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actress4him · 4 years ago

Text

Bonus Whumptober Content Part 2

Original Whumptober fic here

Bonus Content Part 1 here

Find it all on AO3 here

Thanks for all of the support on the last chapter! I appreciate each and every one of the likes and reblogs and follows I’ve gotten.

Tagging @outtacommission again because Keith would not have been resurrected from the dead without his bribery.

Here is chapter 3 of this fic... see you next week for the conclusion!

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Warnings: referenced amputation, blood mention, referenced broken bones, self-esteem issues, suicide ideation, death mention, nightmares, abandonment issues

When he woke again, he was lying back down on the pillow, staring up at the blank white ceiling. For one, blissful moment, he didn’t remember the events leading up to him passing out again. But it all came crashing down on him an instant later, taking his breath away.

My leg.

My leg, my leg.

My arm, my face, my leg.

“Keith?” Shiro’s voice was quiet, tentative. Not like him. “Are you awake?”

He wanted to roll over on his side and ignore him. Close his eyes, maybe go back to sleep, pretend that the world and this nightmare didn’t exist for a little while longer. The only reason he refrained was because he wasn’t sure if his stupid, wrecked body could actually manage it.

“What did you do to me?” It was only a whisper, and as slurred as it was, he wouldn’t have been surprised if it was impossible to understand.

Shiro’s breath hitched audibly. If Keith had been looking at his face, he was sure he wouldn’t like the anguished expression that he would see there. But at that moment, he didn’t have the capacity to care.

“Do you want me to...explain...how it...happened?”

No. Yes. He didn’t know. He needed to know why him losing a leg had been the best option, but at the same time he wasn’t sure if he could handle hearing about it. In the end, he just lifted one shoulder - the one that actually listened and responded right away - in a shrug.

Shiro shifted in his seat, leaning forward so just the tip of his white bangs were in Keith’s periphery. “I already told you that you...died. On that planet. So when we got back to the Castle, you dying again was a distinct possibility. We...it’s like Fallenta said. We had to get you into a pod, even though your...your left arm was broken, and your knees, especially, were a mess from where the console landed on them.”

He paused, rubbing his palms together. “We didn’t know what would happen. I was scared to death that some of those breaks wouldn’t be able to be fixed after the pod. I mean, we were headed to Tellima, but…” His head dropped. “We had no choice. That hole in your stomach...you were dying.”

Keith could almost imagine it - the frantic atmosphere in the infirmary, the blood everywhere, the desperate conversations escalating into shouts as they debated on what to do. He had no doubt that he really had been dying, that they had made the choice they thought was best. He just wasn’t sure if he agreed with that choice.

“When you came out of the pod, once the stomach wound was healed enough for you to be stable, Fallenta started working on re-breaking the bones so that they could be set correctly. It was...awful.” The shudder was obvious in his voice. “I’m glad she was able to do it, of course, but I’m also glad that you were unconscious the whole time. Your arm was relatively easy. Your left knee...it took her hours. It was in so many tiny little pieces. And your right…”

Automatically Keith flinched at the reminder of what was no longer there. Of the scarred, chopped off stump that lay just underneath the blanket, and the way his leg just...ended. He could see the void where the rest of it should have been even now, if he were to look down. He was purposely avoiding it.

Shiro heaved a huge sigh. “Unfortunately, your right knee was shattered in a way that had been blocking the circulation in your lower leg the whole time. The tissue down there was...dead.” He paused again. “Keith, I’ve...trust me, I’ve gone ‘round and ‘round in my head ever since we...trying to figure out if there was something I could have done differently. And...I don’t think there was. We did what we had to do to save your life. I’m just...I’m sorry that we couldn’t save your leg, too.”

His leg was gone.

Would he ever be able to walk again? Could they find a prosthetic for him like Shiro had, that worked as well as the real thing? Even if they did, how long would it take him to get used to walking on it? Just walking, not even counting anything like running, jumping, fighting.

Fighting was what he did. It was the one and only thing besides flying that he was good at. He was crap with a gun, he couldn’t sit up in a sniper’s nest like Lance. He needed to be able to move. If he couldn’t, even just for the time that it took to learn how with a new leg and an arm that only half worked...

They’d replace him. What good was a paladin who was crippled? Who couldn’t pull his weight? As soon as Red woke up and found out what happened to him she would realize that he was useless now. And the Princess, the rest of the team...they already knew it. They were probably already looking for a new Red Paladin. How long would it be until they dropped him off on Earth, or on some Coalition planet? Probably as soon as he was healed enough. They didn’t have time to keep taking care of an invalid, they had a universe to save.

They did. Not him. Not anymore.

“Should’ve left me there.”

There was dead silence for a moment.

“What?”

Keith tipped his head back further into the pillow, eyes roving over the featureless ceiling as if he’d see something new. “I tol’ you not to come. I tol’ you to leave me there. You didn’t listen.”

“And now you’re alive.”

“Yeah, but why?”

“Keith…”

His hands fisted in the blanket, jaw clenched in sudden fury. “Don’t ‘Keith’ me. Why, Shiro? Why am I alive? What is the point? You know what all this means.”

It meant he’d be alone. And he couldn’t...he couldn’t do alone. Not again. Not when he found a group of people that he actually cared about for the first time in so long. Not when he was just finally getting used to always having people around, always having someone to talk to or distract him from the thoughts that tried to consume him. Not when he barely survived it the first time.

He’d rather be dead than alone.

Shiro sucked in a deep breath through his nose. “That life is gonna be hard for a while? That you’re gonna have to work harder than ever to get back to where you were? Yeah, Keith, I do know. I know more than anyone else.”

Oh.

Shiro must think he was so incredibly self-centered.

He was self-centered.

He should have thought about how acting like losing a leg was worse than dying would seem to the man who had lost an arm and kept going. But instead he was all caught up in how he was going to lose everything he had grown to love and rely on. Acting like the self-absorbed brat that everyone at the Garrison except Shiro had accused him of being.

“That means I also know how hard it is to accept,” Shiro was saying. “It’s going to take time to adjust. But you will, I promise, and I’ll be here to help you every step of the way.”

Yeah, right. Keith didn’t know if he was lying to make him feel better, or if he just hadn’t yet realized or accepted that Allura and the rest of the team wouldn’t want to keep him around.

“Just...please, Keith. Please don’t say that we should have let you die. You don’t know…” His voice caught. “I’ve spent these last weeks hoping, praying that you would live. Scared out of my mind every moment of every day that you wouldn’t.”

Keith finally forced himself to turn his head toward his brother and saw him brush the back of his wrist across his eyes. Just that movement was enough to make his heart drop to his stomach. Shiro didn’t cry. At least not where anyone could see him.

Slowly, he slid his hand out across the bed, palm up. A peace offering. It took only a moment for Shiro to take it, squeezing it so hard he thought a few more bones might break.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. And he was. Not for thinking it, but for saying it. He didn’t want to cause any more pain for any of his friends.

That’s why when it was time for him to go, he’d do it quietly. No fuss. Don’t let them see your fear or your pain - he had learned that long, long ago. He was good at it.

Shiro gave him a shaky smile. “It’ll be alright, Keith. I promise.”

Swallowing down the words that sprang to his tongue, he gave a nod. “Okay.”

The next morning Keith woke up to an empty room. In a way, it was a relief. They obviously didn’t see the need to watch over him and baby him twenty-four-seven anymore. But he was, for all intents and purposes, stuck. With no leg, he couldn’t just get up and leave the room whenever he wanted, head to the training room like he normally would in the morning. There’d be no training for him for a long time.

Of course there was breakfast to think about, too, and he wasn’t sure whether to expect someone to bring it to him, or to bring him to it. Either way, he hated it. He had always hated being treated like he was helpless, and now it was even worse because he actually was helpless.

He went ahead and made up his mind, though. No matter what their plan was, he had no desire to be carried through the Castle to the dining room where everyone would give him those looks of pity. Poor Keith. Can’t even walk by himself. It’s just too bad he can’t stay.

He was in the midst of pushing himself up off the pillows, trying to get his right side to cooperate long enough to get in an upright position he could balance in and trying to ignore the strange lightness of his leg, when the door opened and Pidge slipped in.

“Hey,” she said softly. Padding over, she perched carefully on the edge of the chair that first Hunk, then Shiro had occupied.

Tucking his left leg up close to him - the knee creaking in protest at being used for the first time since healing - Keith cleared his throat. “Hi.”

Silence fell, but it had never been awkward between the two. The introverted arms of Voltron. Pidge just gazed at him for a long moment, her eyes saying all the things he knew she would never actually be able to say with words. “It’s good to see you awake. I was really worried about you.”

On the outside, she merely shoved her glasses back up into the bridge of her nose and sniffed. “You better not quiznakin’ ever do that again.”

Keith’s lips turned up at the corners for the first time since waking the day before. “Alright.”

Besides Shiro, he thought he would miss Pidge the most of all. They got each other more than anyone else.

“So.” Straightening up, she whipped a tablet out of her hoodie pocket. “We’ve been working on a leg for you. The Tellimites have crazy good medical technology, so obviously we’re using their notes, but I’ve also been talking back and forth with the Olkari, because they’re, of course, crazy good with biological connections, and we’ve come up with a design that should communicate really well with your body and, essentially, work like the real thing.”

She launched into a detailed scientific explanation of how every inch of it worked, tapping and flicking through various diagrams that just looked like a plain prosthetic leg to him. He didn’t understand but a few words here and there, but he let her talk. This was one of her passions, and it was nice to let her be able to ramble about it for once without having to worry about being rushed. The way her face lit up was worth every second.

“So...what do you think?” Suddenly she sounded uncertain as she blinked up at him. “We definitely want your input on it. I mean, I suggested putting in a rocket booster, but Hunk pointed out that it would be difficult to control with only one. Lance wanted to add lasers that shot out anytime you stomped your foot, but that seemed pretty dangerous for like, running and stuff, so…”

It almost sounded like they expected him to still be fighting with this thing. Well, maybe he would. Eventually. After all, he wouldn’t feel right about just ignoring the existence of the war when the people he cared about were still out there fighting it, so he’d do his best to get back into shape. Maybe he could convince them to find a Coalition planet for him that had soldiers he could fight with someday.

It wouldn’t be the same as fighting with this team, his...his friends. But at least he wouldn’t be completely useless.

He met Pidge’s eyes and realized she was still waiting on an answer from him. Part of him wanted to keep his words to a minimum, not wanting her to hear his new speech impediment, but he swallowed his pride. “It, uh...whatever you guys come up with I’m sure will be great.” He actually hadn’t even been sure whether to expect them to work on it themselves, or put it off on the Tellimites or some other able species. It made sense, though, that Pidge and Hunk would want to jump on this opportunity to design something they had never gotten to do before. He forced a small smile. “But...yeah, let’s hold off on weaponizing it.”

Smirking, Pidge turned off the tablet and stuck it back in her pocket. “Alright, if you insist. Lance is gonna be super disappointed, though.”

“I’m sure.” He could hear the whining and complaining about how boring and unimaginative he was now.

“So, I was supposed to ask you about breakfast…?”

Keith stared down at his hands. “Oh. Yeah. I don’...think I’m really ready to...try to move around yet, so…”

He was such a bad liar. But Pidge either didn’t notice or was being nice and pretending not to, merely nodding and standing.

“Okay. I’ll tell Shiro, he’ll probably bring you a plate down here.”

“Thanks, Pidge.”

She turned back from the doorway and smiled softly at him. “No problem.”

The nightmares came that night.

And the next. And the next.

Snippets of things he didn’t remember during the day, and wouldn’t remember again when he woke. Alarms blaring. Lights flashing. A horrifying crunching sound, then crippling pain and a bitter taste in the back of his throat.

And then...nothing. No one came. No one heard him calling. He stayed there, alone and bleeding in the dark, until the pain became too much and he slipped away.

He woke with tears streaming down his cheeks and a scream on his lips that didn’t quite make it out into the still air of the infirmary, not knowing what he was even crying about other than the nauseating loneliness that weighed him down, pinning him to the bed.

Forcing his right hand to be the one to clumsily scrub away the tears - because it was going to work, dang it - he gritted his teeth and pushed against the weight to flop over onto his side.

Get over it. Get over it, get used to it, stop being such a baby. You’ve always known that this wouldn’t last. It’s a miracle they’ve stuck around for as long as they have. If you try to hang onto them they’ll just end up hating you before they leave.

He got away with hiding in the infirmary for two days before Fallenta declared him well enough to be up and about, and Shiro and Allura showed up with the Altean version of crutches. They escorted him slowly down the halls of the Castle to the dining room, chatting amiably the whole way. Keith assumed it was meant to either distract him from his plight, or to keep themselves from staring and pitying.

“Hey, look who finally decided to join us!” Lance announced loudly as soon as he hobbled into the room. “It’s about time you were out of bed, Mullet-head.”

“What Lance means,” Hunk sighed, “is that it’s good to see you up, Keith.”

“That it is, Number Four!” Coran rushed to pull out his usual seat, and his smile was so bright Keith couldn’t even be mad about the special treatment. “You had us all worried for a while there, for sure!”

Swallowing, Keith fiddled with his spork, unsure whether he was supposed to respond. “Um...yeah. Sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize, Keith.” Shiro smiled at him softly, knowingly. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

He just barely kept another ‘sorry’ from escaping. Instead he nodded, picked up his spork with his left hand, and changed the subject. “So, uh...wha’s been going on lately?”

That was all it took for everyone to launch into tales of short missions in the Lions, repairs on Red, and alliances with Tellima. Keith barely remembered to keep eating his goo as he watched all of the animated faces and gesturing hands with a small smile on his face. It was good to be back among his teammates. They were so unlike him in so many ways, it was no wonder that he had never really fit in with them. But he cared about them anyway. They might not feel the same way about him, but he was so glad that they had become a part of his life.

And now they wouldn’t be anymore. Scowling down into his bowl where no one would notice, he poked at the green goo. How did I let myself get so attached? Before Shiro, it had been many, many years since he had let himself care about anyone this much. He should have known better by then. Letting himself come to consider any person or place home was just setting himself up for heartbreak.

As much as he loved spending this last bit of time with them, he almost wished they would stop acting so natural, as if they weren’t getting ready to kick him out any day now. No one mentioned a search for a new paladin. No one said whether they were headed to Earth, or some other planet.

He wasn’t going to be able to stand the suspense for many more days. They needed to just get it over with.

Later that night, after waking from another nightmare back in his own room, Keith stared at the bare walls, so lifeless compared to the other paladin’s rooms. Maybe I was always prepared for this moment, after all. Or maybe he had just been kicked out and left behind so many times that the ability to settle in was impossible for him no matter where he went.

Struggling to sit up, he groped for the crutches and pulled himself to his feet. He wasn’t going to get back to sleep anytime soon, and no one had expressly forbidden him from venturing out on his own - not that it would have stopped him even if they had.

It took far too long to make it down the four hallways between his room and Red’s hangar. Walking with crutches used a whole new set of muscles that he wasn’t used to accessing, and trying to force his right side to carry that much weight was exhausting. He had to stop and lean against the wall, panting for breath, several times along the way.

But he made it, eventually. He paused once more outside the door, debating whether or not he was actually ready to see the damage done to Red, before he sucked it up and punched the scanner.

He wasn’t ready.

The great mechanical beast was lying on her side, a position that somehow managed to make her look vulnerable despite her hulking size. Her legs were splayed awkwardly as if she had just been dropped there. She probably had.

The worst part, though, was that her face was nearly unrecognizable. What had once been her muzzle was completely smashed in, there were spiderweb cracks across one of her dull grey eyes, and the other was missing altogether.

Actually, he took that back. The worst part was the cold and the silence.

No purr in his head to greet him. No eyes lighting up in recognition of her Paladin. No warmth filling up his chest and spreading out to his fingers and toes. With Red, there was always some kind of heat. Now, though, a shiver shook his body.

Clenching his jaw, Keith forced himself a few steps closer, until he could reach out, balancing precariously, and lay a hand against her warped, dented nose. It was cold, too.

Suddenly tears sprang to his eyes for the first time since his panic attack a couple of days before. “‘m sorry, Red.” He stroked his hand over the metal, feeling all of the bumps that shouldn’t have been there. “I’m sorry this happened to you. You didn’t deserve it. You...you’ve always protected me, and…”

Tipping his head back, he took in the mess of a cockpit again, and this time he saw flashes of his nightmare. Something sharp pinning him to the chair. Blood dripping onto the floor.

One tear escaped, sliding rapidly down to his chin. “I don’t even know how I survived this. But if either of us deserved to survive, it’s you. Please, Red...if you can hear me at all...please don’t give up. I know I...I can’t fly you anymore, but…”

It hit him then, the brutal truth of that statement. He’d never fly her again. He might never fly anything again. He’d known it ever since finding out what had happened to him, but now it stabbed him through the heart, how much he was going to miss this semi-sentient alien ship.

Before he knew it, he was falling none-too-gracefully to the floor, one hand planted in front of him while the other remained on her snout, crutches clattering loudly to the side. The tears came in earnest, then. “Red...Red I lost my leg. I...I can’t fight anymore, I can’t fly…I’m useless.”

He’d told her that before. That time, though, she had reassured him that no, he was her Paladin, he was a defender of the universe, not useless. Never useless.

But now there was no one to reassure him. Even if she had been able, Red would know the truth. He wasn’t her Paladin anymore, he wasn’t a defender of the universe. He was useless.

47 notes · View notes

seafleece · 5 years ago

Note

Hey, random question, but what do you think are the M9's love languages?

oh, anon, you absolutely did not sign up for this and i am so sorry, but here we are. i had to look up the five types and keep them in the google doc to remind myself what they were, but uhh here’s almost 4000 words of character analysis and discussion of debatable quality

jester:

my initial thought was quality time— an obvious and painful one, as it’s the one her mother wasn’t able to provide. i think the sleeper, though, for jester, is acts of service.

with beau, this especially shows up in reference to healing— jester having a more healing-focused cleric around is a big relief, especially for someone so close to warlock status that she almost was one, but very notably, she very much wants to heal beau. she specifically apologizes for not doing so in the chantry, and attributes that to beau’s absence rather than anything else; more generally, there’s a huge amount of distress on jester’s part when beau is hurt, and that she wants to be the one to heal beau (notably, with the gorgon, she RAN to beau, was immediately upset both times beau started getting petrified, and even dissuaded caduceus or caleb from using their turn to heal beau so she could instead, making sure to be Right There even while nott was applying the oil). she also seems to really value the instances when beau does things for her, especially since there are specific acts that beau reserves for jester (engaging with religion in any capacity, wearing a dress for jester and more broadly allowing jester to pick her clothes, a concept which beau probably has an explicitly negative association with from her mother).

it’s also muddled jester up the worst when it comes to relationships she understands less— the “kiss” with fjord in the temple that was a vehicle for giving jester air, most specifically, comes to mind— and she’s really come to terms with this by realizing that romantic feelings weren’t really what he was expressing, and that it wasn’t necessarily what she was feeling, either. it’s noticeable in how she describes her relationship with the traveler— she feels like her service to him is doing little things for him, and asks, when she’s unsure, when the traveler failed to act on her behalf when they were kidnapped, if she did something wrong to make him angry, and literally desecrates a temple to make up for it as soon as they’re back in town.

and the thing is, quality time isn’t really what was lacking in her relationship with marion— marion probably did have time to spend with jester for at least a little while every day. the problem is that marion simply couldn’t provide jester with things that she needed: access to the outside world and companionship. she had to learn from near-scratch how to navigate relationships of varying intensities, and it shows with her initial zeroing in on fjord as an iteration of the dashing sailor her momma told her about, as well as her more slow-burn come to trust and really invest in and love beau, because she’s never had a relationship like that with a girl, and maybe didn’t even know it was something she could have, or something she could want.

jester’s her proudest when she’s doing things for other people, even if they maybe wouldn’t love her doing it if they knew— threatening beau’s dad because she hates that he hurt her, hearing that beau was thinking about leaving and marching in to modify memory a hag, writing astrid a letter because caleb seems like he liked her, asking essek if he likes caleb because caleb seems to like essek, painting yasha’s room in the xhorhaus, finding outfits for everyone. she struggles with how to rein in showing it and thinking first about the potential consequences, and is unsure how to navigate what it means when she’s shown it in return, but it’s messy and heartfelt and sincere. with her mom, she really clearly appreciates when her mom does do things for her— providing a home for her friend’s family, allowing the m9 to stay in the chateau, coming to the party with them despite her agoraphobia. i’m sort of banking on a scene where jester talks to her about it, apologizes for leaving, and reaffirms that it means a lot to her that marion is stepping out of her comfort zone for her.

beau:

words of affirmation. this is NO DOUBT something her parents didn’t give her, maybe ever. this is baked into her relationship with them— she knew that her father wanted a boy, he probably Told her this, and she wasn’t one. it’s something she could literally never be, an aspect she would be forever resented for, that would tinge everything her father ever said to her. her mother also probably didn’t give her much if any affirmation, as she was trying to police and fix beau’s behavior to avoid thoreau’s anger for both of them, and never properly elaborated to beau that her intention was to keep beau from being punished (not that it would have made it okay, for the record). it’s also why her conversation with her parents in 92 immediately threw her off, because for once they actually told her she’d impressed them, that she’d done good, and it’s rough as hell to see that.

unfortunately, it’s also the thing she’s least likely to get from everyone else unless she’s at her worst, because almost everyone else, including fanon, seems to have profoundly absorbed this idea that beau is rude and abrasive and sarcastic and she’s just. not. she might have been at the start, but she’s always been especially soft with jester, she and caleb are very mutually assured about the sort of affection they show each other, she’s always been either openly flirting with or just sort of tenderly awkward with and trying around yasha, she and caduceus have a fun and pretty peaceful dynamic i always love to see, and we know caduceus, for at least a while, considered beau his favorite.

then, there’s the characters she’s known for butting heads with the most: fjord, with whom she’s developing a sibling dynamic to rival hers with caleb and really obviously is ride or die for; nott, who used to openly insult beau and just about everyone else, and who is now 1/3 of the chaos crew beau is also in; and molly, whose death was a HUGE turning point for beau in terms of a) taking stock of her morals and how she intended to act on them and b) expressing love for someone so you know they know it, before it’s too late.

jester seems to see this the most, no surprise there, and dairon also sees a lot of potential in beau not because she’s strong or fast (she’s from a martially focused monastery), but because she’s smart. dairon talks about and to beau very affectionately compared to other mentor/guardian figures she’s had, and i think it means a lot to her coming from both jester and dairon. she certainly returns the favor for both of them.

fjord:

this one isn’t immediately apparent, so i’m gonna start by talking about the nature of his relationship with caduceus (and see where it gets me).

okay, i lied, i’m starting with molly.

fjord and molly had a thing. it’s clear in retrospect, and i’ve talked about it, but i think it has to do with where fjord was in his quest to reinvent himself. molly was someone who, for all intents and purposes, had flawlessly become a new person— not necessarily because of a concerted effort to change who lucien was, but a different person nonetheless. fjord wanted desperately to believe that that was attainable for him, and thus saw a lot in investing in molly. molly was a silent affirmation that fjord could really pull this off, could really reinvent himself and be fine.

also, molly was hot. enough said.

caduceus, on the other hand, offered something different. caduceus came along right before fjord’s willingness to help uk’otoa was first tested— fjord rose to the occasion, but the whole time there was someone new along, someone whose faith in his deity seemed assured. assured, that’s something fjord never had.

afterward, he got to see what it meant to believe in a god like that, and he started to want in. caduceus seems like a very honest person— though really, it’s just because m9 doesn’t know the right questions to ask him— and his god is the god of the sea, too, right? fjord really lost a rock in molly the way i don’t think a lot of people realize, and it’s why his swallowing the summer’s dance felt so meaningful. he was keeping a part of molly with him, and i wonder if he misses that part of his falchion. after he lost his inspiration for recreation, he started to put stock into authenticity as the answer, and caduceus as the vehicle. and the wildmother was very accepting, too, took him in like a lost sheep.

where fjord is now, i think he values the covenant (which i realize i actually define later, so if i forget to reorganize these before i post, then oops) in a similar way to caleb. more specifically, though, he decidedly the word owe in talking to beau about the group’s relationship, which, among other things, speaks to acts of service. fjord has work to do to earn his place as a paladin of the wildmother (and a good amount of work to do indeed, if getting trounced by darrow was any indication), and he feels the need to repay caduceus for his help, companionship, and guidance. fjord also gets hurt and KO’d. a lot. i think he takes it on the chin as his role in the group— that’s his job, and he has faith in caduceus and jester to keep him up. they’re not done yet, they haven’t finished serving one another, so beau leaving is of considerable offense (near-mutinous, to be specific).

caleb:

words MEAN SHIT to caleb, you can tell in the way he talks. everyone remembers the times he’s told nott he loves her, he responds best to beau because i think he really loves the way she talks, he shows his feelings in really passionate speeches to nott, to beauregard, and most recently to essek. there’s absolutely a reason why so many goddamn quotes from campaign 2 are attributed to this dude, and it’s because he monologues like a fucking champ. their group is named after his accent.

as for receiving love, though, i think it’s a little different. we know from talks that he’s placed a lot of value on the things jester has done for him, and moreover to be herself as someone who gives recklessly, but as far as we know he doesn’t intend to do anything with it. with nott, i’m tempted to create a new category that’s something like a covenant? he and nott agreed to travel together and help each other under the worst conditions, and they’ve stuck to this fastidiously. this covenant, this commitment to the group, is something he extends to everyone— he is not willing to walk away from this, and hasn’t been for a long time, he believes in all of them, truly, what they can do— and cherishes the fact that everyone has kept this, except for two very specific moments. beau, when she introduced the threat of her leaving the party, and yasha, when she was taken over by obann. for beau, he actually seemed fairly quiet compared to fjord, and i’m not sure yet on why this is, other that i think he trusted fjord and jester to talk her down. as for yasha, he seems to be really invested in commiserating with yasha as two haunted ones (literally), and sees her as someone who also really values the group but sees her ability to belong as tarnished by what she’s done.

for the purposes of this, i’m gonna refer to it as that, as a covenant (yes i’m a failed church kid, what of it) and as separate from acts of service, because it’s more akin to the promise of one major, permanent act of service to each other. i wonder if it’s this steadfastness in that idea that partially led caduceus to continue and develop the idea of his role, because caleb and the rest of team cockroach, as i call them, were gonna keep that covenant if it killed them, and caduceus could keep them from getting killed, at the very least, if he entered into it.

but anyway, that covenant now extends to essek, if he decides to take it. and if he does, that will mean something infinite to caleb, i think.

caduceus: acts of service.

okay. i wanna talk about caduceus and danger.

caduceus doesn’t heal himself. we know this. he heals everyone else, and not himself.

i’ve been checking critrole stats on this, and if i’m reading correctly, he has taken the most damage (157) in one episode than anyone else. and it’s not a small margin. the closest is yasha (129) and i’m almost certain that’s from the episode where she decided to literally get attacked until she passed out. i was trying to guess which episode this was from, and then it hit me: probably the episode where he fucking died, right? because it really just never came up again.

caduceus has: started to drown at least 3 times in his first month on the job, been killed by nott, been beaten near to death when yasha was charmed, and been very quietly and very badly stabbed in the back by a disappearing assassin. he’s also died at home, as a family tradition.

there’s a million better meta posts about caduceus’s relationship with death, or even about him not healing himself, but I just want to set it as potential precedent for the idea that caduceus, to some degree, sees value in himself as someone who doesn’t mind dying in a fight. for one thing, it’s been a temporary thing almost from day one with m9, as jester immediately invested in diamonds when they got back to town. it’s not his first rodeo, either, and his family has normalized death to an, and i say this more because of how it’s affected him rather than because i dislike the idea of normalizing death, an upsetting degree.

giving healing, that’s his job, but eliminating himself as someone who needs help or healing, well, that’s healing in a way, too, right? if he doesn’t get healed, it’s more for everyone else. worst comes to worst, jester can heal him if need be. or, y’know. not heal him.

caduceus’s relationship with m9 has noticeable transaction rhetoric, and i wonder where that really fits in with his family. obviously, his role in the family was implied as the one who stayed behind, and his parents definitely imparted a need for him to be stable, a role he’s continued to fill for m9 to his quiet detriment but i think he’s also jumped on the opportunity to finally be the older one, the wiser one, of the group. there’s a power caduceus has over the group that’s really understated— they just sort of listen to him, even if what he’s saying doesn’t actually make sense, because he started with nott, beau, and caleb as a wise savior, a protector, and upon finding the others, it’s not like jester, fjord, or yasha were filling that role. molly certainly wasn’t either— it’s funny, how in retrospect caduceus seems inevitable to the group because they really didn’t have anyone like him. the closest thing to a voice of reason they had was fjord and caleb, and early on, caleb was not in great standing because of his and nott’s perceived standoffishness, and fjord threw up ocean water, so like, what’s up with that, right?

at the very least, he definitely believes he owes the mighty nein something, a role to fill, a job to perform. a service to act out, if you will. his job is to heal, and he does less healing if he heals himself. he seems to view him taking a hit as a win, in a way— it’s a hit that someone else doesn’t take.

i have a lot of hope that reconnecting with his family and seeing how he’s grown while they haven’t allows him to revisit his notions of what he needs to be, and i have a lot of hope that moving forward, he’ll be able to invest more in the other motif he’s developed, which is gift-giving: fjord, with the star razor; his sisters, with the hat (which seems small but like. boy’s had it for a while) and the flute; and, most recently, in helping jester pick out everyone’s outfits. it allows him to feel like he’s giving something to the people he cares about without it hurting him.

yasha:

truly everything. it’s hard to get a read because yasha really just soaks in all the love m9 wants to give her. if i had to guess further, i’d say we should look at her and molly’s relationship, because molly’s the only character we’ve seen her unabashedly love, and the thing that stood out most to me was physical touch. that echoes really depressingly with her “fight” in 89— she got something out of being that close to someone, even if it felt like reparation or atonement, and i think the only person in m9 who’s been really unafraid to touch yasha is jester.

i’ll admit i have a soft spot for yashter, but, like, it’s there, right? the obvious trust, the faith jester has in yasha and the fear and turmoil when that was tested? i remember really clearly jester giving yasha a piggyback ride in zadash in an early ep, and like— when’s the last time someone was strong enough to do that? when’s the last time someone wanted to do that for yasha? everyone’s mistrusted yasha to some degree for the entire run of the campaign, and, like, how much did her hopes to get close to everyone else just evaporate after the king’s cage? does she really even believe she can have it again? she was so close— jester trusted her fully, she and beau were in a comfortable mutual place with flirting, she’d talked to caduceus and jester about zuala, she even felt comfortable picking up nott and throwing her around (which, by the way, i love their dynamic).

she seems to have leaned more into the protective, threatening stance since they got her back, which, if she’s comfortable with it, is just fine— maybe she’s shifting more towards acts of service, but i just hope it isn’t her just accepting the idea that everyone will always be afraid of her, that she won’t be close like that again. because molly wasn’t afraid of her. jester wasn’t, and i don’t think she is, now— but fjord showed a lot of distrust, and i think yasha’s scared of the degree to which she hurt beau and how to even broach that discussion, and she attacked them, how could they ever forgive her or trust she wouldn’t do it again?

(i wish i had a happier end to this, so i’ll just say that she did seem comfortable last ep, and that she may or may not have interest in getting a tattoo from jester? interesting stuff.)

veth:

on a person to person level, veth definitely feels she and caleb are acting on the promise they’ve made to help each other— now she’s reached it, things are a bit more nebulous, but it’s obvious she wants to stick around for him. i’ll admit, her words to everyone in 97 were a bit surprising to me— she hasn’t really been good at conveying emotion like that before unless she’s desperate or really upset, and i imagine it was something she started planning in her head to say to everyone as soon as the first ritual didn’t work. that might be, i think, what she felt as relief, just not being able to articulate what she wanted to say to everyone.

as for her family, veth believes she owes her best self to yeza and luc— she kept herself from them not because she couldn’t have gone back, but because she felt like someone else, like someone worse, and the exaggerated tendencies from her previous life only reinforced this— she didn’t believe she deserved to be around them, before now. before caleb, i don’t know if she had any hope for returning to them at all, and he changed that entirely.

i’m also very interested in why veth is able to reconcile her marriage with yeza as veth with her loving caleb as nott, and if she sort of considers herself as two different people. we’ve seen so little of what she feels comfortable expecting from other people— for now, i’d say acts of service seems appropriate? but maybe something closer to just. fulfilling promises.

bonus: for the other two who are considered part of the mighty nein

kiri:

words of affirmation. i’m a HUGE kenku stan, anyone who’s played d&d with me knows this, and i’m especially fascinated with the relationship with words when you can only speak the words you hear/remember. on the most basic level, if you speak to kiri, you are giving her a gift, you’re giving her the ability to speak, too. and if those words are affirming, then she can say them back! and you’re giving them to her, in a sense, to use as she pleases and repeat them to herself, even, and i just love that image— her, to herself, saying “i love you” in other people’s voices. i’m ride or die for kenkus, and kiri started it.

essek:

okay, so almost everyone in the m9 could be read as needing words of affirmation, because it’s so clear that they need more love and knowledge of love than they’ve received, and have found it in each other. essek has quite literally found it in m9 for the first time. he absolutely needs all of these, like, ASAP, but i think it’s what everyone says to him that get him the most. caleb’s speech, obviously, but it’s also them casually referring to him as their friend, it’s jester’s messages, even if he’s busy. it’s important to say, though, that i think it’s a specific type of affirmation: things that have nothing to do with his magic ability (and moreover, any of these gifts that have nothing to do with it). essek’s built his entire life on the idea that he is someone incredibly powerful and smart for his age— m9 are probably the first people to make him feel like he was more than that, because they want to know about the rest of him, and in becoming friends with them, he’s confronting the fact that he doesn’t really believe there is a rest of him. they want to know a part of himself that he at best has neglected and has been neglected by others, and at worst that he believes does not exist. when they talk about him as a friend, it adds to who he can be. he’s seeing, for the first time, that he can exist as someone else than his abilities and his ambition.

i initially started off with words of affirmation and he clearly needs that, but i think he really just needs all of these in a very specific way: he needs to feel love that is not based in merit, that pertains to who he actually is in this life rather than what he can become in the next, that values the life he’s living right now, because he’s not getting that from the dynasty. it seems like a low bar, maybe, to people who only have the one life, as far as we know, but his arc this campaign shows that it really, really isn’t.

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angstyzebra · 4 years ago

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Were Did Lance Go?

The team goes to a planet to settle a dispute when things start to get a little... hairy. (shance, hurt/comfort, werewolves and vampires)

(Yes the title is purposely spelled that way) This is a gift for the @langston Halloween 2020 event for @good-legs-lance! Read below or on AO3 here!

Also I want to add on more but am not able to at the moment, so expect at least one more chapter of this in the future.

Lance’s leg shook as he waited to arrive at the next planet. The team was going to a place called Halloweera, as the neutral party in a rivalry occurring between the two types of aliens who lived there. Vampires and Werewolves. Yes, this planet had a name frighteningly close to “Halloween,” has vampires and werewolves, and they’re fighting. They've met so many other types of aliens and planets before, but maybe this time it felt odd because these aliens were seen as fictional creatures on Earth, Lance knew them as such his whole life up until this point, and so many aspects of the situation just hit scarily close to home.

The vampires and werewolves were having issues with one another regarding the full moon. They both needed to go out to hunt for animals each full moon, but kept getting in each other’s way. Running into each other on these hunting nights messed things up because of their scents. Werewolves and Vampires had strong scents which caused the other to lose track of their animal prey.

The team’s job was to bring peace and compromise between the two groups so they could both get what they needed without messing up their hunting plans. Their idea was to divide areas for each type of alien to hunt in. Vampires weren’t to trespass into werewolf hunting territory during the full moon and vice versa. It was a simple plan and the meeting was expected to be short and simple.

---

The discussion went well, and while the two groups were still not quite fond of one another, they agreed on the plan Allura had explained. There was a party afterwards thrown in celebration and to thank the paladins. As Lance stood in a group with a few vampires and werewolves, his mind began to wander and he thought about the beings on this planet, hoped that one day soon they would get along much more peacefully. He watched as they bickered in front of him, and he knew they could achieve so much more if they just worked together.

He would usually be one to flirt at these types of gatherings but now he was in a relationship with Shiro. At the thought of his boyfriend, his attention turned to the black paladin. Shiro and Allura were talking with the leaders of the vampires and werewolves and it seemed to be going well, all of them smiling as they chatted. Lance wanted to be like Shiro, good communication skills and getting along well with all of the aliens they met. At this thought of admiration for his boyfriend, Lance decided to get this group some drink refills to help make a good impression. He asked for their empty cups and excused himself.

As Lance walked over to the refreshments table, he looked around the room at everyone. The werewolves and vampires were all very tall, nearly twice the size of Lance. The vampires had blue skin and red eyes, and the werewolves were furry and had yellow eyes. Very similar to Earth's idea of their appearances. Distracted from taking in all of the aliens, Lance nearly bumped into the small werewolf child standing in front of him. He stopped suddenly and crouched down closer after regaining his balance.

“I’m sorry about that! Wasn’t looking where I was going, huh?” The child said nothing but held out to him what looked to be a piece of candy, a small round shape inside of a shiny blue wrapper. Lance, having a soft spot for kids, accepted the gift and thanked the child. He unwrapped what looked to be red chocolate and put it in his mouth, making an exaggerated noise of approval. “Mmm this is delicious! Thanks!” The child smiled before hurrying away. He must’ve just been shy.

Lance completed his journey over to the drink table and poured the green juice into their cups. He was about to head back to the group when he suddenly began to feel uneasy. The lights and noise of the party were suddenly too much for him to handle. Lance spotted a nearby exit and hurried over to it. He just needed to leave for a moment, he would go back when he felt less dizzy. Lance sat down on the ground of the dim, quiet hallway, but light spots still danced across his vision. He was about to attempt to send a message to the others to let them know where he had gone, when the world suddenly began to turn and everything went black.

---

Lance slowly woke up to the sound of people murmuring behind him. He tried to turn his head to see who it was, but found he couldn’t move. The anxiety this realization brought had made him more alert, and he glanced down to see his arms and legs tied down to a metal table with leather straps. Another glance to the side brought what seemed to be medical tools into his perspective.

Oh no.

A werewolf stepped into his view, smiling menacingly at him with pointy teeth and sounding unsympathetic as he spoke, “Ah, finally awake! I am so sorry we had to meet this way, blue paladin. But we are... unhappy, with the decisions you paladins have come to today. We will not stand to make amends with those vile, blood-sucking monsters. It is time you are shown our perspective.”

“Ya know, you’d be a lot more productive if you just worked together.” Lance tried to speak calmly but his voice came out shaky. He didn’t want to be afraid, but it was obvious that he was terrified. “And what do you want with me anyway?”

Those glowing yellow eyes easily saw right through him. The werewolf smiled deviously, turning to pick up a large needle. “Oh, you will learn soon enough.” He approached Lance with the needle in hand, and all Lance could do was call out for help as loud as possible.

---

Shiro was worried. While the rest of the team has been accounted for, he hadn’t seen Lance recently and couldn’t find him anywhere in the celebration hall or in any of the surrounding hallways and rooms. When that group of aliens notified him of Lance’s disappearance after leaving to get them drinks, he started to internally panic. He was hoping Lance was only using the bathroom or making small talk. But when he checked the suit trackers, blue was the only one completely missing. Shiro sent a message to the rest of the team to meet outside for discussing a plan to find their beloved missing blue paladin.

They were deciding who should go where to check, when they heard two werewolves around the corner talking while walking back to the celebration hall. "I know this plan will work, just keep calm and don't say anything about it." one said to the other.

"And what plan is that?" Allura inquired, stepping towards then with her bayard in hand.

Caught off guard not thinking anyone was around to hear their conversation, the werewolves stood shocked and unsure of what to do. "It's just plans for a surprise party!" one of them blurted out, obviously lying by the change of pitch in their voice. "It's for our friend."

Luckily for the team, Keith wasn't afraid of scaring people into giving information.

The werewolves told them of the plan to turn Lance into one of them, so that the vampires would lose trust in the paladins. They had no reasonable end goal in this plan, they only wanted the paladins to suffer for not giving them what they had wanted. And with the information of Lance's location, they all rushed off to save their friend. The team could deal with the political consequences of what happened later, right now he needed them.

---

It was a small, old building in a forest near the main werewolf territory. They snuck inside and ran to where they heard the sound of rough screaming. They found four werewolves in the room. One strapped to a table in the middle of the room, one injecting something into their arm with a big needle, and two off to the side observing.

The one on the table… it was Lance.

He was covered in fur, not recognizable at first glance. But Shiro would know those ocean blue eyes anywhere. Before they could do anymore harm to him, the paladins took them down and tied them with some nearby rope. It wasn't hard with the lack of security, they probably weren't expecting to be found out.

Shiro approached the table and took Lance's head between his hands while the others cut the straps from his arms and legs. He was crying, speaking quietly and mostly incoherently about the pain he was in. "You're gonna be okay, Lance. We're taking you back to the castle now and Coran will fix you up fast. It's okay, it's okay…" Shiro continued to whisper reassurances as he scooped him up into his arms and carried him out of the building.

"You're gonna be okay."

#langstron #shance fanfic #shance fic #shance #vld fanfic #vld fic #voltron: legendary defender #hurt/comfort #werewolves #vampires #halloween

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sasuhinasno1fan · 6 years ago

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Time to heal- Shiro Ship Week Day 1

Time to give love to our favourite space dad! I still haven’t seen s8 because I wasn’t ready to sit and go through all the emotions but I’m sure once my job is over I can easily set my self on fire watching this. One of the things I did wish was that Adam wasn’t killed because, god, those two just needed a chance to talk. Even if they didn’t get back together, just talk. So here’s my fic where they got to do just that, enjoy! Wounds

“You know, I don’t think you’ve ever spent so much time on a ship.” Keith said, watching Shiro type away at a computer on the Atlas.

“I do have work I need to do before we leave.”

“And that work doesn’t include maybe, oh I don’t know, maybe visiting Adam? You know, your fiancé who managed to actually survive that ship explosion that Commander Sanda sent him to.”

“Ex-fiancé. He broke it off because I choose to do the Kerberos mission rather than stay here.” Shiro reminded, his voice sounding hard.

“To be fair, your disease was getting worse. The Galra did you a favour of cutting that arm off for you.” Keith pointed out, ignoring the glare Shiro gave him. “You thought you wouldn’t get the chance to talk to him after all of this, then we found out that he was taken by a Galra group, patched together and then forced to work on whatever camp he was in. You should be talking to him.”

“Don’t you have a Blue Paladin second in command to go and comfort?” Shiro asked, hoping to get Keith to leave him alone and go and see Lance, who was still trying to get over Allura telling him she didn’t have romantic feelings for him, let alone ready for a relationship after the whole Lotor issue.

“Fine, I’m going. Just didn’t think the one guy I always respected would be running away from a guy, especially one he’s still heads over heels for. Black told me you always thought about him.” With that, Keith left, leaving Shiro to his thoughts.

He wasn’t surprised Black told Keith about Adam. She was such a mother. Even though he wasn’t technically a Paladin anymore, he’d still feel her rooting around in his mind at times. When they finally arrived on earth and got to the Garrison, he thought Adam was gone, killed when his ship was shot down. To find out that he was actually alive – hurt, blinded in one eye and missing a leg, but alive – he knew he should have gone and seen him. But, the wounds from when Adam left him were still there. He was never mad at him for leaving. He was being selfish, wanting to prove to everyone he could still be a pilot. Adam was scared he was going to lose him and didn’t want to have to face that. Course, Adam was right in the end, he did get hurt, just not in a way any of them expected. He had sworn to himself that when they finally returned to earth, he’d sit down and talk to him but now that he had the opportunity, he was hiding himself in the Atlas. It was one of the few times he was happy he wasn’t a Paladin anymore. Black would just take him to Adam without his consent and drop him on his doorstep. Though, he had somehow managed to turn the Atlas into a mecha, so he shouldn’t be too surprised if it gained a mind of its own.

He had been so focused on working on whatever paperwork and mapping out the places they had to travel to, he almost didn’t see the message Sam had sent him.

Matt has finally finished your new prosthetic, you can come and see it. We can discuss your operation to change it.

Some people, i.e., him and his whole team, pointed out that his new arm wasn’t the best thing. It was a lot to have to remember to keep his floating arm near. If he let his thoughts drift, his arm went with it. Plus, Shiro was getting a bit tired of being used to hack into computers. Enough people had rattled around his head, thank you very much. Matt and Pidge had worked on making him an arm similar to his old one, but with the looks of his new one. He just hoped his body didn’t reject this one. He wanted to actually return Allura’s crystal from her crown. No need to give up the piece that showed her as a queen when there where was still Alteans who needed a leader.

He stretched, already ready to get rid of the floating arm as it started pulling his flesh arm a bit to hard.

Leaving the Atlas now. I’ll be there soon.

______

“Was the floating arm, that bad?” Matt asked, as he pulled his hair into a high bun. His mother kept insisting he cut it, but he was having fun putting it into different hairstyles.

Pidge looked up from where she was doing last minute checks. She been at her house but got bored looking at the TV show for Voltron and decided to help on Shiro’s arm.

“I’m gonna pretend you didn’t ask that.”

“I liked it.”

Pidge rolled her eyes at her brother. He was such a nerd.

“Excuse me,” a voice called from the door. Pidge looked over her shoulder to see a guy in a Garrison uniform. He wore glasses despite the large scar on his face that obviously left him blind in his left eye. She saw that one of his pant legs was pulled up, showing off a familiar silver leg prosthetic. The metal looked like what had been used on Shiro’s old prosthetic. “I was told to come here if I had any issues with my prosthetic.”

“Adam?”

“Matt?”

Pidge looked at both her brother and the guy. “Do you two know each other?”

“Uh, yeah.” Matt said, seeming to be unsure of what to say when Adam interrupted.

“Through a mutual friend.”

Somehow, Pidge could tell this mutual friend was important but also not to be talked about.

“So your prosthetic?”

“Yeah, got it when I got captured by the Galra after my ship crashed.”

“Wait a second. Weren’t you one of the pilots who was sent out by Commander Sanda?”

“Yeah. Managed to survive somehow but was captured by the Galra. After I was considered recovered enough, I was sent to work in their camp. My leg’s been giving me trouble since I got rescued. It actually collapsed under me today.”

“Alright come here.” Matt said.

Pidge got up to help when she heard a very familiar voice.

“Matt, your dad said you finished my arm. When can we get this annoying thing-” she turned to see Shiro in the doorway staring at Adam. “Adam.” The disbelief in his voice made it obvious to Pidge, this was how Adam and Matt knew each other.

“Takashi.” Well there was another. As far as Shiro told them, everyone called him Shiro because no one correctly pronounced Takashi.

“I…” Shiro trailed off. “I’ll come back later.” And with that, Shiro turned tail and left, though it looked more like running away.

“Damn, I didn’t think he’d get here so quickly.” Matt said, Adam pulling his arm away to get on to the table himself, staring at the door where Shiro disappeared from.

“Um, probably none of my business but I’m gonna ask anyway. How do you two know each other?”

“Pidge.” Matt scolded.

“It’s fine. I guess he never said anything. We were engaged.”

“What?”

_______

Shiro, that guy who came in, you were engaged to him? (Pidge)

Wait, Shiro was engaged to a guy? How did I not know this? (Hunk)

It’s Adam isn’t it? Hunk, come on, you know Shiro never hid his orientation. How do you think I was able to figure out my own? I always thought they looked good together. (Lance)

Wait, Adam, the guy who taught Aerodynamics? The one who offered to tutor you before they kicked Keith out? (Hunk)

How the heck did you catch Adam’s attention? (Keith)

What can I say Keith? He obviously saw greatness. (Lance)

Shiro’s eye twitched as he watched his team talk about his relationship with Adam. Like it wasn’t enough that he bumped into him earlier without being ready. He ran off without even talking him.

He still called him Takashi. Other than his late parents, he was the only one to call him by his name. most didn’t bother to try, taking the nickname he offered instead. He always felt bad that he couldn’t stop the Galra earlier, before they could have attacked Earth. Seeing Adam, who despite his not perfect eyesight was a promising pilot, blind in one eye because Commander Sanda thought he was a better fit to go up against the Galra, it hurt. He also had a prosthetic leg. Adam was an avid volleyball player. He didn’t doubt that it would stop him, but it would be harder for him.

“Shiro? Can I come in?” Matt called from outside Shiro’s room.

“Yes.” Matt came in, sitting at the desk. “Your sister is outing me to the team.”

“I thought you never hid it? Just never denied it.” Matt pointed out, which Shiro rolled his eyes at. That might have been true but still. “In case you were wondering, Adam is ok. His leg wasn’t as good as your arm so it’s starting to breakdown. We’ve got him scheduled to get a replacement tomorrow to make sure he doesn’t risk gaining an infection. He asked how you were. I told him we were giving you a new arm because you didn’t like your current one.”

“It makes no sense. I didn’t complain before because we were in the middle of a war. Plus, I could do without it being used to help you and your dad hack into Galra ships with my brain being used as the computer.”

“Fair enough. So…I take you never went to see Adam when he was rescued.”

Shiro shook his head. “what was I supposed to say? Last time I saw him, he pretty much told me our engagement was over because I was being selfish, which I was. Then I disappear for what, 3 years and then because we couldn’t end this fight, he got hurt.”

“Ok come on. Shiro, that wasn’t your fault. The Galra would have come eventually and you can’t dismantle a 10,000 year old empire in 3 years. Besides, Adam knew what being a fighter pilot meant. He can be mad at you for wanting to prove something over your own health, but he’s not mad at you for what happened. I mean, hello, you made the Atlas into a mecha to save your team. Can’t be mad at someone like that.”

“To be fair, including the time my clone was a Paladin, I was fighting in a mecha for 2 years.” Shiro sighed. “I wasn’t ready to see him though. We both left wounds on each other and I wasn’t ready to try and heal the ones I left on him, especially the physical ones.”

Matt looked sad, like he was upset he couldn’t help Shiro. “Do you think you can do me a favour? Adam’s parent’s died last year, before the Galra attacks so no one will be there when he’s recovering. You still have time to get your transplant done and you can recover on the Atlas and honestly, you need to talk to him, even if it’s just a ‘I’m glad you’re alive’.”

He knew he was right. He couldn’t just continue running off whenever he got scared. He fought the Galra for god’s sake. Being in the same room as he ex-fiancé shouldn’t scare him, though it did. God, he rather go fight Galra again.

__________

Tempting as it was to just hide and leave someone else to deal with it, he stayed. Plus, Allura heard what was going on (Thanks Keith) and insisted he at least stay and talk to him.

“There are things I regret never saying to my father before I was sealed away. I don’t have that chance anymore but you do. At least tell him the things you wanted to tell him if you weren’t taken.”

Seeing Adam unconscious without his glasses sent Shiro back to when he’d find Adam asleep on the couch in the teacher’s lounge after grading all evening. Even with the scar on his face, he still looked the same. He had to stop himself from pressing a kiss to his cheek like he used to, though, he missed seeing the sleepy smile that would come to Adam’s face as he woke up.

When the anaesthesia wore off, Adam groaned a little, looking like he had crashed hard the day before. He had a habit of doing that. God, Shiro could lecture him about that for days, but the minute he became a Paladin, he started exhibiting the bad habit. He opened his eyes, his fully green eye slowly focusing on the ceiling. He blinked a bit before turning his head, stilling when he saw Shiro sitting next to his bed. Shiro didn’t say anything, still too nervous to speak.

“Your hair is white.”

Ok, not what he was expecting, but Shiro could work with that.

“My hair used to look like yours.” He said, nodding to the white streak in Adam’s hair. It wasn’t as big as Shiro’s had been.

“You look like Allen Walker but with shorter hair.”

Shiro let out a little laugh. Adam’s favourite anime was D.Gray Man. Relaxation for him meant sitting in front of the tv watching episodes or reading the manga over and over again.

“When I heard about the Kerberos mission, I was pissed off, but not at you. They said you were responsible but I knew that couldn’t be true. I know I said you shouldn’t have gone, but I also knew that you would have done everything to bring everyone back. You’ve always been that stubborn. One of things I can’t stand about you sometimes but also one of the things I admire.”

“I��didn’t know that. I thought you would have hated me.”

“I never hated you Takashi. I was just mad that you seemed to care more about proving a point than your life.”

“I get that.” Shiro said, “but you have to understand. Since I was a kid, I let this disease control my life. When I told my family I wanted to go to space, they didn’t think I could do it and I decided to stop letting it control me. Every step I took had someone thinking I couldn’t achieve this. Yes, I know it was getting worse, and yes, I know I was being so selfish, but I had to prove that I could do it. When you broke it off, I thought I didn’t have anything to lose.”

Adam stared at him before he moved his hand, like he was reaching for Shiro. Hesitantly, Shiro gave him his hand, which was squeezed with as much strength as Adam could give.

“If I begged you, you would have stayed?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“But you would have wished you went in the back of your mind.”

Shiro couldn’t deny it. “Yeah.”

“Well, I’m glad you did. Could have done without the getting captured by aliens though. It broke my heart thinking that you thought I hated you when you left, except you did.”

“I hurt you. I wouldn’t have been mad if you did.” Shiro said, wanting to put his other hand on top of their clasped hands, but he didn’t trust the floating arm to actually work when his emotions were running high. “I am sorry I hurt you. I should have talked to you and explained everything, but I bottled it up. Kinda like I’ve been doing since I heard you were alive. I was scared about what would be said, so I just stay clamed up.”

Adam moved his free hand to Shiro’s face, the Atlas captain moving closer to allow Adam to touch his face. “You always did have a habit of keeping things to yourself. God, no wonder Keith is a ticking time bomb.” He teased.

“Yeah, guess he didn’t get your calm demeanour.”

“By the way, that floating arm looks really stupid.”

Shiro couldn’t help but laugh. There was the no filter bluntness that drew Shiro to Adam in the first place. “I know. I’m getting it changed. Do you know Sam used it like a bug of sorts to hack into a Galra ship? My brain was the computer.”

“I respect that man, especially after what he accomplished after he returned to Earth, but he is weird as hell.”

“I’ll let him know. Before I forget, I’m heading back out to space soon, after my arm is changed. I don’t want to make the same mistake again and lose you.”

“Well, we’ll figure it out. Don’t worry. I think we’ve been through enough already.”

It didn’t mean things were automatically fixed, but wounds were starting to heal and that meant something.

#shiroshipweek2019 #adashi #adam lives

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madiletio · 6 years ago

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Little Wonders | Ch.8 “Limbo”

Summary: Broken and bruised, everything was unraveling right in front them. And all they could do is watch in horror.

AKA the angsty kidfic no one asked for.

Everyone had taken turns to stay in the medbay, in case of the off chance Lance woke up without anyone there. But the thing was, he wasn’t waking up and it was becoming more frustrating with each passing day.

To top it all of, Katie was beginning to notice the changes in her body day by day. First, it was the nausea that greeted her every time she awoke or if she so happened to look at a plate of food goo. Then her chest began to feel tender and she was becoming more tired by the day.

The worst part about all of this, however, was the fact that nobody knew about it, but she was determined to keep it that way until Lance woke up, because so help her she didn't want the team to know before him.

Hunk was starting to get suspicious of her though. The suspicious glances he’d throw her way at dinner time was painfully obvious. It was worse enough that she was hiding the pregnancy in the first place but if her best friend happened to confront her about it, she wasn't so sure she could lie to him. again.

She couldn’t do that to him. Not Hunk.

She rested a hand gently on her abdomen and looked down at the tiny bump that was starting to take shape. She was laying against the side of Lance's pod, lazily trying to distract herself in an attempt to keep her from wondering to the dark places that seemed to linger in her mind more and more as the days dragged on.

That was the funny thing about time. It can go by in a blink of an eye, or it could equally feel non-existent within a matter of seconds.

"Hey sweetheart.." she mumbled under her breath."We have gotta be strong for your daddy okay?"

The ship jolted suddenly, causing her to tumble back a bit. A wave of nausea hit her equally as fast and it took everything in her to not go running to the nearest bathroom.

"Fucking hell-"

"Pidge!" Hunk's voice came over the comms, frantic and breathless. "Pidge you need to get up here!"

She didn't question it, there was no reason to. She took one last look at Lance before running towards the observation deck. Maybe they had finally gotten the communicators to work? or maybe they were no longer stuck in a limbo on the castle and they could finally go home?.

The door to the observation deck opened and Katie felt her heart catch in her throat when she caught sight of her father and Shiro standing there, within arms reach.

"Dad!" She called out and Sam turned around at the sound of his daughter's voice, enveloping her in a hug.

She clung onto him for a brief moment, before pulling away to hug Shiro as well.

"What are you guys doing here?" She questioned.

Shiro gave a small chuckle as he went around hugging the other paladins in greeting while Sam gave his daughter another hug.

"Your mother contacted us," Shiro explained. "She said you hadn't been in touch with her for over a week and it was the same thing with the garrison. It was like you two vanished."

Pidge bit her lip, guilt heavy on her shoulders. "I know...and I'm sorry dad."

Sam ruffled her hair a bit before turning to face everyone else in the room. "So what's the situation here?"

Allura had filled the both of them in as Katie led them to the medbay to see Lance for themselves. Before they reached the door Katie stopped and turned to them, honey eyes seeping caution.

"Before we go in I need to warn you both," she said, pointing at her father and Shiro. "Lance is really roughed up. So just..prepare yourself I guess?"

With that, she turned around and led them to the room.

Lance was laying down the pod, just like Shiro had been years ago. He looked so peaceful that it was almost concerning. Wounds and scars covered his entire body with a dusted red that stood out amongst the old ones. But what really made their stomachs churn was the gaping wound on his thigh.

"Holy shit." Shiro whispered.

The sight of him was grueling, to say the least. Sam had seemed to visibly pale at the mere sight of him.

“He’s been in here for over a week now..: Hunk whispered.

“He needs to go back home,” Shiro stated. “With the current shape of the castle, it doesn't surprise me that the pod isn’t functioning to its full ability.”

“Then let's do it.” Sam affirmed, a confident hand resting on top of the pod. “Let’s bring him home.”

“Mum, you’re doing your pacing thing again.”

Colleen stopped in her tracks to glare up at her smug sitting son. He had perched himself at the top of the stairs for a while now, waiting, just like Colleen was.

They had received word from Sam that the ATLAS had finally entered the milky ways orbit and were now heading towards the castle. Which left the pair of them waiting.

That's the funny thing about earth and space-time. It's always changing, shifting, moving slowly and yet so quickly. But hours are still hours and Colleen was about to reach out to Sam yet again when the communicator went off.

They both sprung to it, answering it within seconds.

"Colleen?" Sam's voice was staggered as if he had just been running for miles on end.

"Sam! Oh thank God, I was starting to worry." She approached the hologram, looking worn for wear. "Did you manage to get in contact with the paladins? Do you know if Katie is with them?"

There was a moment of silence as Sam glanced down grimly before tired eyes met her own.

"We did. And it's not good. "

"Not good?!" Matt's voice shot through the wall of tension that was slowly starting to build between the two. "Dad, elaborate."

"I-"

A door opened and Shiro walked in, carrying what looked like to be a box of supplies with him.

"Sam?" Colleen called.

"We're going to tow the castle back to us. It's been really roughed up."

"And everyone? are they okay? What about Katie and Lance?"

At the mention of their names, Sam tensed up. "Most of them are fine, yes. but. Lance is really rough to wear right now."

"Sam what do you mean by that?!" Colleen questioned

“He..he got pretty roughed up. He's in the healing pod-”

“The healing pod?! “ Colleen exclaimed.

He gave a grim nod. “Yeah. We're preparing to board him onto the atlas then we’re en-routing to the garrison.”

Colleen nodded, understanding the type of situation all too well. “Is Katie around?”

Sam shook his head, and her shoulders dropped at that.

"She's preparing supplies in Green right now. I can forward you to her if you'd like?"

She thought about it for a brief moment, before shaking her head. On one hand she wanted nothing more than to speak to her daughter but on the other hand she knew that Katie would have enough going on in her mind as is.

It was enough for now knowing that Katie was alive and safe. She could handle the silence from her for a little while longer.

"Anyway..how are you doing love?" Sam questioned.

She placed her coffee cup down and gave him a small, yet tired smile. “I’m doing better now that I know where our daughter is and that she’s safe.”

Sam nodded “You and me both. But uh..”

“You have to go.” She finished the sentence for him.

He nodded, a grim expression shadowing his features as they said their farewells and ‘I love you's.’ Soon they’d be reunited again, and that was enough to keep going for now.

After Shiro and Sam had seen the extent of the castles damage and Lance's injuries, they called everyone back to the observation deck for an emergency meeting.

Shiro watched everyone walk in, subconsciously doing a headcount. The last person to enter was Hunk and that's when it hit him.

Keith wasn't there.

He had been caught up with Lance, and going over bullshit details of the state of the castle that it didn't occur to him that he hadn't seen him at all.

“Where's Keith?” he asked as his eyes continued to search the room, expecting Keith to just emerge from somewhere.

The tone of the room shifted as everyone turned to face him.

Hunk didn't meet his eyes, nor did Pidge. Even Coran was shifting uncomfortably on his feet and that sent alarm bells blaring his mind.

“Guys? What happened? “ he pressed.

A delicate hand found itself on his shoulder as Allura gave it a tiny squeeze. “Let's talk outside.”

Shiro gave a brief nod and began to follow her out, before turning back around to give Sam the all clear for discussing their options with the team.

The moment they had stepped out of the room Shiro’s facade broke as he truly let his mind wander through all of his thoughts. All of the ‘what if’s”.

Allura led him down a hallway before stopping in front of a door, unlocking it momentarily and ushered him inside.

He spoke before Allura, eye focusing on her as they both sat down.

“Where is he?”

She shook her head. “We don’t know.”

“Do you know what happened?” He prompted.

Allura fidgeted with her fingers for a few seconds before replying. “it happened moments after the recovery mission.”

Shiro held his breath as he waited for her to continue, the anticipation thick between them.

"Keith told us to go after Lance while he searched around the parameter for any signs of trouble or a trap. When we got out of Red, Lotors ship manifests from nowhere"

His blood went cold. Lotor was supposed to be dead. They had all made sure of it, so there was no way in hell he was-

"I don't know what happened or how it happened but he was nowhere to be found and his comms were down. And.." she hesitated for a brief moment. "As much as I hate to admit it he wasn't our priority till now. We were all focused on recovering Lance and stabilizing him. I'm sorry Shiro."

He held in a breath, collecting his thoughts and calming his mind. They had been in the right. Keith was more than capable of protecting himself, but nevertheless, it was still a bit of a worry.

"What are you going to do?" he asked.

Allura ran a hand through her hair, visibly frustrated at the situation and herself and pulled out a chair to sit down.

"Well all of us can't go back with Lance. Obviously it's only going to be Pidge, Lance, and Sam who will go back but even so, I would be lying if I said I wasn't worried about their return."

He gave a grim nod. "Dividing up the team is never good, quite frankly I never approved of the garrisons way."

"Exactly my thoughts," Allura said. "Regardless, we can't dwell on it now. We need to focus on and create a plan. One that everyone on board can agree upon."

"Let's go then." He remarked, standing up from the chair and opening the door.

They needed to think out their options, even if they didn't want to they had to.

Being inside Black for as long as he had been was starting to cause Keith to go a little stir crazy. Sure, in the past he traveled for months on end in Black but that was different. For one thing, back then he wasn't stuck in one place and he had his friends to talk with.

Now he had neither of those, save for the small talk Black would occanously make with him in the back of his consciousness. Other than that, however, it was just plain silence. Even Kosmo was quiet.

Kosmo .

Frantically he glanced around the cockpit, looking for the wolf frantically and equally desperate. Maybe Kosmo could get him out of this mess theoretically. It was sure as hell was worth a shot opposed to just waiting for an escape plan to manifest.

"Kosmo?" he whispered.

The silence continued to substitute the usual buzzing lion.

"Kosmo? here boy!" He called a little louder, and before he even had a chance to react, he felt a force barrel into him before coming visible, his tongue licking his face.

"Hey bud." he chuckled. "I missed you too."

He gave a brief pat on the dogs head before getting up, off the floor and began his search for some parchment and a pen. Surely Black would have some, somewhere. He always stored some away in case of something like this happening.

"Listen boy," He called out to Kosmo as he rummaged through the draws. "I'm in a bit of a tight situation right now. And I can't leave with you either because if I do, who knows what Lotor would do with Black? Or the galaxy for that matter?"

The space pup tilted it's head as Keith rambled on before nuzzling him in the leg.

"It's not forever 'Mo" he sighed, pulling out a scrap piece of paper and pen. "I'll come back in full swing, just you wait." He ruffled the wolfs fur before handing Kosmo the note. “You’ll find them.”

Kosmo gave him a small whine, almost as if he was telling him the same thing, before teleporting away from the lion. Black purred in the back of his mind, subconsciously comforting his inner worries.

If there was one thing that had really stuck with him through his mamora days, it’d be endless lectures he’d received from multiple senior members of the order, all of them telling him the same thing; Don’t act on instinct or emotion alone. Assess the situation around you, notice the surroundings and atmosphere. Then and only then, can you plan your attack.

So he did what he knew best and waited for an opportunity to arise for him to escape his metal confinement.

“Yo Pidge, you in here?”

Hunk called out to her as he began to knock on her bedroom door. When there was no response he considered walking away, but he had a sinking suspicion about something and it wasn’t fading.

Quickly, he checked that no one was nearby the hallway before stepping foot into her quarters. Was she going to be mad at him for stepping into her personal space without her knowing? Most likely. Was it worth the risk of baking her hundreds of apology peanut butter cookies? Most indefinitely.

And technically, in his defense, if she were to question his presence, he could just bullshit and say that he was checking to make sure she hadn’t fallen asleep at her desk again. It was a perfect excuse.

Pidge’s quarters were equally as messy as they had been all those years back. Quickly he glanced around the room before his attention focused on the desk.

He shouldn’t be doing this, he really shouldn’t, but at the same time, he couldn’t bring himself to back out now.

With a few small steps he was standing his front of her desk and within a split second his eyes dropped to the very object he was looking for. Picking up the plastic tube, he turned it over and felt his heart plummet to his stomach.

This was wrong. He shouldn't have overstepped his bounds.

Just as he went to put the test town however, he froze when he heard the bedroom door slide open. There was no way in hell this could be happening.

“Hunk?” Pidge’s steps faltered the minute her eyes landed on the object he was holding.

There was no amount of bullshitting that could get him out of this now. He had made his bed, now he had to lie in it.

#plance #pidgance #flirtyrobot #pance #vld #mads writes

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markoftheasphodel · 6 years ago

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Thoughts on the Jagen Club (FEH-centric)

So I drafted this last year, when I started playing with “Depression Meals” and then “This Could Be Us,” then sat on it for about a year. The rundown on Gharnefs compiled by @airlock inspired me to finish this up and get it out because it ain’t doing me any good sitting in my drafts, is it? This basically just served as my initial round of impressions on how FE Heroes was treating my beloved class of “veteran horsey-type knights” aka Jagens and why the Heroes representation inspired me to write crack ‘fic and less cracky explorations of the gang.

So, here goes...

Jagen: Good Grandpa

Jagen rocks. No, seriously, I love this guy and I love what Heroes did with him visually and character-wise (unit-wise... well, none of these are top-tier units and we will leave it at that). See, one gets the feeling Jagen's had a really good life up to at least late middle age. He came from a small but prosperous kingdom where life was good, he served a worthy king, and basically he's got joie de vivre animating him even in his obvious old age.

(This is one reason I kind of view Jagen as the actual ideal knight in FE. If you're a young knight and you end up like him, good on you. You end up like some of these others, my condolences. Kids like Roderick and Silas should take note.)

He's not that complex-- just a good-hearted old warhorse stomping around to prove he can keep up with the colts. My favorite line is probably the one he uses for a bad level-up, though-- a bracing shot of self-contempt: “I have dishonored my rank and my country.”

Gunther: Bad Grandpa

He looks like Axe Jagen. Past middle age, thinks himself as a parent-figure to his liege Corrin, offers to chat over tea. But unlike Jagen, his kingdom's a mess, his life is shot through with tragedy (the scar on his face is, as usual, representative of more than skin damage), and Gunther lets it all hang out during one of his specials quotes: “I will have my revenge!” That and the line “My armor has known...so much blood” hints that there’s more to this guy than tea parties. So what’s the deal with Gunther? Uh... depends on which route(s) of Fates you played. Heroes doesn’t really pick a “side” as far as Gunther goes so IDK look up Revelation on a wiki I guess. It’s wild.

But the way he presents himself is quite engaging! Would have tea with, etc.

Titania: Team Mom

Confident and chatty Titania is the resident ray of sunshine among veteran horsey-riders. She’s happy to take up menial tasks because they gotta be done, but she’s definitely working for a cause on a level beyond “money talks” or even abstract honor. She’s into training, but for the stated reason that practice and being on top of one’s game keeps one alive, and Titania is very, very invested in everyone staying alive. Training isn’t a quirk so much as it is part of her overall practical and constructive approach to life and duty... though there are a couple of hints that Titania’s beginning to feel her age (she’s like, 30!).

And then we get her Valentine’s alt, Warm Knight Titania, who keeps the practical “money can’t buy happiness” approach to life but is very obviously all wrapped up in the feelings for her Commander that went unspoken during his lifetime... and the prospect of a second chance thanks to all these alternate timelines colliding.

Overall just as Jagen IMO represents a damn good representation of an ideal knight at the end of the road, Titania-- despite or perhaps because she quit being an actual knight-- is a beautiful integration of Duty and Training and Covert Romantic Feelings and Familial Affection without coming down too hard on any one element.

Frederick: Wacky Uncle

As a 3DS-era character there's not much surprising about Frederick for anyone who's played Awakening. Endearingly voiced by Kyle Hebert, Freddy adores his lord Chrom and hates disorder and bear meat. He’s got an alt, summoned from a beach vacation, who is obsessively cleaning up seashells and confessions to “sinning” by which he apparently means taking a break.

I admit to holding a subversive view of Frederick in that his zeal to be a great knight is undermined by all of his tics and quirks and that's part of why he and everyone else ended up dead in the original timeline-- and Heroes doesn't change my mind on that point. His fixation on clearing the garden weeds and rising early to pick up pebbles sound less like doing the menial tasks that somebody’s gotta do and more like make-work that Frederick does because something compels him to. Still, Frederick's rocking so much joie de vivre of his own that it's impossible to not like the guy. The man likes what he does, what can I say?

Still should’ve had “Pick a god and pray” in his arsenal of voiced lines somewhere.

Finn: Hot Mess #1

When Finn-- the only member of this crew whose home games never came out worldwide-- hit FEH I remember one Redditor snarking that they didn’t understand why other fans were so excited about another Frederick-style “lapdog” character. Finn indeed presents as the latest model number of “stoic and dutiful knight” on the surface... and then the trauma, debilitating melancholy, and lack of self-preservation leaks out line by line (and given two of these tell-tale lines are at 1* rarity, it’s meant to be obvious).

His identity is all wrapped up not just in some conception of being a knight but in his lance (a gift from his late lord Quan, of course)-- an object, a tool. He's at least two decades younger than Jagen (and Gunter), but whereas the old guys are determined to prove they've got life in them yet, Finn's past caring if he survives the next battle. Unlike Titania, he’s not fondly reminiscing about the happy little moments raising his adolescent liege Leif or his “daughter”/ ward Nanna. He’s not interested in pulling weeds or doing the laundry-- he’s anxious to know the layout of the castle in case it gets torched... when he’s not obsessively repairing that lance, that is. He’s got zero quotes on the value of training compared to least three indicating he's fine with ending up dead. So yeah, Finn’s basically Antimatter Titania. Meanwhile he’s voiced to sound about twenty years older than he looks, which seems to be deliberate for both NoJ and NoA.

Finn’s more like a cautionary tale to the Rodericks and Silases of the world-- sure, you can be this guy, but who’d want to be? He sure looks pretty in his attack art though...

Seth: Hot Mess #2

Ooh, boy. Seth has what's arguably the greatest storyline scene FEH has afforded a supporting character in all of Book I... possibly in all the mainline Heroes chapters. It evokes his rebuke to Ephraim in Eph's version of Ruled By Madness and it's awesome. But the Seth we get in Heroes is a very... intriguing... look at what's underneath the shiny surface of the Silver Knight. There’s some Training stuff, a sense the man has Opinions but is struggling to stay in his place, a reference to the wound he got from Valter and an admission he’s not fun to be around. And then it gets a bit weird.

“Do not trouble yourself over my well- being. I would play the pawn gladly, would it bring us victory.“

He isn't just unattached to his own survival the way Finn is, Seth is actively advising the Summoner to keep enough distance to make it easier for them to send Seth to die. Repeatedly. Maybe the pain of his half-healed wound is driving him mad, maybe he's afraid unspoken feelings for Eirika will turn him to the dark side, but Seth is kinda messed up. And whereas honestly every iffy thing about Finn was already there in the Jugdral games and their side materials, Seth’s FEH presentation came as a shock to me and I’ve seen it flat-out called “Out of Character” elsewhere. The hint of a playful side from his support chain with Natasha, for instance, is nowhere to be found here. It’s odd and kind of compelling and yet not terribly likable, in my opinion. Frederick needs to chill and Finn needs a hug (and probably some anti-depressants), but Seth... I dunno. He needs friends, maybe? Cormag when.

“I answer destiny's call!” is a damn good line, though.

Bonus Clive and Mathilda (The Lovebirds):

The Legendary Knight and her Idealistic boyfriend are not technically Jagens (that’s Mycen, subverting the archetype almost as soon as it was established), but they’re veteran cavalier/paladin types in their late 20s, likely of an age with Seth and Frederick at least and not many years younger than Titania and Finn. So, how do they measure up personality-wise?

Clive and Mathilda have the advantage that their Heroes incarnations hit at virtually the same time their FE15 selves did, so there's not as much revelatory about them. Same VAs (Grant George is fantastic), consistent designs, consistent personalities. Clive struggles a bit with his dilemmas from FE15 and has a hilarious line where he’s taking care of his own horse because the Order of Heroes apparently has no staff (for the record, he says he enjoys caring for the horse). Mathilda meanwhile has a couple of quotes about her love for Clive and quite a bit about her concerns regarding Clive’s sister Clair. They’re not very extreme personalities-- even Titania, well-rounded as she is, comes across as more extreme than Clive & Mathilda thanks to her open zeal for life. I’m not quite sure how they’d come across to someone who hadn’t played FE15, as the nature of Clive’s doubts in particular are merely hinted at here.

They’re good supporting characters but there’s a reason my Jagen-club stories don’t use them as focal points.

Not available: Mycen, Arran, Oifey, Marcus... after two damn years.

#fire emblem meta #all sorts of emblems #the jagen club #fire emblem ficcing #text post #long post

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braincoins · 6 years ago

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Allura skirted around the whole “I’m an alien princess” thing. She put it as having a power she hadn’t known about, which was true. She did also demonstrate her shifting ability for them, returning to her true form. It was... weird, to do it around people who weren’t Takashi or Coran. She was still a little wary - they work at Galra! - but she trusted Shiro.

More than that, they had to do something. She’d been worrying for all this time about protecting her love, about keeping him safe. She’d thought that just keeping him from crime-fighting would be enough. She’d thought that, so long as he was with her, he was safe.

She looked at the arm, sitting on the coffee table in the living room. I was wrong. If he could be hurt that badly here, where he should have been at his safest, then the only way to protect him was to deal with Zarkon and Dr. King directly. I won’t let you hurt him again. I won’t.

But for now, their new allies were being brought up to speed. Ulaz looked especially interested in quintessence, perhaps a touch unnervingly so. Krolia seemed sympathetic and Keith just looked like he wanted to punch Zarkon straight in the face. Yeah, I think I’m going to like you, she thought as she looked at the young man.

She and Shiro were taking turns explaining, but she had to cover most of what went on in the Galra office break-in, obviously. She tried to keep herself calm, tried to push the panic down and keep it out of her voice. Takashi took her hand in his own and gave it a squeeze; it was the only thing that kept her going.

Keith and Krolia were able to chime in when it came to the rescue, and after that, everyone was caught up, except for...

“Just now, with the... spasms or pain attacks or whatever you want to call them,” Shiro said, “I started to get this feeling... like it was me but it wasn’t me and it was a woman, a pregnant woman, and they were torturing her. She said - I felt - that she didn’t sign up for this, that they didn’t care about the child.”

And then Krolia let out a stream of words bluer than the ocean and ended them with, “...the clinic.”

“You aren’t serious,” Keith said.

“It would make sense,” Ulaz said. Before Allura could ask, he explained, “Galra runs a low-income clinic for poor people. Basic services mostly - checkups, non-opioid prescriptions, basic sex education, birth control and free condoms.”

“I work there twice a week,” Krolia put in. “There’s flyers all over the place about studies they can take part in to earn some extra money. That’s part of why we run it: we pay for plasma donations, sperm and egg donations, and recruit people for studies.”

“But why a pregnant woman?!” Keith yelped.

Ulaz looked to Allura. “You said you can apparently manipulate quintessence? What else can you do with it?”

“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I’m still figuring this out.”

“Can you feel if quintessence is Shiro’s or not?”

She thought about that. “Probably. You want me to test the arm?”

He nodded and she picked it up again. It had twitched and spasmed on its own a few times since being removed, but it had been still for awhile. She closed her eyes and felt for... There. It felt like tea that had been left out to cool, like it wasn’t quite right anymore, but it was there, undeniably. “This isn’t Shiro’s,” she confirmed. She opened her eyes.

“It��s only a guess,” Ulaz mused aloud, “but they probably used this woman’s quintessence to power the arm. They took in volunteers for a study and found a way to take and trap some of her quintessence. If quintessence is ‘attenuated,’ then...”

“They caused her pain specifically to cause Shiro pain,” Allura finished, feeling pale.

“They called her back in for it,” Krolia agreed, sounding hollow. “She probably wasn’t pregnant when they took it initially - that phase of the study would have been last year - but now she is, and they just said they wanted to check on the fetus, they used it as a pretext just to get her in there.”

“You think they’ve figured out he’s Paladin?” Keith asked.

“Don’t know,” Shiro said. “But what point would there be to just making me hurt like hell?”

“If the body endures too much pain, sometimes it will just shut down,” Krolia said. “Like flipping an off switch.”

“Possibly,” Ulaz said. He was still in his contemplative mode. “But try not to think like an evil genius or a superhero.” He looked to Keith. “You have a device. The device malfunctions suddenly - badly. It is under warranty. What would you do with it?”

“Take it in to get it fixed,” Keith said instantly.

Krolia got to the point. “They wanted to lure him in. He’d either go to the ER - where they could find him easily - or come in tomorrow to have us look at it.”

Ulaz nodded. “One way or the other, they could pick him up. But I don’t think they know he’s Paladin.”

“Why not?” Allura asked. “Why else would they want him?”

“If they know anything about Paladin, it’s that he can teleport,” Ulaz pointed out. “He can just get away again.”

“Unless they have Sendak knock me back out,” Shiro replied.

“They’d have to get Sendak to you,” Ulaz countered. “You’d see him coming and you’d be gone.”

“That doesn’t answer the other question,” Keith said. “Why bring Shiro in?”

“The Incident,” Allura replied as it came to her. “The same incident where Dr. King and her assistants lost their bodies. Shiro lost his arm in it.”

“They think there’s something they can get from him?” Krolia asked.

“That sounds more likely. But we shouldn’t discount the Paladin idea entirely,” Ulaz said. “I don’t think they know, but then I also thought Dr. King was dead.” He shrugged. “We do not know what they’re capable of. It’s good to have more theories on the table.”

“Okay but what do we do?” Keith pressed.

Oh yes, I like you a lot, Allura decided. “We need more information.”

“I can volunteer hours at the clinic,” Krolia said. “To kind of keep an eye on things down there. Doctor, you should talk to Thace. Some way that doesn’t look suspicious. He can cover our tracks as well as dig up some dirt.”

“Do you know when he takes lunch?” Ulaz asked. “I can pretend I am finally caving to your romantic pressures.”

She snorted. “’Pretend’, my ass,” she muttered, but she nodded. “Usually at 11. Send him an email no later than 10:30 though; he normally eats at his desk, but if you ask him to join you in the cafeteria, I’m sure he’ll show up.”

“Excellent.”

“Wait, what’s going on?” Allura asked.

Shiro grinned. “Krolia’s been trying to set our good doctor up with this guy in IT for a while now.”

“For forever. They’ve got the hots for each other so bad, it’s ridiculous,” Krolia said. “And Thace is a good guy. I’ve already said I was willing to bring him in on this.”

“Anyone you bring in on this is in danger,” he reminded her.

“Yes, yes,” she said, waving his concerns away, “you went through all of this when you were still trying to pretend you were nothing but a reporter. He’ll want to help.”

“You can’t come in for checkups ever again,” Ulaz said, “obviously. And you’ll have to go back to your old prosthetic.”

“Good thing I kept it... handy.” Shiro grinned while everyone else groaned.

“I’d like to have Coran look at the arm, if you don’t mind?” Allura asked.

“Don’t see why not,” Shiro answered. She watched his face light up. “Do you think you could find the match? Like... using the quintessence in the arm, could you locate the woman it belongs to?”

“Maybe? It’s worth trying,” she agreed. “But I’m worried about her. We need to make sure she’s safe. You don’t think they’re going to just torture her and let her go, do you?”

“She won’t go to the police,” Krolia replied, sounding confident of that. “They’ll pay her well to keep her mouth shut. If she’s going to the low-income clinic, she probably needs the money badly. She’ll go through hell if it means she has money to feed herself and her baby. Trust me.”

“We have to find her then,” Shiro said. “And get her somewhere safe, somewhere they can’t find her and hurt her again.”

“Where they can’t use her against you, either,” Allura agreed. “I’ll do what I can. Coran can help me. We’ll find her.”

“Okay, so we need a way to keep in touch with each other that’s not really obvious,” Keith said. “I hang out with Shiro a lot already, so there’s that.”

“Code words! And codenames!” Krolia declared excitedly.

“No, Mom,” Keith groaned.

“I can text the doc?” Shiro added.

“Allura, do you ever buy Mary Kay?” Krolia asked, sweet as honey.

“No, why?”

She grinned. “I found a way to keep in touch with Allura then! And I suppose we can keep Thace in the loop through Ulaz?”

“I suppose,” she allowed.

“I don’t know any other way to do it,” Ulaz said with a shrug. “I don’t really know him that well.”

“Well, he’s hot, but you knew that,” Krolia said. Allura watched Ulaz blush. “He rides his bike to and from work, he’s a computer nerd, always playing that one game...”

“Which one game?” Shiro asked, sounding interested.

“Uh oh,” Keith said. “Mom, did you not know Shiro’s a huge nerd, too?”

“Oh, I don’t remember what it’s called,” Krolia said. “He’s got one of those super nerdy names in it, too. Noxious Killdemon or something.”

“Wait, wait... do you mean Nix Killdevil?” Shiro asked in hushed tones.

Krolia brightened. “Yeah, that’s it! How’d you know?”

“Ohhhh, I know him,” he said. “I know him real well.”

“Nerds,” Keith said, rolling his eyes. “Can you talk to him in the game?”

“If he knows to expect me?” He glanced to Ulaz. “Tell your boyfriend...”

Ulaz protested immediately, “He’s not my boyfriend!”

Shiro just kept talking. “...to send a Strife.net message to Jiro Sunblade. I’ll be looking for him.”

“Okay, so... anything else?” Allura asked. “Shiro and I will work on tracking down the woman; Krolia will keep an eye on the clinic patients; Ulaz and Thace will get us information.”

“I’ll do what I can to keep the police off your back,” Keith put in.

“What?” Shiro asked. “What’s going on?”

“There’s a lot of grumbling about Starlight and Paladin having just disappeared. You, uh... might need to do some community outreach, as it were. Just clean up the streets a little?”

“We’re on it,” Allura declared.

“We are?” Shiro asked, turning to smile at her.

She nodded and squeezed his hand. “We’ll go out tomorrow night.” She looked back to their allies. “Starlight and Paladin will return.”

{The Adventures of Starlight & Paladin}

#Starlight/Paladin #Shallura #Arc 2 #Socks writes Voltron fanfic #superhero AU #another long one I'm so sorry #I get started on dialogue and I just can't get them to shut up

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noodlemyoodles · 6 years ago

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Voltron Season 8

Ok so I just finished season 8 and I have a lot of thoughts obviously so here we go. A few things before I start,

1. I’m writing this before going and looking at anyone’s reactions so these are only my own opinions

2. Yeah, I’m a klance shipper so though this isn’t just about klance I am biased towards our red and blue boys

3. I have been watching voltron since the very first season and it has meant the world to me in that time, it has introduced me to friends, communities, and helped me figure myself out a lot so before all of this I want to say a major thank you to everyone on the voltron team and everyone in the fandom, regardless of any toxicity or any unexpected endings

With that let’s get into it.

1. The big glaring obvious thing in this season, Allurance. I actually don’t want to turn this into an allurance rant because I think there are a lot of other important things I liked and disliked in the season but this was definitely a biggie so I’m definitely mentioning it. I don’t think it was necessary or really had enough context and build up but it happened. It was more weird to me than anything but I definitely wish it hadn’t happened. That’s honestly all I’m going to say for now because the rest of my grievances against it come up more in context of the actual characters

Speaking of which....

The characters

Let’s start out easy

Pidge

I actually really liked her portrayal in this season, you finally got to see the bond with her family she’s been searching for throughout the show and some of the other key elements from some of her previous arcs without them becoming huge arcs of there own which has been criticized in the past. It also really reminded you that she is still a kid, more so than anyone else and I think that’s really important.

Hunk

I also liked hunks portrayal in this season, I know his character and depth has been lost a lot in previous seasons and replaced with more of a funny guy, scary cat, foodie act but this season I feel like they really managed to tie his love of food and cooking which had been kind of comical in the past to a real goal of helping others and diplomacy which is central to the yellow Paladin and they did it in a really nice way. They gave Hunk a dream and helped him reach it.

Now we get into the dicier portrayal’s

Shiro

Shiro was an interesting character in this season, he was badass as the commander of the Atlas but lost a bit of emotional depth and honestly wasn’t that prominent in this season at all. One thing I thought was really lost was his bond with Keith, it was just such a big jump from Black Paladins and Keith saying he loved him, that he was his brother to almost nothing. That being said I loved the return of Shiro as a paladin at the end and only wish it had happened sooner.

Keith

Ok, so, I am a major Keith stan, like I love him, he’s my absolute fav and I just missed him in this season. I know there has been a lot of Keith in previous seasons but it just felt like so many loose ends were left with this character. Every scene with real possibility to go into his character cut away to quickly or lacked certain dialogue or something. I’m talking his fight with Zethrid or him being left behind in Haggar’s mind, constantly we saw him left behind and separated from the others, things we know to be a huge deal for him yet it never went into it and that made me sad. What about naxela? His mom? His past? His fears? So much just felt abandoned and he felt far from what we know him to be. He makes a good Leander of voltron but that leader role felt pushed to such an extent that you lost moody, competitive, dark Keith, restless, diplomatic disaster Keith. The Klancer in me did love how moody or weird he got around Allura and Lance tho.

Next up, and probably the character I have the most of a problem with in this season,

Lance

I don’t know where Lance was in this season, he was just missing. It was almost as if his only purpose as a character was as Allura’s boyfriend. Lance in this season was mature, solemn, and infatuated but in such a reserved way it was unrecognizable. Lance had been growing as a character and in maturaty but then maturity had come in determination, strength, awesome sharp shooting and broadswords, mastering too lions, holding the team together. This maturity came in the form of nervousness, caution, worrying for Allura, seriousness, it was just so far from everything we’ve come to know him as. Maybe the lack of jokes and cockiness was supposed to be growth but without the jokes they also lost the things the jokes covered up, anxiety and caring fro his team, passion. I almost didn’t realize how subdued Lance was until in one scene it showed him in his lion with a look of determination on his face and I was like he looks more like Lance in this shot than he has in any other and that’s just wrong.

Alright, now for the moment you’ve all been waiting for

Klance

Before I mention Allura I want to put this in because obviously it didn’t happen but yet there were some super klance heavy moments and I just wanted more. Keith and Lance were more like themselves in these scenes together than any other and I just ugghhrheuhj. Even then though we were totally missing the friendly banter, the nicknames, the jokes, or even causal comments to eachother during the fights. THERE WERE NO MULLET INSULTS! I’m just sad, please keep making fan fics and art, I need it to fill a void in my soul.

Allura

Allura has always been my least favorite but there were a lot of things I liked about her story line, dark Allura, ultimate sacrifice Allura, the Allura that misses Lotor (I wish there was more of that because those where some of the most emotional parts of the season) in the end there was just too much of her and I think that messed a lot with her character and the other characters too.

Secondary characters

- I loved the holts

- I liked Slav

- Krolia didn’t speak until episode eleven (what’s up with that!)

- the generals were great and I Stan to space pirate lesbians

- Kosmo is a very good boy

-MFE’s were pretty good

- I missed Shay but I loved her showing up like a bad ass

-I miss my marmora boys :(

The ending

Alright folks this is it, I liked the ending a lot because in the end no matter what happened that made me upset I liked how they all end up.

Pidge gets to finally be a teen again, a badass genius teen with an awesome family, also she never grows her hair back out or changes her name back, she keeps being her and I am so thankful for that.

Hunk gets to bring the world together one plate at a time along side his favorite people! I think there could be no better ending for him.

Shiro gets to do what he’s good at and kick ass with an awesome husband at his side (and do I think the whole shock gay wedding last scene was a bit gimmicky and super over delayed and should’ve been klance? Yes but let Shiro and his husband be happy)

Keith turns down being a leader, returns to the blades, get’s a new jacket, spend time with a dog twice his size. he kind of falls back into being him after the war and they never made Keith canonically hetero so thank god for that.

Lance, I honestly disliked his ending the most because after everything, against all odds proving to everyone he’s actually an amazing pilot and warrior he doesn’t follow through with that dream. And I understand that he’d want to spend as much time as he can with his family and enjoy that but I just hope that after a few years, he decided to travel the galaxy and keep being a bad ass along side his bad ass other half (Keith, if that wasn’t obvious). And in the end even tho I hated allurance I can except that it happened. Lance had a short good relationship with someone he cares about and now he’ll go on to have more relationships with lots of amazing people because he still has a long life, and maybe after enough time has passed he get’s together with the guys stuck by him through it all, the other half of a perfect red blue pair. And yeah I’ve essentially decided that after like 2/3 years Lance leaves the farm to travel and help people and the blades and the coalition, spending time with friends all over the galaxy and getting together with Keith, and after enough time has passed they go back to earth and settle down and start there own family.

So that’s all (I know it was like super long) thanks again to the whole voltron community and if you think I’m going to leave the fandom anytime soon you’re stupid.

That’s all for now,

Uchuumi

#voltron #voltron keith #voltron lance #Voltron legendary defender #klance #allurance #voltron last season #voltron season 8 #voltron team #voltron pidge #synopsis #opinion #klance is canon king #klance isnt dead #klance is life

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an-ambivalent · 6 years ago

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Commencement Of Crisis [Yandere! Lotor] [Reader-Insert]

The concept of time ceased to exist and everything felt the same. For hours, days or was it weeks? At this point, [Name] was not sure. Seemingly, it felt like an eternity since [Name] saw anything else except for the premises of the room she was confide in, or him.

Some of the details about what led to this situation were amiss, while others were slightly hazy. [Name] did not know exactly how he had managed to fool everyone, including herself, but he did and now, she was imprisoned here.

In all her time here -- however long it had been, [Name] had learned of few things from staying here. One of the things she learned really fast was that her prisoner, was a very good manipulator. He knew how to talk and what it took to please someone to do his bidding. He was so incredibly intelligent that if he truly wanted to, he could fool someone into thinking that they deserved to be punished for a crime they had never even heard of.

If she could not stay sane for any longer then at the very least, she needed to be watch herself around him. His charisma and intelligence were terrifying because he was capable of making one behave in whatever way he pleased.

With each tick passing, [Name] sat by herself in silence as she counted to ten slowly, and then repeated. She desperately needed to focus on something, because if she let her thoughts run free, then she would end in mere seconds.

[Name] was improving a lot in keeping her mind focused on the present and nothing else. In fact, presently, she was doing so good that she failed to notice the sound of footsteps which were heading towards her prison room, and entered it.

“You can always survive ten seconds, count again. One, two-”

“Is that how they pass time on Earth? I thought humans were ‘fun’ and knew ‘how to have a good time.’ But this seems rather boring,” He said smoothly, with an arrogant smirk on his face, and he leaned against the wall next to the entrance.

At the interruption, and from the unexpected suddenness of the situation, [Name] inwardly winced. She did not want to look at him, but she did not have a choice.

“Lotor,” [Name] greeted stoically, as she turned towards him, and narrowed her eyes at him. The hostility she held towards him was apparent and radiated off her as obvious as bees buzzing around a beehive.

From the way he behaved, it was unclear whether Lotor despised the hostility [Name] held for him or loved it because his smirk had widened, but his eyes held ignition for indignation.

“You sound so cruel,” Lotor began with a carefree throaty laugh, and he walked towards [Name]. “That’s a bit unfair since I have been nothing but nice to you~” He said smiling, as he leaned down and brushed a lock of her hair behind her ear.

[Name] thought he was telling conspicuous lies because he wanted to provoke her. Treatment that was almost like solitary confinement was in no way ‘being nice’ since it was one of the worst punishments one could be given on Earth.She failed to realize that she was no longer on Earth. She was in space, being kept captive by an exile prince of the most feared species, who could do a lot more worse than just lock one in a room by themselves.

So, in a way, Lotor was being ‘nice’ to her.

[Name] bit her tongue before she would regrettably say something witty to land her in trouble. She opted for looking away from Lotor and gave him no response.

Subsequently, moments of silence passed by, before Lotor sighed exaggeratedly.

“I came here to show you the pictures I took with the other paladins on our trip out. The sights that we saw were absolutely beautiful and the food that we ate was delicious. They missed your liveliness so much that they decided to have twice as much fun to make up for you going missing,” Lotor started with a grin, as he let the small alien like projector float in mid-air and display the selfies and other photos of the Voltron paladins from their trip.

[Name]’s jaw opened in flabbergastation.

Closely, Lotor observed her and as he continued to speak, his grin continued to widen.

“They felt really sorry for doubting me and because I am innocent, this was their treat for me. To ‘get past the bad times and to look forward to the future,’ they said. ‘We should do as [Name] would have wanted. She would have wanted us to continue and be happy even if she wasn’t here.’ These were the exact words that were uttered from the mouth of your so called ‘lover’,” Lotor remarked as he pointed to one of the paladins in the pictures, and smirked when he noticed the disbelief and sorrow which were beginning to pool in [Name]’s eyes.

Her lips quivered and she was obviously close to bursting out in tears. Lotor loved the sight of it. Foolish and fragile humans who valued their emotional attachments way too much, were so easy to exploit--especially [Name]. She was the type of person to value her meaningless friendships over her own life, and would selflessly risk it all for the sake of others.

She needed to be taught about how cruel the universe truly was, and that in one’s life, only their own struggle should matter.

“Are you sure he’s your lover? I remember that when you first arrived here you wouldn’t stop declaring about how much he loved you and how he would stop at nothing to find you. But, here he is. The proof is right in front of your eyes. He’s having fun while his lover is lost and suffering in who knows what conditions. If this was the so called love you raved about, then humans have a very feeble concept of what love is,” Lotor said, and his grin was wide enough so that his canine were visible.

[Name] whimpered and shook her head. “You're lying. He wouldn’t simply forget about me. I’m not going to fall for your mind games--”

She was cut off by Lotor’s loud laughter.

“Forget about you? Oh no, no one could ever forget about you. You’re so memorable. But, you’re not a fighter and that’s why he’s given up on you,” Lotor remarked smirking, and he brushed [Name]’s cheek gently and he stared into her dewed eyes since she was finally, on the verge of crying.

Lotor leaned to next her ear, and his breath fanned her skin which caused shivers to run down her spine.

“Let me show you what true devotion and love really means,” Lotor whispered, and [Name]’s eyes went wide.

next >> coming soon | Masterpost

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sparklebitch · 7 years ago

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Captive Pt.2 (langst)

Part one is here.

Anyway back to my usually morbid shit. The fluff is over guys.

Trigger warnings posted in the tags.

"Well look again!" Keith's panicked voice rang out through their helmets. Shiro shook his head and turned his lion back in the direction of the castle.

"Keith," he said wearily. "He's not there" Keith continued flying over the surface of the planet.

"He has to be here somewhere!" his voice cracked as frantically searched through the window in front of him.

"Keith..." Hunk said softly. "We should turn back. If he was still here we would've found him by now"

"We're not giving up on him" Keith said through clenched teeth. He was griping the controls so hard his knuckles were turning white.

"No one's suggesting that," Hunk said calmly. "I'm just saying that we should go back to the castle and regroup. We can send out alerts to everyone that's sided with us, and then we can keep searching somewhere else. We're going to find him, Keith. We're not giving up on him" Keith let out a quiet sigh and then nudged the lion upward, toward the castle.

"Okay"

~ ~

It wasn't until a few weeks after Lance had disappeared that they finally found a trace of him. An encrypted message arrived on the ships screen.

"What the hell is this?" Shiro asked as he walked into the room. It was on every screen through the ship.

"I'm not sure" Allura said, rapidly tapping at the controls. Nothing was changing. "I can't figure out how to decode it, and there doesn't seem to be any way to get it off the screen" she said, perplexed. Suddenly the door burst open and Pidge, Hunk, and Keith ran in.

"What's going on!?" Pidge asked loudly.

"Is it him?" at Keith's words, the room fell silent. No one knew the answer to that question. It hadn't crossed their minds.

"I- I don't know" Allura slowly backed away from the computer, shaking her head. "I don't know"

Pidge and Hunk went to work right away, trying to decipher the message. It took a while, almost three days, before they did. It was a series of coordinates with a message. "The Blue Paladin waits for you"

"That's ominous af" Pidge said, staring at the message wide-eyed. Keith bolted upright in his chair. He had stayed with Pidge and Hunk the entire time they were decoding the message.

"Let's go get him!" he said urgently. Hunk and Pidge frowned slightly and glanced at each other. Shiro sighed. "What? You finally deciphered the message. Now we have to rescue him!"

"Keith, can I talk to you for a minute" Shiro said, pulling Keith out of the room. "Listen," Keith shrugged out of Shiro's grip.

"No, you listen!" he exclaimed. "Lance has been out there for weeks-! Waiting for us! We finally know where he is, so why are we still sitting here!?"

"We have to think about the lions, this is obvious a ploy to get us to--"

"Screw the lions! And screw Voltron! Who cares about all that!? We're not Voltron without Lance!" Keith screamed. Shiro dropped his head into his hands. He wanted so much to run off and save Lance, but as the pilot of the black lion he had to think about the big picture. If whoever took Lance got possession of one or all of the lions, it could mean the end of the universe.

"Obviously we all want to--"

"But it's not obvious!" Keith interrupted loudly. "It seems like I'm the only one who still cares about Lance! I mean, at least Pidge and Hunk worked on deciphering that message, but where have you been? You've been off worrying about getting people to join Voltron. And you've probably been looking for someone to pilot Blue, haven't you?" Shiro's cheeks burned red. That was all the answer Keith needed. "That's what I thought..."

"Wait Keith," Shiro caught his arm as he turned away. "I haven't given up on Lance. I just... I have to make tough decisions as the leader of Voltron. You have no idea how much I want to just run in there and save Lance, but we have to think of the consequences. They're just waiting for us to show up and bust down the doors to save our friend. They'll either capture us or the lions. We have to think logically about this" Keith laughed humorlessly.

"The leader of Voltron?" he asked. "Good luck getting any of us to follow you when you let our friend suffer in whatever place he's in" with that, he walked back into the room where Pidge and Hunk were.

The three of them rushed to the hangar and tugged on their armor and coming up with a plan.

"It should take about two hours to get to this place if we hurry, which I assume we will" Keith nodded sharply. "What's the plan? Do we have a plan for when we get there?"

"Find Lance, and don't die" Keith said with a shrug. "There's not much else we can plan before we get there"

"Do you have room for one more?" Shiro asked sheepishly, ducking into the room. Keith eyed him. "I'm sorry for what I said before. You're right. We're not Voltron without Lance" The corner of Keith's mouth turned up as he nodded Shiro over to them.

~ ~

"This is very obviously a trap, we all know this, correct?" Pidge said as they walked up to the old rundown building that the coordinates had led them to.

"Yeah" Shiro said. "But it doesn't matter. We have to save our teammate" he glanced at Keith apologetically. Keith nodded. Shiro had come, that was enough for him.

The four of them crept through the front doors, bayards out and ready. It was only a minute before they realized that the entire place was abandoned. There was no one there.

"Okay, now it feels more like a trap" Shiro frowned and continued to very cautiously move forward. The only sound was of their hushed footsteps and the creak of the boards beneath their feet. The four of them soundlessly roamed through the entire building, not seeing a soul. Then they came down to the last room. It was a splintering wooden door, partially hid by a cabinet that was slid in front of it. Hunk and Shiro worked quickly to move the cabinet aside whole Keith and Pidge lifted their weapons in preparation. Shiro swiftly kicked the door in. Shiro was the first one in. He stopped abruptly, blocking the others from entering.

"Shiro, move--" Keith glanced sideways at Shiro's face. It had gone completely pale.

"What are you guys--" Hunk and Pidge pushed past the other two, barely making it two steps before freezing in horror.

Lance's body laid in the middle of the floor. His lifeless body was crushed and twisted into unnatural shapes. There was dried blood on virtually every part of his body.

"Oh, fuck" Pidge said faintly. Hunk doubled over and threw up on the floor. Pidge began hyperventilating and then fled the room. Shiro's hand flew up, covering his mouth in horror. Keith stared at Lance's mangled body numbly.

His blood-filled eyes were aimed at the ceiling, his mouth partially open, like he had died with a scream in his throat. "Wh- Wha--" Keith's brain wasn't comprehending the scene in front of him. His friend was dead. And he had died horrifically, by the looks of it. Lance had suffered. He felt pain because of them. Because they were too late. Based on the state of his corpse he hadn't been dead for long. Maybe a day.

If he had continued to look for Lance the day he disappeared, would he still be alive?

What if this was all his fault?

Was he the reason that Lance died?

#langst #langst prompt #klangst #voltron #vld #lance mcclain #mine #prompt #prompts #tw #trigger warning #death tw #gore tw #blood tw

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angst-in-space · 7 years ago

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this is partly just my hopeful klance heart speaking but i also don’t think it’s that much of a reach so hear me out...i think it’s fairly plausible that lance could be the one to convince keith to join team voltron again. lemme explain my reasoning (i’m gonna ramble a lot but i promise it’s all leading up to my main point):

in the first episode of s4 they made a point of showing that neither shiro nor allura could convince keith to stay, but i think they both approached it at an angle that didn’t work for keith; they both essentially were telling him to stay because it was his duty, his responsibility. and keith, who is scared of that kinda pressure is like, “haha nope i’m out.”

but does he really want to leave the team? if you ask me, it’s a big fat no. you can see that he feels like the team is pushing him away, he feels like they don’t want him there. i think what’s actually going on is that the team is upset about him drifting away (because he’s their friend!!) but he’s misinterpreting that as them wanting him to leave. i think the team similarly is misinterpreting keith’s desire to join the blade; it’s probably very clear to them that they care about him, so they want him to do whatever makes him happy, but they don’t realize that keith doesn’t see that. so really, no one is on the same page.

it’s also quite clear that keith still cares deeply about team voltron and has trouble adjusting to the blade’s rules because of what he’s learned from his friends. he also is quite literally ready to die for team voltron when he finds out they’re in danger. so it’s pretty obvious that he is still very attached to them.

but at the same time he still doesn’t realize his teammates care so much about him as a person and a friend and not just as a part of voltron. he pushes people away because he fears them rejecting him. he fears the rest of the team merely sees him as an asset & not as someone that they genuinely love. (like, remember in s3 when lance came to him for advice & he seemed so happy until lance said “well, you’re the leader”?) he sees himself as expendable, as is demonstrated by his attempt to sacrifice himself like...at least three times i can think of (and it doesn’t help that the blade’s mentality brings out that quality in him).

and here’s the problem...no one has explained to keith that the team cares about him. no one has told him that they would all be heartbroken if anything happened to him. do you really think he would try to sacrifice himself without saying goodbye if he knew that? and mind you, i’m not blaming the team. as i said before, i think it’s obvious to them that they love him so they don’t know they have to say it. it’s just not obvious to keith, who has been rejected and abandoned time and time again.

(ok i’m actually gonna get to the point here.) so......look, someone needs to tell keith this. ideally it would be the team as a whole, but tbh?? i feel like if anyone can convince keith that 1) the team cares about him, and 2) he should come back, it’s lance.

we’ve been shown numerous times that of anyone else on the team, lance is the best at getting through to keith. like...i’m not even speculating here, it’s like objectively true.

they’ve made a point of this ever since s1––for example, when they were on the balmera together and lance was the one to convince keith not to recklessly dive into battle. (side note: in that scene, keith tries to run off & lance literally grabs him and pulls him back .... that might not have been intentionally symbolic, but i’m just saying.)

let’s not forget that at the beginning of s3 when keith was torn up over shiro’s disappearance, everyone else on the team looked at lance to comfort him. seriously, i feel like people overlook this but it was so overtly intentional & meaningful. like...they really took the time to animate everyone on the team looking over at lance one by one, and lance doesn’t even notice...he’s just looking at keith the whole time before he steps up to talk to him––which goes to show that he does it of his own volition and not because he feels pressured to do so. that really speaks volumes.

lance was also the one to convince keith to take on the role of black paladin even when he doubted himself.

and of course lance was also the one to get through to keith when they were on thayserix, and keith was too focused on chasing lotor and was causing the team to fall apart.

i know keith and lance didn’t interact a lot in s4, but that doesn’t negate everything that happened between them in previous seasons (especially considering that s3 & 4 were originally supposed to be one season). we’ve been shown time and time again that lance can get through to keith when no one else can, and you can’t tell me that’s unintentional. and i’m pretty damn certain it will come back into play at some point.

additionally, it’s just in lance’s nature to be very good at getting through to his teammates. he’s very supportive, he’s very attune to others, and he knows how to give a good pep talk. this has been evident especially in recent seasons (the aforementioned “hey man” scene & convincing keith to pilot black, and also lance’s speech to allura at the end of s4). so, lance reaching out to keith and convincing him he is loved & needed by his teammates?? seems perfectly reasonable to me.

it would also make a lot of sense considering keith & lance have somewhat parallel storylines right now, the main thread being that both of them doubt their place on the team. everyone else seems fairly secure in their places, but with keith and lance it’s kind of a different story.

keith obviously does not feel secure about being black paladin. he was ready to straight-up refuse the position before lance convinced him otherwise. even when he does take on the role, he doubts himself a lot (and may i mention, turns to lance for comfort when he messes up big-time on thayserix). he tries to return black to shiro as soon as he comes back. he tells shiro “i’m no good at this.” at the beginning of s4, he’s still desperately trying to get shiro to be black paladin again.

and of course, we all know lance deals with his own insecurities about his place on the team and whether he’s necessary. and it’s not coincidental that he turns to keith with these worries––not only because keith is the leader and his friend, but i suspect because he sort of knows that keith is dealing with the same feelings. he even says he’s thinking about leaving the team...and then lo and behold, keith also suddenly wants to leave the team. interesting!

i just realized this right this second but i’m thinking about how in s3 lance said “not only am i not meant to be the leader, maybe i’m not even meant to be a paladin” and that....perfectly applies to keith’s doubts about himself too, holy shit!!

so yeah these two boys really have a lot in common, so if anyone could relate to what keith is going through right now, it’s definitely lance.

tl;dr - i got super carried away as per usual, but yeah i’m just saying keith needs someone to relate to on a more personal level in order to convince him to rejoin team voltron, and seeing as lance has been the person to get through to him many times, it makes perfect sense that it would be lance.

#vld #vld s4 spoilers #keith #lance #klance #meta #theories #brigidposts #text #holy shit this got so long #but as soon as i started writing this i started thinking of all the ways it's been possibly foreshadowed #i'm kinda screaming on the inside #long post

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coyoteweird · 7 years ago

Text

How Hopper Adopts Mike Wheeler: Part Three

Hey guys! This is 3/? The “How Hopper Adopts Mike Wheeler” Series written with my love @lgbtchee

Warnings: homophobia, mentions of depression and self-harm, assault, hospital visit, blood, use of slurs, extremely mild sexual content

With that out of the way, enjoy! This was our favorite one to write so far!

Also, there will be an announcement at the end so make sure to stick around!

After Hopper found out about Mike hurting himself, he realises that the boy was depressed. After the talk they had about it, Hopper was sure about it.

He was going to try to get Mike to a therapist or something, because he very obviously needed it. Hopper made it a point to check on Mike’s arms every once in awhile. Just making sure that he was okay. Hopper sat at work everyday worrying that Mike would do something and he wouldn’t be there to help.

Mike fought with him the first few time, he didn’t want Hopper to look all the time. But he eventually got the idea that Hopper actually cared and just wanted him to be okay. That Hopper wouldn’t be angry or yell, he just wanted to help. Mike stopped fighting him.

The first back at school after it happened, it was a struggle to get Mike to go. He begged Hopper to let him stay, just wanting to lay in bed all day. But Hopper had to make him get to school. Mike didn’t exactly want to go. He knew that the party would notice, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t afraid that Eleven would tell them.

“El, you-you can’t tell anyone okay? Promise you won’t tell?” Mike said on the way to the school

“You have to promise.” El nodded, looking at him as they walked.

“I promise, Mike.”

Mike breathed a sigh of relief, shoulders sagging in relief. A small smile made its way onto his face and he looked El in the eyes from the side.

“Thanks, El. Love you.” Mike says, and El flashes him a knowing smile.

“Aw! Look, here comes our two favorite love birds!” Lucas yells from his spot by the bike rack, where the party meets everyday before first period.

“Shut up, Lucas!” Mike snaps in response, a grimace on his face once again.

El frowns, upset that the first smile Mike’s had in a while is gone so soon.

“C’mon, leave them alone.” Will says, throwing a sheepish smile at the pair.

“You’re just jealous you’re only romance lasted about five seconds. No offense, Max.” Dustin says with a smirk.

Lucas punches Dustin’s shoulder, but there’s a small blush on his face.

“Trust me, none taken. We’re way better friends than a couple. Weirdest month of my life.” Max says, throwing her arm over Lucas’ shoulders.

Mike and El simply lock eyes, seeming to have a conversation with no words as the party makes there way inside. Sometimes, when El and Mike aren’t paying attention, the party debates if Mike and El are just really good at reading each other, or if they can actually talk to each other in their minds. Jury’s still out on that one.

“Guys, come on! We’re gonna be late if you guys don’t hurry up.”

The party made their way to the freshman locker hallway, rushing to dump half their books into their lockers to lighten their backpacks and go over last night's homework. They were all walking while discussing that day’s quiz in geometry, when suddenly, they all stopped.

Standing at Mike’s locker like nothing was different, was Matt Jackson. The Matthew Freaking Jackson. Matt Jackson was a junior at Hawkins High. He was the captain of their swim team and lead in all the school’s drama productions. All the guys wanted to be his friend and all the girls wanted to be his girlfriend. To say he was popular was an understatement. And there he was, leaning against Mike’s locker, in his letterman jacket, looking like the coolest guy in Hawkins.

“Guys, what the hell? Why did you just stop short?” Mike asks, clearly annoyed.

“Mike, why in the world is Matt Jackson standing at your locker?” Lucas asks in awe.

Mike looks away from his friends to what they were staring at. As soon as he saw Matt, a huge smile broke out on his face. Without so much as a second glance, Mike threw a quick “see you later” to his friends and ran over to his locker.

“Matt!” Mike exclaimed, a huge smile on his face.

“Hey, Mike! What’s up, man. How was your weekend? Go to any crazy bangers?” Matt asks, knowing full well that Mike spent his weekend holed up in Hoppers cabin, listening to mixtapes and writing D&D campaigns.

“Oh yeah, a huge rager. Some sophomore fell through the roof and the cops had to break up a fight between three guys and a hitchhiker. Shoulda been there, Matt!” Mike responds back with a smile.

They did that. They make up these elebort stories of each other’s weekends that they both know aren’t true. It was there thing and Mike wouldn’t trade it for anything.

“You’ll have to invite me next time! You know I’d never get in without you!” Matt responds, his eyes sparkling.

“You know, I really need help with my health project. I can’t figure out this unit at all. Do you think you can help me? I have fifth period free…” Mike says, him and Matt lock eyes.

“I think I can help you with that. Anatomy can be really confusing. Speaking of health, we should head over there now. Don’t want to miss my favorite class of the day.” Matt says, throwing a wink at Mike that thankfully, no one else sees.

Matt’s good like that, he knows how to make people see what he wants them to, and not see what he wants to keep hidden. Mike wishes he could do that.

Behind them, Max, Lucas, Will, and Dustin all stand stunned. El simply opened her locker and placed her books neatly inside.

“Am I the only one seeing this?” Dustin asks.

“Matt Jackson. Is talking to our Mike Wheeler. In the middle of the hallway. Like it’s completely normal.” Lucas responds.

“I am so lost.” Max adds.

“Since when did they even know each other, nevermind talk?” Will asks.

“They’ve been friends since the beginning of the year. Didn’t you know?” El asks, nonchalantly.

“Uh, No! We didn’t know that! Six months! They’ve been friends for six damn months and neither of you decided to say anything?” Lucas responds, exasperated.

“They had to do a project together for Health class in September. Now they do all their projects together. Sometimes he comes to the cabin and they work on homework before Hopper gets home.” El says.

The Party is shocked. Matt Jackson is actually friends with not just a freshman, but one of the biggest losers in the freshman year? Sure, they love Mike, he’s their paladin for christ’s sake. But in regards to the social food chain at Hawkins High, the party was as low as it gets. Sure, El was a bit higher up then them with her being one of the best flyers on the varsity cheerleading squad, but her refusing to leave the party behind meant that even she was low on the totem pole.

“I just can’t believe that neither of you told us! This is such a conspiracy!” Dustin yelled, eliciting groans from all Party members.

“Dude, enough with the damn conspiracies already!” Lucas yelled.

“Just because you refuse to see the truth-”

“Not everything is the damn Kennedy Assassination!” Max added.

“Oh, come on Sheepeople! Open your eyes!” Dustin yelled back, causing everyone to groan again.

“That’s it. I’m going to class before I seriously have a brain aneurysm.” Lucas says, throwing his hands up and walking away.

“Whatever!” Dustin called after Lucas.

Max then turned to El, a curious look on her face.

“Is it just me or were they flirting?” Max asked.

“What?” Dustin asked, completely lost.

“Mike’s your boyfriend isn’t he?” she asked El.

“Yeah! They’re just friends, Max.”

Just then the bell rang, cutting the conversation off.

“See you guys later.” El said, making her way to her class, Max walking with her.

“You and Mike aren’t together anymore, are you?” Max asked, looking over at El.

El bit her lip, looking over and nodding a little.

“How did you know?” she asked, confused.

“I could tell. You two don’t act the same around each other. It’s definitely more platonic than anything. Plus Matt? There’s something between the two of them, that’s obvious.”

“Is it that obvious?” el said.

“Well, to me it is, I don’t think so to the boys. They can be a bit dense sometimes for nerds. But matt? I think there’s something weird going on with that situation.” max said, smiling

“Let’s just hurry and get to class so we aren’t late” El says, not wanting to continue the conversation.

By the time they got to class, Mike and Matt had already been sitting in theirs. Throughout the class, Mike would glance over at Matt and smile. Matt caught him a few times, smiling back as they worked on their project.

Mike had to admit, he really liked matt, they’d had a thing for about a month. Just before Mike came out to his parents. Matt had no idea about him hurting himself, sure the two of them had kissed before, but it never got further-mike was fifteen for fucks sakes. It wasn’t like he even wanted to do anything like that. But Mike couldn’t help but feel that something was wrong. Matt was a junior, Mike only a freshman. Everyone knew his reputation with the girls at Hawkins, he had experience. But he hasn’t even mentioned that kind of thing to Mike.

Mike must’ve spaced out, getting too far in his head, pressing his fingernails into his palms. Just as class was nearing its end, Matt turned to mike, snapping him out of his head.

“Hey, Mike? How about you meet me behind the arcade today after school, if that’s alright?” Matt asks, smiling.

Today was the day that they would rat out mike to the whole school, which would end up being the whole town. He tried not to show his nerves to the younger boy.

Mike, oblivious to what was planned, smiled and nodded

“Yeah! Yeah definitely” He said as the bell rang

“See ya later, Mikey.” Matt said, standing up and leaving the classroom.

Mike stood there with the biggest smile on his face that he’s had in forever, completely oblivious.

--------------------------

Mike thought he was going to go crazy watching the clock. It would feel like ten minutes and went by. But when he would look at the clock, less than three had actually had passed. But, after what felt like an eternity, the bell rang and Mike could finally leave.

Mike sprang out of his seat in his freshman english class and sprinted to his locker, not caring about knocking into other students. He dumped all his books into his backpack, not bothering to organize them. He shut his locker while simultaneously jamming his arm into the sleeve of Hopper’s old jean jacket from when he was in high school. He didn’t realize the rest of the party made there way to their lockers until they called out to him.

“Jesus, Mike, what’s with the rush?” Max asks, exchanging her books.

“What, you got a date?” Lucas asks in a joking tone.

“No, I don’t think so.” El responds calmly.

“Gotta work on a project with Matt! See you guys later!” Mike yelled as he ran past the party.

“Sometimes he can be so weird…” Lucas says, shaking his head.

Dustin and Max nod their heads, but El and Will watch Mike run through the hall. Both thinking similar things, but keeping them to themselves.

Mike didn’t have his bike anymore, being left at his house a month ago. So, he had to walk to the arcade from the high school. It wasn’t that bad a walk, only a mile and a half. The walk to the cabin was even worse, but usually Steve gave everyone a ride during his break. Best part was that it was in his new police cruiser (even though it was technically shared).

Mike busied himself on the walk over by thinking about Matt. He smiled at the memory of the first time they talked.

Mike had been the only freshman in his health class, since it was open to kids from all grades. He hadn’t talk to anybody, and when the teacher told them to find partners, he’d been totally lost. But then, Matt pulled his desk over and offered to be his partner. Matt had been so nice and funny and actually talked to Mike. Matt asked about his classes and his friends and how was his freshman year.

Over the next five months, Mike developed a huge crush on Matt. He didn’t treat Mike like some annoying freshman or little kid. He was kind and helpful. They’d been studying for a test the first time they kissed. Mike remembered being so excited as the kiss was happening. But as soon as Matt pulled away, a lazy smile plastered on his face, Mike cried. When Mike was kicked out, Matt had held him. When Mike got so stressed out he felt like he couldn’t breathe, Matt rubbed his back and told him stupid jokes.

Sure, they’d only been a “thing” for a month now, but Mike was starting to think he might just love Matt. He was thinking maybe he should tell Matt that. Matt was always the one to make the first move, to push them a little farther. Maybe, it should be Mike’s turn. Valentine’s Day was only a week away and he was planning to get him something nice. He couldn’t really afford much, but he had some birthday and christmas money saved up and thought he could get Matt something to show him how much he appreciated him.

When he entered the alley, Mike didn’t see Matt, which was odd. Matt had a car, so he should’ve gotten there first. Mike walked a bit deeper into the alley, before he realized it was too dark back there for him to see, even though they still had a couple hours of daylight left.

“Matt? Matt, are you there?” Mike calls, trying not to be too loud that someone walking down the street could here. It wasn’t a popular block, but they could never be too careful.

“Matt?” Mike called again, and spun around quickly when he heard a metal can knock over.

There at the opening to the alley, was Matt. Next to him, a trash can filled with half-eaten, greasy arcade food was spilled over on its side.

“Geez, Matty, you scared the crap out of me.” Mike said, bending over and clutching his chest in an attempt to even his breathing.

“Sorry, Mikey, I just wanted to surprise you.” Matt said with a sheepish look on his face.

“It’s alright, I’m just glad you’re here.” Mike says with a smile, leaning against the cold brick wall of the Palisades Arcade.

The signature lazy smile that Matt constantly wore around Mike was back. Matt walts over to where Mike was, holding Mike’s cheek in one hand, the other leaning against the wall. Instead of kissing Mike right away, he just looked at him. He stared at Mike’s cold cheeks as if any second, Mike would fade away. Mike’s face screwed up in confusion.

“What’s wrong? Is there something on my face?” Mike asked, but before he could pull away, Mat kissed him softly.

“Nothing’s wrong. Can’t I just look at you?” Matt responded, but his face still held this weird emotion that Mike couldn’t quite decipher.

“Why would you want to?” Mike asks.

“Because, you’re cute.” Matt responds, but his voice is off. Mike writes it off as nerves due to being in public.

“I think I might love you.” Mike says and Matt looks like a fish out of water.

“Mike, I-I…” Matt starts, but instead cuts himself off and simply kisses Mike.

Matt kisses Mike with heat and passion and fury and Mike can just feel all the words that Mike can’t say. The kiss, it’s obvious that Matt is saying “I love you too”, even if he can’t with his words.

They keep kissing each other, the kiss full of heat and passion. Matt kisses Mike hard, and in the back of Mike’s mind, he’s sure that his lips will bruise. Matt’s hand travels from Mike’s cheek to his hair, burying his fingers in Mike’s curls. Matt pulls on his hair, causing Mike to moan. Matt uses this as an opportunity to push his tongue in and lick into Mike’s mouth. Mike’s own arms are wound around Matt’s neck, pulling him impossibly closer. Matt’s other hand travels down Mike’s waist, and Matt pulls them roughly towards him. But Mike doesn’t think much of it, they’d made out before and Mike trusts him. Mike does, however, reacts much differently when Matt shoves his hands under Mike’s jeans.

Mike pulls away, trying to pull Matt’s hang away.

“Matt! What are yo-” Mike starts, but Matt’s lips are on his in a second.

“Sh, baby, you like it right?” Matt asks and Mike flushes a dark red.

Mike didn’t know how to respond. Sure, it felt good, but they’d never done anything like that before and he didn’t really think he was ready for that just yet. He was only fifteen and they’d only been together a short amount of time, and they were in public for god’s sake.

Mike tries to pull away again.

“Matt, I don’t th-” Mike tries to say but Matt silences him with a kiss again, squeezing him harder.

“Sh, baby.” Matt says and kisses Mike again.

Mike starts to panic. He doesn’t really know what to do. He doesn’t know how to tell Matt he’s not ready and to stop. He’s embarrassed and just realizing how alone he is in the darkening alley, and he doesn’t know what to do.

Before Mike could even think of what to do, a bright flash went off to his right. Mike pulls away again and whips his head around. It’s dark and he can’t see well all the way to the from of the alley. Suddenly, Matt drops him like he was scalding hot and backs up. It’s then that Mike hears the laughter. Loud, angry laughter assaults his ears. Not just the laughter of one person, but a whole group of people.

Suddenly ten people step towards them and Mike can feel his heart stop. There in front of him, were six boys from the Boy’s Varsity Swim Team and four of their girlfriends. They were all standing there, laughing viciously at him as if he were an attraction at a roadside freak show.

“It’s-It’s not what it looks like!” Mike exclaims, causing them all to laugh harder, like he’d told the best joke they’d ever heard.

“Sure, Wheeler. Try to deny it!” One of the boys, Mike thinks he’s a senior named Chris, mocks.

“Really, we were-”

“Face it, Freak, we saw everything! You can’t hide that you were getting hard to making out with a guy like some fag!” A blonde girl named Amanda, who used to be friends with Nancy in middle school, spat.

“No! You do-”

“No, you don’t know! You think this was all some freak accident? You think you actually managed to grab the most popular guy in Hawkins? That he’d go homo for you? Are you that stupid?” Another junior named Danny, who was also in his health class, yelled.

Mike could feel the tears welling in his eyes, but he refused to cry. This was his worst nightmare come true. Not only did someone catch them, but the entire thing is blowing up in his face.

“I don’t understand!” Mike pleaded, voice tight from unshed tears.

“Try to get it through you’re sick little brain. We saw how in love you were with Matt. We knew you were a fag. We just had to prove it. So Matt got all close to you and you fell for it like a complete idiot. We dared him to make you show yourself, and now we get to show everyone what a sick freak you are! This picture is getting copied and posted all over the school tomorrow, fag.” Amanda yelled, a sick smile on her features.

“M-Matt?” Mike pleaded, hoping the group was lying.

Mike turned away from the group to look at Matt. The boy he loves; thought he loved. Matt wasn’t looking at Mike, but at the group slowly surrounding Mike. He had a sickening smirk on his face. Mike felt all the air get knocked out of his lungs. His heart shattered on the spot. This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening.

“Little fairy practically threw himself at me!” Matt exclaimed, earning another round of cackles.

“Please, you-you can’t show anyone that picture!” Mike begged frantically.

He can’t even imagine the other kids at school seeing a picture of himself with another boy, lips locking and a hand shoved down his pants. His life will be over. Everyone in Hawkins will know his secret, know who he is. Oh god, his friends! Max, Will, Lucas, El, and Dustin will all know. Even Steve will know! All his teachers, all the adults of Hawkins will know. Everyone will know.

“Oh no, hundreds of copies of this bad boy will make their way to every kid at Hawkins High. We have to warn them that a sick fag is walking around, spreading his AIDs everywhere.” Another boy Mike doesn’t know the name of says.

Mike knows that he’s crying now. He didn’t have the energy to try and stop the tears. He was terrified. He didn’t know what to do or how to fix this. He didn’t know if he could.

“Before we go, fag, I think we should teach you a lesson. Show you what happens to homos in Hawkins.” One of the boys say, but Mike can’t see who.

“What?” Mike scrambles up off the group.

“Guys, you do-“ Matt starts but is cut off by Chris.

“What, he infect you too, Matt?” Chris asks and Matt freezes.

“No way, man, I’m not a fag!” Matt yells

“Prove it! Let’s give him a lesson he’ll never forget.” Chris screams at Matt, who still looks conflicted.

Mike feels a drop of hope light up inside his chest. Maybe Matt felt it to. Maybe all those times they’d been together, they’d just been Matt-and-Mike.

“Please, Matt.” Mike pleads, tears dripping off his chin.

“Shut up!” Matt yells, finally snapping.

Matt stalks over to Mike, and he can feel the last bit of hope in his chest fizzle out as Matt’s fist winds back and harshly meets the same cheek he’d been holding moments ago. To Mike, it seemed like a lifetime ago.

Before Mike could recover, Matt is gripping him by the collar of Hopper’s jacket, and punching him again. This time, Mike can feel his nose crack and blood start to gush down his face.

As if they had been shocked back to life, the six other boys decided to join in on the fun. Mike can’t see where the four girls went, but he think he hears one of them say they can’t stand blood.

Two of the boys disappear with the girls, claiming they were gonna keep watch for any nosey arcade workers or annoying kids. The other four boys and Matt then jump on Mike.

He can’t keep track of who was doing what. He tried to fight back, he did. But his dad had never been in a fight in his life, and never taught him how to even throw a punch. He managed to land a punch or kick here or there but it was no match for five older guys with experience.

Mike was getting punched in the face by one guy, kicked in the stomach by two others, kicked in the head by another guy, and being stomped on by the last. The entire time, the group was screaming insults and slurs at him.

Mike just took it and cried. His body hurt so badly, he could barely keep his eyes open. His vision was spotted by black and he knew he was going to pass out. But he fought to stay awake, knowing that if he fell asleep he might not wake up. The ground beneath was wet and sticky, but he can’t remember how it got that.

Mike’s body is in so much pain, he can’t actually differentiate it all. All his mind can think is “pain pain pain pain” and he can’t tell if his hand is broken or if his face is bleeding. He has no idea what his injuries are like. He cries out in pain with each hit, his body reacts, but he can’t actually figure out what’s happening. It’s like the connection between his mind and his body was severed and now he’s just floating on a cloud of hurt.

After what feels like more than a lifetime, but the actual time Mike can’t figure out, the flurry of hits and kicks and stomps slowed to a stopped. Mike hadn’t noticed he’d closed his eyes. He didn’t try to open them, everything hurt too damn much for him to even think about moving. Mike hears footsteps running away, but it’s a voice that shocks him the most.

“Sorry it had to be this way, Mikey.” Matt says, and Mike just wails harder.

He doesn’t remember much after that point because he finally lost consciousness due to the pain.

---------------------

“Guys he has to be around here somewhere, he can’t have just disappeared.” Will said.

“There’s something up with whatever that was with Matt. I don’t trust it.” He continued.

“You don’t trust anything when it comes to people being nice to us. But you’re right, it seems...weird” Lucas added

“He could be dead in an alley somewhere...” He mumbles, Max smacks his arm.

“Alley! Maybe he’s in the alley behind the arcade? We saw a few people over that way earlier” Dustin said apprehensively.

“What if something bad happened?” El added, looking at the others. Everyone went quiet then, until they got to the alley way.

“I think i see someone down there!” Will said, running down the alley, the others tentatively following him.

“Mike?” will said, his voice borderline hysterical.

He rushed closer to him, almost immediately pulling Mike to him. He was covered in blood, he wasn’t moving and he was so much paler than he normally was. If will didn’t see and feel the very slight rise and fall of his chest he would think he was dead.

“Mike? Mike, oh my god, what happened? Wake up!” Will yelled, El dropping down in front of them as well, both of them holding on to him trying to get him to wake up.

Max, Dustin and Lucas were off to the side, frozen, they didn’t know what the fuck to do.

“I-I’m going to go get Hopper, he’ll know how to help.” El said, standing up and taking off towards the police station.

Will was still trying to get Mike to open his eyes, trying to stop wherever the bleeding was coming from in the process.

“What the fuck could’ve happened?” Dustin said, the rest of them dropping down next to Will, finally snapping out of it.

None of them had any idea what to do, they’d never had to deal with anything this bad before.

“I think-I think I have an idea.” Max said, even she herself was hysterical at this point.

“Mike and Matt, they had a thing, I knew something was going to happen with this.” She said

“Wait, what?” Lucas said

“I thought him and El were together?” Max shook her head.

“Not for awhile, I asked El about it. Mike and Matt have had a thing since before Mike’s parents kicked him out because he’s Bi.”

“Well we knew that part, but holy shit.” Dustin said.

“They’re good at faking it then-”

“Stop! We have something more important than who he’s with going out with!” Will said, and everyone stopped

All of them were crying by this point, trying to get Mike to wake up. Give them any sign he was alive. Just when they were losing hope, Mike started moving, slowly opening his eyes.

“W-What?” Mike mumbled.

He had no idea what was happening, or who was holding him.

“N-No! No! Get away from me! Don’t touch me!” He started screaming.

Will tried to calm him down, holding him tight to his chest, brushing his curly hair back

“Mike, Mike, it’s okay, it’s me, it’s Will! We aren’t gonna hurt you, calm down!” Will said, over and over, trying to calm him down.

Mike finally calmed down, but he was sobbing and clinging onto Will, breathing heavily. Will held him as close as possible. Lucas, Dustin and Max surrounding them, all trying to help in someway.

-----------------------------

El was running as fast as she possibly could, straight into the station. She went right past everyone. Past Flo yelling a “you can’t go back there!”, straight into Hopper’s office. Hopper looked up as soon as the door opened to El screaming. She was covered in blood that wasn’t her own, leading hopper to think that someone was dead.

“El, what the hell happened” He asked, standing up

“I-It’s Mike! He’s hurt, r-real real bad!” She managed out through her crying.

Hopper’s eyes widened.

“Did someone else hurt him? Or-Or did he do it himself?” Hopper asked, adding the last part quietly.

El shook her head, “Someone else. His h-head and he’s just hurt we have to go.” el said, pulling on Hopper’s hand.

“Where are we even going?” Hopper asked, getting in the car and swiftly pulling out of the lot. He was panicking himself

“A-Alley. Behind the arcade.” El said

“Hurry, he’s really really hurt.” She said, trying to get Hopper to go faster.

“I’m going as fast as I can!” He shouted, he didn’t mean to shout, but he was just trying to get to mike as fast as he could

“Is anyone there with him?”

“Lucas, Max, Dustin, and Will stayed there with him.” El said, she still hadn’t managed to stop crying.

When they got there, El was out of the car before it was even stopped. Hopper followed soon after, not even shutting the door.

“Mike!” Hopper said, going down the alley to where they were.

Mike was still clinging to Will, still sobbing into his neck.

“What happened?” Hopper barked, kneeling next to Mike.

“W-We don’t know! We just found him like this back here! We knew something was wrong. We knew it! But we didn’t know it was like this!” Lucas yells, trying to hide the tears falling down his face.

“Where is he bleeding?” Hopper asks, pulling off his uniform jacket and balling it up.

“I-I think it’s from his head! It’s all over the place!” Will yells and Hopper can see the blood staining his front.

“Okay, Dustin and Lucas, go to the station and go right to Steve tell him to call an ambulance to the arcade. Then tell him the send all the officers here!”

“B-But M-“ Dustin starts, both clearly not wanting to leave their friends side.

“Go! I’ve got him!” Hopper yells.

“Mike, kid, talk to me!” Hopper yells to the sobbing but dozing kid.

Mike was exhausted and scared and hurt. All he wants to do is go to sleep. He clutches onto Will, letting his eyes slip shit until a familiar booming voice makes him open them again.

“Mike! Kid, you can’t go to sleep! Talk. To. Me.” Hopper barks, and Mike slowly opens his eyes.

“Hopper?” Mike asks, unsure if he’s dreaming.

“Yeah, it’s me kid. You’re okay now. I got you.” Hopper says, and Mike starts sobbing again.

“I didn’t see them! They weren’t supposed to be there. I didn’t see them!” Mike sobs out, making Hopper furrow his brows.

“Who, Mike? Who didn’t you see?” Hopper asked.

“I didn’t see them! I didn’t see them. I didn’t see them!” Mike was hysterical.

“Who is he talking about?” Hopper asks Will but Will just shakes his head.

“I don’t know! He just keeps saying that he didn’t see them. I don’t know!” Will was getting frantic, Hopper took a deep breath.

These kids may have gone through some heavy shit he would have never even thought of at there age, but they were still kids. He was the only adult in the situation.

“Okay, that’s okay, Will. Take a deep breath.” Hopper said firmly and Will followed suit.

“Mike, it’s okay. We’re gonna find who did this. Now keep your eyes open, okay. Help is coming soon.” Hopper said, quickly glancing to the alley opening in search of officers or paramedics or something.

“I’m so tired, Hop. It hurts.” Mike can barely keep his swollen eyes open.

Hopper could hardly stand the sight of Mike. His injuries were so graphic and looked so out of place on someone so young. Most of his face was swollen and purple and bloody. But he couldn’t think about that. Because if he thought about that, than he’d get angry. An Angry Hopper would be of no use right now. That’s for later.

“No! Mike stay awake! You’re so close.” Hopper begged as Mike’s eyes slipped closed again.

Mike didn't open his eyes, and Hopper felt something ugly swell in his chest. Before he could think of what to do, Will reacted.

“Mike, wake up!” Will screamed before slapping Mike across the face, hard.

It worked and Mike’s eyes opened again.

“Will?”

“I’m right here, Mike. I’m right here.” Will responded, trying to keep himself from getting hysterical.

“Where the hell are they?” Hopper growled.

“Max, you need to go to the opening of the alley so they can find us. Flag them down if you have to.” Hopper orders but Max looks conflicted.

“I-I-“ But Hopper stops her.

“Max, he needs help. This is how you help him. Go!” Hopper orders and this time she sprints to the street.

“Is he gonna die?” El asks quietly, and Hopper and Will’s heads snap to her.

They almost forgot she was standing there. She had fat tears rolling down her face, mixing with the blood. She looked terrified. She’d never seen something like this. Never seen someone she loved hurt so badly.

“No! You hear me? He’s not going to die!” Hopper yelled but El kept crying.

“I taste… I taste metal.” Mike says in a dazed expression.

“There’s blood in your mouth.” El responds.

“I love roses. They’re so pretty. Do you smell them too?” Mike asks, looking out of focus at the dark sky ahead of him.

“What is he talking about? Will asks, confused.

“I don’t know…” Hopper responds, just as confused.

“I feel fuzzy…” Mike says slowly before his eyes roll back into his head.

“Shit!” Hopper yells, just realizing what this was.

Hopper pulls Mike out of Will’s grip and onto his side just as his muscles start to jerk and tense.

“What is happening?” Will screams.

“He’s having a seizure. Back up or you can hurt him!” Hopper yells.

Will, Hopper, and El all held their breath, waiting for the seizure to end. After a few minutes it did, his breathing slowly evened out.

“Is it over…?” Will asked after a few minutes, his voice quiet.

“Yeah, yeah I think so.” Hopper mumbled, moving towards him carefully. It took a few minutes but Mike came to eventually, still struggling to keep his eyes open.

“Hey, hey, Mike you have to keep your eyes open okay?” Hopper said.

“The ambulance will be here soon.”

“I’m sleepy though, Hop” Mike said, his voice heavy, his eyes drooping, almost completely closing

“I know kid, but you have to keep them open, okay?” Mike just hummed in response.

Just then the ambulance pulled up, 4 different EMTs coming down the alleyway, taking Mike to be loaded into the ambulance.

Steve wasn’t far behind, rushing down the alley as well.

“What the hell happened?” he said, obviously out of breath.

“I have no idea, but we’re going to figure it out. But you stay with the kids, I’m going in the ambulance with Mike.”

“But hop-” Steve started, only to be cut off by Hopper.

“No buts, stay here and make sure the kid are okay, take them back to my cabin. I’ll call there in case anything happens.” Hopper said, Steve sighed but nodded

“Yeah, alright, should I tell Nancy?”

Hopper thought about that one for a second before nodding, “Yes. Now get the kids, i’ll go with Mike.”

With that, he was off and in the ambulance, speeding off to the hospital.

“Is Mike going to be okay?” Will asked.

“He was having a seizure! What if he’s not okay?! Steve what do we do?” Will said, hysterical, and steve could tell by looking at the others they thought the same thing.

“Will calm down. Mike’s a tough kid, he’ll be alright. Now do you have any idea who could’ve done this?” Steve asked.

All 5 of the kids looked at each other before nodding, “Matt Jackson, we knew something was up with them, it seemed wrong. That’s the only thing that we can think of its-” Steve cut Dustin off.

“Okay, we’ll deal with him too. For now we’re going to head back to Hopper’s cabin and wait for anything from Hopper alright?”

“But Steve-” Lucas started.

“No, we aren’t going after him right now. If we do it won’t help any, we have to be more worried about Mike right now.” steve said “Now, go get in the car so we can get to the cabin.”

The ride back was silent, none of them saying a word. What would they say? What could they say? They’ve never been in this situation. Mike was their paladin, the dungeon master, their leader. Now he was in an ambulance fighting for his life.

Lucas didn’t know what to do. This was Mike, one of his best friends. The first kid to ever stick up for him when Troy called him “midnight”. The first kid to really be his friend. Mike was always the one he could complain about his annoying sister. He was the one who Lucas could ask any question, no matter how embarrassing or shameful or stupid. What would he do?

Dustin couldn’t even think of what to think. His mind was blank. All he could see was that sick image of Mike out cold in a puddle of his own blood. His face all splotchy with purple and swollen. The fingers of his left hand was twisted at odd angles and bloody. His breathing was short and raspy. When they found Mike, Dustin really thought that he was dead. It was like when Will’s “body” was pulled out of the Quarry, except this time it wasn’t a secret government cover-up. It was real. When Lucas and himself ran to the station to get Steve, it felt like he was running in slow-mo. He’d run up to Steve frantic, screaming about the alley behind the arcade.

Will was just stuck. Mike was one of his best friends, his first friend. From the day Mike asked Will to be his friend, they were so close. Seeing Mike like that, so pale, more so than he usually is, terrified Will. Mike was barely breathing properly, his head busted, his blood pooling underneath him. He had to see Mike have a seizure. The boy he’s had a crush on since he knew what the word meant. He prayed to every god, or whatever higher power, that Mike would be okay. That he would live. He didn’t know what he would do without him.

Max wasn’t quite sure what to think. She’d only known Mike about 2 years. She wasn’t as close to him as Will, Dustin and Lucas were. But hell, she was still terrified, Mike had become a good friend to her. Sure, he had been rude in the beginning, but he’d apologized. Him, and the rest of the party, were there for her with her asshole, abusive brother. It seemed like he was always there for all of them, he kept everyone on track, made sure everyone was okay. But it had her thinking that maybe they didn’t do the same thing.

Blood. So much blood. He was covered in blood. El had seen blood before. She’s seen her own blood before. She’s seen the blood of the bad men. But seeing Mike’s blood, all over him, all over Will, all over the alley floor, all over her. Sure, she’d seen him bleed when he fell off his bike last month after he hit a pothole and scraped his knee. She’d seen him bleed when he fell down the stairs to the basement of his house and his elbow was bleeding. She’d seen him bleed when Troy threw a volleyball at his head in gym class and broke his nose. But that. All that blood. He was shaking. He looked like Will did when he was possessed. Hopper called it a seizure. She’s never seen someone she loved so hurt, not even Mama. It was terrifying.

Steve could feel the tension, like a dark cloud hanging over all of them. He had only seen the kid for a second, but it was still so hard for him. Nevermind the kids. He sighed, he still had to tell Nancy. As soon as they got in the cabin, Steve was on the phone calling Nancy. It rang and rang until it went to voicemail.

“C’mon Nance, answer the fucking phone...” he mumbled, dialing again.

She answered on the second try. Steve sighed with relief.

“Hello, this is Nancy.”

“Thank god!” Steve responded, thanking God that he didn’t have to leave this to an answering machine.

“Steve? What’s up? Shouldn’t you be at work?” Nancy asks, confused.

“I was, but this isn’t really a leisure call.” Steve starts but Nancy cuts him off.

“Is everything okay? Did something happen at work?” Nancy asks, voice flooded with worry and Steve almosts smiles.

“Well, yes. But not to me, Nancy.” Steve says, and there’s a pause.

“Did something happen to Mike? Is he okay?” She asks; Steve can hear the panic in her voice.

“Yeah, we’re not quite sure what happened yet. But, he’s been hurt, Nancy. Something to do with Matt Jackson, you know him?” Steve responds, wishing he could be saying anything else.

“Jesus, how bad is it? Is he there? Where’s Hopper?” She asked all at once, scared to hear the answer.

“Uh, no, he’s not here. He was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. We don’t really know how bad it is yet. Hopper is gonna call when he knows more.” Steve explained, barely able to get the words out.

“What,” Nancy whispered. “Please tell me this is some sick joke. Please tell me he’s okay.” Her voice was heavy, like she was holding back tears.

“I-I’m so sorry, Nance, I wish I knew more. I wish I could do more.” Steve says,

“The kids and I are down at Hopper’s cabin, do you want me to come get you when Hopper calls?”

Nancy didn’t say anything for a minute. Steve would have thought she’d hung up if it wasn’t for her shaky breathing.

“Yes, please. Joyce and Jonathan are still at work.”

“I’ll head over to the Byers’ as soon as Hopper calls.”

“Thanks, Steve.” With that, she hung up.

“Steve, can I call my mom?” Will asks quietly, startling Steve.

The kids have never been this quiet. They were always laughing and bickering and just loud. Now the only sounds they were making were sniffles and sobs. It was extremely unsettling and Steve wished he could make them smile or laugh at at least send them into some nerd lecture about how “Leia totally could have replaced Luke as the new hope for the resistance, Steve! How did my sister even date you!”. Steve winces at the memory. Too soon.

Behind him, Will dials the number for Melville's Store, where his mom was working till closing. It rang twice before his mom answers.

“Melville’s, Joyce speaking, how can I help you?” Joyce responds in a fake cheery voice she only uses in the store.

“M-Mom?” Will responds, his terrified tone breaking Joyce’s heart.

“Will? Baby, is that you?” Joyce says, and she’s reminded so much of two years ago.

“Mom, something bad happened.” Will starts sobbing into the phone, startling Joyce.

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Joyce is trying to stay calm, but ever instinct in her is telling her to run to Will.

“No. No, I’m not hurt. It’s Mike, Mom.” Will responds in between sobs.

“Okay baby, take some deep breaths. Tell me what happened.”

“W-We went looking for Mike. He was working on a project with some older kid, but it was arcade night. He never misses arcade night,”

“We went looking for him. W-We found him behind the arcade. Mom, there was so much blood! He was bleeding and crying and he-he had a seizure! Now he’s in the hospital and I don’t know what to do!” Will is sobbing again, clutching the phone like a lifeline.

Joyce lets out a shocked gasp. She doesn’t understand how this could happen. She didn’t even fully understand what happened.

“Baby, I’m coming to get you right now. Where ar-” Joyce started, already putting on her coat but Will stops her.

“No, it’s okay. We’re with Steve at the cabin. Can-Can you just meet us at the hospital when you can?” Will asks, watching Lucas start to examine the cabin.

“Okay. I can do that. As soon as I can lock up, I’ll be there. You hold in tight, Will.” Joyce says, reluctant to leave him alone.

“Okay, Mom. Love you.”

“Love you too. I’ll see you so soon.” Joyce says and Will hangs up.

“El, what the hell is this?” Lucas says, face darkening with anger, holding up Mike’s partially filled duffle bag.

El looks up, widening her eyes, Will, Dustin and Max turning to see what was happening.

“Isn’t that Mike duffle bag?” Will asked, confused.

“El what the fuck?” Dustin asked.

“I um, well about that, its a long, complicated story.” she said, biting at her lip nervously.

“Mike has been living here! What else could there be! Does Hopper even know?” Lucas said, raising his voice.

“Whoa Lucas, chill out! It’s something Mike or Hopper will have to tell you. It has nothing to do with El.” Steve said

“You know too?! Why are we the only ones who don’t know!” Lucas said, right as the phone started ringing. Steve picked it up immediately.

“Hopper?”

“Yeah, yeah it’s me kid. Is everyone okay over there?” He asked

“Yeah, we’re fine, Lucas is flipping out because he found Mike’s duffle, and he doesn’t know why. He thought El had something to do with it.” Steve explained. Hopper let out a sigh

“Alright, put the kid on the phone.”

Steve handed Lucas the phone, the latter hesitantly holding it up to his ear.

“H-Hello?” he said, nervous.

“Look, kid, El had nothing to do with Mike staying there. He’s been staying about a month.” Lucas cut him off

“A month? What the f-”

“Let me finish. Anyway, he’s been staying there a month. He came out as Bi to his parents and they kicked him out. I’m guessing that’s also why this happened… the kid’s depressed Lucas. That’s probably why he didn’t tell you anything about it. While we’re here I’m going to try if i can get him help or something.” Lucas was at a loss, one of his best friends was kicked out of his house for something so stupid.

“You can go ahead and tell the others, give Steve the phone back so I can tell him what’s going on with Mike.” Hopper said, without saying another word, Lucas handed Steve back the phone.

“What happened Lucas?” will asked frowning

“Mike uh, Mike got kicked out of his house. He’s been staying here for a month. He told his parents he’s bi and they kicked him out. Hopper said that’s probably why this happened too. That he probably didn’t tell us because he’s, uh, Mike’s depressed is what Hopper said.” Lucas said, rushing everything out.

“He said that he’s gonna try and get him to get help.”

“That-that explains a lot” will said, biting his lip

“What do you mean?” Lucas asked

“Well, the way he acts, kinda uninterested a lot of the time? How we haven’t been to Mikes, well I guess it’s not his house anymore, for a month? It makes more sense now” Will says, a look of guilt all over his face.

“Depressed… He’s really… He’s really depressed?” Lucas asks, but his tone tells them he already knows the answer. No one responds.

“I mean, he’s always been sensitive and emotional, but depressed. That’s just so big…” Lucas continues, cracking his knuckles.

“He’s like a... ghost?” El adds, trying to find the right word.

“What do you mean?” Max asks, confused.

“He’s not the same. He’s been a sad for a long time. But, it’s been different. He sleeps a lot. He’ll come home and just sleep till the next day. He won’t even eat most days. He walks around silent, like he’s somewhere else up here.” El taps her temple.

“Jesus, he should have told us.” Dustin says, visibly hurt.

“He doesn’t want to bother us. He hates not being in control, he’s too stubborn. He’s the leader, if he can’t take care of himself, he think he can’t lead us.” Will replies.

“This isn’t the presidency, we’re his friends. He can always come to us!” Dustin barks back.

“That’s enough!” Steve yells, startling the kids.

“Get your things, we’re going to the hospital. We need to get Nancy so hurry your asses up!” Steve orders and the kids spring into action rather than continue this discussion.

Steve let out a long sigh, pinching his nose. He’d just finished talking to Hopper and got most of the story on how Mike was. It was worse than it seemed at the scene. The scene, Jesus, that was a term he used for random crimes that they investigated, not for his friends. But this was a crime. Mike didn’t get beaten to a bloody pulp by the trash cans in the alley. Someone did this to him.

The ride to the Byers’ house was quiet. None of the kids knew what to say. None of them had a way with words, to make the hopeless seem full of hope. That was always Mike’s thing. So they all just sat in silence, stewing in their own thoughts and memories.

When they pulled up to the Byers’ house, Steve just honked and waited for Nancy to come out. He’d go out to get her, but he didn’t think leaving the kids in the running car by themselves was a good idea. Last time they had access and a party member was in trouble, they had a fourteen year old drive at eighty miles per hour.

Nancy ran out from the house and jumped into the passenger seat. Her normally perfectly set curly hair was disheveled on her left side, most likely from pulling it. Her face was red and splotchy around her eyes, but her face was set into a harsh glare. If you didn’t see the red around her eyes, you’d just think she was pissed off. Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap, her knuckles were white.

Sometimes, it was easy for the party to forget that Mike and Nancy were siblings. Yeah, they sure as hell bickered like siblings, but they had completely different personalities. Mike was open with his emotions, if he was angry or sad or hurt, it was written all over him the second he felt it. He was a lot like his mom like that. Nancy, on the other hand, was much more like their father. She was closed off with her emotions, didn’t let anyone see them unless she didn’t have a choice. If something was said that really hurt them, Mike wouldn’t hesitate to cry right then and there. Nancy would wear a nasty glare until she could be alone to cry.

But, they were also the same. They were both stubborn to the point where you thought your head was going to explode. They both would do literally anything for who they loved, even if it meant risking their lives. They won’t stop until they know the truth. They love so fiercely and so genuinely that it was practically blind. They both were lefties. They both tug on their hair when they’re stressed. They both crinkle their noses when they smiled, like really smiled. They both snorted when they laughed. They both picked at their cuticles. They can both wiggle their ears. They both know every word to Blackbird by The Beatles because it was their mom’s favorite. Sometimes it was easy for the party to see that Nancy and Mike were siblings.

No one said anything the entire twenty minute ride to the hospital. Not even a hello to Nancy, nothing. But, as soon as they stepped foot into the ER waiting room and saw Hopper sitting in one of the cheap plastic chairs, they all erupted into conversation and questions.

“He’s going to be okay right? He’s not, he’s not gonna..you know, right?”

“When can we go in and see him?”

“What room is he in?”

“Why the fuck didn't you tell us he was depressed before?”

Hopper sighed, “Alright! that’s enough!” he said, everyone shut up immediately.

“Now, they said we can’t go in just yet. But, you all need to calm the hell down, for his sake.” He continued

“He doesn’t need you all bickering, he just needs you to be there for him. All of you.”

No one knew what to say at first, until El spoke up, “but is he gonna be okay?” She asked softly.

“Yeah, and are they really gonna help him?”

“Yeah, he’s going to be okay, just sore for a while, his hands broken too. They said they would send someone up to talk to him before he leaves,”

“The doctors are going to give him a more in-depth examination and update us with his condition. They said he should be fine though. It could have been way worse.” Hopper says, his voice softer than ever.

No one needed to say what was left out. “It could have been worse was a nicer way” of saying he could have died.

“How long until we can see him?” Nancy asks.

“The doctors will let us know… whenever they finish. Steve we need to talk.” Hopper says, motioning for the two to walk over to the nurse’s station.

The party doesn’t really know what to do, so they sit in the uncomfortable chairs in silence. Dustin’s leg was shaking up and down. Lucas was opening and closing his left fist, Max clutching his right hand tightly. Will lightly scratched his fingernail on the chair’s arm over and over. El twirled one of her wild curls with her index finger. Nancy wrung her hands tightly, her knuckles white and fingers red from the force. They all watched as Hopper and Steve talked in hush voice a few feet away. They were trying to be subtle, but they all knew that the pair was talking about the investigation. The still couldn’t wrap their minds around that. They’ve never faced something like this. This wasn’t a demogorgon or bad men. This was caused by someone they’ve grown up with, someone they’ve known their entire lives.

“Will?” A voice yells from the door and the they all jump.

“Nancy!” Another voice yells.

Joyce and Jonathan Byers come running through the doors to the waiting room. They had their jackets half on and looked as if they ran all the way from Melville’s.

“Mom!” Will yelled jumping up and into the arms of his mom.

“Jonathan.” Nancy breathes out like a sign of relief and practically falls into his arms.

“What happened?” Joyce asks, looking at Hopper who made his way over.

“He was jumped by someone. We’re looking into it.” Hopper answers, giving Joyce a look screaming we’ll talk about it later.

“Family of Michael Wheeler?” A doctor with long blonde hair calls, the entire party jumps.

“Us! We’re with Mike!” Lucas yells, and everyone scrambles over towards the doctor.

The doctor was obviously thrown off guard, but kept a calm face. She looked back to Mike’s chart clutched in her hands and turned towards Hopper.

“Hello, everyone, my name is Dr. Anne Carter. I’m the head doctor for Michael’s case. Chief Hopper, you brought Michael in via ambulance, correct?” The doctor asks and Hopper nods.

“Very good, you brought him just in time. His injuries aren’t too serious. He mainly has a multitude of contusions and abrasions covering his face and body.” The Dr. Carter starts but is cut off.

“What are those?” El asks, lost.

“They’re just big words that mean cuts and bruises, sweetie.” The Dr. Carter smiles before continuing.

“But, he did have some serious injuries. His right hand, four fingers, and wrist were fractured. We had to give him x-rays and set his arm for a cast. We’re going to have to keep a close eye on it; if it doesn’t set properly, we’ll have to set it surgically with pins. But we hope to avoid it.” The doctor continues.

“Surgery?” Joyce asks.

“It’s a possibility, but we’re hoping that a normal cast will do the trick. Broken bones, especially small ones, are tricky. But, we don’t feel that the strain of surgery is necessary right now.” She responds, Joyce nods.

“Now, after examining his chest, we realized that he has three broken ribs on his left side. We wrapped his ribs, so those will heal as long as Michael rests for a while.”

“What about the seizure? What was that? Will it happen again?” Hopper asks.

“Yes, the seizure was more scary than serious. Patients who lose an certain amount of blood can start to seize, but we have started a series of blood transfusions that have stopped the seizures. The seizures didn’t cause any permanent damage to his brain because of their length.” Hopper nods, he doesn’t fully understand but if she says it’s fine than he trusts her.

“Most of the bleeding, as I’m sure you were aware of, came from the head lac, aka the cut on his head. After a CAT scan, we were sure that he did not have a brain bleed, which is very good news. Typically, head trauma like that from a beating of this magnitude can cause a bleed, but Michael is extremely lucky. However, he did suffer a minor skull fracture.” Dr. Carter is cut off again, this time by Nancy.

“A skull fracture? Is he okay? Is there any brain damage?” Nancy shot the questions at Dr. Carter, but she handled them calmly.

“Yes, he did suffer a small, very minor skull fracture on the right side of his two inches behind the temple. No, there was no brain damage on the CAT scan and his flexes and vital are all normal. You’d be surprised how many skull fractures aren’t serious. Again, we’ve wrapped Michael’s head to compress the fractures and stop the bleeding. The best treatment is for Michael to rest. At the most, he’ll have a minor concussion from the force of the blows to his head.” Nancy gulps but stays quiet.

“We also had to give him a few stitches on his right cheek and left temple, as well as set his broken nose. All in all, his injuries are minor compared to what could have been. We had to place him under sedation for the pain and to help with the healing process. It’s called a medically induced coma, but after a few hours we will ween him off of the medicine and replace it with only morphine. He’ll be awake in a few hours,”

“I am very sorry that this has happened. You all seem to care very much about him. He’ll need all your support during his recovery.” The doctor finishes; everyone in the party was holding back tears.

“When can we see him?” Nancy asks, her normally strong voice feble.

“We’re going to let him rest for a few hours. But as soon as we start to pull him out of the coma, you can start to see him. Talking to him will actually help him wake up faster. Normally we have strict visiting hours and number of people allowed in the room at a time, but since the is a police investigation, the rules can be bent.” The doctor says, giving Hopper a look.

“Thank you so much, Dr. Carter.” Joyce responds.

“Only for the investigation of course.” She replies with a wink.

“We also noticed the cuts on his forearms, they look to be self inflicted. Do any of you know about that?”

Everyone froze, until hopper broke the silence “i know about it yes. I’ve been the one that wrapped his arms since it happened” Hopper said, the doctor nodded

“From that we’ve had to call in a psychiatrist. Which hopper already suggested at first. We will probably end up having him on an medication, depending on what the psychiatrist says” The doctor said.

When the doctor leaves, everyone sits back in their seats. All emotionally drained from talking with the doctor. Mike was hurt. Really hurt. They’d seen it with their own eyes, but to hear it listed off like that made it seem so much worse. Sure, the doctor said they looked worse than they were, but that didn’t make them feel any better. Once again, they sat in utter silence, waiting for the doctor to come back and let them see Mike, none of them brought up the part about the self-inflicted cuts on his arms, saving that conversation for later.

“Mike hates hospitals.” Nancy breaks the silence, startling everyone.

“Why?” El asks, and Nancy chuckles.

“Has Mike ever told you how he broke his leg when he was seven?” Nancy asks, a small smile gracing her face.

“He told us he fell walking down the stairs.” Dustin answers, making Nancy laugh more.

“Oh no, he didn’t just fall down the stairs, he jumped down the stairs.” Nancy said in between giggles. The others started laughing too.

“Why did he jump?” El asks, still confused.

“Okay, so when Mike was seven, he was really into Superman. Like, he had posters and a cape and an action figure and everything. All he talked about was Superman. Well, me being the nine year old sister that I was, decided it would be funny to convince him that mom and dad found him in a corn field in a spaceship. I thought it would be so funny if he thought he was actually Superman.” Nancy was laughing hard now at the memory.

“How did he believe that!” Lucas exclaims.

“It took two weeks of convincing and Ted’s absent parenting to get him to believe me. Then, one day, he decides to test if he has powers. Since Superman can fly, he decided it would be a great idea to spring down the entire hallway and jump from the top step to ‘force his powers to awaken’ as he put it. Instead, he fell down the stairs and broke his leg.” Everyone was laughing at that point.

“What a nerd!” Max says in between giggles.

“Mom was so mad when she found out why. She made me stay home with him after school every day to keep him company since he couldn’t leave the house. We spent most of the time pushing her buttons.” Nancy take a deep breath, her stomach hurt from laughing.

“Oh, I have a good one!” Dustin exclaims.

“We did this science experiment in 5th grade for the science fair, we made one of those big paper mache volcanoes. Mike had no idea how much baking soda to put into it to make it so it didn’t get everywhere.” Dustin started

“I told him to add way too much when it came to our turn to show the judges. It got everywhere, all over us and the judges and pretty much everyone in a 7 foot radius. Mike was so scared at first, he thought we would get in trouble so he just kept apologizing over and over. In the end we actually ended up with 1st place. His face was the best part though, he was so shocked he thought it was actually not explode,” Dustin said “it was hilarious.”

“I remember that one! When he came home and had it all over him Mom freaked, she thought it was blood!” Nancy said, laughing so hard she starts to snort.

“Okay, but I definitely have the best one!” Max says, already laughing.

“I doubt that!” Lucas says, teasing her.

“Okay, so once Mike, El, and I stopped having this weird frenemy thing and started to be friends, El got into the skateboarding. She thought it was so cool. So I was teaching her and she took to it so quickly. She was a natural! Well, Mike wanted to try it to so they could do it together!” Max says before she has to stop because she’s laughing too hard.

“Oh my god, I remember that! Best week of my life!” Lucas yells, howling with laughter.

“No he didn’t! Mike is the most uncoordinated and unathletic kid in Hawkins!” Nancy yells, wiping tears from her eyes.

“I know! He did so badly. He couldn’t get a single foot on the board without falling. But he was so damn stubborn and get insisting that ‘any day now, I’ll get it’ and finally, after a week, he was able to roll down the sidewalk. Just as he feels like he knows what he’s doing, the board shoots out from under him and pulls a full Charlie Brown!”

“Oh my god, he was so pissed for like, a week after that!” Will says, smiling at the memory.

“Do you remember when he tried to plan Will’s surprise fifteenth birthday party?” Lucas says and everyone bursts into laughter.

“Oh my god, he thought it was the best idea ever, until he accidentally got 5000 cupcakes! How did he even do that!” Dustin laughed

“But you have to admit! At least he tried, I thought it was cute.” will said

“Oh hush, you think everything he does is cute!” Max said, winking at him.

“And when he tried to do the magic tricks? He tried doing card tricks and got it wrong every time!”

Everyone laughed, even as the doctor told them they could finally see him, right up until they got to the door and saw mike.

His entire face was black and blue, he had stitches everywhere, his head wrapped in one bandage, they could see the bandages wrapped around his ribs as well. He was hooked up to so many machines, if he wasn’t so beat up, they would have thought he was just sleeping peacefully.

It was Hopper who sat next to the bed first, all of them tried to be quiet, so they didn’t disturb him. But it seemed Mike felt the presence in the room, his eyes slowly started to open.

“Hey kid… don’t move around too much alright? Three of your ribs are broken.” Hopper started, not sure what to say. Mike just mumbled out a response.

After a few minutes he was finally fully awake, no one said anything until.

“How do you feel?” Nancy asked quietly, Mike just shrugged a little.

“I don’t really know.” Before anyone can say anything else, there’s a knock on the door.

The doctor opened the door, another doctor looking person standing with her as well.

“I hate to say this but everyone needs to leave the room so Michael can talk to the psychiatrist.” the doctor said, mike immediately got nervous, not exactly wanting to be alone.

But everyone left the room anyways, standing just outside the room.

“What do you think they’re gonna say?” Jonathan said, asking Hopper

“They’re probably going to put him on an medication. I told them what happened with the cuts on his arms and with how Mike is right now, I don’t think he’s going to lie about anything.” He said

“What exactly did happen?” nancy asked, probably not wanting to know the answer.

“I didn't find out until a few weeks after he started staying with me. He's been doing it for awhile, a few weeks before Ted kicked him out.”

“I should have been there for him…” Nancy says, sniffling but no tears falling.

“Nance…” Steve starts but she cuts him off.

“No, ever since this all started… mom and dad haven’t been the same. Two years of shit from them. Ted’s completely checked out, unless something threatens the Wheeler family ‘image’ of the perfect suburban red blooded republican family. Mom’s got her face too deep in a bottle of chardonnay and buried in cheesy romance novels to see that everything’s all fucked up. And I did the same damn thing. I hated it there so I checked out and left him to find for himself. I never should of left.” Nancy says, wringing her hands so tightly, Will was scared she’d break a fingernail.

“Your parents shit marriage and crappy home aren’t your fault. You’re still a kid too, Nancy. That doesn’t fall on you.” Hopper says, firmly.

“Mike’s always had problems… Even before all this started. Something happened when we first met El. I still can’t go back to the Quarry.” Dustin replies solemnly.

El wipes tears away, remembering exactly what Dustin was talking about.

“The Quarry?” Max asks, Lucas gives her a sharp nod.

“He said he just panicked, that he didn't want me to get hurt. But his face…” Dustin says, looking off in the distance, in the memory.

“What happened?” Steve asks, gripping Dustin’s shoulder.

“Mike and I went looking for El. She and Lucas got into a fight and she ran off after Mike yelled at her. Instead of finding El, Troy and James found us. We tried to run, but I’m an even worse runner than Mike. Troy had a knife, said he’s cut out all my teeth.” Everyone except Lucas and El gasp.

“That little shit.” Steve says and Dustin continues.

“He said the only way he’d leave my teeth alone was if… was if Mike jumped. From the top of the Quarry.” Dustin gulped.

“But if you jump, it’ll-” Jonathan starts but Dustin cuts him off.

“I know, Mike knew that. But he just walked to the edge. He said he just panicked. But he looked so calm. He didn’t even hesitate, he stood at the edge for a second before he just dropped. I thought he died!” Dustin exclaimed, frantic.

“Dustin, he’s okay.” Will says but Dustin keeps going.

“He looked back at me before he jumped! I could see it on his face! He was just fine with dying! He looked at me like it was goodbye! I thought he died until I went to the edge and saw that El caught him just in time!” Dustin says, fat tears rolling down his cheeks.

“Dustin!” Steve yells, grabbing both of Dustin’s shoulders.

Dustin’s eyes snap from a far-off look to Steve. Steve almost feels relieved but knows it’s not done yet.

“Mike lived okay? He was okay then, he’s okay now, and he’s getting help. That won’t happen again. Okay, bud.” Steve says calmly, and Dustin nods before grabbing Steve by the waist and burying his face in Steve’s jacket.

“Okay, bud. It’s okay.” Steve rubs his back, and the group falls into silence.

The psychiatrist stays in Mike’s room for almost an hour. As the minutes stretched on, the group got more and more restless. But they kept quiet, knowing that Mike needed this. It didn’t make it any easier. They just wanted to see him, see that he was okay. Just when they felt like they were going to explode, the door opened and the psychiatrist stepped out. Hopper and Nancy were up in seconds. The rest kept their distance to respect Mike’s privacy. He’d come to them with whatever happens.

“How’d it go?” Hopper asks, not entirely sure how to go about this.

“Well, he was hesitant to talk at first. That’s always expected for a first time assessment. After a few minutes of prodding, he seemed to open up a bit. That’s a good sign. It means he’s open to really getting help.” The psychiatrist answered.

“What’s the next step? What’s the plan?” Nancy asks.

“Well, while talking to him, I’ve determined he fits all the criteria in the DSM-III for Major Depressive Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder.” The psychiatrist answers slowly.

To Nancy and Hopper, it feels like a punch in the gut.

“What does that mean? What can we do?” Hopper asks

“Well with the depression part, it’s a little obvious in the way of how he acts and from what he told me.” The psychiatrist said

“What exactly did he tell you?” Nancy asked

“I’m afraid i can’t disclose that unless anything he say threatens the life of himself or anyone else. With the anxiety it’s likely to get worse after this, with the way his injuries are, he probably will be very jumpy and might have flashbacks at times. It's called PTSD, you just have to be careful not to trigger it. Knowing how to do that is something you’ll have to learn.” The psychiatrist says

“The most you can do is just be there for him and help him through it. Check on his arms and any other places he could harm himself occasionally.”

“Will he be on any medication? And does he have to go to therapy?” Hopper asked

“It would be a smart decision, this is a prescription for 50 milligrams of prozac, the dosage should help with both the anxiety and depression.” The psychiatrist said, handing Hopper the piece of paper.

“Therapy would also do him well, for now I’d just say once every two weeks, so two weeks from now would be the next time.”

“That’s all? Isn’t there more we can do?” Nancy asks, clearly not satisfied with that answer.

“I’m afraid mental health care isn’t as simple as physical health. When you break a bone, you set it and after 6 weeks of wearing a cast, you’re as good as new. When you have depression, you can take medication and go to therapy. It can work great. It can work one week and not work the next. It can take a while to figure out the right method of treatment for every case. No two cases are the same so no two kinds of treatment are the same. The medication and the therapy are long term treatments, they don’t work right away but in time, the result will be positive. For now, all you can do is support him.” The psychiatrists replies.

Hopper and Nancy sighed; Nancy wishes depression was like the flu. You can treat the flu and in a few days, it’s all gone. You can’t take some tylenol and cure depression.

“Now, he was asking for Hop? He’s a little hesitant to take medication and wants to talk it over with Hop? I’m not too sure who that is. He’s on some heavy painkillers so not everything he says will make sense. I really urge you to try and get him started on medication as soon as possible, even better if he can start tomorrow morning. It takes two weeks for the medication to build up in your system and start to work.”

“I’m Hop, give me a minute to talk to him?” Hopper asks and walks into the room.

Mike was quiet, sitting fairly still in bed, his head turned towards the window. He jumped when Hopper opened the door, but once he saw who it was, he faced the window again.

“I just talked to the psychiatrist.” Hopper says but Mike still doesn’t look up.

“I know, he told me he’d talk to you. He wants me to take meds.” Mike says quietly.

“He told me that. He also told me that you were nervous about them.” Hopper responds.

“Will they really help? I mean, I know he said they will, but I don’t want to end up like some zombie…” Mike says.

“Mike, these meds, they will help you. They won’t make you a zombie. It’s your choice, but I think it’s worth a shot. And listen, if they don’t make you feel good or you want to stop, then we’ll talk to the doctors and stop. You just have to talk to me.” Hopper says, sitting in the seat next to Mike’s bed.

“Okay... Okay, if you promise.”

“Promise what, kid?” Hopper asks, knowing full well the weight of the word promise in this group.

“Promise that if I want to stop, I can. Promise that I won’t be a zombie. Just promise.” Mike asks, looking at Hopper.

“Hey, kid, I promise.” Hopper replies firmly and Mike seems satisfied with that answer.

Mike turns back to the window, staring at the passing clouds. Hopper guesses the conversation is over.

“I’m gonna go talk to the psychiatrist. Nancy really wants to talk to you, it alright that I send her in?” Hopper asks and Mike only replies with a quiet sure.

After Hopper leaves, the room is quiet again. The only thing he can hear is the steady beeping of the heart monitor and the dripping of the I.V. Mike was always a fan of quiet. He didn’t think people appreciated it enough. Dustin and Lucas and Max, they were always filling the silences. They’d play music or talk or bicker just to fill silences, not because they actually cared if Luke Skywalker or Superman would win in a fight. Mike doesn’t jump when Nancy opens the door, just continues to stare out the window.

“Mike, I’m so sorry.” Nancy says, sitting in the plastic seat.

Mike didn’t expect that. A lecture on his stupidity, maybe even a screaming match. He wasn’t expecting her to sound so sad. His head turned to look at her.

“Why are you sorry? Nancy, you didn’t do anything.” Mike responded, confused.

“You’re right! I didn’t do anything. I’m your big sister. I’m supposed to protect you. And what did I do? I ran away. I left you in that house while I went to play house with my boyfriend.” Nancy says, a sob escaping her lips and startling Mike.

Mike has never really seen Nancy cry. Sure, when they were smaller and she scraped her knee and once when she was 12 and the boy she liked called her a toad. But he’s never really seen her cry. It was heart wrenching.

“Nancy, don’t punish yourself for leaving. I’m not there anymore. It’s okay. I’m glad you’re out and happy, Nancy, you deserve it. Besides, it’s not like you left the state. You’re still in Hawkins.” Mike says with a small smile.

“I know. But, I haven’t been there for you. You’ve gone through so much and I wasn’t there. That’s on me. I’m so sorry, Mike. I’m so, so sorry.” Nancy says, unable to hold back from crying.

Mike feels tears forming in his own eyes, but he doesn’t want to cry. He is tired of crying.

“Nancy…” Mike says, holding out his good hand for her to grab.

She clutches onto it tightly, as if he would slip away at any second. It kind of hurts his hand, but he squeezes back just as hard. God, he missed his sister.

“I missed you.” Mike says quietly.

“I missed you too. When you get out, we’ll go get some ice cream, maybe see a movie? You can even pick which one. Just the two of us.” Nancy says, rubbing the back of his hand with her thumb.

“That sounds like fun, Nancy.” Mike smiles.

He really loves his sister.

They sit in silence for a few minutes. Just absorbing each other’s presence and the heavy calm that fills the air. But, Nancy isn’t the only one who wants to see Mike. It isn’t fair for her to hog him.

“Hey, I’m gonna step out for a while. Let your friends get to see you. But I’ll be just outside.” Nancy says, gripping his hand a little harder like she doesn’t want to go.

Mike just nodded, making himself let go of her hand.

“Okay,” He said quietly. “I love you Nance.” He added, just before she walked out the door.

“I love you too Mike,” she said, smiling back at him before walking out.

Dustin came right in after Nancy left, sitting in the chair next to the bed. Neither of them spoke for a few minutes, until Dustin spoke up.

“You should’ve told us Mike.” He said, finally looking up.

“You don’t have to just, hide everything like that… I should’ve known something was going on when-”

“When what?” Mike asked, suddenly panicked, trying to figure out if he had slipped up at some point.

“When we were looking for El, and we were at the Quarry and Troy and James found us.” Dustin started.

“When I just jumped off the cliff?” Mike said softly.

“Yeah, I thought you really died Mike, before El got you back up.” Dustin said.

“You just, you looked like you didnt care if you died.” Dustin said, looking at him.

“Dustin I told you I just-”

“You didn’t just panic Mike. When you looked back at me right before you did it, you looked like you didn’t value your life in the slightest. It was like you were saying goodbye.” Dustin said quietly.

“Is that how long this has been going on? Since then? With you being depressed and stuff?”

Mike didn’t know how to answer that.

“I-I mean, a while before that. Even before Will disappeared. I wasn’t ever, fully okay, ya know? I only felt okay really around you guys, other than that, i was really numb and things like that by myself.” Mike said.

“Well, you need to come to us okay? You can’t just keep that shit in, or something-something worse might happen.” He said, looking up at Mike.

“Promise you’ll tell us things? When you feel like that? Please?” Mike nodded slowly.

“I promise Dustin.” Mike said quietly.

The two of them talked a little more before Dustin left the room, Mike knew he had to keep his promise, he never broke a promise. Next to walk in the room was Lucas.

Lucas sat down quietly in the chair next to Mike. Neither boy said anything, neither really knew what to say. Lucas sat staring at his hands. Mike stared at the sky out the window. Lucas was the one to break the silence with by clearing his throat.

“I’ll kill him. If you want me to.” Lucas says with so much strength you wouldn’t have guessed he was so silent moments before.

“Lucas, you just can’t go and kill him.” Mike responds, confused.

“Yes, I can! You know that Hopper, El, and your sister would help me! I could use the wrist rocket or Steve’s bat!” Lucas responds, Mike furrows his brows.

“Lucas…”

“No, Mike, look at what he did! He thinks this is okay! What, cause your different? How is that fair? Eye for an eye. He tries to kill you so I’ll kill him.” Lucas yells, startling Mike.

“Lucas, please.” Mike pleads, obviously upset for making his friend so upset.

“No, he’s not getting away with this! He didn’t see you like that, covered in your blood while trying to rack my brain on what to do. You can’t do that. You can’t disappear on us because no one’s as good as you at leading a bunch of weirdos.” Lucas says, and Mike laughs a little.

“I don’t plan on going anywhere.” Mike ignores how that settles in his stomach weird.

“I was really scared, Mike. You’re one of my best friends. I’d go crazy without you. How else will I handle Dustin? Will’s too nice to tell us to shut up, Max eggs us on, and El finds is amusing. The party needs you.” Lucas confesses, and once it’s all out there, he deflates.

“I’m sorry, Lucas. But I;m okay. I’ll always be around to break you and Dustin up.” Mike responds and Lucas chickles while wiping at his eyes.

If Mike notices the tears falling out of Lucas’ eyes, well he doesn’t say anything. After a few minutes of enjoying each other’s company and promises to visit later, Lucas leaves the room.

Mike took a moment to just rub his eyes a little, just before Max came in the room. It felt a little weird, her seeing him that way. Even after they’d been friends for a couple years now. It felt surreal to Mike, everything that happened started just 3 years ago, but it felt like yesterday. Neither of the kids talked for a second, and maybe Mike kinda hated that everyone seemed to be walking on eggshells around him.

“Are you okay?” Max asked finally, looking up at Mike.

“I mean, considering all this, are you okay?” Mike thought about it for a second.

“Uh, yeah, yeah I think so...” He said, biting at his lip.

“You know, you and Will would be a cute couple.” She said, smiling.

“What? I-uh I have no idea what you mean!” He said, trying to hide that he was blushing.

“Oh please, Mike, since I’ve met you I can tell you have feelings for him. No normal person who’s just friends with someone would do all you have for him. He’ll you’ve risked your life.” She said.

“Yeah well, that kinda comes with going in and out of just, not wanting to be anymore...” Mike said, Max looked up at him.

“Can you elaborate on that a little? Also, I want to tell you, the thing you’ve been doing? Hurting yourself? It doesn’t help anything, yeah maybe it makes you feel anything but numb for a few seconds but in the long run, it just leaves scars and bad memories. Trust me”

Mike frowned and looked at her, “What do you mean?” He asked, going into his normal mode, worried about everyone else first.

“Like I said, just trust me on this, okay?” Mike just nodded slowly.

“Uh, yeah, okay.”

“If you need anything Mike, and you don’t want to talk to any of them, you can talk to me, alright?” Max says, Mike just nods.

“You know, the way everyone’s telling me that, it’s like, I tried to kill myself or something, ya know? Like I didn’t get my ass kicked with three broken ribs, a broken hand, a fucking fractured skull. It just feels weird.” Mike said, laughing a little.

“I think it mostly started that way when Lucas found your duffle at Hopper’s, that’s how it got here I think...” Max said.

Mike nodded, “Yeah, probably...”

The two fell into a silence after that. Max got up to leave, with one last reminder that she was here if he needed anything, she left the room.

The next person to talk in the room surprised him. A few minutes after Max left, Joyce walked in. Mike tried to sit up straighter.

“Hi, Mike, how are you feeling, honey?” Joyce asks, gingerly sitting in the chair next to him.

“I’m doing alright, Ms. Byers. Thank you.” Mike answers politely.

“Mike, we've talked about this. We’ve been through too much to go through formalities, just call me Joyce.” She replies with a smile, Mike blushes.

“Oh sorry, uh, Joyce.”

“Are you sure you’re feeling alright? I know they gave you medicine, but are you sure it’s enough? Are you comfortable? I can ask for more pillows or blankets if you need.” She fretted, chewing on her fingernail to keep from fiddling with the bedding.

It made Mike’s heart both swell and ache. Joyce had been so kind to him these past few years. She had gone way beyond the role of just his friend's mom and treated him like her own. But her fretting was exactly like his mom had done anytime he had been sick or injured. As much as he pushed it away, he missed his mom.

“No, I’m alright, the medicine they said the medicine they have me should kick in soon. I don’t really feel the pain, just a little fuzzy.” Mike said, not meaning to go into detail.

“That’s good, I’m glad you’re feeling better. Have you talked to Hopper… about what happened?” Joyce asks slowly.

“A little… I didn’t really get a lot of time to…” Mike said, attempting to shift in bed but wincing in pain.

“I know it’s hard, to talk about what someone’s done to you. But, after awhile, it’s helpful.” Joyce says, sparking Mike’s interest.

“Yeah?” Mike asks, the unasked “how do you know?” understood.

“I’m sure Will’s talked about it before, but my husband, Lonnie, he wasn’t a good guy. But I had my own issues with anxiety, so I stayed with him anyway. It took a lot to kick him out and talk to Hopper.” Joyce replies, smoothing out Mike’s blanket.

“How’d you do it?”

“Will and Jonathan, I did it for them. They didn’t deserve that. But, I did it for myself, too. I started seeing a therapist and with the help of meds, it got better. You learn you deserve good things.” Joyce says, a small smile on her face.

“Is it… is it scary?” Mike asks hesitantly.

“At first, yeah it is. You talk about things you don’t want to think about and it’s a big change. But, eventually the things get easier to talk to and you get used to the change. You have everyone to support you, that helps.” Joyce’s smile is warm and genuine, entirely different than the forced smiles his Mom usually wears.

“Thanks, Joyce. For everything.” Mike says with a small smile of his own.

“Oh nonsense, at this point you’re practically my own.” Joyce says, pushing a tuft of hair over the bandage, away from his forehead.

Mike smiled a little at that, after Joyce walked out, Jonathan walked in next, surprising Mike again.

“Hey, are you doing okay?” Jonathan asked, sitting in the same seat everyone else had, Mike just nodded.

“Yeah, I can’t really feel anything so yeah I’m alright.” He said, Jonathan nodded.

“You know, Will really cares about you, he was terrified that you might die. We all care about you really. Me and mom left work to come make sure you were okay.”

Mike frowned at that, “You didn’t need to do that, it’s not really a big deal.” he said quietly.

“It is a big deal. You could’ve easily died, if the ambulance didn’t come when it did. You had a seizure, they had to give you blood transfusions and all that. It is a big deal.” Jonathan said, looking at him.

“Quit saying that things that happen aren’t a big deal Mike. Everyone here, all of us, care about you. My mom practically thinks of you as her son at this point, and I think of you as my little brother. All of us care, and we’re going to be here for you, alright?”

Mike bit his lip and nodded slowly, he’d never seen Jonathan act caring towards him, but he knew he meant it. So Mike nodded.

“Okay.” He said quietly.

Soon after, Jonathan left the room, El coming in right at that moment.

“El.” Mike breathes out, already fighting back tears.

El rushes into the seat and grips Mike’s hand for dear life. Tears falling down her chin.

“Mike.” El responds, her tone making Mike’s heartbreak.

“Mouthbreather. Where is he?” El asks, a look in her eyes Mike’s only seen a handful of times.

“El, no, it’s not worth exposing yourself.” Mike pleads but that only makes El’s jaw set.

“No. He is a bad man, he’s your bad man. It’s not fair he can hurt you and I can’t protect you.” El responds, tear betraying her angry glare.

“El, I’m okay. You don’t need to do that.”

“I’m supposed to protect you! You’re my forever person! What are they called? In the books and on the tv?” El asks.

“Soulmate?”

“Yes! Soulmate! You’re my soulmate! So I have to protect you.” El states, wiping away at tears.

“But El, you’re supposed to be soulmates with someone you’re in a relationship with…”

“Why? We love each other. You know me better than anyone. We have the connection! That’s what makes a soulmate, right?” El reasons.

“Okay, then we’re soulmates. But you can’t always protect me, El. It’s not your fault.”

“I’m the only one who knew. I should have said something. I failed.” El says, all the fire leaving her eyes.

“El, that wasn’t your job. I should have protected myself. That’s on me, El. I shouldn’t have forced you in that position, put that pressure on you. I’m sorry.” Mike says, he goes to chew on his lip but winces when he feels the cuts and decides against it.

“Promise you’ll be careful. Promise you’ll protect yourself.”

Mike hesitates.

“I promise, El.” El smiles, her eyes finally dry.

“Love you, Mike.” El says, softly.

“Love you too, El.” Mike says, smiling back.

El left the room a little while after that, Will coming into the room after. He carefully walked over to the bed, sitting up on the bed in front of Mike.

“Hey Mikey” He said softly.

“Are you okay?” Mike nodded slowly, biting down on his lip.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m okay.”

“You don’t need to lie to me Mike, just tell me the truth?” Will said, reaching out to grab his hand.

Mike took a deep breath, “I’m just, I’m scared. I thought… I thought I could trust him, but i g-guess not.” Mike said softly.

“I only dated him to try and get over someone else I like. He was sweet and kind and just… nice. I even grew to really like him. But, still, it didn’t work...” Mike said softly, looking up at Will.

Will felt his heart speed up, “Who’s the other person?” Will asked, squeezing Mike’s hand.

Mike hesitated, looking away from Will’s eyes. His gut was tight with a knot. He hadn’t really meant to say that. But he did, and he can’t take it back. Sure, Will is too nice and would drop it if he asked. But, Mike thought he was going to die. He’d kept too many things unsaid to die in an Alley like that.

Mike took a deep breath before looking right into Will’s eyes “It’s... It’s you.” He said

“You’re the other person i like”

Will didn’t say anything for awhile, just stared at Mike, and Mike started to panic.

“Fuck I’m sorry. I know I probably made this awkward and you probably dont like me and you probably don’t want to-” Mike was cut off by Will pressing his lips to his.

Will’s hands came up to cup Mike’s face. When he Will pulled away, a few seconds later, he leaned his forehead against Mike’s.

“Is that answer enough for you?” Will said softly, Mike nodded.

“That’s good.” Will said, leaning forward to kiss Mike’s nose.

“But we should take this slow okay? You shouldn’t just, jump right into a relationship right after this happens. Okay?” Will said, he loved the hell out of Mike, but he didn’t want to make anything worse for him.

Mike frowned a little but he nodded in response.

“Hey, don’t do that. It won’t be good to jump into the relationship right after something this traumatic happens. Okay? It doesn’t mean we’ll forget this happened. We’re just not jumping into something so soon. I promise.” Will said.

Mike nodded, as much as he wanted to be with Will. He agreed that it wouldn’t be good for him to jump into the relationship yet.

Two weeks later, Mike could finally leave the Hospital. Neither Will nor Hopper left the hospital once. Joyce tried to get Will to leave the first night, but Will didn’t want Mike to be alone, Joyce understood what he was saying, and let him stay there.

Mike was mostly healed by the time he could leave, he still had the cast and had to keep his ribs wrapped, but overall was looking and feeling a million times better. Will and Mike were waiting in Mike’s room while Hopper talked to the doctor’s and got his prescription from the pharmacy.

The pair hadn’t talked about what they were, and they hadn’t kissed since. But, you could feel it, a shift in their relationship. Mike thought it would scare him, but it felt natural. Like it had been happening all along and he’s only noticing now.

Mike was so grateful for Will, when he wasn’t in school, he was with Mike. Will had stayed home from school a few day, but the school was asking questions that Joyce couldn’t answer, so he went back. But he stayed the night, every night. Mike got anxious staying there at night. Hopper and El came after work and practice, but Will had a way of Mike feeling completely at ease, even when they were younger.

“What are you thinking about?” Will asks softly.

They were sitting next to each other on the edge of the hospital bed. They were just almost touching shoulders. Their hands were just brushing fingers. Mike thought about grabbing Will’s hand, but choose to answer him instead.

“You.” Mike answers, looking at Will.

A light pink paints Will’s cheekbones and Will smiles. Mike smiles back, and Will intertwines their hands.

“You’re so cheesy sometimes.” Will teases but the smile never leaves his face.

Mike feels heat rise on his cheeks, which only makes Will smile more.

“Is that such a bad thing?” Mike asks, looking away from Will’s face.

Will laughs quietly, lifting his hand to cup Mike’s right cheek softly. His thumb rubs Mike’s cheekbones slowly. Mike melts, leaning his face into Will’s hand.

“No, not at all. I love it.” Will says, and leans in.

The kiss is soft, and slow, and lasts less than a minute. But Mike thinks it’s the best kiss he’s ever had.

Mike realises then, that this is what love is. It’s not all heavy make out session, its not having to hide, it’s definitely not getting hurt. It was this. It was soft kisses, holding hands, sitting so close to each other your shoulder brush just slightly.

Mike then grabbed Will’s other hand, the one that wasn’t cupping his face. Their foreheads leaned against the other. Mike realised he hasn’t smiled this much. Will was so happy that Mike was smiling, he loved it, Mike looked younger somehow when he did. He looked softer, especially when he slept.

Neither of them needed to talk about what they were now, they already knew. Sure, people would question it, but they way they acted around each other now, the way Will was so careful with Mike, anyone could tell they were more than friends at this moment.

Then Mike thought about how he had to go back to school tomorrow, he would have to see Matt, he would have to be surrounded by so many people. Everyone knew now. Will noticed how Mike got anxious at that moment.

“What’s wrong, Mikey?” Will said softly, squeezing his hand.

“I’m anxious, about tomorrow...” Mike said softly.

“I have to go back to school tomorrow. Will, everyone knows. What’s gonna happen? What if-” Will cut mike off, kissing his nose softly.

“Hey, calm down. I’ll be there, the whole time okay? I’ll be there holding your hand the whole time. Nothing will happen. I’ll protect you. I swear to it. I promise.” will said.

Mike nodded, letting himself calm down. “Thank you” he said softly, and god did will want to hug him in that moment, but he couldn’t, he didn’t want to hurt Mike’s ribs.

“We’re gonna get through this Mike. You know I’ve always got your back.” Will says, caressing Mike’s cheek again.

Will think he could do that for the rest of his life and be perfectly content.

“Okay, I can handle that.” Mike smiles again, and Will can’t help but smile back.

Just then, the door opens suddenly. Mike jumps back and away from Will, facing paling. Hopper looks in, catches the look on Mike’s face, and a look of guilt flashes across his face. He forgot to knock on the door, again. But Mike just swallowed amd took a deep breath.

“Ready guys?” Hopper asks and Mike nods eagerly.

He was so over being in the hospital. He mostly slept the first week, but it got real boring real fast, except for one hour walking the floor when Will got there, he spent all day im bed.

The walk to the car was quiet. Hopper was on Mike’s right side, a hand grasping his shoulder. Will was on Mike’s left, fingers intertwined with his good hand. The pair sat in the back of the cruiser. The radio was playing some song that Mike didn’t know, but Will was nodding along so it couldn’t be bad. Mike yawned, his eyes already growing heavy. After two weeks of almost never leaving bed, the walk through the hospital and to the car was exhausting.

Will felt Mike leaning his head onto his shoulder and smiled. Purple Rain was playing on the radio so Will nodded along. He looked down at Mike and felt his heart ache. Mike was already asleep, His long eyelashes brushed the top of his cheekbones, his mouth was open slightly, a small amount of drool pooled on his shoulder. He looked absolutely beautiful to Will.

Will didn’t really know what tomorrow would be like. Hell, he didn’t really know what the future would be like. But if they were together, Will didn’t think it could be so bad.

There we go! I know that was an emotional rollar coaster, me and @lgbtchee literally cried writing this!

Time for the big announcement! The next few updates will not really be angsty! We will be giving Mike a break for once and have lots of fluffy byeler and that growing relationship for the next parts!

We really hope you enjoyed reading this!

Taglist: @theliteraltrash @shqipshqip @kanewsies @birdy-boy-uris @lvsrs @thescaryflower @neiboltupsidedown @lo5ver @missingstanleyuris @kaspbrakseggo @gnope

(if it has a line, the url wasn;t working, sorry!)

#how hopper adopted mike wheeler series #mike wheeler #jim hopper #eleven #Jane ives #Jane hopper #will byers #max mayfield #madmax #Lucas Sinclair #dustin henderson #Joyce Byers #steve harrington #jonathan byers #Nancy Wheeler #byeler #byler #stranger things #st

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