#catch me turning away and pretending to not see the Horrific Implications of my own World Building | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

vaguely-concerned · 4 years ago

Text

The Mandalorian Chapter 15 rewatch thoughts

- mayfeld does hear when the droid talks to him the first time, you can see him pretending not to like he hopes he’ll just go away haha. I also guess he’s had a lot of time to think, picking apart pieces of the large fascist machine he used to be a part of and going over everything he clearly regrets

- hahaha fennec and boba are in the back intensely keeping watch the entire time they’re on the prison planet. I suppose a good two thirds of this crew is uuuuh extremely wanted by the new republic lol

- the thing din’s voice does at the end when he says “but you still know your imperial clearances and protocols. don’t you.” is beyond fucking words, it sends a chill right through me

1) din fiddling with that panel; I think he’s phenomenally nervous behind the helmet here, that’s the sort of keeping his hands busy he does when he’s anxious and 2) why the hell does boba have this many chairs instead of like space for cargo haha does he throw bounty hunter parties in here or what

- ngl boba correctly guessing at a glance what sort of ore they’re mining and informing everyone in his sardonic deadpan voice is Big Sexy

I love how he and fennec are standing together when they’re both present in these opening scenes too, first at the very back when they’re keeping a lookout:

and then in the foreground while they discuss the scan

it’s a nice subtle way to get across that they already have a dynamic, they’re somewhat used to working together as a unit at this point. (she’s also looking over at him when she asks what they might be mining in there, like she’s mostly asking his opinion instead of opening it to the floor. they’re talking the mission out between them before din enters the conversation)

- the inside of slave 1 when the ship’s moving makes me a little bit motion sick, I really love seeing it but I hope we don’t stay in here too often haha

- aaaw the small weary sigh din gives upon realizing none of his bros can go with mayfeld. I’m sorry about basically your entire life buddy

the awkward way din adjusts the helmet like he’s trying to get used to the way it feels ;______;

- ah the distinct implication that mayfeld is needling din about this because he’s actually feeling super uncomfortable being back in empire gear and he needs to transfer that discomfort over onto someone else so he won’t have to feel through it... very psychologically understandable and such a fucking piece of shit asshole character trait to give in to haha

- din’s level of side eye is so epic you can see it straight through the helmet fhaskjfhd

- neat detail: din’s head turns slightly toward mayfeld when he calls mandalorians a ‘race’. (it’s sort of cool that we as the audience know why that bothers him, but mayfeld probably didn’t even pick up on it). also shows that mayfeld doesn’t actually quite understand what he’s talking about, even when he makes decent points he’s caught up in his own myopic nihilistic point of view. ‘we’re all the same’ ------> ‘everyone’s secretly as shitty as me deep down’. (which also betrays a lot of self loathing, since we see later he does have the capacity to NOT be that shitty when he chooses to. rick famuyiwa manages to get a LOT of really interesting nuanced stuff into this character in two short episodes, that’s super impressive)

the bright sunny look on mayfeld’s face when din finally gives in and takes the bait tho fsajdkfhasj he’s awful but that’s very funny

- rip all these excellent dudes who really only wanted to accomplish the noble goal of ruining the empire’s entire day and didn’t know they were also trying to blow up My Dad Who Does Not Deserve Any Of This, it’s honestly just really sad that there’s no moment to talk that out

well at least they blew up the entire refinery on their way out, I’m sure that’s the way they would have wanted their memories honored lol

- the comedy beat of din running out of ammo for the first time ever and the music briefly cutting out for it is so so good for me

hahahaha din seems to actually take a moment to be a little aghast at that dude who ends up crushed under the treads of the tank thing, he’s just sort of staring for a few seconds too long and that’s how pirate nr 2 takes him by surprise and shatters his shoulder armour

- I feel a bit bad -- two of the ‘pirates’ try to hold on to each other for balance and then din punches them apart and off the tank :( I mean it’s not like he could just let them murderate him either but like. ouch I’m guessing this one might haunt him for a while for several reasons huh

(the sequence is actually this guy, let’s call him pirate 3, swings the spear at din and misses, instead hitting his buddy who’s trying to get to his feet, then looks horrified and grabs for him to make sure he doesn’t fall off, and then... mando’s forehead happens to them haha)

- poor fennec and cara just running up that hill while everything’s on fire, they must be wondering what the FUCK is going on (at least cara knows that things blowing up is a sure sign din djarin is in the middle there somewhere)

- everything about carano in real life aside for one second -- I do like that we get this contrast in build between our main female characters of the episode and the way their costume designs enhance it

- awwww the little gesture din does with his hand after he removes it from mayfeld’s chest after stopping him from leaving, it’s just so... sweet. it’s a little bit appeal, a little bit reassurance, it just lightens/softens the tone of what he says a bit (he has quite a lot of like... not conciliatory mannerisms exactly, but small touches here and there that are there to communicate that he’s not angry/aggressive or trying to be a dick about it even when he’s emphatic. I keep wondering how much that is just him being him and how much is him being practiced at settling other people’s hot tempers)

- this shot is just... genius

it’s din seen entirely from the outside, with nothing of what we’ve learned to recognize as him for almost two seasons now in view -- not even his face, which we have at least a tenuous fledgling attachment to from before. it’s like we get introduced to him almost as if anew again and again in this episode, just like he’s getting introduced to new aspects of himself and what he’s willing to do and having to struggle to find ways to have that fit with who he is. his discomfort and stress is our discomfort and stress. it’s so interesting

- I can’t stop cackling at this moment even in all the tension -- you only get a sliver of din’s profile but you can feel the sheer MURDER radiating off him sdhfasjk

- aaaaaaaagh the way you get a whole different view of din’s habitual impassiveness when you can actually see his face... the way he keeps appealing to mayfeld ‘just don’t make more trouble, just shut up’, the way he goes completely silent and watchful and frozen..... those are all really obvious trauma responses, and it leads you to wonder how often he touches into that even when he’s in his element, when he’s got the full armour on. hmngh my heart

- ‘the believer’ is such a galaxy brain title for this episode, because it could be referring to either of the three men around this table or all of them at once. (and crucially the only person whose beliefs aren’t in a living, breathing state of adapting to the world around them is the empire officer, with his horrific inhuman ideology. mayfeld thinks he believes in nothing, and proves himself explosively wrong by the end of the episode, and it’s redeeming for him in some capacity. din is facing a more internal dilemma of different parts of his (and his culture’s) beliefs/values clashing and having to decide which one’s more important, to his identity and to how to exist in the world as a person (and love for the baby wins out supremely in the end. of course it does Y_____Y). the empire dude only sees the same sterile fascist world at the end of his shit rainbow that he’s clearly always done, even when faced with proof that it’s untenable. (I mean he wouldn’t give a fuck that it’s immoral because he’s y’know evil, but he’s not even fazed by the fact that the empire provably FAILED, and failed so quickly) his belief is a dead and deadening thing to contrast the others. man when this show goes off with the themes it goes OFF haha)

- love the triumphant heroic mando music kicking in as we’re finally getting to pick off imps, love that for us

- din’s protective instincts at work again, he helps mayfeld to his feet and makes sure he’s safely on board before going further in himself ;_______;

- fennec’s professional approval at mayfeld’s shot hahaha. well I guess he was supposed to be a sharpshooter back in the day huh

I do Not think she likes mayfeld even after all that, though, the withering look she sends him on her way past... should have killed him stone dead on the spot

- seeing din back in the armour is like a physical relief, I can breathe again haha

- tfw you catch yourself thinking ‘at least when all this is over we can go back to the razor crest and everything will be normal again’ and then you rEMEMBER 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

#star wars #the mandalorian #the mandalorian spoilers #the mandalorian meta #honestly I could add a lot more of my boba thirst in this lol (idk din is always Dad not Daddy to me but boba's Doing something for me haha)

334 notes · View notes

tysonrunningfox · 5 years ago

Text

Ripped: Part 27

I’m.......so fucking stoked to post this right now

Ao3

“I need to stop and fill up,” Eretson mumbles ten silent minutes into the ride back to Fishlegs’ house.

“How dare you?” The silence shatters like physical bonds and Astrid sits up straight in the passenger seat, arms crossed to keep herself from hitting him.

Or at least not hitting him yet. She still might hit him, but not now, not until he explains where he left his brain.

“I can make it,” he swallows, refusing to look at her, “the light comes on fifty miles before empty, anyway.”

“Hiccup told me about the plea deal,” she tries to sound deadly but with her fists tucked away and her eyes tired, she’s not convinced that she gets the point across. Especially when Eretson pulls up in front of Fishlegs’ house and looks at her with obvious pity, like she’s a kid and he’s about to have to explain that the fish he flushed down the toilet isn’t coming back.

“We can talk tomorrow.” Eretson gestures at the front door of Fishlegs’ house, porch light welcoming even now.

“We can talk now,” she raises an eyebrow, “because I’m not telling Snotlout about this myself.”

“Jorgenson will understand,” he shrinks a little under the statement though and she knows she’s struck a nerve. Good. If Eretson is stupid enough to put the idea of a plea deal in Hiccup’s evasive head, he deserves to look Snotlout in the face and admit it. “He’s a cop.”

“A cop who I haven’t seen put too many innocent people in jail on purpose,” she lets disgust leak into her tone and it’s enough that Eretson turns the car off with an efficient turn of the keys before climbing out of the car and striding ahead of her to the door.

He doesn’t want to look at her right now, and that would make her want to get in his face if it wouldn’t put her expression in full display. She doesn’t want to see her own face until she shoves useless despair back where it belongs, behind a wall of determination.

“Detective Eretson?” Fishlegs answers Eretson’s knock and the other man holds up an almost surrendering hand.

“Eret is fine.”

“Is that like a nickname or something?” Snotlout’s lying back on the couch, tossing a box of tissues up in the air and catching it. He tries to lean up on his elbow, but it must hurt his stitches because he falls back again, the box hitting him in the face. “Because it’s stupid, and I hate it.”

“It’s not a nickname.”

“No, it’s kind of just half your name.” He sits up, using Heather’s shoulder for help even when she tries to shrug him off, obviously invested in the papers she has scattered across the floor.

“How is that not a nickname?” Heather snaps, smacking his hand away from her shoulder. “Isn’t a nickname just a shortened version of someone’s name?”

“Usually their first name, Heather, would you take me seriously if I went by ‘Jorg’?”

“Probably,” she snorts, standing up and handing a piece of research to Astrid, highlighted and attached to a couple of sticky notes. Something about the first canonical Grimborn murder and the despair fights against its cage. “You know, since ‘Jorg’ is just Swedish for ‘George’.”

“Why are you bringing up my name when this guy just announced that his name is Eret Eretson?”

“You brought up your own name.” Fishlegs locks both of the new deadbolts he installed yesterday, his hand awkward on Hiccup’s borrowed drill, and if Astrid doesn’t hit someone soon, she’s going to scream.

“Sixty-eight!” She settles for yelling at Snotlout, brandishing the research she doesn’t want to read like a weapon.

“Why does that go on my tally? Fishlegs was just the one talking—” His eyes widen and he holds his hands up apologetically, “wait no, I’m sorry Astrid. So very sorry.”

The apology is authentic enough to catch her off guard and she almost hits him anyway, for surprising her when she can’t tolerate anymore surprises, but it also gives her a moment to breathe and shrug and pretend she knows how to be reasonable.

“It’s ok,” she bites her lip and gestures at Eretson, who she will not be calling by his first name because even though she lacks the bandwidth to agree with Snotlout right now, his name is stupid. “Eretson has something to tell you.”

“What? Is your middle name ‘Son’?”

“I talked to Hiccup today,” Eretson pulls the conversation back on topic and it’s anything but a relief. Astrid wants to shout that she talked to him too, that he’s stupid and noble and not fine at all, but once again, that wouldn’t help anything. “And introduced the idea of proposing a plea deal to implicate Grisly.”

Snotlout frowns and looks between Astrid and Eretson before speaking slowly, “did he say no?”

“He didn’t say anything,” Eretson shrugs, “I just told him to think about it.”

“Well, that was stupid,” Astrid laughs bitterly, “he doesn’t just think about anything, he obsesses over everything.”

Snotlout and Fishlegs share a knowing look and Astrid raises an eyebrow.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Snotlout drops her question almost too gently, and she’d be suspicious if she had room for anything other than mounting panic at the thought of Hiccup following Eretson’s advice.

“What was that look?”

“There was no look,” Snotlout shrugs, looking back at Eretson.

“It’s just that you calling Hiccup obsessive is a little…well, someone mentioned Viggo Grimborn outside your apartment a couple of times and now you’re involved in a copy cat murder investigation.” Fishlegs says gently, if a little condescendingly, and Astrid purses her lips.

“A few times a night, maybe.”

“And I don’t think you’ve been outside in days because you’re researching so frantically, so you calling someone obsessed—”

“Are you done?” She cuts him off and he holds his hands up. “Because I’m trying to talk about the horrifically stupid idea of Hiccup accepting some kind of plea deal.”

“How exactly is it stupid?” Snotlout asks, too gentle, and she blinks at him.

“Because he’s innocent?” Heather answers for her, “and admitting to something that he didn’t do isn’t the smart way to handle this?”

“Plus, think about how it would look when this does go to trial,” Astrid points out and Heather nods in agreement.

“A trial will take months,” Eretson says, too gently, and she hates when the truth doesn’t sound like a point. “Months you have to keep looking, whether he takes the deal or not.”

“Forensics should have enough for dismissal in months,” Astrid’s voice cracks and she forces it even, ignoring worried looks that she doesn’t want, “why do you think Viggo Grimborn wasn’t caught? He wasn’t a criminal mastermind, it’s just that no one could fingerprint him or use a DNA sample.”

“Forensics will be valuable at a trial,” Eretson’s measured voice makes her want to scream, like maybe if she’s loud enough she can force something to happen, “but it’s still about convincing a jury.”

“I wish the news would stop covering it,” Heather mutters and Snotlout shoots her a look before talking.

“What kind of plea would you even be asking for?”

“I was thinking something along the lines of trading information in exchange for a reduced sentence,” Eretson fidgets with his sleeves, pushing them up and letting them fall back down, twitchy at the odds of getting yelled at again.

“So, he trades the ‘insider information’ that Grisly is a sociopathic serial murderer and they ship him off to the nice prison upstate while they investigate,” Snotlout mulls that over for a second, “as much as I hate to say it, that’s not a bad idea.”

“Really?” Eretson flushes and clears his throat, standing up straight like his spine has been replaced by a curtain rod. “I’ve been looking through Grisly’s case notes and I don’t like the idea of him having months to patch up the few holes I’ve found so far.”

“Then what do you do a few months down the road when forensics prove that Hiccup had nothing to do with it?” Astrid hates even entertaining the idea long enough to say it out loud and Heather seems to agree, nodding emphatically. “But there’s a record of him confessing, what happens to that?”

“Unless Grisly planted Hiccup’s hairs all over or something,” Snotlout says, a little desperate, worry leaking through in ways Astrid doesn’t understand. “Either way though, it’s contempt of court or obstruction of justice or something and he can appeal—"

“So, more time in court, more chances for disaster,” she laughs, the thought of further disaster too heavy and impossible to take seriously, “all to tell a lie that’s going to be overturned by evidence anyway?”

“All to get my couch back,” Fishlegs says quietly after a minute, appearing at Astrid’s side and putting an arm over her shoulders. It’s shepherding as much as comforting and she digs in her heels against being herded.

“You can stay with me,” Heather offers, and Astrid never thought she’d consider Heather the only other person with sense.

“Your address is on file,” Eretson shakes his head, “it’s not safe while Grisly is still out there—”

“I don’t care,” Astrid shoves Fishlegs’ arm off, unsure how she’s the one in the corner when Hiccup is the one in the cell.

“I do,” Snotlout is quiet, almost apologetic as he looks at her, “I’m getting pretty sick of hiding out while the guy trying to kill me gets to think he’s winning.”

“So, Hiccup is supposed to confess to something he didn’t do so you can feel like you’re winning?” Heather snips and Snotlout rolls his eyes.

“Don’t talk to me about what’s best for Hiccup, you ditched him as soon as you disagreed about Vinyl Greenbean—”

“Then why are Astrid and I the only ones who don’t want him to lie during a criminal trial—”

Heather and Snotlout bicker like siblings, the kind of vicious back and forth perfected over years of disagreements, but something about their timing is off, like there’s a hole, a third voice supposed to flit back and forth alongside theirs. Astrid can hear its absence louder than any memory of Hiccup’s voice and the thought makes her swallow hard, clinging to something looking more impossible every second.

What if there’s no way to make this all go away? What if she does have to find some way to move on with her life while trials drag out across weeks or months or years?

She doesn’t want her life back, not while Hiccup isn’t in it. Not while he doesn’t have his.

“Enough,” Eretson cuts across the arguing with a tired, heavy order that everyone takes. Snotlout turns to point at him, irritated, but he stays quiet as Eretson continues. “None of this is going to be decided tonight, it’ll take time to talk through either way, so maybe it’s best to…”

“Hiccup’s already decided,” Astrid glares at Eretson one last time before sitting on the couch and diving into Heather’s nearest pile of research, hoping for some concrete fact large enough to drown out her fears.

00000

The memo to leave her alone must be delivered to appropriate parties, because she spends the next three days researching in relative privacy. Ruffnut helps, which means she hangs around and talks about nothing in particular, but it’s better than Fishlegs’ quiet worry or Snotlout being a little too nice. Ruffnut is at the archives when Eretson and Heather show up, looking official enough that it sends a thrill of cool fury down her spine.

One of these days, Eretson is going to tell her that Hiccup accepted a plea deal and she’s going to hit him. It’s inevitable and infuriating and it takes everything in her not to wish it would hurry up, even sarcastically.

She’s not supposed to be the cynical one, there’s supposed to be someone else here to do that.

“What do you want?” She doesn’t so much greet Eretson as warn him.

Eretson glances suspiciously at Ruffnut before talking, “I was hoping—”

“We were hoping,” Heather tries to soften the tone of the situation and Astrid sighs, forcing her expression placid as she waves Eretson on with a falsely casual hand.

“There’s a piece of evidence I’d like your opinion on,” He produces a thumb drive and looks pointedly at Ruffnut again, waiting for her to take the hint.

“Ooh, evidence? I’m in.” She intercepts the hint and runs with it, snatching the drive and plugging it into Astrid’s computer.

“Actually, it’s sensitive,” Heather tries and fails to beat Ruffnut to the mouse and Astrid crosses her arms.

“I trust her with sensitive.”

“You do?” Ruffnut snorts, clicking play before Eretson can stop her.

It’s a grainy, night-vision video of a man in a top hat and a long coat limping fluidly across the street in front of Astrid’s apartment building. In the fifteen seconds shown, the figure never shows his face, instead leaning the hat closer to the camera as he raises a long arm upwards and covers the lens in what Astrid assumes is black spray paint.

The time stamp is for the morning Hiccup got arrested, at 3:28am.

“We know it’s not Hiccup,” Heather placates, and Astrid wipes her palms on her jeans.

“Someone sure tried to make it look like him though,” she sighs, “play it again.”

The second playthrough she tries to ignore the mocking in the swinging limp, the coat that hangs wrong, the arm that moves slowly through a calculated arc. She succeeds enough to notice the hat, fluorescing just enough in the night-vision to make itself unique.

“Look,” she pauses the video, pointing at a splatter of small smudges on the front of the hat forming almost a halo around a larger smudge on the top of it, “what’s that stain?”

“I wondered that too,” Heather tries to take the mouse and Astrid bristles for a second before letting her, “but then I looked into the camera that Gobber put up and apparently it’s some paranormal detection model with a UV mode.”

For the first time, something clicks just next to Grisly’s painted narrative, a single fallen leaf looped into an eddy instead of following the current all the way down.

“Snotlout had Hiccup’s hat.” Astrid starts looking through her phone, hoping she texted someone or took some picture, something concrete to prove what she’s saying. “The night he was over at my place and got shot. But he didn’t have it at the hospital, so there’s no way that Hiccup had it the other morning.”

“How do you know this is his hat?” Eretson asks and Astrid points at the largest faintly glowing stain.

“Toothpaste fluoresces,” she laughs, finally feeling like she might be getting somewhere after eons of dead ends, “that’s—I know I got toothpaste on his hat and the rest…if I had to guess, it’s blowback, from when Grisly shot Snotlout. He must have taken the hat then.”

“So, you’re saying the fact that you can prove it’s Hiccup’s hat…means it’s not him blacking out the camera?” Heather looks at Eretson for corroboration.

“The only proof we have against Grisly is Jorgenson’s testimony,” Eretson shakes his head, “and I don’t want to bring him in yet. What about proof that Hiccup didn’t shoot Jorgenson and take his hat back?”

“You saw him at the hospital,” Astrid tries, the memory of Hiccup strung out and exhausted tugging at heartstrings that must remain double-knotted if she has any chance of being useful through this.

“That won’t hold up in court,” Eretson shakes his head and Astrid wants everyone to leave so she can keep reading and figure out some magical way that this doesn’t go to court.

A way other than a plea deal that resigns Hiccup to being known as a murderer or at least an accomplice. She just needs time and she can fix this. She’s sure there must be a hole somewhere, no one is perfect, least of all Grisly.

“Wait, before the hospital, he was with me,” Ruffnut supplies, crossing her arms.

“What?” Astrid tries to communicate her anger at not being told that little detail earlier with her eyes.

“We were at the condos trying to sneak into Grisly’s office.” She laughs, “we succeeded, and got caught and—oh wow, that’s not a funny story anymore knowing he was coming from shooting Snotlout.”

“How was that ever a funny story?” Astrid doesn’t expect an answer, but Ruffnut, as always, defies expectation.

“It was hilarious, we were like pretending to be married—that’s how I grabbed his ass, remember?”

Of course Astrid remembers, but she never thought the nonsense coming out of Ruff’s mouth and igniting useless little furls of jealousy would ever be pertinent to something this important. She half thought Ruffnut was kidding to urge her into some kind of forward motion, and she didn’t really have a chance to get past half-thinking about the comment.

“Does Grisly know you snuck into his office?” Eretson asks, frustrated that it’s a question he needs to worry about but obviously relieved that he’s no longer obligated to report on its legality.

“He caught me,” Ruffnut shrugs, “but Hiccup got out without Grisly seeing him.”

“There goes that alibi,” Eretson mutters and Astrid tucks her hair behind her ear, trying not to feel defeated in her once sacred role.

“I could—you know, I could go down to the station right now and—”

“I’m saving that,” Eretson says cryptically, a whisper in the mausoleum dedicated to her chances of helping.

“Fine.” She stalks off to the nearly completed Grimborn room and everyone is gone by the time she risks going back to her desk.

When she gets back to Fishlegs’ house and knocks on the front door, Snotlout swears inside, obviously startled, and she’s irritated until he opens the two deadbolts and she sees the relief in his face.

“Sorry.” She doesn’t know what else to say and immediately wishes she’d said nothing.

“It’s fine.” He seems to stuff down what he wants to say, “you’re not Grisly.”

“Guilty,” she tries to joke but it’s not funny and she wonders what Hiccup would say. “About the plea deal—”

“What’s your team?” Snotlout interrupts, introspection wrongly-sized on his face.

“What?”

“I’ve never asked what team you actually support,” he shrugs and she narrows her eyes, “is it the Chiefs? I bet it’s the Chiefs. Vikings fan?—"

“Why?”

“They uh…having a good season?”

“Goodnight,” she stalks past him to the couch and opens the notebook she left on the coffee table, re-reading Hiccup’s notes for the millionth time.

00000

The next time Eretson and Heather show up at the archives, Astrid tries to ignore him, but curiosity gets the better of her and she acquiesces to his questions with a nod.

“Have you found anything promising?” He asks like he already knows the answer and she flips through Hiccup’s notes to the creased, crumpled picture of the ‘Al, I.’ safe message.

“I did think of something earlier,” she ignores how Heather examines the picture with authentic interest, trying to remember the details of Hiccup’s interrupted tour, even though it hurts, terrified that the memory of his shocked, delighted face under spontaneous hat hair when she took control will fade. “If the whole idea is that Hiccup is mimicking the Grimborn murders, why didn’t he leave a message on the wall? He clearly had paint,” she references the video from earlier in the week, but even she can hear how feeble the idea is.

He didn’t have time to leave a safe message because he got caught. Copycat killers don’t purposefully leave more evidence. She’s grasping and it’s obvious and desperate and she hates the edge of pity in Eretson’s expression as he sighs.

Astrid’s jaded enough by this point to not ask if she can go with him when he leaves. Something tells her the plea deal is more probability than possibility at this point.

Heather stays though, asking to see the Berk Enquirer where Astrid found the ‘Al, I.’ safe message, her hands careful on the wrinkled pages that Hiccup clenched in his fist a world ago, when all of this seemed random. Snotlout and Ruffnut show up not too much later and Ruffnut produces a flask from her purse, setting it purposefully in the middle of the table.

“Antique documents,” Astrid hisses half-heartedly, pulling the pages away and brushing at a drip of nose-burning alcohol on the corner.

“Tuffnut made this,” she drums her fingers on the table, “do we try it? Or is that a really bad idea? Or do we try it because it’s a really bad idea?”

“If we’re trying bad ideas…” Astrid closes the notebook she was reading and the lack of distraction makes the day instantly heavier. “I have a couple others I’d put first.”

Hitting Eretson. Draining her bank account to hire her own lawyer and sue Eretson. Go down to the station and tell all the truths she’s been holding back. Hit Grisly while she’s at it.

“We should try it,” Snotlout rubs his hands together then pauses, “or we could try whatever bad idea Astrid wants to try first, I’m open.”

“Stop,” she glares at him.

“Stop what?”

“Being so nice,” her shudder is involuntary, “it’s not going to make me feel any better about the plea deal. And it’s creepy.”

“It is creepy,” Heather agrees, “it’s like the threat of Astrid hitting you sixty plus times finally taught you humility or something.”

“She can’t,” his wince is exaggerated, “I’d still die. It wouldn’t be any better than handing me over to Grisly.”

“Sounds like that might be easier on you,” Ruffnut laughs, eternally repositioning herself into the audience.

Astrid opens her mouth to say something to Heather but a choked breath is all that comes out as her eyes widen. Easier. Grisly has a plan to make this easier.

“That’s it,” she says quietly, morbid confidence welling behind it, “that’s his out.”

“Hey, don’t actually turn me over to Grisly, just because you don’t like—”

“No,” she shoves the rest of Hiccup’s notes in her bag, “that’s Grisly’s plan. That’s how none of this catches up to him, that’s how forensics doesn’t uncover anything. That’s how he keeps this out of trial, where he’ll obviously lose.”

“What are you talking about?”

“And the deal is going to rush it—”

“Astrid—" Ruffnut goes to stand up, but Heather beats her to it, following Astrid to the archives’ staircase.

“I’ll be back at Fishlegs’ later,” Astrid doesn’t stop Heather from following her, taking a brief chance on the camaraderie born in the fire of all these recent disasters.

“What are you doing?” Heather asks outside, pulling an umbrella out of her bag when a crack of thunder punctuates the conversation.

“I’m going to go see Hiccup.” She feels better saying it out loud. More solid. More effective.

“He doesn’t want you to,” Heather pauses like she’s holding something else back, but Astrid keeps walking, arms crossed against the rain.

“Well I don’t want to sit around joking about him being in jail.” She lets her realization sit for a second, pausing as long as she dares to think about it without throwing off the rest of her juggling rhythm. Being equally annoyed at Snotlout’s story isn’t really a reason to trust Heather, but it’s all Astrid has, and she flicks her a careful, judgmental glance. “I have to warn him. Even if it’s another wild guess—”

“Slow down,” Heather frowns, moving close enough to share her umbrella, “warn him about what?”

Astrid sighs, once again leaning into the uncomfortable truth that she can’t do this alone, “if Grisly is really planning on getting away with framing Hiccup with modern forensics and psychological assessments working against him, he can’t let this go to trial. And at this point, the only way to stop it from going to trial is to make sure there’s no one to try.”

It’s abstract and cluttered and everything she can do to not say ‘kill’.

“How are you planning on getting into the jail?” Heather asks after a silent second, handing Astrid the umbrella to dig through her bag.

“I…hadn’t thought that far.” She curses herself, trying to rein the useless panic back in.

“Snotlout never took his badge back.” Heather hands her an all too familiar shield shaped badge in a thin leather wallet and reaches back into her bag, “or his gun—”

“Why would I need a gun?”

“If you’re right…” She trails off pragmatically and Astrid swallows hard, shaking her head.

“If I’m wrong, I’m breaking enough laws impersonating a police officer. How do you know the badge will work?”

“It’s how I got in last time, there wasn’t even a guard on duty at the side door, I just scanned the badge and went up. He was on the top floor then, in the smallest corner cell.” She produces a keyring and holds it up by a non-descript silver key, “this opened the hallway door.”

“You aren’t going to tell me to stay out of it?” Astrid pauses, the rain on the umbrella punctuating her half thoughts. Maybe she should ask for the gun after all.

“I think it’s your business whether you stay out of it or not.”

It’s either a setup or it’s not. Heather is either with Grisly or not. Astrid either showed her hand or she didn’t, and either way, her next move is the same. Tell Hiccup.

Heather goes back to the archives, or the station, or to Grisly’s office to tell him what’s going on. Astrid doesn’t know and she doesn’t have room to care, not when the last week without seeing Hiccup might be coming to something like an end. A point of punctuation, at least, a new anchor before the next disaster, whatever it will be.

The side door of the county jail opens like the alley door of an office building when Astrid holds the badge against it, and if it weren’t for the Berk Police Department insignia on the wall inside, she could almost believe she was going to a doctor’s appointment or to see an accountant. That illusion shatters though when she looks through the small bulletproof window on the second-floor landing and sees a line of men in orange jumpsuits walking down the hallway, shepherded by a guard in a gray uniform that sends a shiver up her spine.

She’s never seen a prison guard, their uniforms could be gray for all she knows, but they look too much like NWF for comfort.

The badge works again at the sensor next to the door on the top floor and she slips through, shutting it quietly behind her and not giving herself time to pause or think, because if she did, she might realize what a horrible idea this is. The umbrella in her hand drips a trail of raindrops on the floor as she walks purposefully, trying to project that she knows what she’s doing and she’s supposed to be here as she makes her way to the last door on the left, hoping for the first scrap of luck that she’s had since she found Elizabeth Smith’s apartment.

The key Heather gave her slides easily into the lock, turning with an anticlimactic click, and she slips inside before she can think better of it.

“Astrid?” Hiccup’s voice splits the silence with a stab of shaky confusion, a wall of bars between them dividing his haggard face into three parallel snapshots of shock.

“Hi.” She looks him up and down, making sure he’s real and whole, struggling to hold onto the urgency that propelled her up here on a whim.

“How—”

“Snotlout’s badge,” she shows him before shoving it into her pocket to free up a hand that she rests tentatively on the crossbeam of the cold bars. He hesitates before setting bony, clammy fingers on hers, jaw flexing under the extra week of stubble too obviously, like he’s lost weight he couldn’t afford to lose.

He looks worse than he did through plexiglass and her heart aches.

“Heather…” His expression is resolute, but his eyes are soft, “you shouldn’t be here.”

“Neither should you,” she snaps a little too loud, “and I’m trying to fix it, I’m trying to find something wrong in Grisly’s setup, but I don’t see how to make it fall apart before it goes to trial. Or worse, before you force it into an early plea deal.”

“Trial,” Hiccup’s lips twist into a nauseous smirk and her hand itches to wipe it off. “Grisly seems to think this won’t make it that far.”

“He said that?” Astrid’s blood runs cold and fast, like her veins are an Alaskan rafting course, and Hiccup’s fingers curl absently around her knuckles, thumb brushing hers as he frowns. “And the plea deal would make it happen so much faster, but—did he really say that he wasn’t going to let it go to trial?”

“Something similar,” he shrugs a scrawny shoulder and his frown deepens, “you really shouldn’t be here.”

“The only way that Grisly could avoid a trial would be if there’s no one to try. If the murders stop and the evidence lines up, why would anyone dig deeper? Especially if he got rid of you, that would be easiest for him.” She needs to say ‘kill’, she knows she does, she needs to drag Hiccup along with her on a tour of their macabre reality, but the word sticks in her throat like its determined to choke her. “It’s the only thing that makes sense, it’s the only way any of this fits—”

“I love you.” Hiccup doesn’t stutter or choke or quibble. He looks at her, ghost of a smile haunting the corner of his mouth as his hand tightens on hers. “You know, just in case you’re right again and I don’t get another chance.”

Her heart skips a beat then makes up for it, and at first, she thinks she imagines the clapping.

It almost sounds like the pounding in her head, a little uneven, emphasis drifting slightly off beat. It could be an echo, a residual from the way her heart is pounding, fear and confusion rattling around her chest.

It could be a symptom of her brain shutting down, until the laugh.

There’s nothing humorous in the sound, nothing alive. It’s half awkward chuckle after dropping a stage prop and half delighted to stumble upon adequate improv partners.

It’s Grisly in the doorway with a knife.

Hiccup’s top-hat is crooked on his head, as out of place as his unpracticed smile, but twice as insulting. He claps again, impersonating some concept of glee, and Astrid’s feet feel glued to the floor.

“You love her?” He laughs, the sound rich like blood, more alive than she’s ever heard him, “I had my suspicions, but I never dreamed I’d see them confirmed.”

“What are you doing here?” Hiccup’s voice is dull and quaking with some deep-set vulnerability that makes Astrid want to protect him.

“Your dutiful lawyer is downstairs negotiating a plea bargain,” Grisly says like he’s delivering bad news, looking down at the knife in his hand with an almost fond smile, “he seems to think that horrible judge might go easier on you if you talk. And maybe it’s true, some people must be a fan of your talking for you to have made it this far.” When he looks back up, his smile is almost peaceful, like he’s nearly at the end of a very long, arduous road. “I’m not one of them.”

“I thought you enjoyed our conversations,” Hiccup angles himself like there’s some impossible way he could shield Astrid even when she’s on the same side of the bars as the madman with a knife, and his eyes scream ‘run’ in a language Astrid doesn’t speak.

“Astrid,” Grisly doesn’t ignore Hiccup’s struggle to protect her as much as he passively enjoys it, like background music amplifying the emotion in a movie scene. “This is long overdue, I was hoping to save you the inconvenience of coming down here by making a house call—”

“Leave her alone!” Hiccup yells, desperate, the walls swallowing most of the volume even as it leaves Astrid’s ears ringing.

There are cameras in the hallway, they surely heard this. They’re surely hearing all of this.

Why didn’t Grisly shut the door? If he shut the door, his audience would shrink dramatically, at least until someone reviewed the tapes later.

It takes her a second to place the delight in his eyes and then it hits her that he didn’t expect to see her here.

“This is better than I could have imagined though,” Grisly laughs the low, polite laugh of someone making an inappropriate joke behind their boss’s back, “I thought Hiccup would get out on bail and I’d catch you two together with that idiot Jorgenson and clean up all my loose ends at once, getting a judge fired in the process.” He sighs, wistful for the plot twist he predicted that didn’t quite work out, “but this…to find Astrid here right when I came to dispose of you, to hear you admit your feelings not knowing you were about to watch her die…”

Die. The word seems so passive that Astrid can’t imagine it having anything to do with her. Especially with the way Grisly is looking at her like an object, a prop that couldn’t have any life to give to anything other than his dastardly scheme.

And Hiccup is quiet, quiet like he never is, quiet like he’s already given up.

Something her Uncle Finn always used to say flashes through her head, his too serious words for coaching a children’s baseball team taking on new meaning.

Stunned silence is an enemy’s greatest weapon.

When she flips her grip on the umbrella in her hands and swings it hard, it’s more dangerous than Grisly’s knife because he doesn’t expect it. Because he expected her to stand there and quiver or beg or bargain instead of follow the righteous bolt of anger telling her to take this into her own hands.

The center pole of the umbrella hits across the bridge of his nose with a crunch and a clatter as he drops his knife. He moves faster than she thinks he will, batting the umbrella away from his face and fumbling for the blade.

That puts his face at the perfect height to knee him in his already bleeding nose as she tries to straighten out the umbrella to hit him again. The first hit broke it, apparently, and she settles for thrusting the handle against his chest as soon as he tries to stand, the blow knocking him off balance and sending him stumbling back through the still open door.

His back hits the opposite wall and his hat falls off, revealing rumpled white hair that makes the blood gushing from his nose look more vital, like he’s losing something he can’t live without. He tries to stand up and she moves to hit him again, an involuntary noise of disgust leaking out when he flinches away, looking for the exit he hasn’t given anyone else.

The door at the end of the hallway flies open and Eretson appears, gun in hand, flanked by two officers uniformed in standard Berk PD blue.

Astrid drops the umbrella and holds up shaking hands, taking a step back from Grisly’s defeated form and pointing at a camera on the ceiling.

“He…he left the door open, I bet—I bet this is all on film, he wasn’t expecting, well…me.” She looks at the broken umbrella and the stain on the knee of her jeans before glancing back at Grisly’s already swollen features, sharp edges gone soft with loss of sick control. “He confessed.”

“And he trash-talked a judge,” Hiccup adds from behind her, voice meek and hollow, “which I don’t think helps.”

“Usually doesn’t help,” Astrid agrees, heart fluttering too fast as she watches a cop slide handcuffs around Grisly’s wrists. He slumps under the weight of them, nose dripping on the floor as he trudges down the hall, a leashed lion on the way back to his cage.

Eretson doesn’t ask how she got in or how she’s doing or where the knife near the gate of Hiccup’s cell came from. He sighs, either too professional to show his relief or too tired to feel it, before instructing the other officer with him to take them to an interrogation room while he goes to get a copy of the security footage before anyone else can get to it.

When he comes back and announces that a second NWF agent is in custody for trying to erase the footage seconds after Eretson’s download was complete, Astrid feels like she can breathe for the first time since she concerned herself with why Elizabeth Smith stopped.

#ripped #httyd fic #hiccstrid #modern au #serial killer tour guide au #blood tw #astrid is a bamf #if anyone guesses why snotlout is being so nice I'll...scream

62 notes · View notes

dark-unimaginably-stupid-kids · 7 years ago

Text

Getting Undressed

As usual, Klance, Voltron...and this one IS A ONE SHOT okay. It’s second person. that’s it this is done. :| I bring you 2.5 pages of Lance whining, and then 6.5 pages of boys being ridiculous. Also making out and Keith is a lil touch starved okay bye. Synopsis: Lance can’t stand Keith’s Blade of Marmora suit. (Supposed to be set after season five because Lance is just crazy high strung and Keith is tired.) ---

You want him to take off that suit.

He looks at you, violet eyes quizzical as ever and dares to ask, “Why?”

Why?

Why.

Why…!?

Because that suit makes you angry.

Because that suit is everything wrong with your life right now.

Because it’s almost like every time he puts that awful thing on it’s just another step closer to death.

Because it’s almost like that’s exactly why he wears it.

It’s almost like he planned it.

Because its hard and soft in all the wrong places.

Because it will never protect him the way you can.

Because it’s a reminder of what he chose over yo—over your family. Over Voltron, you mean. Because you aren’t so stupid.

He isn’t here for you and he never has been, there’s no point in trying to put emphasis on something that isn’t there.

Your eyes narrow at him despite how it hurts you to do so. Because he’s not angry. He’s not trying to pick a fight. He has, in the past, on occasion spurred on by your own goading, but lately he hasn’t.

Maybe it’s because you mean so much less to him now. You don’t even have that together anymore.

This thought hardens your resolve, keeps your eyes narrow to combat his near doe-eyed stare.

How does he do that. How does he look at you like that.

“There’s enough negativity around here, Mullet.” You bite out.

“I can see that,” He replies, a little too quickly.

Oh. Maybe he is trying to pick a fight.

Maybe you miss that.

“And what’s that supposed to mean!?” Your voice has already hit that higher pitch. Are you that tired? Your shoulders are so tensed.

Why has it been so long since you’ve seen him. And why did you react like this. And why are you saying stupid things like demanding he take the suit off.

And yet when you reach out to him as if to shove him, noticing he doesn’t flinch or move away from you at all, you simply reach into his hood and push it down. Your fingers grazing the back of his neck on the recoil and you catch motion in your periphery like his eyelashes fluttering.

You turn your gaze downward regardless, your fingertips buzzing.

He brings his arms up, wraps them around himself in typical mullet fashion.

“I didn’t realize it offended you so much,” He mumbles.

You feel your cheek twitch. Your foot taps impatiently though you aren’t sure what you’re waiting for.

He raises his head, you catch the motion even though you aren’t looking directly at him, he makes to move toward you. You return his earlier trust and don’t move, but unlike you he doesn’t go through with whatever he’d wanted to do. His fingers dig into his arms, he shakes his head.

He stares at you for a long moment and you dare to peer at him from the corner of your eye.

He catches you. His brows furrow in his confusion, “Are you…”

Okay?

It’s unspoken but you’re sure that’s what he wants to ask you.

Maybe he can see the tension in your back.

“I’m fine. I just hate that suit.” You hiss before suddenly your turning, aiming to walk out of the rec-room.

But he grabs your arm so quickly you stumble back, nearly falling into him.

“I’ll take it off then.” He says, just as quickly, not even waiting for you to growl out some remark about how he’d almost made you trip.

“I won’t wear it while I’m here, okay?”

While he’s here.

The implication being that he won’t always be here. Where he’s supposed to be. By your side.

“Yeah whatever,” you respond, all your fight ebbing away at the thought he’ll be gone again soon.

Running head first into danger. Brash. Impulsive. Suicidal.

Keith.

You try to walk away again but he hasn’t released your arm. You stare at it. You feel your skin burning even under his gloves and your own armor.

Maybe if you’re lucky Pidge will walk back in, forgot something on the couch maybe. Cut the tension.

You’re not lucky. It’s still just the two of you.

You eye his fingers. You miss how you used to always be able to see them because of his stupid fingerless gloves. The ones he never wears anymore because he’s always in that stupid suit.

“I’ll take it off now,” he starts again, a faint flush brushing his cheeks, so light you can almost pretend you’re imagining it. “I just need a little help with the clasp if… if you don’t mind.”

You raise a brow but turn to look at him directly, you’re sure you’re not imagining that blush and your bad mood is draining as fast as your fight.

“…Are you asking me to help undress you?”

His eyes dart to the ground and his cheeks get decidedly pinker, “You’re the one who asked me to get undressed.”

…Fair.

You cut the space between the two of you and turn him around so you can face his back, presumably to find that tricky clasp he was talking about. But you don’t find a clasp, the back of the armor is simply rounded, smooth, nice.

Your eyes dart downward for the briefest second because yes, Keith’s entire back, lower back in particular, is nicer.

“Uhm?” You offer.

He hangs his head, a mumbled “it’s at the front actually…” your only response.

You turn him around again and he’s forced to raise your head when you look him over again, your hands on his shoulders.

You still don’t see it, “Why do you need help with a clasp in your front? How are you this useless?”

You don’t mean it as badly as it sounds coming out of your tired lips and thankfully he doesn’t take it that way.

“It’s just. It’s on the inside and…” He pulled the breast plate forward a bit from the cloth part of his suit and pointed his head straight down to try and stare into darkness, “I can’t see it, so it just—I fumble with it for like fifteen minutes every day I swear it—”

You don’t need to acknowledge his darkening cheeks to realize you’re staring at him. You’re not even going to stop.

You’re just. Astounded.

You’re astounded with the power this boy has over you.

You’re amazed by his ability to go from “stoic space emo” to… this. This awkward adorable mess.

You inhale deeply.

You look at his eyes even though he is doing everything in his power not to directly look at you.

You nod to yourself.

You love him.

That’s just the fact.

No one else can make you so angry and so happy in two seconds flat. No one else can get so deep under your skin they can nestle next to your heart like he can.

“Alright, let me see,” you lower one hand form his shoulder and look down into the darkness between the breastplate and the skin tight suit beneath it.

You can see… something vaguely clasp like, toward the left side over the ribs.

Man, that must be uncomfortable.

“Okay. I get it. Come into the light a bit.” You tell him as you finally release him and start removing your own armor, starting with the bulky parts on your arm.

“W-what are you—” He stumbled out.

You blink at him, slowly.

“Taking off my armor?”

“Yeah but.”

You blink at him again, just for the effect of it. You watch him bite his lip in his frustrated confusion because at the very least he knows your look means there’s something he’s missing.

You’re not sure he can be any more endearing than he is at moments like these.

“Armored wrist. Will not fit,” You finally inform him.

His mouth makes that perfect little O shape and you need to breath deeply again. Each one releases so much tension from your shoulders. Bless this stupid dangerous boy.

You move to sit on the long circular couch and motion for him to join you. It takes him a moment to remember why and in the mean time you roll your eyes and remove your own chest piece if only because you feel like it has the tiniest possibility of getting in the way too. The space allowed by Keith’s ridiculous suit is small and you’re probably going to have to squeeze yourself up to him to get at it.

Not that that’s a bad thing.

Once he finally takes his spot beside you, you prop one leg beneath you and turn to face him. While you pull on the breastplate again he adjusts so he’s sitting on both of his legs and looking straight at you, his face still pointed down so he has to look at you from beneath his lashes and you wonder if this is something else he does on purpose.

You pull the armor as far as it will go, which isn’t much, and you reach in with the other.

You suddenly realize why he has so much trouble, the top of the breastplate presses into your arm and you immediately wonder how uncomfortable the entire thing must be to wear. But then the back of your hand is brushing against the suit which is impossibly soft even against Keith’s hard chest. Maybe that balances it out.

You try to see where the clasp is again, pushing into Keith just like you thought you’d have to. It’s not as fun as you’d briefly considered but that’s not to say it isn’t entirely.

Your faces are very close and despite staying very still Keith looks so overwhelmed he might bolt any second.

You’re not sure when you fell in love with him exactly. You’re sure it must have happened ages ago though. Was it the conversation in his bed room? The lion switch? Was it during any of your missions together? When the castle was acting up and you had to brace yourself against each other to try and escape an elevator?

Was it the bonding moment you still only barely remember despite it being the first time you held his hand?

Was it when you watched him grin against the handlebars of a hover bike and out maneuver trained garrison officials?

Was it when you heard about his expulsion and you witnessed the absolutely horrific state of Iverson’s face in the few weeks before it was decided you would take his place?

Was it when you first met and those violet eyes stared right through you?

…You grit your teeth.

No, probably not then

Probably closer to the night on the hoverbike.

You lean your head forward, pressing your forehead side against his and pushing him. “You’re in my light,” You clarify at his amusing squawk.

He bumps you back anyway.

So you do it again, he’s still in your light.

This time your cheeks brush.

His skin is amazingly soft and it flares your temper again because how dare he have such perfect skin when he doesn’t do anything to it.

Maybe throwing yourself into life or death situations is good for skin.

You’re about to shake your head, force yourself not to think about it, not feed that stupid little bitter thought, but he’s nudged you again just as your finger grazed the clasp.

“Are you serious!?” You hiss, because of course, you lost it now.

“W-w-well you started it!” He cries.

You push his head with your own again and this time go so far as to lean your forehead against his now bared neck to better look on the inside.

At this angle, the clasp even reflects the light. Score.

You can feel his throat bob as he swallows on nothing.

It takes you a second but you’re finally able to unlock the damn thing and suddenly your arm has much more room.

“You’re welcome,” you say flatly, raising your head again.

This was a mistake.

His chest is heaving, his eyes are nearly shut, his lips are loosely parted, and his neck is still bared to you.

It’s like he’s frozen, like he doesn’t realize he can move again.

You reach up, your fingers graze his neck. What you’re doing now is extremely risky but you can’t help it. Maybe it’s the influence of the red lion, but you want to act on your impulses and this is your impulse.

You walk your fingers lightly up his neck and along his jaw until you’re cupping his chin, your middle finger tucked just under his earlobe which you may or may not rub as you tilt his head back down toward you.

“You alright there…?” You ask him.

His voice is breathier than you’d ever heard it, “I…uhm… no.”

You strengthen your grip on his chin a bit and this tiny but absolutely delicious noise comes out of Keith’s throat.

“It’s just—I don’t think we’ve ever—I don’t think anyone’s ever—uhm…”

“Is your neck sensitive, Keith?” you offer the stumbling mess in front of you.

He sags in defeat and nods against your hand.

“Right, then I’ll stop touching it,” You finish, releasing him and pulling away.

But then, Red was Keith’s lion first.

The loose chest piece slams into your own unprotected chest and Keith winces too, possibly because the thing is highly uncomfortable, but it’s not enough to stop him.

His arms are wrapped around your neck and he’s pushed you back against the seat of the couch. Out of reflex you reach around him, your arms wrapped tightly around a slim waist that slides against you in the same way his lips do.

They’re soft, much like the rest of his skin, much like his hair which is falling into your face now, much like his eyes, and much like his voice when he talks to you.

You’d smack yourself if there was a possibility it wouldn’t alarm Keith, but at this rate you know that’s impossible.

He bites at your lip and you don’t put up an ounce of fight as his tongue slips into your mouth.

Because it takes that tongue massaging yours, those tiny noises from Keith’s throat, that hand gripping tightly at your hair, for you to realize that…

Well, you’ve been an idiot.

Because all of Keith’s blushing and stuttering from the second you got on the castle ship make sense.

Because maybe you have reasons to hate this stupid suit digging into your chest (and taking points off of what is still probably the best day of your life) but none of those reasons can be because the suit is some kind of proof that he doesn’t care about you.

Because—ah god he kisses like he’s starving, and you might love that—he absolutely does care about you.

He has from the beginning.

Ah damn it and now you’re going to have to thank the stupid suit for this finally happening, aren’t you?

It presses into your rib and you groan which just encourages the boy on top of you to press into you harder.

Quiznak.

You love him but shit.

You reluctantly pull away, pushing him back with one hand on his shoulder and the look on his face almost kills you but you power through it.

“Not stopping. Pausing. Cause this thing.” You flick the hard chest piece, “This thing has to go.”

Keith flushes in embarrassment and nods, sitting up and reaching down to pull the piece over his head himself but you shake your head.

“Arms up.” You tell him.

His lips are a deep bruised red and his eyes are blown wide and as you sit back up and lift the breastplate over his head you can’t help but wonder how it’s possible someone who had the ability to look so utterly beautiful could want to kiss you so desperately.

…Well, a caballo regalado no se le miran los dientes.

One of Keith’s arms wrap around his now slightly exposed chest. That suit really doesn’t leave anything to the imagination. Not that it matters, you used to change around each other all the time.

Granted, you’ve never kissed before…

You stare at him for a long moment before leaning forward and bumping his nose with your own.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” He replies, too quickly, too anxiously.

You chuckle. He shivers.

“If you’re cold I can fix that.”

This is the real defining moment. That kiss? That kiss could have been anything. But when Keith flushes beet red at your little flirtations remark and stutters out an attempted, “c-could you now…?” instead of looking unimpressed and dismissive like everyone before him…

Well.

You already knew you loved him.

Now you knew you were screwed.

And now that the most offensive part of the suit was out of the way…

“Yeah.”

You reach forward, grab a hold of his thighs and pull him into your lap. This time you initiate the kiss and the feeling of his warm chest pressed against yours is so much better than you could have imagined.

He arches his back as if he can’t be close enough to you and you grip him tightly to let him know you agree.

You find out later that Pidge did actually forget something and had, at some point or another, attempted to enter the rec room again. Of course, she had immediately back pedaled. But whatever, that was fine, you’ll blame the suit for that too.

#klance #laith #Keith #Lance #voltron #fluff #cause fight me I thought the head butting was fluffy #like none of this was planned #the beginning was caused by frustrated drowsiness #the rest just kinda toppled out #so #meh #fanfiction #fanfic #oneshot #also why yes I do have a thing for top armor-less paladins #how did you guess???

41 notes · View notes

ruffsficstuffplace · 8 years ago

Text

The Keeper of the Grove (Part 16)

Queensguard HQ, somewhere deep underground in the Nexus.

General Ironwood sat in one of the many briefing rooms, two field agents sitting on either side of him, Kajiki and Gwendolyn. The three of them listened to du Pont talking about her examination with Winter, sitting silently with the frowns on their faces steadily growing, asking questions from time to time.

The mood was grimmer than usual, the consensus among all four of them that this was bad.

Very bad.

“… Jacques did agree to my terms, but after I stormed out like that, I doubt he will honour them…” du Pont was saying. “Please, forgive me for only informing you when the situation had already deteriorated so much, the first sleepless night she spent with her sister should have been--”

“Don't feel guilty, Dr. du Pont,” Ironwood said. “We can't catch every red flag the moment they go up, either.”

Du Pont sighed. “A most unfortunate truth… can you promise me that Winter will be properly taken care of?”

“On my word as General, Specialist Schnee will get the care she needs.”

Du Pont hummed. “Thank you, General.”

“No, doctor, thank you—this situation likely would have gotten much worse, if you hadn't called when you did. Is there anymore you'd like to add?”

“Just to be wary of Jacques; the man is even more hard-headed and determined than they make him out to be.”

“We'll manage, Dr. du Pont.”

They said their farewells, along with the canned speech about how the citizens' tips were vital to the Queensguard—and for this particular time, Ironwood meant it. The holographic screen faded away, and all was quiet in the room as they let the new knowledge sink in.

“Agent Kajiki,” Ironwood said, nodding towards them.

The cyborg sighed. “Winter has lost it/ Reason slips through her fingers/ What do we do, sir?”

Ironwood sighed. “Let's review the situation, shall we?”

“We have one of our most dangerous and skilled covert ops specialists suddenly going insane, after she abandoned her post, stole a jet to return home to her family, and had been terrorized by a group who are still almost literally and repeatedly walking right through some of the best security to be found anywhere, let alone a private home.

“From what we know—that is to say, almost nothing—said group is based in the Viridian Valley, a location that Jacques Schnee is currently organizing a large number of armed expeditions into, in retaliation for the first one where they were so kind as to let his second daughter and her escorts come home alive.

“What do you think we do?”

Gwen frowned. “The Knight does not like where this is going...”

“Since when have we ever, Gwendolyn?” Ironwood replied as he got up. “Get ready to move out to Manor Schnee immediately; I want the both of you in Shepherd Suits, locked, loaded, and lethal.”

Gwen's eyes opened, alarmed, before she sighed. “The Knight sincerely hopes neither she nor her companion will have to use them.”

“As do I,” Ironwood grunted. “I expect all of you to do your damndest to take her in peacefully, but if it begins to look like it's going to be ugly...”

“Better one body/ Than two, three, or so much more/ Choose 'Bad' over 'Worse,'” Kajiki recited.

“Precisely,” Ironwood said as he got up. “Don't deploy without me, I'm handling this situation personally.”

Back at Manor Schnee, Weiss busied herself cleaning and drying Winter's Eluna plushie in one of the many bathrooms.

With the specially formulated spray sold by the Plushie Palace, she got it back to feeling soft, warm, and fluffy, but the faint smell of tears, snot, and despair was here to stay until she could find something better.

Winter herself was back in the infirmary, her private room completely closed off but to the constant watch of Doc-Drones and the few human or cyborg security guards who were brave enough—or desperate enough for their salaries—to stay in the manor. By her request, she was cut-off from all forms of telecommunication, and especially the Info-Grid.

Her explanation was that she needed “a LOT of time to wrap my head around the new, horrific implications that elevate the Keeper of the Grove coming for us to a whole new plain of terrible I had never thought possible until now.”

So here Weiss was, idly flipping through incredibly detailed, thorough, and sometimes heated discussions on how to properly celan your limited edition Eluna plushie, if you were so lucky to have one. She was in the middle of reading a particularly lively debate about whether or not you should just throw your Eluna plushie in the washing machine on “Gentle,” as one father had with her daughter's toy, when a comm-request from the garage popped up on her screen.

The ill feeling in her stomach returned as she pressed the “Accept” button.

“Ms. Schnee, your sister has a visitor: General Ironwood,” said one of the few remaining coordinators.

Weiss frowned. “Tell him she's not feeling well,” she said.

“He knows—it is why he is here. He is already on his way to the infirmary. I thought you might like to know.”

The ill feeling grew. “Thank you.”

She left Eluna somewhere safe, then rushed down the halls. She made it just in time to see Ironwood and his escort presenting their warrants and clearance to the guards. The two agents were using the seven-foot tall Sheperd Suit MK III power armour, and equipped with assault rifles, shotguns, pistols, and even a grenade launcher on one of them.

Yet somehow, Ironwood wearing his usual formal suit in the Queensguard's colours, with a holster around his waist holding a stun gun worried her more.

“Weiss,” he said, nodding politely.

“General Ironwood,” Weiss replied automatically. “Why are you here...?”

“To see your sister about official Queensguard business,” Ironwood replied. “Nothing to concern yourself about.”

Weiss frowned. “What are you going to do to her?”

Before Ironwood could reply, the door opened, revealing Winter still in her paper gown. Her eyes glimmered, her grin was just a little too wide, and her hair was out of its usual prim and proper bun, left to fly out in every direction behind her head and around her shoulders.

“General Ironwood!” she trilled. “Great timing! I assume you've come here after hearing about the Keeper situation?”

“Yes, actually,” Ironwood replied.

“Well, I'm afraid to say sir that it's going to be impossible to stop her even with the firepower all of you are packing, but I've got some very important revelations to share with you—ones that change everything!”

“You can tell us back at base, Schnee,” Ironwood replied.

Winter nodded. “Okay, let's go.” She looked around shiftily. “Don't know if she could be right here listening on this conversation this very moment...” she said as she walked out of the room.

Ironwood held out his hand to stop her, and pulled out his stun gun with the other. “Schnee, I'm sorry to say, but I'm under strict orders to take you in incapacitated.”

Winter blinked, then laughed. “I never pinned you as one for jokes, sir!”

Ironwood got into a shooting position, as did his escort.

Winter stopped laughing. “Seriously? I'm cooperating! I'll go with you! You're not really going to shock me and haul me away in front of my own sister, are you?”

“Winter Schnee Shocked And Hauled Away In Front Of Her Own Sister!” read the Avalon New Network's headline after the incident made its way to the public knowledge; below it was “Jacques Schnee Wages War On The Viridian Valley!”, and below that, “Military Presence Rises In Candela, Nearby Territories Amid Security Concerns.”

All Weiss needed to know was:

Winter was hauled off back to Queensguard HQ to be treated, under concerns for her and others' safety given her combat skill and her mental state;

The Avalonian Military was setting up shop in Manor Schnee both as a base of operations and as the most frequent target of the “New, Unidentified Threat” getting the rest of the realm in a tizzy, and as a result, she and her father were to be confined there for their own safety;

Her father still refused to call off the new expeditions into the Valley, and for a variety of reasons, some of them in the Queensguard's operations manual, and some of them unofficial but no less binding and sacrosanct, no one could supercede his authority and stop them from going off, presumably to their deaths; and,

She couldn't sleep in Winter's room, as it was still too clogged with all those crates, and thus “an unnecessary security risk and potential safety hazard.”

So she lay on her side in her own bed, hugging the Eluna plushie to her chest, eyes closed, trying to pretend that it was actually Winter, and not just a soft, warm, and fluffy ball of fabric that smelled of her tears, snot, and despair.

Winter had always claimed it worked for her, back when their mother was still alive.

And like after she died, the trick never quite worked.

She probably should have cried, gotten angry at her father all over again, maybe even relieved some stress on holo-dummies in the training room, put all those fencing lessons to good use. She just couldn't work up the effort to do much of anything, though, especially in the wake of Tov and his new, unwanted partner from the military briefing her on the new protocols and changes coming to the manor—mostly about the soldiers and androids now patrolling the halls in an attempt to stop any intruders.

“Emotional exhaustion,” one of her therapists had called it.

“Running out of fucks to give,” Winter had explained to her later in private, and which Weiss found a much more appropriate term.

Both her balcony doors were open. The military had kindly suggested she put the lockdown on full-time—Shepherd knew that Candela could use the extra load on their power reserves, avoid the dreaded “overflow discharge” flaw of the technology her grandfather had pioneered—but since she knew it would just delay the Keeper, possibly force her to be less polite and peaceful with her visits, she didn't.

“Hey!” she heard a familiar voice whisper. “Weiss, you awake?”

Weiss turned on her side, looked at the floating Keeper of the Grove plushie right at the edg of her bed. It only sent a little chill in her bones this time, as she had gotten somewhat used to the sight of it and its owner—or alternatively, she was far too dead inside for even her most primal of instincts to kick in.

“What do you want?” Weiss asked flatly.

“Well, you know, we expected to see a lot of civilian and paramilitary carriers flying in, but now there's all these actual military--”

“They're for here, not the Valley. Unlike my father or the poor saps he's hiring, they understand it's better to leave you alone. This is more for PR than anything else, say they're doing something about your visits, at least.”

“Oh. Well. That's good!”

“For you, maybe,” Weiss muttered.

The Keeper plushie floated lower in the air. “Yeah... speaking of which: I heard what happened to your sister, Winter...”

Weiss looked the plushie in the eyes, the red rubies glinting evilly as they always did.

“I'm sorry. I didn't realize this would happen, and as little as it means, I never wanted things to end up this bad.”

Weiss felt a rage flare up inside of her, before it died just as quickly.

“Is there anything I can do?” the Keeper asked.

“Can you convince the Queensguard to release her?”

“Ah, yeah… no. I don't even know where they took her, and neither does anyone else. 'Not our business,' they said.”

“Then go away,” Weiss replied, before she turned back to the other side.

“Okay,” the Keeper said, before she left.

Weiss fell asleep to the sounds of radio chatter, soldiers yelling questions at each other, drones and automated security complaining about unknown errors.

#rwby #white rose #fanfic #the keeper of the grove

2 notes · View notes