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rambleonwaywardson · 3 months ago

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Clegan Astronaut AU - Part 15

Masterpost Read on AO3

AU Summary: the boys as modern day NASA astronauts. Taking place in 2025, Bucky is about to head to the moon as mission commander of Artemis III while Buck is CAPCOM at NASA. Established relationship (obnoxiously in love).

Author's Note: We may have been shorter last week, but we are longer this week. Good news is, the boys are heading home! Heads up, I am looking at probably two more chapters after this one(?) Who knows, but that's my current idea.

---

Is it possible to be nowhere and everywhere at the same time?

You’re driving on the flat open road of the west, not a single car in sight, nothing but nowhere spread across the Earth on all sides. Or you’re on a boat in the middle of the ocean, calm waves rocking you up and down, knowing that the world is at your fingertips even though you can’t see a single thing other than the water meeting the sky. You’re in a plane, soaring through the clouds, no worries, no pain, almost everyone who ever lived below you and endless possibilities ahead. Or you’re in a space capsule above the Earth, and you look into the star-spotted blackness out your window and you know. It looks like nothing, but in reality, there’s nothing but everything. An infinity that rests just beyond your reach.

There’s something about being adrift in the great wide open that makes you throw your arms out to the wind, yell into the universe to let them know you’re there, you’re not afraid. Way out in the middle of nowhere, the great wide everywhere that you can’t see but you can feel in your heart.

John has spent his whole life chasing that feeling, grin on his face, cheeks reddened by the wind. His feet could never settle on the ground, always trying to reach the sky above, the moon, the stars, the infinity that dared him to hold on for the ride. Wild child, they called him. He wanted to find the top of the world, see it all stretched out before him.

The king of nowhere and everywhere all at once.

—

November 23 Somewhere between Earth and the Moon Or… somewhere between nowhere and everywhere

“Hey astrofag, welcome back.”

Bucky’s eyes open slowly, as if his eyelids don’t remember what their job is. Everything is blurry and unfocused, watercolor grays and whites. His body doesn’t feel right, adrift in a sea of nothing. Everything feels wrong wrong wrong, and his head feels tight and heavy, his eyes irritated, his face stuffy and sore.

Everything hurts. He blinks, and his vision assembles into something semi-coherent, shapes and lines that don’t make sense but at least are staying still for once. Someone is standing over him, a grin across their face.

Not standing. Floating.

Alex. Alex wasn’t here before. Bucky hasn’t seen Alex in…

When? When did he last see Alex?

Bucky’s eyes dart around the small crew cabin, but it sends a sharp pain through his head like needles poking at his brain, carving into his skull. He can hear his own heartbeat in his ears. Getting faster, too fast. Nausea is rolling through him. Panic.

“Hey, take it easy.” Rosie’s voice.

Bucky can’t breathe. Or is he breathing too fast? His lungs burn.

He gags on the air that tastes like metal in his mouth, feeling that sour acid creeping up his throat as his stomach tries to flip inside out. He tries to turn over, but he’s stuck. Something is holding him in place, and he doesn’t understand how that can be possible when it feels like all the pieces of his body have been disassembled. Weakly, he tries to break away from the restraint. Need out need out need out.

But he can’t. He doesn’t understand how to move his body when his body is nothing. He is nothing.

He wonders, if he believes hard enough that none of this is real, will he wake up whole again?

He might scream in pain when he tries to move his leg, but that might only be in his head. It’s hard to tell, when he woke up with a head-splitting ringing in his ears.

“Get him up, get him up,” Rosie is saying. The panic in his voice sticks in Bucky’s mind. Two of a kind.

Alex leans over Bucky, working to free him. He and Rosie pull him upright just before he spits the bile out of his mouth. It floats in front of his face, making him feel sick again as he stares at it, wondering why it’s doing that. He doesn’t know where he is. Or why. Or how.

He wants to go home now.

“Curt?” He whimpers.

“He’s sleeping, bud.”

Bucky doesn’t like that. Curt has been the only constant in this painful, pieced together existence he’s been living. He blinks, and everything goes all blurry again.

The last thing he hears before he passes out is someone saying Gale’s name.

—

“Gale isn’t here,” Rosie tells him.

He was. I heard you talking to him.

“You wanna talk to Helen about something?”

Bucky shakes his head. That movement alone sends everything spinning around him. His nose is all stopped up and his throat feels tight and sore. His stomach feels like it’s twisted all in knots. Rosie keeps trying to give him water, but he’s having a hard time swallowing, more often than not choking or spitting it back out, and he feels tears leaking onto his hot cheeks. He groans and curls in on himself, hoping that maybe if he closes his eyes, all of this will just go away.

“Hold on,” Rosie says, his voice muffled as he leaves Bucky’s side.

He mourns the loss of company, and he pulls his shaking left hand up to his mouth, pressing his wedding ring to his lips for comfort. Everything feels funny. There’s too much pressure in his head, and he doesn’t know why.

His limbs won’t listen to his brain, and he feels like he’s floating in the worst way. And he doesn’t know why.

Everything hurts so bad. And he doesn’t know why.

He feels like he’s gonna throw up. And he doesn’t know why.

Gale isn’t here. And he doesn’t fucking know why.

His whole body feels like it’s buzzing, like an electric current gone haywire. One wrong move and he might go up in flames. His heart is beating too fast and it won’t slow down. He can’t breathe. “Hey, hey, it’s alright.” Rosie’s voice is back. A warm hand rests on Bucky’s shoulder. “You’re fine. I’m right here.”

He really wishes it was Gale, but he just doesn’t want to be alone. He’s scared that if he falls asleep alone, he might not wake up. Somewhere deep in a memory he can’t trust anymore, something tells him that someone out there doesn’t want him to wake up. Would that be better?

Something soft is touching his hand, rubbing across his knuckles. Rosie gently pulls Bucky’s fingers away from his mouth, helping him stretch them open and close them again around the object.

“Open your eyes, John. Take a look.”

Bucky does as he’s told, even though it makes him feel sick, and he lifts his head as much as he can to look down at his chest. There’s a small stuffed bear with soft brown fur gripped in his fingers, pressed against his heart. It’s wearing a NASA shirt and a name tag that says “Beary Egan” in a messy scrawl that Bucky would know anywhere. His heart jumps.

“Gale,” he whispers.

Rosie strokes his hair back soothingly, and Bucky falls asleep without feeling panic in his chest for the first time since he woke up on the moon.

—

“Gale isn’t here.” Curt strokes a strand of hair away from Bucky’s face.

Bring him back, Bucky thinks desperately. Tell him I need him.

He picks at the needle in his arm, but Curt swats his hand away. Get it out of me. He doesn’t know what it is. He doesn’t want it there anymore. He doesn’t want to be here. He wants to go home.

“Quit that,” Curt says, grasping Bucky’s fingers in his own to keep them still. Bucky struggles, but eventually goes lax when it takes too much energy that he doesn’t have. “It’s already all red, John. You’re gonna hurt yourself.”

“Buck,” Bucky whispers insistently.

He searches Curt’s face, and all he sees is sadness as the other man sighs deeply and squeezes his fingers. “He’ll be back tomorrow,” he says, letting go of Bucky’s hand.

Bucky hugs Beary Egan tight to his chest and imagines Gale’s arms wrapped around him. He imagines the heat of his body protecting Bucky from the world, the strong set of his shoulders ready to take on anything that threatens to hurt him. He imagines his smile and his laugh and the fierceness and love in his eyes. He imagines his voice in his ear, the warmth of his breath, the feeling of his lips kissing the top of his head.

If Gale were here, he’d make all of Bucky’s pain go away. If Gale were here, Bucky wouldn’t have to worry about anything at all.

—

“... Vertigo… TBI… bad combination.”

“What do we do?”

“... keep him comfortable… hope…”

“...ain’t happening.”

Bucky’s head hurts too much to even open his eyes. When he tries, pain rings in his ears like a physical thing hunting him down in this never-ending nightmare. He has nowhere to turn, no way to escape it. It’s already got him in its teeth.

Voices drift in and out, but he doesn’t know who they are or where they’re coming from.

“Gale,” he tries to whisper, but his lips are dry and his throat is dry and his brain won’t form the word – the only word he knows. Gale. No one can hear him. Beary Egan has drifted away, somewhere he can’t reach, leaving him all alone in the darkness of this place he doesn’t know. He tries to reach his hand out, tries to open his eyes to look, but it all makes him feel sick.

Come back. Please.

Bucky turns his head to the side and coughs out the burning acid forcefully ejecting itself from his body. Somewhere, distantly, he’s aware of someone wiping his face. “Here,” they say. “We don’t wanna lose this guy do we?”

His fingers are being pried open, and he closes them around something soft. Something safe. He pulls the bear back to his chest, and he sniffs against the stuffiness clouding his head. He imagines the unknown voice belongs to Gale, even though it’s not even close.

—

Rosie feels a deep pain in his chest every time Bucky wakes up and asks for Buck. Every time, Rosie has to tell him “Gale’s not here right now, John. He’ll be back in the morning.” And every time, Bucky frowns, and he disappears again. Like Gale is the only reason he’s stayed alive this long and there’s no reason to exist if he isn’t here.

Rosie is a medical professional. And yet even he doesn’t wholly understand the role that love plays in an intensive care patient drawing in the next breath, and the next, and the next. In a matter of life or death, Rosie used to be inclined to say that, no, love doesn’t keep patients alive. The heart is no more than a muscle that pumps blood through your body, and your body is no more than a vessel for your brain. Your brain is no more than a collection of neurons that, through some miracle of life, let you think and interact with a complex world. Love is not a direct power source.

That’s not to say that the existence of human life isn’t beautiful. And that’s not to say that the existence of love isn’t worth living for. It’s just to say that the human body is going to do what it’s going to do, that intense feelings of love pulling a coma patient back to the surface is something straight out of a cheesy romance movie.

But it’s possible that John Egan alone will change Rosie’s mind.

“He’s regressed since docking,” he tells Helen. It’s late on November 23rd, nearing midnight for the crew – 8pm in Houston – and they are well on their way back to Earth. It’s been 24 hours since Starship rendezvoused with Orion and Rosie and Alex had to pull John’s unconscious body through the hatch. He only woke up once Gale’s entire shift, which Rosie knows tore Gale up inside even if he won’t admit it to anyone. Bucky has woken a few times in the four hours since. Every single time he asks for Gale.

“Buck said he’s been unconscious much of the day?” Helen asks.

Rosie rubs a hand over his eyes. He’s floating in the middle of the cabin next to John’s hammock, where he’s been stationed basically since they got the commander settled there in the first place. As he talks, he’s adjusting Bucky’s IV fluid. NASA asked him to ration it, but Rosie is terrified that decreasing the amount of fluid Bucky receives will mean he won’t regain enough strength. He’s become more and more concerned throughout the day, as the Earth becomes larger and larger through their window. Atmospheric re-entry and splashdown will be harder on Bucky’s body than even the Starship launch was.

Rosie’s worried that Bucky’s heart, his brain, his body won’t be able to handle the stress. If they can’t get some of his strength back, the intensity of their return to Earth might crush the life right out of him like a shoe to a bug. So how in this godforsaken universe is Rosie supposed to tell Gale that, even though they’ve gotten his husband this far, there’s still a chance he dies during re-entry?

“Rosie?” Helen says. Rosie squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head to re-center himself.

“He asks for Gale a lot,” he recounts. “He expresses pain – and as far as we can tell, he’s in a lot of pain. He only seems partially aware of what’s happening to him at any given time, but he won’t stay awake long enough for us to tell.”

“What changed?”

Rosie scoffs, even though he doesn’t mean to. It’s just that this whole situation is basically their worst case scenario – the kind of thing that they don’t even plan for much less practice coping with. They’re all just trying their goddamn best up here even though their best means subjecting their commander to baseline torture.

“His body is having a really hard time adjusting to zero gravity.”

It’s funny, actually, because Major John Egan has never had a single problem with space sickness before. Even when the majority of astronauts experience symptoms of Space Adaptation Syndrome when first exposed to zero gravity, Bucky has never reported more than some congestion from the headward shift of fluids that they all experience. He’s never experienced nausea or vomiting, malaise, or loss of appetite. Hardly even a headache. Many of the other astronauts were jealous of him for that.

“My best guess is the extra pressure in his head after a TBI is causing more problems than we can really anticipate,” Rosie explains as he tries to massage the tension out of his brow. He hasn’t slept in over 24 hours now, and it’s starting to get to him. “He’s extremely congested. Seems to be experiencing vertigo, headaches, confusion, a lot of nausea. His motor control has regressed. His ability to communicate has regressed.”

He can hear Helen typing away on her computer, recording this information for their records. “What are the odds it corrects itself the longer he’s on Orion?”

Rosie shrugs as he double checks that the IV is still properly inserted into Bucky’s arm. It made him feel like an absolute monster, but he had to restrain Bucky’s hands an hour or so ago because he kept pulling at it, obsessively trying to remove it. The only reason he hasn’t succeeded is because he can’t get enough control over his own fingers to grip something so small as the butterfly needle. Bucky tried to fight the restraints, and Rosie was impressed with the strength he exhibited for having almost no nutrients for days on end, but he was still too weak and gave up after half a minute. Rosie tucked Beary Egan into the sleeping bag with him, right over his heart, to keep the bear from flying away.

“I’m hopeful,” Rosie admits hesitantly. “Usually SAS goes away within a day or two. But as I said, this is… a unique case.”

He floats his way over to where his laptop is stored by the main console so he can update the log he’s been keeping on Bucky’s condition. Things like Asks for and accepts water; Asks for Curt and Gale; Responds to pain stimuli; Complains about head and leg pain; 0800 - vomited bile; 1100 - vomited bile; 11:30 - Trouble swallowing water; 1300 - vomited bile; 14:30 - vomited bile; 1600 - scratching at head wound; Keeps trying to remove IV; 22:30 - restrained hands.

23:45 - decreased IVF.

Early this morning, Rosie was able to use their X-ray machine to check Bucky’s leg. He was happy to report that Curt managed to set it properly, and it should hopefully heal well enough once they make it back home. If they can keep Bucky from messing with it and potentially re-injuring himself.

Silver linings.

“I’m worried about the IV fluid.”

“I know,” Helen says.

“I was hoping I’d be able to get him eating solid food once he was back on Orion, but at this rate, I’m lucky if I can get him to swallow water without coughing it back up.”

There’s a brief silence before Helen comes back. “We think you should try giving him something easy tomorrow. Cereal or soup. You should have enough food rations to sacrifice some, if he can’t keep it down.”

Rosie watches the steady rise and fall of Bucky’s chest. Even in sleep, he looks pained. “I can try.”

—

Nassau Bay, TX

Gale has given up even considering sleeping in his bedroom. He spent last night tossing and turning on the couch, even though he knew he’d wake up with all sorts of pain in his neck and back. He has to admit, he isn’t twenty-two anymore. But the thought of sleeping in that too-big bed without John’s arms around him is too much. He’s forcing himself to stay in the living room, even though he’s terrified to be alone. Even though the darkness closes in on him, making him feel like that lonely child afraid of the night. He doesn’t want to bother Marge again; she’s spent too much time trying to hold him together.

John’s pillow smells less and less like John. When Gale woke up far too early this morning, the creeping fear from a forgotten nightmare crawling over his mind, he cried into the pillow, mourning something that he nearly lost but hasn’t yet found again. Mostly, he shoves his nose against the pillowcase and tries to find the last remnants of that smoky-sweet scent that he would give anything to smell again. Counting the minutes, the seconds, until John comes home.

Before and during rendezvous, Alex and Rosie adjusted Orion’s course to drop from NRHO into LLO, so that they would dock with Starship and remain in low lunar orbit rather than continuing on into the much longer near-rectilinear halo orbit. The original flight plan called for continuing in NRHO for a few days before performing a burn that would essentially slingshot the crew around the moon and back towards Earth. But with Bucky still in critical condition, they simply don’t have that kind of time.

Early this morning, Benny walked Curt through a trans-Earth injection burn, kicking the crew out of LLO. If all goes to plan, the new flight path will bring them home in 3.5 days rather than the roughly week-long journey that NRHO would have necessitated.

All that to say, Gale will be with his husband again in T-3 days. 72 hours. 4,320 minutes.

259,200 seconds.

About 260,000 heartbeats.

One. Two. Three. Four…..

He’s given up trying to look through the wedding pictures. Sometimes he opens the tab on his phone and simply stares at that first look photo, the one of John seeing him in his wedding suit for the very first time. He imagines Bucky’s hands on his waist, the softness of Bucky’s hair beneath his fingers, that wayward curl over his head. He thinks about Bucky’s smile – perfect, carefree, beautiful, something sent by the angels.

Sometimes it hurts too much, and all Gale can do is try not to chuck his phone at the wall. He actually did once, when he stupidly gave in to the urge to go on social media. He had to relocate one of the framed photographs on their living room wall to hide the dent he made.

“Fag’s coming home,” people on social media say.

“I vote we leave him up there.”

Gale wonders how people can be so cruel to a man that has given everything for his country time and time again.

During Gale’s shift today, Bucky only woke up once. For eight hours, Gale stood or sat at his desk, wedding ring pressed to his lips, coffee clutched in a death grip, guiding the crew through cabin checks and correctional burns. And Bucky only woke one time, screaming in pain. Rosie and Dr. Huston both tell Gale that the Starship launch was a lot for John’s brain and body to handle, and they aren’t surprised he needs time to recover. They tell him that it isn’t really a step back, that it isn’t anything to worry about. But Gale knows they aren’t telling him the whole story.

What if they ruined his chances, strapping him into that rocket? What if it was too much for him to handle? What if he doesn’t recover? What if he’s made it this far, and he’s not strong enough to finish the journey home? And now, when they’re running out of IV fluid…

Gale’s whole life feels like a what if. He’s so, so close to having his husband back, safe in his arms. And yet they have so terribly far to go.

Minimal consciousness. Minimal consciousness. Minimal consciousness. That’s what everyone keeps calling it. That’s the official statement that Marge gave in the press conference that aired this afternoon. “Major Egan remains in a state of minimal consciousness… Hard time remaining aware… basic communication… vertigo… brain fog… confusion… pain…”

That’s the purgatory that Bucky is in.

“We’re hopeful he will continue to improve… we are doing everything we can to bring our boys home.”

The TV clicks off. Gale looks up from where he’s sitting on the floor, alone, holding the pillow in his lap. He changed out of his work clothes when he came home and is wearing the Yankees sweatshirt and a pair of black joggers, his socked feet tucked beneath his crossed legs. Marge sighs deeply as she looks at him, remote in hand. “You’re just torturing yourself.”

“You’re the one who did the press conference,” Gale mutters.

“It’s my job, Gale.” She frowns as she sets the remote on the coffee table. “Go get your dogs. It’s a nice day, and you need fresh air. I can come if you want company.” She’s slowly starting to trust him again.

Gale shakes his head and gets to his feet, carefully placing the pillow back on the couch. “I’ll go.”

Marge is right, it is a nice day. Cool, but not cold. The bite in the air makes Gale pull the sleeves of the sweatshirt over his hands, and he thinks about walking through the neighborhood with John when they first moved here, almost exactly four years ago. He thinks about Bucky’s warm hand in his, his wild grin as he pointed this direction and that, pretending to be a tour guide of this place that he’d never so much as visited before. “To your left, you’ll see a wild seagull in its natural habitat…”

Benny answers the knock on his door faster than Gale expected him to, and when he meets Gale’s eyes, his face is filled with a worry that punches Gale right in the gut, a worry that Gale is simply not equipped to handle right now.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

Benny runs a hand through his hair and motions behind him, where the dogs lay on the hardwood instead of greeting Gale, tails wagging, like they normally do. “Pepper won’t eat. Did she eat breakfast?”

Gale feels his heart drop. The happy memory of John is replaced by dread washing over him. Suddenly, it feels far too cold outside after all. He rubs a sleeve-covered hand over his eyes. “I… I can’t remember,” he realizes. He bites at his lip, furrowing his brow. “Marge fed her. I can’t remember.”

He vaguely remembers Marge saying something about Pepper this morning. She looked concerned. He was so exhausted though, so drained. He remembers tightening his tie around his neck, feeling it choke the air from his lungs, adjusting the collar of his shirt as he nodded. He muttered something along the lines of “I’m sure she’s fine.”

How could he have neglected his baby girl? How could he have ignored something that was so obviously unlike her? How terrible of a pet parent is he?

He rubs his hand over his mouth, and Benny must see the distress clear as day all over his face, because he puts a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Hey, it’s okay,” he soothes. “It’s okay.”

“Why can’t I remember?” Gale whispers.

Benny chuckles softly and pulls him into a hug. It makes Gale feel pathetic, the way tears well up in his eyes so easily, and he holds his breath to stop them from spilling over. “If those bags under your eyes are anything to go by, you’re not sleeping,” Benny points out. “And Marge says you’re barely eating.” He sighs, holding Gale tighter. “Breathe, Buck.”

Gale struggles to draw air in through his nose, and Benny rubs his back. “What are we gonna do with you?”

“Send me to the moon, apparently,” Gale mutters. “Didn’t you hear, that’s where America wants to send us fags to die.”

He feels Benny go stiff, tensing at his cruel words. “Buck,” he breathes out, his voice full of sorrow.

“It’s fine,” Gale insists. He wriggles out of Benny’s hold and wipes his eyes. “I’m fine. I-I’ll take her to the vet tomorrow, if she doesn’t eat by the time my shift ends.”

He walks past Benny into the house, kneels down next to Pepper as she lays on the floor. She whines and presses her cold nose against his arm, and he smiles sadly as he strokes her ears. “Pep, don’t do this to me, sweetie. I can’t…”

He sighs and closes his eyes. It doesn’t matter if he can or not; he has to do it all anyway. He has to keep them all afloat. Absently, he rubs his thumb over his wedding ring.

“That’s it,” Benny says. “Have you eaten dinner?”

Gale shakes his head. Marge made pasta, but he could only stomach a few bites. She told him he’d have to try again later. “You’re supposed to be sleeping before Blue Shift,” he reminds Benny.

Benny motions to the door, referencing how quickly he opened it. “Does it look like I was sleeping? Now come on. I’m gonna heat up some soup and you’re not leaving until you eat it.”

—

November 24

Sometime in the middle of the night, Rosie wakes up to Bucky making panicked noises somewhere along the lines of “Uh??? Uh? Uhm…” his voice pitching higher and higher. Despite getting basically no sleep at all, Rosie scrambles at top speed to disentangle himself from his sleeping bag of a hammock, which is strapped vertically to the wall of Orion, and he fumbles with the switches by the main console to get the overhead cabin lights turned on. Curt, in the horizontally strung up hammock beside Bucky, mumbles in displeasure as he wakes and has to squint against the fluorescent brightness assaulting his eyes from above. Alex does the same from his sleeping bag, also secured to the wall, on the other side of the cabin.

Rosie rubs at his own eyes as he pulls himself down to Bucky’s level.

“What’s wrong with him this time?” Curt asks through a yawn. Rosie knows it isn’t meant to come out as annoyed as it sounds. Curt, after all, has been the one dealing with every bullshit twist of fate the universe has thrown Bucky’s way this entire time.

Bucky’s eyes are wide as he looks up at Rosie, then down at his hand, which he’s holding in front of his face. Rosie doesn’t know how the hell he managed to break free of the restraints, but on some level he’s actually relieved. Because that means there’s no point in restraining him again. His breathing isn’t well controlled, shifting from quick gasps to hardly breathing at all and back. Rosie takes his shaking fingers gently and tries not to wince when he feels something wet against his skin.

Red.

“He’s got blood on his hand,” Rosie tells Curt.

“The fuck?” Curt sits up and looks at Bucky. “What did you do?”

Bucky just keeps staring at his hand. He rubs his thumb over his forefinger, watching the red smear across his pale skin. He scrunches his nose.

“Bucky? Where did that come from?” Rosie asks. “I need to know.”

Nothing.

“John, can you look at me?”

Bucky looks back up at him, his eyes unfocused. “Huh?”

“The blood. Where did the blood come from?”

Bucky frowns and seems to notice the blood on his hand all over again. He grimaces and gags a little bit, making another kind of “uh” sound. Rosie braces himself, waiting for Bucky to throw up again, but he doesn’t.

Rosie tries asking, “John, what hurts?” Since asking where the blood came from didn’t work.

Bucky tries to rub his eyes with his bloody hand, and Rosie has to catch his wrist to stop him from smearing it all over himself. “All’ve it,” he slurs.

Rosie nods and takes a deep breath. He should’ve expected as much. “Okay, come on, let’s sit up.”

Bucky doesn’t protest when Rosie unzips the side of his hammock halfway and helps him sit up, but he does whine when the movement jostles his leg. His non-bloody hand tries to grab onto Beary Egan as he floats away, released from the sleeping bag, but he doesn’t have the coordination. Rosie plucks the bear out of the air and tucks him down into Bucky’s lap.

“I know, I know,” he mutters as Bucky tries to reach towards his broken leg. He secures both of Bucky’s hands in his own to hold him upright and keep him from messing with anything else. “Curt, help me out here.”

Curt crawls the rest of the way out of his own hammock so he can hover beside Bucky.

“I’m gonna sit with him like this,” Rosie explains. “Can you check the back of his head?”

Curt nods and puts both hands on Bucky’s shoulders, using them as leverage to pull himself closer to his commander’s backside. Gently, he brushes aside the short strands of hair that are slowly growing back after Curt had to shave off the patch around the head wound.

“Bingo.” His own fingers come away bloody, and he shows Rosie. “He broke open the stitches.”

Rosie frowns and looks pointedly at Bucky. “You’re not supposed to bother those.”

He can’t stay mad, though, when Bucky mutters a quiet but intelligible “Sorry,” even as his eyes are so unfocused that Rosie has no faith he knows what he’s apologizing for.

“I’m gonna have to wrap it all up again, you know.” Rosie tries to catch Bucky’s eye, but the other astronaut won’t look at him. Whatever thoughts are floating around his addled brain are somewhere far away from here.

Rosie asks Curt to update Houston. Then he tells him, “Get me some disinfectant, a rag, a water bottle, and some gauze.”

“Hold on,” Curt calls back as he floats towards the console. “Gotta change our wake-up song first.”

—

“As the sun comes up shining down on the ten, I did too much living and I’m dying again…”

Bucky wakes groggily to the sound of a tired, monotone chorus of his crewmates’ voices, a song blasting in the background. He feels hot and cold at the same time, and a shiver racks his bones, sending pain coursing through his leg. Nausea rolls throw him, and he bites his tongue to hold it back. Slowly, his eyelids peel open. They feel all sticky and wet, like when he wakes up with a fever in the middle of winter and Gale brushes his hair off his forehead with gentle, soothing fingers.

Gale isn’t here, though. They keep telling him that.

He squints through the bright lights of the cabin, despite the heavy ache in his head and sinuses. He can see the others starting to stow their sleeping bags around him, going about their morning. They all look as exhausted as he feels, and they’re all quietly mumbling along to the lyrics of a song he doesn’t recognize.

“I guess I lost my head at the Holiday Inn, but my blood run red, my blood run red.”

“What the fuck,” Bucky mumbles.

Curt’s face appears in his field of view, making Bucky flinch. “Hey! Astrofag!”

Bucky blinks slowly up at him and raises a hand to the side of his head. It’s all bandaged up again. He remembers the blood on his skin. Thought it was a dream. His fingers trail towards the back of his head, and he scrunches his nose at the sharp, stinging pain on his scalp, the pounding that intensifies as he touches the wound through the gauze.

Curt smacks his hand away. “Leave it alone, dude.”

“Shaved my hair,” Bucky mutters. He raises his hand in front of his face, studying the little bit of dried blood still stuck under his nails.

Curt chokes on a laugh. “You almost died. I think you can deal with a little hair loss, my guy.” He cocks his head. “Wait, did you fuck up the stitches cause you were mad about me shaving your hair?”

Bucky frowns. “Dunno.” He doesn’t even remember messing with the wound.

Curt pokes him lightly on the cheek. “I didn’t bring you all this way for you to get your scalp all infected, so leave it the fuck alone, yeah?”

Bucky sticks his tongue out, and Curt rolls his eyes with a fond but annoyed smile that can only be accomplished by someone who knows you like the back of their hand, a sibling or best friend who you’ve been with through everything. Bucky, through the haze of his memory, remembers Curt starting to crumble in the lander. It feels good to see him smile like that again.

Curt pats Bucky on the shoulder and floats away, leaving him alone as life goes on around him. His head spins, and he finds Beary Egan tucked back into the sleeping bag against his chest. He holds on tight to the bear as he tries to look out the window on the side of the capsule, his eyes struggling to focus. Earth is visible, an unassuming blue sphere rising out of the black nothing.

Alex appears next to him, and they meet each other’s gaze. “Want a better look?”

Bucky takes a few seconds to process that question, but his eyes flick back to the planet out their window, and Alex pats him on the shoulder. “Come on,” he says. He unzips Bucky’s sleeping bag as far as it’ll go, and he gently eases Bucky out of it, which is made easier by the zero-g. “Leg feel okay?”

“No,” Bucky grits out.

“Stupid question,” Alex agrees. “Good enough, though? I’m gonna take you to the window. Is that okay?”

Bucky nods, his eyes already locked on the window with a strong determination to orient himself in their solar system, see the view he’s been longing for, feel something other than half dead despite the pounding in his head. Alex grabs Beary Egan and helps Bucky wrap his fingers around him. “Hold on tight to this guy, alright?” Then he gently guides Bucky across the cabin to the little window that they’ve been using as a secondary position indicator. Curt follows with Bucky’s IV in tow.

“Would you look at that,” Alex breathes as they stand by the window. Bucky grins at him, and Alex grins back. He points. “Look at all those clouds.”

Bucky clutches Beary Egan to his chest with his left hand, so hard he feels his wedding band digging into his finger. And he presses his right to the cool glass of the window. It's even more beautiful than he remembers. “Home,” he whispers. “Goin’ home.”

He hears the click of a camera shutter behind him. But all he’s thinking about is Gale, asleep in their bed. Bucky wants to wrap his hands around his husband’s waist, bury his nose in his hair, inhale the scent of him. Sweet and earthy, like sandalwood and salt water. He wants to rest his head against Gale’s chest and hear the beating of his heart.

He wants to go home.

Once the cabin has been swapped from strange dystopian slumber party to astronomical work environment, Rosie helps Bucky complete any necessary sanitary tasks – a process which results in a lot of swearing, angry grumbling, pointed silence, and, eventually, a total loss of consciousness.

Once Bucky comes to again, he refuses to return to his hammock, which they kept set up in the middle of the cabin, even though he’s so exhausted he can barely comprehend anything anyone says to him. Rosie sets him up next to the window again so he can stare out at the stars while they prepare to follow NASA’s orders.

Food. Attempt number 1.

Curt hands over what Rosie can only describe as “goop” – rehydrated milk and wheat chex.

“There’s no way he’s gonna eat that,” Alex says.

They all turn to look at Bucky. His eyes are open, alert, but glassy. His cheeks are flushed in a way that Rosie is concerned about. He’s less lucid than he was an hour ago, when he first woke up, but Rosie isn’t surprised. His body doesn’t have enough energy to keep him going, especially with the lower amount of IV fluid. Bucky turns his head and raises an eyebrow when he realizes they’re all staring at him,

“We’re gonna try some food, okay?” Rosie holds up the package of soggy wheat chex. Bucky used to snack on it dry, but it’ll be too hard to swallow that way.

Bucky frowns. Shakes his head. “No.”

“We gotta get something into you, John.”

“No.”

“Can we try?”

Bucky looks back out the window, honest to God pouting. He crosses his arms protectively over his chest, the bear still clutched in his hand. He protested when Rosie tried to take it away to make their morning tasks easier.

“Please?” Rosie adds.

Bucky looks back at him, then holds his hand out, a scowl still on his face. Rosie nods and moves towards him. “Just nice and slow,” he says. “You wanna try holding the spoon?”

Bucky reaches up to take the little metal spoon from Rosie, but his fingers are too clumsy to hold the handle, sending a clump of cereal drifting into the air. Rosie takes it back, and it takes another minute of convincing for Bucky to recover from that embarrassment. “You’ll be able to do that in no time,” Rosie reassures him. “But only if you eat something.”

Bucky takes a long-suffering breath, but he lets Rosie feed him like a toddler, slipping a small spoonful of soggy cereal between his lips as Alex and Curt watch. He immediately starts gagging at the taste and the cereal pops back out in a glob that floats in front of his face. Rosie re-captures it inside the wheat chex package.

Bucky glares at him, and Rosie wants to laugh at the same time he wants to swear.

“Benny, wheat chex are a no go,” Curt informs Houston.

Bucky turns away and leans his head against the window, staring out into the darkness until his eyes drift closed, a frown on his face. “... and he’s out,” Curt reports. Alex and Rosie gently guide Bucky back to his hammock and get him settled into it. Bucky opens his eyes once and makes a confused, startled sort of noise. He asks for Gale.

Rosie tells him Gale isn’t here yet, and Bucky drifts away again. Rosie presses the back of his hand to Bucky’s forehead, and frowns when he realizes it’s starting to feel too warm.

—

Gale is going to need a hell of a lot more coffee if he has any hope of getting through today. It’s 8am, he’s just taken over the console from Benny, and his first cup is already empty.

Reportedly, Bucky has woken up periodically since his last shift. Sometimes he seems aware of his surroundings, and sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes he just stares at nothing, won’t talk, won’t move. Sometimes he asks for Gale and goes quiet when Gale isn’t there. Sometimes he’s almost capable of conversation.

Most often, he complains about pain and nausea, and he keeps coughing up bile. Rosie is able to administer some pain medication through the IV, but the only anti-nausea meds they have need to be taken orally, and Bucky either won’t or can’t swallow them.

He broke his head wound open, but he didn’t seem to remember doing it or really understand that he did it at all. That’s what Gale hates to think about most: John, unaware and disconnected. Just floating in space, not comprehending or understanding anything that’s happening around him, because that state of nothing is the perfect antithesis of Gale’s energetic, carefree, competent husband.

On top of that, they’re concerned that Bucky is developing a fever. In space. After the whole crew quarantined for days before launch, and they’ve been staying in crew capsules assembled in clean rooms. There is no reason John should be getting sick now, three weeks into the mission. The flight surgeons all agree: there’s only two possibilities. On one hand, it may just be psychogenic, a spike in his temperature due to extreme stress. On the other, it could be neurogenic, resulting from the TBI, which can easily be fatal if not treated properly. Gale tries to take deep breaths and not think too much about that.

Bucky won’t eat either. Just like Pepper won’t eat. Just like Gale himself can barely eat. Together, spread across 230,000 miles, they’re just a dysfunctional little family trying to survive to the next day.

“Get any sleep?” Croz asks him.

Gale shrugs.

“Bags under your eyes are lookin’ lighter today.”

Gale rolls his eyes. “Thanks, Croz. I’m flattered.”

He’s starting to review the course correction burns that Curt and Alex need to perform today when a muffin and a cup of coffee land on his desk.

“Eat,” Marge instructs him. When they arrived at JSC this morning, she headed off to yell at more media outlets to leave Gale the fuck alone after a reporter accosted them on their way in. He gave a brief comment, mostly because he was too tired to run away, but Marge took it upon herself to continue waging war. Apparently, yelling at the media to get a goddamn grip and chill out is a major part of her job right now. And apparently, yelling at the media includes getting coffee and pastries.

Gale reaches for the cup of coffee in relief, but Marge smacks his hand. “No. Not until I watch you take at least four bites of that muffin.”

He glares at her. “What if I don’t want a muffin?”

“It’s chocolate chip.”

He looks at it skeptically. But he picks it up, aggressively peels the wrapper away from one side, and shoves a bite into his mouth. “Where’d this come from?”

“The cafe, where else? You’ve had them like a hundred times.”

Gale stares at the muffin. “I don’t remember them being this good.”

“That’s just ‘cause you haven’t eaten anything in three days.” She flicks him on the arm. “Now finish that. And don’t drink your coffee too fast, okay?”

Croz scoffs, and Gale and Marge both look at him with an unamused scowl. He puts his hands up in surrender. “Hey, don’t look at me like that. We all know the coffee’ll be gone in 15 minutes.”

Marge flicks him on the shoulder and walks away, standing tall in her heels, chin held high. The only thing to give away her own exhaustion is the way she can’t stop tapping her fingers nervously against her arm.

Gale shakes his head as he watches her go, takes a long sip of his coffee as Croz stifles a laugh beside him, and he turns on his coms. “Good morning Orion crew…”

—

“Operation get John to fuckin’ eat something, take four.” Curt makes a motion with his hands like he’s closing a film clapboard.

They tried more food about an hour after the wheat chex failure, but Bucky promptly threw up the first bite of soup he took. After that, he adamantly refused to let any of them get anything remotely close to his mouth that wasn’t water. Every time Rosie tried, Bucky would shake his head and close his eyes, wrapping an arm across his stomach.

“Think he’s still feelin’ sick,” Rosie told Benny.

This time, Bucky’s cheeks are still red, but his eyes are brighter. “Fuck off,” he tells them, in a voice that has a vague semblance of its old strength back.

Rosie’s been trying to talk him into at least trying the chicken noodle soup for about five minutes now. Just the two of them in the middle of the crew cabin while Alex and Curt try to ignore them, going about everyday Orion tasks. Alex is using their little exercise box to do some rowing, while Curt checks the calculations for their next burn.

“Bucky, I really need you to at least try.” Rosie mixes the soup around in its container to keep it from settling. “I promise, this is better than the cereal.”

Bucky shakes his head. “No chex. No soup. No.”

Rosie is, at the very least, proud of the longer sentences Bucky is starting to manage during his more lucid periods.

“Ok, hold on,” Rosie says, pointing at Bucky as he floats away towards the console. He returns with Bucky’s coms, which they’ve kept off of him since he’s been back on Orion. They were just another thing that Bucky kept messing with, and they don’t fit quite right over the bandage around his head.

Rosie situates the headset over Bucky’s head anyway, pushing up the gauze to make sure the earpiece sits right. Bucky raises a hand to adjust the headset himself. Another silver lining Rosie has noticed: although it took longer for Bucky to adapt to being in zero gravity again, as he gets used to it, zero G makes it a bit easier for him to move.

Rosie: “Buck, I’ve got Bucky on coms here.”

Gale: “... John? Can you hear me?”

Rosie watches Bucky carefully, watches his lips move, his eyes go wide, his breathing pick up.

Bucky: “Gale?” His voice sounds soft and strangled all at once. It tugs at Rosie’s heart as he sees Bucky’s reaction to finally hearing his husband’s voice after asking for him over and over again.

Gale: “I’m here, John.”

Rosie: “He doesn’t even wanna try eating the soup I made for him. How rude is that?”

He watches Bucky roll his eyes, the hint of a smile teasing at his lips.

Gale: “John, can you at least try to eat a little?”

Bucky: “No.”

Gale: “Why?”

Bucky: “Bad.”

Gale sighs. Bucky looks at Rosie petulantly with his arms crossed over his chest and a look of disgust on his face. Rosie glares right back. A battle of wills.

Gale: “John, I really need you to eat something. Please, darlin’.”

Rosie can hear the tired pleading in Gale’s voice, and he knows Bucky can, too. He watches Bucky’s expression of contempt falter, melting away as it’s replaced with worry for his husband.

Gale: “If you eat, Rosie might be able to get rid of that IV soon. I know how much you hate that thing.”

Bucky shifts uncomfortably, but he uncrosses his arms and looks skeptically at the soup. Major Beary Egan drifts away from his hand, and Rosie catches him, returning him to Bucky.

Rosie: “I think we’re getting somewhere, Gale.”

Gale: “John, can you eat for me, honey? Please?”

That does it. Bucky looks up at Rosie expectantly and says “Fine.” He lets Rosie spoon some of the lukewarm soup into his mouth, and he swallows it this time.

Rosie: “Good. That’s good, Bucky.”

Bucky manages a few spoonfuls, grimacing when he feels the chunks of chicken and carrot sliding down his throat.

Bucky: “Yuck.”

Gale: “You’re doin’ alright. I’m proud of you, John.”

They get about halfway through the pouch of soup when Bucky pulls away and shakes his head in refusal, his brow furrowed. He lifts a hand to press against his stomach as he closes his eyes and scrunches his nose.

Rosie: “Shit.”

Gale: “He okay, Rosie?”

Bucky tries to cover his mouth with the hand holding Beary Egan, and Rosie lunges forward to grab the bear just in time. Much of the soup comes right back up, making even Rosie grimace with a heavy sigh.

Rosie: “Couldn’t keep it down, Buck.”

Bucky: “Bad.”

“Gotta say,” Alex mutters from behind them. “I preferred it when all he was coughing up was bile.”

—

That evening, Gale sits in the back seat of his own car outside the vet’s office, Pepper curled up tight as can be beside him, her nose pressed into his thigh. They’re waiting for Marge to finish with a phone call, and he watches her pace around in the parking lot outside. He feels bad that she had to chauffeur them here just because she doesn’t trust him on his own.

He doesn’t trust himself either, really. His head feels too muddled, his lungs too overtaxed, his body just dragging through the motions with no real life in it.

There’s nothing wrong with Pepper. A perfectly healthy one year old husky, the vet said.

“Her other daddy’s in space, isn’t he?” she asked. Gale nodded tiredly – because of course she knows what’s going on, just like everyone else on this planet – and he tried not to show contempt when the look on her face turned to sympathy. He doesn’t want sympathy. He’s tired of everyone looking at him with sympathy. Or disgust. Or like he’s a good story that’ll get viewers.

Then the vet said, “Sometimes dogs get depressed when their people leave for a long time. It’s a common reason for them to refuse their food.” He had to fight to hide the way those words dug into him, adding to the pit of fear and exhaustion deep in his soul that only grows by the day.

She told him to try giving Pepper a lot of attention and encouragement when he’s home. Make sure she knows she isn’t alone. As if Gale doesn’t feel like he’s drowning, too. As if Gale is even capable of taking care of himself.

He gently strokes the dog’s head as they sit in the car. “I really need you to eat something, baby girl,” he says, just like he said to John earlier today. “Please.”

He rests his head against the seat and closes his eyes. John’s temperature is too high, and it isn’t responding to medication. It plateaued around 100 degrees, though, and he continued improving overall in spite of it. By the end of Gale’s shift, John finally managed to keep down a packet of chicken noodle soup. Mission control celebrated that victory with no less enthusiasm than they would a successful launch, getting to their feet and clapping and cheering, high-fiving each other. Croz patted Gale on the shoulder with an ecstatic grin.

All Gale could do was tilt his head back in relief. “Good job, darling,” he said to his husband.

“Happy?” Bucky’s voice came back.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

While he and Marge sat in the waiting room with Pepper, Benny texted him. J wants you to know he drank orange juice. No vomit.

Gale allowed himself a small smile and texted back, Tell him I’m proud of him.

The response was, He said “fuckin’ better be.” And Gale burst out laughing in the middle of the veterinary office. He had to apologize to the old lady sitting across from them, holding an ancient-looking terrier on her lap. “My husband might not die,” he explained, and the lady stared at him like he was insane.

His phone buzzes again just as Marge opens the car door and slips into the driver’s seat. “Ready?” she asks. When he doesn’t respond, she looks over her shoulder at him. “Gale?”

Gale’s eyes are wet, and he rubs at them, but it doesn’t stop the tears from falling.

“Honey, what’s wrong?” Marge asks.

He shakes his head with a small smile as he turns his phone to show her. It’s a picture of Bucky that Curt took this morning and managed to send through to Mission Control. Bucky, looking out the window of Orion at the beautiful Earth in the distance. His head is all wrapped up, but he’s holding Beary Egan tight to his chest, and he’s grinning from ear to ear as he presses his other hand to the glass. On top of the world.

The accompanying text reads: “‘Goin’ home’ -John”

—

November 25

Curt is worried that Bucky is having another seizure when he first notices the way his body is trembling in his sleeping bag. “Rosie?” he calls out as he gets himself out of his own hammock. He doesn’t know what time it is, but their morning alarm hasn’t gone off yet. His mind flashes back to being on the lander, his heart pounding in his chest as he remembers pinning Bucky’s unconscious body to the cot, not knowing if or when the violent jerking would stop.

In a panic, he pulls himself over to Bucky’s side and puts a hand on his shoulder. “Rosie?” he says again, fear rising up in his voice as his throat goes tight and his lungs struggle to take in air.

“I’m coming,” Rosie replies. The lights flick on. “What’s wrong?”

He reaches them before Curt can find the words. Bucky is shivering uncontrollably, but it’s different. Not like the seizures Curt had to hold him through on Starship. The tension doesn’t leave Curt’s body, but he feels the nightmare memory slowly recede.

Rosie presses the back of his hand to Bucky’s sweaty forehead. “He’s burning up.”

Bucky’s eyes open, glassy and dazed. “Rosie?” he whispers. “C-cold.”

Rosie strokes his hair back gently. “You’re burning up, John,” he repeats. Curt hands Rosie a headset as he pulls his own over his ear.

Rosie: “Benny, do you copy?”

Benny: “Loud and clear, Rosie. It’s too early for you to be up.”

Rosie: “Do the bio-sensors have a good read on John’s temp? He’s running pretty hot up here.” They wait for Benny to check with Smokey.

Benny: “Still hovering around 100.5.” High, but manageable. And most importantly, stable.

Curt: “He’s shakin’ real bad, Benny.”

“P-please?” Bucky whimpers. His hand weakly grabs at Curt’s arm, and Curt searches his face for any sign of a way to make this better. He puts his hand over Bucky’s and squeezes gently.

“We’re right here with you,” Rosie soothes, putting a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “You’re gonna be alright, John.”

“‘M cold,” Bucky mutters again, pulling Beary Egan close so his nose is buried in the soft fur.

“I know,” Rosie says. But Bucky’s eyes are already closed again. All Curt and Rosie can do is sit there and reassure themselves that Bucky is, at least, still breathing, still talking, still fighting to get home.

—

Later in the morning, while Rosie gets in his mandatory workout for the day, Curt and Alex review the flight plan for the remainder of the mission. They’ll have to perform another mid-course correction burn in the afternoon as they approach Earth, and they’ll enter Earth orbit overnight to prepare for atmospheric re-entry bright and early tomorrow morning.

“These numbers look right to you?” Curt asks as he chews on a mouthful of dry wheat chex.

Alex glances over at the telemetry data on the console, which Curt is comparing to the burn they have planned. “You’re the pilot,” Alex reminds him, shrugging even though he’s the one who’s been doing the Orion orbit calculations since Curt abandoned them for the lunar surface.

“Sorry, why are you on this mission again?” Curt shoots back with a teasing smirk. Alex flips him off and pushes him away from the console so he can review the data.

“Curt?”

They both turn around at the sound of Bucky’s gravelly voice, and they see the commander watching them. “What’s up astrofag?” Curt asks as he pops another piece of cereal into his mouth.

Bucky sticks out his tongue at the name and Curt does it back to him, making Alex laugh. They’ve collectively determined that, while Bucky’s hands are still shaky, sticking out his tongue is his new equivalent of flipping them off. He and Curt do it to each other constantly when Bucky is awake.

“More orange juice?” Bucky asks.

“Yeah, bud. I’ve got more orange juice.” Curt motions to Alex to go retrieve it while he helps Bucky to sit up. “How ya feelin’?”

“Like shit,” Bucky mutters. Curt double checks that the IV is still in place. Bucky hasn’t been able to eat reliably enough to have it removed yet, but they’ve lessened the amount of nutrients he receives through it. His temperature hasn’t changed, and he’s drenched in sweat no matter how much they try to cool him off. But he’s become far more coherent, even if it isn't consistent.

Alex returns with a pouch of orange juice, and Curt holds onto Beary Egan so Bucky can reach for it. He manages to hold onto it with both hands, his fingers shaking, but he can’t keep it steady enough to get it to his mouth. Alex helps him hold it, letting Bucky sip at the juice.

Curt watches Bucky’s eyes widen as he pulls away from the straw, staring in alarm at his own hand. “You good?” Curt asks.

Bucky rubs his thumb over his wedding ring, trying to tug it upwards on his finger even though he can’t accomplish that any better than he could accomplish holding the juice pouch. “Gonna lose it,” he mumbles. “I-I want this… I…” He squints as he loses his train of thought, staring dumbly at the ring.

“Want me to get that on a chain for you?” Curt asks him. Bucky nods, still looking confused and startled. Curt hands the stuffed bear to Alex and heads off to find Bucky’s PPK kit, where he put the chain after the initial accident. When he returns, he feels stupidly proud to see that Bucky is managing to hold the juice pouch on his own, sucking on the straw. His face is flushed, and he looks like shit, but for a second, Curt can almost believe that everything is normal. That Bucky’s just a little sick, nothing to worry about. That the danger of getting him through re-entry isn’t looming over them all like an incoming storm.

“Here, give it to me,” Curt instructs, pointing to the ring. Bucky holds out his left hand but has to stop drinking the juice when his right isn’t controlled enough to hold the pouch on its own. Alex reaches forward to catch it when it slips out of Bucky’s grip. Curt slides the silver band off Bucky’s finger and onto the chain. Then he secures it around Bucky’s neck. “There you go.”

Bucky reaches a hand up to clutch at the ring. “Better.” Then he looks at Alex and demands, “Bear.”

Alex obliges and hands the bear back, then offers the juice again. Bucky shakes his head in refusal, and Curt decides that they shouldn’t push their luck. From across the cabin, Rosie, ever the doctor, calls out, “Those are some good words, John! Gale’ll be proud.”

—

“Good morning, Artemis 3, how do you read?”

Gale settles in his chair and sips his coffee as he waits for a reply. When there isn’t one, he frowns and sets the cup down. “Come in Artemis 3, how do you read?”

“Loud and clear, angel.”

Gale freezes, his lips parting as he tries to process the beautiful sound of that voice, strong and intentional. “Come again, Orion?”

“Y-you heard me…” Bucky coughs a little as he stutters through the words. “The first time, Gale.”

“Well I’ll be damned,” Gale says, and he can’t stop the smile that breaks out over his face. Beside him, Croz is grinning at him. Everyone in mission control has stopped what they’re doing, and for the first time, they’re staring at him not out of pity, not out of fear, but out of hope.

“Ready to come home, John?” Gale asks.

“Eh, think I might just s-stay out here. G-good amenities.”

Gale laughs and hides his smile with his hand as he stares at his computer. Bucky’s vitals are displayed on one side of the screen. He’s running hot, but his heart is strong.

He only stays conscious for about twenty minutes after that, and speaking soon becomes too tiring for his fever-addled, space-sickened, TBI brain. But hearing his voice, those words, made Gale feel like he could take on anything for the rest of the day.

About halfway through his shift, he thanks Croz when he hands him another cup of coffee, and he flips through the notes he’s been given.

Gale: “Alright Orion, we’ve got a minor change here on your flight plan whenever you’re ready.”

Curt: “... Thought the numbers looked a little fucked here this morning. Glad to hear your people caught on, Buck.”

Gale rolls his eyes and he and Croz share a look. It’s good to hear Curt getting back to normal, rather than being angry and anxious all the time. Gale gave up pointing out foul language around the time his husband almost died, and even after returning to Orion, Curt has taken full advantage of his moral leniency.

Gale: “Sure, Curt. Croz has new numbers for you.”

Curt: “Alex I fuckin’ told you.”

Alex: “Hey man, I agreed.”

Gale: “Whenever you’re ready boys.”

Curt: “... Hold on Buck… John, fuckin’ quit pickin’ at that. No. I know you don’t like it but I’d rather you stay alive, okay?”

Gale: “Okay, Curt?”

Curt: “Your husband’s new favorite pastime is trying to tear out his IV.”

Gale takes a deep breath and sips his coffee. He asks Curt if he wants him to talk to Bucky.

Curt: “…He’s passed out again, little asshole. Ready for the new numbers whenever you are.”

Gale: “Okay, we’re lookin’ at changes to your final mid-course correctional burn. The NRHO abort is causing you to come in too high.”

Curt: “Copy. Let’s make sure we don’t burn up on re-entry.”

Gale gives them new positional targets and a longer burn duration.

Alex: “And are we still on time for that burn?”

Gale: “Affirmative, Orion. Coming up in… 52 minutes.”

An hour later, when the burn is complete, Croz informs Mission Control that the crew capsule is perfectly on target for re-entry, and Gale grins as he sips his coffee. It’s the end of his shift, and Helen is standing by to take over the console.

Gale: “Orion, you are on target now. Trajectory nominal. Systems nominal.”

Curt: “Good to hear, Buck. Wouldn’t wanna come this far to fuck ourselves now.”

Gale: “We’re gonna get y’all home.”

Just as he’s about to inform the boys of the CAPCOM switch, Curt says, “Got someone who wants to talk to ya, Major. He’s been all antsy about it this entire burn.” Gale blinks and a smile lifts the corner of his mouth, but it runs away again when he hears the nervous tone of Bucky’s voice.

Bucky: “Gale?”

Gale: “I’m still here, darlin’.”

Bucky: “You married me…”

Gale quirks an eyebrow, a huff of a laugh passing between his lips at the out-of-the-blue statement of fact. But before he can say anything, Bucky is pushing through.

Bucky: “I-I know…” Bucky takes a deep, shaky breath. “Was ‘cause you were worried somethin’d happen.”

Gale: “Don’t strain yourself, John.”

Bucky’s barely said a word since he greeted Gale this morning. It takes too much out of him. Orange juice and half portions of soup can only go so far, and they don’t do much of anything for the brain fog or TBI symptoms. Bucky ignores him, though. His breathing sounds distressed, and his voice is quiet and mumbled. Gale can see his heartrate on his monitor, beating too fast, but John gets the words out.

Bucky: “Was it ‘cause y-you loved me, too?”

The question slams right into Gale’s chest, knocking the breath out of him. He feels the eyes of every single person in Mission Control shift his way, and he forces himself not to pay them any mind. He doesn’t want to see the looks on their faces. He doesn’t want to know if it’s pity or echoes of John’s question or incredulity at the mere concept of Buck not loving Bucky so much he thought he might vanish from this existence the moment his husband did.

Sure, the reason he finally popped the question after months, even years, of thinking about it was because he was worried his worst nightmare would come true. And, well, here he is. But how is it possible that Bucky can sit there and think even for a second that Gale didn’t also do it because he loved him?

He tries to tell himself that Bucky is all sorts of mixed up right now. That he’s been passing through intense stages of fear and pain and confusion. That he’s not thinking straight. Random things have been popping out of his mouth all day, and he hardly seems aware of what he’s saying. Gale thinks about Helen and Benny telling him how much Bucky would ask for him when he wasn’t on shift, and Gale wasn’t there. He wasn’t there for his husband when he needed him.

Sure, giving Gale 24/7 access to the console would be a one way ticket to actual psychosis. Chick denied his attempts to sleep on a cot at JSC after Bucky first got hurt, and Gale is honestly glad for it now. But to Bucky, who has been in and out of consciousness with little sense of time or continuity?

Did he think Gale abandoned him?

“John,” Gale says, his voice thick. He flexes the hand he tore up on the mirror, what feels like forever ago now. There’s hardly any scabs left to pull at the skin, and he’s surprised at the lack of pain. He presses his wedding ring to his lips instead, and he takes a breath to pull himself together. “Of course I married you because I loved you. I love you so much, sweetheart. Couldn’t stand not bein’ married for one more second.” He rubs his hand through his hair and tries to steady his heart. “I did love you. I do love you. I will love you. Okay?”

Bucky makes a noise that sounds like something between an okay and a satisfied hum. Like this question that just sent Gale into a tailspin wasn’t monumental in any way. Like he got the answer he wanted and now, as far as John’s concerned, everything is okay.

Gale: “To the moon and back, John. I can’t wait for you to come home to me tomorrow.”

Bucky: “Tomorrow.”

Gale nods, blinking back the wetness in his eyes. He smiles again.

One day. 24 hours. 1,440 minutes. Only 100,000 heartbeats. He pretends he can feel John’s heart beating in time with his own, and he watches on the monitor as it starts to slow.

Gale: “Yeah, John. Tomorrow.”

---

Part 16

Big thank you to everyone who has been reading this AU for a while and also everyone who has picked it up in recent days. People telling me you read it all in one sitting, y'all are crazy and I love you ❤

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kydrogendragon · 11 months ago

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Dec 21 - The Best Present

(Ao3 Link) (Masterpost Link)

Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Murder, and Blood.

When Hob awoke that next morning, nothing had seemed different. It seemed like a perfectly ordinary Monday morning that he wouldn’t have blinked twice at. You know, if it wasn’t for a mysterious woman sitting on his kitchen counter, slowly picking away at one of the apples in his fruit basket.

He jumps, reaching for the closest object he could use as a weapon - the table side lamp in this case - and brandishes it with a confidence that only someone who had fought for most of his five hundred years of life could. The woman doesn’t even blink. She wears all black, a simple black tee, black jeans, and a pair of high-heeled black boots. It reminds him a bit of the getups the goths he’d take home with him would wear. Most interesting of all, she wears a pendant of a large silver ankh around her neck.

She looks at him with kind brown eyes and smiles. “Hello Hob.” And if everything else hadn’t gotten his attention, that statement did. He lifts the lamp higher, angling his legs for better stability and glances around the room, trying to spot how the hell she managed to sneak in.

“Haven’t heard that name in a while,” he says, eyes narrowing. “Who are you? What do you want?”

The woman shakes her head, amused, as she slides off the counter. She sets down the half eaten apple and wipes her hands on her pants. “I have a favor to ask of you.”

“A favor?”

She hums. “Yes. And it wasn’t until last night that I could ask it.”

Hob shakes his head. “The hell are you talking about?”

The woman steps forward and Hob’s grip on the lamp tightens. “One more step and you’ll regret it.” She smiles and takes a single step forward. As she does, Hob goes to lunge but stops as he meets her gaze.

Ice rushes through his veins as the very core of him recognizes her for what she is. She is the face he has seen in battlefields and hospitals. She is the voice that has called to him while he rests in the in-between of life and death. She is the sound of wings when one is near the end.

She is Death.

His knees give out and he falls to the floor, the lamp drops from his grip and the bulb inside shatters. “No. No no no no no, please no, please!” He pleads. “I’m not ready yet. I don’t want to die. I won’t, I won’t!”

Death kneels beside him and stretches out a hand. He flinches, eyeing it carefully. “I’m not here to take you, Hob. Not unless you want me to.”

“Never,” he replies, staring into her gaze. She nods.

“Good. I think my brother would hate me if I did.”

At that, Hob blinks. “Brother?”

Death hums and lets her hand fall. She crosses them, resting them atop her bent knees as she talks. “Yes. That’s why I’m here. I need you to help free him.”

Hob shifts, pulling himself into a cross legged position. “Why me?”

She looks up and sighs. “Because I can’t. Where he is is somewhere that I can’t go. Not completely. But you can.” She looks back at him and grins. “Besides, technically he asked for you.”

A sinking feeling fills Hob’s gut. Flickers of memories of a dream echo in his mind. The pale face of his Stranger. His tears, his silent pleas. His throat is tight when he asks, “Your brother, who is he?”

“Your stranger.”

The snow falls on the ground outside of Fawney Rig. It’s Christmas Eve in 1991 and Hob stands in front of the car’s boot as he goes over his tools of trade. A crowbar rests on one side, sandwiched by rope, an axe, a shotgun and two different handguns along with enough ammo to light the place up if needed. He’s got a variety of clothes and food and water in case his Stranger needed it along with a well supplied first aid kit. When Death had told him where to find her brother, she hadn’t exactly told him what to expect. He’s honestly unsure if she knew, other than he was trapped.

Christ, wasn’t that a thought? His Stranger, trapped. Held prisoner by a total jackass that, most annoyingly, he’d met before. Just once when he was a lad. His father had been leagues worse, but had at least hosted a party for his departed son. Hob had fought with Randal in the war. After digging into the Burgess's more, he’d found that the old man had bragged about capturing Death. Clearly that hadn’t worked, but it seems like he had caught something. And when the old man finally passed, it seemed like his son wasn’t any better. Pity. The boy seemed like he could have had a good heart in him. Nature versus Nurture, he supposed.

Hob pulls the mask down his face and zips up his jacket. He sticks the two handguns with freshly loaded mags into his holsters. He slots the extra mags into his belt and then swings the shotgun across his back. Not the most efficient weapon for this job, but might come in handy. The rest, he figures he can always come out and grab later if needed. There wouldn’t be anyone left alive in here after he was done anyways.

Closing the lid, he climbs back into the driver’s seat and revs up the engine. The metal gates in front looked thicker than they actually were. He’d checked ahead of time. They were made to look nice but not necessarily be effective at keeping someone out. For instance, ramming through them with a car would be pretty easy. Which is what he planned to do.

Back the car up a good distance on the curly driveway, he holds the gas and brake down, letting his wheels spin before he releases the brake. The car lunges forward, gaining speed rapidly. With a crash, the gates are flung open by the sturdy metal body of the vehicle. Hob powers up the remaining driveway to the front of the house. He skids to a stop right at the front of the manor and bounces out of the car.

A guard is posted outside and jolts awake from his chair. He reaches for his gun but is too slow. Hob quickly draws his right side handgun and pops the man twice. The silencer muffles the sound of the shot as the bullets hit him straight in the chest. Blood pools through the dark uniform. He falls to the ground.

Hob dashes up the stairs and pats the man down. He was hoping for keys or a radio perhaps of which he finds both. There aren’t many keys on the ring, but he takes them anyways. One most likely opens the front door after all. He slots the radio onto his belt and proceeds to go through the keys until one clicks the door open.

The house is quiet. It is late at night after all and all the house staff should be gone at this hour. Hob wasn’t a complete monster. He doubts that the maids and cooks were onto any of the occult proceedings here and if they were, well. Hob has ways of tracking people down if he needs to.

He creeps forward, gun poised and ready as he rounds the corners. The main floor is relatively empty. There was a single guard that had been wandering the halls. Hob takes him out from behind and guides his body to the ground as to not make a sound. There’s a different key on this guard’s key ring. It’s thick and sturdy. More importantly, it looks old. He takes it.

Hob finds a sturdy metal door down the next hallway - probably where the guard had come from in the first place - and tests the handle. Locked, unsurprisingly. He holds up the newly acquired key and smiles. Yes, that’ll work. As tempted as he is to barge down there and free his friend immediately, he knows he needs to eliminate anyone else first so they can escape without worry. Pocketing the key once more, he continues his search through the house.

The second floor provides even less interest. No guards and no Alexander or Paul either. The third floor, however, that’s a different tale.

Hob pops the guard stationed outside of the bedroom. The man had been sleeping in the chair just outside. For all the wealth that Burgess had, it seems like it was wasted on paying these men.

He nudges the bedroom door open and is met with the sleeping figures of the elderly men who had kept his friend captive all these years. Rage burns within him as it has for the past six months since Death first dropped by. He’d gone off of the limited information she had and slowly pieced together a harrowing puzzle of his friend’s absence. 1916 brought with it the sleepy sickness. 1916 brought Burgess into fame and fortune as his claims of the Devil in his Basement were spread, mostly with doubt. In 1916 his friend was forcibly ripped from whatever reality he resides in and has been kept in this dusty old manor ever since. And it was all because of the men here and his father before him.

Hob feels no guilt nor sadness when he draws his other gun, a revolver he’s favored for many years, and presses the cool barrel against Alexander’s forehead. The man stirs and Hob pulls back the lever with a click. His eyes open wide and he shakes as he takes in Hob’s looming figure. Alexander opens his mouth to speak but Hob just shakes his head. The other man’s jaw clamps shut.

“There is no bargaining. There is no begging. You’re going to die tonight and I’m going to tell you why. Then, I’m going to kill your husband in his sleep because while he wasn’t directly related to all of this, he was complacent, so I’ll give him the same courtesy I did the guards. Once that’s done, I’m dragging you out of your bed and into the damn basement that you’re holding my friend captive. You will scream and cry and plead like the pathetic excuse for a man I know you are while I slit your throat in front of him and the last thing you’ll see will be the greatest mistake of your miserable little life.”

Unsurprisingly, Alexander screams. The figure beside his shifts and Hob lifts the barrel of his gun up and fires it straight into the other man’s skull. The movement stills.

Hob holsters his gun and pulls the frail man from his bed by his hair as he continues to scream. He drags his body across the floor and out of the room. He drags him through the growing pool of blood from the guard stationed outside of their room and chucks him down the stairs just for the fun of it. Hob clambers down the stairs as Alexander cries and tries in vain to pull himself across the floor away from his own personal reaper. Reaching down, he grabs a fistful of the man’s nightgown and continues their trek to the basement.

The key fits like a glove and Hob pulls open the ancient heavy door. Alexander pleads with him, begging Hob to stop this, that he doesn’t know what he’s doing or what he’s freeing. He’s wrong, of course. Hob knows exactly who he’s freeing. He’s freeing his friend, even if the other man didn’t want to admit it.

The basement is cold. Much colder than the rest of the house and upon entering the windowless room, he’s pretty sure a part of that has to do with the bloody pools of water that surround...

Jesus wept... Hob wishes he could revive everyone just so he could kill them again. His Stranger sits in a damn ball of glass, suspended over the floor and worst of all, they’ve striped him down bare. There are metal spikes inside the fucking thing too so the poor sod can’t even lie down if he wanted. A flood of rage hits him again like a hammer. He barely processes his actions as he shoots the two guards to their right dead. He barely hears Alexanders screams and cries. Adrenaline courses through him as he approaches his friend.

His Stranger stands, hunched over because of course the damn thing is too short for him to even stand fully. His hands are pressed against the glass and his eyes are open wide. He mouths his name as a single tear falls down his face.

Hob jerks Alexander’s body forward, pushing him into a kneeling position, holding the man’s weak body up by his hair. He reaches down and pulls out the blade in his boot and presses it against the man’s neck, all the while, staring up at his friend.

“You made a mistake, Burgess. Your father made a grave one many years ago but he’s dead and unfortunately, I can’t kill a dead guy, much as I’d like to. But you didn’t do a damn thing. So now, I get to kill you.” Hob says, pressing the blade a bit harder. The skin underneath begins to break. Not enough to kill the man. It’s closer to that of a shaving cut, but it makes the man beneath him struggle against his hold.

“Please! Please, I beg of you, don’t do this! I didn’t want this!” Alexander pleads. “Please, I wanted to let him go, I did! I just wanted to be sure he wouldn’t come after me and Paul. Oh God, oh Paul.”

His Stranger’s eyes burn into him, those bright blue eyes seem to be lit from within as he watches intensely.

“But you didn’t let him go, did you? You didn’t do anything. You just left him here to rot. And you would have continued to do so until you died, wouldn’t you?” Hob’s voice is cold as steel as he tugs on the man’s hair.

“Oh God, no, please. I swear I never wanted any of this! This is all my father!”

“No. No these past few decades have all been you. You can’t blame your sins on a dead man. Not anymore. So now you’ll pay the price for trapping my friend down here like a goddamn curiosity display.”

“Please no! Plea-” The man’s cries are drowned out by the gurgling of blood as Hob swiftly slices through the man’s neck.

“A gift,” he says, staring up at his friend. “For you.” Hob tosses the man’s body off to the side. Blood pools up, spilling over his chest from the wound and out of his mouth. His eyes are wide with fear as he falls down to the side. His hands press against the slash, but it’s hopeless. It doesn’t take long for his movement to still.

Hob watches it. As Alexander Burgess dies on the cold concrete, the rage in Hob’s body fades with it, replaced with sadness and exhaustion. He turns to his friend who watches him, his mouth parted, almost in awe. He steps forward and examines the cage. There are some sort of runes painted into the floor that he assumes are important. He scratches his heel against them, testing their resilience only to be met with the easy smearing of golden paint.

Pathetic, Hob thinks to himself. They couldn’t even get high quality paint. He doesn’t have much time to think much else as he’s suddenly tossed backwards by a force stronger than anything he’d ever felt before. It was as if a bomb had gone off inside the cage and, looking up, he wonders if it did. The glass is party shattered and a whirlwind of… something, Hob’s honestly not sure what. Magical clouds? Sure, magical clouds. They swirl around his friend as he steps out of the cage, flowing black robes forming around his body as he sets foot on the ground. He steps forward and the clouds fade until it is just him, his friend, and the carnage around them.

Hob stumbles up to his feet and smiles as he walks over to his Stranger. He goes to ask if he needs anything, but he’s beaten to it.

“Hob Gadling,” His friend says with an easier smile than he’s ever seen on the man’s face. “You came. I did not think...”

“I’d always come for you. Especially if you need me.”

His friend’s eyes are red with the threat of tears. “How did you find me? I could not speak in your dream.”

“Your sister helped.” His friend’s eyes widened.

“My sister.”

“Yeah,” he says, adjusting his jacket from where it had gotten blown out of sorts from the magic blast. “Apparently something with that dream I had the other night let her ask me for help? She didn’t really explain, or give me all that much information, honestly, but she had given me the name Burgess. Took a bit to figure out where you were and get what I needed, but I wasn’t about to let you sit down here another day longer if I could help it.”

A tear falls down his friend’s cheek. “I owe you a great debt, Hob Gadling.”

“No debt owed. It’s what friends do after all,” he says, looking down at his blood stained boots.

A hand tugs him close and suddenly he is nearly nose to nose with his friend. There is an expression on his face, one that Hob can’t quite parse. “You would still name me friend after all you had said to me?”

“Wha-”

“You promised to woo me, after all. Was this not simply the start of it? Rescuing me like a blushing maiden in a fairy tale? Spilling blood in my name like a loyal knight to his king?” His friend purred. His eyes were hooded as he stared down into Hob’s eyes. He can see a dart of his pink tongue in his peripheral and Hob can feel the quickly growing erection pressing against the thick denim of his jeans. He’s glad his friend is holding onto him because he’s pretty sure if he hears his friend say another word with that voice, his knees are going to give out on him.

“Would you like that?” He asks, his breath growing short as his friend looks at him like he’d like to devour him. Hob swallows. “I would, you know. I did. I’d kill more for you, if you’d like. Whatever you want. It’s yours. I’m yours.”

“Such a wonderful gift, but a dangerous thing to promise. Are you certain?”

“Always,” he pants. His friend’s eyes flash, the blue swirling into blackness as he leans forward.

Lips capture his own and they are just as soft as he remembers from his dream. Oh God, yeah, his knees are giving out. Between the adrenaline of this whole evening and the magical bomb blast thing, this, right here, this is what’s going to have him killed.

He moans into his friend’s mouth and shakily grips into the silky robes he wears as he feels a smooth tongue curl inside of him. He’s not sure how long they stay there, but it’s long enough that Hob’s vision is turning black from the lack of air. Wouldn’t be the worst way to go, honestly. And he’s tempted to let it when his friend pulls back, but not far. Just far enough that Hob can take in a gasp of air.

“Fuck,” he wheezes as he struggles to maintain balance.

“That can be arranged,” his friend hums. Maybe Hob had died and this was actually heaven.

He hears his friend sigh, the air caressing his face. “I must return to my realm. It has been absent far too long.” His friend releases his hold on Hob and he mentally pats himself on the back for only stumbling, not collapsing. The upward curl of his friend’s lips sends Hob’s heart soaring again.

“Right,” he says as his brain comes back online. “Uh. Do you… need a lift anywhere? Not sure I can drive to another realm, but I can get you out of this town at least.”

His friend shakes his head and tilts his head upward. His eyes dart around as if he’s searching for something unseen. “No,” he says, smiling a moment later. “No, I have found a means to return. But I will come back to you soon, Hob Gadling. This, I swear.”

His friend’s eyes are pitch black when they meet Hob’s gaze once more. It sends a chill down his spine and does nothing to help his aching prick. “Wait!” He calls out as his friend raises his hand. His Stranger arches his brow, but pauses his movement. “Before you leave, can I know your name, at least?”

His Stranger blinks. “My sister did not tell you it?”

Hob shakes his head. “Said it was your secret to tell, not hers.”

His Stranger huffs affectionately and raises his hand upward. With a smile, he says, “You may call me Dream.”

“Dream,” Hob whispers as he watches the figure of his friend fade away, not unlike the memory of a dream. He stands there, letting the mixed cocktail of emotions flow through him. Eventually, he moves, going through the motions of disposing of a crime scene (at least any evidence that would tie himself to it). Once all the damning bits are properly disposed of or at least brought with him to dispose of later, he makes his way back up the stairs, into his car, and heads back home, eagerly awaiting when his Stran- no - when Dream would visit him again.

#hob gadling #dreamling #dream of the endless #the sandman #ky writes #december writing list #kydrogen's december drabbles 2023

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emry-stars-art · 1 year ago

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i love your royal au so so much, it brings me life. I'm also about to go read your college au because it looks amazing and i just love your writing sm asdfghjk

also! i read in the tags of one of your posts that you want to talk about abram and branding. and i want to hear about abram and branding. so really it's a perfect match!

really though i just want you to know that youre amazingly talented and i love what youre making🥰 have some validation✨ you deserve it!!!

Two asks about the branding + two parts of the branding = I love you, it IS a perfect match! (Also ty very much I saw your ao3 comment as well and you’re SO nice ahhh)

Anyway find part one of Abram’s brands [here], welcome to part two (feat. a buuuuuunch of ideas from @jtl-fics ✨)

Find the royal au writing masterpost here 💕

In the morning, Abram wakes not on the carpet but in Day’s bed. He can make out Day’s blurry form across the room, hunched over and focused at his desk.

Abram stays there for a while, fighting sleep and crushing disappointment to try and figure out what he’s going to do now. If the prince doesn’t want him around anymore, he’ll have to go back to a cramped barrack room. He’ll need to gather his admittedly meager belongings, he’ll need to figure out how to handle sleeping around strangers.

He doesn’t bother to get up until there’s a knock at the door. Shortly after, Day comes to check on him, finally realizing Abram is awake. The prince is outside, Day tells him. He wants to see you.

Abram takes a long while to think, to panic a little, to let himself shake. But he tells Day he doesn’t need to send the prince away. Eventually Abram can get up and go to the hall.

Andrew’s been rehearsing this ever since he’d determined to come find Abram. He can’t just say we need to talk or I need to know or come with me. Even just at the door he can see how close Abram is to running. They don’t even need to have a real conversation. Andrew just needs to explain himself.

“Good morning,” Andrew says, though it’s closer to midday, and is happy with how easily Abram finds his eyes even with the blurry sight. He brushes his fingers against Abram’s knuckles the way he’s seen Day do when he wants to lead Abram somewhere. “I have much to tell you about.”

After a hesitation, Abram slides his hand up Andrew’s to take hold of his sleeve, silent agreement. Day watches them go from his doorway.

Much like every time before, Andrew is as transparent as he needs to be. Abram’s always needed clarity, now more than ever. Andrew tells him that yes, Day explained the brand. (Not much to lose in translation there. It was exactly what Andrew thought it was.) He’d explained Abram’s panic over it. Yes Andrew had been surprised and angry, but he doesn’t need Abram to leave. (He doesn’t want Abram to leave.) Nothing has to change. Andrew never needs to mention or see that brand again if Abram doesn’t want him to.

After that, Abram’s fears shift wildly, if not diminish. Where before Andrew brushing against the bandage, clothed or not, made Abram shudder in discomfort, now he thinks it wouldn’t be so bad. Andrew had been very clear that he didn’t think less of Abram, he’d even threatened High Prince Riko for it in such a way that Abram almost really laughed. It’s more convenient to have a second person able to help him with it until he can see well enough.

Maybe later, well into their courtship, Abram gets in his head about it again. Could be a trigger, could be something more about him and the prince and touch - Andrew doesn’t try to touch him much, he’d been avoiding even more casual contact ever since Abram returned from Evermore. Maybe Andrew doesn’t like to feel the new scars and marks.

(Of course, Andrew is just being conscientious of Abram’s new boundaries. He has no way of knowing those boundaries have changed since then until Abram tells him, but Abram still hasn’t quite figured out that kind of communication.)

Maybe Abram asks if Andrew is going to turn him away. Or if Andrew is only tolerating Abram’s touch, the feel of his skin. If it isn’t comfortable, Abram promises to never ask again, as long as it means he gets to stay at Andrew’s side.

Andrew takes a moment to process that.

He asks again, “Do you want me to touch you?”

“Not if you don’t want -”

“I already know what I want,” says Andrew. “Don’t concern yourself what you think I like and dislike. Do you want me to touch you?”

Abram gives a breath that shakes his shoulders.

“Yes.”

With communication comes understanding, comes Andrew realizing that Abram still hates that cattle brand. Abram thinks Andrew hates that brand. Or at least that it makes him want Abram less. Andrew can’t tell Abram not to hate it, but he can prove that he doesn’t. He takes Abram’s hip and presses his palm squarely over the place he knows the brand is.

“You don’t have to believe me now,” he says, “but there is not a single part of you I would not want to someday be allowed to touch.”

And miraculously, incredibly, finally; that isn’t something Abram dreads.

(And oh, when that day comes it would be a hip kiss to rival canon.)

#hhhhhhhhhhhhhhh #also. Andrew covering the brand with his hand both to hide it from immediate sight and to show again that he doesn’t shy away from it #makes me crazy #ash i cannot thank you enough for bouncing ideas like the worlds angstiest hurt/comfort tennis match #anyway ignore the inconsistencies in those drawings #and I’m sure there’s lots of points I missed on this #but here’s the important bits #fan art #my art #my writing #aftg #all for the game #neil josten #andrew minyard #kevin day #andreil #asks #royal au

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daitranscripts · 1 month ago

Text

Sera Cutscene: Warm Approval

Pranks

Sera Masterpost The PC approaches Sera in the Herald's Rest.

Sera: You have a problem. That, over there, is a full tavern, but everyone’s drinking alone. They’re all up their own arses about the Inquisition. I can’t have fun with everybody whinging. And they’ll fall on their swords before Coryphenus can push them. I’m thinking pranks.

Sera (romanced): Just you and me, messing around in people’s stuff. You know, to start. Sera (not romanced): Set a few up. Knock a few down. You in or not?

Dialogue options:

General: I want them at their best. [1]

General: Should the Inquisitor do this? [2]

General: How will that help? [3]

1 - General: I want them at their best. PC: You have an odd idea of preparation. I need to keep them at their best. Sera: What’s “best,” then? Mopey? Constantly ready for death to fall from the gaping hole up there? I know people. Pissed off and fired up is better than dreary bleary. Come on! [4]

2 - General: Should the Inquisitor do this? PC: But I’m the Inquisitor. You know, the leader? Sera: Right, they’ll never suspect you. What, titles are only for getting away with bad stuff? Let’s do something fun. Come on! [4]

3 - General: How will that help? PC: I don’t understand how annoying my people will help. Sera: Look, you have experts for everything. And I know a bunch of tight-arsed people when I see them. Oh, sure, they’ll complain. But they’ll really mean, “Thank you for distracting me from the end of the stupid world.” Come on! [4]

4 - Dialogue options:

General: No, grow up. [5] -Sera disapproves

General: You go ahead without me. [6]

General: Yes, I’m in. [7] +Sera slightly approves

Flirt: Time with you sounds like fun. [8] +Sera slightly approves (female Dalish/human PC) +Sera approves (female Qunari/dwarf PC)

5 - General: No, grow up. PC: I’m running a serious organization here. Stop fooling around. Sera: The baddie you’re fighting has been all serious for, what, a thousand years? You can’t win that contest. Ugh, fine. I’ll try to find someone not pouting in their ale. Good frigging luck to me. Scene ends.

6 - General: You go ahead without me. PC: I get what you’re trying to do, but it’s not for me. You go ahead. Sera: Permission feels weird, but fine. You go not have fun. Way too much of that “not having fun” around here. I’m going to hide a snake somewhere ruffley. Scene ends.

7 - General: Yes, I’m in. PC: Lead the way. Sera: What, really? PC: Really. Sera: (Giggles.) I knew you were different. Let’s go. [9]

8 - Flirt: Time with you sounds like fun. PC: Just you and me? You know, I would like that.

Sera (male PC): Eh, don’t get excited, you’re not my thing. Your thing is not my thing. You still coming or not? [back to 4]

Sera (female Qunari PC): Oh! Yes, please. Let’s go. [9] Sera (female dwarf PC): Oh, you’re so twee! Let’s go. [9] Sera (female Dalish PC): Sure, that could work. Maybe. Let’s go. [9] Sera (female human PC): I like the sound of that. Let’s go. [9]

9 - Scene continues.

They enter Cullen’s office.

Sera: Right, General Uptight is gone. Have a search about. Find something to mess with and give your soldiers a laugh.

The PC looks at the desk.

Sera: What, the desk? Oh, yes! Centre of the empire and all that. What to do, what to do…

General: I won’t diminish my general. [10] -Sera slightly disapproves

General: Great, so what do we do? [11] +Sera slightly approves

10 - General: I won’t diminish my general. PC: This was to lower tensions, not undercut my general. Sera: What, two minutes of slightly-less-than-perfect will destroy everything? You have to make sure people don’t hate the ones in charge, by reminding them people are people all the way up. Fine, never mind. Let’s just keep moving. [12]

11 - General: Great, so what do we do? PC: All right, Sera. What do you want to do? Sera: Thing looks heavy. Don’t want to move or break it.

PC (if romancing Cullen): Oh, it’s sturdy.

Sera: I got it! Easy one! Just a slip of something under here. Sera puts something near the corner. Sera: There! Won’t notice much, but it’s just that little bit wonky. He’s so in control, that’ll piss him royally. I tell one of the soldiers, and boom! The general seems like people. And since he works for you, you seem like people. Come on, next one! [12]

12 - Scene continues.

They enter Josephine’s office.

Sera: Right. Little Lady Prissypants. Have a look for something she likes too much.

The PC investigates the door.

Sera: What, just the door? Where she greets every important idiot! Yes!

Dialogue options:

General: I can’t mock my diplomat. [13] -Sera slightly disapproves

General: All right, what do we do? [14] +Sera slightly approves

13 - General: I can’t mock my diplomat. PC: Sera, I can’t pull a prank on the chief representative of my Inquisition. Sera: Oh, of course not. Can’t risk appearances. That would be ever so common. Fine, be serious. Let’s go. [15]

14 - General: All right, what do we do? PC: Well, Sera, what do you have in mind? Sera: Hmm. (Giggles.) Get a bucket. She hangs a bucket over the door. Sera: Classic, yeah? Five minutes of sloppy boss gets you weeks of happy kitchen staff. Except for the one who cleans it up, I suppose. But whatever! Next stop! [15]

15 - Scene continues.

They enter the rookery.

Sera: Right, something to get our Shadow of Birds loosened up. Gotta be something. Have a search.

The PC finds a box.

Sera: What’s that? A locked… no, leave that. Not interested in her hidden things. Not for just a bit of fun. Maybe… feed her messengers something gassy? No, birds don’t parp. But they flap, and… uh. Huh.

Solas: Who is up there?

Dialogue options:

General: It’s the Inquisitor and Sera. [16] -Sera slightly disapproves

General: Run! [17] +Sera slightly approves

16 - General: It’s the Inquisitor and Sera. PC: Nothing to worry about, Solas. It’s just me and Sera. Solas: Well. All right, then. Sera: Ugh, what fun is that? Let’s go. [18]

17 - General: Run! PC: Go! Sera: Pfft! (Laughing.) They run off. [18]

18 - Scene continues.

PC did no pranks Sera: You’re not much fun, you know? I suppose you think that’s the job, being all serious? I mean, if that’s what you want, fine. But if someone said that’s what you “should be,” maybe tell them to piss up a rope.

PC did some pranks Sera: You’re fun. Sometimes, anyway. Better than most. Makes you seem normal.

PC did all the pranks Sera: That was fun. An Inquisitor of the people, still remembering you’re one of them. If all they got was the Herald stuff, the serious bit, you’d start to sound pretty scary. That works, but not for long.

Dialogue options:

General (did no pranks): It’s just not me. [19]

General (did all pranks): Anything to keep us inspired. [20] +Sera slightly approves

General: I should appear respectable. [21]

General: You don’t make a lot of sense. [22]

19 - General: It’s just not me. PC: Sorry, that just isn’t something I feel I can be. Sera: Fine, be that way. I suppose it doesn’t matter. Just remember: from down here, everyone up top sort of looks the same. [23]

20 - General: Anything to keep us inspired. PC: Whatever it takes. I’d start throwing pies if it kept people inspired. Sera: Pies is so good. And Coryphenus would never do that. Good thing for you, innit? Because from the bottom, everyone up top sort of seems the same. [23]

21 - General: I should appear respectable. PC: I should be someone they can look up to and respect. Sera: You their leader or their [daddy/mummy]?Maybe some of them want that, I suppose. Up to you, oh Herald of everything. [23]

22 - General: You don’t make a lot of sense. PC: I… think you’re off the mark… by a lot. Sera: Oh, probably. But it works on me, and everyone I know, so I’m right. Same reason everyone else thinks they’re right. It’s all bull, so pick the advice you like, I guess. [23]

23 - Scene continues.

PC did no pranks Sera: Doesn’t always have to be so boring. Cheers anyway, Inquisitor. Try to have some fun. Sera stands and leaves. Scene ends.

PC did some/all pranks Sera (female PC flirted before): It was fun chasing you, Inquisitor. Nice view. Sera: Anyway, fun time, Inquisitor.

If Josephine was pranked Josephine: You! Josephine storm into the Herald’s Rest. Sera: Oh, frig! You did it. (Laughing.) Sera runs off. Scene ends.

If Josephine was not pranked Sera: Cheers to living before you die, yeah? Sera stands and leaves. Scene ends.

#dragon age #dragon age inquisition #dai #dragon age transcripts #dai transcripts #dragon age dialogue #dai dialogue #dragon age inquisition transcripts #dragon age inquisition dialogue #long post #sera

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reliablejoukido · 25 days ago

Text

Digimon LOST AU Headcanons part 1/? - Early Taichi-centric stuff

There are character details I've left out regarding other people, because I tried to only focus on the situation from Taichi's POV. Also, more happens to him after this, but this would be equivalent to a first half of a first season. Some of this is subject to additions and changes in the future, based on what I come up with for other characters. Eventually I'll make a masterpost

General info at the start:

Flight from Los Angeles to Tokyo

They crash on an uncharted island somewhere in the Pacific

The survivors that land on the beach are Taichi, Yamato, Sora, Koushiro, Mimi, Jou, and a dozen background characters (I haven't decided if any of the background people are relevant yet)

The tail section of the plane broke off as the plane was falling to the Island and the people on it (including Takeru and Hikari) are presumed dead

There is some sort of unknown "monster" on the Island that kills a few of the background characters

There are people already on the Island (the Others). Among them are Daisuke, Miyako, Iori, and Ken, who capture survivors from the tail section

Taichi:

Age: 26

Flight main section/beach camp

Tries to be a positive person, but is stuck with a difficult situation. Has to figure out the difference between being impulsive and being courageous. Butts heads with Yamato and Jou. Makes friends with Koushiro and Sora.

Flashback: Taichi and Hikari fly from Tokyo to Los Angeles to have surgery for Hikari’s super rare terminal cancer by a world renowned surgical oncologist (Dr. Kido Sr.). When the doctor does tests, he changes his mind and says he cannot operate because she will die. He suggests they go back to Japan to see his son, who is a prodigy and has successfully operated on this type of cancer more recently, but is currently reclusive and nobody can find him

Flashback: Hikari is too sick to take the flight home, so Taichi has to go back to Japan to find this guy’s son and beg him to do the surgery. Taichi is haunted by the fact that he has to leave her in LA. But he’s determined to find Dr. Kido Jr.

Has no idea his sister Hikari was secretly on the flight, in the tail section along with Yamato’s brother Takeru. Also little does he know that the Island has healed her (à la John Locke and Rose). He won’t discover Hikari is on the Island for a while, as she has been captured by the Others (02 kids)

Taichi tries to relate to Yamato’s obsession with finding his brother, as Taichi is a brother himself. But Yamato doesn’t let him in. At least not in the beginning

Taichi preoccupies himself with trying to get off the Island, because Hikari’s prognosis was not good. He gets frustrated when Koushiro, who is deeply entrenched in the Island’s lore, believes they should stay and study the Island. That there’s a reason they were chosen to come here.

Sora secretly does not want to be rescued either, so she sabotages Taichi’s plans to get off the Island without him knowing. Jou finds out and keeps her secret, for now

When Taichi realizes Jou is the doctor he is looking for, he becomes irrationally obsessed with getting both himself and Jou off the Island. Jou is depressed and unmotivated and tells Taichi that no, he doesn’t think he could save his sister. He’s worried he can’t save anyone. He wants to die on the Island and wishes he wasn’t a survivor. This angers Taichi.

Mimi, who gets upset and leaves the beach camp one night, has a dangerous encounter with some sort of unseen monster. She is saved by a strange glowing vision of a young woman who tells Mimi she is Hikari Yagami and that there are other plane crash survivors on the Island. Mimi tells Taichi this and he doesn’t know whether to believe her… but he wants to. Koushiro warns them that it may be a trick, that the Island is digital, somehow, and could be projecting holograms or illusions

Taichi has to make the decision to venture deeper into the Island where there are potential monsters that could kill him, just to see if his sister might be on the Island. Or to stay back and heed Koushiro’s warning/keep trying to get off the Island

Eventually Taichi decides to hike deeper into the Island. Yamato offers to go with him, thinking his brother is alive based on Mimi’s vision. Sora also goes with him, hoping to learn more about what the Island wants for her

#Digimon #Digimon AU #Lost show #Digimon Lost AU

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naminethewriter · 7 months ago

Text

On the Road, Just the Two of Us

Chapter Eight: At Our Destination, Not Just the Two of Us

Masterpost | First | Previous | Ao3

Summary: This was written for @dukeceit-week-2024, @dukeceitweek

Janus and Remus are living in a campervan at the moment. Are they going somewhere? Who knows. The only thing that’s important is that they’re together.

Content Warnings: Flirting, Kissing, Bickering between the twins

🌻🌻🌻🌻

“I don’t want this to end,” Remus admitted quietly.

“I know, darling.” Janus didn’t look over at his boyfriend, too focused on the GPS that told him they were only five minutes away from their destination.

“Can’t we just drive past and keep going?”

“No, dear. It was fun and I loathe to admit I wouldn’t mind if this trip was longer, but we need to go back at some point. I can only take off time from work for so long and we do still need the money. Even if we were to live like this full time. I don’t think I’d enjoy it on a permanent basis, actually.”

Remus sighed, leaning heavily into his seat.

“Yeah, I know. Me too, actually. I can’t sculpt like this. Or paint on the scale I’d like. I know it’s for the best, but still… I don’t wanna deal with the responsibilities again.”

“I cannot relate to that at all.” Janus moved his hand to Remus’ thigh and squeezed. “It’s going to be fine. You focus on your art and let me deal with all the annoying paperwork and bills.”

“You’re gonna be busy again,” Remus accused, though it was in a lighter tone. He was indeed upset at that fact, but he also knew that it was necessary.

“Yes. That’s probably not going to change for a long while.”

“I know. It sucks ass.”

“It does.”

The GPS announced the last turn they would have to make before they’d reach their destination at the end of the road.

“We’ll find the time to do something like this again, promise,” Janus said. “Not every year, not even every other year but we’ll do it again.”

“I’ll cut you if we don’t.”

“Sounds fair.”

They drove the last stretch of their journey in silence, just enjoying each other’s company and reflecting on the past three month on their own.

It had been the most freeing time in Janus’ life.

He was going to miss it.

He pulled the van into a free parking spot outside a lovely, old hotel. The location of the wedding.

“Are you ready?” he asked Remus. His boyfriend huffed.

“One last thing.” Remus pulled Janus over to him, practically lifting him from the driver’s seat and onto his lap, before sealing their lips together. It was unusually sweet for him, no tongue involved.

They parted a few minutes later.

“Now I’m ready,” Remus grinned and Janus chuckled.

“Then let’s go.” He leaned over to grab the keys from the ignition before climbing out of Remus’ lap and out of the passenger door. Remus followed after him, but not without commenting on how good his butt looked.

“There you are! Finally!” The car door wasn’t even closed behind them before Roman was stalking over to them, looking close to furious. “Do you have any idea what time it is? You were supposed to be here yesterday!”

“What a nice welcome,” Janus commented dryly, causing Remus to burst out in giggles and Roman to glare at him.

“Sorry, Ro-bro, but we got turned around.”

“Oh, really?” Roman asked, obviously not convinced, his arms crossed.

“No, he saw a flyer for a carnival and begged me to go.”

“It was super fun, I almost puked on one of their rides! So worth it.”

“I cannot believe you two! A carnival, really?! The rehearsal dinner for your wedding is in two hours! Two hours! And you both look like you haven’t showered in a week!”

“Don’t be dramatic, it was only five days.” Roman groaned and Remus smiled at him, delighted by his annoyance.

“I do not know why you didn’t get a better van! One with a shower! Janus is a lawyer for goodness’ sake, you could’ve easily afforded it!”

“Yeah, but that wasn’t the aesthetic we were going for!”

“I am so going to strangle you!”

“Oh, look, the grooms finally made it,” a new voice commented, and Janus turned to see that Virgil, his best man, had joined them. “Roman was going up the walls since yesterday, it was hilarious to watch.”

“I can’t imagine that at all.” Janus smirked. “You seem quite calm though. Usually you would be right there with him, worrying your pretty little head off about everything.” Virgil elbowed him in the arm for that and rolled his eyes.

“Why would I stress myself out about your wedding? You already paid for all of this, so it’s not like it would’ve been a loss for me if you didn’t end up showing. Plus, I know the two of you, of course nothing here would go to plan, especially since Roman did most of the planning. I was sure you’re going to turn up late, if just to spite him. Hell, I wouldn’t put it past you to have arrived here like two days ago and you’ve just stayed in the van ten minutes from here until you could be fashionably late. I’m more surprised you showed up for the rehearsal at all. Second plus, Logan’s been weirdly insistent that you’d be here around this time. I think Remus has been texting him updates.”

“Why should we put so much effort into a wedding Roman wanted more than us? We would have been fine with getting an officiant into our backyard during a barbeque. He insisted on something more ‘meaningful.’” Janus rolled his eyes and Virgil snickered.

“He and his high standards. Anyway, let’s get you inside and under a shower. You reek.”

“Why, thank you Virgil, for telling me that so politely.”

“Fuck off and just come along.”

They started off towards the hotel, closely followed by the twins that were still arguing.

“And what the hell was that text about sunflowers in the bouquet?” Roman huffed, still rather worked up. “You can’t expect me to change that on such short notice! And they would have clashed with the other colors, plus they stand for platonic affection, not romantic!”

“The fuck you mean ‘short notice?’ I asked you about that two and a half months ago!”

“Yes, way too late! I added some sunflowers to the decorations but not the bouquet.”

“Wow, thank you for your sacrifice.”

They continued to bicker like that the entire way. When they reached the entrance to the hotel, Virgil pulled the door open and held it for them all to pass. Janus let the twins go first, since Roman seemed about to explode if he didn’t get Remus ready immediately. Janus watched them disappear further into the building when Virgil lightly shoved his shoulder with his own.

“So, you ready to get married?” he asked.

Janus watched Remus laugh loudly and pulling his brother into a hug and he smiled.

“I was ready to marry him years ago.”

🌻🌻🌻🌻

This is the end of the story! Thank you all so much for reading, reblogging, tagging and commenting 💛💚

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scribbling-dragon · 2 years ago

Text

Watcher’s Nest Café

Chapter 2

summary:

The man came back.

The man walks into the café the next morning, smiling cheerily as the bell twinkles merrily above the door, announcing his arrival. He is far too happy for a man whose stolen fiver is still sitting in the tip jar.

(ao3 link)

(masterpost)

(2,484 words)

The man came back.

Cleo is alone this morning. Pixl’s in some early morning class that he complains about every time he has to go to it. Scott isn't sure why he complains, because he distinctly remembers Pixl choosing that class specifically because it was early in the morning so it would ‘get it out of the way’ for the rest of the day. He’s actually pretty sure Pixl has done this every single year he’s been at university.

Cleo being alone does not mean she is any less of a menace to him. Even worse is that Pearl is here today rather than Jimmy, meaning they're attempting to make his life more of a living hell than it usually is.

“Good morning,” Pearl chirps, leaning against the counter, “what can we get started for you?”

Cleo is staring at him from the bar counter, their eyes attempting to bore into the side of his head with the intensity of their stare. He does his best to ignore them- looking in their direction will only encourage them in the future and he does not want this to turn into a repeating incident.

“Just a latte, please.” The man holds just his card in his hand this time, wallet tucked securely away somewhere else. Pity, Scott had almost been tempted to see if he could steal something else from him.

“That’ll be three-fifty.” The man taps his card against the machine, all three of them waiting in silence before it beeps.

Scott works on the coffee slowly, dragging himself through the familiar motions. He could do this in his sleep at this point, really- and probably a good thing he can because he feels as though he’s going to keel over any moment now. The morning has been slow too, meaning there’s been no adrenaline kick to wake him up properly and he’s left feeling like he’s swimming through molasses to get anything done.

He sets the coffee in front of the man, who has chosen to wait beside the counter rather than sit somewhere else, resting his hip against the counter. He doesn't look at Scott as he sets the drink down, eyes instead focused on Pearl, squinted slightly, as though he’s trying to think of something.

Scott clears his throat, and the man jumps, hand pressed to his chest. “Geez, man, give a guy a little warning, huh?”

“Your drink is ready.” He gestures towards the drink, nudging it a little closer to the man.

“Ah, yeah, thanks.” The man still seems a little distracted. He’s not looking at Scott and when he turns to find where the man’s gaze has wandered, he finds it fixed on Pearl again, watching her as she cleans the coffee machine.

“Hey,” he drags the man’s attention back to him. “Prefer it if you didn't stare at my co-workers like that, hm?” Pearl’s looking now, one hand still resting against the coffee machine as she watches them. Cleo’s watching too, though it seems less so in concern and more because she wants to be able to recount this to Pixl word-for-word.

“Oh, sorry,” the man laughs, finally picking his drink up. “I just, do I know you from somewhere?” He directs the last bit at Pearl, voice lilting up a little at the end. “I just feel like I've seen you before, but I can't put my finger on it.”

“Really? Can't say I recognise you.” Cleo snickers, glancing between Pearl and their mystery man.

“No, no, definitely someone I've met before. Not many people with an Australian accent out here- where did you go to school?”

Pearl pulls a face at his question. “Don't think you should be asking a random barista that.”

“Ugh, yeah, sorry.” The man winces, like, a full-body wince that Scott has only seen from Jimmy before. “That’s kinda weird, lemme rephrase that: did you go to the Evolutionary Belief Primary?”

“Evo?” Pearl cocks her head to the side, “Didn't think anyone still knew about that.”

Scott has heard many stories about Pearl’s primary school- both Jimmy and Pearl’s primary school. Mainly stories about what a hellhole it was, and how odd a lot of the teachers had been. Last time it got mentioned was when Pearl and Jimmy were talking about it being shut down, though neither of them could figure out what it was for, only that it managed to get into the national news.

“You do know it!” Scott is simply glad that there are no other patrons currently in the café because this man is going to scare everyone away at this rate- seriously, has he ever interacted with people before? “Man, I knew I wasn't going mad- I went there too, knew I recognised you.”

“Uh-huh,” Scott nods along. “Is that all you wanted to know?”

“I- yeah, I guess?” The man looks at him as though he’s only just remembered he’s here. He’s tempted to give him a little wave before sending him on his way, but resists. “Oh my god!” Scott winces away from him, fins flattening to the sides of his head at the man’s outburst. “You were the girl that climbed the trees to read her books!”

“That was me.” Pearl looks at him from the corner of her eye before she looks back at the man. “Weren't you the kid that always snitched on me when I did it?”

The man laughs, leaning back on the counter and setting his drink down. He looks a little red. “Yeah, uh, that was me. It was Pearl, right?”

“Yep!” Pearl rocks back and forth on her feet a little. “Don't remember your name, though.”

“Martyn,” the man, Martyn apparently, grins. His drink is going cold, which is his problem rather than Scott’s. He hopes he has to drink cold coffee. Maybe he’ll stick around and let Scott witness him drinking the cold coffee. That would make everything happening right now worth it. “I'm pretty sure you threw a book at me once.”

“Oh, yeah!” Pearl giggles, making her way over to the counter, nudging her way in beside him. He shuffles to the side, making room for her. He leans a little more of his weight on the counter, easing the weight from his leg- the cold weather certainly isn't helping, and neither is the recent insomnia. “It was a hardback, right? I think some of your blood is still on it.”

“That’s weird, Pearl.”

“Aw, Scott, I've seen your apartment. You have some freaky stuff in there.”

“A mannequin is not freaky.” His mannequin is perfectly respectable, even if she hasn't been used in several years. He doesn't have the heart to throw her away- not after they've been through so much together. “You're just weird about her.”

“She’s stitched together.”

“We’ve had a few accidents over the years,” he shrugs, “she’s old, and I didn't want to buy a new one. She still works perfectly fine.”

“No, Scott, I'm on Pearl’s side with this one.” Cleo points at him with her spoon, nodding sagely. “She looks like Frankenstein’s monster.”

“She’s hardly going to come alive.” He sighs, pushing back off of the counter. “You're just overly dramatic about her.” As no one else seems inclined to do any work around here he grabs the anti-bac from beneath the counter, peering around for a cloth before he manages to find one trailing halfway out of a drawer.

“I swear she moved, once.” Pearl whispers to Martyn, leaning against the counter. He can't tell if she meant for him to hear her or not, so chooses to ignore her either way. The mannequin doesn't even have arms, so he’s not sure how Pearl saw her move.

“So, you a fashion student?” Martyn says, and it takes Scott several moments to realise he’s being spoken to.

“Not anymore.” He continues cleaning the table in the furthest corner- they always manage to forget about it during their rush hours, so he may as well clean it now rather than leave it to gather dust. The leather of his gloves creaks as he grips the cloth a little tighter, swiping it back and forth a few more times. It does nothing but make the table shine a little more- it hadn't even been truly dusty, but something about the man - Martyn - makes Scott nervous.

Silence echoes in the shop for several long moments after that and he continues to clean the tables. He doesn't want to turn around and find all three of them looking at him- he’s glad, now, that this man didn't show up while they were busy. Or maybe he should have hoped that the man did show up when they were busy? He probably wouldn't have stuck around for a chat then, and Scott can't exactly kick him out when he’s done nothing wrong, he’s not even asked about the five-pound note he’s definitely realised is missing by now.

“Hey, Martyn,” Pearl breaks the silence. “Weren't you friends with Jimmy?” It’s a very obvious way to break the awkward silence that had settled over them, but it works anyway, Martyn perking up again as Pearl begins to regale him with the story of the Sheriff Incident.

“Pearl,” Jimmy stares at Pearl, aghast. Tango snickers beside him. “No, please, tell me you didn't.”

“He asked.”

“No he didn't,” Scott brushes past Pearl, on his way to deliver two hot chocolates to the table beside the door. “You offered the information freely.”

“Scott!” Pearl protests. “He didn't need to know that!”

“You didn't need to tell him about that,” Jimmy slumps over the counter, head pillowed in his hands. Tango pats him on the shoulder.

“Hey, it’s not the worst thing she could have told him,” Tango attempts.

“Oh yeah?” Scott steps back behind the counter, casting Jimmy’s slumped over form an amused look. His voice is slightly muffled. “What else could she have told him? What could have been worse than that?”

“She could have told him about the fallout from that incident, you know, with the toys-”

“Don't.”

Scott wonders, briefly, whether to tell Jimmy that the man they are currently talking about is still here, sitting in the back corner with a thick textbook and a vaguely stressed look on his face. He’s not sure what he’s studying, but he’s heard enough about the upcoming exams that everyone has that he can probably make a guess to why he’s stressed.

The textbook looks thick enough to be a medicine textbook, but the guy also doesn't give off med student vibes. He’s far too cheerful and awake for that- most of their med students ignore whatever medical advice there is on caffeine intake. Scott normally lies to them about how many shots he puts in their drinks (seriously, he’s not looking for a murder charge, alright?) and just hands it over. It’d do med students some good to get some sleep every once in a while.

So, definitely not a med student, even though the textbook looks heavy enough to kill a man.

He takes the ticket Pearl hands to him, eyes still fixed on the man tucked away in the corner of the shop- it’s normally so easy to overlook that table in the back corner, but he’s found his eyes drawn periodically to it throughout today.

“You do know he’s still here, right?” He asks, if only to watch Jimmy’s head shoot up, eyes blown wide.

“Where?” Tango asks, apparently curious to meet Martyn as well. It certainly was interesting to pin the name he’s heard from Jimmy several times over the years to a face. Though he hardly looks like the type to start a club for policing other students.

“Back corner,” he nods over towards the table. “Your drinks will be done in a moment.”

“Fantabulous,” Tango grins, grabbing Jimmy by the shoulders and pulling him up- though he’s less upright and more hunched over to allow Tango to continue holding onto his shoulders. “We’ll go have a chat with him then.”

“Pearl,” he doesn't even turn his head away from the machine, fins twitching at the sudden absence of sound from where Pearl should be. “Don't touch the music.”

“But all you play is musical soundtracks.” Pearl complains. He can hear her feet scuffing over the floor, dragging herself back towards the till. “Don't you get bored?”

“Don't you get bored of trying and failing?”

“I’ll succeed one day.”

He scoffs a laugh. “Maybe when I'm dead.”

Pearl huffs a laugh. “Not far off by the looks of it,” she’s leaning closer a moment later, hair slipping over her shoulder as she forces him to look at her. “How much have you been sleeping recently?”

“Not enough.”

He sets Tango’s drink on a saucer, shuddering at the thought of how much caffeine it contains- he doesn't shy away from strong coffee, but Tango scares him. Jimmy’s hot chocolate is far less stressful to think about for prolonged periods of time.

“That’s not an answer, Scott.” Pearl’s eyes are sad as she looks at him, the freckles on her cheeks glinting beneath the light, like tiny stars. “Is it about…” she trails off, but the silence is more meaningful than any words would be.

He fixes her with a glare, picking the drinks up. “I'm taking these to the lovebirds.”

“That’s not-” Pearl cuts herself off with a sigh as he walks away. He does his best to ignore the guilt he feels, settling heavy in his chest, brushing it off as he sets the drinks down in front of Tango and Jimmy.

They've sat down with Martyn, Tango listening excitedly as Martyn tells him some story or another. Jimmy looks like he wants to melt into the floor. Tango thanks him for the drinks, and he gets a muffled sentence from Jimmy that could be a thank you but could also be him pleading for a swift death.

He’s just glad that Cleo’s not here this afternoon, leaving the bar counter empty. It looks almost lonely without Pixl or Cleo occupying it with their rocks and their notes. But he’s still glad she’s not here, because while Pearl will continue to look at him with sad eyes in the hopes that he might crack (which has never worked in the past and will continue to not work), Cleo would strongarm any answers out of him, regardless of who is listening. And he knows who he is more equipped to deal with on two hours sleep.

He checks the clock, praying for the seconds to start ticking faster.

(He thinks the clock starts going slower, just to spite him.)

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behindsonglyrics · 1 year ago

Text

“Question...?” (Midnights) Matty Healy Masterpost

I haven’t done an analytic post in quite some time! I’m a little rusty, but I felt like this would be fun and …Question? has been pondering on my mind for some time now.

Before I hop into it, this is just a personal analysis theory. I’m not Taylor. I cannot ‘confirm’ whether a song is about someone, only Taylor holds those cards. Since it is a solely a theory; if you have a different opinion on ‘who’ you think a song is about, that is ok.

---

Now anyways, let’s get started...

Short Summary: …Question? Is a song where the song narrator (singing the song) is specifically reminiscing about a short lived moment of the past, regarding a short-lived situtationship, which we cannot fully call an official relationship because it was fleeting. The song narrator ponders on Questions she’s asking a former brief past lover. The narrator also opens up her heart, and telling her side of the story to that past brief lover, whom she has the Questions to.

Who is the ex fleeting situtationship? (Who the song is about?): Matty Healy.

How is it about Matty, well firstly, I know commonly Harry Styles is thought to be the muse of this track, and (you never can say never, he very well could ‘still’ be as Harry has similar coincidences experienced and the OOTW sample) but heavily it seems to lay on Matty.

---

Let’s take an insight look to the lyrics, in a more depth way:

‘Good girl, sad boy / Big city, wrong choices”

Taylor tends to usually refer herself as a ‘good girl’ and has in previous songs, which narratively make it easily to come to the conclusion she is speaking about herself here. The ‘big city’ she refers to is New York, which, Taylor first met Matty Healy in 2014. New York is the “big city” as it’s often nicknamed the big apple for a reason.

At the time Matty had also met Taylor, it was known he was going through a lot himself: former heroin-addiction, outbursts, etc which led to a band intervention. He was not in a good place at the time of the rumors with Taylor.

“Wrong choices” also aren’t from Matty’s end either, Taylor is also speaking about her own wrong choices in the setting of New York.

“We had one thing goin' on / I swear that it was somethin'”

This is a very specific lyric that many may overlook, but tells a lot by the song narrator. Taylor indicates that she, “swears” they had something going on, meaning there wasn’t anything official, or set in stone. Thus why she, “swears” by it. This lyric here tends to steer me away from the Harry Styles theories, as Harry was in a full fledge (official) relationship with Taylor, unlike Matty where they were briefly having “something going on” even though it was fleeting, and she explains (in the rest of the song, why).

But one thing after another | Fuckin’ situations, circumstances | Miscommunications, and I have to say, by the way | I just want some explanations

This lyric is quite intriguing because it is insight what led to to derailing and the shortness of this situtationship, and Taylor is asking for an answer (to, whom) she is singing to. Around the time Taylor was seeing Matty (in 2014), briefly as it was just starting up, there was an interview where he described potentially dating Taylor Swift as ‘emasculating’ and denying the possibility of them dating when asked in the past. He later apologized publicly, and said his words were miscommunication, implying they were taken out of context and correcting what he meant.

There is a letter somewhere of his public response, I can’t find the link right now, but it does exist.

Which fits the “miscommunication issues” that led to lost.

Can I ask you a question? Did you ever have anyone kiss someone in a crowded room and every single one of your friends was makin’ fun of you but fifteen seconds later, they were clapping too?

I won’t say much about these lyrics, as it’s a very straight forward retelling specific moment, and Taylor (the narrator) is asking how they felt about that, but it is obvious they shared a kiss, his mates teased him and it’s not the ordinary, only for them to be cheering them on, which mates tend to do. You could also say this scenario is weird for the both of them based on the circumstance.

Half-moon eyes, bad surprise Did you realize out of time?

So, Matty seems to have a hooded eye shape, which you could describe as ‘half-moon’ and when he smiles becomes more obvious in which she is describing. When she also asks, “did you realize out of time?” Is their situtationship coming to an end, and him knowing such.

“She was on your mind with some dickhead guy / That you saw that night”

Now commonly people think these lyrics apply to Harry as Harry looked distressed seeing Taylor with Calvin (masterpost here) but Harry wasn’t the only one during this time who was experiencing this. Around the timing of Matty and Taylor when Taylor started to get close and began seeing Calvin, Matty was there. That exact day. Dickhead guy is also Calvin Harris, btw for anyone specifically curious.

“But you were on somethin' It was one drink after another”

As already said in this masterpost previously, Matty in the past was taking heavy drugs during this era of time. By 2017, an intervention was held for him by his bandmates. “On something” is pretty on the nose from Taylor.

What also debunks. …Question? Being about Harry Styles, is Harry in an interview himself said he never took drugs, until One Direction split. As he didn’t want to be the one who “fucks up.” It’s been said as well, Harry took One Direction seriously way back then, while his other bandmates (Louis, Zayn) were experimenting. He was “not on something” (Harry) he saw Taylor and Calvin, and that was the BBMA. Unlike Matty who “ran out of time” immediately after, cause after their breath flirting back and forth, Taylor met Calvin right then.

“Fuckin' politics and gender roles”

Matty has been politically outspoken for awhile now, I don’t know too much about him, but 21-year old Harry at the time wasn’t politically outspoken, besides maybe saying “don’t go to sea world” which is all I can really find, etc.

“Got swept away in the gray”

This may or may not be a similar reference like how Halsey paints Matty Healy and associates him with the color gray, he has strips of gray in his hair. Gray (as a color) = associated with some negative connation's, as it symbolizes loss, gloom, etc. Just like “blue’ is associated with describing the feeling of sadness.

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Other than the lyrics, let’s talk about the sampling from OOTW.

There are theories that ‘About You’ may be Matty’s song to Taylor (whether it was written about her ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ up to you), but About You is saying, “did you think I forgotten” while OOTW is, “I remember” … Lastly, it is Jack who has long time worked with Taylor both on OOTW and Question. Both songs are on each others pre-set list as well.

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jeonqkooks · 2 years ago

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isn't it romantic? | myg (prologue)

⟶ SERIES MASTERPOST

Many things in life have a polar opposite: left and right, night and day, yin and yang, you and Min Yoongi... Hopeless romantic meets gloomy cynic. The only thing you seem to share is a magazine column but even then, you still can’t seem to understand how Yoongi can be called ‘The Love Doctor’ when he is the antithesis of everything love represents.

pairing: yoongi x f!reader; past taehyung x f!reader

rating: 18+ (minors dni)

genre/warnings: coworkers to lovers, fluff, angst, eventual smut; crying, central themes of cheating, that's pretty much it for the prologue

word count: 777

note: the yoongi brainrot is real y'all. he's really wreaking havoc on my life and forcing me to drop everything to focus on him when i have no much other shit to write 😩 but anyhow, this is exciting !! my first yoongi fic aaaa !! please show her some love y'all cuz this may or may not be a deeply personal story to me 💕 i wanted to say more but i forgot just as i sat down to write this a/n lmao. ANYWAY, massive thanks to @daechwitatamic and @luaspersona for beta'ing this for me on such short notice (and jo for telling that there's stuff in here that i should go to jail for bc that's always the best thing to hear 😌) y'all are awesome and i love you <3 and @jeonwiixard for being hurt by this 😚

— as always, i’d appreciate any thoughts or comments you may have, and please drop a like and/or reblog if you enjoy reading ♡

You are 7, and life is good, as life should be for all children.

You have two parents who adore you, and a sister with whom you constantly bicker but that’s okay, because it’s how siblings love each other. You have constellations hanging from your bedroom ceiling, someone to read your bedtime stories every night, hot meals on the table every day. Every summer, your family takes a trip somewhere beautiful and a week feels like forever when it's just the four of you together, surrounded with only warmth and laughter. You don’t know any other way to live life.

Love is abundant, because that’s what love is supposed to be.

You are 7, and you don’t know how to accept that everything can be different in just a blink of an eye.

When your father comes back from a business trip, the first thing you do is dig through his bag in search of his phone, to look for that video game that you don’t understand but love playing so much. What you find instead, is a picture he took with a strange woman, on a beach somewhere, wearing straw hats and tacky shirts and bright smiles. You show it to your mother, and life forever changes.

Children can be nosy sometimes. It’s inherent to being kids.

You don't know what it means. It's just a picture. You just want your game.

You are 7, and how is a child supposed to react when their world is turned upside down?

No one reads you bedtime stories anymore. Your mother rarely goes out of her room. Your sister has to grow into an adult when she herself is still a teenager, to take care of you, to make sure that you’re fed and clothed and have all of your books when you go to school.

You don’t know that people can be sad even as they’re smiling and laughing. People can be sad even as they’re telling you that they aren’t, and that everything is just fine. People can be sad even when they’re happy.

Your mother doesn’t have that same light in her anymore. You can’t tell if she’s just tired, or if there’s something else bothering her, a secret gnawing at the back of her mind that she doesn’t let you in on.

Answers to simple questions like “When is dad coming home?” used to be “In an hour,” or “He’ll be back to read to you before bed.” Now, she answers you with tears in her eyes before she turns away, and you have yet to discover that words have the power to hurt, and hearts are things that can break even when they're healthy and beating.

Your sister learns to be more careful with her words because she knows things that you don’t, things that you’re too young to understand. She knows of burdens that you have yet to bear but will inevitably have to.

You are 7, and your parents aren’t holding up the sky anymore. Occasional late nights at the office turned into a constant absence at the dinner table. Laughter has since dulled into taut silence that never relents, only stretches on and on and on, until it forces you to adapt to the absence of joy in your home.

If someone were to ask you what envy was, you wouldn’t be able to tell them the definition, but you can describe to them what it’s like. It’s a foreign concept, yet so familiar at the same time. Before, you used to feel envious when you see another kid holding a cooler toy or wearing a prettier dress. Now, you’re envious when the other children at school have parents waiting to take them home after a long day. You don’t want your sister to be the only one who shows up. You want love to be abundant again.

You are 7, and you haven’t yet learned how to hold back tears. You miss your father because he rarely comes home anymore. When he does, your parents would argue. Yell at each other. Sob until screams turn into hiccups. Slam doors. You cry because the house feels like it’s going to collapse.

You still remember the picture on your dad’s phone, or at least, you remember the color of the water. It was blue, like the color of the sky on a beautiful sunny day. Blue, like the cover of your favorite fairy tale, splattered with golden sparkles. Blue, like the walls of your parents’ bedroom. Blue, like the feeling that no child should experience. Blue, because that’s all you have to remember your stolen childhood by.

You are 7.

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galactic-academia · 2 years ago

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Divine Wrath

Continuation to Finding God

Rating: M, minors pass your way.

Category: F/M

Fandom: The Young Pope

Relationship: Lenny Belardo x F!Reader

Tags: Implied sexy times, implied nudity, sass, creepy behavior, jealousy, religious guilt

Words: 830

Notes: Set before Lenny became pope. This is for my Barbie Noots 🥲 Waiting for you in horny jail, I made some coffee... 😈❤️‍🔥

Masterpost | Ask | Guidelines |

Turns out the little Light bringer truly liked what they saw, that afternoon, when you slammed the door to their nose. They couldn’t be less interested in you finding Jesus or not, as long as you don’t immediately find your bra when you’re rummaging through your drawers.

They’re everywhere, all the time. Hiding in the bushes in your backyard when you’re sunbathing, in the tree facing the windows of your bedroom when you’re just out of the shower; you’re almost sure one of them even stole some panties last time you hung the laundry out... It was kinda funny in the beginning, even if you were afraid one of the little dumbass with his hand down his pants would fall off the tree, but it’s becoming creepy. And Lenny’s not amused.

«You should call the police.»

You know he’s right. But they’re... boys. Religious boys who learnt that getting hard is bad, that desire is a sin and all that load of shit that turns the average teenager into a pervy, repressed, libidinous blob of guilt. All they deserve is a good scare, and some sex education. Not another reason to connect their body needs to shame. You told him so several times and, even if he would never say it out loud, he agrees. He could have been one of them.

The truth is a little darker. Lenny’s not a monster, he’s truly worried about you, but his own case is, also, a concern. He’s not just a deacon anymore, after all. He’s Father Belardo, and he can’t let the world knows his favourite way of preaching. Not now, not yet. The world is not ready. Furthermore, to the sin of lust must be added to Father Belardo’s panel the one of envy. He already shares everything that’s his, why would he have to share what never could be? Your curves, your warmth, he stoles them for himself because you let him. It’s a privilege, an offering. Lenny doesn’t want to share you and you love it.

But tonight is one night too many; he can hear their laborious breathing rustling the leaves in the tree, he can almost see them, their ravenous eyes ready to devour all and every bit of skin they will get a glimpse of. You still don’t want to call the Police, and why should he be the only one to be punished and be deprived of you? No, Hell is not somewhere you go, but something you carry with you.

«They’re here, again.»

«They will go away, eventually», you talk about them like they’re raccoon scavenging the trash, seemingly not one bit bothered, «Their mothers are waiting for them, back home. A quick, cold shower, a kiss on the forehead and goodnight!»

Long, unexpected silences are not uncommon with Lenny, but this one is different. Charged and, somehow, angrier than a shout.

«Remember that you took this decision.»

Well, you certainly weren’t up for that...

«Ma’am, I’m deeply sorry for the trouble, but I need to ask you some questions.»

You’re house is a battlefield, and let’s not talk about your bed. And the Marshal talking to you looks highly too amused, but he gave you a thermic jacket and is polite enough to look at you like you’re fully dressed underneath it; so you’ll let it slide.

«Did you know these boys were spying on you?»

You sigh, lying would be no help here; «Yeah, I did. They’re quite annoying but... A broken arm and a concussion are enough punishment already, don’t you think, Marshal? They won’t be climbing any tree any time soon...»

«Yup», the Officer lifts the hem of his hat before leaning against the kitchen counter, «Any idea how they fall off?»

«None». Liar.

«Mmh. It doesn’t have anything to do with the claim the neighbours filed against you, does it? They say there was a lot of... noise comin’ out of here... I’m surprised to find you all by yourself.»

How did Lenny manage to flee that fast with his butt naked, you truly have no idea.

«I don’t see how I could have made all that hypothetical noise all alone, Marshal, but if you want to search the house, be my guest. Well, be my guest some more, since my young harassers are being cared for in my own living room...»

«Sorry for that, Ma’am, I’ll have them tucked into an ambulance as soon as possible. Do you want to file a claim against them?»

«Nah.»

«Alright then, I’ll see everyone out. Good night, Ma’am.»

True to his world, all the circus is out your property within fifteen minutes, and you’re free to get back to bed. You��re in the middle of changing sheets when your phone rang.

«You’re a bastard.»

«That’s nothing new.»

«You’re proud of yourself.»

«Quite, yes.»

You huff in the device; arrogant he is, snob sometimes, but always honest.

«You owe me a set of bed linen.»

«Worth it»

#the young pope #the new pope #The Young Pope Fanfiction #The New Pope Fanfiction #Lenny Belardo #Lenny Belardo x Reader #jude law #priest kink

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whump-me · 1 year ago

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Whumptober Day 5: Debris

This is a standalone story in my original Mind Games universe, a modern-day sci-fi/fantasy thriller setting about ordinary humans with superhuman abilities and the people who want to use or destroy them. Full description in my Whumptober masterpost, which is linked in my pinned post.

This story contains: male whumpee, environmental whump, team whump, torture mentions, death whump, tragic love

Words: 2700

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Everything hurt.

Felix couldn’t see well enough to assess his injuries. Everything was dark, except for a small sliver of blue directly above his head. Blue sky—could it be? He hadn’t seen blue sky in… he didn’t even know how long.

The sight made him smile. His lips tasted like blood.

He didn’t know what had happened. One second, he had been sitting in his cell, crosslegged on the floor, staring at the wall. Wishing himself free. Wishing himself dead. Wishing for the walls to come down.

And then… they had.

A far-away boom, and another, like a fireworks show but without the cheers at the end. A crack running up one wall, just to the right of the door. A terrible groaning sound. And then the sky had been falling, plaster raining down around him. He had stood up to face the ceiling as it caved in, and let out a whoop of delight…

Then everything had gone black.

Even if not for the darkness, he wouldn’t have been able to move well enough to get a good look at himself. Every time he tried to shift, a spike of pain shot through his body. Something heavy weighed him down. Maybe just the rubble. Maybe the weight of his own flesh, which felt impossibly heavy every time he struggled to draw in a breath.

He coughed. Hot blood ran down his chin. The rubble shifted, crushing his left side until he let out a groan. A sharp bolt of pain brushed down his left hip, and from there to his knee, all the way to his foot. There was something wrong with his foot. It was a ball of pain, and the ball was the wrong shape.

His cough turned into a laugh.

The laughter made his whole chest burn, and jostled his ribs in a way that made him certain they were broken. He didn’t care. He went right on laughing.

He hadn’t thought this was what freedom would look like. But who cared? He was free.

He would die looking at the blue sky.

He focused his eyes on that slim crack of blue, and didn’t look away.

“I’m telling you, I heard something over here.” A woman’s voice, somewhere above him.

“Probably one of them,” a man warned. “Be careful.”

Felix would have called out, but he didn’t have the breath. His laughter had faded into a wheeze. But it didn’t matter, because a second later, the blue crack widened into a rectangle. Then it became a wide expanse of color as a wary-looking man lifted a chunk of rubble away from his head.

The man tossed it aside with a grunt of exertion. Before Felix could try to find the breath to say Thank you, a crouching woman thrust the barrel of a gun into his face. “Start talking. Who are you?”

“Can’t do much talking like this,” he wheezed.

She jerked her chin at the man. He called another chunk of debris off his chest. He saw it move, but he didn’t feel any different. If his eyes had been closed, he would have sworn nothing had happened. The weight on his chest didn’t lessen.

That didn’t seem good.

He struggled to draw in a breath. “If you wanted the bastards who ran this place dead,” he said, “I’m on your side.”

“What’s he wearing?” the man asked the woman. “Prison clothes, or one of their uniforms?”

The woman ran her gaze down his body. She hastily averted her eyes, her face twisted in an expression he preferred not to try to interpret. “I can’t tell. There’s too much blood.”

“Come on,” he said, trying for a smile. “Even if I was one of them—which I’m not—what do you think I could do to you like this?”

“Plenty.” She didn’t take the gun out of his face. “If you worked here, there’s a better than fifty-fifty chance you’re Enhanced. For all I know, you could kill the two of us without lifting a finger.”

“Hand me an object and I can tell you everything about who touched it last. It’s a useful ability—useful enough for the PERI bastards to pull out all my fingernails trying to persuade me to work for them. But it won’t help me much here.”

All that talking made his vision go gray for a second. Blood trickled out from the corners of his mouth.

The woman still kept the gun pointed an inch or two above his nose.

He drew in as much air as he could and recited the first couple of lines of a poem. The effort made his chest ache until he was tempted to stop breathing entirely. And chances were good it wouldn’t mean anything to them anyway. The poem had been a favorite of his old team leader, before she’d taken a bullet to the lung on a mission and died slowly. They had kept the code active after her death, probably for longer than they should have. It had been a way of keeping her alive.

The code wouldn’t mean a thing to anyone else, though. There were a lot of small, isolated groups out there fighting PERI. And it had been years since his capture. His old team was probably long gone.

But behind the gun, the woman’s eyes widened. “Holy shit,” she breathed.

The man glanced down at her. “What is it? That mean something to you?”

“Oh, yeah. That’s one of our old codes.” She stared down at Felix as if she had unearthed a fossil. “And I’m talking old. Like six, seven years ago. Before your time.”

“Someone could have given it up under interrogation.”

“If he’s trying to win our trust, why would he give us an ancient code there’s hardly anyone left to remember?” She tucked the gun away. “Hang in there. We’ll get you out of here.”

The man pulled away another chunk of rubble, and another. Sometimes Felix felt it as a sudden release of pressure. Sometimes it sent a sudden jolt of pain up nerves that had fallen asleep, and he had to bite his lip to suppress a cry. He didn’t want to make them feel guilty for hurting him. Not when they were doing all they could to save him.

Even if, deep in his gut, he suspected their efforts were futile.

The woman helped shift the rubble aside. As she did, she kept stealing quick, quizzical glances at Felix. Like she was trying to figure out if she knew him. Her eyes gave no hint of recognition. She probably couldn’t tell much, if he looked as bad as it sounded like he did.

As for him, the longer he looked at her, the more he swore he had known her a long time ago.

But it might have been his imagination. Because she had responded to the code, and because he wanted to see a familiar face before he died.

It had been so long since he had seen anyone who didn’t wear the gray PERI uniform. He used to dream of rescue, but even the dreams had stopped. Sometimes he lay awake, trying to picture the faces of everyone he had known before. But they all melted into a blur. He didn’t even have his memories for company.

He had even forgotten what blue sky looked like. It was so much brighter than remembered. Even now that it was fading around the edges. He was glad he had gotten to see it one more time before the end…

“He’s fading.” The woman crouched down beside again. “Hey. Stay with me.”

He blinked up at her. Her face was so familiar. Maybe she was an angel, sent to end his suffering. It was about time.

“Better late than never,” he mumbled with a wheeze. Then, “You’re beautiful, you know that? The most beautiful angel I’ve ever seen.”

“Oh, no. I don’t think so. I’m no angel, I promise you. And you’re not going to be seeing any real angels any time soon.” She snapped her fingers in front of his face, making his blurry eyes blink open wide. “I told you to stay with me. And I don’t like my orders being disobeyed.”

That voice… did he know that voice?

“I know you,” he mumbled. His tongue was thick. “Your name is…” But the name slipped through his fingers like a small, wriggling fish. It disappeared into the brightness of the sky, and was gone.

“Work faster,” she told the man tensely.

“I’m trying,” he snapped back. “He’s pinned under here good. I thought your information said there weren’t any prisoners being held here anymore.”

“It’s not my fault the info was bad!” But the look on her face said she didn’t believe it.

“It’s okay,” he said. His lips were going numb. It was hard to move them. They felt like two clumsy weights attached to his face. “At least… I got to see the sky.”

She turned back toward him with a scowl. “I told you, I don’t want any more of that talk. Focus. Talk to me.”

There were two of her now, each more beautiful than the other. He tried to refocus his eyes. “Talking… hard.”

“It’s better than dying, isn’t it? Tell me anything you like, as long as it will keep you focused. Tell me about your team. Maybe we had some friends in common.”

The question appeared in her eyes again—all four of them. She wanted to know if she had known him. If she wanted to know, why didn’t she just ask him his name?

A flash of sharp pain in her eyes made him close his numb lips on the question.

“There was Billie,” he said. “Demolitions expert. She told some of the dirtiest jokes I’d ever heard. She still around?”

The look in her eyes told him the answer, even before she shook her head. “Dead. Two years ago.”

He hadn’t thought there was room in him for more pain. The sharp ache her words sent through his heart proved him wrong. “Dallas. Had a face like a puppy—made you want to pat him on the head and give him treats. But man, could he shoot.” He had taken an unlucky bullet shortly after Felix had joined up with the team.

She shook her head. “I didn’t know him. Must have been before my time.”

“Anastasia,” he said next. “She was fierce.” He paused as a weak, wet cough shook his body. “She was like you—didn’t like being disobeyed. Heaven forbid anyone should call her a little old lady.”

She had deserved a better end than she had gotten.

The woman’s face creased in fresh pain. “She was something special, all right.”

She had been around to see Billie die after Felix’s capture. And she had known Anastasia before he was taken. So their time with the team must have overlapped. They must have crossed paths. But then who…

“Do you remember Trini?” she asked, her voice small, like she was afraid of the answer.

Trini. She’d had a crooked smile with the dimple on one side. Her voice had been as sweet as a songbird’s, unless she wanted to get your attention, and then her bellow could have made a Marine jump to attention. She was quiet when it was all of them together, but catch her one-on-one, and she had a wicked sense of humor.

On their first date, they’d gone out for coffee, because that was what normal people did, and they had both craved a little normalcy in their lives. That was when she had told him about how she’d dreamed of opening a cat rescue when she was ten, and how she sometimes still wished she’d done that instead of this. On their second date, he’d taken her to volunteer at the cat rescue about twenty minutes outside of town. He had worried she wouldn’t like it—after all, who wanted to go on a date to do work? But when she had figured out where they were, her grin had dwarfed the sun in brightness.

Two dates were all they had gotten. Then it was an interrogation room for him, and then the prison cell. Those two dates had been enough to carry him through the first couple of years of his imprisonment. He would remember that grin, and let the memory reassure him that there was still light somewhere in the world, even if he couldn’t see it.

Then the memory of her face had faded, just like everything else.

“Trini,” he whispered. “You’re even more beautiful now… than you were then.”

His eyes refocused enough to collapse the two images of her into one. Her eyes glistened with tears. “Felix,” she said. “I thought it might be you.”

She ran her fingers softly down his cheek. Even that light touch made him swallow a scream. There was something broken in there. But he smiled up at her. That brief touch was more precious to him than the sight of the blue sky above.

She smiled back. There was more sorrow on her face than pain. He understood why she hadn’t asked him his name. She hadn’t wanted it to be him.

Because she knew he was dying.

All of a sudden, the man shifting the rubble went still. He straightened and stared up at the sky, frowning.

“Keep going,” Trini snapped at him.

He shook his head slightly and cupped a hand to his ear. “Do you hear that?”

A second later, Felix heard it. A distant whirring, coming closer. Helicopters.

His vision was too blurry to see clearly, but he didn’t think those black dots in the sky were supposed to be there. And they were coming closer.

“Reinforcements,” the man said tightly.

“We can get him out,” Trini urged. “We just have to work faster.”

The man shook his head. “I can’t shift the rubble that’s trapping his other leg. Not without a lot more time, or equipment we don’t have. And…” He paused, biting his lip. Shaking his head.

“No,” Trini said, her voice fierce.

But Felix finished his sentence for him, saying what all three of them knew. “And it won’t make a difference. I’m dying anyway.”

The tears in her eyes spilled free. “It’s my fault,” she said. “My source told me there were no prisoners here.”

He tried to shake his head. The movement sent a bolt of pain up through his neck that turned his vision white for a second. “At least this way… I got to see the sky.” Through his numb lips, he offered her a faint smile, all he could manage. “At least this way, I got to see you.”

The black dots were getting closer. “We have to go,” the man said. “Now.”

“I’ll stay with you,” Trini said. “I’ll stay until the end.”

He shook his head again, enduring the pain it brought. “No.” He sent every bit of energy he had into that fierce whisper. “Don’t let them take you. Trust me—I’ve been there. I know what they’ll do to you.”

She must have heard the determination in his voice, because she nodded. She bent to kiss him. His eyes fluttered shut.

His lips were too numb for him to feel the kiss. But her hair tumbled around his face like a curtain, and the smell of her filled his nose. She still smelled the way she always had. Like cinnamon.

Warm tears dripped onto his cheeks, mingling with the blood. Washing him clean.

He let his eyes blink open just long enough to see the bright blue sky through the curtain of her hair. Then they closed again.

He let himself drift away into memories of her face, and of the sky above.

There was still light in the world. Even if he would no longer see it.

His lips curved into a smile.

He never heard her leave.

---

Tagged: @cakeinthevoid @gala1981

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#whumptober2023 #no.5 #debris #oc #fic #death whump #tragic love #my writing #my writing: whumptober 2023 #my writing: Mind Games

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late-to-the-magnus-archives · 2 years ago

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And Eat It, Too - Chapter Sixteen: Corpse Du Ballet

In which the Unknowing takes a new turn, Tim is gravely injured, and Jon decides to go somewhere he thought he'd never, ever go…

>>> NOW ON AO3!

It's the Unknowing. Canon-typical gore and violence.

Tim lives. Not to spoil y'all, but he is going to be okay… eventually.

(Masterpost including playlist)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Opening the door that muffles the calliope music is harder than letting the spiders weave against his skin, harder than staying quiet in the Dark, harder than pushing back against the Lonely in his heart.

Jon cannot breathe evenly, cannot find the calm he’s hit before, and doesn’t know if that’s because the Unknowing has truly begun and it takes all his concentration not to forget everything, or if it’s… something else.

The door opens onto a hall, ringed with balconies, looking down on an auditorium filled with horror.

The anglerfish is down there in its full and hideous glory, and all of the Stranger’s mannequins are, too, and they… are dancing.

There are lines of people, innocent people, lured in or pulled in or stolen from vacations or from their beds, snatched on the way home from work or captured after a fun night out or tricked into walking where they ought not go.

So many. So many—

One after another, being fed to the anglerfish, with screams and terror that even Jon can feel, and one by one, they are shucked out of their skin like corn.

He can’t look at it without throwing up, so he looks away.

Can’t feel Tim.

Has to find Tim.

Not Tim, you bastards, he thinks, and creeps around this hall.

There are no doors or curtains. Each little balcony grants him a horrible view, and though he’s slightly higher up, he can still see the blood they’re leaving all over the stage.

The seats are filled with a stone audience, carved, though the purpose of that is beyond even his knowledge.

He can feel his little bubble of resistance wearing away.

Then he wonders.

Michael had Tim inside him. Michael said, Michael had said…

I am simply collecting what is mine, Archivist. The one who entered my domain, when it took back Helen, what feels like years ago but was only months.

Michael can track Tim.

Jon touches his scar. I need you, he thinks. Please, I need to—

“Well, isn’t this a surprise,” says Breekon or Hope.

“Said you’d be creepin’ around here, she did,” says Hope or Breekon.

Jon loses composure completely and turns to run.

It doesn’t take them long to catch him.

It’s so much worse, so much worse down where they’re dancing, so hard to keep his knowledge in his mind, and he can’t even think about whatever the hell Breekon and Hope are saying as he’s dragged onto the—

The—

The stage, that’s what it is, he can’t forget what it is, he can’t let them take him—

“Hello, Archivist! It’s so good to see you here,” says Nikola, grabbing his—

His—

Fuck, my hand, it’s my hand, Jon struggles.

Nikola laughs. “Oh, this will be so much fun!” And she pulls him close, and then he’s dancing.

Whirling, spinning.

Feet landing in places he’d never be able to do on purpose, not under his control.

Fighting so hard to keep track, to—to—

“Who… who are you?” he says.

“Why, I’m Tim!” says Nikola, and everyone around her laughs, and that isn’t right, he knows it isn’t right, and—

“N… no you’re not!” Jon cries, and tries to get away from (Nikola, this is Nikola, it’s not a dream), but she won’t let him go, and her grip on his arms is so tight that she’s tearing his skin, and he’s beginning to bleed.

He sees a thing dance by, wearing Gertrude Robinson, cackling in a way surely that old bitch never had, and feels the power of it as it swings through.

Woah, he thinks. Is that what he feels like, even remotely? Can’t be, can’t, surely he’d have—

“Pathetic,” says Getrude the Mannequin as it swings by, and laughs at him, at him, and its power swells against him, and for a moment he can’t remember what that is or who she is or who he is or why anything is happening—

“No,” Jon says. His head feels hot.

She swings by again, and now she’s dancing with another skin that’s all too familiar.

Jergen Leitner. They dug him up, too.

“Do you know how many people I killed to keep the world in one piece? The sacrifices I made?” Gertrude Mannequin says happily, and laughs. “And here I am… because you failed.”

This is important, if Jon could remember why, important because… because…

If he didn’t know who she was, these words wouldn’t matter.

They know he can fight this.

Suddenly bolstered, he snarls, “It’s not my fault you died!”

And on the next pass, it’s Leitner Mannequin talking. “No, but my death very much was.”

Deserve to be alone, Jon thinks, and moans as he pushes at it. Throws his head back, tries to get loose.

Nikola swings him, and power rises.

“Left me alone to have a cigarette, didn’t you? Left me to Elias’ tender mercy,” Leitner Mannequin says. “Didn’t you ever learn that smoking kills?” And he is cackling, and Gertrude is cackling.

And Nikola dips him like a lover, spraying someone else’s blood in Jon’s face, her voice box stolen. “You’ve done a lot of damage, Archivist, but I’m willing to let bygones be bygones! After all, I have everything I want now—even you!”

The guilt, the guilt, his fault, his fault—Jon’s head is an inch from the stage, and lights, so bright, are blinding him. “Let me go!”

Nikola tsks and stands him up. “We are going to sacrifice you, don’t you see? With all that power stored away, and all those marks… nothing is going to stop this now!” She laughs, and swings him, and dizziness muddles anything anyone else says.

“He doesn’t have all of them,” says Gertrude Mannequin, spinning by.

“Oh, who wants all of them,” Nikola snaps. “This will be enough.”

Hold on, Jon thinks, gripping his name, his identity, his purpose. What are they… remember who you are, remember, remember why the… why…

It’s almost falling out of his head. It’s almost all gone, lost, blurring under the mushy paint of his mind.

Then there’s a horrible bang, and one of the mannequins shrieks.

Tim has come out of nowhere, wielding a pipe.

Tim has no backpack. Doesn’t know where he is. Doesn’t know what’s going on. But he sure as hell knows he hates these things.

The second Jon sees him, he remembers it all, and knows Tim still has the detonator.

Nikola thinks this is all hilarious, and does nothing to stop him as he comes swinging through, no less effective for the loss of his purpose.

And Jon… projects.

Danny

Your brother

Grimaldi

Remember

Tim’s eyes widen.

Suddenly he’s swinging with a will, not wildly, and Jon is

Jon is

Doing something he cannot do but if he does not they will kill Tim and he is looking at the monsters that run at Tim and willing them to be less whole than this ritual warrants and Tim is smashing them apart—

Nikola doesn’t care, and swings him away. “Let him come,” she flutes. “Let them watch each other die! It’s adorable!” And she hoists Jon against some wooden structure he feels is wrong, and when Gertrude Mannequin appears with nails and a hammer, he knows what they’re going to do.

He focuses on Tim, focuses even as he screams as they start to pound the nails in, his arms stretched too high, his tendons tearing. Focuses on Tim.

Detonator! he projects, as hard as he can, with everything he has, and he sees the moment Tim recalls.

He can feel the nails catching against his wrist bones, somehow, holding his weight. He screams.

“Take it all!” sings Nikola, her own arms raised, opening herself to the essence of the Stranger, the Uncanny, the I do not know you, and Jon suddenly feels like he’s being… sucked, somehow, drained into some horror, something that loathes his very essence and the knowledge he contains. “Take it! You who hides and dances and devours all! Take his marks, his fears, his names, his reasons! Bring with you all that is fear and terror! All that is awful dread! All that crawls, and chokes, and falls, and twists, and hides, and weaves, and burns, and—”

Jon feels turned inside out.

He can’t breathe. He can’t think. The focus on him is worse than anything he’s ever known, and he cannot fight it.

It’s like his entire being has been wired for this one, specific frequency—

And then the wood behind him vanishes into a door, and he falls through.

Nikola’s shriek echoes, bouncing illogically through the Corridors, and Michael watches Jon with fascination as he screams because all the things are pouring back into his head.

Jon twists on the carpet, surrounded by the few pieces of wood that came through the door instead of turning into it.

If he’d been scarred before, this had to be killing him.

The Eye seemed determined to make up for lost time, to fill the vacuum left behind with everything Jon could ever know, and it hurts, it hurts, it hurts.

But Jon did not forget. “Save him! Please! Tim—please! Michael, please!” He’s getting blood everywhere, it’s just pouring out of him, and he can’t even think clearly enough to remove the nails. “Please!”

Michael is not smiling. It says nothing.

Jon reaches. Shaking. Blood drips from his wrist. “Please.”

Michael sighs. “Oh, Archivist, the things you say.”

Then everything happens, and it happens so very fast.

Michael opens a door.

Tim’s voice. “—see the great Grimaldi, cheer yourself up.”

And Nikola—who was the great Grimaldi, before the Circus chopped him up and made him plastic and Unknown—says, “That’s. Not. Funny.”

“I know,” says Tim, and the detonator goes click.

It’s only a second—heat and pressure, sound and light, and the door is shut and Tim is next to Jon on the carpet and he is burned, burned, so badly burned, but he is breathing, and—

Michael is burned, and Jon can’t breathe, staring at what shouldn’t be possible (because of the mortal human Gertrude strapped to it, he suddenly understands), and Michael says nothing but opens another door, and there is the James Paget University Hospital.

Jon stands, wincing at how… loose… Tim’s skin feels as he lifts him, arm around his shoulders, blood getting everywhere, and looks at Michael.

“Go, Archivist,” says Michael.

Jon hesitates.

“I will come to you when I am recovered,” Michael lies.

Jon hitches. “Don’t die,” he whispers, and carries Tim through.

The explosion was so big that no one questions Jon when he says he found Tim wandering not far from it.

(And Michael is going to be all right.)

Jon, however, cannot make his escape. There is no door waiting for him.

His wrists have healed; so now there’s a lot of blood he has no explanation for, but Tim’s condition helps.

(And Michael is going to be all right.)

His blasted expression seems proof enough that he didn’t know what happened at the defunct museum, but was just caught up in it.

And he knows they don’t assume he’s part of it. He’s brown, but he’s the “right kind” of brown, and his disgust at their silent racism only fades under concern for Tim.

Tim’s going to need skin grafts. Infection is a concern. But he’s alive.

(And Michael is going to be all right because any other option will shut Jon right down, and he can’t afford that now.)

Tim wakes up long enough to ask for Martin, long enough to hear Jon promise he’ll call him.

A car arrives for Jon, arranged—Elias.

Jon doesn’t want to take it.

He calls Martin on the hospital phone (knowing phone numbers is a new perk he can’t find it in himself to hate), makes sure they know where Tim is.

Then he accepts the rideshare, and doesn’t even know why.

The driver tries to talk to him twice. Jon doesn’t answer at all.

It will be hours until they reach London. Hours of trying to think, to understand, to see the big, huge thing he cannot know.

Nikola was doing something, and it wasn’t part of the Unknowing.

Her ritual had transformed, and it was based… on Jon.

I have never seen anyone as broadly claimed as you, said Michael (who has to be all right).

It doesn’t matter who you do the ritual for, if you’re marked deeply enough, said Peter Lukas.

And you’re the Big Deal, said Jared Hopworth.

Avatars, coming to his hospital room to get a look at him, as if trying to gauge if he was a horse worth betting on.

It is still hidden from him, this thing. Elias has done this. He knows, feels the truth of it.

Jon looks down at his uneven hands, blood caked on them in spite of his attempt to wash them clean, and knows he cannot go to Elias’s house tonight.

He’s not just angry at Elias. Not just betrayed. He knows if Elias wants to sleep with him, he will probably succeed, and trying to deal with the aftermath of that in the knowledge that Elias is lying about something so unthinkably huge turns Jon’s stomach.

Michael (who is healing, surely, repairing itself however it must) said to leave it be for now, so.

Where can Jon go?

He knows.

He knows they’re already waiting for him, too.

Time to test and see just how well the Mother predicted this: Jon thinks where he would hide money, if he were hiding it here for himself, and reaches into the little net map pocket inside the door.

A wad of money. So yes, the Mother knew.

Jon can’t find it himself to be as terrified about that right now as he should. It’s how he’s getting out of this.

And probably putting this driver on Elias’ shit list, but there’s nothing he can do about that. “Um, Terry, was it?”

“Yeah?” says the guy (Terry Rattcliff, fifty-eight, colon cancer survivor, father of two—).

“If I paid you a ridiculous amount of money, would you be willing to take me somewhere else and not tell the original customer who set up the drive?”

Terry hesitates.

“I’ll sign whatever I need to claim I got to my destination,” says Jon, and holds up the wad.

He probably should have counted it (two hundred and fifty pounds, so not really).

Terry eyes it in the mirror. Really looks at Jon, sees stains, dried blood, a mess of a man. “You really don’t wanna go home, huh?” he says, quietly.

“No,” says Jon. “I don’t think I’ll get another chance to escape if…” he stops.

Terry nods. “I got your back. Keep the money.”

“No, I insist.” It’s not like it’s his cash. “You’re taking a risk for me.”

“You got someplace else to go? A… shelter, or something?”

Terry is assuming Jon is an abused lover.

Jon doesn’t think he’s wrong.

“I do.” And he swallows and does the next hardest thing he’s ever done in his life. “105 Hill Top Road. Oxford.”

(part seventeen)

#tw: violence #tma fanfic #tma fic #tma the stranger #the stranger #the unknowing #tma: violence #tma: gore #tim stoker #jonathan sims #and eat it too

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