating his character—is how many fans think my friends and I are delusional for calling it character assassination at all. I hopped onto the RWBY tag for five minutes this morning and was bombarded with posts about how Ironwood needs to be murdered horrifically, anyone who likes him is sick, the Ironwood stans are as bad as Adam stans, you’re an idiot if you want him redeemed… because apparently the concept of a story writing a character badly doesn’t compute. I’m not here to argue that Ironwood didn’t do these awful things (regardless of whether he actually killed the guy or not). I’m not here to argue that they’re not awful. I’m just here to say that we never should have gotten these scenes in the first place, or if we were going to get them, we deserved an actual descent into murder at the drop of a hat territory. I’ve already explained extensively on this blog how early Ironwood was not accurate foreshadowing for this, and Volume 7 certainly wasn’t setup, but it looks like the majority of fans aren’t interested in examining whether any of this adds up. Which makes my job, as someone trying to examine this series somewhat objectively—in as much as that’s possible for any single viewer—as well as simply enjoy it as a show, really hard. It’s bad enough when a story keeps taking the characters you love and villainizing them, and doing that badly, but then when you turn to the community and see them rallying around the idea that you’re awful for being dissatisfied—you’re the bootlicker, you’re the blind stan, you can’t see what’s ‘really’ going on here… that sucks. For those of you happy and satisfied with Ironwood’s arc, that’s great! I’ve also seen a lot of posts hyping up the complexity of his character now. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying what we’ve been given and I’d never want to imply that just because it’s not what I wanted it’s somehow wrong. I’m honestly thrilled that after a year of worry so many people have adored our premiere, including this scene. I just wish that I could say RWBY had given me something I didn’t want in a persuasive manner and that the fandom as a whole was a bit more welcoming of differing criticisms.

Not that I didn’t already know the RWBY fandom had its flaws, but still lol.

That’s basically it for our premiere. Nice note to end on, huh? Our final scene is of Salem using the lamp to set her bloodhound grimm on the city. Why doesn’t she just go herself? What was she planning to do here in Atlas in the first place, considering that getting the relic was a surprise? Who knows. Little about this holds together. But we do end with another awesome shot, so small favors.

It’s always strange concluding a recap, but even more-so when it’s a premiere, during a historical moment in the U.S., amidst all the nonsense that is 2020. So for now I’ll just conclude with three quick things:

The updated bingo board will be listed at the end of each recap, provided I don’t forget about it lol. Today I’m checking off tone (not nearly enough freaking out about Salem), the team keeping secrets (Oscar), and major plot point dropped (Amity is suddenly finished). I could also probably check off the cold not killing civilians and getting Amity up and running, but we’ll see if any changes with those.

I’m including my Ko-Fi link at the end of recaps now. Not with any expectations. Not with anything resembling pressure. I thought long and hard over whether to include it at all—let alone mention it here—because I love doing these and never want anyone to feel like it comes with strings attached. But life is a little harder and weirder than it was last year, so I figure it can’t hurt. Feel free to pass on by and I won’t be bringing it up past this note.

Far more importantly: thank you for reading! :D

(Bonus 4. Editing this was an absolute nightmare — damn you, tumblr! — so I apologize if anything is super wonky when I finally post.)

See you next week! 💜

[Ko-Fi]

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 8 #mymetas #rwby recaps

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c-optimistic · 4 years

Text

forgive

or, it takes sixteen weeks and one day for lena to forgive kara

She’d once had a nightmare about Lena discovering her secret in the worst possible way. It consisted of Kara being outed in the middle of a superhero-villain showdown, with her on her knees and with Lena’s wide-eyed look of betrayal burned into the back of her eyelids.

When she was feeling particularly masochistic, she’d continue the nightmare, trying to twist it and force it to conform to a reality she wanted. Lena would look betrayed, yes, but with Kara’s life on the line, a lie would seem trivial in comparison. (Never mind the fact that it was a series of lies, over the course of years, all despite the fact that Lena had trusted her with everything when Kara couldn’t do the same.)

They’d win in this scenario of Kara’s making, managing to twist the ending such that Lena would choose to vent her emotions by pulling Kara into an angry but relieved kiss and after a few days of space, Kara would reintroduce herself as Kara Danvers/Supergirl with an apology on her lips, and the promise of more shining in Lena’s eyes.

The reality she got, unfortunately, was much worse than her worst nightmares. It was cold eyes and an emotionless, vacant stare after the reveal. It was radio silence, it was a bitterly cold shoulder the one time Kara attempted to make contact, it was learning through Alex that Lena and James had decided to give it another go (and learning through Nia that it had fallen apart), it was blocked phone numbers and the loss of one of the most important people in her life.

Gone, as if she’d never been there—a clean, surgical cut.

And Kara....well, she sort of fell apart.

Week One

She’d never been addicted to anything, but she rather thought that this must have been what withdrawal felt like.

(Shockingly, she’d never quite realized just how integrated her life had become with Lena’s: it wasn’t just lunches and game nights and coffee dates, it was more. It was phone calls after a long day, texting throughout working hours—even if Lena’s responses sometimes came slowly, timed between meetings—and even spontaneous meet ups for Kara’s newest food craving or satisfying Lena’s need for a good work out.

She didn’t realize just how much she and Lena were intertwined until it all came to an end.)

The first day without Lena was agonizing. She kept turning to her phone, willing it to ring, willing it to vibrate with a notification, wondering where on Earth she’d ever gotten the idea that she’d be okay in a world where Lena Luthor hated her.

The second and third day, she spent an inordinate amount of time as Supergirl, purposefully flying past Lena’s building if only to get a hit, needing to hear Lena’s voice.

On the fifth day without Lena, Kara called in sick and laid in bed, staring at the ceiling as she wished for her best friend back.

And at the close of her first week without Lena in her life, Kara found herself in her sister’s arms, sobbing as she realized she really had no one to blame but herself.

Week Five

It wasn’t easier, it could never be that, but it was different.

(Sometimes, when she was least expecting it, she thought her chest rattled with a heaving breath, a repressed sob attempting to shake loose her lungs.

More often than not, however, all she felt was a dull ache, a hole—an emptiness—where her heart was supposed to be.)

She didn’t fly by L-Corp anymore. In fact, she was proud to say she was actually clean, not having watched Lena’s interviews online in order to take in her voice, not having asked Alex how her research project with Lena was going, and even smiling at James (mending her friendship with him, unable to keep pushing him away when he’d done nothing but care about Lena).

Lena’s absence was everywhere. Kara felt it literally all the time. But where it once paralyzed her, made her unable to keep her head on straight, it was now just something that dogged her every step, heavy and cumbersome.

(She wondered, idly, if this was what it meant to get over someone.)

Week Seven

The first time she spoke to Lena since revealing her identity should’ve been a bigger moment than it actually ended up being. She rather thought it should’ve been accompanied with fireworks and other fanfare, but instead it was a quiet moment at the DEO, when the latest threat on Lena’s life had left her no other choice but to call for Supergirl’s help.

“—and you can keep an eye out for anything suspicious from the sky, Supergirl,” Alex was saying, relaying her orders to the DEO agents before turning to Kara. “Provide backup.”

Lena snorted indelicately from where she stood, a large tablet in her hands, her eyes fixated on something on the screen with a focus Kara was sure was being faked. She must have noticed that everyone’s eyes were on her because she cleared her throat as she looked up, shrugging remorselessly. “What? No need to keep up the charade anymore, is there? We all know who’s under that cape, you can use her name.”

“Supergirl’s identity is secret, Lena,” Alex said, her tone harsher than anything Kara could remember her using with Lena before. They had remained friends, despite Kara’s estrangement with Lena (though Alex had assured Kara dozens of times that she would cut off ties as well if it would help—seeming to understand far too well when Kara had insisted Alex maintain her relationship with the Luthor).

“Alex, it’s fine,” Kara tried, placing her hand on Alex’s shoulder in an attempt to placate her. “I’ll just go. My comms are on if you need me.” She forced a smile, only briefly glancing at Lena before striding off.

She wondered if she was only imagining Lena’s gaze burning into her back, and she realized as she struggled with the weight on her back, that she most certainly wasn’t over Lena.

The wound she received from Lena’s would-be assassin wasn’t, by any measure, a bad one. In fact, Kara was rather sure it was similar to the papercut she’d gotten after she’d blown out her powers. She didn’t even need to spend any time under the sun lamps at the DEO, choosing instead to stand on the balcony to absorb the last of the sun’s rays as night began to slowly fall.

Thus, she was understandably surprised when she heard someone in heels walk up next to her, leaning against the railing, and even more surprised to realize that that someone was Lena.

“I heard you were hurt,” Lena said curtly, causing Kara to look at her in shock. Not that Lena noticed—her eyes were focused firmly on the setting sun. “Had to make sure that I can’t be blamed for anything that happened to Supergirl,” Lena continued coldly, “so I thought I’d check in.”

“I’m fine,” Kara said softly, unsure if her voice truly sounded so defeated or if that’s what she heard because that’s what she was feeling. Odd, really, after so much that it would be losing Lena that would break Kara down and surrender.

(Then again, perhaps it wasn’t so odd. Perhaps it should’ve been obvious. While Kara wasn’t sure she’d go as far as say that she was in love with Lena—loves her, sure, but in love was another matter entirely—she was in touch with her emotions enough to know that Lena’s presence and friendship was...priceless. It was everything. Even without all the romantic feelings tossed into the mix.

And to lose it? To watch Lena’s eyes grow hard and turn her back on Kara, on everything that was between them, all that history and affection, and yes, love? Well, it was heartbreaking.

All the more heartbreaking because Kara could’ve prevented it all. If only….)

“You’re bleeding,” Lena said dispassionately, gesturing to the small cut above Kara’s left eyebrow. It wasn’t even bleeding, and Kara was rather sure it would disappear in the next few minutes—with or without sun. Yet, with Lena’s eyes on it, Kara couldn’t help but reach up and press her fingers against the small wound, wondering if she was crazy and just imagining the look of concern in Lena’s eyes at the motion.

“I’m honestly fine,” Kara said quietly, dropping her hand and gaze, unable to meet Lena’s eyes anymore. Perhaps that was a good thing, because Lena’s next words nearly brought her to tears.

“Thank you, for saving my life today. I didn’t think you would—I didn’t know if….” She trailed off with a huff, as if unable to finish the sentence, but Kara heard her anyway. She wasn’t sure if Kara would want to help her, protect her, be on her side. And that, more than the disappearance of texts, more than the cold shoulder, more than the hard gaze, it was that that truly broke Kara’s heart.

How could she have strayed, done so much wrong, that it was enough to make Lena think that?

“I know my word doesn’t mean much to you anymore—for good reason,” she added when she could feel Lena take issue with her sentence, “but I promise you, I’m on your side. I’m here for you. Always.” Lena didn’t respond, merely cleared her throat and turned away, clearly about to head back inside. Kara’s eyes followed her and before she was even fully aware of what she was doing, she was speaking again, desperate to say something, desperate to explain somehow, someway. “Lena, wait.” To Kara’s ultimate surprise, Lena actually did pause, even turned back to face her, meeting her gaze evenly, as if merely looking at a stranger. “I...” Kara began, floundering now that she had Lena’s attention (after wishing for it for so long). “I never meant to hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you. You’re my best friend, I love you.”

For a long moment, Lena was silent. Then, so quickly even Kara with her speed and super senses was unsure she saw it, pain flashed in Lena’s eyes. (Pain that she, Kara, caused. That she brought about.)

“That’s funny,” Lena finally said, her voice soft and tinged with so much that went unsaid. Things like, why; things like, how could you? “The only reason it hurt was because I loved you.” She waited just long enough for the words (and oh, the tense) to register, eyes raking over Kara’s face before she turned on her heel and walked away.

And she left Kara feeling as though Kryptonite was hanging on her neck: physically sick and ready to fall to her knees from the pain.

Week Twelve

“I told you she would hate you,” were the first words out of Lillian Luthor’s mouth when Kara visited her in prison, the guard grunting and eying Kara suspiciously before he slid out of the room. “You should have told her sooner.”

“Mrs. Luthor,” Kara tried, swallowing hard, “my name is Kara Danvers, I’m a reporter with CatCo Magazine. We’re publishing an issue about the lasting effects of the recent events involving Lex Luthor’s attempt to take over the world. Again. I was hoping you could answer a few questions about your son for the piece.”

(She had begged James to send someone else. Anyone else. But he’d been adamant: Lillian refused to speak to anyone but Kara and the magazine was desperate for her to go on the record for the first time.)

“I told Lena not to trust you. You’re all the same in the end, you...reporters.” Lillian stressed the word just enough to send a shiver of panic down Kara’s spine, making her itch to somehow find a way to contact Clark and make sure he was okay even off planet and far away from the Luthors.

“Mrs. Luthor—“

“—Dr. Luthor is fine—“

“—Lillian, then,” Kara said, setting her shoulders and raising her eyebrows. For her part, Lillian just seemed amused, leaning back in her chair and smiling, motioning for Kara to speak. “Like I said, I only had a few questions.”

“I’ll answer whatever you like, but only if you answer one question of mine.” Lillian grinned when Kara just nodded stiffly, clutching her notebook a little tighter. “You love like a Luthor, Kara Danvers. Lies, secrets, double-crossing...it’s how we show affection. I did wonder why Lena seemed to warm to you so quickly, you must have reminded her of home.”

“That’s not a question.”

Lillian laughed, every bit as regal and dangerous in the navy inmate outfit as when she was on the outside in thousand dollar dresses and heels. “Well, why waste a question when the answer is already written all over your face?”

Week Fifteen

As it likely was always destined to be, it was Alex who finally sat Kara down and gave her a much needed talk.

“Do you remember when you were fifteen and you broke the snowglobe dad gave me?” Alex asked, handing Kara the potstickers without bothering to ask if she could have one (most likely because she already knew it was a lost cause).

“Vaguely,” Kara mumbled between a mouthful of food.

(That was a lie, of course. The truth was that the memory of breaking that snowglobe was etched deep into her mind, always a point of confusion and pain and guilt.

She’d crushed the snowglobe in a fit of rage, upset over a myriad of things: the loss of her planet, Alex’s obstinance, losing her foster father, the pain of Clark’s emotional and physical distance. And Alex had been so...broken. She hadn’t cried, but had instead taken one look at the crushed globe then one at Kara before just walking away, leaving Kara to drown in silence.

It took nearly a week before Kara managed to get Alex to speak to her again, a week of silence that felt just as damaging as all that time in the Phantom Zone.)

“Do you remember what you did to get me to forgive you?” Alex asked, raising her eyebrows.

“I’m not sure breaking the snowglobe is the same as lying about who I am for years, Alex,” Kara said with a groan, looking at her potstickers dejectedly as she lost her appetite.

“But do you remember what you did?”

“I’m pretty sure I annoyed you until you gave in,” Kara said with a roll of her eyes.

Alex chuckled as she sat down next to her, allowing Kara to lean against her, offering a loose, one-armed hug. “You apologized. In about a million different ways,” Alex whispered against her temple. “I know you want to allow Lena her space, let her dictate the boundaries, and that’s a good thing. But Kara, you didn’t even try to apologize, to show her you’re sorry. You didn’t fight for her at all. Why?”

(Why?

Because Kara wondered at night if Lillian Luthor was right, she wondered about herself and how she’d allowed it to go so wrong. She thought about the pain she caused Lena, the trust she shattered, and the feeling of breaking her own heart through her own actions.

Why?

Well, because Kara didn’t deserve another chance with Lena.)

Maybe she spoke aloud, maybe Alex could read her mind, or most likely, maybe her sister knew her so well that she could see the answer in Kara’s eyes, hear it in Kara’s silence. Because after a moment, she pressed a kiss to Kara’s forehead.

“Maybe,” she said softly as she pulled away, motioning towards the freezer where Kara had stocked up on ice cream to get through the heartache, “it’s okay to ask for another chance and let Lena decide whether or not you’re worth it. And if you ask me, Kara, you’re always worth it.”

Week Sixteen

Four months after her nightmare scenario was realized (and ended up much worse than Kara could’ve even begun to imagine), Kara gathered the courage to seek Lena out.

She landed on the balcony outside Lena’s office, not as Supergirl, but as Kara Danvers (it was risky, it was stupid, but she thought it was worth it). It took three taps on the glass before Lena noticed her, looking up from her work, brows furrowed. For a long second, Kara didn’t think she would let her in.

But then, miraculously, Lena stood and pushed the glass door open, letting Kara step into her office.

“It’s still not an entrance,” Lena muttered, crossing her arms over her chest defensively as she took Kara in. “What are you doing here? Need my help with DEO business? A quote for Cat Grant? I hope you appreciate how busy I am, so—”

“—to be perfectly honest, I didn’t tell you at first because of your last name,” Kara interrupted, much to Lena’s shock, her arms falling to her sides as she studied Kara with narrowed eyes. “I knew you were different from the second we first met, that you were good and kind and had the biggest heart.” She swallowed, took in a deep breath, and forced herself to look into Lena’s eyes. Needing her to see the truth of what she was saying. “I trusted you from the second we met, Lena Luthor, but between Clark and Lex and your mom and the Alien Amnesty Act and just...it seemed safer for you and me to not say anything.”

“Kara, I—”

“—and then, when it would have made everything easier to just tell you the truth, I...I ruined things. I got scared, I lashed out, and suddenly, you couldn’t stand Supergirl. And with Reign, I figured it was safer for you and me to just...not say anything.” Kara took a step forward, disheartened when Lena took a step back. “And this past year, with the backlash against aliens and the Children of Liberty, I convinced myself it was safer to just not say anything. But the truth is...well, the truth is, I’ve been lying to myself.”

“I don’t understand,” Lena said, shaking her head.

“I haven’t had a good reason to keep who I was from you since Medusa,” Kara admitted quietly. “Probably even before that. I just didn’t want to see you look at me like you’re looking at me now.”

(It was a cold stare. Hard. Unforgiving.

And it broke Kara’s heart.

Again, and again, and again.)

“It was selfish, I knew it was selfish. I even tried to tell you once, but I...I didn’t want to hurt you—I didn’t want you to hate me.” She blinked rapidly, trying to stave off the tears she knew were coming. “I’m sorry, Lena. And I will show you how sorry I am every single day for the rest of my life if I have to, I will earn your trust back. But please, please, don’t shut me out. Don’t hate me.”

Lena’s jaw clenched.

One second.

Two.

She took a deep breath.

(Five seconds passed, Kara counted.)

“I really think you should leave, Kara,” Lena said, her gaze boring into Kara’s.

(It was a confused stare. Perplexed.

Soft.)

Week Sixteen and One Day

Kara opened the door before the knock even came, revealing Lena with her hand still raised, a flicker of amusement on her lips.

“How did you know I was here?” she asked, a clear and obvious test.

“Super-hearing,” Kara shrugged easily, “and I have x-ray vision, you know.”

“Interesting,” Lena said, smiling at Kara for the first time in what felt like centuries. “I thought a lot about what you said yesterday. Maybe let’s start with coffee, a conversation about Krypton, and go from there. What do you say?”

Kara didn’t need five seconds—she didn’t even need one.

“Perfect. Lead the way.”

#supercorp #fanfic #old #kara danvers #lena luthor

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lov3nerdstuff · 4 years

Text

Voluptas Noctis Aeternae {Part 7.10}

*Severus Snape x OC*

Summary: It is the year 1983 when the ordinary life of Robin Mitchell takes a drastic turn: she is accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Despite the struggles of being a muggle-born in Slytherin, she soon discovers her passion for Potions, and even manages the impossible: gaining the favor of Severus Snape. Throughout the years, Robin finds that the not quite so ordinary Potions Professor goes from being a brooding stranger to being more than she had ever deemed possible. An ally, a mentor, a friend... and eventually, the person she loves the most. Through adventure, prophecies and the little struggles of daily life in a castle full of mysteries, Robin chooses a path for herself, an unlikely friendship blossoms into something more, and two people abandoned by the world can finally find a home.

General warnings: professor x student, blood, violence, trauma, neglectful families, bullying, cursing

Words: 6.6k

Read Part 1.1 here! All Parts can be found on the Masterlist!

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The last week of their travels, the third week of August, came close to an end soon after the incident in Sweden, sooner than either of them would have liked. Its passing also marked the last week they got to spend together this summer, which perhaps was even worse. Snape would have to return to Hogwarts on Sunday, which meant he wouldn't have time for their expeditions throughout the following days anymore, nor would they get to spend them together at all. Again, Robin had promised not to go on any (dangerous) expedition on her own during the week he was gone, which by Friday morning left both of them with only three more days before the summer would end. Three more days of Robin trying not to let slip where she had been living those last few weeks.

Surprisingly, and it really was surprising indeed if one considered how much time they spent together, they had not once talked about either of their homes and thus neither about the current absence thereof in Robin's life. She still apparated to any empty space at night, set up her tent to stay there until morning, and saw to everything else in the nearest town after Snape and her had come back from a day trip or before they met up again in the mornings. It had become so much of a routine by now that she didn't even think about it anymore, nor did she want to think about the fact that it probably was something she should have told Snape about right from the beginning. But then again, there was nothing he could have done about it. And it really wasn't all that bad in the first place; other people did things like this for their holidays! Why exactly hadn't she just told him right in the beginning, hadn't just stated it as a fact? What was keeping her from doing so now? Maybe she was scared of his reaction; maybe she was scared that he would convince her to go back. Because in the end, she knew that she would do whatever it was he asked of her.

Their last Friday came way too soon; they went on a beyond exhausting trip to the catacombs underneath Rome, spending most of the day in the most chaotic system of tunnels and vaults imaginable, only to return to their usual cliff in the evening to have a coffee before each heading home until the next day. Really, it was every bit the normal routine, and when Robin apparated to a nearby village she had gone to quite frequently over the last few weeks, she was still under the impression that the night would end as quietly as it had begun.

After a day in the heat and the ancient catacombs, she just felt the desperate need to wash off the dust of the dead before she went to sleep, so that's what she came to the small village for. As always, she sought out that one rundown gym in a deserted backstreet, where she could let herself in without anyone seeing, and take a shower without the fear of being caught at this time of night. Admittedly, breaking in wasn't something she was particularly proud of doing, but by now, after two months of living on her own money entirely, she couldn't afford to waste any of it. And she would rather steal a little bit of water in the shower here than items and food anywhere else. Luckily magic allowed her to come and go without leaving a trace at least, and security cameras just weren't a thing in a place like this either. Really, it was a foolproof plan, one that had been working perfectly for the past few weeks as well. A plan that was routine as much as the rest of her days. Perhaps this false sense of safety was Robin's only fault that night.

The majority of the procedure went by like it always did; she unlocked the shabby backdoor wordlessly, then cast the usual few spells to keep both sound and light from leaving the building. To anyone passing by on the streets, if anyone at all was stupid enough to come down to this place in the dead of night, the gym would be pitch black and silent to go along with it. Then she didn't waste time to find the women's locker room to drop her belongings in the dry space, only to make for the showers immediately in seek of the soothing burn of the water on her skin. Taking showers wasn't what it used to be; while in the past she had always loved to spend some extra time just standing under the hot water to think, now every second counted and was filled with calculated movements for maximum efficiency. The sooner she was done, the sooner she could get out of here. Thus it wasn't long before she was clean and back with her things, getting dressed in something clean and comfortable for the night, before shouldering her backpack and cleaning up after herself to erase any trace of her presence. The very same as always, a process without much thought to it. With a silent sigh, relieved to be rid of the day's dust, she left the locker room and made for the backdoor once again in the usual eagerness to leave this place. Only that she didn't get that far.

Robin rounded the last corner at the end of the dark hallway, lost in thought about tomorrow's object of research, when a sudden blow to the stomach knocked all air out of her with a start. A dark figure right in front of her, the obvious origin of the punch. The liquid pang of shock and surprise overcame her almost painfully a broken second later, and before she realized what was even happening, her entire body grew warm, hot even, more scorching than she ever had experienced. Her lips parted in a silent scream, it was as if an invisible lightning had struck her, then her mind started to catch up. The figure in front of her made another attempt to lunge at her, but the adrenaline in her blood urged her to move so suddenly that she almost would've tripped over her own feet as she bolted right past the assailant, evading the second punch barely as she sprinted out the door that was not even five feet ahead. She still felt too hot, overwhelmingly so, blinded by panic and fear, but it was only when she reached the end of the street that her adrenaline rush decreased enough to make way for the unbearable pain. A gasp escaped her lips as her vision swam together in a haze of heat and pain, and she tried to understand what had happened without any success while she clutched her hand to the allconsuming ache just below the left side of her ribs. When she looked down, all she saw was an unreal amount of blood that was sleeping through her shirt and running down her legs, painting her jersey shorts and the ashen skin beneath it in a deep crimson. For a moment she felt sick to the core; the pain, the heat, the blood… she saw, but didn't understand. Her head started spinning, her vision blurring, her thoughts a frenzy. It hadn't been a punch. She couldn't breathe. But she kept her hand pressed to the wound nonetheless.

Focus, Robin! Just for a moment… she had to get away from here. Had to get to a place where she would be safe, would be saved. There was only one place she could think of. One place she wanted to be now, whether she would be fine or not. She tried to relax as good as possible with the relentless torment of too much pain and too little adrenaline overwhelming her senses, then she was wrapped up in a swirling storm of colour and space.

Apparating while being severely injured was the living hell on earth, it took more focus than she had to spare and left her in agony one way or another, and yet Robin arrived at Spinner's End in one piece. She had never been here before, never had dared to find out where Snape lived, but she knew the address well enough from all their letters in the past, and that had been enough to go by. Run-down rows of brick houses with only a few barely lit up windows certainly wasn't what she had imagined, but it didn't matter, not right now. Her mind barely took notice of it as she searched for the right house number, and the feeling of hot blood gushing over her fingers that still were pressed tightly to her stomach threatened to make her sick again. There was so little light… or perhaps her vision was simply giving out even more, darkening around the edges already while the heat within her was blinding in its all-consuming nature in return. Fuck… this was sickening torture. Her focus slipping was so incredibly palpable that its bitter irony made her huff in pain, then cough in even more.

Finally, the right house, the last one… Gods, no matter how much pain she was in, she couldn't help feeling sorry. For being a bother, for having gotten herself into this, for not being able to get out of it again. She couldn't think beyond the irresistible urge to be by his side right now, no matter how pathetic he might think it was, she couldn't think of anywhere else to be. But dying on his doorstep now would be useless, and thus she knocked on the door with her free hand that was still clutching her wand in a death grip. After a few seconds of silence, she knocked again, if one could even call her weak attempt to muster up any strength to lift her hand knocking in the first place. No reply, and she tried the spell he used on his classroom to open the door. It seemed to work, or perhaps it didn't, but the door opened anyway and Robin fell inside without the support of the wood she had been leaning against. That loss of balance sufficed, she didn't have the energy to keep herself from dropping to her knees before collapsing altogether, and she found herself on the floor in a heap of pain and shallow breathing. At last, onyx eyes, a familiar deep frown above her even if it was slowly swimming together with the ceiling in distant heights.

"I'm so sorry…" She managed to rasp, relying on every bit of strength and focus and air she had left, and her words were followed only by a strangled whimper before at last the heat took over, the pain, and she was swallowed by a worldless nothing.

… … …

When Robin woke up to darkness and no pain, her first thought was death. She had finally gotten herself killed. Great job, idiot… But then the bookshelf lined walls came into focus, the dim silver moonlight and dancing speckles of dust in the air above her, and she took a deep breath only to feel a small stinging below her ribs. This wasn't death… not yet. Death didn't smell like old books and cold fire smoke. Death didn't hurt.

It took her a second to remember where she was, and how she had gotten here. The back alley gym, the assailant, getting stabbed, fleeing… Spinner's End. If she was still here, still alive, that could only mean that Snape's eyes hadn't been a dream, that he had saved her. Again. Must really be getting quite tiring for him. Her own thought made Robin scoff in bitter irony and snort at the same time, and the jerky movement in return made her hiss immediately. Right… getting stabbed was painful, no matter how much magic one had been given to heal. It couldn't have been long since.

With another hiss, she pushed herself up onto her elbows to inspect the current state of affairs. She was lying on a sofa –or rather sitting now, with her back leaned against the armrest to take the tension from her still stinging middle section– and while she was wrapped up in a blanket, she couldn't help feeling cold nonetheless. Perhaps it was the blood loss, perhaps the night. Either way, she hugged the blanket tighter around herself to keep from shivering as her eyes traveled beyond the threadbare sofa to the room around her. Bookshelves lined all four walls, but other than that, there was fairly little to see: a fireplace without a fire in it, a small table nearby, and a large armchair next to it.

Taking a deep breath, she dared to take a peek beneath the blanket and discovered that her stomach and lower ribs had been carefully wrapped in bandages. The blood was gone, and while she couldn't see if the wound had healed entirely yet or not, she at least knew that the pain was gone as long as she didn't move. That was enough by far, and an overwhelming gratitude for what Snape had done for her forced her to close her eyes for a moment. As much as she wanted to feel remorse for the troubles she had put him through, she knew that she would do it again any time. It had been either blood stains and stolen time, or mourning her death by now. Robin believed that if it had been for Snape to make that choice, he would have chosen the same as she had done for him.

The squeaking of the door had her eyes flying open in an instant, and it didn't even take a second for her gaze to meet his. He looked surprised, relieved, torn… and Robin's heart skipped a beat before setting into a furious pace. For a moment they merely held each other captive through the darkness, but when Robin tried to move, to get up or at least make some space, he was quick to set his steaming teacup down on the table and be right next to her before she got further than to an actual sitting position.

"Don't." Was all he said, as he sat down at the very edge of the sofa by her side reluctantly, not even an arm's length away. But then he seemed to come to a line in his own mind right there, a line that he didn't dare to cross. Robin could see it, had seen it before, every time they were getting closer to any form of physicality, even if merely platonic. And she knew that the step over this line was hers to take now, as it had always been before.

She didn't need to ask when she wrapped her arms around him as tightly as the pain beneath her ribs would allow, and he didn't hesitate to do the same with her in return. After all this time they had spent together, hugs were still not something that happened, but now that it did for once, it was easier than it had ever been before. And touch starved as she always was, Robin enjoyed every single thing about it beyond measure. The warmth, the scent, the tingles, the safety. After a while, she rested her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes with a silent sigh. As sad as it probably was, for a hug she would gladly let herself get stabbed any time. Or she could simply try to ask for a hug more often, but she had made that resolution before and yet never had been brave enough to do it. Perhaps a comfort as all-consuming as this simply wasn't allowed to exist more often than it did, no happiness as pure nor love as deep. Perhaps. But Robin would take as much of it as she could get nonetheless.

"Thank you." She finally said, in a whisper that was just barely muffled by the fabric of his shirt. "For saving me from the brink of death… Again."

"Anytime." His reply came just as quietly, but in the utmost certainty nonetheless. It sent a shiver down Robin's back, one which he obviously took notice of as his hold on her tightened almost instinctively. After another moment of silence, he finally was the one to speak on. "For a moment… I was terrified. I thought I wouldn't be able to save you."

"But you did. You always do, and I will forever owe you for that."

"Oh please… If we were to start with liabilities now, I would need more than one lifetime to repay you for all the times you have saved me from worse than this. I would much prefer if we didn't."

"Alright." Robin replied under her breath, but in an almost sadly bitter whisper she added, "Being stuck with me for a lifetime surely wouldn't be the nicest prospect anyway."

"I will gladly be stuck with you for however long you allow me to, Robin. But by choice, not out of an obligation." He argued back as easily and determinedly as ever, as if his words weren't the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her, as if he truly meant it. She shivered again, a crashing wave of tingles running along her skin as goosebumps of both cold and joy, and she had to make an effort to keep her eyes from watering as she nodded, then hid her face in his shoulder once more.

A long time of serene silence followed, of deep breaths and holding onto each other for the most comforting reassurance of shared existence, and with every passing minute Robin felt her eyes getting heavier and her mind becoming more hazed by a dangerous comfort luring her into sleep's sweet embrace. She shouldn't allow herself to fall asleep like this, wrapped around Snape and being held close in return, shouldn't let his warmth be such a perfect replacement for her own. She knew that very well, and perhaps that was the only reason why she made an effort to stay awake, made an effort to let go of him. But when even the tiniest movement made her wound sting, and he –consciously or not– drew tiny patterns on her back with his fingertips, she knew that her efforts were in vain. So she finally gave up the fight, gave in to the embrace, and the few seconds before she drifted off were the sweetest she had ever lived to feel.

… … …

This time, Robin woke up to speckles of dust dancing in the soft sunlight above her, and she had to smile even before her mind was fully there yet. She still didn't like sunshine, but after fearing to never see it again, it was a most welcome sight indeed. However, it was not nearly as welcome as the warmth she found herself wrapped up in now, coming from the two thick blankets that were wound around her like a soft cocoon of comfort. Honestly, she had slept better than any time in the last few weeks, and it really made a huge difference to the way she felt now. Mostly awake, happy, grateful.

With a stifled yawn, Robin sat up in a careful attempt to avoid the stinging in her stomach, and while that succeeded, she felt a sting of guilt instead when her eyes fell onto Snape in the opposite corner of the sofa. It really was astonishing how he could sleep like that, cramped into the minimal space she hadn't occupied herself. He was rather lanky, admittedly, but tall enough to make it undoubtedly uncomfortable for him to be squeezed into a corner like that. Then again, it was his house; he could've gone to bed and left her here, had he wanted to. But he hadn't, and that fact did something to Robin's heart she couldn't quite describe, couldn't process logically, could only feel deeply in return. She really shouldn't allow herself to hope… but perhaps it wasn't entirely impossible that he cared about her even nearly as much as she did about him after all. Felt something for her that was more than just friendship.

Robin shook the thought out of her head after a second, scolding herself for dwelling on it in the first place. She had promised herself not to go there, had promised to accept her own feelings under the one condition that she didn't hope for them to ever be returned. But he was making that really difficult for her recently. A small sigh escaped past her lips, as she tried to focus on something else for now. Like… breakfast! He always insisted on her having breakfast, so she might as well make some for him now. As a thank you, as anything, or even as nothing. Friends could make breakfast for each other, that was a perfectly ordinary thing to do. And with the foods she still had in her backpack and whatever he might have at home, she surely could make something that said 'thank you for saving my life again'.

Quietly and with the necessary carefulness, she rose to her feet and took a few reluctant steps to test the waters of her health. The spot where she had been stabbed still felt sore, obviously, like having pulled a muscle or twisted a sinew too far, but it didn't actually hurt. Indeed, even the feeling of her bare feet on the rough wooden floor was more prominent than the faintest sting in her stomach. How the hell had Snape done that?! Healing a wound like that practically overnight, without the equipment of the hospital wing back at Hogwarts… He must be better at this than he let on, which was very much like him, now that Robin thought about it. Always smug about the most irrelevant and minor matters, but never once priding himself in the things he was actually excelling at. As she tiptoed out of the room, she made sure to ask him about it at some point.

After a little while of having a quick but respectful look around, she finally found the door she had been looking for. It squeaked when she pushed it open far enough to squeeze through the gap, and when she did, she found a dimly lit kitchen in front of her that was barely a quarter of the size of the one back at her parents' house. Still, it was larger than it should be, going by the dimensions of the house and the other rooms she'd just had a brief look into, and the realization made her smile. Of course, if there was one room Snape would actually care about, it would be the kitchen. Somehow, Robin wasn't surprised at all. After a quick look around, she found that he happened to have even less food in here than she had in her backpack, and thus she summoned just that item and got started on the most important part of breakfast first: coffee.

… … …

She was almost done with her endeavour when the squeaking of the door behind her back made her spin around in an instant, and the astonished gaze she was met with threatened to bring a tint to her cheeks, which however she tried to counteract by speaking up.

"Good morning." She said with a half smile that felt just a bit too insecure to not look the part as well. "I, uh… I'm making breakfast. For you. And me. Both of us. I… Perhaps I should have asked first, but I didn't want to wake you, and… why are you smirking like that?"

"Am I not allowed to be amused in my own house?"

Robin couldn't help rolling her eyes at his humoured tone, but it also made her smile lose any insecurity in return. "I didn't tell you to stop, I was just asking for the reason!"

"I simply cannot help wondering what it would take for you to actually rest and recover instead of being up on your feet as soon as you can walk again. My conclusion is that such a circumstance likely does not exist in the first place." He replied and obviously tried to keep his amusement to a minimum while doing so. "That, and I cannot recall anyone ever having made breakfast for me, if the house elves at school aren't considered for the time being. It amuses me that finding you doing so even still surprised me at all."

"There is a first time for everything." Robin quoted his own words back to him, and she couldn't help grinning as he rolled his eyes and grabbed one of the coffees she had left on the counter. Somehow, all of this felt oddly normal, like it was exactly how any good Saturday morning was supposed to go. Like it had always been that way. And in a way, Robin figured that it had. Not here perhaps, but throughout the weeks of summer, and even before that in the evenings in the lab or the office. In a way, their kind of normalcy with each other had simply been moved to a different place and time for once.

Five minutes later Robin finished her masterpiece in the art of breakfast (or rather the art of brunch) –baked sandwiches was all she'd been able to make with the ingredients she had– and she actually felt quite proud of herself for making something decent in the first place. They sat down at the small kitchen table in comfortable silence, each enjoying the meal and their coffee for now, but Robin knew that she eventually would have to start talking. Really, she was surprised that he hadn't asked about the obvious yet. Maybe that was just the right point to start.

"So… You didn't ask." She stated once her sandwich was gone, and her coffee doomed to follow.

"I wasn't sure if I wanted to hear the answer." He was quick to reply, calm and honest, but upon Robin's frown, he added, "Of course I want to know why you showed up on my doorstep in the middle of the night with a stab wound. But if I knew who did this to you, I might be tempted to do much worse to them in return."

Robin bit her bottom lip for a moment, swirling the black liquid in her cup around and observing how it reflected the sunlight at times. There it was again, that stupid hope she didn't want to have in the first place. C'mon, Robin… she needed to look at this rationally. If someone would stab Cas or Jorien, she would probably want to put a timely end to the assailant too. Friends could be protective like that. The thought finally allowed her to move on. "Well, in that case you don't have to worry about my answer. I don't know who it was… Just a tall shadow in the dark, without a face and without a voice. A person of course, I mean, just… nobody in particular."

"In that case, you might want to elaborate on the circumstances."

"Well…" Oh bloody hell, now the time for the truth had finally come. And to her surprise, Robin actually felt almost glad to get it out at last. "Lately, I have… had some troubles. Nothing I couldn't handle, really, it was perfectly fine until last night. I had it all under control, and it would've been fine for another week."

"You never mentioned having any sort of problem."

"It wasn't worth mentioning." She said quietly, feeling more guilty than she would have liked. "But I know I should have told you from the start, and I'm incredibly sorry that I didn't. I will correct that mistake now though, and I won't make it again. I'll tell you everything about last night, and about the weeks before that."

"You have my utmost attention."

"Right…" Robin took a deep breath, then decided to start from the most recent events and work her way back to the roots. "I was breaking into a shabby gym last night, in a questionable backstreet in an even more questionable town. Now, that's nothing I haven't done before, but usually nobody noticed me coming and going, and I never once saw anyone either. Until last night. I was just on my way back out when this dark figure lunged at me from behind a corner and attacked me out of nowhere. At first I thought it was just a punch to the stomach, but after I'd made my escape, I noticed the blood, and the dizziness. Then I didn't need to think twice about the only place I could go and wanted to go, and that's how I ended up in your hallway."

"What were you doing in a shabby gym in the first place?" He inquired with a small frown, but in a tone surprisingly free of any judgement. One of the many stones lifted off Robin's heart, and she followed him with her eyes as he picked up both of their mugs and moved to make more coffee, while motioning for her to go on.

"I was there to take a shower." She finally made herself say, and even though she couldn't see Snape's face, she just knew that his frown was deepening. "I've been going there for that for quite some time now, actually, ever since… Well, ever since I moved out of my parents' house."

A pause. Then the sound of metal meeting pottery. "You left them for good?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"The weekend when you returned from Hogwarts. The beginning of summer."

"That was two months ago."

"Yep." Robin refused to let her voice take on that guilty tone once more, and she accepted her coffee with a half smile before continuing on with her story. "The very first Saturday we met on the cliff was the day I packed up my belongings and decided that I wouldn't return. I had thought about it for days, the entire week I was there actually, because I simply couldn't live with how things were anymore. So I left, and I took all that's mine with me when I did. I think that's what moving out is supposed to be like, right? From that day on, I've been staying in a tent. In… the wilderness, basically. Which was perfectly alright, I had my blankets and tons of space after using an extension charm, and even some music… I just packed up my tent every morning, kept it in my backpack for the day, and then set it up in a new place at night."

"Is that why you kept so much food in your bag at all times?"

"Yeah, I didn't want to go to a store every single day, so I always had food for a few days packed."

"Why didn't you simply stay at a hotel, with no concerns about food or showers? The Leaky Cauldron has a few rooms, as far as I'm aware, as do many less questionable establishments."

"Well, uh…" Great, now the heat was back on her cheeks. She tried to cover it up by taking a sip of her too hot coffee, which furthered the problem rather than diminishing it. "I… can't afford that. To live in a hotel, I mean. I can barely make do with the money I have to… to buy groceries until the beginning of the school year next week. But even that was a lot of counting, and a lot of being cheap."

"But you kept sharing your meals with me nonetheless… Why would you do that if you had so little in the first place?"

"Yeah, well, I just happen to be fond of sharing with you." She shrugged, evading to answer the entire truth to the question as good as possible. "And didn't you say I didn't strike you as someone who grew up with money anyway? Well, here we are now, I actually only have roughly five pounds left to live by for the next week, and then I'm as broke as the next best street cat."

"That isn't an issue to joke about."

"I'm not joking, not in the facts at least. But approaching the topic with humour makes it a little less depressing, and that way I'm at least keeping my spirit if anything at all."

"Why don't you simply ask your parents for financial support, seeing as they clearly have it to spare?"

"We had a mutual agreement before I left that it would be best if I fought for myself from then on. I've been living on my own money ever since I left, and I have every intention to continue doing so." Robin explained, and after taking a breath, she felt the need to preempt whatever he might have to say in return. "I know it seems prideful of me to cut myself off from them like this, but I would rather starve than keep up those last threads tying me to them. So I ended it all, I removed them from my life, and me from theirs. I had to, but I don't expect you to understand that. Only to accept it."

"Actually, I believe I understand you perfectly fine. It doesn't seem prideful to me that you would separate yourself from people who couldn't care less about you and who have been mistreating you for years, for all I know. The fact that you have been gladly paying the price for those cut ties for eight weeks now rather makes it an act of strength, of self-preservation and not of pride. The only matter I don't understand is, why now? What happened in that one week that sealed the inevitable fate quite so suddenly?"

Honestly, Robin was surprised for a moment that he didn't even try to make an attempt to talk her into going back. Rather on the contrary, he actually seemed to approve of what she had done, and that lifted even more stones off her heart so swiftly that she almost would've gasped. But instead, she went to answer his question.

"I told you about their guests from the US, right? Well… to put it short, we didn't get along, and my parents sided with them."

"Why do I get the impression that there is more to it than simply 'not getting along'?"

"My parents packed up all my belongings in cardboard boxes and put them away in the basement with the other rubbish they are too afraid to get rid of. Then they let their esteemed guests call me a stupid scrounging whore, and in the end they all together made fun of everything I love and ever cared about. And that was just one dinner."

"Oh."

"Yeah…" Robin sighed with a half-hearted shrug, then took another sip of her coffee. "They've always been making fun of me for the way I am, and also of magic in general; it's just card tricks and rabbits in tophats to them. Actually, they've been saying since first year that nothing will ever become of me if I keep attending Hogwarts instead of a muggle school, and they still believe in that now. When I left, I was nothing more to them than a disappointment they even had to pay for."

"I haven't the slightest idea how any remotely intelligent being can be so pathetically blind to everything you are, but I am glad that you left them. And both sorry and furious that you had to in the first place."

"I'm not sorry at all. At least not for leaving them, or leaving a home that never felt like it was mine. The only thing I sincerely regret is not telling you about all of it sooner, right from the start. Right when I should have."

"Indeed, if I had known of your situation any sooner, we could have found a different solution to the issue and it might never have come to the events of last night."

"But it did. It happened, it's in the past, and I can only try to do better from here as we move on. Now that you know the whole story, it will certainly be easier… even if you will be gone tomorrow. Besides, I probably wouldn't be here now if it wasn't for last night… And that's enough for me not to regret it entirely." Robin admitted with a half smile, and Snape raised an eyebrow at her with a not-smirk in return. But there was no denying it, if Robin hadn't made the mistakes she had, she wouldn't have the memory of falling asleep like she did last night, which caused a wave of electric sparkles to run through her just thinking about it.

"You certainly didn't need to get yourself almost killed if you wanted to come by for a visit." He mused, his smirk turning into a real one, but he hid it behind his coffee mug which made Robin's smile broaden in return.

"Would you have let me in if I hadn't been dying though?" She inquired in a feignedly pointed expression, and for just a moment she believed to see his smirk turning into a smile before he settled for an equally feigned neutrality.

"Depends."

"On what?"

"If you would have wanted to come in in the first place. I believe this house is quite a setback from a magical castle or an urban mansion."

"You forget that I've been living in a bloody tent for eight weeks at this point, and quarreling for water with the rats every other night. And before that, I was a stranger in a hostile environment that tried everything to eradicate who I am. Really, this place here is a palace to me."

"I'm sorry."

"What?" Robin frowned at the sudden shift back from joking to seriousness. "Why? There's nothing to be sorry about."

"If you seriously believe this place to be anything more than a rundown telltale of neglect, I would rather not imagine what your living conditions looked like for those last few weeks. I wish it hadn't come that far."

"There's nothing you could have done."

"Perhaps not. But I can offer you to stay here for now, seeing as even a place like this is preferable to the few alternatives you have. I will be gone anyway, and you can have the house to yourself. If you would like that." He said, almost reluctant and yet certain at once, and Robin wondered how on earth he could combine both sentiments like that. But he seemed certain about offering her to stay, and that was enough for now.

"I would like that very much, actually." She answered with a soft smile. "Thank you. I won't wreak havoc, I promise."

"With your tendency to end up in trouble, that is quite a risky promise to make."

"You already gave an answer to that yourself; I end up in trouble, I do not cause it. Thus not wreaking havoc is an easy promise for me to make, while however I would never promise that no troubles will find me in return."

"Clever." He smirked at her once more, and Robin grinned down at her coffee in return. "If trouble should find you even here in this nowhere next week, be sure let me know."

"You'll be the first to hear."

____________________________

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just-jordie-things · 4 years

Text

Can’t Pretend - Richie Tozier

word count: 13,840 warnings: swearing, sexual themes summary: richie and (y/n) share a dirty little secret, and it’s starting to get in the way of her relationship. but it shouldn’t if it was just a fling, right? based on this song (a/n): about to hit 5.4k so I thought I'd celebrate by posting this ol’ thing :) I really like it I hope y'all do too :3

___

[ love... i have wounds, only you can mend // i guess that’s love… i can’t pretend ]

It was a plain saturday for the Losers. And by plain, I mean they were chilling in Bill’s bedroom, thankful that his parents were out of town for the weekend because that meant they could raid the liquor cabinet and be a bit louder than usual.

(y/n) was leaning against the mattress, sat on the floor, a beer bottle in hand and a smile on her face. These were the best kinds of nights, where all they did was talk, and it was all they had to do.

Eddie smacks Richie on his shoulder, but nearly hits his face in his drunken stupor. And when (y/n) laughs, her head leans a little more into Ben’s leg, which is hanging off the side of the bed where he sat. She’s laughing loudly into the denim of his jeans, and the material does nothing to muffle the sound.

Everyone else is laughing too, though, so it doesn’t matter.

“Alright, so is anyone aware that in four months, we won’t see each other like this anymore?” Beverly asks, a frown on her face as she takes another drink. “I mean, what, am I supposed to make new friends?”

“Yeah, good look with that, Ringwald” Richie snorts, and Bev just flips him off, the way she always does when he calls her that.

“We won’t be that far from each other” Ben says to her with a sweet smile.

“And it’s not like we won’t write, too,” Stan chimes in. “Except you Richie, after we graduate, never fucking talk to me again-”

“Oh, I’ll send you love letters every day sweetie pie,” Richie says before Stan can even finish. “Don’t you worry, it’ll be like I’m right there with you”

He sticks his tongue out and snickers, while Stan grumbles about needing a break.

(y/n) can’t help but giggle at both boys. Partially because she gets very giggly when tipsy, and partially because they’re the two funniest people she knows. Richie grins at her when he catches her laughing, only making her laugh more.

“How are w-we gonna do it?” Bill muses, not really looking for an answer, because there really isn’t one.

“We don’t,” (y/n) shrugs. “We avoid it until… there’s not really any other option”

“Dark” Ben mumbled.

“It’s true,” (y/n) argued. “If we go through this year with the mindset that this is the end, then we’ll push each other away, it’s psychology”

Eddie nods because he was in her class and is pretty sure he remembers hearing that.

“So we just live our best year” He agrees with her.

She high fives him.

“Well you’re already on your way,” Beverly said, and stood up from where she sat next to Mike so she could plop down next to her best girl. “What, with your fancy scholarship, and your boyfriend” She singsonged the word, and (y/n) wilted with embarrassment.

“Come on Bev-”

“Are you guys gonna stay together?” Stan asks, the gears in his head turning as soon as her boyfriend was mentioned. “I mean it’s been like… five months, right?”

“Four and a half” (y/n) mumbled, pulling her knees to her chest.

She stares down at her drink, and then takes a long swig. She had a feeling she’d need it.

Talking about her boyfriend when everyone was around was… awkward. It was one thing if it was just her and Beverly, but to have all the boys’ eyes on her every time his name came up made her feel hot, like she was being interrogated.

“So you’re kinda serious,” Stan shrugged. “How many times have you done it?”

She chokes, and coughs for a long moment before catching her breath.

“Stan you don’t get to-”

“Come on, just fess up,” Beverly giggles. “We won’t make fun! Promise!”

(y/n’s) cheeks go hot, and she knows they’re pink and that she’ll only be picked on more for it. She locks eyes with Richie, who winks at her, and now her face must be red.

“We- uh-” Her eyes dart away before she can choke and lose her train of thought again. “We actually um… haven’t… done… that” She says slowly, and with every reluctant word her voice gets softer.

“What?” Eddie screeches.

“No way,” Stan is laughing in disbelief. “Come on, just give up the number. What, ten? Fifteen? Twenty-?!”

(y/n’s) eyes are narrowed at him, silently yelling for him to fuck off.

“Really?” Beverly asks, just as shocked as the others.

Well, everyone was surprised.

“But he’s so…”

“Hot?” Eddie offers, only to get nudged in the ribs by the trashmouth next to him.

“I was going to say affectionate,” Beverly answers, staring skeptically at Richie. “He’s always hanging all over you, how have you not hooked up?”

(y/n) shrugs her shoulders and stares down at her drink again.

“I dunno” She mumbles weakly.

“Has he tried-?”

“This is super awkward, can we be done?” She asked, voice still soft, embarrassed.

“I mean come on, don’t you want to f-”

“Can we stop fucking talking about this, before I’m forced to visualize his dick?” Richie cuts in, faking a gag. “Oh, fuck, too late, thanks a lot you sluts”

Stan and Beverly are distracted by the comment and burst into laughter while Richie pretends to throw up.

After the conversation ends, and Ben starts talking about the colleges he’s deciding between, (y/n) glances over to her favorite glasses-wearing idiot. He catches her gaze, and she mouths ‘thank you’. He just smiles, before diving right back into conversation about why Ben should be an architect and not a poet.

A few beers later and they have to cut themselves off, because if they drink too much then Bill’s parents will notice and they’ll all get in trouble. They shouldn’t be drinking anymore anyways, because everyone’s relatively tipsy, and with the general excitable mood among the group, drinking more would be a bad idea.

Everyone’s lying on their backs, staring at the ceiling and talking about nonsense. What was once a serious conversation about their future has turned into a debate about what the most important thing to have when stranded on an island would be.

“A knife, definitely a knife” Mike argues.

“What? Fuck no, a gun” Stanley fights back, thus starting an argument about not having bullets because you can only choose one item.

“Flint? I guess? I don’t fuckin’ know” Beverly says sleepily. She didn’t care much for this discussion when it started, and forty five minutes later, she still doesn’t.

“I’d bring an issue of Maxim, for sure. Gotta keep busy you know-”

“Beep beep, Richie,” Eddie grumbles. “I’d bring an epipen. I’m allergic to everything on an island”

“Oh fuck off, you’re not allergic to sand” Richie smacks the boy on his arm for suggesting something so idiotic.

“I’d bring one of my grandpa’s sheep,” Mike spoke after what seemed like forever of deliberation. “It’d save his life and I’d have a companion”

“That’s sweet,” (y/n) cooed, smiling delightedly at the idea of Mike wanting a friend more than anything else. “I’ll take a sheep too, please”

The two break out into laughter for a few minutes, uncontrollable, belly aching laughter.

“You can’t copy Mike, come up with your own!” Eddie scolded, offended that (y/n) tried to break the rules of their made up game.

“Alright, alright, let a girl think first…” (y/n) folded her arms over her head as she squinted, to help her thought process. “Um… a book”

“A book?” Eddie laughed almost maniacally at her answer. “Alright, just fuckin’ take a sheep from Mike, that was even worse”

“What? No it isn’t,” (y/n) argued. “It’ll keep me occupied and entertained, and when it’s done I can read it over again”

“Lame” Eddie muttered.

She reached over to smack him, and sadly Bill got caught in the crossfire.

“You wouldn’t bring your lover?” Stan teased, and she almost hit him too. “You’d pick a farm animal over your boyfriend?”

“I didn’t think of it like that” She said quietly.

“I don’t get you guys,” Stan says, and she sighs because the conversation has somehow drifted to him, again. “I mean, it’s been four and a half months, and typically couples get it on for their one month. But you’ve had four anniversaries and still haven’t-”

“Why are you so interested in my business, Stanley?” (y/n) asked, a bit more defensive than she needed to be.

He raises his hands and pulls an innocent face.

“I’m just worried about you!” He retorts. “You’re the one in desperate need-”

“I’m not desperate for anything” She snaps.

“Yeah, Stan, she’s not a virgin, (y/n’s) gotten some before” Beverly makes an attempt to back (y/n) up, but it only makes her feel worse.

“What? But he’s her first boyfriend- oh my god, who was it?” Stan asks, way more interested in this topic now.

“Leave me alone” She rolls her eyes and shoves his shoulder.

“Oh god, it must be real embarrassing,” Eddie is giddy for the gossip now, sitting up to join in better. “Who was it?”

“Cut it out” She says a bit louder, sharp eyes meeting Eddies, a silent threat in them.

“Who was it, Bev?” Eddie asked, deciding to go the source it came from.

But she shrugs her shoulders, and makes an ‘I don’t know’ sound.

“What do you m-mean you don’t kn-know?” Bill stammers out.

“She didn’t wanna tell me” Beverly answers, simple as that.

(y/n) covers her face with her hands. She wishes she was more drunk than she was, because then maybe there was hope for recovering from this. Or maybe even forgetting completely.

“Must be real embarrassing,” Richie teases.

She peeks at him through her fingers.

“Bowers?” He asks with a raised brow, and she barks out a laugh.

Everyone laughs then, at the mere idea of anyone hooking up with that nutcase.

“I promised I wouldn’t tell, okay?” She admits after the laughter has died and all attention is on her again. “It’s private” She adds softer.

“Fine” Stan gives in, not wanting to make the girl anymore uncomfortable.

If they knew anything about (y/n), it was that she kept secrets and promises locked away forever. She was the most trustworthy person any of them had ever met. And she’d never break someone else’s trust either.

“But if you’ve done it before, why aren’t you, yaknow, still doing it?” Stan asks, and begins to giggle at his own words. “I mean, if I had a hot girlfriend, I’d be doing it like… all the time”

“Pervert” (y/n) mumbles.

“Did you just call (y/n) hot?” Eddie asks, and everyone ooohs at his catch.

“Alright, alright! Calm down, of course I did!” Stan announces, and a blush takes over the girl’s face again. But this time she’s not embarrassed, she’s flattered. “It’s an observation, okay? Jesus”

She giggles, and leans over to kiss his cheek.

“You guys are so dumb,” She mumbles. “I love you all so much”

“All I’m asking,” Stan declares, voice loud. “Is why you’re avoiding it!”

“I’m not avoiding it” She argues, but she knows she’s failed because it’s such a blatant lie, and any sober mind would be able to see that.

Luckily, no one in this room is sober.

“Oh yeah?” Stan scoffs. “Have you been home alone with him in the last four and a half months?”

“Yeah?” She asks, voice cracking slightly.

“And you didn’t screw him?”

“Watch it” Richie’s voice bites from where he lies a few feet away from them. Stan pays it no mind, but Bev kicks his leg, and furrows her brow at him, wondering why he gave a fuck what Stan had to say.

The others were either asleep, or didn’t want to step in on the mini argument (y/n) and Stan were having.

Ben and Mike had passed out on the floor a few minutes ago. And Eddie and Bill just sat and listened to the argument, wishing they could pass out.

“No, I- I didn’t,” (y/n) stammers. “But so? I don’t want to rush it-”

“Liaaaar,” Stan singsongs. “You don’t want to hook up with him”

“That’s not true!” She exclaims. “We-. we’re actually hanging out at his place tuesday night,” She tells him matter of factly. “Alone!”

“Ooh, good for you,” Stan retorts sarcastically. “That doesn’t mean shit unless you actually take your pants off”

Her face scrunches up as her eyes narrow at him. Now she’s angry, because he doesn’t believe her, and he’s not trying to. So what if she’s lying through her teeth? He’s her friend and he should believe her.

“I’m tired” She announces suddenly, and forces herself to stand up.

She steals one of the few blankets on Bill’s bed that he’d prepared for everyone. Her balance is a bit shaky as she wraps it around herself, and heads for the door.

“Goodnight” She calls, only once she’s left the room and is heading for the pullout bed in the living room sofa.

The room is silent for a few minutes after she’s left.

“Well fuck, you’re gonna have to apologize in the morning” Eddie mumbles, and San knows he’s talking to him.

“I didn’t think she’d get that pissed,” He replied guiltily. “I was just messin’, I thought she’d just get embarrassed. I don’t know what I did-”

“She doesn’t like talking about that stuff, dumbass,” Richie says. “Shit makes her uncomfortable”

“Well I didn’t know that-” Stan starts to argue.

Beverly stops him before he can start any more drama tonight.

“Don’t worry about it, Stan, she’ll be alright,” She says, and then gets up to get a blanket as well. “I’ll go talk to her to make sure she really is alright, goodnight”

The boys mumble a ‘goodnight’ back to her, and she descends the staircase to check on her friend, who’s laying facedown on the mattress.

“Oh, hon,” Bev laughs, and lays down next to her. “Don’t be so upset with Stan, he was just being dumb-”

“I know” (y/n) mumbles into her pillow.

Beverly pulls the blanket she’s brought with her and drapes it over her back, so she won’t get cold while she’s pouting.

“Then what’s troubling you?”

Her words are a bit slurred, but the care is still there.

“I just… I don’t know. I didn’t have to think about it before and now I can’t stop,” (y/n) admits with a sign. “And maybe I’m upset because… he’s right. Maybe I’m upset because he’s write and I wouldn’t admit it to myself, but I have been avoiding hooking up with him. I mean, so much could go wrong and I just… don’t want to have a bunch of drama our senior year, yaknow? I want it to be smooth and easy. And so far with him our relationship has been smooth and easy, but what if he’s wanted to do it this whole time and I keep dodging him and now he’s gonna break up with me?”

(y/n) lifts her head to turn to her redheaded friend for advice.

But Beverly is sound asleep, snoring softly against her pillow.

(y/n) can’t help but smile a bit, even though she really needed help sorting out her messy thoughts. But she wasn’t going to bother Beverly by waking her up.

So she carefully crept off the squeaky pullout mattress, and went back upstairs.

Ben and Mike are still asleep on the floor, but someone’s thrown a couple blankets over them.

Stan is on Bill’s bed, facing the opposite direction as Bill, and they’ve both knocked off as well.

Maybe everyone else had more to drink than her, she thinks as she shuts the door to leave them be. When she turns to head to the guest bedroom, she nearly runs into Eddie.

“Who are you looking for?” He asks right away.

He rubs his tired eyes, and she adores that he looks like a child when he does so.

“Um-”

“Richie’s in bed already,” Eddie says before she can answer. “If you’re gonna prank him, you might want to wait a few minutes, so you know he’s in a deep enough sleep”

(y/n) chuckles at the unprompted advice, and nods her head.

“Alright... thanks” She says.

Eddie doesn’t say anything else as he pushes past her to go to sleep in Bill’s room.

“You aren’t gonna sleep in the guest room?” She asks with furrowed brows.

“Fuck no, Richie kicks and talks in his sleep. I’d rather stay on the floor with those two” Eddie answers, and then gives her a small wave before shutting the bedroom door.

She takes a deep breath as she stands in front of the guest room’s door. And then before she could stop herself, she opens the door, and shuts it quickly behind her as she steps inside.

Richie's laying in bed, arms wrapped around the pillow that his face is pressed into. He mumbles a slurred ‘who is it?’ into the feathery cushion. But he knows it’s her before she even answers. Because as she sits on the side of the bed next to him, he can smell her perfume.

He squints up at her, having lost his glasses somewhere in Bill’s room, and wonders what she’s doing here.

“Surprise” She says weakly, and a slight smirk tugs on his lips.

“What’s goin’ on?” He asks, leaning his face back down into the comfort of the cool pillow. He was already getting a headache from the four beers he had. (He’d drank two of the three Eddie had gotten)

“Can we talk?” She asks in a voice so soft that she can only be referencing one thing.

Richie nods, and pats the space next to him with his palm.

She hesitates for just a moment, before giving in and laying down in the spot, grabbing a hold of the other pillow she mirrors Richie’s actions and hugs it under her head.

He doesn’t say anything, just lays there with his eyes closed in the dark and waits for her to go first.

“Was I….” She starts, but then bites her lip and shakes her head as she changes her mind. “When we…”

“...hooked up?” He offers.

It’s so casual, so quiet, that her heart skips a beat, because she can’t believe he can just say it like that. Speak their darkest, most carefully kept secret, out into the open like that.

“Yeah…” She mumbled back. “Was I… I don’t know… good?”

He opens his eyes now, and his brows furrow as he sees her anxious expression.

They hadn’t talked about it since it had happened, which was their deal, but after her argument with Stan he figured she was going to sneak in here and talk to him. He’s not sure why she looks so scared, though.

“Were you good?” He repeats her question, like he doesn’t understand it.

She nods her head.

“(y/n), of course you were good, you were you,” He chuckles, a genuine smile on his lips. The compliment, if you could call it that, made her blush. “He’ll be lucky to have you in his bed, alright?”

“Be honest with me,” She said. “Don’t just say stuff to make me feel better”

“I’m not” Richie grumbles, laying back down again.

His head his swirling a bit, and with her laying so close to him, it wasn’t helping.

“Why haven’t you done it yet, anyways?” He asks her after it’s been silent for too long.

“I…” She tries and fails to answer the question. But she’s her most honest self when she’s with Richie, and feels he deserves an explanation for her behavior tonight. “... was scared” She finishes after a few minutes.

“You’re scared of sex?” He mumbles, and she shakes her head.

“No… just… with him”

“That makes no sense, (y/n/n)”

“I know” She whispers out, and her fingers draw patterns on the sheets.

“You think he’s gonna… hurt you?” Richie asks, because as soon as the thought crosses his mind, he has to ask.

“No, of course not,” She replies, and lifts up his blanket so she can shimmy under it and warm up a bit. “Sometimes I feel like I just don’t know him” Her voice drops to a whisper again.

Her eyes are focused on his tee shirt, trying to figure out what band is advertised on it while Richie thinks. He’s not sure what to tell her, because of course he doesn’t want to promote her hooking up with him. But… the guy’s her boyfriend, so what’s he supposed to do?

“(y/n)....” He sighs, and subconsciously wraps an arm around her. His hand tangles in her hair, massaging her scalp comfortingly. “That’s not true, you’ve been together for a while now”

The logic is there, but she’s unconvinced.

“And besides,” He continues, and she looks up at him, meeting his kind eyes. “When you’re ready, you’ll know,” He says, and he grins before poking her cheek and nose. “But you already know that”

She giggles softly, swatting away his hand.

“I hate when you’re right, you know,” She says through a yawn.

Without thinking, she leaned her head into his chest.

“What if I don’t want to do it, though?” She asks. “What if… what if I don’t like it?”

“You hurt my feelings when you talk like you’ve never done it before”

“No more jokes,” She whispers. “I mean it”

“Then you tell him, and you stop,” Richie answers without missing a beat. “That’s how it works… you know that, right?”

“S-sure,” She stammers out. “But what if-”

“No, there’s no ‘what ifs’ about that one, (y/n/n),” He tells her seriously. “I’m not fucking around, if you want to stop then you-”

“Don’t worry, Rich,” She hums. “You don’t have to give me the consent talk, that’s not what I mean”

His brows furrow down at her, but she doesn’t see because her eyes are closed and her face is hidden in his shirt. For a second he’s distracted and wonders if he should be holding her like this when she has a boyfriend.

“What… do you mean, then?”

“What if I’m not… um…” She trails off, clearly embarrassed.

“Come on, don’t hold out on me now” Richie chuckles teasingly.

“... attracted to him… sexually?” She speaks like she’s unsure of her words, and it takes everything in Richie not to laugh out loud.

“That’s not something I can fix, hon” He tells her, and she can tell he’s holding back a laugh.

She’s silent, and Richie hopes she hasn’t fallen asleep, because knows it wouldn’t be right to share a bed for the night.

“I mean you’ve… done other stuff, right?” He asks, and even that seems wrong. He really shouldn’t even be talking to her about this, but it’s not his fault that he’s the only person she can talk to about this stuff.

(It’s maybe his fault that they slept together in the first place, but surely (y/n) can take some responsibility for that one)

“Not really” She says in a barely audible mumble.

“Not really?” He repeats, confused by the question. “All you’ve done is-”

“We’ve made out a couple times,” She tells him before she overthinks it and starts to feel uncomfortable. “That’s it”

“Clothes have never come off?” He asks with a chuckle he can’t contain.

(y/n) shakes her head.

“What the fuck is wrong with-”

“Richie…”

“-him?” He finished anyways, taking her by surprise that he wasn’t trying to bash on her. “Look, (y/n/n), it’s your relationship, you do what you want to do. But do you even see a future with him?”

She’s silent again.

And then she shuffles off the mattress, and heads for the door.

“(y/n),” Richie called with a sigh. “It’s just a question”

She held the open door in her hand, and looked back at him. He had a guilty but confused look on his face, and was propped up in ed, hoping she’d come back and finish talking.

“I’m tired, Richie,” She said softly. “Goodnight”

He let out a sigh, regretting having been so forward and pushing her out of her comfort zone. He hadn’t realized it when he’d asked, but he sure as hell could tell now.

“Goodnight” He said before she could shut the door behind her.

(y/n) was glad that Beverly was fast asleep on the pullout bed still, because all she did for the rest of the night is fuss to get comfortable, only to lay wide awake, overthinking.

Trying to figure out a future with her boyfriend in it. ___

[ oh feel our bodies grow, and our souls they play // yeah love i hope you know how much my heart depends ]

It was loud, it was so loud that the bass in the music playing was ringing in her ears, and making the liquid in her cup ripple. But that might have just been because she was stumbling around so much, trying to find somewhere to chill out for a minute in this sea of bodies.

Richie Tozier’s hand was holding on tightly to hers, pulling her behind him, acting as a guide through the chaos. But who was she kidding, he was the chaos. It was his house party after all.

How he’d even invited this many people, (y/n) wasn’t sure. It’s not like he knew everyone here, but word of mouth works fast in Derry, and a byob party that had half a dozen kegs and then some, not one student from their school missed it.

Even Stan was here… somewhere.

It was a bit hopeless to go looking for people in this crowd.

Finally Richie had taken them outside. There were still a couple dozen people hanging out in his backyard, but at least she could hear herself think, or take a step without bumping into someone.

“Thank god,” She huffed, pushing her hair out of her face and taking a drink. “I thought I was gonna get trampled to death in there”

Richie chuckles, eyes shining as he watched her finally relax a bit.

“You would’ve made this party worth talking about if you had” He teases her.

“I think it already is,” She replies with a small and nervous laugh. “The whole school’s here, Rich, I think people will be talking about it for a- who brought a kiddie pool?”

She cuts herself off as her eye catch a plastic pool, filled with eyes and the most beer she’s ever seen all at once. They definitely hadn’t brought it, although she’s surprised that none of them had thought of it when planning for this party.

“Don’t know” Richie shrugs, and then wanders over to grab them two bottles.

They’d been drinking soda all night, not wanting to get shit faced so they could keep an eye on things. But they were well past that, and at this point, whatever happens, happens.

She taps her glass against his in a quiet ‘clink’

“Cheers to you, Tozier” She says with a rather sweet smile, the kind that he compulsively smiles back at.

“And you” He replies, before tipping the bottle back and taking a long swig.

The thing about (y/n) was that… well, there was just this thing. An undeniable, unspoken, electric thing. There was something about her that drew Richie towards her like a magnet. Even tonight, he’d shown up at her side, and just like that they’d spent the last two hours together. She was such a lovely person, which was a rarity in this town.

He had a feeling that she owned his heart, even though he just had a silly teenage crush on her. But what had started as a silly crush, an admiration for her beauty, grew into an adoration of her entire being, her soul. He was falling for her, at a speed from the atmosphere, and he was bound to crash soon.

Her hand reaches out and seizes the sleeve of his denim jacket, yanking him towards her all in one motion. His heart’s beating out of his chest with anticipation, but as quickly as she’d grabbed him, she was shaking him out of his daze.

“You almost got knocked over,” She tells him, nodding to the pair of drunken boys with their arms slung around one another, stumbling around the backyard, trying to walk in sync. “You alright?”

“Yeah, sorry, out of it” He answered with choppy words.

He finds the crease between her brows adorable.

“You only took one sip,” She jokes, poking at his bottle. “Quick, how many fingers am I holding up?” She asks, holding four fingers in front of his face while giggling.

Richie rolls his eyes, grabbing her hand to pull it out of his face.

But he doesn’t let go.

And for the next hour, as they talk and drink a little and dance, her hand remains in his. She didn’t say anything about it, which he’s silently thankful for. Maybe she feels safer when attached to him, knowing she’s not going to get sucked into the crowd and lost. Or maybe she just… wants to.

They’re dancing in the living room, to a song neither of them knew, with a hundred strangers, when she finally mentions it.

“You’re blushing!” She announces, albeit a bit tipsy.

There’s a grin on her face, and with her free hand she pokes at the pink on his cheeks.

“Cut that out- what’s with you and jabbing your fingers at me today?” He says, trying to brush it off and get her to forget about it. It doesn’t work.

She bursts into a fit of laughter, and her body leans towards his a bit as she does.

She only lets go of his hand to wrap her arms around his neck and spin them around excitedly.

“You never blush,” She says. “So what’s on your mind?”

She sounds bubbly, as if his answer is amusing to her, and she’s impatient to hear it. Richie shakes his head, and wills the heat in his face to go away, but it doesn’t. Of course it doesn’t, she’s standing a few inches away from him and staring at him with those round and curious eyes that he loves and-

“You” He responds with a shrug.

His voice is cool and casual as ever, but he’s losing his shit on the inside.

Her lips form an ‘o’ as she processes the single word. For a second he regretted speaking, which was kinda normal for him, but then her eyes lit up and she giggles with delightful bashfulness.

A breath of a laugh escapes his lips as he laughs nervously with her.

“You’re adorably funny” She says, and takes him by surprise when she leans up on her toes, cups her face in one hand, and presses a kiss to his other cheek.

When she lands back flat on her feet, she’s amused by the grin that she’d put on his face.

“Drinks?” She asks, and when he pulls a face, she clarifies, “Non-alcoholic drinks”

“Fine” He agrees, and when they head out of the living room, her hand reaches out and grabs his, slotting her fingers through his with ease.

He glances down to her when she does so, but she just gives him a big and innocent smile.

They find their friends in the kitchen. Beverly and Eddie are quite… shit faced, while Bill is drinking water and trying to get them to have some as well. From what Richie and (y/n) could tell, his efforts were useless.

“Let them be,” (y/n) says, ruffling up Eddie’s hair with her free hand, only to get swatted away. “They’ll pay the consequences in the morning”

Bill shrugs and hums in agreement, but he tries to get them to drink something.

“What’s goin’ on here?” Bev asks, pointing at Richie and (y/n’s) conjoined hands.

Richie starts to let go, but she squeezes his hand and smiles almost proudly at her drunk friend.

“Well I don’t wanna get lost” She says confidently.

Beverly shrugs, not having the attention span to ask further questions, or really care.

“Is that- are you- is that rootbeer?” Eddie asks, and he squints at the can in (y/n’s) hand, like he can’t see. “You’re at a- a fuckin’ party and you’re drinkin’ a soda?”

“Leave her alone Eddie Spaghetti” Richie chides, smacking the shorter boy on the shoulder.

“Yeah, Eddie Spaghetti” (y/n) adds in a mocking tone, and giggles to herself at the nickname.

Eddie hates it, but he’s drunk off his ass, so there’s not much he can do about it. He’ll try to throw hands with Richie tomorrow.

Bev starts to tell a story about a fight she saw on the front lawn. It’s missing parts, and she’s having a hard time remembering most of it, but they listen because it’s funny and interesting.

(y/n) sat herself on the kitchen counter, drink in one hand and Richie’s hand in the other, laughing along and encouraging her to continue. Even when she finishes her story, she’s not sure what happened, or who was even fighting, but it doesn’t matter.

“It’s l-late,” Bill says, eyeing the stove that reads 2:15. “I think I should go”

“You’re not staying the night?” (y/n) asked.

Richie’s parents would be gone for another day, leaving plenty of time for the Losers Club to hang out, and clean up the trashed house everyone else left behind.

“No, I sh-shouldn’t,” He says. “B-but I’ll come b-back tomorrow to help with th-the mess” He adds in a reassuring tone.

“Alright Billy,” (y/n) reaches her arms out towards him, prompting him to hug her goodbye. She embraces him tightly for a short moment. “See ya tomorrow”

He gives a small wave, and then offers a ride to Eddie and Bev. They both decide to keep drinking and crash at the house. He’s not surprised.

“I feel like dancing!” Beverly declares, and is out of the kitchen before anyone could say a word.

“Man is she fuckin’ wasted” Eddie chuckles.

Richie and (y/n) burst out laughing at the irony, but don’t tell him why it’s funny when he asks why they’re laughing their asses off.

Eddie winds up sitting on the kitchen floor, and then laying on it, cradling an empty bottle of vodka to his chest.

“You gonna sleep down there with him?” Richie asks (y/n), and gives the asmathic on the floor a gentle kick.

(y/n) giggles and shakes her head, and without thinking, reaches out to grab onto his hands again. With a small tug, he steps closer, almost standing between her open legs. But he doesn’t dare move that close.

“No…” She answers after a minute. “There’s no way in hell you’re making me sleep on a floor”

“Well, if the beds are all taken-”

“Richard Tozier” She says his name firmly, “If you don’t give me a bed to sleep in like a human fucking being I swear I will-”

“You’ll what, sweetheart?”

His voice drops an octave, and his head cocks to the side a bit as he stares at her skeptically, wondering what it was she was about to say next. When her mouth is left hanging open, he smirks a little.

“Come on (y/n/n), you’re not the threatening type,” He speaks at a normal volume again, but his closeness and the look on his face doesn’t fade. “Besides, you got nothing on me”

“Oh, I doubt that-” She tries to argue, but he cuts her off again.

“Just try to think of something, you can’t. My record’s squeaky clean”

He leans a bit closer with every word, but the movement is miniscule, and she’s probably the only person in the room who could have noticed it.

As soon as he eyes wander to his lips, they dart right back up, but it’s too late, he caught the glance, and his smirk widens.

Richie quirks a brow in question, like an asshole.

She sets her soda can on the counter next to her.

“You really value me so little that you’ll make me sleep, where, on the floor? The bathtub?”

“I think the tub is still occupied, actually,” Richie says. “And the floor, well, it’s covered in trash and…” He looks down to Eddie, who’s very close to passing out. “... more trash”

(y/n) hits his chest with the back of her hand.

“That was for Eddie” She says, and Richie laughs.

She’s got an offended look on her face, and fuck if it wasn’t the cutest thing he’s ever seen…

“I’m just saying sweetheart…” He shrugs his shoulders innocently. “Your sleeping options aren’t looking great. Pretty much everywhere is taken”

She’s quiet for a moment, and he can tell she’s hesitant, because she bites down on her lip, and she has a hard time keeping eye contact. He doesn’t rush her to say whatever’s on her mind, just stands there, unmoving, and waits.

“Show me a bed, then, Tozier”

It’s soft, whispered like a secret, and unsure.

They’re both still for a beat, each waiting for the other to back out.

But neither do.

So he offers her his hand, which she gladly takes before hopping off the counter and following closely behind him. Through the thinning crowd in the living room, and then up the stairs.

When they’re in the hall, he casts a look over his shoulder to her, and her eyes meet his instantly.

There’s something serious in them that he’s never seen in her before. Like she was trying to tell him something, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it is.

Her free hand grabs onto the sleeve of his jacket, tethering herself to him. There was nowhere to get lost up here, everyone was downstairs. Except for the boy passed out in the bathtub, and Richie was fairly certain a couple passed out in his parent’s bedroom. But right now, they were alone.

He brings her to his room, carefully peeking in to make sure no one was in there, before letting her inside. He’s quick to shut and lock the door.

(y/n) gives him a look at the sound of the lock clicking, and his face flushes.

“I mean- it’d be weird if some frisky couple were to come in- while we’re in here” He defends his actions.

She just hums, and wanders over to his dresser, where his fish tank sat. She smiled at his goldfish before swirling the tip of her finger in the water.

Richie just admires her while she glances over his things. The picture frames, the trinkets and forgotten things he’s left there. She looks so natural standing there.

It wasn’t often that she was in his room, Richie’s house isn’t somewhere that everyone hangs out at, and (y/n) and Richie rarely hang out alone. It was kind of nice to have so much time with her tonight, just her. And still, he wanted it all the time.

She can feel his eyes on her, and when she turns around, she isn’t surprised that she was right.

She gives him a small smile, and clasps her hands together behind her back. It was a nervous habit she had, squeezing her hands together tightly, and Richie loved seeing her do it now.

“It’s been a while since I’ve been in here,” She says, desperately trying to fill the silence. “Hasn’t changed much though” She added in a quieter voice.

He doesn’t say anything, and it only amps up her nerves.

And then he strides over to her, rather quickly, and her breath caught in her throat as he’s suddenly towering over her, face a mere few inches away from hers.

She’s frozen, staring at him wide eyed and waiting for him to do something.

She’d thought he was going to kiss her, and when he didn’t, hear heart only beat harder in her chest.

“What?” She asks, wondering what he was doing if he wasn’t going to make a move.

“Nothing” He shakes his head, and her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“What are you doing then?” She questions him again, voice a hundred times softer.

He gives her a playful smirk, and she almost frowns at him, annoyed by the teasing.

“I’m not doing anything” He hums with a shrug.

She rolls her eyes, done with the games, and steps away. She needs a breath. Or two. Two very deep breaths.

But before she can, Richie’s hand shoots out and grabs her wrist, pulling her back so rough that she collides into his chest, making them both stagger for a brief moment, until his lips crash down into hers.

She’s just gotten her balance back when he pulls away, staring at her expectantly, waiting for her to tell him to stop.

Her lips are parted and she’s panting softly, still in shock, and her eyes flutter open to meet his.

She doesn’t tell him to stop, instead, she leans up on the tips of her toes to kiss him again, a much longer kiss that she wished he’d begun with.

They pulled away at the same time.

“We can’t tell the others!” They both rush out the words so fast, so panicked, but it disappears as they register the other agrees.

And then all at once they’re kissing again. His hands are gripping her hips, keeping her pressed completely against him, while hers are tangled in his hair, combing and gripping at his strands of curls.

Their lips move so feverishly, both desperate for every second to be fulfilling. They knew this was a once in a lifetime chance, that this was their only chance, and it had to be perfect.

They part for a few seconds, so (y/n) can catch her breath.

His nose prods against hers, before he takes her cin between his thumb and forefinger, turning her head to the side so that he can trail a line of kisses along her jaw, tracing up to the sweet spot just below her ear.

He bit the soft skin, because he couldn’t help himself. She gasped softly, and then giggled at the delightful and ticklish feeling of his mouth against the spot. Her hands tighten a bit in his hair.

Eventually, once he’s left a decent purple mark on her neck, she tugs on his hair, pulling his lips back to hers needily. She’s delicate as she glides over the seam of his lips with her tongue. Richie isn’t so sweet as he gladly tangles his own tongue with hers.

When she’s the one to win the battle for dominance, she smirks against his lips. But Richie’s quick to retaliate, turning her suddenly, and pushing her backwards until she runs into the wall.

Her lips detach from his as she grunts at the surprise contact, and her eyes shoot up to his out of annoyance.

“Jesus, fucking watch it” She mutters.

She grabs the collar of his jacket and yanks his lips back down to hers anyways, already craving more contact.

Kissing Richie Tozier is exactly as she expected, or more accurately dreamed, it would be. Bliss. Passionate. Hot.

She hastily shoves his jacket down his shoulders, and then practically clawed the sleeves off of his arms. As soon as it was discarded, his hands slammed into the wall on either side of her head, caging her in. She loves it.

She wonders if he’s really gotten her addicted to his lips in a matter of two minutes.

After a few more kisses, she confirms that he has.

Her arms wrap around his neck and she can’t hold back a smile.

They part for a moment, and then rush to his bed.

(y/n’s) giggling as Richie crawls over her, one hand caressing her cheek while the other is pinned to the bed as not to crush her. His thumb brushed over her cheekbone sweetly.

“You’re sure?” He asks, suddenly worried that he was rushing her.

But she nods, excitedly, and pulls his face down so she can kiss him again.

“But like-” Richie pulls away. “You’re sure you’re sure? Like absolutely positive?”

“Richie,” She laughs, shaking her head a bit. “Yes”

And that’s how it happened. ___

[ but i guess that’s love, i can’t pretend… i can’t pretend... ]

(y/n) had known Richie pretty much her whole life. And they’d always gotten along, despite his big mouth and his tendency to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. She found it endearing that he would call her hot stuff and then his face would go bright red, knowing he’d made a mistake.

But the thing was, that changed the day after they’d hooked up. They were still friends, they still hung out, and it wasn’t necessarily awkward, but it was different. He didn’t call her cute names anymore, not even sweetheart. He stuck solely to his nickname for her.

She wasn’t sure if it was because of their incident, or because she was seeing someone. It often felt like she was walking on eggshells around him, unsure of what to say or do. It was like as soon as they’d crossed the line between friends and more than friends, she wasn’t sure how to go back to being just friends.

And she hadn’t ever thought of Richie as boyfriend material. Even when they’d hooked up, she hadn’t considered the idea of being with him romantically. Sure, he was attractive and funny and… charismatic, exciting, and somehow tender at the same time-”

“Babe..? Babe?”

(y/n) snapped back to reality, spinning around to see her boyfriend standing behind her. He gave a short laugh before nodding to the dish in her hand that she must have been scrubbing for a few minutes now.

“Daydreaming?” He asks, while she bashfully set the very clean plate on the counter.

“Something like that” She replied, and went on to cleaning the next dish.

They’d had a nice dinner, one they both prepared. She thought it would be fun to cook with him, maybe they would even listen to music and dance around the tiled floor. But her boyfriend wasn’t that kind of guy, and this wasn’t a romantic comedy.

Richie would dance in the kitchen with me-

“So!” (y/n) spoke, a little too loud as she tried to rid her own thoughts from her head. “Movie?”

Her boyfriend grinned, and gave her a thumbs up before leaving the kitchen and heading to the living room to pick out a good movie for them to watch.

(y/n) went back to distracting herself with doing the dishes. But her pesky thoughts kept on getting in the way of her task.

Thinking of Richie in a romantic light made her feel dazed. He was Richie. Trashmouth Tozier, the boy she grew up with that was infamous for trying to ride his bike off the cliffside at the quarry. He wasn’t someone you had a crush on, he was someone you always had a dumb story about.

But besides that, it simply wasn’t fair of her to think of him this way. They had both agreed that what they had was a one time thing, and it didn’t mean anything to either of them. They were just friends, and that was all either of them wanted to be.

At least, that’s what she’d always told herself.

But when she thought back on last summer, all she could remember was how badly she wanted him to kiss her that whole night. And when he finally had… it felt like she was flying.

Drying the last dish, she left it on the counter, and forced herself to relax on the couch with her boyfriend.

Whatever movie he’d picked, she’d never heard of, and it only took seven minutes of watching it for her to realize why. It was boring.

She was so damn near close to passing out, even though he seemed excited to share it with her.

“Hey,” She hummed after half an hour of forcing herself to stay awake. He hummed in response, but didn’t look away from the television.

So she took matters into her own hands, and turned his head so she could kiss him.

She poured all of the passion that she could into the kiss, hoping to convey that she wanted him, and she wanted him now.

But how could she do such a thing when it wasn’t true? She simply wasn’t convincing enough. Not to him, or herself.

Defeated, she pulled away from him, and by the look on his face, she knew that he sensed her disappointment. Which was ironic, because he had never been in sync with her emotions in the last four and a half months they’d been together.

“What’s wrong?” He asked.

There was a deep frown on her face, and her eyes were so apologetic that he just knew what was coming next.

“I’m sorry” She mumbled out.

“(y/n)...?” He was hoping that by some miracle she wasn’t about to break up with him.

“I can’t do this anymore” She finished weakly, voice cracking a bit as her throat burned with tears.

“What do you mean?” He asked. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

She didn’t say anything, just shut her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to keep herself from crying. It would be pathetic if she broke up with him and she was the one to cry about it.

“Whatever it is I can work on it, we can fix it-”

“No, you can’t-”

“Yes I can-”

“You can’t fix this!” She shouted, not meaning to come off as angry, but her emotions had flustered her and it was making her frustrated. “Because there’s nothing to fix, there’s nothing here” She clarified, her hands flying between them.

“What do you mean there’s nothing here?” He asked, sounding broken. For a moment, she felt bad for saying something so cruel. “Is there someone else?”

And then her guilt disappeared.

“What? Of course not-”

“Well there- there has to be!”

“Well there isn’t!” She shouted back. “Jesus Christ, don’t make this more difficult than it has to be,” She rolled her eyes. “I don’t feel anything, anything, for you! I thought with time that I could learn to love you, but I haven’t. There’s no spark-”

He seized forward, taking her face in his hands and kissing her frantically.

But just as soon as his mouth crushed over hers, she shoved his shoulders with all the force she could muster, and leapt off of the sofa.

She was stunned to silence at first, surprised that he’d done something so dramatic and… disgusting.

“I’m done,” She said, heading for the door, and putting on her shoes and coat with lightning speed. “Don’t fucking call me- don’t talk to me at school, I’m done”

He tried to call after her, but she slammed the door behind her as she stormed out, and ran down the sidewalk, just in case he had the idiotic idea to chase after her.

She slowed at the end of the block, mentally striking herself upside the head at the thought. Of course he wouldn't chase after her. It would be an act of passion for him to pursue her, and he would be in denial to think he was any more in love with her than she was with him.

It dawned on her that she’d been in denial for the past four months for thinking she could learn to love him. You can’t learn to love anybody, it has to come naturally. And there wasn’t one natural thing about their relationship.

She wrapped her arms around herself to keep warm in the chilly december air, and walked the rest of the way home. She’d had enough of today, and just wanted to crawl into bed, and try not to cry. ___

When the doorbell rang, Richie ignored it. Surely his parents would get it, and he could stay in bed.

When it rang again, he shoved his pillow over his head.

It wasn’t until the third time the sound rang that he remembered his parents were at an event in Augusta tonight.

So with a groan, and the realization that whoever it was, wasn’t going to go away, he dragged himself out of bed, and down the stairs.

It was almost midnight, who the fuck was a the door? He decided if it was some freshman ding-dong ditching him, that he’d run them down and ruin their shit.

When he whipped open the door, he also opened his can of whoop ass on the unsuspecting freshman.

“Do you realize that it’s the middle of the fucking ni-”

He shut up real fast when he realized it was (y/n) standing there, who now looked incredibly taken off guard to have been greeted so harshly.

“(y/n)?”

It was only then that he realized she was crying softly.

“Oh- oh my god, I’m sorry- I thought you were-”

“It’s fine” She said, and then sniffled quietly.

“What- what are you-”

“I’m sorry, it’s not r-right of me to show up in the middle of the night,” She whimpered a little bit, and wiped her sleeve over her cheeks to get rid of her tears. “I should go home-”

“No,” Richie reached out, taking her wrist and tugging her inside. “Come in, stay” He rushed the words out while shutting the door, not wanting her to leave, and especially not like this.

She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to stop her own shivering. She didn’t even want to look at Richie while crying, but at the same time-

“So what’s going on-?”

Before he could even finish talking, she threw her arms around him and buried her face in his shoulder.

Richie stumbled a bit from the sudden force of her hug, but wrapped his arms around her nonetheless and hugged her tightly.

It was obvious that she was trying to stop crying in front of him, but she just couldn’t help it.

“Did something happen?” He asked, but received no answer. “Are you hurt?”

He could feel her tears seeping into the fabric of his tee shirt.

“Hey, sweetheart,” He called softly, and pulled her away to look at her. She kept her eyes shut, which made him chuckle, but eventually she looked up at him. “Come on, (y/n/n),” He hummed. “Talk to me”

She took in a deep breath, and Richie mentally prepared himself for whatever was going to come next. It must be serious if she came to him instead of Beverly, or Eddie.

“I couldn’t have sex with him” She murmured.

Richie’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, and confusion, and a feeling he wasn’t quite sure of. He never would have guessed that’s what had her so distraught.

“Um…”

“I know,” (y/n) cried out, tears streaming down her cheeks again. “It’s pathetic, I’m so pathetic!”

“(y/n),” Richie said, setting his hands on her shoulders so she would calm down. “You’re not- where is this coming from? Why are you so upset about this?”

It took her a minute to catch her breath, and her tears hadn’t really stopped flooding, but at least she could speak again.

“I broke up with him” She admitted.

Richie’s eyes widened, and again, she’d done what he’d least expected. Her eyes were darting between his, trying to figure out what he was thinking. But he looked so shocked, she couldn’t tell.

“Do you think I made a mistake?” She asked in a murur, her hands resting against his chest, and her body gravitating towards his a bit more from the sensitive question.

“I…”

He was having a hard time maintaining eye contact with her, his brain moving far too fast and his train of thought going in too many different directions for him to comprehend what he even thought.

“You do, don’t you?” (y/n) asked defeatedly. “I should’ve tried harder- maybe I could have loved him-?”

“What? (y/n), no, don’t think like that,” He scolded her gently. “If you didn’t feel anything, then that’s it, that’s the end, it didn’t work”

She stares down at her feet.

“(y/n)...” Richie sighed, lifting her chin softly with his hand. “Did you even like him?”

She shrugged her shoulders, which was answer enough.

“Oh, (y/n),” His thumb stroked gently against her jaw, before he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her again. “If you didn’t like him there was never even a chance of you falling in love- that’s just not how it works sweetheart”

(y/n) grabbed the back of his shirt in her fists, just wanting to hold onto him for a few moments longer.

“How’s it work?” She mumbled into his shoulder after embracing for a few moments.

“Well first of all, you don’t learn to do it, it just happens,” He chuckles, and his hands begin to rhythmically rub her back. “And you won’t find them boring. That guy was a sack of fucking potatoes (y/n/n) I don’t know what you were doing with him-”

“Yeah yeah I get it,” She cut him off before he could go on. “What else?” Her voice was so soft, so full of curiosity for where these kind words were coming from, that she just had to know what more Richie thought about the subject.

“Well…” He hummed, still rubbing her back as he thought. “You typically enjoy their company, more than anyone else’s, even if you won’t admit it,” He was thinking out loud. “And they’ll always be the prettiest thing in your eyes- even when they won’t stop crying all over you” He teased.

She glared up at him, and wiped her tears with the back of her hand.

“Come on, be real,” She said. “He was nice, and cute, and he really liked me, why wasn’t there a spark?”

He shook his head at her.

“Like I said. Can’t learn to love someone, and you can’t force what isn’t there,” He shrugged. “I’m sorry though. You’re clearly bothered by it”

She wanted to explain that she wasn’t bothered by the breakup at all. She was bothered by the mixup in her feelings. By what she thought to be true- but wasn’t quite sure yet.

“You want tea? Or something?” He offered after she hadn’t spoken for a few beats.

“No,” She shook her head, and then stepped back from him. “A blanket would be nice though? I had to walk the whole way here and it’s freezing”

Richie chuckled, and nodded.

“‘I’ll get one from upstairs. Be right back”

He headed off rather quickly, taking the steps two at a time to get a blanket from his room.

The one time she’d stayed overnight, she’d really liked one of his- and he’d know, because she hogged it, and he had to wake her up to get her to share. So he figured that one would do fine.

At the sound of a soft knocking at his door frame, he turned to see (y/n) standing there.

Her eyes were wandering around his room, mapping it out like it was her first time here. However, she hadn’t been here since…

He didn’t miss the blush on her cheeks when her gaze landed on his bed, the covers messed up from his attempts to sleep earlier. And then finally, she looked at him.

“Oh,” She smiled, and walked into the room, taking the blanket from his hands. “You remembered” She said with a small laugh as she wrapped it tightly around herself.

It was still a little bit warmed, and smelled so distinctly like Richie, it made her want to melt into it. And she nearly did for a moment.

“Well how could I you almost made me freeze to death that night” He muttered teasingly.

“Fuck off, I did not” She played back, but her voice was much gentler than his.

He gave her a look as if to say ‘you did though’, which she only rolled her eyes to.

Deciding it’d be best to ignore him, she walked over to his dresser to excitedly play with his fish. It didn’t do much, but it did swim back and forth in front of her finger, which was amusing enough.

“You… want to watch a movie?” Richie asked.

He didn’t want her to leave, but he didn’t know how to offer her to stay the night either.

“Sure” She answered, and followed him downstairs.

Richie made her pick the movie, that way whatever they watched she wouldn’t lose interest in.

“What?” She’s asked when he tried to leave the room for popcorn.

“I said pick whatever you want so you actually watch it and enjoy it” Richie repeated himself, and was in the kitchen before he could see her face change expressions.

Her heart skipped a beat in her chest, and all she could do was stare at where he stood with his back to her. She didn’t even bother looking at his DVD collection, and followed him into the kitchen.

“You want me to pick a movie I like?” She asked him.

Richie gave her a weird look over his shoulder as she set the timer on the microwave.

“What? Yeah” He answered.

“But you’ll hate it,” She said matter-of-factly. “It’s a chick flick, it’s real cheesy, not even Eds would watch it with me”

“Okay?” Richie repeated. “You setting me up to hate it?”

She stared at him skeptically, and Richie had a similar look on his face, but only because he was very confused.

“Just pick a movie, (y/n/n), anyone’s fine” He chuckled.

He pulled the bag of popcorn out of the mic when it beeped, and dumped it’s contents into a large bowl. When he turned back around, (y/n) was still standing there. His brows furrowed, and he popped a kernel into his mouth.

“Would you dance with me?” She asked him.

Her volume was so soft he almost didn’t catch what she’d said, but when he processed the words, he was sure he’d heard her wrong.

“What?”

“Would you dance with me?” She repeated, a bit more clearly. “If I asked?”

“Is…. that what you want to do?” Richie spoke unsurely, trying to figure out what part of the breakup process ‘dancing’ would fall under. He shoved more popcorn into his mouth.

“I just wanna know” She shrugged.

“I mean, sure, but then the popcorn would get cold, it’s only good when it’s-”

“Richie” She mumbled, and by some miracle he actually heard her, and stopped rambling. He knows from the way she’s staring at him, and the sudden softness in her voice that something’s up. He waits for her to continue, but she doesn’t.

“What?” He feels like he’s lost, because he really has no idea what’s going on with her tonight. This breakup had really thrown her for a loop, he supposed

“Nothing” She shook her head, and before he could question her about her strange behavior, snatched the popcorn bowl and made a break for the living room.

When they got settled on the sofa and the movie (y/n) picked began to play. They were sat side by side, the bowl of popcorn separating them. She tucked her feet up underneath her in an attempt to be more comfortable, and kept on fussing with the blanket. It was like no matter how many times she readjusted, she just couldn’t get settled.

Eventually, she sighed, and looked over at Richie.

Low and behold, he was completely wrapped up in the plot of the movie, and hadn’t noticed a thing. (y/n) smiled at this, loving that he’d actually gotten into her lame romantic comedy. She leaned her head back on the cushion as she admired him. He was so serious when he was focused on something, his jaw set in place, eyes trained on the screen. It was so cute how drawn into the movie he really was.

Something happened that made him laugh, and he turned to (y/n) to crack a joke about it, but whatever he was about to say was lost on him when he caught her eyes already locked on him.

“Would you do it again?” She asked, before he could think of anything to say. He doesn’t have to ask her to clarify what she means, because he knows, he can tell by the way she’s studying him. “Ever?” She adds in a mumble after he’s been quiet for just a beat too long.

“Well, that’s a trick question now isn’t it?” He chuckles, but she shakes her head.

“No,” She speaks softly, “It’s not, I’m just wondering,”

She’s looking up at him so innocently that he wonders what sparked this question. Not that he hadn’t been thinking about it every minute of every day for the past four and a half months or so. He just didn’t think it ever crossed her mind. They had sworn to each other that it was a one time thing, no pesky strings or feelings attached. And Richie had thought she’d stuck to that promise pretty well- mostly because not a week later she’d gotten asked out, and then she dated the guy for a while.

“There’s no wrong answer, Rich,” She giggles, a nervous little sound that was the result of her heart doing backflips in her chest. “Really”

His eyes flicker between her impatient ones, testing to see if that were really true.

“Kind of” He says.

Her brows furrowed, signaling that there apparently was a wrong answer, and he’d said it.

“Kind of-?”

“Well, there’s a lot I’d do differently” He muses with a shrug of his shoulders, before she could get upset and ask him just what the hell ‘kind of’ means.

She angles her body a bit more towards his, waiting eagerly to hear what he has to say. But he gives her a confused look.

“What would you do differently?” She asks. She sounds restless, and Richie chuckles to himself. “Come on, really”

“For starters, I wouldn’t have chosen to do it at my own houseparty. Someone busted the coffee table you know, and I blame you for that-”

“What else?” She asks abruptly.

“Alright well,” Richie huffs, deciding there was no turning back now, because she was already more than eager to hear what he was thinking. “Also probably should’ve been a little more sober, just a little,” She laughed quietly, but didn’t speak so that he’ll keep talking. “And I would’ve grabbed an extra blanket, had I known you were a blanket hogger”

She laughs again, and this time he laughs with her. It’s a sweet moment, for it being so vulnerable.

“And I would’ve made sure you didn’t go in the morning” He confesses, in the midst of their laughter. (y/n’s) laughter stops instantaneously.

“What?” She murmurs, like she’d heard him wrong, because she must have heard him wrong.

“Yeah,” He shrugs. “I wouldn’t have let you go”

She blinks, stunned.

“You wanted me to stay?” She asks, a sweet little whisper that was bound to make everything come crashing down.

“Of course I did,” Richie chuckles. “I’d be an idiot to let you- I was an idiot to let you go. I hated that feeling,”

She’s silent again, her lips parted as the more he explained himself, the more surprised she was.

“It felt like- like I’d made the biggest mistake of my life- and trust me sweetheart, sleeping with you was a miracle- but if I could do it over again I wish that I could’ve...um…”

She’s waiting, hanging on to every word he spoke. She doesn’t realize that she’s leaning closer to him, too antsy to wait for him to find his voice.

“(y/n/n) if I’m being honest then I would’ve told you how I felt- about you- that night”

“How you felt about me?” She repeats in disbelief, and then sits upright on the couch, realizing they’re only a few inches away from one another.

Richie watches her as she takes the popcorn bowl and sets it to the side. And then leans back in towards him again, giving him her undivided attention.

“And how did you feel about me?” She murmurs.

Her hands set on his wrists, grasping onto them softly as his hands reach out to wrap around her waist.

“How didn’t I feel- Jesus I liked you so much I lost my fucking mind when you wanted me too”

Once he’s holding her firmly, she lets go of his hands to rest her palms on his shoulders, tilting up towards him to be more at his height. Even sat on the couch Richie practically towered over her.

“I didn’t know it was more to you than a quick fuck” She hums. Her voice is too sweet to be saying something so filthy, and it makes him chuckle just a bit.

He couldn’t help but tug her hips forwards, small prod really, but she took the bait and swung her leg over his lap.

“There was nothing quick about it sweetheart,” He teases, and as she situates herself on his lap, he releases one of his hands from her waist to gently trail his fingers over her throat, until his hand settles against the side of her neck. She’s blushing, but she’s smiling with anticipation.

He pulls her towards him a bit, and the tip of her nose presses against his cheek, her lips barely ghosting his. When her eyes flickered shut, Richie smirks

“And you were never a quick fuck”

She leans in, wanting nothing more than to kiss him and never stop. There was more electricity between them in this moment than she’d ever felt with her ex, and the realization made her feel like she was alive again.

Just as her moment of liberation is about to happen, the doorbell rings.

Richie brushes it off and cups her cheek, leaning in to kiss her anyways, but then his visitor started screaming.

“Richiieeee!” The distinct voice of Eddie Kaspbrack rings out from the other side of the door. “Dude! Open up! I got some drama for you!”

Richie and (y/n) turn to look at each other, equally confused.

“Let’s just pretend he’s not there” Richie says, making her giggle as he finally tries to kiss her.

And then Eddie lets himself in.

“I’m coming in!” He announces, and shuts the door behind him. “You’re not gonna believe this! (y/n) broke up with-”

It doesn’t surprise the couple on the couch when Eddie stops talking, and stares wide eyed and open mouthed.

“What the fuck is going on here!?” He’s screaming, which also isn’t a surprise, but it’s very upsetting.

(y/n) calmly slides off of Richie’s lap, and he lets go of his hold on her.

“Nothing” They say at the same time, unconvincingly.

“You were on his lap-” Eddie accuses.

“I-”

“You were kissing-!”

“No-?” Richie tries.

“You guys have been fucking this whole time!” He screeches.

“No!” Richie and (y/n) speak simultaneously again.

“Wait,” (y/n) walks over to Eddie. “How did you know I broke up with-”

“He called me” Eddie shrugged.

“What?”

“Yeah, he was trying to call you, but you never picked up. Clearly you weren’t home, because you were here, letting Richie get in your pants- jesus fuck (y/n) I thought you had better standards-”

“Stop it” (y/n) hissed, before frustratedly running her hands through her hair.

Richie shot up from the couch, walking over in hopes of convincing her to sit back down and relax again. But she shrugged off his hand and continued to pace around between him and Eddie.

“Very uncool, dickwad” Richie muttered to Eddie, who gave him an exasperated look and flipped him off.

“Why’d you come here then?” (y/n) spoke up.

“Um… huh?” Eddie played stupid.

“Why’d you come here? If my ex called you looking for me, why’d you come to tell Richie the news?”

Eddie and Richie shared a look, only making the girl more confused.

“I- well I thought you’d be here, you know, for support-”

Eddie shut up when the girl narrowed her eyes in disbelief. He was never a good liar, and (y/n) had a pretty good bullshit detector.

“This isn’t important,” Eddie shook his head. “What’s important is that he’s heartbroken, and looking for y-”

“I don’t care,” (y/n) said with a humorless chuckle as she crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t fucking care! He’s the worst, and he’s insane to think that he was ever in love with me. Had a real boring way of expressing it-”

“Uh, I’m not here to tell you to get back together with him” Eddie said before she could yell anymore.

“What are you here for, then?” (y/n) asked.

“I could ask you the same thing” Eddie shoots back, and smirks victoriously between the two.

Richie’s just standing there, knowing better than to open his mouth. If he did, something bad would slip and he knew it, so he stared down at the ground.

(y/n) puckers her lips, casting a glance to Rich before back to Eddie.

“Well?” The asthmatic boy asks. “What the fuck were you guys up to?”

“None of your business,” Richie says before (y/n) has the chance to say anything. “You should go, Eds, I’ll call you tomorrow. We’re busy”

“With what?” Eddie’s practically daring Richie to confess.

“We’re watching a movie, don’t make me fucking kick you out”

Eddie rolls his eyes, bored with the lack of drama, and then heads for the door.

As soon as he closes it, he whips it open again, pointing an accusatory finger at the pair left standing there, as if he’d caught them in the act.

“Go, Eds” They both say, with the utmost annoyance in their voices.

This time when he left, they both watched the door, as if waiting for him to jump back into the room again. When it was clear he’d actually gone this time, (y/n) let out a sigh of relief.

She looked at Richie, and then back to the couch, where the movie, the popcorn bowl, and her blanket were left unattended.

“I should probably g-”

“You wanna stay the night?” Richie asked before she could finish her sentence, and her eyes shot up to his.

“Really?” She asked in disbelief.

Richie just nodded, and so she hesitantly nodded back.

“Okay” She agreed softly.

“I’ll find something for you to sleep in,” He told her. “You can finish the movie if you want” And with that he headed up the stairs.

At this point, she was more confused than ever. She had no idea where her and Richie stood now, the line between friendship and something… else… was so warped in her mind that she couldn’t tell how he felt anymore.

Richie came back down a few minutes later, finding her sat on the couch with the movie paused and the popcorn bowl in her lap. He grinned as he handed her a long sleeved shirt and a pair of sweatpants that looked very soft.

After changing quickly in the bathroom, she concluded they were the coziest things she’d ever worn. And Richie’s scent and laundry detergent lingered in them, making every inhale of breath she took be inviting.

When she came back out, Richie was on the couch, just waiting. His back was turned to her, and she could tell he was drumming his hands on his legs, a frequently done nervous habit of his.

She stood there for a moment, too anxious to walk over and sit with him like nothing had happened in the last half hour. Even though with everything that’s happened, her heart was beating a mile a minute with no end in sight.

Richie must’ve realized she was there, because he turned and made a face as if to ask why she was just standing there.

His expression softened though when his eyes landed on her figure. She looked so goddamn cute in his clothes that were just a bit too big for her. And by just a bit, I mean the sleeves kept falling over her hands and the waistband of the sweatpants had probably been rolled three times to keep the fabric from barely touching the ground.

He thought he was gonna have a stroke.

“You gonna come sit, sweetheart?” He finally spoke, “Or just stand there and look pretty all night?”

She laughs, and the tension in the room thins out a little as she makes her way over to sit with him again. Richie plays the movie again, and just like before, gets sucked right into it.

(y/n) sort of watches it, but has little attachment to what’s going on. Her mind is too busy processing everything, there was no capacity to keep an eye on a film as well.

The popcorn bowl is empty, so she can’t distract herself with eating. And she’s already tapping her fingers on her knee to a made up beat in her mind. How Richie is able to actually watch this movie right now is beyond her.

“(y/n)?” He asks, and she realizes he’s been staring at her for a while, trying to get her attention. She hums in response. “Do you want me to shut off the movie?”

Her eyes are wide as they meet his.

“W-why?” She stammers out.

“Because you aren’t paying attention at all,” He chuckles. “Are you tired? It is like… one in the morning”

“Uh- yeah, I-I guess” She stumbles over her words again, and balls up the fabric of her blanket in her hands.

He gives her a dorky little smile, and then stands to turn off the tv. She watches him grab the empty bowl before leaving the room.

She gets up to follow him into the kitchen, but he waved her off.

“You should go up to bed,” He says. “I’ll finish up down here”

She doesn’t know what else to say, so she follows the instructions.

It dawns on her that she hasn’t told her parents that she won’t be coming home tonight, but as she gets situated in Richie’s bed with her new favorite blanket, she just can’t seem to care. She decides a lecture when she comes home tomorrow is worth it.

She’s under all the covers, and her face is buried deep into a pillow when Richie finally comes up. He smirks at how settled she’s already gotten.

“You sleeping already?” He asks quietly, and her eyes open to smile at him.

“No, ‘m waiting” She hums, before snuggling her face back into her pillow.

“Waiting?” He asks, and walks closer to hear her better.

“Mhm”

“For… Santa?”

“For you, dummy,” She giggles softly, and then makes a grabby hand towards him. “Hurry up”

He laughs, and shakes his head at her, before kneeling onto the bed.

“I kinda thought I should sleep on the-”

“In here,” She whispers, hand finding his wrist and latching onto it. “With me, please” She adds in a much softer voice, like she’s embarrassed to ask, and he knows that she is.

“Okay…” Richie hesitantly gets under the covers. “As long as that doesn’t bother you”

“It didn’t before” She replies casually.

Her eyes are closed, but he smiles warmly at the comment. He thinks she’s falling asleep, but he was wrong, because her hand trailed from his wrist so that her fingertips were pressed into his palm.

“Richie?” She calls quietly.

He hums.

Her eyes open, and she squirms a little closer to him, finding comfort in the heat he radiated.

Her fingers slot into the spaces between his perfectly, and she grasps his hand tight.

“You weren’t a quick fuck for me either,” She admits gently.

He can see in her eyes that she’s uncertain, that she’s nervous to say anything, so he squeezes her hand to reassure her that she can tell him anything.

“And I wanted you long before that night, I just… um…” She licks her lips anxiously before continuing. “I didn’t think that you uh… actually wanted me, you know, like, more than…” She doesn’t finish her thought, but she doesn’t have to.

Richie gives her a smile, and then reaches his free hand out to brush his knuckles over her cheek. She smiles back at the comforting touch.

“You’ll stay in the morning?” He whispers, and she nods, brows drawn together as her smile widens. “Good” He breathes out in relief.

They lean in simultaneously, and their lips touch in a soft and sweet kiss. (y/n) relishes in how her lips seemed to have his committed to memory, and she melts against him once again.

She pushes forward so that her body is flush against his, and her free hand is holding his shirt in a fist. She’s filled with more love and lust and happiness that a girl can be, practically overflowing with it, even.

Richie pulls away too soon for her liking, tucking a strand of her hair back behind her ear tenderly before meeting her gaze.

“If anyone asks,” He tells her, “That was our first kiss”

(y/n) giggles, and nods her head before kissing him sweetly again.

“Okay” She agrees.

His fingers comb through her hair for a few moments, and he contemplates laying here, like this, with her, for the rest of his life. The quiet moment is so serene, so perfect, that he can’t imagine ever being happier than he is right now.

(y/n) whispers something, but it’s so soft that he only catches her lips moving.

“What?” He muses, and instantly there’s a pink blush blooming across her cheeks. “What?” He asks again, this time chuckling at her bashfulness.

“I love you…” She murmurs, only darkening her blush.

Richie pulls her into his chest, wrapping her up in his arms as he cradles her close for the night.

“I love you too, sweetheart,” He responds with a kiss to the top of her head. “Let’s do it right this time, okay?”

“M’kay” She hums back delightedly, already beginning to fall asleep in his arms.

It took months of agony and confusion to get here, but it couldn’t be clearer now. This is what love was supposed to feel like. She hadn’t learned to love before because that’s simply not how it works. Her heart already belonged to someone else, and she hardly even knew it. But now, it and she were all his, and he’d take good care of them.

[ i guess that’s love, i can’t pretend. ]

___

taglist: @fiantomartell @lemonypink @darling-egg

xoxo ~ jordie

#it 2017 #it 2019 #richie tozier #richie tozier x reader #richie tozier imagine #richie tozier scenario #richie rosier fanfiction #finn wolfhard #bill hader

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coeurdastronaute · 4 years

Text

Essays in Existentialism: Boss

Prompt.. Lexa and Clarke sleep together one night, the next morning Clarke comes in to start her new job and turns out Lexa will be her boss (basically how Meredith and Derek first meet in grey's anatomy) yeah cool...love your writing

The tiny townhouse on the corner of Grant and Lincoln was nearly unpacked, but still occupied the unfinished zone of moving in. The furniture was there, with boxes opened and in various states of emptied. Sheets were tossed on the bed, but it wasn’t made. Clothes were rooted through and half hung in the closet at the top of the stairs. The only things in the fridge were little Chinese take out boxes and a handful of sauce packets.

But that didn’t mean a thing to the bodies on the couch.

Well tired and sated, the two tangled torsos and limbs hung and clung to each other on the small area, not having much to discuss the night before, but rather making the other body too tired to hear and speak and think, and thus fell asleep in a knot. It wasn’t many hours of sleep between the bar and the sex and the moment one of the bodies shifted and the otehr fell to the floor with a thud.

“Ow.”

“What was--”

“Just my back. And hip. And… head,” the body on the floor wheezed slightly, wincing against the pain.

“Oh shit, it’s daylight,” Clarke squinted toward the windows witn no curtains or blinds and realized how late it was. “Oh fuck!”

“Seems to be.”

The body on the couch sat up and hopped over the back before snatching the blanket and carefully wrapping it around her naked body.

“I have to go. I have work...um…”

“Lexa,” she sat up from the floor, propping herself up on her elbows and looking up over the cushions.

Completely naked, the girl on the floor smiled and pushed away a mess of hair while Clarke looked at her and blushed and tried not to look, desperately. She wanted to look, but that would distract her from the process of getting ready, and Clarke had to get to work. It was her first day, after all, beautiful naked sex god be damned.

“Right. Lexa. Nice to meet you, but I have to--”

“Yeah, of course,” she nodded, tugging a pillow in front of herself to shield as much nakedness as possible. “Do you live here?”

“Just moved.”

“Cool. From where.”

“I really have to-- It was fun and all--”

A pair of blank panties were held up from the floor by hands attached to a mischievous hand oddly victorious grin. Clarke remembered the same smile somewhere between the whiskey and tequila, the smile nd the eyes and the intent way the stranger in the bar listened to her words. More importantly, she remembered the fragments of the sex and the things that mouth could do and that was the reason for the victory, and it was deserved.

“But you have to go to work,” Lexa repeated.

With a graceless motion, Clarke reached over the couch and snatched the offending lingerie before agreeing full-heartedly.

“It was nice to meet you, Lexa,” Clarke promised. “But when I come back downstairs, you’ll be gone, and I’ll be on my way to work.”

“Right. Work. I should, too. It was nice, to uh, do this. Maybe we can again--”

The offer was barely acknowledged as Clarke hopped up the stairs and toward the shower, leaving Lexa smiling somewhat, amused at the display before she looked down at herself and chuckled at what the past five minutes of her life looked like.

XXXXXXXXXX

It was incredibly stupid. It was monumentally stupid. It was the dumbest thing she’d ever done, or at least very close to the top of the long list. But after three weeks of refusing to unpack the house and dealing with the question of employment, Clarke couldn’t handle it any longer, and joined the land of the living again. Perhaps a bit too hard, which was, above all else, stupid. Incredibly stupid.

Clarke didn’t have too much time to think about anything else as she sprinted into the tall building that had its own distinct imprint on the city. Hair a mess and shirt sloppily in the process of being tucked in, she flashed her badge and rushed toward the elevators as she repeated how stupid it’d been to get absolutely drunk and hook up with a stranger on the couch, and then not setting an alarm, for her first day of her dream job.

Again and with emphasis, Clarke was an incredibly stupid and gay individual.

“Ms. Griffin,” the receptionist greeted her with a smile. “I’ve been instructed to ask that you wait right here until Ms. Moore is finished with her phonecall.”

“Right, of course,” Clarke nodded as she attempted to underplay how extravagantly winded she was.

Grateful for the moment to process, Clarke took a seat in the reception and processed what the past hour of her life looked like. She somehow woke up and kicked out a very naked woman from her house, that she could almost remember the name of somewhat. And she’d run across town and made it to work. On time, or at least on time enough for her boss.

Only when she’d caught her breath did Clarke realize that she never got Le-- La-- Lara? Lena? Larry? Fuck. She never got the stranger’s number.

“Hey, Clarke, thanks for your patience.”

The woman who interviewed her twice finally walked out from behind the hallowed doors of Woods Publishing, and Clarke gave up trying to remember and prayed she did not smell like as much tequila as she’d inhaled the night before.

“I’m so happy to be here, Ms. Moore,” she grinned and shook the outstretched hand.

“Luna is fine. We’re the creatives,” she winked and led Clarke toward the door. “We get a little more freedom than the stuffed shirts in editing and sales.”

As they moved down the hall, there was a minute smell of weed, and Clarke realized that this job was going to be better than she’d ever imagined.

“I thought for your first day, I’d kind of get you set up, take you to our morning huddle and pitch meetings, and then after lunch make you meet everyone in a super awkward and invasive department bash.”

“Bash?”

“Yeah, well, people stop coming when I call them meetings and ice-breakers. I’ve decided to rename things different, more fun words to trick them into the same meetings.”

“How’s it going so far?”

“Amazingly well. Just wait until you see the turn out for your meet-and-greet… I mean bash.”

Clarke couldn’t help but smile. Her boss was calm and cool, funny and approachable, and most importantly, she was clearly very into her job, which was a godsend. Hiring was often abou personality and camaraderie, as in how well a new personality would fit into a team, and Clarke already felt at home.

The day went by easily enough, as all first days are known to do. She met her team and got her desk, got to feel out a little of how the day flowed with the promise of her assignments arrival soon enough. Luna passed her off around lunch to one of the teammates, and Clarke fell into enjoying her new coworkers with very light company gossip over not terrible sandwiches in the cafeteria. She learned all about the office romances and the merger, the new corporate structure and how great it was compared to other companies. She learned about the owner’s daughter who started a few months ago and was actually nice to work for, and more importantly, Clarke learned that there was a very lax policy when it came to punctuality. She breathed a sigh of relief.

By the end of the day, Clarke felt like she would like it there, and was eager to help and work on drawing some of the projects. She was ready to work with the team and she was ready to finally be creative and produce something.

“Thank you all again, for welcoming Clarke to our team,” Luna grinned and held up her glass as the rest of the team did the same.

She was right, of course, that calling it a bash did something to make them all want to stay a few minutes later and mingle.

“Enjoy the gift baskets sent from the studio for our last project, but within reason. And we’ll jump right in tomorrow.”

“Thanks,” Clarke smiled and accepted a drink.

“I’ll see you bright and early. We’ll get you started on part of our new programming and onto the new project.”

“I can’t wait.”

Clarke found herself pulled into a conversation over artwork for the storyboard on the wall in the main rom, and even though it was technically about work, the other artists were more than eager to talk about their plans, even over drinks.

And then she looked up and nearly spit out her drink before turning around very quickly so that her back was to the familiar green eyes and the person she’d kicked onto the floor that very morning.

“Looks like the boss decided to make a stop. I’m going to finally ask her out,” one of the guys decided as he stood a little straighter and awkwardly fixed his hair.

“There’s no way Lexa Woods gives you the time of day,” Raven scoffed, sipping her drink and sneaking a look at the grinning CEO. “I bet you twenty bucks she doesn’t even speak to you.”

“She’s really nice.”

“Oh, I know. But I bet she won’t even notice you.”

Clarke felt the blood leave her face as she hurried to sneak another look to confirm that it was, in fact, hell freezing over. And sure enough, for some stranger reason, in a city of hundreds of thousands of people, she was in the same room as the stranger she drunkenly hooked up with sixteen hours beforehand.

And that stranger was her boss’ boss’ boss’ boss. That stranger was Lexa Woods, CFO of Woods Publishing, daughter of the owner, inheritor to the castle.

“What do you think, Clarke?” Raven turned toward her. Just five minutes ago, Clarke liked Raven, but now, she wanted to disappear and Raven was blocking the exit. “Think Dan here has a chance?”

“I don’t really know anything about her,” Clarke shrugged and downed the rest of her drink, careful to stay turned around.

She didn’t know anything about Lexa Woods, except how she tasted and the noises she made and this thing she did with her fingers that--

“She hasn’t been here long, but she’s actually not the worst, as far as suits go. She likes the creative floors. Her dad’s given her a few projects I’ve been on and I think we work pretty well together,” she explained, offering Clarke a refill.

“Cool, cool, nice.”

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Or you’re a very bad drinker.”

“I, uh, had a few too many last night.”

“Hair of the dog then,” Raven grinned and clinked their glasses. “I think I’m going to like having you around, Griffin. At least until you start asking for advanced tech and drive me crazy with your doodles. Oh shit, there he goes.”

Despite herself, Clarke turned around and watched the illustrator move through the crowd. She looked immediately at Lexa and actually caught her eye. She held the look and she watched Lexa smile at her, though she couldn’t move to return it. Mortification was at the forefront of her brain. That and oddly proud of herself for pulling someone like Lexa Woods, even when she wasn’t on her A game.

Only when Clarke saw Dan get close, did she look away and break the stupor she found herself stuck in.

“I can’t believe he hasn’t figured out that she’s gay.”

“What?”

“Dan has the worst gay-dar of all time,” Raven chuckled. “I almost feel bad taking his money. Almost.”

Sure enough, as he walked up toward his boss’ boss’ boss, full of confidence and vim, Lexa didn’t even notice him, her eyes firmly locked on Clarke’s as she moved through the crowd, finally deciding to approach. It took a few steps before Clarke realized what was happening, and only then did she feel the two and a half drinks she’d had.

She really didn’t like Raven.

“I knew it.”

Clarke didn’t say a word, but rather looked for a quick escape, though none existed and she already knew that.

“Hey, I thought I’d come welcome you to the team personally. I’m Lexa Woods.”

With a smile and her hand outstretched, the CEO stood there, as if she hadn’t gone down on her new employee on her couch.

“Lexa Woods, as in…”

“Yeah, that’s my name outside, but don’t hold it against me,” she grinned, holding the handshake a little bit longer. “It was Callie, right?”

“Clarke.”

“I’m sorry. Clarke.”

“I didn’t expect to see you on my first day.”

“Yeah,” Lexa chuckled. “I can imagine. I like hanging out down here more than upstairs. How are you, Ms. Reyes?”

“Doing alright,” Raven nodded, appraising the scene before her. “Taking Clarke under my wing, as it were.”

“I’d be careful,” the boss warned. “It was nice to meet you again, Clarke. I’ll see you guys later. I have a meeting I should try to get to ontime. Punctuality is key.”

Clarke burned red and nodded.

“Nice to meet you, too, Ms. Woods.”

“Lexa’s fine.”

“Yeah you are.”

Lexa just smiled and waved again before disappearing. Dan joined the group a second later and passed a twenty to his friend. The boss left the room a moment later without a look back, and Clarke finally breathed.

“So,” Raven furrowed. “When did you fuck our boss?”

XXXXXXXXXX

For three weeks, Clarke managed to avoid all thoughts and ideas of Lexa Woods, CEO and absolute beauty. She didn’t avoid her social media, nor did she avoid much of the idle gossip about her at work, but for the most part, Clarke refused to think about her as much as possible, which amounted to about never.

Sometimes at work, she was able to go for hours, focusing on her projects. Sometimes, Clarke found herself avoiding areas she suspected she might show up, and for three glorious weeks, she was fairly successful.

Bent over her drawing board, Clarke found herself in a period of Lexa-less thoughts, happy to escape her life and all else, and instead find some sort of outlet for everything she’d been feeling over the past year.

“These are very good.”

“Fuck, you scared me,” Clarke breathed, turning around quickly. “I mean. Not fuck.”

“I’m sorry I haven’t followed up,” Lexa smiled softly, hands tied behind her back as she perused Clarke’s wall of sketches for the short they were doing. “I was out of town on business. How is your first month going, Ms. Griffin?”

“Do you take such an interest in all of your employees, or just the ones you seduce?”

“I believe you were the one seducing. I was drunk and adorable and you took advantage of me in my drunk and adorable state.”

Clarke balked and grit her teeth before seeing that Lexa was making fun of her, which did nothing to calm her.

“Someone who pins the other to their front door, is not being taken advantage of.”

She smiled again and Clarke found it infuriating. And hot. But also infuriating a little more.

“I did do that, didn’t I?” Lexa nodded. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to address that… trist.”

“It was a fluke, and I think we should stay professional. Like we have.”

“I thought I was keeping it fairly professional.”

“I just mean, you can’t-- we don’t have to talk about that… trist.”

“Or we could?” she waited to gauge Clarke’s reaction. “Or not. Definitely not. Very professional. Just pretend it never happened.”

“Exactly. Thank you for stopping by, Ms. Woods.”

“Lexa is still fine. We’re going to be working together a bit. Everyone calls me Lexa.”

“Professional,” Clarke repeated.

“Casual, even. Professionally casual.”

“Exactly.”

XXXXXXXXX

“Professional,” Lexa nodded to herself and tried to catch her breath. The naked body beside her repeated the same thing with a sigh.

“But we can’t do that again. We were just scratching an itch,” Clarke reasoned as Lexa agreed, humming along with the familiar song.

If any of that were true, she wouldn’t have been naked in Clarke’s half-made bed, next to a full-naked girl. If she had anything to say about it, they’d be doing it much more and often and professionally. But she was the boss, and she wasn’t allowed to make that call. Clarke had to make it. And Lexa was very grateful that Clarke made it.

It wasn’t Lexa’s fault that they enjoyed the same bar, or that they happened to notice each other, and it wasn’t her fault that she liked kissing Clarke.

“I quite like scratching that itch with you.”

Lexa turned her head and watched Clarke smile before regaining her composure.

“Don’t sweet talk me, Woods. I’m your employee.”

“Yeah, but like, only kind of.”

Clarke turned and gave her a look before Lexa chuckled and rolled toward her, pressing her luck as she pressed against Clarke, kissing her shoulder and her neck.

“What are we supposed to do?” Clarke turned over as well. “Go into HR and tell them we’re sleeping together?”

“I could fire you?”

“Lexa.”

“I could quit?”

“Shut up.”

“Or you could agree to go on an actual date with me, and promise not to take your clothes off.”

“You’re the one that takes them off of me!”

Despite her wiggling, Clarke let Lexa pull her closer. She ran her fingertips along Lexa’s cheek, squishing her cheeks together so she was making fish lips and smiled at the display, amused at herself and how Lexa let her do that.

“I zwant tovee hrofeshinal widzth you. Vutd I sink I alike you.”

“You sound ridiculous.”

Lexa sighed until Clarke let go of her cheeks, unable to keep the smile there. Instead she held her chin now, between her forefinger and thumb, keeping her steady and there. Fingertips moved up and down her back.

“I think we can do this without messing up work.”

“How?”

“We just don’t work together. I’ll stay off of your projects. Luna has complete control over personnel and who is on what.”

“If it goes bad?”

“Then I’ll definitely quit. Sell the company probably. Move to Zurich,” she decided.

“That plan developed quickly.”

“It’s always in my back pocket in case a beautiful girl who works for me creates a problem. I will not be caught unprepared again.”

“Again?”

“It’s an expression.”

“Mmm,” Clarke smiled and nodded.

She didn’t waste a moment. She leaned forward and kissed Lexa because she had to be certain, and she had to find some kind of bravery. She should think about it more, and she should have made a pros and cons list, but something about this moment, this person, Clarke just felt alive, and she’d been chasing it for so long.

“Did I get the job?”

“You got a date. One date.”

“I can work with that.”

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