#no one ever remembers poor Proxima

[aethelflaedladyofmercia]

Ok there’s tons of cute art and fic and metas our there connecting Crowley’s past as a star maker to the star he wanted to run away to and the romance of Alpha Centauri being two stars that orbit each other and it’s all really sweet, but I can’t help thinking...

Y’all know Alpha Centauri is a triple star system right?

Alpha Centauri A (Rigil Kentaurus), Alpha Centauri B (Toliman) and Alpha Centauri C (Proxima Centauri).

A and B form the super romantic pairing.

C is a red dwarf, orbits much farther out (closer to Earth), isn’t visible to the naked eye, and is the one that actually has confirmed planets in the habitable zone.

Like, I honestly don’t know what romantic thing you can do with this information but i honestly love the sort of angsty/unrequited romance feel of it which doesn’t seem like a good fit for this ship (more of an OT3 thing? Or some kind of identity thing idk?) but I’m just saying if anyone pulls it off idk tag me and I’ll name a cat after you in the future.

[officialtrashbin]

Even thought I have mixed feelings about the Black Order being the adopted children of Thanos in the MCU. I kind of like the possibilities this opens...

It stands to reason that all of them where taken around the same age than Gamora was taken...but where they taken all in a short amount of time, maybe all within a years or so or did he take them all at different times...And if so, in what kind of order did he take them...who came first and who last?

And, most importandly, how did Proxima and Corvus fall in love with eachother? Like, maybe they were taken shortly after another and as a coping mechanism they stayed close and over the years and the more siblings they got, the closer they grew, till it turned into love. Maybe after something bad happened or something...Also, how did Thanos react when two of his kids, suddenly where in love...I could see this going either way...

But, and this is an personal favourite of mine...The idea that Thanos only adopts little girls, so its Proxima, the first one he took, Gamora, the second and most beloved, the third one would be either Black Swan or Supergiant, and last Nebula...Gamora would obiously stay his favourite, Proxima would be his second favourite being the warrior that she is and being the first child he ever took, than its BS or SG and last would be Nebula. The guys only come in, as Thanos generals, when the girls all already are grown ups. Proxima and Corvus fall for eachother after some time...Maybe Corvus falls for her first and it takes her some time before she can admind to having feelings...(for him)....Maybe Thanos knows, maybe he doesnt...Either way he wouldnt take kindly to anyone taking away one of his beloved daughters, their love or their attention....But he needs all of them so he lets it slide, for the time being...And than GotG happens and suddenly they are short two daughters, and thats when it gets really ugly...

Idk, but it really opens up some ideas for so many interessting concepts....I read a oneshot where its implied that both Nebula and Gamora saw Proxima as something of a maternal figure and I also really liked that idea...expecialy for Nebula, poor girl deserves some love...

The big thing to remember is that the children of Thanos were his followers and not his adopted children. For one reason or another they believed in his cause and devoted themselves to his ideology. Realistically they were probably already adults when they became a group, or just old enough to be independent.

Timeline-wise the only tidbits of confirmed information we have is that The Ebony Maw was first, given he was already a grown ass adult by the time Gamora’s planet was culled, and we can also assume that because the other children weren’t around in her flashback, they were either chilling in space awaiting Thanos’ return, or they came after (this seems more likely). If we go off Nebula’s “I hated you the least” line in GotG, then that probably means they were all raised around each other (though the age difference between them might vary) and Thanos most likely did only adopt daughters, though that depends on whether you want to interpret Nebula’s line as “We only had sisters” or “Im only mentioning just our sisters.”

From what I understand, Thanos favored Gamora but would often pit them against each other and would favor the winner. This seemed more obvious in the comics though. Corvus Glaive was his favorite in the comics as far as underlings go but look where that got them lmao

If the comics are anything to go off of, Thanos was like “yeah aight have fun” about Corvus and Proxima getting married so it was probably the same thing for the movie. He doesn’t seem too attached to anyone but Gamora to begin with, which is either intentional or a direct result of the movies glossing over his relationships with everyone else, so I imagine if we’re sticking to canon he probably gave them his blessing and went back to bed. If the comics are to be considered however, he seemed enthusiastic about their marriage, though they also weren’t his children and just his army generals so I imagine it was a bit more like watching two coworkers you’ve known forever tie the knot.

I have mixed feelings on whether Proxima would have been a maternal figure, since Gamora and Nebula definitely act in GotG like they weren’t raised with suitable parents, but mainly it implies she wasn’t raised with them and was already an adult, which doesn’t correspond to Maw being the only one present in Gamora’s flashback.

Supergiant is an interesting case because her timeline indicates she was last to be recruited, or close to last if you count black swan, and was raised from childhood similar to Gamora but from an even younger age. And imo almost seems to have been Corvus and Proxima’s child before the writers changed their minds or something? Just because of how she’s presented? I’m sus about this one.

Black Swan was never Thanos’ child, she just worked with him and later Proxima quite closely to fuck with Thor, and at this point I doubt she’s ever going to be in the movies because she’s quite firmly part of the Black Order in the current comics, unless they decide to adapt whatever the fuck was going on with Doom and the Black Swans and those old gods at the edge of space.

[shipaholic]

Omens Universe, Chapter 14, Part 1

Warnings! Asphyxiation, child endangerment.

Link to next part at the end. (From the beginning)

(last part)

(chrono)

---

Chapter 14

Oh.

Shit.

Zadkiel grabbed Adam. His hands engulfed the boy’s shoulders. Had he always been this tiny? Focus, focus -

“Adam, reality will listen to you. You are in control. Anything that you believe will come true.” Desperation tried to worm into his voice. He held it at bay. “Listen to me. You can hear me talking, right? That means there’s air. You can breathe, you just have to believe there’s air. Come on now.”

Spacedog was hollering. Adam clutched the dog to his chest, painfully tight. His arms were as pale as death.

Zadkiel made a strangled noise. He pulled Adam into a bear hug and dived.

Proxima Centauri B rushed up to meet him. He was breaking most laws of physics right now. He punched through the atmosphere, and didn’t bother to slow his descent as they streaked to the ground, miles of hard earth and marbled mud coming in fast -

Zadkiel burned through the alien sky, flaming like a meteor, and pasted himself on the rocky landscape.

His one safety protocol was to make sure Adam landed on top of him.

With a small explosion, Crowley and Aziraphale were flung apart like rag dolls.

Spacedog wriggled free and tried to lick Adam’s face. The space helmet got in the way. Spacedog pushed it into Adam’s cheek and frantically licked the glass. He whined, a piteous, unbroken sound.

The sprawled bodies did not move.

Then Adam’s face gave a twitch.

“Stop that, you silly Spacedog.”

Spacedog yapped his head off and ran around in circles.

Adam flexed his fingers, experimentally. They still held the Book.

Crowley and Aziraphale realised they had escaped being discorporated. To their dismay, this meant they had to move. They managed to roll over and flop towards Adam and each other. Sitting up could wait.

“You alright, Adam?” Crowley said without moving his lips.

Adam got the gist, even with none of the consonants. “Yeah. Thanks. It’s cool that you did that without being in a rocket.”

“Hell yeah,” Crowley managed.

“I’m so sorry, my dear boy,” Aziraphale said to Adam, just slightly more coherently than Crowley. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“He’s fine, children bounce,” Crowley said, his eyes closed.

Aziraphale tutted. “You’re incorrigible,” he said. Or tried to. It proved a little too difficult in his current state.

Crowley cracked an eye open. “Did you say I’m ineffable?”

“In. Corri. Gible.”

“Good. We don’t use that kind of language in front of the kid.”

Adam sat up, wincing. Spacedog leapt into his arms and tried once more to mash the fishbowl helmet into his face.

~*~

When they’d all recovered a bit, they took in their surroundings.

Crowley had been to the Grand Canyon. Proxima Centauri B was like that, but stranger. Its winding rock tunnels and quarries were an odd, half-melted brown. The sun was low in the sky, either setting or rising, no-one was sure. It was a shockingly pinkish-red, in a night sky tinged a deeper, richer purple than any twilight on Earth.

Crowley tried to appreciate it. It was home, now. And presumably, forever.

Perhaps he just wasn’t in the mood. They were all a bit on-edge. Aziraphale kept sneaking glances at Adam to check he was still breathing. The damn green dog seemed perfectly at home, but that just put Crowley in a worse mood.

He skulked at the back of the group, hands in his pockets. Aziraphale fell back and stood beside him.

“You changed back,” he said, nodding to Crowley’s outfit.

“Eh, yeah. White was never my colour.”

“I suspect it isn’t mine, either,” Aziraphale said, softly.

Crowley’s gaze slipped over the brown and blue and gold of him.

“No. You’ve a bit more character than that,” he said.

Aziraphale smiled up at him from under his lashes. There was a flicker of intent to that look. Heat crawled up Crowley’s neck.

Adam giggled nearby as Spacedog swam laps around his head. They turned to watch him.

“Do you think he’s still the Antichrist, out here?” Aziraphale said.

“Is that a, strand the King of Spain in outer space, is he still a King, kind of thing?”

“I suppose that’s an interesting question. Although I meant it more in a, does he still have his powers out here, kind of thing.”

Crowley’s eyes lingered on the frolicking dog. He sighed. “I think he probably does.”

Aziraphale looked grim. “Poor old Earth,” he murmured.

Crowley shook his head. “If we’d just got on the portal and not let him yammer on about the dog…”

“I didn’t think,” Aziraphale said, sadly.

“Me neither. And I’ve got no excuse. Beelzebub briefed us on that hellhound for an entire Thursday afternoon.”

They watched the boy and dog in silence.

“I suppose it is the Earth that will still - ahm. Be affected by his powers?”

“How do you mean?”

“There’s no chance he’s brought Armageddon with him?”

They stared at each other. They peered at the sky. No sudden rains of blood or other omens appeared.

“Nah, reckon it’s probably still going to happen on Earth.”

Aziraphale looked miserable.

Crowley put a hand on his arm. “Hey. All we could do was get out.”

“I know.”

“Don’t torture yourself.”

Aziraphale mustered a weak smile.

They watched Adam rooting around for a stick to throw for Spacedog. He found a sturdy one right at his feet that was the right size and hurled it across the marsh. Spacedog took off after it, yipping. It was unclear how, in the helmet, he was going to bring it back.

“There isn’t any wood on this planet,” Aziraphale said, carefully.

Crowley nodded glumly. “Guess that confirms it. Reality still bends to his will.” He thought for a moment. “Come to think of it, I doubt this planet has much of an atmosphere.”

“Mmm, yes. That should have been our first clue.”[1]

“I think a regular child would have frozen to death while he was floating in space.” And/or exploded. Crowley felt he’d seen something like that in a film once.

“...This wasn’t a very child-friendly plan, was it?”

“You’re just noticing this now? We kidnapped an eleven-year-old from his parents.”

“You talked me into it.”

“Of course I did. Demon.”

“A temptation worthy of a commendation,” Aziraphale said, with only a trace of a scolding.

Crowley turned and slipped his arms around Aziraphale’s neck.

“They’ll have to put it in a cannon and fire it into space. Hope it reaches me in a few thousand years.”

Aziraphale chuckled. It was a wonderfully warm, wry sound. It always sounded like he knew he was getting away with something. Crowley watched the tips of his hair stain pink in the alien sun.

Suddenly, Aziraphale’s face fell.

“Crowley, we don’t have to teach him maths, do we?”

~*~

Half an hour later, the euphoria wore off.

Adam trudged across the squishy, marshy ground, investigating his new territory. Spacedog trotted at his heels. Aziraphale and Crowley stood and kept an eye on him from a distance. It was nice, like an amiable family walk across a muddy field in late September.

And then, like an amiable family walk across a muddy field in late September, the mood soured. The mud that had been fun to tromp through sunk through the soles of the walking shoes that were supposed to be waterproof. The rustic landscape grew dreary. That cow had a mean look in its eye.

In other words, it dawned on Adam that he hadn’t eaten for hours, the alien planet all looked the same for miles around, there was a shocking dearth of cinemas, sweet shops or comic books in this area of the galaxy, he would never see his family again, and he had very recently almost died. Also, he forgot to bring snacks.

A suspicion had brewed at the back of his mind for a few hours now. It bubbled away, growing, gaining certainty. Now, grubby, cold and hungry, it was time to ask.

“Are you two actually aliens?”

Aziraphale and Crowley were having a murmured grown-up conversation behind him. They stopped. Their faces went blank in the way grown-up’s faces went when they were thinking how to lie to him.

“Perhaps it’s time to drop the pretence,” Aziraphale whispered.

Crowley frowned. “It’s not like the truth is any less weird.”

“I dislike lying, on general principle.”

“I’m in favour of lying, on general principle. Let’s compromise and say nothing.”

“You know full well that would be a lie of omission. Don’t think I’m going to start falling for tricks like that after six thousand years -”

“Would you both just stop talking?” Adam said loudly.

They shut up.

“You’re always talking rubbish and I don’t understand it.”

Adam frowned. He held the Book under one arm. For a moment, he heard its pages rustle.

“My whole life is just everyone talking rubbish at me, all the time. Nothing anyone’s ever told me made any sense. Like the stuff about how I was going to destroy the world. And then you two, with the alien stuff. I just believed it because everything was so weird, it’s not like aliens could be any weirder. The only person I’ve ever met who seemed like they properly knew what was going on was that woman back in the car. She’s the one who left me this.” He hefted the Book in his arms. “I’ve got more proper answers from this than I’ve got from anyone, ever.”

“What is that?”

Aziraphale took a step towards him.

Adam’s arms tightened around the Book. Spacedog leapt in front of him and growled.

Aziraphale blinked and halted. Crowley held out an arm.

A chill wind picked up.

“That woman was the only person who seemed like she wanted to help me and tell me what was really going on, and she said I shouldn’t leave. She said it was a mistake to leave. And I didn’t listen. And you zapped her away.” Adam pointed at Crowley.

Crowley inched backwards. “Hang on, I was under a lot of stress…”

“And you grew wings and flew around that bookshop. Aliens don’t do that. You didn’t look like an alien, back then, you looked more like…”

Adam stopped.

“I shouldn’t have come with you,” he muttered.

Aziraphale and Crowley stared at each other.

“You remember you forced us to bring you, right?” Crowley pointed out. “Just saying.”

Aziraphale frowned and nudged him.

The wind whipped at them. Adam was only in a t-shirt. He wasn’t cold.

“I want to go home,” he said.

It was not the lament of a lost child. The words resonated around the landscape. Aziraphale and Crowley felt them down to the bones.

A whirring pulse sounded from high above them, faintly. Nobody glanced up, but a prickle of warning ran up their necks.

“I don’t have to be here. You said reality will listen to me. She said the same thing. In this book.”

An emerald-green spotlight shone down on Adam. The wind became a roaring gale. It whipped Adam’s t-shirt. He stared down Aziraphale and Crowley through eyes that were suddenly dark under the livid green light.

Crowley squinted into the sky.

He said, “What.”

Aziraphale kept his eyes on Adam. Carefully, as though the boy were a skittish animal, he raised his hands towards him.

“Adam, we were not honest with you. I apologise. It is our fault you are in this mess. There are forces at work that it was too difficult to explain to you. You see -”

“Angel, you should take a look at this,” Crowley interrupted.

“Not now, Crowley!”

“Aziraphale, it’s a goddamned flying saucer.”

Aziraphale looked up.

A round, whirring alien spacecraft hovered in the sky above them.

“What,” he said.

Adam stood in the disco-glow of the green spotlight. Furious pulses of wind flapped down on him. He met Crowley’s eyes with a long, hard stare. Spacedog’s hackles rose.

Crowley blinked first. He edged back, one hand on Aziraphale’s arm.

The flying saucer whirred and spun. In a series of loops, it meandered down to the surface of Proxima Centauri B. It let out a gust of steam as it settled like a soggy cake.

A door opened in its side with a hiss.

A ramp descended, and three aliens got out. Two of them were green. The third was a small hump with wheels and an egg-whisker sticking out of it. It quickly got stuck in a marshy patch and made some angry distress noises that the other two ignored.

Adam stood like a king greeting foreign dignitaries as the remaining two aliens walked over to him.

“Hello,” he said.

The alien leader, who had a face like a duck,[2] approached first. “Adam Dowling?”

Adam squinted up at her. The spotlight was still blinding. “Yeah, that’s me.”

“All right, sir. I believe you called for a taxi service.” The alien looked slightly put out to be used as such, but she hid it well. “We’re here to take you back to Earth.”

“Erm,” Crowley said. “Hang on.”

Everyone ignored him, to his relief. He had no idea what he would have said next.

Adam followed the aliens back to their saucer. The slightly taller alien helped the pepper-pot alien back up from where it had tipped over in the mud.

“Wait - Adam -” Aziraphale called.

Crowley put an arm around him. Neither moved to follow. Without speaking, they conceded that this was going to happen whether or not they found it plausible.

The three aliens shuffled back up the gangplank. The round, beeping alien left a long streak of mud as it trundled inside the spaceship. Adam and Spacedog walked behind them.

A scrap of paper flapped loose from inside the Book. The wind carried it directly to Aziraphale. He caught it reflexively.

Adam reached the top of the gangplank and vanished without a backward glance. The spaceship door sealed shut.

The spaceship made a Whomm Whomm Whomm noise and floated into the air. It wobbled a bit, and then streaked into the stratosphere, leaving a green comet trail behind it.

The howling gale abruptly blew itself out. The planet’s surface was deafeningly quiet.

Nothing broke the calm but a tiny green speck in the sky, already winking out of sight.

---

[1] When you only breathe out of habit, you stop thinking about things like oxygen.

[2] “Ducks,” Crowley almost blurted, as a Pavlovian response.

(Link to next part)

[officialtrashbin]

Tumblr wanted to be stupid as hell, so I remade this post.

@aaronized asked: Can I request Maw and Proxima being buddies? (Or something more)

I imagine Maw wasn’t ambitious in the same way Corvus is, so he and Proxima stayed friends. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t address what could have been between them, right? ….right?

Contains drunk Proxima, drunk Maw, and drunk Maw’s NSFW fantasies.

*

They had been drinking and gambling well through the night, which was always a recipe for disaster in one form or another. Gerulean Ale, five rounds into Aquila Spit, pinch of salt, stir the pot and let it simmer. Maw had allowed himself this indulgence. He hardly remembered stumbling back to his bedchambers, Proxima hanging off one arm or him hanging off hers—he promised he would walk her to her quarters yet they were at his and the door was open for them after three different attempts at his passcode.

They were still clinging to each other when they tumbled onto his bed.

“Maw—”

To take a woman like Proxima Midnight was to taste death, surely. Fingernails testing the surface tension of her skin, wanting it to break, willing it to mold to the pressure. Lips on her neck, on the pulse that exclaimed: want-you want-you want-you. Her head thrown back in pleasure, flesh rippled with little bumps, mouth parted into that delicious oh as she came.

There were a hundred fantasies he could have made happen but instead they sprawled out over bland-gray sheets, clothes mostly in proper place; Proxima’s head was substituting his arm for a pillow even though there was one for her, too. There was an indigo blush set in her cheeks, eye half-open, her cropped hair a stark contrast to the décor of his room, and Maw thought for a moment that he liked seeing her this way. No war helmet, unwound, grinning stupidly. All affronted honesty.

She said again, “Maw, are you listening to me?”

“Of course.”

“The Devil should not have been invited,” she slurred out. “He didn’t drink.”

“Yes, he did.”

“Not as much as everyone else. That is quite unfair. No wonder he was so—good at Aquila Spit. He wasn’t—wasn’t—”

“Drunk. Yes, I suppose that is…entirely our own fault.”

Proxima put her hands over her stomach. Maw wanted to run his fingers over the intricate design of her armor plating, allowing his prints to collect the imperfections wedged in between the many segments and keep a part of her near him. He ran his palm over his face instead.

“Why did you invite him?”

“I didn’t,” he said. “That was Supergiant.”

Maw studied her out of the corner of his eye. Proxima’s head lolled away to look at the half-assembled pistol parts on his desk, and a small grin irked at her face. She was only ever this coy when she thought something was funny. “Don’t you think he’s a bit handsome?” she asked, a mischievous purr in her voice. “In that…sort of…” She flexed her fingers at him, pantomiming a predatory animal sinking its claws into flesh. “…way. You know?”

“No. Hold on—” Maw shifted onto his side to return an inkling of feeling into his arm. Proxima faced him in turn. Pallid eyes met paler eyes, frost against a gray sky wet with the anticipation of snow. “Are you no longer afraid of him?”

Proxima’s lips curled up. “Of course I am, Maw. He is a beast that begs for death but cannot keep it. Desperate animals are the most ferocious, and the most dangerous.” Her hand went to Maw’s face, ghosting over the flushed skin of his cheek and to the threads of ebony hair that had fallen free. She tucked them behind his ear. It was a gesture she had never made before nor since. “Regardless,” she continued, “I’m allowed to find whoever I want attractive. Whomever? Whoever.”

Maw rolled his eyes. “You are a woman of wise decisions and poor taste.”

“Thank you.” Proxima pulled her arms into her chest. Slowly, her eyelids slid shut, but she was still mostly coherent when she asked him, “Can I rest my eyes for a minute? Just a…quick minute.”

Maw gently placed a reassuring hand on the canter of her hip.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “Good night.”

In the morning he would bring her coffee to ease her migraine, and they would begrudgingly shuffle to the mess hall for breakfast while discussing their plan for beating Corvus at Aquila Spit; what happened that night between them would never occur again.