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tenebraevesper · 2 years ago

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Sonic the Hedgehog Analyzer, Sonic the Hedgehog Annual 2022

So, after what happened in The Battle for the Empire Arc, I think we all need to catch our breath and recharge before we can move on to The Overpowered Arc. Therefore, it’s time for some dumb fun, featuring the return of many familiar characters, their interactions and emotional moments.

Story #1: Guardians

Our first story follows Blaze, whom we haven’t seen since an amnesiac Sonic landed in the Sol Dimension. She is currently on a mission, fighting off pirates and destroying their ship.

As Blaze burns everything in her path, she grabs a robot’s head, demanding he tell her where the leader of the robot pirates is hiding. The head replies that there aren’t any, and that they’re all what’s left. Blaze doesn’t believe him, but the robot adds how they’re all gone, and that she won.

Blaze is shocked, having not expected that she’d manage to completely eliminate any threats in her world. She’s then called over by Marine the Raccoon (nice to see you again, Marine!), who asks her if she needs any help while everything around Blaze is burning down.

As they sail back home, Marine wonders what Blaze is so upset about, as they had been hunting pirates forever and they can finally have a vacation. Blaze replies how they have to be vigilant, but Marine insists that they had won and that Blaze has earned time off.

However, Blaze still feels bound by her duties as the Princess of the Sol Dimension and the Guardian of the Sol Emeralds. Marine replies that this doesn’t mean that she cannot relax, and if she cannot convince Blaze, then who can?

This is immediately answered by a cut to Knuckles, who is stunned to see Blaze appearing on Angel Island. Honestly, I think that it is amazing and heartwarming that Blaze decided to go to Knuckles for counsel, as she knows he’s stuck in a similar position as her as the Guardian of the Master Emerald.

Knuckles wonders why she’s here, and Blaze admits that, while they’re not well acquainted and she doesn’t want to place burdens at someone else’s feet, Sonic has taught her to seek help from others, so she was hoping to get his opinion, one Guardian to another. Knuckles is surprised, but tells her to walk with him.

As they walk through Lava Reef, Blaze asks Knuckles if it is ever acceptable to step away from his duties as the Guardian. Knuckles, in turn, asks her that, as the Princess, she too has her own duties, with Blaze explaining how her ministers handle the paperwork and she just reviews it, as her empire is peaceful and prosperous. She used her spare time to hunt down pirates, but now they’re all gone, and she knows she should be happy that everything’s at peace. As for the Sol Emeralds, they’re secure and under constant watch, and she can even get better security if necessary.

Knuckles comments how she has all that, and she still cannot step away from her duty because she wants to be there to fix things in case something goes wrong, with Blaze being happy that he understands her. But to her confusion, Knuckles tells her that she should take a vacation.

He explains how he cannot leave Angel Island since he cannot hide the Master Emerald somewhere more secure and that he’s on his own here, unless he needs to leave for the greater good, always taking a gamble. But Blaze’s situation? It’s a gift, and she shouldn’t waste it.

Admittedly, while Knuckles is on his own as a guardian, we know that he can always call on Sonic, Tails, and the rest of his friends in case he needs help, but at the same time, this would be his last resort, as he wouldn’t want to burden them with his own problems.

Blaze admits that it was nice being around everyone else, referring to the time she helped them against Neo Metal Sonic, and thanks Knuckles for the insight, as it means a great deal to her, while Knuckles is happy to talk to someone who understands responsibility.

Blaze then notes how she could repay him for his kindness by taking over his Guardian duties and allow him some time off (yeah, she’s definitely a workaholic), but Knuckles replies how she isn’t getting a working vacation and how he isn’t going to put her through that trouble. Blaze is fine with that answer, vanishing in a pillar of fire as she has preparations to make. Honestly, this was such a sweet moment between the two and I live for stuff like this.

Back at Blaze’s world, she brings along with Marine and her guards the Sol Emeralds to Coral Cave Island, where the Jeweled Scepter is. The guard has been tripled and Marine will be the one in charge. Speaking of Marine, she actually gets a tearful.

Marine tells Blaze just how happy she is that Blaze is taking care of herself, but that she is also going to miss her and hugs her and d’aaaaaaaawww, just look at these two, this is so adorable! And Blaze even hugs her back, saying how it’s not too late to change her mind, but Marine tells her that she deserves the vacation and that she can leave everything to her. If there’s trouble, she’ll call Blaze back, but she should leave.

Blaze then casually walks out of a pillar of fire at Sonic’s world, with the most hilarious smile on her expression, taking in that she’s now on vacation. Sonic, Amy, Cream and Cheese are having a tea party, with Amy recounting what happened in Trial by Fire (meaning this takes place shortly before the whole battle at Eggperial City), and the three are happy to see Blaze again, with Cream hugging her and Sonic noting that her visit is a reason to celebrate.

Remember how Sonic asked her to come visit sometime when she’s not on duty? Yeah, now, Blaze can finally fulfill that promise.

Story #2: Weapons

Our next story takes place place sometime after Chao Races and Badnik Bases, with Tails and Belle having managed to fix Omega and Gemerl. Omega is happy that he’s fixed and ready to cause more carnage, thanking Tails for the hard work, suggesting he and Gemerl go for a test-drive by having a sparring match outside the workshop. Omega and Gemerl agree, with Omega noting how he cannot guarantee Gemerl’s welfare, while Gemerl replies how he’ll teach him a lesson.

Predictably, the two go all out on each other, Gemerl firing missiles at Omega, and Omega rushing towards Gemerl, boasting how Gemerl isn’t a match for him.

Omega notes how, according to the data files, Gemerl once fought Sonic to a stand-still while serving as Eggman’s enforcer, yet he’s now put on the defensive. Omega proceeds to tell Gemerl that him caring for Cream, Cheese, Vanilla and Chocola made him weak and that he lost his edge, beating him up and offering him to join in his destruction of Eggman’s forces and abandon Cream and her family.

Gemerl is pissed off.

He rejects Omega’s proposal, knocking him down, and replies how, while they are similar, Omega was built to destroy, while he was built to evolve. His function has changed and now he protects Cream, Cheese, Vanilla and Chocola rather than operate on the battlefield. Badass!

The two stare at each other for a moment, then charge once again at each other for another round.

The results of their battle are seen later, as they return to an exasperated Tails and Belle, both beaten up and missing pieces, requesting to be fixed... again! Tails is annoyed, saying how he sent them to spar, not have a no-holds-barred grudge match, but Omega replies how he warned him that welfare wasn’t a guarantee. Yeah, that was on you Tails.

Nevertheless, we see that Omega has newfound respect for Gemerl, and Gemerl has newfound respect for Omega, with the two fist-bumping each other. Honestly, I love these two.

Story #3: Hero Camp

The next story focuses on Cream, as she and some other kids enroll in Hero Camp, wanting to learn how to become a real hero. However, when we see the camp, it is more of a rundown shack.

We also see Orbot and Cubot... and that explains why the place looks like this, as they’re running it. The two had decided to gather information on the Restoration from the kids, hoping to deliver Sonic’s biggest secrets to Eggman. They put on their best Team Rocket disguise (seriously, how the hell doesn’t Cream recognize the two?), introducing themselves as Cubert and Orville, certified heroes (with “Orville” having certified them personally). One of the kids asks whether they know Sonic, with Orbot and Cubot quickly turning the question around to test them on their knowledge about being heroes.

For their first test, they’re all tied up, with Orbot and Cubot saying how they should figure out how to untie themselves. Cream does it by cutting the ropes, explaining how Sonic taught her that, much to Orbot and Cubot’s chagrin.

The kids are next tested on building a hideout similar to the Restoration, with Cream not really looking happy about it. Orbot asks her, as “the member of Sonic’s inner circle” what she thinks about it, with Cream replying how it’s missing a few things. Orbot and Cubot wonder if she meant the security systems, but Cream replies how she was referring to the mall and playing area. As she grows suspicious, Orbot and Cubot promptly pull a plug to this test, destroying the “hideout”.

For the last part, neither Orbot nor Cubot are sure what to do, with Cubot suggesting a telling a scary story around a campfire to scare a hero, but both are hilariously bad at it. One kid suggest they could toast s’mores, only for the two to be confused by what s’mores are... and that’s what ticks Cream off, making her realize they’re not camp counselors and leading charge against the two. Honestly, this is pure hilarity and I love it. No clue when the story takes place, though, but I think it would be hilarious if it takes place after Test Run and this was part of the “reconnaissance” Orbot told Eggman about while they were actually taking a vacation.

The next day, Vanilla picks Cream up, asking her if she had a good time and learned how to be a hero, with Cream sheepishly replying how the main thing she had learned was that they maybe already are the real heroes. We then pan to a tied up Orbot and Cubot, who are so proud that they taught the kids well.

Story #4: Future Growth

The next story focuses on Silver, who has returned to the past to help with the harvest in the garden he and Blaze had worked on (also, who the hell gave Charmy shears?!). Admittedly, Silver doesn’t appear to be as happy and carefree as his friends.

He’s suddenly startled by Sonic, squishing the tomato in his hand, who’s here to grab the basket with the tomatoes. Silver replies that he’s done, with Sonic quickly carrying his and Amy’s basket away. Amy approaches Silver, noting how she’s glad that he could return to the past and help them out, with Silver just laughing it off. Amy then turns to Tangle, who’s about to dig out the potatoes in her own fashion, panicking. Silver, on the other hand, is upset, something that is noticed by Espio.

Silver leaves the group, looking really troubled (and I’m getting this “if anyone hurts Silver, I would first kill everyone else in the room, then myself” feeling), only to be startled by Espio, who has followed him.

Silver tries to assure him that he’s fine, just on an important mission for the future and... yeah, Espio doesn’t buy it, pointing out that Silver is bad at lying. Silver relents, knowing that, and Espio wonders if he’s concealing some kind of danger. Silver replies how it’s not that, and that he actually isn’t here for the harvest. As a matter of fact, he has no clue why he’s here at all.

Usually, he knows why he’s sent to the past, as he would be sent to save the future from turning up wrecked. This is his purpose and he always knew what to do to change history. But this time, he has no idea what he’s supposed to do. There is no crisis in the future and everything’s fine, but... he’s not.

First of all, someone please give Silver a hug! Second, this is the same situation as with Blaze - Silver just cannot fathom to be sent to the past for no reason (and speaking of which, I don’t think we ever learn how he travels to the past or who sends him there).

Silver starts hyperventilating, wondering if he did something wrong, or if he missed something, fearing that there’s some kind of disaster looming over them, but Espio tells him to take a deep breath and calm down first.

He then proceeds to explain how, as a ninja, his priority is the success of the mission, but as a friend, it is the safety of his team. Danger could be waiting everywhere and if he allows it, the fear would consume him. He points a kunai at his chest, noting how he would have lost without his enemies even lifting a finger. Silver then wonders how he deals with that fear.

Espio explains how he just needs to have faith in himself and his friends. Silver may not know why he’s here, but that doesn’t matter, as he is where he needs to be. If there’s trouble, everyone has Silver’s back, and he should go back to the garden and enjoy himself. After all, he deserves it.

Honestly, this is so adorable and heartwarming and I absolutely love it! Again, Sonic had also asked Silver to join them when the world isn’t in danger, and Silver is finally in a situation where he literally doesn’t have to worry about the future and can just hang out with his friends.

Silver agrees that Espio is right, and while he is scared, he can count on his friends, proceeding to hug a stunned Espio and thank him for the counsel. They then overheard Charmy causing trouble (presumably along with Tangle) and Silver offers Espio help, with the exasperated Espio agreeing.

Story #5: Another Grand Adventure for Jet the Hawk

Our next story focuses on Jet and Whisper, and we know this one takes place before Trial by Fire, as Whisper has been sent on a mission by Jewel. Before we get to that, we observe Jet in his room on the blimp, preparing a calzone and reading a birthday card sent from his father. Honestly, I love all the little details in his room, but the most hilarious bit is the photo of him and Sonic, which Jet as torn in half.

Jet hears the microwave being done, only to be shocked when he sees a Wisp carrying the calzone, yelling after it as it flies away to Whisper, who is currently on the above-mentioned mission. Whisper is really happy about her lunch.

Apparently, her mission is to take out a huge Badnik, but she’s interrupted by a furious Jet, who notes how she stole from him and that she will make it up to him. Yeah, I’m with Jet here, I’d also be hangry if someone stole my food.

Whisper is genuinely confused, guessing that she will, while Jet goes on a rant how she should think about the time he wasted chasing his lunch around when he could’ve stolen more gems (you’re not helping your case here, Jet!), so now she owes him gems and a calzone. The Wisp brings him a banana over, but Jet tells him how he doesn’t want that. Whisper tells him to be quiet, trying to warn him about the Badnik, but Jet yells how he cannot her hear whispering over the rumbling of his stomach... and gets promptly grabbed by the robot.

Jet yells at the Badnik to let him down, then tells Whisper to grab his Extreme Gear to help him. Whisper struggles with it, obviously not being used to riding it, while Jet yells at her to be more like him and she’ll be fine. He then continues ranting how he personally doesn’t have a clue how hard it is to use as he’s born gifted and that a wise old man (literally his father) told him “With skill and confidence, you are as fierce as the wind”, while Whisper tells him to stop talking as she gets the hang of the airboard.

When Jet doesn’t, she yells at him to be quiet as she snipes the Badnik, who falls over into a net, disabled. Jet is genuinely impressed by her skills, asking her to join the Babylon Rogues, but Whisper refuses, leaving. The Wisp then happily returns the half-eaten calzone to Jet, who tells them that they still owe him a fresh one.

Honestly, this one was pure hilarity and I just love Jet and Whisper’s interactions.

Story #6: Rough Patch

The last story focuses on Rough and Tumble, as well as Tangle and Rouge, and I have no clue when this takes place. I assume it is after Bad Guys, at the earliest and Hit The Pavement at the latest.

So, Rough and Tumble are having an argument at their hideout (which sticks out like a sore thumb) over their rhymes, with Tumble bringing up how they need to get it right since Sonic laughed at them the last time they met. Rough notes how Sonic laughs at everything and wants to move on with their plan, but Tumble insists they work on their intro. When Rough refuses, Tumble refuses to listen to his dumb plans and the two split up, going their separate ways. Not gonna lie, I’m hella invested in their relationship drama.

We then cut to Jewel’s museum, and apparently, she has found one of the Chaos Emeralds, deciding to display it (last time we saw them was when Sonic and SIlver went Super to fight Kaiju!Zavok). Rough and Tumble climb inside, starting their usual rhyme shtick...

...only to be shocked by the team-up of Rouge & Tumble and Rough & Tangle. The two yell at each other, wondering what they are doing here. Tangle tells Rough that he told her that those “ruffians” would come to steal the Chaos Emerald and that they wanted to take it to protect it. Meanwhile, Rouge notes to Tumble how they must’ve followed them here to stop them from taking the Chaos Emerald.

Rough and Tumble fall for the lie hook, line and sinker, starting to beat each other up, while Rouge and Tangle observe the show. Both note how they’re here undercover to keep an eye on the skunk brothers, with Rouge explaining how she was in the neighborhood for... reasons (you’re not fooling anyone, Rouge) and that Tumble waved her over and explained her plan to take the Chaos Emerald. As for Tangle, Rough pretended he was a vigilante hero now and wanted to protect the Chaos Emerald, begging Tangle to help him as he needed someone to order around.

Rouge comments on her breaking into her friend’s museum, but Tangle notes how it is a regular occurrence. Rouge then notes how they should bring this to a close, already having a plan, with Tangle being happy that they’re undercover buddies.

Meanwhile, Rough and Tumble question each others motives for teaming up with Tangle and Rouge, only to realize that they had the same plan and... d’aaaaaw, look at their eyes! Look at them reconciling! This is so sweet!

The two then get up, turning to Rouge and Tangle, ready to deal with the two only to be stunned when they see their ex-partners teaming up.

“You played me for a stooge...”

“So now you’re gonna get mangled!”

“Your master plan is about to be stopped by...”

“ROUGE AND TANGLE!”

Tangle then punches the two, with Rough wondering why everyone keeps stealing their shtick (maybe because it’s fun) and Tangle wraps them up, telling Rouge how the Chaos Emerald is safe... only to realize a moment later that Rouge stole it (she really can’t stop herself, can she?). As Rouge leaves, Tangle tears up, feeling betrayed, and just look at those big eyes!

“But... undercover buddies...”

My God, this is both hilarious and heartbreaking, and then hilarious once again, all at the same time. I swear, Tangle gets the best expressions in this comic. We also now know that at least one Chaos Emerald is with Rouge.

As for Rough and Tumble, they agree to only team up with each other, fist-bumping.

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love-takes-work · 5 years ago

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When someone toxic needs a friend

I just wanna add a little personal reflection to the discussion of Spinel’s treatment in Steven Universe: The Movie.

A few signposts so you know where I’m starting with this:

A criticism I’ve seen:

Steven was not particularly warm to Spinel. He did not hug her. He did not offer to be her friend. He spoke carelessly and triggered her toward becoming murderous again. He only cared about what she could do for him.

A perspective I’ve seen:

LOTS of people with borderline personality disorder or strong feelings about abandonment personally relate to Spinel and are critical of Steven from this perspective.

Rebecca Sugar’s commentary on Spinel:

The thing about Spinel is that she’s a really toxic person.

She’s so toxic that she’s literally trying to poison people.

In my interactions with friends who have had a history difficult enough to make it hard for them to trust other people and sometimes even actively want to hurt others, it’s just a very difficult situation to navigate. In the case of Spinel and all of these characters, that’s extremely exaggerated because cartoons have the ability to be extreme exaggerations. I wanted to explore what it’s like when you’re trying to help someone who really doesn’t want to help themselves, who wants to embody the negative feelings that they have about themselves. I think that’s something really real. I hadn’t seen that in a cartoon before.

Spinel, unlike many other characters, actually has the goal of hurting people, which is new territory for the show. She really wants to hurt Steven, and there’s a reason that she does—because she’s in so much pain. I just wanted to explore all the dimensions of that.

I also think Steven has his way of trying to handle and dissolve conflict. It’s not necessarily a good way for him to handle this situation. It really leaves him in a difficult state, and I think what I wanted to show in the way that they interact is that at a certain point, when you can’t help someone, you have to be able to protect yourself.

Ultimately, he can’t really convince her to change. It’s something she’ll have to want for herself. But what he can do is protect himself from her, making it impossible for her to hurt him.

It’s sort of up to you if you would like to love her. If you watch this movie and she, you know, frustrates you, that is totally fair. I want that to be a big part of who she is.

[From the AV Club interview]

So here are a few things I want to shed light on.

It’s very interesting that Rebecca intended Spinel to be read as “a toxic person” because so many fans fell in love with her, said they’d be her friend, hated intensely on Pink Diamond because of what she did to abandon the poor Gem, and sympathized with her directly. But Rebecca was looking at Spinel from Steven’s perspective. And that’s also what I did.

I’ve been Steven. I have VERY much been Steven.

When you meet someone who was done dirty, when you recognize the horror they’ve been through, when you see how much pain they are in and agree they have the right to be angry, it’s natural for empathetic people to offer themselves as comfort.

But when you’re Steven, you also know it isn’t YOUR fault either. Before you have the ability and experience to set boundaries, you can get sucked into other people’s stormy waters and think you’re helping if you drown in solidarity with them. What’s really important to preserving yourself is learning that you can stand on the boat and toss a life preserver. That it doesn’t ACTUALLY HELP to jump in the water and sink with them.

Some folks are angry that Steven didn’t jump right into sacrifice himself on the altar of friendship in the service of an intense, literally murderous stranger who tried to poison him and his planet and lash out at his friends, robbing them of their rich pasts and their relationships because all of it hurt HER so much. It is SO easy to understand WHY SPINEL WAS ANGRY. But nothing she was doing to Steven, his friends, or the Earth was going to fix her problems, and furthermore, she FULLY UNDERSTOOD that it was NOT THE FAULT of any of the people she took her anger out on. It was irrational, yes, and that is part of her dysfunction. But also, in these situations, what helps explain it still does not excuse it.

Some have railed at Steven saying he somehow forgave genocidal tyrants like the Diamonds but couldn’t be friends with a damaged Gem like Spinel who just wanted friendship. The big difference there is that Steven got involved with the Diamonds when both parties believed he was a different person. The Diamonds believed he was the lost Pink Diamond, and Steven has also spent much of his superhero life believing he WAS his mother and was therefore obligated to accept punishment for her crimes or to clean up the messes she made. Now that he knows he is not her and that she did some pretty horrible stuff, he also wants the right to stop feeling responsible for every person Pink hurt in the entire region of space.

Steven gave Spinel basically compassionate treatment. He did not abuse her. He did not insult her. He occasionally coddled her when it seemed important (and though some said he was too businesslike while he pursued his mission, he was literally looking at the world ending within two days if he didn’t solve the problem). And most importantly . . . .

He let her leave the garden.

Spinel stayed in the garden all those millennia because Pink Diamond told her they were playing a game. All that time, she had visions of Pink returning so she could see her smile, hear her laughter. We see a sequence where she tried to follow Pink out of the garden and Pink manipulated her into staying willingly. We watch those feet leaving and one pair of feet staying behind. We see Pink disappear.

When Steven goes to leave the garden, Spinel follows in the same manner. Some have criticized him for letting go of her hands.

But he invited her out of the garden. He didn’t say stay. He said come with me.

As he sang about her deserving someone better, he was sincere. But he did not say the person to make her feel found should be him. He did not want to take on another person with thousands of years of baggage who would require a specific brand of attention and so much tenderness to avoid snapping. He did not allow her to be held by the hand and led out. He recognized that she needed encouragement to leave this place because of what was done to her, but he wanted her to take the steps.

Compassionate people are crushed all the time under the weight of needy people who make it hurt to love. People like Steven can acknowledge that Spinel deserves love and deserves to be happy without accepting that it’s heartless to stop short of personally doing it. Especially when you literally have to take physical, mental, and emotional damage as a general consequence of offering support and counseling. It is sometimes just beyond what you can do.

I made the mistake several times of getting very close to someone who treated me poorly while taking comfort in my presence. I cared that they were hurt and I didn’t know how to say “You deserve love” without stepping in and loving them. In EVERY case I was involved with, the person went from initially grateful to “why don’t you help me more?” shockingly quickly, and two of them deliberately tried to create situations where I would be trapped with them and isolated from others.

I could get very personal here but I don’t think I need to. Those of us who relate all too well to Steven wanting to help others will have been in this situation. Your heart hurts for people who live with pain that has never touched you, but when they’ve made it clear with one of their first actions that they feel satisfied at the idea of ruining your life, trusting them could mean the end of you. Especially if they demand that you risk life and limb to fix and save them before you’d dare to call it love, and especially if they want to be fixed without feeling responsible for initiating any of it. Some people mistake suffering for working hard toward a goal. Both can hurt but only one is constructive. If I’m expected to spend extensive resources on someone, I need some partnership in the goal, and I can’t accomplish that with someone whose wish for companionship manifests as “I want you to feel as bad as I do, and will take steps to hurt you so I have someone to cry with.”

Steven risked his actual life while he didn’t have powers so he could go talk to Spinel, and he wouldn’t fight her when she wanted to fight. He protected himself while she spent her anger. He STILL put himself in the line of fire far more than a less compassionate person would. He took time and tenderness to listen to her story and sympathize with her, tell her she deserved better, bear witness to what she’d become after being treated like a discarded plaything, and bring her hope with promises of a new future and a way to feel found.

Sadly, Spinel flipped back to being murderous at the first sign that Steven might be about to prioritize someone other than her, reframing his reasonable needs as if he was planning to abandon her, isolate her, discard her. This was a trauma reaction, yes, and she isn’t entirely to blame for being upset because she was worried she was just being used and none of her actions were logically thought through.

But does someone ever “deserve” the friendship of a specific person who can’t feel warm toward them because of their OWN bad experiences?

No!

Steven has a big heart but he has his very own huge storehouse of trauma, and being physically attacked with his family and planet put in danger over the actions of his mother is at the top of the list. Instead of assuming that the person who has trauma the loudest is the most hurt, can’t we just acknowledge that Spinel’s and Steven’s respective traumas make them NOT the best match for friendship?

The ending of the movie, with Spinel going off with the Diamonds, might seem a little disturbing with all the codepencency floating around there, but if you want to talk about compassion, I think this is a good place for Spinel to start.

She just wanted to make Pink Diamond laugh and enjoy her life. She longed to do that for so long and then it all ended when she found out she would NEVER GET TO DO IT. I think bonding with the other Diamonds and having a familiar, safe place to experience the kind of love she’s used to will be a good FOUNDATION for building herself into a person beyond that. For now, she needs comfort. I hope they treat her well.

#steven universe #steven universe the movie #gif #long post #spinel #su analysis #my su analysis #myblog

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katsuflossy · 4 years ago

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Whatever It Takes

Pairing: Dabi x reader

WC: 2.3k

TW: Detailed parental abuse, detailed description of a mental episode, obscenities, mention of arranged marriage

A/n: ngl all of this is severely overdue but the recent chapter made my creative juices flow so here we are! Please enjoy💖

Taglist: @melanimed @mixfi @mythiccheroacademia @myhoodacademia @mypimpademia @ecao @strawberry-ice @plutropica @photosbyameil @lunabby010 @iiminibattlehero @sleepysheepkiara

The air was crisp, dark, and cold, what one had expected for the autumn night. Only a few patrons roamed the streets in the twilight. Those that wander under the streetlight had their eyes crossed, mind buzzed, and hand full of one final drink due to being kicked out of the bars. The ladies of the kingdom stayed within the comfort of their homes. They laid around the compassion of their loves or their families, only knowing of the horrors of the outside through gossip. The most recent urban legend paced through the streets with a scowl fixed on his face. Azure eyes glowed danger through the darkness, never revealing the coat-clad scarred body until passing under the street lights. The drunks waddled out of Dabi’s way, feeling the rolls of anger off of him from a twenty-meter radius. For once, the fire quirk wielder ignored the low bastards, never smirking as they cowered in fear nor sparking their shoes afire, laughing as they tried to put them out. No, his mind was occupied, fist clenching and unclenching in the pocket of his coat. Thoughts of past and future overwrote each other in his brain, creating a void of black in his mind. His own psyche started to turn on him again, knowing what’s about to happen would risk many lives. However, Dabi cared only about two lives-- his own and yours.

Like God gave him a sign, he passed the alleyway of a sweet memory. Running away from authority was his regular schedule since the age of 11 but he was close to getting caught one day. Caught but cunning, Dabi held you, hostage, by the neck. The little blue flame from his finger close to searing the flesh of your cheek as he backed into the dark alleyway, away from the entire police force out front. He dragged you through numerous yards before you begged him to stop, hands on your knees as you gulped for air. Glowing eyes stared at the ruby necklace that swang from your neck, almost daring him to try to take it. The second his fingertips could graze the jewel you slapped him away, grip tight on the chain and a fire in your eyes.

“You could take anything from me—shit even the pads of my shoes if you want—but I don’t want you to take this. Here, I’m sure the ring will cost more.” You glided the ring off your hand before offering it to Dabi.

Confused couldn’t even describe Dabi’s thoughts at that moment. Are you really offering a lowlife scum precious jewels? With a smile on your face?

“Are you demented?” The tilt of your lips turned down into a scowl. A haughty hmph passed your nostrils as you looked away from the criminal.

“You were stealing from Greggley’s pawn shop. The same bastard that swindles townsfolk out of their money and rats out people to the police for a living. I’d pay to see that fear on his face again when you ran off with me and his pile of stolen goods. So here’s my payment.” Dabi cautiously took the sapphire ring from your palm. The situation was ironic, he seemed more fearful than you. Cyan eyes watched as the dust on your outfit disappeared by the pats and sweeps of your hands before jumping up. You stayed rocking from the heels of your feet to the soles, eyes waiting expectantly on the chilled man to say something. Instead, his eyes bored straight into yours, deadpanned as he occasionally averted his gaze from the entrance of the deep alley, then back to you. The shouts of police guards had left from long ago; the sounds of their frantic pace went far off into the distance. Yet, you remained in this cramped space with him.

It unnerved him to no end.

“Well, your highness, your mutts went the other way to look for you. You can scurry away now,” He questioned his words. Why is he letting you go so easily? You were a perfect hostage. Just by your yelp, he could have your father in his palms, an important piece to the league’s ultimate plan. The smile on your face didn’t ease his confusion at all. His eyes burned with irritation, upset by your cheerful demeanor.

“Oi, are you fucking braindead? I said scram,” Your face dropped, forming a pout before pulling into a smile again. Dabi felt his eye twitch as you began to chuckle. His hand igniting blue flames as he stepped towards you. You put your hands up into the chilly air.

“Woah now, I’m just saying I could be of more use, Mr. Criminal.” The heat dissipated from his hand. His eyes looked as cold as marbles but within his head, he roamed over the possibilities, how and why should he trust you. Dabi was never a gambler, always a mouse wary of traps but today, he felt lucky. The once fiery hand laid out before you, staples glinting in the dim lighting.

“Dabi,” his eyes roamed over your face, noticing the crinkles at the corner of your eyes never softening, the gleam in your eyes shining more than before. You were actually happy.

“You already know my last name but that’s unimportant right now. The name’s (Y/n).”

The memory cleared away like smoke, reminding Dabi of his mission now. His hand clenched around nothing, his fist tight to relieve the searing anger in his chest. He imagined burning Shigaraki over and over, enveloping in the heat of his wrath as punishment for putting him on this mission.

Red beady eyes looked at Dabi in nonchalance, ignoring the smoke rising from his scarred hand.

“We built our whole organization on this end goal. We are one step closer to annihilating these ‘heroes’ and you’re rejecting this offer? Over some little noble mole?” the insult adding more fuel to Dabi’s rage and fire. His flames barely reached Tomura before being engulfed into another dimension thanks to Kurogiri’s interference. Unrelenting glares fixed at each other. Even then Shigaraki continued.

“I’m not saying it again. Either you do your job and save your blue-blood or they die by our hands.”

His eye pulsed; an ache coiled around his nape to his temple. His own anger throbbed in his head and blindsided his mind. He could add Shigaraki to his body count but your life, to him, was paramount. He withdrew his fire, recollecting himself before shoving his hands into his pockets. He surveyed the room, eyes scanning all the league in disdain; the others avoided his intense gaze. The gravel crunched under his heavy boots as he stomped out of the hideout.

Shigaraki’s threats echoed through Dabi’s head, anger already swelling at the thought of his red eyes as Dabi reached the edge of your house. The whirls of wind carried his coat in their stream, pulling the fabric all about. The walls of dark stone contrasted the warm yellow lights of your not-so-humble but welcoming abode. Dabi only knew the layout of your room but whenever he’s in there, there were hardly any lights from behind your bedroom door, just the occasional shuffling of the maids.

He halted his thoughts, pressing his foot against a jutted brick before hopping on to another. His movements were smooth and familiar as if he had perfected this route. He sat on the window’s stony ledge, fingers rapting against its pane, staring into the night as he waited on you to open the window panel.

Meanwhile, you were balled up in a corner, fingernails creating welts on your skin. Still, the stinging pain didn’t distract you from the taste of iron in your mouth, the phantom feeling of blunt rings on your cheek. Your silent cries shook you to your core, sharp inhales forced your weeping to stop, only for them to return again. All crying ceased once you heard knocking on your window, the same three raps then two softer taps only known to two. A familiar rhythm, one that closely relates to the song you made the criminal danced to during one night at a pub. The precious memory was unable to soothe the paranoia of your mind right now. A hitch in your breath paused all noises in your little quarter. If you stopped breathing, maybe he’d think no one was home. You ultimately stopped breathing only for harsher rapping to strike against your window.

On shaky legs, you stood up, swiping off any trails of tears and snot from your face. The cold air greeting you swung open the window for Dabi, who immediately hopped into the warm comb. He barely skimmed over your appearance before asking.

“What the fuck happened to you?” His hand came up to your swollen cheek; an obvious insignia marked the skin. You didn’t flinch away, instead, you wet your lips, pressing more into his palm. His hands were chilly from the cold outside but the contact warmed your entire body.

“I can’t do it anymore, Dabi.” A broken whisper escaped your lungs. Tears bled through your closed eyes, wetting Dabi’s thumb as he swiped a lone one away. He stood still, billions of thoughts jumbling in his mind as you bawled into his chest. Should he do this? On this night? Your well-being and the league’s plan fought for his attention. Every thought of his mission drowned by the sight of the insignia on your face.

“(Y/n), what the fuck did he do to you?” His shirt crumpled within your hands as you contemplated telling him the truth.

Nobody expected your father, an honorary Knight-Captain, to abuse his only child. It took one loose-lipped servant to say that you were seeing a commoner man in the kingdom for him to wrap his hands around your throat. You remember your body flailing, the coldness of your cheeks as tears fell from your bulging eyes. He dropped you by your mother’s cold command. As you gulped for any type of air she told you to stand. Her patience grew thin quickly as she ripped you off of the ground, your legs nearly collapsing from the force. A shroud of care she put herself under, letting her adorned knuckles skim across your cheekbones as she talked about your fate. You're being shipped off to marry the highest knight family, the Todorokis. Enjirou, commander of the Kingsguard, sought after you for his son, Natsuo Todoroki, for months. Your inappropriate actions caused your arranged marriage to arrive quicker. Her veil lifted, and in an instant, she whipped her hand across your face, the blow smacking your staggering body to the side. Their eyes entertained at your cry. She fixed her rings as she declared your fate. House arrest until the Todorokis picked up their new toy. They left you on the ground, weeping until Dabi arrived.

Stammers and hiccups escaped your lips instead of comprehensible words. His shirt crumpled under the intensity of your grip. In that time, Dabi had gathered all the information needed. The look in his eyes was unreadable as he loosened your constriction on his clothes, fingers interlacing in between your shaky digits. A shadow cast over his face as he talked to you.

“(Y/n),” your eyes dull and lost, you were wrapped up in your own severed psyche. A finger on your chin, he guided you to meet his eyes.

“Let me fix this,” It wasn’t a duel, but warfare that unfolded in his headspace as he asked, begged for your permission. You barely felt yourself nod before seeing the flame reignited in Dabi’s eyes. The smile on his face grew like a wildfire, nearly meeting the staples under his eyes. He left your numb body with a soft peck and a willful promise before walking, for the first time, out your bedroom door. Muted footsteps sounded miles away even though he left the door wide open. When did you end up on the ground, scraped knees meeting the plush of your rug, though you did not feel it? The warmth of the room dissipated from the air, goosebumps rising along your skin. Your body could only focus on one sense at a time, tuning into the sounds around you. Though muffled, you could hear the guttural screaming coming from rooms away. The cries formed into pleas before morphing back into incomprehensibility. Whether your body was protecting you from further trauma or not, your audible sense shut off only to look at the smeared blood all over your rug. Your ears never picked up on your outcry, pushing your diaphragm, but Dabi’s did.

He sprinted back to your room immediately, leaving his fires to completely consume your parents and lick at the foundations of the walls. His black coat draped over your body before he lifted you into his arms. The hungry fire now satiated, he left the same way he entered but with now, with you within his arms.

He knows what he did wrong, rubbing salt into your traumatic wounds, but he had a mission to do. He held your trembling body closer to his lithe frame. The league finally made their first step to instigating chaos but that did not matter right now. Dashing through the alleyways, he took a look into your blank eyes, cast away into another realm. The sounds of the Knights fighting against your burning house faded as he ran. He rested his forehead against yours, eyes squeezing shut as he made another promise to you.

“No one will ever tear us apart. I don’t care if this whole place burns to the ground. Just know you are the only one that matters. It’ll just be me and you at the end. Whatever it takes to get there.”

#bnha dabi x reader #bnha dabi #dabi x reader #dabi x black reader #dabi x poc reader #dabi x black!reader

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eldritchteaparty · 4 years ago

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Chapters: 12/20 Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Characters: Martin Blackwood, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives), Sasha James, Rosie Zampano, Oliver Banks, Original Elias Bouchard, Peter Lukas, Annabelle Cane, Melanie King, Georgie Barker Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Fix-It, Post-Canon Fix-It, Scars, Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, I'll add characters and tags as they come up, Reference to injuries and blood, Character Death In Dream, Nudity (not sexual or graphic), Nightmares, Fighting

Summary: Following the events of MAG 200, Jon and Martin find themselves in a dimension very much like the one they came from--with second chances and more time.

Chapter summary: Jon and Martin talk things out after their encounter with Annabelle at dinner.

Chapter 12 of my post-canon fix-it is up!

Read above at AO3 or here below.

Tumblr master post with links to previous chapters is here.

***

Martin finally pulled his hand away. “We should pay.”

“I did.”

“Oh.” He still couldn’t bring himself to look at Jon. “I didn’t see.”

“I know.”

“Thank you.” It seemed like the right thing to say before he did, but afterward it hung awkwardly between them.

“Do you…” Jon cleared his throat. “Do you want to leave?”

“Sure.” He didn’t want to stay.

Now that it was later in the evening, it was cool enough outside that he didn’t feel terrible for jamming his hands into his pockets as they walked to the tube station. He took the window seat on the train, staring out into the darkness of the tunnel as if he were watching scenery go by. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to talk, or even that he was avoiding an argument; after all, arguing seemed to be one of the few ways that he and Jon actually managed to communicate with each other. It was that he still didn’t know what to say.

Jon surprised him by speaking first.

“You’re angry.”

“Yeah. I’m angry,” he answered.

“You have every right to be.”

“I mean—I’m not angry at you.” He finally looked at Jon, who was eyeing him with skepticism. “All right, I’m not just angry at you. I’m angry at the whole situation. I’m angry at her. And I’m—I’m angry at me.”

Jon nodded.

“And I feel stupid.”

“You’re not—”

“I am. And I’m sad,” he added. “I’m sad I can’t fix this.”

“It’s not your job to fix it.”

“It’s not yours, either. But that doesn’t seem to make a difference.”

Jon didn’t answer him, and he went back to looking out the window. They didn’t exchange any more words until they were almost at the front door of the flat, where Martin finally knew what he wanted to ask first.

“When did it happen? When did you—know it was back? Was it after Hill Top Road?”

Jon unlocked the door and opened it, waiting for Martin to go in before he answered him.

“It was. But not right away—it was that next week. I don’t even know if that had anything to do with it.”

“Ok. Ok. So that next weekend, when—and that haircut, and this—this stupid date—” Jon recoiled. “All of it, it’s all been, what—a distraction?”

“What?” Jon started to step toward him, then stopped. “No—no, it wasn’t.”

Martin drew in a breath and swallowed. “But it wasn’t real.”

“It was.” There was a kind of desperation in Jon’s face that Martin hadn’t seen for a while—like he had something to prove. “It’s what I could give. I don’t know how much time we have, and—”

He couldn’t hold it in. “Jon—why didn’t you just tell me?”

A moment passed, but Martin was determined to wait for an answer. Jon finally gave it.

“Because you were happy.”

“Happy? I was worried sick about you most of the time.”

“That was still better, though, wasn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“When I was—” Jon paused. “You liked taking care of me. You liked that I had to rely on you. You liked that I couldn’t—

“Don’t.”

Jon didn’t.

Martin was suddenly conscious that they had never moved away from the front door. Jon’s last point had knocked some of the energy out of him, but going to sit somewhere else didn’t seem right. He sat on the floor instead, leaning against the back of the couch. Jon reciprocated, leaning on the wall behind him. It was dark in the flat, they hadn’t turned on a light, but they could still see each other well enough from the lights outside the window.

“Look—at least I knew it was wrong.”

Jon sighed. “It wasn’t—it wasn’t wrong. I did need you. And it—it was sweet. I’m glad I have you. It was just—”

“I know. I know what it was.”

In the quiet that followed, guilt that had lain dormant until then writhed its way down to his stomach. It settled in, weighing heavy inside him until Jon broke the silence again.

“Earlier, what you said—you were right.”

“About what?”

“That I should have tried harder to tell you.”

“Jon—I was upset.”

“You weren’t wrong.”

“Yes, I was.” Martin sighed. “I mean… I know you tried to tell me. Well, now I do. But I would have listened if—honestly, I just thought you were going to apologize again or feel bad for everything, and—”

“And you didn’t want to hear that.”

“No, I—” Martin stopped. I didn’t want you to feel that was what he started to say, but he was interrupted by the recollection of his mother, telling him to go put the kettle on to make a cup of tea. He’d grown to hate it right along with the oolong, the way she avoided having to talk with him about anything that might have really mattered, replacing it with something that only roughly resembled comfort.

Words he’d once spoken to himself came back to him. At best, it’s a plaster. At worst, a muzzle.

He was exactly the same as her. The guilt that had awoken started to twist its way back up, into his chest and around his lungs.

“Martin, you’re not—it’s different. You’re not the same.”

“Jon!” Martin’s face flushed. “That’s not suddenly ok now, you know?”

“I’m sorry,” Jon mumbled. “I didn’t mean to. It’s not—it’s harder to control than I remember.”

“Yeah. Great.”

It got quiet again; Martin distractedly tapped his fingertips on the floor, looking up at the ceiling.

“Ok, so… what else? What’s it—what’s it like?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean—ok, so do you need to read the statements?”

Jon took a small breath. “Yes.”

“Is it—” He forced himself to look at Jon. “Are you ok? I mean… I know they used to really take it out of you.”

“I’m…” Jon met his eyes, which seemed just as hard for him. “Sometimes they do.”

“Ok. Will you—will you check in with me if you’re reading one and I’m not around?”

“Martin—”

“Look, I’m not asking for a promise. I’m just—I’m just asking if you will.”

“I don’t know.” Jon returned to staring at the floor. The answer hurt, but Martin was relieved for the excuse to break eye contact.

“What about… have you compelled anyone?”

“No.”

“Could you?”

“Yes. Well, probably. Depending on the person.”

Martin nodded. “How hard is it to—know something?”

“It’s, um… not easy. Not as hard as it was at first—before—though. And more things… slip through.”

“Accidentally.”

“Yes.”

Martin realized the muscles in his shoulders and neck were starting to cramp from how he’d been holding them. He exhaled and leaned back against the couch when something occurred to him. “What about Melanie?”

Jon looked up at him again. “What about her?”

“You’ve been sending her after dead ends, haven’t you? That’s why she hasn’t found anyone to talk to. You knew she wouldn’t.”

Jon didn’t answer.

“So that’s a yes?”

Jon nodded reluctantly.

“Good.”

Jon sat straighter, looking at Martin again. “Really? I wasn’t sure if you’d—I mean, I know you want them to know about… about everything.”

“Yeah, I do, but—but everything’s different than I thought.” He couldn’t keep the tinge of resentment out of his voice, but he pushed ahead. “They still need to know, but… it’s different. I’m glad she’s safe.”

The gratefulness he saw so plainly reflected in Jon’s face did two things. It made Martin want to go to him, to bridge the short distance between them and put his arms around him, and try again to convince him everything would be ok. It also stirred the guilt that had begun to recede quietly back into his subconscious, pushing him to think further through everything that had happened, what he might have missed, what he might have done. Those thoughts were coming faster now that he was over his initial shock. They had more to talk about.

“Jon, I’m—I’m sorry I stayed to talk to Annabelle tonight.”

“Are you?”

He hadn’t expected that bit of harshness, and he tensed up at the words. “Well, I—”

“Never mind,” Jon stopped him. “I know why you did it.”

Martin sat back again. “I am sorry, though. I mean, I’m sorry it hurt you.”

There was another short round of silence.

“Jon, why do you think she came to talk to us? Or—talk to you, really?”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Jon slumped back against the wall. “She won and she came to gloat.”

“Has she?” Martin asked. “I mean—yeah, we’re here, but—this wasn’t exactly what she wanted. It’s not what she wants in the end, anyway. And gloating, I mean—that really doesn’t seem like her.”

“We have no idea what seems like her, Martin.” The pure bitterness in Jon’s voice was almost a welcome break from the sadness that had dominated his tone until then. “That’s really her whole deal.”

“Maybe.” Martin kept pushing. “Still—I just think—do you really think she was trying to—call a truce? Whatever she said?”

“No,” Jon answered. “I think she came to see the look on my face when she told me they didn’t need me anymore.”

“I don’t think so.”

“No? You don’t think the Fears will find their way out of here eventually?” It was not meant as a legitimate question.

“Ok—I don’t know, but—” Martin tried to choose his words with care. “Yeah. It seems possible.”

“Therefore, she came to gloat.”

“But Jon—” He could feel the frustration creeping into his voice. “I mean—she has to know you won’t just accept that. You’re not planning to let it go, right?”

“Of course not.”

“Exactly. And she has to know that. It’s almost like—it’s almost like she was trying to push you to do something. To not let it go. Why?”

Something about Jon’s demeanor changed; he stiffened slightly, or shifted his balance, and Martin’s thoughts began to converge. The way Annabelle had talked about time—of course she was right, the Web didn’t care, and so she didn’t either. It was very clear her own life didn’t matter to her, any more than it served the Web.

So why would she show up and deliberately remind Jon that if he did nothing, the entities would escape?

It brought to mind something Jon had said earlier, something he had ignored in the moment.

I don’t know how much time we have.

“Jon, what have you been doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, when you’ve been staying late in the office. When you’ve been working here, writing. What have you been doing? If I open that drawer”—he gestured vaguely behind him toward the desk—“what will I find?”

“I’d prefer you didn’t,” Jon said quietly.

He measured his words carefully. “I’d prefer you tell me.”

Jon shrank into himself; he wrapped one arm around his chest and pulled his knees in, and brought his other hand up to his mouth.

“Jon.” Martin couldn’t stop the slight shake in his voice this time; he hoped he was wrong. “Please. Tell me what you’ve been doing.”

“All right.” Jon spoke from behind his hand. “It’s—it’s a ritual.”

It wasn’t the answer Martin had wanted to hear, but it was the one he had expected. “To start another apocalypse?”

“I—” Jon was breathing harder, and Martin could see the effort he was making to push through his words. “Yes. Not—not exactly the same, I could do it faster, and there would be less—”

“How? From memory?”

“No. Well—some. Some of it—there are a couple of—of Leitners—”

“Jesus Christ, Jon!”

“I only used ones that were safe—”

“Safe? Do you realize that a giant fucking eyeball fear monster is telling you which ones are safe?”

“I meant that I could control—”

“I don’t believe you.”

There was a beat of silence. “Martin please, I’m—”

“No, I mean—I literally don’t believe you. I don’t believe you could do it.”

“Martin—”

“Look, I get what happened before. I didn’t agree, but I get it. You’d lost everything. They used you and they took everything that mattered to you. They took Sasha, then Tim, and then Daisy, and you had to watch what it did to all the others—”

“And you,” Jon said.

“—fine, yes, but—Jon, this is not that. This is—they’re all here. They have a chance. And whatever you think happened before—this is a real choice. And they care about you, and you care about them. I just—I don’t think you could do it. I don’t believe it.”

Jon face slid down into his hand until his eyes were covered. “I don’t know. I don’t want to. Probably I couldn’t. Probably I won’t. But I wish I could. If it gets bad enough, maybe I can. And I need to—to be ready. I just can’t—I just can’t let them—”

The quick hitch of breath that followed made Martin forget what he had been about to say, if he’d had any words. He crawled to Jon’s side, slipping one arm around his back and the other around his chest, awkwardly trapping the arm Jon had wrapped around himself. Jon’s face ended up pressed against Martin’s throat, where his breath continued to catch as he fought to stop crying.

Martin wanted to tell him it was ok—that it would be ok, that they could still fix it—but he remembered the last time Jon had finally broken down that had only made him withdraw again. He was starting to really understand that it wasn’t ok for Jon, and probably never would be. He couldn’t bear to think what that meant for him, especially not right then, but he knew enough to not make that mistake again.

He said the only comforting thing he could think of that he was sure about, that he had been sure about for a long time now.

“I love you.”

Jon reached a hand up to Martin’s neck, where he pressed the pads of his fingers firmly against his skin.

“I’m here.” Martin spoke softly against Jon’s hair. He could tell Jon was still struggling, still trying to gain control, but he seemed to have relaxed a little; his body wasn’t quite so rigid as Martin held him.

***

Eventually Jon was calm. They’d shifted so that he rested with his back against Martin’s chest, and Martin’s back was against the wall. His arms were around Jon’s waist, and Jon’s arms rested comfortably on top of his as he leaned back into him.

“So.” Jon’s voice was raw. “I’ve finally become a monster.”

“No.” Martin pressed his mouth gently against his ear. “You haven’t.”

“Yes, I have.”

“No. I mean—I still don’t think you could do it, but—now that we’re here, and we know what’s out there—you don’t want them to get out again. That would be terrible.”

Jon shifted slightly; Martin impulsively tightened his grip, then made himself relax again.

“To be clear—I don’t think you’re responsible for what happens a hundred years from now, or a thousand years from now—and I’m definitely not in favor of ending the world over it.”

“Martin, it just—it doesn’t matter how long from now it is. If it’s ten thousand years from now and they escape, and poison a thousand dimensions—more than that, maybe—if I could have ended it, it’s my fault.”

Martin tightened his grip again, this time deliberately.

“Maybe there’s another way.”

Jon turned so his forehead was against Martin’s cheek. “Martin, I know you want to think that, but—”

“Yes, and I know, the world doesn’t care what I think.”

“I should never have said that.”

“I mean, it hurt—but it was true.”

“I’m sorry.”

“That’s not the point. The point is—I still don’t think Annabelle would have turned up just to brag. I think she needs something. She doesn’t want you to have time. I think she’s trying to push you into acting, and maybe—maybe, if you did, it would all turn out the same. But worse, obviously.”

Jon’s fingers, which he had been absentmindedly brushing over Martin’s forearm, were suddenly still; Martin realized that possibility hadn’t occurred to him.

“But maybe—if you don’t, but if you keep trying—keep looking for it—maybe there is another way. One she’s scared of. A path she doesn’t want you to take.”

“Hm.” Martin could tell Jon wasn’t sold on it, but he had heard him, and that was enough for the moment.

“Jon?”

“Yes.”

“I’m—I’m going to tell them soon.”

Jon nodded. “I understand.”

He kissed Jon lightly on the forehead, and slid his hand up to his chest, where he slipped his fingers into the gaps between the buttons of Jon’s shirt. He could feel the scar, his scar, through the thin fabric of Jon’s t-shirt; beneath that though, around it, he could feel the rise and fall of Jon’s chest.

“Jon.”

“Yes?”

“Let me know if you’re reading a statement and I’m not around?”

Jon sighed. “All right.”

#the magnus archives #tma #mag pod #tma spoilers #jonmartin #tma fanfic #my writing

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woulddieforperrytheplatypus · 4 years ago

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I would like to call shenanigans about the complaints of Phineas being "out-of-character" in the specials and movies. He's a kid! And human! It makes his character more interesting and three-dimensional! He's allowed to be sad or mad when he's out of his comfort zone! I mean, everyone else is allowed to have a wide range of emotions, and it makes it all the more satisfying when he manages to pull through and go back to being his usual positive self

SAY IT LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK

I’m about to get real salty for a second (not at the show tho I’m getting salty at people who get salty at the show) so here’s a cut

Nothing annoys me more than people who think Phineas had no reason to get upset in at2d. Literally one of the last things 2D Doof said to him before Perry revealed that he was a secret agent was, and I quote, “You really think that he’s your pet, don’t you? WRONG! He’s using you! He’s just your cover!” Of course he was going to internalize that!

And that’s not just speculation, either. As soon as they get a moment to talk without the constant fear of, you know, getting arrested by an evil dictator’s robots, Phineas straight up asks him, “Was that evil guy right? Were we just a cover for you? Were you ever really our pet, or part of our family?” AND THEN HE HAS THE AUDACITY TO BREAK MY HEART BY FOLLOWING THAT UP WITH “Well, apparently not, because you didn’t trust us enough to tell us!” Like? 2D Doof’s words overshadowed the entire reveal. Of course that was going to impact how Phineas reacted to it, and it blows my mind that people think he should have just accepted it with a smile like nothing happened.

And that’s not even getting into the fact that Perry got them into that mess in the first place. I don’t even think I can say it better than Phineas so I’m gonna use another quote from the movie because I am apparently writing an actual angry essay right now with evidence from the text movie lmao. When they’re still at DEI and Heinz clarifies that he’s an evil scientist, Phineas turns on Perry and says, “You just sat there and let us help an evil scientist open an evil portal into an evil dimension, and you did nothing to stop us?” (With, of course, the caveat that yes, Perry peed on the couch, but “That wasn’t enough!”)

~~ taking a brief break from angry ranting in the middle of the night to add that I definitely don’t think Perry was in the wrong here. I’ve just spent a lot of time thinking about at2d because a) I’ve seen it so many times and practically have it memorized (thus why I threw in all these quotes off the top of my head lol) and b) I’m writing a fic where Perry can talk (it’s Bitch Shut The Fuck Up on Wattpad and AO3 if anyone’s in the mood for sassy, swearing Perry) and I’m going to start incorporating episodes once summer starts in the fic so I lowkey spent most of my nights in bed thinking about what Perry’s going to say and how it would change things if he could explain himself and would he even try to or would he let the kids think he betrayed them if he thought it would keep them safe so anyways I have a lot of feelings but tl:dr Phineas has ever reason to be upset and I don’t blame him and neither should you ~~

And then, of course, there’s the Marvel crossover and, like, he was right? He was 100% right? Candace was too star struck to help, and it was too important for them to take any risks. And you make a really good point with your comment about being out of his comfort zone. I don’t think there’s ever a time that Phineas is more out of his league than in the Marvel crossover. He really is just a kid, and he only got roped into this because he just happened to put his space station in the wrong place at the wrong time and the Avengers made the wrong assumptions. The fate of the entire world depended on them, and when Candace repeatedly messed things up, Phineas had every right to be upset -- and the fact that he was undoubtedly really stressed out because, again, the fate of the entire world, only gives him more of a reason to snap. It’s not out of character; his character had just never dealt with anything like that before.

I mean, of course, there’s Phineas and Ferb Save Summer, which I think was a more mild example of Phineas getting angry, but it’s similar enough to the Marvel crossover that I feel like I need to bring it up, if only to point out the differences. In the Marvel crossover, the world was actively being threatened by a group of actual supervillains. In PnF Save Summer, technically LOVEMUFFIN is also threatening the safety of the world by trying to plunge it into an eternal ice age, but Phineas doesn’t know that which is half the fun of the episode. Like, they don’t know why they can’t move the planet back into place, just like LOVEMUFFIN doesn’t know why they can’t move it further away.

That’s not really the point here, though; that’s just me having unnecessary opinions on everything. I don’t really view this one as Phineas snapping, but Buford does make that joke about how it must be a special episode because Phineas is yelling at his sister again so I’m guessing there are probably people who think it’s ooc which means naturally I gotta bring it up (and, of course, I wanted to reference the meta joke because I love it).

Phineas built those thrusters. He knows how they work better than probably anyone but Ferb. When Candace says she’s going to overwork them, of course Phineas is going to tell her not to, and he’s going to be urgent about it, but he doesn’t yell. And when Candace accidentally ruins the thrusters, Phineas doesn’t yell at her then, either; he just tells her how to fix it (and, when she’s too scared to go into the attic, his hologram is there to cheer her on). It’s just? So? Wholesome? And “wholesome” is basically Phineas’s entire character, so that fits really well.

And the only other one I can think of off the top of my head is Summer Belongs To You (and it’s entirely possible he’s supposedly “out of character’ in other specials too but it’s 11:20 at night and my brain is fried lmao). “Get on the trike!” is literally one the most iconic lines in the show. Even Dan said it’s one of his favorites because it wasn’t necessarily a funny line, it was funny because it was Phineas saying it, and the fact that so many people remembered it was that it seemed so out-of-place coming from Phineas, which meant they had developed the character well (and if anyone happens to have the video -- I think it might have been an old tiktok but there have been way too many for me to look through -- hmu bc it was such a pure moment). But tbh even though the yelling was “out of character” in the sense that it made for a good joke, I don’t think his actions were out of character at all? Phineas sets crazy goals all the time, and he always achieves them. They’d put so much work into it so far, and he wasn’t going to let it go to waste when the end game was right there. He was exhausted, presumably both physically and mentally (I mean, we didn’t see him sleep at all, you know?) and he wanted to get home and he wanted to accomplish his goal and he wanted to do it as a family (because 🎵 friends are also family 🎵) and he wasn’t going to let Candace ruin that, which I personally think is adorable because technically Candace was never even part of the bet and she didn’t have to make it home with them for them to win so Phineas easily could have ditched her and made her find her own way home but he wanted her to see it through with them and I just have a lot of feelings 😭

OKAY last paragraph because I know no one really cares and it’s getting late and I have an 8:30 class tomorrow and should probably be in bed by now. I also like the point you made about how that makes it more satisfying when he manages to pull through and go back to being his usual positive self. I don’t know if anyone considers it out of character given that it’s really supposed to be a powerful moment purely because it’s so out of the ordinary (although I guess I could say the same for all these scenes) but god, when Phineas breaks down on the island in Summer Belongs To You, it’s such a testament to his character because he had managed to push through so much because he was determined to get home but it also proves that he does have a breaking point. I mean, we see it in all the other scenes, too, but those are directed at people. This is purely situational, which I think hits harder and it’s why that was the first one I thought of when you mentioned pushing through. All these scenes are a testament to his character, really, and basically the moral of the story is that I completely agree with you, Phineas deserves to have his character explored as much as Candace and Heinz have theirs explored, and that I clearly have way too many opinions and should really learn to tone it down fjksdhfjka

#pnf #phineas flynn #across the 2nd dimension #at2d #phineas and ferb: mission marvel #mission marvel #marvel crossover #phineas and ferb save summer #pnf save summer #summer belongs to you #all these tags and i still know that it won't show up if i ever try to find it lmao #look i have an ask

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coreastories · 4 years ago

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Pieces of Paper

By the time “not today” became “today,” the two of them already had it settled between them. They just needed to do the paperwork.

And then it was just a matter of asking the question again, and giving the unassailable answer again.

Part 10 of Days and Nights of Forever (AO3 for kudos/download)

Follows The Clock

Connects to That Situation

Harks back to The Thirteenth Rule

Made Me Forget Dinner

“Thank you so much for your help.” Tae-Eul placed the box of files on Kang Shin-jae’s coffee table and stood up. That was this case done. She was glad it was over for so many reasons.

“No, I’m the one who should thank you.” Kang Shin-jae stood up and shook hands with all four of them, leaving her hand last. “I appreciate all your effort on this. You were excellent.”

“Thank you.” Tae-Eul smiled slightly. This Kang Shin-jae certainly improved on better acquaintance.

“Maybe we can have dinner?”

“She’s taken.”

“Jangmi!”

“Well, you are, sunbae. You go to him every weekend.”

Tae-Eul rolled her eyes. Before she could say anything else, Kang Shin-jae said, “Ahh, I was asking all of you, not Lieutenant Jeong. My treat.”

Tae-Eul thumped Jangmi on the back when she saw him raise his eyebrows and smirk and open his mouth as if to challenge Kang Shin-jae. She said, “That’s awesome. Weren’t you saying you’re hungry, Jangmi?”

She turned to Kang Shin-jae and gave a courteous dip of her chin. “Thanks again. I’ll have to pass on the dinner. I have to eat with my dad.”

She sighed in relief once she stepped out of the building and onto the street again. She was done with the case. The murderer was behind bars and she and her team had every loose end tied up so tight he wouldn’t slither out of this even with a very good slimy lawyer at the trial. She was free to do what she’d been meaning to do.

On the way to the station, she weighed everything again in her head. She waited for some noise, some static, some confusion, but nothing came. Everything remained clear. And… quiet. Like when she knew that a case was resolved. There were no more details clamoring for attention, waving at her from the sides and corners like annoying little gnats.

When she knew a case was finally done, everything just fell into their proper places. This felt like that. She felt it in her gut and she heard it in the peace in her head.

Her heart was a different story.

Her heart was beating like mad but that was normal, wasn’t it, when you were contemplating marrying the one you loved?

Her heart drumming was almost like a constant these days. If she didn’t know better she would have gone to the doctor.

Even during her catnaps, she always woke up with her heart drumming. She dreamed of a crescent moon. A moon like a sickle in the sky. Nothing that should have sent her heart racing, but it did.

When she wasn’t dreaming of that crescent moon, she dreamed of rain. Heavy, but peaceful rain. It came straight down, with no wind to scatter the raindrops. It was the kind of rain you loved to listen to when you were snug under a blanket in your bedroom.

And always, just when that rain was lulling her to deeper peace, her dream would shift to show a spider building a web over a precipice between two rocks. Right under that rain.

But the rain seemed to do nothing to the web the spider was painstakingly building, except for decorating it with raindrops, sparkling like diamonds in the weak light.

Then she’d wake up with her heart going a mile a minute.

She’d asked Na-ri about it and Na-ri had said she’d look it up. Apparently, dreams were messages from your subconscious, from your present circumstances, and they were even more accurate than palm reading and its nebulous predictions.

Tae-Eul had no idea how a crescent moon, rain, and a spider building a web connected to her current decisions, but she hoped they meant good things, especially with Chief Park making that long-suffering face at her.

“But why? You know I just automatically mark you eligible for rehire no matter how much headache you give me! And what about your pension? You’ll lose that. Ah-- I’ll have to fight to get you your unpaid OT and sick leave and vacation leave. Your benefits-- you lose that, too. Are you serious? Why are you doing this? What happened? I thought your case was done-- I thought you were happy?”

Tae-Eul winced sympathetically. “I’m sorry for how sudden this is. I’m aware that I’ll lose my pension. Don’t worry about that, Chief Park. You don’t have to push for my unpaid stuff either.” She nodded with conviction. “And yes, I’m done with the case, Chief. No dereliction of duty. No failure to intervene. It’s all good timing, see? I'm not leaving you with any headache at all."

Chief Park’s mouth was gaping now. He closed it. Then opened it again. Then closed it again. He ran a hand over his face. “You’re really serious about this?”

“I am.”

“Wha-- where are you going? Are you transferring? You don’t have to resign to transfer. I can arrange things for you-- It will be a pain in the neck but--”

“No, Chief Park, I’m not transferring. I just need to resign.”

“What about your dad? He’s your beneficiary, isn’t he-- Are you sick? Is that why you’re resigning? Because you know we can--”

“He’s fine. I’ll take care of him. And I’m not sick. Thank you for worrying about me. Come on, Chief. This is my last request to you. Please accept my resignation.”

Chief Park groaned. He sat back on his chair and grimaced at her for a minute before he finally nodded and flapped his hand at Tae-Eul and his desk. He stamped her resignation letter and placed it on his out-tray. Then he looked at Tae-Eul expectantly.

Tae-Eul placed her ID card on the desk. Her side-arm followed. That was it.

That was all it took. She was no longer a detective. No longer a lieutenant.

Chief Park was peering up at her. “How do you feel? Getting any second thoughts? We can just forget this piece of paper, you know.”

Tae-Eul smiled. She shook her head. “No. I feel fine.”

She cried in her car.

The sobs were soft, too soft to even shake her shoulders, but they were still a complete contrast to the peace she’d felt before she’d turned in her ID. She’d wanted to be a cop all throughout her childhood. And she had been a cop for most of her adult life. She was either training for it, or doing it. It was a job but it was also simply her. Part of her.

And now what?

Just like that, she was calm again.

She knew exactly what next. She smiled through her last tears and drove away.

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

“He’s in Jeongno now. He transferred there.”

“Well, that makes things convenient. Let’s just use Jeongno then.”

“Use Jeongno for what, Pyeha?” Yeong asked.

Gon smiled. “I’m fixing that situation we talked about.”

Gon saw Yeong take a deep breath, then his friend made that slight nod that meant he approved. Gon grinned. To Yeong, anything was probably better than Gon disappearing and reappearing with a woman he and the Royal Guard had to hide.

“Can you come with me? I’m going to Jeongno. Keep it quiet, but not too quiet.”

“What else do you need done, Pyeha?”

Gon clapped him on the back. “Nothing. I need to do this myself.”

Two hours later, Gon wondered if he should have taken up Yeong on his offer. He had to fight his discomfiture and remind himself Kang Hyeon-min didn’t know him. Didn’t know Tae-Eul. Didn’t know that Gon owed him eternal thanks for his part in Gon’s past and present.

It was just-- Kang Hyeon-min was too much like the ‘Kang Shin-jae’ Gon had known. It was uncanny. He still looked sullen. He still looked like he didn’t think Gon deserved anything. Even as king.

Kang Hyeon-min stood there and glowered a little and looked for all the world as if this small office in Jongno Police Station was his palace and Gon was an annoying subject.

“Let me get this straight, Your Majesty,” Kang Hyeon-min said. “This woman is an undercover agent and you want us-- at Jongno-- to recognize her as one of us?”

Chief Park groaned. “Why did you have to repeat His Majesty? Of course we’ll do as you order, Pyeha. You didn’t even need to see us. I’m sorry you took the trouble.”

Gon didn’t smile. He felt like Kang Hyeon-min would lose what little respect he had if Gon gave ground with something as innocuous as a smile. So with all the gravity he possessed, Gon said, “This is not an order, but a request. I know that it may sound like I didn't need to ambush your time today at all, but I did. The lady is very special to me personally, and she has done this country an immense service. You won’t have to lie to anyone. The Royal Public Affairs Office will take care of information and it will be understood that you can’t talk about it much.

“However, I do request that you speak of her kindly, as if you really knew her. It will be assumed she belongs to a top-secret organization, but being with Jongno adds dimension to her cover. My presence here today also adds another element of truth to her connection with me, and to you.”

Chief Park opened his mouth, probably for more obsequious assurance, but Kang Hyeon-min beat him to it. “What’s her name, Your Majesty?”

“Jeong Tae-Eul.” And with his eyes locked on Kang Hyeon-min’s, he overturned and slid Tae-Eul’s official ID photo across the desk to show both men, along with the certificate that attested Jeong Tae-Eul had been employed by the Corean National Police Agency under the Ministry of Interior and Safety, from 2011 to 2020.

As Gon expected, Kang Hyeon-min flinched.

Gon said quietly, “You recognize her face, don’t you?”

Chief Park said, “What? You know her?”

Kang Hyeon-min said without inflection, “She was with me in Haeundae. She’s in New Zealand Interpol now. Her name’s Koo Seo-gyeong.”

Gon nodded. He tapped a finger on Tae-Eul’s photo. “This is Jeong Tae-Eul. It’s either a doppelganger case of two people looking so alike-- a 1 in trillion chance-- or Koo Seo-gyeong and Jeong Tae-Eul are related. We’ll settle this as soon as possible. But for now, I want to impress on you that Jeong Tae-eul’s safety depends on your agreement to my request. I may still have enemies. They will target her. I will protect her. And one of those protections is your agreement that she worked in Jongno-gu.”

To Gon’s surprise, Kang Hyeon-min nodded immediately.

Or perhaps he shouldn't have been surprised. Kang Hyeon-min looked a little more sullen now, but the earlier belligerence was gone. He was looking at the photo, and Gon had this inescapable recognition that Kang Hyeon-min wanted Tae-Eul safe, if only because she bore the same face as Koo Seo-gyeong.

“Don’t worry,” Kang Hyeon-min said, now looking Gon in the eye. “We’ll take care of things. But I have a condition.”

“Name it.”

“Come to New Zealand when I ask for you.”

Gon blinked. That was unexpected. He’d thought Kang Hyeon-min was going to demand to be privy to more information, or perhaps to be sent to New Zealand. “Of course.”

Gon stood up, and he felt much lighter than when he came here. He looked at Kang Hyeon-min and realized he felt the same as when ‘Kang Shin-Jae’ had decided to help him and Yeong.

He felt like he would win.

It was all too simple, really.

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

Tae-Eul sat with Na-ri in the yard, both of them soaking as much of the summer sun as they could before today’s rain rolled in. Afternoons had been consistently rainy so far. Tae-Eul wondered if that had anything to do with her dream.

“Did you look up my dreams yet?” she asked Na-ri.

“Oh I keep forgetting, sorry. I’ll do it right now.”

She laid a hand on Na-ri’s to stop her from digging into her apron pocket for her phone. “Don’t bother. I don’t really want to know. It could be weird.”

Na-ri took that opportunity to grab Tae-Eul’s hand and hold it tight. “Let me look at your palm then. It could be good!”

Tae-Eul gave up on pulling back her hand. To her surprise and confusion, Na-ri was looking at the side of her palm, not all the lines in the center.

“What is it?”

“I’m looking at your marriage lines.”

“Marriage lines?”

“These lines here.” Na-ri pointed to the spot of skin under Tae-Eul’s little finger. “And it’s… it’s awesome. Look at this fork. This means true love. And it’s running parallel to the heart line. That means happiness and success. These lines are also really deep. You have an intense relationship.” Na-ri grinned. “Is that TMI about you and Gon?”

Tae-Eul scrunched her nose and pulled her hand away. She tried not to smile, so she wrapped her lips around the large straw of her chocolate cereal milk tea.

Na-ri and Eun-sup had met Gon, of course. They lived right there in the same building as her dad. As far as all three of them knew, Gon worked for the government in a confidential capacity, and the less who knew him, the better. It explained Gon’s mysteriousness, and why he and Tae-Eul could only meet on weekends.

WIth Eun-sup on a fast-track to the NIS, it wasn’t difficult for them to accept Gon and his story. Na-ri liked Gon, and was as impressed with him this time around as she had been before.

“So what did you tell them?” Na-ri asked.

“I just said I wanted to resign. I didn’t tell them anything else. Can you imagine? They would have ruined our goodbye lunch and told me I’m being stupid and I can marry without resigning. Then they would have bugged me about meeting Gon again.”

“You’re not being stupid. As long as you’re sure.”

Tae-Eul smiled. Na-ri had a knack of picking up on the heart of the matter. “That’s what my dad said. He just asked if I was sure. It was almost anticlimactic the way he didn’t react. I wonder if Gon talked to him before. And I really am sure. You’ve just seen my marriage lines, haven’t you?”

Na-ri just looked steadily at her despite her joke. “You’re giving up a lot for him.”

Tae-Eul had always loved the way she and Na-ri meshed in their straightforwardness, but she loved Na-ri most at that moment. Heart of the matter. She took a deep breath. “It doesn’t really feel like that. It’s more like I’m meeting him halfway.”

“This is halfway? What is he giving up?”

Tae-Eul looked at Na-ri and hoped Na-ri saw the certainty in her eyes. “He can’t just give it up. That’s why he can’t ask me to give up anything either. And I’ve told him not to ask me. So he won’t. So I’m meeting him halfway now. That’s what I meant.”

Na-ri seemed to soften at that. “You’ve chosen well anyway. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. Don’t be so sure he can’t give up things for you. I think that man would cross the universe for you. And I have this certainty you two have gone through much more than you’ve told me. That’s why I’m so calm about all this.”

Tae-Eul blinked her eyes to stop the tears that rose there and just smiled fondly at her friend. “When are you ever not calm?”

Na-ri sat back on her chair and fished out her phone. They sat companionably in silence. They weren’t gabby friends. They said what mattered and then they quieted until someone had something to say again.

And what Na-ri said next would stay with Tae-Eul for a long time.

“I don’t think I’m getting reliable results on the crescent moon. The moon makes everyone in the occult batty. But rain means sadness. Purification. Cleansing. I suppose that’s understandable.”

They looked at each other and Tae-Eul nodded. Of course. That made sense.

“A spider building a web means constructing your destiny. You’re making a new reality through your decisions. Again, perfectly understandable.”

Tae-Eul swiped the tear that escaped her left eye and said, “Wow.”

Na-ri nodded this time. “I told you dreams are accurate. Don’t cry. You’re going to be happy. I trust your choices. You trust it, too.”

Tae-Eul pressed her fingertips against her lips and fought back a hysterical half-sob, half-laugh. Na-ri thought the only reality changing was that Tae-Eul was no longer a cop.

God. Her subconscious knew better and was already looking ahead.

She did trust her choices.

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

Gon looked between Lady Noh and Secretary Mo, the two women he trusted most, next to Tae-Eul. “This is truly all I need?”

They were in his office at Gwangyeongjon, and the two women stood on either side of his desk, each having set down a document on the surface: one was a traditional silk scroll, the other a modern A4 cardstock.

“Yes, Pyeha,” Secretary Mo said. “No one has any say at all. It’s only between you and… the future queen.”

“Your parents married in church,” Lady Noh said. “You know that. But even then, it was very private. You can get married there, or here, or another church. Anywhere you want.”

Gon smiled at them both. He loved Lady Noh when she spoke with that nodding emphasis.

“It’s not up to me. It’s up to--It’s up to the future queen.” His chest clenched when he said that. He sighed and bit his lip to control the grin. It probably looked undignified, especially with the documents in front of him.

He laid a hand on the silk scroll, carefully inked the calligraphy brush, and wrote his name and Tae-Eul’s onto the scroll in Hangul and in Hanja.

When he was done, he smiled at Lady Noh. “Please arrange for my Entreaty ceremony. I will bow down to my ancestors and request their blessing.”

Lady Noh nodded and picked up the scroll. Gon knew she would burn it with sage and cedarwood. He wondered if he should take a photo of the scroll to show Tae-Eul, but dismissed the thought immediately. Tae-Eul might just get… intimidated by this ritual. Creeped out. Creeped out was the right term. He smiled at the thought.

He turned to Secretary Mo and handed back the simple A4 cardstock, ignoring the mix of Hanja and Hangul across it for now, because the words were too beautiful, and a little too far away just now when he didn’t even know when he and Tae-Eul would sign it. “Please keep this for now. I know you probably already have it in triplicate.”

“Of course, Pyeha. And may I congratulate you?”

He echoed the words that he could still hear like a song stuck in his head. “Not today. But soon.”

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

So it was that when they arrived back in Corea that weekend-- the manpasikjeok had really stopped sending them elsewhere and elsewhen-- everything was in readiness.

They both knew it somehow, even though they didn’t speak of it. It was there in their smiles as they kissed and made love. And then they just lay in bed basking happily in being together, skin to skin, their hearts beating in sync, nothing between them, and yet everything within their arms as they held each other.

He smiled at her with half-lidded eyes and asked the question he always asked.

“Will you be my queen?”

Tae-Eul smiled back. Smiled with all the affection and conviction she had for this man, and gave the answer she hadn’t realized she’d always wanted to give.

“Yes.”

Gon drew breath and held it. Then he exhaled and grinned as if nothing monumental had happened, but his hand shook a little as he lifted it to cup her cheek.

“Will it make you happy?”

“Yes.”

“What about your job?”

She placed her hand over his, her fingers sinking into the spaces between his. “My job is still my job. If I ever decide to get back to it. I want you. I want a family. The fourteenth rule is not asking me about my job. My last one or the one I’m about to have. I can handle it.”

He kissed her. It was what they did when there was too much to say, or nothing to say, really. She already knew he loved her. And with this new sacred gift she’d given him, he was trembling with how much she loved him. So he kissed her until his hand stopped shaking.

“What about your dad?”

“Still my dad. We’ll visit.”

They kissed again. There were tears that escaped her eyelids and he brushed them away tenderly.

She tucked her face against his neck and whispered, “What about Koo Seo-gyeong?”

“Still Koo Seo-gyeong. She’s in New Zealand. And apparently, we’ll visit.”

“We will?”

“We will.”

“So everything’s done?”

“Well, no. Unless you want to get married by proxy?”

“No!”

They laughed.

“Can you say yes again for me, to erase that ‘No’ you just shouted? That could be bad luck.”

“I didn’t shout. What will I say yes to?”

“Staying with me. Living with me. Tirelessly. Because it might get exhausting. I’m asking you again not to get exhausted.”

She smiled as if nothing monumental was happening, but her hand shook a little as she moved their joined hands from her cheek to her neck, where the necklace he gave her lay nestled. His eyes moved from hers to the necklace and back, and she smiled at the understanding in his gaze.

Then she placed her other hand against his neck, to stroke his skin with her fingers, to brush her thumb against that dimple on his smiling cheek. Her smile turned into an outright grin. She was going to see that dimple every day of her life.

“Yes.”

#CoreaNews #CoreaFiction #the king eternal monarch #the king: eternal monarch

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oosteven-universe · 3 years ago

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Campisi: The Dragon Incident #1

Campisi: The Dragon Incident #2 Aftershock Comics 2021 Written by James Patrick Illustrated by Marco Locati Lettered by Rachel Deering Ah, Mudone! A frickin' dragon has flown into Green Village with an ultimatum, and since that neighborhood is run by the mob, it needs to be handled a very certain way so as not to attract attention. This means it's now Sonny Campisi's problem to navigate. But as he tries to fix it, one complication after another arises...not the least of which is that the dragon is kind of an a-hole. There are a myriad of reasons to love this book. Just the fact that these folks knew Dragons existed and it is in their history books is an amazing take on alternate history. Add that to the fact that this has a mob or mafia in the village, like a New York Burrough, and one of the fixers, who has a soft spot for the people, is caught up in the thick of things. So now we’ve got a young man who is connected and a Dragon looking for the last descendent of the man who slaughtered the Dragons back in the day and how these two begin their tumultuous relationship, I wouldn’t call it a friendship or a rivalry but that’s for you to decide, is firmly cemented within this issue. I am very much enjoying the way that this is being told. The story & plot development we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is exceptionally well done. The character development we see through the narration, the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter as it really brings them to life as real people. The pacing is great and as it takes us through the pages revealing more of the story and bringing us this strong powerful look into Sonny’s life. How we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen shows how magnificently this is crafted. The layers here contain the bulk of the characterisation, backstory and his rocky relationship with his boss and we see them all play off one another is exceptionally well done. This adds all kinds of depth, dimension and complexity to the story. The way we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is extremely well achieved. The interiors here have a very distinct style and flow all their own. The linework is clean, crisp and sharp and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create the attention to detail is pretty darn marvellous. The way we see the utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels now only shows a remarkable eye for storytelling but also tricks the eye with how backgrounds are utilised. The panels are full up and not all with backgrounds so what we see expands and enhances the moments as well as works within the composition of the panels to bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story beautifully. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows a solid eye for how colour works. I was wondering how well this would be able to add a Dragon into the story in a way that didn’t send everyone scrambling into a panic. I worried needlessly because here we are with the second issue and it feels like a natural part of this world and the people well are and aren’t afraid of this strange mythical beast, nay nay I say instead they want retribution for what it's done. This has some excellent writing and sharp sure characterisation wrapped up in some delightful interiors which makes this a pure joy to read.

#Comic Books #Comics Reviews #Aftershock Comics

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heloflor · 4 years ago

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About Phineas and getting angry during specials

So, as I started to “re-discover” Phineas and Ferb, one of the things that I saw mentioned several times was Phineas getting upset during every special, especially yelling at Candace. And now, thinking about the specials I either watched recently or remember, there seems to be a pattern when it comes to Phineas anger, that I want to talk about.

Basically, when Phineas is under pressure and either doesn’t have a plan or the plan doesn’t go as expected, he loses his temper very easily and have a tendency to over-fixate on how to get the plan back on track to achieve his objective.

Under the cut, here’s a few examples from several specials. But know that I may not remember everything (so for example the Christmas special from the early seasons won’t be mentioned) and some information might be incorrect. Also, remember that this is all interpretation so you may disagree with it.

Summer belongs to you :

Okay so, before talking about the “GET ON THE TRIKE” part, I want to go back to earlier in the episode. First off, when the kids are in Paris, things didn’t go according to plan and the plane is broken. Because of that, Phineas spends the entire time fixating over how to find pieces for the plane, thus ignoring Isabella. And it’s kind of interesting how, once they can fix the plane, Phineas talks with his siblings and is sad to learn that they both didn’t get much of a chance in romance. Also, that’s when he notices Isabella looking upset; and again, this is after the plane is fixed, aka when things are back on track.

Then, there’s the scene on the island, in which Phineas once again over-fixates about how to get home. This time, he’s much more upset and desperate, most likely because not only would he lose the bet but also would never get back home. It’s also the first time he truly gives up but that’s not really the topic here. On the other hand, thinking about it, when Isabella manages to inspire him to keep going and he starts giving everyone orders, he sounds like he’s in a hurry, showing again that the objective is his priority.

Finally, there’s the scene with the bikes. The kids only have a few minutes to get back and, as they thought that they made it, they were stopped in their tracks again. Because of that, the bikes are their last chance. Again, Phineas is under pressure and extremely close to achieve his goal, so when things don’t go as planned and they have only one last chance, he loses his temper against his sister, the only one who, at that moment, is ‘preventing’ them from going home (since she has to get home with them for Phineas to win the bet).

Across the Second Dimension :

This one is going to be about Perry’s reveal and how angry Phineas gets. Basically, when the kids arrive in the second dimension and meet 2D Doof, they must have quickly realized that they weren’t in a safe place (I mean, 2D Doof literally ordered some robotic version of their platypus to punch said platypus so yeah…); and it doesn’t help that, right after the reveal, 2D Doof orders his robot army to attack the kids. In other words, Phineas and Ferb find themselves in an unknown place, knowing nobody but a guy they met like 15 minutes ago and whose other self tries to kill them. They’re scared and confused and have no idea how to escape this situation, so it’s easy to imagine that a kid like Phineas would lose his temper. And with Perry’s secret being discovered, which is seen as a betrayal in the moment, this leaves Phineas with a good reason to be upset at him. So he deals with his current stress by lashing out on his pet.

Think about how, after they escaped, Phineas still gets mad at Perry and only calms down when Ferb puts a hand in his shoulder, to which Phineas responds by saying something like “You’re right, we need to find a way home”. Basically, once they’re safe, Phineas still feels some stress from a few minutes ago and lashes out on Perry again, only calming down when Ferb reminds him that they have to find a plan, that they have an objective. Another thing that could be pointed at there : after re-watching the scene when they escape 2D Doof, when they’re in the air (you know the “I don’t want your pamphlet !” part), Phineas is actually calmer and even apologizes to Perry, saying that he has trouble processing everything; and the anger only comes back a few seconds later when Platyborg attacks them, aka when they are in danger again.

Finally, once they find the 2D version of their house and after meeting ‘their’ dad, Phineas tells Perry to put his cover on to be less suspicious and, while things are a bit awkward in this moment, Phineas isn’t angry anymore. Likewise, when Perry goes to turn himself in and the kids see him leave the house, Phineas doesn’t get angry like earlier. Instead, he’s just sad and a bit bitter.

In other words, when the kids are in danger or don’t know what to do, Phineas gets angry and lashes out on the first thing he can, but once they are safe and start to form a plan, the things that made him so angry earlier just made him bitter.

Once last thing I’d like to add is this question : how would have Phineas reacted to Perry’s secret under better circumstances ? Would he still get upset or would he just be like “That’s so cool ! Why didn’t you tell us earlier ? Come on, we have so much catching up to do !” ?

Mission Marvel :

I’m only going to talk very shortly about this one (mostly because I don’t remember anything from this special aside from Candace messing up and the girls finding the source power thing that brings the heroes back). Again, it’s a question of things not going as planned during a tense situation, leaving Phineas frustrated. So when Candace gives him a reason to be upset, he completely lashes out on her. Another thing that could also be pointed out there, especially with how out of character it can feel for Phineas to get angry like that, is the fact that the kids are currently helping extremely popular heroes, so it’s possible that the kids unconsciously wish to impress them. So when Candace messes up, it gives a ‘bad image’ of the kids, which adds to Phineas’ anger who doesn’t want to look bad in front of these heroes and so unconsciously acts in a much ruder way than he usually does, creating a gap between him and Candace in order for the heroes not to associate her mistake with him.

Save Summer :

Again, there’s a very bad situation going on and when the kids try to fix it, things don’t go as planned. This leaves Phineas frustrated and he yells a bit at his sister. Although, in this special, not only is Phineas less frustrated than the others when talking to Candace but, in this scenario, it’s understandable that he might get angry at her, given that she’s the one who’s commanding their invention, so the responsibility and the fate of the world falls on her.

Night of the Living Pharmacists :

That one is pretty interesting in the sense that it’s a very good proof of Phineas being able to be calm as long as they’re following a plan. I mean, once the kids realize that their invention protect them, and when they’re home and safe, Phineas is chill. He only starts panicking when he realizes that Isabella isn’t with them and could be in danger. You know, it’s kinda interesting how in this scene, Phineas is very stressed but it’s not something he can yell at someone for, since it’s no one’s fault; so instead of getting angry he just runs around screaming. Also he only really calms down once he starts thinking of ways to find Isabella.

Afterwards and for the rest of the special, Phineas remains pretty calm. At first, they have the plan to go find Isabella and, immediately afterwards, they plan on going to Doof’s place to find what caused the zombies invasion. So, throughout the entire invasion, Phineas has a plan that goes more or less smoothly. Obviously, he’s still greatly upset when his friends are taken out, especially when his siblings end up affected as well, but he still has an objective which he knows will bring back everyone, so he manages to remain calm and stick to the plan.

One last example that I can think of that isn’t in a special : in “Klimpaloon Ultimatum”, that one episode about Roger having some show thing in which the kids have to prove that Klimpaloon exists, they set up a plan at some point to infiltrate a place and, when Buford ignores it and just storms in, Phineas get angry again.

So in conclusion, Phineas is pretty bad when under pressure if things don’t go the way he wants them to.

Now we’ll just have to see how this side of his personality plays out in the next movie.

#Flor talks #Phineas and Ferb #PnF #Phineas and Ferb spoilers #i guess #Phineas Flynn

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softestborgov · 4 years ago

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Stars Near and Afar ~ Vasily Borgov x OC

Their every step is made slowly, in no hurry. Ksenia and Vasily each have an arm wrapped around the other’s back, clinging onto each other in the cold as though they would freeze if they let go. Each are cloaked in a fluffy coat, topped with matching ushankas on their heads not quite blocking out cold air stinging their faces.

They both take notice of the sky above, countless tiny sparkles standing out against the gradient between deep blue and black. Wisps of the sky are tinted, mesmerising as waves or magic currents. Each of the white stars fade, then return to view, twinkling about in place.

“It’s lovely out here, isn’t it?” Vasily remarks, in a hushed whisper. The same one Ksenia loves hearing - then again, when does she ever not love hearing his voice, especially when they are alone?

“It is,” hums Ksenia. “The night sky is fascinating...”

She trails off, her voice fading back into silence, but Vasily doesn’t mind. Perhaps her mind is wandering again. It needs to be free to wander every now and then.

Not that it makes her company any less of a blessing for him, they don’t have to say a word as long as the other is close by. The two embrace as they saunter about, blanketed under the sky giving way to another world.

Time stretches on. They don’t know how long has passed, nor do they care to find out. Underneath their coats, and warmth spread about from the other, the constraint of time or discomfort slips away.

But another shadow lurks behind. Unpleasant thoughts of stress and pressure still have yet to depart from Vasily. They’ve drifted off enough to fade into a blur, though a very real blur nonetheless. Absentmindedly, he heaves out a sigh.

“What’s wrong, my sunshine?” Ksenia is quick to respond.

“I don’t know.” It’s a statement Vasily is usually reluctant to admit, regardless of the situation, but around Ksenia he can let down his walls built to hide his doubts. “Maybe all it is, is that chess - and upholding my position in the world of chess - hardly ever seems to leave my mind.”

It’s Ksenia’s turn to sigh. “I understand... would you like to talk about it?”

“No,” answers Vasily. He doesn’t mean it to push her away; rather, all that will help right now is an escape.

“I understand that too,” Ksenia says, kind and gentle as ever. “It’s not quite something you can think about all the time.”

Vasily feels his face flush as he listens to her honeyed voice, softly spoken, reflecting her amicable soul. Her words are correct as well, now being a time he would rather push the worries around chess aside.

She returns silent again, to the dismay of part of him, but only briefly.

“Do you see the stars? And the dozen shades of blue in the sky?” Ksenia rambles with quiet enthusiasm. “Look, Vasya, look!”

As though in a snap, Vasily fixes his gaze on the stars. Before each one can fade from view it returns brighter. Countless delightful specks sprinkle the sky, their luminous white clear against a dark abyss.

He finds himself smiling. The wisps of clouds - not quite opaque, grey against midnight blue - catch his eye again.

“Dearest, do you see the clouds? As slow as they are, they’re moving,” he murmurs.

“They are! They do move!” replies Ksenia, her voice still hushed yet raspy and excited. "I wonder where they’re headed? Are they from elsewhere? Do they travel to send messages, or to return spirits home?”

Vasily hasn’t thought about it that way. It’s fascinating, all of Ksenia’s whimsical ideas are. Much of his usual thinking is bureaucratic, merely drawn from fact - but the imagination of his beloved captivates him, it draws up a new, refreshing dimension within his mind.

It’s not long until he adds on to her concept. “Maybe the clouds do both. Maybe little spirits travel on them, carrying their messages to our world along the way, before returning home.”

“And the spirits’ home is among the stars!” Ksenia chirps.

The pair share a laugh. It’s not the kind of laughter upon being told a joke; it’s a rarer kind, for the midst of a carefree, joyful moment.

Ksenia then speaks up again, in a sweet whisper reserved only for Vasily. “You know... you’re still my sunshine even after the sun has gone down.”

He swears his heart could overflow with the intangible, fuzzy warmth that is love, his love for her. She adores him too, and all they share means everything. In this moment, blanketed under radiant stars beside his beloved, Vasily finds nothing can trouble him.

#i'm so proud of this hhhh #these two are the softest #mine #writing #oneshot #oc ksenia koltovskaya #vasily borgov #ksenia x borgov #the queens gambit #the queen's gambit #tqg #tqg fanfiction

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libermachinae · 4 years ago

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Fault Lines Under the Living Room

Part II: Breathe - Chapter 6: Just Another One

Also available on AO3! Chapter Summary: Ratchet and Rodimus embark. Word Count: 5096

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They could have left the last stage of planetbreak to autopilot, but Ratchet kept his hands wrapped around the yoke. If there was damage the shuttle’s sensors had missed, he said, better to have someone sentient piloting. Rodimus nodded along with his logic, like he hadn’t been aware the moment Ratchet decided he would do everything in his power to distract himself from… all this.

Rodimus had little room to feel offended. He was trying to dd the same, exploring the shuttle’s interface while background threads worked through anything he might have forgotten in their haste to leave. He hadn’t gotten around to telling the engineers about the ominous blinking panel in engine room 3, and he’d neglected to pick a replacement judge for the upcoming karaoke contest. His consciousness slipped between these background thoughts and exploration and Ratchet’s piloting, both of them trying so hard not to acknowledge the other than they jumped when the alarm went off.

“Frag.”

Rodimus grabbed for controls that failed to materialize in front of him.

“What?” he demanded, looking to the monitors for an incoming projectile despite the answer pooling in his mind.

“Haven’t reached exit velocity,” Ratchet said, punching commands into the console with one hand firm on the yoke. “Forgot how much power it takes to get these old war rigs moving. I’m adjusting the flightpath to buy us time to build momentum.” The alarm stopped. “There.”

Ratchet’s words were echoes of his thoughts, old knowledge by the time they reached Rodimus’ audials. Ratchet didn’t know how to fix that problem. Rodimus hadn’t realized it was a problem. Conversations between them were already a challenge, to add this new dimension was—

They were thinking about each other’s thoughts again. Rodimus rapidly shifted between menu options until the flashing light dragged him back out of his head.

“This sucks,” he said.

Ratchet grunted. He couldn’t keep up with all of Rodimus’ thoughts at once, and even hanging onto one was a strain, so he was trying to create hard divides between them. Right now, he was generating a list of all the medical supplies one could expect to find on a ship this size, basing it on a combination of Autobot guidelines and the kinds of repairs he had seen on POWs. Rodimus’ processor tried to latch on, but the thick jargon kept him slipping off, back to exploring the workings of their new home.

No, was home not the right word? The place they were living? Where they were captive? Their cosmic questing raft? The Decepticraft? The Drifter?

Ratchet withdrew the tracker from his subspace, ignoring the way plinking ideas sunk into his thoughts like lead nuggets into molten cadmium. Autobot and Decepticon tech was not designed to be compatible, but he had performed enough surgeries with parts scavenged from the battlefield to know how to jury rig the connection. As he pulled out a small utility knife, he thought sadly of the universal adapter he had stashed with the rest of his medical supplies, all of it now sailing away to parts unknown. Though he would knock a dent into Arcee if they ever caught up to her, he did hope his kit was getting put to use.

Rodimus wondered how long Ratchet had been preparing for his trip, when the planning had started (at the vote? Overlord?), how he could have missed it. Ratchet recoiled from the blunt curiosity and his list fell apart, dumped out of short term memory as his processor scrambled to pull up the answers to Rodimus’ questions.

Mistake, mistake, mistake.

“Just—stop,” Ratchet said, waving at Rodimus like he could dispel the corrosive thoughts with a gesture.

How do I stop? Does it hurt? You’re so quiet? Are you okay? Does it hurt? What do I do? Rodimus had never had reason to stop his processor before, and the effort of trying to now was making it worse.

Ratchet, though, had a lifetime’s experience forcing himself to focus in stressful situations. He stopped responding to Rodimus’ questions, and the thoughts that did come through were focused entirely on his hands as he stripped down the tracker’s cable. Once a physical connection had been established, he would need to register the tracker as a pilot in the navicomp, then reroute the transceivers in the shuttle’s communications array to increase their range.

His calm confidence guided Rodimus’ focus. The stream of questions would not abate, but they were no longer provoked from panic, nor did they interrupt Ratchet’s process.

Will it accept an Autobot ident?

Some even turned out to be helpful.

“Probably not,” Ratchet said, their connection helping Rodimus pinpoint which of his thoughts Ratchet was responding to. “Not a problem, I can just program a new one… dammit.”

The computer flashed red: outdated codes.

“Who was stationed on this ship they would bother updating their security?” Ratchet wondered aloud, his processor trying to piece together a workaround simpler than taking apart the entire navigation system.

Rodimus hesitated, but Ratchet caught it, so there was no point to staying quiet.

“Prowl passed me some intel before we left,” he said.

“Hm.” Ratchet’s thoughts turned sharp, a phantom pain that caused Rodimus to wince.

“Codes,” he said. “Just in case.”

He hadn’t asked where Prowl had gotten them, though Ratchet’s imagination filled in the gaps. Instead, Rodimus had been doing his best to appear professional and capable before Optimus’ infamous adviser. Prowl’s optics could not bother to emote for how unimpressed he was. That Rodimus had assumed this meeting concerning “galactic relations” would be about culture clash with their closest neighbors had not helped his image.

He had nearly run out of the office when Ultra Magnus commed to say he was actually late for another meeting, stopped only by the datapad forced his way.

“A few precautions,” Prowl had called it. Rodimus downloaded the files and stored them among the events on Kimia, tech specs for the waste disposal system, and other things he could willingly not think about.

Ratchet’s hand, poised over the keyboard, clenched and shook itself out.

“I hope you ran a virus scan on that thing before you plugged it into yourself,” he said, doing a commendable job not bringing up everything this subject of conversation was making him think about.

“No, but I passed it through my antivirals.” And it didn’t feel like Prowl was remote controlling him from the opposite side of the galaxy. He doubted Prowl had the processing capacity to pilot him through multiple rounds of volcanic derby racing, for one.

“Here.” Ratchet retrieved his portable med kit from his subspace and set it on his lap. The lists were moving back in: everything he’d lost versus what he had to work with now. Rodimus found himself sobered and accepted the antiviral chip when it was passed to him. “Load this and run another scan. You might experience a few seconds lag or disorientation; just ride it out and let the chip do its job.” A few very rare cases experienced sensory inversion, but longterm effects were uncommon enough Ratchet wouldn’t bother to mention them.

Rodimus cracked a grin as he popped open a port cover and inserted the chip. He grimaced as he installed the program—invasive medical programs were rarely comfortable to integrate—then ran Prowl’s files through it.

So, there had been a tracking signal that Rodimus’ programs had failed to uncover, but once that had been snipped out the rest were deemed safe. Rodimus tightbeamed the data to Ratchet who used it to finish building their fake Decepticon and finally got through. ‘Galeforce’ finished integrating the tracker and set the system to start searching for Drift’s signal.

“Thanks,” Ratchet said, a longer pause than normal between thinking the word and saying it out loud. Internal distractions compounded and inevitably led them to crashing into each other, so maybe talking would redirect enough of their attention to stop the spiraling before it could start.

Rodimus chanced a glance at him but could not catch his optic; he was still focused on the controls.

“No problem,” he said. Drift had once wasted a full off-shift failing to teach him how to meditate. The problem had not been Drift’s teaching: it was all Rodimus and his inability to let a thought go once it manifested. It was like they stuck him, coils of barbed wire wrapped round and around, each pinprick demanding his attention and—”How far is it to the outer rim?”

“Depends where we’re going, and if Drift’s on the move,” Ratchet said. The screen of the navicomp blinked, a pinwheel replacing the previous screen. “Might find somewhere to get comfortable. This part’s been known to go for a few hours.”

“Hours?” Rodimus repeated. Anything that could have once been considered comfortable was covered in junk. The captain’s chair had belonged to Ratchet before they had taken off, and the flight deck chairs were too abandoned to feel secure.

“The transceiver on Drift’s speeder isn’t strong enough to send a direct signal,” Ratchet said. “It’s going to have to bounce between Galactic Council transmission planets a bit before it makes it back here.” Assuming Drift had strayed close enough for one to grab his signal. From what Ratchet understood, though, they were almost impossible to avoid these days. “Whatever we get’s going to be a few days old, but it’s a start.”

Rodimus’ processor drew up a cartoonish map, a dotted line zigzagging between planets to show the path Drift’s signal would take. He recoiled from under Ratchet’s scrutiny, but all his haste could add was a backdrop of randomized stars.

“While we’re waiting, I’ve got us on course to slingshot around Scarvix’s star,” Ratchet went on. A note of surprise: Rodimus’ stress had caused his own cables to tense. “By the time the tracker gets us some coordinates, we should be ready to… This isn’t helping.”

Rodimus was distressed and Ratchet was spiraling. How were they going to make it all the way to the outer rim? What would they do if Drift had nothing for them? Refused to help? Rodimus couldn’t keep tying himself in knots, nor could he endure the sting every time Ratchet anguished over a possible future trapped together.

“I distract myself.” Rodimus forced his voice through the fog.

“How?” Ratchet was gripping the edge of the captain’s seat, squeezing until the hard edge reminded him which body was his.

“A lot of things work: racing, fight,” Rodimus said. “Anything that could get me out of my head for a few minutes.”

Meteor surfing, free all skydiving, asteroid spelunking. Any activity that teased the edge of mortality (crafting a spectacle was a bonus) was fair game. The rush of knowing he was solely responsible for the continued light of his spark never failed to wipe his mind of the stress of everything else.

Ratchet could not relate. Nor could he imagine how they were going to fit a racetrack into a ship just a bit larger than Swerve’s. Sparring might have been an option, were it not for the fact that every step risked tripping and landing face first on something volatile.

The idea hit Rodimus and he groaned.

“What about—cleaning?” Ratchet gestured around them. “I don’t want to put up with this chaos for longer than I have to.”

And there was something nostalgic about it. After the destruction of his Rodion clinic, Ratchet started practicing performative minimalism; anything of purely sentimental value had to be kept on his person, out of harm’s way. Prior to that, his offices had been littered with evidence of a life lived mostly within their walls: chickenscratch notes immediately forgotten, used energon cubes, and fond mementos from old friends he would get around to calling one of these days, for sure. Over days and weeks it would pile up, until he was using his lap as a desk and had no choice but to sweep it all back into a configuration resembling tidiness.

Rodimus balked at Ratchet’s fondness of those memories. Cleaning for him was performed on hands and knees, tips of steel wool sticking into his finish as he worked rust out of wash rack corners. Back and forth over the same spot, over and over and over, until boredom pressed down like it intended him to become one with the floor.

“Punishment detail,” he said, though Ratchet had already guessed.

During the war he had bounced between barracks and military vessels, plugging into recharge docks still warm from their last occupant. How could he ever take pride over a cleaned room when neither the space nor the mess belonged to him? He had tried to improve his habits upon moving into the Lost Light, but there were reasons Ultra Magnus refused to meet him at his hab suite.

“It’s not just about the space,” Ratchet said. “It’s an emotional reset. When you have time to clean, it means the fighting’s over for now.” Ratchet’s memories had lost hold of entire days stationed in field hospitals, brought back only as he had wiped down his instruments and organized his remaining supplies. Rubbing cleanser deep into his joints to free them of the day’s residue was one small kindness he could afford himself.

Rodimus shrugged and twisted in the seat so he could rest his chin on the back of it. He scanned the room. It certainly looked like a fight had gone through.

“Right.” Ratchet did one better than him and stood up. “You’ve got decent knees, so you can start by hauling those shelves back into place.”

“Decent knees?” Rodimus repeated, allowing himself to crack a grin. He shoved himself from the chair and wandered out into the swamp, tripping once as he felt something snap under his heel. “Old joint all worn out, doc?”

“Just got them replaced,” Ratchet corrected, “and I’d rather not break them in on a mess that wasn’t even my fault.” First Aid would let him have it, and he was already due for a tongue lashing whenever they got back to the Lost Light. “This can be your penance.”

“Penance.” Rodimus laughed through the word, though he was already maneuvering around the shelves in question, trying to guess which end would be easiest to lift from given the state of the floor around them. “Right, because I’m the one who put you on this ship in the first place.” Neither would have been out here if Ratchet had just asked to go get Drift.

Nor if Rodimus had gone first—not sent him away—prevented Overlord—

“Here,” Ratchet said, clearing some of the space Rodimus had been tiptoeing around. “Let’s start with this.”

They started together, Ratchet picking through whatever was in Rodimus’ way as he heaved the shelves upright, but their tasks caused them to drift apart, Ratchet sorting through his findings while Rodimus shoved the room back into a semblance of order. He drifted into a rhythm of lifting and pushing, occasionally grunting with the effort of returning the room to its previous state. This plan was derailed almost immediately: he’d had other things on his mind when he first rushed onto the bridge, and the placement of the various shelves and crates had missed his attention entirely. Even Ratchet’s memory of the layout was imperfect.

So, he got creative with it, using the shelves to form a divider between the cockpit and what would have been the command zone. He used the crates to fill in the gaps and form uneven benches along the walls, and as he took to shoving the broken pieces and miscellaneous ends into piles, the bridge started to take the shape of a living space. Ratchet, glancing up from his work only to remind Rodimus not to lift with his back, had no complaints about the design choices.

He spoke up again when Rodimus paused before one of the larger crates, considering it carefully.

“It’s not a bad idea,” he said, “but I doubt you’re the first to have it. Why would the Cons waste space with chairs when they’re already tripping over storage cubes?”

“You can’t relax sitting on a block,” Rodimus said, although, he reflected, that was likely the point.

In the end, he settled for placing a couple smaller cubes on either side of the makeshift table, almost adding a third before he thought better of it and slotted it into a space on the wall, finally covering up the loosened panel from which red light continued to trickle. His cables relaxed and he became aware that he had been hearing a buzz (a melody?) in the back of his processor ever since the flare. The silence that swept in to fill the space was just as loud, but slightly less grating.

His optics swept the room; still chaotic, according to Ratchet, but Rodimus thought it was gaining a shape. Noticing that he had accidentally blocked the door at the back of the bridge, he went to clear it, and was surprised when it didn’t open automatically for him, nor did he see a control pad.

“Ident sensor,” Ratchet said. He had noticed it built into the upper frame of the door.

“What, more secret tech stashed back there?” Rodimus asked. Both their minds bloomed with possibilities, but Ratchet shut them down.

“Recharge docks, more likely,” he said. “We had similar systems on some of the larger warships. Kept bots to their assigned off-shifts.” On one occasion, a superior officer had tried to use the same tactic to lock Ratchet out of his medbay when he was supposed to be recharging. After the public fallout settled, no one else dared to try it. “I can rig up our transceivers with a couple more facsimiles, soon as I’m finished here.”

Rodimus grinned and waved up at the sensor. He thought he could feel a brush of radiation as it scanned him, but Ratchet rebuffed the notion; it wasn’t nearly that powerful.

If that was true, what was to stop the Decepticons from lacing their ships with invisible observation devices? What if it had already discovered the intruders and was sending alerts straight to the DJD who were—

Fifteen pounds titanium alloys, ten pounds compressed carbon, eighty pounds halogen…

Ratchet’s thoughts were calm, regular, and purposeful enough for Rodimus to latch on. He glanced around again. He could start clearing the stairs. Or sweeping up glass. He could create a designated pile of useful equipment, or check that all the navigation terminals were in working order, or perform a quick security sweep. So many options. So many ways to prove that he was taking this seriously and was ready to work to stay out of Ratchet’s way.

“Come here, Rodimus.”

Of course, thinking about his options accomplished none of them. Aware he would continue wasting time if left to his own devices, he complied, plopping down in front of Ratchet. He landed in a relaxed sprawl, his position calculated down to the bend of his fingers.

Ratchet glanced up to him, thoughts of energon stock briefly set aside.

“Maybe you should’ve paid more attention to those meditation lessons,” he said.

“Told you, it didn’t work.” Never mind that he hadn’t said that part out loud; it was the defining feature of that memory. Drift had tried so hard, patiently explaining each step and troubleshooting when Rodimus struggled. They had tried different techniques, positions, even locations, and at every one, Rodimus’ thoughts had caught up to him and refused to be ignored. And every time, Drift had nodded with gentle understanding and suggested something new to try.

Because that was who Drift was: patient, calm, nonjudgmental. A forged mentor.

Ratchet’s thoughts hit him like acid rain.

“Did you know your ‘best friend’ at all?”

Of course he did, he wanted to say. All the important bits! Like that he was more regimented than Magnus when it came to his refueling schedule: one cube at the start of duty shift, and one at off-shift, every single cycle. That with his years brought experience untold, solutions and advice always at the ready. That Drift had been, and still was, extremely dangerous.

But when he dove inward to find these answers, he discovered something else: another Drift, sharp, with tattered, ill-defined edges that nonetheless drew and intimidating silhouette. This Drift was cloaked not in radiant light, but wrapped himself in darkness like a shawl, and when he tried to speak it was in many voices, none of which Rodimus recognized.

“Real friends don’t worship the ground you walk on,” Ratchet was saying. “I know your perception’s skewed since you think you have to live up to the very scratches in Optimus’ finish, but that behavior’s not healthy and it’s not normal. Drift is a real person, not some sort of—of fantasy fulfillment for you to drain until your hero complex is satisfied.”

Impatient, masking over constant stress, deeply critical of everyone but wrestling with his own failings: the other Drift’s hand appeared not with a sword, but a gun.

“I’m sorry.”

And vanished.

Ratchet released his death grip on an energon cube and set it aside.

“Not me you need to apologize to.”

“I know,” Rodimus said. “But you’re here, and it means something to you.”

“It doesn’t.” Ratchet’s lie was scratchy, like a frayed wire. “Drift’s made plenty of bad decisions in his life.” You’re just another one.

That’s not any of your business.

Habit kept them civil on the outside, but nothing, least of all self control, could stop them from thinking their truths. Drift had taken his post-war freedom and handed it straight to Rodimus, his dripping optimism like a fresh protoform faith. He had taken every dirty, demeaning job the Lost Light required of him, because he was good at them, because he wanted to help, because it was the only thing he knew how to do, because Rodimus had asked. Rodimus had taken advantage of, given an opportunity to, betrayed, saved, sacrificed—trying his best and couldn’t help that—

“Cleaning,” Ratchet said. “Cleaning.”

It took Rodimus a second just to find his body, then remember the piles of cubes stacked between them.

“What?” he asked. Even with a mental warning, he startled at the cleaning rag that landed on him.

“Some of the cubes were damaged in the crash, but it’s impossible to tell which when they’re piled together like this,” Ratchet said. He picked one from the pile and nested it in his own rag, diligently wiping away the loose energon before he unwrapped it and held it to the light. “Clean ‘em and check for damage. Get a leaker, pour it into the can with the rest. We can feed them to the ship’s reserve cells.”

The flight time bought by even a full crate’s worth of cubes would be negligible, but that wasn’t the point. Rodimus took a cube off the top of the nearest pile, feeling along the buckled edges. Were it just his own head to deal with, it might have been enough, but Ratchet’s still burning fury would not be so easily shut off.

“He volunteered,” Rodimus said.

Had he? Ratchet hadn’t known that. Rather than calm him, though, the new information made the fire in his spark burn hotter.

“I’m not having this conversation,” he said.

The cube hit the floor with an unsatisfying thud and Rodimus stood up.

“Whatever.” He had a taste of grim satisfaction watching Ratchet freeze.

“Don’t—” Ratchet started, but Rodimus cut him off.

“I get it,” he said. “You hate me. I’m used to it. I get people hating me for who I am way before they find out all the slagged choices I’ve made. But when you’re—you—”

Ratchet was treating Drift like a drone, unable to make any choice beyond its core programming, and Rodimus the cruel engineer who delighted in watching it shock itself. Rodimus could take lashing Ratchet delivered, but objectifying Drift and calling it righteous was a step too far.

“Except that’s not what I’m saying,” Ratchet said. His voice was steady and he stayed seated; he did not try to chase Rodimus. “Of course Drift is self-sufficient. I’ve never doubted that. And I believe you that he volunteered, because it’s the exact kind of glitched plan he would come up with. But the world is bigger than you, Rodimus.”

He knew—

Drift pledging life and spark to a leader whose words struck a thousand furnaces. Cast through self-revolutions of building and breaking himself, each new face patterned after what the last one lacked. Fighting his way up an eroding cliff face of rejection, reaching out…

“It’s more than you,” Ratchet said. “Drift might have volunteered. But I’ve got to check your conductors for rust if you think he wanted to go.”

“I know, but…” If Drift wanted salvation, who was Rodimus to deny him?

“His friend, allegedly.” Though Ratchet seethed with the word, there was a hidden gentleness behind it. Drift needed friends.

Rodimus had never considered that. He knew Drift was not well liked among some Autobots, a target of suspicion if not outright hostility, but Rodimus had always seen him rise above it. Strong and steadfast and as confident in himself as he was, isolation seemed no weight on his struts.

“He’s just a bot like any other,” Ratchet said. Well. Not any other. Neither knew anyone quite like Drift. “He gets slagged ideas, too, and as you’re friend, you’re supposed to tell him that.”

Ratchet had never hesitated to tell Optimus when he was being an idiot. Not much good it had done them all in the end, but memories of yelling at the Prime while elbow-deep in his wiring helped break the tension that had crystallized between them.

“I messed up,” Rodimus said quietly.

Ratchet gestured to the floor on the other side of the cube pile.

“You did,” he said, shaking his head at Rodimus’ ripe disappointment. “What do you want me to do? Say you tried your best and forgive you? You’re right, Rodimus. Whatever your reasons for not acting sooner, Drift’s the one who has to deal with your consequences.”

“I’m scared,” Rodimus admitted as he took a seat again. He picked up the cube he had been checking before and looked it over: no leaks. He put it in the intact pile and retrieved the next. “I liked what we had before, and I’m scared Drift’s going to hate me now that his big sacrifice turned out to be for nothing.”

“What you had before wasn’t sustainable,” Ratchet said. He had moved back into his own rhythm, optics on his hands while he spoke to Rodimus. “Want to talk about objectifying? You treated Drift like a personal worshiper.”

Rodimus ducked his helm. It sucked to feel Ratchet’s scrutiny even without those fierce optics on him, but he knew it was deserved. It had just been so nice to feel appreciated for once. To have someone tell him, without disclaimer or exception, that he was good at something and could help people. Everyone else was always searching for his flaw; Drift had been the first to explore Rodimus with the intention to find his virtues. It was the praise Rodimus missed most, second only to the camaraderie, and even while acknowledging it was for the best, it still stung to know he couldn’t have that back.

Ratchet set down a cube and did not immediately reach for another one.

“I can’t make any guarantees about what Drift will do, but I think you would actually find friendship without aftkissing to be more rewarding,” he said.

But I liked that, Rodimus thought, to his horror. Ratchet rolled his optics.

I’m sure you did.

“Of course,” he said out loud. “And you never doubted it? Never once thought, ‘Hey, this level of devotion from a bot I haven’t shared three words with is a little weird’?”

No. But a few moments slipped in from Rodimus’ memories. When Drift told him about his affiliation ceremony, there were embers of a once blazing inferno glowing behind his optics, a side of the ex-Decepticon that Rodimus told himself was but a lingering echo. Drift had given up that kind of passion on his road to atonement. At least, Rodimus had convinced himself as much.

“He told you exactly what you wanted to hear, knowing you would fill in the gaps,” Ratchet said. “He is a survivalist.” And to have survived so much, only to once more find himself without a home or support was a mockery of justice and everything Ratchet had believed the Autobots stood for.

That was why he needed to leave.

“And you’re getting your new chance because of it,” he said. “You didn’t earn it, but you’re getting one anyway. And if you really meant that apology, you’ll do something different this time.”

Rodimus knew that, could internalize the idea, but when so much of what he did felt like an externally sourced script running of its own volition, he struggled to make it a guarantee. He could intend, with every fiber of every cable, to do better the second time around. But so often the pressure of potential disappointment became its own self-fulfilling prophecy.

“Well, so long as we’re stuck together, you won’t be alone,” Ratchet said. “I’ll be there. I won’t let you do that to him.”

“Okay,” Rodimus said. He had heard promises like that before, from bot who promised to support him only to turn tailpipe once they learned what that meant.

But now he could feel Ratchet’s resolve. Not to Rodimus, to whom his emotions were turbulent and untrustworthy, but to Drift and giving him what life would otherwise conspire to keep away. He thought Drift a fool for the role he had assigned himself at Rodimus’ side, but he would not deny him his agency if that was something he wanted to regain.

The navicomp beeped. They stood simultaneously and Ratchet moved back to the captain’s chair to inspect the screen.

“We’ve got a hit,” he said. “Vitreous.” An organic planet, according to the report. Neither of their databanks could produce any further information.

“A week?” Rodimus’ voice was tight as Ratchet scanned the details.

“Give or take,” he said. “If we need to refuel, that will add a couple days.”

“Sure.” Rodimus was trying very hard not to think about what a week of this would be like.

Ratchet was doing it enough for both of them.

#maccadam #transformers #ratchet #rodimus #my writing #longfic #fault lines #posting this a full day after ao3 dfsgjldfkjh #lifes really living rn

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hawkland · 4 years ago

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Dear Hurt Comfort Exchange creator

My Letter for the 2021 Hurt Comfort Exchange

My AO3 profile: sidewinder

Thank you for writing for me! I know I’ll be thrilled with whatever you come up with for any of my requests. (And if I babble on or have more prompts for one request than another, don’t take that as any kind of preference. I’d love receiving any of these equally; some are just newer ships for me so I may have a lot of unfulfilled ideas.)

Please consider the requested tags all the “prompt” you need if so inspired, if none of my suggested scenarios and ideas inspire you. Also, of course, feel free to combine them or use only one as you see fit!

Overall/General Do Not Wants:

A/B/O dynamics, mating heats

animal abuse/death

anything related to pregnancy/childbirth/kidfic

formalized BDSM relationships

non-canon gender identities and/or sexual orientations except gay/bi/pan for requested ships/characters

scat/watersports

unrequested alternative-universe scenarios such as high school/mundane/genderswap/coffee shop/etc (however, canon-divergent AUs completely fine!)

Supernatural

I'm a fairly new SPN fan so I am still in the phase of discovering all the joy (and pain and angst) this ship/fandom can bring me. So I have a LOT of requests, varying based on who is hurt & who needs comforting.

As far as general fandom/universe likes, I'm also a big fan of Bobby, Charlie, Sam, Gabriel and Balthazar - so feel free to include them in any form or fashion that might fit. I can go with either human or still-angel Cas as endgame if it applies. Similarly, either feel free to ignore the finale (everything 15.18-15.20) or give me plenty of angst "fixing" it/expanding on it so that it's not...such...ugh.

My only fandom-specific DNW is any suggestion/inclusion of Wincest.

Castiel/Dean Winchester (hurt Castiel)

Wingfic - injured wings

Wingfic - Grooming Wings to Comfort Winged Character

I have a serious fixation on Cas's wings and any scenario where Dean can actually see/feel them. Dean tending to Cas's weakened/broken wings after the Angels' fall (or, earlier in canon if somehow injured). Maybe post-finale/rescue/etc his wings start to heal but he needs Dean to help groom them during the healing/regrowth process.

Sharing a bed with hurt character while mutually pining

Being bathed while mutually pining

Comforter drapes their coat over hurt character's shoulders

Character A gently bathes hurt B (turns sexual)

Guilt over past actions

Cathartic Crying

Character A has been crying and tries to hide it but Character B still notices it

Character doesn't realize how badly they're hurt until they collapse

Character feels comforted by wearing loved one's clothes

Keeping Sick Characters Warm

Falling Asleep As A Sign Of Trust

I'd love human!Cas for these (Season 9, AU where Cas stays at the bunker? Or post-canon if coming back from The Empty meant giving up his grace.) He's struggling with adapting to his human condition/getting hurt, maybe just overwhelmed by human emotions and sensations? Dean is there to help, of course, and Things Happen. (With a side note that I love stories that don't forget that Cas is/was a bad-ass captain, leader and fighter among angels - so he's not and never should be a total woobie. But maybe that makes it harder for him to accept when he DOES need help and comforting because it's not something he's ever been used to needing - or receiving - in the past.)

Aftermath of Resurrection

attempted self-sacrifice is thwarted by people who do not agree character is expendable

Big Damn Rescue (with comfort)

A rescues B from the underworld or afterlife

Fix-it - Character survives canonical death

Recovering from traumatic resurrection

Touch-Starved

Touch-Starved Character gets their hair stroked & gets other kind gentle touches & cuddles

Character doesn't believe they deserve to be saved at such a cost; loved one disagrees

Dreamworld featuring worst memories/fears

Resurrection - came back wrong

Rescue

These are all suggestions for any kind of fix-it to 15x18 and getting Cas back from The Empty. Just...go wild with the angst and h/c here. Maybe it's taken some time to get Cas back and he's not sure how to deal with being back. It's been so long that he's been isolated in his dreams/regrets/nightmares that he's starved for (Dean's) touch, but it's almost overwhelming to be near him again (or he's having a hard time telling reality from just another dream.) Or, for "Resurrection - came back wrong" - Cas is back but Dean senses something isn't right about him or the entire situation. What can he do to fix it, if anything?

Character overuses powers/magic/etc to protect a loved one

Forced to watch other character's trauma

Torture - Tortured While Loved Ones Were Forced To Watch

Pretty much what the tags say, nothing really to add but bring on the angst and comfort after the hurt!

Castiel/Dean Winchester (hurt Dean)

Character A hurts Character B accidentally during sex

Losing Control Over Magic/Powers

Character A doesn't know their own strength and hurts B by mistake

What it says on the tin, basically. Cas gets overwhelmed when having sex with Dean (or when triggered by something else, a perceived threat/danger) and accidentally injures him? Healing may take some time due to the severity (or limited powers in the aftermath), or Cas just feels extreme guilt over having hurt the one he loves so badly.

Pining character reveals their feelings while not quite lucid (hurt/drunk/etc.)

Character(s) ashamed of their sexual desires

Character A takes Character B on a road trip to avoid dealing with current bad situation

Boys being stupid with their feelings and not talking to each other, but a h/c scenario forces the truth to come out.

Aftermath of Resurrection

Aftermath of torture that broke character

Aftermath of Torture

Past Torture

I need more angst/actual dealing with what it did to Dean to spend 40 years in Hell. This feels like it was so glossed over in canon compared to the fact that, truly, it means he spent more time in Hell than alive on Earth literally up until almost the time of his (finale) death. (I mean I get this is SPN and they all went through stuff, but, SERIOUSLY! Why did it seem like a year in Purgatory affected him more than so much time in Hell?) So any story with Cas (or Cas and other characters), trying to help him with that. Comforting him through nightmares or panic attack, getting him to finally talk about it (could even be post-finale canon-compliant, residual anger that his life was cut so short after all the torture he went through in Hell?)

Character A gets angry at Character B's tendency to self-sacrifice

attempted self-sacrifice is thwarted by people who do not agree character is expendable

attempted self-sacrifice

Bedside Vigils

Fix-it - Character survives canonical death

Character resigned to their death survives; doesn't know how to cope

Waking from coma or deep sleep and realizing the beloved caretaker is near

Any kind of fix-it to Dean's death by rebar; I can't get enough of them. Maybe Dean doesn't die in the finale, but he is severely wounded/in a coma. He's trapped in his (dream) visions of Heaven; can Cas help him come back? I could really use Cas (and other friends/family) trying to convince Dean he can actually have happiness for himself, too, that he doesn't have to keep laying down his life for everyone else.

Gentle acts of caretaking

Gently coaxing out-of-it sick/hurt character back to bed

Character ordered to rest tries to work anyway

Emotional Hurt/Comfort

Caring for hurt character by cooking for them or getting them their favourite food

Character cooks for sick/injured character(s)

Sick/hurt character falls asleep on comforter

Back rubs/hair stroking to help a character sleep

Sleepy Cuddles

Awkward Comforter

Watching Hurt Character Sleep

Wingfic - Using Wings to Hug Another Character

Just...any kind of sweet comfort fic where Cas gives Dean what he needs after an exhausting hunt or when not feeling well. Maybe when/if Cas is human so he no longer has his angelic healing powers to fall back on, so he tries to do whatever else he can to make Dean feel better? Even if it's bad cooking, awkward cuddles, misguided attempts at human “comfort” he doesn’t quite understand.

Crossover Fandom

Ezekiel Stone (Brimstone) & Castiel (SPN) (hurt Castiel) Ezekiel Stone (Brimstone) & Dean Winchester (SPN) (hurt Dean) Ezekiel Stone (Brimstone) & Dean Winchester (SPN) (hurt Ezekiel)

Aftermath of Torture

Aftermath of Violence

Character is beaten up and left for dead

Talking about their traumas

characters help each other cope with grief

Character with high pain tolerance is in too much pain to hide it having to hide while injured

poisoned wound

Trapped Together During Gunfire/Fighting

Character's been pulled to alternate dimension where everything's weird and they need an ally

Character A comforts Character B about their shared misfortune

Magical Ailment/Disease

trapped in an isolated place together

Road Trip - To Undo the Apocalypse

Both Captured - Forced to Work Together to Escape

A used to mistreatment from others unsure if B will help them

I'm fascinated by the idea of crossing over these two canons. Even if there's some conflict in their approach to Hell/Lucifer/demons, there's still a lot in common. Dean & Ezekiel having both put in their time in Hell and being demon Hunters, for instance, and their complicated relationships with (fallen) angels. I'd love to see them bonding over their experiences (Maybe they even meet in Hell? Time DOES work differently there...) Maybe somehow after Ezekiel completed his mission for the Devil, he did get his second chance at "life on Earth"...but the devil's trick is that it's not HIS Earth, it's in a different dimension (Supernatural's). I'm also curious how Ezekiel might respond to Castiel as an angel--perhaps he mistakes Cas for a demon at first, with his powers, but then they realize they are in fact hunting the same demon? Cas is stuck in an alternative dimension and recognizes Ezekiel as a similar soul to Dean's, and seeks out his help?

Basically I'd love some kind of casefic/demon hunt here, with the characters bonding over their shared/similar past traumas, taking care of each other when/if injured on a hunt, and/or perhaps helping them sort out their complicated feelings for another (ie, background Cas/Dean and/or Zeke/the Devil are TOTALLY welcome here, as I ship both of those ships.)

Law & Order: SVU

John Munch/Odafin "Fin" Tutuola (hurt Fin) John Munch/Odafin "Fin" Tutuola (hurt John)

Gentle acts of caretaking

Comfort Food

making comfort food for emotionally distressed character

Caring for hurt character by cooking for them or getting them their favourite food

Aftermath of Violence

Emotional Hurt/Comfort

Bedside Vigils

Overworking Character ordered to rest tries to work anyway

Character is Exhausted From Overwork

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD

Fights with family member - Helps them feel better in some shape or form

Worrying over the safety of family members

Trapped Together During Gunfire/Fighting

trapped in an isolated place together

Character A holds Character B as they fall asleep after bad day

Characters live together while one recovers from hurt

Watching TV Together After a Stressful Mission/Quest

Caring for pet as self-care

Hangover

A presumed dead; B refuses to believe A died

Presumed Dead

Munch/Fin is a forever OTP for me. I love any story that features some kind of gentle caretaking between them, small gestures of affection, love, and concern that say so much without the words that they may (still) struggle to speak. So my prompts for them are mostly of the soft and emotional kind of hurt/comfort revolving around their jobs and what they have to process involving that. Making sure a character gets enough rest/eats when pushing too hard to solve a case. Providing a shoulder to cry on/being someone to vent at when a case doesn't go their way/they can't save every victim. Not slowing down enough when injured/needing to recuperate because a case matters too much to them. Munch perhaps musing/worried about getting older and not being physically strong enough, any longer, to be able to protect Fin in the field (is that why he finally goes for the sergeant promotion, and/or eventually retires?)

Worrying about/dealing with a family member who might be in danger is another thing I'd love to see — Fin worried over Ken, Alejandro and their baby. Or perhaps Munch gets a call from his brother and there’s some kind of trouble with his family in Baltimore?

Anything along those lines (whether an episode expansion/missing scene or a completely original casefic) would leave me extremely happy. I'd also LOVE to read an angsty presumed dead fic, which has been so hard to find for this ship.

The Orville

Ed Mercer/Gordon Malloy (both hurt)

On the Run - Together

Fight to Survive - Post-Apocalyptic

trapped in an isolated place together

Permanently Stranded on Another World/Planet

stranded in hostile environment with injury

stranded in space

Trapped In Liminal Space

Apocalypse - Survivors find comfort with each other

Trapped with someone in need of medical care

characters help each other cope with grief

aftermath of near death experience

desperate love confession after near-death experience

Casual/Unromantic Sex Leads to Unwanted Feelings

Character Tries to Convince Themselves They're Fine With Casual Sex; They're Not

This very silly show still manages to give me a lot of deep feels, and I really love Ed and Gordon's friendship, the history that's clearly there between them. This is definitely a friends-to-lovers ship for me, or maybe a casual sex-relationship turned-more-serious.

I'd love a story set in the alternative universe/timeline we glimpsed in the second season finale, "The Road Not Taken"—where the Kaylons have destroyed life on earth and the remaining Orville crew members are trying to survive in a loose resistance. In that we saw Ed and Gordon on the run together, so that's what I would love to see more of. Their day-to-day survival, grief over what was lost, hiding out or trapped somewhere together knowing no one is out there who can rescue them.

Otherwise, any kind of mission gone wrong where they end up stranded in space/stuck on an alien world together with no way to get back to the ship/crew. How would they cope with losing everything they once had and knew?

Homicide: Life on the Street

Kay Howard/John Munch (hurt Kay) Kay Howard/John Munch (hurt John) Kay Howard/John Munch (both hurt)

Kay/John is another one of my longtime comfort OTPs; I just love them both so much and the fun contrast they present. Honestly H:LOTS is one of my all-time favorite television series, period, and I'm always happy to see more fic for it!

I don't have any specific fandom DNWs here, go wild, include any other/all characters from the canon universe who might fit. I basically love them all.

Trapped with someone in need of medical care

Trapped Together During Gunfire/Fighting

trapped in an isolated place together

Love confession to/from sick/hurt character who is out of it

Character A Confesses Feelings Because They Think Character B is Unconscious

Humor as way of dealing with pain/trauma

Driving with a mildly sick/injured character in the passenger seat

Driving with a severely sick/injured character in the passenger seat

For these I'd love any kind of case-fic/action-type scenario where one or both of them is injured or in danger. The stress of the situation leads to a confession of or acting on feelings.

Emotional Hurt/Comfort

characters help each other cope with grief

Dealing w the loss of loved ones/friends/acquaintances/familiar faces as time marches on

aftermath of near death experience

Aftermath of Violence

Character who is clearly not fine insists they are fine

Survivor Guilt

I'm thinking of these as episode codas or episode-related scenarios. Mourning Al's death after the events in the HLOTS movie, perhaps. Or the aftermath of the events in Season 3 with the Gordon Pratt incident—Kay, Bolander and Felton all being gravely injured and John being the only one who was left standing. I'm always keen on exploring his feelings of helplessness and guilt there, with nearly losing Kay and the others. Also how Kay recovered and felt after coming so close to death.

Gentle acts of caretaking

Comfort Food

Caring for hurt character by cooking for them or getting them their favourite food

Character cooks for sick/injured character(s)

Hangover

Again, I love characters cooking for each other as a way of showing love and comfort. I tend to see Munch as someone who has a secret knack for being a good cook, so maybe he makes something special for Kay when she's sick/recovering from something and it reveals a side of John she never knew or saw before.

#dear author #dear creators #hurt comfort exchange

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ngame989 · 6 years ago

Text

“Promise” - TGG SVTFOE Fanfic Collection Ch. 1 (and Cleaved epilogue)

Writing: @ngame989

Art: @toxicpsychox (make sure to follow him for bonus pics from the story!)

Editing: @bmc-nightfury, @seddm, @dinodinodude

Alternate fic links - FFnet, AO3

Summary: Earth and Mewni are reunited, and so are Star and Marco. The Diazes and Butterflies both have their families back together. What will the future hold in this new world of theirs?

Comic Page

Masterpost

See below for the text, hope you enjoy!

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

Star and Marco’s gazes remained unflinchingly fixed on each other, still feeling a bit out of breath from their recent exertions. They were close, so close, but neither made a move. They were here, together, and after all they’d been through it all seemed so fragile - taking that last step forward was change, and change wasn’t safe, and change could take it all away from them again. Perhaps it wasn’t rational to think that way, but reason meant nothing compared to the overwhelming relief, their chests rising and falling in unison for a few more seconds in this perfect moment where it seemed like nothing could go wrong.

Nothing, that is, until a brush burn running down the side of Marco’s leg flared up, causing him to jerk forward as his eyes shut in a grimace. Star let out a small yelp and instinctively dove forward, grabbing his arms to steady him.

“Marco, are you OK?” she warbled.

“Yeah, I just, uh, crashed a skateboard,” he sighed, then swallowed hard and took another moment to get his bearings. His body was a bit sore, but the emotional trembling in her voice was the sucker punch that made him nearly double over.

She helped him straighten up again, their eyes meeting once more. Before either of them could consciously recognize it, the invisible tension snapped as Star practically collapsed forward into Marco’s arms, burying her face in his chest. “I was so worried, I… I…” Between the muffling of his hoodie and her soft sobbing, any other words were lost. He steadied his footing and slowly caressed the back of her head. Her golden hair was ragged and he found his fingers getting so easily tangled and knotted in it, but it just made it feel that much more real - it made her just feel that much more real.

“It’s OK, I had a helmet,” he replied absentmindedly, as the feelings of dizziness and relief and love swam through his brain and left him in a daze. Star sputtered out a laugh amidst her tears at his response; when he finally processed his own words and chuckled as well, contagious laughter quickly overtook them both. Finally she pulled back, dropping her hands down to firmly grip onto his own, the gesture bringing immediate comfort to them both. “You’re here,” he muttered, mostly to try and keep himself grounded, but she heard nonetheless and nodded.

“With you. And you’re here with me.” Warmth surged in Marco’s chest as it all finally clicked and he tackled her, making her take a few steps back while she rubbed his back.

“You’re here,” he said again, shaking a little bit. “You’re here. I’m here! We’re here!” He continued repeating the refrain like a mantra, still leaning on Star whose own exclamations began to overlap with his. Wild smiles erupted on both of their faces as their bodies felt ready to explode with energy, rocking back and forth and eventually starting to turn in place. They spun until Marco felt his feet leave the ground, holding onto Star as they laughed and twirled and held onto each other even tighter than when an entire realm was about to collapse in on them, tears of pure relief seeping out from between closed eyelids and glittering in the air around them. Eventually Star felt a lurching in her stomach and slowed their movement, stopping with the help of Marco’s feet touching the ground.

“Star?”

“Note to self, don’t spin around after eating nothing but pudding,” she moaned, and Marco realized he was in a similar situation. “Also… where is here, exactly?”

A third shrill voice suddenly made itself present and caused the pair to jump apart. “No one knows!” They looked to their left to find Starfan13, eyes near filling up her head and jittering like she’d just had a dozen of Star’s most decadent sugaritos.

“Pegasus feathers, how long have you-”

“Who cares, are the two of you…” she trailed off, her voice getting breathier by the syllable.

Star and Marco looked sheepishly at each other and nodded. They couldn’t seem to decide between holding each other or interlocking their fingers, and they’d have laughed about the most welcome disagreement in history if they hadn’t been interrupted by Starfan’s sudden shriek as she passed out on the spot.

“Uh, Star? Is she OK? Should we call-”

“It’s fine, this has happened like a dozen times before. Let’s just help her up to that bench…” They stepped forward to help, but as soon as Star’s grip made contact, Starfan leapt back up to her feet.

“So did you two do this? Was it love magic? I bet it was love magic! Did you have to kiss so hard that everything went boom and dimensions collided and-”

Her words stunned them both into silence until the mention of dimensions, at which point they snapped to attention. They turned their heads in opposite directions to finally get a good look around them, tuning out the continued ranting, and their surroundings finally came into focus. Familiar castles and Earth mountains alike shared a skyline framed by the moons of Mewni, cars tried to navigate around monsters a few blocks away, and a herd of dragoncycles revved their wheels overhead. Star gasped as reality began to sink in.

“Marco, did… did we do this?” Star quietly inquired as Starfan stopped instantly to give the pair her full attention.

“I… I don’t know. Maybe when we were in the realm, the second time, before…”

“So it WAS you! Star and Marco magic, Star Marco magic... Starco magic! STARCO MAGIC! STARCO MAGIC STARCO MAGIC STARC-” The girl collapsed once more in a fit of hyperventilation, and this time stayed out cold while she was dragged to and laid down on the nearest bench. Star and Marco just stared at her for a few seconds; despite everything that had happened to them, this encounter somehow still left them feeling the most disturbed they’d been. Their stomachs growled in unison and broke the trance as they looked around.

Marco took her hand again as his eyes darted around their surroundings, trying to figure out what to do next. “OK, so we should definitely try to find everyone, but we should get something to eat or drink first…”

“Hey Marco, Stop n Slurp is right here!” Star motioned him to turn around and he finally noticed the glowing neon sign not far behind them, the building seemingly unperturbed by the dimensional fusion - and the clerk inside not paid enough to care about it. A few minutes later, they emerged with matching cotton candy slushies with red and blue swirls.

They began to stroll through the streets, hand in hand, occasionally leaning so close that they would bump into one another and stumble but welcoming the casual body contact more than anything else. Almost everyone seemed to have taken shelter to get away from the chaos at some point, but their mindless chatter and abundance of relieved coos and sighs was punctuated with the occasional scream, crash, or car horn as the minutes stretched on. Star leaned on Marco as they walked and stared up at him as he rambled on about their few minutes apart; she was eager to explore this new world of theirs, but in this moment her only world was him.

“...and then Janna stopped her pulse with a snap. Gosh, I hope she’s OK, maybe we should check on her-”

“She’s done weirder, Marco, trust me.”

“Yeah, but before that she said she was my friend and that you’re cooler than her.”

“OK, maybe there is something wrong with her,” she jokingly conceded. “Anyway, yeah, we should check on… well, everyone. Maybe we should start with your parents.”

Marco halted and turned towards her, raising his eyebrow. “You sure? What about your mom and Eclipsa? Well, um, I know stuff was kinda tense with your mom before…”

Star shrugged him off. “No, that’s all fine now, but I think they’ll be able to figure out what happened more easily. Besides, you said you were on a stretcher when they last saw you, right? We should let them know you’re OK.”

“Fine, but then we find your family next,” he acquiesced as he squeezed her hand and started walking again.

A dozen or so minutes later, as the Diaz household came into view, Marco could see that the merging had given them a lengthy new tract of land in their backyard. Wait, was that a miniature jungle next to the shed? He knew he should’ve been relieved that everything seemed OK, that nothing awful seemed to have happened, but a dread crept in instead. How would they react to everything being so different, now? He hadn’t- couldn’t have known this would happen, but now everything was so different and all their lives would be irrevocably changed and what if-

A hand caressed his cheek, stopping him in his tracks at the edge of the driveway as it wiped away a tear he didn’t realize he’d shed. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s just…” His hand rose up to grab her own, still holding it to his face. “It’s finally kinda sinking in what happened, you know? And we’re about to see my parents, and… what will they think of all this? What will anyone think of this?”

“Marco...” she crooned understandingly. Whatever she was about to add was interrupted when the front door opened.

“OK, dear, I’ll check just to be safe…” the pair heard Rafael placatingly call back inside as he stepped out into the yard. They instinctively jumped back from each other a tiny bit, breaking the contact. His eyes went wide when he spotted them, but only for a second before he charged forward to sweep them both into a bear hug. “Oh, mijos, thank goodness you’re OK!”

Angie peeked her head outside next and she quickly joined the embrace, tears flowing down her cheeks and breaking Marco’s heart.

“Sorry I ran off, I just had to-” Marco murmured into his mom’s shoulder.

Angie cupped his face and smiled knowingly, and he didn’t miss her quick glance at Star a bit behind him. “Marco, honey, we understand. You’re both safe, and you’re here, and that’s all that matters.” There was a mischievous glint in their expressions as they led Star and Marco towards the house, who looked at each other quizzically in response.

“Uh, Mr. and Mrs. Diaz, is everything OK?” Star asked as the door shut behind them. A gasp was heard from the kitchen, and Moon appeared in the archway a second later. “Mom?”

"Star?" Another voice came from the top of the stairs, followed by the presence of Eclipsa a second later. The three gathered in the center of the living room as Star stammered incredulously into her mother's shoulder.

Eclipsa glanced over towards Marco, who felt like a weight had been taken off his shoulders as he took in the scene in front of him. "Marco, dear, won't you join us?" The ex-queen's voice startled him for a moment before he walked forward, being pulled into the embrace by the elder Butterflies.

“Pardon me for interrupting, but, um…” Angie trailed off as she got the attention of the others. “What exactly happened? Like, with everything?”

As the embrace ended, the group began to find seats around the living room, with Marco and Star seated next to Eclipsa on the couch and the others pulling over chairs from the dining room. “Well, uh, there was this this crazy buff warrior lady named Mina-” Star began before Eclipsa put an arm on her shoulder.

“We already caught them up with all of that, I think she means with… whatever exactly our new dimension is.”

Marco nervously looked at his parents, then at Star. He had to be honest, no matter what. She took his hand in hers and he swallowed hard, the adults’ attention fixed on him as he began. “Well, after they all managed to finish the spell to destroy the magic, the connections to all the dimensions started closing. Everyone else went through the Mewni one, and I… I dunno. The Earth well was right there, I was one step away but then I just… I couldn’t.” His voice cracked briefly, tears threatening to creep out of his eyes. Star gently leaned into him for comfort as Rafael held Angie. “Then the Mewni well closed, too, but Star came back a few minutes after, and there was this big flash of light, and then I woke up on Earth by Britta’s. And I guess whatever happened made that big portal everyone saw, and I just ran for it. Before I could get there, it exploded, or imploded, or something, and did all of this. Sooooo I guess that’s it.”

An uncomfortable silence lingered for a few moments. Marco fidgeted and was about to pull away from the situation entirely when Rafael scooted forward and put his firm hand on Marco’s shoulder. “Marco, son, it’s fine. We’re proud of you, for everything that you did, we love you, and we understand.”

Angie joined him with a gentle thumb on his cheek. “We’re all going to have to figure out what we’re going to do, but you’re here now, you’re safe, and you’re happy, and that’s all we could ever ask for you.”

“On that subject, I believe your story wasn’t quite all of ‘it’, was it?” Eclipsa chimed in with a smirk and a raised eyebrow.

Star and Marco bashfully smiled at each other before Star spoke up for the first time in the conversation. “Heh, guess not.”

Eclipsa clasped her hands together with a bright smile. “Knew it! I’m delighted for you two.”

“Aaaaanyway,” Marco interjected, “what’s the plan for now?”

“Yeah, where’s Dad?” Star looked around the room in confusion. “Or Globgor?”

Eclipsa gave a small smile. “Globby is off at the temple making sure everything is settled there. He can still control his size, so he can cover ground quite quickly, thank heavens.”

“And as for River-” Moon began to speak but was interrupted by a thunderous roar that came from the direction of the backyard.

“TALLY-HO! CAMPIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!” The ruckus only got louder by the second as Star and Marco hurried out the back door to see River charging across the large field on an Earth bear. “Moonpie, I got all the building supplies you asked me to find, they’re at the camp. These Earth trees put up far less of a fight than I’m used to!” When he spotted Star and Marco, he immediately leapt off of the bear and ran straight for the house before scooping pair into a crushing, sweaty hug. “Star! My little girl! And Marco my boy, I’m so glad you’re alright!”

Star smiled as best she could given the pain from the fatherly constriction.“Aw, dad. Wait, camp? What’s going on?”

River finally dropped the two back down onto the grass, where they staggered for a second before plopping down. “Your mother and I wanted to get away from the old village for a while. And what better area than here, right on the outskirts of the Forest of Certain Death, huzzah! So much wildlife to hunt, we’ll be living off the land and-”

“What your father means to say, dear,” Moon stated exasperatedly as she appeared behind them, “is that we wanted to be closer to you, and we figured you two wouldn’t want to be separated. Besides, most of your belongings are already here, are they not?”

Star sat up on the grass and looked in the general direction of her mother, still seeing double. “Mostly, I think.”

“Globgor should be back here around sunset to take Eclipsa back, we told him to bring anything important of yours that was still there just in case.”

Star smiled widely, jumping up to hug her mother excitedly. “Aww, you guys are the best!”

An hour or so went by without much fanfare. Rafael insisted on preparing dinner all by himself, so the others passed the time keeping an eye on the news and playing with the babies. Star and Marco seemingly never got more than a few inches from each other’s presence, a fact which didn’t escape the notice of the adults present. It was decided that, for the time being, Star would continue staying with the Diazes, but that she (and Marco) were more than welcome with any of them at any time. An intoxicating aroma of meat and vegetables wafted through the living room, delighting everyone present who hadn’t had a proper meal in quite a while; when Rafael triumphantly announced that dinner was served, he was almost trampled by the rush.

The dining room was largely silent, aside from the feverish chewing of those present. Star leaned back in her seat, having eaten her fill already, and just took in the sights around her - some oxymoronic blend of chaos and serenity that made her heart soar. Angie and Eclipsa cooed over their fussy daughters who were giggling at each other in their high chairs. River’s head finally surfaced from his plate, flecks of pork and red sauce visible in his beard. “Rafael, old boy, you MUST show me how you make these… what did you call them again? Turtles lava got us? They’re brilliant! It’s feels like my mouth is on fire, but it’s not actually on fire! Earth food is simply extraordinary, hahahaugh,” River choked out before dousing his entire face with his glass of water before digging right back into his third sandwich. Even Moon found herself giggling at the antics, and Meteora clapped along and happily swished her tail. And beside her was Marco, clearly enjoying this scene same as her.

The pair noticed the light from outside gradually taking on a different hue. First reports on the TV earlier had indicated that, despite no one being quite sure what the exact geography of this world was, that most natural phenomena like the day-night cycle and the tides miraculously stayed largely the same, and by the clocks in the house it was definitely approaching late evening. Star raised an eyebrow at him and got a knowing nod in response - same page, as always.

“Thank you so much for the dinner tonight, but Marco and I are gonna go for a bit. We’ll be back soon.” They quickly got up and strolled out the back door hand in hand to see the sun approaching the horizon in the new sky. Marco helped boost Star up onto the roof and took her hand to get himself up there as well, sitting down together to watch the first ever sunset in their new home.

“So what do you think they’re going to call it?” Marco asked, eyes fixed on the sky above.

“Call what?”

“All of this. Whatever happened… whatever we did. Earth and Mewni, I guess? Are any other dimensions here too?”

Star bit her lip and nervously kicked her feet. “I… I don’t know, really. It looks like most of the kingdoms are around Echo Creek, but Mewni’s a really big place. I honestly don’t even know what was on most of it.”

“What if it was named, like, Mearth? Or Mewth? Earni?” Marco overdramatically drawled out each name, causing Star to have giggle fits. “Mewnearth. Ewni? Mewnth!”

“Pfffthahaha stop it Marco, I can’t breathe!” she clutched her stomach as she howled in laughter.

“Earthni!”

It was as if time itself stood still. Marco’s corny jokes, Star’s uproarious laughter, even the ambient noise around them all seemed to stop at that one utterance. She glanced at him, tears in her eyes, trying to suppress the inevitable final outburst. His facade cracked first and she followed immediately after, clutching each other for support while they laughed at the absurdity of what was clearly the silliest suggestion yet until they were completely out of breath, clutching the roof for dear life to make sure they at least stayed upright. Eventually they calmed down and sat back up, facing towards the imminent sunset but looking only at each other.

Before anything more could happen between them, a barely-perceptible noise was picked up by both of them in the distance, but it seemed as though it was rapidly getting closer.

“...aaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA” They looked to their right and saw an object flying towards them. Marco’s eyes went wide as he braced for impact, Star clutching him from behind for support. He caught it like a football and let out a grunt as he was knocked backwards, barely staying steady. Star leaned over his shoulder to examine the unidentified crying object, and it was… no. It couldn’t be.

“Delivery for… Star Butterfly... and... Marco Diaz. Ow,” the hoarse, high-pitched voice of the delivery monster girl wheezed out.

“Get outta town!” Marco shouted, almost dropping her off the roof before Star grabbed her and gave her a seat between them. “What?”

“Yes, I was instructed, to, um, let me see here… he just said to go to a certain point at a certain time, close my eyes, and stand perfectly still. I-I heard an explosion not long after, and a lot of weird noises. Eventually I opened my eyes and saw this big scary machine on wheels coming for me, and before I could run it hit me into the sky, and I guess I somehow landed here.”

Star and Marco’s eyes almost bugged out of their heads before he spoke back up. “OK, um, do you know who sent whatever it is you have for us?”

“Oh, right! So sorry, please don’t hurt me again, I have it right here.” She pulled out a decadent golden envelope. Star very, very carefully began to pry it open and held it out, cowering a bit when she made the final tear, unsure what could possibly await. “I think it was from a… Sir Terms? He licked his elbows to seal the envelope, if that helps.”

“Oh no.” Star intoned, a pit forming in her stomach upon having the independent revelation at the same time as the girl spoke. The only thing inside seemed to be a letter with a few brown stains on it. She carefully opened it up and began reading.

“At your service, m’lady and m’arco. If you’re reading this, I’m off in that great pudding factory in the sky, boom nuggets! For real this time, it’s not a joke, Gloss is dead and you have killed him. Hope you kiddos are enjoying your new home. Congratulations, even I’m not sure how you managed to pull that one off. I looked right up into the future and saw it, and went ‘Huh?’ so hard that I almost knocked over my jigsaw puzzle. Maybe I should give those mortal “feelings” of yours a try after all. Hey, hey monster girl. Yeah, you, the one cowering in the corner waiting for me to finish writing this. I love you! OK, just shouted that, and… nope, don’t get the hype. But the journey is the most important thing, you know?

I honestly can’t say exactly what happens from here. Magic as you know it is gone, probably for good, but the world’s a pretty magical place. Like, did you know they make CHOCOLATE TRUFFLE PUDDING? That power is clearly beyond my domain. Anyway, I wanted to give you a parting gift. Well, besides my bratty kids being gone. You weren’t a terrible student, Star, but more importantly you weren’t a boring one. The kid probably had a lot to do with that, so tell him I said thanks before you do that huggy thing you two always do. I’m inclined to be a lot more neutral than you on whether Mewmans should have had magic or not, but even I know you two earned these.”

The paper was signed with a doodle of Glossaryck smiling, because of course. Attached to the bottom of the page were… stickers? Star held up the decorations - two pairs of pink hearts and two pairs of light red crescent moons. Marco took the moons and the two stared at them incredulously.

All of a sudden, a large bird-like monster swooped in and grabbed the delivery girl by the back of her shirt and began to carry her off. “Um, guess my, uh, ride is here! Byeeeeeeee-” she trailed off as the pair stared, still in disbelief. Star shook her head to get back to reality and once more looked down at her hands.

“Heh, in all the mess I hadn’t even realized you’d lost your cheekmarks, honestly,” Marco lightly said with a lopsided smile. “They were cute on you, but you’re just as cute without them.” His half-smile erupted into a beaming grin.

“Marcoooooo,” Star cooed, leaning into him. “Yeah, I gotta admit, I’ll miss them a bit. And I guess I won’t get to see you with yours either, I barely remember it!”

“Well what if I just do this instead.” He held up the stickers to his face and began to make obviously fake spellcasting noises. Star mirrored him, goofing off for a few minutes before settling down.

“Magic had its moments, but you know what? I’m fine with it.”

“Star-”

“Like I said before, we have me and you, and that’s what matters most.”

“Uh, Star-”

“But don’t you dare think about losing that mole of yours, Diaz, ‘cause that’s an important-”

“STAR!” Marco grabbed her face with his right hand, a bit less gentle than he would’ve liked. Star saw nothing but shock in his visage as he rubbed a thumb over her cheek. “You have your marks again.” Her heart leapt into her throat. “Wait, are mine back too?” He began frantically pawing at his face with his free hand.

She whipped out her phone to look at her reflection and saw that, yup, the hearts were right where they’d always been. “No, no, yours are still gone,” she absentmindedly replied, “but… yeah, wow, my cheekmarks are back. Should… should we be worried? What if magic wasn’t destroyed? What if this problem will just start all over again? What if your family and all of Earth gets dragged into it too?” Star felt herself gasping for oxygen until Marco touched his forehead to hers, her attention being consumed by his chocolate pools gazing at her, through her, as though they were trying to directly comfort her very soul.

“Star, I’ll be honest, I… I don’t know. Glossaryck, well, he’s a lot of things, but I don’t think he’s a liar. Do you feel any connection to magic right now? Even the slightest bit?”

Her eyes closed as she tried to channel the powers she’d mastered over the last handful of months, but found absolutely nothing awaiting. “No, none at all.”

“See? I don’t know what this was, but… maybe just take it for what it is. So your cheekmarks are back, that doesn’t mean you didn’t achieve what you wanted to achieve. Like you said, we’ll just see what happens and figure it out, together. Because I love you, Star, cheekmarks or no cheekmarks, magic or no magic.” Her heart soared hearing it from him, him him, not some weird loopy (but still honest) magicky version.

“Why are you so good to me, Diaz? You’re my former squire, best friend, boyfriend.” Marco’s face nigh-imperceptibly shifted at the unexpected word, but he was immediately stilled by the boundless affection radiating from her, tiny hearts dancing amongst the sapphire flecks below her lashes. “My soulmate, with or without some dumb moon.” Their free hands, holding them upright on the roof, met between them, fingers intertwining. “You’re my Marco, and that’s why I love you, too.”

Neither was sure who leaned in first, but the emotional dam burst as the pair’s lips met for the third time so far in their lives. Star’s left hand rose up to delicately hold Marco’s as he continued to stroke her cheek. As they breathlessly sighed and melted further into the bliss, they knew there was something more special, more right about this one than even their moment of passion in the barn. For the first time that either could recall in a while, there was no looming spectre of danger or destruction, no “if”s or “but”s or any other obstacles left. The sensation consuming them was hope: not the kind that’s a last resort against daunting odds, but a steadfast promise of more to come that they couldn’t wait to see through.

After many long seconds, they leaned back and gasped - the hearts on Star’s face had begun to glow, a visible yellow in the dusky light, but more interestingly, Marco’s moons were glowing themselves. They sat there breathing heavily as the glows subsided; Star’s marks stayed while Marco’s faded entirely, leaving their visages as they’d always known each them.

“Looks like the sunset’s finally about to start,” Marco said after eventually taking his gaze away from his girlfriend. “Can’t think of anyone I’d rather watch it with than y-oof!” he grunted out as Star tightly wrapped her arms around his chest, fully leaning into his shoulder. He put an arm around her and took one of her hands in his own in front of his chest.

“Yeah.”

No more words were needed as the beauty of the orange-purple sky marked the end of the first day of their new home, but both knew they were ready and willing for the promise that their future had in store.

“Are you sure there’s nothing else we could assist you with?” Moon inquired as the Diazes finished rinsing the last of the dishes from dinner.

“Oh, Moon, you two have been through enough lately. Please, go rest. And if there’s anything you need to help get set up, let us know,” Angie responded gently.

“I FOUND CURTAAAAAAAAAINS!” River ran down the stairs and almost bowled Moon over as he ran out the back door to deliver his haul.

“Angie, dear, were those all our blankets-” Rafael poked his head out into the dining room. The trio, as well as Eclipsa who had just descended from the nursery following River’s commotion, went out into the backyard to find that the Johansen man was long gone into the dusk. The group turned around and was captivated by the vibrancy of the sunset on what the news had announced was tentatively being dubbed “Earth-ni” until they noticed a competing light from on top of the house. All of the adults’ eyes widened, but perhaps for different reasons, as Angie bolted inside as quickly as her frame was capable of doing.

“Are those…”

“Seems so, Moon,” Eclipsa said, seeing the brilliant display of glowing cheekmarks - one she had some significant experience with, herself. While there were a hundred worries whizzing through her head over what it could mean, her heart swelled over seeing the pair embrace what made them special and find a happiness Eclipsa now knew beyond any doubt was as true as could be. “You know, whatever it is, I trust that it will all turn out alright with those two.”

Moon reluctantly nodded before turning around and heading towards River’s yurt-in-progress. “Perhaps you’re right. Let’s let them have this, they deserve that much,” she spoke fondly. Angie emerged from the house with a camera in tow, stopping to take a quick photo (that they didn’t seem to notice) before almost carrying her husband by the arm to join the others for a walk.

“We can’t thank you enough for bringing our son back safe and sound to us,” Rafael said after almost ten minutes of a gorgeous stroll in silence.

“That was hardly our doing.”

“Then thank you for everything.”

“I suppose we owe you much the same.”

They all nodded, bonding over having just experienced one of a parent’s greatest joys: seeing their children grow up to be happy, healthy, and fulfilled. As they neared the camp and met up with River, Eclipsa looked back across the field towards the house and the almost-invisible sunlight left trickling over the horizon.

“I need to rendezvous with Globby, please take care, everyone! Visit often!”

Eclipsa briskly walked the dozen or so minutes to the Diaz abode to find Globgor, normal size, waiting for her in the backyard with some supplies which he was carrying indoors. She snuck behind him and hopped up on her tiptoes to give him a kiss on the neck, at which he started briefly but quickly realized its origin. They shared a quick kiss and resumed moving all of the things indoors.

“Alright, is that everything?”

“Yes, there wasn’t very much left. Unfortunately there were some humans who were very spooked by me on the trip over, but I think that’s just how it will be sometimes. One complimented my… speed-oh? Whatever that means. I’ll take confusion over hatred,” he chuckled as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Alright, we just need to get Meteora and then we should get back home.” Eclipsa nodded but stepped into the yard to check on Star and Marco one last time and found them locked in an embrace, heads leaning on one another. Upon a closer glance, however, she could see Star’s head turned at an odd angle - it didn’t seem as though she was looking at anything.

“Globby, dear, can you come over here?”

“What’s up?”

“Can you check on Star and Marco and see if they’re alright? And give them a lift down?” She pointed to the roof and he nodded, growing to about double his normal size before gently cupping them in his hands. He lowered them to the ground as he shrunk to keep it gentle and Eclipsa helped support them. The pair were fast asleep, tightly wrapped around each other to the point where neither of the adults could find a good way to pry them apart. Wordlessly, they eventually came to a mutual conclusion that they could simply transport them upstairs. Globgor enlarged his arms to act as a cradle while Eclipsa guided the way up the stairs, keeping them steady. The strain was clearly taking its toll, so they hurried into the nearest bedroom on the second floor - Marco’s - and gently deposited them on the bed before stepping back out of the room.

“Are you sure it’s OK to leave them like this?” Globgor fidgeted, feeling a bit out of place as the only one in the group that hadn’t known either Star or Marco for a long time.

“Star’s a Johansen, I’m not sure we could wrestle them apart if we tried. I trust them completely to behave, dear. Well, far more than I would’ve trusted us around their age,” she joked with a snicker. “I’ll take the fall if there’s any fuss, but for now let’s let them have their day.”

They were about to leave when a light breeze drifted through an open window, causing the prone forms of Star and Marco to shiver.

“Perhaps we should find something to cover them up with, though, but River took all the blankets earlier.”

Globgor raised his finger and tiptoed down the steps before coming back up a minute later. “I found this hanging on Star’s wall, maybe it will help.” He held up a pink cape with a blue gem in the middle, filled with various stitched scenes of Star and Marco.

“This looks like a Mewni knight cape… hang on a minute.” A light-bulb went off in her mind as she strolled into Marco’s room and found what she was looking for hanging on the door: a blue cape with a pink gem to mirror the one in her hand. “Aren’t they just the most precious things?” she whispered, showing Globgor the scenes from Star and Marco’s lives stitched into the fabric. “I’ll finish up here, you go get Meteora from the nursery, it’s quite late for her.” He nodded and left the room, leaving Eclipsa with the sleeping pair.

She gently set the capes on top of them, the fabric in the middle overlapping and folding into itself slightly. Glancing back to the hallway, she saw her wonderful husband rocking their sleeping child in his arms. Taking one last look at Star and Marco, her heart swelled up. So much of her own happiness was thanks to them, it meant the world to her that they were able to find that same contentment in each other. The former queen’s hand brushed aside a tear from her face as she exited the room and shut the door behind her. In her mind, a promise was made right then - she’d care for them like they were her own.

#starco #svtfoe #star vs the forces of evil #postcanon #fanfic #tgg svtfoe

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eldritchteaparty · 3 years ago

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Chapters: 16/22 Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Characters: Martin Blackwood, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives), Sasha James, Rosie Zampano, Oliver Banks, Original Elias Bouchard, Peter Lukas, Annabelle Cane, Melanie King, Georgie Barker, Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Basira Hussain Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Fix-It, Post-Canon Fix-It, Scars, Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, I'll add characters and tags as they come up, Reference to injuries and blood, Character Death In Dream, Nudity (not sexual or graphic), Nightmares, Fighting

Summary: Following the events of MAG 200, Jon and Martin find themselves in a dimension very much like the one they came from--with second chances and more time.

Chapter summary: Everyone heads to Elias’s house to continue discussing their situation. Jon and Martin talk with Elias.

Chapter 16 of my post-canon fix-it is out! Read at AO3 above or here below the cut.

Tumblr master post with links to previous chapters is here.

***

Martin took the front seat for the ride out to Elias’s house. He wasn’t sure if that was what Jon preferred, but it felt like it put less pressure on him to engage with Elias. He supposed he could have made some excuse to sit in the back seat with Jon, which is what he’d really wanted to do, but that would have made what was already a very awkward occasion even more awkward; after all, Elias was doing them a favor.

He wished he’d thought before to ask Jon how he actually felt about Elias. There was no guarantee Jon would have wanted to talk about it, but he should have offered him the chance. Martin could tell Jon wasn’t comfortable around Elias, but then again, neither was he. It wasn’t Elias, necessarily—it was more about the fact that when he looked at him, he couldn’t help but see Jonah Magnus, at least for a moment.

This brought up a bigger question that Martin had thought about but had no way to really ask Jon, and that was how much he operated on what Martin imagined most people did—memories, experience, reasoning things out—and how much he operated on knowing and feeling things most people couldn’t feel. During the apocalypse it had been almost exclusively the latter, based on how incapacitated Jon had been when separated from the Eye, but he knew Jon didn’t have nearly the abilities he’d had then.

On the other hand, there had been times recently when Jon had acted on Martin’s feelings without even realizing he’d been doing it; Martin suspected it had happened more times than he knew. Was it just with him that happened?

Only half conscious of it, he turned to check on Jon in the back seat.

He’d basically succeeded in putting the thought of their bond from the Lonely out of his mind since their first big argument here. Jon had just gotten so sick, and then—well, everything else, and he’d basically filed it away, undigested, a concept he didn’t quite know what to do with. Now, as Martin watched Jon stare distractedly out of the car window and into the night outside, the thought reinstated itself.

What did it mean, now that they appeared to be heading down the same path as before? Although he detested the whole idea, maybe he was somehow essential to Jon being able to start another apocalypse—or maybe, if Jon did end up starting one, Martin was essential to whatever his plans might be afterward. Could he use that somehow to—to help keep Jon safe?

As soon as the thought occurred to him, the guilt poured in from wherever it tucked itself away. Trying to protect Jon always felt so much like working against him, and he hated it, but he still hadn’t found another way. The guilt compounded with a familiar frustration bordering on anger—no, it was anger—as he reminded himself that even if he came up with something, even if he did manage to find some small foothold of power in this situation, it would almost certainly backfire. Everything—every plan, every measure of protection he or Jon had tried to take—always had.

He realized Jon had stopped staring into the darkness outside of the car and was now looking at him.

Martin took a breath to say something—he wasn’t sure what—when Elias spoke for the first time since they’d gotten in the car.

“Everything all right?”

“Um—yeah,” Martin said, turning back around in his seat. “Yeah, it’s just late, and I—I guess I’m tired. Sorry for not being more helpful.”

“Oh, I’m fine. I do this drive a lot.”

“Yeah, I—I guess you do.” Martin glanced back to see Jon had returned to looking in the direction of the window. “I mean, every day, right?” It was an incredibly stupid question, but Martin felt obligated to make some effort to keep the conversation going.

“Well—mostly. Every now and then I stay in the office overnight.” Elias turned and caught Martin’s eye, but the resulting discomfort seemed to be mutual, and he quickly returned his eyes to the road. “Or, I suppose, more often I just don’t come in in the first place. Sasha pretends to hate it, but I think we all know she’s happier when I just stay out of the way.”

Elias laughed at his own self-derogatory remark, and Martin tried to be polite with a quick hm. He hadn’t spent a lot of time around Elias here; he’d actually done his best to avoid him, simply because he was his boss, and Elias had seemed fine with that. It was the same way he’d tried to avoid Jon before—before he’d turned out to be Jon. Sasha had always been Sasha, she’d gone out of her way to make him comfortable, but—well, in any case, he didn’t think that laughing about Elias being a shit boss was the best way to forge a relationship. He had no idea how to interact with him under the best of circumstances, and therefore tonight was a lost cause. Thankfully, Elias seemed to arrive at the same conclusion, and let the conversation drop.

Martin turned to imagining the scenery that might be outside the car for the remainder of the ride.

He assumed they had arrived when Elias turned the car off the main road, and the surface beneath the car began to crunch. They drove a short way down this gravel lane before Elias stopped the car and pulled out his phone and opened an app.

“Looks like Allan gave up on me tonight,” he said. “Give it a minute… and… there.”

Several flood lights lit up the drive that curved around in front of an impressive country house; it was an impressive house to Martin, anyway. Elias hadn’t been joking when he’d said he had enough bedrooms to go around. His surprise must have shown on his face.

“The outside’s the best part,” Elias said, as he pulled the car around near the front door. “I really don’t even use most of it. It was a family place. No idea why I hang on to it, other than—well, it works.”

“Did you grow up out here?”

“Here?” Elias asked. “No—not really. We lived in town. We came here sometimes, I guess. Mostly my father rented this one out. I sold the London place as soon as he died, and meant to do the same with this one, but—well, it’s been twenty years—twenty-five, almost? Christ—and here we are.”

“Right,” Martin said, even though he had no frame of reference at all. His mother had died with nothing but what she’d kept with her in the care home. He supposed he was grateful for that; he’d barely found the fortitude to go through the couple of boxes they had returned to him. “Well—thanks again for having us all out here.”

“Oh—it’s, um—” Elias paused. “It’s the least I can do.”

“It’s not.” They turned to look at Jon.

“Sorry?”

“I’m just saying it’s—it’s not the least you can do. It’s rather far from it, actually.”

“Well—” Elias paused again. “Look, I’m feeling sort of—”

“They’re here.”

“What?”

Headlights flashed down the drive.

“Oh, the girls,” Martin said. “Guess they left around the same time we did.” Elias and Jon were already getting out of the car by the time he finished his sentence, clearly also not eager to have a real conversation for the moment.

“Park anywhere,” Elias told them as they pulled up. “You see where Allan’s parked, and we’re not expecting anyone else.”

“Tim,” Sasha said from the back seat. “He’ll be here. Well—in a day or two.”

“He’s been here before. He’ll figure it out.”

They managed to get everything out of the cars in one go, with Elias bringing Georgie’s bags, and Georgie carrying a padded crate that emitted an occasional small sound of distress. Georgie caught Martin looking toward the crate as they walked toward the house.

“He’s not fond of car rides, I’m afraid. Do you—like cats?”

“Oh, I just like animals,” Martin said, wondering why he was suddenly feeling shy. It was interesting, feeling something like a normal emotion in the middle of all this. He couldn’t decide if it was a waste of energy or a relief. “Never really had a pet, though.”

“Well, this is the Admiral. He’s pretty friendly, at least when he’s not in the car, so—”

“Oh yeah, Jon’s told me all about him.”

“Is that so?” Georgie asked, turning to look at Jon.

“I, uh—did get to know him a bit. Before. There, I mean.”

“Right,” Georgie said, shaking her head. “It’s going to take me a while longer to get used to this.”

“All right,” said Elias, as they walked through the front door. “I know it’s late, so if you all don’t mind I’ll save the tour for tomorrow. I was thinking it might be best if you all stayed on the first floor, but there are other rooms on the second floor. That’s where Allan’s room is. My bedroom’s down there”—he pointed to hallway on the right— “and I was thinking you all could stay here.” He led them down a hallway in the opposite direction.

“There are three rooms. Sasha, this one’s just got a double. It’s the smallest room, and you’d have to use the bath across the hall here—well, I mean, there are others, but that’s the closest. If it’s ok with you—”

“Oh, yeah,” Sasha looked both tired and appreciative. “Honestly, it’s much bigger than my room at home. It’s—it’s great. If you all don’t mind, I might head off? Try and get some sleep?”

“All yours. Oh—that door at the end of the hall, that’s a linen closet. If any of you need an extra blanket or towel or anything.”

“Thanks,” Sasha said. “For all of this. Goodnight.”

They headed just a little further down the hall as Sasha closed the door behind herself. “As for the other two rooms—Melanie and—Georgia—”

“Georgie.”

“Right, I’m—I’m sorry—Georgie—I was thinking if you didn’t mind sharing the hallway bath with Sasha, this room has a super king. Or the other one’s a king, but it does have an en-suite shower. And again, there are other rooms upstairs if—”

“I’m ok with this one,” Melanie said. “Georgie?”

“Sure. Unless you two—?” She looked toward Martin and Jon.

“Oh, I don’t—I don’t think we care?” He looked at Jon, who by now also seemed quite tired. Jon shook his head. “I mean, we’ve been sharing a double, and I guess before that we just slept on the ground somewhere, you know, when we could sleep, so…”

He trailed off as he realized everyone was looking at him with slightly wide eyes—even Melanie, who had been avoiding eye contact since they had arrived. He hadn’t meant to say quite that much.

“Well,” Georgie said quickly, releasing some of the tension, “if you’re really fine with it, honestly, the Admiral’s a snuggler, so… yeah. We wouldn’t mind the extra space.”

“Here, I’ll—” Elias picked up Georgie’s bags again from where he had temporarily set them on the hallway floor, and glanced at Jon and Martin. “Are you two all right? It’s just the last door down that way.”

“Thank you,” Jon said, surprising Martin.

“You’re welcome,” Elias said, before turning to help Melanie and Georgie get settled.

Like Sasha, their room was also much bigger than the one they shared at home. Not only did the king fit in it—it would not have in Jon’s flat, as the double just about took up all the room left after the dresser and the side tables—there was also an armchair to one side of the bed and a small writing desk in the corner. He remembered Elias commenting that his father used to rent the place out.

“Bit formal,” Martin commented as he set down Jon’s suitcase, which had been the heavier of their two bags. “Big, though.”

Jon nodded and handed Martin’s bag to him before sinking on to the end of the bed. Martin took a moment to sit next to him.

“You all right?”

“Yeah.”

“Tired? Want to go to bed?”

Jon nodded. They undressed; they knew which sides of the bed belonged to each of them without asking. Just as Martin was about to pull down the sheets, he realized the only switch to turn off the light was near the door. Jon was already in bed, so he got up to turn it off. He looked at Jon as he did; his eyes were already closed.

“Jon?”

“Hm?”

“Do you feel safe here?”

“Like I said before—we’re as safe here as anywhere.”

“Do you feel safe here? With Elias?”

“Oh. I—” Jon paused, opening his eyes. “I do.”

“Ok.” Although he felt like maybe there was more to it, one of Jon’s short answers was going to have to be good enough for tonight. Martin turned off the light and felt his way back to the bed. Once under the covers, he reached out to find Jon. He realized he was glad that the king wasn’t that much bigger than their double. He felt Jon turn toward him in the dark.

Outside, through the conduit of the hallway and the walls connecting their rooms, he heard Melanie’s raised voice, too muffled to understand. She continued for a few minutes, her words occasionally peppered by some also-muffled comment from Georgie, and then there was silence again. A small part of him found comfort in it, even if Melanie was agitated. It was familiar; it was something outside of himself and Jon that he knew and still felt he could trust for what it was.

“I wonder what she’s on about?” Martin asked, yawning.

He didn’t expect Jon to answer, so he was a little surprised that he did. “That’s her business. Or—hers and Georgie’s.”

“Oh. I didn’t mean—I wasn’t really asking. Just talking.” Jon’s comment had, however, reminded him of what had happened on their ride over in the car.

“Jon, can I ask you about something? I mean—if you need to sleep—”

“I’m fine.”

“In the car tonight—when you—looked at me. Did you know what I was thinking?”

“What you were thinking? No.”

“What I was feeling, then?”

“I’m—” Jon started to move away from him, but Martin reached out to touch his arm and he stopped. “I’m sorry.”

“Look, I—I’m sure you didn’t mean to. Just please, talk to me. You—you can’t help it, can you? Sometimes.”

Jon was quiet; Martin could hear him breathing, feel him struggle with the tension in his body. He gave him a minute. “I don’t like it,” he finally said.

“I know you don’t. Is it—just me? Or are you always feeling everyone’s feelings?”

“It’s just you. Of course, it’s just you. You know why.”

“I see.” He sat with that for a moment, letting it sink in as he alternated the pressure of his fingers against Jon’s arm. He knew he was fidgeting, but Jon didn’t seem to mind it. Maybe it was helping. “What did you feel tonight?”

“You were—you were feeling guilty. You always feel guilty, but this was… sharp. And you were angry. And—” Jon shifted under his hand, but didn’t pull away again. “And it all had something to do with me.”

“I wasn’t angry at you.”

“You don’t owe me an explanation.”

“And I’m not going to give you one, other than that. I just—I want you to know that.”

“You know—it’s all right if you are mad at me. I would understand.”

“I know. But I’m not.”

Martin let that settle for a moment before speaking again. “Jon is this—new? I mean, different this time?”

“Sort of,” Jon said. “During the apocalypse, I suppose I—gravitated that way. To your feelings. But everything—everyone—was so loud then. I knew you didn’t like it, and there was always something to drown it out.”

He stopped and cleared his throat. Martin waited.

“Now… Now it’s like when it gets quiet, and all at once you can hear your own heartbeat, feel your pulse radiating through your body. And then you try to stop hearing it, stop feeling it, and—”

“And you can’t,” Martin finished. Jon’s words were becoming painful, although he wasn’t sure for which one of them. “Yeah. All right.”

“I should have told you before.”

“I know why you didn’t. It’s—it’s ok.” Martin said. “I’m sure my feelings are no picnic for you either.”

Jon moved again, but this time it was toward Martin, into his chest. The covers slipped down from his shoulder as he did, and Martin reached for them, pulling them back up. Carefully, so he would not disturb them again, he slid his arm down around Jon’s waist.

They slept.

***

Martin was disoriented when he woke up. It took a moment to remember where he was; the darkness confused him. There were windows on two sides of this room, yet both were covered with heavy curtains instead of blinds, and very little light actually came in. He sensed it was still early, but he wasn’t sure how early until he checked his phone. He hadn’t slept especially late, which wasn’t surprising given how much sleep he’d forced on his body over the last couple of days—but Jon was gone.

Jon’s clothes from the previous day were neatly placed on his side of the bed, so he’d taken the time to get dressed. Martin took that as a sign that he didn’t need to worry. He stood up and stretched, then peeked out of the curtains of the closest window. He couldn’t even see another house from where they were; the lawn extended off into the distance, with the occasional tree adding some variety to the landscape. If they wanted to be away from other people, it looked like they had achieved their goal.

He left one of the curtains open for the little light it provided, and found the small bag with his razor and toothbrush before heading to the bathroom. They had been so tired that they hadn’t even looked at it the night before. It was spacious, with two sinks and a large shower with a hinged glass door. Jon had already been in that morning—either he had been exceptionally quiet or Martin had slept very hard, and he would have believed either. He was slightly amused at his compulsion to use the other sink, the one Jon had not used.

After he had finished up and gotten dressed, he cautiously opened the door and looked down the hallway. No one was there; it was quiet. He closed the door gently behind him and headed back in the direction of the foyer they had walked through when they had come into the house; he imagined he’d find some kind of main room nearby. He passed Georgie and Melanie’s room, and then Sasha’s room; both doors were still closed.

As he drew closer to the foyer, he heard low voices from a room to the other side of the hallway. They sounded conversational, comfortable even. He quickly realized one of them was Jon, and as he continued to walk toward them he recognized the other as Elias. He froze just as he reached the doorway, not sure if he should interrupt; before he could really catch any of the conversation, however, Jon spoke out to him.

“Martin? Is—is that you?”

Is that me, Martin thought, right—but even if they had been alone he wouldn’t have called him on it after their conversation the previous night.

“Um, yeah,” he said, stepping with embarrassment to the edge of the foyer where they could see him. “I wasn’t trying to—I just wasn’t sure if I should interrupt. I can head off, if—”

“Come on in,” Elias said, looking cheerier than Martin could recall seeing him recently. He and Jon were seated in a very proper pair of armchairs, with a small side table situated between them; Elias sipped coffee from a mug as Martin entered. “I was just telling Jon about my father, which is apparently the only thing I know how to talk about when someone is forced to spend more than five minutes with me.”

“Oh,” Martin said, not sure what else to say. The room had a high ceiling and was almost uncomfortably large; there was a fireplace that didn’t appear to get much use, more armchairs, and a sofa with a large rectangular coffee table in front of it. There were windows and a large set of decorative doors in the back of the room—presumably leading to the back lawn—but like the windows in the bedroom, they all let in much less light than Martin felt like they should.

“Coffee? Tea?” Elias asked.

“Um—I’d love some tea. I can get it though, if you tell me where the—kitchen is.”

“Back that way.” Elias pointed behind himself to another doorway Martin had failed to notice. “Through the breakfast room. I’ve got one of those machines that does the whole coffee-espresso-tea-blah blah-whatever thing. Well, really, it’s Allan’s, but he finally broke me down and I started using it. Help yourself.”

Martin looked at Jon, trying to discern whether he was all right. “Go on,” Jon said, gesturing back toward the kitchen with a nod of his head. He did seem ok, Martin thought. He seemed calm, anyway.

Martin headed back to grab some tea. He had trouble thinking of it as making tea—he had a dislike for these machines, they never really boiled the water properly—but it would more than make do this morning. He automatically set out two mugs from the selection on the counter, and only when he was in the middle of adding milk did he realize he hadn’t noticed whether Jon already had one. Fortunately, he did not, and he enthusiastically reached for the cup when Martin set it in front of him.

Martin sat on the sofa, the option closest to the armchairs, but he still felt separated from Jon and Elias. It was like the furniture was spread too far apart to make up for the vastness of the room, and hadn’t quite succeeded.

“Did you sleep ok?” It took a moment for him to realize Elias was talking to him.

“Oh—yeah. Yeah, I guess I did.” Martin rubbed the side of his neck. “I actually wasn’t sure what time it was when I woke up. The curtains keep it pretty dark in there.”

“Ugh.” He had just meant to imply that it was good for sleeping, but apparently it was a sore spot for Elias. “Worst thing about this place—it’s so dark. And it really didn’t have to be, you know?” He took another sip of his coffee. “Sometimes I think my father really preferred—oh, never mind. I’ve had enough of his ghost already this morning.”

Martin took a sip of his tea in the brief but uncomfortable silence that followed; he was saved from having to think of something to say when the front door closed loudly. He turned to look toward the foyer, but no one was there.

“Oh, that was just Allan,” Elias said. “He usually heads in about now.”

“Oh. Does he—know we’re all here?”

“He’ll figure it out.”

“What, you didn’t tell him?”

“Nah. He’ll ask if he cares. He’s always pretty wrapped up at work this time of year.”

“What—what does he do?” Martin asked.

“He’s a professor at the University here in Kent.”

“Oh. In Canterbury.”

“Yeah.” Elias, who had been holding his coffee cup quite comfortably between his hands until this point, set it down on the side table. “Actually, to be completely honest—I mean, he is very wrapped up, he just gets that way—but I wasn’t sure I wanted to involve him in all this. You don’t—you don’t happen to know if Allan was all right there? In the—other dimension?”

Martin opened his mouth before he knew what he was going to say, and then turned to Jon. It was clear neither of them had expected this question, and Martin felt both guilty and grateful when Jon took the responsibility for answering it.

“He—no. He was not all right. He died. A long time ago, before you did. Did you—want to know about it?”

Elias sighed. “I just—had this feeling, I guess. I don’t know. Will it help if I know? Help him, I mean?”

“I have no idea,” Jon said.

“Huh.” Elias leaned forward in his armchair and clasped his hands together, contemplating, and then turned to Martin. “Would you want to know, if you were me?”

Martin shook his head, holding up his hands in front of him. “Oh, if Jon doesn’t know if it will help, I definitely don’t. I—”

“I know. But what—what would you do?”

“I guess—” Martin looked at Jon, who shrugged. “I’m not saying it’s right, and honestly, I’m probably the worst person to ask, but—yeah, I’d want to know.”

“Ok,” Elias said, sitting back against the chair. “Tell me.”

“He was… consumed. By a—through—a Leitner.”

“A Leitner?” Elias was confused. “Like—Jurgen Leitner?”

“That’s what we called his books,” Martin explained. “The books from his collection.”

“The collection in the archives right now,” Elias asked.

“Yes.”

“And Allan was—consumed—by a book.”

“Well, they were different there—” Martin started to say, but he was cut off by a burst of laughter from Elias.

“Of course he was.” He continued to laugh, but his laughter became more strained. “That would be exactly how Allan would go in a world full of monsters.” He leaned forward, and the laughter came to a gradual stop as he rested his head in his hands, elbows supported by his knees.

“I’m—I’m sorry,” Martin said, knowing exactly how little it helped.

“No, no—it’s—it makes perfect sense. It just—does,” Elias said, before finally raising his head. “So, what do you think—I keep him away from the Leitner collection? That’s easy enough. He’s never been to the Institute in his life.”

Martin and Jon met each other’s eyes again.

“It’s never—it’s never simple,” Jon said slowly. “I don’t know if it means anything, but it was a long time ago. Certainly the entities had an interest in you there that they didn’t here—that they don’t. That can’t—that can’t be a bad thing. For you or Allan.”

“I’m sorry,” Elias said, sitting up again. He sighed, reached for his coffee, and resumed holding the mug with both hands. Martin realized it was the way a person holds a hot drink when trying to warm their fingers, even though there was no way it could be that hot anymore.

“No need to apologize,” Martin said. “It’s—it’s a lot.”

“Tell me—tell me about Jonah Magnus. And me. I want to hear it from you.”

Jon took a long sip of tea; Martin was glad he had made it for him. “You already know the basic story. What do you want to know about it?”

“Well, ok. Why me? Why did he choose me?”

“I suppose… I suppose you did have a certain profile. You had the right social status to run the Institute. Your—experience with Allan may have primed you in some way. And—” he stopped.

“What?”

“There was no one watching you. Well, no one who—”

“No one who cared.”

“No. No one who—who would—object too strongly if you changed. Slowly. Dedicated yourself to the Institute. Became Jonah.”

“I see.” Elias turned his cup in his hands.

“On the other hand—you weren’t the only one he could have chosen. Not at all. In a very real sense, you were just unlucky. In the wrong place.”

“Sure.” He continued to focus on his cup. “Was it—was it fast, at least? For me?”

Jon sighed. “No. No, it was—long. And slow. And—terrifying.”

Martin shuddered just a little at Jon’s words; he wondered if Jon hadn’t taken it a bit far, but Elias stayed perfectly calm.

“I see,” Elias said again. “Do you think—I know you said I was in the wrong place, but—is it possible that—maybe that’s not true? Maybe that was—my purpose?”

“Your—purpose?” Jon looked directly at Elias. “What—”

“I just think—I never understood why I went to the Institute in the first place. I mean—I kind of did, I thought I’d take a low-level research job, waste some time, do something that would have pissed off my father a bit—but I never really understood why. Not really. And I ended up doing everything he wanted anyway.”

“Well—I’m only guessing, but I think there must have been some sort of pull between the two dimensions, and maybe—”

“And maybe my real reason for existing was there, in that other dimension, to be—that. Some sort of useless, waiting husk that Jonah Magnus could crawl into and—”

“No,” Martin interrupted him. “That’s not—”

“But it makes sense. Just like Allan being eaten by a book. It would explain some things—why I couldn’t just walk away from all this. It would explain why I could never find anything else to go to. If that was why I exist, and it was finished years ago—”

“Jon, please—”

“No.” Jon’s face was pale, and there was an edge of controlled anger in his voice. “That’s not a thing. It is no one’s purpose to serve them. No one exists specifically to suffer and—”

They were interrupted by the sound of voices drifting through the foyer from the hallway; a moment later, the remaining houseguests appeared.

“Morning, everyone.” Sasha seemed very refreshed compared to the previous night; Melanie and Georgie, standing behind her and talking quietly to each other, seemed maybe slightly less refreshed. When no one responded, Sasha’s cheeriness faded slightly. “Is—is everything ok?”

Elias took a deep breath and sat up; smiling, he set his now-empty coffee cup down on the side table. “Everything’s fine. We’re fine.”

Georgie yawned, having missed the nuances of the exchange. “Well—we were wondering—had anyone thought about breakfast yet?”

“Yes and no,” Elias said, standing up. “I thought about the fact that I hadn’t thought about it until this morning. I have some stuff here if anyone’s starving, but we’re going to need to go out before too long. There are a few small places nearby, but I’m thinking we’re better off going to the Sainsbury’s in town and stocking up. I can—”

“Georgie and I can do that,” Melanie said. “You’re letting us stay here, we can at least pitch in and help out with food.”

In the end, Melanie, Georgie, and Sasha all ended up leaving for the store, with plans to bring back several days’ worth of food. After they left, Elias, façade crumpling, turned back toward Jon and Martin.

“I’m sorry for—that. Before they came in. It’s very easy for me to think too much.”

Martin waited to see if Jon would say something, but he seemed very lost in his own thoughts.

“It’s—it’s all right.” He was, again, very aware of how little these words helped.

“I hope you don’t mind if I take a moment.”

“No. Not at all.”

“Help yourself to—whatever. Anything.”

“All right. Um—thanks.”

Elias stuffed both hands into his pockets as he walked out of the room, back toward the direction of his bedroom. He left his empty coffee cup sitting on the side table next to Jon, who remained sullen and withdrawn. If Martin could have easily reached over to touch his arm, physically remind Jon of his presence without disrupting his thoughts too much, he would have, but the couch was too far away from the chair.

He was pretty sure Jon knew he was there, regardless.

He turned back to his cup of tea. It had gone quite cold by now, but he drank it anyway.

#the magnus archives #tma #mag pod #tma spoilers #jonmartin #tma fanfic #my writing

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kurtty-drabbles · 4 years ago

Text

Switch au (part 2)

N/A: An idea that punches into my mind without any kindness. So, here we go. I´m trying to make Kitty more mature here and human-not sure if it will be like that, but, hey once you have a literal encounter with an OUTER GOD, you kind have to change and for once to better- So here we go.

@dannybagpipesarecalling @djinmer4 @bamfoftheundead @muninandhugin

The watch hands of the big clock are stuck. Ororo Monroe can glance at the watch and wonder if is worth fixing it. "Is forever stuck 10:20. And yet..." her fingers are touching the teacup gingerly as her blue eyes direct to the young woman in front of her. "We have lots of talks to do, Kitty. And can you let me go first?" and Kitty, wearing a red sweater only nods, Ororo needs to recollect what happened 48 hours ago. Ororo needs to recollect and not let her brain melt by all the shenanigans issued.

"Pheonix and Galaticus show up..." her Ororo let a final exhale of breath and continues to gingerly touch her teacup. "Jean Grey, for what I can understand, did something that ruined Pheonix´s chance to win a bet" there´s a bitterness in her tone that´s not usual to Ororo- at least, not that Kitty ever witnesses the Weather Godness being like that. Then again, when Kitty can´t point fingers- "I´d not know what the bet was nor what Jean did that ruined Pheonix´s chance to win...but I do know that..."

And Ororo closes her eyes and her entire face seems clenched at this mere memory. "If you want ...you can stop...Wanda, I mean, Scarlet Witch gave me the recapitulation of the last 48 hours" noticing the expression. Kitty adds. "I have a story to tell too"

"I need to tell this..." Ororo states too proudly. "Pheonix was angry at us for the failure and would have burned us to ashes...And then, jean, the possible most selfish and arrogant person I ever see in my entire life...made a deal with Pheonix. Her life for ours." Ororo´s head inclined to the right-there´s a photo where Jean Grey possed. There´s some mean expressions and somewhat sadness in the faces of those closer of Jean Grey- "And Pheonix accepted and we´re sent back here"

"I..." Kitty tries to say but Ororo shakes her head. "Logan tried to kill himself via death by Vulcan. It was a total failure. Scott..." she shakes her head. She can´t say how broken this man is. "Prof X was arrested for crimes against humanity and for once, by a sheer miracle, people aren´t hating us...." and Ororo can´t help a smirk plays on her face. "ironically enough, Prof X manages to hate mutants and humans by being the most despicable man in the planet"

And now, Kitty measured, she can share her strange tale. "Ok, Ororo...as I mentioned, Scarlet Witch told me this" an eyebrow rose and bad rumors about Dr. Stranger- he dated and married one of his students before his timeless death- Kitty has to defend Scarlet Witch here. "She´s not peeping on us nor is a pervert" Well, if she has her kinks she sure hides well.

And Kitty tells a story about a dumb girl who saw the boy she liked leaving this dimension with another girl-Kitty is merciful to çeave the part where the girl is not a girl nor human- and how she made a circle summon Zaorva´s Herald. How that leads to a meeting with Zaorva herself and how this change her-in many ways- Her fingers waddle and appear some pink glow.

Ororo let go of the teacup. She pushes her chair and says in a high tone. "You could have been killed. You could have been devoured or worse...and we wouldn´t even know..." her eyes are white as the lightning bolts are playing in her fingers. In her eyes. "Why you did something so dumb?"

"I´m just a teenager...I´d dumb things too...is not only the adults" Kitty jokes and Ororo showing even a fraction of her powers are scary. Ororo hugging Kitty and crying is much worse.

"You could have been killed, Kitten. Do you hear me?"

"I´m so sorry, Ororo." Kitty only notices her own tears as her brown- and puffy eyes- are looking at Ororo´s blue eyes as her hand is cleaning her tears. Both women cry. Both women laugh and the watch arm is still halted.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

Kitty saw new faces in the X-men. Betsy Braddock, for example, is a new face and name. And unlike the others never had the chance to form any solid opinion about Jean Grey- Gratitude for saving everyone´s lives is a given. But she doesn´t think Jean is a god nor the worst. Again, Betsy is really new here- and notices the presence of one indigo furry man.

"Kurt!" and she tackles him into a hugging. His fur is so soft like velvet. Kurt is surprised. Kurt is not breaking the hug. His tail wrapped around Kitty´s and his golden eyes lock to her brown eyes. "What happened, Katzchen?"

And she smiles in a lopsided way. "I´m owning to my dumb decision...yes, yes. You´re right...I can be a bit brash. Just a bit. A smidge" and Kurt shakes his head. "How are you, elf?"

"About the whole thing? Confused and grate and confused. Jean saved us...why?"

"Guess even Jean has good days" and she swallows louder and adds. "Elf, I´m here to tell you something...and I need you to be open mind here" and the said elf is listening to the impossible tale. "And now, I have magic..." she should have said she can say- she should. Yet, tales of what happened to those who have this power...no, better be vague now- "and I´ll go to a different school to learn how to use my power"

"I´d not believe in Zaorva. Sorry, Kitty. But, if you have now magic powers...it won´t change our friendship. I promise you...can you visit us?"

"Of course, you silly elf." She rests her head on his chest for a moment. "And you can visit me too. You´re my friend, maybe my best friend and I don´t want to lose you"

"And you won´t...I can promise you this"

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Jubilee is the one taking care of social media for the X-men and so far, she´s doing a great time. People seem to enjoy her posts and are sharing stories. Everyone has struggles-even if some struggles don´t involve flying or any other power- and she turns to see Kitty there.

"Hey, Kitty, what´s the long face?"

"I´m leaving the X-men...for now"

"Oh, is because of what I say about your clothes. Look, it doesn´t need to go to such extremes. You can fix bad taste in fashion" Kitty rolls her eyes at this phrase, in the end, let slide.

"No...I have something to tell"

"OH GOD, YOU´RE PREGNANT?!"

"WHAT? NO!"

And once the tale is finished. Jubilee has questions. "So, you´re no longer a mutant, but, a witch?"

"Jubilee, can you stop being American-Chinese?"

"Of course not"

"There´s your answer. I´m still a mutant. I´m still Kitty...I´m now a witch too, I guess"

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Scott is not taking Jean´s death so well. Yes, she cheats on him. Yes, she cheats with him, and all that adds his demoralization even more. Kitty, in her past, never understood Scott Summers. Maybe, after all, she saw, she can say she understands a little bit.

"Scott?"

And Scott looks up to see Kitty. Scott remembers vividly how Jean hated Kitty for some reason and in an act of defiance greets her. "hello, Kitty"

"How are you dealing with all this?"

And Scott, if it was any other situation, wouldn´t rant to a child-in his eyes. Kitty is a child- but, Scott can´t help himself. "She cheats on me with Logan, then announced she and Logan are dating and then ends up in my bed...over and over. And I let her stay in my bed because I thought...she would come back to me...but, I never understood why I wanted her back"

Kitty could say how Jean used her powers on him- does she have proves?- but tries to say something else. "Are you thinking of doing something stupid? I did once and is not great...so, please, whatever is passing in your head...don´t do it"

"Speak by experience?"

"Pretty much"

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Rogue and Gambit are talking. Well, more like Gambit is flirting with Rogue and the Southern Bells is playing hard to get. However, as soon Rogue sees Kitty all the playfulness is gone. "You! What are you doing here?" and Rogue put herself in front of Gambit and Kitty-not that Kitty even has any interest to meet this new face- and Kitty can only sigh tiredly- she feels so old lately- and is ready to confront Rogue.

"I want this to stop. Look, I never stole Bobby from you" she won´t voice her suspicions about Bobby. "If he didn´t want to date you...it was his choice. Not mine. I didn´t do anything"

Rogue doesn´t look convinced. "Ah not buying. Ah know you are competing with me"

"Yeah, because it was good for my ego. Someone like you feeling threatening by me? That was good to my self-esteem" she jokes partially. "I meet God, Rogue, I meet God and I realize how stupid somethings are...I´m leaving the X-men now...to study magic" Rogue is shown a real WTF look. "and I want to leave this house without any hard feelings, ok?"

"Ahh, sure. Ah guess"

Remy pipes in. "Ah, you meet Zaorva. Bold call"

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Scarlet Witch is watching as the candles are lighting up on their one. One by one on their own time and terms. "I...think over and I´m ready to learn magic," Kitty said breaking the silence and Wanda watches as the last candle didn´t light up.

"Everything happens on its time"

#Switch au #Kurt Wagner #he doesn´t like magic but has an open mind ...for now #Kitty Pryde #Ororo Monroe #Jean Grey is based on Ultimate but less horrible and she did something noble here #Wanda the sensei #Rogue is confused #Remy knows the Outer Gods #Remy is chill with everything

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