#do you think i can fuck flint before i kill ANYWAY moving on

[queerofthedagger]

fuck marry kill. aragorn, arthur pendragon, james flint

i am going to kill youu 🥰

fuck aragorn I'm convinced he'd be good at that like. look at him. that man knows what he's doing. anyway. marry arthur because he's a sweetheart really and the roasting sessions would be spectacular plus even if he doesn't look like he can Fuck, I'm sure he's, like, teachable. kill flint simply because "you can see how this might be of immediate concern to me" is an insane thing to say but he wasn't exactly WRONG and I'd like to stay outside of the narrative thank you very much 🥰

[wolfiery]

hi wolfie!! 🥰 how about numbers 10 or 14? 💖

#10: i want to tell you this story without having to confess anything. merthur, (~1030 words) 5x13 canon divergence au, magic reveal, angst, open ending ~~~

“merlin, what have you done?”

silence.

“talk to me. that’s an order.”

merlin stays quiet. the king’s eyes harden like ice in the dead of winter, his face a beacon of disappointment when he crosses his arms over his chainmail. it’s a look that merlin’s seen before, and one he wants to wiggle his way out of, just like before.

“there’s nothing i’ve done, my lord. that’s part of the problem, i think,” merlin jokes with a shaky grin and hopes it’s enough for arthur to begin the usual annoyance for his servant’s abilities, for his disappearance.

“well sometime between the last time i saw you and now, you’ve gone and learned sorcery for yourself, so what the fuck, merlin!?” the vein by arthur’s temple is throbbing in concealed rage that’s all gone straight to his face in redness.

and merlin knew that it would be a nightmare to deal with, but he didn’t have to waste his time explaining it, right? a disguise would only confuse arthur more, and he wouldn't be able to stop the tide of his anger, but at least merlin was able to appear beside arthur. merlin may have taken a bit of liberty in silencing arthur’s voice for the time, but he knew once and for all that he would get the chance to kill mordred, and so —

it was terrifying, one minute arthur was smiling and the next mordred had been ready to kill arthur. until merlin stopped it — stopped time again. even mordred’s eyes fought against him but merlin’s magic was stronger, and he held him still enough to throw the sword in his very tight grip far away.

and then arthur moved.

and mordred was gasping, excalibur’s blade shining and through his ribs and back, arthur’s eyes locked on mordred’s as he took his last breath.

he’s not sure how arthur moved, but there is hardly room to talk about it, for morgana is still out there and they had to leave immediately.

“just tell me what you’ve done,” arthur says again, this time softly, looking to the flint in merlin’s hands. “have you sold your soul? made some kind of deal? how far gone are you anyway?”

merlin can’t help but roll his eyes. arthur’s too much of an idiot to see clearly and merlin’s dreaded this day, but there was no way out. arthur looked at him directly when he stood on top of the cliff, when he commanded aithusa to leave without burning them. arthur saw him use magic.

“i haven’t sold my soul, and you know that’s not how the old religion works.”

“i know that it corrupts and kills the ones i love.”

“a person who has power can corrupt and kill. so kings can do so as well. do you?”

“merlin,” arthur sighs, shakes his head and his hair shakes, his face hidden by the shadows of the trees. “you lied to me, and i just... i don’t know you at all.”

his own hands falter with the flint, the piece of wood scrapes against his knuckles, and his heart thunders in his chest.

“i have magic, arthur,” merlin takes a breath, lights the fire without a word as his eyes flash golden, “i was born with it.” he looks at arthur and feels himself rattle at the fearful expression on his friend’s face, the look he’d never wanted to see. “i use it for you, only for you,” merlin pleads, hoping his loyalty shone like a badge unspoken but arthur frowns and he suddenly stands.

merlin’s terrified, knows arthur is going to leave, going to walk away so he won't have the added responsibility of chopping his traitorous manservant's head off.

and arthur turns and merlin’s faced with his tense shoulders and sees the way his head hangs low, like he’s considering something. at any rate, he holds still, and any step he could take makes merlin that much more afraid.

morgana is still out there. he would not risk arthur dying now that they're safe together.

“you stopped time,” arthur states, keeping his back turned, and merlin can’t tell how he means it, what he’s supposed to say to that. “you’re powerful, aren’t you?”

“um,” merlin stalls, not sure if he should answer until he hears arthur huff and can instantly picture him rolling his eyes even in this moment. “yes, i - some would say i am the greatest sorcerer to walk the earth.”

arthur finally turns around again to shoot him an incredulous look of disbelief.

merlin doesn’t even hide the breath he lets out, even if he’s being glared at as if he’s still lying. maybe he doesn’t want to dive into every little thing he’d done.

saving arthur’s life had been such a steady facet of his service, that he doesn't even know if he could remember all of it. especially here and now, when faced with the sudden reality, his mind feels blank, full of forgotten deeds. everything is up in the air from here on out, and it's all down to how arthur handles merlin having magic. but they can choose against destiny, that much merlin will make sure of.

and arthur had broken through his magic's hold like it was easy, such a curious thing that merlin couldn’t dare ask if arthur knew the magnitude of the act. but arthur looks at him, for a long time, with a weighted stare, like he was calculating merlin’s intentions along his betrayal of trust.

but merlin can't afford the time. “arthur, morgana is still out there and i am not leaving your side, no matter how you wish to punish me later.”

arthur doesn't bite the bait, and says, “someday...you’ll tell me, truly, what it is that you’ve done. until then, don’t expect this time spent as forgiveness, merlin.” but arthur sits then on the ground and rubs his hands by the fire, and keeps his eyes stern and heavy on the crackling flames. then he begins to argue that they need to return to camelot and merlin bickers that they shouldn’t travel in the night and should wait until sunrise. then, off-handedly, merlin suggests they should let morgana find them in the woods, far from the city and the battle, and take her down before anyone else has to die.

arthur looks at him again, “so you’re not an idiot. that was a lie too.”

merlin’s given everything he ever could to keep arthur alive, and if his soul has been tested and twisted from the things he’s done, then it’s a burden he’ll carry proudly. but what if arthur would never let him in again?

he hopes to have the chance to tell him, to weave the stories with time and compassion, a gentle hand and an expectant rage. arthur will find out his friend is a killer and a liar. but nothing is to come until morgana is gone once and for all. it could never be explained in one sentence, in one word, in the thing he can't admit is what his magic survives on daily. love.

“i’m still the same person,” he says. the same person that loves you, he thinks.

[piratecaptainraven]

all the ways in which i go absolutely feral over that dinner at the Hamiltons’ scene in XII even before XIII hits, like.

a (very long) summary:

the blocking - thomas and earl shithead are facing each other at the table and the camera usually focuses on each in turn as they are speaking, with the angle getting closer to their faces as the tension builds. all this while miranda and james are caught between them (ain’t that so indicative of everything) and looking at each other and then at the two of them like they’re at an extremely intense tennis match. also, the lighting is excellent.

the tension - so many clenched hands on the table (thomas’ tension is all there for most of it), and miranda’s posture is rigid until they are finally left alone when she allows herself to actually lean on the backrest. also james’ face is getting very restless throughout all this.

the gazes: there’s a lot of them going on, but thomas looks at james three poignant times (before earl shithead leaves that is). the first one when they look at each other in that ‘thomas no/thomas yes’ way, the second when thomas steals a glance at james when shit is starting to unravel quickly, and the third when james stands. james looks at him far more often and far longer throughout this whole thing and idk i have feelings about how hard thomas is trying to control everything even though it fails.

‘they’re easy, i haven’t even opened my mouth to make an argument’ Thomas Hamilton, OG weaver of narrative, fully aware of the power of language.

‘we are fighting a war in the service of the son of god, and it is treason to offer forgiveness to any man who would seek it? what in the hell is it you think we’re doing here?’ is obviously in keeping with thomas’ beliefs, but even though they’re seemingly very of his time, he’s actually skipping ahead in very groundbreaking ways with all this. plus, we hit the big ol’ forgiveness theme, which brings us to:

‘if you do not forgive men their sins, your father will not forgive your sins’ and ‘i don’t want to hear it!’ and ‘i know you don’t.’ now, i don’t spend a lot of my time thinking of thomas as jesus apart from select moments like this but. holy hell the biblical enormity of this entire exchange. plus, the resurrection. plus, a war in service of him. YA FEEL. oh god what has this show done to me, send help.

the way Miranda just bears all this kills me. she’s entirely unsurprised by how it’s going, entirely unsurprised that she’s getting insulted like that and a casualty of this war. she’s just weathering the hurricane but oh her expressions. when earl shithead dies, he’s not just paying for thomas’ and thomas’ loss.

thomas’ face: until he finally loses his entire chill at ‘what in the hell is it you think we’re doing here’ he keeps his expression carefully blank, but then more and more flickers of what he’s feeling keep showing, and then when james stands up for him. god, his face there when he’s looking at earl shithead is everything. there’s both triumph and shock, and obviously a whole lot of ‘oh, fuck’ but he doesn’t seem like he expected james to do that. even at that point it’s career suicide for james, and an extremely dangerous move politically. even before their relationship changes. and the way thomas’ voice breaks and the tears in his eyes, just. he’s not used to having back-up against his father. not the kind of back-up that his father would actually take notice of, at least. miranda IS formidable but to earl shithead she’s nothing. one of his many mistakes. which brings us to:

JAMES MCGRAW FLINT ABSOLUTELY OWNING THE FUCK OUT OF EARL SHITHEAD NEEDS TO GO ON MY URN, THANK YOU. he stands up for both of his hamiltons and godddd. especially because the moment he’s done talking he becomes so extremely aware of what he’s done. he just stares at the table clutching his serviette and he knows. and then he just drops that serviette on the table and you can just hear the unspoken ‘fuck’ of it all. and he just keeps staring at the table while miranda looks at both of them. he only looks at thomas after thomas says he’s in the line of fire. when he has to tell thomas:

‘people can say what they like about you, but you’re a good man. more people should say that. and someone should be willing to defend it.’ and then he looks right back down at the table while trying to breathe.

intermission while i go scream in the woods about this.

ok, i’m back. thomas’ face when james calls him good kind of breaks me because...growing up with an abusive parent fucks you up. especially if, as i suspect, earl shithead has always found him entirely lacking. entirely un-good. and here’s a man, a career-driven ambitious man who needs this position to prove himself worthy to society. risking it all. for thomas.

THEY HAVEN’T EVEN KISSED YET???

anyway, there’s lots more details here but i could go on forever. this scene is absolutely a masterpiece, both in XII and when we see the rest of it in XIII.

[moldisgoodforyou]

never gonna measure up (i)

wordcount: 2.1k - I’m splitting these up so they’re not crazy long 

warnings: cursing, insecurity (?) 

____

“Hey, you’re flying back with me, right?” Sophie murmured, trying not to disturb Rafe too much if he was asleep.

The two were cuddled up in his bed on their last full day of break before going back to school - both of them had agreed to get back before the annual back-to-school Delt senior party for the spring semester.

New Year’s Eve had came and went without incident, though Sophie tried to ignore the small twist in her stomach upon hearing after the fact that one of their high school classmates had rented out a bar for them and their friends on the mainland - drinks included and all. (Rafe had tried to play it off, saying he pitched in for their share so she wouldn’t stress, but an extra-drunk classmate let it spill halfway through the night.)

She felt most at ease when it was just the two of them together, usually Rafe lying on top of her with eyes shut as she combed her fingers through his hair. Since the Christmas party, they’d hung out almost every day. Sophie hadn’t stopped thinking about what she told Rafe on that night, but he had just chalked it up to a combination of her overthinking and being tipsy. Besides, he figured she hadn’t brought it up to him since then, so it was fine. Right?

“Uh...no, I just got the one-way flight to go with you. You can come back with me if you’d like.” Rafe shifted onto his side to look at her, a crooked elbow propping up his head.

She furrowed her brow. “But you left your car in Columbus. How are you getting back?”

He shrugged. “My dad’s plane?”

Sophie blinked. “Your dad has a plane?”  

“Yeah, the airstrip’s just twenty minutes up the island.”

“Right.” She rolled onto her back, staring up at the ceiling. He frowned and moved to hover over her, forearms on either side of her head. “Hey. It’s not a big deal, but I wanted to offer it up.”

She laughed at his proximity and lifted her head slightly to bump her nose against his. “It’s okay, I already have the return flight. Think it’s too late to cancel.”  

“Your funeral.” He grinned and kissed along her jaw and down her neck lazily, pushing up the hem of her sweatshirt with his hands. She squirmed a little but didn’t let out even a tiny moan, far too distracted by the fact that Rafe had a fucking private plane to concentrate on where his lips and hands were going. He teased his thumb across her hip, pleased when she pressed into him a little in response, but frowned when he noticed her staring off into space.

“Soph.”

“Huh?” She glanced down at him, cheeks going red.

He laughed and nipped gently at her collarbone. “What’s on your mind, space cadet?”

She made a show of glancing at her watch and frowned. “I have to go. Mom’s going to kill me if I’m not home for the last family dinner before going back.” He  pulled away with a small frown to match and gave her a sweet kiss. “Alright. Can I take you to the airport tomorrow?”

Sophie shook her head. “My dad’s going to, but I have an early flight and I’ll see you tomorrow night for the party. Deal?” She moved to get up, but Rafe slipped his arm around her waist, pinning her in place. She laughed, pushing at him. “Rafe, seriously.”

“I was kind of hoping we could spend our last night here together...you know, before we have to go back to separate beds and roommates...” He trailed off, smirking at the insinuation. She rolled her eyes but grinned. “If I can sneak out tonight, I’ll climb the tree to get in your room. But you have to get me back to my house by five am, I leave for my flight at six thirty.”  

“I hate when you do that, you’re gonna fall and hurt yourself. Just come to the door like a normal person.” He slipped his fingers up her sweatshirt again, trailing them up her spine.

She scowled, slightly ticklish but not wanting to show it. “And park my brother’s shitty old car next to your dad’s Range Rover? No thanks.”

“Who cares? No one’s gonna see it.”

Sophie was grateful for her phone ringing again with her annoyed mother on the other line to interrupt their conversation. “Can you drive me home?”

“Yeah, of course.” He hopped up and stuffed his feet into sneakers as she hurriedly answered and explained to her mom that actually, Rafe was driving her home right now and she’d be back soon. He shot her a knowing grin and she put her a finger to her lips as she listened to her mom’s annoyed huff, heading downstairs with him.

Once she walked up the drive to her house, waving goodbye to Rafe over her shoulder, she couldn’t stop thinking about what he said. No one’s gonna see it. Like he would be embarrassed if someone did see the car in broad daylight, knowing it was hers. Or was she just overthinking it?

__

Later that night, she called him, murmuring into the phone. “Hi. I can’t come over.”

“Huh? Why not, your mom’s trapping you in? Wait, why are you whispering?” He matched her tone with his last sentence.

She laughed softly. “No, but it’s eleven thirty and I’m still not finished packing. My parents are asleep. But I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“Hmmm...what are the odds you can stay quiet?” He smirked and she could practically hear it through the phone.

“Huh? I’m whispering right now.”

“No, if I came over?”

“I don’t understand.”

He laughed. “If I came over, and we happened to just have sex...”

She cringed, the flirting not nearly as sexy once he had to explain it. “My mom would kill me, Rafe, she thinks I’m still a virgin. I still remember when I was fourteen and had my first boyfriend, she told me I couldn’t have sex until I was responsible enough for a child.”

“Jesus.” He laughed. “I don’t think my dad ever gave me the sex talk. Just put a box of condoms on my bed one day and called it good.”

“Lovely. That sounds more enjoyable than my experience.”

“Hm. Yes and no. So you’re serious, I can’t come over?”

She hummed into the phone. “Not unless you’re an expert at packing. I swear I didn’t bring this much stuff home, I don’t know what to do with all of it.”

“Dunno. I’ll see you tomorrow night, will you pack that black dress? It has all the strappy things and it’s kinda drapey in the back.” There was rustling and the jingling of his keys in the background.

“You got it. Hey, Rafe?”  

“Yeah?”

“I, um.” She paused. “I’m sorry you can’t stay over for the night. I did want to spend more time with just us, you know?”

“Hey, I know, don’t stress about it. I’ll see you soon enough.” With that he hung up, leaving Sophie just a little more reassured. What she didn’t know was that he was already in his car, making his way over to her house anyways. It only took ten or so minutes for him to park his car at the end of her street and walk up, trying his best to be subtle about it. He cursed quietly when her back door creaked open, that Sophie had briefly mentioned was always unlocked -  then stopped right in his tracks.

Her dad was in the kitchen in sweats and a t-shirt, retrieving a bottle of water from the fridge. “Rafe?”

“Mr. Flint! Uh...hey!” He kept his voice quiet, unsure if he’d wake the rest of the house.

“It’s Jeff, kiddo. What are you doing here?” He glanced over Rafe’s attire, with his hood up and feet shoved into untied Nikes.

“Right, Jeff, sorry about that. I...uh...Sophie, y’know...” He fumbled for an excuse but couldn’t come up with a single one, trailing off into embarrassed silence.

“Sophie’s sleeping, upstairs. Alone.” He added pointedly, but kept a good-natured smile with Rafe. “Unless there’s something I don’t know?”

Rafe shook his head quickly. “No sir, nothing at all. I’m just gonna head out, actually, forgot why I came over. My bad.”

“Right.” Her dad regarded Rafe with a mixed look of confusion and also slight recognition, but seemed as if he didn’t want to think about why Rafe was sneaking over so late. “Have a good night, Rafe.”

“Yes sir, you too!” He couldn’t get out of there fast enough, cursing under his breath as he made the walk of shame back to his car. Once he quietly closed the driver’s door, he paused, contemplating texting Sophie and trying again to see if she’d help him sneak in - then reconsidered. Her dad seemed to like him just enough, and actually seemed interested when Rafe told him about his film minor - something his dad had just dismissed as a waste of time. He didn’t want to trade one extra night with Sophie for losing her dad’s trust.

_

Still embarrassed about being caught, Rafe didn’t reach out to Sophie all next day except to text her and confirm that she had landed safely, then to let her know that he was on his way. The Snapchat she received from him, with the view out the window and then a glimpse of the inside of the plane, made her want to die just a little. She got it when she was getting lunch with her roommates Julia and Allie later that day, and made a clear face of disdain upon opening it. She hadn’t mentioned Rafe once in the three hours they’d been back together, and the girls knew something was up.

Julia raised her eyebrows. “Trouble in paradise?”

“Huh?” Sophie asked, eyes still trained on her phone. Allie leaned over to look at the screen and did a double take. “Wait, is that a private plane?”

“Yeah.” Sophie paused and set the phone on the table to show Julia. “Unfortunately.”

“I thought you knew he was rich, why is this a bad thing? Think of all the vacations he could take you on.” Julia questioned.

“Think of all the vacations I can’t take him on.” Sophie replied, slumping back in her seat. “Hey Rafe, I know you took me to, I don’t know, the Bahamas, but I can take you on a five and a half hour road trip to Chicago to stay in a basic hotel instead of the Ritz Carlton you’re used to.” She dropped the facetious tone, wrinkling her nose. “I’m never gonna measure up.”

Allie frowned. “Sophie, I’m sure that doesn’t matter to him.”

“I don’t know.” She crossed her arms, thinking again about his off-handed comment about the car. No one’s gonna see it.

“Did he bring it up or something?” Julia asked, cocking her head.

“No, but. I met his dad and he mentioned some girl, Lexie something? They were in some group project together this semester and his dad tried to set them up. He thought I was her when I went to their Christmas party.”

“It’s not Lexie Rhodes, is it?” Allie was a marketing major too, and often had classes overlapping with Rafe.

“Wait, you know her? Oh god, how bad is it? Not that I think he’s cheating, he’d never -”

“Sophie, stop.” Allie grabbed her arm to cut her off. “She’s had a steady boyfriend since freshman year. And you know he wouldn’t do that to you.”

She sighed, a little in relief and more in frustration. “I know. That’s the problem.”

“...The problem is that he won’t cheat on you? Do you hear yourself?” Julia cocked her head and kicked Sophie’s shin under the table.

“Ow, hey!” Sophie scowled. “I know, I sound ridiculous. I can’t explain it. It’s all moving so fast and he got me the nicest present ever for Christmas, I almost cried in front of him and then I went home and cried more.”

“Crying in front of a boy? Actually showing your feelings? Who are you and what have you done with our Sophie?” Allie teased, poking Sophie’s arm.

“Look, you don’t want to break up with him, right?” Julia asked.

“No, no, of course not.” Sophie shook her head quickly.  

“Okay. So you just need to tell him how you’re feeling, be upfront. He doesn’t care if you have money or not, that boy practically worships the ground you walk on.” Julia told her, and Allie nodded in agreement. “He does.”

“Hardly.” Sophie stirred her straw in her drink, trying to distract herself. “I’m just going to give myself time, I didn’t stress about this when we were both at school. I’ll chill out, promise.”

“Are you promising us or yourself?” Allie raised her eyebrows.

“Good question.”

[acciomalfoy]

fool’s gold (cedric diggory x reader)

summary: you’ve been best friends forever, and valentines hasn’t meant much until now

a/n: GO FOLLOW @fromashescomephoenixes THIS IS YET ANOTHER COLLAB WITH HER!!!!! FOLLOW NOW AND CHECK OUT HER FICS!!!

-

“I’m still not happy with you,” I said, and Cedric only laughed. “Stop laughing!” I scowled, and he swung an arm around me.

“The tournament is well and truly over, Y/n, and you never have to go in the Black Lake again.” He grinned at me, and I only scowled.

“You could’ve gotten killed, or worse, lost the tournament!” As a member of Slytherin, winning is absolutely everything. Maybe Ced dying was a tad worse.

“But I won.” His shit-eating grin said it all, and I whacked his shoulder. 

“Get off of your high horse.” I shook my head, and he stood up. For some reason he had taken to sitting at the Slytherin table during meals, not that I was about to complain. 

“Look’s like Sprout’s about to charge me, I’ll see you in potions?” He asked, and I nodded. Potions was definitely my favourite class, and it had nothing to do with a greasy haired git, but everything to do with the golden boy I sat next to.

“See you then.” Not a second after he left Eleanor Flint clutched my shoulder.

“You’re totally dating! When did he ask you out? Was it right after Chang dumped him, or did he wait a while? Waiting is totally more classy, but I can see Diggory not wanting to wait.” Eleanor babbled, and I stared at her.

“We aren’t dating, and nor does he want to.” I said, but as soon as the words left my mouth I knew I had made a mistake.

“But you want to.” El screeched, and I quickly covered her mouth with my hand.

“No! Cedric still likes Cho, I’m certain of it.” I said, and El pushed away my hand.

“Rumour has it she broke up with Diggory because you were in the lake and not her. If Diggory liked her more than you she would have been in the lake.” El was batshit crazy, I was positive.

“I was in the lake because I’ve been best friends with Ced since first year. I’m not listening to this, El.” I stood up quickly, and before she could continue arguing with me I speed walked my way out of the Great Hall. Good thing too, since I realised that I had left my advanced potions textbook in my dorm. 

The dungeons weren’t too far from the Great Hall, and I made it there in what I would consider record-timing. My textbook was on my desk, and it wasn’t until I was leaving did I see the note on my bed. 

I gingerly picked up the note, all too aware of how the Weasley twins had it out for the Slytherin house, and froze.

I’m like a crow on a wire, you’re the shining distraction that makes me fly.

I spun around the room, as if the writer of the notes would be standing in front of me, but the room was still, void of life aside Eleanor’s plant that was bordering death anyway.

I shook my head and stuffed the note in one of my robe pockets. I really didn’t have time to contemplate shit like this. With my potions book in my bag, I turned and left the dorm, soon entering the common room and eventually the hallways of the dungeons. I didn’t have to go far, since the potions room was only a couple corridors over. I slid into my seat seconds before Snape swept into the room, and I looked at Cedric who was already staring at me.

“What?” I whispered, and he looked at Snape before replying.

“Where were you?” He asked, and I pulled out my quill, ink pot, and finally some parchment.

My dorm, why?

You left the hall in a rush. Why’d you go to your dorm?

I forgot my potions book. Besides, El was killing me and I had to get out of there.

He nodded thoughtfully, and I decided to listen to Snape for once in my life. Anything to keep my mind occupied.

Later that afternoon, we were sat in the dark, stuffy tower for divination. The scent of lavender and peppermint was already overcoming my senses to cloud my mind and make me feel extremely sleepy. According to Trelawny peppermint was meant to sharpen seeing abilities, however I’m not sure anything can sharpen the non-existent...

Luckily, this was another class with Cedric. Merlin knows why we chose to continue it after OWLs, but I suppose that’s the Slytherin in me again: proving I can do it, and do it best.

Right as I’m preparing to drift into my sleepy daze, Ced nudges me. 

“Trelawny. Five o’clock,” he mouths, nodding his head in the direction of my left shoulder.

“Hello dears!” She springs up, slightly like a jack in a box. I entertain the thought of telling her so, but she cuts me off as I open my mouth.

“Have you seen anything in your teacups yet?” She questions, staring at us in a way that is a touch too dramatic for my taste. 

“Erm, yes.” I respond, trying to save Cedric’s skin since he just saved mine. Grabbing his emerald green tea cup, I grasp the golden yellow handle, and twist it three times. I’m not sure why... it just seemed right.

I glance at my book, but decide to wing it. 

“I see a knight- or er. Perhaps a hero?” Trelawny nods, her eyelids fluttering as she rests them close and furrows her brow. 

“No, it’s a knight in shining armour.” I nod, settling on this seeing. Cedric glances up slightly at the word ‘shining’ but shrugs it off quickly. He smirks at me,

“Oh, and what does that symbolise y/n?” His eyes flash slightly with mischief.

“It means you should keep your big mouth shut!” I glare at him, but can’t help cracking into a smile after a moment in his laughing gaze.

“Well dears,” Trelawny chirps at us, grabbing for the cup. “Indeed! I see...”

She gasps as I lazily flick my wand to float the cup off of the ground. I still wish I had remembered this trick when we were working with crystal balls...

“Oh Professor!” I groan miserably, despite the traces of thick sarcasm. “Please don’t say I’m due to die,” I throw myself back in my chair while Cedric tries to hold in a snort.

“I’m afraid you are my dear, in a most unfortunate incident involving a revolving door and a popsicle...”

—

“Charms is the worst.” Cedric groaned from beside me, and I nodded. Charms was fucking boring is what it was.

“Flitwick said it was a practical today.” I remembered, and Cedric brightened up considerably.

“About connecting minds?” He asked, and I nodded.

“I think so, partners?” I answered and asked, but I already knew what Cedric was going to say.

“Howdy.” He tipped an imaginary hat at me, and I sniggered.

“Attention seventh years! I’d like you all to get into pairs, and I will form the mind connecting spell. It will last for just one minute, and there may be minor discomfort as the minute comes to a close. Jordan and Berg, you’re first up.” Flitwick began the charm on the first Hufflepuff and Slytherin duo, and they laughed excitedly as the charm went into effect.

“Diggory and L/n, let’s get to it. Face one another and stare into each other’s eyes.” Flitwick instructed, and Ced beamed at me as we stared at each other.

“Now hold each other’s hands, please.” I felt myself growing sweaty at the thought, but Cedric took my hands with ease, and without breaking eye contact.

His grey eyes were more startling than ever, and I couldn’t help but wonder what the hell the pretty boy was thinking.

“Ut copulare,” Flitwick began murmuring until out of the corner of my eye I watched a flying wand hit the professor. “Oh!” Flitwick let out a startled cry, and Cedric and I nodded simultaneously as we broke eye contact to stare at him.

“Uh oh.” He tittered nervously, and I swallowed. The last time I heard a professor say uh oh was when Slughorn brewed a de-aging potion and it exploded on one of my classmates, rendering them to infancy for a good three weeks. Rumour had it she still used the pacifier from time to time.

“Do you feel okay?” Flitwick asked, and I nodded.

“I feel fine, Professor. In fact, I’ve never felt better.” This was a lie. I had woken up with a knot the size of a rats nest in my hair this morning, as well as having forgotten to do the potions homework last night. However, my teacher looked relieved, so I smiled at him.

“Same here.” Cedric added, and Flitwick sighed.

“Just in case the spell worked, I won’t be able to perform another one on you until at least a week from now.” Flitwick said, and with that he moved to another pair.

“Well I’d say that went well.” Cedric said, and I snickered.

“About as well as your date with Cho.” I was talking about his final date with Cho, which ended in her pouring a milkshake on his head. 

“You’re going to be the death of me.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, and I stuck my tongue out. 

—

“Salazar, what’s the reasoning for all these decorations?” I asked as we left charms. Pink and red decorations hung from ceiling to floor, and it was then that I realised it was Valentines next week.

“Every year the house elves go overboard. We should talk to them about it sometime.” Cedric wrinkled his nose, and I nodded. This was just too much.

“What’s going on over there?” I pointed to a circle that had formed, and it looked like two people were in the centre of it.

“Only one way to find out.” Cedric said, and we slowly approached it. Adrian, a fellow Slytherin, nodded at me.

“What’s going on?” I asked him, and he gestured to the pair inside the circle.

“They’re trapped until they kiss, because a rose fell from the ceiling right in front of them. It’s magically binding, so we could be here a while.” Adrian explained, and I tugged on Cedric’s arm.

“Did you hear that? It’s like mistletoe, they can’t leave til they kiss. It only happens when two people are in love.” I repeated, and Cedric nodded as we walked away from the circle.

“I barely survived the mistletoe.” Cedric said with a shiver, and I laughed as I remembered the girls that had chased Cedric down while waving mistletoe. It had been a sight for sore eyes.

“It’s okay, Ceddie. Time for lunch!”

—

“Could we maybe eat by the lake?” He asked, already having dodged three eager third years. The Great Hall was as busy as ever, and I noticed I myself was subject to several glares.

“I suppose.” I dramatically consented, grabbing two pumpkin pasties and some carrots with hummus from the nearest table. “Let’s go,” I led the charge. 

A particularly determined looking Goyle stood directly in my path, stationed by a suspicious rose. I debated how best to get around, when I felt my feet lift off of the floor altogether.

“Cedric!” I shouted as I was levitated a good ten feet across the hall towards the door. I could only hear Cedric’s laughter as he ran below me, and I ducked as I saw the doorway coming straight for my head.

“Mr. Diggory!” McGonagall was heard shouting across the hall, however we were already halfway to the lake.

Dissolving in a fit of laughter, we sank onto the bank of the lake. 

“Ah, back where it all began.” Cedric grinned towards me. I could think of a great deal of memories surrounding this lake, but I wasn’t entirely sure of any that had marked the beginning of something.

“What began?” I nudged him with my elbow and took a rather ‘unladylike’ bite of my pumpkin pasty.

Cerdric shrugged, and responded by taking a large mouthful of his own. He then grinned with a pumpkin paste covering his teeth.

“Ugh, you’re disgusting!” I threw a pebble at him gently. He simply transformed it into a golden finch. And so, another calm, sunny day was passed by the lake.

••••

After lunch, I took a quick trip to the dorms while Cedric was in quidditch practise. I needed to finish this potions essay, and only one person could save me.

“Come on, Y/n! You’re so slow.” Pansy teased as she speed-walked to the dorm, and I only huffed.

“These legs weren’t made for walking!” I shouted as she entered the portrait, and the only response was the faint echo of her laughter.

By the time I stepped through the portrait, the common-room was empty aside a few stray kids from the years below. I walked through the short hallway to our dorm, and Pansy was staring directly at me as I came in, a note in her hand. 

“I’m the first to admit that I’m reckless, I get lost in your beauty and I can’t see two feet in front of me.” Pansy read it aloud, and I froze.

“What the fuck is this?” She asked, and I shrugged.

“I don’t know. I got another one yesterday, I kinda forgot about it.” I explained, and Pansy raised an eyebrow.

“That’s sus, but whatever. Come on, let’s get to the library!”

—

“Holy Hippogriff!” I jumped as I felt a hard impact in my lower back. 

“You okay y/n?” Pansy frowned as I rubbed my back. I frowned back, puzzled by this unexplained pain.

“I think so? Something just hit me in the back,” I explained, glancing around for the remnants of a prank of some sort. None appeared. Pansy shrugged and returned to her potions work. I gathered my stuff, and debated where to head next. 

It was the end of the day, and I had completed all of my homework. So I was blessed with some nice free time. In a last second decision I veered towards the Quidditch pitch to meet Cedric after his practice. 

“Hey y/n!”  A sweet voice called out as I was about to duck out of the entrance hall.

“Hello Holly!” I spun on my heel. Holly was always quite nice to me, even though most of the Gryffindors avoided me. “How are you?” 

“Swell thanks,” she nodded. “Just wanted to say congrats to you and Diggory! You two are so cute together!” I blushed all the way up to my ears.

“No I-“ she was already speeding down the hall back towards the tower. I sighed and continued towards the pitch.

••••

“Y/n!” Cedric waved across the field towards me. I noticed him limping slightly, but didn’t think anything of it. 

“How was practice Ced?” I asked, and he only shrugged.

“Managed to take a bludger to the back, but it wasn’t too bad.” He said as he approached me. 

“Doesn’t look good if you’re limping. Want to go to Pomfrey’s?” I gestured towards the various windowsills side by side that was the infirmary, and Cedric shook his head.

“I’m fine, Hooch said it would be worn off by tomorrow. Did you get all your homework done?” He asked, and I saw his face flinch.

“That’s it. We’re going to the infirmary. Give me your arm. Besides, my back has been aching since the library. Maybe I can get it checked out.” He held his arm out curiously, and I wrapped it around my shoulder so I could help him put less pressure on his leg.

“Thanks, Y/n.” He said sheepishly, and I smiled at him.

“I got all my homework done, by the way. Pansy even helped me with the last part of the potions essay that we struggled to do, so I’ll explain it tonight or tomorrow.” I said, and Cedric nodded.

“Sounds good, let’s go.” 

—

“For some reason you’ve both bruised the exact same area in your lower back. Do you two have anything you’d like to share with me?” Pomfrey stared at us, and Cedric laughed.

“It's a complete coincidence!” He said, and I nodded, but I was mentally frowning.

There’s no such thing as coincidences.

—

“One day you’re going to spill the boiling water all over yourself.” I said as I watched Cedric in a feeble attempt to pour the water from 15 inches above into his teacup.

“I’m not the quidditch captain for nothing-ow!” Cedric yelped at the same time I hissed, and I quickly inspected my wrist.

“Some of it just landed on me!” I glared at him, and he stared blankly back.

“It landed on me, Y/n. You’re across the table it couldn’t have splashed you.” Cedric said slowly, and I realised my wrist was bone-dry.

“I swear to Godric I felt it hit me.” I said earnestly, and Cedric nodded.

“I don’t doubt it. Shall we go back to Pomfrey?” Cedric asked, and I shook my head.

“It’s probably nothing. Lighten up, Ced, we’re fine. We’ve got the lovely class of charms next, followed by Sprout’s endless herbology lectures.” I nudged Cedric with my elbow, but he still seemed upset.

“Hey, what’s up?” I leaned closer and murmured, and he leant his head on mine.

“What if it’s not nothing? What if we’ve been cursed somehow?” I wished I could erase the worry from his face.

“I highly doubt that. Hogwarts is one of the safest places ever, and if someone was going around cursing people we would definitely know about it.” I tried my best to reassure him, and he sighed.

“Okay, dipshit. I guess I trust you.”

— 

“Odds on you asking Sprout what the word sex means?” I asked, and Cedric laughed.

“Ten.” I looked at him in surprise. 

“You sure? That’s pretty low.” He nodded.

“Why wouldn’t I be sure?” He asked, and I snickered.

“No reason. Three, two, one!”

“Eight!” We both shouted, and I screeched with laughter. Ced was done for.

“No! Rematch!” He said desperately, and I tried to control my laughter.

“Nope! Go ask!” I put my hand over my mouth in an attempt to control my laughter again, and Cedric reluctantly raised his hand.

“Professor? I have a question.” Cedric called out, and Sprout turned around to face us.

“Yes dear?” She smiled at him, and I nudged Cedric’s leg.

“What’s sex?” The entirety of the Hufflepuff-Slytherin class erupted into screams, and Sprout gasped.

“Mr Diggory!” She exclaimed, and I genuinely thought I was going to piss myself.

“Well, as my head of house, I thought you would be the best teacher to ask.” He said, and I noticed his cheeks were bright red. He shot a glare at me before smiling innocently at Sprout. 

“If you stay after class I might be able to explain, however, we are currently in a herbology lesson!” She looked like she was about to cry, and I slapped Cedric’s arm as I laughed.

“You’re insane!” I said, and the smile he gave me made my breath get caught in my throat.

-

The next day I ran into Cedric just before potions. He was about to trip right over his own two feet, when I caught his hand. 

"Morning, clumsy!" I smirked slightly as he brushed off the imaginary dust he had acquired during his slip. 

"Morning, y/n," he mumbled, lacking his regular enthusiasm. After chatting for a minute or two he started to back away slowly. 

"Hey, I just have to run to the bathroom. I'll be back in time for class though!" He yelled over his shoulder now. He started to run down the stony corridor, however I realised after a moment that he was heading the wrong way. 

"Wait! Ced, you're heading towards the common rooms!" I tried to yell after him, but figured he'd learn it in a moment anyway. It's not like he hadn't learned this before either. He came to the Slytherin common room almost as much as I went to the Hufflepuff one. 

I followed his footsteps, figuring I would be able to talk to him on his way back. What I didn't expect was to see a single slip of parchment fluttering to the floor, and Cedric nowhere in sight. 

I bent down quickly to pick it up, crinkling the hard corners with my anxious movements. 

I’m like a boat on the water, you’re the raise on the waves that calm my mind.

It was in the same, scrawling writing as the other notes I had received, and the paper was exactly the same to all of the other's I had received. 

Was it Cedric? I flipped the paper over and looked at the blank back. He couldn't possibly love me. Could he? 

I smiled at the message, remembering when we met up over break once. We had taken his father’s boat sailing, and had somehow managed to capsize on three different occasions. I heard footsteps coming down the corridor, and I shoved the message in my pocket.

"Hey!" Cedric called out as he came near.

“Hi, Ced. Or should I say boat on the water?” I twirled the piece of paper around my fingers as he approached, and I watched as his face fell.

“That’s not mine.” He said quickly, and I raised my eyebrows.

“Hmm. If that’s true, then I better go search for my secret admirer.” I grinned as he took the bait and grabbed my hand, tugging me closer to him.

“How long have you known?” Ced asked, and I shrugged.

“I had my suspicions on Finch-Fletchley, but you proved me wrong with this note,” I laughed at Cedric’s reaction. “I’m joking of course, Ceddie. I had no idea who it was, but I’m glad it’s you.”

“Wait, really?” He seriously was the cutest. The way he was looking at me right now made me feel like the luckiest girl in the world; then again, I just might be.

“Of course I am. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve been trying to drop hints for four years.” Cedric laughed at my confession, and I elbowed him.

“Oi! I was only laughing because I’ve been dropping hints for five. I figured in our last year at school I may as well confess that I’m in love with you.” My breath caught in my throat, and he raised his hand to my face only to brush a piece of hair out of my eyes.

“You’re in love with me?” I asked, and he nodded.

“It’s practically impossible not to be. Now that you know it’s me, I was wondering if you wanted to be my valentine?” Cedric asked, and a rustling from above made us look up.

A red rose had just bloomed.

-

It was valentine's day. Of course, just about everywhere was packed with starry eyed couples. We had opted to stay at Hogwarts, and have a sweet picnic together. Cedric had taken care of the setting, and I had found all of the food. 

It wasn't a bad effort. In my opinion he went slightly overboard with the pink, but I did appreciate the various hints of green he had added with the plates and napkins. Plus, I had brought plenty of food from the kitchens (which Cedric had shown me in my fourth year) 

We settled down on the edge of the lake, and I took a moment to appreciate the sunny day, and the time I could finally spend with Cedric not just as friends, but as a couple. I laid down, and gently rested my head of Cedric's lap.

"We should have done this a lot sooner," I joked, but I meant it as well. Knowing I could have been dating Cedric for months before now was a little bittersweet. I tried to remember that at least we were here now together. 

I wasn't exactly sure if I believed in soulmates, but I knew that if I had a soulmate, it would be Cedric. 

"Thank goodness you found the note I was going to hide the other day," Cedric smiled.

"That's true, you're no Gryffindor," I teased. "Thank goodness!" I stuck my tongue out in mock disgust. 

And that's when things took a turn. I watched as Cho came up to us, with a nasty frown on her face. Her frown darkened our picnic almost instantly.

“Fuck.” I breathed under my voice. What in Merlin’s name could she possibly want with me and Cedric? Obviously we were about to find out.

“Ceddie, honey!” She sang sweetly as she came closer to us. Cedric shot me a look and quickly set a reassuring, soft kiss on my lips before getting up.

“Cho. What are you doing here?” He asked, sounding incredibly confused. He rubbed his hand through his hair, anxious about her mission

“I came to rescue you!” She grinned innocently. As she reached for her hand I couldn’t help myself.

“Hey! Back off!” She shot me a burning glare, and sent a stinging spell at my wrist.

“Shit,” Cedric and I spoke in unison as we both grabbed our wrists. I muttered a healing spell or two as I glared towards Cho.

“Look, Cho, go away. Okay?” Cedric tried to kindly shoo her away. “I’m perfectly happy with y/n!” I smiled softly, glad to here Cedric say that.

“It’s okay Ceddie! I realised exactly why it was her in that lake and not me!” Cho chirrped. She sounded quite proud of herself, and I was curious what on earth she had come up with.

“Yeah, it’s because I love her!” Cedric explained. Cho let out a shrill laugh, and patted his arm.

“No silly!” She smiled sweetly, as if explaining to a young child. “You THINK you love her!” She shot another laser like look towards me.

“I’m pretty sure I know who I love Cho!” Cedric’s face began to harden as he realised this wasn’t going to be easy to brush off.

“She used a love potion on you!” Cho screeched, grabbing hold of Cedric.

“I said let go of him!” I got up off the blanket and walked over.

“She’s best in our potions class, she’s loved you since we were 13, and she’s a fucking Slytherin!” Cho explained desperately! She had small, glistening tears in her eyes now. I almost felt pity for her, but I couldn’t.

I walked over slowly, deciding exactly what I should say.

“Being a Slytherin doesn’t make me evil Cho, just like you being a Ravenclaw doesn’t make you smart!” I frowned. I hated how much the stereotypes of our houses defined us. “People aren’t able to be perfectly categorised between four groups!” Cho glared and jabbed her wand at me.

Before I realised what was happening, Cedric jumped between me and the flash of white light, but it couldn't stop the spell for some reason. I doubled over in excruciating pain that hit right around my belly button. It was as if my stomach had turned inside out and began to burn the surrounding flesh. I glanced over, and Cedric was in obvious pain as well. 

I couldn’t contain the whimper that escaped from my mouth, and Cedric met my eyes.

“How the hell did you hit Y/n with that?” He spat out, while Cho only stared at us in shock and what looked like panic. After Cedric let out what sounded like a painful groan, Cho waved her wand and relief flooded me.

“Tell me! How did you do it?” Now that he was able to stand up without pain, Cedric got incredibly close to her, towering over her. 

“I-I don’t know! You jumped in front, she must have been faking it!” I watched as Cedric lowered the manicured finger she had pointed at me, and whispered something in her ear. The effect in had on her was instantaneous; she slowly stepped away before turning tail and bolting away.

“We need to go to Pomfrey.” Cedric spoke without looking at me, though when I clasped his hand he squeezed mine tightly.

-

“I don’t know what to tell the pair of you. Have you been hit by an unknown spell in the past month or so?” Pomfrey looked tired, I noticed.

I wondered how often she slept.

“Not that I can think of.” Cedric said, and I nodded. 

“Unless someone’s hit us without us noticing, then no.” I added, and Pomfrey sighed.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with the two of you. I’ve only heard of cases like these, never seen one myself. I think there’s only been four or five documented.” She explained, causing Ced and I to exchange glances.

“Well, what happened to those people?” I asked the obvious question, since my lovely boyfriend clearly wasn’t going to. Pomfrey shifted slightly.

“One person in each pair died before a full analysis and case study could be completed.” I almost laughed at the look on Cedric’s face until I realised that one of us was totally going to die soon.

“Well, my darling, it was lovely knowing you.” I patted him on the back, and he wrapped his arms around me, encasing me with love.

“What can we do?” Cedric asked, and Pomfrey shook her head.

“Not a whole lot. Try and remember if the pair of you have been struck by a spell in the past though.” 

-

It took fourteen seconds after we left the infirmary to Cedric to slap his forehead.

“I think we’re stupid.” He said, and I raised an eyebrow.

“Speak for yourself. Personally, I’m the smartest person I know.” He snickered, and I frowned. Where was the joke?

“Flitwick hit us with that spell, remember? And the spell was interrupted halfway through, which created a new spell entirely.” Cedric explained, and I sighed.

“I think we’re stupid too.”

-

We'd spent another lovely 10 years being stupid together. Sure we'd had our ups and downs, but we always knew that we were soulmates.

 Since we had found out about the spell, we've helped Flitwick research whatever charm had put us in the situation of feeling each others pain. It was actually quite strange when I was pregnant with our son, Cedric had noticed the contractions first. 

 After spending a couple of years with Flitwick researching the spell, we'd moved to Scotland and gotten married. Life had been quite pleasant. We owned a small farm where we raised cows and hippogriffs alike. Our son was now 6 years old, and had already decided that he wanted to be in Slytherin 'Just like mummy!'  

Currently we were sitting in our favorite wizarding restaurant. I gazed over towards Cedric's kind face as he helped our son go through the maze on the children's menu. I grinned over at my two lovely boys, and nudged Cedric with my foot under the table.

"Hm?" He looked up, and our son copied him. I smiled towards them both, and silently thanked Merlin that I had these two lovely boys in my life.

"What do you want to eat?" I held up the menu, and raised my eyebrows. Cedric and our son looked at each other and then looked back towards be in sync. 

"PIZZA!" They said together. I giggled and they quickly joined in. 

Just as we share pain, Cedric and I share the multitude of joys that have bloomed in our lives. And that made the joy all the better.

[paleroze]

We'll spend the endless time together.

Relationships:Tommy & Tubbo's friendship

Angst/Comfort,Major Character Death

Trigger warnings:Suicide

A/N:This was set during the Doomsday!

Tommy stands.

He stares.

He watch.

He listens.

The day his father and brother had promised, it has been fulfilled. Unlike their promises when he was young, naïve little boy with his older brother who took care of him.

The Doomsday.

He looked up above L'manberg and saw the obsidians that were built who knows when. A bunch of dispensers, redstones connected to it, ready to activate by placing a dust that will start the day. That will be the end of L'manberg.

He looked to his left, seeing Niki holding a flint, she's next to the L'mantree, now being burnt. Her back is facing Tommy, he could stop her, but he stood still.

He should do something, warn someone, stop them. But yet, he stands in front of the country he lived in, too numb to move, too numb to care, too numb to feel. People fleeing out their houses, his president yelling for the people to leave before they die, the fireworks that were set off to kill.

Even so, he still stand where he is, as the villagers run for their life. Tommy is still looking up, he's far away from L'manberg, far to hurt him by the explosion that will happen in seconds. He can see all of the houses, ready to be blown off.

Tubbo saw him, calling him to get away, the brunette was already running with his people, but he couldn't just leave his best friend alone, so he ran back to him, trying to pull him away.

Tommy didn't move an inch when his name was shouted many many times, his gaze remained on the country, on the sky.

"It'll be gone now Tubbo, all of Wilbur's hard work.. All of our hard work." He spoke, finally glancing to his best friend. He smiled but Tubbo couldn't return the same, instead he cried, cried in to Tommy's arms.

"You served the nation well Tubbo, I think this is the sign for us to finally step back." Tommy hugged him.

The dispensers began to drop the TnT's.

Loud explosions began to cover the screams.

The bombs didn't stop dropping, until L'manberg is just a crater, until it reached the bedrock.

Tommy saw his father stand near the cliff of the obsidian, watching as the country his son built turned in to ash, a history to be written in a book, to be read by the childrens. Their eyes met, both showing numbness. He saw his brother walked next to him, along with Dream.

Winds that passed by them, the sound of TnT's as it went off. The cries of humanity, the screams. Tommy couldn't care less, he has finally gave up, something Tommy wouldn't do. Philza know how stubborn his younge-

Philza know how stubborn Tommy is, the boy who kept asking until he gets the answer.

Tommy could only hugged Tubbo as the boy cried on his arms. He only has Tubbo, no one else.

"Tubbo?" He called, hiccups and sobs is the only response he got but he still continued. "I'll be joining Wilbur soon."

The brunette immediately pulled away, eyes widened as he stared at Tommy. "What?"

"Tommy-Do-.. What? No, no you won't-"

"I'm tired Tubbo. L'manberg is nothing now but a crater, a history." Tommy answered, his eyes looked up once again and saw that Techno, Phil and Dream has their eyes on them, watching.

"Maybe dying would be a good idea." He mumbled, he pulled away Tubbo's hands that were holding his arms. He smiles, "You still have them. I don't have anyone anymore, my father has already neglected me, Wilbur is dead, Techno has destroyed my home."

Slowly, he walked towards the country, the country that were being bombard. "Tommy!!"

Walk.

Walk like you're just going home.

Walk like you're just going back to your old house.

"I want to be free as well!" Tubbo yelled, stopping him, the boy was on his knees, tears not stopping to fall. Tommy looked back at his friend. "Don't-Tommy.. Don't leave me again..." He cried.

"Tubbo.."

The brunette stands up, running towards him and grabbed his wrist "I'll walk with you, I'll be with you till death. We promised that when we were children right?" He smiled, but tears wouldn't stop, yet Tubbo still smiles.

Tommy stared at him, if the boy is still sane. If Tubbo is sure about what they are about to do, then he let out a small chuckle "You're my partners in crime after all." He said.

Walk like you're only introducing your friend to your family.

Walk like you're just entering your house with your friend to play.

Play until night has fallen.

Instead it will be an endless time to spend.

The two boys were still young anyway. Too young to be in wars, but too old to know when to give up.

"Hey Tommy,"

"Do you think we could build a treehouse? For only the two of us?"

... "You mean, away from everyone? Where we're the only one who can find it?"

Two boys smiled at each others.

"Yeah, and fuck anyone who dares to intrude us."

[hephaestiions]

Addictive Tendencies

@hprarepairnet​ & @slytherdornet​ - quidditch player ships challenge Pairing: Marcus Flint x Oliver Wood (Flintwood) Summary: “I hate him,” he whispers fiercely against the fist he stuffs into his mouth to keep himself from screaming long and loud at the heavens, at the Founders, at the bloody sun. “I hate him so damn much.”

“Makes me wonder why I bothered to show up, then,” comes the all too familiar heavy drawl, and if Oliver’s heart had dropped before, now it drowns. One thing leads to another. 

Warnings: Light angst, break-ups, everyone swears a great deal, mentions of nsfw/18+ activities. Rating: Teen. 

Word Count: 4k (yes, I know, it is very long for a Tumblr fic) 

For all that he feels almost dead going through the motions of life, Oliver comes alive on the pitch. There’s something about the clean, crisp scent of fresh air– the kind reminding him of the open fields close to home– and the adrenaline rush of mounting a broom that leeches into every cell of his being. It fires his synapses, jolts his entire body out of the sleepwalking trance he slips into during classes and meals and all the other mundanities that compose everyday life. Oliver can’t wait to go pro.

To leave fucking Transfiguration and Potions and Professor Sprout’s herb gardens behind. To make the familiarity of the broom clenched under his thighs and the roaring blood in his ears his livelihood, his reason to wake up every morning and  go back to bed each night without drinking himself into a stupor thinking of everything that could have– Fuck no. He’s not going down that road right now.

Right now, his focus needs to be narrowed down to that slim space between the hoops and the perfect, concentrated manoeuvre that will allow him to slip through. His focus needs to be on his game, his practice, not on… other things.

Vision tunnelling, Oliver tenses his calves around the reliable solidity of his broom, and corkscrews his entire body almost violently through the gap, veering dangerously close to the metal bars of the left hoop, emerging unscathed and out of breath on the other side. He wants to be happy.

Wants to be proud, because this is the first time he has executed this move flawlessly without either crashing his elbow or his knee or his side into some part of the hoops. He desperately wants to feel the joy he would be whooping with by now if this had been even six months ago. But all he feels is the desperate desire to hear Marcus shout, “That’s what I fucking call a Hummingbird, Wood, you fucking genius!” either from the stands or from his place on another broom by Oliver’s side. He’s met with silence. The wind moans, twisting its way through the branches of the trees lining the entrance to the Forbidden Forest. Oliver wants to drive himself into a metal bar just to work off some of the pent up frustration and rage gathering in his shoulders, his back muscles, his stomach. The almost physical ache gripping and tearing at his heart. He kicks out, and the broom bucks underneath him, buoyed in the wrong direction by an errant current of air. There’s a brief moment of sheer terror as his body misbalances midair, but he isn’t the fucking captain of Gryffindor for nothing. He lets himself fall for a second, letting his weight gather momentum, before pulling out at the very last second. Sometimes he wants to smash his entire body into a wall, but he knows better than to work out his aggressive tendencies on the unforgiving pitch.

His legacy deserves better than to be remembered as a gruesome splatter on the grounds of Hogwarts. Marcus though. Marcus can bloody well plummet to death for all Oliver cares. Except.

Except the very thought sends shudders down Oliver’s spine, and his hands inadvertently reach out into thin air even contemplating the prospect of letting Marcus hurt himself. Except that Oliver would take the fall before letting Marcus take it. He’s fucked, truly. “You’re a bloody fool, Oliver,” he mutters to himself with only the wind listening in. “And for once you’ve got something other than terrible grades to prove how truly fucked you are.” Marcus’ words echo in his head, a never ending loop of heartbreak and agony and gut-wrenching misery that no rationally thinking future pro Quidditch player has the time for. You– you know how the world is beyond Hogwarts, man. You know it’s not good to– to people like us, especially when we want to play and go pro, you know. It’s bollocks mate, is what it is, but it’s life and I guess I want a career more than a fuck. Because that’s all they’d been of course. A fuck. Fuck Marcus. Well and truly fuck him into next Sunday, next month, next bloody year. That line of thinking conjures up a whole new set of images that are doubly uncomfortable when one’s private parts are squashed onto a pole of unforgiving wood. His whole body itches and aches and buzzes with energy he doesn’t know how to work off, so he perfects his form on the broom and swoops in and out of the spaces between the hoops, tracing fast paced figure of eights that even the best of the best would have a tough time keeping up with. It’s mindless and the cold wind sniping at his cheekbones jars him into the present, into the steadiness of swerving past the bars of the hoops and spinning around like his life depends on it. Fuck Marcus Flint and his stupid, scared arse and his willingness to give up on everything Oliver thought was sacred to them. Fuck him. After half an hour, he wants to keep going, but his whole body resists, aching and burning along the lines of tension in his muscles. He feels heavy and tired, like a stone about to drop, and he turns on his broom to swoop down when– When he sees him. In the stands. The crossed arms, the wind billowing through strands of hair that are surprisingly soft to the touch (Oliver knows that because he’s touched those stands reverentially in the showers, in hidden alcoves, during warm, hot moments of kisses and mouths trailing over flushed skin��). The green robes are flying out behind the solitary figure in the stands like a cape from one of Katie’s superhero comics, and there’s no mistaking the identity of the man. Not for Oliver at least.   Marcus is watching him. Has been for Merlin knows how long. All Oliver wants to do is touch down and drag himself over to the stands and crash into Marcus’ arms, but he resists the urge. Instead, he laps a lazy loop in the air, before his tired body forces him to retire, and instead of picking the pitch like a sane person, Oliver perches on the edge of the middle hoop, crawling off the broomstick onto the thick metal. It’s surprisingly comfortable. It’s also a ploy to wait Marcus out, but well. It doesn’t seem to be working quite yet. Some part of him wants to swing his legs around his broom, swoop down beside Marcus and kiss him senseless. Some part of him wants to pull Marcus in and just relearn the feeling of their bodies touching again. He reins this part in with every ounce of control and every shred of self respect he has. He holds it back, letting it kick and rage and fester at the back of his heart, where he keeps his pain and his misery and his urges to do things he will regret within five seconds. That part of his heart– It’s ugly. He turns away from the imposing figure Marcus cuts in the stands with his biceps bulging and his hair, longer than it was since Oliver last ran his hands through it curling around his strong neck. Oliver can feel the pressure of it, of Marcus’ head pillowed against his lap when they could sneak an afternoon away to the Astronomy Tower. Marcus’ dark hair curled into Oliver’s fist as they talked, as they kissed, as they pushed each other’s clothes off with all the pent up energy of two prowling hyenas going in for the kill. He feels the tears rise, but he doesn’t want to cry. Not here anyway, with Marcus watching for whatever Merlin-forsaken reason. Doesn’t want to raise his hand in the tell tale sign of wiping away his tears. Doesn’t want to be weak.

Instead he stares at the setting sun even though the riot of colours across the sky only make him angrier. Why should the world get to move on and revel in its beauty when his life feels like radio static? Why should sunlight have the right to twirl pretty patterns into Marcus’ eyes when Oliver isn’t there to see it? Why does even nature get to laugh at his sad, pathetic arse and why doesn’t he ever get to move the fuck on? “I hate him,” he whispers fiercely against the fist he stuffs into his mouth to keep himself from screaming long and loud at the heavens, at the Founders, at the bloody sun. “I hate him so damn much.” “Makes me wonder why I bothered to show up, then,” comes the all too familiar heavy drawl, and if Oliver’s heart had dropped before, now it drowns. “What,” he says without turning around for fear of what he’ll see, “are you doing here?” “Saw you practicing from the Tower. Thought I might join you.” Oliver lets loose a laugh. “Get lost,” he says, and grimaces when it comes out slightly choked. “Or I’m telling Hooch you’re spying on the Captain for his plays.” “I have plenty of plays of my own,” Marcus says, and Oliver cringes at the suggestive undercurrent of the words. “Or did you forget?” When the weight of his anger and his hurt and his exhaustion crash into him, Oliver almost falls off his precarious perch. He staggers slightly and has to reach out with one hand to grip the edge of the hoop. His other hand slackens around his broom, and it teeters dangerously in his loose grip. Somehow, he doesn’t have the energy to hold it tighter. The tiredness creeps into his muscles, his bones, the raging fires of his heart, shrouding his entire being in a blanket of heaviness that he can’t shrug off. Here he is, trying to hold himself together, and Marcus has the balls to be making innuendos. “Last I checked, Flint, your plays were off limits. And you didn’t want any of mine, either. Which begs the question that I already asked you, why the fuck are you here?” Marcus is silent, because of course he is. Damn bastard, he can’t even give Oliver a good reason, a good excuse for his real purposes. “Come to gloat?” He asks, and his voice comes out a broken whisper. “Come to check in on poor Ollie and how he’s doing now that you’ve binned him?” “Oliver–“ “Shut up,” he says, he begs, and turns to face Marcus, and promptly has the breath knocked out of him. Because Marcus, oh, he’s bathed in the light of the golden sun, bathed in every shade of desire, coloured in Oliver’s dreams. There’s that uncertain turn to his lips, as though he expects Oliver to shove him away, tell him to leave, as though he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t look like he’s gloating (and Oliver knows how Marcus looks when he gloats, because goddamn, he’s lost Quidditch matches against this man). If anything, he looks a little wrecked, but in the most beautiful way imaginable, and Oliver– Oliver has never wanted to kiss someone more. Marcus sighs. His lashes flutter against his cheek and his shoulders droop slightly, and he looks a little lost when he gazes at some spot in the distance and says in a slow lilt, as though he’s searching for the words as he goes, “I– I missed you, Oliver.” And those words, the words he’s been craving to hear for a whole fucking month now wash over him, curl into the spaces that are yawning open and empty in the absence of the warmth Marcus had been when they’d spent those five glorious months in each other’s sunshine.

“We were just fucking,” he says anyway, because he’s too damn proud to be soothed of a month’s hurt by some half hearted confession of being missed. “Right, Flint? Just a fuck.” “You know that’s not true.” “Do I?” Oliver asks. He wants to be angry, wants his eyes to flash, wants to clench his fists and look ready to batter Marcus into a bloody pulp for daring to hurt him the way he did, but the words come out thick and heavy, laced with the burdens Oliver has been carrying alone. He never cared, he never looked at me as anything except a fuck, he just wanted some fun. Human beings, fragile creatures. Togetherness is more of an addiction than drugs and whisky could ever be. “Oliver, I– I was scared, and–“ “And you thought I wasn’t? You thought it was a breeze for me, that I hadn’t ever considered what the damn repercussions could look like–“ “That’s what you made it sound like!” Marcus throws both his hands up, and there’s a wild light in his dark eyes. “You made it look so easy with all your casual, hey Flint, care for a Butterbeer this weekend and Marcus, look at me and your damn smiles– and I– I was scared out of my mind Oliver, and you just looked like it was something you were born with.” “Born with what?” “Confidence! Fearlessness! Like you couldn’t give a fuck what people in locker rooms would think if you went pro, if I went pro, like you didn’t care that coaches would pay less attention to you, or make you the punching bag of the team, like teams would only sign you on if they had to pay you less if they found out about this.” Oliver sighs. It’s so obvious now that all through those months when Oliver had been caught up in a haze of a perfect love story of two Quidditch captains from historically rival houses, Marcus had been overthinking his choices, his career, everything. “This isn’t a hand job in a dark bed in the dorms, Oliver, and you know it.” He feels weary. Wrung out. “I wasn’t born with it,” he says, and looks away again at the darkening horizon. The sun is now a ball of red against a blue sky turning black. “What?” “Confidence, or fearlessness, or whatever you thought came easy to me. But you were scared about fucking up your career and I was scared of fucking us up. You were thinking about whatever pro team deals you dream of and I was thinking that something I would say or do would push you away because I’m too much of a stupid fuck for anyone to be with. Wood, have you got leaves for brains? Wood, if I knocked on that head would it ring hollow?” “Oliver,” Marcus says, and he sounds so shocked, so hurt that it’s like a string tied to the back of Oliver’s head has been pulled. He turns to face Marcus again, and he looks devastated.

He looks like he’s seeing Oliver for the first time.

“You really thought that I thought you were–“ “Bollocks for brains, yeah.” And because he can’t bear to see Marcus look so upset, he adds, “But that’s alright now. I’ll get over it, and you, and you can sign all the pro deals, and have a couple babies and no one will think you and I–“ Marcus slaps a hand over his mouth. “Shut up,” Marcus says, and oh, he’s so beautiful when he’s angry. “You’re a bit thick sometimes, I’ll give you that,” Marcus says in a voice so low that it sounds like he’s admitting state secrets instead of the most obvious thing that anyone who speaks to Oliver for five minutes can pick up on. “But don’t ever think that you’re stupid, or that you’ve got leaves for brains– Oliver what the fuck? The way you– the way you remember all the damn plays starting from the fucking 1790s and how you can recite precedents for every move anyone makes on the field and how you know exactly which player to pair with which one, which one needs to be benched– Oliver, you’re made for this. You don’t need some Transfiguration O to prove that.” He doesn’t know whether to believe this is happening. And worse– he doesn’t know what it means. If he’s imagining it, he’s further gone for Marcus than he can ever admit to anyone who is not a Mind Healer. If he’s not imagining it, Marcus is here, after a bloody month of ignoring him, breaking his heart, stomping on it with the butt end of a broom, to tell him– Rage curls in his stomach. He jerks away from the hand Marcus has now slid onto his jawline, regretting the motion immediately when the thumb tracing circles into the space behind his ear is dislodged. “And you’re telling me this now? After telling me you care more about your career than a fuck? Why bother? If that’s how you feel– it’s not going to change!” Marcus looks down. Oliver wants to curl a hand under that drooping chin, pull it up, kiss it better, but he holds himself back. “I was scared,” he whispers. Oliver wishes he weren’t so fucking easy, because the ice walls he’d thrown up to keep Marcus and his mind games out is already thawing. “I was so scared.” “You had a reason,” Oliver mumbles. He looks down. The drop to the pitch is sheer, sharp. If he falls, there’s no way he can be saved unless Marcus decides to be a hero. The thought brings a small smile to his lips. “I was being a coward,” Marcus says sharply. “Thorne– Thorne’s y’know, bisexual and all that, and he’s playing great game with the Magpies–“ “We can’t all be Thorne. And Thorne was stoned in Diagon.” “By one man who was arrested by Kingsley Shacklebolt. We might not be Thorne, but we can try.” The sound that rips itself from Oliver’s throat is rife with the pain and frustration of a month of second guessing and heartbreak. “Why does it matter?” Oliver asks, his voice carrying in the emptiness of the pitch. “Why the bloody fuck does any of it matter Marcus, you don’t want this, it was just a fuck–“ It happens so fast that Oliver doesn’t process it till its done. Marcus surges forward on the broomstick, invading the meagre personal space Oliver had tried to maintain between them so he wouldn’t reach out, be overly-familiar, push Marcus away the first time he’d dared to venture close in so long. Their eyes meet, and the pitch, the hoops, the past month and their discussion fades to nothing but white noise in the back of Oliver’s brain. Marcus, bless his balance on a broom, reaches out with one hand to cup the back of Oliver’s neck and the other comes to frame his face, resting on his ear. He waits for a second, for permission, to be pushed away, hell, Oliver doesn’t know, and then they’re kissing, Marcus’ hot, perfect, slightly chapped lips fitting against his. Something clicks into place finally. Something disjointed and broken snaps back inside his chest and the heavy weight he’d gotten all too used to carrying lifts like the healed wing of an injured bird. His heart soars with all the delight of a creature learning to fly once more, and something in this urgent, heartfelt kiss feels like a reassurance. I missed you, it says. I’ve been waiting for you. I’m sorry for hurting you. A million apologies in a single press, a single touch, in the soft breath that gusts over Oliver’s nose. It could be seconds, could be decades when Marcus finally pulls away. Oliver has to shut his eyes, clench them tightly to keep the traitorous tears from falling, from ruining this perfect moment that he’s certain will be shattered anyway when Marcus realises what he’s done. But Marcus doesn’t release a horrified gasp, doesn’t push him away, doesn’t retreat with the air currents back to the stands. Marcus stays there, floating gently on his broom, holding Oliver’s face between his hands, waiting for something. Oliver’s too scared to open his eyes and figure out what. He’s never felt so small, never felt himself be flayed open by circumstances rendering him raw and broken and ready to be picked apart. It’s exhilarating and terrifying, and Marcus is here to watch. He doesn’t know if this feeling of trust is warranted, especially after everything Marcus said and did, but he knows he can’t make himself be suspicious or cruel in this moment. He will hate himself forever if he pushes Marcus away right now, and of all the punishments Oliver has suffered, self inflicted misery isn’t one he particularly enjoys. But he can ask, so he does. “What now?” Marcus shrugs. Oliver feels it, the slight tremble, the tell tale stiffness and when he opens his eyes, he’s surprised to see tears in Marcus’. “Are you–“ “Shut up, Wood.” Oliver watches Marcus close his eyes, bite his lip, whisper something inaudible and pull himself together. Watches him try to be steady. To know that they are here, suspended midair in a moment in time, being unsteady together rouses the buried beast of hope in Oliver’s heart. The sun has set. The horizon is a bruised blue now, and Marcus still looks like a shining beacon of future possibilities set against a dark sky of prejudice and inevitable darkness. “So. Thorne.” Marcus smiles despite himself. Nods. “Thorne.” “You’re kidding yourself if you think you play as well as Thorne does.” This time, Marcus laughs. It’s slightly choked, and only barely there, but it’s a laugh. “That’s not the fucking point and you know it.” “Oh I don’t know,” Oliver teases. “I’m a bit thick, aren’t I?” Marcus sobers up almost immediately. Oliver’s heart goes into overdrive, panicking. What if he said something wrong? Reminded Marcus of why he left? But Marcus merely looks serious when he says, “It’s still true.” “What?” “About the teams and coaches and the players. The world– The damn Quidditch world isn’t kind to people like us.”

Oliver looks at Marcus, at the depth of his eyes that people ignore when they critique him for being a bastard (he is a bastard, Oliver knows, just a bastard with depth and capability for kindness that Oliver feels privileged to know exists), at the worried cleft between his eyebrows, at the self conscious way in which he pulls his lips over his teeth. “The pitch makes up for it,” he says. “If I get to keep you and the pitch and my broom, I don’t give a fuck about what coaches and players and galleons have to say.” Marcus lets out a sound like a strangled sob and rests his forehead against Oliver’s. If Oliver hadn’t been holding onto his broom with one hand and the Quidditch hoop with the other, he’d have held Marcus a little closer, but he settles for kissing Marcus’ nose.

“I like galleons,” Marcus whispers after a while. For the first time in a month, Oliver feels a genuine laugh erupt from his chest, into his throat, out of his mouth. He feels light. “You’ll make plenty, don’t you worry,” he says instead. “Promising Chaser, conniving little Slytherin, bit of a looker too– why wouldn’t you?” “Are you calling me handsome, Oliver?” Oliver snorts. “Stop fishing. If the whole Quidditch thing goes balls-up, you can always model for Gladrags.” “Which section of Gladrags?” “Let’s see. Much as I’d love to see you in women’s lingerie, I don’t know if the civil public is willing to, so I’d say the part where handsome young wizards pose in their underwear with their hands suggestively placed behind their heads.” “The civil public doesn’t read Gladrags, Oliver.” “Are you calling me uncivil?” They burst into laughter, something dark and heavy lifting from their beings, and the tensed, tightened bolts of coiled emotion and anger loosening with every quip, every little kiss, every stolen moment of this. Above them, the sky darkens as the universe’s speckled cloak unravels with the fading light of day. Somewhere in the Forbidden Forest, a Centaur looks up. Somewhere, a first year student catches a glimpse of two figures on one of the hoops of the pitch and looks away with wide eyes and a racing heart.

On the pitch, two boys share a secret smile in the darkness, and somewhere above them, the stars align perfectly.

[crystalirises]

The Final Answer (36 Questions AU 3/13)

Third part.

OUR SWEET OLD LIFE

Fundy curled up on the farthest end of the couch, his slitted eyes tracking every movement that Dream dared make in the rundown shack he had made for himself. He watched as the blonde glanced at the cobwebs in the corners, at the dusty windows, at the tattered couch that Fundy sat on, at the grime-covered walls, and at the recently polished floor. 

The blanket was draped over his own shoulders, Dream insisting that he didn’t care much for the cold. Like how Dream didn’t care for anything except for a bunch of flimsy discs that held no significance to anyone other than Fundy’s uncle who was exiled by the very man in question. His sharp nails raked through the cloth of the couch, wincing as a small tear formed. Niki would kill him if she noticed it. Heh. He didn’t know how Dream found his way to Drywaters, but he must have done something to know. His hair bristled. Dream didn’t threaten Niki or Ranboo, did he?

He let out a low growl as Dream’s attention turned to him, their gazes piercing through each other’s soul. Fundy refused to wonder what was beyond the porcelain mask. He refused to wonder if he would see hurt in those forest green eyes he used to love so much, the eyes he woke up to every morning. Dream fumbled, mouth opening and closing like a stupid fish in a dirty pond. Fundy pulled his knees closer to himself, his sharp nails biting into the skin as he waited for whatever bullshit Dream would concoct. He didn’t know what was going on in that devious little mind, but it couldn’t be good. 

Fundy was exhausted from being fucked over by the entirety of New L’manburg and the Essempy. He hated the man before him, hated how his heart ached at the sight of him. He hated that he wanted to forgive him even if the blonde didn’t apologize. He hated how he still felt for his ex-husband, the ex-husband he thought he’d left behind.

“So… I know we can’t go back to the way we used to be. You’ve made that perfectly clear, sta― Fundy.” He doesn’t miss the way his old nickname easily slipped through Dream’s lips, the way he quickly averted from finishing it. Fundy sniffled, wiping at his nose with the edge of his jacket sleeve. He hated that nickname, anyway. So why did it hurt to be reminded of it? 

“We just have to move forward from this. The sooner we apologize to one another, the sooner we can go home… where it’s safer.” Dream walked closer, trying to pull Fundy into an embrace.

“Dream, with you… no place is safe.” Fundy winced at the bitter and harsh words that left his tongue, averting his gaze the moment those beady black eyes turned to him. He shivered, pulling the blanket tighter around him. He didn’t like being scrutinized in such a way… he couldn’t see Dream’s face. Fundy would like to give him the benefit of the doubt… but this was the masked man who took everything from him. He didn’t want to see what was behind that painted smile. 

“You can’t speedrun an apology, babe― Dream.” Shit.

“I’m sorry… I know this hasn’t been easy… for you… for us…” His ex-husband’s tone was strained, with fear or with sadness Fundy couldn’t really tell. He forced himself to look at Dream, watching as the man placed a hand inside his sweater pocket, scouring for something… Fundy leaned further into the couch, wishing that it would swallow him whole. Then he’d be free. 

“But I… I want to fix this, Funds. We can still fix this. I have a plan, trust me. Remember those… questions you forced me to answer during our date?” Dream smiled, hoping that the memory would illicit some semblance of nostalgia within the fox hybrid.

“Oh! You mean those 36 Questions that you said were stupid! Those questions that were designed to make a stranger fall in love with you! How could I forget?” Fundy wanted to remain positive. He really did. But Dream’s presence made it difficult. He wanted to forget this. He wanted it to be over. He was stupid to think he could escape. Was there any land in this land that Dream didn’t own? 

“If you think answering those questions are going to help, then you’re wrong. You probably lied about your answers, anyway.” Fundy sniffed, his nails digging into the skin of his arms.

“Funds.” He saw two glints of light emerge from Dream’s pocket, and Fundy did everything he could not to cry right then and there. Dream had their wedding rings, the large diamond gems glimmering despite the dim light of the living room. Fundy had worked hard for them. He didn’t even beg or plead with Wilbur for money nor did he steal them from some unsuspecting L’Manburgian. Now… Now he glared and sneered at them as if they were nothing but dirt. 

“We need to move forward, and I know how we can do just that.”

“And what brilliant plan is that, Dream?” He heard the thwack of metal against wood, his attention turning towards the metal bucket Dream had placed on the ground. The man turned to pick up the flint and steel Fundy had dropped before, his fingers lingering in the air for a moment before finally grabbing them. Dream walked back towards the bucket, gazing longingly at the weddings rings before tossing them in. Fundy winced, the rings clamoring against the bucket’s steel surface. 

“What… What are you doing?” Fundy glanced up into that white porcelain mask, his heart stuttering in his chest.

“If we want a new start, we’ll have to do it again, right?” Fundy curled up into himself as Dream approached him, the flint and steel in the man’s hand giving Fundy a vision of cloth burning against a blood red sky. He felt nauseous as he stood up and followed Dream towards the bucket. They stood on opposite ends, an arm’s length away but neither of them tried to reach out. Fundy felt cold, his hands trembling. 

“We could restart. A new life. A new chance. At least… this should give us closure.” Dream placed a hand on his chest, wishing that they didn’t really have to do this. But they needed to.

Fundy felt his throat constrict, a hint of what was to come forming in the back of his mind. Was this really what they needed? Was this what Fundy wanted? He took a shaky breath, forcing himself to look up into that porcelain mask, the urge to tear it off rising with each second. He didn’t make a move. He didn’t want to get a sword through the chest, thank you very much. Fundy stared, hoping that the man would start to elaborate his purpose. Of course, he had no choice but to ask the question, 

“What is this, Dream?”

“There is something to the ritual of setting some old stuff on fire.” Setting what on what? Fundy felt his heart skip a beat. He suspected, but he didn’t… His stare focused on the contents of the bucket, holding in the tears that threatened to spill from his eyes. Would burning what they used to have really help them in the long run? Fundy didn’t know, and he didn’t know why he still cared for two rings anyway. Fine! Yes! They should burn them. 

“A way of saying this now lives in memory. A way of saying it's only a memory.”

Dream sighed, ���There's something to the ritual of setting a torch to what is gone.” The flint and steel were heavy in his hold, his knees threatening to give way as he stared at the devastation on Fundy’s face. Dream didn’t want to do this… but they needed to move forward, didn’t they? He recalled an old memory of his childhood, of a man standing before a bonfire as the crackle of burning metal rang through the air. This was how it was done. 

“The ancients did it to honor a memory, and now we do it to honor what we used to be.”

Dream held back the sob in his throat, “Let's say goodbye to our old life. It was heavenly.” Fundy wished Dream wouldn’t remind him. He didn’t need a reminder. Dream was adamant about this, and Fundy couldn’t bring himself to protest. He nodded, listening to the haze of words his ex-husband was spouting. He didn’t want to hear any of them. He couldn’t bring himself to. Besides, he already knew how this would end. He knew it since he opened the door. 

“Tonight… let's say goodbye to our old life...”

Dream smiled as he looked back, “…and the memories.” Dream recalled the first time they had met, no war hung over their heads. He remembered the hesitation in Fundy’s voice as he asked Dream out on a date. He remembered every moment they shared together. What a shame, they were coated in misery now.

“It was imaginary.” Fundy recalled the rush he felt as he prepared the perfect date for a perfect man (Hah! He was wrong about that). He remembered the fear he felt… of being rejected and mocked for even daring to try. He remembered the Dream he met. The Dream he loved. What a shame that the Dream he knew never existed.

“Which is why we say goodbye to it, and hello to this.” Dream gestured to the two of them, the short distance between them bothered him. But it was what they had. It was real. He raised his hands, ready to burn away everything they had. His chest burned with agony, the tears in his eyes hidden only by his mask.

“This is ridiculous.” Fundy reached out, grasping Dream’s right arm before he could drop the flint and steel into the bucket. Dream turned his attention to him and Fundy quickly redrew. He didn’t know why he had done that. He wanted it to be over, didn’t he? But he reached out… Why did he want to prolong the pain?

“Why?” This was the perfect way to move on. They needed to move on. Dream held back his frustration. He wanted to end it quickly, but Fundy just had to hesitate. His fingers curled tightly around the flint and steel. It needed to stop. He was that close to fixing it. Fixing them. That was how it needed to end.

“I don't see why I have to join your little cremation ceremony. You're the one who ruined us…” He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. Fundy took in a shallow breath of air, refusing to back away despite the aching need to immediately apologize. He wouldn’t apologize. Not to Dream of all people.

“It was a bit more collaborative than you're remembering.” Dream raised a brow at the accusation. This wasn’t entirely his fault. He hadn’t forgotten the way Fundy had mocked him during the meeting. His own fucking husband had laughed at his face and called him a bitch. He held back the seething rage he felt.

“All I want right now is the same thing I wanted two weeks ago. The truth. Did you care about me? And why did you let us continue in the first place?” Fundy let the matter drop. They didn’t need to argue right now. At least… not when Dream was holding the flint and steel. He only had two lives left after all.

“The person who I was on the day you and I met…” History would paint him as a bloodthirsty tyrant, but they forget that he too was but a child when the war began. He never wanted to go to war. He only wanted peace… but Wilbur broke the law and staged a revolution. What was he meant to do? He did what he had to… that doesn’t change the fact that he would scrub at his hands at night, willing the red that stained them to go away. 

“…was deeply ashamed of who he had become. So deeply ashamed of what he'd done…” His hand clenched into fists.

Dream’s hands began to shake, “…and when you showed him questions, the 36 questions…” Fundy scoffed, but it felt half-hearted. He remembered their date, Dream looked uncomfortable and Fundy didn’t blame him. Why would he? Dream only agreed so Fundy would stop pestering him. Still, he wanted to know who Dream was and maybe… he wanted Dream to know him too. He then brought up the list of questions his father had once used on his own date with his mother. 

“He looked ahead and saw who he wanted to be.”

Dream had loved who he was with Fundy. He didn’t feel as if he had some higher obligation, he was just… Dream. 

“We built a life. Forgot our history. ” Politics was never meant to get in the way. That was the agreement. No politics. That was their promise. Dream wouldn’t bring up the Essempy and Fundy wouldn’t bring up L’Manburg. What they did in their respective circles was never meant to seep into their lives. When did that change? When did that line get crossed? 

“Added the details that fit in our old life.”

They didn’t let the outside world ruin their life. Until now… “Let's say goodbye to our old life. It was heavenly…” Dream’s attention flickered back towards their rings, the symbols of their promise. Their wedding was an event to remember, a momentary peace between two warring factions. Dream had walked down that rose petal-covered aisle, a happiness he’d never felt before blooming inside his chest as soon as he saw his husband at the altar. He never wanted to forget that day. 

“… those old memories.”

“They were real to me…” Fundy was ecstatic with joy as he had watched his Dream walk towards the altar. He forgot about his fears, he forgot about his pain… He had Dream… and that had been enough. He wished he had known beforehand that while Dream was enough for Fundy, Fundy was not enough for Dream.

“I don't expect for you to understand perfectly.” Dream adored every moment he had shared with Fundy, he might even go so far as to call them his favorite memories. He doesn’t miss the doubting glint in his husband’s eyes. Even without this whole… dilemma, Fundy would always doubt their love. Would always doubt him. Dream tried so hard to show him that he was enough. He didn’t need validation from anyone… but Fundy never saw that. 

“I loved them, too, as much as you, and I’d want you to bury them with me.”

“Okay…” Fundy gave in. He was an idiot for that, at least that’s what he thought. He moved until their shoulders were pressed together, but he refused to look at Dream. They were here to finish… whatever it was they had. He wanted to get this over with. He needed to get this over with. All it took was one second.

“Okay what?” Dream looked down, registering the way their shoulders were grazing. He savored that small yet brief touch. It might be the last one he’ll ever get from his husband. He wished he could reach for the fox hybrid’s hand, but he knew he’d ruin the moment and probably get tossed out of the house.

“Give me the thing. There is something to the ritual…” Fundy doesn’t wait for Dream’s response, yanking the flint and steel from his hands. He needed to do this. Not Dream. He was the one who wanted to move on. He looked down at the familiar tool, the echoes of his past seeping into his mind. Thrill raced through his veins, the feeling of being free… When was the last time he had burnt something? He should fix that. 

“… of setting fire to the lie. A way of saying that's one win for honesty.” He felt nothing but sheer joy.

“What's done is done.” He heard the soft click, the flint and steel falling from his grasp as the flicker of flames began to rise from the metal bucket. He listened to the crackle of fire, soaking in the warmth. 

This was better. Fire made everything better. For a moment. For just this moment. He felt happy.

“Tonight… I say goodbye to our old life.” He could feel the satisfaction on his face. He could feel the apprehension in Dream’s gaze. Good. He drove them both to this. Fundy let out a small laugh, this was a good plan. 

“It was heavenly.”

“Tonight…” Dream’s heart ached.

“We say goodbye to our old life…” Fundy’s heart soared.

“And the memories.” This was all wrong.

“It was imaginary.” Fundy had never felt this free.

“It was heavenly.” Dream had never felt this hopeless.

They watched as the rings turned to ash.

Fundy smiled, “May it rest in peace.”

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

prev / next

[jcmorrigan]

What movie or tv show scared you the most?

OH HEEHEEHEEEEEE MY TIME HAS COME

I think this was probably the sign I was meant to be a horror fan, because I'm gonna talk about two movies here and neither one is a standard horror film. Now, I avoided horror films like the plague, but I now realize that's because of my aversion to jumpscares and gore, which have very little to do with actual scary stuff. I feared actual horror imagery as a small child, but basically once I read Coraline it all just turned around because that book gave me nightmares but I actually WANTED those nightmares and kept going back to the book. So what are the movies I just COULD NOT contend with?

First up, I have found that a lot of people have said this one, but really and truly, fuck Chicken Run.

I was...maybe ten when I watched it. Signed up for a goofy claymation adventure. What did I get? First of all, a whole lot of bleak color palette that warned me that this was not going to be a happy story. We are then shown the stakes right away: our entire main cast lives in a dystopian prison and if they do not find a way to escape, they will die. One DOES die. This is where a lot of people say they noped out right away, but actually, the execution of the dinner chicken in the first scene was tame for me compared to what would come next.

The pie machine. It's assembled, it's talked about, and eventually our two leads fall into it in a way that is designed to be fatal. Look, there are a ton of horror tropes in this scene alone. I haven't seen it SINCE THE ONE AIRING and I can still vividly tell you a lot of this. And if I walked into a horror film and asked for this, I'd come out super satisfied, but I was not expecting horror from this. First of all, I remember vividly the shot where you're looking from Ginger's POV falling down the shaft and the divider comes up to shunt her into the "meat" line. It's incredibly claustrophobic and you just get this almost jumpscare reminder that the character through whose eyes you see is regarded as nothing more than meat to be consumed. There is then an array of blades designed for close calls, and dough that essentially glues the lead characters down to a conveyor belt so they have to helplessly watch the death machines that are coming. Sticky stuff that roots you to one spot; that's another thing that just REALLY unnerves me and I love it if I'm reading CreepyPasta but I was not reading CreepyPasta; I was watching a children's film. The leads escape certain death by jamming the gravy system, causing the machine to overload on pressure, and here I feel like I should've been relieved that they escaped but instead I was the most unsettled of all when the pressure meter started climbing. I don't know if this film *gave* me a phobia of industrial accidents or if it just awakened what was already in my OCD little brain, but suffice to say that after this movie, I was hyper-aware of my own fear of things like hissing steam, rising pressure meters, and being in a room where large metal things were clanking. (I'm since over it; I've been exposed to it in enough things.)

Now, I was no quitter. I should have just noped out. But I didn't. I continued to traumatize myself. The next part of the film until the climax I don't remember so well - it wasn't as traumatizing - EXCEPT for the part where Ginger finds and rebuilds Rocky's circus poster. And now, as an adult, I can see how that was kinda supposed to be funny, like, "The goddamn chicken padded his résumé and the way they found this out was a circus poster." But little me was invested in these chickens, I wanted them to be happy, and what I saw was basically their death notice being signed with that scrap of paper with a cannon on it. I FELT that in my bones.

STILL NOT HAVING THE GOOD SENSE TO JUST EJECT THE TAPE ALREADY, I proceeded to the climax, in which what happens to Tweedy might be one of the most fucking awful things I've seen ever? Pinned upside-down in a superheated, confined space with rising liquid from below as the pressure meter starts climbing again. And her husband arrives just in time to see her like this but not in time to actually stop the explosion. Thank God it didn't actually kill her because even though I was already traumatized, that would've absolutely made it worse.

Thing is, ever since this movie scared the absolute shit out of me - and was probably the cause of the weird stomachaches I had for A WEEK after - I've kinda had this thing about reclaiming the scary parts and stomping on them while laughing maniacally. I feel like every time I've done a crossover project, there's been a temptation to write in an arc where the mains go up against THE PIE MACHINE and fucking win. And also there's whump with tons of comfort in my version to mitigate it all. I haven't done any such thing for TBTC...YET. But I know what I must do. I know who must destroy the machine and the Tweedys along with it. Buckle your seatbelts.

My final word before I move on is that as I ascend into adulthood, I think that for the most part, a rewatch of this film wouldn't traumatize me so badly. It'd still be gross and creepy in a way I think shouldn't be sent to children without warning, but I could deal with the imagery, maybe enjoy using it as whump fuel even more, maybe my horror side would really get into the peril this time. But the one thing I've realized is that this premise is fucked EVEN MORE if you're a grown-up, because as a child, you're sympathizing with the chickens. You want them to get free of this death camp environment. But as an adult, you start to realize that all Tweedy wanted to do was be a chicken farmer who sold pie, and her supposedly nonsentient animals ganged up on her in a display of unheard-of intellect among farm stock. This would then lead to her undergoing at least one near-death fate. Think about being a farmer in our world and the animals you keep GANG UP ON YOU LIKE PEOPLE because you're killing them for food. No thank you, no THANK you.

But surely this was a one-of-a-kind phenomenon. Surely, after this...after so many other people agreed with me; "Fuck Chicken Run"...no animation studio would ever pull shit like this again.

I had hoped that was the case until Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.

This is one I don't actually see lambasted as often. Maybe because the Chicken Run trauma crew grew thicker skins before this movie. I only sort of did. Maybe because no one ever actually invested in this film, having already predicted how much it would be garbage from the dumb humor in the trailers. Oh, but not me. I was a fool. Also my family picked it for a movie night so my fate was sealed anyway.

The original book is actually pretty frightening on its own. Food falls from the sky in such great numbers that it starts to destroy the world. Okay, that's terrifying. But kind of in the alluring way. I would keep coming back to the one page about the giant pancake on the school because the way it was drawn unsettled me so, with something huge and immovable blocking off the way to a building that usually has hundreds of innocent children inside. The film built on this and made it a thousand times worse.

Let's start with the goddamn Spray-On Shoe. Our main character is a mad scientist (but the good kind, apparently) whose list of bumbling failed experiments dates back to when he was a child and invented a spray you could put on your feet to coat them in shoes. He then gets laughed at because he didn't engineer a way to get the shoes off, and runs home in humiliation. Guys, the teasing/bullying factor is...not the most worrying thing about this story. There's a throwaway line about how Flint wears THE SAME SHOES into adulthood because to that day they simply cannot be removed. This seems like an incredibly urgent medical problem? Having your feet encased in the same rubber for years? The same rubber as when you're a kid? I just found myself thinking "What if my shoes never came off one day" and that terrifies me, okay? It's stupid and it's silly and it scares me. Even more than that, though, is the canonization of a polymer in this universe that can be sprayed on sticky and will literally never break no matter what you do to it, because that goes back to the pie machine dough principle. Being glued to a surface permanently is inherently terrifying and we'll go over this later because this is not the last fuckin time the glue shoes get brought up.

Flint invents a food-spewing machine. It ends up in the sky. He rides his popularity as it rains larger and larger food down upon the town and also the world. Most of this film up until the climax is unsettling but not AWFUL. Where it starts to go to shit is when Flint realizes his machine is too dangerous and shuts it off, only for the town's local greedy politician to switch it back on into an apocalyptic mode. So can we start with "Local town finds out its elected official is willing to sabotage their well-being in order to capitalize on the fame of a disaster-causing object?". Like, the whole film would've been solved so much sooner if there hadn't been a saboteur in the works - not a fun campy villain, mind you, but a saboteur who exists to drive the plot to the scary place. But I guess we need that narrative tension to justify having a film in the first place, so fine, I'll ride it out.

The main crew saddles up to fly out to the machine, which is now encased in a FLESH LABYRINTH of food, and...I'm just gonna rapid-fire the shit that happens at this part:

-The food turns sentient in order to defend itself. The cute animal sidekick brutally dismembers an army of gummy bears that is fully sentient and rips them apart to devour them.

-We enter the flesh labyrinth and it's exactly as much a horror RPG setting as you think it is.

-Now sentient cooked chickens besiege the party. The comic relief character is consumed by one, only to kill it from the inside and decide to WEAR ITS SKIN in what is seen as his defining character arc's conclusion. Wearing the skin of a dead monster allows him to forge his new identity.

-One of our party has to go back because of a tight passage lined with her deadly allergen, causing her to undergo anaphylaxis after an accidental mild nick. In the flesh labyrinth.

-The entire horrific journey is instantly INVALIDATED when it turns out that instead of the kill code for the machine, all Flint has is a file of a cat video. Which he finds out as the town is about to be obliterated off the face of the earth.

-So he solves it by jamming the works with the spray-on shoe and DID I NOT JUST GO OVER HOW HORRIFIC INDUSTRIAL EXPLOSIONS ARE IN KIDS' MOVIES? DID I NOT? ARE WE REALLY DOING THIS AGAIN? Anyway it's canonical proof that NOTHING can break the shoe glue and I should be happy for the town and happy that there's no more flesh labyrinth of living meat but instead I'm just terrified because of the door we have opened. We have imparted the existence of an indestructible sticky polymer upon the world.

-It's later seen used in a credits sequence to repair damaged houses. Which, first of all, given its flexible nature, is fuckin stupid. It won't serve as an actual wall. Second, that got me thinking about construction accidents involving the fuckin shoe glue. If that stuff gets dripped on a person's face -

-So then cue me sitting awake in bed later thinking wide-eyed about Cloudy with a Chance of Fucking Meatballs and realizing that this compound that is essentially a chemical weapon in the making is now in the hands of the mayor who deliberately caused an apocalyptic event over the town because he wanted the food rain. And THAT'S not going to lead to pretty circumstances.

I think you'll see that a lot of my fears with these two movies is "THINK OF THE IMPLICATIONS!" and I think that just shows how my mind works and why I'm drawn to fanfic so much. I'm all about diving into a universe, exploring its corners, analyzing it to death.

And with the industrial horror stuff, I kinda wanna bring it around to two other films that actually really subverted my expectations and made it fun. 102 Dalmatians was a fave of mine through middle school, but I remember when the climax took us to a big ol' factory and I got plumb nervous. After the usual blades and ovens of horror, the fact that it concludes with Cruella basically wearing a cake and a lengthy montage of the dogs kicking toppings onto her is just one of the most wholesome imageries. She survived the thing and now you get to watch her be decorated Lisa Frank style by her victims who are more interested in humiliation than murder, and I love that.

But maybe more prevalent is that I'm well aware that if certain filmography or plot points had been handled in different ways, The Boxtrolls might've actually frightened the ever-loving fuck out of me what with all the industrial stuff and medical horror, but I just...felt like that film was holding my hand the whole way through going "It's okay." The industrial stuff was framed in a way that was just campy enough and yet also taken seriously. Putting a really charismatic villain - ACTUAL VILLAIN, NOT CHICKEN FARMER OR CORRUPT POLITICIAN SABOTEUR - at the wheel was just such a mitigating factor that it gelled the whole thing together and I ended up LOVING what was done with giant machines and garbage crushers and explosions. And as for the medical body horror, I really appreciate how it was so baked in that Snatcher did that to himself - that everyone, EVERYONE warned him "Do not do this, you will probably die, I'm serious, bad fucking idea" up to the point of Eggs trying to plead him during an anaphylaxis attack, one last time, DO NOT continue down this path, we can find a way to heal you psychologically and get you some self-fulfillment. And Snatcher fully chooses hubris over the many, many opportunities offered him to be able to step down onto a safer path and that removes the fear and pulls it more into a tragedy for the villain. Not at all the same thing as "Sam the reporter is trying to save the world and doing her best until a fixture of the landscape accidentally sends her into anaphylaxis."

(Oh, and by the way, can I just - when I do see CWACOM brought up these days, it's always in the context of "This is the one movie where the guy tells the girl it's okay to look nerdy!". Well, no, not the way I remember it. The way I remember it, Sam basically tells Flint "I used to have really tacky style but have since changed it up of my own volition" and Flint is just like "NOOOOO YOU NEED TO WEAR GLASSES AND A SCRUNCHIE. I WANT A HOT NERD GIRL." This could've been pulled off right with some more introspection into female beauty standards, even in a tongue-in-cheek way, but right now it really looks like Sam just wanted to make herself more glam for a new image and Flint bullied her into regressing her style. Which I've also realized meant he bullied her into dressing more like she did as a teenager and normally I think that kind of shit is just "You're overthinking it" but since it's CWACOM and I spelled it out on paper like that, I'm just now realizing how that can be seen as pretty...icky.)

The one saving grace of CWACOM is that I was older by that time, and so it didn't affect me as hard as Chicken Run. But I still hold it dearly to my heart as one of the MOST DISTURBING movies I know, and by "dearly" I mean "fuck this movie, really and truly." I want to extend my thanks to 102D and Boxtrolls for giving me industrial-horror-based climaxes that were actually really comfortable, and again, probably what drove both of these was the fact that we had a campy diva villain in the lead for the potential scary stuff to surround and radiate off. Not a fuckin...ordinary chicken farmer who is just trying to make bank but is somehow passed as a Nazi allegory for trying to live her life as a farmer? I dunno, maybe if I rewatched that film I'd see she has a thirst for human blood too, and if I could fix fic Chicken Run my first order of business would be to give her a thirst for human blood instead of/in addition to chickens.

Anyway. Fuck both these films, EXCEPT for the fact that traumatizing scenarios can always be recast as whump material, and the next time I wanna do some crossover aftercare from a physically and psychologically damaging mission, I have a pie machine and a flesh labyrinth to exploit. REALLY HEAVY ON THAT AFTERCARE COMFORT THOUGH!

[witchfall]

universal constant

Rated: M Words:  5,711 Read it on AO3 (Wolgraha. Mild sexual content within) 

beta’d by @vaniccio

G’raha’s world ends. She dies. And then, inexplicably, she doesn’t. The Echo, he comes to realize, is a callous master.

-----

The first time G'raha sees her go down in a fight, he forgets how to breathe.

It is only a fraction of a moment. The air is knocked out of her in a thick cry. He hears the skid of her feet against mud and stone and the clatter of her bow upon the ground, even amid the heavy rain.

She becomes a wet pile of leathers, unmoving for just a moment too long.

An imperial mech bears down on her, but G'raha’s feet move automatically. He hurls his body over her and then he throws up his arm, summoning a shield of light just as a gigantic sword crashes toward them both. His arm vibrates so hard from the blow that his teeth clatter. His off-arm digs deep into the dirt. His eyes water -- and then Alisaie sets the enemy alight with red flares. Metal explodes in fiery flints over the field. He ducks under his shield so that his forehead nearly brushes Izzie's, and the battle stills, if only for a moment.

He opens his eyes (when had he closed them? Everything moves too fast for him to remember) and is met by Izzie staring up at him, her sea glass eyes bright against the mud smears on her face. Gods, he thinks, gods and wicked white and every curse, of course she is fine. Of course. The thought alone is cooling as a salve. He remembers to breathe.

But then she is suddenly, impossibly close, her breath hot against his face. She yanks him up by the biceps. Her fingernails dig into his skin, even through his clothes. She shakes him fiercely, yelling something, and it happens so quickly he doesn't process what she is saying until--

"--so don't fucking do that!" she shouts over the rain. "Some blows aren't meant for you!"

"Izzie--" Her name spills out of his mouth, but the rest of his words clot in his throat. Am I supposed to just stand here?

She shoves him away before he can finish.

The fight swells and her fury becomes magnificent to behold. He loses track of her, but never completely. He would hear her over the loudest of dins; whether via the lingering mysticism of the Crystal Tower or this young body's constant yearning, her soul has left deep marks on him. Its aura presses like high tide, smothering and heady in its power. Arrows fly. Her voice rises to haunting crescendo. Magitek scatters to blue sparks and flame. Only later when she vice grips his shoulders does he see the sickness that drives her into reckless battle. Her eyes scan him so thoroughly he would have blushed if he had the energy.

"Okay," she breathes. She shakes and shakes and shakes. Heavy rain plinks on dead metal. All else is silent. He could hear her bones chatter together, if he listened hard enough. "Okay," she says again. "We're fine."

She sways on her feet. He wraps his arms around her taut waist and pulls her close, but she resists him, tensing in his arms, turning her face away from him. Blood and ceruleum and ash drip from her pale skin as rain showers them both. He rubs her forehead with his thumb, but his gloves are dirtied with battle, and so he simply leaves another smear.

"Izzie, look at me."

"I'm fine."

"I know--"

"I just need..." She sucks in a breath between her teeth. He would give her anything she asks. The moon and every star in the sky. "Just give me a second."

He purses his lips. He pushes her hair from her drenched forehead and tests her tension. "I don't think I'll ever get used to it," he says.

She bristles in his arms. Her nails dig into his wrists. She is a bow string near to snap. "So?"

He blinks. "What?"

She sniffs heavily and still won't look at him. "This isn't new."

But he had never been in the field like this, never felt the slick of dirt and grime on her like this, never smelled blood and gunpowder in her hair like this. He drinks her in, how small she seems now, soaked by rain. He is well aware that she is only in his arms because she allows it, but the dichotomy between Izzie of the Fight -- the Izzie the stories sing about -- and the Izzie of the Aftermath is discordant. He fears one of them may shatter from the sound.

"I'm sorry," he says. "You're right."

A heartbeat passes between them. When she finally turns to speak into his shoulder, her voice is near lost in the rain. "...Just let me do my job."

He sways in place, holding her in his arms. He knows that tone -- the determination, the resignation of it. The stubborn will to stand in the storm so no others will. It is the only way she knows how to seize control.

An old frustration makes his tail thrash.

There is no time here to hash it out, not as the other Scions begin to approach. There is no time for him to spill his heart on the floor for her -- to explain just how each blow she takes is one for him, too.

"Alright," he says, picking his battles. "Alright."

-----

It isn't always like that. But he does learn just how terrible of a chirurgeon patient she is.

After another engagement at Bozja, Izzie lays her head in G'raha's lap while Krile sews up the re-opened gash in her side. Izzie grits her teeth. You’re here as a distraction. And a focus. So she remembers not to throw me across the room, Krile had said, blasé, and G’raha couldn’t tell if she was joking. Izzie’s body jerks as Krile begins another stitch. Her hand grips his tightly enough his mouth pops open in shock.

“Sorry,” Izzie hisses out. She lets go immediately. “Sorry.”

“I fear this is my doing." He manages a light tone despite the throttling nature of the pain. He opts to let his thumbs linger at her temples, instead. "For making you laugh too hard.”

“Shame on you.” She smirks up at him, wobbly and disjointed, and affection floods him, warm and rounded. She jolts again.

He brushes hair from her brow. “Are you sure you--”

“Nope,” Izzie says quickly. “I’ve had worse.”

Izzie, he discovers, hates pain medicine -- hates the way it blurs her thoughts and stunts her movement, even for something as routine as stitches, and he realizes he is there to shine like a sharp light through the sensation of Krile digging into her flesh.

“Prepare yourself, Warrior,” the lalafell says, and she goes for another stitch.

Izzie almost thrashes out of G’raha’s lap. He presses his palms into her shoulders, startled. He would soothe her with a healing spell but he’d been yelled at by Krile enough for that; such spells interfere with chirurgeon work by making the body repair along bad seams.

“Bitchass motherfucker, Krile !” Izzie seethes in his lap, eyes watering. “You’re doing this on purpose!”

An old, silent war rages as Krile meets her patient’s gaze. It doesn’t have to be like this, Krile would say. We live in a society with medicine. And Izzie would insist upon it because her stubbornness is near a sickness of its own. He frowns.

She is a horrible patient for one who must be treated so often.

Even so, she is not the only one with hurts -- and despite everything, he comes to cherish the moments late in the eve when both lay in bed, beaten and bruised and tired and together. He relishes the way her body melts into his when he smooths his hands over her shoulders, healing aether warming his palms. The way she presses messy kisses into his chest, his wrists, his jaw. The rejuvenating rest allowed two people, waking in shared soreness, beneath the soft dawn light.

It’s not so bad, he thinks; it’s all he ever wanted. It is a deeply survivable thing, to share these burdens.

Until, sometimes, it isn’t.

-----

Her striking shadow slices the beam of Garlemald’s fearsome weaponry, a flare in the negative against roiling light. He stands struck by her glory.

And then his stomach curdles as her shadow scatters, like grass eaten by locusts, beneath the assault.

He doesn’t even have time to scream.

She's gone.

She's gone.

He feels outside his own body, staring blankly at the scorch mark left behind on the ground where she stood. His feet move on their own.

Thancred shouts for him to hold the line. The man's voice barely registers over the white noise buzzing in G'raha's ears. What line is there left to hold? Was it really doomed to end like this? Even with the balance of the Universe reset by centuries just to--

Wait.

A figure appears amid the smoke and shadow, and he has to blink back the blurred edges of his vision.

She’s... there.

She stands, whole, where she should not be -- a filagree of light against the dark. Silence rolls across the field. It’s as if she’d never been gone at all.

She turns toward him, face blank. His throat is hoarse. He realizes he is screaming her name. The world skips past him like a broken orchestrion roll until he has her in his arms, pulling her down from the outcropping that made her such an obvious target.

She doesn’t resist him. “Raha?”

Hate surges through him then, suddenly -- a fear so poisonous it cripples him -- and he realizes the hate is not for Garlemald or even the killing blow but for the heroic image she strikes despite the damage it clearly ekes. She blinks helplessly, eyes reddened and bloody. Burns seep away from her skin like paint under rain, disappearing before his eyes. She gropes in desperation until she finds his chest and her hand wraps around the edge of his scarf. Her dirt-caked nails leave grimy splotches on the fabric.

“Do I have my bow?” she manages.

He can’t speak. Her hands reach for the weapon anyway.

His heart rips. “You shouldn’t--”

“I’m okay, darlin’.” Her voice is an unusual, knowing calm. “You shouldn’t be this far afield.”

And she turns away. She somehow returns to the fight. No one asks. They don’t need to.

He looks toward the backline and sees the rest of the Scions watching him.

They deal with it in their own ways, he realizes then. It's why Alphinaud focuses so hard on healing and the reason Alisaie throws her all into her offensive battery. It’s one of the myriad reasons Thancred took up his position as the group’s shield. Why Y’shtola turned from conjury to the most fearsome of black magics. Why Urianger brought the power of the stars to bear.

If they are enough, she doesn’t have to go through that.

The battle ends, largely a stalemate but slightly in their favor. Even Izzie tires. G’raha’s body protests but he ignores it; he half-carries her back to the camp and does not let her out of arm’s reach until they’ve regained enough energy to teleport back to the Rising Stones. Even then he feels she could too easily slip from this coil.

He knows she is not feeling right because she doesn’t rebuff him.

He fears his uselessness. A habit from a century of living with want. While he quietly helps her out of her armor and into a bath, he ponders what the Echo has wrought. He sprinkles healing salt into the water.

She died. She died! Her body flipped like a switch to a moment before her demise, shivering and burned, gasping for air.

He wonders at its function alongside her connection to the Ancients. It’s different from revival; she was disintegrated. The Echo made it not so. He knows she can die. He lived centuries to prevent that very outcome. But which deaths are final? Which can she shrug off? How many does she get?

Does she exist outside the usual laws of time and space? A paracausal existence, where cause and effect do not matter in ways comprehensible to the Spoken mind? If Hydaelyn and Zodiark are merely primals, the most powerful of all meant to rewrite the laws of science, is it possible that glimpsing the power of the Ancients makes it so the most Blessed of Her heart can only be felled in the most horrific and reality-twisting of ways?

Why? Why would that be Her solution?

He jolts when her wet palm settles against his cheek. “Hey.”

He breathes deep. Her soap smells like lavender and honey. He presses his mouth into the grooves of her hand and squeezes his eyes shut. “I’m sorry.” His throat tightens. “Today, I--”

“No,” she says, so soft. “I’m sorry. I know the...the weird thing happened.”

He somehow never had seen it. The weird thing. The Weird Thing. He’s shaken by this term. “Do you know when it will happen?”

She lets out a shattered sigh. “I don’t.”

“...do you...remember what happened to you?”

“Not really,” she says. A primal memory of the muscle, but not of the heart or mind. He feels deep relief right alongside revulsion. “I just know no one likes it.”

His mind buzzes. He has a thousand questions. He sometimes wishes the song of the Tower was clearer in his head, like back on the First. Perhaps the Allagans had known of this phenomenon; they seemed the type to cultivate such a talent. But he knows, too, the history of their avarice and he feels a spike of protectiveness at the thought of exposing her even to their memory.

The water splashes as she sits forward in the tub. “Raha?”

He meets her gaze and is lanced to the ground. Her eyes threaten tears.

“You just can’t think about it, okay?” She looks every which way. “Are you...does it…”

He leans forward and cradles her face between his palms. He kisses her hard enough that their teeth clash. His hands are still dirty. He would have to wash her face again. But he kisses her until her wet hands settle on the back of his neck and he feels her relax into the water.

“No,” he says. “It doesn’t change anything. Nothing could.”

His world nearly ended today. And then it didn’t. He would, for her sake, do his best to forget.

-----

He sees the blood spray from her arm. He watches her stumble and drop her bow. His body’s response is near automatic, summoning cool aether to weave a healing spell even as smoke fills the air. But when he charges forward to find her through the morass, she is not there.

He spins. He thinks of the blood rolling down her bow arm, sticky and dark.

“Izzie!”

Figures collide in the corner of his eye. He turns and turns and turns but her fiery hair is nowhere to be seen, wholly devoured by the chaos. He swallows down the building panic in his gut.

And then--

A thick silence descends, before his hair stands up and air sucks away from his ears and he dives to the side but it is not enough--

He stumbles to his knees from the concussive force and acrid stench of a fire bomb. Smoke burns his eyes. His ears ring from the biting kerang of gunfire. His shield nor his barriers are ready; the other Scions are scattered across the field. The Garleans must be catching on, he realizes, dark and heavy. They’ve had enough of the Scions’ tricks.

A war machina bears down on him. He spins to the side but the damn thing feints.

Raha!

In one moment, he is upright. In the next, he is on the cold ground. The world spins and spins and spins. His mouth fills with dirt; blood paints his teeth. Warmth trails down his chest and sticks to his tunic. Pain, dull at first, crescendos in the back of his head until it is shrieking.

A familiar voice rises over the din.

Fuckers! You’ll pay for that!

He opens his eyes. Blue-black debris flies overhead and then--

“Raha. Raha, look at me, okay? Look at me.”

Slick hands touch his face and turn his head until all he can see is the sea green of her eyes and the red flare of her dirty, war-tangled hair. He blinks. His limbs feel malms away. He can’t move fast enough to stop her from attending to him right here in the middle of a fight. Izzie’s hands slide up and down his chest until her fingers dig into his wound and he bucks in pain. His shoulder feels...incomplete. Bitten off. Wet and gone. Bits of fire dig into his skin. Shrapnel, perhaps.

“Okay. Okay. Okay. I can...no, can’t tourniquet there...cloth...pressure…”

She’s talking to herself.

He hears the tearing of cloth. Her stilted hands press a ripped part of her tunic into his shoulder. He cries out in agony as she pushes and pushes and pushes to try and stop the bleeding.

Her breathing is sharp and watery in his ear. “What the fuck were you doing,” she hisses. Her eyes are wide as saucers. “Where did you go?”

He braces himself to grunt out a few words, but he can’t form them.

“No. Don’t talk. Just focus on me. I...I don’t...” She takes a sharp breath and remembers her linkpearl. She pleas for a healer over the line, her voice shaking even as she barks out their location. Her hands are rough and seizing as she hoists him onto a field stretcher, but that is all he remembers before he wakes up under Krile’s care back at the safety of their camp.

He is laid out on a soldier’s cot, groggy and hazed, and he feels a strange anger simmering just below the medicinal fog. He hears his father’s laugh, cruel and thoughtless and drunk. You’ll never understand. None of us ever has.

Izzie sits in a chair, staring at the thin line revealed by the tent’s flap. Her face is still smeared with black oil and dirt. Her head is tilted slightly, like a garden ornament about to fall in the rain. His heart tumbles strangely.

“Where had you gone?” he croaks.

She jumps a foot in the air before she spins in her chair toward him. Her eyebrows creep near her hairline. In the next instant, she leans over him, hands hovering over his injuries. “I’m right here,” she says.

He thinks to tell her she hadn’t been. She hadn’t been where he thought she was and he thought she died, again, and he couldn’t bear it. Doesn’t she know that? Doesn’t she feel it, too? But her eyes are so wide and blown out and her skin shines so wetly he fears she is sick with fever.

So he buries the anger, deep and dark, and focuses on the feel of her fingers in his hair.

-----

He has sworn to love a wildfire. But wildfires are not known for their fairness.

The anger, simmering between them, spills out the next morning. She pushes open the tent flap and a warning klaxon sounds off between his ears, seeing the paleness of her brow and the darkness around her eye sockets. She had not slept. Yet her gaze glimmers, dangerous and lucid, and she says to him as she hands him a tray of rations: “You’re not doing this again.”

He squints up at her. Krile had said he likely won’t be returning to this particular engagement, but something in Izzie’s tone feels heavy and final. “I’m sorry?”

“We’re going back to the Stones.”

He sets the tray aside. “I understand I need to recover--”

But she won’t let him finish. “A warfront isn’t for you. You’re too...you’re too reckless.”

For a moment he forgets how to speak, struck dumb by her sheer audacity. “I’m reckless?”

She glares down at him. Challenging him. “Yes.”

She’s baiting him. He knows this.

“Izzie.” He bites out her name. She doesn’t flinch. “You were injured. It’s my job to protect you. You know that. You agreed to it.”

“It was just a small cut. You exposed yourself for no reason.”

He remembers the blood splatter. Anger, thick as sludge, makes his lungs hurt. “No reason? Izzie Nenelori, you took a hit that would have taken the arm off of any other man!”

“That’s my job!”

“It is, emphatically, not.”

She purses her lips. Her eyes glitter. He should fear this face, he knows, but he can barely see through his own fury, red and vile.

“You don’t know anything,” she hisses. “You know what I can do. What I can survive.”

Some dam in him breaks. He doesn’t think. He snakes out a hand to seize her by the wrist, as if that might prevent her from proving the power of the Echo here and now, and his heart stutters when her eyes widen. But he glares, intent. “Don’t. Do not even think to joke about that in my presence.”

“Or what?” Her eyes flick to his fingers wrapped around her arm. Her voice is desiccating. “What will you do.”

“Do you have any idea what it feels like?” His eyes burn. “To watch you throw your life about as if it holds no worth? Do you have any concept of the hole you would leave in our lives, in my life, if your Echo failed you once?” He can barely speak for the lump forming in his throat. “What it does to me, every time you shrug off a hit that should flatten you?”

She is silent for a single, heavy beat.

His throat burns as he resists breaking down in sudden, furious tears. “Do you?” he presses.

She tears her wrist from his grasp. She balls her hands into fists.

“How fucking dare you.” She takes a watery breath before her voice rises like the tide. “I watched you near die some three times already!”

His ears ring. Her words hang in the air, dripping and cruel and right.

“You think I don’t know?” Her cheeks glisten. “What it’s like to watch everything you love in the world fade? Are you really that godsdamn stupid?”

His mouth slackens. His shoulders sag. Tears leak down his face. He remembers, vividly, Alisaie flicking him on the forehead for openly considering his sacrifice for all their sakes. He had been so cavalier. He felt the circumstances had required it, then, and that Alisaie’s reaction had been driven by something a little illogical...

But Alisaie had been protecting Izzie’s heart. Because he hadn’t considered the possibility of the harm he could do to her, even then.

He grips the blanket, cursing his foolishness. Always the idiot boy in her presence.

“You’re right,” he churns out. “I...I’m sorry. I am.”

She turns away from him but she doesn’t storm off. He reaches, gently, for her hand. She does not pull away, but she does not loosen her fist.

“I struggled to remember, then, that I was...I was still...close enough to a Spoken man for it to matter, and…” He struggles to breathe. “I worry that you think the same thing. That you forget you are still a Spoken woman.”

Her shoulders crumple. Her hands fly to her face. She does not say anything for a long moment and he feels like a monster writhing in chains as he swallows down the desire to sweep her into an embrace. She would turn him away. She must come to him first.

“Am I?” Her voice shakes. “Am I?”

She sits at the end of his bed. He waits until her first sob breaks free before he pulls her to him, tucking her tightly under his chin. He strokes her back and hides his own tears in her hair. His shoulder be damned.

His lips brush her skin as he whispers his adoration. “You are.”

She is the girl he met in Mor Dhona, bright as seltzer. She is a rarity and fleeting and real -- like any girl, yes, but his.

-----

Even injured, he still tames her.

His hands rest at her bare waist as she reveals herself to him, word by word. She leans over him until her ruby hair pools in the cave of his collarbones and her taut arms frame his head. Her lips brush his jaw. “I just go crazy, thinking about it,” she admits, quiet, as if it is only the moon watching. “I survived a world without you, once. I don’t...I don’t think I could do it again.”

Before he can reply with words of his own, her teeth graze his chin and seize his lip. She eggs him on. Tell me, she would say, but don’t speak.

He flips her over him and pins her to the mattress. He buries his nose in her scent. Runs his hands down her naked body. Maps her sharp curves and deep scars, presses his thumbs into the dips of her hip bones, mouths her until her chest heaves -- even as she fights him.

His mouth is kind even as he manhandles her. His grasp is gentle but firm; she desires boundaries to rail against and he will give them to her. He drives her body into the mattress. He whispers sweetness into her ear as he does it. My star. Beautiful and glorious. I will never tire of your body under mine. He pulls her hair to expose her neck to his chastising teeth. Do you know how long I've wished for this? How lovely you look, laid bare and taken and mine?

It is the greatest honor he knows to have her like this, to break her open so the ache comes free and she can fill her heart with joy again. There are some hurts she need not bear. Pain need not be her only constant.

And it is thrilling to remind her who she belongs to.

He treats these moments like arcanima proofs. Through them, he describes the unknowable with what tools he has. His fingers, his tongue.

“I... Raha, I…”

Her voice saying his name sets his core alight. He is driven harder and harder until the pressure between them crests like a mad wave.

But when she finally cries out her pleasure and falls lax beneath him, he is the one who feels split in half. He leans over her, spent. His mind keens. His shoulder throbs. Her voice sends him a thousand different places -- to memories and fantasies that are both ancient and new, sometimes the same memory at once. A shattered kind of Echo.

She brushes the hair from his brow. He opens his mouth to speak but nothing comes out when he meets her gaze. Her lingering silence pressurizes the room. He feels lightheaded. She’s holding something back and he no longer has the mind to figure out what, exactly; it may as well be dripping from him along with his sweat.

Her hand cups his cheek. He closes his eyes.

He would not survive another separation, either.

“It’s not just losing you,” she says. “It’s losing...losing me. Losing the people who remember who I am. I don’t know who I would be.” She looks up at him, wide-eyed and small. “If no one...if you weren’t here to...remind me...”

He lays down and pulls her in against his chest. She presses herself entirely against him, bracing him. His arms tighten around her waist. His fingers thread through her hair.

“Sometimes I fear I’m no longer tethered anywhere in time,” he confesses, throat tight. Ghosts linger in his blood; that is the true curse of Allag. “That I’m a mistake in the tapestry...and that all could be unwoven in a blink…”

She pulls back just slightly and brushes the backs of her fingers down his jaw. His eyes swim, overwhelmed by the sweetness of her face and the bruising of her lips.

“But we’re here,” he says, voice breaking. “And if I am a mistake, so be it. I will fight for my place. To remain here, with you, as long as I can. Even if that means I must take a hard risk now and again.” His shoulder throbs, as if to be the declarative point on his sentence.

Her answer is simple and shattering. She just says his name. “Raha…”

He pulls her into a kiss. Her voice is what he had followed when all else failed. He named the Musica Universalis after her -- the beating heart of the city, the center of their strange star and the harmonies within. The place where merchants and birds gathered and sang their hopeless, hopeful songs.

She pulls away. Her back is taut, but her hands are gentle, reaching up to rub his ears, and he is helpless before her.

"Let me show you something. Tomorrow." She turns her face into his neck. "It might help you understand."

-----

Ishgard splits the horizon like Halone’s Spear, painted in light and heavy stone. Coerthas’ mountains swell just behind it. From here, everything feels worlds away, even as the wind sears freezing gashes across his face.

But the gravestone feels too small.

Izzie stares at the broken shield, eyes threading seams into the hole, and G’raha feels a rock slowly sink into his stomach.

"That," Izzie says, "is why people can't take blows for me."

A moment passes. And then she tells him everything from the day Haurchefaunt died -- the details Lord de Fortemps could not bear to put in his memoirs. The warm twilight sky. How she and Haurchefaunt only needed share a single look before they both sprang into action. How they moved in sync, down a walkway gilded in purple and gold.

How he said he couldn’t bear the thought of losing her, instead. How she watched the light leave his eyes.

She doesn't say it, but G’raha can feel it in her thoughts. It should have been me.

He guards her from the worst of the chill with his shoulders. "You could never know for sure. What might have happened if he hadn't been there."

Izzie's gazes upon the gravestone with a heaviness only worn by those who have made the same calculation over and over. "And Edmont wouldn't want me to think this way. I know. But I'm always going to wonder."

G'raha purses his lips. He remembers something a first generation settler of the Crystarium once told him. "That's the curse of the living, I'm afraid."

She eyes him. He can't pin if it's suspicion or annoyance or concern, her face half-hidden in a scarf.

"He knew who I was. Beyond the Warrior of Light. Like...someone else I once knew." She shoulder checks him hard enough that air rushes from his lungs, but he deserves it, teasing or no. "I was in a really bad place for a really long time before you found me again in another world. But even you…" Her gaze slides away and he snakes an arm around her shoulder. "...well, you know," she grumbles.

Even he almost died for her.

"So that's why it makes me crazy. When people try to help me. It's just easier for you to...not."

"But it isn't," he says softly.

Her hat re-shapes as her ears flatten.

"You've seen so much loss,” he says. “But what does that mean you'll do? Will you love others and receive none in return, in the hopes of sparing them some dark fate?"

She grumbles something, which signals to him he's right.

"It doesn't work like that, my love," he whispers into her ear, hiding the words from the icy wind. "And you, more than anyone, deserve the fullness of affection people have for you."

She bunches her gloved hands near her face, clawing at her cheeks before hiding her eyes in her palms. He thinks perhaps they've reached the end of it when she says: "I know you're right."

His heart jumps. "I do so love to hear it."

She gives the smallest snort of a laugh. He smiles into her wool cap.

“Ma always said the world doesn't owe us anything." Her shoulders bunch forward. "So it feels stupid to say I'm due for something." She pins him with her eyes. The heat in her gaze turns his frozen legs to water. "But maybe I am. I think I've paid for it enough."

She curls in around him against the cold. She suddenly sucks in a breath. It mists in the frozen air, like his own words inside his head.

"I want you with me forever," she says. "I mean it.” She hides her face against his neck and he's shot through with golden light. “Rings and everything.”

He feels dunked into champagne. Thoughts short out in a fizzy fog.

She leans back and searches his face. “Raha?”

“I want it very much.” His words spill out fast. “I want to be tied to you in any way I can manage. I never want to make the mistake of separating myself from you, ever again.” The cold air in his lungs grounds him. “If you’re willing to have me, of course.”

She stops her strange searching and her eyes land on the grave. She laughs like she has been surprised by what she sees. “Sorry,” she says. “I know that’s sudden.”

“Don’t apologize,” he says, perhaps too quickly. “We’ll do it right. With all the pomp and circumstance you deserve.”

He gets the reaction he seeks. Her head leans back in offended shock, eyes dancing over his face.

“No.” She glares at him. He grins, helpless. “No! I’m gonna do it my way and you’re gonna like it.”

“You sound very certain. As if I might not be scheming anything of my own.”

She scans his face. “You’re not.” Despite these revelations being fresh, her voice rings with uncertainty. She looks so concerned -- her brow so furrowed in consideration -- that he pulls her into a kiss. He can’t stop smiling. He is dumbstruck.

He feels a conviction so dense that he is, for a moment, cleaved to the universe.

When he pulls back, she is beaming.

[wunderlass]

I’m feeling so deflated to be writing this post. S1 had its flaws but those could be placed at the feet of a freshman showrunner who could learn from her mistakes going into S2 and up her game. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, and S2 was a mess.

S1 had a clear central plotline: the mystery of Rosa’s death, leading to justice in the form of Noah’s death and Rosa’s resurrection. S2’s central plotline was…um. The kidnappings? Leading into the plot to blow up Crashcon? I think? But there was so much other stuff gong on it’s hard to tell.

Carina – if you happen to come stumbling into the tags for reactions – you’ve already acknowledged that you struggle to edit your scripts down for length. And it does show in the finished product. But you also struggle to edit your ideas down to fit into the episode count you have. There were too many extraneous plot threads this season, too many guest characters, and the ideas you had were shoddily and sloppily executed.

There were shining moments scattered here and there and the occasional good episode, but for the most part this season lurched from badly paced episode to badly paced episode. Stuff was crammed into each episode and yet somehow the plot also treaded water until 2x11 when it all kicked off – and this was because so much of what happened in the earlier episodes didn’t feed into the main plot. Even Max’s death, the overarching motivation for many characters at the beginning, was shoved to the side for other ideas.

And the payoffs for each of these storylines was too often underwhelming. Max can’t come back because he’ll be full of dark energy and a destructive force! Resolved in 30 seconds by him blowing up a pile of stuff. Max can’t remember Liz! Fixed in the same episode. That pattern continued with the finale feeling like it was trying to wrap up all these storylines without really having a story of its own. The various cliffhangers from Crashcon were tied up before the title card and then let’s spend the next 40 minutes treading water again.

There were good moments in the finale. Max and Isobel’s discussion, the Maneforrest kiss, Rosa and Helena’s reunion. But as for the rest? Hear me whine:

-          Jesse’s death was anticlimactic. His line about “no more Manes men” makes no sense given as far as he knew Flint (and maybe Clay?) is still alive. His death should have been poetic because one of his son’s killed him but it didn’t hold the weight it should have, possibly because it came so early in the episode.

-          It would have been far better if Jesse had discovered that Harlan killed Tripp and buried him beneath the shed. How awful would it have been for his entire worldview to be shaken by that revelation? How perfect would it have been if he discovered that Tripp loved Nora? If he died after learning all of that, becoming desperate and sloppy in whatever scheme he was trying to pull off (self-immolation via the bomb?), it would have been a fitting ending.

-          So many characters this season were badly served. Alex, Michael, and to a lesser extent Max, had real arcs and progression. Alex especially you can see them setting up his growth for a payoff in the finale. 

-          Kyle was shafted, shoved to the side for the Steph storyline that didn’t feel like it was going anywhere, and I suspect we got a lot of that cut away to make room for other stories.

-          Rosa’s story started off strong and then mostly got tied into rehab or helping Isobel. Them having her out and about in public in Roswell is complete nonsense.

-          Max had a line for Isobel about her becoming her “entire self” this season, and that rang false to me. We’ve only seen Isobel develop her powers. Her personality has shifted each episode, fractured and inconsistent, dependant on what the writers needed her to do. She didn’t get much of a storyline of her own – the abortion was redundant, serving as a political soapbox for Carina rather than anything that served the character – and while she’s found out more about her heritage, that’s never been as important as Michael or Max finding out about theirs. She said she wanted to become more like her mother and that never went anywhere.

-          I was so hopeful that Carina had listened and understood the criticisms with Maria’s handling in S1 and worked to improve it. She certainly gave her increased screentime. Except, so much of that screentime was tied into Michael, and latterly Isobel. She lacked interactions with Liz or Rosa. She was in two whole scenes in the finale and after she broke up with Michael, she disappeared from the story, and if that doesn’t say it all…

-          And that break-up was contrived bullshit. I’m not saying this as a shipper. It felt like they’d planned to have them break-up in the finale and wrote it even though the motivations hadn’t been properly established. Seeds were sown but they were communicating well as a couple and resolving their issues as they went along. Suddenly those issues got un-resolved and were enough to break them up.

-          The most galling part is that so much of what follows comes from Tripp’s diary, and Maria is excluded. This is her story too! Louise was her great-grandmother! Rather than sitting around her in the hospital room reading this stuff, they do it in the Crashdown.

-          Which fits the pattern of what’s happened all season. Maria found out she was part alien and it was about her powers, rather than her legacy, rather than what happened to her great-grandparents.

-          And it became clear that it was done so they could do the Nora/Tripp and Malex parallel.

-          Which completely solidifies for me where Carina’s priorities lie. She’s been clear that Malex is her favourite ship on the show and Michael is her favourite character. But this season has shown that she’s incapable of ensuring her favouritism doesn’t screw over other characters.

-          The sad thing is this really does show up in marketing. Carina always pushes and praises Vlamis and barely ever mentions Jeanine on her SM. Media outlets write about Malex as the centre of the show and they aren’t supposed to be. We have a sci-fi show with a Latina leading lady and nobody cares – not the showrunner, not the media (outside of Latinx-centric publications), not the fandom. I’m not Latina and it frustrates me so I can’t imagine how actual Latinx people feel about that.

-          Maria was dragged into a love triangle that Carina never had any intention of doing justice to. Maria and Michael were always only ever meant to be a pit-stop on the way to a big Malex reunion. Sadly it’s clear the same goes for Maneforrest. Why write something if you’re only going to do it half-arsed? And it clearly was. That’s why the Maria and Michael break-up was so perfunctory and illogical.

-          While I’m on the subject of Maria – last season Mimi was clearly deteriorating and didn’t recognise adult Maria anyway. Now that seems to have shifted to Mimi’s mind moving through time. It’s still unclear if this is the alien DNA or what was done to Patricia Deluca in Caulfield. I don’t understand why they introduced both elements – apart from being able to give Maria a line about unethical science which OH BOY what a contrast with Liz.

-          Speaking of Liz.

-          Wow.

-          If the central storyline was the kidnappings and Crashcon shenanigans, she really had no involvement with that all season apart from the very end. All the investigation went to other characters. Her mother was involved, but not Liz.

-          Let me repeat that.

-          Our lead character was not involved the central storyline of the season.

-          Alternatively, if you think Max learning about his history, and all of the reveals about 1948, and Maria’s heritage etc etc were supposed to be the main storyline…

-          Doesn’t matter because Liz wasn’t involved in any of that either!

-          Liz was a subplot in her own show after they brought Max back. Hell, she was a subplot even when she was working on that.

-          The narrative focus really has centred on Michael, Alex, and later Max.

-          I wonder what they have in common with each other.

-          If you don’t believe me, check out the screentime figures for this season. Liz had the fourth largest amount of screentime in the finale, and she’s only had majority screentime in a handful of episodes all season (2x01, 2x07, 2x11).

-          And then realise that the plot kept moving after Liz left Roswell. She’s just not part of it anymore.

-          I watched the finale and kept asking myself where Liz was because she kept disappearing for whole chunks of time.

-          She was in her own subplot about science for the back half of this season, and honestly, I’m going to have to write an entirely separate post about Liz and ethics in science because NOPE.

-          Max was right. Liz deserved to follow her calling but she had options that didn’t involve risking the aliens.

-          As such the Echo break-up was stupid but whatever, based on this season I guess it needed to happen.

-          Did Max even care that Liz left? He loved her for twenty years and then when he had her, it didn’t matter anymore? What the fuck? Are we ever going to get answers as to why he fell so hard and loved her for so long, or is the “Malex is cosmic” story more important?

-          Also the whole thing about the Genericorp lady not being interested in Liz based on meeting her at the Crashdown was stupid. You hire scientists based on the previous work they’ve done and their credentials. Diego’s word should have been enough to convince her, and then maybe an actual proper job interview to make sure she was a good fit. Not “let’s sneak into her secret lab to look at what she’s working on”.

-          When Liz does leave, she only says goodbye to Rosa and Kyle. Arturo is mentioned but not seen. Which means the whole ICE sequence this season, which should have been a solid motivation for Liz to take the Genericorp job on its own, has been resolved without a proper payoff. All that stress – scenes that I know felt genuinely stressful to some viewers because of how close to home it hit – and we don’t even get to see Arturo seeing his “genius daughter” leave with his future secured.

-          It’s plausible that Liz said goodbye to other characters – Maria, Isobel, Michael – off screen BUT SHE’S YOUR LEAD CHARACTER AND HER LEAVING TOWN SHOULD CARRY SOME EMOTIONAL WEIGHT FFS

-          Compare Liz leaving and arriving at the ocean to Buffy Summers leaving Sunnydale in Becoming Part 2. There is no contest.

-          It’s clear to me that the audience Carina writes this show for is herself. And that’s fine. Plenty of writers do that. But that means she’s writing a show for the women in fandom who like epic mlm romances with lots of angst. And the problem with that is that this show has a Latina lead who is not being done justice.

-          This is not me railing against Malex. There is space in the show for both things. This is me expressing my frustration at a showrunner and creative team who are not taking care with all characters equally.

-          Carina uses her platform to throw in politics and use characters as mouthpieces without considering their impact. She thinks she’s educating the straight white people in the audience without thinking about how scenes of ICE intimidation, homophobic violence, and racism will affect the people who are impacted by those things in real life.

-          Am I done with the show? Probably not. I’ve got fics I want to write and while I’m not hubristic enough to think I can write better than a team of professional writers, I’m going to at least try and do some of these neglected elements of the show justice.

-          Hubris. Remember when I thought that was going to be a theme of this season? Apparently not. There was no theme, unless “no editing, we die like men” counts..

[bronanlynch]

weekly-ish media roundup (I’ve really gotta pick a consistent day for these but unfortunately the days of the week have kind of lost meaning for me, the only time passing I’m aware of is when it’s my turn to cook dinner. it’s been that kind of whatever length of time, y’know?)

listening: since sea shanties are apparently the hot new trend, please appreciate my two favorite variations on Drunken Sailor: Drunken Whaler (from the Dishonored soundtrack), which I love for how incredibly creepy it is, both in sound and lyrics, and Drunk Space Pirate by The Mechanisms, which just absolutely fucking slaps, wow I love The Mechs (sidenote: this recording is from their last-ever liveshow, and I am personally very sad I got into them just too late to ever see them live). whenever I have Drunken Sailor stuck in my head it’s usually some awful mashup of all three versions like. what do we do with a drunk space pirate? feed him to the hungry rats for dinner!

reading: Drowned God by R.F. Kuang (short story about one of the characters of the Poppy War series, which is extremely good like. political intrigue military fantasy, except I know when I say that most people probably imagine some grimdark white dude bullshit but no! this is not that! this is really fucking good and everything the genre can and should be!) it’s a very good short story and it did make me very sad, and also gave me lots of feelings about, specifically, one of the best m/f ships I’ve ever been convinced to care about. love a school rivals to reluctant allies to battle couple to enemies to reluctant allies again to maybe lovers to enemies again. it’s very tasty.

also, The City Unbreachable by Yoon Ha Lee (from the f/f anthology Silk and Steel) which has some incredibly intriguing sci-fi worldbuilding about sentient spaceship-cities and the societies on them and the people who are bonded with them

watching: Rowan Ellis, a video essayist I vaguely follow, made a video about Black Sails, specifically comparing the endings of Black Sails and Game of Thrones to explain like. why the Game of Thrones ending didn’t work, which is a niche that appeals to my personal interests, because when the whole self-congratulatory “storytellers are the most important people ever actually please give us awards” speech in the GoT finale started I was like. you’re not Black Sails you didn’t earn this shut the fuck up. so it’s satisfying to see someone else with an actual platform make those same points.

I don’t agree with everything she says, obviously, because I am opinionated and contrary but I like the way she analyzes things and I do think she makes lots of good points and uses lots of good examples. however, I do find it kinda disappointing that literally everyone who talks about Black Sails in any kind of serious journalistic way talks down the first season. she doesn’t do it as much as most people but I think that season 1 is good and everyone is just unfairly comparing it to season 2, the best season of television ever created, so of course anything else isn’t gonna look great by comparison. like, I do dislike the sexual assault plotline but aside from that, it’s really good?? literally the first episode has the “civilization (derogatory) needs gossip because it reinforces shame” speech. the “and they called me a monster” Moment and Flint’s Odysseus monologue are both season 1! the Max/Eleanor relationship and breakup that underscore the main themes of the show is season 1! season 1 is really good!

playing: more Knife of Dunwall, to the surprise of absolutely no one. I think last time I did one of these I was still stuck in the first mission because turns out sabotaging a factory is hard if you don’t pay for the favor that turns off the alarms, which I didn’t because I spent all my money on sleepdarts and elixirs. I changed my mind about doing the sabotage because I kept getting spotted, but when I went back to find the capitalist who owned the factory so that I could uh. torture the information out of him because that’s the low chaos option apparently, the labor organizer who I’d rescued had killed him. thanks Abigale. you’re so valid but you made my life so much harder. my expert strategy for getting through that level is that you knock everyone out before you fuck with any of the valves, so that when the alarms go off there’s hardly anyone left awake to come after you. also, move all the bodies away from the valves so they don’t die in the explosion. if you still care about getting low chaos despite picking the incredibly high chaos option. which I do lol. but it paid off, I barely killed anyone, I’m still at low chaos, everything is fine except that Billie made fun of me for setting off the alarms because Knife of Dunwall is a game about being disrespected by your own daughter.

anyway. I’m partway through the second mission now so. we’ll see how that goes

making: one of my roommates and I made pierogi from scratch last night which Imo is a little too labor-intensive to be worth it considering that you can also just buy pre-made ones and all you have to do is fry them. but it’s a cool thing to have done.

the thing I actually want to talk about is the lasagna we made today, or like. more generally the red sauce I make from scratch whenever we do pasta with red sauce, because I do not care for store-bought marinara on account of chunks of tomato are not a good texture for me. all of the sauce recipes including the lasagna recipe say to add crushed and/or diced tomato, and one of my favorite things about adulthood is that if you don’t like something, you don’t have to cook with it! so I can ignore those parts of the recipes! I do not actually have a recipe for the sauce the way I make it because I strongly believe that herbs and spices and garlic are measured with the heart, but trust me when I say it fucking slaps.

there’s spinach in there so that we, as a household, eat our vegetables, and the meat is ground turkey because I can’t eat beef

writing: mostly, cover letters. also a few fics with deadlines that I can’t talk about much yet because they’re for events, and then I posted a fic for an exchange centered around women in various MXTX works, which is about soft domesticity and I thought turned out pretty well

[echo-bleu]

Come Home

This was originally written for the Whumptober prompt “Embrace”, that I posted on AO3 but never here. @spaceskam reminded me it exists the other day... It’s not new, but I didn’t have time to create anything new, so it’s my entry for day 3 of the Missing Alex Manes Weekend ( @alexmanesappreciation).

MAJOR tissue warning. This is not a major character death, but...it comes really close.

[brain cancer, discussions of death, grief/mourning]

1.

“Genocide is the alien's intent for us during a systematic invasion. They're perfectly designed to kill!” Flint exclaims. “One of them can give you a brain tumor just by touching you!”

“Jim Valenti,” Alex blinks in shock. “Did Dad do that?”

“Subject N38 did,” Flint spits out. “They're coming. The question is whether or not we'll be ready.”

Alex shakes his head. “You're just as committed to the cause as our old man.”

“Dad didn't send you, did he,” Flint realizes. “No, Dad would never send you.”

Alex shifts. He sees Flint's hand move toward his holster, to the gun Alex just gave him back, and he prepares to move. It lasts exactly two seconds, until he hears the clicks of more guns cocking. A quick look around him tells him he's surrounded.

How did he miss them coming in?

“I'm sorry, Alex,” Flint says. He truly looks sorry. “We can't let you leave this place with what you know.”

They were here the whole time, Alex realizes. Flint's presence destabilized him and he was careless.

Alex slowly raises his hands, gun held loosely in his right. He's outnumbered one to seven. There's nothing he can do. He just hopes Michael and Kyle will make it out. Oh God, Michael. If they catch him−

He bends down to put the gun on the floor. One of the men−military, all of them, though Flint is in the Army and Alex can spot at least one Marine uniform−comes up to him with handcuffs. Alex doesn't resist.

“Come on,” Flint says.

He leads them to another room, filled with more weapons and equipment. Alex looks almost hungrily at the computers, knowing that he could get all he information he needs right there. But the bulky airman holding his cuffed arm makes him stumble, and he almost falls, barely catching himself. The pain that shoots up Alex's leg brings him straight back to his present situation.

Flint doesn't seem to be aware that Alex is not alone, and things need to stay that way. He needs to keep them away from the surveillance monitors he can see on one side of the room. The only thing Alex can do is give Michael and Kyle time to run, and hope they're not going to play heroes.

He has his doubts about that. There are dozens of aliens kept in cages downstairs, if he's interpreting what he's seeing on the surveillance videos correctly. Michael is never going to leave them here.

Flint is on the phone. Alex can't hear what the other person is saying, but he recognizes the unmistakable patterns of their father's voice. And even if he hadn't, Flint's tone would have told him.

“We captured him breaking into the facility,” Flint explains. “Yes, sir.”

Alex strains to hear his father, but he can't make out the words. Flint suddenly looks hesitant.

“But it's Alex, sir,” he says. “Are you sure?”

Hesitant turns to conflicted. “I would rather not.” Then to resigned. “Very well, sir.”

Flint motions to one of the Airmen to approach, and gives him the phone.

“Master Sergeant?” the man asks. He listens for a moment. “Yes, I will take care of the prisoner, sir. Right away.”

Flint's look at Alex is sorry and sad, but he looks away when Alex makes eye contact. Just from that, Alex knows his fate.

The Airman takes his arm again, roughly, and forces him to walk too fast, too hard. Alex knows there's no point in fighting, but he still struggles against the restraints all the way down to the cells' level, almost falling down the stairs several times.

They stop in front of one of the glass door, and Alex feels his spine go cold at the sight of the old man in it, and the sign on the side of the door. Subject N38.

“Open the door,” the Airman order the guard.

Flint looks away, as they push Alex inside.

2.

Kyle waits until Alex has almost reached his house to drop him off to ask. “What happened back there? Before the explosion, I mean. They got you?”

Alex keeps looking straight in front of him at the road. “For a while, yes,” he answers, forcing the words out. “I'm going to need you to book me an MRI.”

“What?” Kyle asks, confused. “Why?”

“I got confirmation that my father was probably the one who killed yours. By way of an alien. Subject N38,” Alex says. “I'm sorry.”

Kyle opens his mouth, even more confused. “We saw him,” he says. He starts saying something else, but Alex can feel the moment he understands.

“No,” Kyle gasps. “They didn't.”

Alex briefly closes his eyes against the tears threatening to fall. “Flint−” he starts, but his throat knots up. He's going to die by his brother's hand, on his father's order. What a family.

“What didn't you say anything?”

“We had more urgent things to take care of. And you and I both know there's nothing to be done.”

Kyle punches the dashboard. “Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck. We're going to find some way. Maybe Liz and I can−”

“No,” Alex says. “We are not telling anyone about this.”

“But why? If we can cure you−”

“But we can't. Project Shepard needs to be shut off, and the alien serial killer, whoever it is, needs to be stopped. It's far more important.”

“More important than your life?” Kyle asks.

“Be realistic, Kyle. Even if you find something, it's going to do what, slow it down a little? You're not going to cure an alien brain tumor in a few weeks. I'd rather spend those weeks destroying my father's work.”

“So you're gonna make me watch you die like my father, and do nothing about it? And keep it to myself? The fuck I'm gonna do that, Alex.”

“You will,” Alex says, looking at his hands now that he has pulled over and doesn't have the excuse of the road to look away. “You know why I need you to. Look, I know it's not fair, and I'm sorry. I wouldn't have told you at all, but I'm going to need someone who can help me get my affairs in order, and take over when I can't keep going.”

“Alex...” The pure anguish of Kyle's voice almost makes Alex break.

“Please, Kyle.”

“Fuck!” Kyle punches the dashboard again.

“Will you do it?”

Kyle sighs. “Yeah. I'll do it. But I will try to find a cure, and I want it on the record that I don't agree with this.”

“Thank you,” Alex murmurs, relieved. At least one thing he doesn't need to worry about. Kyle will respect his wishes. It's his job, the one he swore to do.

Now he has work to do, before he can let himself collapse.

3.

The first few days, Alex feels fine. Physically, at least. Psychologically...it's another matter. He almost goes to Michael, to tell him everything. In a moment's weakness, he thinks he wants to give them a chance, before it's too late.

Then he thinks of what he would feel if it was Michael in his place, and remembers that Michael just lost his mom. He doesn't go. He spends his time at the base and down in the bunker instead, looking through the data they got at Caulfield.

There's a video of Jim Valenti being pushed into Subject N38's cell, and Alex throws up when he watches it. He doesn't know if it's because it's his father's face on the screen, of if the tumor that's already visible on the MRI is starting to affect him.

It's growing inside his head. His own death.

He can't feel it yet.

Alex and Kyle catch up with the Noah problem after the fact, when Liz calls them in panic and they find her hugging Max's dead body, and a very alive Rosa looking on, confused.

Max doesn't stay dead long. The storm is going strong again outside, and Isobel is the one who figures out how to channel the lightning into Max's body. He's been dead longer than a human could have gone pumping blood, but then he's not human. He gets off lightly, just weak and sore for a few weeks.

Hugging Rosa, Alex reminds himself that he's not going to get the same chance, and he wants to cry. He thought he could handle it, die in dignity like he always hoped he would, but this isn't combat. This isn't one gunshot and−gone.

It's weeks, months of waiting for the inevitable end.

It's going to be ugly.

He looks at Kyle across the room, who is looking back at him sadly. Kyle always looks at him sadly, now.

Alex is glad none of the others know.

4.

Five days after Rosa is resurrected, Alex walks into the Wild Pony, hoping to drown his sorrows for a while, and he finds Michael kissing Maria behind the counter. It's a punch to the gut.

Only as he backs out of the door, deciding he'll do his drinking at home, Alex realizes that it doesn't feel like he thought he would. Michael is lost to him anyway. He's planning to leave the planet, and Alex won't even live long enough to see him go. He thought his heart would break. But his heart is already in too many pieces to break more.

He can't help the jealousy, but it's a relief too, somehow. If Michael has moved on, if he's happy with Maria, then Alex's death won't destroy him.

He hopes Michael will forget him, once he's gone.

He gets drunk enough that he doesn't remember the rest of the night.

He wakes up to Kyle's knock at his door. Kyle has come like clockwork every morning before his shift, making the two-hour round trip to check on Alex. Alex keeps telling him it's not necessary, but he won't budge on this.

Alex tries to clear his head of the hangover, going to open the door on crutches.

“How long did it take, for your father?” he asks, before he even realizes how insensitive it is. But he needs some kind of time frame. He's avoided thinking about it so far, about how many months or weeks he has−how many days.

Kyle runs a hand down his face. “Alex...” he mutters. “I can't do this right now. Come sit down.”

Alex obeys, but he still pushes. “Please.”

Kyle sighs. “He died March 9th, and the worst of the symptoms started in late February.”

“Time stamp on the video said February 15th,” Alex mutters. “Less than a month.”

“You said yourself that he was in the cell a lot longer than you,” Kyle says. “You may have more time.”

Alex looks up at him. A month. He has a month left to live, maybe two if he's lucky. It's been six days already.

“I'm sorry,” he says. “This has to be so hard on you.”

Kyle laughs humorlessly. “I'm not the one−” who's dying, Alex can fill in, but Kyle's voice breaks as his laugh turns into a sob.

Alex's eyes are dry as he hugs his friend. He feels cold.

5.

“Where is he?” Michael almost barrels into Kyle. “Where is Alex?”

Kyle sighs. “I don't think he wants to see anyone,” he says.

“Why? Is it bad? What is wrong with him?” Michael asks, panicking.

Kyle bites his lip. He promised, but he's pretty sure the cat is already out of the bag. Instead of answering, he nods to the door of Alex's hospital room behind them. Michael doesn't even hesitate before he knocks on the door.

“Come in,” Alex says, his stomach feeling like lead. Him collapsing in the middle of the Crashdown Café was bound to come back to his friends' ears, but he'd hoped for more time. It's been twenty one days since Caulfield, and he's been hiding the bouts of nausea and dizziness, the blinding headaches, for over a week now. He's running out of time.

He fiddles with his IV as Michael comes in. The truth is, he'd hoped he'd be able to hide it until the end, to avoid making his friends go through this. But it's unfair to Kyle to ask him to carry this on his own any longer, and the choice has been made for him by his traitorous body anyway.

“Alex! What happened?” Michael asks, coming closer.

Alex sighs. He wants so hard to say it's nothing−he wants it to be true. He doesn't know how to announce it.

“Alex, please. You're scaring me.”

“I had a frontal lobe seizure,” Alex explains. He chokes up on the rest.

“What does that mean?”

“The seizure itself is nothing bad, but it happened because...I have a brain tumor.”

“What?” Michael gapes. He drops into the chair beside Alex's bed. Alex bring his good leg up to his chin and wraps his arms around it, trying to distance himself. He thought this would hurt less if Michael was with Maria, but he heard they broke up a week ago.

“In Caulfield...my brother Flint got to me. He...my father ordered him to take me to Subject N38.”

“No,” Michael shakes his head. “No.”

Alex looks away.

“The tumor's already grown enough for symptoms to appear, so I don't have a lot of time left,” he says, as matter-of-factly as he can.

The look on Michael's face in unbearable. Raw pain, purer that anything Alex has ever felt. He closes his eyes, unable to stand it.

“No, it's not right,” Michael mutters. “You can't−” He chokes.

“I'm sorry,” Alex says.

Michael swallows several times. “How long have you known?”

“Since the day it happened,” Alex answers quietly. “You had so much on your plate.”

“Who else knows?”

“Kyle. Liz found out today, and now you.”

Telling Liz was painful and hard and sad, but it doesn't even start to compare to this. Alex dreaded this moment for a reason.

It takes Michael almost five whole minutes to break down. Alex leans in to allow him to bury his head in his shoulder. He hoped for anger, almost. Rage. He wants Michael to scream at him for not telling him sooner, he wants…

Anything but this.

Because he can't stand Michael's pain. Because this is what drives it home.

He's going to die. Not someday, not maybe, not even probably.

He's going to die, and he'll spend the little time he has left watching his body give out on him.

Feeling cold and numb, he waits until Michael's heart-wrenching sobs start to abate to speak again.

“When I was injured in Iraq, I was certain that I was going to die. The whole building collapsed on me, and I was trapped and pinned down. The whole time, I was thinking about you, and I regretted that we never got to make things right. It feels a bit like...like I was given a little more time, somehow, to get back to you.”

Michael pulls back to look at him, his face streaked with tears.

“Alex−”

“But it also means that I've been living on borrowed time, for almost a year,” Alex continues. “I'm so glad I got the chance to see you again. To learn who you really are, even. That we got a little time together.”

Michael lets out another sob.

“But I'm running out of time,” Alex continues. “And you've moved on. It's a good thing. It will be easier for me to go, if I know that you're going to be okay.”

Michael shakes his head vigorously in denial.

“I haven't moved on,” he says. “I went to Maria because it was easier. It didn't hurt.”

“Loving me hurts?” Alex asks, but he already knows the answer. Of course it does. What has he brought to Michael but pain?

“Not loving you. But being with you. Being without you. We just kept hurting each other. I was running. I wanted to get away from the pain.”

“I know,” Alex murmurs. “It hurt, to see you with Maria, but I understand.”

“You're...knowing that you're dying, it feels like...” Michael makes a gesture when words fail him. “The end of the world. But I've also realized how wrong I was.”

“About what?”

“Loving you is worth all the pain in the world. I didn't realize it sooner, and I'm so sorry.”

Alex chokes up. “No, Michael, I am sorry. For leaving, every time. And I'm sorry that I'm going to leave you again.” Because this time I would have stayed, Alex doesn't add. There's no point in making this even more painful for Michael.

Michael makes a wounded animal sound, hugging Alex again.

“You know what?” he says after a bit. “We're gonna make the most of the time we've got, okay?”

“I'm going to be very sick,” Alex bites his lip.

“And I'm going to take care of you. Starting right now.”

Michael stands up, untangling his hands from Alex, who lies back into his pillow, exhausted. Michael dries his face with his sleeve, then gives Alex one more look, heartbreakingly gentle.

“Valenti!” he calls, going to open the door.

“What?” Kyle responds from where Alex assumes he's still sitting with Liz.

“Does he need to be in the hospital?”

Kyle comes over to the door where Alex can see him. “In here we can at least check on his vitals−”

“Is there anything you can actually do?” Michael asks, his voice rising in irritation.

Kyle makes a grimace, like he hates what he's going to say. “Keep him comfortable?”

“I doubt he'll ever be comfortable in a hospital bed,” Michael shakes his head. “Can I take him home?”

Kyle looks between him and Alex for a moment before he makes a decision. “Yes. I'll come check on you as much as I can. Just let me get you the discharge papers.”

“I'm going to be with you until the end,” Michael says when he's gone. “I promise.”

Alex doesn't know whether to be heartbroken or relieved. He shivers, and Michael snuggles up against him on the bed, warming him up.

6.

“Kyle and I looked over your scans,” Liz says a couple of days later, when she and Kyle visit Alex at the cabin. They've been working non-stop since everyone found out. “We're going by the progression of the tumor, and Jim Valenti's medical file to try and predict what will happen.”

“I already know what will happen,” Alex shrugs.

“We wanted to have a more precise time scale. Look, Alex, I still don't get why you didn't tell me earlier, but what Kyle found shows some promise.”

“There's no time to test it, or implement it,” Alex says. He and Kyle have spoken about it many times. “Even with your genius, Liz, I'll be dead long before you manage to make it into a cure.”

“Maybe not,” Liz says. “We have the pods. We can keep you in stasis for a while, long enough enough to figure it out.”

“It could be years. And we don't know that it would even work.”

“Don't you want to try? It may be your only chance.”

“It's a slim one at best. I don't want to give up on what little time I have left for a fool's hope.”

Liz and Kyle exchange a look. Kyle takes a deep breath.

“Listen,” he says. “I watched my father die. I wasn't there the whole time, but I was there at the end, and I watched him suffer. It was...excruciating.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Alex frowns. “I already know that.”

“Because...you're at the end your rope here. From here on, it will be nothing but pain. Your sight will be the first to go, but the tumor has already metastasized all over your body, on your bones, your organs… The other day was just the first symptom.”

“It wasn't,” Alex shakes his head. “I've been feeling ill and sore for a while.”

Kyle closes his eyes. “It's only going to get worse from there.”

“I know.”

“Do you really want to go through this?” Liz asks.

Alex sighs and runs his hand through his hair. “No, Liz, of course I don't. But I don't have a choice, do I? Not a real one.”

“We could−” Liz hesitates. “Maybe there's a middle ground. By our estimation, you have another two weeks, maybe, before the tumor's damage will be permanent, even if we were to find a cure. If we manage to make real progress during that time, would you let us put you in stasis? And just...I don't know, we can promise you to bring you out after a certain length of time if we don't manage to make a cure if you really want. I understand that you don't want to end up in there forever, I mean, with the whole thing with Rosa… But we can't lose you, Alex. Not like that.”

Alex closes his eyes. We can't lose you isn't helpful. They will. They'll lose him, and they need to be ready. He doesn't believe that Liz can make the cure, not really.

He still wants to hold on to that sliver of hope.

“Okay,” he says slowly. “If you have something promising by then, I'll let you put me in a pod. Just...you have a year. Swear that if you don't have a cure by then, you'll get me out and let me go.”

Liz has tears falling down her face as she murmurs, “I promise. One year. I'll figure it out.”

“No, don't promise that. You know you can't. Promise me that you won't leave me in that pod forever.”

“One year,” she says. “Then we take you out. Whatever the outcome.”

Alex turns to Kyle, who nods solemnly, swallowing back his own tears.

He waits until he's alone to break down.

It's better this way.

7.

They have five days of near peace. Alex's pain is managed well enough with strong painkillers, and though he has energy for little else than sleep or rest on the couch, at least he's fairly comfortable.

He discovers that Michael is a pretty good cook, if you give him an actual kitchen. He can't keep much food down anymore, but he tries to eat anyway, just to taste it.

He falls asleep in Michael's arms, or to the sound of Michael's guitar. Alex would love to sing for him, but he doesn't have enough voice left in him. He's glad Michael has his music back. It's something, at least. Maybe Alex will not live to see his father brought to justice, but he'll leave something right.

The fight has gone out of them, and all that's left is tenderness, tinged with grief. Where their relationship was once fireworks and crash landings, it's now soft and bittersweet. They don't argue. They don't need to communicate much even, which is good as Alex progressively loses the energy to speak. They cuddle up together when Alex is cold, which is most of the time.

There's no fear of the future. Not of that future, anyway, the one they both dreamed of so much that they pushed each other away because they were terrified of screwing up. It's gone. They only have a few days, and the best they can do is be together.

They both try their best not to think of after. Alex has handed the Project Shepard work to Kyle entirely, since he can barely get out of bed anymore, and his affairs are in order, so he tries to let go and live in the moment. Actually live each moment he has left.

Michael still can't imagine a world−a universe−that doesn't have Alex in it. The only muddled thought he has is that he'll finish his spaceship and get away from this planet. Permanently.

But for now, he holds Alex in his arms and watches him sleep, and he tries very hard not to think.

For Michael, the worst moments somehow aren't when Alex cries from the pain in his arms. It's sitting in a corner of the room when Maria and Liz visit Alex, who can barely sit up in bed anymore, and they try to laugh and smile through the tears. It's watching Alex's face fall when he opens an invitation to one of his Air Force friends' wedding with trembling hands, and they both know he won't be alive by the wedding date. It's feeling like he's mourning Alex before he's even dead.

Dead. The nausea settles deeper in Michael's stomach every time he thinks about it−he doesn't think about anything else. At this point, as he watches Alex suffer so much, he almost wishes he was safe and painless in a pod. But he also can't imagine living in a world where Alex isn't there.

On the sixth day, Alex wakes up screaming in pain.

Michael immediately jumps up and cups his face in his hands, trying to calm Alex down enough to get pills down him, but nothing helps. Alex feels like his whole body is on fire.

It doesn't start to abate until Alex is hooked to the highest dose of morphine that won't outright kill him, and even then, as he sleeps, his face is lined with pain.

“Either the tumor's reached some nerve center, or the metastases on his spine have gone through the bone and into the nervous system,” Kyle diagnoses. “Either way, there's nothing I can do except try to relieve the pain.”

“Nothing?” Michael asks, desperate.

“No. We may have less time than we thought.”

Alex still won't go into a pod, though. The pain is worth a little more time with Michael. With all of his friends. He's not ready to go.

He doesn't believe, in his heart, that he'll even come out if he does. So he fights for another day.

8.

When he opens his eyes to see a large black spot in the middle of his vision, Alex knows it's the end. This is what Liz and Kyle told him about, the beginning of the permanent damage. If he doesn't go into a pod now, they probably won't be able to fix him even if they find a cure. He has a decision to make.

It's been twelve days since he ended up in the hospital, two days off their mark. Liz and Kyle haven't come up with some amazing cure, or even a good idea about one. And Alex has run out of time.

Weakly, he shakes Michael's arm to wake him up.

“Alex?” Michael asks sleepily.

“It's time,” Alex rasps. He's barely been able to speak for days, and no more than one or two words at a time.

Michael sits up, suddenly wide awake.

“The pod?” he asks.

Alex nods.

They've prepared for this, but it doesn't make it easier. Michael doesn't cry as he gets dressed, and texts everyone. He doesn't cry as he gently removes Alex's IV, hoping the dose of morphine he has in his blood will be enough to tide him over until−

Fuck. He does cry as he picks Alex up, his underweight, frail body limp in his arms. Alex doesn't stop staring at him, his eyes dropping but alert. He cries as he straps Alex in the passenger seat of the car, pulling it back so he's as comfortable as possible.

He can barely see the road, as he drives to the turquoise mines. He steers with one hand, the other squeezing Alex's, and they stay silent.

Michael has already said everything he can say that doesn't make him want to curl up into a little ball.

He carries Alex again, refusing to use his telekinesis, into the pod cave. The others are already here, Liz ready with the melted silver. Michael puts Alex down on the blanket she's prepared and pulls his head into his lap.

One by one, they come to say goodbye, and it feels far too much like a funeral. Isobel and Max, who know Alex the least, stay politely away, Isobel only squeezing both his and Michael's shoulder with teary eyes. Maria and Liz are openly crying as they hug Alex one last time, and he struggles to say his goodbyes.

“We didn't get to spend much time together, mijo” Rosa tells Alex, kissing his brow. “I hope you come back like me and we get to hang out.”

Kyle looks devastated when Alex makes him promise again, but he obeys. “We'll pull you out in a year at the latest. You can trust me.”

Alex nods, relieved, and smiles up at him. “You were...a good friend,” he rasps out.

Kyle lets out a sob. “You're the best friend I've ever had, Alex,” he murmurs.

Alex hugs him weakly, and he falls back down into Michael's lap when Kyle lets him go, his body even limper, letting out a pained moan. The painkillers are running out.

“'s time,” Alex mouths.

Michael moves him as little as possible while undressing him, and Kyle helps him spread the silver over Alex's body. Liz and Maria watch on, crying in each other's arms.

Lying in Michael's embrace, tears running down both of their faces, Alex tries to imprint that moment into his memories. It's not going to matter. In a few minutes, he'll be in stasis for an indefinite amount of time, and almost no chance of ever coming out of the coma it's going to put him in. His memories will scatter away like they never meant anything.

He's glad that he gets to die in Michael's arms, but he wishes he'd gotten the time to live with him.

“I love you,” Michael sobs.

“Love...you too,” Alex forces out. “Be...happy.”

Michael closes his eyes briefly, and kisses him as softly as he can. His hands don't leave Alex skin until he's inside the pod fully, and his eyes drop closed.

Leaning his brow on the membrane of the pod, he lets the sobs wrack his body as Isobel comes to hold him.

9.

One year later.

Liz checks her watch before she enters the Wild Pony. It's late already. She didn't see the time pass in her lab. She'll need to make up for all the time she's spent researching things that have little to do with her actual job, but she can do that later. For now, she's on a mission.

Maria is behind the bar, and she beckons her over, nodding to the place where Michael is sitting, his head in one hand, nursing a glass of what looks like Coke with the other. He stopped drinking alcohol months ago, but now he looks like he's in need of a stiff drink or two.

Or of some good news.

“Michael,” Liz puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Liz,” Michael raises his head. The pain in his eyes is nearly unbearable. “We've run out of time. It will be a year tomorrow.”

Liz swallows. “I think I've got it, Michael. I think I've got a cure.”

Michael stares at her for a while, uncomprehendingly. “You−”

“I'm not 100% certain, it doesn't work like that, but...I think so. I can save Alex.”

“Oh thank God,” Maria murmurs, as Michael gapes in shock. He bites down on his finger, hard, tears already falling from his eyes.

Liz gathers him in her arms before he falls off his stool and hugs him hard.

It's been a long, hard year, for all of them.

“The compound I've designed will act as a sort of chemotherapy,” Liz explains later, when they've all gathered in the pod cave. Michael is kneeling in front of Alex's pod−the one that used to be his−his head against the membrane, in the same position he's been in so often, but he's listening. “It's based on the same technology that Flint Manes and his team used to make the biochemical bomb.”

Finding the compound where the bomb was stored was their largest breakthrough in the last six months, as well as the official end of Project Shepard. All three aliens agreed that despite its danger to them, the bomb should not be destroyed if it could help Alex.

“It will take several injections and a few months to get rid of the tumor, but the chances that it will work with minimal damage to Alex are good. Unlike chemotherapy, this will be able to target only the alien cells in his body, so it shouldn't be dangerous for his health, though I can't guarantee there won't be side effects.”

“He will live?” is all Michael asks.

“He will.”

“Then do it.”

Liz looks around the room. Kyle is technically Alex's medical proxy, thought those rules don't really apply here. He nods, too, hope shining in his eyes, finally overpowering the guilt and grief that have never left him. Maria smiles at them, reassuringly.

“Max, I'm going to need you,” Liz says. “I know you can't heal him, but the tumor is technically injuring his brain at this point, and it's a foreign body, so I'm hoping you can keep it at bay long enough for the treatment to start working.”

“I'll do my best,” Max nods.

“We have plenty of acetone,” Isobel adds.

“Kyle?”

“I'll handle the IV,” Kyle says, coming closer. “You do the initial injection.”

Liz nods, checking the syringe in her hands.

“Michael, we're all ready,” she says.

Michael takes a deep breath, and plunges his silver-stained hands into the pod. In seconds, he has a naked, warm, sleeping Alex lying in his lap.

“Hey,” he murmurs as Liz and Max buzz around him. Alex blinks his eyes open. “It's time to come home.”

[planetsam]

In hindsight, he probably should have expected this.

Another countdown, another life or death situation measured by a stupid timer that echoes the rapid thump, thump, thump of his heart. Flint’s presence is a nice touch. Of course some part of him is furiously, brokenly resentful at the absence of his mother, but he shoves the thought away and tries again to get at the glass.

No dice.

On the other side of the barrier, Alex works. Michael can’t see what restrains him, but Alex is another story. The bruises, the cuts, they’re all painful obvious. To say nothing of the sleepless shadows and pallor of his skin. His hands aren’t steady but he keeps at it, bracing one hand against his knee or the husk of the bomb Michael made.

“Stop, stop,” Michael says finally, trying to put authority into his voice, “Alex—“

“No.”

“Alex!”

He gets a dagger filled glare before Alex turns back to the bomb. Stubborn, stubborn asshole. Michael feels every part of him tense at the dismissal. Of course Alex is going to stay and try. Stay and die, he corrects himself. There’s no saving both of them, no more than there is a them.

“Why then?” Michael challenges instead, “what are you trying to prove?” He sees Alex’s shoulders tense and he digs into the wound, “you’re not like them if you leave,” he says, trying to make his voice steady, “Alex, listen, you’re not another Manes,” Alex says nothing, just goes a little tenser. The beeping seems turn more frantic, “damn it Alex, don’t do this!” He says slamming his hand against the glass.

“Nothing is going to happen,” Alex says, his voice infuriatingly calm and his hands still working, “if you stop distracting me.”

Michael hates how much he wants to believe that. It makes him feel like this is another parallel to an earlier time. When he wanted to believe in someone’s words so damn badly. No matter how much the world kept telling him it was a stupid fucking thing to do. He wants to believe when Alex says it’ll be okay, that al he has to do is something so simple and everything will be fine. There isn’t much Michael wouldn’t do for Alex, but the small stuff has always been whatever kryptonite is on the planet he came from.

“You know dying here with me still counts,” he says instead, “it means you never moved past the tool shed, or the alien bullshit, or any of it,” he tells him, “whatever comes next they’re gonna know.”

“I’ll worry about that when I get there,” Alex tells him switching to a different angle, “someone redid your wiring.”

Michael’s stomach bottoms out. He tried to make the bomb easy, because he didn’t want to blow anyone up. Sure he had plans to follow but there were tweaks he could make, tweaks that only someone smart would see. Was he hoping that someone smart was going to be Alex? Maybe. But he was also hoping Alex would have nothing to do with his bomb. He should have known it wouldn’t be that simple. His fists clench and he gives the glass another hard shove. His mind and his fist betray him equally as he feels a crack in his hand and the glass says furiously untouched. Alex glances at him through his lashes before refocusing.

“You have to go,” he says abruptly, “I can’t convince you, I know that okay? But please,” the word slips out, “don’t make me go out knowing I killed you.”

Alex’s hand falters. His brows knit together and Michael holds his breath for the cut to break. It seems stupid but he’s not sure he can handle seeing Alex bleed. Hell he can’t handle any of this. But he also can’t do anything about it. The drug might be out of his system but there’s more than one way to keep an alien down apparently. Finally Alex looks up at him. Just that makes Michael realize Alex isn’t sure he can diffuse the bomb. It’s the first hurdle to getting Alex to leave. It takes a lot to make Alex give up but Michael’s got a knack for it, they both know it.

“I’m not leaving you here,” Alex says.

“Yes you are,” Michael shoots back. It’s a mistake because Alex seems to rally, “just go, I was looking for a way off this planet anyway remember?”

He’s hoping that bringing up their fight will remind Alex that they were done with each other, that he was over it and walking away. It seems to remind Alex of something but Michael knows in his bones it’s not what he wants him to remember. Alex still isn’t getting up. Or moving away from the bomb. Or any of the things that Michael is desperately willing him to do. He hasn’t turned into Isobel though so Alex just keeps doing what he wants.

“Why did you stop?” He asks.

“Now isn’t the time for questions!” Michael snaps, cringing at the surprised laugh that comes out of Alex’s mouth.

“Really?” Alex asks, “now’s not the time?” Michael rolls his eyes, “why?” Alex presses, “what made you change your mind?”

Michael didn’t think he’d die lying like this. He tries to focus back on Alex. Getting Alex out of here is the only thing that matters. All he has to do is be a selfish ass for another few minutes and this can all be over. The thought makes him laugh because there’s no better description of what he’s been the past few months. And none of it has worked because they are right back here. The laugh that escapes his lips is twisted and despite everything, concern shoving it’s way past Alex’s calm, solider energy. Stupid fucking emotions. He doesn’t have a shot in hell of lying to him.

“If I tell you, do you promise you’ll go?” He asks, “no matter what I say?” Alex hesitates, “get up,” Michael says, his voice somehow steady, even as he feels sweat drip down his back, “get up and I’ll tell you.”

Alex is smarter than him though. There’s no bargaining with him. Michael sees the calm and determination shine through and knows with a sinking feeling the door is closing. Alex would deny what he wants, he’d pull his own heart out of his chest, to do the thing he knows is right. Because that’s Alex, it always has been. He shakes his head to clear it and grabs the tool he dropped, checking the timer briefly and wincing a what he sees before refocusing.

“Forget it,” Alex says and turns back to the bomb.

“You were back,” Michael blurts out, “I couldn’t leave while you were back—“

“You could date someone else though?” Alex questions.

“So could you,” Michael points out.

“I’m not dating anyone.”

“You want to though.”

Alex stops working and turns to look at him. He’s not his father or his brother because Michael’s never really been terrified of the looks they’ve given him. Except on Alex’s behalf. The look Alex gives him though is the look of a man who could easily burn the world down. Michael’s seen it directed at him maybe once before and just like then it makes him feel about two feet tall.

“You don’t get to say that to me,” Alex tells him.

“Or what?” Michael challenges, “what are you gonna do?’ He taps the glass as a reminder but Alex remains unmoving, “what are you gonna do, Alex?” He challenges, firmer this time, “you asked and I told you—“

“I wanted the truth,” Alex tells him.

“That is the truth!”

“Then why?” Alex is suddenly on his feet but he’s at the glass instead of leaving, going in exactly the wrong direction. Like always, “why did you do—“ he shakes his head like he doesn’t know where to start, “any of that?”

“Because I wanted to stay, I wanted you to stay,” Michael says and it’s as simple and as difficult as that. His voice doesn’t crack, his emotions lay calm for the first time in—he can’t remember how long it’s been, “and I couldn’t handle the thought of losing you again,” he continues, “not like that, not for good.”

Alex stares him down for a moment, if Michael was better, he thinks he would try to unpack the emotions that shoot across Alex’s face. But there’s time to do that after Alex goes. After he gets somewhere safe. Alex’s one foot has already moved in that direction, because apparently the 3/4 of Alex that’s still him is a stubborn ass but the prosthetic is a survivalist. Statistically Michael knows the 3/4 will win out but he prays to whatever deity is listening that a miracle makes the 1/4 sentient so Alex gets out of there.

“Doesn’t matter now,” he continues, “now you gotta go,” he doesn’t know why his eyes are burning but he shoves the impulse away, “get out of here,” Alex opens his mouth and closes it, “I told you why now go—“

“I didn’t agree to that,” Alex cuts in sharply.

“Come on!”

“No I didn’t agree to that,” Alex repeats, “I didn’t agree to any of what you just said,” his determination start to burn through and the fear is right back in Michael’s bones, “I didn’t agree to any of what you just said.”

“It’s not up to you,” Michael says.

“It should have been,” Alex tells him and his voice is so firm that even if Michael hadn’t known he was right, he would have believed him, “I thought we were past taking choices from each other.”

“Please!” It comes out harsher than he intended but Michael is past caring, “I know you loved me, if any part of you still feels anything for me you gotta go,” he stumbles over the words, “Alex, come on, don’t make this all for nothing. I built that thing, if it kills me it’ll be—“ he fumbles, “justice. It’ll be fine. It’s not gonna be fine if it takes you too.”

“Michael—“

“Go,” he says but the word doesn’t even sound like him. Alex opens his mouth, “Alex,” he runs his tongue over his bottom lip, “come on.”

Alex stares at him, still unyielding but Michael doesn’t have to be in his head to know the words he said are still there. If he ever loved him, if any part of him still does, Alex will go. The world’ll be right again. No big gestures like building a fucking bomb, all Alex has to do is walk out a door. For him it’ll be a big gesture but Michael knows he’s up for it. Or he’s truly past him and this will all be for shit. Michael tries to think of something, of anything he can possibly say.

“I’ll find another way to get you out,” Alex says, “you’re not taking this choice too.”

“I’ll wait here,” Michael says, trying not to go weak with relief. Someone’ll see him. Someone’ll get him out. Or he’ll be far enough away. Michael thinks he at least sabotaged the bomb enough for that. Alex looks at him sharply and Michael tries to grin back at him, “you should probably get a move on.”

“Just—“ Alex looks at the glass. Michael wants to laugh because he’s been hoping for the same miracle.

“No dice,” he says.

“I’m gonna get you out of here,” Alex tells him, firmly enough so Michael almost believes him, “Michael—“

“If you walk out that door, I’ll know,” Michael says simply.

It’s hard to turn his back but if he keeps looking at Alex, he’s gonna lose it. And he can’t. Not if he can get him to go. He hears Alex press his head to the glass and he has to force himself not to look. To once again take another choice from Alex. He can only pray that Alex forgives him for it one day. He listens to the sound of Alex’s feet taking up a solider’s tempo to get away. He listens to the pause and can picture the annoyance on Alex’s face before they continue.

When he’s sure it’s just him and his bomb, he lets the pain double him over. He lets the stinging take over his eyes and the lump in his throat break free. He’s gonna be toast in a minute anyway so what the hell does it matter. Going like this is okay. It’s right. In it’s own fucked up way. He’s going out alone but he’s got the answer to if Alex loves him. Life’s never been fair as far as Michael’s concerned but this, this he can live with. Or end with, he corrects, as the world goes pink and white and hot.

And then it’s done.

[im-the-punk-who]

Miranda and Thomas for the character ask meme! (Am I predictable? Maybe. Do I care? I do not.)

Okay I skipped to this one because WHOOOOOOOO BOY DO I HAVE FEELINGS ABOUT THESE TWO LMAO. Also please continue to be predictable you know me you know my FEELINGS. Uh. As a warning this is. Long. Like it was 3k at last count. Please...please bear with me.

How I feel about this character

Miranda:

Honestly my growing feeling is that I wanted such a different arc for her. She gets used for Flint’s progression(not even necessarily by Flint, but by the writing of their characters) she gets shit on by the world, she gets her world taken away, and then when she finally tries to start taking the things she wants from it back, she is killed. 

I both love, and growingly ... hate is not the word. I hate her character arc. I love my girl, who is smart, and funny, and sure of herself, who knows what she wants, knows how to get it, and in a world dominated by men isn’t afraid to cross them when it needs to happen. Who saw her world fall apart and saw the man responsible and didn’t shy away from a course of action she knew would lead to his death. Who was called a witch and shunned and had rocks thrown at her and somehow managed to build anything from that, with Flint only there sometimes and even when he was there, still angry and lost over a past that she is trying to move on from. 

God I just. my thoughts on Miranda are ever evolving and ever changing. I love her, and honestly I can’t even blame her for betraying James because their interests were SO at odds with each other that it was inevitable. 

Thomas:

Okay there are literally not enough words to explain how much I love Thomas Hamilton. I may actually love him more than James McGraw. Proportionally to how much information we are given on him I certainly do. I’ve written more meta on him(and my longest fic to date) than any other character. 

Thomas Hamilton is so important. WHY is Thomas Hamilton important? 

Because he recognizes that everyone is entitled to belonging, to not being shunned for who they are. Because he believes in love, and the goodness of things, because while this is true he is not naive about who he is or what London is - nor does he shy away from hard truths. Because he is angry about injustice, because he refuses to capitulate to societal norms even when the right path is easier. I love him a lot because of the fact that the first thing he does when he sees James after ten years is to check in with him emotionally. 

I love him so so so much because he’s cheeky and intellectual but uses that intellect for the best better he knows how to. Because when he’s shown he’s wrong he changes course because he knows that pride is a useless emotion that stymies us in connecting with other people in the ways we are meant to connect. Because he knows that shame and trying to hide who you are, those are the things that keep us apart. He knows that knowing someone and making yourself known is the truest form of connection.  

I love him because of the growth we see him go through - Thomas Hamilton has more character growth in 15 minutes than some characters have the entire show. And it is because all of these things are true: because he actively seeks to better himself, and does not shy away from his own flaws and moral failings. He is a radical because he truly believes that a better world is possible, and that love and forgiveness and understanding WHY someone is the way they are, are the paths to that better world. and I just. really love him for it. Okay?

Thomas Hamilton Stan First, Human Being Second.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Miranda:

Thomas, James, Peter Ashe’s wife

So I’m gonna kind of budge into my Thomas answer with Miranda, but I have a LOT of thoughts on her lmao.

So with James and Thomas, I do believe that she was romantically and sexually involved with both of them, at least to some degree. I don’t really have a strong opinion on how much, because that honestly changes with the story that’s being told, where in there relationship they are, etc, but I do believe they were a true triad in every sense of the word. Like Jack and Anne, I think sex particularly between Thomas and Miranda was inconsequential to their love of each other, and their romantic compatibility. Particularly because I view both of them as having other sexual partners, it’s just not important to me to define that part of their relationship. 

With James, it’s different but with some of the same machinations. Personally, I don’t think Miranda and James work as a solitary couple. They need Thomas as the fulcrum to function, and I think while this is exacerbated by Thomas’ death, it would have been true regardless. James and Miranda are very different people in a way that leads to a lot of conflict if they’re put directly to each other. 

Miranda is an individualist, she thrives on having things of her own - her garden, her relationships with the Puritans, her social life in London, her extramarital affairs - Miranda to me is the definition of an independent woman, but not in the way that makes her incapable of love or romance. Just that she puts herself before her romantic attachments. James is the very opposite - the people who are important to him are all important, and I think Miranda is a bit stifled by that, especially when trying to fill the hole left by Thomas. James needs people - he needs partners and people to be dependent on and intimate with and attached to. It’s what makes him work so well with Thomas, but with Miranda it’s a source of tension. And so,  while I do still ship them in Nassau, I tend to view them as very dysfunctional, lost, still loving towards each other but having a difficult time showing that in ways the other can understand. (James sees everything he is trying to build as a sign of his love, Miranda sees asking for the pardon as a symbol of hers.)

Okay and here’s my galaxy brain, off the walls take that I’m subjecting anyone to who will listen:

My crack ship that I will sail into that good night is Miranda and Peter’s wife, because I like to headcanon that Miranda is trans and Abigail is actually her daughter but they never told Peter bc like LMAO why would they and also Abigail looks enough like her mom and sort of like Peter that it never came up -esp since her mom was never unfaithful and just always hanging out with her galpal Miranda. 

(This also neatly solves the ‘Is Miranda barren’ question about why she and Thomas never have any kids bc the barren woman trope is one i HATE WITH A PASSION lmao.) 

Anyway so Miranda and Peter’s wife are A Thing but like, Miranda knows what London is and she’s breaking enough rules being trans, presenting as female, and being in love with a woman, so she marries Thomas when Peter and his wife(who I’ve taken after Meg in calling Kitty) marry, but Thomas is totally cool with it and he’s like ‘this is actually super convenient so have at it.’ 

(I LOVE this scene because it hints at Miranda having had this struggle before - of having to learn the difference between a little danger and mortal danger and having to potentially give up things in order to survive in a way that seems more serious that just a woman avoiding a marital scandal.)

So anyway this is also like, why she’s so desperate to return to London society because it’s so much easier to pass when there are Rules yaknow? 

But then they find Abigail, and Kitty is presumably dead, and she finds out Peter betrayed them as well and well she just MCFREAKIN LOSES IT.

Anyway this is my sandbox you’re all welcome to play in it. Enjoy.

Thomas: 

Miranda, James!

So yeah I’ve already talked about how I see Miranda and Thomas so let’s move on to the fucking main event, Thomas and James. 

THOMAS AND JAMES.

Do you have an hour to talk about my two perfect boys, Thomas Hamilton and James McGraw?

Anyway so like obviously I ship Thomas and James together and to me the best thing about their relationship is that they do compliment each other’s needs so well??? Like, Thomas, who has probably never had someone really stand up and defend him, he has people talking behind his back, even Peter and Miranda indulge him more than they should.

And then there’s James who’s like ‘BRO, MY GOOD LORD, this is MADNESS’ and FIGHTS him and MAKES him explain his case and MAKES him change his mind and see the reality in things, and doubts him and openly is like ‘My Lord I have grave doubts about whether or not something like this isn’t jsut straight up stupid.’

And Thomas is just so CHUFFED because 

1) HELLO have you seen Lieutenant James McGraw and 

2) Lieutenant James McGraw isn’t afraid to tell him he’s being an absolute right piss pot. 

And THEN his whole world view starts changing because of this man, and THEN he finds out that James??? Defended Miranda???? and he’s like ‘oh no <3’ and he starts actually really trusting and valuing James’ opinion and THEN JAMES STANDS UP FOR HIM AGAINST HIS FATHER and Thomas is like ‘well sign me up for the next war’ and they learn and grow and TRUST one another so much.

Ans on the other end there’s James, who wants so badly to BELONG to something, who has probably always been both too smart and not well bred enough, and then he meets Thomas, who doesn’t give a shit about his birth, who recognizes his talent, who LISTENS when James speaks. And not only that but he’s the most honest person James has probably ever met? And he CARES. Really, actually CARES about how his actions and the actions of his family and England as a whole affect those who are under their control. And he argues, and fights, but James learns, and he’s accepted into the Hamilton’s home as if he’s always been there. And he’s fooling around with Miranda and just gay up FALLING for Thomas and every time he thinks he’s fucked up Thomas is??? Pleased???? And then Thomas suggests possibly the DUMBEST thing James has EVER heard come out of his mouth. 

Pardons?? For ALL of the Pirates???

Thomas.

Thommy.

T-Dot-Ham.

But Thomas is like THEY’RE MEN. THEY DESERVE A SECOND CHANCE. THEY’VE BEEN FAILED BY US AND IT’S OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO SEE THAT WRONG RIGHTED. WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE IF THEY’RE TRAITORS TO THE CROWN - THE CROWN CAN FORGIVE THEM. 

And I think this is the moment that something really snaps into place for James, because he’s lived his life knowing his preferences aren’t accepted, that he is technically betraying his crown and country simply for being, and here is Thomas - and I do imagine James knows Thomas fucks men because as i’ve said before there’s no real reason for Thomas to be hiding it? 

SO ANYWAY he’s having a small breakdown during dinner while Thomas is arguing with his father and Alfred Hamilton is being a RIGHT CLASS GRADE A MOTHER FUCKING FORK DISASTER. And James just. He snaps. He gingermcfucking snaps because THOMAS. THOMAS believes in forgiveness and he BELONGS in this house with these people 

Because in this house, with these people, is where he belongs, and there’s no way he’s gonna let Alfred Hamilton talk to HIS FAMILY like that lmao. 

someone should be willing to defend it.

So anyway then they smooch and then they fall even MORE in love because Thomas IS where James belongs and someone is standing up forThomas in a way HE’S never had before. And then. God then everything falls apart but in the end they do survive, they both survive, and at the end of all things, they find each other again and just...listen i’ve written so much about the finale lmao. but this truly sums it up

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Miranda:

Honestly I always wanted to see Max and Miranda interact, or Miranda and Hal. Like can you imagine, more than anything else, Hal and Miranda teaming up to absolutely destroy James Mc-fucking-Graw? 

Iconique. 

And Max and Miranda I just feel like would at first have SUCH hostility towards each other, but I feel like they could bond over living in the shadows, and what you sacrifice to do that.

Thomas:

ANNE MC-FUCKING-BONNY

I just really get the feeling that Thomas and Anne would be absolute besties and would get along like a fucking house on fire. And maybe actually set the house on fire. Thomas is SO open and Anne is so closed off and you would never think it would work but it does for some reason and they just. Are besties. End of.

I also think he and Madi would have a really interesting and fun relationship with Thomas once they got to know each other. They are extremely similar characters in their core ideologies and feelings about the people they view as their kin. I think they would definitely butt heads over a lot of things but I think they would also both understand that to make an omlette you have to break a few very hard skulls. 

They both try to understand where others are coming from, and that core curiosity is I think what would be so fun to explore with them. 

My unpopular opinion about this character

Miranda:

Miranda is Silver’s true parallel in the series and there’s not really anything anyone can do to change my mind I have proof. They’re literally the exact same character except her anger gets her killed because she’s a woman.

(ME? BITTER? Like milkweed.)

But even beyond that, like...listen there is a whole list of parallels in things they do, how they think, how they act when endangered or when put to a choice, who they chose, how they choose...

My unpopular opinion I suppose is that Miranda never understood James’ true motivations, because she always desired to return, whereas returning to civilization was never going to be possible for James. (And, that James never understood her, as a corollary.)

Thomas:

I’M REALLY SORRY I’M GONNA TALK ABOUT THE EXACT THING YOU DID BUT FROM THE OTHER END LMAO. I’m a trash human.

Edit: I went back over this with a fine tooth comb, and reworded/changed a bit of my opinion in this post. I still think that there’s clear indicators for Thomas changing from the first time we meet him to where I think he would be in the finale, but also that like, he was born, grew up, was supported by and lived in a colonialist system and that those things are almost impossible to throw off when they’re so ingrained in your own privilege.

So my unpopular opinion is that viewing Thomas as a supporter of colonialism throughout his arc ignores the character development we’re shown. 

I absolutely agree that in the beginning he is aligning with colonial views even as he seeks to change them, but after the hanging date with James we see a huge shift in his view about what's wrong with Nassau. He basically looks at the whole situation with the pirate being hung and says 

 By the time he’s come up with the pardons I think it’s clear he’s seen that the way England does things is wrong. 

James says that Thomas believes England needs to systemically rethink itself in 2x03 and that the pardons were a way to seek to change England entirely in his talk with Rogers. 

We’re shown his character move away from the colonialist views he started with, even in London. He recognizes they’re a problem and is trying to figure out a way to fix them.

Now, do I think that he still had room to grow? For sure. Just like James, he has only just begun the journey. 

But I think framing his entire character in London as a static upholder of colonialism ignores a lot of the real character growth were given in the 15 minutes he's on screen. We have five scenes with him and in every one his character has changed and grown - and I think that's one of the things that I love most about him is that when he's shown he's wrong he actively tries to correct himself rather than doubling down like Guthrie or Peter or Silver, or a dozen other characters. Or even James sometimes. 

The beautiful thing about Thomas's character to me is how fluid and open to change he is and I think viewing him as merely a colonial agent or stuck in colonial thinking tends to ignore that part of his character completely. 

ALSO I think there is this false dichotomy of thinking that a revolutionary character can only be someone intent on tearing down the system. That ISN’T true and just because you’re working from inside the system doesn’t mean you support it. Thinking like that is exactly how you get shit like today, where people say we shouldn’t participate in government because it’s broken and the only way to move forward is to tear things down completely. 

/end rant <3

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

MIRANDA LIVES. MIRANDA CONFIRMED TRANS. 

THOMAS MORE SCREENTIME WHEN!! THOMAS HAVING DIALOGUE OR MOMENTS THAT ARE SHOWN TO BE THROUGH HIS ACTUAL LENS AND NOT SOMEONE’S MEMORIES OR STORY. 

GIVE THOMAS AGENCY BLACK SAILS CHALLENGE.

I mean tbh, I would love to rewrite the whole damn thing but my biggest things are that Miranda doesn’t die, and is given a chance to choose her own ending - maybe she decides to stay in Charlestown! Or goes to Boston at the end, when Jack goes to visit Guthrie!

And that Thomas got some scene - ANY scene - that was shown through his own eyes. We only see him in Miranda and James’ flashbacks, or Silver’s story. We never actually hear him speak through his own words and that is like, the biggest tragedy of Black Sails, that so many characters(Thomas, Madi, Flint, even Anne to a degree) are denied the agency of their own story through the narrative itself.

Also shame farm what shame farm in this house James Oglethorpe is represented with historical accuracy and Thomas has been working alongside him to keep Georgia a slavery free colony,, they’ve been reducing the prison populations in London, and he’s basically got an army of radicals ready to go when his sexy pirate husband returns from war.

Listen there’s no shame in asking me to write more than the 4500 words I’ve already written today about Black Sails Characters.

[creepy-bi-day]

Can I get New York Cody based off of a quote by Dan Howell? It goes “I wonder how biology can explain the physical pain you feel in your chest when all you want to do is be with someone.”

YeS???

I didn’t actually use the quote, mostly just used it as inspiration, so I hope that’s okay!

I wanted to do a soulmate thing so like—- here!

Also, y’all get a detailed depiction of how I see Cody oop-

Cody cult supporters:

@fekst-fucker @the-acolytes-collection @despacitostuff @undercooked-ravioloni @freaky-farfalle

Warnings: mentions of abuse, fluff, slight angst?? Long story, slight depictions of violence, mentioned and slightly detailed panic attack, TOOTH ROTTING FLUFF

Train Ride

You supposed it could’ve been worse.

You could’ve been beaten instead of berated.

A few months ago, you remember hoping that he was the One. You had been too shy to talk to him, and it thouroughly shocked you when he made the first move.

It had been a bittersweet day, hearing your crush speak to you, but knowing that he wasn’t your soulmate. He didn’t even have a Mark.

Granted, most people simply settled nowadays anyway, so you decided to try. He was, after all, your first love.

You forced a smile as he continued talking as you waited for the subway. It was your first time in New York, and he was your ‘tour guide’. Not a very good one, as he simply did whatever he wanted rather than listen to you, but at least you weren’t lost. You had zoned out instead of listening to his tangent, a habit of yours when someone droned in for as long as he had.

A sharp squeal of breaks attracted your gaze as a dark blue train pulled up beside you.

“Y/n,” the sharp tone caused a shiver to slide down your spine. He sounded mad. When he was mad, he became downright cruel. “Were you even listening? Or daydreaming about your nonexistent soulmate again?”

He had told you he was just insecure, that his words didn’t mean anything. Sadly, you believed him, even now. You knew he wasn’t the one and you were better off without him, but honestly?

You were afraid of being alone.

Your eyes widened and your jaw dropped, and you prepared to defend yourself. Your stuttering was cut off when he gripped your wrist tightly, dragging you onto the subway car that had shown up moments ago.

In his haste, you bumped into a stranger. You tugged you’re wrist from your boyfriends grip, glaring at him as he moved to pull you close again.

“Stop being such a bitch,” he muttered, taking your wrist again. Once more, you pulled away, instead turning to the man you had run into.

“I’m really sorry, I just- stop touching me!” You seethed, shoving the familiar male away. He stumbled back and stayed away from you for a second, seething from a few feet away.

You sighed, looking apologetically at the man in front of you. You felt your cheeks flush as you couldn’t help but take him in.

One hand held an earbud a few inches from his pierced ear, the other held his phone in front of him. He was leaned back against the wall of the car, one leg crossed over the other. His skin was a smooth caramel color, even if there were a few scars and freckles dotting his face.

His lip was pierced, as was his nose. Both were small, dark purple rings that glinted in the dingy lights of the train car.

Your eyes trailed down his torso, taking in the muscled arms and broad chest that his dark blue shirt clung to. You could make out a few bumps on his torso that might’ve been more piercings. He had broad shoulders and a narrow waist, the sight making your cheeks heat more.

A black and white plaid shirt was wrapped around his hips, almost concealing the dark, studded chain belt he wore to hold up his black jeans. They wrapped around his thighs almost like a second skin. It was his shoes that confused you though. Black work boots were laced with different colors: one yellow and one pink.

He cleared his throat, causing your gaze to meet his.

He smirked at you, that lip ring tugging at a scar that ran from his eye to the corner of his plump lips.

Stuffing his phone in his pocket, he ran a tan hand through his inky black hair, vibrant green eyes meeting yours. He tugged out his headphones and draped them over his shoulder.

As he opened his mouth to address you, you were both jolted out of your daze as you were tugged backwards by the collar.

“Stop being a whore and staring!” Your boyfriend hissed, glaring at the both of you. “And you, back the fuck off and go fucking eat a baby or some shit.”

The green eyed male scoffed, lip curling in an almost animalistic snarl as he stood to his full height and stepped so he was in front of the two of you. He crossed his arms and looked your boyfriend over.

“Least I know how to treat a fucking lady,” he said lowly, directed at the male behind you. He then gently took your arm and maneuvered you to stand behind him, shooting a dangerous look at your soon-to-be ex boyfriend. “Only a fucking bitch would treat a woman like that, fucking asshole.”

Before he could turn to you, your boyfriend had laid a punch to your saviors cheek, drawing a pained hiss from his lips. A dangerous flint shone in his green eyes before he turned and returned the favor, knocking your boyfriend to the ground.

You placed your hands over your mouth as a strangled noise of surprise left your lips.

The man chuckled darkly, using his boot to shove your boyfriend onto the ground completely. He kept the extremity planted on the smaller man’s shoulder as he leaned down. He muttered something that caused your boyfriend to pale before flushing with anger and trying to squirm his way up from the ground. The boot only pressed him further into the ground as he shot a murderous look at the man on the floor.

“Know when to fucking stop, twat,” he seethed as he pulled away. He tugged his earbuds out of his phone and shoved them into his back pocket as he faced you again. His gaze shot to the doors as they opened and a sly grin slid over his features as he took you by the hand and bolted out the door with you in tow.

Your eyes widened as you heard the doors slide shut behind you, closing you off from your boyfriend who was still on the train.

You were in slight shock before you started to giggle, still sprinting away from the landing.

Light flooded your vision as the mysterious stranger tugged you out of the subway back to the surface. He let go of your hand and panted softly after the run, looking over to see you panting and doubled over.

A short laugh left his lips as he took in your flushed form. You glared at him through (h/c) locks.

“What was that for?” You cried, standing up and realizing what had just happened. “Oh gods, he’s going to kill me!”

Your hands tangled in your hair as you felt your world crumble. Your vision darkened and you couldn’t seem to catch your breath.

Two large hands closed gently around your forearms as he leaned down to look you in the eyes. His gaze was soft and full of worry as he looked you over. He gently pried your hands from your hair, keeping you from tugging it out.

“Hey, shh, it’s okay. You know how I know?” He said softly, causing you to freeze as the words on your hip burned softly, signaling they had been completed. “Because I don’t even know you, but for some reason, I feel in my chest that I need to know you. It kinda hurts, not gonna lie.”

He snorted at that, blushing slightly and chewing at the purple lip ring.

“I kinda wonder if there’s a biological reason for it but, I saw you and it just hurt,” he breathed the last word, shooting his gaze to the side as a car honked loudly. “I just- I needed to know who you were. Who you are.”

He met your gaze again, smiling this time.

“I knew I had to save you, I guess,” he finished. You blinked as you took in what he said. Did he not have a Mark? It wasn’t uncommon for only one of a Fated Pair to have it, but it still surprised you.

Before you could stop yourself, you blurted out the words you were thinking.

“You’re my soulmate,” you said, before wincing and looking away. He tensed, grip tightening on your arms slightly. You rushed to explain yourself. “You just- you said the words on my hip. You said the shh it’s okay, you know how I know?”

He blinked blankly, seemingly taking a minute to process your words before a blinding grin broke across his face.

“Fuckin’ sweet,” he said, releasing his grip on your arms to wrap his muscular arms around your smaller frame, bringing you close. “In that case, call me Cody, doll face~.”

You felt your face heat at the sudden flirtiness of his tone. Your hands were placed on his shoulders to brace yourself against him and your teeth worried your lip as you felt how solidly built he was.

“Y/n,” you responded, smiling genuinely for the first time in months.

This seemed like it was a wonderful turn of events.

You were glad you’d come to New York now.