#clearly being alone all the time in relative silence outweighs having friends but having to keep the *livid* ghost in your head away lol
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coockie8 · 2 months ago
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so your version of plasmius still loves maddie??
Hmm, depends on how you define "love", I guess. Maddie is more like a pseudo-obsession for Plasmius; she's a way to hurt Jack, who is the primary obsession.
It definitely thinks it loves her, and it certainly cares for her, but if Jack fell out of love with her of his own accord, and she were no longer a weapon, Plasmius would rapidly become indifferent to her; possibly even bitter in the same way it is towards Jack, since she abandoned Vlad too, at the end of the day.
It's love for Danny is real and unconditional, but it's love for Maddie is a means-to-an-end with strings.
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unnamedelement · 3 years ago
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even the WORDS studio ghibli steampunk inspired 4th age au is intriguing to me - I’d love to hear more about it!
I am so pleased you asked and I will talk about it forever. Basically, the idea is just something I write on--a paragraph or two here or there--when I'm feeling down and need a pick-me-up, though I haven't done so since May now as I've been so busy! It's set in a 4th Age Middle-earth in which all the basic things are the same, except that the technology advanced slightly differently, as if every major cultural and intellectual hub in history hadn't been wiped out in the first two ages. I mean, they have been, but the ideas were revisited and propagated instead. Which puts us in a bit of a steam era, a bit more modern warfare, I suppose (I imagine it as, like, Legend of Korra equivalent technology, but subtracting the radio broadcasting). I call it Studio Ghibli inspired because, in my head, thats the way its "animated," with similar color palettes to, say, Howls' Moving Castle, My Neighbor Totoro, and Spirited Away. The same sort of observational attention to detail, but not overwrought, and an air of the magical in the every day... It's really just a domestic sort of thing, with an added twist of the Straight Road being shut for purposes that aren't entirely clear to me yet but, somehow, tie into the technological aspect. It, at least, explains to me why the elves are so goddamn committed to technology and Middle-earth in the 4th age, in this universe, in a way that aren't in non-AUs because, well, Tolkien. The lore of this ridiculous sandbox is only very slowly evolving, but giving elves unresolvable sealonging is a certain type of hurt/comfort that is highly attractive to me. Whoops. And it is Legolas- and OC-focused, of course, because that's just who I am as a person. There is also a university in Minas Tirith because I say so, and because I need to project my woes about academia somewhere, but I try to justify this to myself by tying it into that preservation and propogation of knowledge aspect. Anyway, that was way more than you asked for! Ah well. Here is the first scene I ever wrote in this AU, because I've never actually shared it publicly, I don't think. I believe @roselightfairy has been the only one privy to my nonsensical AU drafts thus far! I usually just ramble about it in tags, but you caught me this time, ha. Thanks again for asking!
Legolas twisted the ring on his index finger distractedly as he waited for the train. It had been a long day in Minas Tirith and he was ready to return to Ithilien, to take in the rolling plains that edged the river as they flew past, for it was always only then that he could reflect, in uninterrupted silence, without hobbit tourists at his heels or the accidental shove of an impatient lady in the shops.
There were too many people in Minas Tirith for Legolas. Accordingly, and much to Aragorn and Gimli’s chagrin, it was not his favorite place.
But they understood, and that was all he could ask. He tried to schedule all of the city errands on the same day or two, because longer than thirty-six continuous hours in Minas Tirith and he became an absolute nightmare with which to coexist. For the most part, his friends and family had accepted this and he was trying, after all, but that did not make it any less obnoxious for the rest of them.
It did not help that the only place in Gondor with Sealonging-certified healers was on the fourth level of the city. A wildly insensitive choice, in his opinion, though he kept that perspective well enough to himself after Ithildim and Gimli had tried to advocate, a few years before, for the relocation of the clinic to the Healing Houses on the Sixth, in a string of rejected proposals at City Council.
Gimli would not look at Aragorn for a month after that, and so Legolas had quit his whingeing and suffered in silence the abrupt buffeting that occurred in the busy streets after his appointments. He made it his own prerogative to schedule at the end of the day so he could spend the morning with enough wherewithal to do his errands and take care of whatever sundry things he had managed to commit himself to. It kept him relatively sane and it kept his friends on speaking terms and, so, that is what he did. (And it was not as if any of them had control over the West-way being shut, so there was no point in any of them falling out over it.)
Legolas heard the heavy-huffing of the train approaching long before its lights rounded the bend of the river. He preferred to walk to the stop at the Docks than get on at the Gates because it gave his mind time to settle. Waiting that close to the river after therapy was, perhaps, not his brightest idea, but the pros outweighed the cons and what Ithildim didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
Besides, it was Summer, and the cattails were up again all around the station, and a family of osprey had made the light pole by the river their nest, and it did lift his spirits to watch these things alone as the world moved on about him...
A few more people rushed the small platform as the rumbling of the train on its little steel bridge above the banks increased. Legolas only readjusted his ring, unbuckled the satchel in his lap and rummaged around for the hardtack he had bartered for Ewessel. (She would have no idea how many pieces were there originally—what she didn’t know also wouldn’t hurt her). He was just tugging on the pair of oversized leather earmuffs Gimli had given him a few years prior when he started taking the train routinely when two pairs of very familiar shoes suddenly appeared in his line of sight, and he froze—
There was no point in hurrying—he had been found out so he adjusted his earmuffs and tucked the hardtack into his cheek, noticing vaguely that the sturdier pair of boots were well-shined and dirtless, while the more slender, elvish ones were caked in mud along the edges and splashed up the shins.
He had thought Ithildim was in the Emyn Arnen buildings today. He had seen him head off that way through the trees and he had obviously been there for that was forest mud and yet here he stood with Gimli, clearly just come from their Minas Tirith office so...
He had apparently been wrong. It would not be the first time he had lost track of other people’s schedules.
The train rolled up slowly, then, and Legolas finally looked up from his seat on the bench to find Gimli at eye level—glaring at him with arms crossed—and then, looking further up, was Ithildim—hair neatly pinned back despite his other uncharacteristic untidiness—and he looked down on him with a bemused and mildly irritated expression.
Legolas did his best to offer a guileless smile.
It did not work, and Ithildim pulled him to his feet. “I thought your appointment was at 4(?), auren.”
“It was,” he said, and he shrugged. He was tired and did not want to talk yet. “I prefer walking the plains for an hour or so after, to calm my mind. I did not know you would be here.”
“You do this every time?” Ithildim asked with eyebrows raised, and then Gimli was chivvying them forward as the train doors opened and the inward-bound commuters poured out and the outward-bound ones moved forward.
“I did not know you would be here,” Legolas only said, shrugging, as they found a small table in the back of the car and piled around it.
Ithildim opened his mouth to ask again but Gimli interrupted—
“That is answer enough, Ithildim,” he said softly. “Leave him be, hm?”
“But—”
“He is always back to himself by the time he gets home, is he not? Let him do what he needs to do. He is his own keeper, Ithildim.”
Legolas was no longer watching them, and he instead stared out the window as the train moved forward and he was rocked slightly as it picked up speed. He did not notice the sound of a crinkling bag or the half sandwich Gimli slid in front of him. He did not notice Ithildim watching him wearily but intermittently as he arranged his notes on the small table, comparing a neat chart to x’s drawn on a map spread across its surface.
Outside, the sun was dipping dark but his mind was far away, and his mouth felt dry as he finally blinked and turned away from the flashing landscape.
Gimli had placed a reassuring hand by his thigh as he leaned over Ithildim’s map, and Ithildim was watching him unashamedly, silver eyes narrowed as Legolas glanced at him.
He pulled a travel mug from his backpack and handed it across the table to him.
“I take medicine for this now, you know,” Legolas said quietly, and he considered the coffee and tilted his head, waiting for Ithildim’s reply.
“I know,” he said immediately. “But you have that look in your eye that you get when…”
“Ithildim, he is his own keeper,” Gimli interrupted firmly, and Ithildim looked away. “That being said, Master Elf, it is summer again—“
“I know that—“
“—and the weather folks are predicting a mighty storm this week, which is probably why you are like this.”
Legolas picked up the coffee without a word and reluctantly drank it, and he twisted his ring again as Gimli continued:
“I’ve told Aragorn again and again that he would be much better served employing you lot for storm prediction than the fellows he has but…” he trailed off, and Legolas smiled.
“But he thinks it is unethical to use a bunch of Sea-longing elves for the protection of king and country, yes,” Legolas finished. “Honestly, those of us who are afflicted are going to suffer whether or not he consults us, so I’ve never understood his reticence.”
Ithildim looked up again and was finally smiling. “You are a bit like a barometer, in that,” he admitted. “Gimli has a point here.”
Legolas laughed. “So, what? We wait until I become uncommunicative and morose and a general pain to be around, and then we send Aragorn a warning letter? What, set smoke signals?”
“This is our stop,” Gimli was saying as he folded up Ithildim’s map and notes and shoved them into his hands. He stood up and gestured at the elves to join him. “Normal people would use the message systems, Legolas, but since you refuse to—”
“Really, Gimli?” Ithildim had pulled Legolas to his feet and was dragging him by the hand out the door. The wind was heavy beneath the eaves of the trees that overhung their stop. “We are lucky he only uses birds. Otherwise it would be constant updates about the exchange rate of rye, or flash-pictures of bread, or flowery descriptions of some lady he met in the gardens!”
As they started down the side path to the houses they shared with Saida and the children Legolas laughed again. “It is mushrooms I am fascinated with right now, Ithildim. It is painfully obvious sometimes that you do not listen when I speak.”
“Mushrooms?” he asked, turning to Gimli.
“That is his current passion project, yes. Have you not been in the downstairs bathroom recently?”
“Thank you, elvellon. I am so relieved someone listens to me.”
“Eru, Legolas, you know the downstairs bathroom is supposed to be for Ewessel so she doesn’t slow anyone else down in the mornings.”
Legolas had walked past them now and was several feet ahead as the main house came into sight. He shrugged and turned, walking backward. “It was her idea, Ithildim. You can take it up with her. I am in her good graces now, and I am not playing with the fire of adolescence to tell her no on your behalf.”
Gimli was laughing now and then Legolas had turned and took off toward the house. By the time they arrived a few minutes later, the lights had all been turned on or lit and Legolas was at the kitchen table with Ewessel herself, helping her with her schoolwork.
He barely looked up as they entered. “Stew on the stove,” he said quietly, and Ithildim sighed to hear the distance in his voice.
The door swung in again as Saida came in with Alfirinion at her heels—
“Smells like rain,” she announced as she slipped off her shoes and dropped her bag to the ground.
Alfirinion was just unloading his bag and armful of books onto the table inside the door when the house shook with a loud crash of thunder, and the building sound of rain—gentle to pounding and persistent—began to beat at the house.
Ewessel looked at Legolas, who had gone still beside her, and turned to her family. “I have known for days it would rain tonight. He is better than any weather report, if you are paying attention.”
“Ewessel,” Saida said with quiet admonishment, and she walked up and pressed a kiss to her niece’s forehead before settling down beside Legolas. “How about an early night?” she said to him quietly. “We can talk about our project tomorrow evening.”
Legolas cleared his throat and looked at his hands. “Yes, I think that would be good. The table isn’t…”
“Ewessel will set the table, won’t she?” Saida said lightly, and Ewessel closed her ledger and sprang to her feet. The dining room and kitchen were suddenly in motion and Legolas sat silent in his seat, until he dropped his head, defeated, into his hands, waiting for the sound of the rain to stop sounding like the crashing of waves at the shore.
“Tell us next time you notice, child,” he could hear Saida saying from the stove, and there was muttering under breath before Ewessel and Alfirinion were back in the room, placing a bowl at each seat.
There was the scraping of chairs around him, and then the feel of a cool glass pressed against his hand.
“It is just water, Legolas,” Ithildim was saying at his shoulder. “Drink, auren. The wide world is still here.”
And so he drank and ate and listened to his friends talk.
Alfirinion had had an argument with a peer at Rangers (though he had won, because debate team and shadowing Arwen over the summer had apparently paid off), and Ewessel was displeased no one wanted to see her forestry project (which, to be fair, was a log covered in mushrooms she had taken from Legolas’ project in the bathroom, so no one was particularly empathetic). Saida had made progress on curriculum redesign in her department at the main university, and Gimli and Ithildim had gotten clearance to start a project they were partnering on, to bring heated, running water to a new town outside Osgiliath.
Legolas, however, had only made stew. Had run errands for the family and for his business. Had gone to his appointment. Had lost himself to the wind and left his family fumbling.
But the stew was, at least, enjoyed, and that was better than nothing...
After dinner, everyone gathered in the sitting room to listen to Alfirinion practice his closing arguments for his competition and, eventually, Legolas fell asleep between Ithildim and Gimli on the couch. The last thing he was aware of was someone slipping headphones over his ears and dropping the needle on the phonograph so his senses were flooded with crackling birdsong, and then there was a blanket about his shoulders, and he was gone.
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atinytokki · 4 years ago
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𝐀𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐨 𝐀𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧
Chapter 7: Lucky
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In the sails, all sounds but one were muted and distant to Hongjoong.
The wind whispered promises. The sea, its evil twin, often spoke too, luring victims in with pristine pools and sparkling shallows but crushed those hopes with torrents and freezing and drowning, without even the decency to spit out the bones. When Hongjoong heard the wind, he knew it was sincere. It had guided him many times before, so he opened his eyes and looked where it wanted him to look.
Below in the frigid waves, two Navy soldiers clung to a piece of driftwood that was floating towards the Black Crow.
It looked like they were alive, but fading quickly. While there was no real reason to take interest in a couple more casualties where a battle had broken out, something told him he should intervene.
Needing a closer look, Hongjoong sliced through the knot tying the rope he was clutching to the pulley and stepped off the beam, letting his weight carry him down to the main deck where he peered over the railing and finally caught sight of their unconscious faces.
“Wooyoung and Yeosang...” he gasped in utter disbelief, turning and grabbing Lieutenant Byun in excitement. “That’s Wooyoung and Yeosang! Quick, return to the Crow and open one of the starboard gun ports. I have to save them before they freeze to death.”
Byun looked hesitant to risk his neck for two more pirates, especially these two who he’d had dealings with, but Hongjoong was already climbing over the railing and diving into the sea, which left him little choice.
“Come on men!” He yelled back at the soldiers who were finishing off their enemies efficiently and without any more resistance thanks to Hongjoong’s swift retribution. “Let’s scuttle her from the Black Crow.”
The combination of freezing air and freezing water chilled Hongjoong to the bone almost immediately upon diving in, but he pushed through and swam towards the drifters, checking their breathing before clinging onto the wreckage and pulling it towards the Crow’s starboard hull. Wooyoung was struggling through laboured breaths but showed no signs of consciousness, and Hongjoong knew he had limited time to get him to safety.
The wakes of the Black Crow pushed them back as they approached, and Hongjoong gritted his teeth in frustration, eyes on the muzzles of cannons protruding through the lower gun ports, begging Byun to hurry and come to their aid.
The waterline was relatively high, if only they could get close enough and reach...
“Come on!” Hongjoong grunted, throwing himself into yet another stroke against the wakes, finally crossing the crest of the wave and making contact with the hull.
Just in time, the muzzle of the cannon directly above them disappeared and Byun’s head poked out through the gun port.
“Here!” Hongjoong yelled until the lieutenant looked down and spotted them, reaching out through the hatch to pull Wooyoung in when he was handed up, Hongjoong struggling to stay above water as he lifted his weight.
As Byun attempted to squeeze the unconscious Wooyoung through the opening, Hongjoong reached for Yeosang, who was stirring with a shiver, mumbling to himself in confusion, but letting his rescuers haul him up and into the ship.
“Now your turn,” Byun called back down, and Hongjoong raised a trembling hand, thoroughly exhausted, and reached with the last of his energy.
The feeling of the deck under him was welcome this time, even if he was so cold he could barely move. Lieutenant Park and Steward Doh were there too, laying out a futon and placing Yeosang and Wooyoung on it, wrapped up and dried off to give them a better chance of warming up.
“They’re alright?” Hongjoong asked while Byun helped him over to his usual corner.
“They will be,” the man responded assuredly before chaining the prisoner to the floor like he was supposed to. “You know the drill. I’ll have Park guard the door and bring you a blanket—”
“No, I should stay with them...” Hongjoong protested, staring longingly after his injured friends.
“Lucky, you’re on the verge of collapse. Rest for now, we’ll wake you when they come to,” the first lieutenant insisted, and he didn’t have to argue for long.
He smiled as he watched the prisoner’s eyes grow heavy and tried to make sure his chains weren’t bothering him.
Lucky wouldn’t be a prisoner for much longer. And at any rate, he was no longer alone.
...
The officers of the Paragon were calling for retreat. They’d successfully sunk the Indeok, but the Black Crow had finished with the other two Haemin ships and it looked like Kim was going to set his sights on them next.
San pushed through celebrating gunners to reach Jongho where he was bent over with his hands tangled in his hair from frustration.
“What is it? What’s happening?” He had to yell to be heard, and he gasped at the grief on Jongho’s face when he finally looked up at him, eyes swimming with tears.
“Yeosang and Wooyoung... they were on that ship, the one we just sunk.”
San dropped the bucket he was holding and raced to the gunport to try and catch a glimpse of any survivors as the Indeok disappeared beneath the waves.
“No, there’s no way! They have to be alive,” he replied in a choked whisper that grew into screams as the realisation of what they’d done dawned on him. “Please tell me you saw wrong! Or maybe they escaped! You just didn’t look closely enough, they’re fine, they’re on a lifeboat somewhere—”
“Silence!” Their overseeing commander yelled back, offended by the disruption of a few war prisoners.
Jongho was pressing the palms of his hands to his eyes and shaking his head wordlessly. Usually such a man of action, he was paralysed by the thought of what he had just done.
Anger boiled over in San. He had just lost Hongjoong, Wooyoung, and Yeosang all in one day and pure rage was coursing through his veins, the likes of which even the demon that had possessed him could not conjure.
Without a single rational thought, San picked up the nearest bag of gunpowder and hurled it into the sea. And then the next bag, and the next after that.
The Haemin soldiers were in commotion trying to stop him, but it took three commanders to drag him away and chain him up, restraining Jongho beside him and shutting them off from even the other war prisoners.
Closed away in the quiet dark, San tried to breathe and stop his panic before he slid into despair.
“Please San,” Jongho cried. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry...”
“It’s not your fault.” San released a shuddering breath and pulled the younger boy close. The needs of his brother outweighed his own grief at the moment, and if he lost himself he wasn’t sure he could come back. “Let’s just hold on to hope.”
A few moments later, the noise of someone entering the brig surprised them. It was San’s translator, back with bad news.
“The captain has summoned you, and he is very angry. He says if you want to throw our supplies overboard, you may as well throw yourselves. He sees you only as an expendable resource.”
Jongho’s breathing became laboured again.
“And what do you see us as?” San challenged, watching the man crack under the pressure.
“Teacher... for a short while.”
“Buy us some time,” San asked quietly, convincingly. “That’s all I ask of you. We’ll go willingly, just let us figure this out.”
Haltingly, as if a plan was taking shape in his mind, the translator nodded and turned away.
“Jongho, we need to go,” San hissed. “We need to go now.”
“Land is right there, a Jaecho colony,” the younger boy realised, turning to stare through the porthole at an unsuspecting Kibo. “We can get there.”
“Not if they weight us and drop us to the sea floor,” San warned darkly. “They’ve done it before, they’re certainly capable of it. We need a backup plan to be safe.”
“I can breathe underwater, but you can’t,” Jongho groaned, terrified of yet another life being in his hands. “Even if I can get myself free, I don’t think your breath capacity is enough to keep you alive until I can free you.”
San rubbed his hands down his face in desperation. “You’re right, we need help.”
An idea hit Jongho full force. “Hang on, my lungs and vocal cords are tuned to handle water... and generate sound.”
“You mean you could call for help?” San gasped, taking Jongho by the shoulders.
“Sound travels faster underwater,” Jongho responded excitedly. “If I sing the loudest I can, it might reach whichever mermaid cove is closest. I’m one of their own, they’ll help me.”
“It’s a long shot,” San said after a moment, biting his shot and looking away. “You don’t know if anyone is nearby, or if they’ll come in time.”
A pair of guards arrived to drag them to the main deck for punishment, breaking their little conference.
“It’s our only shot. We’ll just have to try,” Jongho insisted.
They were out of time.
...
The resemblance between the brothers was uncanny. Seonghwa had never seen Gunho before, but he didn’t want to interrupt their precious embrace just to introduce himself, so he smiled softly and kept his distance.
As he breathed him in, Yunho thought back to the last time he’d seen Gunho. So much had changed since then, clearly even Gunho had changed.
“I’m still taller,” Yunho whispered deviously, earning himself a punch in the arm before Gunho buried his face in the crook of his neck again.
“Stop ruining the moment!”
Fondly shaking his head, Yunho pulled his brother closer and whispered words that were only for him to hear.
“Gunho, I missed you so much, I really did. It feels like it’s been so long but here you are, a couple years later in Geobugi of all places— how did you even get here?”
Gunho’s face was tinged with red but a grin spread across his cheeks as he explained. “Captain Seongho of the Hammerhead II offered a ludicrous amount of money and debt forgiveness for someone with medical knowledge to join his new band, and I figured since you were away on a pirate vessel... why not me too?”
Yunho straightened and glanced around for the old pirate. He’d heard of him several times, through street legends and the personal tales of Yeosang and San. “Captain Seongho of... I wasn’t aware there was a second Hammerhead,” he admitted with a nervous chuckle. He’d always been warned about the desperate Captain Seongho. “I wasn’t aware he was even back in business.”
“He managed to commandeer a naval frigate,” Gunho began to recount.
“And you must have managed to rise through the ranks,” Yunho finished for him, a proud twinkle in his eye. They could discuss the ramifications of that arrangement later.
As he pulled away, Gunho’s eyes wandered to Yunho’s companions and instantly he became star struck.
“Oh, Quartermaster Song Mingi!” He gasped, approaching him reverently. “You’re my favourite!”
Mingi blinked and furrowed his brow in question. He was flattered, but taken aback. “Favourite? I don’t believe we’ve ever met.”
Gunho snickered knowingly and took the tall pirate by the hand, excitedly leading him to the back of the room and pulling away a curtain.
As they stepped onto a small wooden balcony, Mingi looked out at the town below them and saw the spiderweb of rope bridges, the cramped, bustling village space, and the floating markets and neighbourhoods all teeming with vibrant life— many of the residents clearly being pirates, even here in the centre of the city instead of only the outskirts. It was different than it had been last time they came, and the change was clearly for the better.
At the sight of him peering down, several of them began whispering among themselves with excitement.
“Everyone knows you!” Gunho explained proudly. “How could we not? You managed to infiltrate the highest security holding cells in Kon’s naval prison and save the Pirate King himself, all within a couple weeks of becoming a pirate!”
He turned to Seonghwa, who was standing a little ways behind them, impressed by the view but still a bit unsure of everything.
“And of course, Prince Seonghwa, your name has been known since before your coronation, maybe even since before you shattered the glass cage on Fortress Island with only a single nail,” Gunho gushed, clasping his hands in front of him before turning back to his brother.
“I’d be honoured to meet the rest as well, if I ever have the chance. Jung Wooyoung’s slaying of the kraken is legendary. As well as Choi Jongho whose voice overpowered the siren Queen. And Kang Yeosang, discoverer of Captain Seongho’s buried treasure? Meeting him would be incredible, the stories he could tell! And of course, there are so many questions I’d love to ask Choi San of a medical nature...”
Seonghwa turned and raised an eyebrow at Maddox, who offered a sly smile and shrugged innocently. He had warned them after all.
“But I already have bragging rights as the brother of the unbreakable Jeong Yunho,” Gunho concluded, elbowing his blushing brother good-naturedly. “With almost any skirmish the ATEEZ was involved in— you can be sure he was there and he crushed his enemies every time.”
“Unbreakable Jeong Yunho,” Yunho repeated quietly to himself. “I like that.”
“Alright, fess up,” Seonghwa finally asked Maddox as they ventured across a rope bridge, following Gunho who was giving them the grand tour. “You’ve been imprisoned, how did you know there was still a secret haven here?”
Maddox gave in and revealed the source of his knowledge just as they arrived outside another highly decorated floating house. A replica of the Stardust’s old flag hung outside and it reminded Seonghwa of the tales he had read in Hongjoong’s journal.
“I keep up with the happenings through secret correspondence with— where is he?— ah, Youngsaeng.”
Just as Maddox said his name, the aforementioned pirate opened the door for the group and stuck his head out.
“Kyungmoon!” He gasped and hugged Maddox tightly, and again Seonghwa felt party to something he had no place in, watching enviously and stepping out of the way as Gunho skipped back to the main building to ready their accommodations.
Yunho scratched his head as they were invited in, embarrassed that he didn’t already know the man. “I feel as if I’ve heard the name, but...”
“Oh forgive me!” The pirate swept in with a bow, offering them seats in the ornately furnished parlour. “Heo Youngsaeng, Master Rigger of the Stardust before she sank. There are a few other officers here, but they’re sleeping upstairs, the lazybones.”
“One of Eden’s crew?” Seonghwa spoke up in surprise. On the ATEEZ, none of them had so much as a clue whether anyone from the Stardust was still alive. “Oh, Hongjoong would’ve been so happy to see you.”
Youngsaeng’s smile faded into bittersweetness.
“I’m sure he would. I do miss those days— all of us do. We travelled together for some time but the sinking of the Stardust and Eden’s subsequent depression sent us back into the free lands... and it was much harder for us that time.”
Maddox hummed in agreement, taking a seat himself to reminisce. “I never made it past the island with the garden maze, but I knew there were some who did,” he faced Seonghwa again to explain. “Our old Master Rigger Youngsaeng remained in contact with me through letters we bribed others to deliver for us while I was there.”
“And it might interest you to know,” Youngsaeng continued. “That while these towns fell into stagnancy with the gradual extermination of piracy, there is a new life and desire for leadership here. Folk look to the war as an opportunity. To reestablish ourselves, to fight under one banner, and to break away once and for all.”
Seonghwa sat back and sighed at the sudden turn the conversation had taken. Of course, he knew they were gearing up to this, but it was complicated nonetheless. This wasn’t just an alliance, it was a growing city state.
“That’s all well and good but we came here to find help for Mingi and Jongho, not to be the face of a revolution.”
“You already are,” a deep voice responded from the doorway. Everyone turned to see a solidly built pirate closing the front door behind him, pulling off his boots and approaching for introductions.
“Kim Minseob,” he said, and Seonghwa already knew who he was. The Stardust’s boatswain, without whom the reputation of Eden’s crew would be nowhere near as intimidating, but who, despite his cold exterior and intense eyebrows, had harboured a genuine soft spot for Hongjoong when they travelled together, according to the journal.
“I’ve just returned from the armories,” he explained as he took a seat. “More weapons have been stockpiled voluntarily, and several other representatives have approached me after the ATEEZ’s arrival to discuss plans— more than yesterday.”
“So you see,” Youngsaeng finished for him. “That simply by being here, you’ve incited complete strangers to take part in a war they could be running the other way from.”
Seonghwa frowned. It was supposed to be a compliment, but he wasn’t sure he liked having that sort of power.
“If you don’t mind,” Yunho spoke up, coming to his rescue. “We’d prefer to deal with Mingi’s condition first.”
“Of course,” Youngsaeng acquiesced, getting to his feet and leading the three officers and Maddox outside and south to the waterfront.
Unsure who they Stardust crew had gotten to replace Babylon as a surgeon, it took until they arrived outside the apothecary shop for Yunho to realise where they were. “This is where we bought Hongjoong’s medicine last summer!” He remembered aloud. “When we stopped here during the mutiny.”
“If you wondered how so many stories spread about you, I think you can attribute it to leaving your crew here for so long a shore leave back then,” Youngsaeng pointed out intellectually as Seonghwa opened the door and glanced around at the strange medical paraphernalia.
“Miss Namji?” Youngsaeng called into the back hallway when no one appeared at the desk.
“You lot again,” a young woman’s voice answered, sharp but full of mirth as she emerged and began cleaning some bottles off a shelf. “Who’s dying this time?”
Yunho smiled politely and waited for the apothecary to recognise him. “No one this time— at least, we don’t think so— but we’d much appreciate if you could take a look at Mingi’s wound.”
The woman dropped what she was doing and squinted through a magnifying glass at him. “Well,” she gasped, ushering the group through the hanging bead curtain and into the back rooms, telling Maddox and Youngsaeng to wait outside and scrounge up some money pay the bill. “Don’t you worry about a thing. Just remove the eyepatch and let’s have a look, shall we?”
Mingi took a deep breath and did as she asked, following along when she told him to look this or that way and remaining anchored even as she stared at him for extensive periods of time.
Miss Namji was an oddball, but she was just like the rest of this town. Young, passionate, and skilled. And ready to take the world by storm.
“Inflammation and scarring of the cornea, I see... well, you’ll get your sight back if you’re careful,” she concluded. “I’ll prescribe some medicines that should do it, but expect the process to take time. If sunlight or heat begin to bother you, shelter from them just to be safe.”
She rushed off to find some eye drops and Mingi slumped in his chair.
Yunho frowned and leaned forward to take his hand. “Did you hear that? You’ll heal, Mingi! Aren’t you excited?”
“I don’t deserve it,” Mingi muttered, keeping his gaze on the floor. “First Hongjoong, now Jongho. Who else will be hurt because of me?”
“Mingi, don’t say that...” Seonghwa scolded quickly.
“You know why I had to believe he was alive?” Mingi rounded on the both of them, with no need to explain who he was talking about. “Because if he really hung that day, it is my fault.”
“It is not your fault,” Yunho insisted desperately, face reddening as he became angry. “If anyone other than the murderer must be blamed, we all share the guilt.”
“No, but it is,” Mingi cried in frustration, voice becoming a haunted whisper. “You don’t understand, everything has been my fault from the beginning. It was because of my loose lips that Hongjoong was ever ratted out for being a pirate in training. I’m the reason he ran from home, nearly burned to death while the ship sunk around him, and then lived alone for a year on an uninhabited island— which, by the way, he was still too frightened to talk about much, even years later. I’m the reason he came back traumatised and, to make it all worse, I couldn’t act quickly enough to stop him from being branded by the Navy, no matter what your innocent little brother thinks. He had to live with a letter burned into him for the rest of his life and it killed him, Yunho. It killed him, they hung him for it. So you can’t tell me to let it go. That kind of guilt... it won’t ever go away.”
This was why he had hardly spoken a word since coming here, why the fame bothered him so much. Because it was all wrong. He was no hero. Without him, Hongjoong might be standing here today.
“Let it fade, Mingi,” Seonghwa soothed softly, stepping in and wiping away tears as usual. “Focus your anger on the people who did this. If you only blame yourself, you let them get away with it.”
There was an edge to his voice that betrayed his own guilt and fury, and revenge was clearly not far from his mind even as his eyes swam with concerned tears.
“I miss him,” Mingi confessed, rubbing his sniffling nose and throwing a lopsided smile at Yunho. “I don’t know what to say, I don’t know what to do... this is his territory.”
“We’re here to rest,” Yunho reminded them both. “And to restock so we can go get Jongho back.”
“Let’s just take it slow,” Seonghwa agreed, and that was the consensus as Namji returned and tested out the eye drops, Yunho squeezing Mingi’s hand in case he needed something for the pain.
Rolling up his sleeves, Seonghwa made his way back out to where the older pirates were discussing numbers in low voices.
“Two hundred from the Kiseki and its spy ships,” Youngsaeng was rattling off a list to Maddox, and the two paused as Seonghwa emerged.
“This all sounds like you’re trying to recruit us for war,” he caught them with a suspicious eyebrow raise. “I hope you know we aren’t decided on anything.”
He looked out at the people in the lazy rowboats below. It looked like a peaceful life here, uninterrupted and pure instead of scorched by violence and death. Such a corner of the world should be kept secret, not announced with trumpets and cannons.
“We’re not your generals,” he sighed, folding his arms around himself. “We’re not even capable pirates compared to you. Most of our deeds were lucky scrapes with death or accidents.”
Maddox chuckled and came up beside him, eyes tracing a group of children that played in the street. “But you are the leaders. You’re feeling lesser because you lack a leader of your own. It’s understandable, you’re in mourning. So are we, he meant a lot to us as well.”
Youngsaeng nodded from beside him and exhaled a shaky sigh. Of course, experienced pirates were better at hiding their emotions.
Maddox went on with a confident smile like the sun breaking through a cloud. “But your life is an incredible journey, and an inspiration to many of the men you see before you. They know there’s greatness inside. So did Hongjoong. We’ll never pressure you into something you don’t want to do— you’ve had enough of that at the palace I’m sure— but be kind to your own grieving heart. Have some faith in yourselves.”
Faith was far from them now, and even if they grabbed onto it, the sadness would continue, he knew that.
But there was nothing better for grief-induced self-loathing than a good old fashioned rescue mission.
Seonghwa set his jaw.
“How many supplies can you spare for Jongho?”
...
Icy cold water gave way to frigid air and when Yeosang awoke, shivering, it was on an unfamiliar bed, bundled in blankets with the pitch of a ship rocking him back and forth.
Wooyoung lay on the futon next to him, bandages tightly wrapped around his ribs, but his chest rose and fell steadily, and it calmed Yeosang to realise he was alright.
His head was pounding as he sat up and the evening sun pierced through portholes and shone into the hull, where it appeared he and Wooyoung had been brought.
Yeosang couldn’t remember by whom.
“Welcome to the Black Crow!”
He started and turned to the soldier addressing him. It was Lieutenant Byun, a few shirt buttons undone, hair a little longer and face a lot less stern, but the sight of him still sent Yeosang scrambling away.
“S-Stay back!”
“Calm down, I won’t hurt you,” the man assured him softly, keeping his distance in case Yeosang swung at him.
“Really?” He retaliated with an empty laugh. “Because you didn’t seem to have any problem doing so before.”
“I’m... I’m sorry, that was...” The man shook his head as if to clear it and slowly moved to the side to reveal an unconscious form chained to the floor, a blanket tucked around him carefully. “Things have changed. Lucky saved you. The stress of the battle was a bit much and he felt faint so we told him to lay down for awhile until you awoke—”
“Lucky?” Yeosang’s voice was merely a whisper. He had heard about him before, but seeing him now... something inside stirred with familiarity at the silhouette on the ground before him, so shakily getting to his feet with the support of the lieutenant, he moved forward and extended a hand to his mysterious rescuer’s blanket, slipping it off to get a better look.
Lucky shifted at the touch and let out a soft moan as he sat up. Yeosang caught his breath at the surge of butterflies the sound of that voice gave him.
It couldn’t be... there was just no way...
The stranger fully faced him and Yeosang froze. He didn’t dare breathe, and neither did anyone else in the room.
It was Hongjoong.
“How...?”
Yeosang turned back to Byun and opened his mouth to ask the lieutenant to slap him awake, but was pulled down into a tight embrace before he could fathom what was going on.
He stood no chance. Yeosang was defenceless against the wave of tears that shook him to his core and swept him away into Hongjoong’s arms where he could do nothing but cry out his name again and again in disbelief.
“I waited,” he sobbed. “I waited for you...”
“I’m so sorry,” Hongjoong whispered, trembling himself but not letting go even an inch of what he had held dear for so long, finally close to his heart, alive and well.
“It’s been so long,” Yeosang was shaking his head, completely numb with amazement, and Hongjoong pulled back a bit to get a better look at him.
“I know,” he dropped his glassy eyes into his lap. “It’s been so... so lonely.”
“You saved us?” Yeosang repeated what he’d been told. “How? Are... are we on the Crow right now?”
“You are,” Lieutenant Byun stepped back in, having given them a bit of space to reunite. “He was atop the captured enemy ship when he saw you, and he brought you through the gunport and hid you here. The Admiral doesn’t know anything yet.”
“We were drifting towards Kibo,” Yeosang sighed, turning back to an apologetic Hongjoong.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I would’ve taken you to the colony, but I’d never be able to swim that far in this condition, not with you and Wooyoung both.”
“Condition...?”
Hesitantly, Hongjoong shifted to pull his shirt over his head so Yeosang could see.
A massive wound scarred his midsection, slowly healing but clearly aggravated by all the action earlier. It looked as if someone had skewered him like a fried fish and left him out in the elements for hours. It wasn’t his only scar, but it was certainly the freshest. There was one event it likely came from.
“The execution?” Yeosang choked out, tears brimming again as he remembered what he’d been told. “Seonghwa thought you fell, but he confessed to hoping you were alive for weeks afterwards. All this time... he’s so heartbroken.”
Hongjoong hung his head and opened his mouth to say something again, but Yeosang cut him off. “No more apologies. You did nothing wrong.”
He reached forward to pull the blanket around his captain’s bare shoulders again, while he tried to explain what was going on in the depths of the Black Crow.
“The Admiral is deceiving everyone. He wants the world to think I’m gone, and now he uses me to win his battles with Haemin.”
“So how did you survive?” Yeosang finally asked, sitting and sharing the warmth with him.
Hongjoong nodded in the lieutenant’s direction. “If he’d saved me moments later,  I really would be dead.”
Hence the nickname Lucky.
Yeosang was still suspicious of the man’s motives and couldn’t help but voice his reservations. “Why? To make you his prisoner and torture you again?”
“To help him escape, when the time is right,” Byun broke in to defend himself. “I acted on impulse, but over time I’ve decided. The world needs its Pirate King. Me and most of the other officers are prepared to help by whatever means necessary.”
Hongjoong seemed to have made allies in his time here, and if he trusted them after all the evil they’d done to him there was no reason for Yeosang not to, so he allowed himself to be persuaded.
“What can we do?” He firmly volunteered his help. It felt right, slipping fluidly back into the flow of things, no matter how long it had been since he’d seen his captain.
The Admiral would be back at some point, and they’d have to find a way to hide from him.
“Well, we need to decide what to do about your father,” Byun listed first, wringing his hands nervously and lowering his voice when Yeosang asked why.
“He saw the Indeok sink,” he sighed and looked at Yeosang with mixed emotions swirling in his eyes. “And now he thinks you’re dead.”
...
That Haemin translator hadn’t been joking when he said the Paragon’s captain was angry.
Apparently even San had only seen the man once or twice, but from what Jongho could observe, he was a spineless sot who doled out violent punishment as he saw fit.
Which meant hopefully, he hadn’t thought at length about his murder scheme.
San was much better with the enemy’s language than Jongho was, and translated under his breath all the important things the man was yelling, occasionally glancing nervously at the depths of the ocean far below.
Jongho knew their only hope of rescue was him, and he could do nothing but pray as a metal ball and chain was attached to his ankle that their last resort would come through.
It was the sympathetic translator that clamped the weights on their legs, and he left some wiggle room intentionally, quietly returning to his post with a visible bead of sweat running down his face.
Jongho didn’t know him well, but he nodded a nearly imperceptible thanks to the man before preparing to be thrown overboard.
San was sucking breaths in and out quickly, struggling to come to terms with the gamble he was about to take with his own life, and Jongho could do nothing but squeeze his hand reassuringly.
Waiting was almost worse than the actual fight for their lives. Jongho didn’t want to die waiting.
A final shout came from the quarterdeck and San didn’t bother translating it. The sudden feeling of being dragged forward made the impact with the water that much worse.
The world was spinning until Jongho righted it in the slower freefall through ocean waves, pointing his weighted feet down and hitting the sand just a moment before San.
It was enough time for him to catch him before his head hit the rocky sea floor all around them.
Losing consciousness would completely destroy his already limited air supply.
There was no time to waste, so Jongho rushed through the process of breathing, pushing past his instincts to let his body inhale and relaxing as the world instantly became clearer.
Rather than let San deplete his oxygen further by struggling to free himself from the chain, Jongho began to work on it for him, starting to sing a tune only mermaids should be able to know while he pulled at the chain. He had broken bars with his bare hands, he should be able to do this.
He could feel time ticking away, San starting to writhe around in the corner of his vision.
There was no other way to breathe underwater than to be given the ability, and there was no other way to request help than through their exclusive line of communication, Jongho knew that.
He was trying to breathe bubbles in San’s direction in between phrases of the song, trying to buy them just one more minute, then surely their rescue would come.
The melody grew in force and enchantment. He needed someone to hear. It didn’t matter how far away, someone could be at their aid in a moment if they tried hard enough, they only had to hear.
“San?” Jongho asked when he had been still in his peripherals for a couple of seconds. That was not a good sign.
Jongho shook him by the shoulders and tried not to panic. He didn’t know what to do, he wasn’t a real mer-creature, he didn’t have gills and couldn’t share air.
Pure fear set in when San went limp and began to drift lower down, knees hitting the sand next to the ball that was drowning him.
The ball.
That was it!
Jongho struggled to rip his own chain off, not even flinching at the crack of his ankle breaking, and turned back to San.
With all the strength he had left, Jongho scooped the metal weight into his arms and tried to swim upwards with it. If he could reach the surface, San’s body would follow, and there was air up there.
Air both of them could breathe.
Jongho’s vision blurred but he kicked harder and struggled in the direction of the sun, nothing but a distorted yellow glow casting a shimmer of light down toward him.
He sang louder and clearer to counteract the effort of hauling such a burden against the pressure of the sea.
Progress was being made, but it was too slow. The tune began to die as Jongho’s strength started to give out with his ankle throbbed painfully and he knew San’s eyes had been closed for far too long, he could see the last bubbles of life leaving his lips.
This could not be happening. He could not let San die. Against his will, a sob interrupted his melody. Jongho could only hold San close and kick his legs ferociously. Every foot forward was followed by two backward. He kept singing anyway.
When he had all but given up, the shimmer of scales in the distance caught his attention.
There was a group of mermaids speeding towards him.
“Here!” Jongho screamed, in his excitement almost drifting all the way back down. “Help us, please!”
His eyes were full of tears, and he could barely even see who it was that had answered his call, but he surrendered to the arms enclosing him, bearing him and San to the surface and rapidly hurtling to land in formation.
They were singing his song together in unison, for no other reason than to encourage him, to reassure him they were there.
As he felt the sun on his face and the grains of sand beneath him, he crawled to where the mermaids were reviving San.
The sight of his chest rising and falling rhythmically made Jongho weak with relief.
“Thank you,” he was repeating over and over again. “Thank you so much.”
“You were nearly there,” a familiar voice answered. “You just needed a little push.”
“Eunjoo!” Jongho laughed, reaching out for a hug. It felt like ages since he had seen her, and the two were so close before, Jongho had regretted missing his chance to tell her goodbye properly.
A couple other sisters finished their work on San, easily ripping the chains away, and greeted Jongho before slipping back into the water so as not to be seen. They were on Kibo’s shores, it would be dangerous to be discovered.
“Dare I ask how you ended up in such a situation?” Eunjoo asked with a coy smile.
“You wouldn’t believe the half of it if you heard,” Jongho answered softly, brushing a strand of hair out of San’s face. He appeared to be coming to.
“You know our sisterhood is always aware of what goes on at the surface,” the mermaid teased as San shot up and began coughing.
“W-What happened?” The dripping pirate asked, eyes widening and body tensing when he met eyes with the mermaid watching him.
“It’s alright, this is Eunjoo,” Jongho explained, rubbing San’s back as he shook  violently in the cold air. “She saved us.”
“Actually, Jongho did,” the mermaid argued. “He dragged you up from the sea floor himself.”
San embraced Jongho thankfully, and the two stayed like that a few moments more to take in all the warmth they could.
Eunjoo had a bittersweet smile on her face, but began to sink below the waves again in farewell, retreating before another human saw her.
“Wait!” Jongho called, limping into the shallows desperately. “Can I press upon you to help us just a bit more?” He asked shyly, swatting a hand up as Eunjoo went to pinch his cheeks.
“You may,” she answered solemnly, a twinkle remaining in her deep blue eyes as she watched San wade out to join them.
“Yeosang and Wooyoung, our crewmates, we saw them on the Indeok. You wouldn’t happen to know if they... if they were...”
“The sea claimed many lives today,” the mermaid told the pair solemnly. “Your friends were not among them.”
Twin sighs of relief were exhaled at once, and glancing at each other, the pirates wondered what to do next.
Their mermaid rescuer knew what they were thinking, and sighed before giving them a choice.
“You can pursue them at your own risk, or you can shelter for a time with those who will grant you aid.”
“They aren’t here on Kibo?” Jongho asked glumly, and Eunjoo answered by pointing at a dot on the horizon. The Black Crow, headed south.
Jongho waited for San to speak, but when the contemplative silence stretched on decided to contribute himself.
“Mingi, Yunho, and Seonghwa... they must be so worried. We should meet them first. We know where the Crow is headed, we should pursue it together.”
San bit his lip and searched Jongho’s face for even the smallest shred of a doubt.
But Jongho had no doubts anymore. He had won today, and the decision who to track down was his.
“You saved us, Jongho,” San insisted, voice rough from the expulsion of water. “It’s your call.”
...
It was dark. Wooyoung was cold, and hungry, and tired, and sore.
It felt like something was sitting on him and he could barely breathe, so he opened his eyes to ask for help, only to see a lone flame from a candle and two figures sitting on either side. One of them was Yeosang.
One of them was a ghost.
They hummed a song idly to themselves while they played cards, joining together in a soft harmony that Wooyoung recognised.
He tried to join in, but his voice came out as a desperate croak, and the song stopped, both looking up at him in surprise.
Yeosang scooted closer, blocking the ghost from view, and placed a hand on Wooyoung’s forehead.
“You’re quite warm,” he observed, biting his lip anxiously. “Feverish.”
That explained the ghost.
From behind Yeosang he poked out his head. He looked just like Hongjoong, except the Navy uniform he was wearing. Wooyoung wasn’t sure how he’d conjured up that fantasy, so he closed his eyes and rested his head back, waiting for the vision to go away.
Yeosang had left his side, speaking to someone at the door for a few minutes before he returned with medicine.
It stank awfully, and Wooyoung turned his nose away from it before Yeosang scolded him. “I know it tastes awful, but it’ll lower your fever while your ribs recover.”
“Ribs?” Wooyoung whispered painfully. That explained the crushing feeling on his chest.
“They’re broken, several of them,” Yeosang explained, shoving a spoonful of medicine into Wooyoung’s mouth while he was distracted. He ignored the whines and  pressed the blankets closer. “You were hurt in the explosion on the Indeok.”
It came back to him in fragments— the chain reaction of fire and gunpowder, the decks collapsing around him, freezing water and floating debris.
“Did we make it to Kibo?” He muttered, glancing around at what looked like the hold of a ship, just above the waterline. It was night, so he rubbed his eyes and tried to see more clearly. “Did we make it to Woosung?”
“No, not exactly. We’re concealed on the Black Crow.”
“The Crow?” Wooyoung groaned. “What do you mean by concealed, does the Admiral know we’re here?”
Wooyoung hadn’t been avoiding him everywhere only to become his prisoner now.
Yeosang shook his head. “We have help. Sleep for now, I’ll explain later.”
Shivering and pulling the blankets closer, Wooyoung’s eyes drifted to the dancing flame as he fell asleep.
Yeosang resumed his card game with the ghost and Wooyoung wondered how it was the cards were moving by themselves.
He awoke next when Yeosang was changing his bandages, gooseflesh appearing all along his exposed skin until he could burrow under the blankets again. His wounds were improving. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed but the ghost was still there, chained to the floor with concerned eyes and a watery smile pointed in Wooyoung’s direction.
“I’m going to give you food and more medicine,” Yeosang warned him, helping him pull his shirt back on over fresh bandages. “It will make you sleepy, don’t fight it.”
So again the world faded to black and time was pulled out from under him. But at least this time, his stomach was full.
It was afternoon when he was conscious next.
A naval surgeon was there, telling him to try to stand for awhile and leading him through a few exercises to make him healthy again. Yeosang and that ghostly hallucination of Hongjoong watched from the floor.
Wooyoung was unnerved that the apparition was still there. His fever was wearing off, but his imagination had conjured up a spirit to torment him.
It turned to Yeosang and spoke, halting with uncertainty but loud enough that Wooyoung could hear. He squeezed his eyes shut and clung to Yeosang, pulling him away from the ghost and trying to snap out of this vision he was having.
“Yeosang, I don’t think he... I don’t think he knows it’s me.”
“It can’t be you,” Wooyoung shot back, trying to step away towards the bed. “You’re dead.”
Hongjoong flinched and looked so crestfallen, Wooyoung almost felt bad, but he wasn’t real and it would be better to go back to sleep and forget the whole thing.
Yeosang insisted on pulling him closer, sitting him down next to the chained spirit. “Come and see for yourself.”
“You told me he—”
“I was wrong. Everyone was.”
Wooyoung froze as Hongjoong placed a hand on his forehead and smirked at him. “You aren’t feverish.”
It was real.
Wooyoung opened his mouth to respond but he couldn’t. He was still as a statue, tears brimming to the surface as Hongjoong pulled him into a hug.
“I told you I would find you.”
And somehow, in the debris of a sinking escort ship, he did.
Yeosang began to explain everything, how Hongjoong survived and ended up here, how he saved them and made alliances with the officers, and Wooyoung listened but he was too elated to respond or even look away.
The thought of Admiral Kim spiked a shard of anger in him again. “They keep separating us,” he growled.
Hongjoong brushed the hair out of his face and gripped Wooyoung by the shoulders. “It’s because they know we’re stronger together.”
The sound of the surgeon leaving stole their attention for a moment, and Wooyoung tensed defensively as a very familiar lieutenant entered the room, closing the door quietly behind him.
“Good timing, Byun,” Hongjoong smiled at the man, and Wooyoung was astounded.
“He tried to drown me!”
“He’s on our side now,” Hongjoong started to say, but Wooyoung knew, he’d heard it all when Yeosang explained it, but that didn’t mean he approved.
“Your side maybe. You can’t speak for the rest of us. I mean, do you have to wear their clothes and everything?” He whined, jealousy leaking through for a moment. “It looks like you’ve already got a new crew right here. What do you need us for?”
“I would never replace you,” Hongjoong frowned. “Working together is our best chance.”
“What we had was already our best chance,” Wooyoung argued back. “We had loyalty, we had love. And we ought to jump ship before they betray us.”
“With all due respect, you can’t,” Byun interrupted, clearly miffed by Wooyoung’s coldness. “We left land behind days ago, and we’re headed south into enemy territory.”
“So you mean we’re trapped,” Wooyoung chuckled sardonically. Byun didn’t engage his response.
Instead Hongjoong squeezed his hand and took over again, voice steady and firm.
“You know the most valuable currency of a pirate?”
Wooyoung tilted his head in thought before shaking it. He hadn’t been a pirate very long, really.
“It’s not treasure, a ship, a commission, or even a life,” Hongjoong counted off. “It’s a name. And the Admiral strung up the name of the Pirate King in Namhae— my name. This is me starting from scratch.”
Wooyoung softened in understanding. Who was he to barge in and destroy what Hongjoong had built from the brink of death?
If anyone could pull off an escape, the three of them could. And if it took help from the officers, so be it.
“Excuse me, but Yeosang,” Byun cleared his throat and jerked his head towards the door. “You need to make a decision about your father.”
Wooyoung saw the way Yeosang deflated and quickly deduced what the problem was. “He’s here, isn’t he?”
Yeosang nodded and got to his feet. “He doesn’t know we’re hiding down here. Only the few officers sympathetic to Hongjoong do. For all Father knows, I died in the wreckage.”
“And you should keep it that way,” Hongjoong voiced from where he huddled on the floor. “If he knows, he’ll tell the Admiral...”
Yeosang sighed and looked out the tiny porthole window, clearly wrestling with the question himself. It would be some ironically appropriate retribution to keep the truth from the navigator, after he’d kept the truth of Hongjoong’s survival secret himself. Wooyoung knew it was a lie Yeosang had lived with longer, and one he was still struggling to come to terms with.
But being dead to his father meant no more life in Bundam, no more prestigious navigator title, no more future in respectable society. Probably no more contact with his sister, or anyone from home.
He was doomed to be a pirate forever, and that brought a whole slew of problems. Deciding to survey the situation on his own, he moved for the doorway.
Hongjoong’s eyes begged for them not to go. He didn’t want to be alone again.
Still Wooyoung struggled to stand and follow Yeosang, trusting his judgment.
“No, you really should rest,” Yeosang protested, taking him by the arms and stopping his progress.
“I won’t leave you to do this by yourself,” Wooyoung insisted before any more arguments could be made and the pair of them silently crept up a deck to the crew’s living quarters, letting Byun point them in the right direction.
Through delicately frosted glass, they could see Navigator Kang on the floor of his bedroom.
He lay uncomfortably on the ground beside a jar of incense he’d been burning in mourning for his son, a tray of uneaten food in front of him.
Despite the passage of time, the man had not appeared on deck or even left the room.
Even as much as Wooyoung hated him, it was hard to watch.
“He loved you,” he whispered softly, voice breaking as he noticed Yeosang’s eyes transfixed.
He had loved him so much, he poisoned him. Thinking what he was doing was right, but harming his son with his good intentions instead of helping him.
“I loved him,” Yeosang admitted, scrubbing his eyes viciously to drive away any tears. “But we chose different paths a long time ago. I could never make him see it my way, I know that now.”
And still it was so unfair, that one he had once loved most would be left behind in evil, no matter what Yeosang did.
“You know, I think Captain was onto something, disappearing off the face of the earth,” he finally decided, making Wooyoung’s face light up.
“I’m dead to him now,” Yeosang explained. “Coming back would only renew the troubled relationship I was already struggling to endure. And besides, with the ATEEZ I have everything I need.”
“So what next?” Wooyoung prompted as they moved back into their secret hideout, ready to disappear behind various meticulously placed furniture items at the first sight of the Admiral. “We escape when we make landfall?”
“First, you recover,” Byun instructed as he closed and locked the door behind them. “You’re in no condition to be fighting if the need arises.”
Yeosang agreed quickly and sat down next to Wooyoung, huddling into a circle with Hongjoong on the other side so he could take part.
“I am in proper condition, however,” he pointed out to a jealous Wooyoung, motioning to each of his injured friends. “Hongjoong’s hands were burned. Yours were broken. My hands work fine, I should be using them.”
“You’re our secret weapon, Yeosang,” Hongjoong agreed with a growing smile. “We have work to do.”
...
The clang of metalwork and song echoed through Geobugi’s harbour and Yunho couldn’t help his curiosity.
“What exactly is all this?” He asked one of them burly men who was taking a break from pounding iron to drink some water and wipe the sweat off his brow.
“Oh, Yunho of the ATEEZ!” He greeted politely, reaching out a meaty hand to be shaken. “I’m honoured you would ask. We’re making armour for our ships. Still working on a lightweight design, but this is what we’ve come up with.”
“A-Armour?” Yunho repeated. “Are you anticipating full on battle?”
“If you should ever call for it, we’ll be ready!” The man replied cheerfully before returning to his work, joining the rhythmic work song.
Yunho shook his head to clear it and turned back to where Seonghwa, Mingi, and the Stardust officers were making an inventory of the newly restocked ATEEZ.
There was a small crowd of men gathered, all of them volunteering to join the mission, each most likely looking for the chance to brag that they’d participated in the rescue of Choi Jongho himself.
Seonghwa was politely turning down one after the other in favour of the existing crew. They’d been with them through thick and thin, there was no need to exchange them with hopeful replacements.
Mingi oversaw the loading of new supplies, a gift they were thankful to accept considering they had no idea what to expect if it came down to combat with Haemin over this.
He and Seonghwa were in their element, which left nothing much for Yunho to do at the moment except chat with the Stardust pirates.
“We’ll likely follow at a distance,” Maddox was saying. “Just in case the fighting escalates.”
“We can handle them just fine,” Yunho assured the quartermaster confidently.
“But there’s no need to handle them alone,” Youngsaeng responded softly, and Yunho was inclined to trust him.
Reaching up a hand to his neck, he rubbed the chain hanging there for luck. It was once Hongjoong’s crystal key, but now only an empty chain without its owner. Yunho was resourceful, but this particular necklace wasn’t meant to be repurposed. It was a small relic to help him focus and the memories it carried motivated him.
“Wait!” A voice yelled from the town, the pounding of feet following it.
Yunho turned around to see Gunho speeding towards him, stopping to regain his breath before protesting. “You can’t leave! You only just got here, you haven’t even seen your lodgings yet.”
“Gunho, I’m sorry,” Yunho sighed. “I want to stay with you, but we have to find our missing members first.”
“Then let me come—”
“No, Gunho, it’s too dangerous,” Yunho cut him off before he could even fully ask permission.
“I’m not a baby anymore,” Gunho pouted, ironically looking even more childlike in his petulance. “Don’t leave me behind again.”
“We’ll return when we’re whole, I promise,” Yunho told him with sincerity, pulling him close for a hug. “I just can’t leave Jongho to his fate. He’s my brother too now.”
Gunho nodded slowly and pulled away. “Alright,” he sighed, and it gave Yunho some hope that he had matured enough to understand. “But if you even think about going off on another adventure without me, I’ll hear it from the Stardust!”
He punctuated his statement with a light punch and Yunho couldn’t help but laugh.
Gunho seemed so much happier here, so much more himself. Part of Yunho was disappointed to have missed the transformation, but he was grateful for it nonetheless. Time had been kind to his brother, and not only to him.
There was just one more mission left before they could enjoy their hard-won spoils and live the life they’d built for themselves.
“Wait!”
Another voice interrupted the embarkation, this time from the other side of the docks.
“Now what?” Minseob griped, crossing his arms and preparing to deal with the interference.
“There’s no need for a search party!” The voice called out again, and Yunho turned around in shock as he recognised it.
“Jongho!”
He rushed toward the younger pirate, but Mingi beat him to it, squeezing him in a hug so tight, Jongho had to tap him on the shoulder to signal he needed to breathe.
“And not just me,” he gasped, quickly embracing Seonghwa and Yunho as well before turning and pushing back through the crowd with a slight limp, rescuing another pirate who had been swarmed with adoring fans.
“San!” Yunho laughed, and the shock of suddenly seeing him was so intense, that he couldn’t even form the words to ask how he was here.
San joined them with hugs as well, relief plastered across his face, and promised to explain when he got the chance. “It’s quite the story,” he sighed with a tired smile. “I’m not sure you’ll even believe me.”
“Hyung, I lost your spyglass,” Jongho suddenly confessed as they moved to a more secure corner of the dock, letting the Stardust officers deal with the traffic. “I’m so sorry.”
“Oh, Jongho, don’t worry about it!” Yunho replied quickly, astounded that Jongho would even think of such a thing on the heels of his miraculous return. “I’m just happy you’re alive and safe.”
“You were preparing to set out?” San observed quickly, giving Jongho a knowing glance.
Seonghwa affirmed it and went to tell Yoojin to cancel the trip, but Jongho took him by the arm and stopped him.
“Good. We have a job for you.”
...
Taglist: @serendipityunho @celestial-yunho @atzjjongbby @89staytinyzen21 
A/N: I came back with a really long one, possibly the longest chapter to date, so hopefully it was okay that there wasn’t much action 😆 From this chapter I think the trajectory of the rest of this volume might be apparent, and at any rate All to Action has passed the halfway point! Let me know what you thought and have a nice week~
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fifteenleads · 7 years ago
Text
hearts for sale
In another time, Otabek was an angry boy, his gaze piercing and his words scathing.
In another time, Otabek wore his heart on his sleeve, his skates leaving deep cuts on thin ice.
In another time, Otabek was fire on ice, impassioned, impatient and infectious.
Then came a time when Otabek ceased to be all those.
This is how it happens.
 ❄ 
They had placed his mother on a table and stuck a needle near her heart. She screamed and screamed until she could scream no more. Bright yellow fluid containing years and years of tears, laughter and tempered emotion; was sealed in a bottle and taken away. After the procedure, they received bundles of cash in a black, bloodstained briefcase. The money had been enough to keep them alive for six months.
The first month after was the worst. His mother never spoke, never left her room, never played with them, never helped with homework. And just as well, his father said; he was very afraid of her white, lifeless eyes.
They thought she was as good as dead.
Little by little, though, she got better. She tried her best, but it wasn't enough.
And soon, the money, too, was not enough.
 ❄
 Otabek comes home to a small apartment with thin walls and a leaking ceiling. He does not like the way his father is shouting tonight; it's getting worse day by day. His sister is crying in the corner; his brother has not come home since yesterday.
So he keeps to himself in his room. In the drawer are his three medals, one won from a competition and two "consolation" prizes. The stuffed teddy bear from his sister is on his bed; he has taken to hugging it tightly while he sleeps, a blanket and two pillows blocking out the noise from downstairs.
Oh, careful not to drop the skates - the right boot could fall apart.
He sets himself down beside the bed with a thud. He is tired, tired, tired. He knows better than to say so, however, lest he gets yet another bruise on his thigh. His coach - oh, poor Miss Anna - bears the brunt of all his frustrations, as do his worn skates. Someone said he needs anger management - they do not understand him, what he is going through.
His father's voice keeps getting louder and louder - no food, no tuition, no money. And somewhere in his long, angry tirade, Otabek hears his name.
His mother does not answer back, still a far cry from what she used to be. Give it a few months, the doctor had told them. She'll be back to normal soon.
But not in time, he added. They can't operate on her again until after another six months.
And they badly need the money.
His father calls his mother a useless bitch.
So Otabek steps in and rams his father into the wall, hard enough to render him unconscious. He takes the operation form from his mother's trembling hands and walks away despite her tears and weak protests.
 ❄
 Psychocentesis
– the medical procedure of evacuating arduous humor, a compartment of the cardiovascular system that is said to contain human emotions.
Indications:
(Psychiatric) Therapeutic evacuation of arduous humor in cases of massive effusion, manifesting as extremely heightened emotion approaching manic levels
(Medical) Pleural congestion, general fluid overload or non-diuresis, manifesting as increased intracranial pressure, edema of internal organs and extremities
Relative Contraindications:
Uncorrected bleeding diathesis
Cellulitis at site of puncture
Complications:
Loss of emotion, flattened affect
Altered sensorium
Pneumothorax and/or hemothorax
Major vessel rupture and massive blood loss
Technique:
Ultrasonography is performed to confirm the location of the effusion. Standard aseptic technique is performed, and the patient is prepared for the procedure. Local anesthesia is infiltrated around the puncture site, and a large-bore needle is used to puncture the site at a depth of 3 cm. Gentle aspiration of the desired volume of arduous humor is done, and the needle is removed. Standard wound care is then rendered.
The fluid is collected in a sterile bottle and stored at 5°C, or sent to the laboratory for analysis.
  The medical encyclopedia does not say anything about the illegal arduous humor trade.
There are relatively few known cases of successful arduous humor transfusion worldwide. It is said that the risks outweigh the benefits by a huge margin, and has fallen out of practice since. Those who need the transfusion instead turn to the black market, which has soon grown into an industry of exploitation for the less fortunate.
Clearly, Otabek knows what he is getting into.
He knows for a fact that this shady clinic located in an even shadier back-alley is not to be trusted. He knows that he is endangering his life and his career, subjecting himself to a dangerous, unnecessary procedure without compelling reason. He knows he is being reckless and stupid, as he is placed under sterile drapes and he is slowly put under, under, under.
He also knows how much money they are paying him after this.
It's the only way.
 ❄
 The first month after is the hardest. Otabek is confined to his room, unable - no, unwilling to move from his bed. His mother tries - and fails - to get him to eat. She had sobbed for days when he came home with white eyes, hurt, limping and practically lifeless.
The second month, he is able to walk, and the first place he visits is the rink. The others shower him with hugs, yet he doesn't feel a thing. Miss Anna tries to probe him, ask him what happened, why he didn't ask for help. But he cannot summon the strength to speak.
Skating proves to be more difficult than he’d thought he remembered. He wills himself to jump - and he does, but the fire in his eyes is gone. The rage in his heart has been silenced, and he has no story to tell. And a skater with no story to tell is no skater at all.
Later, Otabek bangs his fist into his locker - or he thinks he does. What really happens is that a piece of a skater slumps against the cold, metal door, thinking he can be better - he should be better. His small hiccups do not make tears, and he is left even more frustrated than before.
He knows - he knows what he got into.
But he cannot bear it anymore.
 ❄
 Give yourself time, the doctor tells him. You'll be back to normal before you know it.
The words ring in Otabek's ears, loud and true and disturbing. The fourth month sees him no better than the second, but at least he is able to shop for groceries again. It'll be okay, his mother says, with tears in her eyes and salt in her lips. I love you, son. No matter what.
She really does understand him.
A single tear (finally) falls down his cheek.
"You're holding the line, Mister," he hears an annoyed drawl from behind. Otabek is momentarily brought back to his senses, and he quickly shuffles away with his two, large paper bags. As he turns away, he is met with bright, green eyes, flickering with impatience.
It sticks with him forever, and he is filled with purpose once more.
 ❄
 The Miracle Child, they call Yuri Plisetsky. Beyond his unadulterated skating genius and masterful storytelling on ice, he is known as the only survivor of the Emerald Tower Tragedy from six months ago, when some past miscalculation during its construction caused it to crumble years later, leaving its thousands of residents dead.
Images of Yuri confined to a wheelchair made major news websites, his eyes white and lifeless and dead. He disappeared from the limelight for a short two months, his coach Yakov Feltsman citing intensive training and therapy as the reason for his absence.
This leaves Otabek confused as to what the same Yuri is doing on his feet, in his rink, skating quite differently from how he used to. Miss Anna says the accident has sparked a fire of determination in his eyes, bringing his skating to new and glorious heights.
But all Otabek sees right now is pure, unadulterated rage. Passion. An inferno.
Himself.
 ❄
 Yuri is as secretive in real life as he is emotive on ice. But he does consider Otabek a friend, and friends tell each other things.
"I'm tired of the media hounding me at every turn," he whines. "Asking me what happened there, when they saw it happen for themselves."
"You don't have to answer them if you don't want to," Otabek assures him, because it's the only thing he can do. He wishes he could do more - hold him tight, stroke his hair, tell him... no, he can't. He mustn't.
"But that's not all," Yuri continues. "They've started... suspecting. How I quickly recovered. Why I'm in Almaty instead of in St. Petersburg. Where Yakov is."
Otabek has seen more than enough news articles. In the weeks he has known Yuri, he, too, has had his own suspicions, some leaning on the impossible.
"Some say I made a deal with the devil. They might as well be correct."
Otabek's breath hitches all of a sudden, and he realizes the truth all at once.
"The black m--"
"Don't say it!" Yuri cuts him off, clamping his thin hands over Otabek's lips. Green eyes meet gray ones, and they see anger, emptiness, loneliness -- themselves -- in each other. And Yuri finally realizes it, too.
"No... Otabek... Why..."
A deal with the devil, huh. Otabek never thought of it that way, but Yuri might as well be correct. Suddenly the clothes on his back and the shoes on his feet feel heavy all of a sudden, like he doesn't deserve them.
Perhaps the past six months were the price he paid.
It doesn't sound as bad anymore.
As long as it saved Yuri.
Yuri knows this, too. Otabek finds himself enveloped in a tight hug, Yuri's tears staining the front of his shirt. "I... don't know what to say... I-I can't believe..."
"Me, neither." And he means it in the gentlest of ways, for all the things they have gone through to lead to this moment has become a blessing for them both. "For what it's worth, it has led me to you."
Yuri puts their foreheads together, his warm breath a healing salve to Otabek's soul. “You’re not alone, Otabek,” he says. “You and I - we’re both the same. I’m glad we met.”
His smile is beautiful, Otabek thinks.
“Stay close to me,” Yuri asks. “You saved my life; I’ll help you find yours.”
So Otabek does.
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kelinswriter · 7 years ago
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Less Than Perfect
Chapter Three: It is So Ordered
Author note: Warnings for homophobia, racism, implied violence, and general asshattery on this one. All are relatively mild and mostly implied, but read at your own risk. Also, fuck you, Nazis.
They had all but finished eating — Maggie, as it turned out, was the worst sort of French fry mooch, snagging them off the edge of Alex’s plate when she thought Alex wasn’t looking until finally, she just began reaching across and stealing them right out from beneath Alex’s nose — and Alex’s playful effort to keep her at bay was beginning to verge on silly in ways that probably would have attracted attention in a more crowded restaurant. But there were few people around in the late afternoon lull between the lunch and dinner crowds, and their waitress didn’t seem to mind that they were lingering, that their quiet chatter sometimes carried when one of them said something that caused the other to burst out laughing. She just smiled and held the check over the middle of the table, hovering for a moment as if unsure which side to favor.
They both reached for it, but Maggie was faster, and she frowned as she set it down on the table in front of her. “Don’t even think about it this time, Danvers. I asked, so I buy.”
“Is that how it works?” both Alex and their waitress asked in unison.
“Yes,” Maggie said, biting the inside of her lip, her eyes dancing with unshed laughter. She looked up at the waitress, her smile both polite and slightly dismissive. “Thanks a lot. We’ll be up to pay in a minute.”
“Take your time.” The waitress turned and smiled at Alex, her eyes twinkling in ways that made Alex think, Yeah, okay maybe she is flirting with me. Then she left, and Alex heard her stop at another booth, her low chatter with the patron inside it a barely audible hum atop the Buddy Holly song blaring out of the jukebox.
Do you ever long for true love from me…
Alex reached across the now-cleared table, snagging Maggie’s fingers and giving them a squeeze. “You sure you want to drive the entire way back to National City? I can take a shift too.”
Maggie shook her head, her expression both playful and fierce. “Nobody touches that throttle but me and my mechanic. Not even you, Danvers.”
“Got it,” Alex said, trying to hold back a grin. “Clearly you and your throttle have a very special relationship, and I wouldn’t want to interfere.”
Maggie cackled at that, and Alex felt a sudden urge to lean across the table and kiss her harder than she’d ever kissed anyone in public, at least not while sober or outside the dance floor of a crowded club. She reined in the impulse, settling for a smile that she hoped let Maggie know just what she’d been thinking, and said, “I should probably hit the bathroom again before we go.”
Maggie nodded. “I’ll take care of this, then do the same. Meet you up front?”
Alex nodded and headed off to the ladies room, expecting to see their booth empty when she came back out. Instead, she found Maggie sitting in the same spot, the unpaid check resting beneath her hand, with a look on her face like she was thinking about arresting someone on general principle.
“What’s up?” Alex asked, hovering at the edge of their booth.
Maggie looked up, her tense, guarded expression shifting in an instant, becoming something more like worry, or perhaps sorrow. She nodded toward the opposite side of the booth, murmuring, “Do me a favor and just stay put here until I’m back, will you? I’ll only be a minute.”
Alex sat down, leaning back and then turning her head, slowly, to scope out what she could see of the front of the diner. “Is it a robbery?”
“No, just another day in America,” Maggie said, and there was something weary in her tone, a note of fatalism far beyond what Alex had come to expect from her hardbitten, oh-so-cynical girlfriend. It scared her a little, though she tried not to let it show.
Maggie slid out of the booth, then seemed to hesitate, as if she wasn’t quite sure she wanted to leave Alex alone. “Just play it cool, okay?” she said, giving Alex a pointed look. “It’ll be fine.”
Alex drew breath to ask what the hell was going on, but Maggie just shook her head and strode toward the bathroom, the creaky door echoing in the sudden silence between songs. And then Alex heard the voice that had set Maggie on edge; the voice of an older man, with a rasp that came from too many cigarettes and not enough joy.
“I thought this was a family establishment, Annie. What would your daddy say if he knew you were serving the likes of them?”
Alex turned her head just far enough to clock the man’s position in a booth behind and to the left of her. He’d been talking to their waitress on and off for the last half-hour, though the jukebox and her own preoccupation with Maggie had rendered his words unintelligible. Now she heard the unvarnished rant of an aggrieved regular who expected things a certain way — a way that, apparently, did not include two women flirting and holding hands and otherwise minding their own business in his vicinity.
To her credit, their waitress didn’t seem interested in taking his shit. “First off, Gary, times have changed, and family means different things than it did when you and Daddy were kids.” Alex heard the sound of coffee pouring, followed by the shuffle of dishes being cleared by angry hands. “He’d also say that he didn’t give a good goddamn about anything except that their money is green, and if you’re all about making America great again like you say you are, then you shouldn’t care about anything but that either.”
“I care about what God says is right,” the old man croaked, and Alex felt a cold trickle of dread slide down her spine — though there was heat too, the sort of heat that flushed her cheeks and made her fingers curl into fists. She bit down on her lip, fighting the urge to scream at the idea that he or his notion of God had any right to dictate how she and Maggie felt about each other. It was sad and sick and it made her want to hit something.
She pressed her hands into the table, preparing to launch herself out of the booth and light the old man up with a verbal tsunami the likes of which he had never experienced, but just then the bathroom door opened and Maggie emerged, looking pale and hollow-eyed. She strode up to the booth and snatched the check off the table, nodding toward the front of the restaurant. “Let’s go.”
“Maggie,” Alex said, relieved at first by her return. Then she saw the stern, tight set of Maggie’s mouth, the tension in her shoulders, the way she wouldn’t make eye contact, and all she felt was fear. “Did you hear what…”
“Yes,” Maggie said, cutting her off, and Alex saw rage in her girlfriend’s eyes, a rage she was working very hard to contain. “I do. But he’s carrying, and we need to go.”
Alex’s head snapped around on instinct, looking for the weapon, but Maggie just grabbed her by the wrist and tugged, her head swiveling around to keep a watch on the rest of the diner while Alex maneuvered out of the booth. Maggie immediately set off down the narrow aisle that separated the two rows of booths, her shoulders set in a determined line.
Alex followed close behind, though try as she might she couldn’t match Maggie’s confident stride, couldn’t keep herself from glancing at the man, with his gray beard and his sparse hair and his rumpled white t-shirt sticking out from beneath his long-sleeved plaid work shirt. A list began to rattle off in her head, a list of all the ways she could rid him of the nine millimeter tucked into the shoulder holster under his left armpit and have him pinned face down on the floor before he even knew what hit him. Yet she made herself take the hate in his eyes, swallowing down the disdain that radiated off of him, even when she heard him say, as if to no one in particular: “Such a waste of a pretty white girl like you.”
And she did it because somehow, some way, Maggie kept walking.
They got to the register, where Annie the waitress was waiting, wearing the pinched, desperate look of an animal caught in a trap. She took one look at Maggie and dropped her eyes, totaling up the check while, under her breath, she said, “I’m so sorry. My dad owned this place, and Gary was his best friend.”
“Gary’s a fucking asshole,” Maggie replied as she slipped two twenties out of her back pocket and handed them over.
“No doubt,” said the waitress. She counted out the change and handed it to Maggie, her gaze turning to Alex with something like pleading in her eyes. “Please come back anytime. You’re always welcome.”
Alex didn’t quite know what to say to that; how to respond to the woman’s entreaty, the way she said the right words but still tolerated the wrong ones because loyalty to a dead man’s memory outweighed her commitment to how she thought the world should be. Then she saw the old man rise, saw him start to walk toward the register, holding on to the backs of the booths while he favored his right leg. He didn’t look like a man getting ready to pull a gun, but with the way he had just been talking, Alex realized that she couldn’t quite be sure he wouldn’t do it on impulse.
But Maggie had noticed him getting up too, and unlike Alex, she seemed capable of doing more than staring in horror. She tossed a five toward the waitress and turned, moving her hand around to slide her change into her back pocket. For an instant Alex thought Maggie was going for the gun tucked beneath her jacket, but instead her fingers caught at something in her back pocket, something that flew forward and landed on the floor, as if by accident, perhaps a foot in front of her.
Her badge.
The old man stuttered to a halt, his jaw clenching in rage while he stared at Maggie with cold, resentful eyes. She just stared back at him, unflinching, as she crouched and picked her badge up. “Thanks,” she said to their waitress as she tucked it back into her pocket, and then she caught at Alex’s elbow, nudging her toward the door. “Go, now,” she said, pushing the door open and propelling Alex into the open air.
“Maggie…”Alex stuttered, wanting to turn back toward the restaurant, to stare down the old man and give him a piece of her mind.
But Maggie wouldn’t let go of her elbow, wouldn’t do anything but trudge toward the Triumph. There was no anger in her voice; only a quiet resignation as she said, “Goddammit, Alex, keep walking and don’t look back.”
“You don’t have to protect me,” Alex spat, feeling rage rise up in her again, rage not just at how loathsome the old man had behaved, but that someone as brave and strong as Maggie wasn’t willing to fight back. She jammed her gloves onto her hands, snarling, “How can you just let this go?”
“Because unlike you, I’m out of my jurisdiction, and the paperwork would be a pain in the ass.” Maggie fumbled for her keys with one hand while pulling her helmet off the back of her bike with the other. “Besides, being a homophobe may make someone a fuckhead, but last I checked it wasn’t a crime.”
“That still doesn’t make it okay,” Alex said, jamming her helmet over her head. The urge to go roaring back into the diner and rip the bastard a new one was overwhelming, but she also wanted to be far away from here, to go back to when this day was about nothing but the bike and the open road and being pressed so tight against Maggie that she could barely breathe.
“Nothing makes it okay,” Maggie said, starting the bike. She backed it around, holding it steady so Alex could climb onto the back. “And it hurts, and I hate it, but it’s the world I live in.”
“It’s insane,” Alex growled, her anger boiling over at people like that, people who could shape and twist the world with their hate and their ugliness until something as simple as stopping for a burger could be tainted by it.
“Yes, it is.” Maggie turned, and Alex saw her mouth twist, saw some old, deep pain flash in her eyes. “But you need to understand that it’s the world you live in now too.”
Then she dropped her visor, engaged the clutch, and sped away.
 ----------
 They rode until the sun was low in the sky. For most of that time, Alex’s anger had built, roiling around in her stomach until it became a tight knot, but eventually, it loosened, uncoiled, mellowed into something less than a white-hot laser of fury. She wondered if this was what it was like for Kara to try to contain her powers when she was angry; marveled again at how she did it, how she managed to maintain control when the world was vicious and hurtful and unfair. But then, Kara had always had a kind soul, a soul that saw the best in people.
Alex was better at seeing the ugliness and the hurt, the meanness and the bitterness and spite. And for the first time in her life, she was realizing what it meant to have those things turned on her simply for being who she was.
It was an uncomfortable feeling, and it made her stomach turn to think of how often Maggie must have felt the same, of how much experience she must have at managing it that she could so expertly navigate a situation that fraught. Yet there was no doubt that she’d been upset by it too, at least based on the way she was handling the bike. She’d rode hard and angry at first, attacking the curves like she was going into battle, though eventually she had eased off both the throttle and the handlebars, reasserting the smooth, flexible control that Alex had come to define as her girlfriend’s style of riding. As with most things, anger could only last so long; eventually it had to be replaced by something more sustainable. What that was, Alex wasn’t quite sure.
She heard Maggie ease off the throttle, felt the bike slow beneath them as Maggie turned into a parking area that was designated as a scenic view. She pulled into a parking spot and killed the engine, her braid smacking into Alex’s visor as she yanked off her helmet.
“Time for a break?” Maggie asked, though considering the bike was already shut down, it wasn’t exactly up for debate.
Alex nodded and pulled off her helmet, stripping off her gloves and tucking them into her pocket. She looked toward the long line of mountains in the distance, their deepening shadows backlit by brilliant shades of orange, purple, and blue, and felt the tension in her ease. “Jesus, that’s beautiful.”
“I love coming out here at sunset.” Maggie caught Alex’s hand and drew her forward, leading her to a rocky outcrop near the edge of the guardrail that separated them from a very steep drop off. Far below, a river sparkled in the distance, its deep blue waters shimmering with flecks of golden sunlight. The looked down at it for a moment, taking in the view, and then Maggie drew Alex toward the rock’s flat surface, one that had been worn smooth by decades of tourists using it as a makeshift bench. She sat down and braced her hands against it, sliding back until she could stretch her legs out, then gestured for Alex to settle in beside her. For a moment they simply stared out over the horizon, waiting, it seemed, until words felt safe again.
“So that happened,” Maggie said at last. She sat up, crossing her right leg beneath her while she braced her elbow against her left, and looked over at Alex. She looked tired still, almost bruised by the experience; but Alex sensed that those bruises would not have been near so deep had she not been a target too.
“Yeah, it did.” Alex slid her left hand down and found Maggie’s in the growing shadows, the contact grounding her enough that she could find words to put to her feelings. “I think I knew it could happen in theory, but I still —“ She looked toward the sunset, drew in a shaky breath. “I wasn’t ready.”
“There’s no such thing as ready when it happens.” Maggie looked at her steadily, something both weary and wise in her gaze. “Even with what we do for a living, it’s scary, because it’s terrifying to think that someone might want to hurt you just for existing. And then you think about all the people who don’t know how to take care of themselves like we do, people who get harassed or threatened on a daily basis or have to worry about losing their jobs, and it feels even worse.”
Alex thought about that for a moment, about how hard it would be to live in a world where coming out could mean risking a job or even her own safety. That had never been a consideration for her; her worries had been about what the people around her would think of her, not whether being honest about who she was would destroy her life. The thought of it — especially the thought that it might be happening to kids — just made her angry all over again.
“How do you deal with it?” she asked. “Never knowing what you’re walking into, how people will treat you?”
“Well, I try to stay within the limits of National City,” Maggie said, letting out a low, somewhat bitter laugh. “I probably should have thought of that before I decided to bring you out here. I’m sorry about that.”
“I wouldn’t have traded today for anything in the world,” Alex said, and saw one corner of Maggie’s mouth turn up in response. “But even in National City, there have to be assholes like that guy. So how do you handle it?”
“That’s a long story.” Maggie looked away for a minute, her mouth almost trembling, and Alex sensed that for Maggie, long stories were something that she didn’t tell often, that she preferred to make her voice heard through action rather than words. But then she turned her face to the sun, its light illuminating each line and plane of her features, and quietly asked, “Do you remember when the gay marriage ruling happened?”
“You mean, when it went national?” Alex thought back on that Friday morning some eighteen months earlier — back when Kara had only been Kara Danvers, and Alex’s biggest worry about her little sister was that Cat Grant would fire her. “I remember Kara blew up my phone with texts about how crazy things were at her job. And then I got to work and Vasquez was just glowing.”
“Yeah, I called that one,” Maggie said with a low chuckle. She clasped her hands in front of her, staring out across the vista, and said, “I was still working in Gotham at the time. I’d just gotten my first coffee when I heard the desk sergeant— big Irish guy, name of McDuffy — swearing up a blue streak, going on and on about how we could now get married like everyone else, only he was using every nasty word you can think of to describe us.”
Alex squeezed Maggie’s hand, the knot in her stomach returning. It made her feel sick to think that something so beautiful — such a positive moment, not just for the LGBTQ community, but for the entire country — could have been ruined for Maggie by bullying and hate.
“Then he pointed at me,” Maggie continued, her mouth twisting at the memory. “Just kept stabbing his finger at me and said, ‘I suppose this means you’ll be getting married now too, all so some bitch who never spent a minute on the job can eat away at my pension just so you can pay for a sperm donor.’”
Alex felt the words like a physical blow, and did her best to quell the impulse to have Winn pull the bastard’s jacket so she could find a way to make him miserable come Monday morning. Abusing Federal powers to harass a homophobe is a crime, she reminded herself, though the temptation was overwhelming. Yet she turned back to Maggie, quietly asking, “What did you do?”
“Well, I’d just gone through a breakup with someone who’d lost her career to ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ so what I wanted to do was beat the crap out of him,” Maggie said, something dark and wild flashing in her eyes. “But instead, I marched into my captain’s office and told her she could either deal with the headache of me filing suit for workplace harassment or help me get my transfer out here.” Maggie’s lips twisted in a wry smile as she added, “She chose the latter.”
“Lucky for me,” Alex said, lifting one hand to Maggie’s cheek. She felt something melt in her as Maggie smiled, as she turned her head to press a kiss against Alex’s palm. “Even if you did tread on my crime scene.”
“Let it go, Danvers,” Maggie said, and then she reached up to pull Alex into a kiss, one that was slow and sweet and tasted like hope. Maggie smiled as she drew back, her thumb caressing Alex’s cheekbone, and then she let go, wrapping her arms around her knee as she looked out at the sunset again. “Anyway, the reason I bring it up is because Captain Essen decided to cut me loose for the day — I think she didn’t trust McDuffy to keep his mouth shut and she didn’t want me around when it he started shooting it off again — and when I went outside, the streets had turned into one big party. Then a friend and I decided to take the train over to New York and walk down to where Pride started.” She paused and looked at Alex, her head tilting to one side. “You know about that, right?”
Alex nodded, because she knew about Stonewall — knew it as a name the president had mentioned in a speech — but she realized she didn’t know about it the way she should, the way she would if it had been covered in a book like other milestones in American history. It was just a name to her, really — except now it was part of her history. The history she shared because of who she was.
“So we get to the Village,” Maggie said, her eyes glistening with the memory, “and there’s this guy standing up on a makeshift platform, reading the ruling. The words, the actual words that said that finally we could get married, not just in some states, but in all of them. And I just stood there and tried to make myself believe that these words some old straight guy had written about how gay people had the right to marry because they were equal under the law wasn’t just some joke.” She shrugged, adding, “Hell, I even memorized some of it.”
Alex tried to imagine what it had been like to have spent the day amidst people celebrating such joyful news, rather than locked in a lab analyzing samples of alien DNA. Her life had changed that day, she realized — and she hadn’t even known it.
She pulled Maggie’s hand between her own, squeezing it gently until, at last, Maggie met her eyes. “Tell me?”
“The words?” Maggie shrugged, letting out a self-deprecating laugh. “I don’t know, Danvers. It seems pretty cheesy. Wouldn’t you rather I read you some poetry?”
“If those words mattered enough for you to memorize, then they are poetry,” Alex said, and thought she saw Maggie redden a little at that. She leaned down and pressed a kiss to Maggie’s knuckles, saying, “Please?”
“The things I do for you,” Maggie murmured, but Alex saw something that might have been joy in her eyes. She sat up straighter and began to repeat the words, words that Alex vaguely remembered reading at the time, but that she felt now, all the way down to the marrow of her bones.
“Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilizations oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.” Maggie took a breath and looked at Alex, her eyes burning with a quiet fire. “It is so ordered.”
And Alex felt it then — felt the power of those fierce and beautiful words, words that came from the highest court in the land, that would stand under the law so long as the country existed. Words that, no matter how hard some people tried to undo them, could never be taken away.
“I suppose it sounds silly for it to matter so much that someone else said what I already knew — that I was the same as everyone else, at least where this piece of the law is concerned.” Maggie turned to Alex, one hand sliding up to brush a stray tendril of hair away from her cheek. “But we’d been waiting so long for this. Watching it change state by state, in this stupid, piecemeal little hopscotch across the country. Trying to believe that somehow, some way, it would just be done for good.” She smiled at Alex, murmuring, “And then one June morning, it was.”
Alex felt tears spring to her eyes suddenly, tears for all the people, like Maggie, who had worked and waited and hoped for that moment of change. Who had struggled to be accepted, to fit in a world that said that making a commitment to be with who they loved wasn’t right or that their love was less than equal. It occurred to her then that she didn’t know anything about Maggie’s coming out, other than that her parents had been okay with it. But from the faraway look on Maggie’s face, it didn’t seem like the right time to ask.
“There’s so much I don’t understand about what it took to get to where we are now,” Alex said, feeling a strange, belated sort of joy, but one tinged with sorrow — sorrow that she hadn’t paid attention, that she’d missed her chance to be part of the battle. “I knew it was important, but it wasn’t my fight.”
“And that’s okay,” Maggie said, reaching over, and Alex realized suddenly that she was crying, that Maggie was brushing a tear off her cheek. Then Maggie smiled at her, smiled with such pride in her gaze that it felt like the sun had chosen to reverse course and rise back up again. “What matters is that you got here now. You stood up and said ‘This is real, and I’m a part of it.’”
“Even with people like —“ Alex gestured in the direction of the diner. “Like that fuckhead who tried to wreck our date?”
“Especially with that guy, but also with the waitress who tried to condemn and defend him in the same breath.” Maggie took Alex’s hand and threaded their fingers together, letting it rest gently against her hip. “People like that — the kind who just hate unreservedly, and the kind who want to support us but can’t quite take a stand — they haven’t quite figured out yet that we won. And while I might wish I could beat it into them, I know deep down I’m better off waiting for them to figure it out for themselves. Because it’s going to be so much sweeter when the creeps who come after us and the people they vote for realize that nothing they do can take it away.”
Alex looked out across the vast, open vista, feeling Maggie’s words sink in like the last rays of the fading light. The sun was nearly beneath the rim of the surrounding mountains, the bright orange and purples of the coming sunset yielding to an old, faded gold that reminded her of something —of that moment, quicker than a heartbeat, when an indrawn breath signals that something is about to begin. She didn’t know what that thing was; she just knew that she was glad to be here, at the start of it all, with Maggie.
“It’s not a perfect world,” she said, and saw Maggie nod, both in understanding and sympathy. “But it’s ours, and I’m so glad I’m in it with you.”
“Me too.” Maggie turned to her, her face limned in shadow, save for one last, faint sliver of light. She wrapped her arms around Alex’s neck and pulled her into a hug, her breath warm on Alex’s face as she kissed her cheek, and then, so very tenderly, her mouth.
“Welcome to the team, Danvers,” Maggie said, and Alex felt something click into place inside her, as if after all this time, she’d finally found a home. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
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