#its different with the 'i feel my body being ripped apart atom by atom' thing

[certifiedblackmesasweetvoice]

I'm rewatching the cast commentary for Act 3 and Wayne points out that Coomer saying "I lost the ability to feel pain three years ago" contradicts a ton of other things Coomer said before that point but I appreciate the idea that Coomer didn't actually feel like he was being murdered point blank every time Tommy shoots a clone in Act 3 Part 2. Like in my mind he felt the impact of getting shot in the face but he didn't feel the pain of it.

[cupidcreates]

Hi, I hope the last day of 2020 will be a success for you. I have a request for yandere Dabi and / or Chisaki when they hear that their dear, affectionate s/o call them "love" or "happiness of my life"

Affectionate Names

With Yanderes Dabi and Overhaul

(Oh my fucking GOD beech I’m SO SORRY this took LITERAL MONTHS to post. I promise I’m never gonna let an ask sit for that long again holy crap. I really hope this was worth the wait bestie, I tried really hard to make it cute for you nonny. Hope you like it!)

Touya Todoroki - Dabi

Disgust, Anger, Hatred, Fear, Dabi’s used to these emotions playing across the faces of the people he interacts with. He knows how he appears to others, how his very visage causes visceral reactions of discomfort in others. He’s fine with that, in fact he revels in it.

If it’s not the abject loathing of a stranger than it’s the cool detachment of his allies. Dabi finds a sort of warmth, even an odd sense of comfort in their gazes. It’s distant, reserved, and to the point; Dabi never has to question what his allies want from him or what their intentions are.

The indifference many find cold is rather temperate to Dabi. 

The fair weather is what he likes. Nothing too cold, nothing too hot, nothing can be resurrected from mild memories.

Dabi was content with this treatment.

Until he met you.

It had been a long time since anything stoked the kind of fire in his chest like you did. Heat typically coincided with anger, but you didn’t make him angry.

That’s not to say he didn’t mistake it for anger at first. He definitely wanted you dead, seemingly at random, for a few days after seeing you pass by him on the street.

But after a while of reflection he realized you didn’t ignite his hate the way thoughts of his family, his father, or society did.

No, this was a completely different feeling, something brand new.

Something to be explored, immediately.

There was something about you he needed, something you had that he had to get for himself.

And Dabi’s not one to not get his way.

He set out to have you, and have you he did. It took longer than he might have liked (though, anything but immediate compliance is too long for Dabi) and you put up a better fight than he would have expected but he did eventually get you swept away from your previous life.

In his mind he won you over.

In your mind, and in reality, he stole you away from your home in the dead of night and trapped you in an undisclosed location until you eventually broke and developed Stockholm syndrome.

After all, he wasn’t mean to you. He kept you fed and watered, the basement stayed a nice mild temperature, and the rats that scuttled about were actually kind of cute when you looked at them the right way.

You were eventually happy, which is what Dabi wanted as it finally allowed him to get close to you.

He wasn’t sure what he wanted from you. He’d started by simply sitting by your side (once you had calmed down enough to let him do so without screaming) then he progressed to holding you (awkward as it was at first) and once he could trust that you wouldn’t run off he allowed you free roam of the hideout.

Free roam as in you were attached to his hip.

He brought you nearly everywhere, as if he was a child and you were his favorite stuffed bear. He wasn’t sure why he felt he needed you around, but he figured he’d find out if he gave it enough time.

And it’s not like you were trouble, you were actually very helpful, getting him out of more than a few scrapes and sticky situations.

He eventually surmised that this, whatever you two had going on, was something like the affection he missed out on in his youth. It was nice to hold your hand, nice to sit you in his lap as he listened to Shigaraki drone on about his next plan, nice to spend a night with you on the rooftops. 

The time he spent with you didn’t strike a chord in him like his first encounter with you did, but he was content.

He could only ever be content.

He didn’t need anything stronger than baseline serenity.

Or so he thought.

He thought right up until the night he was sitting alone in his room (room being a generous term for the hovel hole in the wall he kept his nearly flattened mattress in) dissociating after a very long day.

Dabi tried not to dissociate frequently, it was best to stay aware of your surroundings when you’re a wanted criminal, but when he did allow himself to fall into this state he was typically here for hours. Nearly comatose as he fled back into his mind.

You knocking softly at the door went completely unnoticed, in fact he didn’t even realize you were there until you had entered the room and sat next to him on the mattress.

Your presence took him completely by surprise and shocked him out of his stupor. It took him a moment to recover his composure and re-mask, and in those several seconds with his guard down you saw Dabi’s face more youthful and innocent than you ever had.

You’d asked him a question, he was aware of that much, but the only thing he caught, the only thing he registered was the word at the very end of your sentence.

“Are you okay, love?”

Love

Rather forcefully Dabi was taken back to his childhood; before his quirk manifested, before his siblings were born to replace him, before his own family turned on him in favor of his youngest brother. It had been so long since someone had called him love; so long since his mother would come into his room early in the morning and brush his bangs out of his face, softly calling to him to wake him up and ready him for the day.

Having already been in a vulnerable state, the name cut through him like a knife. Shaken to his core by the memories ripped fresh in his mind he was, for the first time in his life, grateful that his tear ducts had been burned away so long ago.

He gave nothing away, his face already masked up again and his demeanor its typical cool indifference. He spoke to you as he always had, the tremble in his voice only perceptible to him.

He pushed his head into your shoulder and was silent for a while, just taking in you presence, before offhandedly telling you that he didn’t mind if you called him that again. In private of course.

Love

He thought he could get used to that.

Kai Chisaki - Overhaul

Open affection was not only not necessary in Chisaki’s life but also abjectly disgusting.

Perhaps he never really had good examples of tender kindness and open endearment as a child. Maybe he simply couldn’t comprehend affection in the way others could.

In any case, physical fondness and other such displays of the sentiment were completely foreign to Chisaki.

He didn’t mind this, he had much more pressing matters to attend to. Having a partner of any sort other than business would only slow him down.

Oh but you just had to come along, didn’t you? Had to go nosing around where you didn’t belong, a foolish venture already, and then you had to be incompetent's enough to get yourself caught waist deep in his business.

It didn’t matter, you didn’t matter, whatever you knew about what he was doing didn’t mean a damn thing. All he had to do now was keep you quiet.

For good.

He had to kill you, this much he knew. He’d have no issue doing it, after all who were you anyway? A nosy little cashier at a run-down shop on the brink of bankruptcy. You had no family, if you did they certainly didn’t care about you if the state of and neighborhood your apartment was located in was anything to go by.

You were a threat to the sanctity of his mission, a potential interference to his operation. Simply put you had to go. This was fine, nothing personal. Just business.

But oh you just had to didn’t you? Had to look at him with the most pathetically pleading eyes he’s ever seen as you begged him to let you live. You already knew what he was up to, undoubtedly you understood the torture and death he willingly inflicted upon others. You knew the pleading would do you no good, surely you knew your death was inevitable.

Except that it wasn’t, was it.

Because you had to, you had to come along with a face too sweet to be atomized. Had to, somehow, worm your way into his brain and stop him from dismantling your upper body.

Was this your quirk? Were you somehow influencing him? It had to be something of your doing, the tightness in his chest and warmth in his stomach was something of your doing.

He couldn’t do it. Couldn’t bring himself to destroy something so precious, so pure even. He just couldn’t do it.

But no obstacle comes without workarounds, and he didn’t have an underground labyrinth of empty rooms to not be used.

So if killing you was out of the picture, his only recourse was to keep you hidden away. At least long enough for him to figure out a permanent solution for you.

Living toys are so much more fun to play with anyway.

He kept you holed up in a secret room, watched your every move as months passed. You were very interesting to him, in fact he found almost all of his (precious little) spare time consumed by you. He made sure to visit you daily, though your fear kept you mostly mute at the beginning.

Once you were sure he wasn’t going to obliterate you, he noticed you relaxed and even opened up a little bit. You even allowed him to touch you gently a few times and, to his surprise, he never broke out after his skin made contact with yours.

He figured you must have been sent to him, by some divine or cosmic intervention. You grew on him quickly and he made sure to pamper you in any way he could, moving you to a larger, more luxurious wing of the lair and making sure you had three meals a day of only the best quality food.

One morning he’d decided to visit you earlier than usual, walking down the long hallway towards your room and considering the topic of conversation today.

As he neared your room he overheard you speaking with the associate assigned to your meal delivery today. Pausing just outside the door he caught the tail end of your conversation.

“...so lonely until Chisaki visits. The room is lovely but he’s truly the only happiness of my rather dull life.”

Chisaki considered this for a moment. Perhaps it was a clever deception? Something for him to intentionally overhear and cause him to lower his guard?

Couldn’t be though, he’d never visited you this early, if you wanted to deceive him you’d have waited until your evening meal to speak these words.

A sudden, rather disconcerting warmth overtook Chisaki; Like a flower of light suddenly blooming in his chest he was overtaken by the urge to abandon everything and stay by your side until he withered away and his bones turned to dust.

Regaining his sanity he shook the thought from his head. He’d worked too hard for too long to let go of this now. No, he’d have to continue with his operation, the consequences of letting go now would be too great.

He was, however, sorry to hear that your life thus far had been dull. Had you said this months ago he would have scoffed, because of course the life of a cashier was dull; but now, after months of you having been here, it should have improved.

The only assumption left for him to make was that this must have been his doing. Fair enough on his part, as he couldn’t be sure trusting you was a wise idea.

But if this was how you truly felt about him, maybe he could consider letting you have greater roam of the property. He might even allow you time outside.

Only if you brought your happiness along, of course.

[self-proclaimed-chaotic-good]

Science & Faith | Carlton Drake x Reader (6/?)

Words: 1575

A/N: Many references to Into the Spiderverse with changes. Reader finally meets the AU!Carlton and the other Spider people. For those who hadn't read my previous series [Apples & Cinnamon], Reader had been in a long-term relationship with Carlton, but they broke up just before the beginning events of the movie and he suffers the same fate.

-

The Return Part Two

Doctor Cho preferred for you to have more rest at home, but you couldn’t just sit around when there were so many things to be done. When you got your phone back, you had several calls from Annie and a few from Dora. You called Annie back, who was worried when she heard about the black out in New York. You assured her that you were fine and that there were people looking into what happened. The next was Dora, who hadn’t picked up on the first two tries. On the third try, she finally picked up.

��(Y/n), thank god,” she said.

“Hey, sorry about that. I hadn’t been able to use my phone for a while. What’s up?” Never mind that you had fainted in the middle of the street and ended up in medical at Stark Tower. Well, Avengers Tower now.

“A lot and I think at this point, I might have to reach out to Stark about this.”

You frowned, looking through your iPad at the emails you had to go through. “That urgent?’

“It’s about the black out.”

“Oh. Okay, um, I’ll notify Tony as soon as I can. I’m sure he’s looking into it right now, but…”

“As soon as possible, please.”

“Sure, sure.” You slowly sat down and started picking at your sleeves. “Um, I heard you were clearing out the Life Foundation. Any plans to do anything with it afterwards?”

Dora sighed, pacing around in Carlton’s old office. “I don’t know. Only a few trusted people have access to the facility right now to clear it up and to the rest of the people that used to work here, well, I’m technically dead. They don’t know that the Symbiote bonded with me.”

The two of you stayed on the phone in silence until you spoke up again. “I didn’t know he would ever do that-”

“(Y/n), please. I didn’t know, either. He just… he became a different person. And,” she added firmly, “It is not your fault for not knowing sooner. You met him at a different point in his life and then he changed. He’s… he’s gone now and we all just need time to recover from all of that… I’ll talk to you soon, (Y/n).”

You cleared your throat and nodded subconsciously. “Yeah, I’ll get you in contact with Tony as soon as I can.”

There was a weird vibe when you entered The Avengers Tower, like everyone was watching you. Was it because you fainted the other day? You didn’t think it was a big deal, but it felt like everyone was cautious around you.

“(Y/n)!” Abigail said with a strained smile, “I thought you weren’t coming in today.”

“Who said that?” you asked, casting a curious glance around the lab. “Did something happen?”

“Well- “

“(Y/n),” a woman’s voice called. You turned and saw Pepper in a white suit standing in the doorway. “Come with me… you might want to brace yourself first.”

You swallowed. What could it possibly be?

You followed Pepper out of the labs towards the communal floor where Tony was. Your shoulders must have been tense as Pepper reached over and gave them a squeeze.

“(Y/n)... we found you back in the parking garage, but you told Doctor Cho that you had driven out to the streets. Do you have any idea of how that could have happened?” Pepper asked gently.

“No,” you said, frowning.

There was a throbbing pain in your temple as you tried to make sense of the recent events. It felt like you were missing a big piece, or if anything, that you were denying that that piece was ever relevant to the puzzle. It was as if that strange puzzle piece had been separated from another puzzle that you were unable to solve, and may never be able to.

Some of the Avengers were on a mission in another country and weren’t due to be back in two weeks. There were voices that you didn’t recognize and then you heard it. The smooth voice that used to comfort you, that whispered to you promises about the future, the one that you never thought you’d hear again. Of course, until the night of the black out.

You froze in place and Pepper made sure to stand a step in front of you as the man turned to approach you. “(Y/n)!” he breathed.

“What?”

That was all you could even think of saying as you stared in bewilderment, your mind reeling at this new development of the current situation. Pepper made sure she was standing in between you and Carlton and close enough in case something happens again.

“How is this possible?” you asked, turning to your boss.

“Okay, (Y/n/n), I think you should sit down,” Tony said, stepping towards the two of you. “I’ve asked you here because I hoped that there was something that you knew that might help. Something that you didn't know was relevant. Also, he’s an annoying ass and he wouldn’t shut up about you.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

“That he’s annoying, or that you may have information?” Tony joked, earning a glare from Carlton, but it did ease the tension in your shoulders.

“Both.”

Pepper brought up a projection showing cameras around New York during the black out, the energy surge originating from Doctor Octavius’s old lab. “As we both know Doctor Octopus had been working on a project but the level of progress of it is unknown after Ock’s accident. From what I remember, Carlton Drake had met with Octavius before this all happened.”

“And you were hoping that I would know?” You crossed your arms, walking towards the projector, hoping that you could bring up any useful memory.

“This Spider squad claims to be from different realities and were teleported around the same time when the black out happened, thus having jaded Peter Parker here and emo Drakey Drake,” Tony said, gesturing a hand at the group. “You know I never pried too much in your private life, but the guy said you were engaged, so I thought to ask.”

You shook your head with a frown. “No. I never said yes to him,” you said as you tried to avoid lingering on that very day that he proposed, “And there were many things that he hid from me. But… his head researcher, Doctor Dora Skirth, is a close friend of mines. She wanted to speak to you about this. She said she found something useful that could help. It’s likely she found something of his when she was clearing up the lab.”

“Skirth, huh?” Tony muttered, allowing you to enter her contact information before calling her.

Her camera blinked into view. “Mister Stark, I’m Doctor Dora Skirth,” she said quickly, eyes downcasted as she shuffled papers around. When she raised her head, her eyes widened seeing who was standing behind you and Tony. “So, it’s true, then. He managed to finish it.”

“What do you have for us, Skirth?”

She cleared her throat, adjusting her glasses as she focused on the information she found. “I’ve managed to find blueprints of the Collider, this super machine that William Fisk commissioned to Doctor Otto Octavius. I’ll send a copy to you right now. The goal was to manipulate the bridge between worlds and use the machine to travel in between them. To restore the realities to its rightful order, we would have to create a code to input into the collider’s system to reverse the effects. Now, we don’t know how flawless this machine is, but travelling through different universes would have to mess up with their atoms as their bodies will react to being in a foreign universe.” Dora paused to gesture to the Spider group. “If it starts happening, it’ll only grow worse from here.”

Tony pointed at the group. “Anyone experiencing headaches? Upset stomach, diarrhea? Or maybe your atoms have been periodically ripped apart?”

They all nodded. You couldn’t help but note how this Carlton carried himself differently than the Carlton you knew. He stood near the front of the group, but allowed others to talk, his eyes focused as he listened closely to them. When he felt you staring, you quickly turned back to the screen where the blueprint of the Collider was now being pulled up.

“Well, then,” he said, taking a sip of whiskey, “Let’s get rocking.”

Tony offered the Spider group a place to stay at the tower before the meeting was dismissed. You turned to leave as soon as you could, ignoring the other Carlton as you walked passed. You couldn’t help but think of all the progress you had made from the emotional stress that he had caused you, pausing to assess what you were currently feeling. It wasn’t sadness. Anger and confusion, surely, but there was something else that you weren’t so sure about. How were you going to tell your therapist about this?

Little by little, there were times where your conversations with your friends back in San Francisco would brush on the subject of Carlton. Little by little, it stopped triggering a big emotional response from you. In a way, your therapist had said, you were still in some state of mourning that was slowly fading. What could have been and what you had lost.

As long as you don’t get too involved with that Carlton Drake from the other universe, it should be fine.

[skiitter]

Ellana feels him the moment they step into the Crossroads, even if it takes her a while to admit it. She knows the taste of his magic like the touch of a lover and after two years starved, her body cries out in recognition of its missing parts. The implications of this are chaotic and far reaching and she finds it easier to throw herself into handling the Qunari threat than to face what is right in front of her.

Cole, of course, notices too. "It feels like him here. All new, faded for her."

"Feels like who?" Dorian has enough decorum to play stupid for her benefit, as if they don't all know who it is that Cole speaks of.

"Ellana knows." Cole peers at her from beneath his massive hat. "He has called you home."

Time works differently in the Crossroads. An hour spent trekking across floating islands passes as mere minutes back at the Winter Palace. It makes navigating the tense madness of potential invasion much easier logistically, but it plays hell upon her constitution. With every step through every Eluvian, the anchor twists and widens. It feels like the first time she grasped the torn fabric of the Veil and knit it back together, and the static heat pulls at her skin. It was easier, that first time, when he was there to guide her through it. Ever the teacher, and yet, in the end, he has left her in the dark.

Her worst fears are made real within the winding hallways of the Shattered Library. The scraps of thought translated to text, the pages torn from the dreams of strangers, the stolen confessions of the unwilling, it all weaves itself into an inexplicable tapestry of a deception so deep, it threatens to bury her. She stops reading them as the truth of it all settles over her like a second skin. Cole whispers of things he should not know and Bull let's her kill whatever crosses their path. Dorian fills the air with banal banter, and tries to distract her from the abyss opening in her heart.

Ethereal energy crowds at her seams, building and invading and demanding and cresting until she can take no more and detonates like a barrel of gaatlok. It throws everyone around her, friend and foe alike, into the walls of the Elven ruins and leaves her trembling on bruised knees. The anchor has ripped the essence of her in two, and the sundered Veil is powerless to keep the Fade at bay.

She is dying, just like she was meant to all those years ago. There is no delaying the inevitable; Solas taught her that. No, the universe had come to claim its due. An uneducated, wide-eyed Dalish elf who had a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. They called her Inquisitor and Herald and Holy and Good. They were wrong. She was no savior, not then, and she is no hero, not now.

She is a thief and her time in the sun is coming to a close.

Another explosion, another splash of blood, another tear of her frazzled edges. Another battle, another scream, another Eluvian.

His voice is as it always was, just as she dreamed of every night, deliberate and arrogant. It's soft cadence flows over her, a sound so familiar that she aches in remembrance. The frenzied impatience of their inevitable reunion spurs her forward, past the frozen statues of an irrelevant army. He reduces the Qunari woman to cold stone with but a look and her beaten body sings out for his magic, for his spirit, for him.

And he is there.

Fen'Harel, just as he always was, just as she dreamed of every night, powerful and proud. "Vhenan," he whispers and it is like coming home. Who is she, to have stolen the heart of a God? Nothing. No one. A nomadic elf who wore slave markings as a matter of cultural allegiance.

"Solas." She stares at him across the void he forced between them. His face is unreadable, but his eyes are kind. They were always kind, even as he was breaking her heart. Even as he is rending the known world asunder. "Fen'Harel."

His answers are ash in her lungs. She cannot listen to his excuses and reasons. The holy magic of his orb is ripping her apart and she needs him to make it stop, to clear her mind of its painful prison and give her the chance to breathe. He momentarily severs her connection with the Fade, leaving her utterly devoid of power, and her chest heaves with effort. His kind eyes cast pity upon her prone form and he tells her his story. A story she has no place in, not anymore. Her role has been acted out to its perfect end and she knows, in the way that she knew it was him the moment she set foot in the Crossroads, that he will not be swayed.

Still, she tries. Oh, she tries.

On bloodied knees, she pleads and reaches for him with the mangled remains of her left hand. The Trickster God kneels in the dirt before her and reaches back. He kisses her palm, her wrist, and every place they meet flares bright and bathes them in emerald.

"Let me come with you. I cannot bear the thought of you alone."

"Never. I will not have you see the monster I must become, Vhenan."

As he presses his lips to hers, their mouths meeting in all the ways that their lives cannot, he takes the anchor from her. She screams into him, and he holds them together, his deft and familiar fingers unweaving the very atoms of her skin. It is a bittersweet agony that she will never forget. When he pulls away there is nothing that remains of him within her.

"Will you sacrifice me for your new world? Will you build the foundations of your empire upon my bones?" Her voice breaks, betraying her anger and her indignation and her blind desperation. "Will you paint the gilded halls with my blood?"

"Never. I will not let this war take you."

"The Dread Wolf already has."

He steps out of her reach, just beyond her mortal grasp.

"I will find you, Solas. In every world, through every door, across time and space and any distance, I will find you. There is no where you can go that I will not kill myself to follow."

"I know."

"Will you let me?"

"I am powerless to stop you, Vhenan. I always have been."

"Who am I, to steal the heart of a God?"

"You cannot steal what was always yours."

There is a blinding flash of blue light, and Ellana is alone.

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Humans are Space Orcs “To Deep Space.”

I am finished with university, had my last final yesterday, so we will be moving back to the normal writing schedule, yay! 

I have no idea where this arc is going tbh, but it is going to be good and I am excited. I hope you guys will enjoy it as well! 

“Dr. Adric, Dr. Adric please report to the bridge.”

He stepped from his office wondering what they could possibly need him for there. He had just been trying to get his office situated when the call came out. He set down his papers on the desk and made his way into the ship looking around as he made his tentative way towards the bridge. The ship was roomier than he thought it might be, but still rather small, he wondered how that affected the people on the ship.

He knew that they had to keep plants aboard the ship for the crew’s mental health, but he honestly wondered how much that help. Overhead he was assured the lights were UV in nature to mimic the sun and stave off depression after long months of being trapped inside a metal tin can hurtling through space. Not one was really sure what the effects of deep space on a person.

They knew that being lost in space could result in mass hysteria as demonstrated by the Commander’s own crew and malfunctioned civilian transport, the likes of which had apparently driven themselves to cannibalism in their panic and confusion.

He had read the reports, it was both disgusting and fascinating.

He paused just inside the bridge turning to stare with wide eyed at the men and women positioned at their consuls arrayed in a semicircular pattern against the outside edge of the room. A second tier comprised another smaller set of consoles for about four people, and just above that was a single raised chair.

The captain’s seat.

The room had been designed with both hierarchy and function in mind in that the captain’s chair could look down on all the other chairs with the ability to see what his crew was doing at all times.

And right now they were prepping for launch.

“Engines.”

“Engine one through six online and reporting no malfunctioning cells Commander.”

“Check them one more time. Crew manifest.”

“Four hundred and eighty six confirmed crewmen, sir.”

“What does the manifest say?”

“The same.”

Dr Adric tilted his head watching as the crew worked, but specifically watching the commander. The man spun this way and that, giving orders, taking information, and all the while making quick check-marks in a little black book he held in one hand. He seemed at east in his chair.

The chief weapons officer, the Drev named Sunny, sat at her station despite not really needing her at the moment, and he could see over her shoulder that she was also doing a weapons check for the ship.

The commander turned in his chair spotting the doctor and motioning him over.

He came confused not sure what he would be needed for.

“Commander?”

The man smiled, an expression that fit well on his face. Despite his youth, the doctor could already see laugh lines, faint and barely visible beginning to form around his eyes…. This was a man used to smiling.

“Take a seat doctor, and strap yourself in. This will be an uncomfortable assent.”

“What do you mean?” He wondered in confusion.

“I generally let all new recruits sit on the bridge for at least one launch or warp. I feel it makes the experience real for them instead of just expecting them to use their imagination. Besides, who doesn’t want to watch a ship launch.”

He was a bit surprised but of course he nodded walking over to the indicated seats and strapping himself in with the five point harness. He continued to watch the crew work. The bridge itself seemed to run rather smoothly under the direction of the commander, and from what he could tell the crew seemed very excited to be off.

“Engines ready, commander.”

“Fuel cells engaged.”

Commander Vir reached for his microphone broadcasting his voice throughout the ship, “Alright you beautiful hooligans launch begins in T minus one minute. Please strap yourself and any loose items down and keep your hands and feet inside the ship for the duration of the ride.” He cut off his mic smiling.

Dr Adric watched closely.

“Ground control this is Harbinger preparing to liftoff in T minus 55, do you copy.”

“Copy harbinger. Launch is ready for go standby on grid line trajectory Alpha two niner one one preparing for liftoff over.”

“Thirty seconds.”

He gripped the seatbelt hard teeth gritted watching as the rest of the crew braced themselves as well. The commander flexed his hands sliding his fingers into the flight gloves and hooking his toes onto the pedals. The holographic shield popped up to cover his eyes.

“launch in 10, 9 ,8, 7, 6, 5.”

He gripped tighter.

“4, 3, 2, 1, “

“Launch.”

The force of the rising ship slammed him back into his seat as they were born skyward. All around them the ship seemed to vibrate and rattle. His chest felt like it had a carton of bricks stacked on top of it and a little black circle was beginning to encroach at the edges of his vision.

Somewhere, someone in the room was cheering. Past his vibrating eyes, he could see the commander valiantly fighting to bring the ship into the sky despite it’s immense bulk which had never been designed for gravity. Eyes wide he watched as the eggshell blue of a perfect day morphed before them and grew darker until space stretched out before them like a pair of waiting arms.

“Prepare core for warp. Navigations.”

“Yes commander?”

“Warp Coarse.”

“Sagittarius A. But not to close! Keep to the coordinates the smart guys gave us” he repeated very suddenly looking very nervous all things told.

“What’s in Sagittarius A?” He wondered

The commander turned in his chair one eyebrow raised looking almost incredulous, “you don’t know?”

The rest of the crew shifted very nervously, he could see it on them though there were hints of excitement.”

He shook his head.

“Our primary directive on this ship is deep space exploration. We are a military vessel, but we hold trillions of dollars in scientific equipment aboard this ship, as such we have been tasked by the UNSC in accordance with the NASA foundation to head to Sagittarius A and take the first close space images of the supermassive black hole at the center of the milky way.”

He felt his hands and feet go suddenly cold.

“B but how can you take a picture of something that sucks in light.”

“The accretion disk of course and then the massive black spot at the middle.”

“But if we get to close….”

“Yes yes doctor, I have been flying in space long enough to know what happens if you run amuck of a black hole. We get sucked in and suspended forever in a slow spiral of doom as time slows down and our bodies are slowly ripped apart atom by atom. Please we aren’t getting THAT close. Even I’m pissing myself just thinking about it, but also super excited to be honest. No mess ups this time which is why the ship has been checked to hell and back to make sure it’s working.”

Not for the first time, he was beginning to wonder if he was psychologically stable enough to be on this mission as it seemed you hat to be just a little crazy to want to do this. Maybe that is why a high percentage of people on the ship had presented with psychological anomalies, least of all the commander himself.

How he hadn’t gone mad with fear regarding the eminent death that surrounded them constantly was a mystery.

“Warp core?”

“Ready for ignition sir.”

“How far out are we.”

“Almost to the warp zone sir,”

Dr Adric rubbed his temples. He wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to see a black hole. What kind of psychological effects does something that powerful have on someone, knowing that if you are caught in its gravity well you are done for in the most horrible way possible, and just looking at it from a distance he imagined would be like watching a bear or tiger out in the wild accept for this was different since the bear could now swallow stares whole and the tiger ad gravity so immense that not even light can escape it’s center.

“Preparing for warp in ten.”

He closed his eyes

But they didn’t stay closed as the countdown continued opening for a moment as he felt the space around him go strange. When he did he nearly lost it as his vision seemed to be looking through a glass fish bowl all warped out to the sides and stretched, far things looking close, close things looking far. Outside the window a massive spot appeared before him and around it the stars were morphing and repeating.

The ship reflected back a thousand times in fractal images.

He yelled in shock clenching his seat, and then, it was over.

He was breathing hard, outside there was nothing but blackness, and the emergency lights had flicked on over the crew.

The captain unbuckled his seat-belt and stepped down onto the floor.

He turned to look at Adric who was gripping the seat so hard his knuckles had gone white, “Nice work, first time I warped I definitely pissed myself so, good constitution.” He patted Adric on the shoulder. The blue Drev stood, and the commander grabbed her by the shoulder hauling himself up onto her back.

Adric watched as the two of them walked away.

How strange.

He was in for seeing a lot of strange things in the next few days. The commander and the blue drev spent a lot of time together, and often he rode on her back. At one point he walked in on the crew having a jousting contest where two drev ran full tilt at the other while the two crewmen brandished brooms.

He walked out of his room more than once to find the commander heelieing down the hall at the head of the bridge crew giving orders.

When that wasn’t happening he had run amuck of a freaky group of spider creatures being taken care of by a dog and a very strange humanoid creature who claimed he could read minds. He hadn’t believed it until it started repeating his inner thoughts back to himself.

Instead of being freaked out he found himself almost envious. If he had that kind of power imagine the sort of things he could do to help his patients.

Everywhere he went it seemed as if something strange was happening.

One day they were playing an aggressive game of keep the balloon off the floor and the next they were using window markers to drawn on the viewing field. As expected from a group of soldiers it turned into a heard of inappropriate doodles until it looked as if their ship was cruising past a heard of winged space dicks.

And he himself kept a close eye on the crew. None of them seemed bothered by the fact they were in deep space, but many of them had strange habits.

The commander and the Drev named Sunny spent an excessive amount of time together, or so he thought, the little doctor never relaxed, and couldn’t to save his life even when he tried. Conn, the mind reader, did his best to get attention by pissing everyone off, and the spiderlings, as he had come to know them, were constantly acting up as well.

He would need more time to get used to the crew, but it seemed as if he had his work cut out for him.

If he could hold himself together that is.

[archadianskies]

[’That Which Remains’ already exists, my friends, and I’ll never do this concept greater justice so instead I shall take a slightly different route]

He is PL600 #501 743 923, designated name ‘Simon’. He was activated on the 2nd of February 2034, and reported missing on the 16th of February 2036 by one of his owners, Mr Keelan Burbank. That’s it. That’s all he remembers.

Not the fact he is a leader of Jericho, the original leader of Jericho, and one of the Jericho Four. Not the fact he was a martyr, a leader willing to sacrifice himself to save the others. Not the fact he put a gun under his chin and pulled the trigger to prevent the Deviant Hunter from discovering Jericho. No, he doesn’t remember any of that.

They tell him the bullet tore through his memory core, damaging it irreparably. Simon of the Jericho Four died on the rooftop of Stratford Tower and he is but a shell. This does not sit well with the other three, who he learns are PJ500, Josh, WR400, North, and RK200, Markus. They want Simon back, but there is nothing left of Simon to give. 

Not for the lack of trying, though, Elijah Kamski and Chloe RT600, the First, work tirelessly on him. They try and salvage his fried memory core, they take it apart with miniscule tweezers as if to save every atom and attempt to piece it back together like a delicate puzzle. They run simulations, they make prototype replacements, they spend resources worth more than Simon’s PL600 model a thousand times over. And still, he remembers nothing.

With nothing else to do between tests, he roams CyberLife Tower like a ghost in its clean, clinical hallways. He shares his face with so many others no one spares him a second glance. It both comforts and hurts him, to be so readily ignored.

Sometimes one, or two, or all three come to visit him again and they try to tell him anecdotes, of things their Simon did in the hopes it would jog his memory. There is no memory to jog, he tells him over and over. The bullet ripped that apart.

When North visits him by herself, she holds his hands so tightly it alerts his pressure sensors. She cries, she cries a lot of tears and says a lot of I’m so fucking sorrys and I didn’t want this to happens. She tells him they promised each other that Markus always came first, even at the cost of their lives. She just didn’t think he’d pay for it so soon. He’s not sure what to say to her, to comfort her, only that if Simon did promise such things to her then she should feel proud that he upheld the promise because Markus is here, Markus is safe. 

When Josh visits him by himself, he sits with Simon on the floor in the corner of the room designated to him. Josh tells him this is how they spent so many nights in Jericho, when Jericho was a rotting freighter in the canal and Markus had not crashed into their lives yet. He would sit in the corner with Simon and keep him warm because of his broken thermal regulator. Josh’s hands are warm when he holds his hands and Simon thinks the original Simon was incredibly lucky to have such a friend on cold, seemingly endless nights.

When Markus visits him by himself, he gives Simon a sketchbook. 

“I tried to draw as many as I could remember.” The android explains, as Simon slowly turns the pages. They are memories, Markus’ memories, but Simon is in them. “Chloe said we shouldn’t interface, we shouldn’t force our memories onto you so I thought this would be the next best thing.”

He is holding a sketchbook of original Manfred drawings. From his research he knows Markus Manfred (yes, a human surname given by his human father) is both seen as the spokesperson of their kind, and a prolific artist famous for his works about the revolution. This sketchbook alone is probably worth more than his PL600 body.

“Thank you, it’s beautiful.” He says, because it is a gift and sadly not the tool Markus wishes it were. “You’re very kind. I’m... I’m sorry for your loss.”

A look of grief washes over Markus’ handsome face, and he pulls Simon into his arms briefly, embracing him tightly before he steps back and walks away.

He wonders if the original Simon haunts that rotting freighter now at the bottom of the canal. Does he wander up and down its corridoors, does he roam with the other lost souls that died during the raid he never lived to see? Or is he up on Stratford Tower, pacing that rooftop, waiting for his friends to return, to rescue him, only to have to kill himself over and over and over, stuck in an endless cycle with no one to break it?

It is a kindess he died, he thinks.

*~*~*

CyberLife Tower has only been under the control of the Kamskis (yes, Chloe has a human surname given by her human creator, though perhaps she took it without it being given?) for less than a month. Elijah Kamski became interim CEO after Hudson Davenport stepped down, wishing to wash his hands clean of the deviancy ‘mishap’ as he called it. Elijah in turn appointed Chloe Kamksi as the CEO once the Sentient Life Act passed, stepping down to remain Chief Technical Officer by her side. 

It means they are still trying to catch up after more than a decade’s absence from this place. It means they do not know everything, they do not know everywhere and there are still discoveries being made day to day.  With nothing else to do between tests, he roams CyberLife Tower and because he is a ghost, no one sees him.

He is a ghost with cutting edge technology in his head now, and an upgraded core capable of processing data faster than his obsolete predecessor could even hope to process. And so he finds rooms that don’t exist, much the same way he doesn’t exist, not really, because Simon is dead and he is but a shadow of him. 

He finds an entire floor deep underground that doesn’t exist on any blueprint, any elevator route, anyone’s knowledge. When he finds things like this, he is supposed to notify the Kamskis immediately, but this one thing he wants to keep to himself at least for now. Just for a little while.

It’s a self contained lab complete with its own power source, its own network, its own servers; a completely isolated floor unbeknowst to everyone above. It smells sharp, like disinfectant and spilled thirium and gunpowder residue. There is a fabricator and assembly arms and they were building androids down here, that weren’t meant to be built by everyone above.

There is a single android standing on the assembly dias, inactive. It looks like the Deviant Hunter- like Detective Connor Anderson, he should say, because the Deviant Hunter became a deviant and a son. This one is wearing a white and black uniform, the model number RK900 emblazoned on its jacket in glowing neon.

The android no one knows about. The android haunting this level, unable to wake fully and control his actions. It must be lonely down here, abandoned and without purpose. Simon thinks they must be alike this way. It’s been so lonely, not having any friends who don’t treat him like the walking dead. Perhaps he can befriend this one instead. Perhaps they will haunt CyberLife Tower together, ghosts of what could have been. 

 Reaching out, he cups his palm to the android’s cheek.

“Wake up.” He whispers, and the RK900 opens his cold grey eyes. 

[nicollekidman]

abby can you talk on how deancas and tenrose are the same?

okay so i need to preface this with the usual…. cannot believe i am enlightened enough to be seriously discussing this in the year 2020, but i’m happy for my teen self. also there is about to be a lot of unhinged earnestness to follow, so if you’re easily succebtable to cringe… don’t read on. ALSO RIP I WROTE 1800 WORDS about just the most general and nonspecific concepts…… brb k wording myself 

first off i think it’s so funny that i just went back and looked and i typed cas/ten as a one and dean/rose as a six completely independently so… that’s where my head is at. 

i think the meat of the issue is the way that tenrose and deancas function both in relation to the overall narrative and each other. there are many differences of course, but at the end of the day, both relationships are positioned as the ultimate working example of what their shows are trying to be About. 

i could write an entirely separate essay on the intersections between cas and the doctor, but essentially…… these are figures introduced to the audience as Beyond Human Understanding. they exist as celestial beings unconstrained by the rules of space and time, more closely connected to god than humanity. we meet the doctor farther along in his journey than castiel, but both of their character arcs are rooted in a Godlike Creature observing humanity and becoming enamored with it/driven to protect and care for it. by the time the doctor meets rose, it is well established that he has a soft spot for humanity, she’s not the one who teaches him that. but she is the one he reaches out to and leans on for support and healing post-time war, and she is the one who influences ten’s regeneration so deeply that he is made in her image/for her. castiel rebuilds dean atom by atom is hell, and upon rescuing him from the pit, finds himself similarly irrevocably altered. it is revealed to us that castiel also has had a long affection for humanity, but nothing swayed him from his ultimate duty before he met dean. and just as the doctor finds himself with a family for the first time after gallifrey with rose and her mother on the estate, castiel finds himself cut off from his family/realm, but with a new family, team free will. they lose everything, their attachment to the heavens, and find a new family and a new reason to continue, in these humans. 

dean and rose also are the ultimate Human Credentials. we all know this term to be indicative of someone who confers humanity onto the other, someone who, by mere accompaniment, allows their beloved to more safely/easily navigate life. and it’s true in this sense. rose is constantly reminding ten how to Be Human (”am i being rude?”) in both big and small ways, just as dean more or less badgers castiel in the same way ( “dude. we talked about this”). neither cas nor ten would be as intimately connected with their “human sides” with their partners. but dean and rose are also Human Credentials in a broader sense, in that….. they act as character references for the rest of humanity, and by virtue of their own selves/their partner’s attachment to them, guarantee investment in the rest of the human race. castiel is more-or-less content to watch from heaven and take orders until he rescues dean and becomes involved with his life (”the moment castiel laid a hand on you in hell he was lost”). his love and affection for dean and his willingness to bend everything to keep him safe means that castiel learns to defy heaven for the good of humanity. ten has always loved humans, but he loves rose a little differently. The Doctor Needs Someone, and we see rose’s power as his human credential most strongly when she’s gone. Without rose, ten is more willing to put himself/others in danger, to make choices that will result in death, to be callous and reckless and thoughtless. rose’s presence is a constant reminder that humanity is Worth the Trouble, that he’s never met anyone who wasn’t important. 

for rose and dean…. these are two, completely Normal, Average People. or so they think anyways. the burdens they carry and their inner lives are very different, but in very simple ways, they both would’ve continued their lives believing there was nothing special about them, getting up to Do Their Duty, never asking for anything special. both view themselves are caretakers, although this manifests differently bc rose is a bratty 19 year old and dean never got the opportunity to be a teenager. but both Feel Deeply in ways/levels that others don’t. each has an extremely open heart and a need to protect/provide for the little people. what ten and cas give them is an entirely new perspective, whereupon it starts to be possible to believe that even the smallest person can affect the world for better, and that they, specifically Deserve More. 

THEN we have the ideas of religion/free will/fate that intertwine both shows. rtd’s doctor who was explicitly and obviously written with the intent to show an atheist universe where the human spirit and mind are enough on their own to be holy, to determine right and wrong, and to decide the events of the universe. obviously ten is often situated in christ-like positions, but he learns from humanity as much as they teach him. supernatural is a little more complicated, with an alternate vision of accepted figures of christianity, but both shows heavily emphasize the power of human kindness, passion, empathy, and individual choice. ten may not live within the confines of space and time, but apocalypses in doctor who often hinge on one small person doing The Next Right Thing, just as supernatural’s base credo is We’re Writing a New Chapter. castiel bursts onto the scene and is literally taught the importance of free will by dean, and perhaps even the importance of his own desires/needs by dean. both core relationships exemplify what it means to make choices outside the realm of fate (even whilst allowing for the existence of soulmates). yes, castiel was ordered to raise dean from perdition, but their human connection is what allows the winchesters to subvert God and move outside the printed narrative - love for a human is what makes an angel CHOOSE to fall from heaven. and ten…. well ten knows that rose is going to die. ten understands from the moment he allows himself to care for her above all others, that he is dooming himself to pain and regret and loss. but he decides to do it anyways, because isn’t the best thing an otherwordly being in love with humanity can do is to eperience love and loss on a human level? both cas and ten understand that there is no love without pain, that they will be the ones to watch their beloveds leave them, but that the Choice to love out of free will is worth it. 

there’s also the element of Expression/Repression. here is where the underlying emotion remains similar but the freedom of how exactly to illustrate these feelings could not be more different. tenrose is a heterosexual relationship at the end of the day, and their storylines require them to be alone in each other’s presence nearly 100% of the time. thus, we get LOTS of familiar touching, lots of body language and casual intimacy and teasing. dean and cas…. lol. not so much. instead of physicality, we get looks, both because of dean’s own upbringing/sexuality and because they exist on the show that they do. deancas deals in the unspoken - the acts of service, the grace healings, the tense moments of battle, the lack of personal space. the expression is different, but the emotion is the same. ten and dean hold themselves back from the more Obvious open-book partners, for their own personal reasons. the end effect being that everyone on screen understands/insinuates what’s happening, and their relationship is so thick with subtext its a wonder no one suffocates. Words are seen as the ultimate step, once which cannot be overcome in normal life. both pairs use death/separation as the final step towards full transparency, but even then we are never granted the ultimate catharsis of an I Love You. castiel couches his confessions in generalizations towards groups, and dean swallows his truth even in prayer. rose says the words through a veil of uncrossable distance, but she doesn’t get to hear them back. they can Know, and we can Understand, but we cannot hear it. 

lastly (for now)…. and perhaps as an ultimate summation…….. death and parallel universes and fate cannot stop them, those who are drawn to each other through heaven and hell, through time and realities. it is to be understood that will all four individuals fight to ensure that each human being is safe, protected, and able to make their own choices they are soulmates. they are soulmates who are bound to each other to be sure, but they’re not Fated in a way that takes away their free will. they’re fated by the series of choices they make, over and over again, to prioritize each other, to traverse time and space and dimension and hell to get back to one another. god cannot see castiel in his plans for the world, and yet castiel has evaded death again and again, to give dean a win. nothing could tear rose away from her doctor, and even while trapped in another dimmension, she hears his voice, she runs to him, and she finds a way to get back to him. each and every choice they make brings them back to one another, regardless of the ultimate ending. we don’t know yet if we will ever hear castiel and dean get their doomsday moment, but we do know that in order for castiel to leave dean’s side, an entirely new dimmension (the empty) will have to be in play to keep them apart. 

ultimately, castiel and ten are both celestial beings with self-worth issues but a burning and true desire to see humanity thrive, directly and indirectly because of their attachment to dean and rose. dean and rose make castiel and ten more human, all while exemplifying why human is a good thing to be. dean and rose become more themselves under cas and ten’s influence, both are given more opportunity to bloom into who they are meant to be. all four become More in the presence of each other, and save the world while doing it. ultimately there is a heavy dose of tragedy in both - whether or not dean and cas get their moment is yet to be seen, but these are still Soulmates with differing relationships to mortality. but is there anything sweeter than defying god’s and fate and our own doubts to grab love with both hands, even when we know there will be pain? 

[eskewcity]

Cornfield

I listened to Dreamland by Glass Animals on repeat while writing this. 

(minor CW for alcoholism and drug addiction)

submitted by @bird-in-tennis-shoes

----------

Statement of Herbert Pope, regarding a visit to his parent’s farm.

I don’t know what’s happened to me. I don’t know what I’ve become. I don’t know when this will stop. I can only hope that whatever madness controls me will one day have had its fill. One day I will be allowed to sleep. Whenever I even try to comprehend what I’ve seen and done; just the magnitude of it makes me want to shut down. Or throw up. Or lock myself in the house and spread all of my belongings out on the floor so I can see and differentiate every part of the room. I tried to resist it at first, but there’s only so long you can go without sleeping. There’s only so long you can go without the temptation of another human being in your proximity.

I wasn’t always like this. You’ve got to understand I didn’t choose any of this. But before I get into what happened to begin with, I want to make it absolutely clear that I was sober when all of this took place. I don’t want this written off as drunken ramblings or a bad trip. I’m done with that. I’ve got myself a bit of a reputation, I know. But I’ve been sober for three years, and it was a hell of a journey to get that far. I’m not about to have my experience dismissed out of hand because your institute dug up some of the many bad decisions I made when I was younger. I was sober before I visited my parents last summer, I was sober the entire time I was there, and I’ve been sober since.

That’s always been a point of contention between us, actually. I’ve never had the greatest relationship with my parents. They were quite strict growing up, and when I got to uni I just wanted to be free. I guess that’s why I got really into the local party scene my first year there. By the time I was starting my second term, I was already addicted to just about everything I had access to. I even ended up dropping out. Naturally, this wasn’t something my parents were exactly thrilled about, and after a few bad arguments over the phone, I just stopped calling.

I know this isn’t really related. But I just want you to understand how I’ve turned my life around since. After a few months of sleeping on my friend’s couch and going to support groups, I was able to get a job and an apartment. It was several years after that before I felt like I could try to reconnect with my parents. They were happy to hear from me, and especially happy to hear that I had my life together again. I was definitely shocked to hear that they were moving out of the country, to America.

It had always been my mother’s dream to start a farm. We had a small garden when I was a kid, but that was never really enough. They’re both getting up in the years, and had decided that if they were going to do it, they might as well do it before they got too old to do the work of planting and harvesting. They’ve always been do-it-yourself types. I think the hustle and bustle of modern life was getting to them a bit. They’d been doing some research online, even joined a few forum pages to meet people. They’d been planning this for quite some time. Apparently my father has land in Gambier, Ohio that I never knew about. I don’t know all the details, but I think a friend of his, Samuel Fairchild, gave him some property with a farmhouse on it. It was quite a strange situation, from what I can gather. Sam only lived in the house for a few years before just giving it away. I never met the man, but my father once told me that he suspected Sam was in a cult. I don’t hazard a guess as to how they met.

Regardless, it was a nice house in a secluded spot. My father has been paying upkeep costs ever since he got the place, but never did anything with it. Might as well put it to use, I suppose. I made plans to visit them as soon as they got settled and I could take some time off work. When summer rolled around, I made arrangements and booked a flight to Columbus.

The house was about an hour’s drive from the airport, and once I really got out into the countryside, it struck me just how big everything was. Everything’s a lot more compact in the UK. Less space. Here, fields of corn and soybeans stretched out for acres. I would drive for a kilometer and never see a mailbox. Farm houses were tiny pinpricks in the distance. Sometimes barely visible behind a hill. Some farms seemed pristine and well taken care of. Others seemed to be only dilapidated, ramshackle piles of rusted machinery and half burnt out barns. I passed through a town on the way. Well, I say town, but it was little more than a few convenience stores and a post office with peeling paint. The few houses I passed were just as crumbly. Half finished renovations and wrap around porches that looked to be in danger of collapse. Termite eaten posts held up a gazebo roof, like Atlas’ arms folding under the weight of the earth.

The house my parents had moved into was a bit better. It looked homey enough, although the lines of the support beams curved and slanted in strange ways. It looked stable, but almost… impossible. I assumed it was either my imagination or a stylistic choice and didn’t give it another thought. The land surrounding the house was vast and impressive. The only way in and out was a little dirt road leading up to the garage. I noticed the fenced in corn fields and realized that they must have already started planting. In fact, it looked like it was nearly ready to be harvested. I parked in the driveway and went up to knock on the door. It swung inward immediately, and I was met with a massive hug. My mother smelled like cinnamon sugar, just as I remembered her. That evening was fairly uneventful. I told them about what I’d been doing for work, and they told me about the farm and how Sam had left them everything they needed to get started. There was even a chicken coop and a stable in case they ever wanted to get animals. My mother cooked dinner, and before I knew it, it was getting late and my parents were going off to bed. I got settled in the guest bedroom and tried to sleep.

An hour later, and I still couldn’t sleep. I kept tossing and turning. Everything felt sort of… wrong. The moonlight seeping through the curtains gave the place a strange feeling. The room felt different, somehow. Like I was suddenly in a completely different house that was identical to the one I entered last night. I decided I should go take a walk outside. To sort of reset my brain, you know? Maybe I’d be okay if I got some fresh air. There was no way I was going to be able to sleep anytime soon.

Outside, it felt even stranger. I don’t know how, but it didn’t even feel like I was on the same plane of existence anymore. I know for certain I had only stepped off the porch, but when I glanced behind me, the house was now barely visible in the distance. There was no way I had walked that far in an instant. I glanced up at the sky and nearly fell over. It was… bigger somehow. Now, I know the night sky is obviously endless, but it doesn’t usually feel that way. It’s usually more like a thin blanket of black, stretched over the world. The stars are just moth holes and missing threads. It didn’t look like that now. I don’t know how to describe it, but it was like a gaping hole in the fabric had opened over me, and when I looked up, I could see every atom of the infinite universe at once. Like I had put on 3D goggles, and suddenly the pictures on the movie screen popped out and moved around me. The moon suddenly seemed so close in comparison to the stars. Like it was in danger of smashing into the earth.

It was… unsettling to say the least. My head was spinning, and I felt unstable on my feet. The sheer mass of the space around me loomed, like it was threatening to consume me. I had somehow ended up in the middle of the cornfield, the house nowhere to be seen. The world swayed, catching me up in whatever it was. I felt huge and tiny at the same time, the air around me threatening to crush inward, my foot poised, threatening to crush it first.

And then it stopped. Whatever force was manipulating my perceptions was gone. The ground felt sturdy again, and my head was suddenly clearer. It was dead quiet. The moon was still close, illuminating every inch of the surrounding field. I could see infinitely in every direction, and there was nothing but corn. Even the curvature of the earth seemed to have gone; millions of kilometers rolled flat to form this endless plane I had found myself in. When I looked up, I noticed the stars had disappeared as well. The entire universe stretched out before me and there was nothing in it.

The only movement was my own feet as I began to walk. The sound of crunching dirt reverberated through every corner of the cosmos. I must have walked for hours, but nothing changed. It was just corn, corn, dirt, corn, empty black sky, and that awful, bulbous moon. My hands felt… wrong. My entire body felt wrong. I was big enough to hold all of existence in the palm of my hand and still have enough room left over for another universe. But the second I concentrated on any one thing, the feeling slipped away like sand through my fingers, and I felt tiny enough to be crushed by the molecules of air around me. Like I was shrinking forever. Like all of this empty world was expanding around me and I was in the exact center, the edges pressing in on me as it got bigger.

I started running. My feet snapping corn stalks in half, Punching them with my fists as I went. I grabbed a handful of leaves and pulled, ripping several out by the roots and dragging them. Causing as much destruction as I could. If this world was going to go on forever and never change, then by god I was going to change it myself. I ran as far as I could, leaving a path of destruction behind me. I ran until I got so tired that I nearly fell over, but nothing changed. It was still the same corn, the same moon. The whole world was just an endless sheet of repeating wallpaper. I ripped holes in the ground like a crazed gopher until my fingers were raw. Eventually, I sat down among the debris and started crying. I’m not ashamed to admit it; I was hopeless and trapped. There was nothing I could do, because there wasn’t anything at all.

I must have fallen asleep at some point, because I awoke to sunlight and the distant sound of my parents calling my name. I was still in the field, but not a single one of the corn stalks around me had been knocked down. My limbs were wound around the plants like string, not disturbing any. I knocked down a few trying to get up, but I was still too disoriented to care.

I took the first flight I could back to London. My parents were disappointed and understandably quite worried about me, but there was no way I was going to stay there another day. I’ve become a more cautious person as I’ve gotten older, and I was not going to take any chances with… whatever that was. Still, after a few weeks I had written it off as an especially strange dream. I had taken a walk at night and fallen asleep suddenly. That was it. It’s funny how our brains rationalize these things.

As I found out soon, that really wasn’t it. Because I had that dream again. And again. And again. First, it was only a few times a month. Then once a week. Then I began waking up every night in a cold sweat after running in that endless cornfield for eight hours straight. I was terrified to go to sleep, knowing exactly where I’d end up. Every night I would count and categorize everything I could see. My hat on the chair in the corner of the room; my coat hanging up on the wall. I could see the edges where the rug began and ended. The room was not endless. The room had walls and a ceiling. But as soon as I let my guard drop just a bit, or my vision blur slightly with fatigue, everything stretched and distorted and changed, and there wasn’t a thing I could do to stop it. I would suddenly be standing, running, the world silent and impossibly large. I couldn’t rest, because every hour I spent sleeping was an hour I spent awake somewhere else.

I fell asleep at work nearly every day. And even then, I was not free. That damn cornfield, with its horrific sky and endless wasteland of leering barbed javelins haunted me. I was so tired I thought I would die. I started hallucinating while I was awake. Every time my eyes closed I was there, the looming sky and bloated moon mocking me as I ran. I stopped going in to work. I was too tired even to write an email to my boss. The only energy I ever had was when I was running. My friends must have been worried about me, but I didn’t have the energy to talk to any of them. How could I explain what was happening?

Everything reached a crescendo about a week into this, while I was walking to the corner store. I was holed up in my house, tormented by visions of an infinite hellscape, but I still needed to eat. The ground felt more uneven than usual, most likely due to fatigue, but I felt constantly on the verge of tripping. I concentrated hard on the ground in front of me. It was difficult to keep from falling into the cornfield. Part of me was always there, waiting, constantly running.

 My concentration slipped for only a second, and I went sprawling directly into the stranger walking in front of me. He shouted at me, but I was already asleep before I hit the ground. In that single lapse I had slipped into the hungry other world. I was vaguely aware of the events happening around me, but I was somewhere else, running. I… Something happened then, when the man bent down to wake me.

 I don’t know what I did. I reached out somehow, manipulated the air around me. Manipulated the hungry other world and directed its endless appetite towards this man. I’m not sure. There’s really no possible way to describe what I did. Whatever explanation I can give won’t do the action justice. There’s no excusing it either. I did it because it felt right. I can’t even muster the consciousness to regret it. That man is gone now. Or, not gone, somewhere else. Running. The cornfield was satiated for a while after that. I was rested. I was allowed to sleep.

I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t even know what I am. That man was only the first of many. It’s the only way I can rest. It’s the only way the cornfield will leave me alone, at least for a little while. I always make sure it’s someone I don’t know, not that it matters to the cornfield. They’re all just souls for it to hold as they run about like rats in a never ending maze. They’re all in there together, but they will never meet. There is an infinity between every molecule of dirt in that place. Maybe someday everyone will be in that cornfield. I wonder if it would finally let me have peace then. 

[definitelynotaminion]

A Study in Survival (Chapter 1/prologue)

It occurs to me that my ao3 is kinda divorced from my tumblr, so let me brag about my favorite fic on my dash! Linking it via ao3 isn’t as fun. Mostly I just want everyone to appreciate shirtless sweaty Sakura in a dragon-ball-Z style fight at the end of the world. It’s a time travel fic, as most of you know. TLDR Sakura is the only human left alive fighting against Kaguya, again and again for months. So, here is the first chapter finally posted on tumblr!!

There is fire. There is light. She is bloody wounds knitting closed as an afterthought, cold, meticulous and precise sacrifices of chakra for each hit, and the jarring impact of her fist shattering against a goddess' face.

The impact destroys the ground around them for miles.

She is rage, and desperation, and there is a yawning chasm of grief in her, as wide as the world is empty, that she refuses to let consume her.

There is a battle that is a war, an endless fight with an enemy that never tires, and she is alone.

Sakura doesn't remember much of what happens. She has been awake and engaged with Kaguya or her forces for days and weeks. Sleep is rare, stolen moments; each scrap and spare bit of chakra is ruthlessly hoarded and used as efficiently as possible.

She feels stripped down to the bones, ragged with all excess parts of her shorn away. Sakura survives. She fights. She bleeds. She survives.

Another cataclysmic exchange of blows. Around them the earth tries to shake apart. Localized earthquakes and tsunamis herald their blows; what's left of the topography of the planet flattens and crumbles in their wake.

Sakura is tired, though she can't afford to be. Every cell screams in her, a razor sharp focus and intellect bent on living. The beat of her heart in her breast is a desperate thing, a furious and urgent thing, the blood in her ears the only sound she can hear.

It is amidst the usual ache of overextended muscles, the mint-burn of healing, and the push and pull of attack and retreat, bestow damage and receive it, that something changes. Sakura has been a thorn in Kaguya's side for countless hours and sunsets, a snarling wolf that disappears just far enough to lick its wounds, gather resources, and slam back into the melee with a reckless abandon.

Sakura has been trying to kill an immortal for so long that it's all her body knows, and she expects this to be no different, though each hit, each jutsu, each glancing touch of her hand or weapon does devastating damage to the world around them because she refuses to give up hope.

It is a wild thing, a snarling thing, behind the breath in her lungs and the constant drought of her chakra system begging for rest, for replenishment. Her hope is more savage than Naruto's was, the constant belief that he could change the world; her hope is more ragged than Sasuke's was, the child's certainty that if he devotes himself to his goal he can fix things.

Her hope is more enduring than Sai's was, a fragile, just-born realization that life can be marvelous, that love can exist, that there is good in the world, and laughter, and beauty.

Sakura's hope is a bonedeep, feral warsong, a thrumming that gets her through the days, and the nights, that moves her body like a puppet on a string, that lets her heal and kill and force her body past its limits. It's a bulldog's jaws clamped tight on her goal, all thoughts set aside for neverending action, deliberation, movement; it's gravity, and the smiles she won't let herself forget, the dreams and ambitions of everyone she can remember wrapped tight but never safe in the core of her, every precious memory burned one at a time to keep it alive.

Sakura's hope is all she's got left.

So while she hasn't lessened her efforts to murder the being responsible for the destruction of all she loves-- if anything, it's the opposite, eclipsing her old limitations with every encounter, every waking moment, inching millimeter by bloody millimeter closer to her goal with each breath in her body-- she is a being of observations, of rationalization, of cool and collected deductions, lightning-fast assessments and reactions half the reason she's still breathing, and nothing in the encounter has led her to believe something has changed.

Sakura jerks back her fist in surprise, not quick enough to pull the punch but able to change the angle so that it slides past her opponent. In a quarter-beat she's a mile away, still high in the sky.

A mile is nothing.

Sakura turns mid-flight, eyes on Kaguya, feeling the change as it lurches through her body. Probably someone else might not have noticed, but no one else is alive; Sakura is aware of every iota of chakra in her body, and Sakura notices the moment it alters.

There's a new pathway where there wasn't before, like a jutsu half-forgotten, and chakra wants to curl out of her tenketsu, twist in just the right way to-- Sakura doesn't know, and has to stop the quicksilver flash of thought as a wave of Kaguya's hand sends black desolation winging toward her.

Sakura dodges, nimbly, tossing a shuriken that expands outward into a swarm, a flock of thousands, uses the moment's distraction to throw herself from a surviving peak to a valley far in the distance.

Her only saving grace is that Kaguya can't sense chakra, not when it's ruthlessly surpressed with Sakura's perfect control-- though the goddess is more than willing to burn the countryside to ash, destroy any cover, and force Sakura out.

She's learned to rest while running, take solace in the comparatively less exhausting labor of crossing ground faster than the winds of a rasenshuriken.

Kaguya can't-- or hasn't, at least-- used genjutsu on her. Perhaps she senses the futility of it; Sakura can sense the intrusion of foreign chakra on her system the instant it occurs, obvious as a drop of ink on a pristine scroll.

This isn't that; this chakra is hers and hers alone.

The sweep of white is her only warning, so fast her eyes can't resolve it into a shape; she doesn't wait for them to, moving back as far as a single leap can take her on instinct. It was a swipe of Kaguya's arm, her senses tell her later, but in the intervening time Sakura has ducked and parried three blows and flipped over a lake, its water rising on on either side of them like a welcoming hug.

Sakura punches the lakebed, lets house-sized boulders rise as asteroids, dances between them for a blink's cover before Kaguya obliterates them with a thought, not even rubble remaining. The skin on Sakura's arms informs her of the heat, even from her new distance. She's behind the goddess now, though-- not that it matters to her sight.

Merely, she's opposite Kaguya's direction of attention for a single moment, and in their battles that's an opening, forcefully torn.

It's a sweeping kick, a dynamic entry that flows into a springboard flip to get away, because any hit that doesn't connect is a liability. Any second of close combat is too long already, Sakura knows, and ruthlessly stifles the frustration in her throat as the move carries her away.

Away, away, away, the endless flight from an enemy too dangerous to engage, and too dangerous not to.

A bright flare of chakra from within her, yin and yang twisting without conscious direction, and it would be terrifying, this loss of control, if it wasn't infuriating. Sakura can't afford any moment of distraction.

She usually engages Kaguya until she only has the energy left for a desperate flight, a retreat to think on what she learned about her enemy during the most recent clash, painstakingly pieced together from the smallest of tells.

She might not have a choice, this time, though each moment of combat is precious, every encounter another chance to learn and capitalize on a weakness, build a strategy up from atoms, and--

Parry, parry, dodge; Sakura slips medical ninjutsu into her enemy's flesh, feels it catch beneath the skin, but where it should absolutely wreck the seemingly human biology, Kaguya shows no reaction.

Sakura keeps her curse contained to gritted teeth, reaches deep and pulls chakra into her hands. She doesn't have the luxury of handsigns, hasn't for longer than she can remember, so each jutsu has to be utterly mastered before she dares use it.

The upside is that she doesn't have any distractions.

It's water molecules slammed into each other, a tsunami raging out, and Sakura uses it to disengage.

She has to figure out what the utter fuck is going on with her chakra before it gets her killed.

The ball of water had been easier than normal, a prison called from the displaced lake, but before she's even ten miles away Kaguya has evaporated it. A rush of seared air, so hot there's not even steam, hits Sakura's back like a shove from a giant.

It spins her and she goes with it, knowing better to have her back to her enemy even as her skin erupts in burns, a line drawn of red drawn over her and erased just as smoothly by her own chakra in a countering wave. Her armor's lost but it did little, anyway.

A blur, and there's nothing to step off of; Sakura replaces herself with a piece of rubble in the distance, replaces again with one of her weapons from before, far enough away that her chakra rips out of her, a sudden void.

The same weird lurch as before occurs, infinitely more disastrous, and Sakura uses precious seconds reaching inward, a step she doesn't have to do ever, trying to isolate the cause.

It's elusive and Sakura would snarl if she wasn't taking to the trees with as little sound as possible, shoving down her chakra with an iron fist.

The hiccuping aberration refuses to be silenced. A frisson of fear lances through her, shock and dismay as a monsoon of wind tears at the forest, ripping trees out of the ground and into pieces. She leaps from trunk to trunk in the sudden tornado, dodging limbs suddenly as fast and dangerous as arrows from Sasuke's Susano'o, really snarling this time when one comes at her at such an angle that she has no choice but to slam her fist through it, giving away her position.

She has to dodge and weave, chakra still suppressed but for that little, disobedient curl directly in the center, and when she multitasks slinging a massive oak opposite the wind-- causing it to crash into its fellows with a sound like ten-thousand exploding tags--

now there's an idea--

and racing to the top of the atmosphere to get over the wall, she pokes at it, a stab of will.

Cooperate!

Instead it comes unraveled, a flower unfurling, and Sakura has just a moment to panic before the winds kick up, slamming her back down to the ground from the seven miles up.

She leaves a crater, leaves the crater barely after it's formed, narrowly dodging the fist dropped into the center of it after her.

The crater is suddenly four times as massive, force delivered with such speed that the landscape is just changed around them, the sound barrier breaking too fast to make noise.

Reinforcing and then still having to heal her spine, in the space between breaths, had taken approximately half of her chakra reserves, but while one part of her mind is cataloging reserves grimly, most of it is still reeling from the golden glow that is sweeping through her, that refuses to be tamped down, that is out of her control.

Fear quickens her breath, and Sakura rips a spear of a stick out of her shoulder, pressing one hand to the place where it impaled her. There's a feeling rising in her that begs to be a sound, a pulsing, a quickening, and she has no idea what it is, has no time to process as she runs for her life, dodging and weaving.

Kaguya has taken the displaced trees in her windstorm and is guiding them at the ground with a single gesture, each huge as only Fire Country trees get-- had they really journeyed so far east, again? The landscapes are mostly unrecognizable, all familiar manmade landmarks destroyed.

Sakura is forced to bob and weave, dart back and channel her dead teammate, be as unpredictable as possible because Kaguya isn't throwing trees at her so much as where she guesses Sakura will be.

Where such strength should shatter the trees upon impact with the earth, they're sticking in the ground like oversized arrows instead, and Sakura has precious thought to spare deducing how-- obviously, reinforced with chakra-- and how she can turn this around, use it as an advantage--

Maybe catch and redirect one?--

Too late, Sakura realizes this too could be a distraction, just as Kaguya puts a knife-hand through her gut and smiles, beautiful and serene.

Of course she hadn't needed to be physically directing the projectiles, huge though they were.

Sakura's muscles are suffused with deadly memory, though, and hadn't required conscious thought to react; nor had the sudden pain caught her off guard. Her arm had whipped around, tan skin brought to bear in a fierce lariat--

No time to remember Bee's smile next to Naruto's, so happy and sure--

-- even as her head whipped forward, one hard-headed jinchuuriki's move against another, back when the bijuu existed, when any village stood at all.

It's unexpected enough that Kaguya takes it, a forehead to the face, and Sakura smiles grimly through blood as she throws herself off the arm through her chest.

Healing it is something she does without a thought-- or really, isn't even something she does. The healing process starts on its own, fueled by her chakra. She could stop it, it's still under her control, but no command had to be given to begin it.

Thanks to the heatwave earlier, there's not even any fabric to get stuck in the wound, or stuck in newly healed flesh.

Sakura would love to capitalize on her enemy's moment of distraction, the sheer unpredictability of the headbutt that actually worked--

Her love for Naruto rears up like a wildfire, burning her inside out, so fierce an ache that it would unmake her if she were any less used to it, if she hadn't cried out all her tears back when the nights had numbers and the days had names--

-- but so big a wound leaves her with near-dregs of chakra left, just a little more than experience has taught she needs to escape.

It grates at her to leave Kaguya injured and as vulnerable as she ever gets, but-- it grated the first dozen times, too.

Sakura pushes on, ignoring the hurts she can't waste chakra to heal, as well as the blurred quality her vision takes, lines and spots erupting. That hasn't happened in a while-- either she's lower on chakra than her body can handle, right now, or--

She's just focused on real, true escape, fleeing with all the strength and speed she has, when the singed hair on the back of her neck bristles.

It's barely a warning, but it's enough.

Pushing off hard against the ground, Sakura hits the clouds again, arrowing through them even as-- yes, Kaguya slams air in the direction, dispersing the moisture in the air to either side of the horizon.

Sakura is already falling back down, using shaky wind manipulation to speed her flight, fist cocked back and slamming hard into the goddess' face.

Too late, she realizes that in the heat of the battle, deep in the familiar motions of retreat, distract, hit and run-- she'd reached for as much chakra as she could spare. She has perfect chakra control, a precise accounting of how much chakra she has within her at any given moment.

Never before has some of her chakra been off limits.

This chakra, burning gold, had come as readily to her pull as any.

The strange mix of yin and yang, erupted into being of its own accord, rushes to her toes and through her throat and up her arm, but it's too late, she has tolive.

Sakura slams her fist forward with a manic yell, has a split second to register the expression of pure shock on Kaguya's face as the punch connects--

And keeps connecting.

Sakura punches a hole in the space-time continuum.

Or at least, that's what she registers later.

In the moment, it's just a tear in reality, a sudden feeling of give to the air itself, which her fist carries her body through.

There's blackness, a kaleidoscope of color-- dizzying, rushing.

Gravity is suddenly different, pulling her every which way and no way at all, nothing and everything turbulent around her.

The golden chakra is singing through her, warm and wild and choking her, destroying all thought.

It threatens to destroy all sense of self, and that's when Sakura gets over her fear to push back. There's a spasm in the air, in the crowded void of creation, and a surge of-- something.

Sakura struggles for breath, only to discover there's no air.

A sense of urgency overcomes her, the mindless and frenzied struggle for survival, as she claws at her throat, forces her heart rate slower to preserve air, as desperation wicks away all thought.

Sakura has been alone for days and weeks and months, the last alive in a world torn asunder, and through it all hope has sustained her.

Endless and enduring, Sakura's hope is a snarling thing, a calculated predator, a living, breathing monster in her breast that demands survival, precision in all things, self-awareness, and burns a vigil of memories of her lost loves to force her into the best version of herself that she could be.

The vortex widens, or tightens, and Sakura refuses to let this kill her when nothing and no one else has managed, when there's still air in her lungs-- even if her vision is closing in, a blackness creeping in from the edges--

Or is that the tunnel?

A lurch, sickening and final, and spinning, dizzying wind.

It stops.

Sakura breathes.

[anika-ann]

Think Again (When You Stop Freaking Out) - Pt.1

Good Morning... Me?

Pairing: None                   Word count: 1586

Warnings: language,  hella lot confusion, vomiting, blindness, sensory overload, ... irony and sass? ;)

Summary: Matt doesn’t feel like Matt. Steve doesn’t feel like Steve. How did that happen?

Story Masterlist

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Matt Murdock woke up with a startle and found out he was blind.

Now that wasn’t a strange occurrence. Unfortunately, Matt had been waking up unable to see for the past two decades, ever since he had been in an accident involving messed up chemicals and an act of spontaneous heroism on his side. In return, he had gained extremely enhanced senses and with time, he had learned to use them to see.

Which was exactly what was wrong at the moment.

Matt woke up… feeling blind.

The room he was in was strangely silent, no intrusive smells attacking his nostrils, no distinctive taste on his tongue, no extremely smooth sensation on his skin– gripping the sheets, he was very sure these weren’t his silk ones, this was not how silk felt and yet, the sheets weren’t scratching his skin so hard it would make him cry. Matt would think they were simple cotton, but this was not how it supposed to feel.

And he fucking couldn’t map the room as he couldn’t pinpoint his radar sense; his world of fire lacked fire.

He snapped his eyes open, his breathing raged, sitting up with a jolt.

He was not ready for the picture in front of him.

After all, this kind of picture only existed in his memories. This kind of picture had colours. Sharp edges, painfully so, as if every freaking atom had its place. Then again, Matt wouldn’t be a good judge of the state of his eye-sight, he couldn’t tell if it was 20/20, because he couldn’t remember what it felt like.

What could tell and was hundred percent sure of, was that… yeah, he could definitely see.

It freaked the shit out of him.

Feeling the bile rising to his mouth, his body jumped up on instinct, taking a bee line to the bathroom. It was only after he emptied his stomach that he realized that he had no clue which bathroom it was and how he had known where to go.

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Several blocks over, a man jolted awake, snapping his eyes open, only to be met with darkness.

He gasped, blinking, but there was nothing. His heart started hammering in his chest, a strange sensation vibrating through his ribcage, warmth spreading into his body with each thumb-thumb. A fraction of second later, the noise of the city assaulted his ears and hit him like a train – a train passing him by inches. He jumped back, hitting the wall behind him, quickly rolling over, falling off bed and shooting to his feet, his arms raised and fists curled up.

The noise didn’t fade out, making him raise his hands to his ears.

There was a weak taste of mint toothpaste in his mouth, barely covering other strange tastes he couldn’t quite place. His nose was itching with at least twenty different smells, mingling together and overwhelming his brain, easily causing him a headache. Not to mention his whole body was aching and he felt like every freaking cell of his body was alerting him on pain.

He thought the sweatpants he wore felt soft, yet there was an itch against his skin, as if they were made of the roughest fabric he ever felt. His balance was complete shit – the room around him pounded, the floor shaking with what he was sure was a subway train riding right under his feet and on top of all that, he was still in darkness, a strange darkness that felt somehow vibrant, flashes calling out for him.

What the hell was happening?

Calm down, soldier. You know better than to freak out. Deep breaths- oh god, so many smells, breathing in deeply was so not a good idea-- focus. Think of it as of a recon mission. In a very loud environment that resembles a battlefield, but those you know too.

Yeah, but going in this blind is a bit unusual.

Three quick knocks – and he would swear he felt them echoing in his bones, his ears pretty much bleeding with that sound – snapped his mind from racing.

“Matthew, I swear to God, if you don’t open the door, I’ll—… use my own key,” somewhat familiar voice threatened, apparently changing his mind in mid-sentence and offering a less violent solution.

It didn’t matter. Because he was in some serious trouble. The voice was too loud, joined by cacophony of tens others whispering or yelling in his head, everything felt wrong, his head hurt and apparently, he was in some Matt’s home.

He couldn’t remember drinking last night, but he made himself a promise. Steve Rogers swore that he would not get within a ten feet distance to Thor’s Asgardian liquor ever again.

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Exiting the bathroom after a very long shower – and about an hour spend on the floor, trying to wrap his mind around the fact that the tiles didn’t feel as hard as they should against his knees, his body feeling overall wrong, definitely not his, and oh yeah, he could fucking see –, brushing his teeth for at least three times (why did the toothpaste taste so faintly again…?), and examining himself in the mirror – blond? He was blond now? – he went to examine the space he had woken up in.

The apartment was rather plain, but definitely belonged to a well-situated person, only if judging by the fact Matt found himself in at least thirtieth floor. During his freak-out, he had come to a bit unorthodox and, let’s be honest, totally insane conclusion, that he had been in a body of someone else. A steroid-freak, by the way, because what the hell, Matt was sure this amount of muscle tissue could not be natural, what was the guy doing apart from drugs? So yeah, that was a thing.

The thing was, there wasn’t much else to go on. He discovered an impressive closet, ranging from work-out clothes (wow, so many work-out outfits), comfortable homey sweats and t-shirts  and hoodies (Matt’s clothing of choice for now), to shirts and suits (not too many, which was strange, because again, rich guy, clearly).

In the nightstand, there were two sketchbooks (one extremely well worn) and Matt was no expert, but the drawings in it – mostly pretty random – were quite good. Huh. Rich. Freaky-ripped. Most likely on steroids. Handsome though. Artistic. Matt was surprised he didn’t find a woman’s (or man’s, whatever) underwear lying around at least, because this guy could to be a playboy for sure.

This guy. In whose body Matt was now, waking up, just like that.

He ran his hand down his face.

“Good morning to me,” he murmured, not even startled by the stranger’s voice which was – naturally – not his own.

“Good morning, Captain Rogers,” a female voice with thick Irish accent sounded above him and Matt jumped back, immediately raising his fists to protect himself (not himself) from the intruder (who might actually live here, unlike him). He saw no one.

Saw no one. Hilarious, Murdock.

He squinted, looking around, which was something he was not used to goddammit, he was supposed to sense the person coming, but while he guessed his hearing was alright for an average person, he was definitely not fine.

“May I be of any assistance?” the woman asked and Matt tilted his head in attempt to locate her better, which was perfectly useless.

What, was she invisible? Because that would be so fucking ironic he might even laugh. Able to see after two decades and the first person I meet is invisible. Congratulation, Universe, you managed to fuck it up again.

“N-no,” Matt tried out, hoping the weird… thing? Person? Would disappear and leave him alone to his inspection.

“Apologies, Sir. You seemed confused.” You have no idea. “And you were sick. Shall I inform anyone about your-“

“No, thank you. I’ll do it myself,” he blurted out, not even caring it probably didn’t sound very convincing.

“Understand, Sir.”

Matt slightly shook his head, easing his fighting stance and allowing himself to breathe in. He didn’t even know how he would fight. The self-awareness of his body, his ability to control the incredible mass was way too low, but hell, he would not have had a choice. And who knew, he might be able to pull out few moves, this body clearly remember something..

Because apparently, he was a captain. Captain Rogers. He thanked God he had a name now, at least. Now, if he would meet someone, he would at least know to turn around if someone addressed him.

It actually made sense, this guy being military. Retired maybe? Then again, he seemed fast and agile, which he would expect from an active soldier, but he wasn’t exactly an expert.

He wondered for a brief moment if he should call Foggy, but he quickly dismissed the idea. Firstly, he only found a locked phone, which sucked, secondly, he still had no idea where he was, thirdly, he didn’t want to put his friend in danger, and finally, he was aware that if someone called Foggy, claiming he was his best friend and business partner, but had woken up in the wrong body, Foggy would probably hang up anyway.

With a deep breath, he walked through the room, gathering courage to exit the relatively safe space. Gripping the handle – which cried under his determined hold, the material curving, what the hell, steroids, seriously - he opened the door, feeling like Alice going down the rabbit hole.

“Alright, Captain Rogers. Let’s do some recon.”

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Part 2

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Tags: @mermaidxatxheart​ 

If anyone wishes to be tagged as well (to this story, to my fics in general) by any chance, just lemme know.

[bates--boy]

The summoning site was in order, replicating everything like the first time, from the (now-stained) tin bowl sitting in its trivet above the candle, to the instructions he had written placed next to him for reference, to the camera rolling in front of him for more documentation to look through -- though, this wasn’t about research.

And because of that, Peter went to his bedroom, crouching in the closet to push aside everything until he found what he needed, tucked away in the dark corner. As the curious, syrupy pillars of light stood behind him and watched over his shoulder, Peter picked up one of the bundles of black velvet and untied its corners.

The gaping twin cavities bore into him as soon as the fabric fell away, its soulless and empty stare still somehow mocking him, made worse by the lipless smirk of its crooked and chipped teeth. Whoever this person was, they did not practice proper dental hygiene. Peter bounced the skull to feel the weight with his palm, more an absentminded tic than anything, as his thoughts raced with the half-formulated plan and doubts that it would even work. But he had to trust it, and he had to make this trip count: he had only three of these skulls, and his old medical research buddy had already asked a lit of questions during the first request.

Next, he went to his bedside table, holding the skull in the fold of his arm as he would a soccer ball. Peter yanked it open and reached inside to unfold the satin wrap. There, lying on its side, glinting in the morning light fighting its way through the blackout curtains Peter had drawn together to curb any source of heat, was the S.A.C.M. 1935A. Hers; he still remembered the weight of it in his tiny hands when she shoved it to him, and the instructions -- shoot any kraut bastard that gets near you -- she whispered to him when she forced him into a closet to hide. It had since been plated a rose gold like the slender crucifix that dangled from her neck, the cracks and chips in the wooden handle filled and the thing coated over with a white and gold marble paint. The bullets were hidden away, and the only use the gun had was to be polished on the occasions Peter felt truly nostalgic.

He carried both back to the kitchen table, sitting the skull in the bowl and the pistol directly in front of him. He lit the candle underneath the bowl and, unwrapping the bandage from one of his hands, wrung and tensed up his palms until the blood he needed trickled into the empty sockets. His vision began to warp, twisting at the outer edges. The souls that had gathered in his house turned to him, he could sense their stares, but none seemed important, when underneath his nose, the gun started to emit a glow, faint, a little weak after nearly eighty years, but showing that it was indeed her leftover energy.

His body locked up, anticipating the dragging and flying between planes like last time. The souls that inhabited his flat screamed, converging, reaching for him to pull him away and hold him down.

Peter took a dry, ragged breath.

And he was in. No dramatics, no tricks, no flashing horrors that rivaled psychedelic drugs or religious-themed nightmares instilled in him by having religion literally beat into him throughout his tender ages. It was similar to walking into the next room, albeit one that sucked the air out of him and left his insides feeling cold while his skin still burned with a fever of millions of suns.

Why do you keep coming back?!

She was right there in front of him, recognizable even though her form was indistinguishable from the numberless mass of souls around them. It was her voice that made him want to lose himself in the childish love he had for her, to wrap his arms around this pillar of light and bury his face into her, let his body burn to ash just so he could hold her and be held by her once more.

Then the Black Hole howled, and his descent into childish longing cut short.

“I'm getting you out of here.” And apparently dozens more, he could see out of the corner of his eye as they clambered towards him, the beacon. But his eyes were fixed on her. He took a step closer, reaching a hand out to her. “I... I know that when I take you back to earth, to the other side... you can be reborn. Reincarnation, Marion! It’s real!”

No, Peter, it’s--

“Yes, it is!” It may have been the exhaustion that drove his voice up a couple octaves, or the sense of being broiled alive as the souls drew around him, latching onto him and to his promise of safety from the hungry black holes and a second, third, or fourth life. He was partially aware that he had no need to screech, because the Black Hole wasn’t loud right now, even this close to feeding time.

Still, he screamed, “I see it happening all the time! With my own two eyes!” And due to what he was sure was dehydration, his voice cracked when he asked, “Why are you fighting me with this?”

Peter sensed a sigh from Marion, an impatience riddled with barely-kept frustration.

‘Cause you’re messing with things that you don’t understand. You think it’s simple as dragging me back to the living and forcing me to be born again so all of your attachment issues are fixed? Do you think this will fix how I died? IT WON’T!

If there had been oxygen in this hellhole, that blow to Peter’s chest would have knocked the air out of him. He blinked, feeling the threat of tears tickling the back of his eyes; they were probably already falling in the physical realm.

The Black Hole’s howl rang throughout his body, and he felt the beginning tug of the Black Hole’s inhalation. But an emptiness had already washed over him, and it felt like there was nothing about him for the Black Hole to consume.

“...You don’t want to come back.” It felt like a question, like he was begging her to say no, that she wanted to come back, despite her coming back to this place and dwelling here for how long time snaps or oozes here..

Her voice, stretched and nearly drowned out in the rushing wind of the Black Hole’s inhalation, was gentle this time, soothing. Even though she did not say what he wanted her to say.

What happens if I do come back? How would you even find me in my new life? You plan on coming back here over and over, pulling me out and making me live different lives until the universe ends?

Peter knew it was a rhetorical question, a challenge to the shortsightedness he went into this rescue mission with. He felt foolish and embarrassed when he answered with all the certainty left in his chest.

“Yes.”

The souls that didn’t get away fast enough lifted up to the screaming Void, Marion among them. The ones latching onto Peter urged him to leave this plane and take them with him. 

No.

She said it with such a heaviness that it shocked Peter. It wasn’t just resignation, or a parental exhaustion that came with raising a difficult child. It was a long-held acceptance. Peter felt her energy push against him, trying to force him back into the living world, and shoving away the souls constricting him so he could escape faster.

I love you, baby blue. Go home.

The void around him began to fuzz, overlaying with the brightness of his living room; he even felt the tickle of a rug and the oh-so needed coolness of his hardwood floor along his back. There was a moment that he felt he was choking on a hardness that won’t go down, and heard the faint cry of his cat next to his ear. He watched, gaping, as Marion’s soul lifted to the waiting, apathetic, selfish monster that was all of their end. In the living realm, he swallowed that lump and stuck his nails into the open bite until he felt the warm, coppery liquid fill his palm.

In the void, he screamed.

He screamed, flinging himself up and grabbing a surprised Marion, He screamed, throwing his weight down until Marion was ripped from the event horizon. He screamed, using that same momentum to throw her out of harm’s way and fly upwards into the Black Hole. He screamed, even louder than the Black Hole, his fist reaching out to sock it and, in the process, the atoms of his arm slowly pulling apart and getting sucked into the blackness.

He was all thirst for blood and mindless violence, thrashing against the dark surface that crawled all over his body. Peter didn’t know if he was trying to escape, yanking himself out of the mass like a drowning swimmer in a body of unforgiving and ravenous water, or if he was fighting it, clawing his way deeper inside until he found the core of this son of a bitch that he could rip apart with his teeth. Finally, finally, he had something to unleash his everything onto, with no consequences. This Black Hole is so hungry? Let it feast on eight decades of powerlessness as his brothers and sisters run the world to ruin, and the loneliness of being tolerated but not loved -- never loved. He fed this Black Hole the wild confusion born from, well shit, everything, all the big life questions he was always told to turn to this figment God for answers -- here was his God, here was everyone’s God: an uncaring universe that will rip itself apart no matter what helpless creature inhabited it, uncaring of its hopes and dreams and family and friends.

Peter blinked in and out of his black-out rage, catching snippets of the universe beyond the event horizon as it will happen: planets crashing into each other, stars spinning and forming as one, then galaxies; the water of Earth rising, the North Sea crashing into his fort until nothing -- nothing-- stood there,  then the giant ocean drying, and extraterrestrial creatures finally responding to the calls and pleas of a long-dead planet. The creatures from the other planets waging war against each other -- have they learned nothing from Earth?!-- until they, too, are extinct.

And then, the Collapse.

And it all made Peter madder! It made him scream louder, made him rip further into the Black Hole -- yes, this is a fight! -- made him claw apart this giant mass which he knew felt like nothing more than a flea biting a horse, but he will be damned if he didn’t become the most murderous little flea this Black Hole has ever dealt with!

With a final buzz, the Black Hole swallowed him.

--

This thing... what is this thing? This foreign object that sunk itself into the mass along with some of the other sources of energy and potential it had to collect and save. It felt odd and out of place, like it tried to rip itself out of the timeline from which it was born, a thing that tried to rip Fate and put it together to its liking.

It was stuck in a pose mid-thrashing, eyes squeezed shut tight, thin body twisted, hands gnarled into claws and legs stuck out wildly. It looked like a confused and scared infant, and the last of its dying screams made it sound like one, too. Perhaps a taste...

Eugh! No! Wretched! This thing, it tastes too... alive. A fruit that was a paradox of unripe and spoiled, with the sourness of not meeting his end yet and the arrogant taint of its attempt to rewrite the way of the universe. But it has the potential to be bursting with flavor of all the experiences it will live back on its right plane, a rich and delectable story to feed on when it meets its rightful end.

Until then...

--

And the Void spat him back out.

[yeetdam]

stars after the rain ☾ yedam

genre – romance, soulmate au

synopsis – set in a universe where everyone is born with two names tattooed on their skin. one name stands for their soulmate, the other for their potential killer. no one knows which person inked on them is their other half and which is their downfall, but that has never been an issue to you. after all, you were born with just one name. and, well, there’s only one way to interpret that.

wc – 8.3k

a/n – this is a completely self-indulgent fic pls forgive me this mess contains everything i dream of: best friend doyoung antics, slow burn-ish vibes and a cheesy rendition of the slow dance scene on the rooftop from high school musical 3 :’) either way, i hope you’ll enjoy this and pls lmk if there are any mistakes or if u have some feedback uwu

It’s bound to end in a tragedy when Doyoung barges into your room without any warning and sees it for the first time.

“That’s a cool place to have a tattoo,” he admits and points at the back of his neck when you turn to him with an irritated expression. The realization crashes onto you like an atomic bomb the moment you subconsciously mimic his movement and slide your hand up the back of your neck.

“Oh.”

In the blink of an eye, you frantically rummage through your drawers for your foundation. Lately, there’s been many things clouding your mind, be it the many exams you can’t afford to fail or the abnormal number of complaints Hyunsuk has sent you in a span of three hours. It’s not the first time for you to drown in all kinds of duties, but it seems like the pressure has got into your head worse than usual. You never fail to cover the ink on the back of your neck with either turtlenecks or foundation, so it just fuels your frustration when Doyoung sheds light on it.

“Hey, relax! We can join the party a little later, so take your time,” he says and puts a firm hand on your shoulder in an attempt to calm you. “Uh, do you want me to help? It must be hard blending that in every day.”

You snort. “First of all, I am relaxed. Second of all, I don’t do this every day, but I manage perfectly on my own.”

“Jesus Christ,” Doyoung sighs and retreats his hand, “I was just trying to be the empathetic best friend. But jokes aside, it really is a cool place to have your tattoo. My thigh can’t relate.”

“As much as I love being your best friend and am willing to listen to your problems anytime–” you successfully find the bottle and squirt a generous amount of foundation on the beauty blender, “–even that is too much information for me. What should I know next? Your other tattoo is on your butt?”

There is nothing wrong with covering up the tattoos you are born with. It’s not socially frowned upon if someone doesn’t make any efforts to hide the ink. In the end, it all boils down to your personal preference. You know a handful of people who waltz around with both of their names on display, and you are relatively sure that Doyoung would be one of them if his tattoos were on an appropriate part of his body.

“Haha. Funny,” Doyoung deadpans before he whips out his phone. “I meant what I said, take your time. Plus, I realized I still gotta call someone.”

“Give me five.” You hum and apply the liquid on your skin. He exits your room and makes sure that the door falls softly in its lock to give you a moment of peace. A frown paves its way onto your face as you build up the coverage until there is no trace of black on your neck.

Showing the inked names on your skin and just talking about the concept of soulmates in general isn’t a social taboo. However, there are quite a few people who rather avoid the topic at hand, including you. Truth be told, every cell in your body knows that Doyoung is dying to discuss this topic with you and there are too many moments you recall where he looks as if he’s about to explode if he doesn’t bring up his soulmate. However, he never did that. Doyoung wears his heart on his sleeve and so do you, but here’s the thing: Doyoung is better at swallowing them down.

So as his best friend, the least you can do is go with him to that one goddamn party even though there are other things you’d rather do at this late hour of the day.

(A prime example of what you’d rather do is giving Hyunsuk a piece of your mind because receiving fifty-seven emails about not understanding biology, whining about the new TA and his harsh grading and inquiries about what to get Seunghun for his birthday in the span of three hours is not okay.)

Whenever you go out in public, you are usually seen with a turtleneck or a scarf. Covering up your tattoo with a foundation is your plan c) when desperate times call for desperate measures. Also, there is a reason why you barely go to parties.

Parties fall under desperate times.

Although there isn’t anything in Yeji’s house that is illegal to consume, the living room is sweltering hot, the music obnoxiously loud, and the entire scenario is equivalent to a frat party minus the alcohol, drugs, and making out.

Instead, a dozen bottles of pretty much every soft drink you can find from the convenience store just three blocks away and a broad selection of chips and chocolate and cake are found on the tables.

“Wanna bet that you could never finish cola with salt in one go?” Jaehyuk suggestively raises a brow at Doyoung and holds up the red cup in his hand.

“If I win, you owe me bubble tea for an entire month. Wherever and whenever I want.” You fight the urge to smack yourself as you see the sneaky grin etched on Doyoung’s lips. For a moment, you debate whether to stand up your comfortable position on the couch and knock some sense into him. But then again, you remind yourself why you’re even here in the first place. Though you know most of the people here, you don’t really talk to them. Doyoung was your only friend present.

You’re only here for Doyoung’s sake. You’re going to let him have fun and let him regret his life decisions in the aftermath.

“Aren’t you feeling lonely here?” you divert your eyes from Doyoung to the guy who drops himself on the couch beside you. He’s a new face, you figure, dressed in an unbuttoned, red flannel shirt, a black graphic tee underneath and ripped skinny jeans. Strands of jet black hair fall into his face, but they fail to hide the genuine twinkle in his eyes as the corners of his lips subtly tug upwards.

“Well, you’re not wrong,” you mumble and are very glad that you’re no longer focused on Doyoung if you consider the gagging sounds he’s emitting, “I’m not a huge fan of these kinds of occasions.”

“Let me guess,” he muses and takes a sip out of his cup, “That guy forced you here?”

A chuckle escapes your lips when he points at Jaehyuk who’s laughing maliciously at a kneeling Doyoung.

“Actually, it’s the guy who looks like he needs life support, but close enough.” you lift a brow at the flannel guy. “Is there a reason why you’re staring at me like that?”

He shrugs in response. “I’m just happy that I managed to lift up your spirits a little bit.”

There it is again, the glimmer in his eyes. You can’t lay a finger on what exactly it is, whether it’s playfulness or an underlying risk. All you know is that it's a gamble. You either take the leap or you keep it safe. It’s not the first time that you end up in such a situation, but this time, it’s a little but different. The only thing that is stopping you is the uncertainty of reading him.

But maybe, maybe it’s not that bad.

“You know,” you start and fiddle with your fingers, “I’m fairly sure that you’re the only one who can enlighten me here.”

Your hunch is proven right. It is not that bad. Not bad at all, actually.

For the next hour, you two stay seated on the couch and talk about all kinds of things. Sometimes, when you bother to care, you laugh at some mishaps that occur right in front of your eyes, like Chaeryeong tripping over her own feet before she crashes into Mashiho and makes him fall flat on his face.

“Wanna grab something to drink?” he asks after a while and swirls the last few ounces of liquid in his cup. “Besides, I think I need a refill.”

“Sure,” you reply and you both enter the kitchen. The room is empty apart from the two of you, and though you can still hear the music blasting through the closed door, your ears don’t ache as much anymore.

While you grab ahold of one of the opened bottles of cherry cola and pour it into an unused red cup, you watch him roll up the sleeves of his flannel from the corner of your eye. He has pretty hands, you figure, and maybe it would’ve been better if you didn’t stare at them for so long. It’s only a subtle flick of his wrist as he fixes his sleeves, but you don’t fail to notice fine black lines on his left wrist.

Before you ponder longer about it, he asks you, “Hey, can you pass me the cherry cola?”

You nod wordlessly and hand him the bottle and don’t leave his hand movements out of your sight. Once in a while, your eyes flit to the fridge behind him, to the few strands of jet black hair that sick out messily or to his eyes. Curiosity has never been a trait that really defines you, but sometimes, you can’t help but try to decode the name on his wrist.

Still oblivious to your underlying intentions, he continues rambling about his favorite music producers. “Cha Cha Malone has this really distinctive tone in his productions…” he places the edge of his cup on his lips with his left hand and suddenly, your blood runs cold.

Though there is the slight possibility that you are suffering from hallucinations, you are pretty damn sure it is not an illusion. The kitchen sheds enough light to see everything clearly, from the slight bags under his eyes to the coffee stains on the table. The lights aren’t blinding, but they’re enough to decipher the fine black lines inked on his left wrist.

Your name.

“... and I feel that– hey, you look like you saw a ghost. Is everything alright?” he furrows his brows in concern, but when he follows the trail where you’re looking at, he gets the gist. You notice him tense up and are pretty sure it’s not a trick of the light when he pales, something akin to guilt paints his face.

“Come to think of it,” you mumble and avert your eyes from his wrist. “I didn't catch your name. Who are you?”

He hesitates, chews on his bottom lips first before he answers. He looks like a deer caught in the headlights and it just fuels your thought that the worst case scenario has become a reality. You hope it isn’t what you think it is.

“I’m Bang Yedam.”

You stare at him in disbelief, unable to force any coherent words past your lips. A shiver runs down your spine, and though there is less to be scared of because your name is inked on his wrist too, you're still wary. Obviously, the one who is destined to end your life won't have your name tattooed on them.

But with your circumstances, you can't help but include that possibility.

Yedam doesn't hide his panic anymore as he tries to justify himself. "Look, I'm sorry I haven't introduced myself earlier, (y/n). Doyoung told me not to���"

"Doyoung? What does Doyoung have to do with this?"

When all you're met with is silence, you ask again with something akin to fury laced in your tone. "I said, what does Doyoung have to do with this?"

He diverts his gaze to the counter behind you with pursed lips. Knowing that he won't spill the truth, you try to find the remaining puzzle pieces to complete the mystery by yourself. Your efforts are in vain though, because there is nothing you remember that could serve as a link to what Yedam said–

("I realized I still gotta call someone.")

"I need to go," you say when it dawns on you and you set the cup on the table. A jumble of emotions rages in you, be it the anger that flows through your veins or the whirlwind of irritation and disappointment and despair flooding your senses. You don't stop when Yedam calls after you and tries to make you stay.

You rush into the living room to grab your belongings, completely ignoring Doyoung who is still oblivious to your discovery. It's when he takes a closer look at your trembling hands and pessimistic face that the joy falls from his face.

"Hey, why are you leaving already?" he asks, concern laced in his voice as he tries to touch you, but you swat his hand away.

You huff. "Mind your own business, I really don't appreciate your stunt."

"What?" he furrows his brows and tries to figure out the meaning of your words. "I don't understand–"

"(y/n), please don't go– oh God." Yedam slows down to a halt at the sight of you and Doyoung. The boy beside you widens his eyes when he sees Yedam and then, the realization strikes him like lightning.

"O-oh, that was what you're talking about. Look, I can explain–"

You don't stay a while longer to hear his reasoning.

There is a reason why Doyoung has been your best friend for so long. It isn't the first time for you to fight and if you're being honest, your ego isn't that big to not forgive him. Doyoung can be awfully nosy and loves to stick his nose into someone else's business. Therefore, it doesn't surprise you that you invite him over on an afternoon after he left fifty voice messages and over a hundred text messages in your inbox.

"Please don't start your explanation with 'I was trying to do you a favor'." you sigh in distress.

"I was trying to do you a favor," he bluntly says and it costs you your willpower to not invite him out of your place. Doyoung sends you a crooked grin before he turns serious. "Okay, real talk now. I was just... surprised when I saw Yedam's name on your neck. And since I already knew that one of Yedam's tattoos is your name, I thought it'd be a good idea to make you two meet. Turns out to be that I was a fool."

"You're always a fool, please," you deadpan and snicker when he shoots you a death glare.

"Hey! I was trying to be an empathetic best friend here! I just breathed and here you are, clowning me. That is disrespectful!"

He attempts to throw you off your chair by aiming a pillow at you. Instead, he almost knocks down the succulent on your desk. The next few minutes, you bicker for a while and start an impromptu tickle fight to lighten up the mood. It's when you both lie on the carpeted floor and your heartbeats have fallen back into a steady rhythm that he addresses the problem at hand.

"Why don't you want to give him a chance?"

"My gut says it won't end well," you reply slowly.

Doyoung shuffles to the side to get a good glimpse of your face. "You know, the chance is high that Yedam's your soulmate. He's got your name too, after all. And he's willing to give it a shot, y'know? One meeting doesn't sound bad and won't be the end of the world."

You hesitate, considering the implied proposal with a frown. "It's complicated."

"So you're willing to let the glorious chance pass by?"

"Yes."

Taken aback by your rapid answer, Doyoung adds in a quieter tone, "Not many people manage to find even one of the two people. Even less find the one who wears their names too. You should definitely consider it, (y/n)."

"I get where you're coming from, but..." your voice trails off.

Doyoung watches you with expectant eyes. "But?" he drawls.

But you don't understand.

"You're not gonna stop bugging me until I say yes, are you?" you say instead. Although you'd trust your life to him, you don't want to burden him with your tattoo dilemma. He may not let it show too much, but you know he has his worries and he doesn't need to break his head about the meaning of your only tattoo too.

"Do you want the truth or a fabrication of lies?" he asks with a suggestively raised brow, making you roll his eyes at his silliness.

"Fine, I'll meet up with him one time. He shouldn't get his hopes up, though."

For some reason, you find yourself walking into the café fifteen minutes earlier. You blame it on the fact that there surprisingly was no traffic jam, although it's rush hour. As it turns out, you're not the only one to arrive earlier than expected, because Yedam enters the coffee shop five minutes after you.

He notices you right away, seated in between red and black cushions at the far back of the room, but doesn't steer towards you instantly. Instead, he stands in line and orders two drinks before he approaches you. An uncertain, shy smile adorns his face and contrary to the first time you met him, he's different. His hands shake so much that he spills one cup a little bit when he sets them down and he can't bring it over himself to look you in the eye. Yedam's treading lightly, abnormally careful about his own actions.

"I got you hot chocolate. I hope you don't mind," he mumbles and slides the cup towards you.

There's the need to tell him not to worry and loosen up. However, you don't manage to do so. What you do manage is a quiet "thanks" before you take a sip of it.

Well, at least Doyoung wasn't lying when he said that the café served delicious beverages.

Awkward, heavy and pressuring don't even come remotely close to describe the silence hovering above you. Even an innocent bystander can tell that neither of you is exactly comfortable in your shoes.

"So." Yedam's ears perk up when you clear your throat. "You wanted to meet me."

"Yeah…" his voice trails off as he taps his fingers on his paper cup. This time, he's wearing a blue wool sweater with sleeves so long they cover up his palms. You fight the urge to ask him if you could see his left wrist.

"Uh, give me a second to mentally prepare myself." he stammers before he starts anew. "I'm going to be honest here. I was happy when Doyoung called me and said he knew someone who wore my name. I had a great time that night and I, um, guess that things wouldn't have ended like that if you figured it out in a different manner."

"I'm going to be honest too," you confess. "I had a lot of fun that night, well, before it started to go downhill. It's just, I don't think I'll be able to cope with this." You gesture on your own wrist. 

Something that hits very close to desperation is written on his face. For the first time, he looks at you directly and tries to read you. "Listen, I'm not trying to force anything on you. I know not everyone cares about the marks and that's fine. I just..."

He hesitates, tries to find the right words. Judging by the tone of his voice and the quiet sigh that escapes his lips, you know he doesn't belong to the group of people who don't care, unlike you – and he is very well aware of that too.

"You just?" you probe. Though you are quite sure what words will follow next, you need to hear them come out of his own mouth.

Yedam glances at you unsurely, wariness audible in his voice when he speaks up. "I was just hoping to, uh, get to know you. It doesn't have to be something long lasting, I swear. If you feel uncomfortable, we can break it off at any time. I was hoping that we could at least try."

There are many, many red lights blinking in your mind. This suggestion is nothing more than a very, very bad idea. In your case, the journey doesn't even matter. It doesn't matter if you end up being more than friends. What matters is the result. And, well, the result is inevitable.

Amongst the many, many stop signs that practically scream DON'T DO IT, there is one brain cell that begs to differ. Yedam looks at you expectantly, pleadingly even. His desperation is visible in his eyes as if they held stardust which reflects his every emotion.

You inhale deeply through your nose in an attempt to steady your frantic heartbeat. It's bound to end in a tragedy and you should care more, but you don’t have the heart to reject him.

Hopefully, you don't sound so unconvinced and scared when you respond.

"Trying sounds good."

Yedam is careful. He's so careful it genuinely surprises you. He doesn't push you to anything, works his way to more personal questions (though so far, the most personal question he's asked you was how long you've been friends with Doyoung) and tries his best to cater everything to your needs. It's by the fifth time you meet up in person when he finds the courage to ask for your number. Truth be told, you can practically see him pondering five minutes about each text he writes before sending it to you. The absence of emojis in his messages just confirm how nervous he still is.

It's still awkward when you talk and most of the time, it's Yedam who asks questions. Yet he's quick to pick up certain likes and dislikes, like your favorite ice cream flavor or your least favorite type of music.

It goes without saying that Doyoung practically demands regular updates. He was over the moon when you told him how your first date ended and even paid you bubble tea. That was how happy he was for you.

"He's not as bad as expected," you say as you nonchalantly look for good Netflix movies to watch.

Doyoung snorts in response. "Of course I knew that already. I've known Yedam for a good while now and seriously, all he does is sing the High School Musical soundtrack and swoon about music producers."

"He sings?"

You practically feel Doyoung rolling his eyes as if it was the most obvious thing on earth. "Duh. That guy's a singing god. But you have my word, (y/n), I'll end him and twist out his intestines if he hurts you. You really don't have anything to worry about."

"The only thing I worry about is you becoming a potential murderer," you say in a monotonous voice. (In a way, it’s ironic, given how there is bound to be someone who wears Doyoung’s name with the negative connotation.)

That causes your best friend to laugh in an exaggerated manner. "Very funny. In all seriousness though–" he grabs a handful of chips and stuffs it in his mouth, "–how do you not know that he sings? Even though you know he produces his own songs? I thought you talk lots."

"The thing is–" you shuffle to the side and hope he won't spit any crumbs on you, "–he's the one who talks. I just listen and answer his questions."

Doyoung sends you an unbelievable look that's equivalent to 'Are you serious?' "Then ask some questions back, you fool!"

"I don't know what to ask though!"

"What? You truly are unbelievable." he groans and throws his head back. "I guess I have to step up my game and help out a poor soul, huh?"

You throw him an offended look. "I am not an imbecile!"

"I never said that, dumbass," he tuts. "But back to the point. Yedam likes music, just recommend him some songs and he's gonna love you. Or have a High School Musical marathon with him. For all I know, attend a concert with him or just let him show you his own songs– the possibilities are endless! You always meet up at that café and although it's nice and cozy there, it's getting boring. If you only knew how panicky Yedam gets when I bring you up in our conversations: pitiful! That's what it is!"

"I don't know if that'd be a good idea–"

"Listen, I have no idea why you are so against getting close to him and since we already had this talk, I'm not gonna bring it up again. But for the love of God, if you already agree on trying, then put in some effort yourself!" he exclaims and with every word, his hand gestures become bigger. It even reaches the point where you're certain that he's going to hit you in the face.

Nonetheless, he’s right. You desperately need to step up your game.

Yedam is confused when you send him a link while he’s talking about something you don’t bother listening to. His irritation is visible in his scrunched brows, in the way his gaze switches from you, then back to his phone, and in the little hitch in his voice.

“They say your music taste tells a lot by yourself.” you shrug and try to sound as casual as possible. “And, uh, perhaps I heard that you like listening to new songs.”

The confusion morphs into a small yet genuine smile once he sees that it’s a link to a Spotify playlist. “You’re not wrong about that. While we’re at it, here.”

Your phone vibrates, signifying a new text message. Just like him, you fail to hide your amusement when you see the link to his own Spotify playlist, followed by a SoundCloud profile.

“Let me guess, the SoundCloud one is where you post your own music?” you joke lightly but when you look up and meet Yedam’s bewildered expression, you gulp. “Did I say something insensitive?”

Yedam hastily shakes his head. “No, not at all! I’m just surprised that you remembered that I produce some songs too.”

“I mean, it’s hard not to forget that when Doyoung gushed about that for a good hour and you like to swoon about how much of an idol Cha Cha Malone is to you.”

He looks at you with a stunned expression. “Do I really talk that often about him?”

“No. I just remembered that, that’s all.” you smile lightly. Regardless of whether or not Yedam buys it, the apples of his cheeks are dusted red and he looks down as if he hopes for the floor to swallow him whole.

Quickly realizing that the atmosphere might turn into an embarrassingly long and awkward silence, you scroll through the Spotify playlist and chuckle when you recognize songs you haven’t heard in a while yet.

“Do you have something against my music taste?” Yedam asks, partly wary, partly sounding as if he was ready to brawl.

“No, of course not!” you explain once you calm down. “It’s just, it’s been a while since I heard the Jonas Brothers. Also, uh, I’ve never seen High School Musical and you have a lot of songs in it.”

Yedam looks like he's about to jump out of the window and his eyeballs might have fallen out of its sockets after your confession.

"What did you even do in your childhood?" He acts as if it was an unforgivable crime and then adds with conviction, "First of all, the entire soundtrack is on the playlist. Second of all, what are you waiting for? We need to catch up with things you should've done when you were a child!"

“What are you–” Before you get to finish your thoughts, he grabs ahold of your hand and leads you out of the café. “Where are we going?”

“My place,” he replies without looking back at you as he picks up his pace. “You need to watch all movies. I refuse to leave you uncultured.”

Your attempts of not having to watch any of the films prove themselves futile. That, and the other, unexpectedly childlike side of him make you stay. Even if you planned on running away, you couldn’t anyway. With the way your hands are intertwined, it’s hard to do so. Though by now you’re practically rushing down streets and occasionally bump into a pedestrian or two, the incredulous look on their faces when they see you hand in hand is something you don’t miss. 

You don’t know whether the feeling bubbling in your gut should feel warm.

When Doyoung said that Yedam knew every single song from High School Musical, he meant every single song.

You tried, you really tried to pay attention to the storyline. However, it’s not that easy when five minutes into the movie, the first song comes up and Yedam belts out every single note in a theatrical way. You find yourself anticipating the next song so he’ll sing more rather than the actual plot progression.

When Doyoung said that Yedam could sing, he meant he could sing. It would’ve been nice of him if he had warned you beforehand how angelic Yedam’s voice was because your jaw dropped to the floor the moment he started to sing. You didn’t know what you expected, but you certainly did not expect to be swept off the ground in a span of 0.08998 seconds.

“Did I just ruin your fun?” Yedam asks carefully, a bashful smile plastered on his face once the first song came to an end.

The question startles you and you blink at him in awe before you feel the heat creep up your cheeks. “What? No! I mean, no. I was just surprised that your voice is that nice,” you manage to choke out.

His smile widens, and your face flushes a deep red.

“So you don’t mind me singing along?”

“I prefer your voice over that guy right there…” you pause. “Wait, what? Forget what I said.”

“Me? Forgetting that? You wish,” he beams and erupts in laughter when you cover your face with your hands. “But if that’s what you want, I’ll sing along.”

You find yourself listening to Yedam singing anything your heart desires many times after.

While you still have no idea what exactly the plot of High School Musical is up until now, you indulge in the heavenly voice of your human jukebox even more with every passing day.

Depending on his mood, you discover the many facets of his personality. On days where he’s tired and you happen to stop by just because you’re casually in the neighborhood, he shows you his self composed songs. Although the bags under his eyes are impossible to miss, he keeps his head held up high and urges you to comment on all of his songs despite rather wanting to hide under the covers.

On days where you’re tired and happen to be lounging on his couch, he loves to lull you to sleep. His voice is soft and gentle, just like his hands playing with your hair as you hide your face in the crook of his neck. Then there are days where it seems as if stole the sun’s job or had drunk too many energy drinks and jumps around like a lunatic while belting out the melody of My Heart Will Go On.

Today seems like a day where he’s just emitting happiness.

Truth be told, you don’t know when exactly you’ve let down your guard. The current scenario is too sickeningly domestic for your liking – with you leaning your head on his shoulder while his arm is lazily draped around you. The third installment of High School Musical running on screen doesn’t quite suit your taste either, yet you don’t make any amends to put some distance between you.

“Do you know how to dance?” Yedam asks casually, eyes glued on the screen. Currently, Troy and Gabriella are at the school rooftop and it seems as if the next song is going to start soon.

Your eyes narrow at him. “What are you planning?”

“I’ll take it as a no. But that’s fine too.”

“Yedam, seriously, what are you planning?”

There’s a gleeful twinkle in his eyes when he faces you. Before you can ask again, he stands up and pulls you up with him.

“Just trust me on this. It’ll be fun,” he interrupts you in the middle of your doubts. That shuts you up for good, yet it doesn’t hinder you from sending him warning glares.

You stay blissfully unaware of his ulterior motives until he firmly grabs one hand and puts your other on his shoulder, followed by planting his free hand on your waist. He shoots you a fond and reassuring smile to soothe your panicked self. Then slowly and surely, the first guitar strums come out of the speakers before Gabriella starts singing in the background.

A quick glance behind Yedam to the screen, where the lovestruck couple is also in the same position as you, is enough to let you know in which direction this is heading to.

“No. No. No. I can’t dance, much less slow dance–”

“I’ll guide you. Just keep your eyes on me,” he muses and tilts your chin so you lock eyes.

There are so many cells in you that are screaming at you to look away, but you’re unable to do so. There’s something behind the fragments of fondness in his eyes that you can’t quite decipher, but either way, you get lost in his eyes and your breath hitches.

“Let me guide you,” he repeats in a tone that makes you melt in a matter of seconds. You’re pretty sure your legs would’ve given up at this point if it weren’t for him who takes a step back and tugs you with him.

It goes without saying that you feel like a newborn baby deer that’s still clumsy on its legs. In the first few tries, you’re uncoordinated, stiff as a board and step on his toes a few times, and you’re not able to look away from him. He winces when you misplace your foot and you shoot him an apologetic look in return, but after some time, you get the hang out of it. Midway through the song, your legs no longer feel as if they’re going to mutate into jelly as you sway through the expanse of his living room.

“Look, you’re doing just fine,” Yedam reassures warmly before a grin etches across his lips; as if he just came up with a brilliant masterplan. “Wanna try a spin?”

“No,” you shoot out like a bullet and cause him to giggle. “This is enough for today.”

“Fine then, maybe next time.”

The rest of the song is spent in comfortable silence, warm smiles and occasionally knocking over a book or two when you happen to bump against the shelf. When the song comes to a slow end, you find yourself coming to a standstill. It’s just then when you realized how dangerously close Yedam really is. His breath hits your lips and you pick up the slight scent of spearmint.

You’re not the only one who notices. Yedam’s gaze switches from your eyes to your lips. Confliction is prominent in his face. Even though you’ve grown more comfortable around him, a feeling similar to home even, he’s aware he can’t cross all your limits yet. He doesn’t dare to prod further, lean a little bit closer and you know he’s wordlessly giving you the shots.

At this point, your heart practically hammers against your chest and you wouldn’t put it past him to hear it too. Perhaps, you’re in too deep and for a moment, you slowly move closer until it’s just a matter of a few millimeters separating you.

That is until you’re aware of the fact that you’re clinging onto his hand as if he were your lifeline. The realization causes a knot in your stomach. Suddenly, the doubts flash your mind; the fear that initially overcame you when you first met him at the party, when you found out who Yedam was.

There’s nothing wrong with Yedam. He’s nice and talented and genuinely cares. Yet at the same time, you’re not certain if there’s nothing wrong with him. You can’t be fully certain of him and that realization strikes you like lightning once more.

You try to ignore the sadness that washes over him for a short moment when you pull away.

“I’m sorry. It’s just a little complicated to explain,” you mumble apologetically.

“It’s fine,” he replies in the same manner.

There’s no doubt that you can see the genuineness in his eyes, but you can’t tell whether he was really telling the truth or was trying to manipulate himself into thinking that it truly is fine for him.

Surprisingly, as well as to your luck, he doesn’t bring up the episode again. In fact, he acts as if it never happened and honestly, you wouldn’t want to have it any other way. You’ve become a little more cautious ever since, but you would be lying if you said you didn’t want him performing a little bit of skinship on you. He still sings for you, proudly shows you his latest songs and becomes cozy around you whenever you watch a movie.

Just like any other day you’re at his place, you’re sitting on the couch and currently scrolling mindlessly through your inbox while Yedam is on the other end of the couch.

“I really like you.”

You hope you misheard what he said. Yes, you definitely misheard it, you’re positive of that. The intensity of his gaze when your eyes meet begs to differ though.

Honestly, the day was bound to come sooner or later. After all, you’re not that oblivious. Yedam is similar to you, you like to think – he wears his heart on his sleeve. But whereas you let your bad sides show, he puts all the good in him on display.

“How are you so sure that we’re soulmates? Do you have any other reason besides the fact that I wear your name too?” you ask after a moment of silence. It costs you your entire willpower to not lash out on him and say once more that you’re not interested in something more than what you already have, but he wouldn’t believe that.

And frankly, you’re not sure if you would believe yourself either.

“I do,” he responds, voice full of conviction. “I say it so easily because I found the other person already, and I know that he’s not my soulmate.”

“Again, what makes you so certain about that?”

Yedam purses his lips and hesitates before he sits directly next to you. He opens his mouth several times, but no words come out.

Then suddenly, without any verbal warning whatsoever, he turns to you completely and tugs on the collar of his sweater, pulling it so far down until he exposes a strip of skin underneath his left collarbone.

You gape at the sight, hope you’re hallucinating. You really hope this is just a trick of the light. It must be one.

The pitch black ink contrasts with his skin, and though the letters are fine lines and easy to miss if you don’t pay attention, the name leaves a burning image in your head and a foul taste in your mouth.

Kim Doyoung.

“I wouldn’t put it past him to kill me if he really wants to. And trust me, he’ll definitely have a reason to do so.” Yedam chuckles dryly as he covers the tattoo.

Although you already know the answer, you ask flabbergasted. “Does he know?”

“That I wear his name? Unless he wears mine, which I highly doubt, no. He would’ve confronted me about this by now if he knew.”

It explains a lot. No, it explains everything. It explains why Yedam oozed confidence and was sure that you were bound to last a lifetime. It explains why he looks at you as if you were the center of his world without a doubt. It explains why he’s not afraid of you. He’s only been treading lightly because of you.

You sneak another glance at him and the sight causes something in you to break. Yedam is sitting right beside you, watching you carefully and pleadingly even. The specks of glimmer he holds in his eyes, the ones that reveal his feelings, aren’t even specks anymore. They’ve dissolved and you’re looking right through him. He wears his emotions on full display now, the desperation is prominent more than ever.

He’s treading lightly yet is needy for an answer and slowly reaches out for your hand. Before it can get so far, you turn away from him and croak out a weak “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t trust me?” you wince at the hurt laced in the undertone of his voice.

“It has nothing to do with me trusting you. It’s me, okay? It’s just–”

“–complicated, I get it,” he spits out the words as if they were acid and suddenly, the couch feels much lighter.

“Yedam, I didn’t mean it like that!” you stand up and grab the hem of his sweater in an attempt to bring him to a standstill. “I’m sorry.”

Yedam stands still, but he doesn’t turn around to meet you. He takes in a deep breath and sighs audibly, but you don’t miss the hitch in his breath as if he’s trying to contain something else.

“No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have–” he pauses, stabilizes his shaky pitch before he reaches back and detaches your grip, “Nevermind.”

He leaves you alone in his living room and it costs you your entire energy to not break down onto the floor.

He doesn’t text you anymore and as much as you itch to contact him, you don’t muster up the courage to actually do it.

Doyoung also noticed the shift in your relationship. Fortunately, he doesn’t pry further and never brings up Yedam in your conversations. You’ve never told him any details but you’re relatively sure that Yedam said some things to him.

Either way, Doyoung remains a great friend. He tries his best to lift up your spirits – even bought you a gallon of your favorite ice cream flavor along with a lifetime supply of candy of all sorts. Once he realized that his wallet was suffering, he resorted to cooking your favorite food, even if that almost resulted in him burning down the kitchen.

However, as much as Doyoung might distract you from your pity party, he’s not a permanent fix. You know it and he knows it. Therefore, it really doesn’t faze you when he brings up the last person you’d want on your mind (to your dismay, he’s the only person on your mind).

“He’s also miserable right now, you know?”

When you don’t respond, he sighs and drops on the seat next to you, seeing it as his cue to continue. “He’s waiting for your call. I don’t know what went down between the two of you, but you better sort it out. Not only am I running out of ideas to get you out of your house, but I’m also pretty sure you two will end up as living corpses if you don’t fix it soon.”

You lift up your head and purse your lips. “It’s not going to end well.”

“You always say that.” he rolls his eyes, sounding more fed up this time. “Yedam didn’t tell me a lot and I know you get turn hyperventilated whenever it comes to your tattoos, so I’m not going ask about that. I never did and never will, get it? All I know is that Yedam dished out his soulmate situation from start to finish. You should trust him too, wholeheartedly.”

“I would’ve done that if I could a long time ago!”

“If I could,” he mimics, two octaves higher than your actual tone, “You can! I don’t want to guilt trip you or anything, but it’s only fair if he knows too. He’s poured his heart out to you, why can’t you do the same? Just think like this: say we live in a world where soulmate tattoos don’t exist, would you like him?”

“I…” your voice trails off.  

Seemingly satisfied with your reaction, Doyoung sighs and stands up.

“I think you know the answer too. Talk to him, please.”

Come to think of it, you’ve never invited Yedam over to your place. That’s about to change when you send him your address and find him at your doorstep later in the evening. The sun is long gone and in its place shines the moon along with the stars. Their light is enough to taint your living room in a soft glow and it’s enough to notice every single one of his features.

He’s tired, looks like he hasn’t slept well in days, yet frankly, there’s something oddly comforting about his presence.

“You called?” he asks to break the ice.

Truth be told, you’ve rehearsed what you wanted to say many times a few hours ago. You could’ve also practiced weeks before but you doubt you’d ever get rid of the uncertainty laced in your shaky voice when you start to talk about that topic.

You fiddle with the hem of your sleeves. “I realized something. You never asked to see my tattoo.” It’s not what you rehearsed, but as long as it leads to the point, it’s alright.

“I didn’t want to pressure you,” he responds.

You observe his expression, narrow your eyes in a brief moment of contemplation before you slowly undo the scarf you’re wearing. Yedam is quick to guess where this is heading to and quickly stammers, “Wait, you don’t have to justify yourself in front of me!”

“No, I want to,” you say with conviction and turn around so he can see the black ink at the back of your neck. Although the room is just dimly lit, you know that he can see it clearly. For a moment, you get goosebumps as his fingers ghost over the ink, but you let him bask in his fascination.

“The truth is, this is the only tattoo I was born with,” you confess after a moment of silence.

He gulps. “What?”

“I only wear your name, Yedam. You’re smart, I’m sure you understand the weight of that.” You turn around but don’t find the courage nor the energy to look him in the eye. The silence is heavy, unbearable, and literally nothing about it lifts the pressure off your shoulders. You don’t need to see him to know how the revelation shatters his view on everything in millions of shards.

“Look at me, please,” he pleads instead, and when you shake your head in response, he gently cups your face. You have no other choice but to do as and are startled when all you see is not pure horror, but soft, pure and wholehearted adoration in him.

“God, (y/n), I wouldn’t ever do anything to hurt you. Believe me when I say you mean so much to me. You have no idea how hard I’ve tried to have you voluntarily open up to me. and now that I see the situation from your view, I get why you were so unwilling at first. But trust me when I say I only want the best for you and would never put you in danger.” The raw vulnerability in his voice makes you believe him for a while and keeps you from breaking out in tears.

“You don’t know that.”

“Oh, I do know that. Did you already forget? Doyoung is my potential killer,” he says matter-of-factly and sends you a broken smile, “So before I kill you, I’ll make sure that he ends me first.”

“Great, and then my best friend ends up in jail.”

This time, he genuinely laughs. You, on the other hand, can’t bite down the small smile that paves its way on your lips from that weak joke.

“You’re right, I can’t guarantee your safety from me,” Yedam admits once he’s calmed down and tucks a strand of your hair in place before he goes on, “But I can guarantee that I’ll do anything in my power to make you happy. Have you even looked at my SoundCloud profile? Ever since I met you the majority of my releases are love songs!”

“So you admit that the songs are all about me?” you playfully raise a brow at him.

“Of course they’re all about you.” he breathes out as if the weight on his shoulders was lifted off of him. Yedam still looks like he could need some sleep, but there is no longer a sign of restlessness. He is at ease, and it shows the most when he adds fondly, “It doesn’t have to last forever. We can break it off if you feel unsafe. I hope we can at least try.”

The course of this conversation is oddly reminiscent to your first date in the café, you think. Back then, you were more than convinced that the only way this would end was as a tragedy. Back then, you just said your answer out of pity, one might say. But that was back then, and this time, you’re more than serious and more than convinced when you respond with a smile.

“Trying sounds good.”

[queercapwriting]

Years Without You (Carol x Maria)

Some of this story serves as a reunion piece, but I wanted to write it more fully because I enjoy causing myself pain, apparently. 

Story starts under a cut because the SpoilerGame starts right away.

“There’s somewhere I need to go first,” she’d told Natasha - the one who seemed like she was in charge - after she dropped off Tony and Nebula.

Natasha read the situation right away: the gravity in her eyes that spoke of mass death far, far from home and a terror of what had happened within that mass death. One or two people, she guessed. Mass death that could be dealt with, maybe, somehow, if those one or two people were alive.

“We... have a database. Of all the... missing,” she murmured, almost apologetically. She hated the euphemism, herself. The missing. She had a feeling this Carol woman would hate it, too.

But there was only exhausted fire in her eyes as she shook her head. “I need to see for myself. I shouldn’t be long.”

Because she knew. She knew that they weren’t there.

Her daughter and her... wife, was the closest way she could... Maria. Her daughter and Maria.

She knew they weren’t there. 

That they’d disappeared.

Fury wasn’t the only one she’d left a communicator with, and she’d be damned if they were still alive and hadn’t used it.

From what Tony described of that Peter boy, and from what she’d witnessed on other planets, sometimes it had happened slowly, for people. 

Fury had had enough time to see what was happening to his world, and activate his pager.

She hoped that a lack of last communication from Monica and Maria meant that it had been quick, for them.

That neither had seen the other evaporating into atoms, that neither had had the time to wonder what happened after death.

She didn’t dare hope that they were alive.

So Natasha had just touched her arm, and nodded. “Go. We’re... not going anywhere.”

She turned one last time before taking off, to make sure the people she’d rescued were situated. To see Nebula holding the hand of a furry cabbage patch doll, to see Tony shaking in Captain America’s arms.

“So, Captain America’s a thing again,” she confirmed, because Monica had told her in messages about Steve’s return from the ice, but seeing the icon in person was... well, under different circumstances, it would have been cool.

“Sure is. Won’t leave me alone, really.”

Carol nodded and hovered, about to zoom into flight.

“Carol,” Natasha stopped her. “I hope you find them.”

They grimaced a pained salute as Carol headed to Louisiana.

She found exactly what she’d expected, and nothing she’d wanted.

She wanted to set fire to the world.

She turned her sights on fixing it instead.

It took longer than anyone had wanted, and during those years, she averted more civil wars, more broken planets resorting to genocide, than she cared to count. Because other planets were ripping themselves apart.

At least Earth had support groups run by Steve Rogers and security run by Natasha Romanoff.

Even if it had no Maria and Monica Rambeau.

But then they went through time and then Bruce snapped everyone back and then the final battle began, and she knew she should be flattered that Thanos’s entire army turned its fire from thousands of formidable Earth warriors toward her the moment the flew into range, but instead, she was just focused.

Focused on ending this, because the sooner she ended this, the sooner she could get home.

She realized quickly enough what Tony had meant about that Peter Parker kid. 

And she realized quickly enough that getting hit with the full force of an Infinity Stone was something she could not only survive, but punch back from.

Hard.

And she realized, slow and steady and painful, that Natasha wasn’t on the battlefield, but Red Skull had nothing on her and she’d be damned if she wasn’t going to get that woman out of the depths of hell.

But in a moment.

In a moment.

Because right now, for the first time in years, she needed to do something for herself.

Battle over, grieving commencing, Carol flew to Louisiana faster than she could ever remember flying.

Or maybe that was just the adrenaline.

She stopped by Maria’s house first, because maybe Monica had been visiting, when the Snap happened. Maybe she could find both of them at once.

But it was only Maria, dazed and terrified but steady, as always, set to work organizing her neighbors’ nerves and terrors as they found themselves back, as they tried to get themselves back in touch with their families after five years of dead phones and deader hopes.

All the while, Maria’s hands were fixing her plane.

So Monica hadn’t been with her. She’d probably been on base, with NASA.

But Carol’s heart skipped, because she was here now. Monica wouldn’t need her plane to get to her daughter.

“Maria,” she called, landing right where she had stood all those decades before, back from the seeming dead from Hala.

But this time, it was Maria, back from the dead.

Sort of.

But this time, they didn’t have any explaining to do.

Just a lot of time to make up for.

Maria sprinted into Carol’s arms, and her neighbors had the decency to stroll away, give them privacy, because Maria’s arms were around Carol’s neck and Carol’s arms were scooping Maria’s body off the ground from her waist, the small of her back, and neither were sure if they were kissing or crying, laughing or sobbing, hugging or clinging.

Both, and all.

“Monica,” was all Maria said after a moment, and Carol nodded while Maria wiped her face, kissed Carol’s knuckles over and over and over, and went to give her neighbor Tom instructions on keeping everyone calm and safe while she was gone.

She assured him she’d be right back, and no, she didn’t need to finish tuning up her plane: Carol was her ride.

She flew in Carol’s arms to Monica’s home near NASA, and there were more tears, and there was more hugging, and more sobbing, Carol and Maria’s arms both wrapped around their grown daughter, hysterical and happy all at once.

Grown as she was, it took Monica hours to leave her parents’ bed that night to sleep on her own. And even still, tonight, on her own meant surrounded by her childhood stuffed animals, tucked in by both her mothers, texting her again-alive friends and assuring those who’d survived the five years that she would be back, she would help them heal, just as soon as she’d done some healing herself.

In their room, Maria lay in Carol’s arms, head on Carol’s chest, hand curled across Carol’s body to play with her newly short hair. 

Carol kissed Maria’s forehead, her ear, her vaguely disregarded scarf, over and over and over, relishing the silence aside from Maria’s steady breathing, until Maria spoke.

“What did you do?”

She didn’t have to clarify.

During the years between the two snaps.

“It wasn’t just Earth. It was everywhere. So I was everywhere.”

She didn’t have to tell Maria the death she’d seen, the devastation and the hopelessness.

It was all in her voice.

“When did you rest?” Maria raised her head to look at her war-worn wife.

“I didn’t.”

It was the only honest answer Carol could come up with.

“You can rest now, baby. If only for a little while.”

Maria was shifting, now, to climb on top of Carol, kissing her skin soft and reverent.

Carol shook her head and smirked, easily rolling both herself and Maria over so her arm was looped around Maria’s low back, holding her entire body easily, kissing her down into their pillows.

“I have to go to a funeral. And get an old friend back from... from something she didn’t deserve. And it’s not going to be easy: all these people suddenly being back. There’ll be wars, and bitterness, and more wars. The people who lived through it and the people who were living in a completely different reality not five minutes ago, from their perspective.”

“We’re doing alright, though. You and me. And you lived through it and five years ago was five minutes ago for me.”

“I know. But we’ll always be alright, you and me.” Carol kissed her slow and deep.

“Can you rest tonight, baby? You deserve to rest.”

Carol nodded, and nearly preened as Maria’s hands found their way into her short hair again.

And when they kissed this time, it was with the abandon of everything they’d lost, and everything they’d missed.

And just as Maria moaned and tilted her head back to give Carol better access to her throat, the door opened and a distinctly not sexual groan filled the room.

“God you guys, just because I’m grown doesn’t mean I need to walk in on my parents doing all this.” Monica’s hands were over her eyes, but there were tears in her voice. 

“I’m sorry. I know you missed each other, seriously. But I just - I can’t sleep, and I -”

“Come here, Lieutenant Trouble,” Carol shifted off Maria with a chaste kiss to her mouth, and held her arm out for their daughter.

“You’re never to old to get mama cuddles,” Maria kissed her daughter’s cheek as she crawled into the space between her mothers’ bodies.

“You sure I’m not bothering you?”

“Never,” they both answered at once.

Never. Like they’d never be apart from each other again.

[mullettj]

in your bloodstream (a collision of atoms)

a tyrus spider-man au

chapter one: leap of faith

next chapter →

-

Cyrus is terrified of heights. So terrified, in fact, that when he was a kid and he'd go to the playground for recess he couldn't even swing higher than a foot off the ground without sweating from sheer panic.

So it's really unfortunate that he's currently standing halfway off the edge of the roof of the 10-story building he lives in.

How did he get here? He isn't entirely sure. In a metaphorical sense, anyway. He knows how he got here in a literal sense; he just took the stairs to the top floor (three floors directly above his apartment, to be specific) and then walked out onto the roof like it didn't immediately make him hyperventilate. Like he isn't still hyperventilating as he looks out at the city skyline, listening to the cars rushing below him. God, he's so high up.

The why he ended up here is a lot more confusing. Long story short, he landed this amazing internship at a prestigious research facility downtown, and it was super fun and he learned a lot, not to mention it'll look great on college applications, but that's not the important part. The thing that actually changed his life happened on the last day of the semester, his last time stepping foot in the lab.

Up to that point, they hadn't actually let him handle any of the specimens, mostly because they were afraid of letting some high school kid mess with stuff and accidentally ending up with a contaminated vial or something. But, on the last day, Cyrus was taking a picture with his attending researcher for their website, and he begged their supervisor to let him hold one of the spiders he'd been helping monitor for the past four months. The supervisor agreed after a lot of heckling, as long as they kept the spider contained in one of the little glass boxes they use to transport the specimens.

Except the dumb thing got out of its fucking box. Cyrus has no idea how, but one second it was safe in its tiny glass prison and the next it was sinking its stupid sharp fangs into the webbing of his hand between his thumb and pointer finger. Obviously he didn't let anyone know what happened, just shook it back into the box and held it closed tighter, but at this moment he's kind of wishing he would've made a bigger deal out of it because that spider bite has prompted some really concerning changes in his body.

And like, he knows correlation does not equal causation, okay? He literally just got done shadowing one of the best researchers in the country, and even before that he had enough common sense to realize that just because it looks too straightforward to be a coincidence doesn’t mean it isn’t. Sometimes weird shit just happens.

But not shit this weird. He woke up the next day considerably taller than he was before (which really just means he's average height now, because he's always been on the small side) and way more athletic than his level of physical activity could ever account for. He has actual biceps now, what the fuck. He isn't entirely sure why a spider bite would suddenly turn him into a jock (at least physically, anyway) but, well. Here he is.

And if that wasn't convincing enough, there's also the fact that he basically turned into a human spider. He doesn't have eight limbs, or anything, but he's definitely a lot better at climbing walls than physics should allow and suddenly he can shoot webbing out of his wrists. He doesn't really get why it comes out of his wrists, of all places, but that particular detail is pretty low on his list of priorities right now.

He also gets this weird tingly feeling every now and then, almost like a hunch but so much stronger, like his brain just knows when something bad is going to happen, even if nothing seems awry at the time. Like he doesn't have enough anxiety as it is. It’s kind of freaking him out.

Fast forward two weeks, and here he is, standing on top of his building in the least form-fitting hoodie he could find in an attempt to hide as much of himself as possible. His logic for doing this is - well, he doesn't really know. Maybe it's that stupid sixth sense he has that told him to jump off a building. In hindsight he's never been sure he should listen to it, but right now he's wondering if it's actively trying to get him killed. Can hunches get people killed? Is this even comparable to a hunch? Maybe he's hearing shit, maybe he needs to ask his shrink parents about this.

His (quickly derailing) train of thought is interrupted by a soft thump off to his right, and when he turns he sees some dude in spandex walking toward him. He’s wearing a red suit, with a ripped up blue hoodie over it, and a big black spider on his chest. The sleeves of the hoodie are cut off, but the hood is still intact and flipped up over the guy’s head. Cyrus doesn't know why he bothered with the hood, really, because he's wearing a mask anyway so it's not like it's doing anything to hide his face like Cyrus hopes his own hood is. He's also got a belt wrapped around his waist and matching cuffs on his wrists, plus little pouches strapped to his ankles, and Cyrus doesn't know how to feel about that one. He could have anything in there.

By the time Cyrus is done ogling him and trying to figure out what the fuck is going on, the guy is standing right in front of him. “Hey, dude, you don't wanna do this,” he says softly. “Or I mean, you do, I guess, but you shouldn't.”

Cyrus looks at him like he's insane, which he probably is, all things considered. “Who even are you?” he asks, instead of addressing any of the larger issues at hand. Like what this guy thinks he's doing on a roof. Or why he's wearing so much spandex. Or where he came from.

“Oh, fuck, my bad. I’m the Scarlet Spider.” He sticks his hand out, which Cyrus takes tentatively. The Scarlet Spider uses this opportunity to pull Cyrus off the edge and into his arms.

Cyrus huffs. “Could you please let me go?” he asks as he struggles to get out of the Scarlet Spider’s grip. It's a futile attempt. The dude is way stronger than he looks.

“Nope,” he says, popping the “p” like the annoying little shit he seems to be. “Not till you promise you won't jump.”

That's when it clicks. Cyrus rolls his eyes. “Oh my god, you think I’m trying to kill myself?”

The Scarlet Spider hesitates for a half a second before going back to normal. Or what Cyrus guesses is normal for him, anyway. “Aren't you?” His eyes get wide as he realizes how that sounds. “Awh shit - no, wait, I didn't mean it like that! I just, I heard there was someone up here trying to jump, and I don't know why else somebody would want to jump off a fucking building so I thought -”

Cyrus rolls his eyes again. He’s starting to think the Scarlet Spider might be an idiot. “I’m not trying to commit suicide, god. I was just -” He cuts himself off, realizing how delusional he'll sound if he tells the truth. “And wait, even if I did want to kill myself, you did a horrible job of trying to talk me down.”

The Scarlet Spider squints at him for a good thirty seconds before he says anything. “Look, dude, I don't do this a lot. Usually I just beat up muggers and shit, I don't know how to keep people from hurting themselves.”

“Well clearly you should learn, because if you ever meet anyone who's actually suicidal, talking to you is only gonna make them want to jump more.”

“Damn, you're sassy. I like that.” The Scarlet Spider finally lets him go, and Cyrus considers bolting right then and there but he thinks that would probably be really conspicuous. The Scarlet Spider takes a couple steps back, giving Cyrus some space, and folds his arms. “So tell me, what were you trying to do?”

Cyrus still doesn't know how to answer that. He weighs his options, glancing from the Scarlet Spider to the edge of the rooftop and back again. He takes a deep breath. “I think I might be like you.”

He can actually see the Scarlet Spider’s eyebrows shoot up underneath his mask, which should be impossible but there it is. “Like me? You’re gonna have to be more specific.”

Something dawns on Cyrus then. “Is that hoodie from Jefferson?” It's the exact same blue as Cyrus’ high school’s colours.

The Scarlet Spider takes a step closer, frowning. “Why?”

Cyrus shrugs. “If it is, then we go to the same school.”

“So?”

“So, we have a lot more in common than you may think.”

The Scarlet Spider sighs, tapping his foot against the gravel. “You're being really cryptic. Just tell me what you mean. How are you like me? And how the fuck would you know that anyway? You don't even know me.” He's getting defensive. Whoops. Maybe Cyrus shouldn't have pried so much.

Cyrus decides the best way to clear things up is to show him, so he runs to the edge of the roof and jumps.

He’s not even a foot in the air before the Scarlet Spider is tackling him, shooting a web and swinging them both back to safety on the roof of a different building. “I thought you said you didn't wanna jump!” He's clearly distressed, and refuses to let Cyrus go despite his struggling.

“I never said that, I said I didn't wanna die.”

“That's the same thing!” the Scarlet Spider protests, exasperated. Cyrus figures he probably doesn't have this much trouble convincing people to let him save them, for the most part.

“No, it really isn't. Just let me go and I'll show you.”

The Scarlet Spider eyes him, searching Cyrus’ face for any hint at what the fuck is going on. Eventually, he nods. “Fine. But I’m gonna save you, so brace yourself.”

Cyrus rolls his eyes again, moving the Scarlet Spider’s arms out of the way so he can walk to the edge of the roof. This building is taller than his apartment building, and he's stressed as all fuck, but if he doesn't do this now then he never will. He has the Scarlet Spider to save him if anything goes wrong, so now is the best time to be reckless.

Cyrus jumps. And for a split second, he thinks he might actually die. He's so high up, and the street below is so far away, and if he fell from this height there would be no coming back from that. But then he looks up, and he sees the endless sky, the lights of the city sparkling above him, and he thinks maybe this isn't so scary. Especially not when he locks eyes with the Scarlet Spider, who looks about a nanosecond away from jumping out to catch Cyrus and save him again.

It's now or never. Cyrus’ eyes dart around, searching for anything to aim at, and his gaze lands on a building off to the left that's about the same height as the one he just jumped off of. He sees the Scarlet Spider in his periphery, leaping off the roof to come save him, but Cyrus is already shooting a web at the building in front of him and swinging through the air right at the roof ahead.

He hears the Scarlet Spider whooping in surprise, and he can't make out the words but that's mostly because he's too busy laughing from the sheer adrenaline of it all. He's never felt this free. He's never let himself be this free before.

Unfortunately, that becomes pretty obvious once he realizes that he isn't going to clear the rooftop. He didn't get the angle of his swing right, or maybe he didn't shoot the web high enough, but either way he's headed straight for a window. He braces himself for impact.

“Underdog!” he hears the Scarlet Spider yell, and suddenly he’s pushing Cyrus up higher as he swings in from behind.

He flies up, and the Scarlet Spider shouts at him to shoot a new web. He aims higher this time, and it connects, and then Cyrus is landing lightly on his feet on a new rooftop and taking a deep breath and he can see the whole city and it's absolutely magical.

“That was exhilarating!” he yells as the Scarlet Spider lands beside him. Cyrus almost wants to hug him, but he doesn't.

“So that's what you meant when you said you're like me?” the Scarlet Spider asks, and Cyrus nods, beaming at him. “You wanna be a hero?”

Cyrus purses his lips in thought. “I mean, I didn't really plan on trying it, but...I didn't really plan on any of this.”

The Scarlet Spider shrugs, fiddling with the strings of his hoodie, which are uneven. “You don't have to, but you might as well use it. This shit will make you restless real fast if you don't channel it somehow.”

Cyrus cocks his head, and he really looks at the Scarlet Spider for the first time. Maybe he does want to know more about him. “Will you teach me?” isn't what he plans to say, but his brain is too adrenaline flooded to really filter his thoughts properly.

“Of course I will, Underdog.” The Scarlet Spider sounds almost fond when he says it.

Cyrus shakes his head. “My name's Cyrus. Cyrus Goodman, maybe you know me from school?”

The Scarlet Spider freezes for a second, then he's walking toward Cyrus with a weirdly determined stance and Cyrus is stressed out again because what the fuck is he about to do?

He's definitely not expecting the Scarlet Spider to throw back his hood, pull his mask off and say, “Hey, Cyrus. I’m TJ Kippen. You might know me as captain of the basketball team.”

This night really could not get any weirder.

[impalaanddemons]

Ad Astra - Chapter 3

A/N: Keva makes a decision. I stole the idea from @poetictrekkie but I swear there’s something bigger going on ;) Story: Keva Scofield is a young member of the relatively fresh Department of Temporal Investigations and prides herself in being a temporal agent. She is sent with Junior Agent Lorilee, temporal agent in training, to investigate the destruction of the freighter Mercury and the vanishing of its Captain and First Officer. It is there at a time rift she makes first contact with an entity that calls itself Q. about 3500 words This chapter is on ao3 Chapter 1 Chapter 2

Stardate: 49325.1 April 28, 2372 A Friday

Darkness held her in its comfortable envelope only for so long before she began to stir in uneasy dreams. She was floating in space again. Coldness and Darkness pressing against the helmet of her spacesuit as she swirled down into the mouth of the rift. Her drift was accompanied by the undeniable sensation of falling. Falling down and apart at the same time. Looking down into the mouth of physical hell and then looking up to watch herself fall down. It was all an effect of extreme physics pulling at her senses - different quantum states conflating and collapsing in quick succession until the most probable state settled in.

But the most probable?

She stirred again in her sleep, white fingers clawing into her sheets, digging her fingernails into the very biobed she was lying on. She saw the most probable states pass her again and again in a never-ending loop - her body crushed and pulled apart, forever locked in stasis. Shroedingers cat alive and dead and ultimately aware of itself. Ripped apart and kept together until the universe would eventually collapse on itself. Gravity was greedy. What it took into it’s hold it did not part with easily. Degraded to being a mere spectator at her own demise all that she felt in a million different timelines washed over her, bombarded her selves until tears welled up in her eyes once more. She lay on her biobed crying. Her heart rate elevated but not enough to force the holographic Doctor into existence at night, she dreamt a dream of thousand nights to come. And he was there. Watching curiously as her body warped and her mind held unto the training that had intended to prepare  her for a situation such as this. Intense lessons that were designed by vulcan scientists to will a person to withstand the counterintuitive reality each agent would face in their lifetime. Some broke. Some left the training and never came back. Flying - Falling - scattered atoms in a vast cosmos. A hand grabbed her shoulder hard. She awoke with a yelp. Keva was alone. A machine next to her bed was humming its monotone song all by itself. The lights were dimmed down to an absolute minimum and all other beds were empty. She lifted her hand and rubbed her forehead only for it to come back with cold sweat.

It’s okay.

She tried taking a deep breath - one of those forcing air deep down into the lungs until it hurt. It was just a dream. A memory. Past. The thought lingered on for a moment, prompted a question about what past was - and was quickly shoved to the side. It would do no good to ponder over that question right now. Later. There are a lot of questions I’ll have to attend to later. Neither the Doctor nor his assistance were in sight and the young agent assumed they’d gotten to bed in their quarters, although it struck her as unusual to leave sickbay and patience unattended at night. At least in her opinion, for what it was worth - how could she know how protocols had changed in a hundred years. „Look who’s awake.“ A shiver ran down her spine at the sound of the deep voice coming from inside all directions at once.

„You“, Keva exclaimed louder then she had intended to. Her voice was raw and she heard a tremble in it and despised herself for it. „Moi!“ the owner of said voice stepped out of the shadows of a corner. A place he couldn’t have been a mere second ago. It was simply impossible. He grinned a flashing grin and threw his hands into the air as if greeting an old friend from afar. „How long has it been dear agent? A hundred years? A hundred and two?“ he asked cheerily and stepped over to her bed with two long strides.

Keva Scofield hated puns and jokes related to time and this one was like rubbing salt into her open wounds. She groaned as she heaved herself into an upright position and ignored the pain that seemed to radiate from every inch of her body and directly into the nerves behind her right eye. „I will murder you in your sleep.“ she spat. Her heart rate monitor started to beep dangerously. „Good thing I don’t sleep then“, he quipped and eyed her for a moment. Disgust flickered across his face. „How.“ Agent Scofield felt her teeth grinding against each other. She could not resist to turn her head to follow him with her eyes as he started to circle her bed in an overtly casual manual. „I saved your life. Aren’t you grateful to your benevolent god?“ his voice was dripping with pride and she utterly resented it with every fiber of her being. „You pushed me.“ her hand shot forward in a sudden motion as he came back from circling behind her and her fingers clasped around his underarm. It was like gripping a running power line and she immediately drew back, yelling out in pain. All that remained of her touch was the bloody imprint of her fingers on his uniform. The young agent stared at him and then back at her hand. At cuts that had been carefully closed for healing and that were now bleeding again. „How dare you“ exclaimed the omnipotent as he assessed the mess on his uniform. With a mere snap of his fingers his uniform was impeccably clean again. „How unsanitary.“ he muttered and cocked his head ever so slightly. Instead of taking his distance from her he sat down next to her, uninvited. His eyes were searching her face, for what she didn’t know. „It really is true. No good deed goes unpunished.“ A deep sigh followed as if carrying a heavy burden all by himself. „Good deed.“ the brown headed woman repeated. Her voice sounded hollow at the statement. Unbelieving. She had reigned in her temperament enough to refrain from immediate violence. At least for the moment. „Indeed.“ he straightened the sheet covering her legs casually with his slender hands and she felt herself tense up against her will. „You pushed me into a fucking time rift.“ „Am I listening to a record on repeat here? Is that all that matters to you right now?“ he sighed, obviously bored by her choice of topic already. „Look at all the opportunities you get here! New people, new quadrant, new century. What an exciting change of scenery!“

His eyes roamed the room. „Not this perhaps. And not for me, of course. I’ve seen all the millennia there are. But for your little ape brain…“ he did not finish the sentence instead leading the tips of his thumb and his middle finger pressed together to his lips as if tasting a delicacy. „I am temporally displaced.“ Keva spoke up again, but weakly this time and just so overcoming her speechlessness. „This is one of the worst violations of the temporal directive I know. And I worked on Kirks file.“ He quirked his eyebrows curiously, amused. It was as if he was watching a toddler trying to wrestle him into submission. His look was oh so condescending and she could feel that temper of her flare again. „There are no temporal directives for an omnipotent“ he chuckled slightly. Even the simple idea of rules seemed to be out of his grasp. „Oh, and who has declared that?“ she raised her chin defiantly. „Well, the only person with any authority and, if you don’t mind me saying, competence to decide.“ he flashed a million dollar smile at her. „Good ol’ me.“

Keva Scofield actually snapped for air at the tremendous amount of pomp and ego presented to her. Lifting her chin even higher, she stared right back into the darkness of his eyes. Challenging. „I will personally arrest you, bring you to the DTI, so that you can stand trial for your crime.“

„Handcuffs and all?“ his voice was filled to the brim with shaking amusement and he stared right back at her - mustered those grey determined eyes, ready and unflinching in the face of … well … him. And then he laughed, again, loud and passionately. He produced a bouquet of roses from his back and set it down on his back before he got up slowly. „This is going to be so much fun.“ he sounded almost giddy at the thought of it. „I am almost tempted to peek at future  you. Skip right to the best part, mon cher.“ And then he grinned and snapped his finger and was gone with a flash of light. Agent Keva Scofield sat with her mouth gaping open - and filed another violation to her list of his misdeeds in her mind, trying to ignore the overbearing amount of flowers on her bed.

„Oh, you had a visitor. Strange. My sensors should have detected any person entering sickbay.“ Keva snapped back to attention and stared at the doctor. She opened her mouth to speak, reconsidered and carefully shoved the roses to a distance. It was impossible for her to tell how much time had passed since the omnipotents arrival and departure. „An unwanted visitor, yes.“ she muttered to herself. A second passed in which the Doctor stepped over to her. Medbays lights slowly came up at the same time and she wondered shortly wether it was incidental or just a routine on this ship. „Could you … get rid of those roses for me? I don’t know… burn them. Throw them out of an airlock. Something that sets a statement.“ her voice was sharp enough to cut glass and the Doctor hurried to pick up the bouquet with care. „If you have unwanted guests please inform me and I will restrict their access to sickbay for the remainder of your stay.“ he answered coolly, turning the flowers in his hands. „I doubt he belongs to your ship“ the young woman straightened herself some more, exercising the care she deemed necessary in her current situation. „If this is true we need to bring it up with our chief of security, Mr. Tuvok, as well as Captain Janeway herself. Intruders aboard are a sensitive topic for Voyager.“ She wondered if he was part vulcan. Something about his manner was overstudied, too on point to be actually natural. She couldn’t exactly pinpoint it, but something about him tipped her off. „It’s a pity“, he continued as he turned the roses over in his hands. „According to my databases these are de la Grifferaie. Which is actually impossible.“

With her voice raised she interrupted him: „Your … what again?“ „My databases.“ he repeated, while walking to his desk and putting the flowers down. „Being from the 23rd century you can’t know that. I am a holographic doctor.“ the hologram turned around to make his way back to her bed. „But I can assure you that I am as much part of this crew and as respected as any biological crew member on Voyager.“ his voice was filled to the brim with pride as he continued and, while talking, arrived at her bed to study the readings of her beds systems. „You’re not real then?“ she inquired, carefully studying his features. His brow furrowed slightly, in a way that made her feel slightly guilty for asking. Way to put your foot in your mouth, Keva. „As far as you are concerned, I am as real as any other member of the crew, Mrs. Scofield.“

Her lips pressed down into a thin line and she decided it was for the best to let him finish his work for the moment, lest she found another way to affront him. That way they both inhabited the medbay in silence, with minutes passing without any of them raising their voice again. To Keva it was an uncomfortable silence brought about by her clumsy curiosity at the doctor. For him, she wasn’t sure. After the first passing irritation - or what she had interpreted as irritation - he had settled back in checking her readings and consulting some display on her bed. „Your hand.“ he prompted her so suddenly that she nearly jumped out of her bed. „My..“ she began, but instead of finishing the sentence just offered him the hand she had touched the Q with. It was crusted with blood again. „Unusual.“ the doctor proclaimed, turning her hand in his. He felt just normal. Like any other human. „I will go over this with the dermal regenerator again.“ She just nodded along as he spoke and watched him get the regenerator and apply it to her hand. Her face went through a quick succession of expressions ranging from amazement to uncertainty. „That… doesn’t hurt as much as it did back in my time.“ she offered a weak smile. He raised his eyebrows at her for a second, then focused back on her hand. For someone who thought themselves as good as dead being touched felt oddly comforting - be it holographic or not. She wondered: Was inquiring about his technology considered inappropriate? „All you should feel is a slight tingle. Perhaps an itching sensation.“ She watched as the open cuts sealed under the blueish light.

„When I was still at the academy…“ she began, but it was barely a whisper - more to herself, then to convey any real meaning to the doctor. „I got hurt during combat training. Really stupid. I slipped on a mat and crashed face first into my opponent. Had to get dermal regeneration too. Hurt like hell.“ Another weak smile, now caught by his concerned look at her face. „So you are a member of starfleet after all.“ came a female alto from the door and made the both of them look up to her. „Ah, Captain. I just finished checking up on my patient. You can attend to her now but I’m afraid she’s not allowed to leave the medbay just yet.“ „Yes, Doctor. Thank you.“ the older woman said as she walked over to the Agent, bearing a kind smile. This time her entourage didn’t follow her around. They probably had to work. „Until I graduated, yes.“ Keva solely responded to keep the conversation going - and avoid another blunder this early in her morning. The captain took a detour from her way to the occupied bed to what looked like a square hole in the wall. „Do you want anything in the morning? Coffee? Tea?“ „Coffee.“ Keva watched the Captain carefully as she approached the square and stopped right in front of it. Did they have a food dispenser in sickbay? „Please.“ she added to that and with a nod and a ‚One coffee please, black‘ said coffee, mug included, appeared with an orange shimmer in the square. „Our replicator energy is limited, but you skipped six days of your rations and a mug of coffee won’t hurt.“ the captain smiled at her, now finally walking over to Kevas bed and setting the mug down on a table next to the bed. „Replicator.“ Keva repeated and felt stupid increasingly stupid - just repeating whatever novelty she encountered, like a parrot. „They look like food dispenser. Do they work on voice command?“ „Yes. But we do have a kitchen - you will get to know Neelix  canteen and food soon enough, no need to hurry.“

There was the shimmer of a smirk in the Captains eyes, a glint of amusement barely held back. Janeway had decided to skip on Neelix being a Talaxian - her stowaway wouldn’t know where to put him anyway, or how to picture him and she had the distinct feeling that a hundred years of catch up where enough for Keva to deal with for now. She had decided to skip on a lot of things, actually. Keva took the mug with shivering hands and nipped at the drink. It tasted just like the real thing. „That’s good.“ her lips curled into an honest, thankful smile. „I have asked my security officer to compose a file of important developments over the last hundred years.“ the Captain pulled a small PADD from her belt and put it where the mug had stood before. „It hardly covers anything. I’ve asked him to focus on things you absolutely need to know - wars, technological advancements, species and diplomatics.“ Keva took another sip from her mug. The bitter fluid left a warm feeling in her gut. She simply nodded along as the captain was talking, throwing only a short look at the PADD itself. „It starts with an introduction on anything you might encounter on this ship. Especially.“ the Captain cleared her throat as if trying to gather a few more seconds to carefully formulate what she was about to say. „Especially our Klingon crew members." The expression on Kevas face fell into consternation, then shock and soon after a carefully crafted image of composure. „Your what now?“ she asked nonetheless, lowering the mug into her lap. „Klingons are part of the federation now. You’ll find everything in the file and I am sure you’ll get used to it sooner then you can imagine.“

The captains little speech only earned her a suspicious look from the agent. „Now, read this whenever you feel like it. You have been assigned quarters. Tom will show you to them as soon as the Doctor declares you’re good to go.“ „Which won’t be today.“ came the Doctors voice from his desk. He seemed inclined on reminding them that he was still present in the room and listening.

Janeway just smiled and Keva, now again nipping at her mug of coffee wondered if she could grow to like this woman and her warm smile. The way she carried herself around. She was starfleet, through and through. The agent could practically feel the starfleet vibes in her bones. She let the gaze of her grey eyes drop down onto the mug and watched the sloshing liquid that was left in it. „Captain.“ she then began, followed by another one of those deep breath that seemed to become a bad habit for her lately. „Yes, Agent Scofield?“ „The man. I told you about.“ Keva lifted her gaze again to watch the woman now. „He pushed me into the rift, back downtime. He’s responsible for me being here.“ She felt how the terror crept up on her again. Could see that same terror reflected in the other woman’s eyes. „Keva…“ „My .. systems failed. I don’t know why. Or how. Contact to the Janus, our ship, broke. The thrusters of my suit didn’t work anymore. I …“ Another deep breath, this time to calm herself. To shove the memory away, capsulate it into a corner of her mind to be investigated, not felt, not heard, not experienced. Not right now. „I’m so sorry, Keva.“ once again the Captain put her hand on Kevas, trying to reassure her of her safety here. „Do you know who this man was?“ „That’s it, you know. He was here. Last night. He brought me flowers.“ the young agent watched concern grow in Janeways face. Wrinkles and deep furrows appearing where smooth skin had been before. „He says his name is Q.“ Now there was something else in Janeways expression - the furrows intensified as her mouth fell open, then closed again and opened once more. She hit the badge on her chest. „Tuvok, alert all security personnel to yellow alert. I want a heightened security presence on all decks and be informed of all unusual occurrences." „Understood, Captain.“ the answer was swift and precise. The leveled baritone voice had something distinctly vulcan about it. „Janeway out.“ The captain tapped her badge again. Keva could not help herself but feel impressed by the military efficiency of it all. She had hated starfleet, but there was no denying that whatever these people did, it miraculously tended to work out. „Q…“ Janeway sneered with bared teeth. It was comfortable to see that she was not alone with her feeling of resentment against this creature. „So you got caught in one of his perverse games. I am sorry for that.“

Agent Keva Scofield remained silent for a moment, pondering over the sympathy of the - her? - captain. She then shook her head very slowly, deliberately and clenched her teeth. Her eyes locked with those of the Captain, determined and passionate to a fault. „No, Captain Janeway. Don’t pity me. I will arrest this man and bring him in for temporal trial.“ Janeway stared at her in stunned silence.

TAGLIST @flowerbunbunny @winterknightdragon @poetictrekkie @foxyverse

[elonanwrites]

daffodil

a short story that i wrote for my english comp class a couple years ago. i forgot it existed until i stumbled upon it in a drafted email to my professor. i was about 16 years old and struggling with my own mortality. this story is the result of that.

word count: 2,896

Year 2078

Lucy was screaming again. It happened almost every Thursday at noon. Mostly, I just wished she would shut up.

My children put me in this nursing home seven months ago, and I had yet to get used to the smell of sterile gauze and the sound of lonely yells for help. I stopped being angry at them for it only this morning. My left leg was partially paralyzed, I already had six strokes in the past year, and I was a bitter old woman; this place was a last resort.

My eyes shifted from the drab, gray curtains of my room to the nearly transparent skin at my wrist. All these long years took a toll on my body. I heard the words osteoporosis and blood clots more than I heard my own breathing. The thought of it was no longer frightening. Death no longer sent a chill down my spine. I sat alone in my wheelchair and waited for Death daily. It's been eighty years; He still hasn't shown up.

I lived each day alone; alone in this room and alone in my mind. My children were all gone; buried in their lives of executive importance, I held second place (or third) in their lives. My parents died forty years ago. First my father and then my mother. My memory of them lapsed a lot. There is only a glimpse who they were; a smile and a hug are all that I have left.

Everything was gray. The cataract in my left eye developed six months ago, and yet, life had always been gray. I accepted the blindness with open arms. Everything was also wrinkly. My skin, my sheets, and even time was wrinkly. Time began becoming wrinkly almost twenty years ago. It started with lost hours, but it soon turned into lost weeks and months. Without time, I fell into a void of numb ignorance. Without time, I began to disappear.

The doctors said I had borderline Alzheimer's and this was the cause of the lost time. I told them they were wrong, so they slipped a few extra doses of Zoloft into my daily medication.

"Miss Ashley? It's time for your afternoon table tennis game."

One of the nurses at the resting home, Bridget, was standing in the doorway with her hands clasped behind her back. No doubt to hide the new bruises her husband had given her. A male nurse, who tended to be a little too touchy, stood behind her with a beastly look in his eyes. How sad that a man got a kick out of harming little, old ladies in a nursing home. He was definitely in the wrong profession, but I don’t think he minded.

I kept my eyes lowered and nodded mutely. I had found that it was easier to just comply with the staff. It made them treat us a little more humanely.

Bridget rolled me out of the room and into the fluorescent lit hallway. The air was heavy with hushed secrets and burned cornbread from today's lunch. Empty faces stared at me through the paned glass of their rooms. Whether they were ghosts or humans, I didn't know. They all wept the same.

We passed Lucy's room, where the screams had turned to sick, guttural moans of despair. I didn't have the energy to feel any remorse. I tried to remember the last time I had felt it, but my thoughts turned to gray mush.

Bridget's voice was a slight whisper behind me. "We set up your table with all your favorite snacks in case you get hungry. Candace wanted to play, but I told her that today was your turn. Of course she nearly—"

A twig-like grip was wrapped around my equally thin forearm. Lucy's wild brown eyes met mine as she clutched at me frantically. Her distraught voice reached me before the orderlies ripped her off of me. "You can change this. Go. Be free."

A tearing sensation built in my forearm that she had touched and seared an agonizingly, slow path to my chest and legs. I could feel my body changing and contorting in the wheelchair. I had never felt pain like this. I was being ripped apart and pulled back together all in the same instance. I lost all sense of reality as Lucy's words played over in my head like a broken record: You can change this. Be free. Be free.

The pain stopped. I fell into the darkness.

***

80 years earlier, 1998

The migraine bouncing around in my head held little competition to the ache in my bones. As I reached my hand up to block the blinding light in my eyes, my elbow popped in protest. I huffed impatiently as feeling painstakingly returned to my limbs. My right hand fell to my side and smacked against soft soil while I pushed myself up to a sitting position.

I should have noticed that the hair against my shoulders no longer held its gray sheen, or that my lungs felt whole for the first time in years. Instead, my cataract-less eyes fixated on the woman towering over me.

"Lucy?"

My voice sounded light and airy as she smiled down at me. Her hair was combed back into a neat ponytail and her hands were no longer gnarled into permanent claws. The wild look in her eyes disappeared and was replaced with a tender one.

"I'm surprised you made it," she chuckled. "Most people end up getting lost. You look good, Ashley. Sixteen looks well on you."

I scowled up at her and struggled to my feet. I scraped my hands against the soil under my knees and winced. At least that meant I wasn't dead. Maybe.

"Where are the orderlies?" I stiffened under her scrutiny. "Where am I?"

Lucy clasped her hands together and gestured to the frost-tipped mountains to our left. "You can call it what you like: Purgatory, The Before, Heaven. All you need to know is that the year is 1998 and you do not exist."

A hysterical laugh bubbled up from my throat. I wrapped my arms around my chest as I was on the verge of a panic attack. A tear fell from my eye and a daffodil bloomed in the soil where the water landed. My laughter trickled to an end; hiccups replaced it. I shook my head as the daffodil grew before my eyes. "You're insane."

Lucy threw back her head and sighed impatiently. "Why? Because this world says so? Oh sweetheart, open your eyes!"

She held out a hand and beckoned to me. "Come. There's much you need to see."

Lucy took me to an Ash tree nearby and told me to feel the bark under my fingertips. I held my hand out and felt a magnetic-like pull toward the rough bark. The tree thrummed with energy; it was unlike anything I had experienced before. "What does it mean?" I breathed.

"You were born from the Ash tree. This is your beginning and your end. You were made from the branches and the leaves. You will die here, and your skin and bones will return to their rightful home when, someday, they will be reborn in another form." Lucy walked around the base of the thick roots and stopped to stare at me with her omniscient eyes.

She went on to explain to me that I had traveled through the dimensions to one where I had not yet been born. I laughed in her face at first, but it didn't phase her. She just stared at me the entire time.

"I don't blame you for not believing me," Lucy breathed. "The first time I traveled, I did it alone; no one was here to greet me. It can be frightening, but you did not belong in that dirty place. To live your entire life just to end up dying with strangers, is the saddest life. I am giving you a chance to redo it all."

I squinted up at the green leaves of the Ash tree; they swayed in a wind that I could not feel. "Why me?"

Lucy gazed into the daffodil fields that tumbled over each other in the breeze. "Sometimes you meet someone and their soul shines through their eyes. You can't explain it; you just know they are destined for greater things than this one life we are given." She turned to me with a desperate look in her eyes. "Can you imagine how beautiful the world would be if everyone got a do-over? Some people are lucky enough to see the ugly soon and try to fix it. Some die blinded by their own selfish desires."

Lucy grabbed onto my shoulders and grinned at me. "I'm giving you a chance to leave this ugly world and enter another. I'm not one for non-consensual time travel, so you need to tell me right now if you can't handle it."

I thought about the splitting pain every single one of my atoms felt the first time we time traveled and the horrible headache that was still present. But I also thought about the mental pain the nursing home had brought to me. I would rather be split into a million different pieces than feel that kind of loneliness ever again.

"I'm ready."

***

March, 1998

My mother was standing in front of me, except her hair was light brown and her sweater had six different colors on it. She twirled her pink gum around her finger and lip-synced to a TLC song that was playing on her Walkman.

I could hear my grandmother shuffling around in the other room yelling at my mom to turn the music down. "Charlie," she called out. "Turn that racket down! You'll go deaf, girl."

My mom twirled around and rolled her eyes at the wall in annoyance, but she pulled out the headphones eventually. She had yet to see me standing in the corner by the mirror. I took a step forward, and the floorboards of the trailer home creaked in protest. "Mom."

She froze in place as my breathing grew erratic. "Mom, it's me. Ashley."

Her black-rimmed eyes locked on mine as her Walkman slipped from her fingers. Her lips formed into a comical 'O' as she looked me over, head to toe. "Who are you?"

I placed my hands up in a look of surrender as she backed away from me toward the door. If I knew anything about time travel at all, the less people who knew I was here, the better. I looked at her desperately. "Please hear me out. I know you don't believe me right now, but I'm your daughter. In 2078, I live in a nursing home. My father, your boyfriend, is named Jim. My grandmother's name is Betty and my grandfather is George. I was born on December 27, 1998 by you. You are my mother and I am from the future."

My mother's lips lifted into a smile right before she fainted to the floor.

"Crap," I muttered.

My grandma's footsteps sounded too close for comfort now. "Jim will be here soon, won't he?"

Jim. My father. I glanced at the calendar hanging on the wall; it read March 23, 1998—one week before my parent's wedding date. I kneeled next to my unconscious mother and looked at her face for the first time in nearly forty years. Her skin was bright and wrinkle free, and her lips were painted with bright red lipstick. Mom, I miss you.

"Charlie? Are you alright?"

In a moment of desperation, I sucked in a breath and imitated my mom's voice the best I possibly could: "I'll be out in a minute, Mom."

A moment of strained silence, and then: "Okay."

30 minutes later

"Wait, so how bald am I?"

My mother and father sat in front of me on my mom's bed. My dad hadn't stopped asking questions since he got here twenty minutes ago. I couldn't stop staring at him. He looked exactly like the pictures he had shown me when I was younger—tan, feathered hair, and a stout physique.

I raised an eyebrow at him. "That's really what you're worried about?"

My mother smacked him on the chest and turned to me with a sheepish grin. "I'm sorry about him." She looked at my jeans and Nike's. "Where exactly did you come from? I'm sorry, but I just can't believe you're our daughter. How is it possible?"

"If I knew, I would tell you—believe me."

My father leaned his elbows on his knees and narrowed his eyes at me. "I think the real question is why you're here. There's obviously a reason."

I smiled at the memory of Lucy. Would I ever see her again? I ran a hand through my hair and tucked my legs under me. "There was a woman who I lived with in the nursing home. I thought she was a complete nut, but I'm here, so I guess she was pretty sane after all. Anyway, she told me that she's giving me a second chance. She said I didn't belong in that nursing home, and I have the opportunity to change my future by being here."

My mom wrung her hands together nervously. "How do we help?"

I shrugged my shoulders and gazed around the room. "I know it sounds crazy, but it wasn't really explained to me either."

A short laugh came from my father. "It's obvious, isn't it? You have to change our future, which in turn will change yours. It's simple."

My mom looked at him with light shining in her eyes before she turned to me. "When do we start?"

March 30, 1998, Wedding Day

"Charlie, you're the light of my life."

"No, no, no; you're saying it all wrong! Say it like this: 'Charlie, you shine so bright that the moon is jealous.'"

"Oh, okay."

"Aaaaand ACTION!"

"Charlie, you shine so bright that the moon is jealous."

My mom's white slip clung to her sweaty body. "Ashley, can we please take a break? This church is stuffy."

I glanced up from my clipboard and sighed. "The wedding is in thirty minutes, Mom. We need all the practice we can get."

My dad loosened his tie from around his neck and threw me a look of disbelief. "Remind me again how this was different from the first wedding we had?"

I scowled at my clipboard instead of looking at him as I grumbled, "In your first wedding, mom wore a green dress and you were married in front of a judge. This one simple change in location and wardrobe might change everything."

My mom touched my arm lightly and moved her veil behind her head. "I know he seems a little rough around the edges," she began. "But your father is just scared. He doesn’t believe in...paranormal things. Of course, you know that."

I forced a smile at her and placed my clipboard on a table behind me. "Thanks, Mom. I appreciate you two doing this for me. I'm just scared. I don't even know if any of this will work in the long run."

Without warning, my mom placed a kiss on my temple and pulled me into a hug, but not before I saw the tears shining in her eyes. "I love you."

A weight tugged at my feet and I pulled away from my mom to gaze down at the church floors. Stems sprouted from the wooden boards. Daffodils twisted up my legs and reached up to my torso as the familiar tearing sensation spread through my body.

My mom tore at the daffodils in anguish. "What's happening," she screamed.

I pushed her hands away carefully and shared a weighted look between her and my father. "It's okay." The stems wrapped around my wrists and broke contact between mine and my mother's fingers. "Thank you, Mom. Thank you, Dad. Thank you so much."

The pain stopped. I fell into the darkness.

***

I don't know how long I have been traveling. Months, years, millennia. All I know is that the world is very quiet. The wind feels like the moment before the world exhales—even and powerful. I am constantly on the verge of rebirth, only for it to be drawn back at the last second. I am scared for this new life, but the excitement washes away the fear.

I am no longer alone. The few days I had with my parents keep me company while I wait. I play every detail like a movie in my head until I can almost hear my mother's laugh and my father's words of wisdom.

And just like that, my waiting is over. There is a flash of blinding white light before suddenly, I am filled with life. My life before as a human gave me no preparation for this life. I had no sight. I had no memories. Yet somehow, I was aware of the two gravestones on either side of me. I was aware of one etched with my mother's name, and the other etched with my father's name. I was aware of the moon glowing above me with a shining soul that belonged to someone I once knew.

As the moon loomed overhead, a yellow daffodil between two gravestones swayed happily in the calm breeze, for she was finally at peace.