#you know you could read that as an intended effect of the monotony with this game because ya see..pfft nah i'm not continuing that | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

detectiveidiotboy · 4 years ago

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His Time In The Commonwealth II: Nick Valentine’s Story

so as my beloved fanfiction, The Black Widow’s Waltz, comes to an end, i’ve decided that i am going to re-release the backstory chapters as their own stand-alone fic, since they read well as their own story. before that, i thought i might do a fun little thing where i release each of the companions backstories as their own post here on tumblr under the tag #his time in the commonwealth.

and thus! on to part two!!! Nick Valentine; and how he made the worst decisions of his life

When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

It was dumb quote, but damn if it wasn’t applicable here.

“Nate!” Nick called, steeling his voice. “We need to talk.” The raven haired man looked up from the pot he had been stirring at his campsite. He was dressed in sturdy flannel shirt, hair tied back with a string - he was the picture of an old-world survivalist out on a camping stint. Nate smiled when he saw the synth detective - his friend.

“Nick,” He said, a pleasant ring to his voice, “Well isn’t this a surprise. I didn’t know you liked camping.”

Nick felt something stir deep in that little part of him that still insisted he was human. Nate had an effect on people, and Nick knew he wasn’t immune. There wasn’t anything he wanted more than to just sit down with his friend and have a bowl of stew made from whatever wild creature Nate had picked off that day. Maybe this whole thing was ridiculous; Nate was odd, some would say a bit quicker to violence than the average wastelander - but he wasn’t a murderer. Right?

Whatever remains, however improbable...

“This isn’t a friendly visit,” Nick said, eyes narrowed. He stood firm between the trees, hands at his sides. “I’m here on business.”

Nate cocked his head, expression genuine and confused. “You didn’t tell me you had another case come in.” Nate said.

“I didn’t,” Nick said. “This is something I’ve been working on alone.”

“I wish you would have told me,” Nate said, turning back to his soup to stir the pot before it boiled over. “What kind of partner would I be if I didn’t help you crack a case that has you this worked up?”

“The kind who’s become my prime suspect,” Nick said. Nate had pulled the spoon up to his mouth to sample his creation. He lowered the spoon as he took in Nick’s accusation.

“Prime suspect?” Nate said, brows knit. “What exactly are you accusing me of?”

“Cut the crap, Nate - I know you murdered Piper,” Nick hissed. The words hung between the two for a long moment. The pop pop pop of boiling water broke up the monotony of the windless day. Nate stared at Nick, Nick stared at Nate.

“Well, I have to say,” Nate said, lowering his spoon back into the pot with a soft ting, “that’s quite the accusation coming from someone I thought was my friend.” The words stung, as did the harsh tone Nate said them in. Nick had to fight not to flinch. “I suppose you have some evidence to back up this claim that I murdered my girlfriend, right?”

“I do,” Nick said grimly, “you know I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t absolutely sure it was you.”

“Then by all means,” Nate said, crossing his legs and spreading his arms, “share with me.”

Nick took a breath. He’d been preparing for this confrontation for hours. He still didn’t think he was ready. “Piper didn’t tell anyone where she was going the day she went missing,” Nick said, “not even Nat knew where she was.”

“I know,” Nate said, sounding impatient. “That’s why it took the city so long to find her remains.”

“But you see, the thing about that is,” Nicks said, “When they found Piper, there was a notepad and pencil in her pocket, as if she had gone out looking for a story.”

“She was dedicated to her work,” Nate mumbled, eyes staring at the autumn leaves on the ground. For all Nick saw, Nate looked exactly like the grieving boyfriend he claimed to be. The kind, accurate description of his late friend followed by the image of Nate appearing somber and dejected made Nick's head spin, but he soldiered on.

“That she was,” Nick nodded, “which was why she never left Diamond City without telling someone where she was going. What good’s a story if there’s no one to tell it, right?”

“I assumed it was something secret or sudden,” Nate said. “Something like a follow up on her story about the mayor now that he’s dead and confirmed to be an institute spy.”

Nick grimaced. He would have to circle back to that later, since he was almost certain that Nate had been the one who 86’ed McDonough as well. “That’s what everyone assumed. Hell, even I thought that the poor girl had finally bitten off more than she could chew, maybe pushed one too many buttons with the Institute - but then I thought about it and something about the story I’d heard just didn’t jive.”

“Oh?”

“See, the body was found with a notebook and a pencil,” Nick continued. “Now I’ve sat down to plenty of interviews with that girl over the years - not once did I see her use anything other than a pen.”

“So that’s your evidence?” Nate said, unimpressed. “Piper switched up her writing utensil and suddenly you think I killed her.”

“No, of course not,” Nick said, “But the fact that you were the last person to see her alive does raise a few questions.”

Nate narrowed his eyes. “Nick, you know that I was nowhere near Diamond City when she died. I was with you, tracking down those holotapes."

“No - you were nowhere near Diamond City when Piper was presumed dead,” Nick clarified.

“I don’t think I follow you here, Nick," Nate said.

“I found her, Nate, ” Nick said, voice softer than intended. He felt his jaw lock up. If he were human he would have swallowed - the reflex was still there for him. He took a deep breath and continued. “She's in a bunker not far from the old drive-in. I found the real Piper.”

It had been only a few hours prior that Nick found himself face-to-face with the body of his dear friend; there was no mistaking her face, slumped over an old-world desk with eyes still open. She hadn't been dead long. If only he had been faster… the state of her body and room surrounding told him she hadn’t been dead more than a week, maybe even only a day or two - which was a far cry from the near month-and-a-half that the city guards had presumed her deceased. When all of this was over with, Nick would go back and make sure she was buried properly. For now, he had to see justice through.

“When the guards found what they thought was Piper's body, they couldn’t make out her face. The poor thing was filled with so many bullets the only way they could identify who it was was by her clothes and the notepad planted on the body.” Nick said. "The Piper I found died about a week ago, around the very same time that the Guards found the fake Piper."

“So if I'm following you," Nate said, eyeing Nick with an unreadable expression, "you think someone kidnapped Piper, dressed some random body up in her clothes, and then, after the guards found what they thought was Piper's body, they killed her."

"Not someone, Nate, it was you. I know it was you," Nick said solemnly.

"And why do you think that?" Nate spit. "What motivation could I possibly have to kill her?" He was clearly offended, which was fair enough considering the accusations - but if he really was the culprit as Nick suspected, then there was a disturbing amount of genuine indignation present in his eyes.

"I don't know," Nick admitted. "No matter how much I think about it I can't say why you did it, but I do know is how you did it."

"Enlighten me." Nate crossed his arms and glared.

Nick closed his eyes. He hated every second this dragged on. "Everyone assumed McDonough's assassination was the work of the Institute, including Piper. She was worried that if the Institute had anyone to come after next, it would be her. Now she was fearless, and she'd put her life on the line to tell the people the truth more than once before, but Piper wasn't just worried about herself. It was Nat she was really concerned for."

Nate's eyes twitched, following along the story. "So that's why she skipped town… You think she went into hiding."

"Exactly," Nick said. "When I went snooping around that bunker there weren't any scratch marks or signs that Piper had been trying to escape - hell, there was a spare key in her pocket that worked with the lock. It was a nice set up too; Piper had everything she needed to live down there for weeks - food, water, ammo, turrets. There was no way she managed to stock up all that alone. Piper did well for herself as writer in a city, but not that well. She had help making herself disappear, someone she trusted more than anyone else, someone with the means to sponsor her little stay in the woods."

"And you think that person is me," Nate concluded. "And you think the person who helped her hide would be the same person who killed her, since no one else would have known where she was - ergo, you think I killed her."

"Bingo," Nick said.

Nate sighed, slumping back against a tree. "Nick, as much as I admire your skills as a detective, the evidence you've provided is circumstantial." He said. "I won't deny that I have an over abundance of caps, and Piper trusted me more than just about anyone else, but you're still missing one key thing here - why would I kill her? She was my girlfriend."

"And that's just what you were banking on, wasn't it?" Nick accused. "Why would anyone suspect you - the two of you were like a couple of sweethearts pulled straight from a 2050s romance flick. All you had to do was play the part of the grieving lover for a few days and then disappear for a little while."

Nate narrowed his eyes, expression soured and irate. He opened his mouth to argue, but Nick didn't want to hear it. "All that is besides the point. I don't need to know why you killed her. All I need is proof that you did," Nick said, "Hard evidence."

"Evidence that you do not have," Nate pointed out.

"Not yet," Nick said, reaching into his coat pocket. He pulled out a key with a Vault Tech ornament attached to the chain. Covering eyes of the tiny vault man was the number "2" stamped on in old-world ink. "This was the key I found in Piper's pocket. It's a copy, a spare, and I'm wiling to bet that whoever did her in has the original." Nate snarled and Nick felt the place where his heart should be skip. "It's been over a week since you've stopped by Sanctuary or any of the other settlements where you offload your crap. I checked. I'm willing to bet you still have the key on you-"

"Nick, this is ridiculous," Nate said with a roll of his eyes. "Even if you don't find the key on me that won't prove my innocence."

"But if I do find it, it prove at the very least you lied when you said you didn't know where she was, and if that were the case then you should have known all along that body the guards found wasn't her," Nick said.

The pair stared at each other, both knowing exactly how this would end yet neither wanting to initiate the final move. Soft sounds of woodland life filled in the gap in their standoff. Nick found his nerve after twenty full seconds and spoke.

"Empty your pockets."

"This is stupid."

"Turn out your pockets, Nate," Nick said, this time far more sternly.

"It wasn't me!" He insisted. "Anyone could have killed her! She was hiding from the Institute after all-"

Nick unholdered his gun. "Nate, don't make me do this," He said, putting the wide-eyed man's head in his sights. "Just turn out your pockets, nice and slow."

Nate stared at Nick as if he had never seen the synth before in his life. If Nick hadn't destroyed their friendship before, this was likely the last straw. He didn't want what he said to be true, but part of him hoped to God he was right. He'd crossed a line here and he knew there was no going back if this was all just a mistake. Slowly, Nate's hand reached down into his jeans. He dug around in his right pocket for a moment before pulling his hand back out, fingers curled around something small. Nate opened his palm to reveal a keychain labeled '#1' over a Vault Man fob.

Nick lowered his gun, opening his hand to accept the damning key from Nate. There was no denying it now. Even if the keychain was some sort of astronomically improbable coincidence, Nick's optical sensors were sensitive enough to detect every groove in the key's body - it was identical to the one Nick had found on Piper. He looked between the metal object and his supposed-friend, waiting for an explanation. In spite of everything, Nick silently begged for Nate to prove him wrong.

Come on, Nate, work with me here, Nick thought. Tell me I'm wrong. Give me an explanation, something I don't know, something obvious I've overlooked. Give me some new evidence, some new lead - promise to help me find whoever killed Piper and bring them to justice. Just please, don’t be you.

Nate continued to stare at Nick, expression unreadable. His anger he’d shown before had died off into an almost calm, pestered look. Silence dragged on between them for a full eighty-four seconds, the numbers ticking up in the back of Nick’s head. Finally, Nate’s shoulders dropped, and the thin line of his mouth fell into a disgusted frown.

“Really? You couldn’t have waited, like, a month before doing this?”

Nick was struck by the shift in tone. Nate wasn’t upset any more - if he ever really had been - but instead just seemed bothered by Nick, as if the synth had interrupted his afternoon with some trivial nonsense. Nick couldn’t keep the shock from his face.

“Does that mean you really did it?” Nick said, unable to stop himself. “You murdered Piper?”

Nate arched a brow at his former friend. “I thought you already figured that out, detective,” He said mockingly. “Yes, Nick. I killed Piper. Everything happened exactly as you said it did, down to the last detail. Congrats, you solved the case - serves me right for palling around with a cop.”

Nick realized well after the fact that his mouth was open. Dread flooded his system as he went over the words Nate said, replaying the admission a thousand times in his head in a desperate bid to find some meaning other than the obvious. “Why?” He said when he could finally get his mouth around the words. “How could you do it, Nate? She was your friend - your partner. She trusted you!”

Nate had the audacity to roll his eyes at Nick. “Why do you care? She was annoying anyways.”

Nick couldn’t believe what he was hearing. How could this be the same man who had rescued him from the Triggermen? The man who’d been helping him work through cases for almost two months now - who’d helped him track down Eddie Winter and put the old Nick’s fiancé to rest? A part of him wondered if Nate had been switched out by the Institute, because surely to God Nick couldn’t have been so thoroughly fooled for so long.

But he knew that wasn’t true. The Nate in front of him was the same Nate Nick had always known. The same man who killed Skinny Malone and Darla while saving Nick's life. The man who had gunned down the entire settlement of Covenant while rescuing Stockton's daughter from fanatics. The same Nate who had burst out laughing and applauded when Nick put his foot down on Winter's chest and nailed him between the eyes. Nate had always been this way. Cunning, smart, charming, sadistic, cruel. Some detective he was - Nick had been overlooking the obvious this whole time. Nate was a monster.

“You’re sick,” Nick hissed, anger winning out over hurt and betrayal. He dropped the key and raised his pistol to take aim again. “I ought to shoot you now before you cause any more harm.”

Nate laughed, a choked, manic sound. His head turned to the side and he squinted at Nick. “Oh come on, don’t be like that,” Nate said. “We can still be friends, you know?”

“I’m not your friend,” Nick spit, “apparently I never was. Friends don’t murder each other’s friends because they’re ‘annoying’ them.”

Nate sighed in a harsh, irritated breath. “You’re overreacting,” He told Nick. Nate turned around, completely unphased by the barrel of Nick’s gun pointed at his temple, and began packing up his camping supplies. “Come on. Let’s just forget this whole thing and move on. She’s dead now - shooting me won’t bring her back, you know.”

“Shut the hell up you goddamn physcopath” Nick snapped. “The only reason I haven’t put a bullet in you yet is because you’re going to come back to Diamond City with me and face justice there.”

“Really?” Nate said as he smothered the campfire with dirt and stones. “Does Diamond City even have a judicial system? Even before everything went all martial law it seemed to run on a system of ‘do what we say or get shot.’”

Nick ignored him. He’d come to the conclusion that anything he said to Nate would be brushed off or disregarded completely. Nate didn’t seem to grasp the severity of what he'd done, and Nick was beginning to realize that nothing he said would make him understand. There wasn’t a shred of decency in that bastard that wasn’t a put-upon performance.

Nick marched up beside Nate and snatched the man by the wrist. Nate looked at the metal skeleton of a hand clutching his arm, then up at Nick with a curious expression.

“You’re coming with me, whether you like it or not,” Nick said sternly.

“I really don’t know what you think you’re accomplishing by doing this,” Nate said calmly.

“You know what? I don’t really give a damn what you think,” Nick said. “You either follow me back to Diamond City or get shot in the head and dragged back as a corpse - either way is fine by me.”

Nate snatched his wrist back, throwing Nick’s hand off with a force Nick hadn’t realized a human was capable of. Nate shot the detective a skeptical look. “You’re not going to shoot me,” He said confidently.

“The hell I won't!” Nick said, raising his gun once again to level with Nate’s skull - this time the barrel sat less than an inch from his forehead. Nate knocked the gun away with a casual swipe of his hand.

“No, you won’t,” Nate said, reaching down to grab his sleeping back that he had rolled back up into its case. “You’re not a killer, Nick - I’ve never seen you shoot someone who wasn’t shooting at you first. Face it, you’re just not built for this.”

Nick grit his teeth, eyes locked with Nate for a moment before the latter turned and continued packing up. His finger tightened around the trigger, hands trembling. Why couldn't he shoot? Was there some sort of calibration error in his circuits?

Finally, with the last of his items packed up, Nate turned his back to the detective and began walking off back towards sanctuary. “Whenever you get over this come find me, ‘kay?” He said with a dismissive wave. “I got a pretty interesting radio call from an old friend of yours up north. Seemed like he had a case for you, and I'd love to tag along. I'd be willing to check it out with you if you can manage to keep your pistol in your pocket.”

Nick watched as Nate pushed his way through the forest, stepping over brambles and bushes to clear out. His head was lined up in Nick’s sight, but he didn’t seem to care, because Nate was just that confident that Nick Valentine was not going to shoot him in the back.

Nick lowered the gun just a fraction. Nate was right about him, Nick wasn’t a murderer. Not in his previous life, and not in this one. Despite how much the post-apocalypse had tried to break him down, Nick had always stuck by his morals. Everyone deserved a chance to become a better person, and justice cannot be found by gunning down defenseless people. Even Eddie Winter had pulled a gun on him first during their standoff in his bunker.

“Hey, Mister Valentine!!”

Nick turned, mouth open and chopsticks full of noodles in the air. The young girl in a pink coat looked up at him; she was new in town, if Nick recalled. Barely old enough to be out of school and already trying to start up her own paper company. The news was one of the old Nick’s guilty pleasures - as yellow as journalism was back then, it was nice to sit down with a paper and read about what was happening in the world. Nick had been rather thrilled to hear someone was trying to bring it back.

“Hi there,” He said, putting down his bowl on the counter. “I don’t believe we’ve met yet.”

“Piper Wright, chief writer of the Public Occurrences. Yes, I know the name's ironic, ” She popped up onto the bar stool next to Nick. Amazingly, she hadn’t seemed bothered at all by Nick’s half-empty bowl or his metal hand - he was used to the first one or two meetings with people being riddled with uncomfortable questions and staring.

“Good to make your acquaintance, Piper,” Nick said, tipping his hat politely. Very few people liked to shake hands with a synth, he’d learned. “The name’s Nick Valentine, local private eye.”

Piper smiled like he’d just announced himself as a wealthy corporate heir here on holiday. “I’ve seen the signs,” She said, twirling a pen between her fingers. “I was hoping to ask you a few questions for our latest issue.”

Nick tried not to let his discomfort show. Him and questions were almost never a pleasant pair if he wasn’t the one asking. His past was a touchy subject, especially now that the Institute was becoming a major threat, and if people weren’t asking him about that, their questions typically centered around his anatomy in a far too personal way - he could hardly imagine what queries would pop up in the mind of a post-adolescent girl. Still, the kid looked excited, and she was being professional about this. Besides, if things got out of hand he could always excuse himself and head back to the office.

So, Nick shrugged and said, “Sure, Piper, I got a few minutes.”

“Thanks!” She squeaked, snatching a notepad from her pocket and clicking her pen. Nick braced himself for whatever questions came next. “So word on the street is you were recently in Goodneighbor for a case,” Piper started. “Can you give me a statement on the current state of affairs in Diamond City’s delinquent sister town?”

Nick blinked. He hadn’t been expecting that. “Oh, um,” He said, wracking his memory for the case she was talking about. Lately his memory had been getting harder and harder to sort through. Nick didn’t know how long he was built to last, but he was sure he was well past his warranty. Finally, Nick pulled up details about his trip. He took another second to skim through the less appropriate sections and put together his response. “The place is doing a lot better now that Hancock is in charge,” he said. “There’s a couple of shops set up now that keep the doors open, and you’re a lot less likely to get stabbed if you turn your back on the wrong guys. I even heard they’re putin’ together a Neighborhood Watch, similar to what we got here in Diamond City.”

Piper nodded, scribbling on her pad in barely-legible letters. Nick paused to let her catch up, watching her absorb herself in her work. He wondered if that was what he looked like when he was pouring over case files.

The interview lasted for over an hour, ending with Nick inviting Piper over to the Dugout Inn to introduce her to the Bobrov brothers (and to treat the skinny orphan girl to a meal.) Never once did she mention his synthetic nature, nor did she ask about his past. Part of him knew she was biding her time, there was that journalistic glint in her eye that hinted at a deep curiosity, but she was polite enough to save the more personal questions for later. It was the first time in a while Nick had been treated so much like a person.

Nick pulled the trigger.

The shot rang out louder than any he'd fired before. The bullet nailed Nate in the back of the head, causing him to lurch forward as he fell face first into the forest floor. The leaves settled; Nate didn't move. Nick lowered his pistol, staring at the body of a man he'd mistakenly thought was his friend. The sound of the shot reverberated through the woods, bouncing off trees and echoing in Nick's auditory processors.

The gun ended up back his holster, barrel of the crude pipe-pistol still trailing up smoke. Nick looked at the man face down in the dirt, letting his visual systems perform a cursory scan for signs of life. Not even a twitch. Nick ran his good hand over his face and sighed.

"Christ," he muttered, fingers curled in frustration and dragged them down his face. "Damn… shit."

Nick looked back at the body, feeling nothing for the monster he'd gunned down. He pulled the rim of his hat down over his eyes and turned around, ready to walk back towards town.

Nate laughed.

Nick's walk of shame came to a sudden halt; the sound of leaves rustling as Nate pulled himself up off the ground filled the air. "Well shit," He said, hand coming up to touch the blood on his forehead. Dark red lines ran down his face, staining his lips and they curled up in a smile. "You think you know a guy…"

Nick barely had time to react. He turned around just in time to be tackled by the impossibly fast man. He didn't even have his gun out of the holster - Nick reached up and raked his metal claw of a right hand across Nate's face, aiming for the eyes. He pushed Nate off of him, scrambling to get to his feet. He wasn't built for combat, but he could slow down his processors to give himself an edge over most biological opponents. It did almost nothing against Nate; the man was inhuman in his movements. Nick got his gun in hand but before he could fire off another shot Nate had him by the wrists, yanking the synth's arms painfully back against the socket. Nick yelled and was forced to drop his weapon.

The two broke apart from their death grapple, Nate panting and Nick reeling internally to keep up. The man's black hair ran down from his tied-back hair, sticking to the blood on his face in frizzed clumps. Nate chuckled, still gasping for air. He reached into his jacket for a pair of brass knuckles with home-make spikes. "So," Nate snarled, "this really how you want to go out?"

"If it's the last thing I ever do, Nate, you're going to pay for what you did to Piper," the synth hissed. Nick lunged at Nate, aiming for his neck. Nate shrugged off the attack with a side step and an elbow to Nick's torso. Nate wrapped both hands around each other and slammed down on Nick's shoulder, throwing him off balance before pinning him to the ground. Nick turned, scrambling for his discarded gun. The brass knuckles came down on Nick's jaw, tearing the synthetic skin and damaging the delicate machinery there. Nick grunted, but managed to get his fingers around his pistol. He turned, propping himself up by his elbow to unload his last 5 shots into Nate's chest and neck. Nick might as well have been shooting a wall for all the good it did.

The brass knuckles came back down on Nick's jaw again and again, knocking the synth flat on his back. Nick's sensors screamed in warning, flooding his mind with signals that half of his face had been torn away. He felt the sting and the cold of his skeletal jaw exposed to the elements. Nate hovered over him as he reeled from the damage, panting hard as he rose back to his feet.

Nate took advantage of Nick's sensory overload to bring his foot down on the synth's chest, tearing through his undershirt and exposing his synthetic plates. He kicked away the plastic there as if Nick were little more than a can of cram. Nick tried to scramble back on the heels of his hands, but Nate's foot came down on the freshly-exposed wires of his chest, the pressure pinning him down and flooding his system with agony.

Nick cried out. There was no helping the involuntary response. His insides were far more sensitive to damage than his outsides, and his systems translated that through his neural network as pure agony. Nate seemed to delight at the newly discovered weak point in the synth; he ground down with his heel, tearing the wires out of place and snapping delicate components. Nick choked on a scream.

"I really didn't want things to end this way, Nick," Nate chided. "It's not too late to go back to the way we were." The offer was followed by a jerk of Nate's foot, digging deeper into Nick's wires and an agonizing, overly-full feeling in Nick's middle. Nick grit his teeth, raising his head to glare at the man who had him pinned.

"Go to hell!" Nick spit.

Nate shrugged. "Ah well, have it your way." His foot yanked back, ripping several wires out from Nick's center. Coolant flooded his system and his vision blinked. Before Nick could react, Nate stomped down directly on his power core, cracking the casing with an electric jolt through Nick's system. He couldn't remember a single instance of pain worse than the feeling of electricity freely flowing through him, energy fading fast as every single internal system shorted and failed at once. Nick seized, sputtering and jerking as Nate kicked down again, cracking his core and initiating Nick's final shutdown procedures.

Critical failure imminent, entering semi-permanent hibernation. Shutting down higher processes.

The last thing Nick saw before the world went dark was Nate staring down at him, smiling and laughing as the lights went out in Nick's eyes.

---

Nick’s processors came back online as if not a single second had passed since he was put down. The stiffness and rust in his joints begged to differ.

"What on earth…?" he dragged a hand down his face, eyes still closed. He flinched when he felt the part of his face that had been torn off courtesy of Nate's strong left hook. He could only imagine what he looked like now. Nick blinked, but his optics weren't functioning yet, so it just made the darkness he experienced all the more prominent. "Hello? Anyone there?"

"Nah, you're just imagining me," A new voice rang from Nick's side. A hand rested on his shoulder, urging Nick to stay laid down. "Turns out synths can go schizo too."

Nick furrowed his brow. He recognized the voice. "Deacon?"

"Bingo! Get the synth a prize!" the sound of Deacon's laughter filled the room

It had been a long time since he'd seen the man. Nick was one of the few people Deacon couldn't fool with his disguises - thanks in part to Nick's advanced optics - so it gave Nick the unique opportunity to befriend the man who knew everyone in the Commonwealth but no one had ever really met. So far, Nick hadn't been tempted to take up on that offer. It wasn't that he disliked the man or thought he was a bad guy (in fact, Nick was almost positive he was pretty high up in the Railroad, which was a cause he could get behind as an escaped synth himself) it was just that when he wasn't putting on an act Deacon was… well, annoying.

Regardless, Nick would put up with him for now. It appeared the man of mysteries had saved Nick's life, since there didn't seem to be anyone else around and the last thing Nick recalled was having his power core crushed by a megolomaniacal jackass.

Nate.

"Shit," Nick muttered, hand over his bare mouth. He hated the way he could feel his teeth against his palm. "Nate… that bastard got away."

"Heh, yeah, he sure did…" There was something deeply depressing hidden behind those words. Nick felt a tug on something in his chest and his systems threatened to power off again. He sucked in a breath reflexively - a hold over from his lost humanity.

"The fusion core should be able to support basic operations on this unit," A new voice, this one far more curt and masculine than Deacon's. Nick frowned at being referred to as a 'unit' - then remembered he didn't have the synthetic muscles to do that any more. Christ, no wonder the new guy didn't think he was a person - depending on how much damage there was there might not be much left that separated Nick from the mindless Institute drones appearance-wise.

Vanity aside, there was something else more important in what had just been said.

"Fusion core?" Nick said, turning to face the direction of the voice. "Are you tellin' me I'm running on fusion power right now?"

"Affirmative," the clinical voice said after a brief hesitation. "I am adapting your systems to accommodate for the change in source power. There are a few more optimisations that need to be in place before you are functioning at full capacity." Nick felt a hand in the hole of his chest redirecting the wires.

"Right - and who are you again?" Nick said, leaning his head back against what he assumed was a table. "Not to be ungrateful, but I prefer to at least know the name of the guy performing system wide changes to my person."

Deacon snorted. "That's fair - I prefer it if the guy at least buys me a drink before rooting around in my insides," Deacon said. Silence filled the room until he decided to answer the question for the other man. "This is Paladin Danse - he's another one of Nate's discarded 'pet projects'."

"Former Paladin," Danse corrected. Paladin? So he was Brotherhood, then? That explained his expertise with fusion technology, and his stiffness about talking with a synth. Danse unscrewed the casing around Nick's central nervous system. Nick grit his teeth at the buzz it gave him, but apparently auxiliary power didn't reach his diagnostic system, so he was spared from the worst of the pain.

"Pet projects?" Nick prompted. "What has that bastard been up to since he tried to off me."

"I'd say he more than 'tried'," Deacon said. "You've been offline for the better part of two years, old friend."

Nick started, emotions churning under his exhausted systems. "Two years?" he said. Deacon made a noise of conformation.

"Welcome to the year of 2289, bud! Diamond City is a police state, Goodneighbor is back to complete and total anarchy, and just about everywhere else is some degree of hell-on-earth - and we owe it all to our mutual sociopathic murder-friend." Deacon's voice was as cheerful as ever, but there was a undercurrent of cynicism that Nick didn't recognize in the man. Something had changed for Deacon personally in the past two years. It seemed for a moment that Deacon wasn't going to elaborate, but thankfully Danse took over for him.

"Deacon told me that you and Nate were close before he turned on you," He said as he messed with Nick's insides. "It is my understanding that he murdered someone one who was… friends… with you?" Nick could hear the many, many levels of discomfort this man had over talking to a synth. Guess you could take the man out of the Brotherhood… Deacon must have given Danse a crash course on synth rights, since the former Paladin was at least willing to operate on him and explain the bare minimum of what was going on. What a member of the Railroad was doing hanging around with a Brotherhood soldier - ex or not - was it's own mystery.

"He did," Nick answered the question posed to him. "Piper. A reporter from Diamond City. They'd been dating for a couple months, but I guess he got bored and decided that a break up was just too much work, so he killed her." Nick's voice was spitting with malice by the time he reached the end of his story. He felt the hands inside of him twitch as he spoke - an emotional response.

"I'm… sorry for your loss," Danse said, clearly uncomfortable with a synth expressing emotions. "Nate has ruined a lot of lives, and ended even more prematurely."

"The guy's a downright bastard," Deacon agreed.

Danse continued. "Deacon informed me of your history with Nate because he believes it may make you a valuable asset-"

"Ally," Deacon corrected.

"-to our cause."

"And what cause would that be?" Nick asked.

"We're gonna take that Sole Surviving fuck down," Deacon said darkly. Something about the man had definitely changed, there wasn't a doubt about it left in Nick's head.

"Ambitious goals," Nick raised a brow. "Can't imagine how much use a barely-functioning old synth will be, but if there's any way I can help you can count me in. I made a promise to Piper that I intend to keep."

"Excellent," Danse said. He twisted something in Nick's spine and his eyes flickered to life. His vision was duller than before, almost like he was looking through an old terminal rendering, but at least he could see again. Power began flooding his limbs and Nick felt energy surge through him unabated. "Is this sufficient for basic functions?" Danse asked.

"Might be a bit much, actually" Nick admitted, testing out a flick of his wrist. The motion was faster than he wanted. Danse nodded and adjusted the settings. While he worked Nick thought of something. "Stop me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't we be better off teaming up with one of your two 'connections' to take down Nate?"

The pair shared an uncomfortable look between the two and Nick felt his heart (or whatever counted for it) sink.

"If it's the Brotherhood you are referring to," Danse said, voice low, "then that would be impossible. They're gone."

"Same with the Railroad," Deacon said, looking away from them both.

"Gone?" Nick asked. He flinched as one of his wires was snipped. "What do you mean gone?" After the entrance they made into the Commonwealth, Nick didn't exactly expect the Brotherhood to just pack up and leave quietly. And as for the Railroad…

"We mean gone, Nick," Deacon said. "As in gone, destroyed, deceased, dead, departed, no longer in existence." Nick stared at Deacon. There was a barely noticeable tremor in the man's arms; Deacon wasn't the type to get emotional, but that didn't mean he didn't have emotions. As far as Nick could tell, the Railroad had been Deacon's family, likely the only people who actually knew him as himself and not as some alternate persona.

"Jesus. I'm sorry," Nick said to the man. Deacon shrugged.

"The Brotherhood was eliminated as well - taken down from the inside by Nate," Danse continued as he finished up the adjustments to Nick's new core. "He was granted an honorary emergency Knighthood in the hope that he would assist us in infiltrating and neutralizing the Institute."

"An honorary Knighthood?" Nick said skeptically. "I've never known the Brotherhood to be particularly liberal with their granting of titles."

"He had… assistance in acquiring Brotherhood support," Danse said, voice thick with an attempt to hide his guilt. "Among the ranks of the Brotherhood there was a synth infiltrator - Nate befriended him- it- and used the connection to get closer to Elder Maxon." Nick felt the excess of power ebb and sighed, allowing the ex-soldier to replace his chest plate before sitting up.

"Mhmm," Deacon hummed as Danse finished his story. "And are you going to mention the fact that the 'synth infiltrator' was you, or should I?"

Nick had to admit - he hadn't seen that coming. He looked back at the ex-Paladin, whose teeth were grit and eyes firmly planted on the ground. He would have never guessed the man was a synth - judging by the look on his face, neither had he. Being the way Nick was had its drawbacks, but at least he never had any delusions about his synthetic nature. This poor bastard must have just found out recently.

"I was unaware of my status at the time," Danse said, confirming Nick's theory. "However, that is no excuse. Subconsciously, I must have been aware that my actions would lead to the destruction of the Brotherhood. After I avenge them, I fully intend to face the consequences of my betrayal - unintentional though it was."

"Oh come on, man," Deacon whined with a roll of his eyes, "you're not some kind of Institute sleeper-agent. Nate tricked you. He tricked all of us."

"That's one theory," Danse said, packing up his tools. Nick threw his legs over the side of the table and tried his hand at standing up, thankful that despite lacking a shirt he still had his pants, which made the process far more dignified than it would have been without them. His internal gyroscope was offline, giving him a sense of synthetic vertigo. He kept a hand on the workbench, adjusting to his new stage of being.

"How long is the fusion core going to last?" Nick asked. He was under no delusion about the state of his body. Fusion cores were more like batteries than the self-sustaining generator his previous core was - the average core could keep power armor going for about half a day at most. Nick was far less energy-intensive than a suit of armor, but there was no telling how his systems would react in the long term. His life expectancy had at least been cut in half, likely more than that.

"It's hard to say," Danse told him. "It can be replaced, and will most likely have to be changed out rather frequently.”

“How frequently are we talkin’ here?” Nick asked.

“There’s no way of knowing for sure,” Danse admitted. “Because you weren't designed for fusion power there's no way to gage the charge without removing it."

"Fantastic," Nick grumbled, already imagining a life of constant, unpredictable shut downs. Still, better than being dead, he supposed.

Danse handed Nick a shirt and his coat and hat, all of which he gratefully accepted. Covering up his new chest wound was a start to feeling back to his normal self, but one glance at his face in Deacon’s sunglasses said that he was going to have to take up wearing scarves if he ever wanted to feel a shred of dignity again.

“So,” Nick said, still rubbing at the metal now taking up the space where his jaw should be. “What’s the plan for putin’ Nate on ice?”

Deacon smiled, as though laughing at his own internal joke. “Heh. Ice. Funny you should mention that…”

#fallout 4 #fo4 #fallout 4 fanfic #fo4 fanfic #fallout 4 fanfiction #fo4 fanfiction #Nick Valentine #fallout 4 companions #the black widow's waltz #his time in the commonwealth

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wicked-game-black-butler · 4 years ago

Text

The Heart of the Sea

June 1, 1922

He hadn’t intended on going to the beach that night.

Even before the dark clouds encroached on the horizon, he had known a storm was coming. His aching shoulder and the hint of sweetness on the brine of the ocean air had been sign enough. Bard shifted in his chair, the rickety thing creaking as he leaned forward to snatch another cigarette from his tin. It closed with a snap, followed by a promising flick and sizzle, the pristinely white tip of his smoke giving way to the molten glow of flame, leaving a stub of ash in its wake.

He sighed deeply and propped his feet on the small tabletop while he leaned back, his eyes closing with satisfaction as the kick of nicotine pacified the itch that had been pestering him the past half hour. The panes rattled with another hard gust of wind. He cracked his eyes open, casting the long sheets of glass an indifferent side-glance. The storm must be working up to quite the gale if it was shaking the transparent barrier. Bard stood, shuffling with disinterest toward the viewing area, his cheeks caving as he took in a long drag and stared past his reflection into the consuming darkness. Even the moon had been obscured. The rain would follow soon behind.

“It’s gonna be a bloody long night,” he huffed, a cloud of smoke billowing from his lips as he rubbed the back of his neck and cast a weary look over toward the telegraph machine on his desk.

He had meant to see to the internal maintenance of the lighthouse tonight, but those hopes had soon dwindled when the storm set in as night had fallen. Instead, his hours would be spent in quiet, attentive watchfulness, alone, venturing periodically from the lantern room to the observation windows down below, eyes peeled for any signs of distress, ears trained for the tell-tale beeping of the telegraph.

Bard snorted sardonically at the thought. If only his watch would be so interesting. In reality such a night meant he would be holed inside the beacon, reading his already well worn copy of The Enormous Room and smoking until the first signs of dawn. Maybe sketching, if it took his fancy. It probably wouldn’t. Not much seemed to hold his fancy these days. Each day came and went with the same monotony, blurring together like watercolor. It was an easy thing to do out here, lose track of time. Especially when often, his only company was himself, his haunted memories, and the ever present roar of the tide.

A roar that he could hear right now, even over the howling of the wind and the rattling of the lantern room windows. Though, as the lens rotated, blindingly illuminating his features, it wasn’t the crashing of the waves against the nearby cliffs that caught his interest. He cast an inquisitive glance over to the telegraph, but it sat still and silent as it had been all night. His ears strained as he tried to make out the sound, but there was nothing, only the tide and the wind.

“You’re spendin’ way too much time all by your lonesome,” Bard chided, running his fingers through his golden-blond hair. “All the quiet’s drivin’ you to hear things.”

He tapped the ash from his cigarette, pinching the remaining stub before taking one last deep drag in a feeble attempt to rid himself of the nagging feeling in his gut. However, a moment later he froze mid-breath, his heart pounding in his chest as he heard...he heard—

He couldn't describe the sound, for it wasn't one at all, like the pause between notes or the final breath before firing a shot. It pulled every fiber in his body taut, leaving him waiting in expectation, the silence speaking without words--a call. Shaking his head, he extinguished his cigarette in the ashtray in frustration, any soothing effect of the gasper now gone. Instead, he paced to and fro, anxious and jittery. What was wrong with him?

Running a trembling hand through his hair, his chest heaved with a heavy sigh as he muttered to himself, “You’re just antsy, is all. Been pissing down for the past three days, so you’ve not been nowhere ‘cept your cabin and the lighthouse.”

“Yeah,” he added, snatching his navy blue uniform jacket from where it was draped on the back of his chair, reassuring himself as he donned it, “A little fresh air’s all you need. You’ll go mad if you have to stay cooped up 'ere all night.”

The scent of sulfur burnt his nose as he struck a match to light his lamp. He briefly made a mental note it needed some oil when the knob gave a grating whine as he turned it, coaxing the eager flame to life. Bard extinguished the match and dropped it in the ashtray as well and made for the stairs. A jaunt down to the beach wouldn’t hurt. He would be gone ten minutes, twenty at most. Just a little time to breathe in that mind-clearing ocean air and stretch his legs was all he needed.

He couldn’t have been more wrong.

The moment he stepped from the shelter of the lighthouse, he halted, craning his neck to loosen the tension that had suddenly pulled them tighter. He gave a sharp exhale, his free hand clenching and relaxing as he tried to dispel the need that wound his insides like a vice. It was worse than any craving. Agitating and insistent, it clawed at him like an itch he couldn’t quite reach. He ran frantic fingers through his hair, grasping for any solution which might bring relief. The beach, he realized, eyes widening with epiphany, if he could only get to the beach.

It was that thought that led him from his station, crossing the lawn with long strides as he headed straight for the worn dirt path that weaved down the steep hillside. The wind struck his cheeks, harsh and unforgiving, but he paid it no mind, pressing forward as the familiar dirt path gave way to soft sand. His footing was sure despite the give of the ground beneath his polished shoes. Every dune, every crag and crevice had been committed to memory over the years until the landscape became as familiar to him as his own body. He could navigate this path while asleep, which was almost how he felt at the moment.

His movements were slow, his mind sluggish, his feet guiding him with their own purpose as he pressed on. To what destination, he didn’t know, but he was spurned forward by a yearning he’d not felt in years. Wherever he was headed, he needed it desperately.

Scaling one of the dunes, his foot caught on a root that had been freshly exposed by the wind and he stumbled, crashing to his hands and knees. He hissed as he braced himself, pain shooting through his left shoulder, radiating from the gunshot wound that would never fully heal. A great clap of thunder boomed as he staggered to his feet and, amidst all the chaos, a still, small voice questioned, why are you here?

Somewhere deep in the recesses of his mind, he knew he should heed the warning. It wasn't safe. He should turn back. However, the call continued, persistent as it was tantalizing, luring him—and he was powerless to resist.

Spray from the roiling waves splattered across his face as a streak of lightning shot across the sky, briefly illuminating the cavern of Lover’s Cove. He slowly wiped the droplets from his stubbled cheek with a rough hand, paying no mind to the crashing of the waves against the shore and the ever mounting rolling of thunder as the storm began blowing in with full fury. Rather, his attention was trained on the darting path of the beam of lamplight over the tan sand as he tried to catch sight of exactly what was calling him. Whatever it was, he thought, his stomach tensing with eager anticipation, he was close. He could feel it.

That was when he heard it. Over the deafening howl of the wind, the pounding of the waves, and the rumbling of the oncoming storm, a sound echoed in his ears, all encompassing, as if he were surrounded only by the quiet shelter of the lighthouse...a hum. It was a rich, smooth, mellifluous baritone sound that stirred his heart. The unrecognizable tune was tainted with melancholy that spoke of deep loneliness, ominous and alluring.

So caught up in the melodious sound, it took him a moment to regain his voice when he first caught glimpse of him. As the beam of his lamplight trailed along the shore, its garish light came to rest on the figure of a man. Bard halted, breath hitching, his heart seizing at the sight. The man stood knee deep in the tumultuously dangerous waters, facing away from Bard, staring at something unseen across the waves. His loose brown trousers were soaked and clung to his legs—although he had rolled them up above his knees—and his white dress shirt fluttered in the tempestuous wind. Bard swallowed thickly, hum still clearly sounding in his ears as his gaze trailed the man’s frame from the blowing of his onyx locks, down his athletically built torso to the pert mound of his rear, to the muscular pillars of his legs. Even without the man facing him, he knew he would be breathtaking.

He blinked, shaking his head, a more logical concern surfacing. What was that bloke doing? He was going to get himself killed!

With that thought, Bard raised his hand, cupping his mouth as he shouted to the gentleman a mere fifteen feet from him, “Hey! Get away from there!”

The man turned slowly toward him, like he had not heard him clearly at first. As he did, Bard’s breath caught in his chest. Long, dark fringes fluttered in the wind, outlining a sharp, narrow face which contrasted nicely to the full softness of his lips and the entrancing depths of his strangely hued eyes. The humming grew louder, drowning out the oppressing noise of the storm.

“Hey!” Bard called again, though his voice was weaker this time as he took several steps toward the man, “It’s not safe! Step back!”

His arms felt heavy as he waved them, trying to usher the man back to the safety of the beach. However, despite clearly being able to see Bard, the man did not move. He remained resolutely still, undeterred by the sizable wave that crashed into his side, immediately soaking him through.

Bard growled at the man’s blatant disregard and stomped forward. Handsome or not, he wasn’t afraid to get rough with the man if it meant saving his life.

“Don’t be a bloody idiot! Get back! The tide’ll get ya!”

It wasn’t until Bard made it to about five feet within the man that he moved, though his overall demeanor did not change. He walked up the shore, calm and leisurely, as if he were out for a pleasant Sunday afternoon stroll, stopping just short of the fanning edges of the waves. Turning on his heel to face Bard once more, he clasped his hands behind his back, a subtle smile on his lips, a playful defiance dancing in his gaze as pelting drops of rain began to fall.

Bard wanted to scream. What was wrong with this guy? Did he think this was a game? Didn’t he realize how much danger he was in?

Despite his frustration, he couldn’t bring himself to lash out at the man, something in the soothing humming dampening his retaliation. Instead, he approached, ignoring the stirrings of hungry curiosity within him as he reached out and rested his hand on the man’s muscular shoulder. His skin was warm despite the chill of the soaked clothes that clung to his frame.

“Come now, there’s a storm bearing right down on us. It isn’t safe to be out here,” he said, his sky-blue gaze capturing the man’s russet one as he added, “Let’s get you home.”

The man’s smile widened at his words, his expression bordering on affectionate as he answered, “That sounds nice.”

Bard’s heart stuttered at the sound. The man’s voice was as smooth as the honeyed, dulcet tones of the hum that still echoed in his mind. Something about the timbre sent a shiver down his back and straight to his cock.

Bard cleared his throat in a vain attempt to sort his thoughts. If only he could somehow drown out that intoxicating hum.

“Where...where do you live?” he asked.

The man flashed Bard a brilliantly white smile. “Here.”

A wave crashed along the shore beside them, the sound jarring and resonating like it had been struck with Poseidon’s fist. Bard’s face was doused in water, the cool spray splattering over him, soaking straight through his jacket. He sputtered and clamped his eyes shut as they burned. Reaching up, he roughly wiped them and blinked, lashes still damp. He glanced up and his heart nearly stopped, a noxious unease settling in his stomach as if he had been jolted from a particularly horrifying dream.

His gaze followed the trail of the lantern’s light, searching. But he was alone, except for the rain, sand, and sea.

The man was gone.

And so was the humming.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Part one of seven

I just wanted to take a moment to give a huge shout out and thank you to @plague-of-insomnia for being so gracious and working with me as a beta reader. I honestly couldn’t have done this without them. They’ve been wonderful to work with and have already taught me so much. I cannot praise them enough! Thank you, thank you, thank you! <3

If you aren’t familiar with their work, I highly recommend you check out their fics. I’m currently reading Where Demons Hide and, even though I’m only one chapter in, I’m hooked! Head on over to their AO3 or blog and show them some love!

https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiealeman/pseuds/plague%20of%20insomnia

#fanfiction #kuroshitsuji #black butler #sebastian michaelis #baldroy #sebard #siren #lighthouse keeper #au

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nadziejastar · 4 years ago

Link

That moment, a ball rolled up and bumped into Roxas’ foot.

“Scuse me!” A boy came running up.

“Hayner, not again!”

Behind him, a girl came running, and then following her, a slightly chubby boy.

Roxas picked up the ball at his feet, and threw the ball back to the boy and his friends. The three dipped their heads in a bow, and ran away again with the ball.

“—They’d be around the same age as me, wouldn’t they,” Roxas muttered.

“Huh?” Axel asked, and Roxas wondered if he hadn’t caught it.

“Nothing.” Roxas shook his head slightly and started walking. Roxas turned to watch the pigeons in front take flight.

Thank you for another interesting video. The Youtuber said that RAX just eating ice cream didn’t really make them feel that close. He said it could have worked if being in the organization seemed REALLY that bad and ice cream was the only thing they had in life to give them pleasure. I actually did get the impression that ice cream was all they had. But I think the little short story “Roxas: Somewhere in Time” did a better job showing just how bored and unhappy Roxas was with the monotony of his organization life. That’s how I think they originally intended the Axel/Roxas friendship to be before they came up with the idea of Xion.

“I wonder whether it’d be fun to fly like that.”

“—It’d be fun, I guess,” Axel replied, taking a bite of his ice cream.

“I wonder how long it’ll be okay to do this.”

Axel stared at Roxas. Maybe Roxas is feeling the build up of doing the same kind of missions day after day. Every day, Roxas was given the same mission, to subdue heartless. But it couldn’t be helped, Axel thought. Roxas was special. To the Organisation, and to Axel. Just like how the Organisation can’t let Roxas know anything, I don’t think I’ll let him know anything myself.

This is betraying Roxas, isn’t it?

“We might not always be able to be together,” murmured Axel, without realising.

“Huh?” This time, it was Roxas who looked at Axel.

“What’s with you, don’t make such a scary face.”

Axel turned his face away from Roxas, and bit his ice cream. Roxas didn’t know of Axel’s unrest. And, Axel didn’t know of Roxas’ unrest.

This story takes place the day after Axel comes back from Castle Oblivion. Roxas sees Hayner, Pence, and Olette playing ball and then wonders just how long he can keep doing what he’s doing. He’d rather play with them–kids his own age. Axel knew that. He knew Roxas was unhappy. He was lying to Roxas so he wouldn’t leave. He knew if Roxas had the choice, he would leave him. Their friendship was not strong enough for Roxas to stick around just for him. Axel ALSO knew that their arrangement was living on borrowed time. He and Roxas simply weren’t gonna be together forever and there would come a time when they’d go their separate ways. They friendship wasn’t super cuddly or cutesy, nor was it particularly intimate. But it was interesting.

I actually should not exist. I was just a doll. I chose to disappear because I did not want to become what Xemnas had planned for me. Therefore, I had no regrets. I remember disappearing in front of the clock tower while Roxas held me. Roxas also went to sleep afterwards, leaving Axel alone. The person who probably suffered the most was Axel. Because he’s the one who forgot the most. Being forgotten and forgetting, they’re both painful. I am a bit uncertain whether I should actually exist or not. Sometimes, even if for a fleeting moment, I feel that I truly should not be here.

To address his point about Xion: I was honestly fine with the fact that Xion felt like a living plot device and that she felt like just another version of Kairi. I don’t think she was supposed to feel distinct from Kairi. That defeats the point. He also said that she needed more inner conflict about helping Sora wake up because it made her death scene less effective. I disagree with all this.

I think Xion wasn’t supposed to feel completely “human”. Because she’s wasn’t. She was the embodiment of Sora’s memories of Kairi. She’s not really supposed to exist. Even in her Character File story, she doesn’t sound convinced she should really exist. When she disappeared, it was supposed to feel right and natural, like she went back to where she truly belonged. After beating the game, you weren’t supposed to come away with the idea that she was supposed to return and live happily ever after with Roxas and Axel. And that’s how I felt. I was 100% okay with her disappearing at the end and never coming back. Her death scene was beautiful, IMO. When she came back in KH3, it felt tacky and cheapened her whole character.

I completely agree that it is very disappointing that we never got to see the other members’ backstories. KHUX is NOT the right place to explore Marluxia’s past IMO. But I don’t think Days was the right place, either. Many of the members died too quickly (though more could have been done with Demyx and Luxord). I think BBSV2 was meant to be that game he wanted 358/2 Days to be. I’m sure that the Days timeline would be covered in BBSV2. But 358/2 Days was supposed to be about Roxas’s “blank period” in the organization. So, I am okay with it focusing on mostly RAX and, to a lesser extent, Axel/Saix. The rest of the organization’s past required a separate game to do them justice.

“Let’s eat some ice cream. We are best friends. You are right. Ha-ha-ha.”

I loved the part where he did the robot voice making fun of the dialogue in the game. There’s a lot of truth to how forced it was.

“The biggest problem with the friendship between Roxas, Axel, and Xion is how stilted it feels. More often than not, the game just TELLS us what the characters are feeling, instead of letting it be revealed through their actions. We’re continually TOLD how great the trio’s friendship is, yet the only evidence of that is them smiling while eating ice cream.”

This is a quote from the video. I can understand why he feels like this. And to an extent, I agree. But I only agree because I think most of the fandom fundamentally missed what Nomura was trying to do with the sea-salt trio and KH3 didn’t even bother to follow through with the original idea.

“Well, Roxas—why do the three of us eat ice cream together every day in that place?”

“….Huh?” I don’t really get what he’s trying to say.

“I have no use in doing that either, do I? If you think about it, it’s troublesome, right? Do you want me to tell you?”

Roxas looked at Axel, and waited for his answer.

“It’s because we are best friends.”

At least for Axel, the game DIDN’T tell you what he was really feeling. You DID have to look at his actions and read between the lines. That’s what I loved so much about the story.

In KH2, Axel and Roxas were so-called “best friends”. And this is the reason the story of 358/2 Days pushes the idea of “best friends” in such a forced and artificial way. Even in Days, Axel first called them best friends, not spontaneously, but in response to being incredibly hurt by Saix and also from remembering some specific incident from his past.

He wasn’t really supposed to be “best friends” with Roxas and Xion, though (cute as they are). I mean, he’s a GROWN ASS MAN, for crying out loud. Naturally, it’s embarrassing for an adult to be best friends with two kids.

Pathik: The fourth chakra is located in the heart. It deals with love and is blocked by grief. Lay all your grief out in front of you. You have indeed felt a great loss. But love is a form of energy, and it swirls all around us. The Air Nomads’ love for you has not left this world. It is still inside of your heart, and is reborn in the form of new love.

I’m sure a lot of KH fans have seen ATLA. The way Axel/Roxas/Xion was handled really reminded me of how Aang/Katara was handled. I think the audience misunderstood the Aang/Katara relationship and saw it more cutesy and simplistically than it was intended to be. Aang did genuinely love her, just as Axel genuinely loved Roxas and Xion. But at the same time, he was completely obsessed with her, just as Axel was obsessed with Roxas in KH2. Aang was just a kid. In his mind, Katara was his “forever girl” and they were gonna be together forever and ever. He was quite pushy about it at times, just as Axel is quite pushy about how Roxas is his “best friend” in KH2.

Aang: On stage, when you said I was just like a … brother to you, and you didn’t have feelings for me.

Katara: I didn’t say that. An actor said that.

Aang: But it’s true, isn’t it? We kissed at the Invasion, and I thought we were gonna be together. But we’re not.

Katara: Aang, I don’t know.

Aang was infatuated with her from the moment he laid eyes on her. On top of that, he met her just after he ran away from home to avoid his entire life changing and losing everything he knew and everyone he loved. And he wakes up in her arms to find out that all his people were completely wiped out because of that decision. He was all alone in the world and deeply traumatized. And he clung to Katara to avoid facing that loss. Axel also lost everything, including the one person he couldn’t bear to lose. Roxas and Xion were the first people he got close to after his life changed. And he starts realizing how much Saix changed and he can’t cope with the enormity of that loss. He hides all of those feelings, and later becomes obsessed with Roxas to avoid facing them. Very similar idea.

Aang loves Katara but not in the way he should, as it was based on replacing the absence of the Air Nomads, and Guru Pathik believes he never learned what it meant to “let go” of her.

Aang and Katara are not on the same wavelength as there are many times where Katara attempts to shelter him from the harsh realities of life - which creates a chasm between them. Katara discovers she can communicate so much more easily with Zuko, and he with her.

Aang finds out that some of his people were alive all along and just hiding; living their lives for the past hundred years without him. His love for Katara grew from the love of the Air Nomads, so what if his people came back? Would he realize that his love for her was not as genuine as he once thought?

--ATLA cancelled Book 4 plot

Katara never seemed to reciprocate Aang’s romantic feelings. Though only a few years older than him, she was VERY mature for her age. She felt more like his mom than his girlfriend, just like how Axel seemed more like R&X’s dad than their best friend. There was a chasm between them. Katara couldn’t communicate with Aang on her level or confide in him about her own pain, just like how Axel could never communicate with R&X on his level or confide in them about his pain. They were too immature. Aang relied on Katara and took her for granted, and Roxas took Axel for granted. When Aang lost Appa he took all his anger out on Katara, just like how Roxas took all his anger over losing Xion out on Axel.

Aang and Katara had a very wonderful and realistic dynamic, which I liked a lot. It just…wasn’t believable as romantic. And Axel/Xion/Roxas had a very interesting dynamic I liked a lot. But they were just not believable as best friends. They weren’t on the same wavelength and Axel sheltered Roxas from the harsh realities of life, creating a chasm between them. Aang needed to find out his people were still alive in order to cope with his pain and “let go” of Katara. Axel needed to find out that the Isa he remembered was still alive in order to cope with his grief and let go of Roxas.

“He seemed a tiny bit startled as he scanned the room, and his eyes fell on a particular drawing. “This is…me? And that guy Axel…?”

It was Naminé’s drawing of Roxas and Axel, standing side by side.

“You’re best friends,” she said. Right. Those two had been friends—well, Axel believed they still were. Roxas was his only friend and his best. And Axel was the same for Roxas—probably.

I like this passage from the novel. It’s the very first time Axel and Roxas being best friends is mentioned in KH2. Roxas is Axel’s best and only friend. And Naminé figures that Roxas feels the same way… well, probably. What made Axel such an interesting character was that his feelings toward Roxas were one-sided, just like Aang’s feelings for Katara were one-sided. Seeing Roxas again was the only thing that gave his life any meaning. The thing is, Roxas didn’t feel the same way. He cared about Axel, yes. But Roxas would have been VERY uncomfortable and creeped out by Axel’s obsession with him. This is a big problem that NEVER gets addressed or resolved.

On the sofa opposite him, Naminé spoke up instead. “Sora and Riku are best friends.”

Axel’s eyes crinkled as he remembered his own best friend—the only friend he’d ever had, in fact.

“If your best friend goes away, you’re sad, and if you get to be with them, you’re happy,” Naminé added. “Isn’t that how it is, Axel?”

“…That’s about the size of it.” Axel nodded and sat down on the remaining empty sofa, staring at the sea-salt ice cream he held.

“So you are capable of sincerity,” said Riku.

Axel only shrugged at the jab and finished his ice cream pop.

Like Aang, Axel suffered a great loss; the loss of someone he couldn’t bear to lose. And he never dealt with it. Why does Axel feel the need to assert over and over that Roxas is his only friend and his best friend? Because he was using Roxas as a replacement for Isa–his actual best friend. Axel was desperate to fill the void of that intimacy with another best friend.

“Finally awake, huh?”

Roxas looked up. “Axel…”

His only good friend—his best friend—Axel had arrived with two sea-salt ice cream pops.

Roxas is pretty casual saying goodbye in KH2FM. He’s just like like “take care, okay?” He’s smiling and not visibly emotional or anything like he was with Xion. Axel, on the other hand, is reduced to tears. He is most definitely NOT okay. IMO, the problem was not that 358/2 Days didn’t do a good enough job making Axel/Xion/Roxas feel like best friends. The problem is that KH3 still went with the notion that they ever really were best friends to begin with.

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lovemesomerafael · 5 years ago

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EL AMOR TODO LO PUEDE Chapter 21: Playing Charades

GIF Source: All-things-raul-esparza

Read Previous Chapters 1-20

If Mazie Anderson was having difficulty handling her emotions after being raped, she did a good job hiding it. Nonetheless, she was entitled to the same support any victim received. Which meant that, when she insisted on attending the arraignment of the man who’d attacked her, Laura went with her. The arraignment docket dragged on and on, with little to break the monotony. Eventually, however, the case was called and a junior A.D.A. Laura hadn’t met stood to request a very high bail. Mazie looked the rapist full in the face and sat calmly as he was arraigned. Bail was set at $100,000, which meant he couldn’t bond out for less than $10,000. It was enough.

Laura put Mazie in a cab and headed to work herself. Since becoming a cop, she’d always hated court days because she felt like she was missing out on the action. Today was no different.

When she got to the station, Fin and Carisi had a goofy-looking guy in the box who appeared to be in his mid-thirties. He was pale and sweating, but that seemed to be his normal state, because he wasn’t frightened. He was mad. As Laura stepped up to the window into the interrogation room, she could hear him spewing venomous misogynistic slogans that sounded like they came straight off the internet. Which they did. “Involuntary Celibates,” or “Incels” as they liked to call themselves, had possibly been created by the internet. They were guys who couldn’t figure out how to relate to women and had convinced one another that all women were part of a conspiracy to deny them attention, love, and especially sex. They spent all their time on hate-filled websites with like-minded idiots, regurgitating the idea that women owed them all of those things, without them needing to be worthy of any of them. They repeated it to each other until they believed it.

Lieutenant Benson and A.D.A. Barba stood at the window, watching and listening. Laura figured that, given their last conversation, it was the better part of valor not to stand next to Barba. She took a place on the other side of Benson.

“Incels. I love these guys,” Laura said by way of greeting.

“You love these guys?” Benson asked, raising an eyebrow.

“They’re so easy to break. All you have to do is give them what they want, and they freak out.”

Barba kept his eyes on the interrogation as he muttered, “Define ‘give them what they want’.”

Amanda Rollins stepped up at that moment. “Act interested. They don’t know what to do with a girl who says yes, so they fall all over themselves and give you everything.”

“Want us to give it a try?” Laura looked hopefully at Benson who, in turn, looked at Barba.

“We don’t really need to listen to any more of this crap, do we?” She asked him.

“We’ve got plenty to show motive. But we’re nowhere near a confession. It couldn’t hurt.”

Olivia nodded. “OK. You’re up.”

Laura turned to Amanda. “You or me?”

Rollins held up a fist. “Loser goes in.”

Laura put up her fist, they shook three times, and Laura threw paper. Amanda threw scissors.

“Damn it,” Laura laughed, not really disappointed. This could be fun. “Help me get ready.”

When Parker and Rollins returned to the interrogation room door, Laura had removed almost all her makeup. She had on just enough mascara to highlight her large, brown eyes. Instead of the chic suit she’d spent too much on, she wore a simple white sleeveless turtleneck, a skirt that came to mid-thigh and swung around her legs as she moved, and low heels. Her hair was down, in a simple style with the front pulled to one side in a barrette, and she was wearing glasses. The changes were subtle, but the effect was dramatic. She looked vulnerable and insecure as she stood there clutching a clipboard to her chest. Barba instantly wanted to protect her.

“OK,” Olivia smiled. “I’ll go pull Fin and Carisi out.”

“Don’t let ‘em clean off the table,” Rollins suggested.

“I know what you have in mind. I’ve already briefed Fin.”

As Benson went into the interrogation room, Laura turned to Barba, addressing him directly for the first time since she’d gone to his office the night before. Her eyes were full of mischief, something he suspected was not unusual with her.

“I could use your help.”

“What do you need?”

“Remember what we talked about yesterday? Could you give me time to bond with him a little bit, and then come in and do your thing?”

“Now you want me to talk down to you,” he said drily.

“Might as well use your powers for good.” She smiled up at him.

Jesus y Santa Maria. For a moment, he was dumbstruck as he felt the full impact of the impish, conspiratorial expression she beamed at him. What would it be like to share plots and secrets with this woman? Barba’s dislike of Peter Stone doubled in that moment.

“Fin, Carisi, I need you to come with me. We have a situation,” Benson ordered, keeping her hand on the doorknob as though in a hurry.”

“We need to finish in here,” Carisi complained, exchanging a surprised look with Fin.

“Parker can finish this,” Olivia said.

Fin’s face fell. “Parker. Is gonna finish our interrogation.”

“Detective…” Olivia’s voice held a note of warning.

They shrugged and stood, moving toward the door. Laura walked in past Olivia, clutching her clipboard and standing with her shoulders hunched, as though uncomfortable. Carisi and Fin stood and moved toward the door. Fin gestured toward the table, strewn with soda cans and crumpled papers.

“You can get this stuff for us, right, Laura?” He didn’t wait for an answer.

She stepped to the table as the door closed behind her.

“I’m Laura Parker,” she said, holding out her hand to the suspect. “I’m one of the detectives here.”

He awkwardly touched her hand, but barely grasped it. She clasped his softly but definitely, holding it just long enough for him to register the feeling of her hand in his. “Yeah, I’ll just call you Stacy,” he sneered.

Laura blinked at him as she took the chair closest to him. “It’s… It’s Laura.”

He guffawed and rolled his eyes. “Oh, brother.”

“You’re Brian Cudahay, I know. Is it all right if I call you Brian?”

“Whatever.”

She smiled as though he’d granted her a favor.

“Before we start, are you OK? Do you need anything?” Her demeanor was kind and interested.

“I could use a blow job,” he leered.

She looked slightly uncomfortable and turned her eyes to the table. “Maybe later,” she muttered shyly. “Let’s do the paperwork first.”

That threw him. She was supposed to have turned red and bit his head off. “Weren’t you supposed to clean this stuff up, detective?” He tried again to insult her.

She stood and began placidly picking up the mess from the table, tossing it in the trash. As intended, he watched her legs and backside as she moved around, deliberately giving him plenty of opportunity.

“At some point those guys will figure out I can do more than clean up after them,” she remarked.

Rafael, watching through the one-way glass, rolled his eyes. This Cinderella act is never going to work. But those legs might.

“So, Brian, another piece of crucial police work they let me do is fill out these forms. Can I ask you some questions?”

For the next twenty minutes, Laura wrote useless information on a form she’d quickly printed out before coming into the room. It was actually used for new NYPD employees to sign up for health insurance, but it gave her the opportunity to be fascinated by every detail of Brian Cudahay’s personal information, and begin to draw him out. Few people can resist talking about themselves to someone who appears to find them enthralling, and this guy was a frustrated virgin being played by a very experienced flirt who happened to be adorable.

Barba could feel Cudahay thawing toward her, then beginning to melt. Cudahay didn’t even notice when she completely abandoned the charade of filling out the forms. Soon, he was telling her about his ant farm. An ant farm, Laura thought. If this guy wasn’t such a woman-hating piece of shit, he’d actually be kind of cute.

Forty-five minutes in, Cudahay was on his fourth story in which he featured prominently in some heroic role, this time finding a way to repair the milkshake machine at the fast-food place where he worked. Laura hung on every word. Barba smirked as he watched, shaking his head. Poor sucker never stood a chance. I feel for ya’, buddy.

“I think it’s showtime,” Olivia told him. He straightened his jacket and moved to the door. The rest of the team continued to watch Parker carefully weave her web around the clueless Incel.

As Barba assertively threw the door open and strode into the room, Laura sucked in her breath and moved noticeably toward Cudahay. She stammered a bit before standing up so quickly she knocked her pen to the floor. As Barba had expected, she leaned over from the waist to pick it up, giving Cudahay the opportunity to experience her swingy skirt up close as it slid up her thighs. Por Dios, Barba thought. She’s shameless.

“Oh… Mr. Barba… Are you…?”

“I’ll take it from here, Miss Parker,” he said, spreading his leather-bound folder on the table and sitting across from Cudahay in a position that took up as much space as possible. He didn’t look at her even when addressing her.

She awkwardly sat down, muttering so quietly only Cudahay could hear, “It’s Detective Parker.”

Had the squad not known better, they would have joined Cudahay in believing that Barba was the biggest prick in the city and that Parker was terrified of him.

“I’m A.D.A. Rafael Barba. I just need to ask you a couple of questions about your attacks on these women,” he arrogantly tossed a set of photographs across the table.

“I didn’t attack anyone,” Cudahay began, puffing out his chest as he took in the new dynamics in the room.

“Normally, I’d be entranced, but I’m due in court. So let’s skip the fairy tales, hmmm?”

“Hey, man-“

Laura put a hand on Cudahay’s arm and looked up at him through her eyelashes as though trying to warn him, or protect him, or something. She was on his side.

“Mr. Barba, I-“

“Miss Parker, please. I don’t have time.”

“Sir, I’m, um… well into questioning the suspect. You really don’t need to stay.”

Barba gave her a look that she never wanted to see for real. Holy shit, but that man could scowl.

“Are you suggesting that you can do my job better than I can?”

“Oh, no, Sir, it’s just that-“

“I’ll tell you what, dickwad,” Cudahay interjected, leaning across the table toward Barba. “Get lost. I don’t have to talk to you. I’m only talking to her.”

“Her.” The single syllable dripped with condescension and appalled amusement, but it was the raised eyebrows coupled with the slightest upturn of his lips that had Laura biting her lip to keep from grinning. He inspected Cudahay as he would something foul he’d just discovered stuck to the bottom of his shoe.

Cudahay seemed to think he’d won a point. He sat straighter in his chair and lifted his chin. Laura mirrored his posture, moving yet closer to him. It’s us against him, she silently signaled to her new protector, Brian.

Barba’s posture and expression as he pointedly closed his folder were half disappointment, half disbelief at the stupidity of some inferior people. It was a masterful performance that Laura thought had probably been perfected over years of doing the same thing to signal that some plea deal was too idiotic to even consider.

“Very well,” he said quietly and with careful enunciation. “Miss Parker can take your statement. I’m due in court.”

Laura and Cudahay watched in silence as he swept from the room. As soon as the door closed, Cudahay turned to Laura.

“Are you OK?” He was all solicitous concern.

“I’m, um… I’m…” she faltered, her voice close to breaking.

Outside the room, the whole squad was chuckling.

“Are those actual tears?” Carisi asked with delight.

Barba shook his head yet again. “That woman is not to be trusted.”

“Y’all are pathetic,” Rollins smiled.

Laura knew she had him when Cudahay handed her a crumpled tissue from the pocket of his jeans. She let him comfort her, clumsy and inept, while she leaned on his shoulder.

“Thanks for being so understanding, Brian. I appreciate you being on my side. You must have a lot of girlfriends.”

“There it is,” Fin laughed outside the window.

“See, I woulda gone for the puppy dog eyes right there,” Rollins weighed in. “She loses a couple of style points on that one.”

“I feel bad for the guy. I kinda wanna go in there and rescue him.”

“Carisi, you are too soft hearted for this job,” Amanda told him, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“Actually, Laura,” Cudahay said, trying to find the courage to put his arm around her, “I don’t have a girlfriend. Women don’t really… like me.”

“I don’t believe that,” she responded coyly.

“In fact, a couple of them have been real bi- witches about it.”

With that, the story began to unfold. For an hour, all Laura had to do was look at him with doe eyes and make sympathetic noises while Brian Cudahay confessed to four attacks on women: one more than the NYPD had even linked to him.

The change in Cudahay when Fin came in to arrest him was blood-curdling. That little bitch had just confirmed everything he and his Incel buddies believed about whores using sex to get whatever they wanted and denying him his rightful share. The noxious, vindictive things he said to and about Parker were nothing new in that room, but Barba made a note to represent the People personally at Cudahay’s bail hearing. Best if he didn’t have the opportunity to go looking for her for a while.

Laura wasn’t gloating when she came out of the interrogation room. She was glad to have gotten the confessions. Cudahay deserved to go to prison for what he’d done to those women. But she wished this guy would have had the opportunity to go out and meet someone, rather than getting sucked into the self-fulfilling misery of the Incel websites. He could’ve been OK.

Rafael could guess what she was thinking. It was to her credit that she wasn’t taking a victory lap.

“Hey, thanks,” she said to him. “You were amazing. Remind me not to get on your bad side.”

And then she grinned and held out a fist.

Rafael Barba had never fist bumped in his life. No one would ever have thought to suggest such a thing. Rafael Barba did things like shake hands and clink crystal. Yet here she was, grinning and waiting with her fist out. Could she really have that mistaken an impression of him? He didn’t think so. He thought she probably had quite an accurate impression of him. And she was laughing at him. He should have hated it.

He grinned back and bumped her fist.

#law & order svu #law & order: special victims unit #rafael barba #raul esparza #olivia benson #amanda rollins #fin tutuola #sonny carisi

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spoadicdeviance · 5 years ago

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Simple and Clean: The Kingdom Hearts Conundrum

Well it looks like the hype of the release of Kingdom Hearts 3 has calmed down significantly, mostly due to the fact that the game is considered by many to be lackluster. As for myself, I have finished my first playthrough of the game, on proud mode, and done most of the side quests, and while I did like my experience overall, I can’t really refute the criticisms the game has gotten and have to agree that Kingdom Hearts 3 is a disappointment.

I suppose I can’t be too surprised with how the third game in the franchise turned out considering the direction the series has been on since the second game which is actually the third game released but due the number placed at the title the game is still the second game, and I’ll just stop right now before I go on a tangent over the names of each game.

Kingdom Hearts, to me, is a series that captivated me right at the very beginning. I love Kingdom Hearts 1. It’s probably in my Top 20 favorite games of all time. The game managed to encapsulate the whimsy and charm of Disney, while delivering an epic, yet simplistic tale of adventure, light vs darkness, and friendship. The game was fun to play, and the story kept me engaged to the post credits scene. To this day, the game is still one that I would gladly replay and enjoy in its entirety.

Can’t say the same for the other games.

I know, I’m in the minority here on this, but in my opinion, the Kingdom Hearts series peaked with the original game from 2002 while all subsequent games have struggled under lackluster levels, a combat system that favors style over substance, and a convoluted plot with dull, heavy-handed dialog. Heck, a lot of what made Kingdom Hearts 3 such a disappointment to many players can be found in Kingdom Hearts 2 and (to a lesser extent) Birth by Sleep, the two games fans say are the pinnacle of the series.

Now I’m not simply here to say that I like this game over that game end it there. I’m going to explain why I think the Kingdom Hearts 1 (or KH1) is my favorite game in the series while putting into words my disappointment with the later games in the franchise, particularly KH2 and Birth by Sleep. This is going to be a long one so just get yourself comfortable and wait until you finish reading my post before you comment. Let’s go over why Kingdom Hearts 1 is the best in the franchise.

First things first, let’s discuss the levels in these games. The worlds of KH1 are a lot of fun to explore. While not exactly Thief II: The Metal Age complex, they were expansive and navigating them was more than just going from point A to point B. Some of the worlds were almost maze like in their design. There were light puzzle elements to most of the worlds. There was even platforming that, while clunky, added some variety to each level. These different elements made the moment to moment gameplay more than just brawling and therefore playing KH1 never got stale.

It’s quite a different story for the other games. The worlds in the latter games are straight forward in their design. The worlds were usually a singular pathway with the occasional branching off into a mini path, (Enchanted Domain, KH2’s Halloween Town), or central hub area that branches into three-four linear pathways (Beast’s Castle). Just look at the maps of Agrabah from KH1 and KH2 to see the downgrade firsthand.

Not only did the levels lack complex designs, they also had little to no puzzles in them and instead of tweaking the platforming to make it less clunky, the worlds minimize or flat out remove platforming all together. This resulted in worlds where you mostly just walk and fight.

Now these games are not simply all combat. There is something added that is intended to break the monotony, and it’s one of the most out of place aspects of the game; the forced minigames.

To be fair, having minigames isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, even if its put into the main campaign/quest. Games like Jak and Daxter and Donkey Kong 64 have plenty of minigames, however most of them are optional to beat the game. Finishing DK64 requires 50% of golden bananas and minigames give roughly 25% of golden bananas. Final Fantasy IX and Skyward Sword have the player do a minigame, but it lasts for 2-5 minutes out of a 35+ hour campaign and serve more to entice players to do a side quest. Even KH1, the only moments that feel like the game forces you to do a minigame like activity were the race against Rikku at Destiny Islands, the 1 minute of vine surfing at the start of Deep Jungle, and the 2-minute magic carpet escape at the end of Agrabah.

The other Kingdom Hearts games are not as stingy with minigames. As each world progresses, minigame after minigame is dumped on the player. KH2 is one of the worst offenders of this. It doesn’t help that these minigames, unlike the ones from DK64 and Final Fantasy IX, don’t provide a real break from the endless stream of battles. The majority of minigames are just regular fights with an arbitrary stipulation added to it; fight the enemies before the timer runs out, fight the enemies until the timer runs out, fight the enemies while collecting some orbs, fight the enemies while filling the bar onscreen, fight the enemies while depleting the bar onscreen, fight the enemies while escorting a slow ass character. It’s all just more fighting, and it even spills over to some of the bosses as well.

Even the minigames that aren’t centered around fighting, like the rhythm games in Atlantica, are too shallow to provide any sense of fulfillment while playing them. Subsequent Kingdom Hearts games aren’t exempt from this. From Birth by Sleep’s Disney Town world being dedicated to minigames, to the shallow imitation of Nintendogs in Dream Drop Distance, these games also have the same minigame issue that KH2 has.

I have talked about how the games became more combat oriented, however I haven’t really discussed combat itself. This is probably the part where I’ll get the most flack.

Combat in KH1 is a lot of fun and the highlight of the game alongside its story. While basic at first, the fighting gets more complex with the addition of special moves, extra combos, spells, and summons adding variety to the system. Plus, different enemies and bosses a certain attacks and weaknesses. Mashing the x button repeatedly will not get you far, you will have to think and be strategic during battle.

The later games, however, do not have strategy in their combat. Sure, you have different options with drive forms, shot locks, trinity limits, and other sorts of abilities, but at the end of the day, combat from KH2 onward is mostly whaling on the attack button over and over again. The amount of enemies that require certain strategies to defeat them diminish, dodging becomes practically unnecessary, and combat becomes simplified as a whole

Drive forms and trinity limits require little to no strategy when using them. Just activate them and mash buttons while your character zips their way through the battlefield while all sorts of flashy effects fill the screen and enemies go down without a fight. How fortunate that certain abilities could only be unlocked when the player fights with each drive form for a certain amount of time. Forced grinding, what a treat.

The worst offender of this is the context sensitive “reaction commends” that can clear waves of enemies and knock out a huge portion of the bosses’ health. Sometimes it’s the only way to defeat certain bosses. All the player must do during these reaction commands is simple press the triangle button over and over. It’s like a quicktime event only virtually impossible to fail at. There’s a reason why the phrase “press triangle to win” exists.

Magic also got a downgrade as the series progressed. In KH1, magic was not always at your disposal. When your MP got depleted, the player (or companions) would have to use an elixir/ether or land enough melee strikes on enemies to replenish your magic. Despite that, spells and summons were incredibly useful in battle, as well as for environmental puzzles, and the proper use of magic could mean the difference between success and failure.

In the later Kingdom Hearts games, the inverse seemed to be true for magic. Not only were puzzles that require spells became almost nonexistent, removing more variety in level design, but spells and summons became less effective in battle. In KH1, the player could focus on spellcasting, while doing the occasional melee attacks, and get through the game with relative ease. In later games, due to how magic became nerfed, using magic primarily was more of a self-imposed hinderance rather than an alternative style of play. This results in the player using magic almost exclusively for healing. Lucky for those players, MP automatically regenerates after depletion at a relatively quick rate, making ethers useless, which gives the player an unlimited amount of heals.

After KH2’s release, with the emphasis on style over substance, combat in Kingdom Hearts games became more about how to make the player look cool while fighting rather than making the player feel good after the fight.

The reason why it felt good to complete a battle in KH1; the game was actually difficult. Enemies and bosses didn’t just let you pummel them with combos and stylized forms. You had to react to the enemies and the arena you fought in. Even to this day, fights against Clayton, Ursula, Maleficent (human and dragon), possessed Rikku, many more bosses still put me on edge as I fight them.

There was no challenge to the fights in games like KH2 and Birth by Sleep. Since the player has multiples ways to dispose of an enemy, virtually endless amount of heals, and less adversaries that require any strategy outside of “hit me a bunch of times until I no longer exist”, they face little to no challenge while playing latter day Kingdom Hearts games. Bosses that make creative use of the environment you fight are less frequent too. The only way a boss can begin to test the player is when a minigame-like stipulation is added to the fight. Stipulations such as kill all the water clones in this time limit, put the coins in the chest before you can do damage, whatever the heck the Luxord fight was supposed to be, and so on and so forth.

Even then, I still didn’t get that much of a challenge. After three playthroughs of KH2, two of which were on Proud/Critical mode, the combined total of times I died does not even come close to a quarter of the amount of times I died in my first playthrough of KH1. I never even died during KH2’s Sephiroth fight, and I still struggle to defeat him in KH1’s proud mode. The other games provide even less challenge outside of a few endgame/postgame bosses.

And before you reply, the re-releases did not remedy this issue. In fact, the re-release of KH2 gave the player new abilities that allowed the player to cheese his/her way through some boss fights.

Now I have talked about the level design, the moment to moment gameplay, and the difficulty. I supposed that leaves us with the plot of these games.

Do I even have to explain why KH1 has the superior story?

KH1 had a simple yet effective hero’s journey story about a child who wanted to explore the various worlds with his friends but got more than he bargained for when his home is engulfed in darkness and he’s separated from his friends. He goes to various worlds, forms friendships with numerous people, and learns about his newfound abilities as well as the forces that try to stop him on his quest to find his friends. It’s not the most complex of narratives and that’s all for the better. The amount of exposition is kept to a relative minimum, characters can breathe and are not just there to explain the situation, dialogue was never forced or awkward, each world had their own mini-story that’s both entertaining and connects to the overarching plot, and the story is self-contained, no outside material required to understand what’s going on.

You know the pattern by now, but I still need to elaborate. For some reason, Square-Enix thought that they could pull off this grand epic saga spread over multiple games, well they couldn’t. KH2’s plot is a total mess. It’s a constant bombardment of new ideas, exposition dumps, vague allusions to events from games that weren’t even released yet. It was bad enough that the player had to have played a GBA spinoff in order to understand a lot of the plot, but the narrative was so muddled with inconsistencies and unexplained concepts that two more spinoffs had to be made in order for KH2’s plot to make some sort of sense, even then the plot is still convoluted and heavy-handed.

I’ve seen spiderwebs that have less interwoven parts than the plot of Kingdom Hearts, and far fewer holes as well.

And no, this does not make the story “complex and deep”. While I expect a game called Kingdom Hearts 2 would require me to play the first game in order to get a clear understanding of the plot, that doesn’t excuse having to play multiple spinoffs just to get a iota of a clue of what the heck is going on. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, one of the most celebrated series of books ever, contained an epic tale of war across multiple kingdoms and fleshed out worlds with history and culture. Even then, the reader didn’t have to refer to The Hobbit or The Silmarillion in order to follow the plot of the novels. That’s mainly due to the fact that J.R.R. Tolkien, unlike Tetsuya Nomura, can actually write an overarching story.

There’s also the fact that a lot of the plot in these games feels like filler. In KH2, the first visits to most of the worlds don’t connect to the main plot about the nobodies and Organization XIII. It’s not until the second visit to Radient Gardens where the plot starts to get rolling. In Birth by Sleep, almost all of Aqua’s campaign feel inconsequential until the very end. You could cut her story and have her just be a side character in Ventus and Terra’s campaigns and not much would be lost, plot wise.

The reason why I find a lot of the plot to be filler is due to the stories of most of these worlds are retellings of the Disney movies they’re based on while having little connection to the game’s main plot. In KH1, the stories of the worlds were mostly original tales that were intertwined with the game’s main plot. Whether it was dealing with Maleficent’s group of villains, the search for King Mickey, Rikku, and Kairi along with the rivalry between Sora and Rikku, learning more about the keyblade and its various abilities, visiting each world moved the main plot forward while having fun mini-narratives of their own. Even worlds like Wonderland, Deep Jungle, and Neverland focused more on one scene/act from the movie and expanding on it rather than rushing through the cliff notes of the source material.

It seems like for the other games, Nomura just copied and pasted the scripts of the movies the worlds a based on, added interjections from Sora, and called it an original story. It sticks out like a sore thumb and makes visits to these worlds feel more like distractions than anything else.

This longwinded plot also extends to the dialogue. The dialogue in KH1 was natural, aside from a few moments of emphasizing the difference between light and darkness. Characters acted normally, they had actual personalities and chemistry with each other. That was because KH1’s plot was not domineering to the point where the characters were relegated to just be vessels meant to explain the narrative. In games like KH2, conversations don’t feel like a group of people talking amongst themselves but rather like a lecture that the player needs to pay attention to. It makes a large chunk of scenes drag on for what feels like an eternity.

The fact that characters feel more like lore dispensers than actual people leads me to my next point, I don’t care about these new characters. Almost every character introduced from Chain of Memories onward has left little to no impact on me.

Organization XIII are a bunch of cliché Shonen Jump villains, either cackling at how evil they are or brooding over something quasi-poetic until the main character comes in and inevitably defeats them.

Roxas got a 2-hour prologue in KH2 in order for the player to get to know him and I was more relieved than upset whenever he “sacrificed” himself in order for Sora to wake up. Even 358/2 Days couldn‘t get me to care for this guy.

Xion exists solely to die at the end of 358/2 days and then be resurrected in Dream Drop Distance, that’s it.

Hayner, Pence, and Olette are like the annoying group of kids you’re forced to hang out with during college orientation, then they think you want to spend more time with them afterwards.

Ventus, Terra, and Aqua might’ve been interesting characters if we had more than 10 minutes dedicated to their friendship and personalities. Birth by Sleep is so focused on explaining the origins of Xehanort, the ways of the keyblade master, and linking its plot to the overarching plot of the series, that I never find myself connecting to any of the characters. The three separate campaigns don’t do the plot any favors. In fact, it makes the story seem disjointed. To be honest, when the characters were either killed, possessed, or banished to the Realm of Darkness, I did not care in the slightest.

It doesn’t help that Tetsuya Nomura can only seem to write 4 or 5 kinds of original characters, resulting in everyone being a Xehanort/Ansem clone or a copycat of the Sora, Kairi, Rikku dynamic. Seriously, the amount of Sora clones in this franchise is absurd.

The worse thing about these new characters is that Square seems convinced that the general audience needs more of them and forces them into the plot at the expense of characters we already have investment in.

The most egregious example of this happens at the end KH2 when during the final fight against Xemnas, rather than allowing the player to use Donald and Goofy, the game forces you to use only Rikku in the fight.

I don’t care that it’s meant to serve as Rikku’s redemption. He seemed to have redeemed himself with his self-sacrifice at the end of the first game. I don’t care about that stupid reaction command in the middle of the battle looks cool. It’s just another example of the game preferring style over substance. I don’t care that I get to fight with Rikku. I want Donald and Goofy.

I know we play as Sora and therefore focus on building his stats/abilities, but we put almost as much time into Donald and Goofy while we played the game. The player had to find the best equipment, do the side quests in order to obtain their ultimate weapon, mastered their trinity limits, managed their A.I. to suit the player’s needs in battle. Then the game rewards your dedication to these characters by saying “Screw you! Here’s a premade character with a default weapon you can’t change, and you only have the final level to learn how he is like in combat. You’re gonna love it.”

I’m sorry, but for an RPG to do that is inexcusable. Imagine in an Elder Scrolls game, before the final part of the main quest, your character is killed, and you must play as a premade Dark Elf Mage for the rest of the game. How about in Persona 5 before the last boss, instead of the Phantom Thieves, Joker gets a party consisting of some random side characters you barely interacted with in the game. Would anyone defend that design choice then?

The fact that I’m forced to only use Rikku in the fight, alongside how easy it is, makes the final battle against Xemnas in KH2 one of the worst final bosses in gaming, in my opinion.

I’ve been ranting about KH2, Birth by Sleep, 358/2 Days, Chain of Memories, but I haven’t talked specifically about Kingdom Hearts 3. KH3 is a weird case because it fixed some issues that I had with the later Kingdom Hearts games while doubling down on the issues it didn’t fix and adding new issues altogether.

KH3’s level design is improved somewhat. There’s still generally not much to do in the worlds aside from walk, fight, and do a minigame, however the actual levels are more open and intricate compared to KH2 and Birth by Sleep. The presentation is the best in the series, not just the graphical upgrade but also cinematography of the cutscenes and animations are more expressive than in past games. Plus, I got to give the game credit for making me like Axel/Lea, who before was just another forgettable side character.

However, combat is even more style over substance with additions like the Attractions Summons. The minigames are still as intrusive as they are lacking in quality. The retelling of the Disney plots is so bad here that there are literally shot for shot recreations of scenes from the movies with Sora, Donald, and Goofy added in the background. The Frozen and Tangled worlds suffer the most from this. Plus, the Pirates of the Caribbean world is based on the third movie despite the fact that no Kingdom Hearts game covered the second Pirates movie. Good luck understanding that plot without seeing the films. Dialogue is just as mind-numbingly dull. Also, you know how the plots of the latter Kingdom Hearts game can be described as having 30-50% filler, well KH3’s plot is almost 80% filler.

All this is combined with new problems such as combat feeling floatier compared to KH2 and Birth by Sleep, the emphasis on Disney over everything else, and the fact that this supposed “conclusion” to the trilogy didn’t fulfill on all the promises of past games, forgot to fill some of the plot holes, and felt like advertisement for games yet to come, makes it hard for me to say KH3 is a total improvement over the other Kingdom Hearts sequels and spinoffs. In many ways, it’s a downgrade.

You know, it feels like Kingdom Hearts is the Guns and Roses of the video game industry. Their first effort is groundbreaking and makes a huge impact on the scene. Subsequent follow-ups do their best to expand upon the initial outing only to end up with well regarded yet still confused end products. Then a new project is in the works and gets constantly delayed during which a revolving door of crew members tries to salvage the development, all the while a talented yet egomaniacal leader is micromanaging every aspect. Then when the long-awaited product is released, reviewers give mild praise while the general public is disappointed and finds the end result to be a mish mash of disparaging ideas while feeling almost unfinished.

Yes, Kingdom Hearts 3 is Square’s Chinese Democracy.

If I were asked to do a tier list ranking of each game in the series, at this moment, it would look like this.

This maybe a bit of a surprise to you since I spent the entire time ranting about KH2’s flaws, so let me explain. After playing KH3, I’ve come to notice more of the positive aspects of the second Kingdom Hearts. While I do think that they serve more to make the game easy and hate the excessive grinding that comes with them, the drive forms do give the player a sense of experimentation with some of these fights. In fact, compared to KH3, 2 has more builds for the player, as well as more balanced. KH2 is still easy as heck, and in my opinion inferior to KH1 in almost every way. However, I now appreciate more of the second game’s strong points.

Also, the music is excellent. I think that goes without saying. Yoko Shimomura is a goddess of music.

So as if this entire post hasn’t made it clear already, I love Kingdom Hearts 1. Unlike the other games in the franchise, it knew where to be straightforward and where to have complexity. It had a robust, dynamic combat system, the plot was self-contained and had more personality than exposition, and the gameplay was varied without being diluted. To this day, I find it hard to understand why most Kingdom Hearts fans prefer games like KH2 and Birth by Sleep over the original Kingdom Hearts.

Who knows? Maybe they like the combat to have some flash and felt the fighting in KH1 is too rigid. Maybe they found the puzzles, exploration, and platforming of KH1 to be more akin to fat that had to be trimmed in service to the aspect of the games that they actually like. Maybe they enjoy the plot because it has such a detailed lore and expands the narrative beyond three guys saving the universe from darkness. Maybe they find the new characters charming and enjoy the parallels between them and other characters like Sora and Rikku.

If that’s how they feel, then that’s more than fine. We’re all allowed to have out take on things and no one should tell someone else that they shouldn’t have their opinion.

That being said, in my opinion, while I do enjoy most of the games in the Kingdom Hearts franchise, the only game that I find exceptional is Kingdom Hearts 1.

#kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts 2 #kingdom hearts 3 #birth by sleep #358/2 days #chain of memories #dream drop distance #sora #rikku #kairi #disney #donald duck #goofy #roxas #axel

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cannibalisticskittles · 7 years ago

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an act of kindness, ch. 11

pairing: unknown/reader notes: [11/?]. part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six, part seven, part eight, part nine, part ten. ao3 link. warning for those with emetophobia -- some of the scenes in this chapter may not be a fun for you, and if you think that’s going to be a problem, please do let me know and i’ll do what i can to make this a more comfortable read for you. also, this is... really, really long.

Even with the windows rolled up tight, you can still feel the chill seep into the car.

It’s worse at your knuckles, skin stretched taut and thin with how tightly you’ve been gripping the steering wheel. It doesn't help that the air is on; the A/C system cuts down on the fog creeping up the windows, but you are left hunching in on yourself, shivering as you stare at the road.

But even the cold can’t convince you that you’re not caught up in some fever dream, because being here, being out -- none of this feels real. You still feel one step from getting caught, always thinking that even if there’s no one at this corner, the next one you turn will put you right in the waiting arms of Mint Eye disciples. Like they must have anticipated this, or -- have some way to track you down again, even when he’s here with you and not there to do the tracking.

At this thought, you glance over at the seat beside you -- and frown. By all appearances, Saeran is still sleeping soundly, but he's begun to shiver. Is the air on too high for him? You can't switch it off just yet, so you reach over to tug his jacket up and over him, instead of letting it stay where it is, fallen so far past his shoulder. Hopefully that'll help.

Your lips pull up in a faint smile as you straighten. Only Saeran could maintain that dashing yet casual dishevelment even in sleep.

It feels like a miracle that he is still sleeping. Each little bump you go over, every time the car jostles, your eyes go straight to him, worried that this will be the time, that he’ll suddenly jolt into consciousness and demand an explanation. But for now, at least, he sleeps -- though if the cold bothers him this much, that may not be true for long.

God, your head still aches. Fainter than before, but all this worrying isn’t helping. There’s so many unknown variables to this hasty plan -- when he’ll wake up, what he’ll think, all the many ways he could react when he learns what you’re trying to do, what he’ll think of being face-to-face with Seven of all people, if you can get that far -- that even trying to account for them all makes the throbbing at your temples begin anew. Just… focus on driving; control what little you can right now. You’ll deal with the rest as it comes.

You haven't passed anyone in all the time you've been out here. Not surprising; the wee hours of the morning aren't exactly busy times for remote back roads.

You also haven't passed any place, but while you know you saw a few buildings and rest stops on your way up to Mint Eye, there weren’t many. And… well, you were so focused on Saeran then that you can't say with certainty how long it will take to reach city limits. Anywhere from an hour to three hours sounds plausible, but you can’t be sure. The road is different in the dark, and there’s still hours until sunrise.

You have to bite back a groan when you slow the car to a stop upon reaching a crossroad, and you push down a spike of anxiety as you squint out the window at the choice before you. The way to the city is… left from here. You think.

God, you wish your phone had some juice so you could check a map. You think you remember which way to go, but it’s hard to be certain, and when the stakes are this high, the possibility of choosing wrong weighs heavily on you.

You wrack your brain, contemplating just how accurate your memory is, but -- left. Left ought to get you there. And if it doesn't, you'll just turn around and come back. One step at a time, you remind yourself as you turn left and begin to drive down the road again.

You haven't made it much farther when you hear a soft noise at your side.

When you’re able to spare a glance towards him, you find Saeran curled up against the door, looking to still be asleep but shivering more noticeably now, and at the end of every few breaths is a faint, pained whimper. He must still be feeling the effects of the elixir.

There isn't much you can do for him now, though, besides trying to get somewhere safe as quickly as possible so he can recover in peace. So, you increase your speed and fix your eyes firmly on the road ahead.

...god, there are a lot of trees. This isn't exactly reassuring you that you made the right turn back at that fork. You may not have seen anything to clue you in that you're going the wrong way, but that doesn't mean this isn't wrong; it would probably look like this even if you took the other path, and it's the unending sameness that's getting to you. Something to break up the monotony of it all, take your mind off the journey ahead, would be a godsend.

And then, out of of the corner of your eye, you see Saeran begin to stir.

You stiffen, hands spasming on the wheel. You take it back. Monotony is great! Please don't let him wake up.

He tosses and turns in his seat, first pressing closer to the door, then uncurling, pulling back from where he had been coiled up and straightening as he begins to stretch. He rubs at his eyes and your breath catches, wishing fervently that he's about to just fall back asleep, and when he droops again and turns his face to the window, you almost breathe a sigh of relief -- only to be met with a long groan, more shuffling, and then the sound of your name, croaked out tiredly.

Shit. You just had to jinx it, didn’t you?

“...Saeran?” you call out his name tentatively, soft enough that you hope it won’t wake him if he’s just finding a more comfortable spot in his sleep.

“Mnnn.” He shifts again until he's leaning in your direction, though his head remains tipped back against the seat. His hair is sweat-slicked, sticking to his forehead. He looks wrecked, frankly, all bleary and shivering, unable to even keep his head aright.

“How are you feeling?” you ask him gently.

He looks in your direction, head falling heavily onto his shoulder. His movements still seem slow and sleepy, you note. Maybe you can coax him back asleep. “‘S… cold. ‘S real cold.” Saeran makes eye contact with you the next time you glance away from the road. “...you’re warm,” he says, and then he slips out from the shoulder strap of his seatbelt and leans in until he’s resting his head against your arm. His skin is cool and clammy against yours, and he hums a note of contentment as he nuzzles against you.

You lift a hand briefly from the wheel, giving him a comforting pat before returning your focus to the road. He wraps his hands loosely around your arm, sighs in satisfaction, and then remains there.

Crisis… delayed?

He… is not going to be happy when he realizes what’s happening. You can't keep him in the dark forever, of course, but it would have been nice to have made some progress before he woke up -- made it to the apartment, contacted Seven, something. Now… well, that possibility is likely just a foolish hope. The realization makes your pulse spike with worry. Sooner or later, he’s going to find out what's happening, and it really looks like it'll be sooner.

You reach to smooth down his hair again.

One thing at a time. You can’t change how he’ll react, and you can’t keep him asleep forever. All you can do right now is drive, and soothe him as best you can to prolong his unaware state. This is already in motion. Now he’s here, and you’re here, and you don’t intend to go back. You just… have to roll with the punches now.

You’re shaken from your thoughts by the sight of something other than homogenous trees approaching. The joy you feel when your headlights illuminate a speed limit sign set by a distinctively knotty old tree is immeasurable. You think you recognize this from your drive up to Mint Eye -- the sole landmark after a stretch of unremarkable greenery that went on for so long that, until you’d seen it, you'd worried that there wouldn't be anything distinctive enough to mark the right path back, if you ever got out. Seeing it now brings a relief similar to what you experienced then. You haven't gone astray, then. Though… you do still have a ways ahead of you; this wasn’t exactly the first thing you saw after leaving city limits, after all, and there’s still way more forest to deal with. After that, though, there’ll be some signs of life -- maybe you can use a phone in a gas station, call for help?

And then you snort and dismiss the thought. If you called the cops, you’d probably have to stick around to give directions -- and explain. Much as you’d like to see that place brought to justice as soon as possible, there’s a possibility that your tale would seem too implausible to act on, and you’re not wasting your head start and risking someone catching up to you. And with your phone dead, you don’t know the numbers of the RFA, so a payphone wouldn’t help you give them some forewarning, either. Still, even if you aren’t planning on stopping along the way, it’ll be nice to see signs that you’re nearing the city.

Saeran's shivering is getting worse. You can feel him shaking. The windows are finally defogged now, though, so you switch the A/C to low. Might take a while for the car to warm up more, but hopefully when it does, it’ll be easier for him to sleep.

“Still cold,” Saeran mumbles from the vicinity of your elbow. “...want another blanket.”

If only. “Sorry, Saeran, we’re fresh out.”

“Why?” The question is spoken blearily.

“Just… don't have any.” You almost ask if he's glad he brought his jacket like you asked him to, but if he's asking about blankets, he might be disoriented enough to think he's back in his room, or he's forgotten he ever left. Poor Saeran; he must be exhausted. If it means he's too tired to notice what's going on, it works in your benefit, but you can't help but feel bad anyway. “I’ll let you know when, ah… one becomes available.”

“Mnnn.” The noise he makes is dissatisfied, but he leans forward again, placing more of his weight onto you.

After a little while, he mumbles something again.

“...what was that?”

He pulls back a little, though he remains in contact with you, tilting his head so his cheek is pressed against you rather than his forehead. “Th’ savior. ” And he cuts off there again.

“What about her?”

“Where is she? Why isn't she here?” Ah. That's right. He'd said she came to him when he was feeling ill. You're not sure if he's realized where you are now, but he's definitely feeling her absence.

“She'll be here,” you assure him after a moment. “Shouldn't be long.” That should be a comforting thought for him, though you would not be similarly reassured if you thought the savior was on her way to see you.

“When?” he presses.

“Soon,” you say, and smooth down his hair before returning your hand to the wheel.

“And what are we… why…”

You wait, but he doesn't continue. Oh. That was a complete thought, huh? He really… does not seem to grasp what's going on right now. If he's this dazed, you should be able to appease him with simple answers until he tires himself out a little more and rests.

“Yyyyeah,” you say at last, unsure of what he was asking you and falling back on a noncommittal answer. “Just… gotta wait a while and the savior will be here to make you feel better.”

“ When ?” he asks again, looking up at you with effort, wobbling slightly.

You laugh softly, spurred on by nerves. “Hey, I run on the savior's schedule, not the other way around. Soon, okay?” Just have to stall until he falls asleep and forgets about it. You comb your fingers through his hair, then shift more of your attention onto the road.

And then several things happen in rapid succession.

You pull back your hand to grip the wheel again; he reaches for you; his grip on your elbow tightens; and he yanks with both hands, pulling one arm away from the wheel and sending the car lurching sharply to the side.

You yelp out the first syllable of his name and wrench your arm from his grasp, and for one terrifying moment, struggle to right yourself enough to actually get your foot on the brake. The trees bordering the road grow closer and closer, and you feel the car jolt as you go over the edge of the road, fumbling to feel out where the brake is when everything is going topsy-turvy before you can finally slam your foot down. The car shudders, and you squeeze your eyes shut as you brace for impact as it --

Stops.

It stopped?

Slowly, you crack open one eye, then the other. There's trees in front of you, alright, but space, too; when you look behind you, you don't appear to be too far from the road. By some miracle, you didn't careen straight towards the trees, as you'd feared, and instead stayed close enough to the road that you've just barely avoided disaster.

“...Saeran, what… the fuck,” you gasp out, voice shaking from your racing pulse. Slowly, you pry your fingers loose from their death grip on the wheel, though your foot remains firmly glued to the brake.

Was that -- a reaction to finally realizing where he is? But why would he do that? “What the fuck -- oh, shit.” This last part comes once you've turned to look at Saeran, only to see him curled up and shaking heavily.

You reach for him, and he leans into your touch, but he draws in a sharp breath, then a series of little hiccuping gasps that catch in his throat, and then -- convulses.

You catch a glimpse of his eyes screwed up in pain before he doubles over, and as he trembles, the sound of retching reaches you.

You fumble with your seatbelt, then practically lunge across the seats to open his door. You have to strain to push it open enough, unable to stretch over him enough to reach quite as well as you'd like, and then you draw back.

“There -- if you need to--” you trip over your words, but thankfully, he seems to get the gist anyway, because he slumps over towards the open door, bracing a hand weakly against it as he leans out of the car.

You fist a hand in his jacket, afraid that he'll lean too far and tumble out, and wince as the retching increases, followed by the sound of wet splattering onto dirt and decaying leaves.

By the third heave, you start to wonder if he could possibly have anything left in his system besides elixir, because you can't imagine he has much left in him to regurgitate.

Finally, the retching stops, subsiding only to heavy panting, and you help pull him in, though he remains slumped over.

You rub little soothing circles on his back as he regains his breath, gasping in air.

So that… pulling the wheel, pulling you… doesn't seem to be connected to any sort of outrage born of realization; given that he hasn't yet said anything, hasn't shown even the faintest flicker of anger, just nausea, there might not have been a realization at all. Was that just -- wanting you to keep petting his hair, and he still has no goddamn idea what's going on?

You run your hands through your hair in agitated relief. You're not sure if that makes it any better; after all, if he wasn't trying to cause harm and he only did this on accident…

Your fingers clench, nearly pulling out strands of your hair. Who knows what he might do if he was aware of what was happening and truly upset.

“O...kay,” you murmur, giving his shoulder a few awkward pats. “You feeling any better now?”

He shoots you a pained look from half-lidded, tired eyes.

“...no?” you guess. “Not enough to, ah, not do that again?”

The look on his face is miserable, but this is replaced by a flicker of distress as his shoulders give a sudden shudder. That’s not a good sign, but though you recognize this motion as a prelude to more vomiting, what can you do but wait it out?

Saeran leans out the door again, and you return to holding his jacket to steady him as he empties the contents of his stomach onto the ground.

You... cannot drive to the apartment with him like this -- puking and so unaware that he's liable to do something dangerous. You'd thought that his disoriented state worked in your favor, but if he's of a mind to pull the steering wheel and nearly end you both without even pausing, you might not be able to make the trip without a repeat of this incident, and you're not sure your luck will hold up enough to save you a second time.

The sickness you can deal with -- you would happily deal with him puking in the car the whole way up if it meant you could get to the safety of the apartment as quickly as possible. But the risk…

If something changed -- if you could make him less sick, make him comfortable enough to sleep, or at least, enough to not react out of misery-induced neediness, then most of the risk bleeds out of this scenario.

And… if you can't do that, then you wait for him to wake up more, realize what's happening around him so he doesn't react blindly like he did just moments ago? Though you really doubt he'd just let you take him to the apartment if he knew that's where you're headed.

Still. One step at a time. Maybe you'll get lucky and he'll feel better after vomiting and fall back into peaceful sleep as you drive. If that doesn't happen, then… you know you passed a gas station on the way up, and if there's a convenience store attached, they might sell something for nausea. Carsickness, at least. No guarantee that'll work on elixir-sickness, but it's better than nothing.

When Saeran sits, you reach past him to close the door, then pat his shoulder again. “Hang in there a little longer, okay? I’m going to find something to help you.” He nods weakly, and you put the car in reverse. “...let me know if you need to do that again and we'll stop,” you add. You wait for him to nod again, and then you navigate back to the road and onward in the direction of the city.

It doesn't take long for the trees around you to begin to thin out, and you know that you will soon be seeing buildings. You should keep an eye out for that gas station. With any luck, you'll find it before he starts to come to any more than this.

...what will you do if he wakes up and demands an explanation? What happens if you can’t persuade him to give you a chance, or if he remains too suspicious to even listen to you try to explain? You'll what -- dump him by the road and drive off? Drag him with you anyway, kicking and screaming?

Neither of these options are particularly desirable, but… you have to accept the possibility that he won’t go with you. And if that’s the case, there’s nothing you can do.

That thought… stings. It's not like you have some brilliant speech planned for him, so he may very well be unconvinced.

But now, you can see something rising from the darkness. Buildings up ahead.

“Where… are we?” Saeran asks weakly as the lights begin to come into view. Your heart stops. Alertness might be up on the menu after all.

“...heading somewhere that should make you feel better.” With how often you've left Magenta for surveillance and... kidnapping attempts lately, he might believe you're currently out on another mission. Or maybe he doesn't even realize you're somewhere other than Mint Eye. You can only hope.

“Mmn.” You glance over at Saeran to see him leaning heavily against the door, limp. The gas station should be somewhere nearby, he just needs to hold on a little longer.

You slow as neon lights come into view on your left, then abruptly speed up and refocus on the road ahead of you once you see just what it's advertising. Yeah, nope, not doing that. A sketchy motel isn't going to have anything for his stomach, anyway.

As the lights fade behind you, Saeran speaks up from your side.

“...what was that?”

“Nnnnothing! Nothing. Nothing that can help in any way.” And thankfully, he does not pursue that line of questioning.

You notice as you pass the motel that on the other side of the street is a small gray building, no lights on, that looks like an office. But you need more than just a place for him to puke; you need him to stop puking, so that isn't useful right now. You continue down the road.

The neon lights fade behind you, and when you can no longer see their pink glow, you redouble your efforts to make out some sign that you're nearing the gas station, or some other building that might provide help. It should be around here somewhere… the motel must have been the last place you passed before that stretch of trees, though you hadn't recognized what it was in the daytime, and you don't recall too much of a gap between that and the buildings preceding it, so where…? Ah! There, up ahead on your right. And yep, there's a convenience store, too.

You pull up to one of the parking spaces and turn the car off.

“...still feeling pretty bad, right?” you ask, hand on your seatbelt, ready to unbuckle.

He gives you a flat, if tired, stare.

You hold up your hands, palms out. “Hey, just making sure.” You reach past him to open his door for him, and he relaxes a little at the rush of cool air. At least the cold is good for easing his nausea.

“Okay,” you say, “Saeran, you stay here --” As if he’s actually going to fight you on this; already, his breathing is growing shallow, and he looks like he's about to lean out the door again. “I’ll be right back with something to help.”

You've unbuckled your seatbelt and set your hand on the door handle when you realize that oh, right, you're going to have to pay for this somehow. So, you open the little coin drawer set below the radio and root around in it. To your relief, it only takes a moment to pull free a handful of slightly crumpled bills -- three 5000 notes, a 10000 note, and a handful of very worn 1000s. Great. If they’ve got anything in there that could help, this should more than cover the cost. You fold the bills into your pocket, hop out of the car and walk briskly up the sidewalk.

A little bell rings when you push through the door, and again when it swings shut behind you. The cashier at the counter to your far right glances up from a magazine, nods slightly at you, then looks back down.

“Painkillers?” you ask, figuring they’d be lumped together in the same place and it’d take longer for him to think about an answer if you asked about medicine that helps with nausea.

“Past the dog food,” he tells you.

You nod in thanks and off you go, scanning the aisles as you pass them. Instant and canned meals, nope; rows and rows of rainbow gum, nope; not with chips and candies and other packaged sweets, either, although the cloying sweetness of one of those cinnamon rolls is tempting right now.

Pet food -- good, that means it’s coming up. And indeed, when you stop at the end of the next aisle, you are greeted with a vision of rows of travel-sized necessities, among which is a section of shelves with little packages. You hurry over to these, delighted to recognize individual packets of painkillers on the top shelf. If you just keep scanning the shelves, then… aha.

You pause at a yellow and purple box. ‘Prevents nausea, dizziness, and vomiting.’ Perfect. These ones are chewable tablets; would ones meant for swallowing be better? You don't have water for him to take it with, though you suppose you could just buy a bottle here. If he's nauseated enough, though, swallowing a tablet might be enough trigger his gag reflex and send it back up. On the other hand, if he doesn't like the taste of chewable tablets, that might have the same effect…

And as you glance out the window to the car, as if this will answer your question, you catch sight of Saeran wiping his mouth and leaning back in his seat, looking exhausted. Right, you'll stick with chewable. He needs whatever will help, fast. You rub at your temples as you pluck the box from the shelf and head towards the register.

If this helps him not be sick, you are golden. You can continue on your way, maybe speed a little to make the best time to the apartment, and everything will go great.

And… if it doesn't work, then… you wait until he feels better on his own so that he doesn't unwittingly crash the car? Where, then -- here? You slow your pace as you consider your options. You're not averse to waiting in the parking lot with him to see if the medicine will kick in and make a difference, but the cashier might notice that Saeran is puking on their property and be… well, none too pleased, you imagine. It's an option, though; you're pretty sure the cashier couldn't really do anything even if he wanted to, aside from voicing his displeasure and asking you to leave. But Saeran might start to become aware of his surroundings here. Not that anywhere really captures the unique feel of Magenta, so he'd probably grow suspicious no matter where you went.

...though there was that motel. If you bring him to one of the rooms there, let him ride out this wave of illness in a place that bears a passing resemblance to his room, maybe it'll help lull him to sleep, provide a sense of comfort.

Huh.

...wait, but cash you scrounged up from a coin drawer isn't going to pay for even an hour at one of those. You've begun to dismiss the idea when you reach the register and finally look up.

There's a charger with a car adaptor for sale behind the counter. How convenient.

You set the medicine on the counter, eyes locked on the charger. If the motel lets you pay with your phone, then you have an in, and… well, even if it doesn't, it would be nice to have a working cell phone.

“Will that be it?” asks the cashier.

And maybe you'll let fate decide this one. There’s no guarantee it's cheap enough to afford with your scrounged-up cash, and if you just flat-out don’t have enough to pay for it, that’ll decide whether the motel’s even up for consideration. So you point to the charger. “Sorry, that too.”

The cashier looks to where you're pointing, then pulls the box from the hanging rack. He rings you up, and you begin to unfurl and count the bills as you pull them from your pocket.

You… can pay for it. Just barely -- you're now left with ₩3000 and some change -- but it's yours now. You thank the cashier and pluck your spoils from the counter, heading back out the door. You have several possibilities in front of you. All you have to do now is… figure out which one’s right.

As soon as you slide into your seat and shut the door behind you, you set the charger and it's casing on the seat beside you and open the box of anti-nausea tablets. They come in foil-protected packets of eight. You tear off one of the squares and break the foil with your nails, then shake loose a pill and hand it to Saeran.

“Here,” you say. “Supposed to help with vomiting. Dizziness, too, if you're feeling that.”

Saeran eyes it for a moment before finally plucking it from your palm. It takes another moment for him to actually pop it into his mouth, but eventually he does and begins to chew, though he grimaces at the taste. ‘Orange-flavored’ is apparently a bald-faced lie.

And then he gags. Oh, no.

“Please tell me the medicine I got you isn’t gonna make you--” But your plea goes unheard.

You rake your hand through your hair as the taste sends him pitching forward, coughing shallowly into his hands as he presses them to his mouth. At least he’s only nearly barfing this time.

...nope, spoke too soon; moments after you think that, he is leaning out the door again. Aaand there go all the bits of the medicine. Hey, if he didn't swallow any of it, he could try taking another one. ...later. When he’s not actively vomiting.

You rub his back as he finishes emptying his stomach once more, and when you help pull him back in, you don’t protest when he immediately leans against you, though you do reach under your seat for your phone with your other hand.

Whatever you end up doing, raising your phone from the dead seems like a pretty good idea. You balance it on your thigh as you set to work extricating the charger from its packaging.

The protective layers are pretty weak, thankfully. You tear through some cardboard, pull away a flimsy plastic covering, and then fumble to jam it into a working port in the partial darkness of the car and plug your phone into it. After a moment, it flickers to life, and you breathe a sigh of relief. Once it's finished booting up, you switch it to airplane mode and turn the screen off again. Does it charge faster if you drive around? Or no, that just helps the car battery from draining. Should be fine even if you just stay here for a while.

So you set your phone in the space between the seats and ask, “...d’you wanna try that again?” And then you shake your head and add, softer, “I'm not gonna make you do anything, but you seem… pretty miserable right now, and these are supposed to help. If the one you tried was what made you puke, then that’s obviously no good, but if you were going to throw up anyway, then maybe… trying again might help. But… well, like I said, it’s not up to me.”

“...yeah,” he says at last. “Gimme another.”

So you do.

This time, though his face twists in a grimace, he manages to swallow it, albeit with some obvious effort. “Gross,” he says.

You laugh softly. “Yeah, I bet it is. Should work soon, though.”

“Mmn.” He buries his face in your shoulder.

“Hey, at least you're not immediately puking it back up.”

“Yeah,” he says, voice muffled. You begin to stroke his hair and feel him relax against you, though shivers still wrack his body. “For now.”

“Oh, don't be such a downer,” you chide gently, dragging your nails lightly over his scalp so that he nuzzles closer to you with a pleased sigh. “It'll work.” You hold him like this until his breathing evens out, but… he doesn't seem like he's going to fall asleep, even if he is a little more drowsy than he was when he was leaning out of the car. Damn.

Still, drowsiness is good. Less alertness in general is good. Means less protesting -- though, of course, he whines when you ease away from him and close his door. You don't even bother with the fight that would ensue if you tried to make him pull away from you entirely, even just for the brief moment you'd fix the shoulder strap around him, so instead, you just make sure his lap belt is firmly in place and turn on the car.

He's not vomiting, though he doesn't yet seem well. Given the circumstances, though, you've got to try to continue on. So, you pull out of the parking lot and turn onto the road in the direction of the city.

The lights from the gas station haven't even faded behind you when he speaks up.

“What now?” It's spoken with such an enveloping aura of exhaustion that it barely even sounds like a question.

“...well, you're not better yet, are you?” you keep your voice light and your eyes fixed on the road. “We should fix that. Medicine will help. I intend to help further.”

“...how?” His pause gives you pause. You repeat the {word/question} in your mind, scanning it for any signs of exasperation. He just seems… tired, though, to your relief.

“That depends. What’s ailing you most now? Besides the burning desire to empty out your stomach.”

“Cold,” he says. From that persistent tremble, you don’t doubt it.

“That’s what’s next, then: fixing that. Hold tight for just a little longer and we’ll have you warmed up in a jiffy.”

He presses closer to you, but seems to accept your words. Good.

So far, there's just trees and road ahead as far as you can see. While that means there’s less to catch Saeran’s eye and arouse his suspicions, you do sort of wish you could see more signs of the city -- particularly because you can’t quite recall if, on the way up to Magenta, you passed anything prior to the gas station that’d be close enough to see from the road at night, and if you did but haven’t yet passed it, that means there’s still a ways left to go. But you’ve barely left the gas station behind; it’s too early for these worries.

“Hey…” Saeran’s voice cuts through your thoughts.

“Mmh?”

“Hey …” He reaches up a hand and your whole body goes stiff as his fingers wrap around your forearm.

Your stomach lurches at the spike of fear this motion brings, intensified by déjà vu rather than dulled by it, and you react instinctively, loosening your grip on the wheel with that hand so that he can't do it for you when you don't expect it, making the car wobble as you compensate with your other hand.

He pulls your now-limp arm towards him, snuggling against it. You slow the car and pull off to the side of the road and it feels rash and yet necessary all at once, given how tight his grip is on you. Feels like you’ve narrowly avoided another crash.

Which is a bad sign. The vomiting may be quelled, but the impulsiveness apparently isn’t.

For a moment, you just stare straight ahead, thinking. “...I'm betting you're still cold, huh?” you ask after a long moment.

“Mmhmm.” He nods as he responds, and you can feel his frown, petulant and miserable, against you.

“...okay,” you say. That’s it then. You’ve got to switch tactics. Maybe, maybe the third time’s the charm, but you really fucking doubt it right now. So you’ll… try the motel. Maybe he can rest. Sleep a little. And, ideally, wake up feeling refreshed but still tired and slow so you can just usher him to the car and keep driving without him pulling the wheel or asking probing questions. The motel might not even allow you to pay with your phone, but it’s worth a shot, and if it really doesn’t work, you’ll… wait out the worst of it in a parking lot, or by the side of the road. Whatever keeps you both alive and not dealing with the possibility of a crashed car.

“How about we fix that?” you say. You do know where a convenient source of blankets is.

He nuzzles against your arm, and you take that as a ‘yes.’

And so you head back the way you came. Back, past the gas station, towards the motel whose lights you anticipate far earlier than they actually become visible.

He does not protest as you drive, nor does he pull at you any more than he already is -- though you let him keep holding your arm right up until the moment you switch on your blinker and turn into the dark and empty parking lot of the office building across the street from the motel, needing two hands for the sake of precision.

You park the car and then… just watch him, hoping that something in his bearing will convey to you whether you're making the best choice you can in an unfortunate situation or whether you're making a huge mistake.

All he does is blink sleepily up at you after a minute of silence.

Well… if he's still this tired, it'll probably be fine. Let him sleep off the worst of it in there -- or out here, if you can't get a room -- and then keep driving to the apartment when he's a bit more… docile. And then you snort and rethink that as you brush your fingers comfortingly through his hair and he closes his eyes and nearly purrs in happiness. Docile, you have. It's the restlessness, the impulsiveness that's worrying. If he gets some sleep… maybe that'll dull it.

But before you drag him in there, you should probably make sure the motel doesn’t require having a physical card to pay, to avoid waking him up more for nothing.

You reach for your phone and switch it off airplane mode. 27% charge. Great. If it's cooperative, you have some time before it dies. With your luck, though… well, you'd better use it sparingly until you can get to the charger again.

“Okay,” you say softly, placing a hand gently on his back. He cracks open a tired eye to look at you. “Hang in there a little longer. It'll be easier to bear soon. I'll just be a minute.”

He whines in disappointment, but nods and settles back in his seat. You flash him a grateful smile, then unplug your phone, turn off the engine, slip the keys in your pocket, and step out of the car.

You walk briskly to the side of the road, check in both directions, and hurry across to the motel.

This time, there is no bell to herald your arrival. The room you step into is devoid of people, actually -- an empty lobby. There's kiosks set into the walls with inviting-looking welcome screens, so you cross the room over to these.

The one you approach displays a list of available rooms once you tap the screen, so you scroll through them, looking at the images of the interiors that come up. Looks like there's a fair number still available, all at decent prices, though they start to increase in price the farther you go. Is that… a hospital-themed room?

You shake your head and go back to the earlier rooms. Most of these are pretty much identical, so you scroll back until you manage to pinpoint a few with closed bathrooms -- not a feature all of the rooms possess, which, while perhaps a plus to some who come seeking rooms here, only fills you with thoughts of having to piss with no privacy; not the sort of comfort you’re hoping to give him. There’s nothing suitable available on the first floor, but there is one on the second floor -- #212. It might only mean a difference of a few seconds in the elevator, but with his queasy stomach the quicker it is to get to, the better.

It’s available to rent both for the full night and for shorter durations. An hour is cutting it too close, and there are two- and three-hour options, but… well, the full night barely costs any more, and while the idea of spending even a few hours here, waiting, makes you nervous, it’s better to be safe than sorry. If he falls asleep at last, only to have to move to another room because the time’s run out in this one, it’ll interrupt that tranquility you’re hoping the room will impart. So, you select this option for the room and cross your fingers as you hit the prompt to progress to the payment screen.

You breathe a sigh of relief when it loads and you see that the system is set up to allow payments without a physical credit card present -- you’ll be able to use your phone for this after all. You pull up the necessary info and type it into the console. Another weight lifts off your shoulders as it finishes loading and indicates a successful payment as the kiosk whirrs and then dispenses a key with the tag #212.

Your bank account hasn’t been frozen in your absence. Awesome. Now you just have to get Saeran up to the room.

You hold the key firmly in your hand as you head out the door and make your way across the street and into the office’s the dark parking lot, heading for Saeran’s side of the car. You knock once on the window to alert him to your presence, then open the door, resting a hand on the roof as you lean in. “Ready to go?” You offer him a hand. “C’mon. Warmth ahead. Blankets at last.” Tired as he may be, there’s no way you’re going to park the car in front of something so visible as the motel and get caught because of that, so you’ll just have to support him during the short walk.

He blinks blearily at you, then accepts the offered help and allows you to pull him up and out of the car. After he's standing, you reach in to grab the box of nausea medicine, close the door and lock the car, and slide an arm around his waist. He does the same to you, though he of course nestles into your side as he does.

He's mostly steady on his feet, thankfully, though he does wobble a little as you guide him. Definitely slow. Still, you make it to the doors of the motel without incident. He winces as you step inside together, turning his face so that he's burying it in your shoulder. Doesn't like the lights, you suppose.

You make your way to the elevator, press the call button, and sigh in relief as the doors slide open immediately. Convenient, for once. And you're only going up a floor, so the journey is short; less than a minute after you press the button for the second floor, the doors slide open again.

The hallway is somewhat narrow, but not so much that you can't navigate it side-by-side; just means it's a bit of a tight squeeze. #212… if this side is evens, and this side is odds, then it should be… ah, right there. You unlock the door, flick on the lights, and let the door swing shut behind you.

You’d seen it on the screen but you're still pleased to see that it's fairly nice-looking in person. Nothing special, but… nice. You help Saeran to the edge of the neatly-made bed and ease him down onto it.

“Think you're going to throw up again any time soon?” you ask as he pulls the blankets up over himself.

He gives a listless shrug, curling up beneath the blankets. “Not now. Later, maybe. Still don’t feel great.”

“Mmm. Right. Gotta be prepared for the possibility.” There’s probably a little trash can in the bathroom. If you bring it out, he won't have to run in there to puke. “We can deal with that, though. One sec.”

You make your way to the bathroom and push open the door. It doesn't take much searching to find it, between the sink and the toilet. That should help. You grab it, then... hesitate.

You glance back at the bed, and after confirming that he's not currently looking at you, you pull your phone from your pocket. You don’t have much charge, so you’ll have to be quick, but this is as good a time as any to make sure you’re really on the right track to the apartment, and to get an estimate for how long it’ll take to get there. You almost pull up the messenger app to get the address, but -- well, even assuming you still have access to it, if anyone in the RFA sees you come online, that might cause… problems.

The apartment was the last place you went before… all of this. Him. Your eyes stray momentarily to the doorway, looking at the lump Saeran makes under the blankets. Since you used the map to get to the apartment on that fateful day, it should remember the address. You navigate to it and aha, there it is. Okay, looks like it's about… an hour to the apartment. That's longer than you'd like, but much, much better than you’d feared.

A cough comes from the other room, then another. It doesn’t sound like precursor to vomiting -- but then he groans your name, and you set your phone hastily beside the sink so you can grab the trash can and hurry to his side. Once there, you drop the trash can onto the floor and sink onto the bed beside him.

“Saeran?” you question.

You place a hand on his forehead, pushing back sweaty hair as you do. He's not exactly burning up, but he's definitely warm.

“Geez,” you murmur, “you're having a rough night, huh?

He groans in response, but lifts a hand to cover yours. As his thumb brushes over your fingers, clammy palm pressed to the back of your hand, he cracks open an eye.

Your breath catches at the weary pain you see there, and you bring up your other hand to cup his face.

“...I'm sorry.” There's no doubt this is your fault.

“S’okay,” he says, and yawns. “Not as cold now.” And then he turns those sad puppy eyes on you. “...still a little cold. And achey.”

“Uh-huh,” you say, guilt subsiding as you bite back a smile at the way he’s clearly milking the situation for sympathy. “How can I help?”

He covers your other hand with his. “Stay with me.”

You laugh softly. “Yeah, I think I can do that. Lemme turn off the lights so you can sleep.” But when you move to stand, he reaches for you, just barely managing to catch your hand as you pull away. “...what?”

He makes a displeased noise.

“You… don't want me to go? It's just ten steps away.”

He whines louder.

“I'll be right back! And wouldn't it be nice to turn the lights off, not have to strain your eyes?”

After a long moment, he lets go. “...fine.”

It's hard not to laugh at how sulky he sounds. You step away, and as promised, it only takes a moment to walk back to the door and flick off the lights.

“Now come back,” he calls from the bed.

“I will!” You do laugh now. “I'm coming, I’ve just got to… navigate in the dark.”

You take slow, careful steps until you reach the foot of the bed, then feel your way up the edge -- until you brush Saeran’s side and then he reaches for you, tugging you onto the bed. He doesn't seem to care that you land halfway on top of him, just wraps his arms around you and rolls so that you're laying side-by-side, pressed into each other.

He hums a contented note as he pulls you close to him, then reaches to pull the blanket over you.

“...Did you push the blankets off you in anticipation of me laying down next to you?”

“Mmm.” He nuzzles into your neck. “Want you to be warm too.”

“Aww, how swe-- eet! ” The word is cut off in a yelp as Saeran abruptly grazes his teeth over your neck then places a kiss there.

“Saeran!”

He chuckles, and you groan at his amusement, wiggling in his arms and pushing at his chest in a way that is less of an attempt at escape than a show of exasperation.

He murmurs your name in response, breath ghosting over your skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake, and you can feel him smile against you. He places another kiss to your collarbone, then nestles into you, tightening his arms so you're as close as can be.

“Stay.” It brooks no room for argument. You still have to resist the urge to roll your eyes.

“I said I would,” you remind him. “I’m not going to change my mind.”

He makes a soft, pleased sound, but otherwise doesn't respond.

He definitely seems more comfortable like this, all wrapped up in you. If you wanted him to sleep soundly, this seems like the way to do it. And is rather cozy in his arms. There's no harm in staying here, you decide. Much better than just sitting and watching him sleep for an hour or two. You'll just wait until it seems like he's slept enough, then wake him gently and lead him to the car and let him continue his nap.

You trace idle circles and spirals onto his back and he nuzzles happily into you. Yes, everything will be fine, you decide, and close your eyes for a moment to bask in his warmth.

-- and the next thing you know, you are cold and alone. The blanket is askew, tossed halfway off you, and you shiver against the cool air.

You sit in a panic, throwing your arms out to feel around you, patting at the sheets, but no matter where you look, your search turns up empty -- no Saeran anywhere.

You swing your legs onto the ground and stand with a sense of urgency that makes you stumble, and it’s only when you turn to try to scan the room in the almost perfect darkness do you realize why it’s not fully dark -- the bathroom door is shut, and there is a glowing strip of light visible beneath it.

You sag down onto the edge of the bed, heavy with the weight of your relief, and rub blearily at your eyes.

He’s still here. And -- another look around the room shows that there’s no light peeking from between the curtains, so while you must have dozed off, it couldn’t have been for too long; it is not yet dawn. Good. You still have time.

You… don’t hear anything from the bathroom, though. He’s got to be in there, but… still, your worries bid you to stand once more and pad over to the door, hesitantly pressing your ear against the wood. After a moment, you can hear faint shuffling from within, and you breathe a sigh of relief.

You draw back and knock on the door. “Saeran?” you call. “Everything alright in there? You’re not feeling sick again, are you?”

The shuffling stops.

“...Saera--?”

“You…” the word sends a chill down your spine and your mouth goes dry, unprepared for the malice you hear. “You lied.” Somehow, there is more venom in that statement than you could have ever imagined.

Your hand, still held up in the air, ready to knock again, spasms as his words hit you like a bucket of ice. You lied, you lied, you lied.

He's so -- certain, so angry. He's clearly cognizant enough to recognize you are beyond Mint Eye, and cognizant enough to know what that means.

“Saeran, I -- I don’t --”

“Don't!” he snarls. “You -- took us away from Magenta, you brought us -- here. Why? ”

You hold up a hand placatingly, though of course he cannot see you, resting your fingertips on the door. “Saeran, it’s not -- i-it isn't as bad as it seems, there's no need to --”

“Tell me,” he hisses, insistent.

“I…” Your mind races, desperately trying to think of some excuse he’ll believe. “I did say I wanted to get some air. It might not be the walk you were imagining, but… having a clear head makes me more useful to paradise, doesn't it?” Right, and then there’s the logistics of being out here. “A-and we couldn't be out here without anyone knowing, could we? We just… stopped to rest to make you feel better, and soon we’ll--”

“Be on our way to the apartment?” he interrupts. He spits out the words with a dose of feigned enthusiasm. “Farther and farther from paradise, long past the point of reason for a trip for some air? ”

He sounds so certain, how does he --

Oh, goddamn it. God damn it. You left your fucking phone on the bathroom counter. With the map on full display, just past your lockscreen, which he would of course either already know or be able to bypass.

“I wasn't…” you begin weakly.

“Don't! ” he shrieks, as he slams his fist into the door, making you jolt back, “try to lie to me more!”

“I'm not -- I wasn't trying to -- I had a good reason!” you plead. It’s a weak excuse, but your ability to reason out a better one doesn't seem to be present right now, drowned out by mounting panic.

“A good--” He sounds as if he's choking on the word, and then he redoubles his efforts, bile coating his words. “What possible reason could you have to betray Mint Eye, to betray the savior, to betray me --”

“It's for you!” You cry, “I wasn't given a choice in any of this, but now, for the first time since I met you, I’m actually in control of something, and so I'm choosing to do this, not to betray you, but for you! ”

“How could you--” He is nearly stuttering in his disbelief.

“--and I know I shouldn't have lied to you but I -- I -- couldn't make you listen to me, couldn't make you see as long as you were in there because they--

“--ever possibly think taking me from the one place I can be safe would be--”

“--wouldn't ever want you to question them and--”

“--anything but a betrayal, how could this be for me ?”

You stop short as you finally register his words, a startled laugh bubbling up from your throat. Safe. “You -- you can't even see it.” It comes out as a murmur, almost disbelieving of his devotion, even now, a sense of horrified awe washing over you at just how deep they've rooted themselves in him. But of course they have, of course. Why would he see it any better now than he did before?

“Can't see what,” he spits out.

Your hands clench into fists as the answer to his question bursts forth. “See the damage they do, how much they've -- wormed their way into your head to twist things so far that you see them as safe! They're not safe, they're not anywhere close to it, and the only way to be safe when they're in the picture is to leave! ”

“You--!” And then you hear him draw in a shaky breath from the other side of the door. “Magenta... is where I belong. It's the only place I belong,” he says, voice low and eerily calm.

“Why? ” His words are unfathomable to you. The only place he belongs? “You’re so sure of that?

“Of course!” he snaps. “I can't go somewhere else, it's not -- it isn't possible, not with--” A ragged breath. “--how I am.” A measure of calmness returns to his voice. “And yet the savior found me when I was cast aside by everyone and gave me love and purpose.”

“What purpose? ” you cry. “Kidnapping charity organizations? Spying on people going about their day? Drugging people up to their gills so they comply?”

You can hear the shuffling start up again. It sounds like he's pacing in agitation.

After a moment, he speaks again. “Because of her, I can bring more lost souls to the peace they've longed for but always lacked, help those no one else would, save those as lost as I was! The savior brought me here to help and I won't turn my back on that, I won't betray her, I won't! ”

“She brought you to Mint Eye to use you,” you cry, and he slams his fist against the door again.

“She didn't! ” he shrieks. “She saved me from a shithole that would've gladly chewed me up and spit me out! The savior is the only person who ever accepted me, the only one I can trust not to betray me like everyone else! No one had ever wanted me before her, and there is no one I can rely on but her and…!” He chokes on his words. “You, you were supposed to…!”

Your breath catches. There is a moment of silence. You're not sure if you can actually hear his faint but labored breathing or if you just imagine it, much the same way that you imagine how he must look right now, fingers twisted in his hair in agitation, eyes wide and wounded, a frown cutting deep lines into his face.

Finally, he asks, “did you… intend to leave for good?”

You hesitate. “...yes,” you admit.

There is a soft noise of pain from the other side of the door. “But you -- did the work, you were by my side each step of the way, you helped paved the way to bring the RFA into paradise. And you're ready to throw that all away ?” He falters. “How long did you intend this? How long did you lie to me? Or was it from the beginning?” His voice is harsh, but the next words he speak sound lost. “Weren't you happy there…?”

“I…” You tangle your fingers in your hair and tug until it hurts, trying to find some grounding influence in the sting. “Look, I don't give a damn about paradise, okay? I don’t and I never did. I only did what I thought I had to do to avoid something awful happening. Jesus, I don't even know what salvation is meant to entail, but nothing could be worth what it takes to get someone there! But I do give a damn about you.”

His laugh is bitter. “Really.”

“Saeran…”

“No, go on. Tell me more about how you -- pretended to understand me while plotting against Mint Eye and now you want me to ignore the fact that you lied to me and expect me to believe a single word out of your mouth.”

“I didn't have much of a choice, did I?” you snap. But it's -- misplaced anger. His words send a pang of guilt through you, and though you know you're in the right, you still ache keenly for the pain you are causing him now, the sense of betrayal he must be feeling.

“I know you have no reason to trust me now,” you say softly, “but I never wanted to hurt you.” You want to reach out for him, seek out that comfort he so readily gave you only hours ago, maybe impart some sense of sincerity through your touch. Instead, you curl inward, placing your palms on your knees.

You wait for him to speak -- and wait, and wait. Faintly, you hear the creak of the door as he leans his weight against it. After another moment, you slowly sink into a sitting position, leaning against the door just as he is.

What are you even trying to accomplish here now? Getting him to believe you over the things he’s been told for god-knows-how-long -- months, at least, maybe even years -- by that cult, dispelling all those lies, all that indoctrination? Save him through the power of love?

You can’t… make him believe you, not by force of will alone. It’s not -- strictly necessary to getting somewhere safe, or to bringing down Mint Eye, and… well. It will be brought down, one way or another, with or without him. Even if he won't go with you, you won't be abandoning him to their clutches forever.

You’re out of paradise. You have a fair shot at making it to the RFA even if things go pear-shaped -- he’d never be able to get somewhere with the equipment necessary to track you before you reached the apartment, even if the absolute worst happened and you had to trek through the woods to get there without the car. Not your ideal day, but feasible. Might be able to call a cab with the last of your phone’s charge. If you ever get it back from the bathroom, that is.

…if he doesn't go with you, he may never speak to you again. Likely won't, in fact. If you can't reconcile now, then that… may just be the end of it.

You stifle a groan and let your head fall back against the door. Why can't escaping a cult ever be easy?

...a few minutes then, maybe. A few minutes and then you'll… accept his loss and continue your escape, even if the thought of it makes your stomach turn unpleasantly.

And, at last, he speaks.

“Why?” he murmurs. “Why, why, why would you do this, why would you take me--?” There is anguish in his voice, now, along with the anger. “If you hated it so much, why didn't you just leave…?”

“Kind of in the middle of that, here,” you respond with a bitter laugh.

“But with me? Why with me?”

“Because I don't want to leave you. I had to go back for you, you know. Couldn't take those final steps knowing I was leaving you behind me, and I just… couldn't bear to be without you.”

“ Why? ” There is something in his voice that sounds as if he is searching for something in particular from you.

“Because I--” your breath catches, and your hands clench. “Because I care about you. Somehow. Despite… everything. I want you to have the chance to be as safe and happy as you could be and you just don't have that chance there. I can't claim to know… what you've been through, what your life was like before Magenta, but even if it's better there somehow, that doesn't make it good.” You close your eyes. “For anyone, but least of all you.”

And how do you explain? How do you convey the sense of unceasing, overwhelming loneliness you've felt from him? “I noticed things, in Mint Eye,” you say. “Things that made me start wondering what life was like for you before -- me, before I came there. What were you like? No one to hold on your lap and feel up, obviously, but did you ever even talk to anyone?” Sometimes you think you know the disciples better than him, with how rarely he acknowledges their existence.

“Did you have… anything else to do besides your constant, diligent work? Because as far as I can tell, it's just me that you connect to, me and the savior and fuck all. Were you alone all that time ? Were you ever happy? You were always working to further the cause, even when it meant dealing with -- watching people who caused you so much heartache? I don't know what kind of betrayal you went through, but I know it must have been bad to cause that kind of hurt. And when I think about it, I -- I --”

You struggle with the words. “When I think about leaving you in a place that would let you stay like that, I can't bear it. You deserve so much more than that.” You hesitate. “...I… can't say I’m sure that I brought you happiness, either, but I was damn sure that I'd find a way to make you happy now.” Bitter tears prick at your eyes as you laugh softly.

And… you suppose you've said your piece. It’s out of your hands now. You might as well resign yourself to leaving without him.

You bury your face in your hands and try to fight back the wave of pain that this decision brings, then start to stand.

And there is the quiet click of a lock.

You freeze, halfway standing. Nothing happens for a moment, and then another moment, and then… the doorknob turns and, with a creak, the bathroom door opens.

Saeran stares down at you, expression unreadable, and continues to meet your eyes as you slowly stand.

A moment later, there are hands cupping your jaw, keeping you still. His gaze stays intense, focused on you.

“...tell me again,” he says softly. “What you were hoping to accomplish tonight.”

You wince. “Get us somewhere safe,” you whisper.

He stares into your eyes, examining you, searching for something. It's hard not to flinch back at the scrutiny, though you meet his gaze as steadily as you can, hoping that he will be satisfied by whatever he sees. Your pulse races as you try desperately to decipher his thoughts in return but his expression is blank, devoid of his previous anger and rage. Try as you might, you cannot read him. You begin to shrink away from his scrutinizing gaze.

And then he nods. “Okay.”

Your heart leaps. “...okay?”

He nods again and the barest flicker of a smile tugs up the corners of his mouth lips as he leans in until he's resting his forehead against yours.

“I--” You draw in a shaky breath. “I’m thrilled, but -- okay? Really okay?” You may be tempting fate, tempting a reversal of his acceptance, but… it's hard to wrap your head around it. Something about this doesn't seem right, it's… too easy.

“Well,” he says, “you could have gone about this better…” You laugh softly even as his words make you wince. “...but yes. I see now why you've done this.”

Tears spring to your eyes as his words wash over you, and you place your hands over his, overwhelmed but thankful.

He lets a hand fall from your face to rest at your hip and pushes gently, urging you backwards. You follow his lead until you bump into the edge of the bed, and then you sit. He follows, sitting so close to you that you're flush against his side, and he holds your hands in his.

After a moment, he speaks again. “Why didn't you tell me this earlier? If you worried so much...”

“Would you have listened?”

“To you telling me you care about me? Always. Might’ve been easier to talk about this if you hadn't waited,” he suggests, a faint hint of amusement in his voice.

A nervous giggle spills from your lips, driven by a mix of relief and confusion too strong to keep bottled up. This feels like a dream.

But… as much as you'd like it to be true… that's it? That’s all it took? Just… some long-thought words and he understands and he's ready to leave Mint Eye behind?

You open your eyes, trying to think up the words to voice your concern, to make you understand, but…

Though he looks content, there is a furrow to his brow, a faint but constant wince marring his expression.

“Saeran? Is something wrong?”

He shakes his head, though this deepens the furrow. “Headache. It’s… fine, I can manage, I've managed before.”

“Lingering effect of the elixir?”

“Mmh. Yeah. Not unexpected.” He gives a wan smile. “Not wanted, but not unexpected.”

You wince in sympathy. “That just kicked in?”

“No, but…” he inclines his head. “Wasn't really my biggest concern a few minutes ago.”

“And... the nausea pills said they could help with dizziness, with nothing about headaches anywhere. That'd just be too easy, wouldn't it?” you lament. A thought occurs to you. “Oh… though, I bet we could just go back to the convenience store and get painkillers to take care of it, or… make it not as bad, depending on the intensity.”

The more you think about it, the more you grow keen on the idea. “Yeah, we can stop there and then just continue on, fixing your headache as we get back on the road.”

But when you look to Saeran, he is frowning. “We really don’t have to do that,” he says.

“Hey, you think I'm gonna give a big speech about wanting you to be safe and happy and then just shrug off you hurting?” You stand so you can dig around in your pockets for your keys. “The gas station is just up the road, we can get there in five minutes, ten minutes tops.” You pull the keys free at last and swing them around a finger. “Well? C’mon, let’s go.”

He remains still. A sense of dread rises within you, though you try to push it back down.

“...don't wanna get up now. I’d rather just wait until it stops hurting.”

“It's that bad? In that case, I definitely can’t ignore it.” You smile with a mirth you don't quite feel.

“Not ignore,” he says, meeting your eyes head on. “Just give time to get better.”

You hesitate.

“Wasn't that what we were here for?” he asks. “To make me feel better? I remember you said that. Or…” And a smirk crosses his face. “Did you take us here for some other reason?” As you stare at him, dumbfounded, he says, “I saw the name of this place on the map. Interesting pick.”

“Noooooo,” you groan, “that's not fair, I did it so you wouldn't crash the car.”

He tilts his head and narrows his eyes.

“What, you don't remember that?” you ask. “I'm not sure how much you noticed; you did sort of segue into barfing immediately after. But… I, uh, don't think you'll be doing that again now, so… this is the sort of better I meant. There’s no reason why we have to stay here any longer. Unless you think the car ride would make it worse…?”

“Wouldn't make it better.”

“Unless you got painkillers,” you interject, but he continues.

“And it's safe enough here that we can stay for a while.”

You're inclined to disagree, though you suppose he would know better than you how capable Mint Eye is of tracking you down without him there.

“I'm… nervous about staying,” you admit. “If you say staying won't hurt us, I trust you, but that doesn't mean I won’t worry. And I really do think that painkillers will help with your headache. Even if you say you’re fine, I don’t like seeing you in pain,” you add.

He nods, and there is a moment of contemplative silence. “Both, then,” he says at last. “You get painkillers and come back. I'll stay here, and then we wait for the headache to fade.”

“And then we'll… leave... together…?” you speak this last part hesitantly, still in disbelief of how well everything has gone.

“Yeah. Together,” he says.

His words elicit such a swell of relief that you nearly sway on your feet. He's -- okay with this. He's willing to leave with you.

A laugh spills from your lips and you take a half-step closer to the bed so you can cup his face and press an impulsive, ecstatic kiss to his lips -- and then another, and another, too overjoyed to slow down.

Saeran seems surprised for only a half-second, and then he tangles his fingers in your hair and accepts your kisses with enthusiasm and a smile. He nuzzles against you when you finally pull back a bit, and seeing such a content look in his eyes makes warmth blossom in your chest.

“I--” There are words that lie at the tip of your tongue, threatening to spill out in this rush of affection, dangerous words for this situation, far stronger than caring . “...I'll be back soon,” you say again, an earnest promise. “And everything will be -- better.”

You are reluctant to step back entirely, but you know you must. Can't really help his headache when you just stay here, caught in his embrace. “It won’t take long but for some reason, I don’t want to leave,” you murmur, and he grins at this confession.

“Okay,” you say, and finally straighten. “I don't know how long we slept, but I should make sure I can pay if we need more time on the room, so…” You step into the bathroom and grab your phone, then return. “Right. I've got the key to the room, but just in case, maybe listen for desperate knocking? It's been, ah, that kind of night.”

He chuckles and lays back against the bed, and as he settles in, you walk to the door. You give him one last look as you open the door -- and pause.

There's something indulgent about his smile that gives you pause, as if he's being permissive of your childish attitude or he's… anticipating something. But you shake your head, willing the thought away. Only hours ago, he was so taken in by your kisses that he failed to notice being steadily drugged, so maybe he's just dreamy after getting more kisses.

You smile back at him, though the expression may come off a bit more nervous than you'd intended, and then you're off. Once off the elevator, you make a brief stop at one of the kiosks, but the room isn't marked as up for rent currently, so you must still have time.

So out the doors, and back across the street you go.

You root around in your pockets as you get closer to the car. You had, what, a little more than ₩3000? That should do it, even if it only gets you a two-pack. Still, you check the coin drawer just in case, and actually manage to find a worn 1000 note wedged into the back of the drawer, half-fallen out. Nice. No guarantee you'll need it, but it's reassuring. If you come back empty-handed, that won't be any help to him.

You return the money to your pocket, start the car, and pull out of the lot.

It's hard to stop the slew of thoughts that creep in as you drive. At least you're not panicking like you were before.

Still, you can't help wondering -- is he really so fine with leaving Mint Eye? Does he assume you’re going to abandon your plan to go to the apartment to enlist Seven’s help? Does he think that you'll find some other ‘safe place’ to hide out with him? If you do keep driving to the apartment -- and you will, you must ; the RFA seems like it'll provide the quickest way to bring down Mint Eye, and time is of the essence here to avoid anyone else getting hurt -- will he freak out when he realizes how close Seven will be to him? Could you dare to hope that he’d accept going to them if you… leave after getting a promise that they’ll help you? If you minimized the time spent around Seven?

And on that note, what the hell was his life like before Mint Eye, and how were Seven and V involved? What kind of betrayal happened there? What made him hate them so badly?

But whatever the answers to these questions may be, he has agreed to leave with you. This is the thought that lingers with you, and by the time you park in front of the convenience store, you have grown giddy enough that there's practically a skip in your step as you head through the doors.

You offer the cashier a jaunty wave as you make a beeline for the aisle where you found the anti-nausea medicine. Unsurprisingly, there's even more options for painkillers than for nausea. Some cheap ones, too, though there aren't many pills included in those. Still, there's enough. This should help. You grab the box and ignore the expression of mild confusion on the cashier’s face as he rings you up, stuff the negligible change he gives you back into your pocket, and head merrily back to the car.

And with more driving comes more thoughts.

You have Saeran on your side, now… how are you going to go about asking for the RFA’s help? Appeal to their sense of self-preservation? Tell them Mint Eye is just going to keep targeting them until there’s no more Mint Eye?

Saeran hates Seven, and though you don’t think the feeling is exactly mutual, you can’t bank on their history as any sort of leverage.

You could try contacting them now -- open up a chat room, or try sending a text. Might be better to do it now; Saeran might react badly to seeing you do it. But then, if he's traveling with you, he'll find out eventually, so being underhanded won't win you any points with him. Now that he's out of Mint Eye, maybe you can spare the time to talk over a plan with him, see if he's amenable to contacting the RFA for help.

And you might get kicked out of the app once they notice you're there, so you should have a good idea of what you'll say before logging in.. As you think this over, you reach the office’s parking lot and turn into it.

You’re not sure that testing the waters with Saeran about contacting the RFA would be a good idea, but it’s an option. Maybe if you’re very careful, you can discuss it while he’s waiting for his headache to fade, suss out what he's expecting to happen and make a new plan. It’s hard to imagine that he'll jump at the possibility of doing… well, anything you were planning on doing tonight, but maybe -- hold on a minute.

There are lights coming this way. Headlights. You flick off your own headlights as you watch the approaching beams get brighter and brighter, passing the spot you're parked in and turning into the parking lot of the motel.

Goosebumps raise along your skin as you watch the car park by the entrance, not quite in front of the door but just off-center from it.

It… can't be. That’s just some couple looking for some privacy, right? There’s… no way that that’s…

But you can’t seem to believe what you’re telling yourself.

They came from the direction of Mint Eye. There's nothing out that way for miles. If they'd come in from the other direction, maybe you could buy that the car belongs to someone just hoping for some seclusion, but as it is…

Your grip tightens on the steering wheel as you watch someone emerge from the car. They're… not wearing robes, but that doesn't rule them out as a disciple. After a moment, someone emerges from the other side, and the pair heads into the motel. You stare after them for a long, long moment, waiting to see if there's anyone else in there, but nothing changes.

So you make a decision.

Your breath catches as you start the car again and pull out of your parking spot, leaving the lights off. You go slow, though you know that probably won't have an effect on how loud the engine is, and glance repeatedly between the road in front of you and the mysterious car as you navigate your own car to a space on the side of the road. It's not particularly secluded, but it should still be hidden by darkness, and you're in a better position to gun it and leave this place behind now.

God, if they’re from Mint Eye, this is so, so bad. Did they -- track you? But how? They can’t know that you’re here, parked just across the street; they wouldn’t just let you stay here. But do they know where Saeran is? Unless they’ve got him microchipped, if they’ve managed to track you, wouldn’t it be because of something built into the car, or because they’ve bugged your phone? So why aren’t they heading for you?

Unless…

Your next thought is -- unpalatable.

If Saeran checked your phone enough to see where you were heading, there's nothing to say that he didn't try contacting Mint Eye.

Your hands spasm on the wheel, and then you grab for your phone, fumbling to unlock it so you can scroll frantically through your call history, then your texts, ignoring the worried messages you’ve gotten since you dropped off the face of the earth, then -- after some hesitation -- opening up the RFA app and checking your personal messages.

Nothing new. You sag back in relief and close the app.

So -- how did they find you? Are they… tapped into your bank account, able to see the withdrawals you make? Maybe they’ve been using your account to fund their cult shit? Though you did still have enough to rent the room. Maybe they really aren’t with Mint Eye?

But you can’t shake your fear. If it’s Mint Eye, surely they’d come looking for you, right? So if they don’t come back out soon, then… maybe it’s safe. You could wait it out. Wait to see if they come looking for you. But how long is long enough to know? And if it’s them… Saeran is…

You shake your head, trying to clear away that thought. They wouldn't hurt him, if they are even with Mint Eye at all.

And yet -- damn it. You can’t just leave him to fend for himself.

Your hands shake as you unbuckle, and that persistent tremor remains with you as you dart across the street and head for the doors of the motel.

In you creep, fear and adrenaline setting your nerves on fire, making your steps wobble.

The lobby is empty. That's… good, but you've got to keep going, and it looks like you'll have to take the elevator -- there's no stairs in sight. You rake your hand through your hair in frustration when you realize this. Isn’t that a fire hazard? Still, you hit the call button for the elevator -- though you're so tense that you nearly jump out of your skin when the bell dings to signal its arrival.

You step inside, but as you press the button for the second floor, you're beset by another worry. It's… possible that someone's waiting on the other side of the doors for you. You tense at the thought and step back until your heels hit the wall, which doesn't do much more than give you some room to react, but --

The doors open. There's no one there. Even after peering nervously down the hallway, there is no one to be seen.

Relief washes over you. It's fine. They're not out here, they're not down there, and Saeran wouldn't have opened the door for them. They must just have been a couple, and you've worried for nothing. Maybe you'll laugh about it with him later, when your heart’s had a chance to calm down.

You dig around for your key as you approach the door and lift your arm to unlock it, but there's something that makes you pause.

Voices.

Fear floods your senses. No. But as much as you wish it wasn't so, you can hear voices. Plural.

You step closer and press your ear to the door.

“--should be back soon--”

You gasp and jolt back, tripping over your feet and falling backwards with a thud. The key slips from your hand and skitters across the floor. The voices stop.

Shit

You scramble to your feet as footsteps, rapid and heavy, come from the other side of the door, louder and louder, and then there is the click of the lock disengaging.

A shout echoes behind you as you run down the hallway, skidding into the elevator and desperately slamming your palm against the ‘close door’ button.

Please please please please --

You squeeze your eyes shut as the doors close slowly, agonizingly slowly, the footsteps growing closer and closer. You keep expecting to see someone come into view, but you only catch a glimpse of a harried-looking face before the doors finally fully close and the elevator begins its descent.

There is a muffled, agitated shout, and then it fades as the distance between you grows. When the doors open, you begin to bolt, but then stop, frozen halfway out of the elevator.

Saeran.

He's still up there, he's still in the room. You can't --

You can't do anything.

If you go back, they'll catch you, and then you'll both be lost, but if you can get out of here, you can get help, but it means you have to leave him now, and god, he's going to go back there, and they might --

The elevator doors begin to close. They're coming. You have to go, now. But first, you drag your hand up the panel of buttons, hitting all the floors. No guarantee that'll slow them down -- hell, maybe they actually know where the stairs are -- but it's worth a shot.

You can't get caught. This is the only way you can help him now.

And then you run, back out the doors, back across the street, barely looking where you're going until you are launching yourself into the front seat and fumbling to start the engine. You don't bother with your headlights until the motel’s faded into the distance.

Jesus, how did they find you? Why were they in the room? Did he know it was them? Did he let them in…? Or -- you did tell him to listen for your knock, just in case you lost the key. He couldn't have mistaken them for you, would he?

If you'd been quicker, if you'd slept a little less, talked to him earlier, could you have been out of there before they came? Would you both have been safe right now?

Your fingers clench.

Help. You need help.

...they might shut down your access to the chatroom, now that they know you've escaped. If they can set it up remotely, they may be able to disable it just as easily. Maybe not, but -- the sooner you get in touch with the RFA, the sooner this can be resolved, right? But what to say? And to whom?

Just -- burst into a chatroom and hope that whoever's online listens to you? ‘Hi, I know this looks suspicious, but I'm trustworthy, I promise, please believe me!’

Seven is your best bet. He recognized Saeran, and if he knows you know him, that should give him a reason not to boot you from the server, or… at least startle him long enough for you to type out your plea.

Right. Okay. Better be quick about it. You don't know how long you'll have.

You unlock your phone one-handed and open up the RFA’s messenger, glancing between it and the road.

Messages. Not the general chatroom. He hasn't told anyone who Saeran is. He may recognize you coming directly to him as the courtesy it's intended to be.

‘i know the hacker that's been targeting you.’ You type, as quickly as you can -- which isn't very quick at all, given how often you have to direct your eyes back to the road to avoid swerving. ‘saeran i can tell you more if you listen to me.�� And then, ‘please don't lock me out. for all our sakes.’

You turn up the volume on your phone, then set it aside. You're not expecting a reply immediately, though you know it's not rare for him to be awake at these hours. You're going to be ready when he responds -- if he responds. You can only hope he does.

You're going to fix this. Whatever it takes, you'll fix this.

You can't accept any other outcome.

#saeran #saeran choi #mystic messenger #mystic messenger unknown #saeran route fic tag #mine

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jmsebastian · 7 years ago

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Lament of Innocence is to Curse of Darkness as Demon's Souls is to Dark Souls

One of the most highly touted reasons for the success of Dark Souls rests with the interconnectedness of its world design. Lordran doesn’t exist on a level plane. Levels don’t act as spokes on a wheel, simply starting at a hub and moving outward in a single direction. Levels exist over and under each other. They double back on themselves. There are shortcuts, such as elevators and and locked doors, that make navigating the world much more straightforward as a reward for exploration. It makes the world interesting and surprising. There’s really nothing like working one’s way through the Undead Burg, only to get to the church elevator below the bell tower, and realize it connects back down to Firelink Shrine.

Really, Dark Souls took the philosophy of the level design in its predecessor, Demon’s Souls, and applied it on a much larger scale. Demon’s Souls featured a hub, the Nexus, from which the player could select the game’s various levels. The levels were very large, often interwoven, and rife with shortcuts as well, but each level was self-contained. There was no way to walk from Boletaria through to the Tower of Latria. They existed separately from one another, their only link being through the arch stones residing in the Nexus.

I bring this up not only because it is now a legal requirement to mention Dark Souls in every conversation about videogames, but because the differences in level design philosophy between Demon’s and Dark Souls have an earlier parallel in the pair of Castlevania games made for the Playstation 2, Lament of Innocence and Curse of Darkness. Often overlooked due to the quality and renown of games like Symphony of the Night, Koji Igarashi also managed to prove that Konami’s early foray into 3D with the series was not a waste, and that solid action adventure games could exist alongside the Metroidvania style games.

Let’s start with the hub. Lament of Innocence’s world is built around the game’s NPC and vendor, Rinaldo Gandolfi. The player character, Leon Belmont, buys items and learns more information about the nightmare he has decided to face in the safety of Rinaldo’s cottage. Lying basically at the doorstep of the vampire’s castle, it’s a convenient home base. Once a level is beaten, you return here to progress the story and restock your supplies. You can also use special ticket items, purchased from Gandolfi, that allow fast travel back to the cottage from wherever you are inside the castle.

The warp points that lead to the actual levels are up short path from Rinaldo’s, in a small reception area to the castle. There are five levels, each represented by a symbol on the floor and a pillar, which lights once the stage has been completed. The levels can be entered in any order, and re-entered once completed, to collect items or access areas not possible on the first time through. The game’s final stage is locked until the five main stages have been completed.

The level select area.

The Nexus, in Demon’s Souls, combines the respite and stage select ideas into one impressively large area. Getting to the various stages is done simply by interacting with the arch stones that represent their corresponding worlds. Outside the beginning of the game, the worlds can be entered in any order and revisited at any time in much the same way they can be in Lament of Innocence. The Nexus is where the majority of NPCs end up, becoming vendors for items or spells, much like Gandolfi. The idea of a safe place is key to both games. It allows for reflection on what the player did or didn’t do well in the previous excursion against foes. More importantly, it allows players to plan things out and prepare themselves. Running around under a constant barrage of enemies, as in Lament, or wary of a quick, unexpected death in Demon’s Souls makes quiet time invaluable.

The scale of the Nexus makes this hub area a level unto itself.

Hub worlds, are by no means unique to Demon’s Souls or Lament of Innocence. They do share some common features, but the more interesting parallel is that their successors both did away with a true central hub in favor of a more natural and cohesive world. In Curse of Darkness, levels are connected in order, meaning a player has to progress through the first to get to the second, and so on. To reduce the time spent getting from one level to another, there is an elevator system, which when used, allows the player fast travel back or forward to the desired level’s elevator room.

These rooms must be discovered and activated before they can be used, making them most effective for backtracking. The intended reason to do this would be to buy items back in the town area of the map, or to explore areas that might have been skipped over. In practice, using them is rarely necessary. Only in an instance or two are there dead ends in levels that require navigating back to previous levels to open new areas. For that reason, I hesitate to say the world is interconnected. The linearity of progression reduces its impact quit a bit, but it does feel consistent in a way that was completely absent from Lament of Innocence.

For being 3D games, both of these titles have an interesting, and frustrating, lack of vertical level design. There is implied verticality in Curse of Darkness with the fast travel elevators, and it’s implied heavily via inclines and the map being organized by floor, but it has little practically application with regard to how the levels are put together. Old areas can’t really be accessed from directly above or below.. At best, a section of the level will be separated by a big pit in the that you have to glide over to reach another pathway. Even really does nothing to add complexity to the level. They can be thought of exclusively in 2D. To highlight this strict adherence to flatness, the game’s map system is entirely two dimensional and works perfectly well for the purposes of navigation.

This map would work just as well for a game like A Link to the Past.

Lament of Innocence is a little better about this. Many rooms have two floors to them, though often consisting of just a balcony or some other minor addition that doesn’t lead anywhere new. There are levels stacked on top of each other, but they exist mostly as an excuse to have players do some platforming with the whip. Whip platforming adds a little something to the exploration, but it doesn’t open up the game a whole lot. It isn’t integrated into the level design to the point where it felt like a totally worthwhile inclusion. The possibilities are evident, but the follow through is nearly non-existent. Worse yet, the few instances that do feature some elevation changes make reading the 2D maps much more challenging. You might see a door on the map and not realize it’s somewhere above you, and since the various floors of the level can’t be viewed stacked on top of each other, it’s impossible to know how each floor connects to each other.

Only one level of Lament featured a surprising shift in design tone. In The Garden That Time Forgot, there is an area with two ledges tantalizingly out of reach. While not in plain sight, jumping around the arena reveals ledges that are clearly meant to be reached. Placed in the room are monstrous plants that, when attacked enough times, become stunned and can be safely used as platforms to reach the ledges. The use of enemies designed specifically to aid in world navigation is a great idea, but it’s only used in this single instance. Considering the hoards of repetitive enemies that exist only to slow your progress, there is a clear sense that several more interesting ideas existed within the developers, but whether due to budget or time constraints (possibly both), it leaves navigating the rest of the levels feeling unrewarding.

This is one of only a handful of times the game makes use of multi-level areas.

The biggest flaw shared by the two games is that their levels are mostly sprawling messes. While Curse of Darkness had enormous levels, it managed to generate a feeling in the player that they were moving forward most of the time, something Dark Souls managed to accomplish exceedingly well. By having various rooms act as intersecting points for a system of hallways, players can almost always run forward and get to where they want to go. This greatly reduces the feeling of backtracking while making the map remain as simple as possible.

Lament of Innocence, on the other hand, rarely gives players the satisfaction of forward progress. Taking a large lesson from Symphony of the Night, Lament is utterly rife with backtracking. Levels have doors that must be unlocked by stepping on switches located at various points throughout the level. Unfortunately, these points are often far away from each other and down hallways that have one way in and one out. Running back and forth down long corridors crowded with enemies gets wearisome quickly, especially since it lacks Symphony's fast-paced platforming to break up the monotony. The tedium is exacerbated by areas in each level having little to distinguish them visually. Hallways all look the same, big open rooms of enemies look the same. Many glances at the map are required to get a good sense of where everything is in relation to each other.

Comparing these two games to From Software’s work is not entirely fair, or justified. Igarashi’s games have very different goals from Miyazaki’s. Foremost is that they are much more rooted in action games than they are in role playing games. Lament of Innocence is a bit more similar to a classic Metroidvania than an action RPG, even. Curse of Darkness, on the other hand, is almost a straight up action game. Attack combos, subweapons, attack chain bonuses: these are all staples of beat ‘em ups or brawlers. Enemies are generally killed quickly and in large groups. They aren’t put in places to surprise you, or keep you alert and focused through the entire game. They often just appear in the middle of your path, clear as day. Other times rooms just become impassable until all the monsters in the room are slain.

To accommodate all this fighting, big, flat fighting arenas make sense. Fighting on top of bridges or near ledges would mean players would constantly be plummeting to their doom while they flip dodged through enemy attacks. The constant turning of the character to face the yet to be felled enemies would cause the camera to become an incredible nuisance, viewing angles blocked by obstacles getting between the camera and the player character, or in the case of Lament, the uncontrollable camera never readjusting itself to give the player a decent view of the action. Unfortunately, the big trade-off made is that most of the game’s time is spent just running down hallways, trying to get from point A to point B as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Konami can’t really be blamed for wanting to take the Castlevania series in a different direction. Despite the valiant early 3D attempts to capture the spirit of the series on the Nintendo 64, Castlevania (64) and Legacy of Darkness are not looked back on especially fondly in the series’ canon. There was a need to distance the brand from those games and attempt another genre that still fit with the source material. In many respects, Lament of Innocence and Curse of Darkness do that perfectly. Both are truly enjoyable games. As with Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls, saying which game is better is both difficult and folly. They both offer a variation on a theme, and that theme is memorable.

#castlevania #konami #from software #dark souls

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glare-gryphon · 8 years ago

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Yay! Because I've been wondering for a while - what if, after viewing the security recording, Obi-Wan had stuck to his guns and refused to fight Anakin? Maybe Yoda wasn't there to push it? And Obi-Wan runs, possibly after dropping by Padme's to warn her - and afterwards, Vaderkin focuses on hunting down Obi-Wan and Obi thinks it's to kill him, but no its because he wants Obi to marry him - he wants his Master back, to raise his kids since Padme died, and obi-Wan is HIS after all...

First of all, I have to throw a shoutout to @fireflyfish. Her fic After the End of the World is almost this exact prompt, minus the marriage part and + Fem!Obi. It’s a great fic, and you should definitely read it if you aren’t yet.

Without further ado…

Ring

Rating: T

Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Darth Vader

Additional Tags: Post-Mustafar AU, Canon-Typical Violence, Vaderkin

~2500 Words

The cold of the spaceport is miserable, biting at his skin and sinking down into his bones. The few civilian clothes he’s managed to obtain in his years of wandering are better suited for warmer climates than the wet chill of this place. It always seems to be raining, here; when it isn’t, a heavy mist settles over the port in its place.

Another nameless spaceport on another nameless world, unimportant but for the fact that the Empire has been slow to reach it. No notable exports of desirable resources, there was no pressing need for Imperial presence. Ben has inhabited it for the past few months, making rent for a dingy apartment off under-the-table mechanical work. He is neither the best, nor the worst. Average and forgettable in the way of a man who does not want to be noticed.

It’s agonizingly dull work. Sometimes he imagines himself a bounty hunter, or a pirate, or a leader at the head of the growing Rebellion he sees discussed on the holo from time to time. Something more exciting than his life as it is now: an endless parade of broken parts and frayed wiring. Alas, this is not the life meant for him, now. Obi-Wan Kenobi cannot draw attention to himself if he wishes to live long enough to see the end of the Empire’s tyranny.

This is why he must move again, his belongings stowed in a small pack he crafted from the tattered remnants of his Jedi robe. Even after trading his tunics for a set of civilian clothes, he’d continued to wear the robe out of some lingering sentiment for the life he’d left behind. It was close enough to a standard traveling cloak that no one noticed the difference, and he’d kept it until the seams wore beyond repair. It’s been given a new life beyond its intended purpose, now. Just like its owner.

“Passenger Shuttle 239 now boarding in bay seven,” a robotic voice announces over the intercom system.

Ben rises from the waiting bench, swinging the pack over his shoulder and pulling out his identification documents for inspection. He’d traded the last of his credits for these papers, listing his name as Ben Lars. The forger had promised they’d pass the scrutiny of lazy dockworkers, but there are no lazy dockworkers here.

Instead there is an Imperial Officer in a sharp-cut olive uniform, flanked by two stormtroopers in their signature white armor. They stand out amongst the planet’s continual misty-grey atmosphere, drawing the eyes of passersby and reminding them of the Imperial presence that’s descended upon their unimportant little world. Ben had hoped to get out of here before they took full control of the ports; it seems he is just a few hours too late

Gritting his teeth, he steps into line. He doesn’t have another option now but to run the gauntlet and hope for the best. He can’t remain on this planet much longer. Heightened security around the ports has cost him his job, temporary housing for troops has cost him his room, and more Imperial eyes means more risk of getting caught.

The Gran ahead of him is waved past into the bay, and it is Ben’s turn to hand over his papers. His hands do not shake as he drops them into the officer’s expectant palm, but it is a close thing.

“Ben Lars,” the officer announces to no one in particular, his eyes flickering briefly between Ben and the attached photo before slipping his ID chip into a scanner. For a tense moment, nothing happens, and it feels as though Ben’s heart as frozen in his chest. As though his lungs cannot draw enough oxygen.

Then the scanner beeps, a pleasant chime, and the light along its surface glows green. The officer pulls the chip out, proceeding to then shove the chip and his papers into Ben’s chest. “Continue.”

Ben clutches the bundle to his chest, momentarily dazed by the realization that everything had worked. It’s only when one of the ‘troopers harshly shoves him, combined with a command to, “Move along,” do his legs remember how to move. They carry him on autopilot up the boarding ramp of the transport and into his seat. Only when he’s settled does he dare release a relieved sigh. He’s past the checkpoint; he’s on his way to a new planet. What could possibly go wrong now?

He isn’t sure when he dozed off, but Ben is woken when the transport shutters violently around him. He scrubs at bleary eyes, righting himself in his seat as other passengers to the same. They seem to have stopped moving, but they have not reached their destination. Outside the viewports is only the vast expanse of space.

“What’s going on?” He asks, turning to the passenger next to him, and receives only a disinterested shrug in return.

“Probably mechanical problems. These transports are always breaking down,” the Rodian grumbles.

Ben is just about to push himself to his feet, about to go and offer his help with whatever is holding up their trip, when the shriek of metal cuts through the ship. An emergency exit panel on the roof is ripped open, exposing them not to the vacuum of space, but some kind of boarding hatch. He already knows what’s about to happen before four pirate drop through the hole into the transport.

The insignias worn on their clothes are not any of those he is familiar with, but there are countless pirate crews roaming the hyperspace lanes of the Outer Rim. Those that he does know are constantly changing: alliances being made and broken, captains overthrown and crews killed in crossfire. Even Ben cannot keep up—especially now that he is without the Order’s resources.

The apparent leader, a Zygerian male, draws a large blaster from its holster at his hip and fires one shot at the Imperials who had scanned their documents at the gates, traveling with them and apparently attempting to play hero. The bolt cuts clean through one 'trooper’s armor, splattering gore across his compatriots and the cabin wall. Several passengers scream; the other Imps are cowed into inaction.

“Here’s how this is going to work,” the Pirate Captain announces as his three lackeys spread out through the transport. “You’re all going to give us your things, and if we like what you’ve got, we might just let you live. Anybody else tries anything funny, well…” He trails off them, tipping his head pointedly in the direction of the 'trooper’s corpse.

If Ben were anyone else, he might have been content with handing over his meager belongings and hoping for the best. He might have played the role of frightened passenger and hoped against hope that the pirates let them be at the end of this. Unfortunately for Ben, he is not anyone else. He is Jedi General Obi-Wan Kenobi, this is a transport full of defenseless civilians, and the familiar weight of his lightsaber’s hilt is suddenly heavy in his sleeve.

He has always valued the lives of others more than his own.

“Don’t be stupid,” the Rodian beside him says in an urgent whisper when Ben makes to rise to his feet. “You’re going to get us all killed!”

“No one else is going to die here,” Ben replies, pushing past him and stepping out into the aisle.

His movement draws the attention of the Captain, who turns to inspect him with a disdainful smirk. “What do we have here?” The Zygerian asks. “Do you have a problem, friend?”

Ben meets his eyes with a smirk of his own, sharp and dangerous in a way he hasn’t been since the Clone Wars. The thrill of combat settles into his skin like an old friend; stars, he’s missed this. “I’m going to give you until the count of ten, by which time I expect you and your men to be off this vessel and on your way,” he announces.

“Are you?” The Captain scoffs. “And if we aren’t? What do you think you’re going to do about it?”

He gestures with the blaster, a truly ungainly thing, in a way that is probably meant to be threatening. The effect, however, is lost on Ben. The weapon is too big and clunky for the close quarter of the cabin. Powerful, yes, but a misplaced shot could easily rip through the ship’s hull, killing the pirates as well as the passengers upon exposure to space’s vacuum. He needs a clear shot—a slow moving target—in order to fire.

Ben will give him neither of these things.

Between one heartbeat and the next, he draws his 'saber from his sleeve, igniting the hilt and relishing in the recognition that flashes in the Captain’s eyes. The fear. And while Ben slightly out of practice, his situation not allowing the time nor privacy to practice his forms to the full extent, he still has the upper hand over these pirates.

It is nothing to cut them down, shaken as they are by the appearance of a Jedi. Perhaps not the grand combat he’d hoped for, but better still than the monotony that has been his life for the last three years. He stands over their bodies, barely breathing hard, and doesn’t even consider the repercussions of exposing himself until a blinding pain erupts in the back of his skull. He staggers, braces himself on a seat back, and gets a blurry glimpse of a terrified Imperial Offer before his legs give out and his vision goes black. For a long time, he knows no more.

The second time Ben wakes, it is to the sounds of conversation. He’s been moved, he realizes before he’s even pried his eyes open. There is cold metal beneath his cheek and his hands are now cuffed behind him. His head spins and aches from the earlier blow.

The dimensions of whatever room he’s in are small, a glance around revealing stacked boxes and a powered-down cleaning droid. Some kind of supply closet, then.

Bits and pieces of the conversation float through the door to his makeshift cell, heard but not fully understood. Ben is still too disoriented for that.

“—captured a Jedi aboard this passenger transport, while on route to—”

“—description you sent. Are you sure—”

“Yes, sir. Human male, red hair, blue eyes—”

Everything swims back into focus with the pronouncement of, “Bring him to me,” from an eerily familiar voice. Obi-Wan has not heard it since that last day, years ago.

It used to carry with it the associations of nights beneath the warmth a shared blanket, the chaos of war set aside for a few brief hours of comfort and rest; of days filled with sweat and strain, laughter ringing through the training halls as they try to pin each other to the mats; of feelings unacknowledged and words unspoken, lingering touches and furtive glances.

Now it only brings the bitter reminder of destruction and death.

The Officer from earlier, along with two new troopers, appear when they slide open the door to his closet. He vaguely recognizes the style of their helm, the blue paint: Anakin’s 501st. They are not gentle as they haul him to his feet, dragging him along when his legs refuse to cooperate. He is no longer the trusted General Kenobi to them; instead, another despised member of traitorous Jedi Order. Ben stares at the floor as they pull him down the transport’s center aisle, still too disoriented to put up a proper struggle. From what he can see from this angle, the rest if the passengers must have already departed.

They stop in front of a familiar black boots, and a gloved finger hooks under his chin to pull his unresisting head up.

Standing before him is Darth Vader, though this is no surprise. Ben can’t even work up the energy for a proper scowl and his former pupil scrutinizes him, the look on his face something between hunger and awe. “Hello, Obi-Wan,” he says breathlessly.

“'lo,” Ben slurs back, tongue clumsy. He definitely has a concussion.

Vader’s eyes narrow at the uncharacteristic greeting, using his free hand to comb through Ben’s hair in a gesture that’s familiar from their days at war. The hair at the back of his head is wet and matted; Vader’s fingers pull away coated with blood. “What happened?” The Sith demands, rounding on the Officer.

“W-we had to secure him somehow!” The man sputters, obviously startled by the Sith’s reaction. “I hit him with–”

He does not finish that sentence. With a jerk of Vader’s hand and swell of the Dark that turns Ben’s stomach, the Officer’s head twists, breaking with a sharp crack. His body tumbles lifelessly to the floor, and Ben frowns at it.

“Well, that was uncalled for,” he sighs, almost petulantly, and Vader’s attention returns to him. “Don’t see why it matters that he hit me, when you’re just going to kill me anyways.”

“I’m not going to kill you, Obi-Wan,” Vader says, stepping into his space. Ben strains weakly against the hold on him, tries to pull away from the hands that cup gently his face. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

This, Ben knows. It is the reason he had stayed in hiding: from the Imperials, the Rebels, and the remnants of the Jedi alike. With Vader’s dogged pursuit looming over him, he would have been a danger to everyone around him. But if Vader truly doesn’t wish to kill him, then—

“Why?”

The Sith’s smile is pitying. Ben hates it. “You know why, Obi-Wan,” he says, and Ben shakes his head in denial.

“No, I don’t.”

Vader is so close to him now, his breath ghosting across Ben’s face, nose brushing against his. If he weren’t being held up by the clones, he imagines he legs would be weak. This moment, this intimacy, is everything he once wanted. He’s disgusted to find that a part of him still wants it.

“Don’t lie to yourself. I know what you feel for me; I feel it, too. I need you as much as you need me.” He reaches into a pocket of his utility belt, producing from it something that looks suspiciously like—

A ring. It’s a simple thing: a wide, gold band, likely hand-crafted by Vader himself. Ben stares at it as though it is a poisonous viper. He’d had fantasies about a ring since he found out the truth of Anakin’s marriage, but they never went anything like this.

“You are going to be mine, Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Vader breathes into his ear, clones holding him still while he slides the band onto Ben’s finger. Then the Sith is pressing his lips hungrily to Ben’s own to seal a promise the elder never made.

He suddenly can’t help but mourn those monotonous days at port.

#Gryph Fic #Obikin #Vaderwan #kitsunesongs

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flamespark5-blog · 5 years ago

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rudderless-in-an-ocean-of-stars · 7 years ago

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false veneers and failed façades

of broken mirrors and haunted rooms (i’m empty inside but so are you), chapter two

An ATLA fanfiction.

Not a lot of people read the first chapter, or even seemed interested in this story, but who cares, I love it, so I’m putting it out there once more and with a brand-new chapter to boot. :)

Here’s a direct link to the chapter on Ao3, where I hope you’ll drop by to leave me some feedback on this work. :)

http://archiveofourown.org/works/10998975/chapters/24795549

The tea takes nearly an hour to fully block her chi.

A liberal helping of sugar does little to mask its bitter taste.

Azula traces her fingers around the rim of the empty cup, one by one, as she waits. The delicate edge of gold-rimmed porcelain hums beneath her touch as she leans back against the stone wall of her cell. Across the table is the Avatar, who calmly sips his own tea as they sit in amicable silence.

She feels every second of it, feels every path to her inner fire being carefully closed off and boarded up like a building deemed too dangerous to enter.

For the first time in years, Azula feels truly cold.

Even sailing through Arctic waters hadn’t left her such a chill, not a firebender with her prowess and skill. Her thin summer robes feel like paper against her skin, and she works hard to suppress a shiver.

The Avatar watches her with undisguised worry shining in the depths of his grey eyes- in spite of the years spent trying to perfect this drug, no one was quite sure how well a bender of her caliber would react to it.

“Just spit it out, Avatar,” she scoffs, tossing her hair back with a smooth shrug of her shoulders. These days, without a crown to pin in place, Azula leaves her hair down more often than she bothers putting it up. “I may have all day to loiter here, but I’m sure you must be a very busy man.”

“Not today, Princess,” he says, inclining his head with a soft smile, “Today my only obligation is to you.”

“You can’t be serious. You don’t honestly intend to spend the rest of the day here, do you?”

“Why not?”

“You’re the Avatar.” Azula speaks slowly, the way one would to a small child or a particularly stubborn animal. “You have responsibilities to the people.”

“You’re my friend.” He says it like it’s the simplest thing in the world, and Azula resists the urge to slap the cheery grin off of his face. He shouldn’t look so thrilled at the prospect of calling himself a friend to the Mad Princess, as she’s so aptly been nicknamed by the denizens of the Four Nations. She’s no longer sure exactly who the crazy one is in this relationship. “I have a responsibility to you as much as anyone else.”

Azula channels as much of her newfound frost into her voice as possible when she speaks again. “Is that what we are?”

His expression doesn’t falter in spite of her icy tone. “Do you think we aren’t?”

“I think you should be careful with who you choose to call ‘friend.’ You have a reputation to maintain, after all.”

The world wouldn’t take to kindly to the Avatar calling a war criminal a friend.

She doesn’t realize she’s spoken her thought aloud until he frowns down at her, a crease forming in the space between his brows.

Azula remembers being taller than him when they’d first met. Now, even sitting, he’s tall enough to have a few inches on her. On anyone else, the height difference coupled with his uncharacteristically severe expression would have appeared condescending.

“The war made criminals of us all.”

Somber.

There’s no other way to describe his tone.

He sounds like a mourner at a funeral, and in a way, she understands. None of them had gotten through the war unscathed. They’d all lost something- friends, family, homes. And, of course, Azula’s personal favorite-

Innocence.

But he’d lost everything.

A hundred years, buried in ice as the world moved on without him, everyone he’d ever known dying or growing old while he slept.

No matter how good a façade he showed the rest of the world, he couldn’t fool Azula.

She was a good enough liar to recognize when somebody else was concealing the truth, master though he was at deception. It’s a skill she initially never thought he’d have any talent at. Time and time again, the Avatar has proven her wrong, much to her amusement.

Most people are predictable to her.

Easy to read.

Even easier to intimidate.

Easier still to control.

Puppets dancing on strings Azula had been able to see since she was old enough to remember.

She’d learned how to pull the strings herself, even as Ozai had twisted hers into knots she might never fully unravel.

The Avatar is a pleasant change of pace from the monotony of all that. Like the element he was born to, the Avatar is unrestrained.

“Not like me.” Azula lets her eyes slip lazily shut as she replies, a wave of sudden exhaustion flooding her veins.

She’d been warned that this could be one of the side effects of the medication. Chi-blocking was an art truly mastered by only the Avatar, and since he’d point-blank refused to permanently take away her bending at the Fire Lord’s request for reasons she didn’t even want to bother trying to comprehend, this was the only alternative that wouldn’t leave her as a pile of drooling mush in the corner.

Never like me, she thinks, and the world should see that as a gift.

The world should be grateful Ozai hadn’t succeeded in molding Zuko into his personal weapon alongside her, or they’d have likely razed the world to ash side-by-side, and built their father a kingdom on the bones of the fallen.

She dreams of it sometimes, a castle made of blood and bone.

Her father stands at the very top of it all, smiling his terrible smile as he surveys a kingdom forged in death and endless pain.

If there is one thing Azula knows better than even her bending, it is pain pain pain-

A crown dripping the same crimson that stains her fingers, never to wash off.

She scrubs and she scrubs until the red is her own, the blood is her own, the skin is rubbed raw and oozing-

A hand reaching out to beckon her to stand at his side, the monster’s daughter, the demon princess.

She scrubs and she scrubs as if the taint of his touch could be cleansed, as if his poison didn’t run through her veins, blood is blood Azula, blood is blood is blood-

“Princess?”

A single word drags her back, spoken by the one voice that could actually anchor her to reality unlike so many others.

Ozai had shattered her mind, and the sounds of Zuko’s voice only ever served to yank her back to the start of it all. Everything about him drew her back into the past. The same went for Mai and Ty Lee. All three of them served as constant reminders of the childhood she’d never really escaped, at least, not with all her pieces intact.

Not with all the pieces normal people aren’t supposed to live without.

Azula’s never been normal, that much has been evident since she’d been blessed with Agni’s blue flames. But perhaps she could have come close without Ozai to warp her beyond repair.

“Mmm?”

“Are you well?”

A drowsy smirk tugs up the corners of her mouth. “Fine. Jus’ tired.”

“You’re slurring your words.”

She musters up the energy to half-open her eyes, and makes a conscious effort to speak clearly. “Am I?”

He’s leaning across the slender table and wrapping a hand around her wrist before she can even think of moving away, fingers pressing down lightly over her pulse point.

“You feel like ice.”

If she’d been more awake, Azula would have been able to hear the concern weighing his words down. But she is tired, too tired to listen and almost to tired to even bother voicing a response.

“I just need to sleep. They warned me of the side effects, as I’m sure they did you.”

After that, her eyes slide closed and she finds that has neither the energy nor the desire to force them open once more.

The last thing she remembers before the rest of her senses give way to the alluring darkness of oblivion is the feeling of a sudden, soothing warmth wrapping her in its embrace.

Safe, her sluggish brain murmurs to itself before finally succumbing to the ceaseless siren song of slumber.

Safe.

A burst of airbending keeps Azula’s body from hitting the ground as she slumps sideways, clearly unconscious.

It’s easy enough to maneuver her prone form into the bed on the opposite side of the room with his bending, and it takes little effort to summon the nurses assigned to watch over the sleeping princess for any signs of possible harm caused by the drugs, but a sense of unease lies heavy in the pit of his stomach nonetheless as he leaves the facility.

It wasn’t like Azula to display such overt signs of weakness in front of anyone, least of all him.

Even in the beginning, even with dark circles under her eyes from night terrors the nurses gossiped about in hushed, horrified whispers, even with moon-pale skin and trembling hands from the overuse of sedatives that the previous doctors had used in a futile attempt to keep her docile and meek, defiance had shone bright and clear in her golden eyes. Her calm, steely demeanor betrayed nothing to anyone who visited her, even him.

The drugs back then hadn’t suppressed her bending, but they had nearly made her too weak to even use it. He’d hated seeing her so drained, but never once had she allowed herself to appear vulnerable. Not until today.

Zuko had fired them all after Aang had informed him of their form of so-called treatment. He’d questioned the nurses after seeing the way Azula’s hands trembled despite what he knew to be her best efforts to keep them steady, the way her golden eyes looked dull and glazed over during his other visits.

Today, her eyes had looked hollow and distant.

The last time she’d seemed so out of reach she’d been completely unstable and out of touch with reality, screaming curses at Ursa for leaving her with Ozai.

Seeing her so visibly unhinged had shaken him.

Azula didn’t know about his first trip here with Zuko.

He hadn’t even gone into the room.

The nurses mentioned she was having a bad episode, and it wasn’t safe to introduce her to an unfamiliar face.

Apparently hunting someone down for over a year didn’t count as familiarity.

He’d watched from the bars as she’d writhed and screamed, watched as she huddled in the corner as soon as she’d laid eyes on Zuko’s face, recoiled from the sight of him with wide, terrified eyes.

It was the sight of her then that had convinced him to stay, to extend his visit to the Fire Nation.

Here he was, three years later, a permanent resident on Ember Island, one of the closest islands to the one that the mental hospital had been built on to house the fallen princess.

He still traveled the world with Appa on occasion, but for the most part, he was only called upon to resolve the most dire of situations. It had been agreed that the Four Nations needed to learn how to stand on their own and forge peace without the constant use of the Avatar as a crutch.

The repair of the Air Nation temples could wait, at least, for now.

Sokka and Suki split their time between the Southern Water Tribe and Kyoshi Island. Chief Hakoda refused to accept anything less than regular visits from his children and his new in-laws. The rebuilding of the tribe was going much faster now that most of their captured benders and warriors had been returned home.

Toph hadn’t exactly settled down yet- at the moment, she was spending some quality time at the Fire Nation Palace, doing her best to annoy Zuko to death. But the Earthbender finally had the one thing she’d spent her whole life clawing for- freedom.

She’d nearly been disowned, but in the end, her actions had spoken for themselves, and the Bei Fongs finally accepted the fact that their daughter was more than her disability.

And Katara.

The first kiss they’d shared had also been their last, they’d broken apart laughing from the sheer hilarity of it.

After a clarifying conversation, they’d walked away with a bond stronger than ever, finally confident in the knowledge that they were destined to be the best of friends and nothing more.

She’d been crowned Fire Lady a mere year and a half after the final battle against Ozai and the Agni Kai against Azula.

While there had been dissenters in the beginning, Katara had earned the love and respect of the Fire Nation with her fair judgement and compassionate heart. Even the most stubborn of the nobles had eventually caved in and developed a grudging respect for her unbreakable spirit.

Surprisingly enough, Mai had been one of Zuko and Katara’s most staunch supporters. She’d been the one to break off her relationship with Zuko and push him to act on his feelings for Katara. Now, she served as royal advisor to both Fire Lord and Fire Lady, though Katara made it clear she had a monopoly on her best friend’s time.

Their friendship had been another welcome surprise- not many had expected the girls to develop such a close bond, not after everything that had happened between them all, especially with regards to Zuko. But Mai had worked hard to redeem herself after being freed from her imprisonment after betraying Azula at Boiling Rock, and so had Ty Lee, who now lives happily among her fellow Kyoshi Warriors. That had earned them both a second chance in Katara and everyone else’s eyes- after giving one to Zuko and so many others, it wouldn’t have been fair not to.

Unlearning a hundred years of prejudice and hatred was hard, but it was something that people from all of the nations were finally learning how to do.

Everyone was finally getting some semblance of a happy ending, and it was more than a little unnerving to witness.

They talked about it sometimes, when they gathered. It felt odd, living without the weight of war on their shoulders. None of them had ever really thought of what life might be like after the war. Most of them hadn’t even assumed they’d survive.

Yet survive they had-

And there was no denying that it felt good.

Azula deserved peace like that too.

He’s never been as certain of anything as he is of this.

Aang had made several disturbing revelations over the years, many of them concerning the princess herself.

Nobody had ever given the girl a chance.

Ozai had seen a weapon.

Ursa had seen a monster.

Even Iroh had thought her past saving.

He’d worked hard to guide Zuko, even when the banished prince had been consumed in the same darkness as his sister. But he’d never extended the same hand towards his niece, to steer her towards the side of good with the same ruthless, unyielding determination he’d used with her brother.

Beneath the carefully crafted veneer of cynicism and sarcasm was a girl whom nobody had ever really thought to show kindness to.

Three years ago, after seeing her trapped in hallucinations drawn from memories of what he was horribly sure had been a childhood even worse than Zuko’s, he’d become determined to change that.

Because in a way, Azula wasn’t totally responsible for who she had become.

Not when she was simply following the path that everyone else had forced her to walk.

Had he been in her shoes, he’s sure he would have crumbled long before the Agni Kai.

At the very core of her being, Azula is a survivor.

He hopes she’ll survive this, prays that her indomitable willpower can endure this change.

Spirits help her.

Spirits help us all.

As always, feel free to drop me comments here or at Ao3 using the link above. :)

#ATLA #Avatar: The Last Airbender #Azula #Aang #Avatar #fanfiction #Ao3 #rudderless writes #Post-Series

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sailorgreywolf-legacy · 8 years ago

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Legacy - Chapter 48

The days passed with a strange frenetic monotony. It was not unusual to be on the war path for days, if not weeks, at a time. But, this was a game of cat and mouse that was new. There were no longer big battles with the mighty sound of canon fire that could leave a field pocked and devastated once they were finished. Instead, both Morelos and Iturbide had dispatched small groups of troops to fight, neither willing to risk an all-out defeat quite yet.

Mexico learned of the outcome of each fight, since they could not be accurately called battles, by letter. He knew that Iturbide was not present at them either; the mortal was orchestrating his campaign from the safety of his officers tent. And yet, almost every letter still brought news of victories. Morelos was able to win small victories of his own, but the success that he had had before was eluding him.

In subtle ways, Mexico was beginning to see the effect of it. The frustration was gouging deep trenches into the man's skin. Morelos had never exactly been a slim man, but it was clear that the stress was causing him to lose weight. It was hard to say exactly why, but with each loss he seemed to lose a piece of his gravitas. And yet, Mexico knew he could not lose faith in the man. He had to tell himself that he could not have realistically expected a steady stream of victories, even with a skilled commander. He should have known that this would come; life was neither as fair or as predictable as that.

But, the unfortunate result was that there was no way to lure Iturbide into the trap that Morelos had planned. The day had barely dawned when yet another letter came, this one was delivered by a messenger who looked to be half-dead from the ride he had endured. Mexico knew that he should take the letter directly to Morelos, but he wanted a moment alone to read it.

He broke the messy seal of the commander in the field had left and let the details of the scrimmage unfold before him. He sat down at the small desk that was allotted him and read the letter with an almost rabid single-mindedness. Every word, written in the hurried, clipped prose of man of war, imprinted itself on his mind. Even without the details, he could imagine what it had been like. He could see it in his mind's eye, every hoofbeat and musket ball. The words spoke of another defeat, but it was that which brought a smile to Mexico's face.

He couldn't stop himself from admiring his enemy. There was such grace, such strategy. It was not hard to bring to mind the face of the man again, and it was also not a stretch to think of him bent over a map, carefully planning his next move. There was something supremely appealing about it, even if the man was on entirely the wrong side of the battle. For some reason, it didn't seem to be such a hinderance.

Mexico had closed his eyes and let himself imagine the scrimmage, since it was the closest he would get to a battle any time soon. The smile on his face widened, and he found himself running his hands over the words on the parchment, as though this could make them clearer. It would be quite the day when he finally got the chance to defeat Iturbide, and once he had the man captured he would have the chance to speak to him. He could imagine that the mortal had an interesting mind, certainly a strategic one.

Mexico's train of thought was interrupted by a sharp knock at the door. He immediately folded up the letter and placed it on the table. There was only one way to repair the seal, and there was not time to remelt the wax. So, he would simply have to accept that his leader would know that he had read the letter. He could explain it away easily enough without giving away the reason he wanted to read about Iturbide's exploits.

He turned his attention to the door, turning to open it. The knock sounded too forceful to be Philippines, and there was no way that his brother would be bold enough to come speak to him. That left only one option. When he opened the door, his hunch was confirmed. The man who had knocked on his door was mortal and certainly one of those under Guerrero's command. Mexico expected that this was yet another summons to talk about war strategy; although, it did seem strange to be summoned before the letter reporting the night's losses had been read. Although, considering the haste with which they moved, it could be explained. He said, speaking to what he believed to be the obvious reason for this visit, "Does the general need me so early?"

He smiled slightly, already expecting the response he would get. But, instead, the man said, "No, a rider just arrived. She won't give her name, but she insists she must see you." Mexico attempted to figure out who could possibly be searching him out. Much less a woman who sought him. But, there was no harm in going to see who she was; it was not as though a single civilian would be a threat to him. But, he still needed to ask before he took action, "Does your commander know about this?" He would not act without knowing that Guerrero knew where he was; he had entrusted his safety to the man and would not risk himself. The man quickly said, "The lieutenant intercepted her at the gates and sent me to get you."

Mexico nodded and said, "Then I see no reason to delay." He grabbed the letter from the desk and shoved it into the man's hand, saying as he did so, "Give this to the general. It came in this morning."

He did not need directions to where he was needed; it was obvious that the unnamed guest was being held in the foyer of this building, where she would gain the least information about strategy. Mexico made his way there quickly, his mind still desperately figure out who could be waiting for him. Even as he searched the recesses of his mind, he could find no satisfying answer.

He was intercepted mid-thought by Guerrero, who said, "You didn't have to come. I could have sent her away if you asked. But, she asked for you by name." Mexico scoffed, not at the ineloquent string of words, but at the idea that his human name meant anything. He explained his interjection by saying, "My name his hardly unique. How can you be so certain she means me?" The other stopped in his tracks and looked directly at his country and said, "I never said which name. She said, 'I am here to see New Spain.' I assumed that to be you."

The words shot through him, leaving a chill in their wake. If someone was asking for him with his title as a viceroyalty, then they had known him only during his time as a colony, It had to be someone with whom he had not had contact since the independence had started. This, far from elucidating the situation, made it even more baffling. There was no choice but to continue walking and face whatever surprise was awaiting him.

Mexico felt himself take several nervous breaths as he got closer. He hated not knowing what to expect, especially with regard to something this personal. He walked through the door into the foyer, and did not immediately recognize the back turned to him. The long black hair fell straight to her waist, although pieces were braided into a complicated pattern across the crest of her head. A thin, pale blue cloak clung to her body. She turned, and Mexico took an involuntary step backwards.

Puerto Rico smiled the moment she saw him, but the look did nothing to calm him. If there was a single person he was not willing to face, it was his loyalist fiancé. Her name slipped from between his lips, "Cat." He had not intended it to sound like encouragement, but he knew that it did the moment he said it. She responded with a sweet smile, "Alejandro."

She took a couple steps forward, as though she was going to embrace him. But, he knew that he could not return her affection. Last he had known, she was a loyalist and would not understand why he was throwing himself so fully into his independence. Her face fell immediately as she realized that this was a rebuff. She spoke, her voice breaking in a way that he had never heard before, "What are you doing? I just want to have you home again."

Mexico felt the sound go straight through him, realizing how strange and different it was. There was another source of guilt though; he had not even thought of her for years. It had hardly occurred to him that she would be suffering from his absence. But, now that she was here looking directly at Mexico, her expression lost and longing, it was impossible to ignore. The affections that had been dormant for so long now came bubbling back to the surface, urging him to take her in his arms and comfort her. But, his mind held him back; his emotions couldn't rule him.

The words, not the actions, demanded his response. He said, trying to remain as sharp as he would with anyone else, "Tell me where home is to you, Catalina." Her confusion was evident in the way all the tension went out of her face, leaving it expressionless. She responded slowly, "Where could I mean but Madrid? Although, it has not quite been home since all this conflict started."

Mexico sighed; that answer had been what he had expected and only confirmed that she was still a loyalist. There was no choice now but to rebuff her. Mexico did not want to turn her away, but he had a more important cause to put before her. The feelings that were bubbling up in him were from a different time, and belonged to a different person. He was no longer New Spain, and he was no longer bound to her and the feelings she brought forth. But still, his heart was crying at him to embrace her and tell her that everything was going to be alright. He said, keeping his voice completely level, "I belong here. I don't want to go back."

He balled his hands into fists, keeping his emotions in check. There was more that he could say to her, but he couldn't bring himself to say it. He was counting on Puerto Rico's lady like deference to allow him the silence to wrestle with himself. But, there was a sudden spark in her eyes. She took a slight step, squaring her stance. She was no longer just a petite figure wrapped in blue silk; she was suddenly imposing in her own right. Her voice was resonating as she spoke, "This isn't like you. Come back with me now before this all goes too far."

Mexico could not find himself scared of her, or the vague consequences she was implicating. He had known the consequences of going to war with Spain since the beginning. He squared his own stance, and it felt surreal to be facing off with his sweet, pliable fiancé. But, it was clear that she was no longer playing the soft spoken lady of the court. The affection that had been sweet and accessible had hardened in her eyes, creating this shell that was proving so impenetrable.

But, Mexico would not back down either, "You don't understand anything. I know what I want and I will not turn back for anything or anyone." Again, she did not waiver as she responded, her voice taking on an uncanny tone that conveyed both a tender, stirring affection and a hard edge that would not yield, "I do not know what quarrel you had with Antonio, and I do not care. I am not asking you to come back for him; I'm asking you to come back for me."

She paused and looked up at him pleadingly. There was a quality of melting about her eyes that made Mexico waiver. She finished, "I'm asking you to love me enough to let this all go." He wanted to believe that he could do just that, but he knew what would happen if he did. Spain would jealously claim him, likely ending his engagement to Puerto Rico. This had always been a farce, little more than words that could be dismissed. Spain had never intended to release him from his greedy grasp, even if it was for a wedding that Spain had planned himself.

Then, the words that Brazil had spoken so long ago came back to him, "She binds you to the Spanish empire." He had not believed the words when they had been spoken, but now they threw a new pall of suspicion over this visit. It seemed all too convenient that she should appear now and attempt to talk him into abandoning his cause. Brazil had called her a clever ploy, and it was possible that was all this surprising visit was. Spain had exhausted his strategies of war, so this was his attempt at emotional manipulation.

Mexico cursed his traitorous heart for how fully it had been falling for this blatant manipulation. Hadn't this been Spain's plan since the beginning? He had held Mexico's affection for Puerto Rico hostage, and now that Mexico was rebelling, he need only remind Mexico of what he would lose. There was also no way for her to know that he was here without Spain's military intelligence. There was no denying it: whether this plea was heartfelt or not hardly mattered. Spain could be manipulating them both, but that only made the trap all the more insidious.

Mexico took a deep breath, bracing himself for what he had to say. The words seemed to want to cling to his vocal chords, trying to stave off this irreversible moment, "But you are asking for him. What did he ask you to say to me?" She shook her head, as though she could deny that this moment was even happening. Mexico had not realized the growl that his voice had become until he realized that she was looking at him like he was a stranger. There was a strain of tears in her voice as she responded, "I don't know what you're talking about. He told me where you were, nothing more."

Mexico smirked; this answer was only confirmation that this was all a manipulation. Spain had sent her here to be another reason for Mexico to abandon his bid for independence. But, it also made it clear that she had no conscious part in this. Frustrated by the way she continued to look at him, Mexico said, "He's using us both, can't you see that? Spain doesn't care about how you feel about me; he's just using you to get me back."

Again, Puerto Rico shook her head, more violently this time. One of her arms crossed protectively across her body like it was attempting to physically protect her from the truth. Her fingers sunk deep into the flesh of her own arm. She whispered a single word to herself, "No." Mexico's hands itched to stroke her hair and console her. He balled them even more firmly into fists to stop them from enacting what they wanted to do. He couldn't lose everything for a woman; even if he did harbor strangely genuine feelings for her.

She bit her lower lip before saying, "If you cannot give up this lunacy, then I can't love you." The words were attempting to be strong, but they quivered in the air and broke. But, Mexico could see the ultimatum for what it was. This was the moment to decide between the future and the past for both of them. Mexico bit back the final piece of information that he could use to prove his point. There was no need to tell her about the reason Spain wanted him back, or the jealous lust that would allow no place for her. There was nothing left to do but to affirm his own conviction.

Not allow himself even hesitation, Mexico reached down and pulled the engagement ring from his finger. The force with which he removed the ring tore flesh from his knuckle, but the pain didn't matter. He held the ring out to her and said, "Then this is yours. I hope you find someone who makes you happy." They were the only words he could muster that still seemed sincere. But, there was a certain satisfaction in thinking of Puerto Rico handing the ring back to Spain as conformation that yet another of his plans had failed.

Tears welled up in the corners of her eyes as Puerto Rico took the ring. As her hand brushed his, Mexico could feel the way she was shaking. There was nothing he could do to change that and he was glad that he hadn't been entirely honest about Spain. She burst out, apparently losing all semblance of composure, "How can you do this? How can you turn your back on everyone?" She took another step forward, getting close enough that she could reach out and touch him. Mexico heard several steps and the cocking of guns behind him in response. He responded, trying to be a cold as possible, "This is about more than that. Go home Cat, a military encampment is no place for a lady."

Then, another female voice rang out behind him, "Alejandro, the general wants to see-" Philippines stopped short as she caught sight of Puerto Rico. The smile that appeared on her face could be described as nothing but triumphant. By contrast, Puerto Rico's eyes met hers and turned hard. White hot rage appeared on her face, contorting her usually delicate features. She hissed, "What is she doing here?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Mexico saw Philippines take a step forward and he put out his arm to stop her from getting too close to Puerto Rico. When he glanced back, he noticed that her hand was clenched on the handle of her knife. That only affirmed Mexico's decision to stop her; the last thing he needed at this moment was a fight between the pair of them.

But, his arm didn't prevent her from speaking. Philippines said, "I actually think for myself. You can follow Spain like a lost sheep." Mexico cast a glance at her, trying to communicate that her speaking was not helping the situation. But, she ignored him and continued to glare at Puerto Rico. The other responded, bristling, "I love Alejandro. You couldn't possibly understand that."

An expression that Mexico couldn't quite identify passed over Philippines's face. But, whatever it was faded to anger. Philippines snapped, "No, you don't understand! You wanted to bring him back because you wanted your perfect life. What kind of love is that?" Puerto Rico looked beyond words, but continued to gasp wordlessly. Philippines' voice broke as she said, "I'm at his side. I always have been."

Mexico could hear the way her voice was shaking, and it seemed to need his attention more desperately than the desperation in Puerto Rico's eyes. He put his arm around her shoulder, which allowed him to comfort her and continue to restrain her. He felt her relax beneath his arm. But, this gesture triggered a final bitter realization in Puerto Rico.

She said, her voice turning hard and brittle, "I see." Her hand clenched on the ring that Mexico had given her, and her knuckles turned white. She added, giving Mexico one more scathing glare, "I can see that there is nothing left for me here." She turned and walked away, her train dragging behind her. Mexico let out a breath he hadn't been aware he was holding. Then, he turned and left Puerto Rico completely behind.

Mexico decided that the best thing to do was to seek out Morelos. He didn't want to deal with the emotions that were attempting to overthrow his reason, and it was easier to turn his thoughts back to strategy. He hoped that this was the last time his past would break in suddenly. It had been easy to pretend that nothing of his life in the empire had even existed. But, facing Puerto Rico had brought something into glaring clarity. It was impossible to reject Spain's dominance without rejecting it all.

Mexico stopped in the middle of the hall and tried not to feel anything. But, he found himself running his finger over the place on his finger where the ring had been. There was a pale band where the sun had not touched his skin in centuries. It was profoundly painful to even look at it now. It was dawning on him that he had severed his connection with a woman who had been warm and comforting. But, she had given him an ultimatum and he had taken the only reasonable option. He could not have gone back, not now that he had come so far.

But, he couldn't completely block out the thoughts of what he had lost. She had been the only pure thing in his life, and she had just been excised. Mexico felt a lump of emotion in his throat, emotions that he had not dared express in front of her. He swallowed it down and attempted to center himself. He still had to fight a war, and nothing had really changed. But Mexico felt a slight shake that could not possibly be a sob pass over his body. This was the only emotion he could allow himself to feel. If this made him fall apart, then Spain's plan would only succeed without Mexico caving to Puerto Rico's ultimatum. Mexico told himself as sternly as he could that he needed to be calm and continue on exactly as he had been.

Attempting to follow his own directive, Mexico straightened his back and walked towards where he knew his general was waiting for him. Morelos was sitting at a desk with the letter reporting the results of the battle laid out on the table in front of him. When he looked up at Mexico, the boy again noted how dark the circles under the man's eyes were. His face look wan and tired, and the look in his eyes made Mexico's already leaden heart sink still further.

Morelos said, his voice strained, "Why are you reading these letters before me? Surely you know I will tell you everything." Mexico sighed. He had known that this was coming when he had given the open letter to the soldier, but he was still not quite ready to explain the way he was drawn to Iturbide. He decided to sit in the chair opposite Morelos before responding, "I know, but I want to read them myself. There is something about Iturbide that intrigues me; he has countered our every move."

It was the most candidly he could answer, but it still felt like a betrayal to say it. He could see the impact his words made even as he spoke them. The man in front of him winced like he was in pain, and then he slowly responded, "He is not worth your admiration; he's a cruel man who sells himself to the highest bidder." Mexico nodded, simply to show that he understood, not that he agreed.

From what he could tell from the letters, there was a brilliance that he couldn't help but be fascinated with. He also knew that there was something drawing him to the man, and it meant that Iturbide would shape his future in some way. Morelos continued to speak, "He had the chance to choose you and he chose Spain because he could get more gold out of it. Now half of my commanders are hesitant to even take the field because he has imprisoned their wives and children."

He stopped and ran one hand through his hair, his hand shaking. Mexico wanted to feel stirred; he wanted to feel guilty for his own fascination. But, his heart was pounding through too many feelings and he couldn't find guilt among them. He looked directly at Morelos and held onto another emotion, "We all have to give up something, and they knew that. That was the risk they took in backing me."

The look of alarm he got in response immediately told Mexico that he said something wrong. But, the fact that he had just rejected the closest thing he had to a wife made him feel entirely unsympathetic. He leaned back and looked directly at his leader. He stood by what he said, there had always been risks. He knew what would happen if he fell back into Spain's hands and had accepted it since the beginning. But, the way that Morelos was looking at him was enough to make him at least feign sheepishness.

Slowly, Morelos said, "You can't ask men to give that much. They're scared, and I understand why. It is unethical to use women and children in war." Mexico sighed again and decided not to point out that he had already broken that rule. He remembered clearly that when he had started this war, every target had been a good one. But, this was a different time and he realized that. He would keep his thoughts on the hypocrisy to himself.

As he kept his silence, Morelos continued to speak, "I am glad that Iturbide didn't take the offer. I don't like the idea of that snake near you." At this statement, Mexico could no longer hold his own secret. He hadn't told Morelos about the effect Iturbide had on him because he didn't want to worry the man. But, those words jarred the secret lose and it quickly rose to the surface, "I'm not certain anyone will be able to prevent that, Jose."

The other went pale at the words. He replied, his voice ringing hollow, "What do you mean?" Mexico found himself too anxious to continue to sit calmly and discuss this. He hadn't meant to bring this up, but now that it was laid bare, he had to explain it. The truth was ugly and there was no way to make it easier. Mexico stood more out of nervous energy than any logical reason.

He began to pace, trying to assuage his nerves, as he explained, "There is a certain destiny that guides our fates as countries. Mostly, we are shadows in the world. Mortals are not meant to notice us unless they are important to us in some way." He didn't dare meet Morelos's eyes as he explained. It was easier to continue explaining, "And I know Iturbide is important."

He stopped and looked directly at Morelos and attempting to plead with him without words. Then he said slowly, placing emphasis on every word, "He sees me. He knows me. He knows me just like you did, Jose." He stopped talking and waited for an answer. But, the mortal was looking at him with an expression of disbelief. The silence was deafening while Mexico waited for the words. He didn't know what he expected Morelos to say, but he waited in nervous anticipation of it. He knew he might have told the man that he was doomed to failure, but he knew Morelos was not the kind of man who would blindly accept fate.

As though still attempting to come to grips with what he had been told, Morelos said, "How long have you been certain of this?" Mexico channeled his nervous energy into clenching and unclenching his hands. He would rather not answer the question, but he had to be honest now. He said, "For at least a couple months." The mortal immediately said, "Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

Mexico paused for a moment, contemplating whether he should lie or not. Certainly a lie would make him look better, but as he looked at the other's haggard face, he couldn't bring the lie to his lips. Instead, he looked down at his own feet and said, "I didn't want you to think there wasn't a point to fighting." He hoped that Morelos would understand, but he couldn't bring himself to meet the man's eyes. He didn't want to see that wonderful nationalistic fire extinguished. He heard the response without looking at the man, "I appreciate that, but this news doesn't change anything."

Mexico looked back up at him and realized that the man was standing now. As he spoke, Morelos walked around the desk and towards Mexico, "I respect what you feel, but I will not accept that this was all for not." He stopped right in front of Mexico and looked directly at him. The boy forced himself to look directly at his commander and the look in the mortal's eyes made him want to melt.

Morelos said slowly, "Do you still believe in me?" The sincerity in his eyes was enough to move Mexico, to remind him of the certainty he had felt when they had first met. The memory of that certainty was warm enough to sweep away the strange disease that Iturbide's eyes had planted in him. The doubt he had been holding evaporated, instead memories of many battles won flashed across his mind. How could he have put faith in a distant figure instead of the man in front of him looking at him with such devotion? Had Morelos not won both in word and deed?

Mexico responded and felt a smile creep across his face, "Of course I do." He saw his own expression mirrored on the mortal's face and he could count it as one of the very few smiles he had seen on the man's face recently. Morelos put his hand on his country's shoulder and said, "Then that's all I need. But, unfortunately, the politicians don't share your optimism."

He let out a sigh and the usual tired look returned to his face. Mexico wanted to say something to return the smile to the man's face. But, he didn't have the words to do it. Instead, he said, "What do you mean by that?" He felt a protective urge stir like a creature in his gut. He didn't want to see his general hurt by people who hid behind pen and paper instead of fighting.

Morelos looked back at his desk when he said, "The Congress wants to pass a draft constitution. They're only waiting for my approval." Mexico took a couple steps towards the desk and then said, "What do they want to change?" He could already guess at what the answer would be though. As he expected, Morelos said, "They want to have a strong president and a weak legislature."

Mexico shook his head. He had favored the idea of a strong leader, but he knew that allowing it would show weakness. He said, "Are you going to approve it? It isn't what you want." The mortal walked slowly back towards the desk and said, his voice seeming to deflate as he spoke, "I can't hope for better. I'm not winning, so they are panicking. There will be a chance to convince them otherwise eventually."

Mexico stopped talking and took a deep shaky breath. Both of his hands were balled into fists. America could see the emotions working in the way his veins pulsing beneath his skin. While Mexico seethed in silence, America stood up and walked over to his lover. He refrained from touching the other simply because he knew that Mexico was so engrossed in his memories that he was not paying attention to the other. America didn't particularly like the idea of being hit when he surprised Mexico.

But, he spoke in an attempt to break Mexico out of his memories, "Why did you stop?" Mexico turned and looked at the blonde. America desperately wanted to reach out and hug his lover, but he still wasn't certain that it would be a good idea. Mexico's face was set and there were ghosts of old emotion in it. But, he blinked slowly a couple times before apparently coming back to the present.

Then, he answered the question, "I envy your independence, Alfred." America didn't understand the response, but he was going to respond to it even if it confused him. He responded, "Why?"

He reached out and very lightly brushed his hand against Mexico's arm, hoping that the gesture would be clear. Mexico answered, "It must have been easy to only have to bond with a leader once. You only had to get that close once." America bit his lip as he attempted to come up with a response. He had no idea what was making Mexico so upset when the story seemed to be going well.

He reached down and softly took hold of his lover's hand. Then he said, "But you were on your way. You had a leader who cared for you, and he was doing everything he could. I had my own setbacks-" He was about to continue on about how hard his winter in Valley Forge had been.

But, Mexico stopped him while he pulled his hand out of the blonde's, "Yes, Jose was a great man. He was an idealist, but he was practical." He paused for only a moment to let his eyes burn through America. Then, he added, "And he did not deserve what Antonio did to him." America attempted to backpedal as the force of the words hit him.

He should have realized that this was not going to end well from the way that Mexico's hands were shaking. He cursed his own stupidity for not being able to read the atmosphere. He said, letting his confusion leak out, "I don't understand though. Everything was going well for you. How did Antonio get the upper hand?" Mexico let out a low growl and continued his story, "Well, Jose decided that he needed to convene the Congress again and decided to escort them himself."

The American took a step closer and attempted to put his hand on the other's shoulder, but Mexico pulled away. He seemed in need of comforting, but there was no way to do it if Mexico didn't cooperate. Mexico continued to talk, his emotions becoming clearer as he spoke, "I thought I was finally moving in the right direction, even if there some set backs. But, my life has a habit of bringing me back to Earth." His knuckles were turning white from the rage clenched in his hands. America wondered if it was smarter to back away slowly or to just throw caution to the wind and hug Mexico.

But, he didn't get the chance because Mexico started talking again, "I didn't think I was heading for a fall, even with the setbacks. I only saw him one more time before he died. I wish I'd known it was the last time; I would have said something else to him." __________________________________________________________

Mexico packed the last of his clothing and weapons, making himself ready to move again. He had already finished cleaning all of his weapons, although he doubted he would need them soon. He had his orders to go and wait for the arrival of the Congress. Yet, there was an anxiousness that he couldn't shake as he folded the last of his undershirts. There was something wrong that he couldn't put a name to, but it was looming in his mind anyway. He slammed the last of bit of white fabric into his saddle bag, Mexico gritted his teeth and attempted to ignore the feeling. There was nothing that could warrant this feeling; he was not losing his belief in his leaders. He was not going to allow himself to doubt, not now. Letting himself cave to doubt now would be handing himself over to Spain. So, he pushed down the stirring instinct in his gut.

His hands steady, he pulled the straps on his bag tight. Then, just to be certain, he glanced around the room. There was nothing that he was forgetting, so Mexico grabbed his sword slipped it into the scabbard at his waist. He grabbed his bags and walked out of the room. When he reached the town square, there was a very familiar bustling.

The army was splitting into two separate groups with one intended to escort Mexico and the other to accompany Morelos to keep the delegates safe. With Iturbide still making advances, it was necessary to make sure that everyone had an armed escort. Iturbide had shown no qualms about attacking whenever he had the best chance. Mexico could feel familiar eyes on him, but he ignored them.

He was used to being watched and protected, and at this point it was not even irritating. He no longer felt like he was being fussed over like a child. Perhaps it was because the surveillance was so subtle. Apart from Guerrero, very few of his body guards made themselves known to him. It was getting easier to ignore the protection when it amounted to nothing more than phantoms. It appeared that nothing was to be done now to prepare to leave, so Mexico turned his new horse towards the gates of the city. This new animal was far more docile than Mexico's tastes, but it would have to do for now. Mexico did miss the feeling of having pure, barely restrained power beneath him. But, there was a price to pay for war and he knew this was all over and independence was won, he would have the liberty to make everything exactly as he wanted it to be.

As he urged his horse forward, Mexico heard the usual sound of hooves as he was followed by his guards. As he reached the gate, there was the distinct sound of another horse galloping towards him. Mexico turned his head to see his general riding towards him. As Morelos stopped next to his country, he said, "I see you are ready to leave." Mexico responded with a slight smile, "I am. Although, it is cruel of me to leave you with politicians for so long." The other replied with a warm knowing look, "Better I deal with them than you. I don't think you have the patience to deal with them."

Mexico shifted his reins nervously in his hands as the unfamiliar horse stayed puzzlingly still beneath him. Then he said, "I don't understand why you let them criticize you when they don't fight like we do." He meant what he said completely; it didn't seem right to him to put this power in the hands of aristocrats. Morelos sighed and said, "You need both. Military power is not enough. You need their approval as much as you need mine."

Mexico tried to listen, but it was hard to let the words make an impact when it seemed that only military victory was truly swaying the tide of the war. He said, changing the subject slightly, "I will miss you speaking sense to me while you're away." Morelos smiled and looked directly at his country. His eyes were soft, even paternal. He said, "You have grown since we've met; you don't give yourself enough credit. But, Guerrero has my authority in my absence."

Mexico nodded,and didn't bother to ask why. He already knew that Guerrero was the man that they both most trusted. Instead, Mexico looked out to the horizon. Then, said softly, letting words that he never thought he would say with real sincerity, "I will miss you though." The mortal extended his hand and Mexico took it, and the mortal spoke, "I will see you in a couple weeks. Don't do anything to get yourself in trouble." Mexico nodded and watched as Morelos rode away. Then, he turned his own horse and rode off. ____________________________________________________

Mexico laid his cards down on the table, confident that he had a winning hand. Guerrero looked at his hand and sighed, "Why do I bother playing cards with you when I know I'm going to lose?" Mexico smiled and responded, "I do have a hundred years of practice on you."

The mortal put down his own cards, revealing that he had no valuable cards. He looked at Mexico and said, "Well, you can't possibly be enjoying this." The country smirked, "I do enjoy winning actually." The mortal laughed while surreptitiously organizing the cards, "I suppose you would. But there must be some other way I can entertain you."

He managed to get the deck back into order. Mexico took this as a subtle sign that the card games were over. This was dull though, being stuck inside waiting for decisions to be made. Because Guerrero was acting commander now, it was necessary that he not vanish into the encampment to practice swordplay. Mexico stayed silent, so the other asked, "Do you want to play chess?"

Mexico thought about it for a moment. He hadn't played chess with anyone for quite a while, and it could be a nice change to play it again. So, he said with the same slight smirk, "Just know that I'm going to win at that too." It was little more than playful boasting and the grin the mortal returned showed that he understood. Mexico found himself warmed by this, this fraternity. But, as he watched Guerrero lay out the chess pieces, a different feeling stirred in him.

It reminded him of different nights with someone else. He remembered Spain's exquisite gilded chess set and the long strategical standoffs that could last deep into the night. The memories were uninvited and uncomfortably pleasant. Mexico didn't want to remember those nights and Spain's lighthearted smile. To clear his mind, he stood up and walked over to the window. It would be easier to push away memories of Spain looking out over the forces he had mustered to drive the man out of his country.

But, as Mexico walked away, Guerrero said, "Are you alright?" Mexico considered for a moment if he should lie, but he decided that he had nothing to hide. Still looking out the window, he said, "I was just thinking about Antonio. I shouldn't think about him." He left off the qualifying words: I shouldn't think about him like this. The other responded, apparently trying to find the right words, "But why shouldn't you think about him? He is your enemy."

Before Mexico could come up with a response, he noticed a lone figure on a horse riding into the city. The man was wearing the colors of insurgency, but even from this distance it was clear that he was battered. The sight sent a cold bolt straight through Mexico. He had seen this before. But this rider could not carry the same news. This could not be happening, not again. All of the emotions tasted of bile in the back of his throat. His heart began to race, presuming the conclusion that Mexico was trying so hard to deny. When he spoke, his vocal chords let out a wooden imitation of his voice, "There's a messenger."

In a strange daze, Mexico watched as Guerrero first looked out the window to confirm the statement and then turned to go talk to the man. Still not entirely conscious of what he was doing, Mexico followed the mortal. He didn't want to hear the news, but his feet carried him towards it anyway in the hope that it would be anything other than what he dreaded. It seemed that in only moments, they were both standing in front of the messenger. Mexico half expected to see a bullet hole in the shoulder of this ghost, this hateful specter. The face could have been the same as it uttered the words that were an echo of the past, "It was an ambush."

The rest of the words didn't matter, they did nothing to change what Mexico knew was coming. He knew the words; he had heard them before. He had lost again, lost a great man, lost a great leader. He could hear his own reactions echoed in the way that Guerrero angrily demanded that something, anything else be true. But, this time it was not denial or sadness that permeated Mexico's being. He had been through those feelings before.

A feeling crystalized in him, hard and unyielding. Having heard enough, he turned and walked straight through the crowd that had gathered around, ignoring the voice that called his name. He responded only that he needed a moment alone. It was as good of an excuse as any to pull away from the maddening throngs, where mortals who could not understand his pain would try to console. He did not want a hand on his shoulder or a sympathetic ear to listen and tell him everything would be alright. He walked until he reached the building he had been seeking.

As soon as he entered the church, he pulled the heavy wooden door closed behind him. It was too late in the day for anyone to be here to see him. Mexico took a deep breath before letting out the scream that had been building in his lungs since he had seen the rider, since he had realized what it meant. It was wordless, pure agony put into a sound that reverberated off the walls and filled the space. It was not sadness or numbness; it was agony and rage. Every emotion expressed itself in the way Mexico's voice rose stronger and stronger and finally broke.

It was not that the emotions were exhausted. His vocal chords could not longer maintain the outpouring, so they cut it short. Not yet done, Mexico let the anger that was boiling in his blood. He focused his eyes on the altar and let out the words, "Why do you do this to me? Why am I doomed to this failure?" He wasn't certain who he was hurling the words at the Christian God Spain had imposed on him so long ago, the Gods his mother had believed in, or his own blurred reflection in the gold of the altar. He didn't care. Whoever had bestowed this fate on him deserved his wrath.

He continued yelling, no longer caring if anyone heard him, "Why do you take everyone I care about? Why do they all have to die?" The rage was beginning to exhaust itself, drowning in the inevitable truth and the grief that came with it. There was nothing this rage could do, even if the words meant something. By degrees, Mexico's voice lost its strength and became cracked and broken. Still, he spoke, "Has Antonio won so much goodwill with his self righteous hypocrisy that I'm doomed to fail?"

His voice completely gave out as he said, "Why am I always alone?" Finally exhausted, he let himself to sit in the front of the pews. But, he could still feel the burning in his blood, continuing to cause him pain. It was urging him to fight, to continue to yell until the world heard him. Fate was playing a cruel joke on him, forcing him to relive the same pain repeatedly until he learned. He slammed his fist against the wood of the pew.

He knew why Iturbide had been so eager to take the chance to ambush Morelos. Even sitting here now, Mexico could feel the guilt setting in. He had gambled, played the bait, and now he had lost everything. It had been the promise of him that had driven Iturbide to make this daring move. He tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling. The eyes of the mosaic looking through him, seeing every mistake he had made. Mexico felt sobs start to shake him now that the anger had cooled. There was no way to suppress these feelings so, he put his head in his hands and let the tears take him.

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