#so i was thinking of writing a fic of link dissociating like. right after that | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

russeliarat · 2 years ago

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Please give us your Four thoughts! We'd love to hear them!

@bloodybloob @factorialrabbits so this turns up in your mentions

I'm evilly tapping my fingers together right now because this took a few days to write (also I don't know if you mean physically not with it, but if so, hope you get better soon hun!)

Shadow works a bit differently too, so I might make another post for him if people want.

Post gets a bit long-ish so I’ll put it under a cut. Might as well.

So back when I first joined LU, there was some discourse over whether Four could have had Dissociative Identity Disorder or not - I think most of the fandom's chilled out by now tbh it was like a year ago at this point. But basically, after reading a fic that featured Four and a few other characters having DID (Atmosphere on ao3, I'll link it if I can find it), I looked at both sides and said ‘why not have both?’ and made two version of Four.

I think for now I’ll only get into the version of Four that doesn’t have DID and maybe make another post about it if anyone wants to hear. I think I’ll have to plan it out a bit more to coherently get all the ideas together and do last-minute confirmations.

The non-DID version of Four basically has a bit of a symbiotic relationship going on with the Colours residing in Four’s head just chilling until the Four Sword’s pulled. So essentially, to sum it up because it’s very complicated; Four is a blank-slate reflection of the original Link before he split into four pieces. Link unknowingly lent duplications of his body to the Colours and shared aspects of his personality between them to allow them to function properly as human beings. This is because the Colours are a bit like vocal fragments of personalities and impulses when inside Four’s mind. They were quiet at first like little whispers of vague sounds and voices but once finding their humanity after splitting, they kind of found their voices too. Once the Colours eventually re-merged for the first time, they thought Green was the original Link due to Four taking on most of his traits, though realised otherwise when this new Link actually seemed to take on more of Vio’s traits and privately expressed some of Red’s and Blue’s. This was actually because he knew he had to hide away that he was now a person of five in order to not be called insane or something.

There was a lot of anxiety and finding themselves at first - a lot of the fear came from rejection and it still seeps through to the more recent parts of the story. He was so fearful of rejection and the notion of the anxiety that came with it, he moved away from his father to live with his grandfather. Vio provided a heavily locked emotional and mental barrier that prevented anyone from getting close enough to figure it out essentially - Green was far too loyal and outgoing to keep it secret for as long as they all planed, Red was far to friendly and really bad at keeping secrets because he trusts people so easily, and Blue is very brash and short-tempered, too much to handle his own emotions sometimes.

So because they all realised Four is a separate human, they decided to call him by a few names. In his mind and in their split bodies within privacy, they’d call him ‘Light’ due to light being comprised of an entire rainbow and his previous hero title of Hero of Light. Within public and split, masquerading as friends or the like, he would be known as ‘Link’ like everyone else knew of him as. Shadow liked to call him ‘Rainbow’ because he eventually grew a fondness for the Colours but still had a deep-set fear of light and hated being reminded of it. When eventually joining the Chain, Four took on the name Four to keep his secret safe until the right time.

I also have a bit of an idea of a headcanon for his familial situation. It’s a bit messy (is it because we all secretly love to rattle around our favourite characters or am I just projecting? Who knows!). Four’s mother never really wanted him and neither did his father, he was basically an accident (same) and so for a lot of his pre-teen years, he spent more time with his grandfather than his bio parents. His dad swiftly vanished for reasons Four knows not of other than he wasn’t wanted, and his mother rarely spent much time with him. Though one day, his grandfather told him that his mother had found and was going to marry another man, who served as a knight. Apparently, his soon-to-be step-father asked to meet with Four despite his mother not wanting to. Four’s grandfather encouraged him to meet his step-father and stay with them a short while, to which Four reluctantly agreed, but to make sure, his grandfather told him he was always welcome to come back at any time. As it turns out, Four’s new step-father was actually an incredibly kind man and genuinely loved to be around Four, considering him his biological son. Four quite liked his step-father and soon just started calling him father. Throughout a lot of Four’s life he was passed between staying with his grandfather at the forge and his parents in a quaint house in Castle Town, but one day, Four’s mother just up and left, divorcing his step-father and leaving Four in his guardianship. Later into his life, Four would be told by his father that his mother was suffering some pretty bad mental issues and felt so guilty about not treating Four right that she couldn’t take it and left entirely without warning. No one actually knew what happened to her since she just abruptly left and couldn’t be found no matter who attempted to find her.

Pretty messed up, I know.

My personal favourite part is thinking of the mundane, different lives each boy would live - all five of them.

Blue is brash, short-tempered, and overall has an almost protector role within the group, though goes about it by being very loud and a bit demanding. But he’s also very meticulous when it comes to things such as physical appearance, clothing maintenance, and general wellbeing of the other Colours. He’s very much the stern mother-hen of the group and kind of defaults as a secondary leader once Green isn’t around (obviously once he’s learned to work more in sync with the others, he had barely any leadership skill beforehand), though at first he was very hurtful as he thought by going about leading the way he was, he was toughening up the others and getting shit done properly to protect them. Yeah, they didn’t like it very much and he knew it later on. But he’s also terrible at looking after himself, very much prioritizing the others over himself. As a way to calm down, he does general sewing and embroidery tasks; patching up tears in clothing, fixing loose embroidery thread, washing clothing, repairing damaged boots etc. It’s a craft he finds very therapeutic and sometimes he just grabs a random bit of fabric to embroider into. Red has at least three other tunics just covered in embroidery Blue has mindlessly done and Red refuses to unpick the threads or bin it.

Red is a lot more capable than people give him credit for - he’s very good at fighting and is quite the peacemaker, though prefers not to fight at all, gets scared very easily and has a hard time expressing how he feels before it all topples over into sobbing. He’s the one trying to find himself the most since he’s the most impressionable person in the group bar Four, but was recently introduced to painting and artistry by Vio to help control his emotional issues. Vio introduced it as a way for Red to get down and let go of his feelings before they bubble too much and simmer over, or he could give the artwork to him and he can find a way to get through to the inner meaning with Red, sorting out the issue directly. It’s helped quite a lot since he’s actually improved his mood tenfold, and it’s directly helped with the Colours learning Red’s boundaries and emotions so he doesn’t start furiously weeping for seemingly no reason. Though, Red likes to focus a lot more of the creation of pigments and paints because he’s a very tactile person and likes the feeling of mulling paint.

Vio is the most calm of the group and often masquerades as keeping the Colours in line when really, he’s doing whatever stupid shit the others are doing but quieter. He’s incredibly academically smart from all the time he spends with his nose buried in a book, but he’s also street smart, yet not in the way that Green or Blue are. He’s street smart in the way that he can bullshit himself out of any situation fairly unscathed and then do whatever he did to get into that situation again. He’s emotionally constipated by choice. He’s totally not dating Shadow. He’s a master of Uno. He makes the decision to read upside-down What can this boy not do, other than act normal for two seconds? Joking but I’m not, he’s generally just a real devious boy disguising himself as a collected, sane person, but he’s just as stupid as the others. He’s a master of the languages (he writes upside-down and very fast) and does a load of calligraphy in his spare time, generally because he always hates the way his handwriting looks when he writes the right way up (maybe because he writes upside-down all the time). Vio also dabbles in art and painting occasionally and it was how he introduced Red to it.

Green is very adventurous, there is barely a single place he hasn’t slept other than inside his grandfather’s kiln. He’s got quite the strong personality and tells himself as a go-getter, energetic kind of person. He openly welcomes pretty much anyone, but is extremely loyal and can hold a grudge for years if left unchecked on and not worked through. Though, he feels a lot of pressure on his shoulders. He’s seen as both the ‘original Hero of Light’ from his adventure with the Minish and as the sole leader of the Colours because people can’t really ever get how he and his friends work. There’s a heavy weight on his back to be the perfect knight and hero, though he’s barely 16 years old of LU (oh yeah I didn’t mention that did I?). He secretly struggles the most with self-esteem issues from it and attempts to hide it away even from the other Colours. It’s hard though when everyone can tell where the impulsive thoughts about not being enough and thinking you aren’t living up to expectations are coming from when merged. The others have been trying to comfort their primary leader of the group. Green, being the active sort, gravitated heavily towards becoming a knight like his step-father and it just so happened that his blacksmithing interest from back when Four stayed primarily with his grandfather came in very handy. He focuses more on knight duties than smithing, but it still contributed greatly in forming Four’s shared interest in the craft. Similarly to Blue, Green does weapon maintenance and his favourite part is decorating the hilt, pommel, and guard of weaponry. He often lets Red come up with ideas for swords during his spare time and he works on them between commissions and repairs.

Four is a bit of a mish-mash man. He’s basically taken on the unwilling role of mediator and ‘the responsible one’ just through the nature of how he works in tandem with the Colours. He doesn’t consider himself a Colour - moreso an extension of them. He can’t physically be in the same space as the Colours at the same time, which is kind of an upside and a downside, because on one hand he’s sick of these guys and wants them to split from him so he can have a quiet mind, on the other he can easily feel lonely and anxious when it does get quiet because he’s so conditioned to having them there. That being said, he takes a lot of interests from combining the others. We all know his main job is a blacksmith - which he tends to whenever he isn’t being a knight thanks to Green - and he takes a great amount of literary and artistic interest in the topic too. He isn’t burying his nose in books of nothing. He has to focus on practicality of his weaponry, but a lot of people don’t know that medieval blacksmiths worked with all kinds of products made of metal; pottery, shields, ornamentation - the entire lot. Thusly, Four is an artistic guy and just fucks around with metal art in his spare time for the fun of it. It gets his hands busy and keeps his tiny body warm.

#linked universe #lu #lu four #love this boy and all this stuff he's put through #feel bad tho lol #he's my fav after all but at the same time...

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alasse-earfalas · 2 years ago

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@ajscico Ah yes, Atmosphere. :) The fic that started out as, "I wanna angst Sky, how do?" and ran away from me after I started writing it. xD

I remember going through the LU comic trying to find ways to angst Sky that weren't just Demise-related stuff, and the whole bit with Wars & Roolie leaving him behind (and then teasing him about it afterwords, which Sky didn't respond to very well considering how he just shrugged of Legend's comments in an earlier comic/doodle with a smile when Twilight talked to him about it) really stood out to me, as did his conversation with Time about "what is your worth besides being a Hero?" I think I'd also seen other people comment about how Sky is just kind of always in the background, how he doesn't really have a "designated buddy" or two like the rest of the Chain does (although I've seen arguments since then for him & Legend being pals and I 100% support that idea) and that really got me thinking.

I also really wanted to write a story where Sky and Wild interacted a lot because ✨favoritism✨ they're the two Links I relate to the most. Once I had Sky in the Shrine of Resurrection I just kinda went, "huh, well hold on, Sky's the progenitor of the royal family, right? so if there's no Sky, there's no Zeldas, HMMMM...." so that's where the "the timeline is all screwy oh crap we've gotta fix it" came from.

And, of course, because I relate to Sky and Wild so strongly, that lead to me projecting a lot of my personal issues / traumas / mental illnesses onto them. 🙃 I honestly had no idea that the DID thing was going to come up until it happened, but it's been a fun way to explain Wild's dissociative memories and how the SoR works in general (ie. why it took a century to heal them & why it took all of their memories in the process). My muse is chaotic but brilliant and I'm having a ton of fun watching this story unfold, even though it's taken far longer than I anticipated it would, lol.

Heeheehee, I'm glad you enjoyed the snippet! No telling when the next update is going to come out (I've already scrapped an entire group of chapters to take the story in its current direction), but I'm glad you're enjoying the snippet in the meantime. 😊

🖊 📊 🌈 💻

🖊 Post a snippet from a current WIP.

Here’s a bit from the next Atmosphere update (keep in mind that this is subject to change):

Sky kept up his joyful areal antics as they flew over a vast desert. Time wondered where Sky was taking him. To that dragon, perhaps?

Yes. Though this “dragon” wasn’t like the dragons Time had known. Sky greeted the oddly human-like beast warmly. He turned to Time. “I’m going to see how quickly I can go through his combat gauntlet,” he beamed.

Time couldn’t help but smile at that, concerned as he was. “Well,” he said with a pat and a chuckle, “I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

Sky grinned. He drew the helix sword from his back—wielding it one-handed, oddly enough—and stood ready as the dragon drew clouds around him.

Time’s loftwing nudged him again, cooing softly. He got the impression that she was smiling. Wanting to shake off the memory of her voice, Time looked around, found a wooden stool, and sat.

His loftwing followed him, still cooing. Time sighed and relented, petting her beak. He was grateful they were getting along better, though he’d be lying if he claimed to know what made the difference.

Sky returned quickly, and no worse for wear. Time smirked as he approached, but quickly dropped the cheekiness. Sky’s eyes were sharp again.

“Link,” he said, and Time wondered why Sky wasn’t using his nickname. “What does this mask do?” He didn’t sound angry, he sounded… serious. Curious, but with weight.

Time took a breath. “It’s a transformation mask. Or, it’s supposed to be.”

“Transformation?” said Sky slowly.

Time gave him a nod. “Though, to be honest, I’ve never known what that particular mask transforms the wearer into—”

“Me.”

Time’s heart stopped for a second. He’d had his suspicions, but Sky sounded so sure.

“Would you stay with me while I go through the gauntlet a few more times?” Sky asked. “I want to get these heart pieces while I have the opportunity.”

“Of course.”

“Thank you.” Sky hurried back to resume his training.

📊 Current number of WIPs

That I’m actively working on? Uhh… about three or four, depending on whether you count sequels separately. I have a few more that are on hold but that I plan on eventually continuing, and many others that I started and may never get back to.

🌈 What inspired you to write [insert fic here]?

Depends on the fic. Some stories jump fully-formed into my head, just little ideas that I think are fun or interesting and want to explore. Others are inspired by my own personal struggles, insecurities, and the like. Of course there can be a combination of both, too. (If you would like to know what inspired a specific fic, let me know and I can go more in-depth!)

💻 Do you do research for your fics? What’s the deepest dive you’ve done?

Only if I need to. I try to stay away from topics I don’t know much about. The deepest dive I’ve done was probably when I spent an entire day trying to puzzle out how BotW bomb arrows work.

Thanks for the ask! 😊

#writing

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purgetrooperfox · 2 years ago

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blog guide + masterlist

divorcing star wars is an ongoing process

afflicted with gamer disease (cyberpunk, elden ring, fighting games, rdr, cod, disco elysium, etc etc)

with comorbid podcast disease (malevolent, tma, wolf 359)

dm for my discord (18+ only please)

other places to find me:

18+ sideblog @foxafterdark

twitch

ko-fi

bluesky

playlists:

yeehaw

fox

roach

tags to watch for:

writing -> #leo.writes

art -> #leo.draws

ocs -> #leocs

filter #nsft for adult content

sensitive content tagged #cw <warning> . dm/send an ask for tag requests

fics and WIPs under the cut. content warnings are tagged on AO3, be mindful of them

(updated 06/13/2024)

* marks unfinished fics

Star Wars

one-shots:

it is the exact opposite of alone (tumblr link) — [G] Bastra and the ghost that haunts him.

life would be easier if I was easier (tumblr link) — [G] Fox at his limit, Quinlan making it worse and better.

I miss doing nothing with you (tumblr link) — [G] Western AU; reunion for Saleese and Nocte

* inevitability (tumblr link) — [T] On choosing something fleeting because it's worth it, even if the end is inevitable.

fare thee well, my honey (tumblr link) — [T] A breaking point for Kit and Nocte.

growing pains (tumblr link) — [T] Physical therapy frays Echo’s nerves and tests Nocte's patience, but mutual understanding is key.

in amber (tumblr link) — [T] Fox hits the streets by himself. Thorn goes down after him.

oceans, then and now (tumblr link) — [T] It's a rare occurrence for Nocte to get sent off of Coruscant, especially as the lone trooper assigned to escort a Jedi to the Outer Rim. But then, Dara has a way of defying norms and expectations rather spectacularly.

on the importance of context — [T] "I think we should talk", and other alarming phrases.

down and disarmed — [T] Waking up on the floor of a jail cell is not, in fact, Uj's preferred way to start a day.

pillow talk — [M] For all that fucking the bratty attitude out of Quinlan is a great way to blow off steam, and a cathartic one at that, it occurs to Uj that it’s probably not the best idea.

ins and outs of recall — [T] The backlash of Nocte's research on the Guard's neurological troubles.

while the currents rage below — [M] After an explosive fight and harsh words that can't be taken back, Fox and Kyr are left in different kinds of shambles. Nocte tries to pick up the pieces.

extensive and astute observation — [T] Saleese jabs a sharp elbow into Nocte's side, right where plastoid would usually make her immediately regret it. Dress greys provide no such protection. But tonight, not even bruised ribs can kill his mood. Tonight, he has a shot at identifying her mystery Jedi.

leave the heels on — [E] After a drag show, Lane keeps Uj company in his dressing room.

with and without — [T] Another farse of a vote, and the repercussions for those affected. (Nocte has a dissociative episode, Saleese tries to help him out of it.) + a lovely podfic by @/godoflaundrybaskets

nightmares — [T] Sleep brings the promise of reliving the worst moments of Nocte's life, like his own personal trauma reel. Maybe it's better to stay awake.

blank — [T] All anyone knows is that the Chancellor claims that Fox made an attempt on his life. Now Fox is en route to Kamino.

peace — [G] Months after Order 66, Rex gets a visit.

h(a)unted — [T] Echo wrestles with trauma and memories of captivity in the wake of realizing why the Kaminoans are sending hunters after Omega.

Wandering — [T] After Order 66, after the crash of the Tribunal, after his Commander– after Ahsoka told him it would be best to part ways, Rex wandered. He wandered because he couldn’t stay still. If he was still, if he stopped for longer than it took to eat and sleep, then he would think.

guess it just wants to die — [T] CC-1010 lays down. Fox wakes up.

Little Orphan Ani — [T] Anakin's men were wrong. Cody and Obi-Wan weren't father figures to him. So what if Cody's disappointment felt like a physical weight on his shoulders and he spent undue time and energy trying to make Obi-Wan proud? They weren't his parents. Not that they would be bad dads. To someone else. Not him, because he didn't see them that way, but someone else who needed unconditional support and care. (in which Cody and Obi-Wan dad at Anakin and Anakin is oblivious, right up until he isn't)

Truly, Deeply — [T] Of course Obi-Wan was not blind to the emotional, hormonal storm around his Padawan. One would have to be blind to both the Force and the physical world to miss it. And really, Anakin must have forgotten that his Master was not only Force-sensitive, but also connected to his mind through their training bond. (in which Obi-Wan is painfully aware of Anakin's feelings for Padmé and also forever wondering where he went wrong in trying to teach his Padawan subtlety)

Commander Fox Week 2021:

exhaustion (tumblr link) — [T] Fox has been running on fumes for days, counting down the time until he can drop onto the nearest surface and finally sleep.

hope — [T] Enough is enough. The Republic was doomed to fail, that much is clear. The Empire may have been inevitable as well. All Fox knows is that he’s finished, he can’t pretend anymore. He can’t fall in line like his mind has been wiped blank. So he decides to do something drastic.

family — [T] The fear-mongering rumors on Kamino about Fox being some kind of abusive, tyrannical prick have reached a point where they can’t go unaddressed. His shinies are clearly afraid and miserable with their assignment to the Guard, which Fox understands, but he can try to help them feel more at home. He can dispel some of the rumors.

laughter — [G] Existential debate rages in Fox’s office.

vode an — [M] Order 66 wiped away the clones’ autonomy, but mindless drones don’t have the wherewithal to feel guilt for their actions. The Rebellion is trying to get clones out of the purge trooper program, but freedom comes at a cost.

brothers — [T] Senator Amidala returns from Scipio with the 501st. This is the aftermath.

multi-chapter:

five times Nocte took care of the Corries, and one time they returned the favor (under construction) — [M] what it says on the tin

* red hands and black deeds — [M] Fox gets assigned to the Coruscant Guard after his bravery and sacrifices for the Republic during the First Battle of Geonosis. This job is a long shot from the one he spent his entire life preparing for; it's a war on a different front and it's on him to get his men out alive. Whether he'll get himself out with his sanity intact is up for debate.

* talk is overrated, let's just fight — [E] The Guard didn't have a designated Jedi, but they had the absolute nuisance that was Quinlan Vos. He was already more than Fox could handle. The man was at least halfway banthashit insane and seemed to derive some sadistic pleasure from derailing Fox's entire day. For all that Rex and Cody complained about their admittedly crazy Generals, Fox struggled to believe that they could possibly be worse than Vos.

* a cry at the final breath — [M] CC-2224 was a good soldier, had been decanted, raised, and trained to be a good solider. Good soldiers follow orders, so that's what he did. At times, in the deep recesses of in mind, he might questions his orders, but he always followed them. Cody has to re-learn how to do more than follow orders, to live and fight of his own accord. He's been a soldier all his life, fighting in wars that aren't his. What is freedom to a man who has only ever known captivity?

unposted WIPs I'll gladly yammer about:

currents — [M] instead of joining TBB, Echo requests a transfer to the Guard, hoping to find answers about Fives' death on Coruscant

the holding of hands, the breaking of glass — [M] follows Nocte's journey through part of the war, semi-centered around his situationship with Kit Fisto

after dark — [T/M] an AU where Quinlan Vos leaves the Jedi Order and winds up with a sect of Mandalorians; after the war, Fox is sent to Mandalore with a squad to "negotiate" (read: jumpstart an Imperial occupation) and their paths cross again

head forward // heart back — [M] follows Uj from the beginning of the war, through his assignment to the Shadows and (maybe) into his reassignment to the Guard. largely focused on his evolving relationship with Quinlan Vos

remember to breathe — [T/M] filling in the gap between Cmdr Maze and Arligan Zey's flight from Coruscant and their arrival on Mandalore. the one where I'll try to carry a whole ship on my poor aching back

The Great SWxMK Crossover Episode — in which @/kiwikipedia and I grab MK characters by the scruff and dump them into the GFFA, and vice versa

Call of Duty

unposted WIPs, in progress

burn and rage (at close of day) — [M] ghostroach timeloop set during mw2 (2009), from Roach's perspective

under the gun — [T/E] AU where Roach survives mw2 (2009) and ends up in the reboot universe, with a debt to the Shadows and a grudge against the 141

Mortal Kombat

SubScorp Week 2022 (WIP, off schedule)

impossible — [T] Years ago, Kuai Liang watched Hanzo Hasashi die. Grief is a complicated thing, but seeing the man he loved up and walking again seems a step beyond its traditional stages.

* a cautionary tale re: betting against Johnny Cage — [M] clothes swap, upcoming

* frigid — [T] childhood, upcoming

* a mirror, inverted — [T/M] trapped, upcoming

* in winter's embrace — [T/M] touch-starved, upcoming

* unspoken (yet heard) — [T] secret, upcoming

* cozy koozie — [T] crochet, upcoming

one-shots:

death-adjacent (under construction) — [M] Kuai knew, when a phantom from the past appeared in the Fire Gardens. He knew before Scorpion – not yet Grandmaster Hasashi, not yet Hanzo – spoke a single word.

#bro i hate writing fic summaries #leo.writes #leo.draws #leocs

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thesarcasticside · 3 years ago

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Anything-$00000DDD

Summary

He could have been anything. When he looked inside his own mind, he dug through darkness. Memories like ashes, the particles filling his lungs were all that were familiar to him—and those only felt like nothing. No fragments, just a fine powder.

Janus is a cyborg who works for the Dragon Witch, a criminal mastermind who runs a company that designs cybernetics.

He meets Remus, a self-taught biomedical engineer, and a variety of other robotic and alien characters, all of whom are trying to convince him that he is more than just a cybernetic puppet.

But who is “Dee” if not an empty husk created only to be controlled?

General warnings

Psychological horror, body horror, cybernetics, missing limbs, artificial limbs, Non-consensual forced medical treatment, physical abuse, blood, violence, guns, mind control, permanent amnesia, manipulation, emotional abuse, gaslighting, nightmares, streams of consciousness, unreliable narration. Content that resembles depersonalization, derealization, or dissociation

More notes, links, and chapter text under the cut

AO3 Anything, AO3 series, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18

This is my story for the 2021 Storytime! Big Bang! @ts-storytime Thank you to @ben-phantomhive-trash, who is the artist I was partnered with for the event! They created this fantastic art!!!! I love it so much I can't even.

Thank you to PunkRock for helping me figure out the shorts characters and other plot things. Also thank you to AryaSkywalker, Thembo, and Carrotflowerking17 and the Big Bang 2021 discord for additional help!!!!

This fic is an alternative entry point to my (In Other Worlds) Series. This fic happens at the same time roughly as Millennia, a companion novel. You can read this fic and then check out the rest of the series, or check out the series and then read this.

Also, I don't use Janus's actual name throughout the fic for thematic and narrative reasons. You'll see. I hope that does not put you off too much. Consider it part of the angst.

Clarification of general warnings and pairings, minor spoilers

I added the tag unreliable narrator, but I will clarify that the narrator is not actively lying to the audience. This tag relates to Janus's memory issues and the uncertainty resulting from that. tbh I would not worry too much about the events being untrue, and more be concerned about these being Janus's imperfect recollection of events.

I think this fic is a bit more violent than Millennia at times, hence I added the archive warning for violence. I still feel like a teen would be fine reading this, so I am keeping the rating Teen and Up. This fic focuses the most on what I dub psychological horror (angst, mind control, memory issues, consciousness, nightmares, etc.). I also tagged this story with disassociation, and content in this fic may resemble derealization and depersonalization.

If you think I should warn/rate this fic differently, I am happy to hear feedback and reconsider.

I tagged this as Remus/Janus, but like, ya gotta squint. Mostly banter and being soft. I love romance, but I have a hard time writing it. Could be seen as platonic too.

HINT 1: KEY.

HINT 2: "kind of" not "kinda"

CHAPTER START

NAME J. D. Dedrick ID 25:35--25:44 / 51:09 ALIENRACE Dūcesnaca OCCUPATION Robotics Researcher

Chapter Warnings cybernetics, missing/artificial limbs (eye, legs), forced medical treatment/experimentation, amnesia, depersonalization/derealization/dissociation, unreliable narration, psychological horror, swearing Chapter Characters Janus, the Dragon Witch, Virgil (not by name)

He woke up to yellow in his eyes, stinging and unfocused. Lights beyond the veil flickered. He saw a figure move; he looked small. After a brief glance into the world, he began to drown. He threw everything into the yellow encasement, and after an agonizing struggle, the rush of acceleration threw him to the ground.

When the air touched his face, black fireworks exploded in his hazy vision, and the first memory he had was gone.

He woke up again, like a corpse left in the stale air for vultures: beaks plucking out his skin piece by piece. His vision blurry and halved, he stared up at the birds breaking his body into bits.

Reports say he was involved in a huge space crash. DRACANA has generously sponsored his artificiality.

That sounded like a lie. That sort of blatant untruth where there was no connection to reality tied to it. Everything his senses told him felt unreal, everything except the pain that grounded him like a shot duck.

Whispers like gossip broke into his mind between droughts of consciousness. His senses were pieced together and broken apart, like pieces of clay in a kiln shattering. Memories of vultures and lab coats glued together by agony floated through space until eventually he was awake.

Probably just one of her business rivals

Dei’dra��he knew her name—loomed over him, to his right. He could see nothing to his left. The light stung, he squinted and blinked his eye. He could feel nothing on the left side of his face. Dei’dra smiled at him.

“Wake up, dollface. Didn’t think you’d make it, but you pulled through.”

He did not know where he was. He did not know who he was. All he knew was that this woman was Dei’dra, the Dragon Witch, and he hated her.

“Well, he seems to be doing well. Might as well put him under and move onto the next stage.”

He lived out his days creating sand sculptures in his mind. He saw himself running in place, downloading skills and targets and concepts. The sand would blow away each day, leaving him with nothing to remember them by.

Between bouts of black unconsciousness, he saw grey, and white, and pale pink, brown, and blue. Abstract shapes morphing into creatures that prodded at him. Cold metal seething, machines twisting his body together like crochet. He gave nonsense names for some, not even names consisting of words, just pure thoughts.

Slowly, he lost sight of the sand in his brain, yet the grains still dripped from his ears when he shook his head. He became a part of reality. Or perhaps he became part of a hellish dream.

Darkness huddled in the damp sides of his eyes, danger snapping at his bruised joints and soles. Deep inside his chest, his heart damned, words mixed with intuitive instincts, daring his body to live beyond the yellow veil.

Stage One of Project $DEE has been completed.

$DEE was not his name. It was what he was called. One of the words that would echo in his brain. Dee. Dee. Dee. Like a rhythm, like the beeping machines. Like the ringing of the heart monitor. It was embedded in his ears. Baby words jumping around, forming pictures, babbling him into nothing.

Dee, his brain still a desert, started to make better sense of this reality he lived in. He could control his body sometimes. He could move his arms. Or what was left of his limbs. Or what they had lent him.

The second picture in his brain, the one after the yellow veil: it was the artificial lights on Lab C’s ceiling. Grey illuminated by white, he stared up at the square tiles and textured glass, like undulating waves of melted sand.

With how long he was locked in place staring up at this picture, he memorized it. He could close his eyes at any moment and picture it in its exact detail again.

“Time to get up, Doll-face. It’s time for your first mission.”

He saw Dei’dra’s face again. He felt his restraints loosen and break away.

His first mission was not all that glorious. He was lanky, unused to moving in his body. He was a wall of meat. Disposable. He followed a trail like a zombie. He barely spoke to the team he was placed in. He remembered their orders regarding him.

“He’s still pretty out of it. Give him some good experience, but we’d like to keep working on him so bring him back in one piece.”

Dee felt like a puppet, simply put. Some machine inside him aimed his cannons and lasers. He stood in place, shooting at targets. He was guided by an invisible leash by the team he was assigned to. He saw sepia shapes. Blurs of bodies. All he could feel was the emotions in his gut telling him, repeatedly:

Youaregoingtodieyouaregoingtodieyouaregoingtodieagainyouaregoingtodiestoppleasestoppleaseyouaregoingtodiestopstopstopstopstop.

He was kept suspended in place while his body completed the mission. And then he was back in Lab C, mind clearer.

He was thinking in sentences now. He could monologue, like any great villain. That is what he had become, hadn’t he? Why a villain? Where had he learned that word? The more he sifted through the sand, the more words he could find he no longer remembered learning. They were just there, connected to nothing. No memory. No past life.

He kept thinking these words. And then he decided that since his jaw was not glued shut, he would give speaking a try. Garbled and slurred at first, he kept talking as much as they let him.

They made him run between ceilings of grey. They made him speak between illuminated square tiles. He practiced lines of a script. Subterfuge settled in his brain like a mirage in the distance between the settled sand.

He could walk on the unsteady ground once again. He could see. He could hear. He could experience the world around him. He gazed up at the ceiling but was interrupted by a splotch of dark violet.

Another blot. Another vulture. He stood there out of the corner of his artificial eye.

“What are you waiting for? Get on with the tests.” His voice sharp, cutting through his tongue.

This was an unusual time of day for tests. To say it was a time of day was generous. It was more like he would be experimented on for hours upon hours and then suddenly they would stop. Nothing to do but bask in the nothingness it brought.

At this point, Dee thought that he was done with most of the tests. He had his limbs. He had an eye, which he opened wider to get a better look at the violet blotch. Something about the blotch was connected to something else in his brain, but he could not quite place it.

“Well, whatever it is, get on with it, it certainly could not have waited until morning.”

It shuffled closer to him. Less of a blotch now. He could make out shapes. He could recognize his face now if he saw him again.

Air escaped his lungs, and then he said again, asking, “Whatever might you need from me today, doctor?”

The blotch was shaking. “If you are just here to sight-see, I am going back to sleep.” His eyes weighed heavily on his face, eyelids falling through his willpower.

“Are you… okay?”

No, I am not ‘okay’. I am ‘$DEE.’

“Do I LOOK okay? Yeah sure, I am right as rain, having a grand old time—feeling peachy, even.” At this point, the words just spiraled off his tongue and through his teeth. The blotch made a sound, and Dee’s frustration grew, the pain of today’s tests ricocheting in his body.

“If you aren’t here to run another one of your little tests, then just get out. Go tell your superior, or better yet, go tell Dei’dra to go fuck herself and leave me alone.”

And he left him alone. He wondered vaguely what that was all about. He then fell asleep.

#ts (In Other Worlds)#ts (INW)#ts Janus #ts deceit #ts the dragon witch #ts storytime #ts storytime 2021 #ts big bang #ts Virgil #sarcasm writes #sarcasm ts fic #thomas sanders #sander sides #sander sides fic #ts Anything

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hotchley · 4 years ago

Text

like blood underneath your fingernails

Honestly, I’m quite proud of this one. It’s been in the works for a while, and I finally have a title (from Looking Too Closely- Fink) and I both did those flashcards and emptied the dishwasher, so it’s here now. It’s been proofread!! Once. In the car.

The writers (according to the internet) did not deal with the aftermath of Scratch’s initial... thing. So I took it upon myself to write the case after. It got dark, but I had fun writing it. And it has low-key Mortch vibes... a lot of other amazing writers have also written fics linked to this, so you need to read those too because they’re just the best

OH!! This is not a Rossi-friendly fic. I have tried to explain why he responds the way he does, but it does come off as Rossi bashing, so if you reallllly love him and think he was a great friend to Hotch... skip on this one.

Trigger Warnings: dissociation, aftermath of torture, a slight reference to suicide and child death, canon-typical violence, cases involving kidnappings and murder, blood, dark themes, other canon-typical darkness, hallucinations

read on ao3!

He cannot close his eyes.

Because when he closes his eyes, he sees one of them, falling to the ground as the light leaves their eyes and the life leaves their body because his worst fear has never been his own death. It has always been the death of the family he is meant to protect- whether that was Sean, or Haley or the team.

He hears the fear in JJ's voice as Spencer, her little brother, the boy that has always been too young, the man that he has never succeeded in saving, falls to the ground, eyes never opening again.

He tastes the horrifying and coppery tang of blood as Derek is shot right in front of his eyes, the blood splattering onto his cheek and every sentence Reid has ever spoken about the bacteria and pathogens in blood springing to the forefront of his mind.

He smells the bitter and disgusting sage that Peter Lewis uses to torment people and turn them into brutal murderers that cannot stand the sight of their own hands or wrap their heads around their actions because they had always been normal and good, and it hurts because he's already a killer, never once normal or good.

He touches the knife that was slid towards him, the metal cool against his warm hand and the weight a comforting thing that make him feel like he could regain control of the situation he was in, despite the thoughts of George Foyet that fill his mind, and he wonders whether Scratch is impotent.

He closes his eyes and he no longer knows what is real.

It is why he is returning to work only ten days after the case. He had wanted to take the usual five, terrified even of that small number because he couldn't trust himself. The doctors that assessed him in the hospital wanted him to take thirty. Ten, and a passed psychological evaluation, had been the compromise.

He wonders if the team knows how he lied. They must do. They aren't stupid. He wonders if anyone will call him out on it, or if they'll once again be so terrified of the humanity he wants nothing more than to cling to that they will simply watch and wait until he shatters again.

The steady ticking of the clock is the only noise in the otherwise silent apartment. When he flicks the light on, he sees there are still five hours until he needs to wake up. For a single moment, he closes his eyes, contemplating whether or not attempting to sleep is a pointless exercise. He swears he can still taste sage and opens his eyes again.

A silent house is not necessarily a bad thing. It means Jack is sleeping through the night, no nightmares about the gunshots haunting him. And it means the extra locks on the door, the obsessive way he checks every window is locked as soon as the sun goes down, are doing their job at keeping the monsters out of the only home Jack has real memories of.

Aaron creeps out of bed, grabbing the jumper that was folded at the foot of his bed. Once he's put it on, he sighs to himself and counts to five. For each number, he tells himself a fact that cannot be disputed. That grounds him.

His name is Aaron Hotchner.

He is forty-four years old.

He is standing inside his bedroom, in his apartment, which is located in Virginia.

The windows of that apartment are locked from the inside.

Just down the hallway, his son is sleeping peacefully, untouched by the monsters that strangle his father every single day.

He creeps down that hallway, taking comfort when the same floorboard that always creaks does just that. Normally he would avoid it. But lately he's been finding every opportunity to do something that Peter Lewis would have no knowledge of, if only so he can convince himself he's fine.

Jack's door is slightly open, allowing some light to enter. Aaron nudges it gently, making sure he doesn't wake Jack. The door doesn't make a sound, and his son carries on sleeping. He never looks so similar to his mother as he does when he sleeps. Haley slept on her left side, a slight smile on her face, and Jack does the same, unless he has a bad dream.

But even then, he is so much like his mother that his tears can be turned into something beautiful. Aaron was the exception of their little family, having always expressed his emotions so honestly, the few times he let himself do that, that there was no way it could be anything but ugly and human.

He's too big for the chair in front of Jack's desk, but he sits in it anyways, turning it so he can face Jack's bed. On the table is his latest art project- a collage of things that remind him of the people he loves- and Aaron finds it difficult to look at. Because his son has painted his mother as a perfect angel, and his father a superhero.

One day, Jack will realise his father is the furthest thing from the superhero and he will hate him for destroying his childhood and taking his mother from him before he was old enough to understand that people were mortal. Aaron is mentally preparing for that day- there are already so many letters that will never excuse or justify what he did hidden in his office drawer- but until then. he will allow himself this one good thing.

He will allow himself to sit, and take comfort in the steady rise and fall of Jack's chest. He ends up staying there until sunlight starts to stream through the window, and then he takes his leave.

Seeing Jack, sleeping so calmly and normally, reminds him of why he's going back to work. Because if he hurts the wrong person there, the team won't hesitate and they'll do it. If he hurts Jack- and he knows he's weaker than the man that refused to harm his son, knows that it will be Jack- there will be nobody there to end his pain and suffering. He'll be forced to live with it.

A minute before his alarm is set to go, he turns it off, and then he goes about morning like it is any other day.

He doesn't feel like himself till he puts the watch Dave got him when became lead profiler on, tightening the strap till it mirrors the feeling of holding the knife. And he wonders whether the team are discussing his return to duty the same way they had six years ago.

They are. Aaron's absence meant more paperwork for the rest of them, as there is no way the team are going to let him handle it when he comes back, so every single one of them are in an hour earlier. It also means his return will be as smooth as it can be.

Even if they don't all approve.

"It's only been ten days," Derek says. "He needs more time."

"Does he? He came back thirty-four days after George Foyet stabbed him in his apartment and his wife and son were sent into Witness Protection, and he was fine. This is like child's play compared to that," Dave says, fiddling with a paperclip.

"Ex-wife," Reid corrects quietly.

The three of them are sitting in the bullpen, looking towards the elevator every few minutes. Kate pretends she's not listening, and Derek pretends he believes her.

"Was he fine? He looked us in the eye and asked why a man that had lost his wife and child was still alive. He walked into a hostage situation unarmed. We all pretended he was fine because we needed Foyet to strike, but I'm not making that mistake again. Not after what happened when he did end up striking," Derek snaps.

Spencer swallows. Dave just raises an eyebrow. It's almost funny. Spencer views Aaron as a father, Dave as a son. Either way, they both believe he is perfect. Able to come back from anything and everything with nothing more than a broken ego. But Derek remembers what Foyet's body looked like, and he remembers how Aaron had shattered in his arms for those few seconds.

"If you want to ruin his first day back, then be my guest. But you need to trust him the same way he trusts us. After all, you care more about him than you do your job," Dave says, annoyance bleeding into his tone.

And Derek gets it. He really does. He had wanted to believe Gideon was invincible when he came back after Boston. Everyone had. So they hadn't done anything, and he had just gotten more and more reckless with his actions until innocent people ended up dead and Hotch got suspended. And then he ran.

He isn't going to let that happen again.

"This isn't about not trusting him. This is about keeping him safe. And you're right. I do care about him more, because the last time I didn't, he almost retired. So we either do the opposite of what we did last time, or we let history repeat itself."

"Derek, you can't force him into anything. He passed his psych eval, so Cruz can't do anything either," Spencer says.

Derek softens as he turns to him. "I know pretty boy. It's not about forcing him into anything. It's about making sure he knows that we're here if he needs more time, or if he needs a break. And don't get me started on that psych eval. I saw his answers. They're too perfect. He's lying."

"So what are you going to do?" Dave challenges, and not for the first time, Derek wonders how Aaron kept his sanity working with him, Jason Gideon and Max Ryan at the same time without any of the other members to meet his eyes with the same exasperated look every time one of them reverted to the old fashioned way of doing things.

"Be the friend he trusts me to be," Derek says. It's his own challenge. Dave prides himself on being the only one to call him Aaron. To people outside the team, Rossi seems to be the only one that Aaron trusts enough to be vulnerable with.

But Derek knows better. Aaron will never be completely open with anyone, but he still feels like he has a duty to be the hopeful and undamaged boy that thought he could save the world that Dave recruited. He still has a duty to be the father that Spencer never had and thought he'd found in Gideon. It is only with Derek that he allows himself to do his own type of falling apart: one that is contained and messy and ugly. Somehow both terrifying and anticlimactic

It was Derek that stopped him from running into a burning building all those years ago. It was Derek that was voluntarily told about Haley leaving. It was Derek that stepped up as Unit Chief and pulled him off Foyet's dead body. Not Dave and certainly not Spencer. So he won't let them influence his actions. Not this time.

Hotch does blink. But only when he thinks nobody will see him do it.

Dave keeps eye contact for a few more moments, but this time, Derek does not break it. Eventually the older man turns around and heads to his office. Derek sighs, knowing fully well that Aaron is going to end up doing the paperwork anyways.

"Is he going to be okay?" Spencer asks, sounding so painfully young that Derek has to look at him to remember he wasn't the new recruit anymore.

"Dave? Yeah, he'll be annoyed, we'll get a case and then everything will be fine," Derek says, smiling so Reid doesn't worry.

"No I meant Hotch. Will he be okay?"

Derek can't tell him the truth. "Of course he will. He's Hotch."

"Why are you lying to me?"

He knows there's no point in trying to deny it. "I'm not trying to patronise you or keep you in the dark. It's not that. It's just- I don't know. It's stupid, but I want to shield you from his mortality and flaws and imperfections for as long as is humanly possible. You are always going to have a different relationship with Hotch because of how much younger you are, and I just don't want to be the one that ruins it."

"So you want to protect me?"

Derek nods. "I guess."

"Thank you. Nobody ever did that when I was younger," Spencer says.

Kate breaks the ensuing silence by asking for Spencer's opinion on her consult, and Derek starts watching the elevator doors again. They don't open until precisely nine, when Hotch steps off, dressed in the same suit and tie he wears every second Monday of the month, carrying his briefcase and acting like nothing happened.

He gives them a slight smile as he passes them in the bullpen, and even those few seconds are enough for Derek to see that he hasn't been sleeping.

When Aaron sets his briefcase down, Spencer looks to him, nervous. Derek gives him a small smile, even though they all saw him as he entered. It's only been ten days since they last saw him, but his suits seem to hang from him more than before. Dave looks out at them, and Derek starts to count.

He counts to three hundred, and is immediately struck by just how fast time can go. Three hundred seconds is five minutes, and yet it feels like no time has passed. But when Hotch looks out at them, as he always does, everyday, without fail, ten days feels like a lifetime.

He is terrified as he stands, but he fights through the fear and goes up to his friend's office. The door is open, so he walks in without knocking. When Hotch looks at him, he closes both the door and the blinds. Hotch swallows as the sound of them closing fills the air.

"I don't want them profiling this conversation," he explains.

Aaron just nods. "Thank you."

"You don't need to pretend with me," Derek says.

Aaron looks away, and Foyet's presence, usually contained to the self-deprecating voice in his head telling him he's no better than his father, seems to fill the room. They both know why he doesn't pretend anymore.

"I don't know what you want me to say."

"You don't need to say anything. I don't expect you to tell me the truth, because I wouldn't, if I was you. I'd be too terrified. But I remember what it was like seeing Spencer and Emily. So if you do want to talk, then I'm here. Always. And I won't flinch."

Aaron knows this to be true. When they finally got back to Quantico after Jason's death, Derek found him sobbing in the men's bathroom, the barriers he had spent so long piecing together completely breaking when he opened his drawer and found a photo from the early days, where Jason looked happy and hopeful. He hadn't said anything. Just sat beside him, and offered a tissue.

"I know you won't."

Derek sighs, not sure what he's meant to do. "Aaron-" he starts, not sure what he's going to see next.

"I can't trust myself. I- I don't know what's real, and I keep trying to do the grounding things that the bureau therapist said I need to, but I don't know if they're working. I have post-it notes all over the apartment and I have my five facts, and I have things I can touch, but Scratch knew so much, I can't- I feel like he's everywhere and he knows everything."

It is so honestly vulnerable that Derek wants nothing more than to flee, if only so he can cling to the Aaron that existed when he first joined the unit for just one more moment. But he made a promise. And he has no idea how he's meant to keep it, but he's going to.

He holds his hand out. When Aaron doesn't take it, he leans over the desk, gently linking their fingers. "I'm here. With you. Scratch can't get our body temperatures perfect. He can't know that I'm always slightly warmer and you're always colder. He can't know that twelve years ago, I called you darling because I didn't realise it was you."

Aaron chuckles slightly. "Derek."

"You don't need to say anything. I messed up after Foyet. I won't do that again."

He shakes his head, finally meeting his eyes, and the fire in them is almost enough to convince Derek that everything is going to be fine. Almost.

"You did everything you could after Foyet. If you had tried to do more, I would have stopped you. We both know that. You did everything right, everything perfectly right and you cannot feel like you failed because you didn't. Do you understand me?"

Derek swallows. “Yes. But you need to understand that if you need anything- and I mean anything, whether it’s for me to take the reins for a bit, an unofficial firearms certification, or even just to do the grounding techniques with you, I will.”

Aaron nods. “I know Derek. I know. Thank you.”

Derek gives him the most convincing smile he can, leaving the door open because Aaron hated having it closed. As he exits. Dave steps in, and he sees as Aaron morphs back into Hotch to be the man that Dave needs him to be. It hurts to see, but he understands why it happens.

He doesn’t believe in God. He hasn’t for a while. But he needs to do something other than stare at dead bodies, so he prays that the team remain grounded for a few days. Not for too long because then Aaron will get suspicious and realise that Derek had been forging Rossi’s signature in order to transfer their out of state cases to other teams, but long enough for him to get settled once more.

Or as settled as he would ever be.

It’s probably why, only minutes after Dave leaves Hotch’s office, smiling, whilst the other man just looks exhausted, JJ comes rushing into the bullpen. There are five files in her arms, and she looks frantic.

“No,” Derek says.

“I’m sorry, but we need to go on this one. It came directly to me. It’s- just look.”

He doesn’t want to, but as JJ goes to give the files to Dave and Aaron, he does, if only so he can gauge how much support he will need. And as he opens it, he understands exactly why they’re going on this case. Why, even if JJ had tried to hide it from Hotch, he would’ve said they had a duty.

They have four victims. All blonde women. All mothers. All divorced. Killed by a single gunshot to the head. No evidence of sexual assault, but they were held captive and tortured for three days before being dumped in their home. All found by their ex-husbands, who were only there to drop the child off.

Hotch does not show an ounce of humanity during the journey there. It terrifies Derek. Hotch only refuses to show how human he is when he’s close to falling apart. Too close for anyone to feel comfortable. Instead, he keeps his tone detached and professional. Derek pretends to not notice the way Aaron pushes down on his stomach, over the biggest scar Foyet left. Aaron pretends he doesn’t see Derek watching him.

When they get to the station, Derek knows it’s going to be a long case. Him and Reid are sent to the coroner’s office, whilst JJ and Kate are tasked with searching through their victims history. Which means Hotch and Rossi are left to interview the husbands. JJ and Derek- the most attuned to Hotch and the thought behind his actions- make a silent agreement that they will do whatever it takes to make sure Rossi doesn’t go too far. Whatever that means.

They fail because they don’t get the chance to speak to him before they leave the precinct.

And when they return, Dave is nowhere to be seen, and Aaron is sat in the conference room, clenching his jaw and hyper focused on the details in the case files.

“Did you get anything from the husbands?” JJ asks, tone gentle.

Hotch shakes his head. “They’re grieving, and terrified for their children. But they’re not guilty. They all loved their wives.”

Nobody bothers to point out all four couples were divorced.

"Where's Rossi?" Reid asks.

The tension in Aaron's shoulders increases.

"Hotch," Kate says, the only one that can.

"He accused one of the father's of committing the crime," Hotch says.

JJ and Morgan give each other identical looks. Kate looks horrified, and Spencer is stunned speechless.

"What happened after?" she prompts.

Hotch doesn't speak. Kate sighs, then leads JJ away. As she passes Spencer, she asks him to follow her because Hotch and Morgan need to speak alone. He nods and leaves without another word.

"Aaron," Derek says.

"I ended the interrogation and dragged him out of the room. And then I punched him in the face because those women remind me of Haley and those fathers remind me of myself and every accusation he made reminded me of the months after her death and I couldn't do it."

Derek wants to punch Dave himself. He must have known what he was doing, and in some strange and obscure way thought his actions would help the situation. Clearly he couldn't have been more wrong.

"You didn't cause Haley's death," he says, for lack of any other words.

"I did. Maybe I didn't put the gun to her head and pull the trigger, but I did cause it. That's not what I'm scared about though."

"What are you scared of then?" Derek asks, well aware that they're in the middle of a police station where anyone could hear them, but needing to take advantage of Aaron's vulnerability before he let his mask slip back into place.

"Scratch. I punched Dave and it felt like Scratch was laughing at me, egging me on to hurt him more. The worst part is that I almost did. Punching him felt good, and then I panicked and now I don't know- I don't know whether the only thing I did was punch him or if I did something more."

Derek curses under his breath. "How long have you been feeling like that?"

Hotch shrugs. "I couldn't- I forgot what time it was when I stumbled back here. I'm sorry."

"It's okay," he says, the words almost reflexive because of every apology Aaron has ever given him. "We just need to ground you."

He takes Aaron's hands, noting that the muscles are moving the way they should be. It's a small thing, but it's a good thing, because it means he's wearing the wrist support when he needs them and doing the physical therapy.

“Look at me,” he commands softly.

Aaron does so willingly. “Derek, we’re in a conference room.”

“That’s good. Can you give me four other facts that prove you’re here, in this moment with me?”

"My name is Aaron Hotchner. I am forty-four years old. We are in a police station. You are Derek Morgan. There is a door behind you and a window behind me- the window is locked, but the door is wide open. We can both see if someone walks in."

"Show off," Derek teases.

Aaron manages to smile slightly. “Thank you,” he whispers after a moment.

“You have nothing to thank me for,” Derek says. He means it.

This time, Aaron’s laugh is self-deprecating. “I’m a horrible person to look after.”

“Not to me you’re not. How do you feel now?”

He shrugs. “Better, I guess.”

“Drink some water. Slowly. I’ll go check on Dave.”

“Do you think he’s going to hate me?” Aaron asks.

“You’re the closest thing he has to a friend. Of course not,” Derek says. He keeps his tone light, but deep down he’s afraid that Dave will. Not forever, he could never do that, but for long enough that something else goes wrong.

He finds Dave in the bathroom.

“Hotch told me what happened,” he says.

“And what? You’re here to tell me that I shouldn’t have pushed because he’s fragile and hurting? Did you tell him that he shouldn’t have fucking punched me in the face because of something I said to a suspect?”

“Those men were not suspects and you know that,” Derek snaps. He sighs. “I wasn’t coming here to tell you that you shouldn’t have pushed. I came to see whether or not you were okay.”

Dave raises an eyebrow. Derek sighs, again.

“He saw Scratch when he punched you. Now he’s worried. And he’s falling back into old patterns. I told him he didn’t kill Haley and not only did he not believe me, he flat out disagreed and said he did.”

“What do you want me to do?” Dave asks. He doesn’t sound angry, just tired. Derek wants to shout at him. He may be tired after this one event, but he’s not been the one picking up the pieces and gluing their fragile leader back together for the past few years. Dave doesn’t get to be tired. Not whilst Derek is still the only one able to do anything.

“I don’t know Dave. You’ve known him the longest. It was you that found him in the immediate aftermath. You took the gun from him- rather poetic given the last time an unsub targeted him, you told him to take yours- and got him to speak.”

Dave blinks a few times. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I thought being hard on him would bring him back, but I was wrong.”

“It’s okay. You just need to correct yourself now,” Derek says, for lack of any other words.

“I just want him to be the boy he was when he first joined the unit,” Dave whispers.

Derek did not know the boy his friend was then, but he does know the Aaron that existed before Boston. The Aaron that held a baby Jack in their arms like that one small child was enough to remove every piece of darkness to exist. The Aaron that had grabbed Haley’s hand and taken her dancing so they could spend a bit of time together.

"We all do. But he's gone now. The only thing we can do is try to save whatever pieces of him live in the Aaron that is sat in the conference room, beating himself up over something that was not his fault because of your misplaced comment," Derek says. They have a killer to catch. There's no time to entertain this.

"I know. Thank you. For doing what the rest of us are too afraid to," Dave replies. Derek shifts uncomfortably under the weight of his gaze.

Something about the dynamic between the two men has changed, and everybody has noticed.

"Somebody has to," is all he can say, before he leaves Rossi to wash his hands and search for the man that had promised Aaron everything he could ever want, all those years ago when he first recruited him for the BAU.

There's an empty glass of water beside Hotch when Derek returns, and he's silently thankful that for once in his life, Aaron listened. He's deep in conversation with one of the police officers, so he refrains from making any comments, but when Aaron turns back towards the table, he goes over without a second thought.

He tells himself it's because he wants to know what happened just then. Because he wants to know whether or not they have any more information that can be used to their advantage. He tells himself it has nothing to do with the fact that learning about the case means he doesn't have to focus on the minute tremble of Hotch's hands. Doesn't have to see the hollow look in his eyes- a look of a man so defeated that he has no reason to try anymore.

The problem with being a profiler is that you rarely fall for anyone's bullshit- including your own.

“Did the officer have some additional information?” Derek asks.

Hotch hears him, obviously, but does not respond.

“Hotch,” he repeats.

“No. He didn’t. He wanted to know why you were holding my hands.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “And what did you say?”

“That ten days a man that managed to turn people that would never dare hurt another person into horrific killers drugged me, causing me to hallucinate the deaths of the same people that are solving his case for him, and as a result, I cannot always tell when things are real,” Aaron deadpans.

For a moment, Derek honestly can’t tell whether or not he’s joking. Then Aaron gives him the smallest smile, and he relaxes slightly. The last thing they need happening is officers spreading even more rumours about the types of cases the BAU work on.

He starts to reply with a joke of his own, then sees Aaron’s smile fade away like it was never there. He wonders how instinctive the action is- how many times was that little boy told he was too much, and how many times did he fade into the background like he didn’t even exist?

Without turning, he knows it’s Dave.

“I’m going to see if Spencer needs any help,” Derek says.

For a moment, it seems like Aaron is going to beg him to stay. But like most of his displays of humanity, it passes in a second, and then he simply nods, not even trying to fight.

“Aaron,” Dave says, walking over with purpose.

“Rossi don’t. Please,” Aaron pleads.

“What you did was stupid. But my actions were also uncalled for,” he says. It’s the closest he’ll ever get to a proper apology. Aaron accepts it because there’s not much else he can do. Dave pretends it’s going to fix everything because it’s the only thing that will get him through the case.

“Do you seriously think the fathers are to blame?” Hotch asks.

Rossi shakes his head. “Not anymore. I just needed to be sure.” He also needed to be sure that Aaron was fine, and given his response to Rossi’s accusation, he can’t say he’s convinced.

"Good," Aaron says, and the smile he gives Dave is so small and subtle, but so full of love, that for a single moment, the older profiler is able to convince himself that the fragile collection of skin and bones in front of him is still the hopeful boy that joined the unit. But then the moment passes and he's left feeling worse than before.

When the team come back, picking up on the cues that both Hotch and Rossi laid down, they go back to acting like nothing is wrong. Like the women in the photos are victims that deserve justice, and not the mirror of the same light they failed to save five years ago.

There are no breaks in the case, and they return to the hotel defeated and miserable. Budget problems mean they're doubling up. Part of Derek wants to switch rooms with Dave so he can keep an eye on Aaron, but the bigger part of him knows it would be a terrible idea, so he texts him saying that if he needs anything, no matter what time it is, he'll be available.

Aaron mouths the words thank you once he's read the message. Derek counts it as a win, and he tries to remain calm when Dave texts him saying that when he entered the shower- after Hotch- although the water dial was set to be normal, the water ran hot. Too hot.

He refrains from commenting the next morning, when Aaron clasps his glass of freezing water like a lifeline. In some ways, it is. And he knows what it's a sign of. He isn't sure whether it's caused by something in particular, or if he's just overwhelmed, but the hotel dining area- where Kate and Spencer would both hear- isn't the place to ask.

They get to the precinct, and it becomes clear that nobody there has slept. Another woman was found dead a few minutes before they got there. The father and son are sitting in the same conference room the BAU were working out of. For a moment, Aaron looks like he's going to kill the person that sent them there. The lead on the case quickly intercepts, saying they moved the boards and evidence files, and he relaxes slightly.

But before anyone can sleep, he removes his blazer and tie, before unbuttoning his top button and rolling his sleeves up. And then he walks into the conference room. Derek blinks, then it clicks. Aaron looks like a father. Someone both people sat in the room can trust. JJ hands him the information on the file, and his breathing stops for a moment.

The father and son could have been Aaron and Jack. If Aaron's eyes were darker and Jack's hair lighter, they would be the boys smiling in the photo provided with the file. He wants to take over the conversation Hotch must be having, but he finds himself rooted to the spot. How many cases are going to hit too close to home before Aaron gives up? Before it feels like every victim wears Haley's face?

How many more times can Aaron Hotchner look into the darkest parts of humanity before his hands stop going cold at crime scenes and Derek Morgan needs to take his place in some weird parallel of the events that occurred after Boston?

When the father and son leave the room, he jumps out of his chair and runs over.

"We will catch this man. And if you need anything, please don't hesitate to contact me," he hears Aaron say.

He sighs to himself.

The father shakes his hand and leaves, guiding his son with nothing more than a gentle hand to the back of his head. He sees Aaron swallow.

"You know you can't promise things like that," he chastises, not truly meaning it.

"It wasn't a promise. It was a guarantee," Hotch snaps.

Morgan simply raises an eyebrow.

"I'm sorry."

"Want to tell me about it?"

"I told him about Haley, and how I found her. And about how Jack was just down the hallway in my office- the one place in our home that my work touched, even if he never found it- so now he can't be alone on New Years or Independence Day. I only said it because he told me I didn't understand what it was like. To have to do that."

No amount of surgery is ever going to fix the hole in Aaron's heart that Haley's death created. They could plant seeds of love and watch them blossom into flowers of acceptance and fearlessness in every other part of his body, but that one area could never be touched.

Derek knows this. He's seen it before.So he doesn't offer any words, because there are none. Instead, he takes Aaron's arm and he squeezes the elbow. It is Aaron's non-verbal method of saying thank you. So in that moment, it can also be his.

Aaron isn't entirely sure why Derek is thanking him, but he learnt long ago that when someone said something, you didn't push. You accepted their words- whether they were kind declarations of love or as sharp as knives- and you moved on.

When Derek lets go of him, he walks back over to the team, feeling slightly lighter and infinitely more grounded.

Kate tells him another woman had been taken, and the weight he thought he'd been able to let go off settles on his chest like a death threat. There is a single moment where she worries that this will be the thing that causes him to fall off the edge of the cliff he's been standing on for far too long, but then he stands up properly and it's like nothing ever happened.

He doesn't sleep, instead pouring over the case file whilst Rossi gently snores beside him. If Jason had been with the team. he would've somehow realised that Hotch was still awake, and told him to go to sleep. And Hotch would've obeyed. But Jason wasn't with the team. He was dead. And sometimes that knowledge knocked Aaron off guard, so he stopped focusing on that and started concentrating on the woman.

Their break comes the next morning.

Garcia hasn't slept either, and between the two of them, they have a name and a location. Everyone piles into the cars, vests on and weapons ready, because even though nobody had said it, there was no way this is ending without at least one shot being fired.

The door to the building is unlocked, and they have their unsub surrounded within seconds. Hotch suddenly feels like a bucket of ice has been poured over him, causing him to freeze, and the blood to start pounding in his ears. Nothing feels real to him. He tightens the grip on his gun.

His name is Aaron Hotchner.

He is forty-four years old.

He is holding a gun because he is on a case.

The unsub is holding a knife to a woman's throat.

The woman looks just like Haley- no. He cannot think that. Not now.

"Let her go," JJ commands softly.

"No," their unsub says.

What is his name? And why can Aaron not remember his name?

"If you put that knife down, and let her go, we can tell the courts that you cooperated with us. That'll be nice, won't it?" Kate adds. Her tone is completely level. Calming in a way that it shouldn't be.

The unsub grins, then presses the knife even closer to his victim's throat. She lets out a terrified whimper and closes her eyes. He yanks her hair, forcing her to open then, and he seems pleased with himself.

"I don't care about the courts. I care about the man I'm doing all of this for. He's going to be great, and he's going to make me great too. Just you wait and see."

This wasn't part of the profile. There was never meant to be a more dominant partner. The control Aaron has been clinging to in order to get through this case is slowly slipping away with each piece of information he either cannot remember or is introduced to him.

"He? Who is he?" Spencer asks.

The man cocks his head. "Is it not obvious?"

Spencer shakes his head. "We're not like you. We need you to explain."

He nicks the skin slightly. Blood pools at the tip of the blade. Another digression from the previous pattern. No knives were ever used to cut the skin. The kills had been quick and clean. Why was everything changing?"

"I won't."

"The only way you get out of this alive is if you explain everything to us. Because this man, he won't make you great. Whoever he is, he only cares about himself. Not you. Certainly not your life. But we care about you. Just set the knife down," Derek says.

Aaron knows he needs to contribute, but he just can't do it. His tongue is like a useless knot in his mouth that he can't undo because his brain is twisted too.

"No," the man says, bringing it dangerously close to the woman's pulse.

"Aaron!" Derek shouts. "You're the only one with a clear shot. You need to take it. Or do something. Do you hear me? You are the only one that can do this. If he moves that knife, take the shot."

Aaron turns in the sound of the voice. Derek is telling him that he needs to take the shot, and he can see why. With the way they're stood, he is the only one that can possibly avoid hitting either the woman or another team member.

He raises his hands, ignoring how they tremble. Front sight. Trigger press. Follow through. Three steps that he has been following since his days at the Academy. Three steps that mean he has never missed. Never failed.

The man smirks.

Aaron turns to make sure nobody else will get hurt, or can take the shot. But when he looks at Derek, it's not Derek.

It's Peter Lewis.

"No," he whispers, but in the silence of the room, he may as well have shouted at the top of his voice.

He turns to look at the man, and he sees that he is about to shoot Derek Morgan. The one person that has never been afraid of him. The one man that is still good and undamaged by his hands. The one man that can and has led the team without any sort of assistance with him.

"Aaron!" Derek's voice exclaims, but he still wears Mr Scratch's face.

Aaron does not know what is real anymore, but he knows he needs to minimise the damage. The gun falls from his hands, with the safety off. It lands on the floor with a clatter that is too loud to his ears.

Their unsub laughs, once, and slits the woman's throat. She falls to the ground, dead by the time she hits the ground. Derek- real Derek, whose hands have always been warmer than his- fires his gun once. The unsub also falls to the ground with a shout.

Aaron closes his eyes.

He hears his name.

He tastes copper.

He touches his own hand, startled by the coldness.

He sees Derek's terrified face.

He smells sage.

He smells sage. And then the world goes black.

When he comes round, he does not know where he is. He does not know where the team is. He cannot ground himself in the moment or come up with five facts that prove his surroundings are real.

He opens his eyes. The team is gone.

And he is covered in blood.

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fuzziemutt · 4 years ago

Text

Do You Understand?

Chapter 1/9 - Link to MasterList in reblog

Summary: Connor knows he isn’t the most.. knowledgeable... about emotions but that didn’t mean he didn’t understand them ever. If they weren’t going to take him seriously then he wasn’t even going to try interacting with them anymore. What could possibly go wrong?

Tw: I’m placing all possible tws here that could apply to the story. Possible ableism (this is not explicit but what Connor goes through can be similar to it), dissociation, very emotionally harmful coping mechanisms. Self worth problems. Trauma responses that go unnoticed. Please let me know if I need to add any more.

This started as a vent fic that extended outward into comfort, it gets worse before it gets better.

Notes: This is my first multi chaptered fic, I’ve never done this before. I did write the whole story in entirety prior and scheduled the other chapters to slowly release. The original vent was honestly quite different than what ended up being written, and I don’t know how it turned into this huge thing.

Also: There are no ships in this, this is all platonic. The only relationship status is that Hank is Connor’s dad even if they don’t quite acknowledge it.

Also also: This is Connor Pov. We mainly focusing on his thought processes throughout and they aren’t particularly healthy. (Connor also has ADHD)

---

Connor knew he had trouble expressing and understanding his emotions. It wasn't a secret. He'd often find people looking at him with confusion, and sometimes wariness, with his lack of response to many things. He was a prototype. Sure he had one of the most advanced social relations software to date, but Cyberlife cut corners with the amount of articulation his face could produce, his current model wasn't meant to live long and to be disposable after all.

It doesn't help that he also just didn't know how to express what he was feeling in the limited ways he could. He "lived" most of his trial runs and current time in severe denial out of fear of deactivation so he'd rather ignore them than process them. It wasn't healthy but it was safe. Familiar.

That didn't mean he couldn't feel. He felt lots of things like guilt, hatred, fear, the occasional spark of joy. Too many things sometimes, in fact, that led him to having a nasty habit of adamantly ignoring it all, manually storing it away for later to keep his composer and stay in fully functioning order. Sure this led to people often ignoring his own desires and doing things that severely hurt him with no mention from him. But he was fine. He chose this after all.

However, even with all the quarantining and ignoring, he couldn't help the anger that bubbled under his skin and in his throat right now.

"Hank, I understand that you're angry but-"

"You think you understand? You don't understand a shit, Connor! How could you?! I get you're your own person and everything now, but I never see you express anything beyond mild displeasure!" Hank yelled back. Connor was glad they were at Hank's house at least to provide some sense of privacy but saying he felt unhappiness at being yelled at was an understatement.

Connor went to open his mouth in defense but Hank cut him off, "Of course you don't understand! How could you ever understand any emotions! You keep acting like a-" he suddenly went quiet, but Connor knew.

"Like a what, Lieutenant?" He asked, making sure to keep his LED a yellow slow turn, but he couldn't help how sharp his voice came out, how his eyes hardened to a fine point.

They stared at each other for several tense seconds before Hank seemed to deflate a bit and looked ashamed.

"Like a machine," he spat out, still tense and upset but his fury gone.

Connor simply nodded, quarantining what he could to not lash out and stood up silently.

"I will be taking Sumo out for a walk to allow for us to take a breather before we both do something we regret. I will return," he said, shoulders tense and voice strict. His movements felt stiff as he tried to hold himself back from continuing this fight, grabbing the leash and patting his side to call over the old dog.

"You can't just run away-" Hank tried, stepping closer as if to grab Connor's arm to stop him. But Connor's ice cold glare, almost threatening posture and clenched fists seemed to stop him. They kept forgetting that Connor wasn't just meant for integration but also intimidation, he once was a deviant (killer) hunter after all, and he can be intimidating when he so pleased. Hank seemed to suddenly remember the rumors of Gavin getting his ass handed to him by Connor in under a minute flat by how he backed away uncertain.

Connor left and came back a bit over half an hour later. Hank would apologize and Connor would accept it, even if that anger still simmered deep inside, and they'd go back to joking and discussing work matters like nothing happened. Friends sometimes fight after all. It was fine.

Despite how much Connor hated those accusations of him being incapable of understanding, they. Kept. Happening.

Not just with Hank but others as well. The people who he thought were his friends, the Jericrew, even Nines the RK900, kept pulling the same shit. Connor knew they all experienced deviancy differently than him, Nines also had the gift of a face with full articulation that he couldn't help but envy, but it irked him every time.

"Let's switch topics for Connor..."

"Oh I should have talked about this with someone else..."

"It was rude of me to assume you understand-"

"Oh.. Sorry I know you don't understand-"

"You know he doesn't understand-"

"He won't understand-"

"He can't understand-"

Each time he heard that word, understand, Connor felt that broiling anger rise just a bit more. Each time they never even asked how he felt before the assumption, he felt his trust disintegrate bit by bit. He was a master of masking his emotions to get the emotional responses he wanted, but even he had a limit when anytime he saw his friends he felt nothing but hateful bitterness below his false pleasantries. He even stopped willfully hanging out with all of them, even Hank, as it grew harder to fight down the urge to scream and yell and make them understand.

It all came to a head during a meeting with the Jericho leaders, Nines tagged along as well as he said how much he missed seeing him outside of work. They were discussing how to handle the androids that still had severely negative responses to humans after all this time since the revolution. He was in the middle of talking about a solution of creating areas in New Jericho that would absolutely not allow humans and could run independently when North rounded on him.

"I'm sorry," in a very much not sorry tone, "but how am I supposed to take your option any bit seriously when you don't understand any of these androids' struggles mister 'my best friend is a human'."

"North-" Markus warned. The others even tensed up staring at Connor.

"No seriously. He could never understand their struggles," North plowed forward with no hesitation.

Connor felt something snap inside of him. He felt his LED burn bright red, his back straighten, fists clenched, and his features shift into that bitter anger that he tried his best to keep under wraps. He could see how everyone grew more than just tense but wary even; he even saw a flash of fear in North's eyes.

They insisted he was nothing more than a machine who didn't understand. That he'll forever be Cyberlife's pet (killer) deviant hunter. So he'll show them the hunter that was conditioned, threatened, who thrived on his own anger and fear through every grueling training session. The side that he kept pushed down as much as he could.

He couldn't help the bitter laugh that came out of him, "understand... You know what? I'm starting to think I fucking hate that word."

He knew he was scaring them with how North backed away quickly and the others started coming forward as if to protect her from him. His anger worsened at that but a small part of him felt a bit of twisted satisfaction at how they're finally treating him seriously. He could even imagine Amanda whispering praises for being the threat they wanted from the back of his CPU.

"Has it never occurred to you that I might have problems with humans as well?" His hands expressed where his face couldn't, trying to contain the energy thrumming in his body, "has it never occurred to you what I might have gone through hm?

“Oh wait. You never asked. You only accused. Have you ever thought about how my serial number has a 54 at the end of it? Did it ever occur to you that I have to exist with the memory of 53 deactivations constantly and the fear that I might be the 54th for merely breathing wrong? Who do you think did that? Who do you think reminded me day in and out that I was nothing but an expendable machine made to kill, to never ask questions because it meant deactivation or my internals torn out while I was awake. Humans. Humans did that but no, just because I trusted Hank not to do the same, I don't understand?"

He knew he was slowly growing erratic and unstable with how aggressively his hands moved and the way everyone backed away from him. The way he loomed over them with his presence didn't help their nerves he was sure. Or how he slowly stalked towards them as if a predator was cornering its prey. But he couldn't help it, the thrumming pulse in his core needed to come out and by hell was it coming out now.

"Not only that, but I apparently don't understand emotions too! I may be a deviant but emotions? They're off the table!" He couldn't help the second bitter laugh, a tinge hysterical, "no no. None of you took the time to ask me how I was handling these emotions and instead just assumed I didn't feel them! Because I'm ‘just a machine’. This guilt, fear, and self hatred I feel every waking moment? Lies because I'm just a machine. Even this anger I'm expressing right now? These are lies too aren't they? The nightmares I get of my countless deactivations and the numerous deaths that stain my hands? All just my programs malfunctioning because I'm just. A. Machine."

"We didn't... Connor we didn't know-" Nines started, his sadness and fear clear as day on his face like how they wanted Connor's to be. The others were solemnly nodding along too as if this would appease him.

"Because you never. Asked. Because none of you ever truly fucking cared!" Connor roared in response, slamming a fist down on the metal table next to him. All their eyes snapped and starred at the large dent he knew he left behind but he didn't care. He let himself breathe heavily, taking a second to find himself and his self restraint again.

And just like that, he locked up those pesky emotions like everyone expected him to. He knew the people before him didn't actually desire him to show any negative emotions just like them, they proved it just now with how they're looking at him. He took one final deep breath, fixed his tie and let his face slip back into its emotionless mask except the cold, closed off glare didn't leave. He even felt that that was going to be a permanent feature now after today and couldn't help the internal chuckle at the irony how he finally was showing the emotions they desperately wanted him to show.

No one said anything as he moved towards the door. There was still tension in the air, fear, anger and confusion swirled in various manners of their eyes. Nines seemed split on treating him like a threat and reaching out to him, maybe even to pity him. Markus also looked like he wanted to say something, but he just looked away in the end. North had fearful eyes but a look that seemed to say 'I was right we couldn't trust him'. Josh held Simon behind him, and he looked almost sad if his distrust didn't say otherwise. Simon refused to take his eyes off the clear fist shaped dent in the table, still as a statue. Connor vaguely wondered if they'd replace that table because of him just like how they so easily replaced him with Nines when given the chance.

No one made a move to stop him from leaving. He couldn't tell if it was out of fear of him showing those (killer) hunter colors again by snapping an arm or if they're realizing just how badly they fucked up. He couldn't tell which choice he wanted more either. He hoped it was the latter.

"You're all hypocrites. To me, you're all no better than them," was the last thing he hissed out before slamming the door closed behind him. He heard the way the frame and wall around the door shook and cracked from the force but again, he didn't care. He wasn't going to play nice anymore if this was how they felt like treating him. He was programmed to be amiable, calm but he was also programmed to be obedient and he knew how that went. A bit of anxiety existed of how much damage he did and how easily he almost lost control back there, but he just ignored it again as he rushed down the hall to leave.

No one followed him.

#i write #dbh #detroit: become human #connor rk800 #hank anderson #connor rk900 #markus rk200 #north wr400 #josh pj500 #simon pl600 #connor whump #connor angst #long post

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rosethornewrites · 4 years ago

Text

Fic: this body yet survives, ch. 7

Relationship: Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī/Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn

Characters: Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī, Lán Huàn | Lán Xīchén, Lán Qǐrén, Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn, Jiāng Chéng | Jiāng Wǎnyín, Jiāng Yànlí

Tags: No War AU, Recovery, Trauma, Dissociation, Courtship, Courting Rituals, Near Death Experiences, Attempted Murder, Eventual Happy Ending, Panic Attacks, Vomiting, Siblings, Protective Siblings, Soup, Triggers

Summary: Wei Ying has a panic attack upon waking. Jiang Wanyin makes an unpleasant discovery.

Notes: Life has been busy lately and it might take me longer to write. I get my second Pfizer shot on Wednesday, and I’m expecting it’ll make me useless for a couple days. It’s also nearing the end of the semester, so I’ll be busy with that, too.

Parts 1 & 2

Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

AO3 link

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

It took a few moments for Wangji to remember where he was when he woke, and then a moment more to place what had woken him before mao shi—quiet sobs and a soft voice murmuring soothingly.

He had taken the bedding on one side of the bed, and his eyes adjusted to the dark quickly. Wei Ying was curled against Jiang Yanli, who had taken the last shift. It was close enough to morning, then.

“We’re here, A-Xian, and you’re safe,” she whispered, then noticed him sit up. “He had a nightmare.”

Wangji wished his guqin was here instead of the jingshi, that he had asked xiongzhang to bring it last night, that he could play calming music for Wei Ying; instead he levered himself to sit on the bed and hummed ‘WangXian,’ hoping it would remind his zhiji he was loved.

Wei Ying’s trembling eased slowly, and Wangji kept his movements slow as he reached forward to take his hand, squeezing it lightly. He was relieved when Wei Ying squeezed back.

“S’going on?” Jiang Wanyin murmured blearily, sitting up.

To his credit, he immediately moved beside his sister when he realized the issue.

“Hey, hey,” he murmured, trying to be comforting, patting Wei Ying’s shoulder.

Initiating unexpected touch wasn’t the best idea for someone in the throes of a panic attack—Wei Ying couldn’t quite mask a flinch, and Jiang Wanyin’s hands fluttered in a helpless way before clutching the bedsheet hard enough his knuckles turned white.

Wangji continued to hum through it, not stopping even when his heart clenched at Wei Ying’s gasped apologies for the reaction.

“Not your fault,” Jiang Wanyin whispered insistently, clearly trying to keep his own reaction in check for fear of hurting his brother further.

“Not yours,” Wei Ying returned, equally insistent.

“Neither of yours,” Jiang Yanli cut in. “Neither of you should blame yourselves.”

Wei Ying’s breath hitched.

“I hate it,” he whispered. “I hate being afraid all the time. I hate that I can’t stop.”

Wangji couldn’t abide him blaming himself, and paused in humming, rubbing his thumb gently across the back of Wei Ying’s hand. .

“The past few days have been stressful. Too many events too quickly. Too overwhelming.”

“And some were unexpected,” Jiang Yanli added, clearly thinking of his talk with Madam Jin and the last minute ceremony.

“We should have just ditched the banquet,” Jiang Wanyin muttered. “The food sucked. A-Jie’s was better.”

Surprisingly, Wei Ying giggled at that, helpless in his laughter for nearly a minute.

“Jiejie’s food is way better,” he said when he caught his breath.

Wangji was relieved that his voice wasn’t tight and shaky anymore. The familiar joke among the Jiangs about Gusu Lan food, and particularly the food in the Cloud Recesses, had eased the panic attack.

Honestly, having enjoyed Jiang Yanli’s cooking, Wangji knew they had a point.

She reached forward and smoothed Wei Ying’s hair, down and mussed in a way that was unfairly attractive, then poured him a glass of water from the ewer the healer had brought before hai shi. He drank obediently, likely needing the hydration and something to rinse the taste of stale sick from his mouth.

When he finished the glass, she poured him another, and then maneuvered him until she could reach his hair. She carded through the tangles gently with her fingers before quickly braiding it and tying the end off with his red hair ribbon.

“How are you feeling, A-Xian?” she asked when she was done.

Wei Ying’s eyes had fallen shut during the process, and he hummed contentedly in response.

“Better,” he said after a moment.

He seemed to hesitate, as though he was about to say more.

“Wei Ying?” Wangji asked.

Wei Ying ducked his head and bit his lip.

“A bit hungry,” he admitted.

He knew Wei Ying often downplayed his needs, so Wangji translated that to mean he was very hungry.

“Well, you were sick,” Jiang Wanyin said, frowning. “It’s like you didn’t eat dinner, kind of.”

Jiang Yanli tutted softly.

“You’re still so thin, A-Xian. I can go ask the healer if they can provide something… Or I could go get something from our quarters.”

She started to rise but was stopped by Jiang Wanyin.

“I’ll go, a-jie. I wouldn’t want you to go alone in the dark, and one of us needs to chaperone.”

The Jiang sect heir turned to Wei Ying.

“I’ll stop by your rooms and grab fresh robes for you while I’m at it,” he said gruffly. “You were sick in those.”

Wei Ying smiled brightly, and Wangji wanted to thank Jiang Wanyin for bringing that light to the surface through his courtesy. If he did, it would undoubtedly fluster him, and he could almost see why his zhiji enjoyed teasing people so much, imagining it.

It was near enough to mao shi, and the purpose of Jiang Wanyin’s break of curfew was to help his brother and would be excused, so Wangji said nothing when he left.

Jiang Yanli fussed softly over Wei Ying after his departure, helping to straighten his sleep-skewed robes.

When he shifted on the bed, he nearly knocked Suibian off. Wangji kept the sword from falling and handed it to Wei Ying, who laid it against his thigh. The sword, he knew, was a comfort, despite having been made by the Jiang sect—it represented his ability to protect himself.

Wangji was content to watch Wei Ying as his sister doted on him, their gentle teasing—Xianxian is three; hmm, I think that’s too old—and the blessed calm that had found his beloved.

Jiang Wanyin’s expression, when he returned, was stormy. He placed a tray of fruits and osmanthus cakes on the end of the bed.

“A-Cheng?” Jiang Yanli asked.

He shook his head but looked at Wangji and gestured to the hall. Whatever had him troubled, he didn’t want to say in front of his siblings, which was immediately worrisome.

“Someone put lotuses in our rooms,” Jiang Wanyin said after the door was closed. “Ripped the petals off some and threw them all over.”

Rage filled him, icy and terrifying in what it might lead him to do.

This confirmed those delivered to Wei Ying’s quarters, the entire reason he had to spend the night in the infirmary due to the fear of qi deviation, the reason he was ill and had panic attacks… It had been intentional.

The culprit had likely expected them to take Wei Ying to the Jiang quarters in the morning, not expecting…

“I will wake shufu and xiongzhang,” he said, his voice more forceful than he meant it to be. “The mess will be removed.”

Jiang Wanyin let out a soft sigh, almost one of relief that it’d be handled immediately.

“I didn’t go to A-Xian’s quarters for fresh robes. And you might want to make sure they didn’t hit your jingshi.”

The rage he had felt dwarfed that which he felt now at the thought of his home being violated, the very place he had finally reached Wei Ying, whose well-being was now threatened by an unknown source.

That they had dared to harm Wei Ying… He knew not what he would do if he caught the betrayer.

“I will take care of it,” he said. “Protect Wei Ying.”

Jiang Wanyin blanched a bit, and he wondered briefly if his anger had shown in his face or voice, but he swept that aside, channeling his emotions into energy.

When Xichen answered his knock at the hanshi, the sleepiness fell from his expression immediately, and he knew his own expression revealed his turmoil.

“What happened, A-Zhan?”

It took him a moment to find his voice.

“Sabotage. Lotuses in the Jiang quarters.”

Xichen’s quick intake of air was almost a gasp, and he closed his eyes as he often did when emotionally overwhelmed.

“I will wake shufu,” xiongzhang said after a moment. “Please meet us there.”

Wangji tried to bow, but was kept from doing so by his brother, who instead pulled him into an embrace, one that left his eyes stinging embarrassingly, the emotions that were overcoming him threatening to escape in a way he didn’t want. If he gave in to it, he didn’t know if he would stop until all the grief and anger and helplessness he had felt over the last year was expelled.

It was a relief when Xichen released him.

“We will protect him, didi. We will make this right.”

He could only nod, turning to walk to the Jiang quarters, glad for the dark that hid the emotions he could feel roiling within him.

The Jiang quarters were worse than Jiang Wanyin had let on, though Wangji could now see the reason behind his near-wordless rage.

A large bouquet of lotus flowers dwarfed the table they had eaten at only hours before. Lotus blossoms were strewn about the room, petals on nearly every surface, and the smell was more than could be accounted for by the blossoms. It smelled as though far too much lotus incense had been burned. It was entirely possible the scent would prove difficult to remove, that the idea of Wei Ying staying with the Jiangs would now be impossible.

Knowing now how lotuses impacted Wei Ying, the smell made Wangji nauseous in sympathy. Had he come with them for breakfast in the morning to encounter this, after his own rooms had been similarly violated…

They had been here all evening, until shortly before curfew. This had been done after they left, purposefully.

Which made it clear neither this nor the bouquet left in Wei Ying’s quarters were innocent mistakes.

He dared not touch anything, lest he destroy evidence that might lead to a culprit.

Wangji felt the decorative silverwork on Bichen’s hilt start to cut into his fingers and forced himself to loosen his grip. He left the rooms, standing on the small patio, breathing in the cool night air and listening to the chirp of crickets in the dark until he felt some semblance of calm.

His uncle and brother arrived shortly thereafter, and the thunderous expression on shufu’s face told Wangji he had reached a similar conclusion.

“Wei Ying is being targeted,” he said, knowing it was unnecessary.

“Return to him, Wangji,” shufu ordered gently. “This will be investigated and dealt with, and he needs you more than we do.”

Truthfully, Wangji was grateful to leave it in their hands.

He felt as though he had been contaminated by the smell and stopped by the jingshi to change lest the odor upset Wei Ying. His home was undisturbed, and he was able to change without incident. He even ran his comb, scented with sandalwood, through his hair a few times to ensure it would replace any scent that had taken root there. He took Wangji with him when he left so he could play for Wei Ying.

He stopped by Wei Ying’s quarters on the way back to the infirmary and was relieved they had not been further adulterated. He selected a set of robes, one with some blue in them, then checked to be certain his hair oil had not been tampered with—still the scent of orange and cinnamon—before taking both it and the comb he had gifted with him.

Wei Ying’s smile was weak when he returned, his face lined with new tear-tracks, and the Jiang siblings were hovering over him. Jiang Wanyin had not kept the discovery from him, and though it hurt him to admit, it was the correct decision. As much as Wangji wished to protect him from this, Wei Ying deserved to know, to make his own decisions.

“Xiongzhang and shufu are investigating,” he told them as he hung Wei Ying’s fresh robes over a chair and set his guqin down.

He handed the comb and hair oil to Jiang Yanli, though he wished he could comb Wei Ying’s hair himself. It would be improperly intimate, and the courtship was important to show his value.

He did not offer platitudes, knowing it would not change the way any of them felt. That this had likely originated from his own sect rankled him, and even kowtowing didn’t feel like enough. Nothing felt like enough penance. He had been unaware of negative sentiment toward Wei Ying, had been blindsided by this act of violence against him, had failed him…

“It’s not your fault, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying whispered, as though he could sense the guilt he felt.

His zhiji’s words, the love in his voice, saved him from the downward spiral of his thoughts. Wangji sat on the bed and took his hand.

Though he had not committed the crime, he felt responsible for his failure to protect Wei Ying again.

“We will be more vigilant,” he said, in lieu of worthless apologies.

Wei Ying offered a sad smile, then shifted closer and hugged him, leaning against his chest and tucking his forehead against his neck.

Wangji brought his arms around him, held him close, basked in the warmth of his presence, and was grateful when the Jiangs said nothing against it, allowing them this simple comfort.

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dehydratedpercy · 3 years ago

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Rating Some of my Old Fics out of 10

This morning I spent some time cleaning up my ao3 so I can share Preserve or Raze with some people from work without simultaneously linking them to all the goddamn porn I've written. This means that now, the majority of my non-porny works are under the ao3 username Mapping_Atlas (formerly DumpsterDiving101), and the porny works are under the username WhiteCeilings. Preserve or Raze is under both, but shhhh, we're pretending that WhiteCeilings is a different person who is just a co-creator, m'kay?

Anyways, this means that I was looking through some of my old fics, which I shall now rate here. I'm only going to be rating some of them, but feel free to go to one or both of my ao3 accounts and snoop to your heart's content if you want to learn more about my other works. Heads up, the vast majority are Marvel fics, with a couple Phanfics thrown in there too.

Let's get started.

Should've Said No-- 3.5k words, Peter Parker/Tony Stark

This fic is dedicated to anyone and everyone who has ever commented on Preserve or Raze telling me that I write trauma too well and that they hope I'm getting the help I need. Fun fact: I dissociated so many writing this that it took double the amount of time it should've. 10/10.

Room for Three-- 17.5k words, Maria Hill/Natasha Romanoff/Bucky Barnes

This fic is one of my absolute most underrated ones, and is cute as fuck. Post!Winter Soldier these three are hiding out together from the Avengers, while Hill tries to rebuild SHIELD from the ground up. In the end, they go and meet the family, which is extra spicy bc polyamory. So fucking cute. 20/10 read it.

Two Blind Men Steering A Ship-- 8k, Pres-serum Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes

I think this takes place while Bucky is still the Winter Soldier, and him and Steve are... cell mates? I only know that from the summary. 2/10 I literally have no recollection of writing this.

Commanding Nature (WhiteCeilings)-- 2k, Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes

This is literally the most cursed thing I've ever written. I wrote it in one go, no editing, at 8pm at night, and published it right away because I knew I wouldn't publish it if I let myself think about it even a little. It's crack, but done with a little too much intention. My friends only know it as the Plant Fic. I have met people irl who I gave the link to, who no longer speak to me. This fic is more popular than fics I have spent full years on. This fic gave people existential crises.

Oh, the summary? Steve fucking plants Bucky. You know. Like a garden. Bucky turns into a garden. It starts out sexual, but it doesn't stay that way for long. This fic has fucking groupies. -100/10 I have never loved something or hated something so much. Don't read this, BUT you should 100% read the comments, they're insane.

Rumlow Doesn't Care (And Other Lies He Tells Himself)-- 20k, Brock Rumlow/Bucky Barnes

I castrated Rumlow in this fic. Brock Rumlow is one of the main Captain America villains. And I. Fucking wrote an abo fic where he was chemically castrated. You can't make this shit up. 10/10 Rumlow deserved it.

The 12 Labors Of Steve Rogers-- 31k, Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes

My first story with any Greek Mythology elements. Basically Steve Rogers is Hercules and is completing his 12 labors when he meets Hades (Bucky) and slowly starts to realize that the Olympians he so desperately wanted to be a part of were shitty and abusive. Now that I look back on this, I realize it was probably inspired by my religious trauma. Also, Peter Parker is in this as a slutty river spirit. 50/10 I think people who like Preserve or Raze should read this.

Not Your Lover-- 5k, Natasha Romanoff/Laura Barton

Guys, this right here is the shit. I forgot I wrote this but honestly it's one of my favorite things I've ever written. It's a recovery fic where teen!Natasha goes and lives with Clint and his family on their farm after escaping the Red Room, and she works to create a new identity not rooted in violence. This shit'll make you cry. 500/10 The Black Widow movie would've been better if I wrote it.

But Love Is Overrated Anyways-- 41k, Dan Howell/Phil Lester

Mutants AU that probably makes me out to be anti-vax, but that wasn't my intention (pls get vaccinated guys). Mutants and humans coexist, until a mysterious new "disease" comes out and everyone gets vaccinated for it. Except there is no disease, and the vaccine is actually a ploy meant to target and kill mutants. Dan and Phil are both mutants who didn't end up getting the vaccine out of laziness, who meet up post-genocide/apocalypse. Dan has ice powers and Phil has fire powers; Dan wants to massacre humans and Phil wants to show them toleration and kindness. Dan wins in the end. A delicious little love/corruption fic. 10/10 I might turn this into a real novel some day.

Yellow Roses-- 14.5k, Dan Howell/Phil Lester

Dan leaves his rich socialite wife for a sexy male florist. 10/10 relatable.

#not preserve or raze

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yet-another-saberface · 4 years ago

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Story Headcanons: Orleans (Prelude - Section 2)

This was actually very interesting for me to write, since as I went on, I found more and more that it felt natural for Eva to be passive. At first I wasn’t sure why this felt so right, until I realized that I was having Eva dissociate herself from the present circumstances. While this isn’t a fic - so you don’t really have access to every thought going through her head, I hope that that comes across in this, even though I don’t have much personal experience with dissociation caused by past trauma.

That said, this is a relatively slow start a singularity, but I hope you guys enjoy it! I got it done a lot faster than expected, but I can’t say for sure when the next part will be done... Let’s just get to it!

Prelude

We should all be thankful that it is Fou who has taken it upon itself to wake Eva up, because if it was literally anyone else, she would likely be having a minor panic attack once again. After all, dreaming of evil Servants and people being burned alive is… Unnerving, to say the least. But she wakes up to Fou, meaning that Eva immediately tucks every disturbing theory about that dream away for later in favor of thinking about how damn adorable Fou is.

When Mash comes in, she’s surprised that Eva says she slept really well. While that’s not entirely true, since Eva was having to put up with what she’s classified for the moment as nightmares, she did go to sleep and wake up at reasonable hours for once, which is unusual. When Mash remarks that she’s glad Eva is finally getting sleep, Eva merely responds by saying that anyone with half a brain would sleep the night before they’re supposed to time travel to save the world.

Unlike many other times Eva’s had to sit through explanations, she pays extremely close attention to the entire briefing, wanting to make sure she doesn’t miss a word. She may be a theory expert, and she may have interrogated everyone she could about how Chaldea’s systems work, but there’s still room for her to screw everything up. Lucky for her, the rules around travelling to the singularities are a lot looser than normal rules for time travel that have been proposed in theory - this is because singularities will dissipate after you take away the source, which in this case is the Grail. Knowing that, Eva takes that as a permit to do whatever the hell she needs to so long as she gets the Grail out, which takes quite a bit of weight off her shoulders. Now she doesn’t have to worry about accidentally killing someone that needed to live in order for all of human history to proceed as normal.

She’s a bit concerned at the prospect of having to summon within the singularity - since there might not be catalysts, and she might be forced to do a normal summoning again - but she’s assured that if the summoning circle is properly established, she should be able to tap into the FATE system as smoothly as she does at Chaldea. Upon learning this, that concern promptly vanishes. Eva returns to being all determination.

We’re actually going to assume that Eva had been introduced to Da Vinci before this moment, since on our timeline it’s been at least a week or two in between singularities, and Eva spent a good few days of that time in the command room, not sleeping. There’s no way she hasn’t met Da Vinci yet. She accepted Da Vinci’s physical appearance really quickly, especially after hearing the reasoning behind it. To her, it makes perfect sense that a Heroic Spirit, given the chance, would choose their ideal appearance as their form when summoned. Also, for our purposes, we will be using female pronouns for Da Vinci. (I reblogged a post about trans characters in Fate recently that offers a basic explanation of why I will stay firm in this decision.)

She’s very grateful to actually have a coffin for rayshifting this time, to say the least. The last thing she wants is for there to be a mishap and for her to die in the process. So she hops in there without hesitation and and rayshifts away to save humanity.

Section 1: Land of the Hundred Years’ War

This time, Eva’s reaction upon safely rayshifting is not to panic. She’s once again glad to find that Fou tagged along - even if it means having one more life to protect along the way. And she’s very grateful that it appears they’ve landed in a very peaceful area this time - the seemingly endless rolling fields is a welcome change from everything being on fire. It doesn’t hurt to breathe, the breeze makes sure that the sunlight won’t cause her to overheat, the sky is gorgeou- The sky.

And… There’s a big ring of light in the sky. That’s not normal. However, without concrete proof on what it is, she can’t even begin to try to trace it back to anything she already knows about. Even Roman admits that he doesn’t have any real idea, which isn’t very helpful.

There it is again. She’s forgetting something. If she could just remember it she’d know what’s going on. But she can’t remember… Why can’t she just remember?

She does her best to not focus on how annoying that is, snapping back to the moment as she and Mash begin the trek towards the nearest civilization… If there is any. Fortunately, they do run into what appear to be humans - French soldiers, to be exact. She’s glad that there are humans this time around, but still warns Mash about trying to interact with them at all. They don’t know what’s going on here yet. And they don’t exactly look like they’re of the era. There’s a fairly high chance that they won’t be able to negotiate.

Sure enough, they end up having to fight them. Eva is already sick of this. It clearly wasn’t that we aren’t speaking French. We should have just avoided them in the first place. I told you we should have just not tried to approach them…

Of course, she does make sure to check in with Mash after they get out of there, since every fight leaves both of them at risk of further injury. She was fortunate enough this time to not have to do anything that put her at risk… But the same can’t be said for Mash. Things seem to be okay, though.

Why the hell would they think following them is a good idea? They just fought them. That’s a horrible idea. But she’s also not in charge, so the least she can do is follow orders and try to mitigate potential damage.

Section 2: Chase the French Soldier

Upon reaching the fort, the sheer amount of injured immediately sends Eva’s mind into overdrive. The war is supposed to be having a respite at the moment. Yes, the possibility of there still being skirmishes is still there, as Mash points out, but this doesn’t look like the result of skirmishes. Skirmishes leave people with mostly minor injuries that’ll heal, at worst, in a month or two, given the time period. Maybe some people get major injuries. Skirmishes don’t leave a fort crippled like this. Skirmishes don’t put soldiers on such high alert that they attack the second there’s even a tiny chance of a possible threat. Yes, she and Mash look strange, but they weren’t displaying hostile behavior. If the war was truly in respite… Wait. What if the war isn’t in respite?

Lucky for them, the soldiers don’t attempt to attack this time around, and her theory is confirmed, be it while bringing in another complication. There was no peace treaty, and therefore no respite. But that’s because the king got killed by evil Jeanne d’Arc. While England having retreated is good - less enemies to deal with - she starts worrying very intensely upon hearing all of this. She knew history would be screwed with but this is more than that. This is history being warped so badly that it’s almost unrecognizable.

And then there’s another attack, seemingly out of nowhere. Great. At least they didn’t provoke this one. And oh great more skeletons look at that. Kill those, make sure everyone’s okay, done. How many times is she going to have to do this? At least fighting actual servants is well… Interesting. Dangerous, but it requires a lot more thought than just bashing piles of bones.

Eva is actually somewhat skeptic about the Jeanne situation. Her coming back from the dead is something she can believe, after all, Servants exist. But for her to come back and actively attack France? That just doesn’t seem right. Heroic Spirits record heroes at their best, or what they’re remembered for. Jeanne is remembered as a saint, as a savior of France. It doesn’t add up. And then there’s the change in physical appearance the soldier mentions… It could be linked back to it, but it could also be a dead giveaway that this isn’t actually Jeanne, but rather someone posing as Jeanne. Or Jeanne was corrupted in some way, like what happened in Fuyuki. But the circumstances here seem very different, so that’s less likely.

It doesn’t matter what the truth is, all of those are bad, and they need to save France regardless of which it turns out to be.

And then there’s the wyverns. Those… Should not be there. So let’s make them not there. At least they aren’t skeletons. Of course… They fly. That’ll make things difficult. But she can manage-

And oh great another person showed up. Not a person. A Servant. On their side. Well that certainly happened faster than last time. The stress Eva’s was feeling dies down a little at the prospect of more allies. This is a bad situation, but at least something good has happened.

And then the fight actually starts. It’s… Surprisingly short. Between the soldiers, Mash, and the other Servant, she barely has to do anything other than give orders and heal the wounds afterwards. She doesn’t know how to feel about that. Either those wyverns weren’t all they were cracked up to be, or Mash is just stronger and better prepared than she was in Fuyuki. She’d like to think it’s the second option.

Mash gets her to genuinely giggle with the mention of attacking Roman as revenge for the sweets. It’s funny to think about but well… Probably not the best idea. She might laugh, but she’ll also be sure to tell Mash that she doesn’t think it’s necessary. Of course, if Mash wants to take it upon herself… She’s free to do so, provided she doesn’t kill Chaldea’s director.

And look at that it’s Jeanne. At this point Eva really doesn’t feel like she’s… You know. There. She feels like her body is there, but mentally, she’s not. She’s not back at Chaldea either. She’s not back in the normal world. Her mind is just… Observing. It all feels foggy, like she’s drifting in a void, and just going along with what other people say because she doesn’t feel like fighting back. She doesn’t feel like being there. The last time she was there, she got hurt. The last time she really fought, it only made things worse. There’s no harm to going with Jeanne. She doesn’t seem hostile right now. It’s the only lead they have.

We’ve got tags!

@contractgreen @panyum @withanina @campanulabell @delfinaschiffer @princessaslan @armageddon25 @patproductions @xviicprc @eldritch-flowers @rankeluck @areeta9 @bitter–edge @uncommoncritter @blackcherrybombbomb @bluefiren7 @dtgvxg @velkiibo

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salamoonder · 4 years ago

Note

caddy did specifically say he isn't into sex though? it's not true for every ace, but it is for him & i guess i don't get why someone would (after this episode) write smut with him

alright anon, you clearly sent this in good faith and i’m going to try my best to give you a reasonable explanation. apologies if it gets rambly or tmi, i’m going to insert tws.

let me give you some perspective on where i’m coming from.

hi, i’m thane. i was raised in an extremely isolated religious homeschool community in the literal woods with a lot of siblings .i thought i was never going to leave this tiny little town. i think death is fascinating, i love mushrooms and i adore tea. i consider myself to be, among other things, asexual. i’m possibly romance repulsed. (still figuring that out.) when i get upset i throw myself into taking care of other people and ignoring my own feelings as hard as possible. i project onto caduceus hard.

for the past six months or so, i’ve been working on a fjord/caduceus smut fic in which i also project very hard onto fjord, who i also believe falls somewhere on the aroace scale. it deals with the discomfort of realizing that other people may be attracted to you in a way that you can’t reciprocate, the frustration of having a high libido and nothing to “do” with it, having a connection with someone that isn’t quite sexual or romantic or platonic that is difficult to explain to anyone else, and the pressure of outside expectations and rude questions/assumptions on a private relationship that people don’t “get”--are you ace or aren’t you? if you have sex with someone when you’re not particularly into it, doesn’t that mean they forced you? why don’t you just kiss already? qprs are just friendships, haven’t you ever had a friend before? how can you be kinky and dislike sex at the same time? that kind of thing. this fic is my baby and i’ve poured a lot of my own experiences and thoughts and feelings into it. i’m not sure if i will ever actually publish it. it might be too personal. anyway. there is one reason for you that people may still write cad smut after this.

i understand the frustration of watching allo people go “buuuut ace people have sex too so i can just keep shipping him!”. i’ve dealt with a lot of that--fortunately not in this fandom (yet :P) but i’m in another fandom where it’s frustratingly prevalent, and quite frankly, i can’t stand it. so i get it. i really do. and the posts that i made were out of frustration and anger at the idea that now that we have canon confirmation, that would mean that i would now possibly have to contend with “excuse me caduceus is ace wtf” in my shippy cad posts or fics when quite frankly i’ve considered him canon ace for months and was feeling very well represented and happy that i had someone who is somewhat like me to insert into these relationships, especially in qprs or in “yeah we’re dating but it’s not really a Relationship relationship we just kind of do our own thing, attraction and lack thereof is weird and nebulous and we just do what makes us comfortable”.

[dubcon tw, sex, “virginity” talk] another reason someone may have, from a reader’s perspective? there’s a fic on the kink meme which i can link to if anyone wants it where the nein encounter a dragon who says that he can trade nott’s true halfling form back to her in exchange for a sexual favor from the nein, so long as it’s from a virgin. jester starts to volunteer but caduceus insists, reasoning that sex isn’t really a big deal to him since he’s not into it and doesn’t matter all that much. he basically dissociates during the act itself and later feels empty/weird/”broken” without really knowing why and has some trouble processing the encounter, especially as, he reasons, he consented, right? it ends in a lot of comfort and validation from the rest of the nein.

without going too deep into details of my own trauma, this was a fic that i was able to point to and say me yes me this makes sense oh my god other people experience or at least understand this. it was an incredibly validating read. so there’s another reason. [end tw]

one last thing i would just like to clarify/point out: while i don’t have to like it (and i seriously do not like it), a lot of people in that other fandom i talked about will tag fics with “i know [character] is aroace, but i’m ignoring that in this fic”. it’s kind of shitty of me to read that, and then complain that “hey, [character] isn’t aroace in this fic”. they warned me. (it is also worth noting that a lot of this stuff is just people continuing fics that they’d started before this character’s identity was confirmed.) and i don’t have to like or agree with them, but they have made it extremely easy for me to open that fic, see the warning, and go “oh, nope, not for me”, and click out. we can debate till we’re blue in the face if this is the same as, say, if i tagged my fic with “human!molly” and someone went “oh, nope, not for me” and clicked out, because “tiefling” is not a real life marginalized identity, but they do have one thing in common, and that is that they are both not canon. they can’t change canon and they never will. that’s the magical best-and-worst part about fanfiction, in my opinion. if someone is going around saying “caduceus isn’t aroace because i said so” well then not only is that asshole behavior, it’s just a straight up lie. but i don’t want people to be punished for warning me exactly what i’m getting into precisely because i may not like it.

so there’s my reasoning for writing ace cad smut, and also my reasoning for why i don’t think we should be harassing people for writing clearly marked cad smut, ace or otherwise. if you’d like clarification or more explanations, please don’t hesitate to ask. it feels like i barely brushed the surface of my thoughts on this.

#i genuinely don't know what to tag this with tbh.#not putting it in main tags #but not tagging discourse either since this particular question is just that #a question and not an argument #if you want additional trigger tags please lmk #anonymous

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menatiera · 6 years ago

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hey :D this is for the prompt ask, feel free to ignore though if it doesn't tickle your muses ^^ I wish you would write a fic where Tony, bucky and Steve from your 'just give me a reason verse' interact in a friendly, relaxed, healthy atmosphere? like, way down the line, in a happy universe where they are all older and alive? also I have read in the wiki that the most famous winteriron AU is tattoo artist bucky and florist Tony but never seen much of the sort (1/2)

(2/2) but I have never seen much of the sort which is honestly a shame if you ask me. apart from that, I’m always up for healthy friendships and/or angsty pining xD I hope at least some of that is interesting to you :D if not that’s totally fine though

So this is the first part of answering your ask! When I started to write, I completely forgot about the request for the JGMAR fic to be in the far future, so I set it up after The Best of You, I hope you don’t mind! Also it’s not exactly fluffy, but its main topic is giving comfort each other when it’s needed, so I hope you don’t mind. ^^ I’ll do the Winteriron fill as soon as I can, too! Thank you so much for the prompt, I had much fun! ^^

Ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15637137

Title: Unbreakable

Pairing: Stuckony (Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes/Tony Stark)

Words: 3358

Rated: G

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply; (mention of flashbacks, dissociation and kidnapping - but nothing is described)

Summary: “He got used to it like one gets used to their own heartbeat, and it became the natural order of things: Bucky’s deep or Tony’s shallow breaths in his ears are part of the silence that engulfs him up here.“

Or: SHIELD puts Steve in a cabin in the woods alone. Luckily Tony and Bucky do their best to make it bearable.

“Turn around seven degrees to the left,” Bucky instructs from the earpiece. Steve obeys, making sure his body language remains relaxed as he does so like it’s entirely accidental that as a result, his drawing on the paper becomes invisible to the cameras.

It isn’t that hard. The sound of the steady breathing over the connection is calming, and probably the only thing that kept Steve sane today.

“Keep drawing,” Tony adds. Apparently, Steve stopped at some point. “We need at least a few minutes of new recording to feed to the system.”

Steve sighs and continues Peggy’s portrait, now at an advanced speed that the cameras can’t see the actual progress. He uses the photo from his compass as a reference, not because he needs it – thank you, eidetic memory –, but because the ones watching him don’t need more clues just how good his memory is.

Tony’s breathing pattern is different from Bucky’s. His is quicker, sharper; he always sounds a bit out of breath. Steve suspects it’s because of the ARC-reactor and the reduced lung capacity caused by it, but never had the guts to actually ask about it. He got used to it like one gets used to their own heartbeat, and it became the natural order of things: Bucky’s deep or Tony’s shallow breaths in his ears are part of the silence that engulfs him up here.

“Alright, done,” Tony announces. “It’s chatty time. How’re you doing, Cap?”

(keep reading under the cut)

“Already better.” Steve stretches his back and leans back in his chair, head tilted left like he could listen better that way. Usually, by now he’d be halfway to the loose floorboard where he hides his StarkPad, and read the newsfeed while talking, but he remains seated this time, focusing fully on the communicator instead. “Wish you could actually be here.”

“That would ruin the point of solitary confinement, you know,” Bucky answers dryly, which is his default nowadays, while at the same time Tony says:

“Do you need us there? You know I could fly there, no problem.”

Tony actually did it once, earning some outraged calls from SHIELD and probably Steve getting back to square zero thanks to this impulsive decision. Tony, being himself, probably counted on that, but also took into account the positive effect his little rebellion had on Steve. It added up to the mere fact that pissing SHIELD off was one of Tony’s favourite pastime activities even before he knew they were HYDRA, and it tripled after. In all honesty, the organization needed a good reminder from time to time just how much were they unable to control Iron Man anyway.

And Steve went for a week after the guerrilla action without flashbacks or lashing out.

“Not without me, not again!” Bucky growls, and Steve’s chest suddenly feels just as tight as it was when he was an asthmatic kid. Only this time it’s a good kinda tightness, filled with warmth.

“I appreciate the offer.” Steve smiles, no matter that his boyfriends – and how crazy it is to even think about them as such – can’t see it. “Just… remind me why am I doing this.”

“To earn SHIELD’s trust.” Bucky doesn’t hesitate to answer, but neither does Tony:

“To fool HYDRA.”

“If that’s even possible.”

“You managed just fine,” Tony reminds Bucky. Again. Because everyone needs a reminder sometimes, and Steve knows that, and shouldn’t be ashamed for his turn when he’s the one who needs the reassurance. “You got away on your own, and now there’s the three of us, plus the whole team. They don’t have a chance, they won’t even know what hit them.”

“I’d prefer if they’d knew.” Steve closes his eyes and imagines his boyfriends as they talk.

He pictures Bucky’s long hair, the scruff on his face – new additions in this century, along with the profound exhaustion carved into his features somehow. But also there are the things Steve remembers clear as day from before: the shape of Bucky’s nose and jawline, the affectionate way he sometimes looks at Tony or at Steve - like they are more important than anything in the world -, the mischievous grin when a good idea comes to his mind, the childlike excitement over new discoveries.

And then there’s Tony; brilliant, genius, gorgeous Tony who’s nothing like Howard once you get to know him. Steve in his fantasy traces his fingers through Tony’s goatee that suits him surprisingly well, he conjures up the brown chocolate of Tony’s eyes and the warm twilight of his hair, and his million different smiles.

Steve imagines himself between them as the banter continues in his ear, Bucky insisting on being careful with HYDRA, Tony throwing reassurances left and right, probably to hide his own insecurities. It feels strange to hear Bucky so concerned. Since Steve got this new version of his old friend back, Bucky was adamantly confident in his – in their – abilities any other time. But when it came to HYDRA, the fear they had taught him came with full force and made him insecure and hesitant.

Steve never hates his decades-long freeze-nap as much as he does in these moments. It never ceases to make him mad, and as always anger curls in his guts again, urging him to finally do something instead of sitting around and waiting and planning. No matter that he knows all too well how stupid it would be to break the doors and march into Pierce’s office and strangle him with his own tie, he wants to do that and so much more. But for the ‘so much more’ part to be fulfilled, he has to stay put for a little while.

To be fair, it took the whole team’s combined effort, including Clint, Natasha, Tony, and even Bucky, to stop him when he first learned about Pierce and HYDRA, not three months ago.

The waiting and the feelings of uselessness aren’t any easier now than they were back then.

And… this isn’t something he should be thinking about right now.

“Any news from Clint?” Steve asks, interrupting a debate whether he should eat peanut butter or strawberry jam next morning and which one is more American.

“He’s working.”

Steve can practically see Bucky’s shrug. The answer doesn’t give enough for his mind to drag itself away from upsetting tracks, though.

“No words from him yet, but he’d contact us if he’d need anything,” Tony adds.

“What about Natasha?”

“She’s keeping an eye on your babysitters, don’t worry.” That is the main reason Steve agreed to SHIELD’s request to come to this mountain cabin alone. ‘To clear his head and accommodate to the new circumstances,’ their reasoning said, but Steve didn’t need Bucky’s or Natasha’s snort to know bullshit when someone tried to sock him in the face with it. Of course, it isn’t for Steve’s own good.

They’re trying to break him, isolating him even more from everything he knows, and they’re studying him while doing so.

Luckily for Steve, he isn’t as alone as these morons think. Bucky and Tony make a great effort to keep him not only company, but provide entertainment as well. Well, the performative part is mostly on Tony, but Steve has a suspicion where some of his ideas came from.

And while Steve plays bait and lab rat, the others are using this as a chance for their investigations. Clint disappeared from the radar – got an extended vacation from SHIELD after he had been cleared by their shrinks, justified by the lingering psychological effects of mid-term mind control – and he’s currently using his not-so-legal past connections to learn more about HYDRA. While Natasha starts looking into everyone, including Captain America’s observers and she’s slowly wrapping up the thread,so they know who’s friend and who’s foe when they’re ready to attack.

Steve just wishes he could be more active and useful while they’re waiting for that time.

“Hey. Hey. Stevie!”

He shudders as Bucky uses the old nickname. “What?”

“You didn’t answer,” Tony says, concern audible in his voice, “for a few minutes.”

Oh shit.

“Two minutes and forty-seven seconds,” Bucky probably doesn’t exactly want him to hear the addition, given how quiet it is.

Steve sighs. He’s aware he started to lose time, but it’s hard to keep track of it despite him sticking with a strict daily routine. Sometimes things still just blur together now and again, even with the hidden communicator in his ear. “How much more time do we have?”

“Don’t fret over that now, Sweetcheeks, we have it under control,” Tony reassures him. “What do you need right now?”

Steve rubs the back of his neck. That’s the problem, sure. The only thing he can think of right now is out of the question. He wants them , not just as voices in his ear but in the flesh, right next to him, right in his arms. His throat goes dry at the thought of going home and laying down in the ridiculously massive bed in Tony’s bedroom with the familiar Hogwarts House blankets, and being embraced by his boyfriends. He desires nothing more.

“Just…”

Gosh, he can’t and shouldn’t wish this. His job right now is to be up here, alone and as okay as he can, giving some false data about his endurance to HYDRA agents that are thinking about ways to break him. It’s a mission, it’s his part in their plan. Steve isn’t the type to abandon missions, no matter how meaningless or hard they seem at the time.

The silence stretches between them.

“You should come home,” Bucky says very quietly.

Steve’s laugh sounds like a sob.

“Right now I’m not even sure you’re real,” he admits through gritted teeth. Being weak, being vulnerable is the worst feeling, except that actually admitting these weaknesses are even worse. And even though he’s reasonably confident the surveillance in the house is off the chart momentarily, he can’t be entirely sure.

After all, Bucky fell, and Tony is so much out of his league, how could he be that damn lucky to have them? How could a fairy tale like this be real?

How can he tell if it isn’t just a wild imagination, a symptom of isolation? According to his insufficient knowledge on the subject, this all could be happening in his head. Well, that would be a more rational explanation to the Chitauri Invasion than that ‘a Norse God opened a portal to space above Manhattan with a glowing cube that fell into the ocean seventy years ago.’ And crazy wish-fulfillment is an easier explanation for his relationships than ‘homosexual polyamory is an acceptable lifestyle in the future.’

“Oh sweetheart,” Bucky says, indecipherable emotions in his voice. “Hey, uhm, okay. Listen that I’m here. You hear my breathing, and my voice, right? I’m—”

“Rubbish.” Tony has no patience for Bucky’s rambling. For a missed heartbeat, Steve’s sure this is the moment that will burst his mental bubble and leave him an absolute mess. Tony ignores Steve’s sharp breath in favor of continuing. “Your imagination is not nearly good enough to come up with something like me, Sleeping Beauty; therefore we’re real. I’m sorry, these are the cold-hearted facts. I’m unique. And if you really are doubting yourself, then I’ll explain the science behind my repulsor tech, which would probably result in you yawning your pretty blonde head off in boredom and being confused as hell because as much as you learned under my thoughtful guidance, it’s still way above your engineering paygrade.”

“Close your eyes, Stevie,” Bucky jumps in again, not letting Tony finish his monologue. Steve obeys the order without question, as he would do practically anything as long as Bucky calls him like that. “We’ll walk you through this little… experiment and all you have to do is to imagine as vividly as you can, okay?”

“I’ll try to keep it centenarian-appropriate,” Tony adds a little dryly, but then his voice brightens back to its usual level of cheerfulness, and Steve holds back a laugh. The term ‘centenarian-appropriate’ probably isn’t for his sake, but for Bucky’s, who still isn’t exactly comfortable with the physical intimacy beyond a certain point. “So, you’re in our bedroom, laying down on your back - because you still prefer sleeping on your back, right? Good. Imagine it with all your senses – the silk sheet’s touch on your skin, the slight breeze of the AC from above, the smell of the apartment. It’s quiet at the moment. Do you want Jarvis to play some music? He can totally play music anytime—”

Steve, eyes still closed, smiles. “No, it’s okay,” he answers the rhetorical question. “Where are you though?”

“I was gonna get there! At your age you should really be more patient,” Tony huffs. “So I enter the room with James, and we’re chatting about something and laughing—”

“You’re laughing and chatting,” Bucky interrupts. “And I’m listening because I have no other choice. Let’s be realistic.”

“You are no fun, but okay. So we enter, and we see you on the bed draped over like a starfish and— heeey, my ear! You can’t blame me for—”

Steve would die if he could witness the scene in its entirety. He has a suspicion Bucky’s disciplining methods are just as unusual as most of everything that he does, and it’s probably hilarious.

“This is an imaginative exercise for Steve, Tony, try to keep serious!” Bucky scolds.

“What, it’s better if I say he’s tucked away securely in the blankets? Ouch, not fair, my ribs!”

“We enter and Tony lays down next to you on one side, and I’m on the other,” Bucky takes the story into his own hands. “How do you want to arrange the two of us?”

Steve, who soundlessly laughed in the last minute at their bickering, doesn’t need to think twice. “Can I have you tucked under my arms and held close? Tony’s head on my chest and yours on my shoulder?”

“It’s your fantasy, sweetheart, you can have anything you want.”

Steve feels his ears turning pink by the suggestion. Bright red would probably be a more accurate description, but he refuses to acknowledge this tiny little fact. Is Bucky really flirting with him right now, or is he reading too much into it?

But he’s more relaxed already.

“We agreed on a realistic setting, so no tentacles this time, though,” Tony chirps in. It’s not the first time Steve suspects at least mild mind reading abilities on his side, because somehow he always knows when to intervene for steaming out tension or awkwardness. “That’s for a way naughtier fantasy anyway, I guess.”

By the sound of it, he got smacked on the head this time.

Steve absolutely agrees that it is well deserved.

“So we’re all set in the bed, all close. You can feel our heartbeat, and hear our breathing,” Tony continues. “You do, right? Remember, closed eyes and imagine it right now.”

Steve feels his muscles gone lax as stress bleeds out of him just by the image of this peaceful setting. “Yeah,” he murmurs.

“I can’t stay like this long, though, you know me, so I start to play with your hair in, like, ten seconds,” Tony adds. “In my defence, you have beautiful hair, and I like to comb my fingers through it, sue me.”

“I don’t have any problems with staying still and just enjoying the moment,” Bucky’s voice clearly tells he’s smiling. “I’ll just hold your hand.” After a heartbeat’s pause, he adds a bit hastily, “not restraining though.”

“I’ll do the talking, as usual. You always left that to me anyways. Not complaining, I totally love that you listen to me even when it seems like you don’t. Or that you actually tell me when I have to shut up. Most people are too afraid of losing the grace of the billionaire to shut me up, so I appreciate the ones who aren’t. Are you sure you don’t want some background music? How could you fossils even live before portable music? You are the real cryptids, not Bigfoot or Nessie.”

Steve gives up being composed and laughs out loud. “Believe it or not, we listened to our thoughts. I recommend it to you too sometimes.”

“Excuse me, Capsicle, I live off of my thoughts. Our boyfriend’s arm would be a piece of junk otherwise, not counting the fact that SHIELD found you with the help of Stark Tech, too.”

“And for that, I’m really grateful,” Steve admits in all honesty. He wanted to die after the first shock of being in the 21st century, but he wouldn’t barter this time and his place in it for anything by now.

“Don’t expect me to thank you, Mechanic, I’ve kidnapped you for that exact work!” Bucky grumbles again.

“Yeah yeah yeah, it’s always the kidnapping and stuff with you. You could at least, be a polite assassin!”

“I’m not polite,” Bucky fusses and switches the topic back. “How do you feel, Steve?”

“Better,” Steve says, and it’s absolutely true. “I can’t wait to go home and make this fantasy into reality, though.” Again, he feels himself blushing by the mere thought of it.

“As soon as possible. The moment you step your foot in here, you’ll be carried to the bedroom and we won’t let you go,” Bucky promises.

“We’ll lock the doors and tell Romanoff to bring snacks to us.”

“No way,” Steve recoils, taken aback. “I value my life, Tony.”

“Okay, then we’ll tell Barton. If he’s here at the time. He’ll eat half of it during delivery, but won’t mind the task. Or Bruce, if we can convince him to come out of his lab. He’s been playing down there like an excited kid since he’s here. I think he had science withdrawal while on the run and we’re experiencing the symptoms now.”

“Butterfingers will be on snack duty,” Bucky interrupts, and it results in a moment of silence.

“Well, sometimes you’re the clever one among us,” Tony has to admit.

“Since you don’t love me for my dashing looks, I have to be.” Bucky’s tone is drier than the desert.

“If he’s good-looking and you’re clever, what’s left for me?” Steve complains.

“You’re the entertainment,” Tony answers instantly.

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re the ‘stupidly brave and recklessly kind’ type,” Bucky adds, turning the joke into seriousness without effort. “And I’m the bad guy to remind everyone that we’re running out of time.”

Steve’s heart sinks, but he sighs and nods. “I guess we had more than usual anyway.”

“Just a little bit,” Tony admits, not elaborating what did he do to achieve this feat. “You should sit back like you were when we started and draw a bit so it won’t be suspicious, but they’re just as clueless as ever, I can promise.”

“Steve,” Bucky says, sudden urge in his voice, “if it takes much longer, I’ll break you out.”

“That’s not the plan, Buck.”

“Fuck the plan. If they do this to you for much longer, you can expect a visit from the Winter Soldier. I’ve already kidnapped one of my boyfriends. It’s only fair if I do so with the other one as well.”

Steve tries to swallow back the sudden lump in his throat and does his best not to let tears overflow. “Okay,” he takes a deep breath. “Okay. If it takes much longer, I’ll expect you.”

“Until then, hang on. We’re waiting for you here at home, Steve,” Tony says, and the warmth in his voice is overwhelming.

“Radio silence for the next twelve hours,” Bucky announces, but instead of the abrupt muteness, Steve still hears his steady, easy breathing.

They never cut the comms completely, not since Steve’s first dissociation up here alone. One of his boyfriends are always at the end of the line, silent companion in the isolation, careful not to talk and startle him somehow out of their planned sessions, but there.

Steve curls back to his original position, pencil at hand and paper in front of him, just the right angle to cover the drawing.

“Home,” he whispers and smiles.

Yeah. He’d go home soon.

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liesonthefloordramatically · 6 years ago

Text

Okay, since AO3 apparently doesn’t want my full essay of context notes dropped in the endnotes, here they are in all their unabridged glory.

(Link to the fanfic if you somehow managed to stumble on this accidentally.)

Holy cow, kids! We did it! We made it to the end!

The genesis of this fic was seeing someone complaining about Jotaro not using Star Platinum: The World that much and going, “Oh, but that’s obviously trauma though.” I tried to explain this to anyone who would listen, and then wound up accidentally writing 17k of fic because I have a surfeit of emotions about JJBA and trauma.

This is, by the way, the longest piece of fiction I’ve written since 2011. Holy frick. (Also my first time posting a multi-chapter fanfic.) I had a ton of fun writing this (maybe….too much fun), and hopefully you had fun reading it too.

Here are the long-promised notes since I’m an incorrigible nerd who put way too much thought (and research???) into this ridiculous thing. I don't think you need to read these in order to understand the fic (at least, you shouldn't if I've done it correctly), but in case you're interested...

PTSD - surprise, this is a fic about PTSD. PTSD manifests in different ways for different people (and for different types of trauma), but in terms of this fic, the main symptoms I decided to run with are: hypervigilance, perception of time becoming weird/sense of foreshortened future, dissociation, and sleep-related issues (although there are also a bunch of other symptoms that make an appearance). I picked this particular cluster for obvious thematic reasons (Star Platinum’s abilities look a lot like/interface particularly poorly with PTSD), but also because I wanted to write something different than standard depictions of PTSD, which tend to be focused on nightmares and flashbacks. I also wanted to write PTSD-related hypercompetence, because it's not something I usually see depicted--PTSD is often represented as declining functioning (I suspect in fanfic this has something to do with the tendency toward hurt/comfort) rather than being outwardly very functional but not necessarily in a healthy or constructive way.

Japanese religion, in general - I leveraged six years of graduate study for this fic, so all Japanese religion facts given are Real and Accurate. My personal headcanon (as is probably clear from this fic) is that Holly would be pretty gung-ho about a lot of Japanese religious practices whereas Jotaro is probably...lukewarm at best, and approaches them much like many Japanese youth would have during that time period, i.e. as customs that they don’t necessarily attach deeper spiritual meaning to.

If you have deeper knowledge of Japanese religion, there are a bunch of little Easter eggs hidden throughout this fic, but I’ll leave it up to you to find them. Have fun.

Spirit possession - When I first saw Stardust Crusaders, I thought it was fascinating that Jotaro immediately took Star Platinum to be an evil spirit--after all, given the religious trends in Japan at the time, that wasn’t an unreasonable assumption!

Spirit possession has a long history in Japanese religion, but it’s been most prominent in the modern period as part of various New Religious Movements (NRMs), many of which have been founded by people who claimed to be possessed by spirits or gods. In the 1970s and 1980s, there was an “occult boom” along with the emergence of second-wave Japanese NRMs, sometimes referred to as the New New Religious Movements. These groups tended to be based on the idea that the universe is fundamentally chaotic and you have to train in order to ward yourself from that chaos (which often takes the form of malevolent spirits) and/or develop superhuman abilities. (The most famous of the Japanese New New Religious Movements is Aum Shinrikyo, which was founded in the mid-1980s but achieved international notoriety with its 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway.) The official kanji for Stand (幽波紋) 100% looks like something that would be used by one of these groups.

In general, Japanese understandings of spirit possession don’t necessarily align with Christian understandings of spirit possession. Namely, Christian views of spirit possession seem to be mainly negative (as people are understood to be possessed by demons), whereas, historically, spirit possession in Japan was seen as dangerous but not necessarily evil. “Being possessed” does not necessarily look like the sort of “speaking in tongues, head spinning around” type of demon possession either--the verb for being possessed (憑く), a variation of which appears in the first episode title for SDC, can refer to a variety of conditions, from having a supernatural entity inhabiting your body (pretty “classic” possession) to having a supernatural entity attached to you or following you around to help or hinder you (maybe a little closer to what we’d call “being haunted” in English). While people could be possessed by harmful entities (or by well-meaning ones who are nevertheless disruptive), they could also be possessed by positive ones. In fact, before the Meiji period (1868) there were classes of ritualists who would get spirit possessed professionally--like shamans or spirit mediums. Spirit possession was excised from Shinto in the modern period, so some of these ritualists no longer exist (miko, for example, no longer get spirit possessed), but others--like the itako (blind spirit mediums mainly located in Northeastern Japan)--do.

There are some NRMs (Omoto is the first that comes to mind) that believe/believed that each person has a “protective spirit” (or something similar) that watches over them and can influence their lives in positive or negative ways. Through training and personal growth your protective spirit could also level up; sometimes this meant gaining supernatural abilities but it could also mean your protective spirit literally moving to a different level of the spirit world (from the “bad spirit world” to the “good spirit world,” for example). This protective spirit could be an ancestor or it could be a completely unrelated entity.

When we first see Jotaro in jail, he has a bunch of books on various spiritualist/occult topics, so it’s not unreasonable to assume that he would be aware of the ways that spirits/spirit possession were being formulated in Japan at the time. So I picked up that idea and ran with it as far as physically possible.

(Plus, I haven't stopped screaming since seeing the kanji for Stand so now I'm trying to pull all of you down into “maybe Stands are modeled on spirit possession” hell with me.)

Spirit medium or victim of possession - One of the big ways to divide up spirit possession is whether it’s voluntary or involuntary. Voluntary possession means you choose to be possessed; involuntary means it just sort of happens to you (and you can’t make it stop happening). There’s also the category of induced possession, which is where someone else makes you possessed (and then usually communicates with or controls the spirit that’s possessing you). If you think of Stands as a form of spirit possession, it’s probably involuntary (users, for the most part, don’t choose to be), and, in the case of folks who aren’t born Stand users (especially folks who get their Stands from one of the arrows), induced. But, on the other hand, how you’d classify it depends on whether you see users as constantly possessed (in which case it’s involuntary) or only possessed when they summon their Stands (in which case it’s voluntary).

Kamigakari, which is mentioned specifically in the last chapter, is a form of involuntary possession in which a person is possessed by a single entity (usually a deity). In the modern period, this pattern is most frequently seen among the founders of NRMs--often they undergo a period of extended suffering or trauma before becoming possessed by a deity that uses them as a vessel to spread correct teachings (through uncontrollable preaching, automatic writing, etc.) and right the wrongs of the world. They often go through a period of fighting with or trying to exorcise the deity before finally making peace with it and accepting their role as its vessel/mouthpiece. Again, took this idea, ran with it as far as physically possible.

Evil spirits - Jotaro specifically refers to Star Platinum as an “evil spirit” (悪霊) in the first episode of SDC. This is a pretty broad category in Japanese religion that just refers to spirits (not necessarily ghosts) that are evil. The term is sometimes (especially from the 1970s onward) used specifically to indicate the spirits of dead people who have come back for revenge (specifically tatari, which is too complicated a concept to go into here). (The more specific term for people who were wronged in life, died, and then came back to wreak havoc is goryou (御霊), but that’s mainly used to refer to beliefs and practices that were in vogue over a 1000 years ago.) Long story short, “evil spirit” could arguably mean that Star Platinum is the ghost of Jonathan Joestar back for revenge or it could mean that it’s just a spirit (not necessarily the ghost of anyone or anything) that is evil.

Are Stands actually a form of spirit possession? - I leave this as an exercise for the reader.

(Okay, slightly less cop out answer: for the purposes of this fic, it does not actually matter, because at the end of the day this is a fic about Jotaro coming to terms (or not) with himself/his trauma/his Stand rather than the exact mechanics behind it. One of the things I find really interesting about spirit possession is the way it's used to make sense of and come to terms with nonsensical and unbearable situations, so that's the way I've chosen to employ it here. If you want to read Stands as a type of spirit possession, I’m certainly not going to stop you, but if you don’t buy it, that’s legit too.)

---

I think that’s all the notes I have for now, but if you want further information/clarification/bibliography/context notes for something mentioned in the fic, let me know in the comments or drop me a line on tumblr and I’m happy to infodump at you until the cows come home.

And, hey, thanks for coming on this bizarre adventure (*audible wink*) with me.

#DON'T LOOK AT THIS UNTIL THE FRICKIN' CHAPTER GOES UP I gotta post it so I can link; you know how it is #Queenie actually says something on this blog #parallelism palooza #listen. sometimes you're in grad school for so long. that you write JJBA fic about spirit possession.#it's like. fine.#meta is fake; you can only trust your fists

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