#swangst?

[porchwood]

SSS/Writing Check-In: The One That Got Away

(Jude/Madge with the possibility of endgame Gale/Madge and Jude/Columbine, plus every other couple from my fleet of ships)

For all seven of you who are interested, here’s my favorite scene from this week’s onslaught of modern AU hogwash (7,642 words and another 3,000ish words of notes): a prom flashback. Because Jude as Madge’s prom date melts my heart. A lot of stuff here was originally intended for Head Over Feet and may turn up there eventually.

***

Peeta and Katniss skipped the school-sponsored after-prom party, unsurprisingly, while the rest of us splintered off into contemplative pairs. Finnick and Annie and Luka and Johanna both seemed as good as engaged to me, but the announcement had rattled them as well, and Jude and I wound up watching the smarmy stage hypnotist by ourselves in a subdued sort of silence.

It wasn’t that either of us was unhappy at the news, exactly. While I considered Katniss my best friend, we had never been chatty in typical girlfriend-fashion, and yet her impending marriage struck my stomach like an icy stone. You’ll be going to college anyway, I reminded myself, and you’ll stay in touch, but none of this served to soothe.

Jude absently wrapped his tux jacket around my shoulders and then his arm, resting his cheek on the top of my head. He’d barely spoken since the engagement reveal and I couldn’t begin to guess what his uncharacteristic silence meant.

It sounds really nice, he said suddenly, softly. Staying right here, getting married, coming home to a wife and babies.

I wanted to retort something dry and mildly caustic but couldn’t find the words for any reply at all because it was nice, this future Peeta and Katniss were setting up for themselves. I wanted to continue with music as long as I could; to study abroad, to live in the capitol and maybe other cities in due course, but that wasn’t the future either Katniss or Peeta wanted, and why should they force themselves through the college mold, going eyes-deep in debt for degrees they had no interest in and possibly jeopardizing their relationship with the distance and other, inevitable, obstacles when the future they both craved was easily within their grasp?

Madeline, Jude continued in that same soft tone – I was always Madeline or, affectionately, mädchen to him – if Columbine and Gale marry other people, will you go on a date with me?

Almost as long as Jude and I have been friends, we’ve been aware of each other’s hopeless longing for an oblivious sweetheart and openly commiserated about it, with no fear – or even thought – of annoying each other or hurting feelings. Butcher’s son Jude was in love with Columbine Wilhearn, all black curls and lovely voice, whose mother was a small-scale – if highly in-demand – clothing designer and I was in love with broody, breathtaking Gale, whose mother managed the local laundromat and who despised my very existence because, as the mayor’s daughter, I had surely been born to privilege – never mind that my father had been a music teacher before his election and that as mayor he served a rural town of some 8000 people and dealt with weighty matters like dog waste ordinances and ribbon cuttings for tiny antique shops.

We’d both made periodic, futile attempts to elicit our respective crush’s attentions, but somehow for the course of that year – the year of madrigal seat partners and Jane Eyre and getting married on-stage in Fiddler – the longing had felt a little less pressing. Jude still ordered flowers for Columbine on opening night – she was playing the female lead, after all – but in other circumstances he would’ve done so for every performance, not just the first, and he brought me flowers too – a vaseful of red tulips from his mother’s garden to brighten my corner of the greenroom. And while I knew he’d asked Columbine to prom their junior year – and been turned down, of course – I don’t think he even tried the next time around, just cheerfully stepped up to escort me when the opportunity arose.

In fact, to the outside observer, Jude and I probably appeared to be dating for the past year.

The realization left me cross, embarrassed and oddly weary. Jude and I were just friends, everybody knew it, but could we have inadvertently sabotaged each other’s crushes by spending so much time together? Would Gale have emerged to ask me out if I hadn’t been so immersed in the Mellark circle this year – and in Jude’s company in particular?

We’re at prom, I reminded him, my tone shorter than he deserved. I’m wearing an evening gown and your tux jacket. How much more of a date do you want?

I want to pick you up at your house, he replied without hesitation, a brush of lips against my lilac-threaded crown braid. Just you and me and maybe your dad on the porch, to shake hands and talk about the weather and remind me to have you back by 10:00, and I’ll tell you how beautiful you look as I slide an orchid on your wrist. We’ll go to a fancy restaurant and trade bites of our entrees and steal a pepper shaker when we leave, just to see if we can get away with it. We’ll hold hands under the table and slow-dance like it means something, not just because we came together and it’s obligatory, and when I drop you at home, you might let me kiss you under the porchlight.

I pulled away to look up at him, at those gentle smoky eyes – gray like Gale’s and yet absolutely, utterly, nothing like Gale’s – and tried to decide whether to throttle him or burst into tears, because I knew he didn’t mean any of this the way it sounded but it was still the sweetest thing I’d ever heard – and remains so to this day. But I didn’t want Jude – I didn’t, I was sure of it – and he didn’t want me, he was just getting broody – in the hen fashion, not the Gale fashion – because of Peeta’s engagement and Columbine had remained stubbornly indifferent to him, even in a tux or stage makeup or a doublet and tights.

Please, can I go home? I whispered. I’ll call my parents so you don’t have to leave.

Don’t be daft, he said lightly, but his eyes were sad. There’s nothing left to stay here for anyway.

[cantusgratia]

@calamitysshatteredson​ { x }

Keeping a phone with him had taken some convincing.  It was a small object capable of light and noise, another human ridiculousness; save that sometimes that light and noise were also fascinating.  There were games, which had taken a great deal of explaining even before the trial and error of learning the whats and whys, but at times there was some reward to them.  Though apparently the phone itself was for faster, easier communication than summoning.  Probably for the best, in that summoning appeared to be deeply unpleasant.

When the phone rang, despite having spent an agonizingly long time picking out his ringtone to be certain he would know what the sound meant, it took several seconds to realize that he should be reaching for the phone and pressing the green button–

The words spoken through the device drained the hunger from him.  Kyrie.  Not sounding as she had the last time he witnessed her being in pain; she was so much weaker.  And she needed help.  Seemingly instinctively, perhaps unconsciously reacting to his mood, the humans who had been somewhat near him started to move away; but he didn’t notice anything about them.  The humans, the scent of food, it all ceased to matter.

“Wait.”  It was the one word he was capable of; plea and order and… prayer, perhaps.  He was also already backing into a shadowed alley, into the safety that darkness provided.  While he was nearby, always nearby, a fully humanoid form would not be fast enough.

It took much more effort to shift in the human world than it had beneath, and he would require food not long after the shift back, but that was not priority.  Instinct for his own comfort and well-being came after.  It was simpler, faster, to let his arms expand, extending into bat-like wings while his body elongated, phone in one foot-talon, leaping into the air and racing back, caring little who may have seen.

What mattered was remembering that one was not to break, because nothing here reformed itself.  He did not break a window, but he did perhaps over-zealously force the one with the “tricky lock” open, pouring into his standard form and sparing only a moment to pause for the dizzying drain of energy.  The scent of blood was entirely too clear, and finding its source took concerningly little effort.

“Kyrie–”  He was not to contact Nero.  But what of everyone else?  Sephiroth was almost afraid to touch her, as if she might finally be truly fragile enough to crumble, never having looked more frail and vulnerable to him.  This was an attack, this was intended to harm, this was–  “What am I to do?”

It is massively relieving to realize whom she had ended up calling. The tone was curt, but knowing Sephiroth, a slight weight is lifted off of Kyrie’s chest because he’s sure to get to her side in no time. No summoning circle nor extensive rituals necessary.

Ah, she best figure out if there’s food to offer him once he arrives, although... it’s probably more than alright with the demon if she is a little too... preoccupied to handle that for the time being. 

The call continues, her phone simply placed by her feet as she shakily lowers herself onto the floor yet again-- better pass out while she’s already close to the ground instead of standing up right. She leans her back against the cabinet door with intent to use that pressure to pin the shirt against the wound, only to hear an unsettling squelching noise and the pitter-patter of blood onto linoleum. 

Shit, she sighs, thinking how troublesome it’d be to clean up this whole mess... 

And then her heart drops, anxiety wracking violently throughout her frail limbs once more when the sight of small pools and smears of blood on her kitchen floor reminds her of how she’d had to clean up Nero’s in the garage. It had just been mere months ago.

She knows there isn’t enough energy within her left to spare, yet here she is weeping softly now, unable to fight back shallow breaths that eventually turn into small sobs. Her mind is sluggish and unable to offer coherent thoughts anymore, but her chest aches from the emotions that continue to envelop her.

Until Sephiroth finally lets his presence known. Then Kyrie snaps herself out of it as best she can. “Towel,” determination rises slowly from her when the word is barely choked out. “Or... rag... Anyth-- thing... soft. For th’ wound.” Instructions tumble clumsily, breathlessly past paling lips-- she’s trying to stay coherent but she’s feeling even more disoriented by the second. But she trusts Sephiroth to figure it all out eventually: pressure needs to be applied onto the cut to stop the bleeding. It needs to be cleaned. It needs to be covered.

[illogicallyinclined]

formal May I please be added to the taglist? Unformal Add me to da wiggity-wack taglist mAh bruhda

formal: of course, brethren. welcome to the covenant.

unformal: swiggity swangst prepare for angst

[gaileon]

So, Alm the Tyrant has come to make us bow down, has he? You're just as disgusting as the Rigel Empire.

— ❝ ……… ❞

Was this how his father had felt? The day he engaged his father was etched, stained, into his memory. He sometimes pushed it away, able to let it fade only temporarily so he could handle tasks set before him, but it always came back.

Bravery was so similar to reckless behavior – a truth he had learned that very day itself. He had raved for days, weeks even, to his allies of how he would strike the cruel Emperor Rudolf down and be the extension of Lady Justice’s blind blade. That was what the Liberation Force was for – to save the people from such oppressive people as him. He had been so adamant about how it was men like him that did not deserve to rule – the kind that made him averse to the kind of attention he was given for becoming the ‘ hero ’ of Zofia.

His rash decision to condemn him, even when all the warning signs were right before him – how he refused to come forward and attack him, never fighting back – yet his mind had been convinced so quickly … His foolish youth made his knuckles turn white as he held back his hand to remind himself restraint was just as important as one’s ability to throw a punch for the sake of others.

General Mycen was right; war only brought sorrow.

That talk of going back to the village to laze about once he had found the lost Zofian princess seemed foolish now. He had had Rigelian blood from day one – he was always quick to enter the proverbial ring. He was quick to unsheathe his blade. He was quick to tell others to pluck foes off as if they were blades of grass to be pulled up from the ground.

He thought carefully – something he had learned to do only after his first big war. With every action came a consequence, but inaction itself cost more.

    ❝ … Diplomacy is rarely a valid option, I’m afraid. Look at       history, even the peace-loving Zofia’s tales, and see –       no problem was solved without picking up a sword. I       suggest you defend yourself or say your prayers now. ❞

[taosaf]

Me : I need to stop looking in the Langst tag, especially late at night.

Also me, at 3 am : swiggity swangst I’m ready for The Langst™

[royalbratprince]

"'Course I wanna do somethin'! But I wasn't gonna hog ya from the guys ALL day long, especially that day. I'm NICE, y'know." Sass drips heavily from her tone, and it JUST hides the relief that washes over her for having initially expected a somber refusal from him. After everything Noct'd been through, she wouldn't have blamed him. A few taps on the keypad sets their event two days after his birthday on the calendar, and then she smiles up at him. "Done. I'll text ya, ok?"

The laugh is short but unguarded, still finding his balance with the people he used to know.  The people he still knows, but...  “Nice to know nothing’s changed.”

Everything’s changed, of course.  Vast differences in every direction, encroaching on every one of his memories -- but it’s because of that blend of foreign and familiar that he’s eager to accept.  To reconnect.  He wants to hear what she’s done and how she is from her.  Plus, there’s only so much Gladio will say about anything, but he respects his sister’s privacy.

(Noctis kind of assumes there was probably a fight about that at some point, but hasn’t asked.  Probably won’t, ever.  There’s a lot to catch up on, sure, but there’s a lot of living in the moment to focus on, too.)

“Cool.  Let me know if I should bring a disguise.”  He jokes, not completely above actually going through with that.  He’s sure he can blame it on “youth” or something.  Seems like a decent excuse to have at the ready.