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gregorygerwitz · 2 years ago

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“Mouse” + the magic AU (absolutely inspired and influenced by my co-conspirator, @kitthekazoo)

“What do you mean you can find anything?” “Exactly what it sounds like. I can find anything, anywhere, any time.” “That’s not possible.” “I promise, it’s very possible. You just probably wouldn’t like how I do it.”

Magic wasn’t normal. It was a curse, an anomaly, an imperfection. And the Gerwitzes were anything but imperfect.

Furthermore, it was illegal. So, when the signs of it started showing in their son almost as soon as he started walking, they prepared themselves for the inevitable. It took years of preparation, and discreet nannies who wouldn’t go to the authorities while ensuring that their supposed heir wouldn’t leave the house. No one could know the truth, that one of the most powerful and influential families in the city was harboring a fugitive child . But it was only to buy them time. The years made it possible to sell a lie.

No, we couldn’t bring Gregory this evening. He’s still feeling unwell.

The doctors said he should be resting.

Yes, he’s still spending his days in bed. He’s very unhappy about it.

He had another appointment with his doctor last week. There’s been no change.

We can’t stay long tonight. We really should get home to check on Gregory’s fever.

And all it took was the right words at the right times, the right lies at the right events. And then everything went perfectly smoothly. There were more than enough magical children on the streets, struggling to get by, and no one was going to notice one more. With enough money, and a few theatrics, they could get confirmation from a doctor that the illness they made up really was as serious as everyone was led to believe, they could hold a false funeral, they could spread the news in all the major papers.

Gregory Gerwitz IV, beloved son to Thelma and Gregory III, was dead at the age of six. There was nothing anybody could have done for him, and the city would mourn the loss for years to come.

But there was still a boy, nameless and alone, hiding among the others without anywhere to go on the Chicago streets. He used his magic only out of desperation, starting small fires to keep warm when the weather got colder, creating just enough food to get by out of the air. He survived, and he kept to himself, and he learned how to use magic without the comfort and safety of a private space to practice, without any guidance.

He saw what happened to the other kids around him, to the ones who trusted the wrong people. Magic was wrong, something that needed to be wiped out before it could spread, that was something he heard around every corner. There were teams of police in plain clothes, watching the kids on the streets, gaining their trust and learning about their magic, only for them to be taken away and never seen or heard from again. So, he simply didn’t speak to anyone, not even the others who used magic in the alleys he frequented or slept in for a night.

Instead, his only company most of the time was something he only summoned when he was completely alone. It was a near replica of the creatures he saw on the streets around him, a shadow of the rodents in nearly every safe spot to get a few hours of sleep. It was barely there, something he could make disappear with a wave of his hand, something that blended in as easily as he did in the dark. If anyone saw it for even a second, they didn’t ask him about it, too blinded by their own fear to risk making trouble.

Except for one person.

The girl was tiny, even compared to him after living on the streets for over a year. She was at least two years younger than he was, if not more, and there was something about her magic that made him feel safe for the first time since he was driven away from the big house where he’d spent most of his childhood. For the first time, he had an ally, someone who could soothe the aches and pains from the cold while he made a fire to prevent them in her. It was a give and take, a partnership, and it helped that she spoke enough to fill the air when he couldn’t, and she didn’t try to huddle into his space except for on the coldest nights. He expected it to be a temporary arrangement, something that would end after a couple weeks when they moved on to different parts of the city to stay hidden from the undercovers looking for magic, and maybe he was a little bit relieved to be wrong.

“You don’t talk, do you?” “...” “It’s okay. Lots of people say I talk too much, enough for three people, so you don’t have to say anything at all.” “...” “You probably can’t tell me what to call you, huh?” “...” “Well, you’re my friend, so I have to call you something.” “...” “What about... you do that shadow thing a lot. With the mouse. I’m gonna call you Mouse, and if you wanna change it, we can figure something else out.”

They spent months together, Mouse and the girl. Kim was the name she settled on for herself after a few weeks - it was simple, so she could say it even while she was still going through baby teeth, but it could be short for Kimberly, which she decided she was going to use when she got bigger and had all of her teeth in the right spots. She became his best and only friend, the only person he willingly showed his magic to, and the only person he actually trusted.

It was supposed to be just them, fending for themselves and getting by their own way, forever. He even made silent promises to himself on the bad nights, the ones where he couldn’t sleep or didn’t want to sleep, staying alert and awake to make sure nothing happened. Kim was his family, and there was a set of rules for what that meant. One day, they would have a real home, somewhere safe where magic wasn’t bad and wouldn’t get them killed if they weren’t careful. He would find it for them himself if he had to, even if he couldn’t communicate that sentiment to her.

By the time they ended up in the wrong part of town, where there were no safe alleys to hide in to make fire and food without his magic being seen, the only memories they had were of each other. He’d tried to do the math a few times, looked at dates on newspapers on the stands around most corners, figured out his age had reached double digits without him realizing it. Kim’s age was harder to pin down, but she was younger than him, and could beg with big, round eyes, and he could watch from a safe distance while she knocked on the door of a house in the nicer neighborhood, just to ask for directions and maybe some food before they went on their way. An hour inside, where there would be heat instead of the puddles in the street that would freeze overnight, that was all she asked for.

And then a woman in a police uniform answered the door, and there was too much fear for him to move away from the sidewalk.

It took coaxing to even get him inside, more to eat the full plate of food set in front of him, and while Kim slept peacefully in the big bed they were offered for the night, Mouse was wide awake. The urge to watch over his family was stronger than his need to rest, especially with the risks around them. He couldn’t even ask for the soothing magic he craved, couldn’t conjure his shadowy mouse for comfort, not with an officer in the house. It would be too dangerous.

He didn’t fully understand how it happened, how one night turned into a week and then longer. All he knew was that the officer - Trudy, she said to call her, not that names were something he ever really had much use for - gave them warm food, and let them sleep in the spare bedroom, and got them warmer clothes than the thin things they’d been wearing for months. She was kind, but she was still dangerous, and opening up wasn’t something he wanted to do.

When the weather got warmer, he sat in the garden in the backyard, in view of the kitchen window and the sliding glass door near it. It wasn’t a safe spot, not really, but one of the flowers was wilting while the others were thriving, and it was so simple, just pushing a little bit of his magic through the soil until it grew a few inches and the yellow petals bloomed. He hadn’t even realized the glass door had slid open, or that he’d been watched the entire time, not until he was inside again, sat at the table with a sandwich for lunch.

“You know, I couldn’t get a sunflower to bloom at all last year. That was a pretty neat trick you did. Maybe next time you can do it with the tomatoes.”

That was all the acknowledgement his magic got, a comment and a wink. But he fed his energy into the tomatoes, and then the rest of the flowers in the garden, and then the bush next to the house so he could sneak a few blueberries without having to wait for them to ripen on their own. He made sure it was always little things, a flourishing garden that could be brushed off as care and a little luck, a bedroom that was always neatly picked up despite the fact that two children lived in it, a pot of spaghetti sauce that tasted just a little bit better than the batch the week before.

Slowly, Mouse let himself get comfortable, and he did things more openly. Summoning his little shadow pet happened more often in the bright, sunny living room than it did in the dim light of the moon. He heated mugs of water for tea with his hands instead of trying to stand on his toes to reach the microwave. There were chores around the house that got done on their own.

The big bed in the spare room turned into two smaller ones, pushed to opposite walls, and then moved to separate rooms. A single drawer of clothes for either of them turned into full dressers of things they got to pick out for themselves. Undocumented fugitives living on the street turned into paperwork and a woman in a suit making sure the house was an appropriate living space for two soon to be teenagers, and then, for the first time in over half a decade, he had a name again, one he knew he wasn’t going to forget like he did with the other one.

“You don’t normally stay up this late, Mouse. You should be in bed, getting some sleep.” “...” “I know you cheat to get your chores done every week, but using that much magic can’t be easy on you. I bet you’re tired. Finish up your tea and then we’ll get you off to bed.” “...” “Mouse...” “...the lady said you’re our mom now.” “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard your voice since you got here.” “Is that true? Are you our mom?” “It can be. Is that okay with you?” “...yeah. That’s okay.” “Good. Now, off to bed, kiddo. Goodnight.” “Goodnight, mom.”

Mouse and Kim Platt were enrolled in the nearby school, and they were careful to hide what they were from the general public. No one suspected a thing. Even when their magic surged in strength through puberty, they were outwardly normal, just the way they needed to be. They passed their classes, and worked on controlling their abilities at home where no one but Trudy could see, and it was a good life.

The changes in his abilities were something he learned to adapt to. He didn’t have the connection to healing that his sister did, and some of his chores couldn’t be done on their own anymore. But he could still make his shadow mouse, and grow the flowers, and pulled things from the back of the fridge that their mother insisted wasn’t in there before. There were things in his pockets that he didn’t remember ever owning, extra pens and pencils and paper in the depths of his backpack, things that he pulled from the air even easier than he used to pull food and fire.

When he pushed his luck and pulled a few bills of cash out of his pocket to buy snacks from the shop around the corner, only for them to be spotted as fakes almost immediately, the trouble started. Magic was something he could use, an inherent ability he’d had from before his oldest memories, but one he had to be very careful with. Their mother could only get him out of so many conversations with other officers before she got tired of it, before he was officially grounded, sequestered to the house and not allowed anywhere nearer to the garden and his flowers than the glass door. It was a silly punishment, not letting him even go into the backyard, but it did what it was intended to do, and he stopped trying to perfect the act of pulling counterfeit paper from his pockets.

Instead, he used his new skills in a different way. He didn’t pull paper and pencils out of the air as much as he did information, the correct answers for tests coming as easily as an extra eraser or paperclip. He kept his grades up by finding the right words out of the universe and pulling them to his hands, the visualization helping him make physical objects even easier. Everything from an extra few ounces of milk at the bottom of the gallon to sparks that turned into a small flame on his palm, it was all easy, like second nature.

“Stop making extra ice cream at the bottom of your bowl, Mouse.” “I’m not making it. I’m finding it.” “And how is that different?” “I find it, and I grab it, and I pull it. Making it would mean going into the kitchen and getting milk, and ice, and chocolate-” “Okay, smart guy. Stop using your magic to get extra dessert.” “You didn’t care when I used it to pass history last term.” “Stop cheating on your tests, too.” “I’m not cheating. I’m just finding the right answers.” “Using magic?” “Yeah, mom. Using magic.” “Then it’s cheating.”

It wasn’t cheating when he found the information that helped track a suspect in a case. It wasn’t even on purpose. They’d had the news on while he was helping with dinner, and the reporter on the screen mentioned a piece of evidence at the scene, and it was so natural, just saying the name that came to his mind. The item found next to the body that couldn’t be traced back to anyone with police resources was tied up in the threads of the universe, and one of those threads led back to the man it belonged to. He’d just tugged at the thread, and the name appeared in his head, and that was the start of something else.

It was the start of Mouse applying to colleges, leaving the threads of the universe alone while he checked the mail every day for letters. That would be cheating, manipulating things to make it into every school he wanted validation from. He just waited, let the universe decide his path for itself, and when the school in Boston said they wanted him, he jumped at the opportunity. Through six years of computer classes and up until the moment he officially had his degree in his hand, he tested the threads. He learned to play them like music, pulling what information he needed to himself and leaving everything else where it belonged. He could dismantle firewalls with the stroke of a few keys if he had the right information, get into any computer in the world from his own personal laptop. He could write code that manipulated the threads for him, more advanced than a search engine, bound and held with his own magic so that no one else would even be able to use the program.

When he moved back to Chicago after school, and after a few more years spent perfecting everything he’d taught himself while he was away, there was a way to put that to use. The building that Trudy worked in could use a tech consultant, someone to sit downstairs by the computers and research information for cases. It would pay well, and he’d have all of the insurance benefits that came with working for the city, and he could still stay in his old bedroom until he had enough money for a place of his own.

And it was incredibly easy to hide how he really got the information that the Intelligence unit needed when it could be disguised by computer code.

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plsimsuchasimp · 4 years ago

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i’m sorry (ft: sugawara).

by request: “Hi!!!! Okay im so glad your requests are open - could I please request some angst with Sugawara? Where the reader is his best friend and secretly loves him but he doesn’t know? Then maybe the reader and Suga fight and then reader gets hurt or something (maybe a car accident) and when the Karasuno team finds out, Suga is devastated and goes to the hospital and tell the reader that he loves them?? Thank you!! ❤️” -anon

yes anon i’m happy to do this- i kinda changed up the prompt a lil bit so i’m sorry about that but i hope this measures up to your standards! (i’m ridiculously soft for suga so this makes sense)

genre: sadness (literal tears were shed in the process of making this)

ft: sugawara koushi x reader

warnings: car crash, fighting, cursing, hospitalization, death

wc: 2k

“Y/n, why are you so upset? I get that you’re concerned, and I’m grateful for that, but she’s genuinely a good person and I’m serious about her!” Suga walks away from you, his back turned, shoulders raised slightly in his sweater. You can sense his frustration, his confusion, but you don’t care. His face is pouty, lip sticking out ever so slightly, and you know you can’t look at him or you won’t be able to keep yourself from kissing him right then and there.

The thing is, you know she’s a good person. And that’s what hurts. See, you’ve been in love with Sugawara Koushi since the day you met him at the bus stop five years ago, on a hot summer day with a butterfly in his hair.

You can’t stop him from getting a new girlfriend, and you know it’s selfish of you to hope he likes you the way you like him, to hold on to him for all these years.

Sometimes when it’s late, you let yourself drift into your memories. The spring days when he would take you hiking, out into the mountains to show you his favorite spots, the times when your stomachs hurt from laughing at the dirty jokes he found off of random places on the internet, the rainy moments and baking cookies when it just seemed calm. With Suga, you felt at home like nowhere else.

Now, your eyes sting unfairly, and you turn away from him as he glares towards you, brow furrowed. Struggling to keep your voice even, you say, “I know, okay Kou? I just- I don’t know, she gives me bad vibes.”

You know he doesn’t mean to be rude, but when he scoffs, your heart squeezes just a bit and tears prick your eyes. “You’re telling me to call off a whole relationship because she gives you bad vibes? You did this with all of my exes, too!” Suga sighs, hands on his hips. “You know you’re my best friend, but honestly, y/n, this has to stop. You can’t control my life!”

He’s right. You know he’s right, and that’s the harsh thing about it. You want him all to yourself- everything about him is entrancing, intoxicating, familiar. Jealousy is a bitch.

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

At this point, his jaw drops open at the sheer audacity of your remark. “I can’t do this with you today.” He throws up his hands and sits on the bed, making it clear he doesn’t really want to talk anymore.

Suga never really fights with you. He teases endlessly, but he always stops himself before he really hurts you, and the fights between the two of you are always calmer on his side. He’s usually the first to apologize, but it seems this is a sticking point for the two of you.

“Well? Go!” As soon as the words are out of his mouth, he regrets it. You flinch backwards at his words, and he doesn’t miss the unmistakable glint of tears in your eyes as you walk out of the room.

“Fine, I guess I will!” As soon as you’re outside, you cover your mouth with your hand, your vision blurred from large drops threatening to spill from your eyelashes. You muffle your sobs with the sleeve of a sweatshirt Suga lent you, and it just makes you cry harder when you breathe in his slight cologne.

He wasn’t going to let her go this time. You missed your chance.

You’re running, but where to? As soon as your thoughts stop spinning, your feet freeze, and you glance around you. Shaky breaths escape you as you duck your head and attempt to cross the street, questioning looks from passerby making your cheeks heat up.

All of a sudden, you hear a car horn and freeze to see a car speeding towards you, out of control. The last thing you see before everything goes black is a child pointing at you, and you almost laugh at the incredulity of the situation. Then you black out on impact.

Back at Suga’s home, he sits in his bed, running his fingers through his silky hair. He curses under his breath, already hating the feeling.

He hates when the only person he’s ever truly loved is mad at him.

Honestly, Koushi can’t fathom why he keeps getting other people to date him, momentary distractions from his everlasting affection for you. You, the only person who’s there for him when he’s hurting, the only real friend to stay near him through everything, the only person he fell in love with on first sight. He wanted to be with you, but he didn’t want to ruin this was.

Better to be certain friends with you and never get what he truly wanted than to try and lose you completely.

Suga picks up the phone to text you when he receives a call from an unfamiliar number, marked as the hospital of your district.

“Hello?"

“Is this Sugawara Koushi?” The female voice on the other end of the line asks.

“Yes, is everything okay?” He responds, curious as to why the hospital is calling him in the middle of the day.

“Well, we have Y/N L/N here, and you’re listed as one of their emergency contacts. Would you mind coming to the hospital to fill out some paperwork?”

Immediately, his world freezes. “W-what did you say?”

“I said, Y/N L/N is in the hospital and we need you to come in and see them.” She’s patient with him, voice even and calm, clearly used to people in shock from news of their loved ones. “They were involved in a car accident.”

He nods, momentarily forgetting she can’t see him. “Yeah, I’m on my way.”

The line clicks, and he sits there for only a minute before hurrying down to his car, grabbing the keys and starting the car. He seems to forget basic movements, mind consumed only with thoughts of you.

“Shit, shit, shit,” he muttered, edging above the speed limit on the road. He was tempted to honk at someone, but refrains from it, knowing it won’t help with the turmoil of emotions he was feeling.

Then, it hit him. This was his fault. He almost stopped the car in the middle of the road, throat closing as guilt washed over him. Koushi didn’t know you’d take it so hard, didn’t mean for it to come off that harshly.

He arrived at the hospital, and as he walked in, the receptionist looked up at him.

“Sugawara Koushi?”

“Yes,” he said, and watched the smile slowly fade from her face. He noticed she tried to hide it, ducking her head, but it was too late. “Are they- are they going to be okay?” he gulped as she didn’t respond.

“Room 208,” she said curtly, “You should probably go in.”

The lights seemed to blur into each other as Suga practically ran to your room. Every footstep seemed to take forever, travel only a few centimeters forward. He couldn’t get there fast enough, accidentally bumping into the wall and muttering a hushed “sorry” to it.

He arrived. The door was almost too heavy, or maybe it was just the fear making his limbs heavy as lead.

There you lay, and it was worse than he thought. Tubes of all sorts trailed from your body to things around the bed, crowding and seeming to close you in. Scratches ran down your cheek and there was dried blood on your hairline, streaking down your face. The breath fell from his throat and he stood in the doorway, paralyzed.

This could not be happening.

One look and he could tell you weren’t going to be okay. An IV drip led into your left arm, and you were unconscious, so fragile, so angelic. It looked as if you were only sleeping, like the countless times you’d snuggled into Suga’s shoulder in the warm summer nights, staring at the blanket of glittering stars far above. The ones in your eyes, though, outshone them all.

When you slept, you always seemed so peaceful, so comforted, but now your brow was slightly furrowed, your lips drained of color and slightly parted. Even in this state, you were still the most beautiful person he’d ever seen.

Shakily, he made his way to the chair and sat down in it. He tried to swallow, but his throat was dry, and tears were dripping down his face before he could wipe them away. A choked sob escaped him as he reached out his hand, hovering over your limp one.

He took your hand, and he hunched over to feel how cold it was. Your hands were always colder than his, which made him a perfect match for you. Never before, though, had he felt this ice.

Suga’s shoulders began to shake, and he clutched your hand, silently begging you not to leave, please please please don’t leave me, i don’t know if i can survive without you. Of course, there was no response but the steady beep of the heart monitor, the only thing reassuring him that you were still there.

Shaking, he brought your hand to his lips, barely brushing them against your knuckles.

“Y/n, I’m so sorry.” Whispered words fell gently from his lips, trying to stay composed for you. “Please stay with me. Please don’t leave.” His tone rises, voice breaking in desperation. “P-please.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He rocked back and forth, holding your hand as if it was the only thing tying him down. “I-I love you.”

There. He said it, those three words he’d wanted to say since the day he saw you smile for the first time. Hopelessly, madly, endlessly in love with you, only you.

When you didn’t respond, he let himself sob, let the pain overtake him. Hot, salty tears spilled onto your hand, and he silently wished for a sign, a movement, anything to show that you weren’t gone just yet.

In that moment, he whispered everything he wanted to say to you, a thousand words choking him and clogging his throat to the point where he couldn’t breathe anymore.

The doctor came in, shutting the door silently behind him. “Sugawara-”

“Call me Suga.” His voice was quiet, reserved, threatening to break.

“I’m afraid y/n isn’t going to make it.” The doctor sighed, mercifully pretending not to notice Suga’s muffled cry. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“You’re joking, right?” Suga raised his head, puffy, red eyes desperate. “Please- tell me you’re joking.” The silence from the doctor told him otherwise, and Suga felt his heart shatter in that instant.

He squeezed your hand, and just as he did, the heart monitor stopped beeping, a flat tone emitting from it. He couldn’t stop the heartbroken cry from spilling from his mouth, his breath stolen by the endless constriction of guilt and grief in his chest.

He stayed there for another two hours, crying over your hand limp in his grasp. When Daichi arrived at the hospital to drive him home, he didn’t want to leave.

Suga stared out of the car window, numb. It was impossible- the world couldn’t be this cruel.

It’s your fault, your fault, your fault, the voice in his head whispered. The broken sobs that spilled out of him hurt, stabbed at his breathing, but he didn’t care. It was his fault that you were gone, forever.

The rest of the day passed in a haze, the sun setting with flared colors that you would have loved. The stars were brilliant, but Suga couldn’t look at them. His pillow smelled like you, and everywhere he looked had some imprint, some memory of you. You were the only person he’d ever love, and you had been stolen from the world in an instant.

In the months afterwards, nothing was the same. He saw you everywhere, expecting to see your texts pop up on his phone, accidentally ordered your drink at the boba place you would always go to.

At the funeral, his stiff black suit seemed awkward, but you always said he looked handsome in one. That was the last time he got to see your face besides pictures, the fading memory of the person who loved him for who he was.

the person who he would love for the rest of his life.

you’re an angel in my eyes.

a/n: tbh this is probably one of the most painful things i’ve written so far suga im so sorry also THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH FOR 50 FOLLOWERS ITS CRAZY i finished this at 2am i’m going to be so sad if it flops <\3

#sugawara koushi #suga x reader #sugawara x y/n #koushi sugawara #sugawara angst #sugawara sadness #i'm literally so sorry this is very sad #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu!!#haikyuu angst #haikyuu sad #suga x y/n #suga x you #sugawara x reader

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multifandomhoodies · 4 years ago

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Finnpoe Rec List!

There’s some really fantastic Finnpoe fics out there and I’ve been setting aside fics from my bookmarks for this for a while! These are just some of my faves, so enjoy!!

Canon/Canon Adjacent (not AUs outside general Star Wars universe)

“how to become the spark” by sassy_ninja (G - 49.7k

Poe Dameron, commander of the Resistance fleet, best pilot in the galaxy, hotshot trigger-happy flyboy, he's all of these things plus a little bit more. This is the story Poe Dameron, shy farmboy, doting son, idiot gay, soldier who tries his best not to be broken by the war roaring around him and most of all just a human in a galaxy which doesn't care about things like love, friendship and fear. This is how he breaks and how he begins to heal again and how he starts to learn what it means to be alive. Or Poe Dameron's life from his childhood to the end of the war.

“bathed in blue light” by delgay (M - 17.4k)

When Finn turns to his right, Poe stands beside him, looking up at Finn and giving him what might be a smirk if he weren’t too busy smiling. It’s that same smile that’s made home on his face ever since Finn said, “I’d like to see Yavin IV. If I’d be welcome.” Poe had blinked fast, but the smile came slow. “Buddy,” he’d replied, “I’m offended that you even had to ask.”

A year after the Battle of Exegol, Finn and Poe visit Yavin IV. While there, Finn struggles with the Force and his complicated relationship with Poe.

“we slept with our backs against the weather” by bogpersons (T - 8.4k)

Poe’s breaths come in stops and starts, and wheezes on the inhale and exhale. He sounds like a dying man. Finn lifts Poe’s hand to his lips, presses it there, squeezes his eye shut. Something harsh and painful swells in his chest, finds a place under his heart and pushes and pushes and pushes until Finn can barely breathe with it. You are a Human Person. Finn and Poe crash on a jungle planet. Finn struggles with himself.

“We Stan A Healthy Family Dynamic (The Kes Verse)” by AphroditesTummyRolls SERIES (Not rated, 161.7k)

Get in losers, we're giving the Star Wars Sequel cast the story they deserved-- Particularly Poe and Finn.

[Set after the events of TFA, rewrites of TLJ and neat little bits in-between. Poe deals with the aftermath Kylo Ren’s interrogation, dealing with regret and trauma, with the help of his friends and dad through a rewrite of TLJ.]

“your love will be safe with me” by incalyscent (T - 8.6k)

when finn stripped away the violence from himself, what did he have left? it was love; love; love.

“i’m yours (and suddenly you’re mine) by spacepilotprince (E - 4.3k)

Finn snorts against Poe's stomach, and it forces a ticklish laugh out of him. “Laying it on a little thick tonight, aren't you?” Finn asks as he looks up at Poe, and finds that grin he heard in his voice.

“Not the only thing that's thick,” Poe says with a smirk, glancing down between them towards Finn's cock.

“Oh, shut up,” Finn laughs, surging up to kiss him, muffling Poe's laughter. Poe runs his hands over Finn's shoulders and tips his head aside, sending Finn's mouth down his jaw and neck.

“Contact” by earthmylikeness (M - 9.9k)

Because what could Finn do but live through it? Live in the remains of his own shipwrecked mind, his badly-crossed wires. Imagine Poe’s perpetually bitten mouth on him - his wide, calloused hands on his bare chest, pulling him down and down whenever he so much as closes his eyes.

Finn has a delayed reaction to surviving the crash.

“Best Laid Efforts” by cosmicocean (T - 3.7k) @cosmicoceanfic

In which Jessika and Temmin do their best, aren't even subtle about it, and Poe and Finn are still morons.

“Ad Pacem” by SteveTrevorsStarship (T - 1.5k)

Finn knows war and rebellion so far. He doesn’t know peace. (Yet.)

“First Comes the Night” by coffeeinallcaps (E - 20.1k)

He doesn’t get nightmares. He doesn’t dream about the mask, the cries of the villagers, waking up in the desert with a blinding headache and his mouth filled with blood and the man who’d saved him gone, most likely dead. Instead, he just can’t sleep.

“have you heard” by peradi (Not rated, 42.1k)

"I heard FN-2187 was a Stormtrooper."

Finn sparks a revolution.

“Doubt” by Cadoan (T - 1.4k)

After the battle of Crait, something has changed in Poe. Poe can't sleep, and Finn goes to find him.

“Neither Here Nor There” by d8rkmessengr (T - 7.8k)

Sometimes, it felt like he wasn't really here. Sometimes, it felt like it wasn't really over. And the one person who tethered him left to finally tell Rey something. Post The Rise of Skywalker.

“How to Be a Finn” by Ayashiki (G - 111k)

In a hindsight, all of it - the stolen childhood, the crash on Jakku, Han Solo's death, even the lightsaber to the back - was easier than living in this world of invisible social clues and inside jokes, the whirlwind of this ragtag family that defied any logic, the caring, the compassion, the love. And all the while people tell him: Finn, you are so brave! Finn, you are so strong! Finn, you are so kind! Finn, thank you for saving my life! And FN-2187 looks to the stars and desperately tries to find this "Finn" everyone seems to know in himself.

“On the Other Side” by StarMaple (T - 27.2k)

Finn discovers the differences first hand between the First Order and the Resistance and establishes a space for himself on D'Qar.

“we are all stardust” by synergenic (Losseflame) (Not rated, 15.3k)

Finn wakes up. He wakes up slow, the rising tide of consciousness making him aware, firstly, of how stale his mouth tastes. Then it's the general stiffness of his body, the foreign feeling of a pillow beneath his head, the softness of the clothes he's wearing. Finn doesn't think he's ever worn clothes so soft.

“No Sleep till Brooklyn” by TheCarrot (T first chapter, second chapter E, - 10.4k)

Poe is exhausted. And not just because he hasn’t slept for more than three hours at a time in Force knows how long. Moreover it’s the 39 flights he’s run in the last 22 days and the fact Pava had gotten deathlike sick eight days ago and then they had fallen behind on a few supply runs and an emergency evacuations of some of their pathfinders and then there had been a last minute scramble to one of their allies in the mid rim with far too many TIEs to be comfortable and then- well, Poe just wants to fall over onto the floor and stay there.

AUs

“Time of the Underdog” by beeeawolf, SERIES. (G & T, 56k)

Modern times AU, Poe is a former Navy pilot who was discharged after a crash and being a POW. Finn is a university student who manages to catch Poe’s run away dog, BB-8, who’s literally everything to him.

“We Didn’t Start the Fire” by MayGlenn and cognomen (E - 10.7k)

There’s a calm that claims them all when they’re working and it’s going the way it’s supposed to; the low-level hum of concentration and focus and adrenaline that keeps them on edge without panic. The crew deploys from Idaho, a home base that they see perhaps 3 weeks out of the entire 26 week fire season, interspersed with time in camps and housing all over the country. This week, it’s California—sunny, liberal, beach lined, and on fire.

Finn's a Hotshot firefighter; Poe's the team Helitack operator. They're headed to California to fight a fire in San Jacinto; dangerous country.

“It’s Not Goodbye” by mssrj_335 (T - 25.9k)

Finn is an ex-soldier on a solo motorcycle trip across America. Poe is the mechanic in a small desert town. Poe wants to keep his secrets and Finn is running from something--or toward it--and the part for his bike is going to take at least a week to come in. What starts as a quick stop and awkward flirt devolves into a conspiratorial intrigue of a very personal nature. Lights in the desert, headaches and vague memories all point Finn to something that has Poe tied in knots. He just has no idea how far that something will take him.

“A Possibility (A Promise)” by sapphistication (T - 5.9k)

Poe, Prince of Yavin, is briefly reunited with the Resistance Fighters lead by General Leia Organa. After three years apart, he quickly finds that his affections for Finn are of a different nature than he remembers. Despite the war they find themselves in, they share a few moments of peace by the fire, filled with soft words and meaningful smiles. Time works against them, but Poe seeks a possibility and makes a promise.

222 notes · View notes

marveldc-imagines-hub · 4 years ago

Text

Subtitles: Episode 4, We Interrupt This Program

Subtitles Masterlist

Summary: [Y/N] is still recovering from one of the worst migraines they’ve ever had and they have the scars to prove it… Wait. Those scars weren’t there before and they certainly weren’t from passing out on the sidewalk a few days prior!

Word count: 9,361

Warnings: Mentions of (not super graphic) death and mental illness. Also Reader being just a little horny on main, but what’s new; almost 9.5k words and they’re simping for most of them. Lots of dorky fluff and also talking about insecurities.

Tag list: @madamevirgo @ravennight41 @multifandomgirl16 @cyanide-mustard @badasspolygenderfriend

~~~

In the black void of otherwise dreamless sleep, voices were conversing.

“[Y/N] [L/N]…” one started.

[Y/N] [L/N]. Age twenty-five. Born to Killian and Alice [L/N] in [city, state] but Dad wasn’t in the picture. No siblings, no living relatives. They wanted to go to school for botany but Mom was diagnosed with early-onset dementia while they were still in high school, so they changed their career path to neurology in hopes of finding a way to help her. She still lives in their hometown.

“Oh, wait,” another voice chimed in, almost indistinguishable from the first, “I know this one. Oh, God.”

[Y/N] was an Honors student, at the top of all their classes. A degree in neurology with phytotoxicology on the side. They took an internship in Europe one year and somehow found themselves in Sokovia. HYDRA was still laying low at the time, caught wind of them.

“Wait,” a third voice, this one easier to differentiate from the other two. “They’re HYDRA?”

The second voice responded, “Former.”

[Y/N] had no idea what they were getting into. HYDRA, always good at hiding in the shadows; they brought [Y/N] in under the guise of an assistant job studying new forms of neural regeneration. A job that paid well enough to live comfortably and even send a little extra home, while developing something that just might solve all their mother’s problems? It was a dream come true.

Fortunately for HYDRA but unfortunately for [Y/N], they were very good at their job too. They helped HYDRA develop all kinds of nasty stuff. Nanobots that changed brain chemistry, near foolproof brainwashing tech— They even helped develop special toxins, one of the world’s deadliest poisons. All the while, thinking they were doing something good.

“How is that possible?” the original voice asked. “How could they have been so oblivious?”

“One-track mind?” the second voice offered, “Plus misinformation on HYDRA’s part and ‘routine health checks’ with something a little extra mixed in.”

“They were tested on?”

“A victim of almost everything they’d helped create, except the fatal stuff and anything that would disrupt business as usual. IVs and shots full of toxins, nanobots being released into their room while they slept.”

The third asked, “What changed?”

“Wanda.”

[Y/N] stumbled upon Wanda and her brother by pure accident. They’d been late that day and in their hurry, ran through a wrong door to where HYDRA was keeping Sokovian volunteers for testing. The twins were the youngest in their group, [Y/N] was only a couple of years older and the youngest in their division. It was a match made in heaven, really.

“Try hell,” the first voice suggested with a scoff.

The other voices offered their murmured agreements.

“So they knew each other,” the third voice said, “Before.”

That’s when [Y/N] started pulling at threads and HYDRA’s costume began to unravel; their one-track mind had switched gears. There was something too weird about the whole thing, these Sokovian civilians had stories that didn’t line up with [Y/N]’s own.

“And they believed them?”

They believed Wanda. She and her brother were just two more Sokovian citizens suffering at the hands of war and wanting to help their people. They had no reason to lie. They had more reason to be honest to [Y/N] than HYDRA ever did, actually. It was just a bonus that for Wanda and [Y/N], being around each other was like being a moth drawn to a flame.

[Y/N] may have been naive but they were far from stupid. When they figured out what was going on, they wriggled their way deeper into HYDRA’s ranks under their own disguise of loyalty. They became a full-fledged HYDRA agent, tasked with assisting in neural and poisonous weaponry. They weren’t able to protect Pietro and Wanda from testing, obviously—not that Wanda would have let them; she and her brother still believed they were being tested on for the greater good—but they did their best to stay nearby and keep the Maximoffs’ sanity intact for as long as they could. They even managed to save a couple of the other test victims by injecting them with temporary poisons that lowered their heart rate to the point of appearing dead. When the bodies were dropped off, the poison wore off not long after and some of the victims were able to escape. No side effects to be seen.

“I have a question,” Original voice said abruptly. “Why do we know this much information on one person? Like, this is some in-depth, intimate stuff. Why do we know that [Y/N] and Wanda had the hots for each other since day one?”

Second voice answered, “We’ve done extensive research on [Y/N]. The result of an investigation on the person who caused the apprehension of an entire faction of HYDRA after successfully poisoning them.”

The tests that were done on [Y/N] were not without their outcomes. They gained the ability to transform almost any matter into almost any other form.

“Huh,” Third voice hummed, “That reminds me of a series of disappearances a few years back. One house was replaced by rose bushes and another—get this—burned down because the roof had been turned to lava. Whoever it was, they either stopped on their own or died. What were they called?”

“The Alchemist,” Second stated simply, much to Third’s dismay. “And those were incognito HYDRA agents.”

After Pietro died and Wanda disappeared—not really disappeared, just left with the Avengers—[Y/N] had a choice to make. They were far too deep into HYDRA’s work now, the awful things that they had done were beginning to weigh on them, as Wanda and her brother had been just as grounding for [Y/N] as [Y/N] had been for her. After she was gone, they had a hard time dealing with the horrible business going on around them. So they did what they knew how to do; they mixed up a combination of poison and nanobots.

[Y/N] had fully committed to perishing with the rest of their coworkers but apparently, the poison hadn’t been quite strong enough. They’d made a miscalculation in a time of poor mental state and woke up the next day to hear that not all of the HYDRA agents had died either. At least the survivors had been taken in for the time being but that just wasn’t enough for them; they’d had a right to be concerned too because HYDRA had a habit of getting themselves out of sticky situations. This case was no different.

[Y/N] most likely felt responsible for having a hand in HYDRA’s dirty work, for not doing more, and they must have felt even more responsible when they learned that HYDRA was a much bigger problem than they could have ever imagined.

First blurted, “Well, what happened next?”

Second answered, “They went after agents until they got caught, the only way they knew how.”

The second miscalculation that they’d ever made got them caught. The agent put a gun to [Y/N]’s head and pulled the trigger.

“So are they dead too?” First asked. The voice seemed to quiver.

The third voice hemmed and hawed a bit before saying, “They must have, with the way all this weirdness had been going. Oh my god, poor Wanda, not one dead partner but two—”

Second spoke over the other two voices’ rambling, forcing them to calm down and listen. “They didn’t die, though, they—”

The voices started cutting out like the dream was a TV program being interfered by a poor connection and static.

“—Found by—Barely alive—Hospital—Braindead—Westview—Find a doct—”

Suddenly gunshots sounded, one followed by several more, and the darkness cracked and shattered, revealing blinding light behind it. A silhouette walked silently through the wall of light; it was Geraldine—no, Monica—poised with a gun in the outfit she helped deliver Maximoff twins in. As she walked forward, crossing from a plane of burning white to one of void black, the image of her warped and distorted until it changed. Monica, looking much more modern, in a uniform that included a bulletproof vest and a lanyard with S.W.O.R.D. printed at the top, moving carefully towards a broken and bleeding body on the ground with another in a heap behind her. The image distorted and changed again, and the first body was sitting on their knees and looking up defiant defeat. The person they were looking at was no longer Monica but a bulky figure in a dark outfit with straps in the form of an H across their chest, the body that had been laying in a battered pile behind Monica just a moment earlier. The H-adorned assailant held a still-raised gun to the kneeling person’s forehead.

[Y/N] could only spit at their feet before another gunshot sounded and the image disappeared to black.

You woke up sweating and choking on your breath. Your brain, throbbing with a pain that shot through it like a bullet, didn’t register fast enough that you were standing instead of laying down so when you flailed, you threw yourself off balance and fell forward. Catching a quick glimpse of your surroundings on your way down told you that you were somewhere outside and that it was the dead of night. You tried last minute to brace yourself for a concrete-laden impact.

You were instead greeted with soft fabric and arms wrapping tightly around you.

“Goodness, [Y/N], are you quite alright?”

You squinted at the striped sleepwear for a moment before looking up where Vision’s worried gaze and whirling irises were waiting for you; it took your eyes a moment to fully focus as the pain in your head faded but left a faint ringing behind. Then you looked around at your surroundings; not only were you outside but you were standing in Vision and Wanda’s driveway. Your gaze settled on a particular section of the house’s exterior where you vividly remembered a vaguely human shape exploding out of its walls.

You were standing in the exact same place you had been when it happened.

“[Y/N]?” Vision said again, drawing your attention back to him.

“Oh, cosmo, I’m sorry,” you said but your throat was too dry and you had to stop and clear your throat halfway through. Being in Vision’s arms, you were keenly aware of the fact that you were both in your bedwear and that yours had been sweated through. You slumped against him, partially to hide your embarrassed face but also because you felt like you hadn’t slept at all.

“Vis?”

“Yes, my favorite teacup?”

You snorted softly at that. “You don’t even drink tea.”

“Oh, I know,” Vision lilted back. Then he nuzzled his face into your hair. “I do like the patterns and the daintiness of them though.”

That time you laughed a bit. Feeling his warm breath against your scalp and his strong arms holding you safely in place against him, you almost instantly melted into the embrace. You wrapped your own arms around him and pressed your face into his chest. “What are we doing outside?”

“Ah, yes, about that. You appeared to be sleepwalking again.”

You groaned. “Again? This is a nightmare.”

One of Vision’s hands moved to run itself through your hair and down your neck. “That accident you had the other day certainly did a number on you.”

The accident. In other words, that time where you walked off in the middle of a conversation with Vision, Agnes, and Herb to mumble at a wall and then faceplant onto the sidewalk. Not only was your nose still recovering but your mind and dignity as well.

“The only time I’ve slept well since is when I fell asleep on your couch,” you whined. Then you lowered your voice and grumbled into Vision’s chest.

Vision chuckled. “What was that?”

You looked up at him and scowled. “The four of you are over here in your stupid, big, warm, cozy house. Meanwhile, I’m across the way, alone and uncomfortable, with only Bernard to keep me company. Bernard’s terrible company.”

“Truly,” Vision agreed, grinning slightly. He loved your strange, cute, not at all challenging struggles.

The both of you turned to give the lawn ornament in question a pointed look. Bernard seemed to glower back.

“Well,” Vision said as he pulled away from you a bit, “why don’t you come inside then? Wanda’s up with the babies anyway. You might as well join us, especially if it means you’ll be able to sleep better.” Not taking no for an answer, the synthezoid was already tugging you towards the lit-up porch.

You were too tired to argue and, quite frankly, you didn’t want to, so you allowed yourself to be pulled along as you admired the soft cotton of Vision’s matching pajama set.

“Oh, my.”

“What?” You looked at Vision’s face again only to catch him staring at a spot above your eyes. The porch light glinted off the gem embedded in his own. “What, do I have something on my face?”

“No,” Vision responded slowly, “but you must have done something to it. You have quite the scar.”

Your eyebrows raised. You moved away from him to look at your reflection in one of the windows and surely enough, you had a raised scar on your forehead, near your hairline. You gingerly pressed your fingers against it; it certainly wasn’t new.

A seemingly random thought popped into your head. Is that… a scar from a bullet?

“What on earth did you do to yourself?” Vision asked. Him walking up to stand directly behind you and press his hands to your neck, under the collar of your shirt no less, was more than a little distracting. “You’ve got one back here too.”

You reached back to where Vision was touching and when he removed his fingers, you could feel a similar scar at the base of your neck.

You thought again, Bullet… exit wound…?

Something about the dream you were having earlier called out to you but you couldn’t remember anything about it. When you tried to think about it further, the excruciating pain came back in waves and you had to steady yourself on the windowsill to prevent yourself from collapsing.

“Huh,” you said instead, “I have no idea.”

“They don’t hurt?” Vision questioned. “They’re not just… odd raised bruises perhaps? Welts maybe?”

“No, I don’t think so. They don’t hurt at all, though.” To make a point, you pressed down hard on the raised scar on your forehead, watched the skin turn a few shades lighter before releasing the pressure and dropping your hand again. Under the thick, stiff tissue, you barely felt the pressure at all.

Vision thoughtfully hummed, placing his hands back on the curves of your neck; you prayed to whatever deities existed that you didn’t make any sounds you’d regret.

“Well,” your partner said, “I suppose that’s better than nothing.”

A pause. Your eyes stayed trained on the window’s reflection, specifically where you could see Vision’s fingers gently cupping your neck.

Then he abruptly leaned down and pressed a kiss on the scar tissue, missing a pulse point by a hair. “We should head inside then.”

You had to take a solid minute to recover from the shockwave of tingles that briefly made your veins turn into lightning. Then you shuffled after Vision into the ever so inviting house.

Stepping out of chilly darkness and into a home of cozy furniture and warm light that turned the entire place a golden brown felt like walking into another world. An extra added layer of comfort to the usually perfect home was the slight disarray of baby equipment almost everywhere that wasn’t the floor itself, most of which you had gone out and bought during the babies’ day of birth and all of which Vision and Wanda appreciated; somehow, you had prepared for the babies’ accelerated growing on a panicked whim better than the Maximoffs. Tiny baby blankets and stuffed animals were strewn about and each visible part of the house—the living room, the dining area, and the kitchen, although the kitchen was partially blocked off by a drying rack of baby clothes and swaddles of various patterns and sizes—had a designated Baby Tray. These trays, perched on whatever flat surface had been previously free of decor or clutter, held bottles, nonperishable treats, diaper-changing equipment, teething toys, a mini first aid kit for each, and other useful trinkets; the new parents had apparently completely forgotten that almost all their house’s rooms were openly attached to each other and that, if one singular Baby Tray was designated to the dining area, it would take the same amount of about five steps to get to it from either the living area or the kitchen. It was almost comedic, the number of baby care items that were laying anywhere but the floor or in proper storage because, according to Vision, god forbid something gets a speck of dust on it and have to be washed or, according to Wanda, one of the babies be without their favorite toys easily accessible at every given moment. The only thing allowed to touch the ground, aside from feet, was a playpen that now replaced the usual coffee table in the living room area and a play mat in the babies’ room with its attached toys for the twins to play with. A final touch to the hominess was the soft light that you could see streaming out of the baby room’s open door, and the gentle voice of Wanda, singing a Sokovian lullaby, fluttering out of it.

It felt like coming home.

Vision stepped away from your side to clean up somewhat, picking up a few toys and folding baby blankets and onesies to move them aside in case you wanted to make yourself comfortable on the couch. Standing inside now, you could much better make out Vision’s dark blue terry robe over a pair of bright yellow pajama pants that no doubt had a shirt to match hidden beneath dark blue fabric. The yellow of his pants matched the yellow gem that was embedded in his forehead, glittering with an unused power that you had yet to experience and that felt warm whenever you went to place a kiss on it. Poking out from the hems of his robe and pants were perfectly human hands and feet, despite their deep red color that matched the rest of his body; you found the continued presence of fingernails when not in his human disguise—absolutely unnecessary to his design, he’d pointed out when you initially asked about them—weirdly cute and continuously felt the urge to grab nail polish and paint them to match either the color of the gem or the same silver as the plating that started at his scalp and trailed down beneath the collar of his shirt. You briefly wondered how far that plating traveled across his body before mentally kicking yourself.

The greatest thing about this still-fresh reveal of Vision’s inhuman identity—aside from the fact that he was no longer hiding something important from you, obviously—was that you now knew that he wasn’t just difficult to make blush but rather he quite literally couldn’t blush. You wondered what else he could and couldn’t do, only to mentally kick yourself again.

I can’t tell if I’ve gotten worse or better since I’ve started dating them, you thought.

Oh, your brain responded on its own accord, so much worse.

Shhh!

Vision was still puttering why while you stared and inwardly argued with yourself. At this point, he’d cleaned up most of the chaos and moved the stuffed animals and now-folded blankies to sit neatly on the dining area table.

“Vis,” you said.

Before you could continue, the man perked up and looked in your direction. “Yes, duck?”

You blinked. “You make my heart go rainbow-colored. Anyway—” You broke off into a laugh when Vision went flustered, his hands flapping about while he sucked his bottom lip between his teeth. “Did I win this round?”

Sometimes Vision got into the habit of ending all of his sentences around you and Wanda with a pet name. When you had first noticed this feat, you’d decided to start doing the same, just to see what would happen. He noticed and began purposely doing it back, where he had previously done it unintentionally, and now doing the occasional back-and-forth conversation that ended in pet names more than punctuation was somewhat of a competition between you two.

Vision scoffed at you, picked up a plushie, and tossed it at you. “Not fair!”

Being in the house that was beginning to feel more like home than your own, around your partners and their sweet baby boys, seemed to shield and reenergize you from the exhaustion you felt after first waking up that night. You caught the stuffed animal, a plushie of a wizard, grinned and tossed it back at him.

“Oh,” Vision chirped, catching the plush wizard again, “I see how it is.” He puffed out his chest and gave you a warning, albeit amused, glare, then picked up a couple more plushes. In a lower, sort of growling voice that made your heart leap out of your chest and into your stomach, he continued, “If it’s a war you want, it’s a war you shall get.”

You yelped as he started in your direction and dived across the front of the couch to get some stuffed animal ammo of your own. He nailed you in the foot with a cream-colored bunny and you returned the favor with a plushie of a witch in a red dress after taking cover behind the playpen. Now each of you was standing where the other had previously been, with you poking your head over the playpen’s sheer wall and Vision slowly pacing around the back of the couch for his second lap. You pulled the playpen with you with one hand as you moved away from him and the two of you began circling each other.

Oh, if Wanda could see her partners now.

“Oh, Wanda—” you started to stand, only to get smacked in the face with a blue teddy bear; luckily, it was of the very soft variety. You stared at Vision in disbelief.

Vision stared back, eyes bulging, unsure of whether he should apologize or prepare for an attack. He was too torn to do either, though, and had to scramble back to avoid an onslaught of stuffed bullets flying his way.

Still aware that it was very late at night, your war-cry was softened, “Revenge!”

Then your attack quickly diminished, partially because you were running out of ammo and Vision wasn’t throwing anything back and partially because Vision was now floating off the ground and heading towards you, arms full of said ammo.

Wow, didn’t know it did that, you thought randomly, eyes fixed Vision floating in general, before specifically fixating on the devilish grin he wore while doing so. He looked like a very handsome, well, vision.

A handsome Vision, if you will, your brain offered. You almost snorted before remembering you had not yet moved to avoid Vision’s floating plushie attack. You stumbled backward and scrambled out of the living room just as Vision started throwing.

“No no no no no nonononono—” You were choking between laughter and squawking as you got up and began running down the hallway to save yourself. “Not fair, not fair not fair, not fair—!”

You ran past the baby room and caught Wanda mid-turnaround, saying, “What on earth is going on out there?” You reeled back to pause in the doorway, caught a glimpse of the babies in their one large crib, smiled, went to pant out an answer—

Only to feel arms wrap around you and drag you back down the hallway. You started to shriek, then forced it into a startled laugh as to not disturb the babies, and flailed around in Vision’s arms as he lifted you off the ground. It was brief, though, because then your struggling caught Vision off balance and the two you tumbled to the ground. There, you both harmlessly pummeled each other until you both were out of breath and snickering, and you somehow ended up with his top half under you but his legs pinning down your own.

“You can fly?” you bubbled. You grabbed his face and squished his cheeks in your hands. “What the hell?”

He laughed and nodded, and one of his hands caught your own. He glanced up at you as he kissed your palm and replied, “Yes, just a little.”

“Just a little—”

“And his wife can move things with her mind, like the crib she just finished rocking to put the boys back to sleep, and if she has to do it again because of her partners’ roughhousing…”

You and Vision quickly disentangled yourselves from each other and looked up at Wanda, whose face said serious but whose eyes twinkled with amusement and who looked no less terrifying in a pale pink, puff-sleeved nightgown.

You got up and straightened your clothes, with Vision following closely behind. “I will very happily take over the next shift because I started it and I’m very sorry.”

“What? Nonsense, [Y/N], I threw the first stuffed animal.”

“I threw it back,” you pointed out.

“Neither of you better have thrown and hit something,” Wanda warned.

You glanced at Vision for confirmation; you didn’t exactly see much when you were chucking plushies aplenty and then running from your flying boyfriend.

Vision nodded. “Nothing at all, although I did make the evaluation that we do have a plethora of plushies and baby blankets.”

“I thought I was the one who pointed that out when you first gave me the shopping list, but okay,” you huffed under your breath, then grinned with Vision lightly bumped you with his hip. “So, the babies having a bad night?”

“Actually, they were apparently worried about you,” Wanda said.

That made your head do a confused tilt. “Me?”

“Ah, yes,” Vision nodded, “We fell asleep with them in the living room and Billy started crying. We woke up to figure out what was wrong and Wanda saw you standing outside.”

Wanda added, “Tommy started crying shortly after I walked to the door with him like he wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Aww,” you cooed, peering over Wanda’s shoulder to see the babies. She stepped to the side so you could walk in and shuffle over to the crib, and she and Vision stood nearby as you crouched down to brush a hand over their little sleeping heads. You continued, much softer this time, “Were the boys trying to make sure I was safe? Are they my little protectors? My little superheroes?”

Tommy gurgled happily in his sleep. Billy remained quiet but his head leaned into your hand.

You looked up at their parents with big, awestruck eyes to see them leaning comfortably into each other, watching you with the same level of affection you felt for them and their babies.

“Heroes indeed,” Vision said. He walked over as you stood up again and lightly rocked the crib; Wanda strolled over to join the group. He continued to the twins in baby-talk, “But no hero-ing until after college, my little honeydews. For now, leave the protecting to your parents.”

“Especially this one,” Wanda chirped, making her way over to your side and slipping her arm around your back. “They’re a handful.”

You faked a gasp, “I’m a treasure.”

“You’re a putz,” Wanda said simply, with a smirk and a light pinch to your hip.

You gasped harder and stared at her with utter betrayal.

“A goof,” Vision chimed in. He slipped his own arm around you, the final piece of your three-person puzzle.

You gasped harder still— and almost choked on air. Then you looked to the babies. “Bullies! Bullies, both of them! Billy, Tommy, you must protect me!”

Very enthusiastically, neither baby did anything.

“I’ve been betrayed yet again,” you cried, not too loudly, though. You slumped against Vision and Wanda’s waiting arms. “Betrayed by my own brood!”

“Your brood?” Wanda questioned, quirking a brow. Vision was giggling softly at your other side.

“Yes,” you whispered, looking at her with wide, distraught eyes, “My brood. My pack. My murder.”

“Your what?” Vision said.

“It’s a group of crows,” you explained under your breath, before slumping down farther and continuing your distraught monologue. “I’m all alone! Oh, the horror—”

“Well,” Wanda said, “We’re supporting you very well a family that has completely abandoned you.”

You flopped your head back in her direction. You were so far to the ground now that you were practically on your knees, only your arms and shoulders being held by Wanda and Vision. You traced fingers lamely across each of their arms. “So strong, those who once held me…”

The married couple exchanged an amused but mysterious look.

“Wanda, darling,” Vision said, “They seem to have gone delusional.”

Wanda nodded sagely in response. “Clearly lost their mind.”

You squinted, glancing between them. What were they up to?

“To the ward with you,” Wanda suddenly announced.

Then you caught a red glow by your feet, but not fast enough before you were swept up into the air on a cloud of red mist. You burst into startled laughter but quickly slapped a hand over your mouth so you didn’t wake up the children. Once you relaxed—enough to stop laughing anyway, not enough to not be freaking out about being magically escorted out of the nursery—you waved your hands through the red; it felt like waving your hands through the open air. The only thing actually felt was the pressure on the back of your body that was holding you afloat and carrying you out of the room, but when you tried to balance on it and move to a different position, all you did was squirm and twist awkwardly in the air before flopping back down. You craned your neck, mostly to make sure Tommy and Billy hadn’t woken up from your outburst, but you only caught Wanda, hands glowing red, following you out of the room and Vision trailing after wishing his babies a goodnight.

You looked back at the ceiling for a moment. After you heard the nursery door shut, you asked at a normal volume, “I’m not gonna fall, right?”

“Not unless I let you,” Wanda reassured you. You couldn’t see her but the teasing tone of her voice made you imagine her with a smirk. A smirk, narrowed eyes, her pretty nightgown floating around her, magical powers that she could definitely use to crush you if she wanted to and you’d probably thank her if she did.

Wow, okay, I either need to confess my sins or go to sleep.

“Why?” Wanda asked suddenly.

“Why what?” you choked back, heat rushing to your face. Surely, she couldn’t read your thoughts…

“Why ask if you would fall?”

Oh.

“Oh.” You started flopping around in the cloud of magic, testing the proverbial waters; you were being taken to the living area now. You heard both Wanda and her husband laughing from beneath and behind you when you settled again.

Vision asked through chuckling, “What could you possibly be doing?”

You suddenly flung yourself to one of the magic surrounding you, thinking maybe you would fall through, but the magic held. You huffed and laid back again but not before you caught a glimpse of the couch that you now hovered over. You grasped at the magic again, watching it wisp through your fingers but feeling nothing at all. “This is so cool.”

Wanda’s voice was softer when she spoke this time. “You think?”

You couldn’t hold back the disbelieving laughter that bubbled up. Suddenly breathless out of sheer excitement of learning more about the people you cared for most, you sighed, “Wanda, baby, you must know that you’re amazing.”

Then you squawked as the magic suddenly disappeared around you, but instead of falling straight to the couch below, Vision flew up to catch you. He held you bridal style as he gently dropped back to his feet next to the couch, grinning—he very rarely just smiled, it was always a big, happy grin when it was directed at you or Wanda or the babies—and giving you a peck on the forehead when you stared up at him, doe-eyed.

“Got my own Superman, too,” you said, “Damn.”

Vision plopped you down on the couch. “Who?”

“Comic book character,” you responded with a wave of your hand, “Doesn’t matter. You’re far better looking than him anyway.”

You shifted a bit to get more comfortable and watched as glowing red magic started swirling all around you. The magic was misty, red around the edges and glowing orange-white in the center, picking up the scattered toys from your and Vision’s scuffle and tossing them into the playpen, pulling said playpen out of the way and sliding the original coffee table back from its place against the wall, picking up any other stray blankets or baby items and placing them neatly out of the way; it also straightened out Vision’s robe and ruffled your hair. Part of the magic moved out of your line of vision, so you twisted to follow it and saw it taking the baby clothes off the drying rack to fold and put on the counter next to it, then continued watching as it folded the rack itself and moved it out of the way.

Wanda was now in your sight again too; she was standing still, palms up with magic flowing outward from the red clouds around them, and looking around to see if there was anything else she needed to put away. She was also blushing, from you calling her baby or saying she’s amazing, you couldn’t tell. After staring for probably way too long, probably looking at her with the same starry-eyed, dopey look that a teenager had at their first concert or after a first kiss, her gaze flitted to yours and made a nose-scrunching face at you before finishing her magical cleanup and making her way over to the couch as well.

You slumped back in the pile of throw pillows behind you, covered your face with your hands, and flutter-kicked your feet few times. “This is so cool!”

You felt a nudge at your feet and you raised your legs so he could sit, then did the same with your head when you felt Wanda’s hand brush across your forehead. When they were both seated, you laid your legs and head on their respective laps and the three of you settled into the comfortable position that had been adopted long after your relationship had started.

That is until you quickly sat up again. “Is that how you unpacked your house so quickly?”

Wanda smiled and nodded. She rested a cheek in the palm of her hand, endeared by your wonderment towards her powers.

“Is that you unpacked my house?”

Another nod.

“And the magic show was real— Wait.” You scowled. “But all the pulleys and stuff.”

“That was, ah, my bad,” Vision offered with a raised hand.

“Covering for him actually using his powers,” Wanda explained.

“I knew the mirrors didn’t make sense with you putting your hat through your body!” you exclaimed. “So flight, super strong, and… not sure what to call that last one. What was with you that day, by the way? You acted drunk, but you can’t get drunk!”

“I swallowed some gum,” Vision muttered, glancing away and rubbing the side of his neck. His other hand waved towards his torso as he continued, “It got all… stuck. Gummed up my gears, if you will.”

Wanda rolled her eyes at the pun. You snickered at it.

“I had to magic it out of him,” she added.

Your gaze flitted back and forth between your two superhuman partners multiple times as you took in the information. Because you were sitting between the two, this involved the turning of your head various times, which made your head swim a bit. You almost wished that they were both sitting to one side of you.

Instead of suggesting this, you settled your gaze to stare aimlessly ahead and said simply, “I’m dating two of the weirdest, coolest, most stellar people in the world. How the hell did I manage that?”

“Charisma,” Vision offered, even though you and him both knew at this point how you’d weirdly creeped on him at the office the first day the two of you met.

“Sheer force of will,” Wanda suggested, but you guaranteed she was remembering how, for the few dates you went on with them, you’d had to be reminded that you were actually on dates and that they weren’t just casual friendly hangouts.

You looked between them once more and then you wished you had suggested they sit to one side of you. Despite their steady, comfortable voices, Wanda was in the process of hiding her flustered face behind the curtain of her hair and Vision was chewing on his lip and couldn’t seem to keep his hands and feet from tapping away.

“Okay,” you said after a moment, patting your thighs to do something with your hands. “I’m grasping that you guys don’t agree with me here. Wanda, go sit by him so I don’t get whiplash from trying to look at you both.”

You and Wanda quickly switched places. You sat cross-legged on the couch to face them and Wanda and Vision shifted around to sit in a way that allowed them to face you without one blocking the other. After a moment, you waved your hands at them; the cheery air has since faded into something more somber. “What is it? Tell me why you get all quiet like that when I tell you, with evidence, why you’re the actual grooviest people I’ve ever met.”

There were a few more moments of silence before Vision went to speak first, which surprised Wanda. She looked at him, eyebrows raised high on her forehead, and lightly grasped his wrist.

“Vis?” she murmured.

He sighed softly and placed his other hand over hers. “Oh, it’s really nothing dear, I promise. It’s just… Well, you’ve heard how the people of the cul-de-sac talk about us sometimes.”

“Mean girls,” you grumbled under your breath with a nod, “the lot of them sometimes.”

Wanda seemed to suddenly sag with sadness and both you and Vision reached over quickly to hold her.

“Oh, darling,” Vision said, “It’s not your fault—”

“That’s not true,” Wanda whispered.

“It is true,” Vision said, and this time he said it with a fierceness that was familiar to you, whenever Wanda was being treated poorly by people like the Queen of the Cul-de-Sac, Dotty, or when Wanda decided to get down on herself. He grasped her shoulders tightly, squeezed them until she looked up at him. “Wanda, darling, love, I didn’t exist before I meant you. I mean, I did, of course, I did, but I was just this strange, non-human, non-machine thing that was just… kind of… there. It was you that gave me an existence, Wanda. You made me human.”

Both you and Wanda stared at him, surprised. Wanda stared because she obviously didn’t fully agree with his opinion of her. You stared because of course, you were dating two of the weirdest, coolest, most stellar, and most romantic people ever.

Get yourself a man like that, you thought. Then after a moment, Wait, that is in fact also my man.

“And you—” Vision said, turning his head in your direction.

“Oh, I’m next?” you stammered. “I thought it was Wanda’s turn.”

Vision still held Wanda but also reached over to tightly grasp your hand and bring it to his mouth. “I just wished we could have confessed to you sooner. I just hate, hate, hated lying to you and now you’re involved with all this too—”

The synthezoid with the English accent looked up at you with eyes begging forgiveness as if he’d committed one of the worst sins imaginable. You let out a hoarse laugh and ran your thumb across the side of his hand.

“I’m sorry,” you said, still chuckling as you wriggled closer to your couple, “but as much as you might like to think you’ve subjected me to something I didn’t sign up for, I’d like to point out that I’ve been about a month ahead of you. I was here before you.” You felt a nagging urge to look at Wanda and repeat the last sentence, and there was something extra special about saying it that second time like there was a double and then a triple meaning behind it, but the way you both furrowed your brows afterward made it clear that neither of you really knew what those meanings were.

Not yet, anyway.

You cleared your throat and removed your hand from Vision’s grasp to place it on the back of the couch. “I moved into this town with no husband or wife, no family, nothing but a pile of letters and a new deed to a new house that happened to be the smallest in the neighborhood. My first week here I told one man in front of the entire night watch that I thought the joke he made about his wife was distasteful, and then the week after I tripped and spilled wine all over his wife. Agnes brought because she thought I’d be a form of entertainment and we somehow ended up becoming friends over a flask that she hid in a pocket sewed into the inside of her skirt.” You offered a look to Wanda again while you mentioned that Agnes never thought your “for the children” jokes were all that funny, though. “I’ve dealt with the comments and the rumors and the ‘what’s wrong with them, they don’t have no kids!’ People are weird and they’re mean and they’re fun and they suck. You want human, dude? You got it. If I was still bothered by comments that are nothing but a bummer, I think I’d be trying a little bit more than wearing clothes that I enjoy over the clothes that are expected of me, telling Dotty she needs to stop being awful before she gets frown lines, or, you know, pining over two people—a married couple nonetheless—until I somehow seduced them with my staring at them from around corners and just generally horrible, awful attempts at eye contact.”

The married couple in question chortled at that.

You used your hand on the back of the couch to hoist yourself up on your knees so you towered over Vision just slightly.

“Here’s the thing, sunshine,” you continued, “I’m not in your boat on this one, you dorks, you’re in mine. I was here first and I don’t give a fuck.”

Wanda gave a sudden laugh. “What language.”

“Has he not told you about the time I said ‘Fuck you’ to a plastic bird in my garden?” you asked. “Multiple times? His name is Bernard and he’s plotting to kill me, I swear.”

Wanda’s troubled expression was split by a wobbly smile.

You threw up your arms in the dramatic fashion that you knew the two people in front of you loved and hollered—then quickly quieted back down to not disturb Billy and Tommy in the other room—“All this for my rambling putz ass to say, who cares about what’s outside this house! You two, and your kids, and I are the only people that matter here. Here being the house, Westview, whatever! Everyone else? Nonexistent.

“Also, just to clarify,” you paused to wave your arms around, gesturing at the entire house, “Love it here. Love this shit.”

You suddenly caught Vision’s slacked jaw in your hand and gave him a peck on the cheek. “This face? Love it.” You moved to peck a spot of silver on his skull. “Love this too.” You pecked the gem on his forehead and swore it glowed brighter in response. “Love this.” You pecked one of his ear plates. “Love these goofy things.” You pecked the tip of his nose. “Love this and the fact that you have it even though you don’t technically even need to breathe. Oh, speaking of which!”

You lifted one of his hands with one of your own and tapped on his red fingernails with your other. You caught a glimpse of his face now that yours wasn’t directly in front of it and noticed him trying to hold back a giddy smile—and failing—while he watched you from underneath red lashes; your whole body would have tried to twist itself in knots under that look if you weren’t too busy swearing to kiss those eyelids and lashes too, at another time. Instead, you pecked each fingertip of the hand you were holding. “Love these ‘useless to my design’ things too. You know what, just speaking of hands—” You dropped Vision’s hand, which made itself to your waist as you went to grab Wanda’s; you were vaguely aware that you were practically leaning into their laps at that point but that could be dealt with when you weren’t trying to make a point.

When you went to touch her, she let you hold her wrist but quickly squeezed her hand into firsts before you could hold it like you had with Vision’s. She was looking away.

You pressed a kiss to her whitening knuckles. “Wanda.”

She looked at you, her perfect face distorted by a deep sadness that almost shattered your heart on the spot. She tightened her first further. The deep emotion appeared to make her slip back into her natural Sokovian accent when she spoke again. “You don’t know the pain it’s caused.”

“I’ve done my fair share,” you affirmed even though you weren’t quite sure why. Then you kissed her knuckles again. “And maybe I don’t, but I know what good it’s caused, that you have.”

Her face twisted into an ugly grimace. She asked hoarsely, “Like what?”

“The first time I saw your face, I wanted to go to space, grab the moon, shrink it down—so it looked like one of those cool little lava rocks, you know? But prettier—and get it put on a ring,” you offered, then kissed the back of her hand and whispered, “and that’s after I found out you were married to a very attractive man too…”

Vision snorted. Wanda cracked the smallest of smiles.

You whispered lower, “And I may or may not have even been interested in marriage before that…”

That time Wanda rolled her eyes; you smiled and grabbed her other clenched hand to share the attention with. You continued, “You’re also so nice, like so nice. You are so kind and care about what people think so much, it’s almost buggy—and bordering on self-destructive but that’s not what we’re talking about— And I sort of get it now, you know, but wow, making your magic show worse for the sake of people’s sanity? Wouldn’t even be on my radar.”

Another little smile.

“I’d be like, ‘Who wants to see me turn this entire table into a rosebush! Dotty’s rosebush specifically; Dotty, I stole your rosebush.’ I actually did steal a rose from her bush that day.”

Wanda blinked and you noticed the lines of her expression weren’t as deeply etched into her face anymore.

“That was Dotty’s?”

You grinned and nodded, then kissed both of her hands. “Also, I love your hair and the way it perfectly frames your perfect face, and I love your little nose scrunches, and I love your eyelashes and the way you look at me from under them sometimes, and I’d kiss all those things but I’m not going to because I gotta get these stubborn, always-working, never-wanna-take-a-break, always-somehow-perfect-nails-having hands to relax before they hurt themselves even though it’s very clearly hard enough to make who woman who owns them do the same. Oh, I did I mention that smile—hoo, Wanda, that foxy smile…”

Wanda was blushing now and bringing up her smile made it happen again, just slightly. You took advantage of the moment anyway and flung yourself back onto the couch with a hand over your heart. “Be still, my pounding heart!”

Vision, who was watching by your and Wanda’s sides, laughed a bit. Wanda herself rolled her eyes again; the smile didn’t disappear afterward.

You sat up again and pointed at Vision, now that he’d brought attention to himself again. “And I don’t know whether you heard any of the stuff this guy said! You made him exist? You made him human? What? You two also do this thing where you just look at each other and have a whole conversation, I don’t know if you guys know you do that or not. You do, though, and I don’t know if either or both of you are psychic but if you are and still love me? With my unhinged brain? Migraines and all? I wouldn’t understand, even if you explained it to me.”

Vision offered, “Neither of us is psychic but anyway, please continue.”

“Have anything to add?”

“You’re doing wonderfully.”

“Thank you.” You looked back and Wanda, noting that her face had almost completely softened now, as she was too busy being flustered to be sad at this point. You quickly scooped her hands before they could curl into fists again placed kissed on each of the crescent moon-shaped marks now dug into their palms. “Your magic rocked your babies to sleep. Your magic cleaned up all their and put it all in one nice, neat place. You floated me around the house with your magic and even protected me from falling when I was wriggling around up there; bet that was fun for both of you to watch. Vision said earlier that that was your job, to protect me, and while I don’t fully agree because I consider it the other way around, is that not what you did?”

“I thought it was cute,” Wanda replied softly to the second to last sentence you said. She watched as you gave her hands a few more pecks.

“So, you agree then,” you said, “that your magic protected me and also made me cuter?”

She laughed and the sound made your heart soared, performing an aerial performance in your chest. She tried to wriggle her hands free from you but then you scowled and tucked them protectively under your chin.

“Gotta say it. Gotta say your magic made me cute.”

“I’m not saying that.”

You shrugged and got comfy, laying your head in her lap with her hands still hidden. “Have to. Otherwise, no hands for you. Oh, did I not mention how good you are to your kids yet? You’re so good—”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Wanda forfeited through a wet laugh. Hearing said laugh, your head shot up in concern, but the woman was smiling as she snagged your hands back; what she chose to do with them next was grab your face and place a kiss directly on your mouth.

It was quick and soft and sweet and absolutely none of that prevented the fireworks that went off in your skull and your chest and your stomach and your veins that made tingles shoot all the way down to your toes. She pulled away as quickly as she had moved in and you blinked; your brain was still short-circuiting, like a robot—like a Vision with his gears all gummed up, and your dazed brain thought that was a very funny connection, so it repeated the joke verbally.

Luckily, Vision was close enough to the level of dork that you were and he laughed at it with you.

It took a deep breath and a head shake to de-gum your brain—if only Wanda could magic that—but after the excitement wore off, you felt sleepiness start creeping in and decided to make your final push. You curled a hand around both of your partners’ necks and brought their faces closer to nuzzle your noses together; they responded by each of them wrapping an arm around your waist and returning the affectionate action.

“So, in conclusion,” you stated, which caused Vision to laugh lightly and Wanda to grin just slightly, “I love both of these perfect faces.” You kissed each of their noses. “And these funky, magical brains.” You kissed Wanda at the base of her hairline, then Vision just below his forehead gem. “And these equally funky, magical hands.” You grabbed the hands not looped around your waist and kissed the back of them. “And both of those babies, and this house, and y—”

You sucked in a sudden breath to stop yourself so hard that you almost choked and you reeled back to the other side of the couch only to drag Vision and Wanda with you. The three of you tumbled into a flustered heap on the couch and over their shoulders, you could see early morning light filtering through the windows. This barely registered, though, as you were too busy focusing on the fact that you almost L-worded them on a silly, tired whim.

Despite the awkwardness of the moment and the unspoken words, no one made a move to remove themselves from the warm, cozy entanglement. One of both Wanda and Vision’s arms was pinned under your back, keeping them solid in place against you while simultaneously and successfully enveloping you in between them; your own arms, which had instinctively wrapped protectively around their shoulders in the tumble, kept them in a similar state. Wanda’s hair fanned found and covered the three of you like a blanket, and you were keenly aware of her breath softly wafting over the exposed skin of your neck from where her head now rested on your shoulder. Vision’s rested slightly lower, on your chest, and you felt a quickened pulse where his gem pressed into your neck, but you couldn’t be sure whether it was yours or his.

You stared past their shoulders and watched as sunlight shone through the curtains and dappled the ceiling. You tried to figure out whether you were stupider for stopping yourself from finishing that sentence or for not saying it at all.

Then you felt a kiss being pressed to your clothed shoulder.

“You’ve said so many things that you’ve loved tonight [Y/N],” Wanda murmured, her hot breath causing goosebumps to rise on your skin. “What’s two more?”

“I—” you started, then bit your tongue again. There was something about saying that phrase that made you worried; you felt like if you said it now, the happy little world you lived in would begin to crumble, like it would all end far too soon. You sighed softly and said instead, “I don’t know how I would live without you.”

There were a few moments of silence where you watched more sunlight filter in and wished you could take it back because what a way to talk a big game and then not follow through—

Then Vision’s head appeared above you and he pressed a dizziness-inducing kiss to your lips. When he pulled away, he nuzzled your nose with his own as he murmured, “I love you too.”

In almost the same moment, Wanda was mumbling the same phrase against your jawline.

Sleepy and hazy-brained you couldn’t do much else but stare at Vision like a lovesick puppy that struggled to say that L-word, then snuggle back down with both him and Wanda when they relaxed against you again. That seemed to be the last of what needed to be said, though, because everything was cozy and warm and golden brown in your home again and, one by one, the three of you fell into a deep, comfortable sleep.

In the black void of otherwise dreamless sleep, you heard the vaguely familiar First Voice finish chewing something and then go, “Aww…”

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fanmoose12 · 3 years ago

Text

Partners

Characters: Petra Ral, Levi, Hanji Zoe x Levi

Genre: Action / Mystery / Romance

Rating: T

Detective!au

Summary: when Petra was promoted to a detective and partnered up with legendary Levi Ackerman, she felt like the happiest person in the world.But, as she soon found out, detective Ackerman she used to admire so much was actually a far cry from the ideal policeman Petra thought he was. He was rude, harsh and easily annoyed. And, in addition, he still hadn’t moved on from the death of his previous partner - detective Hange Zoe.

Chapter 13/14

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Сhapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Сhapter 7

Сhapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Beep, beep, beep

It didn't stop, didn't pause, didn't even quiet down.

Hange tried to ignore the irritating sound, tried to forget about it and return to the dark place where she was safe and warm.

Beep, beep, beep

As though mocking her, it got louder and louder, allowing Hange no respite. Accepting that this battle wouldn’t end in her favor, she groaned and forced her eyes open.

The ceiling above her was white, the walls surrounding her were mostly white too. The bed she was lying on was also white, and to her hand was attached a thin line of IV.

Huh. It was a while since she had the pleasure to wake up in a hospital.

Hange meant to continue her survey, but everything else was too blurry for her to see. Glasses. Where were her glasses?

Her hand flew to her face, touching her nose. No glasses there.

With a considerable effort Hange pushed herself up into a sitting position. She blindly reached to her left where a bedside table stood. She moved her palm all over it, there was lots of things on top of it. No glasses, though.

"The first drawer," a voice behind her helped.

Hange obediently opened it, her fingers immediately finding the familiar shape of her glasses. She put them on and sighed in content, as the world around her finally came into focus.

She turned her head to the direction the voice was coming from. Next to her bed stood another one, separated by a blue curtain. In the corner of it she could see Zeke. Their eyes met, and he gave her a weak, but unexpectedly genuine smile.

"Welcome back to the world of the living."

"Was I out for too long?" Hange frowned, trying to recall what had happened. She remembered Floch, remembered that horrible room in Zeke's safe house, remembered his brother, the erupting pain in her side as he had shot her and the dangerous glint of Floch's blade near her throat. She remembered being afraid and sorry for missing her another chance and not telling Levi how she truly felt all these years. Remembered Levi rushing in, saving her. Remembered his trembling fingers and soft touch. Remembered how he held her and refused to let go all the way to the hospital, remembered—

That was all she remembered.

"It's been almost a day since doctors operated on you," Zeke explained. "You've got your friends worried."

Hange looked to her bedside table again, gawking at the amount of gifts there. There was a box of candies from Nifa, teddy bear from Moblit, balloons from Keiji and Abel, a giant bouquet from Erwin... And a small postcard that stood at the far side. Hange picked it up, studying curiously. Her lips curled up and she giggled - the postcard was from Pieck.

"And what happened to you?" Hange looked back at Zeke. His torso was bandaged and he was unusually pale in the face.

Zeke grimaced, lifting his eyes to the ceiling. "My brother turned out to be a better shooter that I've anticipated."

"And..." Hange began uncertainly. Her fingers curled into the bedsheets, she wasn't sure if she wanted to know, but— she decided to ask anyway. "And what happened to Eren?"

Zeke sighed, pushing hair back from his face. "I took care of him."

Hange looked down, not knowing how to feel about it and what to do with that knowledge. Should she say something to Zeke? Tell him that she was sorry? Or that he did the right thing? What he wanted to hear? He probably didn't wish to hear either.

"And what happened to your eye?" she pointed her finger at a large bruise that bloomed on his face. "Was it... Eren as well?"

"No," Zeke scoffed. "That was your partner, detective. An eye for an eye, I guess," he chuckled dryly.

"Levi..." Hange's heart fluttered at the mention of him. "Do you know if he's—"

"He's been by your side this whole time," Zeke rolled his eyes. "He left just a few minutes ago. I'm sure he'll be there any moment now. He barely slept while you were out."

"Oh..." Hange couldn't help her smile. She wanted to see Levi so much...

"Jesus," Zeke groaned. "The two of you are sickening. If I spend another day watching you, I'd get cavities from your damn sweetness. Damn it, and I can't even smoke here..."

Zeke obviously meant to complain some more, but he fell silent, as the door to the ward opened. Hange turned to it with a grin that dissipated almost immediately, a heartbeat after she saw Petra's sheepish smile instead of Levi's gloomy scowl.

"Disappointed, aren't you, detective?" Zeke mocked with a shit eating smirk.

Hange discreetly flipped him off and roughly closed the curtain between them.

"Sorry about that," she mumbled, giving an apologizing look to Petra.

"It's alright," she said. "Levi is just behind the door, Oluo is distracting him while I'm here." Petra tutted, her auburn locks flying as she shook her head. "I had no choice but to resort to this. He doesn't let anyone else see you. Only Captain Erwin was allowed inside, and that too lasted just for a few minutes."

Hange chuckled, her heart swelling. Yep, that's the ridiculously protective shorty she knew and loved...

"I know you can't wait to see him, too," Petra winked, taking note of her pleased expression.

Hange flushed, but the embarrassed blush turned into angry one, when she heard a not so subtle scoff behind the curtain.

"So I will be brief," Petra sat down on a chair beside Hange, setting her hands on her lap. Her fingers twisted together in a nervous matter as stared at the floor, appearing deep in thought. After a long moment, she lifted her eyes, a small, slightly crooked smile playing on her lips. "I just wanted to thank you for... giving me strength back there. I lost all hope, thought I was done for, but you... You kinda rekindled that light inside me. You showed me what true bravery and resolve means."

"Petra," Hange smiled, reaching out to gently squeeze her hand. "I should be the one thanking you. On the night Levi and I reunited, if it wasn't for you, if it wasn't for your bravery and resolve, who knows what would have happened? Perhaps, I would have never gathered enough courage to face Levi. Perhaps, he would have never found out that I actually survived. Don't sell yourself short, you're a strong and courageous person, and have been like that long before we met. You have a bright future ahead of you. I'm excited to witness it."

Petra bobbed her head, her smile growing wider, more open. "And I'm excited to learn more from you. But as for now," Petra stood up and fixed Hange with a rather strict look.

She is learning things from Levi too, Hange thought with an amused smile.

"Rest and gather your strength. Everyone is waiting for you to come back. Someone is more impatient that the others. I need to go before that same someone rips Oluo's head off for keeping you away from him. Take care," Petra waved her hand, gifted Hange another bright smile and left.

As soon as she closed the door, Hange heard a familiar, grumpy voice.

A second later, Levi walked in. His eyes widened when they met hers. With his hand still on a doorknob, Levi stood at the threshold, staring at her with an intent look.

Hange almost squirmed under his gaze, it was too intense to belong to Levi. She wondered what was the reason for it.

But then the spell broke, and Levi looked away.

His steps heavy, he marched further into the room. He didn't head to her bed, though. Instead he stopped next to Zeke's.

"If I hear just a pip from you," he warned in a low voice. "They'll have to prolong your stay in this hospital."

Levi didn't wait for Zeke to reply and turned on his heels, taking a seat next to Hange. Crossing his legs, he just sat there, his gaze not moving away from her face.

He didn't glare, didn't scowl, just stared like Hange was the most interesting thing in this room. Her stomach turned, and she wasn't sure if she liked this feeling or not.

"Where were you?" she asked, when it became evident that Levi wasn't going to start a conversation.

Her question made him look away, just long enough to roll his eyes.

"That idiot Oluo ambushed me in the hallway. Demanded an advice from me."

"An advice?"

"On how to be a good detective," Levi answered, before Hange could get funny ideas about other types of advice. Not that Levi was knowledgeable enough to give them. "Erwin decided to promote him. Now Petra will have a new partner."

"You and Petra won't work together anymore? Then who is going to be your new partner?"

"Yeah, Hange," Levi sat back in his chair, crossing hands on his chest. "Who will it be?"

"You," Zeke stage whispered.

Levi's eye twitched.

"I told you—"

"Wait," Hange put a hand on his arm, quelling his anger. A heavy feeling settled in her stomach, a hope that was ready to get crushed. She frowned at Levi. "Can I even return to work? Technically, I'm still dead."

"Erwin is working on it. He pulled some strings, asked a few favors..."

"And?"

"He managed to restore your documents. He even kept your full name."

"He wanted to change it? To what?"

Despite the faint blush, Levi held her gaze firmly. "Ackerman."

Now it was Hange's turn to feel flustered.

"And by the way," Levi rose to fluff and fix the pillow underneath her. Hange tried to ignore the subtle tremor she noticed as his fingers moved. "You'll have to stay at my place for a while. Erwin is looking for an apartment, but since most of your stuff is already there..."

Hange couldn't help it - she started laughing. God, both of them were so hopeless.

"Aren't we moving things a little too fast?" she gave him a sly look, a flutter inside her returning as Levi snorted.

"Too fast? If you ask anyone else, four-eyes, we're moving things way too slowly."

Well... Hange certainly couldn't argue with that.

"And if you want to help things move along more smoothly," Levi sat back down, putting his hand on the bed, his fingers almost touching Hange's. "I remember you promising to tell me about your type."

Hange did promise that, she almost did tell him too, back in his office, when they received news about Petra. It wasn't the right time back then. But now...

"My type is certainly one of a kind. You have seen him, though."

"Where?" Levi grew just a little bolder, moved his hand just a little closer to Hange's.

She grinned and shortened the distance, intertwining their fingers.

"In the mirror."

The possibly sweet, tender moment was ruined by a loud groan that was followed by, "God, I never thought that flirting could be so torturous."

#as you can see i have a little too much fun with writing zeke in this chapter..........#also you won't believe it #but i wanted to use the joke 'an eye for an eye' for so long kjsdgljsgj #also wow! just one chapter left! isn't that swell?#levihan

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procrastinatorimagines · 4 years ago

Text

Caught In The Crossfire

Fandom: Chicago Fire / Chicago Med

Pairing: Blake Gallo x Reader

Warning/s: shooting

Word Count: 1,045

Request: Can you do a fluffy Blake Gallo x reader where the reader is an intern at med and a gang starts shooting up the ED cause a couple of wounded higher up rivals were getting treated there and the reader gets shot in the crossfire protecting someone?

What started out as a normal day turned into anything but.

You’d started as an intern at Med about 6 months prior, and although working in the ED had certainly been challenging, it was also the most rewarding experience of your life. It was also where you’d met your boyfriend, Blake Gallo, when his Firehouse had brought in the victim of a car crash that you were assigned to treating with your attending, Ethan Choi.

Your day had started pretty normal, even though you were currently treating a gang member who’d been injured in a driveby shooting, one of his hands cuffed to the railing of the bed as you tried desperately to treat him.

“I gotta get out of here!” He kept telling you, moving around too much for you to insert an IV line.

“You’re in a hospital, you’ve been shot, if you leave now you won’t make it,” you calmly tried to tell him, glancing half with apology, half with irritation at the nurse waiting for you to complete the drip. She was merely looking back at you with sympathy, also new, Dr. Choi having left this part in your hands after making sure the wound was stabilised; a through and through, he hadn’t needed surgery.

That’s when your patient started to get even more erratic, knocking the line out of your hand entirely, his eyes going wide as he looked past you. “Oh hell no, no no no!”

You turned to see what he was looking at, barely registering the threat he was seeing until the two men who had just entered the ED removed automatic weapons from under their bulky coats.

There was screaming as people dove for cover, security being too shocked to react in time as they began to open fire, spotting their target in your patient. The police officer on guard at your door had barely drawn his weapon when a bullet caught him, sending him to the ground.

You barely had time to react, diving on instinct to protect the nurse on the otherside of the bay, herself too shocked to do anything but freeze in place as the bullets began to fly. You knocked her down and out of the way, a warm feeling spreading through your body as you landed.

Looking at her, you noticed red on her uniform, blood. She was bleeding, you thought at first.

“Are you okay? Are you hit?” You rattled off, quickly patting her down, but it was only when you looked back to her face that you realised she wasn’t concerned for herself, she was concerned for you.

It took you a moment to look down and see what had happened, a pool of red warmth spreading from your chest all over your white lab coat, and then you started to get dizzy.

You could still hear people screaming, but the shots had stopped, and you patient was still making enough noise that told you he was okay.

That was good, you thought to yourself, before you promptly collapsed onto the floor, the world going dark around you as the nurse screamed for help.

You woke up to the beeping of machines, vision blurry, head pounding, and no sense of how long you’d been out. Squinting and blinking in the light, your eyes adjusted enough to see a figure hunched over in the chair to your right, head in hands, foot tapping in impatient worry. Gallo.

Moving slightly, your hand went up to the bandage on your chest, your other arm bangaged into a sling. Gallo looked up at the sound, tired eyes lighting up at the sight of you awake.

“Hey,” he said softly, shifting forward to take your hand as it came back down to your side, “I’m so glad you’re awake, you gave me quite a scare there.”

You groaned slightly, “did I get shot?” You asked. Stupid question in hindsight, but everything had happened so fast and you were still pretty out of it. Your chest didn’t even hurt, you must have been on some strong painkillers.

“Just a little bit yeah,” he replied with a weak smile, he looked like he’d barely slept, if at all.

“How long have I-” You tried to sit up slightly, but your head soon hit the pillow again, wincing at the effort. Gallo kept fast hold of your hand, giving it a tight squeeze as you took a few deep breaths, trying to steady yourself even though you were already lying down.

“It was a long surgery, touch and go, they moved you here last night, it’s about mid day now,” he told you, looking at your hands instead of your face as he spoke. You must have looked as bad as you felt, your head cloudy and groggy with the strain of remaining awake and focused. “You took a bullet to the chest, it nearly hit your heart.”

You laughed lightly, which was actually more painful than you’d expected. Gallo at you with surprise, clearly not finding this situation as funny as you just did. “It’s kind of funny,” you shrugged, he did not agree.

“What about this is funny?” He asked, baffled by your outburst and clearly thinking it had something to do with the drugs you’d been given.

“Well, I’m the one who’s supposed to be worried about you at work, not the other way around,” you explained, thinking about how Gallo’s expression when you first woke up probably mirrored your own on the days he was late home or did something reckless on the job.

“Yeah well, don’t make a habit of it,” Gallo smiled, shaking his head, “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you,” he admitted. Your smile wavered, falling as you thought about everyone he’d already lost, a twinge of guilt going through you about trying to make light of the situation.

“Oh, I don’t plan on going anywhere any time soon,” you laced your fingers through his, ignoring the dull aches and pains as you shuffled into a slight sitting position, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” he told you after a moment, the words not leaving their of your lips until now, but it felt right, in that moment, and you meant every word.

#blake gallo #chicago fire #chicago med #one chicago #blake gallo x reader #blake gallo imagine #chicago fire imagine #chicago med imagine #one chicago imagine #blake gallo imagines #chicago fire imagines #chicago med imagines #one chicago imagines #blake gallo one shot #chicago fire one shot #chicago med one shot #one chicago one shot #one shot

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mimik-u · 4 years ago

Text

Flower Child, Chapter 19 (Blue IV)

AO3 Link

Thursday, July 5th, 8:38AM:

Blue: Hello, Steven… how are you this morning?

Steven: tired.

Blue: I’m sorry.

Blue: Is there anything I can do?

Steven: no

Steven: I don’t think so

With one hand, Blue Diamond held her phone aloft and read Steven’s bare reply again and again. And with the other, she gently massaged her aching right hip, kneading her spiny knuckles gently over the bone beneath the thin layer of her nightgown.

She’d slept on it the wrong way.

Had tossed and turned all night, nightmaring.

And she didn’t need a psychoanalyst to tell her what it meant that her dead daughter erupted from a wilting hibiscus flower before transforming into Steven Universe, who dissolved into petals as she tried to cling onto them both—her smile, his laugh, her freckles, his hair, all crumbling beneath her fingertips into pollen and pieces. Pearl’s words echoed in the dark chapel of her own head as she gathered the petals in her palms: “Start with a flower and a smile, perhaps.”

Help him, Blue.

Don’t look away.

(You’ve always been so good at looking away.)

In the end, she laid her phone facedown on the bed and rubbed her sore hip in the curtained darkness of her room for a few minutes longer. It was unclear to herself whether she was trying to soothe the pain or grate it in just a mica deeper, one sensitive knuckle movement at a time.

Either way, she was only giving herself what she deserved.

Relief.

Injury.

And perhaps both at the exact same time.

A cocktail of them both—shaken, not stirred.

It was only when the alarm clock on the bedside table indicated that ten minutes had passed in silence and arthritic torture that she endeavored to apprehend her cane with both hands, violently wrenching herself into a standing position, briefly throwing her world into dizzying spirals. Blue closed her eyes against the initial nausea and told herself that she had to go on.

In so many more ways than just simply one.

She glanced fleetingly at the hibiscus that still remained on her nightstand, now withered around the edges, now graying, and thought to herself that perhaps she could save it if she acted fast, pressing it between the pages of a favorite book—an Austen, a Homer, a Kierkegaard.

Preserving it.

Start with a flower and a smile, perhaps.

Help him, Blue.

Don’t look away.

The sounds of her cane were muffled in the carpet as she made a detour to the bathroom to grab her robe, pulling on the worn garment like an old friend, the collar flush against her long neck. And then, her movements as stiff as they were laborious, she made her way from the bathroom back to the bedroom and then into the vast, empty hall—at the end of which the living room was framed in an arch of white, morning light.

Clank, she barely glanced at the door leading into the study because she knew Yellow wouldn’t be in there.

The door was completely closed, which was a telltale sign in and of itself.

Clank.

Assorted images from the previous evening sifted through her head like grains of falling sand, salting her unsettled thoughts as she moved forward, her bare feet tracing the smooth wooden planks.

Clank.

They had sat in the backseat together on the car ride home from the hospital yesterday and dared to hold hands, fingers intertwining, palms touching.

Lifelines.

Yellow was as warm as Blue was cold, the gathering of their skin simply electric.

Clank.

The sky outside the tinted glass windows had been the precise shade of a bruised peach—gold around the edges and a darker amber within. There were cream colored clouds that swirled and swirled through the ripening sky, becoming milky wisps in the places where they spread too thin.

Blue stared upwards into these vaulting heavens and thought fleetingly about beauty, how it could come from the most mundane of places.

In the continuous cycles of an ever-changing sky.

In children who gave flowers to random strangers at cemeteries.

In laughter.

In sadness.

Even in grief.

The fading light dusted the crown of her wife’s blonde head.

A slight frown pulled at her lips.

And there was great beauty and great sadness in this, too.

Paradoxes and contradictions.

“What are you thinking about?” Blue had asked, absently skimming her thumb along the side of Yellow’s hand, tracing every line, relearning every divot and groove.

“My luck,” Yellow returned in that familiar dry voice of hers. “That wreck could have been… disastrous.”

“Yes.” The word was hushed in her throat, cloistered, the possibilities that it engendered too much to bear: Yellow injured, Yellow dying, Yellow gone. The worst hypothetical had never felt more real to her than in the handful of hours that had elapsed between her doorbell ringing and rushing to the hospital in the dead of night.

With Pink, there had been no likewise chance.

No hospital to go to.

Only a morgue.

“Did… what’s her name… you know—the new valet—did she make it out alright? I forgot to ask.”

“She did,” Blue confirmed with a small nod. “Topaz—I mean. Only a few cuts on her face from what I understood. I gave her a temporary leave of absence.”

“Good,” Yellow sighed, relief palpable in her low voice. “Excellent.”

Her frown incrementally shifted, becoming the barest of smiles.

Subtle.

Almost easy to miss.

Clank.

They had ascended the elevator side by side, too, Yellow pulling her special keycard out from the pocket of her immaculately pressed shirt with fumbling fingers, and Blue could tell that she was tired by this uncharacteristic clumsiness alone.

“Let me,” she whispered before gently apprehending the card and slotting it into the reader that would grant them immediate access to their floor.

It was a tiny kindness.

Somehow, it was far more than that, too.

Yellow stared at her, eyes wide, and said, “Thank you.”

“It was nothing,” Blue murmured, a dull flush coloring her cheeks as she returned the card, slipping it back to where it belonged.

The doors opened slowly, welcoming the Diamonds home.

Clank.

Blue had insisted that Yellow sleep in the bed, that she needed a good night’s rest after all that she had been through, but Yellow was infuriatingly stubborn to the last—intransigent, inflexible, chivalrous—protesting that she didn’t want to aggravate Blue’s hip problem.

She’d be fine on the couch.

It only hit her later that night, as she laid in that bed that was much too big for her, that she could have invited her wife to come to bed with her.

But the thought scared her as much as it intrigued her.

She pushed it to the side, tabling it for a later date.

(Coward.)

Clank.

The living room was dressed in a pale sunshine coat when Blue finally arrived at the very edge of it, her oceanic eyes washing over the scene until they lit upon Yellow Diamond, stretched beneath a thin blanket on the white couch, fast asleep, soft snores emitting from her half-open mouth.

In the hours that had elapsed, her wounds didn’t appear as angry as they had done yesterday, and there was already a little discoloration around the edges of her stitches that suggested that they were already beginning to do the complicated work of healing—as transitory wounds tended to do.

Blue lifted the bottom of her cane now so it no longer thudded against the floor with each slow and deliberate footfall; she could retain her balance for that long, or, if she couldn’t, then she’d very well know it was likely time she had that hip replacement her physician kept threatening at each of her successive appointments.

But she didn’t waver.

Didn’t fall.

Miraculously refrained from breaking.

Long enough to reach the creamy ottoman in front of the couch, which Yellow had apparently used in lieu of a nightstand. Her reading glasses were folded neatly atop of yesterday’s copy of The Empire City Times, the crossword section right side up.

She’d almost finished it, lacking only two-across: ANTONYM OF CRUELTY.

And the answer, Blue Diamond could plainly see, was grace.

Fondness for her wife, exquisite and painful tenderness, unexpectedly erupted in the column of her throat—a rush of love, a flurrying sensation, spreading all over, both trickling water and raging fire, paradoxes and contradictions. And suddenly, all impulse, thought swept away by feeling, feeling unknotting her hesitant bones, Blue gingerly bent down and brushed the sharp line of Yellow’s jaw where sunlight had already scribbled itself in patches. She was a child running curious fingers along the edge of a forbidden shelf. She was a butterfly tentatively skimming a blade of grass. She was a broken mother trying to learn how to be unbroken again. She was a loving wife.

She hadn’t been intending to wake her—had only wanted to touch—but somewhere in the space of four awful years, Yellow had apparently learned to be a light sleeper. Her golden eyes flew open at the gesture, catching Blue in the act.

“Blue,” she murmured, shocked, disbelieving, as though she wasn’t entirely convinced that she wasn’t dreaming. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” Blue returned softly and at least had enough decency to look ashamed. (For what exactly? She wasn’t necessarily sure. Somehow, she just knew that it was a very shameful thing to touch her wife. To caress her gently after so many days and months and years of having not done it.) “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“No, no,” Yellow protested, sitting up abruptly to make room for Blue on the half-rumpled couch. The movement must have been too sudden for her sore body because she briefly winced, glancing downwards at her leg. “I should be getting up anyway. What time is it anyway? Seven? Seven-thirty?”

Blue remembered the timestamp that had accompanied Steven’s last message, and a frown bruised her lips as she slowly lowered herself by her wife’s side, balancing herself on the head of her cane.

“Closer to nine, I believe.”

Yellow blinked once, disbelief turning to cross bemusement in the slightest shift of her brow as she searched for the truth in her wife’s long face.

“Seriously?”

“More or less.” Blue’s lips slightly rippled, and Yellow shook her head with disgust, the emotion snarling across her weathered face.

“I haven’t slept in past eight since I was in college,” she muttered, pushing a hand through her sleep-straggled hair. “Goodness, that’s unusual.”

“You were exhausted,” Blue proffered immediately, as though this was explanation and excuse enough, but Yellow only shook her head again, refusing her own defense just as quickly as Blue had risen to it.

“Not anymore than usual,” came the stubborn reply. There wasn’t argument in her voice, so much as there was an edge, inwardly pointed.

Because that was the thing about Yellow Diamond.

She saved her sharpest words for herself, lancing her own criticisms deep into her skin in order to forcibly teach herself how to do better the next day. Blue knew better than to challenge her when she did this, for Yellow did enough challenging to herself.

So she looked away and allowed Yellow to punish herself and lapsed into contemplative silence, thinking about Steven again, threading her fingers together on top of her robed lap: his sunken face, his lachrymose messages, his careworn caretakers, and all of their collectively haunted eyes. Even glancing out onto the sun-warmed balcony was enough to conjure the image of him sitting beside her in the chair that usually belonged to Yellow and eating one of Holly Agatha’s famous chocolate cakes.

The one he would later throw up.

Because he was sick.

Terribly so.

“Blue?” Yellow’s voice was soft, prodding, hesitant, awkward—full of all the dichotomies and contradictions that their relationship seemed to have been built on these last four years. They both loved each other.

Surely.

Deeply.

Beyond a shadow of a doubt.

They were equally afraid to say it aloud.

“Is something troubling you?”

Blue’s turned away from the balcony and faced her wife again—the stitches on her sharply hewn jaw, the complicated emotions in her golden eyes, the sharp set of her frown—and wondered what would happen if she simply told her the truth, if she laid it nakedly between them and simply waited for a response.

It was terrifying to be vulnerable with another.

Somehow, in the midst of everything, she remembered that it was necessary.

“Steven Universe,” she finally whispered, the name less like a name and more like a confession, gently handed over between the sliding partition in a wooden booth. “I’m worried about him. I talked to one of his guardians yesterday, and he isn’t… doing well.”

Yellow’s face grappled with the news, appearing far more stricken than Blue could have ever expected of her.

When she frowned, the lines beneath her eyes darkened and creased, making her appear ancient.

Haunted.

“I know,” she said unexpectedly.

“You do?” Blue couldn’t help herself—she arched an incredulous brow, and her wife’s cheeks promptly colored in response, the pink feathering the sickly purple of her bruises. It wasn’t a particularly handsome effect.

“I met him the other night,” she muttered, a little impish, a little stiff, glancing away. “I was curious. I wanted to know what he looked like.”

Blue didn’t know what was more astonishing—the fact that Yellow had visited Steven in the first place or the miraculousness of her actually admitting to it so plainly. Neither action seemed particularly characteristic to a woman who attempted to subjugate all of her emotions beneath the sleeves of her immaculately ironed shirt.

But she could see the truth of the words in the tense sobriety of her profile.

And she knew, from experience, that as astonishingly unlikely as it was for Yellow Diamond to visit a sickly child in the hospital, it was even less likely that she would lie about it in the first place.

And so Blue did what she could to collect her face, but she was fairly sure that trace remnants of her surprise still remained because her wife scoffed, the color of her cheekbones still a rosé red, sweet and mild.

“You don’t have to look so shocked.”

“I’m… I’m not shocked,” she protested immediately, her own features shading themselves in. “I’m just—”

But Blue Diamond, eloquent though she was, could not find another fitting word, and Yellow Diamond, seemingly despite her better judgment, laughed once, the sound harsh and warm in that airy, light-filled living room.

“Shocked,” she repeated emphatically, shaking her head.

“You’ve disarmed me before I’ve taken my morning tea,” Blue mumbled, a little petulance in her voice, a little play.

“Good,” Yellow sniffed, half-grimacing, half-smiling. “I’m glad to see I can still keep you on your toes.”

And then they both stared at each other—nakedly, unflinchingly—quite painfully aware that they were on the verge of making each other laugh for the first time in years, and the solemnity of the occasion brought them both back to themselves.

Blue frowned so easily that it was only muscle memory, primal reflex.

And Yellow followed suit, the sunlight raking itself across her wounded face.

“And what did you think of him?” Blue asked, both wanting the answer and dreading it. She slightly learned towards her wife; part of her wished to flee; and because she didn’t flee, because she stayed, the contradiction manifested as a twisting of her gut, a turning.

“A little impetuous…” Yellow said immediately, her voice low, distant with memory. “Annoyingly happy… but good, I think. Smart for his age. Kind. He almost reminded me of—”

But she caught herself just in time—stricken, terrified, revolted.

And Blue’s heart nearly failed with the simple proximity of her daughter’s ghost, of the closeness of her nearly evoked name.

But they danced through the horrible moment.

Silently.

Together.

Yellow swallowed thickly, and Blue Diamond was merciful; she gently took her wife’s splinted hand.

“Pink,” she murmured softly, the word, the name, the ghost reverent on her tongue.

Holy.

“Those eyes,” Yellow croaked painfully, folding her fingers into the gaps between Blue’s own. “That wide smile.”

“I know,” Blue whispered. “I know.”

“I can see why you like him, Blue,” she said seriously. “He hooks you in.”

Blue’s mind worked far ahead of her. Even though she didn’t explicitly articulate it, even though she likely never would, it was clear that Yellow was amongst this number.

She liked Steven Universe.

She cared.

“Before you even know it,” she agreed softly. “Before you’re even aware.”

“It’s all so very sudden,” Yellow muttered uncomfortably, frowning, a divot forming between her dark brow.

And Blue thought to herself, very quietly, that that was the nature of love, really.

It was all so very sudden.

And beautiful and extraordinary and rare.

And sad and horrible and tragic.

And lasting.

Even when it happened suddenly.

(Even when it was suddenly taken away.)

“What isn’t in this world?” Blue murmured, and she gently skimmed the side of her wife’s hand with her thumb, watching as this simple revelation played out across her powerful features.

Smoothing them.

Sanding and softening all those rough edges.

“Frankly,” she finally said, smiling a little sadly, “I have no damn clue.”

ii.

Once upon a time, there was a princess, a knight, and a little elven girl, all tucked up in bed together, side by side by side.

Blue ran her fingers through her daughter’s mass of curly hair as she snored lightly. Her tiny hand was curled into the front of Yellow’s pajama shirt, knobbly fingers twisted into the fabric, secure there. She’d fallen asleep protesting the need for sleep, trying to convince her mothers for one story more, and just as Blue had finally conceded—she rarely ever didn’t when it came to Pink—her hooded eyes drifted to a close beneath the gentle lamp-strewn haziness of the room, where she was warm.

Safe.

Loved.

For that was the crucial fact, the fundamental thing—Pink Diamond was loved most of all.

“We’re never going to have a sex life again, are we?” Yellow lamented, slanting a honey-eyed gaze at her wife over the top of Pink’s head.

Amusement in the expression.

Fondness.

Blue laughed lightly and could not help but play along, teasing her body upwards so that she was propped on her elbow, and she could look at her wife properly, drinking in the way she looked at ten o’clock at night, with her hair still a little wet from the shower. There was a certain gentleness in her hawklike face that she tended to eschew during the day around business colleagues, subordinates, and clients, but here, in the safety of their shared bedroom, it had always been implicitly understood that even birds of prey had to roost, too.

“It isn’t too late, you know,” Blue returned, her voice warm, low, suggestive . Yellow had started it after all; it was only fair that she finished. “We can simply move her to her own bed…”

“And chance waking her up again? Hell, no. It was an ordeal just getting her to sleep.”

“The couch is always an option.”

Yellow scoffed imperiously, poking her lips out in a magnificent imitation of her mother’s trademark pout.

“Every time we try that, one of us falls off the damn thing.”

“Hey,” Blue laughed again, causing a heavy strand of hair to fall from where it had been swept from behind her ear, “I wasn’t the one who vouched for hardwood floors.”

Yellow pulled on a faux-offended look like it was one of her favorite ties, dramatically starfishing one of her hands across her chest, exactly where her collared pajama shirt dipped into a vee.

“Well excuse me for thinking that carpet looks outdated.”

“You’re impossible,” Blue smiled gently, shaking her head.

“I believe the word you’re looking for is practical .”

And then, because it was late at night, and they were tired and being stupid, and there was a baby in the bed between them, the two of them caught each other’s eye and couldn’t help themselves, collapsing into laughter that was lovely and loud and ridiculous enough to make Pink briefly stir, her ears twitching irritably at the disturbance.

And then, because this was somehow incredibly funny even though it really, really wasn’t, they laughed some more—silently this time albeit—before eventually flicking off both of their lamps and wrapping their arms around their daughter in the cool darkness, fingers meeting precisely in the middle.

iii.

Friday, July 6th, 9:20AM:

Blue: Hello, Steven. Are you feeling better today?

Blue: If you are, I would love to come visit you again soon.

Steven: not really

Steven: sorry, Blue

Saturday, July 7th, 9:51AM:

Blue: Just checking in, sweet boy. Respond only when you feel up to it.

Blue: And if that’s not at all… that is perfectly okay, too.

They took their tea and coffee out on the balcony, Blue assuming the right armchair and Yellow the left, and somehow, there was both a rightness and a wrongness to these simple actions.

Because this was new.

And yet, achingly familiar.

One week ago today, they danced this same vicious dance, drinking coffee, drinking tea, sitting in these chairs, appropriating a sense of normality that they did not feel. And the memory of their failed ruse swallowed a lot of the precious oxygen in the air, making it hard for either of them to speak. Blue spidered her hand across her sternum, the tips of her long fingers touching spiny collarbone, and tried to remind herself how to breathe.

Yellow was more finicky in her discomfort, her careworn face drawn as she bobbed her left leg up and down, the heel of her slipper flicking arrhythmically against the smooth floor. And the sun that she stared at was the precise color of a healing bruise, pale ochre against a silver sky. And the bruises on her angularly hewn face were mottled in the strange light, pulsing like miniature supernovas, burning, gradually dulling.

“I heard it was going to rain tomorrow,” the businesswoman eventually said, and it was clear from the way that her voice was clipped that she didn’t really want to talk about the weather.

“I saw that, too,” Blue Diamond replied in a low voice. “On the news, I believe.” She had seen no such thing, in fact, but they were talking again, she and Yellow, and that was something that would occasionally take baby steps.

Weather talk.

Mere pleasantries.

Scratching the deep, dark surfaces with fingernails.

But then, because the weather could only take them so far, they lapsed into a silence that was its own person, sitting indelicately in the space between them.

Pink hair.

Constellation freckles.

A black hoodie.

A mischievous smile.

Once upon a time, there was a princess, a knight, and a little elven girl, who hadn’t been so little anymore—not really. She’d been tall and willowy and full of passion for a life she had yet to live. She’d been twenty-one, but both of her mothers had treated her like she was twelve.

And they loved her, but they suffocated her.

And they loved her, but they ignored her.

And they loved her, but the awful and unbearable truth of the matter was that love was not enough.

Love was the foundation, but it had to be built upon with care and attentiveness—with perceptive eyes and willing ears and flexible hearts. It required sacrifice. It demanded compromise. Mutability. Vulnerability. Change.

And so Blue and Yellow loved Pink Diamond, down to their marrow, down to all the atoms in their four hundred and twelve collective bones, but they failed her in so many of those other important respects.

And they paid the steep price.

Because once upon a time, the little elven girl who wasn’t so little anymore had had enough of her own fairytale and dreamed of carving out another.

She sought freedom and adventure.

She was daring; she wished to rebel.

But when she did for the first time (and the last), when she snuck out of her palace of a room, there were monsters out there, and nothing in the world had ever prepared her for monsters—not even her parents, who had slain their fair share of monsters: dragons and greedy businessmen and hardhearted mothers.

And so she died, and the princess and the knight were left alone in their high tower to lose their goddamn minds.

In separate rooms.

Away from each other.

They mourned and mourned and mourned.

And on that sun-paled balcony, before she knew it, before she could stop herself, Blue Diamond’s eyes were pooling with hot tears. She tried to swipe them away, so Yellow wouldn’t see, wouldn’t chide her, wouldn’t scold, but Yellow had already seen—of course she had already seen—and her golden eyes were wide.

Lined.

Horror-struck.

“I’m sorry,” Blue pleaded reflexively, covering her face with her tall hands. She was always so very sorry. “I was just... I was thinking of her and I couldn’t help it... and I’m—“

“Don’t apologize, Blue,” Yellow cut across her hoarsely, her voice a sharp knife on the edge of breaking. “Don’t ever feel like you have to apologize to me.”

But Blue didn’t think that this was a particularly healthy way of looking at things either. There were so many things she felt the need to apologize for.

(All of them had to do with looking away.)

“But—“

“Because I was thinking about her, too.”

The sentence was an admission, rushed, expulsive, thrown to the floor like it was a bomb ready to ignite.

Yellow abruptly flinched, and Blue did, too, waiting for the aftermath of the blow that didn’t quite come.

So now there was an invisible body in the space between them and a ticking time bomb on the floor.

Company was always diverse in the Diamonds’ penthouse suite.

Perpetually attuned to their self-made demons.

“You were?” Blue’s voice verged on the edge of offensively wondrous. She dared to look at her wife in the gaps between her fingers, slicing her statuesque profile into vees. Her stern jaw. Her world-weary eyes. The lines crisscrossing her face. The defeated hunch of her Atlantean shoulders.

Blue pulled her fingers downwards until they were tightly clenching the lapels of her robe, fingers sinking into the thin fabric, knuckles turning white at the grip.

“How could I not be?” Each word was acerbic, gritted through the teeth, self-loathing. “Just last week, we did this, too, and I hurt you then… I’ve hurt you so many times over Pink. I should be the one who is saying sorry.”

Yellow looked over then, her face desperately open, as though she was trying to convey the force of her raw penance by expression alone.

How tortured she was.

How craven.

Feral.

Agonized.

Undone.

“And I am sorry, Blue,” she continued, the lines beneath her eyes contracting harshly. “I am so sorry—for every wrong I’ve ever done to you. For every time I’ve made you feel wrong for grieving Pink. I… I have no excuse, no semblance of a justification… I just…” But she violently interrupted herself, her ferociousness seemingly drained from her body as she jerked forward, elbows on her knees, dragging a hand across the whole of her face, uncaring of her stitches.

And she remained like that for what felt like an eternity, a statue ruined, palm covering her mouth

Staring wide-eyed into space.

Into an awfully bruised sky.

Blue Diamond’s entire nervous system was in total disrepair as she looked at her wife.

And tried to comprehend the words she had just said, the very ones she had resigned herself to never hearing.

Because for all the four years that she had grieved and grieved, Yellow had been right there beside her, insisting that she should get a grip on herself, should get better, should move on.

And here was the apology for all those awful words.

Here was the proof that they had existed, and that they had injured, and that they had hurt.

The creased skin around Yellow’s eyes was damp.

Her robed shoulders trembled.

“Yellow Clytemnestra Diamond,” Blue finally whispered, the name less invocation than it was admonition, less admonition than it was cruelty, less cruelty than it was love, “you cannot honestly believe that it is that simple.”

That caught her attention.

Yellow jerked her head in Blue’s direction so quickly that it looked painful.

“What?”

“Can’t you see?” She asked, a pleading note in her voice as she leaned a little across the gap between their chairs, her silvery hair falling in loose gossamer curtains around her face. “It isn’t all just you, and it isn’t all just me either. It’s both of us. Together. My God and my goodness, it always has been.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Yellow snapped, her face leached of its color as she scrabbled for purchase, for a reasonable ledge upon which to mount her own cross. “You were grieving, and I kept pushing you. I couldn’t stand watching you fall apart.”

“But you were grieving, too, Yellow!” Blue all but shrieked, desperate to impress upon her wife how important it was to acknowledge the unplumbed depths of her pain.

To own it, by God.

To share it.

Because she didn’t want to be alone anymore.

She couldn’t bear to be.

“You were hurting, and you were sad,” she continued unrestrainedly, tears pricking the corners of her eyes again. She made no attempt to brush them away this time. “And I was so cruel, Yellow. I wanted you to acknowledge it for my own selfish reasons, and then, at the very same time, I was desperate to push you away. You hurt me, but fundamentally, I hurt you, too, and you can’t just… you can’t take away our history like that. You can’t shoulder all these four years on your own. It doesn’t work like that. Love doesn’t! Marriage doesn’t! We don’t!”

Blue Diamond’s chest heaved painfully at the end of all this, as though she had just run a marathon. She rubbed her sternum again, trying to excise the damage, but there was so much of it there—so many hundreds of days worth—and she was so tired.

Exhausted.

But still, there was more to be said; there were mountains between hers and Yellow Diamond’s chairs.

Insurmountable oceans.

And Yellow was frozen, a monument to her own colossal grief.

Stone.

Leaking stone.

She had fountains for eyes; they dripped and dripped.

“And we hurt Pink,” Blue whispered, closing her eyes against this final, horrible truth as the tears continued to lance down her long face, salting her cracked lips. “Oh, my God, how we hurt that poor child. She wanted so badly to grow up, and we wouldn’t let her. We looked away. And that’s what I think about every time I close my eyes, Yellow. Her last words to me echo perpetually in the dark of my head.”

You’ll never let me grow up, will you?

She couldn’t help herself then; she let out a bitter sob, wrenched to her very core.

Because their daughter was dead and never coming back, and the pain of that simple fact would haunt her until the day she died, the memories of her so many thousands of scattered ghosts.

Eternal.

Omnipresent.

Her own constructed gods to worship and to fear.

“I was grieving,” Yellow confessed hoarsely, and the naked baldness of it forced Blue to open her eyes again to take a look. Her wife was rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet, fingers dug into the thighs of her pajama pants. Without her trademark three piece suit, without her makeup, without her man-killing heels, she seemed so much smaller than usual—less adamantine, more human. “And I hurt you.”

“Yes,” Blue said simply.

It was a mere syllable; it cost everything in her to utter it.

“And you were grieving… and you didn’t mean to… but you… you hurt me, too.”

“But sometimes,” Blue reminded her gently, the words awful on her lilting tongue, “I absolutely did mean to. I wanted to hurt you, Yellow… I wanted you to feel the barest inch of pain that I felt and suffer with me. Us. Together.”

Yellow looked like she didn’t know what to say to that, so she ignored it, striking the heel of one of her hands across her running face, sniffing harshly.

“And we hurt Pink,” she carried on, this unforgivable truth the salt in the exposed wound. Yellow’s voice broke at the end as the pain of it simply burned. “We hurt her so many times over.”

There was only one possible answer to this leveled charge, too.

“Yes.”

Yellow closed her eyes against this final condemnation, wincing harshly, as though skewered through with a sword. Her jaw was red in the place where she’d tried to wipe away the tears that still continued to flow down her angular face.

“So what do we do now?” She asked, and the question was almost childish in her stringent voice. The desperation in her golden eyes pleaded for an answer, a foundation upon which to stand. “Where the hell do we even go from here?”

It was a simple question at the same time that it was a loaded one.

It engendered the possibilities of more pain, dissolution, and grief.

The startling potentiality that neither Blue nor Yellow Diamond would ever recover from the loss of their only child.

Their shared tomb of a bleak and horrible future.

But there was hope there, too.

The startling possibility of it.

The barest potentiality.

Small.

Slight.

Goddamn miraculous even.

But there.

Taught first to Blue Diamond by a boy in a cemetery, so many days upon long, aching days ago.

Thinking clearly for the first time in four years or perhaps not thinking straight at all, the fifty-five year old woman tenderly reached her shaking hand across the gap between their chairs and held her palm upwards as though it had a flower in it, inviting her wife’s fingers to fill in the empty spaces, to imagine a conceivable future where they could one day hold hands and be content.

“I don’t know,” she murmured, her voice also quite childish, the words so very small. “But wherever it is, Yellow, let’s go together.”

To heaven.

To hell.

To the grave.

To their golden years.

Yellow stared at her open hand for the longest fraction of an infinity, and there was exquisite agony in her eyes, painful tenderness, too.

Paradoxes and contradictions.

“Okay,” she finally whispered, taking Blue Diamond’s hand, interlinking their long fingers.

“Okay.”

iv.

Once upon a time, there was a princess, a knight, and a night that seemed to swallow them both entirely whole.

Because White Diamond wasn’t doing well.

Her live-in nurse had called Yellow just today and told her that some days were worse than others, and worse days were become less exception than the rule; she was often agitated, frustrated, terrified, confused; she thought that Yellow was still at boarding school; she saw shadows of strange men on the alabaster walls; she missed her own mother, who had been dead for some forty-odd years; she wanted to send her dearest Starlight a postcard from Paris.

As they laid in bed together in the darkness, Blue wrapped her arms around her wife’s tense body, pressing soft lips against her pillow-rumpled hair.

“Mother always said that she wanted a grand funeral when her time came,” Yellow said stiffly, each word yanked from behind gritted teeth. “If her casket cost less than a hundred grand, she’d haunt me from the aether for the rest of my life.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Blue sighed, a little sad, a little amused, a little fond. Her mother-in-law had always been quite the character, larger than life, always meticulously dressed in Gucci jumpsuits that were more expensive than most people’s home mortgages.

“She wants to be buried in the same crypt as my grandparents naturally,” Yellow continued in that same halting voice, “and I told her that she was being ridiculous. Someone would have to knock out a damn wall to fit another casket in there.”

But Blue knew her wife too well, perhaps better than she knew herself sometimes with her obstinate avoidance of all things introspective in nature.

“My colleague’s husband is a contractor,” she said gently, skimming her fingers up and down Yellow’s sleeved arm. “I can get a quote for you on Monday...?”

“Mm,” came a noncommittal grunt, which Blue correctly interpreted as reluctant assent.

The silence laid thickly upon the two women then.

Seconds passed.

Electric minutes.

Blue could almost feel the tension agitating Yellow’s bones.

And then—

“We should talk about our own burial plans one day in the near future,” she said brusquely. “At the very least, we need to have the Zircons codify our basic intentions into a will.”

Blue stared at the back of her wife’s head incredulously, eyes wide, her dark brow contracting somewhere in the middle. With some effort, she extricated her arms from around her, so that she could prop herself up on one elbow more easily.

“Yellow Clytemnestra Diamond,” she whispered, unable to quite keep the emotion from her voice, the rising pitch, “what on Earth do you mean? We’re not even fifty yet.”

Goodness, they were barely forty.

“Accidents happen all the time,” Yellow reasoned sagely, rolling around to face Blue properly, “and I want to leave Pink with a clear blueprint. Otherwise, you and I might end up in neon pink caskets as Weezer plays over our grave.”

“How serious of you,” Blue quipped, lowering herself down to the pillow again so that they were at eye level. In the barest light that seeped through the curtains, she saw that there were tired lines scoring Yellow’s face, straining shadows.

“I’m being completely serious,” she protested shortly. “Not about Weezer, perhaps, but the fact that we should have solidified plans.”

Abstractly, Blue knew she was correct—it was only common sense for them to put their affairs in order, even if they were young, and perhaps especially while they were. And yet, she had a feeling that this particular topic of conversation wasn’t strictly about the common sense of it, the practicality, the realism.

It was more so about the haunted look in Yellow’s eyes.

And the stiffness of her body.

And her sick mother.

Assuredly, it was about grief.

“Yellow,” Blue only whispered, reaching across the barest gap between them and placing the palm of her hand on the woman’s warm cheek. Her thumb cradled that imperial jaw, tracing its harsh geometry, loving it softly.

And Yellow Diamond immediately jerked, as though stung by such a gentle, careful touch, but ultimately, she didn’t move away from it.

She leaned into it, in fact.

And closed her dark-stricken eyes.

Sighing.

“Sorry,” she muttered thickly. “I was being morbid... I just... it’s all becoming real to me, I think...”

Blue remained silent in this awful darkness, simply listening, simply holding her wife’s face.

“The inevitability that one day, my mother isn’t going to call me on the phone to chew my ass out about the company again... she’s just always been so stubborn, so implacable, that to imagine her as anything else is...”

But she trailed off, opening her eyes again. They were strangely filmy, bright but simultaneously dull.

“Well, you know what it is,” she finished awkwardly.

The words sprung immediately to Blue’s clever and elocutionary mind: unbearable, unfathomable, cruel.

She decided quickly, though, against saying any of them aloud; thinking them was punishment enough.

“I know,” she whispered, continuing to study the planes of her wife’s jaw by touch alone. She chose not to say anything when there was sudden dampness on the side of her hand.

“What do I do, Blue? The question was hushed, strangled, barely articulated into the night. “What happens next?”

Blue Diamond didn’t particularly know grief yet, the harrowing nature of it, its iron-sharp teeth.

And so that was the only answer she could give her wife in the end, as intelligent as she was, as intuitive, and as sensitive to the natures of others.

“I don’t know,” she admitted gently, “but I promise you, Yellow Diamond, I’ll be by your side through all of it.”

In sickness and in health.

’Til death did them part.

’Til Weezer apparently one day played over their grave.

“How sentimental of you,” Yellow laughed humorlessly in a failure of an attempt to hide that she was touched.

Blue leaned over then and pressed her lips against Yellow’s cool forehead, fingers still cupping her face. And when the stalwart general of a businesswoman’s entire body shuddered, she was merciful again; she pretended not to notice.

“Yes.”

Tuesday, July 10th, 7:22PM:

Steven: i’m sorry for just getting back to you, Blue. It’s been a rough couple of days.

Blue: I know how that feels.

Steven: it’s just kinda hard to get outta my own head right now.

Blue typed and sent her reply just as the door leading into the penthouse suite abruptly swung open: I know how that feels, too.

When she glanced up from her phone from where she was sitting on the couch, Yellow Diamond was limping through the threshold in such a way that it was painfully obvious that she was trying to hide that she was limping—holding her shoulders ridiculously straight and grimacing as though to subjugate any pain she was feeling in the firm press of her mouth.

Though she was dressed in a button down with black slacks and a suit vest to match, she wasn’t quite coming home from work; rather—as she’d told Poppy to tell Blue earlier that morning—she had been at the hospital all day.

Doing some more tests.

Placing her phone facedown on the nearby end table, Blue narrowed her eyes in what she hoped was sympathy but probably more so resembled fear.

“Yellow?” She asked softly, her voice small and tremulous and terrified of its own aggrandized shadow. She loathed herself; she didn’t know how to be anyone other than herself. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” came the immediate and stubborn reply as the woman shuffled over to the couch, her face unbending in unsubtle relief when she finally collapsed into a sitting position. Her palm immediately went to her right thigh, which Blue knew had been the one heavily bruised in the accident.

Blue’s brow bent pointedly over her arctic eyes.

Coldly.

“No,” Yellow amended herself, abashed, embarrassed, sniffing haughtily. “It’s only my leg, though. I was on it too much today.”

“I told you you could borrow my cane.”

“And I told you that that was the last thing I wanted to do,” she muttered, flushing, continuing to rub the inflicted area. “Besides, you need it more.”

Because it was always a competition between them—who was suffering the most. And for some odd and likely unhealthy reason, it was one competition that the ambitious CEO didn’t like to win.

Blue sighed heavily at this silent observation, disturbing the heavy braid that was slung across her shoulder, before slowly pulling herself upwards from the couch, drawing her wife’s incredulous, harried gaze.

“Wait! I didn’t mean for you to leave—”

But Blue only shook her head, quelling Yellow’s protests with the gesture, before slowly hobbling over to the kitchen and slowly hobbling back, this time bearing the ice pack that she sometimes took to bed with her and a gray towel to wrap around it. Using the head of her cane cane as leverage, knuckling it tightly, she nudged the white ottoman towards Yellow with her good knee until it was right in front of her.

“Prop your bad leg up,” she commanded quietly, her voice taking on that same authoritative note that she had once used with her pupils. “Elevating your leg will help drain some of the tension from it.”

And like the best of the headmistress’s former pupils, Yellow knew it was best to swiftly comply.

Laboriously, with obvious discomfort, she used her hands to drag her right leg onto the ottoman, wincing a little with each microscopic adjustment of her thigh. Blue, careful to give the limb wide berth, lowered herself down to the ottoman, too, where she encased the ice pack in the towel, neatly tucking the ends in together so that the cloth wouldn’t unloose itself.

Yellow watched all of this with offensively wide eyes, staring at Blue as though she was turning water into wine or doing somersaults in the middle of the living room. Self-conscious, hyperconscious, anxious, painfully aware, she tucked a stray strand of silvery hair behind her ear and tried not to pay attention to her as she gently pressed the ice pack against her leg, meticulous to cover the entirety of the affected area.

“Cold helps,” she only proffered in explanation. “I can instruct one of the maids to change it out for a new one in a few hours or so.”

“Thank you, Blue.” Yellow’s voice was constricted, tender, raw.

Blue didn’t think she deserved such an outpouring of emotion for such a simple task, this tiny, most minuscule of kindnesses; she glanced away, feathers of color dusting her hollowed cheeks.

“It’s nothing,” she returned gently. “You would do the same for me…”

A slight pause.

Loaded.

Unbearable.

She felt the need to extinguish it at once.

“You have done the same for me,” she added with quiet forcefulness, still not quite looking in Yellow’s direction, drawing both of her hands into her lap. They were cold now from handling the ice pack, rigid and stiff.

“So many times over.”

After all, how many times had Yellow Diamond sat vigil by her bedside in these past four years? Bathed her? Accompanied her to doctor’s appointments? Taken care of her the best way she knew how?

The number was unfathomable to Blue, innumerable even—both from a lack of attention and from the stunning knowledge that indeed, there were probably too many times to count.

There was a shifting noise then—Yellow adjusting herself on the couch, perhaps—and when Blue finally forced herself to glance up, she could see that there was a rumpled look in her wife’s eyes—the same messiness of an unironed collar, the stain of tea spilt on a tiled floor. She had jerked forward as though to reach out and touch Blue, but the position of her extended leg had made it difficult.

“But I could have done so much more, Blue,” she said softly, with quiet pain, the barren and fervent truth of it shining in those liquid gold eyes. “I watched you suffer more than I ever helped you… I’m so sorry.”

And when Blue immediately opened her mouth to protest, to rearticulate that it wasn’t as straightforward as that, that they had both done inconceivable wrongs to each other, that Yellow had done the best that she could, Yellow shook her head ferociously, her aspect taking on that same indefinable sense of authority which had so permeated her reign as the CEO of Diamond Electric.

And like the wisest of Yellow’s colleagues, Blue knew when it was best to simply stand down.

“No! I’ve been thinking about this,” she continued doggedly, “and I’ve come to the conclusion that just because we’ve both hurt each other doesn’t very well cancel out the fact that we did. That’s asinine, Blue—fallacious logic. I hurt you. I pushed you away. I didn’t want to acknowledge your grief for the inglorious reason that if I did, I would have to acknowledge my goddamn own.”

She raised her voice only at the end, flinching when she did, looking away.

The pale light flooding down from the strips in the ceiling cast strange shadows across her beaten face, and Blue Diamond’s heart bruised with the utter surreality of it all.

The confession.

The accountability.

The simple agony in Yellow’s voice, laid bare.

There were no barriers between them now, no walls, no facades, no meticulously constructed pretenses—only words.

Words and words and words.

Yellow Diamond had been there for Blue in so many different ways in four years… but she had hurt Blue so many times in so many different ways, too, and that was apparently something that neither of them were allowed to forget.

How many times had Blue laid in the horrible dark by herself, silent tears streaming down her face weathered? And how many times had Yellow insisted to her physician do up her meds, as though the underlying problem of grief could be treated first and foremost with a pill? How many times had her wife raised her voice at her—so devastatingly harsh, aloof, and cruel?

The number was unfathomable, innumerable.

Blue could not immediately swallow the lump in her throat.

“I… I remember thinking that if I could just keep myself together on the outside,” Yellow half-whispered, “I could be strong enough for both of us. I couldn’t bear being weak.”

And she flexed her fists on top of her powerful thighs, scraped knuckles trembling.

And she somehow found enough courage to look Blue in the eye.

And Blue stared at her right back, her eyes melting with awful tears.

“Grief isn’t weakness, Yellow,” she said ardently, with all the conviction she could muster, with all the atoms in her broken body.

Because she knew grief; she understood it; it was her closest companion, her very best and most horrible friend.

Yellow sniffed and swiped a hand across her face as though it would do anything, as though it would annihilate the over-brightness of her eyes.

“What is it then?” She asked, and from the quiet tone of her voice, Blue thought that she’d already guessed the answer.

But she said it aloud anyway, for both of them to hear and to know and to never forget again.

She reached over and gently took her lover’s hand and whispered, “Love.”

Tuesday, July 10, 9:02PM:

Blue: It’s such a hard feeling to contend with, sweet boy—the feeling of everything, the feeling of nothing, the feeling of drowning in the empty space of your own head.

Blue: I was there.

Blue: Some days, I still am.

Blue: But please know, Steven Universe, that I am here for you.

Blue: So many people are here for you.

Wednesday, July 11, 6:58AM:

Steven: thank you, Blue

vi.

Once upon a time, there was a princess, a knight, and a dead queen to mourn and to bury in a one-hundred thousand dollar casket.

On the day that White Diamond died, Blue washed her wife’s hair when they showered together that night, rubbing her fingers gingerly across her scalp as the steaming water broke across the crowns of both of their heads.

Yellow braced her shaking hands against the marbled walls and tried not to make so much as a sound.

Her shoulder blades were knife-sharp with the excruciating tension of holding herself together.

(Of not falling apart.)

Blue kissed the skin right between the middle of those tremulous mountains and scrubbed those places tenderly, too.

And when they dressed in their pajamas and went to bed together later on, loosely intertwining hands and painfully letting go, Pink Diamond came in, wearing one of Yellow’s old t-shirts as a gown, and wrapped her arms around Blue’s neck first, pressing a gentle kiss against her head. Her dark eyes were red from where she had been crying, for she had loved her Gran dearly, even if the eighty-five year old woman had taken habitual offense to the teenager’s choices of music.

“Goodnight, Mom.”

Blue closed her eyes in her daughter’s warm embrace and inhaled the scent of her floral shampoo.

“Goodnight, Pink.”

“I love you so much.”

“I love you, too.

She used to say it so easily then, and she said it so often, too.

It was commonplace.

It was habit.

(What had ever happened in the intervening years? Blue Diamond, to her eternal condemnation, could not know.)

And then the sixteen-year old dutifully shuffled over to the other side of the bed, where Yellow was sitting on the edge, staring blankly into space, the lines beneath her eyes stark, as though dictated in black ink. And Pink wrapped her arms around her other mother, too, burying her nose against that tall column of a neck.

Tears flowing down her freckled face, she whispered, loud enough for Blue to hear, “I’m so sorry, Momma.”

Yellow Diamond didn’t seem capable of moving a muscle at that very moment, more statue than human, obelisk-like, calcified.

But Blue watched as their beautiful daughter squeezed all the tighter, uncaring that she was meeting stone, her slender shoulders wrenching with a sob.

“I’m going to miss her, too.”

Yellow hadn’t cried since she had first gotten the call earlier that morning, and she didn’t start then either; Blue knew her too well; she was desperately afraid to be vulnerable for anyone to see.

And yet, with slow rigidity, with a tenderness that almost did not befit her, labored though it was, the businesswoman reached upwards and encircled her arms around her daughter, drawing the sixteen-year old girl into her lap as though she was that same child who had perpetually come into her mothers’ room after a bad nightmare.

“Shh,” she croaked, and there was pain in her fractured voice.

Pronounced agony.

Love.

Blue’s heart stuttered at the sight and at the sound.

“Shh, Pink,” she repeated, cradling her child, tangling her fingers in that wild, pink hair. “I’m here.”

vii.

Thursday, July 12, 7:12PM:

Steven: hey Blue?

Blue: Yes, Steven?

Steven: You can come visit me tomorrow if you want.

Steven: Would morning be okay? 9:00 maybe? I think they have some more tests to do on me in the afternoon

Blue: I’ll be there.

The summer evening was flush with soft colors—pink and indigo and aegean blue, all bleeding into each other, all melting, until the sky was falling with hazy radiance, white stars dotting the sky like angels in the night. Blue was on the balcony when Yellow arrived home, listening to a familiar piano arrangement that was playing on the classical radio station; the portable stereo was sitting on the table between the chairs.

“You’ve always liked this one,” Yellow said fondly, and when Blue turned around, she saw that her wife was leaning against the sliding glass doorway, dressed as impeccably as usual in a black button down and well-tailored khakis. The collar of her shirt was popped up around her sinewy neck, and there was a manila folder tucked neatly beneath her unhurt arm. She’d spent yet another day at the hospital, doing heavens only knew what.

At least she wasn’t coming home with any new injuries, though.

“Debussy?”

“Chopin,” Blue smiled faintly, and the gesture stretched a little stiffly across her unpracticed lips. “Nocturne in E Flat Major… I used to play it at my parents’ estate for our guests…”

“You used to get so frustrated when you pressed the wrong key,” Yellow teased as she pushed herself off of the door and ambled over. She didn’t quite sit down in her chair, but rather placed the manila folder down in front of the stereo before straightening up again, her silhouette tall in the burgeoning night. “Your brow would furrow just in the middle before you’d start all over again, intent on getting it right this time…”

Blue Diamond’s heart gently pulsed in her throat as she stared upwards at this figure she knew so well—so stern and so simultaneously magnanimous, so magnificent and so undeniably… broken, the lines beneath her eyes fixed scars, her face an angular canvas for cuts and oddly healing bruises.

“I’ve always been a perfectionist, you know.”

“Yes, I know.”

Yellow drew a purposeful step closer, and Blue instinctively leaned back, her stomach clenching against wild and irrational and warranted fright.

“Yellow…”

Because then, with a little awkwardness in her eyes, with a hell of a lot of fear, Yellow Diamond slowly proffered her hand, the metal band of her watch catching in the golden light that illumined the balcony.

There was no mistaking the gesture.

It was an invitation.

“The song’s almost over,” Blue whispered, her throat savanna-dry.

“So?” Yellow meant it to be casual, Blue inferred, but the sound came out too agitated. Color leaked from the sky and seemed to scribble the hollows of her cheeks in. “That’s never stopped us before.”

She was embarrassed.

It was adorable.

And strange.

And oddly sad.

And so, Blue Diamond swallowed her fears.

She took her wife’s hand in the star-strewn darkness.

They could be embarrassed and strange and oddly sad together.

Relief shattering her face, Yellow leaned forward then and wrapped her arms around Blue to help her stand, going slowly, with all consummate gentleness. Their bodies were so close that they could hear the hummingbird beating of each other’s hearts—loud, quick, and desperately afraid.

Blue placed her chin on Yellow’s shoulder and allowed herself to be held by her wife for the first time in four years.

The thought and the sensation nearly made her want to cry.

Yellow Diamond led them slowly and carefully as the arrangement lolled through its sweeping notes. With Blue’s bad hip and Yellow’s sore leg, they couldn’t do much more than turn around in careful circles.

Once upon a time, they would have both sworn that they could out-waltz a king.

“I had an interesting day today,” Yellow said suddenly, as though this was explanation enough for why she was dancing with her wife. Her breath was warm against the tip of Blue’s right ear.

“Oh?”

“Indeed,” she nodded, her chin briefly pressing against Blue’s shoulder, “but I’ll have to tell you about it later, I’m afraid.”

“You’re such a tease,” Blue murmured, but the accusation didn’t come out quite as light as she wanted it to. Her voice shook, and her hands trembled where they were resting on the woman’s back.

Tears danced in her sea-dark eyes.

“Something of the sort, yes.”

The song continued on, but it was nearing its beautiful end—a series of high-lilting lifts and then a final, graceful fall.

Blue greeted every note like it was an old friend, long lost at sea, now come home.

“I’m going to see Steven tomorrow,” she whispered as they continued to draw their slow circle upon the floor. “Early. He asked me to come visit.”

A slight pause.

The piano tinkled a spray of final notes.

And then, there was silence.

“I don’t think his head is in a good place.”

The silence made the proclamation all the more wretched.

Yellow stopped them in their place but didn’t quite let go of Blue, her fingers curling into the thin fabric of her dress.

“I don’t find that hard to believe,” she murmured. “We wouldn’t be in a good place either if…”

But rightfully so, she let the end of that particular hypothetical trail off into the night, for Yellow and Blue Diamond both weren’t in a good place either yet. They were dancing, and they were tentatively smiling, and they were learning how to love each other all over again.

But that was only the beginning.

The start of another piano arrangement began to rise softly from the stereo.

“Bach,” Blue said automatically to smooth the rough moment over. “One of the Goldberg Variations, I believe.”

And so they began their gentle revolutions again, swaying, barely moving their feet to the solemn melody. The wind ran its fingers across them, stirring Blue’s heavy braid, ruffling the collar of Yellow’s shirt.

“Do you know what you're going to say to him?”

It was a remarkably intrusive question, or perhaps it very well wasn’t. Perhaps Blue was judging off the standard that four years of standoffishness from her wife had taught her so emphatically. The questions she most associated with Yellow now largely had to do with whether or not she’d taken all her pills.

She shivered a little, even though the air was mild.

“No,” she replied, closing her sunken eyes. “I haven’t the faintest idea…”

She hadn’t been able to rouse herself out of four years of grief; despite whatever Pearl seemed to believe, she wasn’t entirely sure that she possessed the words that would be enough to help Steven Universe. For even he hadn’t given her words that fateful day in the cemetery.

He’d given her kindness.

He’d given her a flower.

“You’ll figure it out,” Yellow said with an assuredness that made Blue’s heart flutter again. It was a wonder that she could even breathe.

“You say that with such confidence on my behalf.”

And as Bach’s mournful contemplation scored that profound night, Yellow Diamond drew back, so that Blue could see her face, every sharply drawn facet of it, illuminated in that softly scattered lamplight—fifty-six years of life, pressed into the layers of her skin, lines and shadows and lines. These were the lines that had formed beneath her eyes when their daughter first died. And there was the cut that raced across the bridge of her nose from the car accident. And here were the stitches that currently served as a memento of that scary night, too. And there were the slight parentheses formed around her mouth whenever she frowned, relics of time and age and grief.

Her golden eyes were bright with emotion and ancient with the weight of so many passed years.

“Because I know you,” she returned simply, “and I love you.”

They were merely three words, but Blue’s heart nearly failed to hear them.

Spoken to her.

Meant for her.

By the person whom she loved.

Oh, dear God, when was the last time anyone had ever told her that they loved her?

She could not say; she strained to remember.

“I love you, too,” she whispered it back, even though it was only four words, and they were all so very semantically simple.

But the expression on Yellow Diamond’s face was anything but as she, too, registered what it was to be loved by another, her mouth agape, pleasure and pain and ecstasy and terror warring across her face in dizzying swirls.

Oh, dear God, when was the last time she had told Yellow that she loved her?

She could not say; she strained to remember.

And there was hesitancy then.

And vast, godawful fear.

And there was longing then.

And tender, unquestioning desire.

And they both leaned forward then…

And tilted their heads in just the right way…

And they…

viii.

Once upon a time, there was a princess, a knight, and a master bedroom that smelled like a fresh coat of paint.

It was empty as of yet, hollow and silver-walled and woefully unadorned—the movers had just placed the bed and mattress down. They’d be coming back later on that day with the nightstands, armoires, and dressers—all custom-made for the Diamonds’ penthouse suite.

For their first home.

“Wait,” Yellow said, and there was mischief in her twenty-eight year old voice that took Blue by pleasant and tender surprise. “Let’s finalize this bridal style.”

“Yellow,” she laughed, her face coloring pink, “don’t be ridiculous.”

But the heiress only shook her head, grinning with all the self-assuredness of her love and general air of arrogance, as she bent down and scooped her wife into her well-toned arms. Instinctively, Blue wrapped her own arms around that corded neck to help support her weight and found herself so close to Yellow’s face that she could not help but be enchanted.

By her.

Because of her.

This golden-eyed knight.

“I’m not being ridiculous,” Yellow scoffed, pressing a quick kiss against her head. “I’m being romantic. Haven’t you heard of the concept before?”

“Abstractly,” she teased. “In novels and fairytales and the like.”

“You read too many books.” “And you read too little.”

“Nerd.”

“Neolith.”

And they grinned at each other with unbearable affection as Yellow Diamond walked them over the threshold of the room, careful to maneuver her body in such a way that Blue’s feet didn’t hit the doorframe.

When they were on the other side, though, she gently placed her down, so that they were directly in front of the bed that would soon be their own. Blue would assume the right side and Yellow the left, and on some nights, they would meet directly in the middle.

“Soon,” Blue murmured, softly interlinking her fingers with Yellow’s. The bands of their wedding rings clinked delicately at the touch.

“No more bumming out in my mother’s mansion,” Yellow smiled, playing a little with Blue’s hand, swinging it.

“And hearing her daily tirades about being late to breakfast…”

“Oh, yes,” came that harsh, lovely laugh that Blue so loved. “I certainly won’t miss those.”

And they turned to face each other then, light playing in their youthful eyes.

And Yellow reached up and tentatively brushed back a strand of loose hair behind Blue’s ear.

And Blue leaned into the touch because she could not imagine ever doing anything else in this world.

And their futures stretched before them, ribbon-like, graceful, spiraling into each other’s lifelines with an inextricability that they simultaneously believed in and found hard to fathom. They were each other’s beginnings and their ends. They were partners, soulmates, wives. They dreamed, in that very moment, tiny though it was, of all the things that they would do together over the course of an interconnected lifetime. They would chase their ambitions with wild abandon and climb to the very height of them side by side. They would take long walks in the park near their high rise. They would go see musicals on the date nights that Blue chose and drink the most expensive bottles of champagne over steak and lobster on the ones that Yellow preferred. They would fall into the same bed every night, the very bed in front of them now. They would fall asleep in each other’s arms—warm, loved, secure. Maybe they would get a cat at some point, even though Yellow swore up and down that she was allergic to them. And maybe they would travel the world, seeing all the sights and wonders and ultimately concluding that somehow, even the Eiffel Tower paled in comparison to the view that they had of each other.

And maybe, one day, they would even adopt a child to love, to raise, and to cherish.

For Blue had always wanted a little girl.

The possibilities were endless.

And so, they leaned forward then…

There was nothing else left to do.

And they tilted their heads in just the right way…

And they…

ix.

Thursday, July 12, 7:45PM:

Steven: I’m scared, Blue.

They danced in the incomplete darkness for as long as they could both bear it, but eventually, their bodies caught up to them—Blue’s aching hip and Yellow’s sore leg and the overwhelming awkwardness of it all that arrested their limbs, too, as they slowly remembered what it was to touch each other.

They hadn’t touched each other in so many years.

Holding on to the head of her cane for support, Blue leaned down and turned off the stereo, while Yellow collected that curious manila envelope from the table and tucked it beneath her arm again.

When they both straightened up again, their noses were inches away from each other.

Blue could see every microfilament in her wife’s expression, softly realized by the amber light above. She was a beautiful creature, down to every last line that had struck itself across her face. Those dark lashes and golden eyes. The way her teeth gently pressed into her lower lip in tender and shy hesitancy.

With this sort of notable self-consciousness, though, she stepped backwards and away, giving them both space to breathe.

Blue’s heart felt as though it was going to beat right out of her chest.

“You can shower first,” Yellow said, rubbing the back of her neck. “I have some paperwork to attend to anyway.”

Oh.

She’d forgotten, for however long that they had been on the balcony together, that it was commonplace for them to part at night.

That they weren’t together.

How awful and how unbearable.

How completely and utterly cruel.

Yellow’s gaze flicked down to the manila envelope, but Blue’s remained centered on her wife’s face as she struggled to articulate the words she desperately wanted to say and ardently dreaded to, her lips partially cracked open, her entire body electric with nerves.

“Blue?” Concern bent Yellow’s brow. She shifted her weight uncomfortably from foot to foot.” Are you—”

“Come with me, Yellow.”

Oh, the awful and beautiful and terrible words—how they fell so clumsily and stupidly off her laden tongue.

“What?” The businesswoman’s eyes flew wide open, stretching the lines beneath them into almost comedic proportions.

Blue tried again, slowly extending her hand, palm up, her oversized sleeve dangling from her wrist.

Her skeletal fingers were trembling, but there was no mistaking the gesture.

It was an invitation.

“Come to bed with me, Yellow,” she whispered as tears reflexively blurred her eyes. It was no small wonder that she still had the capacity to cry after so many days and nights of weeping herself undone.

“Please.”

What complicated emotions were going through Yellow Diamond’s mind then, Blue could not entirely say. Sundry emotions seized across her eyes; her mouth wrenched itself open; and for what felt like an eternity, an infinity wrapped into excruciating seconds, she was simply and utterly speechless, staring at that outstretched hand as though she was seeing God for the first time.

How many nights had this woman dreamed of this moment? Blue wondered to herself, pain and love and fear commingling in the column of her throat.

And how many nights have I half-wanted it?

Half-dreaded it?

Craved it.

Pushed it away.

She did not have time to answer these profound questions, though, for with astonishing tenderness, with paramount and equivalent fear, Yellow took her hand, palms against palms, the striations of their fingers aligning themselves perfectly.

“Are you sure?” She asked quietly.

She was thorough as ever; she was giving Blue a readymade out.

Blue Diamond had never been more unsure about anything in her life.

“Yes,” she whispered anyway.

And so they…

Thursday, July 12, 8:15PM:

Blue: It’s okay to be scared, Steven.

Once upon a time, there was a princess, a knight, and a king-sized bed that had always been meant for two.

Theirs was a sad tale.

A tragedy.

Their daughter died, and that was something that neither of them would ever entirely recover from.

But, and all the same, they could love each other nonetheless.

They could be there for each other for the rest of their dwindling days.

Holding hands.

Learning the shapes of each other’s collected and accumulated scars.

Braving the night together, one second, one minute, one fraction of a vast and incomprehensible infinity at a time.

In that dark bedroom, silent tears streamed down Blue Diamond’s face as her wife tentatively held her, her face against her shoulder, her arms encircling the softness of her gowned belly. She rested her slender hands on top of those of tall, leathery ones and didn’t know whether to be devastated that this was the first time they had shared a bed together in four years or so utterly relieved.

Yellow kissed her head.

And the back of her neck.

And her cheek.

And kept asking if she was okay? Was her hip doing fine? Did she need more space?

And Blue replied, every time, in the strongest voice she could muster, “No.”

No, she was not okay.

No, her hip was not fine.

No, she didn’t need more space.

It was all paradoxes and contradictions: grief and love and so many wasted years. The potential for a better future. The awful fear that things could eventually become worse. Blue’s softness and Yellow’s sternness. Blue’s selfishness and Yellow’s tender care.

But they went to bed together, and that was what mattered.

And when Blue Diamond finally fell asleep, for the first time in a very long time, she did not nightmare.

She did not dream.

xi.

Friday, July 13, 7:22AM:

Steven: you think so?

Blue: I know so.

Blue: Being scared is how we know that we are alive.

By the time Blue had woken up and gotten dressed and made it to the kitchen the next morning, Yellow was already gone to work according to Livia, who was fixing Blue’s choice of tea. The slightly bitter aroma sharpened the air.

“She left something for you, though, Mrs. Diamond.” The slight maid used a spoon to point towards the counter. “She asked me to tell you…”

“Thank you, Livia,” she returned gently as she proceeded to the directed area, one doleful cane clink at a time.

Laying on top of the cool marble was the manila envelope Yellow had brought out onto the balcony last night. It was clasp-side down, and the businesswoman’s squared, utilitarian penmanship had dictated a short note to Blue in black ink.

Before she had the chance to read it, though, Livia was sliding the steaming cup of earl gray across the counter, the dark liquid gently sloshing against the rim.

“Do you need anything else, ma’am?”

Blue glanced up and studied the maid’s face, which was tentative with kindness and shy with awe. It suddenly struck her then, with all the precision of a lanced sword, how hard these past four years must have been for her, too.

“No,” she murmured softly. “Thank you, Livia… I think I’m…”

But then, she remembered.

Yes, there was in fact something she required before she went to the hospital today.

“My checkbook if you would, please, Livia… I haven’t the slightest clue where I’ve last placed it.”

If Livia seemed surprised by this odd request, she didn’t betray it in her features, simply nodding with all the delicacy that her natural constitution seemed to entail.

“Yes, Mrs. Diamond.”

“Thank you again.”

And the girl fluttered off, wisp-like in her movements, towards the dark corridor, leaving Blue alone with her thoughts and her tea and the manila envelope beneath her. She looked down again, running her fingers across that familiar scrawl.

Test results. The doctors rushed to get them done. I love you. - Yellow

Blue’s harrowed heart lurched against her ribcage as she comprehended these words, as they seemingly fell to the pit of her stomach.

Sickening her.

Immediately goring her.

She flipped the envelope over and unclasped it with almost indecent haste.

There were about twenty papers in all, neatly stacked; the first sheet was the same shade of light pink that had once been their daughter’s favorite color, and the reminder nearly ruined her where she stood.

But eventually, with trembling fingers, she negotiated the papers out of their sheath, her dark eyes scanning the neatly printed words.

And when she comprehended them, when realization swept down across her body with glorious, sweeping force, Blue Diamond did something she had not an occasion to do for years upon years now.

Strangely enough, though, in these past few weeks alone, it was becoming something of a commonality.

Her lips tilted upward in the barest, most gentle of curves.

And she...

#bellow diamond #blue diamond #yellow diamond #pink diamond #white diamond #steven universe #s: steven universe #mimiku #flower child #i'm going to weep #i cannot believe i completed this chapter

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honeybeekao · 2 years ago

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the moment i saw you said you liked talking about theatre my first thought was "ask dino to talk about theatre" so

talk about it!!! i wanna hear <3 i know basically nothing but pls. talk about something you love!!!!

hmnjdhjdhd WAAA youre so sweet

okay OKAY so i was in 4 musicals (+1 in middle school but that one barely counts.. i miss it tho) and they were All so fucking cool ! i really wanted to be an actor for like 4 years that was my passion for awhiiile

i got to be in ensemble for newsies and oh my GOD newsies is like the best musical ever i adore it. broadway musical i could watch over and over and over the music gets stuck in my head easily AND OKAY SO. my gender was rlly difficult for me freshman year, but being able to dress up as a boy for that show felt really validating. and just the way the script Is... accidental gender affirmation everytime us as a group got refered to as boys despite the all gender cast. this was also during my "i wear flannels for gender euphoria" moment of my life so my newsies outfit was just...clothes i already wore plus a vest and hat HDKDGDKD

then we did into the woods and.... my god. okay so i dont think i ever got all the lyrics right for the amount of songs with the same melody but Different words... but thats okay. i got to play one of cinderella's stepsisters THE FUCKING DRESS FOR THAT SHOW WAS SO PRETTY only time ive gotten to wear a real princess dress <33 HORRIBLE TO DANCE IN THOUGH. i almost tripped and fell every show (which wouldve been funny i was evil sooo i mean. i shouldve)

then. then we did les miserables and . that musical is hell to work on it's a fucking opera and it's So emotionally taxing but SO good. like i had the time of my life but i barely slept. best show ever best show ever. i played gavroche (an 8 year old boy who just lives on his own.... and joins the revolution) and i successfully made people cry! i really really hope my mom can find the camcorder her bf used to record the whole show because.. i think i'd cry if i got to watch it as audience. the music is terrifying to learn i sung in soprano (for reference on how difficult it is, check the song one day more. the chorus sections are insane)

i also tripped in the audience during a full solo and my ONLY concern at the time was "please let my mic not be broken Please let my mic not be broken." i cried backstage for like 5 minutes after bc of the adrenaline. THEN I HAD TO GO ONSTAGE AGAIN ALONE so i couldnt cry long GDKSHDJ

les mis is like my best life experience that show means everything to me i miss it so much..it went by too fast

the last show i was in was called urinetown (sounds weird but it's a satirical comedy about how capitalism will kill off all of humanity it's fun) and the dancing for it was the most difficult thing ive ever had to learn!

the music is also like. Yikes i was struggling probably just as much as les mis because i switched to alto (i attempted soprano for it but it Hurt me. so i switched. and harmonies are a pain but i got em eventually) i had more lines in this show than les mis but i didnt really care much for my character?? it was similar to newsies except i had some one off lines because comedies with a group of characters are like that. gfjdhdj THE DANCING. we had 2 choreographers helping us, and i hated it so much <3 i hate learning choreo in dimly lit rooms because i Cant see anything. i needed to take videos and learn on my own and had like 1 friend who could kinda help but it was still like aushajha Why

WE DIDNT GET TO PERFORM THAT SHOW. our opening night was march 13th 2020 so . we just had to fucking mourn everything. but i mean the experience was still great and theatre was my escape. idk what i would've done without it, the theatre kept me focused on things i enjoyed and meant i wasnt just wallowing

tysm for asking i love theatre and musicals and i think everyone should watch newsies

#theatre was like the One thing that kept me grounded for 2 years #i appreciate its existence #leo 😼

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phantomrose96 · 5 years ago

Text

Twisting Fate

(A what-if idea I had. adjusted the canon timeline a little)

...

From Recovery Girl’s perspective, Sir Nighteye was a horizon.

Lying stiff in his hospital bed, with the setting sun creeping lower at his right, Nighteye’s whole body became ridges of shadows. His face was gaunter, paler at the precipice of death. Caverns hid his eyes, and every sharp angle of his frame threw swaths of shadow, magnified larger, over the left wall of his room. Machines like snakes clawed into his midsection, all cold metallic tubes replacing the functions of organs that had been shredded through. Recovery Girl sat on a stool to his left, shaded in this darkness, smelling on the heat of the radiator the familiar smell of death.

“I have… a theory…” Nighteye’s words were hardly even whispers. They were stow-away nuances on the raspy rattle of his breath. “…and it will bother me if I die without ever having resolved it.”

“What’s your theory?” Recovery Girl asked. She was too used to this, being the receptacle for the last thoughts, wonders, worries, and dreams of dying heroes.

“Izuku Midoriya… He may--…it is possible—he may have a quirk.”

“A quirk, as in one beside One For All, I assume.”

“Not One For All. Beyond that. His own quirk. I have a theory…”

“Izuku Midoriya was diagnosed quirkless. Does this affect your theory?”

Silence rattled around them. Nighteye’s chest rose and fell faintly. “As in… the vestigial joint in the smallest toe, and no observable quirk of his own?”

“Yes, he matches those criteria,” Recovery Girl confirmed.

Sir Nighteye said nothing in immediate response. He laid in silence to catch his breath, and let the room fall back under the sedation of his blipping heart monitor.

“The correlation… of the additional toe joint to quirklessness is about 99%. It is possible for Midoriya to still have a quirk.”

“That is true.” The lamp in the corner clicked on, softly yellow, blanketing the room as the creeping darkness of nighttime set in. “We don’t know how many cases of quirklessness are false positives. What is it that makes you think Midoriya has a quirk?”

Nighteye let out a rattling breath. “By my own nature, and the nature of my quirk… I take pride in having evidence for my claims. I’d like to investigate this before I tell you. …The doctors estimate they can keep me alive like this for three days, at most. Do you think that’s accurate?”

“Three and a half, now that I’ve healed you some,” Recovery Girl answered.

“That’s enough. There’s someone I’d like you to fetch for me.”

“All Might.”

“No,” Nighteye answered with the faintest shake of his head. “Shota Aizawa. He should be in this same hospital. Please bring him to me.”

…

Aizawa and Nighteye spoke only briefly, with an agreement to help, and a message to pass along. Two messages, more precisely.

Aizawa got himself released from the hospital by 6am the next morning, having not slept, and having pulled some strings with the night nurses who knew him well to expedite the process. By 7am, he was back at the U.A. dorms, the very atmosphere asleep this early on a Saturday morning.

Only two students were awake: Momo Yaoyorozu, reading comfortably on the common area couch with a blanket swaddled around her, and Tenya Iida, preparing enough toast in the kitchen to cover breakfast for the entire class.

It was Iida who Aizawa flagged, and pulled aside, and passed the message along to: There was a dying pro hero whom Iida had never met asking for his presence. Aizawa had no further details on what the man wanted, or why, and he knew Nighteye well enough to assume that neither he nor Iida would ever be informed.

The lack of information agitated Iida. His arms jittered, and he pressed for information on why, and what had happened, and what his presence would mean to Nighteye. Aizawa could only shrug and ask if the withholding of that information affected Iida’s answer. Iida paused to consider this only briefly. And then he agreed, of course, because any self-respecting hero-in-training would do everything in his power to satisfy the dying wish of a citizen.

…

When Sunday set in, Aizawa did not go prowling through the dorm areas until the early afternoon, because the other message he had to pass along was for Katsuki Bakugou, and Bakugou’s whole morning was booked solid with provisional license training.

When Aizawa found Bakugou, the boy was freshly showered and sporting a litany of new scrapes and bandages, thumbs jamming aggressively into one of the dorm’s three console controllers for the shared GameStation. From the neighboring couch, Kirishima yelled at Bakugou to not mess us the toggles, to which Bakugou fired off several choice, colorful words back.

Aizawa didn’t bother scolding him. He only pulled Bakugou aside, and gave him the same message as Iida: Pro Hero Nighteye wanted to see him.

Bakugou sneered at this. He knew the name as Deku’s work-study boss, and knew it more potently now that the recent news story broke, and Nighteye’s name made it to the local stations as a hero in critical condition after a daring rescue.

Bakugou asserted this had nothing to do with him. That none of this was his problem. That he owed nothing to a man he’d never met and shouldn’t be expected to bow to his whim. Aizawa said nothing in response. He let the silence linger, and let Bakugou fester in the echo of his own words. Bakugou cracked the silence with a growl of frustration, and a crackle of his palms, and a spat declaration of “fine”.

Aizawa thanked him for his cooperation, and asked if now would be a bad time to follow him to Nighteye’s hospital.

…

By the third day of his hospice stay, Nighteye had become more machine than man. He fostered little presence. His only motion came from the respirator breathing for him. His harsh angles and stark shadows had decayed, softened, sank with him into his very-little-at-all-ness into the bed.

Recovery Girl sat beside him once more. In theory she had come to change bandages and administer healing, but at the sight of the man, she knew even that much was not worthwhile. It was only Nighteye’s comfort that mattered now. She set up an IV drip to ease his breathing and pain, but it would not heal him. At best, it would offer him just a wisp of his voice back.

“Have you resolved your theory about Izuku Midoriya’s quirk?” she asked simply. It was another skill she’d fostered in her professional life – to ask the leading questions of dying people, who in death seemed so strangely prone to avoiding any direct answers.

To her surprise, Nighteye smiled.

“Yes, I think so.”

“Would you like to tell me?”

“Yes. You are the only person right now I trust with this information. I need to pass it along, and I have no one else in mind.”

“And once you’ve told me, should I tell Midoriya too?”

“I don’t know. I trust you to figure that out, if it’s right or not.”

“What’s Midoriya’s quirk?”

Nighteye said nothing at first. He stared at the ceiling, as it seemed he possessed little of the necessary strength to look elsewhere.

“During the fight against Overhaul… I saw Midoriya die. I saw it with my Foresight,” he said, not answering the direct question, which did little to surprise Recovery Girl. “My Foresight has never been wrong. Sometimes, purely in denial, I’ve convinced myself it could, theoretically, be wrong, if only to not feel so hopeless about the futures I’ve seen. But 35 years without a single incorrect prediction is… a devastatingly consistent precedent to contend with.”

“I know this about you. Midoriya was the first to change that future?”

“It was… Chisaki’s future… that I was looking at. I saw him kill Midoriya. I saw him escape. So it was Chisaki’s future that changed. And I suspected, the more I thought about it, that Midoriya may have done it.”

“What do you think his quirk is?”

“I… have more context… I want to explain myself. I asked Shota Aizawa to bring me two U.A. students.”

“Iida and Bakugou. Shota told me.”

“Iida, because, if my hunch was correct, he would be affected too. And he was. My hunch was correct.”

“What was your hunch?”

“When I used my Foresight on him, I saw something I’ve never seen before… All futures I’ve seen are linear. A movie to play out. Singular, immutable, and certain. What I saw in Iida was more like… tree branches twisting around a trunk. One which was strong, and bold, and most clear ahead of him. Like what I usually see. It was a bright and happy future. A future he’s earned. One to be proud of.”

“I’m glad. Tenya Iida is a kind boy.”

“But the small futures… I’ve never seen them before. All gnarled and withered, twisting in and out…. Most of those were empty. I see this when someone is soon to die, but… these looked as though Iida had already died. Several times over. Other small twisted ones… he was still alive, but not a hero, not a U.A. graduate, too heavily incapacitated. No use of his arms. Limited use of his legs.”

“And what does this tell you?”

Nighteye offered just wheezes, catching his breath.

“With… with Bakugou. It was similar but... Bakugou had many more gnarled branches than Iida. Some empty… Others where, it seemed he had never even gotten into U.A. Others as the League of Villains’ hostage. Others in jail. They were not uniform. Some were faint, so I could hardly detect them. Some were so far removed from our reality, as if they’d forked over a decade ago. …Do not worry, his main future is bright.”

“I know All Might has a lot of hope for that boy.” Recovery Girl pushed off her stool. She went and cracked the hospital window open, so that the fresh air may do something for the sweat coalescing on Nighteye’s brow.

“Izuku Midoriya… I know many things about him. Gathering intel is a specialty of mine. And I know he has been lucky in unfathomable ways. Bakugou, that boy, he saved from the League of Villains. Iida, he saved from Stain, just barely, as I understand it. Midoriya’s own acceptance into U.A. was improbable at best. His rescue of a boy named Kota should have been his end, but it wasn’t. He was involved in a fight against the serial killer Moon Fish. He was Shigaraki’s hostage briefly. He played the main role in orchestrating Bakugou’s rescue from the League of Villains. And now, under me, he defeated Chisaki, in a fight which should, with certainty, have cost him his life.”

“There’s no need to remind me of all these. I was the one who healed that boy every time. I know he’s reckless.”

“This is beyond reckless. This is the resume of a boy who should have died many times over. …And I think, maybe, he has.”

To this, Recovery Girl gave no immediate response. Only a deep inhale, nasally, a held breath, an exhale.

“Midoriya may have died already. My Foresight wasn’t wrong, but it was posthumously corrected. It is in the strange nature of Izuku Midoriya that when the people around him should die… they don’t. Midoriya always saves them. And if my Foresight is to be believed, he does not always succeed on the first try. Those gnarled branches into Iida and Bakugou’s futures were fates in which Midoriya had not intervened. Or had failed to intervene successfully. They were fates he was able to twist off the main path, and correct under his own power of will. And that would be a quirk nigh undetectable. How would you document or observe it? The ability to undo the outcomes that ended in disaster. It’s powerful. Unfathomably powerful, if I’m correct about this. Stronger than One for All could ever be. I wonder, if I were to look at Midoriya’s future, how many twisted fates might I see?”

Recovery Girl let her eyes shift to the window, contemplating the skyline, contemplating all the near-lethal encounters Izuku Midoriya had fought through. She tried to process this possibility, and found herself failing to take it in all at once. “Do you intend to look?”

“No,” Nighteye said, and it was with finality. “I won’t make it to tomorrow. And there’s someone else whose future I need to see today.”

“If it’s All Might, I would be able to--.”

“No. It’s not All Might’s.”

To this, Recovery Girl startled. Her eyes shifted to Night Eye, who wore the smallest of smiles, his eyes squinted shut.

“After what you saw six years ago… you don’t want to see if that fate has changed?”

“All Might and I have parted ways. I am choosing to entrust his safety to Izuku Midoriya now. I am choosing to trust that that boy has saved him from that future that’s weighed me down for all these years. I am choosing… to pass the torch onto him. All Might has chosen Izuku Midoriya, and I am at peace with it… No, more than that, I accept that. I am content with that. I am happy with that.”

Recovery Girl nodded, but trepidation stiffened her movements. “…Then who is the last person you want to see?”

…

With the light fading around him, Nighteye wondered if this was the first time he’s seen Mirio cry.

The boy was endlessly bright, endlessly shining, a beacon and a pillar and someone who Nighteye was proud to call his pupil. He felt only the slightest knocking pangs of guilt in his chest for the fact that he’d only connected with Mirio as a vessel for One For All. But Mirio had proven himself well above and beyond all Nighteye’s paltry expectations. He didn’t need One For All to be strong.

The true guilt Nighteye felt was in the knowledge that it was his own fault that Mirio was crying now.

Thick opalescent tears swam in his eyes and cracked his voice. Red blotched along his cheeks and sweat clung to his brow. It was a sad sight to see, the raw and wet keens of Mirio’s voice. It was sad. Nighteye wanted nothing more than to see Mirio smile once more.

So he set a gentle palm to Mirio’s cheek, and he apologized, and he blinked his final activation of his quirk into existence.

Mirio’s future was a grand tree. Like Iida’s, like Bakugou’s, it was threaded with splintered branches. Some empty and shriveled and dead. Some dismal and bleak, twirling up like vines. Nighteye didn’t pay mind to those. He focused only on the trunk. That bright and shining pillar surging forward.

It was a future where Mirio was smiling.

A hero. In costume. Beloved and strong and willing. With a smile that alone could save a million people.

Nighteye trusted Midoriya to cultivate that fate for Mirio.

And that was enough.

So Nighteye told Mirio as much. He deserved to know this as Nighteye did. A fine hero. Finer than anyone else. He’d smile again, Nighteye was sure of it.

The light crept to dark edges around Nighteye’s vision, petering out, swimming to a coldness and a darkness and a nothingness. But it was one he could take comfort in. He focused only on the image of Mirio’s smile as the heart rate monitors ticked to nothing, and the breath vanished from his lungs, and the future set before him ran through its final swath of film.

#boku no hero academia #my hero academia #nighteye #sir nighteye #bnha #mha #bnha fanfiction

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alj4890 · 4 years ago

Text

Angst Prompt

(Liam x Riley) with the prompt of Riley getting shot in another country while Liam was in Cordonia and it have been ordered by King Bradshaw as requested by Anonymous.

A/N Oof. What a way to knock me off my fluff kick, LOL. This isn't a part of my AU's but let's see what I can do for your prompt, Nonny. This takes place after the Bradshaw/Isabella mess but before Barthlemy's challenge. I guess I will ruin that brief moment of peace, LOL.

@gkittylove99 @krsnlove @kingliam2019 @texaskitten30 @hopefulmoonobject @yourmajesty09 @mom2000aggie @ofpixelsandscribbles @twinkleallnight

Masterlist

News

The Royal Palace, Cordonia...

"Here we go, princess." Liam settled his seven month old in her swing. "How about you help your father with reading through these proposals the Council is considering?"

Eleanor smiled around the teething ring she had put in her mouth.

Liam pressed a quick kiss to her cheek then started the swing.

He settled behind his desk, finally feeling a sense of calmness. With all the ups and downs he had gone through since his brother's abdication, he rested in knowing that he, his family, and country were at last entering into a season of peace.

He intended to keep it that way.

The gurgles and coos from Eleanor drew his attention. She waved the teething ring a few times before putting it back in her mouth.

He chuckled at her antics.

He was enjoying these few days of one-on-one time with his daughter. Riley had been asked to be the guest of honor at Lancelin St Clair's fashion grand opening. The renowned designer had created a place where his creations could be not only sold, but created specifically for the customer.

Lancelin had completely renovated a four-story building in Paris's Faubourg Saint-Honoré district, turning each floor into one with a definite purpose. The first floor was a shop that housed various sizes of his most popular creations. The second floor was part runway/part design on demand for the shopper looking for something completely original. The third floor would debut his new bridal line. And the fourth was set as his personal work area/apartment for when he needed to stay late and work on his designs.

All this was to be shown to the public to set off Paris's fashion week.

Since Riley had walked his runway during Liam and Madeleine's engagement tour, he had invited her to be part of his grand opening. Ana De Luca was traveling with Cordonia's queen to do an exclusive spread of Riley in some of the dresses Lancelin had made specifically with her in mind.

It was just the sort of news the people of Cordonia would enjoy after months of uncertainty.

****************

"I really don't want to go without you and Eleanor." Riley told Liam the night before she left.

"I don't want you to either." He held her close. "But I have to meet with the Farmers' Association about the progress of the apple orchards." He pressed a tender kiss to her lips. "I've already had to reschedule twice with them. They need to see I take their concerns seriously."

"I know." She sighed. "And I know that Eleanor would distract everyone from Lancelin's moment." She eased out of his embrace. "This will be the first time I go out without you or any of our friends."

Liam took her hands and tried to ease her worries. "You will do great." He smiled at her. "You charm everyone you meet. I believe I am proof to your effect."

Riley shook her head before kissing him. "If anyone is the charmer, it's you."

He chuckled while tugging her toward their bed. "Do you want me to find someone to go with you? Penelope or Kiara perhaps?"

"No thanks." She snuggled closer to him. "I wish Hana was well enough to go. She was looking forward to it."

Liam gently rubbed her back. "With Maxwell in Hollywood and Drake in Texas, we don't have anyone left."

"I wish Olivia was back." She muttered.

"Amalas needed her expertise." Liam reminded her.

"I know." Riley sighed again. "If I can't have you with me, I do tend to depend on the others to be there. I need to learn how to stand on my own."

"The world will once again be amazed by Cordonia's queen." He kissed the top of her head. "You'll see."

********************

Liam glanced at his desk clock. It was nearly time for Ana's live report of Lancelin's grand opening.

His princess had fallen asleep in her swing, drawing another smile from him as he carefully lifted her out. Cuddling her close, he sat down on one of the sofas and turned the television on.

Finding the right channel, he relaxed as the first images appeared.

Cordonia's Queen Riley has been given the honor of walking the red carpet first. Lancelin St Clair awaits, giving her the shears to cut the ceremonial ribbon.

He readjusted Eleanor in his arms as he watched his wife's bright smile flash towards the cheering crowd.

Ana continued to detail what they would soon see when shots rang out.

Liam stood up, causing Eleanor to whimper at being rudely awakened.

Ignoring her fitful cries, he watched as the camera caught his wife and Lancelin falling to the ground.

Then the feed went dead.

"BASTIEN!" Liam shouted over Eleanor's wails.

The head of the King's Guards hurried inside while talking on his phone. Regina rushed in behind him.

"Give me the baby." She insisted, gently taking the fussy little one in her arms. She left the study, allowing Liam to be able to focus on what Bastien was saying.

"And the shooter?" He asked. "I see. Where is her majesty being taken?"

Bastien wrote down the information. "Keep me updated."

Once he ended the call, he faced Liam.

"What happened?" He demanded.

Bastien cleared his throat. "A lone gunman shot both Riley and Mr. St Clair."

"Is she alright? Have the plane prepared. We must get there as quickly as we can!"

"Sir," Bastien hesitated. "I must insist you remain here. The gunman was killed by one of our guards. We don't know if there is another and--"

Liam shoved past him and called the airfield. Declaring it an emergency, he then rushed to tell Regina.

"Liam." She teared up as she took his hand. "Be careful and call as soon as you know more."

"Your majesty, I insist you remain here while I go to Paris." Bastien followed after him. "Once my team has investigated, I can then guarantee your safety--"

"Do you honestly think I give a damn about my safety?!" Liam rounded on him. "My wife was just shot! She is alone in another country and hurt. If you think I will sit here behind these so called protective walls, then you do not know me at all." He went back to his study and quickly packed his briefcase. "Now get me to the airport."

*****************

Early evening, Paris...

"Her majesty is at one of the private hospitals." Bastien explained as the car continued through the city. "Interpol is working with us to identify the shooter."

Liam stared blindly out the window. "Is my wife conscious?"

"She was." Bastien tried to explain. "She lost some blood from her wound and--"

Their car stopped at the front entrance.

"Liam!" Bastien shouted as the king didn't bother to wait on guards or to check that it was safe.

The young king ran inside, pausing long enough to ask where he should go.

"Je suis le roi de Cordonia. Ma femme a été amenée avec une blessure par balle. Où est-elle? Est-ce qu'elle va bien?" He said quickly.

"Elle se repose dans la chambre 138, Votre Majesté. Dr Miller a dit--" the receptionist blinked when he took off running once more.

Liam slid on the freshly waxed tile floors, barely catching himself as he followed the signs.

A doctor and nurse were just leaving Riley's room when he arrived.

"My wife," Liam gasped, trying to catch his breath. "Is she alright?"

"Oui. She was struck in the shoulder." He paused as both King's Guards and Interpol Agents joined them. "We removed the bullet while she was unconscious."

Liam reached for the door handle as the others began to question the physician.

He paused at seeing his wife laying there, looking so fragile.

One of the first things he had first noticed about her was her inner strength to face any obstacle she encountered. He realized he had taken that he had taken that for granted. The only other time he had seen her like this was when she collapsed during Eleanor's birth.

Liam knew there were only a few things he feared in this world. But those few things centered on something specific: his family.

He could face an entire firing squad and not bat an eye. But let it be Riley or Eleanor that was to be threatened, and he could not take it.

He collapsed in the chair by her bed and pressed a kiss to her fingers. Bowing his head, he waited by her side until she awakened.

****************

A few hours later...

Liam stood up when Riley became restless. Soft cries escaped her lips as she slept. He reached for the buzzer.

Explaining that his wife was in pain, he waited for a nurse to come in.

Bastien entered first.

"Have you learned anything about the shooter?" Liam asked in a low voice.

"We have." Bastien stopped the nurse.

He and an Interpol agent patted him down and checked the IV bag of morphine he held.

They stepped back and allowed him to tend to Riley.

Liam watched him replace the bag that had been on a slow drip.

"Can she have more?" He asked as she cried out again.

"Yes sir." He showed Liam the button he could push if she needed more, reassuring him that it wouldn't administer any past the dosage she could have. He increased the flow and left.

Riley's eyes barely opened. "Liam?"

He went back to her bedside. "I'm here, my love."

"My shoulder." She sucked in a painful breath. "What happened?"

"A man was in the crowd." Liam gently explained, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "He shot at you and Lancelin and--"

Her eyes widened. "Lancelin! Liam, he was bleeding so much!"

Bastien cleared his throat as he stepped forward. "He is in intensive care at another hospital, mam."

He pointed at the right side of his chest and mouthed lung to Liam.

Liam frowned some before turning back to Riley.

"Where's Eleanor?" Riley asked, turning her head. "Did you bring her?"

"No. Regina is watching over her at home." Liam eased down on the bed. "Do you need anything? Is there something I can do to make you more comfortable?"

"No." Her eyes filled with tears as she looked up at him. "Liam, if...if I had died...you...my baby..." She began to cry.

Unable to take her in his arms, Liam did his best to comfort her. He wiped her tears while speaking in a calming tone that he wouldn't let anything happen to her. That she was safe. That they would soon be home with Eleanor.

Riley tried to calm down but she shook her head. "We'll never be truly safe, will we?"

Liam paused in his assurances. He felt exhausted from the trials they continued to face. Should he now fear peace, knowing it would end horribly in some new threat?

Running a hand through his hair he spoke of what he did know. "No one is ever truly safe, my love. Even if we were locked away somewhere, accidents can happen. Sickness can strike. Bad things happen just as good ones do."

She sniffed and closed her eyes. "I know you're right," she opened her eyes and met his steady gaze. "I just wish we didn't keep having trouble."

"I do too." He cupped her cheek and softly kissed her. "All I need to know to make it through our trials is that you and Eleanor are taken care of." He struggled with swallowing. "I should have been there today to protect you."

She weakly raised her hand and caressed his cheek. "Then you might have been hurt or..." She couldn't finish that sentence. "I can't lose you, Liam."

He nodded, kissing her again. "I refuse to lose you." His words came out in a harsh whisper. "I will find who did this and will make certain they never do so again."

Riley rubbed her cheek against his hand and closed her eyes.

Liam relaxed once he saw her drift into a peaceful slumber.

"Sir?" Bastien motioned for him to step outside.

"What did you find?" Liam asked.

"The man was a hired gun from America." Bastien began. "But he was born in Auvernal."

Liam's eyes narrowed. "And who hired him?"

"King Bradshaw."

********************

Cordonia, a week later...

Riley was rocking back and forth with Eleanor sleeping in the crook of her good arm. She heard voices outside the nursery door. Curious, but unable to hold her daughter properly, she remained where she was.

A few moments later, Liam slipped quietly inside and smiled at her.

"Is she down for the night?"

"She fell asleep long ago, but I wasn’t ready to let her go." Riley let him put Eleanor in her crib. "I missed her so much. I'm so thankful to be home with you both."

"Nowhere near as much as I am." Liam wrapped his arms around her waist.

"I heard voices earlier. Is everything alright?"

He nodded. "Everything is fine."

Riley chewed on her bottom lip. "You never told me what was found about the gunman."

"There wasn't much to discover." He told her.

"Was he just some crazy person or was he hired by someone?" Riley prodded.

Liam let her go and motioned for them to leave the nursery when Eleanor made a disgruntled, sleepy noise.

"I don't want you thinking anymore about this." Liam insisted. "We are taking care of eliminating the threat."

"Eliminating?" Riley's brow furrowed. "But that means he was hired--"

"I want you to rest."

His nearly cold evasiveness alarmed her.

"Liam," she reached for his hand. "Please talk to me. I can handle whatever you have found."

Remembering how upset she was in the hospital, he averted his eyes. "We'll talk about it tomorrow."

Her lips parted to insist. She shut them when he escorted her to their chambers.

"Do you need anything?" He asked after helping her change.

"No." She murmured.

He covered her up and began to leave the room.

"Where are you going?" She sat up in surprise.

"I have somethings that require my attention in the study." He explained. "I'll be back in an hour or so."

She quietly watched him leave, feeling even more uneasy than before.

*****************

A little after three in the morning...

Riley awoke when she felt the bed dip down.

"Liam?"

"Forgive me, I didn't mean to wake you."

She checked the time. "Are you just now coming to bed?"

"Yes. It took longer than I planned." He stretched out beside her.

"What did?" She demanded, turning a lamp on.

She gasped when she noticed his bruised face and bloody knuckles.

"What happened? How did you--"

"It's nothing." He winced as he tried to get comfortable. "I'll be fine."

"Liam!" She snapped. "Talk to me." Her eyes narrowed. "Now."

"I took care of the one who tried to take you from me." He snapped back.

"So there was someone else involved?"

"Yes. And he will never have a chance to hurt anyone again." Liam declared.

Riley gently touched his face. "Liam, you didn't..."

"I wanted to." He admitted. "I was so close to beating Bradshaw to death." He closed his eyes at that memory.

It would have been so easy. A few more strikes, a quick twist and the king that had caused Liam’s world to nearly crumble would have had his last breath.

"I allowed Interpol to take him." He opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. "Olivia found all the evidence we needed to make certain the only way he will ever leave prison is to attend his own funeral."

Riley blinked back tears.

She then punched Liam in the arm.

"Riley!" He sat up when he noticed her shaking with rage. "What--"

"How could you?!" She screamed. "How could you risk your life when you already had everything in place to arrest him?!"

"He tried to kill you!" Liam yelled back. "All because we caused him embarrassment." His eyes narrowed. "Did you think I would do nothing to the man who set out to take my wife from me? Take my daughter's mother?!"

"He wasn't worth you taking a chance on him having a weapon or one of his guards kill you! What would Eleanor and I do without you here?" Tears fell, nearly blinding her. "How could you risk our family?"

All of Liam's anger disappeared at hearing that she had his own fear. Gently pulling her close he silently held her as she cried. His own tears mingled with hers as he thought of a life without her.

The sun was beginning to rise as their tears came to an end. They still held to one another, speaking in low tones of their life together. An occasional hitch in one's words caused the other to try and comfort the one temporarily unable to speak.

As light crept through the drapes, the two remained upright, still clinging to the one they loved.

Riley lifted her head off his shoulder. "Eleanor will be awake soon."

"Yes, she will." Liam pressed a kiss to his wife's forehead. "You should rest. I'll take care of her."

"I'll help you." She hugged him close with her good arm. "I don't want to be apart from either of you today."

His arms tightened around her. Unable to say all that filled his heart, he simply nodded while muttering that he didn't either.

She pressed a tender kiss to his lips and smiled. "It's a new day, my love. A new day just for us."

#choices the royal romance #choices the royal heir #liam x riley #king liam #liam x mc #trr liam #trr riley #trh liam #choices stories you play

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