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eliemo · 4 years

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Permafrost: Chapter 2

Summary: After Virgil agrees to follow Roman into the Imagination, a shift in the weather and an unfortunate misstep sends Virgil plummeting into uncharted waters. If only it didn’t take a matter of life or death and a race against time to realize the Prince might not hate him after all.

TW: Drowning, effects of severe cold, steps of CPR

Notes: Romantic Prinxiety (pre relationship) I tried to make the effects in this chapter as realistic as possible but if some things are inaccurate no they aren’t

Permafrost taglist: @im-an-anxious-wreck @snowyfires @the-sympathetic-villain @my-life-is-an-artistic-mess @itsjust-la-me @ray-does-stuff @brokaw22 @johnlaurensintheplacetobe @teamplutoforlife @myrandomfandoms12 @riverdoesbadart

Part 1 Part 3 Part 4

Roman knew his role, and he played it well. He was the hero, charging into battle and adventures without a second thought, smiling in the face of bloodthirsty beasts with his sword at his side. Princes weren’t cowards.

But when Virgil lost his grip and went under, Roman had never been so scared in his entire life.

“Virgil!”

He’d been so close, finally dropping to his knees on the unsteady ice and desperately reaching out, fingers just brushing freezing cold skin when the current took advantage of Virgil’s rapidly waning strength and pulled him under.

Roman’s own scream, hollow and empty and terrified, echoed right back at him, thrown in his face to remind him that he’d been too slow-

He pushed his own thoughts aside (he could blame himself later. God why hadn’t he been faster?) and plunged his arm into the water until he was shoulder deep, hissing against the sudden sting of the cold.

But Roman didn’t have the place to complain, not when Virgil had just been completely submerged right in front of him.

It had all happened so fast, Roman reaching into the violent river less than a second after Virgil disappeared, so maybe- maybe there was still enough time. Please please please let him be fast enough-

His fingers found something soft and solid, just barely managing to grab onto what he was almost positive was Virgil’s hoodie (please please let it be Virgil’s hoodie) before it was swept away completely.

He was almost yanked into the water himself by the force of the current, the river fighting relentlessly to pry Virgil away, and Roman felt a sudden rush of irrational anger.

He wasn’t sure where it came from, something defiant and protective that wrapped around his chest- something that went deeper than his desire to be someone’s hero. Because he was Creativity, and this was his realm. It didn’t get to take anything from him.

It didn’t get to take Virgil.

Roman reared back, mind almost blank as he fought against the water and pulled Virgil back towards the surface, heart skipping a beat when he finally caught a glimpse of purple hair floating in the freezing water.

He hadn’t lost him. He was ok, he would be ok, Roman would make sure of it. Virgil was not going to die because Roman had been a little too eager to spend time with the recently accepted side.

He moved closer to the edge, forcing himself to ignore the way the already unstable ice creaked dangerously, letting out a sky breath when he was able to get two hands hooked under Virgil's shoulders.

It was only then, pulling against the weight of the water trying to drag them both down, that he realized Virgil wasn’t fighting back. He was perfectly still, no more kicking or struggling as the current kept him under.

No. No no no. He wasn’t too late. He wasn’t too late. Virgil would be fine.

Roman honestly wasn’t sure how he managed to gain the upper hand in his fight with the current. It was strength he doubted he could have harnessed under any other circumstance, a sudden rush of adrenaline he imagined Thomas got from Virgil sometimes right before rushing on stage and pouring his heart out in front of an audience.

Maybe it was the last of Virgil’s strength bleeding into Roman’s determination, a last desperate attempt to help save his own life. The two of them had always been a good team, even if they hadn’t realized it sooner.

Virgil finally broke the surface, Romans’s arms wrapped firmly around his chest as he dragged him onto the ice, terrified he would lose his grip and let Virgil slip through his hands when they were so close to being safe.

There was no gasp for air, no coughing or sputtering as he choked and spat out water. Virgil was out of the river, but he was still unmoving and silent, lips and fingertips tinged an alarming shade of blue.

But that was ok. It was ok! (It wasn’t ok- it was the farthest thing from ok.) The ice creaked again, shifting a bit under the added weight, and Roman forced himself to move before he got them both killed.

“You’re ok,” Roman said, despite Virgil remaining limp and unresponsive as he carefully scooped the anxious side up off the ground. He had to do something to fill the suffocating silence. “You’re ok, you’re fine. I’ve got you. You’re ok.”

The ice was definitely unsteady as Roman brought them back to the surrounding snow, but it thankfully didn’t crack or give way any further. Apparently Virgil had managed to find the most unstable chunk in what could easily be the deepest part of the lake.

And Roman had kept walking. Roman had teased and waved off his panic. And then when he realized what had happened, when he’d heard the genuine terror in Virgil’s voice, it had already been too late. He’d been too far away.

But Virgil was in his arms now. Virgil was...he was limp against Roman’s chest, river water leaking from his mouth, and he wasn’t breathing. He wasn’t breathing.

He pushed down his panic, even as his head spun and his hands shook from more than just the cold, carefully setting Virgil down in the snow against the nearest tree trunk, the bare twisted branches offering a bit of shelter from the snowfall.

Virgil was horribly pale, even more than usual, and Roman hated how he blended in with the ground, everything a startling shade of white save for the heavy tint of blue his lips had gained.

Roman reached forward with shaking hands, holding his breath as he pressed two fingers against the ice cold skin below Virgil’s jaw, searching frantically for a pulse while his eyes welled up with tears.

There was nothing there. There was nothing, Virgil didn’t have a pulse, and Roman wanted to sob. “Hang on,” he whispered to no one, because he wasn’t sure what to say when his friend looked like a corpse. “Just hang on, Virge.”

Before he could stare too long and spiral into worry, because Virgil’s face should never look so lifeless, Roman squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself to try and recall what Logan taught them to do in a situation like this.

It had been years ago, and Roman had decided the lesson was boring, unnecessary, and not worth his attention. And of course, now it was a matter of life and death, and he was struggling to remember a word Logan had said.

It had been Virgil’s idea for Logan to teach them all how to perform CPR. “You never know what could happen. It’s just better to be prepared.” He’d insisted.

Back then, Roman had chalked it up to Anxiety just trying to ruin their fun and keep everyone paranoid for his own twisted amusement. He really made himself sick sometimes.

If Virgil was awake right now, he would be rolling his eyes and teasing him for being such a stubborn idiot. Virgil had always just been trying to help. To keep them all safe. And Roman had always responded with suspicion and hostility.

But he wasn’t awake, and if Roman didn’t remember this stupid lecture Logan had given, he might never wake up again.

Roman racked his brain as hard as he could, his eyes squeezed shut as he fought to picture Logan’s voice. After pulling someone from the water you have to…you have to move them…on their back!

Roman rushed to move Virgil so he was laying down, working quickly yet handling the anxious side as if he were made of glass. He slowly and carefully placed him flat on his back, making sure he didn’t hit his head on the ground.

Ok, first step finished. Roman closed his eyes again as he reached into his memory for what to do next. He had to put his hands- no, his palms- on Virgil’s stomach. His stomach? No, it was...it was...his chest? His chest!

Roman wished more than anything Virgil was over his shoulder, gently poking fun at the Prince’s scrambled thoughts.

But he wasn’t, and Roman unzipped the soaking wet hoodie to place his hands on Virgil’s chest, one hand crossed over the other, mirroring the way he remembered Logan had positioned his own hands on the practice dummy he’d made Roman conjure.

Now, all he had to do was push down to the beat of ‘Stayin’ Alive’, just like The Office taught him, and then move to tilt Virgil’s head back, pinch his nose closed, and breathe for him until the anxious side’s chest could rise on its own.

Roman wasted no time starting the motions. He hummed the tune under his breath to keep the rhythm, quickly deciding that once this was over he would never be able to hear that song again.

But that didn’t matter right now. Right now he just needed Virgil to breathe.

But...but he wasn’t. Roman lost track of how many times he pressed down on Virgil’s chest, how many times he repeated that song over and over in his head, the compressions getting a little bit more desperate every time.

He lost count of how many times he leaned over his friend to send a breath rattling down his throat, trembling and lightheaded as he touched Virgil’s frigid skin, only able to silently hope his lungs would get the message and bring him back.

“Come on, Virgil,” he found himself pleading, vision obscured by gathering tears. “Come on, wake up! You can do it, I know you can do it. Just come back, ok? You’re gonna be ok, just breathe! Please, Virgil please. We...I can’t lose you! You have to wake up!”

Was he doing something wrong? Had he just been too late? Too slow? Too stupid? If it was anyone else, Vigil would have already been awake by now, conscious and breathing.

...If it were anyone else, Virgil wouldn’t have fallen in the lake at all. Virgil wouldn’t even be here. He’d be warm and safe in someone else’s arms and Roman wouldn’t be kneeling in the snow, begging him to open his eyes.

He needed Virgil to wake up. He needed him. It had taken him so long to see it, pushing it down and covering it up with insults and nicknames and denial, but now...now Roman didn’t think he could handle losing Virgil.

He couldn’t lose Virgil’s voice, his smile, the way the whole world seemed brighter when Roman got the anxious side to laugh. Virgil was kind and sharp and funny, and he cared so much. He was...he was perfect, and Roman--

Virgil suddenly jolted under his hands, making a horrible sound that was somewhere between a gasp and a cough, eyes flying open in panic as he fought and struggled for air he couldn’t get.

Roman’s cry of relief came out as something closer to a sob, but he couldn’t find it in him to care, scrambling off of Virgil and not bothering to wipe the tears from his face.

Prince thankfully had the sense to turn Virgil on his side to keep him from choking, wincing at the string of wet coughs and hacking coming from the soaked figure in the snow.

It sounded horrible, Virgil’s breaths coming in strangled wheezes as he coughed and spewed up what looked like half the river, but right now it was the most beautiful noise Roman had ever heard.

He couldn’t imagine how much pain the other side was in right now, every breath an agonized and confused fight for air, but it at least meant Virgil was alive.

“You’re ok,” Roman said, voice still unsteady and raw from crying. “Hey, you’re ok, you’re alright. Just let it out, you’re doing great.”

Virgil was obviously too busy throwing up water to respond, and Roman suddenly had no idea what he was supposed to do.

“I’m here,” he offered, tentatively scooting closer, terrified he would just make everything worse. “You’re ok, Virgil. It’s ok.”

He carefully placed a hand on Virgil’s back, rubbing small circles in between his shoulder blades. The hoodie was just as soaked as the rest of him, heavy and cold and probably clinging to his skin. It was impossible not to notice how hard Virgil was shaking, teeth chattering so much Roman could hear it over the wind.

Gosh, Virgil must be freezing.

“R- Ro...R-Roman.” He coughed again, and Roman wrapped an arm around him to keep Virgil from falling flat on his face. “R-Roman--”

“Shh, I’ve got you.” He pulled Virgil back to lean against his chest, frowning at how the hoodie still dripped with icy water. “I’m gonna help you, ok? We’re gonna get you warmed up.”

Roman moved to take the lapels of the hoodie, gently trying to slide it off the shivering side, tearing up again when Virgil made a noise of protest, scared and small. He tried to cling onto the garment, but his hands were too unsteady to get a good grip.

“I know,” Roman said. “But the hoodie’s soaked, Virge. It’s just making things worse, I need to get it off.”

Either Virgil understood and stopped fighting, or he didn’t have the strength to struggle anymore, but he dropped his arms and leaned even more into the Prince’s side. He just hoped Virgil recognized Roman was trying to help.

The hoodie wasn’t easy to get off, the cloth clinging to Virgil’s bare arms, the anxious side whimpering when the wind hit his skin. “P-please, please d-don’t...Roman--”

“I know.” God, Virgil was barely able to get his words out through his own chattering teeth. “I know it’s cold, but just hang in there. Please.”

Roman wasted no time once the hoodie was off. He quickly laid it out beside them on the snow, hoping the wind would at least do something to dry it off, and repositioned himself slightly, one hand still wrapped carefully around Virgil’s chest.

He detached his red sash first, tossing it carelessly into the snow and vowing not to leave it, or the hoodie, behind. It took a few seconds, Virgil still leaned heavily up against him, but Roman managed to shrug off his white jacket, shuddering when that left him in just a black t-shirt.

It was freezing, the ruthless wind like a flurry of knives against his skin, but Roman forced himself to grit his teeth and ignore it. If he was cold, he couldn’t imagine how it must feel to be soaking wet.

And Virgil was probably aching and bruised from the compressions…

“Here,” Roman said, heart dropping at the fear and confusion in Virgil’s cloudy eyes. “Put this on, alright? You’re gonna be ok.”

Virgil made another quiet, indecipherable noise but didn’t protest when Roman draped the jacket over his shoulders, and the prince was able to help guide his hands through the slightly too big sleeves.

Any other time, under any other circumstances, Roman imagined seeing the anxious side wearing the prince’s jacket would be something that would leave them both smiling like idiots, Roman left trying in vain to hide his rising blush.

Now, it was just a desperate act to keep Virgil alive.

Roman wrapped his arms around him and pulled Virgil close to his chest, desperate to offer as much warmth as he could, the shivering from the other side still beyond alarming. At least his lips and fingertips no longer held that terrifying shade of blue.

He shut his eyes for a moment, dropping his forehead to rest against Virgil’s soaking wet hair, trying to figure out what on earth he was supposed to do. They needed to move, to get Virgil back home safe as soon as possible, but it was still another forty minutes or so to the Imagination door.

He never should have brought Virgil so far out, not with how unpredictable his realm could be. Roman had just...wanted an excuse to spend more time with the anxious side.

He’d wanted Virgil to see him be the hero. For once, he’d wanted to be the hero in Virgil’s eyes, not just Thomas’s. He’d been so stupid.

They couldn’t stay here, not while the snow continued to fall and the wind showed no sign of stopping.

He’d carry Virgil the entire way if he had to, he knew that for sure. But the longer the storm kept up, the temperature slowly but surely dropping further, the more it was looking like he’d have to. They couldn’t afford to move slowly.

He didn’t know what he’d been silently hoping for. Maybe for the weather to become warm again, or for Virgil to magically get better, to sit up with his skin back to its normal paleness and make a snarky comment about Roman worrying too much.

“Jeez, are you trying to steal my job, Princey?” he’d ask, smirking when Roman sputtered and blushed under the accusation. God, he’d give anything to have Virgil back to normal.

But the sky wasn't clear, Virgil’s declining health only seemed to be getting worse, and Roman knew that the longer he waited, the worse it would only get.

“Hey, we need to keep moving,” Roman said, hoping Virgil could understand him. “You still with me? I’m gonna pick you up, alright?”

He felt Virgil cough again, still a broken rattling sound that sent dread clawing up Roman’s throat, and he watched the anxious side reach up to grab at the material of the jacket wrapped around him.

“M’ here,” he said, and he was clearly trying so hard to speak clearly. “I- I can...I c-can walk.”

“Let me help you,” Roman insisted, even as his heart swelled with pride. He wondered if Virgil recognized his own bravery. “We’ll be home soon.”

He carefully maneuvered one of Virgil’s arms over his shoulder and counted to three under his breath before slowly lifting the anxious side off the ground.

He froze immediately when Virgil let out a strangled gasp, broken up immediately by ragged coughs, his shivering body going tense as his free hand flew to his stomach, trying to wrap his arm around himself.

“F-fuck,” Virgil hissed when he had his breath back, and Roman eased them both back into the snow when his knees started to buckle. “Ow, ow, ow, what...Ro-Roman--”

“I’m here,” Roman said. “I’m right here, Virgil. What hurts?”

“R-r-ribs, and- and I...I don’t...what’re we--?”

“Shoot, uh...I think I did that.” Oh god, he’d hurt Virgil. He’d really messed up everything today, hadn’t he? “I had to give you CPR.”

“You...I- I don’t- why?”

“You fell in the river,” Roman explained, trying not to panic at Virgil’s sudden memory loss. That was normal, right? He was just a little confused, no reason to freak out yet. “Remember? I think the cold really got to you and- and I’m...I’m really sorry. God, I’m so sorry Virgil. I tried to get to you but--”

“Y-you-” Another cough, just as terrifying as all the others. “-you pulled m-me up?”

Roman frowned, hating the bewildered confusion in Virgil’s voice. “I did. Of course I did. But you...you weren’t breathing and I couldn’t find a pulse and I...I thought you were...I thought--”

“Well I- I’m f-fine,” Virgil rasped, dangerously pale and shivering and the farthest thing from fine. “Y-you...you really are my hero huh, P-Princey?”

It was like something curled around Roman’s chest, squeezing at his heart so suddenly he felt a little lightheaded. Virgil’s hero. He wanted so badly to believe that.

But he couldn’t- not when Virgil was trembling in his arms and struggling to form a single sentence.

“I’m getting you home,” Roman vowed, holding the anxious side just a little bit tighter. “I promise you that. Just...let me carry you. Please.”

Virgil slumped, his shaky grip growing almost desperate- despite still being painfully weak- but he nodded against Roman’s chest. “It’s...it’ s-so cold.”

Roman didn’t know how much time had passed since he had put his own jacket on Virgil, but while it hadn’t seemed to do much to improve Virgil’s condition, the lack of protection was definitely getting to Roman.

He found he didn’t mind though, not when Virgil was awake and breathing, aware enough to talk just a little. But he knew it was only a matter of time until their luck ran out.

Roman carefully repositioned the anxious side still curled in his arms so he could better hold him in a bridal carry, shushing him gently when Virgil made a pained sound as the Prince stood, stumbling slightly in the thick snow.

“I know,” Roman said, barely audible over the howling wind. “Just hang in there, Stormcloud. We’ll be home before you know it. We’re so close, Virgil.”

He started forward again, hoping Virgil wasn’t aware enough to catch on to Roman’s own rising anxiety.

#sanders sides #thomas sanders #prinxiety #virgil sanders #roman sanders #ts virgil #ts roman #hypothermia #hurt/comfort #writing #fanfiction

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thirstystarkey · 4 years

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HATE CAN SOUND LIKE LOVE • JJ MAYBANK

Summary: JJ and Y/N have always fought, since everyone can remember. They both have short tempers and a endless love for surf and chaos. But what happens when they have to pretend to be a couple? Well.. people always said that hate can sound like love sometimes.

Warnings: Mention of underage drinking, drugs, minor violence, some smutty scenarios and a ton of sexual induendos, JJ being a hot idiot and Y/N a wild girl brat

CHAPTER 05

The sun beamed down on them, a soft breeze was felt and the serenity of sunrise at the cut was ethereal. Y/N slowly woke up, the sunlight stealing her from her dream state, it was too bright outside which made difficult to open her eyes but still she could feel a hot and heavy limb on top of her stomach, JJ had rolled in his sleep and at the moment was almost cuddling the girl he so dearly swore he hated.

“JJ..” Y/N called softly trying to wake him up.

The only answer she got from him was a muffled complaint, something along the lines “Let me sleep tiny temper.”

JJ always teased Y/N for her height, it was almost religious for him. She was shorter than all the pogues but probably the fiercest. She was the only one who answered right back at JJ’s stupid sayings.

“You’re pushing you’re luck.” Y/N mumbled taking JJ’s arms off of her.

“Wanna know something really interesting, that I’ve always wanted to tell you?” JJ asked the girl with a raspy low morning voice. Y/N cursed herself for thinking it was kinda hot.

“What is that Maybank?” She answered with curiosity filling her body.

“Any shorter and you’d probably fade out of existence.” The blond boy winked at the redhead, supporting this body in both elbows.

“Jesus Christ JJ, fuck you and your stupid bullshit.” Y/N raged while getting up, stepping inside to shower in the microscopic bathroom the boat had.

“You wish you did baby.” He laughed and more said it to himself but she still captured it.

Once free of JJ Maybank, Y/N washed her face with cold water in the attempt to calm her down. This time it was different. She didn’t understood it. JJ was acting different around her. More provocative and way more suggestive.

“Stupid ass mop head..”

That was the last thing she said before striping bare naked and running pleasant lukewarm over her body. She felt relaxed after all that tension built first thing in the morning. Running her hands through her ginger hair while spreading shampoo all over it, almost felt therapeutic and Y/N was sure that if JJ wasn’t around she’d probably had already sang her lung out, preforming the best show to the bottles.

But all that peace couldn’t last when JJ Maybank was in the same boat as Y/N, while she was rinsing off the conditioner the door swang open and Y/N could hear and feel JJ walking.

“JJ seriously?” She asked in a high pitched voice. “Get the fuck out, don’t you see I’m naked, in the shower.”

“Oh dear don’t think too much of it, I just need to piss.” He said like it wasn’t a big deal.

Y/N was reder than a tomato behind the blue curtain separating the pair. She could head everything, even though she wished she didn’t.

“You are disgusting Maybank.” She made sure to speak loud enough for the boy to hear. He flushed to toilet ruining the nice water temperature, almost freezing Y/N in place. “Fuck you mop head, get out JJ!” She demanded in a pretty annoyed voice when she realized he didn’t leave and by now her shower was finished.

“I need to brush my teeth, vertically challenged.” JJ sassed.

“And I need to dry off.” Y/N sassed back.

“Then dry, I’m not hiding the towels.” He laughed with a mouth filled by toothpaste.

“You can’t be serious.” She said holding her body trying to cover herself. “Pass me the fucking towel at least.” She requested, not to nicely.

“Don’t think so.” JJ said and Y/N fumed at his voice. She didn’t really care anymore. Y/N was over the pettiness in their fights.

“You know what? Fuck this.” She said before opening the curtain.

Y/N was quicker than a fox, grabbing the towel and wrapping the soft fabric around her in seconds. JJ was fast to turn his head not to look at her, he never wanted to make her uncomfortable even if he enjoyed teasing her past was tolerated. He got a glance at her body, now wrapped in a towel.

“Fuck you.” Y/N looked at him through the mirror while brushing her teeth.

They were sharing a bathroom. A small bathroom.

“You smell nice.” JJ said to her after putting down his toothbrush, she felt his breath hitting her skin making Y/N flinch.

“Can’t say the same thing about you.” Y/N answered with a big smile on her face leaving JJ alone to shower.

While he did she got dressed, in the same clothes as the day before but with a bikini she found lost at the boat instead. She recognized it as on of her own. When JJ stepped out of the bathroom he didn’t care to put on a shirt staying only in his black surf shorts.

They both sat waiting for their friends to pick them up from this cruel prison. Y/N’s mind traveled to a far place keeping her lost in her own thoughts, that at this moment consisted in JJ. The hot sun hitted his skin making it glisten, but a voice woke her from her daydream.

“Stop staring at me.” JJ laughed rising his sunglasses to look directly at her. “Or take a picture, it’ll last longer.” He winked before putting them back on.

Y/N didn’t got down without a fight, and if he wanted to play dirty so she could. And sure enough the girl got up taking of her shirt caughting the boy off guard.

“I will make sure it’s my new porn.” She sneered with a filtry voice, stealing JJ’s sunglasses.

Y/N won again and this time she wasn’t even trying to. She went inside grabbing one of the surfboards making sure to get rid of her shorts in the process.

“Now who’s the one staring.” She teased him when she caught JJ trying not to stare at her.

There were no waves in the river but still she could just peaceful float in her surfboard while the pogues made their way to pick them up. That was her plan but JJ followed her steps jumping in the water, ruining her peaceful moment, he swam to her, supporting his elbows close to her in the surfboard.

“I’ve been thinking about something.” JJ started.

“Well then don’t think to much about it or your little head might explode.” She joked leaning forward.

“We should prank them.” The boy suggested. “They deserve it!”

“As much as I hate to admit it, JJ you are totally right.” Y/N agreed while the sun warmed her skin. It was a nice day today.

“We need a plan smart ass.” He said. “I need you and your plotting brain.”

“I know you do.” She said with eyes closed.

Everything about it screamed recipe for disaster but in a strange way it brought happiness to Y/N.

“Oh shit-” JJ screamed after trying to get on the other side of the surfboard, making it turn upside down. Y/N fell into the water.

Taking by surprise she made her way back to the surface, ready to scream at JJ who had all of his hair wet and stuck to his face, making her laught at the view, quickly he shook his head and his hair went in every direction and back, splashing Y/N’s eyes.

“You idiot!” She flinched closing her eyes, splashing him back.

“I guess this is how Jack and Rose die in titanic.” The blond boy bantered.

“Because it takes finesse and focus, none of which you have.” She bantered back at him trying to get back up on the surfboard. “Carefully JJ!” She warned him while he mimicked her moves. “I am really the brains of this relationship.”

“Stopping being so full of yourself princess.” He sassed.

By the time they both found balance Y/N saw the HMS pogue getting closer and closer, but for some reason she didn’t want to leave now and she cursed her thought shaking her head right away in the attempt to shut her thought.

“Look they’re alive! They didn’t kill each other.” She heard Pope cheer in the distance, JJ laughed with a open smile at the comment and Y/N followed observing him.

Why didn’t she wanted to leave? That question burned her head.

Tag list 💞

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gottlem · 4 years

Note

‘let me go’ but like angsty lemyanka maybe if lemon is moving back to nyc from toronto 💔

here u go ! the most angsty thing i have ever written and will probably ever write. i havent proofread it bc its late, im tired and i got a bit carried away and ended up writing 1.7k words so.... yeah. hope u like it ! <3

“let me go”

Lemon and Priyanka were clearly in love. Everyone knew it, everyone could see. Deep down, they both knew that they were, but no matter how many times they ended up in eachothers beds, it just never came up. Because if it did, well, Lemon’s not too sure what would happen. But it would be a lot, maybe too much. So she decided to stick with friends with benefits, nothing more, and it worked. For a while. Until she didn’t know what counted as overstepping anymore and calling Priyanka her friend just felt like a lie, even though it wasn’t, not really. But the ‘not really’ part is what fucked her up.

Lemon could only deal with so much. She had her walls, they were strong and tall and Priyanka was the only one who could get through, but they just didn’t feel like they were protecting her anymore. One day, she feared they would become a little too high, a little too unstable, and crush her. And she didn’t want Priyanka to have to deal with that.

She had already made the decision to move back to New York before she even admitted it to herself. She tended to listen to her brain over her heart - you’re less likely to get hurt that way. Somehow, this time round she couldn't quite tell which part she was listening to, but before she knew it, she was on the phone to her friend Jan asking for a place to stay.

Jan was more than happy, albeit a little concerned, for Lemon to live with her for a bit, claiming she could use the company and the help with rent. It was a win-win situation. Though, was Lemon winning? She wasn’t so sure, she was however very stubborn and once she had made her mind up, there was no going back. It would be nice to see her New York friends again, they hadn’t fallen out of touch but things are always harder when you’re so far apart. Besides, she needed a change of scenery, she missed walking the streets of the city that never sleeps.

The real reason behind her decision was Priyanka. She didn’t tell anyone about it but Jan, knowing she would need at least some form of support once the train arrived. She just couldn’t bear to keep up with whatever their current situation was, but also she wasn’t sure she had the courage to talk about her real feelings, so the only option she could see was to just run away. They could keep in contact, a couple of texts and maybe a bi-weekly phone call, and Lemon could find some other girl to fall in love with and then she would be over her.

She didn’t know how to be in love, and even if Priyanka could show her, she didn’t know if she was ready, if she was prepared. Because love was scary. Commitment, too. It’s not that Lemon was scared they would end up breaking up, she was scared that they would never break up. She was still young, and while some people long to find the love of their life early on, Lemon found herself staring at hers right in the face and it just felt too overwhelming.

She had started hinting to Priyanka that she missed her New York friends about a month before she planned to be leaving. Priyanka would suggest a week’s visit, and Lemon would just shrug it off. She just didn’t want it to come out of the blue when she finally told her that she'd be moving. And yet, all her hints didn’t stop Priyanka from being surprised.

It was dark out, and the pair lay not so comfortably in Lemon’s bed. It was too hot but neither had the energy to do anything about it, so they stayed there in silence, Lemon slowly building up the courage to speak.

“Hey, Pri?” She barely recognised her own voice, hating the crack that came out when she started speaking. Priyanka hummed in response, turning her head to face Lemon’s, eyes trained on the side of Lemon’s head as the yellow haired girl stared blankly at the ceiling. Eye contact would be too much, she didn’t want to see Priyanka’s face when she told her.

“I’m moving back to New York.”

Silence.

More silence.

Then, the shuffling of covers and creaks of floorboards as Priyanka grabbed her stuff and left. Somehow Lemon didn’t register any of it until the door had shut behind her. She closed her eyes and went to sleep.

The next day, Priyanka showed up at her door again, not too long after the sun rose. She looked tired, but Lemon said nothing because she probably looked the same.

“Sorry for just, leaving. I, uh, I was pissed off? I think?” Lemon’s jaw dropped.

“I’m sorry, you were pissed? At me? Priyanka, I get that I could have told you sooner but don’t pretend like telling you would have made me change my mind.”

“Wouldn’t it? Why are you moving anyway? When are you moving?”

“I miss my friends. I miss New York. I need a change, a get-away. I leave in two weeks”

“Jesus Christ,” Priyanka almost stomped past Lemon, sitting on the couch with an angry thud. “You’re telling me, you move to New York in two weeks, because you miss your friends, and I am only just finding out now? That is bullshit, Lemon”

Of all of the reactions Lemon anticipated, this was not one of them. They never argued. They always poked fun, never too serious, always having a good time. But this was new. Lemon didn’t even know how to argue with Priyanka. She didn’t even know how she was supposed to react to hearing her full name, and the way she said it too. Lemon couldn’t quite place a finger on how Priyanka was feeling, not used to not being able to read her like an open book, and she fucking hated it. But if Pri wanted to argue, then they were going to argue. Lemon didn’t make this decision on whim, she needed to do this, she needed to move, she didn’t have a choice.

“God, Priyanka, do I need to tell you everything? It’s not like I’m your fucking girlfriend!” She regretted saying it the second it came out of her mouth, no matter how true it was. They avoided the word ‘girlfriend’ like the plague, but apparently this was the line that needed to be crossed to have this discussion.

“No, you don’t need to tell me everything, but if you’re moving to New York? Yeah, maybe tell me. Maybe mention it before you have to leave in two weeks, for fucks sake, Lem”

She had stopped shouting, her voice sounding a bit more tired and defeated that angry. Things were complicated. Lemon thought running away would be the easiest option. And maybe she was right. Maybe the easiest option was still hard, but it was too late to change her mind now. The damage had been done, and now Priyanka knew that she would be getting on the train in two weeks time, and they didn’t know when they’d see eachother again after that.

They spent all day talking. Avoiding direct eye contact, getting goosebumps every time their hands accidentally touched. Unsaid ‘I love you’s floated around them, taunting them every time Lemon went over her excuse for moving. They hid behind sad smiles and even sadder eyes, but never managed to actually surface, not like they ever did anyways.

They pretended like nothing happened the next day. Instead, they opted to make the most of the last week and a bit left they had together, refusing to mention the fact that time was slipping, or how much they would be lost without each other. Lemon spent her nights on the phone to Jan, planning logistics, but mostly trying not to cry about how she was leaving the woman who was quite possibly her soulmate in another country for however long without telling her how she feels.

Her final day in Toronto came round after what felt like a short eternity. She was only slightly ready. Her yellow suitcase rolled next to her and she drowned out the noise of the train station with her earphones on full volume. A coffee warmed her shaking hands as she waited for the train she was obnoxiously early for. Not long past before she felt someone sit down next to her and place a hand on her shoulder, startling her from the daze she had managed to force herself into.

Of fucking course it was Priyanka. And of course she was looking at Lemon with tears threatening to shed. Lemon placed her hand in Priyanka’s after taking out her earphones, and gave it a small squeeze.

“I don’t want you to go” Lemon wished she could kiss her and say she didn’t want to go either. But she couldn't because she would be lying. She wanted to go. She loved Priyanka, and Priyanka loved her. They both knew it, without it being said. But Lemon just wasn’t ready.

“I know. I’ll miss you” Priyanka shook her head and tears began to fall down her cheeks, one by one then all at once.

“God, Lem, what went wrong? Do I have to fucking beg you to stay or something? I don’t understand why you have to move all the way to New York, I don’t know what I’m even supposed to do without you here”

Lemon refused to cry. She absolutely refused. When she felt the back of her eyes stinging with tears, she simply shook her head and pushed them back. Not now. Not in front of Pri.

She took her other hand, and looked Priyanka in the eyes, inching in closer and closer.

“Pri, I’m going, and it’s gonna be okay. I’m gonna be fine, and you’re gonna be fine, okay love? It’s time to just… let me go.”

Lemon released her hands and stood up, the action followed by Priyanka, who gave her a bone crushing hug, still crying. When she finally let go, she gave her a small kiss on the top of her head, and Lemon had to hold back her tears for the millionth time within the past five minutes. They looked at each other for just a moment, once again opting to not say anything, despite it being their final chance. Lemon gave a small nod, as if in response to the silence, before turning away and walking to her platform. She didn’t look behind her. And if she stopped holding back her waterfall of tears the second she faced the other way, she could hide that from Priyanka too.

#lemyanka #anon #lemon🍋#lemongivesyoulife #priyanka love #im sorry its unresolved #normally i kinda hate angst bc im too messed up already for that shit #but i think now i have learned to love it #however if anyone maybe wants a pt2 #i will be happy to write #bc this is practically an entire fic #i got pretty carried away

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devnny · 5 years

Text

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

JTRM — THE “R” STANDS FOR RECOVERING!

PREVIOUSLY.

yall im fuck im UFUC im N 💞💗😭💕💖

ITS DEVI LOVING HOURS EVERYBUDDY.....

The twin blades of some well-used craft scissors gleamed as much as they could with the speckles of paint and glue that clung to their surface, as Johnny lifted them up to the extended section of hair above his forehead. His free hand plucked up the pointed tip of the tuft and stretched the hair out fully, then clipped it short with one snip of the scissors. He copied the motion with his other ‘antennae’, and watched the black tendrils fall to the kitchen floor. Poo, he’d need to sweep this up. Devi didn’t accept messy floors the way he did.

His fist gripped another patch of his hair and he sheared away chunks of it at random lengths, as he always did. Johnny had decided after Devi complained that it was his ‘mop’ of messy hair that had disturbed her from her sleep a couple of days ago, that it would need to be cut. It was long overdue, anyway. He hadn’t given himself a haircut since he went partially bald on his return from Hell.

The harsh ring of Devi’s phone interrupted his trimming, and he gave it an aggravated scowl. The phone always seemed to go off when Devi was sleeping – people are so inconsiderate. He set the scissors down on the counter and moved to answer the phone in her place.

Johnny plunked the phone off its rest, and placed it to his ear. Before he could even say ‘hello’, a man’s voice burst to life on the other end.

“DEVI!” The man said in a lively voice. “Devi, baby, why you not call me, hm? You want me to be dead, yes? You like to worry me?”

Johnny’s frown returned with a vengeance.

“Uh.” He grunted out, trying to gather an articulate thing to say from the strings of suspicious words in his head. The man on the other end went quiet a moment, realizing the person he was speaking to was likely not Devi.

“Who is this?” He asked accusingly.

“This is Johnny.” Johnny replied in an irritated tone.

“What—why are you answering her phone, ‘Johnny’-man? WHERE is Devi!?”

Johnny looked at the earpiece with a snarl, then set it back against his head.

“Devi is sleeping. And I live here.” He wanted to add ‘temporarily’, but didn’t feel like this caller needed to know that much. There was an aghast gasp in reply.

“PUT HER ON THE PHONE RIGHT NOW.” The man demanded.

“She’s sleeping—who are you to demand her attention?” Johnny glowered resentfully.

“I am her FATHER.”

Johnny’s mouth disappeared, and he stared wide-eyed at the phone. Her father? He had forgotten all about the fact that most people… have families. He even knew that Devi had a dad; she mentioned him off-handedly a few times when they would talk at the bookstore. But she hadn’t mention him again the whole time he had lived here! He couldn’t be blamed for forgetting the possibility that her family would call for her, could he?

“Oh.” He replied, his voice back to a casual level. “Uh, yes. Okay. I will go get her.”

He set the phone down on the kitchen table and hurried to Devi’s room. With a nervous swallow, he turned the doorknob, and finding it unlocked, made his way inside. Johnny crouched slightly at the side of her bed, watching her sleep for a moment with a guilty expression. He hated to wake her if she needed to rest, especially when he’d already interrupted her sleep once this week.

One of his fingers popped out of his fist to poke at her shoulder a few times.

“Devi, Devi… Devi wake up.” He whispered. “Um, please.”

Her body shifted a little, and she groggily opened one eye to squint at him.

“Nny…” She croaked. “What?”

Johnny looked to the side nervously.

“Your dad is on the phone for you.”

Devi’s eyes opened immediately, and her mouth flattened in mild panic.

“WHAT?” She gasped as she sat up. “He—oh my God, you didn’t answer, did you?”

What a stupid question, she immediately thought, since obviously Johnny would have had to in order to know her father had called. Johnny’s impish smile confirmed that fear, and she groaned in distress before flinging the covers off and rushing to the phone.

Devi held her face in her hands on the couch, her hair sticking out every which way from sleep.

“Why, why, whyyy did you tell him you lived here…” She lamented in overexaggerated anguish, and Johnny pouted shamefully beside her.

“GOD.” Her hands shot down limply, and she frowned at the wall. She hadn’t gotten chewed out like that since she was a teenager – well, as ‘chewed out’ as she could get with her dad being as soft as he was. He was never one for discipline and yelling; his scolding was more akin to him being over-protective, and ranting about if she was being safe, and guilting her for hiding things from him.

Devi sighed tiredly; at least she had managed to convince him that Johnny was just a temporary roommate, a friend down on his luck with nowhere to go. That was true, at least, if not a major understatement.

“Whatever. I’m going back to bed.” She paused. “…Did you cut your hair?”

SOME TIME AFTER:

She was certain now that Meat’s plans were to push Johnny incessantly toward the desire for her touch – there was just no way it could be anything else. After a week or two with more observation, Devi had awoken to find Johnny in her bed a few more times; never as tightly cuddled against her as the first instance, but curled up in a little paranoid ball near her all the same.

Each time he would express having nodded off only to be met with gruesome figments of his own imagination – or maybe not of his own imagination, really. She had ‘caught’ him bundling up beside her the last time, but had remained quiet, her stare undetected by the wary maniac. Devi was angry with him, to some degree, for allowing this routine to continue so blindly. Couldn’t he see what Meat was pressuring him into doing? With all his lamenting about how touch-repulsed he was, and how he loathed the Reverend for trying to force him to partake in it, he didn’t notice that he was being coerced to find comfort in the spot beside her?

But mostly, she was angry with herself.

Devi was furious with herself every time she stopped to think about how Johnny’s close proximity didn’t bother her in the slightest. She hated that the shift of her mattress caused by his knees while he crawled along her comforter only filled her with the mild irritation of being woken up, and not panic-stricken dread that he was approaching her supposed-sleeping form. She hated that him laying only a foot away from her sparked not a single concern in her entire being, and that her mind could easily drift back to sleep while he rested beside her, if she let it.

She completely trusted, whether it was wise or not, that he would do nothing nefarious to her, murder or otherwise, while she was defenseless – and it was completely MORONIC.

This was a man known to be unhinged when emotionally compromised, and there he was, in her bed, actively trying ease his burdened psyche, and still her brain sent her body no distress signals. No natural reflex to run from him, or lash out and demand he get the Hell away from her. She had never allowed any man to live with her, and she certainly had never let anyone sleep in her bed. And yet Johnny had worked his way so casually into both situations, with neither Devi nor himself intent on this being the outcome.

It made her near-nauseous with anger. Anger at her own emotions, for letting someone get this close.

Emotional softness, physical tenderness, codependence, domesticity – all were things Devi had eagerly sworn off of around the time of her minor mental deterioration during and after her bout with Sickness… and Johnny.

The reminder made her want to rip her hair out in frustration. Johnny was one of the leading factors in her acceptance that she would never share her life with anyone, and yet she was currently doing just that, with him! It was maddening!

This had to stop, she decided. She needed to pull away, build her boundaries again.

But she only remembered that pledge when she would fall into a comfortable moment with him – each time their interactions got too playful, or too warm – and it scorched her insides that she only noticed after it was already happening. Devi would stop, readjust, cut the mood short, and reel it in to a more respectable level, but that just left the previous lightheartedness floating around aimlessly in the air with nowhere to go, and left Johnny wondering what he’d done to screw up the conversation this time.

AND TONIGHT:

The evening had been lovely so far – Johnny thought so, anyway. Devi had given him a small painting lesson at his request, and it was fun. Part of his arm seemed to recognize the feeling of a brush in his grasp, and after Devi corrected the way he held it, the movements felt almost natural. His artistic skill was still not on par with his old paintings, but painting anything at this point was thrilling.

Devi kept her distance, mentoring from afar, but her delight showed through the more Johnny went on. She commented on his subject – a detached rabbit head – with a morbid snicker, and Johnny joked that he could call it a self-portrait. Devi warned him, with a teasing tone, to be wary of self-portraits.

Then she brought a hand up to his chin, and thumbed away a speck of black paint that had managed to find its way onto his face. Johnny felt his chest flutter as she did, but the delight was short-lived. With twisting heartache, he watched her pupils tense in realization, and her fingers immediately whipped away from him, leaving her arm tense at her side instead. He tried to hold in his dejected frown, but thought he must not have done a good enough job, as Devi’s mouth smeared into an uncomfortable scowl as she turned away from him.

Dammit! What had he done now? No matter how hard he thought about it, every time Devi grew distant these days, he couldn’t decipher which of his actions had upset her.

“Devi—” He said hurriedly, seeing her make a move for the doorway. “Devi, wait, what’s wrong?”

Devi stopped abruptly and winced her eyes at the floor before turning to face him again.

“Nothing is wrong, Nny.” She stated flatly. “I’m just going to get a drink.”

“That’s not what I’m… referring to!” He pressed, and walked closer to her. “You’ve been acting so, eh… strange, lately…”

“Strange?” Devi glared at him, and he flinched, regretting his phrasing.

“I don’t mean like, in a BAD way! It’s just that… well…” Johnny scuffed his boot on the floor and sighed. He didn’t like commenting about her behavior, he would rather just get to the root of the problem, which was usually himself.

“Devi what did I do to upset you?”

“Nothing. I’m not upset.”

“But you—urgh.” Johnny groaned. “We were just—talking, laughing, a second ago! And then, you—”

Devi scoffed in annoyance, cutting him off.

“I’m not upset, just drop it.” She spoke tightly, and walked out of the room before he could have a chance to refute her. Johnny’s mouth squirmed uncomfortably.

He wouldn’t ever brag about his prowess in interacting with other human beings, but he was pretty damn confident that he knew Devi, at least. And she definitely was upset. It was very strange for Devi to be unhappy with him and not tell him loudly and pointedly why. Unable to let his worries go, he followed her to the kitchen, catching her just as she was reentering the living room.

“Devi, just tell me, please! I don’t care if it’s some little, miniscule thing!” Johnny insisted, wondering if maybe it was so seemingly-insignificant that she felt embarrassed to bring it up. “I just don’t want to upset you, but I can’t avoid doing whatever it is unless you tell me!”

Devi’s scowl returned, and her head felt hot in response to his defiance. That idiot had no idea what he was asking.

“I’m NOT upset!” She insisted again, angrier this time.

“Yes you are!” Johnny frowned back at her.

“Well NOW I am, because you’re annoying!” Devi growled and moved to walk around him. Johnny reacted by stepping in front of her, a move that surprised them both, and only served to enrage Devi further.

“Devi, please!” He urged her. “PLEASE, tell me what I’m doing wrong! I just want us to be friends again, like before…!”

His words made her face hot, and she barred her teeth at him.

“Well I DON’T!” Devi leaned into his face to yell at him before rearing away again. “I don’t want to be friends – I don’t even want to like you! I don’t want to like ANYONE!”

With a loud grunt, she stormed past him, but couldn’t keep the rest of her rant from spilling out of her mouth.

“You moron, don’t you GET IT? You don’t want to ‘upset’ me—I don’t care! I don’t fucking care!! There is no relationship here, there is no blossoming friendship or whatever-the-fuck! You CAN’T upset me like… like we’re so CLOSE.” She seethed, and Johnny shrunk back in hurt confusion.

Devi took a step toward him and continued her tirade relentlessly.

“I’m not ‘close’ with anyone, and I’m never going to be! All my attempts in my entire life to share myself with another person have ended in complete fucking catastrophe! I am never going to make the mistake of TRUSTING someone again. You don’t want to upset me? Then leave me the HELL ALONE! I’m better off that way!”

Devi took in a few haggard breaths, and watched Johnny’s wounded expression with a venomous stare. She hated him so much for doing this to her – for putting her in this situation. He couldn’t just leave it be, could he? Couldn’t drop the topic when she told him to.

All of this was his fault anyway! His for being enjoyable; his fault for tricking her, again, into thinking of him as someone worth trusting. Well, he wasn’t! She knew that, and it was absolutely absurd to think otherwise! Devi outright refused to leave herself open to being victimized again; she needed to make that very clear.

“I can’t ever have companionship, and that’s YOUR FUCKING FAULT!” Her expression pained through her anger, and she threw an accusing finger in his direction.

“You and every other fucking asshole that somehow persuaded my stupid ass into giving them a chance! I have absolutely ZERO trust in other people because of what you did to me! I’m never letting anyone get that close again, I’m never going to give someone enough room to hurt me—I’m not going to let you DO THAT TO ME AGAIN, NNY!”

Her scream trailed out on the last thread of air in her lungs, and she stopped again to pant raggedly for a moment. Johnny stared at her with his wrists cross meekly, eyes wide in horrified sadness.

“Devi…” He whispered. For a moment, Devi thought the devastation in his voice was for himself, until she felt a sensation on her jaw and instinctively went to rub it away.

It was only then did she recognize that the feeling was wet, and looked to the base of her palm in shock to see the smudged remains of a tear there.

Her stomach sank in realization.

She cried? Cried one single, shitty little tear? Her lips trembled into a miserable sneer. Oh, Hell no. She was not about to cry over this, and definitely not in front of someone else, especially not Johnny. Devi could feel the weight of another tear brimming on her eyelashes, and she immediately turned and retreated to her room.

Johnny reached a hand out, but couldn’t say anything before the door shut. His mouth closed into a near-invisible line, and his posture sagged pitifully. With a sigh, his head dropped as low as his shoulders.

What had he done? Why had he tried to argue the point with her? It wasn’t like he had any right to her thoughts or feelings. If she didn’t want to share what was distressing her, she didn’t have to. But he did push her, and he must have pushed her too far this time, enough to make her… cry.

His innards churned in pulsating rhythm with the painful goosebumps on his arms and back, and he thought that he might actually be ill, which would be very inopportune right now, since the apartment’s only bathroom was currently inaccessible.

“You should go check on her, Johnny.” A voice whispered in the back of his head, and Johnny couldn’t decipher if it was his own, or Meat’s.

“No.” He answered. “She’s… crying. She wants to be alone.”

“You would let her cry alone? After she held you as you wept on her?”

Johnny stared at the floor, a new ripple of guilt cascading over his already aching skin.

It was true that Devi was his emotional crutch, but he needed one. Devi didn’t. She was self-sufficient, she was stronger than he was. She could easily comfort herself when she needed it, he assumed… but he now wasn’t sure. What if she could, but it would be nice to have someone there to ease her pain? Would she even want to be comforted by the person responsible for the hurt she was feeling, though?

He shuddered out a nervous exhale, and began inching toward her door. The feeling in his stomach was so insistent that he go to her, even if she just responded with more yelling and hurling anything on hand at his head. If there was even one sliver of an iota that Devi needed him, he wanted her to know he was readily available to do whatever it took to console her.

Devi stood over her sink, blotting away at the persistent wetness that continued to drip past her eyelids. The wad of tissues in her hand has been doubled twice, and was almost soaked through.

“Stop… fucking crying!” She hissed a whisper at herself, glaring at the pinkish tinge in the whites of her eyes from the reflection that greeted her in the mirror. She hated crying; it was such a pointless expulsion of emotion, in her opinion. It was proof that her screws had come undone too far, and all the things that she kept bolted up inside where seeping through the cracks. Repulsive.

That’s what she needed to do – she needed to keep the screws in. She needed to wind them back up as tight as they would go, and make sure all this weepy, sappy shit stayed securely locked away, where it belonged. Devi moved her attention from the faucet back to the mirror of the medicine cabinet, and frowned despondently at her tired, sad eyes.

God, she hadn’t cried in such a long time. Not since her first ordeal with Johnny, actually.

The memory of her panic returned to her briefly; her back against the door of her old apartment, her voice shaking as she tried to speak to the police over the phone, coming down from the adrenaline as she hung up, and the realization that the man she had grown to adore had just tried to kill her. That gut-wrenching devastation that there would be no more days spent talking with him, and that their relationship would not only not be progressing further, but that their relationship in its entirety was gone.

She had cried so hard, there against her door, sitting with her nose to her knees, miserable and deflated, trying as best she could to separate the meek, cynical dork she cared so much about from the crazed, wild-looking man that had intended to stab her to death.

Another line of tears filled the bottom lid of her eyes, and she trembled out another scowl to combat the pain. It was getting difficult to keep her fire going, and that startled her. Her anger was all she had to shield herself from her other feelings. Feelings like sadness, or fear.

Devi’s lips twitched weakly as they fell into a small frown, and she left the sink to sit on her bed.

That’s what this all boiled down to – this was because she was afraid. Vulnerability was something that she no longer trusted, and she had grown so comfortable in the idea that she had expelled the need for it out of her body like the pus from an offensive little zit. She didn’t want to come to terms with the fact that if she wasn’t uneasy with Johnny being in her space, that meant that she wasn’t the independent, self-reliant person she believed she was, and that she was still unfortunately receptive to her body’s craving for emotional and physical intimacy.

She lifted her tissue lump up to her face again, and smudged away another unyielding droplet.

The door creaked open as she did, and Devi tensed slightly at the sudden interruption. She was grateful that her back was to the door, and made no move to look behind her. It wasn’t like there was any need to guess who was there.

Johnny sulked at her weak form as he hovered near the doorframe. Her figure looked so small and un-Devi-like, all slack and closed-in like that. He could tell from the slight movements of her shoulder and what minimal view of her hands that he had, that she was blotting her eyes, and another strong resurgence of guilt overcame him.

He had never seen Devi cry. He was confident that he must have brought her to tears in the past, long ago, when he betrayed her confidence in him the way he had, but he had never had to see it firsthand. Johnny felt smothering fear at having to face the consequences for his callous badgering, but still urged himself to persist, even if he desperately didn’t want the memory of her tear-stained face.

He left the safety of the door’s threshold and walked quietly to the side of Devi’s bed. Devi turned her face further away from him as he stopped at her side, and Johnny pouted more. He almost wished that she would just yell at him, curse at him or beat him with her fists or some blunt object – that would be easier to bear than her tormenting silence. Unsure of what to say or do, he took a seat beside her on the mattress, and sat with his hands clasped between his legs.

Devi glanced at him without offering him a view of her face, and smiled weakly with an inaudible sigh of a laugh. He was always so cautious with her. She appreciated that he offered her full sovereignty of her space, unless he was otherwise invited into it – the incident of waking her up as a sobbing mess withheld, of course. Johnny had been like that from the start; keeping his distance, either out of fear or respect for her. It was what had made her so comfortable around him to begin with.

She lowered her head again, shaking it softly with a sigh. Johnny turned his attention to her abruptly, afraid that he’d upset her further with his presence, but from what he could see, her demeanor hadn’t changed.

He desperately wanted to apologize, to tell her that he was sorry for pushing her into talking to him, that he was selfish for demanding it, and more importantly than anything, that he was so deeply sorry for damaging her trust the way he had, but no matter how he tried, the words clogged inside his throat, unable to arrange themselves in a presentable, meaningful fashion.

“Y’know what’s stupid, Nny?” Devi spoke suddenly, jolting Johnny away from his thoughts of jumbled apologies. He stared at her eyes, but they were focused on the floor, not him.

“…Hm?” He replied nervously, afraid to say more. Devi exhaled slowly before she continued.

“I’ve dated… a lot of shitty guys.” She started. “I mean, fuck, one of them was literally shitty. Shit all over himself during dinner. I told you about him, I think. Another guy that I met at a club or whatever, in college, burst into fucking flames after things went south. It’s always been some stupid crap like that.”

She moved the heels of her shoes off of the bed’s metal side railing and set them on the floor, crossing her arms over her lap.

“The first guy I ever dated was in high school, and he fucking crashed his car trying to get me to screw him, and we were stuck in there for like twelve hours before someone found us. The last one was a zombie. An actual, brain-eating, walking dead, zombie.”

Devi stared blankly at the floor while she spoke, and Johnny shifted uncomfortably beside her.

“And even with all of those idiots tallied, even with all the garbage I’d dealt with at that point, nothing, and I mean nothing, hurt me… the way you did, when you turned like that.” She kept the confession quiet. Johnny’s mouth parted slightly as he watched her with wide, remorseful eyes.

“I was so gutted.” Devi added, lifting her shoulders up more. “It completely tore me up inside, that you would do that to me. You, the guy I thought… I don’t know—I liked you. I really liked you. I thought my crappy dates were all over with by the time we got back to your house and you still hadn’t even tried to allude to wanting things to get… physical.”

She paused for a moment.

“I think you might’ve broke my heart, Nny.”

Johnny’s eyes, long since centered on her carpet, bent up painfully the more she talked. His eyebrows arched downward fully at her last comment, and the guilt in his chest reached new heights, threatening to release itself in the form of tears. He sucked in a whimpering breath, but again couldn’t say anything before Devi resumed talking.

“And… you know what’s, even stupider?” She asked him again, with a downtrodden laugh in the back of her throat. Johnny adjusted his leg, and moved his palms to rest flat on the sheets, too anxious to respond otherwise.

“After all of that, after everything we’ve been through – with the attempted murder, and then me accidentally killing you, and… and you giving me a head-parasite, and you trying to murder me again, and then… all the fighting and screaming, and failing plans to help you regain control of your brain, and ALL of the other stupid shit that got us to this point,” Devi hesitated, then lifted her arm, and set her hand over his.

“…I still like you best.” She finished with a small smile, and gave his hand a squeeze. Johnny’s eyes popped back open to their normal round shape, and he stared at her in shock.

He couldn’t have possibly heard that right, he thought, but his doubt was distracted by Devi’s hand kneading against the back of his own. He stared down at where they were connected, and couldn’t believe that after all the things she had just told him, that she would extend such a tender offer. With a nervous hike of his shoulders, he flipped his hand around, and closed his fingers around hers as she did the same.

Johnny could see the slight curve of her mouth, and smiled hesitantly himself.

It felt so wonderful, her palm against his. He had been so worried that her explosive rant less than fifteen minutes prior had marked a definitive end to any pleasant interactions between them, let alone any touching. The flexing of Devi’s digits against the side of his hand soothed his remaining worries, and he tried to mimic the massaging movements with the tips of his fingers as best he could.

Devi surprised him even further when she made a quick scoot closer, and gingerly rested her head against his shoulder. Johnny thought his entire skeleton had jumped out of his body at the sudden contact of her cheek against him, but after a quick breath and a few erratic heart palpitations, he was assured that no part of his physical form had blown off.

He realized slowly, as Devi’s thumb dragged hypnotically across his skin, how symbolic the gesture was. After all of her admissions settled with him, Johnny came to the tentative conclusion that all of her gnashing and belligerent comments previously were just a mask, made to cover what she didn’t want seen by others. Like the claws of a wounded animal, swinging and scratching to ward off this next potential predator, in hopes of surviving the injuries already sustained, her words shot out like a defense mechanism, sharp and erratic from fear.

Fear because… she did trust him.

It excited him through his disbelief to imagine that Devi would, genuinely, want to share herself with him again, unprotected by barriers built from cruel words or standoffish behavior. Johnny wanted more desperately than ever to ease her concerns, and offer himself as the comfort she needed, just as she offered herself to him, begrudgingly or not.

Devi hummed a long sigh through her nose, and Johnny’s eyes drifted to watch her, though his only view of her was her hair. A long, easy smile grew across his face, and whether from lack of judgement or eagerness to reciprocate, tilted his head, and rested his ear on her crown. Devi only replied with another sigh and slight shift of her body.

This was absolutely the stupidest thing she’s ever done, she admitted to herself without reservation. Just as bewildered as Johnny was, Devi too couldn’t quite wrap her mind around what sense it made to like Johnny best out of every dipshit she’d ever taken a liking to. Sure there was more common interests between the two of them than most of her prospective partners, and maybe their personalities bounced off of each other’s better than hers did with most other people, but it was still ridiculous.

He was a dramatic, overly-sensitive, insecure, clingy, lit powder keg full of violence and destruction – what could outweigh that? Did she have some pitiful hope that the Johnny she ‘knew’ was inside the jumbled-up mess of a man that the wall-thing left behind, or, was it because of how eagerly he tried to please her and obey her instructions despite every atom in his body pulling him in the opposite direction? She was too drained to even try to debate it.

Johnny turned his face against her hair slightly to speak.

“I’m so sorry, Devi.” He said softly, remorse evident despite the contentment in his voice. “I would never want to… drive you to tears. You’re so wonderful.”

A quiet, airy laugh burst past her lips, and Devi hid her face further into his shirt while she finished with a snicker. He was so embarrassing.

They stayed perched on the end of her bed for a few minutes longer, resting in the same position while Devi gathered herself. She took as much comfort as she could from the grip of his hand as it cradled hers, and from the timid, hesitant nuzzling of his cheekbone on the top of her head, which might have just been the result of two bodies breathing together and not anything decisive on his part. She almost hoped it wasn’t intentional, because the idea of being cuddled was too sappy for words.

That thought pushed her to get up, and she waved her hands flippantly with a blush on her cheeks, palming and brushing away any remaining dampness under her eyes.

“Okay—okay, enough of that…!” Devi spoke with a laugh in reference to her tearful outburst, looking off awkwardly as she did.

Johnny stayed seated, watching her regain her composure with an adoring smile. He clasped his hands in his lap again, reveling in the warm, buzzy feeling that had replaced the nervous knots in his stomach; she was so charming, and sweet, and she liked him, still! Nothing on Earth could make him happier!

Devi listed her irises back to him, trying to save face in the wake of her embarrassingly vulnerable moment.

“You want to, um, watch a movie?” Her arms crossed awkwardly. “Maybe? Heh—or, something?”

Johnny nodded with a wide smile and an eager “Okay!”, then popped up into a standing position in front of her. Devi sputtered out another embarrassed laugh from the shine in his stare, and started shoving him toward the living room.

“Go, go—shut up, don’t laugh!” The light tone of her voice betrayed her demanding words, and Johnny gagged back giggles the entire way to the couch.

NEXT.

#jthm #im very excited to finally finish this....#this was one of the scenes i had jotted down since i started drafting jtrm :((((#jtrm #chapter #mine #devnny #oooguguhhgh devvbibiiiiii

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gerudospiriit · 5 years

Text

One of the Lucky Ones

A Chrimbus Prezzie for @royallunatiic that I adored writing for her! <3

Basically a thing about Vegeta I’ve been entertaining in the back of my mind for several months. It’s a lot of things and very centralized in Vegeta’s head and feelings and oof. It focuses on canon and non-canon moments and kinda explores themes with Vegeta’s character I feel get overlooked inside and outside of canon material. It is also based on a mix Lau’s (royallunatiic’s) hcs and my own. I wouldn’t call it a retelling but more of a change in perspective that delves into darker themes surrounding Vegeta.

As a fair warning for others that might choose to read: this fic includes violence, gore, abuse, harsh language, some sexual content, mentions of depression, and probably things that people who hold canon as the Holy Grail will not like. It is a very rose colored glasses off kind of read. There is probably something in this that everyone won’t like but that’s the beauty of things, isn’t it? And this IS about Vegeta so :3

Also, side note, some of the formatting got lost between here and google docs and im too lazy to go through and try to fix that, so unfortunately some italic emphasis within the bulk of it will be lost, rip.

Most importantly, I hope this lives up to the hype, Lau! <3

Vegeta raised a white-gloved hand to his scouter, options flashing across red glass until he settled on the general’s name and scouter number. “Nappa, what is our estimated time of arrival?”

Several seconds of silence passed, the prince’s temper flaring a centigrade more with each impatient tap of his foot on the pod’s floor. Just as he clenched his jaw and prepared to snap at the other Saiyan and more forcefully request the information he sought, his scouter beeped followed by the unmistakable grumble of the man who served to raise him in lieu of a biological parent.

“Let’s see…” Vegeta rolled his eyes when he heard Nappa yawn. How the large Saiyan stayed comfortable crammed into the tiny space pods even with the help of the pod’s assisted stasis setting baffled him. Less than half the other man’s size, Vegeta struggled to rest for any proper amount of time no matter his level of exhaustion or the length of the trip. Nothing a usual plague of similarly themed nightmares helped. Years of getting used to it was the usual spiel the general gave when the prince cared enough to question him. “Twelve hours, give or take. Twelve hours before we get to take revenge for Raditz and destroy that damn mud ball.”

Vegeta grunted in response. He could have laughed at their cover to keep anyone listening in on their conversations from knowing their true objective. Neither Saiyan cared to avenge their fallen comrade, Saiyan or not. Raditz foolishly set off to find his weakling of a brother and got himself killed. If such lowly warriors could best him, he was a waste of space and resources. Good riddance; Vegeta had no time for coddling the third class fool, anyway. They had Dragonballs to secure and immortality only suited the strong. To overthrow and kill an all-powerful tyrant, he would only suffer the company of the very greatest warriors.

“Very well. Rest up, Nappa. We can’t afford any mistakes.”

“Don’t tell me these Earthling’s got you scared,” the general scoffed, the creak of leather sounding as he shifted in his seat. “Raditz’s power level didn’t hold a candle to ours. We’ll blow ‘em all away, no trouble, a year of training or not. And without Kakarot, it will be a cinch. In and out, just like we planned.”

Vegeta snarled. “Watch your tongue, Nappa. I’d sooner fear Cui than a lowly Earthling.” He hoped the bastard heard that. Or that Frieza did and would relay the message to amuse himself with the soldier’s rage. “They are at least clever enough to gang up on Raditz. I would hate to see you meet your end over stupidity.”

“Fat chance.”

If Nappa had anything else to say, Vegeta missed it. He had switched his scouter off to take his own advice. Or try. His anticipation to achieve immortality, to finally avenge his people and end Frieza once and for all. Kept his mind from shutting down. To take back what was promised to him, what was rightfully his. For his own, personal revenge for the abuse and embarrassment he endured under his rule. As little more than a slave. Jaw tense at the memories, he closed his eyes.

His nerves went into overdrive as the door slid shut behind him, the fur of his tail standing on end at his waist. A request for an audience with Frieza never bode well in past experiences. It usually meant a beating or other form of degradation in front of his cronies or for his own sick amusement. And with the weight of his planet and his race perishing still heavy on his heart and mind...what more could Frieza say or do to him?

Before he could kneel or greet the tyrant, Frieza turned from his locked view of the passing stars to the young Saiyan rooted a few feet in front of the door, trying his best to keep the hollowness he felt in his chest from his gaze. In front of Nappa and Raditz, he had tried to remain aloof. Stunned by the suddenness with a hint of anger at cruel fate and be the strong leader he now had no choice but to be to them. They answered to him, not his father. Not any more.

“Ah, Vegeta! Such shocking news!” Frieza threw his free hand in the air to complement the dramatic flare in his voice. He set the glass of wine he clutched in the other on the nearest surface and floated toward him, reptilian feet meeting tile before the Saiyan. “My condolences, of course. An asteroid of all things wipes out the Saiyan race!”

Vegeta swallowed, gloved fingers curling into his palms and his tail tightening around his waist. He did not need to be aware of Frieza’s general distaste for his people to hear the mocking undertone dripping from every word. The misfortune of his race was a cause for celebration to the tyrant.

“We will move forward,” he responded robotically, straightening his posture and meeting Frieza’s wicked, crimson eyes. His mouth went dry when he saw the humor dancing in them. “We will continue to serve as we always have.”

The emperor of the universe placed his hands behind his back, contemplating. Searching for ways to toy with the boy like a predator who had cornered its prey. “Spoken like a true prince with so much responsibility suddenly on his shoulders.” He sighed, the latter portion of his tail idly striking the tiled floor. “Such a shame to lose so many monk--I mean, soldiers. Their lives are irreplaceable.”

Rage burned hotter in his hollowed out body. It danced on his tongue and clawed at his jaw, desperately trying to pry his mouth open to retort or spit in his face or simply scream. Anything but the fear-soaked silence that pervaded. What did he have to lose? Everything he had been promised--his kingdom, his people, his planet--had all been obliterated. Dying now would grant him mercy. But the fighter in him, the angry, scorned warrior, screamed louder. He screamed for blood. For vengeance. He was young, but he didn’t believe that asteroid story. It stank worse than Nappa after a long day of training in the wastes back home. And this performance, this farcical show of compassion, only fueled such suspicions.

“Come now. Don’t look so glum, Vegeta. After all...” Frieza rested a clawed hand on his shoulder and squeezed. Tight. “You’re one of the lucky ones.”

No, no, no.

This had to be another nightmare.

Vegeta clung to the last dregs of consciousness his weakened state would allow in order to type the coordinates--any coordinates--to what he hoped would land him at a base to get patched up. His hand shook over the buttons, and his vision doubled and tripled while trying to make sense of the screen. Blood trickled down his forehead and off the tip of his nose. Every inch of him screamed in agony. A few more seconds of focus...that's all he needed….

He fell back once he thought he counted enough characters punched in, gritting his teeth as the careless motion jolted a new bolt of pain through his body. Obsidian eyes hooded, he watched the stars, asteroids, and planets whizz by in a blur through slitted gaze. He felt his consciousness fading, his mind replaying the bad dream Earth had turned to in a jumbled chronology of events. The fight with Kakarot, how the third class stood up to his every attack. That damn brat and his bald friend and the fat one interfering. Cutting off his damn tail. Squeezing the life out of that clown in his Oozaru form. Saibamen and the joy of watching those worms struggle against them and Nappa when they wouldn't give them the Dragonballs. The brat transforming. Nappa's blood on his hands for his failure. The bald one sparing him.

Spared. Not victorious. Not immortal. Broken. Beaten. Bloody. And spared by a worthless third rate warrior and his weakling friends. The great Prince Vegeta bested by a troupe of circus performers. He could have laughed at the absurdity of it all if he had the breath and fortitude for it. Pride damaged, a small part of him hoped his battered brain had typed the coordinates in wrong. Dump him off on some random planet to die alone with what little dignity he had left. Let his race perish once and for all with him. Kakarot was no Saiyan. He did not deserve the warrior blood that roared in his veins. He was an Earthling. He barely knew what it meant to be a Saiyan. The hardships he had faced. How it felt to lose everything.

Kakarot. His bloody fingers twitched as the name of that fool spun around his mind in a taunting sing-song like some sick nursery rhyme. Yet. He didn't know that feeling yet. Sparing him was the biggest mistake those Earthlings could make. He would make Kakarot suffer. He would kill each of his friends one by one in front of him. Slow. Grueling. Starting with the fat one that robbed him of his tail. Then, he would kill Kakarot. No. He would spare Kakarot. Beat him to a gurgling mess of blood and broken bones and destroy his planet with him on it. Yes, that would do nicely.

First things first: immortality. Namek. Frieza. Then, Kakarot.

Quaking hand rose to his scouter. He sent out a distress signal. Just in case.

He convinced Nappa to let him out of his sight with relative ease and bored Raditz with some excuse about checking out the moons of the planet for vegetation types to keep him from tagging along to leave the planet they were ordered to recon alone and undisturbed. The assignment was close to the coordinates of his home planet, committed to memory in his youth. After nearly a decade, the close proximity tugged at an emotion he couldn't place. Deeper than curiosity but darker than nostalgia. A need to put to rest his doubt and disbelief, and affirm it had not all been a cruel joke Frieza played on him all these years.

Though, as his pod flew ever closer to his destination, a dim hope flickered in the buried part of him that still mourned and despaired over the fall of his race. For that reason, he kept his eyes closed, the vision of his home planet painted on the inside of his eyelids. Until the pod slowed, and the change in motion coerced the Saiyan Prince's eyes open to see…

To see nothing. Nothing but stars and space dust.

He didn't know how long he stared, or how many times he cancelled his pod's attempts to reroute him to a place for a proper landing when the current coordinates yielded nothing solid. His chest tightened, his throat and eyes burned as he rested a gloved hand on the red glass of the pod. Tears poured from his obsidian eyes as his fingers curled into his palm and he banged his fist against the window. Gone. All gone. He had known it all along, hadn't he? What did he really expect to find out here?

He buried his face in his hands with a shuddering breath, sliding them back into his hair before letting them fall limply at his side. He couldn't deny it now; Planet Vegeta had been obliterated along with everyone on it. Reduced to no more than space matter idly drifting among the stars. In that moment, even his memories of his youth seemed to join them as any attempt to recall them left him numb.

Another request to reroute to the nearest planet echoed too loudly in his ears. Vegeta spared the empty vacuum where his home once lay one last glance before inputting the coordinates to the planet he and the others had been assigned.

Vegeta switched off the ship’s gravity controls soon after touchdown on the long forgotten planet he had chosen for training. The gradual shift from 450 times the Earth’s gravity back to normal levels welcome after hours of pushing through the training drills. He gripped the console to steady himself and hunched over as he caught his breath, sweat dripping from his visage and pooling between switches and buttons. Every muscle, every fiber of his body ached from the strain of training at the high level of gravity. So much so that just a twitch of his fingers depleted far more energy than anything should. He slammed his fist down on the control panel and straightened up. He had no time to rest. He had to push himself, push through the pain and strain and keep going. He was running out of time. He needed to become a Super Saiyan no matter the cost.

Measured steps carried him to the bag he had packed. He rummaged around and pulled out a fresh set of armor. He tore off the sweat drenched rags his training reduced the current set to and tossed it aside, replacing it with the clean suit and chest armor. He ignored the toll the simple action took on him and yanked his boots and gloves on. He punched the button and released the door hatch to descend onto the planet’s surface. Away from the distractions of Earth, the planet that had become his chosen prison. He had to stay close to his prey, keep his enemies close. Make this unexpected resurrection count.

His second chance at life had begun with sucking in dirt before rising out of a shallow grave. Followed by witnessing a third-class warrior fill the slot in his race's history meant for him. Vegeta had stared up into a tumultuous sky as the very planet beneath his boots breathed its last breaths, erupting and quaking as a greater power threatened its very core. Awestruck, the Saiyan prince watched legend become reality. Kakarot had achieved what most wrote off as legend, aglow in gold, hair and eyes changed from dark hues to light: a Super Saiyan in the flesh. And he faced off with Frieza. Would soon kill Frieza. Both milestones he promised himself and only fit for the last living Saiyan royal. The clown snatched his birthright and vengeance for all he and his people suffered under Frieza from him in the span of hours.

The realization only settled after the whirlwind of astonishment, initial pride in the irony of a Saiyan ending Frieza, and momentary swell of invincibility with the idea of being back on top with Kakarot and Frieza both dead suddenly switched direction and whipped him into the nearest wall. The damned fool survived after all, according to those bumbling Earthlings. His mood tanked, and something akin to panic intertwined with his rage: what now? Where did he go from here?

Immortality didn't strike his fancy anymore when living forever seemed worse than death, the easy way of winning. He could cross Frieza off; he couldn't kill a dead man. That left Kakarot and his friends. He could kill the latter whenever he chose, the only one posing a possible challenge being the Namekian. But what use was that when he could not stand up to Kakarot's retaliation? The fool had thrown his whole plan off kilter! Stole everything promised to him and made him look like a fool! The Saiyan Prince would not--could not--be bested by this low class a third time. Kakarot would die by his hand, that would not change. But he needed to train first, achieve Super Saiyan and do it better.

And so he trained. Day and night until he flirted with death. Haunted by the image of Super Saiyan Kakarot battling Frieza on a dying planet. The memory of sensing that power for the first time seemed stamped on his ki perception, a power that threatened to bring him to his knees. Bitterness, vengeance, and rage surged him onward, a man possessed. Driven by an ever present need to take his place as the most powerful being in the universe.

And yet, despite all that, he remained unchanged. Stronger, certainly. But he still lacked the key to transformation, and that only ignited his fury further. What did that buffoon have that he lacked? How? The singular word bounced around his brain like the simulated ki blasts of his training program. What was the secret? Time ticked down until these androids meant to doom them all arrived. He refused to die to some mechanical monstrosities, not before he got his chance to prove once and for all that he was the superior warrior.

They would serve as a testament to his strength. His ascension to legendary status. But he had to get there first.

The sky above him raged in a violent storm, lightning streaking the dark at intervals of mere milliseconds. The air around him surged with power, a reflection of the intense wrath that blazed within him. The ground shook from the force of the accompanying thunder, rattled his very being to the core. He felt awakened, his previous exhaustion forgotten as a new wave of invigoration overpowered it.

So his training began. Unencumbered. Uninhibited. Free of the petty distractions that interrupted him on Earth. Until the meteors threatened his ship. Fine. A new training exercise. He zipped through the shower, punching and blasting his way through the chunks of space rock with precision and finesse. The warm up, he found, when a meteor half the size of the planet entered the atmosphere, parting the clouds in a fiery cascade. The Saiyan prince soared upward, confident when his previous employment required him to destroy entire planets on a whim. He pulled his arm back, energy building in his palm before he shot it toward the meteor. Though, instead of resulting in an explosion, the behemoth swallowed the light, only spraying a few chunks of matter from its surface. Another blast. A barrage of them. Still it inched closer to his only means to escape this planet. His training had left him too drained. This damn rock was going to strand him there on that empty planet. No! He wouldn’t let that happen!

Mustering every last ounce of energy he could, he pulled both hands up to his head, the back of his right hand pressed into his left palm. Purple energy built around him and in his hands. “Galick Gun, fire!” With all he had left, he shot the violet energy through his hands toward the encroaching meteor, energy bursting from his palms and striking it at near point blank range. The explosion shot him straight toward the planets surface, his used up body crashing through rock formation after rock formation before slamming into the ground.

Immense pain and the ringing in his ears were all he could register as he lay prostrate in the wide crater for countless minutes. He cracked his eyes open, squinting at the lightning streaked sky above him. He needed to move, to ensure his efforts yielded success. He pushed up with his elbows, snarling as pain ripped through him, and he shifted to his knees and dragged himself to the edge of the crater. He stretched his hand out on level ground and hoisted his upper half from the hole; it was all he could manage. The Prince of all Saiyan’s reduced to crawling, clawing his way out of a crater. Too weak to best a meteor and stay on his feet. How fucking pathetic.

Vegeta beat his bruised and bloody fist on the stone ground, the guttural growl growing in volume with each pound to echo the thunder rolling around him. How many more times did he have to fail? He failed his own race, and then couldn’t even take proper revenge for their murder. He failed Nappa and Raditz, no matter how damn weak they were. At this point, what made him any better? Kakarot bested him, too. Isn’t that why he killed Nappa? Because the bumbling idiot couldn’t even kill an Earth-raised, third rate Saiyan? Even a damn kid from the future had surpassed him! The Prince of all Saiyans! He who had been promised the universe and then some by his damnable father! What did he have to show for it? For all the pain and abuse and training? Nothing. Absolutely fucking nothing. He had been reduced to buying his time on a planet he should have just destroyed upon landing, surrounded by the very idiots that began his streak of shitty luck!

What had Frieza told him? “You’re one of the lucky ones.” Ha! At that moment, he would bet the universe got off on shooting him down and kicking him in the ribs.

He bowed his head as tears of rage and shame filled his eyes, though his gut boiled fiercely. He forced himself onto his feet, stumbling a step before regaining his balance. Nothing. The word echoed in his ears, roaring in the thunder as it answered the lightning. He had nothing left. Had lost it all long ago, but he refused to admit it to himself. And suddenly...everything that had driven him the past three years meant nothing. He didn’t care about Kakarot or killing him or surpassing him. He didn’t care if he left this planet. He didn’t even care if he lived. How long had he walked on borrowed time? His second chance at life was a damn joke, a literal accident, extra time for the universe to taunt him for his failings.

Vegeta’s heart pounded in his ears, beating on his sternum like a war drum. The rest of the world fell silent around him as his rage exploded. Pure power rushed through his body and he tilted his head back to bellow his fury into the void of space above. Blinding light flared from his form and burst with a planet-quaking boom.

Consciousness flooded back like a sea’s tide, the area around him now illuminated in a golden glow. A glow that originated from him. He raised his hands and flexed them before balling them into fists. Such power. It felt incredible. Endless. Roiling throughout every ounce of his being. His shoulders shook as laughter rumbled in his chest and finally burst from his mouth. He took to the air and shot through the angry sky, admiring his speed. He destroyed mountains as he whizzed by them, each target bigger than the last. If he didn’t need the ship, he would have destroyed the planet itself just to see how easy his new power made it.

Landing near the ship (still intact, surprisingly), he powered down, acutely aware of the toll it took on him. He would have to fix that, master the form and improve upon it. It felt surreal, like he would wake up at any moment. But he knew better. He knew he only had nightmares.

He had truly done it. He had become a Super Saiyan.

“Well, I guess there really is a first time for everything.”

Vegeta didn’t care if the bartender’s comment was meant for him or merely the young woman musing aloud; he kept his attention on the drink sitting in the open space within his crossed arms on the polished wood. He could still hear the vapid giggling of the two women as they trotted to the elevator at the back of the room, clinging on the arms of his charmed comrades. It was nothing new to the prince, especially on obvious busy work like this meant to keep them out of Frieza’s line of sight for a little while. Until he needed them again. Everyone knew years of mining and drilling by the Cold’s forces had sucked this planet dry of any valuable resources. The inhabitants ranged from an occasional surprising street fighter to abysmally weak, and very few even knew how to control Ki. The bulk of Frieza’s force there had already evacuated, sent on more fruitful endeavors for the empire. At best, this planet would be made a base, and the inhabitants would have to continue to live with Frieza’s soldiers. But, this far out, Vegeta wasn’t that optimistic.

A misstep had earned them this pointless assignment on the edges of Frieza’s claim to the universe, and they were given three days to complete a full recon and report, not counting travel time. Peeved and annoyed with the gall Frieza had to assign them busy work, even Vegeta agreed that, after finishing up the assignment in just over a day, they could use the remainder of their second day to use as they saw fit and send the report in on the morning of their third day. For Raditz and Nappa, that typically meant booze, food, and fucking whoever would have them. For Vegeta, he would likely find a space to train at his leisure.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a group of three or more men not break out into a fight over my sisters’ company. Unless you’re just not into women...I suppose I shouldn’t assume…”

Obsidian eyes finally slid over to the woman, and, in comparison to her siblings, he understood why she would not appeal to the masses as easily as her sisters. Shorter and more plainly dressed in a shabby-looking, moss green jacket (the bar blocked the rest of his view of her outfit), she appeared to prefer avoiding attention rather than grabbing it. Two, beaded braids framed her face while the rest of her tawny hair was pulled back in a high ponytail, the same braids appearing intermittently throughout. She lacked the nearing gaudy makeup her sisters donned, and freckles dotted her lightly sun-kissed cheeks and the bridge of her slightly misshapen nose. A preference for the outdoors, perhaps, if not natural. The long ears inherent of her race jutted out from the side of her face, and he noticed the rose color dusting their tips.

“Your sisters aren’t my type,” he said finally, in hopes of shutting her up. She seemed to be the type to talk more when nervous. If she didn’t continue to ramble, he could at least take some solace in the fact that her voice held a more mellow timbre than the near screech of her sisters’. He picked up his drink and took a hearty gulp. Supposedly the strongest they had, but he knew he would need to drink these all day to even earn a buzz.

He heard her hum and he thought she might take the hint and busy herself with cleaning the counter or glasses. Something other than making small talk with him. Wishful thinking.

“I would ask what your type is, then, but I’m going to assume you won’t answer that.” He offered her a grunt in response, though he couldn’t stop himself from casting her another glance, as if her unasked question reflexively piqued his curiosity to check if she fit such a bill (not that he really knew his type, anyway; he didn’t care to figure it out, but he always knew what wasn’t). The only features he would consider striking in her face were her eyes, an unusual shade of shimmering silver he could not recall ever witnessing. “You’re Frieza’s soldiers, right? You and your friends?”

He fixed her with a glare, insulted, but unsure of how to correct her first: the Prince of all Saiyans answered to no one unless he wanted to and he would never refer to Nappa or Raditz as a friend. However, in an attempt to avoid more pointless conversation and seem interested in talking to her, he replied with a growled, “Yes,” and drained his glass.

“So, you can fight, then?”

Vegeta slid the glass across the bar toward her--which she expertly caught, much to his surprise considering the suddenness and speed--and rose to his feet. A stupid question, and he was sure she knew it. He pulled the neck of his armor out to fish out his pay chip, intent on paying for his drink and making a hasty exit, and slapped it down on the bar.

The woman retrieved his chip, but made no immediate move to run it. “Um, this is going to sound like an odd question but would you spar with me? I need the practice…” Silver eyes darted to the tapping of his fingers on the wood, and she rushed to the terminal behind her. She returned and offered the chip back to him. However, when he reached out for it, she snatched it out of his reach. She didn’t flinch when he growled; she expected an answer.

The Saiyan prince lifted a hand to his scouter, but it hung in midair. A habit to check a prospective opponent’s power level. He lowered it again. His tongue wrapped around a haughty rejection, but held it firmly in his mouth. Such a strange request when none that he surveyed on the planet could touch even the lowliest of Frieza’s men, and most showed no signs of any fighting prowess besides. He doubted she was much different, but his boredom and curiosity convinced him to humor her. If she had the guts to challenge him, he could grant her the satisfaction of understanding just how grave her mistake was.

“Fine. Let’s go.”

Her eyes widened; she obviously expected him to refuse. A show of sharp canines in an annoyed snarl reanimated her. She slapped the chip back into his waiting palm and darted toward a door off the bar, tearing the apron from her waist and shrugging out of her jacket as she went. Vegeta tucked his pay chip away as she shouted into the next room that she was going out. She slammed the door before whoever was behind it could protest and joined him on the other side of the bar. Unencumbered by the bar and her jacket, he saw that she wore a baggy pair of pants that matched her jacket in color and a pair of boots common in style on the planet. The white shirt turned out to be a tank top that clung to her body and bore a strip of her midriff, accentuating toned arms and abdomen. Heat rose in his cheeks when his mind registered that she was...shaplier in the chest area than the jacket allowed onlookers to guess. He turned on his heel quickly to preserve his pride and class.

“Great! I know a place not far from here. Nice and open and people don’t usually hang around there.” The woman followed him outside and, before he could ask if she could fly, her feet left the dust-riddled street and she took off. He huffed and flew after her, catching up with ease. She could use ki. That at least meant this spar might scratch the surface of interesting, at least.

“I am surprised you can leave your bar unattended on a whim, even in a backwater town like that one. Is business truly that slow?”

“My parents will handle it,” she responded shortly, her attention set in front of her. “They own the place, anyway. They’re lucky I give enough of a shit about my sisters to stick around, help out, and protect them, and they know that. They sure as hell never do it. Besides, they probably think I’m off to earn money, anyway, so of course they’re not going to question it.”

Vegeta had his suspicions about the two women when they fluttered over to the trio upon entering. His icy demeanor spurned them immediately, but Nappa and Raditz welcomed their flirtations without qualm. He heard their whispers and the exchange of terms through their giggles; he had tagged along to enough brothels to understand their inner workings, no matter how low key and whether he participated or not. However, he could not recall any where parents pimped out their children. Such vile beings this universe hosted…

They touched down in an open field, the patches of green within the nearly dried up landscape the most he had seen in miles. “Do you plan to charge me for this spar then, woman?” he asked, folding his arms over his chest. A slight smirk curled his lips. “Do you charge per punch landed? Extra for using ki?”

Her brows lowered and corners of her lips dipped downward as she stretched an arm over her chest. “You like to hear yourself talk after all, don’t you?” She snorted and switched limbs. “Obviously, I knock out or kill those who agree to spar with me and rob them blind. Requires much less calculation.”

He might have believed her if he hadn’t caught the quiver of her lips in a flash of a smile. “Ha! Well, I think you’ll find I’m much more difficult to take down. But, if you can, I’ll give you every bit of currency I have to my name.”

“Great, I’ve been eyeing a new pair of boots.”

She sprang forward before the last word could register meaning in the Saiyan’s mind, punches and kicks flying in a flurry of speed he did not expect. He dodged them without issue, his arms remaining folded, and allowed his focus to gauge her skill level. Quick. Unpolished but confident and strong swings, suggesting she taught herself to some degree and had enough success. The ever lessening presence of her smirk further suggested the latter; she was not used to having this much trouble.

Finally, Vegeta allowed an easily dodged uppercut to connect with the underside of his chin, a test of her strength, how hard she could hit. His head snapped back, the point of contact smarting and his teeth ringing from the impact. He expected her to celebrate her small victory, but she proved him wrong. A sweep of her leg sent him skidding several feet from where he stood. He only just recovered before she attacked again. Fine, she proved clever enough. Though a piss poor strategy like wearing her opponent out wouldn’t work on him.

He ducked beneath a fist aimed for his face and caught her ankle as she attempted to follow up with a kick. He responded to her surprised gasp with a rumbling chuckle of his own. “Not bad. But I’m not just some urchin you picked a fight with off the street.”

Vegeta tugged the woman forward, taking advantage of her lack of balance, and sidestepped. He shoved and elbow hard into her spine and sent her sprawling face first into the dust. “Hmph, if that’s all you have to offer, fly home. I don’t waste time with weaklings.”

She pushed off her hands and twisted at the waist to shoot a wave of lavender ki straight for his face. He bent back to avoid it, the heat brushing past his face before he heard it explode in the cliff face behind them. His smirk widened when he found her back on her feet and charging him again. He dodged and blocked her blows once more, but he noted the significant boost in her speed and strength. Good, she was taking this seriously now. He had given her an immediate understanding of what kind of opponent she dealt with, and she rose with that challenge. Respectable, even if her power level only ranked among the middle levels of Frieza’s ranks.

Their spar continued on much the same way: Vegeta allowed her to punch, kick, and toss ki blasts his way to her heart’s content, then he would return a few blows and knock her away. Each time, she came back stronger, faster, more determined to level the playing field no matter how wide the gap between them or the blood and bruises on her body from his strikes. An admirable warrior in her own right. She impressed him, as far as the denizens of this doomed planet went.

As the daylight began to fade, the sky dyed various hues of burning orange, he noticed each time she fell, she took a few seconds longer to rise up again. Finally, a kick to her side sent her sailing sideways and skidding along the ground. Her body slammed into the bottom of the cliff, and she laid motionless for several seconds. Just when he thought he had knocked her unconscious or her body had finally given out, he heard her groan and flip over from her side to her back, a grin on her face.

“Alright, that’s it. I give in.” She forced herself to a sitting position, expression contorting in pain with every miniscule motion. “You win. But you knew you would this whole time, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did.” He cocked his head to either side, stretching the tendons in his neck. Their spar hadn’t been the most productive for him, but it hadn’t bored him either. A rarity, even with those meant to be on his skill level. “You surprised me. I would have never guessed anyone on this planet could even come close to the level you’ve achieved.”

She shifted to face him and swept her forearm over her face to rid it of sweat, blood, and grime. “It was actually a Saiyan that inspired me to learn to fight, even if I had to teach myself. I was little, but I watched a Saiyan woman fight off another of Frieza’s soldiers when he wouldn’t leave her alone. It was eye-opening when I was taught all along that women didn’t fight. Not respectable ones at least.” She shrugged a shoulder and rolled it for a stretch and Vegeta grunted; too many societies he had come into contact with believed similarly. He found it pathetic and ridiculous. “I couldn’t turn down the chance to fight one, to test myself. It’s been ages since I’ve seen another Saiyan…”

“That’s because we’re the last three.” The admission tumbled from his lips before he could stop them, and he scowled. He usually did not correct anyone ignorant of his people’s fate, kept his comments to himself when some merchant or whore wondered aloud about the last time they did business with a Saiyan. And yet, this woman had him yapping about something so personal without even trying. Must be the lack of food. When had he eaten last? That morning?

The woman’s face fell. “O-oh...I-I’m--”

“Save it.” Vegeta stomped over to her and stuck out his hand, the suddenness causing her to flinch back. She took it and he pulled her to her feet, a little rougher than he initially intended, though, if it bothered her, she said nothing. He released her hand. “Where is the best place for food here? Everything I’ve tried here tastes like molten garbage.”

“Well, there’s really not much left, as I’m sure you noticed.” She dusted herself off and pulled the strap of her tank top back into its proper place. “But...you’re welcome to stay at my place for the night. If you want. It’s quieter than the hotel, that’s for sure, more comfortable, too. Many of the rooms there haven’t been cleaned in quite a while, if you want the honest truth. My parents have yet to hire new help after skimping on paying the last batch of employees, my sisters refuse to help with that sort of work, and…”

She trailed off when she noticed his pointed look, how she hadn’t answered his question. She swallowed. “And I can cook. So you’ll get food, peace, and comfort. The offer’s open so take it if you want.”

Vegeta watched her take to the sky and mulled over the offer. With how she seemed determined to chat with him, he questioned the validity of her claim to quiet. The growl of his stomach voted in favor, proposing that almost anything could beat the trash he and his cohorts had wolfed down the day before. Comfort...his mind lingered on that word, twisting it into a more lewd definition. Images of her toned, nude body beneath him among a tangle of sheets, glistening in sweat as her moans filled the air…

White energy surrounded him and he shot into the sky after her. Fine. What did he have to lose anyway? Unless Frieza felt some sort of sentimental value toward this planet and those who roamed on it, she would likely be killed in the near future anyway. A shame, considering her potential. It was too bad there weren’t more like her. Enough to make her planet a worthwhile gem among the tyrant’s endless trove…

He wondered if she knew that...understood what his and his lackeys’ stay here likely meant for her and her home…

"We're getting married, Vegeta. That's final."

He swore the damn woman had an alarm on every door he frequented, from his bedroom in the guest wing to the gravity room. Perhaps on his bed, too, as he had just convinced himself to roll out of it, dress, and hole himself up in the gravity chamber to train until his body begged him to stop. He had just pulled the door open and there she stood, scowling and balancing her brat on her hip. The kid seemed unfazed by the aggravation in her voice, more intent on sucking his thumb.

Vegeta gripped the doorframe, the only thing to keep him from shoving her out of the way and continuing on his way. He had spent months away after Cell's defeat, once more a man lost and unsure of his purpose. His pride in tatters when even Kakarot's brat had surpassed him. Those days remained a blur in his memory as he worked through his rage until it fizzled out and he had nothing left to fuel him. Hollowed out, unfeeling, unmotivated. One moment he wanted to steal the woman's father's ship, blast off into space and challenge every powerful warrior he could find to validate his own strength. Take over the Cold empire as he was meant to. In the end, that all felt pointless. A set up for another string of unfortunate failures. Thus, he settled on the only thing that felt familiar, the only thing that brought even the remotest sense of contentment for him: training. Even if it meant suffering the woman and her worthless friends.

"Hello! Earth to Vegeta! Did you hear a word I said?" Bulma swapped the half asleep child to her other hip. "I know you decided to disappear on me and your child for months, but surely that didn't affect your hearing!"

He wished it had, her shrill shrieks unfriendly to sensitive ears and already threatening a pounding headache. "I heard you, woman," he growled, making to shove forward only for her to shift in front of him. Marriage to a weak Earth woman who could not even fight...he could hear his ancestors laughing in Hell. The only attributes she possessed he would consider remotely worthwhile were her decent looks and intellect when it came to technology. Nothing marriageable about her to a true Saiyan. Not to mention her obvious desire for Kakarot no matter how she tried to hide it. In his time there, he found Earth's ideals, especially those surrounding marriage and mating, starkly differed from those of Saiyans. And not for the better. They craved companionship and what they called love as the highest goals in their lives. They would set aside everything for it, change themselves for it, no matter how long or hard they worked to achieve whatever goals they had before. Saiyans rarely married, even his parents married as a mere show of power, the Saiyan King with their most powerful, accomplished, and terrifying general. They mated when they chose, and if a brat resulted from it, it didn't always mean they stuck around as a pair. Here he found, that was taboo. Unacceptable and improper.

"And just why do you think I would want to marry the likes of you?" he asked, hoping a thinly veiled insult would upset her and send her crying to her parents or that beta male she still fucked around with.

His words only deepened her glare and she stood her ground. "Are you kidding me?" She pointed at the brat, now babbling and tugging on the neckline of her shirt. "You knocked me up, you creep! It's the right thing to do, and you owe me and Trunks at least that!"

"Because you weren't throwing yourself at me the moment the damn Namek dragon sent us all back to Earth." He could insult her, belittle her, nearly kill her friends, treat her like utter trash and order her around like a damn servant day in and day out and she still flirted and tried to bed him. The meaner he was, the hornier it made her. Of course he caved eventually; he had needs, too. He hadn't even thought of impregnating her, his bestial instincts begging him for release in more carnal avenues and blinding him to the possibility in the moment. He stupidly forgot their races were even genetically compatible. She wanted to fuck, he needed release; the answer was simple at the time. "I don't owe you shit, woman, now get the hell out of my way before I force you out of the way."

"After I let you live, eat, and train here for free, you really think you don't owe me anything? I don't think you've ever even said thank you!"

Vegeta rolled his eyes. He had had enough of her shit for another few months. He shoved forward only to be blocked again. His temper flared, hackles rising in warning.

Bulma merely scoffed. "You need to man up, Vegeta. Own up to your 'mistakes'," she huffed and yanked a strand of her hair out of the child's clutches before he could stick it in his mouth. "I'm going to be straight with you since no one else--not even yourself--will. Your entitled, cocky prince act was cute at first, but it got old real quick. Your outbursts and temper tantrums are childish. Newsflash, Vegeta! You're not even a prince anymore! Your planet and people are gone, and the few left would never bow to you! You're not royalty, and no one will ever treat you like it! Get over it and stop acting like a baby. You have a child now, I'm going to be your wife, and you're going to learn to live here like a responsible, normal person!"

Had she spewed this drivel a few months, a few years ago, he might have blasted her where she stood for her disrespect. The emptiness inside him kept him from caring about her stupid opinions, her expectations of him, the grains of truth in her prattle. He did not care if she thought him a "real man." He did not even care that she insulted his title, his bloodline, or attacked a sensitive subject she could not begin to understand the gravity of. But the attack on his pride as a Saiyan, to order him to conform to her idealistic model of normalcy and perform the part of the happy husband and father, roles he didn't care to fill with the likes of her...that threatened to put her through the wall she stood in front of.

"That's rich coming from a spoiled brat like you," he snarled. She didn't know shit about him and she didn't try either. Why the hell would he want to bond himself with a woman like her? His dark eyes found her blue ones, the darkness in him bubbling to the surface. "Say one more word to me today and I'll rip your voice box from your throat."

This time, Bulma stepped back, her spine meeting the wall as she swallowed. He could smell her fear, no matter how little her stubborn frown wavered. He huffed and moved past her, stomping toward the glass doors at the end of the hall that would lead him onto the manicured lawn still drenched in the morning dew.

"How typical! Hear something you don't like and you throw a fit! Solve all your problems with violence like the ape you are!"

Vegeta halted halfway to the door. Every muscle in his body tensed as a war for control raged inside him. His mind had converted Bulma's voice to Frieza's, the slur and similar ones echoing in his skull joined by the cruel laughter that often accompanied it. One fist slammed into the wall beside him while the other clutched his head. He had to move. Get out of that damn hallway and away from the damn woman. He could hear the brat screaming from somewhere far away, his mother trying to hush him and throwing another insult his way.

He willed his feet to walk. Once outside, he shot into the sky. Away from Capsule Corp. Away from the city. He would not suffer her shit another second that day.

Glass and bone crunched beneath his boot, fresh blood further staining once ivory leather. The screams and groans of pain had subsided, the only sounds around him the crackle of flames and the occasional whistle of the wind. The scent of death and burning flesh filled his nostrils, fueling the adrenaline still pumping through his veins.

He kicked a corpse aside--a soldier, if the armor meant anything--and tapped the button on his scouter with bloodied fingertips to perform a scan of the area. See if any unlucky fools escaped his initial razing of the planet. He had the whole assignment to himself. Nappa had protested; the planet had been in rebellion for quite some time and housed unexpectedly powerful warriors in great numbers. How even the strongest warriors could fall when outnumbered. Vegeta ignored him and threatened to toss him out an airlock if he tried to follow without his say so. It would be a worthy test of his strength, an uninhibited and untethered display of his power, if the reports had any merit.

As it turned out, they didn’t. Not that he could see.

His scouter beeped three times as it picked up a reading, the yellow characters flashing on the red glass indicating it originated behind him. Close, weakened if ever strong. Attuned ears picked up the slow approach with one foot landing heavier on the pavement than the other, a poor attempt at stealth. One left. And here he thought he had been thorough…

“You damn monster,” the lone survivor croaked behind him. Vegeta opened his eyes enough to note the surge in his power level on his scouter, a light behind him lengthening his shadow. So, he would fight to his last breath.

The Saiyan turned on his heel to face his heckler, tongue lashing out to lick gore--his or someone else’s, he didn’t know or care--from his face. The local had definitely been caught in the crossfire, armor cracked and broken, his body littered with bruises and painted with blood. He put all his weight on his right leg, the left hanging limply beside it. He held a ball of ki in his hand, though the light guttered with the fading of his energy.

“How very original,” Vegeta drawled. Terrifying speed placed him directly in front of the dying soldier. He gripped his wrist and snapped it back in a sickening crack, sending the attack meant for him jetting into space. The man howled in pain, widening the smirk the Saiyan wore.

“Y-you’re no better than him...than Frieza!”

His smirk fell into a tight frown, and his grip tightened. “You’re right.” Vegeta raised his hand level with the soldier’s face. “I’m much, much worse.”

Vegeta fired the blast at Kakarot. Point-blank range and putting him on guard with no chance for immediate retaliation. He had to be if he wanted to protect all those people spectating in the stands behind him. He watched as the force behind the energy forced him back, back, back. Until he finally had to relent and fly out of its path. Yellow light soared into the crowd and exploded through the cement structure, a path of ruin left in its wake through the city beyond. Screams of terror and anguish filled the air, a symphony to the Saiyan’s ears.

Finally. Finally he would get what he wanted, what he craved for all these years: revenge. To best Kakarot and once and for all reclaim his rightful place as the most powerful Saiyan in existence. Babadi’s magic did no more than reach into the depths of his mind, his soul, and resurrect Vegeta. Tearing the man once feared the universe over, the savage and ruthless destroyer, from the shallow, unmarked grave he himself had shoved him into. For comfort. For ease. For conformity on this wretched planet. The fingers of the wizard’s black magic plucked the pesky attachments he developed from his mind like overzealous weeds. Vegeta, the Prince of all Saiyans was whole once more, beaten down pride and burning rage reignited and flaring hotter than any star.

They called his decision to succumb to Babidi’s mind control weakness. Slavery. No. The wizard had no more control of him than anyone else should have these past years. He felt more powerful than he ever had. He raised his hand again and shot another blast into the crowd. This. This was what he wanted. He would not let anyone or anything stand in the way of his battle with Kakarot. Not the Kai. Not Gohan. Not this Buu creature or Babidi. They settled this today. He would reclaim his honor, his destiny.

He would stand in Kakarot’s shadow no longer.

Vegeta struggled against the powerful arms that restrained him, tail lashing in fury as he fought with fists, feet, and teeth against Frieza’s goons. He could hear Nappa bringing up the rear, pleading the young Saiyan’s case with Frieza: he was young and hadn’t learned to respect his betters, his mourning made him mouthier, that he would handle punishment himself and ensure it never happened again, anything other than locking him away like that, to lock him up in there instead. They both knew his words fell flat in the tyrant’s ears; Vegeta had finally crossed the line and told the emperor just what he thought of him and Frieza did not tolerate insubordination.

The soldiers tossed the young Saiyan to the back of the dark room. He roared and darted forward, only to collide with the cold metal of the door slamming in his face. He only just registered the pain it caused, already launching himself for the door again, intent on busting it open. He screamed and rammed into the door, bellowed for Nappa to let him out this instant. Deep down he knew his protests were swallowed by the darkness that encompassed him in the small space, but it didn’t stop him from yelling until his throat was raw. From bashing his full weight into the door until his small frame went numb.

Furious, he bounded back. Ki built in his palms and he shot every ounce of energy he had toward the door. The blast rebounded straight back and struck him in the chest. The force knocked the wind from his lungs and smashed him into the wall behind him. His body slid to the ground and he laid still. Limp, too weak to move.

It was too easy to lose track of time in that pitch black cell, and he did not know how long he lay there. Light filtered into the room as the door cracked open. Freedom! He willed himself to fly toward it as a tray with a paltry sum of food was set on the cold floor along with a glass of water. Vegeta nearly grasped the edge of the door but, once more, it slammed in his face and nearly took his fingers with it. He growled, his throat screeching in protest at the guttural sound. He felt along the edges of the door--or what he thought were the edges of the door--for any kind of hand hold. A way to grip it and force it open. Sealed tight, as expected. He kicked the tray into the wall in his stubborn frustration.

He counted six meals. Six failed attempts at escaping. Sometimes, he woke up from his slumber, and when he felt around the cell, he found the food waiting for him. Missed opportunities. The meals barely kept him alive and awarded him no energy. He slept more often than not, plagued by dreams of spending the rest of his life there. The deaths of his parents and people burning up in the wake of an exploding planet. Nappa and Raditz being tortured in his absence...He always woke up in a tighter ball after such nightmares, tail squeezing him in makeshift protection…

Light flared and burned his eyes, causing him to hiss and tuck his face into his chest and arms. Large hands slipped beneath him and scooped him up. His tail bristled in warning and his body stiffened, all senses on high alert. The restraints held fast, the familiar scent of the Saiyan general filling his nose and calming him. Nappa carried him out of the cell, and Vegeta buried his face in his armor, fighting the tears of anguish that threatened to fall.

Before long, he was deposited onto his bed. The young Saiyan prince squirmed beneath the blanket and faced the wall in his bunk, knees tucked to his chest. He heard Raditz shift above him but his light snoring remained uninterrupted. He held his blankets tight around him, clutching them like a lifeline and laid perfectly still. He still felt tired, drained, but his eyes remained wide open and set on the wall. He never knew he could miss a bed or a pillow so much. Or the sound of Raditz snoring. Or light.

After a long while, hours perhaps, he heard Nappa sigh; he had forgotten the general remained in the room at all. “I’m sorry, kiddo...so damn sorry.” He spoke in nearly a whisper, his typically strong and boisterous voice close to shaking. “I wish I could protect you like your parents wanted...like you deserve.”

Vegeta’s grip tightened on the blanket that failed to warm him. He felt cold. Always so cold. “Feeling sorry for yourself won’t do you any good, Nappa,” he mumbled, a half-hearted reprimand in comparison to his usual temper. He turned to face Nappa, staring him down with a blank expression and hollow eyes. “Mother, father...everyone else is dead. We survived, and we’ll keep doing it...no matter what it takes.”

He paused, swallowing the lump in his throat. “We’re the lucky ones.”

Upbeat dance music filtered up to the balcony on a light summer breeze to the balcony on the other side of Capsule Corp. where Vegeta had taken refuge from the ongoing celebration. No one noticed his exit, and he had no qualms with that. While most left him to his own devices, he tired of the idle conversation, the laughter and music. Thus, he snatched up a cooler of beer and took off to the other side of the building, settling in at a table on one of the balconies.

He tipped the bottle back and drained the rest of its contents. He threw it into the air, toward the setting sun, and blasted it into nothing. Since Majin Buu’s defeat, he felt as if he floated through space and time, a phantom going through the motions of a routine that felt more pointless by the day. Not even training held his interest long and, more often than not, he found himself flying around the planet aimlessly but pretending to have a purpose.

Kakarot had once more proven himself the better warrior and killed Buu. He swallowed his pride and accepted it, accepted the fact that he would forever be second place. In the moment, he thought acceptance would free him and perhaps it had at the time. But as time passed and he returned to life on Earth playing the role of husband for show and father and took up his training regimen...a weight bore down on him, growing heavier each day. He grew restless and craved direction, purpose. How long had he chased that dream of revenge? Of surpassing Kakarot and anyone else who challenged his birthright as the most powerful Saiyan--no, being--in existence? After losing Raditz and Nappa, being humiliated on Earth and Namek...he had clung to the only things he truly understood: rage, pride, and vengeance.

Vegeta reached down to fish out another beer from the icy confines of the cooler. He flicked the cap off with his thumb and pressed it to his lips, draining half the bottle in a single gulp. He considered the idea of taking the spaceship and wandering the universe that always lingered at the back of his mind. Search for warriors to train with, test his limits and break them and the monotony. The desire to conquer and claim what his father promised him had faded to a fever dream. He lacked the patience it required these days. As usual, he squashed the idea before it could spur him into action.

Maybe someday he would find something that sparked the fire in him again, gave him purpose. Or he would spend the rest of his days in inanity, performing a part in a play he neither tried out for or wanted. Waiting for the next tragedy to befall the Earth or universe so he could feel alive for a day or two or until the threat was exterminated, likely by Kakarot. And then the cycle would repeat: he would train to get stronger, a new threat arises, Kakarot proves he’s more powerful. Maddening. Unfulfilling. Reality.

He let his head fall back and watched the whisps of clouds lazily sail through the darkening sky. What had Frieza told him when he found out about the destruction of his planet and people? That he was one of the lucky ones. Lucky...by Earthling standards, many had told him that for one reason or another: you have a hot, rich “wife” and don’t need to work, a place to live and food to eat, a healthy son, the fact that he was alive to live the next day. Nothing that truly mattered to him; an ideal Earth life did not appeal to his Saiyan warrior mentality. In fact, he could not think of a single moment in his life where he would consider himself lucky, even with Frieza dead and unable to be the source of his despair.

Raised voices and laughter from inside shifted his attention to the glass doors. Kakarot had finally showed up. His friends surrounded him like flies on shit, grinning and laughing with the buffoon like he had been there all day. Even his shrew of a wife who had complained about his absence all afternoon to anyone who would listen smiled in welcome. Kakarot...the damn bastard. He drank the last of his beer and stood up.

Vegeta had lost everything else--his title, his race, his birthright--but, as he stared down his longtime rival from behind a pane of glass, he knew he could cling to one, single truth: he was a warrior. Always would be. And he would never stop pushing and breaking his limits his way.

#royallunatiic #vegeta #fanfic #fanfiction #db fanfiction #dbz fanfiction

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marvelmando · 5 years

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tempest [p.parker x o.c.] - thirteen

notes: hey y’all it’s been a hot second i think. but im still here! hope you all enjoy :) also don’t forget, if you’d like to be notified every time i update tempest, feel free to leave a comment to be added to my taglist!

contains: some swearing, angst of course

pairing: peter parker + fem! o.c.

word count: 3.3k

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MARIN RETRACTED THE ENERGY FROM AROUND HER FACE ONCE SHE REALIZED THE AIR ON TITAN WAS BREATHABLE. The first thing that popped into her brain was, did we land on Mars? But then she remembered the lurch into hyperspace (at least, she figured that was what it was, and she refused to think of it as anything else), and dismissed the idea.

But apart from the clearly dilapidated city this had once been, Titan was the exact same color as all the pictures of Mars had led her to believe—soil the color of bricks, dust floating through the air and covering every surface it landed on in a thick blanket of clay particles. Marin sneezed.

Peter looked around in awe, then she saw his gaze land on the alien girl with the antennae, still wrapped in his webbing. He left Marin’s side to approach her, and with nothing else to do while Tony ruminated, Quill searched the terrain, and Dr. Strange hovered over a rock with green energy floating around him, Marin chose to follow Peter.

“—it should dissolve soon, unless you want me to cut you out,” he was saying. With a murmured assent, Peter started cutting the girl out of his webs. “I’m Peter, by the way.” Once she was free, he stuck out a hand in greeting. The girl stared down at the proffered hand, then back to Peter’s face.

“I am Mantis.” She bowed slightly, completely ignoring Peter’s outstretched hand.

“Right,” Peter nodded back, lowering his hand awkwardly.

“I’m Marin.” She offered up a bit too harshly. Marin wasn’t used to resentment, but she didn’t like that the alien knew about her past. Did she know of it, or was she just forcing me to remember? Either way, Marin felt shifty standing next to her.

The alien—Mantis, an appropriate name for the fact she looked like a kind of insect—bowed again. Grateful the girl didn’t know Earthly customs; Marin wasn’t eager to make contact with her skin again.

Despite the unease she still felt around the alien, she was at least moved to make amends for her prematurely aggressive actions. “I’m sorry for attacking you.”

“I am also sorry for attacking you.” Even though it could’ve come across sounding slightly parroted, Marin saw the sincerity in her large, black eyes. Her antennae even drooped a bit, reminding Marin of a kicked puppy. She didn’t like the guilt that flooded her system.

“Oh yeah,” Peter said to Mantis, sounding interested. “What did you do anyway? All I saw was Marin put her hands on you and the next second she was on the ground, squirming.” Marin bristled, not liking how Peter described her… session? Was that what she could call it? Either way, Marin didn’t like that he saw how utterly incapacitated she’d become; whether it was a blow to her pride or dignity, she couldn’t tell. Or were they kind of the same thing?

“I can experience others’ emotions, sometimes the memories that are associated with the feelings.” Mantis explained, sounding rather robotic, as if English wasn’t her first language (which, in hindsight, it most definitely wasn’t. Distantly, Marin wondered how common English was in the universe, or if the translation was due to some sort of universal device.)

“No way! You’ve got empathy powers?!” Peter was growing visibly excited, vibrating slightly and bouncing on his heels. “So do I! Did you get bit by a radioactive mantis or something? Because—”

Marin lingered to the side, completely ignored. Peter seemed to either forget that this alien had attacked Marin so viciously, or disregard it. But even with this reasoning, Marin failed to convict herself. So why was she feeling so… jealous?

Nevertheless, Marin felt like an outsider, and after almost two years of getting over that fear, having it come back and hitting her like a blow to the stomach, Marin walked away. Not that either of them noticed, which was another blow, more like a slap to the cheek.

She instead approached Tony, who was in the middle of talking to Quill.

“—we’ve got one advantage: he’s coming to us. We’ll use it.” Nodding decisively, he turned and paced. “All right, I have a plan. Or at least the beginnings of one.” He announced to the team. Marin looked over her shoulder to Peter, who was raptly observing Mantis bounce up and down, slightly floating due to the lower gravitational field of the planet. Marin’s stomach twisted.

“It’s pretty simple. We draw him in, pin him down, get what we need.” Peter was starting to approach them, still glancing back at Mantis. “Definitely don’t wanna dance with this guy, we just want the gauntlet.”

“So we’ve gotta figure out a—”

Marin started to process a plan, when Tony interrupted her to chastise the buff dude.

“Are you yawning?” He looked offended. “In the middle of this, while I’m breaking it down? Huh? Did you hear what I said?”

“I stopped listening after you said ‘We need a plan’.”

“Okay, Mr. Clean is on his own page.” Tony said grumpily to no one in particular.

“See, ‘not winging it’ isn’t really what they… do.” Quill said, strangely, as if he wasn’t a part of their team.

Marin scoffed. “So what the hell do they do?”

“Kick names, take ass.” Mantis said, so assuredly that Marin had to think twice about the logistics of the statement.

Looking at Tony, she could tell that he was beginning to seriously regret coming to Titan. “All right, just get over here please.”

The six of them gathered in a loose circle, Marin standing closer to Tony than she did Quill, who was on each of her sides. Marin locked eyes with Peter for a moment, but glanced away, feeling an uncomfortable knot growing in her chest the longer she looked at him. She rubbed her chest inconspicuously as Tony tried to lay down the basic guidelines of a plan, trying to dispel the weird feeling.

“Tell him about the dance-off to save the universe.” The buff alien said, catching Marin’s attention.

“What dance-off?” Tony was bewildered, but Marin chanced a shared look with Peter, who seemed on the same wavelength as her.

“Like in Footloose, the movie?” He chuckled, and despite her sudden unease, Marin felt herself sharing a secret smile with him. Back when they saw each other almost every weekend, Peter took it upon himself to show Marin all of the cheesy 80s and 90s movies, after discovering that between training and school, she’d never gotten around to seeing them.

One night in particular, about two months after moving to the Tower, it’d snowed so bad that Peter was stuck there for the night, where they’d gotten through 16 Candles, Taxi Driver, St. Elmo’s Fire, and Footloose. By the time Footloose had come on, it was nearing four o’clock in the morning, and they’d run out of popcorn and couldn’t be hassled to microwave some more. So they’d just sat there, Peter humming along to the songs, and Marin just watching him from the other side of the expansive couch.

‘It’s catchy,’ he’d said to her once the credits started rolling, looking genuinely content but bashful at being caught singing along, ‘But it’s not the greatest movie in the world or anything.’

“Exactly like Footloose!” said Quill, pleased that someone had understood his reference. “Is it still the greatest movie in history?”

Marin grinned. “It never was.”

Peter’s eyes flickered over to her, his smile dropping into something softer, warmer. Marin felt the heat rise from her chest, crawling up her neck and flushing her cheeks. She gave him another smile before surrendering to the urge to look away before he noticed her blush.

“Don’t encourage this, all right?” Tony stepped closer to her, blocking her view of Peter. Marin rolled her eyes. “We’re getting no help from Flash Gordon here.”

Now that was a reference she didn’t understand.

“’Flash Gordon’?” Quill spoke, forcing Tony to turn so he could look at him. “By the way, that’s a compliment. Don’t forget, I’m half-human. So that 50% of me that’s stupid…” He looked to make sure Tony was following. “That’s 100% you.”

It was infallible logic to Marin, although she was pretty sure that this guy was more than fifty-percent stupid.

“Your math is… blowing my mind.”

“Excuse me?” Said Mantis, who was sounding worried. “But does your friend often do that?”

Everyone turned to see Dr. Strange, who, still glowing a sheer sheen of green light, was fidgeting at weird angles, almost looking as if he was possessed.

As Marin hurried over to get a closer look, Dr. Strange’s head was twitching at an accelerated speed.

Just as she’d approached, he’d emerged from whatever trance he’d been in with a pained shout. Marin and Tony helped to steady him on the rock he toppled on. Dr. Strange gasped for air, looking around frantically.

“Are you okay?” Marin grabbed his arm, holding him from thrashing about.

“You’re back, you’re all right.”

“Hey, what was that?” Peter asked.

“I went forward in time to view alternate futures,” Dr. Strange explained, sounding out-of-breath. “To see all the possible outcomes of the coming conflict.” He blinked rapidly, looking more shaken that she’d seen him. Granted, she’d only known him for a few hours, but from what Marin gathered, Dr. Strange seemed quite level-headed and not like the type to be distressed under pressure. It wasn’t as alarming as finding Tony broken down on the ship, but it was still unnerving to Marin.

“How many did you see?”

“14 million, six hundred and five.”

“How many did we win?” Marin asked. She braced herself, sensing a strong feeling of disturbed energy emanating from Dr. Strange.

The wizard took a bracing inhale. He shifted his eyes away from her, before settling heavily on Tony. “One.”

The silence was deafening in Marin’s ears. Her focus went fuzzy as she tried to calculate the sheer odds of winning this.

At some point, everyone started yelling, but Marin was still stuck on the ground, hands now empty as Dr. Strange had positioned himself in the debate, brushing off Quill’s attempts to weasel the truth from him.

She ran over the statistics in her head. There were only three Stones Thanos needed—the Soul Stone, which was at an unknown location; the Mind Stone, which was currently somewhere on Earth, if the rest of the Avengers were ever able to locate Vision; and the Time Stone, in Dr. Strange’s possession. Three more Stones and he’d be able to wipe out trillions—and one of the only things stopping it from happening was this chaotic group of powered individuals.

Marin clenched her eyes shut, letting her body curl in on itself as she desperately flipped through attack plans in her head. There was little to no water on this planet, and she’d drank all of her water back on the ship, so her hydrokinetic powers were out. All she had in her arsenal were her energy manipulation powers, and they were still uncontrolled, at best. She’d managed to control her flight abilities well enough, but she still struggled heavily with her attack powers.

The touch to her forearm startled her enough for her to activate her energy, though they relaxed at the sight of a concerned Tony Stark with his arms braced in surrender.

Once relaxed, he took the seat next to her.

“It’s gonna be okay, kid.” He said, even though he hardly sounded convinced himself. “We all… well, most of us know what we’re doing.”

Marin laughed dryly. “Yeah, and who’s that? Because all I see are a bunch of fucked-up misfits trying to fit together like pieces belonging to seven different puzzles.” Marin tugged a rough hand through her hair, now reaching inches below her shoulders and bangs grown long. “Let’s see, we’ve got: one rich guy in a fancy suit, one wizard-slash-doctor with a seriously messed-up superiority complex, an alien with feely-powers, another alien that only has enhanced strength in his arsenal, one half-wit with a mad vendetta the size of Texas, one spider-kid, and one… one mutant that can’t control the only power that she’s got a chance at defeating this guy with.” Marin was flushed by the end of her rant, panting hard. She realized that her hands were beginning to glow, so she flexed them, forcing her energy to crawl back.

“Wow,” said Tony, stoically. “You done harping?”

Marin grumbled an assent but felt the anger dissipate nonetheless.

“Good. Because… well, I’d have to agree with you about a lot of those observations. For one, Drax and Quill aren’t the brightest.” Marin rolled her eyes. So that was the buff dude’s name. “Neither is Mantis, for that matter. But they’ve got something we don’t have—experience. And I know what you’re gonna say, I’ve been doing this for years, too. But I’ve also never been to space—this Quill guy? He’s half-god. Like, his father was a planet.” At her inquisitive look, he explained with a shrug, “He likes to blabber.”

He repositioned himself so he was facing her more. “Anyway, my point is, these guys may not be as mechanically or strategically intelligent as us, but they know Thanos—they have direct experience with fighting him. Us? Me? All I’ve done is fight regular alien drones. And one demi-god, but this… we need them, Mare.”

Marin glanced up at the nickname. He didn’t use it often, sticking to her full name or ‘kid’, only sometimes ‘Tempest’. Tony had become something of a father-figure to Marin, something she’d never really had, even when her dad was alive. Tony knew this, and she thought that was why he’d pulled her under his wing. Even Peter didn’t seem as close to him anymore, seeing as he lived hours away.

“And as for you?” Tony poked her shoulder, causing a smile to creep onto her lips. “I have all the faith that you’ll do whatever you can to stop him. You’ve never been faced with a greater threat, but… I think you’re ready. Truly.”

Marin’s smile grew, settling into something private and warm. “Thanks, Tony.”

“That being said…” Tony continued, looking hesitant. “Your attacks still drain a lot of your power, and we need you to save as much as you can for when the time comes.

“The plan is, we need to get the gauntlet off of his arm. That’s our best bet. We can do that if we work together—Quill and Drax getting him to the ground, Pete, Dr. Strange and I keeping his arms apart, so we can keep his hand open to prevent him from using the Stones. Mantis will keep him calm using her empath control, and you’re gonna drain his energy to keep him weak.”

Marin’s eyes widened. “I don’t—but I’ve never—!”

“I know, but that’s why we need you to stay down until it’s time. We need as much of your energy as possible if we’re gonna win this.”

Marin searched his eyes. “Did Dr. Strange tell you any of this?”

Tony sighed, confessing, “No. He’s refusing to give us even the tiniest hints. All he’s admitting to is that we need to try and get the gauntlet off of Thanos. From there, he says that if he tells us, it won’t happen.”

“So… how…” Marin grunted frustratedly, rubbing her face with her hands. “How the hell are we supposed to win this thing?”

Tony smiled, clapping her shoulder. “Teamwork.”

Marin sighed. “Of course.”

+++

After Tony left to go discuss the plan with the others, Marin didn’t move from her seat. She figured she should’ve been doing the meditations Natasha taught her, to hone into her powers and focus on controlling them, but Marin was so frazzled, she felt that if she even attempted bringing out her powers, they would go haywire and she’d be drained even before the battle started.

This was always the hardest part of missions. Even back in the X-Men, when the only missions they went on were busting drug deals and recruiting new mutants, it was the waiting that drove Marin crazy. The not-knowing but anticipating the action. It was somehow worse, now, because she knew that the threat was far greater than petty drug dealers and mutant adolescents.

She could feel the energy bubbling inside her, fritzing her nerves. She felt jittery, her exposed skin buzzing like an active wire. She jumped up, pacing, trying to calm herself down.

As she went to turn, she bumped into a body, startling her and almost making her energy flash. “Jesus, Parker!”

“Sorry!” He jumped back, avoiding her skin. That stung, even though she knew it was probably the most logical reaction. Still, irrationally hurt by his recoil, she wrapped her arms protectively around her chest, tucking her trembling hands beneath her underarms.

Realizing his error, he automatically reached out, grabbing onto her triceps with firm, steady hands. His grip grounded her, the warmth of his skin somehow permeating both the metallic fabric of his suit and the lycra-type microparticles of hers. Almost immediately, Marin felt herself steadying.

She reflexively uncrossed her arms as she stared into Peter’s eyes, which were darkened with worry. “Mare, you all right?”

Not bothering to hide it, she exhaled, shaking her head minimally. “No, I don’t think so.”

He pulled her into him, folding her into his embrace. Marin, now just short enough, tucked her head under Peter’s chin, resting her cheek on the cooled metal spanning his chest. She wrapped her arms solidly around his waist. Through the suit, she could feel the steady, strong beat of his heart, and the two of them stayed silent, allowing themselves to revel in the comfort of a familiar pair of arms.

After a moment, when her breathing steadied, and she could feel Peter’s heart to quicken just slightly, they pulled away slowly.

“Better?” Peter asked, searching her eyes, tone free of any vanity that would have sounded in anyone else’s mouth.

Marin nodded, eyes roaming idly over his face. It’d been so long since she’d been this close to Peter, and she could see some of the changes in his expression, where she couldn’t see in the darkness of the ship. He had a darker smattering of freckles, his eyes creased only slightly where his skin folded when he smiled. He didn’t look old, like with wrinkles, but his face showed a new sense of maturity she hadn’t noticed before; where there was a subtle roundness in his cheeks, skin stretched tighter over bone, exposing sharper cheekbones and a stronger jaw. She noticed the muscle in his jaw clench, his thin lips moving over teeth like he was chewing on words he couldn’t bring himself to say. His hair was longer, it flowed from his head in waves like a sea of melted chocolate, curling slightly where it wrapped behind his slightly stuck-out ears. She remembered when they seemed too big for his head, but they suited him now, only a little noticeable as they framed his chiseled face.

The only thing that remained completely unchanged were his eyes. Honey brown and so expressive; she could read every emotion that flashed across them. Flecks of gold lined the darkness of the pupil, brightening the longer she looked into them.

Something rolled in her stomach as she studied him, aching like a cramp. Her chest ached like someone had taken her heart and gripped it tight, and she yearned to discover what exactly was making her feel this way. She’d never felt anything like it before—only something similar to when she remembered Lucy and James with an aching fondness, but this… this was twenty times stronger than that. It was like her soul was simultaneously being lit on fire and brushed by the frigid grip of liquid nitrogen.

She wasn’t sure what she would’ve said, but the words were squeezed out of her, “Pete, I—”

“Everyone into position!” Tony hollered, breaking Marin and Peter out of their shared trance. They reluctantly backed away from each other, only seeming to come to attention at the realization that this was it. There was no more waiting, no more anticipation.

Thanos was coming.

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theonewiththefanfics · 7 years

Text

The One That Got Away (part 9)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 10

Part 11

Part 12- END

Pairing: Cassian x Reader; Platonic!Poe x Reader

Genre: still angst, have no idea when Imma give ma babies a break, but it’s looking up a bit... I think...

Warnings: some sexy time implications, other than that I don’t think there is anything else

Word count: 2386

Y/N was exhausted when she came to consciousness. Her body went to slump forward from the vertical stance it was in but found to be unable. Her hands, legs and even her neck was restrained by metal clamps. Her sight was blurry but slowly bit by bit it went back to normal and her breath hitched as she realised where she was. The wast galaxy outside and the Dreadnought in front of her told Y/N as much. A voice from behind startled the girl as she strained to see, yet the restrains didn’t allow for pretty much any movement at all. Though there was really no need for sight. That voice would haunt her for the rest of her life, no matter if it was minutes, hours or decades. “I thought I’d have to wake you up, but I do have to commend, you have perfect timing.” Kylo Ren stood in front of her. There was almost like glee shining through his face, which was a strange sight. He came to stand right next to her ear. “See that planet over there?” his long gloved finger extended and her eyes took in a brownish green planet. Kylo didn’t say anything for a while, letting her figure things out on her own. It took Y/N a hot minute. Her brain felt fuzzy and she couldn’t really gather thought but then it dawned on her- Yavin4. “No,” a breath filled with panic and terror and anger escaped the girl, a tear already splashing on her tunic. “Please, don’t. You have what you wanted, you have me, please.” Kylo only chuckled in response. “I don’t want you. I wanted you to stand beside me as we ruled the galaxy. I would’ve thought you the ways of the Force, but just like the other girl Rey, you’re just too far into the Light. The only thing I want from you now is to watch you crumble as you witness everyone you care about perish. All.. because… of you..” The tears continued to slip down her face in a steady stream but her eyes were only filled with rage. She felt hot from the anger, her body trembling. Kylo leaned in closer to her face and traced the jagged scar from her neck to her collarbones.

“But before we do all of that,” he pushed a lever making the chair spin around. Y/N eyes widened in horror as she saw Cassian chained up to the wall, “there is someone here who’d like to say goodbye.” “Rot in Hell,” the captain spat. “Wouldn’t have expected your last words for Y/N to be those, but I guess we’ll have to do with what we have.” The Supreme Leader pushed the lever once again and Y/N snapped back into the previous position. She couldn’t wrap her mind around why Cassian was there. She’d left him by the ship, she messed with his mind, so that he hated her, but it looked like Kylo saw the confusion. “There is more to mastering the control of a mind than simply saying a command once. It takes years of practice to make a decision you’ve made stick.” And then it dawned on her- he didn’t actually hate her. She had failed. Y/N didn’t know when he’d broken the illusion, but he’d done it and now Cassian would die because of it. No. Horror hit her like a wave once again. He wouldn’t die, it wouldn’t be that easy, Kylo wouldn’t give that kind of mercy, he’d be tortured and she would be able to only listen and not do anything. He once again came to stand next to her, his breath fanning over her ear, hairs on the nape of her neck standing up. “Anything you want to say to your love?” “Rot. In. Hell.” “Hmm,” he mused, “pity. I had hoped for something a bit more heartfelt. But fine so be it.” “General Hux,” the large man called to someone behind, “tell the Dreadnought to load their cannons and obliterate the Resistance.” “Yes, Supreme Leader.” Y/N kept her gaze on the galaxy outside. She had had enough time to let Poe and Jyn and the rest of Rogue One alert the Resistance of the mole, yet Y/N had no idea how much time had passed since. She didn’t know if they were on their way to somewhere else, somewhere safe or still on the surface of the planet soon to be blown to smithereens. “You could’ve saved all of them,” he cooed in her ear, “but now,” she saw the cannons glow orange as they charged, “you doomed them all to death.” And then it fired. It took a few seconds for the beams to reach the earth, but when it did nothing but dust and smoke and flame rose up. Y/N clenched her jaw and willed herself to not scream. She may cry and shake, but she would not give that monster the satisfaction of showing any other emotion. She could hear Cassian’s ragged breathing behind her. His friends, his home… their home was now gone. “I will kill you with my bare hands,” he seethed. “Too bad you won’t be alive to do so,” Kylo Ren replied so nonchalantly it was like he was making dinner plans. “But you’ll be alive to see how I take everything from your precious, how did you call her? Mi Alma?” Cassian’s chains rattled as Y/N could imagine how he was trying to pull towards her. “And when I’ve taken almost everything she has,” he once again turned towards the girl, “I’ll make you watch him die. And you won’t be able to even lift a finger.” Right that second the same pain she’d felt before Kylo’s landing on Crait rippled through her head. Y/N tried to contain the scream, but in a matter of a second it became so intense she felt like her mind was burning from the inside out. Like listening through water she thought she heard Cassian scream, but Y/N wasn’t sure about it. Her own shrill voice overpowered all of her senses. Kylo started with taking her power. The power to control the Force and once again that soul-shredding blade rippled in waves throughout her whole body. From the tips of her short hair to the ridges in her tippy toes, white-hot razors split her from the inside out. It scraped off one atom thin layer and then it went on and on and on. Y/N lost track of time completely. The only indication that it was passing was the rubble from Yavin4 floating through space. Had it passed? How much had gone by? There was only non stop ringing in her ears and her hoarse voice echoing through the room. The only thing now familiar to her was pain. And when she thought it couldn’t get worse it did. The man went inside her mind, her memories and shredded them. He looked through every crevice and nook violating the moments that only she and Cassian had shared, the intimate time where they were tangled together in kisses and pleasure. Every sweet moment and every fight that had ended up once again under the bedsheets curled up, the grips of both rebels tightening on each other to never let go, every good an bad piece he took a sledgehammer to. He took away all the happiness that had come with racing Poe during a battle, BB-8’s worried beeps echoing through space and their comms, while Leia scolded both commanders, yet you could hear that hint of a smile as she reprimanded them. Or laughing with Rey about Finn’s naivety, while the man clearly wanted to ask the fellow Force-sensitive girl out, yet had no clue on how to actually do that. Y/N having to step in, to give Finn a talk, that it wasn’t as scary and Rey would be happy to just stay in their quarters and do nothing if he asked her so. That, he burned up until it was ash caught in a breeze. Kylo obliterated the warmth she felt while spending time with Chirrut and Baze, how they had discussed books together and wondered what was beyond the starts they had already explored. He mercilessly extinguished every ounce of love Leia and Han had given her, how they had become her parental figures, even scolding the girl like she was their own daughter. The moments with Chewie and Rose, how they had played Dejarik and laughed their asses off when none wanted to do their actual jobs- he filled them with coldness and anger. Y/N’s girl talks with Jyn, their movie nights spent together talking about nothing and everything- he pulled them apart until it was just like the rubble of what once was her home. Sweet Bodhi and their talks Y/N had shared with him under the night sky, where both had told their secrets and fears and always reassured each other that no matter what, there was someone at the other side of the galaxy who wished for their safe return. All of that was wiped away like chalk under the rainy sky. Her sassy talks with K-2SO, that when gotten heated even Jyn and Cassian walked out of the room because the possibility of instruments flying went from zero to a hundred real quick. But even then there was never anything malicious between the droid and Y/N, he was just being protective of his captain and liked to push the girls buttons- that was frozen like ice and smashed into tiny sharp pieces that grazed her skin cutting invisible scars with the feeling of how good things used to be. All of that gone now because of her. Y/N felt like there was nothing in her anymore. She wasn’t even a shell of a person, she was a ghost of a shell. The girl felt like if you shone a light on her, it would go right through her body as on the inside there was nothing left. Nothing of the stubborn girl madly in love with a captain that was her perfect match. “Oh, don’t give up just now,” the amount of strength she had to put in just to flit her eyes up to Kylo almost made her throw up, “we’re just now getting to the good part.” He looked over the metal chair to where Cassian was. Y/N tried to say “no”, whisper it, but only an intangible groan escaped the girl’s lips. “You got everyone in this situation, now you have to face the consequences,” his fingers traced the large scar once again, but before he could make one step towards Cassian she could vaguely hear people approaching. To her, it felt like her ears were stuffed with cotton. She saw Kylo lift his hand up in what she could only imagine being a Force-choke and she wished to be in that lucky bastard’s place. The conversation let like it lasted for hours yet it was only minutes. Y/N was so weak. She felt blood dripping down her chin from he nose. Breathing took up almost everything she had; just to pull in another breath and then exhale set her lungs on fire. Bits and pieces of the conversation flooded towards her. Pilot… Resistance… X-Wing... General… Hux… Message… Personal… Urgent… Request… Someone starts coughing… It all mushed together, yet Kylo’s breath against her neck sent up a shiver of pain. “I will return, so you better save up some strength…” Y/N’s head lolled forwards as Kylo stepped out of the room. She was exhausted and frankly on the verge of just giving up. Tears slipped down her cheeks at the thought of never seeing Cassian again, or never racing Poe in the midst of a battle, or trying to best Finn in a drinking game. She always won, the boy was such a lightweight. The two white figures that she could only assume where the Stormtroopers that had come to deliver the message and now were appointed to guard them entered the room, one of them stepping next to the girl’s restrained body, crouching down by her legs. She could feel her heartbeat slowing down as blood trickled down in a steady stream, her mind felt like it was in shambles after Kylo had taken everything from her. He’d destroyed what happy memories she’d had and now Y/N felt nothing but emptiness. The Force was calling to her, to let it all go, promising that the pain would end and she could return to where everything came from in peace and resolve. Her eyes slipped closed and her breathing turned shallow. She pulled out one last memory, the one she’d hidden from Kylo with everything in her- the first time Cassian had kissed her. How his lips had been surprisingly soft and gentle against hers and how for the first time in her life she felt like there was nothing missing. This one, this one belonged just to her and no one else. Y/N opened her eyes for the last time, to look at the galaxy beyond the glass, but there in front of her was Cassian. She knew he wasn’t, not really. He was still chained up to the wall behind, escape for him was nonexistent. But she was glad to see him, cause if there was any chance of looking at the man her heart belonged to if only for a second, then there was no better way of letting go of life. And just as she slipped into the blissful darkness, her arms and legs were released only for her body to be gently picked up by strong hands and a featherlight kiss to be placed on her forehead. “Don’t you dare leave me, mi Amor. Don't give up on us. We're so close... Fight…”

Tags (crossed out couldn’t be tagged, sorry loves, don’t know why :( ): @irreplaceable-spacexual @chunkymonky11 @paulinka97 @thechandlerbingdance @sweetimagines @redhairedoddity @bookishaficionado @gigglesforme @nerdy-98 @captainpxe @yana-yana-meow @aseasyasdeanspie @thebi-valkyrieofvalhalla

A/N: am I... am I actually working and being productive???? Welp with uni things no, but meh, who cares :D

P.S. if you have any requests or wanna be tagged drop a message

P.S.S. feedback is always appreciated :)

P.S.S.S please don’t repost without credit :))

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so-fi-fi · 7 years

Text

Gereng Week 2017- Resurface

My second entry of @gereng-week is here! Be prepared though, this one is LONG compared to my last entry. Get some snacks and settle down!

Honestly, my thought process with this was as follows: resurface- resurfacing from water- water- MERMAIDS!!

So yeah, this is a fic that involves that stuff is what I’ll say ;)

Please enjoy!

EDIT: ok I don’t know why this didn’t show up but now there’s an under the cut. ugh im sorry for anyone who had to scroll through all of this it’s finally working now, although i cant seem to make it work for mobile so sorry in advance >>

It was a perfect day on the English coast; the sun shined, breaking through the clouds amidst a blue sky. It’s warmth was chilled by the wind that whipped through the rocky cliffs, billowing and blowing. Seafaring birds squawked overhead, landing on the rocks, checking their nests.

Arthur watched them, padding along the sand against the gentle waves. This was his absolute favorite spot to frequent, away from the crowdedness of his normal life. Plus, it served to fuel Arthur’s desire to study the ocean, to learn more about it. Ever since he took up a job working on a ship as a lad, the sea was something he became fascinated with. Despite the backbreaking labor and meager pay, Arthur had always looked forward to boarding the ship, feeling the breeze caressing his hair and salt spray filling his nose.

Now, as man, he could pursue this hobby more acutely. A dusty satchel slung over his shoulder, carrying multiple objects like magnifying glasses, dusters, and his pair of shoes that he’d put on once he left. In one hand, Arthur held a notepad, open and ready to be used once he found something to observe. He flipped through it absentmindedly, looking over some notes he took last week; shells and things that washed up on shore. Arthur tipped his head back, breathing in deeply, a slow smile curling on his lips. This must be the greatest he’s ever felt! Such unbridled freedom, his own world hidden away by sheer rock cliffs on all sides. Away from the blandness of society, the drab of work and hardship.

Watching the sand again, Arthur hummed as he spotted a particularly intricate shell resting between the dunes. Picking it up gently, he brushed his fingers over the smooth, jagged surface. He eyed it for a moment, before pulling a pencil from his pocket, balancing his notebook on his forearm so as not to drop the precious discovery. Arthur began walking absentmindedly forward over the beach again.

He didn’t pay attention to where he was going, feet shuffling over the sand, too engrossed in his notes to notice the terrain become slightly rocky. Turning to the side, Arthur stopped for a moment, holding the shell up and scrutinizing it against the sunlight. A sudden glint caught his attention in his peripheral vision, and Arthur turned his head instinctively towards the flash. Surely, it must be a trinket long forgotten, only now unearthed by the beating of the waves. Glancing at whatever it was without much thought, he returned his attention back to the shell.

Wait.

Arthur snapped his head around, neck complaining at the sheer force, taking in just what the hell he was seeing. His entire body froze, muscles tensed, and it felt like an entire bucket of icy water was just dumped- no, slammed over him.

Someone was stretched out on one of the rocks, lying on his stomach and basking in the sun. Except, Arthur realized it wasn’t someone, but something. From the waist down, a tail adorned with luminous scales curled lazily on the sandy stone, flippers slapping lightly against it with what must have been contentment. Gaze tracing back up and over the dorsal fin that protruded from the spine, Arthur saw that even the part of the creature which should have been human had otherworldly features; Translucent fins ran along the sides of his arms, the same appendages frilling from beneath his pale hair taking the place of ears, and a nose that seemed flatter and less prominent than normal. Yet despite the oddities, Arthur found himself entranced, eyes unable to break away from the glittering scales, sky blue and blinking underneath the light. Were they changing colors? Or was that just his disbelieving mind playing tricks on him?

Nonetheless, the situation finally dawned on him, and a fierce gasp ripped itself from Arthur’s chest. The sharp noise immediately alerted the creature to his presence, who let out a startled noise of his own, jolting up in surprise. Eyes wide and fearful, staring into Arthur’s for a split second, he scrambled off the stone, powerful tail propelling him into the water and out of sight.

“Wait wait wait- don’t go!” Arthur tripped over his own words, flingy all his possession to the ground and sprinting into the shallows.

Fear is what caused him to halt once the tide reached his knees, and he stared hopelessly into the water .

“Come back! I didn’t mean to scare you!” He cupped his hands over his mouth, voice reverberating across the ocean and up the cliff walls. Minutes passed with no sign of blue scales, and Arthur’s hands dropped in defeat at his sides; the waves he shouted at were empty.

Breath shaking, his legs gave out under the weight of pure adrenaline, falling to kneel and not giving a damn about his soaked clothing. Even if he could swim, pursuing the creature would be highly impractical, with his legs suited for land as they were. Arthur leans down and splashes salt water in his face, hissing as it stung his eyes, trying to bring himself out of whatever sick dream he was having. But when they reopened, there was no comforting pressure of the blankets in his bed, only the teasing calls of gulls. Arthur almost laughed at the ridiculousness of it all. He could hardly believe it, convinced since young that they were just a silly fairy tale, yet look what just happened.

He had just seen a merman.

Every week, Arthur returned to that same spot. Gathering whatever interesting things he could find, he plopped himself down on the rock the merman had been, and took his notes there. Every so often, his eyes would flicker to the waves gently crashing and undulating, hoping to see light hair and eyes resurface from their depths. Sometimes his brain would deceive him, a stray reflection on the waters making his heart jump in excitement, only to plummet back down to earth realising that it was just that: a stray reflection. Even with these frustrations, Arthur held steadfast, keeping this religious schedule on point, never faltering.

Soon, a full month had passed, the days trudging on. Arthur felt as if he were dragging his feet in the sand, feeling so lethargic from the disappointment. It must have all been a figment of his imagination, he was sure of it, sat there for another day without the encounter he so desired. He was wasting his time, wasn’t he? Letting this false apparition plague his life and warp it into a constant waiting game for nothing. Yet Arthur couldn’t move past it. All he could see was that merman stretched out on the rocks like a cat, peaceful and beautiful. The image wouldn’t let Arthur go, forcing him to continue on in his hopeless endeavour.

Arthur sighed, resting his chin in his hand, elbow propped up on his knee, watching the ocean unblinking. How many times had it been now? Was this the twentieth time? The thirtieth? Arthur didn’t know, he had honestly lost track. His chest puffed as he sighed again, even deeper this time, leaning his head down to rub the hand under his chin across his eyes in exasperation. In that moment, he was filled with so much frustration and despair, that Arthur was about to slam his notebook closed and march away from the beach. But when his hand dropped down again, something caught his attention among the waves.

No… it couldn’t be. Arthur didn’t dare to hope, hardly trusting himself to not be fooled by another object posing to be what he sought. Yet when he looked again, there it was.

A shadow was floating in perfect buoyancy underwater a little ways off to the side of the shore, facing him as if trying to watch without being seen. But Arthur has seen it now, and he knows exactly what it is. Or really, who it is.

Unable to contain his joy, Arthur darts up from where he was slouched, scooting closer to the shadow, and is immediately detected. It flees instantly, swimming further out to sea and away from Arthur’s prying gaze, but this time, he didn’t mind. Instead, Arthur whoops in triumph, flopping onto his back and ignoring the pain caused by its collision with the stone underneath. His laugh is genuine now, cheeks becoming sore as his face is stretched by a wide grin, staring into the sky and feeling an elation like no other. This wasn’t just a wild goose chase now, and he wasn’t crazy. Well, scratch that, he must be a tiny bit out of it for even giving this scenario the time of day, but Arthur found he really didn’t care a single bit.

He was relieved to notice that when he returned again, the shadow did too.

It went on like that for a couple weeks, with Arthur working amongst the rocks while the merman watched in hiding, obviously too wary to reveal himself yet. Arthur pretended to be too engrossed in his notes, when really he was fully aware of the presence below. Each time he visited, the shadow inched closer and closer to his perch. Arthur had to tense his muscles, reign in his excitement and restrain himself from full on flinging himself into the water, inability to swim be damned. He chuckled at that flippant idea. He’d probably drown.

Those weeks passed in silence and relative tranquility, just him and his very hidden, very nervous friend. It was around when spring began in full swing, days becoming warmer, that this pattern finally changed.

Arthur had his nose in his notebook as usual, when he heard a slight shift in the water below. Looking down to the source of the sound, his stomach backflipped. Two striking eyes, the same ones he’d hoped to see again, were above the water’s surface. They pierced him with an emotion Arthur couldn’t quite place. He could only stare into them, frozen like a deer caught in headlights, mouth slightly agape. The merman let out a puff of air, bubbles popping in the water, before his head submerged again. Arthur blinked, taken aback. Did he just…scoff? Such an expressive action, and from a creature that had been acting nothing but timid?

He didn’t see the merman the rest of his time there. But when Arthur returned a couple days later, sitting down on his usual spot, the head immediately surfaced like before.

The merman continued to watch him, silently observing. Arthur really couldn’t concentrate, not with that fierce gaze burning him. He wasn’t looking, feigning ignorance, but it was impossible to work when he felt like he was being dissected. Arthur only registered an intake of air before he could prepare himself for what happened next.

“Why you still come here?”

Arthur had to double take, hand jotting down notes stilling. He looked around, wondering who that could’ve been, when a flash of heat overtook him at the realization of who had just spoken.

His eyes slowly fall on the ones peering from the water.

“Did… Was that… you can talk?” Arthur was hesitant. Couldn’t quite believe what was happening.

The merman looked pointedly off to the side, then back at Arthur.

“Answer question” was the sharp response he provided, brows lowering.

Arthur’s jaw fell slack, but he quickly shook off his surprise when he saw the merman grow crosser.

“Um, well, I like to come out here. Find things I like and write things I notice about them down,” he trails off a bit, wondering if he was even understood, “but if you’d rather me leave, I can.”

Sinking lower into the waves, the merman looked contemplative. “No. It is okay. I am just confuse.”

Arthur felt more relieved than he would’ve admitted, glad that he wouldn’t be kicked out just yet. Now, that he was past the initial shock of this creature being capable of speech (even though it was halting and broken), Arthur actually took in what his voice was like. It was deeper than he’d thought it’d be, a low rumble from his chest. It had a heavy accent to it, although Arthur couldn’t pinpoint exactly where it came from, perhaps one from their original language? He didn’t know.

“Not like other humans,” the merman shot, borderline accusing, “humans not come here, always alone. You do a lot. Not bring others, not bring sharp things or boats. Just stay there on rock with…” his hand reached out of the water, pointing at the notebook Arthur held. Arthur noticed the fine webbing between each finger.

“The… the…”

Arthur watched as the merman’s face contorted in concentration as he tried to forms the words.

“Notebook,” He leaned forward, holding out the object so the other could see, “It’s something that you write in.” Arthur made a motion with his hand against the paper, pantomiming writing incase the merman didn’t understand.

“Oh.” The merman looked over it for a moment, then leaned back in the water, far off in thought. “Note-book… okay.”

A comfortable silence settled in, and Arthur cleared his throat, deeming the merman calmed down enough for him to ask what he wanted to earlier.

“May I ask how exactly you learned to speak my language? It’s fascinating, really.”

That same look of concentration returned. “I listen to humans talk at ports, that is how I learn. But I know better language of humans by seas east of here. My family talk to me in that language since young, so I know if am hunted.”

“Wow…” Arthur breathed in utter fascination. There was not just this one merperson, but more, entire families, teaching each other, learning, systems hidden underneath the deep blue of the ocean. It was unlike anything he’d ever dreamed.

He realized suddenly, that he hadn’t introduced himself yet. How rude!

“My name is Arthur, by the way.” He patted his hand against his chest, then gestured it towards the other. “I assume you must have one to, can you tell me what it is?”

“My name…?” The merman slinked into the waves again. It must be a nervous habit of his, Arthur mused. He looked thoroughly uncomfortable. “I never tell a human my name… You not understand sounds we make. But…”

His eyes narrowed, until he grasped something tangible to say. “Where I come from, there is name I heard humans say. I like how it sounds, I guess you can use it… It is Ludwig.”

Huh. Arthur tips his head, looking at the merman- no, at Ludwig. He definitely must have lived farther east in the North Sea, with a name like that. Arthur quite liked it.

“Well Ludwig, I’ll propose something to you,” He gave the other a wry grin, “If you allow me to keep coming back here, I can teach you more about my language, about my world- that is, if you want to.”

Ludwig tensed once again, the earlier calmness evaporated. “You just bring more humans. Hunt me. I know it.”

“No! I’d never do that.” Arthur shook his head fiercely, appalled by the very idea of it. “I’ll never reveal you to other people. I want to be friends with you, not cause you harm. You’ll be safe with me, you have my word.”

At that, Ludwig tilted his head. “My word?” He echoed, not understanding the figure of speech.

“Yes,” Arthur chuckled, finding it endearing. “It means you can count on me, that I promise.”

A long silence passed, Ludwig outwardly conflicted at the decision he had to make, until he finally looked up again.

“Alright, Arthur.”

His name was mangled and butchered on the other’s lips, but somehow that made it all the better.

Now when Arthur returned to that beach every so often, it was with a hop in his step. Joining Ludwig by the rocks felt like entering a whole other world, one of endless possibilities and wonder. The merman would float in the water beside him, listening as Arthur relayed what he had written, and watch as he took down fresh notes. Occasionally Ludwig would ask questions, curious about the trinkets Arthur had found on the beach, human objects that were foreign to him. He was always ecstatic to answer, teaching Ludwig bit by bit.

As for the shells, that was where Ludwig taught Arthur in exchange. He had a vast knowledge on a wide variety of them, explaining where he had seen them on the ocean floor. Arthur would listen intently to his limited english, rapidly jotting down what he said, eager to learn anything he could.

On one of these visits, Arthur showed Ludwig a particular shell, and he gasped.

“I know these! Not too far from here. I know where they are. You should swim with me there and you can take some, yes?”

Arthur’s mood immediately turned sour. He placed the shell down and wrung his hands together, unable to look at Ludwig’s excited expression.

“Um, well, I don’t know.” He dodged the question, not wanting to reveal the fact that he couldn’t swim out of shame. “I think I’ll stay put. You can get some if you want.”

Ludwig frowned, but didn’t press it. “I go alone then. Stay put.” He mimicked Arthur’s words before flitting away.

Arthur smiled, but it was hollow, too disappointed in himself.

After a while, Arthur started bringing books as well, deciding it would help Ludwig pick up english faster. He would read out loud, glancing every so often at the other, who would rest his chin on crossed arms against the rocks, eyes wide with wonder. Ludwig asked questions about what came up in the books too, gently interrupting Arthur every couple of minutes. One of his favorite memories of this, Arthur laughs to himself as he thought of it, was when he had to explain marriage to the confused merman.

“Wait, humans put a- it is called a ring?”

“Yes, Ludwig, it’s called a ring.”

“Humans put a ring on their finger to show they are in marriage?”

Arthur chuckled, loving the way he worded things. “Exactly. It’s to signify the bond.”

“Why can’t you remember? Human memory is really so bad, you need a ring?”

“I guess you can say that.” Arthur grins as Ludwig’s bafflement only grew.

Eventually, Arthur began talking about himself, his own life, as Ludwig started to prod more and more. He focused the most on his time working on the ship, and revealed how it was the origin for his love of the ocean. Ludwig seemed very pleased when Arthur described it to him, listening intently to every word. Arthur only thought it was fair that since he had talked so much about himself, that Ludwig should do the same. So, he started inquiring as well, interested to hear how the merman had lived previously.

Although he was reclusive, Ludwig eventually opened up and talked about his family, albeit not in great detail. Arthur found out that he had been raised by a brother from youth, that he never knew his parents.

“He is the one who taught me language of the humans.” Ludwig’s lips twitched into a smile as he talked, one that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Why did you decide to come up north, then? Didn’t you want to stay with him?”

It was a question asked in innocent curiosity, but Arthur didn’t miss the way Ludwig’s face darkened. He immediately got the hint.

“Actually nevermind. If you’re not comfortable you don’t have to answer that.” Arthur was quick to go into damage control, mentally kicking himself for not being more considerate.

“It is alright.” Ludwig answered, monotonous. He looked away, hiding his face. “I think I will go early today.”

Arthur sighed, really wishing he had kept his mouth shut.

Luckily, that altercation didn’t affect their relationship. When he saw Ludwig next, the merman was as bright eyed as he’d been before, showing no sign that he had lost trust in him.

Thus their ritual carried on as usual. Arthur continued to come to the rocks, and Ludwig continued to resurface from the water without fail. This easy rhythm really started to grow on Arthur, who found himself lost in thought most of the time about what he would bring next, or just simply daydream.

That’s where he ended up now, at his desk in the small bank he worked at, hand propping up his head as he stared off into space.

There was a sharp snicker from his side.

“So, who’s the lucky girl?”

Arthur turned, snapped out of his daze to see his coworker, Hannah, shooting him a sly grin, eyebrows quirked.

“Excuse me?”

“Oh, please! You know exactly what I’m talking about!”

“Really, I’m afraid I don’t.”

Hannah sighed, exasperated. “Arthur, you look like you have one of cupid’s arrows shoved up your arse. So c’mon! Tell me! Who is she?”

Internally, Arthur completely blanched, but managed to keep a cool exterior. “Oh no. No- it’s nothing like that. Just lost in thought.” He grinned, playing it off with humor, although the heat that slowly crawled up his neck didn’t help his case.

“Lost in thought, huh? Seems like you’ve been lost in thought a lot these days.”

Jesus- If her lips curled anymore, her face might break. Might as well just ignore her, so Arthur just rolled his eyes playfully and put his attention elsewhere.

But when Arthur really stopped to think about it… Did he give off that impression? When people looked at him, was it so obvious to tell? Arthur hadn’t been thinking of a woman, or anything romantic in the slightest. He had just been replaying the image of how Ludwig looked the day before-

Oh.

Well, that couldn’t mean anything. A misunderstanding is all it was, nothing more.

Those intruding thoughts were already shoved to the back of Arthur’s subconscious by the time he left his job that day. He returned home briefly, slipping on some more comfortable clothing; trousers and a loose shirt, then grabbed his satchel by the door. Before making the journey down to the beach, Arthur strolled through town to a local fishmonger. He’d made a habit of bringing fish for Ludwig after the merman revealed how he didn’t have a steady source of food at the moment. He had of course assured that it was no big deal, but Arthur’s mind was set when Ludwig chewed into a gold necklace he brought to show the other, metal denting underneath powerful jaws.

Arthur entered the pescatary now, bell above the door joyfully announcing his arrival. The owner’s eyes lit up behind the counter at seeing him.

“Arthur! Back once again I see! The usual?”

“The usual!”

“Perfect!” He laughed, setting to work on the order. A hearty and welcoming man, he treated customers as friends and family.

Arthur waited patiently for the fish to be packaged, fiddling with a loose button on his jacket.

“Say, lad, you’ve been buying so much fish now. Why’s that?” The man asked Arthur inquisitively, genuine curiosity while he continued to work.

“Oh, um…” Arthur rubbed the back of his neck, “A friend of mine added more fish to his diet. He’s pretty busy so I offered to do the shopping for him.” Phew, that smooth lie seemed pretty believable.

And believable it was. The owner shot him a quick smile. “Ah, sounds like you’re a good friend.”

“I hope I am.”

The package of fish was presented to him, and Arthur quickly paid for it, stuffing it into his satchel.

“You have a good day now!”

Arthur gave the owner a small wave in response to his jovial parting call, pushing past the door and leaving the small shop, eager to go back to that beach.

On his way, he began to contemplate the situation he was in. People were starting to notice that something was different about him, which meant that Arthur had changed somehow. He didn’t get it. What did they see? Could they detect something? Could they worm their way into his head and watch his thoughts like a reel of film? It made Arthur anxious to think about that, briefly wondering if he was putting Ludwig in danger. If someone was determined enough, they could follow him down to the rocks and discover the merman. He doesn’t know how he’d ever live with himself, if he broke that promise to Ludwig, if he couldn’t keep him safe.

However, fretting about possible events wouldn’t stop them from coming to pass. Better to not think about it. Although, Arthur made a mental note to be mindful of how he came off, to try and be more discrete from now on.

When he returned to their spot, sandy rocks looking the same as ever, he whistled sharply and called Ludwig’s name.

It took about a minute before his head appeared out of the ocean, blonde hair sticking to his forehead, frills twitching; thing’s that Arthur had come to love.

Arthur grins, unwrapping the packaged fish and taking one out, holding it up high and waving the tasty treat.

Ludwig’s eyes crinkled, his smile hidden by the water, and submerged again. Arthur took this as a cue, winding up before chucking the fish into the air. In a flurry of water and power, Ludwig breached, tail shining and catching the light making a wonderful display. He snatched the fish, teeth sinking into it with a mighty snap, turning in midair as he fell back into the waves. Arthur laughed, a bit wet from the splashes the show produced, but thoroughly amused, clapping his hands.

Walking closer, Arthur resumed his usual position. He watched, waiting for the to finish eating. Ludwig came back to the surface, staring at him for a moment, and then his muscles tensed. He propelled himself once again, springing onto the rocks next to Arthur, clinging to the smooth edges to stable himself. He found a comfortable position, tail resting down the side and trailing into the water.

Arthur was glad; he always enjoyed when Ludwig joined him like this. The merman’s physique was still so awe inspiring, even after all this time. He had noticed more features, little details that he hadn’t seen before, like how the underside of Ludwig’s tail was lighter than the top. The fins along the backs of his arms as well as the frills on the sides of his head could move and swivel independently, and closed like fans when not in use. It seemed that he was doing the same to Arthur now, gaze flitting up and down the expanse of his body.

“I apologize for getting you wet.” Ludwig nodded towards the wet spots on Arthur’s shirt.

“Oh, don’t worry about it. I don’t mind.” Arthur shot back, waving the apology away.

They began talking about innocuous things, a quiet back and forth. Arthur was quite impressed hearing the merman speak. Ludwig’s english had matured in leaps and bounds during their months together, and now he could form full sentences, sounding at ease when he spoke. His vocabulary had become more advanced from all the books he heard read aloud, so much so that Arthur was considering bringing down some paper and pencils and attempt to teach Ludwig how to read and write. That would be a considerably high feat, but maybe it could be done; Ludwig seemed to be a quick learner. Anyway, currently something else came to Arthur’s mind. He wondered, with him having taught the merman to speak better english, could it be possible for him to pick up Ludwigs language too? Arthur remembered Ludwig’s comment from long ago, about him not being able to comprehend the sounds that they make. But, hey, it’s worth a try, right?

“Hey, Ludwig, why don’t you say some words in your language? I’d really like to learn some.” Arthur asked the merman, who looked a bit surprised in return.

“Well, you see, that is difficult. How we talk is not like the human concept of language. There are a series of sounds that communicate single things.” Ludwig explained, gesturing towards him. “I do not think you would be able to make these sounds.”

“I can try,” Arthur looked up at him, “please? I want to connect to this part of you.”

That won Ludwig over. Arthur saw triumphantly as the merman’s resolve crumbled under such words.

“Fine… but do not say I did not warn you.”

Ludwig thought for a second, and then breathed in through his nose. The sound that released from the base of his throat startled Arthur, who clasped a hand over his mouth, bursting into laughter. Ludwig was completely right, that was nothing like human language. What Ludwig did seemed closely related to dolphins, but certainly not english! It was a higher pitched clicking noise, different from the baritone he usually spoke in, foreign and strange to Arthur’s ears.

“No no,” Arthur cut himself off, placing his fingers on Ludwig’s forearm when he saw the ashamed look on his face, “I’m not laughing at you. It’s just- wow. You really weren’t kidding!”

Ludwig shook his head. “Yes, I was not. Anyway, that is what we do when greeting one another. Like a ‘hello’.”

Arthur gave a small “ah” and then pursed his lips. It was very outlandish, but maybe there was a way he could at least try to replicate those sounds, if only a little bit. Enough that Ludwig could understand him and the sentiment behind such an action.

“I think I know a way I could imitate you.”

The merman’s eyes widened. “Really? How so?”

He contemplated his plan once more, before saying “Can you repeat what you did, and slower this time?”

Ludwig obliged, chattering again, but at a much slower pace, stretching out each and every syllable.

Arthur concentrated on the sound; one long click, followed by three, rapid shorter ones. He played it over and over again, until it was an endless record in his mind. Once he grasped it enough, he placed the tip of his tongue to the roof of his mouth and pushed.

In doing this, Arthur was able to produce a clicking sound similar, but in no way the same as what Ludwig had done. He made that greeting noise back at the merman, feeling slightly embarrassed when he actually heard himself, how ridiculous he must seem.

But immediately, Ludwig gawked, mouth dropping open in what Arthur hoped was the good kind of disbelief.

“Um, was it okay?”

Ludwig’s expression went from utter shock to pure joy, and Arthur had never seen him so absolutely ecstatic like this.

“I-you-” Now Ludwig himself could barely speak, like he had just completely forgotten english. “I mean- it is not authentic, but I can understand you. It is more than okay, it is great.”

Arthur couldn’t suppress a wide smile of his own, his chest swelling with pride.

“I’m glad.”

Following this, Ludwig then agreed to teach Arthur some of the different chatters and what they meant. By the end, Arthur was able to understand and replicate the sounds for greeting, parting, friends, family, and mates. All the while they laughed and joked, a light atmosphere settling over them during such a relaxed moment. Arthur made fun of himself and how terrible he must sound, while Ludwig assured him that he’s definitely the same way in english.

The sun began to set, and it was with a heavy heart that Arthur realized he would have to go soon, leaving the merman for days to come. It made him yearn for something impossible, something that would never be reality. The boundaries between land and sea could never be crossed.

“You know…” Arthur breathed, deciding to voice these thought, “sometimes, I really wish I were a merman, too. That way, I wouldn’t have to be separated from the ocean.”

Or from you, Arthur silently added, but there was no way he could say that outloud just yet.

He felt Ludwig shift beside him, moving a bit closer, and he froze when he felt something press against the top of his head. Arthur glanced up from under his eyelashes, seeing Ludwig’s pale shoulder but no more, when he realised what was happening. The soft rub that followed only confirmed it; Ludwig was nuzzling him, nose buried into his hair. Despite his conscious raving about how wrong it was, Arthur closed his eyes and leaned into the touch.

“I do not know,” the vibrations of his voice sent a shiver down Arthur’s spine, “I think I like you like this, with two legs. I do not want you to change.”

It was simple and to the point, but to Arthur, it was the sweetest thing that anyone had ever said to him.

“I really wish you would swim with me.”

Arthur blinked, looking down at Ludwig where he floated. They were in the heat of summer, the sun’s rays unbearable, and Ludwig preferred to stay in the water all the time now, afraid of drying out. He tipped his head in confusion.

“Whenever I ask, you always come up with an excuse.” Ludwig frowned, brows furrowed.

Arthur just sighed. Looks like he couldn’t put this off any longer. It’s true, Ludwig had been asking him incessantly to join him in the ocean, and Arthur had brushed it off each and every time.

“It’s not an excuse that I’d be far too slow.”

“You know I do not have a problem with swimming slower.”

“Yes, but I can’t breathe underwater like you.”

“But you can hold your breath underwater.”

God, there was just no way out!

“Look, Ludwig…”

“If there is something wrong, you can tell me. I will not judge you.” He met Arthur’s eyes seriously. “I rather you tell me the truth.”

Arthur wished he would actually drown right then. Nonetheless, he was pinned into a corner, so might as well spill his guts.

“Well… the truth is I- basically I can’t… I can’t swim.”

He was going to just melt in embarrassment, wanting the cracks in the rocks to swallow him up. However, Ludwig didn’t look phased at all, perhaps even a little relieved.

“That is it?” He said lightly. “That is a relief. I thought by the way you were acting that it would be far worse, but this is no problem.

“No problem?!” Arthur couldn’t believe what he was hearing! Didn’t Ludwig understand the implication of the fact that he cannot swim? “Are you crazy?! I’ll drown!”

Ludwig just gave him an amused smile that was very uncharacteristic of him, really more of a smirk.

“Arthur. I am a merman. Your chances of drowning with me are very low.” He became more earnest as he continued. “I will hold onto you. You will be safe with me… you have my word.”

At hearing his own words from all those months ago being thrown back at him, something flared in Arthur that he couldn’t quite name. The fact that Ludwig remembered what he said, took it to heart, and used it to reassure him in turn spoke volumes. Unsaid emotions.

Safety.

He’d be putting his life at risk, but he’d be putting it at risk for Ludwig. That made all the difference.

“Fine, okay I’ll do it.” Arthur conceded, feeling better already as the merman’s whole body immediately brightened up. “But seriously, don’t let go of me.”

Ludwig nodded enthusiastically. “Of course.”

In order to save at least one layer of clothing from getting soaked, Arthur tugged off his shirt, folding it neatly and placing it on one of the stone. After this, he sat down once again, and shifted to the edge of the shoreline, legs dangling in the water. Ludwig swam up to him, holding his arms out.

“Okay, now just slide in and I will catch you.” He reassured.

Arthur breathed in and out, calming his nerves. He was determined. He would do this, take this leap of faith and push himself. Counting to three in his head, Arthur blocked out his instincts that screamed for him to run from the death trap that was the ocean.

On three, he slid off the rocks.

It was immediate. Arthur threw his arms around Ludwig’s neck, holding on with a vice like grip, fingers clawing into the skin of his back. He smashed his face into the other’s neck, feeling gills pressing against his cheek. Arthur didn’t dare to look around, to actually see the water he could feel lapping at him, teasing and begging him to let go, to drown in their depths. But then, another feeling interrupted the water; Ludwig’s arms wrapped securely around his waist, holding Arthur to his chest. With a soft swish of his tail, Ludwig pushed them away from the shore, and they began drifting along the waves.

Minutes passed, and suddenly, the water shifting around them was no longer menacing, but gentle. Arthur unstuck his face from the crook of Ludwig’s neck, turning his head only to gasp when he saw the wide expanse of the ocean. Ludwig was drifting on his back, natural buoyancy keeping them afloat, allowing Arthur to rest atop him. He picked his head up farther, looking around in awe at the sheer beauty of it all. Arthur snaps his gaze back to Ludwig’s, abruptly realizing how close their faces were, noses almost touching. Ludwig stared at him through lidded eyes, his smile small and soft, taking in his reaction to what was essentially his home. Unable to utter a single word, all Arthur could do was smile back, throat constricting and chest tightening. He released his arms from around the merman’s neck, letting them fall into the water, feeling it tug him, caress him.

“Can you hold your breath for me?” Ludwig’s voice gently rumbled.

Arthur was in a daze, couldn’t think straight, so all he did was nod and suck in air.

His eyes reflexively shut against the bite of salt water as Ludwig submerged them, scrunching fiercely. Though once they adjusted, Arthur peeked through one, and both eyes flew wide open. It took all his willpower to hold in another gasp to prevent him from losing his slowly depleting supply of oxygen.

A world sprung alive underneath him, vivacious and full of movement. Seaweed swayed at the bottom, reaching up with long fingers towards the sun that broke through the waves, dotting the seafloor with patterns of light. Fish swam among them, looking for food along the plants and rocks. And littered around the formations on the floor were shells, dozens of them, all different shapes and sizes. Each had something unique, that set itself apart from the others. It took Arthur’s breath away, which unfortunately, was literally happening. He tapped Ludwig’s shoulder, signalling that he needed to go back up. Even though he wished he could stare at them for hours, analyze each one, he knew it would be hard to do if he were dead.

They broke through the waves, Arthur panting and grateful for the air that once again filled his lungs. He glanced up again at Ludwig, who still had that damn look on his face.

“That was… amazing.” He murmured, not disconnecting his eyes from Ludwig’s own.

“I am happy to hear this. I knew you would like it.” Ludwig grinned sweetly in response. It made Arthur’s heart jump.

“Hm. This kind of makes me want to take you into town. Show you how humans live.” Arthur gave him a lopsided, lazy grin. “Though I’d have to carry you everywhere.”

Ludwig’s smile dampened a bit. “Yes, I cannot go with you. But I am grateful that you can at least come here.”

That was true, and Arthur was quite happy that he could too. His grin became delicate, genuine and pliant, full of fondness. He tucked his head underneath Ludwig’s chin, letting the ocean lull him.

“Though I must ask, if you can’t swim, why did you work on a boat?”

“ Oh, quiet!”

Arthur hadn’t seen a storm this big since he was younger. The weather stations had issued a warning for his area, stating that the ocean would be vicious due to the ferocity of the impending thunderstorm. He couldn’t see Ludwig the day it hit, having to hurry home and seek out shelter from the winds. All night he was cooped up, windows boarded, making sure none of the doors were open. Arthur knew he’d be fine, but he was a nervous wreck all throughout it anyway. All he could think of was Ludwig, out there alone, facing the full wrath of the storm. The warnings of the weathermen echoed in his ears.

The ocean will be particularly rough, so port towns are advised to keep indoors!

God, he was going to vomit, puke up everything he ate that day because he was so terrified for the merman. Arthur couldn’t get the image out of his head of Ludwig being smashed against the rocks they meet at, his element turning against him.

Eventually, the power went out, which Arthur had already prepared for. He took some candles up to bed and read a book by their light, hoping it would take his mind off of the merman’s safety. Arthur couldn’t concentrate on the words, no matter how hard he tried. The wind howling and banging against his windows, the thunder echoing in the distance, all were grave reminders of what was at stake. He just ended up reading the same passage again and again. Arthur threw the book onto his nightstand. He grabbed the candle, blowing it out before burying himself under the covers. Tossing and turning for hours, Arthur hardly got any sleep at all, mind always drifting back to that horrid worry. It was only from exhaustion that his eyes finally shut for good.

Dawn broke in eery silence; no violent sound of rain. Arthur bolted out of bed, throwing open his window to see the outside world. There was hardly any damage, only some downed trees, but the power was still out. Arthur frantically got dressed and ready for the day, going a mile a minute through his morning routine. He ran right out the door, not bothering to grab his satchel or anything. Luckily, his work had closed for a couple days due to the storm, so Arthur could run right where he wanted to go. And run he did, practically sprinting down to the secluded beach.

When he finally reached the familiar shore, he noticed the debris scattered about the sand, but the ocean was calm again. Jogging to the rocks, he stood atop them and shouted for Ludwig, each time growing more and more desperate. He called and called, but there was no sign of the merman. Arthur felt panic begin to settle in, starting to hyperventilate as his worst fears were coming true. Yet he continued to shout, willing Ludwig to hear him. Minute passed, but to no avail. It seemed the merman wasn’t here. Cold, hard fear crawled along his skin.

Suddenly, the water rippled, and Ludwig exasperatedly surfaced, giving Arthur an incredulous look. Arthur felt numb with relief.

“Arthur? What are you doing here so early? I was not expecting you, that is why I was not here.”

Arthur just couldn’t respond, and just flung himself off the rocks instead, practically jumping on top of Ludwig.

The merman made a surprised sound, yet embraced Arthur, who after the initial splash of water, wrapped every limb he could around the other.

“God, Ludwig. Are you okay? I was so worried about how you would fair in this storm. Please tell me you’re okay. You’re not hurt, are you?” The questions were rapid fired into Ludwig’s shoulder, and Arthur was pretty sure he didn’t catch any of that.

“What? Arthur I am okay. I was safe in my den last night. I could tell the storm was coming.” Ludwig still sounded confused, but he reassured Arthur, tone soft.

Besides the relief, which was immense, another feeling bubbled up. One that had been suppressed and ignored, but everything that had happened had led up to its realization, to this moment. Now it all made sense; how people saw his change in mood, the warmth he felt inside, and that crushing panic that ensued when Arthur thought Ludwig to be in danger. The waters were no longer murky. They were clear, and reflected the truth perfectly. Arthur now understood.

“Hey, Ludwig?” He asked slowly, raising his head from the other’s shoulder to look at him face to face.

“Yes?”

“Do you know what humans do to show someone they love them?” Arthur’s voice had gone low, barely reaching above a whisper.

“No, I do not.”

Arthur continued to stare, teetering on the edge, but then finally falling in and committing. It didn’t feel real, but he leaned in, neck craning, lips inching closer before finally touching Ludwig’s gently, brushing lightly against them. Only lasting a second, Arthur pulled back, not wanting to be too forward with him, for he’s obviously never dealt with this type of interaction.

Ludwig looked contemplative, running his tongue over his lips briefly, keeping his gaze on Arthur.

“That means… you love me?” He asked, tentative.

A smile graced Arthur’s face, elated. “Yes,” he whispered, “it means I love you.” Just saying it, finally admitting it, felt like a huge weight was lifted off his shoulders.

Ludwig’s eyes went wide, and then he leaned in, mimicking Arthur’s earlier action. The press of his lips a bit too hard, a bit awkward, but Arthur could honestly care less. He guided the other into an easy rhythm, softening the kiss, mouth pliable.

They parted, Arthur opening his eyes to see Ludwig’s pale blue ones boring into his own.

“Then that means I love you too.”

“Seriously! You gotta tell me! No way you didn’t NOT get a girlfriend!”

Hannah had her hands planted firmly on his desk, inserting herself into Arthur’s space and demanding an answer.

Arthur only sighed, twirling a pen in his hand, other one propping his chin up, a dreamy smile on his face. Really, he looked more like a schoolgirl than a grown man!

“You know what? I think I did.” He responded lightly, laughing as her mouth flew open.

“What?! Oh my god, you’re giving me the details right now!” She pounced on him, ripping him to shreds with her questions, and Arthur could only grin.

#gereng #gereng week #aph germany #aph england #hetalia #HOOO BOY #this is practically late but ya kno #ive been so busy lately #this is about 8000 words what have i done #ludwig beilschmidt #arthur kirkland #axis powers hetalia

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fullcanvas-blog · 7 years

Text

Les Petits Canards Jaunes

Sometimes sailing on tall ships ( or any ship for that matter) gets weird. Really weird. Im not talking about sea monsters and ghost ships ( thats another story all together) but sometimes things happen so unexpectedly out on the open ocean that defy all sense and logic- and without explanation. Ask a sailor. They’ll tell you.

The ship I was sailing on a couple years back had just left port in Europe, and was traveling north through the Baltic Sea. A gently breeze carried her through the water slowly, at about 4 knots (5mph roughly). As far as the eye could see, water in every direction, and no land to be had. Vast, open ocean.

It was morning. The sun shown bright. As my crew was on watch, it was my turn to take “bow watch”. Bow watch is essentially this: stand out at the front (bow/fore) of the ship with a radio, binoculars and a wind jacket, and report anything that might be a hazard to the ship or the crew, i.e., other ships, fishing bouys, flotsam, jetsam, and the like. As the helmsmen and officers navigate by charts and navigating equipment, following blobs on a bright neon radar, blind to what is truly ahead of the ship, its your job to be the eyes and the ears. It’s a serious job that for the most part is uneventful and boring- with short bursts of communication over a radio spotting far off cargo ships or the aforementioned buoys and their lines that might become ensnared in the propeller of the ship. On this particular day however, things took a turn for the unexplainably silly, and I was there to witness all of it.

As I was performing my duties at the bow, looking through my binoculars at the vast blue horizon, scanning for any traffic that might impede our progress, I spotted something odd. A small yellow shape, not far off from the bow of the ship. The water, being a dark calm blue, made any other color distinct among its rolling hilly waves. As the small speck drew closer, I tried to find it looking through my high powered binoculars. As I scanned from left to right, right to left- blue, blue, blue blue… yellow….blue blue- I jerked my binoculars back and found it again. A little yellow blob- floating quite contently over the surface. I racked my brain to try and associate an object to what I was seeing…

Piece of a buoy? Too round.

A balloon? Too small.

A life jacket? Please not a life jacket.

A duck? A duck!

As the shape drew closer, I could make out its little orange beak and big white cartoon eyes, gleefully tossing about over the crest of the small waves, this way and that, bobbing along wherever the ocean would take it. At this point, you might have guessed that this was not a real duck, but a yellow, rubber bath duck. In my haste to report such a silly thing to the officer of the watch, I forgot all protocol over the radio and blurted out in a voice that was far too loud for a microphone so close to my mouth, “A DUCK!”. A little embarrassed, I immediately hoped that transmission was unheard by the officer. To my disappointment, two seconds later the radio crackled, and a voice on the other side replied, “officer to bow…” (elongated pause, followed by en exasperated sigh)…

“what?”

Sheepishly, I replied- the silliness of the situation permeating my brain, and in the same excited tone as before, albeit a bit further away from the speaker- “A DUCK!”

Again, a long pause before the radio crackled again- “So what?” was the reply.

Just then- as I was about to reply once more to an already peeved officer- I saw more.

More ducks.

They floated contently on the ocean. I moved about the bow of the ship, counting. One… two… three…four…five…. Five. Five little ducks, all going where the current and waves would take them- and towards us. As they passed the ship by, or rather, we passed them by, I chuckled to myself at the comical absurdity. Here we are, way out in the middle of the baltic sea, and our only companion cruising these waters are bath ducks.

I could hardly contain my snickering giggle as I called back on the radio: “Bow to officer” (chuckle).

Again came the muffled, staticy (slightly sarcastic and annoyed) reply, “officer to bow, go ahead.”

(Chuckle) “rubber duckies, sir. One point off the starboard bow” (chuckle).

Pause. The radio crackles again. “rubber?”

I reply, “duckies, sir”.

At this point, I look down the length of the ship. From the bow to the stern. The first officer- white shirt, blue and gold epaulettes, sunglasses and windblown hair, holding his radio, has exited his navigation room poignantly and is standing near the quarterdeck of the ship. We make eye contact. He throws up his arms straight into the air, radio in hand, squishes his head into his neck, scrunches his nose, and shakes his head rapidly in aggravated confusion. I smirk, shrug my shoulders exaggeratedly and go back to my task. (Chuckle).

By now there are ten. Then twenty. Then thirty. Then a hundred. Then more. Uncountable.

Hundreds if not a thousand or more little rubber ducks. All swimming in the opposite direction as our ship glides past them. Little yellow pepper flakes on a blue soup. I stare, smiling, giggling and shaking my head as I watch these wide eyed little canards so blissfuly pass by.

I’ve lost it. The sheer insanity and absurdity of the situation has tickled my funny bone. I’m having a hard time concentrating on my task of overseeing the safety of the ship through my tears of laughter.

The first officer by now has noticed them on his radar. The little floating groups of ducks have made islands on his screen which he now comes to the bow to investigate. He walks slowly up behind me, and just as he is about to say something to me about this anomaly, he locks eyes upon the source of my mania. I am bent over giggling to myself as we stand there- the most wrenched look of confusion upon his face that I have ever seen, with a hint of a smile. He then lets out a short, airy chuckle. He leans over the side, hands upon the rail and shakes his head, smiling. I finally wipe the last of the tears from my eyes as the rest of the crew has realized what is going on, and are leaning over the railing to take in the sight excitedly pointing and laughing. The officer calls indistinctly over the radio, and not soon after the captain joins us on deck for the circus. The captain- a weathered man with a gruff demeanor (as most captains are) comes to the bow in a knit cap and a peacoat. He looks out over our duck-dotted horizon, gives a smirk and looks over the bow of the ship. Returning, he looks at me, nods and says, “catch me one, will you?” and continues on back to his cabin. I oblige, and fashion a bucket and line together. Swinging it over the side, I dip it into the cool water and capture a couple as they float past. I bring the bucket up and handle the two, studying them for any signs or clues of origin, not to mention why they have come to sail the Baltic. None.

We go about our day as the swarm of bath toys passes us by, hopefully to end up on a beach somewhere where little kids will take them home, rather than in the mouth of a whale or in one of those damnable trash islands we’ve heard so much about. I chuckle to myself for the rest of the day about the whole situation- and every time I retell it, even now, I guffaw my way through the account.

As far as an answer to the source of these ducks, I can offer you no solace in resolution. There is no truth, only theory. The best idea that came about, most assuredly from the captain, is that a container ship had lost some of its cargo while in a storm. The container, falling off the ship, dives down to the deep- where either the pressure of the ocean bottom, damage or corrosion takes its toll, and the container releases its contents. Being of buoyant nature, the ducks swam to the surface, where they began their journey back to man, searching for a smaller tub in which to swim.

I’ll take a rubber duck to a sea monster any day.

#sailing #funny #story #humor #duck #sail #sailors #sailorlife #sailor #pirate #tallship #writing #nonfiction

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noonmutter · 7 years

Text

Final Acts

(( Fair warning: This got really long at about 3600 words. ))

Deliverance Point was abuzz, more so than it had been in a while. Everyone was feeling that mix of excitement and bone-chilling terror that preceded a major change on the battlefield. The Tomb would crack open any day now, and everyone was ready, and no one was ready. Most of the time, this problem was addressed by drinking, going to a brothel, gambling, and in some cases, deserting.

He’d gone with option three, and had come out actually profiting a little bit, but it didn’t really help all that much. Of course he’d cheated, but so had everyone else at the makeshift table; winning wasn’t the point, the actual game was whether you could keep the other guys from guessing your trick. Fair games were dull and people who took offense at basic loaded dice rarely had enough money to be worth the hassle anyway.

Option one came afterward, once he had the coin for it. His tolerance was far too high for going to bars unless he was willing to go broke until next pay day, especially bars catering to soldiers. He needed a lot of drink to get a buzz, but at least the mixed nature of the forces on the Shore made price gouging dangerous territory. You could get away with that sometimes, but not when a too-sober Tauren paladin was standing in front of you with six friends and a mug half full of water.

Option two... he wanted option two very much. He was lonesome, and there was an abundance of company to be found on the floating city, one short flight away. But he was spoken for, and he wasn’t a dishonorable man where it mattered. Even if he’d been willing to entertain the idea for more than a few minutes, he knew Shedwyn would be crushed. And then castrate him. And then Leon would probably show up and kick his head in...

Terry didn’t respect the deserters, but he understood them.

His reverie was broken by a poke in the side, and it took him a moment before he thought to look down. The goblin courier scoffed at him, then held up a clipboard and a package of simple brown paper and twine. “Sign here, mac.”

“Sign?” Terry couldn’t recall the last time he’d had to sign for mail.

“Yeah, sign. Y’know, pen to paper, scribble somethin’? Usually yer name. I ain’t picky, whatever’s fastest.”

Already tired of listening, Terry took the clipboard and scrawled something that might have been his name, but had even odds of being a bunch of swear words. To judge by the goblin’s expression, he interpreted it as the latter. He hung around a few seconds, looking expectant, but Terry had already started walking away. With an irritated sigh of “Cheap friggin’ Gilneans,” he took his leave.

Rather than returning to the hustle and noise of the Point proper, Terry walked out past the edges of the More-or-Less-Safe Zone. His personal campsite wasn’t too far from the point, but far enough that he could avoid most of his night terrors. Some of the dreams were stubborn and came to him regardless, but he chalked that up to general fatigue.

Sitting down in front of his tent with a soft grunt, he took a proper look at the package and clucked his tongue in disapproval when he found the address was printed, rather than handwritten. The sender’s address wasn’t one he recognized, and he hated not knowing where things came from. It didn’t stop him from opening the thing, but it made him somewhat wary. Turning it over to find the knot in the twine, his nerves settled when he found a letter held flush against the box, addressed “Terry - Read First” in Vember’s tidy hand. He didn’t recognize the wax seal holding the envelope shut, though.

Dutifully, he set the box down without unwrapping it and broke the seal on the letter. Although some of the phrasing sounded like Vember, the handwriting was not hers. It was even cleaner, almost like a printed script, and clearly painstakingly pored over to minimize spatter from the quill and avoid mistakes. He wouldn’t have been surprised if the writer had been using a ruler.

“Terry,

I hope this letter finds you at an opportune time. If you are not already, I would suggest that you be seated and, knowing you, alone. Following the events of our initial raid on the lab in Gilneas, a large number of notes and materials were recovered and sent to the Kirin Tor for further study. Among them were a series of objects revealed to be data storage devices, the functionality of which is best left unwritten.

The Kirin Tor were recently able to translate the information on these devices to a less primitive medium, and upon review, deemed it nonviable for research purposes and returned it to us.

Enclosed, you will find a Draenic crystal recording device, in which one sequence has already been stored. Upon realizing what it was, Vember and I determined its fate would be best left to you to decide. Please be assured that we did not play the recording in its entirety, out of decency and respect.

You are free to keep this device and the data on it, and I have included instructions on how to operate it. It is also possible to delete the data, or to record over it if you deem it necessary.

Respectfully, Lady Neun Shadhemir Vember Marlon Shedwyn Mair Lias” Just below that, in Vember’s own handwriting, was a single line:

“You have my word that I will not breathe a word of this to your brother. But you should. - V”

His hands were trembling once he’d gotten through the second paragraph. By the time he’d finished reading it, he nearly lost the slip that explained how the device worked in his rush to open the box.

The device itself was...underwhelming, a pleasant but bland quartzlike rectangle about eight inches across with a faint bluish sheen to it. Arcane energy arced between it and his fingertips for a moment before settling to an almost imperceptible warmth in his hands. It took him a few minutes to figure out he was holding it upside down, but once that was sorted, getting it working was a matter of seconds.

On activation, the device glowed bright blue, and most of the flat surface shimmered before turning a deep, pure black. The display was wobbly and unclear at the beginning, but clarified after a few seconds, until he was able to discern a set of hands--his hands--opening a door...

“Wha’ d’you mean you shot ‘im?!”

“Only in th’ leg, mate!”

“WHY DID YOU SHOOT ‘IM?!”

Diggs’ face was white as the hunter, barely out of his teens, pushed back his antlered hood and rubbed frantically at his scarred mouth. “I-I-it were a--there was a bloody--’e was a madbeast, Terry! Y’din’t say nuffin’ bout ‘im bein’ one o’ those!”

[Eyes wide, Terry mumbled “Oh god” to himself, but did not stop watching.]

Terry swore for the hundredth time in the last minute and a half, picking up his own rifle and moving his rucksack next to the doorway. He was glad he was already dressed. “You bloody nit, why were y’even carryin’? Y’were just sposed t’ watch ‘im!”

“Don’t put this on me, bruv! Yer th’one din’t fink t’mention I might be starin’ atta ‘ell’ound!”

The impact of Diggs’ back on the wall was loud, and he let out an undignified yelp when he felt something pop. Terry’s grip on his shoulders was like steel--angry steel--as he got in close and snarled, “Leon could be dead right now, you fuckin’--”

“What th’ bloody ‘ell is goin’ on in ‘ere?!”

Terry’s blood ran cold all over again as dad’s voice rattled both their brains. The man could really boom when he wanted to, and the tiny Duskhaven cabin they’d been given already amplified every footstep. He wasn’t the least bit surprised that Diggs bolted into the night the instant he could, leaving Terry standing alone, rifle in one hand, pack by the door, as his parents came inside. Bettany reached out to stop the fleeing man, but missed by a wide margin when he actually juked around her.

[A weak, mournful laugh. ”You cowardly prick.”]

They’d been away at their own party, but it was the old-folks’ party, so they were dressed a bit nicer. Mum’s hair was still done up the fancy way she liked, and she’d managed to keep her one good dress pristine for another day. Dad’s suit was already trying to split at every seam again, after a dozen trips to a dozen tailors. He already dwarfed his wife, but that suit made it even more obvious just how big he really was.

[Terry wished, as he watched the scene unfold all over again, that the suit didn’t fit because his dad was fat. It would’ve been easier to deal with him if he was fat.]

Graeme set one huge hand on his wife’s shoulder and stepped around her, not letting her get between him and Terry, though she’d already started to try. Bettany knew what was coming and her expression had shifted from confusion to determination almost immediately. The younger Ambroce stared up into his dad’s face [Terry noticed the way the image seemed to pinch at the edges; he’d been trying to look stern, and ended up scowling instead] as he came close enough to make out every stray whisker around the bush of a beard he wore.

I can still do this. It’ll still work. Just please, please, let it work fast.

“We’re leavin’. T’night. I already sent Leon a’ead.” The focus shifted for just a second to Mum’s worried frown, then back to Dad, just in time to catch his mouth twitch at one corner. When Graeme didn’t say anything beyond a low harrumph, Terry continued, voice audibly quivering this time. “I’m takin’ mum with me. It ain’t safe ‘ere.”

“What was tha’ rat bastard friend o’ yours screamin’ about b’fore ‘e ran like ‘e stole somethin’?”

“I--’e was--sposed t’ be... guidin’ Leon through th’--”

Graeme wasn’t having it, scoffing and beginning to pace back and forth across the narrow hallway while keeping his eyes solidly on Terry’s face. “That slag was Leon’s guide outta town? Th’same dipshit ‘o wanted t’ fight Kormac stone sober an’ couldn’t tell th’ dif’rence between moss ‘n’ poison ivy?”

Rather than trying to defend one of the weakest lies he’d told in his life, Terry bulled ahead, raising his voice to be heard over his dad’s. “We’re already packed in too tight, there’s more people filt’rin’ in ev’ry day, an’ there’s things in th’ woods out ‘ere! We ‘ave t’go b’fore there’s no way t’get gone!”

“I am not leavin’ my ‘ome be’ind just so you kin feel like th’ big man in th’ouse, boyo!”

Again, Terry’s eyes shifted to mum, looking to her for help. She just barely nodded her head to him before stepping forward, reaching for Graeme’s arm. “Love, it’s not safe ‘ere. ‘E’s not wrong about th’woods. You know tha’ better’n anybody ‘ere.” She was trying to force him to look at her, but he wouldn’t stop pacing, and eventually swatted her hand off of him.

Terry growled under his breath, moving closer to the door and holding out his hand. “I’m not doin’ this all over again. I’m--we’re leavin’, with or without you.” He held out his hand toward mum, but her eyes narrowed and then went wide. “Is that blood?”

Terry looked down and saw the dark red smear across his palm. It must’ve gotten on him when he’d shoved Diggs around. Saying nothing right away, he pulled a handkerchief from his shirt and began wiping it clean.

“Terry, what ‘appened?” Now mum was rushing forward, grabbing for his hand and intent on inspecting him for damage. He managed to dodge her once and once only before she whapped him over the back of the head and took his hand anyway. “It is blood!”

[”Don’t say it!” Cringing in almost physical pain, he knew what was coming.]

“Nothin’ t’worry over, it’s not mine.”

That, of course, was not the right thing to say, causing both of his parents to stop moving and look straight at his face. He knew what he’d done as soon as it’d left his mouth, but there was no taking it back. Bettany didn’t have a chance to say anything else before Graeme had crossed the room to shove Terry back a few feet.

“Whose blood is it then, boy? What’ve you done?”

“Dammit there’s no time fer this shit! Leon’s waitin’ fer--”

[Now, of course, Terry knew why he hadn’t seen it coming; he’d been talking, angry, panicked over his brother bleeding out somewhere in the woods. But it was plain as day on the screen.] As soon as the word ‘Leon’ reached his ears, Graeme’s eyes flicked down to focus on the rifle Terry still held. The stubbly parts of his beard began growing, and his eyes shone yellow for just a second.

Terry was still talking when Graeme picked him up and threw him across the room, and Bettany was shouting at her husband to stop by the time he’d gotten back to his feet. Face already becoming distorted and dark, Graeme paid her no heed. He was a walking cacophony of cracking bones and fleshy squishing as he stalked toward his fallen son, and growling--actually growling, bestial, impossible--from somewhere in the depths of his enormous chest.

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!”

[He nearly dropped the crystal when Graeme lunged forward, a monstrous wall of black hair and yellow teeth. This part, he still remembered very clearly. He remembered thinking he was going to die, and that if he didn’t, he was going to turn into the same thing. He remembered thinking that mum was right there. That Leon was still outside, probably dying.]

The first few seconds were brutal and bloody, as a man pinned by a raging worgen always was. When he raised a hand to shield his face, one of Graeme’s claws went straight through his palm, nearly gouging his eye anyway. At one point, he’d managed to draw a bowie knife, but all that did was give the beast something to chew on and scrape up his muzzle with.

[Terry was confused. This wasn’t right. He’d had his rifle. He’d had his rifle, and they’d grappled over it, and he’d used it to block the worst of the damage--]

BLAM.

Graeme toppled sideways with an unmistakably canine yelp of pain. Terry turned his head to see Bettany holding his smoking rifle in shaking hands, eyes streaming, expression hard. She was clearly holding herself together as tightly as she could, and just as clearly, it wasn’t quite enough. “Graeme. Get up. Please.” When no response came, she cocked the rifle and took a single step forward, half-shrieking, “Give me back my ‘usband, you devil-dog bastard!”

He turned again, stunned, to look back at the thing that had been his father. As he took in the sight of the hulking brute laying in a rapidly spreading pool of blood with a gaping hole blown out of his side, everything shook for a few seconds. There was a distant rumble like thunder, but not quite the same, and the wolf finally stirred. Terry started to sit up, but fell down almost immediately with an agonized gasp. The sound shook Bettany out of her momentary lapse in control and she started toward him, only to stumble and drop the rifle when the world shook again.

This time, there was a shrieking sound, like trying to twist a wet branch until it snapped, amplified by ten million times and only growing louder. [Even muted by the playback from the crystal as it was, the sound was an assault on the ears. Still he watched, transfixed.]

He could barely see straight for how wildly the world around him shook, but he was able to see the black wolf rise. They both looked up when they heard splintering wood above them, and both saw the hole forming in the roof. Graeme looked at Terry for a moment--barely a quarter of a second--and bellowed something [he could almost make it out over the din] as he ran forward to shove Bettany out of the way. The beam fell scant seconds before the rest of the roof, and then the entire world tumbled into roaring darkness around him.

It suddenly went silent, not even white noise, and stayed that way for a few seconds before the display flickered again. Grey text, numbers, and alchemical symbols began scrolling across a solid blue pane, too numerous and rapid to read. The variations began to dwindle until it was just repeating two words: “ERROR” and “SOURCE.” At the very last moment--the last frame--of the feed, another single line flashed and then disappeared. It took a few attempts to freeze it long enough to read.

“SRCMEMDUMPT101 COMPLETE. EDIT MODE? Y/N”

Terry spent almost an hour rolling the recording back, playing it again, listening as hard as he could, rolling it back, playing it again... It was too damned loud and the controls on the bloody thing weren’t fine enough to isolate the voices from the noise. In spite of himself, Terry had picked up and run all the way back up to the Point, bothering every Draenei he passed in hopes that one of them would know how to manipulate the recorder.

Once he’d nearly gotten his ass kicked for bothering the same guy a third time, he forced himself to go back to his campsite. Nearly willing to admit defeat, he caught a glimpse of his commstone sticking out of his bag.

First step: Call Darlain.

...That was the only step he had, really. He was just kind of banking on her knowing somebody who could do it, or knowing somebody who knew somebody. Thankfully, one step was all he needed; the dwarfmum pointed him to Nirahsa, a name he didn’t recognize until Darlain finally fell back on ‘Draenei woman who says ‘yes yes’ a lot.’ Driven by an almost mad need to know, Terry shelled out for a portal jump to Stormwind, rather than using the mail or, gods forbid, waiting till later. He figured nobody would miss him for a few hours.

Nirahsa didn’t have a lot of reason to want to do him a favor, and he knew that, but he was desperate, sincere, and willing to pay her every coin he had to his name if she’d do it. He assumed it reminded her of Leon (actually, she just also didn’t have a lot of reason not to do him a favor). Whatever the reason, she finally relented and told him to come back in an hour. It was a diversion from her actual work, but she needed to take a break anyway, and easy work like that counted, right?

He still insisted on paying her for the work, especially once she handed him written instructions on how to use the little remote she’d put together for him. Had he been in his standard state of mind, he would’ve asked how much she had watched, but his concern was firmly on finding privacy to pore over the recording again. Terry did have enough sense to make sure he sent a message to Shedwyn, telling her he was back in town and to find him at the barracks.

Once he got there, he settled in to get to work.

[With Nirahsa’s tweaks, he was able to mute the background noise almost completely in a matter of minutes. It was with some trepidation that he pressed ‘play’ once again. He wasn’t quite expecting the voice amplification to work as well as it did; it was picking up things that weren’t even shouted. The sound was distorted from the effects applied to it, but functional.]

Graeme rose and grunted in pain. As the wolf’s head lifted to take in the sight of the building in the beginning stages of collapse, he growled “No” to himself. Then, he looked at Terry, and began to run.

[Yelling with almost no sound around to muddy it up, his voice made the crystal vibrate noticeably in Terry’s hands, almost startling him enough to drop it.]

“I’m sorry, Terry! I’m sorry! I love you! Find--”

Whatever else Graeme had hoped to say was cut off by another yelp and a scream as a beam almost as big around as he was slammed into his back, and the feed ended shortly after.

Terry didn’t watch it again, dropping the crystal on his cot and staring at nothing. At some point, his eyes began to water, but he didn’t move save to blink and breathe. When it finally progressed to tears, he didn’t make any attempt to wipe his face. In the next hour, he only moved once: to pick up his pillow, bury his face in it, and scream until he couldn’t anymore.

Just after dusk, Terry’s boots made soft squeaking sounds as he walked slowly through the damp grass. He came to a stop at the foot of the lilac-strewn graves, took one breath, read his father’s headstone, and froze. All the preparation he’d made in his head--things he’d rehearsed a dozen times over, words he wanted to say--dropped away in an instant, bringing him to the ground with his head hung so low his chin nearly touched his chest. His hands rested limply in the grass by his knees, and he wept unrestrained.

All he could bring himself to say were three tiny words, tearing themselves free of his painfully tight throat, filling the little clearing with ache and regret inbetween wracking sobs.

“Me too, dad.”

( @darbiebot @nirahsa @shedwyn @vembermarlon @neun-deserrat )

#and so arrives terry #fathers' day #mum #dad #mum and dad #HEY WHO WANTED TO BE SAD TODAY #I SURE DID #tw: blood #I GAVE MYSELF FEELS #AGAIN #my writing

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satans-codpiece · 4 years

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ok fr im gonna post this bc this is amazing @ 16 y/o me, what happened to you? selfshipping with a character not a single person on this hell of an earth cares about while staring the entire SPN cast straight in the eyes and being like fuck y’all?

[December 27th, 2012]

HE hadn't thought dying would feel quite like this. Or maybe he did, to an extent. Weightless, like he was floating was to be expected, feeling lightheaded, especially as the almost blinding light blasted from the stone. "It wall went white" doesn't have the same ring to it, though. He had seen that poor woman earlier be vaporized by the stone's power, and he was sure that was what was happening to him right now. Individual atomic bonds being ripped apart by the raw energy being thrown off by Stonehenge.

Even as an astrophysicist he hadn't expected to die such an unpredictable death. Maybe in an accidental atomic explosion at the worst, maybe get cancer or something. Much domestic deaths available than this seemed almost appealing, but in the end, he had saved the world in his death. He knew that long before he left the car with Dr. Jennings. He would die at Stonehenge, even if he failed. Getting the key to the center rock would cause what was happening: this discharge of power on a much smaller scale than the one hat would've occurred had he failed. The one that would redirect the atomic bomb, and then the one after procuring enough of the magnetic power from the Earth's poles.

That was why he left his ring with Dr. Jennings, and faked hope when she said she'd be giving it back. He would never see her again. A chestful of anticipation and the weight of quite possibly the literal world rested on his shoulders and he set out with determination.

Which he was successful and lead to this feeling of weightlessness, of falling even. To be honest he hadn't even realized he was falling until he realized his side and leg burned with pain. He had thought with just enough clarity to think that wasn't the pain supposed to stop once your brain had been picked apart one atomic-level bond at a time? Weren't you supposed to stop thinking? And in that moment he opened his eyes and he could swear on every book of astrophysical theory that he was actually falling. The light spiralling around his was not his near death experience, he was actually falling Goddamn it all. Hell, for all he knew he was actually being taken to see who the hell made Stonehenge and the key and terraformed Earth in the first place billions of years ago. He admitted earlier that there were forces they simply couldn't explain with modern theories, and maybe even any theories to ever trickle through peer reviews. Maybe they had something else at work in their terraforming device, they wouldn't even have to know.

The weightlessness was expected, the falling was a bit of a surprise but still could maybe to chalked up to last-minute hallucinations in an attempt to keep his mind in a single piece. It was the collision of his back to a very solid, very hard surface that had Dr. Glaser sputtering and trying to keep his focus on the material world.

Landing had jostled his already tender gunshot wound, and he groaned despite himself. This was so much less graceful than just being ripped apart or vaporized. He really hoped that at least the cult follower was being as disgraced as himself. Maybe a little more dead, since he did after all wish death upon all the humans in the world. That wasn't very nice.

Jacob stared up from his position on what he assumed was the ground of some abandoned building. The walls were concrete, maybe in a basement somewhere- supposing it was of human origins. The walls were old and a dingy gray, obviously uncared for and let to fall into disrepair. On the ceiling, however, Jacob could not comment since above him was only a swirling vortex of light and color: one that he had obviously just fallen from. He thought for perhaps a moment he had fallen through some sort of wormhole, created by the extreme energy at the stone and forced a counterpart white hole somewhere and had sucked him through. Though that hardly explained how he was still alive: a black hole would crush him under the extreme internal gravity. Not to mention it would also be ripping apart Europe by now.

No, Dr. Glaser was contented to ponder on how he got here as he bled to death slowly. It was a sad death, he thought. He much preferred being vaporized to this, at least in being vaporized he could hope someone would make a movie for him one day, with decent special effects for being vaporized. He could be famous, but no, like this he would be that one scientist that ends up being found in 30 years and then accused of faking his death for publicity. At the scale of everything that had happened surely it would be even more incredible than if they had found Hitler's body in South America. He pondered it a moment more.

Maybe not quite that sensational. It would certainly still rattle the gossiping TV shows for a couple weeks. No, he contented to pressing a hand to his wound which still oozed warm blood over his fingers and into this clothing. Judging from the state of the room and likelihood that he was in an evacuated zone, he hadn't expected anyone to show up. He certainly did not expect a loud cry of "Jesus Christ! Sam, Cas! Get in here!"

Actually he was expecting to really be hallucinating that. He looked lazily, the blood loss finally digging at his consciousness, and saw a large pair of too-green eyes staring back at him. The man, - oh God, Jacob could swear he looks just like Jensen Ackles, the American actor, pushes Jacob's hand out of the way to press a cloth to his wound. "Hey man, it's going to be okay, alright?" Jacob's head is too blurry to really understand what's going on, but is clear enough to know that that tone is more like 'I'm saying this so you wont freak out on me' than 'its okay'.

He expected to die anyway so it's all good. Maybe not with an actor trying to keep his blood inside his body, but hey it'll only make the story even better. He could probably get by with better last words than "It was a robot head", but he could settle for dying in an actor's basement. The man turned around again and yelled: "Sam! Cas!"

This time another man appeared from a doorway, rushing over to the first. He was remarkably tall, Jacob knew for certain even from his state on the floor. And now maybe Jacob could start having a panic attack or laughing off this hallucination because god dammit the other man was fucking Jared Padalecki. So either he was dying on the set of Supernatural, or something was definitely off. He recalled distantly that he had called him Sam, not Jared. And now he was sure he was hallucinating: this was absurdly nuts. Yeah, maybe Sabrina had told him that it was real and she was stuck on the wrong side, but come on. She was having some sort of mental breakdown when she said that. She'd said his alternate on the other side was an angel but this was stupid, this was ridiculous.

"Oh my god, Dean, he looks just like..." Jared (Sam?) mumbled, grabbing a hold of the wound on Jacob's leg. Dean- Jensen- nodded somewhere between numbly and grimly. And then around the corner came another body. Oh Christ, why would this have to be his pre-death hallucination, why couldn't he be receiving his award for astrophysics again, that would be nice.

"Move," The Jacob lookalike said, voice way too low and gravelly to be correct with his body. But they moved and Cas(?) moved in close, squinting at Jacob and all Jacob could was try to not cough up any blood that he felt trickling in his throat. Cas pressed two fingers the Jacob's temple and -now its certain he's hallucinating, but whatever- he was just fine. He gasped, happy to not feel restricted by the pain in his abdomen.

"What do we do...?" Sam began, looking helplessly between Cas and Dean. Jacob was still trying to sort his thoughts.

"Do you know Sariel?" Cas questioned, and it took him a moment to realize his lookalike was talking to him. He thought over a minute. Sariel? No, he didn't think he knew any and shook his head accordingly, too stunned for words.

"If she was stuck on the other side would she even be using her real name? Wouldn't she pick something else so she wouldn't, you know, stand out?"

Jacob could piece that together. Stuck on the otherside and there even being a Jacob alternate? He breathed in through his mouth, expecting it to feel tight and dry and shocked to feel it wet and edging on normal. He worked out, "Sabrina,"

The trio looked down at him. "This is another.. world, right?" They exchanged glances and shrugged, a unison of 'more or less'. "Sabrina Jennings, she said she was,"

The surprised yelp from above was all the warning he got as a body was falling much too quickly from the ceiling to stop. It landed heavily with a thick 'thump' on Jacob's middle, making his cough and sputter.

[December 28th, 2012]

"Oooh, I think I'm dying..."

"You are not dying, Sariel."

"You don't know that, ughh, this feels so awful. Won't you help me Jacob?" "No, just taken some more Nyquil, you're fine. You have the flu." I rolled onto my other side and mustered up my best kicked puppy dog look. "Jacob, won't you please go get it for me...?"

He turned around to glared at me, frustrated and tired with my antics. I really did feel horrible, more than what I expected the "flu" to feel like: more accurately I felt like death personified. I ached all over and moving at all left me terribly nauseousness. I'd never felt anything like it, Angelic or otherwise. Hell, I wasn't supposed to be able to get sick. I may have only partially fallen but that implied I was still partially an Angel and as a part angel being, I shouldn't be able to get sick with such human diseases, right? surely that was in my contract. Maybe

I probably should've read the fine print. I didn't even bother reading the shortened juicier version. Not that this metaphorical contract existed, that's why its metaphorical. I just didn't bother to actually consider what would actually happen if I ripped half my grace out (closer to two thirds, I still had a single pair of wings, not all three). I felt temperature and was bothered by it (I took to wearing several pairs of socks in the winter), I needed food occasionally, I slept a little off and on (maybe 3 hours a night, easily looked over). I hadn't even thought that sickness could also claim my much more fragile body.

I was still angelic enough that it would require a heavenly blade to kill me, I knew that for certain after I tripped and stabbed myself one evening. Whether it still took an archangels' blade or if any lackey could kill me was a mystery I wasn't too keen on figuring out. Being dipped in holy oil would probably fry me, which is such a pity.

But sickness is another thing all together, there were a handful of diseases that could affect angels. Mostly they attached to the wings: the most sensitive part of any angel, arch- or not. They were akin to birds' diseases, but the difference was simple. We could rid ourselves of them almost instantaneously. I'd only heard of cherubs being stuck with their sickness for a while, and even then they are so far down the food chain it isn't surprising. They're barely above humans, only capable of flight and hiding themselves from human view. They don't even require vessels.

But the flu, oh the flu. I had kept the part of my grace the healed, which seemed to be useless now, unable to rid my vessel which was essentially now my body, of this virus. Or whatever it was. It wasn't pleasant, I knew that. I ached all over to the very core of my being and even trying to press my grace against the wound-less pains seemed to be useless. I felt cold all the time and yet my body burned inside, and I was partially worried I was becoming Lucifer: burning cold and vessel flushed hot in attempts to press my grace and form out of its physical self. I slept much more, a full 8 hours which Jacob had explained was normal for humans to sleep more when they were sick. It meant their body was working overtime to try to push the stuff that was making you sick out. He swore to show me a movie he called Osmosis Jones, "Even though it's inaccurate in so many ways, it's pretty funny." I didn't really pay attention. I liked almost every movie he'd shown me thus far even though I hadn't seen a whole lot. Only maybe 50ish, and that was being generous. I guess for being around for a year on Earth, that was pretty good.

But this sickness was not "pretty good". It was horrible. I don't know how humans dealt with this as a possibility every winter. I snuggled deeper into the bed, pulling the blankets up to my nose and Jacob seemed to understand that getting up really would send my nausea into overload again. (Last time I had tried to move ended with me curled up on the floor with my head between my legs, crying out of my misery). I left the room for a minute, and I coughed roughly. Dry and it ripped at my throat, I grumbled something about probably using all my archangel abilities, as soon as I got them back, into wiping out the flu virus. This was a perfect example of grade A suckage.

I sniffled and suddenly a bluish greenish liquid in a clear bottle was being thrust at me. Jacob held it out while I took it from it, opened the top and took a large drink of it. He raised an eyebrow and I shrugged. I still had resistance to much of humanities drugs, making going to the doctor especially weird. Jacob had feigned flu as well to get a double dose of Tamaflu, whatever that was. He said I should probably just double the dose and anymore and he'd be worried about its effects on me.

So far I didn't feel any better. Doubling the amount of any medicine I took never seemed to do the trick, at tripling I got trickles of effects, mostly little things. Six ibuprofen and I noted that I didn't want to tear my spine out quite as much. It took ten to really make me relax and be able to think about anything besides it.

I screwed the cap back on and held it out to him again. He took it and set it upon the night stand. He sighed and ran a hand over my forehead, his palm feeling cool against my skin. "I'm sorry you're sick, Sariel." He cooed softly. He leaned down and kissed my forehead.

I stifled a cough and mumbled, "Yeah well, don't get yourself sick too, I can't take care of you like you take care of me... I wouldn't even be able to heal it out of you."

He laughed and stroked a hand through my hair, "I can't get the flu."

I barely contained the shock in my voice: "What? how?"

He grinned and shook it head. "Unlike you, I got my flu shot."

#kat talks #long post #fanfic blogging #im tempted to post this on ao3 but with the correct post date #just so I can save this forever in case 750words goes under

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linssikeittomies · 7 years

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Apocalypse. In 50 Years. Chapter 1: Virgin Allison

I’m lucky. Always have been. Me, my parents, their parents, and their parents as far back as we can remember have always been lucky: none of them have been seriously ill, gotten into a serious accident, or suffered major financial setbacks. We don’t have any hereditary diseases. No one has died before their 80th birthday. There hasn’t been a single divorce.

I had a good upbringing, a stable family situation and a healthy diet. My parents bought me an apartment, I got in to college on my first try, I have hobbies I love and time for them, summer is just around the corner and we’re planning a vacation to Hawaii, everything is great and I should have nothing to worry about.

But every second of the day I feel this anxious tension in my chest.

I always feel like I’m doing something wrong, or I’m supposed to be doing something else. Something is not correct, and I don’t know how to correct it. Something’s expected of me, but I don’t know what. I’ve tried going to church and mosque more, I’ve tried doing more sports, I’ve tried volunteer work, arts, science, philosophy, psychology, travelling, soul searching, nothing works. That nagging feeling just won’t go away! Sometimes it’s right there on the surface, sometimes it sinks to the background, but it’s there every second of the day and my sanity can’t take another month of this feeling! I might be the first person in my family line to have a mental breakdown.

There’s some kind of sound… What is that, I don’t like it, I don’t like beeping when it’s so warm. Just let me find that last bunny. It got scared of the sound. Aww, I found it, right on my desk, the alarm…

Oh, the sound was my alarm clock. Damn brilliant, time to wake up already. Whose bright idea was it to force people up before they were ready? The professors can’t like being woken at the ass crack of dawn either. Just stop having morning lectures, people! Nobody wants them! I’m the nicest girl this country has ever seen and I’m getting an impulse to murder a guy. I’ve been getting up at 5:45 the whole week, maybe I should’ve gone the other route and just not slept at all. Would’ve made it easier to drag myself out of my soft, warm, loving bed… I’ve been trying to clean up my language, but I just have to curse some right now. Gives me enough anger to push myself up. Makes me feel bad about myself, too.

The classic white and blue sailor fuku has seen a lot of use this past month, but since it still feels marginally less wrong than all my other clothes, it’ll see a little more. I brush my hair while I wait for the frying pan to heat up enough fry my omelet, then pick at it and end up only eating half. Ughhh, why did I stay up reading that fanfic last night, again? I’ve read it like ten times already, I already know damn well what’s gonna happen! I get so queasy when I’m tired… I should probably pack the rest of this omelet up and take it to school ‘cause I’ll just get hungry an hour later.

I manage to cover the bags under my eyes with make-up, and since for once I was smart and packed my bag ready last night, I just grab it and get out the door. I’ve barely closed it when my next door neighbor Ricky comes out his. He’s really nice and kinda cute, but his obvious crush on me makes our relationship a little awkward. Not that I don’t reciprocate – he’s easy on the eyes, super cute with all those freckles and dimples and supposedly carefree hair combined with a caring and shy personality. So yeah, I once considered dating him, but the overwhelming sense of WRONG! WRONG! had unfortunately made that impossible. It always flares up particularly bad when something romance-related comes to my mind, maybe I’m just extremely aromantic without realizing it? It seems being friends with him is a-ok, however. And it’s got its perks.

“Oh, morning, Ally. Did you like the cookies I gave you yesterday?” he asks, as if there was ever any doubt. “I think the cinnamon made them a little too Christmassy.”

“Not at all, they were great! I don’t get how you make them soft in the center, whenever I try they just dry up.”

“Might be too much flour”, he theorizes as we go down the stairs. He moves his messenger bag from his free side to between the two us – I’ve noticed he does that a lot, I think it’s some kind of unconscious attempt at putting up a barrier because he feels so self-conscious around me. “Or maybe you keep the oven on for too long. I always turn it off when they’re close to ready.”

I almost ask for a baking lesson, but again the WRONG flares up so I give up on the idea.

“You might be on to something, I’ll try that next time.”

He’s bad with words, so he tries to find something to say but can’t. He scratches his arm absently and opens his mouth only to close it immediately. Our conversations are rarely smooth, and these kinds of pauses are the norm. I don’t mind them that much – no point in saying words solely for the sake of making noise, after all. But Ricky seems to find them incredibly uncomfortable and a sign of failure, so often I just say something completely meaningless to help him out, give him some ideas.

“How’s school been lately?”

Ricky’s a journalism major, and has a huge collection of magazines and newspapers at his place. I wonder why he didn’t go into confectionary since he’s so good at it already. Maybe he prefers to keep it a hobby? Not even with a gun to my head would I animate for a living, even though I spend like 90 percent of my free time staring at anime.

“Nothing special”, he mumbles. “A lot of work… It, uhh, might get a little worse now that my computer broke…”

“Aww crap, I feel for you!”

“Thanks… I… spilled milk on it last night”, he admits embarrassed. He likes drinking milk with cookies, he must’ve been eating those cinnamon cookies while working on something. “It’s probably busted even if I can get it dry.”

“I can lend you my tablet if it’s any help.”

“Thanks, but… all my files were on the hard drive.”

Oh jeez, he didn’t even save the most important ones to a cloud? This guy’s just hopeless. I don’t get how he’s managed to stay alive living on his own for two years. A cute face doesn’t help much with keeping track of bills and switching fuses.

We part ways on the street and I dig out my headphones. My bus route is noisy as hell, thanks to all the “edgy” teens going to high school. For some incomprehensible reason so many of them think it’s entirely necessary to loudly laugh at the worst non-jokes and gossip about this bitch and that bitch and those assholes, while also apparently hating each other judging by the amount insults they throw at each other, but still they hang out together so I guess they really are friends…? I just don’t get them. I was never like that in high school, I actually liked my friends.

Speaking of which, I get a new message from ~BFF~.

Good morning! Saida says, and sends a selfie. Seems she’s been clothes shopping, as I’ve never seen that tunic before. The hijab is old, but it’s draped pretty elaborately. It looks really good on her, red’s really her color, and the tunic’s greenish gray complements it surprisingly well.

Woah nice! Looks great on u (^o^)b

Thanks^^ Took ten tries to drape it good, I’m thinking wearing it like this for the premiere. Only a week from now! SO excited! >o<

Grrrrreat peeps gonna luv it \(^-<)

Keep both thumbs up for me^^

Saida’s an aspiring playwright and works on a lot of amateur productions. This will the first play she wrote completely on her own. I’ve been to a couple of their rehearsals, so I know the story is about a woman whose father is murdered and she vows to catch the perp – but in the process learns that her father was actually a terrible person and was killed in revenge. I didn’t want too many spoilers so I haven’t read the script.

Can we go togthr im so proud of u (/>3>)/

Of course! We’re going for a dinner afterwards so you can come with us too

Aww, I wanted u all to myself orz

If only you were a guy you couldXD Too bad :p

Deciding to tease her about this raises the wrong feeling back to the surface, but the opportunity is just too delicious.

Ill keep that in mind (^3^)b

Oh jeez, in hindsight that was a bad joke (/-_-\)

U get im gonna teez u about this all ur life k:DDDD

In hindsight that was a REALLY bad joke -_- Have fun AT SCHOOL you little devil!>:D

Aww orz

She barely has classes this week, not that it means she actually has less work – just that she’s supposed to working on assignments at home. Unlike me, she’s really diligent and actually does her homework over a few days instead of the previous night.

The professor is late, as usual. Students don’t have keys for the classrooms, so we have to wait outside. It can get pretty cramped, especially at places like this: at the end of a narrow hallway, with the smelliest toilet in the building at the other end. Everyone tries their hardest to squeeze out of the way of the stench. At least in the summer it gets a little better – in the winter the pipes get frozen, and when the water doesn’t flow, the smell really starts melting off faces.

I fail at stifling a yawn, and a classmate gives me a sympathetic look. It’s so hard to stay awake when I’m not on the move, any small break just reminds my brain of how tired I am, and then it wants to go back to sleep. It even forgets about the horrible stink floating in the hallway, if only for a moment. When my head drops and I snap back to attention, it suddenly fills my nose again. I’ve repeated the process about five times already.

In fact, I’m right in the process of drifting back to sleep again when I notice her. The pale, young woman dressed all in black, sporting abyssal black hair and glowing, ember-like eyes. She stares at me intently, like a hawk hunting a rabbit, and emanates a malicious aura. Everything about her is… dark, somehow. Like she’s hard to make out, and even the bright lamps seem dimmer around her. She looks human, but in an… elongated way. Her face, her body, and especially her fingers, look a little too long and a little too spindly. She looks like a daddy long legs. I can’t shake the mental image of her creeping up the wall and skittering away in to some slight crack. I’m not used to being nervous – I consider myself a particularly brave person, but this lady is giving me the creeps! I find myself crossing my arms at my chest to get at least some kind of barrier between us, despite her standing several meters away. It’s not far enough. If possible, I would rather put several countries between us – but as it stands, all I have is half a meter of hallway.

Her eyes stare at me unblinkingly as I squeeze closer to the door, their dim glimmer drowning out all other light. I can’t look away – her gaze holds me prisoner, and laughs at my fear.

Then a light weight settles on my shoulder, and her thin lips curve into a sharp, sadistic facsimile of a smile and she whispers

FOUND YOU

before turning around and walking out. All feelings of dread melt away with her gone, and I turn to look at whoever defended me.

It’s a hand. A translucent, poorly defined, watery hand that peters out of existence at the wrist. Seeing it floods me with tranquility. It twinkles like moonwake and grips my shoulder reassuringly before fading away.

…

Wow, I must be really tired! Guess those five hour nights finally caught up with me! As interesting as this awake-sleeping was, I’d rather not repeat it anytime soon. Or, like, ever. I have got to catch up on sleepy times this weekend.

By afternoon I’ve almost forgotten about the creepy lady and disembodied hand. It’s Friday, I’m too excited about finally having the time to finish my Ayato cosplay to think about sleep deprivation hallucination thingies. If I hurry, I should be able to finish the coat, maybe work on the pants some more. I need to get some more glue and find the right kind of buttons, the crafts store is still open so I’ll stop by there before going to my parents’ –

“Hey, Ally!”

A classmate drags me out of my thoughts.

“Ellie decided to throw an impromptu birthday party to herself tomorrow at her place, wanna come with us?” Lisa continues. Bryan is at her side, while Lotte and Yao come up on my right.

“She’s invited a lot of her other friends, too! Place is gonna be crawling with cute chicks!” Brian informs me as he pumps his fists. He then seems to remember he’s talking to a girl. “…Or guys, if that’s your thing”, he adds meekly.

Lisa firmly shakes her head.

“Her place can’t fit more than twenty people, and our class is gonna be at least thirteen of those people.”

“Yeah, the afterparty is what’s filled with hotties!” Lotte pipes in with stars in her eyes. Our class doesn’t actually share a lot of courses, but we try to stay in contact with each other. We have a whatsapp group, and sometimes we plan parties or get-togethers. I try to take part every now and then, but so often everyone just wants to go drinking I don’t see the point in going.

“Don’t worry, Ellie said her place is an alcohol-free zone for tonight because she doesn’t want a repeat of last year!” Lisa assures me. “It’s just gonna be music and games until we go clubbing.”

Ellie is pretty nice, and the only person I kind of consider to be a friend other than Saida. I might make friends easily, but keeping them is a genuine problem. If we hadn’t been neighbors all our lives, I don’t think I would still be friends with even Saida, either. So I’d like to at least try and hold on to Ellie while we’re still in the same school.

“Alright, I’ll be there!”

“WOOOO!!!” Lotte screams and everyone else flinches.

“Jesus Christ Lotte, control yourself!” Yao snaps at her, but of course she doesn’t give a damn. Instead, she starts dancing right there in the hallway and singing some pop song off-key. I know for a fact she’s not drunk because she acts like that even in class, but it’s still almost impossible to believe. Yao grumbles quietly and facepalms in shame before walking off without another word.

“See you tomorrow!” are Lisa’s parting words, and she smiles brightly as she waves bye. Bryan punches her lightly on the shoulder and she silently pumps her fist. They’re so happy that most of the class will be there. We used to this kind of stuff a lot more often in our first year, but then summer break came and everyone drifted apart.

“Wear something nice... but not too nice”, Lotte advises, winking conspicuously. “That’d be a bit too scary.”

“Scary how?” I ask puzzled. She just blows me a kiss before WOOTing again and pseudo-dancing out the door. In a way I almost envy her utter indifference towards social norms, being her must be so freeing. I can’t imagine the tiniest worry ever enters her head. For sure she never feels anything she does is wrong.

I popped in the crafts store on the way to my parents’ – on Friday’s we always have dinner together. This week it was dad’s turn to cook, so I helped him make the asam laksa, after hiding the curry- he always tries to put in too much, and mom’s so white she can barely salt her food.

“Bismillah”, dad and I say.

“God is great, by his hand we are all fed. Amen”, mom and I say.

My parents are great at working around their faiths. They both let the other do their own thing while holding onto their own. They never tried to teach me one faith was wrong. I came to think of God and Allah as different aspects of the same entity, in a way, and had no problems growing up bi-religious. As a child God felt closer, but after graduating middle school I became more drawn to Allah, maybe partly because of Saida. That’s when we really started being good friends, despite being neighbors since birth and always being in the same class. I even wore a hijab for a while, like her, though only for, like, ten months maybe? It wouldn’t have been even that long had my parents not been kind of worried, and had I not been a rebellious little shit. I wanted to make them squirm a bit. Imagine that, an Ally who wasn’t a total goody two shoes.

“We’ve been thinking about getting a dog”, dad tells me. “I think a Maltese would be best, they’re small and playful. A dog should be social and playful, right? Real companions. I have some breeders scouted already.”

He’s super excited about this dog. One might even say suspiciously excited…

“You’re suffering from empty nest syndrome”, I quip and chuckle.

“Nonsense, I’ve always wanted a dog.”

“You never mentioned dogs before Ally moved out, honey”, mom reminds playfully.

“What? Sure I did. The house was just too small.”

Mom rubs her chin mock-thoughtfully.

“The man doth protest too much, methinks.”

“He really doth.”

Dad gets flustered and still tries to claim he’s doing no such thing. Everyone and their grandma knows he has a soft spot for anything cute and fluffy but he still likes to pretend he doesn’t. Oh, that pink teddy bear on that shelf? It was a gift for my wife, she loves things like that. I heard your cat had kittens, can I bring my daughter over to see them? What’s a few mice, they’ll be gone by winter, getting mouse traps is too much hassle.

We had to call an exterminator for the mice. In a few months they had taken over most of the kitchen.

“Well now neither will get to name the puppy.”

Aww, and I was so looking forward to that yappy little shedding machine. I would have named it Fluffy of the Incessant Noise.

“I’m thinking O’Malley. That could then be shortened to either Max or Madsie.”

“He hasn’t been this excited since your youngest cousin was born”, mom says while nudging dad with her elbow. Dad claims the dog would be mostly for mom, so she won’t get lonely while dad’s at work. Mom says Of course, honey, and lets it slide. She has a part-time job, she’s only home alone for nine hours a few days a week.

I leave when it starts getting dark outside. I live close to my parents, so I decide to walk home. It’s getting a little chilly outside, but that only means the air is fresh and getting under the warm covers will feel that much better. It’s quiet – oddly quiet, it’s only quarter past eight. Why are all the lights already off? I could get a few people being asleep already, but the whole neighborhood? It’s not a blackout, the streetlights are on. Weird.

I’m starting to get a little nervous. Logically thinking there’s nothing worrying around, but my gut keeps telling me something is wrong more insistently than usually. And it’s a dangerous wrong, not the this-is-not-expected-of-you-wrong.

I pick up my pace a bit, and that’s when the streetlamps start going out, too. Each one I pass under fizzles out after me. The feeling of wrong is replaced by GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!!!! In a blind panic I start running, but then the lamps start breaking before I even reach them! Hot glass shards rain over me as I’m left in total darkness in a large city that never sleeps!

No, that not entirely correct… There is still one light on. A single streetlamp a dozen meters away illuminates a small patch of sidewalk. Something is standing under it. Some kind of dark creature, with long talons and glinting fangs. I can hear it chuckling darkly… and it charges at me!

On instinct I put up my dukes, only realizing after the fact that it’s probably the one choice even worse than simply running – I’ve never hit anyone in my life and would just break each of my fingers before getting mauled to death… Shit! Okay, okay – but at least this way, I can die on my own terms – bring it on, bitch!

But just as quickly as it attacked, it is defeated. A blindingly bright spear of light shoots down from the sky, piercing the creature’s head clean in the center and nailing it to the asphalt. The resulting shockwave drops me on my ass on the ground. The spear stays standing, unbearably bright to look at but barely illuminating the surroundings at all. And the creature lies there motionless, not bleeding, but it’s so obviously dead I almost want to go up to it and investigate a little. My wrong radar goes off, though, so I give up the idea.

And, well, I wouldn’t have gotten that far anyway, since now a watery, half-there hand fades into view around the hilt of the spear – the same hand from school. This doesn’t feel like a dream, and in a dream I sure wouldn’t wonder if this was all a dream, but I just have to consider the possibility. Because if this is reality, I’ll have to readjust my beliefs on ghosts and I really, really don’t want them to be real!

A faint sound of flutes drifts in as the hand lifts up the spear and offers it to someone invisible. The corpse of the demonic beast quietly crumbles to dust, and all the lights flicker back on. The invisible someone starts forming a body – at first as poorly defined as the watery hand, like a half-remembered memory, but soon solidifying into a slender, paper white arm, alabaster robe, platinum blonde curls… and massive, pure white feathery wings flaring out from this picture perfect woman’s back. A softly glowing halo hums into life above her head as a single, clear ring of a church bell tolls.

If – if this isn’t an angel, nothing is. There I am, on my ass on the pavement before an emissary of God, and I can’t even manage to not gawk at her like some fucking moron!

The angel takes the spear in her hand, the watery hand waves to me and disappears, and still I can’t manage to even close my fucking mouth!

“I take it you are unharmed?” the angel asks me, her voice pure and melodic and all that poetic crap, and all I say is “Praise be to God”, like some generic and zero-thought-process and out-of-habit phrase like that is going to do any good in this situation. THINK OF SOMETHING TO SAY, DAMN YOU BRAIN!

“Get off your ass already!” a new voice huffs and startles me enough to actually make me jump despite not even standing. On my left, there is a lesbian – honestly, that’s what best describes her! She’s wearing red flannel, for fuck’s sake! A super short lesbian, she’s almost a head shorter than even me… What the hell – heck is she doing here? Can’t she see the angel standing right there? Why isn’t she boggled out of her mind at the incredible sight?! It feels so right to be in awe of her – wait… It feels… right? Why… why isn’t anything wrong now? I… This is so confusing. Where did the wrong go?

The angel graciously offers her hand to this idiotic creature, and all I can do is stutter out a simple thank you. Partly it’s my confusion at the inexplicable disappearance of wrong, and partly because she is - and I’m not shitting or embellishing this in the slightest - the most beautiful woman I could have imagined even in my wildest dreams. It’s not just how she looks, it’s also how she feels – and yes, she does look stunning, but she also emanates this aura of peace, reverence and contentment. That aura, combined with her perfectly symmetrical, slim face, large eyes in multiple hues of blue and nearly translucent, evenly toned skin puts Aphrodite, Venus and Istar all to shame.

“Thank you”, I say automatically. The angel smiles and I swear my heart skips like ten beats. Not only is she indescribably beautiful, she’s also insanely tall – I don’t even reach her armpit. As I stare up at her like some love-struck idiot, her face subtly changes – her eyes go from double-lid to monolid, her nose flattens a bit, and her cheekbones travel upwards. She’s turned from completely Caucasian to part East Asian – like me. She skin still stays just as pale, though, it even faintly glows a white light.

“We need to go, asshats!” the lesbian snaps. I reluctantly turn to look at her instead of the wonder in front of me. Her hair is blonde as well, but instead of freely flowing long waves, it’s a straight, long bob and pulled into a ponytail. Her eyes are an even turquoise, and that’s one of the only two things worth mentioning about her looks – she’s impossibly plain. She’s so plain you can’t call her ugly, not even standing next to the angel. The other thing worth mention is that bitch face of epic proportions. How she can be anything but awestruck around the angel is beyond me, but that look makes it pretty clear she despises nothing on this planet as much as she does me.

I thought the angel would be incapable of negative emotions, but even she gives a slight glare at the lesbian, like she’s being inappropriate.

“Yes, it would be best to move on before more demons arrive.”

That thing was really a demon? Not just some monster? Why was it after me? And why am I important to warrant an honest to God angel to save me? Not that I don’t appreciate it, it’s just weird that a nobody like me gets special treatment. My family’s not important, and I’m not even planning a religious career.

The angel and the lesbian start walking towards my place, and I don’t question how they know where I live. I just follow, legs weak, suddenly noticing how funny the short lesbian looks next to the giant angel. As I stifle the chuckle, I realize how rude I’m being, and to a celestial being at that!

“Ah! My name’s Ally binti Badraan! Nice to meet you!”

Both women turn to look at me, but keep walking.

“We knew that”, the angel replies smiling gently. “You may call me Rapture.”

We both look at the lesbian expectantly, and she blanks for a good five seconds. What, doesn’t she know her own name?

“…Meta. Got any smokes?”

Rapture looks like she wants to facepalm, but it wouldn’t fit her image.

“Uhh, sorry, no. I don’t smoke.”

“What are you even good for?” Meta huffs. Excuse me? What the hell kind of manners are those?! She was totally raised in a barn!

“I apologize for my subordinate”, Rapture grumbles. “It may be difficult to believe she is also an angel, but she is capable despite her personality.”

What?! The lesbian is also an angel? But – she’s nothing like Rapture! She seems like the furthest thing from angel excluding demons! Rapture, yeah, she could only be an angel, but you can’t tell me that Plain McBitchy belongs in the same genus!

“I’m here to fight demons, not to baby these bonebags”, Meta comments with a sneer. I decide not to bother with her, and address Rapture.

“So you’re powers, am I correct?”

Rapture smiles so bright I swear the whole street lights up. I hate being a broken record, but she is so beautiful! I might have to look away soon, wouldn’t want my eyes to overload.

“Oh, good to see you have read your Bible! It has been very long since I met a true believer!”

I don’t have the heart to tell her I haven’t even read the whole Bible… I skipped like 70 percent of the Old Testament. I read all the angel stuff on Wikipedia.

Come to think of it, does this prove Christianity to be the only true religion? What am I going to tell dad and Saida?

I’m just about to ask, when the angels – no, I just can’t consider the lesbian an actual angel – suddenly turn invisible. We’re right at the corner of my apartment building, and I hear someone walking towards us. I don’t want to panic, because for sure Rapture wouldn’t have left me to fend for myself if it was a demon, but can you blame me for imagining the worst when I was a second away from death mere minutes ago?

I couldn’t hide behind the dumpster fast enough, and Ricky caught me at a very embarrassing situation.

“Did you drop something?” he asks. I feel my face growing red as I try to nonchalantly brush my clothes clean and look like I didn’t just dive on the ground.

“Oh, yeah, my… thing. Girl thing.”

“I have two sisters, you can say tampon”, he laughs as he throws in his trash. I am so glad he doesn’t realize I made it sound like my tampon just fell out. “Nice evening, right? If it weren’t for the lights, you could see the stars clearly.”

Yeah, the sky is clear and there’s only a light breeze in the air. I look up at the sky, but can only see a few dots here and there. I’ve always wanted to go in the countryside somewhere at night so I could see the starry sky in all its glory. It’s just that driving in complete darkness in a strange place would be a little too scary, and I am not sleeping in a car.

I catch Ricky looking at me with a slight blush on his face, and wait for the wrong to set in to discourage any kind of romantic notion. But it doesn’t come. What happened to it? It always comes at moments like this!

“Um…” Ricky starts, wrings his hands, looks at the ground, looks at me, and starts again. “I – I cooked up something really good, if you’d, maybe, like to come in and, I don’t know, watch some anime?”

Where is that sense of wrong? I feel completely fine with saying yes to this ridiculously obvious date. It’s like it’s suddenly okay to like someone.

I – I kind of want to see what happens. It doesn’t have to lead to anything serious, I can just leave if wrong returns. Claim I didn’t realize this is a date.

I’m gonna do it!

“Yeah, okay! I got some mochi at my place, you liked the green tea ones, right?”

Ricky can’t believe I just said yes. His smile is so wide you could fit a camel in his mouth, despite him clearly trying to play it cool, like he’s a smooth player.

“Those were the kind you got me for Christmas? Where did you buy them?” Aww, he remembered! He hadn’t looked too happy with his first taste of mochi, but I guess they grew on him.

“The Chinese store on West street, they got many kinds.”

“Never thought I’d say I like green tea”, Ricky jokes and stops even trying to hide his joy.

“My favorite is durian, smells horrible but tastes heavenly.”

Does that count as an accidental pun? Rapture and Meta are still around, aren’t they? Just invisible. What’s up with that, anyway?

“Was that the purple one, or –“

Ricky is cut off by Meta suddenly appearing right at his side and making him jump away in surprise.

“Will you two just get ON WITH IT!” she yells exasperated. “I’m TIRED, I need my SMOKES, and I’m not getting EITHER while you two keep standing here FLIRTING WITH EACH OTHER!”

Ricky stares at her in terrified silence, and I can’t think of anything to say either. Meta huffs again – seems to be her thing.

“Do you at least have smokes?”

Ricky shakes his head timidly.

“Well of FUCKING COURSE you don’t! Fucking useless garbage! Thirsty little bitch who probably still wets the bed…”

“What the hell Meta?!” I yell. Yeah, I’m a nice person, but I’m not gonna just stand there while this bitch insults my friend! Angel or not, she needs to show some basic respect! “You can’t just blow up like that! Apologize!”

She stares at me in stunned silence, and I can just hear the Did this bitch honestly-! Uh-huh, you bet your ass I did! “Ricky’s a nice guy, he doesn’t deserve you giving him shit for not enabling your bad habits!”

Uh-oh, bad move. Meta goes from disbelief to fite me! in under a second.

“You realize he probably beats off to you every single night? Nice guys like him watch the most fucked up Asian bondage porn”, Meta shoots, and stomps inside.

“She’s wrong!” Ricky instantly squeaks. “I don’t even watch normal person! I swear! SHE’S LYING!”

…and he escapes. I doubt this date is happening anymore.

When I get inside, Meta is already sprawled out on the couch. Rapture becomes visible the second I close the door. She begins a long, furious rant that same second.

“Meta! Your work ethics are deplorable! We are under strict orders not to show ourselves to normal humans! You mouth off any human you meet and spend your time smoking and rotting your brain with TV and lazing around and drinking and nothing I say ever gets through to you! Get up! What a fine image you are giving your client!”

Rapture is a lot less angelic when she rants at someone she clearly considers beneath her. That feel-good aura is completely gone and her face contorts in inhuman ways. Her voice also is also slowly losing its melodic qualities and turning more and more shrill every ten seconds. And she talks for many ten seconds. Wow, can she flap her lips! She just keeps going and going and going about the innumerable flaws Meta has, while the object of this rant does nothing to hide her prissiness though she never defends herself, either. Guess she’s used to this, and knows the fastest way to get it over with is not to argue. I may not like her, and maybe I do agree with Rapture on many points, but it’s still overkill to put someone down for almost ten minutes.

“Please calm down, Rapture, I’m sure she got the message.”

Despite this being such a meek protest, she actually turns to face me – her eyes have turned black and her face is considerably more angular and sharp than earlier. She returns back to normal in seconds, like she forgot I was here and tries to pretend she didn’t just chew out her partner. Her huge wings knock off two glasses on my table, which thankfully don’t break, and after some deliberation she decides her visage is angelic enough without the wings. She sheds them by letting the feathers fall of in a dramatic cascade. Fortunately they fall through the floor and don’t just pile up for me to clean up.

“I assume you would like an explanation of the situation?” she asks, and I nod. Behind her back Meta rolls her eyes and drops back on the couch. “Your grandchild will be the second coming of the messiah.”

Messiah? As in, Jesus Christ? And his second coming? Woah, seems Christianity is the only religion. Am I gonna have to give up Allah?

“We will stay here to protect you, to ensure the bloodline keeps going.”

“Have you been protecting me my whole life? But – why would you never show yourselves?”

You’d think protecting me was a little easier if I knew what could happen to me. I could, you know, maybe try and prepare, instead of freezing and trying to fistfight a demon. Plus I probably would have gone to church a lot more often. God likes it when people go to church.

“Oh, no, we were assigned to this task today. Powers are much too conspicuous – before this, a guardian angel was more suited to the task. They are everywhere and have very little power, so they do not attract attention. But now that you have been discovered, Satan will do all in his power to break the bloodline. He will do anything to escape judgment.”

She smiles reassuringly, but suddenly her smile doesn’t captivate me like it just minutes before. Yeah, she’s still super beautiful, but hearing her nag so passionately didn’t exactly earn her points in my book.

“Not to worry, we can take anything the enemy throws at you.”

Right, yeah, I guess I should be worried about my own life, now that she mentioned it.

“So Christianity’s God is the only true god?” I blurt out. Rapture smiles brightly, while Meta vigorously shakes her head behind her back.

“So… is He or isn’t He?”

“Of course He is! What else would He be?” Rapture barks.

“He’s so far from the only one he’s not even a decimal”, Meta comments. Rapture shoots her a truly venomous look, and clearly plans to lecture her some more later.

This is all a bit much to take in… I’m the grandmother of Jesus, and angels can’t agree on whether God is the only god or not, and I’m gonna have to tell mom and dad all this craziness… Oh and my life is gonna be in danger basically 24/7 now.

“Okay guys, I need some alone time. Good night, sorry but I only have that one couch… Try and share it or something.”

Rapture lets out an indignant scoff, but I don’t look at her. I just close the bedroom door and fall on the bed. I should do my evening prayers, but what can I even say tonight? Should I pray to both my Gods, or just one? Should I address one to all the possible deities, since Meta said there’s a whole lot? Would just one shared prayer do or am I gonna have to sit here ‘til I faint from hunger?

Eventually I settle on praying to both God and Allah, as I do every evening. I simply pray for guidance. As predicted, Rapture nags at Meta, but at least she’s doing it quietly, and lets me fall asleep.

Crumbs… Crumbs everywhere… Poor sandwiches, can’t be easy going to school when you shed all over the floors and eat yourself for lunch, and Ham can’t even find its cow.

“BLESSED SILENCE!”

I hear a confused groan and it takes a few seconds to realize I’m the one who made it. It’s pitch black in my room.

“Sorry, it got a little too quiet”, Meta explains. I groan again. This is just great, she woke up in the fucking dead of night because it was too quiet? That’s the ideal for night!

At least I fall asleep again reasonably quick.

#ApocalypseIn50 #ApocalypseUniverse #Ally #Ricky #Saida #Rapture #Meta #wiptale #linssioriginals #original fiction

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