#but i managed to download it before it got called into the void

[hititposie]

one thing id really like to do is talk about techza fics so pleasseee if anyone sees this and wants to send in a submission for a fic they wanna see some chatter and yap about HIT ME UP because i love reading ☝

[thebucketpail]

Of course the one time I actually fill a prompt I forget to save it and end up losing it to the tumblr void.

Alas, if I find it I'll link it but until then, have this.

Tw: light gore, mentions of vivisection

____________

This wasn't the team's first lab break in and it definitely wouldn't be their last. That is to say, they've seen alot of shit. Alot of mad scientists and what resulted from their insanity, their cruelty. But they had never expected to find something like this on what was supposed to be a low stakes mission.

Robin had been the first to find the dingy little cell, not far from the main lab, and stood stunned in abject horror as the others came in behind him.

"Oh god," he heard Arrowette whisper, followed by a litany of strangled gasps and the sound of Superboy's knuckles cracking.

It was terrible, but Robin couldn't manage to tear his eyes away from the curled up teen tied to the wall.

The boy was unconscious, his stark white hair, matted with grime and some green substance, covered the top of his face, a muzzle covered the bottom. What was left visible was littered with cuts and angry purple bruises. Whatever clothes he had been wearing were tattered and torn, displaying yet more injuries.

What was probably the worst, as far as Robin could tell, was the dirty gauze haphazardly taped to his neck. The dressings were soaked through with more of that green liquid, which Robin relised with a hobble sink to his gut was probably the kid's blood.

Robin swallowed the bile threatening to rise to his throat and turned back toward his team. He took a deep breath.

"Okay, new plan," he said, doing his best to keep his leader voice, "Superboy, you get those chains off him. Team, this is no longer an Intel mission, this is search and rescue. Impulse, Secret, Arrowette, fan out. Check the rest of the building for any other prisoners. If you find anyone then report immediately. WG, you call back to Red. I'll see what I can pull out of their database. Remember to keep your heads."

A round of nods was all he got in return before everyone set out on their tasks.

Robin had just wormed his way to into the system when Superboy walked in, the unconscious kid in his arms, and a seriously pissed expression on his face.

"I never thought Cadmus could go this far," he growled, brows furrowing.

Robin grunted on acknowledgement, then made a light sound of surprise as the archaic system finally loaded.

"Well then it's a good thing we aren't at Cadmus then," he mumbled disbelieving as he dove further and further into the newly available files. Quickly, he pulled an empty USB from his utility belt and set to work downloading what looked important, facility locations, blueprints, documents, research, etc.

"Where are we then?" Superboy asked, setting the kid down to peer over Robin's shoulder.

"Some place called the GIW, ghost investigation ward," Robin murmered, "according to these files, they're some kind of government org, designed to hunt and study ghosts. Our guy over there," he jutted his chin toward the kid, "is apparently really powerful. They have alot of files on him and something called the ghost zone."

Suddenly they were interrupted by a serious of loud crashes followed by shouting and Impulse zipping into the room.

"Heyguyswegottago," he sped out before taking in a huge lung full of air and continuing at a slightly slower pace. Slightly. "Reinforcements just arrived and they don't look like they're happy to see us. We couldn't find anyone else other then some asshole scientists. Cissie kicked their butts."

Robin nodded and pulled the USB from the port. "Tell the other to meet back at the super cycle, it's time to go." Impulse nodded and sped back off.

--------

It wasn't their best escape, but it certainly wasn't their worst. Those GIW agents were persistant bastards but it wasn't anything the supercycle couldn't handle.

They were en route back the cave when Superboy called out, "Hey Rob, you might wanna see this." He and WG had been tasked with administering first aid (to the best of their abilities) to their rescue, so that wasn't exactly something Ribin was thrilled to hear.

He let Supercycle switch to auto pilot before climbing to the back seat to see what had his team so freaked out. And yeah. That would do it.

If he thought the neck wound was bad, that was nothing. What was left of the kids torn shirt was removed to reveal a massive Y-shaped incision across his chest. The scars were red and inflamed, mottled with angry bruises and so, so many tiny holes, giving the impression that the wound had been stitched uo and reopened on numerous occasions. The implications of the wound was clear.

Robin set his jaw as he met Superboy's eyes. The confusion was prominent. he didnt know what to do.

"Just do you're best to clean it for now," he said, "we'll have Red look at him when we get back to base."

As Robin settled back into the driver's seat, he mentally added the GIW to his list of enemies. Anyone who had the power to do that, government or not, was going down

[alpineshift]

Number 6, Jack and Nico as members of an interdepartmental team (be it paranormal or otherwise)

buzzfeed unsolved/ghost files au perhaps?? hear me out for a moment... 👻

6. “I appreciate the effort but this is all wrong.” 

There's a lot more administrative work that goes into ghost hunting than most people realize.

That's to say, about eighty percent of their work is mainly administrative clutter, five percent is actual ghost hunting, and the other fifteen is sitting around in the cold and the dark for hours on end wishing for a cup of hot coffee or an extra blanket.

It's a testament to how great Nico is as an admin team lead that everything goes to shit the second he calls out sick for the day. And oh, they're a hot mess.

Nico "Workaholic" Hischier actually tapping out to recover is about as rare as a Bigfoot sighting. They'd probably have more luck getting a clear FBA on camera. Or Nessie swimming up to say hi.

Jack's a seasoned pro when it comes to ghost hunting and when he's got a camera pointed in his face, but he sure as fuck doesn't know how to use formulas in an excel spreadsheet (what the fuck is a =SUMIF even supposed to mean.)

Still. Jack won't let that deter him for his next goal: surprising Nico by helping him clear out the admin stuff for their next leg of the ghost hunting tour in (checks his smudged, hastily copied notes) Australia. Damn.

It's a good thing Nico labels all his files. Jack sometimes just leaves the transfers from his handheld in his download folders until Jesper yells at him for not labeling footage again.

There's absolutely no ulterior motives for him taking this task on, no, not at all. Jack's definitely not trying to impress Nico with his deep understanding of expense tracking sheets (zero), or his organizational skills (abysmal), and his ability to cut the per diem cheques (he fucked up and had to void so many cheques Jonas shoved him out the door and told him to look up hotels and flights instead.)

It's the thought that counts, right?? Nico takes care of them so often, it's only right that Jack tries to help out. Sure, he's already texted Nico twice this morning to check in, then ordered him a surprise delivery of chicken noodle soup and immune-boosting smoothies, and then sent some get well soon flowers too because his mom once told him flowers are always a sweet gift. But this is practical. And Nico is nothing if not a practical dude.

Jack doesn't manage to make the excel file look good, but at least he's got colour coded columns and he's managed to find a few good deals through their frequent flyer points. Something's bound to be useful.

And so, Nico returns the next day, not 100% yet but clearly over whatever twenty-four hour bug he's got going on. He's bundled up in a sweater and he's sipping a herbal tea, voice a little scratchy but his sincerity evident when he thanks Jack for the care goodies.

"Really, you shouldn't have, I would've been fine sleeping it off--"

"Neeks, babes, just shut up and let me look after you, yeah?"

(Nico's face had gotten really red at that, and Jack was worried his fever was back before Nico's cheeks returned to their normal colour.)

He'd been hopeful when he eventually forwarded Nico the link to his spreadsheet, stuttering through his explanation of the flight options he's gathered, rental cars, and hotels that are close to the airport. He's even made a list of late-night restaurants, because everyone's starved for greasy takeout after a long overnight shoot. Nico is staring, wide-eyed, at the file when Jack's finally done explaining. And he's quiet for a long, long pause.

"I. Jack. Thank you, this is--so incredibly kind of you. I really appreciate the effort, but this is all wrong."

The words would've been utterly devastating if Jack didn't see Nico's enormous, genuine smile, clearly holding back a laugh but not because he's making fun of Jack. Instead, he gestures for Jack to pull up a chair, making room for him behind the desk, and leans over to show Jack the itinerary saved in his perfectly organized OneDrive. (Jack tries very, very hard not to shiver at their close proximity, and the comforting scent of Nico's shampoo in such close quarters.)

"Our next shoot is in Austria, not Australia."

"Oh, for FUCK'S sake--"

send me a jacknico prompt!

[scruffyplayssonic]

Are the ArchieSonic comics actually an 80's/90's syndicated cartoon? Episode 35: We're in space now! (part one)

Welcome back to my look at the ArchieSonic comic series, and how it shared a lot of the same story tropes as a typical ‘80s or ‘90s syndicated cartoon! Well, just about every cartoon will get to this trope eventually, if they go on long enough. So let’s talk about ArchieSonic’s outer space adventures.

Episode 35: We're in space now! (part one)

Sonic’s first trip to space happened in Sonic #13’s story, “Space in yo’ Face!” That... that right there is definiutely a ‘90s title. xD

In this story Robotnik built a space station called Robostorm that was designed to roboticise all of planet Mobius from orbit - a precursor to the Death Egg. The Freedom Fighters learned about Robostorm and went on a mission to sabotage it.

They managed to successfully board Robostorm but before they could destroy it Robotnik and Snively came knocking at the door, so they decided to launch into space and try to escape back to Knothole. Robotnik and Snively gave chase in Robotnik’s own personal ship, managing to damage Robostorm with their lasers. The Freedom Fighters managed to land Robostorm on a nearby moon, but found that it was largely made out of mud and that they’d gotten stuck in it.

They evacuated onto the surface and eventually managed to defeat Robotnik by luring him towards a statue Sonic sculpted of him out of mud, which collapsed on top of him.

The next time we saw the Freedom Fighters venture into space was in Sonic #74 - 75. A mysterious, unknown entity had been activating satellites in orbit for the past few months, each one triggering devastation in its wake such as earthquakes, meteor showers, or a prison breakout. When the final satellite activated and caused the disappearance of all the Robian (robot Mobian) residents of Knothole - including Sonic’s family - he got fed up and publicly defied King Max’s orders not to investigate. The Freedom Fighters took a space shuttle into orbit and discovered that the eight satellites had linked up to become a large space station.

At first it seemed that the mastermind behind everything was a resurrected Robotnik, but it was soon revealed to actually be Robo-Robotnik, a version of Robotnik from another dimension who had roboticised himself and conquered his own dimension (and whom I talked about in the “hero and villain team up to defeat a greater threat” post).

Travelling to Mobius Prime “to fill the void in both their lives,” Robo-Robotnik had used the satellites to lure the Freedom Fighters into a trap, restore his robotic army by removing the robians’ free will, and retaking the city of Mobotropolis.

The Freedom Fighters managed to blow up the space station and escape with the help of Snively, who had turned on Robo-Robotnik, and Sonic’s parents, who had been protected from the mind-wipe effects by the power ring wedding bands Sonic had given them as an anniversary present.

But as Robo-Robotnik was now a digital being, getting blown up was little more than an inconvenience to him. All he had to do was download himself into a new body.

One other significant space story in ArchieSonic came after the reboot, and it featured Team Dark. An officially unofficial (or is that unofficially official?) sequel to the Shadow the Hedgehog video game, the Shadow Fall saga saw the arrival of a new black comet that threatened the planet.

A new leader called Black Death had taken command of the remaining Black Arms after Black Doom’s forces were destroyed, and he had decided to create a new lieutenant called Eclipse the Darkling before attempting to take revenge on Shadow’s world. Eclipse had been designed to be Shadow’s equal, with similar power and independence, independent of the Black Arms’ hivemind.

When Team Dark and GUN’s forces landed on the new Black Comet to destroy it, Shadow was attacked by Eclipse and briefly brought under his and Black Death’s control.

Rouge and Omega had to fight Shadow off and return him to his senses, after which he had a heart-warming scene with them.

Awwwwww.

Shadow went on to kill Black Death and get back to the GUN ship just as they destroyed the Black Comet, however Eclipse and his Dark Arms (Wisps fused with Black Arms DNA) escaped to wreak havoc on Angel Island.

Yep. Nice work, guys.

And of course, no Sonic in space analysis would be complete without mentioning the Death Egg, so here’s a shoutout to the Sonic 2 adaptations in Sonic #229 and Sonic #289.

But all these stories are mere morsels when compared to the Tossed in Space arc that ran in Sonic #226 - 229. That arc was so big, in fact, that I’m going to need a second post to talk about all of it. So thanks for reading, and come back next time for Tossed in Space!

[sobtanian]

Jean-Michel Jarre's BIG MESS

First of all, Merry Christmas to you all and hopefully a Happy New Year.

It feels a little weird composing this post when the last blog I did ages ago was almost the exact opposite, but here we are.

A few weeks ago, Jarre announced that he was going to perform in The Hall of Mirrors at The Palace of Versailles. A Christmas Day special event where only a small audience could attend, but, more importantly, it was going to be a mixed live/VR event.

Unlike his previous three VR events (more info in the last blog if you're interested) which were recorded and then played back on demand when you joined, this was meant to be happening at the same time as the real thing. Jarre would be performing in the palace, wearing some AR headset that no one had heard of, hence enabling him to allegedly both see the real audience and what was going on in VR.

The VR aspect was to go live at the same time as the concert, using VRRoom's beta app. It is important to note here that VRRoom have been his VR partners since the beginning, but they didn't have their own app, they were piggybacking the performances on the well-established VRChat platform, something they managed to do extremely well by the third (Oxymore) VR event.

Obviously, none of this came to happen.

Just hours before the event, there was an announcement on Twitter (I'm not calling it X and that's a hill I will die on!) that the public access VR event was being delayed for 3 hours after the live show. The official excuse was to allow them to "ensure the highest quality production." The official TV broadcast and YouTube stream were scheduled for the same time also.

This immediately rang alarm bells. Wasn't this meant to be a hybrid live/VR event we could experience together? Maybe they delayed it because they wanted to record the VR part, tidy it up, and release a good version of it? Or was it that they just weren't ready for the whole thing?

It turned out to be the latter.

Come VR performance time, no one could actually join. If you were lucky enough to manage to login to the VRRoom servers, you were faced with a black message with a sand timer on it, telling you to click here to join. Join what? The void? If you were patient enough, you may have seen that black screen turn into a concert poster! Wow, progress! You clicked to download the "shared assets" to your headset, and once that happened you might have seen the same click here to join message.

You clicked and the screen faded to black and finally you were going somewhere. Back to where you started that is. No matter how many times you tried, you just ended up where you started. Nothing. If you made the mistake of quitting the app and trying again, you couldn't even login anymore.

Now, this wasn't just me, or some people, this was everyone who tried VR. I have searched multiple fan groups and pages to see if anyone, anyone, got in, and no one did. So much for "highest quality production."

30 minutes of this frustration was enough for me and the group of people I was chatting to. We quit the app, and decided to watch what was left of the TV stream from the live concert earlier in the day. The YouTube stream never materialised and hopefully never will.

We found ourselves watching what had to be some Black Mirror version of a Jarre concert.

There he was, in the middle of this hall with audiences in front and behind him. The footage was mainly a camera going round and round in circles, sometimes showing the (dimly lit) crowd, who didn't quite know whether to clap or dance or not, and then mixing into this awful VR version (rehearsal?) of the performance with a VR audience that was made up of black silhouettes of people. Not animated, not moving, nothing. Just black mannequins. It gave this very dystopian image of some mad man playing music to a bunch of dolls. This was obviously just a mix that someone quickly threw together to try and make the TV contractual obligation and hope no one notices.

Your fans are tech-savvy Mr Jarre, by definition we kinda are because you came along at a time when tech was blowing up and we grew up with it and your music hand in hand. We noticed.

Perhaps the most embarrassing of all however was his "live" performance. It's no secret that 99% of his concerts are playback, but then most electronic acts are. But most electronic acts have the dignity to acknowledge this and even play to its strength: Kraftwerk just stand behind desks pressing a button now and then, heck occasionally even replacing themselves with robots that just stand there while the music plays; The Chemical Brothers just go from twiddling one knob to another that may or may not make any changes to the track that's playing at the time. And that's OK, we're there for the music, not the craftsmanship.

Jarre seems to think that jumping around pretending to play notes is what people want to see, and maybe that might've worked if he was playing on the rooftops of Houston for example. But in such a small space, with cameras everywhere, what we got was an old man who was trying to act half his age, forgetting what he was meant to be doing and just jumping around from one keyboard to another. A tune would play and his fingers would be just hovering over some keys and not even moving, he would suddenly stop "playing" the main tune and start clapping or interacting with the crowd, or he'd spin around to face the crowd behind him, abandoning whatever keyboard he was pretending to play and the music somehow magically carried on. I was reminded of The Weeknd's excellent "Save Your Tears" music video that parodies artists younger than Jarre by fifty years. Click the scissors below to see what I mean:

The final insult to this injury was that he was doing all this while wearing that headset. To see what? I don't know. Definitely not the VR version of this big mess. Maybe he was watching The Weeknd's video on repeat and wondering how it all came down to this.

While I will forever be in awe and respectful of Jarre as a musician and artist, it is still very sad seeing him fall to such low ground after a career that literally took his music to outer space. I could not shake the feeling that Jarre's seventy five years have finally caught up with him, and no matter how eternally youthful he looks or wishes to be, time will always win in the end.

I Iove you monsieur Jean-Michel but perhaps it's now time to put your feet up and relax. Leave the miming to your grandchildren.

[harkath]

Charybdis, 1.01

Just me, my heartbeat, and all the tiny awful noises a body can make in a hardsuit. No sound from the suit monitors. Whole hallway in vacuum. Something sheared through the bulkhead on my left, jagged metal trailing out into the void. I trudge along. My body compensates for the delayed step clamp unclamp step shuffle of the mag boots with long practice. Barely feel it anymore, like walking with snowshoes back on Earth. So I’ve heard.

Constant scroll of information down the right edge of my visor. Gleaned from suit sensors and Prose’s intrusion efforts. The company had given us keys to all systems, but wouldn’t you know, they’re a bit outdated? 

Prose requests new codes by ansible, but even if that queue gets checked, approval and download would take longer than just cracking the thing. 

“Captain,” Prose chimes over our link. No urgency, but that never meant anything. What an emergent found immediately life threatening against what your average human did could be a vast gulf. It’s not like anyone knew.

“What’s up, Prose?” I try not to start when it writes itself into my visual field, its avatar walking unprotected near the shorn edge of the bulkhead. As ever, its features are indistinct and ever-shifting.

“Intrusion complete,” it says. As we reach the end of the tear, towards the lock that would lead to the front half of the ship- still pressured, apparently- I get a glimpse of my ship: Ambrose Systems Loss Prevention Unit PRZ-1, keeps pace with the drifting derelict I’m on. The closest thing Prose has to a body. 

I can’t feel Prose using my eyes to look at itself, but I feel it just the same. I wonder when Prose’s last tuning was. Uncharitable. It’s been good to me. For years. Still is, as its avatar lays one hand on the airlock lever, whispers a quick warning. I nod, wait till it removes it’s hand (humans and emergents share the preference of having their avatar-projections respected, realspace or no), then tug open the lock. Inside the compartment, a splash of blood and something else I ignore as my suit identifies. I close myself in, Prose disappears with a lazy salute. Danger on the other side. No distractions. Great. I brace myself as the lock cycles. We had dropped out of the grid a little shy of Neptune’s gate, when Prose’s gravity scan pinged the right signature. An hour for realspace maneuvers to get us in line, three decelerating. Shedding gridspeed and matching trajectories with the target. 

The derelict- the cargo ship. Prose wasn’t too fond of me calling them derelicts before we examined them. Called it a maladaptive coping mechanism. Offered several convincing and therapeutic arguments. I managed to bite my tongue. 

Accusing a ship of being emotional about cargo ships and haulers would just make me look stupid, anyway.

We got in close enough for me to hop over in the hardsuit. A.S. standard hauler, cargo scanned for ice and mineral rich rock, several bays empty. Nothing out of the ordinary there. The odd bit, was that the back half of the ship had apparently suffered explosive decompression. Everything not nailed, magged, or grabbed down was long gone. On its way to, well, probably Neptune, right? No distress beacons from hardsuits left adrift. Sat for an hour while Prose did extra life scans in the area anyway. A suit can keep you alive in the void for a long time. Bad way to go. I’d worked up a suspicion, pacing up and down the hall while Prose did scans and intrusions. Examined that sheared off bulkhead. The bits of Prose’s report I could parse more or less confirmed it. I winked at the report scrolling along my visor, and it faded from sight. 

Brought myself back to the here and now. Set my suit’s camo option to mirror-reflective.

The thing about lasers is, the word isn’t really accurate to popular culture anymore. Not for weaponry. Yes, it’s a directed light beam, but there’s other stuff in there. Ask R&D what. Pay grades. Most of it still bounces off a mirrored surface though. The rest just pisses off the safety protocols on a sufficiently well-made hardsuit. And its wearer. By the time the glare fades, the interior lock swings all the way open. I smack my tongue against the metallic taste in my mouth. The “other stuff” that the suit doesn’t reflect isn’t supposed to have lasting effects. I have my suspicions. I raise my hands in the ancient, universal symbol for stop waving that thing around like a jackass. He does.

I stand angled so he can’t see the glass-blower on my hip, but I think he can tell he’s outmatched. Sitting in the captain’s chair, he stands out for three reasons. One, he’s wearing more trauma kit supplies than clothes, trying to hold himself together. Two, obviously, he’d just let off a full charge of laser fire at me. Not so much as a “halt!” or “state your business!” Rude. Three? He isn’t the captain. Prose inserts the man’s name into my field of vision, just left of his head. Several helpful tidbits about his history to the right. A note that he’s not in his “usual physical or mental capacity.” No kidding, Prose? Just in case some of the post-hypnotic briefing hadn’t taken, I guess. Does Prose know about that? Reckon the company only tells its ships what it needs to, same as flesh employees. James. Big James to his family and friends, out around Canopy Five. Not long for this world without real treatment, trauma kit or no. 

“Hey,” I said. De-escalate. Familiarize. No hardsuit for him, earth-standard atmosphere. My visor and helmet split, fold insectile into the back of my suit. Camo fades to its usual neutral off-grey. There’s a setting for a supposedly calming “sky blue,” but I’ve never seen a blue sky and I wager James here hasn’t either. “Jahen Krell, search and rescue.” We use assumed names for each op. Insurance thing, apparently. Search and Rescue is a happy euphemism for Loss Prevention, although the overlap is there. “James,” he says, wheezing back into the command chair. “Big James, if you got some booze on you.” Blood trickles from the corners of his mouth when he speaks and I wish I did. His hand never leaves the rifle, and I try not to count the seconds before it hits full charge. “I’m afraid not, man, but I might do you one better.” Misdirection, extortion. I start feeling bad about here. Always do. “I’ve got two regen-swarms on me. Full repair suite on my ship. How’s about you tell me what happened, and we see about getting you patched up?” Blackmail sequencing. Your life, information. He’s too far out to notice. It’s not like I’d let him bleed out. Would Prose? “Cargo cult,” he croaks out. Prose feeds me the definition, some ancient loan-phrase describing cascade failures, exploited deification of invaders of higher technological level? Dying old man speaking nonsense. I jab him in the arm with the hypodermic, let the first swarm get to work. That’s against protocol. Questions first, then reward. So fire me. “What happened here, James?” “Blew the shielding,” he manages. More blood. The trauma kit starts working and that rush of short-strand adrenaline keeps him talking, some. “Crew quarters and engine alerts. Sheared bulkheads out from the bay.” Shuddering now. Big James is one of the engineers. Maybe the last one. His assessment matches ours. Something hit the ship, from the inside, maybe, blew a hole that tore the back half of the bastard apart, engines fully gone, cargo bay cracked like an egg. Crew quarters, same. He must have been off-shift when it happened, maybe in the galley? Somewhere front-of-ship, Which gives us a timeframe. “Okay,” I say. “Who blew the bulkheads?” I can’t ask the question I want to ask. He doesn’t know I know to ask. Prose, in synch with me as ever, and impatient with my methods, inserts a thankfully-censored thumbnail into my visual field. I know, Prose. “Is this the only place with atmosphere? Any survivors?” Who put the neat holes in the foreheads of the navigator and the captain? Out of my view, down in the crew pit. Blood and worse. Prose’s stolen eyes caught it on the way in. Made it part of the briefing. “Engineering?” James says, in the desperate tones of a sole survivor. He’d seen some things he’d be seeing for the rest of his life. I don’t tell him that we could see the ship’s spine, what was left of it, from ten clicks out. Why bother. “Cargo?” In denial, maybe. He’s an engineer with a good idea of how fucked the ship is. He wants the numbers to match emotion. Me too, James.

I hit him with the second swarm, and the soporifics in the thing finally overwhelm him while the bots get to work. Better that way. I’ve gone under repairs like these conscious. I don’t recommend it.

He mutters something else, some other strand of nonsense as he goes down. I gently reach over and take the rifle from him. I realize the question I forgot to ask, set the laser rifle down, and unsling my own glass-thrower. Shift the comfortable weight of the gun in my hand.

“Send a drone down, Prose. Patch him up, alright?” James didn’t do this. Call it instinct. Training.

By way of answer, one of Prose’s dog-sized, beetle shaped drone floats into view, reaching mantis-limbs towards James’ sleeping form.

Constant scroll of information down the right edge of my visor. Gleaned from suit sensors and Prose’s intrusion efforts. The company had given us keys to all systems, but wouldn’t you know, they’re a bit outdated? 

Prose requests new codes by ansible, but even if that queue gets checked, approval and download would take longer than just cracking the thing. 

“Captain,” Prose chimes over our link. No urgency, but that never meant anything. What an emergent found immediately life threatening against what your average human did could be a vast gulf. It’s not like anyone knew.

“What’s up, Prose?” I try not to start when it writes itself into my visual field, its avatar walking unprotected near the shorn edge of the bulkhead. As ever, its features are indistinct and ever-shifting.

“Intrusion complete,” it says. As we reach the end of the tear, towards the lock that would lead to the front half of the ship- still pressured, apparently- I get a glimpse of my ship: Ambrose Systems Loss Prevention Unit PRZ-1, keeps pace with the drifting derelict I’m on. The closest thing Prose has to a body. 

I can’t feel Prose using my eyes to look at itself, but I feel it just the same. I wonder when Prose’s last tuning was. Uncharitable. It’s been good to me. For years. Still is, as its avatar lays one hand on the airlock lever, whispers a quick warning. I nod, wait till it removes it’s hand (humans and emergents share the preference of having their avatar-projections respected, realspace or no), then tug open the lock. Inside the compartment, a splash of blood and something else I ignore as my suit identifies. I close myself in, Prose disappears with a lazy salute. Danger on the other side. No distractions. Great. I brace myself as the lock cycles. We had dropped out of the grid a little shy of Neptune’s gate, when Prose’s gravity scan pinged the right signature. An hour for realspace maneuvers to get us in line, three decelerating. Shedding gridspeed and matching trajectories with the target. 

The derelict- the cargo ship. Prose wasn’t too fond of me calling them derelicts before we examined them. Called it a maladaptive coping mechanism. Offered several convincing and therapeutic arguments. I managed to bite my tongue. 

Accusing a ship of being emotional about cargo ships and haulers would just make me look stupid, anyway.

We got in close enough for me to hop over in the hardsuit. A.S. standard hauler, cargo scanned for ice and mineral rich rock, several bays empty. Nothing out of the ordinary there. The odd bit, was that the back half of the ship had apparently suffered explosive decompression. Everything not nailed, magged, or grabbed down was long gone. On its way to, well, probably Neptune, right? No distress beacons from hardsuits left adrift. Sat for an hour while Prose did extra life scans in the area anyway. A suit can keep you alive in the void for a long time. Bad way to go. I’d worked up a suspicion, pacing up and down the hall while Prose did scans and intrusions. Examined that sheared off bulkhead. The bits of Prose’s report I could parse more or less confirmed it. I winked at the report scrolling along my visor, and it faded from sight. 

Brought myself back to the here and now. Set my suit’s camo option to mirror-reflective.

The thing about lasers is, the word isn’t really accurate to popular culture anymore. Not for weaponry. Yes, it’s a directed light beam, but there’s other stuff in there. Ask R&D what. Pay grades. Most of it still bounces off a mirrored surface though. The rest just pisses off the safety protocols on a sufficiently well-made hardsuit. And its wearer. By the time the glare fades, the interior lock swings all the way open. I smack my tongue against the metallic taste in my mouth. The “other stuff” that the suit doesn’t reflect isn’t supposed to have lasting effects. I have my suspicions. I raise my hands in the ancient, universal symbol for stop waving that thing around like a jackass. He does.

I stand angled so he can’t see the glass-blower on my hip, but I think he can tell he’s outmatched. Sitting in the captain’s chair, he stands out for three reasons. One, he’s wearing more trauma kit supplies than clothes, trying to hold himself together. Two, obviously, he’d just let off a full charge of laser fire at me. Not so much as a “halt!” or “state your business!” Rude. Three? He isn’t the captain. Prose inserts the man’s name into my field of vision, just left of his head. Several helpful tidbits about his history to the right. A note that he’s not in his “usual physical or mental capacity.” No kidding, Prose? Just in case some of the post-hypnotic briefing hadn’t taken, I guess. Does Prose know about that? Reckon the company only tells its ships what it needs to, same as flesh employees. James. Big James to his family and friends, out around Canopy Five. Not long for this world without real treatment, trauma kit or no. 

“Hey,” I said. De-escalate. Familiarize. No hardsuit for him, earth-standard atmosphere. My visor and helmet split, fold insectile into the back of my suit. Camo fades to its usual neutral off-grey. There’s a setting for a supposedly calming “sky blue,” but I’ve never seen a blue sky and I wager James here hasn’t either. “Jahen Krell, search and rescue.” We use assumed names for each op. Insurance thing, apparently. Search and Rescue is a happy euphemism for Loss Prevention, although the overlap is there. “James,” he says, wheezing back into the command chair. “Big James, if you got some booze on you.” Blood trickles from the corners of his mouth when he speaks and I wish I did. His hand never leaves the rifle, and I try not to count the seconds before it hits full charge. “I’m afraid not, man, but I might do you one better.” Misdirection, extortion. I start feeling bad about here. Always do. “I’ve got two regen-swarms on me. Full repair suite on my ship. How’s about you tell me what happened, and we see about getting you patched up?” Blackmail sequencing. Your life, information. He’s too far out to notice. It’s not like I’d let him bleed out. Would Prose? “Cargo cult,” he croaks out. Prose feeds me the definition, some ancient loan-phrase describing cascade failures, exploited deification of invaders of higher technological level? Dying old man speaking nonsense. I jab him in the arm with the hypodermic, let the first swarm get to work. That’s against protocol. Questions first, then reward. So fire me. “What happened here, James?” “Blew the shielding,” he manages. More blood. The trauma kit starts working and that rush of short-strand adrenaline keeps him talking, some. “Crew quarters and engine alerts. Sheared bulkheads out from the bay.” Shuddering now. Big James is one of the engineers. Maybe the last one. His assessment matches ours. Something hit the ship, from the inside, maybe, blew a hole that tore the back half of the bastard apart, engines fully gone, cargo bay cracked like an egg. Crew quarters, same. He must have been off-shift when it happened, maybe in the galley? Somewhere front-of-ship, Which gives us a timeframe. “Okay,” I say. “Who blew the bulkheads?” I can’t ask the question I want to ask. He doesn’t know I know to ask. Prose, in synch with me as ever, and impatient with my methods, inserts a thankfully-censored thumbnail into my visual field. I know, Prose. “Is this the only place with atmosphere? Any survivors?” Who put the neat holes in the foreheads of the navigator and the captain? Out of my view, down in the crew pit. Blood and worse. Prose’s stolen eyes caught it on the way in. Made it part of the briefing. “Engineering?” James says, in the desperate tones of a sole survivor. He’d seen some things he’d be seeing for the rest of his life. I don’t tell him that we could see the ship’s spine, what was left of it, from ten clicks out. Why bother. “Cargo?” In denial, maybe. He’s an engineer with a good idea of how fucked the ship is. He wants the numbers to match emotion. Me too, James.

I hit him with the second swarm, and the soporifics in the thing finally overwhelm him while the bots get to work. Better that way. I’ve gone under repairs like these conscious. I don’t recommend it.

He mutters something else, some other strand of nonsense as he goes down. I gently reach over and take the rifle from him. I realize the question I forgot to ask, set the laser rifle down, and unsling my own glass-thrower. Shift the comfortable weight of the gun in my hand.

“Send a drone down, Prose. Patch him up, alright?” James didn’t do this. Call it instinct. Training.

By way of answer, one of Prose’s dog-sized, beetle shaped drone floats into view, reaching mantis-limbs towards James’ sleeping form.

[voidaus]

Final Goodbyes

Summary: Your a Youtuber and in a stream you see this pen-pal app and download it, creating an account. This all happened months ago. The guy you met on there was amazing, and you talked for months until he just... stopped.

Genre: Angst?

warnings: swearing, fighting

Requested? No

Word count: 1402

I believe everyone deserves a second chance. No matter how difficult things are. No matter how ugly things got. But maybe sometimes, the problem is that I believe too much. Seeing good in every person, while of course, some people are just... not good.

But that's not how this story goes. No, he is good. I am a hundred percent sure of that. The question is, 'is he willing to change and show that side of him?'. I guess we won't find out if I don't reach out to him huh?

The grey laptop is on my couch, still warm from the last time I used it just an hour ago. Grabbing myself some hot chocolate I lay down on the soft pillows and pull my blanket up to my chest. Whilst finally deciding I'm comfortable in this position I grab the laptop again and open it, typing in my password. The device starts up, letting me in.

"miaow" a soft purring comes from the ground. My cat, Athena, jumps on the couch as soon as I pat it. "Hey there gorgeous" I greet her. The laptop dings, making it clear that it's ready to be used. I give it my full attention again. Should I really open Zaira?

Zaira is an online penpal app where you can anonymously make friends. I signed up about 2 years ago and never really managed to find someone I really hit it off with. You know, I just couldn't find the words to talk to any of the people who messaged me. My anxiety not really helping with making friends, of course, I thought meeting them online would be easier. I was wrong. 

No one understood me, which isn't really surprising. I'm a bookworm, but also a gamer. I have lots of hobbies but not quite the energy to pursue them. The only thing that still has me uploading videos and streaming is the money and my supporters. My supporters standing first on the list, of course. I upload mostly gaming videos under the name Void. I go faceless. I never really liked my appearance for that matter.

I hesitate but still open it. The familiar logo greets me and only a moment after that my only friend on the site shows up, bringing back memories.

Zaira? What's this? "An online penpal app where you can add strangers and make friends. Now free in the AppStore!" I read the description out loud for my viewers. "Should I download it guys?" I ask the live chat, hoping they would say yes. Soon enough I get the confirmation from them and I click the button, hoping it won't take too long to download. I create a profile typing in my bio: 'Bookworm, Gamer, Weeb :)' The chat confirms that that pretty much describes me making me laugh. "Perhaps we can actually meet some cool people on here guys! Who knows?""Alright." I scroll through the site, reading people's bios until one of them spots the fans' eyes. The comments are going crazy fast right now. "click them!""omg Void, you have to message Sasori!" and more comments like that. I click on the profile, reading it's bio. Their given name is Sasori Matsudo. I laugh, explaining to some of the viewers that don't watch anime that these are names from Naruto and Death Note. "I suggest you watch them. those are some good animes!".

I smile at the memories and click on his profile. "Sasori Matsudo" the name rolls off my tongue. I chuckle "not a weeb huh?" Slowly looking through the messages, the familiar empty feeling enters my body again. To be honest, it never left. Ever since the fight, it was always there, following my every step. I close my eyes, letting the painful memories flood in again.

"I just don't understand why you can't talk about it with me!" your voice is slightly raised as you hold the phone in your shaking hand. "Because I just can't, okay! I can't keep throwing all of my shit onto you. you know I could never do that!" The man you know as Corpse yells back. You're both stressed out and upset, and this is the worst fight you ever had. You had decided to message 'Sasori Matsudo' on Zaira, and you two grew close very quickly. After 4 months of chatting on the site, he gave you his number. Not long after, he told you That he's the famous Youtuber known as Corpse Husband. You began to watch his videos and enjoyed them a lot, telling him so. In the fifth month of you two knowing each other, You started to call each other once in a while. That turned into calling every day, and soon you were calling more than 4 hours a day.

Your voice softens at his upset tone, realizing you're not the only one hurt here. You give a deep sigh before talking into your phone again. "I'm always here for you Corpse. I don't care how many times you call me, even if it's in the middle of the night. You make me feel better, you make me happy, and I want to be there for you. Please don't shut me out like this." you're practically begging at this point. He can't shut you out! Not like this.

"Void... You know I love you. Please, keep doing what you're doing, keep making videos and baking, and all the little things I love about you. But I just can't continue doing this to you. I'm sorry." He speaks up. The low voice you adore so much is soft and trembling. He sounds like he could break down crying any time now. "No, please, Corpse! Please don't leav-"

your phone lets out a long beep cutting you off. Breaking down crying, you hurl your hand against your mouth, attempting to silence your sobs. On the other side of the line, the man with the curly black mop on his head is doing the same. Tears flow down both of your eyes as void fills your hearts.

It hurts, but he knows he had to do this. He was always troubling you with his feelings, and he couldn't even show you his face! What kind of friend is that? Loud sobs take over his apartment, as his heart hurts, knowing he can't talk to you again.

And he didn't.

You lay on the couch, clenching your blanket awfully hard. You don't notice the tears streaming down your face till Athena climbs onto your lap and licks them off. You cuddle her in an attempt to comfort yourself, as the dark feeling in your chest grows stronger. 

You open a new tab and type in his number. All the old messages show up. He probably blocked you, but you have to try. He wanted you to be happy, but then why did he leave you?!

After that night, he never messaged you again. Did he really not want to talk to you anymore? You ask yourself.

But all Corpse has been doing is lay in bed and upload videos once in a while. His followers noticed something is off, and so has his friends. He's acting off whenever he streams and rarely jokes around anymore. 

You text him a simple 'how are you' and close your laptop after. The next day you check if he's replied. Nothing. You keep checking for two weeks, but nothing comes in. It's over. He's not coming back. You begin sobbing and lift yourself from the couch, scaring a sleeping Athena. You jog to the kitchen and shove everything off the counter, breaking some cups and plates in the process. Sliding down against the sink, you put your face in your hands, letting out an ear-piercing scream. The weight of the world is crashing down on you, and all you can do is cry and scream. The daydream is finally over.

Corpse saw your message.  He's tried messaging you so many times, but each time he holds himself back. All he wants is to talk to you, but he knows he shouldn't. Well, that's what he believes is best. Every day he thinks about you, thinking that you have already forgotten him, though it's the opposite. You think about him every day, remembering all of the memories. 

All the laughs and all the cries. All the comforts, to final goodbyes.

Hey Guys! I hope you're okay after this lil angsty piece of crap lmao. I tried my best. Anyways, if you have any comments or feedback, I always appreciate it! Oh, and 200 notes on 'Grocery Shopping'?!!??? Y'all are crazy, thank you so much!

If you liked this, my taglist is always open and so are my requests!

@persephone-sideblog @reinyrei @cherry-piee @alienvarmint @divine-artemis @milanienne

[wintrcaptn]

It’s You Ch 3 | Chris Evans 🖤

Summary : moving to a new place, not knowing a single person, wasn’t what you had in mind. But wanting a fresh start was the main goal. Little did you know, you were now living next door to none other than Chris Evans.

Chapter One // Chapter Two

A/N : I wrote this at 3 in the morning. I’m delirious, and I didn’t check for errors. So I’m sorry if there are any!

But again, thank you so much for taking the time to read my stories. It means the world to me! I’m loving the feedback!!

Since the night you basically let slip that you had a silly crush on him, you tried to keep your distance, mostly because you were too embarrassed to face him.

But you honestly couldn’t let yourself fall for him more than you already did. Spending more time with him, it was hard not to.

And for that, you hadn’t seen him in a little over a week. Sure, you had waved hello as you passed by while walking to your car, but you never gave him the time of day.

Chris wasn’t sure what was happening. One day, things were amazing, and he was actually happy. Something he hadn’t felt in such a long time.

For a while, he had been content with his life and being alone. But deep down, he knew something was missing. He knew there was a void that couldn’t be filled.

And then he met you.

It wasn’t sudden. He still believed that the whole thing was just innocent and nothing more. But now, being away from you and not seeing you for more than a few seconds, he was starting to miss you.

“Come on.” Scott exhaled. “We are not staying in. My flight was long, and I am ready to let loose.”

Chris wasn’t too keen to go out, but he knew sitting at home wasn’t going to make the situation any better.

“Alright, I just need to change.” He exhaled, before glancing out the window, in hopes to see you, even if just for a split second. But your house was dark. Not a single light on.

When you first moved out to Boston, the only person you knew was your neighbor. No one else.

But as time went on, you started to make new friends with some of your coworkers, Beau and Charm.

“Okay, wait. You’ve never been to had a one night stand?” Charm asked, sitting across from you.

You shook your head, and let out a soft laugh. “Nope. I’ve always been in relationship after relationship.”

“So this is like your first time actually being single?” Beau asked.

“Mhm. I don’t really know what I’m doing anymore.”

“Ok that’s it. You need to go and have some meaningless sex.” Charm stated, pulling her phone out. “It might help you get out of your head.”

“Or just go out and have fun without any attachments, you don’t even need to have sex.” Beau added.

You took in their words and thought it over. It wouldn’t hurt, would it? Here you were, in a new city, with new people, a fresh start.

This was the time to let loose and just have fun. Stop trying to control everything that happens in your life.

“Download tinder. And just swipe.” Charm chuckled showing you how to navigate the app.

“I don’t know...”you drawled out. “I’ll think about it.”

As the night went on, Chris and his brother finally made their way to the bar which you happened to be there as well.

He took a seat next to his brother, and ordered a drink.

“Feels so good to be home.” Scott exhaled. “Don’t get me wrong, I love LA but it’s not Boston.”

“Not even close.” Chris said. “This is home.”

“So what did I miss this week?”

The older Evans shrugged, taking a sip of his drink. “Not much. Mom and I—“

“I’m talking about Y/N.”

It’s crazy how just a simple word could cause his stomach to flutter.

“There’s nothing to say.” He said.

Scott could tell he wasn’t in the mood to talk so he decided to let it go. He glanced around the bar to see if he could find any familiar faces.

And he did. Once his eyes landed on you, he nudged his brother.

“Look who else decided to come out tonight.”

Chris let out a sigh as he followed his brothers gaze. The second he saw you sitting there with two other people he had never seen before, he was taken aback.

Your hair was down, something he only ever saw in the morning or after you had showered. You were beautiful as ever and damn, he loved watching you laugh.

“Come on, let’s go say hi.” Scott said.

Before Chris could protest, Scott made his way over to you.

Chris chugged his beer before propping up to his feet, to follow in pursuit.

With each step, he could of sworn his heart beat grew faster and louder. Why was he so nervous? It’s not like it was his first time meeting you.

But that’s how it always happened. You had this power over him that somehow made him feel like a kid with a crush.

Heart palpitating, palms clammy, and his stomach in knots. But the moment you smiled at him, every time he came over. Even if you were still in your pajamas, or all dressed up, you always managed to make him fall even more.

“Hey!” Scott exclaimed, grabbing your attention.

“Hey!” You said, throwing your arms around his shoulders and pulling him in for a hug. “I thought you weren’t coming home until next week?”

“Eh, they got tired of me.”

You couldn’t help but chuckle. Suddenly, your eyes wandered behind Scott and met Chris. Immediately leaving you breathless in an instant.

Out of all the places he could be, he was here. It was like the universe enjoyed fucking with you.

“H-hi.” You forced out.

For a moment, you forgot about everyone else. In that split minute, it was just the two of you. It was like having tunnel vision.

You captivated Chris almost instantly. And no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t figure out what it was about you that held so much power over him.

“Hi.” He whispered, flashing a smile.

Charm cleared her throat, pulling you out of your daze and bringing you back to the moment.

“Sorry.” You exhaled. “Charm, Beau, this is Scott and—“

“Chris Evans.” Beau finishes your sentence. “You have to be living under a rock not to know him.”

Chris let out a chuckle, before shaking your friends hands.

The boys joined your table and almost instantly, the conversation quickly developed. There wasn’t a moment of awkward silence. Your friends had treated Chris like just any other person. Which was kind of refreshing for him to say the least.

Charm leaned over to you, “dude, Chris can’t stop looking at you.” She whispered.

You shook your head, not believing a word of what she said. There’s no way he was looking at you of all people. Maybe she was drunk? Who knows.

“I swear, if you don’t get with him, I will.” She went on.

Finally, after a few more drinks and long conversations, the bar was closing. Which meant it was time to leave.

Standing out in the parking lot, charms words repeated in your head, it started to make you overthink all over again. Something you’re good at.

From time to time, you couldn’t help but glance at him. And every time your eyes met, you were hooked. Feigning to touch him. To hold him. Taste him.

And it was starting to drive you crazy.

Beau and Scott were getting pretty cozy with each other. Making each other laugh and you can read their expressions, they weren’t ready to say goodnight just yet.

“Hey, Scott and I are going to go grab some food.” Beau smiled, with the blood rushing to his cheeks. “If any of you guys wanted to join.”

The three of you shook your heads no, and said goodnight to the boys before they drive off alone.

You knew you would bug Beau about it when you see him at work.

“Did you want me to take you home or—?”

“No, I’ll call an Uber.” You cut Charm off. “Seriously, it’s not a problem.”

Chris couldn’t help but laugh. “You know we are literally neighbors right?”

You turned to look at him, with your lips curving at the edges. For a moment, you did forget.

“Riiight.” You drawled out. “Would make sense to hitch a ride with you.”

Charm could feel the tension between you, she could see it from the way you looked at each other. “Okay, well text me when you get home so I know you made it safe.” She said, giving you a quick hug. “Have fun. And wear a condom.” She whispered in your ear.

You could only roll your eyes and laugh. “Goodnight Charm.”

“Goodnight, it was nice to meet you, captain America.”

“It was nice to meet you too.” He smiled.

And with that, she made her way to her car and left. And just like that, it was you and Chris. Alone.

“Ready?” He asked.

You only nodded, giving him the cue to unlock his car.

Before you could reach for the handle, Chris stepped in front of you and opened your door.

How did he manage to make you feel like you couldn’t breathe but also as if you were taking your first breath?

It was a contradiction that confused you.

As you were both in the car, Chris turned to you just before putting the key in the ignition.

“Have you been avoiding me?” He asked, looking like a sad puppy. Still giving you butterflies.

“What?”

“Have you been avoiding me?” He repeated. “Because I’ve tried talking to you and—I don’t know. You just seem very—-Distant. Did I do something?”

“N-no, you didn’t do anything.”

“Then why haven’t you been around lately?”

You shrugged your shoulders, not knowing what to tell him. “I-I don’t know. I—I didn’t even think you noticed.” You turned it back on him.

Chris was taken aback by your words, furrowing his brows. “Why would you think that? Of course I noticed. You—“ he stopped before saying something he would probably regret. Didn’t help that his mind was hazy from the alcohol. “You have become one of my closest friends. I mean, we spent almost every day with other for about eight months, and then it just stopped. Cold turkey. With no reason as to why.”

You sat there for a long moment, feeling guilty and confused and even turned on? It was all too much for you. But you knew you had to give him something. “I was kind of embarrassed about that night we hung out, and I—“

“You told me you had read fan fiction about me. Yeah I figured.” He cut you off. Then flashed a smirk. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Honestly, it’s kind of cute. You fantasizing about me and all.”

“Shut up. I wasn’t fantasizing about you.” You said. “I just wanted to escape life for a bit.”

“Mhm. You also said you think I’m attractive, so why else would you read—“

“Can we drop this?!” You cackled.

“No way! I’m never letting this down.”

“I hate you.”

Chris leaned in closer, his face just inches away from yours. Seriously, even being that close, he was so beautiful.

‘What the hell is he doing?’ You thought to yourself.

The thing is, he loved making you squirm. He loved seeing you tense up whenever he got closer. And it only made him want you more.

But he knew he couldn’t ruin this. He didn’t want to ruin what you had because he didn’t want to lose you.

You could hardly breathe as the moments passed and your eyes never left his.

All you wanted was to lean in and close the distance. To take him in and finally cave into each other.

But you didn’t move.

“I should get you home.” He whispered. “You and I both know how scary you are in the morning if you don’t have at least seven hours of sleep.”

With that, he returned his attention back to the front and started the car, chuckling to himself.

Even you couldn’t help but giggle with him. “Yeah, can’t even argue with you on that.”

And just like that, things were back to normal. Or as normal as it can be. Kind of hard to do when all you can think about is wanting to rip each other’s clothes off.

“I really missed you.” Chris muttered, hesitantly glancing at you.

“I missed you too. Even though it was literally just seven days.” You laughed. “We are so lame.”

“Guess you can call us the ‘Losers’.”

“Oh my god, please stop.”

Chris cocked a brow, “why don’t you make me?”

There it was. Those flirtatious fighting words again.

Damn, he knew exactly how to make you hot. Maybe he even enjoyed knowing he can turn you on. Whatever it was, you decided to play along.

You gently placed your hand over his knee, forcing his breath to jump back into his throat. Your eyes never left his face, and though he wanted to look, he had to focus on the road.

Slowly, you started running your hand higher up his thigh, creating chills to cover him completely. Carefully, you leaned closer to him.

“I can do this all day.” You whispered, knowing damn well he would catch the reference.

With that, you sat back into your seat as you both belted out into laughter.

“Okay, you win.” He was able to force out.

[incorrect-miraith-quotes]

(A/N yes, this is an incorrect quote acc but I can write actual good stuff too 😳)

Drinks and Sunsets

7:00 AM (3 hours before the match starts)

“Renee!! Wake up please, there is breakfast!” Natalie shouted at the closed door infront of her. Renee had fallen asleep at an ungodly time trying to find out more about herself and well, it didnt work out the way she wanted. She groaned, squeezing her eyes tight while moving her arms up. She stretched and eventually popped her shoulder which caused her to scream but not really scream if you understand what I mean. She cursed at herself for not going to sleep earlier knowing that there was a game today. She sat up, shading her eyes from the window that shown the bright sun. Her head turned to the door when she heard knocks coming from the other side. “someone’s there” Renee’s voices whispered, echoing throughout her ears. “No shit sherlock,” She hissed.

“Wra- I mean Renee~ wait no- sorry. Renee are you gonna eat?” Elliot sputtered, clearing his throat. “Depends on what it is,” She sighed. “It’s uH..pancakes I think? I dont know, Ramya was chosen to be the one who cooks today. They looked..burnt,” He explained, shuddering from the thought of Ramya’s pancakes. “I guess, give me a minute to get dressed and I’ll head out. Wait for me?” Renee asked, getting up and walking to her dresser. “Uh..yeah, yeah I’ll wait for you. Dont worry about a thing..you worried cause I’m not..haha..ha..,” Elliot trailed off, sliding down to the floor until he hit his arse on the concrete. Renee chuckled to herself in his stupidity and got dressed. She wore a black tank top with short grey shorts and her black sneakers with her ankle high socks (black of course). She unlocked her door and peered over to the tall man crouched next to her door, falling asleep.

“Wake up Elliot, I thought I was the one to wake up hm?” She flicked his forehead, causing him to rub the spot where he was hit. “Ow ow ow- Why??” Elliot questioned, confused as to why he was hit. “You were gonna start drooling so..anyways, breakfast?” Renee pulled him up, almost falling backwards. “I mean that’s why I’m here right? Right? i hope Im right..,” Elliot trailed off again, starting his journey towards the kitchen with the small woman behind him. Everynow and then he would peek back to make sure she was still there and not inside a portal. “You’re safe with him” Renee looked up at Elliot, the voice echoing throughout her mind. “You like him dont you” Renee looked up at the ceiling and scrunched her face in annoyance, internally screaming at the voices. “I don’t, you guys always assume things,” she whispered, looking at the random framed pictures hung up on the wall. “Elliot!” Renee shouted at the still walking man. He jumped slightly and flinched, “y-yeah? What’s up?” “Kitchen is right here doofus,” She nodded her head towards the room, “How did you manage to miss this big ass room??” “I guess it was an accident, never done that before haha,” He sighed and apologized. The so called pancakes were sitting on a top of a white ceramic plate, getting colder by the minute. “I wouldn’t even dare to try them..I mean you could but- It probably wouldnt be good..,” He walked over to the counter, “If you want, I can cook somthing up for you?” “That would be nice thank you and uh..can you make me some coffee? You know how I like it already,” She sat down at the large dinner table, laying her head down. “Yeah I can do that for ya, anything you want in particular?” Elliot asked but was met with silence. He peeked over and saw she was sleeping soundly with her head in her arms. Elliot took off his sweater and draped it over her shoulders then went back to the kitchen.

8:37 AM (1:30 hours before the match starts)

“Breakfast is ready Renee,” he shook her gently until she stirred, “Mornin’ beaut- I-I mean um..sleepyhead..? Yeah..that’s the word..sleepyhead.” “Mmm..mor-“ She clears her throat and rubs her eyes, “morning..sorry I fell asleep I just didn’t get enough sleep last night.” She looked down at the scrambled eggs and toast that were neatly placed onto the plate infront of her. “It’s fine, I didnt wanna bother you because I thought you’d kill me,” He admitted, taking off the apron that was tied around his waist. He placed it on the hook next to the fridge where a stickynote was left by Octavio not to touch his jello. The only person he let touch his stuff was Natalie. Renee picked up the fork and began eating. “You should date him” “No,” She whispered, furrowing her brows as she picked up a piece of egg with her fork. She watched as the tall man made her coffee just the way she likes it; black with a little bit of sugar and creamer. She was never one to like sweet coffee like everyone else. He poured the jug’s contents into her prefered mug. He added the little things she liked and carried it over to where she was sitting. She thanked him with a small, almost unnoticable, smile. Renee sat there with her cup close to her nose, smelling the bitter coffee aroma. She cooled it before sipping it slowly, enjoying the taste of her morning coffee.

“Hey Elliot, do you know what time it is?” She questioned the other who was washing the pan. He checked his phone and replied, “8:52” Renee stood up and brought her plate to the sink after she was done eating. “Could you wash these for me? I need to freshen up in my room,” She handed him the plate, “thanks.” She started making her way towards her room; which consisted of one right and a lot of walking straight. But she never got tired of it since she was happy she lived comfortably with her friends. The 2 rooms that were next to hers were Natalie’s and Ajay’s. The boys were on the opposite side so in front of her was Elliot. The hallway she lived in held 6 legends at a time 3 girls, 3 boys. Renee’s hallway had Ajay, her, and Natalie and then Octavio, Elliot, and Tae. The others had their hallways, some with empty rooms for future legends. Natalie was never really in her room since she was always with Octavio. It was weird, seeing two polar opposites living together. Then there were Ajay and Tae, she managed to make friends with him. I’m pretty sure Tae is still annoyed but is warming up to her.

“Oh! Youre awake finally,” Natalie smiled, walking out of Octavio’s room, “You never woke up so I had to get Elliot to help me..” Renee stood there at her door with the key in the slot, “Yeah, Ive just been...thinking.”

“Hm, well I hope you get some more sleep. Oh and goodluck with the match today!”

“You arent participating today?”

“Non, Ive been feeling unwell for the past few hours”

“Why aren’t you in bed then?”

“Well, Tavi was getting Ajay but he hasnt come back yet”

“You should be resting Nat..”

“Im okay I swear! Pas besoin de s'inquiéter,” She smiled softly and weakly. She was still in the large shirt Octavio gave her to sleep in and pajama pants. She had a small nessy plush tucked into her elbow, being squished tightly. “Chica! Get back in the bed right now or else im going to llevarte allí yo mismo,” Octavio came back with soup and meds, shouting at the sickly girl. “Ah, Tavi.. Je suis désolé I was just wondering where you were.,” She hugged the plush closer to her fragile body. “Come here conejita, lets get you better,” He lifted her up into his arms, still carrying the supplies Ajay had given him, “When you are done being sick I am going to....”

“Lovebirds,” Renee sighed and closed the door to her room, preparing for the match ahead of her. She got her battle gear on and re-did her messy bun into a neat one. Her kunai rested on the counter, untouched in its holster. She picked it up and unsheathed it, smiling at the small sparks of void that emitted out of it. She put it away and hooked the holster to her belt. “You know you wanna be like them, you cant deny it” The voices teased. “You guys really want me in a relationship huh,” Renee flopped backwards onto her messy bed. She didnt have time to make it in the morning but now she can. She checked her phone and scrolled through her social medias. Elliot made her download them and every now and then, Elliot will make her post a picture or something. She always got tagged in fanart and random posts about her in the matches. She would occasionally like some and they would freak out and thank her. She scrolled through her tagged until she came across one post. It was fanart of her and Elliot, sitting together with their hands intertwined watching the sunset. Renee blushed slightly at the art. She saw that Elliot had already liked it, but seeing as he likes all posts that he got tagged in, it wasnt weird. She hesitantly liked it and turned off her phone. “Maybe I do like him” Her thoughts were interupted when someone knocked at the door.

9:34 (couple minutes until the match starts. The ship still has to arrive at the arena, World’s Edge)

“Renee! Get yuh ass over here ‘cause the match starts soon!” Ajay’s voice boomed through the door. Her footsteps could be heard on the other side as she walked away. Renee stood up and stretched while walking towards where Ajay just was. She opened the door to see Elliot walking out of his room. “Oh hey Ren..can I call you that? Im gonna call you that..anyways, hi. Wanna walk together?” She nodded, “Okay cool, lets start heading over before everyone leaves without us.” They walked in a comfortable silence over to their friends. Octavio was in a corner moping since he didnt have his love interest with him while Crypto spied on him from another corner. He was still mad that Nat rejected him a few weeks ago to be with Octavio. It was crazy hearing that he was sulking around in his room for hours on end. But back to the main girl in this story, Renee sat down on one of the couches that sat in the middle of the room. Everyone was ready to board the dropship to head over to the arena. Here is what was going around, Gibby and Ajay were laughing together,Octavio was..unenergetic for once, Tae was in the corner, Loba was fixing her nails while Rev watched her on the wall, Alexander was playing around with his gas, and lastly Ramya was chewing gum while playing on her phone. It was always bustling in the living space because its where everyone socialized other than the bar. A small yet loud alarm was sounded to let all the legends know it was time to board the dropship.

“Woo-hoo! It’s finally time to go,” Octavio said unenthusiastically. Everyone walked in one-by-one or in pairs. They all strapped up in their skydiving equipment and was prepared for the long drop ahead of them. Renee stood next to Elliot’s room in the ship while the others either went to their rooms or sat in the middle. (Reference back to the season 3 trailer for room placement) Renee was flippping her kunai peacefully while Elliot rambled about something in his room. She enjoyed listening to him talk about nonsense while the quiet humming of the ship was surrounding them. It was peaceful, atleast to her. It blocked out most of the voices and when she was around Elliot they seemed to shut up and occasionally tease her. The drop ship shook a bit and Elliot tripped a little but caught himself. Renee didnt mind turbulence since she didnt really care about anything really, she tenses up a bit sometimes but thats about it. Her scarf end swayed as the ship lowered slowly. Suddenly the screens flashed on and displayed everyone’s banners. Everyone gets a chance to customize and submit their banners to headquarters. The teams were as listed,

Lifeline, Crypto, and Gibraltar

Octane, Caustic, and Bloodhound

Mirage, Wraith, and Loba

Revenant, Pathfinder, Bangalore

Rampart

Everyone stood on their respective platforms also known as where the screens flashed their names. The champions were shown not even a minute later, Wraith’s team was shown and she said a voiceline to taunt her enemies of the day. The metal shifted under their feet and lowered slowly, revealing the bright, cold arena. Everyone at this point was used to the cold though, they were glad it was world’s edge because kings canyon during those months was scorching. Comms were switched on and everyone tested out the mics. Everything was set up and ready to go so teams started dropping towards their locations. Wraith was jumpmaster and pinged on the map, Fragment West. Everyone knew both of Fragment was dangerous and it was hotdrop that game too. You can bet that there were multiple death boxes surrounding the small yet large area. Wraith was already kill leader with 7 kills from the popular spot. Bullets were heard in the distance and Wraith portaled to gain some speed while Loba teleported and Mirage had to run. He wasn’t a running person for long distances so he just took wraith’s portal.

“W- Wait up you two! I dont have a movement ability!!” He cried out to the two girls. The two looked at eachother and giggled while looking back at the energy drained man. “Danger move” Wraith looked around and pinged an enemy and phased away out of danger. Again, Loba teleported away and Mirage was left alone to run away. They hit him good but he managed to get behind cover. Wraith lended him some shield cells and syringes and shot at the other team with her sentinel. The other team was Octane’s team and they were stacked; Octane had gold armour while his teammates had red evo. Octane also had a peacekeeper that he got from a carepackage just next to them. It was a long fight, from gas being thrown on them to the ring closing in on the two teams. They had been fighting for so long they didnt even realize that there were only 3 teams in total left. Wraith’s team, Octane’s team, and lastly Pathfinder. I would say Pathfinder’s team but his teammates died and the banner timers ran out, he was left solo.

“Everyone try to watch your backs, the robot could try to ambush one of us,” Loba turned to face her teammates, occassionally looked up and around for the tall simulacrum. “Spotted him, up there. He has a longbow and what seems to be a flatline on his back. I could snipe him down if that’s what you want,” Wraith calmly called out, pulling out her sentinel and charging it. “Go ahead beautiful,” Loba replied. In an instant, a loud, charged sentinel bullet was shot and killed the robot up on the hill, instantly eliminating him. Now, it was just Octane and Wraith’s teams left to fight. “Nice kill Re- I mean,” He cleared his throat, “Nice kill Wraith..” Wraith smiled and thanked him silently while eyeing down the other team. Seconds went by and both teams rushed eachother. Bullets whizzed by eachothers heads and occasionally hit their shoulders or legs. Octane’s team was low on meds while the other team was low on ammo. Another minute of fighting passes and Wraith’s team is deemed the champion. When they were back in the drop ship everyone congratulated them for winning even though they were in a tight spot. There was an after match party happening in an hour so everyone went back to their rooms to clean up after a long day and get dressed. Renee was first to her room to take a shower while the others stayed in the kitchen or hallways sparking conversations with eachother. While Renee took her cold shower, Elliot decided it was be such a good idea to just waltz into her room to ask her a question not knowing that she was relaxing without voices for once.

“Hey Renee! I was just wondering if you wanted to match for the uh..,” He paused, looking around, “Renee? Where are you??” He looked around the empty yet messy room. Clothes thrown everywhere and notebooks and hairties were strewn about. Her messy bed showing how much she slept that night, which it wasn’t much. He began to worry about her well-being and if she even actually took care of herself. He heard the loud shower running so he went and knocked on the bathroom door. But before he actually knocked, he thought about the things that could happen if he knocked on her bathroom door when she didnt even know that he was in her room. He’d be killed. Before he knew what was coming he accidentally knocked on the door infront of him like a reflex. He heard the girl inside gasp loudly with a few things dropping. He startled her, which was a first for him. He was in shock and did not want to move. “She’s like a T-Rex, if I dont move she cannot see me-“ He was cut off when the door swung open and a semi-dryed off Renee was standing in-front of him. She had her body wrapped with a towel and her still damp hair dripped along the floor and her scarred shoulders.

“How are you in here and what do you want,” She said firmly with an annoyed face. “One, your door was open, two, I wanted to ask if you wanted to match outfits for the after match thing..,” He sighed looking away, “Nevermind, it was a dumb question of course you dont.” He turned and apologized but before he could leave the room Renee stopped him. “Who said I didn’t want to? I wouldn’t mind matching with you,” She stepped over to her closet and sifted through the dresses section, “What color or style were you thinking of?” Elliot was astonished that she actually agreed to do anything with him. “I was thinking accents of purple..? I think it would look nice on both of us,” He sat down on a nearby chair in her room, looking away from her slender body. “Fine with me, now turn around,” She made sure he had his eyes closed and was turned around in order to change. She dropped the towel and peered back just in case. “You want him to see you” “Tell him to turn around” “Let him touch you” The voices were surrounding her but she managed to ignore them. When she finished getting dressed she had Elliot turn around.

“Wow..,” Elliot had no words for the sight in front of him. She wore a long black dress that had a slit on the side with a fluffy, purple boa draped over her shoulders and she was wearing heels making her as tall as him. She played with her hair a bit out of embarrassment while looking away. “You look..amazing,” Elliot was admiring her features that he acted like he’d never seen before, “I just- have no words.” “I dont look that good relax,” Renee walked over to her dresser and put on a necklace that had a purple gem in the middle. “Are you going to just stand there and not go to your room and get dressed?” Renee peered over at him from the mirror. “Right..right yeah, Ill be back to ‘pick you up’,” He opened the door and quietly shut it behind him. She sighed and thought out loud, “What am I going to do about him?” She put her hair in a half bun-half hair down sort of style and finished her look with mascara and a slight tint to her lips. She slipped on short black gloves and grabbed a clutch that had small purple accents on it. “He will like it” “For once you look nice” “People are going to judge you” “Nobody will approach you” “People are going to hate you” The voices started off nice but went downhill and piled hate after hate onto her. She pushed them away and mumbled to herself that tonight will be a good night. Light knocking was heard and she went to open the door, her heels clicking with every step.

“Ready to gooooo-“ He looked her up and down and smiled, “You’re beautiful” He tucked a stray strand from her hair behind her ear, “Let’s be on our way before the limosu- limosio- limo gets here.” He held out a hand and she gladly took it. They held hands for most of the way until Renee let go to check her clutch for something. She pulled it out and checked it before slipping it back in. It was her Apex ID, aka the only way to get into Apex events. You can be one of the legends but they wouldnt let you in without it since people knew how to look almost identical to them. She didn’t regrab his hand after that, she wanted to make sure no one saw. When they got to the front of the building everyone was in their formal attire. Octavio was wearing a green suit top with tailored shorts to go along with it and Natalie wore a white party dress that had orange and blue accents, Anita was in a classic suit talking to Loba who was in a short gold dress, Crypto was in a white suit with green accents, Rampart was in a blouse and office pants, Gibby was in a suit while Ajay wore a long blue dress, Bloodhound wore their goggles along with a suit that had a red cloth in its pocket, and Alexander wore a plain black suit. Revenant doesn’t dress up he said. Pathfinder simply went as himself for the night. After a couple minutes of waiting the limo drove up to the curb of the building. Everyone piled in close together and began conversations with eachother. Elliot and Renee sat really close together due to the limo being quite small for a bunch of legends. Some minutes pass and Renee’s eyes are starting to close. She finally let the sleepiness take over her and her head softly fell onto Elliot’s shoulder. He looked over at her and smiled. Most of the legends eyed them and mouthed for him not to move one bit or she would murder him.

“Elliot..,” Renee mumbled in her sleep, “I..love you..” The small sentence was only heard by the man allowing her to sleep. He tensed up but relaxed as her arm draped over his. The limo pulled up to the event center and a red carpet was dramatically rolled out for the legends. One-by-one everyone was walking down the red carpet either together or solo. Im guessing you can guess which ones walked solo. Elliot nudged Renee and she slowly opened her eyes. She yawned quietly and her eyes met his. They looked at eachother and then she backed away, standing up. She turned away and quickly walked out of the limo and Elliot followed shortly after. Elliot caught up and walked beside her while she covered her eyes from the flashing of the cameras. He enjoyed all the attention on him but Renee never did. He realized what was happening and walked directly infront of her, taking the spotlight. The taller put his hand behind his back and Renee allowed herself to grab and squeeze it lightly. He led her somewhere private and sat her down on a wall away from everyone else.

“You okay? I know you dont like the atten- attentin- eyes on you,” he knelt down, matching his eye level with hers. “I’m fine, you dont have to worry about me so much you know,” She sighed and leaned back slightly, “Let’s just get back to the others before they think were fucking or something.” Elliot offered a hand but she declined, pushing herself up from the wall. She swayed her hips with every step she took towards the doors. Her dress flowed down neatly from her waist down to the carpeted floor. He watched her walk away as the boa she wore bounced with her strides. “W- wait up Renee!” He yelled, fast-walking towards her but she was already through the doors. When he made it through, it was bustling with legends from other ports and random game organizers. There was loud music playing from speakers up above and most of the legends were by the bar including Anita and Loba. Others were either on couches or talking near walls with each other. There were people dancing in the middle of the room where flashing lights and more sparkled along the area. His eye caught the bright purple boa from across the room.

“Hey Ren, glad I finally found you,” He sat next to the now relaxed woman, “Let me guess, appletini?” She gave a side-glance towards him while she sipped the drink he guessed. It was her usual at the Paradise Bar so it wasn’t weird. Minutes went by and the found themselves laughing at eachother from stupid jokes and random stories. A slow-dancing song played on the speakers and everyone got with a partner.

“Wanna go dance with me Ren?” Elliot grabbed her hand, pointing to where everyone was partnered together. “I can’t really dance Elliot, I dont know if I could do it,” Renee responded back to him, covering her face with her boa. “Oh, come on you can’t be that bad at dancing. It’s not that hard, come on I’ll teach you,” He grabbed her hand and pulled her off the seat to take her over to everyone else. He brought her to the dance floor and held her close, guiding her hands to where they were supposed to be. He placed her hands on her lower waist and swayed side-to-side with her. “See? I told you it wasnt that ha-“ He winced as she stepped on his foot, “It’s fine, I forgive you since you’re a beginner.” She apologized anyways and held him closer. As the song came to an end everyone seperated except for them.

“This is nice,” Renee pulled away from his arms, “Want to go somewhere more..quiet?” Elliot’s face contorted to a confused yet happy expression. “I know just the place Ren!” He grabbed her hand and practically sprinted out the doors with her, bringing her to a cliff just off the side of the road. He sat down far away from the edge and patted the spot next to him, signalling for her to walk over and sit next to him. The sun was setting and it was the most beautiful thing that Renee had ever seen. “Oh wow Elliot..I never knew about this spot,” She couldn’t stop gazing at the orange and red hues surrounding the hot ball of gas. “My mom would take me here sometimes, from the sunset, the sunrise, and the stars oh my god the stars. She’d make them so amazing but one day she got so sick and she couldn’t take me anymore. So everytime we get to come here I come out here, to escape the whole legend thing and relax by myself. But now, I see two pretty things infront of me..the sunset and well, you,” He gently grabbed her hand and her reddish face was hard to see in the dark. She turned her head towards him and he smiled softly. “This reminds me of something I saw today, a post with a drawing of us. There’s just one thing missing to complete the scene I believe,” Renee saw him thinking and it looked like a lightbulb just turned on in his head. He leaned in and so did she. They closed their eyes and-

kissed

The scene matched the vibe of the social media post that Renee had randomly come across. It was a strange feeling to Renee, for she had never felt this way towards anyone before. Atleast, not a time that she could remember. Elliot had a goofy smile plastered on his face afterwards. She grinned and leaned on his shoulder as they gazed at the stars that started to peek from the horizon. “Alright yuh lovebirds, get yuh asses inside before we leave without yuh guys,” Ajay leaned against the door, watching them. “Oh, alright. We’ll be right there Ajay,” Renee looked over her shoulder to the other girl and smiled softly. Ajay nodded and closed the door behind her. Elliot was the first to get up and then offered a hand for Renee to grab. She gladly took it and he hoisted her up to her feet. She brushed off any dirt that may have gotten onto her dress. As they went back inside, no one really looked at them apart from quick glances. Anita signalled to them over at the entrance that they were leaving the event. They held hands as they rushed over to the group, not wanting to let go of eachother. Anita counted them and led everyone back to the limosuine so they could pile in the same way they did when they arrived.

(Back at the Apex Dormrooms)(Specifically Elliots Room)

The two were sitting on top of the bed in Elliot’s room, talking. Everyone had just got back to the dorms and they had rushed out so they could get some privacy. “So..what are we now?” Renee turned towards Elliot, who was fidgeting with his hands. He looked up and shifted into a more comfortable position to look at the girl next to him. He looked back infront of him and flopped back onto his bed, staring at the ceiling. “Whatever you want us to be, Ren,” His eyes glanced at her features from the angle he was in.

“I want to be...more than friends-“

“Best friends?”

“No-“

“Best best friends..?”

“Elliot-“

“What?”

“I want to be together, as in I want us to date and do things that couples do,” her head turned towards him. “A-are you sure?? I-I-I mean I dont think Im that bad at being a boyfriend but are you really sure you want to be in a rela- rele- be with me???” He stammered, not knowing what to say. “Yes,” was all she had to say when Elliot pulled her in close to lay down next to him. He kissed her cheeks and her forehead multiple times before stopping to stare at her beauty. She giggled and smiled then held him down into a cuddle position on the bed. “This is what I’ve always wanted, despite me acting like I never did,” She admitted, tracing circles on the others chest. “Did you want to sleep here for the night? Or..we’re you going to go back to your room?” Elliot asked, but got no response from the other. Renee was fast asleep in his arms, snoring softly. Elliot smiled a loving smile and kissed her forehead lightly then fell asleep quick with the warmth she amitted.

E X T R A

Octane walked into Elliot’s room, knowing it was unlocked and because he was his best friend. He had his phone in hand, ready to ask a question about the future match. His eyes darted towards the bed after noticing that the lights were off. There, he saw his best friend with the stone cold girl, who never really showed emotion. He gasped quietly and opened the camera app on his phone. He snapped a picture but before he knew it, the flash went off and lit up the entire area of the man’s bed. Renee groaned and covered herself more with the blanket that was draped over her and Elliot. He quickly stepped out of the room where the couple rested and snickered at the photo he caught. His first thought was to post it, his second? To post it and then print it and frame it. He didnt want to seem like a bitch so he decided to post it with the caption, “Found the lovebirds mating LOL” Within a matter of seconds, the post flooded with likes and shares. Which meant that all if not most of the legends would see it. You bet that Elliot and Renee we’re furious when they both came across it the next day..

THE END

word count: 5,445

Hope you guys enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed writing it :] <3

Quotes will resume Monday,, 2:00pm CT

[captainmazzic]

Happy Halloween.

So it’s about time I gave a real fucking update instead of just dicking around being cagey about shit. I’ve mentioned a new project repeatedly. So let’s sit down and actually talk about it, friends. Pull up a chair, grab yourself some hot cocoa and strap in. Welcome to Sarc’s emotional roller coaster.

Bear with me. This is hard to talk about for so many reasons, but mostly because I’ve been belittled and ridiculed so many times in my life for liking “cringy” things or wanting to do things that other people think are stupid or childish. I hear the voice of my father telling me to “make something of my life” and “don’t squander your talents”, I hear the voice of my mother telling me I have “so much potential” and “one day I hope you get some ambition”, I hear the voice of my ex telling me to “stop wasting time with stupid shit” and “nobody is interested in failures”. I hear old teachers telling me honor roll students should go to college and study high-demand majors and anything else would be lazy and detrimental and won’t contribute anything worthwhile to society.

It’s the same shit that prevented me for a long time from posting art online. From posting writing online. From making ocs and showing them to other people. And now it’s preventing me from starting this project, and I’m so, so tired of it.

My biggest fear right now is that once I start talking about this project I’ll lose this tiny little community of people vaguely interested in my stuff that have somehow stuck around. External validation and sharing the things I love are my primary motivations with everything I do online, and while screaming into the void is all well and good, I need feedback and interaction and community. I need it so, so badly. I wouldn’t post jack shit – ever – if I didn’t need that, to be honest.

So anyway.

When the pandemic kicked into high gear earlier this year I got laid off for a few months. It gave me a lot of time to think about who I am and where I wanted to be in life, what mattered to me, what dreams I still had and which ones had fallen by the wayside.

Some of them are huge – once upon a time I was very religious. I went through seminary, got my minister’s certification, and was slated to be an associate pastor in a mega-church and rake in a six-figure income within 3 years. But I lost my faith and couldn’t stand the idea of being disingenuous.

And there was also a time when I received a full-ride scholarship to a very prestigious university that would have spanned a 12-year program and resulted in me having several doctorates and masters degrees by the end of it, in the fields of geology, palaeontology, and cladistics. But the scholarship program that was supposed to sponsor me went bankrupt the very semester I was supposed to capitalize on it. I was still accepted into the school, but the $1.2 million price tag would have all been out of my own pocket. So obviously that didn’t happen.

Those were the “acceptable” dreams. Those were the ones that parents and teachers and the general outside world approved of and thought were worthy goals. But neither of them panned out, and all I have left are the cringy ones. Like homesteading and sustainable living (can’t start without land, can’t have land without money). Like making comic books and doing art commissions for a living (it has to be steady to support myself, and I’m far too slow an artist for things to be steady). And like… playing video games.

Ha.

What’s funny is I can already envision the eyerolls and hear the snorts of laughter. What kind of dream is that? Only a handful of famous youtubers and twitch celebrities play video games for a living, and breaking into a field like that is pretty much impossible unless you already have friends in famous places.

Yeah, but… it would be so much fun. Right?

It WOULD be fun. I don’t have to become a super popular celebrity for it to be fun, right?

I don’t have to make it my day job and rake in piles of cash for it to be fun, right?

… I don’t have to actually be successful for it to be fun… right?

… Right?

:/

… I love video games.

I’ve loved them ever since I tried and failed so many times to win The Empire Strikes Back on Atari 2600. I’ve loved them ever since I played Mortal Kombat with my cousin in his basement with the sound down super low because it was ultra-violent and I would have been in so much trouble if mom caught me playing it. I’ve loved them ever since I tried and failed to finish Strife and Hexen and Heretic without the computer crashing and rebooting to DOS. I’ve loved them ever since I had to cheat-code my way through Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II just to get past the first boss fight but then no-clipped through the wall and died anyway. I still love that game.

But I stopped playing video games for a very long time. I was intimidated out of them by an ex and a somewhat toxic friend group who were Real Gamers™. I was brought to LAN parties but not allowed to play, because I slowed down the team and didn’t know the controls. I was banned from commenting on other people’s moves or cheering people on because it was distracting and I could cost them a win. I was even kicked out of their online D&D campaigns because I couldn’t be serious enough or roleplay well enough for their standards. Even if I was playing a game on my own, I couldn’t play with anyone else in the house because I’d be ridiculed for dying a lot, or for going the wrong way, or for picking the wrong game because only certain games are “good” and most of the ones I wanted to play were “stupid” or “trash” or a “waste of time”.

That kind of thing sits with me for a very, very long time. I didn’t really play games at all for over a decade. Even after I ended up on the opposite side of the country, with a new circle of friends, I couldn’t bring myself to play much of anything.

And then I had an extended visit with a friend of mine, and he introduced me to an early version of a ridiculous little game called Minecraft. My friend was an avid gamer but also a very kind one. In the ten years before this, I had told myself that I just preferred to watch other people play games instead of playing them myself (a lie. I mean, I absolutely adore watching other people play, but I also want to play too lol), my friend saw through that and very gently encouraged me to take a stab at playing Minecraft myself. He moved his laptop over to me, and I played a whole ten minutes with him watching before my nerves failed me and I promptly died. But miraculously it wasn’t a big deal to him. It was just a game. I might have cried in relief, I don’t remember.

After my visit I shelved playing video games for like another year, despite buying a whole mess of them because other friends online loved certain titles and wanted to talk about them with me. (I never played them, just bought them. I couldn’t even handle the thought of playing by myself in my own house). But for some reason I mentioned to my brother-in-law my old visit to my Minecraft-loving friend, and he just… up and bought the game for me. My brother-in-law is also an avid gamer with a lovely and patient disposition, and he suggested I just play in creative mode and build things to start. So I did that (behind a locked door in the RV that I lived in by myself, with the lights off and the sound down low) and Minecraft was my sole video game for another several years.

Then a couple years ago another friend of mine (hi Char) introduced me to Star Wars: The Old Republic, and I fell in love. It sparked a renewed interest in video games that I thought I would never really have the opportunity to satisfy, because games were still intimidating.

Let me clarify: I… SUCK. At video games. I’m terrible at them. Learning controls is a nightmare and a tunicate evolving its own brain would learn faster than me. If I’m aiming, I can’t hit the broad side of a barn. I have the direction sense of a whirligig beetle on the back of a drunk pigeon. I die fast and I die often. I can count the number of games I’ve actually finished on one hand. Even less if we don’t count the ones I had to use cheat codes to get through. But none of that diminishes my love of experiencing them, and over this whole pandemic and quarantine thing I’ve had a lot of time to unpack and mull over my thoughts and feelings and passions about them.

… I moved my RV to a new spot literally the day before the lockdown in my state first initiated. Before this I was in a spot that had no internet other than what reception I could get on my phone, with severely limited bandwidth and patchy, unreliable service. The new spot has a steady wi-fi connection, and while upload speed is utter shit, downloading and streaming video are just this side of manageable. So I spent the first three months of the quarantine lockdown doing pretty much nothing other than watching Jacksepticeye, CrankGameplays, and Markiplier play video games on YouTube. (I honestly had no idea before this that people even did let’s plays. My internet access/speed has been shit for so long I’m totally out of the loop).

It… for fear of sounding utterly stupid yet again, it inspired me.

Like. These people really love what they’re doing. They just. Play video games and have fun with it, and I mean yeah they make money hand-over-fist doing it but the main thing is they HAVE FUN doing it. They have fun! Playing video games! In front of people! It’s wild. And the thing that REALLY got me was… they have feedback on it too. They have a COMMUNITY. They have people they can talk to about it. They have people that they can play games WITH, even, who don’t yell at them or tell them they suck every five minutes or tell them they can’t play with them because they’re worthless as teammates. They can fuck up in a game and their friends are laughing along with them on Discord instead of screaming at them to get it right or get out. They can play games by themselves in their house and then upload videos on the internet and then they can talk to other people about it! They have fun! It’s awesome! They have fun!!

I just. It meant so much to me. It meant so much to me to see these videos of these three, and then another dozen or so that I’ve followed since, play all these games and have such a good time and also be such a positive and kind and encouraging source of energy.

I know all of this is not exactly about video games specifically. It’s about coming to terms with how I’ve been treated as a person and as a friend, about how other people respect someone’s interests and passions, about how it’s okay to share your interests with other people and it’s okay to like things that other people might not care about or think are important.

And I’m so, so tired of not doing the things I love because I’m afraid of what other people will think.

So I, uh. I invested all of the stimulus money I had into a new rig and equipment like a camera, lighting, acoustic panels, all that shit. I dug out all the games I bought but never played, I made accounts on all the big gaming services like Steam and Itch.io and GoG, and I made a YouTube channel. And I’m going to be making my own let’s plays. And it will suck, and it will be cringy and awkward and badly done, and it won’t make me money or be a valid career option or be anything but another very expensive hobby, but it will be mine, and it will be something I can share with people and (hopefully) have fun with, and it will (hopefully) be an avenue for some of this positive social interaction I’m craving.

I know YouTube can be toxic and super negative and full of trolls and cancel culture fanatics and people just waiting to find something to tear you down for, but like. Come on, y’all. I’m posting this on tumblr dot com. Toxic is everywhere anyway. I just want to try, you know?

I just want to love video games again.

Someone famous that I look up to so, so much told me – without knowing that I was even listening, without even knowing that I even exist – that if I enjoy doing something, to just go for it. To just jump in and do it, and if it works then it works, and if it doesn’t, what have I actually lost?

And I’m lucky enough to have four whole offline friends that I’ve mentioned this idea to, and each of them has said encouraging things like I’d have a good voice and face and style for making let’s plays. I honestly don’t know how true that part is, but on my good days I believe them. And they also said that I should go for it, to just try.

So that’s… that’s what I’m doing, I guess. I just want to try.

I know it’s not Star Wars fanart. I know it’s not Star Wars fanfiction. I know it’s not Star Wars meta or essays or ranting about the Sith and the Jedi and the Force. I know it’s not what y’all want from me. And that’s utterly terrifying. I’m bracing myself to be alone on the internet again, because I know that when I dive headfirst into this thing, it’ll eat away into the time that I normally might be spending doing writing or art, and it’s going to be something no one else wants to see and no one signed up for. And that’s partly why it’s taken me so very, very long to get started.

The other part is more physical. Of course as soon as I decide that I’m going to put my face on a camera is when my entire face goes to shit. I’m currently waiting on a potential diagnosis for mouth cancer, while already dealing with a severe jaw infection that’s causing my teeth and gums to rot inside my mouth. They already took part of my jaw, I’m missing teeth, others are turning black, if I open my mouth even just a little it is so obvious and I look like a very, very literal zombie. I have never been more grateful that masks are socially acceptable. I have a series of twelve appointments scheduled to treat this shit now that I have dental and health insurance (goodbye paycheque), and I might qualify for reconstruction surgery too. But that doesn’t really help how I look right now.

So I just can’t bring myself to start this project just yet. I’ve been sitting on it for months now with all the other pieces in place, but I just. Can’t. Start. It’s driving me crazy, because I want to start so badly. I feel like I’m wasting time. I feel like I’ve already wasted so much time, because I haven’t even done anything else in the meantime. I haven’t done hardly any art or fanfic, nothing. My anxiety is spiking so high right now because I have all these expectations of myself, but I can’t do anything about it. I’ve been told that I could just start without a camera or wear a mask on screen, and I’ve actually done some recording doing exactly that, but I just… can’t seem to make anything I want to finalize.

It’s also frustrating because I have no way of uploading anything at home. I’ll have to go over to my partner’s house which is nearly an hour’s drive away in order to get internet good enough to upload videos, which means that upload schedules are going to be shiiiiiit and that’s also frustrating.

But. But. BUT. I want to do this.

I want to do this so badly. I want to share let’s plays and experience a love of video games with other people. I want to actually play games with other people too. I also just acquired a piano keyboard, and I want to play again on the regular because I miss it so much. I used to play piano for hours every single day, it’s so relaxing and fun, maybe I can post that too. Maybe I can post let’s draws or something, where I ask y’all what to draw and then make a video of me drawing it while bullshitting to the camera I don’t know it sounds like fun. Maybe I can post videos of my cooking because the shit I make seems to be everyone’s favourite thing on instagram, and maybe I can take my camera with me when I go to the ocean or hike up into the middle of nowhere in the mountains and film how beautiful everything is up there. Or maybe I can do none of that and just focus on one thing, I honestly have no idea what I’m doing or how to do it, but I just… I want to try. I just want to try.

I don’t know where any of this is going anymore. I’m sorry I haven’t responded to messages, or opened up commissions. I’m sorry that this isn’t what y’all wanted. I’m still going to continue drawing and writing, I’m still going to be around, I’m not going anywhere, but I have no idea how prolific I’m going to be and I have no idea even when I’ll start uploading videos, to be honest. But I just. I’m just gonna try. It might still take me a while but I’m gonna try. Wish me luck. I love y’all.

[starlightbuck]

i wanna be known (by you)

part 2/2 || word count: 5.9k || read on AO3

When he leaves, Eddie checks his phone. Even after all that time he spent obsessing over what to wear, he still managed to arrive at the restaurant early. He left his name and Buck’s at the front so that whenever Buck arrives, he would be led right to their table. It was a conscious decision on Eddie’s part to sit so that he’s facing the front door, that way he can see the moment Buck steps foot inside.

In the meantime, Eddie focuses on keeping his heart from beating right out of his chest. This is the first date that he’s been on in years and it’s safe to say that his nerves are getting the best of him. It’s just that, he likes Buck. Really likes him, which feels almost stupid to say considering the fact that they’ve never officially met.

It is what it is though, a side-effect of living in a world where online dating has become a norm.

Eddie adjusts the sleeve of his light blue button-up for the third time in less than five minutes. Maybe he should’ve gone with the green long-sleeve instead. It was Abuela that convinced him that he looked more handsome in light blue. Then again, she might’ve just said that to get Eddie to stop fussing over his outfit and actually leave the house on time.

“Good evening, sir. Can I take your order?”

“I’m actually going to wait for my date to arrive before ordering anything.”

The older gentleman nods in understanding. “Of course.”

When he leaves, Eddie checks his phone. Even after all that time he spent obsessing over what to wear, he still managed to arrive at the restaurant early. He left his name and Buck’s at the front so that whenever Buck arrives, he would be led right to their table. It was a conscious decision on Eddie’s part to sit so that he’s facing the front door, that way he can see the moment Buck steps foot inside.

In the meantime, Eddie focuses on keeping his heart from beating right out of his chest. This is the first date that he’s been on in years and it’s safe to say that his nerves are getting the best of him. It’s just that, he likes Buck. Really likes him, which feels almost stupid to say considering the fact that they’ve never officially met.

It is what it is though, a side-effect of living in a world where online dating has become a norm.

When Eddie checks his phone again, he sees that it’s a couple of minutes past the time that him and Buck agreed to meet at the restaurant. Eddie goes into their text conversation to make sure he sent the right address. When he sees that he has, he locks his phone and waits. The restaurant is located in downtown LA and traffic is bound to be a nightmare, especially on a Friday night.

Twenty minutes later, the waiter comes back to the table to ask if Eddie wants to place his drink order. He asks for water.

Five minutes after that, the waiter is back at the table refilling the glass of water Eddie all but chugged in an attempt to distract himself from his date’s absence. He texted Buck to see where he was but has yet to receive a response.

Another twenty minutes pass before the waiter is back at Eddie’s table.

“I’m so sorry, sir. But if you’re not planning on ordering anything-”

“It’s fine.” Eddie is already out of his seat and tugging his jacket off of the back of his seat. He’s sure that his cheeks are stained red by the shame he feels about being stood up like this, but it’s nothing in comparison to the disappointment coursing through him. “I’m leaving. Thank you for your kindness.”

He leaves a $20 bill on the table and walks out of the restaurant without looking back.

Buck doesn’t get back to him that night or the night afterwards.

“It’s my own fault,” he tells Hen as they work together to clean the fire truck. It’s been four days since his failed date with Buck and just as long since he’s heard from him.  “I was stupid for thinking I could actually trust someone I met through an app.”

“You’re not stupid,” Hen counters. “He is for missing out on the chance of being with someone as amazing as you.”

He knows Hen’s trying to make him feel better, but the words fall flat. If he’s so amazing, how come Buck didn’t show up? Why did he ghost him? Is it something he said during one of their conversations? Did he scare Buck away without even realizing it?

The worst part is, Eddie misses him. Him, this person Eddie never even had a chance to meet. But it’s true. There’s a Buck-shaped void in Eddie’s life, one that he’s struggling to fill. He got used to their daily phone calls and texts and losing both so suddenly has left Eddie feeling like an addict being forced to quit his habit cold turkey.

Out of the corner of his eye, Eddie catches Chim making his way over to them. The last thing he wants is someone else weighing in on this whole situation. “Can we drop this?”

Hen looks less than pleased by the request but does as she’s asked. “Hey, Chim.”

“Did you guys hear about that big accident that happened Friday night?” Chim asks, in lieu of a greeting.

Eddie visibly winces at the mention of Friday and Hen places a reassuring hand on his shoulder, never once taking her eye off of Chim. “No, what happened?”

“Apparently there was some kind of explosion and a guy ended up trapped under his Jeep. It took-”

Eddie tunes out of the conversation and steps out from under Hen’s hand so he can move on to a different spot of the truck to clean.

After a week of radio silence from Buck, Eddie deletes every single one of the dating apps he has on his phone. He tried using a few and reached out to a couple of people, but none of them ever felt right. And, with the sting of Buck’s rejection still weighing heavily on his mind, Eddie didn’t feel like he could fully trust any of the people he was messaging anyways.

He contemplates deleting Buck’s number, but he can’t bring himself to do it.

Eddie compromises by putting Buck’s messages on Do Not Disturb.

That same weekend, May catches Eddie alone at a family barbecue being held at the Nash-Grant household.

“What ever happened with that cute guy you were talking to? Buck, right?”

Eddie stills and his breath gets lodged in his throat. He hates that he reacts so viscerally to the name. “It didn’t work out.”

Two weeks later, Chris is playing with his dad’s phone as the two of them make the drive to Abuela's house for Sunday dinner.

“Daddy, your phone says you have eight new messages.”

Eddie’s gaze briefly meets his son’s through the rearview mirror before focusing on the road again. He doesn’t remember seeing any new messages when he was on his phone a few minutes ago. “Just ignore them, Chris.”

Eddie has no way of knowing that his son doesn’t heed his advice, choosing instead to go to his dad’s messages app to see who’s sent him that many messages.

“Daddy, can I use your phone?”

Chris has made it a habit as of late to ask Eddie for his phone and his father doesn’t know what to make of that. The last thing he wants is for his son to become reliant on the device to keep him entertained. He knows how slippery that slope can be.

“How about we use those legos that Uncle Bobby bought you instead?”

Eddie expects Chris to be excited about the prospect of using his legos, but all Eddie gets is a pout. “Please? I’ll be quick, I promise.”

As his father, Eddie should be better at denying Chris’s requests even when a pout is involved. But there are days when Eddie will think back to how much of Chris’s life he missed out on while overseas and it makes it impossible for him to say no.

“Fine,” he relents. Chris cheers as Eddie passes his phone over to his son. “But you can only be on it for ten minutes.”

“Okay!”

Eddie makes it a point to check the time on his watch so he can cut Chris off exactly at ten minutes, before getting up to grab the lego set from Chris’s room. By the time he comes back, his son is smiling and laughing at his phone. Eddie assumes he’s either watching a video or playing one of the games he has downloaded on the phone. Since Eddie doesn't hear any voices or music, he assumes it’s the latter.

Two minutes before his time is up, Chris gets up off the couch and hands his father’s phone back to him. “I’m ready to play with my legos now.”

Eddie slides his phone into his back pocket and settles his son on the floor beside him so they can work on their building project together.

“Daddy, my friend is having a bad day.”

Eddie, who’s in the middle of doing the dishes, doesn’t look up. He’s too concentrated on getting the charred remains of his attempt at making pasta off of the pan before it’s too late. If Abuela finds out that he ruined yet another pan with his cooking attempts, he’s almost certain that she’ll disown him. “I’m sorry to hear that, bud.”

“You have to talk to him.”

“Why me?” Eddie turns on the hot water in the hopes that that’ll make this whole process easier.

Christopher huffs, a habit that he’s recently picked up. Eddie doesn’t know where his son learned it from, but he can’t say that he’s a fan of it. It acts as a reminder that his son is growing up and, as much as Eddie wishes he could stop time, it’s not possible. “Because he’s your friend too.”

And that is enough to turn Eddie away from the task at hand. “My friend?”

Christopher puts the phone back to his ear. “I think my daddy forgot about you. I’m going to put him on so he can help you feel better.”

Eddie watches in stunned silence as his son walks over to his side and holds the phone out to him. Chris has that determined look on his face that Eddie is sure he’s seen staring back at him in the mirror. The shock of seeing that expression on anyone other than himself is what prompts Eddie to answer the phone without glancing at the screen to see who it is he’s talking to. “Hello?”

“Eddie?”

Eddie’s still looking at his son, but he’s not really seeing him. His mind is too busy producing images of a man with golden hair, unfairly blue eyes, and a bruise-like birthmark. “Buck?”

It’s been almost a month since Eddie last heard from the other man. He had assumed that the time apart had been enough to erase his presence from Eddie’s mind and dull the effect he felt upon hearing Buck’s voice, but he was wrong. His heart is beating out a rapid cadence and the hand he’s using to hold his phone is shaking slightly. And how, how can he still be reacting like this to someone he’s never met?

“Eddie.”

“I don’t- I-” Words are failing him spectacularly and it annoys Eddie to no end. After the first few days of not hearing back from Buck, Eddie had worked up this whole monologue of things he would say to him. But weeks have passed and everything he thought he’d say when given the chance has all but flown out the window. Then he sees his son, the same person who definitely shouldn’t know who Buck is, sitting at the kitchen table and Eddie knows exactly what he wants to say. “Why the hell were you on the phone with my kid?”

“I can explain-”

“No,” Eddie interjects, feeling all of his anger towards Buck come bubbling back to the surface. He never found an outlet for his emotions after everything fell apart and now it’s coming back full force. Eddie is mindful of the fact that his son is only a few feet away. If not for that, this conversation would be a lot less child-friendly. “No. You stood me up and now, what? You’re using my kid to get back in my good graces?”

Buck has the good sense to not say anything, apparently already prepared for the verbal lashing he was set to receive from Eddie. His silence only works against him as something else occurs to Eddie. “How did you even get in contact with him? Through my phone?”

“I found his messages on your phone,” Chris answers, too young and innocent to identify his father’s tense and poised to lash out demeanor. “There was a little moon next to Buck’s name that was hiding his messages from you. But I saw them, so I responded.”

A lesson about privacy is not something Eddie thought he’d have to have with his son this early on in his life, but apparently it is. Eddie lowers the phone to address his son. “Remember when I told you in the past that you can’t take things that don’t belong to you? The same goes for whatever things you see on my phone, including messages I get from people.”

Chris’s lower lip juts outs and he lowers his head. “I’m sorry, daddy. But I liked talking to Buck. He’s nice.”

It’s the mention of what sounds like an ongoing conversation between Buck and Chris that leads Eddie to open his messages. Right there at the top of the screen with a half-moon next to it is Buck’s name.

Eddie likes to believe he’s an observant person, that the time he spent as a medic on the battlefield made it so that he was equipped to take notice of minor details that others might not. For him, having that ability could mean the difference between life and death for those he was treating. It’s an ability he thought he brought home with him, but maybe he was wrong. Maybe it’s something he’s only good at when out in the field and not while at home with his own son. It’s the only way he can think to explain how he missed the fact that Chris was texting someone he didn’t know with his dad’s phone.

Eddie scrolls through the texts between his son and Buck then. There aren’t too many messages, only a handful of them sent every couple of days, but enough to prove that the two of them have been talking for at least two weeks now. Buck regularly tells Chris that, although he’s happy to talk to him, he’s not sure how Eddie would feel about it. Every time, Chris says that his father won’t mind.

Then, before any outgoing messages from Chris show up, there are a string of messages from Buck that were obviously meant to be read by Eddie.

The first three came through the day after Eddie muted their text conversation.

Buck (12:24pm): I know I’m probably the last person you want to hear from right now but I promise I can explain everything.

Buck (12:25pm): call me if you can?

Buck (8:59pm): okay so you haven’t responded which I understand. I didn’t show up for our date and it’s been over a week since you heard from me but please call me whenever you see this? You deserve better than me explaining myself over text

The next two messages come a day later.

Buck (4:05pm): i deserve the cold shoulder but I promise I can explain

Buck (8:42pm): please let me explain

There’s another message almost a week later.

Buck (6:45am): I really messed this up, didn’t I?

Another message comes a couple days after that.

Buck (3:26pm): I’m so sorry eddie

Then there is one final message from him right before Chris started responding on Eddie’s behalf.

Buck (1:42am): I’ll stop texting you now.

“Eddie?” His name is spoken timidly and it takes Eddie back to the nights he once spent on the phone with Buck. “Are you still there?”

Eddie scrubs a hand over his face, not sure what to make of all of the messages he’s read. Buck says he has a reason for not showing up, but he never actually said what it was. Eddie hates that, even though all of this time has passed, he still wants to know why he was stood up.

It shouldn’t matter, but it does.

“Yeah.”

“I’m really sorry,” he pauses and then adds, “for everything.”

The apology tugs at the part of Eddie’s heart that wasn’t ready, or willing, to accept that Buck stood him up and then ghosted him for no reason.

Eddie is tempted to say, ‘it’s fine’. It’s what he would usually do, brush aside his feelings and absolve someone else of their wrongdoing. It would be annoyingly easy to do, but he stops himself before he says anything because it’s not fine. Not really. “Okay.”

Neither of them says anything and it’s a strange feeling, being on the phone with Buck and not having a single thing to say. Eddie can’t remember that ever being the case in the past during their phone calls. There hadn’t been a month of silence between them back then though. The weight of that hangs heavily over the both of them.

“Well I should-” Eddie begins just as Buck says, “Is there anything I can do?”

“Anything you can do?”

“To make it up to you,” Buck explains, the words rushing out of him as if he’s scared that Eddie will hang up on him before hearing him out. “If not that, at least let me give you a proper explanation of why I disappeared like I did.”

Eddie doesn’t owe Buck anything, but he does owe it to himself to properly turn the page on this chapter of his life.

“Fine.” Eddie hears something that sounds vaguely like a person choking, but he chooses not to comment on it. “But I choose where we’re going, and I plan to bring someone with me.”

“Deal.”

“And, if you stand me up again, you have to leave me alone. For good this time.”

“Understood, but that won’t happen again. I swear. Thanks for giving me a second chance, Eddie.”

“Thanks for coming with us, May.”

May shrugs and takes a sip of the caramel frappuccino Eddie bought her. “It doesn’t take much to convince me to come to Starbucks.”

He appreciates her nonchalance about this whole situation. Initially, Eddie only planned to have Chris tag along with him. The more he thought about it though, the better he thought it’d be better to have an extra person tag along with the both of them. What if there was a conversation that needed to be had between Buck and Eddie alone? Eddie couldn’t, wouldn’t, just abandon his son to accomplish that.

His first thought was to invite Hen along with him, but then he remembered the conversation he had with May about Buck and knew that she was the perfect choice.

“Mmm!” To Eddie’s left, Chris is smiling happily after taking a sip of his strawberry smoothie. “This is really good.”

“I told you you’d like it.” May ruffles Chris’s hair, much to his son’s amusement.

Eddie wants to be strong enough to not glance at the coffee shop’s entrance every few seconds, but he’s not. This is only too reminiscent of the night Buck stood him up and he’s not ready for things to play out like that again.

“Eddie, you alright?”

It’s May that asks the question, but it’s both her and Chris who are carefully watching Eddie.

“I’m fine.” May pointedly stares at him, putting him on the defensive “What? I am.”

She doesn’t say anything, her gaze catching on something that leads her to push her chair back and walk towards the front of the coffee shop. He tracks her movements, unsure of what motivated the sudden need to get it up. It’s not until she pulls the door open and holds it that he understands. The person who’s walking inside is on crutches and had no way of opening the door himself.

It’s not just anyone that she’s holding the door open for though, it’s Buck.

Eddie learned early on in life that it’s rude to stare, but he can’t help himself. How is it possible that Buck looks even better in person? Aren’t pictures supposed to be more flattering than real-life?

May must also recognize him because she’s the one who leads Buck to the table where Eddie and Chris are sitting. She grabs a chair for him so he can join them before taking her seat beside Eddie again. Eddie is sure they’re quite the sight - him in the middle being flanked by a teenager and a child sitting across from a man who easily towers over all three of them and looks like he’s made up entirely of muscle.

“Hi,” Buck greets, resting his crutches against the table. They’re almost twice as tall as Chris’s crutches.

It’s jarring to hear his voice in person when Eddie’s only ever heard him speak over the phone. “Hi.”

“You didn’t tell me you have crutches too!” Chris exclaims a little too loudly. A couple of heads turn in their direction, but Chris pays them no mind.

Buck’s smile is soft as he looks over at Chris and oh, that’s really not fair. Eddie became familiar with Buck’s smile through the photos he used for his dating profile, but this is different. Not only is Eddie seeing it in person for the first time, it’s being directed at the most important person in Eddie’s life - his son. “And you must be Christopher, it’s nice to finally meet you.”

“What happened to your leg?”

“Chris,” Eddie warns, even though it’s the same question on his mind. As far as he knew, there had never been anything wrong with Buck’s leg.

“I’m May,” May cuts in, saving them from what could’ve been an awkward conversation and holding out her hand for Buck to shake. He does, seemingly unphased by the people Eddie decided to bring along with him.

“Buck. Thanks for holding the door open for me back there.”

“Sure.” She stands up again and Eddie wonders if there’s someone else she’s about to hold the door open for. Instead, she grabs her drink and Chris’s. “Chris and I are gonna go sit at that empty table over there so you guys can talk.”

Chris goes willingly, allowing May to help him get his crutches on so they can walk over to the opposite end of the coffee shop. She lets Chris take the lead but turns back around momentarily to address Buck, “don’t you dare hurt him again.”

“Did she just threaten me?” Buck asks once May is out of earshot.

Eddie’s really glad he chose to bring her along. “I think so.”

“I’m pretty sure she’s only a teenager, but I’m still feeling intimidated.”

“You probably should. Her mom’s a cop.”

Eddie shouldn’t take joy in the way that Buck’s eyes widen at that piece of information, but he does. Good, let him squirm. It might put them back on equal footing because right now Eddie is disarmed by just how attractive Buck is, especially this close-up. How and why is someone allowed to have eyes that are that blue?

“Thanks for agreeing to meet me.”

“Mhm.”

Buck rubs the back of his neck. Is that a nervous tick that he’s done before while on the phone with Eddie? “Can I get you anything? A drink? Scone? Cookie?”

“I’m fine.” Then, because they’re here for a reason, he says, “so, that explanation I was offered?”

“Right.” Buck tries to adjust his position, but in doing so, he accidentally knocks his cast against the pole below the table. He winces and Eddie almost does the same. “I was on my way to meet you at the restaurant when I got into an accident.”

Eddie doesn’t know what to make of that statement. He was ready for some sort of pathetic excuse - Buck’s phone died, he confused the day or time of their date, an unforeseen but conveniently timed emergency kept him from showing up - which is why this reason has left him reeling.

“What?”

“I know it sounds fake or like a lie or whatever, but I swear I’m telling the truth.”

Eddie really has no explanation for knowing that Buck is telling the truth. It’s not like he’s had the chance to learn the nuances of Buck’s expression to parse out the truth in a sea of potential lies, but Eddie still believes him. It doesn’t make sense but sometimes the most important things in life just don’t.

All the righteous anger Eddie was holding onto for weeks seeps out of him in seconds. It leaves behind a void that is slowly filling up with a messy combination of concern, regret and sympathy. “I had no idea.”

“How could you?” Buck asks, smiling ruefully. He shifts in his seat again, searching for a comfortable position that Eddie’s sure he won’t find. Not with a cast as bulky as the one wrapped around his leg. He should probably be keeping it elevated, but Eddie refrains from saying so. “The details are pretty fuzzy. All I remember is one second, I was driving to the restaurant to meet up with you and then, out of nowhere, there was a loud boom and I was pinned under my Jeep.”

Something about this story is familiar, which doesn’t make any sense. Where could Eddie have heard it from if not from Buck himself?

“Considering the explosion itself, everyone keeps telling me that I’m lucky to be alive,” he continues, and Eddie can hear the ‘but’ in his voice. It’s as familiar to Eddie as the haunted look in Buck’s eyes, one that Eddie used to see reflected back at him when he first came home from his last deployment. It’s a look he still sometimes sees after rushing to the bathroom to splash cold water on his face after a particularly bad nightmare. Before Eddie can say anything about it, Buck blinks and whatever other emotion was attempting to bubble to the surface is efficiently cut off. “My phone wasn’t as lucky though.”

“Buck,” Eddie murmurs, hand itching to reach out and cover Buck’s. He knows trauma and the last thing he wants is to put Buck in a position where he’s forced to relive his own.

“My sister was able to replace it for me and I had it backed up to my computer so restoring it was easy, but I wasn’t in a talking mood,” Buck presses on, acting as if he hadn’t heard Eddie say his name. “I did think about you though. It was one of my first thoughts when I woke up in the hospital, but I don’t know. How do you tell someone you’ve never met but have very real feelings for that you’re in for a long road to recovery? That’s a lot to put on anyone - I couldn’t do that to you.”

Buck’s last statement is punctuated by a laugh that sounds like it physically pains him. Eddie wants to say something, anything, but he’s never been any good with words. He can’t even figure out if there is a right thing to say. Him and Buck are stuck in an awkward middle ground that exists as a result of online dating.

It’s something Eddie had read about before what was supposed to be his and Buck’s first time meeting. There were countless testimonials about people who had been in virtual contact struggling to find that same spark when meeting in person. It was enough to scare Eddie at the time, but not enough to keep him from showing up at the restaurant that night.

In all the articles he read though, there was never any mention about what to do when the man you’re supposed to meet up with ends up in an accident, doesn’t speak to you for a month, and then suddenly makes a reappearance.

“Anyways,” Buck says, eyes darting down to the table. “I get it. To you, it seemed like I stood you up and then ghosted you and that’s pretty unforgivable. I just wanted to apologize for that and I’m really glad you gave me the chance to do so.”

Buck keeps his eyes downcast and that’s when Eddie realizes this is it, this is everything that Buck showed up today to tell him. There’s nothing else to be said and it leaves Eddie with a steadily growing pit in his stomach.

This isn’t the way things were supposed to work out. They shouldn’t be meeting up for the first time a month after what should’ve been their first date. Buck shouldn’t be sitting across from Eddie, unable to look at him. Eddie shouldn’t already be missing Buck even though he’s not gone.

In a perfect world, or at least a better one, Buck wouldn’t have ended up in that car accident that night. He would’ve made it to the restaurant like he intended to and whatever was growing between him and Eddie could’ve had a chance to continue blooming. But they don’t live in a perfect world and Buck did get into an accident on his way to see Eddie and how is it fair for Eddie to condemn Buck for something that was out of his control?

These thoughts all come at Eddie faster than he can fully reconcile them, all because it sounds like Buck is gearing up to say goodbye and Eddie’s not ready to hear it.

It makes zero sense that he feels this way. Then again, online dating didn’t make sense to him until he tried it out. Maybe this, holding onto Buck instead of letting him go again, is something else that won’t make sense until Eddie tries it.

And that’s the truth of the matter here, isn’t it? Eddie lost his chance with Buck once thanks to a freak accident and now that a second chance has appeared seemingly out of thin air, Eddie’s not ready to let go again.

He doesn’t know what to say, so he decides to repeat some of the words Buck had spoken earlier, the same ones that Eddie’s brain had latched onto the moment they were said. “Very real feelings, huh?”

Eddie sure as hell has never been one to vocalize the way he feels and it’s refreshing to come across someone that does. Then again, haven’t conversations with Buck always been this way? Him speaking exactly what’s on his mind while Edde sat back and wondered what it would take for him to do the same?

“That’s what you took away from everything I just told you?” Buck’s cheeks are a light shade of pink when he says this and Eddie decides he likes that much more than the sad eyes and the goodbye in Buck’s voice from earlier.

“Is there anything else about that statement that I should’ve focused on?”

There’s not a hint of hesitation in Buck's voice only seconds later when he responds. “No, I guess not.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

They stare at each other in companionable silence then and something warm settles in Eddie’s chest. He can’t give it a name, not yet. All he knows is that it’s been too long since he last felt it and what are the odds that it would come back to him in a coffee shop of all places? It’s annoyingly cliché and, if anyone were to question Eddie about it, he’d deny it until his dying breath.

“Does this mean you forgive me?”

Buck sounds hopeful and it tugs at a chord deep within Eddie’s heart, as if the younger man believes that forgiveness is something he must earn and that’s not readily deserved. It’s something Eddie knows all too well. It’s also something he's willing to give Buck. no additional questions asked.

“It means there’s nothing to forgive.”

This time Eddie does reach for Buck’s hand. Buck’s fingers slide within the gaps of Eddie’s with the kind of familiarity that should only exist between couples who have known each other much longer than Buck and Eddie have. Then again, the two have known each other, albeit virtually, for a fair amount of time. There’s more merit to that than Eddie realized.

It might be too soon to think this, but Eddie believes this - holding Buck’s hand -  is something he can get used to.

“Thank you for giving me a second chance.”

“Thank you for striking up a conversation with my son.”

The statement is ridiculous if Buck’s laughter is anything to go off of, but it’s also the truth. Without Christopher, none of this would be possible. Eddie wouldn’t be seated here, across from the man who’s stupid dating profile bio and indescribable good looks were, and still are, almost too good to be true.

“Do you think we should invite Chris and the cop’s daughter back to the table? They’re very openly staring at us.”

When Eddie follows Buck’s gaze, he sees that the younger man is correct. Both Chris and May are scrutinizing them. May much more so than Chris, but it’s obvious that they’re both staring. “I think you’re right.”

With a subtle nod on Eddie’s part, May jumps out of her seat and helps Chris do the same. Her patience with his son is something Eddie refuses to ever overlook. She makes sure to carry Chris’s unfinished drink for him as the two of them make their way back to the table. May helps Chris get comfortable in the seat beside his father before reclaiming her seat on the other side of Eddie.

“Looks like you two worked things out.” May says, her brown eyes focused on Eddie and Buck’s intertwined hands.

Buck tugs loosely on Eddie’s hand, maybe to let go of his hand to make things a little less obvious, but Eddie doesn’t let him. Now that he has committed to giving things another shot, he refuses to let anything deter him. That includes an over-invested teenager and her too-observant eyes. He can trust May to keep this from her mother and stepfather for now, even if it means bribing her with more trips to Starbucks in the future.

“It looks like we did.”

Then. because his son is too smart for his own good, Chris also notices that Eddie and Buck’s hands are clasped over the table between them. “Does this mean you like him too, daddy?”

Buck looks far more amused than he has any right to. It’s not fair but, at the same time, it’s such a welcome contrast from the way Buck had looked earlier that Eddie has no desire to voice his objections. “I do, buddy.”

“You see. I told you he was your friend.” Eddie would be exasperated by his son’s know-it-all tone if not for the fact that it’s entirely warranted. “Can we keep him?”

Eddie should probably correct Chris, explain that Buck is a person and not an object that can be kept. He doesn’t only because, as his mind has a tendency to do, Eddie immediately starts thinking about worst case scenarios. In this case, it’s one Eddie already experienced. It consisted of a long month full of casting frequent glances at a silent phone and nights where he wished a soothing voice might fill his ears and help lull him to sleep.

Buck squeezes Eddie’s hand, bringing him back to the present and to his son who’s still expectantly waiting for his father’s answer.

Before saying anything, Eddie takes a moment to take in his surroundings. His son’s curious stare, May’s knowing smile and, finally, Buck’s encouraging grin. It’s not logical for Eddie to already be imagining a ‘Forever’ in his future with this man who he still has so much to learn about, but that’s not stopping him from doing so anyways.

“I really hope so, Chris.”

[roboticnebula]

Orbital Debris - 4 times being in space was unpleasant for Lan Xichen + one time it actually went alright

“Just ficlets,” I say, “short ones to get it out of my system,” I say as I keep writing more and more. Anyways, this is yet another installment of my Futuristic!AU (which I should have called the Space!AU!! I am a fool).

___

 ONE

Lan Wangji immediately grabbed his hand when they stepped on the shuttle and Lan Xichen’s chest tightened with shame. At a time like this, he was the one meant to be comforting his distraught little brother, not the other way around. Yet there it was. His dìdi, usually uncomfortable with touch, face blotchy with restrained tears and eyes stubbornly fixed on the ground, still reached out to him.

Lan Xichen gently squeezed back, hoping to convey he was fine, that Lan Wangji did not need to worry himself further. He focused on the warmth of that hand as they shuffled towards the back of the shuttle, to sit in front of the porthole as was their habit and did not let go, even as they buckled themselves in. Neither of them said anything as the shuttle smoothly lifted from the ground and the scenery below them got smaller and smaller.

Lan Xichen could never bear to look, he focused instead on his little brother. Lan Wangji was old enough now that he didn’t wave goodbye to the white figure stuck on the ground, watching the shuttle carry them away. He knew, now that she could not see them. He only sat stiffly as the distance grew, already counting the days before their next visit. All Lan Xichen could do was coax him to lay his head on his shoulder for some rest – a gesture he knew Wangji would also outgrow soon.

It was a half an hour trip between Gusu Lan and the moon that kept their mother in seclusion, a very short trip by space standards. But the distance wasn’t what worried Lan Xichen. He counted the satellites, the asteroids and the debris all in orbit between them and their mother. So much could go wrong, so easily. The smallest collision and they would be planet bound, unable to do the short trip, and what would happen to their mother then? Who would bring her supplies? Who would visit?

When they landed, Wangji was fast asleep, exhausted from the emotional day behind them. That was fine, because Lan Xichen was not ready to let go of him just yet. He lifted him in his arms, tucking his chin on his brother’s shoulder and carried him off the shuttle.

From here, their mother’s moon was no bigger than his fist. It looked horribly lonely, and not for the first time, Lan Xichen wondered why it had been necessary to strand their mother so far away.

TWO

Lan Xichen numbly followed his uncle who led him to the back hills, far from the main buildings where a single escape launch pad was hidden in the grass. It was odd to see him run. It almost let Lan Xichen believe this was all just a nightmare, if not for the panic beating between his temples and the heavy, heavy weight in his arms of their sacred texts, quickly downloaded into hard drives and packed into protective pouches. Cloud Recesses was well and truly burning.

His eyes were stinging from the smoke and he had long stopped wiping away the tears trailing grooves in the soot on his cheeks. The air was so full of smoke, they were short of breath when they finally got to the launch pad but there was no time for pause. Over the roar of the flames and even from this far away Lan Xichen could hear people screaming. He desperately wanted to turn back and help, but this had to be taken care of first. He had to see his uncle and their texts off planet and then he could go help the others. 

Lan Qiren hurried to unseal the door and their precious cargo was loaded on board, but instead of climbing inside after it, he turned to Lan Xichen, holding the door open for him.

“Get in,” he said.

Lan Xichen reeled and took a step back.

“I can’t leave -”

“We don’t have a choice.”

His uncle caught him by the shoulders, squeezing tight and urging him to look up at him.

“Xichen. If Wen Xu finds you, he will kill you. For the Lan sect to survive, both you and the texts have to escape.”

His tone was measured but a tremor in his voice betrayed his worry. He gently reached up to wipe the tears off his cheek and Lan Xichen felt his resolve crumble. He swallowed against the dryness in his throat, tried to formulate one last argument for why he should stay -

“Wangji. What about Wangji -” he wheezed out instead

“Wangji is smart. The other disciples and I will protect him. You will see him when this is all over.”

Lan Qiren squeezed his shoulders one final time and, at Lan Xichen’s shaky nod, shepherded him towards the escape pod. He crawled inside, heart thumping in his chest, knees knocking on the sides and barely finding space between the bags. His uncle took hold of the door again, preparing to close it -

“Head to Lanling, it is the only place still out of reach from the Wens,” he instructed.

Then the door snapped shut and sealed itself, cutting off all sounds from the outside. Immediately, Lan Xichen fought the urge to jump out. The silence was heavy, unnatural, only a mocking echo of the quiet and tranquility of the place he called home and the small space felt horribly hot, beads of sweat already forming on his back. Still, with shaking fingers, he entered the coordinates that would take him off planet.

The last thing he saw was his uncle standing at a safe distance, surveying the area for any Wen that might come this way. Then the pod launched, the green scenery faded to white skies, then darkness. His heart squeezed even tighter when he flew past his mother’s moon, now empty.

Once in space, the inside of the pod cooled down quickly. Lan Xichen could see his own breath in the air and ice condensed on the porthole, forming spider webs of white veins. He was well and truly alone, hurtling far away from home in a pod that could be knocked off course by as little as a rock drifting too close.

But he couldn’t think about that. He had to survive, he had to protect the texts.

He forced himself to focus, double checked his course, verified all systems were functioning normally and when there was nothing left to do, curled up around his precious cargo, making himself as small as possible, and waited.  

THREE

For the first time in a long time, Lan Xichen felt sick. The ship shook around them as the engines roared to life and he squeezed his eyes shut, curling in on himself as they launched out of the atmosphere of Lanling. His mind was spinning uncontrollably and the usual pull in his guts as the ship ripped itself away from the planet’s gravity was dizzying.

“There, there, er-ge, breathe, we’re almost there.”

A-yao – no, Jin Guangyao gently hooked a finger under his chin and tilted his head back to be better supported by the headrest, his hands flying over Lan Xichen’s body to simultaneously tighten the belt and the handcuffs, and caress his hair in comfort. Lan Xichen could only cling to his sleeves and waited for the artificial gravity of the ship to take over and for the nausea to pass.

He hated himself already for this moment of weakness. Hated that, despite the revelations of the past few hours and his own kidnapping, A-Yao’s presence could still be anything close to comforting and outraged that the man still took the liberty to behave so familiarly despite his betrayal.

It only added to his disbelief. How could the same man capable of this kindness be the one behind so many crimes? How could A-Yao be so kind to him when he had so ruthlessly poisoned Mingjue? The nausea, he realised, wasn’t only because of the space travel this time. In his heart, Lan Xichen still could not connect the man he thought he knew with the one he now knew was Jin Guangyao, as if one has suddenly replaced the other.

Finally, Lan Xichen felt the ship escape the last grips of gravity and smoothly start gliding through the void of space. His heart stopped fluttering like a caged bird, leaving only the familiar and more manageable weigh of loneliness in his chest. He took a deep breath to brace himself and opened his eyes to the grey walls and flickering light of the ship’s cargo bay.

He noticed that, on top of being adrift in space, he was now securely cuffed to his seat and his spiritual power still tightly sealed within him. His stomach back flipped anxiously and abruptly he urgently wanted Jin Guangyao as far away from him as possible. Before he could make his demand, however, the other man squeezed his shoulder one last time and pulled away, standing up over him.

“I know this was unpleasant for you, er-ge –“

“Don’t call me that,” interrupted Lan Xichen.

It was rude but he could not bring himself to care beyond the disgust provoked in him by the term. Jin Guangyao merely smiled placating at him.

“We will be at Guanyin moon in under an hour,” he continued.

Jin Guangyao urgently needed to leave this system and Lan Xichen knew this was why he had taken him along as hostage. The only possible reason he could have for the detour was for his mother’s body, but the moon was still a long way from the outer limits, so how far did he plan on dragging him along?

“And then what?” he asked, voice thin even in his own ears.

“As soon as I am able, I will set you free, uninjured.”

“Should I believe you?”

Jin Guangyao’s lips twitched up in another frigid smile.

“Do as you like. You don’t really have a choice,” he said.

He tugged one last time at the restraints to make sure they were secure and finally stepped back, heading for the door leading to the pilot’s cabin. Lan Xichen felt a spike of fear at the prospect of being left alone, but quickly crushed it down. He needed the space to think.

“Get some rest, er-ge,” said Jin Guangyao, before he stepped out of the cargo bay and sealed the door behind him with a hiss.

Lan Xichen was alone in the empty room, with nothing but the hum of the engines and the sound of his own breath, the cuffs cold around his wrists. He resolutely kept his eyes fixed on the wall in front of him, instead of the window that would give him a view of the stars flying past them.

Lan Wangji was probably aware something was wrong by now, his brother had been expecting his reply hours ago already. Lan Xichen hoped that he and Wei Wuxian had gathered enough information to guess where Jin Guangyao was headed. There was a chance they would intercept them at Guanyin moon.

In the event they didn’t make it, Lan Xichen would have to make his escape alone. He had a sinking feeling that Jin Guangyao did not intend to let him go in the near future and Guanyin moon was his best chance to make a break for it. When the opportunity came, he needed to be calm and ready.  

He forced himself to relax into his seat, closing his eyes to meditate.

He focused on the weight of the little pouch still against his breast. There was still a chance that he could get it to Nie Mingjue in time. Maybe, just maybe it would save his life, even reverse some of the effects of the poison. Maybe he could still fix his mistake –

First, he needed to get out of here.

FOUR

Lan Xichen always felt more at ease in ships rather than smaller shuttles or pods, but today it seemed he wouldn’t be able to relax. He gripped the straps of his seat more tightly, wondering if he would at least manage to fall asleep for the duration of the 5 hour trip it would take to reach Yunmeng Jiang. A warm hand dropped on top of his, drawing his attention to his neighbour.

“Are you ok?”

Jiang Cheng’s eyebrows were slightly furrowed in concern. He had unbuckled his own seatbelt to stretch the moment the ship’s artificial gravity had activated and was now leaning in his seat, head tilted towards Lan Xichen, with all the ease of a man who had been in space thousands of times already.

“Do you want to have a walk around?” He asked

“I would rather stay here, if you don’t mind,” Lan Xichen tried for a reassuring smile, but was aware it came out strained when the pinch between Jiang Cheng’s eyebrows deepened.

“You know you could have told me you didn’t feel ready yet, right?”

Lan Xichen felt warmth pool in his stomach at the concern and his smile, this time, was more genuine. When Jiang Cheng had invited him to visit Lotus Pier, Lan Xichen had been delighted. It had felt right for it to be his first trip out of Gusu and even now, despite the stress of being in space again, he knew it had been the right decision to come. He let go of the strap to intertwine his fingers with Jiang Cheng’s and squeezed, already breathing easier with this small point of contact.

“I know,” he said and meant it, “but I promise, this is nothing important.”

Jiang Cheng raised an eyebrow at him, not satisfied. He was of the opinion that Lan Xichen should express his own thoughts and needs more often and so started drawing small circles at the back of his hand with his thumb in a clear sign he intended to wait him out.

“I was never really comfortable in space,” admitted Lan Xichen, eventually, if only because talking helped keep his mind off his current situation.

Admittedly, he had been better at handling it before. Lan Xichen had been required to travel often as sect leader after all, so he had managed to get his fears under control. But it seemed he was out of practice. The last space trip he really remembered had been the horrible one with Jin Guangyao. After that, he hadn’t been able to handle the stress of the trip back to Gusu and had asked the ship healer to knock him out for the duration.

“How come? Did something happen?”

“No, nothing like that. It just makes me feel… lonely. And without control. We are so small, anything could happen -”

He trailed off, bitten by sudden self-consciousness. Jiang Cheng travelled in space all the time and did not have a problem with it. Next to him, it felt very silly to get so worked up about a standard space trip, especially in this day and age where they were common and necessary.

“I suppose I never thought of it like that,” Jiang Cheng voice cut through his thoughts before they could spiral, “but then again, I was practically raised in zero gravity. My parents often brought us out on jobs so I had to get comfortable quickly.”

“It’s still silly, I know, I promise it doesn’t usually hit me so badly -”

“It’s not silly,” said Jiang Cheng, firmly, “Tell me what I can do to help.”

He squeezed his hand again and gave him a smile, one that lit up his whole face and softened his eyes and never failed to make Lan Xichen weak in the knees.

“This already helps,” he said, gesturing to their joined hands, delighted at the slight blush that powdered Jiang Cheng’s cheeks, “but mostly I just try to sleep or distract myself.”

He was amused when Jiang Cheng seemed to consider the issue very seriously. Then it was his turn to blush when the other man lifted the armrest between them and pulled him closer, wrapping an arm around him and guiding him to tuck his head on his shoulder.  

“There, sleep.”

The embrace was warm, it felt safe. Lan Xichen’s stomach fluttered with that happy feeling again, all thoughts of the void outside forgotten. He nuzzled Jiang Cheng’s neck and let himself be lulled to sleep by soft fingers threading through his hair.

+ ONE

The satellite was the Nie sect’s latest creation and Nie Mingjue’s very own pet project, his first since he’d come out of his coma. Of course, Lan Xichen insisted he wanted to be there when Nie Mingjue announced it was finally ready for a visit. Satellites were still outside of Lan Xichen’s comfort zone, but this was important. He wanted to be there to show his support and he didn’t want either of boyfriends to worry about him, so he swallowed down his anxieties and declared himself more ready than ever for a jaunt in space with them.

Up to this point, he’d had no reason to regret it. It had actually been a pleasant walk around. He was still slightly on edge, of course, but that had been effectively drowned out by the waves of fondness he felt for the two men accompanying him.

Nie Mingjue kept pointing out all the different sections in excitement. The hundreds of docking stations along each leg leading up to a large central module, the diurnal cycle of the lights, the silent mechanisms of the doors and even the thrusters to correct orbital trajectory when they were visible from a window. Jiang Cheng was listening intently, obviously indulging him since the Jiang sect had done a significant portion of the engineering work. His expressions cycled from amusement, to fondness to exasperation when he noted something not quite up to spec.

Most of the explanations went over Lan Xichen’s head, but he loved watching the both of them. By the time they got to the central module he was actually excited along with them and relaxed enough to fully appreciate the breathtaking view waiting for them.

The roof was paneled with windows, giving them a direct view of the lush green surface of Qinghe Nie. Just beyond it, Lan Xichen could even see Gusu Lan shinning in the distance and right opposite of that, Yunmeng Jiang. The sight made Lan Xichen smile, as if seeing all three planets together made the distance between them seem not so unsurmountable.

He was just about to tell Nie Mingjue how beautiful it was, when there was a ring and the automatic voice of the satellite’s computer interrupted. Artificial gravity malfunction.

One moment, he had both feet firmly planted on the ground, the next he was slowly floating upwards. He shivered with discomfort when at first his body could not find its balance and his hand only met air when he tried to catch himself, heart jumping in his throat when he realised he was not equipped to be sucked out into space.  

But now was not the time to panic. Lan Xichen had been enjoying himself and was determined to see this through, gravity or not and a quick look at his boyfriends’ more annoyed than worried expressions told him they were in no real danger. He forced himself to relax into this new weightlessness and smiled reassuringly at Nie Mingjue and Jiang Cheng.

At first, he tethered himself next to them, holding on to both their belts, but they quickly got into a heated discussion about the gravitational engines, most of which was incomprehensible technological babble to Lan Xichen so he allowed himself to drift away for a look around instead.

He never minded floating in zero gravity, and he’d been doing more and more space trips lately, his composure came to him more and more easily. And if there was anyone he trusted to get them out of trouble, it was Nie Mingjue and Jiang Cheng. It still surprised him sometimes, how much he adored them without restraint. There had been a time he didn’t think he would ever be able to trust himself again.

He took the time to admire the view, mostly the one of the two men below him, looking very handsome in their respective purple and dark green space suits. Jiang Cheng eventually seemed to give up and with one graceful kick floated up to Lan Xichen’s level, mirroring his earlier gesture by catching his belt to pull himself close.

“It really is quite a view, no?” He said, nodding at the stars.

“Mn, beautiful,” replied Lan Xichen, clearly still looking at him.

He laughed when Jiang Cheng flushed in surprise and when he retaliated by pulling him even closer and dropping a kiss on the tip of his nose. Just when Lan Xichen leaned up for a proper kiss, Nie Mingjue caught them both by the ankles and pulled them down to him, stealing a kiss of his own and wrapping one arm over both their shoulders.

“Nothing too bad, but artificial gravity won’t get fixed today,” he announced, “so we can go back planet-side if you want.”

Nie Mingjue had had the forethought of tying himself to a cable so they could pull themselves back down. They were flying suspended together like a balloon tied down against the wind and Lan Xichen was being held between the two loves of his life. There really was nowhere he’d rather be.

“No, it’s fine,” he said, smiling brightly, “I’m good here for now.”

___

In this AU everyone lives and that includes Nie Mingjue! He gets poisoned by JGY which puts him in a coma, but he comes out of it after a few years (because medical space tech). So pairings are: past Nielan, Xicheng and eventually Mingxicheng because LXC deserves to have two boyfriends.

[onewfantaesy]

Monsters in the Dark (Part 3)

(tw: ed)

It’s once he’s on his own that things get really bad. Not just going solo, but all the others are doing their military service at the same time. He’s completely alone. It allows Taemin to be swallowed up entirely by his own thoughts, allows him to fast for days on end without anyone really being able to notice. Sure, managers get concerned, stylists mention the bags under his eyes, backup dancers have to put a hand on his arm to steady him when he stumbles, but they don’t really say anything. Not like the others would. Taemin takes advantage of it, even if he hates it with every ounce of his being.

He misses them, and it hurts so much, so he drowns the hurt with hunger pains instead.

But after the first few months of what feels like complete solitude, he can’t keep up with the fasting. It’s been so long - so long - since he started all of this, and he’s lost track of time, and he can’t remember when anything started or how or why. But the fasting, he just can’t do it.

He starts binging worse than he ever has before. Weeks on end of stuffing his face with anything he gets his hands on, anything to fill the void in his chest. He gains so much weight so quickly that he’s terrified to step on the scale, but he has to, he has to weigh himself every single morning compulsively.

More binging leads to more purging. It becomes a daily occurrence, sometimes multiple times a day, and his throat burns so bad but he can’t stop.

Then SuperM becomes a thing. He’s suddenly thrust into this group with members he isn’t used to, with members who aren’t used to him, who haven’t grown accustomed to his fucked up eating patterns. With SHINee, his eating had become so fucked up so gradually that no one really noticed; it was like growing taller, you don’t notice when a child grows up when you live with them. But these new members? They send him funny looks when he picks at a salad, when he drinks five cups of black coffee in less than two hours, when he pulls out an emergency cookie from his dance bag and shoves it in his mouth to stop himself from passing out mid-rehearsal.

And Taemin wasn’t used to them, either. He’s grown accustomed to SHINee’s particular brand of bickering, it no longer gave him the stomach-churning reactions it used to. But these six new members? Especially the younger ones? God, they bickered about anything and everything. It wasn’t always serious, it was sometimes very lighthearted, but the way their voices rose so quickly, the way they talked over each other and made things clatter all over the room, it made Taemin’s anxiety spike higher than usual, sending him bolting to bathroom to gag over a public toilet.

He hates nothing more than falling in a public bathroom, bent over a toilet that who knows how many gross fucks took a shit in with their asses sweaty from dance practice sitting on the rim. It made the nausea so much worse. Made his puking so much more violent.

“Are you okay?” Baekhyun asks, and he’s taken over the role of leader rather well, if Taemin is being honest.

“Fine,” he chokes back.

“Do you want a water?” Baekhyun asks. “You should lay down on the couch when you’re finished. Take a rest.”

“Thank you,” Taemin says inbetween spitting out whatever’s left in his mouth. “Sorry.”

Baekhyun holds him upright as they walk back to the practice room, and he lowers Taemin very gently onto the couch in the corner. Jongin sits with him then, running a hand through Taemin’s hair to try and soothe the headache Taemin lied about having. The younger ones are quiet then, speaking softly to each other after shyly asking Taemin if he was alright.

“Just tired,” he says, his eyes closed.

“You should stay at my place tonight,” Jongin says softly.

“That’s alright.”

“Please,” Jongin says, his voice close to pleading. “Just humor me. I worry about you.”

Taemin stays at Jongin’s that night, the two of them curled on the bed with Taemin’s back pressed against Jongin’s chest. It’s comforting. Taemin is glad he went, glad he let Jongin hold him even if he was afraid of him feeling the way Taemin’s hipbones didn’t poke out the same anymore.

But he doesn’t have to live with this new group. Doesn’t have to around them constantly. It’s a freedom Taemin wishes he had cherished more when he realizes just what sharing a dorm in Los Angeles means.

He needs his own room. He desperately needs to get a single room, to not share with anyone, to have his own bathroom, otherwise they’ll find out, they’ll know, they’ll all know. It makes his heart race and he almost falls over and his hands are shaking when he picks a number to pick a room.

He thanks God and all his lucky stars that he managed to snag the room he wanted. Thanks his seniority and the fact that they essentially gave in and let him have it. Falls on the bed while clutching his chest because his heart hurts, it hurts so bad, he’d been so freaked out about having to share a room or a bathroom and having to work so much harder to hide the purging.

He wants the pain in his chest to stop, so he pinches his legs hard, punches them, squeezes them until bruises start spreading across his skin. He punches his thigh so hard it makes him gasp and fall over and hide his face in a pillow. Fuck. Fuck, that had actually hurt more than he meant to hurt it. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

The others don’t seem to notice the way he drags his right leg when he does finally leave his room. Well, Jongin notices, and he whispers in Taemin’s ear to ask what happened, and Taemin just snorts.

“Hit it on the corner of the bed,” he mumbles, trying to look embarrassed.

Jongin laughs and hugs Taemin close to him on the couch.

“Does anyone want pizza?” Mark asks, having already downloaded Postmates and looked at all the available options.

Everyone else loudly agrees, asks for specific toppings, asks for chicken wings and breadsticks, and the idea of that much bread at one time almost gives Taemin a panic attack.

“No thanks,” Taemin eventually says, and everyone looks at him like he’s grown a second head. “I’m not really hungry.”

“You hardly ate anything on the plane,” Jongin says softly, and everyone else has gone back to talking with each other. “Are you not feeling well?”

“Traveling just makes me queasy,” Taemin laughs it off. “My tummy’s upset, that’s all.”

And he leans heavily against Jongin and closes his eyes and nuzzles his face in Jongin’s neck. Jongin pouts and hugs him and joins in on the conversation while Taemin stays quietly nestled against him.

Taemin ends up eating a piece of cheese pizza and a cinnamon breadstick and it feels like a huge lump in his stomach, he hates it.

He feels his breathing quicken and then he feels the way the saliva pools in his mouth and he has to rush to his bathroom so he doesn’t end up puking on the floor.

“Taemin?”

He hates that Jongin is coming over to him, sitting on the bathroom floor with him, rubbing his back and whispering soothing words to him. He hates that puking always makes his eyes burn with tears, hates that when he pulls his head away from the toilet that Jongin wipes the tears away with his thumbs.

“You worried the kiddies,” Jongin teases, helping Taemin up and flushing the toilet for him, then guiding him to the sink to brush his teeth. “You should take a shower and go to bed. Do you want me to stay with you?”

Don’t let him stay, the voice says.

“Please,” Taemin croaks. “Please stay.”

Traitor, the voice calls him.

Jongin stays with him, makes sure he doesn’t fall over in the shower and crack his head open, and gets him into bed.

“I’m just gonna go change,” Jongin says softly. “I’ll be right back, if you still want me to stay.”

“Don’t leave,” Taemin begs, gripping Jongin’s hand. “Please stay.”

“What’s wrong?” Jongin asks, his voice barely above a whisper as he sits back down on the bed.

“Traveling,” Taemin lies again. “Just makes me sick. And - and-”

He wants to tell Jongin. He wants to tell someone, anyone, that he can’t eat anything without puking, that he hates the way he looks, that he hates food but he loves food but he hates eating but he loves eating and it’s so confusing and he can’t handle it anymore.

“I’m lonely,” he says instead.

“I’m sorry,” Jongin whispers, laying down and hugging Taemin. “I’ll stay here. Can I shower in here?”

“Yeah,” Taemin whispers. “Can wear my other pajamas.”

They’re all too big for him anyway. They’ll no doubt fit Jongin.

He makes Jongin stay with him a few more minutes before he lets him go shower. Then Jongin stays with him until he falls asleep, falls into dreams about bread getting stuck in his throat as he pukes it back up and choking him until he dies. When he wakes up, Jongin isn’t in the bed anymore, but he can hear him whispering just outside the door.

He’s telling Baekhyun that Taemin got sick, that he was lonely and wanted Jongin to stay in his room that night. Baekhyun says they can talk about it in the morning, when Taemin is awake and hopefully feeling better.

Taemin doesn’t want to talk about it. He doesn’t want to deal with it. He doesn’t want help. He wants to just ignore it all, to pretend that nothing is wrong.

“Traveling,” he continues with the lie the next morning, “just makes me a little queasy sometimes. Especially when it’s international.”

They all seem to believe him. Taemin is thankful, and he pours himself a third cup of black coffee and ignores the way the younger members look concerned and whisper about too much caffeine.

[voyager-into-the-unknown]

The Dumb One

By PlanceGardener21 on AO3

Lance allowed Red to fly on autopilot as the Paladins soared through the void on their long journey home. He leaned back in his pilot’s chair, listening to his teammates’ comm chatter, but saying nothing. Allura was having a discussion with Pidge and Hunk about quintessence conversion efficiency and the necessity of allowing the lions to recharge. They would have to find a habitable planet to land on soon. Keith and Allura had some ideas about which one would be suitable for their needs. Pidge made some quick calculations which she sent to Black Lion, and Keith adjusted their route towards Earth, which they apparently weren’t going to reach anytime in the near future.

Lance sighed. What could he contribute to this conversation anyway? It was like they had forgotten he was even there. He thought about their recent encounter with the mysterious alien entity known to them only as Bob. The dumb one, Lance thought. That’s what he called me, and that’s who I am. Everyone seems to agree on that. He closed his eyes. He just wanted this war to be over. He missed Earth. He missed his family. He could feel the moisture welling up beneath his eyelids. He just wanted to go home.

“Lance!” Hunk practically shouted over his comm. “Are you with us, buddy? You’ve been really quiet lately.”

“Sorry. I must have been napping for awhile.”

“Are you sure you’re awake back there?” Keith asked. Red, the normally the fastest of the lions, had drifted to the rear of their formation.

“Keep up, Lonce,” Allura chided. “You don’t want to get left behind.” After all this time she still pronounced his name incorrectly. At first he thought it was cute, but now it was beginning to get on his nerves every time she said it. Lance pulled a face that he was glad the princess could not see.

That’s just great, he thought. Now, I’m the slow one, too.

“Lance?” Pidge’s voice was more gentle than usual for some reason. “Would you like to play Killbot in tandem with me? It would be a great way to pass the time.”

“How can I play when I’m over here? The game console is with you, Pidge.”

“I’ve downloaded the game’s code into one of Green’s auxiliary computers. I can send a copy of the program to one of Red’s auxiliaries and broadcast a signal link that will allow us to play together in real time. It’ll be fun.”

Lance was impressed. “That must have been a lot of work for you. Why did you go to so much trouble?”

Pidge hesitated. “Well...you did go through a lot to help me get the game in the first place. And even though it’s fun to play alone, I’ve always thought that it’s even more fun to play Killbot with you.”

Lance smiled crookedly in spite of the gloomy mood he had been in a few moments before. “Well, what are you waiting for? Send me the program!” He then grinned broadly in anticipation of another gaming session with Pidge. Somehow, She managed to bring him out of his foul mood with just a few words. He noticed that she did that a lot lately.

“Ugh, can you two put all of your gaming talk on a private channel.” Allura sounded annoyed.

“Will do!” Pidge replied cheerfully. There was a brief burst of static, and then he heard Pidge’s voice on a different channel. “Lance, you there?” He activated his viewscreen.

“Your favorite Paladin’s right here, Pidgey,” he said with a smirk while pointing finger guns at her. “I’m cuter than a yelmor, and I smell better than one too!” He really didn’t know what made him say that, but it made her giggle, so it must have been the right thing to say. It may have been his imagination, but he could have sworn that Pidge blushed a little as she smiled at him.

She typed quickly, then pressed a button. “Sending now. Let me know when it’s finished downloading to your auxiliary terminal. It will take several minutes.”

“Thanks for doing all this for me, Pidge. I really missed gaming with you.”

“l missed you too,” Pidge declared absentmindedly as she studied one of her data screens. “And it was the least I could do for you after what happened on board the pirate ship.”

“What do you mean?”

“Zethrid and Ezor were gleeful about the idea of torturing me, but you wouldn’t let them take me. Even though you were restrained, you fought to defend me, to keep me safe. What you did was selfless, reckless, and very brave. For the longest time I just wanted to say...” Pidge’s voice cracked. Her eyes were shining. “Thank you for that.”

Lance’s mouth fell open in stunned silence. After a long pause, he softly murmured, “No problem.” He watched as she wiped her eyes quickly and swallowed. Lance stammered, “I...uh...I really didn’t have time to think. I just reacted. Someone I care about was in danger, and something inside of me just...snapped. I had to protect you. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I hadn’t done something. Pidge, if they had taken you, if they had hurt you, I—“

She gave him a watery smile. “But they didn’t hurt me. Ezor beat you up instead.” Tears streamed down Pidge’s cheeks, and she wiped them away with the heel of one hand. “If Coran, Acxa, and the mice hadn’t arrived to rescue us, no telling what they might have done to you.”

“It’s all right. I only had a few bruises. I’m fine, really. And if I had to do it all over again, I would.” His face suddenly felt very warm.

She looked at him in astonishment, and then smiled shyly. She was definitely blushing this time, and looking at him with what could only be described as admiration. Selfless, she had called him. Brave.

“I guess you’re my hero, then.” The look she gave him was the softest he had ever seen from her. He was speechless.

It had occurred to him, and not for the first time either, that Pidge was growing up. She was taller now, her hair was longer, the subtle curves of her slight figure had become more obvious recently. There was no way she could pass for a young boy anymore. She’s too pretty to be a boy, he thought, and then suddenly felt warm all over. Where had that thought come from? Pretty. Delicate. Graceful. Brilliant. Sweet. Courageous. Determined. She was all of those things and so much more. And she saw him as a hero. He was her hero.

Hero...How many times had he hoped that he might be regarded as a hero by some attractive young woman? How much time had he spent in idle daydreaming about rescuing a fair damsel in distress who would fall in love with him? How long had he fantasized that one day a girl would look at him the way Katie Holt was looking at him at this very moment? Well, it was time to be really brave then. He looked back at her and said aloud what he had been meaning to tell her for the longest time.

“You—you’re my hero too, you know. You saved me. Remember when Bob put me in that vat of acid?”

“Don’t remind me. That arrogant little creep could have killed you, Lance. I was furious!”

“Yeah, I am not a fan of that guy either. I was so nervous that I couldn’t think straight. Every time I got an answer wrong I felt like I was letting the team down, and I could never forgive myself if we lost because of my stupidity.”

“You’re not stupid, Lance. Don’t ever call yourself that.”

“Why not? Everyone knows that I’m the dumb one. Bob kept saying it over and over, and he’s some kind of ancient being with godlike knowledge and power, so it must be true.”

“That is absolute nonsense. Bob doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And you’re not dumb! I can prove it to you.”

“Good luck with that,” he said skeptically.

“Are you familiar with Howard Gardener’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences?”

“No. Wait, multiple? Are you saying that there is more than one way to be smart?”

“That’s exactly what I am saying. Even before we became Paladins, I hacked the Garrison’s computers several times when I was searching for Matt and Dad. I saved nearly everything I could find that was classified, including data about Shiro, who was missing too, and Keith because of his connection to Shiro. I researched you and Hunk also, since the three of us were training together as a flight crew. I wanted to know everything there is to know about you two. I made a dossier on each member of our team.”

“Yeah, you told us. I mean, normal people do scary stuff like that all the time.” He rolled his eyes.

She glared at him. “Lance...”

“I’m just saying! Look, you got angry at Hunk for being nosy when he tried to get a peek at your diary. In a way, this is even worse!”

“I’m sorry! I was desperate to find my family, okay? And I wanted to know more about you and Hunk. I wanted to know if I could trust you. I entered the Garrison illegally, under a false identity, and sooner or later one of you would figure out that Pidge Gunderson was an alias. If Iverson found out that I was really Sam Holt’s daughter...”

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry too. I know you were probably in a constant state of anxiety back then. I honestly thought there was something very weird going on with you all the time, even though I was too dense to figure out that you weren’t really a boy.”

She paused, looking thoughtful for a moment, remembering their time together as cadets. “You kept trying to be friends with me, and I kept pushing you away. I felt terrible about that, you know. I really wanted to be friends, but I was afraid you and Hunk would figure out who I really was.”

“It’s alright, Pidge. I understand why you did it. And I hope you noticed that we didn’t give up on you.”

“I know. You and Hunk were the first real friends I’ve ever had.” She smiled again, her eyes shining.

He smiled back at her. “You and Hunk are like, my favorite people in the entire universe, okay? You’re both so brilliant I often wonder why either of you would want an idiot like me around, unless it’s for comic relief.”

“Lance! Stop that! I already told you, you are not dumb, so stop saying it.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll stop. What was it that you were saying about multiple intelligences?”

“I have all of your files from our days at the Garrison: standardized test scores, pilot trainee stats, physical fitness data, psych profile, and MI survey results, as well as everyone else’s. We both scored pretty high in Visual/Spatial Intelligence.”

“You have to in order to be a pilot trainee.”

“And to be so great at video games. It’s also necessary to be a skilled sharpshooter,” she grinned at him. “I may be a genius in Logical/Mathematical, but your score in Bodily/Kinesthetic Intelligence is much higher than mine. You also scored really high in Linguistic, Musical, and especially Interpersonal Intellligences. That last one is my weakest area.”

“Wait a tic, are you saying that I’m smarter than you in some areas?!”

“Yes, without a doubt. The data is right here. I can send it to you...”

“No, I...” Lance looked shy all of a sudden. “It’s enough just to know that you think I’m not dumb. I mean, you’re one of the most intelligent people I have ever met, not to mention that you’re one of the people I love most in the entire universe, so your opinion means everything to me. I guess what I am trying to say is...thank you.”

Wait, did he just say love? Out loud?! Oh no, she heard that. That’s why she isn’t saying anything. Idiot. There was an awkward silence between them.

The computer console chimed softly, signaling the download was finished.

“You’re welcome, Lance,” she said carefully. “And I think you should know that even though you are dense as a neutron star about some things, you are brilliant as a supernova in many other ways.” She paused again. “I guess that’s why I love you so much, you Goofball.” She said all of this with a dazzling smile that made his heart beat faster.

Lance’s heart was racing for quite some time, and he could not stop smiling for the next varga or so. He and Pidge became absorbed in excitement of the video game, but in the back of his mind Pidge’s words reverberated through the cavern of his memory, echoing again and again without diminishing in intensity: Selfless. Brave. Hero. You’re not dumb. I love you.

I love you...I love you...I love you. His mind replayed those words over and over as they battled digital monsters. With each victory he felt more confident, more sure of himself. He whooped with unbridled joy when their teamwork took down one foe after another.

He loved her. He knew that now, and he had already wasted so much precious time flirting with girls who really didn’t matter to him. He vowed he wouldn’t do that anymore. They were fighting in an interstellar war that had been going on for thousands of years before they were even born. Who knew how much time they had left? Days, months, years, a lifetime?

A lifetime. He realized at that moment that he could spend a lifetime talking or gaming or just growing old with Pidge. He wanted that, if they survived this endless war. He wanted her.

When they finally landed on the planet that Keith and Allura were talking about earlier, he might be able to walk around with Pidge for a bit and enjoy the fresh air of a planet with a breathable atmosphere. He would try to hold her hand, of course. And, maybe, if he could find a place to be alone with her, he could tell her face to face how he really felt about her. He wondered if she would let him steal a kiss...

“Team, look alive!” Keith’s voice over the main comm channel broke Lance’s concentration. Pidge paused their game. “There’s a renegade Galra battlegroup straight ahead. Incoming!” Galra fighters swarmed around Keith, Allura, and Hunk like a hive of angry hornets.

Quiznak! Well, it was time to put that Visual/Spatial Bodily/Kinesthetic Intelligence to use. Red soared ahead with Green right behind him and Lance opened fire on the fighter drone who was tailing Black Lion. It burst in an explosion of color and light in front of him.

“Nice shooting!” Hunk exclaimed.

“Way to go, Sharpshooter!” Pidge cheered. “That was a genius move.” Was she teasing him?

Lance grinned as he bullseyed another fighter.

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

What We Make for Ourselves

A story set soon after the events of Terminator: Dark Fate

Oakland, 2021

Sarah Connor’s knuckles were white as she maneuvered her jeep down the residential streets at highway speeds.  She and Dani were cutting it close as is, having spent the last year preparing their plan to storm the no-name tech startup in Silicon Valley that would soon create Legion.  She’d stopped Judgement Day once before, and she was sure she could do it again, but there was one last detour she needed to make in case their plan didn’t pan out.  Someone she wanted to warn.

She’d never thought about visiting him before.  She figured it would do no good, serve no purpose other than reopen old wounds.  Until recently, she didn’t even know where he lived, but with Judgement Day drawing nearer she decided to take initiative.  It didn’t take long to track him down; you’d be amazed how much you can find about a person on Google in a few minutes with just their full name.  By sheer coincidence, he lived in the Bay Area, so she waited until they were already headed up for their mission to squeeze in time for her little visit.  Might as well kill two birds with one stone.

Dani sat idly in the passenger seat, cradling a small manila envelope stuffed to the brim with building schematics.  Grace hadn’t given them much to work with in terms of intel besides a company name and a short window for when the grid was supposed to go down, but somehow they’d managed to find the right data cache and download the floor plan for the server farm that would soon host the Legion software; Skynet by any other name still reeked of shit.

Dani would rather be at the motel finalizing their game plan than out in the open so Sarah could wax sentimental for no good reason.  This outing was tactically dangerous, as they both had warrants for their arrest, Dani by ICE, Sarah by every intelligence community in the western world.  A couple of fake driver’s licenses and Milwaukee accents would do little to hide their identities once the feds got back on their trail.

Sarah slowed the jeep to a crawl as she rounded the final corner onto a dead end street that butted right up against MacArthur Freeway.  She parked on the curb between two houses, no doubt to the chagrin of their tenants, but immediately she knew she wouldn’t be there for long.

There he was

Right across the street, piling a small mountain of boxes into the back of an old pickup truck.  Sarah didn’t dare take her eyes off him, even for a second, lest he disappear back into the void that was her memory.  She hadn’t seen him in almost forty years, had almost forgotten his face, but all at once everything came flooding back.  Good memories and bad, of the last normal day she ever lived.  The day her best friend and mother were murdered by a machine, the day she went from an English major waiting tables to make ends meet to a soldier hellbent on stopping the end of the world.  That was a lifetime ago, but here he was in front of her, younger now than ever before.  She couldn’t help but stare, drinking in his face, memorizing every line, every curve. A man, probably his father, popped the truck’s hood and called to him as he checked the engine.

“Kyle, I’m topping her off with oil, but you need to remember to get gas before you hit the highway.”

“I’ll burn that bridge when I get to it, we’re not done loading my crap yet.”

Kyle Reese gingerly set down a duffel bag stuffed with unfolded clothes, and threw open the passenger side door.  He was getting ready for his first semester at school, and packing his truck was proving to be the hardest part of the transition.  “It’s like playing Tetris,” he quipped as he rearranged a few boxes, trying to will more space out of thin air.

He was taller than Sarah remembered.  This Kyle had had an unremarkable childhood and never missed a meal, he was a far cry from the malnourished guerrilla she knew.  Seeing him, this ghost from her past, living a normal life in a future she never thought she’d see, it was almost too much.  She only turned away from him once she began to feel tears well up in her eyes.  This encounter brought back too many painful memories, but pain, he once told her, can be controlled.  

Just disconnect it.

His dad disappeared back into the house, and was soon replaced by three boys around Kyle’s age, carrying even more boxes.

“Why you got so much shit, Reese?” asked a short black kid with glasses.

“Because I’m trying to make things are hard as possible for you guys, that’s why.”

An tall Asian kid propped his box on the trucks roof so he could free his hands.  “I’m really gonna miss you, man.”  He walked over to Kyle and scooped him in for an awkward bear hug.  Kyle tried not to laugh as he was lifted off his feet.

The kid with the glasses punched him playfully on the shoulder once the hugger finally put him down. “Hate to see you go, Reese.  You know, it’s never too late to drop out and stay home.”

“Tempting, but I’m already balls deep in student loans.  I might as well actually be a student for a while, otherwise they’d just be loans.”

“Things will never be the same without him,” cried a kid with a buzz cut, dramatically splaying himself out on the truck’s hood.  “Poor kid, he was so young!”

“I’m not dying guys, I’ll see you in a few months, I’m coming home for Thanksgiving.”

“I can still hear his voice.”

Sarah didn’t bother stepping out of the jeep, but turned to face the small crowd of high schoolers, legs dangling out the missing driver’s side door.  Dani followed her gaze across the street as she stowed the envelope in the glove compartment.

“That’s the friend you were talking about? He’s younger than I am.”

“I knew him, another him, from another time.  Things have changed a lot since then.”

Kyle’s mom came bounding out the front door and embraced her son in an even more awkward hug than his friend’s.

“My little Kyle, heading out to college, paying bills.  When’d you get so old?  You’re not allowed to be an adult yet, you were still in preschool last week.”

“Mo-o-om,” Kyle complained with a smile.  Only two of his friends laughed.  “You didn’t act like this when Derek left for school.”

“Sure I did, every year, and I’ll do the same for you because I like embarrassing you in front of your friends.  Now everyone come together.  Marc, Andy, Sawyer, stand next to Kyle, I want to get a picture.”

“You already took a ton of pictures.”

“And I’m gonna take a ton more before you leave, now stand there and smile.”

They all huddled together against his truck, and she kept directing them like she was making Christmas cards at Sears.  “Okay, now let’s have a funny one, everyone make a face.  Great.  Now let me get some with two of you at a time; Marc you’re first.”

Marc, the kid with the buzz cut, took this as an opportunity to force an exit.  “Hey, Mrs. Reese, why don’t you go get his dad, and I’ll take a photo of all three of you.  A family portrait, wouldn’t that be nice, Kyle?”

“Oh, I can’t think of anything better.”

She smirked, taking their hint.  “I’ll be right back,” she said as she disappeared back into the house, calling her husband’s name.

“Quick, help me pack everything now and I’ll be gone before she gets back,” Kyle joked once she was out of earshot.

Three of the four boys began stuffing thing into the passenger side, well after it was full to capacity, but the bespectacled Sawyer stood back by himself for a few moments.  Sarah’s eyes were still locked on Kyle, but Sawyer’s eyes were locked on her.

“Hey,” he called to his friends.  “What’s wrong with this picture?”

“What’s up?”

“There’s an old lady staring at you, Reese.  She’s been staring for like five minutes.”

Kyle looked over at Sarah, and she immediately turned away.

“Good for her,” he said without a second thought.  He continued with the task at hand, trying to force an uncooperative shoe box into the space beneath the passenger seat.

“Isn’t that creepy?”

“Not really, she’s just some lady, she’s not hurting anyone.”

“You ever heard of stranger danger?  She’s giving you the bedroom eyes, you’re gonna wind up in her windowless van.”

“Dude, shut up, she can probably hear you.  Besides, that’s a jeep, it’s got nothing but windows, I’ll be fine.”  Kyle turned back to Sarah who was trying to keep herself busy by reading the warranty sticker on the windshield.  Dani nudged her to let her know Kyle was looking, and when she turned back to him, he smiled at her and waved.

Sawyer punched him on the shoulder again, less playfully this time.  “Stranger. Danger.  Windowless van.  It’s your funeral, Reese.”

“Shut the fuck up, man. She’s probably a friend of my mom’s or something.”

With that, Sarah emerged from the jeep and walked over to the boys.  Dani also stepped out so she could have a better look, but remained on the far side of the street.  Sawyer tried to motion for his friends to head back towards the house, but none of them moved as Sarah stopped a few feet short of the curb.

“Kyle Reese?” She didn’t mean for it to come out as a question, but she couldn’t believe it was truly him.

“Never heard of him,” Sawyer said at the exact same moment Kyle responded “yes.”  A third punch, not playful at all.

“It’s really good to see you, Kyle.”

“Um, yeah, it’s good to see you too.  How, uh, how have you been?”

“You can stop pretending like you know me.  You don’t.”

“Okay, cause I was gonna say… Can I help you? What’s up?”  This woman was at least a decade older than his mom, and her face wasn’t familiar at all.  He had thought that maybe she was an old babysitter of his, or he’d seen her at church or something, but he was now drawing a complete blank.

“I’m actually here to help you, Kyle.  You see, there’s a storm coming.  Something big, something bad, and I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to stop it.”

Kyle’s friends had backed into his yard, but he remained where he was on the curb.  As she took a step closer to him, a gear in the back of his mind began turning, and he got the feeling that he had seen her before, but still couldn’t place where.

She told him a date and a list of cities to avoid, suggesting he head out into the desert and stay there. Andy inched his way towards Kyle and gingerly grabbed his shoulder.  “C’mon man, I think your mom’s calling us, we should head back inside.”

Sarah stared into his soul with such intensity that he was a deer in the headlights, unable to move. She reached into a jacket pocket and pulled out another manila envelope, thinner than Dani’s, and handed it to him. His friends shook their heads, silently imploring him not to take it, but he did anyway.

Dani, seeing that the handoff was complete, beat the hood of the jeep to call Sarah back over.  “We’re burning daylight, we should head out.  Andale.”

“Just a second,” Sarah cried over her shoulder.  She turned back to Kyle, who was holding the envelope out at arm’s length like it could explode at any moment.  “I don’t have time to explain everything right now, but it’s really important that you trust me on this, Kyle.  Your future is at stake.  I don’t have a lot of people left I still care about, but you’re one of them.  Have courage in the dark times to come.  I’ll try to help you with what you must soon face, but just know that the future is not set.  There is no fate but what we make for ourselves.  You must be stronger than you imagine you can be.  You must survive.”

She turned and walked away, climbing back into her jeep without another word.  The engine roared to life, and she and Dani sped away, returning to the mission at hand, leaving the four cowering boys in their wake.

“The fuck was that?” Sawyer finally managed.  “I mean, what the fuck was that about? What kind of shady ass drug dealer shit was that? Do not open that envelope, it could be a bomb or anthrax or something.”

“Dude, that was sketchy as hell,” Marc said, his voice wavering with adrenaline.  “You need to tell your parents.”

“Who was she?” Andy asked, clutching his chest.

“I don’t know,” Kyle answered, tearing open the envelope before his friends had time to yell anything coherent.  Inside was a long handwritten note which he’d accidentally torn in half.  He had no time to read it before his parents came bounding back out of the house for their last family photo.  The four friends broke apart and pretended like they had been loading the car this whole time; Kyle’s dad could tell they were hiding something, but didn’t want to ask what.

Kyle balled up the note in one hand and unceremoniously tossed it into the open window of his truck. He’d read it later and give his friends the full report, but he didn’t want his parents to know a thing, not yet at least.  They took their photos, said their goodbyes, shared more hugs, and finally got all of his stuff wedged in such a way that nothing would fall out, and he hit the road just in time to get stuck in rush hour traffic.

He unwadded the note and barely made it through the first line before he froze.

“My name is Sarah Connor,” it read.

Sarah Connor.  THE Sarah Connor.

He’d heard her name a few times over the years.  She was a domestic terrorist wanted for blowing up a computer company back in the 90s. They called her the Cyberdyne Bomber, and her name was up there with the likes of Ted Kaczynski and Timothy McVeigh. She’d been in the news recently because she was finally caught at the US-Mexico border trying to sneak back across. She’d apparently killed a ton of guards and stolen a police helicopter, then crashed it into a dam or something like that. Kyle hadn’t kept up with the news with quite the same intensity as his parents.

He realized now that that’s where he knew her face from…

“Holy shit.”

He pulled off at the first exit he came to and parked at a gas station so he could read the whole thing in peace.  He’d heard that she was a crazy person, the news said she was schizophrenic, that she believed there were evil aliens robots trying to take over the world. Her note was legible, to say the least, but no less fantastical than the news made her out to be.

The end of the world was coming, fire and fury would rain down from the heavens, machines would rise up against man to exterminate all life on Earth.  And here he was, stuck in the middle of it all.  She claimed she knew him in a past life, one of his past lives apparently, or a future life, it didn’t make a lot of sense.  Something to do with time travel, with a rogue AI called Skynet, but it’s also called Legion, but then only recently?  She was trying to stop the end of the world, but didn’t know if she’d be successful, and just wanted to give him a heads up so he didn’t die like four billion others.

He’d lived through several end-of-the-world prophecies since he was a kid, but he’d never given them much thought.  June 6, 2006, 666, Biblical Revelations, nothing happened.  May 21, 2011, the rapture, nothing happened.  December 21, 2012, the Mayan calendar, nothing happened.  And now Connor was convinced that the world was going to end later this month, but for real this time, and wanted him specifically to know about it.

Why had a domestic terrorist singled him out like this?  Was he in danger?  Was his family?  He considered calling the police, the FBI, the crime stoppers hotline, anything, but he wasn’t sure what he’d even say.  At the bottom of the note was a cellphone number with too many digits, obviously international, and he typed it into his phone almost without thinking. He couldn’t stop himself from doing it anymore than he could force himself to call the police.  He was on autopilot, fight or flight mode, and he had apparently chosen fight.

It rang once, twice, then connected with no greeting.  He could hear the wind whipping by on the other side, a car on the highway.  With caution, he threw out a feeble “hello,” secretly hoping she wouldn’t be there and he could pretend none of this had happened.

“Talk to me, Reese.”

Fuck. “Is this really Sarah Connor?”

“Yes, Kyle.  It is.”

“What’s going on?”

“Did you read my note or not?”

“None of that’s… it’s not… But that’s all BS… Isn’t it?”  He sounded unconvinced, one way or the other.

So, Sarah had some convincing to do.

“Kyle, listen to me very carefully…”

[party-of-rpg-muses]

Oh boy. I’m really late in this. Not only that, but I had multiple sessions that I’ve neglected in talking about as I recently returned from my vacation at Disney World and had to acclimate back to the climate and being home. And work has kept me incredibly busy and practically exhausted. And I’m also balancing that with FFXIV.

Anyway, I eventually returned to playing after returning from my vacation. Picking up where I left off in Yaschas Massif 010 AF, only to realize that I was in the wrong area to get a Graviton Core. But I managed to get a Behemoth Fang. After that, I resolved to go to Academia 400 AF, having to deal with a number of enemies as I got the Graviton Core Delta and attempted to try my hand to the giant Geiseric... only to get defeated shortly thereafter. I also found the Wild Gate I could use to access a different area, but not Wild Artefacts. But before leaving, I went ALL the way back to around the beginning of the area to drop off my completed maps. I also went to Serendipity to try and get the Chaos Crystal, but to no avail. I ended up using the slot machine for about 20 minutes in its best mood and I lost way more coins than I gained. So... yeah. I then went to Yaschas Massif 100 AF to see if I could find a path forward, doing what I could to assist the Ruby’s of Grief. It didn’t take long before I got them all. Even got Graviton Core Epsilon along the way. After that, I saved and turned off the game.

Quite some time later, I returned and with the Wild Artefact I got while there, I opened a Gate to the Sunleth Waterscape 400 AF where I partook in finding lost Flans before fighting against them. After fighting them, I made sure to pick up the Graviton Core Eta before leaving. Also, I kinda did some exploring in other locations and completed some sidequests. Since I couldn’t win coins, I decided to farm them by spending my gil to get more. Upon finally getting enough for the Chaos Crystal, I bought it, saved the game, and turned it off.

Several days later, I picked up where I left off. I also learned that I didn’t need to get all Graviton Cores, so I just decided to give what I had to Hope. 6 out of 7. And with that done, I was given access to a mysterious Time Gate in Academia 4XX AF. Jumping through, Serah got separated from Noel and Mog was mysteriously missing while she ended up in the Void Beyond. I ended up talking to the various Yeuls (and got interrupted a few times because of the enemies). I saw items, but I was expecting to go back for them once I got Mog. Regardless, I found against Caius, only for Serah to get run through and sent to New Bodhum. I won’t lie, I was confused for a bit, thinking a made a mistake somewhere and got some kind of bad ending. But I still couldn’t help but smile when I saw Lightning and Snow in their original clothes from FFXIII. Speaking of Lightning, despite her offer to stay, I decided to reject it, as I already came far enough. Afterwards, I voice called out. I initially thought it was Mog, but after listening more and more, I came to the conclusion that it was Vanille, a voice I haven’t heard in a while. It led me to where the Gate was initially and it was there that I met up with none other than Vanille and Fang. I was so happy to see them! Honestly, I missed them a lot throughout this adventure. Fang opened a portal to go through, but before leaving, I picked up some items; Fang’s Crown and Vanille’s Fruit before jumping through and entering Noel’s dream; a desolate, depressing world. Before long, I was playing as Noel and fought against Caius. I did decently well, but ended up losing the fight. Thankfully, there wasn’t a game over. I continued to follow and watch Noel’s life, see his Yeul die in his arms, and follow after him in the wastelands before Serah pulled him back to reality. I then found myself fighting another Gogmagog (haven’t fought those in a good while) and defeated it with ease.

With newfound resolve, I returned to the Farseers’ where Yeul was and found myself reunited with Mog. Only to learn that Caius was a l’Cie like Lighting, Snow, and Serah! His Focus being to protect Yeul. But Etros freed him and granted him immortality to protect the other Yeuls. I also learned that Serah has the Eye of Etros, which slowly kills her with each vision of the future she sees. And with nowhere left to go, I made my way to the Time Gate and made my way to New Bodhum 700. It was there that I finally got to see Lightning face-to-face! She gave quite a bit of exposition before leaving. But not before giving Mog a new and improved Mog Hunt, which I put to great use while in the area before leaving. I also fought a few enemies and even happened across a Metallicactuar. But it ran away after knocking and freezing Serah and Noel into the air. After that, I left and went to Academia 500 AF. There, I performed that platforming puzzle. Many enemies were a pain to deal with. Most notably the Proto-Behemoth (which I could not defeat in any way and it would defeat my part with little effort. There was also the Apkallu, which I was able to beat, but it was time-consuming and nearly defeated me. I also ran into a few problems with platforming, most notably with Serah circling and falling off as a result, rather than turning on the spot. And occasionally I would undershoot a jump. As this happened later in the area, that meant having to press the switches again after failing. But eventually, I reached the end.

By the way, around this time, it was around midnight, so it was technically March 31st, meaning that Persona 5 Royal was released. I pre-ordered the game on the PS4 store and let the game download while I continued playing XIII-2. I went onward to the final battle and watched in awe as Hope arrived, still using his boomerang from XIII-2 (he also did this in his introduction cutscene) and even meeting up with Sazh and Dajh. I then found myself fighting Gaius’ Chaos Bahamut form, which proved incredibly difficult. I may have lost about 5 times before I eventually won. But after that was a direct battle with Gaius. That one was much easier. After that was another battle with Gaius, which was time-consuming, but I managed to beat him. Follwing a brief cutscene, I found myself fighting three Bahamuts. I decided to focus the Amber Bahamut, since it seemed like the main attacker while Garnet Bahamut was the buffer. Once both of them were down, I attacked the Jet Bahamut and in a brief assault, got him down to about 75% health before Amber was revived. Despite my best efforts, it wasn’t long before Garnet was revived and all three used Exaflare, defeating my party. Another attempt went better, lasting a bit longer, but I was eventually defeated as I struggled to keep up. I may have tried 10 times in total before giving up. I figured I was underleveled, so I decided to do a bit of grinding.

I returned to the Dying World to explore a bit, fighting enemies and getting stronger while also finding items. I happened across the Farseers’ Relic again and upon using Mog Hunt, got a Live Reaction, which gave me an Artefact. I also ended up in Yaschas Massif 110 AF and found more Rubies of Grief. These were also not too much of an issue to deal with, even if some required out of the box thinking. But I managed to complete them before getting one from an ancient Yeul, requesting me to fight the Ugallu. Honestly, that fight was quite difficult. First time went decently well, having a Bunkerbeast provoke it while Serah healed and Noel weakened the Ugallu, but after a while, I lost my footing and lost the fight. And for the second attempt, Bunkerbeast’s Provoke wouldn’t work for some reason, leading to another defeat. But after the third or fourth time, I managed to defeat it. Later, I went to the Archylte Steppe and properly explored the area, even fighting the Gigantuars. I also managed to reach the Vile Peaks 010 AF, but couldn’t figure out what to do. I fully explored and encountered a mysterious figure, but couldn’t affect it in any way before I found myself back at the beginning of the area. I think with a bit more work, I should be able to win and finish this game. Hopefully it won’t be too long. I want to finish this game before starting the FF7 Remake.