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blissfulxivarchive · 6 years ago

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Interview: Ty’ries Wraithsong

BASICS.

FULL NAME: Ty’ries Wraithsong

NICKNAME: Ty

AGE: 28

ETHNIC GROUP: Seeker of the Sun, Miq’ote / Midlander Hyur

DEITY: Azeyma, the Warden

LANGUAGE/S: Common, Hingan,

SEXUAL ORIENTATION : Heterosexual

ROMANTIC ORIENTATION : Heterosexual

RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Steel and Gun

HOME TOWN / AREA: Sagali Desert where she was born.

CURRENT HOME: A small apartment with her free company.

PROFESSION: A gunsmith, dancer, entertainer

PHYSICAL.

HAIR: Stark white, usually up in a ponytail but her hair reaches to her butt.

EYES: They are different colors, right is a dark pink while her left is light blue.

FACE: Uh she’s got one? I am not sure what features other than heavy makeup and scar.

LIPS: Full lips.

COMPLEXION: Her skin is tanned. It’s almost like a chocolate coloring.

BLEMISHES: None

SCARS: She has few over her body which is covered in tattoos.

TATTOOS: Arms, breasts, rib cages.

HEIGHT: She barely makes 5 foot.

BUILD: Lean dancers build.

FEATURES: She does not have her tribal markings, she has mixed of Hyur Midlander and Miq’ote.

ALLERGIES: Seasonal.

USUAL FACE LOOK : Flirty.

USUAL CLOTHING: Leather, light clothing, or no pants her jam.

PSYCHOLOGY.

FEAR/S: Failure and loneliness.

ASPIRATION/S: To protect her friends and loved ones. She inspires to bring joy into others hearts.

POSITIVE TRAITS: Humor, brave, loyal, confident, loving, caring,

NEGATIVE TRAITS: Stubborn, outlaw, unpredictable, impatient

TEMPERAMENT: She is well rounded I want to say. She does have a fiery temper when pissed off. She tends to go off with her mouth when mad. With that it gets her in trouble. If she is not pissed off. Her temper is mild and cool. She is pretty chill. Loves to loaf around.

SOUL TYPE/S: NA

ANIMALS: Cute animals like her Unicolt.

VICE HABIT/S: Oral fixation, rum, making it rain for other dancers, bars, fights

GHOSTS?: Maybe

AFTERLIFE?: Not really

REINCARNATION?: No

POLITICAL ALIGNMENT: None at present

EDUCATION LEVEL: Tutor educated

FAMILY.

FATHER : Arnaldr Wraithsong

MOTHERS : Dove Wraithsong

SIBLINGS : None

EXTENDED FAMILY: None that she is aware of.

NAME MEANING/S: She is not sure.

HISTORICAL CONNECTION?: n/a

FAVORITES.

BOOK: Cheesy romance novels, paper magazines

HOLIDAY: All Saints Wake

MONTH: October

SEASON: Summer and Fall

PLACE: Where the winds take her.

WEATHER: Thunder Storms, sunny days and snow falls.

SOUND / S: Music, thunder, crickets, winds, chimes,

SCENT / S: Ocean air, roses, fresh clean clothes, camp fire.

TASTE / S: Fish, steaks, salads, sweets

FEEL / S: Clean sheets, ocean water, warm bodies, sweat on brow

ANIMAL / S: Anything that is cute.

NUMBER: 7

COLORS: shades of pink, blue, purple, black and reds.

EXTRA.

Nothing.

MUN QUESTIONS.

Q1 : If you could write your character your way in their own movie, what would it be called, what style would it be filmed in, and what would it be about?

A1 : Possibly a spaghetti western or something of steampunk value. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.

Q2 : What would their soundtrack/score sound like?

A2 : A bit of dance music, rock music and a bit of anime.

Q3 : Why did you start writing this character?

A3 : I had no real direction with her until I started to play her through the MSQ. From there I picked up things here and there.

Q4 : What first attracted you to this character?

A4 : Cat girls will remain supreme.

Q5 : Describe the biggest thing you dislike about your muse.

A5 : I don’t really have dislike. Like I can see one thing. She might be to much of others.

Q6 : What do you have in common with your muse?

A6 : She and I have the spirit animal. We both are spunky.

Q7 : How does your muse feel about you?

A7 : What?

Q8 : What characters does your muse have interesting interactions with ?

A8 : She has several she wants to meet and interaction with. Just gotta get through that time.

Q9 : What gives you inspiration to write your muse ?

A9: Faye Valentine, Ryoko from Tenchi, Music, anime scenery.

Q10: How long did this take you to complete ?

A10: A lot of starting and stopping because man this is long.

I was tagged by a lot of people. @yuki-yukichan @trc-xiv @gildedandgolden @captainkurosolaire

tagging @fight-like-a-coeurl @aelwincooper @shofie-ffxiv @sophicpriestofmenphina @tsukikotanshi @e-x-i-t-3 @final-aria-fantasy @avwalya @bellwyn @glorified-thieves

#Never Ending Story #Ty'ries Wraithsong

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vide0-nasties · 6 years ago

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on the alabaster stones

2.9k words, arthur morgan/f!oc, sfw: arthur morgan and wildwood bordelon prepare for their ramshackle, spur-of-the-moment wedding. spoiler-heavy, specifically for chapter 5: saint denis and on.

It’s a funeral as much as a wedding, Wildwood straightening his collar-length hair pushing it from his face. Her eyes are bloodshot, brimming, and she sniffles and sighs in effort to keep herself composed.

Her hands shake, and Arthur is sorry for it. He catches them and kisses them when he can. When she tucks a yellow wildflower into the breast pocket on his vest. When she tucks a purple one behind his ear. He brings her knuckles to his lips, and speaks against her skin without meeting her eyes, “Actin’ like you’re laying me out for burial, Perdie.”

Calls her by the name her mother kept gentle in her cupped hands. Snags her, tugs the thread of history between them to still her hands and catch her eyes.

“I’m makin’ peace being your widow,” she tells him, voice deep and dark as the bottom of a dry well. Her skin is pink under the evening sun, her freckles a pretty chestnut against it all. “There’s coming a fuckin’ reckoning, and chances are I won’t get to bury you. I want to do you right, even if it’s right now.”

He’s dying—by bullet or his vengeful lungs—and he’s leaving her behind. The way things are going—the way she is acting—he will go first, but she won’t be trailing far behind him.

The train station is off a ways, Monroe and Calderón farther away from it then they are now. Arthur’s chest burns through every searing breath. He is being very careful now not to cough near her. He will not damn her if he can help it.

He worries for her, for everyone, but for her especially. Now, and in the future. He does not want her to be alone. Gets too sharp when she’s alone too long.

Her hands smell green from picking flowers, smell like gun oil and cordite from the shootout.

“I want you to go with John and Abigail after,” he says. “Take our horses, go do something decent.”

She gives him an empty look, as if she wants to fight him on this, just can’t figure out how. There’s been two plans ever since the return from Guarma and the diagnosis, forking in the road where he either lives or dies. The fork where he lives gets dimmer and more overgrown, less navigable with time and every mounting tragedy and fuck-up.

“It’s all our faults,” she sighs instead, letting him hold her hand to his chest, rubbing the side her thumb his own. “We all done killed ourselves, sprintin’ blind into the darkness, tryin’ to chase an endless summer that never existed.”

“Yeah, we just about did,” he agrees. Every death was senseless, every death was brought upon themselves. Greed and wantonness and recklessness. And now they’re almost all too far gone to escape the sink.

He worries. He worries.

“Are you going to be okay?” Part of him regrets asking. Part of him wants to hurt, the part that sees Wood for how low she’s been cast.

Thin and gaunt in her dirty shirt, wearing boots stolen off a soldier’s corpse, her rust-colored hair shorn shorter than any of them’s ever seen, and her seams literally fraying. The once rich embroidery on the lapels of her vest comes unsewn, blurring and ruining the original detail of the work. They used to be dripping poppies and willow switches on plum corduroy. Now it is a field of loose silk threads.

Her right eye, blind and milky, surrounded by angry, red scars that have yet to settle into her skin.

“I’m gonna live, even if it ain’t gonna be a happy life,” she admits. “It’s a bridge to burn if I reach it.”

Arthur can’t stand the defeat weighing her upper body down, like her arms and shoulders are too heavy to lift. Wood has never been accused of being an optimist, but she’d never faced her death with ‘when’ or 'if,’ only a faint, morbid curiosity. As if death was a thing that happened only to other people, and she was sure ponderous how life leaving the body felt.

A concept in the abstract. An animal’s understanding.

The first words he’d ever heard from her were screamed with the deepest offense he’d ever heard taken. “YOU can’t kill ME!” screeched almost eighteen years ago at the chicken-necked sheriff escorting her to the hanging rope for attempted murder, grand larceny, and horse theft. Disgusted that this lowly little lawman thought he could get his hands on her pelt for a trophy.

Little no-named outlaw. They all were, back then. Bunch of losers and wash-outs and orphans stuck on an ideal. Still are, in a way.

And, ah, fuck, it gets him laughing. She was pretty lamb-necked back then, herself, and the horse she’d stolen liked to eat meat and was renamed for the equine prince of hell.

“Perdie, we’re blowing up the bridge,” he says, feigning wide-eyed ignorance and misunderstanding in the face of her confusion. “I mean, if you wanna come with me and Johnny, all’s you gotta do is ask.”

He can only grin when her blank look slides fast into a sneer, trying half-heartedly to take her hand back. “Fais pas ça! Arrête ça—bastard, little boy-child, tryin'a make a fool of me,” she tries to snap through her cackling. Even with her crows feet, even with the elastic lines hugging her mouth, she looks so young. He wishes things had happened differently.

He squeezes her hand, takes a step forward, then another, following her insincere retreat. “Never—I wouldn’t never,” he protests, reaching for her other arm as he smears a mockery of contrition over his expression.

“Enough, couillon,” she snorts, wearing her dimple and missing tooth out for his benefit. She swats away his arm without sting and sighs. Looks a little less close to crying. “Got a cleaner shirt in your saddlebag? And a dabber? Want this blood of my face, me.”

Finally, he lets go of her, but she tangles their fingers for the duration of their slow fall. “Sure, something’s clean enough. That blue one, I think, but it's better torn up for rags.”

“Love that shirt.”

“I know you do. Wouldn’t surprise me none if you wore it til it fell apart on your back.”

Wood mutters to herself in that French of hers—the Cajun kind she spoke before she knew English, that she forgot with the blow to the head that turned her like spun-dime heads-or-tails from Perdita to Wildwood, and learned again—as she strips out of her layers. With her vest, shirt, and chemise thrown over the seat of his saddle, he gets a good look at the livid bruises cropping up on her ribs and the points of her hips.

But he refocuses—he knows he’s not a specimen of health, himself, right now—and concentrates on the ocean of freckles that turn her shoulders and elbows orange-brown, and that he knows her knees are almost as colorful. He concentrates on his shirt sliding over her arms, down her torso, too-too big but comfortable, and how he thinks she looks fine and lovely in that shade of blue.

He reminds himself to make sure that shirt is in her saddlebag if he feels like the end-all-be-all shit is about to go down. His buck skin jacket, too. Whatever he owns is hers, anyway.

“Hey, Wood?” he calls, using his thumb nail to scratch his adam’s apple, then drops his hand to his gun belt. When she looks over her shoulder—her left, now always her left—he shifts his weight and does his damnedest to make eye contact, though he ends up looking at her feet like a chastised dog. “I love you, is all. Just wanted to say that.”

“…I know you do, Arthur Morgan. I love you, too. Got a powerful love on for you."

"Still don’t understand why,” he chuckles, a little bittersweet, “but I guess I’m luckier for your poor judgement.”

He can hear the frown in her voice, all the scars left on her through the years, “Ain’t neither'a us been loved any right kinda way, cher.”

If he tries to swallow that sentiment, he will choke to death on it. Too big, too many sharp edges. But fortune continues to favor him, because she finishes up doing her borrowed buttons and does an about-face, hands on her hips. “You got them rings, boug?”

He does, and pats his satchel to show her. Pleased enough, she motions him closer, wetting an old bandana with water from her canteen. When he’s close enough to feel the warmth come off his Fox Trotter, smell the soap oil off her tack, he loads his repeater and shotgun back into the saddle scabbards. He pushes out of his shotgun coat after he’s slung the satchel’s strap over the saddle horn, layers it over Wood’s clothes already on the seat.

“Aw, Penny, thank you,” he croons, scratching her croup over her meaty haunches, watching her chew the bit and let her head droop. “Get treated like a clothesline and still actin’ like a proper lady.”

“She’s a good lil pony,” Wood agrees, “makes me feel awful for still missin’ Boadicea.”

“Penny ain’t little,” he says, half-offended, letting Wood strip him of his gloves and roll his shirtsleeves to the elbow. “Ain’t no pony either.”

Wood carefully takes the flower from behind his ear and flicks it back into the grass waving and rolling around their shins, maybe having decided she no longer preferred it, and keeps his hair pushed back with one hand as she begins to wipe the grime from his forehead.

The water is cool against his face, and, without his layers, he can feel the breeze that much better against his skin. He tries to keep from thinking about the way his body just look, how his face must look—bone and gristle and bruises and nothing else—feeling goosebumps prickle over his forearms.

“I know,” Wood hums. “Just miss Boadi, is all. Big ol’ beef steak, lazy as all kinds'a hell. But that’s just 'cause you spoiled her big ass. That’s your bad habit: spoilin’ things what love you, not disciplinin’ things what love you.”

“I…I dunno.” He can’t accuse her of being wrong. Boadicae had been fat and happy and slow until hell broke loose and he had to call on her for action, then she would drop her head and go to work like the devil’d lit a fire under her belly. Even Copper had never learned sit, drop, or stay, but he’d been loyal and unceasingly soft-mouthed and docile.

Isaac…

Arthur almost retreats from the memory. He’d seen so little of the boy through his short life. It felt wrong to tell him no for any reason. Eliza told him it made her feel like a villain when he showed up with a pack of chocolate bars and picture books and whatever little somethings had caught his eye. She hadn’t been unkind about it, either.

Said it with a peeved sort of fondness that told the intrusion was easily tolerated—even a little welcomed—because it would be forgotten a few days after he made himself gone again.

But, hell, even with Wood, he’d gone and inundated her in their new, short time. A saddle from the trapper, an Algernon Wasp hat and a corset, jewelry. Paid for their Saint Denis dinners, bought her ammo and a Litchfield repeater. He loves her, he needs her to know that, and he can’t figure a way to show better.

But she gave it back. Reciprocated. Cooked for him, took him dancing, killed them that tried to kill him first. Held him and made room for him and roared to silence rooms for his voice to be heard. Touched him and gentled him and tugged him outta the dark when he’d wanted to stay there.

She stole him a horse, one of the best he’s ever had.

The wind hits his face and dries to cool, clean sheen on his skin, making him shiver. It picks up his hair, and Wood’s, and in the dying light they both look a little golden.

She opens the collar of his shirt to clean his neck and chest, then moves to his forearms and hands. She pays extra attention to his fingers, the nail beds.

“What was I? Probably nineteen or twenty, when I told you I loved you that first time?”

“Yeah. 'Bout right. Made me that nice dinner.” Salmon seared in cast iron, crispy and drowning in butter and fresh pepper and lemon grass.

“Just askin’, 'cause I’d been sitting around with this picture of you in my head. Been down around Wyoming, saw that wild little scrub pony while we was getting, I dunno, something for camp. All hushed, you told me to watch, and you just walked right up to her, all slow and quiet. Started petting her, had her eating from your hand.”

He doesn’t remember that. They’re’ve been so many horses since then, wild or otherwise. It makes him ache he can’t remember her memory.

“It just crushed me. I never fell in love like that. And you looked a lot like you do now, with the sun going down behind your hair, giving you a halo. Like you one'a them saints in the cathedral glass, or like Mary holding a lamb.”

She sighs and wrings out the bandana, satisfied enough with his cleanliness. “Was always something holy 'bout you. Above and below and the middle of the world’s rot and distemper. Thought you were meant and due a different life than this the one we got.”

She re-wets the bandana and cleans herself up, with only a fraction of the gentleness she’d used on him. It is quick, and efficient, and if he sees her hands work over the quarter of her face with the blind eye a little rougher, a little more fearful, he says nothing.

“Uh, one night,” he starts, not understanding where he wants to go with this confession, “you were dancing with Dee, after he got you carrying Louis. And then you lost Louis not much later, and Dee left…I loved you, and I was real angry at the world for a long time about that happening to you. I was angry at myself. If I hadn’t left you that first time, you might not’ve been hurt like that.”

Already sober and sad, it gets worse. She’s dressing him for burial and marriage, both. Doing it now because she might not get to later. “You keep losing people, Wood. It ain’t right.”

“I have them a little while before I lose them. This life is short, and at the end of it there ain’t nothing but a dreamless dark-everlasting. Rather taste ash than nothin’ at all.”

Arthur feels a finality in those words, a hammer cocked on a pistol, aimed down at some un-bowed head. Rather taste ash than nothing at all. Looking back at a wreckage of a life, and pinpointing glitter of better times in the debris.

“I hate that I didn’t marry you the day we met,” he laughs, shaking his head.

“Would’ve been hard, what with that rope on my neck, and all them bullets flying. Y'all boys always knew how to brew a shitstorm,” she snorts back. “And, 'sides, we’re jumpin’ the broom now. Better late, et cet'ra.”

Speak of the devil, and he doth appear, or the saying goes, and Wood roots through his satchel to retrieve the little silk bag with their rings. Cleaned and refitted by a jeweler in Saint Denis, briefly abandoned during the catacylsmic exodus to Guarma, and used through the years in countless scams, they were familiar and, frankly, worth as much as a tin nickel outside of sentiment.

But they were emblematic, and they are theirs. Cheap yellow gold, fitted with that fraudulent hunk of green glass Margaret had passed off for a priceless emerald, polished to a spit-shine. History, old and new, something she could hopefully wear both pieces of after the inevitable comes to pass.

They marry as the sun dips fat and slow below the horizon, with only a mouthful of promises passed between them. They kiss, and they kiss, and they keep kissing, pressed close and shivering against each other’s bodies.

It makes Arthur hope and hurt and want to see the world that comes after this private apocalypse. The one where guns are put in the ground, where they spend their lives decently, atoning for the blood they cannot possibly wash from their hands.

Where the dreamless dark-everlasting is met with him hand-in-hand with the woman he’d spent his life with, and not kneeling head un-bowed facing down the barrel of divine retribution’s revolver.

“The world gonna remember the good you left in it, Arthur,” Wildwood Morgan tells him, her arms wrapped tight around his waist, “I’m thankful for having seen you rise into it.”

#red dead redemption 2 #arthur morgan #I was threatened to put this in the tags #OC: Wildwood #rags wrote a thing #s'cuse the ending I'm bad at them

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frangipanidownunder · 7 years ago

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Prompt: Mulder & Scully make a wrong turn on the way back from a case and end up somewhere cool.

City of Souls: fic

What a great prompt - thanks! I’ve never been to Colma so all mistakes are mine. Set late season 6, before The Unnatural.

He spits a seed outthe window and turns to her. He’d rolled his sleeves up hours ago, flung histie over the back seat. It might be the end of a California summer but the heatis unrelenting. Sweat prickles at the creases of his elbows. Immaculate in herseat, Scully’s still all business. Whole and upright.

“When was the last time you worejeans, Scully?”

She doesn’t answer. He hates thesilence.

The sign reads ‘It’s Great to Be Alive in Colma’. He waits for her reaction. Nothing.He drives. On each side there are cemeteries. She’s drinking water and lookingout at the rows of uneven headstones. Thereare hills behind them, scratched brown from too much sun. Withered. He makes amental note not look back too often.

“Scully, do you prefer Gunfight atthe OK Corral, the 1957 classic western starring Burt Lancaster and KirkDouglas or Tombstone, the 1993 remakestarring Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer?”

He hears the creak of gristle in herneck as she turns towards him. There’s a tiny kink in her lips. Upwards. He letsout a slow breath.

“I haven’t seen either, although Iunderstand the cast of each movie was stellar. Maybe you can invite me over fora classic western movie night, Mulder. We can drink beer in our Levis and talklike John Wayne or Clint Eastwood.” She’s teasing him. And his skin stipples inappreciation.

“I see you with your hair tuckedunder a Stetson riding over the plains, outrunning and outshooting the outlaws,Sherriff Scully.”

Another cemetery looms ahead. Padgett is still a fresh nightmare. Herblood-soaked shirt stayed behind his eyes for weeks, a metallic tang taintedeverything he ate. He felt empty. Hollowed out, just like the bloodied chestsof the victims. Life scooped from them. Ribs yawed open, bones like gravestonesin rows. When she is quiet, he still feels empty.

He blinks away the image and turns to her. She relaxes into a smile,plays with a strand of that glorious hair. Now, he sees autumn sun, tastes theburnt edges of pumpkins, feels in his limbs the strange looseness of holidaysto come.

“Maybe we can spin our guns or crack our whips?” She’s still playing thegame and his heart thrums. And then she laughs. God, he loves that sound. Likethe pop of a vintage champagne cork, a surprise followed by perfection.“Mulder, why have we driven so many miles in the wrong direction?”

There’s another sign. Arrows to the town mall and the primary school andthe Cypress Lawn – Nobel Chapel. He turns towards the chapel.

“This is the City of Souls, Scully. Colma. Population 1500 livingresidents and 1.5 million souls. In1900, the city of San Francisco declared the land in the town too valuable forburying the dead. In 1914, they sent eviction notices to all the cemeteriesordering the dead to be removed and relocated. Colma was chosen as the ‘end ofthe line’ so to speak. And now there are 16 cemeteries here, including a petcemetery.”

She leans towards him, adjusts her seatbelt. She’s still holding on tothat smile. But he’s holding on to it tighter. Her cheeks are pink. “But whyare we here?”

He doesn’t tell her he feels like he’s lost his soul and in some improbableway he imagines that staying here will fill him up with new life, will give himback some of what he’s given away this year. Just like that psychic surgeonstealing away people’s beating hearts, Diana has sucked the very core out ofhim with her unending support and her sly smiles. He feels her grip chafing athim, marking his skin so that Scully sees betrayal like a scarlet letter. Hedoesn’t tell her anything like that, although he should. He should declare hisguilt to her so she can flog him with her righteousness. He doesn’t tell her,though.

“Haven’t you ever wanted to see where Joe DiMaggio is buried? Or Frank‘the crow’ Crosetti? Wyatt Earp? Levi Strauss?” Her fingers rub across herplump lips. “I see you aren’t quite as into this as I am,” he says and shebestows a gentle shake of her head on him, one that’s accompanied by a quietchuckle.

“I can’t say I am, Mulder but if you feel that visiting the graves offamous sports people or cowboys, is something you need to do, then knockyourself out. I’ll be happy with a cold beer and a steak. I’m hungry. And thistown is making me crave dead meat.”

He laughs then. She’s funny, his Scully. She metes out her jokes inincrements, measuring out the time between each beat so it’s not too long, nottoo short. She’s good with her timing, like that. Knows just when to step in, whento step back. He hasn’t learnt that yet. But this business with Diana hastaught him that jumping in blindly, just for support of some kind, is not whathe wants anymore. Not what he needs.

He turns into the cemetery, feels a shift in the air. It’s not mournful.There’s something serene about it, a quiet calm. It’s in the cooling of theharsh sun, it’s in the shush of the leaves, it’s in the melodic birdsong. Thedead enjoy the longest rest, but the living can come here and reset.

She’s out of the car before him, shucking off her jacket and shieldingher eyes from the lowering glare. California Scully is brighter in every way,he decides. Kaleidoscopic despite her penchant for black work-wear. Everythingelse about her is a melange of soft colours. He takes her in.

“Walk with me?” she asks and offers an elbow for him to hook his armthrough. He wonders if she understands the irony of promenading around acemetery while the dead lie still beneath them. He’s sure she does, but Scullydoesn’t mind irony. She doesn’t like duplicity. She just doesn’t like beingtaken for granted.

He watches their shadows pass the headstones, long thin versions ofthemselves stretching out in some ghoulish representation of life. He needs tolook back at her, see the tangible partner on his arm.

He tips his chin towards her. “Those who couldn’t pay the $10 evictionand relocation fee left their loved ones to be piled into mass graves.”

“It’s a cruel and undignified story,” she replies. “But death is oftenugly.”

Her shirt was wicking bright red as quickly as her skin paled. Hehesitated because in that moment he was sure she was gone, and he had let ithappen. His fucking arrogance had led her to the terror of a death like that.Her beating heart stolen from its hearth right there in his own home.

The warm surprise of her fingers clasping through his shook the pictureaway, dissolving the stark of red death into the muted tones of Scully’ssmiling face. She nods to a plaque on a large sculpted rock. He reads thedetails.

“When you were in that travel agency, with Duane Barry, I used thisman’s case to highlight the potentially dangerous misreading of the situation.It’s one of the clearest memories I have of that time.”

He takes in the information as she speaks.

“The Gage Accident. Phineas Gage was working on the railroad at Vermontwhen a tamping iron blasted upwards and pierced his skull from cheekbone totop.” She touches the spots on her own face and he watches the grace of herfingers. “Miraculously, he survived but his behaviour changed so much that hewas no longer the same man.”

It might not have taken an industrial accident to change him, butScully’s ferocious charge for justice, right by his side, has been just as redhot. She has stayed on the same damned path, never deviating, while he’spinballed from belief to doubt and all the while dragging her along with him.Exposing her to horrors. How has she remained the same? Fuck, he loves her forit. He loves her sameness, her unwavering Scully-ness. You know what you’regetting. You get what you see.

“I remember you talking about him,” he says. “I thought it would be goodto see the memorial. And we really weren’t that far away. It seemed the rightthing to do.”

She tucks her chin to her chest. “Well, it’s a very ��us’ kind of thingto do, isn’t it? It’s a graveyard. It’s macabre. I’m only surprised that it’snot raining. It would be just the kind of after-case date we would indulge in.”She looks away quickly, licks her lips. “If this were a date.” The words arebreathed out, low.

He looks around at the graves, thinks about the dead beneath them, lyingsilent in repose. Souls departed, bodies left behind. Bones desiccating toashes. He thinks about Phineas Gage and Levi Strauss and Jo DiMaggio, how theirlives are still known. He looks back at Scully and she’s waiting for him tospeak. He can’t find any words to tell her how much he wants her life to beknown for centuries to come. There’s a glint of sunlight off the brass of theplaque and he squints as it flashes in his face. He shivers but lets the sensationwarm him, like heat from the inside, filling him.

“There’s a 50s style diner not far away,” he says, looking back at her face, where he sees hope, forgiveness and he feels his soul settle back inside. “Let’s get that steak, Scully.”

#txf fanfic #my fanfiction #todayinfic #prompt #softnow

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akechi-kikyou · 7 years ago

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Long Goodbye: Chapter 4

AN: Two posts in one night! I will never accomplish this again. Also, I have decided that Genji is a precious cinnamon roll that needs to be protected from Hanzo.

When Hanzo reached the lobby, he looked around before spotting who he was looking for leaning against a column. As he approached this person, he could see why Genji hadn’t assumed that this was who they were supposed to be meeting. McCree’s hat was completely gone, giving Hanzo a full view of his chocolate brown hair. The cowboy was also wearing a dark grey Johnny Cash shirt, tan shorts, and black sneakers over white ankle socks. In other words, he looked like every other teenage boy that Hanzo had seen here.

After taking in a breath, Hanzo asked, “What do you want?”

McCree chuckled as he held out a box shaped object, “Helluva way to greet your new business associate, boss.”

Rolling his eyes, Hanzo all but snatched the gift from McCree as he retorted, “I thought the boss of Jesse McCree is Jesse McCree.”

“Shh,” McCree hissed as he pulled Hanzo closer to the column. There was really no one out here except for the front desk person, and they weren’t paying attention, but still the damn cowboy insisted on discretion. “Don’t say my name so loud. I’ll hav’ta take pictures and sign shit. Why d’ya think I’m dressed like this?”

“Because you have no taste,” Hanzo fired immediately. While Jesse recovered from that, the young Japanese man finally looked down at his gift to find that it was actually a box made of jade and trimmed in gold. It was beautiful, and now Hanzo couldn’t stop running his fingers along the smooth stone. “Where did you get this?”

“Told ya I could get you anything,” Jesse was found to be smugly smiling.

Surprisingly, or perhaps not, Hanzo found himself staring at Jesse while lost for words. After a few moments, he looked down at the box again and then brought it to his nose. “It smells funny. Is there something inside?” Opening it, he caught a glimpse of a small plastic bag with something green inside before McCree hastily shut the lid.

“So that’s where that went,” the cowboy laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Well, not like I can’t get more. Call it a two for one.”

Hanzo was a bit speechless again as he looked over this person. Trouble was the word that immediately came to mind. Jesse McCree was definitely trouble with his brown eyes and his damn smile and those lips. Wait. Why was Hanzo even looking at his damn lips?

“I have to go,” he turned quickly. “My brother is sick.”

“Oh no, Genji!”

Hanzo was starting to rush away, but he could hear footfalls right behind him. Turning again, he sighed, “Listen, I have to take care of my brother. I don’t have time for…”

“Well, can’t I see him? I just wanna see if he’s alright. Please?”

What the hell was this - puppy dog eyes? Hanzo wanted to punch him, but then he thought that would just lead to more of this pathetic look. Grumbling for Jesse to come on, he led the way to the stairs. “I thought you were supposed to be some hard criminal.”

“I get hard when I need to,” McCree replied.

“I should push you down the stairs,” Hanzo grumbled, but the damn cowboy only laughed. What kind of odd person was he?

At least he knew how to be quiet. Once he was done laughing, he didn’t say another word until Hanzo opened the room door and let him inside. Genji was up again and was flipping through the channels, but when he saw the cowboy, his face lit up.

“McCree, what are you doing here?!”

“Yes, what IS he doing here?” Hanzo gave his brother a suspicious look.

“I gave him your number, but…” Genji was cut off by McCree flopping on the bed next to him and immediately getting comfortable.

“This is nice, ain’t it? I always wanted to stay in this place, but you gotta be 18 to a book a room.”

“And you’re not 18?” Hanzo’s eyes nearly rolled out of his head. Once again, he was ready to go mining for salt.

“I’ve got a few months. You wanna come to my birthday party?”

Hanzo rolled his eyes again as he went to his bed and sat the box down on the nightstand. “Genji, should we start to think about dinner?”

“I can take you guys some place again,” Jesse immediately suggested.

“You two go,” Genji grimaced. “My mouth has a disgusting taste.”

“Kay, well it’s just me and Hanzo then,” the damn cowboy didn’t seem too upset about this at all. In fact, he looked happy with his ankles crossed and his arms behind his head. “Or we can order room service.”

‘Or you can get out’, Hanzo was thinking. But he knew enough not to say it that way. Instead, he shook his head, “No, I will be alright. I have leftovers from yesterday.”

“You threw that away,” Genji spoke, immediately ruining the excuse. “And maid service took it out while we were gone, I think, because the trash is empty except for puke.”

“You threw away a $200 steak?” McCree stared at him in disbelief and then shook his head. “Wow, that’s some privilege right there. I mean, I got money, but I ain’t got it like that…”

Now aggravated, Hanzo started towards the door, “Whatever! Take me to get food then!”

“Alright! See you later, Genji,” Jesse sat up and pat the other’s leg before following Hanzo out.

The eldest Shimada brother was grumpy yet again, and much the same as last night, he was unable to put the why into exact words. Instead, he let his angry feet carry him out onto the sidewalk in front of the hotel, where anger turned to embarrassment at the fact that he didn’t know where to go from there.

“This way,” McCree stepped in front of him and led to a parking lot across the way.

Hanzo followed Jesse to the passenger side of an orange-red pickup truck. The cowboy got the door and then pulled out a stack of books, which he threw into the bed. Then he smiled and went around to the driver’s side. Hanzo was a little curious, and so once he and Jesse were in and rolling, he asked, “What were those books?”

“Algebra, European History, and some other second hand textbooks,” McCree shrugged, looking straight ahead. “Just grabbed them today before stoppin’ in to see you.”

“You’re going to read those?” Hanzo found himself impressed to see the other’s nod. Now endlessly curious, he asked, “But why? Aren’t you an outlaw?”

“Just in case the outlaw business stops payin’ the bills, gotta have somethin’ to fall back on, don’t I?” Jesse shot him a smirk. Then he turned serious. “No, I um… didn’t get much out of schoolin’ mostly cause I didn’t go a lot of the time. Could pass the hell outta any math class, though. Last teacher I had said I had real aptitude.”

“So why don’t you just go to school?” Hanzo asked.

Jesse’s eyes were on the road as he made a turn, but he answered, “Cause school’s the first place they go lookin’ for you.”

“Who is they?” Hanzo furrowed his brow. For once, the cowboy wasn’t smiling. This situation seemed bad.

“Well, I’mma outlaw, right?” the reply came with a shrug.

Hanzo had so many questions, but they were put on a backburner when he saw that Jesse was turning into the parking lot of that steakhouse. Reaching out, he put his hand on the other’s to stop him from turning off the truck’s engine.

“No,” he shook his head. “Not here.”

“What’s wrong with here?” McCree asked with a wrinkled brow.

“Here is where you go when you’re trying to impress someone with a $200 steak. I don’t want to be impressed. Take me somewhere you go when you just want to eat and not worry about impressing someone.”

“You’re… a really strange man, Hanzo. But ok!”

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

Hanzo was a little unsurprised that they ended up in the Railyard Arts district again, this time walking together through the farmer’s market. They entered an area of dirt and gravel where several food trucks were parked in a large circle around a group of picnic tables. The trees in this area were strung with bauble shaped lights, and at the center of the ring of trucks was an icehouse serving beer. Jesse led the way to one truck and ordered while Hanzo looked around. A few minutes later, the smiling young man presented a cardboard food container.

“Here ya go! Frito pie!”

“What?” Hanzo asked as he was given the container to hold.

Jesse grabbed one of the two forks stuck into it and immediately dug in, “It’s the best, I swear it. Fritos on the bottom, then chilli and cheese and a little tabasco sauce for extra kick.”

Hanzo grabbed the other fork and had a cautious taste. Making a face, he ate a little more before pushing the rest into Jesse’s hands. “Too spicy, but it isn’t bad.”

Jesse had a little more before throwing the remainder in the trash. Then he pulled Hanzo to another truck. “Ok, this’ll be a change of pace then. I always get the meat sampler.”

They were at a barbecue truck now. Jesse ordered and they were given another of those containers, this time holding a chicken leg and wing, two slices of brisket, two ribs, and a few pieces of sausage.

“Pick a table, will ya? For this, we need beer!”

Hanzo chose a spot in the shade of one of the trees and the furthest away from other people that he could get. A few minutes later, McCree joined him with two plastic cups of beer, sitting one down in front of Hanzo.

“They let you buy beer?”

McCree grinned as he pulled out his wallet and put a driver’s license down in front of Hanzo. Picking it up, Hanzo read the name aloud, “Joel Morricone. Is that your real name?”

“Naw, that’s my super secret name,” Jesse chuckled as he took the license back. “I mean, I really do have a valid driver’s license if that’s what you’re worried about. Just ain’t 21.”

“And you don’t look it, either,” Hanzo remarked as he used one of the plastic forks to try some of the sausage. While chewing, his face lit up with delight. This wasn't bad at all! In fact, he liked it so much that he ate all of the pieces without saving McCree any.

But the other was content with eating his half of everything else. He seemed to be just happy that Hanzo liked the barbecue. Once they were finished, he got up and threw out the container. Then he briefly returned to the table in order to tell Hanzo, “Stay there. Next course!”

Hanzo had to admit that he was looking forward to seeing what this would be. Usually, he didn’t mix foods like this, but everything about today was unusual. For one thing, he was starting to have fun.

Jesse came back and sat down a container with two tacos and two bottles of Coke. Grinning from ear to ear, he announced, “Street tacos! The best in all of Santa Fe, in my humblest of opinions. Go first.”

Hanzo did just that, biting into one while Jesse drowned the other one with the contents of a hot sauce package. Once again, Hanzo that he liked what he was served, and he finished it quickly. Then he started to eye what was left of Jesse’s taco.

“Go on,” the other offered. “It’s gonna be hot, though.”

“I can take it,” Hanzo spoke confidently.

Too confidently. While at first it seemed he was going to be alright, he had finished the taco too quickly. The burning happened all at once, and he started to sweat as he chugged the Coke and then what was left of his beer.

“Oh no!” Jesse laughed. “Nooo, the Coke was the worst idea! I’mma get you another beer. Just drink what’s left of mine while I’m gone!”

He did just that, and when Jesse returned with another cup of beer, he downed that desperately. Then he belched, making the other laugh even more. “That was spicy, yet satisfying,” he said, making McCree nearly fall over.

Hanzo was amused with his amusement, and actually chuckled a little as he helped himself to the other’s leftover Coke as well.

“Ok, I think I can fit one more place,” the cowboy said when he recovered from laughing.

“What about that one?” Hanzo pointed to a truck that read Goomba’s.

“I never ate at that one,” McCree replied as he turned to look at it. “Think it’s new.”

“Then this will be a new experience for the both of us,” Hanzo replied, getting up and then going around to pull Jesse up. “Come on.”

They walked over together and then stopped to look at what was on offer. Hanzo had never really eaten anything other than pasta when it came to Italian food, and so he was unfamiliar with a lot of what was available. Thankfully, he had McCree.

“Ok, I got this,” the cowboy said as he stepped up to order. “We want the meatballs and the Italian beef sandwich.”

“That is a lot of food,” Hanzo cautioned when the other stepped away to wait next to him.

“I know, but we’ll make it somehow. The good thing’s I’m drivin’, so there’s that. You ever walk on a full stomach?”

Hanzo nodded, “I have. And also stairs. It was torture, but worth it.”

He couldn’t believe he was going to repeat that mistake, but sure enough, they went back to their table with two more containers of food. It was a struggle. They finished the four meatballs and marina, but only half of the sandwich.

“I can’t eat anything else,” Jesse complained as they started to walk back towards his truck.

“Same,” Hanzo agreed.

But then he saw a gelato stand, and that sealed their doom. He did take pity on poor Jesse and got a single cup of green tea for them to share. They found a children’s playground and sat next to each other on the swings to have dessert.

This was oddly quiet. Every now and then, they would share a glance, but neither of them seemed to have anything to say until they finished and McCree threw out the cup. A bit after returning, he pointed to one of the tall climbing structures connected to a slide.

“Let’s go up there. I wanna lay down a bit. I think I’m dyin’.”

“You want to go on the children’s playground equipment?” Hanzo questioned even as he got up and started to follow Jesse.

“Ain’t that long ago we were kids, right?” Jesse shrugged before jumping up onto the monkey bars and climbing over to the platform.

Not one to be shown up, Hanzo did the same and then laid down on the metal surface next to the other. By now, night had fallen and they were staring up at a beautiful sky full of stars.

“This was… actually fun,” Hanzo remarked at length of staring up.

“Did’ya think it was gonna be horrible?”

“Maybe,” Hanzo smirked while still looking up. “I didn’t know where to expect we would go.”

“Guess that’s fair,” McCree answered. “I thought it would be horrible cause I thought you’d hate everything.”

“Hm, that seems like me doesn’t it? It seems like I’m allergic to fun.”

He heard shuffling and turned on his side to see that Jesse had done the same. It wasn’t the most comfortable, but he chose to endure it in order to continue looking at the other young man’s actually rather handsome face.

“You’re not even that much older than me, are you?” McCree questioned. “How old are you?”

“18,” Hanzo replied with a shrug. “And you are what? 17?”

“Mhm,” McCree nodded. “You seemed surprised before, but I’m used to it. I’m a criminal child prodigy.”

“I’m not sure you should be proud of that,” Hanzo frowned.

But Jesse only shrugged, “It is what it is, ya know. I gotta get by, same as anyone else. There ain’t a lot of prospects for a high school drop out. ‘Sides, ain’t you from a whole criminal family? Oh yeah, I do my homework. I know all about the Shimada family.”

“Do you really do your homework?” Hanzo retorted, hoping to change the subject as well. “You’re a high school dropout, after all.”

“Hm,” Jesse turned onto his back again. “Ain’t by choice. It’s like I said. The first place they look for you is at school. Can’t just enroll myself in a new one. Can’t go back to the old one.”

“Because you are a criminal?” Hanzo asked, turning onto his back again as well.

“Somethin’ like that,” Jesse replied. “I’ll tell you someday. Prolly aint as complicated as I make it sound, but…” He paused with a sigh and then scooted his body closer to Hanzo. “Tell me somethin’ bout you. Make it somethin’ I wouldn’t know by researchin’ your family or anything like that.”

He actually did try to think of something, only to end up frowning and shaking his head. “No, there’s nothing really to tell. I am not interesting.”

“Wouldn’t keep botherin’ you if I thought that was true,” Jesse replied.

“All you know is about my family, so how can you make that assessment?”

McCree turned on his side again, “I think the best judge of what interests me is me. Come on. Tell me something. Anything.”

Hanzo sighed, “Fine. I’ll tell you that my life is very strict and boring. At home, I would never have eaten so much food in one night. I certainly would not be up here with you. I am only doing these things because… well… I don’t know why.”

“I think I knew that, actually,” hearing this, Hanzo turned to find the other smirking at him. The young man nodded, “Yeah, I’m sure I knew that. I can see it when I look at you. You’re all reserved and well behaved and all, but there’s somethin’ in you that’s just wantin’ to burst out, and it does every now and then, but only just a little. I’m right about that, ain’t I?”

Maybe too right. Hanzo didn’t want to talk about it any further, and so instead, he deflected by asking, “And you? Make it something other than ‘I’m a delinquent child prodigy’.”

“Damn, that’s my whole identity,” McCree chuckled and then shrugged. “I can tell you somethin’ you guessed already, I bet. I ran away from home.”

“I thought so,” Hanzo sighed and then laid on his back again. “It bothers me because family is so important to my culture. You ran away from yours.”

“I know,” Jesse laid down as well and sighed. “I know. Running away was stupid, but I did it, and I don’t know how to go back.”

Sadly, Hanzo couldn’t say that he hadn’t thought about it at least once. There were times he had received the harshest of punishments, and while his body was sore and bruised, he had felt bitterness at seeing how carefree his younger brother seemed to live. But it had always been just a thought. He could never imagine just leaving his family. Either McCree was very brave or his life had been very terrible. Hanzo found himself wanting to know which it was, and so he turned to ask.

“Why? Why did you run?”

“It’s a long and complicated story,” McCree answered.

“Tell me,” Hanzo demanded, moving so that the other had to look up at him.

He saw the other young man swallow several times before sighing. “It’s because I was stupid. I didn’t know how to see a good thing for exactly what it was. So when things got too good, I panicked and ran.”

“Are you going to be just vague?” Hanzo frowned.

“Yeah, tonight,” McCree smirked. “It’s a heavy subject. Don’t even know why I brought it up. Or well, I mean, I thought if I told you somethin’ heavy like that, you’d open up just a little.”

“Why do you care if I do?”

He didn’t know why he asked something that he knew the answer to. Later on, he wouldn’t be able to say who moved first, but before he knew it, his lips were meeting Jesse’s. His eyes closed and he moved his elbow so that his upper body rested against the other’s. Their tongues wrestled a bit before he finally shoved Jesse’s aside to be the one in the lead. In response, he felt the other’s arms around his neck, pulling him closer.

By the time they pulled away, he was breathless. Looking into the other’s eyes, he asked, “You like men?”

Jesse closed his eyes as he moved his face towards the other, clearly wanting to kiss more. On the way, he whispered, “Of course. Don’t you?”

He would let his kiss be his answer. His body seemed to move on its own so that it completely covered the other’s, and then his hips began to grind. He could feel that Jesse’s body was responding well to this, but to his surprise, the spell was broken by the other pushing him off.

Now realizing what he had been doing, he shook his head, “I can’t do this…”

“Do what?” Jesse asked and then frowned. “Oh, I get it. Thanks for implyin’ that I’m easy.”

“No, I… I’m…” Hanzo didn’t know what to say, especially when his eyes caught sight of the front of Jesse’s shorts as the other stood. Looking down at his own, he spoke words that he didn’t mean to say aloud, especially because they weren’t true. “I’m not gay.”

The other huffed at this and then slid down the slide. It took him a few seconds to realize this, but when he noticed that he was alone, Hanzo stood and called after Jesse, “Wait, where are you going?”

“Home,” the other shouted back. “And I assume you know how to walk to yours. Bye.”

“Jesse, wait,” he called after him as he jumped down.

But the other wouldn’t stop, and instead spoke over his shoulder. “It’s McCree to you. Find your own way home, boss.”

Stopping in his tracks, Hanzo looked down and muttered to no one, “Jesse… I’m sorry…”

#Overwatch AU #McHanzo #Young McHanzo #Hanzo Shimada #Jesse McCree #Genji Shimada #mitsu's fics

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