#the final time traveler

[sarahalainn]

初春の笑顔がいっぱいの宝船

にっぽん丸

3ヶ月ぶりの船旅のはずでしたが、

船の推進制御装置に不具合が認められたため、急遽、安全点検が必要になり運航を見あわせる事となりました。

残念ですが、安全第一！

またいつか共に船旅をできる日まで

予定していたセットリストと流れで、

空想の旅になれば🚢

Today I was meant to board this cruise, but due to technical issues the show and cruise itself were cancelled. Sad but safety first!

The theme was “aboard the treasure boat + smiles”.

Have posted the setlist and tried to portray what it would’ve been like on the musical boat :)

「宝」、「笑顔」 をテーマに✨出発🚢

衣装はキラキラな宝箱のようなサラスタイルを予定していました

マリリンのピアノアドリブにのって、スキャットしながら時々「春よ来い」のリフを。本編最後に繋がる。

そこからRiverdanceの神秘的な歌のイントロへ。

今回伊勢神宮の近くに行くということで、神様に近い音楽からスタートしたく。マリリンの綺麗なハーモーニでデュエット。こちらはアルバムにも収録していますが、よく聴きなれてる綺麗な3度のハーモーニだけではなく、4度が特徴的な響きなのでこれも神秘的に聞こえる理由の１つ^_^

Riverdance / Drowsy Maggie / Sarah Àlainn

そして、この曲はヴァイオリンのフィドル的な表現で軽快な世界へ。キラキラ、ニコニコ。宝石のような煌めきを放つアクティブな一曲。

サポーターさんなら、この曲の変拍子できっと手拍子をして下さったはず。色々なアーティスト、バンドのライブで手拍子する曲があるように、私もライブでそんなノリノリの曲があればなと思いましたが、こんな変拍子な曲を選ぶ何てドSとしか思えないですよね。それでも、これで手拍子できる皆さん、最高にカッコ良いです！(とはいえ、今後はもっと楽に楽しめる手拍子曲を作りたいと思ってますー^_^;)

MCなう。サラッと面白い洒落でも言えたかな？🤔

海と宝ということで、ディズニー『リトル・マーメイド』より、アリエルが歌う「Part of Your World」。普段ライブで楽器も色々弾くので、この曲の「あれも！これも！」という場面ではそんな楽器の宝を指しています。

そして、この次のシネマ音楽にも「お宝」が。『The Greatest Showman』より、スターが歌う「Never Enough」。スポットライトを浴びても、星も金も手にしても、全て物足りない。あなたがいないと、物足りない。

私、今年初めて宝くじをやってみました(プレゼントで券？をスタッフさんから頂きました)。1億？あたったらどうするという話で盛り上がる。簡単に使えきる自信もあるけど、結局は本当に欲しいものはお金では中々買えない。因みに600円当たりました。

笑顔で始まる初春だから元気な曲多め。ジャズ出身のマリリンだからこそ、情熱的で踊りたくなる「Spain」へ。去年大阪でDream Caravanに出演させて頂いた時、久しぶりに寺井尚子さんともお会いでき、フルオケ+ジャズバンドをバックに彼女が演奏するSpainは最強でしたね！！とても勉強になり刺激になりました。もっともっとセッションをしてジャズを追求していきたいこの頃。来月２月呉・広島でのバレンタインはクリヤマコトさんを始めとしたジャズカルなので、ワクワク。

ここで一曲、オリジナルの弾き語り。

元々去年から予定していた楽曲でしたが、年始の心が痛むニュースとも重なる一曲でもあります。

「The Final Time Traveler」。ゲーム『タイムトラベラーズ』からのエンディングテーマは阪神淡路大震災に思いを寄せて作られた一曲です。こちらはゲームが大好きな羽生結弦さんとアイスショーでコラボさせて頂き、彼のサポーターさんをはじめ、ゲームをプレイされない人にも知られるようになった一曲でとても嬉しいです。オリジナルは日本語歌詞でしたが、海外で羽生さんが滑られるとのことで、英語歌詞を書かせて頂きました。

高音のサビの部分には本来歌詞を入れて欲しいと言われましたが、あえてAh〜だけにしたいとお願いしました。ヴォカリーズで、楽器のように、言葉では伝えきれない思いを届けられたら。

いつからかこの曲を弾き語りに挑戦するようになりましたが、ピアニスト、ミュージシャンに良く言われるのが、とても弾き語りするような曲ではないですねと。この曲、かなり複雑！伴奏ではなく、オーケストラの部分を演奏するような感覚。なので、毎回ドキドキ緊張する一曲です… ただ唯一、とても揺れる曲なので、それは自分で演奏すると歌と合わせやすい心地よさはあります。

この曲に「秘められたtreasure」という歌詞が出てきます。宝物、大切なものという意味ですが、英語の to treasure = 「大切にする」という動詞になります。

最後も笑顔で締めくくりたい。

第九は日本ではカウントダウンの一曲かもしれませんが、年始でも、どや^ - ^ これは去年のクリスマス・教会・合唱バージョンですが、ピアノとのデュオの時も、RnBからゴスペル、讃美歌からオペラチックな歌い分けが楽しい、人格がなん度も変わるJoyfulな選曲です。

【LIVE】Joyful Joyful/よろこびの歌/ Ode to Joy 第九 ｜Sarah Àlainn サラ・オレイン

本編ラストは、初披露のマッシュアップ。

元旦のファミリー向けコンサートで初披露した「NeverEnding Story」 🐲でしたが、『初春』に因んで、こちらを「春よ来い」とマッシュアップ。編曲、ちょっと頑張ったのでこれはお見せできず残念>< 😖今回はキーボードでオリジナルの80年代ディスコサウンドを表現する予定でしたが、マリリンとも話して、少し変えてみて八ヶ岳でチェンバロでやってみても良いかもと思えました。

そして、アンコールへ。

「Smile」。定番ですね。ただの笑顔の歌ではなく、とても切ないCharlie Chaplinのタイムレスな作品。歌詞と真逆になりますが、悲しい時��無理して笑わなくていい、と言うのが個人的なスタンスではありますが。そんな裏の思いをこの歌詞に乗せて歌う予定でした。

今回のライブはいつも以上にお時間が遅い開始のものであり、美味しい食事とお酒で、船に揺らされてそろそろお眠の時間になって来たかと思います。

そんな簡単には寝かせませんよ。うふ。

オペラ『ツーランドット』より「Nessun Dorma〜誰も寝てならぬ」。我々ミュージシャンにとっても眠気覚ましになる壮大な一曲です。この後優雅に食事というところでしたが、これから代わりにサラメシを作りに材料を調達しにスーパーに行って参ります。この時間になると嬉しいシールが貼られる頃でしょうw ちりも積もれば山やまとなる。この場合この表現はあってるのだろうか…

(未来に行って来ました。やはり笑顔になるシールが貼られていた)

ジャンルと楽器も色々登場した、宝箱のようなセトリになったでしょうか？

あなたとの時間をtreasureしています！✨

〜 Sarah

NIPPON MARU

- Treasure Boat Cruise with SARAH ÀLAINN -

2024.1.8

〜マリリン　イントロ（「春よ来い」リフ　Sarahスキャット〜）

1. Riverdance

2. Part of Your World 『リトル・マーメイド』

3. Never Enough

4. Spain

5. The Final Time Traveler (Sarah 弾き語り）

6. Joyful Joyful ~ 喜びの歌〜第九

7. NeverEnding Story��春よ来い

Encore

8. Smile

9. Nessun Dorma

次は初の鹿島・佐賀へ🎻

スケジュールはHPよりチェックしてみてね

[yuzu-all-the-way]

Yuzu brought back The Final Time Traveler

Now, will there be a program connecting to TFTT at GIFT like A Fleeting Dream connected to Dreamy Aspirations at Prologue?

P.S.: Yuzu listed this program's jumps and now we shall refer to the 4 Snake as the 4 Cow 🫡 (Salcow)

[myjunkisyuzuruhanyu]

"The final time traveler" 😍😍😍😍

[yuzupoll]

TFTT

Ballade

[egophiliac]

crossing my fingers and wishing upon every star that chapter 10 finally brings us the tweel cards 🤞🤞

[musubiki]

balor 🥰

[forgettable-au]

END OF CHAPTER ONE

FORGETTABLE-AU (Page 65-72)

* Time to put this puzzle together.

[BEGINNING] [PREVIOUS] [CONTINUE]

[mari-lair]

local trap expert is too young to get the job

[whichcouldmeanothing]

Where have you been? Doesn’t matter. I’m home now.

MATT BOMER & JONATHAN BAILEY as HAWK & TIM Fellow Travelers S01E02 “Bulletproof” (all episodes)

[hitlikehammers]

the light behind your eyes (steddie timeloop; pre-bat attack🦇)

feat. Eddie falling hard and fast when Steve's had innumerable loops to have already fallen ✨🖤✨

“Not that I am not, hmmmm,” and he can barely bite back a moan; “not that’s I’m not fucking ecstatic, Harrington,” Eddie mouths against the lips on his, and he means it, too, he is in fucking heaven right now because not only is the hottest guy Eddie’s ever seen in real life and probably also in, like, magazines and stuff too: that guy is kissing him, touching him, running hands up under his shit and teasing his waistband, rutting a little against his thigh but…he’s doing it almost like it’s routine, like it’s not quite desperate, or not just desperate, expect for the touch of it and so no, Eddie doesn’t have to understand it at all for him to not be fucking complaining in the slightest—

Save that pointing out that he isn’t complaining stops Harrington’s hands on his body cold, freezes the lips pressed against him mid-suck and then they pull back, and Eddie’s panting so hard it burns, and he wants to whine, he’s only just learned the taste of this man but he wants more, it’s like he’s addicted already but then kinda like he always has been, like the deepest cells of him, the mitochondria from the textbooks he didn’t fucking read: it’s like it all knows the shape of this body, the flavor, and—

And that’s fucking ridiculous, but when Harrington pulls away?

Eddie kinda feels like the world’s ending.

And it is ending, in a way. Interdimensional madmen serial killers and all that, but.

This is different.

“Steve.”

Eddie frowns and can’t help but reach, frame that face even as Harrington tries to shy away but still leans into the touch, and Eddie doesn’t understand; not least how Harrington sounds so fucking shattered around his own goddamn name—

“Can you,” and Harrington’s breathing heaves, shudders: the kind that lives between sobs but his cheeks are dry under Eddie’s palms and that almost feels all the more heartbreaking:

“I know it feels like you barely know me but,” and Harrington blinks so fast, then he’s scrunching his eyes so tight and that, that might be why his cheeks are dry and oh: this is it. He thought before but:

This is the heartbreaking thing.

“Could you call me Steve? Please?”

And god, good fucking god but he asks it so small. It’s pleading and kinda edged in something desperate but here, from this titan of a man Eddie’s seen anew just these past days, this warrior barbarian his sheepies sand the praises of, this paladin out of the shadows come to save them all: he’s so small.

Eddie’s hands don’t move from his face, just draw him closer, upward on instinct until their brows touch, until Eddie can breathe in every shaky exhale that spills forth.

“Steve,” and maybe Eddie doesn’t quite understand the why, here, but he sure as shit savors the shape of that name on his tongue anyway, fucking sue him; “not that every single fucking version of my gay little fantasies aren’t dancing like they’re at queer fucking prom,” and he pauses, because he expects Steve to snort, maybe, expects to lighten the moment so charged, and not just with the kind of tension that tightens Eddie’s jeans—and Steve does make a sound for Eddie’s stupid little not-quite-joke, but it’s not a chuckle.

It’s a moan—but not the good kind. The kind that means pain.

And it’s almost worrisome, how when Eddie pulls Steve closer, he doesn’t fight it one bit; leans in almost…not even greedy. Almost fucking anguished.

“But this is just because it’s the end of the world, right?” Eddie makes himself ask, because too many things don’t add up, not least how Steve doesn’t even try to pull away, barely moves at all save just to breathe, and just to press closer into the crook of Eddie’s neck to do it.

“It’s just because I’m a wanted man whether it’s the cops, or the feds, or that fucker with the clock and the music,” Eddie rambles; doesn’t move his hand where it’s slipped to the side of Steve’s neck like an intimacy, though, doesn’t even consider shifting a fucking centimeter away from the heavy pulse of life surging under his palm. “Like, I mean, whether it’s 20-to-life or an electric chair or the bats—“

It’s the way the chest against him shudders that trips him up; not least to realize how close they are, that they’ve gotten, that Steve’s heartbeat’s something he can tease out without effort at all there, too, and…

Eddie glances up a little further to see Steve staring at the ceiling of the trailer, eyes glistening, the effort not to fucking cry evident as anything and, just, like…

What the fuck?

“Steve?” Eddie hedges a little, gentles his voice further because even though he doesn’t let a single tear fall, just seeing this man so close to it, while staying so close to Eddie, it’s, he just…

He can’t even try to lighten the moment, can’t even push didn’t realize I was that bad of a kisser, fuck past his lips.

“Give me a minute,” Steve doesn’t even rasp, just says even but so so quiet, and again, just so so small. It’s…

It’s not even heartbreaking anymore. Eddie’s whole chest just fucking hurts.

“You okay?” Eddie ventures after what has to be more than a literal minute; when Steve stops staring at the ceiling but screws his eyes close tight again to pull creases at their corners, between his brows; and Eddie whispers the question when he even dares to speak at all because something in this moment feels…fragile. Sacred in some way, even if he can’t name how or why. He waits, and Steve doesn’t move, barely breathes for the longest time so much it starts to kindle real fear in Eddie’s chest, so it’s only once Steve half-gasps and gets back to his lungs working like Eddie wants them to, once that holds for a while and Eddie understands that the closest to an answer that he’s going to get—he lets Steve breathe, and lets the feeling of it calm Eddie down, too, before he does the stupidest, most selfish fucking thing and asks, again:

“What is this, though?”

The way Steve sucks in his breath at the words cuts Eddie sharp; he shouldn’t have said anything. He should have let this lie and just…enjoyed a little bit of impossibility at the end of the world that wasn’t a bad thing.

He thinks maybe that’s what pushed him over, though, and made his tongue move, to shape the question at all: it’s so fucking far from a bad thing that it’s…it makes too much lightness in Eddie that he’s never felt before. Even in the absolute shit of this entire situation, Eddie’s basically nonexistent future on the horizon if he manages somehow to make it out of the next 48 hours alive: this is something that makes him feel like he could hope.

Hope even for the most absolutely absurd fucking things.

And hope like that has to make anyone fucking selfish.

“This?” Steve glances indicatively between them, with a quirked brow that he pulls off perfectly but it can’t land like it should, not for Eddie who’s just watched this gorgeous human swallow the stages of grief whole where he’s…he’s pulled back, Eddie realizes, Eddie can’t feel him chest-to-chest anymore and the idea of it’s a crushing thing, but it’s got nothing on the reality—either way, though, he’s hovering over Eddie now, still close, likely has been for a while and…and shit: his arms hadn’t even given out.

What the fuck kind of…superhuman stuff is this man made of?

“Thought it was obvious,” Steve chuckles, and that part, that sound rings hollow: Eddie’s had enough of a latent-forever crush on this boy for enough years to maybe have never heard this kind of chuckle but, it’s off. Eddie knows it’s not…what it should be.

Steve laughing is some kind of sunshine, nearly always, like a rule. Eddie knows that much.

“Must have lost my charm,” Steve grimaces while he looks down, down, hides from...Eddie doesn’t know what from, exactly. Save that whatever it is, he wants to hide a little, too.

But hiding, now, means that he’ll turn from Steve. And Eddie…Eddie wants to hide from the nameless horrible thing that’s swelling up in the space around them.

But Eddie doesn’t want to miss a second of Steve. He’s kind of afraid of the very concept of it, missing any…part of Steve. He knows they’re on borrowed time. He’s also not entirely sure this isn’t all of fever dream, maybe he got scraped by one of the nasty-ass rusted nails in the boathouse and all of this is just tetanus or some shit. Maybe it’s the X-Men-knockoff wizard fucking with Eddie’s head by giving him the unthinkable sort of thing he’s always wanted.

Whatever it is: Eddie cannot miss a second of it.

“This, yeah,” Eddie reaches to brush Steve’s chest where his heart’s still pounding, even when it’s not presses flush to Eddie’s anymore, even when they’e stopped kissing too many minutes ago for an excuse; “you more that live up to the hype, big boy,” Eddie chuckles a little, tries to make it warm, fucking grateful; “exceed it even,” Eddie adds, can’t help but splay his fingers and stroke up and down a little over the street of Steve’s shirt.

“But,” because Eddie’s selfish. Because touching Steve slow like this, even as he’s so stiff and his pulse is so fucking scared: take out the frantic pace of what it means to feel him, and Eddie…the hope’s all the stronger, now. The wanting.

The selfishness.

“This,” and Eddie lets his hand move to the notch in Steve throat, like his body knew he’s feel the pulse there as much as the shiver, and the hard swallow after he asks, one more time:

“What is this.”

And Eddie forces his gaze from Steve’s skin to Steve’s face, where his eyes are blown and his color’s off, too pale even in the dark.

Where he’s fucking beautiful, even as he steels himself and takes a deep breath, less like a diver to the depths and more like a man facing an executioner. Jesus.

But his gaze is still so tender, like whatever hurt he comes to know for what he’s about to do is acceptable, so long as it doesn’t touch Eddie, doesn’t spill over. Like he’s…shielding Eddie from something worse than everything that’s already come, somehow, and that’s fucking terrifying in and of itself but—

But Steve—Steve who he barely knows but feels like he knows somewhere deep in his chest that feels knew and known somehow before these moments, like it was made only for the feelings and the certainties he holds in regard to Steve, Steve, Steve, like maybe that space inside of him was only made on some cosmic level not just for the person who made him feel this way against all odds, but maybe made only and specifically just for Steve—but Steve protecting Eddie, and hurting all the more for taking the hit?

It’s unacceptable. It’s sour in Eddie’s veins.

“If I fuck it up again, it won’t matter, I guess,” Steve seems to speak to himself, mutters low even for the soft quiet they’re holding between them. He doesn’t even know if he’s seeing Eddie for how far away he looks, sounds, like he’s reasoning with the universe.

That tips the sour feeling straight into full on sick.

But before Eddie can say anything, do anything, Steve’s sitting up, drawing back: Eddie can’t help the way he whimpers in the back of his throat for the loss; if the loss feels like more than just the closeness, the promise of it—if it feels like the moments to come are poised to change the world.

“Don’t say anything until I’m done, okay?” Steve asks, implores. Eddie’s powerless against it.

His throat’s already too dry to do anything but nod.

Steve looks, nearly studies him, wide-eyed and needy and…Eddie just wants to hold him.

He just wants to hold him, and keep him.

“‘Kay,” Steve exhales heavy, shaky, like his heartbeat’s knocking around his lungs so there’s no possible world where he could have breathed out steady, where no one could, no matter how strong.

“I’m in love with you.”

Eddie—for wholly other reasons he suspects—gets his own dose of his lungs getting knocked around for how his heart trips and stumbles around those wholly fucking impossible and insane and desperately wanted words echo through his head, his ribs.

“And it might not make and fuckin’ sense to you, but,” and Steve’s breath hitches as he reaches, as he pauses like he’s not sure he’s allowed; “Eds,” and that’s not a thing he’s called so often, and certainly not in that tone, gutted but so steeped in…he said it and it’s true, because that name, hisname on Steve’s lips is fucking saturated in love and how, sure, but the fact of its undeniable enough that the semantics, the mechanics of it: irrelevant.

Would have mattered in the face of something lesser, but.

This isn’t that other-lesser thing.

So Eddie grabs those questioning hands and brings them to his cheeks where they’d been looking to land, to frame his face: to let them both feelthis, however it came to be, whatever else it holds inside.

He looks Steve in the eyes as he holds Steve’s hands to frame his own face like he’s something dear: because it is love. Unmistakably. Steve isn’t lying, or exaggerating.

And Eddie’s halfway fucking there with him, just to look at it.

Save for the way it also looks devastated. Also looks…in the kind of pain that doesn’t end, but somehow doesn’t fade. The scab you rip off to start the process over and over, to hurt all over again.

“I’ve been trying to save you so many times,” and Steve’s voice hitches some more around it, and it should probably cause more question, those words; should definitely cause more questions for Eddie himself, given how he accepts it so fast—the fairly clear implication.

“I’ve held your body in my hands so many times,” and Steve sounds broken for it in ways that even he, Edward Munson, who has seen what he’s seen these past few days, didn’t know a body, or a soul, could withstand and survive.

Also: okay. Okay.

More than an implication, before. Yep. Okay. But—

“Times?” Eddie finds himself croaking because…he’d jumped straight to saving his life but, but: times?

How many fucking times has Steve scratched the scar off and started again? How hard, how deep is the scar tissue?

“I’ve broken your ribs trying to convince this,” and Steve’s hand’s sliding down from one side of Eddie’s face to settle over Eddie’s still fumbling heart, hand stretched wide like it wants to hold the thing whole and true and safe: “to come back, back to me—”

And Steve’s voice cleaves down the center then, just flat out fucking gives out. And Eddie…

Eddie’s an impulsive person. Eddie’s not what you’d call…circumspect, doesn’t pull his punches once he feel inclined to run, to or from or alongside anything in his life.

And even he has never felt so strongly about anything than then thing that spills form him in absolute earnest, with the whole of his mess of a chest and the entire weight of his wild frantic heart:

“Sweetheart,” Eddie takes the one hand that’s not holding Steve’s to his face anymore and reaches, strokes his thumb so gently over Steve bottom lip, and yeah he takes in the way Steve’s eyes widen for it, the way he shifts from shattered to shocked in a second: but it’s all peripheral.

But the whole of Eddie is invested in the one thing he needs to know. More than he needs air to fucking breathe:

“How can I stay with you?”

And he watches Steve’s jaw drop as he moves his hand from those lips to cover Steve’s own hand one more time, still on toppings chest and he doesn’t think twice before damn near close-on begging:

“What do I need to do?”

Steve stills. Blinks.

“What?”

“I might not have had the pleasure just yet,” Eddie tries to sort the words out as he goes because his heart hurts so hard but at the same time it’s so full: “but I’m looking at you,” and he is, he’s looking at Steve and seeing so much, so many things, things that are there and things that could be there in the foreseeable future and things that Eddie can fantasize and dream of being his whole-ass future and just, just, just—

“You love me?”

Steve nods, lips still parted. No hesitation. Not a question.

Jesus.

And Eddie’s heart’s still racing, faster now, even but for…

Not just for fear, or shock, or lust, or…any of it.

Not for anything so simple as all that, now.

“And I die?” Eddie chides himself when Steve flinches ever so slightly, tries to find a gentler way to pitch the words when he speaks again because the point itself is thorny, he can’t make it soft:

“I’ve,” Eddie licks his lips; “I’ve died a lot of times?”

And he waits, and Steve’s blinks a lot of time really fucking fast, but then, again: he nods.

And Eddie’s heart hurts harder at the confirmation, and Steve’s clear bid not to shed a single fucking year—his heart hurts harder, but poundsharder for bigger reasons because fuck, fuck—

“And you’ve loved me enough to somehow bend time and space to try and undo it, to try and stop it?”

And if Steve’s got the trick to that magic, it stills the moment, stops time around them both as Eddie sees the words as they sink in for Steve, as they register and shift the shade of his gaze ever so slightly, brighter and deeper and magnetic and Eddie…

Eddie doesn’t need him to nod. Just looking him, just feeling everything that gaze is giving, solely for him, is all the answer he needs.

“So how do I get even the chance to stick around enough to deserve it?” Eddie asks, because he needs to know so that he can make sure he does it to the letter, and then fifty million times over to be sure. “To get to feel it full on,” because for as much as he’s already feeling, he can’t only imagine what it would be to feel it for an hour, a day, a week, a…a lifetime. He can only image.

And he fucking wants.

“What do I have to do to be able to feel this for more than a couple minutes,” and Steve’s eyes shift again, because he hears what Eddie’s saying, not hiding so much as trying to cram in: he feels this already, and at the same time knows it’s sample sized when what he craves, what he needs is something too big to measure; “to feel this, and return it twenty-fold and for the long haul,” and Steve’s still staring, still kinda gaping, so Eddie forces himself to pause, to ask even if everything points to a singular answer—he forces himself to wait and make super fucking sure:

“If you’ll have me?”

Steve blinks, frowns, then asks, voice hoarse:

“You believe me?” and he says it so slow, disbelieving himself. “Like, you get what I’m saying, and you, you,” he flounders, looks cast adrift and closer to tears now than he’s been yet and Eddie…

Eddie can’t let that just be.

“Of course I do.”

And maybe it’s not of course exactly, in the sense that Eddie doesn’t have questions, like a fuckton of questions but: he doesn’t have doubt, not in Steve. Somehow of all that he doesn’t know and that makes no sense, he does know that Steve is where his faith—if he was ever going to have any in anything—is meant to sit, whatever that means, whatever that demands accepting.

“Of course, sweetheart,” Eddie says with so much of himself he never knew was actually inside him to speak, to beg such truth. He didn’t know.

“So please, please tell me,” he fucking please it; “what do I do?”

Because he knows now. The breadth of what can, could, does, will live in his chest. And once he knows it?

He’s gonna fight like hell to have the whole of it. For always.

“To get to have this,” Eddie reaches, can’t help but brush some of Steve’s hair behind his ear and just…consider him. Marvel a little at the fact that the world is changing, Eddie can feel it, and it’s because this man loves him.

Him.

“This thing I’ve never even considered getting to know,” Eddie strokes Steve’s jaw and asks the only question left:

“What do I have to do to have the chance fall in love with you?”

Because Eddie doesn’t care if he has to lob off a fucking arm. He’ll do it. He’ll learn to play his guitar with his goddamn feet before he lets this chance go.

“Don’t be a hero.”

Eddie’s face must do something at the sorta sudden kind of outburst from Steve, because Steve ducks his head down a little and smiles almost apologetic, and still so fucking sad.

“I tell you not to be cute about it, and not to try to be a hero, but you are, you do, every time,” Steve tells him, explains, and that part at least tracks: he’s a contrarian to his detriment but…he doesn’t want to believe he’d do it when the stakes are this high. Not without a good reason and he can’t…imagine a good enough reason to leave this man so broken, and still fighting nonetheless.

He can’t imagine any reason in the whole fucking world good enough for that.

“Then I won’t,” Eddie says, because: well. It’s an easy fix in general, but like, he’s no fucking hero, so then it’s even easier.

“You will,” Steve smiles the saddest goddamn smile Eddie’s ever seen in his whole entire life., I too of the string of sad smiles he’s been treated to so far. “You always do,” and the resignation in stage a tone is only outweighed by the…pride, almost, for what he’s declaring against all odds to be true.

“Just, just,” Steve seems to debate with himself for a second, maybe whether he wants to fight the weight of established precedent one more time, wants to scratch off that scab in a whole knew way, because it felt like Steve was watching this play out different when Eddie believed him, and asked to work with him to make the wrongs right instead of aiding the process of his own ruin, and what looked like Steve’s own process of self-immolation in slow motion, over and again. Eddie gets why he pauses.

But it’s not even long enough to be called hesitation, really, before he’s diving in and giving Eddie the playbook, with no guarantee or even a whole lot of hope based on existing evidence to trust.

Eddie feels the magnitude of the living in a whole new way, on a whole new level, for that, as Steve speaks:

“When you do, when you’re a hero again because you always are, I need you to run when you’re done. We will be okay, I know what I’m dealing with now, I know how,” Steve says with. Steel creeping into his tone and Eddie wants more than anything to know what he’s planning to deal with, how Steve plans to stay safe because now Eddie’s heart’s tied up on the opposite end of the equation and he…he can’t survive and have it only flip the tables, have there still be a loss because Eddie’s not made of what Steve’s made of, and sure he’s only had a taste of this, but he…

He won’t survive losing it. Even just the taste.

“Don’t buy us more time,” Steve cuts back into Eddie’s headspace, the more important voice; the most important; “you do more than enough, I need you to trust me and I know you don’t have a reason to—“

“I trust you.”

And that’s unequivocal. Eddie trusts Steve. The end.

“How will I know when I’m done?” Because if Steve’s willing to go through this for him, he’s going to fucking take notes to make sure he does his part in turns, makes sure this is the last fucking time.

“Play the puppet master song,” which Steve doesn’t know, no way he’d fucking know on his own and Eddie didn’t doubt, but, like…

Jesus.

It takes a fucking second, just digesting what it means to be right for no doubting. It’s heady. Terrifying.

But also like stars in his stomach. He feels reborn in the simple reality of believing in this person who loves him this hard.

“Block the vents, don’t ignore the vents. When Dustin goes up the rope, you follow. Pull it up after you and block it off, hold them off in case any stragglers stick around,” Steve tells him, doesn’t sound skeptical, exactly, but just…maybe wary. Rightly so, given the…previous rounds of things. “We’ll need you to throw it back to us when we’re done.”

Eddie feels his face screw up a little because he wasn’t paying the most attention but he really thinks, like:

“Aren’t there closer gates—“

“I’ll need to,” Steve swallows hard, the bob in his throat almost painful to watch because Eddie can almost imagine the weight of it, the way the same motion’s been repeated so many times and yet he’s still at it, he’s still trying—

For Eddie. Jesus fuck.

“I’ll need to see.”

And if the hard-swallow wasn’t heartbreaking—again, every time Eddie thinks he’s been gutted entirely Steve goes and ups the fucking ante, good god, and he keeps doing this? He continues to say yes to this, these feelings, this, this…this, because if, for, for…

But regardless how you slice it: the way Steve’s voice cracks, on just those four words?

Holy fucking Christ—this has to be what’ll kill Eddie harder, deeper down than anything Steve’s trying to save him from.

“I won’t fail you this time, Steve.”

And Eddie means it, even if the words themselves spill from him automatic: they’re there to spill at all because Eddie means it, because Eddie’s heart’s never felt swollen like this before and he wants to give whatever it’s all fat and tender with to this man he barely knows but…maybe he knows more important things about him than he knows about most people in his life. Nearly all people in his life.

And that’s fucking has to count for something. For more than something.

“Eddie,” Steve starts, like he wants to argue some point but Eddie isn’t gonna have that, not now.

Not ever again, if he has anything to fucking say about it.

“No,” Eddie cuts him off and this time, this time, it’s Eddie who reaches and cradles Steve’s face, holds him like he’s precious, as much as he can because this man is precious beyond reason, but human hands are only capable of so much care: he gives what he can.

He knows it’s not enough, and hopes his heart in his words will make up the difference.

“No, this,” and he runs the pads of his thumbs beneath Steve’s eyes, because as gorgeous as they are, as he is: those eyes used to be bright. They were bright…before. When did they change, when did Steve from now like Eddie become Steve who’s tried to start Eddie’s heart with his own hands, and couldn’t?

Doesn’t matter.

Steve’s eyes aren’t supposed to be hollow behind the color; there’s only supposed to be the sunshine.

Not the endless dark.

“I’ve been taking it away, haven’t I?” Eddie breathes out in a level of horror at the realization that’s settling in the more he looks at Steve, and reads the toll he’s been paying, for Eddie. “I hate that, I hate that I—“

“Eddie,” Steve breathes, and the only shine in his eyes is tears and it’s wrong, it’s just wrong.

“It gets taken away because yours isn’t there anymore,” Steve reaches back, now, and holds Eddie’s face in his broad hands: “the light in you,” and his voice cracks and he blinks and one tear.

One tear falls.

Eddie’s sternum splits in two.

“I want to know what it is to fall in love with you,” Eddie says in a rush, demands on the whole fucking cosmos: “the whole way, because I think I’m already halfway there,” and it’s true, it’s true because he’d give his life for Steve already so he understands, of Steve’s in longer and deeper, why he’s fighting despite the hurt, but, but…

No more.

“And I want to earn it,” Eddie tells him. “I want you to fall for me not just because of, because of life and death stuff, or tied up in losing,” Eddie tries to fit the avalanche of feelings in him to words, prays it’s enough:

“I want it to be a,” he chokes, shakes his head and bites his tongue: “a good thing,” because he wants to be a good thing for this man. He wants to be only a good thing, as best he knows how.

“You are a good thing,” Steve counters, and fierce with it; “you’re the best thing.”

Eddie’s not strong enough to hold himself to just one tear when the floodgates break.

“I run when Henderson runs,” he breathes shakily. It’s a vow more than anything he knows how to give.

“You don’t run,” Steve tells him, so soothing, still so protective of Eddie, always protective of Eddie; “you’re so fucking brave, and you save our asses,” and he brings their foreheads to lean against each other as Eddie’s inhales trembles: “you’re just gonna fall back this time, so you don’t break my heart, too, okay?”

“Okay,” Eddie would agree to anything, at this point; this is easy. This he can do, no problem.

This he will do, no question.

“I’m sorry,” he finds himself whispering, because…because he has to.

He is so fucking sorry.

“You’re…” Steve starts, uncomprehending as Eddie just shakes his head, almost like a compulsion.

“I’m sorry I’ve disappointed you so many times,” Eddie hissed through clenched teeth, tries not to descend into blubbering, tries to maintain something like, if not composure, the capacity to be heard and known when he promises with his whole heart:

“I won’t do it again, I swear.”

And Steve watches him, eyes red rimmed and still brimming but carefully, assessing.

Eddie can help, though. He can put him a little bit at ease, or damn well fucking try.

“I already feel something,” and he brings Steve’s hand to his chest again, reminds them both his heart’s still beating in this world, in this time. “And I’m too selfish Steve.”

Steve cocks his head in question; Eddie wants to watch this man’s quirks, learn the minutiae of his every expression.

Forever.

“I need the whole shebang.”

Steve smiles, watery and still strained but less sad, and that’s something.

It’s all they have time for, because he can hear everybody coming back with supplies, remembers they’d been prepping for war.

It’s all the have time for—for now.

“I’m holding you to that,” Steve says, a little watery, a little shaky, a little unconvinced but wholly filled with love, still, and all together isn’t only serves to harden Eddie’s resolve that much more.

“You flake on me again?” Steve flips his fingers backward against Eddie’s shoulder in a poor excuse for a smack: “I’m gonna tie you to the driver’s seat next time, and leave Nance with Dustin.”

“There won’t be a next time,” Eddie answers, dead serious; “except for one thing.”

There’s something molten, a glint that isn’t tears when Steve lifts a brow in askance; when Eddie leans in and kisses Steve hard, deep, quick because they have to but it doesn’t have to be anything else because he leaves his heart and soul in the exchange, willingly and willfully and all fucking in.

“There’s gonna be a next time for that. I swear to god,” Eddie murmurs against Steve slips when he pulls back; “we’re gonna have so many next times.”

And when the door to the RV bursts open and everyone else spills in, Steve’s lips are a little swollen if you’re looking.

And Steve’s eyes still have that light.

For @klausinamarink, who requested 'The Light Behind Your Eyes—My Chemical Romance' at my HOBBIT-STYLE BIRTHDAY MONTH PROMPT FEST

✨permanent tag list: OPEN (lmk if you want to be added/removed): @pearynice @hbyrde36 @slashify @finntheehumaneater @wxrmland @dreamwatch @perseus-notjackson @estrellami-1 @bookworm0690 @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @nerdyglassescheeseychick @swimmingbirdrunningrock @goodolefashionedloverboi @sanctumdemunson @theheadlessphilosopher @sadisticaltarts

divider credit here

💫 ao3 link here

[zingaplanet]

Here's my take on the loki finale and why Mobius is the only one of the gang who didn't seem to have a conclusive, 'hopeful' ending.

Can't predict what the writers are thinking but the way I understand it is it's a hint that there's no version of reality where Loki is not there with him that will ever leave him fulfilled.

"Most purpose is more burden than glory," he said.

Others are shown finally having the choice to pursue their own "glory"/hope/ happiness. B-15 finds her purpose to lead and protect something she believes in, O.B. gets to live out his science fiction dream, writing a book of a place he now knows to be true and care about.

The end scene with Mobius and Sylvie is fascinating, for instance, because it shows the contrast between them both. Sylvie is different, she's reconstructed her own reality, found her own happines, lived a whole new life in the timeline without Loki or anyone.

But Mobius is the realist out of them all.

Mobius said before that he'd rather not know about his life before as it's easier not to, that the TVA is his whole life, that that's where he belongs. When the TVA changed, he finally left, but now he's there in front of the life he's supposed to have but he's in no hurry to go back, content to just "let the time pass."

I think he knows no matter which purpose he chose, whether at the TVA or getting his memory reinstalled back to him for a life on the timeline, there will always be a 'burden', something left lurking behind.

Maybe he realises he doesn't have a place 'he belongs to' anymore.

Perhaps it also dawns on him then, that it's never about the how (the TVA is changed now, no more prunings, no more sacred timeline, he would've done something he'd morally believe in if he stayed),

or the what (the jet skis, his garden, even his family, it could never be the same. It's incomplete, with all the burden of eons of memories behind him, and the lost of someone who made it possible)

or even the why (he's driven by 'the bigger picture', it's his one saving grace, the one thing he holds on to. He spent eons doing the same thing over and over, protecting the sacred timeline and what he believes to be true, when that turned out to be a bust, he turned his life upside down to protect his new purpose, the multiverse, but all of it is still to waste, they couldn't do it still, not without sacrificing-)

In the end, that wasn't what it's all about. The reason this whole madness started was because of one simple act of his, an insignificant character, to save someone, to be willing to take the leap in trusting one that everyone always dooms to fail. To tell that person, who never had anyone believe in him before, that they could "be anyone they want to be, even someone good."

It was never about the universe. Loki was right. It was never about the how, the what, or the why.

All along,

It was always about the who.

[sarahalainn]

17 Jan 1995 The Great Hanshin Earthquake

Remembering all those precious lives

#阪神淡路大震災

たとえこの世界が偽りになり　

全てが一瞬で消えたとしても

私は目を閉じよう

あなたの声がどこまでも一緒である限り

それでも思い出してみせる

遠い昔の記憶を追いかけて

そこに確かに私達はいた

やがて色褪せる未来への思いであったとしても

〜サラ・オレイン

The Final Time Traveler

#タイムトラベラーズ

1.17🕊

What if this world could become a lie

And everything we knew would vanish in a sigh

Still I would close my eyes

Your voice travels wherever I go

- Sarah Àlainn

[qaanngi]

When you and your fellow birb are the only close range fighters at the start of your contract and haven’t had another person to spar with in a while

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 164

“Dude, of course you’re having rage moments, have you like, ever gone back to the Zone after you got revived? Or at least like, found a familiar to take the edge off all that excess ecto of yours?” 

“... what.” 

“I’ll take that as a no, come on. My Dad can open a portal and we can find you a friend if you’re gonna’ insist on being in the living world!” 

“Wait a fucking minute- what the fuck-”

[the-music-maniac]

This is a purely indulgent crack idea, but I think it would be very funny if there was this time travel fix-it for the events of FF7/Sephiroth's insanity, except instead of just one person getting sent back, almost everyone in Avalanche (Cloud, Vincent, Tifa, Barret, Yuffie, Nanaki, Cait Sith/Reeve, etc. ) gets sent back. And all of them think they're the only one that time travelled. So, you essentially have a bunch of people trying to pretend they don't know anything about the future and assuming no one else knows about the future, and being confused af 90% of the time because the others aren't reacting in a predictable way to what they know about the future.

How this happens could occur in one of two ways - everyone gets sent back at different time points, and so their initial efforts to kill Sephiroth before he becomes genocidal includes them one by one meeting Miniroth and going Oh No This Is A Child, and Sephiroth progressively getting more and more well adjusted by the time he meets the next time traveller because now he has a group of people hellbent on fighting Shinra and Hojo on his behalf with the dual reasons of you are not going to become another genocidal maniac under my watch, and Why Is The Child Fighting A War Who Authorized This. I think the order of time travel should happen with age (ex. Vincent arrives first, Cloud and Tifa and Nanaki arrive last, etc.).

Or they all show up at once when Sephiroth is an adult. All of them are covertly trying to assassinate him but failing bc they keep accidentally cancelling out each other's attempts.

I want a cartoonish level of obliviousness. Arguably Cloud, Reeve (or Cait Sith?????) and Cid, and potentially Nanaki, are the ONLY ones that really have the excuse to be in Shinra, so everyone is confused about why other people they know are suddenly There™ yet somehow not landing on the obvious answer of more than one time traveller. All of them bullshit just well enough to throw doubt bc they're all pretending they don't know anything about the future. Aerith has an inkling about what's going on bc the planet talks to her, but she's too entertained at the shenanigans to be much help. Zack has no idea what's going on, cause he's not a time traveller, or someone in kahoots with the planet. Shinra is in absolute chaos because of how much people are meddling. At the same time, everyone is simultaneously noticing that 1. Seph is surprisingly, a very normal (even kind?) guy. What gives. 2. Man was, on the contrary to popular belief, not walking around with delusions of grandeur or cackling evilly in the months before his sanity went kaput and is in fact, malnourished, overworked and depressed, 3. Hojo and Shinra were even bigger bastards than expected.

Meanwhile Sephiroth is there like: man, people sure are up in my business a lot lately. He's thinking this as he stares dead eyed out the window, with his tenth cup of coffee in hand and a sheath of thick paperwork tucked under his arm. Behind him is Barret hiding (badly) in a fake plant.

I dunno how but this results in every one of our beloved protagonists (and Sephiroth) surviving, no one going insane, and Hojo dying an awful death. And then the gradual dismantling of Shinra, hurray.

[fulgurbugs]

real quick did some edits to these + color blocked em