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supercorpkid · 3 years

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Lena’s assassination attempt.

Supercorp, Kara Danvers x Daughter!Reader, Lena Luthor x Daughter!Reader.

Word count: 1631.

Warning: panic attack.

This wasn’t your mom’s first assassination attempt and probably won’t be the last. You know that. But the last one was five years ago and it was so traumatic that you compartmentalized and pretended it never happened.

You were 10, and you remember that Kara came to pick you up from school in the middle of your math test. You tried to argue, you knew every answer, you wanted to finish it. But she just looked lost and scared, so you went with her. You flew together to the hospital, she kneeled down on the concrete and said, and you still remember every word of it.

“Hey, kid, listen. You don’t have to worry, because I promise your mom is going to be fine.”

“What? Why? What happened?”

“She got… She was shot.” Kara holds you still when you feel your legs shake. You feel like there’s a hole on the floor pulling you in. “But she’s out of surgery, and she is going to recover, ok?”

You don’t answer. There’s no answer to this. You want to see your mom, want to make her feel better, want to protect her. You should have protected her. You’re bulletproof. You could’ve shield her, or fly her out of there. You could’ve done something, but you were too focused on shutting your super hearing and paying attention to your test.

When Kara takes you to the hospital room, the world swallows you. Literally. You can’t see anything but your tiny helpless mom in a hospital bed. It’s too much. And that day you promised yourself that was the last time you would feel this way, and that you would let Lena feel this way.

You also worry about Kara, but it’s different. She fights aliens, super villains and even your uncle. Sometimes she gets beat up, but you know she can shake it off. But Lena, Lena is just human. What if one day she can’t shake it off?

After the promise you made to yourself, you’re constantly checking on her. Her heartbeat, her voice, her breathing. Neither one of your moms have any idea of this, but it’s something that you catch yourself doing every day. So, you’re in the middle of English class when you hear:

“Gentlemen, please, lower your weapons.”

In a blink, you’re running out of the classroom (you obviously didn’t get a hall pass), you find a window and you fly to L Corp so fast; the men didn’t even answer her yet. You break through her window (it was closed, not your fault), and the men get spooked and start shooting at you right away.

You shield your mom with your body, and press the button on the watch to get Supergirl to deal with them. But she takes a while, and the loud shooting noises are stressing you, so you punch one guy on the face, and kick the other one down. Then you grab both men and make your way to the balcony. You’re two seconds away to throw both from it, when Supergirl shows up, takes them off of your hands and flies away with them presumably to the prison.

You run towards Lena, who’s currently sitting on the floor. She has a hand on one arm, and you can see there’s blood.

“No, no, no. It can’t be!” You kneel in front of her, and can’t control the tears running down your face. “You’re hurt.”

“Baby, I’m ok. You saved me.” She is hurt, and bleeding, but still has a smile on her face and she looks proud of you.

“No, mom. You’re hurt.” You use your x-ray vision on her and apparently the bullet is not inside her arm. You see the bullet just grazed through her skin, but it doesn’t look good and it’s your fault. You didn’t shield her enough. You should’ve attacked them immediately, you should’ve thrown them out of the balcony, you should’ve done more. And where the hell was Supergirl while this was happening, anyway? “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I should’ve, I could’ve…”

“Hey, I’m ok. I promise. You did it, kid.” She cups your face with one hand. “You did it, babygirl, you saved me.”

Kara flies in as soon as Lena is finished with the sentence and picks her up in a bridal style.

“Let’s take her to Alex.” She flies away to the DEO, leaving you alone in the room and you look around. There’s glass everywhere. And blood on your hands and on your school t-shirt. You’re supposed to follow them to the DEO, but all you do is sit amid the broken glass and the bullets, and cry your heart out.

Technically, you know she is safe. She only has a wound, she’ll recover. She will be able to move her arm so it’s ok. You did it. You saved her.

You know it, but you don’t feel it.

Your legs are trembling, and you feel the weakest you’ve ever felt in life. There’s blood on your hands, there wasn’t supposed to be blood. Especially not hers. There’s this gut feeling saying you didn’t do enough. You should’ve done more. Lena is still hurt, it’s your fault.

You lay on the floor, there’s so much tears you can’t see straight. And then comes the same feeling of the last time. The world swallows you again.

You hear all the noises, all the voices there are to hear in the world. They are loud, incomprehensive, and are driving you to madness. You want them to stop, but they just keep getting louder and deafening.

And then, you feel your eyes burning like fire and you’re unsure if you are actually using your heat vision, or maybe all the fear is dripping from your eyes in the form of a wildfire.

You try to ground yourself, so you grab the closest thing to your hand; you don’t know what it is, but in seconds it’s smashed into pieces and your hands feel empty again.

Then you hear another crashing sound and you can only deduct you broke the desk. Or maybe the ceiling. Or maybe the entire room is collapsing over you right now, but you don’t even feel it. And you don’t move. You can’t.

The only thing that you can do is yell. So you do it. You try to scream all the panic out of your body, but the only thing you manage to do is freeze the room entirely when you do so.

Suddenly, you feel everything at once. There’s part of the ceiling on top of your body. And you feel more. You feel broken glass and bullets and blood and ceiling and wood and ice. The room it’s a nightmare, but it doesn’t come close to what you feel. You’re not enough. Lena is hurt. You let your mom get hurt. You can’t breathe.

You feel your body being lifted, and you hear in the midst of all the other voices, Kara’s quiet voice in the back of your mind. You don’t dare open your eyes.

“She’s alright, you’re alright kid. You did it, little one. I love you.” She repeats the same words over and over again. And after a few minutes the world is silent again and her voice is all you can hear.

“I’ve got you. I’ve got you. You’re safe.” Kara says and you finally open your eyes. You’re not at L Corp anymore and judging by the metal walls you can only imagine she took you to the DEO, but you didn’t feel any of it. “There you go, momma is here with you, my baby.”

You want to ask where Lena is, but your voice doesn’t come out. Kara is holding you like a baby, you can feel you’re on her lap, she’s making soothing sounds and holding you so close you can feel her heartbeat against your own. It’s helping, but your heart is still beating faster than usual, and you still need to see your mom.

“Just breathe for me ok, baby?” Kara asks and you obey. You suck the air, but it doesn’t feel like it’s going to your lungs.“There you go. My brave girl. You saved your mom. I’m so proud of you.”

“Mom.” You finally say and Kara smiles at you.

“Your mom is safe because of you, little one.” She kisses your forehead and you close your eyes in relief, feeling tears rolling down your cheeks. You don’t know if you’re crying again or if maybe you never really stopped. “Hey, look who’s here.”

You open your eyes again and Lena is right in front of you. She has a bandage on her arm, but that’s all. She holds you tight and you breathe. You finally breathe.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t enough, mom.” You say and Lena holds your face with both hands. One tear falls from her eye.

“You were more than enough, babygirl.” She kisses your cheek. “You’ll always be more than enough.” Then she kisses your forehead. “I love you so much.”

“I love you so much.” You repeat and she smiles. Kara is smiling too; you can see their faces close to yours.

They keep you wrapped in their embrace for a long time. And they keep repeating that they’re proud of you, that they love you, and that you are a hero. You don’t feel like a hero, you feel like a kid that just blew up an entire room out of fear of losing her mom. You know the feeling will follow you for a long time, but right now all you can think about is that Lena is safe, you are safe and Kara is safe. You’re all here, together, and that’s all that matters, for now.

#supercorp fanfic #supercorpfamily #supergirl #kara danvers #lena luthor #reader #panic attack #supercorp #reader needs a hug

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little-luthottie · 3 years

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Supergirl (TV 2015) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor, Alex Danvers & Kara Danvers, Alex Danvers & Lena Luthor, Querl Dox/Nia Nal, Eliza Danvers & Lena Luthor, Alex Danvers & Eliza Danvers & Kara Danvers Characters: Kara Danvers, Kara Zor-El, Lena Luthor, Alex Danvers, Nia Nal, J'onn J'onzz | Hank Henshaw, Eliza Danvers, Brainy, Querl Dox, Lori Luthor, sc oc kid Additional Tags: SuperCorp, Established Relationship, Married Couple, Kidfic, supercorp kidfic, Mild Angst, but I swear it gets fluffy, they just want to have start a family, dansen isnt meantioned but assume that its happening okay, they're in LOVE your honour, Married Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor, KARA AND LENA ARE MARRIED AND HAPPY, ...mostly, they sad but then they happy again, mentions of death but nothing graphic, Promise Summary:

"Its just hearing the heartbeat of their child for the first time only for it to slowly give in and there is absolutely nothing they— she with all her superpowers could do, Kara doesn’t feel any bit of the hero she’s come to be. Not a single ounce , not when their child’s vitals were slowly deteriorating and watching as Alex and Eliza flounder around for ways to stop yet another foetus from dying. Lena’s on the medical bed doing all she can to aid in keeping their child alive , even if its just to keep her own heart rate steady."

Kara and Lena are ready to expand their family but complications keep them from it. Kara's at her limit and is so close to losing hope ...

until she finds her

and then everything changes.

_______________________

The heart rate monitors beeps are slow as if trying to tell Kara she can’t stop the inevitable. That again she’ll lose someone dear. Its only their third time and they knew going in this wouldn’t easy. But Lena was determined she could do it and Kara believed in her wife.

Its just hearing the heartbeat of their child for the first time only for it to slowly give in and there is absolutely nothing they— she with all her superpowers could do, Kara doesn’t feel any bit of the hero she’s come to be. Not a single ounce , not when their child’s vitals were slowly deteriorating and watching as Alex and Eliza flounder around for ways to stop yet another foetus from dying. Lena’s on the medical bed doing all she can to aid in keeping their child alive , even if its just to keep her own heart rate steady.

This time around they’ve opted for an artificial womb. One that could support the genes of a half human and half kryptonian baby since the others…failed to. Lena’s idea after their last try and everything seemed to be going well. In fact little Lori survived far longer than her other two siblings had— yes they’d gotten enough hope to name her and now, now it feels like that hope is slowly shattering , another crack for every painfully delayed heartbeat. Its only a matter of moments before she says goodbye to her sweet girl but Kara can’t stomach the idea of being here for another flatline. Another deafening, gut wrenching beep taunting her , ripping away a future she so desperately craves. So leaves , she flies out of there fast enough that when everyone realises she’s gone , she only barely here’s the whisper of her name from Lena’s lips.

It’s the final punch to the dam before the wall completely breaks and out gushes the tears. She’s far away and at a high enough altitude not to be seen , she doesn’t think she could handle the publics questions as to why their golden girl was spotted a sobbing mess in the sky.

In that instance her eyes , though blurred by tears , find the star she once called home. Kara finds herself go silent , her chest still rising and falling rapidly but despite the shallow breaths of all the sobs she’d just erupted , she’s completely still. As if in a weird limbo , floating in the air above the city that’s seemed to have gone silent like its paying its respects to the hero and her losses.

She’s just there. Floating. Staring. Waiting. For what she doesn’t know. Her tears have ceased and its remains slowly drying on her cheeks it feels like there’s a sign waiting to be shown. That if she stays up here long enough she’ll find it , see it , hear it.

And she does. The sound of loud wailing muffled by every other sound of the night which resurfaces right as the wails start. Before Kara knows it she’s following the sound , zipping through the skies , between buildings until she finds it.

Not it, her.

There in a dilapidated cardboard box that looks about ready to fall apart is a bundle wrapped in white cloth. For a moment the blonde just freezes in her tracks , her feet hovering mere inches from the ground as she watches the baby , who seems to be barely older than a few months scream for her missing family. The moment her boots touches the concrete of the alley the child’s crying halts.

And like before there is this moment of silence , a moment of serenity between the two. Its in this moment of what feels like sizing up that Kara notices the golden wisps of blond locks flicked in wayward strands and the most enchanting green eyes. There’s this intelligent curiosity to them , and the blonde kryptonian can’t help but compare them to similar orbs she knows so well and loves.

It becomes abundantly clear what she must do. What she will do. Kara unclips her cape from her shoulders and reaches down to swaddle the bundle who feels alarming cold. However the little girl makes no sound but stares in wonder , green eyes twinkling in the dim florescent light. Once she knows the baby is tucked snuggly in her cape she takes off into the sky ,mindful of the precious cargo.

She lands at the tower once again and watches everyone hault at her presence. There’s a silence once again but this one doesn’t feel as comforting , this one she fears is filled with pity and sorrow. She wants to take off again, she can feel her heart rate start to pick up , especially at the confused and alarmed stares Alex and Eliza are giving her right now. She’s just about to take off when the small bundle shifts in her arms , eyes now closed as she sleeps soundly. For a minute Kara is stunned by how immediate the child had taken to her and couldn’t help but think how perfect she seemed not to mention the physical traits that made her seem as if somehow , in some twisted way the universe had given her , given them this precious gift.

“Kara?” Lena calls , standing a few feet off right before her. She’s in the sweatpants and old college hoodie Lena loves to wear on days she can spare to sleep in.

Karas focus is immediately brought back to reality , back to the point of why she was here , why everyone seemed concerned and she can’t believe she almost forgot. Almost.

“Look Lee just hear me out okay?” the blond says and hovers over to her wife. Lena seems exhausted and all but ready to go home but she still nods , still humours Kara anyways.

“I just- I’m sorry I left but I couldn’t take another second and I just needed a moment by myself to grieve the loss of our baby”

“Kara-“ Lena tries , but Kara’s on a role she needs to vent all of this right now or otherwise she won’t be able to explain herself properly.

“I know I left you alone in that moment and I’m sorry Lena really-“ the blonde steps forward scared Lena might leave because of it. “but I just lost it and I couldn’t understand why we keep losing them. I don’t want to keep losing them!”

Kara stops. Knowing she’s raised her voice , can see the alarm in everyone’s eyes and the sympathy. She shuts her eyes , takes a breath and focuses on the movements of the little one in her arms. When she opens them there are those curious green staring at her and its doubled when she looks from the baby to Lena. She knows Lena finally noticed the bundle , realised what it was and is now worried.

“Kara whose baby..” Lena trails off as if scared to finish that sentence in fear of what the answer will be.

And no! She’s got it all wrong. Kara would never— no matter how distraught.

“No no no! Lee this- that’s what I’m trying to tell you this baby was abandoned in an alley! I heard her cries and immediately rushed over—she was just there in this tattered box. She was confused by why the people who were supposed to love her-“ Kara consciously pulls the bundle closer , “just left and here we are-struggling to just-And I just had to do the right thing and save her but I thought what if. What if this is our chance?”

Kara is now smiling down at the little girl , whose eyes never leave her and misses the way Lena reaches for her stomach and then grabs Kara’s bicep.

“Darling I understand” the brunette says earnestly , unshed tears glistening in her eyes. “we have been through unbearable pain with the last two pregnancies and I understand your pain believe me” a tear slips down Lena’s cheek and the first instinct is to wipe it away. Lena should know its not because of her body , that there’s nothing wrong with it. There’s nothing wrong with her. So she moves in to tell her but Lena just squeezes her bicep. Those green eyes so intelligent and vibrant , shines with a knowingness Kara is so familiar with. As if she had the power to read her mind , Kara wouldn’t be surprised if Lena could though she-

What was that?.

Her train of thought out the window as Lena guides the arm not supporting the bundle to her stomach and- oh.

There it is , loud and persistent as if scolding Kara for doubting it , doubting her.

“Lori?” just the name alone makes the tears fall from Kara’s eyes once again. How could she have missed that? Her daughters heartbeat. That was once so weak is at a steady rate. Their baby made it. They’re going to have a baby!

She finds Lena’s eyes , tears falling as well , the knowingness shining so bright. Kara thinks its more the pure relief of not losing another child. She pulls her wife in , hugs her as tight as is humanly possible with one arm. She feels so happy , so filled with love and hope.

And that’s when their little guest grunts , probably shocked by the sudden confined space and Kara laughs , just pure joy ripping out from her lungs as if it was held captive there for too long.

“I’m sorry little one” the blonde loosens her grip but doesn’t let’s go of Lena. She still keeps her close. Now there’s two pairs of forest green eyes staring at her and she’s surprised by how enraptured she is by both.

“Lee I , I can’t abandon her too. Please-“

“Kara I would never do that.” Lena pushes the sides of the cape aside so she has a view of the cherub face. “its not going to be easy but we can make this work. In any case we did agree on a big family” the grin that splits onto Lena’s face is enough for Kara’s heart to feel as if it just grew that much bigger. After all these years Lena could still make her so happy , feel so loved and understood.

“Now hand her to me so I can check her vitals” Lena takes the bundle from Kara’s arms , cradles her close and steps away towards the medbay Alex and Eliza have been in this whole time eavesdropping.

“What why? Did I hurt her?” Kara immediately frowns and follows , notices now how everyone hadn’t moved since she’d flown in and now seem to have found it in themselves to move and act busy. Shameful.

“No honey but you did say you found her in an Alley and we need to see if she’s suffered any harm from it.”

“oh” is all Kara says , and watches how Lena unwraps the bundle to reveal the baby in a soft pink onesie. She still doesn’t make any cries of protest but just watches Lena with those intelligent eyes.

And Lena’s smiling. Smiling the whole time. From checking her heart rate with the stethoscope to taking her temperature with a thermometer , Lena smiles and is so gentle with the little girl it makes her heart melt.

“So I’ve got two nieces now huh” Alex remarks , nudging her side with an elbow. Kara watches as Eliza goes to aid Lena in her tests and it makes her rock back and forth on her heels for a bit.

“Yeah” Kara grins and looks to her sister with such a wide smile her cheeks are protesting. She’s giddy , she can’t even contain it. At one point tonight she’d thought she would never have this but here they are. Two girls. One on the way and one already here. Granted they would have to go through the right adoption processes but there’s no doubt that, that baby is already theirs. How could there be when Eliza rocks the child gently in her arms while Lena stands at the computer probably waiting for test results, a hand caressing her stomach while her attention is on the blonde little girl whose seem to have everyone gravitating towards her as Nia , Kelly , J'onn and even Brainy enters the room.

“despite it being so early and you guys actually have to legally adopt her still-“

“I know Alex but-“

“Hey I’m not raining on your parade okay? I know how long you’ve been waiting for this and I have every bit of faith you’ll get custody of her” Alex grabs her sisters shoulder and squeezes it gently. Kara needs more than that though , so she pulls her sister in a little too tight of a hug and laughs at the grunts Alex dramatically elates but she hugs her back nonetheless.

“so you have a name yet?” Alex asks after they pull away.

Kara turns to where their family is surrounding Lena , who is now holding the baby.

It’s the purest sight , the most wholesome. A vision of everything she has desired right before her.

“Well I need to run it by Lena first but yeah” she turns back to her sister , eyes twinkling with mirth.

“Elan”

___

hope y’all liked it uwu

#supercorp #sc fic #kidfic #sc kidfic #married supercorp #sc oc kid #lori luthor #lori danvers-luthor #mentioned #supercorp fanfic #mild angst #its soft tho #mentions of death #but nothing graphic

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only-here-for-jatp · 4 years

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The Boy in a Beanie

Couldn’t sleep last night so I wrote a kind of angsty Juke fic.

Luke discovers Julie writing a song with Nick. (Spoilers: He doesn’t like it) https://archiveofourown.org/works/26600749

Julie’s been lost in her own mind for days and frankly it was freaking Luke out. It was totally out of character for her to be so spacey. She’d been missing band practices and running into things and spending a lot of her time in her room, with the band shut out completely. All of the boys were starting to get worried, ever since they’d gained the power of touch they’d gotten used to group hugs and casual touches. Yet with Julie’s brain who knows where she’d barely looked them in the eye. Reggie tried talking to her yesterday, but it was almost like she couldn’t hear him. At one point, they’d tried to have band practice without her, but Luke was too agitated. He couldn’t sit still. It felt like he’d never gone this long without connecting with her and he didn’t like it.

After talking with the guys, they formed a plan to be on Julie watch. One of them would always be within eye or earshot at all times, so they could figure out what was going on. Luke was on first watch the next morning as Julie went to school. He followed her through the halls, always within hearing distance, but she still didn’t seem to notice him.

Eventually, she walked into an empty music room with a piano. She pulled out her songbook and he watched as he saw her eyes focus for the first time in days. That’s what this was all about? Songwriting? Pain sliced across his chest deep. He loved Julie’s songs, but ever since the three ghost boys had busted into her life, they’d always done it together. It was one of the things he’d held most precious about their relationship.

Part of him felt like he should run away and hide. Clearly, she didn’t want any of them to hear this since she’d been ignoring them for days to come here and make music in secret. It felt like the worst kind of betrayal and despite knowing that he was being a little melodramatic since he’d definitely gone on song binges himself before where he’d shut out the world, he couldn’t help the hurt of knowing that Julie had shut them out. That she’d shut him out.

He didn’t think it could get any worse until he watched Nick walk into the room and join her, guitar in hand. Her face lit up at the sight of him and she greeted him enthusiastically. Luke was sure his undead heart was breaking. She’d shut them all out, so she could make music with him. He had to get out of there, he needed his friends. His brothers. He poofed just as she turned his direction, but he was gone so fast she wasn’t even sure he’d been real.

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Julie was eternally grateful to the kindhearted Nick. Even after rejecting him, he was still there supporting her and helping her. Besides Luke, he was the best guitar player she knew and the haunting melody drifting just out of reach needed a guitar. The elusive song had been evading her for days, it coiled around her as if it were part of the air she breathed. It all started when the dreams began to keep her up at night and the song played in the background. She would wake not quite remembering it, only for it to slip by her in a daydream.

The song about the boy in the beanie.

She’d been upfront with Nick from the beginning about who the song was for and why it seemed to escape her so. He’d been patient with her these last couple days as they tried combination after combination trying to nail down the melody. The only thing she’d hidden from him were her lyrics.

The chords and notes may be out of her grasp, but she knew the lyrics as if they were her next breath. How could she not, when she knew their subject as if he was an extension of herself. Her partner, her mind reader and god how she missed him. Everything would be so much easier if she could just be working on this with him. But she knew. She knew that he would want to know everything about it. He’d want to know the words and the why and she just wasn’t ready yet. So until then her lyrics were tucked away in a secret container of her dream box, one that she’d never shown the boys given their pension for snooping.

For a brief second she heard the music. Nick played the combination again and it felt right. They’d finally found it. Now that she could pin the first couple chords it felt like the rest laid itself out in front of her. For the first time in days, she felt her mind ease and she sat down at the piano to begin the work of writing it down.

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Luke’s bandmates looked startled when he popped back into the studio so suddenly, but they could see how agitated he was. They watched him quietly as he paced, his body so tense they thought he might snap with his fist clenched down by his side. It was his face though, that really had them tentative it looked as if he might scream or cry or both. The thought of what he might have seen to make him rush back here, to look like that, it made their nonexistent blood run cold.

Reggie took a cautious step forward to attempt to reach out, but Luke waved him off as he explained what he saw. He could feel the venom in his words, the simmering anger that was feeding off his pain. Alex and Reggie knew him well enough to know, that he needed to get it all out. The hurt of finding her like that, the betrayal of seeing her light up at the sight of Nick. The frustration and fear that comes from the feeling that everything that was most important to you was slipping away. Truth was, Alex and Reggie were feeling a little hurt and a little lost too, so when Luke decided he needed some space they let him go without too much of a fight.

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Julie had rushed home after school that day, desperate to get back to her boys. Her mind was finally clear after taming the song that had plagued her and the realization of just how much she’d neglected her best friends laid her gut heavy with guilt. She’d been so distracted she’d barely seen them and everything in her needed to reconnect with them once more. To touch them and hold them and ground herself.

When she walked in to find Alex and Reggie sitting on the couch forlornly, she knew her absence had wreaked much more damage than she’d realized. She knelt down in front of these boys that she loved like family and reached out to hold their hands, squeezing tight. At that point they finally looked up at her and for a minute she just looked at them. Really looked at them and she murmured her apologies and reassurances that she was here. That she loved them and missed them.

Reggie gave in first, pulling her onto the couch and enveloping her in a hug. She could feel his sigh of relief as he squeezed just a little bit tighter. Alex looked away bitterly revealing that they knew she’d been writing music with someone else. Worry and pain hit her like a sucker punch to the gut. Luke had been there this morning, had seen her working with Nick.

Oh her poor ghost boy.

She knew she had to tell Alex and Reggie, make them see somehow. So she gently stood and dragged both boys with her to the piano. She pulled a chair up for Reggie so he could be right next to her and sat next to Alex on the bench. Making sure she could maintain contact with both boys she hesitantly lifted her fingers to the piano and played her new song.

She could tell the moment they fit the pieces together. Reggie sat straight up a smile growing on his face and a light twinkling in his eyes. Alex was more subtle, a deep inhale and a small smirk, but he wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close and she knew she was forgiven. After the last remnants of the song died away, she explained that Nick was the only other person who could play guitar nearly as well as Luke, and the song couldn’t be finished without it. At that the boys beamed and pulled her into a group hug.

Luke poofed back into the room. After all, it was time for their typical band practice. He split into a soft smile at the sight of the group hug at the piano, but quickly shifted into a smile that looked normal, but didn’t quite reach his eyes. All of the words, phrases and gestures seemed like any other day, but they could all tell that it was robotic. His heart simply wasn’t in it. Julie attempted to explain that it was a one-time deal, that it wouldn’t happen again. He shrugged it off and brushed her off telling her not to worry that everything was fine.

Of course, everything was not fine. He wouldn’t look her in the eyes and when they played there was no drive, no connection. All of their music sounded fine, but he spent practice ignoring Julie and every attempt she made to grab his attention. She wondered if this was how he felt when they’d played Edge of Great last year. Well, at least he’d given her the perfect plan and from the looks Reggie and Alex were passing between them, they’d probably let her get away with whatever. She threw them a smile and the three of them nodded.

The part of the song where she and Luke harmonized was coming up and she timed it so that just before their cue, Luke was suddenly sharing a mic. He’d been so focused on avoiding her that he was not prepared for her to be so close to him. She kept brushing up against him, inching her way closer to him, crowding him in a way he couldn’t escape from.

The abruptness dropped his mask and finally their eyes met and she could see the anger and the hurt as his face twisted into a scowl before he could regain control. Her heart ached at the pain he was in, but she smiled that at least they had connected somehow, someway. Until he vanished, poofed away in the middle of the song, leaving her stranded and staring into an empty space.

------------------

Luke could feel the pain morphing into anger and as much as he didn’t like it, he needed that fuel. He was livid. How dare she. How could she do this to him after spending her morning with Nick. He’d been doing everything he could to keep everything fine, to keep his emotions in check, but she’d had to push him. She had to get so close that it would’ve taken a small lean for his mouth to be on hers. She had to get so close that he could smell her shampoo and feel her fire. Never before had he been angry enough to storm out in the middle of practice, but apparently Julie Molina was enough to drive him crazy.

He needed to get his emotions back under control, he couldn’t keep running out every time Julie got close to him, no matter how much he hurt. Keeping his cool was the name of the game until he could get over these feelings of his.

Thankfully they didn’t have band practice the next day, but it didn’t seem to stop Julie on her quest for, well he didn’t know. She kept giving him small casual touches. Never long enough for him to move away or tell her to stop, just little things like brushing past him a little too close when she walked by. Or letting her fingers briefly meet his.

Every touch warmed him up a little and he had to keep reminding himself of what he’d walked in on. He couldn’t keep falling in love with her when she had chosen Nick. Slowly though he could feel the warmth she was passing on grow and soon it was becoming difficult not to smile at her.

The next day was a band practice day and Julie was back at her efforts to make him connect with her. He just couldn’t though, the anger and hurt was still there swirling under the surface. He couldn’t drown himself in her, drown himself in their connection without remembering that she’d hid music from him so she could play with Nick.

The flash of anger and pain that came with that reminder timed itself perfectly with Julie reinserting herself at his mic. This time though, something in him boiled over and he stopped playing so he could make a snide remark about how if she really felt like she needed to be this close to some guy with a guitar then she should go find Nick. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them and he watched his best friends’ eyes go wide as they poofed out to avoid whatever fight was coming.

Somehow though she smiled? before launching into an angry sounding diatribe about how he was being a jerk and for the sake of the band this and the sake of the band that. He could feel his anger running high and before he could stop the words he told her she should go be in a band with Nick if she didn’t like how he was doing things. Her eyes widened a little before she proudly exclaimed That’s it! And grabbed the beanie from off his head and darted away with it.

Before he could give it too much thought, he gave chase, poofing in and out as he tried to catch her to get his beanie back. She was surprisingly good at dodging him, leaping this way and that to stay out of his grasp. Once though she let him get close, where she looked him dead in the eyes and said that it was a one-time thing and that she had absolutely no interest in Nick. Beanies suited her much better.

At that comment she slid the beanie on her head, and he was in shock just for long enough for her to escape out of his clutches again. He resumed his pursuit, but this time he didn’t stop the smile or laughter from bursting out. She darted by him again, determined to make a clever escape, this time though he was ready and soon he’d tackled her to the couch.

He took a brief moment to enjoy the feel of her under him and the mischievous glint in her eyes before snatching his beanie back off her head and readjusting it on his. Yet neither of them moved from their spots. She smiled at him, Another thing beanie boy… and with that she kissed him.

It took only a moment for him to give back as good as she was giving him. He thought nothing had ever tasted as good as her lips. They were so soft and he could’ve sworn that somehow they were made to go against his. He moved his arm so he could wrap around her and pull her closer while her arms went around his neck with her fingers tangling in his hair. If he could just do this forever, he would be the happiest ghost.

Much sooner than they wanted, they broke apart. One of them did need to breathe after all. He pressed his forehead against hers blissfully happy. He let out a small deep laugh and remarked about how she liked beanies. She gave him her biggest grin and specified that really she liked the boy who wore them. Interlacing their fingers, Luke maneuvered Julie into his lap where he alternated between kissing her breathless, something that was quickly becoming his new favorite activity and burying his face in her hair and holding her close.

Eventually their other two bandmates popped back in with a knowing smirk, and Julie blushed happy to be surrounded by her people and know that all was right in her world. Her song long forgotten in the hidden compartment of her dream box.

#juke #julie and the phantoms #jatp #luke patterson #julie molina #late night writing

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societydatabase · 3 years

Text

* 𝐈𝐍𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐊 / alexander mueller & caden lucca

Location: Gallagher Tombs

Timeline: November 21, 11pm -- November 22, midnight

Triggers: Violence, blood

Premise: Caden and Alex are brought to the tombs and told to duke it out for a spot in the Nightshades -- loser won’t make it into the group.

the note arrives at exactly 11pm for each of them, slipped beneath their doors of room 106 and 506, in hopes that their other three roommates won’t reach them first.

to become a worthy member to the brotherhood, your presence is requested at the tombs at exactly midnight tonight, when the night is at its darkest and moon is at its brightest. bring your strength, for bravery will not cut it.

good luck.

it feels like deja vu returning to the tombs, but unlike the night of the gala they’ve left the mask and formal attire at home, and instead both men are wearing sweats. caden arrives first, tugging his sweatshirt closer to him, arms wrapping around himself as he stands… and waits, not really sure what he’s waiting for. it’s not until he hears someone else approaching that he straightens his shoulders, though the sight of alex makes his lips part in surprise. caden tries to remember if he has anything to do with the secret society, or if he’s simply hanging around the tombs at midnight for fun. “what are you doing here?”

alex’s hoodie is up as his hands are stuffed within the pockets of the sweatshirt as he approaches, brows furrowing as he notices caden, not necessarily easing any of the nerves he feels on the inside, but lets none it show on his face. "i brought my strength --- or whatever," he says with a smile. "you think they'll make us dig up good ole gilly?"

"oh good, you too?" caden snorts, though there's some relief that comes with alex's presence. there's something slightly creepy about this whole secret society thing, and if not for enzo and landon obviously having a part of it, he would fear it has something to do with the brotherhood from last year. "i hope not, what kind of strength would that show, upper body?" just in case, he glances around for a shovel.

"two of gallagher's strongest? of course," alex jokes if only to ease the tiniest bit of nerves he has at the ominousness of the note and the location.

landon shows up characteristically a little later than he was supposed to be, but he figures their late arrival would only keep the two others on their toes about the whole thing. “evening, gentlemen,” he says, and it's difficult to not hear the grin (and his southern accent) as he speaks. “you two were asked here tonight as your initiation mission and to bring your strength along with you.” he pauses, mostly for dramatic effect, and he’s considering saying they’re not going to have to dig up a dead body because jesus, alex, he’s not about to piss of a ghost. “you two are going to have to fight one another, and the victor is the one going to join the brotherhood.” landon explains before his last pause. “good luck to the both of you.”

the blonde nods his head amusingly as he listens to the other speak, head leaning forward at the other's pauses, making him a little restless though he supposes he'd do the same in his situation. he looks at caden with a confused look , "how do we know who wins?" because it meant a little morbid in his previous school, but mainly because he might or might not be doubting caden's abilities slightly.

“whoever is knocked to the ground and can’t get back up,” landon answers, and as the words come out of his mouth, they feel heavy because he does like both of them and would want both of them in the society. before the two of them walk away, landon adds because he just feels like a small disclaimer needs to be said. “just⎯⎯ don’t kill each other please.” from across the way, alex rolls his eyes.

caden’s jaw clenches slightly; a task about fighting should be what he had expected when strength had been brought up, but maybe he had been hoping it wouldn't be the case, considering his track record for fights at gallagher. "this is so stupid," he mumbles, but it's the nerves inside him talking, because he doesn't know how well of a fighter alex is or not. he doesn't think the other guy is a combat major, but it doesn't make him feel any better. but it's the chance into a secret society -- basically the highest honor of the college world. he'd be stupid not to try, right? so caden tries to unleash his inner claire walsh, standing up straighter and puffing out his chest a bit as he makes his way closer towards alex. "good luck, man," he says with a small smirk, only feeling a little guilty that it's only one or the other, before caden throws his first punch towards alex's gut.

alex is expecting a handshake and is instead met with a punch to the gut, completely catching him by surprise, causing some of the wind to be knocked out of him. if alex is being honest, a part of him underestimated his current opponent, especially considering alex has been training slightly more and even has someone new to spar with, so he had a couple more tricks up his sleeve. he looks at the other bewildered. "well who taught you how to fight?" he asks slightly amused though now he knows he has to take everything slightly more seriously and straightens himself out as well, but not before removing his hoodie. "well come on then."

caden's not stupid; he knows by now not to underestimate his opponent, even if it is only alex. if he's going to win this, he'll need to pull out all the spots -- which includes catching him by surprise. caden flashes him a sheepish grin, wanting to roll his eyes as the other man takes off his sweatshirt. the invitation makes him snort, but he does as he's told, caden faking one direction before he strikes another punch, this time towards his chest. it's been awhile since he fought someone for the purpose of trying to hurt them, causing him to be a little hesitant in where he throws a punch.

alex is aware that the easiest way to punch is to cause a distraction and that's what the other is doing now; he moves quickly and punches the other in the abdomen. he knows caden values his face as much as alex does, so he is quick yet hesitant to respect those boundaries. the punch to the gut wipes the breath out of caden, realizing that alex is a bit too precise with his movements. it’s too late for caden to attack back, but he breathes through the pain and strikes around alex’s head, going for the ear - it should stun alex enough to double back and give caden a chance to catch his breath, which is what he really needs right now.

alex doesn't think the other would go for his head but it wasn't like either of them stated they wouldn't. he thought it was implied but at the moment he feels a sting at his ear he has to stop and shake it off. caden clearly really wanted to get in, and alex knows it'd be best to strike him while he was down so he did his chest to stabilize himself and punch the other in the jaw.

lucky for him, caden makes the mistake of pausing after striking, even just for a moment. if claire was there she would've told him to get another hit in while alex was down, but it's a little different fighting here verses sparring in the gym, with the stakes being so high. by the time he goes to throw another punch alex beats him to it -- and the blow causes caden to go stumbling back, a small groan escaping him. "fuck," he mumbles, though it's muffled from how his mouth fills with blood. leaning to the side, caden spits it out. it's a friendly reminder that this isn't the classroom; caden's free to play this however he wants. so he charges for him, landing a punch alex's shoulder while swiping his feet with one of his own, trying to knock the blonde onto the ground. this would have never been allowed on the mats -- it was too brutish, especially after first blood is spilled. alex attempts to anticipate the punch, but it does manage to catch him off guard, causing him to fall, but as soon as he falls he uses his arms and legs to push himself back up and quickly kick caden in the chest -- making himself proud, and giving him enough for alex to think of his next move.

caden doesn't expect alex to be able to get up so quickly, ready to quite literally kick the male while he's down. instead it's caden who gets kicked down, the blow to his chest causing him to double over, footing not quite good enough to keep him standing. he can feel the heaviness of landon's gaze as he watches the two of them, and caden doesn't know if it's better or worse that it's a close friend having to witness this embarrassment. it takes him a moment to get back on his feet, but as soon as he does he's aiming a right hook towards alex's jaw, his own still throbbing from when the blonde hit him last. alex he sees the punch coming and grabs caden by his forearm, using the other's force to push him to the ground.

there’s a moment there where caden is just lucky they're fighting in the grass rather than gravel, because he falls into the ground face-first. caden's not sure if he's hit his head on the way down or if it's an injury from earlier, but he hesitates instead of getting up, trying to use his arms but they wobble. still he tries, his body mimicking the position of a push-up --- but then he feels a kick to his gut, and any chance of getting back up is immediately squandered as his body hits the ground. there’s a small ringing in his hear, but he can make out landon saying that alex has won the challenge; despite everything, caden doesn't get back up.

#amethyst nightshade task #ty yadira <3

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pastelwitchling · 4 years

Text

TW: Mentions of abuse, and graphic violence.

PS: I AM NO LONGER TAKING PROMPTS.

***

Alex looked through the Wild Pony’s windows. He hated going in there.

He loved Maria, but he hated going in there. There were always drunk men who believed the too many rumors going around about Alex in town, who thought that if they stood close enough, if they grabbed him hard enough, he would do whatever they wanted. It always made Alex sick.

He fell against the wall and sighed, playing with the silver skull and crossbones ring on his finger. Maybe Michael wasn’t here. Maybe Alex was just worrying for nothing. Michael had told him, after all, that things were going to get better again, that there was no reason to be afraid anymore. Alex tapped his finger against his leg and tried not to think of how similar those words had been to his brothers’, assuring him, time and time again, every assurance a lie or empty gesture.

Alex thought then, not for the first time, of his family’s promise that once he enlisted, once he followed the Manes Men Legacy, it would all be easier. He could rise in his ranks like his brothers, he could lead his own unit, he could – as Gregory had so gently put it – stop losing for once in his life and actually win a battle.

Alex shook the thought from his head. Why was it coming to bother him now? He’d told his father he could stick that enlistment form up his ass, and had been beaten for it. He wasn’t going to back down now, was he? Not when he had Michael –

CRASH!

Alex whipped around, keeping a distance from the windows. His hands turned to fists at his sides. Okay, he thought. He would just have a quick look inside, and if he couldn’t spot Michael, he would turn and leave. He didn’t have to stay for longer than a minute.

“Come on, Alex,” he muttered. “Come on, move.”

With legs like lead, Alex forced himself forward. He opened the door to the bar, and stepped into the sound of country music playing from a jukebox in the background, and all of Roswell’s finest laughing and chatting with one another. In the corner, behind a billiards table, stood a man nearly three times as large as Alex, towering over the man in front of him.

Alex saw the man’s veins on his neck pulsing rapidly, his eyes bloodshot and angry, like there was nothing he would’ve liked more than to kill the person in front of him and be rid of him once and for all. Alex swallowed and took a step back.

Michael wasn’t here, there wasn’t a reason for Alex to –

“IS THAT ALL YOU’VE GOT?!”

Alex froze. No. The beaten man in front of the large angry one, Alex too late realized, was his man. Through the blood streaming from his nose and coating his entire lower face, Michael grinned wickedly.

“Thought you’d be some kind of challenge.”

“No,” Alex breathed, but the large angry man didn’t seem to hear him as he screamed and threw another punch at Michael who managed to dodge it and take a swing at the guy’s gut. He bellowed out in pain and backhanded Michael, throwing him against the wall where he crumpled to the floor.

“NO!” Alex ran ahead, and stood between Michael and the large man.

He looked drunk, Alex could smell the whiskey on him, just as he could smell the tequila on Michael. The stranger barely seemed to notice Alex’s presence as he took another step towards Michael.

“S-stop!” Alex yelled, his body trembling. What was he doing? He hardly ever managed to stand up to his own father, let alone a stranger that looked like he could eat Alex if he wanted to. “Please, he’s drunk, he – he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He – he’s only seventeen!”

The man growled, but for a second, he blinked and seemed to realize that Alex was afraid and begging him not to hurt someone he cared about. He took one step back, and just as relief started to sink in Alex’s heart, he felt Michael grab hold of his shoulder and hoist himself up.

“Alex is right, I didn’t know what I was doing,” Michael said quietly and Alex, not knowing why, felt his chest fill with dread.

“Guerin –”

Michael huffed a chuckle. “I should’ve kicked you between your legs.”

The man’s eyes widened. “You little –” He reached out for Michael who was already aiming to throw a punch, and Alex turned and held onto his waist, pushing him back.

“Stop it, Guerin!”

“Don’t worry, Alex, it’ll be fine,” Michael grinned, his wild eyes on the stranger, the anger coursing through every inch of his expression too familiar, and Alex just barely refrained from running away. “I can take this guy.”

Alex pulled Michael aside as the stranger took a hit and ended up stumbling into the wall instead where his also very drunk friends laughed at him for having fallen. Alex turned to Michael, taking his face in his hands. He held back a sob. Michael was bleeding so much, he had bruises along his cheeks. Alex’s fingers shook against Michael’s jaw.

“Please, let’s just go, okay?” he whispered, trying to keep Michael’s attention on him. Could he even see Alex anymore? “Let’s just go, and – and I’ll clean you up. Guerin, Guerin,” he tried as Michael kept looking to the side like he was itching for another fight. “I’m scared,” he confessed and Michael’s eyes turned to him. “I’m scared here, okay? Please let’s go, please. Please.”

“Alex…” Michael croaked. “Alex, don’t… hey, it’s okay, don’t –”

Alex wanted cry. This was his Michael, wasn’t it? Maybe this time wasn’t like the others, maybe Michael wasn’t anything like Alex’s brothers or his father, maybe they would be okay –

“Freak,” the large man spat, his angry, unfocused eyes on Michael.

He stood, and Michael’s eyes turned wild and unfocused again. Alex turned to Michael, the words, “Please, don’t,” barely leaving his lips before Michael tried stepping out of his hold, swinging his fists, daring the man to “SAY THAT AGAIN!”

“Guerin, please, please, just stop –”

But Alex’s words were cut short as Michael’s right fist caught him in the mouth. In his surprise, Alex fell back. He was vaguely aware of what followed. Michael’s shocked eyes, Michael calling his name, Michael kneeling at his side, reaching for him, asking Alex to let him see how bad it was.

Alex felt the pain spread from his lip to his jaw. He reached up and numbly pulled his fingers back to see them coated in blood. Michael had hit him. Michael had hit him.

Too late, he saw Michael’s hands reaching for him. He flinched away. He couldn’t take the shock on Michael’s face, the fear, the panic setting in at what he’d done. Alex covered his mouth was his hand and stood. As Michael called for him, he ran out of the bar.

“Alex, Alex!” Michael grabbed his arm when they were outside, the cool air hitting Alex’s lips and making the bruise sting painfully. His eyes burned.

Michael released him when he seemed to realize Alex wouldn’t run off. “I,” he tried, his eyes glistening as he looked Alex over as if making sure he hadn’t done any more damage. But he didn’t understand. The damage was already done.

“I didn’t mean to –”

“I know,” Alex said quietly.

“I’m – I’m sorry, Alex, I’m so sorry –”

“It’s okay, really.”

“It’s not, I shouldn’t have, I – I was just mad, I –” he took Alex’s hand tightly in his as if terrified Alex would snatch it away. He kissed Alex’s fingers, his blood covering Alex’s skin. No more, Alex thought. Not Michael’s blood. I can’t take anymore of Michael’s blood.

“It’ll never happen again,” he promised.

Alex searched Michael’s face. Stop losing for once in your life, and actually win a battle! He felt so numb. This would be it, he decided. His last loss.

“It’ll never happen again,” Alex whispered. Michael nodded, holding Alex’s hand tighter. Michael was hurting him. Did his hold on Alex always hurt this much?

“Unless I get in the way again,” Alex finished, and Michael froze. He slowly looked up at Alex, his brows furrowed.

“W-what?”

“Unless I piss you off? Unless you feel like fighting? Unless I do something wrong? Say the wrong thing?”

“Alex –”

Alex stepped back. “I’m tired of hearing about all the ways people won’t hurt me. Fake promises, and I’ve heard them all, Guerin.”

Michael looked like Alex had slapped him. “I’m not… I’m not like that, you know I’m not!”

Alex huffed a sob. His jaw hurt so much, and it was freezing out. He didn’t know what he believed. He was just a kid, damn it, he didn’t know why everyone was deciding what he should and shouldn’t know for him. “I begged you to leave. Why didn’t you just listen to me?”

“Alex –”

“Let go,” he said. “Let me go, Michael.”

And just like that, without any fight or resistance or hesitation at all, Michael’s features cooled, and Alex’s hand slipped from his. Alex supposed he should’ve been surprised, and a small part of him was, but most of him couldn’t be. He was always worth the beating, he thought, but never worth the fight.

As he turned away, holding a hand over his mouth to keep the wind from nipping at it, he thought it was fine. He would become stronger, one way or another. No one would ever lay a finger on him again.

#alex manes #michael guerin #malex #malex one shot #malex fanfic #malex fic #malex fanfiction #roswell new mexico #roswell nm #malex angst #malex fluff #tyler blackburn #michael vlamis #tw mentions of abuse #tw graphic violence

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thanks--for--listening · 3 years

Text

collision moments

hello ppl im back with another FMAB fic this time featuring my best girls, Olivier and Izumi. there’s a chance i do another fic in this series but tbh i’ve struggled with it so who can say whether it’ll happen or not lol. (also on ao3)

Olivier Armstrong prided herself on her refusal to give in to fear.

It wasn’t that she was fearless. To never be afraid would take away the core of her humanity — even the Humunculi, it had been reported, seemed to hold some level of fear, if for nothing more than their own death. Unlike what she let so many men believe, she wasn’t void of the feeling: she simply knew how to handle it. She’d spent a lifetime refusing to allow it to transform into cowardice, to let it debilitate her. Survival depended on the ability to compartmentalize, to fight off paralysis long enough to eliminate the threat. In battle, she would never waver. She would never allow someone to see through her, to let her own feelings fan another’s spark of hesitation into a flame of weakness. She’d stand in front of them like the very wall they compared her to: unwavering and unbreakable.

But compartmentalizing was only effective if there was some form of relief. So it was in the cover of night, when no one was there to follow her lead, that the cracks began to show.

Tonight, she saw the beast. In her dreams it stood in front of her exactly as it had that morning, it’s eyes lifeless and it’s skin impenetrable. She’d beaten it before, but the variables had changed. Central City was too warm, too populated, its men unaccustomed to the survival instincts those at Briggs relied on. And there was Alex, fighting alongside her, and for all her complaints and her irritation, she couldn’t stop her heart from skipping beats with every blow he took. Especially when he took them for her.

She watched her brother defeat it time after time, only for sparks to sew its artificial limbs back together. She could feel the blood dripping down her face, blurring her vision and painting the room red. The pain in her arm screamed, and it took more energy than she’d care to admit to ignore it. Alex held his own scars, blood decorating his face as well, and as it began to charge, a part of her thought that, at the very least, their deaths would be honorable.

A fist of stone punched through the wall, through her thoughts of honor and sacrifice, and for a moment the end didn’t feel imminent anymore. The woman fought with grit, cracked a smile at the sight of the beast before them. As she pieced together her identity, she thought perhaps she was looking at the reason those brothers had lasted as long as they did, the reason they’d managed to hold their own alongside her men. The survivor mentality surrounded her, shined like the glow of the colors they sometimes saw in the northern sky, just defined enough to know it wasn’t a trick of the light.

In an instant, they were on the stairs. Olivier silently begged her mind to wake up, to leave before it happened again, because there was one moment that scared her beyond belief, more so than the monsters and the soldiers without souls, more so than dying alongside her brother in the heat of the city.

Her brain refused to give her the relief of avoidance. Perhaps this was the cost, the price she’d have to pay for holding herself together when it happened. The eye appeared out of nowhere, opened up as if it was emerging from inside the earth. Izumi screamed as the hands pulled her apart, piece by piece, until there was nothing left. In dreams she often saw reality in brutal slow motion, every misstep spotlighted so bright she couldn’t ignore it, but not tonight. Tonight, it blinked and took her as fast as it had in real time.

The only way she could think to describe it was forbidden; no human should be able to witness what she saw and walk away with a sound mind. Olivier couldn’t tell if it swallowed her whole or simply snapped her out of existence. Worse than the sight of it was the feeling, Izumi’s hand in her own turning into nothing but air. Despite her strength and her unfailing grip, when it mattered most, she wasn’t strong enough to hold on.

In the safety of her subconscious, she allowed herself to give in to the terror she’d buried. It pressed down on her chest like a weight she wasn’t strong enough to lift. Tears fell from her eyes and she let them, just this once, because she truly thought they’d all meet their ends, losing to something she couldn’t even begin to comprehend. And she couldn’t shake the feeling that if she'd held her a little tighter, if she hadn’t needed help in the first place, it could have all been avoided. She wouldn’t have had to listen to the desperation in Sig’s voice, to watch as he searched for someone that may no longer exist. The blame sat heavy on her shoulders, and she let it suffocate her.

Olivier woke with a gasp. The first thing she noticed when she opened her eyes was the lights. The brightness rivaled the sun’s reflection on the snow, a sight that could cost a man their life in the North. She shut her eyes again, a groan slipping out before she could stop it.

“It’s about time you woke up.” Olivier felt the lights dim around her. She hesitantly opened her eyes again, turned her head and found Izumi sitting in a chair, mindlessly turning the pages of the book in her hands.

A hundred questions sat on her lips, but she settled for the important one: “How long was I out?”

Izumi shrugged. “About a day, give or take.”

That couldn’t be right. She glanced out the window, saw the afternoon sun hanging in the sky, and it was exactly as she remembered but...but she hadn’t been inside. She’d been brought up from under the ground, she’d seen the youngest Elric brother stand in his own skin, and then...and then…

She tried to sit up, but her body screeched at the first hint of movement. Every bone throbbed, every muscle ached. Injury and pain had never been a stranger, but this rivalved her worst moments. Holding her breath, she gingerly settled back down.

“You’ll want to take it easy,” Izumi told her. “Doctor said you took quite a nasty blow to the head. He wasn’t sure how you’d survived it, let alone the damage to the rest of you.”

Olivier scoffed. “Then he’s an idiot. It’ll take more than some falling stones and a beast as idiotic as that one to kill me.”

“Yes,” she said with a grin. “From what I’ve seen, I don’t doubt it.”

She turned her attention back toward the window. Her brain tried its best to think back to the fight, to the aftermath, but even trying to think made the pain so agonizing she was forced to shut her eyes again. Damn Bradley, and damn his fucking monsters with their sorry excuse for a life and their outright refusal to die.

“How—“ she asked in between labored breaths, “how did I get here?”

Izumi hesitated. “How much do you remember?”

Normally, she’d refuse to give up anything that could be used against her, especially to someone outside of Briggs. She was vulnerable here, confined to her bed, body broken and bruised and memory ridden with holes. Logic said to keep her mouth shut, but there was something about her. She may not have been one of her soldiers, but her gut told her that Izumi Curtis was someone she could trust. And her gut was never wrong.

“I know about Alphonse. You carried us up to the surface just in time to see him stand. After that, there’s nothing.”

Izumi nodded. “At first, everybody celebrated. It was calm, even after everything that had happened. Al getting his body back...well, it was about as clear a victory as any.”

Olivier watched the way she smiled at the thought, the way her eyes held unshed tears. Truthfully, the boy getting his body back hadn’t been at the forefront of her concerns, but she’d hoped for their sake they’d accomplish it. And hearing her talk about it, about both of the Elric brothers, it became increasingly clear that despite her intensity and her ruthlessness, Izumi cared deeply for the two of them.

“What happened next?”

Izumi laughed. “You happened next. You walked up and demanded someone take Al to a hospital, before his weakened body gave out on him.”

Oh. Well, she wasn’t wrong. The boy had been nothing but skin and bones, the textbook image of malnourished. She would bet that Edward might not have appreciated her interruption, but he’d come to understand her later.

“And did they? Take him to the hospital?”

“Your brother did. Lifted him up and carried him there himself.”

“I assume he cried the whole time?”

“Like an infant.”

Olivier groaned. “My brother’s soft heart and hysterics will be the end of him one of these days.”

“You should have seen him in here earlier, blubbering over you.” She scoffed. “Men and their emotions. They just don’t know how to control themselves.”

She hummed in agreement. “It’s a disease if you ask me.”

Izumi nodded, before adding, “Although, perhaps it was better that he left when he did.”

“And why is that?”

“Once he carried Alphonse off the battleground, you began commanding all the people who were left. You coordinated trucks to take the injured to the hospital, communicated with the soldiers still out in the streets. It was impressive, until you gave your last order and promptly collapsed.”

If her arm hadn’t been bound to her chest, she would have curled both fists in frustration. A leader never showed weakness like that, not even after the battle came to an end. Her reputation would need patching, of that she was certain.

If she noticed her embarrassment, Izumi didn’t comment on it; instead, she shrugged and said, “It could have been worse. Most of the soldiers had already dispersed. Plus, you didn’t hit the ground. Not sure your body could have taken another blow like that.”

Maybe it was the head injury, but she couldn’t fully comprehend the words she was hearing. “How is that possible? That I fell but never reached the ground?”

“Simple. I caught you.”

As if her humiliation couldn’t get any worse. The thought of being caught like an overwhelmed maiden made her want to take her sword and plunge it through her body herself, but instead she sighed and said, “I suppose I owe you an extra bit of gratitude, then.”

“Nonsense. I’m a housewife — I’m meant to take care of others.”

“You’re much more than that. The way you fought that beast was as impressive as any warrior I’ve seen.”

Izumi smiled. “I must admit, it felt nice to fight something that presented a challenge. And I’d been itching to let my alchemy loose ever since Hoenheim healed my ailment.” She laughed to herself as she said, “Vomiting blood would not have been an impressive conclusion to a battle like that.”

Olivier raised her eyebrow. “Vomiting blood?”

“A consequence of my visit through the portal. Physical exertion like that used to leave me bedridden for days.”

She wasn’t sure how to respond. The image of Izumi confined to a bed was almost as unimaginable as the one of her desperate enough to attempt human transmutation in the first place. She’d chalked up the Elric brother’s mistake to childhood idiocracy and arrogance, but she couldn’t fathom what would lead a woman like Izumi to do the same.

“You’re wondering who it was,” Izumi said, her tone attempting neutrality and almost succeeding. “You’re wondering who I tried to bring back.”

“I understand if you want to keep that information to yourself. You don’t owe me any kind of explanation.”

“No, but I think I’ll give you one anyway.”

The answer surprised her. “Why?”

“Because I’ve spent years forced to pretend it never happened. The attempt alone is enough to get me arrested, or worse. But ever since Ed and Al came back, ever since they figured it out...I’m not sure why, but it felt nice. Talking about it. Not trying to hide from it. I’d like to continue to do that, if I can.”

Had she been in a different place, a different time, she may have left it at that. Instead, her thoughts slipped through her mind’s weakened blockade, materialized right in front of her. “I know this topic is...delicate. For all his flaws, my brother is the one who knows how to provide comfort. If you’re looking for sensitivity, you won’t find it here.”

The words felt like a confession. She’d always been this way, cold and callous and short-tempered when it came to matters of the heart. It wasn’t that she couldn’t sympathize with anyone (although, in all honesty, she found many of the so-called problems people claimed to have were weak excuses for pain, and didn’t deserve her sympathy in the first place), but she had never known how to express the feelings properly. Her and her brother could be pinpointed on opposite sides of a spectrum, and while she’d choose her position over his a thousand times over, she could still admit that, outside of the battlefield and the barracks, her lack of emotional expression could be perceived as a shortcoming.

“I’m not looking for someone to cry for me,” Izumi told her. “I’ve spent enough years crying for myself.”

“I don’t mean to be rude. But I don’t know what it is I have to offer you.”

“How about a captive audience?” She said the words with a smile, and despite the fact that Olivier could hear the lie in her voice, she decided not to call her out on it.

Izumi put her book down beside her, but she let her gaze drop, spoke to her lap instead of her face. “Ever since I was a girl, I’d longed for motherhood. Most people never expected it of me. Those who knew me wouldn’t have described me as the nurturing type, and they wouldn’t have been wrong to do so. I spent so many years wanting. It made me angry, how much I desired, how much I had to fight for every piece of it. The ability to make decisions for myself. Independence and strength. An education. I wanted it all, and I wanted a child of my own. A legacy.

“When I got pregnant,” she continued, “I thought I would finally get to stop fighting. Sig and I, we’d spent so much time trying. I’ve heard some describe motherhood as a gift or a miracle, but to me, it felt like a victory. A battle I’d finally won.” Her tone softened when she said, “I made the mistake so many do when their mind is clouded with arrogance. I celebrated too early.”

A part of her didn’t want to hear what came next. Listening to this story was like witnessing a car crash and knowing you didn’t have the time to avoid the collision. There were only two options: watch it happen, or close your eyes. Either way, the end was inevitable. The only difference would be whether to spare yourself the added pain, to become blind to the indisputable evidence laid out in front of you.

Weaker men often chose to hide. In the collision moments, plenty of strong men did, too. But she’d never been the type to look away when faced with the incoming hurt; she wasn’t going to start now. So she said nothing, showed nothing. She simply waited for Izumi to find her way to the conclusion.

After a moment of hesitation, she did. “Our baby never cried. Never made so much as a sound.”

Every puzzle piece clicking into place only made her regret asking. When the Elric brothers told her about their mother, they’d done so mostly out of necessity. It was all connected — their action, their bodies, their shared enemy. It pained them, obviously, but she hadn’t realized how much of that pain had been clouded by the looming danger. They’d told her, but not like this. Nothing like this.

Izumi stared right through her, like she wasn’t even there. “Silence had never felt so sharp. So present. It was like it was making fun of me, drowning out all my claims of strength by reminding me just how little I could control. Even now, in the quiet, I still hear it. The mockery. It drove me to lengths I never thought I’d go, carried me past lines I never thought I’d cross.” She tried to laugh, but it never stood a chance. Nothing about this was funny. “You can fill in the blanks of what happened next.”

Olivier waited for more; when it became clear there was none, she began searching for words of her own. She wondered, for a moment, whether now would be the time to channel Alex, to speak the way he might. But his words would sound fake coming from her. Even if they were the right ones.

In the end, she settled for sincerity. “Boy or girl?”

Izumi blinked, and Olivier watched as her eyes refocused. She could hear the joy hidden in her response. It was buried underneath the hurt, just barely poking through the rubble, but it was still there when she smiled and said, “Girl.”

She nodded. There wasn’t much else to do. “I’m sorry.”

“As am I.”

Silence slipped back in. Olivier thought about her words, about the noiselessness. She’d never been one to relax in the quiet. Any good soldier knew that the most dangerous of enemies hardly made a sound, but right now it felt almost tangible. The weight of it grew with every passing second. Loss was heavier than any object she’d come across, and while she was no stranger to it herself, this pain Izumi described felt harsher than any she’d ever experienced.

As the seconds passed, she felt a restlessness unrelated to her physical incapacitation. Uncertainty crept up on her, and in its presence she found her thoughts from yesterday’s battle, the observations that now felt increasingly relevant.

“Well,” she told her, “If it’s a legacy you want, I’d argue you’ve already got one.”

“What do you mean?”

“You taught the Elric brothers. Their success is your success. And right now, they have a significant share of it.”

Izumi shook her head. “It’s not the same.”

“I know. But it’s close, is it not?” Izumi hesitated, before nodding. Olivier shrugged and said, “Maybe one day close will be enough.”

She spoke with more confidence than she felt. An old habit from childhood, when she’d learned that faith in oneself could be manufactured, that pretending to have it could make it appear. She may not have her brother’s alchemic strength, but in her mind she’d discovered her own kind of magic, one that had yet to let her down.

“You know,” Izumi said after a moment. “I don’t think you were honest with me earlier.”

Olivier frowned at the accusation. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“You told me I wouldn’t find comfort here, when in fact, I think you may have told me everything I needed to hear.”

She had to bite back the smile that threatened to make an appearance. “If you ever tire of the warmth, I could use someone like you up North.” Olivier knew the suggestion was nothing more than a courtesy, but she meant it. A spirit like Izumi’s was hard to teach — often, it had to be found. And she’d never found anyone quite like her.

“I appreciate the offer, but my life is here. I’m not ready to give that up just yet. Although,” she said with a grin that could only be described as mischievous, “I won’t lie and say I didn’t enjoy fighting alongside you and your brother.”

She couldn’t help but match her expression. “You should see me fight up North.”

“A spectacular sight, I’m sure. Though I don’t think you’ll be fighting any battles in the near future.”

“I wouldn’t rule the possibility out just yet. Reconstruction is no simple task, and there’s a lot of idiots still hanging around in the military. And that’s not including the ones on our side.”

She groaned at the prospect, at her own reminder of what frustrations lay ahead. Just the thought of having to work alongside Mustang during this incoming period of transition was enough to bring her headache back.

Izumi laughed. “I don’t envy you and your companions for the job ahead of you. The complexities of bureaucracy were never of much interest to me.”

“A necessary evil, I suppose, albeit an annoying one. Governing would be so much simpler if we disregarded the absurd level of formality and politeness demanded by those in charge.”

“The perk of teaching the Elrics on my own — I never had to adhere to such ridiculous standards.”

Izumi looked so much calmer, so much happier, that Olivier almost didn’t ask. But curiosity and boredom formed a crossroad with opportunity, and holding her tongue proved to be much more difficult than she’d expected. “Will you continue teaching?” She asked. “Now that your ailment is healed, that is.”

She hesitated, and for a moment Olivier longed to take back the question. “Maybe,” she finally said. “The future isn’t as clear as it once was.”

“I suppose that’s the beauty of it.”

“Yes,” Izumi said. “I suppose it is.”

Unconsciousness tugged at her brain. Olivier tried her best to resist it. There was work to be done, after all. Their revolution didn’t have the luxury of idle time — there was a country to rebuild, and she would be crucial to its second life. Yet, lying there, conversation dwindling back into the comfort of silence, she found it hard to stay awake. The weight on her eyes wasn’t just from the pain, or the medication, or the head injury; she found herself at ease here. It was a feeling she often avoided in the North, and one she certainly hadn’t known in Central City for quite some time.

Izumi noticed, which didn’t surprise her. “I should let you rest. When you wake again, I suspect responsibilities will be waiting for you.”

“Before you go,” she said, “I wanted to thank you. You saved my life, and my brother’s. That’s not an act I take lightly. I owe you a debt I may never be able to repay.”

She smiled, but this time it was softer, lacking the bite and mischief of the one she’d worn earlier. “Fix this country, and we’ll call it even.”

Olivier couldn’t hide a groan as she put her remaining energy into lifting her free arm, extending her hand out as best she could.

Izumi looked at it, before laughing. “Guess even you aren’t immune to the military’s ridiculous formalities. Is a vow in words not enough? We need to shake on it?”

“It’s—“ she held her breath, gave herself two seconds to let the pain subside, before continuing, “—not about the military.”

Recognition came over the other woman quickly. Olivier wondered how she remembered the moment, her own disappearance. How it might have felt. Part of her longed to ask about it, but so much had been given to her today — it felt insensitive to want more. Not to mention it wasn’t answers she needed: it was confirmation. Indisputable proof of her own that, despite her own failure, she’d truly come back.

Izumi didn’t take her hand; instead, she kept her eyes on it, like it might disappear if she looked away. “I hope you know there was nothing you could have done to prevent that.”

“Had we not needed your help, then—“

“Then I would have been taken somewhere else, and my husband would have been left stranded on the street instead of in your company. Trust me when I say that sticking with you was the best thing we could have done.”

Olivier closed her eyes. The pain still lingered, her outstretched hand dropping slightly with each passing second. She wasn’t one to dwell often, and the logical part of her understood that few people could stand up to alchemy as advanced as what she saw yesterday. But none of that changed what she knew to be true.

She opened her eyes, waited to speak until she caught Izumi’s gaze. “Regardless of the circumstance, you saved me. And I couldn’t save you. For that, you have my sincerest apologies.”

Izumi finally took her hand. Olivier forced her mind to pay attention, to commit this moment to memory, because she knew in the coming nights, when she saw her failures again and again, she’d need it. She’d need to remember.

A handshake could tell her more about a person than any words they might say. It spoke not only to their character, but also to their perception of her. Yesterday, Izumi’s grip had been firm, communicating mutual respect and self confidence. It was looser this time around, more delicate, but Olivier could tell the change wasn’t an insult or an indication of weakness — it was a sign of care. Thoughtfulness, the type only found in nurturers, given to her in perhaps the only way she’d accept it.

“My husband said you refused to stop searching for me.” She spoke softly, kept their hands clasped together. “I appreciate that.”

“Of course. I’m not in the business of leaving my people behind.”

The grin spread quickly, until it took over Izumi’s entire face. “I’m your people, huh?”

Olivier tried to humor her, but sincerity won in the end. She wasn’t entirely sure when it happened. During the battle, maybe, or the conversation on the stairs afterward. Maybe it didn’t happen until today, until she’d woken up and found her sitting by her side. Either way, the truth couldn’t be denied: Izumi was one of hers now. Not a soldier under her command, but a companion she knew she could trust. And that meant there was nothing she wouldn’t do to keep her safe.

“Yes,” she told her. “You are.”

“Do I get a say in this grouping?”

Olivier raised an eyebrow at her. “Would you object to it if you did?”

The standoff only lasted a few seconds before Izumi burst out into laughter, finally breaking their handshake to wrap her arms around her sides. She tried not to focus on how deeply she felt her absence, how cold her palm became without Izumi’s hand to keep it company.

“No,” she said lightly. “No objections here. Although if I’m really part of your group now, I wouldn’t mind a chance to test out that sword of yours.”

Her eyes narrowed, and she fought a grin of her own. “Don’t push it.”

Izumi just kept laughing. She wasn’t prepared to like the sound so much, to feel it echoing in her chest. To feel the desire to join her. A sound like that, after the battle they just had, wasn’t so easily conjured. It took strength to find joy after trauma, to stare death in the eye and laugh, not at it but in spite of it. And for someone like Izumi, with so much heartbreak and hurt in her history, to stand here and revel in it? It was impressive, as much as any display of alchemy or strength in battle. Olivier just stared and tried to resist a smile of her own. Each minute with her revealed a new layer, and she could hardly fight the urge to uncover her completely.

“I’m just saying,” Izumi said, “how else am I supposed to fight off all the military assholes who’ll try to wake you up with their paperwork and other useless bullshit?”

“I think you’d manage just fine without it.” Five seconds passed between them before the rest of her sentence clicked. “What would you still be doing here, anyway?”

Izumi scoffed. “I’m not just gonna leave you by yourself.”

“But I’ll be asleep.”

“Yes. And I’ll be here. Doing exactly what I was doing before you woke up earlier today.”

She should have left it alone, but whatever shame she’d had disappeared the moment she’d heard about the fainting incident, so there really was no point in trying to resist curiosity anymore. “Why?”

“Don’t tell me you’ve never stayed in someone’s hospital room before. As a general, I imagine it’s something you’re quite familiar with.”

“No, it’s not that — why me?”

Izumi stared at her, wearing an expression that managed to combine amusement with confusion. “You really don’t get it, do you? If I’m your people, then you’re mine. And I don’t leave my people alone when they’re hurt. Conscious or otherwise.”

She didn’t know how to explain it. The way it made her feel. Like the sun was shining from inside her, spreading its light through her veins until warmth was the only thing her body knew. She wasn’t one for humility, but she genuinely wondered what she’d done to deserve it, this kindness that felt entirely unearned. Whatever the reason, she decided then and there that she’d fight to hold onto it, no matter the cost.

“Very well.” The words came out softer than she intended. She forced herself to swallow the emotion back before she added, “But don’t avoid seeing the Elrics on my account. I imagine they’ll need you more than I will.”

Izumi waved her off. “Al will be in here for quite a while, I imagine. And Ed — well, I suspect he’ll be desperate for some time alone with his brother. The last thing they’ll want is my hovering.”

“You don’t hover,” she said without meaning to.

Izumi just smiled. She did that a lot, she’d noticed, and Olivier didn’t know how each one managed to convey something different. Amusement, joy, borderline impertinence, all finding their way into what should have been a simple expression. Maybe it was Izumi’s own kind of magic. Maybe they shared more than she thought.

“You know,” she said, “it’s okay to put yourself first once and a while.”

“Maybe next time,” Olivier lied.

Izumi shook her head as she looked back at the book in her lap. Part of her wanted to grab her attention again, to keep whatever this was going, but her eyes grew heavy again with sleep, and she could only hold it off for so long. She caved as she finally closed them. Silence slipped back in, broken only by the slight hum from the turning of pages.

Sleep, the restful kind, had evaded her for the past few months. Even before this war and its revelations, it had always been a luxury she couldn’t afford, a risk she refused to take. But now, accompanied by the quiet presence of the woman sitting next to her, it knocked at her door. And for the first time in as long as she could remember, she let it in, without fear or hesitation.

#we were robbed of more scenes of these two ill say it #fmab #full metal alchemist #full metal alchemis brotherhood #olivier armstrong #izumi curtis #idk if they have a ship name but they deserve one #(even tho idk if this fic counts as them as a ship or not oops)#olivier armstrong x izumi curtis #ao3 #TFLAO3 #fanfic #fanfiction #also pls do not hesitate to tell me what you think i love comments on my fics lol

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chasingshhadows · 5 years

Text

on malex - 1.09

I’ve been working on my finale meta and I keep coming back to the 1.09 Malex scene because I think so much of where Michael and Alex crash land stems from this conversation. So I’m putting fingers to keyboard on this one now.

Alex arrives fully ready to hash things out. He has Questions and he needs Answers. He needs to verify for himself that Michael is not what his father claims him to be - needs to know he’s not a killer.

But what we see when Alex gets out of that car and approaches Michael is not a soldier ready to face a threat; what we see is a man trying to make amends and extend an olive branch. He’s got his hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunched, he starts by stuttering his way through a greeting.

He didn’t come here for a fight, he came here because sometime between seeing Michael’s face on his father’s screen and Kyle’s “if you care about him as much as it looks like you do,” Alex has accepted that this war he’s been fighting within himself is one that he lost a long time ago. He’s been trying to put distance between himself and Michael, convince himself that they can both move on from each other, but the horror he felt when seeing Michael’s file pop up, and the denial in his bones at the thought of Michael being a murderer - he’s both in too deep and barely scratched the surface.

Hell, learning from Kyle that Michael had a part to play in Rosa’s murder? Honestly? Probably a got-damn relief for Alex. It might be the actual reason he’s finally able to seek Michael out and really talk to him. Because he’s spent a decade thinking that he was the cause of all the problems in Michael’s life and that Michael deserved to be with someone that didn’t ruin his life.

And now he’s just learned that somehow, Michael went through something even more traumatic than what happened in the shed on the same day. The dark turn in Michael’s life? It’s not Alex’s fault.

Just as he’s realizing how profound his feelings for Michael are, and how flimsy his reasons are for staying away, he’s also realizing just how little he truly knows him. So, he’s here to rectify that.

And on Michael’s side, he’s tired. He’s been rubbed raw by everything that is Alex Manes and every time they’ve crashed together, Michael is the one left smoldering in a pile of rubble.

Because every time Alex blows into Michael’s life, he leaves Michael in pieces. Every time Michael gets his hopes up, Alex walks away. Not even two full days before this scene, Alex made it absolutely clear that they were over. And we all saw what that did to Michael.

He’s still trying to stitch together the open wounds from where he ripped himself apart for this man, and now here he is again, to take more?

The thing is, Michael believed Alex the other day. He took what Alex said to heart, let it settle in his bones. And it made sense to him, right? Because Michael has a hard enough time believing his own siblings love him, so when Alex, who clearly deserves so much better than Michael and is already prone to walking away, tells him he’s not coming back this time? Of course Michael believed it.

He’s listening to this entire conversation with those goggles on, filtering everything Alex says through that mindset.

And Alex - Alex is not good with words, he’s not adept at talking about his feelings and the things he wants. Especially when what he wants is Michael - they were both punished, brutally, for wanting each other and that kind of severe negative conditioning does not fade easily.

So he’s still gathering himself, stuttering through false starts when Michael finds the necklace, and it stalls Alex out completely when he understands what that means.

Michael and Maria slept together and that hurts. Because he came here to fix things. Because he’s been pushing Michael away and now it looks like he might have finally pushed too far. Because he doesn’t want Michael to move on. Because it was Maria.

And Alex is not good with words, with talking about his feelings. So his immediate instinct is to flee - throw up a flimsy explanation and get out of there as fast as he can so he can process. So he can think. He went in blind and unprepared and it bit him in the ass like he knew it would, and now he needs to recoup and come up with a new strategy.

It’s exactly what Michael expects. For Alex to show up, twist Michael up in a knot, and walk away.

See here, when Alex says there’s a rattle in his car?

The focus is on Alex, but look at Michael here. See him nodding? That’s, “Yeah, sounds about right.” We don’t see his face but I can assure you he’s doing one of his patented painted-on smiles.

And then Alex backs up, turns away.

That moment when Alex starts to leave, you see him stop. You can literally hear the thoughts running through his head. “Here I am, walking away again. Just like Michael said, just like I always do.” It’s like he hears the grate of his boots on the gravel and the sound makes him cringe.

He hears Michael’s little huff of hurt laughter and that’s the moment his shoulders drop. It was the little push he needed to fight against his instincts to shield and protect himself from just how thoroughly Michael Guerin gets under his skin. Because he hurt Michael and he literally came here to do the opposite.

He’s not saying “no” to Michael, he’s saying that to himself. To the demons in his mind, to all the voices in his head telling him to run, that he can’t have this.

Alex is tired, too. He is tired of letting his insecurities, his trauma, his fears rule his actions. He’s tired of walking away from something he wants, of always finding an excuse. He’s tired of seeing that look of disappointment and pain on Michael’s face and feeling helpless to alleviate it.

“I’m tired of not saying what I want to say.”

And Michael’s sure he knows exactly what that is. That they can’t work. That Michael’s lifestyle and habits are inexcusable. That it’s Michael’s fault that they can’t be together. He’s ready for that speech, his entire being, words and body language, are basically a neon sign of “hit me, let’s get this over with.”

This parallels really closely with the museum scene in 1.06 when Michael was the one that wanted to talk, when Alex was the one expecting the rejection, when Alex’s, “Ok, talk” was his way of saying the same thing.

And Alex finally, finally, finds his words.

Ooooof. When Alex Manes has something to say, he does not pull punches, holy shit. This is Alex at his most pure: blunt, unapologetic, and full of heart. If you could boil Alex down to a single moment, this would absolutely rank in the top 10.

And it makes Michael freeze. He stops short, totally caught off guard and terrified. Because he still thinks he knows where this conversation is going, still believes that Alex isn’t coming back to him this time. And he’s wanted to hear those words from Alex (albeit in a present tense) for a decade, but now he’s hearing them when he thinks Alex is saying goodbye and he’s not sure he’ll survive living with them without him.

Which only intensifies when Alex says “And I think that you loved me. For a long time.” Which is harder for Alex to say than “I loved you.” Because admitting his own feelings is one (terrifying) thing, but here he is declaring that Michael loved him. Alex doesn’t see himself as worthy of that love, but he wants it more than he’s ever wanted anything in his life. So saying this, speaking it, giving it voice is inviting it to be challenged.

If they never say how they feel, they never have to limit it, to define it, to put boundaries on it. Alex can believe that Michael loves him without worry that Michael will rip that reality from him.

So when Alex says this, his voice starts to crack at the end.

But Michael doesn’t challenge it, because it’s absolutely true. And Michael here - he looks like that feeling - the one where it feels like there’s this heavy hollow just sitting on your sternum.

He feels like Alex is throwing this in his face - because remember his goggles. He doesn’t realize that the “for a long time” also applied to Alex.

He thinks Alex is saying “I loved you 10 years ago. And you kept loving me after I moved on.”

So his answer is just gutted.

It’s also defensive. It’s “yeah, what of it?”

And Alex continues, trying to understand. He’s trying to make sense of this, of them.

So there’s this thing this show does that they pull off incredibly well and it’s miscommunication. This show thrives on the disconnect between what someone means and what the other hears. And we see this a lot with Michael and Alex generally, but never more so than this conversation.

Michael and Alex are having two entirely different conversations here.

Alex says “But we didn’t even know each other that well.” And what he means is “how can I love someone so much when I know nothing about his life?”

He is trying so hard to understand, he’s yearning for some kind of explanation.

And what Michael hears is Alex listing reasons why they can’t be together, why they don’t work.

I mean look at his face here, he looks just absolutely resigned. This is a man who is standing here, and taking it, and waiting for it to be over. He can’t argue because Alex isn’t wrong.

And Alex is still fumbling, still scrambling for answers, trying to apply logic to something as intangible as love. And as he stumbles, Michael catches him.

Nothing will ever be said about this line as well as @nielrian‘s post. And while Alex may not fully comprehend the depth of Michael’s meaning with that word, he agrees, but he’s not done.

Alex says “We didn’t even do that much talking. And I wanna talk. I wanna start over.”

Again, Alex is attempting to say one thing - that he wants to build the foundation below their floating house so that they don’t come crashing down again - while Michael is still hearing reasons against their love, why it wasn’t valid, why it won’t work. “I want to start over” in his head turns into “I want to erase the past, our history, our love.”

Then Alex says “I- I wanna, I don’t know, I wanna be friends?”

But that’s not what he means or what he wants. You can hear it in his tone, see it in the scrunch between his eyebrows, he’s saying it like a question, like he’s trying to come up for a solution to his current problem.

And that problem is that the man he loves feels like a stranger to him.

But what Michael hears is entirely different, almost polar opposite. What Michael hears from Alex is “I want to be just friends.” And that slots in perfectly with his expectations for this conversation, with what he thought he knew about what Alex had come here to say.

That’s Michael’s “Yup, of fucking course. I called it” laugh. And it’s bitter, it’s so bitter it’s practically black coffee. This is a man who knows that he and Alex will never be able to be just friends, but who also knows he won’t be able to stop himself from doing whatever Alex asks.

He’s just as pathetic for Alex as Max is for Liz, and would accept any excuse just to be around him. That laugh says he knows that what comes next is going to hurt and he’s going to let it.

Meanwhile, poor Alex is still struggling and he takes a moment to gather himself before he finally, finally, settles on what he truly came here to say.

Now, this line, from Alex’s perspective, is perfectly direct. It cuts to the heart of things, there’s no two ways to interpret this, it’s a declaration, for Alex, on par with “I never look away, not really.”

But for Michael, this line comes too late. This line comes after he’d already drawn his conclusions about this conversation, and then had them repeatedly reinforced from his own perspective.

Alex’s “I wanna be friends” sounds to him just like Liz saying that to Max, and Michael knows - and practically had this confirmed by Liz herself - that it was a manipulation tactic to learn more about the aliens. And he knows that the alien secret has been spreading.

So “I wanna know who you are, Guerin” sounds, to Michael, disingenuous, so it must mean he’s after something. It must mean he knows something, that he wants something.

And that’s how Michael makes that leap.

And so Michael decides to call Alex out - or so he thinks. He thinks he’s got it all figured out. Alex doesn’t really want to know who I am, he just wants the alien scoop. Alex’s visit that day, after rejecting him so bluntly two days ago, suddenly makes so much more sense.

He looks so sad here. So subdued, just utterly stripped and broken.

And then Alex does something I don’t think Michael expected - he answers both questions.

“Yes, I want to know all of it.”

Not gonna lie folx, I feel rather cheated that we don’t get to see Michael’s reaction here because I bet it had one of those patented eyebrow twitches he does so well.

Because in all of this, throughout this whole interaction, Alex and Michael are having two completely different conversations, but this is the moment when they slam together. When the points converge.

Now, I don’t think either of these men realize or in any way recognize that the other was having a different conversation, nor do they change their perceptions of the conversation they were each having, but I do think they reach a point where they are accurately understanding, in just those two lines, what each other truly means.

And what Alex means is in contrast, at least somewhat, with Michael’s understanding of the conversation. Alex is saying, definitively, that he wants to get to know him, not just his secret. But hearing that does not erase the entire conversation he thinks he just had, where Alex told him all the reasons they won’t work, and said he wants to be just friends, then fished for information on aliens.

So what he takes from this is that maybe Alex meant it - that he truly does want to be friends. Maybe it wasn’t entirely a ploy to learn about alien stuff, or to push Michael away. Maybe Alex cares about Michael - as a friend.

And that sentiment, that Alex really is being genuine, is reinforced later that day. Alex asks why Michael wasn’t adopted and Michael is confused. Because he just told this epic story of spaceships crashing and weird scifi cryo chambers, and Alex basically just nods. And then when prompted to ask questions, he doesn’t ask about alien science or the pod squad’s powers - he asks about Michael specifically - his childhood, his family.

It doesn’t track, not with what he’d convinced himself Alex was after. He’s finally recognizing, in this moment, just how genuine Alex is. Alex wants to get to know him, truly wants to know who Michael Guerin is, as a person.

And this is when the conversation really takes a turn toward heavy. When finally, absolutely and entirely, these two are having the same conversation. Alex is trying to get to know Michael and Michael is opening up. Michael may not be aware of Alex’s true motives (demystifying the man he loves so they can be together), but he’s no longer doubting Alex’s intentions or reading a desire for distance between them in Alex’s questions.

But at the end of the day, when Alex leaves, Michael still absolutely and firmly believes that he and Alex are over - because that’s what Alex wants. He believes that Alex wants to be friends and he believes they’ve started down that path.

He’s walking that path knowing full well that it will destroy him, but remember:

And this is the Michael that walks away from the ruins of that prison. This is the Michael that isn’t sure why Alex showed up at his airstream. This is the Michael that walked away from Rosa’s corpse, still out of his mind with his own grief, having gotten no sleep, and trying to make sense of the chaos in his mind.

When someone does or says something that seems counter to what you thought they wanted - ie “I’m still fighting his battles, not mine” - that doesn’t override your perception. It just leaves you feeling caught up in mixed signals and struggling to find a footing. It leaves you unsure of where you stand with that person.

Michael was sure Alex said he wanted to be just friends, he heard those words. He was sure Alex listed all the reasons they can’t work as a couple. He was sure that after Michael opened up, bared his entire soul and his life’s work to Alex, that Alex still walked away.

He was wrong about what he thought Alex meant, but Alex later saying Michael is family and that he’s the battle Alex wants to fight does not provide some new clarity for Michael - it only makes him more confused.

That’s why this scene is so vital in understanding the finale and where Michael and Alex land. Alex is trying, fuck he’s trying so hard, but Michael can’t see that. He’s blinded by the past, blinded by his false perceptions, and incapable of trusting what he hopes Alex could mean.

After all - hope is a dangerous thing.

#malex #malex meta #michael guerin #alex manes #roswell new mexico #rnm meta #i just have a lot of feelings #on malex 1.09

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lilywoood · 5 years

Text

Parabellum

Author Note : I first posted it in AO3 and decided to post it here. I don't know where this fic came from, I was having a conversation about 1x13 with my best friend and next thing I know I'm writing this fic ! I also want to apologize for any mistakes as English is not my first langage but I really really wanted to try, so yep that me trying to write a RNM fic in English and hoping that some of you will like it.

Rated : T

Word count : 4053

Summary : However as he felt the impact of the bullet transpiercing his left side, as he felt his blood flowing through his skin, as he felt life slowly leaving his body, he allowed himself to pray whatever entity up there to be able to see Michael Guerin’s face one last time.

Warnings: Blood, verbal abuse, Major character temporary death

Musical Inspiration : The Great White Ocean - Antony and the Johnsons

He didn’t expect anyone to find him, he’d made sure of it, made sure to cover his location, been sure to kept his researches a secret until he broke all the codes, until he found the others and found a way to prevent a second Caulfield, made sure that the next time a confrontation was bound to happen, he’ll be alone with the monster, that why he wasn’t the least surprised to found him rummaging through his work, only a bit disappointed by the time it took him.

Because Alex was everything but a dreamer, he learned it the hard way, he knew that day would come, knew that coma couldn’t stop Jesse Manes from hunting him down until he could finally get rid of their family weak link, he’d prepared himself all his life for the final round, that’s why he felt unfazed by the other man presence, he didn’t move when Jesse rose his gun pointing it directly to his chest while spiting every insults he could.

His eyes never left the gun’s barrel, fear never came, pleading for his life didn’t cross him, he didn’t even try to negotiate with the monster. He wasn’t even paying attention to the chaos surrounding them, didn’t notice the blaring siren and the flashing red lights, because for the first time he didn’t care, for the first time he felt a tremendous sense of relief coursing through his veins…for the first time everything was quiet.

________________________

He knew Jesse well enough to notice how his lack of reaction was getting on his nerve, he realized that he was playing a dangerous game but he couldn’t bring himself to care, as if he somehow he was devoid of feelings, like emptiness replaced his heart; love, hate, pain it was all the same now, he stopped caring and feeling things the day he learned that Michael decided they weren’t cosmic anymore, the day his decided that the supernova that their feelings and respective past were was too much for him to handle, Michael wanted normal and that what Alex promised himself to give him even if it meant fighting until his dying breath for it.

-You hear a lot of stuffs when in a hospital bed, Jesse smarted, things like Guerin finally realizing how perverted and disturbed you are, he nagged.

-Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, he asserted rolling his eyes…

________________________

Something wasn’t right, he could feel it in his bones, in his guts, in his head, something was far from right and it was scaring him. When Kyle woke up this morning with a knot in his gut he knew, knew something grave was bound to happen, he couldn’t pin point what, couldn’t explain how, he just felt it, sure he wasn’t a mind reader like Isobel or a psychic like Maria and he knew damn well that they were no medium in his family, but he knew that feeling very well because every time he experienced it death was around the corner, so when Kyle Valenti woke up this morning feeling the queasiness crushing his bones he that tears were going to be shed today…

________________________

-You’re not going to fight me, Jesse asked clenching his jaws a throbbing veins forming on his temple, gun shaking in his hands, not going to tell me how you want to destroy everything that I love, he pursued.

-I already did, Alex blankly answered sight still fixed on the gun.

-You afraid son, Jesse asked choosing to ignore Alex’s answer slightly creasing his brow.

-No, he shrugged, are you, he retorted lifting his head finally meeting the monster’s stare.

________________________

His chest was aching, he felt his heart breaking even more, regret and remorse tearing it down, he needed a drink or several, he needed to leave the room, he needed fresh air because he wasn’t sure he could stay there without breaking down. There in the place of Jesse’s Manes comatose body stood nothing.

His eyes were fixed on the empty bed, his hand grasping tightly the end of it. He couldn’t believe it, he couldn’t believe that he managed to escape, that he’d been once again ahead of them, he couldn’t accept that he failed Alex, he swore to him that Jesse wouldn’t be a threat anymore, that for all the bad things that happened to him in the last few weeks at least he could comfort himself with the neutralization of his abuser. He felt drained, exhausted, depressed, he couldn’t believe it, couldn’t accept that they were losing once again.

He stood frozen in his place, going through all the events of yesterday night, trying to find when or how he could have escaped without the security or his colleagues noticing him. Defeat was quickly replaced by rage and frustration, making him throw his beeper against the nearest wall, clutching and unclenching his fists, choosing to busy his hands by running them through his hair, Kyle was lost and still processing the spectacle in front of him… He needed a drink and to make a few phone calls.

________________________

He felt painfully free, it was ironic because freedom shouldn’t feel painful when obtained, freedom was supposed to be as soft as the touch of feather, freedom was supposed to be exhilarating, attached to a feeling of happiness, it wasn’t supposed to feel wrong nor empty, and most of all freedom shouldn’t be related to a gun’s barrel.

-I want you to beg me, Jesse heated manhandling him to the far corner of the room, I want you to beg me to spare your miserable life, his lips drew back in a snarl, beg me like the coward I know you are, he raged.

-Manes don’t beg, Alex retorted calmly raising his left brow.

________________________

His eyes were fixed on the amber liquid in his hand, his glass was almost empty but it didn’t untangle the knot in his stomach no matter how many glass he drank he couldn’t forget the empty bed, he couldn’t help but worry.

He let out a long sigh before digging out a pack of cigarettes from his inside pocket, he was still wearing his doctor coat which made him laugh crisply, he struggled a bit to lite his cigarette not caring that he was still inside the Pony.

-I thought doctor weren’t supposed to smoke, he heard Guerin ask him taking the sit on his left, he shrugged taking another puff of his cigarette blatantly ignoring Maria’s glare, you lost someone, Michael wondered eying his attire.

-Kind off, Kyle chuckled dryly shaking his head before turning his eyes toward the cowboy, say, he started, when was the last time you talked with Alex, he propped, deciding to change the subject.

-We’re not on speaking term, Michael confessed creasing his brows, why, he demanded.

-Cause Jesse Manes is missing, Kyle responded crushing his cigarette on the bar.

Kyle’s word echoed in his head as he stood frozen in his stool, he stared blankly at the mirror in front of them trying his hardest to process what he learned, Jesse Manes was awake, missing and nobody had heard from Alex in the past two weeks.

-Didn’t I told you the best, Kyle chuckled dryly, it seems that there is a mole among us, he revealed shaking his head in disbelief.

-What do you mean, Michael croaked his drink long forgotten.

-Nobody but us knew about Jesse’s condition I made sure that no one would know that he was hospitalized, he seethed, he was in a medically induced coma Guerin, he trailed.

-Meaning someone woke him, Michael added understanding Kyle’s insinuations, but who, he inquired massaging his temples.

Kyle raised his glass to his lips nodding his head slightly confirming Michael’s theory, he looked at the doctor with incredulity, but when the other did nothing to allay his fears, he felt as if he’d been punched in his guts.

-This is a joke right, right? He begged feeling like choking, his shirt was starting to get too tight and his heart was beating so fast he was almost sure everyone could hear it, his palms where sweaty and his hands trampling, why would he do something as stupid as that? He chocked.

-I don’t know, Kyle responded clasping his hands over his head, I don’t know what that dumbass think he’s doing but we can’t Guerin…we can’t let him alone in a room with Jesse Manes, he concluded

________________________

He felt a bitter triumph in knowing that his fall will bring Jesses and all the people involved in project Shepherd down with him, a sort of pride in knowing that for once his sacrifice won’t be meaningless, sure it won’t save billions of life, he won’t be remembered for it, he won’t be a hero, he’d never even wanted to be one, but for the first time in ten years he felt triumphant, for the first time in ten years he was winning not just a battle but the whole war.

Alex was no dreamer but he forgot the major point while thinking at his soon to be victory, he forgot that Jesse wasn’t any opponent, he wasn’t the kind of enemy to lose without a fight, he was a soldier first and human being last, he was the kind of person to throw his whole in the battle dragging the opposition down with him even if it meant losing…

-It won’t makes him come back to you, Jesse snarled eyes darkening with satisfaction at Alex flitching, bringing me down won’t change anything, he taunted , it won’t make him stop seeing me when he looks at you, he added siting up on the near desk.

-It’s not about any of that, Alex croaked swallowing difficultly.

He was getting in his head he knew it, still that didn’t stop Alex from falling head first in his trap, didn’t stop the doubt creeping its ways through his mind, he did it…he’d manage to make him question everything even his motives…

-Come on boy, he tutted, you didn’t really thing that taking me down would undo the past, he scoffed going through some of the paper scattered on the table, it won’t make him forgive nor forget, he glanced lips twisting into a toothy grin, he sighed shaking his head, he is never going to take you back, he affirmed moving toward him, he can’t even look at you, he breathed in his ear, why would he choose you, he quizzed, you’re weak and caused him nothing but trouble, he taunted.

He felt frozen in place, Jesse’s words echoing in his mind, tormenting him, breaking him, he was well aware that he was being manipulated, that he was using his insecurities and feelings to make him bend, give up and surrender like seventeen years old Alex would have done…

Chaos was surrounding them, he could hear it now, hear the blaring sirens admonishing him to leave, he could see the red light warning him of the impending danger, his eyes fixed once again the barrel, he was well aware now that there would be no winner...

________________________

-There must be a way, Michael growled after another unsuccessful trail, people can’t vanish like that, he added passing back and forth.

He was tired and worry was eating him alive, they’d been at it all day, searching all of Alex’s usual spot, they even went as far as going to the military base outside town in vain, Alex was nowhere to be found and the knot in Michaels gut were getting bigger and bigger.

He wanted time to stop just for a moment, he wanted everything to stop, to be quiet, calm and southing, he wanted the world to pause just for a minute, a single minute that will allow the quiet to let him think, let him reflect; let him draw on their link, allowing him to find his other half, allowing him to reassure his tired mind and broken heart that everything was ok, and if it wasn’t he only wished to be there on time.

-Alex used to say you were cosmic, Kyle interrupted worry clear in his voice, that somehow you were bounded, he chuckled brow furrowed.

-We are, Michael croaked, I know we are, he continued clenching his fist, I swear I’m trying Valenti, but he’s not letting me in, he panted, it’s as if he doesn’t want to be found, he frowned his knuckles turning white

-Maybe we are not searching properly, Kyle reflected.

-What do you mean, Michael asked tiredly, we searched everywhere, he sighed sitting up against the car.

-Yeah, the other man exclaimed, that’s the problem we searched, he emphasized, we have to think outside the box, he explained to a confused Michael, clearly he didn’t want to be found you said it yourself, he gestured, then it’s not Alex we have to search for, he exposed, Alex is a meticulous bastard we’re never going to find him if he doesn’t want to be, Kyle smiled shaking his head…

-But Jesse isn’t, Michael smiled finally getting onboard with the med, I’m pretty sure that there is a trail of him somewhere, rising up he sighed relieved to finally have a tail.

________________________

Hope was heavy, dangerous and painful, of all people Michael knew it best, he learned it the hard way, still he couldn’t help but pray and hope that they’ll find something, anything fast enough to track Jesse and hence Alex fast enough. He needed a win, he needed something just a sign, a receipt anything that could reassure him, that could help him reach for Alex.

It was getting late now the sun was setting and they had nothing, the glimmer of hope they had that morning was slowly fading away, replaced by fear and worry once again.

-Hope is a dangerous thing, Michael chuckled darkly kicking some stones.

-I’m not giving up, Kyle stated rubbing his shoulder, if I have to put an all-nighter just to found that dumbass I will, he fiercely added, with or without you Guerin, he persisted.

-I never said I was giving up, he snared, I’m not giving up, I’ll never give up, he rambled holding his hands to his face, I just feel like we are struck in our trailing instead of moving forward, he sighed, and I can’t stop worry that we’re going to be late, his croaked tears on the verge of falling, and I can’t…I don’t think I could handle it if we were to be late, he confessed falling to his knees.

-I promise Guerin we’ll find him, Kyle answered softly, we’ll get him back and we’ll tear him a new one for his recklessness, he tried to joke, maybe we missed something or some place, he tried.

-Maybe, Michael conceded looking at the sky.

They stood there for what seemed to be an eternity, going back and forth to all the spots they tried, they went to the Manes residence, the cabin, the Crashdown, everywhere or so they thought, realization hitting Michael pretty quick.

-We didn’t try the toolshed, Michael exclaimed, we didn’t…we went to Manes but we forgot the toolshed, he babbled getting to his feet.

-Whatever Alex is doing I don’t think a toolshed could handle it, Kyle tried to reason following the rejoiced alien.

-I never said he was doing it in the toolshed, Michael smarted, its Jesse Manes we’re talking about, he added.

-You think, Kyle trailed, fuck it was under our nose all this time, he swore getting on the driver seat, buckle your belt Guerin, he ordered starting the engine.

________________________

Alex had made sure that nobody would find them, he worked days and nights on that plan, thought about all the detail all the potential loopholes, he made sure that it’ll be perfect, made sure that whatever happened no one would know, no one would ask, no one would found, it was his battle, his war and he intended to win or lose it alone, he never expected nor dreamed to see Michael’s face, he never allowed himself that little hope, because Michael wasn’t his anymore, they weren’t cosmic anymore, they weren’t soulmate, maybe star-crossed lover but nothing else.

However as he felt the impact of the bullet transpiercing his left side, as he felt his blood flowing through his skin, as he felt life slowly living his body, he allowed himself to pray whatever entity up there to be able to see Michaels Guerin face one last time.

________________________

He felt a blow in his stomach like someone punching him repeatedly there, breathing was hard be he could manage, he could handle it, he didn’t know what provoked that, at first he thought that maybe Isobel had encountered some problems, he was ready to turn over except he didn’t get the flash, didn’t get the headache, didn’t feel the pull of their bound, it wasn’t Isobel…

-I can feel him, he groaned rubbing his chest, he’s hurt, he struggled biting his lips until they bled.

-Shit, Kyle responded putting the pedal, will get there in less than five minutes, he promised, hold on, he pleaded.

-I’m not the one in pain, Michael pointed clenching his shirt knuckles turning white, god, he gasped, can’t you go any faster, he growled.

-If I go any faster we won’t have a functioning car anymore, Kyle backed, we’re almost there anyway, he added gritting his teeth, you hear that? He asked stopping the car abruptly.

The noise was faint but they could still hear it, it sounded like an alarm, a siren guiding them through the wood behind Jesse’s Manes house, the closer they get the harder it was for Michael to keep up, the hurt moved from his stomach to his chest, breathing became a struggle and he dreaded what they would found.

-Do you think they’re both there, Kyle whispered.

-I hope they’re, Michael snarled, I hope he’s there, he pursued lips trembling.

They were in front of the toolshed door now, the sirens sound deafening, their heart hammering, with trembling hands Kyle twisted the handle and entered the room Michael close behind. Nothing seemed out of normal at first, if not the ceaseless alarm, not wasting any minutes they both got on their knees in search of the entryway.

-Here comes nothing, Michael breathed taking one handle while Kyle took the other one.

They were met with chaos when the hatch opened, the whaling sirens and blinding lights already setting the mood, something was wrong down there, something terrible had happened, they could feel it, it was all around them, they knew that time was running out. Michael climbed out first followed a mere second after by Kyle shovel in one hand and his phone’s torch in the other, the sirens abruptly stopped the moment their feet touched the base’s damp floor, as if trying to help them in their mission, as if to shelter them from what they were bound to found.

________________________

It was loud, painfully loud and depressing the sudden silence was sickening, Michael felt trapped, suffocating as if someone or something was keeping him from breathing, he didn’t know where that feeling came from, his first thought was that maybe he was having a claustrophobia attack that why he felt like something was chocking him, maybe it was stress and dread, maybe it was because they were underground... He tried desperately to find the reason why he felt as if he was going to die, the reason why his heart was beating so fast, why he felt a rush of sadness surrounding him, why he felt like crying...Deep down he knew, but he’d rather stay in denial finding one hundred logical excuses than acknowledging the truth, their bound was starting to fade, and he feared that Alex was too.

-Everything’s okay, Kyle asked noticing the change in Michael behavior, do you feel him, he pressed.

-It’s fading, he bleated, it’s…it’s like a hole is starting to form in place of us, he gasped feeling a wave of nausea overcoming him.

________________________

He was getting tired, darkness was slowly overcoming him, he could feel his force leaving him but it wasn’t peaceful nor quiet like he imagined, he always thought that death was a fast and quiet worker, but he was wrong, he felt like death was taunting him by taking Jesse’s face, by pointing to him how once again he failed on the verge of victory, how once again the monster outsmarted him….

-You should have surrender when I gave you the chance, Jesse smirked kneeling down to Alex’s level, but it’s too late now, he added stroking his face with the gun, though I have to say it was a clever plan boy, he admitted, but alas you underestimated me, he smirked pointing the barrel to Alex’s temple, and you’re going to die alone, he singsang, so tell me now who’s destroying who, he laughed.

-I am, screamed a third voice

It was at that precise instant that Alex truly felt the quiet, when the weight of his tormentor was lifted from his shoulder, when he saw his unconscious form fall on the dirty floor, when his sight fell on his savior hazel eyes, Alex finally understood what Michael meant ten years ago…

________________________

He never saw Michael so devastated before, not even after the incident, or after he walked away over and over again, nor after his mother’s death, this time Michael was crestfallen and they were nothing he could do to make it better, because Michael wasn’t his anymore he didn’t have any right to touch him, embrace him, comfort him, because he’d always be the reason of his unhappiness, the reason he lost his only family, the reason for his bruised hand and broken mind, Alex didn’t have any right regarding Michael and even if he wanted to hold him he restrained himself offering him a small smile and a little wave.

-You came, he laughed wincing when the effort caused his injury to hurt him more.

-Of course I came you dumbass, the alien answered rushing to his side.

For the first time since Caulfield Alex felt at peace, as he felt Michael calloused hands traveling his body in search of his wounds, as he felts his warm breath on his forearm, and his eyes on his skin, Alex truly felt at peace, allowing himself to thank the unknown entity that guided Michael to him, that allowed him to see his face one last time.

- Everything’s cold, he mumbled tiredly, so cold...so cold, he repeated.

- I know but Kyle is not far ok,, Michael croaked, so you...you have to stay awake ok, he smiled putting pressure to Alex’s side, can you do this for me, he asked, can you stay awake, he pressed

-‘m tired, the other man answered fighting the urge to close his eyes, distract me, he demanded, lie to me make me...he coughed, lie to me, he whispered,

-I can’t lie to you, Michael retorted, you know me too damn well, he chuckled half-heartedly.

-Lie to me, Alex insisted fighting another cough, say you love me, he smiled weakly.

He was holding him tightly, praying and begging him to keep his eyes open, to stay awake even if he knew it was an impossible task, he tried to distract him from the pain mentally cursing Valenti for taking too long, he kept on pressing his shirt to Alex side, kept on telling him how everything would be different when all these mess was over, he told him how they were going to get a house and a dog and even white picket fences, as he glanced at Alex and saw his smiling and tired eyes looking at him with love, devotion and remorse he knew, he understood that life was slowly leaving him, and so he decided to tell him the only thing that mattered, the only important thing because he knew that if he didn’t told him now he would either regret not saying it or back out.

-I love you, Michael croaked cradling him close to his heart, I love you so damn much, he breathed.

-You’re a miserable liar but thank you, Alex whispered closing his eyes a peaceful smile painting his face…

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friendlylocalwhumper · 5 years

Text

Alex in the cellar, part two

Alex is @whump-sprite ‘s oc.

Alex awakes, a few hours later, breaths picking up and getting shallow, fast, when he feels the pain in his head. He can’t even crack his eyes open.

“Wh-” He winces, and gives up before he finishes the word.

Welcome back, little warlock.

What, what’s happening, why do I - why does it hurt - my head, my head, what’s happening, where’s Tare, fuck make it stop it hurts it hurts -

Did you forget me already, passing out once? You don’t remember the fun we had so far? Alex’s arm burns with pain, the broken one, as it’s grabbed. He keens and tries unsuccessfully to pull away, eyes flying open. The Hunter is before him, smiling, allowing the pain in the prisoner’s mind to die down enough for him to see, before it slams back up to unbearable levels and Alex’s eyes squeeze shut.

A stream of jumbled thoughts spins in Alex’s mind until a final, pointed, have you been in my head this whole time?

The Hunter grins. I was exploring. Gave you a rest so your head wouldn’t hurt bad enough to make you cry when you woke back up. You have some very interesting memories. I found them entertaining.

He slips out of Alex’s mind again, this time staying out and watching the warlock blink and moan, dipping his head down.

The Hunter puts a hand on Alex’s shoulder, but the warlock jerks away, despite how it makes the broken bones in his arms grate painfully. “Don’t touch me,” He grinds out, not meeting the Hunter’s eyes. Perhaps he’s afraid of contact, now, more than before, considering that the Hunter now knows exactly how he’s been hurt in the past.

“Hmm.” His captor stands, and looks down on him for a moment. “By the end of this, you’ll be leaning into my touch.”

“End of wh-”

Alex’s quizzical, skeptical response is interrupted by the boot crashing into his jaw. His head snaps back, teeth clicking shut with the blow.

The Hunter unlocks Alex’s manacles behind him with a swipe of his fingers, and then it’s a hail of stomps and kicks, against Alex’s ribs and back and hips. Like a fucking idiot, Alex tries to drag his arms up to his chest, and whether he’s trying to protect them or use them to protect his middle, they get the sole of a boot grinding into them, tearing a scream from him.

The Hunter brings that work boot down on Alex’s chest over and over, as soon as he flings his twitching arms out of the way. Then, the Hunter’s getting down on one knee, and settling his weight atop the prisoner, straddling him.

Alex looks up at him with a kind of not-fully-tapped-into fear that makes the Hunter very excited to explore his terror in full.

He makes Alex’s head snap to the side with a fist to the cheekbone, and then again, over and over. Alex looks smaller and smaller, the bloodier he gets, and as he beating presses on, his eyes get a little glassy. That broken arm, and the one with the broken wrist, lie useless on the floor; blood drips down one cheek from his mouth, and down the other side of his face from the more beaten side, the one with the - yes, with the now-broken cheekbone, the Hunter confirms happily with a little thunk sound. Alex is grunting and making these squeaking sounds sort of like the Hunter’s little light used to, when he was trying to breathe during a beating.

He wants to hear Alex struggling to breathe.

He lets the adrenaline speed up the blows, make the punches heavier. The young man pinned below him must feel small, he must worry about bones broken too badly and brain damage and things healing wrong…

A croaked, frightened sound claws its way out of the warlock, the less broken arm at his side jerking like he’ll drag it closer, but he doesn’t. “Pl-, please -” Another blow, and he coughs, once, from blood sliding down his throat.

Just alarmed by the brutality, the prisoner is. The begging, at first, is sort of getting that initial reaction out of the way. No need to recognize the pleas until they’re desperate and persistent.

It is wonderful, though, to see the brave young man starting to crumble.

More blows, rougher breathing, the Hunter loving the cracks and the wheezes and the blood on his knuckles.

“Please, ple-ease, please…”

The punches stop landing, that pretty face all busted up - he’ll have to leave it like that, even though it’s a shame, because it’s not like just anyone gets to be healed by him. The Hunter cups the prisoner’s more cut-up cheek; Alex’s eyes flutter at how it stings.

“What are you begging for, little warlock?”

Alex draws a staggered breath. “For you to stop,” He admits softly, staring up in candid fear. “Begging for you to... stop hitting me.”

The Hunter hums. “I thought I told you what happens if you tell me to stop.”

A brighter flash of fear, sparking a grin on the Hunter’s face. He lifts his hand from the warlock’s cheek and that gets a precious, frightened flinch.

“Oh, I’m not going to hit you again.” The larger man presses a hand to Alex’s shoulder for balance and moves back so he’s straddling the warlock’s waist instead of his chest, pulling his knife from its sheath at his hip. He disappears Alex’s shirt with a flick of his fingers, foregoing the work of cutting or pulling it off. He touches the tip of the knife to some slender, short scars at that bare abdomen.

“You’re not new to this,” He muses, looking up at Alex’s face; the prisoner is watching, breaths shallow so his skin’s farther from the knife. “Now, I’m going to press this into you, and you’re going to say thank you. Try to remember, even though it’ll hurt, you understand?”

Alex nods slightly, breaths still hitching from the panic of the sudden beating.

The Hunter’s thumb moves back and forth over Alex’s collarbone, still holding his shoulder down. “Good. Keep breathing, stay focused.”

The tip of the knife breaks through the skin beside one of those scars, and Alex sucks in a breath. The blade is pressed in, cutting through enough skin to get in deeper, and all the while the warlock’s making short sounds of pain, staccato bursts of sound between long, tense breaths.

“That’s very good,” His captor praises, and Alex’s eyes flicker with something, his lips pressing together to try and keep his sounds in. He doesn’t like the praise. He will come to be grateful for it.

Once the knife is in, Alex chances a glance down at it, only to pale and look away. Blood pools at his navel and drips down his right side.

“Did you forget already, on the first one, hmm?”

The prisoner bites his lip and shakes his head slightly, looking toward the wall off to his side. He whines when the knife is twisted just slightly.

“Th-thank…” An unsteady, tremulous breath. “Thank you,” He finally whispers.

“Are you ready for another one?”

Alex shakes his head again, but answers, “Yes.”

The knife slides out, making the warlock shake, and more blood spill sluggishly - and then, the knife is being pressed in again, over to the side.

“You know,” The Hunter says, casually, as the blood-slicked blade breaks its way into Alex’s body, “You staring off like that, it’s not as fun. I want you to watch. Look at this.”

“I can’t.” Alex licks his lips, glancing at the Hunter, but not at the knife. “It’s - the blood, seeing it -” He swallows, disgusted. His brows furrow at the pain of the knife being pressed in as deep as the first time. He’s been stabbed before, while trying to heal some ungrateful magic-hater who still had a knife on him - but that was quick, and even though nearly bleeding out sucked, the stabbing itself felt like being gut-punched. This, this is slow, and deliberate, and it’s - it’s fun for the mindfucker. Sends a chill down the back of his neck, that thought.

“Look now, or we’re going to explore your mind some more today, really get to know what scares you.”

At that threat, Alex forces himself to take a deep breath, then turns his head to look down at his bloody front. One stab wound leaking blood and another, with - with the knife being pulled out right now. His stomach dips as he tries to press himself as close to the floor as possible, the blood carving a new trail over his skin with the new well as a supply.

He’s seen plenty of his own blood. Coughed up plenty of it, lain in shallow pools of it. He associates the sight with an inescapable, nauseating pain and terrible bone-deep exhaustion. The sight of it could make him sick. Especially if someone else is making him see it on purpose.

His eyes find the Hunter’s, and at the look he’s being given, he doesn’t forget what to do. “Thank you,” Alex rasps.

It is a relief, really, seeing the Hunter’s expression brighten when he does as he’s told. Because it’s so terrifying, already, seeing his expression darken with anger, or the intent to punish.

“One more,” The Hunter guarantees, and it isn’t as slow, this time, pulling a single drawn-out moan from the prisoner, and a wavering hiss of breath.

“Thank you.”

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sdclore-archive · 5 years

Text

Nothing gold can stay

What: the first time the ivory and vittori war truly breached Savannah’s life When: Winter of 2002 Triggers: Violence, a given. Murder. Maybe creepy/rapey vibes? idk its a trigger ok Notes: For the sake of visual, I’ve always imagined her ex, Nick, to have looked like Alex O’Loughlin if he’d not died, so you know, him as a eighteen/nineteen year old kid.

To most, it would have looked the picture of innocence. Barely seventeen years old, young lovers caught bewildered in the snow lined street as if perhaps they’d never quite seen anything so precariously special as each other in the cold chapped wind. The senseless sound of laughter that could carry for miles and break apart the darkest cloud in the sky as the pavement before simply opened up a horizon that couldn’t be found on the city skyline. But darker days had never seen a more fruitful opportunity to lay to waste the silver platter that beckoned itself towards the love sick dalliance that would serve as a warning for a family too caught up in getting in the way of things that they might have considered to never be their business in the first place.

It caught a whistle in the treetops, a rustling that drew coat and company closer. Golden hair caught in the icy breeze beneath the hat intended to keep her ears warm, despite never feeling an ounce of the cold whenever she was with him. The unbearable feeling that she’d never let go of as it swelled like sunshine within the concave of her chest, lips pressed gently against her temple as they barely meandered beyond the frozen lake. To be alone with him was to open up the heavens and drown yourself. Like an open car window as it drove much too quickly, the mouthful of air that fleetingly over filled lungs with a moment of panic before the joy that there could truly be too much of a good thing subsided and paved the way for the greatest surge of contentment. There could truly never be anything like being with him.

But darker days crept across the blinding snow in the harrowing form of people without faces. Blurs of color that traipsed deepened footsteps within the white blanket that seemed to go on forever. Or perhaps that was simply wishful thinking, a tourniquet thought that held a seventeen year old Savannah’s breath that today would never surpass into another. That time wouldn’t flee them and they could remain just here, and now. The sickening reality of Montreal was, time only stood still for the dead and as it peaked it’s hideous face across the top of the snow covered hill, laughter died in her throat as it edged all the closer. It didn’t press her conscious mind with fleeting thoughts of fear; for what did a teenage girl truly have to fear when the feeling in her chest swelled with adoration for the boy that seemingly pulled them both to a stop at the edge of the path. She’d certainly missed something --- a fleeting conversation her own father had asked of Nick that dared him to always be careful, to trust his gut feeling when something felt awry. Perhaps the turning in his stomach had led him to relive the transcendent seriousness that’d befallen the Delore patriach’s hardened features, warning him that none of them were truly safe. A keepsake that he’d done his best to hide from his only daughter, a reincarnation of the fucking sun in her smile never something a father wanted to see diminished.

Try as he might have, the Delore’s held enemies within the most hapless cracks in the pavement. A harsh reality that those that came before Savannah couldn’t hope to hold a nuanced idea of safety while they slowly but surely cut the coat tails of both criminal organizations with every opportunity they were given.

Foreign hands rough and careless as the dark hollow voices of those she didn’t know tore their way through her and Nick. “What’re..-- let go of me!” The instantaneous will to fight had her pulling and pushing and tearing at the solid forearm that circled her throat and dragged her back into now painfully cold snow. “Nick!” A guttural scream tearing from lungs as a hand clamped over her face, crystalline hues torn open with the harsh crack of knuckle on bone. The ripple of effort that blossomed in her chest as she kicked and screamed for freedom, seeing exactly what was about to happen before the assailed attack that Nick stood no chance in became a harrowing reality. Four men, clad in dark clothes and deep timbre threats cascaded blow after blow until her own legs gave out beneath her. It wasn’t enough, to hear the mottled sound of pained cries muffled into the snow that turned black and red among the blood and dirt kicked up. The sharpened snap curdling her every thought as another boot collided in the most brilliantly blinding sight with Nick’s ribcage. A warning that would stain the very ground they stood on as tears tracked lines over her cheeks and fell hapless into the ground below. “Please..-- stop, leave him alone.” Her struggle was useless, the vicious attempt to pull herself free only tightened the arm around her throat. “He didn’t do anything!” But nothing she said could subdue their laughter, the eerie sense of entertainment that they drew from watching the boy, barely a man whither beneath them and cower to every raised hand until all sense of fight seemed to leave him too dazed to concur. Unmoving, Savannah had to still just to see whether he was still breathing. Hysterical and beside herself as she continued to wrench herself from the grip of the unknown, the warmth of his breath falling sickly against the back of her neck, along the slope for her ear. It crawled like the most fearful feeling across tender flesh and crawled gooseflesh across her spine. “Tell daddy dearest we’re watching.” Falling..-- Falling.. Falling. She hit the ground roughly, the snow beneath no sense of comfort to the violent sense of it. Innocence became her with every sob that wracked itself against ribcage and chest plate to perhaps someone curb the ache of the unknown that lay curled in on itself. A blackened drape that left her uncertain of whether breath still touched Nick’s lips. “Nick please..--” Blurred shapes could barely counter produce a way out, she couldn’t see through the unyielding tears that thought to choke a sense of disturbing calm from her as she crawled across the ground to reach for him. If she could turn him over -- she could see, she could know. Fates and whatever unholy bitch decided to tear relief from her veins might have pinpointed the moment fleeting intention slipped from the fingers of the assailants as she was yanked backwards by her legs, the same boot that worse the bloodied remnants of Nick’s broken body struck the side of her face, toppling the blonde with such force her vision went dark. The snow turned pink beneath her as crimson dribbled from her lip and the gut wrenching sound of Nick’s voice traipsing across the wind in broken heartache and shattered breath drew air into her own lungs as one of the men dropped to his knees beside her, pushing back the now tangled mess of her golden locks. Hazy as it were, moments passed where she found nothing more than blackened shapes in her vision, the rough pad of a thumb that brushed over her lip turning her stomach and catching a shrill cry of objection against her tongue before everything began to fall back into place. The gun he’d wielded but never pulled found the snow beside her in stark tandem with her outstretched fingertips. As if instinct bore more relevance than her fear, blue orbs flickered across the safety switch or the weapon, a surging expanse of adrenaline that had failed her only moments before gave her only a passing second of opportunity as greedy eyes ran the expanse of her face and across the slope of her neck. Something about the weapon looked different to how she’d come to understand. The usually square muzzle extended only a few inches by a rounded end. Would it fire? It didn’t matter. Opportunity struck in the blinding light of a cloud over head passing over the sun. She never heard it. Could never tell anyone the sound it made as she curled fingers around frozen metal and pulled the trigger until the entire weapon was spent. Shaking hands caught herself in the snow, kicking back the white powder as it bled into something sinister and crimson, melting beneath the heat of blood that pooled beneath all three of them, the last of the four already high tailing it across the frozen lake, scrambling for the edge of the other bank. The knowledge of what she’d done didn’t escape her, trembling hands searched for her phone in the snow, punching in the code four times before she got it right. Her own bloodied fingertips smearing the screen with a lacquer she’d never be rid of as it dug beneath her fingernails and she caught the end of her father’s voice on the line with nothing more than the hysterical cry of a girl who’s entire life crumbled at her feet.

#self para #( x . nothing gold can stay )#ill add a graphic to this after work

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xlittlelionhamiltonx · 5 years

Text

Where We Fall

The streets seem both lonelier and, somehow, kinder as the pale light of morning chases away the shadows and temptations. The sun does what it can, soft rays drenching the skyline, her usual glory fettered down by the garish edges of manmade structures that have long since become as holy as nature to those who dwell within them. The dawn brings with it a warmth the evening had endured without, and Alexander welcomes the gentle caress of the temperate breeze almost as much as the sight of an undeniably familiar figure, perched unassumingly upon an old bench overlooking a tired and cracking basketball court.

Alex takes a deep breath, mentally calming himself before he dares cross the distance that lies between him and his goal. He has been searching for hours, and he won’t back down now. This will be fine, he tells himself. He is a reasonable man, and so are you.

Men. Hardly, in the eyes of most. But he knows what they’ve been through. He knows how many lives’ worth of pain and suffering they’ve endured. He knows how they’ve made enough mistakes between them to render them old men, world-weary and cautious, jaded and unafraid.

As he must be now. Fearless. And, so, fearlessly, he treads the pavement he knows all-too-well, he slows to a stop just in front of that warped and peeling bench, and he lowers himself slowly, sitting casually down next to the stoic figure he’s been seeking, the shorter, thinner man sparing him the subtlest of glances before speaking in a quiet, tired voice.

“How’d you know where to find me?”

Alex snorts, shaking his head a little before glancing over at Aaron with a soft smile.

“I know all of your spots. Not too long ago... a lifetime ago... they were mine, too.”

Aaron stays eerily still for a long moment, finally nodding in that subtle way of his, his long exhalation so quiet that Alex might not have caught it were he anyone else. But he can see the tension in that lithe body, and he knows that all is not well between them. He didn’t expect it to be.

“But when this was our spot, we would mock Old Lady Lily over there... knock down her flowers sometimes...” He nodded in the direction of an elderly, overweight woman standing near the opposite corner of the street, her clothing far too large for even her heavy frame, her jacket supple and loose from what could very well be decades of wear-and-tear.

“Amazing, how we thought we were so much better than her.” He presses his lips together, eyes distant and brow furrowed in thought. After a moment, he pushes himself up from the bench, making his way over to the woman as she sets up her station for the day. Only briefly, he wonders if she will recognize him, but the thought passes quickly. His clothing is far too new - too expensive - his hair trimmed up too neatly and his face too clean. He shares only a name with that boy who had taunted her so mercilessly.

It was a short exchange, Alex paying far, far more than she was asking, using the simple excuse of having no bills smaller than the $100 note that he handed her, before taking his newly purchased bouquet and returning to Aaron’s side. He holds it between his hands, admiring the bright petals and sweet smell for a moment before offering it to the man at his side. Aaron hesitates a moment, reaching up slowly and taking the flowers from Alex, focusing on the bundle as he speaks.

“I didn’t use.”

“I know.” Alex is watching Aaron closely, voice soft and laced with an apologetic sentiment, even if his words are short and vague.

“I don’t mean just last night. I -”

“I know.” There’s a little more strength behind the words this time, and Alex leans a little closer, his leg pressing against Aaron’s own as he moves cautiously.

“I know what Laurens is doing. I know... I know you. I know when you’ve been using, and I know when you’re clean.” He licks his lips, shaking his head a little before continuing.

“I know you inside and out. And Laurens? He knows money. He knows how to get what he wants. He’s better at manipulating people than any junkie I’ve ever met. But I can’t -” He shakes his head again, looking away when Aaron finally raises his head to meet his gaze.

“What?” Aaron’s voice is soft, yet filled with something urgent, and Alex knows he can’t lie to him. Even if he wanted to.

“I can’t get rid of him. I can’t... he fucking owns me right now, Aaron.”

“So that’s it? You just... kick me back to the curb? A paycheck is worth more than I am?”

“No! Goddammit, Aaron, it isn’t like that. You’re staying with me. I don’t give a fuck what Laurens says or does. I might be his fucking puppet right now, but he needs me as much as I need him. I’m just saying... fuck. We’ve just gotta play his game a little while longer. A few more singles and I won’t need him anymore. After that, we can do whatever the hell we want.”

“And until then?” Aaron doesn’t miss a beat, the hurried demand in his voice doing little to cover the uncertainty... that, and something else. Something that Alex believes may be fear. He turns to meet Aaron’s eyes, giving him all the understanding and remorse he can offer through an expression, alone. With another soft sigh, he shifts closer yet, reaching out and placing his fingertips lightly upon the back of Aaron’s knuckles, relief flooding through him when, hesitantly, Aaron answers to the prompt by moving to take hold of Alex’s notably warmer hand.

“You stay with me.” He reiterates the earlier statement, squeezing Aaron’s hand in his own, holding it there a moment before slowly dipping his head so that his lips can meet the cool skin, lingering there for yet another moment before he speaks softly into the touch.

“For as long as you’re willing to.” Another small kiss and he lifts his head again, giving it a little shake and blinking down at the flowers again.

“I keep Laurens satisfied... I let him believe I’m on his side...” It tastes bitter just rolling off of his tongue, and he makes the smallest expression of disgust before shaking it away.

“It isn’t ideal, I know, but -”

“It’s fine.” He quickly meets Aaron’s gaze again, hating the traces of defeat he can hear in his soft voice.

“No. It isn’t. But it will be. And I need you to remember, whatever happens, I’m on your side, and not his. I promise you that, okay? And if you’re ever not sure, just... just punch me in the gut and tell me not to be such a fucking douche, okay?” He smirks softly and, after a second, Aaron snorts, shaking his head before nodding in agreement.

“I don’t know about punching you, but don’t be surprised if your hair conditioner all goes missing.” His voice is still quiet, but the mischief in his eyes is clear, and it gives Alex another chance to relax, if only a little.

“Oh! Big words. But, really, which one of us would that truly be hurting?”

“Imbecile.” Aaron’s playful jibe is accompanied by a bump of his knee against Alex’s, and Alex smiles wider, nodding in consideration and tightening his grip on Aaron's hand.

“The cleverest of imbeciles. And sexiest, too.” He dares now to steal a gentle kiss from Aaron’s lips, noting again how cool he feels.

“Come on. Let’s get you somewhere warm. Preferably a nice, big, jacuzzi tub in some swanky hotel room. The longer we stay here, the more we run the chance of old Lady Lily recognizing us and chasing us with that cane of hers.”

“Ha! We’d deserve it.” Aaron glances up at the old lady down the street before turning back to Alex, already feeling warmer just having him by his side.

“But, yes. Let’s go home.” He rises, pulling Alex with him, and if they didn’t take one more step, they’d already be where he wanted to go. The streets, the back of an old, broken down van, a tour bus, a posh five-star hotel room in the city... it didn’t matter. He’d found his home the day those energetic brown eyes had first looked up at him in the dim light of some seedy club, and to this day, every time Alex’s stare met his, that’s exactly where they were. Home.

#prodigyofprincetoncollegex #hamburr #v;; rent #{{ do we have a better name?? }}

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jedifighterpilot2727 · 7 years

Text

Red K! Part 2

Got a crazy response for the Red K! chapter! apparently you guys didn't like that I left you hanging and wanted some more! So here goes!

Red K! Part 2 - Eyes Like Kryptonite Ch. 31 Read it on AO3 - http://archiveofourown.org/works/9100903/chapters/21867788

“How long until she wakes up?” Lena looks at Alex over DEO sick bed where Kara is lying unconscious

"Should be anytime now. All of the Red Kryptonite is out of her system and her brain just needs time to recover. It’s more of a mental Kryptonite than a physical one."

Lena nods, reaching out a hand to stroke it along Kara’s cheek. She's glad that she had trusted her gut, that she had called Alex. As soon as they had spoken, the agent had known exactly what was happening.

It was a relief.

To know Kara wasn’t herself when she said those things.

But still, there was a lot they needed to talk about.

She felt Alex’s hand on her shoulder.

“I don’t know what she said exactly, but Red Kryptonite Kara is . . . vicious. I know from experience how horrible you must feel. How you’re going over everything she said in your mind over and over - trying to figure out what the truth was.”

She looked up to see Alex’s brown eyes full of pain.

“But I know my sister. And I know she loves you. And when she wakes up, she is going to absolutely hate herself for what she’s done. Just please remember that when you want to tear her apart. When you want to make her feel like she made you feel. I understand if you have to end things, just . . . please be gentle."

It takes a moment for Alex’s words to settle in her ears and when they do, she steps back.

“I’m not leaving her.” She says firmly, and Alex visibly relaxes. “Obviously we have some unspoken issues that we need to talk about, but she wasn’t in control of herself. The words cut deep, but she didn’t mean to say them."

“From what I can tell, Red Kryptonite causes a severe decrease in impulse control."

“No filter."

“No filter.” Alex agrees. “Kara describes it as every evil thought she’s ever had just . . . coming out."

Lena nods slowly.

“Well, I suppose no one wants to be judged on their worst thoughts. I know I’ve had some that I would never want anyone to know about."

“We all have. Unfortunately for Kara, she didn’t have a choice in the matter."

“Thank you for coming so quickly when I called."

Alex shrugs.

“Thank you for looking out for my sister."

They fall silent, the weight of the moment settling around them as they stare at Kara.

A tongue darts out to wet too pink lips and Kara speaks in a broken whisper, eyes still closed as tears spill out.

“Did I kill anyone?”

“No.” Alex’s voice is firm.

“Lena-"

“I’m right here.” She reaches out to grasp Kara’s hand, biting back a wince as Kara grips a little too tightly.

“Alex, will you give us a minute?"

“I’ll be right outside if you need anything.” Alex waits until Lena nods before she lets herself out, the door sliding closed behind her.

“Lena.” Kara’s voice draws her eyes back down, and suddenly she’s staring into Kara’s baby blues. Tears spring to her own eyes to match Kara’s and she chokes back a sob at the pain she see’s etched on those beautiful features. There’s too much eyeliner, and too much liptstick, but the eyes are no longer cold like before. It’s her Kara, there on the table, and her heart clenches at the thought.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t - I didn’t mean the things I said. I didn’t mean them.” Kara dissolves into tears and Lena thinks this is quite possibly the most heartbreaking sight she’s ever seen. She hesitates for half a moment - brain racing through the options. Finally she kicks off her shoes and climbs onto the bed with Kara, tugging the Superhero so that they’re lying side by side facing each other.

She wraps her arms around Kara as tight as she can, the other woman’s tears quickly soaking her blouse. Kara clutches at Lena desperately as she sobs and Lena gives into her own tears, burying her face in Kara’s shoulder.

She isn’t sure how long they stay like that, but it’s long enough that her eyes feel puffy and her contacts are blurry. Her nose is so stuffy that she can’t even breathe out of it, her cheeks hot with tears.

“Did I hurt you?” She barely hears Kara whisper against her hair.

“Not physically.”

She knows it’s harsh, that the words will be like a knife to Kara’s gut; but it’s true, and she’s still broken after what happened.

“Kara we need to talk."

Hands clench into fists at her back and then Kara pulls back, mascara streaking down her face.

“I am so sorry.”

“I know, sweetheart. But there’s some stuff you said - "

“I didn’t mean it, I didn’t mean any of it."

She brushes the hair back from Kara’s eyes and the reporter catches her hand, tangling their fingers together.

She takes a deep breath, prepares herself to rip off the bandaids that she so hastily applied to the cuts on heart that Kara caused.

“You said that I was using you. That I was only with you so I could outdo Lex."

“Lena -"

“Is is true? Is that what you think? I know that you would never say-“

Her voice cracks and she stops, waiting with bated breath until Kara finally speaks, eyes studying Lena’s face.

“I guess somewhere . . . deep down, I’m afraid that the only reason we’re together is because I’m Supergirl. But it’s like the fear I have of sharks, even when I’m no where near the ocean - when I could literally destroy a shark with one punch. I know that it’s not realistic, that it’s a completely irrational fear, but it’s still there."

“I don’t have a problem with you being an alien.” She whispers.

“I know."

“And I only work so hard because I want to help people. I know that I can never erase what Lex has done, but I hope to at least balance it out."

“You do so much good, Lena. And I would never, never fault you for that. Red Kryptonite . . . it’s like I know what will hurt people the most and- and I just say it. And the words come out and I want to stop them but I just can’t. It’s a horrible thing, to watch the people you love in pain and know you’re the cause."

Lena pulls Kara back into an embrace, takes a moment to breathe it all in, to enjoy the comfort of Kara’s arms around her. Despite what Alex said, despite what she knows, it still makes her feel better to hear Kara say it.

Kara’s arms tighten around her and she feels a kiss being pressed to her hair.

“I’m so sorry, Lena."

She buries her face in Kara’s chest, forcing herself to let go of the pain.

What’s said is said and dwelling on it will do nothing but torture both of them. They need to work on communication, both of them; but she thinks that they’ve been through enough for tonight.

“I think to make it up to me, you should let me pick dinner."

“Anything. That place you love in Italy?” Kara offers.

“No!” She snaps a little too harshly and she feels Kara stiffen. “I just, I don’t really want you to leave me.” She feels needy, saying it out loud - she’s always had a horrible fear of abandonment, although never really before with Kara - but she supposes that’s one of the casualties of the day. Another thing for them to work on.

Kara relaxes, pulling her closer and for now, it’s enough.

“The burger place on third? We can stop on the way home?"

“Perfect.”

Go ahead, yell at me

#supercorp #supergirl #kara danvers #lena luthor #red k #fanfiction #eyes like kryptonite

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hollywoodx4 · 7 years

Text

Fostered (Hamliza)

I wrote this post a while back that got a positive reception. And then I couldn’t get it out of my head.

So, because I wanted to post something in honor of Lin’s birthday today, here’s the “Alexander’s suddenly a father, and enrolls the child he rescued from the system into Miss Schuyler’s class.” AU. Because, as the cool kids say, I’m “The Trash of the Thing”

Mid-October

He’s sitting at his desk, working on a case that’s just been handed to him.

He sits up immediately upon reading the briefing on the top of the file.

“Is this really my case?” Burr pokes his head in from the office next to his and nods his head, adamant. He asks why. Alexander just waves him away.

Thirty-six accounts of injury. In one single night. A report from a concerned neighbor. A boy who hadn’t been to school in a week; orphaned. Fostered. With some aunt and uncle he hadn’t known a thing about before.

Thirty-six accounts of injury in a single night. And dozens more reported from his classroom teacher. ‘said he’d fallen up the steps.’ ‘the cat did it.’ ‘at a relative’s house? But then he’d changed his story and said it was on the playground.’

His head falls into his hands and the sun has been down for a while. Burr checks in on him when it’s his time to leave but he simply shakes his head-I’m staying. Have a good night.-before tearing through the entire file three times.

…

Court date. His eyes no longer brim with tears but his heart races as he steps into the room.

Adults in suits looking down at him with sad eyes. His eyes wander the crowd, searching for them before he sees them at the table next to his. His view is covered by another, stern-looking man in a suit but they’re there. They don’t look at him. He’s glad.

“Phillip to the stand, please.”

They ask him questions about what’s happened and he answers in complete paragraphs, recounting details in a nervous voice as they volley back more questions. The man who’d been sitting next to them seems almost angry with him, the way he asks his questions in a stern tone with narrowed eyes.

But then the second man comes up to the stand and sits on the ledge of the box he’s in. His smile is slight but it’s there and it’s kind, and Phillip immediately feels his nerves cool down. He has a ponytail, which is pretty cool, and he talks like he actually wants to hear what’s going on. So he tells him.

…

The boy looks at Alexander with honest eyes and fidgeting hands as he recounts every detail of the night in question.

Every. Detail.

Hearing these words come from his mouth is like being stabbed in the heart and transferred back to his own childhood; to the misfortune that had plagued him. But this boy is much younger-6…or 8? And he can’t imagine what would’ve happened to him if he’d been this young when things had started to go wrong in his own life.

When the hearing is settled and the boy’s caretakers are taken away to serve their sentence the boy stands, staring at the crowd around him, before looking over to Alexander. And Phillip smiles- a genuine, hopeful smile, as Alex waves back at him. Then a woman in heels and a blazer kneels down next to him and their moment has vanished.

He’s so dazed that he doesn’t even hear the praise he’s receiving from his boss for putting those sorry bastards away.

So dazed, in fact, that he doesn’t realize what he’s doing until he’s shaken hands with the Child Services worker; has given her his contact information.

…

Even as he carts Phillip’s duffle bag of things into his not-quite-childproof Manhattan apartment, he’s still not sure what he’s doing. But the boy smiles at him again, asking to play a game, and they stay up all night with board games and pizza.

Suddenly, he realizes what he’s doing.

…

She’s just about to start morning meeting when he comes in. He looks a bit confused and slightly frazzled, holding the hand of a young boy who gripped his entire arm with loving ferocity. The boy doesn’t look away from him, rather buries his head into the man’s arm as they enter the classroom.

Her eyes are dark and warm, and her smile is infectious. His own lips turn up with a bit of effort-he’s looking around the room cautiously, unsure of what to make of the situation at hand. Elizabeth extends her arm to his shoulder, meeting his eyes.

It’s okay to be nervous, Alexander. I’ve heard what you’ve done for Phillip. It’s amazing.

And when she has to hold Phillip up to the window to watch Alexander walk back down the hallway-when he hesitates, and turns and waves back to the boy at least four times on his short trek-the beginnings of tears prick at her own eyes.

So she wipes the tears from his and puts him down before introducing him to the rest of her class.

She keeps one eye on him for the rest of the day.

…

It’s a new part of his routine, dropping a child off at school and picking him up at the end of the day.

It’s exhausting and it’s taxing trying to get him there and back and keep his files in order. He’s asked his friends to help him out but he’s tired, and going from a bachelor trying to climb his career ladder to a man with a child was a complete 180 he’s still not quite sure he’s ready for.

But on the days he picks Phillip up from school-when he runs across the room and into his arms-it’s worth it.

…

She must be a princess, Phillip says over dinner, because she smells nice and she talks kind and she wears pretty dresses.

And she’s the greatest because she lets him sit next to her during story time, and she holds his hand.

And then, one Wednesday night as they’re sitting at the dinner table, it’s ‘Miss Schuyler says that it’s okay to cry.’ and ‘Miss Schuyler let me sit in quiet corner for a long time today because I felt sad and then I was happy again.’ And Alexander’s heart swells with happiness.

….

The reality of what he’s doing doesn’t fully sink in until the nightmares come and he’s the one holding-not the one being held. He’s comforting and stroking long, curly locks until they’ve both fallen asleep in Alexander’s bed.

He realizes what he’s doing when 6 year-old Phillip has his first burst of anger at him, face red and tears streaming down his face. And it’s being told you’re not my dad that feels like a sucker punch in the gut. That’s when he panics

…

His eyes are dull and his features are drooping when he drops off on Monday. Phillip smothers her in a hug before running over to a group of friends and she’s left with him, stopping him before he can get out the door.

“Are you alright?” It’s all he needs before he’s hidden his face behind his hand, choking back frustrated tears as she ushers them out the door, leaving her assistant to care for the kids. He tells her everything; his past, his ‘adjustment period that hasn’t seemed to end,’ Phillip’s words last night…She wants to hug him; to wrap him in her arms and show him that he’ll be fine. That somebody cares.

It starts with this hug-she decides his mental and emotional well-being is more important than the possibility of being chastised for ‘inappropriate contact.’ And then her heart is pulsing and they’re just staring at each other and god, now I’m being awkward she ends the conversation with a strung together apology and a hand on her classroom door.

She has to take a minute to collect herself before beginning morning meeting that day.

…

He’s late.

It’s Thursday afternoon, almost 4 when she begins to panic. She calls the number he’s left on Phillip’s registration sheet and is met with a curse, followed by an immediate apology. He’s lost track of time, he’s on the other side of town-god, this being a father thing is hard. And then she’s offering to just drive him home before she can think of the repercussions. But her offer is met with a sigh of relief so she walks out of the building hand-in-hand with Phillip Hamilton, pulling up directions on her GPS and wondering just how she’d gotten to be such a rule breaker. Just this once, she says as Phillip hums along to the radio from the backseat. It’s just a favor for a friend.

Just one time turns into every Thursday; she and Phillip do homework at the kitchen table in Alex’s apartment and then he comes home. They chat.

She lingers.

He doesn’t mind one bit.

Then they’re making dinner together, Phillip in the middle, chopping vegetables and singing loud to whichever Disney soundtrack he’s chosen that day.

And then, a month into the arrangement, it doesn’t even stop at dinner anymore. She helps with the dishes and the cleaning, even when he insists that she doesn’t. She and Alexander sing Phillip to bed together, then retreat to the living room.

They chat.

They kiss.

And then Thursday nights with the Hamiltons turn into Mondays and Thursdays…then three times a week…and suddenly Elizabeth Schuyler finds herself laying naked in bed on a lazy Sunday morning when a little knock on the door throws her from her daydream.

And they’re eating pancakes in bed, she and Alex with Pip tucked between them. And they’re a family-we feel like a family-and she knows she’s in it deep.

…

It isn’t until one brisk morning in late February when she knows she’s absolutely in it.

She’s on playground duty. They’re finally able to go out after a long winter indoors, the weather just letting up although spots of thick ice still dot the pavement. She spends most of her time watching little feet patter over it, calling out warnings and chuckling at a few students who’ve fallen flat on their butts, barreling each other over with no injury.

But then she hears his cry-she’d know that cry from anywhere, at this point-and she’s racing over to him even though she knows the other teacher on duty has things under control.

“It’s alright, Pip. It’s okay.”

“But mummy, it hurts really bad. Look!” The row of teachers behind her don’t say anything, but Elizabeth’s own heart races as she glances down at the boy. They don’t know-they can’t, not yet-but she can’t rightfully correct him in fears of breaking his heart. She had been spending most of her time with him and his father lately. And they’d been acting like a family.

And it felt right, the way he was looking up at her with his big brown eyes welled-up with tears, stretching his arms up to her so that she’d hold him.

…

She turns herself in to the principal the next day.

It’s not fair to you that I’ve kept this from you. I just didn’t expect it to escalate into a relationship like this so quickly. But I’m prepared to lose my job for this. I’m sorry, I’m choosing my family.

And then, the principal laughs at her. Actually laughs. Because Elizabeth Schuyler did you think we couldn’t see you bringing Phillip Hamilton home multiple times a week? And even Miss Washington couldn’t ignore the way Winter Open House went, with you standing there and chatting with Alexander for an hour afterward while his son just stood between you. Like he belonged there.

She doesn’t lose her job.

She loses Phillip, but he only moves to the classroom next door and Mr. Laurens has a pet turtle in his room so he gets excited about the change.

…

He doesn’t lose his job.

He’d been so sure at the beginning that having Phillip-the busy schedule and the sleepless nights and the fighting he’d done in the ‘adjustment period’ would somehow end up with him losing his job at the firm. But it’s been 6 months, and he hasn’t lost his job.

He’s gained a family.

Eliza moves in shortly after her own unemployment scare and they laugh the whole thing over with pizza and a movie, Phillip tucked between them. She runs her hair through thick cherub curls and kisses his forehead. And when they say goodnight he calls them mom and dad and his heart swells with joy.

It’s another lazy Sunday morning when she wakes up naked in bed-now it’s their bed- to tiny knocks on the door again. But when she rolls over to make a joke Alexander’s not there, so she dresses and lets Phillip in. He climbs under the covers next to her, laying a sleepy head on her chest before handing her a velvet box. Phillip smiles. Then there are big knocks on the door and Alexander’s instructing her to open the box.

Mid-April.

A lazy Sunday morning.

He didn’t realize what he’d been doing when he’d opened a thick case file that October morning. But he certainly knows what he’s doing now.

And Alexander Hamilton has never been happier.

#Hamilton #Hamliza #Hamilton AU #sorrynotsorry everyone #just let the Hamilton writings happen

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