#i tried making him a new arm joint. all attempts end in failure. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

skitzo-kero · 3 years ago

Text

Lost but Found

Chapter 1: Beacon of Hope ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Author’s Note: This is going to end up being heavy fic that involves a lot of horrible content, most of which is dealt to a minor and the recovery from it. If you’re not good with handling this sort of content I highly suggest avoiding this. Trigger Warnings: Violence/Harm to a minor, non-descript non-con, blood, childhood bullying, thoughts/wishes for suicide. (If I miss any that people think is needed please please let me know so I can add it) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One, two, one, two. Step by step the line of three children walked along the log over the river. Suzu knew they weren’t supposed to be in here, but Katsuki Bakugo had assured her and Izuku Midoriya that it was fine. She focused her attention onto his light blond hair, ignoring the dread filling up her stomach--

Pressure. Pressure on her stomach holding her in place. A new bruise would be sure to form, despite this she could not bring herself to struggle or thrash, the metal digging into her body keeping her still for the man over her. A sharp push to her abdomen pushed the air out of her, causing her mouth to open to gasp for air.

She laughed so hard she couldn’t breathe because of the two boys in front of her, having just put on the most ridiculous impromptu play for her, just because they found their best friend crying alone in the park. Still laughing she pulled the other young children close to her as tears of joy rolled down her cheeks.

Her eyes hurt from the consistent path those salty streaks had run down from the corner of her eyes back towards her ears. Pink eyes stared up at the ceiling as she tried to ignore the warm blood pooling around her sides. Long nails still dug into her skin, eliciting more of the crimson ooze to surface.

Her body shook, long pale green locks a matted mess as she stared in fear up at the blond boy. His smile filled his eyes with a look of malice as the young girl stood in front of Izuku, the boy on the ground with a bleeding nose. He looked so cocky, so unregretful for harming someone who just the other week had been his best friend. Uncaring as he told Suzu, the girl he used to try and keep smiling, that she was just as useless as Izuku. That the quirkless duo deserved each other. Then there had been a bright light and the sound of a loud pop before she was blown back by the young boy’s quirk, blood trickling from somewhere on her face as she blacked out.

Darkness began to creep in as her body started to get cold. Has it finally happened? Has death finally come for her? A small smile began to creep onto her face, her eyes tearing up once more as a bright light filled the center of the encroaching shadows. Muffled voices moved about, the pressure on her joints were removed and she felt like she was floating. The reaper had come for her it seems. She let out a shaky breath causing the form in the light to look down at her, brows furrowed in worry and concern, brilliant blue eyes locking onto her as the darkness took her.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The bright light returned and the girl immediately felt panic fill every cell in her body. She had not died, she had only been moved. Not feeling any holding her down for once Suzu began ripping at the instruments in her arms and throat, if she could get out maybe she could find someone who could help--

“Whoa whoa easy now!” Strong hands clasped around her wrists and stopped her from fully removing anything from her body. She did not see the frown that formed on his face or the pain that rippled through his blue eyes as she had immediately gone rigid, her eyes screwing shut, and the most sorrowful whimper of defeat left her. Mirio eased the grip on her, gently rubbing his thumbs the rapidly beating pulse beneath his pads. “You’re in the hospital, it’s okay… no one is going to hurt you but I can’t let you hurt yourself by accident.” He tried to explain with a softer tone, an anger burning in his chest for those who had hurt this girl as she began trembling. Cautiously he released her wrists, his expression not shifting as she didn’t move, staying just as she had been just a moment ago. All he could do was sit by her side and hope that maybe she would realize he would not harm her if the two stayed like that.

Mirio felt his heart breaking with every fearful noise that came from the girl as the doctors had to come in to do their work, but even more so did the spark of anger start to grow as the hours passed and yet no one from her family had arrived yet.

The Nighteye Agency had been buzzing for the past few days now. The group of heroes were preparing for a raid on a warehouse that was suspected to be holding a trafficking ring. Sir Nighteye himself approached his youngest team member with apprehension. He worried about what LeMillion may see in those walls but the blond had been sure he wanted to go, wanted to help those people.

“LeMillion,” Nighteye called to the young male as he got closer, “I need you to do something for me.”

Mirio’s features grew dark as he recalled the conversation. Missing persons were suspected to be among the victims, that much was obvious, but the pro had told him to focus on saving the victims rather than taking down any guards or villains. Because the victims were most likely going to be minors.

Dead. Gone. Mangled. Mirio felt sick as he went from room to room. It became clear that word of the raid had started to spread and the people in charge had ordered their men to kill the victims and then themselves. All of the bodies had been piling up, and then, just when he felt like this mission had been a failure some hope seemed to come forth.

He didn’t think, he didn’t want to. So many people were dead and here was a man forcing himself onto a young girl while her life slipped away with every drop of blood that fell to the floor from deep lacerations trailing from her chest down to her abdomen. Mirio wasn’t sure if he left the man alive or barely hanging on, just that he laid crumpled on the floor as he shouted for someone to contact paramedics as he worked off the girl’s restraints. She did not seem worried as she was lifted from the steel table, nor did she utter a sound as the metal restraints were removed from her knees, elbows, and neck. She seemed at peace… and then she passed out.

Since then Mirio had stayed by her side in the hospital, praying to whoever listened that she would pull through. That he had actually saved someone. At first he had been relieved when her eyes began to flutter open. Only to be replaced by dread and sorrow as her entire body reacted in terror.

The police were finally called in once the girl had been approved by the medical staff for questioning and the blond didn’t forget how her body tensed and her eyes blew in fear at seeing those men.

The blond man had been so quiet, so still. Suzu was not sure if he was waiting for her to act again or if his words had been real. Her mind raced, battling her rampant fear and meek hope as she struggled for a conclusion. Her hope started to surge more as the blond’s voice attempted to sooth her and kept promises that no one was hurting her. He spoke true as the people in coats came in and soothed the pains that jolted through her body.

When the police came in Suzu allowed her eyes to open and flick her gaze to them. Her blood ran cold as she recognized faces, the machine to her left beeping in time with her racing heart. At first she did not register what they were saying. Something about statements and evidence gathering, but what rang clear was when they asked the blond to step out.

“NO!” Her voice came out so clear, so full of conviction, so full of terror at the thought of being left alone with these men. She did not know this man but Suzu knew that, for now, she could trust him. Slowly, all eyes turned towards her. The police were a mix of confusion and anger, but the blond was full of surprise and some sort of light she could not figure out. “N-no… I…” Her voice started to falter, so much disuse left it hoarse and soft. Her eyes could not seem to settle one any one figure in the room. A few moments later they finally settled on her lap, where her hands were bunching up the sheets covering her body. “I want him here…” She could barely speak above a whisper now, too worried that the police would insist, that he would only assure her and leave regardless of her plea.

The policemen shared a look but did not push the matter, especially with seemingly innocent challenge that raged in the hero’s blue eyes.

“Alright, if you’re okay with him being present as you give a statement.” The officer in front spoke as they all surrounded the bed.

He had already seen her on death’s door, exposed to the world like an object to be used for nothing more than pleasure, yet not once had he brought it up or tried to make her talk. Suzu felt sure that he could be there with her, what she was not sure of was how much she could say. Tentatively, she nodded and thought carefully of her words, how to spin the tale so avoid the most future consequences.

Ten year old Suzu Miyaki had finally had enough. Between losing one of her best friends to his own ego, watching the other take the abuse, and the harsh reality of her home life she had finally snapped. She would not take it anymore. Collecting what few clothes she had, the young girl slipped out of her bedroom window and ran away from home. That same night ended up being what caused her downfall.

She had only planned to leave for a few days, just enough to get some space and clear her head. She didn’t think twice when the hero had approached her, asking if she was okay. She didn’t think twice as she started to cry her heart out to this hero who had subtly started guiding her down the dark allies of the street.

He was no hero. He covered her mouth so she could not scream and forced himself onto the young girl, ripping her innocence from her for the first time of many to come. She had expected to be left like that, who would believe a child like her who had run from home? Instead she felt a heavy blow to her head.

Waking up she wished, not for the first time in her life, that she were dead.

Suzu felt her stomach start to lurch at the memories coming up. She took a few moments to steady herself as her old scars began to ache in remembrance.

She could not recount the faces, so many became blurs despite being repeat offenders. No matter how hard she tried she could not recall any features that would be helpful if she were saved.

That’s what she told herself. That’s what she told the room. Her words stumbling over themselves as she continued recounting everything.

She never stayed in one place, so often they would render her unconscious and move her. Sometimes a client would rent her out for extended periods of time, other times they had almost been discovered so they simply moved to a new warehouse. She never knew the lapses of time, she did not know how long she was gone. Only the date she had left her home that night.

A little five years. It had both felt shorter and infinitely longer than that. The police began talking again, saying that her parents should be on the way, that they were shocked to hear the news as a funeral had been given to their lost daughter. That she would need to come down to the station at a later date for photo evidence and any other questions investigators would have for her.

The whole time she kept her head down, flinching as the lead officer patted her knee.

“You did a good job Ms. Miyaki. I hope you have a speedy recovery.”

Mirio watched the interaction and held himself back from swatting the officer’s hand away. Had he forgotten what she had gone through or was he just being careless? He turned his eyes back to the girl and his gut twisted in concern and something else. She had broken into a cold sweat, her eyes wide as she stared with shaking hands down at her lap.

Something was not right, Mirio could feel it, but for now he would not press it. Instead he would wait and bring this up to Nighteye. Either way, he knew he had to keep checking in on this girl as his gut was telling him she was not safe yet.

#tw torture #tw implied violence #tw r*pe #bnha #bnha oc #mirio togata #bakugo katuski #izuku midoriya #bnha angst #nighteye #nighteye agency #tw sucidal thoughts #tw death mention

5 notes · View notes

raywritesthings · 5 years ago

Text

Secret Superhero

My Writing Fandom: Arrow, The Flash Characters: Laurel Lance, Oliver Queen, Barry Allen, Iris West, Team Arrow, Team Flash Pairings: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen, Barry Allen/Iris West (secondary) Summary: When Oliver and Laurel are unknowingly assigned each other in a joint Team Arrow/Team Flash holiday gift exchange, feelings long-held secret rise to the surface. Notes: This is set in an AU timeline where Laurel was never stabbed, Felicity remained off the team and Oliver never learned Laurel still had feelings for him. The story takes place sometime between the season 6/season 4 crossover event and midseason finales. *Can also be read on my AO3 or FFN, links are in my bio*

Like most years, the holiday season caught Laurel unaware. She’d spent so many years ignoring it that it was something of a habit now. It didn’t help that between her busy schedule and the majority of her friends and family having gone without it, too, she had little reason to bother remembering it. It was always something that occurred to her as she walked down streets lined with lights and wreaths in store windows, and even then it was more of an afterthought.

Except this year, when something entirely unexpected happened.

Their meeting in the base that evening before heading out was interrupted when a streak of lightning entered the room, announcing Barry’s presence. “Hey, guys!”

He wasn’t alone, as he set down the brand-new Mrs. West-Allen. Iris was beaming from ear to ear and wearing a Santa hat. “Sorry if we’re interrupting.”

“That’s okay,” Oliver assured them. “Was there some kind of emergency?”

Laurel hoped not. The last one at Barry and Iris’ first attempt at a wedding had been uncomfortable to say the least, without even getting into the loss of Dr. Stein.

“No, no. Everything’s fine. Actually, Iris and I were talking and we sort of wanted to run an idea by you. For the holidays, kind of the pick up people’s spirits, you know?”

Laurel shared a curious look with Thea before her friend asked, “Sure, what’s the idea?”

“A Secret Superhero. Like a non-denominational Secret Santa,” Iris explained. “We pick names, get each other gifts. It’s a fun way to get to know everyone a little bit better.”

Laurel didn’t see anything wrong with it. Thea was smiling and John was also nodding along.

“It sounds fun,” Curtis, their tech support ever since Felicity had departed the team over a year and a half ago.

“I was thinking just a little get-together at the old farmhouse,” Barry said to Oliver. “Nothing big, we don’t have to make a big deal out of it—”

“Oh, make as big a deal as you want. Ollie loves Christmas,” Laurel said.

“Wait, really?” Barry and Iris looked both stunned and delighted by this information. “I never would have guessed!”

“I- it’s a nice time for friends and family,” Oliver said, his shoulders hunched at the attention he was receiving. Laurel bit her lip. She hadn’t meant to embarrass him. “How do you want to do this, Barry?”

“We figured we’d have you all pick first, then take the remaining names back with us for the team at STAR Labs.” Iris took out a little baggie of paper slips and removed her Santa hat with her other. She dumped the paper into the hat and shook it around, then stepped forward.

“Who would like to go first?”

Thea naturally did, and the hat was passed around in a semicircle from there. Laurel withdrew her own slip and felt her heart give a funny jump when she read the name.

Oliver.

God, she couldn’t even remember the last time she’d gotten him a gift… actually she could, and the memory of standing there on the dock with love bubbling up in her and his kiss on her lips, it nearly stole her breath.

“Okay, Bear, your turn,” Iris said, her voice drawing Laurel out off the reverie. She gave a little shake of the head.

Barry drew his name and Iris drew hers. The couple exchanged a smile before each tucked their slips of paper away.

“Okay, so we’ll be in touch. We’re thinking maybe about two weeks from now?”

Oliver looked up from his paper and nodded. “That’s fine.”

“Okay, great. We’ll see you then!” With that, the West-Allens left the base as quickly as they came.

“Okay! Maybe an early night so people can get started shopping?” Curtis asked after a brief silence.

“We’ve got two weeks, Curtis,” Oliver reminded him.

“Right. Yeah, of course.”

Laurel almost wished they had taken an early night, because her mind just wasn’t in it the rest of that time. She knew that wasn’t good, but she couldn’t help worrying about the gift exchange.

Oliver wasn’t a material kind of guy, at least not since the island. He appreciated gifts that had utility or that had some sort of sentimental value. But what kind of sentiment could she express that didn’t give everything away?

She’d nearly confessed her still-present feelings so many times. The closer they seemed to get the harder it was to keep silent. Reminding herself that all it would do was drag up long-buried history Oliver had decisively buried. No matter what kind of signals she thought she might have been picking up. It was all in her head, or better yet, her heart.

Still she wanted to give him something that had meaning nonetheless. It was what he deserved after all they had been through together.

But what to get for the man who’d had and lost everything? And who meant everything to her?

---

Oliver was well-practiced at hiding his emotions, which allowed him to keep anyone from guessing whose name he might have drawn. On the inside, however? He was a mess.

Laurel, the paper read. Of course.

He still hadn’t told her. Still hadn’t said anything in over a year, had sworn Thea, John, Sara and Ray all to secrecy over the matter. The dream.

His dream. His dream of the life they could have had before the Gambit, before all this, if he hadn’t pushed her away like a fool.

Laurel remained in his life as a friend. She was far too kind to him to even allow that. And now he had been handed the chance, by literal chance, to show just some of the appreciation he felt for her continued presence every day.

If he were truly brave enough, bold enough, he might even show her how he felt. But could he?

It was now or never. If he let this opportunity pass him by… but maybe he should. What would be the point after all these years?

He watched her over the next week. Her gentle smiles, soft touch and compassion never wavered. Neither did her fierce sense of herself and of what was right. Oliver tried to imagine it — that version of Laurel, not just the one in his head, still in love with him. Was it something that could be reality or truly just a dream?

There was one thing that had been in the dream. Something he’d given her. Something he wished he really had given her in their actual lives. So Oliver set to work, all the while knowing he might be setting himself on a collision course with disaster.

The night of the party arrived and their team came into Central on a high-speed train, meeting Barry and others out at the farmhouse. Oliver paced the ground floor as everyone stood around chatting in small groups. He noticed Barry watching him with concern while Iris perched on his lap, but Oliver waved him off. Better that Barry not keep troubling himself with Oliver’s romantic failures; he’d gotten his happy ending.

“Hey, Ollie, I think we’re gonna start,” his sister called to him when he’d been out on the porch for several minutes alone.

“Okay.” He touched the small box in his pocket and squared his shoulders before marching inside.

Laurel sat on the arm of the couch, taking up very little space so as to accommodate the others, he noticed. Her present, a large rectangle — in another life, he might have teased her about bringing a book — rested on her lap. She kept smoothing the wrapping paper down nervously, unconsciously. Oliver wondered who it was for.

“Okay, everyone,” Iris said, walking into the middle of the room. “We’re gonna try to do this in a chain. You get your present, you give your person their present and so on. As the hostess of the festivities, I’ll start us off.” She took a couple steps forward to John who stood up against a wall. “John, this is for you.”

His friend smiled in thanks and unwrapped his gift. It was a toolkit for maintenance and cleaning of guns.

“Oh, this had to be too much.”

“Nope,” Iris informed him with a wide smile. “Dad knows how to get the best deals. I figured you could always use more even if you have your own supply.”

“Well, thank you.” John se this present aside and then picked up the wrapped gift he’d brought. He turned, and for a moment when his eyes met Oliver’s, Oliver thought — “This is for you, Caitlin.”

Oliver breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn’t going yet. He knew he would have to, eventually. But maybe if he just steeled his nerves, he’d be ready.

His in attention caused him to miss a couple exchanges, and so he refocused, wanting to be prepared. Cisco had Thea, Thea had Barry and Barry had Curtis. A new custom-made quiver, a Flash-themed Christmas sweater and some new kind of gadget were all exchanged. On and on things went, the list of people and gifts dwindling. Oliver waited for someone to call his name, to turn to him. It didn’t happen.

“I had Iris,” Wally West said, standing up to hand his sister the package in his hands. She unwrapped a set of fountain pens that wouldn’t have been out of place on Oliver’s mother’s desk and reached out to give her brother a tight hug.

Wally grinned for a moment before looking around. “So what happens now?”

“Who didn’t go?” Asked Cisco.

“Uh, I didn’t,” said Laurel, and it suddenly clicked.

“Neither did I.”

The room seemed to hush as they met eyes across the room. Laurel’s displayed surprise, then happiness and then strangest of all nerves.

“I guess we had each other.”

“I guess so,” said Oliver, his voice needlessly quiet. He cleared his throat. “So, uh—”

“Right.” Laurel stood, and he met her halfway. Oliver nearly dropped the box as he took it from his pocket, but managed to pass it to Laurel without incident. The package she handed him felt like book, but somehow heavier.

“Ooh, open them at the same time!” Caitlin suggested.

Laurel inclined her head as she looked at him, as if asking how he felt about that idea. Oliver nodded, and she turned her attention to peeling back the wrapping paper.

He watched her instead. He couldn’t help himself.

“Looks like jewelry?” He thought he heard Curtis mutter to someone else as the velvet box was revealed.

Laurel opened the jewelry box, her eyes going wide. “Oh.”

“What is it?” This time it was Iris who asked.

“A bird necklace,” Laurel said, turning it around to show the room. It got a couple of appreciative “oohs” from Iris and Caitlin while some of the guys looked at him with raised eyebrows.

“It’s a canary,” Oliver told her. “Cause, you know.” He somehow lost any semblance of a train of thought as she looked up at him with a brilliant smile.

Behind him, there was a gasp as Thea caught sight of the necklace. She came up to his side. “How did you find it?”

So she recognized it. There had always been the chance. The knowing look John was wearing across the room said she wasn’t the only one. Oliver ducked his head. “I, uh, made it.”

“From memory?”

“Wait, sorry, what are we talking about?” Laurel asked.

Beside him, Thea wore a panicked look. “I, um, I meant — maybe you should open your present, Ollie.”

“Yeah,” he agreed quickly, ripping back the wrapping paper with far less care than Laurel had displayed. He realized right away why it had held the shape of a book while feeling heavier. It was a leather-bound photo album.

“I figured in all the moves you’ve had to make, you probably haven’t been able to hold onto many pictures,” Laurel explained. “So I looked through what I had and I asked around.”

Oliver opened the cover and saw his own old baby photo under a plastic covering. Thea’s baby photo was beside it, and two underneath of his mother holding first him as an infant and then the other of his mother holding Thea with him standing by her shoulder. The edge of that one looked slightly singed.

“The fire at the Manor,” Laurel said, seeming to read his confused look. He nodded. Allowing himself one last look at the long-forgotten images, he shut the album.

“Thank you, Laurel.”

“And thank you for this,” she said, taking the necklace out of the box and holding it up in the light. She made to put it on, seeming to have some trouble finding the clasp without being able to see it.

“Here.” He moved behind her, setting his new album on a table for a moment in order to move Laurel’s hair aside to fasten the clasp of the necklace. As his fingers brushed her neck, he thought he saw her shoulders jump and heard a sharp intake of breath. It was agony to force himself to step back, to take his hands away from her. He took the photo album back up between both hands instead. Laurel looked over her shoulder at him, her eyes wide and lips slightly parted.

“Wait, we’re not passing around Oliver’s baby photos?” Cisco asked, earning a round of laughs from the room and breaking the moment of tension between them.

“Nope,” he managed to reply, glancing back once at Laurel before making his retreat. Had he imagined her cheeks turning red or had it simply been a trick of the light?

As the party picked back up he found refuge on the porch swing outside. He hadn’t said what he wanted to, even when Thea had unintentionally given him the opening. Why was he such a coward?

Alone, Oliver opened the album to random pages. His family at the beach house in Coast City. Him and his father, working on an old boat engine. His first day of school, and then a second photo from the first day of the next year. Him and Tommy standing in front of the car in their uniforms with tiny backpacks on their shoulders. There was his senior photo, but not his senior prom. A Christmas photo with his family, too, even when he knew he’d also taken a photo with Laurel that year as their first Christmas together as a couple.

Had those photos just been lost in the fire? But then when another photo surfaced of him and Tommy on the slopes at Aspen from the trip he knew Laurel had come with them on just as he knew what she’d spent her nights there doing with him, he thought he was starting to sense a pattern.

Then he flipped a page and was faced with Thea holding a bow and arrow. He squinted at it, because that couldn’t be right. Thea’s hair was long the way she’d worn it as a teenager and she looked decidedly that age as well.

“Some of those are from your time away.”

Oliver looked up. Laurel had wrapped herself up in a blanket and stood watching him on the porch swing. Wordlessly, he scooted over and she joined him.

She turned the page and pointed to a photo he had never seen before of his mother in a cream-colored dress looking radiantly happy. “Like, um, this was your mother on her and Walter’s wedding day. He was able to find me it in his things.”

She flipped another page and his old friend was smiling up at him with an arm around a young woman probably none of them knew the name of.

“That was Tommy’s twenty-fifth birthday,” Laurel told him.

“Looks like a typical Tommy birthday.”

They both smiled, fond and sad. They'd sat like this going through old photos once before, and he’d kissed her. He hadn’t known then it would be the last time.

Laurel dropped her gaze. “Yeah. There’s, um, one more I wanted to show you myself because, it’s a bit of a story. Samantha gave me a photo to pass along to my dad in case we’d needed to put out a missing poster.”

Oliver felt a lump rise in his throat as Laurel went past several pages with glimpses of John, Roy and even Felicity to reveal a photo of William dressed in his baseball uniform. He hadn’t seen his son since that terrible time on the island. Thank God Laurel and Thea had pulled Samantha back to avoid her getting hurt or something worse, but she had been even more adamant after that that his world and William’s world were never to collide. And he hadn’t blamed her.

Having this now, though, it brought the love and longing he felt for his son back to the surface. Oliver put a hand to his mouth, his shoulders trembling slightly.

“Ollie, I’m sorry.” Laurel’s hand rested on his arm. “I didn’t know if it would be too much, I just—”

“It’s not. I don’t — I didn’t have anything of him. I love it. I do.” He turned and hugged her. In her arms, he finally found the strength to add, “It’s just, there’s something missing.”

Laurel paused, her hand stilling where it had begun rubbing his back. “What’s that?”

“You.”

She pulled back and looked at him. “Well, um, most of the photos I have with us are from when we…”

“I know.”

Laurel searched his face, then touched the canary pendant hanging from her neck. “Ollie, what was Thea talking about earlier?”

He licked his lips and said, “You know when a few of us were captured in that Dominator ship? While we were there, they put us into some kind of illusion. It all looked and felt so real, but it wasn’t. It was… I guess in a way it was all our greatest temptations come to life.”

He looked down at the photo album and flipped back a few pages to a photo of his family. “Mom and dad were alive, Ray was happily engaged, the island had never happened. And you were there, too.”

“Well, what was special about that?”

Oliver hesitated a single moment, then looked up and met her eyes. “We were getting married.”

Laurel clutched the pendant, her eyes wide with shock. Oliver nodded at it.

“That necklace was an engagement present I’d given you. I’m not trying to say it means that here. I know that — one of the hardest parts about leaving that world was coming back and seeing the real you and knowing that could never be us.”

Laurel flinched back. “It can’t?”

Oliver froze, then slowly set the album aside on the bench. He angled himself more towards her. “I didn’t think you could remember being in love with me.”

Laurel’s lips pressed tight together, clearly knowing exactly what he was talking about. Then she said in a voice, carefully light in that way where she was trying to hold back tears, “I thought you were done running after me.”

He closed his eyes. Of all the things he had ever said in anger, perhaps that conversation was one he wished he could take back the most.

“It wasn’t true.”

“It wasn’t true,” she echoed, and he knew she was referring to her own previous declaration of no longer having feelings. Falsehoods they had told each other and perhaps told to themselves to try and keep apart.

He looked at her again. Laurel’s eyes were shining bright in the porch light and her lips were twisted in a funny sort of way as if to hold everything inside. Oliver reached out, but faltered before he made it there.

“In the dream, I told you I didn’t deserve you. I still don’t.”

Her fingers brushed his cheek, guiding him back to face her. She gave a slow shake of the head. “It’s never been about that, Ollie.”

Then she leaned in, her lips soft against his own. Their breath mingled and turned to puffs of steam in the winter night air. The swing rocked as he pulled her closer, deepening the kiss.

She was warm, almost hot to the touch under the blanket, and Oliver couldn’t help grinning when she shivered at the touch of his cold hands. But Laurel determinedly pressed herself to him, one leg sliding over his knee. He seized her around the waist, lifting her onto his lap—

“Hey, we’re taking a picture! Oh,” Barry added in the doorway as they both turned their faces to look at him. “Uh, my bad.”

“That’s okay, Barry,” Laurel spoke for them, which was probably good since Oliver was inclined towards growling in annoyance at the moment. “We’ll be inside in a minute.”

“Yeah, sure. Take your time.” The speedster didn’t tap into his powers to leave, but he suspected it was a near thing.

Oliver sighed and prepared to get up, only for Laurel to turn back around in his lap and kiss him again soundly. “What? He said take our time.”

The photo of their joint teams was a crowded affair, but it was easiest to pick out him and Laurel. His jacket collar was rumpled, her hair a little mussed, and both of them had their arms around each other with wide smiles while the light glinted off her canary necklace.

It was the first of many new additions to his album.

#lauriver #laurel x oliver #laurel lance #oliver queen #arrow #green arrow #black canary #my writing

13 notes · View notes

emperorsfoot · 5 years ago

Link

Chapter four is up!

This time we finally get to see the clone as an actual character instead of just an unconscious prop.

Meanwhile, Catra drags Hordak to Mara’s ship in the Crimson Wastes and they discuss Catra’s plan... as well as revisit the definition of failure.

There were a great many things Hordak disliked. But it took a special kind of dislikable thing to anger him to the point where he could say, with absolute conviction, and without the shadow of a doubt, that he hated it!

Traitors were very high on his list of hates. One traitor in particular. One brilliantly intelligent, irrationally positive, absurdly energetic, prehensile haired traitor. Hordak could say that he very justifiably hated her. He vowed he would see her again, and exact his revenge!

Failure was another of his top three hates. Both the failure of his subordinates, and his own personal failures. Especially his own personal failures. He should never have trusted the Princess in the first place. He should have known better. She was originally their prisoner. What motivation did she have to help him? None! It was his own failure of judgement, failure of security, and failure to maintain boundaries that allowed her to slip in and exploit his… defects. A mistake he planned to correct in the not-too-distant future.

But the thing that was quickly rising on his list of top three hates, the thing that was vying for the coveted spot of the Most Repugnant Thing in the Universe According to Lord Hordak… was sand!

Hard, coarse, dusty, vile stuff!

It got everywhere!

Stuck under his talons. In his mouth. In his eyes! But worst of all, inside the joint and delicate inner workings of his exo-suit!

From the first step he and Catra took into the Crimson Waste, it seemed like the sand had a personal vendetta against him. Was trying to end him. If not by killing him outright, then by exposing his weakness to his companion for her to finish him off. After all, Force Captain Catra seemed to be a perfect student of Horde philosophy. Putting it into a level of practice that would make even the strict and difficult to please Horde Prime proud.

Hordren and Red Hord would’ve liked her too.

Hordwing and Hode would have hated her.

But Hordak tried not to think about Hode. His old mentor. The one who’s position on Prime’s cabinet he took over after the older clone expired. What would Hode say to him now?

‘Every situation can be turned, Zero-Zero-Three. No fall is too far for one to climb back up from. Provided you are strong enough. Are you strong enough, Zero-Zero-Three?’

Hordak liked to think he was strong enough.

Hode probably never had to deal with the betrayal of a- a- a useful associate he allowed to get too close. Hode never would have allowed one to get so close in the first place. To weasel her way past his boundaries and under his barriers. To give him new armor while simultaneously breaking down the other armor he’d carefully constructed around himself. An armor which allowed him to rise in rank within his division of the Empire. An armor which allowed him to ascend to a seat on the ruling cabinet itself! Hode never would have been so foolish, or so… weak.

Hordak liked to think he was strong, but –thus far- all evidence was to the contrary.

The wind changed, blowing a fresh cloud of dust around them.

And this All High Host-cursed sand was really testing him!

Hordak wrapped a hand around the opposite wrist of his exo-suit, already feeling the tingling of a malfunction coming on. He would not have a ‘tizzy’ in front of Catra. The fact that she was supposed to be his subordinate aside, she was in the position of power in this particular situation.

She could navigate the Crimson Wastes, he could not. She knew where they were going, he did not. She was physically fit and able-bodied, he was one prosthetic suit malfunction away from being an invalid. She had a plan, while all he had was a vague demand for satisfaction from the one who betrayed him. At this moment, in this situation, Catra was the one in control.

A fact he was sure she was just as aware of as he was. Though she had not capitalized on it yet, and Hordak had to wonder as to why. After his treatment of her over the past year, she must be harboring a grudge. All High Host knew he held a grudge against Hordren when he was still new to the cabinet and very green. Freshly promoted and newly named. Still getting used to being called ‘Hordak’ instead of ‘Zero-Zero-Three.’

“Keep up!” Catra snarled at him.

She stood, silhouetted against the empty, cloudless sky. A sky that looked as dry and uninviting as the sand through which she had dragged him. Mane of hair blowing in the wind. Tail flicking back and forth in irritation. For such a clever and formidable… survivor, she was incredibly easy to read. The cat-girl was impatient and annoyed. Not exactly the image of a leader with a plan. She did not look collected and in control. She looked frustrated.

‘Do not give into frustration, Zero-Zero-Three.’ Hode often repeated to him. Repeated to him so often, in fact, that it caused the very frustration the older clone was warning against. ‘Frustration is one of the mind killers. It clouds the ability to think.’

Perhaps that was why Entrapta’s betrayal had taken him so utterly and completely by surprise.

He had been struggling with his portal project for years. For almost as long as he had established his own little facsimile of a Horde Supremacy here on Etheria. For as long as he’d had the resources to build a portal, he’d been trying to do just that… and failing at every attempt. Again, and again, and again. He was angry, and he was impatient, and he was frustrated.

So, when this energetic little Princess appeared in his lab and just fixed it, as if it were nothing, as if it were easy, he didn’t think twice. He didn’t question. He didn’t stop to wonder the why. All he cared about was that she could give him what he wanted, and so he gave her what she wanted. Unlimited access and resources.

She managed to keep the ruse up for a very long time. So long, in fact that they actually created a working portal. So, long that she actually allowed him to succeed.

Except she didn’t allow him to succeed, because that was also the day she brought the Alliance in to destroy him.

But he would destroy her in return. He promised himself

As she had forced him to watch the destruction of all that he cared for, his one and only way home, so too would he make her watch as he destroyed all she cared for. Her precious Princess Alliance, her home Queendom of Dryl, her laboratory, all her inventions and experiments, her notes, those blasted recordings. He would wipe her very existence from the face of this world! And he would make her watch as he did so. He would see her face as she realized that he had destroyed her. That he had taken all but her life. And when she begged him to take that as well, he would refuse.

Entrapta was a brilliant scientist, after all. She was a valuable resource, and Hordak was not in the habit of throwing away resources. Perhaps he would present her to Horde Prime as a gift when he finally returned home.

…If he ever returned home.

The prospects were not looking good from his side, and there was no way for him to know if Prime received the signal from the other side.

Trying very hard to control his breaths so that Catra did not hear him wheezing, Hordak finally crested the top of the dune they were climbing. The gasp he made had nothing to do with his lungs being desperate for breath.

There, in front of them, jutting up from the desert, was an arrow shaped space ship. Not Horde in design. The Horde preferred sharp angles and hard lines. This one was smooth and elegant. Not unsimilar to some First Ones’ designs he’d seen. Not a Horde ship, then. A First Ones’ ship.

“C’mon.” Catra snapped. Then was bounding down the other slope of the dune, towards the ship.

Hordak longed for a sandworm to come up and swallow her whole. A shame the Great Makers were only native to Arakis and were not found on Etheria. We would have longed to see the cat-girl get eaten, then wash the sight down with fresh glass of Spice.

He followed her to the ship.

The sand had gotten in here too.

Sand truly was a horrible thing. It was hard, and course, and it got everywhere. Hordak hated the sand.

But there was less of it inside the ship. And, inside the ship it was cool, without the harsh sun of the Wastes beating down on them. Cool, and dim, almost dark. Not unlike his own Sanctum. It was almost homey inside the crashed First Ones’ ship, and Hordak felt himself relax before he gave his body leave to. The hand around his wrist letting go, as the tingling that was the warning sign of an episode subsided.

Taking a deep breath of the dry air, he let his aching lungs rest for a moment before asking the necessary question. “Why have you dragged me here?”

In answer to this, Catra kicked a console and a hologram appeared. A hologram of a very familiar, two and half meters tall, shiny, Princess, savior. Except that it wasn’t the one Hordak was familiar with. The She-Ra that destroyed his portal and defeated him was former-Force Captain Adora. This She-Ra, however, identified herself as…

“I am Mara, She-Ra of Etheria, and I am gone.”

It kept repeating. On a loop. The same sentence. She was She-Ra, and legendary hero of Etheria, but not the She-Ra he’d spent the past year being thwarted by.

“I’m still waiting for an explanation, Force Captain.” Hordak turned –what he hoped- was an intimidating scowl at the cat-girl. “Why have you brought me here?”

Catra crossed her arms over her chest, as if she were impatient with him. As if he should just know, without having to be told. Since he did not know, it was very inconvenient for her to have to explain.

“There’s a larger message.” She told him. “I saw it, but it was glitching. Skipping around, like an old laser disk with a scratch. I’m not techy. But you are. Fix it.”

Hordak raised one pale, waxy brow-ridge. How dare she presume to give him orders!

Except he knew exactly how she presumed to give him orders. She might not know it yet, but one carefully placed blow from her could kill him. He was not as strong as he used to be. He had not been as strong as he used to be for a very long time. Far longer than before he began making real and meaningful progress with his portal. Entrapta might not know it, but she actually saved his life when she built the exo-suit for him. Her Alliance might have won a lot sooner, and she might not have had to betray him at all, had she not gifted him with this one prosthetic suit.

Absentmindedly, Hordak touched a talon to the gem on his collar. A shard of a First Ones crystal in a dusky fuchsia color. Did Entrapta know truly what it was she was doing for him when she made it? Or did she just think it was ‘something nice’ that would prompt him to trust her more. Not just trust her more, but trust her completely. Because, at the end there, Hordak did trust her completely. Not just trust her, but want her. Want her there. When the portal was activated. Their portal. That they had made together. He wanted her standing next to him when that lever was pulled and the universe opened up for them.

But she wasn’t there.

Entrapta had been nowhere in sight. She hadn’t even showed up to laugh in his face and call him a fool for how easily he allowed himself to be manipulated by her.

Hordak did wonder where she went. Why she wasn’t there. Even in the capacity of an enemy, she should have been there. It was a decisive moment.

Catra impatiently tapped her foot on the sandy spaceship floor.

Hordak lowered his hand from the crystal at his collar. There would be time to dwell on Entrapta. Later.

“I fail to see how a corrupted message file from a long-dead speaker is of any importance.” He informed Catra.

“Because.” Began the cat-girl in a voice similar to the one she used when she had to explain something to Force Captain Scorpia. Something Catra felt should be obvious and couldn’t understand why the other people around her weren’t getting it. “That other She-Ra mentioned a weapon. I’m sure of it. And a super-weapon is exactly what we need right now. We could defeat She-Ra and take down the whole Princess Alliance in one strike.

“Assuming you know how to use this weapon.” Hordak pointed out.

“That all depends on what the weapon is, now doesn’t it.” Catra crooned. “That’s what you’re gonna find out. You’ve been incorporated First Ones’ tech into your experiments since before Entrapta came along. You’ve got to have figured out how this stuff works by now!”

Unconsciously, Hordak placed a hand to the crystal on the collar of his exo-suit. He hadn’t figured out the First Ones’ tech. Not really. He spent so much time and made so little progress. Entrapta was the real First Ones expert. Entrapta was what Catra needed. He was a poor substitute.

But he also wasn’t going to tell Catra that.

“If what you say is, in fact, true, then will She-Ra and her Princess Alliance not return to reclaim the very information we are seeking?” He pointed out instead.

But if the Princess Alliance did come to reclaim a former She-Ra’s message, and that message was buried in First Ones’ data, they would need to bring Entrapta. If he remained here and prepared an ambush for the Alliance, then he could see Entrapta again. He could have satisfaction!

“Which is why we’re gonna get it first!” Catra announced with a level of confidence that was completely unfounded given their combined knowledge of First Ones tech was barely above that of a child.

Then Catra smiled a malicious little grin. One full of dark irony and her own helping of vicious satisfaction. She scooped up handful of sand up off the floor and crossed the space between them.

“And Hordak,” she cooed up at him, almost as if with affection. “You do know what the meaning of ‘failure’ is.”

He felt a small stone of dread sink into the pit of his stomach at the question. He knew she had to be just as aware of the shift in the power dynamic between them as he was. He knew she had to be aware that she held the advantage in this particular situation. It seemed the cat-girl was capitalizing on it after all.

“If you thought the atmosphere was problematic…” She climbed up on top of the ship’s darkened and lifeless console to close the height difference between them. She looked him dead in the eyes, mismatched heterochromia to pupilless red sclera. Face stony and impassive, she dropped her handful of sand into his exo-suit, so that it trickled under the lip of the collar bow between the suit and his already sensitive skin. “…wait until you get a load of the environment.”

The almost instant skin irritation was bad enough. But then he felt the tingling that warned of a suit malfunction. The exo-suit Entrapta fitted him with not know how to communicate with his existing cybernetic implants to compensate for the foreign irritants. Hordak tried to hold his composure as best he could. He really did.

He still found himself leaning against the ship’s console. Using it to support his weight as his prosthetics shorted. Sparking visibly in the dim chamber.

Still standing on the console, Catra knelt down to whisper in his delicately pointed ear. “I trust we understand each other.”

Hordak barely managed to raise his head to look at her. But he very clearly caught her toothy grin of satisfaction.

…

It was safe to say that Socrpia had no idea what she was doing.

She didn’t know much about children, and she knew even less about clones. In the holo-dramas she sometimes watched, all clones always came out of the tubes –or tank in Little Hordak’s case- fully functioning. Able to speak, and stand, understand language and follow commands. In the holo-dramas Scorpia watched, clones were given some kind of programming or education while still gestating. So they could function like people.

Entrapta, however, did not appear to have done this.

When the little Hordak-clone first began to breath, the first thing they did was cry. Loudly.

Imp placed both of his pudgy hands over his ears and fluttered up into the rafters to get away from the sound. Scorpia similarly clapped her pincers over her ears, at a bit of a loss as to what to do.

The next few minutes were a blur of cuddles, and cooing non-sense reassurances to the clone –whom was even more of a child than they looked- when Little Hordak was finally calm and quiet again, Scorpia turned her attention to a meaningful escape. The Alliance had beaten them, Catra had betrayed her and their friendship, original-Hordak was missing.

Scorpia lifted the small child up into her arms and stomped from the lab.

Imp just barly managed to swipe Entrapta’s discarded recorder as he flew to keep up with the Force Captain. If there were any answers to the question that was the young clone, it would be on that recorder.

Scorpia carried the clone to her own quarters. Imp flapping behind them, hugging the recorder to his tiny chest. He seemed determined to stick close to the Little Hordak, almost as if they were the actual Lord himself.

Taking a sheet from her bed, Scorpia wrapped it around the clone’s naked body. She cut the hem so they could walk on their own –assuming they knew how- and cut a hole for their head, transforming the former sheet into a kind of sloppy shift. It was red, like everything else in the Horde, a stark contrast to their whiter-than-white skin and vibrant blue hair. One might have argued that the sheet brought out the color of their eyes, except the clone’s eyes weren’t really a true red. At least, not a red the same as original-Hordak’s red.

They still glowed slightly, as if lit from some internal light. An interesting bioluminescence not usually found on Etheria. But the color was different. While Hordak’s eyes were a primary-red, or a true-red, the clone’s were closer to fuchsia. An extremely bright pink with violet undertones.

Scorpia sat the clone on her now bare bed and turned to pack a quick bag for herself. But she stopped when she felt something tug on her arm. It felt almost like the sheet was tangled around her. Something coiled around her forearm and pulling.

She looked back, dark eyes going wide at what she saw.

It wasn’t the sheet wrapped around her arm. It was the clone’s blue mohawk of hair. That long tail of hair. As long as they were tall, blue and narrow, just like Hordak’s but… Scorpia looked at the hair coiled around her arm. She watched the strands move over her armor as if they had a mind of their own. She felt them try and tug her back, closer to the clone. Hair that functioned the same as any limb. Prehensile hair. Just like Entrapta! They looked like Hordak, but they had Entrapta’s prehensile hair! Maybe not the same color or style, but the same physical capabilities.

So… not a true clone, then. A combination of the two of them. An amalgamation. A composite.

An offspring.

Scropia hadn’t found Entrapta’s last experiment, she found Entrapta’s child! Entrapta’s child with Hordak. –Gross.- Scorpia inwardly cringed, there was no accounting for taste. And only Entrapta would have a baby through experimentation rather than… the usual way.

She tried to peel the hair off her arm, hooking her free pincer claw under it and all but prying the tight spiral of blue off her. It look a surprising amount of effort, the hair was stronger than they looked. But then, Entrapta’s hair had always been stronger than she looked.

Free of the limb again, Scorpia darted around her room, throwing things messily into a standard issue duffle. Spare armor, civilian clothing, underclothing. But when she darted into her private bathroom –as a Princess she was entitled to the privilege of her own washroom and toilet- the clone began to cry. Scorpia was literally the only person they knew, and she was suddenly out of sight.

She poked her head out from around the doorframe. “Hey, hey, I’m still here, kiddo.” She tried to sooth. “Uh, Hordak? Lord-? Little Lord? Little Hordak.”

Seeing her again, the clone gave a soft sniff and stopped crying.

Scorpia went back into the bathroom.

The clone began to cry again.

“Of for the love of-“ She poked her head out again.

The clone stopped crying again.

“This is not the best time to play Peek-a-Boo, Little Hordak.” She called to them.

Imp fluttered onto the bed next to the clone. Partially in an attempt to distract them, he understood the necessity of getting master’s… whatever they were to master- out of the Fright Zone before an enemy, or a rival for power learned of them. But also partly because Imp was still confused by them. By this stange new organism that hatched from a Horde cloning tank, the same as master, and the same as Hode before him. The same as every Horde clone ever. And yet they did not smell like every Horde clone. They didn’t not smell like master. Not entirely. They smelled… mixed. Hybrid. Alien.

With Imp distracting the clone, Scorpia was able to finish her frantic and haphazard packing. With the duffle thrown over her back, the strap crossing her chest, she scooped the clone back up into her arms.

There was more than one skiff already missing when the trio made it to the hangers. It looked like Scorpia wasn’t the only one who decided to jump ship after the Sanctum blew.

She settled the clone as best she could. Horde skiff’s weren’t exactly designed with seatbelts, but Socrpia didn’t trust the clone with his infant-like understanding of things not to fall out while she was piloting. She laid her duffel bag over their lap, hoping that would be enough to keep them in place. They were a kid, maybe they’d think of the duffle as an awkward heavy blanket.

“Stay down, Little Hordak.” Scorpia instructed, not even sure if the clone understood or not.

They blinked back up at her with those odd eyes. Glowing and solid sclera devoid of iris or pupil, like Hordak’s, but fuschia in color, like Entrapta’s. For half a second Scorpia wondered if they did understand.

Then the clone smiled back at her. Smiled, as if they were not fleeing a defeated military instillation full of deserters, looters, vengeful zealots, and the very enemies that defeated them in the first place. Clearly, they did not understand as much as they thought they did.

“H’dak!” The clone’s smile was also not like Hordak’s –not that Scorpia had ever actually seen the Lord smile. But Hordak’s teeth were red. Almost as red as his eyes, although, they didn’t glow –obviously. But the clone’s teeth were white. A perfectly normal color for Etherian teeth. Still sharp, and pointed, with elongated canines coming down into fangs. But they were not red. More of Entrapta manifesting itself in the clone. “H’dak!”

They were so utterly oblivious to the gravity of their situation. So innocent and trusting of her. Scorpia couldn’t help but smile back at the ignorant creature. “That’s right, kiddo, you’re Hordak.”

Imp shot a disapproving frown in her direction. This amalgam creature was most definitely not master! He held the recorder in his hands. The moment they were safe and not moving anymore, Imp was going to go through every sound file on the whole thing. He would dissect Entrapta’s notes until he discovered what this… what this genetic composite really was.

“H’dak!” The clone said again as Scorpia piloted the skiff away from the Fright Zone.

That was four days ago.

Not knowing where else to go or what else to do, Scorpia navigated them to Dryl. It was Entrapta’s Queendom, after all, and the little Hordak clone –whom she had started calling ‘Dak’- was Entrapta’s creation. It stood to reason that Dryl would be the perfect place to taken them.

The staff of Castle Dryl… had mixed reactions.

Baker, Soda Pop, and Busgirl glared at Scorpia darkly. Before word of the Horde’s defeat reached them, they were –technically- under Horde occupation. Their ruling Princess having gone over to the Horde willingly. Dryl still hung Horde banners, and was still filled with Horde soldiers. Where Baker, Soda Pop, and Busgirl once served only one eccentric and only occasionally terrifying Princess, they now had to serve a whole occupying army.

Then a Force Captain shows up out of nowhere in only a skiff, no other soldiers or guards, and a small child in tow. It was an odd event to say the least.

The occupying soldiers’ reactions were less hostile and more confused. Not all of them had ever even seen Hordak in their lives. They only knew what he looked like from vague description. But those whom had been in the presence of the leader of the Horde definitely, definitely could recognize him. Lord Hordak was not something one easily forgets. One look at the small child holding Scorpia’s claw, and sucking on their hair was all it took for some soldiers to note the resemblance and jump to conclusions.

The Horde was defeated. The Princess Alliance won. Hordak was killed. And one surviving loyal Force Captain escaped with a young child that could only be Hordak’s heir.

It was the kind of story told as the prologue to an epic opera. ‘Lord of the Rings’ –Etheria version. ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ –Dryl redux.

Scorpia sat down with Baker, Soda Pop, and Busgirl in the kitchen. They were the highest ranked staff in the castle –the highest ranked native staff- there were higher ranked Horde Scorpia could have talked with, but that could wait. She wanted these people to know what she’d discovered first. She wanted Entrapta’s people to hear it from her, not the scuttlebutt of occupying soldiers.

They sat at the kitchen table, using it as more of a makeshift conference table.

“I don’t see why you had to come here!” Busgirl blurted out what everyone else was thinking.

Baker and Soda Pop looked nervous. During her previous visit, Force Captain Scorpia had never been cruel to the people of Dryl. In fact, compared to other Horde officers, she was downright nice! Sociable and happy. Inexplicably cheerful and easy to get along with. The kind of person that put others at ease and made one forget that she was actually an agent of a tyrannical regime that was slowly taking over the planet. But, Scorpia was still a Horde officer. Testing her patience was never a good idea.

But Scorpia didn’t seem all that tested. In fact, she looked a little… awkward. One pincer scratched at the back of her head while she looked for words to explain things.

At the other end of the room –where there was no stove or carving knives for a child to hurt themselves on- Dak played with Imp. At least the staff assumed it was play. The little Horde-Etherian hybrid was trying to grab at the fluttering deamon. Clawing at the empty air with their tiny taloned hands. Occasionally they would make a jump to close the distance between them, but Imp just hovered higher, keeping just out of reach of the small master’s clone.

“Want!” The child snapped in frustration, glaring up at Imp whom insisted on hovering just out of reach. They had added several words to their vocabulary over the past few days with Scorpia. It wasn’t just ‘H’dak’ anymore. Now they could convey their ‘want!’, mangled Scorpia’s name into ‘Sc’pya’, expressed their displeasure with a pitchy ‘No!’, and understood to ask the dreaded and terrible ‘why?’

It had been four days since Scorpia and Imp found them in a cloning tank in Entrapta’s old lab. In the space of four days, little Dak had gone from the mentality and understanding of a newborn infant, to that of an 18-month old toddler. Clearly, they inherited Entrapta’s intelligence. Either that or it was just a trick of the cloning process. Scorpia didn’t know enough about any of it to hazard a guess.

Imp just chortled at the clone. Flapping over to perch atop a kitchen cabinet. He opened his mouth wide and threw the little Hordak’s own word back at them. ‘Want! Want! Want!’

In response to this taunting, Dak just growled. A low, feral sound, forming in the back of their throat. Not a sound the average Etherian could make unless they hailed from a furry sub-species.

“Oh, geez, uh,” Scorpia was trying to explain to the staff but wasn’t quite sure how, “ya see, the thing is… Little Dak isn’t just Hordak’s, uh… Hordak’s whatever. They’re also Entrapta’s!”

All three Dryl staff looked confused. “The Princess’ what?”

Frustrated with his Imp playmate, Dak tried to climb up onto the counter, using the drawer handles as foot holds. They used their hands to brace against the wall for balance on the new, higher surface, and reached their hair up to grab the little deamon for him. The thin blue mohawk coiling around the Imp tightly, entangling the small creature as if in a tentacle, and pulled Imp down off the shelf.

“Mine!” Dak announced triumphantly.

Imp just gave a chirp of resignation. He was caught. But then, that was the whole point of the game, after all. Horde were predators. Since master’s… whatever they were, didn’t recive any programming during gestation, they would need to be trained the old fashioned way. Imp was just lucky that Hode made sure Imp knew what the old fashioned way was before the old clone expired.

The staff just stared, open mouthed and wide eyed, at the child. A miniature Hordak, or so they’d been told, none of them had ever seen Hordak before. But a miniature Hordak whom also enjoyed their own Princess’ power of prehensile hair. A trait no other family on Etheria had. A trait that was unique to the royal house of Dryl. This ‘Dak’ wasn’t just Hordak’s… whatever, they were also Entrapta’s… child?

But, that couldn’t be right. It hadn’t even been a year since she was lost in the Fright Zone and joined the Horde, and this child was very clearly a decade old –in physical appearance, at least. Mentally they seemed a little over a year, but that was still too old to be the naturally begotten child born from the leader of the Horde and their Princess. Reproduction did not work that fast!

Dak noticed everyone staring at them and bared his teeth in a challenge. Teeth that were as pointed and sharp as Hordak’s, but white and enameled as an Etherian’s. They hugged Imp tighter to them. “Mine!”

“I guess that’s a good explanation right there.” Scorpia laughed good-naturedly. As if this were just a friendly conversation and a friend’s child had just done something cute. As if a giant bombshell nobody really understood hadn’t just been dropped on the staff. When Scorpia noticed that no one else was laughing along with her, she cringed.

“How is this even possible?” Baker approached the child. She was about to offer them a hand to help climb down off the counter, but Imp hissed loudly. She thought twice, not wanting that little deamon creature to bite her.

Imp glared a challenge at the other too, in case they wanted to interfere with the Horde hybrid’s training too. Master’s… heir? had to learn on their own. Master’s heir had to be strong. Otherwise they would not be Horde.

“But you get why I brought them here, right?” Scorpia asked.

All three staff exchanged a grim look. Yes, they understood. Young Hordak, second of his name, was not a lost heir of the Horde smuggled out of the Fright Zone by a loyal Captain to be raised to reclaim the thrown. Little Dak, was Entrapta’s successor, the heir to the Dryl Queendom. They were being brought home by a friend of their… (creator’s?) mother’s.

“You did the right thing.” Baker decided as she watched the pale child climb down from the counter on their own.

They had to let go of Imp to do it. Using both their hands, and their hair, for balance. But they made it down off the counter all on their own, and they didn’t stumble or fall once. Given more time and practice, they would become just as adept at climbing walls and sneaking through air vents as their mother.

“H’dak!” They announced once their feet were firmly back on the floor.

“That’s right!” Baker cooed, clapping her hands to congratulate them as if getting down off a surface without hurting themselves was a praise-worthy feat.

Dak placed a hand to their belly, frowning as they tried to think of the correct word for how they felt. “Want.” They decided. They patted their belly to make sure the adults in the room understood. “Want.”

“Are you hungry?” Baker asked. They were already in the kitchen, she could make something easily.

For half a moment, Dak looked confused, not sure what the grown-up was asking. They were still learning and language was confusing. “I’m H’dak.”

Imp fluttered down to perch on top of the child. The clone’s shoulder’s were much narrower than master’s. Imp could not perch on Dak the same way he perched on Hordak. The little deamon balanced on the back of their neck instead, one pudgy leg thrown over each shoulder. He looked at the Baker, opened his mouth, and repeated her own word back at her, ‘Hungry. Hungry. Hungry.’ To confirm for her that, yes, that was what master’s heir needed.

Nodding her understanding, Baker got to work. Pulling out mixing bowls and baking pans. Flour, eggs, milk, sugar… all the things that went into her cooking for the child’s mother.

While Baker worked, Soda Pop turned to Scorpia, a serious frown on his face. “So what’s you plan with this child?” He asked. “What are you going to do now?”

Because they might be the heir to Dryl, but they were also the heir to the Horde –assuming the Horde practiced hereditary inheritance. The staff did not like the idea of their Princess’ only child being used as a pawn in some Force Captain’s machiavellian schemes for power.

Scorpia scratched the back of her head again. “See, the thing is… I was kinda hoping you could just take them for me?” She confessed. “Take care of them, I mean. The kiddo doesn’t know anything about anything and I can’t have a kid tagging along where I’m going.”

That was not the answer Soda Pop was expecting. He was expecting the Force Captain to invite herself to stay. Install herself as Dak’s regent until they came of age and could take over Dryl. Use the clone’s pedigree for her own ambitions. Instead she was just… dropping him off at home?

“Where are you going?” Soda Pop found himself asking.

This time, when Scorpia answered, it was not sheepish or unsure. She did not scratch the back of her head awkwardly. She was resolved and firm when she spoke. “I made a mistake.” She admitted. “I betrayed a friend and sent her to a really bad place. I gotta go there and get her back.”

Soda Pop raised an eyebrow, genuinely curious. He didn’t know Horde soldiers had friends. Let along friendships that were deep enough to prompt someone to go on what sounded like a dangerous and possibly life-threatening quest. “Who?”

Scorpia cast a forlorn look at Dak. “Their mother.”

#entrapdak #hordak #entrapta #entrapta/hordak #she-ra season 3 #clone baby au #non-binary oc #fanfiction #ao3 #RenkonNairu

19 notes · View notes

intheforest-hides-a-light · 5 years ago

Text

A New Family | Part 1

Synopsis: Rachel Jessop’s life changes forever the day she meets Joseph Seed, and the seven years that follow are not at all how she expected them to be.

((So tumblr removed all my text from this post when I went to add a hashtag so here I am pasting it back in again *cries* there’s probably errors now haha))

Rating: M

Genre: Angst, Drama, pre-canon

Characters: Faith Seed (Rachel Jessop), Tracey Lader, Joseph Seed + others

Warnings: abuse, drug use, thoughts of suicide, implied sex

Length of Part 1: 6.5k Total Length: TBD

Disclaimer: I don’t own FC5 or its characters, only thing that’s mine is my writing.

a/n: Basically my take on Faith’s story as seen from her eyes. Who she is, how she ended up with PEG and why she stayed. Wrote this waaayy before all the “Did Joseph exploited Faith” drama came about. I’ve always been intrigued by their relationship/power dynamic so this delves into that as the story progresses. Also gets into the role that the Faiths play and why Rachel is different. Enjoy!

-------

I count the bruises on my arms and legs as I cry alone in my bedroom. Three on the right leg, two on the left. Four on the right arm, five on the left. I haven’t looked at myself in the mirror today but I am sure that my left eye is completely black and blue. There are fingernail scratches along my collarbones. Are they from my dad or from my brother? I don’t remember. I don’t want to remember. I run my fingers through my hair. Masses of strands fall out in clumps. Is it from being dragged across the kitchen last night? Or is it from the incident in the girls’ locker room two days ago? I don’t remember. I don’t want to remember.

I turn my nightstand around, looking for a secret stash of weed I keep hidden in case of emergencies. I find the plastic bag, but it is practically empty. There have been a lot of emergencies in the last three weeks. My backpack is sitting by the door. I head over to it and search the inner secret pocket. Another ziplock bag, empty except for a white powdery residue. I go into the bathroom, open up the lower cabinet door, feel around the upper inside and pull out another bag hidden between the pipe and the wall. Syringes. Empty.

My phone chimes. It’s Tracey. I hesitate to pick up. Deep down all I want is to talk to someone. Tell someone that it happened again, that I am back at the beginning, that no matter how much courage I try to muster up I keep falling back to this same place, dirt low, forgotten. Beaten. The only way up is getting high. That’s the only escape I know.

Tracey doesn’t need drugs like I need drugs. Tracey doesn’t depend on a leafy plant, or a fine white powder or a needle to numb her pain. Tracey is much stronger than me.

I swallow hard and pick up my phone, “Hi, Tracey.”

“Hey girl, how you holding up?”

Just hearing her ask the question shatters me. I hold in my sob, but my voice comes out shaky and weak, “I’m...not...not great.”

“What’s going on?”

“It was bad yesterday. It was really bad.”

“Your dad? Your brother?”

My father is a pharmacist. Yet somehow, right after mom died, his years of education magically disappeared and he quit his job to start experimenting with homeopathic medicine. Since then things haven’t been so easy. He makes no money. We’re living in debt. He’s looking for a cure for my autistic brother. I try to tell him, because he won’t listen to his graduate degree, that it’s impossible, that David is going to stay that way forever and the only thing that is going to make it any easier on him is love and education. I tell him that and he beats me up. Whatever he cooks up in his lab only makes my brother angry, violent. I think it’s getting into my father’s head too. Sends him into these fits of rage. I go to bed hearing screaming matches between the two of them. I’m afraid that one morning I will wake up and--

I can’t think about it. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t have anymore weed. I can’t break down like this because I don’t have a way up.

“Both.”

“Those bitches from school?”

Don’t think about it, Rachel.

“Uh huh.”

“Oh gosh. I’m sorry girlfriend. Got that secret stash I gave you?” She’s referring to the pot. She doesn’t know about the other two vices.

“All out.”

I hear her sigh, “You know that’s for emergencies only, Rachel. Not for everyday use. You’re supposed to be getting off that stuff, you know? We’re trying to get you better.”

“I know,” I sniff, “I know Trace. Lately it’s been so hard. I just wish there was a way out. I know I’m failing. I know you probably think I’m a failure but I am trying, I’m really trying.”

She chuckles, but I can tell that it is loving, “Hey. I’m here for you. I’ll always be here for you. OK? I know it isn’t easy. You’re not failing as long as you keep trying. Speaking of which...I think I found a place for us.”

We’ve been planning on running away together, mainly for my sake but also for hers. I need to get away from my dad. And she, well, Tracey’s got it good, but she’s always seeking more from life.

“How far is it?” I inquire.

“Not as far as we hoped, Rach,” she sighs, “Hope County”.

“Well that’s about as local as it gets,” I say with dismay, “What is it?”

“They call themselves Eden’s Gate. The Project at Eden’s Gate.”

“What are they? What do they do?”

“Well they’ve got a sermon tonight at the Ranch in Holland Valley. I’ll drive. Wanna come and find out?”

“I don’t think my dad will let me.”

“Who said you need his permission? Come on Rachel. We’ve snuck out your bedroom window plenty of times. It’ll be just like the old days.”

I look at my window. Nailed shut with wooden planks. Tracey doesn’t know about my father’s latest attempt to keep me in. My door is always locked. My father keeps the key. I can only go out for meals. Meals that aren’t even worth eating. I eat a scoop of peas for dinner and drink a glass of milk for breakfast. I do have my own bathroom, and my own bedroom, but no connection to the outside world other than my cell phone. Which is why those secret stashes meant so much to me.

“Well...I really think I ought to ask first, just in case,” I look down at my bruised legs, “I can’t afford to get into any more trouble. What do they preach? Maybe I can convince my old man?”

There’s a pause on the other end, “Just tell him they’re Christians. We are going to church.”

“Okay,” I pick at my nails, “I think he’ll be fine with that.”

------

Two hours later, blessed with permission from my unpredictable father, I am trying to cover up my black eye in the mirror. I don’t have a lot of makeup. My mother practically forbade it and my father continued the tradition. The only thing I can wear is concealer when I have a breakout, as every teenager gets. Otherwise he’s scared that I’ll get pregnant. But little does he know, back when Mom was alive, Tracey and I used to waitress at the 8-bit Pizza Bar while we were supposed to be selling girl scout cookies (sixteen is a little old for that anyway, in my opinion). We’d pick up some good looking boys in there from time to time. It didn’t matter that I didn’t wear any makeup. Guess you could say I had that small town charm going for me. Or maybe it was the fact that I was an easy target. I didn’t have a backbone. I still don’t. The boys were genteel enough. Courteous. Charming. But the minute I got into one of their trucks their hands went straight for me. Not the steering wheel. My breasts. Not the stick shift. My thigh. As if they owned it. As if they won it over. As if it was theirs for the taking from the beginning.

I let them take it. I’ve forgotten how much I owe Tracey for all the morning after pills she brought me. Every night after it would happen, I’d throw rocks and her bedroom window. She’d come down to the front and let me in. We’d go to the backyard, sit in the rocking chairs. Tracey would roll two joints and always gave me the bigger one. She meant well by it, like how a grandmother always gives her grandkids the bigger half of a pastry, but for me it did more harm than good. I would take it anyway, inhaling long drags of the stuff and pretending the smoke held the power to disintegrate my memories, my pain. I’d tell Tracey what happened. Every time it was a variation of the same story, with the same ending. She’d listen to me until I was done, until I’d finished crying and letting it all out. Then we would go back inside. She would make chamomile tea and serve it with oatmeal raisin cookies. I always had at least three because of the weed. Then we’d sleep in her big bed upstairs. When I’d wake up I couldn’t even remember the man’s face.

She kept forgiving me over and over again. She tried to teach me how to stand up for myself. She still does. But she also introduced me to drugs. I smoked pot with her but I found my way into other things in the bad parts of town. Coke. Heroin. I do them when I can do them, which is not very often. I can’t afford it and I can’t get out of the house enough anymore. I don’t think Tracey ever thought I’d become dependent on drugs. I know she only wanted to help me escape. But for me, weed was a gateway drug. It opened up a forest of dangers. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. I don’t have the self control that she does. Now she’s trying to wean me off of it. But she’s trying to cut off one head of the hydra. I need to smite all three if I want to get over this.

I stare at myself in the mirror. My complexion, once ruddy and bright, is now sickly, with tired eyes, bruises and scars all over. All of this makes me look like a corpse next to the plump small-town beauties full of spirit and life. I am a ghost. I float through the hallways like a ghost. I haunt my bedroom like a ghost.

I wasn’t always a ghost. I used to take care of myself. I’d lost about fifteen pounds since my mother died. My dad’s cooking is shit. Even though weed makes me hungry I never feel the desire to eat anything because nothing tastes good. My brown-blond hair (God couldn’t make up his mind when he made me, you see, at least that is what my mother would to say) used to be shiny with a slight wave to it, now it’s matte, dull, falling out in clumps and frayed awfully at the ends. I want to die. I feel like if I am a ghost I might as well be dead. I think I started doing heavier drugs because of that. Because I want to die, but I am too much of a coward just to kill myself and get it over with. Part of me hopes against hope that by getting out of this house and hopefully out of this town that I will find some reason to live again. I don’t want to be a ghost. If I’m going to live the rest of my life as a ghost I want to make that life brief, tragic and wasteful, like the duration of a tea candle’s flame.

The black eye is still visible. I do not know how many times I’ve applied makeup to it. It’s still there, especially in brighter light. I pull out my tube of concealer and shakily squeeze more unto the back of my hand. The tube farts. It is empty. I begin to roll it like toothpaste, trying to urge the last drops out. A dismal portion exits the tube in another fart. I toss it in the trash and use what I have, religiously applying it to my bruised eye and giving a little to my unaffected eye, trying to make them match as much as possible. It doesn’t reduce the swelling or the pain, but it looks presentable enough. I wish I had some lipstick, anything to put some color in my face.

I am not sure what to wear for this evening. I do not know if this Eden’s Gate church is a “come as you are” sort of thing or if I should put on something a little more presentable than my oversized pajamas. I open my closet. . My father burned half my wardrobe when I missed my curfew by ten minutes one night. But he left the things that my mother passed down to me. Probably some of the few things left that still remind him of her. I find a light green dress she used to wear. Mamma was so pretty. I don’t think I’ll ever be as pretty as she. I put it on regardless. It zips easily, for its rather loose. Just six months ago it was too tight. I was afraid I’d break the zipper. Now there is no I fear of that at all. White lace adorns the sleeves and my cleavage. I debate pulling the neckline down or up.

It’s church, Rachel, I tell myself, Besides, no one will want to look at you anyway.

The last thought bites. It’s a personal truth. I look down and rediscover the scratches. I tug my dress at the back, raising the neckline.

Fortunately the doorbell rings just in time. I leave my bathroom and stop at the door to the hallway.

Once you’ve been in captivity, once you’ve been locked up alone with your thoughts for long enough, once you’ve accepted that you’re stuck, you don’t bother trying doorknobs anymore. You’re used to reaching that hard spot where it stops turning and opens nothing. It takes me a moment to touch the handle. I know it will feel cold. I know the distinct shape it has and how it will fit into the palm of my hand. What I do not know is whether or not it will open. It might reach that hard lock. I might’ve gone through all of this trouble and not be able to leave.

Knowing this, I twist, hoping for the best.

To my relief, it unlocks effortlessly and opens without so much as a creak. I head downstairs to greet my friend.

------

Sitting in the chapel in the ranch, I feel so nervous. My body shivers. My hands shake. My heart pounds. I do not know if it is withdrawal or what. But I am not completely at ease. The people here are disheveled. Messy. Somewhat gross. The kind of person I would become if I let my addiction keep its grip on me. They are the types that my father would advise me to steer away from, however in his current state he is more like them than he knows. I am more like them than he knows

A tall, fit man with a full, well groomed dark beard strides unto the stage in a flourish of applause. He completely contrasts the people sitting in the pews. He is nicely dressed, wearing a fitted blue silk shirt rolled up at the cuffs, black vest, and tight jeans. His belt buckle is exceptionally extravagant. A pendant of some sort hangs from his neck. The crowd cheers for him. He waves, flashing a million dollar smile and a glint in his bright blue eyes. He’s handsome.

I turn and whisper to Tracey, “If I knew that pastors could look as good as he does I would’ve come to church a long time ago.”

She smirks and holds back a giggle, “You’re terrible.”

“He’s hot,” I say, perhaps a bit too loudly.

“Shhhhhh!” She tries not to laugh, “Behave.”

“Who is he?” I ask as if I were inquiring about a handsome stranger across a bar, not a preacher at the front of a church.

“That’s John Seed,” she tells me, “He doesn’t give the sermon. He’s just the opening act.”

“There’s more of them? Tracey, you told me this was church, not that mythical place where all of the hot guys in Hope County disappeared to!”

“Rachel, shut up!” She giggles again, but then whispers to me, “Don’t get your hopes up. He’s as good as they get, well, looks wise.”

“Bummer. That means we’ll have to fight for him.”

“Rachel!”

Our laughter is camouflaged by the cheers and shouts from people in the pews, phrases like “Oh John!” and “We love you!” and “Praise our brother”. I observe the scene. Sometime during our banter two other people entered the stage. One, a very tall, burly, fearsome man with a long frizzy red beard and bloodshot beady eyes. He holds a large semi-automatic rifle close to his body, and scans the crowd meticulously for possible threats. Though he wears the uniform shirt of the U.S. army, his demeanor is not one of honor or pride, but of sickened, disillusioned duty. The other, a girl, with thick yellow curls and a bountiful bust contained inside a too-tight white dress. She has slanted, sultry green eyes. There is a whorelike, slutty quality about her despite her conservative dress. But she is undeniably beautiful. I self consciously remember looking at my own chest this morning. Scratches everywhere. Nothing to be proud of. I run my fingers through my mousy hair, wishing I’d washed it. The beautiful woman holds a bouquet of flowers, with several blossoms strewn throughout her golden locks. She smiles at John.

I roll my eyes out of jealousy and look at Tracey, motioning to the girl sitting on stage, “Don’t tell me it’s a wedding,”

She shakes her head, “Oh no, that’s his sister. Faith. I don’t quite know if marriage is a thing here or if they’re all about brotherly sisterly love or if it’s just one massive orgy. I have no idea.”

I laugh at her raunchy train of thought. This is the Tracey I love.

“And who is Mr. Scary over there?” I whisper, trying not to make it obvious who I am talking about.

“Oh, him?” She whispers back, “I don’t know...He wasn’t here last time. I don’t exactly know what the gun is for, either.”

“Maybe he’s exerting his second amendment right?” I tease with a horrible attempt at the stereotypical Hope County drawl.

She looks at me. It’s not funny. “Why do they even need guns?”

“Tracey. We live in Montana. Everyone’s got guns here.”

“I know… but something’s not right.”

I look around the room again, “Maybe his job is to stop desperate bitches like us from throwing ourselves at that hottie over there?”

She bursts out laughing.

Our conversation is interrupted by John’s voice, “Brothers and sisters, welcome!” he proclaims, arms outstretched.

Applause. Tracey and I join in. At the moment we are spectators, like flies on a wall carefully observing but not yet involved.

“I want to tell you,” he continues, “how wonderful it is to see all of these new faces in our home this evening.” His eyes find mine momentarily. I’m intimidated by his strong presence yet also trying my hardest not to swoon. “We hope that this is just the beginning of your march with us.

“I want you to think of the life you’ve led before now. Of all the pain, of all the hardship, of every road you’ve turned down that felt like a dead end. I want to assure you, brothers and sisters, that the ship you’ve sailed across a sea of hardship is about to dock. I give to you a new captain who will guide you to an island of paradise. My brother, your Father, Joseph Seed!”

The crowd stands, clapping and cheering, holding their hands up in praise. The church doors open, and the blazing golden sunset from the west illuminates the doorway, revealing the silhouette of a tall, broad shouldered man. The light comes through his yellow tinted glasses, creating two glowing dots on the ground in front of him.

He moves with a serenity. There is a comforting sense of peace, a radiance that surrounds him. His suit jacket fits him well. His long hair is tied in a small bun on the crown of his scalp. He carries a white book with the symbol of the Project etched in gold on the cover. A rosary is wrapped like a bracelet across his right wrist and palm.

I cannot yet see his face. I too am standing, on my toes, craning my neck around the people in front of me, squinting. Finally when he reaches the stage, he turns around, and the crowd goes silent. They return to their seats. I am the last to stay standing.

Our eyes lock like magnets. I do not need to hear his voice. He does not need to utter a single word. A look comes across his sullen, rugged face. He catches his breath. The room is completely silent. Time slows. My heartbeat pounds. He looks as though he has seen a ghost. I know I look like a ghost. Perhaps it is that I seem so weak and sickly that common sense says I should not be standing here, I should not be in this room. But I am. And I know, somehow, deep inside myself, that I am destined to be here. To meet him. His expression changes from one of shock to one of recognition, a longing for something far off in the distance which yet appears so near. A red string of fate ties the two of us together before either of us can object. But like some perfect private secret, I am afraid that anyone else caught on to it. As my awareness returns to the room, I sit. He swallows hard. I try to look away but I can’t. I’m already entranced.

He speaks right to me as he begins his sermon.

“It is fate that you have come here.”

His words are chilling. They pierce me.

Joseph continues, “It is God’s divine plan that you are here today. Whether you’ve devoted yourself to this project or if this is your first time with us, I tell you that you are here for a reason. This is no accident. This is no chance.”

His speech, though indirect and addressed to a crowd, feels so personal. It is as if despite all of the people in this room he is talking to me and me alone. I know that it is no accident, that it is no chance, that I am not confused. The connection I feel with him is mutual. In a sea of strangers I am seen. We see each other.

“Just as such,” he goes on, respectfully connecting with the others in the pews, “your existence, your very entrance into this world, your birth, your conception...all is for a reason.”

He cannot stand it long. Joseph looks directly at me again and reads my soul like an open book. “You who have felt lost, unwanted, undesired, and unnecessary to the world: have no fear. You have a purpose.” He assures me, “Your life is designed to have significance. Even when the road is foggy, when the path is untred and you know not which step to take, know that God has a destination for you. I have a destination for you.”

My eyes well with tears. For the first time since my mother died, I feel safe. Sheltered. Believed in.

His voice, like silk, his words, like music, envelope me. “When all doors have shut against you, when your friends and your families turn their backs on you, I will be standing here with open arms. I accept you, my children, just as you are. There is nothing you have to change. No one else you have to be. You are loved here, just as you are. And you have always been worthy of that love.”

I break.

When the people around me hear my sobs interrupt the silence of Joseph’s pause, they turn to me with a look of celebratory joy on their faces. A woman on my right with very few teeth and hair bordering on dreadlocks pulls me against her bosom and holds me. Two young men reach back from their seats in front of me and pat me on my shoulder. Now the entire church is watching me, overjoyed. Someone starts the applause.

I feel a new hand on my back from my left side. I turn, expecting it to be Tracey. But it’s not. It’s the woman in the white dress from onstage. The sister.

“Come with me,” she beckons.

I don’t know what this means. “Wh-why?”

I look at Tracey. For the first time she’s looking at me not as my best friend. She seems bitter, disgusted, as if I’m filth. Trash. Foolish. Petty. As if I had no soul.

Faith speaks softly to me, “The Father wants to meet you. Won’t you come up?”

I laugh through my tears, “I’m interrupting the service.”

“No no no,” she’s overbearingly gentle, “Please come up. Nothing would make us happier.”

“Go to the Father,” the woman holding me into her bosom says, lifting my torso towards Faith. I take the sister’s hand, and she walks me down the aisle towards The Father who awaits me by the altar.

When we reach it, Faith hands me over to him and returns to her seat.

His hands are smooth and cold. His eyes, up close, are a vortex behind his yellow glasses. Full of wisdom and peace, as if he had reached that Nirvana the Buddhists dream of. He’s good looking. Not in the way that John is good looking. John is the kind of untouchably handsome, out of everyone’s league yet inside every girl’s dreams. The Father is approachable yet with a true sense of authority, like all fathers should be.

“What is your name my child?”

Intoxicated by him, I forget it on the spot. “My name?”

“Your name.”

“Rachel,” I swallow, “Rachel Jessop.”

His lips turn up at the corners.

“Tell me, Rachel. What is making you cry?”

I search for the answer in his eyes and find it, “The feelings that your words are bringing me. Feelings of safety. Salvation.”

He holds my face in his hands, “Salvation from what, dear Rachel?”

Feeling all eyes on me, I choke up. “F-from my life. From my agony.”

He nods slowly, knowingly.

“And what gives you this pain?” He continues to hold my face so that I cannot look anywhere else except straight into his magnificent eyes. More tears come.

My next words are succinct, for I’m clinging to my composure. “My father and my brother beat me. I’m bullied endlessly by my peers. I don’t feel safe anywhere.”

He continues his knowing nod. “My brothers and I know intimately of your struggle. Don’t we?” He looks to John and Jacob.

I see John nod in my periphery, but Jacob makes no expression whatsoever.

Joseph’s left hand softens into a gentle caress, “What else, child?”

He pulls the words out of me, words I am sure I shouldn’t even say in front of so many people. “I abuse drugs for help,” the rest is a stream of consciousness through my tears, “I’m a rat. I rummage for anything I can get my hands on. I always thought I deserved this life… like I did something irredeemably wrong and my circumstances are a consequence. I take every blow and I let others take from me… but there is no hatred in my heart for anyone except for myself. I don’t blame them. I think it’s all my fault.”

He sighs, looking at me with pity and understanding, “What if I told you, Rachel, that none of it is your fault?”

This concept is foreign to me, “How?”

“The pain you suffer is not because of your own personal ills. If that we’re the case, why aren’t the money grubbers, the corrupt politicians and greedy business owners punished with the same abuses you experience?”

I look at him blankly, “I don’t know.”

“It’s society that is sick, Rachel. It’s the ills in society which are responsible for the pain and the suffering of the innocent. It’s not your fault. They don’t understand you, so they try to take you out.”

The clouds part in my mind. The sky is clear. I’ve never thought of it it that way. I never considered that I am not the problem.

“But here,” He touches my forehead to his. I adore the feeling. “Here you may be saved, Rachel. Here your differences are celebrated. Put to use. Here you can be fulfilled and you can be happy. That’s what this Project offers.”

The Project, on their cue, claps again, pleased with the power of their leader’s message. Joseph looks straight into my eyes. I feel his anchor sinking in to me. And I know I will follow him into the darkest depths of the sea.

“We will talk more, Rachel.” He says. I am passed back to Faith and seated beside her. She holds my hands tightly. Joseph continues his main speech to the rest of the crowd.

“The world as we know it, as we see it today, is full of fog. Clutter. Sin. Distractors from our destined path. My children, can’t you feel that the world around us today is not the world that God intended to create? You, like Rachel, who have found yourselves here today as a result of his divine plan must be aware, even if remotely, of this fact?

“Let me tell you: God is angry. God intends to wipe this world clean again, the way he flooded the earth allowing only Noah and his family to board the arc. We are once again approaching a storm. Which is why, my children, God spoke to me. He has called to me to reach out to all of you, to each and every one of you, that you might be saved. That you might be redeemed. That you might discover your purpose and follow the path which he has set for us. My children, won’t you take my hand? Won’t you take hands with me, my brother Jacob, my brother John, and my sister Faith and join us in our march to Eden’s Gate?

“You do not need to decide tonight. But I hope that at the very least, I have planted a seed.”

John is the first to laugh at his closing statement. Jacob again, has no reaction. As the crowd catches on, the chuckling grows. I myself laugh through my tears, but when I look in the audience, I see Tracey scowling.

---------

Crickets conduct their nightly symphony as Tracey and I walk through the long grass back to her pickup truck. She’s quiet, but her anger can be felt loud and clear. She’s walked a few steps ahead of me the whole way.

“Tracey,” I stop her, grabbing her hand.

I look into her dark eyes, those eyes that know more about me than any other soul on this earth. My closest and dearest friend.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

She scoffs, “What the hell happened between the two of you just now?”

I know she is talking about the moment I shared with Joseph, then my emotional breakdown and our uncanny closeness that took up a bulk of the sermon.

“I don’t know,” I tell her, “I haven’t quite wrapped my head around it yet.”

She crosses her arms for warmth, pulling on her long sleeve t-shirt. “It was...awkward- no, uncomfortable, no-- Rachel what the fuck was that? What the actual fuck was that?”

Suddenly I reread a beautiful chapter in my life as if it were some sort of vulgar oddity. I’m embarrassed. I look down.

“Look, Rachel.” Tracey sighs, “I know there are some things we don’t talk about. I know that everyone has got secrets. I just wish I knew before we came--”

I look up at her, confused. “Knew what?”

She swallows. “I shouldn’t say anything. Who am I to judge? I mean…”

“What are you trying to say?” I demand defensively.

“Nothing!” She puts her arms up and takes a step back from me. “Let’s just go home. Your dad is probably worried.”

“I don’t want to go home.” I tell her. It’s the truth.

She gives me a look of shock and confusion. “Rachel, these people…there is something not right about them. They’re apocalyptic. They’re all talking about willing to die for that man. It’s like they’re being brainwashed. Some kind of new age Japanese kamikaze squadron ready to blow themselves up! Not to mention they look like a bunch of crackheads.” She puts both hands on my shoulders and looks me straight in the eye, “I want you to get better, Rachel. I’m afraid these people will just-just exploit your addiction. They won’t heal you. They’ll make you worse.”

“At least I don’t feel like the odd one out!” I shout at her. I am more frustrated with the situation than with my friend. “I don’t know how much more I can take! I don’t want— No, I can’t go back to my dad, Tracey. I can’t go back to school. I’m already failing. It’s not like I’m going to graduate. I’ve got nothing! I haven’t eaten a proper meal in three months! What am I going to do with my life besides waitressing or prostituting myself or having some rich man’s kids? This place…” I start to tear up, “I know it’s not perfect but it’s better than what I have now.”

She scoffs. “You know that you’re better than that Rachel.”

I laugh, but I’m exasperated. “I don’t! I fucking don’t! I’m not like you, Tracey! I’m not smart! I can’t get a degree. I don’t have a mom who supports me and takes care of me.”

I’ve wounded her. “You know that’s not what this is about.”

“And you know what?” Tears stream down, “I’m not your fucking charity case.”

“Well what makes you think you’re theirs all of a sudden? What makes you think you’re his all of a sudden?”

So that’s it.

“You’re jealous,” I call her out.

She laughs it off. “Sorry, Rachel. I’m not jealous of your forty-something schizophrenic preacher boyfriend.”

Our argument becomes petty, like that of two bratty schoolgirls, the kind of people we have never been before. “He is not my boyfriend.”

“Oh really?”

“Why would you even say that?”

“Well you sure seem pretty close don’t you?”

“I don’t know what happened!” I yell. “I never met that man before tonight! You heard me on the phone! I had no idea who this group was or what they do!”

Her mouth twitches. “Well you’re a damn good liar Rachel.”

“I’m not lying!”

“You’re trying to tell me that the little scene you made back there wasn’t planned?”

I shake my head. “I don’t see how it could be.”

“And I don’t see how it couldn’t be.”

“Tracey!” I try so hard to get through to her, but nothing is working, “I’ve never lied to you! Not once in all these years!”

She’s quiet.

“Why don’t you believe me?”

She sighs and looks away.

I know that she is jealous. But I realize in that moment that she is not jealous of what happened to me tonight. She’s jealous because she can’t believe that I can find peace and happiness in a different place, that I can find it with people other than her.

“They aren’t trying to fix me,” I say with an angry, disillusioned certainty, “All you ever do, all you ever talk about is trying to fix me. You believe that I’m broken. You want me to be broken so you have something to do with your life besides sit in your nice fucking house with your nice fucking family. All I want...for God’s sake all I want is to feel like I have a purpose. I don’t want to be someone else’s purpose, Tracey. I want to be my own purpose.”

Tracey continues to avoid looking at me. She glances in different directions, looks at the ground by her feet. “So that’s it, Rachel?”

“What’s it?”

“You’re just going to throw our friendship away?”

I want to shake her. “What? No! Tracey that’s not what I said!”

She glares at me. “I’ve been here for you. I’ve fought for you for the last three years. We’ve grown up together. I’m sorry that’s not enough.”

“Tracey!”

She’s running to her truck. I try to follow her, but my lungs and legs are weak.

“Tracey!”

She’s too fast. I feel dizzy. My vision starts to blur. I try to pick up speed.

“Tracey I didn’t say that!”

She doesn’t turn around. She doesn’t look back. Gets in her car, starts the engine. The lights turn on and she speeds away.

I watch her tail lights fade. I’m sick of the taste of my own tears. I’m sick of this life. I drop to my knees and grip the grass as hard as I can with my fists. I scream into the blue night sky. What is the way? Where is the path? What is my life supposed to be? Who am I now that I have no one? I can’t walk home. I don’t want to walk home. I could call a cab but I don’t have any money.

If I go home, I don’t know if I will ever get out of the house again.

I hear Joseph’s words in the back of my head. I remember them almost verbatim: “When all doors have shut against you, when your friends and your families turn their backs on you, I will be standing here with open arms. There is nothing you have to change. No one else you have to be. You are loved here, just as you are. And you have always been worthy of that love.”

I turn around, take a deep breath, and run back to the ranch. It glows with warm light from inside. It’s the only light I see.

#far cry 5 #faith seed #far cry fanfiction #far cry 5 faith #fc5 #joseph seed #fc5 fanfic

23 notes · View notes

novaimpactgenerator-blog · 6 years ago

Note

First things first: Hello! Second: May I say your recent work on a request tugged my heartstrings so much that it inspired me to think of my own request of where the Lost Light's female human (giant sized thanks to Brainstorm's idea of sizing them up), Rung, Whirl are dealing with the Fort Max hostage situation, though this time the human is trying to calm Max down, but of course Whirl is trying to make sure Max doesn’t hurt Rung or her by making jabs at him so he could hurt him instead. (1/2)

A Hostage Situation:

“Wow! This is amazing, Brainstorm!” You examined yourself in the mirror with the teal and white scientist standing next to you. You were now able to stand up to his elbow joints and looked down at the device responsible for your new found size attached to your wrist. I reminded you of a digital watch except the time was replaced with height measurements and the side rim was a dial you could turn to adjust said measurements. However, it seemed like the current setting was the tallest.

“I really have outdone myself this time, haven’t I,” he stated smugly. “It was a bit difficult to figure out to expand your body since its made of flesh and not metal. Nothing I couldn’t handle though!”

“Well, thanks. I mean it. This will make living here with you guys a lot easier.” You then began to look over the bodysuit that Brainstorm had also made. It was able to change sizes with you. It was even in your three favorite colors! But the weapon specialist did say it could turn nearly invisible so you could wear other clothes over it.

“I have to go show everyone!” You then ran out of the lab to do just that. The entire crew was completely shocked since you had managed to keep this little project a secret. What could you, you wanted it to be a surprise. In total, it took about a few hours to find everyone. Well, almost everyone. You had yet to find Rung, Whirl, and, hell, even Fortress Maximus had managed to elude you. And he wasn’t exactly what you would call subtle.

You decided that you’d start with Rung, and made your way to the most obvious option. His office.

The walk was filled with the occasional exchange of pleasantries among those you passed, but mostly silence. You finally made it. His office was located near the end of the ship to it took a while.

You had just knocked on the door when a deep voice startled you.

“Y/n!? Is that you?” You whipped around to find one of the bots you were looking for, Fortress Maximus. You immediately placed your hand over your rapidly beating heart to calm it.

“Max! Oh, you scared me.” You gave a nervous grin as you looked up to meet his optics. But something was… off. He seemed nervous and kept glancing around as if someone was going to attack him. “Is everything all right, Max? You seem-”

“What are you doing here?” He said cutting you off, but you didn’t take it personally since he looked so shaken up.

“I came to see if Rung was here. I’ve been looking for him. You too, actually.”

“Listen, you need to leave now!” Fort Max bent down and whisper-yelled at you.

“What? Why?”

But the door behind you opened before Fort Max had the chance to respond, and you turned around the face whoever opened it. It was Rung. He looked at you and was utterly shocked that he could look straight ahead and lock gazes with you.

“Brainstorm,” you said absentmindedly.

“Oh, I see. That’s very extraordinary, but I’m actually in the middle of a session right now.” Rung said gesturing to the last bot you were looking for.

The helicopter gave a little wave with his claws. “Yo. Nice upgrade, Y/n. Now I don’t have to worry about stepping on you.”

You were about to laugh when Fort Max snarled in frustration behind you. Before you could turn around to see what was wrong the barrel of a very large gun was suddenly next to your head and pointing at Rung’s terrified face.

“M-Max! What are yo-” you tried to question, but he cut you off again. This time with a real yell.

“IN! NOW!” He shoved the barrel into Rung’s cheek to emphasize that he meant business.

Both you and Rung began to slowly back into the room and you heard Fort Max close the door behind him. Out of the corner of your eye, you noticed that Whirl was crouched down and quietly making his way closer. And it seemed you weren’t the only one who noticed.

Fort Max jerked his gun to point it at the former Wrecker, who immediately threw stealth to the wind and charged at the armed bot with a battle cry. Fort Max fired a few shots at Whirl fully intent on blowing him away, but the blue chopper was nibble and dodged. “BRING IT, GLITCH!”

Whirl jumped over both you and Rung and tackled Fort Max into the door he had just closed. You two made a break for it to the furthest part of the room by the window. You wanted to help but knew you couldn’t.

You watched in horror as your two friends battled it out, and once Fort Max snapped out of his daze it was almost immediately over. What started as a fight turned into a beating for the smaller of the two, but he refused to fall even after his frame was wrecked to hell. Whirl was still struggling when the red-eyed Autobot ripped off his guns and wrapped his entire servo around his helm but went limp when the larger smashed the side of his helm into the wall.

“Whirl!” You cupped your mouth as you feared the worst. You were only slightly relieved when the ex-Wrecker groaned in pain, but Fort Max crushed that relief when he threw him to the middle of the room, beaten and broken and leaking energon. You couldn’t hold back the tears anymore. You knew Cybertronians could survive a lot more than a human, but you didn’t know how much.

The huge grounder then stomped his way over to the two of you and you began to shiver in fear. You slammed your eyes shut when he started reaching out but instantly reopened them when you heard Rung cry out. He had him by the neck as the therapist tried to get away from his assailant.

“No!” You quickly grabbed the large black digits around Rung’s neck and tried to pry them off, but it didn’t deter him in the slightest. Fort Max pulled Rung closer and used his other hand to push you off. You could tell he didn’t put any real force behind his push but it was still able to knock you to the ground as he turned away.

“Max please!”

“Quiet, Y/n.” Max walked past Whirl and sat Rung down on the lounging chair. He then pulled a long reinforced cable from the subspace in his shoulder and began to tie down Rung.

“You don’t need to do this!”

“Yes. I do.”

“Why!?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Then help me understand!… Please.” You made your way to Whirl to check on him. “Why are you doing this?”

“I said. Be. Quiet!” Fort Max then ripped a piece of pipe from the ceiling and speared it through Whirl’s abdomen as he attempted to get up. You couldn’t stop the shriek of terror as energon spattered across your face and body.

Whirl cried out in agony as Fort Max twisted the jagged metal through his delicate circuitry. You pounded your fists against the kibble around his shin while you pleaded and begged for him to quit harming the blue chopper.

Whirl groaned before he rebooted his vox, “Listen, Max. In the hope that this can still have a happy ending- and speaking as someone who appreciates the challenges of adjusting to postwar life- I just wanna say that there’s still time to do the decent thing and kill yourself.”

“W-Whirl, please stop. Don’t push him to hurt you mo-” You whispered to the injured Cybertronian, who only cut you off in return.

“Come on! Blow yourself away! Let’s see a spark-spasm up close!”

“Max! Please don’t listen to him! You can still fix thi-” Whirl interrupted you again.

“Fix this!? Don’t make me laugh! Unless he’s got some kind of time machine hidden under all that armor, I think the frag not! He can’t even fix himself, let alone this mess!” Whirl’s outburst made a growl escape Fort Max’s derma and he looked as though he were about to strike him before a look of realization spread across his faceplates.

“Clever. Trying to get me to lose my cool so you can get the chance to overpower me.”

Rung finally decided to speak up, “Actually, I think you might be crediting him with too much-”

“Seriously, all of this is a bit pathetic, isn’t it? Even for an epic, epic failure like you. I mean not only did you practically beg the Decepticons to take G9 off your hands, but you curled up into a ball the moment Overlor-” KUNCH

Fort Max smashed the barrel of his gun against Whirl’s face denting and crushing the metal around his optic.

“STOP!” You yelled, catching the grounder’s attention. However, it seemed that Fort Max shifting his attention away from Whirl only caused to the ex-Wrecker to vex his assailant more.

“Wow. If I’d known that was the best you’ve got, I would have said something genuinely offensive.” KUNCH “Ugh!”

“PLEASE, STOP IT!!!” You threw yourself at Fort Max’s stabilizer again and slammed your fists weakly against him while tears streamed down your face.

“Anything else?”

You thanked whatever self-preservation instincts Whirl had when he didn’t reply. You then glanced over to Rung to see him looking up. You followed his field of vision to see a small camera blinking in the corner. You slowly got up and stepped closer to Fort Max.

“Max. Please just listen to me. Whatever you’re doing this for, I’m sure there’s another way. You can stop this now and explain yourself and I’m sure everything will be okay.” You tried to sooth the metal giant by gently placing your hand over the servo that wasn’t holding a cannon at Whirl.

“You wanna know why I’m doing this, Y/n? YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY!?” You flinched away when he leaned down to shout in your face, which seemed to make him calm down enough to lower his voice. “Fine… I’ll tell you why…”

Fortress Maximus then proceeded to tell all of you about Garrus 9, about Overlord, and about what he and his crew went through. All the torture and death. You finally understood.

“Oh, Max. You said you didn’t remember. Why didn’t you tell anyone the truth?” You stroked his servo while you looked up at him.

“Because, Y/n, I’m Fortress Maximus. I couldn’t just-”

“No one, and I mean no one, would have held it against you. What you went through wasn’t your fault and would affect even the strongest of bots. It’s okay to be mad. It’s okay to be scared. You have a right to be. And you have a right to want answers. But not like this.” You gestured to the other two bots in the room. “Not by hurting others.” You put your hand on top of the cannon and Max allowed you to slowly push it to point at the ground and away from Whirl, while his guilty optics stared into your gentle eyes. “Like how you were.”

Just as Fort Max’s grip was loosening to drop the weapon he snapped out of his trance. “No. It’s too late to go back now.”

Both you and Rung saw the darkness that took over his optics. “No, dON’T!” Rung tried to reason with him, but he ignored his therapist and grabbed you by the arm and flung you across the room.

Your scream was cut off when your spine collided with the wall next to Rung, who screamed your name. Your ears were ringing, so you felt more than heard the pounding of pede steps getting closer to you. You did, however, manage to make out the sound of Whirl yelling curses at the Autobot who threw you.

“YOU FRAGGER!!! YOU KNOW WHAT!?! SHE’S SO WRONG!!! ANYONE that could be beaten into submission by OVERLORD is nothing but a WEAK, SAD EXCUSE FOR A PATHETIC WASTE OF SPACE!!!”

By Primus, if Fort Max wasn’t pissed off already he sure was now. Your vision came back just in time to see the enraged look on Fort Max’s faceplates and you knew that was the last straw. Max whipped around and stomped back up to Whirl. He pointed the cannon directly at Whirl’s face and the barrel began to light up as it prepared to be fired.

“That’s ENOUGH out of you!” Fort Max moved his digit over the trigger, and in a burst of adrenaline, you lept to your feet and tackled the gun.

When Fort Max saw you, his optics widened in horror and he tried to let go of the weapon, but when you pulled it down with you his digit caught the trigger.

And the gun fired.

Your grip immediately fell from the smoking cannon and you stumbled back a few steps. Every bot in the room stared at you with wide optics. They could only watch in horrible awe as you looked down to see a large hole through your shoulder that was bleeding profusely.

With all the adrenaline pumping through your veins you could barely register the pain you were in. You slowly glance over at Whirl and Rung and gave a weary smile as they trembled in shock and horror.

“It’s going to be okay.” You mouthed silently at the two before return your attention to Fort Max. He trembled as he gaped at your bleeding shoulder and he dropped his gun and fell to his knees.

“What have I done?” Max clutched at his head as he began degrading himself.

“It’s okay, Max.” You started taking shaky steps as you kept the best smile you possibly could.

“No, stop. Don’t come any closer, Y/n.” He shook his head as he tried to shy away from you.

“I won’t leave you, Max. I’ll never leave you to deal with your demon alone ever again.” When you finally got close enough you fell forward and wrapped your arms around his neck as best as you could.

“Please… I don’t want to hurt you anymore.” Fort Max kept his servos hovering around you as his plating rattled.

“I’m here for you. And I care for you too much to turn away from you. I love you, Max. We all do. We’re here for you. In our own ways.”

Once your slurred words sunk in, Fortress Maximus finally broke down and wrapped his servos around you as he began to sob.

You smiled gently while rubbing the back of his helm. Your mind and your body were quickly becoming more fatigued and your inner temperature was dropping from blood loss and you could feel yourself begin to lose consciousness. Using the last of your energy, you looked up at the camera, and even though you had no idea that Rodimus, Ultra Magnus, Drift, and the entire crew were watching, you whispered, “I love you guys.”

And then you drifted into a cold, dark, dreamless void.

#request #sorry it took so long #my laptop wasn't working for 4 days #also I know that some of the quotes from the comic aren't exact #hope you like this!#still taking requests

16 notes · View notes

blackasteriia · 5 years ago

Text

Isa

@lunsai ☾

He didn’t want to tell anyone about this but when you’re sick with what feels like bronchitis for a month it’s hard to hide away and have no one but the most important person to you notice. Xion found out long before Lea did, which Isa was sure bruised his poor heart, about Isa being stuck sick & once word traveled they were all like one united, powerful force to get him to finally see the doctor. He wish he hadn’t seen the damn doctor.

After they had gotten home, after Xemnas and Isa had their moment of self-reflection and resolution, Xion was the first to know again. This time it wasn’t happenstance but because she had a precious skill that Xemnas urged Isa to utilize, but the idea of Isa asking Xion to save his life after the destruction he caused to her own heart seemed so laughably ironic. Ironic, and yet he did it anyways.

He would beg her, even get on his knees if he had to, just so he had the chance to breath again just like everyone else. He didn’t even know if her powers could replace scar tissue and mend an unbending ventricle, if she could erase the damage of having his body ripped apart twice over as well as the genetic trap he was trapped inside of along with his father.

His father had died of a heart attack at 40, Isa was ten years younger than that -- if he had lived a normal life, how long could it have lasted? With a harsh swallow he cleared his throat, blinking away tears for his unfortunate circumstances, and turned to look away from Xion.

“Please,” Isa let out, attempting to smother the way it croaked out and remained resolved even when he was begging to live. “If you could help me, then please, help me. I have... I can’t, die. I can’t.”

He stops, biting his lip and looking at her finally. “It’ s only been a few years since got it back, I have so much I need to do. So much that I’ve built with hi--” He swallows harshly. “No one wants to die, you know? I don’t want to.”

Xion noticed first. The coughing, the physical weakness and pain, the way strength and vigor seeped from Isa’s body as though he were poisoned. Xion dealt primarily with trauma injuries: broken arms, cuts, wounds, sprains, lodged objects, etc. As per the the requirements of the infirmary. She left the difficult diagnostic and prognosis work to Even; Often following his guidance. By no means Xion’s training was complete, but she was learning and as Even put it, she had an eye for detail. Perhaps she had encouraged Lea to encourage Isa to the doctor. Then Xemnas’ request to her and then Lea’s request, and then this.

Xion sat at her desk in the infirmary, papers spread-out, files spilled and a half-drunk mug of coffee sitting cold by her computer. One arm draped over the back of her chair, looking-up to where Isa loomed over her. He was near dead on his feet and about to fall over at any second.

Saïx was five years away. The final scar, a gift from his claymore, stretched still over the skin of her back. On rainy days it stretched painful; But blank ink flourished in flowers and delicate lines hid it. In that time she met isa, a quiet, pitiful man; Who was in many ways gentle, filled with regret and fear. She watched Lea and Xemnas fall in love in part; Could see the fractures in their still new hearts to see Isa’s literally break. Forget all that shit, forget the occasional nightmares that haunted her, even if compassion did not move Xion, reason would.

Even made her promise, even as he renewed his own vow, to do no harm. Beneficence, maximize pleasure, minimize suffering. Xion was proof of the wrong path that medicine could turn down. Even as a little girl, still playing with cures and crying over hurting wounds, Xion had always known her intentions. The world was cruel to her, she knew what it was like to have a back turned to her, a door closed in her face. She would never turn someone away, never let her pride swallow her tongue: Never say no to those she could help.

She stood, chair sliding out from beneath her.

“Of course, you know,” Xion began. “That the left side of your heart is failing. The left ventricle pulls oxygen enriched blood from the lungs for the rest of the body to use. Because it is weakened and not doing its damn job, blood will build in your lungs, causing your coughing fits. It will cause edema, swelling in your joints and ankles. Overtime the chance of your mortality will increase, decreasing your quality of life. If nothing is done? You will die an early death.”

She repeated what Even told him. All so they were on the same page. Xion glanced down at her desk. Her old knife, attained during her first journey after leaving the Organization was laid by her keyboard. She had been using it to clean her fingernails earlier. A little black steel thing with a sharp edge and worn blade. She picked it up, sheath and all; Perhaps her arming herself didn’t make Isa feel much better, but she was thinking of a point.

“Now, if we made a list,” Xion said, her hip braced against the edge of her desk. “Of impossible things that could never happen when we met eight years ago at Castle Oblivion, me helping you recover from heart failure would probably be right at the top of it. Here’s what I’d put at second--”

Xion unsheathed the knife and for a second regarded the blade, eyes half-lidded. Then she touched the edge to her palm and nicked her skin. A short slit that bled crimson blood. Xion pulled a tissue from a box on her desk and wiped off the blade before laying it back on the table. She presented her hand to Isa, she felt no pain and continued casually:

“You saw me,” She murmured. “I had no eyes. No bones, no organs, no blood; I was just human shaped magic. When you called me a puppet, you were right. And yet, here we are, I am bleeding.”

Now she met his eyes, emerald green to black obsidian. Her hair was cropped and styled by a professional, dressed fashionably in a halter top, dress pants, and a lab coat. She appeared twenty-one but she was actually no older than eight. Somewhere in the midst of a college degree, apprenticed to the most intelligent men and women of the generation, and a guardian of light. It was quite the resume. Xion took pride where she could.

Only looking back did she acknowledge that there were a lot of places where she got lucky. Where kindness helped her along. All those people who stepped-up after the end of Xehanort’s plans to guide and take care of her. People who opened their doors to her, people who taught her what it meant to be human. Isa was one of them, as absurd as it was, the way he reached-out, tried to grow and change, make-up for his past mistakes. He learned to love, and it was beautiful, and Xion’s smile glowed when she looked at him-- because she had seen all that.

“And now, after all I’ve learned,” Xion whispered. “I can also do this.”

She turned-out her palm for him to see. She weaved gold and white cure between her fingers, sophisticated, delicate but exact, smelling of the rain and flowers, sweet but gentle. Before his eyes the cut healed, closing, leaving not even a mark. She departed from his side and to a nearby sink, where she watched her hands of blood. Drying her hands on a towel she returned to Isa’s side.

“Magic is not a miracle,” Xion said. “It can’t just fix you, I can’t just fix you. Only you can do that. I won’t promise you’ll live to ninety, but sixty? Seventy, even? We can manage that, absolutely. Everyone has to die but you don’t have to die now. And maybe soon, you could walk again, even run. I’m glad you told me you don’t want to die, because that’s where we need to start. You must have the will to fight, without it you might as well keel over now.”

Xion reached-out to take his hand in hers. Just as she once did at the kitchen table. His fingers was still so thin, but weaker now, his grip evaporated, strength stolen by this disease that afflicted his heart. Xion was once so weak, incapable of bearing the weight of even one, tiny little heart that she grew in her chest like a petri dish. Eight years, when her time in the Organization was but a sliver of her past and she was older than she was ever intended to be, she was stronger. Taller too, so much so that her gaze leveled with his. Isa could take everything she gave and run with it, never look back to say thanks, and she’d be alright with that.

“I will help you,” Xion said. “So long, as you are willing to be helped.”

#✰*✦ Dawn Light⎧VERSE⎫#✰*✦ The face in the mirror⎧IC⎫#lunsai #in which i show off my new icons

4 notes · View notes

cerillosvillage · 6 years ago

Photo

One-shot: My Little Despot

Your my little despot/ What an iron fist you’ve got/ Are you willing or will you not release/ The hearts that you hold

Dedicated to that anon who keeps asking about Grax and Ajra. Takes place immediately after Mercenary Work.

WARNING: Not safe for work

Three sharp knocks on the door roused Grax from the tome he'd been quietly reading to himself. There were no follow-up knocks, but there didn't need to be. He knew the sound of that fist anywhere, and Ajra knew he would always open the door for her.

He set the book down and got to his feet, his knees creaking as he did. He took a moment to stretch, which only elicited more pops and groans from his joints. He was getting old, and the hard life he'd lived before he found her was catching up to him.

He crossed to the door and opened it, and there she was. She was getting old, too, but she was still as lovely as the day they met. More so, even, since she was no longer half-starving. The curves of her body had filled out with food, and then again after childbirth -- but her eyes still held that hungry, wild look that they'd had when she was younger. No matter what happened, she always needed something to satiate her various appetites, be it food or attention or something else. He'd never been able to fulfill her needs, and for that he felt a little bit like a failure.

But he tried. He would always try. He wanted nothing more than to make her feel at peace, even if his moral compass put strict limits on what he would and would not do for her.

"Wife," he murmured, holding out a hand to her.

"Husband," she said curtly, placing her palm in his. He lifted her hand to his mouth, pressing his mouth to her knuckles, breathing in her scent.

He could already smell the other man on her.

He lowered their hands and let her step inside. She kicked the door closed behind her.

"What are you doing?" She asked as she squinted at the low table set against the wall and set with oil lamps. Her voice was like she was - stony and hard-edged - but Grax knew her well enough to know that that did not necessarily mean she was voicing disapproval.

"I was reading," he replied. "It is quite a good book."

"Feh," she huffed. "I don't know why you bothered to learn how."

"It is a worthwhile skill to have, my love," he said, looking at her out of the corners of his eyes and trying not to smile. This was a conversation they frequently had. "You could learn a lot from books."

"Why should I bother," she said, "I know you'll just tell me about it all anyways."

At that he finally did smile. The edges of her mouth twitched. It was as close to a smile as she usually got. Grax loved it all the same - though he loved it when she fully smiled even more.

"I've missed you," he said, bringing the hand that wasn't holding hers up to her cheek.

"I've missed you as well," she replied. This, again, was a conversation they frequently had. It was their main greeting for one another.

Grax leaned in and kissed her mouth. He had taken a number of lovers in the past few years, had learned the differences between kisses. Ajra had never been very good at it, her lips rigid and unyielding, chapped and cracked. She didn't melt or give way like some lovers did. But Grax did not mind. She had been his first kiss, and he knew she would be his last. After all these years, kissing her still felt like coming home.

Up close, he could smell the other man even more clearly. It was the musky scent of sweat and sex, and underneath it the smell of dogs and something metallic.

"You've been with another man," Grax murmured as he ended the kiss. There was no accusation or judgement to his voice. He said it as a casual observation, the way one might point out a new cloak.

"Hmm," Ajra hummed. She released his hand and flung herself down on the straw mattress at served as his bed, crossing her legs underneath her and her arms across her chest.

Grax sat down behind her, legs on either side of her. He grasped her shoulders, using his thumbs to feel for the knots he knew were in her back. She hummed again as he dug his fingers into them, this time in approval.

"Who was it?" He asked.

"The mercenary."

Well, that was surprising. "I thought you didn't like mercenaries," he said, pressing hard against a knot in her shoulder and pulling a groan from her lips.

"He looks at me like a smitten teenager," she replied. "I wanted to see if this would wipe the stupid look off his face."

"Really?" Grax grinned slightly, pressing his lips to the nape of her neck. "Is that all?"

"Does it matter?"

"Mm. Perhaps."

His hands smoothed across her back, sliding down her shoulders. His mouth moved up along her neck, following a pulsing vein, until he reached the spot just beneath her ear. Her head turned towards his, mouths meeting. Her kisses were hard, but they were hungry, needy. He wondered if she kissed her lovers - few they had been - like this, or if it was something she reserved only for him.

His hands continued to slip down, moved from her arms to her sides, pulling her shirt free from her trousers. They moved underneath the fabric, pressing against her hard stomach. She flexed against his touch.

"Not that I think it worked," she said against his mouth. He moved back to kissing her neck so that she could talk. "He begged like a whore the entire time, and again after."

Grax's hands drifted upwards. Her chest heaved against him, guiding his hands to cup her breasts. He dug his fingers into them, massaging the surprisingly still-firm flesh. She moaned, her back arching slightly.

"How was he, at least?" Grax asked in her ear, his voice just above a whisper. He could feel a shiver move down her spine.

"Disappointing," she breathed, straining against his hands. "He has a good, massive cock but I did all the work."

"A pity," Grax said. One of his hands left her breast, trailing down her stomach. It slipped under her sash and into her trousers, pressing onwards between her legs. Her back arched further as she lifted her hips, guiding his hand down to slip between her folds.

"You're a mess," he murmured as he drew his fingers along her slit. Even without seeing it, he could feel the other man's cum mixed with her own. She must have walked directly from his apartment to Grax's.

"He's a filthy man who doesn't bother to clean up," she groaned through gritted teeth.

Her chest rose and fell heavily. She pressed her body against his hands, willing him to use them. She made a noise of disappointment as he removed his hands from her, even as he moved to undo her sash and roll her trousers down her legs.

She helped him by kicking the fabric off, pausing as he awkwardly pulled one of his legs back so that he could get his own off. Soon enough his legs were on either side of her again, and he took her by the hips and lifted her up, moving his legs beneath her.

She hovered over him, spread-eagled. His cock rested just beneath her, warm and stiff. He guided her hips down, just low enough to rub her wet slit on the head of his cock. Her breathing got heavy, her body still sensitive from an orgasm only minutes before.

He reached around her, lifting his member, guiding it up into her. She groaned in pleasure as he filled her. He wrapped an arm around her torso, slowly laying back and bringing her down with him.

Bracing his heels against the straw mattress, he brought his hips up and down, sliding back and forth in and out of her. The hand grasping her took hold of one of her breasts, rolling her nipple between his fingers.

He was gentle - he had always been, even when they had first fucked and she had gritted her teeth against the odd feeling of him inside of her and begged him to give it to her harder. She liked fighting, she liked pain, but he had never had it in himself to deliberately hurt her.

He more than made up for it, though. He took his time, drawing things out, finding just the right angles to hit certain spots inside of her. He brought his other hand up between her legs, rubbing against her clit, starting slow and gentle, just enough to bring breathy gasps to her lips, then using a more firm pressure to make her moan. He kissed her neck, and nibbled against her ear lobe, which made her tighten around him.

And he teased her. He would, at times when he knew she was close, halt all of his movements, making her mewl in frustration and grind against him until he began again.

He did this multiple times, until she was swearing at him, begging him to finish, to both let her come and to come inside of her. Only then did he thrust into her hard - not enough to hurt her, but enough to make her cry out. He rubbed her clit fast and hard, and she tensed, and then the tension broke, her legs shaking, giving way to spasms that racked her whole body. And he released too, coming inside her, mixing with the mercenary's cum.

He slipped out of her, but she did not move, laying back against him and trying to catch her breath. He wrapped both arms around her, kissing her once more against the neck.

Grax knew she'd go back to the mercenary. She stayed the rest of the night there in his quarters, but he knew she'd eventually go back to the mercenary. Ib, or whatever his name was. She so rarely stayed the full night, and it was only when something else had made her happy. Her bit about being disappointed with Ib was a lie, an attempt to spare Grax's feelings, but he didn't much care. As long as she was happy, he was happy.

Well, within reason. He just needed to make sure the mercenary knew where the line was drawn.

#rockbreaker lore #long post

6 notes · View notes

veliseraptor · 7 years ago

Text

Current WIP Excerpts

inspired by @gaslightgallows, because I am vain and love validation, have a line from each of my current WIPs. with a few exceptions.

there are A Lot.

Life In Reverse

Thanos stood before them, titan in truth as well as name. Loki’s heart jumped into his throat and his thoughts briefly flashed to a shattered world, fingers tearing through his mind, screaming as his being was turned inside out. Fear froze him in place, instinctive, animal.

REMEMBER THIS COLD

Costume Porn: what it says, seriously. (Steve/Loki.)

Masquerade: Steve attends a costume ball. So does Loki.

Steve shifted nervously. “How did you know?”

“Body language,” Tony said simply. “You keep staring at him. Not that I can blame you. Guy looks unfairly good in a suit.”

“Why, thank you,” Loki said. Tony jumped, and then scowled a little.

the hills on fire for miles: The Thor: Ragnarok fic for RTC.

The woman standing in front of them was just barely illuminated by the early dawn light, but it was enough: she was hopelessly striking, lips quirked in a very faint and unpleasant smile, her eyes glittering coldly, looking from Steve to Loki.

“And you,” she said to him, “must be the youngest whelp. The failure. Which makes you…” she looked at Steve. “What does that make you?”

Attempt #432: Someone asked for the AU where one of Doom’s Loki-clones survived. It’s gonna be bad, folks.

His first memory was a silver mask with rectangles for eyes and mouth, looking down at him. “Attempt four-hundred and thirty-two,” it said, “success.”

MCU

Into the Valley of Death Rode the Six Hundred: The “Loki wins” fic where he gloats at Steve in his spare time and then ends up fighting a war on three fronts and actually asking for help with one of them.

Steve opened his eyes to find a hand over his mouth and the strong iron smell of blood filling his nose. He sucked in a sharp breath, heart hammering into motion. “Open your mouth to cry out and I will take your tongue before you can make a sound.” Loki’s voice was low and soft, but there was something ragged and breathless there as well. “Nod if you understand.”

Strange Bedfellows: The “Clint and Loki are captured and undergo TERRIBLE SUFFERING and bond, sort of” fic. Hey, people do it for Tony/Loki I don’t see why I can’t go with it my way.

Clint Barton had observed that missions tended to go wrong in one of two ways. Either it was a gradual stacking up of problems that inevitably led to total collapse no matter how hard you tried to hold on, or it was the kind of thing where you were standing in the middle of the building and the roof fell on you.

The Priesthood of Natasha Romanov: The one where Loki declares Natasha his High Priestess. She’s not really into it, though.

She tried to tell Thor about her encounter with Loki in Berlin, but the minute she got out an “I saw” her throat closed up and then she was talking about the Berlin Art Museum with some enthusiasm, despite the fact that she hadn’t gone. A few circuitous routes met with no more success, and even hints appeared to be impossible. Whatever magic fuckery Loki had worked on her, it was thorough.

important gangbang fic: Important Gangbang Fic.

The best thing about dropping in on Alfish parties was that by the time he arrived, most were too drunk to recognize him, or else too distracted to care.

so when the birds fly South: Loki gets beat up and Steve is the one to find him and I have no idea where this is going.

After months, months of thinking he’d been saved by that missile through the portal (irony of ironies) and then months more after he’d learned he had been mistaken, they’d run him to ground. He could run no further. Only turn and fight, and barely that, so little left in him.

Tear My Castle Down: The “Loki’s punishment is to be a slave to one of the Avengers but this time it’s Steve” fic.

Loki was shaking and pale, one hand braced on the doorframe, the other pulling at his collar, his chest heaving. Steve froze, mouth opening, and Loki half fell, grabbing his arm. “Captain,” he said, teeth chattering. “You need – you need to-”

which carries weight and always weighs the same: My Romanoff Big Bang fic, which is going to be a lot of “Natasha having interpersonal relationships” because I have interests.

Her training would have dictated that she fight until her last breath. That cornered, weaponless, and bleeding, she would go on fighting. Her training had told her they will try to seduce you, to steal your loyalties with grand promises. These are all lies. Of course, by the time Agent Clint Barton had her backed into a blind alley with nowhere to go, her loyalties were already for sale and she didn’t believe in anyone’s promises.

Subordination: Loki acquires his first dom, Sjofn. Shit is fun. Until it isn’t.

But he was a little tipsy, and a lot curious, and the way Sjofn was looking at him as though she wanted to devour him was making his whole body feel hot. Loki had lain with his fair share of women – and others – but feeling quite so pursued…that was new.

Just a Shadow Upon These Walls: Steve starts seeing a ghost. Steve starts seeing a ghost that is Loki. Things get weirder from there.

When Thor had left, Steve found a chair and sank down into it. Loki has been dead for almost two years. A day ago, Loki had been standing in Steve’s kitchen. How did he die? Steve should have asked, but he couldn’t have asked the question did he still have his eyes, couldn’t ask Thor that about his younger brother. His dead younger brother.

post Svartalfheim AU: depressed Loki goes to earth after TDW, starts running into Steve randomly, somehow this becomes Steve/Loki?? idk what

When Loki woke up, the first thing he felt was anger. It burned, sharp and fierce, because he had been cheated; he had died well, he had died loved, with Thor looking at him with something so much like care it had hurt worse than the wound in his chest. And once again, death spit him out, making a mockery of him. Of everything.

Thunderstorms: The sequel to “there’s a hell of a good universe next door” where Thor arrives.

“Steve,” Loki said, not looking away from Coulson, and then went on. “I could have slipped away from your clumsy trap at any time, or had your men fighting amongst themselves in the blink of an eye, or any number of more creative solutions. I could kill you with my bare hands right here, in this room, in – say – five seconds, perhaps less. I could probably even, if I had a mind, undermine your government until it fell to pieces.”

Steve made a faintly strangled sound that Loki ignored. “As you can see,” Loki said, sounding almost conversational, “I have not. And will not. I have little to no interest in involving myself in human politics. Unless I am mistaken, until today, you were unaware that I was here at all. It would be ideal for everyone if you chose to return to that state of affairs.”

forgive the children we once were: Bucky, who freed himself substantially earlier from Hydra’s control (during The Avengers), finds Loki, wounded and near death, after the events of Thor 2. Shenanigans ensue.

The stranger was still alive when Bucky got him into the apartment, though he looked like shit and Bucky had to hold his hand about an inch above his mouth to feel any breathing. Stupid, he thought. Gun's in the bedside table, just take care of it and dump the body. He half twitched toward the bedside table, but stopped at that. He still had questions. Dead bodies drew attention.

Sword Age, Wolf Age: the Ragnarok fic where things go a little differently when Thor comes back to Asgard.

“I have just saved your life and freed you and you would speak of what I owe you,” Loki said, starting away through the woods. “Such is the gratitude of the House of Odin.”

Someone to Watch Over You: Loki decides Steve needs a guardian angel. He doesn’t ask Steve about it. He also doesn’t expect to get labeled a sidekick.

Captain Steve Rogers, Loki had decided, was trying to get himself killed.

I’ll pull the devil down with me, one way or another: Thanos is coming. Loki doesn’t intend to take that lying down.

He stumbled out into Sanctuary, almost falling to his knees, and pried his hands away from the cube. His joints throbbed with the ache of the power filling him almost to bursting. He looked at it, glowing blue with swirls of light inside, and swallowed hard.

If this goes wrong, all the worlds will burn and it will be your fault.

keep your heart (close to the ground): the AU where Loki never invades, so the Avengers never form, and a depressed Steve and depressed Loki meet.

Lukas was leaning against the doorframe, one arm wrapped around his middle, blood covering half his face and dripping off his fingers. He smiled and there was blood on his teeth. “Hello,” he said. “Good. You still live here,” and listed forward. Steve, his thoughts spinning, caught him reflexively.

time may change me (but you can’t trace time): the fic where Loki tries to steal the Time Stone and gets stuck in a time loops. For some reason, it resets every time Steve dies.

“What did you do?” Rogers demanded.

“I have no idea,” Loki said. He was sitting in the sand and staring up at the sky, going over everything that had happened before this had started – everything he knew about the Time Stone and what it could do. He wasn’t getting anywhere.

Seams and Scars: Loki arrives on Midgard with his lips sewn shut.

Clint thought for sure he was going to die when he was slammed against the wall and those washed out, grey-green eyes met his. Clint’s eyes fixed on those gruesome black lines trickling blood. Stitches, he realized. He could see the knots. See the notch of a scar where one had torn through.

Who the hell does that? He remembered thinking, which was the last thought of his own he had before he set the spear to Clint’s heart and remade him in his image.

our history is coming to life again: The fic where a young Loki gets transplanted forward in time to post-The Dark World Earth. Things are not exactly going well for him.

“What happened,” Cap said, his voice tense.

“I’m dead, aren’t I,” was what came out of Loki’s mouth. And then he had to laugh, because obviously he wasn’t, he couldn’t be saying he was dead if he was dead, so he corrected, “was. I suppose.”

Temptation: Loki has a Steve problem.

Well, Loki thought. Well. It seemed his little problem was not solved after all. In fact, if anything, it was made worse. If he was going to imagine fucking Rogers every time he was trying to fight him-

Loki growled to himself. Damn him. Damn him and his beautiful eyelashes and beautiful eyes and sinfully beautiful mouth.

I know I’m the curséd one: Wanda and Loki, imprisoned for their magic, have to work together to escape.

He would not give in. Not to these. Not ever.

He would go mad (madder) first.

finding yourself at the end of the universe: The fic where Loki springs Steve from prison post Civil War, mostly out of spite, and they go on a dysfunctional road trip across space.

“Well,” said the last voice Steve had expected to hear. “That’s interesting.”

Steve’s eyes widened and he stared at Loki, struck dumb. Loki’s eyebrows quirked, gaze sweeping up and down. “Now why,” he murmured, “would they be keeping you down here with me? Have you been bad, Captain Rogers?”

Meet the Parents: Loki meets Sarah Rogers in the Roommates!AU.

“Offend her?” Steve’s eyebrows went up. “Why would you offend her?”

“Well,” Loki said, and stopped, searching for a diplomatic way to say I’m an addict, an asshole, and a bad influence without saying those precise words.

The Cold, the Dark, the Silence: It’s whump. That’s basically it.

His body was starting to fail. Loki could tell the signs of it in the way his hands shook, the chills that swept through him periodically. His healing had already been strained to the breaking point by his near death on Svartalfheim. Without food, with barely any water, the punishment his captors doled out in seemingly growing frustration was taking a toll.

the first steps stumbling forward: On Earth post-Ragnarok, Steve takes up secretly helping Asgardian refugees. There’s a familiar face among them.

“Thor said you were dead,” Rogers said.

“Thor is occasionally wrong about things,” Loki said. He didn’t particularly want to explain I was, sort of, but then I wasn’t, and then I took over Asgard and pretended to be my father for three years, which was actually very nice while it lasted.

escalated almost to an art: Yet another very dirty Loki/Grandmaster fic, where the Grandmaster experiments with drugging Loki in a variety of fun ways.

“You and me,” the Grandmaster said, reaching out and brushing his fingers along Loki’s jaw. “We’re going to have so much fun, aren’t we?”

Loki wished that didn’t sound so much like a threat.

He wished the fact that it did didn’t send a thrill down his spine.

Another Fall: Loki falls from Asgard into Hela’s prison.

“Interesting,” she said. She crouched down. “Where did you come from? The old fool sealed this place unfortunately well.” Loki coughed and choked. Her nose wrinkled. “I suppose if I want to get anything out of you I’ll need to fix you first.”

NOT MCU

Darkness, Darkness: The Morgana/Gwen fic set in “The Dark Tower.”

You should have trusted me, she thinks bitterly, as Gwen’s screams turn into sobs and Morgana’s own eyes sting. I loved you, Gwen. I loved you so much.

There’s a Lesson Here, I Just Don’t Know What It Is Yet: Still need to finish this Natasha/Yelena fic, still kicking myself over using an espionage plot, why did I do that.

“I’m on assignment,” she said blandly, rocking back on her heels, perched still too close. “And you? Still dancing for the Russian government?” Dancing. Yelena wondered if that was deliberate. After their last meeting, she’d tried learning to dance, briefly, but nothing about it had suited her.

the best all lack conviction: Fenris/Anders post Dragon Age II; they bicker, a lot, and maybe make out some too, eventually. Probably I will beat them up a lot too.

The wind blew the rain in on them again and the mage groaned, hunching his shoulders. “I hate Fereldan,” he muttered. “I truly do.”

“Perhaps you should have run to Tevinter,” Fenris said snidely. The mage gave him a baleful look but, to his surprise, did not say anything. He looked so pathetic that Fenris almost felt guilty. Almost.

Witches: Morrigan/Surana femslash fic, in which Merrin Surana would like to bang Morrigan and also become her.

She was tall as all humans were tall and carrying a staff on her back. She looked down her narrow nose at Merrin, Alistair, and the rest, air one of boredom and vague distaste. She was the most magnificent thing Merrin had ever seen.

The Interim: The fic about Morgana’s journey from dying of poison to coming back to Camelot dramatically changed and set on revenge.

She struggled to understand what was going on. To work out what had happened (he poisoned me) and what was happening now. It all hurt too much, though, and all she could do was lie there and whimper and hate how weak she felt. A cool hand pushed her hair off her brow. “It’s all right, sister. You’re safe.”

how this grace thing works: The first year at Grimglass lighthouse.

Felix up and vanished into the library the second he got the chance. He probably would’ve stayed there forever without eating if I hadn’t dragged him out sometimes for meals. He said the previous virtuer had just shoved books in wherever they fit so it’d be impossible to find anything. He dithered over a lot of ways of organizing them before settling on category and author, and then he’d mutter to himself about what category this book or that one really belonged in.

#fic excerpt #confessions of a frustrated writer #i spent way too much time on this

44 notes · View notes

finding--cat · 7 years ago

Photo

To read Part I, click here.

To view the story page, click here.

I post new instalments on Fridays at 6pm EST. If you give it a read, please don’t be afraid to let me know what you think :) And thank you to those who left comments after last week’s instalment - I didn’t post some due to spoilers, but I so appreciate your readership!

Part II: The Songbird

As it has been said: Love and a cough cannot be concealed. Even a small cough. Even a small love. - Anne Sexton, from the poem ‘Small Wire’

2.1

It’s a cursed town, they’ve begun to say. Niall hears it in whispers amongst the patrons at Sherman’s and at the pharmacy filling Mickey’s prescriptions. No jobs for the coal miners, no health coverage for the sick. You hear more and more about kids enlisting straight after high school to be taken out of state to serve. There’s nothing for anyone in Tillson City anymore. No jobs, no security, no future.

But it’s this time of year – late summer, with the leaves just past their ripeness and sunlight turning from yellow to filmy gold - that the whispers collect in his mind, bouncing off the walls inside his head in a chorus of accusations. Cursed town. Cursed town. And it has nothing to do with unemployment or mortgaging one’s house to pay for chemo.

The Mighty Bobcats of Tillson City High haven’t competed for a football title in seven years. They’ve barely come within spitting distance of playoff season ever since Niall’s graduating year. Locals crowd the stands every Friday night decked out in burgundy and yellow warpaint, but the team suffers loss after crushing loss without explanation. There’s no real reason why a team that once took state three years in a row now can’t get its act together. Same coach, same training, same strategies. By all accounts, failure doesn’t make sense.

For a crumbling backwater American town, high school football is all it has to hinge its pride on. So it’s not just the team that suffers defeat, but the entire town along with it. And it’s this time of year that Niall hears the whispers grow louder, this time of year that he shrugs his jacket higher on his shoulders to protect himself from the glares that pass him in town.

The town is cursed, they say. And they don’t have to point a finger for Niall to believe he’s the one who cursed it.

“Ari… this is Olive.”

From Ari’s circumspect, bewildered expression as Olive gleefully crosses the room and hops onto the bed on all fours, Niall realizes she doesn’t get it. Only problem is there’s no time to explain – Olive demands answers.

“This won’t open!” she announces with a deeply furrowed brow, draping herself across Ari’s legs without shame as she practically hurls a package at Niall in effort to reach him. “Will you open it?”

Niall promptly sits up, though Ari’s less able to do so with a child restricting the movement of her legs. He raises his eyebrows and cocks his head – after all these years, it’s still his best attempt at a stern look – and holds what appears to be a gummy snack in one hand. “I’d do it for you, but only if I heard the magic word.”

“Please!” she cries, rising up on Ari’s legs only to drop down in the most theatrical woe-is-me display Ari’s surely ever seen. “Pleasepleasepleaseplease—”

“All right, all right,” Niall chuckles. He tries in vain to open the package and then shoos Olive off the bed with instructions to fetch the scissors. “But hold them how I taught you!” he calls after her. “And do not run with them! Olive, you hear me?”

Once her shout of acknowledgement comes from the kitchen, Niall can finally turn to Ari. She’s edging her way off the bed and straightening her cardigan, eyes blown wide and spine straight as a rod.

“She must’ve just gotten home,” Niall says, quiet and apologetic. “Sorry. I should’ve given you a warning. She can be loud and gets in everybody’s business, which is why—”

“Got ‘em!” Olive yells, followed by the clang of utensils as the cutlery drawer slams shut. Niall points his index finger at her as she approaches until she slows to a power walk, holding the scissors out with her hand covering the blades. “Open it now!” she urges. “Quick! Please hurry!”

“Slow down, squidge. What’s the rush?”

“Please!”

“Olive!” Z’s voice cuts through the house faster than Niall’s scissors can make an incision. The screen door creaks behind him. “If I found out you’ve opened that snack, young lady!”

In a display fit for a Broadway audition, Olive seems to lose control of all limbs and joints and crumbles lifelessly to the floor with a moan. Along with Ari, Niall peeks over the edge of the bed to find her collapsed on the rug, head in her hands.

“All right down there?”

Despondent, she grumbles, “You missed me my chance.”

Grinning, Niall exchanges a glance with a still-bewildered Ari. He opens his mouth to provide context just as Z materializes in the doorway, his mouth drawn in a thin line.

“Olive Sarima, what did I tell you?”

Olive groans incoherently.

“What did I tell you? Chin up.”

Obediently, she raises her head, shoulder-length hair escaping from pigtails and falling away from her face. She glares back at him with fire in her dark eyes.

“Treats are for dessert,” she says robotically.

“That’s right. Have we eaten dinner yet?”

She huffs. “No.”

“No, we haven’t.” With that, Z shifts his irritated stare to Niall. “She’s had enough sugar today, if you couldn’t tell—oh.” He stops mid-sentence as he catches Ari in the corner of his eye. She still hasn’t said a word and stands stock-still near the end of the bed, watching the scene unfold with little to no idea of what’s happening. “Sorry. I didn’t—we didn’t know you’d have someone over. Sorry.” Z raises his palms to prove he meant no harm. Then he hisses, “Olive! Off the floor, let’s go!”

She whines.

That does it for an at-wit’s-end Z, who strides across the room and lifts her boneless body. As he leaves the room carrying her like a football, he mutters in her ear, “We don’t go barging into people’s private spaces without asking permission. You know that’s rude.”

“But it’s Niall! I always go in his room whenever I want!”

“Shh!”

When their voices fade into the kitchen, Niall finally has a chance to reconnect with Ari – though he’s not sure he should even try, given what just took place. Guaranteed she’s mentally packing her bags and leaving him in the dust.

“I…” he begins, swinging his legs over the bed and holding out his hands as if he has a physical explanation to offer. But his words hitch in his throat and all he can do is shake his head in apology, prompting Ari to laugh.

She laughs.

In a moment nearly as dramatic as Olive’s, Niall’s shoulders slump and he falls backwards onto the bed in relief. “So sorry,” he says, rubbing at his eyes in hopes this is a dream and somewhere, in reality, he’s still making out with the beautiful girl he somehow managed to lure into his bedroom. That doesn’t happen often. Or at all, if he’s honest. He’ll have to remember to thank Olive for her glorious interruption. “Should have told you… should have explained.”

“That you live with a child?” Ari finishes for him, thankfully still giggling.

Niall drops his hand but continues to lie flat on his back. “Yes. I live with her and Z, and she’s – they’re – well, it can get noisy and intrusive around here.”

Ari edges her way around the bed and plops down beside him, glancing over her shoulder as he continues to dig at his eyes. “She’s… I mean, Olive. She’s Zayn’s?”

It’s a straightforward question, but Ari watches him carefully, as if nervous of his response. He offers a grin and his hands flop to his stomach, prompting a great gust of air to expel from his lips. “Yeah,” he chuckles, “can you tell?”

She nods. “They look similar.”

“Look at some of Z’s family photos from when he was her age and you’ll have trouble tellin’ ‘em apart.”

“The hair might do it.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?”

Ari laughs. She opens her mouth to ask another question but doesn’t manage to say more than a word before Olive’s voice rings out.

“NIALL! NIALL! NIALL!”

He closes his eyes and shakes his head in another silent apology to Ari. “YES? YES? YES?” he shouts back.

“’Member you said you’d make cornbread?”

“I’ll make the cornbread, Olive—” Z starts.

“No, Niall!” she insists. “He makes it better than you, Baba.”

Niall exchanges a secret smile with Ari. “I do make it better,” he says.

“I believe it,” she whispers back. “You made a pretty good watermelon the other night.”

Niall bursts with a guffawing laugh, which gives Olive permission to rejoin them. Her feet pitter-patter across the hardwood as she scrambles from the kitchen to the bedroom, poking her head inside and begging Niall to help with dinner. He apologizes again to Ari – verbally, this time – but she doesn’t seem to mind and even allows Olive to take her hand and drag her out of the room and into the kitchen.

Z’s got his head stuck in the fridge, but when he locates the stalk of broccoli Niall bought yesterday, he pulls it out and slams the door. He startles at his audience, cheeks reddening under Ari’s inquisitive gaze.

“This is Zayn,” Niall jumps in, because he knows that look on Z’s face – he’s caught off guard, put on the spot and not thrilled about it. Z’s anxiety is going through the roof at the presence of someone he doesn’t know in his home. “My roommate. He’s… well, I’ve told you about him. We’ve been friends forever. Z, this is Ari. She’s here from Long Island.”

Z reaches across the counter to shake Ari’s hand, mumbling another apology. “You’re the one he took to Mickey’s?”

Ari nods, breaking into a smile.

“We were there today,” Niall adds.

“Isn’t Mickey just your favourite?” Olive asks, leaning comfortably against Niall’s hip and staring up at Ari. Crossing her arms, she says matter-of-factly, “He always has jujubes.”

“He’s pretty great,” Ari agrees. She eyes Niall. “Though I haven’t seen any of these famous jujubes.”

Olive climbs up on the stool at the counter to be level with the adults. “I’m Olive,” she announces, “not named after the food, ‘cause it’s yucky.”

“Actually, you were named after the food,” Z says, busying himself with a knife and cutting board.

“Nuh uh,” she argues, “the tree.”

“And what grows on olive trees?”

Resolute and unbending, Olive doesn’t hesitate in her reply. “Leaves.”

Patiently, he prompts, “And…?”

“Fruit.”

“What kind of fruit?”

“Apples and oranges and bananas and—”

“Nay nay,” Niall chimes in as he lifts Olive from the stool and swings her around. “If apples grow on apple trees and bananas grow on banana trees, then what grows on olive trees?”

He thinks he’s led her straight into a trap, but he shouldn’t have been so stupid. Olive is, if nothing else, much cleverer and more strong-willed than he or Z will ever be.

“Me!” she exclaims with a giggle. “Because I’m Olive!”

Z suggests homemade pizza using the frozen dough Niall picked up yesterday. Normally one to pounce on hands-on projects, Olive staunchly rejects his notion and digs her feet into the ground, demanding pinto beans and cornbread – specifically, Niall’s cornbread.

Niall does make the best cornbread.

Roped into culinary tasks, he apologizes profusely to Ari and invites her for dinner. She declines out of politeness. Olive falls to the floor and grabs onto her ankle and begs, fake-crying and adding pretties onto all of her pleases. Ari agrees to stay.

Niall wouldn’t say he’s not embarrassed by Olive’s Shakespearean-level stage acting today, but he also wouldn’t say he’s sad to have more time with Ari. Even if Olive is there, too.

And she is. Olive is there, wherever he is. Niall fetches speakers from his room and Olive trails after him. Niall opens the door to the pantry in search of flour; Olive’s head pops in next to his hip. Niall removes a bag of kitchen trash and takes it outside, Olive hops on her scooter parked next to the garage, does a quick loop and is at his side as he re-enters the house.

It’s annoying.

He’s known her since she was born and lived with her since she was half a year old – Niall’s almost as much of a parent to her as Z, and he has no problem speaking sternly to her. But it’s a little bit strange to do so in front of Ari, especially due to the fact that he wants Olive to go away because of Ari. If he could just have five minutes alone to ask her what that kiss meant to her – well, series of kisses, actually – and maybe, possibly kiss her again, he’d happily allow Olive to be his sidekick for the rest of the week.

But Olive won’t give him that space. And Z, who should notice that his daughter’s being far too clingy and offer to distract her, is nowhere to be found. Sometime between Niall pouring Ari a glass of water and holding Olive upside down and pretending to use her shiny black hair as a mop on the kitchen floor, Z chopped the stems off the broccoli and disappeared without a word.

Also annoying.

But he returns once the cornbread begins to rise in the oven, fresh baked scents wafting up the stairs to the second floor. He descends the stairs slowly, craning his neck over the banister to check if the mysterious girl is still in his house. With her back turned to him, Ari doesn’t notice she’s perceived as an alien, an intruder.

Niall does.

This is their little home, their little nest into which they’ve burrowed to keep each other safe. To have a visitor, even a visitor approved by another member of the nest, is a threat to their protection.

Niall understands that. He should have told Z more about Ari. He shouldn’t have brought her over unannounced.

But Olive likes her, and Niall likes her, and that’s two out of three. Their nest is safe. Z just needs time to get to know her.

Dinner is loud and confusing, and as usual, it’s entirely owing to Olive’s incessant chatter and Niall’s barking laughter. In between buttering Olive’s cornbread and chopping her steamed broccoli into smaller pieces, Z shoots him glares – but that’s no different from normal. He always tells Niall not to encourage her, to allow her to develop some humility, but try as he might, Niall can’t help it. Olive’s retellings of her days at camp or kindergarten are Pulitzer-winning stories, Niall’s convinced. He’s even written a few of them down to share with her again when she’s older – or, as he once confided in Z, to write a children’s book. But that’s secondary to giving Olive the floor at dinnertime and allowing her to express everything that’s on her mind, it really is.

“Best cornbread ever,” Ari declares after dinner. “You were right, Olive – Niall makes the best.”

Niall beams as Olive nods matter-of-factly. “It’s my favourite. Every time it’s my birthday, Baba and Niall ask what I want for dinner and I always say Niall’s cornbread.”

While Niall laughs, Z playfully rolls his eyes. “You asked for cornbread on one birthday, Olive – your fifth birthday in January.”

“Nuh-uh. Every birthday,” she insists.

“You asked for biryani and kebabs for your fourth birthday,” Z recalls.

Olive takes a moment to consider this, and then says, “I like cornbread better.”

Z doesn’t reply – it’s pointless to argue, anyway – but his lips purse in displeasure as he ducks his head and moves his food around his plate with his fork. Niall refrains from adding insult to injury, but he does send Ari a wink. Unaware of Z’s mood, she smiles brilliantly back, teeth and all.

God, he loves her smile.

After dinner, Niall and Z clean up while Olive is finally allowed her gummy snack and drags Ari into the living room to show off her Shopkins collection. Tiny little plastic grocery store items with faces on them, and Niall finds them everywhere – in his truck’s cup holder, in the bathroom sink, in his pillowcase. Olive knows the branded name of every last one and delights in rattling them off in order to a new guest. To any guest, period – it’s rare they have one.

“Everything good?” Niall asks Z, drying with a tea cloth the dishes that have been washed in the sink.

Soapy up to his elbows, Z nods. “Fine,” he says, but he doesn’t spare Niall a glance.

Niall places the final dinner plate in a careful pile and adds quietly, “She’s a really nice person. She just moved to town; she doesn’t know anybody else and we’ve been hanging out.”

To that, Z flashes him a wry look. “What’re you doing?”

Niall takes the plastic cup from his hand and begins drying. “What do you mean?”

“You explaining yourself to me?”

Niall shrugs. “Well, yeah. I brought her over, so I thought I should let you know—”

“You don’t owe me anything,” Z interrupts. His voice isn’t loud – it never is; he’s a gentle man inside and out – but it commands a person. At least, it commands Niall. It always has.

Niall hesitates, gulping. “Yeah, okay.”

“Date whoever you wanna date. Not my business.”

He can’t look at Z anymore, can’t look at someone who’s not even looking back, so he stares at Olive’s cup as he dries it with the tea towel long after the last droplets of water have been wiped away. “Um.” He clears his throat. “We’re not dating.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Z mutters. “I mean, it doesn’t matter to me.”

They finish the cleanup in silence. If Z finally spares him a glance, Niall wouldn’t know – he’s not looking back.

If he works across town at the pub, he might as well drive Ari home at the same time, seeing as she and Sherman’s are within five minutes of one another. No sense in making two trips. Ari happily agrees to stick around until eighty-thirty or so, and Niall sits next to her – close enough to touch – when they get comfortable on the couch to watch an episode of a sitcom before Olive’s bedtime.

“This is a bit of a production,” Niall warns Ari after Z brings Olive upstairs to brush her teeth and change into pajamas.

“She doesn’t like bedtime?”

“She doesn’t like it,” Niall affirms, “she loves it.”

Ari blinks. “She’s one kid in a million.”

“Well, maybe. She’s definitely one in a million with this sort of bedtime ritual.”

“What bedtime ritual?”

He hops up from the couch and grabs Ari’s hand, pulling her to a standing position. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

He grabs his guitar from his room and gestures for Ari to join him on the stairs. He climbs the steps with excitement, continually checking over his shoulder to ensure Ari is following. By the time he reaches the landing, his verve has thawed into a rather morose dread. Maybe this is a terrible idea. When Z’s in a mood, anything new doesn’t go over well.

But it’s too late now, and besides, this is the best part of Niall’s day. He wants to show it to Ari.

“Tiana screamed and ran back inside. The frog followed her. The frog told Tiana she had to kiss him so he would turn back into a human. He promised to grant her a wish as a reward.” Z’s voice filters into the hall from Olive’s room, followed by the turning of the page. “The princess was unsure at first, but the frog was very nice to the princess and told hilarious jokes, so she realized that appearances aren’t important and fell in love with him. Then they lived happily ever after.”

After a dead pause, Olive’s voice bursts into the hall: “That’s it?!”

Ari covers her mouth to stifle a laugh.

“That’s the whole story,” Z finishes patiently.

“But there’s so many more pages!”

“That’s the sequel.”

“What’s a sequel?”

“Part two. When they have half-human, half-frog babies.”

“Eeeeeww! Baba, you made that up!”

“Maybe we’ll get to it tomorrow night. For now, it’s bedtime.”

“I want a song!”

“Not tonight, I’m afraid. Niall’s busy downstairs.”

“Niall’s right here!” Niall calls from the hallway. He puts his finger to his lips, instructing Ari to keep quiet and remain just outside the door. Then he enters Olive’s bedroom, with its lilac comforter and cream-coloured walls and little fairy lights strung along the moulding that took Niall and Z four hours one Sunday afternoon last year. When they’re lit, like they are right now, they cast the most beautiful glow on the olive tree Z painted on the wall behind Olive’s head. He wanted to paint it on the opposite wall so that she could always look at it, but Olive insisted it be painted on the same wall she slept so that, if it rained, she would be shielded by a canopy of leaves. Niall nods at Olive, tucked in with her head propped on a couple of pillows, and Z, who sits at her feet, and asks, “What will tonight’s performance be?”

“The Mighty Jungle!” Olive exclaims.

“We did that one last night,” Z says.

“Do it again!”

“How about…” Niall takes a seat on the top of the wooden trunk housing all of Olive’s winter clothing and begins to tune his guitar. “How about Spice Girls? If you wanna be my lover…”

He strums a chord, but Z holds up a palm to silence him. “Nothing too upbeat. Olive needs something soft and slow to lull her to sleep. Someone’s a bit excited, huh?”

“Not me,” she counters, but Niall already has a song in mind. He picks a few strings until Z’s eyes meet his in recognition, and slows down the tempo at the bow of Z’s head. They can read each other like that, in music and in life.

When Z sings the first words, Niall casts a stray glance to the door. Ari keeps herself hidden, but peeks around the doorframe and grins at him. He grins broadly back, because the truth is that this is where he’s happy. Performing is a part of him and it’s what he wants to do with his life, but here in this little bedroom with his little makeshift family is where Niall feels most himself. He can sing a million songs with a million beautiful words, but none of them will ever beat out of his chest if he’s not performing with Z.

They don’t perform this song often – Olive never really warms to the slower ballads – but Niall improvises vocally on the chorus in harmony to Z’s dulcet tones.

“And the songbirds are singin’ like they know the score,” he sings, voice soft, careful not to overpower Z. “And I love you, I love you, I love you like never before.”

It’s always been one of Niall’s favourites, which therefore made it one of Z’s least favourites. Growing up, Z was influenced by the likes of Bad Religion, System of a Down, and Rammstein, while Niall was enamored with Brooks & Dunn and Alan Jackson and 70’s rock and roll. Pop punk and alternative is where they met in the middle, but they tend to bring their own true loves to Olive’s bedtime ritual. Z makes him strum along to Rise Against, while Niall frequently breaks out Kacey Musgraves and The Rolling Stones. Before Olive, Z didn’t know a single lyric by Fleetwood Mac. And look at him now, singing the most beautiful rendition of Songbird Niall’s ever heard. He’s proud of himself for that – proud of how the music, no matter what kind, brings Z to life, even after all these years and all this time away from it.

“’Cause I feel that when I’m with you, it’s all right,” Z sings, reaching out to brush Olive’s hair. “I know it’s right.”

Olive burrows into her covers, tucking her chin to her chest and grinning at her father. She watches him exclusively when he sings – and why shouldn’t she? He’s mesmerizing, and every word of his song is meant for her. Niall watches him, too, familiar enough with his fretboard to pick along without looking.

“And the songbirds keep singing like they know the score,” Z sings, glancing at Niall as he harmonizes. Niall’s grin is lost in midair as Z turns back to Olive to finish the final notes of the song: “And I love you, I love you, I love you like never before.”

Niall strums the song to a gentle conclusion. Before he closes the last note, Olive cries, “Again!”

Z chuckles. “Don’t think so, squidge. It’s time for you to have a nice, long sleep and rest up for the week.”

Olive pouts but doesn’t protest. With the neck of his guitar in one hand, Niall crosses the room and bends down to kiss Olive’s forehead. “Night, squidge. See you in the morning. Cheerios or Corn Flakes?”

“Cheerios, please,” Olive answers definitively.

“With a side of berries or banana?”

“Banana.”

“Gotcha.” He winks at her, patting Z on the shoulder as he exits the room. He’d stay until the lights are turned out, but Z likes to have Olive to himself for a minute or two before he says his final goodnight. Niall supposes that’s fair – if he had his own, he might want them to himself every once in a while, too.

Ari’s waiting at the top of the stairwell when he exits the doorway, her arms crossed and her shoulders against the wall. She pushes herself off the wall with her foot as he approaches, eyes alight in wonderment and lips stretched into a contagious smile.

As she follows Niall downstairs, she murmurs into his ear, “I see what you mean about Zayn’s voice.”

“Right? He could sing a choir of angels to tears.”

That much is true – there’s no denying it.

“You two are amazing together,” Ari gushes, trailing Niall to his bedroom off the kitchen. “No wonder Olive won’t go to sleep without a bedtime performance. It’s too good to pass up.”

Niall throws her a smile as he grabs his guitar case from his closet and tosses it onto his bed to begin packing up for work. “Thanks. We’ve been playing for her ever since I moved in – she was just a few months old. She’s pretty used to us by now, so it’s nice to get an outsider’s opinion.”

“If she ever gets bored, I’ll take her place,” Ari jokes, looming in the doorway. “Wouldn’t mind my own private concert.”

“Give you one anytime you want.” Niall means it genuinely, but he doesn’t miss the way her cheeks pinken at his suggestion.

Once the truck is packed with Niall’s guitar and equipment, he joins Ari in the entrance and pats himself down in search of his keys. Z’s descending the stairs running a hand through his disheveled hair and yawning.

“Thanks for having me, Zayn,” Ari says, taking him off guard as he steps to the main floor. She holds out her hand to shake, which he reluctantly reciprocates. “You have a really nice home, and Olive is so wonderful.”

Bewildered, all Z can muster is a meek, “Thank you.”

“See you soon, I hope.”

“Uh… yeah.” Z rubs the back of his neck as Ari turns, exiting through the front door before Niall.

All Niall can do is offer Z another smile, which Z does not return, and add, “See you tomorrow,” before following Ari to the truck.

When he pulls out of the drive, the moon out and the sky dark, Z’s outline is illuminated in the living room window – unmoving, unreadable, but most certainly watching them go.

“I’m exhausted,” Ari says as Niall drives them through the winding, tree-lined roads. “Next time I’ll leave half my blunt for Mickey.”

He nearly chokes on his laughter. “You’d kill the old bastard with pleasure. Then my Gram’d kill me.”

“I want to go with you tonight, but I think I’d fall asleep – and that’s no offense to you,” she adds quickly. “I just need to crawl into bed and sleep it off.”

Niall reckons she’s right, but that’s not what strikes him. He doesn’t make a habit of tearing his eyes from the twisty roads once the sun’s gone down, but he can’t help sneaking a glance Ari’s way and lingering on her for a few moments. Even huddling in her cardigan, wind whipping her hair around her face, she’s beautiful.

“You’d go with me?” he asks, voice cracking in his attempt to suppress his excitement.

“Of course.” Ari looks over and grins at his surprise. “I like to watch you perform.”

“Same old stuff pretty much every night, you know.”

“I was told you take requests.”

He chuckles. “That I do. If you really had it out for me, you could make the night pretty interesting.”

“Maybe I do. And maybe I will, one of these nights.” She smirks.

“That’d be good.” He clears his throat and tries again: “I mean, yeah. I’d like that.”

Giggling to herself, Ari leans back in the seat and sinks her hands into the sleeves of her cardigan. “Can I ask you something?”

Niall nods, murmuring an affinitive response. He licks his lips, mentally preparing a response to a question he’s sure she’s about to ask: I liked the kiss. I’ve wanted to kiss you since the night we met. If you’ll let me, I’ll do it again.

“Olive,” Ari begins, and Niall’s hopes sink to his gut, “is she yours?”

He sighs. “Z’s.”

“I know. I know biologically she’s his, it’s just that the two of you are raising her together, so I wondered if it was like a ‘two dads’ scenario.”

“Uh…” he trails, jaw hanging as he searches for an explanation and then ends up laughing awkwardly. “No. Nah, it’s not like that. Z’s her baba and I’ve never been anything but Niall to her.”

Ari nods, though it’s clear she has some remaining questions precariously perched on the tip of her tongue.

So Niall elaborates for her. “Z started seeing someone as soon as we moved to NYC for college. She wasn’t even a student; he met her because she always seemed to be at every gig we went to and every one we played. Before we finished the year, she was pregnant. And at the end of the summer, Z decided he couldn’t go back to school – not when his younger sisters deserved an education; he couldn’t ask his parents to foot the bill for both his tuition and a baby, you know? So he dropped out, quit the band, and brought Mel back here to have the baby.”

Ari takes a while to process this story. She opens her mouth and just as Niall expects the inevitable follow-up questions, she heaves a sigh and says, “Oh.”

Niall bites down on his lip and chews before drawling out of the corner of his mouth, “Yeeeeah.” A quick glimpse of Ari confirms she’s studying him, awaiting a bigger reaction. “Didn’t work out, obviously. Z’s family’s kind of religious, even if he’s not. Back then, his room was the one I live in now. Mel moved in and his mom had a huge problem with that. His dad was furious, would barely talk to him, said he ruined his one shot and that was that. It was a tense living environment for those few months. His parents wanted them to get married before the baby was born, but of course Mel had no intention of converting, so… it was a situation.”

“Oh, God.”

“Allah, actually.”

Ari snorts, though she doesn’t smile as she shakes her head.

“Sorry. Anyway, Z was caught between this pressure from his parents and resistance from Mel. They had no money and totally relied on the Maliks, and going back to New York to stay with Mel’s parents wasn’t an option. Later on, after Olive was born, Z found out she hadn’t even told her parents she was pregnant.”

“That’s horrible,” Ari whispers, curling her hands into fists. “She must have been so afraid. And so alone.”

“I think so, yeah. But we’ll never know. She gave birth, came home with Z and Olive for a week, then one morning he woke up and she was gone. Nothing left but a note saying she was sorry and not to contact her again.”

Niall doesn’t mean to be emotionless, but he’s hard as concrete when it comes to this story. He has to be – for Z’s sake, for Olive’s sake, for his own sake. With a shrug, he flicks on his blinker and turns left onto Ari’s road.

“So Olive doesn’t… she’s never met her mother?”

“Nope. She asks about her every so often, especially since she started school last year. She sees the other kids with their mommies and makes the connection that she’s without.”

“What do you tell her?”

“Z likes to tell her he’s her father and her mother – he’ll be both, whatever she needs. As for me, I tell her that sometimes people can’t stay with us, but that doesn’t mean they don’t love us.”

He’s repeated the phrase a hundred times, but it still causes him to pull in his brows. One day, he’ll tell her the real story, just like Gram and Gramps did for him. They spared him until he was eleven or twelve and in a real state, threatening not to listen to their orders because they weren’t his real parents. That’s when they had to sit him down and say, real loud and clear, that they were the only damn parents he was ever gonna get because the others were well and gone and never coming back.

The truck studders to a halt alongside the Hawley driveway. Niall kills the ignition as silence befalls them. When the headlights shut off, the only thing illuminating the road is the front window of the house, where inside, Jackson and Rosen sit watching TV.

When Niall finally musters the courage to face Ari, she’s got a statement poised on her lips. “She’s lucky to have you and Zayn.”

He cracks a half-smile. “Thanks.”

“Is that why Zayn enlisted your help with Olive? Because you always know the right thing to say?”

He chuckles. “Don’t know about that. No, that’s not why. He did it alone for the first five or six months, actually. Well, he had his parents, but he was always resistant about accepting their help. I was home the next summer at the sawmill when his parents went out of state to move his sister into an apartment. Z called me, sobbing – said he accidentally locked Olive in the car with the keys. He was panicking, losing his mind.”

“Oh, no.”

“I rushed over to wait with him while MCA were en route to unlock his car. I remember thinking, oh my God, the poor little baby, she’ll be traumatized forever. When I got there, she was fast asleep in her carseat – had no idea about all the chaos revolving around her.”

“The whole time?”

“The whole time,” he affirms with a nod. He unbuckles his seatbelt and angles his body toward Ari, his elbow resting on the console. “Everything turned out fine, of course. Problem was an easy fix, though it took a while for MCA to get to us. But I remember afterwards, when Z finally got in the car, he grabbed Olive from her carseat and hugged her to him, tears running down his face. Totally inconsolable. And he looked at me and said, ‘Niall, I can’t do this.’ We both looked at the sleeping baby in his arms and I told him, ‘You have to. For Olive, you have to.’” Niall sighs, wincing at the memory. “We stuck close after that. I moved in for the rest of the summer. Then it was September, and I never went back to school.”

Ari traces her hand over the console, her fingertips so close to his. “You gave all that up for Zayn?”

He nods, taking a leap of faith and linking his fingers with hers as her hand skirts by on the console. She doesn’t pull away.

“Blood’s not thicker than water,” he tells her with a small shrug. Then, with a sheepish smile, he adds, “Or maybe it is, but then that means your friends become blood after a while. Or maybe they become molasses. Or a brick wall.”

She chuckles. “Thicker than water, all right.”

“Mm hmm. In any event, this is how things turned out – me, Z, and Olive. This is how it is.”

Her eyes lower to their interlinked fingers. A small squeeze of her hand sends his ribcage aflutter as though someone’s torn the lining of a pillow and all the feathers are scattered about.

“I can see the appeal,” she remarks quietly.

He quirks an eyebrow and stifles a sardonic laugh. “Can you?”

“Yeah.” She locks eyes with him, pupils unwavering. “You might not believe me, but I can. And I envy it.”

“It’s not that I don’t believe you, it’s that there’s nothing to envy.” Worried she might pull away, Niall tightens his grip for a moment and then goes lax. Their hands remain entwined. “Z busts his ass interning at a brokerage in Madison and stays up late at night doing online classes to progress his career. I play the same old shit for the same old crowds every night, and during the day I’m Olive’s babysitter, part-time contributor to GuitarWeekly magazine – which produces once monthly, by the way – and my grandpa’s drug dealer.” He shakes his head without expression until Ari laughs at the ridiculousness of it. Cracking a wry smile, he finishes, “That’s our life. No glam, no glory.”

“Boring people need glam and glory to be entertained,” Ari counters evenly. “I don’t care for it. Do you?”

Niall’s smile broadens. “’M here, aren’t I? Middle o’ buttfuck nowhere.”

“Me, too.” Her smile fades as she takes her lip between her teeth and studies his expression. Niall’s in the midst of working up the courage to lean over the console and kiss her again when she interrupts his train of thought. “And it may not be exciting to you, to live here and lead a non-glamorous life, but to me, it’s more than I’ve allowed myself to think about in a long time. Being close with people like that – like you are with Zayn and Olive and your grandparents – that’s something I don’t really know anymore. And it’s not because I cut anyone out of my life, it’s just that I forgot how to be myself. Now, when I talk to the people I’ve known forever, I spend most of the conversation trying to figure out if they’re talking to someone I used to be.”

He exhales slowly, trying not to make a sound. He stretches his joints, and as Ari slides her palm over his, he clasps her fingers, reluctant to let go.

“That must be hard,” he murmurs, “to feel like the people you trust are projecting onto an old version of you.”

“It is sometimes,” she agrees. “I don’t want to disappoint them, but I don’t know that person anymore. I can’t be her, whoever she was.”

He shrugs half-heartedly. “For what it’s worth, I don’t know who you used to be, but I like who you are now. I like hangin’ out with you.”

Ari’s eyes glisten – whether it’s from the shine of the moonlight or pent-up tears, Niall’s not going to guess – but she manages a watery smile. “I don’t make you feel empty?” she asks, using the tiniest inflection to make her statement into a question. Brows pulled together, she looks to Niall for an answer.

It takes a moment for Niall to determine how to respond to a heartbreaking question like that, but when he speaks, it’s with conviction.

“No. Empty is when you play the chords and sing the words, but the song never breaks through your skin. With you, I might not have all the words memorized and I might play the chords different every time, but that’s because I feel the music.”

The pools in her eyes turn to small puddles as she giggles and backs away, leaning against the back of the seat and disconnecting their hands. “Very smooth. Music analogy – well done.”

He sticks his tongue out of the side of his mouth in a goofy grin. “I play to my strengths.”

“I can see that. All right, dealer slash musician slash writer slash babysitter – get to work. And thanks for the ride.”

“Anytime.” Niall holds his fist to the girl climbing out of his truck. He instantly regrets it as she stares at it for a few moments and then, slowly, presses her fist to his. She snorts in amusement to herself as she hops down to the ground.

As soon as she shuts the door, Niall exhales deeply and shakes his head. Idiot.

Then his feet are working faster than his brain and he’s out of the truck, jogging around to meet Ari at the hood. She comes to a halt with raised brows.

“We meet again?”

“Yeah. Sorry,” he rushes, breathless from a sudden injection of adrenaline. He runs a hand through his hair. “Just had one last thing to say.”

“Okay?”

With a huff of resolve, he steps forward until he looks down at her. Once he has her eye, he tucks a stray hair behind her ear and bends his head to press a gentle kiss to her lips. It’s over within seconds and Niall’s heart is pumping out of his ears, but when he allows himself to open his eyes, it’s to the welcome sight of Ari grinning at him.

“Those weren’t words,” she whispers.

Lips together, Niall smiles sheepishly. “They were to me.”

She gives him an elbow nudge on her way past. “See you soon,” she says over her shoulder.

Niall leans against the hood of the truck to see her into the house, unable to offer more than a weak smile when she waves him off and shuts the front door.

Well. No matter which way he looks at it now, he’s fucked for her.

He pulls into the drive just after midnight. The crowds never stay quite as late on Sundays, and that’s fine with Niall. Monday mornings are difficult enough trying to wrangle Olive into an outfit and get her back into a weekday routine; he doesn’t need to couple it with severe sleep deprivation. He’s looking forward to crawling into bed even though he doesn’t expect the sandman to visit for an hour or two. There are plenty of thoughts of Ari’s lips swimming in his head that should keep him company until then.

Z always leaves the porch light on, which helps Niall guide his key into the lock. In return, he vows to always be quiet when he enters. Z needs his sleep and Niall wouldn’t dare wake Olive, so he’s trained himself to step lightly, to avoid the creakiest floorboards on his way to the kitchen, and to extinguish a lamp in one room when he lights a lamp in another. Z hasn’t heard him enter the house at night in over a year.

Tonight, however, Niall steps out of his shoes, turns the lock on the door, and spins around to see the glow of television casting light on Z’s face. He sits on the couch, feet propped on the coffee table and arms folded across his chest, listening intently to the drone of the nightly news. He’s cleaned up: Olive’s toys are returned to a bucket kept along the wall, the cushions and tables are cleared and in order, and a full trash bag sits by the back door. Z gets like that sometimes when he’s stressed – he goes on a tidying streak.

“Hey.” Niall stops in front of the doorframe, guitar held to his side.

Z looks up. “Hey.”

“You’re still up.”

He nods. He’s been growing his hair and using product to push it back, but the product wears thin at this time of night and a strand falls across his forehead. Niall likes it better like this, soft and unkempt.

“Everything ok?” Niall asks, voice light and concerned. “Is Olive…?”

“She’s fine,” Z replies, his voice just as gentle. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“Oh.”

Niall pauses for a beat, but when Z returns his attention to the television, Niall gives up and shuffles to his room. He tucks his guitar into the closet and removes his long-sleeved tee. Then, after a quick trip to the bathroom and poking his head in the fridge, he rejoins Z in the living room with two bottles of water. He throws one to Z and keeps one for himself as he plops down next to him on the couch.

“Thanks,” says Z, cracking open the bottle and taking a long gulp as the weather forecaster predicts partial cloud for tomorrow.

“Anything good on?”

“Seinfeld reruns.”

Z glances at Niall, stretching his head back and baring his teeth in a yawn. “Go to bed,” he says, switching the channel and then tapping the top of Niall’s head with the remote.

“You go to bed,” he argues. Niall intends to nudge him in the side but ends up leaning into his warmth, the cotton of Z’s shirt soft against Niall’s bare arms.

It’s their most pathetic, childish form of ribbing one another – then again, they live with a five-year-old, so it’s hard to grow out of it. Elaine and Jerry argue onscreen as Niall sinks into the couch, nesting against Z’s side. Z folds his arms across his chest to make room for him there.

They don’t do this, cuddle on the couch at one in the morning on a Monday. Maybe Z really couldn’t sleep, Niall thinks, and maybe he should leave him alone to doze off. But Z, ever the affectionate roommate, opens his chest to Niall with eyes trained to the screen, arm sliding halfway around his back and hand coming to rest atop Niall’s fluffy head. Niall thinks he should protest, ask Z what’s really going on, but then Z starts scratching and petting, fingers roaming absently through Niall’s hair as his chest rumbles with quiet laughter at a line George delivers. He knows Niall loves this, knows Niall can’t possibly resist having his hair played with – it’s his secret crutch, the one thing that could cause him to fall dead asleep in the middle of a hurricane – and sure enough, within a few seconds, Niall’s curling up and fighting to stay awake. He burrows into Z’s body heat, tucks his hands under his opposite armpits, and lets his head loll to his shoulder as Z’s fingers in his hair send shiver after shiver rippling down his spine.

His eyes fly open at the sudden blare of a Rav4 commercial. Z is quick to reach for the remote and mute it, but Niall blinks once, hard, and wonders how long he’s been out. Z’s hand still rests on his head, but his fingers have ceased their dizzying scratching.

“Sorry,” Z whispers against his hair.

“S’okay,” Niall murmurs. His voice is deep and surprises him with how groggy it is.

He shifts on the couch, pulling away from Z’s warmth to look up at him. Z stares back, warm brown eyes fond and inviting.

“Why’re you really up?” he asks, using the heel of his hand to rub his tired eyes.

“Told you. Couldn’t sleep.”

“Why not?”

Z shrugs, tongue curling in his mouth like it does when he’s carefully stringing words together in his head. “Seeing my baba for lunch tomorrow,” he admits, slowly untangling himself from Niall as though the magic between them is suddenly lost. “Know he’s gonna offer me a position again.”

“Say no,” Niall tells him, because it’s really as simple as that. Mr. Malik’s been pressuring his son for over a year to join his brokerage in Charleston, but Z would need to finish his schooling at an accelerated rate. That would mean going back full-time, leaving Tillson City to finish, and having to give up Olive for six months to a year.

“I will.” Z nods, side-eyeing Niall as though it’s obvious. “Not always that easy, though. Not when he throws money and Olive’s future back in my face.”

Niall runs his teeth over his bottom lip and searches for the gentlest way to express himself. “Tell him we’re fine,” he urges. “Olive has a future. Just because it’s taking you longer to get to yours, doesn’t mean hers is sacrificed. We’ll figure it out – we always do.”

Z nods again, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows. He turns his eyes back to the television and then drops his gaze to the remote. His thumb hovers over the mute button.

Unable to look Niall in the eye, he quietly, pleadingly asks, “Will you come with me?”

Niall watches him, waiting for the confidence of Z’s gaze, but it never comes. So Niall shifts away from him on the couch, fist to his mouth as he clears his throat. “Yeah,” he mutters. “’Course I will.”

Z mumbles a note of gratitude before turning on the sound. Kramer bursts into Jerry’s apartment unannounced just as Niall decides he’s got to go to bed. It’s time to disengage.

So he pushes himself to a standing position, stretching his arms above his head and hissing at the cold air that breaches his bared lower belly. When he turns to face Z, he finds that eyes are already on him.

“Gotta sleep,” he says, patting Z’s calves until he lifts them from the coffee table to allow Niall passage. “You should, too.”

“I will,” Z promises, though he makes no move to stand. “Goodnight.”

On his way to his room, Niall runs a hand through his hair and still feels Z’s fingers there.

“Night.”

#tls #my writing #1dff #niall horan fan fiction

33 notes · View notes

overcaffeinated-creative · 7 years ago

Text

Which Way Am I Running?

Summary: Being assigned an undercover mission in Sundari triggers flashback nightmares for Solus. Trapped between a past in the Great Clan Wars and an uncertain future leaves her doubt filled and shaken before she ships out.

Characters: Solus Vetra, Ursa Wren in flashback

Rating: T

Warnings: Clear signs of an ongoing panic attack, clear presentation of mental trauma sustained from surviving a paramilitary raid, descriptions of said raid and general angst.

Notes: This is part of my worldbuilding attempts for the political climate of Mandalore, both past and present. Solus has a low opinion of Satine Kryze that shows in spades.

“Run!” Ursa hissed through the speaker of her helmet. Armored hands pushed her deeper into the current base. “Run!”

Death white hands clung to the refresher sink with the strength of durasteel. Her entire body trembled in aftershocks of the nightmare. Head hanging low, Solus focused on the tears splattering on the porcelain. Harsh, panting breaths echoed around the small space. Part of her wanted to reach up to dry her eyes. That part lost. One simple move would send her tumbling to the floor on collapsing legs. To stay standing meant everything had to stay locked in place.

Blaster fire echoed behind as Ursa shoved her into the most solid inner suite. After the door slammed shut the older warrior destroyed the control panel. Even masked and back turned to her, Solus knew something was wrong. The funny feeling her ba’buir called the Force screamed. Lights, ones she knew the names of, kept blinking out of existence. It even told her that Ursa was scared too. But, it had to be wrong. Ursa Wren was fearless.

Part of Solus thought she had escaped the nightmares this time around. It had been months since she had returned from Mandalore. Her mind had accepted the state of her home sector without question. Just as it took the confirmation of Death Watch and their false Manda’lor in stride. Even the good-as-confirmed deaths of her ba’buire stirred no strong emotion. It was something she had accepted years ago. All of the True Mandalorians died but Jango Fett during the Great Clan Wars Now, a single mission assignment turned it all of that progress upside down.

“What’s wrong?” she had asked with tears filling her eyes. The once distant high-pitched whine of the invaders’ rifles moved closer. “Ursa, what’s wrong?”

More tears fell as she fought to breath. Adrenaline flooded her bloodstream for the second time in another drawn out fight-or-flight response. Every sensation in her body was thrown into relief. The way her heart tried to pound free of her ribs. Her lungs stung with each attempt to properly inhale. Against nature she had even begun to sweat. Little icy beads that raced from her hairline, down her sensitive neck, before being adsorbed by tunic or hair. Her knees ached at being locked up while her muscles groaned from staying pulled taunt. And the Force...the Force tried to drown it all out as she was acutely aware of everyone and no one. Just a steadfast bad feeling about the future.

“Kryze sent assassins.” Ursa’s gauntlets shook while she lined the door with explosives. “They’ve jammed our comms and brought disruptor rifles.” Swallowing thickly she almost whispered, “I can’t stop them by myself. This is really it.”

Master Kit was half way across the Galaxy on a campaign. Otherwise, he would be standing beside her in the moment. His tall, warm presence would fill the space to help her find control. He was a good Master, better than she deserved, who always came when she needed him. However, those were what-ifs and past actions. In the current moment she was entirely alone her traitorous body. Everything tried to shake apart with no way to call for comfort she needed.

“I can help?” Solus wanted to believe that she could. Ba’buir said she truly gifted with the Force. The kind of gifted even Jetii would would call impressive. But, no one had taught her how to fight or even use it at all. Everything came to her mind without her really trying. Maybe she could try again for something to stop this. “I can help.”

Using the pain as a focal point the young woman fought to control herself. Her lungs ached from hyper-oxygenation or was it oxygen deprivation? Regardless it needed fixed. Breathing in through her nose for ten seconds, hold for three, exhale through pursed lips for five, and count. Then it would be repeated until she was calm, or something that could pass for calm. It was a trick Jazari had taught her. Everything was a fraction easier to do knowing it was how Jazari would handle it.

“No!” Ursa ordered while scooping her up into her arms. They went deeper into the rooms to hide. Solus was forced into a corner with Ursa kneeling before her. With her beskar’gam and drawn knife she made a better shield. Solus was a warrior too but her clothes only had beskar plated inserts. Ba’buir said full armor would come later. They would forge it together.

Solus wished Pre Vizsla had been the nightmare trigger. By all rights, he should have been. Vizsla was bigger and stronger than her with far more experience. He was the Manda’lor of Death Watch, the people who slaughtered Jaster Mereel and the True Mandalorians with pride. Yet, in the end she was faster and far more cunning with an unshakable will. He became nothing but another facet of an ongoing war. Vizsla was almost someone she could beat if given the time and mind set. The real problem was no so simple.

When the door war breached things became fuzzy in her mind. People screamed from Ursa’s blast before more rushed in to clear the rooms. Quickly they were located with those rifles shoved into their faces. Solus knew she had started crying again. The invaders called them failures and cowards. Taunted them for hiding. One made a move to kill them before the leader said no. Duke Kryze wanted their deaths to happen a certain way and certainly not disintegrated. Slugthrowers were to be used for them. The execution of Krownest legacies would be a statement. Unlike the mighty Kryze, they were going to die outside, on their knees, and treasonous blood running into their precious snow. They were forced to their feet, weapons take, and then marched toward their deaths.

When her breathing was firmly under control again allowing her to move toward the next task: freeing the sink. Each joint in her fingers throbbed from tension. It took individual orders to will the appendage to rise up. Absentmindedly, Solus wondered if this was the time she finally left indentations. Shamefully, she thought having to hold herself upright was becoming common place. Not including her notoriously strong grip. Several times Mav had joked, Force User or not, she had the strength to hold back Death itself. Back then Solus had laughed at the thought. Now, she could only pray to be so strong.

On the way out Solus held Ursa’s hand. All around them lay partial bodies and dust that used to be bodies. Almost everyone is dead; Vetra, Wren, or ally. It stabbed at her heart. The Force let her feel Ursa’s ache and the invaders confused feelings at their jobs. But, Ursa’s heartache was caused by more than their peoples deaths. There is failure and sadness mixed up in it. She promised to hold down the base and failed miserably. Her buir trusted her. There was even some acceptance of her incoming death. They will die as examples to their people. It makes her squeeze Ursa’s hand tighter and silently promise to help them.

These particular nightmares had started two days ago with vengeance. Senator Amidala returned from Sundari with grave news prompting the Republic to act. Herself, and fellow Padawan Ahsoka Tano, were being sent undercover within the city to locate the problem. Bitterly, she wondered how they could call anything they did there undercover work. Everyone in, what the Duchess called Mandalore, looked exactly the same now; fair, human, and blonde. A Togruta and a half-Sephi would stand out on first or second glance. It was disgusting. Before they had only looked sort of the same in beskar’gam.

With each step forward, Solus focused harder on the feeling to protect Ursa. When she used the Force before it was because she wanted it to happen. Everything in that moment had pointed toward “Do”. Now, she wanted those men with their blasters to leave them alone. Sinking into the feeling she tried to shove everything outward as hard as she could. Her vision went dark at the edges, white noise roared in her ears, and everything exploded.

Solus pulled her sweat damp tunic off then paused hand halfway to the faucet. In the very moment, she struggled to recognize herself. Dark circles beneath bloodshot eyes were common. Everyone sported the same eyes since the start of the Clone Wars. But, her eyes looked off. Something not entirely fear or unease dimmed them. Any business with Kryze felt off in a frustratingly unreadable way. Maybe it was frustration? She knew she lacked the passion for it to be true hate. There was was anger but Solus knew her own anger. It ran cold and gleamed.

Blinking herself awake much later she lazily looked at their surrounds before settling down. It was what served as the medbay on one of their smaller transport ship. They were even seated on the gurney..at least, Ursa was seated with her back to the wall. Solus was curled up mostly in her lap and being held in a death grip to her armored chest with both arms. To the right, she could make out Ursa’s familiar black and gold helmet rest next to her. Upward was a different story. Tears were dried on the Wren’s cheeks while her eyes still were red and raw. Wiggling around she felt the blaster laying to their left.

A realization slammed into Solus with such intensity she gasp. “Kryze is her father,” she murmured while staring into her mirror double’s wide, trouble eyes. “She’s just as short-sighted and extremist in her executions of goals. Hell, there were probably actual executions on her rise to power. No wonder she unnerves me.” Laughter bubbled up from her chest edged with a fevered mania. “And here I am heading in to solve her problems as an agent of the Jedi Order because she’s faltering to the Republic’s offers.”

“You okay, Ursa?”

For several minutes Solus stood quiet. Her chest hurt. “Maybe I should just join Death Watch.” She saw Wren colors and sigils among the warriors on Concordia. Ursa bowed to Vizsla and she never made any decision lightly. If she gave there was a reason. “Stars know, I’m already too lost for Manda to find.”

“Just thinking about our future, ad’ika. Times are changing.”

“But, I can’t. I called myself the Chieftain of Clan Vetra. I can’t risk any honor I have left.”

#caff the writer #caff wrote fanfics #cw: panic attack #cw: anxiety #solus vetra #c: more than you bargained for #Mama Bear

1 note · View note

inyri · 7 years ago

Text

Equivalent Exchange (a SWTOR story): Chapter Twenty-One- Immortals

Equivalent Exchange by inyri

Fandom: Star Wars: The Old Republic Characters: Female Imperial Agent (Cipher Nine)/Theron Shan Rating: E (this chapter: M) Summary: If one wishes to gain something, one must offer something of equal value. In spycraft, it’s easy. Applying it to a relationship is another matter entirely. F!Agent/Theron Shan. (Spoilers for Shadow of Revan and Knights of the Fallen Empire.)

Comments are always appreciated! If you prefer, you can also visit:

Archive of Our Own

Fanfiction Dot Net

Immortals

16 ATC. Yavin IV.

Back at camp, Nine stops by her tent first.

She desperately wants a shower. She’s got enough of an excuse for one after a day’s work in the field, tired and sore and dirty from prowling through the ruins, but more to the point she needs to refocus and cool down before the evening’s meeting. Stripping out of her armor, robe wrapped around her body and feet slipped into bathing shoes- barefoot won’t work here, not with the rough stone underfoot, and she’d normally just wrap up in a towel but given the number of soldiers between her tent and the showers that seems an exceptionally bad plan unless one likes wolf-whistles- she pads across the Imperial half of the encampment toward her destination.

They’re only field showers, of course: sun-heated water rationed out in minute-long portions, the interface flatly refusing any attempts at overrides and beeping rudely when she tries to adjust the timer up to a more reasonable three minutes.

Oh, well.

She hangs her towel from the hook in the narrow cubicle and strips down before hitting the panel and letting the water, barely lukewarm despite the solar tank, run over her skin. In the cubicle beside hers someone’s singing an old military cadence, off-key and in a bass voice loud enough to set the thin wall vibrating; after two verses, the song cuts off with a grumble and a muttered curse.

(For a moment she remembers the Academy, remembers her school days.

Privacy was a privilege to be earned there, open dormitories with their beds in long uncurtained rows until their fourth year and communal showers divided by gender until lower sixth. It was meant to break them of bad habits when they were still young enough to take the breaking without question, strip down their individuality to make them malleable- little boy-and-girl-shaped dolls to be fit into molds to make diplomats and ambassadors and Minders and Fixers as the needs of the Empire required. It worked, most of the time.

When it didn’t, one of two things could happen. Sometimes the pressure made one fragile, brittle, prone to shatter with too much force applied; those were the empty beds, the cadets there one day and gone the next. They’d all shake their heads at those, when they were old enough to understand what went home really meant, that it meant failure- weak, they’d say, pathetic.

Children could be very cruel. That, too, was molded into them.

The other thing that could happen was subtler. Sometimes one template never quite suited, never quite fit, a sly, slippery sort of resistance that made the instructors shake their heads even as they smiled behind their hands. Only one thing to do with a cadet like that-

The ones like that, the ones like her- they went to the field.)

The water cuts off with a harsh chime and she sighs, grabs her towel to blot the water from her skin. Good enough.

Back in her tent, hair piled in a damp coil atop her head and changed into training clothes, simple black drawstring trousers and a short-sleeved shirt- she's past caring about proper dress for the meetings; none of the rest of them are stuck outdoors all day in leather and kinetic plating- she lays her armor out to air on her cot with a few sprays of cleanser for good measure.

Vector’d have seen to her gear, normally, one of so many tasks he’d taken on without complaint. Despite her protests, though, he’d been commandeered for logistics nearly as soon as they’d touched down and she’s barely seen him since. The rest of her crew stayed shipboard; Kaliyo, still wary of prolonged contact with the Empire after the last time they’d tried to arrest her, chose to remain behind; Lokin was still rebuilding the infirmary; SCORPIO would have raised far too many questions and Raina- well. If either the Jedi or the Sith got scent of her-

Best to stay away. It left her short-handed, though.

Where is everyone? She thought she’d have been summoned to conference by now, but the others seem to be occupied elsewhere: Theron and Satele are nowhere to be found and Darth Marr’s clearly in his tent given the guards posted outside; when she approaches, Lana’s alone at the War Table, two datapads in front of her and maps and diagrams from three different projectors hovering in the air around her head.

Lana waves distractedly, still focused on one of the maps. “Hello, Cipher. I'll take your report when it's ready. I've got the map all ready to integrate the new data.”

“In a little while, hm? I thought I'd work on it while I eat.”

“Best do it now. Something's got both Darth Marr and Grand Master Shan in a temper today- I feel it in the air, too, but if they know what it is they haven't seen fit to share.” Her hand skates along the holos, pulling tiny renderings of soldiers from one screen to another. “Theron ran in late for some meeting she’d scheduled and I thought she'd drag him off by his ear. I'd be careful if I was you.”

“Slavedrivers, all of you,” she grumbles, suppressing a smile. Not that Satele could ever find out why he’d been late, of course, but oh, to be a fly on that wall if she did- the look on her smug Jedi face would be delicious. “If I didn't know better, I’d think you were ordering me around, Lord Beniko.”

She, predictably, wrinkles her forehead. “Of course I'm not. It's only that-”

“I know. You Force-users run things, after all. The rest of us are just your little soldiers.” She reaches up, moving one of the groupings along the projected map to the center of the Imperial Guard facility. “We’ll need those there, to begin with, but I'll get the data processing. After I get some food.”

“I don’t run-“ Lana says, then sighs. After a moment she pushes away from the table, letting the projections fade. “Oh, hang this. I’m starving. Come on.”

(And in that moment I realized the Lana I knew had been replaced with some kind of clone. Quite a good likeness, but the work ethic- she waves a hand, mouth tilting wryly- totally unrealistic.

I can relax, Lana grumbles. Sometimes.)

***

They sit and watch the soldiers spar as they eat.

After the first awkward day the mood in camp’s a little lighter, a mixed group of scouts and infantry from both sides swapping fighting techniques in the ring beside the common area. Datapad on the table beside her as the day’s analysis compiles, she drains the last of her caf, eyeing one of their scouts critically as a Republic soldier gets him in a chokehold.

“He’ll never get him off balance that way. That ‘pub’s built like a wampa.” Setting her cup down, she mutters at Lana. “If that’s how they train, no wonder we’ve lost a squad already.”

Lana, mouth full, tilts her head in agreement as the scout tries another angle and ends up face-down on the cobblestones. Oh, honestly. She stands, striding to the middle of the ring.

“Look,” she says- the scout rolls onto his back, staring up at her. He’s just a pup, really, no more than twenty by her assessment and probably younger- “you’re doing that all wrong.”

“Don’t think he asked you, lady.” Stars, the man’s enormous. If he was half again his opponent’s weight he must be double hers. “Unless you think you can do better?”

Lana starts to stand up, opens her mouth to intervene; she waves her off, then holds up one finger to silence him. “In a minute. Here-” she turns back to the boy, giving him a hand up- “what were you trying to do, exactly?”

“D’you know the combat manual?” He’s got gravel pebbling his forehead and scuff marks on his trousers. “Maneuver sixteen, but I can’t make it work.”

“That was your first mistake. Starting from a throttle, that’ll never work on someone his size. Try… hm. Twenty into seven into thirty-two.”

“How does that-” his forehead scrunches. He’s trying to picture it, clearly, his hands moving little circles as he works his way through the different forms. “Sorry. I can’t-”

She turns back to the ‘pub, who’s got his arms folded across his chest- and no armor. Perfect. “I’ll demonstrate. Shall we begin?”

He grins and lunges for her neck.

Overconfident. Typical.

She darts her left arm outside his right, brings her cupped left hand down sharply at the crease of his elbow as two fingers of her right hit the hollow of his throat and dig in hard; his arm bends and he chokes as she pivots her weight into him. When his knees hit the ground she pulls back from his throat, slides her left hand grip down to his wrist and rotates, snaps it back against her thighs- a little more force and she’d have put his elbow out of joint, but this is meant to be a friendly spar; still, he flinches. She lets her own knees bend, driving her weight between his shoulder blades until he falls forward, pinned by her momentum and wrist still caught in her grasp, arm twisted behind his back-

“And then,” she exhales, looking up to the scout, “with a little leverage-”

She’s barely torqued his shoulder before he’s tapping out.

“Or if you’ve got a knife-” she doesn’t draw hers, leaving it tucked into her boot, but pushes a fingertip into the base of his skull, his back at the heartline and at the level of each kidney- “here, here or here. All good options.”

“What if he’s in armor, though?” Another scout, a stocky woman in Republic fatigues, calls out across the ring. Her demonstration took ten seconds, maybe, probably less, but in that time they’ve attracted quite an audience. Letting her opponent go, she settles cross-legged onto the ground beside him; he rolls over, rubbing his arm.

“Then you screwed up. If you got close enough to an opponent in full armor to let him get his hands on you,” she says, “you’re probably going to get your ass handed to you and you probably deserve it.”

Beside her, the soldier snorts in agreement, then coughs. She might have hit his throat a little hard.

“Yeah, okay-” another voice, behind her- “but what if-”

When the light starts to fade half an hour later she’s sweating, covered in dust from the cobblestones, and she’s put most of the gathered ring through their paces in some form or another.

Dodging one last attempt at a grapple with a forward somersault, she turns around-

The Grand Master’s standing at the edge of the ring with Theron at her shoulder, arms folded across her chest, looking entirely unamused. “Cipher, I really shouldn’t have to ask you not to injure our infantry.”

“No one’s injuring anything.” She wipes her face. “Just training. They’re playing too close to the book, your people and mine both. If they can’t improvise in the field, they’re all going to-”

Probably better not to say that out loud.

“She does have a point,” Theron chimes in as Satele shoots him a look out of the corner of her eye. “I thought you wanted us cooperating. Joint training isn’t a bad idea.”

“What you do with your leisure time is up to you. For tonight, however, I need you both at the war table in fifteen minutes. Promptly.” That last comment directed at Theron, Satele turns toward Lana. “Lord Beniko, you as well, please.”

As she heads off across the courtyard, the three of them roll their eyes in synchrony.

“Promptly.” Theron snorts. “Subtle as a lightsaber to the face. I should go take a nap just to spite her.”

She laughs; her datapad, still on the table, chirps as the compiler finishes and she walks across to pick it up. “Hear, hear.”

Lana slides off the bench. “I’d better go finish that map. Send me that file, won’t you?”

“On its way.”

With a nod, she stacks their empty plates, dumping them back into one of the collecting bins. “See you both shortly.”

Theron tracks her as she walks away. “Lana’s still avoiding me, isn’t she?”

“Not really. I pulled her away from work when I came back. That’s got nothing to do with you.”

“I guess,” he says. “I just keep catching her looking at me. After Rishi, it’s a little disconcerting.”

“She is sorry, you know.” Her sparring partner’s still standing near the edge of the ring, waiting; she waves the woman off with a nod. “You know she is.”

“Maybe. Anyway, that looked like fun.” Perching on the table, Theron shifts his gaze toward the still-training soldiers. “I may ask you to put me through my paces soon, if that’s okay with you. With all this down time I’m definitely getting rusty.”

“Whenever you like, once you get the all-clear. I don’t want your-” she catches herself on the words- “Grand Master Satele to shock me to death if I break one of your fingernails.”

“Jedi don’t use Force lightning, as a rule. And that assumes you can beat me, so-”

She grins. “I assume nothing. I’ll stomp you flat any day of the week.”

“I’d say you could try, but I just watched you spar for the last ten minutes. Honestly, yeah, you’ll probably kick my ass.” He returns her grin. “Do I need to read that file, too?”

“No, it’s just scouting data from today’s run. I’m sure we’ll go over it shortly. In exhaustive detail.”

“I hope not. But I’d better take notes, then. I might be talking you through tomorrow if I still can’t get field clearance.” Theron makes a face, reaching into his pocket. “I- shit. I left my datapad on my desk.”

As he pushes back up off the table, she nods. “I’ll meet you over there, then.”

“Walk with me? I just need to grab it.”

They make their way through the rows of tents, lamps within casting shadows on the canvas walls, until they reach the western edge of camp and the Republic command quarters and Theron’s tent, wedged between Satele’s to its right and the brigadier’s on its left. He starts inside, gesturing for her to follow- he wasn’t lying about the space, barely enough for the two of them standing, a cot with a duffel bag tucked underneath, a tiny desk and matching chair.

(He’s always tidy, everything neatly stacked or folded away, a tendency she recognizes in herself-

They were used to running, both of them, in those days: only the essentials kept near to hand in the field, ready to shove into a bag in ten seconds or less, ready to bolt at the slightest sign of trouble. An old habit, born of necessity.

They’ve gotten a little messier, now.)

“How did your meeting go, by the way? I heard she wasn’t happy when you made it back.”

“How do you think it went?” Plugged into a charging cable, Theron’s datapad’s on the corner of the desk; he picks it up and slips it into an inside pocket of his jacket and then turns, wraps his arms around her waist and pulls her close, face to face. “I’m standing there talking about troop deployments and getting lectured on punctuality, and all I can think about is your-”

(She clears her throat, hides a smile behind her hand. Never mind. We were still on time to that meeting, if you’ll recall.

Yes, with a minute to spare. You weren’t seriously- Lana sighs. I do not want to know. I really don’t.)

***

(“-and all I can think about is your fucking mouth,” he says, the last words muffled in the press of his lips against her forehead. “You did that on purpose, I swear.”

“And what if I did?” She slips her arms around his neck, voice pure innocence and lashes fluttering. He’s even better sport than she’d hoped for, now that he’s decided to play after all. “I thought it was better than the alternative. But if it’s too much of a distraction, I won’t do it again.”

“Not what I meant, and you know it. How much time do we have?”

Not enough. Never enough to- stars, she needs to be smarter than this. The lamp’s flickering; the power from the generators gets spotty after nightfall, especially when they’re drawing off it to run the War Table equipment. All it would take was the wrong person outside, a glimpse of silhouettes, a little too much noise-

No risk, no reward.

“Let me-” she reaches up, switches off the light (yes, that's better) and checks the time. “Minus five for walking time, that leaves us… hm. Three minutes.”

“And I still owe you.”

“Mm-hm-” he pulls at her drawstring, fingers sliding down against her skin- it’s such a cliché but ah, clever boy, his hands- “you do.”

Her knees buckle; she reaches back for the edge of the desk, something to brace against.

“Then I may need to pay my debt,” Theron says against her mouth, words against the silent ohs she’s choking back, “in installments.”)

***

He did have a point: concentrating on the maps was rather difficult after that.

Thankfully, she’s used to working around distractions.

***

By the time they drag the Commandant from the shuttle pad down the pathway to the War Table she’s in a foul temper.

She’s known she was in over her head the whole time they’ve been here. This entire mess, Revan and the Emperor... her training never covered anything like this. She can’t negotiate with these people. They’re completely insane, all of them, ranting about the Emperor, how he must feed, must feed- Force knows what the ghost of a Sith eats, but she’s pretty sure she doesn’t want to find out.

(Spirit, he says, a correction that snaps her head backward, sharp as a slap. Spirit, not ghost. I am beyond death.

Lana reaches for her arm.)

“You’re not one of them,” Iven said, “you’re meaningless.”

He doesn’t even have to quantify it. She knows exactly what he means. In the annals of history, she won’t even be a footnote in this mission. Normally that wouldn’t bother her; Cipher work means passing unnoticed, after all, a quiet hand, a shot in the darkness. There’s no fame to be had for work done well, only infamy in failure.

But meaningless? It strikes a nerve.

The man’s still raving when she shoves him to the ground at Marr’s feet, even when one of her strike team hits him with the butt of his rifle. Her own shoulder’s throbbing, a lucky blow from one of the other Guards- dead now, burning in the center of the complex courtyard- and she rubs it as they close ranks around their captive.

“We won’t get anything out of him that way.” Satele gestures toward the Commandant, at the trickle of blood now dripping from the corner of his mouth. “Let me speak with him personally. Given his mental state, I think some delicacy is required.”

Marr shakes his head, a hint of irritation in his voice. “That will take time we do not have, and we must breach the temple before Revan. He will speak, whether he wishes to or not. With Lord Beniko’s talents-”

Lana looks as though she’d like to sink into the ground. “With respect, my Lord, I can’t force him. I can only tell you what I see, not pry it out. If you mean to question him, may I suggest you’d be far better served by Cipher Nine.”

She wrinkles her nose- Theron sees it before she can compose herself, the angle of his head a question she’d rather not answer. She has experience enough in the finer points of interrogation, true, but since Hunter she’s got no taste for it and Satele’s right, anyway. Hurting him won’t give them what they need. One can't break what's already broken.

“If you torture him, you’ll only kill him without learning any more than what we already know. He needs to be tricked into confidence, not beaten.” She looks down to the man, still rocking back and forth on his knees. “But I agree with the Grand Master, I must admit. It’ll be subtle work, but manageable, I think.”

Marr sighs, and if tone could kill she’d be dead at his feet. “I can always look to you,” he says, “for a particularly skewed perspective. What a pity we can’t simply command him with a word.”

Damn him. Damn him to the Void and back.

She doesn’t answer, bites down hard on the inside of her cheek to keep herself from snapping back, to keep her muscles from shaking in helpless rage. How dare he-

“Have him moved to my quarters.” Satele turns to the guards, who move back to flank the Commandant again, one on each side, hands beneath his arms to drag him away. “We’ll begin immediately. Lord Beniko, with me, please. The rest of you are dismissed.”

Meaningless.

She turns on her heel and stalks away down the path.

By the time she’s back through the archway she’s no longer bothering to hide her fury and it must show, given the way people dart out of her way as she storms through camp toward the taskboard and the speeder bikes. She needs to get out of here. There must be something on the board, some excuse-

Massassi sighted near Watchpost Dorn. Perfect.

She moves her marker to the assignment, picks a fast speeder, and goes.

***

It was only one Massassi. Disappointing.

It never saw her coming; with poison and a few quick knifestrikes she drops the creature to its knees before she ever breaks stealth. It gets a few swipes in, none of them coming anywhere close as she dances in and out of arm’s reach and it roars, raging.

“I know exactly how you feel,” she mutters, driving her blade in deep, and it flails one last time and goes still.

Sitting down on a fallen tree beside the watchpost, she cleans her weapons and takes a few deep breaths, tries to settle her nerves.

Nope. Still pissed.

Her comm rings. She doesn’t even bother to see who’s calling, simply ignoring it; it rings again, this time on a private frequency, one they used on Rishi. Lana can’t possibly be done with the interrogation yet and Jakarro barely uses comms, which only leaves-

She answers. “What?”

“Where the hell are you?” Theron’s hard to hear, speaking just above a whisper. “You know as soon as they’re done with that lunatic they’ll want us back.”

“For what? All I’m good for is wetwork, clearly. I could have had him talking half an hour ago. You probably could have, too, and instead it’s a fucking Force-user party.”

“I know, but-” he pauses. “You okay? You sound out of breath.”

She sheathes her knife, rolling her shoulder back and forth- barely sore, now. Good. “Oh, I’m fine. My Massassi friend’s somewhat less so.”

“Your- wait, you left? ” His voice rising, Theron sighs. “Seriously. Where are you?”

“Check the board- I’m out by Dorn. I needed space.”

“Meet me at Esk again. We should talk,” he says as she starts to object- she’s really not in the mood, literally or euphemistically. “Actually talk, I mean. I’ve got a feeling you need it, the way you looked when you walked off.”

She chuckles. “Very perceptive of you."

“It’ll help, won’t it?”

“I doubt it.”

She can hear the eyeroll in his voice. “I insist.”

“Force, you’re a damned nag. Fine. You’ll need an excuse to get out of camp, though.”

“Oddly enough-” a beep over the channel, then a second; she shakes her head, trying not to laugh- “the power just went down again. I’d better go check it out. See you soon.”

She beats him there this time. Inside the cave it’s cool and quiet and peaceful; she cycles the generator back on and sits, back against the wall, beginning a memory exercise meant to calm her fraying nerves. By the time she hears him outside she’s nearly calm.

Nearly.

“So.” Theron steps out of the sunlight, blinking, looking down at her. “What the fuck was that about?”

She folds her arms across her chest, suddenly back on the defensive. “I thought we were talking. If I want someone to lecture me, I’ll take my chances with Marr again.”

“You know what I mean. I was pretty sure nothing could faze you, but you were about two seconds away from going for Marr’s throat.” He sits down beside her. “What’s wrong?”

“Thought I’d hidden it better than that.”

“You hide a lot of things,” he says, “and yes, you’re very good at it. I just know what it’s like. Also, honestly, I’ve spent way more time in the last month watching you than I care to admit, so-” he shrugs. “That was a deep cut, whatever it was.”

(Does it still bother you that much?

She makes a noise, mixed agreement and equivocation. I still dream about Hunter. I suspect I always will, even with all the desensitization training I’ve been working on, but back then I was just pretending it didn’t bother me so it was a lot worse. About a month before you and I met, before that first raid on Tython, I was trying to turn a Republic senator. She liked poetry, she murmurs, so I met her at a reading. We were discussing literary techniques.

Lana nods. I think I see where this is going.

She was particularly fond of the poet’s use of- she swallows, forces the word out, syllable by syllable- onomatopoeia. The third time she mentioned it, she says, I threw up in an ornamental rosebush. Blamed it on too much wine.)

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You were right about how to handle Iven, whether he likes it or not, and to come back at you with whatever that was… It isn’t right. Why didn’t Lana say something?” He frowns.

“She has no more idea what he’s talking about than you do, and she’s not going to speak against Marr any more than you’d speak against your mother.” Wrapping her arms tighter, she shakes her head. “It’s an old wound. Let it be.”

He’s quiet beside her, thinking; she knows by the way he’s focused on the ground in front of him. She’s spent too much time watching him, herself. “You were tortured,” he says a moment later. “Weren’t you?”

She nods.

“By the Empire?”

“No.” Mostly true. A one-word answer to an ugly question. “Please, Theron. Don’t ask me any more.”

He takes a deep breath. “I- look, hear me out. When this is over, you could defect, you know. We could protect you.”

She turns to stare at him. He didn’t know, of course, couldn’t possibly have known, but she hears Ardun Kothe echoing in her head and for a second she’s back on Quesh, facing the same offer, the chance to make a lie real-

“No,” she says flatly. “Absolutely not. Never.”

“Why? You call yourself independent, but you’re still stuck under the Dark Council’s thumb. You deserve better than that.”

He really believes that. She can see it in his face.

But Ardun believed she’d really defected, too, at first, and it didn’t stop him from using her.

“You’re so sure of what I deserve? You have no idea. Absolutely none.” Looking away, across the cave, she focuses on a thin crack on the far ceiling. “I could say the same of you. ‘My agent.’ Do you really think you’re any more free than I am?”

A bow drawn at a venture, but it hits its mark. Beside her, Theron flinches, muscles tensing, then lets his held-in breath go in a slow, sad sigh as his head falls back against the wall with a soft little thump. “No. But the Empire-”

“We don’t all want to watch the galaxy burn, you know.” She ought to apologize but he doesn’t quite deserve it; he shouldn’t have asked that of her. She doesn’t need rescuing, doesn’t need to be saved. “Some of us realize we’ve still got to live in it.”

“You should tell your bosses that sometime, then.”

She closes her eyes. “Go to hell.”

“I would.” He’s so quiet it’s hard to make the words out. “But aren’t we already there?”

It might have been funny, some other time, if it weren’t mostly true. Letting her arms fall to her sides, fingertips raking furrows in the dirt as her hands clench into fists, she doesn’t reply. After a minute he shifts, just slightly, resting his right hand on her left; when she relaxes he threads his fingers through hers.

She doesn’t move. She should, but-

“I’m sorry,” he says. “So much for letting you vent- shit, you probably think I planned that.”

“Didn’t you?”

“Not even a little bit. I just- I’ve seen what you can do, and I thought if-” he sighs again, squeezes her hand. “Forget I said anything. Please."

“I understand.” She does. She’d have done the same, under different circumstances. “But you promised, Theron. No sides. No games. Not with me.”

(He was never going to be any good at that, was he?

She should have known better.)

“I know. But-”

Their commpads chime, Lana’s frequency; she glances down as the message scrolls, holding up her wrist so he can see it, too.

Nearly finished. Lots to discuss. Table in 30- LB.

The light from the screen dies and they glance at each other before Theron starts to stand. “We should get moving. I’ve screwed this up enough without getting us into more trouble.”

“In a minute.” She doesn’t follow, stays seated, a weight on his arm pulling him back down until he stops, not sure whether to hold on or let go. ”Will you sit with me,” she says, looking up, “just a little longer?”

He nods, settling back to the floor beside her, and she rests her head wordlessly on his shoulder.

***

Up next: Risk/Reward. Two Revans, one fight, one promotion and too much alcohol.

#inyri writes #equivalent exchange #swtor fanfiction #theron shan #imperial agent #cipher nine #cipher nine/theron shan

19 notes · View notes

pandabunss · 7 years ago

Text

~ Endless Nightmare ~

~ Shattered ~ (I recommend reading this before “Endless Nightmare”. )

It was late at night and Zelly found herself struggling to sleep soundly, though it was nothing new. Every night it was the same routine. She laid her head against the pillow as she pulled the covers over her, and for a long time, she just closed her eyes and drifted off into thought. Her mind loved playing tricks on her, teasing her with memories of the past that left her anxious and on edge. This night in particular was one of the worst, her mind taking advantage of her as she finally fell into a deep slumber.

The air was frigid as occasional echoes of the wind whizzed past where she lay in the snow of the forest she found herself in. The trees hunched over and lacked any sign of life, representing nothing but a sad tale of how they came to wither away with time. Her arms were sprawled out on either side and she could feel the cold getting to her hands and the very tips of her fingers, her body twitching from the severity of the freezing cold that nipped at her skin. She knew where she was, the exact spot, the very moment she was reliving. It felt as though a hot iron was twisting and turning within her right thigh, a scream of agony being released as she brings her arms in to prop herself on her elbows and glance down at the source of the pain. It was then that she saw it, the dagger with the familiar handle plunged deep into her leg.

Tears brimming against her eyes she reaches a hand forward to grab at the handle of the blade and yank it free of her leg, holding onto it with a firm grip as it was finally free from her thigh. Her whole body was aching, throbbing, sore, and now she felt a constant stinging in her leg. Worst of all she was empty. A hollow being with no purpose or drive and she lacked motivation, her world crumbling down on her. Zan’thiel was gone. He had just left her there to die and she couldn’t even chase after him. She was heartbroken, lost, and betrayed. She couldn’t focus, her breathing slowing as she began to lose consciousness.

“Just die…” She’d hear a familiar voice whisper.

With a jolt upright in her bed Zelly gasped, beads of sweat trailing down her head to her neck and even down to the small of her back. Both hands lifting to wrap about either side of her head she just sits there, bringing her legs in close so that her knees were against her chest. It was the same thing every night, her waking up from a nightmare to a somber atmosphere as she struggled to forget her past. “Just go away..” She mutters to herself, sniffling a bit as the tips of her fingers went white from having been pressed against her head so hard.

His face. All she could see was his beautiful face. Zan’thiel was her first love, the one who taught her what it was to be selfless for someone else, to give your all and to cherish every moment breathing the same air as the other. He was the one that guided her, that led her to be an addict and supplied her with the Crystal so that she’d have a neverending supply. He was her drug and getting over him was worse than recovering from being the junkie that she was when with him. She had so much hate and anger built up because of him, yet she found herself reliving a certain memory.

The night was young as Zelly and Zan’thiel resided in his bedroom, her delicate frame lingering about his as she sat against his waist, her legs caught up in the soft linen sheets of the bed they’d been resting against as she grinned down at him.

“I’m so very lucky.” She chimes in that raspy tone of hers as a curious gaze roams about to shamelessly eye him over, biting down on her bottom lip as she grinds against his waist slowly to tease him.

“I think that is for me to say.” He growls in response to her as his hands get a firm grip against her waist to pull her in closer against him, his lips immediately finding her own as he parts them to slither his tongue out and swirl it about hers with urgency.

Without resistance Zelly gives in, her chest pressed to his as he brought her in closer. Eagerly she parts her lips for him as well, her arms offering support as they rest against either side of his head against the bed. It was moments like this that she savored, the feeling of his body beneath her and his lips against her own, a gasp for air given as she finally lifts herself from the embrace hesitantly.

“You know my weakness. That’s not fair.” She says, lifting her arm to tug a few strands of platinum locks behind her ear to get them out of her face as she peered down at him.

“Who says that you are not mine?” He responds, raising his own hand to tug a few more strands of hair behind her ear for her with a devilish grin, inclining his head to give her another quick kiss before falling back onto the plush mattress. Reaching his hand out towards the nightstand on his right, her retrieves a joint, placing it between his lips before grabbing at the pack of matches. He plucks one from the line of many and strikes it against the necessary place along the packaging, taking the small flicker of a flame and lighting the end of the cigarette with it. Once done he waves the match side to side to put it out before tossing it to the floor by the bed carelessly. After taking a long drag from the cigarette he lets it rest against his lips, both of his hands moving to slide down the length of Zelly’s hips until they lingered about her ass, playfully grabbing it with a quick squeeze.

“If you say I am your weakness as well then okay.” She says, not wanting to argue him on the matter, though she realized in that moment just how smitten she really was with him. She saw nothing but a future with this man, a future that she wanted to play out so badly that it became her only goal in life. Chuckling as his hands claimed her, she leans in to give him another kiss, only this time biting down on his bottom lip and giving it a playful tug. “Do not forget who you belong to.” She mutters, though eventually she couldn’t help but chuckle.

Zelly sighs, shaking her head in attempt to get rid of the memory that was replaying in her head. She missed it, she missed him so much even after what he did to her that she couldn’t help but think back on the times that were good, the times that made fighting for what they had seem worth it. Bullshit, that’s all it was. It’s all anything they ever did together was. He used her, abused her, and worst of all took advantage of her love for him. He didn’t care about her, no, he set her up for failure. He was her first love, someone she was willing to die for, and yet he was the one that had left her to become nonexistent without a second thought.

Angry, Zelly gets up from the bed and walks over towards the bathroom, her delicate fingers quickly reaching for the faucet so that it could produce running water to splash onto her face. She presses her hands against either side of the sink, her breathing unsteady as she began to gasp for air. The room was spinning, her body tensed, and instead of seeing darkness when she shut her eyes she instead saw him.

“No… No..” She begins, shaking her head as tears began to stream down her face. “I hate you. I fucking hate you!” She screams practically at the top of her lungs as her body now shook. “You left me… I loved you…I almost died because of you…” She says through clenched teeth, sobbing uncontrollably as she let go of sink and balled up her fists. She turns to face the wall, her fists immediately making contact with it as she began to punch furiously, her knuckles bloody, though she couldn’t stop. She wouldn’t because in her mind all she saw were the toxic recollections he left her with. “Fucker!” She screams over and over as she lowers her hands, too weak to continue in letting her frustrations out with more violent endeavors.

For a few moments she sat there on the floor, leaning against the wall lazily as her arms went limp against her sides. She was tired, especially with how redundant this cycle was becoming. After a long while she finally gets up and makes her way back to her room, walking over to her dresser. She retrieves a case, plucking a cigarette free from it before reaching for a pack of matches, setting one free from the rest to strike it and spark a small flame. She lights her joint, tossing the unlit match after having waved it around back onto the dresser before making her way over to plop down onto her bed. She crawls onto the mess of sheets and pillows and sits in the middle, bringing her legs in close as she drapes one arm around them, the other holding the cigarette between her index and middle finger as she takes a lengthy drag from it.

Silence was her best friend as she remained in that position, her thoughts distracting her as tears continued to stream down her face. She didn’t think to tend to her hands or the knuckles she’d busted from her episode, not at all. In fact that was the last thing on her mind. Zan’thiel had a lot to do with why she questioned her mental health at times, though he wasn’t the only one. It seemed every person she’d given herself to had left her eventually, no matter how hard she tried they never stayed. It’s what caused her to lose hope, to give up on even trying. She truly believed she was better off alone with the monster that her past created, the one that weighed her down and consumed her thoughts forbidding her to forget everything. What was most terrible of it all was the fact he might still be alive. She had so many questions as to what would happen if she found him, or if he found her, and how she would kill him if she was lucky enough to see him again.

Eventually her body couldn’t handle the stress of allowing her to stay awake, thanks to the help of the mix of herbs from her joint, the darkness lured her in until she finally rested back against her pillows to fall into yet another deep slumber.

Once morning came she struggled to get up due to lack of having a full night’s sleep, a knock at the door spurring her awake. With a yawn she pried herself away from her bed, adjusting the large shirt she’d been wearing as she makes her way over to reach for the doorknob. Opening the door she sighs, peering up at the familiar figure with a straight face.

“What do you want?” She asks, tilting her head to the side as she awaits an answer.

“Morning to you too, Zelly. You look like shit.” Gio says, cracking a grin at her, though the expression quickly fades as he peers down at her hand that was bruised and coated in dry blood at the knuckles. He doesn’t say anything, nor does he move. He just looks back to the beauty, his own fists clenching.

“I’m alright.” She says after following his gaze to her hands, feeling stupid for having forgotten about the events of the previous night. She should have cleaned up before answering the door, no matter who was on the other end, but she was too groggy to have thought ahead.

“You need to stop this.” Was all he said, the topic of conversation leaving him to clench his teeth in frustration.

“You think it’s easy, Gio? You think I -want- to go through this? You think I enjoy not being able to sleep and looking over my shoulder constantly in fear that he might still be out there?” She snaps back at him, her voice cracking from her raspy tone and having just woken up.

“No Zelly, I don’t, but you dwell in these thoughts and look at what it fucking does to you!” He yells at her, annoyed that this seemed to be a repetitive thing. He steps forward as he noticed tears sliding to her chin and dripping onto the floor as she looked down, her fingers digging into the door as the other hand hid behind the small of her back. He saw just how fragile she was, his arms wrapping about the blonde to embrace her.

“Stop Gio…” She muttered as she usually would, though unlike any other time, she doesn’t fight the gesture. Instead she allows his arms to hold her close as she stands still, her head buried against his chest as she sobbed quietly. She hated that she was acting so vulnerable around him, of all people, but she just couldn’t help it anymore. Once he let go she looked up to meet his gaze with watery eyes, taking a deep breath to gather herself. She wanted to say something, but instead of speaking she just refrained.

“Come on, Zelly. Let’s get you cleaned up.” Was all he said, knowing she had a look about her that seemed as though she wanted to say something but it was obvious she refused to. He didn’t press it or ask her to speak her mind, instead he led her to the bathroom, taking note of the blood against the wall from where she punched before grabbing a small rag from the cupboard with a sigh, wetting it before turning to carefully press it against her knuckles to clean them.

“Let’s talk about how you’re going to thank me.” He says as he winks at her, the comment and wink causing Zelly to roll her eyes before she lifts her foot to kick his thigh a bit forcefully, but not too hard as he was helping her after all.

She seemed content, and though she’d never admit it, she enjoyed the company and comfort that he had given her in that moment.

#stories #history #zelly #old writing

1 note · View note