#sublimated patch | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

piinkgore · 10 months ago

Text

Broken porcelain

pairing: Ramattra x f!reader prompt: sexual tension when tending to someone's wound from this list warnings: semi-nsfw, mentions of blood, injuries, semi-nudity, swearing, reader being a bit masochist etc etc word count: 2272 a/n: backstreet's back, alright! and finally. 😎 I’ve been a bitch with a big B for Ramattra over the past couple months, and of course I had to write a piece on that robot guy. He gives me… feels I can’t explain. So, for all my fellow robot fuckers, hope you enjoy reading this as much as I’ve enjoyed writing! Feedback is always appreciated and please please please send an ask, a chat, anything so we can talk about this big guy and more fanfiction prompts. 😭 also on ao3!

Who would ever say to be a human amongst killing machines would, impressively, be a dreadly task? Or deadly, you would remark to yourself after a long walk of dragging your wounded body through the corridors from the training field to Ramattra’s personal workshop. At least, those new assassin omnics would perform their duties impeccably, you could tell from the way they cut through your skin without a single issue.

The wound was still covered under the thin layer of the tank top you have on, the white fabric damp of crimson blood denouncing something went terribly wrong, not to mention the pained expression contorting your face.

As soon as he eyes your state, if Ramattra could bring a worried expression to the surface of his faceplate, he would, a mirror to the torment running through his systems. He was an engineer, not a human healer, but you needed him to act more as such in the present moment if you’re both willing for you to stay alive, which you indeed were.

Growing impatient, not to mention the pain reaching under your skin, you adjust yourself slowly on top of his workbench, holding your side to prevent any further damage. Your fingers get moist with blood, and that has your lips twitching. “Can you fix me or not?”

“That depends on your meaning of fixing,” he states, a stoic demeanor on the outside despite feeling quite the opposite inside. Feeling. Something he didn’t think to be inclined to, at least not when those diverged from the violence he was shaped to perform as a being… and yet, here they are, as foreign to him as the surgical aspects of flesh and bone. “I can’t weld you, obviously. At least, not as a first resource,” his slight humor brings a faint smirk to your lips, slowly shaking your head in a quiet response. In a lighter tone, Ramattra proceeds, and now it’s definitely a command. “I would like to have a closer look.”

Quietness follows, not as fast as the warmth spreading from your neck to the tip of your ears. To say you hadn’t considered you’d need to remove your shirt was unnecessary, in front of him of all people, ‘cause you’d rather overcome your own fear of blood if a second thought had you aware of the chances before. But as the old saying remarked: if you are in hell already, just go and sit on the goddamn devil’s lap.

Proceeding a thick swallow, you do as you’re told, diverting your eyes to a corner to avoid examining the cut yourself, or to avert them from Ramattra’s, anything and everything were an excuse in such a situation. It hurt just enough to be something you knew you couldn't handle alone, and considering how sharp that assassin’s knives were… fuck’s sake, what a weak fool you were.

On the other hand, at the sight of your almost bare torso, Ramattra felt inexplicably tense. The wound itself was not too deep to reach anything vital, but would need a patch up indeed in order to heal properly. Yet, his sight wasn’t restrained to that minor part of your skin, and that’s when tension was found. Maybe the vocabulary wasn’t a perfect fit, ‘cause that jolt of electricity running through his circuits was something else, something as sublime as the curve of your hips, and the way you shallow breaths of anticipation had your body quivering, despite an enormous strength to keep it still. He could hardly find beauty in human beings, and let’s not even mention himself, but that was a whole different scenario… warm, with a hint of degradation he couldn’t ignore, and something that could only be named as akin to desire.

The silence was killing you now, almost making you forget the very pain which brought you there in the first place. “Will we be helding any funerals?” you risk, in the same light humor he used with you before. At least, if you didn’t consider the shaking tone in each syllable you’d pronounced. You thought Ramattra couldn’t never understand your concerns fully, even if he invested all his force to: if the worst happened, he could be reconstructed, you were there for it after all. But as a human, it’s not like you have a respawn chance anytime. That’s why, aside the anxiety turning your stomach into a knot, you needed him to act.

“You speak as if it's more severe than it is in fact,” he muses, tilting his head as the scanners on his optics do the rest of the work, searching for the right proceeding in a shared data file, where he was hoping to get anything from an omnic model whose initial propose, contrasting his, was to heal, not to kill. “No funerals, you have my word. The pain may be harsh, but the wound itself is of little harm in the bigger picture. You’re safe,” the addition of the last sentence has you sighing in relief, and a pinch of pain reaches you once more, but it’s bearable. Ramattra made you feel protected, or better, cared for. The warm feeling is enough to soothe your anxiety, dissipating the chill air in the workshop for a little while before rushing up to your cheeks as you’re reminded you’re still half naked in front of him.

“Lay,” he commands, and your breath gets caught in your throat in the act. Only if your mouth were open, your heart would surely jump out if it during one of its chaotic heartbeats, contrasting the steady tone on Ramattra’s voicebox, echoing those words without a single trace of malice. But when they hit you, they sounded profane, leaving a delicate trace of forbidden to the tip of your tongue.

You curse your mind as you lay down, a shiver erupting from the contact of warm skin to the cold metal of his workbench’s surface. Fuck, he’s your commander, superior office or whatever goes between you both, your boss to be short. Thing is he saw a purpose for you and spared your life long ago, and that purpose goddamn sure didn’t imply any… deeper contact than the occasional intellectual help you provided, with efficient (and smaller) hands and a cunning mind. After all, no Ravager was made to indulge in such a thing as intimacy, the very same thought cursing through Ramattra’s systems right now. He wasn’t built for delicacy, a single gentle touch for his standards would be brutal enough to leave you bruised for days, and how he would lament to see such perfect skin ruined by his own hands… unbearable to even think of it without feeling a strange sensation housing between his metallic limbs, pushing further inside in search of a bloody beating heart among the cold hardware.

It wasn’t the first time he felt unsure in his existence, but that was a whole new thing. To think one like him was able to possess a spirit tender enough to be mesmerized by such a fragile thing as you touched him not physically, but deeper than it could ever be… how thrilling it was, but insufficient to make him search for its source on his internal data to completely erase it. No, never. He was actually holding into it with every fiber of his soul, curious to see which path it would lead him through. A bit embarrassing, at first impression, like the sight of you would burn his optics until they melt.

After all these years working along, was it there all the time? Within him, within you? He would search for it later, revisiting each time you shared each other's company in his memory, to see where a quiet admiration turned into this.

After gathering the resources to fix you, ensuring everything was sterilized, he turned to sight over your form once more. Ramattra could sense the rapid heartbeat against your chest controlling your breath motions, the rising and falling of your chest following along, where he caught a peek of your nipples drawing a small circle under the fabric of your top, the last barrier between him and your fully exposed torso. Thankfully, unlike any human, his faceplate didn't betray any of his thoughts. They’re guarded within his systems, safe in his memory and imprinted there forever. Nothing could ever make him forget of you, nor time, nor enemies, nor… fuck, the injury.

“It would feel better if you were asleep,” he commences, carefully. You’re already scared for it seems, and it’s not on his wishes to make it worse. “Instead, I will ask you to bite on this,” the discarded cloth of your tank top is brought to your lips, and your heart could have stopped right there. Instead, avoiding the disbelief, you silently obey. “Try not to move. I shall be slow.”

A nod follows, and you gather your best to not whine, or flinch, or sob too much when his hands begin to work, stitching the wound close. Whatever sounds leaving your mouth are muffled, and the pain is great. But erotic. And, fuck, you should be loosing your mind by this point. How could your brain process such agony in a pleasurable way? You’d be blaming the omnic in charge of patching you up, for sure. It was him, after all, all about him.

Ramattra was enormous, and the effort he put in each precise movement didn’t go unnoticed. He could have discarded you, blamed you for your mistakes, assigned anyone else to deal with this bullshit, but there he was: the infamous Null Sector leader, treating you as a precious porcelain tea-cup, once broken, now being patched in threads of gold, despite the gold being metaphorical. It was a form of art, wasn’t it? You’ve read of it somewhere, once. If so, right now, you’re his masterpiece.

To say he’s being delicate is a statement. Ramattra is afraid he could shatter you again, worse than they did with you before. The responsible for it would be severely corrected, later of course. The pads on his fingertips could never be soft as your skin feels under them, and an eagerness to venture further brings a shiver of electricity through his spine. Should he ever be thinking of it in your state? In fact, was it reasonable to have you consuming his memory like this, injured or not? What could be a groan echoes from his voicebox, and within a few long minutes, it was done.

Your jaw clenches to the minimum effort of raising your torso, sitting on his workbench once more as a small discomfort to the newly sewn cut emerges. Covered in bandages, you can’t see his work, but there’s no blood and the pain is moderate, so you trust with your eyes closed it’s perfectly fine. Your shirt is sitting by your side, bloodied and wet from your own saliva, but you don’t mention reaching for it.

Blinking, your eyes search for him, meeting the stoic faceplate turned to you. Silence lingers as you both stare at each other, considering every single thought that coursed through your minds during the late couple of hours. Was it genuine? Absolutely. Would you voice them? No, surely not. Tension is still there, so palpable you could touch it, and shattering it would come with a price.

A small blush color your cheeks red, and you finally manage to break eye contact with a hint of timidity. Too much to ask of you for a little time of strong, contrasting emotions, still tickling under your skin as the adrenaline begins to sparse. Clearing your throat, you’re the first to speak. “I apologize,” it begins as simple as it, almost ending the sentence there as your eyes don’t dare to move from your lap and you choose carefully what to say, and what to keep to yourself. Ramattra may have performed a solid progress towards emotions, but you feared he would fail to comprehend the turmoil in yours. “It wasn’t strict of your concern, nor a matter you should care for as you did, and I-”

“I had to,” he cut you off, sternly. Now that you’re safe, his worries tend to other subjects, still resonating over you. Was he too obvious, despite his best efforts? Couldn’t be, and yet he wished fervently for you to point it out, verbalizing what he was too afraid to: he wanted to keep you close, and safe, more than he ever did. “Whatever happens to you is my business, especially if it's a menace to your well being,” Ramattra takes a step closer, his fingers aching to reach for your face, and soothe that sorry expression out of it. Instead, he keeps them to his sides, clenching them a fist. “So don’t apologize for it. It wasn’t your fault, in the first place, and yet I’ll ask you to be careful and not wander over the training field whenever a new IA is being tested.”

A short nod follows a faint smile. His words were gentle, not explicitly voicing what he meant in between the lines, but you knew it nonetheless. Ramattra cared for you, more than you could have thought, and enough to satisfy your heart. “I don’t even know how to begin thanking you.”

“Dressing will do,” a chuckle reverberated in his metallic rib cage, and if his words alone wouldn’t catch you yet, it would be enough to make your face red as a cherry for, somehow, you were able to sense a trace of malice in Ramattra. “Rest now, human. I shall meet you when the day is done.”

#ramattra #ramattra x reader #ramattra x you #ramattra x oc #overwatch ramattra #overwatch x reader #overwatch x you #reader insert #overwatch smut #overwatch 2

201 notes · View notes

kabr0ztrousers · 27 days ago

Note

discovered you on the elite dangerous tag and read thru some of ur stuff! it was great!

have you written abt more brainwashing/hypnosis centered stuff with aliens + masc reader? maybe with a hivemind if thats doable? submission and surrender of the mind is very exciting to me, thanks if u get to this!

Kabr0z Writes episode 90: Assimilation

Find the rest of the Kabr0z Writes anthology here!

CWs: alien life; evil fungus; zombies; noncon; identity sublimation; firearm usage;

A/N: Another one finished super late at night and posted in the morning. One of these days, I swear...

I'm interested in seeing how well this one does, I haven't written much dronification before

##########################################

Dropping out of supercruise, transitioning to suborbital flight. The ship juddered under you, inertial dampers working to negate the colossal transfer of kinetic energy. The planet below was green. That alone would make you rich, finding a green planet with an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere would run you hundreds of millions of credits in finders fees. Landing though, going down and doing the geology, collecting atmospheric and water samples, gathering plant specimens. That's where the real money is. The more data you get, the bigger your payday. A little more tedious than hunting bounties across the spacelanes, but a lot less likely to end with you reduced to a soup-like homogenate and spread across several cubic kilometres of space.

The landing was easy. Modern ships can stay hanging in midair for days at a time, held aloft on reaction thrusters burning stardust. Fuel is plentiful, cheap, and highly efficient. More than enough to get you to a gentle hover before landing, touching down on an outcrop and stepping out in an exposure suit. Atmosphere 18% oxygen, 80% nitrogen, a smidge of CO2, and about half a percent ammonia. An entire planet that stinks of cat piss. Marvellous.

You picked an igneous feature and got to mapping. A cross-cutting magmatic intrusion, visible through the strata and leading into a cave. You followed it, taking magnetic deflection readings to track any polar wandering or magnetosphere fluctuations. You didn't notice as the ferns and lichens gave way around you, phosphorescent fungi taking their place. You also didn't notice as figures moved around you, inaudible over the whirring of your breathing rig.

By the time you saw the first one, they were around you. Tall humanoid figures, overgrown with the luminescent fungus, a layer of glowing growth overtaking them. You turned to run, pulling your sidearm from its holster. You took a shot. It hit one of the figures. A patch of fungus seared away. Your blood ran cold. You could see a flight suit underneath. An older model, but you'd recognise the Pilot Federation crest anywhere, emblazoned as it was on every piece of hardware you owned.

Shooting wildly now. Hitting figures left and right. Every shot that connected burned away more fungus. None of them slowed down.

One grabbed your helmet. Inhumanly strong hands wrenched at it. More hands grabbed at the reinforced mylar of the suit. You couldn't move. You gagged. The smell of piss flooded your pure nitrox suit atmosphere. One had tore through. The suit material is designed to resist splitting, but a quirk of the design is that once a tear starts it's easy to pull apart. Theoretically it makes testing a suit faster. Right now it means your protection is rapidly being stripped away.

Every pull drew that split up further. Every jostle flooded your suit with more ammonia-laden air. You pulled your arm around, letting off one last shot into the face of the zombie in front of you. Its head popped like a mouldy balloon. You realised your mistake.

The wound bloomed with spores. Some burned up in the heat from the particle beam. Most hung in the air. The air in your suit turned musty. You choked on the spores as your filtration system clogged with them. A zombie pulled your helmet away from you, tearing it free from the last rags of your EVA gear. You held your breath. It didn't help.

The spores settled on your skin. Inside your nose. In the corners of your eyes. Your lungs burned. You tried to pull away from the zombies, leaving them with handfuls of torn suit as you moved. One caught your ankle, and you fell. You hit the ground hard, knocking the breath from you.

Your head spun as you gasped for breath. Animal instincts aiding the spores as they sought to take root in you. Every breath spread a warmth through you. Fear gave way to a calmness. Then a heat. Your whole body felt hot. Your hand wandered, drifting to the bulge growing in the front of your flight suit.

You fumbled with the closure of the suit. Every movement got you harder. Every breath making you leak a little more. You were getting close while barely touching yourself, half an inch of compression suit between your shaking hands and your aching cock. The zipper pulled. You dug yourself out. Gloved hands grasped and pawed at yourself. One hand juggling your balls while the other desperately jerked your leaking cock.

Your orgasm hit you like a train. Groaning and gasping you spurted your seed. Your hands didn't slow as the narcotic spores invaded your mind.

You could hear it. A thousand other voices in your mind. Each of them calling your name, drawing you in. All of them promising such release, such joy, if you'd only submit. Give yourself to them. Breathe deep. Cum for them.

You did. Over and over you came. Until the fluid stopped and all that came out of you were moans and grunts. Until the pain would've stopped you, if you could feel it. Until your abused prostate almost pulsed itself inside out and your twitching legs couldn't hold your weight any more.

You didn't care. You'd joined the chorus. You watched as the drone with your old face pulled another orgasm out of its bruised cock. As it fell face-first into the cave floor, still tugging at itself as a thin layer of mould spread over its skin.

The chorus was music. It was freedom. It was truth and joy and love and everything you ever wanted.

And now it had a ship.

#######################################

Thanks for coming to this geology lesson followed by a quick horror-porn scene.

I do very much hope you enjoyed it

24 notes · View notes

notallbloodmages · 2 years ago

Text

Going to start offering sublimation commissions soon! If you have a project right now that you'd like to discuss, send me a message via my contact page at threadmancer.com!

[Image is a zoom-in of two hands holding shot glasses clinking together in a toast. The art being zoomed in is by @tealevision, commissioned by me and used with license]

#commissions #art #patches #silverado #kevin kline #linda hunt #sublimation #sewing

0 notes

katyspersonal · 10 months ago

Text

In today's SoTE progress: ARRRGHHH I am SO goddamn angry!!!! Gfhghmjm But also I am thinking about Messmer and Marika a LOT now.

1) So, I was getting mentally prepared for going to battle Messmer, and decided to visit just one last piece of fort associated with his location!

^ This shield was dropped by a Black Knight Garrew that acted like a boss but was no harder than a regular enemy. He was using a Crucible aspect that gave him chameleon's shooting tongue to attack with and I hoped he'd drop it instead hfhghgj I'm gonna assume it was somewhere in the game and I just missed it for a dumb reason :pensive:

^ A valid reference in case if anyone will want to draw/write certain grim scenes in detail or something like that

2) There was also a fairly well-hidden secret that I felt proud of discovering, but it was just a stronger version of the talisman that makes arrows stronger! And not only I don't use bows, but also it didn't even give lore! Goddamn it Fromsoft reward me with INFORMATION for my explorer's interest!!

3) Okayyyy sooo :/ I was soooo ready to get my ass kicked by Messmer that I kinda dreaded it, but needed to get this over with! Alas, DLC should end sooner or later...

And at first, I did get my ass kicked, sure. But..... ...not only he switched to the second phase halfway through his health bar and not after it was fully reduced like I expected.. but also I adopted OBNOXIOUSLY fast. :/ :/ :/ It didn't take me EVEN 15 MINUTES to fully adapt to him and just get closer and closer with every try. And!! I did kill him? Like are you JOKING. Are you KIDDING me. That was IT? It took me several days and tormenting @fantomette22 for useless tries to finally defeat Rellana, I had to try many strategies and be extremely smart and inventive with her!! I thought if she was so strong, Messmer would have been even WORSE, and yet I am just sitting here like:

Dude yeah no SHIT you needed Rellana to protect you :/ Guess I was not impressed by 18 inches of Messmer the Impaler 😔😔😔

4) Okay but I DID like his voice acting a lot hfhgv I was just sitting there like "stop sounding sexy you dunce, I already decided that I'm going to dislike you!" XD /j

5) His final words were "Mother... Marika... A curse... upon thee..." and.. hell if I know whether he cursed us or her. I am assuming he cursed her since switching to calling your parent by name instead is a kind of strong sentiment. Like defying them their status over you sort of. Besides all the statues of her in Shadow Realm but one being headless. So... yes, interesting.

6) It was not patched out btw! :>

7) Okay actually when I was about to beat Messmer's ass for good I've accidentally found the summon sign for Hornsent NPC! I was not seeing it during the fight, just happened to run into it, and if Igon taught me anything is that such summons are a good idea because they progress the questline. Maybe. So, he gave a dialogue after Messmer was defeated:

"We meet again I see, comrade-in-arms. Upon his end, did you see Messmer's face? Twas sublime - a very tangle of snakes! To think he dared to call us savages. When he himself was most base of all.

To say the least, I am to you indebted. Yet unquenched remains my thirst for revenge. The death of Messmer was merely the start. Now comes the piper to collect from Marika, her offspring, and all the Erdtree's denizens... In vengeance for the flames, my blade I wield... If Miquella's redemption soothes the ache... that throbs within, demanding blessed vengeance... Then I wish not to be by him redeemed."

Sigh... I just can tell that the guy will have to turn on us sooner or later. Honestly, rejection of anything that could help/heal/etc the pain that demands revenge is such a... real reaction? He is a very real character. He straight up doesn't want to stop even after achieving his objective and himself, ironically, fell for the path of punishing every associate including innocent people whose only sin is being "born in this culture". He became like Marika in this regards!

Honestly, this is a very good writing moment! Second favourite after Miyazaki's jab at horrors of believing in "sacred mission" in Crusader's Insignia! (I like the character even more now for very real negative character development, but I just can TELL we'll have to kill him gfhhgg)

8) .... ah, right, I forgot this post about Messmer

Again: hatred like what? Hatred coming from Abyss Serpent? His hatred for Marika? Hatred for all divested of her grace? Hatred for himself? Is this many things? Fromsoft spare me I am too autistic to read hfggjhgjgb

9) This is actually sweet:

So, the snakes were friends all along, and I suppose the counterparts/antagonists to the "evil" serpent within him!

10) *points at this like in the meme* Hey I remember that this bit was mistranslated! XD

It actually says that he did that for his mother's sake, and not by her wish! It makes even more sense with the following sentence, as if HE really wished for no single mfer to look weird at her. No, as if he INSISTED to accept all blame and hatred. Considering he curses her in his dying breath, after all (or at least calls her name which is a bad sign from a child), there must have been such a long build-up of unhealthy relationship between them to it...

He not only wished to keep her away from all fear and hatred that follows, and fulfill her vengeful desires, but also basically said to use him like a punching bag. But if she feared the curse within him in the end, then SHE is to blame that he gave up on any and all hope to be pure, good and loved. Like.. whose fault do you guys think it IS that his self-image centered entirely on being fear and dread, as well as someone to hate? I have an impression that he did want to take the blame and excile for her sake, but also resented that she actually accepted his request to use him. Like.. maybe he didn't even realize that what he, subconsciously, wanted was for her to refuse. I might be speaking from too much personal experience, but sending such mixed signals (requesting something with expectation that the person will refuse) is a sign of bad parenting at least, abuse at most. And knowing Marika's horrid parenting skills... yeeeeah.

Again, really good writing. They are saying so much with so little, as always. Glad that Mister Miyazaki keeps the mark with his stories only being readable if you have at least one PTSD ggbhjghbb

11) I have a bad guess that they did not elaborate on what exactly Abyss Serpent is, otherwise @val-of-the-north would've already spoilered me because we love worldbuilding xd

But seeing how Marika Had a Moment about Giants' Fire all because it's capable of burning the Erdtree, the reason is probably similar. She I with Fire like Gwyn is with darkness: it can end her era, maybe end herself, so it is terrifying.

At the same time, she was trying to love her children, at least at first. She created this eye for Messmer and created a lot of Divine Blessings to ease his burdens in the past. Then there were Omen Twins that she yet named with her initials and at least Godfrey and Godwyn were seeing them, although horned creatures would be her worst nightmare. I feel like the pipeline from this to "children become kings or lords or else you'll only be worthy of sacrifices" + "unwanted bastard in Mausoleum" was a long one. She tried to love even the children that were either a walking hazard or walking PTSD, but failing to overcome fear before Messmer set her down the spiral. God, I can see all of her snapping if Messmer asked too many questions, accidentally acting hostile if he tried to be physically affectionate unable to conceal her fear fast enough... She would not be the type to try again with anyone after casting him aside in the end, but, she would take the passive position of "kids, prove me that you deserve my love because ME putting in effort won't avail anything, apparently". The guilt but one that made a quitter rather than a better person.

12) Also *points like in the meme again*

Yeah, every forge type of the dungeon in Shadow Realm has throwing weapons!!! He adapted!

__________

So yeah this post gotten EMOTIONAL ALL OF A SUDDEN when I expected it to be short. Damn, the girls didn't lie, he IS an interesting character!

#elden ring #elden ring dlc #sote spoilers #messmer the impaler #marika the eternal #gameplay log #screenshots

41 notes · View notes

lightandheatao3 · 17 days ago

Text

The Golden Boy

Fandom: Farscape Summary: John Crichton has changed. Everybody sees it. Maybe his kid sister, Olivia, is the one person who can see all the ways he is exactly the same as ever. A missing scene from the episode Terra Firma. Exploring the way John's relationship with his family has changed due to his experiences, and how it hasn't. Also giving a bit of weight to the lakka story line that I wish we had seen more of in the show. Word Count: 4,210 Warnings: Discussion of addiction Preview:

"Does dad know?" he asked, doing his best impression of someone who wasn't afraid of the answer. Liv gave a single, sardonic laugh. "I mean, he knows you're fucked up. No offense, but that much is obvious. But his golden boy on drugs? Come on. His mind would never even go there." "I'm not-" on drugs, he wanted to say. It's an alien substance, so technically- but he realized instantly that it was a pointless semantic argument, so instead finished the thought with, "his golden boy. These days he looks at me like I'm crazy most of the time." "Aren't you?" she asked, with a raised eyebrow and a teasing glint in her eye. He picked at a patch of grass beside him, pulling out the blades one by one. "You have no idea."

Read on AO3 or under the cut. All comments, reblogs, or kudos are extremely appreciated <3 I would love to hear your thoughts!

Crichton sucks in a breath of salty air, eyes closed to the sweeping harbor views. A beautiful sight that holds nothing of interest to him.

The feeling of the sun on his face, though, he can still appreciate. It was a wonder that a simple pleasure like sunshine could become something rarefied. Something beautiful, not in the way that the view was beautiful, but in the way a memory of childhood summer was. Warm, sublime, forever just beyond his grasp.

He hears a chirp of distant laughter, Chiana playing with his nephew somewhere. He'd retreated to his favorite spot on estate. Just by the water, down the shore a little, near the edges of the gilded cage that held the others away from public view. He was in earshot just in case something went wrong, because disaster was inevitable, but they couldn't see him here unless they came looking.

They never came looking. He'd never asked them to stay away. They knew him well enough that he didn't need to.

It must have been a few hours. The quiet was getting just a little louder and the buzzing in the back of his brain a little buzzier.

The lakka was wearing off.

It used to be one hit would last him half the day, but now two or three could barely get him from breakfast to lunch. He cracked his eyes open, debating whether to reach into his pocket and let his last hit take him into the afternoon, or to walk back up to where his friends and his nephew frolicked under the watchful eyes the ever present secret-service agents.

He saw for the first time that the shade he'd been sitting under had migrated away from him at some point as the sun burned it's way across the midday sky.

Damn. As he mentally scanned his body, he realized he could already feel the sunburn setting in. Frelling Australia. He forgot how quickly that high UV index would mess you here compared to the States.

He shuffled back up the gentle, grassy slope to shelter beneath a large tree.

Whatever. D'Argo would get a good kick out of him showing up red as a lobster later. If he was good for nothing, he could at least be good for a laugh. Maybe Aeryn would even crack a smile. She was trying so hard to pretend to be happy here. Maybe, for just a second, she could be happy for real at his expense.

He reached into his pocket, clasping his hand around the lakka. Decision made. No surprise. He made the same choice every time it came up, which was how many times a day now?

He tried not to keep track.

A twig snapped just behind him.

He whipped his head around fast enough to send a spike of pain through his neck.

His hand was still clenched in his jean pocket and his other first balled tight at his side. His heart was pounding out of his chest.

He drew in a sharp breath.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Liv. Do not sneak up on people like that!" he snapped.

His sister Olivia had her hands raised apologetically. A hint of something he didn't want to read too much into flickered over her eyes, but in a second it was gone behind a teasing smirk.

"It used to be that nobody could get the drop on you," she said, closing the rest of the distance between them and plopping herself down in the shade beside him. "You've lost your edge, John."

He huffed a laugh, relaxing somewhat.

He was still a little loose from the lingering effects of the lakka. A little numb. His heart rate slowed and his body eased a little faster than normal.

"It's funny," he said, not really sure why the thought was coming to him now but rolling with it anyway. "I'm still not really used to people calling me John again."

Liv tilted her head at him. "You mean… your name?"

"Yeah, I-" he shook his head, smiling. "That sounds weird, doesn't it? It's just that everyone up there calls me Crichton. The only person who's called me John in years is-"

Aeryn. On occasion. Usually in a moment of vulnerability, when she really needed to get through to him.

Liv seemed to understand. No surprise. She was always so perceptive. She took after their mom in that way.

"Well," she said, gracefully letting him avoid the topic just this once, "I am absolutely not calling you by my own last name."

He laughed. "I don't want you to. I kinda miss it. Just being regular ol' human John. One of thousands."

She looked at him funny, then laughed too. She bumped her shoulder against his. "Okay, Human John. As long as we're just being regular people, no life-and-death interplanetary brave new world shit…"

He sat up a bit straighter, turning to her. "What is it?" he asked, worried at how she tensed beside him. Was something wrong? Was she in trouble? What fresh hell was going to rain down on them all now?

"You mind if I ask you something? I've been wanting to for a while now, but it can be hard to get a moment alone."

"Oh. Uh… sure. Whatever you want."

"What's in your pocket?"

He narrowed his eyes in confusion. What the frell was she on about?

He followed her gaze to where his hand was still clasped around the lakka. He hadn't even realized he was still holding it.

Too quickly, he relaxed his hand and extricated it from his jeans, hovering awkwardly for a moment before opting to place it on the grass behind him and leaning back.

"Nothing," he said, cringing at how miserably he'd failed at playing nonchalant.

It didn't help that his head was still not entirely clear. He didn't think he'd have to talk to anyone that day if he didn't want to. Hadn't seen the harm in upping the dose a bit.

She rolled her eyes. "Come on, John. I followed you down here this morning to see if you wanted coffee. I saw you. You took something." Straight to the point. Typical Liv. Always has to say what's on her mind, even if nobody asked. "It's not the first time, either. You did the same thing at dad's the other week, out in the backyard when you thought nobody was looking."

"Then why the hell did you wait until now to ambush me about it?" he snapped.

"Because," she said with annoying patience and empathy, "I wanted to wait until you'd had time to come down. I didn't think this was a conversation we should have while you're still high."

"What are you, the hall monitor?" he bristled defensively. "Why don't you go tell the government cronies up there they can all go home. Saint Olivia is here to protect us all from ourselves. You haven't changed at all, you know. Still the same self-righteous little girl who thinks you're the only person in the family with an ounce of emotional maturity."

"Screw you," she bit back with a glare. "Coming from John the Martyr himself. How many 'stay in school, say no to drugs' lectures did I get from you as a teenager, you hypocrite? Do as I say, not as I do, right?"

Crichton stood up, putting a few paces between them and turning his back on her. He stared out over the water, squinting against the sun.

A second later, she was stood in front of him, staring him down.

She took a breath and successfully schooled that face that told him she wanted to rip him a new one.

"I'm not trying to pick a fight. I'm not even judging you. I just want to have an honest conversation with my brother. Is that really so hard for you?"

He met her eyes for a moment, then looked away.

"There's nothing to judge. It's medicinal. I didn't bring it up because I didn't want to freak you and dad out," he lied, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Medicinal?" she said cautiously. "So you're sick?"

"No. Kind of. It's like the space equivalent of a cold. Just a minor viral illness that can be persistent over a few months. The medicine just suppresses the cough and stops it from being contagious," he said confidently, like he'd rehearsed the story even though he was completely pulling it out of his ass. "It's totally harmless. I've been cleared by the IASA medical team, but you know dad would freak out if he realized I was treating it with something that hasn't been FDA tested and approved. Hell, he'd probably call it unpatriotic these days and tell me to stick to American made meds."

She surveyed him skeptically, crossing her own arms in a mirror to him.

"Completely harmless?" she echoed.

"Absolutely."

"So it has no negative side effects on humans at all?"

"None at all," he said reassuringly.

"Alright," she said with a firm nod. "I believe you."

"Good," he said, breathing our a sigh of relief and letting his arms drop to his side. "Because it's the truth."

"Good. Then you won't mind if I try some," she said, reaching into his pocket faster than he could process the action.

He tried to dodged back, batting her hand away. They tussled, him wrapping his arm around her head and messing up her hair, her pinching his side hard. After a brief scuffle that he would never have allowed to happen if his recent months on Earth hadn't made him soft, she stepped back.

She held the lakka up triumphantly in her hand.

He looked around, making absolutely sure nobody, not the security team, his shipmates, or god forbid his father, were there to see this.

"Give it back," he hissed. "What the frell is your problem?"

She scoffed incredulously. "I don't have a problem. I just want to try it. It's totally harmless medicine so why do you care?"

She held the lakka up to her nose, and she handled it in a way that made it clear she's been watching him far more closely than he would have ever guessed. It hadn't occurred to him he should have be keeping his guard up around her.

How long had she been psyching herself up to confront him?

She moved to inhale the lakka and his heart dropped to his stomach.

"No!" he shouted, reaching forward and smacking it out of her hand. "Don't fuck with that shit, Liv! This isn't a game!"

The lakka fell to the ground, rolling a short way down the gentle slope towards the waters edge.

He wanted to dive after it, to snort the whole thing and to no longer have to think or feel or have this conversation. Instead, he peeled his eyes away from it and cast them over his baby sister.

She was staring at him with an expression that said one thing loud and clear: Gotcha.

He floundered. He wanted to defend himself, but he couldn't think of anything to say. He wanted to run away, but that would only make him look worse.

"If it's totally harmless," said Liv, a hint of smugness, "then why don't you want me taking it?"

"I-" He shoved his hands in his pockets, now empty. He couldn't scrounge it off the ground in front of his sister while she was already staring at him like he was some kind of frelling junkie. He had a little more back in his room. He could wait. "I don't know how it would…"

He wanted to say, 'I don't know how it would react with your unique physiology,' or 'It's only safe if you have traces of this completely made up virus in your system' or some other pseudoscientific babble in an attempt to keep up the lie that they both knew was a lie alive.

But he didn't.

He didn't say anything.

Why didn't he want her to try it? Why did the thought of it terrify him?

It was harmless and he was fine and he could stop any time he wanted. So why did the thought of his little sister touching lakka make him want to throw up?

He wandered back up the slope to the shady spot beneath the tree and sat back down.

Olivia stared up at him for a short while, arms still folded, looking like she was trying to solve a puzzle.

Eventually, she came and sat by him again.

"Do you remember when I came to visit you in college?" she asked calmly. "When I was starting to think about my own college applications and dad thought it would be a good idea for me to stay with you? He made me take the bus in by myself to 'learn some responsibility' which was actually code for he was working and didn't want to think about how things were changing."

He nodded. "Yeah."

"We were all fucked up after mum died. I mean, I knew you used to skip school to go drink by the lake before you graduated. I did the same thing senior year," she said with a fond chuckle. "Normal irresponsible teenager stuff, but maybe we took it a bit further than the other kids who didn't have a dead mom. I don't know. Anyway, when I showed up at your dorm, you were still asleep at like 2 pm, and your door was unlocked so I let myself in. I remember the whole place looked like a bomb hit it and there were empties all over the floor and a bong on the table."

He glanced at her out of the side of his eye, not sure where she was going with this but not liking it. "Hmm. I was living on a diet of beer and butter noodles through most of undergrad. Good times."

"As a somewhat delinquent 16 year old, I felt like I'd just walked into paradise. I sat myself on your shitty little couch and helped myself to a beer and some free weed. I was having a great time. Until you woke up and freaked out on me."

"I did not freak out," he said defensively.

"You totally did! You told me you were going to call dad and you blamed everything on your roommate and kept going on about how you never touched any of this stuff and I shouldn't either." She adopted a mocking impression of him, giving a faux lecture to her younger self. "Are you trying to ruin your own life? You need to get your act together, young lady. You were worse than dad was when he caught me with a joint that one time."

"I did not lecture you," he insisted. "I just didn't want my little sister turning into some directionless loser. I was worried about you."

"I know," she said gently. "It worked, you know. After that visit, I straightened myself out. Focused on school. Stopped partying. But it wasn't because of anything you said."

He rubbed his hands over his face, the skin stinging just a little where the sunburn was kicking in. "What was it, then?"

"You just looked so tired. That whole weekend, it was like you were empty. The only time you looked like you felt anything at all was when you saw me with that beer." She pondered a moment. "You were scared. That's how I knew it was a problem. You didn't like the way you were living, which is why the thought of me doing the same terrified you. If it was really okay, you wouldn't have cared what I did."

Crichton leaned back, resting on his elbows. He looked up at the leafy canopy.

"I'm not a drunk," he said coolly.

"I never said you were-"

"You were implying it. But I'm not. I partied in college because it was college, and yeah, I was messed up about mom. I got my dren- my shit together after undergrad and have been able to have a few drinks like a normal person ever since. There is a difference between drinking too much and being a drunk. A drunk can't control themselves, and I can control myself just fine."

"Sure," she agreed. "I know. There is a delicate line between drinking because you can't deal with your problems and drinking becoming your problem. Believe me, John, I get it. I don't know if you know this, but I watched my mom die of cancer when I was a kid, and when I finally felt like I had a handle on that, my brother went missing, presumed dead. I've had enough more than enough of my own problems to drown in my time."

His breath hitched. He sat up straight and looked at her. Really looked. She was calm and composed. There was a maturity about her, a weariness, that he was recognizing for the first time.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't realize."

"It's fine," she said, shrugging. "I don't know that I'd call myself a drunk, either. Maybe, former? Recovered? I mean, I'm fine now, like you said, I can have a drink on occasion and it's no big deal. But things got rough for a long while. Without the help of our dear big sister Susan, I don't know. Maybe I'd be in AA. Maybe I'd still be starting my mornings with a shot of whiskey in my coffee. And I'm not trying to accuse you of anything, John. But I think that maybe you and I are similar in this way. That's all."

His heart ached. It was so easy to forget that for all the people he lost, they had lost him, too. And none of them had the benefit of knowing he was alive.

This was his baby sister and he hadn't been there for her.

Worse than any of it was the shocking clarity of the realization that, for all of the vulnerability his sister was sharing with him, he still couldn't take his mind off the discarded lakka. Nothing she was saying dampened that desire one iota.

His stared at it, sat innocuously in a patch of dirt a few feet away. The answer to every question. The end to every pain.

For a few hours, anyway.

He could feel Liv watching him, but this time he didn't try to hide what was on his mind. There was no point. She already knew.

"Do you get sick without it?" she asked, dragging him from his reverie.

He peeled his eyes from the coveted object and glanced at her.

"No," he said. "It's not like that."

A little weak, maybe. A little shaky. A little like something was driving nails into his brain and running a sander over his nerve endings. But hadn't he felt like that all the time before he started taking it? Wasn't that the whole point?

It wasn't like withdrawal. Not really.

Probably.

"I mean…" he couldn't look at her. "I guess I don't know. I- I haven't tried to go without it for..."

For too long a time to say out loud.

He wasn't sure he remembered what he felt like without it anymore.

A soft hand came to rest on his shoulder. The corners of his eyes stung, and a single drop of moisture crawled down his cheek.

"Do you think you can stop?"

He hesitated, hating himself for having to think about it. "Yeah. I think so. If I really wanted to. But…"

Her hand rubbed circles on his upper back. He pulled his knees up, hugging his arms around them.

"But you don't want to," she finished for him.

He whispered back, "Not yet."

She pulled him into a hug, whispering "It's okay," and letting him bury his face in her shoulder. They stayed that way for a while, letting the truth percolate.

"Does dad know?" he asked, doing his best impression of someone who wasn't afraid of the answer.

Liv gave a single, sardonic laugh. "I mean, he knows you're fucked up. No offense, but that much is obvious. But his golden boy on drugs? Come on. His mind would never even go there."

"I'm not-" on drugs, he wanted to say. It's an alien substance, so technically- but he realized instantly that it was a pointless semantic argument, so instead finished the thought with, "his golden boy. These days he looks at me like I'm crazy most of the time."

"Aren't you?" she asked, with a raised eyebrow and a teasing glint in her eye.

He picked at a patch of grass beside him, pulling out the blades one by one. "You have no idea."

Her face softened. "He loves you, John. More than anything. He's just scared."

"Of me?"

"For you."

"I don't remember him being scared of anything."

"Really?" she asked in disbelief. "It's funny. I remember him as being scared my whole life. He likes everything to be black and white and easy to understand, and you're not any of those things anymore. None of us ever were, really. But you were the best at pretending." She paused, a crease forming in her brow. "Maybe it's because I was younger when we lost mom, so I had more time at home alone with him. Don't get me wrong, he was a good, loving father and he did his best. But he didn't have the first clue what to do with a grieving teenage girl who never wanted the things he wanted. I'm not saying he loved you more than me, but come on, John. He respected you. You know it wasn't like that for me. You might be the spaceman, but I feel like I've been an alien to him my whole life."

Again, his heart hurt for her. Instead of saying I'm sorry I wasn't a good enough big brother to you. I'm sorry I never knew how much pain you were in, he just put his hand on hers. She seemed to understand.

"Well, he knows now, anyway," he said with a bitter smirk. "That there's something wrong with me. I think that's why I feel so at home on Moya. The others, they knew it as soon as they saw me. But it never scared them. Not for a second."

"First of all, you couldn't scare me if you tried. Second of all, there is nothing wrong with you," said Liv firmly. "You're a survivor."

"So is a cockroach."

"Well, then I guess we're both cockroaches."

He rolled his eyes affectionately.

"I'm sorry I'm not who I used to be," he said after a long while. "I know it's making everything harder on all of you."

Dr John Crichton. The golden boy. Gifted young scientist. IASA rising star. Brave hero. Explorer. Castaway. Fugitive. Criminal. Survivor. Cockroach. Crazy. Insane. Addict.

Liv smiled sadly at him. "None of us are who we used to be," she said. "But I love who you are. I am so grateful to have you in my life again, whoever either of us are, and whoever we will become."

He gave her hand another quick squeeze, then put both his hands behind his head and lay back in the grass.

"You know, my fourth grade teacher, Mrs Johnson, told me that chewing gum was a sign of degeneracy and would turn me into a junkie and a homosexual," he deadpanned. "I didn't listen to her at the time, but maybe she was onto something."

"Mrs Johnson was a chain smoker whose lesbian daughter moved to New York and doesn't speak to her anymore."

Crichton laughed, and Liv laughed with him. "Abigail is a lesbian? Man, I never would have picked it."

"Oh, you're one to talk," she joked back. "I've heard some stories from Chiana and D'Argo."

"Dammit, I'm gonna kill them," he muttered to himself. Apparently the 'what happens in space, stays in space' talk he'd given them hadn't sunk in. Not like he'd ever engaged in much more than some inebriated exploration on the occasional pleasure planet anyway. It would never be more than that as long as Aeryn was in the picture. "What about you? The perpetual bachelorette? You're not fooling anyone, sis."

The two of them laughed together, ribbing each other as the afternoon drifted on.

Eventually, it was time to head back. His nephew had made an attempt to teach the others how to cook mac and cheese, so they had to endure whatever the end result was for dinner.

Crichton lingered a little behind Liv as she strolled back the house. She glanced back at him, a look in her eyes that said she knew what he was doing.

She said nothing. He was grateful to her for that.

A few minute later, he was jogging to catch up with her.

The discarded lakka was tucked safely back in his pocket, only partially used. Just enough to get him through the dinner, the inevitable pain of sitting across from Aeryn, pretending everything was okay.

Liv held onto his almost imperceptibly trembling hand as they crossed the remaining distance together. He knew she would hold on as long as he needed.

#farscape #farscape fanfiction #john crichton #john crichton hurt/comfort #for the people follwing me for my bunker fic pls know i am actively working on the next chapter lol #if you havent watched farscape i am begging you. please do. its the best show ever made

10 notes · View notes

b1rds3ye · 2 years ago

Text

Of Dreams and Legends

In the middle of the night you have a heart to heart with the legendary Gromsko. You learn what inspires him to keep fighting, and somehow, that includes you.

Pairing: Sobiesław “Gromsko” Kościuszko x GN!Reader

Genre: Fluff, Confessions, Friends to Lovers

Word Count: 3.1k

Warning: My interpretation of Gromsko’s character, Reader doesn’t know Polish

A/N: Something about Gromsko’s voicelines and bio just makes him seem like an old heroic story in the making to me, so I wrote about it a lil 😌

The air held a chill tonight, lightly nipping at the exposed skin on your neck and face. Zipping up your jumper you laid with your back against the cold surface to look up to the skies. It probably would be for the best that you head back inside, but it wasn’t every night the sky would be this clear. To admire the sublime in the stars as they twinkled down at you. These days they are known as nothing more than gargantuan balls of gas, the unwanted remains of the universe, but how could one not romanticise the sight above you? Up in the expansive skies, every battle paled in comparison. These mundane balls of gas have been unchanging for millenia, the skies you are looking up now, how many others are admiring it? Not just tonight but in the years of yore. Battle armour, weaponry, nation borders and all would have changed, yet when all was done and dusted, you would all be looking up at the same skies.

A bang and a foreign curse had you jolting out of your reverie. Gaze upside down, you shot a glare at who was intruding, only to relax at the welcome sight of a familiar face.

“Sobiesław?”

“Serduszko, you do not make it easy to find you,” he grunted, grabbing his leg to manually get it over the railing.

“I just wanted to admire the night skies.”

“On the roof of our base?”

You shrugged. Sobiesław walked towards you, each footstep heavy against the roof panels, sending reverberations that vibrated rhythmically against your back with a pleasant hum.

He stood beside you, feet by your knees as he followed your gaze to the skies. Hands as fists on his waist, he made a startled noise before turning to you again.

“Did you not wish to be found? I will return to the others, alone time can be good for a soldier.”

“No, no. You’re always welcome,” you grinned.

Sobiesław’s face always held a slight scowl, it was intimidating until you realised it was unintentional. He says it was because he has spent years surrounded by skurwysyny (a word he has refused to translate for you but given how freely he says it to the enemy, you got the gist of it). Still, despite his natural frown, it softens at your words.

“It is hard to see but there is a star formation, named after a Polish king.”

You offer an inquisitive tilt of the head at his comment, wordlessly inviting him as you shift to the side to make space for him. He situated himself down beside you with a grunt of effort and you were lost for words as he adjusted to get himself comfortable against the rough texture of the roof. Sobiesław wasn’t the tallest nor the most imposing of soldiers in your company, but he managed to become a member of SpecGru for a reason. His frame was broad and sturdy, the breathing image of the quintessential soldier, postered on walls as propaganda to rouse even the most reluctant to action. His form emanated a comforting and welcome heat that soothed the bite of the night air. All of a sudden you felt rather sleepy.

Sobiesław raised an arm, pointing at the night sky. Even under his clothes you could see the curves of his muscles stretch out the wrinkles of his sleeve. The boulder that was his shoulder leading to the chain of muscle that was his bicep, linking to his forearm that was slightly flexed with the angle of his hand. Even his finger, relaxedly pointed to a dark patch in the sky, seemed determined.

“It is hard to see, but it should be there.”

Sobiesław pulls himself closer to you so that you can follow his directed hand better, a move that made you far too conscious that you were with him, alone and isolated from the rest of the company. And with the slight quirk of his lip, you were sure he was aware too.

“Scutum Sobiescianum, Shield of Sobieski. A Polish king who defended Vienna from the Turks. This was centuries ago, but I still feel great pride when I hear such an achievement.”

You stay quiet as you squint, trying to look into the supposed darkness to find this supposed constellation of defence. After some investigating you let out a sigh of defeat. You dropped your head onto the roof, creating a light thud. Sobiesław let out a hearty chuckle, turning his body so he can reach over with his far arm, offering you a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. You responded with a pout, his sheer strength meant that your body shook slightly with each pat.

“Do not worry, you do not have to see it, just know it is there,” Sobiesław reassured, giving your shoulder an extra squeeze before retreating his arm. “Aiding as a shield for allies is honourable, even if he was only abiding by a treaty.”

“You’ve always liked your history, haven’t you?”

“Greatly. Learning about the victories of the past is motivating.”

You’re not surprised. Sobiesław was not an old man and he didn’t carry himself as such, but he conducted himself in a way you have not seen in anyone else, especially on the battlefield. In combat, a soldier is selfish out of the primal need for survival. One follows orders because that’s the best chance they have of keeping their head attached to their shoulders. To deny themselves the responsibility of atrocities committed, even complacency and teamwork is just a desperate act of self-preservation, one that everyone is guilty of and can not condemn.

But Sobiesław was different. He never seemed to fight for himself. On missions, even under the glare of his signature glasses, he was always looking past the objective, over the horizon and to something greater. No matter how long he spent on foreign soil, he left the stamp of his motherland under his boots as he marched onward. Whenever you fell in battle, body unrecognisable in a coating of blood that you’re not sure is yours or the enemy’s, he is there to pick you up. Not only literally but spiritually as he rouses you to keep fighting with words of encouragement that strike the cords of your heart. Words that you swore were taken from an ancient scripture with how they unleash reservoirs of energy lost deep in your soul. His words were loud and panicked, but not once is it out of concern for his own well-being, or how the mission or his military career could be jeopardised if anything else goes wrong. In those moments, he was fighting and breathing for you.

“Did it motivate you to enlist?”

“Yes. It motivated me before I realised.”

You frowned at his odd answer.

“How so?”

“I had a dream,” he stated, nostalgia warming his voice. He pulled his head in, craning his neck at an odd angle to speak to you quietly, like he was giving you the secrets of the universe. With a wave of the hand he ushers you in and you entertain him.

“When I was little, I always dreamt of a hussar before I even knew what they were. I think it was fate, a sign from above for me to enlist.”

You stare at him in disbelief.

“There was actually a painting of a hussar in the living room of my babcia… I don’t tell anyone that last bit, it is more fun that way.”

You failed miserably at stifling a laugh, in return he smiles as he pulls away. Even with the extra tidbit of information, his motivations still felt almost fable-like, like a myth in the making.

“I can see it,” you giggled, lifting your arms up in the air as you gestured animatedly. “The old wives will be talking about the legendary Gromsko. The quintessential soldier, called to action by the restless spirit of an old warrior in his dreams. He becomes the inspiration for all the future generations. The story of the chosen one who saves the world!”

“I tell you too much,” Sobiesław groans.

“They should make a movie out of you.”

“I am too boring.”

“You’re too humble.”

Sobiesław laughed, but you did not. Leaving the sight of the stars - you had still been half-heartedly trying to distinguish the shield of a king from the darkness - you fully turned to him. You ignored the dull throb of your arm now squished between your body weight and the roof, far too distracted by how close you were to him now that the two of you were facing each other.

“Truly. Even without the dreams I think you’re an inspiration.”

You didn’t realise how sentimental you sounded until you released your words into the air. You consequently chewed at your lips, forcefully sealing them. Your voice didn’t have to fight against the midnight breeze, instead your words settled comfortably in the small space between the two of you, warm and festering in the silence.

Sobiesław was unresponsive, eyebrows far more furrowed than usual. Feigning your embarrassment as getting comfortable against the ceiling, you dipped your head down to avoid seeing his reaction.

“Do you still have that dream?” You asked hurriedly.

“... No.”

It wasn’t everyday you heard Sobiesław hesitate. He had a gruff voice that was quick to speak his mind. It was so honest that his thoughts were often unfiltered in Polish and accompanied with colourful curses to add some extra honesty. There was even the odd, throaty, unintelligible sound as his mouth worked quicker than his mind. But here he was, strategising his next words to you.

“I stopped having that dream when I joined SpecGru.”

You blinked, almost fully flinching away from him in a knee-jerk reaction.

“Ah…”

You couldn’t help but shrink into yourself, drawing your knees close to your vitals. While you did not regret joining SpecGru, you knew for a fact it was not for the faint of heart. What made waking up at base easier was the people there, with a certain Polish man heartily hollering good morning to you on the daily at 6am sharp with a voice that consequently woke up the rest of the barracks. The fact he never failed to give you a pat on the back, still having the energy to look optimistically to the next day even with the losses of a mission gone south. Even on quiet nights like these, while few and far between, you would be able to catch a glimpse of the man under the near brutish exterior. Behind the mythos and acts of altruism was a human with their own selfish needs and doubts. A sensitive man who related to you and brought you comfort when the darkness of battle bled over to your consciousness.

You had only hoped you could have done the same for him.

“I take it SpecGru didn’t meet expectations?”

You couldn’t stop the waver in your voice.

“Huh? No, it exceeded them, Serduszko.”

He turned away, back flat on the roof. Once again he looks to the cosmos, honing in on something beyond your comprehension.

“I am not done yet. I still wish to see the glory of Poland, but I want my own happiness.”

“Naturally,” you nod. Out of all the soldiers you knew, no one deserved a happy ending more than him. One where the monster is slain, peace is restored, and the hero lives happily ever after.

“I dream of returning home, I will bring my friends of new to the land of old.”

You offered a light hum of approval. It was such a simple wish, but wasn’t that the case for all heroes? To wish for something so mundane but to naturally bring greatness? Even when their dreams are supposedly selfish, their innate kindness brings glory to the good and delivers swift justice to those necessary.

“You are there,” Sobiesław murmured. Like a dream you question if he even spoke, voice so airy it blended with the rush of the breeze against your ears. Even the coarse edges of his voice become one with the low tones emanating from a nearby ventilation unit.

“You are in all of my dreams.”

Sobiesław is not looking at you, attention still trained on the stars, perhaps waiting for one to shoot across the sky. To make a wish, any little bit of aid to make a dream come true and you’re tempted to try and shoot one down for him with a rifle. Anything for him. Perhaps it was possible to fight selflessly, to bring another’s dream to fruition. Was there such a thing as staying alive for someone else? To spend your missions ensuring you return to base not for your own self, but so Sobiesław will have someone to bring home? But you can not guarantee your own life. You refused to make empty promises - Sobiesław absolutely hates them - so instead, you only offer your flimsy honesty.

“I think that dream is doable.”

“You are the hardest part about it.”

“What?”

You sat up immediately. You shot a light-hearted glare but your heart genuinely felt a pang at the sadness invading Sobiesław’s voice. How his nose twitches, trying to prevent a frown from settling on his face.

“But I’m right here!” You brought both hands to hammer at your chest, nailing in your point. “I better not be kicked out of SpecGru anytime soon. I’d love to be one of the friends you bring back home-”

“Ha!”

Sobiesław lets out a singular laugh, all air escaping his lungs to create a foreign sound that is as bitter as it is loud. You were sure he frightened a couple birds in a nearby tree who decided to migrate early from the disruption. You hoped none of the operators went to bed early else they would have had a nasty wake up call as his voice travelled in all directions, invading any of the open windows in the base.

When the echoes of his laugh settled to the ground, it dragged the warmth in the air with it. A sombre coldness came tenfold, you started to wrap your arms around your form, entering a foetal position as you looked at Sobiesław.

“It is my fault,” his confession comes out in a low groan, bringing up a hand to rub at his face. In between rubs he lets out a few quiet curses, words strained. When he is done, he still isn’t looking at you.

“I do not want to bring you back to Poland as just a friend.”

He dared to look at you and the light in his eyes snatched the air out of your lungs. Even under furrowed eyebrows his pupils were blown wide, taking you in as if you were the stars themselves. All seeing, all knowing. Even though you thought nothing special of yourself he turns to you with reverence as if you were the one who could make all his dreams come true.

You bring your gaze up to the sky, in hopes that the infinite expanse of the universe could do anything for your pounding heart. But they did little to settle your heart or your hasty breaths. The stars above really weren’t anything of wonder, were they? A shooting star is only a meteor, a large rock that will disintegrate in due time. The heroes of the past were often only average joes that were in the right place at the right time. Dreams were only the remnants of memories and experiences being fired off by neurons, to be forgotten in the void once one wakes up.

And yet you couldn’t help but romanticise it all the same.

It wouldn’t hurt, would it? Just like how Sobiesław keeps prancing around the base telling everyone his childhood dreams of a hussar were “fate”, couldn’t you make this fate too? Magical, like a prophecy. A promise that could survive any time or mission, that holds strong even against fate itself. The tale of Sobiesław’s recurring dreams that guide him to glory and consequently to you. A legend of your own.

“Then don’t,” you whispered.

“Take me to Poland as your lover.”

You didn’t think Sobiesław could look at you anymore in awe than before, but tonight was full of surprises. A heavy pause stills the air as he takes just a moment too long to understand your words. You couldn’t help but smile at how his face contorted with shock and confusion, he probably didn’t expect you to reciprocate so suddenly. But just like him, you had been dreaming of a scenario like this.

“You always have such good ideas,” Sobiesław chuckled. His boyish grin is roughened by his ragged features, but it doesn’t make it any less endearing. Pure and genuine, it had been a long time since you had seen such an expression on him. Sitting up, he reaches over to slide you across to him and again you find yourself ogling his impressive musculature. The fibres of his body swelling and flexing, his every move seemed to embody the strength of a hundred warriors. Such power and potential devoted to little old you as Sobiesław pulls you flush to his own body.

He’s like an overgrown heater, his body warmth emanating even through the thick wool of his jumper. Warm as though he was the very campfire that soldiers lit up for peace and respite at the end of a day of bloodshed. But not as warm as the lips that pressed against yours when you tilted your head to look up at him. His lips were a little chapped, the remnants of his celebratory vodka adding a crisp tang to the kiss. His actions driven by sheer passion, an arm now circling your shoulder blades and pulling you impossibly tight to him. You were trapped in his embrace, whole body entranced by his. All that was on your mind was the feeling of his being surrounding you. His calloused hands gripped onto you with a pleasant burn. Even as you struggled to breathe through your nose, your senses were filled with his cologne spiked with the smell of gunpowder and wilderness.

He let out a disapproving huff as you reluctantly pull away from him for some air, but Sobiesław still looks ever the victorious soldier.

“You make me indulge too much, Serduszko,” he exhaled.

You pressed your cheek into the fabric of his jumper, breaking into a fond smile as you cuddle into him.

“You know, you’ve never told me what that meant.”

Sobiesław took a moment to pull his head back far enough to plant a kiss on your forehead.

“It means ‘sweetheart’,” he replied smugly.

You froze.

“You mean, you called me that on missions? When we were talking to our contractors? Our direct superiors?!”

“Uh… Good thing no one else speaks Polish here, yes?”

With a joyous laugh like his, you can’t bring yourself to be angry.

Call of Duty Masterlist

#cod x reader #cod x you #call of duty x reader #call of duty x you #gromsko x reader #gromsko x you #sobiesław kościuszko x reader #sobieslaw kosciuszko x reader #call of duty #gromsko #gromsko mw2 #mw2 x reader #/*avery actually writes*/

278 notes · View notes

blakegopnik · 3 months ago

Text

Happy to see my review of Dawoud Bey's great show at Sean Kelly Gallery getting nice play in the New York Times. The full text is below (click on "Keep reading") but one thing I didn't have room to dwell on, as much as I would have liked, is the vitally important tension between Bey's video and his stills. That's a tension (as I see it) between the “gaze” of the enslaved, in the fractured video, and of Europeans, in the elegant, traditionally artistic, even "sublime," prints. It would be so easy for someone to think the prints were just elegant, knock-off commodities meant to fund the more truly important, more challenging video. But I think the reflection back and forth, between the settled elegance and the unsettling challenge, is vital to the entire project.

IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE ENSLAVED - THE NEW YORK TIMES

CRITIC’S PICK

By Blake Gopnik

Jan. 30, 2025, 5:00 a.m. ET

The terrifying first capture in Africa.

The deadly crossing of the Middle Passage.

The brutality of slave markets and servitude.

It’s almost impossible to imagine, let alone depict, the full horrors of American slavery, although writers, directors and artists have tried.

But there’s one moment that seems to have caught their attention less often: the first encounter of kidnapped Africans with the strange new land where they were marched into enslavement.

In a remarkable exhibition called “Stony the Road,” at Sean Kelly Gallery in New York, the artist Dawoud Bey takes us on the path that tens of thousands were forced to walk, from the slave ships that landed at the James River’s docks to Richmond’s slave pens and markets.

With 14 still photos and a vast, two-sided video projection, Bey explores the Richmond Slave Trail that extends for several miles in Virginia’s capital. At Sean Kelly, Bey’s stills

are the first art you encounter. Those deluxe black-and-whites, almost a yard across, show various wooded spots along the trail, avoiding any details that speak of our era. (In fact, the trail now crosses many modern settings.) We get a view of trees and ground, of bits of river and patches of distant sky, such as an African might have encountered 250 years ago.

The images were shot on old-fashioned film and printed on traditional photographic paper, so we’re treated to the velvety blacks and sparkling whites of landscapes by Ansel Adams and Edward Weston and other pioneers of American photography. It’s tempting to linger with those tasteful, orderly images — in the gallery, and in this review — but I discovered that they get a whole new meaning after seeing Bey’s video at the gallery’s rear.

That video is titled “350,000,” an estimate of the total number of enslaved people who passed through Richmond’s trading markets. (The piece was originally commissioned for a major Bey show at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond in 2023.) Ten minutes of black-and-white footage appear on a screen that bisects a big space and reaches almost to its high ceiling. It shows the same wooded path as in Bey’s prints, but to utterly different effect.

The piece works hard to put us in the place — physical, but above all psychological — of one of Richmond’s newly disembarked. The images are projected at “life scale,” Bey told me, so that the path’s tree trunks and branches are the same size on the screen as they would be if they were there before us in life. And the trip down the path is captured in a single take, without edits, by a Steadicam held at an adult’s head-height, giving a captive’s-eye view of the passage up the trail.

But the goal isn’t to create a crisp, immersive substitute for a past reality. (Bey insists that his piece isn’t about faking some kind of long-lost documentation.) It’s about using the visible artifice of fine art to encourage a trip into a past we need to confront. In some ways Bey’s video has more in common with a poet’s evocative description than with a Spielbergish attempt at historical re-enactment.

So Bey’s cinematographer, Bron Moyi, shot all the footage with a century-old Petzval lens, once used for dream sequences in silent movies. It blurs all but the middle of the scene it shows, giving an almost drunken effect to Bey’s footage, which is also shown in somewhat slow-motion. Real vision never really works quite like that, but the Petzval provides an excellent metaphor for the kind of disorientation Africans must have felt on first being shoved ashore in Virginia.

They couldn’t have known quite where they were going, or what the endgame might be — most couldn’t understand their tormentors’ language — and “350,000” has a similar lack of plot or endpoint. Its camera’s “eye” rarely looks straight down the path toward some far-off goal. Instead, it veers from earth to treetops; from river, down at right, to undergrowth that hems the path at left.

No one knows if captives would really have looked anywhere but at their own stumbling feet or at the back of the chained figure ahead, but the camera’s wandering eye evokes the fracturing of any normal they might have known. Even the flora in Bey’s video, sure to strike most Americans as an average woodland scene, must have seemed foreign.

Bey makes his disjunctive technique stand for the utter confusion — physical, cognitive, spiritual — that captives must have felt. A soundtrack, commissioned by Bey from the dance scholar E. Gaynell Sherrod, adds to the effect: It’s a mash-up of random footfalls and birdcalls, of heartbeats and hoofbeats, of grunts and sighs and clinking chains. It doesn’t quite reproduce what the enslaved might actually have heard, but it sometimes adds Hollywood melodrama that the visuals smartly avoid. However, Sherrod’s soundtrack, and its lack of obvious sync to Bey’s visuals, maps onto how trauma can fracture our perceptions.

“Bey’s installation doesn’t recreate a single moment in someone’s pain,” our critic writes. “It condenses all the moments that thousands of subjects might have suffered on the Richmond Slave Trail.” via Sean Kelly, New York/Los Angeles; Photo by Adam Reich

In a final touch, Bey gives art viewers a more immediate taste of that same bewilderment: The occasional visitor who peers around to the other side of Bey’s screen will eventually realize that the view there is actually the same path but seen on a different trudge down it. That gives a sense that Bey’s installation doesn't recreate a single moment in someone’s pain; it condenses all the moments that thousands of subjects might have suffered on the Richmond Slave Trail.

And then, leaving the video behind, you encounter Bey’s stills once again, and now they seem to play a different role in his story. After witnessing the splintered sights in his video, his stills now seem to stand for the very firm and settled present that today’s art world lives in, at so many removes from an enslaved person’s view.

They give us something like the stable, settled view favored by Europe’s artistic culture, circa 1800, when wild nature promised escape from the everyday into the sublime. It’s almost as though Bey’s prints offer a bright light at the end of their forest path, so that, as in many an Ansel Adams photo, the white of the immaculate silver print becomes the white of escape and transcendence. The prints have a stable authority, in their confident choice of subject, the snapping of the shutter, their deluxe printing, that isn’t there in the video.

Bey’s show gets its name from a passage in the second stanza of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the hymn by James Weldon Johnson that premiered in 1900 and is known as the Black national anthem: “Stony the road we trod/Bitter the chastening rod.”

Here’s how the stanza ends: “Out from the gloomy past/’Til now we stand at last/Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.”

Now, 125 years later, Bey’s gloom seems to cast new light on art’s gleam.

17 notes · View notes