#two months lol

[kittlesandbugs]

FHR Flash Prompt: Left behind Pairing: Sidestep & Chen Warnings: TW dissociation, PSTD Word Count: 728 Prompt: write your Sidestep through a scene / variable / tag you're excited about but that they do not get in their canon run.  (Went with the Chen date after the auction.)

"I obtained… pictures." Chen lets out a sigh, rubbing his face. "Classified. Highly classified. I assumed they were from the autopsy." 

The autopsy? He can't… he can't mean… Your hand slides to your belly, to the Y-shaped scar that no one outside the Farm should know about. You can feel it through the layers of fabric if you press hard enough. Not an autopsy though, open surgery. But it probably looked like one. 

"Your autopsy."

You feel his eyes on you but it's distant over your pulse drumming in your ears. The shallow breaths coming faster and faster as your vision browns out. 

"My…" You swallow, tongue dry cotton in your mouth. He can't mean…

But he does, it's there in his dark eyes. At the forefront of his thoughts. Regret. Sadness. You feel his failure, failure to save a person, but you aren't one and he knows it. 

He's talking but it's like you're dunked in a frigid ocean, cold, paralyzed, water in your ears and nothing makes sense, least of all him. He saw pictures. He knows what you are. He knows and he said nothing and did nothing. Of course he wouldn’t. Why risk your human skin for a thing you hate? 

You bite the inside of your cheek hard enough to bleed. Pain brings clarity, brings the world back into focus. Drains the water. Lets you breathe again. Lets you think.

Why the guilt then? Why the inaction? Was it easier to leave you be all these years than live up to the lofty ideals of a hero? No. You can see it in his thoughts plain as day. He really believed you were dead. How could he think otherwise after seeing you gutted and pinned open on an operating table like a dissected frog. What good could come from pursuing a corpse? Especially after… 

"Your arm."

He stops mid-sentence, confused. "My arm?"

"It was because you were looking for me, wasn't it?" you ask quietly. 

"I can't think of any other alternative. Especially after my contact had an 'unfortunate accident,'" he replies, just as quietly. "I'm sorry."

The restaurant has gone silent around you. Waitresses, patrons, all of them, staring, not at you, but nothing. What…? Did you…? You pick up the shards in your mind, click them back into place, clamp your shields tighter with a grimace, and the people start moving again, slow, confused, like waking from a drugged up dream. You did. Fuck. 

Chen sees the same thing. But he doesn't comment on it. Instead he puts money on the table and nods towards the door. "I need to go pick up Spoon."

You stand and shove your hands in your pockets with a stiff nod and follow him out. The restaurant comes fully back to life as you pass the threshold.  Leaking.  Messy.  You’re better than this.  You need to lock it down, and you do. You trail him down the street, tension between you thick enough to cut with a knife.  He turns down an alley. Shortcut?

He stops so suddenly you almost crash into his broad back.  He turns, dark eyes narrow and hard as they meet yours. “You need to stop.”

Your blood runs cold at the quiet certainty in his voice.  He knows.  He knows it's you.  Has he told Ortega?  No.  Ortega wouldn’t have let you leave his sight if he knew.  But you aren’t revealing any cards, not yet, especially not after this.

“You need to mind your own business,” you retort instead, meeting his gaze evenly.  Don’t give an inch.  He takes miles.

“This isn’t going to end well,” he insists, his voice softening, pleading.

“It was never meant to,” you hiss and take two steps back from him.  

He wisely makes no move to follow, but his eyes track every movement. He's tense. Ready. "Why? Why are you doing this?" 

"Maybe if you'd kept digging, you'd know." A huffed not-laugh as he flinches. 

"What did they do to you?" he asks quietly, hands twitching by his sides as you back out of the alley. 

“You should worry about yourself. Your team. I won’t be responsible if you keep digging into things you shouldn’t. Next time, they won’t miss.” You turn the corner and break into a run. Not fleeing. Just retreating for now. 

"Owens, wait!" 

You don't look back. 

You can't.

[myrkulitescourge]

the way that one line from the new epilogue in an astarion romance is going to HAUNT me

just. what a profoundly intense thing to confess to someone.

like, just these six months of newfound happiness with you exerts a force on his heart equal and in direct opposition to two centuries of endless torment, the gnawing hunger and exploitation. this flashbulb-bright fraction of his long life holds the same gravity to him as years upon years of darkness and suffering.

in all likelihood, he hasn’t even known his lover for as long as his worst memory lasted, that year sealed away to go mad from starvation and sensory deprivation, yet he still tells them this brief time has been so fundamentally and powerfully important that the weight of even that unimaginable hell is vanishingly small compared to this present he has now and the future ahead of them both.

how am i supposed to act normal about this.

[obey-me-but-bad]

6 : Goldie is a Mammon's best friend

<- Previous

[trypo-p]

The gang's all here!

[ask-queen-arti]

Maybe you aren't queen of the scavengers... But you definitely queen of my heart *wink wink fingerguns*

[bacchuschucklefuck]

sometimes I think abt how the months coming up to and the prom night in freshman year must feel to class swap sklonda. your perfect kid who has literally never gotten a single reprimand for anything does what can only be described as a quad crit crime combo and becomes a nerd punisher by the end of the night

[tarteggs]

i enjoy the stampede guy and his silly show :]

[s6samcas]

[pebblesun]

can't report them to HR, it's pride month 🌈

[shushmal]

Robin has a love-hate relationship with Steve-and-Eddie. Love, because those are her best friends and her best friends are in love with each other and they never leave her out of anything. Hate, because sometimes she wishes they would because she keeps accidentally third-wheeling herself.

She doesn't hate it that much though, if she's honest. It's just fun to complain, especially because it riles the both of them up.

But right now, she's being quiet so she can witness one of her secretly-favorite Steve-and-Eddie rituals—of which there are many, but this one is silly and endearing.

It starts like this:

The waitress sets down their drinks, lemonade for Robin, coca-cola for Steve, and a cherry soda for Eddie.

"Don't you dare," Eddie says, even as Steve reaches for Eddie's drink, slipping his straw in next to Eddie's and slurping obnoxiously. Eddie doesn't even pretend to stop him anymore. "Unbelievable."

"I just want to taste it!"

"You could just get a whole glass of it! All for yourself!!"

"It's too sweet, I don't want a whole glass."

"What, so you think you can just help yourself to mine?"

Steve's grin is far too smug, even for Robin, even when Steve slides it to her so she can take a sip. Steve is right, it is really too sweet and she wrinkles her nose, but it's worth it for the offended gasp Eddie makes when she slides it back to him.

The diner is their favorite, because everyone who works there has given up on understanding their weird dynamic: Robin and Steve squished into on side of the booth while Eddie's spread out on the other, Robin making gagging noises whenever Steve brushes against her, even though they never sit in any other configuration. The staff has long since stopped asking which of them was her boyfriend, and that's perfect for her.

Besides, she knows that under the table, Steve and Eddie have their ankles locked together like the disgusting love-sick dorks that they are.

The Steve-and-Eddie show continues when their meals come out. Chicken fingers and fries for Steve because he's an actual child, and breakfast for dinner for Eddie because he likes to be contrary. And then the real performance begins.

They "fight" over the ketchup bottle, which really means that Eddie picks it up and Steve snatches it out of his hands—only for Steve to spread it over Eddie's scrambled eggs (gross) for him before he adds a disgusting amount to his own basket.

Eddie makes a game of stealing Steve's fries when he thinks he isn't looking (Steve is, he's tallying each one up in his head, Robin knows this because she's doing it too), and when he finally "catches" Eddie in the act, he steals Eddie's last piece of bacon—the one that's sat untouched for the last five minutes for this very reason.

Then, Eddie's "forcing" Steve to try his grits, like he does every time, and game eats a spoonful of it, every time, and then complains at length how much he hates it (and he actually does hate it, the texture is just not for him, Robin knows because it's the same for her too).

And then they do the worst, most disgusting thing ever: they split the pancake in half. Without fail. Without argument. Every time.

Robin, slurping on her strawberry milk shake that she will NEVER share with anyone ever, thinks that stupid pancake is like the symbol of their love or something. Sh's sure if they weren't in public, they'd be feeding it to each other.

"What?" They say it in unison, and Robin hates when they do that to her.

(Eddie complains about it right back at her, because she and Steve do the same thing to him all the time. They should blame Steve, since he's the common denominator, but he just looks so pleased about them both that they can't rag on him for it, so Eddie remains Robin's sworn enemy and vice versa.)

"What what?" she sneers at them, voice quiet. "You two are disgusting, it's like you're making out right in front of me right now."

"What are you, homophobic?" Eddie hisses back, just as quiet. "I'm in love with your best friend, Buckley. I'm making out with him in front of you for the rest of your life."

"Ugh! I hate you so much."

"Right back at you."

And then they start kicking at each other beneath the table, no doubt catching Steve's ankles in the crossfire. He doesn't tell them to stop though, and Robin can see that pleased, sappy smile on his stupid face out of the corner of her eye, so she lands an exceptionally harsh blow to Eddie's shin in retaliation for making her best friend so happy. He digs his heel into her toes in return.

[lunacias]

these are the silt verses, and I name our disciples thus

[muirneach]

the idea that soon it will be hockey almost every day for the next 9ish months. phenomenal

[ann-chovi]

The Land Before Dialga

I can't be the only one who cries when Littleice's mom dies, right?

(ref under cut)

[mosovi-vian]

And I will stay alive for my future self, so they can one day learn to be kind to who I was as a child. And I will teach them to honor who we used to be, so they can remember the comfort of what once was our untempered flesh and gentle soul. Me and myself are each a fresh wound and a rough scab, bearing respectively the gift of green faith and honed will.

This has been in my draft for a while because I was determined to post this only after I knew what I should write underneath it. I’ve read a lot on the concept of healing the wounded inner child since even before my c-ptsd diagnosis. However, I’ve sought as much comfort in my little self as they had in me. Looking back, I was an impressively emotionally-intuitive kid. I remember well how I used to think, the things I would write to my future self; they were wiser and gentler than I could ever hope to be as an adult. Needless to say, the little poem above is inspired by the aforementioned experience. Sure, big me is armed with a more developed pre-frontal cortex and access to invaluable resources (coping mechanisms, therapy, on and offline communities) , but I struggle to rediscover/reinvent my identity. Little me was the biggest vestige of my lost personhood. So yeah, this might be just a huge self-indulgent projection with my favorite character, but thinking that post-S3 Hunter would also be in my shoes is not completely baseless. 16yrs old Hunter is the fresh wound (a lot of things happened before his teen years, but I’m going to interpret the events of Hollow Mind - which happened when Hunter was 16 - as the ultimate boiling point in his trauma timeline, hence the ‘fresh wound') and 20yrs old Hunter is the rough scab. Each version of Hunter could be dealing with a different set of trauma-induced symptoms. I think his loyalty to Belos kept him going as a child. Being doubtless was important to Hunter back then; it held his sense of self together. And maybe when he survived and was rewarded the time and space to grow into his own person and live for himself, there was this lasting emptiness. I feel this sort of emptiness even today. My only reference of what ‘wholeness’ felt like was when I was obedient to my family. I equated self-abandonment as the righteous norm. The symptoms I deal with today are definitely different from when I was Hunter’s age pre-time-skip. Now that Hunter is in a safe space and an adult post-time skip, he might also need to seek that strength from his younger self. Reminding himself of how far he’s come and the parts of him that he'd like to keep from his past. The parts that he knows in his bones are purely his - not instilled by Belos, not inherited from Caleb.

[lilybug-02]

Bribed with Chocolate. The way it should be.

Part 22 || First || Previous || Next

--Full Series--

More to come as this is a two-parter. But you know how I am with schedules.

Bonus:

I think this was an equally possible reaction from Chara.