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Sic Semper Monstrum, Chapter 10
[Read on AO3]
Obiyukiweek 2024, Day 2: Foxtrot
Written not only for Obiyukiweek but also for @sepalina, the last winner of the holiday raffle! It was never supposed to take so long to finish all of these but HERE WE ARE 🤣
The Marshal’s office might be the finest under the fortieth floor, but as nice as it is, Shirayuki has to admit: she’s getting sick of it.
“Sit down.” He already is, sparing her no more than a curl of his fingers as he pores over the tablet in his hand. “I’ve taken the liberty of arranging some tea.”
Making her mug appear was magic the first dozen times he managed it, but over that last two weeks, it’s turned from treat to trick. Just another one of the hundreds of ways the Marshal can pull the dome’s strings, closing and opening curtains, making tea mugs and pilots appear out of thin air. Maybe for his next trick, he’ll saw Zen in half too.
Shirayuki takes her seat, but she declines to take a sip. A detail that draws the Marshal’s interest; he glances up, setting aside the tablet with a hum. “All business today, I see, Dr Lyon.”
“We’re both busy people.” He is, at least, and it’s not as if he can tell how many hours she’s spent staring at the drop ceiling panels rather than academic journals lately just by looking at her. “I didn’t imagine you called me in here to catch up.”
Not when he’s had her in here every other day for the last seven. Shirayuki’s gotten more oversight in the past two weeks than she’s had the whole two years she’s been under this dome, and every last bit of it’s been about—
“The report on Obi’s postmortem.” Izana shifts in his chair without so much as a creak. “I haven’t seen it yet. Was wondering where it might be, in fact.”
Her palms press to the chair’s arms, steadying her. His mouth curls, too knowing, with every stretch of her knuckles. “I’m not done with it.”
“Is that so?” His eyebrows arch toward his hairline, like two terns taking flight. “It’s been several days, Dr Lyon. How unlike you.”
“My analysis” — is protected by doctor-patient confidentiality. That’s what she wants to say, at least, but this isn’t private sector, where the most dangerous piece of machinery one of her clients could get behind is the car they drive home in. No, this is the PPDC and all these people are soldiers, rated to handle ordnance that could take out whole cities, and—
And Obi had pointed one of them right at CIC. “It’s taking longer than expected.”
And would probably never be done. One session was hardly enough to get the broad strokes of something so…complex, let alone declare whether he was mentally fit enough to climb back in a Jaeger. And Obi didn’t seem to be in any rush to put himself back in the Conn-Pod— let alone her couch.
“Then give me your opinion.”
“Excuse me?” Shirayuki blinks. “It would hardly be professional to—”
“I am not interested in your professional integrity, Dr Lyon.” No, of course not; the Marshal’s made it supremely clear that his only concern is whether there will be two bodies strapped into Rex Tyrannis when the next siren blares. “I am interested in your expertise.”
“But it— it’s all conjecture,” she sputters, an indignant flush struggling its way over her cheeks. “There’s no possible precedence for me to base an opinion on…just…just…gut feeling!”
“You sell yourself short, Doctor.” Sharks smile with more sincerity than the Marshal smirks. “Around here, they call that instinct. All those rangers— they live or die by it.”
With his three-piece suit and hair longer than the regulations that ban it, it’s easy to forget: Izana Wisteria used to be one of them. “I can’t—”
“Tell yourself we’re having a friendly chat, if you have to.” His hands fold neatly over his desk, impatience in every twitch. “But for God’s sake, Doctor, tell me something.”
Her mouth works, trying to conjure some other excuse— integrity, ignorance, anything that might buy her another day, another week before she has to label Obi a lost cause or ready for action—
But when her eyes close, the lids bleed plasma blue, just the way they had in the CIC. “If I were treating a patient in the private sector, I would say they were experiencing chronic, coherent, and vivid auditory hallucinations, possibly consistent with a trauma of some kind, either physical or psychological.”
“You think he’s experiencing a break with reality.” The Marshal doesn’t so much move as lengthen, the space between chair and desk yawning into a chasm with only a tilt of his chin. “Schizophrenic. That’s what you would call it, isn’t it?”
His teeth snap around the word, steely enough to make her toes curl.
“That’s only one out of a dozen possible diagnoses.” Though certainly the top of a very small list. “And even with a typical patient, the lack of other obvious and intrusive psychoses would make a schizophrenia diagnosis hardly past muster.”
“A typical patient, hm?” One elegant brow raises. “And what about our dear Major, then?”
“With Obi…” She licks her lips, one knee crossing tightly over the other until she half twisted in her seat. “With Obi, I’m not even certain it is a psychosis.”
His head tilts. “Explain.”
Shirayuki clears her throat, nerves making her voice threadier, higher as she says, “There is an observable phenomenon found among rangers that have drifted for a prolonged period of time with the same copilot, a…synchronicity that extends past the initial Neural Handshake and into their everyday lives. You might be familiar with the term ghost drifting.”
The Marshal’s mouth curls at a corner. “Intimately.”
“Right, well, some people might find themselves reaching for a snack that they can’t stand simply because their copilot craves it, while others report a…heightened awareness of their partner’s emotions— or sometimes even thoughts— without them being expressed verbally.” There were its skeptics, of course, but most of those papers came from the private sector, from professionals who has never set foot on a hangar deck but wrote analyses of works of those who did, calling them sentimental at best and intellectually compromised at worst. The sort of baseless, armchair speculation that could be cured by five minutes in any dome’s commissary. “There’s not much independent study on the exact mechanics of it, but there’s theories based on casual observation from data collected from K-Science. That at some point the brain stops thinking of the other mind as a foreign entity but some other part of itself, and when the Handshake is over and the Pons completely disconnects, it experiences the copilot’s body as a, er…”
“Phantom limb?”
“Yes, exactly.” Shirayuki does not smile so much as relax, the corners of her mouth naturally settling more up than down. PPDC may not see much human conflict— few soldiers do nowadays, not when there’s a much more extraterrestrial threat looming on the doorstep— but it’s still military. As much as the branches might love to butt heads, jockeying to be the biggest, buffest kid on the world’s playground, amputation’s always been the great equalizer. “Except— ah, I don’t know if you know the science behind it, but…?”
Izana opens a hand, magnanimous. “Assume that I don’t.”
Ah, right. With the other branches, their soldiers still get to go home after a failed engagement. The most Rangers can hope for is for the kaiju to take them out quick before their Jaeger becomes a titanium coffin on the ocean floor. “I’m sure it comes as no surprise when I say that the amputation process is traumatic— not just for the patient, but for their body as well. Multiple organ systems are cut— bone, muscle, skin, blood vessels, and, most importantly, their nerves. They all heal over time, but it’s the nerves that take the longest. So when they get stimulated— ah, like when a patient moves, or twitches, or even just gets an itch— the sensory fibers will report what they should be feeling, rather than what they do. It’s…it’s neural feedback, with nowhere to go. No, wait, more like…with no place to come from.”
“And this…is what you think the Major is experiencing?” It’s impossible to tell what Izana thinks; his face might as well be a mirror for as much as she’s getting off of him. “That it’s all…neural feedback he’s interpreting as his dead copilots.”
“No. Yes. Ah…maybe.” Sweat prickles under her arms and behind her ears, itchy and off-putting. Distracting, which is the last thing she needs to be in front of a man who might as well be a tank of starving piranhas considering his potential to chew up her professional reputation and spit it out. “That’s all theoretical. And it certainly seems plausible, it just…it doesn’t seem to account for, ah…”
He raises a brow. “I am patient, Dr Lyon, but I don’t have all day.”
“Right, it’s just…the phantom limb phenomenon seems to explain what we see when both partners are…extant. But when one dies— especially when they’re in the drift when it happens…” Her shoulders don’t so much shrug as twitch, flinching back from the unknown. “You’ll have to forgive me, there’s not much data on this, since…”
Since most Jaegers don’t make it back home with solo pilots. And the ones that do, well— the PPDC is still military. As far as most Rangers are concerned, psychiatrists are the enemy. “It seems that what remains of them continues to…drift with their copilot. Even after they’re disengaged from the Pons.”
“Are you trying to say that there is an actual ghost in the drift?” Izana leans back in his chair, shadows gathering in the sharp, patrician planes of his face. “That Obi is being haunted by the crew of the Hachimaru?”
“Not haunted.” Her tongue tangles, science and speculation at a roiling boil in her mind before she stumbles out, “Just…what if while they were in the Neural Handshake, they never let go?”
“Does that bring us back to the phantom limb, then?” The Marshal has never posed a question that hasn’t been half an interrogation too, but even Shirayuki has to admit he seems…interested. Invested, even. “A reflexive reach for the familiar? Neural impulses with nowhere to go?”
A shrug is never an answer— it’s a placeholder, an um or a hm in physical form. A pause right before the threshold of discovery, a stalling tactic to keep from facing what lays beyond just not thinking about it. And yet, it’s what Shirayuki does now, trying to keep the rest of her from squirming under the searing light of Izana’s attention. “It’s as likely a theory as any, at least. And in line with the current conclusions being drawn in drift research. It’s just…”
The Marshal’s brow curves in an arc too elegant for a man whose office is so far below the bay it can’t even have windows. “Just?”
There’s an itch this theory doesn’t quite scratch, a niggling that won’t stop pulling at her sleeve. “I don’t know what happened with the Hachimaru. I mean— before what Obi can remember. There’s nothing in the PPDC database on it” — or at least, none that she is cleared to see— “but everything we’ve been told…I mean, child soldiers? The training? There wasn’t even supposed to be a base in Osaka. There’s no telling what was done to those kids, let alone what long-term effects it could have had on their psyche.”
Or their bodies. Or even— even the drift. The implications of who Obi is— what Obi is—
“I’ll see what I can find.”
Shirayuki jerks back as Izana rises from his desk to pace the room. “Pardon me?”
“I’m sure you know my arms have a much further reach than yours, Dr Lyon.” His mouth slants into a smirk; wry, she thinks at first, but when he turns his head, it reads rueful. “If there’s something to find, I’ll find it. And if there isn’t…”
It’s him who shrugs now, but not to say, who knows, but rather— I’ll find it even so. “Now if you’ll excuse me, doctor, I should be getting myself down to the infirmary.”
Instinct has her half out of her chair before she manages, “Has something happened?”
“Ah.” Rueful widens into amused. “So you haven’t heard.”
*
It’s the sort of thing that’s bound to happen in any testosterone-soaked environment; get some young men together, force them to compete for a few coveted opportunities for promotion— and, most importantly, recognition— and it’s inevitable that tempers flare. The Academy’s major export is big egos, and the dome is the pressure cooker the PPDC puts them under, trying to see which will crack first. That Obi’s gotten himself in a dust up now isn’t so much a surprise as it is that it didn’t happen before, but…
She didn’t think it’d be Mitsuhide who put him in the infirmary.
“They’re both there, if you want to get right down to it,” Yuzuri informs her with no little relish, warming up for what will undoubtedly be an entertaining— if not extended— bout of complaining over commissary chicken and rice. “Lowen may have gotten in the harder hit, but I gotta say, that guy gave as good as he got. The major’s covered head to toe in bruises, and none of them are in comfortable places.”
“Is there a comfortable place to have a bruise?” Suzu asks around a mouthful of pudding— eaten first, no matter how many times Shirayuki’s insinuated dessert is supposed to be a treat for finishing a meal, not just sitting down to one. “I’ve gotten a couple in some pretty inaccessible places, and I don’t know, they always seem to hurt more than just like, my elbow, or even my leg.”
“That’s not the point, Suzu.” Yuzuri flicks her ponytail over her shoulder, unconcerned by how much of him is caught in the spray. “There’s not a single guy under the dome that hasn’t thrown down with the major and been dismantled for the trouble, and here Obi goes, deciding to go bare fists against him with no ref, no rules. He should have been wheeled out of the gym in a body bag, but the guy doesn’t even have a concussion.”
“Woah.” His eyes blow wide, mouth rounding to match— or at least, it tries; Suzu snaps his teeth shut just as they all are reminded that pudding isn’t liquid or solid, but a third, utterly different state of matter, beholden to its own rules. “I’ll have to tell him—”
“Don’t you say a word about it!” Yuzuri waggles a warning finger at him; her implied menace more effective at stopping Suzu in his tracks than if she’d laid hands on him. “Sure, I’m impressed as hell, but if that guy gets one whiff of positive reinforcement on this, he’ll be unlivable, and you know it!”
“Aw, but—”
“Nope! You figure out some other way to make your bromance blossom or whatever” She huffs, taking a desultory bite of the world’s saddest salad. “I refuse to have him hovering around, asking me to tell him how cool he is again. I’ve got my hands full just convincing him he can pee without me holding his dick for him, god.”
The fork jitters right out of Shirayuki’s fingers, landing on the tray with a clink they might be able to hear all the way in the hangar. “Is he really that bad?”
“Huh? Oh, no.” Yuzuri waves her off, scraping out a laugh. “If that was the case, I’d be enjoying this nearly food-like meal in a doggy bag at my desk. But they’re both fine— Obi just likes to see how far he can push this whole invalid shtick before I kick him out for a little peace and quiet.”
Suzu blinks. “How long do you think that is?”
“Twenty-four hours on the dot.” She spears a tomato, letting it bleed all over lettuce and croutons before she puts it behind her teeth. “If he hasn’t fallen into a concussive coma by then, he’s not my problem.”
“Unless he finds another way to hurt himself,” Suzu offers, thoughtful. “The Rangers are pretty good at that.”
Yuzuri sighs hard enough her bangs flutter. “Don’t remind me.”
“But he’s all right?” Shirayuki clears her throat as they turn to stare at her. “I mean, both of them. They’re…fine?”
“Well, obviously I can’t say uninjured, but it’s all just bumps and bruises.” Yuzuri’s shoulders twitch toward a shrug. “They’re in the infirmary more out of an abundance of caution than any real concern. And in Obi’s case, well”—she snorts, shaking her head— “he’s enjoying the idea of being waited on hand and foot. I’m just lucky the Marshal wanted a word, otherwise I’d be fending off spoon-feeding requests all dinner.”
Shirayuki blinks. “The Marshal’s still down there?”
“Oh yeah.” There’s a vengeful slant to Yuzuri’s grin, enough to send a shiver down her spine. “He told me to take a whole hour before coming back. And to smell the roses on the way down.”
Suzu lets out a long whistle. “Someone’s in trouble.”
“Multiple someones,” Yuzuri corrects. “Big trouble.”
Shirayuki’s stomach twists, tying itself not just into worried knots but discovering wholly unknown polygons of anxiety. It’s hard to handle Izana seated, even at his friendliest, but Obi— Obi’s stuck in one of the infirmary cots, the Marshal no doubt looming over him, unleashing the full force of his wrath. Oh, she’s run the gamut of Izana’s displeasure in the year and change since she’s come under the dome; she’s weathered his frustration, and impatience, and sometimes downright civil hostility. But mad?
She swallows, nearly choking on the heart lodged in her throat. Mad is something else entirely.
“Too bad,” Suzu sighs, finally scooping up a spoonful of rice. “I’d been hoping to stop by his office and show him the new projections. Now that we’ve solved the rounding error—”
“Wasn’t it a variable?” Yuzuri reminds him, too sweet. “A whole number you completely left out of your precious—”
“—ROUNDING ERROR that Ryuu discovered,” Suzu continues, undaunted, “I think we’re really starting to see that there’s a marked decrease of interval length, followed by an increase of kaiju—”
The table rattles as she stands, half-eaten rice making a liar out of her even as she says, “I think I’m finished.”
Yuzuri glances down at her tray, mouth pursing as she takes in what’s left. “Are you sure? The food actually looks halfway decent tonight. Better than this salad, at least. Should have just taken the lumps with those calories instead of—”
“Yeah.” She can’t eat when her stomach taking more tumbles than an acrobat, no safety net on this bout of nerves. “I just…”
Don’t know what a concussion will do to someone like him, is what she wants to say— what she should say as a professional, as the person who’s being pinned handle his condition long-term. But what she means is, I can’t just let him deal with Izana all on his own.
“I have a thing,” she says lamely. “And some paperwork. I’ll, uh, come back later if I get hungry.”
“Uh-huh,” Yuzuri hums, utterly unconvinced. “Sure.”
Suzu only nods as she slips out from the bench, adding, “Say ‘hi’ to Obi for me.”
*
Worry dogs her heels with every stride she takes down the quiet corridors, the metallic echo of her steps chasing her around every corner. It’s eerie at this time of night; the dome buzzes at most hours, day and night having no meaning without windows to help mark when one rises and the other sets, but with dinner served up hot and ready, only the PPDC’s most essential personal stay at their posts, waiting for the next shift to relieved them.
Shirayuki should be relieved too; going toe-to-toe with the Marshal is the sort of event that some enterprising officer could sell tickets to. With halls this bare— and the only spare set of eyes being Mitsuhide’s, who could probably make a career out of taking other people’s secrets to the grave— she’s practically guaranteed to keep this tête-à-tête private, and yet—
Yet she turns the last corner, and suddenly her slip-ons’ soles might as well be magnets for all struggle it takes to lift them an inch off the floor. It’s impossible to keep forward momentum, to do anything but stand still and wait, and— and—
Interrupting’s the right thing to do— she feels it, deep in her gut; the same place Rangers say they know when someone will take their hand in the drift, or whether a Kaiju’s going to fight to the death or cut and run once they’re against the ropes. It’s what she’d hope someone would do for her, if she was stuck playing wave breaker for Izana’s storm, but still, still—
She’s not sure she’d thank them for it. It might be nice dreaming of the rescue, but when someone actually rides to it, when they take the whole situation out of her hands and tells her to take a back seat, well…
Shirayuki’s known enough princes not to find that charming. Or at least the ones that think they are, taking choices right out of her hands and calling it kindness. The last thing she wants is Obi see her stride in and think, here we go, another person who thinks they can run my life better than me.
Her fingers curl, nails biting into the fleshy part of her palms. She could go in there still, just— just sit beside him as he took his lumps, but it feels too passive, too much like she’s just acting as witness rather than support, like this whole thing is an official part of his treatment, and she— she—
She sees someone idling down the corridor, just across from the infirmary door. A familiar someone, pale hair flopping as he runs his hand through it, looking just as tortured each time he reached for the door, only to flinch away, like it burns.
“Zen?” His name falls off her tongue before she can swallow it, lips too numb to do more than let it stumble out, more habit than question.
He startles, eyes wild as they dart up, looking for all the world like he’d rather have been caught in the women’s locker room than found here. “S-shirayuki! I wasn’t— I mean, I was just” — hanging around in the hallway, it seems like— “I’d been passing by and I thought I’d, er…”
His chin jerks down the junction of corridors; not the way she came, or the way directly opposite where the hangar sits, but the third option, leading back toward— “You were coming from the women’s bathroom?”
“What?” Zen’s neck swivels, chasing grating and plate all the way back to where the sign reads RESTROOM, a clear stick figure and skirt painted next to it. A strange sign to have in a facility where ninety percent of the population elects to wear BDUs regardless of gender, but Shirayuki supposes it makes its point. “No! I, er…”
It’s habit to wait him out, to let him finish composing his thoughts before she makes any attempt to guide him— but impatience wins out, this time. “Were on your way to the infirmary?”
“Ah…yeah. That’s it.” Red blooms over the tips of his ears, like he’s seen too much sun. “I just heard that Mitsuhide was down here, so I thought that I would, you know, check up on him.”
Her head tilts, and oh, she hopes it looks more curious than confrontational. “You’re here for Mitsuhide?”
“Well, you know, it’s just weird for him to get caught up in something like this.” He scratches at the back of his neck, and Shirayuki would bet dollars to donuts that if she could see under his jacket collar, it’d be sunburn red there too. “A fight, I mean. He’ll spar with the other guys of whatever, but they don’t, you know…”
End up in the infirmary. Rangers are tough by design, not easy to break; once they roll out the Academy doors, they’re combat rated and ready, eager to take down monsters a hundred times their size. A man head and shoulders taller doesn’t give even a cadet pause— not until they end up flat on their backs, wondering how they mistook strength for slow.
But Mitsuhide— Mitsuhide is careful too. He might be a decorated combatant, a seasoned killer of kaiju, but when it comes to squaring up with humans, he might as well be fighting with kid gloves. She’s seen him on the mats before, carefully feeling out the edges of what his partner can take, making sure their spar is a challenge but not a rout.
Mistakes happen, she knows. Too much force behind a swing or fumbled footwork could send anyone to med bay, looking for a bandaid or a cold compress. Even Mitsuhide’s had his bell rung once or twice, too focused on keeping his opponent on their feet to watch how close their jo came to sweeping his. But for both of them to end up on a cot, well…
It’s concerning to say the least. Especially when the other body in that bay is supposed to be—
“I heard it was Obi in there with him.” Zen shrugs, but it doesn’t look casual. Not a smooth motion, but two pickets rattling up and down by his ears, never quite settling back to where they shoulder. By the pink spreading over his cheeks, he’s well aware. “I just thought that I…I don’t know, that I could…”
Talk to him. He doesn’t say it, but he doesn’t need to: the words are scrawled across his face, written in bold-faced print for anyone to see. Fix something.
“Would you like to talk about it?” It’s reflex to ask, really— one she doesn’t even realize she’s done until his eyes blink wide, jaw slackening to match. “My office isn’t too far down the hall.”
He hesitates, eyeing her warily before he asks, “Unofficially?”
“Of course. As friends.” That’s what she’d meant anyway, she thinks. “If that’s what you want.”
There’s another, longer pause; his eyes shifting away from her to the door and then back again before her nods. “Yeah. I think I do.”
*
Her fingers are already reaching for a pen, palm pressed right against the soft cover of her notebook when Zen says, “You promised.”
The pen rattles back into the holder, knocking aside its mismatched brethren before settling into place.
“Habit,” Shirayuki laughs, suddenly all too aware of herself in space, of how she’s practically hanging over her desk. Of how desperate she looks to categorize his thoughts into neat little boxes, like somehow it might make hers more orderly too. “It won’t happen again.”
“Are you sure?” The corner of his mouth hitches up, a smirk she knows all too well. “I am about to be really interesting, you know. You’ll be itching to put it in my file.”
It would be entirely inappropriate to say, I know. “I promised,” she says instead. “Boundaries are important. For both professionals and clients.”
“Is that what I am now?” He’s smiling still, joking, but there’s no humor in it. “Your client?”
“No, you are what you’ve always been.” It stings as she smiles, folding up her legs beneath her, but sweetly. “My friend.”
His smirk falters into a frown, that direct, almost challenging stare of his foundering to the floor. “Really? I don’t think I’ve been a very good one lately. Not to you.” He sighs, leaning into his hand. “Hell, not to anyone, I guess.”
“Is that what’s worrying you right now? That you’re not being a good friend?”
Zen snorts, sending her a wry look. “You’re doing it again. The therapist thing.”
“Ah! Er…” Heat prickles at her cheeks, and she doesn’t have to see Zen’s grin to know it’s a blush breaking out over them, just as obvious as any of his. “Sorry, force of habit.”
“Don’t worry about it. Honestly, I think it’d be weirder if you didn’t try,” he admits, letting himself relax into the couch cushions. The way he used to before, when it was just him and her and a way to steal time under his brother’s nose. “I don’t really care about the friend thing. No wait, I don’t mean—I do care about being friends, and er, being a good one, but that’s not really my biggest problem right now.”
“It isn’t?” Her head tilts, an invitation. “Then what is?”
He stares at her wearily. “Really?”
“Oh! I really…” Her hands clap to her cheeks, but it does nothing for the heat radiating beneath her palms. “I didn’t meant to that time. I just…it’s Obi, isn’t it? You’re worried about him, even more than Mitsuhide.”
Zen lets his head drop back, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It’s kinda hard not to be. I mean, if you’d seen what I saw in there…”
“You mean in the drift?” Electricity zips through her fingers, chasing her nerves up her spine, and she pitches forward, struggling to keep the eagerness from her voice. “Can I…can ask what happened? When you were in there, in his…?”
Mind. Memories. There’s hardly a difference either way,
He doesn’t lift his head, but she sees the muscles of his neck move, the furrow of his brow implied rather than implicit. “You don’t know? I thought you and Obi had some sort of postmortem or whatever. I figured he’d be your favorite patient by now.”
“No. We never got past broad strokes. I don’t even think I could call him a patient.” It’s strange how relief floods her as she says that— not my patient— and how quickly guilt twists her stomach right after. He should be her patient, she should be helping, she just— just—
Doesn’t want to. Not like that anyway. From the outside. Professionally. But she’s not being given much of a choice. “I think it was too difficult for him to get past all the…commentary.”
“Yeah, I can see that.” He eyes her, almost speculative, before shaking his head. “It’s confusing in there. I don’t even know how he manages to walk and think at the same time, let alone mouth off the way he does. But you know about…?”
“Osaka, and the Hachimaru,” she confirms, the fabric of her skirt dimpling between her fingers. “That there were unauthorized experiments going on with the number of pilots in a Jaeger. That they were all…” Children. She can’t bring herself to say it. “You probably know more than me.”
“Maybe. Not enough. Too much. I don’t know.” Zen sighs, his head rocking forward, bowing over his knees. “It’s just…I don’t want to go talking about stuff that’s really his to tell. But…yeah, there was something with Osaka’s program. Some lack of oversight— or maybe everyone was purposefully looking away, who can tell? But there was seven of them, all packed into one Jaeger, in a big row like— like sardines in a can, and their commander, this woman, she—”
He rubs at his arm, teeth grit. “Let’s just say, she wasn’t a good mother figure.”
“Seven of them?” She’d heard of three— Crimson Typhoon and its triplet pilots— but more than one report had said they were like one mind in three bodies, rather than the other way around. That there was something wrong with them from drifting so often so young. Seven completely different children, forced to link mind in some unregulated daisy chain since before they were even in puberty… “How many of them are…?”
“They’re all in there,” he says, toneless. “Like they never left. Just a whole Con-Pod filled with…”
Ghosts. Shirayuki never was one of the girls who would shiver at a scary story, or see faces in the dark— no point in inventing horrors when there were plenty more real ones lurking just off shore. But there’s no better term for this, these leftover impulses that stalk Obi’s brain stem, or…whatever they were.
“I wish…” Zen doesn’t have Obi’s sharp jaw or Mitsuhide’s square one; his muscles don’t stand out in relief when they flex, but she sees the tension in his throat, the swallow. “I wish he’d just talk to me about it, you know? He saw all my shit and just took it, and now that I’ve seen all his…”
His hand scrapes through his hair, tugging at the ends. “He knows I’m not afraid of him, doesn’t he? That I don’t care? I just want…”
She thought she’d known what yearning looked like on his face, what harsh planes even the briefest touch of it could carve, but she sees him now, mouth twisted so tight it carves new fissures into his cheeks, biting runnels into the corners of his eyes, and she knows— however much he’d wanted her, it doesn’t come close to how much he wants this.
“I don’t know. We’ve talked, but Obi hasn’t really told me what he’s thinking.” And by now, Shirayuki knows better than to guess. “But I think…I think he does. He just…isn’t ready for that right now.”
For being known. For being accepted despite it.
“When he is though,” she adds, carefully picking around the words. “You should tell him.”
“I’m trying,” Zen sighs, sliding further onto her couch. “I’m trying.”
#obiyukiweek24#obiyuki#akagami no shirayukihime#snow white with the red hair#pacific rim au#my fic#ans#man there is a scene i have been dying to get to for CHAPTERS but i keep realizing that it's not TIME#it's COMING and temporally in the story it's not far#but like...so much stuff has to happen to get there#SO MANY POVS#but think we're only like...two chapters away at this point#maybe three#and then a lot of things happen very quickly#and ohhhh i am very excited for it 🤣
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DAMN why is the next BT chapter so LONG
this one is gonna be awhile bros
#SO MANY POVs#and i think it spans over 3 days too iirc#(just closed the doc and no i didnt write anything why would i do that)#lolling thoughts#burning thistles#burning thistles au#random#chapter 170
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![Tumblr media](https://64.media.tumblr.com/01809f306ade0e2017d4fb40a8961e9d/397fad09ef985db4-e9/s540x810/b6afc20d719f33384499b5d3d59b7d879fbca3df.jpg)
yeah so this was insane
#i feel like too many people reduce this interaction to jason being like ‘lol same’#but idk :/#this chapter is from jason’s pov#and leading up to it he’s like ‘people keep walking on eggshells around me bc of the the michael varus stab wound’#and he hates it so when he goes on deck to help out with the storm#everyone’s like wtf except for percy#and jason states how much he appreciated percy not treating him like a sick kid#and i feel like it’s echoed in this sentiment where jason could say so many things like#‘you should never feel that way’ ‘im here if you need anything’#but he doesn’t make percy feel alone in his desire to just…. end it all#which ik for some people that doesn’t work but you’re not a character in hoo and percy is dealing with so much guilt#and he can’t tell annabeth bc she’s a main aspect of that guilt#and he doesn’t wanna guilt her more and he feels ashamed and when he describes this he feels weird for feeling it#so having jason this tough guy be like ‘yo i understand it bc i felt the same way#that’s gotta mean a lot to percy#also insane how jason who also struggles to display vulnerability#allows it in one of few times in this moment just so percy this guy he’s supposed to be jealous about#feels comforted and not alone in his guilt and shame#and also it’s just insane how jason’s wanting to kay em ess does not get talked about AT ALL#and just seeing his mom and the pressure of new rome getting to him#like this scene is insane and i’ll never shut up about it#also ignore me i’m just finishing my reread of hoo that took all summer#jason grace#percy jackson#pjo#ashla.txt
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Kiss Kiss Fallen Tree!
[First] Prev <–-> Next
#poorly drawn mdzs#mdzs#wei wuxian#lan wangji#Sorry to everyone who was looking forwards to this comic only to find out I put WWX in the ugliest outfit.#Continuity came first. Plus let's be honest; he did *not* show up in anything fancy. Or in all black as seen in most fanart.#We are at the middle of WWX depression arc. His self-care was 100% because Jin Yanli would be sad if he didn't try to look nice.#Okay okay. Fine I've delayed talking about the kiss long enough.#It is absolutely a core LWJ scene over a WWX scene. Which is made even more fascinating because we don't get his POV.#But we get so many insights! His loss of control and his firmness all contrasted against how he trembles.#And all of that wrapped up in a wonderful self-loathing bow! You go Lan Zhan! You hated yourself so much for this!#WWX is a hilarious narrator for this because he is truly just...baffled by what's going on.#He would push the person away but he doesn't want to hurt their feelings or pride (putting other people first again are we?)#I do understand why this one is divisive for people though. I choose to look at it through a character/humourous lens.#I've seen people defend and admonish this scene as a particularly shitty thing LWJ did and let's be very clear here: It was.#That's why I like it. LWJ did a shitty thing and struggles with it. It's part of what makes him so robust as a character.#It's also fine if you enjoy this scene for it's eroticism. You're not a bad person for that. You are just A Person.#People will have their own experiences with this topic. Be kind to each other alright?
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i noticed i post a lot of roier cubito ..... i promise i do watch other sytreamers im just insane
#ITS NOT A LIE#i always try catching baghera + forever + cellbit + jaiden mroem rmmmroe qauckit y .#so many povs#Started missa's too
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gif from that hit 90s space mining anime that is real and not made by me
au by @kiszoneszczury
#tangotek#space mining au#on a grind of watching the new life series from too many povs i am so so normal#see you in many hours#trafficblr#pros of working on a small canvas is that bg is very quick and nice to draw cons of working on a small canvas is that characters are not#also i used after effects for the first time why is the clipping mask like that#my art#animation
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y'all I'm working on the first chapter of just an introduction to one of the groups of kids from one district, to maybe get reaped, and to maybe die. I've wrote almost 5k words for an intro chapter in which 6/8 of the characters aren't even gonna enter the games :,)
worth it though, hopefully post it soon but not so sure, but at least I started something
the hunger games fanfic idea
y'all I had this idea to write a thg fanfic. so the story starts like way before the reaping, months before it. and we're introduced to several kids from the same district and we go through just their average lives, y'know. fleshing them out as people. being around people. going to work, school, doing hobbies if they can or just enjoying or getting pissed off at little things. like there would be 6-10 of these characters and they're just living life and any of them could be reaped when the time comes, and you don't know who. and you would be scared because you like all of them maybe, even if you don't like all of them, you see they have a life to live, maybe you would even choose favorites you wouldn't wanna be reaped, or ones that you wish were reaped in (probably not)
and then I get attached to them but I make two of them get reaped for the games and they go through ups and downs. and you don't know whether they'll live or not because I didn't give them plot armor. and then you'd be really sad if they both did actually die because you read over their average daily life. you read them interacting with their friends and family and going to work and school, and just being a kid. before they were shot with the terror of just being reaped for the games, before even entering the arena
and if one of them lives they'll come out with trauma and their life changed forever. and you remember reading them being happy, hanging out with their friends, messing around at school, having a rare meal with their family, just happy they had the time and food, and then all that goes away and you don't get to read a moment where they have that again. and even if you do they're completely changed. and this is if they win
in the arena you saw a previously normal kid, fight, hide, struggle for their life. you at least read one of them with their life flashing before their eyes. or them regretting everything they did in that arena. or their mind so numb to even think properly because of the pain they're enduring. maybe they beg to be spared or beg to be killed. you saw what that kid was like just a couple months before, a couple weeks before, a couple days before, just minutes before, unaware they were going to die like this
you remember meeting their family and friends and laughing or relating or just getting so interested at their dialogue, or their personality, their character, who they were in the tributes life. or not really, but you still can't help but feel sympathy. how they interacted with the now tribute, the kid who got reaped. how do you think they would react a to them dying slowly in pain, or so quick they couldn't think in that moment? they were just with them, just a few weeks ago
imagine them killing a kid. another kid. you might've been rooting for them too. you were rooting for the character to kill another kid to survive. you realize that kid had their own life and family and you're just rooting for somebody you know better. maybe I might even give all the tributes POVs and backstories
anyways it would be cool to read a thg fic where the author continuously humanizes the tributes. gives them all friends and families and memories and homes and lives to get back to. we can't help but wish all of them went back home, without all the horrors. but we know only one lives. you could theorize or root for one. but it's like... you're a Capitolite. and you read how the Capitol dehumanizes, forgets, or idolizes these kids. but you know how they were back home. and you see how different they're acting already. you can see how they all die
and with what I said at the start. starting with several kids who could all be reaped as the female or male tribute of their district. they didn't get reaped that year. they could've been reaped. some of them could still get reaped. you could've read all these other kids try and die, or give up... and die
but yeah this would be a lot of planning with POVs and consistencies and stories to make sense, and making every character (who fits the criteria, 14 or over in age) seem like they have a chance at winning. they could win, any of them
just an idea for me to maybe get to. and for other thg fanfic writers to get interested in, and maybe write their own take on this (sorry this is such a confusing read this is mostly unedited and this is just a blurb)
if anybody already used this concept and wrote a fic, or is continuously updating it still, can y'all send it to me?
#thg#the hunger games#thg fanfiction#thg series#hunger games#humanizing kids#fanfiction#so much work#so much writing#keep in mind this is my first long fic#so many povs#so many characters to try and have different povs of#i wanna make this sound like they're different people#this is so much harder than i thought it would be#and i already thought it was gonna be hella hard#I'm lazy as hell but I'll try
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pov: you’re anakin skywalker
#star wars#tcw#jedi council#mace windu#kit fisto#depa billaba#master yoda#yoda#obi wan kenobi#eeth koth#plo koon#shaak ti#ki adi mundi#mundis head was so fun to draw lmao#at first i was gonna redraw this meme as the clones as ‘pov ur at 79s’ but ive drawn so many clones lately#i missed drawing the jedi :)#my art
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(content warning: blood)
Sewed Up Heart
[ID: A Trigun comic done in grayscale with red accents. First, an anatomical heart gushes blood, forming a puddle which shifts into Vash's coat. Vash's gloved hands can be seen sewing up a tear at the hem.
Vash raises his hands, which are now bare and covered in blood. He looks sweaty and distressed, and he raises his coat to his face and cries into it. His clenched hands rip the sewed portion apart, and the red thread leads to a heart whose own stitches are tearing apart. The background gets darker and darker, and the red looks brighter and starker against it.
Then the background returns to white, and brown-skinned hands using embroidery scissors snip a red thread. Wolfwood holds up Vash's repaired coat, grinning proudly, and does a happy thumbs-up in Vash's direction. Vash lifts his head, seeming distant.
Wolfwood holds out the coat. As Vash puts out his hand to take it, the cloth is replaced so Wolfwood is dropping a sewed-up heart in Vash's hand. Vash rubs the coat against his face with a teary smile. End ID] ID CREDITS
#trigun#trimax#cw blood#vash the stampede#nicholas d. wolfwood#vashwood#my art#his coat as an external representation of his emotional wounds🤌#a coat riddled with bullet holes tells so many stories#also wolfwood hc of him being good at sewing bc he probably had to patch up many clothes when he was at the orphanage#and now his hands are bloodied but he still has this one thing -this one skill- that helps him make things a little better for once#and it doesnt fix everything but at least he's giving back a bit of the kindness he's being shown#ww actions over words love language *explodes*#i cant stop rotating these thoughts in my head i need to make a comic focused on his pov#image described#thank you for the id!!#raepliica_art
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Maybe exy is a little boring to him — but andrew doesn’t just not care about exy, neil notes in the beginning of tfc that he seems to outright resent it. boredom doesn’t bring about resentment. but do you know what does? the idea that a sport you barely give a shit about is the only reason anyone gives a shit about you
#this is so messy but I’m having so many andrew thoughts#like imagine your entire life no one seems to really care for you all that much#and then they find out you’re like. really fucking good at a sport and suddenly you’re wanted#but they don’t want YOU — that much is clear#they’d throw your ass out the moment you refuse to pick up a raquet ever again#they don’t care about YOU — they care about how many goals you can block#shit I’d be bitter too#(for the record I do think people care about andrew ie nicky wymack betsy etc but from andrew’s pov… baby has abandonment issues)#andrew minyard#aftg#all for the game#tfc
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valentines day ass post in the middle of october i dont know what happened
#pov the medic pocketing you would die for you. hed kill for you. hes going to dismember you.#tf2#tf2 medic#tf2 demoman#tf2 pyro#tf2 engineer#tf2 soldier#tf2 sniper#tf2 spy#tf2 scout#tf2 heavy#jaegerbombs#fruit scones#science party#gentle surgery#red oktoberfest#the rest are meant as platonic in this case so im not tagging them but its free real estate haha#thats so many tags im sorry#doodles#engiemedic
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My biggest flex will always be how I knew Neil was the more feral and dangerous one than Andrew this whole time even before tsc and seeing the entire fandom freaked out makes me want to kiss and hug Nora and just thank her for finally finally showing everyone and I’m not just crazy
#seeing all the post about like omg Neil is so feral?! like brother did you not read aftg did y’all forget aftg is from Neil’s pov#ofc Neil wouldn’t say he’s feral in his own pov tf😭😭😭#and remember in aftg Neil still has to hide part of himself BECASUE his father and eveyrhhing but now he’s literally free from his biggest#fear and he could do whatever the fuck he wants#Istg the fandom is like the foxes man idk why everyone is so shook#literally cant thank Nora enough for showing everyone finally#Idc if I sound proud or whatever but I fucking knew it this entire time and I have been shouting it for so long like finally#that’s why so many fics annoyed me so much like#I just needed to say this because I finally felt seen and heard andFINALLY LIKE URGH#tsc and aftg supremacy#tsc#tsc spoilers#the sunshine court#the sunshine court spoilers#aftg#all for the game#tfc#the foxhole court#aftg series#aftg fandom#aftg incorrect quotes#neil josten#andrew minyard#andrew joseph minyard#neil abram josten#aftg neil#aftg thoughts#aftg textpost#aftg shitpost#incorrect tfc
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She chances a glance at Sebastian before getting out her copy of Divining the Undivinable from her bag and wishes she hadn’t. He looks uncomfortably big sitting on the tiny tea chair across from her, barely any hints of the boy who had completely swept her away two years ago visible on the sharper planes of his face. When had he - had they - grown up?
Sebastian Sallow was - is - charming, and that had been her downfall. She had successfully avoided his charms the year before, and she isn’t going to let that happen this year, no matter how much her body rebels against her mind and resolve. Because, as she reminds herself, Sebastian Sallow is also manipulative, and cold-hearted, and selfish.
“Well,” she says archly, opening her book. She will not look at him. “I suppose I am still quite ignorant of the practice of Divination, so do forgive me if I have to double-check my readings in the textbook.”
He says her name as she opens the book, and she ignores him. He says her name again. She continues to ignore him. He grabs the book from her hands and puts it the correct way for her. She was looking at it upside-down. Her cheeks heat up and she continues flipping through the pages, as if nothing has happened. She finds page two-hundred and thirty. She pretends to be interested in what she sees.
(Divination is unfortunately not interesting.)
Oh, fine.
“Do you want to start, or should I?”
These are the first words she has voluntarily spoken to him - not including the events of last week, which do not count as they were most decidedly not voluntary - since he called her ignorant a year and a half ago. He somehow looks surprised to see that she has addressed him, and for some reason this fills her with rage and a strange sort of confidence. Why shouldn’t she be able to talk to him?
“Here,” she says, putting her hand out towards him, palm up, ignoring the strange fluttering feeling in her chest when he gently grabs it with one of his. Sebastian looks up at her, waiting for her to continue speaking, and were she not looking at him so intently she would have easily missed the bob of his throat as he swallows nervously. “Show me how it’s done.”
from my oneshot, clumsy🫶🫶🫶
#it was SO HARD to think of how much of this scene to include as an excerpt#bc I want enough for no context really but I could have just included the whole pov and…maybe it would be too long idk#but enough to set the scen#of my brat angel reading her book upside down😆#Sebastián is trying not to smile bc she’s trying SO HARD TO BE UNAFFECTED😤😤😤😤😤😤#anyways I’m happy i had some time to paint today😭💓💓💓#I sketched this a few days ago but I didn’t know when I would find the time to paint and today the stars aligned🥹🙏#and honestly IT WAS SO HARD TO SKETCH THIS…#I was scared I would ruin the paper with how many times I erased😆😆😆#hogwarts legacy#hogwarts legacy fanart#hphl#hogwarts legacy mc#hogwarts legacy oc#eloise babbit#sebastian sallow#sebastian sallow fanart#sebastian sallow x mc#hogwarts legacy fanfic#sebastian sallow fic#also I’m working on another dumb oneshot😆😆#I still have a few more scenes from this one I want to paint though🫶🫶🫶
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Fics I Enjoyed in December - DC Comics Fic Rec List
Fell headfirst back into DC Comics for the first time in years this month. Reread some old favorites and discovered some new gems!
Heart, Humble by Betty (Mature, 8k, 2005) Jack Drake deals with finding out that Tim is Robin (poorly, and then not so poorly). THEE canon-accurate Jack Drake-focused fic of all time, this is canon in my heart.
Back then, all the boys his age had hero-worshipped costumed vigilantes. Jack supposes they still do.
Exit Strategy by smilebackwards/@smilebackwards (Teen & Up, 13k, 2021) Tim plans to leave a family he thinks he was never really a part of and decides to train Damian on how to run Wayne Enterprises before he goes. Delicious angst, excellent character work, and fun Wayne Enterprises worldbuilding.
Batman needs a Robin and Batman has a Robin. Tim is just extraneous now, vestigial. He’s a bandage over a healed wound. He doesn’t know what he’s hanging on to. Or: Tim didn’t expect his exit strategy from the Batfamily to involve quite so much bonding time with Damian over Wayne Enterprises bureaucracy.
On the Downbeat by husborth (Teen & Up, 2k, 2019) Bruce and Jason talk while waiting in line at a drive-thru (featuring Gotham-typical violence and husborth-typical gorgeous prose). I've always adored husborth's Star Wars fics and I'm so glad I dipped my toe into their DC works, no one's writing hits quite like husborth.
Jason has recovered his sanity, and Bruce and Jason have recovered their relationship; but there are some things that are hard to forget.
A Zoo for Canines by husborth (Mature, 45k, 2019) Part 2 of Zoology; Dick and Jason try to help Bruce recover from addiction. If you're used to fanon Dick Grayson (cheery, friendly, forgiving) you will not find him here - his anger and pain is ugly, raw, and so fucking captivating.
Dick, Bruce, and Jason head out to a cabin in the mountains, and they handle things about as well as they handle anything.
All the Roofs of Uncertainty by Kieron_ODuibhir/@kieron-oduibhir (General Audiences, 70k, 2015) Dick almost dies and makes Jason promise to take care of the family for him. A masterclass demonstration on how DC fic can square all the wildly divergent canon versions of Jason Todd into a single compelling character.
For all the blood on his hands, Red Hood was never just a villain. And Nightwing never gives up on family, not for good. (Or: The one where Dick bleeds a lot and Jason argues with everybody.)
The Till-Then From the Ever-Since by Kieron_ODuibhir/@kieron-oduibhir (General Audiences, 85k (WIP), 2020) Kid versions of the whole Batfamily mysteriously time travel to the future! I livetexted a friend the whole time I read this so I could yell about how amazing the character writing is; also I'm wildly impressed with how the author deftly handles tons of dialogue-heavy scenes with like 12+ guys in it without anyone going unmentioned.
It began, or seemed to begin, with Jason. Usually that would have meant something in the order of fire and explosion and probably at least one gunshot wound, but for once (as Tim said, sourly), it wasn't actually Jason's fault.
only you will have stars that can laugh by silverwhittlingknife/@silverwhittlingknife (Teen & Up, 9k, 2022) Dick finds out Tim is alone on Christmas and invites him to Babs' Christmas party. Discovered silverwhittlingknife through their galaxy brained Dick & Tim meta essays, stayed for every single line of Chapter 2 ripping out my heart and roasting it over an open flame.
You coming over is possibly the only thing that’s gonna stop me from wanting to punch your dad in the face, Dick doesn’t say. My current Christmas Day plans are 1) pace around at home, and 2) try not to obsess about what Bruce is up to, so trust me, you’ll be an improvement, Dick doesn’t say. Tim's alone on Christmas Eve. Dick finds out, and fixes it.
nerve endings by silverwhittlingknife/@silverwhittlingknife (Teen & Up, 5k (WIP), 2024) Post-Catalina Flores, Dick, Tim, and Bruce go on a (canon-accurate) cruise and dance around their open wounds. This is a glorious example of "he WOULD fucking say that", Dick's voice is so canon-accurate that the angst is even more painful i cri
It's all right, even, to have a foreign hand pressing against his skin, testing him, testing his reactions. He keeps his breathing controlled. Just Tim, damn you, it’s just Tim, don’t fuck it up. Dick's on a cruise with Bruce and Tim. And he's fine. Mostly.
Red Letter Day by silverwhittlingknife/@silverwhittlingknife (Teen & Up, 42k (WIP), 2022) Dick is sure the cryptic scribble in his agenda refers to something he's supposed to do for Damian, but he can't remember what. Mostly about Tim and Dick s l o w l y mending the post-Damian rupture in their relationship, but the whole family is here and Jason, especially, is fucking hilarious.
Dick Grayson, stressed pseudo-parent to a preteen assassin, tries to solve the case of Damian’s Mysterious Wednesday. He never expected it to help him fix his relationship with Tim, too. (… Though only after everything fell apart first.)
Gonna Be A Better One (A Thousand Miles To Your Door) by Traincat/@traincat (Teen & Up, 18k, 2011) Tim and Kon keep dating even after Jack forces Tim to retire as Robin. I reread this fic annually and every time am delighted to rediscover how funny and heartwarming and squee-inducingly kind it is, pure Timkon perfection.
In which Tim quits being Robin, Kon refuses to quit Tim and Ma Kent is full of relationship advice.
last light in a darkened room by bigdamnher0/@bigdvmnhero (Not Rated, 6k, 2024) Tim finds a distressing video of Robin!Dick and wishes that things were different. The whole fic, particularly Tim manifesting a happy ending in the bathroom, is a gorgeously crafted tragedy such that you're left kind of awed at how thoroughly massacred your heart and soul are post-read.
Tuesday morning: a video was uploaded to one of the deep web black markets. The footage, shot on those grainy vintage camcorders. But Tim knew that boy in the thumbnail; his eyes had memorized him, the heft and shape and dazzle of him, imprinting like an afterimage. Or: a brother is a witness; there's your tragedy.
buy back the secrets by sundiscus/@vinelark (Teen & Up, 91k (WIP), 2024) Superboy rescues civilian Tim Drake before learning that Tim is Robin and shenanigans ensue. I spent my whole holiday vacation intermittently screaming at this fic while my family members looked on with vague concern this fic is ADORABLE and AGONIZING and PERFECT please and THANK YOU.
He takes a long, slow breath. Ignores the glares from the other students. “Superboy,” he murmurs. “It’s me. If you’re listening, I could use some help.” Or: 5 times Superboy saves Tim Drake, and one time Tim Drake saves Superboy.
#fic recs#fanfiction#dc comics#batfamily#dick grayson#jason todd#tim drake#damian wayne#bruce wayne#kon el#timkon#i think it's interesting how many of these are dick grayson focused (as in primarily from his pov) - 6 out of 12! would not have expected i#given that i usually search for jason or tim-centric fics#but wow i've been so blown away by the dick stuff#(yes im a comedian what can i say)#i'm going to go hunting for more quality timkon bc this month's timkon has set a HIGH standard
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You know that trope where Person A thinks Person B is just being nice but they’re actually flirting. What about the opposite? Person A misreading their behavior and being the only one falling impossibly in love.
Clumsy in Love part 4
Eddie rubs his hands over his face and presses the heels of his palm into his eyes.
Im such a piece of shit. God, how could I just do that.
He’s pissed at Steve for not saying something sooner, for waiting until Eddie had something good in his grasp. But he’s angry with himself too.
How stupid is he, really? Did he really not notice until it all came face to face?
He has Adiel’s number memorized, but he knows which of Steve’s beauty marks form constellations.
Mostly, hes confused. His feelings are a jumbled mess and he’s never been good at sorting them out. Naturally, he turns to music. Dio has serenaded him these past few days. Wayne has steered clear of his shit show.
How do you feel right now?
What do you see?
Where would you be right now?
Hey angel what about me?
Jesus fucking fuck. He attempts to run his hand through his hair only it doesn’t get too far, rings snagged in his tangled hair. He can feel the oil built up on the strands and knows it’s time to get his ass out of bed. He doesn’t.
“Angel, Angel, angel. You were my angel. Just not anymore.” He mutters to himself long after the track has finished and another song plays. He’s learning to let go still, even after he’s ended it.
You know what really makes him feel like a dickhead? That Adiel got hurt because of him. He didn’t deserve to get caught in Eddie’s bullshit.
Guilt eats him alive.
His conscious hurts and his heart trembles, tumbled in his chest, but he doesn’t feel the heartbreak the way he should. That world-on-fire and breath burning feeling. He can’t find it.
Like a masochist he wants for it, desires it, deserves it like sinner.
Those last few weeks were enough for his feelings to settle, for his heart to make a decision with or without his input. He tried—god fuck I tried—to feel that skipped-beat flutter when Adiel smiled his way. Could almost convince himself he could. That Adiel’s interlocked hand in his still felt an extension of himself instead of something foreign.
It used to feel like I belonged at his side. Why did it have to stop?
He’s wronged a friend who trusted him to keep his heart safe. A friend who had already been through so much. And Eddie added to that lifetime of hurt because he couldn’t figure it out himself.
Because he was too stupid to see and too stupid to know.
He thinks of Steve’s lips, like he has now for days. Weeks. His heart twists, rung out. That skipped-beat flutter that betrays him.
Fuck. Fuck, man.
He has to stop yanking at his hair like he can train himself out of feeling it.
Do your demons, do they ever let you go?
When you've tried, do they hide, deep inside
Is it someone that you know?
You're just a picture, you're an image caught in time
We're a lie, you and I.
“I’m so fucking sorry,” he tells no one because he needs to say it until he can forgive himself a little. Until he can make himself believe that Adiel will forgive him, in time.
“I’m so sorry,” this time says it to himself, covers his face with his hands and finally cries.
Against his fucking will he cries, can’t hold onto it anymore. Ugly retching sobs that can only come from mourning an almost.
Finally, after days of like solitude, Wayne creeps in un-intrusive as a shadow. His hand on his shoulder may be the only thing that keeps Eddie from disappearing.
“I could’ve loved him, Wayne. I could’ve—I did. I think I fucking loved him and I didn’t know until—until I didn’t anymore. And then—and then I just couldn’t again.”
I wish he got to know that. That even for a short time, I had loved him.
Wayne, ever a man of few words, sits with him and lets him have his silence.
———
It’s a little over a month after that that Steve pays him a visit.
He’s smart enough to show up when Wayne isn’t home, looking sheepish as he shuffles on his front step. At least he has the gall to look him in the eyes.
All this is because of you, he thinks. His dark under eyes, his pallid skin. The rage in his blood. The almost that he had.
“Why are you here?” He looks taken aback, almost shrinks in on himself.
“I… the boys said that you, well.” Steve rubs the back of his neck, his hair longer than when Eddie last saw it. It slips through Steve’s fingers. “You never came by again and I wanted to see you. To talk? Can we talk? Can’t… can’t I come in?”
Having Steve in his home, in his space, is dangerous.
Those eyes are deep, soften by tired shadows.
“No,” his swallow is audible and steels himself, “Why should I want you in my home, Steve?”
Steve stands there lips parted and hands clenches at the bottom of his sweatshirt, eyes shined over. Eddie takes the chance to step forward. Everything inside him is too much.
“Don’t you understand what you did? I was happy. And you, fuck, you ruined it! Steve! You!” He out of the door way now and Steve steps back, back, back.
Steve’s face is red in shame. Eddie’s in anger. His pointed finger jabbed at his chest, accusing.
“You couldn’t just let me be happy? Why? Why did you kiss me, Steve? Why then? Was it because you couldn’t stand that I finally had someone? Say something!”
Steves eyes overflow, “Yes! I could stand it because I love you, asshole! I thought, I don’t know—I thought you loved me, too. Okay? Me. We both felt it—tell me you felt it too, Eddie? It wasn’t just me, right?
“You were everywhere and everything. You’d smile at me and it was the sun. So close, always right there and it was like we were—we were teetering on the edge of something amazing. And I was so happy, Eddie. So happy that day ‘cuz I thought, it was just us, right? Me and you. Just us. Together.
“But then you saw him and your weren’t even listening to me. You didn’t hear a word I said, did you? You only had eyes for him. You left me there and I didn’t know what to do with myself ‘cuz suddenly all you’d talk about was him. Every day and every minute we were together. After thinking, after thinking you loved me too.
That I had you.
So yes! Okay? I kissed you because I was selfish and I needed to know. I needed to know if any of it was real. If there really was nothing there.”
Steve’s breathing hard by the end of, words a wavering wet string of rawn vulnerable pulled out of his chest. He’s looking at the floor, hair covering his eyes, and shoulders trembling as he hiccups.
Then, everything feels still. Calm inside. For the first time in ages, Eddie feels like he can take a deep breath and not fall apart. He closes his eyes for a second and just breathes. The fight escapes him with the last breath.
“You ruined me, Steve. You ruined me in a way that even I didn’t understand. I didn’t know, not until that night, about how you felt. And I’m sorry if it was my fault, if I did and said things to make you feel that way, okay? But I didn’t… I didn’t feel that way about you. Not then. Not when you kissed me.”
“And now? Eddie? Do you… could you feel that way for me, now?”
“If it weren’t for you,” he begins, “Adiel and I… we could’ve had something great. But then you—and I— I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I wondered so much on why you kissed me that night, replaying every moment together, to see what you saw. And ended up feeling… feeling what you felt.”
He takes the chance to move forward the last bit of space to reach to him, have him look him in the eyes. Both of them mirror images of despair.
“You ruined me, Stevie. Everything was different. It wasn’t perfect anymore, I couldn’t make it perfect again. And I couldn’t be who I had been with Adiel knowing that I couldn’t find in me what we had before. That maybe, this has the chance of being something amazing, too.
I stopped seeing you everyday, so I saw you in everything. I stopped speaking to you, and you became the voice inside my head. It was maddening.”
Eddie laughs and wipes away the tears from Steve’s eyes, they fall faster when he smiles a weak and small but real thing.
“Adiel and I, we fit together; we were good together. But despite that, I didn’t want him anymore. I didn’t know why, I think I still don’t, but… I don’t need to know. I just need feel it, Stevie. And I feel it. I want this. Me and you. You have throughly ruined me, for anybody else.”
This time the kiss is different. It’s shared elation, wet and salty on the tongue, and clumsy as they try to fit into each other. Disappear in one another.
“Are you still mad?”
Those brown eyes don’t resemble gems of green, but they’re filled with incredible warmth and Eddie sees home in them,
Sees a life with them,
It’s own kind of precious.
And he laughs.
“So much, Stevie. I’m mad and heartbroken and falling jn love and happy and so so sure of us. I think, I think I still need some time, I’m really fucked—no, no, shouldn’t cry anymore,” he says as Steve’s face scrunches and it’s so unbelievably cute if he wasn’t blaming himself for it all.
“I just want to make sure I do this right this time. And if I, if I invite you in… I won’t be able to.”
Steve rests his forehead against his, there is heat between them, “But I have you, right?”
“Yeah, took me a while to figure it out but… yeah. Yes. You have me, Steve. God, and I have you. And tomorrow, tomorrow you’re going to come over and pick me up at 6 in the evening so we can eat shitty pancakes at the diner.
And then we’ll figure this out together.”
Part 3 <💛 End, thank you for reading and for all the feedback!
#so yeah they got some shit to work through but they’re all in baby!#the number of times I started writing it in on pov and then delete it for another pov and then again#but Eddie hadn’t had a turn to speak his truth so I think this was the right choice#a lot of dialogue in this one with is my Achilles heel 💀#might be another part depending how yall feel#or a short one shot of adiel finding happiness so so many of you felt for him#steddie#bee speaks#steddie headcanon#steddie prompt#steddie ficlet#steddie fic#steddie drabble#clumsy in love
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[Outtake from iterator Prosperity of Populace final speach to her citizen before its disassembly.]
#pov im throwing my fridged woman into the shark pit hoping shel float#rain world#rain world oc#augh tagging#anyhow im testing the water with posting ocs (very scary) with the second half of my itetor duo that live in my brain#so yeah this is pop she is sooooooo wordy and also getting dead and has been for awhile but its just a silly little guy you knwo#the fun thin about fandom ocs is that you get to play with comepelty different parts of the game world fro fun and profit :thumbsup:#ahem uh as always feel free to ask about my stuff there is only a 40% chance i will be so scared to post asks that it will die in limbo for#ever. but maybe youl get lucky!!!!#hmmmm maybe il post the version without the chat bubbles if im feeling brave also...... i probably wont tho huh#anyhow!#we are listning to crack baby by mitksi it is stuck in my head#my art#also maaaannn you wont belive how many versions of her text i went tough till i settled on this augh rainworld why you so wordy
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