#I can’t- I’m gnashing my teeth and wailing and pulling my hair but I already rewatched it and did some drawing about it | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

yellowocaballero · 3 years

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Hey wouldn’t it be funny if I wrote a crossover between canon and the roleswap AU.

So I did <3. There’s no reason for this to exist, I was just bored and self-indulgent and amused myself by thinking about how fucking insane the Space Cadet team has to be in comparison to canon. This takes place at S4 Canon!Jon’s time, and basically between chapters 2 and 3 of solitaire. It is not canon. Do not think too hard about it. Enjoy. Story under the cut.

“Yes, in almost every way.” Jon wiped his mouth with a napkin, balling it up and dropping it on the table. “Jonathan Sims, thirty one years old, Aquarius. Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute. The Archivist.” He paused a beat, uncertain of how to broach this. “I think Helen may have deposited me in an alternate dimension? Best case scenario.”

Everybody stared at him blankly.

“Well,” Basira said finally, “sounds like the kind of bullshit you get yourself wrapped up in, Jon.”

“I knew it!” Sasha cried, before deflating. “I mean, I didn’t, really, not at all, but that’s fascinating! Will you answer some questions? Who’s the Queen in your universe?”

“I’m back from the dead for a week and my life’s already stupid again,” Tim said blankly.

“Two Jons?” Martin asked, far too excitedly.

“Can I leave you alone,” Melanie gritted out, between clenched teeth, “for five minutes?”

Jon woke up at his desk, which was so common that it was somewhat pathetic.

Not that a lot of things weren’t pathetic about Jon, but seeing as he no longer technically had anywhere to live he’d give himself a pass. Or was it pathetic to be homeless too? Jon felt strongly as if it was, but he was working on the judgemental thing. Martin had always -

Martin. Jon blinked blearily at his empty desk, scrubbing a little at the sleep that had accumulated in the corner of his eyes. Right. Speaking of pathetic. Jon didn’t like admitting that Martin was the first thing he thought about when he woke up and the last thing he thought about before he went to bed, but he was working on being more honest with himself. Denial about the situation didn’t do anyone any favors. Denial was what made him start stalking and hunting people like - like some sort of awful predator. No more denial. Jon knew who he was, and he knew what he was, and he was going to try and be as good a person as he can be despite it. It was the least he could do.

Wait. Why was his desk empty?

It wasn’t completely empty. There was a laptop on the center of it, and some assorted papers stuck haphazardly underneath. The usual recorder was tucked into the corner, clicked off. He swiped his hand over the trackpad of his laptop, quickly logging in, and instead of seeing his usual research or theory maps, he saw...a video game?

Jon squinted at the video game. What was The Sims?

He looked around his office, well-lit with the harsh fluorescent lights. It was his office, complete with the couch on the far wall that Daisy had taken to napping on and the two walls of metal shelving that held filling boxes and collections of tapes. Several filing cabinets were lined up behind Jon, holding his favorite statements. Organized by Entity. He was quite proud of it.

But the Statements seemed to be gone. Some loose papers were always scattered around, slipping out of boxes or sitting in haphazard piles weighed down by tape recorders. None of them were there. Basira must have taken them. Jon stood up, moving around the desk to pull out a box and peer inside. Empty.

Some part of Jon’s brain, growing louder every day, wailed and gnashed its teeth that someone had stolen his Statements, his knowledge. Most of Jon was just worried over what Basira could possibly be doing with them.

Unconsciously, Jon’s hand drifted down to his stomach. It was purely a habit, of course - the hunger never gave him stomach pains. He was so hungry all the time, he could barely feel it anymore.

The Statements were all gone.

Was Basira trying to starve him out…?

Jon shook himself. She wouldn’t - well, she wouldn’t go behind his back to do it. She knew that he’d just start preying on people -

His life had gotten so pathetic.

A loud crash and a yell echoed from the other side of the door, and Jon recognized Melanie’s voice. He winced, and decided to stay in his office for the time being. Best to stay out of her way. She always reacted somewhat explosively to him -

Then the faint, muffled tones of Martin’s voice echoed through the door, and Jon forgot all hesitation as he burst out of his office.

The bullpen was just slightly different from where Jon had seen it last - the desks arranged differently, different detritus scattered around, no sleeping bags or hair dryers - but he wasn’t paying attention to any of that. He was only paying attention to Martin, who was sitting at his desk as easy as you please. He was smiling.

Jon hadn’t seen Martin smile in so long.

He also hadn’t seen Martin wear those adorable little sweatervests in so long, but that wasn’t important right now. Jon cried out softly, like he had been punched - he did feel as if he had been punched, it wasn’t an unfamiliar sensation - and Martin turned slightly in his chair to look at him. He smiled when he saw Jon, so kind and happy and Martin, and Jon felt like he was dying at the sight of Martin just smiling, just looking at him.

“Look, you don’t need to worry about me,” Martin was saying, to an unamused and remarkably composed Melanie. He held up a large combat knife, the metal glinting off the fluorescent lights. “Jon likes it.”

“See, it’s not you I’m worried about,” Melanie said, arms crossed. She was dressed - in her jeans and green flannel, like she used to. Her hair looked clean. The crop top, cut-off shorts, and fishnets, that Jon hadn’t seen her take off in the last month, where - “It’s poor Jon. He’s too desperate for affection to stand up for himself.”

“Jon, you okay?” Tim asked, sitting behind Martin and sipping a margarita. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

That was when Jon - hungry, tired, hallucinating - felt his legs give out. It was just in time, too. He collapsed to the ground just as Martin threw the knife, sending it whistling where his head had been half a second ago.

Then he hit his head on the floor, and blissfully fainted.

****

“ - she’s not his mother, it’s not Georgie’s job to make sure he eats.”

“It’s because Daisy isn’t here.” That was Basira’s voice, almost mournful. “Daisy always used to remind him to eat.”

“How did this guy make it to thirty again?” An unfamiliar voice asked.

“If it wasn’t for this ragtag bunch of lesbians, I would have killed him months ago,” Tim said, then paused a beat. “What? I’m owning up to my mistakes.”

“Remind me to give you a sticker later,” Melanie said dryly.

Jon opened his eyes, to see five faces crowded in front of him. They were all bending over him, identical expressions of mild intrigue on their faces as they bickered with each other. Martin looked very, very mildly concerned, as Melanie and Basira just looked exasperated. Tim - and the woman - who was the woman?

Instinctually, Jon reached out with his mind and sought the answer. But it was as if he was reaching with a limb that had been cut off. No, a limb that had never existed. Dazed, Jon lifted his real hand, if only to make sure that he could still move - and found himself staring at an unmarred, smooth, healthy hand.

“Martin didn’t cut it off,” the woman said helpfully. She had a thick mane of curly brown hair, and brown skin a similar shade to his. She was holding a granola bar, and she easily stuffed it in his outstretched hand. “If that was a concern or anything. When’s the last time you ate, Jon?”

The question spent a spike of anxiety through him, Jon instantly interpreting it as an accusation. The granola bar wasn’t going to do anything. Of course he was hungry, he’s always hungry -

Jon wasn’t hungry.

Jon sat up, letting the assorted people, both alive and dead, step away. He mechanically unwrapped the granola bar and stuffed it in his mouth, chewing lethargically. It didn’t taste like sawdust and cement. It tasted like salt, and nuts.

He swallowed the granola bar, forming a hypothesis. He looked at Basira, who at least was the most familiar here. It galled him even having to ask, not just knowing, but - “What year is it?”

She stared at him, unimpressed. “If you hit your head we’re taking you to C&E. We can’t afford for you to get any stupider, Jon.”

“Your concern is noted,” Jon said, strained.

“Don’t make fun of him, he’s a concussion victim,” Melanie scolded. She smiled at Jon - hideously novel. “It’s 2018. I’m calling Georgie and getting you home, you’re useless to us with a brain injury.”

He no longer had a hypothesis. Jon shook his head mutely. The last person Jon wanted to field questions from was Georgie. “I’m fine,” Jon said hoarsely. “I think I just need to - lie down a bit.” And not look at Tim. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, and was still slurping his margarita obnoxiously. He was leaning against a desk, somewhat heavily. “I’ll be fine.”

Everybody looked at each other, then shrugged. Melanie reached down and helped him up, gently pushing him towards the couch set up in the corner of the bullpen, and he found himself stumbling towards it and lying down. Martin loudly offered to nurse him back to health, which incentivized Basira and Melanie to quickly push him inside the recording room and lock the door for...some reason. Jon wanted to go talk to Martin, figure everything out with him. But he didn’t - paralyzed, or maybe just frightened, or maybe just very tired.

The knife he had thrown was still lying on the floor, somehow innocently. The woman picked it up, inspecting it closely, and sighed.

“There is something off about that guy.”

“None of them are ever going to believe you, Sash,” Tim said dully, flipping through a brightly colored magazine on his desk. Jon’s breath caught in his throat. “Melanie thinks it’s freakier if you haven’t stabbed anyone.”

This was it. This was when Tim would say, ‘Everybody wants to stab Jon’, or something. It’d be fair. If this was a dream, a fantasy of dead friends, then that’s what he would say. But he didn’t. Tim - strangely small, strangely gaunt, with hollow cheeks that reminded Jon a little of Daisy - didn’t look up at Sasha, flipping through his magazine, and Sasha avoided eye contact with him. She looked at Jon instead, from where he was lying on the couch, and gave him a strained smile.

Jon found the courage to speak to her. It should have felt familiar, like Sasha, but nothing about her was familiar. He had listened to her tapes a dozen times, any scrap of her voice he could find, but - well, everybody sounded different on the tapes. “Sasha. Can you get me my phone? And a...Statement?”

Sasha brightened enthusiastically. “You want a Statement? Say no more, Jon, I’ll hook you up. Nice to see somebody taking an interest. Let’s keep this between you and me, okay?”

“What…?”

But she had already disappeared into his office, and the faint sounds of banging echoed throughout the room. Melanie and Basira were standing in the kitchenette, chatting lowly, Basira occasionally laughing at something Melanie said.

Jon wondered where Daisy was, and instinctively tried to reach again before hitting that wall. He gritted his teeth, head still swimming.

The most important thing was figuring out if this place was dangerous or not. Wherever he was, whatever was going on, he had to discern if it was a danger. Could this have anything to do with an unknown ritual? No, how could it? Elias? He wouldn’t put any of this past Elias.

With a twist in his gut Jon remembered the cannibal priest’s Statement. Any suspicion of unreality, any feeling as if things were not as they should be...or was this a pleasant, Lotus Eater’s dream instead? If that was true, would Martin be throwing knives at him?

“Here you go! First one I saw on your desk.”

Jon sat up, mutely taking the paper and phone Sasha held out to him. It wasn’t his mobile - it was much nicer and sleeker than his own battered thing - but he had to assume it was Jon’s. He took the Statement too, scanning it quickly.

Of course, of course. It was Anya Villete’s. Jon thought about this one frequently, captured by the prospect of multiple realities. Not worth the danger of exploring, but there was an intoxicating element of danger. Maybe the Jon that these people thought they were talking to had been reading it, and accidentally triggered something -

“What did I say!”

Before Jon could react, the paper was unceremoniously ripped from his hands. Jon cried out helplessly, only to see Melanie standing in front of him with an unamused expression and his lifeline in her uncaring fists.

“We’ve been over this,” Melanie scolded - scolded? “No statements, they’re bad for your tummy.” She frowned at Sasha, who didn’t seem very guilty. “And I told you to stop enabling him. He’s already sick, and you know these things upset him.”

“I’m gathering data,” Sasha said cheerfully. “Something weird was happening in his eyes when he was reading that Statement. Give it back, I need to record it.”

“Can I have that back, please?” Jon asked planatively. “I need it.”

“You do not.” Melanie folded up the statement tightly, shoving it in her jeans and ignoring Jon’s cry of despair. “If you’re feeling under-stimulated, go play knife monopoly with Martin. Otherwise relax and make sure you aren’t going to faint again.”

“I’m not going to -”

“I will call Georgie,” Melanie threatened, and Jon clicked his mouth shut. Melanie nodded, satisfied in having won the argument. If it was even an argument. “Sasha, if you let Jon find another Statement I will be locking the library and giving the key to Martin.”

“Yes, boss,” Sasha said, depressed.

“Tim, you’re with me, we need to design our plan of attack for chasing down Daisy,” Melanie barked, and Tim straightened in his seat. Jon saw for the first time that there was a folded up cane on his desk. “I need your dumb fear demon powers.”

“That’s not how they -” Tim started, but at Melanie’s look he quailed. “Yeah, boss.”

“Great.” Melanie folded her arms, frowning down at Jon, and at the receiving end of the look Jon found himself quailing too. “If you leave the Archives to do anything other than go to the bathroom the rest of the day, I will tell Georgie that you were exerting yourself while sick again. And she will call you a poor little dear and give you lots of hugs and lots of soup. You will hate it. Is that clear?”

“Yes, boss,” Jon said, depressed.

“Good. I need to go psychologically torment more people, I’ll be in the library. Tim!” She snapped her fingers, and strode off to the library as Tim scrambled up and limped after her.

Jon watched her go dazedly as the library door clicked shut behind her. Sasha sighed and went back to her desk, cracking open the thick books on the top and relaxing. They weren’t even research books, just nonfiction about the Mayflower. Basira was back at her desk too, this time with her chin resting on her arms folded on the desk as she watched a...movie. Was that a romcom?

This was dangerous. The situation was dangerous, doubtless the plot of some force or another that hated Jon personally and wanted him to suffer. He had to do some research, find out what was going on, track down Elias and find his power and dig into that source of infinite knowledge lying dormant in his mind, uproot every terrifying thing that hated him and shake them down for answers.

But he was more scared of Melanie. Just because she didn’t seem to have any knives on her didn’t mean that it was the case. Unless Martin had them all. So Jon lay back on the couch, rotely pressed in the passcode to his phone, and idly opened up the internet browser in complete comfort and relaxation.

The couch was so comfortable and soft, in fact, that Jon soon fell asleep. Easy and smooth, as if he really was still a human, who needed sleep at all.

And when Jon dreamed, he dreamed of blissful and restful nothing.

******

He woke up to someone shaking his shoulder, and Jon screamed himself awake as his eyes flew open.

But it wasn’t anybody dangerous, or anything willing to hurt him. It was just - Basira. Just Basira. Jon exhaled in relief, ignoring Basira’s incredulous expression.

“It’s five, we’re heading out. You feeling well enough for pub night, mate?”

They were going home. The strangeness registered first, the fact that Sasha was shrugging on a jacket and Melanie was stuffing a laptop in a backpack, before Jon remembered where he was. Or where he wasn’t. He mustered a faint smile for Basira, but judging from her frown it came out closer to a grimace.

Pub night. They were going out for drinks, then going to their own flats. Eating dinner. Sleeping. Waking up the next morning, then heading off to work. The mundanity boggled.

Maybe it was a Lotus Eater, Jon thought, dazed. A world where there were no Entities, no fears or harm. Where everybody was human, and happy.

Maybe. He hadn’t actually been allowed to look at any of the Statements, so he didn’t actually know. He couldn’t imagine that this group would be so casual if the Statements really were true.

Part of him wanted to beg off, curl up and sleep in document storage so he wouldn’t have to interact with these people for any longer. He was out of practice: these days he rarely had long conversations with anybody who wasn’t Daisy, and he hadn’t seen Daisy all day. Basira exchanged a few curt sentences with him each day. Melanie...cried and screamed, a lot. Not exactly conducive to social skills.

Sasha’s face was buried in a book, not even looking up as she navigated the desks. Tim was talking a patient Melanie’s ear off about Nietzche.

“I think I can make it,” Jon found himself saying. “Just a pint.”

Besides, he had the feeling that if he curled up in document storage Georgie would...be mad at him. Or something. They were flatmates? Or something?

They walked out the door in a herd, talking and laughing. Jon found himself hanging in the back of the group, next to Sasha. She wasn’t looking up from her book, so Jon felt safe in staring unabashedly at Tim. He was using a cane, just like Daisy had for two or so weeks right out of the coffin. He even used it in the same way: not favoring one leg or the other, using it for strength instead of balance. Muscle weakness. He was just as emancipated as Daisy had been too, in that particular corpse-like way that made him look like a zombie. His hair was long and lanky, brittle strands reaching to his chin instead of his normal lush and gelled look.

The faces in the lobby were the same - Sabrina behind the desk, Roy playing security guard - even as the decorations were different. No portrait of Jonah Magnus, or of the other directors. They broke out into the London street, as smoggy and crowded as ever, and Jon found himself trailing behind the others in a direct route to their usual pub. The same one he, Basira, Melanie, and Daisy go drinking at sometimes. Only sometimes. They went without him more often, but Jon didn’t blame them, really -

“Something on my face, mate?”

Tim’s wry voice startled Jon out of his reverie, and he flushed. Tim smiled at him, thinly and without humor, and gestured him forward as he dropped behind Melanie. Jon stepped forward, tucking his hands into his jacket, fighting the rising swell in his throat.

“You’ve been staring. I’m not that much uglier, am I?” Tim asked lightly, a parody of his old good humor. That, at least, was familiar - Tim’s fragile and brittle humor, tightly leashing rage.

“You...you look good,” Jon said. He buried his hands deeper in his jacket pockets, fighting the lump in his throat. He couldn’t stop himself from adding, “It’s good to see you again.”

It was probably a strange thing for Jon to say - but Tim just smiled, even more bitter than the last. “You’ve always been too nice for your own good, Sims.” First time that’s been said about him. “You forgive too easy.”

“Grudges...aren’t worth it, in my experience.” Jon exhaled slowly, watching Melanie’s red hair glint in the sunlight in front of him. “Life’s too short and all.”

“Really? Thought you people loved grudges.” Tim blinked a second, before clearly remembering something. “We love grudges, right. Still, Jon, I never really…” He trailed off awkwardly. “You know.”

He did not. “Right,” Jon said.

“Apologized,” Tim said hurriedly, when it became clear that Jon wasn’t about to say anything committal. “For trying to kill you all those times. Uh, and trying to get you arrested. And helping frame you for murder. And that whole kidnapping incident -”

Something began to occur to Jon. A rational thought seeped into his brain.

“In the woods,” Jon said slowly. “Because you thought I was a monster.”

Tim winced, confirming Jon’s suspicion. “Right. Trust me, I’ve had a lot of time to think, and I know I was wrong. I’ve turned over a new leaf and everything.” He brightened. “Did you hear I’m bisexual now?”

“Everybody heard you were bisexual now,” Basira said, bored. “Ten times.”

“Good for you,” Jon said, as sincerely as he could. “That’s...great. Bi rights.”

Tim beamed. “Bi rights!” He clapped Jon’s shoulder supportively with his other hand as Melanie held open the door to the pub for them, ducking inside. “Man, I never thought I’d see the inside of a pub again. I only got to go a few times with you guys before everything. Can Martin still hustle the room at pool?”

“One way to find out,” Martin said serenely.

“Please don’t start a pub brawl,” Melanie said, pained. “We’ve been kicked out of three places already, I don’t fancy making it a fourth.”

But when Jon looked backwards, he saw Sasha looking up from her book, staring directly at him, blinking owlishly.

They crowded into a corner booth, squishing up against each other and all talking at once. Jon wanted to drift towards Martin, get him alone and ask what was going on, but after one look at him eyeing up the pool cues speculatively he changed his mind. Only Basira was acting even remotely normal, so he settled for sliding in between her and Sasha. He was dizzy with the noise and the clamor of the familiar pub, overwhelmed by the familiar-unfamiliar tide of voices, and it was taking all of his energy not to spend hours just staring at Sasha, memorizing every line and crease of her face.

The first thing he did was order every single crummy, greasy, soggy serving of pub food he found on the menu, ignoring the way his Assistants laughed at him, before settling in the corner of the booth and pulling out his phone. Jon wasn’t even hungry - he wasn’t hungry - but he was shoving every soggy chip into his mouth until he puked. A human body was a drastically underrated thing.

Out of curiosity, Jon turned on the front camera of his phone and scrutinized his reflection. He had noticed that his hair was shorter, tied back in a puffed bun instead of his customary ragged ponytail, but beyond that he hadn’t checked.

He looked...good. No longer gaunt and malnourished, he was a healthy weight. No bags under his eyes. Well kept fade and modest, well trimmed facial hair. No scar over his throat, no circular worm scars. That was less of a surprise - Tim, Martin, and Sasha were all missing the worm scars.

His eyes were brown. Just brown. No electrifying green, no spinning iris, no churning wheel of knowledge. Just his normal, boring brown.

He hadn’t known how much he missed it.

As the others started arguing passionately about...vlogs? Or something?...Jon pulled out his wallet. Money had the same old Queen on it, along with his old collection of take-out receipts that had all started disappearing when he stopped eating. A photocopy of a picture of his parents, heavily worn and creased. Still an orphan, then. Jon missed the days when that was his biggest problem.

His driver’s license was the same as ever too. Same name - Jonathan Andrew Sims. Same birthday - February 14th, which he had always considered life’s practical joke on him. The United Kingdom still existed, which was either a good or a bad thing.

He replaced his wallet, ignoring Sasha’s curious stare, and pulled out his phone. He had only gone so far as making sure that major world events were the same before passing out. This time, he pressed his text messages, and scrolled down his most recents. As usual, it was only a few people - almost all of which were at this table - but there were a few other people too.

Georgie was the obvious one, and the most recent. He clicked on that conversation, unsurprised to see an immediate photograph of the Admiral looking angelic as he rolled around in some grass in a patch of sun.

Georgie: Baby at the park soaking in some rays!!! <3 <3 <3. I caught him terrorizing a stray dog. Naughty baby!!

Jon blinked at the message. The Admiral did seem a little...more evil, than he once did. Why were his eyes green? Underneath was Jon’s own text, sent twenty minutes before he had woken up that afternoon.

Jon: He’s committing atrocities and you’re laughing. You’re laughing.

Jon couldn’t fight a smile. He missed Georgie.

He switched over to the text conversation just underneath. He squinted at the contact name. That couldn’t be right.

Gerry: can u pick up milk from aldis? and scented candles

Gerry: for necromancy reasons

Jon: Can you raise the dead tomorrow? Helen said she wants to talk to me so I may be home late. If you don’t hear from me in five hours she’s likely kidnapped me. As a heads up.

Gerry: OH, SO LONG AS I HAVE THE HEADS UP?

Gerry: I’m making Georgie give Melanie the money to buy that toddler leash she’s always threatening to get for u. If u die im not resurrecting u.

Jon: Have fun with one less person to share the rent

Gerry: we dont PAY RENT

Gerard Keay. Jon blinked at the phone. That conversation raised as many questions as it answered. Gerard Keay was alive? He was Jon’s flatmate? He practiced necromancy? None of it seemed very relevant right now, but it made Jon wonder who else was resurrected from the dead. Was necromancy common in this universe, like knitting?

Still, Helen explained quite a bit. It also suggested what Jon was already wondering: that the supernatural was far from foreign. If Helen was supernatural, and not just...a jerk.

If Tim was an Avatar of the Hunt...if he had been in the coffin...and Daisy’s been hard to track down…

Jon was interrupted in his increasingly coherent train of thought by his food arriving, and all thoughts were thrown out the window. His basket of fish and chips slid in front of him, and he wasted absolutely no time in cramming the fries into his mouth three at a time, not wasting time salting or putting vinegar on them. They were dripping with crease, soggy and burning his tongue.

They were perfect.

The waiter, looking somewhat intimidated, slid his bacon butty on the table too, and Jon took barely a moment to swallow before stuffing that in his face too. Bacon, butter, brown sauce - it exploded on his tongue, a cavalcade of salt and seasoning. Increasingly terrified, the waiter put his pie and mash on the table and quickly fled, as Jon finished cramming the sandwich into his mouth before moving back to the fish. It was hot, crackling on his tongue, strong and fishy and perfect.

Jon looked up from his food long enough to grab a glass of water and gulp half of it down. It wasn’t until he put his glass down that he saw the looks on the faces of his Assistants. All of whom ranged from frightened to terrified.

Everybody except Martin, whose chin was propped on his hand and was sighing dreamily. “It’s really hot how you can pack it all away, Jon. Do you want to come over to my flat and let me cook for you? I’d make a lot of food. ”

Jon choked on his fish.

That was it for Sasha. She slammed her book down, expression intent, and jabbed a finger at a now wheezing Jon. “Jon would never choke at Martin’s creepy flirting! That isn’t Jonathan Sims!”

Jon stole Tim’s glass of water, ignoring his squawk, and downed that too.

Now everybody really was staring at him, and Jon felt heat rise to his cheeks. As the kids say, busted. He should probably stop eating and make his escape while he still could, before Tim decided to change his mind on his ‘murdering Jon’ stance.

But outside did not have pub food. Inside had pub food. Jon made his decision with the knowledge that, if his Assistants reacted from a reasonable place of Imposter-based trauma and killed him for pretending to be Jonathan Sims, he’d deserve it. He was not moving from this spot until his food was gone or his Assistants killed him.

Jon finished off Tim’s water, dropping it back on the lacquered table, and hoarsely said, “I’ve been having a very strange day.”

Nobody leaped for his throat or pointed a gun at him, which was always nice. It was more than Jon had been expecting. Instead, everybody looked at Melanie, who narrowed her eyes. Jon realized, a second too late, that they were waiting for her. Whatever happened to him, Melanie would decide.

...why Melanie?

Melanie rested her elbows on the table, steepling her fingers in front of her mouth. She locked eyes with Jon, breaking him down like a judge at a dog show, and Jon tried to shovel mash in his mouth as innocently as possible.

“Sasha. What’s your evidence?”

“He’s been acting weird all day,” Sasha said promptly, as if she’d been expecting the question. She shifted her arm purposefully, and Jon realized with a start that she was concealed carrying. Was that legal? “Jon never asks me for Statements outright, he always just sneaks them behind Melanie’s back. If he really fainted because he was hungry, he would have eaten his lunch too, instead of just my granola bar. And he hasn’t talked to Martin since he fainted - he isn’t even sitting next to him.” Sasha drew herself up triumphantly. “And, he looked actually scared when Martin threw that knife at him. He’s never scared of Martin. He normally just role-plays the fear bit.”

“Which I appreciate,” Martin said supportively, making Jon blanch. That elicited more suspicious looks from everyone, which Jon couldn’t even begin to parse. “But he has been acting strange today, hasn’t he?”

“Tim?” Melanie asked sharply.

Tim sniffed loudly, wrinkling his nose a little. “Smells like him.” At Melanie’s intense look, he grudgingly added, “No sawdust or plastic. Flesh and blood, boss.”

Jon began stuffing forkfuls of pastry and meat crumb from the pie in his mouth as Melanie went back to squinting at Jon. Not glaring - just an intense, sidelong look, fingers steepled in front of her. “You aren’t denying it, Jon.”

Jon mumbled something.

“Swallow your food.”

Jon carefully swallowed his mouthful of dough. “I have not eaten human food,” Jon said delicately, “in five months. I will answer your questions momentarily.”

And then Jon cleaned all three of his plates, to the dumbfounded looks of his Assistants.

Finally, after everybody else’s drinks had arrived - including Jon’s pint, which he reached for so quickly that Martin stole it away from him and refused to give it back - and Jon had cleaned all three of his plates, he felt ready to talk. He thumped on his chest, burping a little, and leaned back in his plush seat. Melanie was nursing her pint, sipping from it slowly, as Basira gave him her usual ‘I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you’ look.

“Okay,” Jon said finally. “I apologize for not - ah, clarifying before. I thought I was dreaming. To be honest, I worry that I’m still dreaming.” He looked down at his empty basket and plates. “I dearly hope that wasn’t human flesh or something horrid like that.”

Sasha perked up. “Like in the cannibal priest statement? That’s fascinating -”

“Shut up about cannibal priests,” Melanie groaned, and Sasha guiltily shut up. Oddly rude, but nobody seemed surprised. “You are Jon, right?”

Everybody stared at him blankly.

“Well,” Basira said finally, “sounds like the kind of bullshit you get yourself wrapped up in, Jon.”

“I knew it!” Sasha cried, before deflating. “I mean, I didn’t, really, not at all, but that’s fascinating! Will you answer some questions? Who’s the Queen in your universe?”

“I’m back from the dead for a week and my life’s already stupid again,” Tim said blankly.

“Two Jons?” Martin asked, far too excitedly.

“Can I leave you alone,” Melanie gritted out, between clenched teeth, “for five minutes?”

Then everybody was talking over each other, arguing and exclaiming and yelling, and Jon frantically drank his pint. They were so loud.

Finally, Melanie chopped a hand through the buzz, and everyone quieted. She pursed her lips, looking Jon up and down, and he anxiously let himself get looked at. “How did you know it was an alternate universe? What’s the difference?”

“Martin threw a knife at me and Tim and Sasha are alive,” Jon said instantly.

“I’m not actually dead in your universe,” Tim said quickly, “just trapped in an infernal demon hell coffin. If you can get me out, I’d be really thankful -”

“No, you’re quite dead,” Jon said apologetically. “That happened to Daisy in my universe, though. A - a lot of what you did here, I think, Daisy did.” He looked at Basira, frowning. “Where is Daisy? She’s not…”

“She’s fine,” Basira said curtly, folding her arms and leaning back. “Having lots of fun ditching us and having fun at her little secretary desk. It’s fine. I don’t care. She can do what she wants, she’s an adult.”

“Basira’s been pining tragically ever since Daisy ran off to go work for Peter Lukas,” Melanie said sympathetically.

Jon felt a little called out. “Ah. That’s - that’s very unfortunate.” He slowly turned to Martin, who still seemed caught up in the ‘two Jons’ aspect of this. “And you’re...you would define yourself as full of rage?”

“At all times, all the time, without cessation,” Martin agreed affably. “Why? That’s not weird to you, is it?”

“Uh huh.” Jon slowly turned to Sasha. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to insult you, but...did you happen to once work as a Constable for the Met?”

Everybody winced. Sasha sighed. “I regret all of my actions and I’m very sorry that I was once a pig and I’ll never do it again because I value due process now.”

“Word, sister,” Tim said, raising his pint.

“Hm,” Jon said, far too much coming together. But that left a big question, one thing that didn’t make sense. “What about me? Do I - eat trauma?”

Basira stared at him blankly. “You try, sometimes, but we usually just spray water at you until you stop.”

“That explains it,” said Jon, despite the fact that it didn’t explain anything.

“Your questions are pointless, and this is a waste of time.” Melanie clapped her hands sharply, making everyone straighten to attention. She stood up from her seat, everybody scrambling to protect their glasses as Melanie clambered on top of the table. “Helen! Get out here!”

“She’s not - she’s not Beetlejuice, you can’t just call her name and make her appear,” Jon said blankly. “How’s she even supposed to hear -”

“She can hear me just fine,” Melanie called, “because she’s been sitting at the bar this whole time.”

Everybody’s heads craned around to look at the bar. Through the stream of people, carrying drinks and laughing, Jon could faintly make out a tall, willowy figure with a large afro sitting on a barstool at the bar, tapping the rim of one elegant martini with a long, manicured fingernail.

Then she swiveled around, and Helen grinned broadly at all of them. She waved cheekily with one hand, fingers waving and rippling strangely in the dim pub lights. “Hello! You rang?”

Melanie jabbed a finger at the table pointedly. “Michael’s too young to be here too, Helen!”

“They’re eighteen, they’re a big non-Euclidean concept!” Helen tittered, as she hopped of the stool. Jon’s draw dropped as a much smaller, slight figure next to her hopped off too. They were a teenager, with a curly mop of blonde hair and big, watery blue eyes that seemed just a little strange. Everything about them was on the edge of familiar, and not in the usual way of the Spiral.

“She was waiting for us to figure it out,” Basira murmured, catching Jon’s attention. “It’s definitely funny to her.”

“Helen defined schadenfreude, I’m afraid,” Jon said, depressed, as Helen and her tagalong popped up at the edge of their table. Melanie had said Michael - and the kid did look like Michael, younger and alive and wide-eyed. Their watery eyes caught on Jon, and they tilted their head curiously. The sight of them hurt Jon’s head more than the Spiral usually did - a testament to the human body he was borrowing.

Human. That was no defense. He was vulnerable, and judging from the angle of Helen’s smile she knew it.

“Enjoying your vacation, Archivist?” Helen tittered, folding her hands girlishly as Melanie hopped off the table and back in her seat. “I’ve been having so much fun in this universe I thought I ought to bring a friend! Buy one plane ticket get one free, you know. I have this coupon for a great spa around here -”

“Helen,” Melanie intoned dangerously.

Helen tittered a nervous laugh. Was she...scared of Melanie? “Don’t worry! Your darling little Jon’s perfectly safe. He’s having a great time in one of my favorite dimensions, this wonderful post-apocalyptic adventure with a werewolf -

“Helen,” Melanie said slowly, danger building with every word, “we talked about what happens when you remove Jons from their native ecosystems.”

“They get sick,” Michael said somberly, nodding their head. “An’ wilt.”

“It is very stressful for the Jon, Helen. You know what we don’t like?”

“A stressed Jon?” Michael volunteered.

“Yes, Michael.” Melanie smiled pleasantly at Helen, who blanched. “A stressed Jon. Because when Jon gets stressed, my girlfriend gets stressed. And when my girlfriend gets stressed, I get stressed. And when I get stressed, everybody is about to have a very bad time. Get it? Helen?”

“Completely understood, very sympathetic, I see your point completely,” Helen said hurriedly. “Really, you can say that I did my dear Archivist a favor! He hasn’t had a human body in almost half a year, the poor dear was so sad about it. It’s a break, really!”

Tim squinted at Jon. “You’re really full on fear demon, then?”

Jon squirmed guiltily, ashamed. “I prefer the term Avatar. But...yes, I’m an amoral monster distant from humanity, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Melanie said impatiently. “You’re about as far from humanity as I am. Having stupid superpowers or cramming shitty food into your mouth doesn’t make you inhuman, it just means you hang out with the wrong crowd. Go back to your own universe and get some rest, I bet you’re stressing out all your friends.”

“I’m really not,” Jon said weakly. “I - I really only have one friend.”

“No wonder you look so tragic all the time,” Sasha said thoughtfully. “Jon gets all mopey without affection. Like an unwatered plant.”

“I eat trauma,” Jon said, bewildered at the perception of harmlessness.

“You and half of the YouTube vlogging community.” Melanie clapped her hands again sharply, pulling everyone to attention. “Helen. Put Jon back where he came from or so help me.”

“Ruining all my fun,” Helen pouted, but at Melanie’s glare she sighed. She held up one hand, and static rippled through the air. The hand elongated, twisted, and turned into Helen’s signature lengthy claw. Michael eyed it with interest, before holding up their own hand and doing the same. “Fun while it lasted, Archivist! Now hold still. I wouldn’t want to lobotomize the wrong lobe.”

“Nice meeting you,” Sasha said politely, to a very freaked out Jon. “Don’t come back, though.”

“Come back if you want,” Basira yawned. “My life’s boring, spice it up a little.”

“Sorry I’m dead in your universe or whatever,” Tim said, waving a hand. “Life and death is meaningless anyway, so I’m sure it’s for the best.”

“I want my Jon back,” Martin complained. “Go on and get out, then.”

“Tell your friends what we told you,” Melanie said. “Don’t they know that you get all tragic when you’re lonely?”

And Jon didn’t know how to say it - that they didn’t know, or if they did then they didn’t care, because they had so many bigger problems than if Jon was sad or not. With Elias’ strange plans, with Jon’s encroaching monsterhood and his slow and steady starvation, with Martin’s loneliness and Basira’s desperation and Melanie’s instability, Jon’s feelings were the least important thing in the world.

Did it matter, to anybody but Jon, that he thought of Martin first thing in the morning and last thing as he went to bed at night?

“Hold still and look straight at me!” Helen said, and Jon had to be thankful - because that let him look at Sasha and Tim, eyes wide and intrigued, as Helen speared her finger through Jon’s forehead.

Jon blacked out, but the images of Sasha and Tim stayed burned behind his eyelids. He dreamed calm dreams, of him and Martin and Sasha and Tim, laughing together, as the world faded away.

****

When Jon woke up, it was with a crick in his neck, and he knew immediately he had fallen asleep on the battered old couch in his office again.

There was a heavy weight on his chest, and when he pried his eyes open he saw the top of Daisy’s head in front of him. Dusty blonde hair pooled on his chest as Daisy snored, deep asleep, arm stretched over his torso.

The taste of salt and grease was on his tongue, and Jon let himself go back to sleep. The dreams would be terrifying and desolate, but at least in them he was never hungry.

#my writing #tma #the magnus archives #tma fanfic #the magnus archives fanfic #im also doing an UNBELIEVABLY self-indulgent tim character study but im not sure if i should post it because tim's not funny #melanie king #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #slaughter!martin #basira hussain #sasha james #helen richardson #michael shelley

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leatherwhiskeycoffeeplaid · 5 years

Text

Early Mornings and Sleepless Nights

Pairing: Choose Your Own Winchester x Pregnant!Reader

Word Count 754

Warnings: pregnancy symptoms, vomit, insomnia, non-graphic labor, breastfeeding, and so much fluff

Author’s Note: For my Domestic Square for @spnkinkbingo

Sweat beaded your forehead as your stomach rolled, your eyes snapping open in panic as bile rose in your throat rapidly.

“Babe?” The voice of concern called from behind you as you bolted for the bin next to your side of the bed, emptying your stomach contents in heaves until nothing was left.

The sour aftermath of vomit lingers in your mouth as you crawled the rest of the way out from under the blankets, stumbling in the dark on tired feet to the sink basin in the corner of your bedroom.

Water rushes out and feeling cool in your palms as you cup handfuls to rinse your mouth out from the bitter taste. The bed behind you creaking as your boyfriend leaves his side of the bed, padding on sock covered feet over to you.

His wide right palm lands heavy against your back as he left settles over the soft swell of your barely there belly. “You okay?”

“Mmm,” you hum, afraid you might throw up again as your eyes flutter closed, the soothing warmth of his hands seep into your skin as his thumb sweeps over your belly that still rolls but not as hard as before.

The early morning light from the motel room window just barely peaks through the sheer curtains as a gentle flutter tickles your belly. The baby inside waking for the day already before you’re even fully awake.

A smile tugs at your lips at the sensation and a hand of your own settles over where the tiny pushes of miniature limbs move.

“Baby moving again?” He inquires from beside you and you peak over your shoulder at him to gaze lovingly into his light colored eyes.

“Yeah. Here.” Reaching for his hand, you pull it taut over your stomach, both of you waiting until you feel that same flutter. “There! Did you feel it?”

His cheeks tinge pink before giving a shake of his head. “Not yet. Soon though, right?”

“Yeah. Soon.”

Dawn was approaching but sleep evaded you much to your dismay. The tiny human that lay under your heart, stretched and pushed at your ribs, making your body ache and exhaust it even further. “Can’t sleep, again?”

His sleep rough voice made you jump, startling the tiny human inside you as well.

“No. I can’t wait for this to be over. I’m done being a hostage.”

A soft chuckle left his warm, slightly chapped lips as he brushed them over your exposed shoulder, still naked from your attempt to start your labor the night before. “You aren’t a hostage, mama. Enjoy having the baby here while you can. Won’t be long now.”

Pain radiates through your core as another contraction gripped you, your hair sticking to your face as you pant through what would be your last round of contractions before you baby finally came.

“Almost done, babe. A few more like that and we’ll finally get to see our girl.”

Your teeth gnash together as the last bit of pain trailed off, your breath rushing out of you in a quick exhale.

“Our boy. It could be a boy. We don’t know.” One of your hands that had been planted on your hospital bed, reached up to push the damp tendrils away from your face. Quickly that hand fell back down to the wrinkled surface as pain once again ripped through you, the urge to bare down coming along with this one and you eyes flashed with panic. “We’re about to find out.”

Shrill wails drug you from your hardly obtained slumber as your daughter cried from her bassinet on the other side of your shared bedroom.

“I got her,” he mumbled, his arms releasing you to crawl out of his side of the warm bed.

“My boobs are tingly. She’s hungry again. Gimmie,” you commanded, sitting up against your headboard, nursing pillow quickly retrieved from its place beside the bed.

Unbuttoning a few of his shirt buttons made nursing easy as he handed over your squirming baby girl. Still so tiny but growing everyday.

“That’s my girl,” her daddy praised as the baby girl latched onto your breast at the first attempt this time.

“You talking to me or her?” You asked mischievously.

“Both,” he answered.

Silence fell over the three of you as the new father walked back around to his side of the bed, watching as mother and daughter bonded in a way only they could.

“This makes all those early mornings and sleepless nights worth it, doesn’t it?”

#spnkinkbingo #Dean x reader #sam x reader #Dean Winchester x reader #sam winchester x reader #lwcpwrites

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thwip--thwip · 4 years

Note

5, 12, and 44 😈 ILU

Did you used to get things as a child when you screamed? I’ll let you know right now that it’s not going to help you here.

You’re in a well? Is it more like the Buffalo Bill one or the Samara one?

This joke goes beyond practical and far into sadistic territory.

This…got out of control so fast. Enjoy your 2.5k O:

Tony has to admit, this wasn’t how he saw his day going.

Things had been going just fine, business-as-usual; he had taken Peter Christmas shopping, which was no small affair. Normally, Tony wouldn’t be braving the veritable throngs of wailing children and exhausted parents just for a 20% deal on a pair of socks (seriously? 20% was the best they could do?), but when he’d said as much with an offhand quip about shopping online, Peter had regarded him more seriously than he’d anticipated.

“Christmas gifts need to come from the heart, Mr. Stark.”

How a blender you bought at Macy’s had more heart than a blender you bought online, Tony didn’t know (maybe it had something to do with the number of people you had to elbow out of the way?), but he also thinks it’s because Peter is insistent on spending his own money. Tony would much rather the kid use it to take his girlfriend out (he’d come back from the disaster of a trip with a girlfriend, and while it wasn’t quite worth the panic and terror of watching Spiderman take down a madman in a literal London blitz, Tony had to admit, Peter was being adorable about the whole thing).

Regardless, they’re perusing through the JCPenny perfume section (Tony told him not to buy MJ a fragrance, but did Peter listen? It looks like he might, though, because so far he hasn’t liked any of the scents, nose wrinkling more and more with each spritz) when everything goes to hell.

Peter cringes a full two seconds before the first explosion hits, tackling Tony out of the way as the storefront windows blow out. They land hard, skidding across the tile until Peter stops them by a clearance rack. The kid’s already up on one knee, and he makes eye contact with Tony for the briefest instant before he’s up and running for the dressing rooms.

“Kid - “ Tony starts, but Peter’s already gone. Spiderman swings out not three seconds later (was he wearing the suit under his clothes), launching himself into the mall proper.

Tony doesn’t have the suit. Tony doesn’t have the suit. He knew something like this was likely to happen eventually - he still has his watch, a few tricks on the new prosthetic arm he’s wearing - but his heart can’t take the kind of stress the Iron Man suit requires. It’s the first time he’s been caught in a situation like this since Thanos, and it’s panic-inducing, dizzyingly so - especially when Peter jumps right into action with no back-up.

Tony swallows down the tightness in his chest (no panic attack, not right now, chill the fuck out) and gets his feet under him, heading towards the chaos. People are running for cover, screaming - Santa bolts towards the FYE, beard flying off and landing somewhere on the floor behind him.

“Gobby, we talked about this!” Peter sails overhead, swinging around a column and trying to kick the Green Goblin off his glider. He aborts the move at the last second, while the Goblin swings at him with what looks like a sword. “Do you want to make the naughty list three years in a row?”

Gobby cackles in a way that makes the hair on Tony’s remaining arm stand up on end, gnashing his teeth, and he zooms after Peter, launching another handful of pumpkin bombs at the kid.

There’s a man throwing bombs at his kid.

“FRIDAY, get us some back-up here,” Tony instructs the AI through his watch, though he’s sure she’s already put in the necessary calls. It still doesn’t make it any easier, watching Peter dance and dodge out of the Goblin’s way (barely, barely, every time is a razor’s edge to pure disaster). Tony moves to help a few people up off the ground, keeping an eye on the fight the whole time - the atrium is nearly empty, thankfully, shoppers having dashed for the cover of the stores.

Another bomb goes off - this time, part of the ceiling goes with it. A sizeable chunk hits Peter as he’s trying to swing away from it, and sends him sprawling. It’s not enough to seriously hurt him (Tony doesn’t think), but it still makes his heart leap up into his throat. Either way, the second of distraction is all it takes for Goblin to end up on top of him.

“I’ve got you now, little spider,” Goblin snarls, one hand wrapped around Peter’s throat, and Tony sees red.

“Hey douchecanoe!” Tony yells, drawing attention to himself. The man’s head snaps up, crazed eyes zeroing in on Tony. “Yeah, I’m talking to you!”

“Mr. Stark - “ Peter starts with a cough, but Goblin is already laughing again - crazily, maddeningly, and Tony doesn’t even have enough time to react. Peter goes flying - Goblin throws him through the Urban Outfitters window in an ostentatious display of broken glass and hipster scarves - and the villain is on Tony in the next instant.

“Hello Mr. Stark,” Goblin giggles, grabbing him bodily and zooming upwards, towards the caved in part of the ceiling. “Fancy seeing you here!”

Tony tries to activate his watch so he can blast this asshole to kingdom come, but the Goblin’s fist comes down on his face, and Tony’s world is enveloped in swift darkness.

***

He wakes up to screaming.

“LET ME OUT! HEY! LET ME OUT!”

Tony groans and winces as he opens his eyes - at least it’s relatively dark, so he doesn’t have to worry about light fucking with his probably-a-concussion - but jesus, the screams are loud and panicked. Whoever it is doesn’t seem to have noticed Tony’s awake just yet, yelling upwards towards -

Huh. They’re in some kind of a hole, which looks to be too deep to climb out of. Great.

“Did you used to get things as a child when you screamed?” Tony grumbles, and the yells cut off abruptly as the person turns to look at him, startled. “I’ll let you know right now, that’s not going to help here.”

“You’re - holy shit, you’re Tony Stark.” His vision focuses in on his fellow prisoner - he looks like he’s Peter’s age, maybe, with thickset eyebrows and curly, dark hair. Tony pushes himself up into a sitting position, back to the (damp) wall, and he bites back another wince when he touches the tender spot on the back of his head, and his hand comes away bloody. Great.

“The one and only. And you are?” Tony glances down at his watch, which is still on his wrist. Goblin, what a dumbfuck - or probably just overly cocky, the prick. He pulls up the hologram and starts executing commands to find out where he is, and to alert the appropriate people.

“Flash, uh, sir. Flash Thompson.” Flash stutters, and Tony spares a second to look at him dubiously (what? Comedic timing waits for no Goblin-related-emergency.)

“Seriously?” Flash nods, eyes wide, and Tony frowns. The name is a) stupid, but b) sounds oddly familiar. His attention is diverted by a chirp from his watch - a location lock, distress signal sent. They’ll be out of here in no time at all. “Well…citizen, no need to worry. Help is on the - Christ.”

There’s an incoming call from SPIDERMAN flashing on the watch’s projection, and Tony pulls it up, careful to hit audio only. “Talk to me, kid.”

“Mr. Stark!” Peter’s relief pitches his voice high, almost a little shrill, coming through the speakers, and Tony dials it down a notch on the volume. “Oh my God, you’re alive!”

“Thought you could get rid of me that easily? I’m disappointed, I thought I taught you better than that.” Tony barely resists the urge to smile when that comment gets a relieved laugh out of Peter, which echoes against the walls of their pit. He’s too aware of his audience, though - Flash, staring at him from the corner - so he tries not to let the worry seep through too much. “Are you okay?”

“Me? I’m fine,” Peter rushes out, as if the last time Tony saw him, he hadn’t had Goblin’s fingers wrapped around his neck in a chokehold. “Are you okay? He turned on his cloaking tech before I could get after you.”

“I’m fine.” Peter made a skeptical noise at the back of his throat, and Tony bit his tongue to stop from bantering with him - one dubious look at Flash kept it under wraps (the kid wasn’t even trying to hide his blatant interest). “You’ve got my location lock?”

“Yeah, I’m on my way.” Tony opened his mouth to protest, but even without seeing him, Peter must have known what he was going to say because he hurried to continue. “Falcon is en route, but I’m closer.”

“Just be careful,” Tony grumbles to himself, concealing a wince when he rubs at the back of his head. “Could be a trap. He’s got us in a well.”

“Sorry,” Tony can hear the shit-eating grin in Peter’s voice and he closes his eyes so he doesn’t roll them up to the heavens. “Did you just say you’re in a well?”

“Yes I did, and I’d very much appreciate it if I wasn’t anymore.” It’s the closest Tony can get to threatening; Flash looks like he’s about to wet himself with excitement, and the starstruck novelty is beginning to wear off.

“Is it more like the Buffalo Bill well or the Samara well?” Yet again, Tony has to bite his tongue before he can ask what the hell are you doing watching Silence of the Lambs, you’re eleven. All of this holding back is just stockpiling for later. “It rubs the lotion on it’s skin - ”

“Is that Spiderman?” Flash whispers, way too loudly, inching closer. Tony fixes him with his second most intimidating stare, but the kid must be brave (or just stupid), because he’s insistent. “I’m his number one fan.”

“Mr. Stark? Is there someone there with you?”

“Yeah, Gobby’s got a kid here - why are you here, anyway?” A detail he skipped over before, but what is Flash to the Green Goblin? Flash puffs out his chest, looking far too proud.

“I’m Spiderman’s biggest fan! Spiderman - I’m your biggest fan!”

“Yeah, I got that part.” Peter sounds confused, and Tony’s kind of starting to wish he hadn’t woken up. Unconsciousness is pretty blissful, turns out. “Maybe Gobby got jealous. He’s always wanted to be president of my fanclub.”

“You have a fanclub?” Flash says - no, demands - in a way that suggests ‘Spiderman Fan Club’ will be the first thing he Googles as soon as they’re out of this hole. Tony pinches the bridge of his nose - this joke has moved swiftly beyond ‘practical’ and is making a play as far into ‘sadistic’ as possible. Then again, what was Tony expecting from a shopping trip with Peter?

“Shit.” Peter says, half a second before an explosion ends their phone call. Tony doesn’t even have time to react, because the reverberations from said explosion shake the entire well (hole? pit?), and Flash starts screaming again.

“HELP, SOMEBODY HELP! SPIDERMAN HELP ME!”

Flash gets his wish - a web comes out of nowhere and latches onto Flash’s shirt, and the kid is gone before Tony can blink. He starts to stand up, words already forming. “Don’t you dare - “

“Yoink!” Tony’s flying upwards before he can finish the sentence, which he leaves half-formed somewhere at the bottom of the stupid well (along with his stomach). Tony grabs on for dear life, and Peter catches him around the waist, hoisting him under one arm.

“I hate that you said ‘yoink’ out loud. Absolutely disgusting.” Tony feels his stomach swoop as Peter swings them over a mountain of debris and out an opening Tony is very sure they won’t fit through - but somehow, they manage. “Where’s our friend?”

“Who, Flash?” Peter doesn’t sound winded at all, even though they’re booking it down the street, arcing into the next side street. “I tossed him to Falcon.”

“You know that kid?” Suddenly, it clicks. “Wait, that was the shithead whose been giving you a hard time?”

“Aw, man.” Peter groans, torquing them in another direction. “I never should have introduced you to Ned.”

“What - Peter! I wasn’t even - I wanted to know where the Goblin was!”

An explosion that is far too close for comfort answers that question for him, and Peter lets out a yelp as they execute a nausea-inducing maneuver to dodge out of Gobby’s way. Tony hears the high-pitched laughter behind them, and Peter switches Tony to his other arm as he tries to get away.

“I have had enough of this chucklefuck,” Tony growls, and he’s serious. Between the Midtown housewives elbowing them out of the way of the sale racks and Goblin dropping him in the bottom of a well, he’s fed up with today. “Peter. Throw me at him.”

“What?” Goblin throws another pumpkin bomb, and Tony can’t even feel whether or not it singes over how angry he is. “What do you mean throw you at him?”

“I meant what I said, and I said what I meant.” Tony clenches and unclenches his metal fist; he might not be Iron Man anymore, but he’s not dead.

“An elephant’s faithful, one hundred percent.” Peter finishes with a snicker, because of course Tony couldn’t sneak anything by him. “You just want me to chuck you?”

“With a little more precision, yeah. Throw me at him, and when I get him off that knockoff hoverboard, catch me.” Peter only hesitates a half a second before he nods, directing them into a wide arc as he swings back around to face the Goblin. Goblin is behind them, swerving jerkily in the air, in all his teeth-gnashing glory, and Tony curls his hand into a fist.

“One, two - “ Peter throws him on three, and Tony has the satisfaction of watching Goblin’s eyes widen in surprise for the briefest instant - because who would suspect Tony using himself as a projectile, truly? He tries to swerve out of the way, but Tony grabs the end of his hoverboard and yanks, throwing him off balance.

Goblin snarls, blade extending so he can jab down at Tony with it, but it’s too late. Tony lets an electrical charge loose from his prosthesis, shutting the glider down and tasing the fuck out of the Goblin. He buckles, and the glider starts to crash - Tony bails, letting go and free-falling towards the concrete at an alarming speed.

But then there’s the familiar yank of webbing attaching to his shirt, and in the fight against gravity, Peter wins. He changes Tony’s momentum, swinging him upwards like he’s trying to do goddamn yo-yo trick.

“Next year,” Tony wraps an exhausted arm over the kid’s shoulders as Peter tucks him under his arm like a football. He’s still wired from the adrenaline, muscles trembling slightly. “Everybody you know is getting gift cards.”

“Who doesn’t enjoy a good holiday rush?” Peter says, and Tony can hear the smirk in his voice. “It’s the thought that counts.”

“Gift cards, Peter. Gift cards.”

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maandags · 5 years

Text

Eidolon (Angel!Keith x Demon! reader) {part iii}

something resembling peace n quiet (ish) b4 the real shitstorm yeet

---

Summary: Keith is an angel, and he’s completed mission after mission for the Upper Hand, the organisation controlling all of the Above. He’s only failed a mission once: when he was assigned to kill you, a surprisingly charismatic demon. He roamed Earth–Middle Ground–for years before he was caught by the Upper Hand again, and things quickly go south.

Word count: 6.3K

Genre: Angst

Notes: ft witch!Coran bc he doesnt get enough love -- masterlist -- {previous} -- {next} --

---

small-town boy in a big arcade

i got addicted to a losing game

~ Arcade, Duncan Laurence

---

His fever isn't going down.

It's been five days and his fever just won't go down.

He's passed out on your couch, waking up occasionally so you can feed him and give him water to drink. Sometimes you have to shake him for minutes at a time just so he wakes up. You tried everything you knew, but the medicine you give him has no effect and the medicine you probably need is nowhere at your disposal.

It's safe to say you have no clue how to proceed and also are frustrated: you're risking everything here. You're risking being found by everything you have been outrunning for years and years. The combined auras of an angel and a demon are the closest thing to a signal flare you know.

And he just might die, and it will all have been for nothing, and you might still be located by Management and you would have to move. Quite bittersweet, you think wryly.

So Keith dying isn't an option. That much is clear. But as you sit in your armchair and glare at him, arms wrapped around the knees you pulled up to your chest, you have no idea as to how you're going to stop it from happening.

You clumsily wrapped him in a blanket when he collapsed on your couch. He's kicked it off since, and it lies in a bundle at his feet. His skin is ashy and pale and sweaty and his hair sticks to his forehead.

And his fucking fever isn't going down.

Usually you'd go straight to a doctor if any of your human friends were to contract a fever this stubborn–but you suspected bringing a dying angel to the average doctor won't do much good except frighten the poor sod to death. He looks like Death, you remark. What with his black wings and overall dark aesthetic, which is quite rare for an angel to have. You think, at least. It's not like you've met lots of them.

You sigh, filling a glass of water and holding it to his lips. He reacts almost subconsciously–he's not quite all there, but he's gulping the water down with gusto and you can only pray to the Dark Below that he'll hold it down, though that did seem to get better the last day or so.

The first two days were a nightmare. Keith tossed and turned and held nothing down, his stomach too upset. You had him spend his second night in your bathtub because he puked all over your couch. When he was asleep (which was most of the time) he had nightmares and whimpered constantly, and when he was awake he had hallucinations, his eyes clouded over. He even tried to attack you at one point ('tried' being the keyword here–he took a most pathetic swing at your face and cried when you dodged it easily).

If you had any common sense, you would have kicked him out long ago–hell, if you had any common sense, you never even would have considered taking him in.

Yet he is here. And you are here. And you don't exactly know how to feel about that.

Half the time you wish he'd just die already so you could be done at least with all of this. The next moment you feel horribly guilty and internally yell at yourself for thinking that way–because you made this choice. You decided to help him, and you should go through with it, even if it meant to be woken up at three in the morning because Keith was wailing again.

You brush your fingers across his forehead, hoping against better knowledge his fever had gone down, but he's still burning up. He's not tossing and turning anymore, he's not throwing up everywhere anymore. The last time he had a nightmare you actually noticed was more than a day ago. His breaths are shallow and irregular, and while you're no doctor, you know that's never a good sign.

You'd almost gotten used to having him in your apartment, and now you barely even notice he's here.

You've been on some extensive phone calls with Allura since Keith flopped into your life (which mostly consist of you yelling and Allura listening, occasionally muttering "go off, sis" into the horn) and you were itching for one now. You pull out your phone. Allura picks up on the third ring.

"Y/N, love, I have time for like, maybe a ten minute rant, because I'm at work and even though it's my break time my co-workers are giving me huge side-eyes and I still have four hours to go–"

"That's okay," you say quickly. "I'm fine, actually. No rants."

Allura pauses. "Sure about that?"

"Positive. I just had a question." You decide to throw in your favourite excuse whenever you have a weird question. As a nurse and your friend, Allura is often your first choice if you need to fact-check anything health-related."I'm writing this story..."

"Ah," Allura says. "Of course. Shoot."

You feel kind of bad for lying to her. But then again, telling the truth isn't really an option here, is it? "What does one do to break a fever that's been going strong for, say, five days, and literally no kind of aspirin is working and you can't take them to a doctor?"

"Huh. Well. All you can really do without, like, medical intervention, is wait, really. Yes, Jane, I'll be done in a minute. Have them sweat it out. Keep hydrated, remove excess layers of clothing, all that jazz. How high of a fever are we talking?"

"Um..." You glance at the thermometer on the coffee table. You'd taken his temperature just before calling Allura, to see if there was any change. Spoiler alert, there wasn't. "41.2 degrees Celcius."

Allura whistles. "For an adult? 'Cause if this is a kid, they have a problem."

"No, no, it's an adult."

"Okay. Well. You know, fevers aren't inherently bad for you. It's actually a way for the body to, like, kill heat-sensitive bacteria and viruses. So it's actually a good thing. Honestly I'm gonna just advise your character to stay in bed and drink water and sit in front of a fan. They should be fine."

You pucker your lips, poking Keith's arm with your toe. He doesn't move. "All right."

"You sound kind of unsure," says Allura, a tinge of concern to her voice. A pause. "Certain this is a fictional character?"

You bite back a curse. "Well. You know. I was–I was just curious."

Allura sighs. You imagine her rubbing the back of her neck as she shakes out her legs. "You know... as a medical professional–" the sarcasm drips from her voice– "I'm not really supposed to, like, recommend these types of methods to people because generally everyone thinks they're bullshit, but..." She hesitates. "My uncle Coran has this shop. He sells lots of weird, like, plants and crystals and crap like that. God, I can't believe I'm saying this. He might be able to help. Here's the address."

You lurch over to your desk and snatch a pencil and a post-it block, scribbling down the address she dictates. "Thanks, Allura."

"You are very welcome, dearest, but I really need to get back to work now. Bye."

"Bye."

You stare at the note for a while after Allura hung up. You don't exactly know the place, but a quick Google search helps you pinpoint it. It's not even that far, maybe a 20 minute walk. But something makes you feel uncomfortable about it.

He sells lots of weird, like, plants and crystals and crap like that.

It definitely sounds like something you should be a bit suspicious of. Plants and crystals. Hm.

But then again, you think as you cast another look at Keith who hasn't moved in over an hour, chest rising and falling with uneven breaths, it's not like you have many other options.

Allura said to wait it out. But maybe fevers aren't as harmless on angels as they are on humans. Maybe waiting it out will kill him, and you will have to live with it knowing that you did nothing to stop it.

Grumbling through gritted teeth, you yank your jacket from its hanger, write out a quick note for Keith in case he wakes up (he probably won't, but just in case) and dash out the door.

It takes you surprisingly long to find the place.

What was a 20 minute walk turned to a 30 minute walk, then to an hour long walk. You zoom in on your phone's map, narrowing your eyes and combing through every little alley you passed, gnashing your teeth. No matter how hard you look, the shop simply doesn't seem to exist anywhere but on the map. Is this Allura's idea of a prank?

But that's not like her, you remind yourself. And somehow, the fact that you can't seem to reach the place only makes you want to find it more. So you grit your teeth and clench the note with the address (that you just can't seem to memorize, no matter how hard you try) in your fist and march on.

You round a corner and slam into a tall and lanky body.

You yelp, arms flying out to regain your balance. The person in front of you gives a surprised hum–they don't seem to be fazed at all. You look up, prepared to give them a scolding about how they've got to watch where they're fucking going and blink, all words dying in your throat.

"You okay, kiddo?" says the most eccentric-looking man you've ever seen.

"Uh..." you give your head a shake, trying not to stare at the man's bright orange hair and moustache, or the fact that he's dressed like one of those fortune tellers out of fantasy stories, complete with the huge ornate earrings and everything. "Yeah. Fine. Thanks."

The man's light eyes narrow ever so slightly, and you make a mental note to not let his appearance deceive you: you have the feeling he's much smarter than he looks. "Were you looking for something?"

You clamp your mouth shut, running a hand through your hair. "Hm. Actually. Yes." You frown, wondering if this is a good idea, but if anyone would know where Coran's shop is–the shop selling weird crystals and plants and crap like that–this dude would be it. You hold up the crumpled note. "Do you know where this place is?"

The man takes one look at the writing and smiles, a wide and slightly unhinged grin that has you almost instantly regretting your choice. "Well, I sure would hope I know where my own shop is!"

You try and resist the urge to flinch. "Oh, really?" you squeak, shrinking back. It's not a very demon-like thing to do, you think at the very back of your mind, but this guy looks like he could give even the scariest entities of the Below a run for their money. "Neat."

The man–who you assume is Coran–grins even wider and whips an arm around your shoulders. "Well, then! Let's not beat around the bush any longer!" He has an accent you can't place. It fits him, strangely. Everything about the guy is strange.

He whirls around, dragging you with him, and walks exactly three steps before slamming open the door to the shop on the corner. You frown, ducking out from under his arm and giving him a suspicious glare. "What is this? I've passed this shop at least five times." You glance up at the sign and do a double take. Where had previously hung a sad wooden board announcing a tailor's shop hangs now a weirdly pretty sign that seems to be made out of plants. Vines twisting to and fro and entwining and overlapping, fluorescent yellow-and-blue flowers you have never seen before dropping from it in clumps. It sways slightly in the air. There is no wind.

All the hairs stand up at the back of your neck and your fists clench at your sides.

"Maybe you weren't looking hard enough," comes Coran's amused voice from behind you. You spin on your heels, narrowing your eyes at him. You're not unfamiliar with these kinds of experiences–the supernatural, the unsettling, the technically-impossible–yet Coran manages to throw you off in a way nothing really has before.

The atmosphere around you has dimmed, the sole source of light the doorway and the glowing flowers dangling from the sign. You're not in the alley you were in not one minute ago anymore. Coran raises an eyebrow and cocks his head, and you notice how different he looks in this new environment. He fits here perfectly. The slight curl of his lips says, Well? What are you waiting for?

You think of Keith. How he would react if he were in this situation. If the roles were reversed and you were the one dying on his sofa. You push the door open and march into the shop.

You almost slam directly into a tree.

"Careful, careful," says Coran quickly as he grabs your elbow. He slips past you and leads you into his shop that looks like no other shop you've ever seen.

Shelves are stacked with pots and vials and little baggies, all propped one on top of the other. It looks extremely unstable. You resist the urge to pluck out one jar from the bottom and see if everything tumbles down.

Every price tag is hand-written, and when you take a closer look a chill runs down your spine. One never-before shared secret. Three childhood memories. none of the prices ask for actual money, which now seems pretty useless and weighs down the wallet in your pocket. One particular tag says Your deepest fear. How dramatic.

Every plant seems to glow, for some reason. You notice more of those fluorescent yellow-and-blue flowers like the ones hanging from the sign outside, and flowers that look similar but in different colours. There are plants that remind you of grapevines, snaking around trees and shelves and tangling themselves around every support they can find. Clusters of small transparent bells float from the branches, even smaller flicks of light trapped inside them. You squint at one of them, grabbing it out of the air and studying it closely. Something is fluttering inside of the little sphere. A firefly, maybe. Maybe. When you release it, it zips back to its original spot among the other glowing bubbles.

Coran plucks a few dead leaves from a tree stump partially hidden from view by a huge black-and-white striped candle. He grinds the leaves to dust in the palm of his hand and drops them in the candle's flame. It glows bright green for a moment, then a comforting scent begins to spread through the air. You inhale deeply out of reflex. It smells like nothing you've ever smelled before, vaguely familiar scents all mushed into one; your favourite hot chocolate (with a hint of caramel), Allura's fruity conditioner, the animal shampoo you use on the dogs at the shelter. The air when it's just stopped raining. Towels, fresh out of the dryer.

You blink yourself back to reality with a sharp jerk of your head. Coran is already moving on to the very back of the shop and you hurry to catch up with him, ducking to avoid the arms of a rather sad-looking ragdoll as they reach for you. "Hey, hey–who are you?"

He raises an eyebrow. "Coran."

"Yes, I know that, but like–" you gesture vaguely to the general space around you– "who are you?"

Coran thinks about that for a moment, one finger pressed to the side of his nose. "A hobbyist," he decides.

"Right." You take a step back, eyeing the dark and slimy substance shlorping across the floor towards your feet suspiciously. It shrinks back beneath your glare. "What are those hobbies, exactly?"

"You know," says Coran, waving his arms around, "plants. Medicine. The occasional cursed artifact. Just regular stuff like that."

"Regular stuff like that," you echo. Caws sound from above you. When you look up, you spot a bird slightly hidden in the shadows of the tree in which it is perked (was that tree this big before?), glowing red eyes fixated on yours. You raise an eyebrow at it, cocking your head. It mirrors you, feathers ruffling and swooping from one side of its head to the other. It screams again, then spreads its wings and climbs up the tree with a speed you didn't expect. Literally climbs: there are claws on the joints of its wings that it uses to hack into the tree's bark. You brush a bit of dust off your shoulder and continue walking.

Stepping over the puddle of dark slime, you follow Coran even further into the shop. "You said you do medicine," you shout after him. "I need medicine to save my–" The words hitch in your throat. What is Keith to you? An acquaintance? An enemy? A guest? "My friend," you settle on.

Coran throws you a look over his shoulder, throwing off his ornate blue coat and suspending it in the air where it floats obediently beside him. He plants a hand on a bony hip. "Your friend," he repeats, a glint in his eyes you don't trust at all.

"Yeah." He's not getting more out of you, you assure yourself. That's it.

Coran watches you for a moment. "Hm." He turns around and starts rummaging through the shelves packed with jars and boxes and bottles, pulling out a number that all look the same to you, but evidently Coran knows exactly what he's doing. Occasionally he asks you questions.

"Reasonably high fever, is that right?"

"Yes."

He fumbles for a mortar and dumps a clump of brown-reddish leaves in it.

"Hallucinations? Nightmares? Inexplicable bouts of extreme hunger?"

"Yes, yes, and... no? Not that I know of?"

Humming, he adds a few drops of a clear liquid and a pinch of powder from a leather pouch. The mixture starts to sizzle and you eye it cautiously. Its colour shifts from a muddy purple to a darker blue. Coran whistles through his teeth, narrowing his eyes at the many pots around him as he searches for the next ingredient. His eyes focus on something behind you and he gestures with his pestle. "Grab that round orange pot for me, will you."

You turn. The pot in question is small and kind of hard to spot, and you have to twist your arm in strange shapes to reach it from where it's blocked by other plants and rocks. It's dusty and surprisingly heavy, and when you turn it over there's a crudely painted picture of a skull on the lid. Your head snaps up and your fingers tighten around the pot.

Coran rolls his eyes. "I didn't have any other pot to put it in. I'm not gonna murder your friend."

You hand the pot over to him reluctantly, keeping a close eye on whatever it is he's doing. Inside is a reddish-brown paste, and Coran scoops two heavy spoonfuls out and mixes it into the blue mixture. It becomes a pleasant shade of violet. He grabs a round marble-like thing from a vase filled with similar spheres and chucks it into a fire pit at your feet. Flames burst to life, searing hot and sending you stumbling back from the wave of pure heat that comes rolling over you. Coran puts a lid on the mortar and drops it into the fire.

"So, that's gotta bake for a minute," he says cheerily, spinning around and clapping his hands. He snaps his fingers, and immediately vines begin writhing and entwining until a stool has formed. He plops down, facing you. "You have questions. Ask them. Go on."

"Will you answer them?"

he flashes that wicked grin of his. "Maybe."

You grit your teeth, staring into the flames roaring in their pit. The longer you look at them, the wilder they grow. Agitated.

"Oh, dear, don't look at them. They don't like being watched."

Your gaze snaps back to him. "How did you know what's wrong with my friend?"

"I didn't. I guessed," he adds with an eyeroll when you narrow your eyes at him. "It's easier to guess than you might think. When customers are especially preoccupied with something I can usually read it right off of them. You were no different."

"Right." You pause, not sure which of the hundred and forty questions swirling through your mind to ask next. "What if the medicine doesn't work? Can I come back?"

"It'll work."

"But if it doesn't–"

"Are you doubting my abilities?"

"What? No, but–"

"It'll work."

His tone makes it clear there's no room for discussion. At the sight of his dangerously glinting eyes (or maybe they're just reflecting the flickering flames) you decide to veer onto a safer topic. "Can everyone get into your shop? Why couldn't I find it until you showed me?"

Coran slouches a bit in his throne of vines (it's got a back and armrests now, too, and it's growing those little glowing grapes) and considers the question. "Everyone can technically get into the shop," he says slowly, as if carefully choosing his words, "but not everyone will. It's not hidden, exactly–not to the people who aren't looking."

That confuses you. "So you're saying one won't be able to find the shop if they're actively looking for it?"

"Sort of."

"Does that mean that the people who do find it aren't looking for it in the first place?"

"I guess so? Man, kid, you're asking difficult questions."

"I'm curious." You fold your arms, tucking your chin down to your chest. "And that makes no sense anyway because I found it and I was looking for it. So."

"Yeah, but you didn't find it until you actually ran into me and I showed you." Coran leaps up and stretches out his lanky limbs. "So, we still have a bit of time left before that's ready. Do you want to arrange payment now?"

Caution crept into your veins as you remember the strange price tags you saw upon entering the store. But you're not getting this medicine for free, you remind yourself. Keith won't get better by himself. The price was the price and you're willing to pay it. So you nod.

Coran grabs a box. He opens it, and inside are the last things you expected: stacks of paper, each one scribbled upon with minute precision, every sheet adorned with different handwriting. He hands you a blank sheet: it's about the size of a business card, yellowish-white and kind of grainy to the touch. It reminds you of parchment.

He also hands you a pen. It looks like a regular ballpoint pen, and when you shoot him a questioning look–you had expected at least, like, a quill with purple ink or something–he shrugs. "They're cheap. And easy to charm."

Right. You roll your eyes. "So what's the price?"

His eyes are just a little bit too shiny. "What do you want most?"

You sigh, long and drawn out. Your grip on the pen tightens ever so slightly. "Really? The way too overused one?"

Coran shrugs again, gesturing to the blank card in front of you. "It's overused for a reason, kid. It just happens to work really well."

You clench your jaw, tapping the pen against the wooden surface of the table, forcing yourself to think about the question in a serious manner.

What do you want most?

You rack your brain for an answer, puckering your lips. There are a lot of things you want. You want Allura to be safe and happy. She's got a demon for a friend, for fuck's sake. You want to not have to worry every day about Management finally tracking you down and locking you up in the Below. To feel safe.

You bring the point of the pen down to the paper and start writing, frowning when the ink doesn't appear. You go over the lines a few times, even scribble a bunch of lines in a corner to get the pen to work, but to no avail. The ink stubbornly refuses to stain your piece of parchment.

"Your pen doesn't work," you say, irritated.

Coran casts you a knowing smile. "It works just fine. Try again."

You try again. No results. You throw down the pen, letting your head drop and taking a deep breath as you lean against the desk, because you know exactly where this is going. You have experience with these kinds of enchanted objects. You chew on the inside of your cheek, glaring at the pen as if it personally murdered your firstborn.

It wants the truth.

And you refuse. You refuse to give it what it wants because it's ridiculous. Absolutely and utterly ridiculous.

But this is the price. This is the price you told yourself you would pay no matter what.

A deep breath. One more.

You snatch up the pen, gripping it so tightly your knuckles go white, and press it down onto the paper. Immediately the ink flows out, letting you write your re-evaluated answer. It almost seems to sneer at you and when you throw the pen down, handing the card to a way too smug-looking Coran, you refuse to look him in the eye.

The medicine is ready.

Coran pulls it out of the fire using tongs (because it might be magical fire, but it's still fire, and it's generally not a good idea to stick your hand in fire) and drops it in a tub of water you're sure wasn't there before. A moment later he pulls it out and removes the lid.

The paste has transformed itself into a rock-hard ball about the size of a large pill, perfectly round and kind of rough and sandy at the surface, and when Coran hands it to you it's almost freezing to the touch. It startles you so much that you almost drop it.

"Smash it to bits and put the shards in this here baggie–" he hands you what looks like a tea filter– "and let it hang in a glass of cold water for a while. When the thingie's drained of its colour and goes clear and the water has turned bright blue you make sure he drinks the whole thing before it goes warm, yeah? That's very important. He's gotta drink it right away, and he's gotta drink the whole thing. It might not work as well if he doesn't drink the whole thing."

The fact that Coran refers to the pill as "the thingie" makes you more than a bit uncomfortable, but you decide to take his word for it, because what other choice do you have?

"Right." You turn to leave, when one more thing pops into your mind. "Actually," you face him again, "I have one more question."

Coran sighs. "You have a lot of questions."

You ignore him. "How do you know Allura? Or, rather, how does Allura know you? She's the one that gave me your address in the first place," you explain. "She's my friend."

To your surprise, Coran smiles–a genuine smile this time, where his eyes crinkle in the corners, not the manic grin he's shown up till now. "I knew her father very well. I've watched her grow up. She knows she can always knock on my door."

It doesn't make much sense–what business would Allura's dad, world-famous scientist, have with this man? You decided to give it the benefit of the doubt. "How much does she know? About all this?"

"I think she knows, deep down. I don't know how much she believes. What she tells herself is real, and what isn't."

You hesitate. "Does she know about me? What I am, I mean?"

Coran heaves an exasperated sigh. "Yeesh, kid. How am I supposed to know that? I didn't even know who you were up till now!" But you get the feeling he's lying. "Now get going. Go on." He starts shooing you towards the door, gently pushing you through the shop.

You blink in surprise, too stunned to do anything but follow suit. "Wait," you stammer. "Wait, I have more questions! Will I be able to come back?"

But Coran waves you off, giving you nothing but a smile and a "Bye-bye!"

You stumble over the threshold, the pill and its baggie in your clenched fist. Cold renders your fingers almost numb, and you open them, exposing the pill to the night air. White smoke curls up from it, and you turn it over to your other hand, wincing as you rub your fingers to get a bit of warmth in them again. It's like you're holding a hailstone.

When you look up, you're disoriented by the bright lights from street lamps around you, and the fact that you're not in the same alley you were in before you entered Coran's shop. It's not even the same block. You make a full turn, dazed, before you recognise the little grocery store on the corner of the street: it's the store where you do most of your shopping. It's right across from your apartment building. Coran deposited you as close as he could to your home.

You push open the door to your apartment with your shoulder, icy pill in one hand and two bottles of chocolate milk and scotch whisky in the other, letting exhaustion creeping into your muscles as soon as you enter the familiar environment. One look to your sofa confirms Keith has barely moved over the hours you were gone. The note and the glass of water you left for him sit untouched on the coffee table.

You make your way to the kitchen and set down the bottles, grabbing a small tray on which you drop the pill. Smash it to bits, said Coran. The back end of a kitchen knife does the job just fine. To your surprise, the pill shatters immediately, shards flying everywhere. You curse, sweeping them all up and dropping them into the tea filter and filling a glass with cold water. As soon as you hang the bag in the glass, blue drips out of it in wisps, slowly tinting the water a cool blue colour. You drop onto a kitchen chair and watch with your chin in your hands, the droplets of blue seeping from the bag mesmerising.

When the water doesn't seem to get any bluer, you peek into the bag. The shards are completely colourless, now resembling bits of clear glass more than anything else. You carefully pick up the glass, hissing through your teeth at the coldness of it.

Keith is still fast asleep, shivering. He's thin, you notice. You can see his ribs through his shirt. Setting the glass down on the coffee table, you try gently nudging him awake. He doesn't respond.

"Come on," you grumble, grabbing his face and tapping his cheek. "Wake up!" Your stomach twists at the thought that he might not wake up in time. The medicine will have warmed up. You should have woken him before preparing it! "Please," you whisper, swallowing back the lump in your throat. "Don't let this have been for nothing. Come on. Wake up, dammit!"

He groans under your touch. You breathe out a shaky sigh of relief as you coerce him into sitting up. "Don't you fucking dare fall asleep again." He looks at you groggily.

You raise the glass to his chapped lips. "Drink up."

He takes a sip and flinches, bursting into coughs. "Cold," he manages. You almost wince at how weak his voice sounds–barely a whisper. He'll get better, you remind yourself. He just has to drink this and he'll get better.

"I know," you mutter, nudging the glass to his lips again. "Drink it. It'll make you feel better."

He eyes you suspiciously but obliges, squeezing his eyes shut as he gulps down the contents of the glass. He shivers, smacking his lips when it's empty and you put it on the floor. "Ah. Gross." But as he shifts, you can already see the colour return to his cheeks.

"Rest," you say, brushing strands of hair away from his forehead. "You'll feel better in the morning." Your voice is shaky and your hands tremble as you bring the glass back to the kitchen and thoroughly wash it, using about a quarter of the bottle of dish soap, running it under the hot water until the stubborn cold is completely gone.

You're tired. You don't even have the energy to shower, so you brush your teeth and crumple into bed, only taking off your boots and trousers. You keep your socks on and pull the comforter tighter around you. You're cold.

As you turn to face the wall, you think back to Coran's stupid enchanted pen. Wondering if you've made a mistake. The words you ended up writing down looping through your mind, over and over again, lighting up in front of you whenever you close your eyes. What do you want most?

I want to be safe from Management, was your first answer. The answer the pen hadn't let you write down. And it was what you wanted most–or at least what you wanted most until Keith had shown up on your doorstep just over a week ago.

What do you want most?

You drift off to sleep, the question nagging at the back of your mind.

You jolt awake at the crash, bolting up from your bed and racing for the kitchen, where the sound had come from. In your hand is the knife you keep in your nightstand. Your knuckles are white around the hilt. You slam a hand on the light switch, and the person bent over and hidden behind your fridge hits their head and yells in pain, and you brandish your knife and scream at them to Stay back!

"It's just me! Y/N!" Keith says, holding up his hands above his head.

You huff out a breath, letting the knife drop to your side. "Keith?"

He nods, blinking and squinting against the bright light. You're only barely over the shock of seeing him up and about, yet you can't help but notice how thin he looks and how weary and sunken his eyes are. His eyes keep flicking back to the knife still in your hand, and you quickly snap it shut, slipping it in the pocket of your sweatpants.

"So I take it you're feeling better?"

He nods again. "I'm hungry," he says. His voice isn't quite back to normal–it's still quite hoarse from not having used it in over five days–but you suspect it won't take very long. "Sorry for startling you. I'll go back to sleep."

You grab his arm before he can walk past you. "Nonsense. You've slept for five days straight. I'm hungry too, anyway. I can order takeout?"

He gives you a tentative smile. "That'd be great."

And that's how you end up sitting in your brightly lit kitchen at four in the morning, eating out of cardboard Chinese takeout boxes, with an angel whose life you saved. His wings are completely concealed now and don't bother him when he sits in a chair or lies down. While neither of you talks much, you both sneak glances when you think the other isn't looking.

What do you want most?

He looks nervous, and even though he insists he's not tired you can tell he's fighting against the weight of his eyelids, his movements droopy and slow, as if he's moving through layers of syrup. When he almost drops his fork (at four A.M. you're allowed to eat Chinese with a fork) out of exhaustion, you nudge his leg with your foot under the table.

"Go back to sleep."

"I'm fine. I'm still hungry."

"You can eat tomorrow. You're barely able to hold yourself upright, idiot."

He sighs but pushes his chair back and stands up. His knees immediately buckle beneath him, and you shoot out of your chair and only just manage to catch him before he drops to the ground. "All right, okay. There we go. I got you."

"Not feeling as good as I thought," Keith mutters into your shoulder as you practically drag him to the sofa.

"Evidently."

You tuck him in (it seems like such a childish gesture–but curled up like that, looking thin and fragile, Keith reminds you of a small kid and it just feels like the right thing to do) and resist the weird urge to plant a kiss on his forehead. You settle for a somewhat awkward pat on the shoulder.

You stick the leftover food in the fridge and make your way back to your own room. You're still kind of cold, so you keep the sweatpants and sweatshirt on, bringing the knife out of your pocket and setting it back on your nightstand before climbing into bed.

The buzzing of the city outside of your window keeps you up for hours as you toss and turn. Feelings you don't know what to make of churn through you. Relief at the fact that the medicine seems to be working. Fear, because you don't really know how to proceed now. A demon saving an angel's life–that one's pretty much unheard of, you think bitterly.

Oh, if Management were to find out... not only would your fate be settled, you would have signed Keith's death warrant along with it. The comforter bunches in your clenched fists and you twist around, shutting your eyes resolutely.

What do you want most?

#keith x reader #voltron keith x reader #voltron keith #voltron keith kogane #voltron keith kogane x reader #keith voltron #keith voltron x reader #vld keith x reader #vld keith kogane #vld keith #vld keith kogane x reader #keith vld #keith vld x reader #keith kogane vld x reader #voltron fic #keith fic #keith voltron fic #allura vld #allura voltron

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somethingjustsouthofbrilliance · 6 years

Text

Intermezzo (an Infinity War Tag)

So I’m very new to this fandom and this is my very first foray into Marvel fanfiction, so I am extremely, extremely nervous here (palms sweating and all). But the movie ripped me apart emotionally and got my muse all worked up, so I took the jump.

The amazing @hedgehog-goulash7 was gracious enough to beta the story for me, and I can’t thank her enough for her help, her invaluable input and her encouragement! My dear, I owe you greatly! <3

And @tonystark5ever - I promised to tag you if I ever got this written down. I’m sorry the story didn’t quite go the way I had intended (the lady Tony helped didn’t make it in there after all), but I do hope you still enjoy the read.

So here it is. Hope you enjoy (and please drop me a comment if you do).

Intermezzo

The Titan sun beats down on him – a harsh, mercilessly blinding light that engulfs the desolate landscape below it, but somehow doesn’t give off any warmth. It’s cold on that rubble-littered, amber-washed expanse – a biting, jaw-locking chill that seeps into his very bones, makes him shiver.

A gust of wind tears past him, kicking up a small cloud of dust – no, not dust, ash, ash! Peter. Dear God, Peter… – and he huddles in on himself, slams his eyes shut, squeezes them (harder, harder, harder). But it’s all in vain. Because he can still see it billowing around him, can feel the tiny black particles brush against his skin as they settle back down – on his face, in his hair, on the ground at his feet.

He feels colder still.

“We need to go.” The words carry toward him with another gust of wind – calm, emotionless, and also cold, so very cold. A reminder of another’s presence, of a witness to his slow unraveling, as he sits there shaking violently and rocking back and forth like a lost pitiful child seconds away from crumpling into a pathetic, wailing mess. It should bother him that she can see him like that at his most vulnerable. Should make him want to pull the hopelessly tattered pieces of his mask back together, to shield himself from another’s open judgment. But he just… he just doesn’t care.

“Where?” he wants to ask. “Why?” comes out instead, a listless, uncaring response. Because why bother? Everything that he has feared has come to pass. Everyone that ever mattered to him (and he is sure that it’s true on Earth as well, can feel it with every halting beat of his anguished, shredded heart) is gone, while he is cursed to carry on with the weight of the deaths of all those he failed. His worst nightmare come to life.

He should be dead. It would be better. Should let nature take its course, let Titan’s gravity drain the last of the blood from his body, let it seep into the hungry, rust-colored ground, dissolve among the ashes of those who mattered so much more than he ever did.

He shivers once more as the wind brushes his blood-soaked clothes – a biting, ice-cold touch. Rests his forehead on his trembling, ash-covered hands.

“Come!” A hand – small and heavy – lands on his shoulder, grips it in an unapologetically crushing, metal vise.

Fucking cyborg, he thinks, making a futile attempt to pull away. “Let go.”

She does the opposite. Of course she does. Because when has anyone ever listened to him.

The grip on his shoulder tightens impossibly as she yanks him up off the ground, pulls him roughly to his feet. And Tony’s too busy gnashing his teeth against a sharp jolt of pain at the unsanctioned movement to notice her move in front of him, to spot her other hand shoot snake-like toward his body, toward the throbbing wound in his side.

“He spared you,” she hisses, driving her fist brutally below his ribs. She watches, cold and intent, as his body seizes involuntarily within her grasp, his breath cutting out on a strangled choke. “Why?”

Warm liquid coats the tip of his tongue where his teeth dug deep into the flesh of his lip, a thick metallic tang filling his mouth. “Why don’t you ask him?” Tony spits it all out – words and bloody spittle, defiant, as he nods in the general direction of the rubble where he last saw Strange, at the scattered pile of ashes there. Because whatever the wizard’s plan was, whatever it was that he had seen in his vision – he never bothered to share any of it with Tony. Nothing but a vague declaration and a regretful apology that left him none the wiser.

The blue-skinned cyborg is not amused.

“I’m asking you,” she insists, her black eyes glistening dangerously. “He sacrificed the stone, let half the universe perish, just so you could live. Why?”

She snarls the word “you” like it’s an insult, the worst of its kind. And he thinks it’s ridiculous, because is that really the best she can do? For someone like him? When what he deserves is–

Tony barks out a laugh – a harsh, brittle sound that feels more like a sob, burning his throat as it tears through him.

It breaks upon her rage, seems to fuel it more if the warning twitch of the blue-skinned cheek is any indication. But he no longer gives a damn. Doesn’t flinch when the metal arm releases his shoulder to swipe an angry arc toward his head. Welcomes with a twisted sort of gratitude the vicious blow and the darkness that follows.

***

The merciful darkness doesn’t last, and all too soon awareness returns, pain ripping him out of the warm cocoon of nothingness.

He lies still for a moment, lets himself take stock.

There’s a hard surface underneath him, polished, smooth. It doesn’t feel like Titan’s rocky dust-covered terrain. The air he breathes is likewise devoid of dust; it feels clean, almost artificially so. And if he expands his senses a bit further, he can hear a faint steady rumble of an engine that sends small vibrations through the surface he’s lying on. Peeling his eyes open confirms to him what he already knows – he’s back on a ship, flying through space.

He lets his gaze roam around the unfamiliar cramped surroundings, still too dazed, in too much pain to register much beyond a hazy blue-skinned figure in the pilot’s seat. Right, the tie-dyed Sinead O’Connor, he remembers, reaching up to touch his pounding temple. Winces when his fingertips brush the bruised flesh there, sticky with dried blood. Damn.

“Wh’r’you… t-takin’ me?”

She doesn’t turn around, doesn’t show any sign of having heard or acknowledged his person. Reaches over to fiddle with the controls instead.

Tony closes his eyes in preparation. Grits his teeth against the pain he knows is to come. Slowly, laboriously, pulls himself up into a semi-seated position, leaning awkwardly against a nearby bulkhead. Takes a few short, steadying breaths as he waits for the reawakened agony in his side to subside enough that he can trust himself to speak again. Directs a half-hearted glare toward her once more, blinking in a desperate bid to clear the black spots dancing in his vision.

“Where… are you… taking me?”

“To fulfill your purpose,” comes a calm, dispassionate response. “You will help me slay Thanos.”

He raises a disbelieving eyebrow at that. Because wasn’t she there? Didn’t she see what happened the last time he went against Thanos, the last time any of them went against Thanos? And that was before the deranged overgrown raisin had the entire stone collection within his grabby purple paw. How exactly is she hoping to defeat him now when all he needs to do is snap his fingers and the both of them will be snuffed out of existence?

He must have said some of that out loud because the next thing he knows she’s crouching before him, purple lips curled back in a snarl. “I have seen you fight, Terran,” she says, cold, but there’s a note of grudging respect in her words. “You are weak, but your armor is strong. Strong enough to distract him, while I deliver the killing blow.”

“You want me to draw his fire.” Tony can’t help it – the idea is so preposterous that the bubble of laughter that threatens is too much for him to keep in. Can’t keep it in even when the cybernetic patchwork of a face before him twists in a way that doesn’t bode well for his already unmanageable headache.

“You find this funny, Terran?”

“Hilarious, actually,” he manages past another hiccupped giggle. Then he grows serious, all sense of mirth leaving him in a tired huff of air. “You know I have a six-inch-wide hole through my guts, right? That my insides are being held together with an arachnoid equivalent of duct tape. How long do you think I would last with Thanos when I can’t even see straight, much less stand?”

She growls, low and dangerous. Draws her face closer in a not so veiled attempt to intimidate.

“You will manage,” she states, and her confidence sounds like a threat. Then scoffs, disdainful, “I have been pulled apart piece by piece and I managed. I fought and I survived. And you do not need to survive.”

“My survival was never part of the plan,” he counters wearily, his weariness quickly shifting into raspy, toothless anger – because how can she be so blind, how does she not understand! “But I’m useless against him now. Both of us are.” Weakly he raises his hand (covered in ashes, still covered in ashes – and he can’t look at it, can’t look; he’s gonna lose it if he does), waves it back and forth between them to emphasize his point. “No offense to your cybertronic patchwork there and your obvious anger-management issues, but unless we somehow find a way to go back in time, there’s no possible scenario where we would…”

He trails off, his mind stumbling over the idea so ridiculously improbable, so dizzyingly, so hope-inspiringly plausible.

“I gotta get back,” he murmurs in a dazed echo to his own thoughts, then snaps his gaze up to the two fathomless pools of blackness hovering over him and blurts out, urgent now, “you gotta take me to Earth.”

She regards him stonily, her expression unchanged save for the slight twitching of the skin around the cybernetic eye. “We’re going after Thanos,” she declares with an air of finality even as she turns to walk back to the pilot seat. “I don’t have time to make detours.”

“You don’t understand!” He lurches after her, only to make it halfway off the floor before a nauseating spike in pain drops him right back down, his breath choked off and vision swimming. “P-please…,” he insists, when he manages to find his voice again, no matter how unsteady. Grinds the words stubbornly through clenched teeth. “I gotta… it’s the o-only way…”

She ignores him. Settles calmly back into her chair, turning her back on Tony and his pained appeals to her reason.

“Please,” he tries again, his voice no more than a strained whisper as he attempts once more to push himself up. He’s not afraid of dying – in a fight with Thanos, where he knows he stands no chance, weakened as he is by his wound, or here on this very ship at the hands of the blue-skinned cyborg, who, he is sure, won’t hesitate to snap his neck if he tried to wrestle her for the controls. But wrestle her he will, if it’s the last thing he does. Because he has to make her listen, make her understand that this isn’t the way – not his way, at any rate.

They cannot defeat Thanos through direct confrontation. The endgame is not about that; he’s sure of it now. And if he takes what Strange had told him to heart, if his life was spared because he was needed to ensure that the one outcome where the universe survives comes to pass, then he needs to go back to doing what he does best – fixing things. He needs to find a way to fix the timeline so Thanos never gets his hands on all the stones, so he remains vulnerable, defeatable. So none of this nightmare comes true.

So Peter and the others get to live.

And he can’t do that here on this ship. Can’t do that if Thanos kills him before he has the chance to even try.

“Please,” he gasps out, wobbling his way to his knees. “I n..need t’… get home.”

“I’ll take you.”

A new, vaguely familiar voice calls out behind him, cutting through the steadily increasing roar in his ears, and he twists around, the ship’s interior spinning about him in a sickening parallel to his movement.

“Thing Two,” he breathes out, grinning crookedly up at the portly Asian that has appeared beside him in a fiery red circle of sparks. “F-fancy meeting you here…”

He wants to say something else, wants to apologize for failing to protect Strange and the stone, wants to warn him about Baldy, who, he’s pretty sure, is not gonna take too kindly to the wizard’s appearance on her ship. But his tongue refuses to move to his brain’s command and his vision dims, blackness encroaching from the edges. And he finds himself falling…

***

He dreams of Peter. Of the boy’s arms that tremble as they cling to his shoulders. Of his voice, thin and small with fear – “I don’t wanna go, Mr. Stark. Please, I don’t wanna go.” Of the lanky body that crumbles away into particles of dust underneath his hands even as he tries his goddamn best to hold on to him.

“I’m sorry…”

The boy’s face disintegrates before him, ash circling in the air, twisting, churning, before it settles back down on Tony’s hair, Tony’s hands, Tony’s face.

“Peter,” he cries out and chokes as the dust grows thicker all of a sudden, fusing together to form a new shape – a flaming ginger cascade of hair, a pale freckled face, blue eyes – wide and terrified.

“No,” he pleads, reaching toward her even as she, too, starts to crumble to dust before him. “No!”

***

He wakes with a start, his breath hitching as his gaze lands on the familiar worry-creased face hovering inches above his. He reaches toward her, half expecting the illusion to fall apart at any moment. But the image persists, and there’s warm, solid flesh that meets his searching, trembling fingers.

“Pepper,” he gasps wetly, reverently, latching on hard enough to bruise. A desperate bid of a nightmare-ravaged mind to assure himself that he isn’t still dreaming, to keep her here, to stop her from disappearing like her counterpart in his dream, like the boy he tried so hard to protect and in the end still failed to save.

She lets him hold her, enfolds him into an embrace just as crushing and desperate as his own as he cries brokenly into the crumpled fabric of her shirt.

“I lied,” she tells him, pulling one hand away to card her fingers through his hair. “That day at the park… when I told you I wasn’t pregnant…. I lied.”

He pulls away, too, then, frowns at her mutely, his eyes darting over her face, seeking confirmation to what he just heard.

“I was scared,” she confesses with a rueful smile, reaching up to wipe tear tracks from his cheeks. “Every time something good happened for us, something terrible would come along and ruin it, and I just… I didn’t wanna jinx it. I thought… if I waited a little longer, if I just… if I just waited, we’ll be okay. And then we got attacked, and you went off into space, and half the people disappeared, and I thought… I thought I lost you anyway and I never got a chance to tell you, and…” Her voice cuts out on a strangled little laugh that sounds more like a sob.

He blinks, slow and dazed, lowers his gaze to her stomach, his fingers brushing the fabric-covered skin – still perfectly toned and flat. “A baby?” he whispers, voice cracking with wonder. “We’re gonna have a … a baby?”

She nods, her lips trembling as she tries in vain to hold back her own tears. “The man that brought you back, he said that…” She sniffles, lets out a long, shaky breath. “I know what you must do, Tony. I know that you may not… that I may lose you for good….” She squeezes her eyes shut, presses her lips together in a thin pale line as if trying to hold in a scream. Hiccups out, voice hitching, “I can’t… I can’t have secrets from you. Not like this. Not anymore. I–”

He shushes her, finger pressed against her quivering lips. Moves his hand to cup her tear-stained cheek. “I will fix this,” he vows. “I will fix this and I’ll do my best to come back to you.” He rests his other hand against her belly, amends quietly, “Both of you.” Smiles as she nods tearfully against his palm, her hand rising to cover his own.

It’s a lie and they both know it, both read the truth – ‘I love you’/ ‘Forgive me’ – in each other’s eyes.

“I will hold you to that, Mr. Stark.”

He huffs wistfully at the familiar repartee, drops his head on her shoulder, letting his forehead rest against the cool silk of her shirt. Closes his eyes and inhales deeply, allowing her scent, her warmth, the feel of her fingers stroking his hair enfold him. Lets himself melt into the tangible truth of her embrace, to enjoy this small refuge of love and peace for a little while longer, drawing from it the much needed strength for whatever tomorrow will bring.

“I expect nothing less, Ms. Potts.”

FIN

Note (spoiler): After I wrote the story, I came across a post where Gwyneth Paltrow talks about a baby in the future for Tony and Pepper. Hopefully, my story is prophetic in that respect :)

#iw story tag #iw spoilers #tony stark #nebula #pepper potts #benjamin wong #hurt/comfort #angst #infinity war fanfiction #somethingjustsouthofbrilliance writes

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strangeroseart · 6 years

Text

Home Video

After Krolia left to continue her mission in space, Nathan started taking pictures and videos to document all the things he knew Krolia would be crushed to miss.

At 10 months Keith’s first word was the same as thousands of other children on Earth, but his father was still thrown into a quasar when he heard it. Anxiously getting out his camera, he tried getting Keith’s attention.

“Hey Keith, look over here. Can you tell daddy what you just said?” With a deep belly laugh, that he learned about a week before, he flails his pudgy hands and slaps them down on the soft baby blanket in front of him.

“Ma ma!”

For a moment all Nathan could manage was a sharp intake of breath, but his sons antics soon drew a smile on his face.

“What’s that, firefly?” he said. Keith’s response is to giggle and and slap his hands again. He chuckles, a little sad, but he keeps that out of his voice. “Nooo, that’s your blanky.”

It’s then that the baby boy screws up his face in an unpracticed look of consternation, grabs fists full of the blanket, and brings it up to his chest.

“Ma Ma!” He yells

“Keith that’s....” That’s his blanket, his purple baby blanket. He didn’t even realize the color when he bought it, just that it was soft and Keith seemed to like it. With a shaky voice he continued his one sided conversation.

“Do you remember your mama?” He slowly comes down to the floor on his knees, leaving the camera forgotten on a side table; father and son off center in its view finder. His voice now strained from holding back his sadness and the thought of his son recognizing the color of his mother’s skin.

“I miss her too, firefly.” He says while gently hugging his son on the floor.

It’s Keith’s first birthday and his father sprung for one of those small infant cakes instead of a simple cupcake. Close up, the one year old looks confused yet mesmerized by the singular lit candle on the cake.

“You have to blow it out like this,” Nathan says and proceeds to lightly blow on the candle making sure not to blow it out himself. Keith picks up on the example quickly and tries to mimic his father by blowing raspberries.

“That’s not going to work kiddo” he says with a chuckle. The boy tries two more times and his father decides maybe he should do it for him. Suddenly with the biggest intake of breath his little lungs could muster he leans dangerously close to the flame and blows the biggest raspberry he can. Just enough air and spit hit the wick to snuff out the flame.

“Well that’s one way to do it.” Removing the candle, he gestures toward the cake.

“Ok there spitfire, dig in.”

His son just stares down at the cake mesmerized by the designs in the frosting. With a chuckle, Nathan swipes some frosting onto his finger. Making sure he has the attention of his son, he pops the sugary substance into his mouth. Taking another swipe he brings his finger to Keith’s mouth and with curious eyes he opens his mouth and sucks on the finger. His eyes immediately go wide with elation. Licking his lips he stares in excitement at the rest of the cake and his father takes a step back in preparation of the decimation of the cake, and decimated it is. Keith grabs a chunk of the sweet and presses it to his mouth, smearing icing on his face in the process. He wiggles in his high chair unable to contain himself before continuing his destruction of his birthday cake; his father chuckling all the while.

Nathan is in the kitchen humming a melody he can’t quite remember while grabbing a snack for him and his now three year old son. Just as he finishes plating the food he hears the most alarming sound. A high pitched scream that borders on a young growl and a loud thump of something thrown against the wall. Briskly walking into the living room he sees his son in the center of the space, clenched fists on either side of his head covering his ears. A small turn toward the left wall reveals a group of blocks and a booklet on the floor; the wall sporting red and blue marks from the impact of the toys. Any other time he would have been angry at such destructive behavior, but it was more than clear that his son was distressed.

Quickly going over to the small boy, Nathan crouches down to Keith’s level looking him over for any injuries. Taking in the boy’s face, he notes the gnashed teeth and eyes screwed tight; his breathing erratic and on the verge of hyperventilating.

“Keith, hey, what’s wrong? What happened?” he said while gently, ever so gently, grabbing his son’s hands and bringing them down from his head. The boy gasped as his eyes shot open wide, pupils and irises shrunken to near slits surrounded by yellowed sclera. His eyes dart around his father’s face unable to find a point of focus. With a wail, he closes them again becoming inconsolable.

“Oh, this is what the daycare lady was talking about.” Nathan murmurs to himself. Releasing Keith’s hands, he lightly places his larger ones on his son’s small shoulders. “Sssh, firefly, it’s ok. Take a deep breath.” he says providing an example and Keith follows with a kind of shuddering breath that only children can do. “Ok, now can you tell what’s wrong? I can’t help if you don’t say.”

Through dry sobs and clenching teeth the small boy says in a near whisper, “It’s too big.”

“What is?”

“I..I don’t know!” Keith responds becoming more distressed again.

“Ok, ok we can just..”

What was he suppose to do? His heart ached; his son was experiencing something that definitely stemmed from his mother’s heritage. Without her here he was at a lose of what to do. How was he to care for Keith when he couldn’t even begin to understand what his son was going through?

Taking a calming breath of his own and shoving down his thoughts he made a decision.

“We can just sit here until you start to feel better. How does that sound?” he says while leaning to fully sit on the floor. Keith responds with a small nod and Nathan turns him around to pull him into his lap. They sit there through long, tension filled minutes until Keith finally sighs and leans back against his father’s chest.

“Feeling better now?”

Keith nods and asks “Can I have my snack now?”

“S-sure you can, firefly.” he says, hesitating before running his fingers through Keith’s soft hair and then continuing his initial task in the kitchen.

Nathan is filling out some forms for work at the kitchen table when he hears thumps of fast moving feet coming down the hall.

“Daddy, Daddy I got something to show you!” the soon to be five year old boy says hopping up and down using his father’s chair to steady himself in his excitement.

“Oh yeah, kiddo? What you got?” He says instantly forgetting the papers on the table as he pulls out the camera from his pocket, that has become permanently attached to his person by now.

“My tooth is loose! Look!” Keith says as he proceeds to tuck in his top lip and blow air in and out through his bottom teeth. One tooth in the front wiggles back and forth in time with each breath, and his eyes cross in concentration.

With laughter in his voice Nathan says, “Well look at that; it sure is. You know what this means don’t you?”

“No, what?” he asks with bright eyes.

“Means the tooth fairy will be comin’, soon as that baby comes out.” he says bending just a little closer to his son like he’s telling a secret.

“Tooth fairy?” Keith asks with a look of incredulity.

“Yup, when your tooth comes out. We’ll put it under your pillow and then the tooth fairy will come and take it and give you some money.”

Looking grossed out and confused the boy shoots off question after question. “Why would they give me money for my teeth? Why do they want my teeth?”

Nathan is taken aback by his son’s rapid fire questioning. Keith is definitely his mother’s son. “Well it’s their job and they give you money because you’re bein’ nice enough to give it to them,” he says

“That’s dumb,” he says matter of fact as he puts all his weight on his heels, and leans back using the chair to prevent himself from falling.

“Well, what were you going to do with it?” Nathan replies.

Shrugging his small shoulders he says, “I don’t know. Eat it, I guess.”

“What?! Why would you eat it?” His father questions, truly surprised at his son’s words.

Standing flat on his feet, he cocks out his hip, rests his hand on it, tilts his head to the side, and like it’s the most logical thing in the world replies, “It’s already in my mouth. Why wouldn’t I?”

The older man can’t help but to completely lose it and just laughs until there are tears in his eyes. Keith smiles, happy that he made his father laugh though not knowing why. When Nathan calms down, he says through lingering giggles. “Well, we don’t eat our teeth so let’s be nice and let the tooth fairy do their job. Want me to show you how to take it out?”

Keith nods hoping to make his father happy again while his father gets up to grab a tissue. The man then gets down on one knee to be at his son’s level. “Ok open up.” Keith follows the order and Nathan using the tissue pinches the loose tooth between his fingers. “Alright, kiddo, on the count of three I’m going to pull it out.”

“Uh huh,” is all the boy can manage to give the go ahead.

“One..” and he pulls it out with a quick jerking motion never intending to count the other numbers. “There we go.” Keith is in shock of the now vacant space in his gums as his father shows him the now removed tooth. He takes the offered tissue from his father looking at it with curiosity.

“So what do we do with this?” Nathan leadingly asks.

“I’m going to put it under my pillow, right now.” Keith says becoming excited and quickly runs to his room. Once he’s out of sight, his father plops down into his chair and chuckles while running a hand through his hair.

“He was going to eat it... God that kid says some crazy shit.” He says to himself, turns off the camera, and resumes filling out his work papers.

The kitchen table is covered in the rainbow colors of construction paper and crayons. The boy with a mop of dark brown hair falling into his eyes is sitting in a chair next to his father while they both are making masterpieces of similar caliber. When done they show off to each other the drawings of blue skies and hover bikes. Keith can’t help but giggle at his father’s attempt of drawing birds in his sky. He then grabs a blank piece of paper and starts something new. After a few minutes, Keith suddenly stops with a frown. He turns to his father interrupting the man’s drawing.

“Daddy, how come I don’t have a mom?”

“What? Who told you that?” says Nathan , preparing to fight any number of kids’ parents.

“There’s this girl at school who says we should be friends because she doesn’t have a mom neither.” Keith replies going back to adding details in his drawing. His father follows the motion and notices the drawing his son has done of their house, him and his father, but there’s an obvious space where another person should be. Somehow that empty space reflects rather perfectly the aching space that has grown in him over the past five years. In this moment it hurts just like the day she left.

He takes a long look at the camera on the table remembering why he bought it; to share these memories with her when she.. if she comes back. He turns in his chair to fully face Keith for once not attempting to keep his complicated emotions off his face. He knew this question would come up sooner or later, but he never figured out how to explain all the Whys and the Hows. Keith is still a bit too young to know the whole truth now, but he can’t even think of lying to him.

“You have a mom.” Nathan finally answers pulling Keith into his lap and grabbing a new piece of paper to start drawing. “She’s tall, smart as a whip, and strong, but the most beautiful thing about her was when she smiled. I think she smiled the biggest when she had you.”

“If she smiled so much, then why isn’t she here with us?”

“Because she had to leave...” He chokes up unable to finish the thought. “I’m sorry, firefly.” With a tear rolling down his face he looks away from his son and murmurs to himself. “I promised myself I wouldn’t cry.”

“Daddy! I’m sorry.... I’m sorry.” The boy pleads to his father, beginning to tear up himself. He hugs him tight around the neck and Nathan can’t help but reciprocate by wrapping his arms tight around the small body in his lap. They stay that way for a while, rocking back and forth as the tears run their course. Keith’s breathing evens out as he’s apparently cried himself to sleep. Having calmed, he notes his son’s sleeping face and brushes back the over grown bangs. Then he gets up carrying young boy out of frame to put him down for a nap. Left on the table, is a rudimentary drawing or a woman lined in purple.

He’s washing dishes when his soon to be eight years old son calls for him from up stairs. “Pa.”

Pausing to wonder when Keith stop calling him Daddy, he calls back, “Yeah?”

“Pa!” Now said with fear and definite urgency. Nathan throws the dish towel on his shoulder and drops the dish in the sink to immediately turn and run up the stairs. Is it another of his episodes? It’s been so long he thought Keith had grown out of them. He stops when he reaches the top and calls out.

“Keith, where are you?”

“Pa! In here.” His voice carrying the short distance from his father’s bedroom. Nathan quickly enters and is shocked into stillness at the scene before him. Keith is practically swimming in his work vest with one foot in a far too big boot, and he’s cradling a hand that’s freely bleeding down his arm. His scans the room frantically to find the cause only to spot the luxite knife on the floor out of its sheath, and an edge of its wrapping undone. He’ll deal with that later; first, is to fix his son’s hand.

He takes the towel from his shoulder and presses it firmly against the cut in Keith’s palm while instructing to hold it the same way. He then grabs the boy’s shoulder and leads him to the bathroom. He sits him down on the toilet lid and gets out First Aid Kit #2, he’s got four of these around the house. Nathan holds out his hand waiting for Keith to offer his wounded one for inspection. Thankfully, the cut isn’t too deep and he can get away with not sewing in stitches. Keith has gone silent refusing to look in his father’s direction while he cleans and wraps the wound. While raising the hand above Keith’s heart, he lets slip some of his worry and anger.

"Keith, what were thinking?”

Panicking, Keith tries to explain, “I was just playing when it fell out of the closet. I didn’t know it was that sharp.”

“How many times have I told you, that knife is not a toy.” Nathan says in a stern voice.

“I wasn’t playing with it! I was just looking at it,” says the kid; going on the defensive.

“Then how did you hurt your hand?” Nathan asks.

“I just... wanted to see what was under the wrapping.” Keith says, again avoiding eye contact.

“It’s there for the same reason I keep it in a sheath, because it’s dangerous. You’re lucky you didn’t lose a finger.” He sighs “You about gave me a heart attack.”

Keith pouts saying, “I’m sorry... I won’t do it again.”

“Good, now go to your room,” he orders letting go of the injured hand.

“But-”

“No buts. You’re staying in your room for the rest of the evening.”

Keith slowly rises from his seat on the toilet lid and slips passed his father to his room. He shuts the door louder than usual, but not enough to be considered a slam lest his father start yelling at him. Meanwhile, Nathan walks back to the bedroom and cleans up the few scattered clothes and shoes in front of the closet. He lingers on the knife just a moment before expelling a long sigh of frustration and putting it away.

It’s a week day, and he’s driving Keith to school for his fifth week of fourth grade.The early morning is beginning to warm with the ever rising sun despite it being early autumn and with the promise of another warm day Nathan glances at his son, taking in his bored expression.

“Your birthday’s coming up soon. You ready to finally be in the double digits?” He asks.

“You mean so I can start aging in decades like you?” He replies with a wry grin.

“Hey! You don’t do that at ten.. You start at forty, and then it’s down hill from there.” He replies with a smile, making his son laugh. They fall into a comfortable silence as he rounds a street corner; the school becoming visible in the distance.

“So, you got anything you just been dying to have for your birthday?” he asks as he pulls into the designated drop off area of the school.

“Can I get my own hover bike?!” Keith quickly and with much enthusiasm replies, his eyes shining with hope.

“Well, I don’t know about a hover bike.” He says trying to avoid eye contact.

“Then, can we at least get a store bought cake?” Keith offers.

“What’s wrong with the cakes I make?” Nathan asks in indignation.

“Nothing, except the last two were more like moosh than cake.” He says as he makes a the most sour face at the memory.

“Ok, ok, you have a point. I’ll get store bought. Now, you better get moving before the lady behind us starts popping a vain.” Keith then gets out and rounds the front of the vehicle, but before he makes his way to the front doors of the building his father calls out. “Oh Keith, I’ll try and get off early today ok?”

“Ok! See you later.” He replies.

“Ok, love you, firefly.” His father says emphasizing the ‘love you.’ Keith just rolls his eyes and makes a sound of exasperation before failing to resist smiling and turns to walk into school.

For the next ten minutes Nathan drives to work quietly singing along to the radio and sometimes making comment on the commercials. After pulling into the station, he makes the usual rounds of morning greetings and stops at his locker to get changed. Only when he removes his shirt does he remember the camera that’s been recording most of the morning drive. He’s about to turn it off when a thought occurs to him and he flips it back around to place himself in frame, revealing a large scar on his right shoulder. Not for the first time, he directly addresses the camera.

“He’s turning ten soon, can you believe it? It’s been almost ten years.” He pauses with a look of contemplation before continuing. “Maybe it’s time I tell him about the knife.. and about you.” He smiles at the thought of Keith’s mother before getting distracted by the sudden alarm. The last frame of the video is a look of determination on Nathan’s face before it blurs and goes black.

#strangeroseart #vld keith #vld texas #vld krolia #keith's dad #writing #vld fanfic #angst #fluff #i don't usually write but this really wouldn't leave me alone until i got it out #this came from the fact that i and everyone i know has box of all our childhood photos i figured Keith would be similar

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